Chapter 37: The Double Black

Consciousness broke free from the darkness, the lingering shadows of the nightmare still haunting the mind, until finally replaced by the familiar outline of the ceiling before the eyes.

"It's nothing." Dazai Osamu's voice was hoarse from just waking up, and he didn't even bother to feign any more emotion as he waved to Nakahara Chuuya beside him.

Chuuya Nakahara frowned, his blue eyes lingering on Chuuya's face for a moment, as if trying to see through his usual nonchalance. But in the end, he just clicked his tongue, said "Call me if you need anything," and then closed the door and left.

Silence returned to the room, but Dazai was now fully awake.

Something's not right.

Given his keen awareness of his surroundings, let alone the sound of Chuuya Nakahara pushing the door open, even the friction of the doorknob turning would have been enough to instantly jol him awake from his dream. It was impossible for him to be so deeply asleep that he needed external force to wake him up.

Could it be that there was something wrong with the dinner last night that Chuuya rarely cooked? Or was there some other reason?

Dazai's tongue unconsciously traced his teeth, as if savoring any possible unpleasant taste. He didn't know the answer, but it only heightened his guard.

He closed his eyes, his breathing becoming extremely light and slow, feigning a deep sleep, but his thoughts kept rummaging through all the fragments of memories from before he fell asleep, searching for any anomalies that might have occurred but which he had overlooked.

As dawn broke, the dim room was illuminated by light filtering through the curtains. Dazai opened his eyes, his iris-colored pupils now brimming with no trace of sleepiness.

After being woken up by Chuuya Nakahara, he couldn't fall back asleep and instead drifted into a state of semi-sleep.

When he left the room, breakfast was already laid out on the dining table. Chuuya Nakahara, who was plating the food, said that he dared not let him touch the kitchen anymore. The breakfast he was making was local food that he had learned to make during a previous business trip.

A simple Western-style breakfast steamed on the table. Just as he sat down, Chuuya Nakahara had already changed into his casual clothes and walked to the entrance, preparing to leave. Before leaving, his tone carried a barely perceptible awkwardness as he said in the direction of Dazai Osamu, "Just eat whatever you need; I have to go to work." Before he finished speaking, the door closed, leaving Dazai Osamu alone in the empty apartment.

Despite his thriving career, Chuuya Nakahara always seemed to be in a constant rush.

Dazai held the cold fork and poked at a piece of fried egg.

The scene he had just witnessed gave him a strange sense of déjà vu, like a wife giving her husband instructions before leaving home. But such a thought was too odd, and he quickly dismissed it from his mind.

A subtle, almost unsettling feeling welled up inside him, a sense that he was being taken care of by Chuuya Nakahara. He was currently alone in Chuuya's room, and could do whatever he wanted without anyone stopping him. But of course, he wouldn't do anything either. Some of his initial plans—like installing listening devices in hidden corners or doing something more interesting—were quickly abandoned by a sudden wave of weariness.

He always felt that there was a thin membrane separating him from this world. And now, Chuuya Nakahara—this existence that he was both extremely familiar with and strange to—seemed to have been included in the world behind that membrane as well. There was also an extremely thin barrier between them, seemingly easy to break, but the moment their fingertips actually touched it, he could foresee a price that might burn to their souls.

He didn't delve into the specifics of the so-called price, but simply chewed his food slowly and deliberately, his movements as elegant as if performing some kind of ritual. After clearing away his plate, he walked towards the door without hesitation.

He wasn't planning to stay here any longer, and this was clearly not the place where he could sleep peacefully.

The time displayed on his phone was 10:00 AM on Saturday. He still had three hours before meeting the online friend with the ID "Smart Elementary School Student," so he had plenty of time.

Before leaving, Dazai patiently and silently searched every corner of the room with his fingertips, and then put everything back in its original place after the inspection. As expected, he found nothing. The piled-up everyday items all showed signs of the owner's long stay, and nothing unusual appeared that could arouse his interest.

But Dazai Osamu felt that things weren't so simple, or perhaps he was just overthinking it. However, during the search, he suddenly began to ponder what the opportunity might be to leave this world.

Unlike the previous world, this world seems ordinary, but there are also some unusual aspects.

Before leaving the house, Dazai Osamu stood by the window and looked out. He saw that the ground below was wet, with no snow accumulation, only a thin layer of water. The pedestrians on the street were still wearing light summer clothes and walking hurriedly, as if the heavy snow last night was just an illusion he had imagined.

Snow in July? An absurd seasonal paradox.

I searched through all the major news portals and social media platforms online, but there wasn't a single report or discussion about the heavy snow last night.

Dazai glanced at the screen, a glint in his eyes. He opened a frequently visited anonymous forum and edited a post: [Did everyone see the rare blizzard that hit Tokyo last night?]

After editing, he clicked send. The screen froze briefly, and the input box was instantly cleared, as if he had never typed any characters.

Dazai checked the network signal and found it was full. So he changed his wording: "[The weather was really unusual last night. Did it snow where you are?]" and tried sending it again. But just like before, the text vanished into thin air the moment it was sent.

The third time, he tried using a more subtle metaphor, but the interface again displayed the message "Network connection failed".

Dazai leaned against the window, patiently waiting for a few minutes before trying again. This time, the post was successfully sent, but what appeared on the forum page was a string of meaningless gibberish. No matter how he changed the language of the description, the result was the same: it couldn't be displayed.

"Heh." Dazai Osamu let out a barely audible chuckle. He cleared the input box and stopped trying.

Invisible rules or information blocking? Interesting. It seems that the snowfall wasn't just a simple weather anomaly, but some kind of unusual event where anyone who saw related information would instantly realize something was wrong. Therefore, the so-called power of rules stifled the possibility of such information dissemination at its source.

He glanced at the time and decided to head to the park he had arranged to meet.

The sun was shining brightly when he arrived at the park. There were already quite a few people there, including elderly people taking walks, couples cuddling, and children playing. People of all ages were there.

Dazai found a quiet bench and sat down. He pulled his hat brim down and covered most of his face with a mask, leaving only his eyes visible so he could see his surroundings.

To kill time while waiting, he played a game of "reading people" with great interest. The rules were to deduce the life trajectories of passersby from their gait, clothing, and micro-expressions. This helped him pass the time while he mentally processed the anomalies he had observed that morning, such as the snow that could not be recorded or disseminated. The "membrane" of this world seemed thicker and more sensitive than he had imagined.

When a new message arrived in his email, his phone vibrated slightly. Dazai opened it and saw that it was from that "clever elementary school student."

[Clever elementary school student]: I've arrived, where are you?

Dazai casually mentioned the name of a nearby fountain sculpture, while scanning the flow of people heading in that direction, trying to guess the identity of the online friend.

Is it that young mother pushing a stroller in the distance? That clearly doesn't match the known information, so we can rule her out. Could she be among that group of students laughing and playing? Very unlikely. And it probably isn't that bespectacled, overworked young man exuding resentment; intuition alone can rule that out.

Just then, a small blue figure on a skateboard, with a smoothness and speed beyond his years, precisely bypassed the crowd and sped toward his bench.

Sunlight reflected off the other person's skateboard wheels, creating dazzling spots of light. The child wore a well-fitting blue suit jacket, a striking red bow tie, and large black-rimmed glasses. The lenses reflected light the moment the child approached Dazai, obscuring his gaze, but Dazai still accurately caught the sharp look shooting at him from behind the reflection.

The skateboard came to a swift, sharp stop, coming to a smooth halt in front of the bench. A child's clear voice rang in his ears: "Dazai-nii-san!"

Dazai Osamu remained unmoved, merely slightly raising his eyes beneath the brim of his hat to meet the sharp gaze that was far beyond that of a child. The fact that this "elementary school student" could see through his deliberate disguise meant that this person and Dazai Osamu were not just casual acquaintances, but perhaps even acquaintances in some sense. Furthermore, the calm aura emanating from the other person, far beyond his years, confirmed his suspicion: this was no ordinary child.

For him, pretending to be the original [Dazai Osamu] was pointless at this point. His intuition told him that this child likely knew some truth and was after him, this "abnormality." So he chose to remain silent, to wait and see what the other party would reveal.

Sure enough, the little boy who called himself "Edogawa Conan" pushed up his glasses and, after introducing himself, went straight to the point without any beating around the bush: "I know you are not the original Dazai Osamu."

At that moment, there was no one around them.

Conan's childish voice carried an undeniable certainty, "That person... mentioned some things to me before." He was referring to the original [Dazai Osamu].

Ah, I knew it.

Dazai's lips curved upwards almost imperceptibly, so slight as to be almost negligible. He nodded slightly, signaling the other to continue, his eyes calm, a subtle, oppressive aura emanating from him. Conan could clearly sense a hidden danger; the other was like a beast lurking in the darkness, causing Conan's back to tense slightly, his vigilance instantly rising to its peak.

Conan lowered his head, his fingers once again touching his glasses, a gesture that cleverly concealed the expression on the lower half of his face. But from Dazai's superior vantage point, one could clearly see the eyes behind the lenses, now gleaming with a light that seemed to see through everything, completely at odds with his childlike appearance.

“He didn’t say much,” Conan’s voice carried a hint of deliberate confusion, but his tone was unusually certain, as if he were stating a deduced conclusion. “He only mentioned that he might… suffer from schizophrenia. He said that when you appeared, it meant that the main personality of him had disappeared.”

He paused slightly, his gaze behind his glasses fixed intently on Dazai Osamu's face, not missing a single subtle change in expression, before posing the core question with the characteristic inquisitive tone of a detective:

"So, are you his...second personality?"

The young man on the bench suddenly chuckled softly, a light, airy laugh, as if he'd heard a funny joke. He curved his beautiful iris-colored eyes, but there was no real amusement in them. He gazed at the elementary school student before him and answered the student's question in an almost chanting tone, tinged with subtle pleasure:

"Well, if that's the explanation... it doesn't seem to make any problem." He tilted his head slightly, his smile appearing somewhat ethereal in the sunlight. "As you can see, that [Dazai Osamu]... has completely disappeared~."

He hadn't expected that person to explain his existence that way, but it was indeed a good excuse. However, it seemed somewhat ridiculous when someone else used it.

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Author's Note: I've been honest and apologized for the chapter being many days late. [crying emoji]

I recently took on a manuscript that required multiple peer reviewers, and let me just say, don't take on multiple peer reviewers—it'll lead to misery and exhaustion [crying emoji]. So I haven't had the energy to update [please].