New Year Special: Masamichi Yaga

Today, Masamichi Yaga received a bloodstained Red Scarf.

Yaga recognized it at a glance as the one his student had worn for years.

He stared at the Red Scarf for a long time. Whether the sender had done this deliberately or not, he chose not to throw it away.

His late student meant a great deal to Yaga, so even if someone was deliberately trying to scheme against him, he accepted it.

Yet the sender did not seem to have anything planned. Even after Yaga fell peacefully asleep, nothing unusual happened.

Was this... a dream?

Yaga looked at the five towering buildings before him, then at the mafia members who had swiftly surrounded him, and fell silent.

At that moment, Yaga was utterly bewildered. No one could have been more bewildered than he was. Of course, that was not the point. The point was that he still held the Red Scarf his student had worn before his death.

Of course, none of that mattered. What mattered was that Yaga had spotted the little pitch-black slug his student had told him about.

This was someone who occasionally came up when Yaga had heart-to-heart talks with Osamu Dazai. Although Dazai mostly complained about him, that had not stopped Yaga from remembering his features.

He had even made Dazai a needle-felted doll that bore a fairly close resemblance to the man and put it in Dazai's dorm room.

(Although, when Dazai received the gift, he had said, "What's this? What's this? I don't want that little midget."

He had also said plenty of nasty things about him to Yaga.

Despite all that, the Chūya Nakahara doll remained the only spot in Dazai's room with even the slightest hint of life.)

Chūya Nakahara regarded the bewildered Yaga with a stern expression. A suspicious person had suddenly appeared outside the Port Mafia's headquarters. No matter how he looked at it, that was hardly normal.

"Who are you? What do you want on Port Mafia territory? And where did you get that Red Scarf?"

"You're... the little pitch-black midg... slug?"

The two voices rang out almost simultaneously, but Yaga could hardly be blamed for that form of address. Dazai had never actually told him Chūya Nakahara's name. Most of the time, he called him things like "that slimy little slug" or "Little Dark Midget."

As for Yaga blurting it out, that was naturally a conditioned reflex brought on by Dazai's prolonged torment.

At first, Yaga would stop Dazai. Later, after enduring his torment for so long, Yaga had been forced to pick up those bizarre nicknames himself.

Of course, Yaga had no idea that this would hit Chūya Nakahara's sore spot with such devastating precision.

"...What did you say?"

"What is the Port Mafia? I suddenly found myself here. As for this Red Scarf, it's a keepsake left by my student."

Once again, the two spoke almost in unison. This time, however, Chūya Nakahara was clearly not in the most stable mood.

"I'm sorry if I offended you."

Yaga bowed slightly to Chūya Nakahara, annoyed with himself for having followed his student's lead and used that nickname.

At the same time, worry began to creep into his heart. If his student had once been in the mafia, then his mental state was not entirely without an explanation.

Dazai was a good boy. Why had he been in the mafia?

On that subject, Mori, Chūya, Kōyō, Akutagawa, Atsushi... and a whole host of others had something to say.

This isn't obvious, but I've run out of mobile data. Luckily, I'll be home tomorrow morning. The reaction fic and the second half of this chapter should both be posted sometime tomorrow.

I'll expand this chapter to around 5,000 characters. See you tomorrow, all my lovely readers.