The Moon’s Ship That Crosses The Night: Chapter 26

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The man pulled his right leg in and rested it on the sofa. With one knee propped up, he set his chin on it. Feigning boredom, he asked, “Where should I start?”

“Did you sleep with your mother?”

“I did.”

At that moment, Kawase felt two things simultaneously: first, a resigned sense of inevitability; second, the realization that he had no further questions. This man had slept with his mother—so what? What was he supposed to do with that? And yet, the shameless expression on his face showed not a trace of embarrassment.

“Why did you sleep with her?”

“At first, because she told me she’d die if I didn’t.”

Even though he already knew, Kawase still found himself asking, “Who told you that?”

The man chuckled. “We’re talking about my mother, aren’t we? Who else would it be?”

“She told you she’d die if you didn’t sleep with her, so you did?”

“That’s right.”

A vision of his own mother surfaced in Kawase’s mind. A wave of nausea hit him, violently and all at once.

"I can't believe a parent would say something like that."

"I couldn't believe it either."

"Did you want to do it?"

"I wanted her to stay my mother."

The man shrugged.

"Then you could’ve just said no."

"If I said no, she’d die."

"That could’ve just been an empty threat."

"Or she really might have died."

"You don’t know that!"

The man raked his fingers through his unkempt bangs.

"You wouldn’t understand. I don’t think you ever will. Because your mother isn’t the kind of woman who says, Sleep with me or I’ll die."

"But—"

"Want to trade? Maybe then you’d understand how I feel."

"Your mother is insane."

"Even if she is, you can’t just throw away your parent, can you?"

Though unseen, his gaze drifted across the room.

"She was always a worrier, always too involved in my life. But I think it got worse after my father died. It was in May, the year I started high school. She asked me to go for a drive.

She took me to Komagi cape and told me—If you won’t sleep with me, I’ll die."

He recalled a vast field, covered in white flowers.

"When you arrived, it was evening. But when my mother took me there, it was night. We walked that dimly lit path under the moonlight… all the way there. She was like a monster, hair in disarray, crawling on top of me. Eventually, the moon disappeared behind the clouds, and I couldn’t see anything anymore. All I could feel was the weight pressing down on my hips. But men… men are creatures of instinct. If you’re sucked off, if you’re stroked—no matter who’s doing it, your body reacts…"

"Enough."

Kawase couldn’t listen anymore. He cut the man off.

"Just stop talking. You’re disgusting."

"Isn’t this what you wanted to know?"

"I didn’t ask for this much detail. And didn’t you feel guilty at all?"

"I did."

"Listening to you, I find that hard to believe."

The man rubbed his cheek with the back of his hand, a faint smile on his lips. "I've spent my whole life trying to figure out what 'normal' even means."

He paused, collecting his thoughts before continuing. "I had always thought of myself as ordinary, but after I started having a relationship with my mother at the age of fifteen, I lost sight of what it meant to be normal. It's not like it's written all over my face or anything, but I clearly became different from others, and it started to bother me a lot about how people saw me. I tried not to stand out in class and kept to myself. To put it simply, I didn't want anyone to know that I was sleeping with my mother. I didn't want to be looked down on or seen in that way."

The man's eyes seemed to glaze over, lost in thought. "Maybe you should have talked to her about it," Kawase suggested, though his tone was more of a statement than a question.

"Talked to her?" the man replied, questioning the idea.

"You should have talked to your mother, told her you didn't want to sleep with her," Kawase clarified.

The man let out a sigh.

“I told her, over and over. And every time, she’d cry and say, ‘Don’t you love me?’ She’d cry all night if she had to, until I apologized. Afterward, without fail, she’d fall ill. Eventually, I got tired of it. Tired of her saying she didn’t want to live, tired of her crying, tired of her getting sick. Letting her have her way was easier. I thought maybe if I went to university, if I became a working adult, her obsession would fade a little. But I was naive. My mother hadn’t changed at all since I was fifteen."

The man paused, his voice trailing off. After a long silence, he spoke again.

“April is always... you know, when classes change, when new employees come in. Every time I saw a new face, I couldn’t help thinking the same thing: I bet none of these people have ever slept with their parent.”

But then, he went on, "people are creatures that get used to things. If you sleep with someone, your sexual desires are fulfilled, and you feel pleasure. Eventually, you start to think that maybe this is okay. My mother could never accept me loving anyone else. She was too emotionally fragile, couldn’t be left alone. So I thought, fine, then I’ll stay with her forever. Once I gave up, it actually got a lot easier. I told myself I had taken my mother as my wife—and I kept that relationship going until the day she died."

"That's crazy," Kawase said, his voice firm.

"Maybe it is," the man replied, his tone neutral.

"So, why did you keep going? Couldn't you have done something else?" Kawase asked, his curiosity getting the better of him.

"Regardless of the method, the result would have been the same - we would have had to separate. But I thought she loved me, and if she loved me that much, I was willing to give up my entire life for her. But, in the end, she died on her own anyway. I still remember it. I came home from work, and the room was dark. I thought she might have gone out, so I peeked into the room, and she had hanged herself from the beam in the Japanese-style room."

Kawase had been the one to say "tell me," but now he wasn't so sure. The man had said that talking about it was meaningless, and Kawase was starting to agree. What was the point of knowing? It was a past that couldn't be changed.

"My mother is dead, so I guess that's the end of the story," the man said, his voice flat.

But Kawase instinctively shook his head, saying "it's not over."

"I haven't heard what happened after that," Kawase said, his curiosity piqued.

"After that? There is no after that," the man replied, his tone nonchalant.

"If your mother passed away, then you could have just found a new lover and lived a normal life, couldn't you?" Kawase suggested.

"I had dedicated my life to my mother," the man said, his voice filled with a sense of devotion. "Since she loved me that much, I thought it would be okay to just be with her for the rest of my life."

"That's crazy," Kawase said, his frustration boiling over.

The man's expression didn't change, but Kawase sensed a hint of amusement behind his eyes.

“If she was the only one you needed, then what the hell was that back there—when you threatened me, when you got on top of me? What was that?”

The man laughed, a low, husky sound. "I was just teasing you because I thought you were interesting," he said, his eyes glinting with mischief.

Kawase grabbed him by the front of his shirt. His fist hovered for a moment—but he held back. The man didn’t look scared. Strangely, that made Kawase calm down.

This man was a liar, but his actions had been genuine. Kawase's mind was racing with questions, but he hesitantly asked, "Could it be that you're interested in me?"

The man's eyes flickered, and he took a small breath in.

"What would you prefer to hear," he said, his voice low and smooth.

"I'm the one asking you," Kawase said, his voice firm.

The man laughed again, a soft, mocking sound. "I did like you. Enough to wonder what it might feel like… to take you into myself, just once."

Before Kawase knew it, he had pushed the man away. The man stumbled backward, landing on the sofa with a soft thud. As he sat up, he let out a small sigh.

"I've told you everything. Now it's your turn to keep your promise," the man said, his eyes glinting with amusement.

Pushing himself up with both hands, he slowly stood. His eyes narrowed in what looked like a smile.

“Come on. Say it—tell me to get out.”

A shiver ran down Kawase’s spine, like he’d been traced along the back with icy fingers.

“Hurry.”

The man’s voice was sweet and sickly, like candy from a festival stall—gaudily colored with artificial dyes, hiding something toxic underneath.

◇:-:◆:-:◇

The rain was falling, yet the man had left without an umbrella. Kawase put on his shoes and lingered by the entrance for a moment before slowly turning the doorknob. The man, unable to see, moved at a sluggish pace, gripping the railing as he carefully descended the apartment stairs, stepping down one slow stair at a time.

When he reached the last step, his body suddenly gave way, stumbling forward and falling. Perhaps the rain had blown in and made the ground slick. Thrown past the shelter of the stairwell, he landed directly under the downpour and was instantly drenched.

Sopping wet, he sluggishly pushed himself up, his posture hesitant as he extended both hands forward, his feet fumbling for stable ground. After about three meters, he reached the concrete sidewalk. He must have realized that the apartment wall was on his right because he started moving along it, his fingers sliding over the surface. His footsteps, uncertain at first, gradually became steadier.

Kawase followed at a short distance. He could have dragged him back right away, but he wanted to see what the man—carrying nothing—would do. The rain pounded against his umbrella. It might have given him away, but the man showed no sign of looking back.

The apartment wall, which stretched about twenty meters, suddenly ended. There was a small step down. The man tripped again. A young man approached from the opposite direction but only glanced at him briefly before walking past, pretending not to see. The man didn't get up for a while. He lay motionless, and just as Kawase considered rushing over, his upper body lurched upright. He rose to his feet, swinging his arms around as if groping for the air, his right hand wavering in the same spot a few times before he slowly shifted toward the right.

This led him beneath the eaves of a closed bento shop. A vending machine for soft drinks stood to the right of the store, casting a faint glow on his face. Rain dripped from his gray hair, and his soaked shirt and pants clung to his body, revealing his gaunt frame. Wiping his wet face with both hands, he slumped down against the closed shutter, sliding to the ground, curling his legs tightly, hunching his back, and resting his forehead on his knees.

Even after provoking Kawase and storming out of the room, this was his reality. Anyone passing by on the street would see him curled up like this and think, How pitiful. His damp gray hair clung to his skin as he ran his fingers through it, the movement carrying a deep, helpless frustration.

At work, he had always acted appropriately, but the man had called it a camouflage. Yet this arrogant man, who spoke so casually about death in front of him—this too, felt like an act. Then which was his true self? Was it the figure slumped there so miserably?

Eventually, the man stood, head hanging low, shoulders sagging, hands groping the air as he slowly moved forward. Emerging onto a broad street, he reached an intersection where traffic was heavy and stopped at the textured pavement before the crosswalk. The signal was green, the pedestrian chime echoing, yet he remained still. Just as Kawase wondered why, the sound abruptly cut off.

A short delay—then the cars that had been idling at the red light began moving at once. At that exact moment, the man's body swayed violently, and he lunged toward the road. Kawase flung aside his umbrella and ran.

A sharp, blaring horn split the air—he didn't make it in time.

...He didn’t make it in time. But the man wasn’t hit. Because he’d veered too far to the right of the crosswalk, when he jumped forward, he slammed into the traffic light pole. The impact sent him tumbling backward, landing awkwardly on the pavement. The blaring horn was from a driver who’d noticed him too late and sounded it more out of caution than anything else.

Kawase grabbed the man by the collar and dragged him to the storefront of a nearby sporting goods shop.

“I don’t know who you are, but I’m fine.”

He clearly hadn’t realized who was dragging him.

“I’m blind. It seems I got turned around, but my house is nearby. I can manage, really.”

…There was no point listening to this kind of lie.

Kawase retrieved the umbrella he’d thrown, then grabbed the man by the arm and forcibly pulled him to his feet.

“Um, where are we going—?”

Kawase didn’t answer. He just pulled him along without a word. The man stumbled, feet dragging, but followed. It was only then that he seemed to realize who was leading him.

“...Could you let go of my hand?”

His voice changed—no longer distant, no longer pretending.

“It took a lot of effort to walk all the way out there.”

Of course it did. He’d been watching from behind the entire time.

“Where are you taking me...?”

Kawase didn’t respond. He retraced the path the man had taken—thirty minutes out, covered now in just a few.

At the top of the apartment stairs, they passed the woman who lived two doors down. The young office worker cast them a quick, suspicious glance, her eyes flicking toward their soaked clothes.

Back inside the apartment, he locked the door and finally let his shoulders relax. Without hesitation, he headed straight for the bathroom. The man's lips were turning purple. He stripped off the wet clothes and, realizing he himself was drenched and covered in goosebumps, undressed as well.

He shoved the freezing man into the bathroom and forced him to sit. Turning on the shower, he drenched the man’s head, warming him thoroughly before washing himself. The space was too cramped for two men, but he couldn’t let him out into the changing area. If he took his eyes off him, there was no telling what he might do. He couldn’t leave him alone.

"You told me to leave."

The man murmured the words quietly.

"I never said I wouldn’t bring you back."

He countered with stubborn logic.

"Even if you bring me back, nothing will change. I can’t change. And all it does is make you suffer."

When Kawase turned off the shower, the man slowly stood. His hands reached out, touching Kawase—his fingers brushing over his shoulder, then sliding down his arm to his wrist. He took hold of both of Kawase’s wrists. Then, gently rubbing one cheek against Kawase’s right hand, he guided it up to his own neck.

"Kill me."

A hoarse, honeyed voice echoed through the bathroom. Instinctively, he took a step back.

"Once you’ve killed me, just toss me somewhere. The sea, the mountains—it doesn’t matter."

The fact that he was serious was terrifying.

"Just like that—put some strength into your fingers."

When he did, the man closed his eyes in a daze. His lips, parted as if gasping, released a sigh, and the droplets tracing down from the corners of his eyes looked almost like tears.

Noticing the lack of pressure in his grip, the man opened his eyes. Staring somewhere above and to the side, he pleaded, "Hurry up."

How was he supposed to deal with this? This miserable man who could think of nothing but dying right in front of him.

If this man really liked him, then why did he want to be killed? Wouldn’t most people want to be loved instead?

Kawase stared at the man’s face—one that seemed to be looking at him, yet not really seeing him. He swallowed hard. Then, still gripping the man’s neck, he kissed him roughly. The body he pulled close shuddered violently. He broke away almost immediately, and the man’s eyes widened in shock.

It was a face he had never seen before.

He kissed him again.

This time, the man clung to him.

“Nn… nn…”

Soft gasps spilled from his lips as he slid his tongue into Kawase’s mouth, hungrily seeking his. As much as he took, Kawase gave, and before long, he felt the man harden against him. That blatant shape of desire pressed insistently against his own.

…He had never seen anyone invite so shamefully, so disgracefully.

The man knelt, tracing Kawase’s body with his face as he pressed his cheek against his groin. Then, taking him into his mouth while he still hung limply. The lukewarm sensation sent a shiver crawling up Kawase’s spine, his skin prickling in unease. He clenched his teeth, shutting his eyes tightly, forcing himself to endure.

Before long, though, the man’s skilled tongue worked against him. The pleasure slowly overtook the revulsion, and he could feel himself hardening in response.

…He no longer resisted sharing a bed. The last time they lay together, all he could feel was the overwhelming sense of being taken by a man—an experience so steeped in revulsion that it had sickened him. But now, it was different.

The man reacted only to death and to him—those were things he had simply grown used to.

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