Did living really have any meaning?

As time passed, the two who had been somewhat reserved at first (note: this did not include Satoru Gojo) began chatting.

"Geto! If it's a Special Grade Cursed Spirit, you can upgrade your Pokémon collection again. You don't have a Special Grade Cursed Spirit yet, right?"

"Satoru, how many times have I told you? They're not Pokémon."

"Yeah, yeah, there's no difference."

"No, Satoru, there's a big difference."

And so, one Satoru Gojo and one Suguru Geto began debating whether Geto's Cursed Technique was, in fact, Pokémon.

Me: ...

"Dazai, what do you think?"

I didn't know whether my singing the Suicide Tune had disturbed them or whether she simply wanted to drag me into it, but Shoko Ieiri smoked as she turned everyone's attention toward me.

Was that deliberate, or an accident?

Of course, whether it was deliberate or accidental, I wasn't going to answer.

So: ...

"Me? For suicide methods, I recommend drowning. That's my most frequently used suicide meth-"

"Wait, Dazai, we weren't asking how you wanted to kill yourself."

"Huh? You weren't? I didn't quite catch that-sorry, carry on."

I blinked my heterochromic brown eyes, then turned my head aside again.

"Wait, Dazai, can I ask why exactly you want to kill yourself?"

Just as I was about to withdraw from the battlefield, Suguru Geto suddenly paused and asked, sounding puzzled.

Suguru Geto hadn't forgotten what I had told him one evening, but the more he thought about it afterward, the more something seemed wrong with my words.

Later, he had gone to Satoru Gojo to discuss it, and Satoru had agreed.

Although they didn't know why, the three very intelligent students could still tell that this outwardly cheerful, lively, and rather strange upperclassman carried a frighteningly heavy air of sorrow.

But all three were clever. One disdained asking about such things, one thought it unnecessary, and one believed that picking at someone else's scars for no reason wasn't a good thing.

In short, in that atmosphere, none of them had taken any action beforehand. After all, I was only an upperclassman they weren't particularly close to.

Yet afterward, no matter how much Suguru Geto thought about it, he couldn't understand why that upperclassman had spoken to him that way, as though he had foreseen something.

"Hmm... it's a hobby."

"A hobby I'm very fond of. Well? Would you like to come kill yourself with me?"

My invitation seemed enthusiastic, but a slightly strange thought stirred deep inside me.

For a moment, I found myself at a loss. Why did I want to kill myself? Why did I need to kill myself?

Assimilation? Or did I genuinely want to die?

Even I wasn't sure. Someone who truly wanted to die had thousands of ways to do it, and that was all the more true for me.

I had simply, naturally chosen methods that allowed me to be saved. In the end, perhaps I wasn't quite so eager to embrace death.

"Never heard of suicide being a hobby."

Satoru Gojo glanced at me, then muttered his complaint.

"Haha, really? Well, haven't you met someone like that today?"

With a faint smile, I rested my head to one side, seemingly answering offhandedly.

"Dazai, I'm serious."

Apparently dissatisfied with my answer, Suguru Geto frowned and repeated his question, then looked at me expectantly, as though hoping I would give him a serious response.

"...Ah, are you?"

Once again, I put on my faint smile. The darkness and depth at the very bottom of my eyes flashed past, and I fixed every trace of expression into that smile.

Satoru Gojo gave me a startled look, but all his thoughts were concealed behind his sunglasses. I smiled unconcernedly as an intensely oppressive atmosphere slowly spread from me.

My gaze shifted from darkness plunging straight into an abyss to a gentle smile, then to calm. The corners of my mouth never moved, and there wasn't a hint of light in my heterochromic brown eyes as I regarded them with increasing serenity.

"Dazai!"

Watching the atmosphere and reality change in an instant, Suguru Geto couldn't help widening his eyes. For that brief moment, he had felt as though he had fallen into an icy pit, but it had lasted only an instant. Even he couldn't be sure what he had seen.

But his body's survival instinct was already telling him not to keep asking.

"Haha."

I laughed softly. The dark aura around me vanished in an instant, and the atmosphere in the car immediately settled. I still looked at them gently, as though that full minute of deathly silence had never happened.

"Geto, tell me, does living really have any meaning?"

For an instant, the oppressive aura that had just left the driver in the front seat drenched in cold sweat returned, then quickly faded again as time passed.

I put on my smile once more, a gentle, refined air spreading through me as my ink-dark emotions sank out of sight.

"Dazai..."

"Ah, ah, Geto, do you know? I chose to enter Jujutsu Society to find the meaning of living."

I answered with a faint smile, slowly letting the words leave my lips, and successfully earned puzzled looks from Satoru Gojo and Shoko Ieiri.

But compared with the female member of the group, who nodded calmly and then pretended she hadn't heard anything, Satoru Gojo was much more direct.

"That's the first time I've ever heard of someone joining Jujutsu Society to find the meaning of living. You're exactly the same kind of weirdo as Geto."

"Haha, who knows..."

My voice was quiet. I gave Shoko Ieiri, who was slumped forward in the passenger seat out of boredom, a gentle glance, offered an answer that wasn't really an answer, then leaned my head aside again to listen to music and watch the scenery.

Of course, it would have been even better if Suguru Geto and Satoru Gojo weren't still whispering about why I had joined Jujutsu Society.

Was it really so strange? Perhaps not entirely. I smiled faintly, watching the two boys huddled together in the reflection on the window.

For a moment, I found myself reminiscing about things from the past.

Once, there had been two boys huddled together like that, discussing something in low voices. Unfortunately, they hadn't known how to keep their voices down, and the Assistant Supervisor and I had heard every word.

Some things really did linger in one's thoughts for a long time.

There were always things worth remembering fondly. Of course, even things that had once been deeply precious could sometimes fade until one could never encounter them again.

We went back to the way we had been at the start: one person singing the Suicide Tune off to the side, the others simply staying elsewhere, as though nothing had happened at all.

Of course, that excluded the Assistant Supervisor's sweat-drenched state.

I supposed he was one of the people I had frightened badly. After all, Assistant Supervisors who accompanied me, especially Assistant Inspectors sent by the Jujutsu Higher-Ups like him, generally didn't survive more than a few months.

Yet everything that happened to them was an accident. All the evidence showed it had nothing to do with me, and even after turning everything upside down and trying countless methods, Jujutsu Society hadn't found anyone or anything capable of keeping me in check.

Even all the preparations they had painstakingly made ended in outcomes they couldn't speak of.

After all, they still hadn't found evidence proving I had killed those people. Even though I was the prime suspect, they had uncovered nothing.

In truth, how could those accidents arranged in advance be called anything other than accidents?

An accident was only an accident.

So when this Assistant Inspector had timidly approached me, I had actually felt an urge to let him die in this beautiful world that very day.

Unfortunately, I hadn't done it. At the time, I really couldn't find anything entertaining, and for some reason his frightened appearance struck me as amusing, so I decided to keep him around to play with.

And once I kept him, he stayed until now.

There was no denying that an Assistant Inspector with even a little intelligence was hard to come by. At least he didn't trouble me or ask endless bothersome questions. I didn't mind keeping him around. After all, I didn't care about most people's little tricks, but going too far took the fun out of it.

"So, Dazai, how long have you been searching for the meaning of living?"

Suddenly, a voice sounded beside my ear-Suguru Geto's. They seemed to have discussed something, or perhaps made a bet about me. In any case, those two large eyes... (this did not include Suguru Geto) were full of curiosity and a hint of eager anticipation.

"Many years. I started when I was only a few years old."

"Oh! I won, Geto. You're paying for our next meal."

Suguru Geto: ...Keep your voice down, would you?

Seeing what Suguru Geto was thinking, I couldn't help chuckling.

"It's all right. I don't mind. Just remember to bring me along for the meal."

"Ah, of course, Dazai."

Suguru Geto and Satoru Gojo continued bickering, and I sat beside them, watching. On a journey like this, in a world like this, there really wasn't much of interest.

So I never minded someone bringing me a little entertainment.

As I had said, I was searching for the meaning of living, and I was still searching now.

The only lie was that I had only spent three years here searching for the meaning of living.

Because the old me hadn't needed to find it. But after crossing into this world, after once again losing everything except Teacher Yaga, I suddenly understood Osamu Dazai a little.

It wasn't merely because of Assimilation. There were also some genuine, particular reasons.

For instance, I no longer knew why I should live, or why I should keep struggling.

I simply drifted along, becoming an idle slacker in a boring place.

But deep inside, voices were always clamoring. There were always voices wanting to do something, even when I forcibly suppressed them.

I had already begun attempting suicide, with no destination in mind. In this world, I had no family, no friends, only Teacher Yaga.

This world had no Little Dark Midget, no opponent like a certain Rat, and nothing that gave my life meaning.

Even wandering throughout the entire world, I still couldn't find the desire to live or a way to think about it.

So I was waiting. I looked forward to the start of the plot, to the arrival of these three extraordinary prodigies. When that happened, the entire world would undergo an enormous reshuffling.

Because of Satoru Gojo's arrival, Grade One, which had once been the pinnacle, an exceedingly rare existence, was no longer the limit. Now, Special Grade Sorcerers were gradually beginning to appear, along with all kinds of Special Grade Cursed Spirits.

Every last one of these things pointed to a single word: balance.

And Satoru Gojo's very existence had broken that balance. Now, even though I had become a slacker to my very bones, I could barely restrain my hands from stirring up trouble.

Even if I perhaps resembled the Armed Detective Agency version more now, I had never betrayed the Port Mafia in the first place. I had no Oda Sakunosuke. I hadn't defected. I had become the Port Mafia's boss, and my hands were stained with countless people's blood.

So if I really did something, it wouldn't actually be all that strange.

"Mr. Dazai, it's just ahead."

The Assistant Supervisor's timely, sudden words interrupted my wandering thoughts. I slowly raised my head and looked at the scene before me, silent, yet unwilling to take even one step forward.