TBITW Chapter 8

Chapter 8 – Rendezvous Spot

Main Story 1, Chapter 3, Part 1

Novel Title: 獣はかくして交わる (The Beasts Intertwine This Way)

Author：沙野 風結子 (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 knoxt.space, the original site of translation. TQ*

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Leaving the Tokyo Metropolitan Police headquarters, Kagura Jinya takes the Hibiya Line from Kasumigaseki and doesn’t get off at Kamiyacho, where his apartment is, but instead rides four more stops to Nakameguro. From there, he walks about seven minutes to an apartment building, takes the elevator, and gets off at the seventh floor, the top floor.

Using a spare key, he unlocks the door to the southeast corner apartment.

It’s 9:20 p.m. The room is dark, indicating that Zero hasn’t arrived yet.

When he switches on the light, the warm glow of the orange-tinted bulbs illuminates the cream-coloured walls. It’s a 1LDK layout, with a 13-tatami living-dining area and another 6-tatami room.

The apartment building is older, but the unit has been renovated, offering a view of the Meguro River from the balcony.

Zero had designated this place as their rendezvous spot.

However, it doesn’t seem to be a room where he lives regularly; there are almost no personal belongings. There’s a sofa set and just enough furniture and essentials to stay the night, but the space lacks any sense of daily life.

One month ago, Zero and Kagura entered a relationship of ‘give and take’.

Since then, they’ve met here twice. Tonight is the third time.

Zero still only introduces himself as ‘Zero’. Kagura has gathered information on freelance writers with a reputation for being in the underworld, but he hasn’t been able to confirm anyone that he’s confident is Zero.

He even tried tracking down Zero’s identity through the apartment’s ownership records, but the property is registered under Sugiyama Yuko, a 30-year-old housewife living in Nagoya, who leased it to another housewife in Kanagawa. After a series of subleases, it eventually made its way to Zero.

Kagura glances around the room.

It wouldn’t be surprising if there were listening devices or hidden cameras planted here. In fact, he assumes they’re there and interacts with Zero on that basis.

Any information he passes to Zero is harmless enough that it wouldn’t affect the investigation if it leaked.

Yet, surprisingly, Zero has shared a considerable amount of valuable information.

Of course, Zero is undoubtedly selective about what he shares, but the information he provides is still deeper than anything the police have obtained.

Kagura takes off his coat and jacket, draping them over the back of the sofa, then heads to the bathroom and splashes cold water on his face.

With his face still wet, he loosens his tie.

“An intellectual yakuza, huh,” he recalls Sanae’s words with a slight smile.

He has narrow, single-lidded eyes, a sharply defined mouth, and a slender, chiselled nose―――a severe expression that might indeed be closer to that of a yakuza than a police officer.

He hears the sound of the front door unlocking. Zero must have arrived.

Kagura dries his face by wiping it with his hands instead of using a towel, then goes to the living room and sits on the sofa.

Zero walks in.

“Hey,” Zero greets, to which Kagura responds, “Yeah.”

As Zero sits beside him, the chill from his leather jacket fills the air.

“Were you on a bike?”

Zero raises his eyes slightly, surprised that Kagura could tell. Without a word, Zero reaches out to Kagura’s face and uses his thumb to catch a drop of water sliding down his chin.

As Zero draws that drop away, it’s Kagura’s turn to narrow his eyes.

“So, what do you want to know?” Zero settles into the black leather sofa, his breath visible in the cold air.

The room has a heater, but it’s off, and the temperature is below ten degrees Celsius.

In just a dress shirt over a tank top and slacks, Kagura can feel the chill setting into his skin, but it feels appropriate for dealing with a man like this.

“It’s about Machida Shogo.”

There’s little doubt that the freelance writer’s murder involved the Eastern Alliance and a foreign crime syndicate, but they still haven’t identified the perpetrator.

“It seems Machida was investigating human trafficking, and he must have struck a nerve, which led to his murder,” Zero says flatly.

“Underage victims, specifically.”

Kagura turned his body toward Zero, meeting the man’s eyes.

“Are they smuggling minors into the country and forcing them into prostitution?”

“Their sources for underage kids aren’t just smuggled minors,” Zero replied.

“…So, there are also kids who’ve run away or been abducted domestically?”

Zero shrugged his broad shoulders and continued.

“The order to kill Machida came from the Eastern Alliance, but the foreign gang handling the smuggling likely did the dirty work. Recently, these kinds of brutal jobs are often assigned to foreigners.”

“Which country? Which organisation?”

When Kagura pressed, Zero answered without hesitation.

“The Vietnamese mafia. Specifically, ‘Rong Lan’ from Vietnam.”

The ‘R’ sound was close to a murky tone not commonly found in Japanese.

“Rong Lan… ‘the Brood of the Serpent,’ right?”

“That’s right. It’s named after the serpent in the New Testament who seduced Eve, which is thought to represent Satan. ‘The Brood of the Serpent’ symbolises Satan’s descendants.”

“I’ve never heard of them.”

“Yeah, it’s a new, youth-centred group.”

“Calling themselves Satan’s descendants does sound like a young crowd.”

This information was extremely valuable. As Kagura let a slight smile play across his lips, considering how to use it in the coming days, he felt Zero’s firm fingers tracing behind his ear.

“Where do you want to do it tonight―――here or there?”

‘Here’ was the sofa, ‘there’ was the bed in the bedroom.

The first time he came to this apartment, Zero had given him oral on the sofa. The second time was in the bedroom, where they had tried frottage. Kagura, entirely unaccustomed to intimacy with another man, was out of his depth and unable to take control.

This arrangement wasn’t exactly a trade for information.

In fact, during their previous meeting, it was Kagura who had given Zero information, making them equal in that sense.

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*Translator’s Note: They have not gone all the way yet. Haha. By the way, I don’t have even the basic knowledge of Vietnamese, so I just translated it to Rong Lan. It could be Rong Ran or Long Ran or Long Lan. Either those… because ‘l’ is nonexistent in Japanese. If anyone can help me give the right words to this, I would appreciate it. The meaning of this ‘Rong Lan’ is supposed to be the serpent’s brood or maybe the serpent might be dragon or snake. And brood could be offspring or descendant. I just use the serpent’s brood for now, but I welcome corrections from those who actually speak Vietnamese. Thanks. -K

*GLOSSARY: 

• In Japan, a 1LDK apartment refers to a layout with one separate room, a living room (L), a dining area (D), and a kitchen (K). The ‘1’ indicates the number of individual rooms that can be used as bedrooms or other spaces, while LDK describes the combined living, dining, and kitchen area. This classification is a common way to describe apartment sizes in Japan, and the numbers can vary, like 2LDK (two rooms) or 3LDK (three rooms), giving a clear idea of the apartment’s structure. These abbreviations make it easy to understand how many separate rooms there are and whether there’s a shared area for living, dining, and cooking.

• In Japan, rooms are traditionally measured by the number of tatami mats because tatami has long been a standard flooring material in Japanese homes. A tatami mat has a standardised size, approximately 0.9 metres by 1.8 metres (varying slightly by region), making it a practical unit of measurement for room dimensions. This method dates back to the Edo period (1603–1868), when rooms were often designed around the size and layout of tatami mats. Since tatami mats were a key part of Japanese architecture and culture, counting rooms by the number of mats became a cultural norm, which persists even today. It’s a convenient and visual way to describe the size of a room, as the number of tatami mats gives a direct sense of the space’s layout and proportions. For example, a ‘6-tatami’ room gives an immediate idea of the room’s size and function.

Next update: 2025.09.11

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