I'm Always Drowning in Booze and Cigarettes, Yet People Keep Trying to Save Me (Crossover)

As someone who already had a personality disorder and was hopelessly addicted to smoking and drinking, Zhe Shugongzhi died like a puddle of mud. To say he was a lot like Oba Yozo, the character in the real-world author Osamu Dazai's work, would be an understatement. Before he died, he was plagued by illness and had dabbled in just about everything.

Even a complete wreck like him hadn't quite died, so, terribly unlucky, he was dumped by the System into another world to work for it and had to get close to that world's protagonist to siphon away some of their luck.

So the man who already considered himself a wreck chose to keep slacking off.

And ended up unlocking a string of successful CGs.

[CG: Drinking Buddy

The man is a doctor, but he grew up in a family where cigarettes and alcohol were the only comforts, so, like everyone else in his family, he picked up the habit and could never kick it. His utterly decadent air contrasted with his devastatingly handsome face, making him seem like a flower growing in a muddy swamp, forced to wallow there until it finally rotted.

He can't teach you anything, can't teach you anything. He's just a wreck, that's all.

Those hands ruined by cigarettes and alcohol might only be good for wrapping bandages.

And yet this wreck was the reason Osamu Dazai found a reason to keep living, even after the man had died.]

[CG: Life Mentor

A girl's fondness for cigarettes and alcohol is nothing compared to a man's. One merely likes them, while the other is obsessed.

But though the man is a teacher, he is a dispirited Japanese man; and though the girl is a student, she is a rising star of tomorrow.

The girl is too innocent, though, and doesn't know to leave herself a way out.

So the man warns the girl named Ieiri Shoko: "Always leave yourself a way out, whether it's money or something else. Don't put your faith completely in your own talent. It could save your life at a critical moment."

He was right. Once her technique began charging a fee, huge sums of money started changing hands, and countless people saw a business opportunity. Her value was beyond what ordinary sorcerers could match, whether in healing or in money, and that gave her a much stronger voice.

As for the man, he died in some corner, a dispirited wreck. Was it the cigarettes and alcohol, or a woman? Nobody knows.]

[CG: Carefree and Unrestrained

The man everyone thought was on the villains' side might have only wanted to die in some corner.

The moment the young detective first saw him, he knew the man was keeping a secret. Like his decadent air, that secret had taken deep root in his body, seemingly intent on sucking out everything inside him before blooming into a flower.

"...Try to stay alive. I'm begging you..." In the end, the young detective, whose real name was Kudo Shinichi, learned to compromise, hoping to keep the man who was his friend in life. Most of the man's makeup might not have belonged to the light, but that didn't matter.

"Please, don't waste your time on a wreck like me. Maybe I just want to lie around in the mud." The man laughed loudly, then started coughing. The hand he held over his mouth gradually turned red with blood. "Little detective, stay away from me. Tuberculosis is contagious."

[CG: No One to Turn To

Perhaps people of each era have their own way of living. A boy sways along with a cigarette in his mouth, watching a naked man in nothing but underwear race past him with flames blazing over his head. He shakes his head, conflicted, and plans to sneak off to the storeroom for a drink. But on his way back to class with the bottle, a boy named Hibari Kyoya confronts him and knocks him to the ground with his tonfa.

"No drinking on campus. I'll bite you to death!"

So the boy who was knocked down chooses to lie on the ground and not move.

"...Get up, herbivore." The head of the disciplinary committee is scowling.

"Without cigarettes and alcohol, I've lost the will to live. Do whatever you want." The boy gives up completely, sprawled motionless on the ground, waiting to be beaten, weak, pitiful, and helpless.

In the end, the head of the disciplinary committee angrily drags him to the rooftop, where he calmly smokes and drinks. But the boy is too frail to be bitten to death.

"Sigh, maybe you could learn to, " The boy is cut off as a pair of narrowed eyes lock onto him. He calmly raises his hands in surrender. "Okay, okay. Put down what you have in your hand and let's talk. Or I can shut up, too."

Who could have guessed that someone like him would take a fatal blow for someone else?

Facing the furious, grief-stricken head of the disciplinary committee, the boy smiles freely and easily.

"Don't be sad, little Hibari." His lips, usually wrapped around a cigarette, are bleeding, but he still tries to curve them into a smile. "Maybe this is exactly what I wanted."]

Perhaps the man's death meant nothing to the world, but in their hearts, he was an eternal spark. Like the cigarette he lit at his lips, it shone with a tiny light even in the mud, enough to keep the road ahead from disappearing completely.

"So please, come back to us," they pleaded. "It doesn't matter if you don't quit smoking and drinking, and it doesn't matter if you don't change your personality. Just stay healthy and live to a hundred."

Their powerful wish made the man bolt upright from his deathbed dream. When he got up, he discovered that the worlds had all merged, and everyone in the world was looking for him.

After thinking it over, the man turned around, went into a shop, bought a pack of cigarettes and a bottle of liquor, and picked up a pipe as well. Then he strolled past them and walked away.

The crowd had gathered there, driven by their longing, expecting a dramatic confrontation: ...As expected of you.

You still have the time to buy cigarettes and alcohol at a moment like this!

Shouldn't you be wondering how you came back to life?

Theme: Maybe a wreck isn't really a wreck after all.