How much she hated him, her emotional response would only be to flip him off.

【Dororo seems upset. Was he scolded by his father?】

Unable to sit still, Hyakki turned to Dazai’s eyes, betraying his thoughts. His gray-brown pupils seemed to see through the other, possessing a hint of spirituality under the support of illusion.

In his mind.

The pure white flame seemed to be extinguished, wilted.

Jukai had always been as gentle as a mother to Hyakki, making him never experience the reproach of a loved one. Even in the most dire circumstances, he had a warm memory. It wasn’t hard for him to imagine what it felt like. He decisively used his “advantage” of being blind and deaf to pull “Dororo” up from the chair.

【If you’re not happy…】

【All I can do is take you away from unhappy places.】

None of the blame mattered to him.

He couldn’t hear it!

Hyakki proved through his actions that he liked “Dororo” and was willing to be his shield. His formidable strength was the only thing he could boast of in the chaotic world.

As he heard the door slam shut, Mori Oh blinked in astonishment.

Am I being rejected again?

He turned to Alice and said, “Does Hyakki think I’m a bad person? I haven’t done anything wrong.”

Alice replied, “Rikodu, a little self-awareness wouldn’t hurt.”

The blonde girl added the final touch to the sketchbook, drawing two stick figures holding hands, one with black hair and the other with brown, emitting white light against a colorful, distorted background.

“You’re like an evil stepmother.”

“…,” Mori Ougai opened his mouth, struggling to say, “I thought I had a different role in Hyakki’s heart.”

Like a father-in-law, perhaps?

For a moment, laughter filled the clinic.

In an empty patient room, Hyakki pulled Dazai inside and closed the door, leaning against it to prevent anyone from entering. Dazai’s negative emotions were dispelled by Hyakki’s straightforward protectiveness, and he chuckled uncontrollably, even choking on his laughter a few times. “Haha, Hyakki… cough, you misunderstand, Mori didn’t bully me…”

Technically, Mori Ougai’s actions all met Dazai’s requirements, making him a qualified instructor. But Hyakki viewed the world differently. He only had him.

An unexpected twist in his mundane life.

After Dazai stopped coughing, his gaze softened. “If our meeting were a game, before we part ways in life, did I manage to capture you, or were you capturing me?”

“Too bad. Why are you the kind of person I can’t bring myself to dislike?”

“Looking at you, I can’t help but feel that this world isn’t beyond redemption yet. After all, you’re so eager to live, giving it your all… You must really want to see the world.”

He glanced at their height difference. Hyakki was still growing taller, and he could barely reach him. At barely five feet three, he wondered when he could fully assemble this beautiful doll and then play with him, pinch his soft face until it turned red, and make him say amusing words like “master.”

It’s fun to raise a doll, and it’s always fun.

Dazai, having nothing else, handed the “Complete Suicide Manual” to Hyakki.

“Take this.”

Hyakki hesitantly felt the object in his hands. It wasn’t food, so was it a gift from “Dororo”?

“Dororo?”

“Take it with you when you go out. I’ll be busy in the future.”

Dazai made preparations, writing his contact number on the book’s front page in case the doll got lost and couldn’t find him even if kind-hearted people wanted to return him.

In the closed hospital room, the smell of disinfectant became an indispensable part of Dazai’s youth memories.

He smiled and said, “I won’t study the ways to die for now.”

Your life…

Let me borrow it for a while, Hyakki.

……

That night, Hyakki, who had received his “token of affection,” tossed and turned in bed, unable to sleep. He took out the book from under his pillow, even though he couldn’t read, pretending to be earnestly “reading.”

The pages rustled softly.

Dazai had a light sleep, and being disturbed repeatedly annoyed him.

He simply climbed onto the neighboring bed, snatched the book away, and placed it on a shelf just out of reach. Ignoring Hyakki’s “plaintive” yet hollow gaze, when he was about to climb back into his own bed, Hyakki grabbed his sleeve, sleepy and asked, “Are you having trouble sleeping tonight?”

He needed to relax his brain for dealing with GSS tomorrow. He had to be prepared for those people and events.

“Never mind, I still need to sleep.”

Dazai used Hyakki’s arm prosthetic as a pillow, pulled up the blanket, covered his head, relishing the warmth of the bed. In no time, he smoothly drifted into sleep.

The benefit of having a doll was that it could serve as a pillow without getting numb or too hot to hold.

This sudden intimacy stunned Hyakki, who was immersed in the ancient setting.

Was Dororo being so affectionate?

Was Dororo sleeping with him?

Even in ancient times, even in a fictionalized Sengoku era, unmarried women couldn’t be this intimate with men. Hyakki, who had only shared a bed with his foster father in his childhood, stiffened his body, breathed shallowly, and tried to control the pounding of his heart, afraid of disturbing the small bundle of flame that was “Dororo.”

“You’re so noisy…” Dazai muttered in his sleep.

Hyakki couldn’t hear him. He pulled the blanket down a bit for “her” in case “she” felt suffocated.

Then he lay down, trying to calm down.

He could feel “Dororo’s” head resting against his arm, no longer keeping a distance. The trust he had given was rewarded by Dororo falling asleep peacefully beside him. There couldn’t have been a happier change than this.

The distance between people sometimes feels as vast as two worlds, and sometimes as small as a whisper in the ear.

“Dororo,”

“You are the gift sent to me by the heavens.”