Day 1 of the Escape
Even after escaping back to Okayama, I kept an eye on my father through the security cameras.
Unfortunately, the kitchen camera—the one I wanted to see the most—had broken.
It had been acting up for a while, but now it was completely dead.
Part of the kitchen was barely visible from the living room camera, so I watched him from there.
For dinner, he heated up some rice in the microwave and ate the soup I had prepared in advance.
"Well, at least he managed somehow..."
I had been worried that he might simply stop eating, so I felt relieved.
Day 2 of the Escape
I started the morning by observing my father.
For breakfast, he had natto, rice, and some mysterious soup.
At first, I thought it was the cabbage soup I had prepared, but later I discovered that none of that soup had been touched.
It was probably because it contained vegetables.
My father hates vegetables.
It seems that the mysterious soup was simply miso dissolved in hot water without any stock or seasoning.
Fortunately, he has no sense of taste, so that apparently wasn't a problem for him.
The rest of the day was business as usual.
He played online Go, took naps, and carried on with his normal routine.
Meanwhile, the exhaustion from the past month suddenly caught up with me.
I was unbelievably sleepy.
I had planned to watch the TV programs I had recorded, but every time I noticed, the program had already ended.
I kept falling asleep and losing consciousness until evening.
When I checked the living room camera, I saw bags of peanuts and rice crackers on the table.
Apparently, that had been his lunch.
Later, the camera showed him carrying his dinner into the living room.
Dinner was yakisoba with absolutely no ingredients.
This is bad...
I need to make him cook some rice.
I called him.
"How are you doing, Dad?"
"Well, somehow I'm managing."
"Dad, you had rice crackers for lunch, didn't you?"
"Hahaha... you can see that? I ran out of rice."
"There are frozen udon noodles in the freezer, vegetables in the refrigerator, soup, bread—there's plenty of food.
Please eat properly."
"Yeah, yeah. I'm doing fine."
"You haven't eaten any vegetables at all, have you?
There's vegetable juice in the cupboard. Drink that.
It has fruits in it too, so it tastes good."
"Where is it?"
After a long conversation, I finally succeeded in getting him to drink the vegetable juice.
"The kitchen camera is broken.
If you move the spare camera into the kitchen, I can teach you how to cook rice."
"I see."
I could tell from his voice that he thought it sounded troublesome.
"Just try it tomorrow."
Day 3 of the Escape
I called him in the morning.
"How are you doing, Dad?"
"I ran out of rice."
"If you move the camera, I can show you what to do."
"See that round camera next to the telephone?
Unplug it, take it to the kitchen, and plug it into any outlet there."
After many twists and turns, we finally managed to move the camera into the kitchen.
After struggling for about thirty minutes, he successfully cooked rice.
"He'll survive now."
At least he wasn't going to starve.
Still, I worried about him, so I decided to return to Nagano one day earlier than planned.
Perhaps because I felt relieved, I became sleepy again.
Day 4 of the Escape
I neglected my surveillance duties that day.
"As long as he has rice, he'll survive."
Hang in there, Dad!
That evening, my father called me.
"F, is that you?"
"What's up? Everything okay?"
"Well... I was worried because I hadn't heard from you."
I think that was the first time my father had ever called me.
When my mother was healthy, she would sometimes talk to me on the phone and say,
"Let me put your father on.
Hey, Dad! It's F! Answer the phone!"
But he would never come to the phone.
And even when he did, it was usually something like,
"F? I can't hear you very well, but ******"
before handing the phone right back to my mother.
I always felt that talking with me on the phone was something he found bothersome.
"I was worried because I hadn't heard from you."
The way he said it made me feel that he was genuinely worried about me.
"That's my line.
I'm fine.
I've decided to come back on Sunday.
Just hang in there until then."
"You're coming back?!"
"Yep, Sunday evening."
He sounded genuinely happy.
Tomorrow, I'll return to Nagano.
And what I found there...
will be the subject of the next article.
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