We’re well over half the book now, with only 2 chapters and the epilogue remaining. The plot is clear now, too, with only some minor details to work out.
Chapter 4 is longer and wordier so will probably take more time to translate though. The original Japanese text is still provided by.
Gangsta: Death of Anosmic Stray Dogs by Kawabata JunichiChapter 3
After leaving the garage where the sneering dog rampaged to its heart’s content, it took Worick about 2 hours to make it back to the Benriya office.
Johann was waiting in front of the garage, so Worick dumped Dario, who didn’t even make an attempt to walk with his own two feet, on him. That said, since Worick had sustained some wounds himself, he needed to drop by Theo’s clinic along with the two, as well.
He had Nina dress his wounds, and when he returned to the office, Nicolas turned to him, gracing him with an annoyed look. Lying on the couch, he pressed a glass bottle of carbonated water to his lips. Having taken 2 gulps, he put it on the table.
After that, Nicolas held his right fist in front of his face and, bending his wrist, banged it against the left side of his chest. Then he made a motion like he wanted to grab his head with the whole of his right hand.
‘What are you fucking up for, idiot.’
Seemingly satisfied with just that, he took a shish-kebab out of the paper bag left on the floor and bit into it.
“Whatcha eating?”
'Salted grilled fish. Bought it from a street stall.’
Worick cracked a smile.
“Really. Yummy?”
“How carefree of you when I was being put through some really awful experience. What if I died?”
'You’re still alive though.’
Nicolas got up from the couch and threw the skewer the kebab he had finished in a flash was on in the trash can. The long stick fell with a small clunk, joining 2 more like it already in the trash can.
'Speaking of, don’t go wandering around alone if you know you’re being targeted, moron.’
“Don’t look so cold, c'mon. It’s part of the job.”
Worick plopped down on the other couch next to the one Nicolas was occupying. Nicolas gazed at him expressionless.
'Is he the mafia slayer?’
'I thought you took a shine to him.’
“Did it look that way? I’m just really good at getting close to strangers, is all.”
Worick lit up a Pall Mall. Lifting a corner of his mouth, he flashed a nasty smirk.
“You suck at dealing with him, don’t ya.”
“Haha, way to be blunt. Not that I don’t get what you mean though.”
Taciturn Nicolas and talkative Dario were the polar opposites. But at the same time, Worick had a feeling that their sets of values were surprisingly very similar. If it looked like Worick was being friendly with Dario, that had to be the reason why.
Both of the short men didn’t give a damn about the rules of society. They had their internal set of iron-clad rules, which was linked with instincts rather than reason. Nicolas’ rules originated in his having been born a Twilight and formed under the effects of his complicated upbringing. With Dario though, Worick couldn’t tell for sure. But he could venture a guess that Dario, too, had a past of some controversial kind that cut into his neck like a chain. Because he was unhealthily obsessed with the past. In the form of 'forgetting’, to be exact. It was the same as with a child’s puppy love. Peering hard and avoiding to look at all costs bore the same meaning in that context, denoting the overwhelming obsession with the object.
Or, alternatively, perhaps Nicolas’ disagreeable sentiment could be attributed to a natural dislike towards one of the same kind. —Well, if we started talking unsightly past and criticizing people for it, I’d be on the list, too, Worick admitted to himself with a strained smile.
“But don’t let it be said that I haven’t learned my lesson. So now I want you to stick by me, Nic-chan. Protect me from the scary-scary people, partner.”
“Oh, don’t sulk.”
'I don’t.’
Worick blew out the cigarette smoke in Nicolas’ direction, and the shorter man grimaced not unlike a dog.
Nicolas would protect Worick no matter what. Even if it meant putting his own life on the line. And there could hardly be any doubt that the feelings driving him to do so were neither those of friendship nor those of duty. It was more like something that was part of the instincts etched into his essence.
Evidently, Worick accumulated too much fatigue because the next day he slept in until noon. He felt he had dreamed of a woman but didn’t really remember.
He woke up with a dull headache, maybe from the hangover, maybe from having been hit in the head. His shoulder, grazed by the bullet yesterday, stung when he was taking a shower. But since the wound could be written off as a mere scratch, he didn’t feel much inconvenience even when washing his head.
Leaving the office together with Nicolas, Worick had a kebab sandwich bought from a street stall for lunch. Fashionably late by 10 minutes to the appointment with inspector Chad for that reason, he spent another 10 minutes trying to ignore the gratuitous lecturing the good inspector subjected him to.
20 minutes in total later than planned, they finally got to the main issue at hand.
“Geez. Making me waste my energy on garbage disposal day after day.” Chad scowled while puffing on his Hope cigarette.
The meeting place was the interrogation room, found in a corner of the police station and plastered with wanted posters of all kinds of scoundrels.
Worick, cheek resting on his hand, managed to shrug his shoulders without changing his pose.
“We’re fans of tidiness ourselves. Right, partner?”
“The 5 guys yesterday, what family did they belong to?” Worick asked Chad.
“Oh. A place pretty high on the totem poll.”
“And that Capo Regime got offed by the mafia slayers.”
That’s how the story had to go, given the hysterical woman’s words.
Chad nodded.
“His corpse was found the day before yesterday. Shot through the head at home in his own bed. Along with the women serving as his body pillows. There were 7 people and 1 dog in that house. Only the dog survived.”
“So they weren’t slain with a bladed weapon?”
One of the big reasons why Worick and Nicolas were set up as the fall guys for the mafia killings was because the murder weapon was a blade.
“You’re not off the hook though, your weapon of choice is Colt Government, forgot?”
Chad ground out his Hope cigarette, smoked up to the filter, on the cheap ashtray of stainless steel and stuck a new one in his mouth.
“Chad-san, ain’t you smoking a bit too much?”
'Ain’t it high time you retired though?’ Nicolas’ hands moved, a wicked smirk on his face.
Chad smacked him on the head.
“Like I can with the shitty brats severely lacking discipline around!”
'Why are you always taking it out only on me?’
“So?” Worick, following suit, lit up a Pall Mall. “How hairy the situation is right now, exactly? For how long will the Bandera family be after my head, in your opinion?”
“Yeah, figures.”
Daniel Monroe was this city’s mighty power balancer. It figured that he couldn’t possibly play favorites and openly back up the Benriya who were but two puny individuals. The request he had placed with them was in part purely meant to protect them - at least that’s what Worick thought.
Chad took a deep drag out of his cigarette through the filter, breathed out a cloud of white smoke, then spoke.
“Every time new blood starts flowing, you two gain more hatred and grudges against you. And those grudges are quite tangible. You get what I mean, right?”
“Shuddup. I just don’t wanna see this fucked up city get fucked up more than it already is.”
Worick let out a puff of smoke too, and flicked the ashes off his cigarette over the ashtray.
“Yesterday’s evening, did the mafia slayers hit again?”
“Five?”
Worick only shot two. And only one of those was dead beyond any doubt. He didn’t know the fate of the other one. Additionally, Dario ran over 2 more. Even if all of them bit the dust, it totaled to 4 bodies. The numbers didn’t add up.
“All 5 are confirmed dead?”
“Well, I was really drunk yesterday, so.”
Did it mean that Dario killed at least one, possibly two while Worick was unconscious? If so, the numbers would add up. Except how could he do it, with his gun out of reach and his leg hit by a bullet?
At the guess that popped up in his head as he tried to solve that puzzle, Worick couldn’t help but laugh.
—Was Dario putting on an act?
Really, now? Where the acting ended, then?
Stubbing out the Pall Mall on the ashtray, Worick scratched his head.
In any case, the situation was still deteriorating. Slowly but surely, like a swamp you kept sinking into.
“I want the list of the clients the Lombardi family pushed their 'dynamite’ to. You’ve investigated them, like you were supposed to, right?”
That was the start of the mafia killings. The only clue they had that could be called more or less solid was that 'dynamite’.
Chad, however, shook his head.
“We’re still investigating.”
“That’s not it. There’s no doubt they were a family particular to death about every penny. It’s just that someone apparently made off with all of the records on their 'dynamite’ deals.”
“Oh. Makes you wonder just who it could be.”
The answer to that was obvious as obvious got - the mafia slayers. And with that, it only stood to reason to suspect that they acted on a personal grudge. A grudge having to do with the 'dynamite’ - if the perp was a Twilight, a myriad of valid answers why came to mind.
“What about other documents?”
“Yeah,” Worick nodded and glanced at Nicolas.
Probably bored of the long talk, the dark-haired man was entertaining himself with reshuffling the wanted posters on the walls. It looked like he was lining them up in order of the amount of hair, so now one corner sported a herd of shaved headed thugs.
“Nic-chan. Sorry, but could you play by yourself for a little longer?”
“Next try lining them up in order of their nose size then.”
'What fun is that?’
At this rate, it wouldn’t be too odd if he went off somewhere on his own. Only, right now, Worick didn’t want them to go anywhere separately.
“Gimme just 5 more minutes. I’ll be done right away.”
He had no idea how much was there to go through, but just flipping through all the papers shouldn’t take much time in any case. And Worick didn’t forget anything he had laid his eyes upon once. He could recall it perfectly any time he wanted. He would ponder on the content of those documents later.
“This way,” Chad rose up from his chair.
Approximately 10 minutes later, the two Benriya exited the police station.
Having found a florist’s that carried violets, Worick bought a bundle of them, planning to drop by Dario’s hospital room. An armful of flowers for a get-well visit paid to someone like Dario felt jarringly out of place, but popping up there empty-handed was even worse.
Dario, lying on a bed on the second floor of Theo’s clinic, was reading a book out of having nothing better to do, but lifted his head when he caught sight of the two handymen.
“Yo, my friends. Came to invite me for a drink again?”
“Ooh, thanks for the trouble.”
Dario put the wrapping of a used up book match in place of a bookmark and shut the book.
“Whatcha reading?”
“Oh yes, Nina-chan.”
“Agreed wholeheartedly,” Worick said, then raised his brows. “Wait, what, were you crying?”
There were traces of tears in the outer corners of Dario’s eyes.
“Hm? Well, yeah.” Not embarrassed in the slightest, Dario help up the book. “It’s an eastern book. I looked down on it at first 'cause it’s for kids, but it’s awesome.”
Worick laughed.
A guy who failed to give a damn about guns pointed at him and ran over 2 people with his beloved car even after having been shot in the leg, cried over a kids’ fairy-tale.
It was clearly weird, but when you saw this guy, somehow it made sense and seemed only natural.
Worick felt Nicolas clap him on the shoulder.
'I’ll be outside,’ the deaf man signed disinterestedly. 'If something happens, gimme some signal.’
Nicolas sniffed, nose twitching. The smell of rubbing alcohol must have been getting to him. The second floor had 4 beds and looked a lot more like a hospital than the floor below. Worick nodded his okay.
“Give these to Nina-chan as a present then.”
Nicolas spared a look at the bouquet Worick held out, and took it with a sigh. Throwing the flowers over his shoulder, he walked away.
Dario gave Worick a coarse sneer from his bed.
“I did praise that girlie, but trying to seduce a girl that little?”
“You’re giving flowers to a car? That’s weird.”
“A car is a car. It’s useful, sure, but it’s only a tool. It got nothing on your own two legs.”
It seemed like Dario really did forget all about the Fiat. Or, at the very least, he revealed no sign of being sad about losing it.
“How do you like this hospital?” Worick asked.
Dario shrugged. His features twisted - did his wound hurt, perhaps?
“I like it good enough. Johann does, too. The doc doesn’t talk much, thankfully.”
“Guess so. Than again, it’s much better than doctors doing nothing but throwing questions at you.”
“What is?”
“A talk with doctors is never any good.”
“And I don’t like that. They come asking you questions about your health for the record. 'How are feeling, Dario-san?’ I don’t fuckin’ know how I’m feeling, that’s why I’m paying you big money to examine me and find out! What the hell’s with dumping everything on the patient, what are you, a quack or something?”
The corners of Worick’s mouth lifted up. True, Theo was a man of few words and also skilled. Although he was also a corrupt doctor, for a portion of his patients he was probably close to the ideal.
For about 5 minutes after that, Dario continued to vocally complain about hospitals, only pausing for breathing. That the smell of cresol used for disinfection for some reason was similar to Bowmore he had had in the Spanish bar, that the flavor of the food served to him was flat and it was more like fishfood than something meant for humans, and so on and so forth, but on the other hand, it seemed like he had no dissatisfaction with this clinic and even expressed roundabout gratitude to it, going by his comparison with other hospitals.
When the short man’s tongue took a short break at last, Worick spoke up, “There’s something I wanted to ask.”
“About yesterday. What happened?”
“To be honest, when I came to in that garage, I was 80-90% sure that you’d departed from this world for good. If they hadn’t captured you, then you had to be dead. Yet, you turned up alive. It’s also a mystery to me how you even found where they took me.”
When Dario swooped in to save him yesterday, Worick’s suspicions about his being the mafia slayer got somewhat stronger.
The man himself was probably not strong, or skilled by any stretch of imagination. He was lucky, sure, but that was all he had going for him. And yet, he somehow had pulled through a really sticky spot and even saved Worick. So Worick naturally found himself suspecting that the man had some special ability or something of the sort that wasn’t immediately visible to Worick.
“You wanted to ask about something that trivial?” Dario laughed. “I’m a lucky man.”
“Everything’s up to luck. Stumbling upon an apple tree when you’re hungry and have no money is luck, finding a wallet on the road is luck, meeting a friend that treats you to a meal is luck. See? Yesterday, as luck had had it, Johann turned up to help.”
Worick had guessed that much. After all, Johann was outside the garage, waiting for Dario to come out.
“That pampered kid? Why though?”
“Dunno. I was out cold for a while. Ask Johann.”
This man said absolutely lame things with impossible grandeur.
“Even if so, it doesn’t explain how you had located that garage.”
“Nose?”
“Yup, nose. I can tell the smell of good luck and of bad luck. And Johann–”
But there, he was interrupted with a knock on the door.
It was Nina. On her tray, there were two bottles with orange juice and a vase with the violets arranged in it.
“D-Did I interrupt you?”
Worick sighed and shook his head.
“Not really, we were just chatting about silly things.”
Nina smiled and put the vase by the window. Then she deposited one bottle of orange juice on the side table by the bed. Worick took the other.
“Thanks. You’re so considerate.”
“No, it’s not me. These are from Johann-san.”
Worick looked at Dario.
“I asked him. Y'know, to go shopping for me a little and stuff. What’s he doing?”
“Ooh,” Dario smiled in surprise. “I can’t imagine what kind of conversation they could be having.”
Worick had to agree. In contrast with Nicolas and his mad dog tendencies, Johann was like a chihuahua kept by a refined Madame. But for what it was worth, they were the savior and the saved, so holding a formal conversation on that account out of common courtesy was probably not impossible.
After Nina bowed and left the room, Dario changed the subject.
“You see, Johann came to this town to find his l'il sister. His sis is like the reason for living to him.”
“Yeah, that’s her. They got separated some time ago due to some rotten circumstances. And recently, we finally found out that she’s somewhere in this city.”
From how Dario worded it and from the real reason why they had to come to this city, Worick incurred that the girl in the photo was not in a position that set the mind at ease about her well-being.
“Didn’t Johann-chan come to this city because he was free though?”
“No, you told me that. You really forget everything, huh.”
“What does it mean though?”
“Just what it sounds like.”
Dario yawned sleepily, apparently not immune to losing strength due to an injury. Then he added in a voice that somehow sounded a little vacant, “Being free is nice and stuff, but there are all kinds of limitations. You keep getting hungry for as long as you live, and require sleep, too. And if you get pumped full of lead, sometimes you end up dying.”
“Everyone has a chain hanging around their neck. But if you got to chose where the limitations trap you, that’s freedom. He pinned it on his sister. Catch my drift?”
“In that case, there you have it.”
Dario closed his eyes.
“Think you can find that girl?” Worick inquired.
He didn’t hope to get an answer, but Dario did reply, if mumblingly, “Yeah, without fail. I’m a lucky man, after all.”
“Dunno. Ask Johann.”
He was sound asleep the second the words left his mouth, breathing peacefully. Having gotten off his chest all he had to say, he went and fell asleep just like that. Like a child.
Worick moved the side table with the bottle of orange juice on it out of the way so that even if Dario tossed and turned in his sleep, his hand wouldn’t bump into it. Then, after putting a bedsheet round Dario, he left the sickroom.
When Worick came down to the first floor, he didn’t find Nicolas or Johann there. Instead, there stood Theo, leaning against the wall and blowing out cigarette smoke.
“Where’s Nic-chan?”
“And where’s Johann-chan?”
“No idea either. I’m not their baby-sitter.”
Worick came closer and leaned against the wall next to the doctor as well, taking out a Pall Mall.
“Lately, we’ve been imposing on you a lot. You have my gratitude.”
“He got shot in the leg and then charged into a garage head-first. You can’t tell that his wounds aren’t serious.”
“You can tell just by looking that the guy is tenacious. I’m glad that luck is on his side.”
“Johann-chan?”
Theo nodded.
“When he stayed overnight for examination, he was up all night enduring.”
“It’s still bad. And won’t heal. For now, he’s just lucky to be able to move at all. Like with that partner of yours, those are some high-maintenance mess of a body they have.”
Worick raised his brow, dubious. “A Tag?”
Face wiped off all expression, Theo blew out the smoke. “Did you bring him here without knowing? I can’t believe you.”
Worick scratched his cheek.
—Nose knows, Dario said. Per his admission, he could tell the smell of good luck and of bad luck, and Johann…
Just what smell could Johann tell?
“How bad is it looking for that baby-faced boy?”
“Why though? It’s not because of the wound he sustained the other day, is it?”
“Partly because of his odd compensation. But mainly due to the reckless use of Celebrer.”
There was no lack in Tags weakened by Celebrer.
“I see,” Worick returned curtly. “And that compensation, what is it?”
Theo indicated the area around his bangs with the hand holding the cigarette.
“He has a tuft of hair, here, that’s white, remember?”
“Different parts of his body age differently.”
That was hard to grasp.
After letting it sink, Worick confirmed his understanding, “So you’re saying only part of his hair became that of an old man?”
“If it was only his hair, it wouldn’t matter any. The manner he ages in is first only his right arm gets old, then only his left leg, and so on. If his heart’ll age suddenly, his life span will greatly shorten. And if he repeatedly ODs with a body that irregular from the get-go… you follow what I’m getting at?”
Worick puffed out a cloud of smoke and watched it dissipate away.
“Sorry for bringing you another patient that can’t get better.”
“Damn straight.”
Theo ground out his cigarette that still had about half of its length intact, on the ashtray he held in hand and turned his back to Worick.
“Hey. It’s a problem for me if you take away the ashtray, y'know?”
“Like I care. Don’t get my floor dirty.”
Theo proceeded to the back room without looking back.
Worick thought of Nicolas as he gazed at his Pall Mall that had nowhere to go now. Nicolas had run into Johann, there was no doubt about it.
About 15 minutes prior, when Nicolas came downstairs, Nina came out of the examination room found in the back of the first floor at the same time. Seeing Nicolas, the girl smiled.
“Ah. You’re just in time. The doctor said to give these to you.”
She held out two plastic cases she previously cradled to her chest.
Celebrer. Uppers and downers. Twilights’ lifeline and the main cause of their death.
Celebrer cost a lot. It was made expensive for a reason different than it being a high-costing drug to produce. Celebrer was the most direct means of making Twilights obey the rules set by Normals. There was an absolute need to make Twilights view Celebrer as “the life credit bestowed upon them by Normals out of goodness of their hearts”, so if Celebrer was easy to buy, that equilibrium would crumble.
For that reason, generally, only rich people or prominent mafia families involved in managing and controlling said Celelbrer as their bread and butter could afford to keep Twilights. Worick was neither that rich nor that powerful, so he had to rely on Theo selling him illegally the stuff the doctor got through his own routes.
'Are you done helping the doc?’
Nina understood perfectly what Nicolas’ hands signed.
“Yes. At the moment, Dario-san is the only hospitalized patient, and his condition is stable. And the doctor is in the back, trying to outstare some other patients’ charts.”
Nicolas nodded his acknowledgement. Then, noticing the girl’s gaze shift from his face to somewhere a little to the side, he remembered about the violets.
'From Worick.’ With that, Nicolas presented the girl the flowers.
'Supposed to be a get-well gift to the mofo sleeping upstairs. But flowers for a dude is even more pointless than pearls before swine, so take them.’
“No, I could not possibly. But the sickroom decorated with flowers will make me happy, too. So thank you.”
Nina reached out with both hands, and Nicolas lifted the flowers higher in the air. By reflex, Nina jumped for them, but the flowers were held just out of her reach. When she landed, Nicolas lowered them, and when she jumped, he held them up again, rinsing and repeating a few times until Nina groaned in frustration.
It wasn’t like Nicolas had a dislike for Nina or particularly wanted to harass her. It was just that her troubled expression was fun to watch for some reason, so he teased like that for a bit. Before she had the chance to get peevish for real, he mouthed, 'I’m bored’, voicelessly with only his lips, and thrust the violets into her chest.
Nina smiled happily, cradling the flowers gently.
“Thank you,” she said.
Nicolas wasn’t one to pay much mind to the subtle workings of others’ hearts, but he had grasped the real meaning of Nina’s words, as well as the reason why she lowered her head immediately after, as if realizing her verbal slip.
If she wanted to give thanks for the flowers, she would have thanked Worick. But her thanks wasn’t about that, what she was grateful for was her relationship with Nicolas, probably. To Nicolas, the time spent with her was not unpleasant or anything, but calling it a kind of a compulsory job would not be too off the mark.
Pretending he hadn’t realized anything about her true feelings, Nicolas lightly flicked her forehead with his middle finger.
'If you wanna thank someone, thank Worick.’
“Okay. Ah, but it would probably be weird for me to thank him for the flowers meant for Dario-san.”
She giggled.
It was like he was playing make believe human. Him, a Twilight - him, who carried another set of tags deep inside him on instinct. That said, the fact made him feel neither good nor bad or sad. Neither did he ever wish to be a Normal, for that matter. It was probably the same as a child’s play of imitating how a dog barked or a cat meowed. A mere game that had no meaning beyond killing time.
“Nice smell. I’ll go fetch a vase for them,” Nina smiled, and the same instance the front door opened. Nicolas glared in that direction.
“Nicolas-san.”
On the doorstep stood someone familiar. The young man wearing a quilted down coat clearly too big for his lanky physique.
“Thank you for saving me the other night.”
Johann bowed nervously. His straight bangs with a white lock rocked with the motion.
'I wasn’t the one to save you.’
Johann knitted his brows and scratched his cheek sheepishly.
“I’m sorry, I don’t understand sign language.”
“Hmph,” Nicolas snorted. It wasn’t like he had any desire to talk with this young man anyway. The youth held a paper bag in his right hand - probably bought something for Dario. Nicolas pointed to the ceiling, imbuing the gesture with the “get going already” meaning.
“Ah, right, thank you.”
Johann bowed again and was about to pass by Nicolas… but suddenly stopped in his tracks.
Nicolas tensed slightly, one eye narrowing. Johann, too, turned his head to him, narrowing his eyes to slits and staring at Nicolas.
“Nina-san, I am sorry to trouble you, but could you please take this to Dario for me? There are 2 bottles of orange juice in here, so please give one to Worick-san.”
Nicolas could tell something was off - it was not a conclusion of the mind, rather he felt it with his skin.
There was the abnormal politeness with which Johann spoke to Nina even though she was just a child and it wasn’t necessary. How familiarly he referred to Dario in contrast. And how he didn’t doubt that Worick was upstairs even though he seemingly had no means of knowing that for sure. Probably all of that combined.
Notwithstanding, Nicolas still didn’t find himself particularly interested in the young man. Whereas he could tell that Johann was very interested in him for some reason.
“Eh? Ah, alright.”
Nina accepted the bag, balancing it with the vase in her hands with some difficulty. Nicolas was about to help her carry the burden, but before he could make a move, Johann said, “Excuse me, Nicolas-san, would you mind sparing me a little of your time?”
Nicolas cocked his head to the side in puzzlement. Asking why with voiced words was bothersome.
“Please. There is something I would like to ask you. So let us step outside for a bit.”
In the sharp gaze of Johann’s eyes visible from beneath his long bangs, there was something akin to a killing intent. Except it wasn’t really that. If it was a real killing intent, Nicolas would know the same instance.
For a very short while, Nicolas considered the issue of Worick’s safety. Technically, he was told to protect him, supposedly. In which case, leaving wasn’t advisable.
“I will make it quick. Please, to the street in front of the clinic.”
Johann turned and started walking.
Nicolas sighed. And then followed Johann.
As long as he didn’t get too far away from the clinic, he wouldn’t miss any changes that might occur inside, he judged. After all, Nicolas had extremely good eyes. He would notice it if a window got cracked by a bullet.
Out of curiosity that rared its head, Nicolas wondered what would happen if he just ignored Johann who was advancing with steps grand and confident like never before, but what intrigued him the most was the meaning behind the young man’s strange look.
Johann stopped in his tracks once they exited Theo’s clinic, but Nicolas didn’t. The reason was that he remembered that there was a chicken street stall about 20 yards away from the clinic. One kebab sandwich for lunch was not enough.
So now it was Nicolas leading the way with Johann in tow to buy a spicy grilled chicken leg.
'It ain’t half-bad,’ he recommended it to Johann, too, just in case. Johann seemed to more or less get what he signed, but he shook his head, declining the suggestion.
Nicolas was devouring his chicken with big bites on the way back to Theo’s clinic. Peeling off the skin with a slurp, he sucked it into his mouth. The taste was on the blank side, but spices and burnt oil smell were tasty on their own.
Noticing that Johann had finally felt like talking, Nicolas focused on reading his lips.
“—away from the stall and I am grateful for that. It was much too smoky there that I could not even speak.”
Nicolas didn’t reply to that. The reason why he moved away from the stall was because the next customer in the line frowned in resentment upon noticing the tags on Nicolas’ chest, and Nicolas simply didn’t want to cause trouble to the stall-keeper by overstaying his welcome, but trying to explain all of that to Johann, who didn’t understand sign language, was too much trouble.
About 5 yards away from the clinic, Nicolas stopped, and Johann got to the point.
“I came to this city to find my little sister.”
Nicolas propped the back of one leg against the fence and leaned his weight on it. Biting into the chicken leg close to his own fingers that held it, he urged the youth with his chin to go on.
“It is this girl. Do you know her?”
Johann produced a photo of a boy and a girl. The boy was Johann, but Nicolas didn’t know the girl. Must be that little sister of his. The girl was about 12-13 and wore a silver necklace shaped like an angel’s wing.
Nicolas didn’t remember ever seeing it though, so he shook his head.
“That’s not true,” Johann said in a cutting tone. “I can smell my sister’s scent on you.”
At that, Nicolas sniffed his own arm. It smelled only of chicken to him.
Johann’s eyes were completely serious.
“You must know her. I have never been wrong about smells. That was how I found Dario and Worick-san yesterday.”
Even if so, what Nicolas didn’t know he didn’t know.
“To be honest, this clinic, too, smells of my sister just a little, but the reek of the chemicals is too strong, so I cannot say for sure. Does anything come to mind?”
Nicolas drew a complete blank.
Speaking of girls in Theo’s clinic, only Nina came to mind. Besides her, there were only outlaws spreading the alcohol stench.
So Nicolas waved a hand, letting the other know that it didn’t ring a bell for him.
“I do not like lies.”
But it wasn’t a lie. He really didn’t know that girl.
Nicolas let out a weary sigh. The chicken leg had mostly become only the bone now. His belly, in contrast, felt sufficiently full. So he launched the remaining bone into the nearest garbage bin. Come to think of it, they had found this young man at a garbage dump site, too, Nicolas idly recalled as he wiped his stained fingertips on the fence. But remembering that served no purpose.
He gazed at Johann sideways. The youth was talking too fast, and it was hard to read it.
'Is that all you wanted from me?’
At Nicolas’ gesture, Johann cocked his head to the side quizzically.
Nicolas’ words didn’t reach him. Not that Nicolas intended to get through to him to begin with.
He had humored the guy for long enough already. Time to go back to the clinic, he decided and moved his leg off the fence it was rested against. When he turned his back to Johann, he felt a voice come from behind him.
“Wait!” the youth had probably screamed. Unfortunately, Nicolas didn’t see his mouth to know for sure.
The young man thrust a hand beneath his down coat clearly too big for him. A gun? Or maybe a knife. He was fingering something intended to deal damage to the enemy confronted head-on, in any case. That much could be read in the youth’s pupils.
The thirst for blood. Except it was too dull. Yawn-inducing, even.
'When you work up the resolve to take that out, come again and we’ll play.’
Communicating this without voicing, Nicolas started walking towards the clinic. As expected, his urge to kill did not get more tangible just from Johann glaring daggers at him.
In the end, Worick dealt with his cigarette butt by running after Theo to dispose of it.
Just when he pushed the door leading from the back room back to the examination room open, the door on the other end of the room opened as well, and Nicolas showed his face.
Smiling a light smile, Worick waved a hand at him.
“Welcome back, Nic-chan. Did you get in a fight with Johann-chan?”
“I see. That’s a cryptic answer though.”
Before Worick closed the door, he stuck only his head in the adjourning room to say, “Well then, see you, doc. But I’ll be back.”
“Not for that. I forgot to bring something.”
A few hand waves after, he closed the door.
“I’ll go retrieve it now, so come with me,” he then requested of Nicolas.
With Nicolas coming to his side, he studied his face and suddenly stared in wonder.
“You went to grab a bite, didn’t you?”
Now that he thought about it, he left collecting the pay from Granny Joel for fulfilling her request to Nicolas. Due to him drinking the night away with Dario that evening, his memories were vague, but he felt he had yet to see his share of the money.
Nicolas wiped his lips of pepper stuck to them.
'It’s only due reward. I was the one to do all the work for that request anyway.’
'Didn’t you crave to get close to him? Bed-sharing’s your forte, wasn’t it.’
“My manual labor costs more than yours, Nic-chan, and I need to be properly paid for it. Was it yummy? Where did you buy that chicken? I want a bite of it too.”
When they exited Theo’s clinic, Nicolas took a careful look around the street.
“What, did the stall poof out of existence or what?”
There was no sign of a possible attack. At least Worick didn’t feel anything of the sort.
'Johann’s gone.’
“Oh.”
Worick took in their surroundings and noticed something. One of the windows on the second floor was open.
“Up there. Maybe he entered through the window.”
“You do it too when you’re in a hurry.”
Seeing Nicolas’ puzzled expression made Worick realize that for some reason he had irrationally expected Nicolas to notice a certain fact about Johann somehow.
“Apparently, that boy, too, has tags hanging around his neck, you see. Although they’re hidden by his huge down coat.”
'Ohh.’
Nicolas flashed a slasher smile. That of a hungry predator.
Worick’s lips twisted into a strained smile.
“Owie, Nic, such a scary face. What on earth has happened?”
“So you did get in a fight with him, huh. I was worried, you know?”
“Oh really.”
“Is it too much to ask of you to try and open your eyes to the concept of pacifism, if just a little?”
'Did you know that peace and war hold the same meaning for all the species except for humans?’
You guys are humans too, Worick was about to say but held his tongue. For Worick, too, was prepared to unsheathe the proverbial sword against Johann - tonight or tomorrow. In the not so distant future, in any case.
If Johann had turned his blade against them first, it would have made this a little simpler, perhaps. Or if Worick just hadn’t bothered with him on that first night to begin with. But that wasn’t how it went.
It was strange, Worick thought. Why did Johann let himself be beaten up without resisting on that night? If he fought back, it went without saying that a gang of 3 puny thugs wouldn’t have stood half a chance. Did he try to uphold the three laws? No, couldn’t be. There had to be something else, some other—
When he arrived at the word 'reason’, he couldn’t help a laugh.
No, he couldn’t let himself be bothered with details. Not this once.
Johann was a Twilight. And also, in all likelihood, the one behind the mafia killings. But the person Worick’s mind was preoccupied with even more than Johann was Dario.
If so, there was no need for reason or logic with him. Not with someone who didn’t give a damn about guns pointed at him, who ran over two people with his beloved car even after getting shot in the leg, who cried over a kids’ fairy-tale. With someone who was the big fool of a man that way.
Worick looked up at the sky. A cloud had arrived and the dusk of the evening colored it dull gold. The humidity levels were on the rise, Worick thought, pressing a hand to his forever lost left eye.