he fever Kenji warned about didn't come with a roar; it came with a shiver. As Seita carried Setsuko away from the school, her small forehead pressed against the nape of his neck, radiating a heat that felt like a coal.
"Seita... the fireflies are coming inside my head," she whispered. Her voice was thin, like paper tearing.
They reached the outskirts of the city where the pavement gave way to scorched dirt. Seita found a discarded ceramic bowl near a bombed-out kitchen. He remembered Kenji's instructions: Salt and water. Without salt, the heat will eat her from the inside. He spent three hours scouring the brackish tide pools near the harbor, ignoring the bloated debris floating in the water. He gathered a handful of grey, sandy salt crust from the rocks. He boiled it over a tiny fire made of splintered door frames, filtering it through his shirt until he had a cloudy, briny liquid.
When he pressed the bowl to Setsuko's lips, she gagged. "It's icky, Seita! I want the tin... I want the drops."
"Drink it, Setsuko. It's special medicine from the Sea God," he lied, his heart breaking as he watched her small throat work to swallow the bitter water. That night, they slept in a concrete pipe. He stayed awake, watching the horizon for the B-29s, realizing that being a "hero" wasn't about fighting; it was about making a three-year-old swallow salt.