Chapter 58

Inside the orphanage, Levio stood in a daze beneath a newly budded tree in the courtyard.

The children were somewhat frightened by his towering stature and foreign features, which prompted him to step outside to process the shock he was feeling.

Whom had he just seen?

Levio thought in a trance.

Did all Japanese people look that much alike? He was already past the stage of facial blindness, but who was that person just now? Was this what the boss meant when he said someone in the orphanage would save him?

It was too terrifying. This had to be the most incredible event of the year; compared to the news that this person was still alive, the resurrection of Takizawa Sei seemed downright dull.

He had blurted out right then and there, "Boss, did even you come back from the dead?"

Yet the information he received later told him that the man with purple-red eyes hadn't been resurrected—he hadn't died at all. Even more mystifying. The world was truly full of wonders. The current boss—whom he had always assumed was a usurper who had killed his master for the throne—turned out not to be cold-hearted after all?

Judging by the way he treated Takizawa, warmth did exist within him, even if it was far less fervent than that of Executive Chuuya. He had originally thought the current boss was merely a vicious dragon guarding its treasure in solitude; but it turned out not to be a precious lifeless object, but a knight determined to protect the dragon. And the dragon did not possess a heart of stone; it had long since been warmed by the knight.

The more he thought about it, the more Levio's mind wandered, to the point where he practically saw the current boss in the flesh.

A lean figure walked past him, and Levio remained indifferent.

Suddenly, the eyes that had appeared so dim beneath the tree's shade lit up with astonishment, and his strayed wits finally returned to his body.

Good heavens, it was the current boss! He was hurrying toward the house in a rush, as if seeking revenge—though that was impossible to imagine given his panicked appearance and frail constitution. What would he do if he tripped and fell?

Levio, indulging in boundless imagination, failed to realize just how fragile he believed Dazai Osamu to be. Perhaps compared to his own unusually robust physique, Dazai Osamu was indeed fragile enough to be knocked unconscious with a single punch.

So what if he was? That did not change the fact that Dazai Osamu was the boss, and he had to obey the boss's orders.

But the former boss was in there too—

Levio thought with a sluggish brain, almost stunned stupid by the facts.

The former boss was in there; could those two coexist peacefully?

***

Takizawa Sei's surgery hadn't taken long. It was far simpler than repairing a ruptured internal organ; he had merely suffered a punctured shoulder, excessive blood loss, and emotional agitation.

Merely?

Could suffering truly be quantified simply because the wound wasn't fatal?

Mori Ougai gazed with a heavy expression at Takizawa Sei, who was sleeping under the influence of anesthesia, feeling a trace of disgust toward his own thoughts just moments ago.

Sometimes he even hated his own way of thinking... especially in front of this person.

He walked out of the rudimentary operating room, weary. Turning left out the door led straight to Takizawa Sei's room in the orphanage. He knocked on the door out of sheer habit before stepping inside.

The room was furnished with warmth; Takizawa Sei was a romantic person.

His romanticism manifested in every aspect of his life, leaving traces of existence in the space he inhabited being one of them. When he was first rescued, the young man seemed immersed in an inescapable blow, drifting through the days as if in a daze. Yet, even so, he kept the room clean and tidy, and had even folded a paper flower to stick on the windowsill to decorate a view that otherwise only showed a desolate, bitter winter.

A wreath woven from rose petals hung on the wall.

Sitting in the room's only chair was a gloomy-looking young man, gazing out the window in a daze.

Outside the window was the warm sunshine of spring.

Mori Ougai spoke, "You don't even have a rare blood type, Dazai-kun, but you really leave no margin for error when it comes to this sort of thing."

Dazai Osamu withdrew his gaze from the outside, his voice sounding somewhat weak. "The fact that there was no rejection is already miraculous enough. After all, as you've said before, the two of us are surprisingly similar in constitution, as if naturally prepared as each other's second body. The probability of that is lower than that of biological brothers."

It was indeed a marvelous twist of fate. Dazai Osamu still remembered how Takizawa Sei had paused after learning this fact. His pause had been strange, as if his attention had been diverted by someone else speaking to him, but immediately afterward, he had rejoiced, saying, "Isn't this wonderful! This arrangement is simply perfect! If you ever happen to miss a kidney, Dazai, I can cut mine out and give it to you!"

Good grief, such a confession was sickening enough to make one's hair stand on end; it felt entirely devoid of romance!

Yet, on another level, it represented the meaning of devotion, leaving one flustered and burning at the chest. They never knew whether tomorrow or an accident would arrive first, yet Takizawa Sei had locked in his course of action well in advance, forgoing even the time to think after the fact, unilaterally considering himself the one who gave.

Mori Ougai shrugged noncommittally. "He'll probably wake up in about an hour. What happened? There are tear tracks on his face. Such a strong person actually cried. Ever since he came back, he has been consumed by sorrow every day, yet even then, he never cried."

Dazai Osamu fell silent.

Even though it was just a casually phrased question, Mori Ougai had the illusion that the young man was being blamed.

Ah, seriously.

He thought with indescribable, complex emotions,

I knew things would turn out like this.

The former boss closed his eyes, as if also feeling a sense of weariness toward the current status quo. After a moment, he said, "Dazai-kun, are you going to stay silent like this?"

"..."

Dazai Osamu looked at Mori Ougai.

His tone was as forlorn as someone earnestly playing a cleared video game, only to have pressed the wrong option right at the start. "I thought leaving him in your care was the right choice."

Mori Ougai twitched the fingers hidden inside his pocket.

"What you said sounds a lot like declaring victory." It probably took a struggle known only to himself for him to use a self-deprecating tone to say, "The answer is obvious. The person he cares about most in this life is you."

Suddenly, a thought struck him as amusing, and his tone rose with a hint of astonishment, "Could it be, Dazai-kun, that you've always thought of yourself as my substitute?"

"..."

Dazai Osamu wore an expression that suggested he had just heard a grating noise.

"Hahahahaha..." Mori Ougai laughed, a sound that could almost be described as joyous. "Well then... no wonder. After all, you've always been unable to understand what principles govern Sei's 'choices,' and you've feared his causeless affection. Because not understanding means not knowing how to replicate it, and not being able to replicate it means you cannot manufacture the opportunity for love to burst forth through scheming. And all these uncontrollable factors point to a single result—you can't hold onto him."

Cowardice, greed, and all sorts of complex emotions struck the man before him.

So what if they did?

Mori Ougai lowered his gaze.

These agonizing struggles could receive a return, because Takizawa Sei loved him unwaveringly.

But after that incident occurred, it was no wonder Dazai would doubt whether his own existence was merely some replaceable spiritual sustenance for Takizawa Sei.

Dazai Osamu looked listless. "Mori-san, speaking in that tone is unpleasant."

"It's fine. I'm not interested in men's gazes."

Dazai Osamu arched an eyebrow meaningfully. "Oh..."

Mori Ougai instantly grasped the meaning behind that syllable, which was slightly different from a normal acknowledgment of speech.

Mori Ougai chose to surrender. "Why choose such an antagonistic way of communicating? I thought that after all these years apart, we would converse peacefully, especially since I should feel a sense of gratitude for not having been killed."

"That tone of reminiscing sounds like an old uncle."

"How harsh. I really am reminiscing with all my heart." Mori Ougai's eyes flashed with a deep gleam. "Reminiscing about that world."

"..."

The two of them tacitly skipped over the topic.

"Those people have come looking for him?" Mori Ougai took the initiative to ask again.

"Yeah, they want to study Takizawa's body."

"His bodily data is somewhat bizarre, but they certainly won't figure anything out," Mori Ougai said decisively. "However, using other methods might be a different story."

Other methods could be summed up as inhumane approaches.

Perhaps testing a person's willpower with pain, testing their vitality with starvation, testing cell activity with corrosive liquids, or using ability technicians to modify that body... In short, there were all kinds of ways to torture a person.

Nothing living was treated gently inside a research facility.

Let alone a miraculous example of "resurrection from the dead."

Mori Ougai walked to the window, watching the sun outside grow increasingly fierce. "Are you planning to deal with them?"

"The chips in my hands feel as though they've been waiting for this day to arrive," the current boss said in a low voice. "Making them back down isn't enough; I want to make them own up to everything they've done."

"..."

Mori Ougai imagined such a scene. "But if you do that... the government's public credibility and global standing will..."

"Mori-san, can you actually tolerate this?" Dazai Osamu raised his eyes to gaze into his face. "Indifferently turning a blind eye to someone who died for you hundreds of times?"

This statement caused Mori Ougai's expression to sink.

"I am sitting in your seat precisely because of this... as both of us know."

Dazai Osamu wore a desolate smile. "Because the things I care about are few and far between. I don't care how Yokohama fares, I don't care about the citizens, and I don't care about myself. I have fundamentally no belief to live by, yet someone unreasonably handed one to me, and I can't even return it."

Mori Ougai felt another urge to sigh. It was precisely because he understood too well that he felt nothing could be changed.

"Sei-kun wouldn't want to see that scene."

"Is that so? But I think you don't understand him well enough," Dazai Osamu said. "You didn't hear his accusations."

Because those will no longer be displayed in front of you.

That unknown past no longer brings a sense of loss for having missed out.

Dazai Osamu thought this, unable to help the smile trying to form on his lips.

Ever since Takizawa Sei returned, the confirmations Dazai Osamu had received were actually very few... Yes, just as Takizawa Sei said, he kept secrets from him.

Weaving peaceful lies, accepting the other's invitations regarding the future with a feeling that would never come to pass.

And now, one of his guesses had been proven right—that Takizawa Sei's return had nothing to do with the government; they were frantically trying to destroy him, to destroy a certain piece of evidence.

Yet at the same time, they coveted him, lusting after the miracle embodied by the dead, greedily wishing to make those things their own. Those impulses conquered their meager fear, because sitting in high positions, they had long forgotten that their lives were just as fragile as ordinary people's.