A secret plotted over three years and concealed for two more had now been exposed by more than half.
In the six years since Asou Akiya transmigrated into this world, aside from the first year of sheer bewilderment, the following five years had been spent living as both screenwriter and director, carefully weaving an intricate web of romance designed to ensnare Arthur Rimbaud.
Now, the distinction between hunter and prey no longer existed.
He had fallen in love with Randou, and all he wished for was that this beautiful dream might last a little longer—long enough for the other man, upon waking, to remember more of it.
What he was betting on was the feelings tempered by six years of shared time.
Not the present moment.
If everything were to derail because of Ranpo's loose tongue, if the entire plot veered wildly off course, then even in death he would never close his eyes in peace.
A heavy weight pressed against Asou Akiya's chest as he spared no mercy in imagining the worst possible outcome. Chuuya possessed memories from before his birth, which meant Chuuya knew he was not human and could not possibly have human parents. Even if there truly were special cases like that, it was not a role some ordinary person could simply step into—especially when Chuuya had been discovered in a military facility.
Asou Akiya was a mafioso. During the Yokohama settlement explosion, he had been only twenty years old, with no military or governmental background whatsoever. The gentle side he had shown Chuuya was far too ordinary, far too young.
If only he had known earlier…
Should he have shown off more in front of Chuuya?
Too late now.
Should he kill the cat and offer it up to the heavens?
The look he cast toward Edogawa Ranpo grew dark and dangerous. Ranpo no longer dared to wipe his face on Akiya's suit pants. "Uncle! I won't get your son killed! That orange cat doesn't know anything—he's really dumb! The moment I ran into him, I could tell he was looking for his parents, and the father who named him—wasn't that you?!"
With leaps of logic so abrupt they bordered on acrobatics, Edogawa Ranpo chattered away, rattling off a full "retelling" of how he had deliberately latched onto Nakahara Chuuya.
By the time Ranpo finished gesticulating wildly through the entire story, the truth of the misunderstanding turned out to be far better than Asou Akiya had imagined.
He froze in place.
Asou Akiya could hardly believe it.
This mischievous black cat… hadn't actually dug his grave after all?
"You're sure the words you used were 'current father'?" he asked.
"Yeah!"
Edogawa Ranpo seized upon this as the crucial turning point for making up with the uncle, staring at him with wide, hopeful eyes.
Muttering under his breath, Ranpo said, "I thought the orange cat was born from your boyfriend and his ex-girlfriend. No one ever told me that men can have children together—and that they can give birth to one that big."
Between the two kittens, a spectacular error in gender cognition had occurred.
Ranpo had concluded that Randou was male and that Verlaine was female, and that the two of them had long ago had a son together—Chuuya.
Chuuya, meanwhile, had misunderstood things in the opposite direction. He believed Randou was female and Verlaine was male. And because Randou was now with Asou Akiya, this "mother"—whose real name he did not even know—had dumped her former boyfriend and formed a new family.
By that logic, Asou Akiya naturally became Nakahara Chuuya's current, nominal father.
From a purely logical standpoint, it all checked out.
Asou Akiya began to pace, rubbing his aching temples as he painstakingly untangled Ranpo's hair-loss-inducing brand of logic.
"There's still room to salvage this."
Verlaine—please, for once, turn into a woman.
Listening to the rhythmic roar of the waves, Asou Akiya forced himself to calm down and said, "Ranpo, you're coming with me to see Chuuya. That will make it more convincing."
Edogawa Ranpo glanced at the bicycle lying on the ground, a surge of grievance rising in his chest. "No!"
Asou Akiya shot Ranpo a sharp glare.
Edogawa Ranpo's eyes instantly filled with tears. "My butt hurts."
Asou Akiya: "..."
He took a few steps forward, lifted the bicycle upright, and shook the sand off it. The chain hadn't been damaged.
The bicycle issued by the Yokohama Postal Service was an old model—already long out of fashion by the era of his previous life—something like an old man's bike, with a single horizontal bar across the frame, convenient for carrying someone on the front.
"Come here," Asou Akiya called to him.
Edogawa Ranpo didn't move. Being beaten had left him with a bit of psychological trauma.
"I won't spank you again," Akiya said. The anger had drained from his voice, replaced by a helpless, crooked smile.
"I'll take you over there."
Perfectly resolved. The matter was wiped clean with a single stroke.
On the road where they had just finished their chase, the calico cat could no longer manage to run. Completely exhausted, it switched to tiny, shuffling steps.
[Ranpo, have some consideration for the elderly. I really can't run as fast as you youngsters.]
Being a cat was just too hard.
The calico cat's gaze shifted toward the direction it had predicted—and suddenly it perked up, spotting a familiar bicycle.
Asou Akiya, who usually rode home in a chauffeured car and whose assets grew by the day, was now riding a bicycle, with Edogawa Ranpo sitting on the single top bar. The black-haired young man had taken off his conspicuous, high-end suit jacket, and on his head was the postman's cap he had taken from Ranpo, deliberately concealing those striking, slender brows and eyes that left such a strong impression.
He rode the loaded bicycle a little unsteadily, ringing the bell to warn pedestrians. Under the boy's laughing, unconscious mischief, he gradually forced himself to adapt to the feel of cycling, heading toward the address in Suribachi Street.
What truly made the calico cat's eyes widen was the sight of Ranpo—an orphan who had lost both parents—wrapping his arms around the black-haired young man's waist.
It was the simple, instinctive closeness of a child leaning against an elder.
One act of giving directions, three jobs at once, and Edogawa Ranpo and Asou Akiya were bound together by a fate that could not be easily untied. Like a fledgling that had suffered endless grievances, flapping its wings in a clumsy, staggering flight, Ranpo had finally collided with one of his own kind and, at last, found a temporary haven where life could be steady.
[Was it deliberate, or merely accidental?]
[The guardian Ranpo chose turned out to be someone from the Port Mafia—what are we supposed to do now…]
The calico cat fixed the two of them with a sharp, probing stare, as though trying to see through the man before it.
Sitting on the bicycle, Edogawa Ranpo seemed to sense something and was about to look in the calico cat's direction, when Asou Akiya pressed a hand down on his head. The wind-tossed black hair brushed lightly against his palm, bringing with it a faint, ticklish sensation.
"Don't look around. Sit still. I haven't ridden a bicycle in many years."
The calico cat melted back into the street scenery.
At this point in time, Ranpo should not yet be paying attention to Natsume Souseki.
Stopped by Asou Akiya, Edogawa Ranpo didn't care in the slightest and couldn't be bothered to mind who along the road might be watching him. He quickly forgot the lesson taught by pain, buried his face in the shelter from the wind, emptied his mind, and allowed himself a brief moment of peace.
Since coming from the countryside into the city, he had been struggling in unfamiliar places without pause, living solely for the sake of staying alive.
He did not want to die.
And yet, being asked to adapt to this world was unbearably difficult for him. He could not understand what people were thinking, could not grasp why something simple had to become so complicated, as though he were surrounded by monsters wearing human skin. Every time he was scolded at work, Edogawa Ranpo wanted to break down and sob, yet he would always find his confidence again in the words his parents had spoken before their deaths, and in the uncle's attitude toward him.
These were society's trials. He had to pass them, and in doing so, become a clever adult.
His mother had once said that Ranpo was still a child and did not need to rush to grow up—they would stay by his side and accompany him. His father had once said that he would surpass his parents, and therefore he needed to learn silence, to refrain from using what he knew to wound others.
Only the uncle, when faced with his failures, would tell him how to be happy without being hurt by others.
This time, the uncle had truly struck him out of anger he could not hold back.
"Uncle…"
"Why is it that every time I tell the truth… everyone gets angry?"
To someone in a good mood, the sea breeze of Yokohama was refreshing, carrying a gentle softness like seawater itself; but to someone in a bad mood, it was damp and salty, needlessly irritating to the skin, and even the seagulls circling in the sky looked disgusting.
Asou Akiya felt the boy clutching tightly around his waist, wrinkling his shirt, and the older man gave his answer.
"Because you don't understand how fragile the human heart can be."
A single thought, a moment's difference, could lead to far too many consequences.
For example, himself and Rimbaud, and Chuuya.
Or Ranpo, step by step approaching the edge of a cliff, isolated and helpless in a world of fools.
"See more, go farther, experience more things, and you will understand."
The person who would teach you the right values, who would pull you back from the edge of the cliff, is already waiting for you in the not-so-distant future, Ranpo.
"I won't," Edogawa Ranpo whispered, his voice as faint as a mosquito. "I'm really stupid."
"Heh." Asou Akiya let go of his resentment, unwilling to keep sulking with a child whose mind was that of a three-year-old. "If you're a fool, then you're the smartest fool in the world."
This stretch of life was not Edogawa Ranpo's dark past; it was a precious time of growth.
...
Suribachi City, near its central area, was sparsely built and far removed from the bustle of the outside world, an expanse that kept people at a great distance.
Nakahara Chuuya stood there alone, a boy unafraid of danger, straight and unyielding like a stubborn short spear driven into the ground.
He was waiting for someone.
If that person did not come, he would not go back to rest.
Nakahara Chuuya had never told any of his companions about his origins, burying the secret of his inhuman nature deep in his heart, hiding it there for two full years. The pressure and confusion he carried far exceeded that of any peer his age, yet he endured it, just as he had learned to restrain his gravity ability, refusing to let its power cloud the eyes with which he now looked upon the world as a human.
"Chuuya."
"Orange kitty!"
Two sets of footsteps descended the layered stairs, one heavier, one lighter.
The person Chuuya had been waiting for, for a full hour, had finally arrived.
He turned around in an instant, irritation flaring the moment his orange hair blocked even a sliver of his vision, for the truth was right in front of him.
"Mr. Asou—!"
Asou Akiya understood his turmoil and set down the bicycle he had carried with him to prevent it from being stolen.
Children—there wasn't a single one who ever let you rest easy.
And then—
Before Nakahara Chuuya's blue eyes, bright with a hope he could not yet conceal, Asou Akiya stepped forward to the very place where they had first met.
Back then, the Arahabaki who had only just become human lay collapsed on the ground, naked and unguarded, sleeping with an innocent, peaceful expression. The apple-red flush on his cheeks was something Asou Akiya had never been able to forget, even now.
Asou Akiya bent down so they were at eye level and gently rubbed the boy's orange hair.
"Chuuya, I know it's hard for you to believe what I said, so let me greet you properly again."
"Nice to meet you."
"My name is Asou Akiya. I am your father."
On the scorched remains of the Yokohama Foreign Settlement, on the land that had since become Suribachi City, he spoke a truth that came infinitely close to reality.
"When I saw your birth, I was happier than I can put into words. Welcome to this world."
…
Arahabaki.
You are the god whom Verlaine once said could cause 'natural disasters' with every breath you take, but you will never die while clutching loneliness in your arms.
Because behind you, I have always been watching over you.