The Lying Counselor’s Eloquent Reasoning - Chapter 59
“It is really bizarre that there is no abnormality in your field of vision, eyesight, or color vision, and the only thing you experience is the shadow of a black cat appearing in your left eye, but I think we have to play it safe and assume that the visual abnormality you’re experiencing is a kind of dissociative disorder, that is, caused by mental stress.”
“Stress?”
“You ran over a cat with your car and it made you feel very uncomfortable, didn’t it?”
“Of course. I was driving along the mountain road as usual, when suddenly I crashed into something and boom! The next thing I know, I saw the black cat’s body blowing up through the windshield. It didn’t leave me with a good feeling.”
“Did you check to confirm what happened to the cat you hit?”
“I stopped the car and searched for it. But I couldn’t find it because it seemed to have fallen over the guardrail and into the woods. So I just left.”
“What did you do with the car you were driving that night?”
“It was spooky, so I got rid of it. Now I drive a different car.”
“I see. You are indeed a rich man, Mr. President.”
Uroma suddenly grinned. From the top drawer of his desk, he took out a small bottle. It seemed to be eye drops.
“I think I understand the story roughly. Please use this.”
“What is it?”
“This is an eye drop that corrects and clears distorted or missing vision. Think of it like image correction software. It is effective for mild visual disturbances such as photopsia, aphakia and flash blindness. And, of course, for things like a cat’s shadow swimming in your field of vision.”
“I didn’t know there was such a drug.”
“Well, it’s not available to the general public. It was never approved as an official medicine because of its side effects.”
“Side effects?”
“It only causes a few unusual dreams. It’s a very mild side effect. The drug was not approved simply because the mechanism of how the ingredients caused the side effects was unclear. It’s perfectly safe for normal use…”
Uroma stood up with the eye drops and handed them to Ryuichi. It was as if he forced it on him half-heartedly.
“Why not try to use it right here on the spot?”
Furthermore, Uroma took the liberty of removing the sealing tape from Ryuichi’s left eye.
“I-I understand.”
Ryuichi was somewhat bewildered, but complied with Uroma. First he opened his left eye and immediately registered the shadow of a black cat in his field of vision, which made him shrivel up and shout, “Woah, it appears here too!”, but then, as if determined, he applied the eye drops that Uroma had given him to his left eye. With great force.
“What do you think, Mr. Akiyama? Do you still see the evil spirit of the black cat?”
“No… nowhere…”
Ryuichi answered, casting glances around. He seemed thoroughly stunned by the effect of the eye drops. Tomomi couldn’t help but wonder if he had used a fishy medicine again.
“I’m glad to hear it. I’ll leave those drops for you. Please apply it to your left eye once a day. Then the shadow of the black cat will no longer be visible in your left eye.”
“Really! Thank you very much!”
Ryuichi bowed deeply to Uroma. He left the counseling room after Uroma said, “Please come back here if you need anything else.”
“Doctor, I bet there’s some kind of nasty trick in those eye drops again anyway. Even if you said it has mild side effects, the truth is that it causes terrible nightmares, right?” Tomomi involuntarily asked.
“No, no. Those eye drops don’t create terrible nightmares. That is the truth. I basically never lie to my clients.”
“Basically…”
“Well, I’m just suggesting that it might be possible in some cases. More importantly, right now??”
There, Uroma sat down again in his office desk chair. As always, a laptop was on the desk at some point. Moreover, it was turned on and the system was up and running.
“Are you searching for some information on the laptop?”
“Well, Mr. Akiyama seems to be a man who is exposed to a lot of things.”
Uroma promptly touched the keyboard and started to operate the laptop. She was curious about what he was doing, so she moved around next to him and looked at the monitor, which showed that he had just accessed a major social networking site. The username of the account on the screen was Akiyama Ryuichi.
“Ah, the guy from earlier, he’s doing this kind of thing, isn’t he?”
Tomomi stretched her neck further and studied the contents. It seemed that he was the president of a company, and there were many pictures of him showing how smooth his work was progressing. Also, he appeared to be hitting the gym regularly to work out, and many of the photos suggested that he was intoxicated by his body muscles.
“It’s a little gross. He’s rich and handsome, but I don’t expect him to be like this.”
Unintentionally, an honest impression leaked out of her mouth. He was an older man to begin with.
“By the way, Tomomi. Recently, because of the rapid growth of social networking services, more and more people are reluctant to take in black cats from animal shelters. I’m talking about overseas, though.”
“Huh, what do you mean by that?”
“Black cats aren’t suitable for sharing on social media since they don’t turn out well in photos. That’s why many people prefer to take in a cat that is not black.”
“Eh, that’s just awful, isn’t it? It’s as if they mistake an animal for an accessory or something.”
“That’s true. It’s really a pitiful story. Even so, black cats have long been said to be a symbol of bad luck… Well, the truth is that it is also a symbol of good luck. Even in Japan, it is used as a mascot for shipping companies.”
“Ah, that reminds me…”
Certainly, if it were only a symbol of bad luck, it would not be used in such a way.
“For me, I would like the black cat to be a symbol of something good rather than a symbol of bad luck. It would be a pity if they were shunned simply because of their black color.” Uroma said as he popped a piece of the tablet into his mouth.