Chapter 924 - 924: [ Arc 9 ] The Suicide He Wanted

Upon the glittering stage of the world, truth is nothing more than a commodity, something that can be bought, shaped, and traded to serve the ambitions of those who control the circuit. Lies, when carefully packaged and presented with enough confidence, have a way of becoming more convincing than the truth itself, until the narrative they create is accepted as the winning one.

Yet the rope hanging in the corner of a cramped apartment on the outskirts of Tokyo refuses to submit to such a performance. Detective Tachibana crouches beside a dead body lying in the middle of the narrow room, his attention fixed on the dark ligature marks circling the dead man's neck as he studies what remains of the scene before him.

"While all of us have been running around trying to find him," Shibata says from directly behind Tachibana, "he goes and hangs himself here."

Tachibana gives him no response. His expression remains calm as his eyes move over every detail of the body and the room around it, taking in the position of the corpse, the condition of the furniture, and anything else that might tell him what happened here. He has no intention of rushing toward a conclusion simply because the answer appears convenient.

Near the apartment entrance, meanwhile, the dead man's lover sits with the police, sobbing as she gives her statement.

"He came to me frightened, so full of guilt," she says through her sobs. "He almost killed the man he idolized. The man who inspired him to become the person he was. He couldn't get it out of his head. It followed him into his sleep every night. He had such a temper, but he wasn't a bad man. He was just... too sensitive. Too fragile."

She wipes at her face, but the tears keep coming. "Oh, Mune-chan... if only I hadn't left him here alone. But what was I supposed to do? I had work. I couldn't just walk away from everything and stay here with him. I knew he was drowning in all that guilt. But I thought he would be all right. I thought he just needed some time."

Her voice breaks again. "And now... now he's gone and hanged himself here."

All of the woman's sobbing and her account reach Tachibana's ears, but he pays them little attention.

The circumstances surrounding Hayashida Muneyaki's death, her statement, and the history of his attempted stabbing of Ryoma all point strongly toward suicide. Yet Tachibana still cannot bring himself to accept it.

There is a bruised mark at the left corner of the dead man's mouth. And now, as Tachibana lowers himself further and crawls across the floor, something catches his eye beneath the cabinet.

Tachibana picks it up with tweezers and holds it up for a closer look. It's a tooth, a faint smear of blood clinging to its root. And the surface shows none of the discoloration he would expect from a tooth that has been separated from the body for long.

"What's that?" Shibata asks.

"A premolar," Tachibana replies, turning toward the dead body. "And I'm fairly certain it's his tooth."

He moves closer to the corpse. With the thin plastic gloves still covering his hands, Tachibana carefully opens the dead man's mouth and examines the teeth along the left side.

"One of the premolars is missing," he says.

Before he can say anything else, a uniformed officer approaches and stops a few steps away. "Tachibana-san. We've got the preliminary identification. The name is Hayashida Muneyaki, thirty-two years old. Blood type O. Height, one hundred seventy-eight centimeters. Weight, fifty-nine kilograms."

The officer glances down at his notes before continuing. "Based on the initial examination, the estimated time of death is sometime between seven and eight yesterday evening. The apparent cause is asphyxia due to hanging, with cerebral hypoxia resulting from the interruption of oxygen supply to the brain."

Tachibana remains beside the body, his attention still on the missing tooth, before returning to the marks around Hayashida's neck. Looking more closely, he notices that there are actually two distinct ligature marks.

The first is deeper and follows the upward angle of the rope still attached above the body, consistent with what he would expect from a hanging.

The second is much fainter, almost lost among the surrounding bruising, but its direction is different.

Tachibana rises and tilts his head slightly toward Shibata. "I'm not convinced this was suicide."

"Someone attacked him?" Shibata asks.

Tachibana nods and starts toward the apartment door, with Shibata following close behind.

"There's another ligature mark around his neck." Tachibana keeps walking. "Thinner than the one from the hanging. Whatever caused it, the pressure came from behind rather than above. And then there's the broken tooth. He was hit hard enough to lose it."

"Could've knocked him out," Shibata says.

"Maybe." Tachibana glances back at him. "He's so frail, isn't exactly built to take a beating. If that hit was hard enough, he could've been too weak to fight back. He might even have lost consciousness."

"Then the culprit strangled him?" Shibata asks. "And staged the scene to make it look like suicide?"

Tachibana stops and turns around. "The apartment is too orderly for a struggle. Either the culprit took the time to clean up afterward, or he was good enough to put Hayashida down before he had a chance to fight back."

"A work of professional, huh?" Shibata assumes.

Tachibana shakes his head. "Someone who knows how to fight, but not a professional hitman. The way he tried to hide the murder was too amateurish."

***

Across Tokyo, in a different apartment, Ryoma sits alone in the living room, looking as though he has barely slept. He slouches at the edge of the sofa, his shoulders heavy and his hair slightly disheveled, with a small plaster still fixed to his right temple.

Yesterday, he had spent the celebration holding back the excitement that threatened to spill out in front of everyone, yet now, alone with the belt the following day, he finds nothing inside him but a strange, quiet emptiness.

"No." Ryoma shakes his head. "This isn't over yet. One world title isn't enough."

<< Heh. You greedy brat. >>

<< But considering you actually have a shot at becoming undisputed, I suppose I can forgive you for thinking one belt isn't enough. >>

Before Ryoma can answer, the doorbell rings from the front of the apartment, pulling his attention away.

He gets to his feet, and the bell rings a second time before he reaches the door.

"Coming."

The moment he opens it, Aki greets him with the same bright, energetic smile she always wears.

"Good afternoon, World Champion. Are you ready to celebrate?"

Ryoma blinks, staring at her for a moment before remembering that, after yesterday afternoon's fight, Aki had insisted on throwing him a small celebration of their own, just her along with Sato, Tanaka, and a few of their journalist friends. He had agreed without giving it much thought.

The problem is that Reika now standing behind her. Ryoma doesn't remember Aki mentioning that she would be coming. Not that Aki had ever said she wouldn't, but the unexpected sight of her still leaves him uneasy.

Reika notices his gaze lingering on her for a moment. Despite the unenthusiastic reaction on his face, she greets him with her usual charming smile.

"You look terrible," she says. "Should we call off the celebration?"

Ryoma has already started searching for an excuse to cancel, or at least ask Aki to move it to another day and tell her not to bring Reika along.

But then, as usual, the system in his head decides to interfere, nudging him toward the same matchmaking game it never seems to get tired of.

<< Come on, Champ. Enjoy life outside the ring for a while. If you want, you can always spend more time alone with these pretty girls after the party. >>

"What the hell are you talking about?"

Ryoma lets out a sigh, making no effort to hide how exhausted he still feels, but steps aside and opens the door wider.

"It's fine," he says. "I'm good enough for a small party. Come on in. I'm going to take a shower first."

Once Ryoma disappears down the hallway, the living room settles into a different kind of quiet. Aki immediately leans forward, her attention fixed on the WBO World Championship belt resting on the coffee table, her face lighting up as she studies the gold plates from every possible angle.

"Oh my God, it's even prettier up close," she says, carefully resisting the urge to touch it.

Reika, meanwhile, pays little attention to the belt. Her gaze wanders around the apartment instead, taking in the furniture, the shelves, the kitchen visible beyond the living room, and the small traces of Ryoma scattered throughout the space.

There is something oddly intimate about seeing where he lives when there is no crowd around him, no cameras, no trainers, no reporters, nothing separating him from the ordinary life he keeps hidden behind his public one.

Her eyes linger on the empty space beside the sofa. For a fleeting moment, she imagines what it would be like if this were her home too, if she could come back here every day and find Ryoma somewhere in this apartment, if the quiet belonged to the two of them. The thought is so natural that she almost fails to notice the smile forming at the corner of her lips.

Meanwhile, Ryoma has just stepped into his bedroom to get a towel when a message notification from the phone lying on his bed catches his attention. It is from Kurogane, containing nothing but a link to a news article about Hayashida Muneyaki's death.

HAYASHIDA MUNEYAKI FOUND DEAD AFTER 6-WEEK MANHUNT FOLLOWING ATTEMPTED MURDER OF WORLD CHAMPION RYOMA TAKEDA

Once he sees the headline, his face instinctively twists into a brief, almost comical grimace of pleasant surprise at Hayashida's fate.

<< Serves him right... >>

"Oh, you sound awfully pleased."

<< Aren't you? >>

But then, as Ryoma reads the article, something inside him begins to feel strangely unsettled. And suddenly, a sharp pressure pulses through his head, forcing him to close his eyes.

For a moment, he sees himself climbing the narrow stairs of an apartment building before another image flashes into view: he is sitting alone with Reika inside her Lexus.

Both images vanish almost immediately, leaving him standing there with the pain still throbbing behind his eyes.