“Is it that soup again? You’re the Captain — does this ship really have so little to eat?”
Luka looked at the tray the Captain had brought and pouted. He picked up the spoon and ate a mouthful of the thin liquid in the bowl, but there was absolutely no culinary joy to be found in it.
Compared to the days when he refused all food, vomited everything, and lived with nothing but an IV drip — the fact that he was picking up a spoon on his own was encouraging. And so the Captain sat beside him, peeling an apple with a small knife that he’d brought along with the tray, and replied.
“Obel was saying — your stomach is more delicate than a newborn kitten’s.”
“That’s because… I wasn’t eating. I’ve been eating for a while now, so give me what everyone else gets.”
“Hmm — should I give you the combat rations the other crew members eat? It’ll feel like rolling gravel around in your mouth.”
“I don’t want that either… Is there nothing besides combat rations?”
“Do you want something whole? Like this apple?”
Instead of answering, Luka stared at the apple in the Captain’s hand. How did you even grow an apple tree out here in space? Maybe it was a synthetic fruit grown through genetic cultivation.
His curiosity grew stronger by the day — but he knew that if he showed that much interest, those golden eyes would light up with delight, so he couldn’t bring himself to ask carelessly. But the desire to eat it quietly got the better of his pride.
“That would be better. This stuff has no taste at all.”
“You’re complaining — seems like you’re starting to feel more like yourself. Alright, try a piece.”
The Captain held a peeled slice of apple up to Luka’s lips. Luka bit into it with a crisp crunch, putting up no real resistance. Sweet, bright juice flooded his mouth, and his eyes went wide.
“It’s a real apple?”
“Was it going to be fake?”
“Genetically cultivated produce wasn’t something my planet dealt in.”
“It’s from a real apple tree, so don’t worry.”
“How do you grow a tree on a ship?”
“If you’re curious, you can go out later and ask the botanist. There’s someone called Ceres.”
“…Every time I ask anything, it’s always ask someone yourself later.“
The Captain silently swallowed a laugh as he watched those grumbling lips chew away. Shortly after, with the meal finished, the Captain looked down at Luka with a more serious expression than usual.
“Luka, the weather is very nice today.”
“…There’s no such thing as weather in space.”
“True enough — but the Aethernos engine is resonating very quietly right now. If it’s alright with you, I’d like to take you to the window for a little while. Would you allow it?”
Luka hesitated. There was a palm-sized porthole near the bed, yes. But what the Captain seemed to be talking about was the large observation window somewhere outside the treatment room.
Going beyond the bed meant entrusting his incomplete body entirely to someone else. That was still one of the enormous fears Luka hadn’t overcome.
If anyone else had made this suggestion, Luka would have glared at them and let loose with don’t talk nonsense. But this was the Captain. The one who always looked at him with warm golden eyes and spoke to him with such gentle warmth.
When he’d said the patient gown was uncomfortable, he’d brought him clothes tailored to his body. He came faithfully every time he ate and spent time talking with him. He paid careful attention to what Luka liked and what made him uncomfortable.
So Luka knew — there was no deceit in those golden eyes watching him. Only after accepting that the Captain had no intention of deceiving or hurting him did he give the faintest nod.
“…I was going to have to start practicing with a wheelchair anyway.”
“No need for that. I’ll carry you now too.”
Luka’s pale blue eyes wavered at the suggestion — something he’d never considered.
“You’ll carry me…? What are you talking about?”
“Borrowing a wheelchair means reporting to Obel. Then Kai, who happens to be around, will probably want to take your measurements for the prosthetics again. And Ivelynsia will add her opinion too.”
Just imagining that level of attention and scrutiny from everyone made Luka’s face burn hot.
“I don’t want that…”
“I know. So let’s slip out quietly, just the two of us. I’ll carry you.”
“……”
Luka looked as though he was thinking it over for a long moment. He could simply say he wasn’t going to leave the treatment room, and that would settle it. But he wanted to see the universe from somewhere with a wide, open view. Above all, he wanted to get out of this bleak place — even just for a moment.
Luka moved his lips, fixed the Captain with a sharp stare, and warned him.
“…If you drop me, I’ll kill you.”
A fairly aggressive way of accepting the proposal. Even so, the Captain smiled slightly, pleasantly.
“That’s terrifying. I’ll carry you with my life on the line.”
The Captain carefully slid his arms beneath Luka’s back and under the back of his thighs. He’d put on a little more flesh since the days of screaming to be killed — but he was still light enough to fit easily into his arms. The Captain lifted him with great care, so Luka wouldn’t feel any shame.
“Nn…”
The sudden sensation of being lifted into the air startled Luka on instinct. In the body he used to have, this would have been roughly the same eye level as when he stood. But now — the simple fact that his feet weren’t touching the ground filled him with fear.
Luka wrapped his left arm tightly around the Captain’s neck. He felt broad shoulders and a steady heartbeat. The Captain’s arms were far firmer and warmer than he’d expected.
“Let’s go.”
The Captain took a step, and the treatment room’s automatic door slid open. Beyond it stretched a corridor Luka was seeing for the first time.
A space covered in the same silver-gray metal as the treatment room. The atmosphere was no different from inside — but the long corridor spread before them gave an overwhelming sense of space all on its own.
“It’s enormous…”
“Hmm — the medical ward is actually the most compact part of the ship.”
“…This is the small part?”
“That’s right. There are much larger spaces elsewhere. We’ll tour them one by one later.”
Perhaps because there were no injured crew members at the moment, the treatment rooms connected along each section of the corridor were empty and quiet. Nothing but the steady sound of the Captain’s footsteps carrying Luka.
Luka pressed his face against the Captain’s neck and shoulder and wore a conflicted expression.
I can’t keep opening up to this person…
He had a reason for bringing him here in the first place. It was only natural that he’d be used according to whatever that purpose was. He knew he should keep the Captain at a distance — so that when that time came, he wouldn’t be left feeling hurt and let down. But it wasn’t easy.
…It’s because his eyes look like the sun.
A man who felt like the keeper of the warm sunlight he used to watch back home. That was why he liked the yellow roses that resembled him. He couldn’t deny the fact that this soft warmth and vitality were the only things keeping him afloat.
…Ugh, I really hate this. I feel like I’m being completely swept up in him.
He shut his eyes tight. He shouldn’t depend on him this much. He didn’t realize in that moment how contradictory it was to think that while clinging to the Captain’s neck.
“We’re here, Luka.”
The Captain came to a stop in front of the largest observation window in the medical ward and said. He sat down by the window, then settled Luka — whom he’d been holding with such care — onto his lap.
“Here — look. This is the path the Nautilus is taking.”
Luka was struck breathless by a view that swept away all the noise in his head in an instant.
“Oh…”
Through the window, the nebula’s red gas drifted in great, undulating waves like enormous silk. Between them, the blue particles expelled by the ship’s engines were embroidered like shooting stars across the dark. It looked like a blue whale gliding through a red sea.
“The Aegis ships can’t see this light. It’s a privilege only those aboard this ship can enjoy.”
For the first time, Luka didn’t feel a sense of dread at the fact that he’d survived. Just for a brief moment, the thought passed through him — if the universe was this vast and beautiful, perhaps drifting through it as a tiny fragment might not be so terrible after all.
There might be a god after all.
He found himself thinking of a being he’d never once believed in. In this wide universe — surely something all-knowing and all-powerful existed somewhere? With so many inexplicable forms of life coexisting, there couldn’t be no god.
Only — to have one’s voice reach that god, you’d have to pray far more desperately.
Perhaps it was only natural that his prayer — offered while performing a sword dance with disbelief in his heart — never reached anyone. In this vast universe, there were surely those crying out to god with far more desperate voices than his own.
“It’s beautiful… so much more than the sky over our planet.”
At Luka’s quiet murmur, the Captain’s arms holding him tightened.
“I’ll show you even more from here on out.”
“There’s more besides this?”
“Much more. The universe is infinite — full of things neither you nor I know yet. When you’re walking again, you won’t be standing at this window but at the highest point of the bridge, looking out to the edge of the universe. I’ll make that happen.”
Rather than responding to those words, Luka only turned the Captain’s uniform button over and over between his fingers. In truth, he still had so much he wanted to ask.
What do you know about me? Why did you save me and bring me here, of all people?
Even if he asked — the answer would probably be the same.
I can’t tell you now. When you’re well, I’ll tell you.
Having been through that kind of exchange so many times, he had come to understand that this man treated his survival as something like a first principle. He still couldn’t fathom why someone with a ship this extraordinary would hold someone as unremarkable as himself in such regard.
