Chapter 18

Live on, live on.

He had said that as long as one lived, there was a future.

"I'll help you find him." Chūya Nakahara caught up with Kamiki Yūhaku. He didn't try to stop him, only followed behind him.

Kamiki Yūhaku didn't stop walking or even spare Chūya Nakahara a glance.

"Does he have a name? That crow, is he called Little Crow?" Chūya Nakahara tried to strike up a conversation with Kamiki Yūhaku.

"Is there a problem?"

"...No." Chūya Nakahara looked into Kamiki Yūhaku's smiling eyes. He didn't know how Kamiki Yūhaku felt right now, and he couldn't tell whether his smile was an act.

No one could see through Kamiki Yūhaku. His methods were too bizarre, and the joy or even sadness he showed on the surface couldn't express what was in his heart.

Kamiki Yūhaku turned his head and looked at the moon in the sky. As he walked with Chūya Nakahara beneath the dim streetlights, their yellow glow fell on his white hair, catching in flecks of light, as though his entire body were luminous.

Pale and hollow.

"Little Crow is someone who grew up with me, I suppose, even if he is a crow." Kamiki Yūhaku's voice was light and insubstantial. "He's helped me a lot, but occasionally he gets angry and runs away from home like this, too."

"Honestly, what am I going to do with him? He's like a willful child."

The important thing Chūya Nakahara took from those words was that Kamiki Yūhaku cared about That Crow.

The crow was perceptive and didn't seem to obey Kamiki Yūhaku completely. Sometimes, he disapproved of Kamiki Yūhaku's extreme methods, and he would get angry when Kamiki Yūhaku left himself covered in injuries. When that happened, Kamiki Yūhaku would obediently bandage his wounds and go looking for him.

So Chūya Nakahara ventured, "If you don't want him to leave, how about taking better care of yourself?"

"If you keep going like this, your body won't be able to take it."

"You're human, you have a life. If you keep this up, one day you'll..."

"Die?" Kamiki Yūhaku smiled and turned to look at Chūya Nakahara gently. "Mr. Nakahara, do you think death is a terrible thing?"

Chūya Nakahara stood still, looking at him. "Isn't it?"

"To me, reality is far more painful than death." Stripped of those gentle tones that didn't belong to him, Kamiki Yūhaku's natural voice had a clear quality to it. His precise enunciation made him sound somewhat indifferent. "Mr. Dazai feels the same way, doesn't he? He thinks living is a terrible thing."

"That bastard Dazai..." Chūya Nakahara frowned. "His values and outlook on life aren't the same as ordinary people's. Don't learn from him."

"Of course." Kamiki Yūhaku spoke calmly. "I would never commit suicide."

Chūya Nakahara stood there, unsure what to say, but he knew Kamiki Yūhaku meant it.

"In that case, why do you..." Keep doing things that made his future ever more difficult?

Whether it was going to France to destroy every organization conducting human experiments or returning to Yokohama to keep searching for those left from the French Concession back then, even openly opposing the government, the way things stood now, Kamiki Yūhaku was clearly determined to fight the government officials who supported artificial abilities until one side was dead.

He had no organization, no backing, and no family. He was all alone. For the government, wiping out a lone wolf who posed a threat to it would require no deliberation at all.

"Mr. Nakahara, if you were in my position, would you choose to let it all go and calmly embrace a new life?"

Chūya Nakahara said nothing. After a moment, he frowned. Though he had an answer, he didn't want to say it.

If it had happened to Nakahara Chūya, he would most likely have chosen to let go, just as he had still hoped the Port Mafia would spare the Sheep after they betrayed him and stabbed him with a poisoned dagger, and just as he had chosen not to meet his parents when he received news of them upon being promoted to executive.

Chūya Nakahara was always too kind, always too hard on himself.

"That's the difference between us, I suppose," Kamiki Yūhaku said. "Their greatest mistake back then was taking me as a test subject and letting me survive."

"Kamiki..."

"Because I won't live in the future. I'll always be trapped in the past." Kamiki Yūhaku cut Chūya Nakahara off. "Until I've cleaned up the past completely, I'll never move forward."

"People have to move forward to keep living." Chūya Nakahara still wanted to try.

Kamiki Yūhaku smiled and shook his head. "I can't."

"People have to forget their pain to move forward. Like my parents: they worked hard to forget their pain, so after separating, they each had a new family and, later on, new children. They cast aside those sad memories, and I, as the source of that pain, was abandoned along with them. Of course, that's perfectly normal too. In your eyes, that's the right choice."

"But sometimes, I want to know what it feels like not to be abandoned."

"I can't help it. All I can do is remember my own pain and hold on tightly to my past self." Kamiki Yūhaku smiled gently.

Just like that, he decided his own fate so lightly, saying things that made Chūya Nakahara's heart tremble.

He said, "Mr. Nakahara, everyone but me has left me behind so many times already.

"Mr. Nakahara, does a painful past have to be abandoned?"

He was like a lone traveler hanging over a cliff, with only a small branch keeping him from falling. His hands gripped a rope tightly, suspending himself from it, but the other end was looped around his neck.

He was trying to save himself, yet harming himself instead.

Chapter 18

[Recognition increased to 86%]

"Little Crow? Little Crow, where are you?"

Kamiki Yūhaku called the crow's name in the street. He knew the crow wouldn't fly too far away.

Whenever the crow occasionally flew off in a fit of willfulness, he would stay nearby, keeping Kamiki Yūhaku from finding him without going too far away. If anything happened, he would come back faster than anyone. In this world, the one who cared most about Kamiki Yūhaku was, surprisingly, just a crow.

Rain began to fall from the sky.

Autumn in Yokohama wasn't particularly cold, but the rain still brought a chill. Kamiki Yūhaku walked through it.

"Where did he go?" Kamiki Yūhaku paid no mind to his rain-soaked clothes. He stood in the rain, looking anxiously at the sky. "It's raining so hard. Will Little Crow's wings get wet? Birds can't fly if their wings get wet. I'm so worried."

"What if he gets sick from the rain?"

"Can you pay attention to yourself first?"

Kamiki Yūhaku blinked and turned around. The person across from him tossed something over. Kamiki Yūhaku caught it on instinct, then realized it was an umbrella.

Across from him, Chūya Nakahara looked at him with a complicated expression. "Get out of the rain."

"The crow left because you don't take care of yourself. You let me bandage your wounds to get him to come back, but now you're standing in the rain with injuries all over. Aren't you afraid your wounds will get infected?"

Chūya Nakahara shouted, "It's exactly because you don't care about yourself at all that he flew away!"

"Open the umbrella!"

Kamiki Yūhaku looked at Chūya Nakahara. After a moment, he opened the umbrella. "You gave me your umbrella. What about you?"

"I'm not like you. I'm not injured."

They looked at each other in the rainy night, like two people with the same fate who had headed in different directions. Perhaps that really was the case. Chūya Nakahara was far, far luckier than Kamiki Yūhaku, but even in the same circumstances, different people with different personalities would make different choices.

Chūya Nakahara wouldn't dwell on the past.

But he wouldn't stop someone else from standing still, either.

Chūya Nakahara thought, Perhaps the only companion Kamiki Yūhaku can or will have is that crow.

Animals had no allegiances. They wouldn't consider the future in light of reality. In that crow's world, he had only Kamiki Yūhaku. He would always stand beside Kamiki Yūhaku, and his occasional fits of willfulness were only because he worried Kamiki Yūhaku would be hurt or sad.

"Are you sure?"

"Quit fussing." Chūya Nakahara turned away, leaving him with a parting word in the rain. "Goodbye."

"...I hope we'll meet again."

Watching Chūya Nakahara's retreating back, Kamiki Yūhaku smiled. He rested the umbrella on his shoulder and spun it like a child, watching the rainwater fly off. Still spinning it, he turned around, like a delighted child, and headed in the opposite direction from Chūya Nakahara.

When he reached the mouth of the alley, Chūya Nakahara stopped. He still couldn't resist looking back, and watched Kamiki Yūhaku's figure disappear into the darkness.

At that moment, Chūya Nakahara felt as if something had struck his heart.

He reached for his phone, found a familiar number, and dialed it.

It took a long time for the person on the other end to answer. Presumably, he had been woken by the ringing while hungover, and his muttering was full of irritation at being roused. His gloomy voice came stabbing through the phone.

Chūya Nakahara paid it no mind.

"Dazai." Chūya Nakahara addressed Osamu Dazai by his surname in a serious tone. "I'm not going to get involved in Kamiki's affairs anymore."

The hungover Osamu Dazai sobered up instantly. He climbed out of bed and opened the window, only for a cold wind and icy rain to strike him in the face.

Osamu Dazai felt fully awake, so he spoke. "Why?"

"No, let me ask that differently. Given your personality, you'd never normally stand by and leave Kamiki alone, but you're the first to say you won't get involved. Did you meet him? What did he say?"

"Everyone has their own way of living. I think trying to hold him back would only trouble him."

"You actually realize you can trouble people?" Osamu Dazai sounded somewhat surprised. After a moment, he scratched his head. "All right, I have a pretty good idea of what you talked about. Kamiki's experiences really are shocking, after all. It's true his obsession runs too deep for him to be easily persuaded."

Chūya Nakahara gripped his phone tightly. "Anyway, even if we keep at it, Kamiki won't be happy, and he won't truly start a new life. We can stop him now, but what about later?"