The captain wiped the cold sweat beading on Luca’s forehead and answered.
“It isn’t time yet.”
“You said Luka. Your name. You said it’s the same as mine.”
At that, he wore the hardest expression to describe of their whole conversation, something close to overwhelmed.
“You remembered?”
“...Is it a coincidence, having the same name as me?”
“No. It isn’t a coincidence.”
“Then... you coming to my planet wasn’t a coincidence either, was it?”
“There was no coincidence in any part of how you came to board this ship.”
At that answer, the guard that had briefly loosened in Luca tightened again. The man had just admitted with his own mouth that he’d saved him with a purpose. He acted as though he’d do anything for Luca, but he was definitely hiding something.
“What are you hiding?”
“I’m not hiding anything. If you want to know, I’ll tell you all of it later.”
“I want to know now. Why do you keep dodging?”
“I told you. Because of your health.”
“Ugh... talking to you is frustrating. You answer in circles.”
“Just know that it means I’m being that careful with you.”
“...Annoying.”
“If you decide to get better, talk with people, and show me you have the will to live, I’ll tell you everything then. How’s that?”
Luca tightened the fingers of the left hand the captain was holding. Maybe because he was remembering the moment they’d first met, the face of the father he’d left behind on his ruined home world came to mind.
A corner of his chest throbbed. But he hadn’t the strength to bear that longing right now. Just accepting the man’s terms, that he’d answer everything if Luca showed some drive to live, was already more than enough.
Luca still found himself horrifying, a lump of meat. Rather than live a whole life in a body like this, he’d wanted to die that very second. He had, and yet...
“Who are you... to want to make promises about my life?”
His voice came out shaking. Maybe his body was so wrecked that his mind had gone weak to match. Was that why tears kept threatening over nothing at all? Watching Luca’s head sink down, the captain spoke warmly again.
“Because I want you to decide, by your own will, to survive.”
“...”
“What, don’t you believe me?”
Luca twitched the fingers still held in that grip, then nodded. They’d only just met. That much attachment to him made no sense.
The captain smiled at the wary reaction. Then, without asking permission, he pressed a light kiss to the back of Luca’s hand. Startled, Luca tried to snatch it back.
“Wh-what are you doing...!”
But the captain’s grip was faster. Fingers still laced, he looked at Luca.
“You don’t have to believe me. You can hate me, that’s fine too. Just don’t say you want to die.”
A man who closed the distance with other people far too easily. He did it so skillfully that it only left Luca more confused.
Is he like this with everyone? It’s not just me, right?
He couldn’t get used to a kind of expression he’d never encountered before. He just went stiff and stared at the smiling captain.
“On the day Kai’s prosthetics connect to your nerves, you’ll see, through the windows of this ship, a truth about the universe you’ve never seen before. Until then, could you trust me a little and let me stay at your side?”
The man’s eyes shone like the sun. A gaze that swallowed the terror of the moment his planet collapsed and called up calm in its place. In this cold silver-grey space, he was the only one who held any trace of the planet Luca missed.
Warm sunlight. That was another name for the tenderness pouring out of those golden eyes.
...What am I to this man, that he’d go this far...? What’s he planning to use me for, keeping me alive?
Luca’s head grew tangled again. It throbbed, a faint headache coming with it, and unable to handle any more he slowly closed his eyes.
His body still hurt as though it were breaking apart, and living was too much. Even so, today the captain’s soft voice came through louder than the agonized screaming inside him.
Telling him it was all right to live a little longer. Asking whether he wouldn’t stay alive at least long enough to satisfy this curiosity.
“...I’ll stop saying I want to die.”
That didn’t mean he’d try to live. Only until his curiosity was satisfied. Only exactly that long would he hold out a little more. At the uncertain answer, the captain was sincerely delighted.
“Thank you, Luca.”
“...”
“You must be very sleepy. You can sleep. I’ll stay beside you. And if it hurts, say it hurts.”
“...”
“Good night.”
A soft kiss. Now he’d trespassed as far as Luca’s forehead. It was strange and ticklish at once. This warmth that was forcing him to stay alive was frightening and baffling and uncomfortable. And at the same time, somewhere beneath all that, he wanted to cling to it.
Luca didn’t pull his hand free. Using being held as an excuse, he quietly took the warmth in. It was the first time the fingertips that had only ever scraped at a bed rail were given over to someone.
Once he’d started talking, Luca found himself waiting, without meaning to, for the hour the captain came.
His body, still hidden under the sheet, was hideous enough that he couldn’t work up the nerve to face it directly. Every night he offered a desperate prayer to the god to simply never let him open his eyes again. And of course, that god failed to grant Luca’s wish this time as well.
Damn god. To think I danced with a sword for something like this.
He’d been an unbeliever from the start, so of course a wish begged of a god wouldn’t come true. He thought about hunting down and executing that god himself, wherever it was, then let the idea go.
Burning with vengeance would mean surviving with equal stubbornness, and he didn’t want that. In any case, the wish to die sometime soon hadn’t changed.
Just until I die... I’ll hold out. There’s no other reason than that.
Cynical thoughts aside, nothing made him as glad as the captain arriving. His ruined mind found a moment’s peace whenever they talked.
“Luca, may I come in?”
He never rushed. Whenever he opened the door he brought a warm damp towel carrying the faint forest scent Luca liked.
He knew how ashamed Luca was to let anyone see his incomplete body. So even when he drew the sheet back, he kept his eyes fixed on Luca’s. Rather than sweeping a pitying gaze over the severed legs or the emptiness below the shoulder, he looked only at the person Luca was.
“You seemed a little cold at night, so I raised the interior temperature. It isn’t too warm, is it?”
“...”
“Too warm?”
And he asked persistently. As if he wanted Luca to offer a thought or an opinion, even a single word of one.
Luca stirred his dry lips and answered.
“...No. It’s warm.”
Whenever he got an answer, the captain smiled brightly.
“Good. The planet you came from ran dry and hot. It’s hard to reproduce your home’s temperature inside this ship, but I’ll try to match it as closely as I can.”
“...”
“Should I bring your food warmed up as well?”
“...”
“If there’s anything you need, just say the word.”
He paid no mind to Luca’s silence and chattered on in that pleasant voice. All the while he carefully wiped between each finger of Luca’s good left hand with the towel.
He was careful even when checking the catheter or the places where machinery connected. There wasn’t the slightest trace of disgust or pity in his hands. Care without sympathy, without compassion, wore down the wall of Luca’s guard.
He’s a strange man.
At some point he’d begun taking an interest in the captain himself.
He’s always doing strange things.
One day he brought a single small flower. A yellow one, brimming with life, the sort you rarely saw aboard a spaceship.
“What’s this...?”
“There’s a greenhouse on the ship. It bloomed nicely, so I thought it would be good at your bedside.”
He set the vase down and gently swept back Luca’s tangled hair. In a space made entirely of metal, those bright petals were out of place. But the smile with which he offered them was undeniably warm.
For no reason at all, Luca brushed a fingertip against a thorn on the rose stem as he asked,
“...Aren’t you busy? I don’t think you should be here every day... you’re the captain.”
Rather than answer, he caught Luca’s hand first.
“Careful, Luca, you’ll hurt yourself. Don’t touch that.”
“This much won’t hurt me.”
“It will. Next time I’ll bring roses without thorns.”
“...”
“And that’s the answer to your question. There’s nothing more important than looking after the most precious passenger on my ship.”
Every time, Luca’s conviction grew firmer.
He really is a strange man.
