Grey Spring: Ruins of Tokyo Manji and the Love We Left Behind - Night Shift and Ghosts

I survived. That alone had taken up permanent residence in my head. On a rainy season night, the Daily Shop Sasazuka branch was quiet. A light drizzle fell outside. Through the glass, the wet asphalt glistened. Inside, cable radio music played, mingling with the hum of the refrigerated case's fan. The world at two in the morning was this quiet. Hanagaki Takemichi, twenty-three years old. A hundred and seventy centimeters tall. His black short hair was slightly disheveled, his white shirt wrinkled all over. His dirty sneakers squeaked against the floor as he repeated the motion of stocking shelves. His slender frame looked somehow fragile, and his slightly hunched back betrayed his exhaustion. In his deep brown eyes, hesitation wavered again tonight. A faint old scar on the back of his left hand reflected the fluorescent light dully. He lined up canned coffee on the shelf. One. Then another. It was monotonous work. No need to think. No need to remember. The cold of the cans seeped into his palms. And then it happened. Something burst inside his head. —A rainy night. The smell of asphalt. Angry shouts from somewhere far off. And blood. Bright red blood spreading across the stone pavement. Draken collapsing. That massive body, pulled down by gravity, slowly toppling. Ryuguji Ken—the vice president of Tokyo Manji Kai—dropping to his knees in a pool of blood. The scene replayed with the vivid clarity of stop-motion frames. And then, my hand. Soaked red. Thick, warm, heavy. "—!" The can of coffee in his hand hit the floor. It clattered and rolled. A few more items he'd been arranging tumbled off the shelf. Takemichi crumpled to his knees, catching himself on the shelf. His breathing was shallow. His heart pounded like a hammer. "Takemichi-san!" Footsteps rushed toward him. It was Katagiri Minoru. Nineteen, a part-timer. Lanky and tall, with bangs that always hung over his eyes. Wearing an apron with the Daily Shop logo, he peered down at Takemichi with worried, furrowed brows. "Are you okay? You look really pale." Takemichi paused for a moment. He steadied his breathing. Pushed the images in his head back into the depths. "...Sorry, I haven't been sleeping. I'm fine." He tried to smile. He wasn't sure if it came out right. "I see... But don't push yourself, okay? I'll take care of the shelves." Katagiri started picking up the canned coffee scattered on the floor. Takemichi slowly got to his feet, keeping a hand on the edge of the shelf, unable to move for a while. Not enough sleep. That's what he'd said. Say just that, and everyone accepts it. Katagiri didn't know who Takemichi really was. He just called him "Takemichi-san" as his senior on the night shift at this store—that was the extent of their relationship. That was fine. That was better. Takemichi moved to the register counter and looked out at the rain. Beyond a single pane of glass, raindrops beat against the sidewalk. A person with an umbrella hurried past. That night had been rainy, too. ＊ At six in the morning, the sky outside began to lighten. After a brief handover with Katagiri, Takemichi left the store. He didn't have an umbrella. He figured getting wet didn't matter, and started walking. The rainy season morning air was lukewarm and heavy. It was still raining. Feeling his white shirt soak through at the shoulders, Takemichi walked the road toward Sasazuka Station. Seven minutes on foot. A road he knew. A road where he didn't have to think about anything. The exterior of Corp Minase came into view. A thirty-eight-year-old wooden two-story building, eight units in all—an old apartment. The paint on the walls was peeling in places, and only the potted plants in the first-floor hallway looked incongruously well-tended. The landlady, Minase Toshiko, cared for them with great devotion. Still soaked, he climbed the stairs and unlocked the door to Room 201. Eighteen square meters. One room with a kitchen. Rent: fifty-two thousand yen a month. Inside, empty convenience store bento containers were piled up in the sink. A pair of pants lay discarded on the floor. The curtains were drawn shut, day and night. Takemichi peeled off his wet shirt and collapsed onto the bed. He stared at the ceiling. A blank white ceiling. He picked up his phone. Zero notifications. No missed calls. No messages. Opening his contacts, he saw name after name he recognized. Mitsuya Takashi. Kokonoi Hajime. Kisaki Tetta—names of people who were already gone, ones he still couldn't bring himself to delete. He couldn't press send. It wasn't that he didn't know what to say. It wasn't that he had nothing left to talk about. He just didn't know if he was someone who had the right to reach out anymore. Tokyo Manji Kai had disbanded. That was about two years ago. The Kanto Incident—after the massive clash between Tokyo Manji Kai and their enemies, they had won. They were supposed to have won. But in exchange, they'd lost Draken. And there were other faces he hadn't been able to protect. Other names. It ended because I was weak. That's what he thought. He thought it, but he couldn't cry. As if he'd forgotten how, his emotions stayed frozen somewhere, refusing to come out. It wasn't that they'd dried up. It wasn't that they'd disappeared. They were just frozen. He laid his phone face-down and closed his eyes. He didn't feel like he could sleep. ＊ He didn't know how much time had passed. In the room where only the sound of rain had filled the air, another sound suddenly mixed in. A heavy thud. Then the ripping sound of cardboard being torn open. The sound of something being set on the floor. The opening and closing of drawers— It was the room next door. Room 202 of Corp Minase had been vacant for as long as he could remember. He hadn't heard signs of life through the thin walls in months. A move-in? Takemichi pulled the blanket over his head and turned away. It had nothing to do with him. He didn't need to know. If he just kept his eyes closed— "Neighbor! Go say hello!" A voice flew in from the hallway. It was the landlady, Minase Toshiko. Seventy-two years old, a small old woman. But her voice carried like nothing else. He'd learned within his first week here that she knew more about the residents' comings and goings than anyone. "Hanagaki-kun in Room 201! Your new neighbor's here!" Takemichi froze under the blanket. He didn't want to go out. He didn't feel like he could talk to anyone. He didn't have the confidence to put on a smiling face. Not now. He stayed silent. Toshiko kept saying something in the hallway for a while, but eventually gave up—her footsteps fading into the distance. The sounds of moving continued from Room 202. Cardboard boxes being shifted, a shelf being assembled, a window being opened. Takemichi stayed still under the blanket. And then. He heard it. From the other side of the wall, faintly—someone humming. Just a melody. No lyrics. Light, soft, somehow nostalgic. Like humming, barely audible. Takemichi's body went still. (...This melody.) He knew it. He'd heard it somewhere. Somewhere deep in his memory. At the bottom of the place that had been frozen for two years—something that had sunk there. Under the blanket, Takemichi held his breath. The humming continued through the wall. Gentle, and that was all. And yet. His heart gave a heavy throb. It was a sensation he hadn't felt in a long time. His heart pounding hard, independent of his own will. Something frozen seemed to stir, just slightly. (Who is it?) He didn't know. He hadn't seen them. He hadn't heard their voice. All he'd heard was humming. And yet his body remembered first. This melody, this presence—he knew it, somewhere, with certainty. Takemichi stayed curled up under the blanket, unable to move. ＊ That same night, in a back alley in Udagawacho, just off Shibuya's Center Street. In the rain, six young men had surrounded a passerby. All of them wore tokkofuku. Black fabric with embroidery. On their backs, a large "manji" symbol—Tokyo Manji Kai's emblem. But beneath it, different letters had been stitched. "WALDSTATT." The passerby had no choice but to hand over his wallet. One of the youths snatched it and laughed with his companions. Their leader pulled out his phone. Around twenty years old. Sharp-eyed, and he wore the tokkofuku with more ease than the others. "You know Hanagaki Takemichi?" One of his companions tilted his head. "Takemichi? Of Tokyo Manji Kai?" "He's a hero. Because of him, Tokyo Manji Kai fought to the very end." The young man scrolled through his phone screen. Photogram—a photo-sharing app. A hashtag, "#TokyoManjiKaiRevival," was beginning to spread quietly through the sea of posts. Still few. But growing. "One day, I'll bring him in for sure." The rain in the back alley showed no sign of letting up. ＊ In the Sasazuka apartment, Takemichi was still under the blanket. The humming through the wall had stopped at some point. In its place, quiet sounds continued. The kind that came at the end of a move—the sound of folding up cardboard boxes. Takemichi stared up at the ceiling. Deep in his chest, that throb from earlier still lingered. Faintly, but certainly. Something had moved for the first time in two years. He was scared. Honestly. If he got close to someone, he might lose them again. He might fail to protect them again. Draken's face surfaced. The image of the pool of blood surfaced. But he knew that humming. It was a melody he knew. Who the person in the next room was, Takemichi still didn't know. He didn't have the courage to find out right now, either. Still, the pale light of the rainy season morning streamed thinly through the gap in the curtains. For the first time in a long while, he thought it was beautiful.

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Episode 1

Name: Grey Spring: Ruins of Tokyo Manji and the Love We Left Behind
Author: Novelia

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