Tohru Hakayama, also known as GD, was troubled by an uncomfortable pain in his head. It was a strange feeling, as if his brain was being touched by some sort of foreign object, but it was something Hakayama was intimately familiar with by now.
He’d suffered this mysterious pain when he was seven, in the autumn of his first year of elementary school. As far as he could recall, that was the first time it had happened. The inside of his head had felt strange. It had hurt. He’d felt sick. Hakayama had complained about it, and his homeroom teacher, Ms. Namerikawa, had been so worried about him that he’d taken the young Hakayama to the school nurse herself. At the time, Ms. Namerikawa was twenty-six, had a bob cut, and was quite plump, particularly around her ample bosom.
Years later, when he was in fifth grade, Hakayama would be nicknamed “Professor Perv.” Even as a first-grader, however, he’d already taken a special interest in the opposite sex. Ms. Namerikawa had been his first love. He hadn’t hesitated to use any means to gain her favor, and throughout his life, there had been very few people he hadn’t been able to manipulate if he put his mind to it. Ms. Namerikawa had undoubtedly favored the young Hakayama. While he was grateful for his good fortune, being able to experience her soft touch, he shuddered at the unusual discomfort that never seemed to go away.
This is some horrible illness, isn’t it? I’m going to die.
Despite being in the first grade of elementary school, Hakayama had even resigned himself to an early death. He’d spent about an hour in bed at the nurse’s office before his parents had come to take him to the hospital. A doctor examined him and prescribed some medicine, but even that hadn’t stopped the pain. Ms. Namerikawa had gone to the trouble of visiting him that evening and held his hand for a while, but the uncomfortable pain in Hakayama’s head hadn’t let up.
He hadn’t been able to sleep that night, and before dawn, the Hakayama household received a phone call.
It was news that his grandmother had been rushed to the hospital with a sudden illness.
As a younger woman, Hakayama’s grandmother had transitioned from working as a tour bus guide to working in the nighttime entertainment industry, making a name for herself under an alias at an establishment in Ginza. Eventually, she’d caught the eye of a yakuza boss known by everyone in that world and become his mistress. After going through many twists and turns in life, she’d married Hakayama’s grandfather, a post office clerk—but even after that, she’d continued to lead an eventful life and had apparently even frequently run away from their home, leaving behind her daughter, Hakayama’s mother. But when Tohru, her first grandchild, had been born, she’d doted on him. Hakayama could still vividly recall the warmth of his grandmother’s body, her scent, her heartbeat, and the sounds of her breathing as she’d held him while they slept. Hakayama had, without a doubt, been a grandma’s boy.
About an hour after the phone call informing them of his grandmother’s condition, the foreign object in the young Hakayama’s head disappeared as if it had never existed in the first place.
Oh. She’s dead.
Grandma died.
He didn’t know how or why he knew, but Hakayama was certain of it. And it turned out he was right.
After several similar occurrences, Hakayama realized something.
The sensation of having a foreign object in his head and the pain it brought on—which was clearly different from a regular headache and could only be described as “unique”—was him having a bad feeling. That said, it was too accurate to simply call it a “feeling.” Whenever he was tormented by that strange sensation, something bad would inevitably happen. In most cases, someone would die. And the people who lost their lives tended to be those who Hakayama didn’t want to die.
It wasn’t too bad if other people died. Even if it was painful, he could come to terms with it. But the next one to die could be Hakayama himself. He couldn’t afford to ignore his bad feelings. When a foreign object appeared in his head, it was a sign that things would turn out badly if they stayed as they were. A sign that he had to change something.
Because of that, Hakayama had repeatedly postponed a meeting he’d originally planned for two weeks earlier. He’d also changed the location from the first hideout to a classy teppanyaki restaurant that could be reserved for private use, to the second hideout, and finally to the third hideout, where he currently was. Each time something changed, the thing in Hakayama’s head changed with it, becoming a sledgehammer, a wok, a barbell, a sashimi knife, and a long nail, among other things. The appearance of the object was just a metaphor, but after many years of experience, Hakayama was able to get a rough mental picture of it. The bigger and more dangerous the object was, the worse his feeling was. In other words, the more severe the upcoming crisis would be.
The third hideout was a former sheet metal factory in the suburbs. Seven or eight highly polished classic cars were parked inside, and the space was furnished with a leather sofa from Baxter—a high-end furniture company—and a marble coffee table that was either Cappellini or Cassina. It also had a bar and a kitchen with an extra-large fridge.
As soon as Hakayama had decided to have the meeting at the third hideout on that particular night, the thing in his head had become a packet of natto. His mother had eaten natto every day without fail, but his grandmother had despised it, saying that she wouldn’t eat those awful smelly fermented soybeans even if it killed her.
It was natto. Probably. Since it was packaged, he didn’t actually know whether what was inside really was natto. It didn’t smell like anything. It was just a mental image based on his experience, but he thought it was probably natto. He didn’t know what to think of this particular thing in his head.
Even now, as he was sitting down for a meeting with the “Big Five” lieutenants of the Scarecrows criminal organization—a group that committed every evil deed imaginable—Hakayama was still trying to figure it out.
“GD.”
The guy who’d called out to Hakayama wore a suit and sunglasses and was making a cocktail at the bar. Yuuki Kimokawa was a man who liked flashy things. His gray striped suit and dark red tie were annoyingly shiny, and the frames of his light-colored sunglasses were studded with diamonds. His hair, which was slicked back and set in place with hair products, also shone brightly. His appearance may have looked foolish, but he was actually quite astute and cautious. Once, he’d confessed that the time it took for him to recite the multiplication tables slowed down when he was drunk, and the look on his face had been surprisingly serious. The cocktail he was making was probably nonalcoholic.