Once again, spoilers lurk beyond this point, especially in the story-specific sections. You've been warned.
On 'A Bitter Wind'
- okaasan: 'mother'
- otousan: 'father'
- oneechan: 'big sister'
- sensei: a term of respect used for an educated professional (a
doctor, in this case)
- In cases where the affix '-chan' is used to indicate affection (rather
than difference in age or status), it's accepted practice to shorten the
person's first name. And so we have 'Ri-chan' and 'Ta-chan'.
- To prevent rejection of a transplanted organ, the transplant recipient
needs to take immunosuppressants for as long as the transplant lasts.
There's not much in this chapter that needs further comment from me. It's to set the tone of this series as much as anything, as well as to establish how things have developed for Kana and Taka. To accomplish that, I decided I needed Taka to tell this episode.
He'll be back again, further down the line. But this series is Rika's story, for the most part, and so the majority of it will be told from her point of view.
Things will continue to change – for Rika, for her otousan, and for Sara-chan – in the chapters to come.