One year after the explosion, the devastated site finally entered a phase of reconstruction.
The name Suribachi Street gradually began to circulate among the citizens of Yokohama.
Inside a jewelry shop along the street, a clerk put on his glasses and examined a delicate silver lock. When asked about its origin, an orange-haired boy who had just turned eight stood at the counter, stretching up on his tiptoes, his expression awkward and uneasy, and said, "It… it might have been left behind by my parents."
The clerk frowned, suspicious. "Might have been?"
He was worried that the child had stolen someone else's necklace.
"I—I was separated from my parents during that huge explosion," Nakahara Chuuya said, lying for the first time in his life, his words coming out haltingly. "I swear I didn't steal it."
The clerk compared the length of the necklace and nodded. "It does look like something meant for a child."
"There are bats, gourds, and peaches on it," the clerk said as he handed the necklace to the shop owner who had come out from the back. Lacking the experience of someone who dealt with jewelry every day, he added, "Boss, this looks like a Southeast Asian style, doesn't it?"
The owner, already well on in years, recognized the silver lock's style at a glance. "It's something people of Chinese descent favor."
The clerk let out a soft "oh," raising his brows as he looked at the orange-haired, blue-eyed child.
"You don't really look Chinese."
"..."
Nakahara Chuuya leapt up, snatched back his silver lock in one motion, and ran off in a sulk.
Passing the glass display windows along the shopping street, he caught sight of his own small, childish reflection. His features weren't particularly deep or sharply defined, yet compared to most Asians, he seemed to carry a faint hint of mixed heritage.
When he returned to the Sheep, Nakahara Chuuya was dispirited and listless.
He didn't quite fit in with the other orphans. He carried secrets in his heart—secrets he could not confide in anyone.
"What does it mean… the person who gave me this silver lock?" Nakahara Chuuya murmured to himself, staring blankly at the delicate silver lock now hanging once more around his neck. He had no idea how tempting such an exquisite little object might be to other children. Within the Sheep—a group made up entirely of orphans who had lost their parents—life was, in truth, extremely difficult. They called themselves the "Sheep" precisely because, like sheep, they needed to huddle together for warmth.
By day, they scattered to search for food and resources, helping one another as best they could. By night, they gathered together and lived in houses donated by kind-hearted people, spared from wind and rain, yet filled with unease about the future.
Even so, the members of the Sheep retained a basic sense of decency. They would not seize the keepsakes left in the hands of fellow orphans. Occasionally, their gazes might linger a little too long, but that was only because it had been so long since they had seen anything of value. Everyone agreed that Nakahara Chuuya's biological parents had perished at the site of the explosion, leaving him alone and adrift, searching for the truth of his own origins.
In private, Nakahara Chuuya sought out the oldest of the group and asked, "What does 'Chinese descent' mean?"
The other replied, "The people over in Yokohama's Chinatown, I guess."
Chuuya asked again, "Then what is Chinatown?"
The companion hesitated. "It's a place where people of Chinese descent gather to live. Ah—you'll understand once you go there."
Chuuya's eyes grew intensely serious. He decided he would go and see Yokohama Chinatown for himself.
Three days later—
Nakahara Chuuya managed to gather some information at a silver shop run by people from Zhonghua.
An elderly silversmith with graying hair held the silver lock in his hands and said with nostalgia, "This is a longevity lock."
"Child, a longevity lock is meant to bless a child with peace year after year, free from illness and disaster. The bats, gourds, and longevity peaches carved on it represent fortune, prosperity, and long life." The silversmith turned it over, looking at the engraved name. "Nakahara Chuuya—this is your name, isn't it? Your parents loved you very much."
Chuuya's expression drifted, his thoughts far away, and he answered dully, "Mm."
He had heard the word love.
Love?
In his life, love was something utterly unfamiliar. What kind of person would ever offer him a feeling like that?
"I suggest you ask at another shop," the silversmith said gently. "They specialize in making custom longevity locks." He looked at Nakahara Chuuya with quiet compassion, noticing how the child had come alone to an unfamiliar place, how the clothes he wore were plain and had clearly been washed countless times, despite the precious silver lock he carried.
Cradling the lock in his hands, Chuuya walked out of the shop, turned the corner, and went to the other store the old craftsman had mentioned.
And there, he found conclusive proof.
The shop assistant glanced at the longevity lock. "Yes, this was made by our shop. Let me check the ledger…" She flipped through the pages, then brightened. "Here it is! The records say this design was ordered last year, and the payment was made in U.S. dollars."
Chuuya asked urgently, "Is there anything more specific? Any other information?"
Ordinarily, the clerk would not have been allowed to reveal details about a client, but when Chuuya said, "I was separated from my parents during the explosion in the Yokohama Settlement. I'm trying to find them," her resolve softened.
She searched her memory and said, "A year ago, there was a foreign customer who ordered it on behalf of a friend. He said his friend's son was about to be born, and he'd been entrusted to have a longevity lock made."
Never before had Chuuya come so close to the truth of his own origins. His voice trembled as he asked, "Do you have a phone number? An address?"
The clerk let out a quiet sigh, copied the information down, and handed it to him.
"...Try not to be too heartbroken," she said softly.
"Huh?"
Chuuya, who had been beaming with joy, froze the instant he saw the address written on the paper.
—The address was in the Yokohama Settlement.
Ten minutes later, Nakahara Chuuya stood inside a phone booth, dialing the number, only to be met with the relentless busy tone that signified no one would ever pick up.
In that single explosion, every related lead had been severed completely.
He squatted by the roadside, small and painfully thin, his orange hair hanging loose, his blue eyes staring blankly at the pedestrians passing by, unable to find any focus—like an unadopted little orange kitten left on the street.
"My birth wasn't an accident."
"Then why… why won't the one who brought me out of the seal come to see me?"
He strained with all his might to recall the day he was born.
Dimly, vaguely, when he had transformed into a human child and fallen into deep sleep, someone had kissed his cheek, had not harmed him, and had placed this icy-cold necklace around his neck.
Chuuya clenched his hair in his fists, his brows twisting together, and forced himself to abandon those fragile fantasies.
He muttered dully,
"How could I… possibly… have human parents…"
It was unforgivable—giving him hope, only to cut off every last clue without hesitation.
Just how in the world was he even born?!
And yet, the man who had "given birth" to Nakahara Chuuya—Randou—was sitting calmly in his study at that very moment. During the day, Akiyama Asō had gone to work, leaving him alone with his books, pondering how to write poetry.
Living in such ease and comfort, Randou's ability had yet to awaken, and he regarded himself as nothing more than an ordinary person. Every day, he read with a book in hand, drank hot water with goji berries from his thermos, rose early and went to bed early, embodying the principles of health preservation to an almost excessive degree. If Illuminations possessed a human mind, it would probably be complaining about him nonstop.
Master, when you finally become a famous poet, the espers of Europe are going to start questioning the meaning of their entire existence.
Your career change is far too dramatic!
With neither connections nor funds for promotion, poetry collections were already a niche form of literature; when the author was French, they tended to suffer even more from cultural displacement and lack of resonance. However, neither Asou Akiya nor Randou pursued sales numbers. Read it if you wish, ignore it if you don't—Randou believed that only a small handful of people were worthy of understanding his inner world, while ordinary folk might as well buy other poetry books to decorate their shelves.
Randou had just finished reading Catholic scriptures. Yet faith, once deprived of fertile soil in the heart, became unstable—he felt that he had once believed in God, and in the next instant could just as easily feel that God was nothing remarkable at all.
Humility and arrogance—mutually contradictory, yet coexisting.
This contradiction was reflected clearly in the poetry drafts Akiyama had left for him.
With cool, pale fingers, he traced the creased edges of the manuscript, smoothing them gently.
Setting aside his musings on faith, Randou fixed his gaze on the opening of a poem. The complete sentences burst forth with intense emotion, striking his heart and urging him to continue writing.
"Morning":Did I not once possess a brave, beautiful, and illusory youth, fortunate enough to be inscribed upon pages of gold? By what madness, by what error, have I become so feeble in reality?
It felt as though he were overlapping with his past self.
Yes.
What mistake had he committed that had transformed him into what he was today?
Almost without thinking, he wrote down what surged through his heart. Inspiration drifted and wavered as he completed the second line:
You say that beasts weep from sorrow, that the sick despair, that the dead are tormented by nightmares—then, pray, tell me as well the reason for my own descent and my long, benumbed sleep.
Poetry speaks.
As the "he" who was a poet wrote the beginning, he wrote the middle—and then stood witness to what followed.
"Morning":I can no longer explain myself at all, just as beggars cannot explain the prayers they recite—the Lord's Prayer, the Hail Mary. I have even lost the ability to speak!
"..."
Rimbaud frowned, his teeth clenched, a fine mesh of tangled emotions rising within him.
"Ah… my understanding of religion is still not sufficient."
He could not place himself inside those words.
Had his past self endured some upheaval, some hidden suffering?
Decisively, he turned to the bookshelf and, with quiet satisfaction, found The Lord's Prayer and The Hail Mary. Feeling thirsty, Randou habitually opened his thermos and lowered his head to blow gently on the steam.
Suddenly, he noticed a small slice drifting inside the cup, something that looked like a medicinal root.
A Chinese herbal ingredient: dong quai.
Rimbaud took a sip of the goji-berry and dong quai broth, his expression turning blank as the strange flavor spread across his tongue.
"Akiya… it's a little… hard to drink…"
After work, Asou Akiya returned home and brushed his fingers over the back of Rimbaud's cool hand. He no longer dared to treat Randou's sensitivity to cold as a cute, fictional quirk, and said seriously, "Randou, you need to nourish your body. Western medicine can't solve your problem. Next time, I'll take you to see a traditional Chinese doctor."
Randou immediately changed his tune. "Then I'll just drink the nutritional soups you make, Akiya."
Asou Akiya raised an eyebrow. "Randou—are you afraid of doctors?"
Randou, of course, shook his head.
"I don't think I'm sick."
He pressed a fingertip against Akiya's lips just as Akiya was about to speak, then gently pushed him back onto the sofa. His voice was like sugar carefully ground to the finest powder, carrying a sweetness that made one want to taste it on the tongue.
"I'm just…"
"A little… afraid of the cold… and I like it when you hold me…"
Asou Akiya accepted the hint almost at once. After removing his lover's overcoat, his gaze fell upon the formal waist cincher and tailored suit trousers beneath, and he immediately understood why Randou's sweetness had been so overwhelming today.
So he really did buy new clothes.
Leaving aside the high-end coat for the moment, the black waist cincher was beautiful—perfectly drawing in Randou's slender waist. The laces crossed neatly at the center, cinched tight, the cincher blending seamlessly with the precisely cut suit trousers below. Together, they traced the lines of waist and legs, adding a distinctly European elegance and upright grace.
Asou Akiya chuckled softly. "At this rate, I'm going to need to nourish my own body too."
When one partner dares to experiment and the other plays without restraint, it's no wonder Asou Akiya worried that he might end up worn out.
He pinched Randou's nose lightly, while his other hand slipped through the thick cascade of long curls to cradle the back of Randou's head, drawing his gaze to that romantic face unbound by worldly conventions.
The reputation of Randou's beauty was well deserved.
With emotion swelling in his voice, Asou Akiya recited, "Within the green jewel casket of the grove, flecked with golden light, within the haze of branches blooming with brilliant flowers, sleeps that sweet kiss."
Randou brightened at once, inspiration bursting forth. "Suddenly, that liveliness shattered the tapestry of splendor."
Asou Akiya searched his memory and continued, "The startled faun lifts his eyes, crimson flowers caught between his white teeth; his… vivid lips release laughter among the branches."
The memories grew ever clearer, like glass being carefully polished until it shone.
He was touching Randou's soul, coaxing him, tempting him to fall into the beautiful vortex of poetry.
"He escaped—like a squirrel—" Randou raised his voice, his tone carrying the cadence of a chant. His throat trembled faintly within the soft scarf around his neck, as if he were teasing Akiya for being one of the ordinary mortals of the world. "His laughter is still trembling on every leaf."
"A gray finch flew in and caused a disturbance."
Before Akiya could speak, Randou willfully and illogically added the line himself, indulging his own impulse.
After that, Randou waited expectantly, hoping Akiya would reveal something in return.
That would be the poet's rose thicket.
Asou Akiya leaned in and placed a poetic kiss upon Randou's lips, speaking the final line of the poem: "The golden kiss, pondering within the woods."
The vague and fragmentary memory of The Head of the Faun was finally completed.
Effortless, simple, and yet overflowing with sensation, that richness of feeling granted Randou an imagination beyond compare.
Randou sprang down from the sofa, his long legs carrying him swiftly as he rushed into the study.
"I have to write this down!"
Behind him—
Asou Akiya stretched lazily, a look of quiet victory crossing his face, satisfied at having successfully diverted Randou's attention.
Night had not yet fallen; without eating, one simply wouldn't have the strength to go on.
The helplessness of a wage slave.jpg
—
Author's Note:
Asou Akiya: Sorry, Chuuya.
Nakahara Chuuya: …
Asou Akiya: I love you. You have to believe that your mom loved you too.
Nakahara Chuuya: Like hell I do!
Although it's truly unfortunate, for now this really is a case of the parents being true love and the child being an accident, hahaha!