(M) Chapter 3 – Wanting to Forget
Main Story 1, Chapter 1, Part 2
Novel Title: 獣はかくして囚われる (The Beasts are Ensnared This Way)
Author：風結子 沙野 (Fuyuko Sano)
Illustrator：小山田 あみ (Oyamada Ami)
Translator: K (@kin0monogatari)
Protagonists: 鹿倉 陣也 (Kagura Jinya -MC) & ゼロ (Zero -ML)
*Please read at freenovels.net, the original site of translation. TQ*
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“Ah…”
Kagura’s body jolted awake in bed.
“Ha…”
His heart still felt as though it was being squeezed.
He checked his phone by the bedside. It was just past 1 a.m. He had gone to bed around midnight, but less than an hour had passed. Despite having showered before bed, he was drenched in cold sweat.
The recurring nightmare replayed vividly in his mind.
If he closed his eyes, it would pull him back in.
Forcing his leaden, sleep-deprived body out of bed, Kagura stumbled to the bathroom.
Too exhausted to even remove his shirt and sweatpants, he stepped into the shower fully clothed, letting water cascade over him. His waterlogged clothes grew heavier, and Kagura collapsed to the floor.
“I have to save her…”
This wasn’t just about a dream.
The girl in the rabbit mask existed. She had been drugged and indebted within the ‘Invincible Castle, ultimately condemned by Toono and sent to the 3rd basement level—where she would be kept alive only to consume drugs until her death.
Two months had passed since that day.
―――But maybe she’s still alive.
And surely, she wasn’t the only one down there.
His cousin Haruka had been similarly drugged, forced into prostitution, and killed by Toono.
Kagura was certain others like Haruka and the rabbit-masked girl were trapped beneath the ‘castle’. The desperation ate at him like a slow-acting poison, growing stronger by the day.
Unable to sit still, Kagura stripped off his wet clothes, dried himself roughly, dressed, and grabbed his folding knife and keys. Stuffing them into his military jacket pocket, he bolted out of his apartment, heading to the bike rack.
He rode his old, sluggish motorcycle through the night.
When he came to his senses, he was near Roppongi Hills.
He had unconsciously made his way toward the ‘castle’. Pulling over to the side of the road, he stopped.
“What the hell am I doing?”
Without an invitation card, he couldn’t even enter the ‘castle’.
Zero, who had a card, had a duty to protect Enwu as its leader.
Two months ago, Kagura’s attempt to save the rabbit-masked girl had led Enwu to hack the castle’’s security—a fact the ‘castle’’s management, including Li Azhar, was likely aware of.
Because of this, neither Zero nor the Enwu members had set foot in the ‘castle’ since.
Unlike the hardened Enwu members who lived by no rules, Kagura, a naïve ‘Citizen’, lacked the same ruthless decisiveness.
Kagura touched the knife in his pocket.
Zero would kill to protect Enwu.
―――But the only one I can kill is Toono…
Would there ever come a day when the gap between them could be bridged?
And if that day came, whose world would be swallowed by the other’s?
Kagura Jinya could feel something with a smooth, rounded form, not a knife, touches his fingertips. It seems he had unconsciously brought it out and put it in his pocket.
He started the bike again and left Roppongi.
The destination he was heading to was the apartment in Nakameguro where he had repeatedly met up with Zero.
He went up to the 7th floor and took the keys out of his pocket. The keychain with the smooth, rounded sasadango shape was one he would never have bought himself, but his expression softened naturally.
He entered the bedroom without turning on the lights, passing through the hallway and living room.
The bed, bathed in moonlight and tinged with blue, was still disheveled from the previous morning.
Kagura took off his jacket and then stripped off all his clothes, letting them fall to the floor.
He climbed onto the bed nude and slid under the blanket.
He could feel the rough texture of the sheets, dried with their mixed bodily fluids. The mingled scent wafted up.
“Zero…”
Only when he was with Zero did he forget everything. Just like riding an explosively accelerating motorcycle, when he melted together with Zero, nothing could catch up to them.
Pulled by that powerful force, he desperately tried to keep up. Zero filled his body and mind.
Exhausted to unconsciousness, he had no nightmares.
He pressed his nose into where Zero had been sleeping, deeply inhaling the faintly bitter scent.
The scent vividly recalled the memories of last night.
***
Kagura awakened to the faint morning atmosphere.
Even just a couple hours of unconscious sleep had cleared his head.
Zero was no longer on the bed. The sound of the shower was faintly audible.
Thinking rationally, Zero must have appeared because he was being monitored by Enwu’s people, and they reported that he had come to this apartment.
But remembering how eagerly he had been lying nude on the bed made Kagura feel awkward, and he didn’t want to face Zero this morning.
Getting off the bed, he quickly dressed in the clothes scattered on the floor. He could shower at his own apartment.
Heading straight for the front door to put on his shoes, his eyes fell on something on top of the shoe cabinet.
It was the keychain with the sasadango shape, attached to the keys.
Apparently he had unconsciously left it there last night. If Zero had seen it, he would know that the souvenir he had been given was attached to the keys of this apartment.
Biting back the embarrassment, Kagura took the keys and stuffed them into his jacket pocket.
“Hm?”
He pulled his hand out of his pocket and looked at the two keys resting in his palm.
Both had straps shaped like bamboo-leaf-wrapped dumplings attached to them.
“What… does this mean?” He muttered to himself.
Suddenly, a warmth rose near his temples.
Zero had deliberately bought matching straps and attached one to his own key.
Two grown men, doing something like this…
With a sharp motion, Jinya slammed one of the keys down onto the shoe rack. Then he left the apartment and ran down the stairs instead of taking the elevator.
Even as he sped away on his bike, the heat in his temples didn’t subside.
The ‘trip’ to Niigata had been a luxury almost beyond belief—for Jinya, who had lived for revenge against Toono Ryouji, and for Zero, who had endured a harsh life as both an unregistered child and the leader of Enwu.
Did Zero, too, reflect on those luxurious moments as he attached the strap to the apartment key?
“What are we, boyfriends or something?”
The mocking words came out hoarse as Jinya bit his lips tightly.
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*Translator’s Note: The illustration is NSFW. You can view it on my blog. -K
Next update: 2025.11.19
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