Chapter 976 - 976: What Happened While He Slept

For a while, neither Hayakawa nor Aramaki says anything. The car remains quiet as Ryoma's words hang in the air, neither of them quite sure what to make of them.

Then Ryoma's head slowly sinks against the seat, his breathing growing heavier until a low snore escapes him and breaks the silence.

"And... he's asleep."

Aramaki looks down at him and shakes his head with an amused expression. He adjusts Ryoma's position so that he is sitting more comfortably against the seat.

Hayakawa, however, still hasn't started driving. He turns around in his seat and studies Ryoma for a moment before turning his attention to Aramaki.

"What was that?"

"He's just drunk," Aramaki replies.

"And?"

"And…?" Aramaki blinks. "He just had a fight. Took a few punches to the head. And he hardly ever gets hit there. When you're that good at avoiding punches, sometimes your tolerance for getting hit isn't as good as someone who takes punches regularly."

"Got hit in the head, huh? Of course."

Hayakawa exhales through his nose, his expression making it clear that he isn't entirely satisfied with the explanation. Still, he turns back around, and finally pulls the car away from the curb.

After that, they don't say anything else, though in the silence, they are both thinking about the same thing, trying to understand what Ryoma has just said.

When they finally arrive at home, they carry Ryoma into his bedroom and leave him lying on the bed. Hayakawa remains there for a moment, looking down at him before finally voicing what has been on his mind.

"You know... when you're drunk, you lose control of yourself. Even your ability to lie and keep secrets."

Aramaki immediately turns toward him, blinking with exaggerated naivety. He looks almost comically baffled by the fact that someone as professional and serious as Hayakawa is actually considering Ryoma's story.

"You... you don't actually think everything he said is real, do you?" Aramaki asks. "Regression? He lived until 2026, died, and came back to the past to change history? Come on."

"It's not that I believe it was actually true," Hayakawa says flatly.

He falls silent for a moment, watching Ryoma before turning toward Aramaki. His expression is serious, genuinely concerned.

"I'm worried that he actually believes it was true," he continues. "And honestly, that's far more troubling than him simply lying. Because when your brain starts believing a ridiculous narrative like that and accepts it as the truth, then something must have gone wrong with your brain."

"Something gone wrong?" Aramaki repeats. "Hayakawa-san, what exactly are you trying to say?"

"Delusion, dissociation, psychosis," Hayakawa says. "You name it. I'm not a psychiatrist, but I'm pretty sure something is wrong with his mental state."

Aramaki says nothing. He wants to argue, but the expression on his face now looks more worried than Hayakawa's.

Hayakawa doesn't bother trying to convince him. He simply ends the conversation there and walks out of the room.

Only then does Aramaki's expression change. He glances at Ryoma for a moment before hurriedly following Hayakawa, so impatient that he forgets to close the door behind him.

"Hayakawa-san. Wait. Do you think Ryoma has some kind of mental disorder? Like... he's gone crazy? Lunatic?"

"Not necessarily lunatic," Hayakawa says, continuing to walk. "But you were the one who said he might have a low tolerance for repeated blows to the head. That could have an effect. And you're the one who's been closest to him, so you must have noticed it yourself. He's not normal."

He keeps walking while continues talking. "His personality keeps changing in ways that are impossible to predict. The old Ryoma might have looked like someone with very good adaptive intelligence. He could adjust his mood, his attitude, or even deliberately create a certain persona depending on what the situation required."

Then he finally pauses, turning toward Aramaki before continuing. "But lately, those changes don't look deliberate anymore. It's like he's losing control over himself. And now he's even starting to lose the ability to distinguish between reality and the narrative his own mind has been building. He may have told himself the same story so many times that he no longer realizes it's a lie."

Aramaki falls silent, his earlier skepticism slowly giving way to an uneasiness he can no longer dismiss.

After that, neither Hayakawa nor Aramaki leaves the house. Aramaki spends the time caught in a dilemma, trying to figure out how he is supposed to bring this up with Ryoma. Hayakawa, meanwhile, feels a greater sense of urgency about making sure Ryoma doesn't do anything strange for the time being.

If there really is something happening inside Ryoma's head that he can't control, Hayakawa doesn't want to find out what Ryoma might do next by simply waiting for it to happen. And somehow, all the suspicions Detective Tachibana once had about Ryoma suddenly come back to him.

But he keeps those concerns to himself, not even discussing them when Ryoma's mother returns. He keeps everything looking normal, telling her that Ryoma is resting, while Hayakawa himself continues moving between the living room, the kitchen, and Ryoma's bedroom.

***

The following morning, Aramaki wakes up before dawn as usual, looking ready for his roadwork. As he passes through the living room, he finds Hayakawa asleep on the sofa.

"Guess someone took this more seriously than I did..."

A moment later, his attention shifts toward Ryoma's room upstairs. After a while, he starts heading there, not to ask Ryoma to join him for roadwork the day after his fight, but simply to check on him.

When he gets there, Aramaki finds the bedroom door still open. He pushes it wider, only to find that Ryoma isn't in bed.

"Ryoma?"

Aramaki steps further inside, searching the room before checking the bathroom, but he doesn't find him there either.

"Maaan... don't tell me he already started his morning roadwork."

He quickly leaves the room, his expression growing uneasy. Once outside the mansion, he looks around the private running track, but there is no sign of Ryoma.

"Morning, Aramaki-san," greets one of the guards still making his rounds. "Already heading out for training this early?"

"Morning, Monzaemon-san," Aramaki replies, walking over to him. "Have you seen Ryoma?"

"Ryoma-sama?" the guard repeats before shaking his head. "I haven't seen him leave the house since you brought him inside drunk yesterday."

Aramaki nods and moves on, beginning to search the vast estate on his own in the cold early morning. With grounds this large, surrounded by hills and filled with elevated gardens and dense trees, it wouldn't be difficult for Ryoma to continue his roadwork without anyone seeing him.

Yet after making a full circuit around the track, then picking up his pace on the second lap and going even faster on the third, Aramaki still couldn't find Ryoma anywhere.

After that, it occurs to him to search the mansion again. He checks every corner he can think of, but Ryoma is nowhere to be found.

Aramaki then heads toward the gym behind the mansion, and finally finds Ryoma sitting with his back against one corner of the ring, wearing a training shirt with his boxing gloves already on.

"There you are."

Aramaki stops and leans forward, resting both hands on his knees. He looks exhausted, but there is now a clear sense of relief on his face.

"Damn you, Ryoma..." he says, catching his breath. "You just had a fight yesterday, and now you're already back in the gym training."

But when Ryoma gives him no response at all, Aramaki's sense of relief immediately disappears. He quickly moves toward him and climbs into the ring.

"Hey, Ryoma..." He steps down beside him and gives his shoulder a shake. "Ryoma, wake up."

Ryoma stirs weakly, his head shifting slightly against the corner. His eyelids twitch open for a moment before falling shut again, his movements sluggish and uncoordinated.

"Ryoma, can you hear me?"

After a moment, Ryoma slowly begins to open his eyes again. He blinks several times, his vision still hazy and his head clearly struggling to catch up with what his eyes are seeing.

His face tightens as a dull headache seems to register, followed by a faint grimace at the lingering nausea and dryness in his mouth.

He takes a slow, uneven breath, looking like someone who has woken up far too early while his body is still dealing with the aftermath of a hangover.

When he finally manages to stay awake, his eyes wander around the gym. He looks disoriented, as though he has no idea how he ended up there.

"Where am I...?" he murmurs weakly. "Yoyogi...?"

His eyes shift toward Aramaki, confusion deepening across his face.

"Don't tell me I lost to that copycat...?"

Aramaki lets out a small laugh, though it sounds forced, and the concern on his face hasn't completely disappeared.

"What are you talking about? You beat him in two rounds yesterday."

Ryoma then presses a glove against his forehead, his head still feeling heavy.

"Yesterday...? Right... I won... but my head...? Aramaki, how much did I drink yesterday?"

"Well, you had two shots of sake and got drunk immediately. So Hayakawa and I brought you home."

"Two shots...? You sure about that?"

Ryoma takes a moment to steady himself, adjusting his sitting position before looking around the gym again.

"How did I get here?"

Then his eyes fall on the boxing gloves covering his hands.

"What am I doing with these in my hands?"

He looks up and finds Aramaki looking just as confused as he is.

"Aramaki... did you bring me here?"

He scoffs with a weak laugh. "Seriously? I just had a fight, and drunk… and you're already asking me to spar?"

"What are you talking about?" Aramaki says. "I didn't bring you here. I came to check on you in your room, but you weren't there. I've been looking for you for an hour before I found you here."

Ryoma grimaces, struggling to process what he has just heard.

"Then how did I end up here?"

Aramaki can't say a word. His face grows increasingly pale as everything Hayakawa said yesterday suddenly starts to make more sense.

Ryoma had left his room, come to the gym, done God knows what kind of training by himself, and didn't remember any of it.