TL Note:
Another day, another update.
As always, thank you so much for all your kind words and support. I genuinely appreciate every comment, votes, and bit of encouragement you leave. Even if I don't always respond, please know that I do read them. So if you've left a comment and haven't received a reply, it doesn't mean I missed it or didn't appreciate it.
Thank you again for reading, and I hope you enjoy this chapter.
__________
With a new home came the need to celebrate the joy of moving in.
The three people in the kitchen bustled about in a flurry of activity, and after some commotion, three bowls of handmade soba noodle soup were freshly served. Randou had adapted to local customs, following Akiya and Ranpo in eating soba noodle soup together. Perhaps because of the effort put into making it by hand, he psychologically felt it tasted somewhat more delicious than the soba he ate at restaurants outside.
Asou Akiya praised him: "Ranpo, if you ever can't afford food, you could go sell soba noodles."
Edogawa Ranpo had been swinging the noodles around earlier, getting flour everywhere, and had quite enjoyed himself. However, he truly hadn't been much of a hindrance—the process of hand-rolling the noodles was something he had accomplished himself.
"Really?" Edogawa Ranpo had just unlocked another life skill.
Immediately afterward, Edogawa Ranpo bared his teeth and brandished his claws. "I would never be unable to afford food! I have a job, and all those people at the police station worship me! I'm an Ability user who will never be unemployed!"
Asou Akiya choked. What did he think being an Ability user was—some kind of iron rice bowl?
Randou spoke honestly: "Well, Akiya worried for nothing. I've never heard of an Ability user becoming unemployed either."
Asou Akiya shot Randou a meaningful glance: [Ranpo is committing fraud!]
Randou looked back: [We can afford it.]
Asou Akiya relented.
Ever since Ranpo had spent half a cat's life squeezing his way through the door, Randou's acceptance of him had been remarkably high. He had grown quite fond of this clever black-haired, green-eyed youth, treating him as a somewhat immature junior, and was visibly progressing toward the direction of spoiling a mischievous child.
Edogawa Ranpo took out a ramune soda from the refrigerator and sat back down at the dining table, utterly delighted.
"Mr. Randou!"
No sooner had he spoken than Randou set down his chopsticks and released a golden cube.
A subspace peeled away from reality, dangerous and dazzling, flickering with golden light. The cube it formed was unaffected by physical laws—a type of Ability that Japan at its current stage could not defend against.
Now, this power was being applied to the ramune soda...
The golden cube enveloped the bottle's opening.
A clean cut.
Edogawa Ranpo extracted the glass marble inside, habitually lifting it up to look at the world through it. His eyes gazed curiously at the adults through the colored glass marble. The two people before him wore different expressions—Asou Akiya looked utterly speechless, while Randou remained calm. Regardless of what emotions they felt or what secrets they hid, he could see that both of them loved him. Just like a father and mother at home...
Edogawa Ranpo smiled with self-assurance, then gulped down the soda in big swallows. The slightly tart, sweet soda washed away the taste of the soup broth, while his stomach was already full to bursting with soba noodles.
"Akiya! I'm going to play with the little orange cat!"
"Go early, come back early."
Asou Akiya felt a fleeting pang of affection for Chuuya, then said to him.
Before Edogawa Ranpo went out the door, Asou Akiya continued discussing the villa's arrangements with Randou: "The villa has a large area and many rooms. Let's set up a multi-person gym as well. Ranpo needs to start exercising—can't have him holding Mr. Fukuzawa back. If he encounters danger, he should at least be able to run away..."
Edogawa Ranpo stumbled, then ran as fast as if he were flying, refusing to hear any more of this content.
Lord Ranpo does not want to exercise! Does not want to sweat!
Arriving at the Rubble Street, Edogawa Ranpo went to see the vibrant Nakahara Chuuya. The great detective felt jealous. "How can your physical fitness be so good when you never exercise?"
Nakahara Chuuya rolled his eyes and said, "Can you match my daily amount of physical activity?"
Edogawa Ranpo replied, "Three days compared to one day should count for something!"
Nakahara Chuuya was stunned by his shamelessness, looking at him with helpless eyes. In the end, he revealed another exercise method he had mastered through reading and self-study.
"I use gravity to train my muscles."
"..."
"Do you want it? I can help strengthen your physical fitness."
"...I'll get shorter."
"!!!"
Nakahara Chuuya jumped up in fright, coming to stand before the fourteen-year-old Ranpo and comparing their heights.
As someone who looks like a child about to turn ten, he breathed a slight sigh of relief.
—He wasn't that much shorter than Ranpo.
Edogawa Ranpo coldly exposed his self-deception: "I was taller than you when I was ten."
Nakahara Chuuya bared his fangs and retorted: "And? you didn't grow much more either."
Edogawa Ranpo: "...Wah."
The cats started another round of bickering. After the fight ended, they were back on good terms as if they had never mocked each other at all.
Edogawa Ranpo went to see Chuuya, who was being raised quite well in the free-range outdoors, and said sourly: "I possess a reasoning-type Ability, so I'm not envious of your gravity Ability at all."
Nakahara Chuuya clenched his fist at him threateningly, radiating a powerful sense of strength.
Orange-cat-power.jpg
Edogawa Ranpo shrank back, then belatedly asked: "Chuuya, my Ability is called 'Super Deduction.' What's your Ability's name?"
The moment he heard this question, Nakahara Chuuya's expression dimmed.
"Nothing special."
He stuffed his hands back into his coat pockets.
His hands were a switch for unleashing his full power. As long as he didn't flip that switch, he was a human Ability user—capable of crying and laughing, walking and jumping—no longer that unidentified thing sealed away in pitch-black darkness. Everything he possessed to this day was like a dream, and he was truly living in this world.
The orange-haired boy lowered his head, hiding his expression, and mumbled vaguely: "Upon the Tainted Sorrow."
"Oh." Edogawa Ranpo fell quiet, displaying a rare moment of perceptiveness.
Tainted? Sorrow?
The little orange cat was indeed as melancholic and sentimental as Mr. Randou, possessing the potential to write poetry.
"Little orange cat, we moved to a new home. Do you want to come see Akiya and Mr. Randou tonight?"
"I don't want to cause you trouble. I'll come next time."
"Akiya is preparing a room for you."
"Huh?"
"It's a villa, you know. Very, very big. Much bigger than my home in the countryside. The villa has so many rooms that people can live in—you won't have to squeeze into one room with me anymore!"
Edogawa Ranpo described the new home, his emerald eyes narrowing into crescents.
With Ranpo like this, his gaze was no longer so piercing and terrifying.
"That sounds amazing."
Nakahara Chuuya no longer hesitated. He accepted Ranpo's invitation, his hand gripping the wallet inside his pocket. "Before I go visit Mr. Randou, I should go buy some gifts."
His father had taught him that human social etiquette was a way to draw closer to others.
"What should I buy..."
"Just buy ramune soda!"
"Get lost, don't try to trick me. You're the only one who wants to drink that kind of beverage."
"But do you know what Mr. Randou likes?"
"I don't."
"Wahaha, this is when you should turn to the almighty Lord Ranpo! As long as you offer up ramune soda to Lord Ranpo as an offering, I'll solve your problem for you."
"Do you think you're some kind of god—actually having the nerve to call it an offering—"
"I'm not a god, are you?"
"Hmph!"
…
With Edogawa Ranpo no longer at home, the villa gained a free hourly worker. This person was proficient in cleaning, housework, running errands, and miscellaneous tasks—working heart and soul without ever complaining of exhaustion.
"Kimura Seimei": [...]
In the spacious first-floor living room, large enough to screen films, Asou Akiya stood before the window, gazing at the flower beds beyond the tree cover, his gaze tender. Passing through the shade of the trees, it was as though he could see what others could not. And the direction he was watching was precisely the flower beds from the original story, and the road somewhat farther from them—where, in the future, two bickering youths would walk together to meet Randou, opening the curtain on the first act of Double Black at Fifteen.
Having drunk a little Japanese sake at noon, Randou was upstairs taking an afternoon nap, hugging a hot water bottle.
Asou Akiya, dressed in loungewear, stood alone downstairs, neither speaking nor making a sound, a gentle smile on his face. It was a rather rare sight—at least one that "Kimura Seimei" had never witnessed before.
"Kimura Seimei" spat his contempt at the other, scrubbing away broken fibers from the carpet with all his might.
"Kimura-kun, what does it feel like to be resurrected by Illuminations?"
Asou Akiya suddenly asked him.
A humanoid Ability and its master could not engage in spiritual dialogue, nor did their memories share any connection. The two were relatively independent, so he need not worry about waking Randou.
"Kimura Seimei" said listlessly: "What else could it be like? I opened my eyes and felt like I'd narrowly escaped death, only to be informed by your French boyfriend that I'm a dead man." He looked down on this trash-tier fighter who had survived by relying on Randou. "Your luck is truly something else."
Asou Akiya ran his fingers along the window sill. It was very clean, without a speck of dust. He said with satisfaction: "Someone once said that luck is also part of strength."
"Kimura Seimei" let out a dry laugh.
Asou Akiya said indifferently: "You still haven't described the specific sensations."
The humanoid Ability's personality had been programmed with the command to obey Asou Akiya. Even if "Kimura Seimei" had no desire to answer, he still responded seriously: "Compared to the 'living' in my memories, I feel utterly unreal—as though I'm a soul attached to a sheet of paper, yet acutely aware that my memories and personality are false, that my entire being is false."
Asou Akiya's expression turned faint. "False, is it..."
"Kimura Seimei" tossed aside the vacuum cleaner and unceremoniously spoke the words he'd been holding back in his dead man's belly: "Asou Akiya, you truly are a strange person. You say you hate me, yet I see no hatred in your eyes. Could it be that you simply don't care about the death of your biological parents at all?"
Asou Akiya turned around, savoring the relaxed feeling of the weekend, not bothering to watch the tool of a man slacking off.
"Who knows."
In this world, who could truly understand another person?
He couldn't.
Edogawa Ranpo couldn't either.
Just as that master manipulator of human hearts, the Armed Detective Agency's Dazai, once said to Nakajima Atsushi: "There isn't a single person in this world who can fathom the inner emotions of another. At best, they merely pretend to understand."
These feelings overflowing from within his heart flowed endlessly, and even he himself didn't know what he was waiting for.
Outside the window, the greenery was lush and verdant—the vigorous vitality of spring.
"The third year is approaching."
...
Seven years since his transmigration, he had lived through an era of war and built a family in Yokohama City.
There was a nest of cats at home.
The big ones, the small ones, the young ones—all were adorable.
In his mind, there had always been a countdown, ticking away, reminding him.
If he treated each day as though it were his last...
Surely, that would be happiness.
...
For the Tainted Sorrow
For the tainted sorrow:
Today too snow falls on it;
For the tainted sorrow:
Today too wind blows on it.
For the tainted sorrow
Is like, say, a fox's fur;
For the tainted sorrow,
Covered with snow, curls up.
For the tainted sorrow
Has no desires or wishes;
For the tainted sorrow
In it's torpor dreams of death.
— Nakahara Chuuya.
(Source: @bsd-bibliophile on tumblr)