The Moon’s Ship That Crosses The Night: Chapter 17
The man did not seem surprised, even
upon realizing that it wasn’t the room that was dark—it was his own sight that
was gone.
“This isn’t the first time I’ve lost
my vision.”
Kawase was the one who found himself
shocked instead. Apparently, after his mother’s funeral, the man had also lost
his vision for no apparent reason, only for it to return naturally after about
ten days.
The on-call ophthalmologist and
neurosurgeon had examined him, but neither found anything abnormal with his
eyes. In fact, they said the more puzzling thing was that he couldn’t
see. The ophthalmologist had muttered something about it being a “psychological
issue.”
After everything that had
happened—the suicide attempt, the sudden blindness—Kawase had assumed the man
would be hospitalized. But that wasn’t the case. A psychiatrist had also come
to evaluate him and determined that there was “no need for admission.”
No matter how much Kawase insisted,
“He almost died,” the man denied every single accusation—said he had only felt
dizzy from drinking and nearly fallen off the pedestrian bridge, that he had never
tried to bite his own tongue. With each denial, Kawase felt his certainty
waver. Maybe the man really had just gotten dizzy. Maybe Kawase had only
thought he was trying to bite his tongue.
By the afternoon, once the
examination was over, they were sent off with nothing but a bottle of eye
drops, as if for peace of mind. Since the man didn’t have his insurance card,
Kawase nearly had a heart attack when he saw the hospital bill. There wasn’t
enough in his wallet to cover it, but after explaining the situation, they were
told they could settle the payment later.
With the blind man in tow, Kawase
took a taxi back to his own apartment. The moment they stepped out of the car,
the man hesitated, standing still. Kawase grabbed his arm and guided him
forward. When they reached the stairs, the man, unable to find the first step,
stumbled and nearly fell. His glasses slipped off, and Kawase picked them up,
slipping them into his own coat pocket. There was no point in a blind man
wearing glasses, and if they got broken, it would just be a hassle. Given how
unsteady he was, the risk seemed high.
The man couldn’t keep up with
Kawase’s usual pace, so he climbed the stairs slowly, matching the other’s
sluggish steps.
The moment they stepped inside the
apartment, a heavy sigh escaped him. He was exhausted. The man sat on the sofa,
staring blankly ahead. Kawase wanted nothing more than to collapse into bed,
but there was something he needed to check first.
“Let me see your bag for a moment.”
He asked for permission, just for
formality’s sake, before opening the bag. What he saw inside left him stunned.
Besides a wallet, there was nothing. He checked every pocket, turned it
upside down, but not even a speck of dust fell out.
Opening the wallet, he found exactly
32,000 yen in cash and a single key—no insurance card, no credit cards. Not
even a single receipt. It was a wallet with no trace of a life attached to it.
“Did you leave your insurance card
at home?”
The man tilted his head slightly.
“I threw it away.”
“…What?”
“The wallet was getting too heavy.”
He said it as if it were the most
natural thing in the world.
“You threw it away? Where?”
Without a hint of remorse, the man
casually mentioned tossing it into a trash bin at a park near the izakaya where
they had been drinking the night before.
Kawase snatched up the wallet and
bolted out of the apartment, running all the way to the subway station.
As the train rattled along, his
anger only grew. Who the hell throws away their insurance card?! He
couldn’t understand the man’s mindset at all. If the card was gone, could it
even be reissued?
And then, it hit him.
If the man had jumped off that
pedestrian bridge last night, there would have been nothing on him to
identify his body.
A shiver ran down his spine.
Had he intentionally removed all
traces of his identity from his wallet?
They were far from Hokkaido, where
the man lived. If a news report mentioned a middle-aged man jumping to his
death from a pedestrian bridge, with nothing to identify him, who would ever
think, That must be Shibaoka, the former Hokkaido branch president?
He would have been buried as a
nameless body. Without anyone knowing…
For all he knew, the man might be
gone by the time he got back. He had locked the door before leaving, but it
could be opened easily from the inside. If the man wanted to die, he could walk
right out. Even if he couldn’t see.
Kawase got off the train and made
his way to the park. It didn’t take long to find the place. He started
rummaging through the trash can closest to the entrance. A mother passing by
with her child gave him a suspicious look, and the shame made his face burn.
Just as the man had said, the
insurance card was there. Looking closer, he also found a credit card and a
driver’s license under the man’s name. He picked them up and shoved them into
his pocket.
By the time he made it back to the
apartment, nearly two hours had passed.
The man was exactly as he had been
when Kawase left, sitting vacantly on the sofa. Yesterday, he had put up such a
fight trying to leave that Kawase had to tie him down. Now, he just sat there,
quietly waiting.
“I found your insurance card and
credit cards. I’ll use them to pay the hospital bill.”
There was no response. Kawase wanted
to snap, to ask if the man had any idea who he had been digging through trash
for, but he swallowed the words. Maybe it didn’t matter to the man whether
those cards were retrieved or not. He started to hand them back but stopped
himself—if the guy threw them away again, that would be the last straw.
Instead, he tucked them into his own wallet. He could return them once the man
could see again.
He was exhausted, but he was also
starving. The only thing he’d eaten since morning was a sandwich while waiting
at the hospital. As for the man, he hadn’t eaten anything since last night.
Going out to buy something was a hassle, so Kawase rummaged through the kitchen
cabinet. He found a couple of instant noodle cups—samples from work—and took
out two.
“There’s nothing but cup ramen. Is
that okay?”
No answer. Fine, ramen it was. If he
didn’t like it, that was his problem. Kawase had asked, after all.
He poured hot water into the cups
and set the lids in place, weighing them down with chopsticks. Then he carried
them over to the table, along with some bottled tea he had stocked.
He liked his noodles firm, so he
pried the lid open before the three-minute mark and gave the contents a stir.
Even after he started eating, the man didn’t move.
“You can eat now.”
At his prompting, the man hesitantly
reached out. That was when Kawase finally remembered—oh, right. He can’t
see. He reached over to help peel the lid off, and just as he finished, the
man’s fingers found something.
Unfortunately, it was the bottle of
tea.
And worse yet, he knocked it
over—right across the table.
The two-liter bottle spilled its
contents in a rush, drenching the carpet.
“Hey—!”
Startled by Kawase’s outburst, the
man jerked his hand back. His fingers hit the ramen cup.
There was a loud splash.
“Aahhh—!”
A sharp cry of distress.
Spilled noodles.
It took a few seconds for Kawase’s
brain to catch up. The smell of ramen filled the air. The noodles sprawled
across the man’s feet.
“What the hell are you doing?!”
He shouted, bolting to the laundry
area for towels. Grabbing a handful, he crouched down and began wiping up the
mess. No matter how much he scrubbed, the pale rug remained stained with a
miserable brown blotch. It had been expensive. This was the worst.
Since last night, it had been
nothing but one bad thing after another—rushing to the hospital, digging
through trash, and now this. If he opened his mouth now, every
frustration would spill out at once, so he clenched his jaw and kept scrubbing
in silence.
The man didn’t say “sorry.” Not even
as a formality.
That pissed Kawase off even more.
When he finally gave up and looked
up, the man was staring down at him.
For a split second, Kawase thought
he was being mocked—looking down on him as he scrubbed the floor like an idiot.
But then he remembered—the man couldn’t see him.
…Or could he?
His right hand, resting on his knee,
was an angry shade of red. A tiny piece of chopped green onion clung to one of
his fingers.
“Did the broth get on your hands?”
“A little.”
Looking closer, it wasn’t just his
right hand—his left hand was red too. Kawase grabbed the man’s elbow and forced
him to stand, then dragged him to the bathroom. If he had burned himself, he
should have just said so. Keeping quiet about it was just irritating. Kawase
roughly shoved the man’s hands under the sink and turned on the water, letting
it run over them. He had heard that burns needed to be cooled immediately. But
he had no idea how long he was supposed to do it.
“Keep them under the water for a
while.”
Leaving the man there, Kawase went
back to clean up the stained carpet. His own ramen had soaked up all the broth,
swelling into a soggy mess, and by now, he had lost his appetite.
When he returned to the bathroom,
the man was still obediently running his hands under the water. Kawase shut off
the tap, but the redness hadn’t faded.
“Does it hurt?”
“I don’t know.”
“It’s your hands. Just say if
it hurts or not.”
“My skin stings, but I don’t know if
that counts as pain.”
He couldn’t keep running water over
them forever. Kawase made a small ice pack by wrapping some ice in a plastic
bag and pressed it against the man’s hands.
Back on the sofa, after a while, the
man’s body started to tremble. Goosebumps spread across his neck. Kawase
finally realized—of course he was getting cold. Even if it was just a small
part of his body, pressing ice against his skin was draining his body heat.
The redness still hadn’t gone away.
Would he need to take him to a hospital? Or would it be fine to just wait and
see? At the very least, he didn’t want it to get worse.
But going to the hospital again
sounded exhausting. The man couldn’t go by himself, so Kawase would have to
take him. And after spending most of the day at the hospital, he was sick of
the place.
Kawase went to his bedroom and
opened his laptop. He searched for burn treatment, but every site said the same
thing—cool it immediately and don’t try to judge it yourself, just go to the
hospital. Sighing, he checked if there was a dermatology clinic nearby. He
found one three stations away, open until six on Saturdays. The clinic was
close to the station, so he knew the way.
He exhaled heavily and got up.
…He had no choice but to go.
The dermatology clinic was packed—so
full there wasn’t even a place to sit. They waited two hours. While they
waited, the man’s fingers swelled. His left hand wasn’t too bad, but the right
one was worse. The left only needed ointment, but the right was wrapped in
bandages.
The elderly doctor who examined him
had said, “It may take some time to heal.”
They had taken a taxi to the
hospital, but on the way back, Kawase had the driver drop them off in front of
a convenience store. He bought sandwiches and rice balls before trudging back
to the apartment, completely drained.
Once inside, he unwrapped the man’s
rice balls and sandwiches and placed them on a plate in front of him.
Then he grabbed the man’s left hand,
guiding it to the plate and the bottled tea. The moment he showed him, the man
was able to reach them on his own without much trouble.
They ate in complete silence.
Once the meal was over, Kawase
didn’t want to think about anything anymore. Without a word, he went to the
bedroom, collapsed onto the bed, and shut his eyes. He didn’t even care that he
hadn’t changed his clothes.
For a moment, he wondered if he had
locked the front door.
Even if he hadn’t, he couldn’t be
bothered to get up and check.
It didn’t matter anymore.
If the guy wanted to leave, he could
just leave.
With that thought, he sank into a
deep sleep.
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