I stood before the open door, watching the street.
Even though she had disappeared long ago, I was still expecting her return.
I felt like I was breathing, but I wasn't sure.
Sometimes, there are moments when you feel like you're outside your body;
as if everything is happening to someone else.
You become just a spectator of your life.
I went back inside.
Closed the door slowly.
The clinic was was quiet, and the morning light began to slip into the corners,
but it illuminated nothing.
I sat down.
I didn't think. I didn't try.
Sometimes, thoughts don't come from within you,
but slide from a distant place into your head, without permission.
Scattered images began to appear in my mind.
Perhaps Yuko's visit had triggered my memory.
I now recall moments from our life after the death of our son,
but they weren't complete memories… just images:
Fights, separation, loneliness.
I remember the house I lived in alone after we parted.
I tried many times to recall its location, but in vain.
Even the police didn't know where I had been, or what had happened to me after my son's death
As if I had truly vanished,
in isolation,
in that house.
And after some time, I left.
I didn't know where I was going, but I knew I couldn't stay.
The street was still. The air was cold.
I got on a bus. I didn't notice where it was headed,
but my body seemed to know the way.
I tried to remember…
but the memory kept slipping away.
And I tried to forget…
but the past kept chasing me.
The city hadn't changed, but it looked different.
Or maybe I was the one who had changed.
I stood before the door.
The house.
I remembered that I used to hide a spare key in the shrub.
I found it.
I opened the door.
Pushed it.
The air was heavy.
Years of dust floated in the light.
Every corner, every sound, every step… was familiar.
I started wandering through the house.
Searching. Looking for something to bring me back.
At first, I found nothing.
Then I spotted them:
Some letters, scattered files.
There were threatening letters.
Maybe Kento had written them.
I kept searching.
I found an old purchase receipt:
Medical equipment, in the name of Shinzo Hospital.
But what caught my attention was at the end of the receipt:
The name of the supplier: "Teka Biomedical Supplies."
And its address in a city I'd never visited before: Koremoto, Nagano Prefecture.
I took the receipt and the letters,
and left the house.
Curiosity was eating at me, and the desire to know the truth began to outweigh everything else.
I traveled to Koremoto.
I went straight to the company's headquarters.
I entered the building.
The receptionist greeted me with a formal smile and asked:
– "How can I help you?"
I stammered. I didn't know what to say.
But I quickly pulled myself together and replied:
– "I'd like to speak to the director."
He shook his head apologetically:
– "The director is not available at the moment. May I know the reason?"
I didn't have a real answer.
I was searching for something… anything.
And I didn't know exactly what.
I left the building.
As I stepped outside, I was surprised to see a crowd of people gathered at the company's gate.
Signs. Chants. Anger.
I approached.
Entered the crowd.
The chants were furious:
"Stop the killing!"
"Where is the justice?"
"Teka is killing us!"
I asked one of the protesters:
– "What's going on?"
He answered while waving his sign:
– "This company sells faulty medical devices. Many people have died because of them.
But only the doctors are always blamed."
I froze.
At that moment, time rewound.
To the operating room.
To Kento's son.
Maybe… it wasn't my fault.
Maybe I wasn't the reason he died.
Maybe… it was those devices.
I returned to my apartment.
I opened the computer and started searching.
Cases. Reports. Articles written by journalists about the death of Kento's son during the surgery I performed.
Most of Shinzo's press coverage was aggressive, violent.
They wrote about me as if I were the devil himself.
As if I were the source of all evil in this world.
Truly terrifying journalism.
But… among hundreds of articles, I found something different.
A report that described me as a victim.
I opened it.
It wasn't from Shinzo's press, but from a newspaper in Koremoto.
I read the report…
Its content was that I was a victim of institutional corruption.
A victim of faulty medical equipment, and of a cover-up carried out by Teka to protect its reputation.
I read the writer's name:
Ryo Matsuda.
It wasn't a familiar name,
but his article was the only one that saw me as a human being,
not a criminal.
The next day, I woke up before sunrise.
It hadn't been real sleep. My body had been lying still, but something inside me had stayed awake. The name I'd read at the end of the article — Ryo Matsuda — hadn't left my mind. For the first time in a long while, I felt like there was a thread I could follow.
I sat in front of the computer again. I searched for the newspaper in which the article had been published. A local paper in Koremoto, headquartered in a narrow alley barely visible on the city's maps.
I went out early that morning, concealed by the cold streets.
I took an old train, then walked on foot through alleys until I reached a modest building — nothing like the media world I had once been thrust into.
I pushed open the glass door and stepped inside.
The reception area was quiet. A woman in her fifties sat behind a wooden desk, occasionally lifting her head from an old computer screen.
I approached her and asked,
— "Does Ryo Matsuda work here?"
She looked at me cautiously.
— "Sometimes. He's a freelance writer. Not a regular employee."
I asked,
— "Can I contact him? It's personal… and important."
She sighed, then opened a small notebook and flipped through the pages.
— "He has an email, and sometimes comes by in the evenings. But if you're looking for him, he usually frequents a café in the western part of the city… it's called Coffee Forest."
I wrote the name down in my notebook and thanked her.
Then I left.
---
The café was in a quiet neighborhood. Nothing stood out from the outside except for a worn wooden sign, handwritten: Kōhī no Mori.
I entered.
There was only one man sitting alone near the window, writing in a small notebook with a fountain pen.
I recognized him instantly.
Ryo Matsuda.