"What do you want from me?"
Toji Fushiguro lit a cigarette after walking into a quiet alley.
"Toji, did you forget something?" Eichi asked.
"What?"
Seeing Toji turn his head with a confused expression, Eichi helplessly covered his face.
"You forgot Fushiguro Megumi, Fushiguro Tsumiki, and Fushiguro Minako."
Just to be safe, Eichi listed all three with their full names.
"Megumi?"
Toji's face went completely blank, as if he could be turned into an emoji.
Eichi felt even more helpless.
It was like drinking a bottle of milk and forgetting you had a child.
People say there's great fear between life and death, and many who go through it lose interest in worldly concerns.
Toji was one of those people.
The problem was that Toji had too many things he didn't care about.
He had never experienced parental love or responsibility growing up.
He didn't understand what it meant to be a father or what kind of responsibilities came with it.
Maybe that's why he later chose to sell Megumi to Naobito.
But to say he didn't love Megumi wasn't right either.
If that were true, he wouldn't have recognized Megumi and said, "Not a Zen'in, that's good," before taking his own life.
Eichi recalled a saying he'd often heard: the unfortunate spend their whole lives healing their childhood.
Toji was exactly that kind of person.
Maybe in this lifetime, he'd never understand what a normal family was supposed to be.
"He's your son."
"Ah, Megumi. Now that you mention it, I was the one who gave him that name."
Toji actually showed a happy expression at that.
"Listen carefully, Toji."
"Huh?"
Toji turned his head, his indifferent look returning, like nothing really mattered to him.
"Kids need to eat to live. Eating needs money. Even that dumpster fire of a Zen'in clan at least gave you food, right?"
As he said this, Eichi looked up, continuing to provoke him.
"Are you even worse than that garbage pile of a clan?"
Eichi knew there were very few things Toji genuinely cared about in this world.
Megumi, who he remembered from time to time, and... the Zen'in clan, which left him with lifelong scars.
"Tsk."
Toji clicked his tongue in annoyance, as if something had resurfaced.
"I get it. I'll go back tonight."
He scratched his head.
"Do you still have money?" Eichi asked, worried.
He was afraid Toji had gambled it all away.
After becoming a complete Heavenly Restriction, there was almost nothing that excited Toji anymore aside from gambling, like soccer bets and horse races.
And the worst part was, Toji didn't even care about money.
"I still got some. If not, I'll just ask Chizuru."
"Chizuru?"
"Ah, that woman you saw just now. That's her."
Eichi's mouth twitched.
Seriously? You take money from one woman to support another? You're so righteous about it too.
"I'm saying, Toji, didn't you used to take a lot of requests? Can't you find some proper work?"
"Requests? Haven't taken one of those in years. Besides, isn't work just for making money? I'm already earning money, aren't I?"
Eichi was instantly defeated by his response.
Toji, sensing Eichi's reaction, added casually,
"How I live is my own business. Why do I have to work just because others say I should?"
It was blunt, but true.
Toji's words reminded Eichi of a book he'd read in his past life.
"Bullshit Jobs."
The book opened with a question.
Do you think your job contributes to the world?
If you didn't know the answer, the author offered a simple way to judge.
How much impact would it have on the world if your job disappeared?
It simplified the question significantly.
If jobs like farmers, doctors, or sanitation workers disappeared, life would immediately become difficult.
But if people like financial executives, investment assistants, or high-ranking secretaries disappeared, would the world really suffer?
According to the author, modern jobs feel hollow because the point of work is no longer about productivity or usefulness.
It's about preserving systems and maintaining hierarchies.
And that's what's led to the rising psychological trauma among workers.
Today's working class probably has more resentment than Cursed Spirits. Who knows how many evil sword immortals it could feed.
Toji wasn't one of them.
He didn't care about rules, just survival and doing what he wanted.
Perhaps the death of Megumi's mother played a part in it too.
Just when this big guy started to experience what love felt like, he lost it.
So he closed himself off even more.
Eichi didn't know if he could crack open Toji's heart, but he knew someone who could.
Megumi.
The same child who had raised Satoru.
He could definitely do it.
"Alright, make sure you go back and see Megumi and the others."
On the way here, Eichi had also learned about Minako's situation.
She was barely getting by raising two kids while covering everyday expenses.
If she didn't pay rent soon, she'd be kicked out of the two-story house they were living in.
That was even after the landlord had given her an extension out of pity for raising two kids alone.
"Why don't you just buy the house? Megumi and the others nearly ended up homeless because they couldn't pay rent."
That might've been a slight exaggeration, but by the time Satoru found Megumi, their living conditions really had been terrible.
"How much is the house?"
"...Let me check."
"Housing prices dropped again. It's over 20,000 yen per square meter now..."
After Japan's real estate bubble burst more than a decade ago, prices kept falling. But the lowest point was still years away.
It was a two-story house with a yard and a garage. Eichi quickly did the math and gave an estimate.
"Ah, ten million yen."
Toji scratched his head.
Forget it. I'll just ask Chizuru for more.
"Why don't you take on some Cursed Spirit exorcism jobs? With cursed tools, exorcising spirits shouldn't be that hard. You'd earn ten million yen in no time."
Suguru had once made money that way too, exorcising Cursed Spirits non-stop to buy his dream cursed tool, Playful Cloud.
"Huh?"
Toji turned and looked at Eichi.
"Who wants to risk their life fighting when they can earn money comfortably?"
The look in Toji's eyes screamed, Is this kid dumb or something?
Crack.
Eichi's heart cracked on the spot.
Damn, I'm so jealous... No, wait. I mean, I disapprove.
This unhealthy trend must be strictly condemned and firmly stopped.
(To be continued.)