The Captain stood watch until Luka’s breathing evened out, then quietly left the treatment room. The moment the door closed, the gazes of three people waiting in the corridor fixed on him.
The Captain’s face — which had been twisted with anguish while watching Luka — went blank in front of the three of them, as though he were a man incapable of feeling anything at all. Though his voice still carried plenty of his characteristic, unhurried humor.
“You’re all looking awfully fierce. Why the gathering.”
Even trying to break the tension with his usual brand of humor, the cold atmosphere didn’t budge. Obel, the head of the medical center, let out a short sigh and asked.
“Speaking of which — you’ve been coming in far too often. Did we have to increase the medication dosage again?”
“No. I was just there with him.”
“The patient’s body is rejecting all food intake. The moment anything enters his stomach, it comes right back up. That means he has to rely on IV drips for nutrition as well. Someone in that condition needs complete rest. Coming in and out like this isn’t good.”
The Captain only shrugged, as if it were nothing but a tiresome lecture. Watching him refuse to take it seriously, Vice Captain Ivelynsia — who had been standing beside them — spoke up as though she could no longer afford to wait.
“Captain, it’s already been a week. The Aegis pursuit unit is still following behind us. Leaving the bridge unattended and coming to the treatment room every night like this — it’s not sound strategy. Obel is more than capable of handling this alone.”
At that, Obel chimed in with a simple “Yeah, he’s right.” The Captain clicked his tongue, thinking, so they all came together just to argue with me.
“Tch — Ivelynsia, this isn’t a matter of strategy.”
“Then is it a matter of morality?”
“Don’t think in such black and white terms.”
“But I don’t understand this situation. I genuinely cannot believe that keeping a boy alive with all four limbs severed is truly what’s best for him. He screams every night begging to be killed. It would have been better if, back on that planet—”
“Watch your words.”
The low, threatening voice froze the air in the corridor in an instant. The easy, unhurried composure he’d shown moments before vanished entirely. Ivelynsia pressed her lips shut. Even Obel glanced sideways, reading the room. Kai, who had been standing in the corner fidgeting with a mechanical component in hand, had no choice but to mutter and speak up quietly.
“Ah, the vibe right now is really… Look, Captain. Anyway, I’ve already started on the — the nano-chrome frame work. Whittling down the adult-scale prosthetics to fit the boy’s measurements. But there’s another problem.”
Kai projected a hologram into the air. It was a neural map displaying the inside of Luka’s body.
“Obel did a solid job on the neural repair, but it looks like Luka’s brain is going to reject the prosthetics.”
At those words, something deeper settled into the Captain’s eyes.
“What do you mean, reject them?”
“The signal saying I don’t want to live is too strong — the nanobots can’t find their path, they’re just wandering. In plain terms: if he himself has no will to have limbs, then no matter how incredible the prosthetics I build are, they’re just dead weight. Lumps of metal.”
Obel acknowledged Kai’s point.
“Kai’s right. What Luka needs right now isn’t nutritional supplements or painkillers — it’s a tomorrow. The stomach rejecting food is psychosomatic anorexia. He’s trying to erase himself from the world.”
The Captain could see at a glance that the biosignals showing up in Luka’s neural map were different from those of the other healthy crew members. The light flickered at barely a faint pulse.
No will to live. No desire. Even if the finest prosthetics were attached, it seemed like he’d use those heavy, mechanical hands to strangle himself.
He found himself thinking that perhaps Ivelynsia was right. Maybe saving Luka had been his own selfishness. But he couldn’t give up now, having come this far. It was a life saved through selfishness — and so he would see it through to the end.
“I know you all have plenty of questions and plenty of grievances. But right now, focus on Luka’s recovery. I’ll explain everything afterwards.”
The Captain had never made a choice without reason. At least these three knew well enough how exceptional he was — so even if his choice didn’t make sense to them, they couldn’t refuse it. At the end of the day, on board the Nautilus, the Captain’s word was law.
“Kai. Can you move up the timeline on the prosthetics?”
“Hmm — I’ll try. But if I rush the assembly, there’ll be functional side effects, so I’ll dial back the performance settings a bit.”
“Just get him walking. I’ll handle the rest.”
Then he turned to Obel.
“Obel, I’ll be looking after Luka myself for the time being. Both the medical machines and you — unless it’s a critical situation, keep a little distance from him.”
“Well, if you say so, Captain.”
This time his gaze went to Ivelynsia. She looked worn down by the heavy workload of managing the bridge in his place. Her usually neat, clean bob was disheveled every which way, and her lips were dry and cracked. Most telling of all, the uniform she always liked to wear crisp and perfectly pressed was creased with wrinkles all over.
In any case — if all of his focus was aimed at saving Luka and getting him walking, then whatever he inevitably let slip had to be handled by Ivelynsia.
“Ivelynsia, anything you find difficult to judge on your own — report it to my personal channel. I’ll do my best to handle my responsibilities even from outside the bridge.”
Whether just reducing the need for independent judgment was enough to ease the load, her expression lightened.
“In that case — may I contact you during your sleeping hours as well?”
“Of course.”
“Thank you.”
The three of them looked fairly satisfied, as though gathering to confront him like this had yielded results. They offered a brief farewell, indicating they would no longer push back against his decision.
“Call me if you need anything.”
“I’ll report progress right away!”
“I’ll reach you on your personal comm port this evening.”
And with that, the three disappeared to the far end of the corridor — and only then did the Captain’s gaze turn to the closed door of the treatment room.
He thought of Luka, on the other side of that thin metal wall, fighting his pain alone in the dark.
Don’t give up.
Those were words he’d said to Luka — but they were equally a vow he made to himself.
I won’t give up.
He wanted Luka himself to know, above all else, that giving up on Luka would mean losing the worth of his own life as well. Until that day came, the Captain would not give up a single small thing about Luka. Not ever.
All five of Luka’s fingernails had broken, and his fingers were wrapped in medical bandages. The blood that never seemed to dry showed through the bandages in vivid red.
“Hngh…”
One day, as he struggled and scraped at the bed railing as he always did — the treatment room lights brightened to the lowest setting, and the Captain entered. He rolled up the sleeves of his clean shirt as though he had simply been waiting for Luka’s suffering to begin.
“Starting up again.”
The Captain sat at the head of the bed and pressed steadily down on Luka’s trembling shoulders to hold them still. Then he took out a warm, damp cloth and a lightly scented oil he’d prepared in advance.
“It hurts…”
To Luka’s murmuring, the Captain whispered gently.
“It hurts because the nerves have lost their way. Your brain is being deceived.”
“I don’t want this, don’t touch me…”
“It’s alright. I’ll make it hurt less, so just trust me a little.”
“Stop, go away…”
The Captain paid no mind to Luka’s refusal. He began to stroke the severed edge of his right shoulder and the area near his thighs with the warm cloth — very, very softly.
“Nn, nngh… it hurts, it hurts…”
The wounds themselves were healed, no trace of injury remaining on the severed edges — yet Luka still suffered from agonizing pain. It was most likely phantom pain. The mere absence of limbs from where they should have been was enough to send the brain crumbling under the weight of false agony.
“Hngh, hk…”
He cried, unaccustomed to someone touching his body like this. And yet he didn’t push that touch away. It hurt — but perhaps the pressure grounding the pain, holding it firm, gave him a sense of steadiness.
“Hah, hah…”
The ragged, heaving breaths seemed to settle a little. The Captain looked into Luka’s tear-wet face.
Through the dark hair that had fallen across it, a gaunt face was visible. The glimpse of features showed how much weight he’d lost — hollow, haggard. Beneath his eyes, deep shadows lay heavily.
His lips, chapped and peeling, were pitiful just to look at. As Luka parted them halfway and wheezed labored breaths through them, even the Captain’s golden eyes — watching quietly — wavered with compassion.
It was a cruel thing to say, but Luka had to overcome this through his own will. If he didn’t, his body and mind would be even more broken than they were now.
The Captain, who usually kept quietly by his side and simply wiped him down with a warm cloth, did something a little different today. It was because, after confirming with Obel that simply watching over him wasn’t the right answer, he’d felt that he had to do something — anything.
“This ship’s name is the Nautilus. I’m the one who owns her.”
Those pale blue eyes, heavy with exhaustion, turned toward the Captain slowly. He’d expected Luka to say he had no interest in any of this, to tell him to get out right now.
“……”
But today, Luka was quiet. That stillness looked far more at peace than when he was convulsing and begging to be killed.
