Part 9
The champion and Tendou began performing a dance known as the wai khru, all while Kagami was still having trouble processing the situation.
“Why the hell is Tendou participating in a Muy Thai match all the way out here?!”
But then he realized something. He had staked his entire earnings on the champion.
Kagami tried to tell Nai that he wanted to switch his bets to Tendou.
But the bell rang, and the enthusiastic voices of the audience muffled out Kagami’s voice.
The champion released a powerful low kick against Tendou.
Two hits, three hits.
The cheering voices of the audience increased in volume.
Tendou countered with a low as well.
A dry smacking sound rang out.
It was then that something sparked inside Kagami.
“Fuck it, I don’t care about the money anymore! Get him, Tendou!!!”
Kagami found himself screaming those words.
He felt like Tendou glanced at him for a second.
“He’s planning on ending it with the next one.”
Kagami’s instinct told him that.
And it was right on the mark.
Tendou instantly knocked out the champion with a high kick.
“Yes! Now that’s the man who walks the path of Heaven and rules over everything!”
But thanks to that, Kagami was once again rendered penniless.
Nai was completely shocked as well. Kagami muttered to him.
“Yeah, your name really is unlucky.”
Kagami swam through the crowds of people and ran to the athlete rooms.
But Tendou was nowhere to be seen.
Kagami panicked and ran outside the stadium.
But Tendou was nowhere to be seen there either.
The only notable thing was all the empty food stands, and Kagami found himself at a loss.
Just then, he felt like he could smell the delicious and nostalgic scent of Japanese ginger pork coming from one of the food stands. Enticed by that scent, Kagami approached the food stand.
“You’re late. You’re a million years too early to be making someone like me wait!”
“T-Tendou?! You’re…”
Tendou, who had noticed Kagami’s presence in the stadium, was cooking up a meal for him while waiting for him to arrive.
“Go on, eat up before it gets cold!”
For the time being, Kagami decided to wolf down the ginger pork.
The all-too-delicious flavor brought tears to his eyes, but he quickly wiped them away so that Tendou wouldn’t notice.
“Anyway, why are you doing Muy Thai, and participating in the title match at that?”
“Shouldn’t it be obvious? No matter what path I take, I’m fated to stand at the top.”
After returning from Paris, Tendou visited Bangkok to study Thai cooking and ended up joining the gym as well. His natural talent led him to soon become the strongest in the gym, resulting in the president putting him into the title match.
“I was an idiot for even asking.”
Just like always, Kagami found himself taken aback by Tendou. And then he explained everything that had happened thus far.
“So now I’m planning on going to the Ganges to look for Hiyori.”
Kagami spoke to Tendou with a serious look on his face.
Tendou then handed Kagami a letter.
It was a letter addressed to Yumiko.
He had received it from Yumiko when he visited her in Paris, where she was undergoing culinary training.
Contained in the letter was Hiyori’s familiar handwriting.
“I’m sorry for disappearing all of a sudden. You’ve taken care of me so well, but I ended up leaving without saying a proper goodbye. I’m really grateful for you letting a good-for-nothing like me work as a chef. I’m going on a journey right now. Now, you might think, “that helpless girl is going on a journey?”, but there’s no need to worry. I might get a little lonely every once in a while, but I’ll be fine. I’ll get by somehow. Thank you so much. And goodbye. I’ll never forget the kindness you and everyone else showed me.”
Kagami could picture Hiyori’s stubborn face.
At the same time, he thought about what kind of sky Hiyori was looking up at right now.
“You should just go back to Japan already.”
Tendou suddenly spoke those words.
It was true that Kagami’s journey only began so that he could help Hiyori who had gotten sick in Bangkok.
But if she was all better now and was just traveling, then there wasn’t any need for him to look for her.
“But I’m worried about what she said about wanting to be reborn… Like what if she ends up killing herself or something…?”
“As long as one draws breath, death is always close by. It’s up to Hiyori how she wants to live her life from here on out. That’s probably the purpose behind her journey.”
“It might be okay for you since you’re strong, but Hiyori… or rather, everyone else other than you, isn’t that strong. Someone has to be there to protect her!”
“Kagami, are you sure you aren’t just worried because you’ve lost sight of your own purpose of living?”
“What?!”
“I’m saying that you’re the one running away from facing yourself by using your search for Hiyori as an excuse.”
“Me? Running away?!”
“Hiyori set out on a journey to find out how she should live her life. But the one who really needed to go on a journey to figure that out was you, Kagami!”
“……!”
Tendou was right.
Kagami had nothing to say back.
Part 10
Kagami continued to work at Nai’s food stand after that.
After having Tendou point out the truth, he had lost his goal, and was now just mindlessly working so that he could put off the matter of what he should do from now on.
After that night when he reunited with Tendou at the Muy Thai stadium, he disappeared, as if enforcing what he said about how Kagami should return to Japan.
“Tendou told me to return to Japan, but he’s probably somewhere out there looking for Hiyori right now.”
Kagami sometimes drank together with some Thai friends he got acquainted with via Nai, and they would often goof off by the riverside until morning.
But rainy days were depressing.
After he closed the food stand and lazed about at his cheap hotel, he began to long for Japan.
The rain in Bangkok was like a waterfall, and its thrumming sounds led the dozing Kagami to have a certain dream.
“I’m home.”
“Welcome home.”
It was a cold rainy winter day, and Hiyori, who was cleaning up the restaurant, spoke those words to Kagami who was working part-time at Bistro La Salle at the time.
She didn’t say any more than that, turning away with that usual sulky look on her face, but for some reason, Kagami remembered that moment quite clearly.
He was happy.
The delicious scent of the food cooking in the kitchen, the warm atmosphere of the restaurant, and the fact that Hiyori was simply there with him…
When Kagami woke up, he thought to himself.
“I wonder why I said ‘I’m home’ back then. It’s not like it was my house or anything… And why did Hiyori say welcome home?”
And then he suddenly realized.
Both Kagami and Hiyori lived alone. Hiyori didn’t have any parents, and Kagami had cut all ties with his father as well. To both Kagami and Hiyori, that restaurant was the only place that truly felt like home to them.
Kagami wanted to say “I’m home”, and maybe Hiyori just wanted to say “Welcome home” to somebody.
“You know what, I really am going to look for Hiyori!”
That’s what Kagami thought to himself.
“It’s up to Hiyori how she lives her life. But it’s also up to me how I live my life. Wait, no, screw the logic. I just want to do what I want to do. That’s all there is to it.”
That night, Kagami took all the money he had been saving up and put it all into a Muy Thai bet.
There was a contestant that Nai was absolutely sure was going to win.
So Kagami purposely went out of his way to bet everything on that contestant’s opponent.
And he won.
In the end, it might’ve been thanks to Nai that he won.
His winnings were more than enough to afford a ticket to Varanasi in India.
On the day Kagami was about to leave Bangkok, Nai drove him to the airport in the very same beat-up car that he deceived him in.
As he gazed at the streets of Bangkok that could be seen from the congested highway amidst the dirty rain, he couldn’t help but feel like he’d miss them.
When they arrived at the airport, Nai said that he had a present for Kagami, and handed him the backpack that he had stolen from him.
Inside the backpack was the Gattack belt.
When Nai heard that Kagami was leaving town, he reached out to the stolen goods network, and with some help from his friends, he managed to buy back Kagami’s belongings.
“Mai pen rai!”
Nai said his goodbye with those words.
Kagami, all alone in that dazzling clean airport, felt embarrassed of himself over the fact that looking for Hiyori was the only purpose he had managed to find after all this time.
“But that’s just who I am. That’s Arata Kagami.”
Kagami mumbled those words to himself and got on the plane heading for India.
And now, Kagami was right in the middle of the hustle and bustle of India’s Varanasi.
Things got especially rough after arriving in India, but by utilizing his experience in Bangkok, he somehow managed to reach the streets of Varanasi without getting his money stolen.
And then he headed for the Ganges, the place where Hiyori most likely was.
After slowly making his way through the ridiculously thick crowds of people, ignoring the Indians who demanded money after performing guiding services without asking, and occasionally yelling at them, Kagami finally reached the Ganges River.
It was a mysterious sight.
There were old ladies doing laundry, children and cows taking baths, beggars and temple helpers and backpackers wandering about, various stores lined up, and corpses being burned.
It was a bit different from the impression given by the novel “Deep River”.
As strange as it was, it was the everyday norm for this place.
For a second, Kagami thought to himself.
“Maybe this isn’t the ends of the earth Hiyori was looking for.”
And just then, a girl called out to him.
Upon turning around, standing there was none other than Misaki.
Kamen Rider Novel Translations 