Chapter 61

Some of the children here turned out to be the offspring of his former friends.

Hearing this news, Takizawa Sei could almost vividly picture the scene of the massacre.

Perhaps "friend" was not quite the right word to describe them; they were comrades, individuals who had shouldered hardships together. Though their interactions had never been deeply intimate, having shared the exact same trials fostered a mutual understanding, a quiet comfort in realizing they were not entirely alone.

"Where on earth did Dazai find all these people...?"

As far as Takizawa Sei knew, those people had scattered to various places long ago, and their hometowns extended far beyond Yokohama.

"Could it be..." Takizawa Sei muttered to himself, "did he expand the search to welfare institutions across the entire country?"

They decided to leave the orphanage the next morning.

The children found the sudden addition of adults endlessly fascinating, and they were so excited that they stayed up very late. They took to Chuuya quite quickly, perhaps due to his relatively modest height, or perhaps because Chuuya possessed a captivating aura that naturally drew them in.

Anyone meeting Chuuya for the first time would generally consider him a man of elegant refinement, yet he occasionally revealed a deeply childish side. Around children, his patience, his keen sense of style, and his refusal to treat them like fragile glass made him exceptionally skilled at winning over the little rascals.

"I imagine they just like your ability."

Hearing the uncommonly noisy bedroom, Takizawa Sei pushed the door open to find a cluster of excited little radishes floating near the ceiling.

Takizawa Sei reached up and plucked one down, noting that they weighed practically nothing, like feathers. "This is getting out of hand, Chuuya! You're thoroughly enjoying this, aren't you?"

Surrounded by the kids, Nakahara Chuuya was clutching the spoils they had used to bribe him—some snacks they had hidden away and private toys—and said with a triumphant smirk, "What’s the matter? Are you jealous that your top spot in their hearts has been usurped?"

"Jealous? Of the kids, or of you?"

Nakahara Chuuya choked on his retort. "So cheesy!"

With that, he patted Takizawa Sei's shoulder, and the next second, Takizawa Sei found himself involuntarily lifting off the floor.

"Wait! Wait, Chuuya! This makes me so dizzy!"

"Panicking over this? Didn't we do this all the time back then?" The gravity manipulator playfully tormented his old friend. "After all, your combat skills were forged right alongside mine, and there were times when we charged into battle as partners."

Floating right in front of him, Takizawa Sei made a few helpless, flailing gestures before giving up entirely. He wrapped his arms around a child who had drifted close to him, pinching the youngster's flushed cheeks as he remarked, "The last time I saw you do this was in the old world, when we were celebrating your promotion to executive candidate. You drank quite a bit of wine that night and then sent me, the Piano Man, the Surgeon, and Foolish Dog all flying up to the ceiling."

Reminded of that embarrassing episode, Nakahara Chuuya frowned guiltily. "You should be grateful I didn't send you all the way to the moon, Sei!"

"Hahahahaha..."

After the commotion died down, Takizawa Sei ordered the children to hurry up and get to bed, warning them that if they overslept the next morning, they would miss his farewell ceremony.

"Aw—Sei-nii, are you leaving tomorrow morning?"

"I have to, people have work to do, you know."

"I know! Adults have to find their own meaning in life and can't just stay cooped up in one place!" Having lost their parents, they seemed to have learned at a very early age not to be overly clingy. "The director told me that if a person has no meaning in life, they're like a bird locked in a cage—not only can they not spread their wings and fly, but they'll actually die of depression!"

Mori Ougai had apparently delivered quite a vivid life lesson to the children who had realized Takizawa Sei's prolonged absence.

Reluctantly, the children ran over to share parting hugs with Takizawa Sei one by one. "You have to come back and visit us the next time you have a holiday!"

Takizawa Sei repeatedly promised he would, then stepped outside with Chuuya. Leaning against the door as it closed, they flashed bright smiles and chorused, "Goodnight, bye-bye!"

It was an unusually peaceful night for the mafia.

Takizawa Sei threw an arm around Chuuya's shoulder and lowered his voice. "Care to grab a drink?"

"You think there's alcohol in a place like this?"

"Of course not, so we're going to drink water."

"Tch." Nakahara Chuuya obediently let himself be pulled along by the shoulder. Takizawa Sei's weight gave him an inexplicable sense of reality, a comforting reassurance that the person who had supported him for so long had finally returned after a prolonged absence. "You slept plenty during the day, are you suffering from insomnia now?"

"Spot on."

With the gravity manipulator's assistance, Takizawa Sei landed softly on the rooftop. At that moment, he felt as though he were being gently carried by the wind, walking on freedom while holding his friend's hand.

"Come on, tell me, did Dazai give you any missions related to me?"

Nakahara Chuuya wore the expression of someone who had known this conversation was coming. "What on earth did the two of you confess to each other?" He shuddered slightly. "Hearing the words 'mackerel' and 'confession' used in the same sentence is deeply unsettling."

"So he *did* give you a special assignment, then?"

"Naturally. It's an ability experiment after all, and I'm quite familiar with that field." Nakahara Chuuya sat beside him on the sloped roof, pulled a bottle of the sweet milk the children had used to bribe him out of his pocket, and routinely handed a bottle to Takizawa Sei. "The military police's Hunting Dogs are the strongest warriors modified by ability technicians, which means there were plenty of failed prototypes before them. Dazai asked me to look into the specific details of those experiments back then—heaven knows how difficult that stuff is to track down. Why didn't he just ask that guy working in the Special Ability Department?"

"Ango? His ability certainly lends itself well to that kind of work, as long as there are items left from the laboratory..."

"The answer is that the laboratory was blown up, thoroughly and completely. So I have to hunt down the files that were smuggled out before the explosion." Nakahara Chuuya pulled his knees up, adopting a rugged posture. "It happened several years ago, though. The trail went cold long ago, and piecing it back together will take time."

"So..." Takizawa Sei said softly, "do you all suspect that my return is the result of an ability experiment?"

"That is one working hypothesis." Nakahara Chuuya made no attempt to hide it. "Do you remember anything? Dazai is terrible at keeping things to himself; if he had just asked you directly, the person involved, it might have saved us a lot of trouble."

Inside Takizawa Sei's memory, there was only the blinding glare of incandescent lights, bound hands and feet, and the echoes of wailing.

His own perception of the experience was entirely blank.

There was a theory that the brain automatically blocks out pain that exceeds a certain threshold and erases memories of agony as a defense mechanism, preventing a person from literally dying of pain or going insane from it.

Takizawa Sei rubbed his bandage-wrapped neck, deep in thought.

Perhaps it was true, and this world had bestowed upon him a logical explanation to mask the truth of his resurrection.

In that case—

"What if this state can be reversed?"

Remaining stagnant was the greatest taboo of all.

Nakahara Chuuya lightly struck his chest, his raspy voice brimming with such raw sincerity that Takizawa Sei could almost physically feel the searing, burning emotion behind it. "We won't give up on you, Sei."

"Never."

...

Did you hear that?

The soul kept company by you is calling out—

—He is saying, don't leave me behind ever again.

***

Upon returning to the Port Mafia, Takizawa Sei's workload suddenly exploded, keeping him buried in paperwork for three whole days and nights before he managed to half-deadly drag himself away from his desk to claim some rest.

And the leader who had subjected him to such crushing pressure used the excuse of "So much work has piled up just because you took a single day off," leaving Takizawa Sei with a subtle sense of undeserved guilt and a frantic urge to condemn him.

"Doesn't your organization have anyone else?! Why is there so much work left for the boss to do?!"

Instead of answering, Dazai Osamu stood up with effortless grace. "Let's go, Takizawa, we're heading out!"

Takizawa Sei's torrent of accusations instantly derailed. "Huh? Huh?"

"Just kidding. Actually, you finished a week's worth of work in three days." Having also endured those three grueling days of overtime with him, and having given his brain zero rest outside of eating and sleeping, Dazai Osamu allowed himself to look wilted for all of three seconds before flashing the excited, anticipatory expression of someone inviting a friend on an outing. "Didn't I tell you?"

The dark-haired young man looked at him with eyes full of gentle affection.

"I'm going to show you what I've been working on."

"I understand." Composing his expression into a serious mask, Takizawa Sei approached Dazai Osamu, grabbed his arm while he waited expectantly, and hauled him toward the bedroom, brooking no argument. "However! None of that matters compared to your health. Let's get a proper night's sleep. It's still early, we can sleep until noon, until our stomachs feel empty, and then get up!"

Dazai Osamu allowed himself to be dragged away, his eyes wide with mild astonishment. "Time is precious, you know. Are we really just going to waste it like this?"

"Is it really a waste?"

Takizawa Sei looked back over his shoulder. "If you talk like that, you make me feel like our time together is limited."

"..."

"How could spending time with you ever be a waste? Life isn't only about creating value while you're working. Besides, we don't need to rush; what you're working on isn't going to turn into soap bubbles and float away. Unless... you suddenly don't want to show it to me anymore?"

Dazai Osamu was convinced. Admittedly, after years of continuous, crushing pressure, his brain had grown somewhat neurotic, eventually reaching a punishing point where it refused to allow him any rest.

What would happen if he rested? Perhaps some predatory organization would invade, perhaps someone would sneak into his office and put a bullet through his head, or perhaps he would lose the lives of his subordinates—he refused to allow his decisions to falter due to carelessness.

Pushed into the bedding by Takizawa Sei, Dazai Osamu stared straight up at the ceiling.

The bed in the boss's office was quite luxurious, yet for a long time, no one had used it.

A rustling sound came from beside him as Takizawa Sei laid out his own sleeping mat on the floor.

Finally, a soft sigh broke the quiet, and Dazai Osamu turned over, his dark hair sinking into the soft mattress as he gazed sideways at Takizawa Sei, who was already settled in.

"Takizawa," he called out softly.

"Hmm?"

There were only the two of them in the room, and that quiet murmur seemed laden with unspoken meaning.

Yet after a moment, Takizawa Sei heard no continuation of whatever Dazai Osamu had been about to say.

Understanding dawned on him, and rather than waiting for a follow-up that had likely never been thought through—or perhaps had never existed at all—he reached up to click off the dim bedside lamp. "Lights out. Go to sleep, and I'll wake you when the time comes."

The gentle, almost imperceptible sound of steady breathing drifted through the air.

If he wanted to, Dazai Osamu could even control his own sleep.

When Takizawa Sei had first realized this, he had coldly dropped sleeping pills right into Dazai's water glass in front of him.

"I expect you to get a deep, dreamless sleep."

Dazai Osamu had swallowed that drugged glass of water without changing expression.

And so now, even though Takizawa Sei still couldn't be entirely certain whether he would wake up early or if Dazai's sleep would remain perpetually light, he still said it: when the time comes, I'll wake you up.