Chapter 35 Useless as a Man
Chapter 35 Useless as a Man
Iryoku lay unconscious beneath the sterile white hospital sheets, his head heavily wrapped in bandages. Gauze covered much of his battered face and arms, with dark, angry bruising blooming beneath the edges of his hospital gown. A thick dressing bound his right forearm where the blade had cut deepest.
A nurse quietly checked his vitals while his parents, Sachiko and Isamu, stood vigil at his bedside. Tears streamed down their faces as they stared at their son, barely recognizable in such a broken state.
An elderly doctor entered the room, his expression heavy as he reviewed the medical chart in his hands.
“Doctor, please... how is my son?” Sachiko asked, her voice trembling.
“Please save him,” Isamu added, gripping his wife’s shoulder.
The doctor looked up from the file, offering a tired, sympathetic sigh.
“He is out of immediate danger. Given the severity of his injuries, he is remarkably lucky to be alive. He suffered multiple lacerations, blunt-force head trauma, a fractured pelvis, broken ribs, and a deep arterial-proximity wound along his forearm. He narrowly avoided bleeding to death. Frankly, his body looks as though he went to war.”
Sachiko’s knees buckled. “My boy...” she sobbed, while Isamu caught her, his own tears falling freely. “Iryoku...”
“However...” The doctor’s tone shifted, growing even more serious. “We ran comprehensive scans of his entire body to check for internal bleeding. During the pelvic examination, we discovered an abnormality. There is significant, historical scarring and trauma to both testicles.”
Isamu wiped his eyes, confused. “What do you mean? Did they attack him there, too?”
The doctor shook his head slowly. “No, this is unrelated to the recent attack. The tissue damage shows signs of having healed years ago—likely during his early adolescence. Do you remember any incident from his childhood? Did you ever see him limping, or notice him suddenly withdrawing from you? Children often hide these kinds of injuries from their parents. When severe bullying is involved, the fear and shame can make them suffer in silence.”
Both parents froze. The air in the room seemed to vanish.
Sachiko lost her footing again, burying her face in Isamu’s chest. “The time… before we moved…” she whispered, a crushing wave of maternal guilt washing over her as the memory clicked into place.
Isamu’s face went pale as the same realization hit him. But he forced himself to ask the question dreading in his mind. “Doctor... will this affect my son’s ability to have children?”
The doctor looked at them with quiet pity. “Damage of this severity typically disrupts sperm production permanently. We will need to run a complete fertility evaluation once he regains consciousness, but I need to prepare you for the strong possibility that your son is infertile.”
Sachiko wept into her husband's chest. Isamu held her tightly, both of them staring through their tears at Iryoku as he lay motionless on the bed.
Neither of them realized they weren't alone.
Just outside the hospital room, a slender woman dressed in neat office attire stood leaning against the corridor wall. Her hair—once long and flowing—had been cut into a sharp, professional style. She had been standing there in the quiet, listening to every word through the crack of the door.
Yui stared down at the small basket in her hands, filled with home-cooked food, sweet cookies, and a simple card that read “Get Well Soon.” Her eyes were hollow, deadened by shock and shame. She had already paid back the money to Iryoku’s parents, swearing never to intrude on their lives again. Yet, after seeing the news broadcast the night before, she couldn't stay away.
The television had shown chaotic footage of a crazed young man causing a bloody riot deep in the neon heart of the red-light district—a zone infamous for gambling, alcohol, and prostitution. The suspect's face had been heavily blurred since he was believed to be a minor, and the anchor described him as a deranged assailant wielding a construction knife in what police called a “violent crime of passion involving a local prostitute.”
According to the report, he had been brutally subdued by a mob of bouncers before being struck by a hit-and-run vehicle. Yet, strangely, the broadcast confirmed zero official arrests; the young man was simply recuperating in a hospital pending police interrogation—a quiet, terrifying testament to who was really pulling the strings.
Yui hadn’t needed to see his unblurred face. The moment she heard that agonizing, unmistakable scream cutting through the sirens—“ALICEEE!”—she knew the truth.
But what truly broke Yui’s heart wasn’t just witnessing Iryoku’s descent into bloodied madness. As she scrutinized the repeated broadcast, her eyes caught a fleeting silhouette in the background of the neon glare—a blurred but unmistakably naked, short girl stepping calmly into a black sedan, escorted by a tall young man.
It was her daughter.
Tears clouded Yui’s vision, blurring the sterile hospital floor beneath her feet. Was this really your choice, Alice? she thought, a suffocating lump rising in her throat.
She turned away from the cracked door and walked down the quiet corridor without uttering a word. She carried the gift basket away with her, leaving no trace of her visit—only taking with her a crushing, unbearable weight of guilt for the false accusations she had once leveled against that broken boy, and the catastrophic ruin her daughter had brought upon his life.
--
“Turning down two gorgeous beauties...”
“You really are a dumb fucking loser.”
“Loser.”
“You deserved it.”
“There is significant, historical scarring and trauma to both testicles...”
“He might be infertile...”
The voices floated through the dark void of my consciousness, overlapping, mutating, and echoing against one another. Slowly, everything stripped away until I was alone in the pitch black—shrunk down into my childhood self again. The helpless little boy being tortured. Crying, completely unable to defend himself, curled into a tight ball on the cold ground. I tried to scream, but no sound escaped my throat...
I gasped, my eyes snapping open as a ragged scream finally tore from my chest.
"Arghhhhhh!"
My vision swam. Where am I? My body felt impossibly heavy, weighed down by tubes, wires, and monitors taped to my skin. My mind was a thick, foggy haze until the sterile white walls and the sharp smell of antiseptic finally registered in my brain.
I was in a hospital room. My torso and arms were wrapped in thick layers of gauze and bandages.
“Alice... you bitch... where are you?!” I snarled, my voice raw and broken. “I almost had you!”
I tried to kick my legs out, but they barely budged. I screamed as I forced them to move, sending a dull, sickening throb of pain deep into my pelvis. Desperate, I tried to lurch forward off the mattress, but something violently jerked me back. I twisted my head around wildly and saw it—my left wrist was locked in a heavy steel cuff, chained directly to the reinforced frame of the bed.
“No! Why?! Why?!” Blind panic and fury completely consuming me.
I swung my right arm, ignoring the blinding agony in my forearm as I ripped the IV lines and monitor leads straight out of my skin. The heart monitor crashed to the floor, shattering and setting off a shrill, continuous alarm. I thrashed violently against the mattress, destroying everything within reach.
“Fuck! Fuck all of you!”
Footsteps pounded down the hall. The door burst open and two young nurses rushed in, their eyes widening at the carnage.
“Sir, stop! Don’t move”
“You’ll reopen your wounds!”
Their words were meaningless noise, drowned out by the ringing in my ears. I screamed from the very bottom of my lungs, blood and spit spraying from my mouth.
“Where is that bitch?! Where is that bastard?! Come out here! I’m gonna kill you all! I’m gonna rip your fucking hearts out!”
Saliva dripped from my chin as I lunged toward therm, pulling against the steel cuff with enough force to tear the raw skin on my wrist. Clang! The metal bed rail shuddered violently as the chain snapped taut, jerking me backward onto the mattress.
But the pain didn't register. Nothing registered except the burning, feverish need to destroy. I planted my bare feet on the floor and forced myself to stand, throwing my entire body weight forward. With a hideous screech of metal against the floor, I actually began dragging the heavy hospital bed frame across the room with me.
“Ahhh, fuckers! I don’t care anymore!” My vision swimming in red. “I’m not a loser! I’ll never be a loser!”
One of them shrieked and stumbled backward in terror, losing her footing on the slick floor and falling hard onto her back. As she scrambled frantically to get away from me, her uniform skirt rode up slightly.
My bloodshot eyes locked onto the sight, a dark, twisted fever catching in my brain. Yoon’s mocking voice echoed relentlessly in my skull: Turning down two gorgeous beauties... You really are a dumb fucking loser.
Something inside me completely shattered. I lunged at her again like a rabid dog chained by the neck, straining against the metal cuff.
“Not anymore!” I spat down at her, my voice unrecognizable, dripping with a feral, unhinged madness. “Never again! I’ll never pass on a woman again!”
I reached my blood-streaked right hand out toward her, my fingers clawing empty air as I thrashed against the chain, completely consumed by the delirium.
“Come here!” I snarled, my mind completely poisoned by Yoon’s echoing taunts. “Come here and let me fuck you!”
The other nurse shook in terror, scrambling backward until her spine hit the wall.
Her scream acted like a signal flare. The sound of more, urgent footsteps thundered down the corridor, and a second later, the room flooded with people. Two uniformed police officers charged in first, followed closely by the elderly doctor and—most devastatingly of all—my parents.
My mom froze at the threshold, letting out a harrowing wail of pure grief as she took in the sight of her son chained to the bedframe, foaming at the mouth like a rabid animal.
“Hold him down! Get him!” one of the cops barked.
Both officers lunged at the bed, their heavy hands reaching for my thrashing limbs. But I was completely lost to the frenzy. Ignoring the blinding, agonizing fire radiating from my shattered body, I lashed out, driving a vicious kick straight toward the lead officer’s chest.
“Iryoku, stop! Please, my boy, stop!” my mother screamed, her voice breaking.
“Arghhh! I’m not useless! I’m not infertile!” I roared back at them, the raw, agonizing truth ripping out of my chest with enough force to tear my vocal cords.
My mother gasped, the blood draining from her face as she realized I had heard everything. But her shock couldn't reach me. My world dissolved into a chaotic, suffocating sensory overload. All I could hear was the relentless, guttural roaring of my own screams—a sound so broken that it completely drowned out my mother's weeping, my father's desperate shouts, and the heavy grunts of the officers as they threw their combined weight onto the mattress, fighting to pin my bloodied, thrashing body down against the white sheets.
Nothing could maintain my calm anymore. Nothing could hold me back...