The two of them settled into their ordinary life together. Ryunosuke wanted to earn money on the side to ease the family's burden, but a regular part-time job was simply out of the question given his circumstances: his father had buried himself in a staggering amount of debt.
If Ryunosuke worked somewhere visible, debt collectors might track him down. The thought of showing his face in public terrified him, and it had been eating at him constantly. Though Mahiru had 6.8 million yen from her mother, they couldn't live off those savings forever. They needed a real solution.
That was when Ryunosuke came across a prestigious institution called Advanced Nurturing High School. Three full years with no tuition whatsoever. His eyes lit up, and he went straight to tell Mahiru.
She was in the kitchen cooking when he found her. She untied her apron with a puzzled look. "Why would we go to Advanced Nurturing High School? Isn't it fine here?"
Ryunosuke laid it out for her. "We can't keep draining our savings, can we? Besides, graduates from that school never have to worry about finding work."
At this point, Ryunosuke had not yet recovered the memories from his previous life. Mahiru rested her chin on her fingers and, without much deliberation, made up her mind. She smiled at him. "If that's what you want, then let's go. I'll be right there with you."
"Perfect!" He broke into a wide grin.
And so they decided to enroll in Advanced Nurturing High School. That was the reason Ryunosuke had an acceptance letter in hand from the very beginning. He had an ulterior motive, of course: the school was a closed dormitory campus, and there was no way debt collectors could force their way in to come after him. It was the perfect hiding place.
The debt wasn't even his to begin with; it was his father's, lost at the gambling table. But now that he and Mahiru had built a life together, he had made himself a quiet promise: he would not let her be dragged into that filth.
Mahiru needed to get through school without carrying that weight, so Ryunosuke resolved to handle the money problem on his own.
The school provided Mahiru a monthly subsidy of 118,000 yen, but living as two people still left them stretched thin. Rent alone came to over 50,000 yen, and on top of that there was food for an extra mouth, utilities, water, and clothing for Ryunosuke. Their funds were running dangerously low.
As for the 6.8 million yen from Mahiru's mother, the two of them had agreed not to touch it unless absolutely necessary.
The pressure gnawed at Ryunosuke. Where could he even work? Before long, he arrived at an answer: the black market underground boxing circuit.
It was the only way he could think of to make money right now. He was still a penniless young man with no memory of his past life, which meant his perspective was limited to whatever was directly in front of him. One thought alone occupied his mind, keeping the life he and Mahiru had built together.
He wore a mask so no one would recognize him, which also happened to be a rule of the underground fights, protecting everyone's anonymity. Thanks to Mahiru's cooking, Ryunosuke's body had recovered reasonably well. Not quite back to the level of an ordinary person, but that was to be expected. A body that had been hollow for so long couldn't simply bounce back overnight. Even getting this far was something he was genuinely grateful for.
The fights began. Unlike later at school, where he needed outside stimulation to enter that state, Ryunosuke could flip the switch whenever he chose. He usually kept his output at its lowest setting to keep his body from giving out on him; the life he had lived made it difficult to ever feel truly full.
In one fight, he unleashed a sudden burst of force and sent a man well over 100 kilograms flying clean out of the ring. Match over. His winnings for the night came to around 400,000 yen, enough to stop worrying about living expenses for a while. The only problem was figuring out what to tell Mahiru, so for now he decided to keep it to himself.
On average he fought two to three times a day, pulling in anywhere from 400,000 to 600,000 yen, with each match paying 200,000 yen. After nearly a month of fighting, he had accumulated over 10 million yen. He began to let his mind drift toward the future, a happy life for three once he and Mahiru had a child. The acceptance letter from Advanced Nurturing High School would be arriving soon, too.
What Ryunosuke didn't notice, however, was his father watching him from below the ring with a hungry, glittering stare. He had clearly recognized his own son. The man had come there to gamble and was already 87 million yen in debt. As they say, a person drowning in debt stops feeling its weight, so running into this particular surprise at an underground boxing ring was the last thing he had expected. The boy must have been raking in serious money by now.
His father approached him immediately, hand already outstretched. At least it was out here, Ryunosuke thought with a small measure of relief. The man hadn't gone to the apartment and bothered Mahiru. Whatever happened, he couldn't let this wreck of a person find out where Mahiru was. If he did, he would never stop showing up. Ryunosuke wanted to keep all of this far away from her.
He looked at his father without expression. "What do you want with me?"
His father extended his hand. "Give me money. I'm broke."
The man in front of him was a ruin: a bottle of alcohol dangling from one hand, an unkempt beard, wrinkled clothes. The complete portrait of a middle-aged man who had fallen apart. Ryunosuke felt a deep, visceral revulsion, but the man was still his father, and that made it impossible to do anything drastic. His conscience hadn't sunk that low yet.
In the end, he refused to hand over the money. He had a family now and Mahiru to think about. But he knew his father's nature well enough. The man wouldn't let it go that easily. Ryunosuke stood there turning the problem over in his mind, and eventually decided not to go home yet, not wanting to be followed back to Mahiru.
His father watched him walk away empty-handed, his eyes hardening with resentment. He pulled out his phone and called the debt collectors, already cooking up something unpleasant.
Then the rain came, sudden and torrential, just like the night he first met Mahiru. Ryunosuke didn't dare go home. He let the rain soak through his clothes and made his way to a park he knew, found an empty spot, and sat down.
Beside him was a middle-aged man living inside a dog kennel. A Shiba Inu barked furiously at him as though protesting the intrusion on its home.
There was nothing to be done about it. It was raining, and he couldn't stay out in it forever. So he took over the dog's kennel.
The man's name was Hasegawa Taizo. He had ended up like this because of a scandal of his own making, though it would be a mistake to underestimate him. He had once been a government official. Ryunosuke had gotten to know him because they recognized something of themselves in each other.
It had happened some time before. Hasegawa had been at the edge of despair, ready to throw himself off a building. Ryunosuke had been in the same place, for the same reason. That was how they met. Neither of them ended up jumping. Instead, they talked each other down.
Hasegawa had said to him, "Young man, don't give up so easily."
Ryunosuke replied, flat and even. "Your father owes 87 million yen in debt. If that were you, you'd want to give up too."
Hasegawa went quiet.
(He had a point. If that were me, I'd want to die too.)
But somewhere in that moment, Hasegawa found his will to live again. (This poor kid still wants to go on living. Here I am, a grown man, and I ought to be ashamed of myself.)
He stood with his back to the balcony railing, lighting a cigarette. He hadn't noticed that Ryunosuke had climbed back up behind him, arms already spread wide, ready to go.
Hasegawa had just turned around to offer some heartfelt words of encouragement, something to give the boy a reason to keep going, when he saw him standing there with his arms out like he was greeting the sunrise.
The cigarette fell from his mouth. He grabbed the boy and yanked him back, sputtering. "Young man, don't give up so easily! Look at me. I'm still here, aren't I."
"Every day I fight a dog for food. I live in a dog kennel. Sometimes I sleep under a bridge. When I'm truly starving and there's nothing else, I eat grass."
"My life is this miserable, and even I haven't chosen to die. So what's your excuse?!"
"Wait. Why am I crying while I'm saying all this?"
He took off his sunglasses and wiped the tears that had spilled out, moved by his own words. Even he felt the ache in them.
Ryunosuke turned it over in his head. The man had a point. This paman had it far worse and was still standing. What did he have to complain about?
He abandoned his plan to die. And just like that, he and this strange middle-aged man became official companions in misfortune.
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