I really would miss it. His smile, his expressions, his nature—I just couldn’t come to terms with the fact they would soon be gone.
I placed my hand under his thin, sickly pale palm and lifted it.
I looked closely at each finger, as if to extract his soul from them. He said something, but I wasn’t listening. Watching our hands, I squeezed his.
This, too, would be gone.
Just like I could no longer recall what my mother’s hands had felt like, even though I’d rubbed them countless times, this would disappear one day.
He had been silent, but by the time I released his hand, he addressed me with both melancholy and joy.
“I think you’ll be able to cry this time, Sacchan.”
It felt like a prophecy. In the back of my mind, I thought that it was no wonder the gods would want to choose such a beautiful person to join them beyond the veil.
“Where’d that come from?” I kept my eyes glued to my camera to hide my embarrassment. I didn’t bother to ask him exactly what he meant.
After I’d recorded him for a few minutes, my phone vibrated and announced it was running out of battery. When I closed the notification and kept recording, my screen went out in fewer than thirty seconds.
“Out of juice?”
“Yep.”
I wanted to ask him about when we should go back, but the words got as far as my tongue before I stopped myself. The moment I said it, we’d have to leave.
“Should we head back soon?” he asked. I felt he was chiding me for my hesitation.
I couldn’t reply. It wasn’t like staying here would change anything anyway. It wouldn’t extend his lifespan.
“Can you check the bus times?” He handed me his phone. It still had eighty percent of its battery left.
As I obediently looked up the bus schedule, a premonition struck me. I could already see it.
Several decades in the future, I would look back on this day all alone.
We returned to the hospital after 10 p.m. and found Kasumi-san there, waiting to sucker punch me. It was my first time being punched by a woman, and while the blow was distinctly lighter than a man’s, it was somehow sharper. Kasumi-san had also apparently never hit anyone before, because she recoiled from the pain in her hand.
Nishikawa was taken away to be examined by Dr. Yumihara, who had also been waiting for our return, while Kasumi-san gave me the lecture of my life. After I sincerely apologized, she finally allowed me to enter his room.
“Kadzuki texted us, you know. He said, ‘We’re gonna be late, but we’ll come back, so don’t worry and wait for us.’ He said he told our parents he’d returned earlier because he didn’t want to worry them and wanted me to play along.”
“When did he...?”
“Right after I first called. But we got radio silence from you.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine.” She spoke emphatically, but I knew she truly had forgiven me. “Really, I’m okay with anything you do, Sacchan.”
Kasumi-san sighed. As we got closer to his hospital room, I noticed her expression tighten for the last time.
“Please don’t cry,” I said.
“Why would I cry?”
In reality, it would’ve made perfect sense for her to cry, and I wouldn’t stop her if she did. Still, Kasumi-san seemed determined to conceal her tears, so that was my way of expressing support.
I recalled a distant memory. When I used to visit my mother’s hospital room like this, when I had climbed the stairs alone, unaccompanied, when I’d unconsciously changed my facial expression for her...
Had I wanted to cry back then?
By now, I had buried the memory deep and far away.
I knocked and entered the room, but Dr. Yumihara was already gone, and Nishikawa was lying in bed. Noticing my entry, he raised his head.
“The doctor said I’m fine. Why is your cheek red?” he asked.
“Don’t worry about it. I’m gonna head home now. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
I placed my hand on his forehead and pushed him back so that he was lying down again. He was a little feverish.
“I might have gotten a little carried away and said too much. It’s okay, Sacchan.”
“What’s okay?”
“It’s okay if you don’t consider what I give you love. I leave that up to you to decide.”
I still didn’t understand, so I was about to ask again, but he already seemed sleepy. Instead, I asked, “Think you’ll manage to get some sleep tonight?”
He smiled. I hated the thought that I couldn’t preserve this image in my mind forever.
“I will. If I can’t sleep, I’ll think of you.”
His end came too soon, but unlike my mother’s, it was peaceful.
The February sky was gray, and the rain that seemed on the edge of falling added to the draft. The smoke rising from the chimney quickly disappeared into it, as if eaten by the clouds.
I stared at it, stunned. There was nothing I could do.
He had been like a shiny jewel.
I should have hated people who were born innately good. The purity of people who were able to hold on to that—those who could live without letting it go or becoming tainted—disgusted me. They made me feel miserable for hating others. I was foul for not being able to live that way.
What could I possibly offer? I never intended to be a target of someone’s love at first sight.
His falling in love with me was nothing but a coincidence. I had just happened to be nearby in the closed-off hospital. I’d just been swept up in his devotion. That was all it was, really.
Still, his warmth had been comforting, and I hated having to let go of it.
His heart had been warm. That was indisputable.
I had to remind myself that I had been temporarily entrusted with a rare jewel.
It had never been mine to begin with, and it wasn’t mine in the end—it never could have been.
And yet, the sense of loss was clear.
What had there been between us? There must have been something there before the sense of loss settled in.
Yes, there must have been.
I hated the thought of talking to anyone, so I slipped out of the lobby and leaned against the outer wall of the funeral hall, looking at my phone. There was nothing I wanted to check on it. I opened and closed social media, glanced at the top news on my browser, and closed it. My thumb wandered like a lost child.
The black suit, which I’d bought with my monthly pay from him, fit perfectly and felt nice to the touch, but it weighed heavily on me.
Fujieda had been crying the whole time. Her tears came without an end in sight, and Takayama wrapped an arm around Fujieda’s shoulders. Fujieda had rarely come to Nishikawa’s hospital room out of consideration for his family, so this must have been the full extent of her final goodbye.
Kasumi-san remained resolute. She would occasionally wipe her eyes, but she never actually shed a tear—even though she had cried the loudest in the hospital room during his final moments. She looked after her mother, who would regularly burst into tears.
I couldn’t keep up with the strength of the women in his life.
Both in the hospital and now, things felt hazy, and grief seemed distant. My tear ducts felt clogged.
It was just like during my mother’s funeral.
I couldn’t cry the entire time, so I only held the urn close to my chest and went home alone.
Now, with no urn to hold and no one to lean on, I could only feel myself standing there in a daze. My heart should have been present, but maybe I’d tossed it aside somewhere far away.