Chapter 42: An Actor's Self-Cultivation

Karasawa did not resist, letting Tooru Amuro's hand rest on the top of his head.

"I'm sorry, they said, I'm sorry." Karasawa buried his face deeper into his hands, "...liars."

That did not sound like very specific information. As he patted Karasawa's hair, Tooru Amuro analyzed the situation calmly. It was possible that there were some predetermined signal codes, secret accounts, or scheduled emails between Karasawa and his parents.

The frequency of contact could not be high, otherwise Karasawa would not be reacting only now, several months later. The messages should be relatively short and not physical objects, because Karasawa originally had no intention of going out; his departure was a last-minute decision prompted by someone else's invitation.

Calls, emails, text messages, social media platforms... Karasawa's parents had long been controlled by the Organization, and the specific locations of the research facilities where they worked were difficult to track down. If the communications were handled by them, it would certainly not escape the Organization's surveillance, and the operator must have a channel to learn about their personal safety status...

Based on all this, Karasawa's parents had a secret contact within the Organization.

Tooru Amuro's grayish-purple eyes shifted, reflecting a sharp glint.

"...They aren't coming back." Karasawa's voice was muffled within the circle of his palms, heavy and suffocating. "I knew it. I should have known all along."

"Last time you told me your parents have always worked abroad. Is it a very dangerous profession? Why do you think something happened to them?" Whether Karasawa knew about his parents' research project, and if so, how much he knew, was extremely vital. Tooru Amuro bent down, trying to scrutinize Karasawa's expression.

Karasawa's eyes, covered by his palms, were tightly shut, his eyelashes trembling under the heavy pressure of his eyelids, as if he were fighting back tears. "They are both scholars, but their work... dangerous, very dangerous."

He knew. At the very least, he knew the fact that Karasawa's parents were being coerced.

No, perhaps it went even further. Unlike Sherry, Karasawa's parents were not researchers cultivated by the Organization. It was precisely because their research project itself had attracted the Organization's attention that they unconsciously stumbled into the spider's web, slowly getting stuck, wrapped in spider silk, and finally trapped to death within it.

Before being controlled by the Organization, Akira Karasawa had lived by their side for ten years. Just as the Organization judged, he must hold something far more critical in his hands.

Tooru Amuro knew that at this moment, he should continue to lead him on. He should use a gentle tone to offer a few hypocritical words of comfort, such as "Don't think too much about it," "Don't give up hope without definitive news," or "Don't be too nervous," and then—by denying the death of his parents—provoke this teenager, whose pressure was gradually accumulating, into a complete breakdown or full outburst, thereby extracting more information from his out-of-control emotions.

However, looking at the fingertips Karasawa was pressing hard against his face, he hesitated for a moment, sighed, and said, "Karasawa, I've said it before. If you have any difficulties, you can tell me."

He could indeed use more ruthless tactics to extract the information he wanted, but to fully exploit a teenager's grief and detonate the pain he had been hiding away so bitterly was a bit too despicable.

After all, the Karasawa of today was just a child who had misfortune enough to lose his family.

He was not facing the outlaws of the Organization; using such methods on Karasawa was utterly disgraceful.

Karasawa raised his head from his hands, looking at him with a trace of surprise in his tear-filled eyes.

...Was his opponent's moral bottom line too flexible, or were the red-faded faction members of this world truly possessed of a formidable conscience?

Based on Karasawa's experience, when facing a completely vulnerable target in emotional turmoil, one should establish a more oppressive authority—seemingly kind yet unquestionable—and stabilize the dominant position through listening and validation, and then suppress and deny some of the opponent's viewpoints to establish an even more unequal dialogue relationship.

Under this top-down gaze, the target would be easily controlled, and the most credible intelligence could be obtained.

Karasawa had even been preparing for the climax of his emotional outburst, but Tooru Amuro suddenly relaxed his dominance over the conversation, nearly causing Karasawa to break character and miss his emotional cue.

...Don't change the script on your own whim!

However, Karasawa's train of thought shifted extremely quickly. He pressed his lips tightly together, looked at Tooru Amuro with an expression that seemed to realize something, and asked in return, "Any difficulties?"

Tooru Amuro was taken aback by his gaze, but continued to comfort him: "Don't worry about speaking of your hardships and causing trouble for others. Even if others can't help you, speaking it out is always better than keeping it suppressed inside."

Too kind, Agent Bourbons. Doesn't this expose your role in this matter?

So Karasawa looked at his own hands, which were trembling slightly, through eyes dampened by tears.

"I'm terrified, Mr. Amuro. My worst nightmare has come true." He clasped his hands together, as if trying to pin down his incessantly shaking fingers, and finally blurted out the words that had been stuck in his throat, "They said they would come back, and the next time we met, I would be a big kid. But they also said... if they couldn't come back... I had to run away quickly, as far away as possible."

"Mr. Amuro..." Karasawa's gaze was filled with sorrow, making his light blue eyes look dull and gray. "But I no longer have a chance to run away, do I?"

Karasawa truly was a very clever child.

His rhetorical question was filled with deep despair, and it also made Tooru Amuro realize that his hesitation just now had indeed caused him to miss the opportunity.

By not crushing Karasawa's emotions with a dismissive attitude, he had revealed that his own stance regarding Karasawa's predicament was full of sympathy.

Karasawa had acutely caught onto this sympathy and thus discovered a part of the truth—namely, that "Tooru Amuro is aware of the death of Karasawa's parents."

Deducing further, his role was indeed that of Karasawa's protector, just as a prison guard also has the obligation to ensure the safety of a prisoner.

Karasawa's fear was not only the fear of hearing the news of his parents' death, but also fear of him.

"Yes." Tooru Amuro did not try to reverse this image, standing straight up once more. "I'm sorry."

Further conversation should not be conducted inside the shop; it was too crowded and noisy, so Tooru Amuro had to temporarily halt it.

He watched as Karasawa once again lowered his head powerlessly, exposing his unshielded neck once more, like a death row inmate waiting for the guillotine to fall.

"What's wrong, you two?" Their conversation had been very quiet, so Azusa Enomoto hadn't heard the content. She only saw Karasawa's mood deteriorating rapidly, almost slumped over the tabletop, and walked over to ask with some concern.

"It's nothing, Miss Enomoto." Tooru Amuro skillfully put on his service smile. "Karasawa is just not in a very good mood and feels a bit unwell."

He patted Karasawa's shoulder, looked helplessly as Karasawa flinched at his touch, and could only point upstairs. "Relax, it's fine, Karasawa. Go upstairs and rest for a bit first, and we'll have a good talk after closing time."

"Okay." With his head hanging down and offering no resistance, Karasawa stood up and slowly walked toward the loft.

Tooru Amuro looked at his drooping shoulders and back with a twinge of worry. Although he hadn't used coercive tactics to destroy Karasawa's defenses, the fact that he was a surveillance agent had dealt a blow to Karasawa, draining his spirit as if it had been sucked dry.

Tooru Amuro felt quite wronged. He had approached Karasawa under the identity of Bourbon, but he had never truly treated Karasawa with the mindset he usually reserved for targets.

Yet even if he stated flatly that he meant no harm, Karasawa would probably find it hard to believe now. He hoped Karasawa would be able to figure this out after calming down.

Dragging his feet as he walked upstairs, Karasawa raised his head, his face showing no trace of depression or pain whatsoever.

"Playing the Shiho Miyano act turned out surprisingly convincing," Karasawa muttered to himself, rubbing his face.

Just now, in order to increase the emotional tension, he had pinched his own cheeks for quite a while, and it actually hurt a bit.

Following the behavioral logic of self-abandonment typically used by Shiho Miyano, by displaying a tendency to give up struggling and quietly await his doom, the extremely kind fake alcoholic had unsurprisingly decided to lay his cards slightly on the table, lest the victim scare himself to death despite the fact that nothing had even been done yet.

And to prepare for tonight's conversation—

Karasawa reached out and pulled a laptop from his commuting bag.

He had bought this brand-new on the way back. Discovering how fatal his parents' academic capabilities were, Karasawa had no choice but to hurriedly understand what exactly it was they had been researching.

He turned his gaze to his commuting bag, feeling around for that tiny memory card.