"What did you do after that?" Zhang Heng asked.
"I... didn't do anything." Guilt showed in Takeda Tetsuya's eyes. "I shouldn't have left Kobayashi there. I wanted to... get out and check on him, but then I heard sirens from the other side. I was terrified and didn't dare stay any longer. I turned the car around and fled down the highway."
"What happened to the two of them in the end?" Ameko asked, unable to hide her distress.
"I only learned what happened afterward from the news. The television reported that two delinquent youths had been racing the wrong way down the highway and crashed into an oncoming truck. One died, and the other was critically injured. The injured one was rushed to the emergency room, but he died three days later as well."
"Was the one who died from his injuries Kobayashi, or..."
"It was Asano Naoto. Besides being the strongest driver in Nerima, he had another identity—his uncle was the vice president of Onitō, Tokyo's largest yakuza organization."
"I see. So that was why you left racing afterward and changed your name?"
"Yes. It was an unpublicized race, and no one knew about it except the three of us. There were some other witnesses on the highway at the time, but visibility was poor, and we had been driving against traffic. Based on those vague testimonies alone, the police couldn't confirm the existence of a third car. Afraid of prison and Onitō's revenge, I... chose silence again."
"Yet I never felt any joy at escaping punishment. Every day afterward, I lived with guilt toward Kobayashi. If I hadn't acted on impulse that day and insisted on a race that never should have begun, none of this would have happened. I was the one who had one foot in the grave, yet ironically, the first of the three of us to die was Kobayashi—the only one who voted against it... Later, I secretly went to see his family. But Kobayashi's father had died long ago. He only had his mother and a younger sister, and after the accident, they soon moved away from Tokyo."
"You met Mom after that, didn't you? If so, why didn't you just live your life properly?" Ameko said.
"For a time after that incident, I was constantly on edge. I couldn't even close my eyes when I slept. I even kept a suicide note beside my pillow. But as time passed, neither the police nor Onitō came looking for me. After a while, I thought the matter had simply passed, and I began returning to ordinary life. It was during that time that I met the woman I loved. We started a family like any other happy, ordinary people, and a year and a half later, we had you. I swore never to drive again and opened a seafood shop instead."
"After the initial struggles, the seafood shop did fairly well. Everything seemed to be getting back on track. Six years had passed since that incident—enough time for many things to be forgotten. So I never imagined that one day, the nightmare from back then would come looking for me again."
"What do you mean?" Ameko asked, confused.
"One night, I was alone at the seafood shop processing orders when a stone suddenly flew in through the window and shattered the glass. I thought it was some local brat playing a prank, but when I chased after them, there was no one outside. When I came back, I found that the stone had been wrapped in an old newspaper. The front page was about that highway crash, and beside the headline was a line written in blood—You think you can escape?"
Takeda Tetsuya flicked off some ash. "No one besides the three of us knew about what happened back then. Kobayashi... died at the scene. Asano Naoto spent three days in the hospital's intensive care unit. He was badly injured, and the newspaper said he had remained unconscious the entire time, but it wasn't impossible that he woke up for a while in between... In any case, the moment that newspaper appeared, my life was over." "So you never had a gambling addiction at all. You only wanted to force Mom to divorce you, right?"
"Six years ago, I made one mistake by dragging Kobayashi into that incident. I won't make that mistake again." The seafood shop owner spoke calmly. "I'm not afraid of death. It's the ending I deserve. The real Tsuchiya Yosuke died alongside Kobayashi on that road long ago. The Takeda Tetsuya who survived is nothing but his guilt and cowardice."
"More than that, I'm curious how you managed to escape Onitō's grasp time and time again," Zhang Heng said.
"If you mean the incident many years ago, perhaps they wanted to see me reduced to misery. Or perhaps they wanted me to suffer longer. In any case, they never came looking for me again after that. Then, nine months ago, a mysterious person called and told me that Onitō would soon make a move against me and that I should prepare myself. He was also the one who warned me about what happened last night."
Takeda Tetsuya paused. "All right, my story is over. As I said before, this has nothing to do with you. That tragedy began because of me, so naturally, I should be the one to end it with my own hands."
"You don't believe that yourself, do you?" Zhang Heng said. "Otherwise, you wouldn't have pretended to become addicted to gambling again and forced Ameko to cut ties with you."
Takeda Tetsuya fell silent for a moment. After a while, he gave a self-mocking smile. "Still, I had to try. I couldn't just do nothing."
The seafood shop owner looked as though he had made up his mind. Ameko grew anxious and opened her mouth to say something more, but in the next instant, her face flushed bright red.
Zhang Heng stood up and picked up the coat draped nearby. "You taught me how to drive. No matter what kind of person you were before, at least let me see you off."
After thinking it over, Takeda Tetsuya did not refuse. He looked at the two of them. "Take good care of Ameko for me."
The three left the breakfast shop. Takeda Tetsuya walked in front. He pulled open the van's side door, then rolled his eyes back and toppled stiffly into the cargo compartment.
Zhang Heng withdrew the small soup bowl in his hand and said to the dumbfounded Ameko behind him, "His guilt over what happened back then has overwhelmed his reason. He hasn't thought at all about how to handle the current situation. All he can think about is dying to free himself. Sorry, I could only make him calm down this way."
"Ah, ah?... Oh." Ameko finally understood. She had been wondering why Zhang Heng had suddenly become so frivolous when she was trying to speak, secretly squeezing her hand beneath the table. She had nearly misunderstood him.
But even stranger was that... she did not seem as repulsed by that sort of thing as she had imagined.
Ameko was briefly dazed until Zhang Heng's voice sounded beside her again. "This vehicle hasn't passed inspection and doesn't have the proper paperwork. We should leave first."
"Mm." The girl climbed into the rear compartment and shut the door.
Zhang Heng started the vehicle and deliberately drove around the streets once more to make sure no one was tailing them. Fifteen minutes later, he parked the L300 in the lot of a large supermarket, opened the door, and held out his right hand.
"Takeda... There are several problems with the story your father just told."
Before you continue