SIDE A A young man’s bloodied corpse lay sprawled out on my porch. I gazed down at his lifeless form, then shifted my attention to the road in front of my house. It was a quiet morning. The apartment building across the street cast a long, black shadow over the pavement. Trumpet vines nestled in the hedges swayed with the gentle wind, whispering secrets unintelligible to human ears. Somewhere far off, the sound of a long-haul truck scraping against the road drifted by. And there, at the foot of my front steps, lay a body. A corpse. A dead body would usually stick out like a sore thumb, but not this one. This corpse blended in, becoming one with the peaceful everyday morning scenery. After a moment, I realized why. This corpse’s chest was rising and falling ever so slightly. It wasn’t a corpse. He was alive. I observed the young man. He was black from head to foot, from his shaggy hair to his high-collared overcoat, three-piece suit, and tie. The only things that weren’t black were his button-down shirt and the bandages wrapped around his face—those were a mottled pattern of white and red, reminiscent of some sort of eerie Chinese curse. He had collapsed at the bottom of the cracked concrete steps leading up to the porch, smearing a trail of blood in his wake. The question was, what was I going to do with this half-dead person on my stoop? The answer was simple: gently tap him with my toe and roll him straight down the stairs to the sidewalk. That way, he’d be on a public road instead of my property. The street is government owned, and anyone in distress on public property should, by all rights, be at the mercy of the government’s aid. Meanwhile, an ordinary deliveryman like me should go inside and eat some breakfast. This wasn’t an act of callousness or cruelty on my part; it was purely self-preservation. The young man’s injuries were unmistakably gunshot wounds, and there were plenty of them. His body probably had even more bullet holes than what I could see, too. And to top it off, a wad of crisp new bills was clutched in his left hand. What significance did this hold? None whatsoever. Setting aside the obvious—that this guy was major trouble and getting involved would be a one-way ticket to a massive headache—this situation meant nothing. In other words, he was clearly someone an ordinary citizen shouldn’t get mixed up with. In fact, anyone with a functioning brain would get out of Dodge the moment they saw this young man, like the biblical prophet Jonah would have done had he encountered a second giant fish in the stormy seas. I looked at the young man, then at the road, then at the sky, and then back at the young man. That was when I sprang into action. I hoisted him up from under his arms, his heels dragging against the stairs as I hauled him inside before laying him on the fold-down bed. He was a lot lighter than his appearance suggested; I had no trouble carrying him. Upon closer inspection, his wounds proved severe and plentiful. He’d lost a ton of blood, but he would probably survive with prompt and proper medical treatment. I took out a medical kit from the back of the closet and gave him some basic first aid. First, I positioned a towel beneath his upper body for elevation; then I cut his clothing away with scissors to check if he still had any bullets lodged in his wounds. To stanch the bleeding, I applied pressure to several points—beneath the armpits, behind the elbows, at the ankles, behind the knees—and bound them tightly with clean cloths. Then I used a sterilized tourniquet to address the bleeding directly at each wound site. Fortunately for him, I could do this kind of first aid with my eyes closed. Once I finished the initial treatment, I stood over the young man and crossed my arms. His breathing was stable. He didn’t appear to have any broken bones or lung injuries yet consciousness eluded him. Just throw him out, my inner voice demanded. Providing aid to someone so obviously suspicious defied all reason. I clearly should’ve listened to that warning—any rational person would have. But against my better judgment, I decided to observe the young man further. I didn’t recognize him, so it seemed he wasn’t an acquaintance of mine. Seemed because the bandages covering half his face made it almost impossible to tell. Even so, he looked far younger than I’d initially thought—young enough, in fact, that he could’ve easily passed for a teenager. Then I remembered the wad of cash he’d been holding. Sure enough, he was still clutching it. If it was as much as it looked, then it would be a small fortune for someone like me who was barely scraping by on a meager salary. Maybe, just maybe, I could consider it a thank-you for saving his life—a quiet little transfer of funds from his pocket to mine. I picked up the bundle and began flipping through the bills. And that’s when I finally realized I was the biggest idiot in town as a bitterness filled my mouth. This was a stack of freshly minted bills. Although there was blood smeared on them in some places, they were still wrapped in a pristine paper band, indicating that they were brand-new. There was no bank name printed on this currency strap, either. In fact, there was nothing written on the band at all. The bills were also neatly arranged by serial number. It hit me like a punch to the gut. Two possible explanations came to mind. One was that this wad of bills had been taken from the reserve bank’s vault before circulation. That would mean this young man was either a magician or a demon, since there was no way that an ordinary person could get their hands on something like this. Usually, bills printed at the mint were first sent to the Ministry of Finance where the serial numbers were scanned to make them usable currency. Then they were transported by armored car to branches of the reserve bank, and from there, they were further divided and distributed to city banks. At that point, the paper band was then replaced with ones from their respective banks. However, this band had absolutely nothing printed on it. You’d have to have stolen the notes either straight from the reserve or from the armored car during transport. So was this guy on his way back from robbing an armored truck transporting cash? That’d be a relief; then I’d already be back in the kitchen making coffee. People who robbed armored cars were just violent scrubs, nothing more. Violence alone couldn’t cause a storm. Another possibility was that this was counterfeit money. After grabbing a magnifying glass from the back of the room, I scrutinized the wad of bills in my hand. Immediately, my fingertips went numb. I compared the notes side by side with one from my own wallet, but I found no discernible differences whatsoever. These were supernotes—perfect counterfeits. I felt dizzy. After all, I was essentially holding a mini–nuclear weapon. Counterfeit money is a weapon of war as old as the bow and arrow. If you circulate well-made counterfeits in an enemy country, the increased amount of currency in circulation devalues the currency itself, causing prices to rise. A country is, in a sense, its currency. Therefore, if you skillfully incite distrust in the currency, you can bankrupt the economy and even destroy an entire nation. That was why national defense organizations always kept a close eye on counterfeit money. If forgeries of this caliber circulated publicly, local law enforcement wouldn’t be the ones responding. It would be someone higher up like national security agencies or the military. I tossed the wad of bills onto the desk, since I didn’t want to leave any more fingerprints on them than I already had, then immediately headed for the telephone. If I reported this information promptly, then I might be able to get some leniency from the authorities. Put simply, the quicker I reported the incident, the better. But right as I picked up the phone, I heard a hoarse voice—and it wasn’t coming from the receiver. “Put the phone down.” I turned in the direction of the voice to find that the young man had finally opened his eyes and was looking right at me. I glanced at the telephone in my hand, then at the young man once more. “And what if I don’t?” I asked him. “I’ll kill you.” He uttered those words with such profound indifference—the same emotional investment one might reserve for describing leftover, day-old potato salad on a convenience store counter. I could see it in his eyes: Threatening to kill someone must have been commonplace for him, no different from saying he was going to trim his fingernails or buy another pack of cigarettes. “And how are you going to do that?” I asked. I took the receiver off my ear, but I didn’t hang the phone up. “You’re riddled with bullet holes. You can’t even move, since your body’s dying on you. You don’t even have a gun. You would need at least two hundred of you right now to kill me.” “No, I wouldn’t,” the young man coldly replied. “I’m Port Mafia.” That was more than enough for me. “Port Mafia,” I repeated, choosing my words carefully. “Guess I don’t have much of a choice, then.” I slowly hung the phone up as quietly as possible. The young man smirked. “Smart,” he said. If he really was with the Port Mafia, then even the smallest gesture could set him off. I needed to be especially careful. That organization was synonymous with darkness and violence; if they were the ones I was dealing with, then even if I reported this person and got out of the situation unscathed, there was no telling what would happen to me later. Humans have around two hundred bones—I wouldn’t be surprised if the Port Mafia decided to chop me into just as many pieces. I stared at the young man for about three seconds, then headed to the kitchen. The doorway was completely open, allowing me to keep my eye on him while I began preparing some coffee. I set the kettle on the stove, dampened the filter rod, then put the coffee grounds into the pot before pouring boiling water over them. “If I’m not allowed to call the police, then how about a doctor?” I suggested, my gaze still fixed on the rising steam. “I gave you some emergency first aid, but that’s about it. You’re going to need to see a real doctor if you want to survive.” “That’s none of your concern,” the young man replied, his voice stretched thin with emotion. “This is nothing. I’m used to getting a few cuts and scrapes.” “Really? All right, then.” I stirred the coffee, then set the timer. “Not like there’s anything a humble deliveryman like myself can do against a monster from the Port Mafia.” “I’m glad you understand. Now, then—” The young man suddenly began coughing violently and then vomited blood. I quickly rushed to his side and turned his head to prevent him from aspirating. I examined the inside of his mouth but couldn’t tell where the bleeding was coming from. It could’ve been a cut in his mouth or something internal, for all I knew. “You need to go to a hospital. You’re seriously going to die like this,” I said. “Good,” the young man whispered. “Then let me die.” A chill seemed to pass through the room. I shifted my attention to the young man. His gaze was fixed on the wall, his face devoid of any emotion and meaning. He was as calm as if he’d simply stated his age. The sight was nearly incomprehensible. It didn’t even feel like I was looking at a human being. Had this encounter occurred during midnight’s darkest hour rather than daybreak, I might have mistaken him for a ghost or perhaps a hallucination. Today wasn’t going as I had planned it. At all. It felt like the screws holding my life together were starting to come loose. “Fine,” I muttered. “If you want to die, then go ahead. It’s your life. I’m not going to stop you. I can’t let you die here, though. The cops would arrest me and say I was the one who did this to you.” “Would you rather be arrested or killed by the Mafia?” “That’s a tough question.” I eyed him intently before returning to the kitchen to turn off the stove. “Want some coffee?” I asked while grabbing a can of cream. He didn’t reply. “Why were you collapsed outside my house?” Still no reply. “Why were you holding all that money?” No response, unsurprisingly. I felt like I was having a conversation with a wind fairy—a character from a picture book who had suddenly visited my home one peaceful morning. A suicidal fairy covered in blood. I poured two cups of coffee, adding a touch of cream to each. As the steam curled upward in lazy spirals, I stirred slowly…and then I noticed it—the silence. The presence in the next room had disappeared: no sounds of breathing, no subtle shifting of weight. Even the lingering scent of death was gone. Coffee in hand, I peeked through the doorway to find the young man crawling toward the front door. If his legs had been working, he would’ve been long gone, but he clearly didn’t have the strength to walk yet. Instead, he was dragging himself across the floor like a prisoner escaping in an old war movie. Noticing my gaze, the young man offered a smile that was both resigned and condescending. “You don’t want me dying inside your house, right? Then I’ll just leave. That way I won’t be your problem anymore. You won’t need to help me or worry about me ever again. All you need to do is sit back and watch.” “Do you really want to die that badly?” I asked, still holding my coffee. “Of course. Nothing changed, even after I joined the Port Mafia,” he wheezed as if his soul were leaving his body. “Death is the only thing left that I want.” Taking a sip of my coffee, I observed him as he resumed his departure. His movements were painfully slow and pathetic. I took another sip of coffee. He continued crawling forward without pause, not even sparing a glance at me. There was exactly one thing on his mind. “You’re wasting your time,” he told me, still facing forward. He must have sensed that I’d moved. “Nobody can oppose the Port Mafia, and nobody in the Port Mafia can oppose me. In other words, nobody— Bffwaaah?!” The young man was hoisted into the air, hanging upside down. I’d wrapped him in a bedsheet, twisted the ends closed like a giant piece of candy, and picked him up. “Ow, ow, ow! Ouch! I’m gonna start bleeding again! What do you think you’re doing, you big oaf?! Do you want to die?!” “No, but I don’t want you to die, either, and if you go outside like that, you will die. You can write your own death story once you get better—one that I’m not part of.” He tried complaining again, so I gave the bedsheet a good shake. “O-ouch! Ow, ow, ow! Stop! I hate pain!” “Then will you give up?” “No!” As soon as I began to think of a solution, one came to mind: I’ll tie him to the bed. I lowered the young man onto the bed and unwrapped the sheet. Then I firmly wrapped a large towel around his upper body and bound his arms, which were crossed over his chest. I removed the decorative rope hanging at my front door, used it to bind his legs together, then fastened the ends to the metal frame of the bed. After propping up his head with pillows, I replaced the blanket with a fresh one and opened the transom window to let in some fresh air. “I’m going to need you to stay still until your wounds heal,” I said, staring down at the young man. “Want anything?” “My nose itches,” he mumbled, wriggling his restrained arms and glaring resentfully at me. “That’s unfortunate,” I replied, heading back to the kitchen for my coffee. His stream of curses echoed behind me, but the houses in this neighborhood were few and far between, so there was no concern about disturbing the neighbors. I savored my morning brew. And so began the brief yet bizarre chapter of my life where I lived under the same roof as Dazai. Dazai was an utterly peculiar young man. His eyes, his build, and even his very presence resembled a charred black cat. His voice held the timbre of someone sinking endlessly into the abyss of his own mind, and his dark gaze seemed to harbor a certainty that dawn would never rise again. He rarely spoke, and when he did, his voice carried the quiet finality of someone who had long since abandoned any hope of being understood. No one had ever grasped the true shape of his soul, and no one ever would. He seemed acutely aware of this as well. His desire to die seemed genuine. The values that tethered people to life possessed no value in his eyes; they were no different from a lump of rusted metal. I didn’t know why he felt that way, and I likely never would, which was something he seemed to pick up on.
Chapter 117
15 min read