003. Ladies and gentlemen, I have come to love going to work! (Thanks to "Goofball686," the guild leader)
7:12 AM.
Sakuragami Town, Sunken Plaza.
After an early spring downpour, the streets were unusually cold.
Pale, cool sunlight filtered through the gaps in the banyan tree leaves, casting shadows on the deep brown awning of a coffee shop. Beside the frosted glass door stood a sign bearing the shop’s name.
“‘Night Moon’…” A passing schoolgirl read the name aloud with curiosity. She was about to step inside when she noticed the notice board hanging on the door had been flipped to read “OFF.”
“Rise! Hurry up! If we miss the train, we’ll all be late!” her friend called out brightly from behind.
“Ah, I know…” Reluctantly, the girl named Rise shuffled forward.
After a brief jog against the chill wind, she couldn’t help but chatter with her friend about the hilarious variety show they watched last night, despite the bleak streetscape.
The morning air in Sakuragami Town brimmed with the mix of passionate youth and languid ease unique to adolescence, filled with laughter and lively voices.
...
Eight o’clock sharp.
A nightmare for workers.
White-collar employees, sleep-deprived from overtime, were jolted awake at six by alarms as fierce as a seven-page manga starring the Platinum Star “Ora.”
What followed was a battle rivaling a frontline war: dressing, washing, grooming. Though no warhorses were beneath them, it mattered little to these salaried samurai who charged into the fray for their paychecks—
Snatching breakfast on the way, swallowing both the food and grievances against their bosses and companies before even boarding the train—
Tightening ties desperately, crushing the fatigue in their bleary eyes, bearing the weight of family and loans, standing proud in their cubicles as the new millennium’s corporate soldiers!
But was this really the whole truth?
On the way to work, the greatest obstacle was never drowsiness or sickness.
It was...
The morning rush hour!
Toru Anritsu’s face was ashen as he stared at the sea of heads packed before him.
The surging crowd once again pushed him off the platform.
Glancing at his phone, forty minutes remained before work.
Toru took a deep breath, calming the unrest within. Even as an elite special police officer, after damaging the bicycle issued uniformly by headquarters—which all department members were required to use for commuting—he had no choice but to squeeze into the train like everyone else.
...
The bicycle’s breakdown had nothing to do with “law enforcement” or “patrolling.” It was simply that its age nearly rivaled that of the “Night Moon” café itself. After last night’s spring rain, it met its end decisively beneath the café’s awning.
The unlucky countryside special cop, upon being transferred back to Tokyo, inherited not only that cramped, aging coffee shop from a predecessor of the Special Tactical Force who had died in a car accident but also a pile of ancient antiques falling to dust.
Watching his perfect attendance slip further away, even Toru Anritsu couldn’t help but feel anxious.
It turned out that a significant portion of a corporate drone’s daily energy was wasted in the crush of the morning rush train.
Sometimes, he wished he could truly become the “Grim Reaper,” wielding a scythe amid the crowd, or find a steamroller to crush through, felling the jostling passengers ahead like ripe wheat being harvested...
Finally, the train arrived.
Toru felt as if he were a salmon swept by the current, pressed forward with countless others into the narrow estuary.
Brushing past bright-eyed, neatly uniformed students clutching their backpacks, he couldn’t help but feel the stark contrast between their youth and his own faded pretensions.
Though he was fortunate enough to find a seat inside the carriage, the thought of enduring the evening rush hour’s crush again after work brought no relief.
Given headquarters’ efficiency, even if he submitted today all the paperwork for supplies, including a new bike, the earliest approval would be days away.
He still vividly recalled how Margaret had watched him with a terrifying gaze from the moment he woke until he left.
As a yokai, she found it hard to understand how this human could go through “memory deletion,” “reconstructing his worldview,” and “overcoming guilt” all in one day and then carry on as if normal, going to work like anyone else.
In truth, among these three issues, the only one that truly troubled Toru was “guilt.”
But even that guilt was strictly about his professional negligence and the shame of knowingly breaking the law despite being public security...
Toru did not feel remorse for killing those utterly unforgivable criminals, especially after reading about their numerous crimes.
This was a case where personal justice had overridden procedural justice—an execution error. If it hadn’t been him who killed those criminals, Toru might have secretly felt relief...
In fact, what truly worried the Special Tactical Force was never the numerous victims in the “Grim Reaper Murders.” They cared little for a band of thoroughly wicked criminals. What concerned them was the uncontrollability and extreme danger represented by the “Grim Reaper.”
Toru was certain he could not control the “Grim Reaper.” Otherwise, he would never have risked becoming a vegetable trying to separate it by deleting memories.
Just thinking that the murder myth—whose true nature and origin his colleagues and he had struggled to uncover for a month—had come to such a ridiculous and hasty end, while the entire Special Tactical Force still expended vast manpower and resources to investigate...
After waking, aside from feeling ashamed about his monthly salary, Toru only wanted to go to work immediately to “make amends” and ease his guilt.
...
Toru had only just taken his seat.
A group of unsteady office workers squeezed in, surrounding him. The carriage trembled slightly.
He glanced down at the time on his phone screen.
Unwilling to face the impending tardiness, Toru silently rested his face against the window, hoping that the verdant spring scenery passing overhead might clear his mind.
“No matter if I’ve become a monster or something even worse, no matter what mistakes I’ve made, now I am just human... And as a human, I must live like a human—dirty and struggling, pushing forward with all my might. Even if to others, this seems a despicable, shameless attitude.”
The blurry reflection of the man in the glass no longer spoke of the “public security justice” he once preached from the police academy podium years ago.
After all, some things, once they happen, cannot be changed no matter what.
The indistinct figure before him seemed to shed flesh and skin with the carriage’s sway, revealing bare, grim bones.
Within his pale eye sockets flickered a black flame.
...
A simple, quick announcement sounded around, drowning out the dark murmurs rising within Toru’s heart.
The train was about to depart.
Like an old beast waking, shivering all over, the doors shuddered violently before closing.
The train seemed to have finally made up its mind and slowly pulled away from the station.