“That kid Denji, wanting to try going to school, huh…”
Matsuda sat on a chair placed in a corner of the construction site, smoking a cigarette.
After work, the cold evening air seeped into his lungs along with the smell of iron.
Exhaling smoke, he unconsciously let out a stifled laugh.
“When I first saw him, I never thought he’d be the type to say something like this…”
What rose in his mind was the day they first met, several months ago.
Denji was standing at the entrance of the construction site.
Messy hair, old clothes, plenty of calluses on his hands, but his eyes looked somewhat vacant.
He didn't even greet a person he was meeting for the first time, just nodded his head and spoke.
“Got any work?”
That tone was infuriating.
He naturally thought, “No manners, what kind of kid is this…”
“So your name is… Denji? Don’t you have a family name?”
“Family name? Dunno. Forgot all that stuff.”
“No manners, didn’t they teach you at school?”
“I’d have to have gone to school for that.”
The moment he heard that, Matsuda fell silent for a while.
He’d said it casually, but that one sentence sounded unusually heavy.
“Whatever your parents taught you…”
When he grumbled and shook his head, Denji picked his ear and answered.
“They passed away when I was little. Because of my parents' debt, I got sold to loan sharks… and was working as a Devil Hunter to pay it back.”
Matsuda almost dropped the shovel handle he was holding.
“…What? Why are you the one paying it back?”
“Dunno. They said they’d kill me if I didn’t. So I just… well, worked.”
He was too nonchalant.
Talking about a life steeped in bloodshed as if he were describing an ordinary routine.
Matsuda silently watched him for a long moment, then slowly pulled out a cigarette.
“I see… can’t be helped. I’m short on workers anyway, so let’s give it a try.”
Denji shrugged his shoulders at that.
“Okay~”
A half-hearted answer.
That attitude was so annoying he wanted to send him right back.
But somehow, that look in his eyes bothered him.
When he first saw Denji, he was just a nuisance.
Zero manners as if he’d eaten them with his rice, slow at work, cocky with every word.
Seeing him holding a shovel upside down in a corner of the site, he thought ‘I should just send this one back.’
But strangely, that kid showed up every day.
Rain or wind, the next day he’d stick his face out again.
Even while acting like he hated it, he finished the work to the end.
So at some point, even while cursing, he thought ‘Yeah, this guy’s got some grit.’
It was a day during break, sitting side by side on a concrete block, smoking.
Denji kept drinking from a cola bottle, then suddenly spoke.
“Old man, working… is really tough.”
“Of course. Where in the world is there easy work?”
“Still, earning money while working feels good.”
“Huh, now you’re starting to talk like a person.”
On a whim then, Matsuda asked.
“Don’t you ever think about trying to go to school or something?”
Denji turned his head with a bewildered expression at the sudden question.
“School?”
“Yeah. Kids your age are studying and making friends, that’s the age for it.”
“Hmmm… not sure. Honestly, I’ve never even thought about that kind of thing.”
“Why?”
“Just… maybe I was too busy surviving..”
That answer was calm, but it left the listener feeling more choked up.
“…Even so, learning is a good thing.”
Matsuda spoke while blowing out cigarette smoke.
“It’s not just about knowing things you have to learn, but while learning, you realize ‘I am also a person.’”
Denji was silent for a moment.
Then he chuckled.
“Old man, saying stuff like that is kinda cool. Reze said something similar too.”
“Reze?”
“Yeah. My girlfriend.. I guess? The only person who really treated me like a real person.”
Matsuda raised his eyebrows.
There were suspicious words mixed in like ‘Chainsaw’ and ‘devil hunting’, but he didn’t ask about that.
It was just because Denji’s expression looked like a ‘living person’ for the first time.
“So, wanting to go to school must be because of that girl after all?”
“Well, yeah.”
Denji scratched his head and laughed.
“Thought it’d be fun to go together.”
“Hehe… your reason is so simple.”
Matsuda chuckled and shook his head.
“But that’s fine. You need a reason like that to move.”
Hearing that, Denji’s eyes sparkled.
Matsuda snorted and added.
“I’ll help a bit too. Know a few guys.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“Bro, you’re the best!”
“Feels good being called bro.”
“Old man.”
“Hey!”
Denji giggled.
That laughter lingered strangely long among the sounds of iron at the construction site.
“Phew…”
Matsuda put out his cigarette and sighed.
The light was extinguished into the ashes.
“That kid Denji, he’s completely different from when I first saw him.”
He muttered as if to himself.
“Must all be thanks to that girl Reze.”
The Reze he saw was a neat girl he’d run into a few times near the cafe.
When she smiled it was warm, but there was an unfathomable shadow lying beneath.
Nevertheless, it was clear she had changed Denji.
‘Kid’s at the age to go to school now too.’
Matsuda straightened his back and stood up.
“It’s a shame to lose him from the worksite… but yeah. He should study.”
He took his phone out of his pocket.
“I knew someone among the school officials… what was the name.”
A smile spread across his lips.
“Alright, I’ll lend a hand. Kid Denji, this time really learn something. Not work, but life.”
And he slowly walked off into the darkness.
Instead of the smell of cigarettes, the evening wind seeped in.
In the place he left, a single ember quietly smoldered.
As if something that hadn’t gone out yet.
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