The Smell of White Cloth in the Infirmary

Blood was still seeping from the back of Rina's hand.

Maki had her sit on a small stool by the infirmary door and told her not to touch her sleeve cuff yet. The red mark was not deep, but it was right where the back of her hand moved. Whenever Rina curled her fingers, another bead of blood surfaced.

The ninja academy infirmary smelled like white cloth.

It did not smell of blood or medicine. It was more like sun-dried bandages, wooden racks wiped with hot water, and a faint trace of bitter medicinal herbs mixed together. The moment Che entered, he instinctively softened his footsteps.

He did not like infirmaries.

It was not that this place was bad. Infirmaries simply always reminded him of the temporary aid stations after Nine-Tails Night. Crying, burns, dust, wooden tags without names, and the medicinal smell that never washed out of Nao's cuffs. Even though this place was clean, bright, and quiet, memories still pried those old scents out through the cracks.

Kiyo did not notice Che's change. The moment he walked in, he spotted the acupuncture chart on the wall and immediately put on a wary expression. "Why has this person been drawn with so many dots?"

Yamashiro Takuma said, "It's an acupuncture point diagram."

Kiyo took half a step back. "It looks like a lot of people poked him."

Morita Yu snorted, then quickly held it in.

Saori hugged her doll tightly and looked toward the water basin in the corner of the infirmary. Several rolls of bandages lay there, alongside a small wooden box labeled "External Injuries." Her bell did not ring, as though it knew this was not a place for noise.

The infirmary was overseen by a young female ninja named Maki. She was not wearing a white coat, but her sleeves were tied back neatly. She had the children stand in a semicircle and explained the basic rules first: report injuries, do not hide them; if a companion was hurt, call a teacher first, do not touch them carelessly; do not crowd around when you saw blood.

Before explaining the rules, she used tweezers to pull a thin wooden splinter from the back of Rina's hand. The splinter was short, but Rina's shoulders still trembled when it came out.

Maki asked, "Where does it hurt?"

Rina glanced at Keisuke and said softly, "The back of my hand."

Keisuke turned his face away. "It's just a splinter."

Maki did not look at him. She merely pressed a piece of cotton cloth beside the wound. "Whether it's 'just' something or not is for the injured person to say."

The infirmary fell silent at once. Che had already judged the wound to be shallow, but upon hearing that, he pushed the judgment back down. Nao had said not to speak for someone else's pain. Maki had turned those words into blood on the back of a hand.

Kiyo raised his hand. "What if it's just a small injury?"

Maki asked, "Who decides what you call a small injury?"

Kiyo froze.

Che murmured, "That's a trick question."

Maki looked at him. "It's not a trick. Many children call injuries they do not understand small injuries."

Che fell silent.

That hit precisely where it hurt. He did it too. Shoulder injuries, numb hands, exhaustion after stabilizing his chakra too much—he was used to first assessing whether he could endure it, then deciding whether to say anything. But in a medical ninja's eyes, a child's ability to "endure it" was not reliable.

Maki had them pair up and practice the most basic way to report an injury.

Not treatment—just explaining clearly: where it hurt, how it happened, when it started, and whether they could move. Kiyo and Morita Yu were paired together. Kiyo played the injured person, while Morita Yu reported.

Kiyo clutched his arm, acting with great commitment. "I was attacked by a particularly vicious table corner."

Morita Yu frowned. "Table corners don't attack people."

"It was vicious."

Morita Yu looked at Maki. "His arm hurts. The cause may be that he hit a table corner. It happened just now. He can speak and move, but his description is unreliable."

Maki nodded. "That last sentence was very good."

Kiyo was dissatisfied. "What part of me is unreliable?"

Che said quietly, "You just convicted the table corner."

Saori and Che were assigned to a pair.

When Saori played the injured person, she found it hard to say that she was in pain. Hugging her doll, she kept her head lowered for a long time before saying, "The back of my hand hurts."

"How did it happen?" Che asked.

"A splinter pricked me."

"When?"

"Just now."

"Can you move it?"

Saori moved her fingers. "Yes."

Following the rules, Che repeated it to Maki. "A splinter injury to the back of her hand, happened just now. She can move it. The pain is mild."

Maki asked, "How do you know the pain is mild?"

Che stopped.

Saori looked up at him too.

He had judged it for her.

That was his problem again. Because Saori spoke softly, because she could move, because it looked like a minor injury, he had automatically categorized her pain as mild. But Maki had just said that injuries needed to be described clearly. He should not force someone else's feelings into his own judgment.

Che lowered his head. "I don't know. I should say that she says the back of her hand hurts, but the level of pain is unspecified."

Maki nodded. "Very good. Don't speak for others about whether something hurts."

Saori looked at Che and softly said, "It actually hurts a little."

Che's heart tightened.

"Sorry," he said.

"It's okay," Saori said. "I said it now."

Those words, "I said it now," mattered more than "It's okay." They did not erase the mistake. They simply gave the mistake a place to be corrected.

After the practice, Maki explained bandages. She did not have the children bandage one another. She only showed them how bandages were wrapped, how to leave the fingertips exposed, and how to avoid tying them too tight. Che watched intently. As the bandage wound around the wooden model, each layer had to cover half of the one before it. Too loose, and it would fall off; too tight, and it would cut off circulation.

Maki said, "Bandaging isn't about hiding the wound. It's about helping it hold out until it receives proper treatment."

Hearing that, Che suddenly thought of many things.

Jokes were not about hiding pressure. Records were not about hiding danger. The ninja academy's procedures were not about hiding the problems between the Uchiha and Konoha. Good bandaging meant acknowledging that a wound existed without letting it keep bleeding.

When he left the infirmary, Che walked a little more slowly than he had when entering.

Nao was not there, but he thought of the medicinal smell on her cuffs, of how she had said she needed to sleep after finishing her writing, and of the countless times he had compressed his discomfort into "I'm fine."

Morita Yu asked by the door, "You didn't look too good just now."

Che looked at him.

The other boy seemed a little awkward. "Does the infirmary smell bother you?"

Che instinctively wanted to say no, wanted to cover it with a joke. But Saori had just said, "It actually hurts a little."

So he said, "A little. It reminded me of the old temporary aid stations."

Morita Yu fell quiet.

Kiyo did not make a joke either.

Saori gently shook her doll, and its bell rang very softly.

Yamashiro Takuma called for the group to assemble up ahead. As Che followed, he wrote the infirmary rules down in his mind as a different kind of record:

"Don't speak for others about whether they hurt. And don't always speak for yourself by saying you don't."

The smell of white cloth in the infirmary had not disappeared.

But it no longer belonged only to Nine-Tails Night.

Later, Maki took out an old wooden tag.

It was not from the ninja academy. It had once borne the number of a temporary bed, though the writing had been worn faint. She said it was something left behind after Nine-Tails Night, and the infirmary occasionally used it to teach new students how to identify temporary markers.

When Che saw the wooden tag, something seemed to gently clog his throat.

Wooden tags, numbers, beds.

To other people, those words were teaching tools. To him, they were connected to a scorched night, houses where parents could not be found, Nao's lowered voice, and row after row of names that had not yet been confirmed. For a moment, what he saw was not the ninja academy infirmary, but firelight swaying in a temporary aid station.

Maki asked, "If you saw this kind of wooden tag, what would you read first?"

Kiyo said, "The name."

Morita Yu said, "The number."

Saori said quietly, "Whether anyone is there."

Che heard his own voice slow slightly. "First confirm who the tag belongs to, then confirm where that person is."

Maki looked at him. "Why not move the person first?"

"Moving the wrong person would be worse," Che said. "And you might lose someone who is still waiting."

The infirmary fell quiet.

There was a chill in those words that went a little beyond a child. Che realized it as soon as he finished speaking. He wanted to add a joke, to pull the words back, but the tightness in his chest left no room for one.

Maki did not press him. She only set the wooden tag back on the table. "That's right. The more panicked things are, the more you need to confirm."

Mine glanced at Che from the doorway.

This time, she did not remind him to answer at a child's level. Perhaps some answers could only come from wounds. Sanding them down into something childlike would only be dishonest.

Before leaving the infirmary, Maki had everyone say the first thing they should do when they encountered an injured companion.

Kiyo said, "Call a teacher."

Morita Yu said, "Check whether the surroundings are safe."

Saori said, "Ask where it hurts."

When it was Che's turn, he paused. "Don't pretend you're not scared first."

Maki looked at him and nodded. "Being scared doesn't stop you from doing the right thing. If you hide it too tightly, your hands will shake."

Che remembered those words.

He had always thought that the better he hid things, the more likely he was to survive. But the smell of white cloth in the infirmary told him that if some things were buried too deeply, they would suddenly surface at the scent of medicinal herbs. Rather than pretending nothing was wrong, it was better to admit they were there, then keep walking.

After returning to the group, Kiyo unusually did not start joking right away.

He walked for several steps before asking in a low voice, "Did you think about that night with the Nine-Tails just now?"

Che looked ahead and did not answer immediately. The path through the side courtyard was smooth. There were no splintered boards underfoot, no bloodstains. But some memories did not return because you saw the same things again. All they needed was a scent, a wooden tag, a temporary number.

"A little," Che said.

Kiyo gripped his own sleeve cuff. "I think about my dad too."

The words were so quiet they seemed like they might scatter with a gust of wind.

Che did not comfort him by saying, "You'll find him," nor did he say, "Don't think about it." Those words were too easy—easy enough to be dishonest.

He only said, "Then when the infirmary smells bad, we can walk a little slower."

Kiyo nodded.

Saori walked beside them, and her bell chimed softly. "I'll walk slower too."

The three of them said nothing more.

Not every injury report had to be handed to a medical ninja.

Being heard by a companion was also a kind of bandaging that did not touch carelessly.