A Small Box with Schubert

　At the age of 14, Daichi Oudou was walking through a shopping mall near his school with his classmates. He was in an upbeat, delighted mood because he had received a Valentine's Day chocolate from his love interest, Chisato Waga. However, it was a souvenir from her trip to Austria, and not just for Daichi. Still, he couldn't stop rubbing his left thumb and middle finger with each other.
　As he was walking, he was looking at an individually wrapped tiny chocolate. On the surface was a picture of Schubert with an elegant expression on his face. Daichi wanted to laugh and break his nose. And then stuck cheap chocolate bought from the convenience store in Mozart's nostrils.
"Who is this handsome guy, seriously?"
　While his friends mocked the chocolate's package with derisive laughter, Daichi was proud of the fact that he was the only one among them who recognized the man in the portrait as Schubert.
　Suddenly, a magma-like laugh erupts from his duodenum, and he ran through the shopping mall, laughing out loud. The streets were crowded with shoppers, and he dexterously weaved his way through the crowd to reach the restroom. In front of the mirror, he took a look at the chocolate package again, opening the package and throwing the chocolate into his mouth in one gulp. Sweet, delicious. He wanted to enjoy it as it melts on his tongue, but he couldn't resist biting into it furiously. He loves this moment, tasting this gentle sweetness like a fierce beast devouring raw meat. Hopefully, it would have been even better if Chisato had been beside him.
　With the lingering taste of chocolate in his mouth, he felt the urge to urinate in the groin. Daichi stood in front of the toilet bowl and exposed his penis, but the urine doesn't drain easily. A man stood beside him. The other day, his father, a movie buff, had shown Daichi an old movie, whose protagonist had been an unpleasantly stubborn architect. He had looked like this man. The suit he wears was heroic, but it couldn't hide the vulgarity that lied deep within his body. The kiss the protagonist had given to the heroine was creepy. Daichi wondered why this old man did not use the distant toilet bowl, and urine was excreted from Daichi's penis. The man started squeezing his penis hard, his breathing heard from behind the echo of urination. Even after all the urine was out, Daichi could not move, whose eyes were drawn towards the man. His penis was extremely erect. It was huge. Bigger than Daichi's penis, bigger than his father's penis. The reddish-black skin was covered with purple veins which Daichi kept looking at obsessively.
　Daichi, 36, finished his business, walking back to the station nearest to his home. The crowd returning home wore masks without exception, and the eyes peeking out of their mask were stagnant, also without exception. Weaving through the crowd, Daichi descended the stairs, going to the men's toilet. He was waiting for a while. A young man wearing glasses, probably a junior high school student, entered the restroom, following him. Standing next to him as he discharges his urine, Daichi exposed his penis, and then he started squeezing it desperately. The blood rapidly converged on his penis while the flesh swelled. From time to time, he looked at the boy, who has already finished urinating, nevertheless refusing to leave the toilet bowl. This was always the case when Daichi stood next to the boys. But one time, the boy walked away from the toilet quickly. Daichi witnessed that he didn't even wash his hands, at this Coronavirus disaster. No one came, so Daichi squeezed his penis for a while, then ejaculated. He went to a private room and cleaned his sperm-covered penis with toilet paper.
　When he got home, he found his son Hashira playing the game named "Final Sword" on the TV in the living room. He became interested in this game after watching his beloved Youtuber play it while laughing and saying "This is the best, shittiest game ever!". Daichi sat beside him for a while, watching the game screen. The graphics were indeed abominable. But Hashira was smiling innocently, seeming to be enjoying the game. Not bad, Daichi thought.
　After eating dinner, Daichi and Hashira ate ice cream on the sofa. Each of them sticks a spoon into the huge box, devouring a big mouthful of vanilla ice cream. They were watching the recorded "Jujutsu Kaisen". At first, Daichi watched it with Daichi, thinking it would be a good way to get to know Hashira, but it was Daichi who became deeply involved in this anime, and now he was the one who bought its manga book on the day its newest one was released.
"I wish I could draw this kind of shonen manga." Said Yabashira out of the blue after watching a new episode of "Jujutsu Kaisen."
"You can't draw very well, can you?"
"But I think I could be a writer, even if couldn't be an illustrator."
"Don't molest like that pervert writer in 'Act-age'." (アクタージュ, a manga series published on Shukan Shonen Jump with "Jujutsu Kaisen". But it was canceled because its writer, Matsuki, was arrested for indecent assault)
"No way."
"Do you have any ideas?"
"I have a few."
"You wrote them on a notebook?"
"No, I haven't."
　Daichi went to the bedroom, bringing a notebook and a mechanical pencil.
"So why don't we write down some ideas now?"
"What? It's too sudden."
"It's always a good day when you get an idea."
　Hashira hesitated at first, but then, while fiddling with the pimple on his right cheek, he started talking about his idea.
"It's a war between vampires and humans in Tokyo, in Shinjuku or Shibuya. But the main character is a vampire. Suddenly the humans start to think that the vampires are a hindrance to them and annihilate them. The main character is a 'daburu' of human and vampire, and he is also targeted by the humans, but he is saved by the vampire resistance, thrown into the intense battle."
"It's interesting that the human is the enemy."
"Because when you look at people like Trump, it seems like the humans are the bad guys."
"So, he's a 'haafu' of human and vampire......."
"No, it's 'daburu'. The word "haafu" is not good. My friend Bogdan is a 'daburu' of Japanese and Romanian, and he hates "haafu" because it sounds incomplete as a human."
"I see, sorry. I'm glad to know that. You always tell me these important things. Thank you, Hashira."
　While expressing his gratitude, Daichi took notes on this as well.
"I've got an idea"
"Yes."
"The evil one will call the hero 'haafu' or half-blood like it's blasphemous. And the good one will call him 'daburu', like a proud name.
"Yeah, that's not a bad idea."
"Then again, using 'haafu' and 'daburu' as they are are ordinary. So how about making it Romanian? Ask Bogdan and his family about how you can these words into the Romanian language."
"Yeah, that sounds good."
"It's a common tradition in the shonen manga to use a foreign language. Even in 'BLEACH' its author used German and Spanish language."
　Suddenly, Hashira started to laugh out loud.
"Hey, 'BLEACH' is too old-fashioned as an analogy." ('BLEACH' is a manga series published on Shuukan Shonen Jump too, but from 2001 to 2016)
　Daichi went to his bedroom, starting to work. Right now, he was translating a novel by an Austrian novelist named Verena Mermer, named "Autobus Ultima Speranza." The story took place on a long-distance night bus from Austria to Romania and depicts the lives of the Romanian immigrants who board the bus. It is a valuable work in that it gave readers a glimpse into the lives of Romanian immigrants in Austria, which people have hardly known. The reason why he was translating more smoothly than usual was that he had found out that one of his son's friends is a young boy who is a double of Japanese and Romanian. Daichi thought it might be a good idea to meet him and his family for enriching this translation more truthfully.
　In the middle of translating the part where one of the drivers, a man named Florin, reminisced about the first time he crossed the border, an email comes in. It was from Janis Xaver of the Austrian Film Commission. Together with him, Daichi was planning a screening of Austrian filmmaker Mansur Madavi's works in Japan. He had been exchanging emails with Verena Mermer for the translation who had recommended this director's work to Daichi. Mermer had also studied in Azerbaijan and used that experience to write her first novel, "Die stimme über der dächern." During her research, she had learned of this Austrian filmmaker of Azerbaijani descent, Mansur Madavi. Daich had been shocked when I first saw his debut feature film, "Magic Glass," which was truly a masterpiece, while he thought that there was no film that so vividly depicted the emptiness of living in capitalism. He felt as if he had been given the destiny to introduce this filmmaker to Japan, and from the latter half of February, he was scheduled to work on subtitles for Madhavi's films in parallel.
　It was around midnight. While he was taking a break to look up Austrian films on the tablet, he realized that today was February 14th. He went to the living room and checked the refrigerator and shelves, but there was no chocolate there. Feeling inadequate, he decided to go to the convenience store.
　He felt a strange warmth in the darkness of the night which had already a sense of spring. A soft breeze gently caressed his neck. Daichi scratched his crotch with his right hand for a while, then wiped his dry lips hard. The street lights are like a circle of angels. A figure appeared from the depths of this blessed space. It was an old woman with a dog. Daichi wondered why she was walking the dog now, but in fact, the old woman was walking the dog solemnly. Suddenly, the dog tried to run. The old woman pulls hard on the leash, and the dog's body jerks backward, convulsing.
　The inside of Lawson (ローソン, one of the most famous convenience stores in Japan) was glowing a nauseating white. It looked like a hospital room where patients with syphilis were kept in an old Hollywood film which enlights audiences about STDs. Without looking aside, he went to the booth of sweets. Naturally, there were many different kinds of chocolate, but he couldn't help but notice the ochre-colored package. It was chocolate named 'Ghana Roasted Milk'. It was the chocolate that Chisato liked the most. He put a 100 yen coin and two 10 yen coins on the tray, receiving the receipt and one yen in change. He was surprised when the clerk, an elderly woman, handed him a coin directly on his skin. Daichi put that coin into the donation box.
　He slid his mask down to his chin, opening its silver paper while savoring the night breeze. It had been a long time since he had eaten chocolate. Even the act of tearing the silver paper felt fresh. The white surface of the exposed chocolate was as beautiful as the white of Maurice Turner's monochrome films. As soon as he put it in his mouth, a tremendously dense sweetness spread, and he couldn't help but smile. Yes, Chisato had a lifelong love of sweetness to an intense degree. He ate the chocolate while thinking about Chisato. Every bit of sweetness that seeped into his body cells was a memory of her. However, he was surprised that he could not finish the chocolate, perhaps because of his age. It was as if his entire body had been assimilated into the sweetness itself, and he could only take in the chocolate little by little. In the end, he couldn't eat all of it by the time he got home.
　Holding the chocolate in his left hand, Daichi went to Hashira's bedroom. He hadn't washed his hands or rinsed his mouth. Daichi could see the orange light shining through the door, illuminating his son's face. Daichi slowly stroked the line of his face, the bridge of his nose. The roundness of his cheekbones resembled Daichi's, but the suppleness of his nose seemed more like Chisato's. The warmth of his skin brought moisture back into Daichi's bone-dry skin. Daichi could not restrain himself from touching Hashira's face with his right hand, eating the chocolate. Sweet, it's too sweet. The white chocolate crumbles in his fist. Its pieces fell on the bed.
　He hugged his own trembling body, going to his room. He took out from a drawer a small, small box with a picture of Schubert on it. Daichi held it to his chest, closing his eyelids so tightly that he thought his eyes would shatter.
　At the age of 14, Daichi Oudou was walking through a shopping mall near Daichi Oudou's school with Daichi Oudou's classmates, and definitely, Daichi Oudou is...