It wasn’t until four days later that I saw Nishikawa conscious again. Kasumi-san led me to the hospital room he was in. Inside, their mother offered me a chair, smiled, and exited.
Leaving just the two of us.
By now he had fewer tubes attached to him, and he looked less pale than before.
I didn’t know what to say. As I sat there, considering my next words, some time passed in my silence. He was the one who spoke first.
“I didn’t want things to turn out like this.” He sounded different than usual, his voice hoarse and faint.
He raised the corners of his lips and fell quiet for a while. He always did this when he was thinking. I gave him space.
“This wasn’t the first time I thought it might be over for me,” he continued. “I got a little too comfortable and pushed myself too hard. I wanted to spend five years with you, part ways, and then die in peace. It was all wishful thinking, but I really thought I could make it.”
He was even more vague than usual.
Dr. Yumihara had told me not to get mad. I thought I could do that much, but it wasn’t until I entered Nishikawa’s hospital room that I realized I’d been carrying around just a little bit of anger after all.
Why hadn’t he told me anything? Why had he hidden everything from me? If I had known he was sick, I wouldn’t have gotten the stupid yakiniku job.
But all those complaints disappeared the moment I saw his face. Now, I was willing to let it go. All his friends who’d kept it a secret for him must have felt the same way at some point.
Nishikawa Kadzuki’s word was law.
“You really thought life would be so simple?” The voice that left my mouth sounded much gentler and more relieved than I’d expected.
“I know, right? How naive of me. I had so many people covering for me, and I still failed. I’m sorry.”
“Start from the beginning. In excruciating detail.”
“Even if there’ll be no going back after that?”
“Don’t you think it’s a bit late for that?”
He nodded with a smile, then looked at his fingers gripping the sheets. I wanted him to tell me the long and short of it. I didn’t push, merely staring at his fingers with him.
“The first time I saw you was here—Sakuma University Hospital. We were in middle school. I saw you pushing your mother’s wheelchair around the courtyard. You had this really tender look on your face. Your father sometimes came around and started yelling, and the nurses had to stop him. You clung to him whenever he did, even if he then turned his anger on you. You were kind the entire time. Even when you were in tears as he yelled at you, you always stood up for your mom. I was really impressed with how strong you were.”
I listened, taking in his explanation.
“I found myself in the hospital every now and then. Sometimes you were there too, and other times, you weren’t. I looked forward to seeing you. I didn’t feel the need to talk to you. I was happy watching you from afar. Just witnessing your compassion had a healing effect on my soul. Eventually, you stopped coming around, and I gave up hope of ever seeing you again. I didn’t even know your name. If you never came to the hospital again, that would be it.”
That must have been when my mother died. After that, I was desperate to make money and barely returned to the hospital, her medical bills remaining unpaid.
“But in my junior year of high school, Dr. Yumihara told me my heart was getting worse. My heart hadn’t been great to begin with, and even after several surgeries, I kept having issues. I wouldn’t get any better. My family was told from my birth that I wouldn’t live as long as the average person, but then we learned my heart got worse sooner than expected. When the doctor told me that, you were the first person I thought of.”
He continued. “I was happy just watching you, but when I thought I might die without ever seeing you again, suddenly I was desperate to speak with you. I asked my family for help with my selfish request, hired investigators, found out who you were, and went to see you. That was when I approached you at that construction site during your night shift.”
I remembered that time—our first meeting. Now that I thought of it, when he’d approached me with a smile, his movements had been pretty stiff. He must have been nervous after all.
“You know, I really just wanted to see you at first. But when I did, you looked completely different from what I was used to. You seemed ready to die on the spot, but you were still working so hard. When I asked myself why, I knew the answer was your kindness.”
I probably shouldn’t argue that I’m not particularly kind here.
He’d decided I was, and perhaps that was all the proof I needed. For as long as I’d known him, I’d seen how perceptive he was.
“I knew you wanted to kill yourself after your mother’s funeral was over.”
I could neither confirm nor deny it. I didn’t have any concrete plan in mind back then. But just like Toyota had told me once, it must have been obvious to those around me. Not to mention I couldn’t really see my future beyond my mother’s funeral anyway.
I had accepted that after the funeral, I’d have completed my life’s purpose.
“When I realized what you were thinking, I approached you on impulse and gave you my address then and there. Everything after that happened by chance.”
He’d picked me up. Just like he’d picked up my trash, my meaning, my emotions, and just about everything else.
Even if he did it all for himself at the end of the day.
“I didn’t want you to die. I wanted to make you happy... No, that’s not it. I wanted to be with you. I wanted you to live, and I wanted you by my side, so I bought you. I thought if I tied you down with a contract, that would keep you from leaving for good.”
And then, he finally turned to me again. His beautiful eyes were smiling as always, a wave ready to crash from behind them. He spoke in a clear voice as he held back tears.
“I know it wasn’t right. And I was okay with that if it meant having you by my side, Sacchan.”
“I’d like to buy your time—for two hundred thousand yen a month.”
He had bought me. That was obviously wrong. And at the same time, there was nothing wrong with it at all. This was the only means to achieve his goal—you could even say he had found the only correct answer.
“I love you, Sacchan,” he said without hesitation.
“I’d like you to stay with me for the rest of my life.”
Love wasn’t measured in words but through actions. I reflected on that. His actions had carried nothing but love from the very beginning.
Love.
I thought life had taught me that love was an empty box. Nothing could change that tragic ending after all. Was there something I still wanted to see? Did I have the courage to see it?
No matter what I asked myself, I couldn’t find the answer.
“So it was all for me,” I said.
Taken aback, he widened his eyes. The shock broke the surface tension. He shook his head. Instead of looking at his face, I followed the path of his tears. Where they fell, they darkened the white of the sheets.
“I was bound for the dumpster anyway...but you picked me up.”