April 29th.
A day to commemorate those who died in the Yokohama settlement explosion.
At the teahouse, a red-haired youth once again sat in his usual spot. Outside, the government's sirens wailed in silent mourning.
No one disturbed him today.
The reason being that the great detective had closed up shop with his bodyguard to go celebrate his little brother's birthday. Oda Sakunosuke didn't know Edogawa Ranpo's younger brother, but he had observed that the man had gone to a cake shop and spent half the day haggling with the staff over ordering a custom birthday cake.
Oda Sakunosuke ate his tea snacks and went to read Light and Darkness, which he had flipped through who knew how many times already. He let out a quiet breath, the tense muscles throughout his body finally relaxing.
His savings were gradually dwindling, with no income coming in.
Ever since mid-November last year, when he had accepted a side job as a secretary for the S&K Corporation intending to earn a little extra cash, misfortune had struck him repeatedly, shattering his golden reputation as a killer. In less than half a year, his mission completion rate had continuously dropped—ninety-nine percent, ninety-eight percent...
Gold-tier killer → Silver-tier killer → Third-rate killer.
He took a moment to check his phone messages. The employers who had once queued up to book his services were now cold and indifferent, convinced that either his skills had deteriorated or he had been cursed by a god of plague.
Oda Sakunosuke: "Ah, well..."
Life's changes always came when one least expected them.
At this rate, he was really going to be unemployed, and he hadn't figured out what his next job would be after that.
Oda Sakunosuke woodenly turned to the next page, his mind divided between two tasks, contemplating whether he should assassinate Edogawa Ranpo for free before becoming unemployed—take out this great detective who kept watching him.
—A killer's dictionary contained only vengeance, not forgiveness.
—A killer still needed to eat. With nowhere left to turn, should he switch careers and become a mercenary?
Wrong.
Let's try that again.
Oda Sakunosuke murmured: "I hate eating rice with sugar sprinkled on it."
On his table sat two books—one was Light and Darkness, which he was currently reading, and the other was a relatively new copy of The Retired Killer Who Became the School Belle's Personal Bodyguard. One could say he balanced both traditional literature and popular fiction, making him a bit more "fashionable" than the average young person.
"Young man, do you quite enjoy reading these two books?"
Suddenly, a voice layered with the sediment of years rang out, revealing a spark of interest.
Oda Sakunosuke looked over.
It was a gaunt middle-aged man with a beard, wearing a round felt hat. The gaze cast from beneath the brim was gentle, serene, and worldly-wise—the sort that would not trigger a killer's sensitive nerves.
"Flawless" informed him there was no danger.
At this very moment, Oda Sakunosuke mistook one of Japan's hidden greats for an ordinary person and gave a slight nod.
"Yes."
He liked these two books.
The middle-aged man smoothly seated himself across from him, set down his cane, and chuckled amiably like any elder, like any neighbor from down the street. "I happened to want a cup of tea, so I came here. I never expected to meet someone who likes this book—" His hand shifted slightly, his fingertip prodding at that book with the flashy cover, the R-18 reading material, "—and this book as well."
Oda Sakunosuke sensed that he seemed dissatisfied with popular literature and inexplicably retorted: "If you strip away the parts about the killer's professional competence and the erotica, it remains a fine piece of work."
The middle-aged man said curiously, "Then how much content does this book have left?"
Oda Sakunosuke picked up this short novel and hesitantly gauged its thickness. "About a third, I suppose."
It sounded more like criticism than praise.
The middle-aged man laughed. "A hundred-thousand-word work with only a third worth settling down to read—one can hardly say whether that's success or failure. Let's not speak of that. Young man, what do you think a novel is?"
Oda Sakunosuke said, "A story that writes about life?"
The middle-aged man added, "To be precise, it is the description of one person's, or several persons', birth, aging, sickness, and death. Their lives compose the story."
Oda Sakunosuke felt puzzled. Why was this person saying these things to him?
Yet he could not help but listen to the other's words, his attention seized by an invisible enchantment. The other's eyes looked at him as though looking upon a second junior who had strayed from the proper path.
"Forgive my presumption—did you see your own shadow in this book?"
"Mm..."
"Then I was not mistaken."
The middle-aged man seemed to have confirmed something, his shoulders slightly sinking as if in lament, and muttered: "No wonder. You read Light and Darkness so often. Having discovered that I would take an interest in you, he wrote such a novel in advance to allude to me, already foreseeing this scene last year... Did he see this conversation between us?"
Oda Sakunosuke was completely baffled.
The middle-aged man said: "If I told you that someone predicted our conversation and hurriedly wrote this novel to admonish us, would you believe it?"
Oda Sakunosuke did not shake his head like an ordinary person would. "If you say there is, I shall take it as truth."
His next words genuinely surprised the middle-aged man.
Oda Sakunosuke's finger pointed at Light and Darkness, recommending the novel he could not bear to put down: "In this novel as well, I similarly see my own shadow in many people."
The middle-aged man was rendered speechless.
Then, the middle-aged man introduced himself: "I am Natsume Souseki."
Oda Sakunosuke: "?"
He lowered his head to look. On the cover of Light and Darkness, the author's name was clearly printed—Natsume Souseki.
Had he recently developed the luck of running into literary authors?
"I suppose I can barely count as this love-obsessed 'Reader's' half-teacher. Of course, I have not yet formally taken him under my tutelage. In terms of literary creation, I am his senior, with some right to offer guidance—"
"In The School Belle..., the male protagonist 'Katana Taro' was persuaded by someone to become a bodyguard. Although his ending is death, this only demonstrates that he lacked proper guidance."
"Killing is a sinful act."
"However, killing for the sake of protection, for the sake of righteousness—I believe this is absolutely not the deed of a villain."
Natsume Souseki had observed Oda Sakunosuke for quite some time, yet had not come to meet him because there were too many people under observation and he was temporarily overwhelmed. He knew the entanglements between this killer youth, Ranpo, and Fukuzawa in considerable detail, and occasionally wanted to laugh. He would remember the ending of the novel in which Asou Akiya alluded to him.
To persuade someone toward goodness, one must not give up halfway; one must leave them a path to live.
For the other party to survive is what makes "Zenzai".
"This is the latter portion of Light and Darkness. Ugly words first—the second volume is not at all pleasant to read, but do not compare it to The School Belle. I still want to preserve some dignity." Natsume Souseki withdrew a novel from his coat and placed it before Oda Sakunosuke. He did not wish to recall that he had given away the latter contents, nor that shameless Asou Akiya who had flattered him to the skies.
How fake.
Why not just say it's terrible outright?
Your boyfriend Randou gets a headache the moment he looks at this book. Who are you trying to fool?
Natsume Souseki spoke to the red-haired youth who appeared immersed in darkness, unable to extricate himself, yet whose eyes seemed to flicker with a trace of hope—unhurriedly, measuredly: "I won't be responsible if you regret this."
Having walked a few steps out of the teahouse, Natsume Souseki swiftly turned back.
Oda Sakunosuke had just opened the book.
Natsume Souseki rubbed his temples. The sense of déjà vu was too severe—it practically mirrored The School Belle... That ridiculously long novel title, he completely refused to speak or even think it.
In The School Belle, there was a scene where an old man who persuaded the male protagonist toward goodness delivered a lengthy speech, then never bothered with this ex-killer again. Indirectly causing the male protagonist, who had never been exposed to any other trade and knew nothing beyond killing, to mistakenly believe that being a good person meant absolutely no killing. Innocently, he walked toward a blood-soaked bad ending.
Natsume Souseki very much wanted to scratch Asou Akiya's face. If you have something to say, say it directly. What is all this allusion business.
He could not stand to see a child of such talent living numbly, and could not help but say a few words. That did not mean he would completely wash his hands of the matter after the other party renounced evil and embraced goodness.
"Young man."
Oda Sakunosuke looked at him with bewildered eyes.
"There are many bad people in this world, and many good people as well. You must learn to distinguish between them. A bright future is something you seize with your own two hands—not something others bestow upon you."
Having spoken far more than he intended, Natsume Souseki left behind a phone number.
"If you run into trouble, you can seek him out. He is someone with experiences similar to yet different from your own, a person of reasonable and understanding character. If we're speaking of who is most suited to guide you... it certainly isn't me."
The all-capable Fukuzawa Yukichi.
An afternoon passed. Oda Sakunosuke, seated in his spot, flipped to the novel's ending.
The ending had been torn out. The protagonist's final line was—
["Human beings are born to redeem themselves. One shall understand this at the moment when death draws near."]
The half-unemployed Oda Sakunosuke stared at the books.
A long while passed.
He abruptly flipped open The Retired Killer Who Became the School Belle's Personal Bodyguard, turning to the scene where the male protagonist "Katana Taro" conversed with an old man during his time as a killer.
["Old man, what is the future in your eyes?"]
["The future is sea breeze and warm sunshine, living beside the ocean, picking up a novel, gazing at its unfinished ending, then pondering deeply over how it concludes."]
["The ending?"]
["When I was young, I once read a novel with its ending torn away. Someone told me, if you are dissatisfied with the ending, use your own life to complete the story."]
["Does continuing it this way hold any meaning?"]
["I asked the same question, and so that person answered, 'Do not sell yourself short. Pick up the pen. Anyone who can write needs only literacy—no other threshold is required.'"]
Oda Sakunosuke's hollow eyes went blank, momentarily shaken.
He could not tell whether his identity as a killer had been discovered, and so this middle-aged man had reenacted a scene from the novel, or whether what happened today happened to coincide with the novel's contents. In truth, as he read the novel once more, his keen intuition offered an inconceivable answer.
He had been guided toward goodness by two authors.
The younger author told him to be careful, not to lay down his weapons for killing so easily.
The elder author, building upon the former's foundation, cautiously told him that killing was a sin, yet killing for the sake of protection and righteousness could be understood and forgiven.
Within Oda Sakunosuke's fourteen dark years of life, two special "guides" had suddenly appeared. They seemed to stand not far from him, watching him with perceptive gazes, unearthing his essence one step ahead of even himself.
He asked himself.
Beyond killing, what else could he do?
Since writing novels required no threshold, should he try his hand at writing one?
After all...
The detective boy was writing novels too.
That level of "mystery"... he should be able to... no... do even better...
...
A few days later.
After being surrounded by police, Oda Sakunosuke found their gazes filled with disappointment, as though resenting his lack of ambition. He knew not what intelligence they had received. "You again? So young and homeless, unable to find work—don't just give up and debase yourself like this!"
Oda Sakunosuke's heart remained calm. He raised both hands and surrendered without resistance.
He entered prison with practiced ease.
Afterward, he asked the guards for paper and pen. Settling his mind, drawing from his immediate surroundings, he quietly wrote practice short stories through the dull, tedious days of prison life.
...
Prison:
Rice with sugar sprinkled on it is truly unbearable. To avoid having to eat such palate-abusing prison fare, refraining from committing evil is hardly an incomprehensible choice, is it?
—Oda Sakunosuke.