Gangsta: Death of Anosmic Stray Dogs, chapter 1
Thanks to 2 wonderful people, fuckyeahgangsta scanning chapter 1 for me and valgerdrgodiforseti sharing the whole text of the novel with me, this will be continued, yay!
Gangsta: Death of Anosmic Stray Dogs by Kawabata Junichi
Chapter 1 (pages 25-61)
Fondling the woman's ear tenderly with his left hand, he grabbed her breast roughly with his right. The lump of fat easily altered shape, the expected warmth engulfing his fingers. A nip at the side of the woman's neck made her breathe out a tiny moan. Her skin tasted like sweat a little. And also cosmetics. The former taste he didn't mind, but the latter was terribly unsavory. Despite the fact that an ounce of those beauty products must have cost more than caviar. Humid breathing filled the room, leaving droplets of condensated water to form on the pane of the windows. The pricey bed creaked like it was one of its cheap counterparts. Blocking the woman's field of vision with a kiss, he glanced to check the clock. 15 more minutes of this workout should be adequate enough work for the monetary reward he was getting for this. Worick Arcangelo then decided to buy a bottle of the spiciest wine he could possibly find on his way home.
Precisely 15 minutes later, the woman cried out with an animal-like scream. She just wanted an excuse to scream, he was sure. Everyone wanted to scream. But screaming and shouting alone would make one a freak, and if one still wanted to hide their true colors and masquerade as a good citizen, they had no choice but to buy excuses to scream. When he followed this train of thought, for the first time Worick could think of this woman as sweet.
Until the echo of her scream died out, Worick didn't release his grip on the woman's soft skin.
Then he put on his now wrinkled shirt and tied his long ash blond hair in the back. Except the result turned out messy. All because the index finger of the woman, lying on the bed and giggling, kept playing with his hair. He shook off her white hand somewhat roughly - except there was a trick to how much power you could use in order to create the illusion of affection underlying the action and make your partner buy it.
"Such beautiful hair," the woman commented.
"If you throw in something extra for my services this month, I'll let you touch it some more," Worick replied.
"Unfortunately my husband is coming back today."
"Oh."
On the round table of heavy carved wood found by the bed 4 bills with the portrait of a smart-looking man were left, like a bait. Worick grabbed them and thrust them in his pocket.
"Buy me again any time you want, Madame."
Flashing a smile, calculated to leave the woman not completely satisfied, Worick exited the room.
The conglomeration of lustrous red bricks that was the mansion spat out greasy smoke from its roof. Only when he had passed through the gate, leaving its premises entirely, did Worick finally drop the act.
He considered himself a professional when it came to entertaining ladies. Like a skilled gunsmith knew all about a gun just from touching it, Worick could tell women's inner workings. It was an ability acquired through effort rather than a natural gift, but his easy on eyes features that made him attractive to a certain type of women and fine hair could, perhaps, count as talent. Someone once said that having many talents was more dangerous than having none. But then again, being blessed with a few did not inconvenience Worick for the moment.
While Worick's main job was servicing women part-time, tonight he had another job to attend to, as well.
That other job was that of a Benriya, a handyman.
Suddenly, he wondered just what the difference between a gigolo and a handyman was. Both were about providing a temporary satisfaction of a client's desires, after all. If the client wanted to scream, you made them scream, if they wanted to hear you scream, you screamed for them. Both were splendid occupations you could be proud of and were absolutely indispensable in this city. And precisely because these professions were so indispensable that the labor market was saturated with offers, and if you failed to perform, a replacement was found with ease. Even in that respect, both were identical.
Worick suddenly thought of Sophia. Or rather, not as much of the person herself as of her circumstances and how they were similar to those of another woman. Sophia's tragedy, too, was but one of many, saturating this city.
A few steps later that Worick advanced while rubbing his neck, he had already forgotten all about Sophia. It wasn't like he had erased her from his memory completely of course, but her image sank into the deep recesses of his mind, beyond the surface of conscious awareness.
He still had work to do, and it had already been a month since she had been cremated.
*
The sun was just beginning to set.
Worick turned a corner, leaving a tidy, if in appearance only, main street behind and entering a narrow back alley. In this city, the narrower an alley was, the heavier the stink it carried got. It was a bad stench produced from vomit, excreta and other substances vaporizing, but Worick had become accustomed to it, for better or for worse.
A little further down, a rather conspicuous human form could be seen. A person stood leaning his back against the surface of a slightly dirty wall with some sort of graffiti painted on it.
"Sorry to keep you waiting," Worick called out to that lean and muscular Asian.
Nicolas Brown was a man with short black hair and sharp eyes. He preferred the militaristic style of clothing, typically a black top with three-quarter sleeves and cargo pants. Meaning, he wasn't interested in dressing stylishly.
In this city, dominated with black and white, his stature was the same as, or even less than that of a woman, and he stood one head shorter than Worick. A long Japanese sword was strapped to his hip, only emphasizing his short height.
'You stink.' He pinched his nose in displeasure, not even trying to mask his discontent.
Nicolas didn't speak. It wasn't like he couldn't at all, he just did his damnest not to, him lacking the working sense of hearing being the reason. That said, since he could read lips and use sign language, there was no inconvenience between the two.
There was a good reason why the meeting took place in a back alley.
Twilights were the species discriminated against. To a great number of normal humans, they were 'exceptionally strong livestock', and even the legal laws obliged them to wear special tags around their necks. That's why even in everyday life they came to be called 'Tags' or 'Tagged' more often than not.
Sticking to facts only, Twilights were descendants of humans who were users of a drug designed to augment human physical ability in the war that was fought in the past. Due to the effects of said drug, Twilights possessed physical prowess and the 5 senses far better than normal human ones. Nicolas, for one, was very strong and had extremely good eyesight. On the other hand, he had been robbed of hearing. The phenomenon was called 'compensation', a physical anomaly peculiar to their kind and depending on an individual. It was very common for some sort of compensation to be taken in exchange for possessing a particularly superior body.
The reason why their kind, clearly still much stronger than your normal human could ever hope to become, was called something as weak sounding as 'Twilights' was because of their very short life spans. The average lifetime was a little over 30, and to live even that long they had to take a drug called Celebrer daily. Be as it may, said Celebrer itself had potent side effects, becoming part of the reason behind Twilights' short existences. They were creatures born already ailing and unable to live without having to ingest poison. Therefore, in contrast to them, typical unaltered humans were called Normals.
Humans have a tendency to hate any living creature stronger than them and loathe any that’s weaker. And Twilights, to them, fell into both those categories. From the start, Twilights were doomed to be thoroughly hated and just as strongly loathed.
Which was ridiculously stupid, in Worick's sincere opinion. Only, among fools, any smart person would be labeled fool. And nothing was more foolish that crying fool at the top of one's lungs when in the fools' gathering. That was the take and justification that Worick had long since adopted.
Main streets were for Normals to walk on. It would not do for a Twilight to stand around in the middle of them. To avoid unnecessary trouble, bearing the stench of the back alleys was the only choice.
"I smell nice though? I had some expensive perfume rubbed onto me, y'know."
Nicolas' right thumb touched his nose in a rubbing motion, then his index finger drew a circle-like shape in the air. Next, it pointed to Worick.
'And I'm saying it stinks.'
"Well, it can't be helped. It's work."
'Wash it out.'
"No. Nothing is more embarrassing than taking a shower in a client's house."
'Want me to fold you in two and stick you into the toilet bowl?'
"Why bother? I'll be smelling like iron soon enough anyway."
The two walked side by side. Handymen would do anything. Well, almost anything. Delivery, paint jobs, taking out garbage... you name it. They would be the champions of justice if you wanted them to or siding with bad guys if the client so desired. The two last ones listed were practically the same thing, and the one in the middle sometimes paid quite handsomely. In any case, their shirts would often get dirty.
Today's job was on the cheap side.
"Granny Joel sure has it tough though, running a shop in a place like that."
The request the two had undertaken was to get rid of a nuisance. A simple job of packing a lively and uselessly conceited lot into a cask or a wooden box so that they’d stop being a bother. The champions of justice did garbage disposal, too. The size of the aforementioned lively bunch's vocabulary was like 3 words anyway, and all 3 had more or less the same meaning, so trying to establish communication was futile from the get-go. Then again, one couldn't exactly start merrily opening up brand new holes in bodies with bullets before figuring out the bunch's connections and backers. After all, some people would fly into mad rage if something of their own, no matter how trashy that possession happened to be, was broken.
'There's no end to 'em. If I loop off their legs, maybe that'll finally teach 'em to keep their distance.'
"You'll get the shop's wall all dirty if you do that. And I wanna try and be nice to the only smokes shop in town. Besides, ending up on Granny's bad side is a horror in and of itself, you realize."
Worick's mind suddenly brought its growing nicotine urge to his attention, probably because he went and uttered the words 'smokes shop'. He flicked the silicon stone of his Zippo lighter, and on the second try a Pall Mall stick lit up.
He had first met Nicolas quite a long time ago. He was 12 at the time, so it was more than 20 years ago already. Worick knew he had changed over time, but he didn't think Nicolas had, not really. He got somewhat taller but still was a shortie, neither his hair style nor the look in his eyes underwent much of a change. The fact that he didn't smoke was also the same as ever. The way he treated Worick became more familiar and informal. In essence, however, he consistently remained an employee.
Worick let the sole of his leather shoe step on the fallen cigarette butt and crush it.
It would be faster if they used a desolate shortcut to the smokes shop. Going straight ahead on the junction of three roads, they reached a landfill with small clearings. The vacant lot of about 10 yards in each of the 4 directions was surrounded by blocks of concrete reaching to an adult's waist. It was the site of some demolished facility, but with no construction plans for the land, it had become a hotbed for illegal garbage dumping, lamps and lighting fixtures with cracked bulbs, moisture absorbing furniture and empty wine casks and barrels now littering the place.
At the entrance to it, Nicolas, who walked first, suddenly stopped in his tracks. Worick stopped as well and mentally checked the holster on his left side.
From around the turn of the path, weaving its way through the dumping ground, a man appeared, walking unsteadily. His quilted down coat showed tears in a few places, with its fluffy filling spilling out. Blood was oozing from his side. His steps were unsure as he collapsed onto a couch found a little ahead of the two's position, listlessly sinking into the cushions.
Worick smiled lopsidedly.
"A drunkard, maybe?"
'If not, then a junkie.'
Of course, that was not quite it. That wound was obviously inflicted as a result of some sort of an assault. The man took quite a hideous beating. Which was nothing unusual. In this city, there was a lot of remains far larger than a cat's for crows to feed on. If you started fussing over them, you'd never see the end of it.
As the Benriya were about to move past and forward, three more young men appeared from beyond the curve of the road. They all wore - seemingly almost against their will at that - uniformed black suits. The newest addition to some Family, picked up a very short while ago, perhaps? That's how they looked at least, based on that fashion style.
The one in the center pointed with his eyes to the man in the quilted down coat, lying on the couch.
"Hey old boys. You this guy's pals?" The youngster asked in a low voice, intentionally throwing his head to the side to show off the tribal tattoo on the side of his neck. To him, that probably passed for intimidation, although in all honesty a stray dog's growl was more intimidating.
"Nope," Worick shook his head. Desperately trying to keep the corners of his mouth from lifting up in a smirk all the while.
"Then get lost already." The thug took his eyes off and away from Worick, apparently forgetting all about him, and started on his approach to the couch.
Fighting the smile threatening to stretch his mouth, Worick whispered to Nicolas next to him, "Nic-chan, have you noticed?"
Nicolas, having read his lips from the side, gave a chuckle, unable to keep a straight face.
'Good thing we haven't missed each other.'
"Lucky us, you reap what you sow and maybe this is our reward?"
'It's a small city, is all.'
Worick shrugged. And took half a step forward.
The young thugs turned their heads to him.
He smiled, amiably and disarmingly.
"We're not that guy's pals, but we’re sincerely happy to have run into you. We're your big fans, you see, so how about a handshake?"
A guy with a tribal tattoo on his neck, a guy with cornrows and a Hispanic skinhead with a scar above his left eye. The three's peculiar traits matched the description of the 'damn brats' that Granny Joel had provided to a tee.
"Huh?" Just as the tattooed guy opened his mouth, a thick shoe sole forcibly closed it.
Nicolas didn't feel like waiting anymore.
The youngster's chin was now pointing towards the dark night sky. Falling down backwards, his head landed into a discolored garbage bag with precision. Empty cans tackily clattered, scattering about. Dry sand billowed, dancing in the air and darkening the already dark night sky a shade darker.
Worick covered his mouth with a hand and coughed a couple of times.
"Partner. Getting a jump is not fair, y'know? This is where you're supposed to share."
'There's 3 of 'em. If it ain't divisible by 2, then they're all mine. And you go there, partner.' Smirking, Nicolas pointed to the couch where the man in the down jacket lay collapsed. The look on the dark-haired man’s face was like a dog's that was given a ball to play.
Well, there was no denying that the dude had a trigger-happy battle-crazy streak. He probably felt in his element the most precisely when he fought.
Quickly dropping his center of gravity, Nicolas kicked the ground. By the time one became aware he had vanished, he was already airborne. Skinhead and Cornrows had yet to realize what was happening. Nicolas landed behind them. Twisting around, Skinhead belatedly noticed the pendants swishing across Nicolas' chest, and his breath caught pathetically.
"A Tag?! You gotta be shitting me! Why are we---"
Nicolas didn't bother to read his lips for the continuation. Violently grabbing the man by the neck - thin compared to his arm - he smashed him face first into the ground. The guy's nose broke with a squishy crack. Nicolas' body, riding the momentum, whirled by half a turn, brute force pulling Cornrows by the hair into the motion. The bones in the guy's neck groaned audibly. The force of a throw added to the centrifugal force had him crash into a bookshelf 3 yards away.
"Be careful not to break them beyond fixing though? It'd be a problem if we were demanded to pay off damages."
Worick didn't think Nicolas was looking but said it anyway, if merely going through the motions. Then, at last, he shifted his attention to the man on the couch.
It was a gentle-looking young man not suited to violence. His sweet delicate features would attract many potential buyers, no doubt, and his age looked to be around 20. As to his physique, although it was hard to say for sure due to the oversized quilted down coat he had on, it didn't look like he was built strongly. There was a straight white streak in his bangs on the side, making Worick want to laugh because the guy looked like a kid desperately trying to stretch himself to appear taller.
"Got dragged into something nasty, eh, pampered boy? Lucid enough to tell us your mommy's phone number?"
When Worick called out to him, the young man shielded his body with both arms. Staying buried in the couch as deep as he could, he looked up at Worick with terrified eyes.
"...Who are you?"
"One sca~ry fella," Worick smiled. "You sure been through the wringer. Does it hurt?"
"I'm...okay."
The youth shifted, sitting down deeper. But even that simple movement looked stiff. Like he sat down into an easy chair with bent legs. Still, surprisingly, the young man's breathing wasn't disarrayed. It seemed like the pause in his earlier utterance only occurred due to him being frightened. His wound probably wasn't as bad as it looked at a glance.
"Mn, attaboy. Now try to stand up, c'mon."
Worrick took him by the lapels and pulled. The youth grimaced slightly.
"Oh? So it does hurt?"
"No, it's..."
He lowered his head and covered his face with his right hand. Probably crying. Over a trifle thing like that.
Worick flashed a malicious smile.
"Don't feel down, pampered boy. Oh right, I'll take you to a good place. The place where a cute girl will comfort you tenderly."
Theo's clinic had a great nurse, after all. Looking at it objectively, her being there was a waste of her talents, but the Benriya appreciated the fact since they frequented the place themselves.
Worick purposefully let go of the young man's lapels. The youth fell backwards, the back of his head sinking into the couch.
'Wah!' he groaned lamely, and Worick cackled with laughter.
The guy appeared to be too feeble to make it in this city, but his lack of malice towards strangers earned him some points.
When Worick glanced to check what Nicolas was doing, he found his partner crouching on the ground with his hand in the unconscious thugs' pockets. Worick personally doubted their wallets would be particularly thick, but the thugs should have had enough to provide the Benriya with some pocket money.
"Hey, Nic. I'll leave the mission of saying hello to Granny to you."
Nicolas didn't seem to pay close attention, but it turned out he was able to see what Worick said just fine anyway.
'That's your responsibility.' Nicolas' face spoke volumes of how bothersome he found the task to be, and Worick smiled a nasty little smile.
"That's your punishment for hogging all the fun. And you know, it has to be very boring for Granny to always have to look at the same mug when she needs to air her frustrations to someone."
'What're you gonna do?'
"Escort this pampered kid."
Nicolas' eyes narrowed as he took in the youth's appearance. The scowl on his face then deepened.
'So you finally stooped to playing that side of the f---'
"No friggin way. Besides, I'm cuter than him."
Worick shrugged his shoulders. Then he mouthed voicelessly, with his lips only, informing Nicolas, '---Just to be on the safe side. Since I've never seen him here before.'
Worick had good memory. So good, in fact, that it was abnormal and had a special name attached as a medical disorder. Be it a customer he passed by in a dark bar or a bystander from the news coverage, everything got saved indiscriminately into the memory cells and kept there neatly and orderly.
And Worick didn't remember ever seeing this particular young man anywhere before.
Generally, there were always good reasons for any and all exceptions like that, and in this city such reasons were always of the annoying kind. If this kid was just an unlucky schmuck randomly picked on by 3 thugs, then it was one thing, but if they hunted him down for a more specific reason, it would be an entirely different story. From where Worick stood, all the Benriya tried to achieve here was doing a favor to the smokes shop's Granny, but from an outsider's perspective, it could very well look like they had acted to specifically help this particular youngster.
Nicolas flashed a ferocious grin.
'You know, I've been feeling that I didn't have enough workout lately.'
"Provided it's the kind of workout that will bring us money. Since we're pros, yeah?"
'Any chance to let loose?'
"Dunno. Depends on luck, I guess."
'You reap what you sow, eh.’
"Just a small city, is all."
In the small city of Ergastulum, surrounded with walls on all sides, all you needed to do to run into trouble was take a few steps. Whether the fact was fortunate or unfortunate, no one cared.
Why hospitals insisted on using the cross symbol as their emblem was something that Worick often wondered about.
Its shape evoked associations with death. Was it because hospitals were places where people died? If so, then maybe it made some sense.
Whatever the case, Theo's clinic, too, had a cross inscribed into a down-facing pentagon on its signboard. It was a two-storied building snuggled between 2 others and located in District 7, a little north of Granny Joel's smokes shop.
When the door opened, Nina, who was organizing clinical records or something of the sort, lifted her head to look at the callers.
"Worick-san!"
Although being only an 11 year old girl, Nina was already a registered nurse. In contrast to her age, she was a hardworker and also quite skilled. Worick heard she had even had some experience in performing surgeries. What's more, she always approached both her patients and their injuries or diseases with unyielding honesty and integrity, and that side of her Worick had solid trust in.
"Hello, Nina-chan. You're cute as always."
Blush spread across the girl's cheeks from an offhand cheesy compliment like that. Well, Nina really was a cute girl, and Worick honestly did find her adorable. Only, she had yet to learn how to use her own charms. She may have acquired the skills of a real hospital nurse but that didn't mean she had become a grownup.
Nina shifted her gaze to the young man covered with wounds standing behind Worick.
"Um, who would that person be?"
"Someone I picked up at a garbage dump. I have yet to hear his name myself."
"Johann," the youth replied in a voice barely above whisper.
What, was he nervous even around an 11 year old girl?
"I see. Well, nice to meet ya."
"...Yes, nice to meet you, too."
Johann's frightened eyes peeked through the gaps of his streaked hair. Didn't look like he had a very happy childhood. Though that begged a more profound question of whether something like a happy childhood was even possible in Ergastulum.
Seeing those eyes of his made Worick feel a bang of pity, so he instead turned to Nina, asking, "Is the doc in?"
"Yes, he is. I will go call him."
Nina rushed into the back rooms with small quick steps of a squirrel or other similar small animal. Just as she put her hand on the doorknob intending to turn it, the door opened.
"Woah!" With a short yelp she planted face first into the white robe on the other side of the door.
Theo.
He was a bespectacled man in his thirties, his hair kept short, and no matter how many times Worick saw him, he always found him to be sickly pale. It unfailingly made Worick itch to tell him to run a thorough medical checkup on himself first, but if it turned out that a prolonged hospital stay was required, it'd be a problem for Worick. Or rather, what mattered was that Theo was Nicolas' physician.
Theo gave Nina, who lost her balance, what looked to be a stern glance but gently steadied her with his hands on her shoulders. By the time Nina's both feet were planted firmly on the dreary floor again, he was already looking at the visitors.
"You just keep bringing them one after another, huh. I'm amazed how you never get bored of it."
"Well, sorry about that. I'm just a man with a lot of friends, you see."
"I won't tell you to not bring me more work, but I am getting a little tired of that, I'll have you know."
Thrusting his hands into the pockets of his white gown, Theo approached Johann with clattering footsteps.
"Not a face I've seen."
"I know right? I thought he might be right up your alley, doc."
"Well..." Theo's answer was non-committal.
It probably wasn't that Worick's offhand comment actually hit the bull's eye accidentally but Theo's reaction did stir an uncomfortable feeling. The doctor examined Johann's face with the intense look of someone appraising the authenticity of a painting, touched his neck and checked the youth's both palms.
"His wound can't be that big of a deal," Worick butted in.
"That's for me to decide. You, to the bed."
Theo led the youth to the farther one of the two beds lined up at the center of the room, Johann following him with scared steps. Nina stole a glance at the clinic's entranceway - probably checking if Nicolas was with them - before chasing after the doctor and the youth.
For a while, Worick had nothing better to do than stare at the curtains that were slid shut with characteristic rustling. He didn't take a good look at how serious the wound underneath the quilted down coat was.
Worick wanted to light up one of his Pall Malls, but thought better of it. If anything, borrowing the washstand found deeper to the right seemed like a better idea of killing time. Having washed his hands, he moved onto his face. He let Nicolas handle all the fighting this time, yet he still got dirty - with the dust and sand fluttering in the back alleys and the oily stench that always clung to this city no matter where you went.
Next to the washstand, there could be found a stairway leading to the second floor. A look at it made him remember how uncomfortably light Sophia's body felt when he carried her in his arms. Surprisingly, it appeared she had made a deeper impression on him than he had expected.
Worick wiped his face dry with a clean towel.
'It's because of this wound,' he thought as he looked in the mirror. The faint traces of the two wounds her fingers left on his neck still remained. They would disappear very soon, but until they did, he would probably keep recalling the too light weight of her body he had felt then.
Bringing both his hands near his nose, he was about to check if they still stunk, but was interrupted with the roaring of an engine coming to a standstill in front of the clinic. That engine sounded unfamiliar, Worick thought, focusing his gaze on the clinic's door.
Suspecting every single caller might be stupid, but this clinic treated Twilights a little too nicely, and the fact could very well earn it malice and hatred.
"Worick." Theo's voice that came from the other side of the curtain was pushy.
"C'mon, it's not a rough customer. Probably."
The sound of a car's door opening then closing could be heard. Only one then.
Some people from the mafia had an eye on Theo's clinic, but their grudge wasn't of the personal sort. It was mainly because of Celebrer - which, to the mafia, was the magic drug for taming Twilights - and Theo sold it too much and too cheap, which made him a nuisance. And if he was an eyesore for an organization, they would come to crush him as an organization. Certainly not send just one person to do it.
"In any case, I can't drop what I'm doing at the moment. You go deal with them."
"Aye-aye. Coming."
A handyman would do almost anything. Including being a doctor's reception desk when requested.
Coming closer to the front door, Worick tacked a damp lock clinging to his cheek behind his ear.
He was about 2 yards away from the door when it opened. Standing on the doorstep was a man of petite build.
"Hello, the shitty clinic welcomes you---" Showing the man a smile, Worick carefully surveyed him.
The man seemed a little younger than the Benriya, probably had only just hit his thirties. His gaudy striped suit was paired with camel-colored leather shoes. His taste obviously sucked no matter how you looked at it. The articles themselves though were not cheap.
"Is yours an emergency? Sorry, but you'll have to wait until the doc's finished with the guy that came in before you. Also, if you want a medicine to fix up your taste, you should go to a place with more girls."
The man wasn't fazed in the slightest. Right hand behind his ass and a disinterested expression on his face, he walked up to Worick, his leather shoes making unnecessarily loud tapping sounds against the floor with each step. Behind him, the door closed with a soft click.
Worick stared at the man's forehead, only mere 10 inches away now. With a mundane motion, the man presented his right hand, as if for a handshake, except what was grasped in it was a Colt Woodsman the muzzle of which got pressed right to Worick's chin from beneath. At the same time, Worick drew a Colt Government M1911 from the holster on his left side and pushed it against the left side of the man's chest.
"What do you know, you are in hot haste after all, ain't ya. We're not demons, if your upset belly aches so much, we'll let you use our toilet."
"Yeah, you're a lifesaver. I might need to use it to flush a certain shithead."
"Now I got a question. The shithead you mentioned, who might it be?"
"The wiseass grinning like an idiot even with my gun to his head. What did you do to my kid brother?"
Worick took another long hard look at the man, then let out a small sigh.
Shoulder length wavy hair. Thin brows above light gray eyes. A peculiar manner of speaking that lifted his upper lip baring his protruding canines.
Another unfamiliar face. Just great.
*
The thing Worick had figured for the time being was that no matter which side it hit from, trouble remained troublesome. Also, that men that chose gaudy stripes for their suits lacked taste in more than one sense. And that the tasteless man named Dario was the self-proclaimed big brother of Johann.
"Haha! I'm really sorry, man. I just heard that you took the beat up Johann somewhere, and I thought you must've kidnapped him."
The small man's voice was strangely grating on Worick's ears, the fact being added to the growing list of Worick's discoveries brought by today.
Currently, Worick was being subjected to an inhumane torture.
The torture was in the form of having been thrust into the passenger seat of the man's car and forced to listen to the man's cheerful ramblings while being taken for a drive around Ergastulum where it was impossible to reach any decent speed by definition. As far as tortures went, this one was quite thorough.
Dario's beloved car was such that it made one believe it was a clever invention the sole purpose of which was to deepen the scowl on those who saw it as much as possible. It was probably a Fiat, except it had been stripped of the original model's charm resolutely and completely. All because the area immediately below the windshield sported an eccentric design with a substantial horizontal dent. To Worick, that form brought to mind deep-sea fish locked in the dark of the ocean depths and dying without ever learning what shape meant. The car's paintjob was vivid violet, and on its hood there was drawn maybe a dog, maybe a wolf - in short, some brown animal, and it was sneering.
Left hand on the steering wheel, Dario fumbled with his right to fish out one cigarette from the Garam pack lying on the dashboard and put it into his mouth. He held out the pack to Worick, but Worick gestured to decline the offer and took out one of his Pall Malls instead. Dario nimbly stroke a match with one hand and lit up both cigarettes.
"I'm really sorry about my rudeness earlier, Eric-san."
"Let's drop the formalities, we're not that far apart in age anyway. Oh, and it's Worick."
"Okay, Worick. My apologies, I'm just really no good with names. I always leave all those troublesome details to Johann to handle."
Dario didn't really look embarrassed in the least as he blew out a puff of smoke. Worick did the same, forcing Dario's sweet smelling smoke back with a puff of his Pall Mall. Two kinds of smoke intermingled in the cramped space of the car and leaked out the windows.
Pointing with the end of his cigarette that smouldered slowly, Dario said, "Well, I did think it was odd. Like, why would a nice guy who could coolly smile even at gunpoint do anything bad to a kind soul like Johann."
"Right back at you. Acting all cool like you didn't even know what a gun was."
And this was the real reason why Worick got into the car of this strange man - one, at that, whose tastes were hopelessly far from Worick's own with probably no chance to ever align. Worick had seen men who pretended to be calm at gunpoint. Men who had resigned themselves, men who flew into a fit of mad rage, and even those who, depending on the circumstances, were positively delighted. He'd seen them all. But Dario was none of those types. He simply didn't care about the deep opening of the gun's barrel pushed against his chest just an inch away from his heart. It looked like he ignored the gun's existence altogether with the whole of his body starting with his head.
That brand of crazy was not common. It reminded Worick of his partner's, if only the tiniest bit.
"Heh," Dario smirked intrepidly. "In such a shootout, even if the lead did go flying, the odds of dying were 50/50, right? And when gambling, I've never once lost when I had a 50% chance."
"They weren't 50/50 though. We could easily shoot each other dead simultaneously."
"Oh, I see. I didn't think of that." The man nodded, as if in admiration.
Worick let out a genuine sigh along with a puff of smoke.
"You love gambling, right? Remember the zero in roulette?"
"Wait, roulette has a zero?"
"Yeah, the house takes it all. Aka the hellhole."
"Oh well, let's not sweat the small stuff. We got to know each other thanks to that. And that means you're in luck."
"In luck? How so?"
"You helped Johann. Next, I'll help you. And I'll give so much alcohol to drink that you'll drown in it."
"Despite being broke with no money?"
"I'll make some soon enough."
Back in Theo's clinic, Dario insisted on thanking those involved in saving Johann. His next words, though, were, "Where's the nearest casino?" Having no money to do the proper thanking, he apparently planned to make enough through gambling.
The idea was foolish, to say the least, but then it occurred to Worick that he was the bigger fool of the two precisely because he was sitting next to such a man, and that made him smile to himself lopsidedly. Oh well, going along with this man was a better call than letting him stay in the clinic, in any case.
"Turn right at the next corner."
"OK."
Dario turned the steering wheel in accordance with Worick's directions. In a marked contrast to his boisterous way of conducting himself, his driving style was surprisingly careful.
"Stop the car in front of the smokes shop over there."
"You run out? Smoke mine as much as you like."
"Yours are too sweet for my tastes. Besides, I may not look it, but I'm a pretty careful man. Usually I don't wait until I run out."
"Then why are we here? You don't wanna say that small shop is a casino?"
"Nope. But you said you wanna treat Johann's savior to something, right?"
"Yeah. And I never lie."
The car that must have been history's ugliest Fiat came to a halt in front of the smokes shop.
Worick's thumb pointed outside the car's window.
"Then the person you wanna treat is over there."
At the end of where the thumb was pointing was an extremely sour looking mug of the man who tried his damnest to ignore the ceaseless flood of grumbling and complaints Granny Joel unleashed on him.
*
Dario really didn't lie.
He had no money. Actually, forget money, he didn't even have a wallet.
Worick loaned him the money he got paid earlier for listening to the woman scream, and Dario quadrupled the amount in the blink of an eye.
When Dario set foot in the casino, the first thing he did was watch intently the baccarat table for about 10 minutes. It didn't really look like he was analyzing anything, just chatting with Worick on easy and foolish topics. Then, however, he sat down to play for just 2 games. Out of the blue, he bet the entire sum on the player and doubled it, and in the next game doubled the amount again. With that, he was done.
Having entered a tiny bar in a back alley with only a counter and 2 tables, Worick was given back the 4 bills he had loaned to Dario. He felt like he had been swindled somehow, and that mood floated in the air.
"You really are good at gambling."
"Yeah, I never lost. And I obtained all the valuables through gambling."
"Impressive. You should've earned more then."
"I hate having to tote anything around. Smokes and a gun is all I need."
"What a shame. With enough money, you could've bought a car with the prettiest hood ever, y'know?"
"Why would I want to buy my own car twice?"
It looked like Dario actually considered that violet monster of his the best car ever made. Tastes and preferences sure differed. Complaining over someone's bad taste in cars wasn't really worth it. All it would earn Worick was exile from the passenger seat of that car forever.
Worick and Dario toasted with their drinks of choice - two different brands of whiskey. Next to them, Nicolas drank his Perrier in a way that looked like he was lapping on it. He boasted such high susceptibility to alcohol that he could even get intoxicated on whiskey bonbons.
Taking a sip of Old Parr on the rocks Worick remembered that he had decided to content himself with only wine tonight. But now that he had started drinking, it couldn't be helped. In the generously illuminated bar, a wine glass would look out of place, anyway.
Dario, who chose something as unbelievable as Bowmore, grimaced after the first mouthful and complained, "Geez, this tastes lousy."
For the first time, his and Worick's tastes coincided, although at the same time Worick was tempted to point out that Dario shouldn’t've ordered it to begin with then.
Their table was loaded with pizza Margherita, mimosa salad, escargots al ajillo, churros for soaking in olive oil and whatnot. Worick wasn't especially hungry, but since he made Nicolas who couldn't drink come along practically against his will, he ordered all of that out of consideration for him. And like the unstoppable march of an elephant, Nicolas was making his way through those plates, slowly but surely.
Dario, meanwhile, pushed the glass with Bowmore aside and ordered a new drink, no less shocking than the previous one - Venizia Mojito. Except he didn't really bother to get a good taste of it either as his fancy got strongly caught with the Japanese sword strapped to Nicolas' hip.
"Hey, hey, it's what's called a samurai sword, right? Hey man, lemme pull it out!"
Between wolfing down pieces of Margherita, Nicolas signed to Worick, 'He's a pain. Get him off me.'
"You don't need my help with that, do it yourself."
'I've already worked plenty today.'
"What, they were just 3 Normals though?"
'No. The real request was to listen to Granny complain.'
"Good job handling it. I feel for ya."
Dario, who was watching the two's exchange, seemed to have shifted the focus of his curiosity from Nicolas' sword to Nicolas himself. His hands moved in brisk chops, copying Nicolas.
"Ain't it inconvenient though?"
If anything, the utter lack of consideration behind the question left Worick awed. Being bluntly asked to his face if he felt the inconvenience of it had to be a rare experience for Nicolas as well.
'Routine.'
"Born that way?"
'Yeah.'
"Ohh. In that case, it really must feel just natural, I guess."
Nicolas' answers were mechanical and monosyllabic. That aside, the very fact of Dario successfully holding a conversation with Nicolas like it was nothing made Worick purse his lips.
"Hey, you got what he signed just now?"
"Of course I got it. Body language is universal, after all. Like any baby would laugh playing peekaboo, right?"
"Is that really body language though? Besides, what we use is sign language."
"Oh, sign language, huh? Then I don't know it."
Ridiculous as it was, after that Dario really stopped getting what Nicolas tried to convey. Despite that, he kept coming on strong, and Nicolas, frowning in displeasure at the buddy-buddy attitude the man took with him, gave him a cold shoulder, but the man just refused to take the hint.
When both he and the blond Benriya had finished their second glass and Dario's cheeks got dusted faint pink, Worick finally deemed it time to breach the real issue at hand.
"You and that kid, Johann, you're not this city born, right?"
"No, not quite from here, no. How did you know?"
"Your accent. You can tell an insider from an outsider right away based on that."
Johann barely spoke and even when he did, it was in quiet murmurs, but Dario talked a lot, so much that he was actually hard on the ears.
"Is it okay to ask where you're from then?"
"North Gate."
There were 4 adjacent cities bordering Ergastulum on all the 4 cardinal directions, as if surrounding it. Each of them was called a gate city and housed government troops. In order to keep close tabs on Twilights, of course.
As a general rule, Twilights could only live in Ergastulum. Even if they could survive elsewhere for some time, they would still come back to Ergastulum. All because Celebrer, the controversial drug that preserved their very lives, could only be reliably obtained in Ergastulum. Nevertheless, in order to ensure that Twilights wouldn't inadvertently spill out into the outside world, this city was barricaded with the 4 gate cities, one on each side.
In case of emergency, mercenary troops representing each city as well as armed groups corresponding to them were to be assembled, joining forces with the government troops in order to contain the situation. Among said troops there were specialized expert combatants capable of challenging Twilights.
To stop Twilights, you needed to either muster military might of that magnitude or have other Twilights to fight for you. That's how overwhelming Twilights' power was.
Worick cast a glance at the plain unattractive tags hanging around Nicolas' neck.
---In other words, Dario, too, was fully aware of the danger those tags signified. His correctly assuming that Nicolas' hearing defect was congenital was because he knew enough about Twilights to be aware of compensation. And yet, he didn't put up a wall between himself and Nicolas.
The fact made Worick's alcohol taste a little yummier as he smiled a wry smile.
---Hey, hey, wait, can't be getting sidetracked here.
Nicolas' job was slaying bad guys, so it was up to Worick to determine whether suspicious people they came across were good guys or bad guys.
"So, in the end, why did you two come to Ergastulum? For sightseeing? Guest-working? Or maybe fighting a war?"
"Mine and Johann's goals ain't the same. I came to keep a promise."
"Oh. What promise, pray tell?"
"It ain't anything grand. Actually, I don't even remember it all that well myself."
What the hell. Was he trying to dodge the question?
"Then what about Johann?"
"He came because he's free."
"Free?"
"We're stray dogs, you see. We're the ones who decide where our chain ends." Lifting his lip, Dario beamed at the Benriya happily. "We wanted to come, so we came. We don't need any other reason."
It wasn't like Worick trusted this flippant ridiculous man. And yet, he didn't feel inclined to look down on the guy either, the fact being a mystery even to Worick himself. Keeping his guard up, he decided to venture one more question that took him another step away from the safe zone.
"Johann was attacked. Have any idea why?"
He didn't get his hopes up, which was right because Dario looked blank when asked that.
"Oh. That's a mystery to me. Just who and why attacked him?"
Worick studied the man's eyes very carefully but didn't find any signs of him hiding something.
He shrugged his shoulders.
"Well, I guess in this city it's weirder to not get attacked when walking the back alleys."
So the question was, why Johann was walking the back alleys in the first place. It was one thing if it was a man like Dario. It was still within reason to assume that he just didn't bother to think before acting. But Johann didn't strike Worick as someone that rash and reckless, at all. For a timid young man like him to set foot into the maze of the city's back streets a damn good reason was needed.
In any case, Worick decided against digging any deeper into it. Taking a sip out of his third glass of Old Parr, he smiled broadly.
"Well, be more careful from now on. If he wants to go somewhere, better just give him a lift in that conspicuous super violet beauty of yours."
"Right you are. I'll try to stick by him as much as possible. Thanks, man," Dario grinned toothily.
Grabbing the glass with Bowmore he set aside earlier, he took a gulp from it, "Argh, tastes like shit," he grimaced again.
After that, for a while the two engaged in a chat about his Fiat.
*
That was how the two 2-man teams met.
One could suspect fate at work, but in reality it was merely by chance.
If one was to put it in a nutshell, Ergastulum was a small city, was all.
If it was a little bigger, the story would probably have been different. Or maybe nothing worthy of being called a story would have taken place at all.
Anyway, three days after the outing where the more communicative halves of the 2-man teams drank the night away, a certain piece of news started traveling around Ergastulum, told in a breaking voice intermittent with noise over a blurry distorted video footage.
To this city, it was the mundane and worthless kind of news, but to Worick and Nicolas it wasn't as meaningless.
At the time, the two happened to have a meeting with the boss of a certain huge mafia organization.
← to prologue to chapter 2 →
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