Released: 2015/9/25
※This essay was also published in the book compilation of Saito Soma no Kenkou de Bunkateki na Saitei Gendo no Seikatsu.
I’m sensitive to pain.
I’m afraid of injections, I don’t like IV drips, and I even avoid watching grotesque movies. But that day, by some ill fate, a needle was inserted into my arm to draw out a fair amount of blood. As I writhed in pain, I recalled a passage from the novel Flowers of Grass by one of my favourite authors, Fukunaga Takehiko:
“Helpless, yes, and nobody more so than me. But what good would it do to superimpose our two solitudes? Wouldn't that be like adding zero to zero?” “But doesn't this solitude of ours mean precisely that we need love?” - Flowers of Grass (Fukunaga Takehiko; English translation by Tyler Royall)
Surely, what I need right now is a kind lady to say, “Pain, pain, go away” for me. While the gentleman over there and the girl over here are having their blood drained, I am alone, groaning in misery. Where is the goddess who will heal me from solitude?
As for how I, a voice actor, wound up writing this essay, the story goes back to about half a year ago. During an interview with VOICE Newtype, I mentioned that writing was one of my hobbies, and from there, the meetings began.
After the serialization was confirmed, we spent a while discussing ideas for the overall theme, and the editor in charge asked me, “Is there something you’ve been lacking lately?”
Something I’m lacking? Hmm, I wonder if there is. Oh, I know—
“Health, I guess.”
“Oh, then let’s go with that.”
“Okay.”
And so, we decided on the general theme of “experiencing a variety of things in order to become healthy.” The next question was, “What’s the first thing I need to do in order to become healthy?” After some thought, we somehow reached the idea of “A comprehensive medical exam, of course!”, leading to the opening of this essay.
It was my first time having a comprehensive exam done. Even though I’ve visited fictional sanatoriums countless times, I loathe hospitals. Growing up, I wasn’t the most robust child, so I often had to go to the physician and the dentist. The crying voices, the chemical smell, the sound of drills whittling at teeth—all of these were a source of terror for my younger self. Nothing changed after becoming an adult; even when I felt a bit unwell, I avoided going to the hospital whenever possible.
Aware that my blinking had become unusually frequent, I asked the receptionist lady, “Excuse me, does a gastroscopy hurt?”, as if I were a child.
“Your plan for today only has a barium swallow…”
“Huh?”
Yes. Shockingly, the exam outline did not involve a gastroscopy. Instead, I only had to swallow barium and have X-rays taken. I felt like a fool for giving myself a stomachache after reading so many online articles about painful gastroscopies the day before. (Make sure to carefully read the explanation they give you beforehand.)
Oh, this’ll be a piece of cake, I thought, immediately feeling relaxed. It was time for the exam to begin.
First, they measured my height. I’ve always professed my height as 168 cm, but an accurate measurement revealed it to be 169.6 cm. From now on, I think I’ll insist on my official height being 170 cm.
Then came a blood pressure test and a vision test, followed by an intraocular pressure test. I told the nurse that I’d never had my intraocular pressure measured before, and she said, “You’ll be fine. I’m blowing the wind now.”
Wind? —The moment I thought that, my eyeball was blasted with a gust of wind. Ow!
While I was still in a state of alarm from the first stimulus of the exam, she said, “I hear your voice all the time! Good luck!” with a radiant smile. At that point, I felt so sorry for my unshaven stubble, vacant eyes, and muttering.
Next was the electrocardiogram. As I looked around restlessly with my upper body bared, a different nurse informed me, “This will be cold!”
“Whoa, you’re right, ahaha!”
“You have work tomorrow, right? I watch your anime! I’m rooting for you!”
I’m so glad there wasn’t a disturbance in the test results.
After that was the hearing test, which ended before I could get a feel for it, so I was still reacting to outside sounds by accident. The lung capacity test revealed that mine was significantly below average, which I laughed awkwardly at. The barium didn’t taste as bad as I expected, and then I laid on a moving table that made me feel weightless. The exam was proceeding without a hitch.
At last, it was time for the blood test. It was a blood draw. When a vampire sucks all the blood of their victim, the victim’s soul is taken into their body. Similarly, something within me was assuredly lost as well. I mean, they took four vials!
“You’ll feel a small prick,” they said, but I always think, there’s no way it’s just a small prick— See, I told you! It hurts, it hurts, it hurts! I twisted my face with all my might and got laughed at. It was really embarrassing.
As an aside, I have a friend who once said, “I like watching my blood being drained. It makes you feel alive, doesn’t it?” To which I thought, “Oh, this person is crazy.”
After everything was over, the last step was meeting with the doctor. As I was led to the room, I prayed that they hadn’t discovered a serious illness that would put the project at a standstill… and when I arrived, I found an austere man who projected the aura of an actor.
He looked at my nervous self and said, “We have a lot of young and cute girls here, don’t we?”
“What?”
“They’re the faces of the hospital, after all. Having cute girls changes things!”
I chuckled. Right, it changes everything. Yes.
Suddenly, the doctor put on a stern face and said, “I’ll cut to the chase.”
“Okay…”
He paused. It was such a long pause that I started to question it. If it were a play, I would’ve assumed the actor had forgotten his lines. Then…
“You’re healthy.”
Thank you, draft beer. I love you, seared mentaiko. It looks like I won’t have to say goodbye to you for a while.
Thus, I successfully completed my first-ever comprehensive medical exam. Despite the sweltering heat, I left the hospital with a refreshed smile; a rare sight in recent years. Being healthy is great!
My high spirits carried on through my afternoon work, and afterwards, I rewarded myself with a visit to a sushi restaurant, where I ate a lot of delicious sushi. I then had a peaceful sleep. I love the forehead part of tuna.
Incidentally, alcohol apparently has a hardening effect on barium, so I didn’t drink alcohol on that day. However, the beer I drank on a later day was exceptionally delicious. You can’t go wrong with beer in summer.
Having finished writing my first draft, I took my book and hit the streets* to distract myself from the solitude. Wait for me, beer. See you next time.
*Reference to Sho wo Sute yo, Machi e Deyou (Throw Away Your Books and Hit the Streets), a critique published in 1967 by Terayama Shuuji
