"—ah. I did catch some of that from the exam room, but I figured if it were important you'd call us..."

"I'd like to be able to offer mental healthcare, but there's just not a lot I can do. And when they're worked up like that, I can't exactly tell 'em to get out, y'know? And I keep trying to figure out what to do about it, but..." He sighs once again, rubbing the back of his hand.

"So, basically, you got a lot of nutcases coming in."

Taku and Rei both frown at him. "I can't say I appreciate that term."

"I'm just telling it like it is." He downs the rest of his coffee, sets the empty can on the floor, and rises to his feet.

"Where are you going?"

"For a walk."

"...now? Are you joking?"

Towa ignores Rei's disbelief and walks past him and through the door. The night is cold enough that his breath fogs up, and he forgot to grab a coat, but he's too lazy to go back to do that. He'll be fine, probably.

He grabs his pack of cigarettes from his pocket and lights one, then starts walking down the sidewalk with no particular destination in mind.

No particular destination, but yes particular goal. He wants to find someone to fuck.

Not that he's feeling lonely, or even particularly horny. He's not feeling much of anything; he never does. That's the entire problem. The only things that make him feel alive are rough sex and incredible violence. Really, it's the violence that he wants, but no one's really willing to go all-out the way he craves, to fight him like they mean to kill him; they always hold back, even if subconsciously, afraid to hurt others beyond a certain threshold.

Sometimes he can provoke someone badly enough, get them so riled up they forget themselves. Sometimes he can get someone to rape him (is it even rape, if he's seeking it?), to fuck him like they don't care what he's feeling, to throw him around and beat him up and make him hurt. Use him like a fucktoy, then discard him.

He holds out hope that he'll find someone to do that to him tonight. Not a lot of hope, but it does spring eternal.

The next day, Towa wakes up a quarter past noon. He never did find anyone to hurt him, so he just ended up picking a random bar and having some drinks. Compared to the night before, it felt really lackluster.

He lights a cigarette as soon as he's up then just stares at the TV he left on all night, eye going unfocused, not thinking of anything.

After a few minutes of that, a news chyron flashes up onscreen:

TAKASATO GROUP LEADER TAKASATO RYŪJIRŌ, 81, DEAD OF HEART FAILURE

That shakes some awareness into him. He looks at the white text on the TV, processes the information, and... puffs some smoke out. It's not that surprising, really. Not at that age, especially when he'd been in the hospital last Towa heard.

He looks away from the TV and leans back against the sofa, the interest fading just as quickly as it appeared.

Just then, his phone starts buzzing, on the far edge of the sofa. Its caller ID says that the person calling him is someone named Sakaki.

Sakaki, i.e. the old second-in-command of the Takasato group, probably now its new leader. There's also a series of notifications; apparently Sakaki had been trying to call Towa for a while. He probably wants to talk to Towa about the dead guy. Probably thinks that the fact that Towa is Takasato's biological son would matter at all. And Towa's just not interested. He doesn't have many memories of interacting with the guy, and actually barely remembers what he looks like. Calling Takasato Ryūjirō his "father" is grossly misleading at best; Towa's mother was Takasato's mistress, and that's all there is to it.

He drops his phone back onto the sofa without answering it and leans back again, staring at the ceiling, cigarette dangling from his lips.

Towa takes one final drag of his cigarette, then crushes it into the ashtray, rises to his feet, and pulls his coat on. He doesn't have any plans for the day, but he feels like going on a walk downtown, so he might as well do that.

The clinic isn't busy at this hour, given that Taku has his lunch break soon, but it's busy enough that the doctor is nowhere to be seen when Towa steps out of the elevator downstairs. He ignores Arimura's glare from the reception desk, pushes past the glass door, and walks out into the midday sun, lifting a hand to block its glare while his eye gets accustomed to it.

—was someone over there just now behind that building? He could've sworn he felt someone's gaze on him but when his eye's finally adapted to the light there's no one.

No one, that is, except for this very strange young man with green hair and a thick puffy jacket standing right in front of Towa, blinking at him, his pale purple Smoke gently shifting in unfelt wind.

...this guy's dead fish eyes are giving Towa's own dead fish eye a run for its money, that's for sure.

"You're... Towa, right? That's you?"