The weather was cloudy. Not exactly gloomy, rather thoughtful, like a person who didn't get enough sleep but doesn't complain. A light rain hung in the air like a fine net, not so much wetting as reminding of itself. Droplets settled on the glass, gathered into heavy drops, and slowly trickled down, leaving muddy trails behind.
Genzo sat on the windowsill in the hospital room.
One leg was still in a cast, a light, plastic one, hardly in the way. The other was simply wrapped in an elastic bandage but no longer hurt. He pressed his forehead to the cold glass and looked into the distance. The city blurred behind the rain veil: gray roofs, wet trees, rare cars rustling their tires on the asphalt as if creeping.
He remembered yesterday.
His birthday.
He was already seventeen, just like Renji.
His mother came, she arrived by electric train from Tokyo, with two bags. In one were homemade cabbage pies, in the other, warm socks. "Not ordinary ones, heated ones!" she said and laughed. Genzo had never worn such socks but smiled and thanked her.
Pardon brought a huge bag of protein and a jar of caffeine tablets. "For recovery," he said, winking. "And for the soul."
Takamura came with a folder of documents. Without documents, she rarely appeared at all. The folder was thin, but Genzo didn't look into it. Takamura said the cases were closed, everyone who needed to be was punished, and those who weren't needed were forgotten. Genzo nodded. That was enough.
Sua, of course, brought sunflower seeds. A whole sack. And tangerines. And some strange fruits that no one could identify, but Sua swore they were "very good for the back because they grow low."
Miyuki and Mika came together. Miyuki carried a cake, chocolate, with the words "HAPPY BIRTHDAY" and little fighter figures around the edges. Mika carried balloons. Blue ones. Three of them. Because "blue is the color of calm, and you, Genzo, could use some calm."
They sat in the small room, crowded together, laughed, drank tea from plastic cups. Mother talked about working at the post office, how once a cat climbed into a package of books and traveled through three post offices before being found. Pardon talked about how he tried to learn to cook and accidentally set a frying pan on fire. Sua just sat and smiled, occasionally inserting philosophical remarks about how "life is not a sprint or even a marathon, but just a walk where you sometimes encounter puddles."
Genzo laughed then. Really laughed.
And suddenly, now, sitting by the window and looking at the rain, he remembered something else.
That window.
The one that blinked that night. In another part of the neighborhood. The fifth floor, or sixth, he never figured out. He went looking, knocked on doors, went up to the seventh floor. Didn't find it.
Then the fights began. Training. The farm. Underground arenas. Fights, blood, victories, defeats, draws. And the window was forgotten. Erased, like an old scratch on a wall painted over with new paint.
But now it came back.
A rectangle of yellow light against the dark building. Blinking. One, two, three, four, five. Pause. Again. Genzo even closed his eyes for a second, checking if it was a hallucination. No. He remembered. Remembered clearly, like his first fight, like the crack of his first broken bone, like the taste of someone else's first blood on his lips.
"I never did check it," he said out loud. "Totally forgot."
The door creaked.
Pardon entered. He was wearing the same black shirt as on fight day, but now the sleeves were rolled up to the elbow and the collar was unbuttoned two buttons. In his hand, a glass of water. He closed the door with his foot and sat on a chair next to the bed.
"What are you thinking about?" Pardon asked.
"Oh, nothing."
"You're lying."
"A little."
Pardon drank some water, put the glass on the nightstand.
"You know, Genzo, I've been here for two days now. Tomorrow I leave. For the US. Tickets are in hand."
"I know."
"And I keep thinking," Pardon looked at his hands, "why did you quit the fights? You even shook the arena. That day in the stands, I almost fell when your shockwave passed."
Genzo was silent. He looked out the window. Droplets ran down the glass, distorting the world outside.
"I didn't fall," Pardon added, "but I almost did. That was power. Inhuman. I haven't seen things like that even in underground fights, where people bent coins with their fingers and stopped blows with their bare chests."
"That wasn't power," Genzo said finally.
"What was it, then?"
"Desperation. Desperation dressed up as power. They look alike, but they're different things. Power is when you can. Desperation is when you can't not do it."
Pardon frowned but didn't interrupt.
"I don't want to anymore," Genzo continued. "I don't want to prove anything to anyone. Not to my mother, who loves me anyway. Not to my father, who is far away. Not to myself. Especially not to myself."
"Why?"
"Because if I continued, I would lose faith in the future. Not in tomorrow, but in the future as an idea. In the fact that it exists at all."
"And now?"
"Now I don't know if it exists or not. But I don't need to know that. It's enough to just live and not test reality with my fists."
Pardon drank more water. Put the glass down. Picked it up again. Then put it down for good.
"You know what I'll tell you? There's something to that. In your meaninglessness."
"Not meaninglessness. In the refusal to prove."
"What's the difference?"
"A big one. Meaninglessness is when there's nothing. But I have something. I exist. You exist. Mother exists. And even that window I forgot to check."
"What window?" Pardon asked.
"Never mind. Just… one window. In another life."
Pardon didn't ask further. He knew Genzo well enough to understand: if he didn't want to talk, it was best not to pry.
"Alright," Pardon said. "Let's say. But you said it yourself: strength is there, no need for brains."
"That was a joke," Genzo smirked.
"And now?"
"And now I think it's not a joke. Strength is there, no need for brains. Because brains are a brake. They get in the way. They say: 'Stop, think, assess the risks.' But strength says: 'Do it.' I'm tired of listening to strength."
Pardon was silent for a long time. Then he stood up, walked to the window, stood next to Genzo. They watched the rain together.
"Are you afraid?" Pardon asked.
"Of what?"
"That you'll lose yourself in these fights? Or have you already lost?"
Genzo didn't answer immediately. He looked at his hands. At the scars. At the battered knuckles. At the black nails that were starting to grow back but were still ugly.
"I don't know," he said finally. "Maybe I lost it. Or maybe there was nothing to lose."
"That's cruel."
"It's honest. I'm not a hero. I'm not a fighter. I'm just a person who knows how to endure. And one day I realized that enduring is not living."
Pardon nodded. Didn't argue. He hadn't argued at all today, which was unlike him.
"If I had continued," Genzo said, "I would have drowned in that chaos. In the disorder. In the blood you can no longer tell apart, your own or someone else's. And you know what?"
"What?"
"Maybe that's not so scary."
Pardon raised an eyebrow.
"What do you mean, not so scary?"
"Just that. Maybe this chaos is more honest than our real life. In a fight, everything is clear. There are rules, even if there aren't. There's an opponent. There's you. There's victory or defeat. But in life, there's nothing. Only questions. And silence instead of answers."
"And which is scarier?"
"The silence," said Genzo. "Chaos at least makes noise. But the silence just watches."
Pardon sighed. Scratched the back of his head.
"You're a philosopher, Genzo. Can't take that away from you."
"I'm just tired."
"It's the same thing."
They were silent. The rain outside intensified. Droplets drummed on the windowsill, on the roof, on the glass. Somewhere in the distance, thunder rumbled, muffled, like a distant explosion.
"Listen," said Pardon, "I have a proposal. On this last day. Let's go for a walk around the city."
"On what?" Genzo nodded at his leg in a cast. "I'm not a walker."
"Then sit in a wheelchair. An invalid one. I'll push you."
Genzo looked at him. Pardon was smiling, not mockingly, not pityingly, but in a friendly way, with warmth.
"Hahaha."
"What's the matter?"
"Do I look like an invalid?"
"You look like a person who broke his legs and is afraid someone might think he's weak. But I know you're not weak. So roll already, come on."
Genzo laughed. For the first time today.
"Alright. You convinced me."
They left the hospital an hour later.
Pardon pushed the wheelchair in front of him, old, squeaky, with a burnt wheel that kept getting stuck in puddles. Genzo sat in it, tucking his good leg under him, and looked around. The wind gently hit his face, moist, salty, smelling of spring and wet leaves.
"Listen, Genzo," said Pardon, going around another puddle. "What do you dream about?"
"I don't know. Nothing."
"You're lying again."
"Alright. I dream of going to an island. Just not a real one. A non-existent one."
"How so?"
"An island of full roses. The one that never was. Everything blooms there, even the air is red. And no people. No fights. Only roses and silence."
Pardon thought.
"Beautiful," he said. "Only, I think I've heard that song."
"Maybe," Genzo smirked. "But songs don't lie. Only people do."
They rode past an old park, past a closed café, past a bridge under which a dirty city river flowed. The rain had almost stopped, only rare drops fell from branches and eaves.
"And I," said Pardon, not stopping, "had a story too. About fights. Did I tell you?"
"A little."
"Want to hear it?"
"Go ahead."
Pardon sighed. Adjusted the wheelchair, pushed it forward.
"I was, well, nineteen then. Already. I participated in underground fights in Osaka. Illegal, of course. We rented a hangar outside the city, set up a ring, gathered spectators. Paid in cash, no documents."
"Classic," said Genzo.
"Yeah. Anyway, one day the organizer came up to me. A serious guy, with hands like shovels. And he says: 'Pardon, there's a job. You need to throw the fight.'"
"Throw it?"
"Yeah. Lose on purpose. Put on a good fight, but fall at the end."
Genzo turned his head.
"To whom?"
"To a grandmother. A disabled woman. She was the mayor's wife."
"So…"
"So," nodded Pardon, "those bastards decided to put on a show. The grandmother was tired of sitting at home, she wanted some thrills. And some smart guy suggested: 'Let her get in the ring! Well, not exactly get in, let her be wheeled out in a chair. And let her beat some fighter.'"
"And you agreed?"
"I didn't want to. But they paid me. Well. And they said: 'Don't hit her, just roll around, fall nicely. Cheer the woman up.'"
"And what happened?"
Pardon stopped at the bridge railing. Looked at the water below.
"Nothing. I got in the ring. She sat in the wheelchair, small, shriveled, with a wrinkled face. But her eyes… she had the eyes of a person who had already seen everything. And was afraid of nothing."
"Did you hit her?"
"No. I pretended to attack, and then I fell. Like I was cut down. The spectators laughed. Thought I'd tripped. And she wheeled over to me in her chair, leaned over and said quietly: 'Thank you, son. You gave me a day.'"
Pardon fell silent.
"And what did you feel?" asked Genzo.
"Shame. And relief. At the same time."
"That's a strange feeling."
"Yeah. Since then I understood: fights aren't always about strength. Sometimes they're about weakness. Someone else's. Which you have to accept as your own."
Genzo nodded.
"You know," he said after a pause, "I have a story too. About Fukuoka."
"Go on."
Genzo leaned back in the wheelchair. The wind tousled his hair.
"I was about ten, I think. My father took me to the mountains. I don't remember exactly where. Some village in the lowlands where fogs stand even during the day. A master lived there. Fan Li. He was fifty-six then."
"Chinese?"
"Yes. But he lived in Japan. Taught the local guys. He said that strength is not in muscles, not in bones, not in a punch. Strength is in the ability to be empty."
"Empty?"
"Yeah. He said: imagine you are a vessel. If you are full, nothing can enter you. But if you are empty, the world itself will fall into you."
Pardon thought.
"Strange philosophy."
"Maybe. But he was strong. I never saw him fight. But everyone knew: if Fan Li stood up, no one would remain standing."
"And what happened to him?"
"He died. A year ago, I think. Or two. I don't remember. When I left there, we didn't keep in touch anymore."
"Why did you leave?"
"Because I didn't understand. I was a child. I needed fists, not emptiness. I wanted to win, not to be a vessel."
Pardon chuckled.
"Funny. You looked for fists, and found strength. Then you looked for strength, and found emptiness. And now, it seems, you've found yourself."
"I'm not sure," said Genzo. "But at least I've stopped lying."
They moved on. The wheelchair squeaked, the wheel splashed in puddles, Pardon sometimes cursed when the wheel got stuck.
"Do you remember Raiden?" Pardon suddenly asked.
"How do you know about Raiden?"
"Sua told me. He knows everything about everyone. He says you trained together under Fan Li."
"We trained," nodded Genzo. "He was older than me. Angry. Restless. Fan Li said Raiden had too much pain inside. That he could either become great or break."
"And what happened to him?"
"I don't know. I left after three or four years. Raiden stayed. The last I heard, he fought on the streets. And didn't lose."
"Was he a good friend?"
"I don't know. A friend? We were just together. We ran together in the mountains. Froze together at night. Hit bags together until our hands turned to meat."
"That's enough to call someone a friend."
"I suppose."
They reached the bridge. Underneath it was empty: no people, no cars, no dogs. Only silence. And the river, dark, oily, slowly carrying its waters to nowhere.
Pardon stopped. Positioned the wheelchair so Genzo could look at the water.
"Beautiful," he said. "Peaceful."
"Yes," answered Genzo. "Eternal silence. There's nothing here."
"Nothing… is that bad or good?"
"It just is. Nothing. Without judgment."
Pardon leaned against the railing. Lit a cigarette. The smoke mixed with the fog rising from the river.
"You know, Genzo, I'm glad we met."
"Me too."
"You changed me. I don't know for better or worse. But you changed me."
"Is that good?"
"I don't know. But now I can't live the way I used to. It's not good or bad. It just is."
"Just is," repeated Genzo.
They stood under the bridge for a long time. The rain had completely stopped. Only the wind softly blew in their faces, and silence embraced them like an old mother who expects no answer.