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“I didn't awaken with a sense of purpose anymore.
I awoke and a sad, everyday scene
I'd bitterly dreamed of...
(I could neither settle in
nor escape that place).”
- ‘Exhaustion I’, Nakahara Chuuya
Nobody said a word. They knew. Chuuya knew they knew.
Ever since that day, Chuuya would finish his work every night and head straight home for a drink, or two, or twenty. And still, he’d show up earlier than expected the next day, completely sober and ready to get back to impossibly long hours. No one ever commented on the bags under his eyes, the paleness of his skin or the shadows that clouded his voice on the off chance that he decided that a word was worth it. It didn’t matter that he was naturally lean, they’d known him since he was a boy and could tell his weight had gone down to an almost dangerous extreme. It didn’t matter, he was still stronger than all of them combined, and by a wide margin.
Anyone who had ever met him would think they knew what the guy looked like when he was angry. After all, it sometimes seemed like the look was permanently plastered on his face - then he’d laugh just as loudly, and any displeasure would be forgotten in an instant, his energy equally contagious. But the ones who had been there before and were still there got to meet a new Chuuya. A much rawer, much colder version of the mafioso, angry, but also frustrated. So silent he almost seemed empty, focused on an imaginary, nonexistent spot inside his own head. And, if the passage of time slowly brought back the upbeat and irritable mask, there were other things that didn’t go unnoticed.
Akutagawa could have narrated in clear detail how Chuuya had quietly taken him under his wing as his protégé and started training him, the air heavy with the unspoken promise that he would never abandon him.
Mori saw the effort in his work raised tenfold with each passing day, rewarded him with the position of leader, watched proudly but sadly as the scrawny teenage boy they’d once cheated their way into recruiting turned into a young man, stronger and more determined than ever, filling shoes that had once looked impossibly big.
Kouyou offered him sweets like she had always done, turning a blind eye whenever Chuuya saved half of it and internally debated whether to finish it or maybe leave it on the seat next to his on the table as he once did, yet always opting for throwing it away in the end.
Hirotsu ran out of fingers to count the amount of times he’d seen him go around the entire block in order to avoid the flower shop on the opposite corner, accept missions that extended further into the night and away from home, endlessly escaping from his own apartment, and take charge of the most dangerous and vast circles of the organization, evading Yokohama itself whenever he found it physically possible.
All of them, discreetly, watched expectantly from afar four years after the decay had started, as he went down the staircase, only to return a few minutes later, with his hat pulled over his eyes in a futile effort to conceal the cries lodged in his chest.
And they were kind.
And nobody said a word.
“ The more I get used to it, the more I endure this painful solitude. Without my realizing it they fall, sudden and strange, tears which are no longer tears of love…”
- ‘Sheep song’, Nakahara Chuuya.