HanTsuki:Volume 1 Chapter 3
Chapter 3 : The Road to the Fort Mountain
1
The night...
After the lights were turned off, the ward was embraced with pitch-blackness; only a bit of light struggled its way through the windows uncovered by the curtains. Under the white weak light, everything looked cloaked with damp radiance. The patterns resembling ghosts and monsters on the ceiling, the hot kettle and the cup on the table, the oxygen supplier written with the big word OXYGEN, the edge of the bed with its paint falling off—everything felt unreal, as if I had entered a fantasy world.
I couldn’t sleep any bit. This was reasonable, as I had recently become a complete nocturnal creature. Impossible was it for me to sleep at this time. Sitting up, I stared blankly at the mountain of pornographic books, Tada’s inheritance, beside my bed. We have a saying: “A tiger leaves its skin behind when it dies.” What the old pervert left was these, and to me also. I had wondered why it was I, but I couldn’t come to a conclusion because, perhaps, his ward was adjacent to mine, or I was still seventeen-year-old.
I took one and had a look, though what I believed it to have was crap and just some nude girls. When I flipped through the pages, my expectation was right. The whole book was full of nude pictures—from the first page to the last page. Tada should be eighty by now, yet he still collected a lot of this stuff. I let out a laugh of dismay. Tada, you’re such an idiot! I laughed, thinking, he was such a laughable idiot.
It was at this time that an inexplicable power befell me. That power was stimulating some corner in my heart—no, it was stimulating some corner of me as a human, and exciting more power there. It was turbulence, a turbid flow, as well as a torrent. Its strength could flush everything away. First, I was puzzled; then, I understood. It was perhaps the power Tada had sent into my body, or perhaps a power that had long been dormant in some part of my body, which Tada had awakened. I had long been escaping this power and its usage. A more fitting example would be a deliberate aversion of my attention. But since the power had suddenly risen in my body and shouting continuously at me, “Wake up. Wake up now! Man does not know when he will die! If you hesitate, everything might come to naught! Wake up, you idiot. Can you hear me? Till when will you stop escaping?”
I balled my fists on my right hand, yet inexplicably my whole body was pumped with power, without a slight sense of tiredness.
“Good,” I murmured, taking my phone to the balcony.
Although it was prohibited to phone in the hospital, the rules were less strict when I was at the balcony.
Rika hadn’t yet fallen asleep.
“What’s the matter...”
She looked at me, completely surprised.
It was embarrassing to sneak into a girl’s ward usually, but now I was forced by some formless power, so I took it easily and calmly. The power descending from above lightly moved my arms and legs exactly like manipulating a doll.
“Let’s sneak out of the hospital!”
“What?”
“Didn’t you say you could prepare yourself mentally if you go to the Fort mountain? If this is the case, then it’s simple! Let’s head to the Fort mountain.”
“Now?”
“We can only sneak out in the night! We have to do it now.”
In the dimness, Rika looked very petite, as if she was about to melt into the dim background behind her. She was about to vanish, yet she was still here where I could touch.
“We have a motorcycle anyway. You only have to be the passenger.”
“...”
“Let’s go, Rika!”
“...”
“Didn’t your father the one who took you there ten years ago? This time, it’s me.”
Rika stared at me flatly. Belied in those eyes was a strong power. Every time she eyed me like this, I would immediately avert my eyes. But now, I could take on this mysterious power with ease.
“I’ll go,” said Rika, at last.
Embedded in her eyes was some kind of radiance.
“Take me there!”
