Chapter 57
Dazai Osamu, who joined the table wearing casual clothes provided by Nakahara Chuuya, was hit with a shock at his very first meal.
Chuuya Nakahara let out a super happy laugh—the food he ate was made by Ye Yihe, so he definitely didn't have the problem of the food being too strong in flavor.
"Ugh, it's so spicy! It's so spicy it feels like my skull is being ripped off! You definitely did this on purpose..."
Dazai Osamu took a few quiet breaths and gulped down several mouthfuls of water.
"Ah, sorry." Oda Sakunosuke was about to take a bite of the curry he had just scooped up when he heard this and blinked his confused blue eyes. "The ingredients I used are the same as usual, there are no special ingredients added."
"So, your sense of taste is dead, completely beyond saving."
Dazai Osamu, holding a spoon, spoke softly.
After taking a shower, he finally dried his black hair, which was still slightly wavy, messy, and soft. He didn't seem to be paying much attention to his appearance. But objectively speaking, his appearance, half-hidden by the wispy hair and bandages, was extremely handsome. Even though his raised eyes were filled with a deep and gloomy look, his sitting posture was still quiet and delicate, creating a unique and profound temperament.
He appeared to be slightly taller than Chuuya Nakahara, but also thinner. His shirt was a looser style, with a wrist wrapped in white bandages peeking out from the cuffs.
This kind of lingering, seemingly eternally silent sense of pathos, yet at certain moments revealing an extremely clear sense of indifference, is very rare at his age.
It's hard to say that Oda Sakunosuke's choice to bring the person back rather than fish them out and interrogate them on the spot wasn't partly due to this reason.
—Although Oda Sakunosuke always said that he was not very good at getting along with people, Ye Yihe believed that he was sometimes very perceptive and insightful in discerning the true nature of others.
The methods used were consistently simple and unpretentious.
For example, Dazai Osamu at this moment, after taking a bite of curry, his expression instantly became vivid because of the spiciness.
"Ugh, I'm definitely going to sue you for attempting to poison curry to murder a minor..."
Oda Sakunosuke stared intently at Dazai Osamu, who was muttering accusations, for a moment, then revealed a hint of realization.
Immediately, he got up, went to the kitchen, took an egg, and returned. He gently tapped it on the edge of the table and then poured it into Dazai Osamu's curry. He stirred it slowly with a spoon, and the bright red curry visibly darkened, indicating that the spiciness had been reduced by at least half.
"Sorry, I'm used to cooking only to my own taste, so I forgot to add an egg to the curry."
Oda Sakunosuke stirred the curry with a very sincere attitude, and his voice was as steady and calm as ever.
"It's a bit too late to make scrambled eggs now, but luckily it's fine to just add pasteurized eggs, there's a precedent for that in the recipe."
"…………"
Dazai Osamu looked down at his bowl of curry that he was stirring.
He then looked up at Oda Sakunosuke.
An incredible light finally shone in the dark, hawk-like eyes—a pure and intense discontent and accusation that was almost tangible.
"You did this on purpose, didn't you? You absolutely did it on purpose!"
His voice rose with anger, finally sounding genuinely like that of a thirteen or fourteen-year-old child, "That's outrageous! You're even more outrageous than Dr. Mori!"
"I'm so sorry,"
Oda Sakunosuke accepted them all without blinking, his emotions unmoved.
As expected of a top-notch assassination expert, he maintains absolute composure under any circumstances and can adapt to any unexpected situation at lightning speed.
Even if Zhong were right beside him right now, he would be so happy he'd almost die.
Ye Yihe crossed his hands and pressed them against his lips, trying his best to hide the smile that was curving his lips.
Originally, Fyodor was supposed to come out for this meal, but he still had something to ask Dazai Osamu, so he didn't return the body—Fyodor didn't say anything to remind him either, as if he really didn't care how long he could use the body.
"You can continue eating now."
After mixing the curry, Oda Sakunosuke pushed the plate of dinner towards Dazai Osamu again, and as he withdrew his hand, he made a gesture of "Please enjoy."
"…………"
Dazai Osamu, traumatized by the spiciness, held his spoon in mid-air, repeatedly putting it down and picking it up again, before finally slowly scooping up another spoonful.
In some respects, even though he had previously attempted suicide by starvation, he was still fundamentally unwilling to waste food.
Even if Oda Sakunosuke hadn't added an egg, Dazai Osamu would probably still have finished the curry—though it would have come with plenty of water and a whole lot of complaints.
"By the way," Chuuya Nakahara asked Osamu Dazai after laughing, "who is that Dr. Mori? I always hear you mention him."
"A former underground doctor? He's an uncle who won't say a word even if he sees the scars from my failed suicide attempt."
As he answered the question, Dazai Osamu stuck out his tongue and carefully licked a tiny bit of curry on the spoon to determine if it was still dangerous.
"However, he's now the port mafia leader's personal physician. Heh heh, perhaps his killing skills are even more superb than his medical expertise."
"It's not surprising that someone who can be the personal doctor for that ruthless leader would kill a few people," Chuuya Nakahara said, pursing his lips. "Besides, this is Yokohama."
To be precise, it was the Yokohama International Settlement, a place so chaotic that even though the area wasn't very large, it was teeming with outlaws and gangsters.
However… Chuuya Nakahara thought about it. It seems like none of the people sitting at this table right now are simply good people.
"You're not wrong,"
Dazai Osamu mixed the curry and rice together with a spoon, making a soft scraping sound as he did so. "In the end, that Dr. Mori is also plotting his own ambitions. He's a terrible adult who doesn't care about methods or morality at all."
Just like this incredibly boring world, it's tedious and tasteless no matter where you are; it would be more interesting to drift downstream and silently count how many seconds you have left before you face death.
Before Chuuya could even utter an "oh," Osamu Dazai spun his spoon and pointed it at Ye Yihe.
“By the way,” he blinked his indifferent iris eyes, “that little dwarf defied the order to eliminate the red-haired boy, and that tyrannical leader will absolutely not let it go.”
When the adjective "shorty" was mentioned, Chuuya Nakahara's barely audible "Oh" instantly turned into an extremely angry "Huh?!"
If it weren't for the fact that Ye Yihe's cooking was so delicious and he hadn't finished eating, Gao would have flipped the table and given this bandaged bastard a good beating. "And who do you think you are?!"
"Hey, wanna accept the consequences of your bet?"
Dazai Osamu's tone became more tense, and his deliberately lowered voice made his words drawn out, giving off a mysterious feeling of telling a ghost story by candlelight in the dark, "I'm betting on whether you'll still grow taller in the future... or something..."
"Let's bet you whether I'll beat you up in three seconds!"
Chuuya Nakahara slammed his chopsticks down, gritting his teeth. He almost got into another fight with Osamu Dazai at the dinner table, but luckily he was coaxed back to his senses.
Dazai Osamu, who had narrowly escaped being punched twice, remained calm and composed, showing no sign of fear or relief. Instead, he continued speaking to Ye Yihe.
"You guys should think about what to do as soon as possible—well, I suggest you pick someone who doesn't seem like an idiot to draft the battle plan?"
Ye Yihe was silent for a moment, “…………”
You can't be picky about these.
Fyodor was undoubtedly the smartest, but would he dare ask Fyodor to draft the plan? No.
Not to mention that he currently knows absolutely nothing about the port's Mafia, so he should wait until he has gathered all the information before taking any action.
“Let’s put the battle plan aside for now,” Ye Yihe said. “But you happen to have worked for the port’s Mafia, could you perhaps ask them about their personnel and forces?”
"Ah, I do know a little about it."
A slight smile appeared on Dazai Osamu's lips—a smile that was anything but childish, almost mocking and contemptuous. "It's a tyrannical kingdom, but there are so many disloyal subjects."
"Is there someone within the organization plotting a rebellion?"
Ye Yihe instantly understood what he meant.
This was an inevitable result; how could a leader who was so cruel and ruthless to ordinary people become so kind and gentle to his subordinates?
That's it.
Dazai Osamu scooped up another spoonful of curry and gently exhaled the rising steam. "The only way he can keep the organization from collapsing, besides the fear brought by violence and bloodshed, is through the stimulation of drugs."
Drug addiction, a ruthless but highly effective means of controlling the mind—cruel, yet effective; all that's required is not to treat subordinates' lives as human lives.
But it was an illegal organization to begin with, so how can we expect it to abide by the law?
Moreover, not everyone has Fyodor's awareness, acting not for their own benefit but solely following their ideals—even if those ideals sound crazy enough.
However, the rule of organizations like the Port Mafia is so barbaric and brutal that whenever someone rebels and takes power, they always manage to gain more support from their own members than expected.
“On the other hand, even if there are many discarded expendables within the organization,” Dazai Osamu continued, “there are still many powerful espers. If the tactics are planned properly, even dealing with the dwarf’s esper abilities won’t be difficult.”
—Without the spoon in his left hand, he extended his index finger and deftly drew a circle in the air. “For example, I’ve heard that there’s an ability user within the organization who can expand a subspace within this space.”
"If his subspace can expand large enough, and the physical laws within the subspace are entirely at his command, then it would be easy for him to render everyone here powerless, wouldn't it?"
Chuuya Nakahara's eyes widened in surprise. "There are superpowers that cheat like this?"
"Even if you want to complain about his foul, he's the referee himself."
Dazai Osamu licked the curry off his lips, put the spoon back on the empty plate, and his tone returned to its listless, unmotivated, and negative state.
"That's it, thanks for the treat, the curry was delicious... Hmm, by the way, please request that we improve the prison food later, otherwise the prisoners will riot."
"How do we do it?" Pushkin, who had been listening for a long time, asked him curiously.
"Pour smelling salt into the gaps between each tatami mat."
Dazai Osamu blinked his beautiful, iris-shaped eyes, which weren't hidden by the bandages, and his tone became innocent again.
"I took a bottle from Dr. Mori when I left."
The crowd fell silent.
Aside from athletes and doctors, who would carry around this stinky, vomit-inducing thing?!
When something's intended purpose is to wake someone from a coma with its stench, and the main source of the odor is ammonia, you can imagine just how awful it can be...
If Dazai Osamu were to secretly pour it into the gaps between the rushes in the tatami mats, they would have to be prepared to be physically assaulted by the stench before they could even clean it up!
"You're something else, kid..."
Pushkin murmured admiringly, "Could I borrow it for a moment? I really want to pour it on..."
—Faced with Ivan's indifferent gaze, he swallowed the rest of his sentence.
"Approval of the application," Ye Yihe said decisively. "As a token of appreciation for providing internal intelligence, what would you like to eat? I'll make it tomorrow."
"You seem very confident in your cooking skills,"
Having successfully tricked everyone, Dazai Osamu's expression visibly brightened. "But all I want is canned crab meat. The portion can't be small, okay?"
He stretched lazily, ready to go back to his room and continue squatting—after all, strictly speaking, he was still a half-prisoner.
As long as it's crab meat...
Ye Yihe carefully examined the slender and thin Dazai Osamu before him, who possessed intelligence far beyond his years, and asked him a question.
How old are you?
"Thirteen... I should be almost fourteen by now," Dazai Osamu recalled roughly. "Time is passing so slowly. If only there were a way to make me die of old age in a flash, so I could at least keep looking forward to this world."
"They're the same age as me."
Chuuya Nakahara muttered something under his breath.
Ye Yihe remained silent for a moment upon hearing this, thinking to himself that it might not be so—don't be fooled by Verlaine's elegant and aristocratic appearance; if you calculate his mental age when he was rescued from the [Pan], he is only a little over ten years old this year.
Similarly, if we start counting from the day the explosion occurred in Leibo Street, he should be... five or six years old this year.
However, the thirteen-year-old Dazai Osamu before them revealed a negativity and world-weariness that was far more severe than he appeared, making him the complete opposite of Chuuya.
“Eating only canned crab meat is a bit monotonous,” Ye Yihe nodded. “I’ll process it a little.”
"Also, you don't have to stay in your room all the time. Come out and play with everyone more often, okay?"
He couldn't help but soften a little. Just a tiny bit.
"…………"
For a brief few seconds, Dazai Osamu simply stared quietly at Ye Yihe—but that didn't last long, and a relaxed smile quickly returned to his lips. "Alright, I'd like to play with Chuuya too."
He had long been adept at concealing his true thoughts, to the point that it had become an unconscious instinct.
Chuuya Nakahara: "Hey!"
"—game console."
Dazai Osamu calmly completed the object.
Chuuya Nakahara's temple throbbed with a vein.
"…………"
Before they'd even spent a day together, he'd already figured out one thing—this bandaged bastard was more than just a little bit deserving of a beating.
…………
Regardless of the veracity of the intelligence, the information obtained from Dazai Osamu was very useful. At least it let Ye Yihe know that someone within the port mafia was plotting a rebellion, and if he wanted to cause trouble for that leader, he had to hurry.
If the leader is already dead by the time they come knocking on the door, where will he get revenge for Chuuya?
However, we still need to collect more information and cannot rely solely on Dazai Osamu's information—after all, he only stayed at the port mafia for a period of time while recovering from his injuries, and he neither joined the organization nor had he been involved in core affairs.
While you could ask Fyodor, he knew all the other organizations in Yokohama like the back of his hand, so there was no reason why he wouldn't know about the Port Mafia.
But as with previous lessons, who knows if Fyodor will again subtly tell only half the truth, tricking him into willingly doing work for the other party.
"The intelligence merchant you wanted to find last time,"
Ye Yihe asked Oda Sakunosuke, "Does he know the whereabouts of the famous detective Ranpo?"
“Yes,” Oda Sakunosuke nodded, “In fact, I found out he’s quite famous after asking around.”
Ye Yihe: "...Hmm?"
Oda Sakunosuke handed him a newspaper page, which Ye Yihe took without understanding why—the first thing he saw was a photo that took up half the page, featuring the famous detective Edogawa Ranpo making a peace sign at the camera.
[A young detective who, following the shocking "Angel Murder" case, assists the police in solving a series of major criminal cases!]
The following text is a detailed introduction to his past experiences and glorious achievements, and it also notes that he belongs to an agency called [Armed Detective Agency], located in an old red brick building at the intersection of the sloping road near the harbor. Fourth floor.
Ye Yihe: "…………"
Ye Yihe raised his head and silently looked at Oda Sakunosuke.
Why is it that none of these people have the habit of reading newspapers?
"Judging from the fact that he has an extremely skilled bodyguard, this should be the kimono-clad samurai we encountered before."
Ye Yihe sighed deeply, "I'll try to visit him sometime later."
What could have been a simple matter of reading the newspaper turned into a problem due to taking a roundabout route, resulting in the arrival of a particularly irritating black cat that always seems to get Chuuya's fur standing on end...
In the past two days, several tatami mats in the living room have been cracked by Chuuya's uncontrollable gravity ability leakage.
But he always manages to get the cat out of Dazai's wits with a single flirtation, making Dazai never tire of teasing him and eager to hang around in front of him whenever he has nothing else to do—and Dazai has nothing else to do all day long.
On the contrary, Oda Sakunosuke was surprisingly able to intimidate the other party... Rather than saying it was intentional, it was more accurate to say that Oda Sakunosuke's natural attributes almost completely countered the cunning Dazai, displaying an unwavering attitude of "I will do things my own way, no matter how much sweet talk you give me."
There may also be some factor in the fact that I was intimidated by the first extra-spicy curry.
So much so that when Odasaku, Chuuya, and Dazai were in the living room together, the scene actually maintained a delicate balance and became friendly and harmonious.
Although most of the time, it was Chuuya and Dazai who were engaged in tense and fierce game duels, with Oda Sakunosuke acting as the referee.
As for Ivan and Pushkin, their relationship with Dazai was rather uneventful.
The main reason is that Ivan finds it hard to let go of anyone other than Ye Yihe; his attention is basically only focused on monitoring Dazai's actions.
As for Pushkin, in Dazai's words, "his reaction was too predictable for an ordinary person, so there was no surprise at all."
Pushkin, who heard everything clearly, thought: "...Next time Chuuya goes berserk and wants to beat this guy up, I definitely won't stop him."
As for Fyodor...
Unfortunately, we're most likely incompatible.
When Ye Yihe lay down on the bed and returned to the Palace of Consciousness to restore his mental energy, Fyodor, sitting on the high chair, did not choose to take over the body. Instead, he tilted his head slightly and answered Ye Yihe's question by raising his index finger to his lips.
Those dark, wine-red eyes gleamed with a deep purple hue, like a bottomless abyss casting its gaze in this direction—only to be suppressed by their owner, revealing a rare and innocent capriciousness to Ye Yihe in the blinking of their eyes.
[I don't want to see him right now. Could you please hide me for the time being?]
"..." Ye Yihe paused subtly before finally agreeing.
"...I will instruct Oda Sakunosuke and the others not to tell Dazai."
[Ah, I am truly grateful for this... In return,]
Fyodor sighed softly, but a subtle, alluring smile slowly crept into his words: "[Please allow me to resolve your troubles.]"
[With just a thought, the entire port mafia will belong to you.]
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