He awoke to the vague sense of someone calling his name, and finally opened his eyes as the cold stabbed into him. He found himself covered by a blanket with one of Mitsui’s conies looking down at him. It was already fully light outside.
“...?”
“You’ve got a guest, Ougi. Says he came to see you.”
(Me...?)
Still wrapped in the blanket, he managed to leverage his upper body upright through a cloud of fatigue. The morning sun, already well on its way overheard, streamed into the raw materials storage behind the garage. Who could it be? he wondered, rubbing his eyes, as his guest was lead over to him.
Takaya’s eyes widened.
“Narita...!”
“So you were here.” Yuzuru, dressed in ordinary clothes instead of his school uniform, heaved a sigh, his breath white in the morning air. It was already past nine; he should have been at school a long time ago.
“I heard from Kayama and his friends about this place. They said that I would probably find you here because they heard that you’re with some person called Mitsui.”
Dumbfounded and at a loss for a response, Takaya could only stare at Yuzuru in utter astonishment. Yuzuru walked up to him and pulled on his arm.
“Wh-what are you doing?”
“Let’s go. You shouldn’t be here.”
“You gonna take me to school or something?”
“You don’t have to go if you don’t want to.”
They passed Mitsui outside the gate. Mitsui turned to the two of them in surprise. Takaya’s eyes met his for a second, but he had no chance to say anything as an insistent Yuzuru dragged him past.
“Hey, enough already!”
Takaya finally managed to shake him off at a public park a small distance away. Though startled, this time Yuzuru refused to back down. He glared unflinchingly at Takaya, who answered back in kind. He spat, “What the hell are you doing? Who the fuck d’you think you are?”
“You’ll freeze to death sleeping there.” Perhaps it was defiance that lent such strength to Yuzuru’s tone. There was no longer any fear in his eyes. “Do you really want to die this young?”
“Narita... Dammit, why the hell d’you care? What are you angling for?” Takaya demanded.
Takaya’s question silenced Yuzuru for a moment. He stared directly at Takaya. Having those large, clear eyes focused so intently on him was admittedly a little disconcerting.
“Wh-what? Why’re you looking at me like that?”
“You don’t have to go to school if you don’t want to, but you shouldn’t be there. If you go back, I’ll make you come with me to my house even if I have to drag you all the way.”
By ‘there’, he meant Mitsui’s garage. Takaya exploded at Yuzuru’s officious-sounding tone.
“You can’t ‘make me’ do anything.”
Yuzuru’s acorn eyes focused even more intensely against Takaya’s fierce scowl.
“...Even if you’re over there, you’re still alone, aren’t you?”
“...”
Takaya choked on his reply. What the hell was with this guy?! he wondered, truly angry now.
“Shut the fuck up! I told you not to show your face to me again, didn’t I? Or are you not going to be satisfied until I actually beat you up?”
In lieu of a response, Yuzuru glared straight back at him. Takaya involuntarily drew back as that gaze pushed against him almost like a physical force. This was what Kayama had meant. He could think of nothing to fling at Yuzuru’s silence.
Takaya abruptly spun and began walking away. Yuzuru followed right on his heels. He whirled and growled, “Stop following me, or I’ll really punch you in the face!”
“...”
“I’ll knock your teeth out, dammit.”
But Yuzuru only glared wordlessly back at him. Actually, since Yuzuru’s father was a dentist, that probably wasn’t much of a threat. More furious by the moment, Takaya began moving again, determined to shake Yuzuru off.
They were walking down the path along Matsumoto Castle
’s moat when Takaya finally turned.
“So you really wanna get pummeled?”
“Are you—” Yuzuru asked, still glaring at him, “—hungry?”
“?”
Takaya was instantly ravenous. Now that he thought about it, he‘d had nothing since that early dinner at the Sakurais’ yesterday. “Humph,” Takaya scoffed, turning away. “Go eat if you wanna eat. Why don’t you just get back to school already?”
“Ramen—” Yuzuru suggested, glaring at him even more ferociously, “want some?”
“...”
Nonplussed again, Takaya retreated from Yuzuru’s extraordinary, dauntless stubbornness, a palpable force.
(Wh...what the hell is with this guy...?!)
Luckily, Takaya didn’t realize that the intensity which had so shaken him was actually tension from simple, teeth-chattering fear.
Yuzuru put on his fiercest scowl yet. “My treat,” he managed.
Takaya found himself being led by Yuzuru into a ramen restaurant on the street in front of the station without a clue as to how it had happened. Oddly, the place served soba even though it called itself a ramen restaurant, and Yuzuru had him pick the Japanese soba in ramen broth written on one of the boards along the walls listing the menu choices.
The two of them sitting there across from each other, slurping at the soba and not talking, presented a rather frightful sight to onlookers, but neither noticed. Takaya’s wariness towards Yuzuru prickled madly.
(What the hell is he thinking?)
He couldn’t read Yuzuru at all, and it made him edgy. When he had finished eating, Yuzuru put his hands together and gave thanks for the meal.
“What?”
Yuzuru’s acorn eyes grew even rounder when he saw Takaya’s eyes on him. The gap between Yuzuru’s expressions and actions confused Takaya still more.
“What...” Takaya galvanized himself and put his chopsticks down, “... the hell are you planning?”
“Planning? Well, the soba was pretty good, wasn’t it?”
“That’s not what I meant!” Takaya shouted, thrusting himself forward. “Who the hell was asking about how the soba tasted? I’m talking about you! Why do I have to eat with you like we’re friends or something?”
Yuzuru fixed another of his glares at Takaya from beneath his lashes. Takaya twitched.
“My bird...the one who died...”
“???”
“I found her a few years ago by the side of the road. She fell because she was injured.”
“...”
“If I’d left her, she’d probably have gotten eaten by a cat or something. There’re a lot of alley cats around here. I didn’t know who her owner was, so though I wasn’t supposed to keep her, I made her my pet anyway.”
Takaya blinked at him uncomprehendingly. Yuzuru looked confused, as if even he didn’t know what he was trying to say.
Takaya, apparently finally finding an opening, snorted, “Hah. So in your injured bird’s place you’re gonna save me, is that it? Well, thanks so much. Now fuck off.”
“That’s not it!” Yuzuru flared. “It’s just. You’re doing all these crazy things, and I’m worried. Since that night, somehow...”
“!”
Clunk. Takaya kicked back the chair and stood. Yuzuru shivered at Takaya’s glare.
Takaya snarled menacingly, “If you ever talk about that again, I’ll kill you.”
“...!”
Yuzuru’s eyes lifted abruptly, and he stood. “Stop talking like that!” Takaya rocked back. Yuzuru refused to back down. “All this stuff about killing and dying, stop saying things like that! Do you think you become stronger by saying it? You’re totally wrong! It just makes you a coward!”
“What did you say?!” The blood rushed to his dead. Fuck this. Takaya growled, “I can’t take this anymore. Get out the back, Narita. I’m gonna beat you up right here.”
“This place only has one entrance, so it’s not like I can. You’re all bark and no bite...!”
Takaya seized Yuzuru’s collar in one violent movement. Yuzuru looked straight back at Takaya even as he trembled with fear. Tears pooled in his eyes.
“...”
He couldn’t raise a fist.
He thrust Yuzuru away from him and left the restaurant. Yuzuru quickly left money for their meal and chased after him.
“Ougi, wait. Ougi!”
“...”
“Don’t go, Ougi!”
He caught at Takaya’s arm. The expression on Takaya’s face as he turned was one Yuzuru had never seen there before, and he gasped. He thought for a moment that Takaya was actually crying, but his eyes were dry.
“What are you?” Takaya shouted, voice shaking. “Just what the hell are you?!”
He wrenched violently away from Yuzuru’s grip and walked off without looking back. Yuzuru stood where Takaya had left him, dumbfounded.
“Ougi...”
Takaya ignored him. He disappeared into the foot traffic, hands thrust into his pockets. There was such loneliness in his back that Yuzuru could almost hear it cry out. He couldn’t just let Takaya go like this.
“Ougi!”
Yuzuru refused to let Takaya out of his sight thereafter. Takaya, drifting aimlessly, seemed aware of his presence, but didn’t speak to him. He wandered into the game center then out again, followed by several other haunts. Finally at around three in the afternoon, having no other place to go, he went home with Yuzuru still trotting in his footsteps.
Takaya saw a familiar figure at the entrance to the stairwell of his apartment building. The slim, broad-shouldered man was middle-aged and wore glasses. He nodded at Takaya in greeting.
“Kasai-san...”
This man was the Family Court counselor who had mediated his parents’ divorce. He seemed to have been waiting for Takaya, and approached with his usual mild expression. “Hey, it’s been a while. How have you been?”
“Ah, yeah. Er, but why are you...”
Kasai smiled. “I guess your father isn’t home yet? Well, that’s probably a good thing, since I came to see you. I went to your school as well, but they told me you weren’t there...”
“Have you been waiting here all this time?”
“Yes,” he replied, and then noticing Yuzuru behind him, asked, “Is this your friend?”
“Wh...? Er, yeah...”
“Ah.” Kasai greeted Yuzuru courteously. Takaya invited Kasai into the house, but he gently declined.
“Not today. I only came to see how you and your sister are doing.”
“What?”
“Your father appears to have gotten violent again lately, hasn’t he?”
Takaya fell silent at the question. Kasai studied him for a moment, then invited both of them to the park nearby.
Kasai sat down on a bench and quietly took some caramels from his pocket, handing them one each. He was a rather mysterious person who always kept caramels in his pocket, perhaps because he himself really liked them. Miya had given him the nickname “Caramel Man.” Takaya thought it rather childish, but it didn’t seem to bother Kasai. He popped a caramel into his mouth before speaking.
“Actually, I heard about your father from Sakurai-san...”
Takaya looked down, a dark expression on his face. Kasai explained sympathetically, “I saw the same violence in your father a year and a half ago, while I was mediating your parents’ divorce, and I was not really prepared for it. It was very hard on your mother. We knew that she was at the end of her rope from worry. But at that time your father made a firm promise, and based on all the factors, I shared the Court’s judgment that you and your sister should be left with your father. But I was actually very concerned about what would happen after the ruling. The question was whether or not your father would be able to mend his ways.”
“...”
“At that time, your father responded to our counseling and promised to do his best for the two of you. He was crying as he made that promise. I believe he was speaking from the heart. I believed those words, but...” Kasai sighed slightly, looking up at the sasanqua tree beside him. “It’s become difficult, hasn’t it.”
“...”
Takaya spoke, gaze fixed on his feet. “He couldn’t keep it, in the end.”
Kasai and Yuzuru both looked at Takaya.
“He’s always been self-centered. He made Mom cry tons of times. He’s a coward who starts bawling when he falls down because he can’t get up again by himself. And he calls himself an adult.”
Kasai looked somberly at Takaya’s profile. Takaya sighed and closed his eyes.
“I can’t see anything but his faults. He’s so stupid that he just keeps digging himself into a hole. He’s a good-for-nothing bum, and that’s why he calls people names and puts them down. But—” Takaya’s brows drew together. “I guess I can’t escape his blood after all. I was born with his worthless blood running through me...”
His fists were clenched so tightly in his lap that they had gone completely white.
“I wonder sometimes if this blood will turn me into an asshole like him, and I get so scared that it keeps me up at night... Maybe no matter how much I struggle, I’ll still turn into someone as unfeeling as him... That’s when I started to hate this blood that flows in me...and I think I might as well just kill myself before I become him...”
Those last few words were spoken so softly that they were barely audible.
He came back to himself after a moment, wondering at himself and this odd, baseless garrulity. Somehow it always seemed to happen like this with Kasai. Was there some sort of truth serum in the caramels he gave out? Sometimes Takaya really suspected it.
But he had truly wanted to tell someone his real feelings. And he had spoken despite the chagrin he felt at opening his heart to someone for whom he knew he was only a job, one among many such cases.
No, it really didn’t matter who he talked to. The truth was that he had simply had...no one, until now.
Yet Kasai understood his resentment. After a moment of silence, he said gently, “Takaya-kun. You are not bound by your father’s ‘blood’.”
“...?”
Takaya looked up.
“People are... Well, it’s quite true that we could not live without the ‘blood’ given to us by our parents, but how many existences does it actually encompass? Have you thought about that?”
“What...?”
“Your father and mother, their fathers and mothers, and each of their parents... if we follow the line back...you understand, yes? People whose names you don’t know, people going back a long, long way have made the ‘blood’ that flows in you. How many people came together to create your ‘blood’? Do you know?”
“... Kasai-san...”
Kasai gave him another of those gentle smiles.
“Your blood actually encompasses many, many lives, a great sum of them. Which you choose from among them is your own free choice. Isn’t that what people call ‘potential’? You might say that in that case, nothing new would ever be created, but I think that the old gives birth to the new.”
“...”
“You’ve only take a single portion from the Pandora’s chest of potential bequeathed by your father’s ‘blood’ and name. So if you don’t want to become like him, then why not choose the things in your ‘blood’ that are not his?” Kasai suggested, and chuckled. “Otherwise you’d have to be carrying a double portion of your father’s potential, wouldn’t you?”
“Double?” Takaya questioned, and Kasai smiled.
“There’s the portion from your mother as well.”
Takaya stared at Kasai. The same gentle smile was in Kasai’s eyes behind his glasses.
“I don’t think you need to fear your ‘blood’. On the other hand, you must not use being your father’s son as an excuse.”
Takaya felt as if he’d just been stabbed in the back. “I’d never do that!”—he caught himself on the verge of yelling out those words as he realized that in the back of his mind, he’d been using the excuse “because I’m that bum’s son” to stray further and further from the right path. Kasai seemed to know it, but said nothing.
“You’ll be...okay, yes?” he asked, almost in admonishment, before turning to Yuzuru next to him. “If he gets lost, you’ll help him find his way, won’t you?”
Yuzuru looked at Kasai with surprise, then at Takaya.
“Ougi...”
Takaya averted his face. Kasai slowly stood and slipped his hands into his trouser pockets, looking up at the sky.
“If you should see Mitsui-kun, will you tell him for me that Kasai is worried about the path he’s on?”
“You...know Mitsui?”
Kasai turned to him.
“I have been put in charge of him several times. He has done some things which have led to him being placed in protective custody...”
“...”
“He, too, is a difficult young man. No matter how many times someone falls, I believe that we should help them back onto the right path, but... To hope this time, and then to have that hope betrayed each and every time...is truly painful,” he murmured, before giving Takaya and Yuzuru that gentle smile again.
“In any case, I’m glad I was able to catch up with you today. I’ll take my leave now, but I will call your house tonight. Your father should be home by then. I will speak to him,” he promised, and raised his coat collar. “Please do not hesitate to tell me about anything that may trouble you. I will give you whatever help I can.”
“—Kasai-san...”
“Please go home for today, all right?”
Then with a last warm, gentle smile, Kasai walked off.
Takaya’s face fell as he looked after the retreating figure.
“Ougi...” Yuzuru said, but Takaya stood scowling steadily at his feet, lost in thought. Yuzuru fell silent and stood quietly beside Takaya as he brooded with a frighteningly serious expression on his face.
“Narita? Is that really Narita?”
Yuzuru’s head jerked up at the sound of his name. A tall blond boy in school uniform was walking towards them.
“Oh...Kayama...” Yuzuru muttered, and Takaya looked up as well. Kayama, who hadn’t noticed Takaya standing there until that moment, was so flabbergasted at finding the two of them together that he couldn’t think of anything to say. Though...now he recalled that Yuzuru had been absent from school today.
“What are the two of you doing here?”
“Oh...we...just stumbled into each other. Is school out?” Yuzuru temporized, and Kayama frowned doubtfully.
“Yeah,” he answered. “But that’s some strange company you guys keep. I had no idea you even talked to each other.”
Takaya, who had not forgotten Kayama’s role in the incident from several days ago, fixed him with a glare as if to say he wanted Kayama to leave right now. But Kayama was oblivious to the chill in that gaze. “Speaking of which—” he suddenly directed at Takaya, “—hey Ougi, something really freaky happened today.”
“What?”
“Mitsui’s underlings came into the school. They called Yokomori and his lot out and beat them up pretty bad.”
“!” Takaya’s face changed color. “What...did you say?”
“It was damn scary. They were carrying wooden swords, and it was so sudden, y‘know? Oonuki and all the other clowns just stood there like statues. Yokomori and the other two got totally pummeled. The police came and then the ambulance came, and the whole place was just chaos. I think one of ’em was put in the hospital. And I was just like, ’Daaamn,’ y’know?”
Yuzuru abruptly looked at Takaya.
Takaya’s face was ashen, and he trembled all over.
“Ougi, what...”
(He...!) Takaya shot to his feet, unable to restrain himself any longer. (Mitsui!)
The group of young roughs in the garage spun around as the door suddenly slammed open. Ougi Takaya stood at the entrance, panting for breath.
“Mitsui... Is Mitsui here?”
A familiar voice broke through the muttering: “Over here.”
Takaya’s eyes glittered as Mitsui appeared, clad in a leather jacket. He growled, staring straight at Mitsui, “...You had your gang beat up Yokomori and the others, didn’t you?”
Mitsui only looked back at him coldly. Takaya demanded in a snarl, “I told you not to do anything, didn’t I?”
“Don’t get the wrong idea.” Mitsui sat down. “This wasn’t revenge for you.”
“Then what was it?”
Mitsui’s eyes flashed in a deceptively calm face. Takaya unthinkingly jerked back.
“I wanted them to know that under me, there are consequences for stepping out of line. They were warned to that effect, and about you as well. No one’s gonna put a finger to you without an order from me.”
“...!”
“They were punished for breaking the rules. Didja really think that I’m soft enough to take revenge for you?”
Takaya stood staring at him speechlessly. The other young men filed out of the garage at a gesture from Mitsui, leaving the two of them alone within. Mitsui waited until the door closed before asking Takaya, “Speaking of which, I’ve been wanting to ask you. How was the stuff last night?”
Takaya stiffened at the memory. His shoulders quivered.
Mitsui examined Takaya with intense interest, licking his lips. “...Must have felt pretty good, huh? The thinner can’t even compare, I bet?”
“You...”
“Want another? I can get it for you. However much you want, ’til you’re so far in you’ll never get out again.”
Mitsui’s amused gazed was trained on Takaya’s face. He truly found pleasure, this man, in watching others stumble and fall deeper and deeper into darkness. Enjoyed it as if he were some kind of demon, Takaya thought in resentment.
“...!”
The resentment transformed into a prickling sense of danger in the moment he finally understood Mitsui’s true intentions.
Once he found a target, he left them with no escape. He taught them to be criminals, drowned them in vice, reeled them in so tightly that they were left to dangle on his hook with no way out. He truly was a demon from Hell. That was what lay beneath the human skin.
Takaya felt as if he had recognized that which made Mitsui truly terrifying for the first time. Mitsui was the one who had coached him in all of it: inhaling thinner, stealing, blackmail... Mitsui wanted to entrap him, to pull him down deeper and deeper until he could go no further— That was why Mitsui had taken him in.
If he stayed around this man much longer, he would probably never be able to turn back...
As Takaya abruptly turned around to leave, Mitsui’s voice snapped out at him: “I’m not letting you get away, Ougi.”
“...!”
“You’re already a badger in a hole, same as us. Same hole, same boat. You’ve touched the drugs. If I go down, you’re going down with me.”
Takaya turned, hatred in his eyes. Mitsui gave him a thin, sly smile.
“You have nowhere to run.”
It was already completely dark outside.
Warm lights glowed from the windows of the apartment complex. How many hours had he been sitting here on these stairs? Looking down at him, Kayama asked, “How long are you planning to wait for him?”
Yuzuru blew on his cupped hands, his breath white in the chill wind out of the north. The temperature had fallen drastically after sundown. He wasn’t wearing gloves, and both his hands and cheeks were chafed red.
“I don’t think Ougi’s coming back tonight.”
“...”
Yuzuru wasn’t listening. His gaze was focused on the dark road as he tried to warm his hands. Kayama sighed in defeat.
“You’re really weird, you know that? Why’re you waiting for him, anyway? It’s not like you’re friends or anything.”
Yuzuru made no reply. Kayama had been waiting with Yuzuru all this time, but even he himself didn’t know why. Or maybe he had only been struck by the same baffling, anxious concern for Takaya.
“Narita. What the heck are you thinking?”
Yuzuru, silent until now, finally spoke. “Go home if you wanna go home.”
“Wh...”
“I’ll wait here. But can you really just go home and leave someone when he’s like this? Leave someone as close to the edge as he is?”
Kayama had no idea what Yuzuru was talking about. Maybe he was depressed? He peered at Yuzuru’s face, but Yuzuru looked back at him with such frightening solemnity that he unconsciously drew back. Kayama had never seen Yuzuru like this before.
“Can’t you hear his voice?”
“... Narita...”
Yuzuru glowered into the darkness.
(Why am I waiting here for someone like him?)
Yuzuru hugged himself tightly against the cold. He had never met anyone so cuttingly ferocious, so brittle and fragile. He held to his tough act so tightly that he denied that it was all a bluff even to himself. Did no one notice how his heart cried out? Yuzuru could only rage at the people around him.
Even if anyone should hold their hand out to him, he would never be able to simply take it in blithe na?vet?. His heart had been betrayed and wounded too many times, and had closed itself off in fear of the possibility that it could happen again. He had trained himself to suspect, to turn away from even the true hand of friendship. Why did no one hear the lonely wailing of his heart? Why had no one reached out to pull him up?
He had no idea if he could do anything for Takaya. But even so, he wanted to wait—alone, if need be. Wait for Takaya to return, in order to say a few simple words to him: “I can hear your voice.”
For that, he didn’t care how long he had to wait.
Until the night dawned, until the morning came—.
(Why am I doing this for someone like that...?)
This is so stupid, Yuzuru thought as he wrapped his arms around his upraised knees and buried his face against them. He’d be better off ignoring a hoodlum like that. They lived in different worlds. He knew this.
(But...)
The cold wintry wind swirled around him.
Yuzuru bit his lip, hugging his chilled body.