Tsukiji, Tokyo. The Shinkiraku ryotei.
A century-old establishment, and the permanent venue for the selection of the Akutagawa Prize and the Naoki Prize.
Today, several more broadcast vans than usual were parked out front.
The logos of NHK, Fuji, and TBS stood out sharply on their sides.
Crew members hauled cables back and forth, tuning satellite feeds.
At ten o'clock sharp, dozens of cameras were already in position in Shinkiraku's largest tatami room.
Lighting technicians adjusted reflectors. Reporters gripped their voice recorders.
Television announcers fixed their makeup in front of the lenses.
A monochrome ink landscape hung in the alcove, and two neat rows of cushions were laid out across the tatami.
The judges took their seats, paperbacks and teacups set on the low tables before them.
The chairman of the Society for the Promotion of Japanese Literature stepped to the front, the panel of judges filing in behind him.
Every one of them held a book.
The cover was an ashen gray, four characters printed across it in a rough, coarse typeface - No Longer Human.
The chairman stopped, and cleared his throat.
Flashbulbs began to fire, one after another.
"The winning work of the 120th Akutagawa Prize."
The chairman opened the paperback in his hands, his steady voice carrying to every corner of the room.
And out over the airwaves, to all of Japan.
"The debut author, Master of Dassai-ya-sensei, for No Longer Human!"
The shutters exploded all at once.
A brief cheer went up from the press seats, and the television announcers launched straight into commentary.
"We have just received word!
The 120th Akutagawa Prize goes to No Longer Human!
The author, Master of Dassai-ya-sensei, is only-"
In the last few days of winter break, the streets of Tokyo were already thick with the smell of the daily grind.
Along the main avenue of Marunouchi, Western-style buildings stood interlocked with glass-curtained skyscrapers.
The Maruzen Marunouchi Main Store occupied the most conspicuous spot in the whole district.
Behind four stories of glass display windows, the literature section had been dressed up with unusual grandeur.
Tsushima Kagami stood at the bookstore entrance and, through the glass, saw an enormous poster of himself.
The poster showed the paperback cover of No Longer Human, with gilded lettering beside it.
"Winner of the 120th Akutagawa Prize!
Congratulations from Shinchosha!"
Below the poster hung abstracts of papers on "Buraiha literature" by Professor Kosaka, Professor Matsushita, and Professor Takeuchi, along with other scholars and major novelists.
The Buraiha.
In this world, that term was something he had created.
In his previous life, it had been a movement held up jointly by Dazai Osamu, Sakaguchi Ango, Oda Sakunosuke and the rest - self-mockery, decadence, and defiance of tradition as its base colors.
In this life, those papers had pushed him alone onto the pedestal of a man who founded a school.
Tsushima Kagami might be nothing more than a newly minted Akutagawa Prize author, but that was already enough for people to call him a literary giant.
He could only smile at it.
In his previous life, the Akutagawa Prize was the one thing Dazai Osamu chased his whole life and never got.
And now, Tsushima Kagami had only ever meant to use that posthumous work to help a few people who deserved helping.
He'd never expected the seed to take root on its own - to take the Akutagawa Prize in this world, and to be met with unanimous acclaim.
Fate really was a vicious sort of joke.
"Hey, great literary master. What are you spacing out about?"
Sayuri's voice came from behind him, cutting through his thoughts.
He turned and saw her in a cream-white trench coat, her scarf wound twice around her neck.
"Nothing much," Tsushima Kagami said, pulling his gaze back.
"Is everyone here?"
"All of them.
Even Shizuku and Nayotake got there early.
Everybody's waiting on you.
So stop standing around out here like an idiot.
Come on, come on."
Sayuri pushed Tsushima Kagami away from the storefront.
They headed for the manga cafe where the group always met up.
The two of them pushed through the glass door, and warm air rolled over them, carrying the smell of paper and coffee.
"He's here, he's here, he's here!"
Hiroi Kikuri was the first one on her feet. For once in her life she was wearing a dark blue jacket that looked far too thin for the weather.
The question was, hadn't she been cold on the way over?
"Congrats, senpai!"
Hiroi fished a can of beer out of her pocket.
"Kikuri, no drinking!"
PA-ko snatched the can away, her face perfectly blank.
"?!"
"It's a malt beverage!"
"Still no!"
PA-ko stuffed the can back into Hiroi's bag.
Seika Ijichi leaned against the window, arms folded, her tone as prickly as ever - though there was a smile in her eyes.
"I heard you won the prize. Mom insisted I pass along her congratulations."
"Thank her for me."
"Mm." Seika paused.
"And… congratulations."
She got the word out fast, like she wasn't used to saying things like that.
Tsushima Kagami nodded, smiling.
"Thanks."
Kosaka Akane materialized out of nowhere.
She was hauling an enormous parcel, and when she tore it open it turned out to be nothing but different editions of No Longer Human.
Hardcover edition, collector's edition, boxed edition, definitive edition…
It felt like a precision operation to harvest every last yen from the fanbase.
"Grandpa bought all of these.
And he made me bring them so you'd sign every single one," Kosaka Akane said with a helpless laugh.
"Honestly. I never imagined that at his age…
It's pure literature, and he's still chasing his idol this hard?"
Tsushima Kagami just smiled and let it pass, reaching over to gather up the various editions of No Longer Human.
He signed them one by one.
By the time they were all done and handed back to Kosaka Akane, Machida Sonoko was laughing too.
"Guess I have to address my junior as a literary master now.
Any leads on the next book?"
"Nothing comes that fast."
Tsushima Kagami looked over at Machida Sonoko, who had shed her down jacket to reveal a coffee-brown sweater.
"I'm not some writing machine."
"But everyone's calling you the god of the novel these days."
"That's all exaggeration," he said.
"The media loves its overblown, chuunibyou tag lines."
Tsushima Kagami finished with a smile, then produced two omamori from inside his coat.
"Right - these are for Akane-senpai and Sonoko-senpai."
"Oh, I didn't think Kagami would actually remember."
Kosaka Akane and Machida Sonoko both took their omamori, recalling how they'd once asked Tsushima Kagami to get them academic charms.
"Consider it done, more or less.
Except they're not from Shinshoji. They're from Chiba Shrine," Tsushima Kagami said, smiling.
"Well, it's the thought that counts, right?" Kosaka Akane held up her omamori and glanced at Machida Sonoko beside her.
"Isn't that right, Sonoko?"
"I think so too."
Machida Sonoko tucked the omamori carefully into the bag she carried with her.
It was then that Tsushima Kagami looked over at Shimizu Nayotake, sitting beside Yukinoshita Shizuku.
He gave her a small nod and a smile.
"Nayotake, how is Auntie Shimizu doing?"
Shimizu Nayotake turned to him, smiling faintly, and nodded.
"She's about back to where she was before the hospitalization.
She feels a lot better."
After Tsushima Kagami and Yukinoshita Shizuku returned to Chiba, Shimizu Nayotake had been giving Mrs. Shimizu the energy potion in strict accordance with the dosage he'd specified.
A single small bottle couldn't cover the whole day, so by seven or eight in the evening her condition would gradually slide back again.
But after keeping up the daytime doses for a while, they found the decline was starting later and coming on more slowly, bit by bit.
It wouldn't cure the heart failure outright, but at this rate she would at least recover enough to meet the criteria for surgery, and hold steady for a stretch.
The doctors marveled at it. Every day the professor brought a crowd of physicians around to observe the case.
As long as the operation went through as planned, the functional heart failure should be resolved for good.
She wasn't greedy. She wasn't asking for her mother to live to a hundred.
She only hoped her mother would be there to watch her coming-of-age ceremony.
____
👻🔥Here: Walnut-chan (P4treon)🔥👻
🔥 New history: Zenless Zone Zero: Rewriting Fate in New Eridu — new on The_Mikudayo
📚 Walnut-chan gets you 40 chapters ahead and helps cover the translation costs of every story I post
We have set new community milestones:
🎯 100 Powerstones = +1 Bonus Chapter for all readers