There was no date on the letter — only a name at the bottom: Mom.
"This... this is a suicide note, isn't it..."
Yukinoshita Shizuku had been sitting nearby, watching as Tsushima Kagami slowly leafed through the picture book — and then a folded piece of paper slipped out. He picked it up and stood there, staring at it in a daze.
Curious, she got up and walked over to look.
It was Yukinoshita Shizuku's words that broke the silence.
Only then did Tsushima Kagami realize she had already moved to stand beside him, leaning in to read the words on the page.
The further down she read, the wider her eyes grew. Slowly, she raised a hand and pressed it over her mouth, afraid she might not be able to hold back a sob.
When she finished, Yukinoshita Shizuku lifted her head and looked at Tsushima Kagami.
His eyes, too, had gone red.
The two of them stood there in silence. Neither could find any words.
A stillness fell over the room.
From the entryway kitchen came the clatter of pots and pans, and the quiet murmur of Shimizu's mother and Nayotake talking.
A moment later, the sliding door opened.
"Kagami? Shizuku?"
Shimizu Nayotake's voice came from behind them.
Both of them spun around.
Shimizu Nayotake was standing there holding a plate of food.
The moment she saw the letter in their hands, the expression on her face froze completely.
Shimizu's mother followed behind her, also carrying a dish. She caught sight of the letter, and her movements went still as well.
The air seemed to freeze solid.
"That is..." Tsushima Kagami began.
"I was just looking at the book, and this slipped out from between the pages. I accidentally..." He trailed off.
Yukinoshita Shizuku quickly added, "I'm sorry. We didn't mean to read it..."
Shimizu Nayotake was quiet for a few seconds.
Then she set the dish down on the table and walked over. She took the letter gently from Yukinoshita Shizuku's hands.
She looked down at it for a long moment.
Shimizu's mother stood in the doorway to the entryway, and gave a faint, quiet smile.
"It's all right."
"That's all in the past now."
As she spoke, Shimizu's mother came inside, set her dish on the table as well, and sat down beside the low table.
"Come, sit. Let's talk."
Tsushima Kagami and Yukinoshita Shizuku exchanged a startled glance. They hadn't expected Shimizu's mother to want to tell them what had happened — on her own, no less.
And so all four of them gathered around the low table.
Steam still rose from the food, but no one reached for their chopsticks.
Shimizu's mother gazed at the letter. She was quiet for a long time. Then, slowly, she began to speak.
Her voice was utterly calm — as though she were recounting the story of someone else entirely, someone she barely knew.
She told them everything, from beginning to end: how she had attempted suicide and been resuscitated. How Nayotake had discovered what she was planning and said she would stay home to die alongside her. How it was only then that she had let go of the idea.
"That was the moment I finally understood how foolish I'd been," she said.
"I thought that if I died, she'd be free."
"But the truth is... if I had died, she wouldn't have been able to go on living either."
Shimizu Nayotake lifted her head and met her mother's gaze.
The two of them looked at each other in silence.
Then Nayotake reached out and took her mother's hand.
"So," she said quietly.
"We made a promise. To live. Together."
Shimizu's mother smiled and nodded, squeezing her daughter's hand back with all she had.
Yukinoshita Shizuku's tears finally broke through. She pressed her hand over her mouth, her shoulders trembling slightly.
Tsushima Kagami gently rubbed her back with one hand and passed her a tissue with the other.
At that, Shimizu's mother gave an apologetic smile.
"I'm so sorry."
"This was supposed to be a happy day, and instead I've made our guests cry."
Tsushima Kagami offered a quiet, easy smile.
"Shizuku's just sensitive. Any little story sets her off — sobbing buckets every time. Please don't worry about it."
"And thank you. For being willing to share all of this with us."
"It may well become the inspiration for something I write someday."
Hearing that, Shimizu's mother recalled that Nayotake had once mentioned he was a celebrated literary novelist.
She smiled in turn.
"If it can help Kagami-kun's writing in even the smallest way,"
"then none of this was for nothing."
"Oh, but the food is going cold!"
"Let's eat before anything else."
That dinner stretched on for a long time.
The dishes were simple.
Stir-fried greens. Miso soup. A single pan-fried fish. A small bowl of pickled vegetables.
All of it plain home cooking — yet every dish had clearly been made with care.
The four of them ate and talked, and talked and ate.
By the time they finished, the sky outside had darkened.
Tsushima Kagami and Yukinoshita Shizuku said their farewells and left.
Shimizu Nayotake and her mother walked them to the corner of the street.
"Be careful on your way home," Shimizu Nayotake said.
"Come again soon," her mother added with a smile.
Yukinoshita Shizuku nodded, then pulled Nayotake into a hug.
"Get some rest."
Tsushima Kagami thought for a moment, then said,
"If you ever need anything, just reach out."
"I've already given you both my home number and my mobile."
Shimizu Nayotake gave a small, quiet nod.
The two of them turned and walked away. They flagged down a passing taxi, climbed in, and were gradually swallowed by the night, the red glow of the taillights fading into the dark.
When they got back to the apartment, Tsushima Kagami sent Yukinoshita Shizuku off to take a bath.
He sat at the living room table, Yukino cradled in his arms, stroking her absently while his mind wandered elsewhere.
Tsushima Kagami had always been the sort of person who didn't like getting involved in other people's business — someone who frankly dreaded the complications. He didn't like troubling others, and he didn't like being troubled.
But when trouble found the people around him — the ones he actually cared about — he had never quite managed to look the other way. He didn't have that kind of willful blindness in him.
If it were simply a matter of money, it wouldn't be half as complicated. The real puzzle was figuring out how to offer Nayotake and her mother a sum large enough to cover the surgery, without making them feel like they were accepting charity.
Friends...
You couldn't stand aside and do nothing. But you also had to mind how they'd feel about it.
What a troublesome thing to be.
Tsushima Kagami let out a helpless sigh. Then he set Yukino down, reached under the table, and pulled out his fountain pen and manuscript paper.
He spread the pages across the table. Yukino, as if reading his mind, padded over and settled herself squarely on top of the manuscript — dutifully serving as a paperweight.
His mind kept circling back to the suicide note he had read today at Shimizu Nayotake's home.
[I'm sorry for being born into this world.]
[I'm sorry for being born your mother.]
Those two lines refused to leave him.
That's how it always goes, isn't it.
The fraying rope snaps where it's thinnest. Misfortune has a way of finding the people who are already carrying the most.
I can't save every suffering soul in this world. But at least, within the reach of what I'm able to do — I can try to help the ones closest to me.
With that thought settled quietly in his chest, his hand moved. The fountain pen touched down on the manuscript paper and wrote out a title:
No Longer Human.
At that moment, Yukinoshita Shizuku came out of the bath and noticed that Tsushima Kagami appeared to be writing again.
Curious, she drifted over.
"No Longer Human?"
She stood beside him, reading the title, then looked up at him.
"This..."
Tsushima Kagami simply smiled, calm and unhurried.
The royalties from this book — I'll use them to help Nayotake and her mother.
Yukinoshita Shizuku was still rubbing her damp hair with a dry towel. She gave a small nod.
Then she asked,
"But... will Nayotake and her mother even accept our help?"
"We'll tell them that this novel was inspired by them — that they're the real source material."
"So naturally, they're entitled to a share of the royalties."
"That way, they'll see it as something they earned — a contribution to your work — not charity. It's only right."
"But what if they refuse the royalty payment anyway?"
Yukinoshita Shizuku pressed, frowning a little.
Tsushima Kagami rubbed his temple.
Then, without warning, he flung his fountain pen down.
Then immediately winced and carefully picked it back up and set it straight.
Then, in a rare display of petulance utterly unbecoming of him, he threw a minor tantrum right there in his chair — flailing his arms and legs like a sulking child.
"Complicated, complicated, complicated!"
Yukinoshita Shizuku laughed softly. She stepped behind him and placed her hands on his shoulders, kneading them gently.
"You've come this far. Think it through a little more."
Once Tsushima Kagami had finally worked out his frustration, he grew still.
After a long pause, he spoke.
"We'll set up a nonprofit in my mother's name."
"All the royalties from this book go into the fund as charitable relief money."
"Then we use the excuse of having come across this nonprofit's outreach by chance — and ask them to try filling out a relief application form."
"On our end, we just make sure it gets approved."
"If the book does well and the royalties keep coming in —"
"then we keep the nonprofit going."
"Maybe it'll be able to help other people who need it too."
The truth was, Tsushima Kagami had never really intended to transcribe No Longer Human into this world — because the book was genuinely, unrelentingly bleak.
The Setting Sun was dark enough in its own right, but it still preserved some final whisper of tenderness in its prose.
No Longer Human, though — its core was something else entirely.
Through the voice of Yozo, Dazai Osamu tore open everything we spend our lives desperately hiding from the world:
Weakness. Hypocrisy. Fear. The longing to be loved, paired with a complete inability to love.
All of it, laid bare without mercy.
And yet — that very ruthlessness of self-examination carried within it a strange, inexplicable healing power.
When you discover that someone has faced the abyss more honestly than you ever could, the abyss itself somehow seems a little less terrifying.
It gives readers that feeling of: so it isn't just me.
In Yozo's despair, readers find just enough courage to keep going a little longer.
But the overall mood of the book is so unrelentingly dark that it had, in truth, driven more than a few people who were already at the lowest points of their lives to believe there was simply no hope left — and to choose an end.
One could argue that people like that are often just looking for a trigger — and that even without No Longer Human, a careless word from someone, an overcast sky, a rainy morning, or arriving at a ramen shop only to find their favorite dish sold out might have been enough to tip them over the edge.
But Tsushima Kagami still couldn't bring himself to want any reader of his to finish the book and feel that life was hopeless.
So he decided to use Shimizu's mother's letter to her daughter — and the story of what that mother and daughter had survived together — as a preface.
He wanted it to be clear from the very first page: this was a book written to give courage to those who were at the lowest point of their lives. Courage to keep living.
Tsushima Kagami hoped that this version of No Longer Human — in this world — would help Shimizu Nayotake and her mother. And beyond that, if possible, help others who needed it too.
He hoped it would find a different kind of meaning here.
With that thought, he finally let out a slow, settling breath. He looked over at Yukinoshita Shizuku.
And found her staring at him. Fixedly.
"What's wrong?"
He asked, puzzled.
Yukinoshita Shizuku kept staring. She shook her head slowly, without a word.
A long moment passed before she spoke.
"Kagami," she said quietly. "You're a good person."
____
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