Toji and I

(1)

-Reason, you'd never guess, would you? An outlaw's daughter got the privilege of being carried down a mountain by the police.

The one carrying me was a policewoman. She had been the first to rush toward me. I figured she must have had a daughter at home too, which was why she held me and quietly wiped away her tears.

Just how awful must I have looked for her to start trembling and crying as she carried me down the path, even while I kept reassuring her that I was fine?

She cried so hard she could barely walk. That resulted in another policeman taking me into his arms.

Mm, I really didn't want this...

I did try to object, but one sentence from the round-headed officer in the hat shut me up.

He said, "Don't keep your family waiting and worrying."

Family?

-Reason, would you be waiting for me at the foot of the mountain?

I suddenly had something to look forward to.

Nearly twenty minutes later, I reached the foot of the mountain. I jumped out of the officer's arms and hurriedly looked around for any sign of Reason, but she wasn't there.

All I saw were lots of police officers, an ambulance, and... Toji?

(2)

[Shiu Kong, what can numb your nerves?]

[For you? Probably nothing short of swallowing a whole bottle of sleeping pills.]

Toji closed his phone. His hand, dangling over the edge of the bed, felt around on the floor, then reached underneath the bed.

Nothing.

The sleeping pills he had stolen from the hospital were gone.

Irritated, he pulled the covers over his head to block out the sunlight seeping through the curtains. It still wasn't dark enough under the covers to let him sleep.

He wasn't sleepy. He wanted to dream. Because in his dreams, he could see Reason and feel that hand, unreal yet so tangible, gently stroking his head.

In the next room, his son, who had just turned two, was fussing again. Already two, yet he still hadn't learned to get himself food. He couldn't even talk. Nothing like Yuanli, who had never cried, never fussed, never troubled him since the day she was born-and never loved him either.

Toji wasn't particularly perceptive. Emotionally, he could be called clumsy. He didn't even reach the standard of an ordinary person.

But he could clearly sense that his daughter didn't love him as much as he had imagined.

Thinking of Yuanli, Toji finally realized that he didn't seem to have seen her at all that day.

He left his room and looked around, spotting the note Yuanli had left him on the table. In essence, it said that since he had overslept again, she had taken Reason to the cemetery for her final journey. He was to remember to look after Megumi.

-Ah... her final journey.

The two of them should have gone that day, but his lateness had pushed it back until today. And today, once again...

Toji gave a self-mocking laugh, despising himself all the more. Was he going to run away even from her final journey?

He tossed the note into the trash, curled up on the couch, and switched to his favorite horse-racing channel. All the horses racing that day were familiar to him. Normally, he would have been leaning forward by now, anxiously waiting for his usual pick to win. Though that horse always ended up dead last thanks to one mishap or another.

But now he wasn't in the mood. Toji unconsciously touched his chest. He felt as though his heart had sprung a leak-a huge hole through which all love, passion, imagination, and beauty had drained away. That hole had turned him into an empty shell, a meaningless shell.

He watched in a daze as the horse he always bet on took first place on the television. Then he turned it off without a flicker of emotion.

Everything was deathly quiet. The child had long since stopped crying, and even the sun was tired. It was five in the afternoon, and Yuanli still hadn't returned.

By the time Toji came to his senses, he had already unconsciously taken his keys, left home, and gotten into a car bound for the Cemetery.

-What was he doing? Why had he left the house?

Toji was reluctant to confront his feelings, so he thought, with a certain reckless resignation, that it was on the way.

On the way? Who went to the Cemetery on the way anywhere? He was only fooling himself.

By the time he reached the Cemetery, the sky had darkened. He grabbed someone at random and asked whether a little girl had come to the cemetery that day. The man hesitated for a moment, then told him no, he didn't know.

The poor acting gave Toji an ominous feeling. He didn't let go. Clutching the man's collar tightly, he demanded viciously, "I'm asking you one last time. Was there a girl or not?"

Killing intent slowly seeped out of Toji, tightening around the man like a hangman's noose. The man panicked and stammered that there had been, and she hadn't come down yet. Then he pointed at the mountain ahead, pitch-black without a single light.

His words drew the attention of the other staff nearby. Horrified, they immediately called the police.

Toji froze for a moment. How could a child, without any light or family accompanying her, find her way out of a mountain about to be swallowed by darkness?

He tried to charge up the mountain like a madman, but someone stopped him.

An ordinary person couldn't have stopped him, but that ordinary person said, "Go keep an eye on the staff member who abandoned your daughter first. The police will be here soon."

Toji stood rooted to the spot. He thought of everything that had happened that morning. Wasn't he the one who had abandoned his daughter?

He hadn't really been stopped by someone else. His own guilt had stopped him. His brain began issuing orders like a foolish tyrant again-Run. Run away from your responsibilities. You can't face this.

The police arrived soon afterward, along with an ambulance.

A group of officers surrounded him. Not far away, a panicked young man was also surrounded by police.

The officers questioned him, asking everything from his name and age to his home address and relationship to the girl. He answered impatiently, but his eyes remained fixed on the young man in the distance.

When they had finished, the officers politely told him not to worry and to let them know if he needed anything.

Toji asked coldly, "Who is that man?"

The officers hesitated, but considering his right to know, they told him anyway. "He's a staff member here. He was the one who took your daughter up the mountain today. According to him, though, he needed the restroom and left your daughter alone for a little while. When he came back, he couldn't find her. He assumed she'd gone down the mountain, so..."

They didn't need to spell it all out. The reality was already there before him. That man was lying. It definitely wasn't some excuse about needing the restroom.

The man in the distance suddenly smiled. His expression held the relief of someone whose lie had been accepted, as well as the certainty that no one could expose it.

Toji clenched his fists and walked toward him, step by step. The surrounding officers seemed to realize what was wrong, and were about to reach out to stop him when someone shouted, "She's down!"

Toji turned and saw a sight that made all the blood in his body run cold.

Yuanli stood not far away, her face covered in blood. Her black dress was coated in dirt and bloodstains, and one of her arms swayed with her movements as though it were broken.

In that instant, his reason burned away. Toji was going to kill that man.

(3)

-Reason, the moment I came down the mountain, I saw Chang Wei beating up Lai Fu-no, wait, it was your bargain-bin husband beating the hell out of the suspect who had tried to murder me.

Toji wasn't as good with firearms as Reason, but he was very good at using his body to tear his enemies apart. When I realized that he really was about to use those muscles of his-which may or may not have come from protein shakes-to beat the other man's brains out, I knew I needed to stop him.

Otherwise, never mind arguing for an acquittal. I was afraid I'd be stuck visiting him in prison for the rest of my life.

"Toji!" I shouted. I could plainly see his movements pause, but he didn't look like he wanted to stop.

He looked exactly like Reason when she went on a killing spree. Dealing with Reason in that state was simple. I just had to take out whoever had angered her before she did, and she would instantly calm down and start lecturing me that it was wrong to steal someone else's target.

But Toji? Honestly, I didn't know. I had lived with him for eight years, and this was the first time I had seen him act like a beast out of control. We had never been particularly close. Probably because I felt he might not like me, so ever since I was little, I had tactfully stayed out of his way to avoid irritating him.

As a result, I had no idea how to calm him down now. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw an officer reach for his gun.

I quickly stepped forward and pressed down hard on his head with my right hand, the only one I could still move.

"Toji, stop."

I figured he was probably shocked-shocked by my slightly superhuman strength. Otherwise, he wouldn't have looked at me in such bewilderment, then stopped and let me hold his head down.

I withdrew my hand and said instinctively, "Don't worry. Stand behind me. I'll defend you."

The words left me stunned too. I had mistaken him for Reason.

Toji said nothing. He rose and stood behind me, enclosing me within his protection like a beast guarding its young.

The police quickly gathered around us, handcuffs in hand, surrounding Toji like a group of veterinarians preparing for a specialist consultation at a wildlife reserve.

I stood in front of Toji, just as I had protected Reason countless times over the years. With my only usable hand, my right, I held his hand, which was who knew how many times larger than mine, and told the police clearly and precisely, "The man who got beaten up deliberately abandoned me on the mountain and left by himself. I believe he must have provoked my father down here by talking about murdering me. Otherwise, my father, Toji, wouldn't have lost control like that. If you decide to use handcuffs, please cuff me to Toji. Take us to the police station together for questioning."

The round-headed officer looked troubled. He seemed accustomed to talking to children, so he adopted the standard tone adults used to fob them off. "Little girl, you can call me Inspector Megure. We won't make things difficult for your father. We just want to find out what happened."

"You can question me. I think I'm better suited than Toji to giving a statement. After what Toji just did, your so-called finding out what happened will turn straight into having to post bail before he can leave, won't it? How about this? He's the only family I have. I need him to come to the hospital with me so I can get bandaged up first. Once that's done, I'll bring him to the station and pay his bail. Would that be all right?"

I was actually pretty nervous. After all, no matter how brazen Reason was, she generally wouldn't attack someone in front of the police. At most, she would wait until they left, then secretly use a sniper rifle to vent her anger. I didn't believe I really had the ability to talk black into white, but looking at Toji, he was even worse than Reason. I wasn't sure what would happen if I let him face the police alone.

-Reason, you really did leave me an upgraded version of yourself.

Fortunately, Inspector Megure was quite understanding. He had a few officers accompany us to the hospital in a police car.

As for the ambulance, it was probably still on the road, with the paramedics working to save Yoshida Tadashi, whose brains had nearly been beaten out.