chapter 36

“-Isn’t it too long for something like that? It’s already been three hours.”

“I feel a little bit weird, too. I’m sure the digestive system was so bad that it was painful, but I can’t believe he’s unconscious for this long.”

As if rising from the deep sea to the surface, his field of vision slowly brightened. Something that held on to his consciousness and didn’t want to let go slowly took its hands off and moved away as if in resignation. When Jude thought his fingertips were barely moving, he gave a long sigh. Tim’s voice from the side stopped for a moment.

“Jude? Jude! Are you awake?”

“……Oh, yeah, well…”

The ray of light that filled his eyes all of a sudden stung his eyes. As he blinked a few times and turned around, he saw his worried-faced partner and a strange middle-aged man in a white gown. The faint smell of disinfectant that irritated his nose, the feeling of a small needle stuck in his arm, and he could tell quickly where he was without asking. Tim strode to his side.

“Are you okay? Do you know how shocked I was when you suddenly collapsed? Why? Is it because you had a stomachache?”

“…….I don’t know…….”

Jude was at a loss for words. He could clearly see the face of Tim and the doctor, the light pouring over his body and the white-colored hospital room, but his consciousness slightly floated, as if his senses had not yet returned.

“You don’t know? Are you okay? Do you know who I am?”

“Tim, don’t be so loud. My head is ringing.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. Why did you pass out all of a sudden? Was it because of a stomach ache or something?”

“Wait … Wait … ”

Closing his eyes, Jude bit his tongue a few times. Only after shaking off something that misted his head, and clenched his fist a few times did Jude opened his eyes again. Tim’s troubled face was much clearer. And he could think clearly of what to say.

“It was because I had a stomach ache. I was so tired……and I haven’t been able to sleep well lately because of it. It’s not a big deal, nothing to worry about…….”

“Are you stupid?!”

Some time ago, I think I’ve heard this kind of scolding from Tim. As soon as he mumbled the explanation, an unsympathetic yell burst right above his face. As he cringed in surprise and turned to him, Tim shouted with a feverish look on his face.

“I told you, eat your meal properly! Isn’t this what happens because you always eat beer instead of rice, why did you live in that manner until it become like this!”

“… …Ti, Tim. You need to take care of your image. You weren’t the type to yell like this. This wasn’t a neat, smart young man type…”

“Are you kidding me, what about you?! When you leave the hospital later, empty the fridge first!”

“……yes.”

Jude answered quietly as he didn’t dare talk back, but the doctor who was looking at their interaction smiled lightly – seeming to be holding back his words – as he approached Jude’s bedside and said.

“It’s not very good right now. You’ve been having irregular stomachaches lately, haven’t you? It’s a stomach cramp, and mild gastritis. It has calmed down for now, but I think you’ll have to be hospitalized for a few days.”

“Oh, yes? Do people usually get hospitalized for stomach cramps? I think I can just leave the hospital.”

“Be quiet.”

Tim, have you seen any movies with serial killers these days? Seeing that Tim have similar eyes to them, he gulped down his words – and Jude kept his mouth shut. The doctor gave a short laugh and continued to talk.

“You’ll be discharged if it’s light, but overall the digestive system is pretty bad. It’s serious enough to lose consciousness due to pain. It’s amazing that it didn’t develop into an ulcer. So you’d better stay in the hospital for a few days and take your medicine before you leave the hospital. In this hospital room, shall you keep stay here?”

“Yes, please do that.”

“Wait, Tim, this is a single room, I don’t have…”

“If it’s too much for you, I’ll get the medical bills from the New York Police Department, so just stay. It’s only a few days, you can stay in a better place.”

“Uh, yeah.”

As he answered in a daze, Tim let out a long sigh and flopped onto a small chair. Shaking his head and sighing once again, he felt something burning in his stomach, and Jude smiled a bit apologetic.

“Uh, sorry, Tim. It must have been a hassle.”

“Is it just pain? Your mind turned disarrayed just like that….. but why can’t you come to your senses if you just collapsed in pain, and even the doctor is confused too, so…”

“Oh, what happened to Clara?”

As he looked back resentfully at Jude, who changed the topic, Tim shrugged and answered.

“…..just Beckman took her to the police station. She’s not going to be punished because she’s still a child, but I think she’ll be going to the facility for a while because she has to get long-term counseling and treatment. Anyway, even if she didn’t kill them directly, she obviously killed three people under her influence.”

“Then what about her parents? They’re not being punished?”

“Well, I don’t know…..I think they’ll get some form of disciplinary action for now. It was never a laudable upbringing, and I’m sure they didn’t give the child the least affection. So what if they’re rich, they don’t seem to have much affection for their daughter. If they make up their mind, they might hire a lawyer and get away with it.”

“Yes.”

In other words, the most insidious root of all of this could escape. He nodded a little, and someone knocked on the door. TokkTokkTokk, the sound of a small knock drew all eyes to the door. A husky voice streamed in from outside the door.

“-Tim, are you inside?”

“Beckman? Come in.”

The door opened, and Jude and Tim were a little surprised. Next to the middle-aged detective was the little girl who stood in front of him until Jude lost his consciousness. The child seemed to be a little hesitant, but when she saw Jude who opened his eyes, she stepped in front of Beckman. As Tim asked ‘What’s going on?’ with his eyes, Beckman scratched the back of his head a little roughly.

“Oh, she has to go see a counselor soon, and she said she wanted to see Jude once before she left. I said he might not have woken up, but she said it didn’t matter. Jude, are you all right? How are you feeling?”

“It’s okay, he said he was feeling a little under the weather… Tim, I’m sorry, so stop looking at me like that.”

“Wait…..”

The child’s voice sounded small but clear. As Jude looked straight at the child, Clara continued.

“Wait, can we just talk to each other?”

“……Ah, well. It’s all right. So, the scary guys, can you go outside?”

“Oh, come on, looks like he’s all right. I don’t think a guy like him is going to die that easily.”

“Call me when you’re done talking.”

Beckman, who shook his head in vain laughter, and Tim with a still worried face left the hospital room with the doctor, and there was a moment of silence in the white room. Only after Jude, who was looking at Clara’s face silently, told her to sit down, did Clara slowly approached the side of the bed and sat on the chair. Jude, who received the gaze from the small blue eyes, shrugged while lying down.

“Why, do you have something to say to me?”

“You came to see me, didn’t you?”

“……Ah?”

“You doubt me, and that’s why you came to my house, right?

There was no hostility in the child’s voice, and Jude tilted his head for a moment to grasp the child’s intentions. But the inquiring eyes only contained pure curiosity, so the blond detective nodded slowly.

“Well, you can say that.”

“You’ve been like me, haven’t you?”

At the unexpected question that popped out of nowhere, Jude opened his eyes for a moment and soon snapped.

“Well, I don’t think I’ve had a hard time like you. I stayed in an orphanage, but the director was a good person. Why, did you think I’d have grown like a pessimist to setting up such a group like you? You don’t necessarily have to do that to predict the behavior of others, Clara.”

“No, it’s not just that.”

“Then what?”

“……smells…… it feels strange.”

Smell? When her eyes became strangely round, Clara moved her hands busily as if she was trying to convey her feelings somehow.

“It’s like… …there’s something like that. It doesn’t feel like happy, normal people, but something, something from people who have something lost or taken away, I don’t know what to say, but it’s not the smell of sunflowers, but the smell of blood from the grass in the dark…… don’t you know that?”

“You’re full of expression, you.”

“No, there’s something like that. You know that, don’t you? I’ve never been wrong about feeling this way. But you’re a lot more…….”

“Ha? I’m much more, what?”

The child, who was speaking without interruption, swallowed her words for a moment. Clara’s voice became as small as a whisper, as if avoiding the ear of a scary monster looking for her from outside.

“You’ve lost a lot more, a lot more……than I have. It smells a lot deeper. When you’re my age, you grew up being deprived of something, right? Just like me. Maybe even more, right?”

“Thank you for telling me that my childhood must have been incredibly unhappy, Clara. I just fainted and woke up, and hearing that, I feel like I’m all better.”

“Mister, I’m not speaking lightly now. I won’t tell anyone, so answer me. Right, right?”

Jude, for a moment, kept his mouth shut. The girl’s eyes were desperate. Looking at the face with an indistinct eye, Jude slowly opened his mouth.

“I don’t know, Clara. I don’t remember much when I was your age. I’m not trying to avoid it, really.”

“……yes……”

As if disappointed, the child’s face turned to the floor. Jude, who had scratched his cheek several times in an uncomfortable mood, asked in a reluctant voice.

“Why, by the way?”

“……I was going to ask…”

“What?”

“How did you get through those childhoods?…..I was going to ask you how you could grow up so much, how could you act so indifferent…”

“It’ll be all right, Clara.”

With that nonchalant remark, the girl raised her head in a flash. The face was stained with a mixture of mistrust and a little anger, fear and loss. Despite the childish look on her face, Jude’s face was calm.

“How do you know? How do you know I’m gonna be okay?”

“That is, because you’re still young.”

“If I’m young, do you think anything will be okay if I’m young? Because I’m young? Without knowing what the real wound is, and I’m old enough to be plagued with victimization? You’re just saying I’ll be okay in a little while?”

“Don’t be so angry. I’m saying you’re still young, and you can get help from better adults than your parents early on. Anyway, you won’t have to struggle with your parents anymore. It’s a pretty big deal that it’s probably hard to see your parents for a few years. In the meantime, you can recover. There aren’t only contemptible adults in the world like you think, so be naughty enough. Like a kid, it’s a kid’s privilege. That is, not getting punished for making a little fuss.”

“……something like a decent adult…”

“It’s because the people you’ve seen are so limited. If I see and live with people like your parents every day, I will hate adults too. So don’t be too hard on yourself, you don’t have to feel like you can’t get back to normal anymore. Well, you’re not the only one who was bad. There’s still plenty of time to fix it. You don’t have to shut yourself too tight. You don’t want to, do you?”

It was an insignificant tone. With an attitude of not advising much. Speaking as if whining to a friend after a quarrel with his girlfriend, Jude reached out his hand and tapped Clara on the head. The child’s face, was blankly empty.

“Okay? So, don’t ask me that. Because I don’t even know.”

“……this is……not a big deal? Enough to fix it so quickly…… Small enough to be considered naughty……?”

Tears quickly gathered in her pretty little blue eyes. As his stomach stopped hurting, Jude began to get hungry. With a small grumble inside, Jude pulled the child’s pigtails slightly once. After all, this pigtail-haired kid is making her friends commit suicide, so she feels no guilt? It doesn’t seem like she didn’t. I didn’t even know that was the only way out. You can never readily say that it was the right thing to do, but in the end, she originally is a naive child, only distorted and altered. It wasn’t a good thing, but it wasn’t something that anyone could pull off.

The child only needed an adult to laugh with and pampered by. If there was only one person like that, just one. No, no. Jude shook his head a little. There was no need to attach a possibility to what had already happened.

“It won’t work soon, but, well, it depends. It’s up to you to justify what’s already happened. Oh, is the tone a little off? Let’s say you overcame it. It’s not a small thing, but it happened between people after all.”

“……I……when I’m in the facility……when I’m in the facility…..sometimes, can you come and see me?”

If a cute little girl with tears hanging in her eyes was denied a request, then he’ll be marked a villain throughout all mankind -Jude shrugged once and nodded coolly. There was no reason not to go, nor reason to not go, but he did not intend to shake his head at the time of hearing the request. Tears streamed from the child’s eyes, and Clara lay down on the side of Jude and buried her head. There was no sound from her shoulders. Maybe it was because she was scolded if she cried out loud, but even though her small hand held the sheet tightly, only the sound of his breath came out instead of the sound of crying.

It was not long after the little sob had stopped again that Jude could call the people outside the hospital room.