Walking In Your Fleeting World || Dazai Osamu

Chapter-38: Even though I haven't yet grasped

H.E Voyager

-Neutral POV-

Nishikata Makoto is having the worst day of his life.

Or is it the worst last few days? Weeks maybe? Years doesn't sound too far-fetched either. But if he's being honest, his entire seventeen-year-old life hasn't been much better compared to his current situation.

It all started three days ago— when Nishikata was having the time of his life inside the car assigned to escort Akutagawa Riki everywhere, blasting music and bobbing his head along the rhythm. Suddenly, out of nowhere, his superior Dazai Osamu appeared, knocking on the dark glass window with the scariest-looking smile he had ever witnessed.

Nishikata thought: This is it. I've led an unfulfilling life, and now I die.

But unfortunately, he survived. I'm not saying unfortunately because I hate the boy, I'm saying it to accurately depict his current emotions. Yes, the coward boy with an impossible will and urge to always thrive and live, one who'd bow down to just about anyone if it meant his life would be spared— is currently regretting life.

"I feel like a fucking pedophile." Nishikata groans out, his tired eyes set on a big mansion-like house of a nine-year-old girl through the dark windshield, the nameplate of the house reading 'Matsushima'. "It's been three fucking days, why the hell is that bastard doing this to us?"

"Are you asking me?" Ito asks calmly, sitting behind the steering wheel with his entire lower half numb. Inside his mind, he wants to smash open the car door and run toward his house without sparing a single glance back, but Dazai Osamu's strict order is to: Do not lose sight of this girl, keep your eyes on her, and tail her wherever she goes without getting spotted. "Dazai-san's mind works in strange ways, if I knew why he's making us do this, I'd not be a driver escorting around a high school girl."

"For fuck's sake, why the hell do you make it so complicated?" Nishikata bites onto the plastic wrapper of an Anpan in his hands, a round bread with sweet bean paste filling. He yanks his head to the left, tearing the wrapper moderately, spitting out the bits of the wrapper inside his mouth. Ito grimaces at the sight, disgusted; but Nishikata doesn't care. He frees the bread from the wrapper and shoves half of it inside his mouth, mumbling, "That guy hates us, that's why he's doing this. Give me one fucking logic behind following a nine-year-old on her summer vacation. All she does is go to the playground or that damn ice cream shop! She doesn't even come out during the night, and we're forced to stay in this car! And this goddamn air conditioner—"

"Say these complaints to Dazai-san, not me." Ito's unwavering calmness doesn't fade. While Nishikata's yapping is annoying, and he'd like to slap him right under his ear hard enough so it rings for at least five minutes, he doesn't do anything. After all, he is also filled with disdain for Dazai Osamu, and he sympathizes with the complaints, but doesn't dare to make them. It's Dazai Osamu after all, who knows, maybe he planted a listening device inside the car. Unlike Nishikata, Ito has a wife and a three-year-old son, he can't risk his life like that.

Nishikata shoves the rest of the Anpan inside his mouth, mumbling something unintelligible while rubbing his left shoulder, an unpleasant memory flooding his brain.

Nishikata Makoto hasn't experienced much kindness in his life, yes, like everyone else he has a sob backstory, but he doesn't care much for it. Despite his entire family having dark hair, he was born with white hair. His mother was accused of being unfaithful, for being a whore, so they did a DNA test, and Nishikata turned out to be 100% his father's son. Questions still arose, and there wasn't any answer. He was concealed as if a disgrace, his name unspoken and his existence ignored. However, as he aged, the family's attempts at secrecy faltered, leading to his eventual abandonment. He can't clearly recall why he left his city and came to Yokohama specifically, but here he found someone genuinely kind in a city filled with nightmares— Akutagawa Riki.