Chapter 48

Madman.

That was the only thought in Osamu Dazai's mind after listening to Takizawa Sei's stream of nonsense.

An absolute madman.

With sharp and indignant strokes, he slapped that label onto Takizawa Sei, while deepening his realization that the guy genuinely had mental issues.

He was a madman who craved the attention of others and needed people to provide him with emotional validation.

Takizawa Sei had appeared in the Suribachi District when he was twelve, descending just like the sudden advent of Arahabaki. His past was a complete blank sheet, and by his own admission, he had no memories of what came before.

So, was this personality defect a result of amnesia?

"Compared to me, you and Chuuya get along much better," Dazai said.

"Naturally, Chuuya is different too," Takizawa Sei replied with a placid expression. "Chuuya is a comrade; he is family."

Huh?

Huh?

Dazai looked at Takizawa Sei as if gazing at a monster.

Following that, they went through roughly three months of a tug-of-war. Dazai adopted the silent treatment toward Takizawa Sei, completely ignoring his existence. Aside from unavoidable work settings, Dazai turned down every single invitation from Takizawa, refused to accept even a shred of his goodwill, and treated him with outright hostility. Yet, Takizawa Sei remained impervious to all persuasion and resistance.

With a persistence and consistency that gave him a presence far exceeding that of a ghost, he stayed by Dazai's side.

How terrifying—Takizawa Sei actually had the audacity to try and extract emotional validation from him!

Realizing this, Dazai swiped Takizawa's hand away as if reacting with an allergic reflex.

The green-eyed boy had been in the midst of taking off his own overcoat to drape over Dazai, trying to quickly dispel the chill clinging to him.

It was already late autumn, and nights in the coastal city were biting and damp. It had rained not long before, so when Takizawa saw that Dazai was dressed as thinly as if it were midsummer, his caretaking radar kicked in instantly, causing him to walk straight up to his superior without a second thought.

That's right, his superior. Despite the fact that they were close in age, in an organization as rigidly hierarchical as the mafia, Takizawa approaching him without permission was technically an act of insubordination.

After having his hand coldly slapped away, he froze for a moment, then silently continued to wrap his coat around Dazai's frame. The black-haired boy currently had a smaller build than him, meaning his clothes naturally ran a size too large; a slight tug at the edges of the coat was enough to wrap someone up like a blanket.

The other subordinates swallowed nervously, watching in a daze as they thought: Dazai-sama actually didn't slap him across the face.

Under normal circumstances, anyone daring to pull a stunt like Takizawa Sei's would already have a gun pressed to their head, facing a future far more terrifying than being torn apart by evil spirits.

"It's very cold, and our mission is going to take a long time to finish," Takizawa murmured softly. "We'll probably spend the whole night in this condition. If you don't stay warm, you'll catch a cold."

A cold.

To people like them, who constantly brushed shoulders with the Grim Reaper, catching a chill or falling ill was the mildest of punishments—luxuries hardly worth spending energy to care about. Yet Takizawa, despite having plunged deep into such a life long ago and theoretically being used to a world where everyone had to fend for themselves and look out only for number one, still cherished Dazai's physical well-being as tenderly as one would tend to a delicate flower.

Even though Dazai himself tormented his own body as if driven by malice.

The garment draped over his shoulders carried a crisp, unidentifiable fragrance—perhaps leftover from Takizawa's previous employment in luxury retail, or maybe just the result of that clean freak using scent booster beads when washing his clothes.

It wasn't unpleasant, but Dazai wanted to flee from it as though contaminated by some deadly poison. A certain nerve deep inside him panicked and imagined frantic escape, while his outward reaction was merely to coldly fling the coat down onto the ground.

Takizawa Sei: "..."

The green-eyed boy pressed his lips into a tight line, looking as though he had been wounded.

In the past, Dazai would have said things like "Focus on the mission," "You don't need to care about such useless details," or "Is that all that's inside the slug's brain?" But he wouldn't do that now, because not only would Takizawa refuse to listen, he would fire back retort after retort. He would say, "I am certainly focusing on the mission," "How is this a useless detail? Should we just throw caution to the wind during a mission?" and "Yes, yes, my brain only has a little bit of space, and right now it's stuffed entirely with you."

Recalling those past experiences left Dazai feeling as helpless as if he had been struck by an invisible attack.

Unlike Chuuya, who would blow up at the slightest provocation, Takizawa Sei possessed a temper of his own, yet remained as delicate and yielding as warm, flowing water.

"Why won't you accept my closeness?"

That persistent fool had actually asked those very words right to his face.

Dazai let out a sneer. "I should be the one asking you: why must you insist on getting close to me?"

"Are you mistaking me for someone else? Can't you live without that person? Does this have to do with the first half of your life? Are you the type who simply cannot survive if you can't find that person?"

He spoke venomous words: "Since you always say you want to die, why don't you just go do it?"

The surrounding subordinates held their breath in absolute terror, and even the team members on the walkie-talkies dared not draw a single loud breath.

This rapid-fire barrage of interrogation seemed to echo and circulate within the silent alleyway.

Dazai expected to see Takizawa's gaze waver. He might grow annoyed and angry from having his secret thoughts exposed, or look flustered and wretched at failing to come up with an excuse, or retreat with injuries inflicted by the harsh words.

Instead, Takizawa Sei merely gazed at him calmly, those eyes shining like fireflies in the deep night. "Because you don't want to die."

Because your entire life is filled with things pushing you toward death.

"—Huh?"

"After saying all that... you simply don't believe me."

You don't believe that human affection doesn't need to be solely and pathetically summarized by reasons and mutual benefit.

You don't believe that his closeness stems from pure, genuine sincerity.

And most of all, you don't believe that bonds which never sour could possibly exist in this world.

He hid away like a child who had been burned, bristling with sharp spikes. In Takizawa's eyes, Dazai during this period was actually somewhat endearing.

Fickle though he might be, his emotions were entirely written on his face.

That argument of theirs had not been shielded from anyone, so much so that a virtually set-in-stone rumor later circulated throughout the Port Mafia: Takizawa Sei wanted to be Dazai's dog so badly he had lost his mind!

"I think those bastards have lost *their* minds!"

Upon hearing about this from his comrades in the Flags, Nakahara Chuuya flew into a rage. Unable to trace the origin of the rumor to deal out heavy punishment to the culprit, he paced back and forth angrily in front of Takizawa. "I'm going to find Boss, I'm going to find Lady Kouyou—anyway, I'll have you transferred out from under his command... Enough is already enough. Why on earth would a rumor like that even exist—?"

Takizawa, however, reacted with utter indifference. "Why do you care about what they say? It's just stressed-out adults using teasing, exaggerated language to describe the relationship between him and me."

"Huh? Sei! Aren't you angry?"

"They said I'm a dog, not that I'm a beast. They just mean I'm as loyal as a dog... probably with a bit of a sycophantic undertone? But honestly, the way I act isn't far off from that anyway."

Huh? Huh??

Nakahara Chuuya stared at him in disbelief.

Stuttering, he asked, "You... you just accepted it *that* easily?"

"Don't you find it interesting?" Takizawa flashed a deeply meaningful smile at Chuuya. "Dazai himself has never once admitted to it, you know."

"He acts as if he's terrified of me. He's afraid of domesticating me, afraid of me domesticating myself, and even more terrified of me choosing to stay by his side of my own accord without needing any taming at all."

What? What on earth was he talking about?

Chuuya was left completely bewildered, though he did grasp one point—

"What on earth is going on between you and Dazai?"

What was going on?

It was simply a matter of someone desperately trying to draw near, to break into another's life, carving out a place in their heart so that their life could be sustained, so that they could be gently cradled by love—yet long before accomplishing any of that, this person had already embedded Dazai deep within his own life.

Eventually, Chuuya stopped caring about the whole "dog" business, because even rival organizations knew that Dazai Osamu had a fiercely loyal mad dog who was willing to risk his life for him countless times over.

And that was because the two of them had shared a desperate trial together—

During a mission to wipe out a rival organization, Takizawa Sei, who was assigned to the vanguard, was captured by foreign reinforcements aiding the enemy. Meanwhile, Dazai, who was directing the operation via walkie-talkie, had his stronghold blown up by a hidden ability user belonging to the opposition. The attack was too sudden; out of the entire mission squad, only the members still inside the enemy base and Dazai himself remained alive.

Everyone else who had stayed with him at the rear to handle contingencies and take orders had been killed by the ability user.

Dazai's "No Longer Human" had saved his life, but it hadn't saved him from collapsing debris and human violence.

A member of the rival organization, having turned the tables using their ability, kicked Dazai roughly in the face several times and pinned his head down into the mud with a boot.

"Caught a little brat."

"What is this for? Does the Port Mafia have no one left, sending a kid out?"

At that time, the Double Black had not yet made a name for themselves, and Dazai's reputation in the underworld was far from as resounding as it later became.

"Hey kid, let's play a game."

The men laughed nastily, these desperate madmen saying, "We left one survivor inside as well. Come on, make your choice. If you admit you're in cahoots with the person inside, and that person claims to have nothing to do with you, we'll let you walk free. If they say they do know you, then both of you are finished—and vice versa. But if both of you claim not to know each other, then the two of you only lose an arm, and we won't bother bickering with youngsters whose hair hasn't even grown out yet."

This was akin to the Prisoner's Dilemma.

Simply put, two suspects arrested by the police after committing a crime are placed in separate rooms for interrogation. The police know both are guilty, but lack sufficient evidence.

So they issue a warning to each: If both deny the crime, each gets sentenced to one year; if both confess, each gets sentenced to eight years; if one confesses while the other denies, the confessor goes free while the denier gets ten years.

Undoubtedly, mutual denial yields the best combined outcome for the two, yet it fails to represent the limit of individual self-interest.

"To be fair, the terms we gave him are identical to the ones we gave you."

The burly man, built like a mercenary, switched on his cell phone for communication, keeping the volume low as he held it to his ear.

Dazai's dark, sunken eyes stared straight ahead at the weeds growing before him.

Half of his face was pressed hard against the ground, sharp pebbles digging in painfully, with the cold, black barrel of a gun jammed against the back of his head. Yet, he displayed an air of absolute indifference.

The rival organization's men seemed to present multiple possibilities, but in reality, there were only two outcomes.

Would he die first, or would Takizawa Sei die first?