Couldn’t I win over the kids from Ochiya and turn them into fearless soldiers…? Benny. Kurojima. Shiro. Midori. They’re all dead. There’s no point in going to the trouble of rebuilding the Scarecrows when there’s only small fry left. They were good pawns, though, each crazy in their own way and unafraid of anything… That’s right. I need soldiers. I followed my bad feeling and it led me to Ochiya. Is it telling me to make a comeback here? Maybe the can’s full of all my dreams. I just transferred hundreds of millions of yen to my bank accounts in Singapore and Luxembourg, and I also have around five hundred million in cryptocurrency. There’s no need to panic. I just have to settle down and think. I’m not the kinda guy who’d let it end here. It’s too bad about Benny and the others, but they’re in the ground, and I’m not. The number of graves has increased again. But none of them are mine. That’s the main thing. Ochiya here is worse than a graveyard, but it’s also where I’ll make my comeback.
Hakayama used his chopsticks to pick up a dark lump from the badly chipped plate. It didn’t look like vegetables or meat, but when he sniffed it, it smelled like something resembling food. He put it in his mouth.
It’s so bitter…
Or was it salty? And the more he chewed, the more a rich umami flavor emerged. It wasn’t something a human would eat by choice, nor was it something any animal would show an interest in.
What is this…?
Hakayama washed down the remains of the dark lump in his mouth with the diluted rubbing alcohol. He almost started having a coughing fit, but the aftertaste of the dark lump disappeared. Maybe it was the sterilizing effect of the alcohol.
“Feh-feh-feh-feh.” The eighty-plus-year-old store owner let out a strange sound as he blew out cigarette smoke. Hakayama tried to ask what the black lumps on his plate were by pointing at them with the tips of his chopsticks.
That was when it happened.
Canned food…
The foreign object started shaking inside his skull. Or maybe not his skull—maybe it was buried inside his brain. The can was directly activating his neurons, and while the sensation was completely different from pain, he could only describe it as unpleasant.
Hakayama put his chopsticks down and stood up, taking a 500-yen coin from his jeans pocket and placing it on the counter. Among the food stalls that served unidentifiable food and drink in Ochiya, it was extremely rare to see a 1000-yen note, and just as rare that a single 500-yen coin wouldn’t be enough to cover it.
“Thanks for the meal.”
“Feh-feh-feh.” The store owner was probably laughing amid the cigarette smoke, and he moved his hands, covered by driving gloves. What could he possibly be trying to say?
Hakayama didn’t have a clue, but he said, “Keep the change,” as he left the stall.
“Feh-feh-feh,” the owner laughed again.
Ochiya’s Yatai Street was smoky. Each food stall was only half full of customers at best, but they all looked crowded because they were tangled together like a melee of dragons and tigers. Hakayama went down Yatai Street, stepping over fallen stools and plastic beer cases and kicking aside sheets of cardboard. He couldn’t push aside customers, even by accident. Drunken patrons and hot-tempered Ochiya residents wouldn’t stay silent if they were given a reason to fight. Many of them lived as if they might not see the next day. If it came to it, they’d put their lives on the line and start a fight over something like whether or not they were pushed, which often resulted in fatalities. Nobody in Ochiya would report anything to the police, even if one or two people died, and the police wouldn’t go to the trouble of checking it out. The corpses disappeared unnoticed. Dead people—especially the recently dead—were quite useful, and there was no shortage of people willing to make a deal for them. Occasionally, the scramble to claim corpses also resulted in an increase in supply.
Canned food…
Hakayama was still struggling to grasp the true meaning of the foreign object shaking inside his head.
That’s what it is, right?
Did it mean that danger was approaching? Was it the assailant who’d attacked their hideout and killed Benny and the others? The assassin who hadn’t died even when he was killed, like a zombie? Had he followed Hakayama? He didn’t know. He hadn’t noticed anyone suspicious. The can in his head had shaken. He wasn’t certain whether that was what it actually was, but he knew he shouldn’t ignore whatever was in his head. There was definitely something there. Something was going to happen. He couldn’t stay where he was. His bad feeling was propelling him to move.
Did he notice me…? I don’t think I gave myself away…
Sousei had found his target on Yatai Street in the notorious Ochiya, in the middle of a meal. He hadn’t particularly seemed to be paying attention to his surroundings, but Sousei still watched him from a distance, just in case. According to Sousei’s sister, he was moving alone, though that didn’t necessarily mean he didn’t have any accomplices nearby.
Ochiya was unbelievably squalid and full of trash. Visibility was extremely poor. That meant it would be difficult for someone to notice Sousei, but the same went for the target and any accomplices he might have. It was important for Sousei to proceed carefully.
Sousei maintained a distance of more than thirty feet between himself and the target. The space between the stalls was extremely narrow, so hiding and peering around corners, he could just barely keep watch on his target up ahead. The target wouldn’t be able to spot Sousei unless he turned around and focused on Sousei’s exact location.
He hadn’t looked at Sousei even once.
But even so, he abruptly stood up and left the stall.
“What’s he doing, Sousei?” his sister asked through his earpiece.
“…I wonder.”
That was all Sousei could say in response. On Yatai Street, where he could hardly even walk in a straight line, Sousei’s had his hands full just trying to track the target without losing sight of him.
Can’t she just let me focus on work…?
As soon as that thought went through his head, his sister spoke again.
“Focus, please.”
…I am, though. Or at least I’m trying to…
He suppressed that thought and was just about to say “Okay” when his sister hit the nail on the head.
“But you probably want to tell me you’re already doing that.”
“…That’s…”
—right. If he could say that, then maybe it would cheer him up a little. But in any case, it seemed like the target was trying to leave Yatai Street.
“The key is to cut yourself off from any idle thoughts. Otherwise, you might find yourself being tripped up on this job.”
I know, I know…
If he flippantly talked back to his sister, not only would he have to deal with her return fire, but he’d probably fully lose his composure.
…And if I said I never had any idle thoughts, well, I guess…
The image of Kuchina Hitsujimoto coming to get the Potato Party exchange diary from him occasionally flitted through Sousei’s mind when he wasn’t expecting it. He couldn’t say something like that.
I would have put it in her desk anyway, which is basically the same as giving it to someone by hand… Is that all there was to it? Was she just focused on efficiency? Or maybe Miss Hitsujimoto just needed to go home early, so she wanted to get it sooner. Hmm, but it feels different than that somehow…
The target left Yatai Street. The only maps of Ochiya that Sousei had been able to get his hands on were either old ones or rough sketches based off aerial photographs. He remembered those sketches, so he had a general idea of the layout of the area. Beyond Yatai Street was a densely packed cluster of stores piled high with used electrical appliances and parts, tools, hardware, and scrap metal among other things. The area was commonly called Electric Town. There was a legend that an old man named Higasan lived there, and that he could repair anything from toys to refrigerators, from computers to smartphones.