"Who is it?!"
Randou was in the kitchen, fending for himself as he prepared food. The little one, Ranpo, had no idea where he had run off to. When Randou heard the strange noises at the door, his first instinct was that someone had found their way into the apartment.
A faint, barely perceptible killing intent quietly rose within him. He walked over and looked through the peephole of the security door—only to blink in surprise at the scene before him. Akiya seemed to have accidentally dropped his keys on the ground and was squatting at the doorway, searching everywhere for them. That foolish, almost "intelligence-drained" look, so uncharacteristically dumb, stood in stark contrast to his usual sharpness and cunning.
Randou opened the door and waited a few seconds, only to find that the other man was still searching for the keys, unbearably slow-witted.
"How rare," Randou remarked. "You actually got drunk."
A strong stench of alcohol wafted off the black-haired young man. Randou waved a hand through the air instinctively. He was not someone who liked seeing his lover drunk to the point of collapse, but given the nature of Akiya's work, the heavy pressure he carried was unavoidable.
Asou Akiya mumbled, "Where are the keys… I need to open the door…" He noticed a shadow looming overhead and hazily lifted his head, only to see the French beauty he had gone through so much trouble to bring home. Randou bent down, and the red, striped scarf around his neck brushed against Akiya's cheek, soft and faintly ticklish. He accompanied Akiya in searching for the keys for a while, finding nothing, before realizing what was going on. Catching hold of Akiya's coat, he reached into the inner pocket and pulled out the keys.
"I almost ended up being stupid along with you," Randou said as he propped up the boneless Asou Akiya and half-dragged, half-held him back inside. Fortunately, Akiya did not have the habit of causing drunken havoc. He only muttered incoherently, his eyes fixed on Randou the whole time, allowing himself to be arranged however Randou wished.
Randou ran hot water for the bath and stripped him of his clothes, yet Asou Akiya stubbornly refused to get in.
"Randou, Randou~ next time I'll take you out drinking."
"No need."
"Randou, my phone~."
"What is it?"
Randou took out his own phone, which had the same flip-style casing as Akiya's.
Dizzy and light-headed, Asou Akiya entered two numbers for him, then slumped against Randou's shoulder. "These are colleagues' phone numbers… The first is a senior who looked after me in the translation department. The second is a senior at headquarters who once gave me a helping hand… They're not exactly good people, but they've always treated me well… If I can't reach you in time, you can ask them…"
After memorizing the numbers, Randou casually deleted them, his expression unchanged. "How old are they?"
Drunk and unguarded, Asou Akiya answered honestly, "One is twenty years older than me. The other is fifteen years older."
Randou rubbed Akiya's fever-warm cheek, pressing his long, narrow eyelids into a lazy squint.
Even like this, he was still a good-looking Japanese man.
"Akiya, go take a bath. In this state, you're not tempting me at all," Randou said with a straight face, lying through his teeth. Under the bathroom lights, Akiya's skin looked soft and gentle—not so pale it glowed, but a light ivory tone that was more than flattering. That was only natural. An Asian could never outshine a European in terms of paleness; standing in front of Randou, Akiya could only be considered "faux-fair" at best.
Asou Akiya looked at him in confusion, his mind on the verge of shutting down.
"Randou…"
Then, having completely lost control of his reason, he simply stared at the mist-veiled French beauty before him and broke into a foolish, unrestrained grin.
Randou held back his laughter, suddenly seized by the urge to take out his phone and capture the moment.
Supporting Akiya with one hand, Randou undid his own clothes. With two soft splashes, Asou Akiya was pushed into the bath—beloved by Japanese households everywhere. Akiya clung to Randou, wrapping both arms tightly around his lover's shoulders.
"Rimbaud."
Suddenly, Randou heard him murmur at his ear, calling him by his French surname, which was a rare occurance.
Holding him in the comfortably hot water, Randou replied with contentment, "Say it again. I like hearing it."
Asou Akiya murmured, "Arthur…"
The heart in Randou's chest skipped a beat, as if shocked by the sound.
Arthur Rimbaud.
His past. His true name. A nameless, unlucky amnesiac lost in Japan.
And now, perhaps, another label had to be added—spy.
Randou waited, but the second call never came. The black-haired young man was so drowsy he was on the verge of falling asleep. This unguarded Akiya was something he saw every day, yet when alcohol was involved there was a subtle difference. Randou always felt that Akiya carried too many things buried deep inside him, as though he were straining toward some unseen goal with all his strength, and when those eyes fixed on him, the intensity was enough to melt him.
What a blazing kind of love it was.
Wanting to meet at every moment, unwilling to be someone who merely waited at home.
Influenced by Akiya, Randou grew restless himself. "Let me join the Port Mafia sooner, my dear."
"Mm…"
Huh? He could still respond?
"Akiya." Randou called to the black-haired young man's fading consciousness, letting his true feelings spill out. "I love you. I want to help you. No matter how much poetry I write, I can never step into the world you belong to in the Mafia."
Asou Akiya struggled weakly against the pull of sleep, half-awake, half-dreaming, and looked at his spouse whose expression flickered between light and shadow.
"Mm…"
His strengthless hand reached up and came to rest on top of Randou's head.
A gentle pat.
In a soft, flowing French whisper, Randou murmured the story of their love. "You will understand me, won't you? You definitely will. You love a soul even I myself cannot fully see through. It was you who accepted my existence…" He had not used any shampoo. As the hot water gradually cooled, he drew warmth from Akiya's burning body instead. The heartbeat beneath his palm was powerful, resonant, like their shared yearning to stay alive, to seize a future and give it form. That will—his will—had been given to him by Akiya.
"I want to know more, so much more… the Akiya I have never seen before…"
"At your side, I am simply Randou."
Randou pressed a kiss to Akiya's brow.
Pure affection, even in the most intimate and ambiguous of moments, would never be tainted by anything extraneous.
"I have given you my body and my soul. As long as you ask, I will help you do anything. Please, let me claim your one and only love."
May God forgive me—for in my bones, I am a man without any morality.
And if God would not forgive me—
Then let me die.
...
After a night of heavy drinking, Asou Akiya woke with a throbbing pain in his temples.
"I feel like I heard you say a lot of things last night." He sat up, black hair in complete disarray, his eyes faintly swollen, every symptom screaming hangover. "Randou, did you say something strange to me?"
"Not at all. If anything, Akiya was the one talking nonstop."
Randou lay sprawled across his own pillow, idly flipping through a psychology book from Akiya's study.
Akiya pressed his fingers to his temples, trying—and failing—to suppress the ache, before giving up and sinking back into the blankets, which still carried his lover's scent. Ah, whatever happened last night, he probably hadn't revealed too much. With Randou's straightforward and upright nature, if there had been any problem, he would have exploded on the spot. There was no way he would be taking such gentle care of him now.
"I'll just take the day off."
From his right came Randou's amused voice.
That was exactly what Asou Akiya had been thinking. "Where's Ranpo? Did he come back last night?"
Randou turned the page of his book and replied casually, "He texted me. He stayed the night in Suribachi City and said he didn't want to disturb our private evening. I suspect you showed him something he wasn't supposed to see."
Asou Akiya wrapped an arm around Randou's waist and gave it a few lingering strokes. "Your waist is still so slim. You look like a top-tier model when you're dressed. It's just a pity your muscles aren't as soft as they used to be…"
Randou's body stiffened instantly, his gaze sharpening.
"What did you just say?"
"W-working out suits you best, Randou! When you're out and about, you're irresistible to everyone, young and old, men and women alike!"
Akiya's brain snapped fully awake in an instant, his survival instincts kicking in at emergency speed.
Suribachi City.
On the orphans' turf, the freeloader who had shamelessly claimed a bed still had not woken up. Someone yanked the blanket away, only for Edogawa Ranpo to clutch it back, refusing to open his eyes as he mumbled sleepily, "What are you doing, little orange cat?"
Nakahara Chuuya slammed breakfast down on the bedside table with a heavy thud. "Get up."
Ranpo yawned, his eyes still shut. "What time is it?"
"Nine o'clock," Chuuya said.
Edogawa Ranpo promptly flopped back down again.
A vein twitched on Nakahara Chuuya's forehead. He had never seen a teenager this lazy. "Aren't you supposed to be going to work?"
Ranpo replied lazily, "Not for now. Akiya wants me to focus on writing."
Hearing that, Chuuya suddenly remembered the particular expectations Asou Akiya had once placed on him, and unease crept into his voice. "Writing… poetry?"
At last, Edogawa Ranpo lifted his emerald-green eyes and gave him a slow, deliberate scan.
Then came a snort.
"Hahahaha—!" The black-haired boy laughed without a shred of conscience, rolling around on the bed as if he had perfectly pierced Nakahara Chuuya's weak spot.
"What are you laughing at?!" For some reason, Chuuya's temper flared.
"I'm laughing at the direction of Akiya's great expectations for you. Poetry? You? Where exactly do you have any talent for poetry at all?" Ranpo mocked mercilessly, imitating the scene with vivid flair, as if he had witnessed it firsthand. "Sneaking around writing poems in private, only for your companions to say, 'Chuuya, why don't you just stick to writing essays like a normal person.'"
In the midst of his performance, he completely forgot about his own level of writing.
"Whether I have talent or not is none of your damn business. And do you write that well yourself?" Chuuya snapped.
"Akiya praised the novels I wrote," Ranpo said proudly, lifting his chin.
A few minutes later—
After finishing the short story Edogawa Ranpo had written out from memory, Nakahara Chuuya became the second person to laugh until he nearly collapsed.
"That's it?"
"That's all you've got, and you still dare to show off in front of me? ! !"
"Trash-tier writing!"
Between the brute-force type and the brainpower type, there was never any shortage of chaos, and their adjustment period was destined to be endlessly long.
At least in one area, however, they reached a rare consensus.
—Your writing is complete garbage!
With no way to reconcile their differences, they traded verbal blows for a good while. Eventually, Nakahara Chuuya realized that sulking over Edogawa Ranpo was utterly meaningless, and he dragged the conversation back to the real issue. "You still haven't told me why you're freeloading here! Have you no shame at all? My place is small to begin with. You could stay at their place just fine, so why are you running over here to sponge off me?"
Edogawa Ranpo rummaged around for toiletries and answered with an innocent face, "Your dad and mom are being all lovey-dovey together. If I went over there, I'd be… ah—what was it my parents used to call it again? Right! A 'third wheel'!"
Nakahara Chuuya only half understood matters between adults. "Is that really how it works?"
Ranpo nodded solemnly, putting on a show of seriousness. "Yeah. They go all 'mm' and 'ah' and stuff. Though I mean normally, of course. As for last night, it was simply because I didn't want to eat Mister Randou's cooking. That's all."
Nakahara Chuuya: "???"
A wave of sourness surged up in his chest.
Ranpo curled his lips, dodged around the obstacles, and walked out to rinse his mouth. "French food isn't good."
Chuuya clenched his teeth. I'm going to beat this spoiled little monster to death.
From outside, the sound of Edogawa Ranpo complaining drifted in as he rinsed his mouth. "It's not even children's toothpaste. This sucks!"
The others in the Sheep weren't seeing Ranpo for the first time. One by one, they all turned to look at Chuuya.
[Can we beat him to death?]
"…No."
Nakahara Chuuya had to admit defeat before Edogawa Ranpo's uncanny talent for stirring up trouble.
No wonder his dad couldn't put his mind at ease and specifically told Ranpo to come find him. If this guy were left out there on his own, he would probably get beaten to death sooner or later!
The following week, November.
All of Chuuya's worries vanished in an instant, replaced by sheer disbelief. He stared blankly. "I'm… going to learn writing together with him?"
This was because Asou Akiya, after routinely checking Nakahara Chuuya's composition and the impromptu doggerel poem he had scribbled out, praised his "progress" and then, with lightning speed that left no room for resistance, signed the two literary disasters up for a Japanese-language writing cram course.
The duration was one full week.
The cram school was located in Tokyo, about half an hour's drive from Yokohama, and all the instructors were graduates of prestigious universities.
Asou Akiya packed their suitcases for them himself, child-sized ones: one printed with a rainbow-colored elephant, the other with an orange cat. He spoke earnestly, "You two are the future literary masters of Japan. Don't waste your talent. Ranpo, you're older, so remember to look after Chuuya. Chuuya, Ranpo isn't good at social interaction, so when he says the wrong thing, you'll have to step in and save the situation."
OK.
The Japanese Literary Master Development Plan was officially launched.
Once the two of them grew up strong and capable, they would be able to become the pillars of the 'Stewed Pigeon Publishing House.'
Edogawa Ranpo tugged on Asou Akiya's sleeve and asked, "Why is mine a rainbow elephant?"
Asou Akiya replied without hesitation, "Majestic and imposing! Strong enough to crush all rivals!"
Nakahara Chuuya glanced at the other suitcase and, instead, found the elephant one looking kind of cool.
Ranpo ran over to Chuuya's suitcase, took a look, and immediately laughed at him. "Idiot, this is a lion cub!"
Orange wasn't just for cats—it also belonged to lions and tigers!
Nakahara Chuuya instantly brightened, his mood lifting at once.
After seeing the two of them off, Asou Akiya wiped the hot sweat from his forehead, finally managing to get Ranpo out of the house for a while.
Within the Port Mafia, he was constantly tripping over small obstacles, and stepping outside meant risking an assassination attempt at any time. The only things he truly couldn't stop worrying about were his wife and child. In order to keep Ranpo from stirring up trouble—combined with Ranpo's excessive, unwavering confidence in him, declaring, "Akiya is so smart, he can crush all the other adults in seconds!"—Asou Akiya had successfully coaxed Ranpo and Chuuya into leaving together.
"Next, I'll have to face things carefully," he murmured to himself. "I need to find a way to make Randou awaken an ability as soon as possible."
He felt a little embarrassed at the thought of clinging to his wife's thigh for support, but this thigh—this lifeline—was far more irresistible than even Natsume's calico cat!
"Calm down."
"Calm down."
"Randou is waiting for me at home."
There was someone who had been moved by his sincerity, someone who had fallen in love with him—how could he ever bear to let that person be hurt?
You will become the strongest in the Port Mafia… and you won't need to lower yourself or bow your head like others do.
Life in this world is hard, and supporting a spouse is no easy task.