Chapter 15: Volume 1 - CH 3.4

——————— End of Part 3 ———————

As he lowered the shutter, he noted how the eastern sky was dyed red. After that, he noticed it.

There were no sounds coming from within his home, and he didn’t sense any presences inside. Lumi Spike was gone.

“……”

His brain was exhausted from his encounter with Claudia, and he was now at a point where he couldn’t even muster up the strong emotions he should probably be feeling about Lumi’s absence. All Seymour could manage was to silently lean against the garage’s wall, giving in to his fatigue. He traced his finger through the remnants of the paint he had splashed on the wall. Even now he did it every once in a while for a change of pace.

However he was so bummed out now that he couldn’t even remember when and why he had washed the wall with the green paint on his fingertip.

Moments passed. Then, his ears caught the sound of hastily flapping wings. In the next moment countless bats poured through the thin gap left in the small window at the top of the garage. The bats gathered, became one, and transformed into a girl in the air.

“Whaa!” Lumi yelped with wide eyes when she saw Seymour in the garage, before whirling around and fixing her posture.

She landed on the ground with her skirt skilfully tucked between her thighs so she wouldn’t flash anyone.

“You’re home already, Mr. Seymour? You’re a little early today, aren’t you?”

“……Guess so. I’m home.”

He didn’t ask her where she had gone. Lumi, a hitman, had taken advantage of Seymour’s absence to go off somewhere. Not through the shutter, which would have shown traces of her comings and goings, but through the window. Even without the faint whiff of death clinging to her silver hair, her objective was as plain as day.

“Fufu, I went on a little stroll. Mr. Seymour────” Her golden eyes narrowed, turning into thin lines like her eyes were merely slits in the skin cut by a razor, “────did you encounter an evil woman by chance? You stink of mud.”

“Who knows. I just did my work normally.”

“Is that so? That’s great to hear. I’ll prepare dinner right away.” Lumi started to walk away with soft, gravity-defying steps. “I’ll whip something up quickly with what we have on hand, okay? I’m already full, so I’m just cooking for tonight.”

He breathed in slowly. He had thought about it in a vague sense before, but just now Lumi mentioned that she was full. Lumi – a vampire who couldn’t sate her hunger with ordinary food.

For Lumi ── or rather the Murder Inc. there was no point in keeping Seymour alive. It’d have been one thing if he didn’t know anything, but they knew he suspected her of murdering Isaac Nigel. Regardless of whether or not he had any proof, leaving him alive was risky. On the other hand, erasing a man like Seymour, someone whose death wouldn’t be mourned by anyone, bore little to no risk.

And yet Seymour was still breathing, peacefully sitting here and eating his dinner.

There could only be one reason for that.

“Your belly is full, eh?” The corners of his mouth twisted up into an evil smile. “Then tell me, what did you eat and where────”

He cut himself off abruptly…

“Yep, just as I thought. There’s a weird stench clinging to you.”

…because Lumi had glided over to him, and pulled his head to her breasts. With the tip of his nose pressed against her soft chest, his voice was muffled.

His brain was torn between appreciating the soft press of a woman against him, and the reflexive need to scream at the approach of a monster.

“Medicine, and mud. That’s no good. A smell like that doesn’t suit you.”

“Hey, what’s that about?”

“The smell of gasoline and smoke suits you. Smelling like you do now just makes me want to drool.”

Almost as if, Seymour thought, I’m nothing more than a meal for her if I smell different to how I usually do.

Seymour was a well established presence in the city’s goods distribution system. His information held value: Lumi had come to his house for that information. And because of that, she couldn’t kill Seymour as long as he had value as a source of information.

At least, that’s what she had seemed to imply.

He heard a giggle. Lumi pressed her nose against Seymour’s nape.

“Say, Mr. Seymour, if, hypothetically, monsters existed in this world and if, hypothetically, they needed to eat humans to survive, would it be wrong for that monster to kill and devour people?”

“……Well, there’s no way that killing people could ever be interpreted as a good thing, is there?”

“But, even if some religions tell people that it’s wrong to eat this, there aren’t any that tell people not to eat anything at all.” He sensed her mouth snapping open. “I mean, not being able to survive without food is something that applies to humans and monsters alike.”

Something warm and living touched his nape. Seymour was sure that these were Lumi’s lips, fangs, and tongue. Her canines, which he usually didn’t consciously register, felt as long and sharp as fangs right now. Their hard points scraped along his skin. However, she had adjusted the pressure so that they wouldn’t break his skin, just moving with soppy, wet sounds.

His heart thumped inexplicably hard just once. Lumi laughed, though there was an unreadable quality to it.

“Juuust kidding.”

She released Seymour’s head with the same abruptness she had grabbed it with. Lumi put her hands behind her back and smoothly stepped back, putting some distance between her and Seymour.

“Alrighty, I’ll go make dinner then.”

Seymour slowly crumbled on the spot as he watched her leave. His butt hit the cold ground of the garage as all his strength left him. He sighed and rubbed his neck where Lumi’s saliva still remained.

It wouldn’t have been at all unexpected if she had torn his neck apart at that very moment. Seymour didn’t feel this way because he had sensed any bloodthirst from her, but rather the exact opposite. Just like a human wouldn’t become all frenzied in front of a steak, Lumi gave off the same calmness as someone with a meal before them. Because of this, Seymour knew that he had not been spared for any reason in particular.

“……”

“Oops, I almost forgot.”

Lumi returned, still facing away from Seymour, her steps falling lightly on the ground. Walking backwards just like a kid, she only turned her head to look back at him, and laughed cheerfully.

“Mr. Seymour, if you’re tired, how about taking a nap first?”

“I don’t think that I’m that tired yet…”

“What, I’m in a great mood right now, so I wouldn’t mind letting you sleep with me, you know?” Lumi smiled with her canines bared.

With her looks, it was definitely an attractive offer, but Seymour couldn’t stop thinking about how empty that offer was. She didn’t have a shred of shyness.

It was all because Lumi Spike was no human. Even women who didn’t sleep with human males would sleep with male pets. That was all.

If embarrassment was something born through empathy between two beings, Lumi doubtlessly felt nothing towards Seymour whatsoever.

“……”

Seymour silently waved a hand, sending Lumi away towards the portable cooking stove. He then thought about what it meant to be a monster.

Is it good or evil for a monster to kill people? In the first place, who’s right was it to decide?

Seymour gazed out the window in search of an answer, but there were no laws written on the approaching dawn sky, no matter how hard he looked.

“Ah………” A meaningless sound escaped his lips.

His thoughts gained a voice through that sound, and he started to think that it’d be just fine if he stopped thinking about it.

It’s all fine since I’ve managed to save a cute girl. If that girl is a murderer, it’s fine so long as I confront her about it.

Even though it should have been as simple as that, all kinds of things kept happening. The world continued to turn, completely leaving the individual called Seymour in the lurch, and he couldn’t get a reading on the course of events at all. Even identifying a villain as a villain would lead to nowhere in this intoxicated city.

Lumi is a monster. The murderer Lumi contributes to the peace of this city.

What about it?

Seymour was becoming more and more unsure about what he should do with the monster.

“……………I really need a drink right now.”

❖ ──『✙』── ❖

Hearing the honking of the car horn just as she stepped out of her university, Sunny’s face immediately screwed up. The end of her lessons was accompanied by the setting sun, which gave her face a mysteriously impactful crimson gleam.

Leaning against the door of his Essex, Seymour lightly waved his right hand causing the cigarette between his fingers to leave a faint trail of smoke. He added a smile too, though it wasn’t so much directed at Sunny as to the female classmates near her.

Sure enough this caused them to start chattering loudly amongst themselves. The girls noisily bombarded Sunny with questions as Sunny frantically responded.

Chortling under his breath, Seymour entertained himself by imagining Sunny’s retorts since he was too far away to hear them.

“『You’re wrong, he’s not my boyfriend. He’s my bro, err, brother. Yep, my brother. So, no, I’m not fooling around. L-i-s-t-e-n to me, you’ve got it all wrooong!!』, or something along those lines, right?”

Sunny quickly jogged over after shaking off her classmates. Seymour was sure the faint blush on her cheeks wasn’t just from being embarrassed.

“Hmm, 『Brother, I told you to not wait for me in front of my university, didn’t I?』 is incoming.”

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Sunny’s shoes skidded to a halt inches in front of Seymour. Sunny’s boisterous voice rang out.

“Brother! I told you to not wait for me in front of my university, didn’t I!?”

“Ahahahaha.”

Seymour let out a bark of laughter, then took a puff and pointed with his thumb at his car.

“Wanna go on a date from now on? Or would you rather go home? I’ll give you a ride.”

“Haaah….. Take me home then.”

Aside from his courier jobs, Seymour reckoned that Sunny was the woman who had enjoyed the services of his Essex the most. Of course, his sister didn’t really count as a woman to him. Sunny deftly jumped into the car, and as soon as Seymour was sure she was settled on the back seat, he started his car.

Sunny finally spoke up when they got caught in the third traffic light, her head swaying with the car as it jerked to a stop.

“Brother, is something the matter?”

“Why do you ask?”

“Usually when you just drive without even trying to ask me for anything, something has happened, you know?”

Seymour unconsciously massaged his face with a hand.

“Hmm, am I so easy to read?”

“Your logic is weird, but it’s not like you’re complicated. It becomes obvious pretty quickly.” Sunny giggled while brushing her bangs out of the way.

Seymour shook his head while looking into her green eyes. He hated expressions like you’re an open book.

“Recently my sisters have become quite sharp. It’s tough on your elder brother.”

“Eh? Wait, sisters, plural? Our family only has one daughter, doesn’t it? Have you discovered some complicated family circumstances by chance?”

Come to think of it, Fran and Sunny have never met, have they? Seymour tilted his head in contemplation as he watched Sunny yell from the back seat with a pale face.

“Ah, no, that’s not it. I’ve simply got a friend in the business who calls me『Bro』.” 2

“Ugh, my brother is shadier than expected.”

“No, no, wait, almost everyone secretly wants to have a girl they know call them 『Bro』, right?”

“Disgusting, absolutely and utterly disgusting! Regardless of whether it’s true or not, you’re really sick!”

Seymour guffawed, and then let the topic drop. He had a vague feeling that Sunny was pressing her back against the back seat to put as much distance between them as possible, but he dismissed it as his imagination.

Sunny’s university wasn’t very far from home. Which meant that he needed to bring up the reason he had come all this way to talk about with her quickly.

He breathed in.

“There’s something I’d like to hear your opinion on. That’s okay with you?”

On that fearsome vampire, the man-eating monster, that occupied his mind. On the world he couldn’t understand anymore. He needed to redine the world as he knew it. Recently he had been doing too many out of character things. There had been too many incidents. The boundaries that defined him as Seymour had been blurred and he needed to redraw them clearly. By nature, Seymour Road wasn’t someone who would think about so many things.

And in such times of doubt, Seymour would always bring it up with his sister.

“As a matter of fact, things have gone a little south at my job.”

“……” Sunny narrowed her eyes.

She was terrifyingly quiet, but Seymour could tell from her eyes that her emotions were raging within her like a sandstorm. And yet, even though he had noticed it, Seymour barreled on cheerfully, “How do I put it…? It looks like I’ve been party to something unsavory. And I’m sure it’s still ongoing.”

“……Take the next right.”

“Didn’t you say that you wanted to go home?”

“I changed my mind.”

Seymour drove, following Sunny’s directions.

“Anyway, right now I’ve been associating with a bad person. But you see, I don’t have enough fighting spirit in me to confront them. That’s why I’m kinda unsure on what I should do next.” Seymour explained, citing it as the reason he had come to consult her.

But, in reality, this wasn’t grounds for a consultation whatsoever. After all, Seymour knew very well what Sunny’s answer would be. It was plainly obvious.

Sunny straightened in her seat, staring straight into Seymour’s eyes. It was a gaze without a hint of darkness, full of conviction and confident righteousness.

“It is wrong to not punish bad people properly, brother.”

Not a single word deviated from what Seymour had expected her to say. Each one was said clearly and distinctly in an even staccato.

“Bad things are bad. They must be punished.”

A statement that would have elicited nothing but raucous laughter downtown. This city, with its rampant corruption and empty shell of a system of law, no longer knew the meaning of the word ‘punishment’.

“……Figures.” Seymour nodded, even as a taste of iron flooded his mouth.

In the past, when his father died, morality lost all meaning in the Road family. With the values they had been brought up with gone, the two children in the family were left at a loss. Between the two, the sly, older brother had left home as quickly as he could. He did so because the family still had a mother who, despite everything, had still clung to those morals. She did so because she couldn’t bear the solitude.

And because of this, the younger sister, who had been unable to leave the house, had had no other choice but to be close with her mother.

“You understand, don’t you? We have to be fully aware that each of us has a home built on a hill. That’s why we cannot overlook bad things.”

That last line was an expression of the previous era’s moldy ethics, and despite coming from his sister’s mouth, it had still lost most of its former appeal. Having taken up the responsibility her brother had abandoned, his sister, who believed in morals that wouldn’t be any less of a lie no matter how fervently she believed in them, thrust her righteousness at him. They didn’t let Seymour ignore the bitterness and pain hidden behind pretty words and cheerful tones.

Before long, Seymour’s car stopped on a road by a river. Surveying the vicinity, he saw that they were in an industrial area, devoid of private houses or stores a female university student would enter. Yet, Seymour didn’t ask where they were nor why they had come here. Because he fully understood that it didn’t matter where they were.

“Thanks, brother.”

The younger sister, who had refused to even let her elder brother drive her somewhere, politely expressed her gratitude, got out of the car, and stretched her body.

Seymour could only respond shallowly with a vague sense of selfish sorrow, “You’re welcome. By the way, is it fine if I ask you one more thing?”

“There’s still more?”

“I might be killed by that bad person if I try to punish them. Do you think I should still go for it?”

Sunny flashed a bright smile at him.

Morals that didn’t take any circumstances into account were a sort of emotional escape from reality for people. And since she had no interest in facing reality, Sunny’s morals were broken, rather than merely damaged.

“Of course.”

That spelled the end of the conversation between the siblings. Seymour started his car, and almost immediately lost sight of Sunny who had started to walk away without even a backward glance. He briefly thought that it might be dangerous for a girl to be out on the streets all by herself so late in the evening, but dismissed it upon deciding that even Sunny wouldn’t be that stupid. Besides, these days the mafia disputes were at a standstill, and public order had improved somewhat.

Driving onward, Seymour took some slow breaths, stiff and awkward. He had anticipated that things would turn out like this when he decided to consult Sunny. Seymour had gained many things by leaving home and becoming a courier. On the other hand, he had left Sunny behind in that home and lost many things. Seymour had sacrificed Sunny.

It’s a pleasant feeling, he thought. It’s a nice feeling of dismay. The disappointment I feel towards the world and her balances out with the disappointment I feel towards myself, making it easier for me to organize my thoughts.

If I still saw Lumi as nothing more than a cute girl, I wouldn’t have ever brought this topic up with Sunny.

However, just now Seymour had sought his sister’s advice, and she had lived up to his expectations. He’d made up his mind.

To be honest, it doesn’t really matter what Sunny said. I don’t have any interest in being a righteous person or what will happen when I stand before God. However, the mere fact that Sunny told me all that bears importance.

I’m well aware that I’m where I am today because I run away and discard things. I rebuilt myself on the unchangeable past, the grief I caused others and my own imaginary sorrow. Seymour Road is who he is after transforming his sister into something like that. It’s a sin that can never be forgiven. For this very reason, there must be in the mere existence of Seymour a value that is equivalent to everything I abandoned.

He daydreamed of such things.

Whether the murderer Lumi was good or evil, whether he should oppose the Murder Inc. or not; all those worries had become meaningless. He disregarded everything except for what was really important.

Lumi had taken advantange of Seymour’s job as courier, and used the information she extracted to commit murder. She had harmed the value of the Courier Seymour Road. That rang true even in this new and otherwise incomprehensible world. And that alone was plenty of reason to fight her.

Well, let’s just say that it’s plenty.

“A crime requires a punishment, huh?”

Putting a cigarette into his mouth, Seymour pulled a box of matches out of his pocket. He struck a match with one hand, but was quickly caught up in his thoughts, his hand frozen in midair. Soon the match burned down to Seymour’s finger before ever reaching his cigarette.

“Ouch!”

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