Chapter 20
Generally speaking, homeless people have no choice but to live lives far removed from hygiene.
A homeless person (露宿者), or “homeless” in English.
Isn’t the word itself meant to describe someone with no home who sleeps exposed to the dew?
Take Mr. Ma, a homeless man who loves frozen chicken products, for example.
When I first met this young homeless man, he was enjoying the pleasures of homeless life inside a trash can.
The trash can was relatively clean, at least, but a trash can was still a trash can.
Meaning that every time you went near him, you could smell him.
“…A shower? It’s not easy. As Hotdog Man knows, clean water is more expensive than cola in Risk City.”
When he scratched his hair, a thick, unidentified powder fell out in a dusty cascade.
Good grief.
“Even so, I’m one of the more frequent washers. I know very well that cleanliness is directly connected to good health.”
“How?”
I asked him about his method.
“It’s nothing special. If you walk a little way down the main road from here, you’ll come across an abandoned fountain.”
“……”
“Sometimes that fountain works properly. Those are the days when I can wash myself. Oh, I wash with shampoo I’ve picked up when it rains, too, but getting rained on with your bare body in Risk City makes me a little nervous, so, huh? Hotdog Man? Why are you gradually moving away from me─.”
Let’s stop learning more.
“…I’m not that bad.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
Rivera, on the other hand, had said she had a separate place to stay, so she looked to be in much better shape than the dirty homeless bum, Mr. Ma.
She hadn’t seemed particularly dirty when I first saw her, either.
At my overt reaction, the smelly homeless man, Mr. Ma—or rather, Michael—desperately erased his crestfallen expression.
“…Anyway, it’s obvious that we can’t attend the Family’s gathering─, or party, in our current state. It would probably be best if Hotdog Man wore a suit as well, like me.”
Michael’s words were about as reasonable as they could be.
“I don’t want to buy an expensive suit just to attend once.”
“I understand.”
He answered with a calm nod.
“Then I suppose there’s only one option left.”
“…What option?”
There was a strange ominousness in his serious voice.
Michael calmly reached out his hand and—
“The clothing donation bin is in that direction.”
“……”
“I’ve picked up a few things from there recently, and they’re nice and odorless. Let’s go.”
I had a feeling it would come to this.
* * *
We followed the address on the invitation and arrived at Old Central Sector Boulevard.
Since the road was so wide, the scenery around us had changed as well.
If the place where we usually stayed was more like a slum, this area had a stronger air of being an affluent neighborhood.
“This is the place?”
“Yes, the address is correct.”
The place listed on the invitation was a large mansion, but the first things to block my view were its towering wall and iron gates.
“The important thing is composure. At any gathering, if you show weakness, people will tear you apart….”
“I know.”
I brushed off Michael’s advice.
I was just going to occupy a seat and leave, anyway.
It was a little unsettling to be mistaken for a member of some organization,
but there was nothing I could do.
The two beside me were making the exact same mistake, after all.
I’d told them several times that it wasn’t true, but they hadn’t even pretended to listen.
“…Another new organization has arrived.”
“I’ve never seen those faces before.”
A group waiting by a vehicle glanced in our direction.
They had been speaking quietly, but I heard them as clearly as if they were right beside me.
“…What are those clothes? Did they pick them up from a trash can?”
“Heh-heh, no way.”
I let out a small sigh.
It was an outfit that couldn’t help but attract attention.
My suit coat was black, my shirt yellow, and my pants dark blue.
I looked so ridiculous that calling me Frankenstein from the fashion industry wouldn’t have been an exaggeration.
As I picked out the cleanest pieces in decent condition, I couldn’t find a suit with a matching design.
Still, I thought it would be better than a bloodstained suit, a suit riddled with bullet holes, or even the clown costume that had been in relatively good condition.
I guess it really was too much.
‘…If I just painted my face white like this, I could play the villain in a superhero movie.’
It wasn’t even funny.
So even in this mishmash-punk world, this kind of individuality wasn’t respected.
But the arrow had already left the bow, so I had no choice but to tough it out like this.
“…Shall we go in?”
I looked at Rivera, who had tidied up her clothes neatly.
Rivera was covering her nose and mouth with a mask fitted with two large filters, but because she had neatly tied her shaggy hair back, her golden eyes were fully visible.
“Isn’t it stuffy?”
“…Yes.”
This was the result of her wanting to hide her face more than usual.
She was at an age when embarrassment came easily.
So it attracted far less attention than covering her face with her shaggy hair would have.
“Abel Anderson and two others. Confirmed. Once inside, please be careful not to use firearms or other weapons, even by accident.”
Once we passed through the wall and iron gate, the noisy surroundings gradually quieted.
I crossed an old-fashioned garden along the designated road.
“…But the rules are looser than I expected. They didn’t even search our belongings.”
At this rate, it was really just a warning to be careful.
Not that we had brought guns, anyway.
“With so many organizations gathering in one place, there must have been plenty of problems at the parties held so far. They probably set the minimum boundary as ‘no firearms under any circumstances.’”
“Hmm….”
Michael lowered his voice and spoke to me.
“…I think we should be a little more careful inside. From what I can tell, the Family will probably dismiss a little commotion as nothing more than an incident.”
“Since we came in after receiving an invitation, should we just turn around and leave?”
Michael laughed heartily at my words.
“Hahaha. Just like last time, what a joke. You don’t have to try to ease my tension for my sake. Though I appreciate the thought.”
“……”
I had been half serious.
At that moment, someone poked me in the side.
There was only one person who would do that.
“…I’ll protect Hotdog Man.”
“I appreciate the sentiment.”
I automatically put on a fatherly smile.
If only my little sister had done this half as much—no, even a quarter as much.
Anyway, once we entered the mansion, a fairly serious-looking party unfolded before us.
And then.
Most of the people attending the party watched us newcomers with sharp eyes.
“What’s with the color of that suit?”
“Another new lunatic. Good grief….”
…I didn’t particularly want to wear these clothes, either.
Pretending not to care about their conversation, I naturally moved toward a corner of the party hall.
Their attention did not remain on me for long.
There were obviously a great many people at the party, and it was only natural not to pay any attention at all to someone who looked like a complete lunatic like I did.
Unless they were deliberately looking to cause trouble.
I should just stay quietly, blend into the background, and disappear.
* * *
Three hours passed.
I stood still, doing nothing.
Three whole hours.
Enjoying the high-class party atmosphere had lasted ten minutes at most.
I wasn’t even nervous anymore. I was just bored.
Michael silently approached me while I stood there with a dead expression.
“Your expression seems awfully stiff. No matter how bored you are, you should smile a little….”
“……”
Heh—.
When I raised only the corners of my mouth into a smile, Michael took a step back with a satisfied look in his eyes.
Just when was this party going to end?
I wondered if this was normal, but the murmuring around us was also gradually growing louder.
“Could something have happened….”
“The wait does seem a little long today.”
It didn’t seem like a normal situation after all.
At the very least, the party had to start before I could run away.
At this rate, I might have to spend the night here.
Just then.
Grrrrr—.
A strange sound came from behind me.
When I turned around, I saw Rivera with her head hanging low.
Her face was difficult to see behind the large filter mask, but the little girl’s face had turned as red as a radish.
Well, well….
“Shall we go get something to eat?”
“Is that really okay…?”
There were various kinds of food growing cold around the party hall, but we hadn’t eaten a bite yet because we had been watching everyone’s reactions.
We had been fasting for quite a while.
Michael nodded without answering.
After confirming that, I firmly took Rivera’s hand.
“They left it there for people to eat, so what’s the big deal?”
Rivera swallowed hard.
I cautiously walked toward the center of the party hall with the little girl.
Wow, there’s a whole pig here.
However, there was one person who looked at us disapprovingly.
“Hmph, he can’t even live up to his size. What a ridiculous sight, walking around holding a woman’s hand.”
His voice was loud enough that it seemed intended for us to hear.
“I was really looking forward to a party hosted by the Family, but now I feel like I came for nothing. And that insane outfit of yours… The standard here is pretty….”
A flashy man dressed like a nouveau riche was looking at us and laughing.
He seemed to have been invited to this party for the first time, like me, but the three-hour wait seemed to have tested his patience.
“…What are you looking at?”
Definitely.
So a mafia Family’s party didn’t consist only of major organizations, after all.
He was probably someone around Bogus’s caliber.
There were bound to be people who couldn’t read the situation wherever you went, but I hadn’t expected to find an idiot even at a gathering like this.
I was so dumbfounded that I just watched him.
Perhaps that made him feel even worse, because he frowned and began striding toward me.
“Ha, I was already pissed off, so this is perfect. They said we just couldn’t use weapons, right?”
Tsk, I didn’t want to cause trouble here.
Should I just let him grab me by the collar and leave it at that?
Thinking of it as the mature way for a grown adult to handle things, that seemed like the wisest choice.
I made that judgment coolly.
If only the direction of the bastard’s outstretched hand hadn’t been toward Rivera.
…This bastard?
─Thump.
I could feel my heartbeat in its entirety.
My blood flow sped up,
and at the same time, my body moved of its own accord.
With a light kick, his knee bent backward at the wrong joint.
As his balance collapsed, his unguarded chin naturally came into view.
Before I even realized what I was doing, I struck him right on the tip of the chin, then took a step back with Rivera as I watched fragments of teeth fly into the air.
Even then, his expression didn’t change.
And the world, which had been moving in slow motion, returned to normal.
A few seconds passed from my perspective, and a few commas’ worth of time in actual reality,
…??
Unable to understand what had happened, he sprawled forward with a question on his face.
Everyone’s gaze turned toward me.
…What should I do now?
At that moment.
Michael’s advice came back to me.
- The important thing is composure. At any gathering, if you show weakness, people will tear you apart….
That was what he had said.
At times like this, I couldn’t afford to panic.
I had no choice but to act as though I had intended it as much as possible.
I shrugged, recalling a scene from some movie.
“Ta-da.”
Soon, silence descended over the party hall.
…I guess that wasn’t it.