What is it like to have someone who occupies a huge part of your life stripped away? Mr. C.B. spent the next brief year deeply experiencing this feeling.
C.B. fulfilled her initial promise. After burying all her memories of Kitano in the soil, she began her plan to travel abroad. And along the way, the emotion she felt most... was emptiness.
No matter where she went, her mood seemed to be frozen on the day she and Kitano had buried the box containing their memories. Faced with new and strange environments, experiencing a free life where everything was finally under her own command... she felt nothing, only an empty heart.
C.B. knew that this was a sign of her not being used to it. After all, he had just passed through her life not long ago. It was impossible for her to forget him so quickly. The loneliness, the emptiness she felt now... was all temporary. Time would eventually help her heal all her wounds, and would also erase the emptiness and loneliness after losing a relationship.
I need to find something in life to fill this void... I can find it. C.B. believed in herself, convinced herself.
...But I never thought you would be so cruel, so eager to... run away from my life, without even waiting for me to kick you out of my home.
"C.B., I don't care where you are, get back to Japan now—Mr. Trainer has collapsed. This isn't a joke."
When C.B. learned that Kitano had collapsed again, this horse girl who should have been determined to leave him, like a homing pigeon, rushed back to Japan from thousands of miles away, back once again to that spring she had always wanted to escape.
"Why didn't you tell me sooner? Why didn't you give me a call even though you've been sick for so long?" Back by his side again, feeling her heart start to beat again, the long-lost emotion C.B. felt was unbearable pain—she looked at the haggard face of Kitano on his hospital bed, his condition no better than before the Satsuki Sho, tormented by his illness. All the emotions in her heart finally erupted.
"What do you take me for?! I'm your only charge! Why didn't you tell me! Why!"
However, faced with the wailing C.B., Kitano, on his hospital bed, covered in various monitoring tubes, so weak he could barely move, finally showed a bitter smile on his face. He replied in a very soft voice, "...If I did that, all your efforts to leave me would have been for nothing, wouldn't they, C.B.?"
His words made the wailing C.B. stand frozen on the spot. He艰难地 (with difficulty) stretched out his hand, and wiped away the tears from the face of the girl who was so close, yet now so hard to touch. He said softly, "You fool... I'm your trainer. How could I not know what you were thinking? How could I not know... that you've been trying so hard to leave me all this time."
When they first met, Kitano had repeatedly told her about their "non-interference" relationship. His life could end at any moment, and he had thought that this way of providing help but not getting too close would prevent his death from affecting her condition one day.
But clearly, he had underestimated the impact of their three years together. If two people could live together in a calm and stable way for three years, then this uneventful life would be a miracle in itself.
Perhaps, from the moment they met, their fates had been intertwined... Even though they had both tried their best to sever this bond in the end, they had only ended up with a tangled mess, a connection that was broken but still connected.
"Don't cry, C.B. Don't cry for me..."
He艰难地 (with difficulty) stretched out his hand, constantly wiping away her falling tears, his mouth constantly repeating blurry words, his consciousness becoming increasingly hazy.
"Don't let me see you sad... I've spent my whole life trying my best not to make you sad. Now that I'm dying, please don't let me... worry anymore."
"You... will get better, right?"
Her eyes blurred with tears, C.B. seemed to feel the strength in his hand getting weaker and weaker. She panicked and grabbed his hand with both of hers, not letting this last bit of warmth leave her cheek. Her voice trembled, like a drowning person trying to grab the last straw. "This time, you'll get better, right? During the Satsuki Sho, your condition was even worse than now. You can get better... right?"
"..."
The hospital room fell into a deathly silence, the most suffocating silence C.B. had ever experienced. She could no longer hear even half a word of comfort from this man who had escaped death several times.
Everything was self-evident. C.B. finally understood and accepted it... She chose to listen to him, just as she had when she was his charge, letting him drive this wind that was her, to participate in the races he wanted her to participate in, to carry out the training he had planned.
Except, the competition had changed from racing to running in the rain. When he said he wanted to see her run freely in the rain one more time, she plunged into the downpour without hesitation, laughing with the loudest laugh she could muster, running back and forth in the rain, laughing.
He asked her to see her favorite kabuki, so she would find the earliest kabuki performance in Tokyo, regardless of whether she liked the show or had seen it countless times. She would watch it intently until the end, even though he was not by her side.
He asked her to eat, so she ate and drank to her heart's content; he asked her to rest well, so she would lie in bed all day, sleeping soundly... She did everything he asked her to do, as always, just because he had asked her to.
C.B. didn't care how bizarre her behavior seemed to outsiders these days. She only knew that listening to him was the only thing she could do for him now. This was the last warmth of spring she could enjoy. Only when she was doing these things could she still feel that he was by her side...
But spring would always pass. C.B. understood this. The last thing she could do was to say her final farewell to this spring that had warmed her.
"...This time... I'm really going, C.B."
"After I'm gone, please don't let me worry... C.B."
"You know I won't let you worry." C.B.'s eyes gently looked at the man before her, who was smiling at her with all his might after a final burst of energy. There was no longer a trace of sadness on her face. The relaxed, dashing smile that he loved most was now, in this moment, as if welded onto her face, never to change.
"I'll listen to you. I'll live well on my own. My road is still long, my life has just begun. I won't do anything foolish."
"I'll eat well on my own, sleep soundly on my own. I'll delete all your contact information and let time slowly make me forget you..."
"...That's good."
She did her best to convey the message that he didn't have to worry about her. But... she didn't notice that on his hospital bed, as he listened to her chatter on, repeating every single thing he had told her, there was not a trace of relief on his face. His sorrow, his worry... had never dissipated from beginning to end.
But... he had no more time to change anything. He was tired... This was all he could do.
"C.B.... I'm sorry..."
"I... still... couldn't... take care... of... you... well..."
With a final sigh full of helplessness, the tired Kitano finally closed his unwilling eyes. C.B. watched as the rise and fall of his chest grew calmer, all his life force returning to tranquility.
"...Are you asleep?"
"I told you, I'm not so easily scared by you anymore. Are you trying to scare me like you did during the Satsuki Sho? I'm not so easily fooled."
"Did you hear me? If you heard me, say something. Otherwise, I'll really think you're dead..."
"...Did you hear me? If you don't wake up... I'm really leaving."
"I'm really... leaving now."
Why... why is she crying? She didn't even feel that heart-wrenching feeling of losing him... But why was she crying?
My heart, why does it feel nothing at all right now? The suffocation, the heartache I had imagined, why isn't any of it happening?
Her heart... what's wrong with it... Why can't she feel pain anymore?
No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't feel the slightest waver in her heart. C.B. was so calm it scared her. She silently wiped away her tears, and finally gently stroked his face, feeling his last bit of warmth... In the end, she stood up, as if nothing had happened, and walked out of the room.
And when she had just walked out of the hospital room and came before Rudolf, she noticed the very obvious, momentary surprise on her face—she knew it was all because of her expression, which showed no sadness, the smile that had never changed in order to not worry him... was the most out of place, strange expression at this moment.
"How is he?"
"...Don't make me say such a cruel fact out loud, Rudolf. Please."
C.B. knew that her current smile was the cruelest fact, and that she, who could not feel pain, was the cruelest person... She had become the person who should have been the least calm, but she still relayed all this to Rudolf, to the person her trainer couldn't let go of most.
"Rudolf, you should accept everything too. He, Mr. Trainer..."
"You monster!!!"
C.B. felt herself being grabbed by the collar by the furious Rudolf, who was screaming. She could clearly feel Rudolf's anger, and she knew even more clearly what she was angry about. If she were in Rudolf's position, she would definitely be just as furious.
...But she couldn't feel it anymore. Her heart felt nothing at all. Even Rudolf's anger couldn't move her in the slightest.
Yes... she got her wish. She didn't feel the pain of his passing. The thing she had feared most, the thing she had been most terrified of, had ultimately not happened.
In that moment, C.B. smiled. She was laughing at herself, at her current state. She had finally become... a person without a heart.
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