Published at 3rd of September 2019 4:58 pm

Chapter 7

This chapter is updated by NovelFree.ml

Kyosuke was in a hospital bed when he opened his eyes.

“Are you alright?”

The first thing Kyosuke saw was Sahashi’s worried face, and it took some time for him to realize what had happened to him.

“You got beat up pretty badly but it doesn’t look like any of your bones were broken. If you’re in pain, I’ll give you some painkillers right away, okay?”

There wasn’t anyone in the room besides Sahashi that was looking after him right now.

That’s right, the man I want isn’t here, Kyosuke thought as he sat up and looked around the room just to make sure.

“Kyosuke-kun?” Sahashi called out to him, questioningly, but Kyosuke questioned him instead.

“Um, where’s Kanou?”

“Kyosuke-kun, will you be alright sitting up like that?” Sahashi continued to ask worriedly.

“Is it true that Kanou works for the police? Is it true that he killed my brother?”

“Wa- wait a minute! I can answer your first question, but I don’t understand your second question. What do you mean?” Sahashi looked surprised as he peered at Kyosuke’s face.

“Did Kanou kill my brother?”

That was the first thing he wanted to know so that’s why Kyosuke asked that again, but Sahashi shook his head no, his eyes widening as if saying, ‘That’s absurd!’

“As you know, Kanou is a detective. A detective wouldn’t kill a person, would he?”

“But……but, Kanou said that he did! He said he was the person who killed my big brother……!”

He didn’t know what to believe. Kyosuke was in a daze but Sahashi grabbed him by the shoulders and stared into his eyes as he began to explain.

“I don’t know why you think that, but the Okawa killed your brother and Kanou had nothing to do with it. I can assure you that.”

“That’s……but….but….”

He had heard it with his own ears. He wanted to tell him that but he couldn’t quite put it into words. Because of that, Kyosuke hesitated, and Sahashi began to explain the situation slowly and carefully to make sure Kyosuke understood.

“In order to destroy the Okawa, Kanou sneaked into the organization five years ago while hiding the fact that he was a police officer. Kanou and I went to police school together, you see. I believed that Kanou would be the perfect man for this kind of job, so I nominated him. As I had thought, within the five years he was there, Kanou had gained the Okawa’s trust and got promoted to the number two position within the organization. With the information he had gathered, he had devised a plan to capture the Okawa leader.”

“……….Re- really……….?” But why was Sahashi using the past tense? Kyosuke’s ability to think wasn’t working too well, nevertheless, he tried to ask Sahashi why he was talking in the past tense, but Sahashi became silent all of a sudden and shook his head no as if something was wrong.

“Um……” Why aren’t you saying anything? Kyosuke wanted to ask, but it seemed that Sahashi became aware of himself so he smiled and interrupted Kyosuke before he had a chance to ask.

“At any rate I’m glad, but first things first – you need to take it easy for now. We’ll talk some more when you get better,” see you later, then, Sahashi said with a smile as he was about to leave the hospital room.

“Please wait!”

Inadvertently, Kyosuke grabbed his arm and pleaded.

“Kyosuke-kun.”

Sahashi turned around to look at him, looking perplexed. Kyosuke didn’t mean to trouble him. In the past, Kyosuke probably would have thought that he was troubling Sahashi right now, but he couldn’t afford to be so considerate anymore.

“I understand the situation, but there’s still something I don’t understand – Kanou himself told me that he killed my big brother! ……If that was a lie all along, then why did he lie to me!? Can’t you at least tell me the reason for that?”

“……Kyosuke-kun……” Sahashi said Kyosuke’s name.

“Yes?” He replied immediately, and Sahashi gazed at him for a while, but finally let out a deep sigh and asked Kyosuke another question.

“When did Kanou tell you that?”

“What?”

Not expecting such a question, Kyosuke was taken aback for a moment, but then immediately came back to his senses and answered.

“Right after the incident. Kanou suddenly appeared at the police hospital and told me not to investigate into what had happened to my big brother……”

“I didn’t know that. Why did he do that?” Sahashi widened his eyes, seeming genuinely surprised but then looked like he realized something.

“Say, Kyosuke-kun,” as he called out to him, a dubious expression appeared on Sahashi’s face.

“Yes?” Kyosuke again replied immediately, and Sahashi continued to ask him more questions.

“Perhaps the reason why you suddenly worked so hard at the rehabilitation center was because it had something to do with Kanou coming to see you?”

“What?”

This question was not one that Kyosuke was expecting, so for a moment he was unsure how to answer.

“I thought it was strange. After your brother passed away and you received serious injuries, you seemed like you couldn’t go on living anymore. However, one day, the light in your eyes suddenly changed……I see, so it was because of Kanou……” Sahashi nodded as if he had understood something and kindly smiled at Kyosuke, who titled his head, thinking, ‘I don’t get it.’

“Oh, that right. I’m sorry. Actually, after the incident, Kanou was always curious about you. He always asked me to tell him exactly how you were doing. Surely it was because of that that he decided he was going to play the bad guy.”

“……What…..do you mean by that?”

None of this was making any sense to Kyosuke, of course. He felt like the answer was right in front of him, but he just couldn’t figure it out. Feeling irritated, Kyosuke leaned forward and peered into Sahashi’s eyes.

“Kanou heard from me that you had lost the will to live, so he tried to make you regain your will power by lying to you. He lied to you to make you think that he was your brother’s enemy…… He probably realized that no matter how much love and sympathy you received, it wouldn’t reach your heart, so I think that’s why he gave you an reason to hold a grudge so that you had a will to go on. He must have thought that if you bore a grudge, you would have the power to live again.”

“……That’s……” Unbelievable — was the first thing that came into Kyosuke’s head.

“Why……why did he do that for me……?”

Kyosuke didn’t know Kanou. He could only wonder why Kanou had taken it upon himself to become the bad guy for a complete stranger.

“He was always the type of guy who felt like other people’s pain was his own pain, but……” Sahashi stopped talking here. He was hesitating to say anymore, but he was wavering. However, the next moment, he looked like he was sure of himself again and continued speaking. “Perhaps he felt like he had to make amends to your brother"

“……What?” What do you mean? Kyosuke was about to ask, but Sahashi interrupted and continued to speak.

“Rather than hearing it from me, you should hear it directly from Kanou so that you don’t get the wrong idea. I did say that he had to ‘make amends’ to your brother, but I don’t mean that he was responsible for your brother’s death. Naturally, he wasn’t the one who killed your brother. I can assure you on that.”

“Sahashi-san……”

Sahashi nodded, and with in an extremely sincere look in his eyes said, ‘Please understand,’ so Kyosuke couldn’t help but believe that he wasn’t lying.

“Kanou was really worried about you, too……but he must think he shouldn’t be near you when you wake up. That’s why he didn’t come to this hospital room. When he told me that, I didn’t quite understand why, but I understand now after talking with you.”

Unlike Kyosuke, who didn’t fully understand anything right now, it seemed that Sahashi had concluded everything on his own.

“Wait, I’ll call Kanou right away.” He told him, smiling and dashed out of the hospital room.

“Um……!”

When Kyosuke called after him, he was already out the door. Left alone in the hospital room, Kyosuke began to space out, not knowing what to do with his disorganized thoughts.

Kanou wasn’t his brother’s enemy –?

He had taken it upon himself to make himself the bad guy just to make him regain the power to live –?

His reason for doing that was because he had to make amends to his brother –?

But he didn’t have anything to do with his brother’s death.

If that was the case, then why did he have to ‘make amends’? What kind of relationship did Kanou and his brother have?

He wanted to know the truth, but he was a little scared of it. Troubled feelings stirred in his heart, because finding out the ‘truth’ about his brother had been very harsh for him. However, no matter how painful the truth might be, not knowing it was even worse. Deciding that this was for the best, Kyosuke straightened himself up on the bed and waited for Kanou to show up. He continued to stare hard at the hospital door until the it opened.

* * * *

About five minutes passed until Kanou appeared.

“……Maybe you should lay down?” Kanou asked him anxiously as Kyosuke slightly sat up on the bed when Kanou walked in.

“I’m alright.”

“I see.” Kanou stood in front of Kyosuke.

“Um…..please sit down.”

Surely they’ll be talking for a long time, Kyosuke thought, so he offered Kanou to sit down in the folding chair that Sahashi had been siting on just a few minutes ago.

“Sure,” Kanou nodded and sat down.

“Um……Can I see your police identification book?”

He didn’t know how to start the conversation. Kyosuke already believed and acknowledged that Kanou was a detective like Sahashi had told him, but he couldn’t think of another way to start the conversation, so he broke the ice by saying that.

“……….” Kanou silently reached into his inner pocket, took out his police identification book, opened it, and handed it to Kyosuke.

“……You’re an inspector……”

Sure enough, the person in the photograph was Kanou and that was the job title bolded above his name. If he remembered correctly, Sahashi was a superintendent. Kyosuke didn’t quite know the details about the ranks, but he somehow understood that Sahashi was higher in position than Kanou. Kyosuke now understood that perhaps that’s why Sahashi had told Kanou ‘I entrust the rest to you’. Just then, the police identification notebook vanished before Kyosuke’s eyes.

“……Ah……”

“Are you done?” Kanou asked as he slowly pulled the notebook away from Kyosuke’s hands.

“Ye- yes. Thank you.”

After Kyosuke thanked him, he looked at Kanou’s face again and Kanou returned his gaze.

“You were a ‘spy’ then?”

“Yeah.”

He still didn’t know what he should ask first. After Kanou unhesitatingly admitted this, he didn’t say anymore. Silence passed over them.

“Sahashi-san said you didn’t kill my brother.”

“……….”

He thought that Kanou was going to unhesitatingly say ‘yeah’ again, but Kanou kept silent.

“Why did you tell me that you killed my brother? Sahashi-san said that you told me this because you wanted to make me regain the power to live, but was that really the reason?”

Each time he spoke, it seemed to Kyosuke that Kanou’s face grew paler and paler. When he thought what the reason might be for that, he came up with two possibilities: One possibility was that Sahashi had been mistaken about Kanou. The other possibility was that he wasn’t mistaken, but he hadn’t told him the whole truth. The truth he omitted was perhaps something that he didn’t think was okay for Kyosuke to hear. But that could only be one thing – Kyosuke decided that he would throw what he thought this truth was at Kanou right now.

“It is true that my brother was the Okawa leader’s lover?”

“……!”

Kanou’s shoulders shook, and Kyosuke realized that he had caught his breath.

“I didn’t even know that my brother had dropped out of university. My brother worked at various jobs to not make me worry. But in the end, he became a yakuza’s lover. Because I wanted to become a doctor, he tried to find work that paid as much as possible……If I hadn’t said that I wanted to become a doctor, my brother wouldn’t have become a yakuza’s lover……right?”

“You’re wrong.”

This was the first time Kanou spoke since Kyosuke had begun talking. However, Kyosuke realized that he had said that just to make him feel better.

“You’re lying.” He answered back.

“I’m not lying. It was for the money, but if he hadn’t become his lover, he would have suffered even more. His second option was losing his life. Not everything is your fault.”

Because Kanou told him this so simply and because his tone of voice was so indifferent, it make Kyosuke feel like what he said was believable.

“One night the leader just happened to stop by the bar where your brother was working at and fell in love with him at first sight. When he told him he’d pay him one million per month if he became his lover, your brother didn’t have the option to refuse. He had no choice but to accept. The Okawa are good with money, so as promised, they transferred one million into his account each month. It must have been a humiliating time for Syoichi-kun, but I think it gave him motivation to continue this when he thought that with that money he could make his little brother – you – a doctor.”

“……And yet……”

If his brother had confided in someone, he might have avoided becoming the yakuza’s lover and the two of them could have left Tokyo together. The fact that he had let his brother go through such pain alone, stirred up even more feelings of guilt inside of him. It made him depressed.

“Once the Okawa have their eyes on you, there’s no way to escape. Your brother was miserable because of that. I wish I could’ve arrested the Okawa sooner for your brother’s sake, but……” Kanou said that much and then deeply lowered his head to Kyosuke. “I’m truly sorry for failing you. I know that even if I apologize, you won’t forgive me, but……” Here, Kanou got up from the chair, got down on the floor, put his head to the floor and apologized to the dumbfounded Kyosuke. He was in a prostrate position.

“I’m truly sorry……!”

“P- please wait! I- I mean, please stand up!” Kyosuke was astonished at this sudden change in Kanou. He leaned forward and grabbed Kanou’s shoulder. Kanou raised his head and looked up at Kyosuke.

“Sahashi-san said that you had nothing to do with my brother’s death. It’s true, isn’t it? If it’s true, then why are you apologizing to me like this? The police are the ones who couldn’t arrest the Okawa. It’s not just your responsibility, right? The Okawa ordered a member from the organization to kill my brother, so you’re not the one who should be apologizing……right?”

“……The reason is……”

Kanou continued to sit on his knees on the floor as he muttered that, looking away from Kyosuke.

“What’s the reason?”

Kyousuke got off the bed and sank down on the floor so that he could make eye-contact with Kanou.

“Go lay down.” Kanou quickly grabbed Kyosuke by his shoulders and tried to make him stand up.

“Only if you stand up.”

Realizing that Kyosuke was being stubborn, Kanou gave a small sigh as if to say, it can’t be helped, and stood up.

“Wah!”

At the same time, he pulled Kyosuke’s arm to make him stand up and lifted him up to his side, then softly lowered him on the bed.

“……….”

Kyosuke was very flustered because Kanou was always so smooth in his actions and he, Kyosuke, was so clumsy. However, he didn’t have time to deal with that right now. He grabbed Kanou’s arm and pulled him closer when he tried to leave the bed.

“Please sit down.”

He suggested the bed where Kanou had just put him down on. When Kyosuke sat on the bed on his knees, Kanou also sat down after hesitating a little. Kyosuke then peered into Kanou’s eyes and asked,

“Please tell me why you put your head to the floor? You had nothing to do with my brother’s death, right? Or did you? Maybe you knew it was going to happen, but you couldn’t stop it?”

“No, I didn’t know. If I had known that the leader had issued that order, I would’ve thought of a way to somehow avoid that from happening.”

“Then why? What were you apologizing for to me?”

Kyosuke kept pestering him with that question and unable to look directly into his eyes, Kanou cast his eyes down.

“Kanou-san!” Kyosuke clung to Kanou’s arm and continued to peer at his face.

“……….Your brother was the only person within the organization who knew that I was a spy – a spy from the police.”

“What?!”

Kyosuke exclaimed with surprise at what Kanou had said in a stifled voice.

“It was due to my carelessness that he had come to know this. But even when he realized who I was, he didn’t tell anyone. And that wasn’t all, he also worked with me to arrest the leader. He investigated more information about the large-scale exchange of methamphetamine that was secretly going on with the Hong Kong mafia and passed that information on to me. The only one involved in that exchange was the Okawa leader. Me, as second in command, and Iwatsuki, my assistant, both didn’t know exactly when he was doing this. Since I had passed that information on to the police, the Okawa leader had to leave the scene since all the details regarding the exchange were quickly becoming exposed. But because he left, not a single piece of information about the exchange was revealed. Even if we stepped into the Okawa leader’s territory when he wasn’t there and tried to arrest all the members of the organization who were there, they would have insisted that they knew nothing about what their leader was doing. The members of the organization always make sure that their responses all match up with each other’s. They also use and pressure politicians to back them up just in case they are arrested and interrogated, so in the end it would all be over and we would’ve been unable to arrest the leader. That kind of thing happens all the time. Because of that, we had no choice but to make it be a flagrante delicto. Your brother understood this, so he tried to pass as much information on to me, but in the end, he investigated a little too much……” With that, Kanou, who had been talking non-stop up until now, broke off and looked crestfallen.

“……So the leader found out what my brother was doing and….killed him…?”

That was probably it. With what had been said, Kyosuke now understood. Kanou did not reply, but because he didn’t deny it, Kyosuke realized that he had understood correctly.

“……….Could it be……….?”

The memories of that day his brother died flashed before his eyes.

“Sorry, did I wake you?”

His brother had smelled strongly of alcohol, so he had thought that he was staggering because he was drunk, but perhaps it was because he had just been tortured by the kumichou. Surely his brother had not confessed to anything. Perhaps he had found an opening and escaped but a person from the organization had chased his brother and thrown a bomb into their room in order to silence his brother. Maybe the kumichou had let his brother escape, thinking that there would be some kind of trouble if they killed him within the organization. There was also a chance that the kumichou had set up the blast so it would be a shocking murder to serve as a warning for the policeman that Kyosuke’s older brother was passing information to.

“……….Was my…was my brother protecting you……?” Is that why he died? Kyosuke asked, as tears began to fall down from his eyes.

“……I’m so sorry……” Kanou deeply lowered his head, apologizing to Kyosuke.

“…..No……don’t be……” Crying, Kyosuke clung on to Kanou who continued to keep his head lowered.

“……Kyosuke-kun…….?”

He heard Kanou ask questioningly.

“……Big brother was……big brother was……”

Now, Kyosuke clearly remembered the conversation he had with his brother that day. A few days before his brother’s death, he was worried about his brother’s condition, because he came back home late every night, so he had told him, “You don’t need to work so hard, you know?”

At that time, his brother had smiled at Kyosuke and said, “Thanks for worrying about me” and then muttered this, “I was never proud of anything I’ve ever did until now. But now, you see, I have something to be proud of. I’m important to society…”

“What do you mean by that? Does this have something to do with your work?”

Kyosuke had asked his brother that, not understanding what he had meant, but then it seemed that his brother had come back to his senses, because he smiled and said, “No, never mind.”

His brother had been deceiving him, but when he had accidentally let that slip in his drunken state, he had said the truth from the bottom of his heart. Now, for the first time, Kyosuke pondered the importance of what his brother had said at that time.

“Kyosuke-kun……?”

Clinging on to the confused Kanou, Kyosuke tried to convey his big brother’s thoughts, desperately suppressing his sobs as he began to speak.

“Big brother was……I think – I think big brother was happy……! Be- because he……he could work with you….with the police…! He – he said that for the first time….for the first time he could contribute to society in a meaningful way! ……H- he said that he could now live….with something to be proud of…..! So –!” He couldn’t finish the rest.

“Ughh,” Kyosuke sobbed, and Kanou carefully put his arms around him.

“Big brother, big brother, big brother…!”

His face buried in Kanou’s chest, Kyosuke sobbed as his big brother’s kind smile flashed into his mind.

“Kyosuke-kun……”

He heard Kanou’s voice hoarse with tears in his ear as Kanou tightly embraced him.

“Uuguu……! ……Uuguu……!”

Kanou’s chest was warm. He pressed himself into his broad, warm chest that took in all of his nostalgia, all of his gratitude, and all of his sadness. Kyosuke cried until he could cry no more.

Share