The Day I Picked Up Dazai - Side A (Final)
Read Previous Parts Here: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Final
This is the translation for the last 15 pages of Side A of the Dazai novel which was given out as free bonus for those who come to the cinema to watch the BEAST live action movie in Japan.
Please carefully read the notes below before progressing.
- This post contains spoilers. If you plan to read the novel later yourself and think this would ruin your expectation, please stop here.
· I tried to keep the translation as accurate as possible, but as I don’t speak English or Japanese as my native language, I may make some mistakes or use weird words etc. This translation might not be final. I may come back and fix it later if I find any mistakes.
· This is a moviegoers-only benefit, so please be extra careful when discussing it about on Twitter. Use a #spoilers tag on your tweets or your fanarts. You can share the links to this post but don’t take many screenshots.
· Don’t retranslate it. [UPDATE MAY 9, 2023] You can retranslate it but please keep in mind that my translation is not perfect and some meanings will be lost through re-translation. If you are not sure about the meaning at any part, please let me know! Don’t repost this translation anywhere else out of Tumblr.
· DON’T GO TO THE AUTHORS’ OR OFFICIAL TWITTERS TO COMMENT ABOUT THE CONTENTS OF IT.
I’m sorry if that’s too much but honestly all I want is for everyone to have a good experience, for those who wants to read the novels to be able to read the novels, and for those who don’t want to be spoiled, to be safe from it as much as possible.
If you have read and are okay with all the above, please continue to move forward and enjoy the novel. Have a good day!
SPOILERS AHEAD
No king can reign at the top of the world forever.
When we get outside, it is already the evening, when the sun that stands at the top of our world is setting and losing its glow. The sky is dyed in a color that looks like a spill of purple broth and the warm orange color is receding into the distance. The early stars color the sky with their silver twinkles, while the moon is hovering low in the sky like a scratch mark.
We walk through the town. A warm and worn-out atmosphere is slowly flowing through the gaps between the buildings. All the elegant people cautiously turn their heads to check on us as they pass us. After all, we are covered in wounds and mud from the basement, and on top of it we look worn-out like a straw. For those who just had a long day like us, we don’t have time to worry about the eyes of the passers-by.
“How tired.” I say.
“Yeah, so tired.” Dazai replies. “Where are we going now?”
I do not say anything. I take out a pack of cigarettes from my pocket. I haven’t smoked for a while, but too much has happened today.
As I am about to light the cigarette, I suddenly remember that Dazai is here. He is underage.
I change my mind and put the match back in.
“Don’t worry about it. Just smoke.” Dazai says.
I hold the cigarette between my lips and give it a little thought. My thoughts waver as the cigarette wavers. But in the end, I decide to do just as Dazai said.
I light the cigarette, inhale the smoke and blow it out. The smoke rising from the tip of the cigarette swings as it is caught in the twilight.
I get off the main street and step into a narrow alley. Dazai follows me.
That is a place where the setting sun cannot reach, and the sign of the night is crouching in a little earlier. A white light cuts through the alley. It is a store sign. I stop there and open the door in front of me.
“Here?”
Dazai asks. I silently urge him to go on.
It is quiet inside the store. As I am going down the narrow and steep staircases that remind me of those secret passages, I first hear music. A rusty jazz number. A very old song about the sorrow of parting with family. Thanks to the song, I feel like going back in time with each step down. Or perhaps, compared to world out there, this store actually exists a little bit in the past.
There is no guest inside, probably because it has just opened. Illuminated under a dim light, everything in the store seems to be submerged in the yellowish-brown color at the bottom of the sea. The bartender who is wiping the glass behind the counter looks and nods at me with his eyes.
“Is this, by any chance, the place you should go before you die”? Dazai asks, his voice sounds disappointed. “Isn’t it just a normal bar? I thought it would be a nicer place...”
“Right. There is nothing special here. Just a bar.” I honestly admit. “There is no secret. You have been tricked.”
Dazai stands still with a blank expression on his face, as if his heart has flown somewhere else. A long moment passes by before Dazai finally opens his mouth and let out a dumb voice.
“What?”
“Just think about it. How can a little guy like me know something that even the high and mighty Port Mafia does not know of? And didn’t you say you were thirsty? Master, I will have the usual.”
I sit down on a bar stool. The bartender quietly puts a glass of distilled liquor in front of me.
The liquid inside the glass reflects the light and glitters smoothly. The ices clink like some kind of signal.
“Why don’t you sit down?”
I say, looking at Dazai.
Dazai still stands inside the bar with a discontent face. But after looking at the seat, the bartender then me, he slowly sits down.
Dazai orders something, his drink is brought in front of him.
No-one says anything for a while.
“How should I put it, so in other words…” Dazai says, his eyes fixing on his glass. “Did you lie to stop the… suicidal me… from dying?”
“No. I am not that kind of an admirable person.” I take a sip and return the glass to the table. “There is someone who is younger than me yet he seems to know everything about life, so I teased him a little bit. Just that.”
Those words of mine sound true and deceptive at the same time. I am just as clueless about my heart as I am with other people’s.
Dazai spends some time looking at me, trying to see through the meaning of my words, before he eventually gives up and shakes his head. “I can’t really believe you but let’s leave it that way for now.”
“There is no need to be upset. There is still something in this world that you can believe for sure. And there are two.” I take out the deck of trump from my pocket. “One, you haven’t beaten me at poker yet. And two, a dead person will forever lose the chance to play poker with the living.”
Dazai stares at me for a moment, but eventually his face loosens up and he laughs, “I will get rid of that leeway soon enough.”
And then we start drinking and talking about trivial things as we play poker. Our current jobs. Our favorite stores. Our hobbies. The recently published books. There are the clinkings of the glasses and the bodies that lean over to tell secret stories. There is no end to the content of our conversation. For example, like this.
“By the way, why is someone as good as you doing such a safe and boring job like a postman?”
“Because there is not really anything else that I can do. It has been four years since I started doing this job. It is indeed boring, but since the other guys usually retire or die on duty after a month or two, I cannot quit because we are always short of staff.”
“Wha..?” Dazai rolls his eyes. “Did you just say die on duty?”
“Last week, our warehouse was bombed.” I say as I take a sip of my drink. “There was a bomb that targeted our company in one of the packages. I threw it outside just before it exploded. If I were one second late, all the packages would have been blown up, together with all the staff.
“Eh? What the hell is that?” Dazai’s voice is a mixture of shock and confusion. “Do postmen these days work in battlefields or what?”
“It might be pretty close to that. We are a courier that specializes in transporting dangerous packages in the dangerous areas of Yokohama. Yokohama concession, the water infested by pirates, special security zones for military research facilities. We deliver packages on time, to places that other ordinary mailing companies cannot access for various reasons. There were times we had to deliver some development parts while avoiding the attack of industrial spies, or delivered a real gun to a billionaire who has been abducted. My boss is really good at what he does, so together we are able to deliver almost anything. But we do not earn that much despite all the danger. I have not received my salary for four months now.”
“Hey, wait a minute! Why didn’t you tell me these stories when I was injured and bored and sleeping all the time?”
Dazai’s expression changes. That is the face of an angry kid.
“Sorry.”
“I don’t need your apology! Master, another!” Dazai slams the glass on to the table. “Now that it has come to this, I will have you tell me everything. About what you have delivered so far in that job. Everything! Because I am not leaving this bar until you tell me. We will start with the story of that billionaire who you brought a real gun to!”
“It can’t be helped then.”
I finish off my drink, moisten my throat with it and begin to talk. That is the signal for the night.
The music flows. The time flows. Down our throats, the drink from the glasses flows. Our words too, quietly come out, and flow away into nowhere.
“Ahhhhhahahhaha! There were two billionaires that were abducted? How could it be? Which one was the real one?”
The music flows. The time flows. It is getting deeper into the night, and the guests come and go like silver waves.
“Dazai, is that for real? That guy who went against the Port Mafia turned into a monster? He shot destructive rays of light from his mouth and tried to destroy Yokohama? Which part of this story is a lie?”
There is no end to the things we want to say. They keep coming out of our mouths, as if they have been stored somewhere at the back of our throats, waiting for their turns all this time. We talk to each other, listen to each other, and share with each other. The poker cards are dealt and so many games have been decided, but neither of us seems to pay much attention to poker game.
I recall the first time I met him, when Dazai was lying in front of my house, covered in blood. Everything happened just a few days ago. I recall a few days ago when we were so far apart. If I had left Dazai there and closed my door, what would have become of us?
“Okay, I have decided. You are Odasaku.” At one point, Dazai leans overs as if he has made up his mind. “You are too strange for a short name like Oda. And Oda Sakunosuke is just too long to call. You are Odasaku. From now on, whenever someone asks for your name, you have to say so.”
“Odasaku? That is a strange name. Sounds like a farmer. Do I have the right to change my name?”
“No.”
“No…?”
I take a sip then say, “It’s no help then.”
Dazai orders a can of crab. I ask for a Gimlet. I haven’t ordered one in a while, but for some reasons, I suddenly want to drink it.
And then we continue with our endless conversation.
About that time when I found a baby with a rattle after opening a “no shaking” box.
That time when I had to bet my life in a duel of “Acchi Muite Hoi” with a Middle East billionaire to get access to a smuggled jewelry distribution network. (TN: Acchi Muite Hoi is a children game in Japan. Two people are needed to play the game. After saying “Achchi Muite Hoi”, one person will look to one of the directions (up, down, right, left) randomly, and the other person will also point their finger randomly to one of the directions. If the 2nd person can point to the same direction that the first person turns their face to, they will win the game)
The time I ran from a troop of five hundred soldiers of an armed religious organization, to protect a glass of milk that I had to deliver.
The story of how he met his partner boy who is a gravity user.
Our words eventually lose their connection and become a bunch of disjointed words drifting between the two of us. Just like the way music sometimes has meaning in every single note, rather than a series of notes, every single one of our words seems to take on a meaning of its own… If I am to put it in a poetic way, we have turned into instruments, instruments that play words.
“Wow, it has been a long time since I last talked this much.” Dazai says as he is relaxing after speaking for a long while, as if he is tired.
“Good to know.” I say as I deal the card, for what time I don’t remember. “But we have been here a little too long. It’s almost closing time. You are going home after this, right?”
Dazai’s wounds have already crossed the most critical time. Just leave them like that and they will heal on their owns. My role here is over. So is our relationship.
Dazai nods and takes the cards from me. Then in a casual tone, he says those words.
“When are we meeting next?”
I stop what I am doing and look at Dazai.
Dazai must have known that it is not a normal thing to ask. That should be some sort of a magic word, more special than any line I have ever heard. But Dazai is just waiting for my answer with his light and innocent smile. As if it is just like inhaling and exhaling for him.
“I wonder.” I let my gaze wander while I search for the right words to say. “I don’t know. You seem to be very busy. But if you want to…”
“Hahaha, interesting. It is surprising to see you make that kind of face. Okay! Showdown!”
He says so, then turns all the cards over.
“Four Kings. I won.”
I look at the cards in my hand and in Dazai’s hand. It is indeed his win.
“All the games up till this point have been to figure out how your skill works.” Dazai smiles happily. “Generally, the future you can see is only within five to six seconds, so if I wait for seven seconds or more after the last bet to open and switch my cards at the same time, you will not be able to see that future.”
Dazai holds up the King of Clubs in his hand and shows it to me. With a flip of his hand, he turns the card and the moment he turns it back, it has become an Eight of Hearts. He flips his hand again and the card turns back to the King of Clubs. I can’t tell where the cards are coming from even when looking at it up close.
“Of course, you would be wary of the switch. So, I had to distract you by conversation.”
“So, the games and the flow of conversation till now, were both according to your plan, you mean?”
“Hehe. Saying important things as a camouflage to get what you want. That is the basis of the negotiation technique.”
I ask as I organize the cards, “Which is camouflage of which?”
Dazai expression turns blank for a second, as if he has been caught off guard. But it is only for a moment. He turns his head to the side to hide his expression and smiles. If I am not wrong, there is an embarrassed expression on his face. It is under the dark lighting of the bar, so I might have mistaken though.
““It is foolish to die without coming here”… you really told me some nice thing.” Dazai says, keeping his expression hidden.
I sort out the card one by one and say, “Sometimes, I say the right thing, too.”
It is time for the bar to close and the guests are starting to rush out. It is time to leave. The night has fallen outside. Silence is absorbing everything.
I look at the deck of cards.
Poker is my forte, but it doesn’t mean I will never lose. There is nothing absolute in this world. It is inherently impossible to control anything in this world. All we can do is to accept it and at the very least, enjoy it as we resist it.
In a corner of a bar, somewhere in the past, in a whirlpool of future uncertainty.
“Even if you flip a card a thousand times, and a thousand times it come out as you expected, there is no guarantee that it will come out right the 1001th time.” I say.
“Yeah. I’ve learned that this time too.” (TN: Dazai switches his pronoun from “boku” to “watashi” for the first time here. “Boku” is usually used by younger boys while “watashi” is more formal and neutral. It can be considered a sign of growth.)
“Watashi?”
“Does it sound strange?”
Dazai smiles, a smile that seems somewhat more mature from what it was just a moment ago.
I shake my head. So many things happened today.
“As to your question,” I say as I am standing up. “I can’t be sure if I can meet up next time. I am a pretty moody guy, you know it too. And I still have my own problems to deal with.”
Dazai nods, “You mean those ex-cops?”
“Those guys won’t give up. Even if they do, I don’t think they are gonna be the last. We should assume that the information about the “painting” has been leaked to others also. Even if I flee to the other side of the world, the information will eventually catch up to me.”
People in the underworld always have horizontal connections somewhere. I don’t know how the guys of “48” found out about my past, but they probably bought the information from another criminal organization. Even if they didn’t, there is still a chance that “48” will sell my information to another criminal organization. If that is the case, then I will have more than just them to take care of. There might come a day when it becomes too much for me to handle.
“Come on. You are still worried about that?” Dazai folds his arm. “Isn’t there already a simple solution for that?”
“There is?”
“If the other side of the world doesn’t work, you can run to a deeper place.” Dazai speaks in a light tone and shrugs. “A place so deep that no criminal organizations can reach. And it is not that far away from here. The place is right here in Yokohama.”
After saying so, he smiles, “If you die without going there, you are a fool.”
I ponder for a while and come up with one place.
It is true that if I go there, no criminal organization will be able to meddle with me anymore.
That is the darkest place of Yokohama. Covered in a black storm of violence, a shrine of the night. The people in there are tied by an iron rule. If one of their members is attacked by an outsider, they will turn into a row of fangs and bite the enemies.
“No-one can run away from his past.” Dazai smiles as he says. “But if you go there, it is a different story.”
“Are you saying that I should join it?”
“It is up to you.” Dazai smiles. “But I promise you. If you join, you will no longer be bothered by anything from your past. Because no past can touch that place.”
“Where is the place?”
Dazai smiles with pride. Then he opens his arms invitingly.
And he says them, those words that will change the future and decide its fate.
“The name? That organization is called…”
The Day I Picked up Dazai – Side A – THE END.
