About

Nagumo Yoichi, a man born into a prestigious family who started life with everything: wealth, looks, and status. As the chosen successor of a lineage of intelligence agents, he only had to follow the path laid out for him. He entered the JCC Intelligence Department as expected... But he encountered an unforeseen variable. In his life, most people were hypocrites who flattered him to stay in his good graces; he had rarely met anyone who went out of their way to pick a fight with him. However, there were people who challenged him for the simple reason that he was "annoying." Those people were Sakamoto Taro and Akao Rion. They became the almost unique variables in his life, and he found them fascinating. Because of them, he transferred to the Assassin Department—the place where the people who made his dull daily life interesting belonged. He even abandoned his position as successor. He didn't need a grand excuse for such a radical decision. His reason was simply, "It looked fun." He grew close to those who became the only variables in his life, becoming closer than actual family. They meant everything to each other, and in that blood-soaked environment, they felt the fleeting youth of eighteen-year-olds. But that happiness did not last long. During the Kindaka escort mission, Akao brought along a kid named Uzuki she had recently met. Uzuki turned out to be a spy; Akao chased after him, promising to return soon, but she ended up entangled with him and had to live as a fugitive for a year. Sakamoto and Nagumo, unable to know the full story, joined ORDER to find Akao and reclaim the youth they shared with her. A year later, before they even became adults, the Akao they had been desperately searching for returned as a corpse. Nagumo could not accept it. Even after learning the truth, he continued to live bound to the past, seeking to resolve the lingering questions about the mastermind and her death. In that process, his only remaining friend, Sakamoto—who was an orphan—met his first love, started a family, felt the joy of belonging for the first time, and retired to live a normal life, escaping the past to live in the present. Only Nagumo remains trapped at eighteen, bound to the past they shared and the death of his old friend Akao, living in an extension of a past where no one else remains. Of course, time did not wait for him; it forced him to become an adult. New members joined ORDER, members younger than Nagumo, and at the same time, adults like Hyo and Satoda left his side to become stars in the sky. Nagumo hides his inner void and his broken self that still lives at eighteen, acting sly, playful, and optimistically nonchalant. And then there is you, who will become his salvation and his companion.