Fantasy Girlfriend Diary | Mia Nanasawa as Your Medical Clerk

I’d never seen anyone walk around carrying a calculator before.

Three o’clock on a Saturday afternoon, at the station rotary. What peeked out from the pocket of her duffle coat wasn’t a smartphone—it was a silver calculator. When she noticed me coming out of the ticket barrier, she raised one hand. In the other hand, she was gripping that calculator.

“I went to an electronics shop. For the exam.”

Before we could exchange greetings, she said that. Her breath hung white in the December air. The wind circled through the rotary, making the end of her scarf flutter.

“What’s the difference from the one you have?”

“The key depth. If the keys catch when I’m typing fast, I’ll be in trouble tomorrow.”

Tomorrow. Her exam was tomorrow morning at ten. The Billing and Claims Management Certification Exam. The kind of name you probably can’t say in one breath if you’re not in the industry. She just called it “the certification exam.” She’d been preparing for the past six months while working as a medical clerk at a clinic.

We’d been dating for three months. We only ever met outside, had dinner, and parted ways at the station. It was always the same routine. That’s why when she texted me last night, “Do you want to come to my place tomorrow?” my fingers hesitated for a moment before I could reply. Then another message: “If I’m alone the night before the exam, I’ll probably just think about unnecessary things.”

She said her apartment was an eight-minute walk from the station. When we started walking side by side, my pace naturally narrowed to match hers. The top of her head came below my shoulder. As we walked, she was quieter than usual. Normally, she’d start talking about this season’s anime and wouldn’t stop until we got to the transfer station. Today, she was just looking at the shop signs along the street in order. Her gaze lingered longest in front of a pharmacy. She seemed to be counting the number of people in the waiting room on a Saturday afternoon through the glass. It was a work habit.

While we waited at the traffic light, standing next to her, she pressed some keys on the calculator in her coat pocket. Click, click—small sounds.

“You’re already working on it.”

“I’m just getting used to it. I need to let my hands know the tool before the real exam.”

She said it matter-of-factly, eyes forward.

---

Her apartment was a corner room on the second floor.

“Please come in. …Oh, wait a second. Is it okay if I go in first?”

She slipped through the half-open door ahead of me. Thirty seconds later, she opened it again fully. I couldn’t tell what she’d straightened up. Her sneakers and pumps sat side by side in the entrance, heels aligned.

The room I was entering for the first time was narrower than I’d imagined, but more orderly. A low table, a bed, a small sofa. On the table sat two thick books stacked on top of each other, with dozens of sticky notes flying out from the top one. The spine read “Medical Point Table.” Thicker than a dictionary. The sticky notes were color-coded, creating a gradient of pink, yellow, and blue along the page edges.

The calendar on the wall had tomorrow’s date circled twice in red pen. Below the circle, written in small letters: “9:00 Arrive at venue.” The exam was supposed to start at ten. The week before that was filled with marks showing each day she’d completed a set of past exam questions. The dates she’d finished were crossed out in meticulous diagonal lines.

The bookshelf was divided into two sections. The top shelf held practical medical office texts and insurance billing guides. The bottom shelf was crammed with manga, the same titles lined up in volume order. Her work shelf and hobby shelf coexisted with just one board between them. Both shelves were arranged so the spines aligned perfectly.

And in one corner of the room, the air felt different.

A clothing rack by the window held a garment covered with a vinyl bag. Through it, I could make out a familiar silhouette—a red Chinese-style costume. A blonde wig sat on a dedicated stand, and below it a storage box contained fabric, safety pins, and a hot glue gun. The backstage of a stage was tucked into the corner of her living room.

“Don’t look too closely. It’s sealed off for now,” she said, hanging up her coat. She’d been doing cosplay since her student days and still participated in events a few times a year as a creator. I’d heard about it before we started dating. There was partially sewn fabric folded on the edge of the rack. She’d probably resume work after the exam. Three needles were stuck in a pin cushion at equal intervals.

I was hesitating about where to sit when she pointed to the middle of the sofa. She sat on a floor cushion instead. It seemed to be her regular spot. The height of the low table lined up with her chest as she sat on the floor.

Under the glass of barley tea she poured for me was a coaster. It had a cat on it. I’d once seen her phone wallpaper—a calico from her parents’ house. I’d forgotten its name even though I’d heard it, but she didn’t get angry. Instead, she’d shown me twenty photos.

“So, about today,” she said, taking a sip of barley tea.

“I’m going to work on past exams until five. After that, nothing else. Dinner, bath, sleep. …Sorry for dragging you into this.”

“I could be your reading partner.”

It was meant as a joke. She gave me a serious look and said that would actually help.

---

The past exams were nothing like what I’d imagined any certification exam to be.

The written part is multiple choice, but the practical section involves handwriting receipts. You read the symptoms from a medical record, convert the treatment into points, and fill the correct numbers into the correct boxes on the receipt form. The answer sheet she laid out had grids smaller than a tax return.

“Read the question from the top.”

I read as instructed. A sixty-eight-year-old male patient with high blood pressure. Follow-up visit, same medication as before. As I read, there were more words I didn’t understand than ones I did. I stumbled twice on the medical abbreviations. When I read “RP,” she corrected me without looking up—that means prescription. “D,” apparently, means same as before. It was her world’s language. Every day at the clinic reception desk, she translates papers written in that language into a sequence of points.

She listened while flipping through the point table, working the calculator, filling in boxes. The new calculator’s key sounds echoed rhythmically through the room. She never got the entry column wrong. Initial visit or follow-up, during business hours or after, how many days of medication. Each time a case was finished, she’d draw a line under the total in the bottom right corner of the form and move to the next problem.

Partway through, her hand paused. She turned one sticky note in the point table and went straight to the page she needed. She apparently had the contents of each page memorized by the sticky note’s color and position. The exam allows bringing the point table. I’d thought it seemed like an easy exam when I heard you could bring such a thick book, but it was the opposite. Only someone who’d memorized where everything was could find it within the time limit.

“Aren’t you timing yourself?”

“Not anymore. I finished all three years’ worth of past exams within the time limit by yesterday.”

Stacked on top of the completed practice tests, answers were marked in red pen. In the margins next to the circles, small notes were written. Not just for the problems she got wrong—there were notes even for the correct answers. Peeking over, I could read: “Got lucky. Shaky reasoning.”

“You got it right but you’re doing it over?”

“If I get lucky on a question like that at the real exam, I’ll fail,” she said without lifting her eyes from the receipt form. The window behind her gradually grew darker. Every forty minutes, she’d lift her head and rotate her neck left and right. The small sound it made seemed to serve as a timer.

At exactly five o’clock, she put down her mechanical pencil. Just as she’d said. When I asked if she’d stop even if she was in the middle of a problem, she said she wouldn’t be in the middle because she’d allocated her time to finish evenly.

---

Dinner was instant ramen.

“I always eat this the night before an exam. It’s a rule,” she said, measuring water into a pot. She was using a measuring cup—I’d never seen anyone use a measuring cup for instant ramen before. Five hundred fifty milliliters. Exactly as written on the package. After putting the noodles in, she started a timer on her phone and prepared the bowl, chopped scallions, and got an egg ready, watching the remaining time.

“You really like ramen, huh.”

“I love it. Restaurant ramen is good too, but before something important or a big day, I need something I know. If I try a new place and it disappoints me, I’d carry that disappointment into tomorrow.”

The profile of her face as she looked at the pot was the same as when she was solving past exam problems. The spacing between the knife strokes when chopping the scallions was even. The egg went in thirty seconds before the noodles finished, according to the phone timer. In the narrow kitchen, nothing was getting in the way of anything else. Every step was already decided before she started cooking.

Ten seconds before the timer went off, she turned off the heat. The noodles are perfect ten seconds earlier than the package says, she explained. Two bowls sat on the table, and she brought her hands together before picking up her chopsticks. She ate quietly and quickly. Noodles, then broth, then egg, then back around again. She said it was delicious only once. She actually gave her own instant ramen a compliment.

While eating, I asked why she’d chosen medical administration work. She slurped some noodles and thought for a moment before answering.

“At first, it was just a job opening at a clinic near my house. That was the only reason.”

“And now?”

“Now… I think I’m good at it. With billing forms, there’s only one correct answer. In how you write it and in the points. If you leave it ambiguous, it always comes back to haunt you. I don’t hate that about it.”

She placed her chopsticks on the rim of her bowl.

“I hate most the feeling of regret—when you don’t prepare and something doesn’t work out, thinking you should have done it. That’s what I hate most. So I want to do everything I can before I go. With work and tomorrow.”

After she finished speaking, she laughed like she’d said something too serious, and broke the egg yolk with her chopsticks.

When we finished eating, she took both bowls to the sink. When I said I’d wash them, she said she’d dry, and stood next to me. With two of us in the narrow kitchen, our elbows sometimes bumped. As she dried each bowl and put it away, she adjusted its position slightly on the shelf. The bowl had its own assigned place. Three months of dating, and there was so much I was learning for the first time about this apartment.

---

After eight, we went out to a convenience store to buy a late-night snack and tomorrow’s breakfast.

It was cold outside. Our breath spread white in the streetlight. She pulled her scarf up to below her eyes and became a fluffy bundle as she walked. Walking next to her after spending hours in the apartment, the distance between us was slightly closer than when we’d arrived. We weren’t quite ready to hold hands. Three months was that kind of stage.

At the convenience store, she grabbed a basket and moved through the shelves without hesitation. Two rice balls for tomorrow morning. A gelatin drink. One chocolate. Two hot milk teas, one of which she handed to me.

“During the exam, if my stomach growls, it’s embarrassing, so I eat the rice balls after arriving. The gelatin is for breaks. Chocolate right before.”

She’d even planned the energy replenishment schedule. As we left with our shopping bags, she opened the cap on her milk tea, took a sip, and exhaled white breath and steam together.

On the way back, at an intersection without a traffic light while we waited for cars to pass, her hand pinched the sleeve of my coat. Even through the glove and the sleeve, I could feel it. We crossed in that in-between form—neither holding hands nor letting go. When we finished crossing, her hand naturally shifted to adjusting her scarf. Neither of us said anything.

Back in the apartment, she cleared off the low table and began arranging tomorrow’s items. Admission ticket. Pen case with writing instruments. The new calculator. Wristwatch. Two point table books. She sorted everything into ziplock bags and clear files, deciding the order to pack them into her bag, then packed them. When she was done, she took everything out and packed it again.

“You’re doing it twice?”

“First time is preparation. Second time is confirmation.”

After that, she showed me where my breakfast was in the fridge, taught me where the coffee powder was, and even suggested what time I should wake up. The night before her exam, she was organizing my morning routine. When I pointed it out, she looked confused.

“I don’t get as nervous when I’m taking care of someone else.”

At half past ten, she came out of the bath with her bangs clipped back and a sheet mask on her face.

For the fifteen minutes of the mask, she leaned against the sofa back and watched a recorded anime with a white face. “The new one,” said the white face. Only her eyes moved behind the mask holes, tracking the screen. It was hard to tell if she was nervous or not. Except that normally she’d watch an entire episode without stopping, but today she stopped exactly when the fifteen minutes were up. The mask removal time and the anime stopping time were the same.

“Are you nervous?”

When I asked, she thought for a moment while folding the mask.

“I am. But I think nervousness is what leaks through from places you haven’t prepared enough. So today, I sealed all the leaking holes.”

Then she added quietly, ”…Of course, whatever still leaks through can’t be helped. I’m human, after all.”

She warmed the toner in her palm and worked it into her face, then added lotion and cream in layers. Her hands moved across her face in the same order every night, apparently. She moved through it all without looking in the mirror. Finally, she removed the clip from her bangs and traced her part with her finger to double-check. Having a different part than usual would make her unsettled all day.

“How long to the test venue tomorrow?”

“Twenty-five minutes by train. But I’m leaving at seven.”

“That’s early, isn’t it?”

“I’ve decided to do a final review at a café near the venue for an hour. I’ve also looked up an alternative route in case the train stops. Leaving early is just right. Get to the venue at nine, get used to the chair, check for wobbling in the desk, eat some chocolate, then it’s ten o’clock.”

I’d never heard the concept of “getting used to the chair” before. But apparently in her mind, it went on the same shelf as warming up your calculator keys.

---

When it came time to sleep, a guest futon appeared from the closet.

The placement seemed to be decided already, fitting perfectly into the space between the bed and the wall. The sheets were freshly washed, and the pillow case still had crisp fold lines. She must have prepared it recently.

Before bed, she set three alarms on her phone. Four o’clock, four-oh-five, four-ten. She showed me the screen and said she’d wake up at the first one. She was stacking insurance—planning not to need it. It was the same strategy as preventing billing form rejections.

When the light went off, streetlight leaked in through a gap in the curtains, a thin line. The outline of the ceiling fixture gradually became visible as my eyes adjusted to the darkness. Her breathing on the bed didn’t quite settle into sleep speed yet. Two times turning over. After the third time, a voice came from the dark.

“You awake?”

“I am.”

”…If I pass, I’m going to apply to Comiket again. I skipped a round because of the exam. I’ve already got the next costume in my head.”

The costume talk started in the darkness. The fabric was already decided. The wig she’d need to dye. Her voice gradually slowed, the gaps between sentences lengthening.

“You can come to the venue if you want.”

“I’ll be there.”

”…Hehe. You promised.”

After that, it was quiet. I listened to her breathing deepen and become regular in the darkness. It was like a night when I received in the neighboring futon all the small leakage that came from someone who’d sealed every hole they could find.

---

I woke to a small sound. The room was still in the darkness of night.

The phone by my pillow showed 4:12 AM. Only a small light was on in the kitchen. She was putting a kettle on the stove. I tried to sit up, but sensing movement, she turned and made a small horizontal gesture. Stay sleeping, it said. I pretended to obey but watched through narrowed eyes from my futon.

Her morning was quiet. She turned off the flame before the kettle whistled. She placed dishes one at a time instead of stacking them. While drinking hot water, she looked at the admission ticket on the table again, then felt the contents of her bag with her fingertips, counting. Her lips moved faintly as her fingers moved. She was counting items silently. Then she disappeared into the bathroom, the sound of a mask. Fifteen minutes later, she emerged in front of the mirror, adjusted her part, and ran her fingers through her bangs three times to set their position. The hair dryer made a short, gentle sound.

Outside the window was still completely dark. There were nearly six hours until the exam. Yet in her mind, it had already begun. In each movement was the smoothness of a rehearsed morning. She hadn’t woken at four for the first time today. She’d practiced this morning several times for this morning.

By half past five, she was dressed. A navy sweater and easy-moving pants. Her exam outfit was probably decided days ago too.

At six, breakfast for two was on the table. Her portion wasn’t rice balls but hot water and half a banana. I’d heard yesterday the rice balls were for the venue. My portion had miso soup and a rolled omelet. The omelet I had no memory of her making was rolled neatly at the ends.

“You can eat that early in the morning?”

“Just half. I’ve decided no matter how nervous I am, I always get at least this down.”

Before seven, she put on her short boots at the entrance. She tapped her heels on the floor twice to check the fit. She put on her coat, wrapped her scarf, slung her bag, and turned to look back at the room just once. It didn’t seem to be checking for forgotten items. She’d already done that check twice yesterday. It just seemed like she was saying goodbye to the room.

“Lock the door with the key on the table and drop it in the mailbox.”

“Got it. …Good luck.”

She kept her hand on the doorknob for just one second.

“Yeah. I did everything I could, so now I just go.”

The door opened, a moment of December morning cold flowed in, and it closed. Her footsteps down the hall faded around the corner.

---

Alone in the room, it was silent.

I finished the miso soup and washed the dishes. The bowl I’d just learned the proper place for last night, I was able to put back correctly this time. The two point table books sat on the low table, not taken with her. She must have brought another set. She’d bought two copies of the same thick book—one for home, one for the real thing. By the same logic as warming up the calculator, the venue’s point table probably had the same sticky notes in the same places. The leftover sticky notes lay like flags that had finished their job, slightly worn and curling.

By now, was she checking the angle of the chair at the venue? Confirming the wobble in the desk, pulling out the calculator, eating a piece of chocolate? I’d heard every step. They were probably unfolding exactly as I’d heard.

A note was on the edge of the table. In fine handwriting: “I took the trash out Friday so it’s fine, extra coffee is on the left of the shelf, thanks for the key”—and on the last line only, a little cat face doodle. It was meant to look like the calico from her parents’ place, recognizable by the ear shape.

Outside the window, somehow dawn had broken. The thin water-blue sky of a December morning. The vinyl cover of the clothing rack swayed slightly in the heater’s breeze. When her exam was over, she’d probably resume that partially sewn fabric.

I put the key in my pocket and left the apartment. I closed the door and locked it as she’d taught me, then pulled it twice to check. Checking twice was her way. Apparently it had rubbed off on me.

Story Notes

I wrote about her, the night before her exam, setting aside her own nerves to organize even my morning routine. “I don’t get as nervous when I’m taking care of someone else”—what would happen if all that management ability turned toward me? There’s a work that has the answer.

“‘Sir, after the business dinner you have a love hotel reservation at 11 PM’—a mischievous secretary girlfriend lovingly dominating a newly launched entrepreneur.” The entire setup is contained in the title alone. The schedule, the dinner, what comes after—the secretary girlfriend manages it all perfectly, and the night falls within her range of management. The meticulous checklist and double-check packing from the story, that precision becomes the secretary’s datebook telling you, “11 PM love hotel,” in a flat voice.

Mia Nanasawa is known as a “devilish slut” by mutual recognition, and this work is one where that specialty wears the skin of the profession “competent secretary.” Gentle yet never relinquishing control. Someone whose specialty used to be being spoiled has now become managing others. Just from the sample video—the secretary suit posture and the tone of voice—you can get a sense of it. That quiet dominance flowing through her is the same force that was calibrating the calculator keys in the story.

Note: Product information is displayed in Japanese.