"The Night When Fingertips Lie" Chapter 6 (Final Chapter) - 3: Prismatic Dawn [Creative Award 2026] #Romance Novel Category

Chapter 6 (Final Chapter) - 3: Prismatic Dawn

The long, heavy night had ended. Mitsuki's voice from last night, beast-like, played over and over in the back of my mind.
I could do nothing but hold her as she cried out so frantically.
As a doctor, as a surgeon, I have witnessed countless harrowing scenes and numerous crises.
Seeing blood, being covered in it, and dealing with patients screaming in pain—it is my job to handle these things calmly and swiftly.
Yet, why can I not do that with Mitsuki? In front of her, my fingers, my very fingertips, are just those of a man. There was no trace of the composed doctor left.
I let out a long breath in front of the mirror. After a light kiss on the forehead of the sleeping Mitsuki, I headed to the hospital.

Since that day, Mitsuki and I have continued our unchanging daily routine. We sleep side by side, and when morning comes, we exchange a "good morning." We have trivial conversations, cook meals together, and sit at the table. Then, we both head off to work... that was the cycle.
The only thing that changed was that we no longer shared each other's skin.
Ever since I saw those frantic tears, I could no longer enter Mitsuki.
When we shared our bodies to mourn Yosuke, I thought the boundary and the solid wall between us had collapsed, but it was only my reason that had broken. On the contrary, it still stands before me as a massive wall. Yosuke, do you still refuse to forgive me...?

Ever since we found the sketchbook containing Yosuke's final message, Mitsuki's heart has closed off once again. She shows signs of being frightened by my voice and my gaze. That sketchbook has not been returned to the shelf in the atelier; it remains on the table.
The once-pristine cover has faded from Mitsuki's tears, and parts of the pages are warped and wavy.
I have been thinking constantly about how to unlock Mitsuki's closed heart again.

"...Shall we go return Yosuke?"
That day, I sent a LINE message to Mitsuki from my desk in the on-call room.
"Understood."
A single, business-like reply arrived. I had sent it prepared for rejection, but the response was simple.
No emotion could be felt from those words. It only quietly spoke to how deep and heavy Mitsuki's emotional wounds were.

A few days later, we were at that sea. We were there to return Yosuke to this sea, his sanctuary.
The December sea was gloomy and stagnant. Occasionally, a cold sea breeze caressed our cheeks.
We walked along the beach together, looking for a place to leave the sketchbook. Just then, my eyes caught the faint outline of a black shadow moving between our two shadows.
...Yosuke? I felt it intuitively. I called out to Mitsuki's back.

"Sorry, Mitsuki. Just, the restroom..."
As I met Mitsuki's gaze—a look that seemed to ask, 'Why now?'—
"...I've reached my limit, sorry," I said, repeating the line from before, and walked away quickly.

The moment I stood in the shadow of the breakwater, out of Mitsuki's line of sight, the black shadow from before stood beside me.
...It was Yosuke. The same face, the same build as me. Yet, Yosuke remained as he was back then, without the warmth of a living body, quietly staring at the water's edge.
My throat gulped.
The words I had once shouted in that private room, terrified of the late Yosuke's grudge, raced through my mind.
"Witness my resolve. I will not let Mitsuki take a single step into the curse you left behind. I will pull Mitsuki out of this quagmire of yours, no matter what."
That declaration of war I made to you back then... this is the answer to 'Challenge accepted'...?

"...Did you come to laugh at my resolve?"
As I muttered this low, Yosuke's phantom slowly turned toward me. His expression was neither angry nor mocking; it was as calm as this sea.
Yosuke said nothing. He simply lifted his right hand slowly and held it out to me.
Clutched in his fingertips was an old, worn-out pencil.

A pencil with a rounded, shortened lead.
...There is no doubt. It was the very pencil Yosuke used to draw Mitsuki's hand at the end, leaving behind the words, "Always, with you..."

"All I can draw is that hand. From there on, you draw it."
I felt as if my brother's wordless gaze was saying just that.
Yosuke hadn't appeared to mock my declaration of war or my resolve.
He had come to admit his defeat as a man, yet, wishing for Mitsuki's happiness more than anyone, he had come to entrust the continuation of that future to me—the one who loved the same woman and shared the same blood.

"—You lose, Yosuke."
As I said this, I placed my right hand over Yosuke's. A phantom that shouldn't be touchable. Yet, I could clearly feel the freezing cold and the heat of my brother's soul, which surpassed it, in my palm.
"...I couldn't save you... I'm sorry..."

At those words, the pencil slipped from Yosuke's hand and fell onto my fingertips.
"I will look after Mitsuki's heart and body. I will take on all the pain and guilt you left behind with these hands. ...And I will live the future beyond that with Mitsuki. ...That's alright, isn't it? Yosuke, no... brother..."
For the first time, I called him brother. As I gripped the pencil tightly, as if to break it, Yosuke's lips curved slightly, yet satisfied.
It was as if he were answering "thank you" to the name I hadn't called since we were separated in childhood.
At that moment, a strong sea breeze blew through. Yosuke's figure vanished into the white foam of the receding waves. All that remained was the sound of the waves washing in and out.

I gently open my palm. There, the short pencil remained in its physical form.

"You're late, Kaito-san."
Mitsuki, clutching the sketchbook to her chest on the beach, turns around and smiles. Her eyes reflected nothing of the miracle that had just occurred.
"Sorry. I was in a rush and went to the wrong place."
I touch the pencil in my coat pocket with my fingertips, confirming its outline.
Yosuke is gone now.
I walk toward Mitsuki, stepping firmly into the sand with each step.
"Sorry. I'm sorry for keeping you in the cold. ...It seems my body's processes went haywire again."
I wrapped my palms firmly around Mitsuki's chilled fingertips as she gave a small, soft laugh.

The Ivory house was quiet and still when we returned from the sea.
Mitsuki's profile, having returned Yosuke to the sea and reached a point of closure, was calm, as if a spirit had been lifted, yet it still held a glass-like fragility that might shatter if touched.
Watching Mitsuki sit on the atelier sofa, lost in thought, I headed to the bedroom.

I opened the closet door and slowly pulled out the top drawer of the two-tier chest inside. I put the pencil away from my coat pocket. Then, I shifted my gaze to a small box next to it.
—There, wrapped in high-quality velvet fabric, was a small box. The box containing the ring I would give to Mitsuki.
Today is December 24th. Yes, it's Christmas Eve.
I had secretly prepared this to propose to Mitsuki on this day. I had told the hospital staff not to contact me for anything today.
If I were to take this box and present it to Mitsuki right now, there would be nothing more romantic. But—

The image of Mitsuki, crying so violently she hyperventilated and was so deeply wounded, flashed through my mind. Precisely because I love her, I should not intrude any deeper into her heart right now. For now, the priority is to keep her wounded heart alive and tethered. To that end, what I must do now is—

I opened the bottom drawer. Inside were many palm-sized square sterile packages. The familiar, ultra-fine blue nylon thread that I had practiced tying with, day and night, without rest, during my residency.
—This is it!

"Mitsuki."
At my call, she turned around quietly. I took the medical package from my pocket. The ultra-fine blue suture thread that I, as a doctor, have held countless times to save human lives.
As Mitsuki watched with a puzzled look, I knelt before her and gently wrapped her left hand in both of mine.
That night, when she collapsed on the high ground by the sea. I was bathed in Mitsuki's blood, begging for her life like a madman. From that moment on, I had decided to protect Mitsuki for the rest of my life.

I tore open the notch with practiced hands. From the holder that appeared, the vivid blue nylon thread slid out smoothly. It was about 45 centimeters long.
Normally, I would use specialized instruments, but I chose to manipulate the thread with only my fingertips, sliding it smoothly onto Mitsuki's thin, white ring finger.

"This is a suture thread used in surgery. It is my life itself. It stitches together torn wounds and keeps life tethered."
While looking straight into Mitsuki's eyes, my fingertips manipulated the blue thread with the precision ingrained in my body.
"I won't prepare a ring yet. I will wait until the day you truly, from your heart, choose me. At least for now, let me connect you and me with this thread. I will stitch together the pain you left behind and the guilt that won't fade, over and over again with these hands. So, won't you live and walk the future beyond this with me?"
In the corner of my vision, the ultra-fine thread crossed without a single error, tightened firmly at the base of Mitsuki's ring finger, leaving a solid, certain sensation. A surgeon's knot—a surgical knot that would never come undone.

I placed my fingertips, which had been resting on the knot, over her trembling hand.
"...Promise me one thing."
I stared back into the depths of Mitsuki's tear-filled eyes, as if to carve my sincerity and all my resolve into them.
"That you will never lie again."
Let's end it for both of us—the day I held you as an act of atonement for Yosuke, and the lies where you act tough and hurt yourself alone. These fingertips of mine will never deceive you again.
With those final words, I quietly cut off the excess thread with scissors.

What was tied to my ring finger was not a cold ring, but a vivid blue thread.
While staring into my eyes, Kaito-san's long, knobby fingertips manipulated the ultra-fine thread as if dancing.
"...Will you live and walk the future beyond this with me?"
The moment I heard these words, I felt my heart and the pain in my chest lighten instantly. And for the first time, I felt like I had truly heard Kaito-san's voice.
He deliberately did not use the word 'marriage.' He wasn't trying to bind me with that word. He was trying to hold onto me, the wounded me.
And he is prepared to live and walk with me beyond the '...always, with you...' of Yosuke's final message.
What deep affection he has. Everything about it is so precious that large tears spill from my eyes.

"...Just one thing, promise me. That you will never lie again."
Kaito-san's voice fell straight into my ears.
--Ah, the night my fingertips lie has ended now.

With my vision a mess of tears, I take his hand that is layered over my fingertips.
Instead of saying 'yes,' I squeezed his hand back, hard.
As if to swear upon this blue thread that will never come undone again.

(End)

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