Chapter 49

The day before his new life, which was as clean as a blank sheet of paper, Dazai Osamu received a gift.

Working underground for the government to handle documents that are not visible to the public, all information was blocked, and the only channel of communication with the outside world was heavily monitored. Under such difficult conditions, the gift went through more than a month of inspection by all parties, and was delivered to him the day before he left the underground to clean up his resume.

The plastic cover had been opened, there was no signature, no shipping address, and of course no markings.

This is a fairy tale that is familiar to everyone. Even if you have not read the specific content of the book, you can still roughly tell the plot. It is beautifully bound, and the little mermaid princess on the cover is praying devoutly with her eyes closed.

"The contents have been checked and are free of radioactive toxins and positioning devices."

The person who handed the book to Dazai Osamu was the new agent Yoshida who was in charge of supervising him. She had just joined the job and still retained the common sense of ordinary people that "it is very rude to look through other people's personal belongings without their consent". Therefore, when she said this, although she understood the nature of the job in her heart, she still showed some uneasiness on her face.

The handsome young man with black hair and iris eyes was very considerate and did not blame her. He took the fairy tale book and thanked her in a gentle voice that made people feel like spring breeze.

After spending a few months together, Yoshida had always had a good impression of the person at hand. She immediately breathed a sigh of relief. After quietly relaxing, she couldn't help but think of the question that had puzzled her since the first day they met - what had Mr. Dazai, such a gentle and considerate person, done wrong to be locked up underground for a year and a half?

Is he hiding from his enemies, or is he being framed? It's impossible that he wanted to get in, right?

However, even though she is not mature enough, since she has passed the assessment of the Special Powers Department, she already has the qualities of an agent and will not place excessive curiosity on things that she should not know.

Yoshida watched Dazai Osamu return to his small, dim studio, then cheered up and continued to supervise his work.

Dazai Osamu half-closed the door, and in a corner where the agent couldn't see him, the faint smile in his eyes disappeared, and turned into a trace of deep thought.

If this was a book sent by someone he knew, then it should have been Ango who handed it to him personally. Since Ango didn't come, it meant that he wasn't an important person.

And was it a good idea to choose today?

He had too many enemies, and it would take too much time to think about them one by one. Dazai Osamu put his finger on the spine of the book, flipped through a few pages at random, and walked back to his workstation with his head down.

The desk was littered with a few unimportant documents, ink-stained manuscript paper, a pen, a half-empty ink bottle, and a paper cutter.

Through the reflection of the glass bottle, Dazai Osamu could see the agent with his back to the door, looking straight ahead with his body straight.

He withdrew his gaze and tapped his fingers on the hard outer cover. From the side, his lips were still smiling, but his eyebrows, hidden by his forehead, drooped slightly, revealing his true emotions.

Dazai Osamu raised his elbow to cover his movements, and with his other hand pressed the sharp tip of the paper cutter, silently cutting open the book groove.

The secret text that was tightly attached to the back cover fell out from the narrow gap.

If the book had not been torn into pieces, the Special Powers Division would not have been able to find it no matter how sophisticated they were. And Ango must have put in a lot of effort to get the book to him intact.

How much regret did Ango Sakaguchi feel towards Dazai Osamu?

After spending five minutes to unlock it, I found a string of numbers on it.

This string of numbers is one of the documents he has to deal with today. What is different from his usual work is that he needs to use the videotape in the cabinet to process this document.

Dazai Osamu raised his hand to pick up the pen and calmly dropped the paper scraps into the ink bottle.

…

…

At two o'clock in the morning, Yoshida, who had been staying up all night to monitor, was drowsy.

She had been living a life of day and night reversal for several days, and as her supervisory mission was coming to an end, her highly tense nerves inevitably relaxed a little.

Just when she was about to fall asleep, there was a sudden "bang" sound of a heavy object falling over, which frightened her so much that she reflexively grabbed the pistol at her waist.

"Mr. Dazai! What happened——"

Yoshida opened the door with his gun in hand, and his questioning stopped when he asked about the condition of the room's owner.

The first glance determined that the room had not been invaded, and the second glance determined that the surveillance object was not injured. These two results should have been enough to put her mind at ease, but Yoshida hesitated for a while, and finally asked in a low voice: "Mr. Dazai, do you need to call a doctor?"

There's no other reason, the black-haired young man's condition is just too bad.

He seemed to be trembling.

The young man was sweating profusely. His dark hair was soaked by sweat and stuck to his forehead in a messy manner. His usually calm and gentle eyes were out of focus, and they shuddered suddenly when they met the incandescent light coming in from the corridor.

The slender fingers grasped the fairy tale book in a twisted posture, with such force that the nails seemed to dig into the flesh.

He opened his mouth, and after a meaningless tremor, his expression froze into a weak, forced smile.

"…It's okay, I just had a nightmare."

"Excuse me," he said softly, "Can I rest for a moment?"

…

…

In the evening, Ango Sakaguchi found Dazai Osamu on the coast of Okinawa.

He suddenly disappeared two hours before he regained his freedom. When Ango Sakaguchi received the news, he thought it was an April Fool's joke sent to him in advance.

He knew how much effort Dazai Osamu had put into clearing his resume, and knew that the other party had reasons worth risking everything and being trapped underground for two years, so when he heard this not-so-clever prank, he just smiled and calmly drank his coffee.

But the next second, Sakaguchi Ango could no longer laugh.

He received a text message from Dazai Osamu.

The other party has not been able to get his phone back. Tracking the number showed that the owner was just an ordinary store clerk, but the subject of the text message was marked with a secret code that the three of them used to relieve Lupin's boredom, and the content of the text message was just a short line of latitude and longitude coordinates.

The model worker of the Special Powers Department dropped his work and rushed over. As expected, Ango Sakaguchi found Dazai Osamu at the coordinates, who shouldn't be there.

The young man in the sand-colored windbreaker sat quietly on the reef, staring at the sea not far away in a trance.

Ango Sakaguchi could not tell the difference between the coasts of Okinawa and Yokohama. He should have immediately taken Dazai Osamu back to the Special Powers Division, given him a lecture, and then went back to deal with the remaining mess, but when he stood behind Dazai Osamu, the prepared plan suddenly disappeared completely, and he could no longer get close.

It was not only because of guilt, but also based on his previous understanding of Dazai Osamu, he felt that the other party had invisibly separated him from the entire world.

The sea breeze filled his clothes, and just when Sakaguchi Ango was at a loss as to what to do, the cell phone in his pocket suddenly vibrated.

He opened it and read half of it when his expression suddenly became one of surprise and joy. He excitedly blurted out to Dazai Osamu's back: "Dazai-kun! Mr. Odasaku is awake!"

Dazai Osamu seemed to have been turned into a numb stone by the sea breeze, and he said "hmm" with a slightly confused tone at the end of his voice.

This confusion lasted only a second, and as soon as the words came out of his mouth, he came to his senses.

She was not as overjoyed as Sakaguchi Ango, but rather, she seemed to have expected it and slowly smiled faintly.

Although he was smiling, he looked as if he was hiding the mist in his eyes in a lonely manner.

The assets he left in the port mafia had been seized long ago, and the government would not provide any good environment for criminals with long criminal records. Apart from the most basic daily necessities, he had nothing.

But Dazai Osamu secretly used some tricks and left himself a broken keychain.

He had put it in a drawer and almost forgotten it. When he took it out, it was already covered with a thin layer of dust. At the end of the keychain, the little dolphin whose tail had been knocked off was covered in dirt and looked pitiful.

These were the only things he could keep about that man.

It wasn't just today that he could come to Okinawa. After his resume was clean, no one would care how long he stayed in Okinawa. But after watching that videotape, he could hardly breathe and urgently needed an answer.

It didn't matter if all his efforts were wasted, and it didn't matter if he had to spend another two years in the underworld - he had already experienced worse.

The receptionist at the Okinawa Onsen Hotel, where he had been on a previous mission, was still the same one. Dazai Osamu's image and the feeling he gave people were completely different from the last time. The receptionist thought hard for a long time but couldn't recognize who he was until she saw the dolphin keychain he handed over and suddenly remembered:

"That was a limited edition souvenir from the hotel three years ago."

With this clue, she slowly recalled the group of tourists who were dressed in unique styles. She finally noticed some familiarity in Dazai Osamu's eyes and eyebrows without a bandage, and she also dug out the past from her memory.

After hearing Dazai Osamu's request, the receptionist said hesitantly, "…because it is a limited edition, there are no extra ones left, and the factory we previously cooperated with has also stopped production."

"Yes." Dazai Osamu calmly withdrew his hand, "I should be the one to say sorry for disturbing you."

Seeing him turning around to leave, the receptionist called him back uncomfortably, "Well, this may be a bit offensive... hasn't the guest who was with you before arrived?" She remembered that he had a very pretty smile, and his voice was very gentle when he handed her the brochures scattered on the floor and comforted her. If it was that guest who came, she should be able to recognize him at a glance.

She saw the young man in the sand-colored windbreaker pause for a long time, and then heard the answer: "...He is far away and will not be back for the time being."

…

Dazai Osamu flexed his stiff fingers and put the mutilated dolphin back into his pocket.

Very far - how far? Before he left, he found a few words in the secret files of the Special Powers Division, "Whereabouts unknown", "Suspected dead", just a few words summed up the distance that could no longer be reached.

Looking across the sea, he gazed at the sunset, watching it slowly sink into the deep sea in exchange for a self-deceptive hug.

The file he was originally going to process was replaced by another video. Before opening the video, Dazai Osamu had a bad feeling.

But he thought for a moment and pressed the play button.

The screen was completely black at first, and nothing could be seen. The volume on the headphones had been turned down to the minimum, but the woman's shrill laughter still pierced my eardrums.

Dazai Osamu was beaten.

He remembered where he had heard this sound before, only it was closer and more miserable and malicious, exactly the same noise that had been emitted from the underground torture chambers of the Port Mafia for years.

Something seemed to explode in his mind at that moment, and Dazai Osamu felt a sudden chill. He hurriedly tried to press the pause button, but found that his body was completely out of control.

After a flash of white light, the scene in front of him returned to normal.

In the dark and cramped secret room, the blood on the ground was washed into a light red color by cold water. The various sounds compressed by the electric current were still very chaotic, but the hair-raising sound of flesh being cut still reached the ears clearly without any hindrance.

For a moment, the blood-stained torture instruments, the sharp laughter, the bloody smell that seemed to overflow the screen, everything seemed to have left him far away.

But at the same time, it was so close, so close that Dazai could clearly see that the man was dying, with eyelashes soaked with blood, fragmented reflections in his drooping pupils, and he looked quiet and tired, as if he had no connection with this world anymore.

The recording time is one hour.

Something collapsed with a crash, and he shuddered all over. He was so cold that he almost wanted to laugh, but when he opened his mouth all he could hear was shuddering gasps.

These are the only two memories left by Dazai Osamu.

One is incomplete, with no chance of repair; the other laughs at his self-righteousness, the bloody wound exposed to the cold light, will never scab over, will never heal.

…

Dazai Osamu opened his closed eyes, stood up from the reef, and looked at his friend behind him who had a worried look on his face but didn't dare to come forward to speak.

He smiled, and the small sound reached Sakaguchi Ango's ears before being blown away by the sea breeze.

"... Let's go and meet Odasaku together."