Chapter 1 : Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Kiyohara Jun walked down the path leading to the Boss’s office. News that he was about to be

“Executive Kiyohara.” One of Kiyohara Jun’s subordinates happened to pass by. When he saw Kiyohara Jun, he came over with a smile and offered his congratulations. “Congratulations on your promotion, sir.”

Kiyohara Jun corrected him without expression. “It is Executive Candidate Kiyohara, not Executive Kiyohara.”

The smile on the subordinate’s face instantly stiffened. He was so embarrassed that he did not know what to do. He had long heard rumors about Executive Candidate Kiyohara’s personality, but he had not expected those rumors to be so completely accurate.

Executive Candidate Kiyohara was the type whose personality was far too serious, and who was utterly incapable of socializing.

Kiyohara Jun himself did not care about his subordinate’s expression. Or rather, he had not noticed that his subordinate was embarrassed at all. He nodded to the man, then continued toward the Boss’s office.

This was not the first time Kiyohara Jun had corrected someone like this along the way. By the time he arrived, he had left behind an entire trail of awkward Port Mafia members who had only wanted to flatter him.

After being frisked, Kiyohara Jun finally stood before the doors to the Boss’s office. He raised his hand and knocked, then waited quietly for a while before the guard inside opened the doors for him.

“Boss.” Facing the heavy smell of medicine inside the Boss’s office, Kiyohara Jun walked to the Port Mafia Boss’s bedside without changing expression and bowed.

“Jun, cough, cough, cough…” The Boss had only just opened his mouth when he broke into a violent coughing fit. Mori Ougai, who had been standing to the side and pretending to be invisible, hurried over to help ease his breathing. As for Kiyohara Jun, even when his own Boss was coughing as if he were about to stop breathing, he still maintained that expressionless look.

After Mori helped the Boss catch his breath, the Boss looked at Kiyohara Jun with some satisfaction, pleased that he had not shown any other expression. Panting, he said, “Jun, I knew you were the most loyal. When Colonel and the others see me like this, they all act as if I am about to die.”

“I can still, cough, cough, cough, still rule the Port Mafia for a long time!”

Faced with the Boss’s praise for his unchanged expression, Kiyohara Jun slightly parted his lips. He wanted to say that he had simply been born with an expressionless face, and that the last time this had happened, the Boss had clearly scolded him for not caring about his health.

However, before he came here, his adjutant, Kogu Takuto, had worn a mournful expression as if Kiyohara Jun were leaving on a journey from which he would never return, and had reminded him, “When the Boss praises you, all you need to do is say ‘Mm.’” Remembering that, Kiyohara Jun obediently closed his mouth and only said, “Mm.”

Thanks to the conscientious Kogu Takuto, who had done his duty and stopped his superior in advance, the Port Mafia Boss was not angered to death by his own subordinate, and Kiyohara Jun did not have to bear the crime of having angered the Boss to death.

The satisfied Boss formally appointed Kiyohara Jun as a Port Mafia executive candidate, also known as a so-called executive candidate, and then rambled on with the sort of lengthy speech every leader seemed required to give.

At times like this, ordinary people would let their minds wander and deal with it by murmuring “Mm, mm, mm.” Kiyohara Jun, however, not only listened to every point, but also responded seriously.

Although, under Kogu Takuto’s instructions, his serious responses were also nothing more than “Mm, mm, mm.”

Although everything the Boss said was nonsense, Takuto had said that at times like this, he must not point it out. He only needed to obediently say “Mm.” Kiyohara Jun, who had originally wanted to advise the constantly coughing Boss that “rather than talking, you should drink more hot water,” thought this to himself.

Mori Ougai, who was standing beside the Boss’s bed, looked at Kiyohara Jun as though he seemed to be letting his mind wander. A faint gleam flickered in Mori’s eyes.

Just then, as Kiyohara Jun listened carefully to the Boss’s rambling, a dense swarm of words suddenly appeared before his eyes.

What is this?

Kiyohara Jun stared at those densely packed words and became utterly bewildered. However, his face, which always looked deeply world-weary no matter what, and his eyes, which were dim and lifeless no matter the time, forced him to reveal not even the slightest emotional fluctuation.

Even Mori Ougai merely felt that Kiyohara Jun’s expression seemed to have become even more world-weary.

When Mori Ougai noticed the change in Kiyohara Jun’s expression, a few guesses formed in his mind. The faint thought that had just arisen in him deepened ever so slightly.

【Where the dream begins.】

【Jun-kun, Mommy loves you!】

【Second rewatch.】

【Nth rewatch.】

After this wave of words that Kiyohara Jun did not understand, including one person who seemed to be claiming to be his mother, passed by, the words sliding through his vision finally became a little sparser.

Kiyohara Jun blinked. He began to suspect that he had heard too much of the Boss’s nonsense and had grown so bored that he was hallucinating.

【Opening shocker.】

【? What shocker? This is just an ordinary day between the Boss and his subordinate.】

【Pay attention to his expression. Jun’s expression is darker than before. At this moment, he is actually harboring killing intent toward the Boss.】

【There are so many new viewers. Actually, this series is better suited for a second watch or multiple watches, because on your first watch, you cannot understand what Kiyohara Jun is trying to do at all.】

【Kiyohara Jun: If you keep talking nonsense, I will kill you.】

Kiyohara Jun looked at the meaning of those words in front of him, and a question mark slowly formed in his mind.

He, Kiyohara Jun, wanted to kill the Boss?

?

Kiyohara Jun thought that he had only felt that talking so much was not very good for a patient who coughed all the time. How had that become wanting to kill the Boss?

These words were far too absurd.

Besides, had his expression become darker just now? Kiyohara Jun, who had already begun to suspect that this was an enemy scheme, suddenly let his thoughts wander. All kinds of doctors had been helpless when faced with his expressionless face, claiming that if his face could ever recover, it would be a medical miracle.

Could it be that a medical miracle had just happened?

No, no. What he should focus on now was whether the Boss and the others could see these words. Kiyohara Jun came back to his senses and swept his gaze over the expressions of everyone within his sight.

Mm. He could not tell anything. Kiyohara Jun, who could not understand other people’s expressions at all, came to this conclusion.

However, they probably could not see them. Kiyohara Jun thought that if they could see them, the Boss, whose nerves had lately been more sensitive than a teenager’s, would already have ordered someone to drag him out and kill him.

“All right. You may withdraw.” After finally speaking to his heart’s content, the Boss drank a sip of the water Mori Ougai brought to his lips, then raised a trembling hand and waved Kiyohara Jun away.

Kiyohara Jun bowed to the Boss again. Then, with words still sliding continuously across his vision, he turned and prepared to leave the Boss’s office.

Before Kiyohara Jun left the Boss’s office, he noticed Mori Ougai, who had been trying to fade into the background all this time, smile at him.

Why is he smiling? Am I funny? The bewildered Kiyohara Jun blinked.

Mori Ougai watched as Kiyohara Jun blinked at him expressionlessly, and his gaze shifted slightly. Believing that he had received Kiyohara Jun’s response, Mori Ougai withdrew the smile from his face without a trace and returned to that harmless appearance from before, as though nothing had happened.

【Kiyohara Jun and Mori Ougai’s first contact!】

【That smile and blink were a conversation between the two of them.】

【As expected of two members of the Scriptwriter Group. If you do not look carefully, you really will not notice it.】

【? Can any bullet comment explain this to me? Why do I not understand it at all?】

【Another newcomer on their first watch. Actually, that smile just now was Mori Ougai testing Kiyohara Jun’s personality and his degree of respect for the Boss. Kiyohara Jun saw through the test and responded to him.】

【No, wait. Am I watching a mystery deduction series? Why do I have to pay attention to details like a smile and a blink?】

A test? What test?

Reading what the words supposedly called “bullet comments” said, Kiyohara Jun nearly missed the door when he pushed it open.

That was Doctor Mori’s test? A test of his personality and his respect for the Boss? Kiyohara Jun, who had not noticed any of that at all, was extremely confused. Doctor Mori had only smiled because he thought Kiyohara Jun’s behavior was funny. Where was the test? Besides, Doctor Mori was just an ordinary doctor. He was not the sort of person these comments claimed he was.

And he had only blinked because he was confused. It was not a response like those bullet comments said.

This had to be a scheme by an enemy organization. They wanted to turn Doctor Mori’s actions into something conspiratorial in order to make the Port Mafia fall into internal strife. Kiyohara Jun thought this with firm conviction. He definitely would not be misled by these bullet comments!

At this moment, Kiyohara Jun did not realize at all that it was precisely because he had listened to the bullet comments that he was now calling them bullet comments.

With bullet comments filling his vision and obstructing his sight, Kiyohara Jun relied on his powerful perception and returned smoothly to the office he had moved into not long ago.

When he returned to the office, the person Kiyohara Jun faced was his adjutant, Kogu Takuto, who visibly heaved a deep sigh of relief even through the rolling bullet comments.

“Thank goodness. I was worried you would never come back.” Kogu Takuto looked as if he possessed not the slightest subordinate’s respect for his superior. He reached out and patted Kiyohara Jun’s shoulder. “Before you came back, I kept feeling as though someone would push the door open at any second and tell me that you had angered the Boss by saying something you should not have said, and that the Boss had killed you.”

“The Boss cannot kill me.” Kiyohara Jun blinked and answered seriously.

“You blockhead…” Kogu Takuto pressed a hand to his forehead. He truly had nothing to say to Kiyohara Jun.

【He really is a blockhead.】

【The person above, hahahahahahahaha.】

【Hahahahahahahahaha.】

【Kogu Takuto: The blockhead was actually me.】

【The blockhead has appeared!】

【I cannot stop laughing. The adjutant who always believes that no matter what Jun does, Jun did not mean it that way and is just an innocent blockhead has appeared!】

【Jun: I am in the Scriptwriter Group. Adjutant: No, you are not.】

Kiyohara Jun had originally wanted to refute his adjutant, but these bullet comments made him stop. He thought that these bullet comments still had something worthwhile about them.

Known: He, Kiyohara Jun, was not a blockhead, and Takuto said he was a blockhead.

Therefore: Takuto was a blockhead.

Kiyohara Jun nodded in satisfaction, while Kogu Takuto, seeing that Kiyohara Jun had actually nodded and admitted that he was a blockhead, was rendered speechless.

The kid really seemed to have gone stupid. Could anything still be done for him?