They moved him to a different hospital. I guess the they didn’t have everything they needed at the other. They told no one and so we’re all alone again. It takes a while before he opens his eyes again. Days maybe? Even longer before they remove the tubes but they’ve moved him from the ICU and just to a regular ward.
“You have a few days left. The time here is different.” I tell him. He used to be my friend but now he’s not.
“You saw right?” I ask. I knew eventhough he slept he saw that place. “That place in Hokkaido?”
He fumbles for his cigarette and I don’t stop him. It’s not like the hospital staff can kick him out.
“Nice place.” is all he says and he smokes looking outside.
“You don’t have a lot of days left.”
He just smokes. His mind far away but I notice him glance at the ring. It was a ring he once wanted so badly.
“Aren’t you going?” I ask. “I told you, you can.”
He ashes his cigarette on the floor. “No. It’s alright.”
“It’s probably for the best.” I tell him, “After all it would be difficult to cover all that time in a span of a few days.” I don’t add, aside from all those -others- who knew him.
“As I said, it’s fine.” He watches the smoke he blows up in the air, “It’s not a perfect life but she found peace. She became a good mother. Nagakura-san will take care of them.”
“Well I won’t say I don’t have any sympathy for you or her. But I understand why you’re not going.” Of course I know why. One collosal unresolved failure was enough, there’s no need for him to string another one or rather the rest of them together. But another reason, that perhaps this was truly enough for him – to see them with some relative peace and not that tumultuous life that followed him both through his own fault or just him -being-.
“Will you go back then to Tokyo?”
“No. I…” He puts out the cigarette in a water cup and stands up.
“Are you sure you should be moving?” I ask alarmed.
He grins and starts getting dressed. Just a black shirt and his blue pants.
“You left your sword and your jacket.” I reach over and toss his cap and gloves to him, “That too.”
He shakes his head, “I won’t need those where I’ll be going.”
“What will they call you?”
“Whatever they want.” He grins softly, “I was just a character from some book and remnants of a dead man.”
When he left, he took his cigarettes with him. I guess his killing days were over and so was his justice.
