During the sweltering summer days in Tokyo, a man dutifully wiped away bodily fluids and bugs that had infested the rotting corpse of his father.

For more than three weeks, he continued this daily ritual at their apartment in Adachi Ward until the stench of the body prompted neighbors to alert the police.

When asked why he didn’t tell anyone about the natural death of his 91-year-old father, the 61-year-old son said he was scared about living alone without his only friend in life.

“I was horrified at the thought of becoming solitary,” he was quoted as saying. “I wanted him to stay with me.”

The son’s trial at the Tokyo District Court ended in early November. He was charged with abandoning a body by failing to report or properly move his father’s corpse.

The son did not contest the allegations, but his lawyer sought leniency, given the circumstances surrounding the defendant’s life.

Explanations by prosecutors and the defense lawyer, as well as information obtained by The Asahi Shimbun, revealed a life of struggle and an inseparable bond that formed between the father and his reclusive son.

MOTHER DIES OF CANCER

The son and his parents moved to the apartment complex in Adachi Ward when he enrolled in elementary school. After attending night classes and receiving his high school diploma, the son sold clothes at a fashion store.

When he was around 20, his mother died of breast cancer, leaving behind the son and father who remained together in the same apartment.

The father had worked producing "yuzen-dyed" kimono fabric, but after his wife’s death, he took a job as a high school caretaker to secure a more stable income.

The son was 28 years old when he quit his job despite being in good health and experiencing no troubles at the workplace.

Unemployed, he rarely left the apartment.

On the urging of his father, the son sought work for two to three years, but he eventually gave up.

Instead, he engaged in household duties, such as shopping, cooking, washing and cleaning. The father eventually stopped asking his son to look for a job.

For 30 years, the family of two covered their living expenses with the father’s income and pension.

However, the father’s health broke down on July 26 this year, even though he rarely got sick.

He would not eat his favorite food, shrimp tempura, and consumed only the cherry tomatoes in his salads.

The son asked his father if he should take him to a hospital, but the father said nothing in return and continued laying on his futon.

Early in the morning on July 31, the son was awakened by the heavy breathing of his father. He watched his father’s chest move up and down, but the breathing became weaker.

The son put his hand on his father’s chest to check for a heartbeat and placed his ear close to the nose to detect signs of breathing.

At 3:30 a.m., the father took his last breath. The son realized that his sole companion for around 40 years was gone.

Wanting to continue the relationship, the son did not tell anyone, including the police, that his father had died.

During the trial, the son’s lawyer asked him, “What did you do first after finding your father deceased?”

He said that he “rubbed his body (with a towel) and changed his underwear and pajamas.”

“I continued rubbing the body every day,” he testified.

When bugs started covering the corpse a few days after the death, the son said he began “rubbing them away as well.”

But eventually, transparent liquid began oozing from the body and spreading to the futon. The corpse was also beginning to stink in the summer heat.

The son put a plastic sheet between the futon and floor and used a deodorant spray to try to conceal the smell and avoid upsetting the neighbors.

But as his father’s body entered an advanced state of decay, the son felt that he was doing “something terrible to him.”

After receiving a report about the stench, police came to the apartment.

Although the son initially refused to show the inside of the apartment, he later said he honestly felt relieved when the police showed up.

The body had been in the apartment for 24 days.

According to his statements to prosecutors that were submitted to the court, the son said about his father’s death, “I could not call an ambulance because I feared that I would really be all alone if I made a report and my dad was taken away.”

GENTLE FATHER

At the first hearing of his trial on Nov. 5, the thin son admitted to the charge of abandoning a body. He stood up straight in a gray sweatshirt and trousers but appeared nervous when he entered his plea of guilty.

According to the son’s testimony, his father rarely showed emotion when he was working in the yuzen fabric industry. He was always gentle and never resorted to violence at home.

The son also recalled his father’s eyes swollen from crying at his wife’s funeral. “We should work together to overcome this challenge,” the son quoted his father as telling him.

And for decades, the father worked outside while the son dealt with the housework.

Dozens of years ago, the father and son traveled around the Kyushu region by train. It was their last family trip.

They were impressed by the abundant nature around Mount Aso in Kumamoto Prefecture and overwhelmed by the sight of Mount Sakurajima in Kagoshima Prefecture. They also soaked in a hot spring in the Beppu spa resort in Oita Prefecture.

Although they were happier when the mother was alive, the son said he started thinking positively about life again.

The father continued working as a school caretaker until the age of 75 while always paying attention to his child’s health condition.

That allowed his son to never feel backed into a corner, he said.

To repay the kindness of his parent, the son said he felt the need to clean his father’s body, and he believed he could show his appreciation by rubbing the face and armpits with a towel.

FEAR OF LONELINESS

During questioning, a prosecutor asked the son, “What would you have done if the police had not shown up on Aug. 24?”

He replied that he “had no thoughts about what to do next.”

“I did not have anyone to speak with, so I would have simply kept things as they were,” he said.

Although he admitted that it was pitiful of him to let the corpse decay and cause problems for his neighbors, he said he had no choice but to cover up his father’s death.

“I feared that I would be thrown into loneliness if the body was discovered by someone else,” he said.

In a number of cases involving bodies kept at homes, family members did not report the deaths so that they could continue collecting the deceased person’s pension payments.

The prosecutor in the son’s case noted that not registering the father’s death could lead to illicitly extended pension payments.

The son said he “realized that possibility only when I was told about it during the investigation.”

In fact, the pension payment for the month following the father’s death was found untouched in a bank account.

The prosecutor sought a one-year prison sentence, arguing that “the malicious case could have resulted in illegal pension receipt.”

But the defense lawyer asked the court to understand the feelings of the son.

“The son rarely interacts with his relatives, and the father was the only person he could talk with,” the lawyer said. “Having no acquaintances or friends, he was extremely lonely. We should not blame him so strongly.”

In his statement to the court, the defendant expressed his “deep regret for having been a really ungrateful son.”

“When I am released, I will soon go to the ward office to pick up (my father’s remains) so that a proper memorial service can be carried out as quickly as possible,” he said.

In the ruling announced on Nov. 8, Judge Tomohide Murayama sentenced the son to one year in prison, suspended for two years.

“I can understand his feelings that registering the father’s death would be horrible because it would have made him totally alone,” Murayama said. “Still, it is unacceptable for him to have left the body for nearly one month without holding a memorial service.”

The son listened to the court’s ruling while standing at attention with his fingers straightened out.

When the judge told the defendant to “hold a proper memorial service for your father,” the son said “yes” in a low voice.

The son said he will continue living in the same apartment, which is full of memories of his family.

“I will look for a job after placing my dad’s remains at the grave of my mother in Hachioji (in western Tokyo),” he said in an interview with The Asahi Shimbun.