Chapter 62

Takizawa Sei woke up precisely at twelve o'clock. Whether it was worth mentioning or not, he actually possessed the peculiar ability to control his own sleep, likely due to his brain's subconscious calculating the passage of time.

He got up on tiptoe, without turning on the lights or waking Osamu Dazai, who was deep in rare slumber. Instead, he quietly reached under the bed, retrieved two painkillers, and popped them into his mouth. Waiting for the annoying, dull ache to subside and making sure he hadn't broken out in a cold sweat, he knelt on the floor, lazily leaned over the edge of the bed, poked Dazai's hand, and softly called out, "Dazai... Dazai?"

With that call, Takizawa Sei switched on the bedside lamp, which cast a dim glow.

Osamu Dazai's breathing shifted instantly, and then he opened eyes that seemed entirely devoid of sleepiness.

He woke up with remarkable speed, realizing his whereabouts the moment consciousness returned, leaving no trace of haziness in his gaze.

"I'm hungry," Takizawa Sei said, resting his chin on his hands and looking down at him. "What are we having for lunch today? Should we go out, or have Ryoryo-先生 send something up to us?"

Deciding what to eat every day was a matter of utmost importance in life.

The green-eyed young man's hair seemed dyed a warm golden hue by the lamplight. Osamu Dazai froze for a few breaths before covering his face. "I'm dreaming."

"Dreaming? What kind of dream? Do you want me to help you recall it?"

A wonderful dream, currently in progress.

Osamu Dazai felt an urge to curl up under the covers and stretch. His hair became even more rumpled from the shifting, obscuring his expression indistinctly. "For lunch... let's have grilled eel rice, from that suburban shop called Wakamatsuya."

"Alright!"

Takizawa Sei let out a cheer, grabbed Dazai by the arm, and hauled him up. "Now, immediately, go pick out a handsome coat from the wardrobe and pair it with a pair of luxury shoes!"

The two of them quickly got themselves sorted, dressed in as casual a style as possible. Takizawa Sei had long since found Dazai's black suit an eyesore. Sure, it was handsome and suited his temperament well, but wearing it every day gets boring! Besides, high-end custom suits always shared the same series of styles with only minor differences in details, so even when Dazai frequently changed clothes, to anyone not paying close attention, he looked entirely unchanged.

"This one, this one!" Takizawa Sei pulled a pale turquoise shirt out of his own wardrobe. "Chuuya gave this to me!"

Osamu Dazai: "..."

His expression unmistakably radiated the words "disgust" and "aversion."

"Fine..." Takizawa Sei pulled out a pink-tinted jacket instead. "The Idiot Bird gave this to me!"

Osamu Dazai: "...Are we planning to moonlight as host club boys?"

"Aren't you a slender, aloof, and handsome man?" Takizawa Sei teased. "Though this color does seem a bit too flashy indeed, so let's go with this one."

He rummaged out a rather unique camel trench coat. "I've wanted to say this for a long time—when you picked this out, you must have loved it. Our builds are pretty similar, do you want to see if it fits?"

Half an hour later, the two men were fully armed and geared up for an outing, leaving Tachihara Michizou, who had come along to protect them, wearing a dazed expression.

"J-Just like that... going out?"

He almost blurted something else out, but managed to clamp his mouth shut in front of the boss. Dutifully, he escorted them onto an inconspicuous minibus, then sat stiffly opposite the boss.

Behind him sat Hirotsu-先生 and one of the Port Mafia executives, Ozaki Koyo—both elite, heavily armed personnel of the organization. Tachihara Michizou wondered distractedly why he had been granted such a level of importance. The number of times he usually got to see the boss could be counted on one hand, and situations where he directly accepted orders from him were pitifully rare. Yet today, he had been roped into executing a classified mission.

Escorting the bigwigs of the Port Mafia to a destination completely unknown to him.

Tachihara Michizou cast veiled glances at the two men across from him, his gaze lingering particularly on Takizawa Sei.

His appraisal wasn't actually hidden very well. Perhaps the hoodlum vibe clinging to him was simply too prominent, or perhaps because the Port Mafia wasn't a rigid place where such a degree of curiosity fell entirely within acceptable tolerances, Tachihara Michizou unconsciously ended up staring straight at Takizawa Sei.

The man who had died and come back to life, whispered about in endless rumors throughout the organization.

Like the boss, he wore bizarre bandages, yet his body was intact with no missing limbs, and his mental state appeared sound. Most importantly, Osamu Dazai's behavioral compass gravitated toward him.

In other words, if this person was a good person in a broad sense, he wouldn't bring about incalculable threats. He wouldn't let Yokohama's underworld run violently amok, nor would he allow lurking beasts to bare their fangs.

"What are you looking at?"

A voice made Tachihara Michizou's mind chill.

He realized he was locking eyes with a pair of calm green orbs.

How strange. Just moments ago, this person had looked completely harmless and gentle, lacking even the intimidating aura possessed by the boss. Yet now, he projected a vigilant gaze crackling with a blatant threat.

"Apologies, it was rude of me," Tachihara Michizou blinked awkwardly. "I was just feeling a bit nervous and curious... stepping out of line, I'm sorry."

No one would be happy being scrutinized like that.

"A newcomer who joined the Port Mafia in recent years?"

"Yes."

"No wonder. You haven't seen me, don't know me, and don't understand me." The young man in light-colored clothes crossed his arms, leaning back against the seat with the corners of his lips twitching upward as if recalling something amusing. "Do you all think I'm some kind of bewitching monster?"

Tachihara Michizou twitched the corner of his mouth.

Haha, exactly.

The lower-ranking members were indeed gossiping like that, though "monster" was used as an adjective rather than a noun, referring to the fact that he was a man like a monster.

"That's just an exaggerated way of putting it. Seeing you in person makes me realize..." Tachihara Michizou's gaze was filled with a sort of fearlessness, "...makes me realize you're just a gentle person."

"Is the word 'gentle' meant to describe a mafia member?"

"Not everyone in the mafia is a lunatic."

"And you? What kind of existence do you think the mafia is?" Takizawa Sei looked at him with vested interest. This newcomer had a noticeably youthful face, striking and flamboyant bright orange hair, and a truly impressive amount of nerve.

Hirotsu Ryuro, sitting in the driver's seat, felt this might be a fatal question. But Tachihara Michizou had sworn an oath before the boss, after all; surely he wouldn't give too outrageous of an answer.

The orange-haired youth looked at Takizawa Sei with a bewildered expression. "Well... it's not bad?"

"..."

"Hmph." Osamu Dazai let out a soft laugh upon hearing the answer. His gaze pierced straight past Tachihara Michizou. Because it was so icy and silent, it made the military intelligence spy planted in the Port Mafia feel a spine-chilling sensation of being completely seen through. Uncomfortably, he scratched his head, thinking to himself that he couldn't have slipped up anywhere, right?

This was just their first formal encounter, and he hadn't even done anything yet. If his cover was blown right now, that would be utterly absurd! Was his undercover skill really that abysmal?!

He looked toward Takizawa Sei and saw that the green-eyed young man was no longer paying attention to him.

The other had pulled out a fountain pen he carried with him and was writing something in a notebook.

"Are you working?" Tachihara Michizou blurted out impulsively.

"Hm? Of course not, I'm not that severe of a workaholic," Takizawa Sei laughed. "This is just a personal memoir, that's all."

So that his memories wouldn't gather dust on some day in the future.

He would force himself to reminisce every single day.

***

First, they went to eat grilled eel rice, and then, entirely at the beck and call of the boss, they headed to the destination he had in mind.

The car stopped in a spot with pleasant scenery.

This location formed almost a diagonal opposite to the orphanage in Yokohama, except that the ocean wasn't easily visible from here, and the area was busier and livelier than the vicinity of the orphanage. Takizawa Sei and his group appeared plain and ordinary, drawing no attention from anyone.

"Come with me, Takizawa."

Takizawa Sei followed slightly behind and to the side of Osamu Dazai. In truth, he was quite accustomed to walking side by side with people; within the Port Mafia, his rank had never been higher than Osamu Dazai's, and the unwritten rule of the Japanese workplace dictated that, aside from leading and receiving guests, one must never walk ahead of a superior.

However, Takizawa Sei didn't care about such things in the slightest. He even dared to throw his arm around the shoulders of the esteemed Six-Eyes sorcerer from the jujutsu world; worldly rules could never become an obstacle for him.

Yet now, in front of outsiders—

Takizawa Sei took two quick steps forward and casually fell into step beside Osamu Dazai.

He tugged at the cuff of Dazai's sleeve and pointed toward a grilled fish stall by the street. "I want to eat that."

The eel rice he had just finished seemed to have been completely digested. "And I want that too."

He pointed again toward a vending machine next to the stall, where several rows of sodas and coffees were neatly lined up. "And then I want to buy that—"

His finger shifted toward a handicraft stall.

An elderly woman with white hair was stringing seashells with nimble hands, her stall covered in all kinds of hanging trinkets.

Tachihara Michizou followed numbly behind them, paying for everything because he held the lowest rank among them—a mere ten-man commander in the Black Lizards, making him the most suitable candidate for running such errands.

So it really was just an outing.

The boss of the Port Mafia and his friend out for a spring stroll? It was so down-to-earth; who would have guessed that the boss used to prefer breeding mold and bacteria inside that office!

And the final destination they reached on foot was a sanatorium.

Realizing who might be inside, Takizawa Sei came to a halt.

They showed the administrator the proper visitation request documents. The administrator's expression shifted slightly, revealing a look of mingled awe and agitation. "So it's you... Please, follow me."

From the outside, this sanatorium did not look luxurious or grand; in fact, it appeared somewhat shabby. Yet the interior was nicely decorated, with clean and orderly rooms. Takizawa Sei stood on the corridor of the courtyard, where bare, unsprouted branches intertwined overhead, allowing fragments of sunlight to filter through the gaps and fall upon him.

Spring sunlight is warm and not dazzling at all.

Several middle-aged people were sitting blankly in the courtyard. Through those vaguely familiar facial features, Takizawa Sei was still able to recognize who they were.

There wasn't a single scar visible on their exposed skin, yet Takizawa Sei remembered what they had looked like—on the brink of death, covered in blood, and suffering excruciating agony.

Distant, sealed memories rushed toward him like a tide. For a moment, Takizawa Sei didn't know whether he should approach. His emotions were undeniably finite; for some people, it wouldn't matter even if they never met again, lacking even a shred of loneliness. Yet meeting them now—that indescribable emotional stirring almost brought tears to his eyes.

"They have no surviving family left, and that experience left their spirits exceptionally fragile, making it nearly impossible for them to live in normal society again. So I tracked them down and sent them here."

Osamu Dazai's voice sounded from behind him. Takizawa Sei raised a hand to cover his face, unaware of what a complex expression he was wearing at that moment.