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“Dazai-san,” Atsushi starts out hesitantly.
The uncertainty in his voice makes Dazai turn his head back ever-so-slightly as he continues to type on his laptop. “Yes?”
“Sorry if this is rude or—well—overstepping, but, um,” Atsushi pauses, and Dazai can almost hear the nervous fidgeting from behind him. Oh, he thinks with a smile. This is going to be fun.
“But?” He prompts gently.
“You’re always going around flirting with every woman you see.” An exasperated sigh. “And asking them to commit suicide with you. But—well,” Another pause, before Atsushi’s voice goes soft. “Don’t you—don’t you have a soulmate?”
+
“Oh yes,” Mori starts, snapping his fingers. “I’d almost forgotten. There’s one final step to conclude your inauguration into the mafia.” He lets his voice crawl over his words purposefully, watching in delight as Chuuya blinks up at him in confusion and the slightest hint of discomfort.
“Yes?” Chuuya asks, clutching at his hat.
His eyes are startingly bright for a fifteen-year-old, Mori muses. Especially one that grew up in the slums, weaving constantly among filth to thwart the hands of violence and poverty. They’re boldly blue in a way that screams bravery, power, and everything in between. He wonders regretfully if they’re going to go dim with what he has to say.
Mori smiles. “It’s mafia tradition. You see, we need to—”
+
The saying goes like this: when someone joins Yokohama’s infamous Port Mafia, they relinquish three things.
First, the obvious: their life. Stepping into the hands of the mafia meant nothing less than taking a step towards your own death—this was common knowledge. Yet that was one of the beauties of the organization. That its members fought with all the life they had, risking their bodies and minds day-in and day-out.
Second: their loyalty. One lives and breathes the mafia. They bleed mafia blood. They don’t try to guess the intention’s behind the boss’ orders, they simply follow. Dogs were, at the end of the day, the most loyal animals of them all.
Third—
+
“Love?” Dazai repeats tonelessly. The woman in front of him is a shaking, quivering mess.
“Please,” she forces out, voice barely a whisper as throws her arms out over her unconscious husband. “I love him; I—I know he made a selfish mistake but that was just,” her breath heaves, and she coughs out blood. “Just a moment of weakness. Please. At least—at least spare him. Kill me, if you need to, but please spare him.”
She’s practically begging, at this point. Hands and knees on the ground. When Dazai doesn’t say anything her head snaps back up in desperation. “Surely even you, too, must have someone you—”
The bullet pierces her skull and the woman falls, tears still streaming from her eyes. Dazai shoots her husband too, and then fires off two extra rounds in the woman just for the sake of it. He watches as the blood bleeds out onto her long, black hair and seeps through the green dress she was wearing. What a shame for such a beautiful woman.
“Jesus fuck,” comes a familiar, irritating voice from behind him. “Do you have to do that every single time?”
Dazai slips the gun back in his coat, not bothering to turn around. “Do you have to be late every single time?”
“Don’t get smart just ‘cause you got promoted,” Chuuya shoots back. “There were more guards than we expected, fuckface. Took me longer than I thought.”
“Is that any way to talk to your superior, Chuuya?” Dazai drawls purposefully. He starts walking toward their destination point, a worn-down safehouse ahead, and Chuuya falls in step besides him easily.
“God,” Chuuya mutters under his breath. “I hate you.” Dazai just smirks.
They fall into relative silence after that, Chuuya opting to jump up on the railing and flaunt his ability while Dazai continues to walk. He mulls over the woman’s words in his head. Her face, covered in sweat and grime before he killed her; and her eyes, deadly serious and stubborn despite the odds clearly being out of her favor. The woman’s last words echo eerily in his mind, ringing out harshly like gunshots.
“Oi,” Chuuya calls out from above him. Dazai feels a headache coming on. “You’re being weird. What did that woman say?”
“I’m not being weird,” he sighs impatiently. “I’m just being quiet, something you clearly wouldn’t know—”
“Yeah, yeah,” Chuuya cuts in. Dazai looks up at him and is met with an unimpressed stare. “So what did she say?”
Dazai holds his gaze. “Why do you think she said anything?”
“Because you’re being weird and stupid,” Chuuya says, frowning.
“You’re weird and stupid,” Dazai mutters, pulling a face. Chuuya’s leg whips out in record speed and Dazai barely blocks the kick with his arm in time, wincing. For a moment, the fire burns behind the blue of Chuuya’s eyes and Dazai thinks he’s going to retort with another meaningless insult, before a sharp pain shoots up the arm blocking Chuuya’s foot and his teeth grit together.
The fire dies within seconds. “Shit,” Chuuya spits out, grabbing his arm roughly. “You’re bleeding, idiot. You didn’t mention they hit you.” His hands press into the shallow stab wound on Dazai’s forearm and he winces again, sucking in a harsh breath.
“So gentle,” he forces out between his teeth. Chuuya glares at him and loosens his hold on Dazai’s arm, but doesn’t let go as he peers at it in suspicion. In a flourish, Chuuya pulls off his gloves off and brings out a green handkerchief, working to knot it firmly around Dazai’s arm. It’s not much, but the handkerchief is such a stark contrast against the whites of his bandages, so distinctly Chuuya, that Dazai almost laughs.
When Chuuya finishes, he pulls away with a small look of satisfaction and Dazai feels the loss of his touch like yet another stab wound. It’s been like this more often recently—an odd, burning desire to reach out and touch. To feel, to breathe in. To linger in the warmth of Chuuya’s fire. He watches as Chuuya quickly wipes down his hands and starts pulling on his gloves again.
The faint scar on Chuuya’s bare pinky finger catches his eye.
“Idiot,” Chuuya repeats, more forcefully. “You’re lucky it wasn’t poisoned.” He huffs and the two of them start walking again, the other opting to stay on the ground beside Dazai.
“Chuuya,” he starts seriously.
“What.” Comes the flat response.
Surely even you, too, must have someone you—
“This handkerchief is ugly.”
+
Dazai bursts out laughing. He can’t help it—he continues for a few seconds in front of Atsushi’s alarmed expression, clutching his stomach as he bends over in his desk chair.
“Dazai-san,” Atsushi hisses, looking somewhere between horrified and bewildered. “What—why are you laughing?”
“Sorry, sorry,” he sighs, wiping a tear from his eyes. He smiles a little at Atsushi, eyes lingering on the boy’s confused expression. The wide-eyed innocence, the earnest hopefulness, the genuine curiosity. His shoulders shake in an effort to suppress his laughter and he hears Atsushi give out a small, exasperated noise.
“Daz—”
“Atsushi-kun,” Dazai interjects, cutting him off with a smile. “Do you know how the Port Mafia inaugurates its new members?”
+
“—destroy your soulmate string.”
“Oh,” is all Chuuya says. Mori raises a brow.
“I’m sure you understand the dangers of having a soulmate in an organization such as ours, Chuuya-kun.” He pauses, waiting for a reaction. Interesting. “The chances of a mafia member’s soulmate being used as leverage against them are simply too high. Furthermore, we’ve had some unpleasant experiences with members going rogue in attempts to search for their soulmates, and thus—”
“Mori-san,” Chuuya cuts in suddenly. He has the gall look to ashamed, but there’s something else in there. Discomfort, embarrassment even. “Sorry to interrupt. I—I get all of that, yeah, it’s just.” He pauses, pulling a hand out of his pocket and flexing his pinky finger. “My string already got burned off a long time ago. It just lit up on fire one day in the middle of the night.”
Oh. Mori grins, the inklings of a thought nudging at the back of his mind. He leans in to cast a quick look at the small scar on Chuuya’s finger. “Fascinating. It’s rare to see someone without a string. If you don’t mind me asking, how old were you when this occurred?”
Chuuya blinks at him in surprise, before his brows furrow in thought. “Uh…it was a few years ago. When I was eleven, I think.”
“I see,” Mori says solemnly. The gears turn in his mind; he has much to discuss with Kouyou later. “Out of curiosity—I’m a doctor by practice, you see—did it hurt? At all?”
Chuuya’s gaze settles on him, ice cold and blazing bright. “Boss,” he says, and Mori smiles a little at the title. “It hurt like a bitch.”
+
Dazai looks at Kouyou, and then at Chuuya, and then back at Kouyou again. And then at the pair of scissors in Chuuya’s hand.
“No,” he says. “No, no no no no. I—”
“Dazai,” Kouyou cuts in, and the threat behind her cheerful smile is enough to still the words in Dazai’s mouth. “Chuuya is quite a good hairdresser. I think you’ll be pleased with his skills.”
“Nuh-uh,” Dazai huffs out, glaring at Chuuya. “There’s no way I’m letting you near me with scissors.”
Chuuya glares right back at him. “I’d stab you with them if I could.”
“Chuuya,” Kouyou warns, and he shuts up immediately. Dazai snickers at that, but falls silent when Kouyou shoots him another look. “You will tidy up the bird’s nest on Dazai’s head in the bathroom down the hall. No funny business. And you two are to be in Mori’s office in two hours. Understood?” She doesn’t wait for a response, simply gracing both of them with another menacing and exasperated stare, before she turns on her heel and disappears.
“Shut up,” Chuuya sighs, before he even says anything. “Just suck it up and let me cut your hair.” They start heading towards the bathroom, Dazai dragging his feet as he grumbles.
“You’re gonna mess it up,” he declares. They enter the en suite bathroom together and Chuuya just wrestles Dazai into place on a spare stool and narrows his eyes at him.
“I’m not,” he hisses, face twisted with annoyance and something else Dazai can’t quite put a name to. “Who the hell do you think cut my hair in Suribachi for eight years? You think they have barbers in the fucking slums?”
Dazai, for once, bites down on his tongue and doesn’t say anything.
Chuuya just looks at him smugly. “S’what I fucking thought,” he mutters. “I used to cut everyone else’s hair too. As much as I want to, I’m not gonna mess up your hair, alright?” He pauses, snickering. “It’s already pretty ugly anyways.”
He dodges the punch Dazai throws with ease, grinning.
“Fine, whatever,” Dazai huffs out finally. He lets his back slump on the stool and curses Kouyou to the moon and back.
Dazai has never seen Chuuya so focused on anything before, and the sight alone is enough to shock him into silence as Chuuya snips away quietly at his hair. It’s almost unsettling—the quiet between them. Chuuya bites his lip in concentration as he tugs at the hair curling down the nape of Dazai’s neck. Dazai just watches him quietly in the mirror.
“Stop staring,” Chuuya says, when he catches Dazai’s eye in the mirror. “You’re creeping me out.”
His lips are red from biting. “I’m just trying to make sure you don’t mess up,” he shoots back. Chuuya sighs, exasperated.
“Shut up,” he mumbles under his breath. “I’m gonna cut the front now.” Dazai reaches a hand up to brush at the back of his neck, pleasantly surprised by the feeling of soft, freshly trimmed hair. Chuuya repositions himself in front of Dazai, standing between his legs, and begins working on his bangs.
Whatever comment he’s planning to make about Chuuya’s ugly face withers impressively when he stares up at the other. Chuuya’s features are relaxed as he trims Dazai’s hair, lips slightly parted and eyes—for once—unguarded. A warm, foreign feeling creeps its way into Dazai’s gut, settling down firmly and refusing to budge.
“Chuuya,” he whispers, pushing down the feeling with a swallow. “How does it feel to be tall for once?”
Knuckles press into the top of his skull and he winces. “How does it feel to be world’s most annoying person?” Chuuya snaps, before removing his hand and going back to Dazai’s hair.
Weird, Dazai thinks, keeping his eyes on Chuuya. The urge to reach out burns stronger than it ever has before, and he fights to keep both of his hands still in his lap. Chuuya squints at him, comparing the length of two locks of hair, before finally sighing and letting go.
“Okay,” he says, clicking his tongue. He hovers for a few seconds in front of Dazai, eyes flitting around his head in a final cursory glance, before nodding in satisfaction. “I’m—”
Chuuya yelps when Dazai tugs him down, and promptly shuts up when he slots their mouths together. Ah, Dazai thinks wisely in the back of his mind. A few stray pieces click into place in his head but he just hums, warm and wet against the other's lips.
But of course, Chuuya shoves him away violently. “What the fuck?” He splutters, and Dazai grins widely at the pink crawling up his neck. “Why did you—what—you can’t just do that, you piece of shit.” He glares down at Dazai, still standing between his legs, and Dazai resists the urge to tug him down again.
“Chuuya kissed me back,” he says innocently. The pink creeps up higher on Chuuya’s face and a foreign, pleasant feeling swirls around in his chest at the shine of Chuuya's mouth.
“Shut up,” the other hisses, waving the pair of scissors menacingly in Dazai’s face. Dazai’s eyes hook on the faint burn scar on his pinky. “I’m going to fucking stab you.”
Dazai smiles. “To death?” He asks hopefully.
“I hate you,” Chuuya forces out, turning around and storming angrily towards the exit of the bathroom. “I hate you so fucking much.”
“Chuuya,” he sings, just as the other boy leaves. “Your face is red.”
A frustrated groan echoes down the hallway. “Fuck off, so is yours!”
+
“Interesting,” is only the only greeting Oda issues when he enters the bar and takes a look at him.
Dazai feels his brows raise. “Not even a hello, Odasaku?” He whines. Oda just gives a small smile and looks at him steadily.
“I never thought I’d get the chance to see you pining,” Oda replies, still looking at him. Dazai blinks, and his mind goes startingly, frustratingly blank for several moments. He pushes the ice cube around in his drink, takes a few moments to absorb the low jazz in the room, and then looks up at Oda again.
“I am not pining,” Dazai says carefully, voice dragging slow over each word. Oda smiles into his drink.
“Alright,” he concedes easily, like he hasn’t just rattled Dazai’s very existence. “You’re not.”
The conversation stops at that, and they drink in silence for a few moments. Dazai blinks once, then twice down at his drink. Wordlessly, he leans over into Oda’s space and rests his head on the firm shoulder. He doesn’t say anything; he doesn’t need to. The feeling of Oda’s warmth against his side is familiar, comforting—Dazai wouldn’t trade it for the world.
But it’s not Chuuya.
Dazai sits up abruptly. “Odasaku,” he starts sternly, looking intently at the older man. “You’re lying to me about your ability and you are secretly able to read minds.”
Unfortunately, Oda just laughs. “Dazai,” he says, still chuckling. “I’m not a mind-reader. I just happen to know you well enough to know what you’re thinking about.” A slight pause. “Well, sometimes, at least.”
“Terrifying,” Dazai pouts. “Please never do it ever again.” Oda smiles.
“Want to talk about it?” He asks, raising a brow.
No. A beat of silence. “We don’t have the luxury,” he says finally, voice distant as he picks at the mark on his pinky. Oda’s eyes follow the movement and they rest quietly on Dazai’s finger.
“Maybe,” Oda says, shrugging his shoulders. His eyes stay focused on a point in front of him. “But sometimes certain people make you hope, and make you try. And it’s awful, because it’ll eat away at you, especially in our line of work. Especially in yours. The need to have them by your side, the fear of them getting hurt, the way all your weak spots are exposed. It’s terrifying: to want to keep them and push them away at the same time.” He pauses, eyes sliding back to Dazai’s. “Even more so if it’s your first love.”
Every fiber of Dazai’s being is on fire. He feels it, deep in his bones like he never has before. It hurts—like his skin is being scorched off to leave him raw and naked. He takes another sip of his drink, but even the ice in the whiskey doesn’t stop the burn.
A long moment passes. “Did you think of someone?” Oda asks quietly.
Unyielding blue eyes and a harsh, scathing voice. Annoying, in every single way possible. Brash, rude, hard-headed. Too kind for his own good. Frustratingly gentle, open honesty like he’s never seen before. “You tell me,” he says lightly back in response. His mouth has gone dry. “Did I?”
Oda looks at him for a while, eyes searching and thoughtful as they scan his face. “I wouldn’t know,” he huffs out after a moment, smiling slightly as he goes in for another sip. “I’m not a mind-reader.”
+
“That’s awful,” is all Atsushi says, jaw slack and eyes lowered. “They don’t even cut it, they burn it? Why not just cut it?”
“Because,” Dazai shrugs. “Burning it hurts, of course. For both parties. It’s both a threat and a warning: that we can’t afford the luxury to love.” He flexes his hand for a moment.
“Dazai-san,” Atsushi says heavily, and when Dazai looks at him he’s greeted with the expected pity-eyes, wide and shaken and swimming in sympathy. It almost hurts. Almost. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to bring up bad memories. I had no idea they did that to you.”
He hums. “Oh, don’t worry.” Atushi blinks. “They didn’t do anything.” He pauses, for dramatic effect, before smiling brightly at Atsushi again. “I did it myself.”
+
“Really,” Mori sighs, wrapping a bandage around the boy’s arm. “You’ve exhausted almost every possible option even I can think of.”
“There are always new ways to die,” Dazai says absentmindedly. “I just have to keep looking.”
Mori sighs again, glancing at Dazai on the clinic bed. He looks so small like this, knees hugged to his chest as he sits against the wall. Really—he’s no more than a child at fourteen years old, but the endless depth of his eyes says otherwise. He looks at everything with a cold, detached expression; Mori doesn’t think he’s ever seen Dazai smile.
“If you keep going like this,” he warns. “You might do something you regret.”
Silence. The slightest shift in the boy’s foot, and—“Oh? Don’t tell me you already have?”
“No,” Dazai says forcefully.
Mori just smiles. “What did you do?”
Dazai stares up at him emotionlessly, face impassive and eyes unreadable. “I set my string on fire.”
Mori hums. “And how old were you at the time?” There’s a longer silence between the question and the response this time. Mori just raises a brow, waiting.
“Eleven,” Dazai finally says, almost reluctantly.
“Interesting,” Mori replies, eyes thoughtful. “As a careless child you thought you would die if you severed the connection, I suppose. Instead, you inflicted unnecessary suffering on both yourself and your soulmate, your string is now permanently damaged and untraceable, neither of you have any viable methods to find one another, and your soulmate may certainly despise you for what you’ve done.” He pauses, purposefully looking up in thought, before he drags his eyes down to the child. “Isn’t that right?”
Mori can feel the bloodlust radiating off of Dazai from a mile away. Like perfume, the murderous intent spills carelessly through the air and infects the small space of the clinic with its sickly-sweet edges, clinging tightly to whatever it can grasp. Dazai likely won’t be talking anytime soon.
“But,” Mori continues, still smiling. “You don’t care about all that.”
Slowly, he pulls his right hand from his pocket and idly examines the scar on his pinky. Mori leans in towards Dazai, finger within his sight. Dazai doesn’t move—simply stares at him with those same, empty eyes, but the bloodlust has not eased one bit. If anything, it’s quadrupled.
“Look,” He says, grasping forcefully at Dazai’s hand and placing their fingers side by side. The burn scars are a dull, convoluted blend of fleshy whites and pink. “You bleed mafia blood.”
+
“—the fuck. Wake up. Hey—wake the fuck—”
Dazai jolts awake to the sight of Chuuya looming over his bed, face pinched up in odd angles. His features are hard to make out in the dark of their hotel room and Dazai blinks blurrily as he squints up at Chuuya in confusion. He groans.
“Why did you wake me up,” he moans, pressing his face back into the pillow. “I know you’re stupid but I thought you could at least tell time—”
“Shut up,” Chuuya snaps, but it doesn’t bite like it usually does. Dazai blinks. “You were having bad dream and you woke me up, okay, don’t act like this is my fault.”
“What dream,” Dazai says, looking up at Chuuya. His eyes are so much more transparent in the quiet hours of the morning, and Dazai easily reads worry, fear, frustration, seeping into his expression.
“I don’t know,” Chuuya replies, frowning as his brows draw together. “It was your dream, dumbass. I just woke up because you were—like—shaking. And making noise.” He leans in closer to peer at Dazai’s face. “And it was annoying,” he says, like Dazai can’t easily see the concern jumping out of his eyes.
Dazai swallows. “I don’t remember,” he says quietly, because he really can’t. But he can still feel the lingering traces of fear shooting down his body. His palms are sweaty when he clutches at the sheets beneath him, and oddly enough, his heart stutters unevenly in his chest.
Chuuya gives him a strange look, and Dazai almost thinks he’s going to call him a liar, or a scaredy-cat, but Chuuya just sighs and brings out a flash of white. Cold presses against the side of his face, and he blinks a few times in succession when he realizes Chuuya is patting his face with a cool towel.
“Don’t even start,” Chuuya threatens, when his mouth opens around the edge of an insult.
“I can do it myself,” he settles on finally, voice low. Dazai doesn’t think anyone has ever seen him like this, tired and shaken in the middle of the night and he feels unbearably stupid, but Chuuya doesn’t bat an eye. Doesn’t even make fun of him. Just goes on carefully wiping at the sweat on his skin.
“No you can’t,” Chuuya says patiently. And his words are short and clipped, but they’re soft in a weird, Chuuya kind of way. “Your hands are shaking, idiot.”
They are. Dazai hadn’t even noticed. Chuuya finishes and pulls back, eyes still pinned on him.
“I would like to go back to sleep now,” Dazai huffs, ignoring the thudding in his chest.
“Wouldn’t we all,” Chuuya shoots back.
But he doesn’t move. Barely even blinks. And Dazai doesn’t move either, just stays sitting up on his bed and staring at Chuuya. The room is still frustratingly dark, and Dazai can only make out the bare bones of Chuuya’s expression from where he’s sitting. On the other side, towards the window, Chuuya’s empty bed stares back at him.
After a moment, Chuuya asks quietly, “Are your hands sweaty too?”
Dazai grins. “Does Chuuya want to hold my hand?”
“Who?” Chuuya retorts with irritation, grabbing his hand roughly. “You’re the one who wants to hold my fucking hand,” he seethes, and Dazai bites back a laugh at the feeling of Chuuya aggressively wiping down his hands with far more force than necessary.
In the dim light of the window, the mark on Chuuya’s right-hand pinky catches his attention for a moment. And when Chuuya moves to pull away again, Dazai doesn’t let him. He folds his fingers gently into Chuuya’s, feeling the warmth seep into his skin. A cozy, comfortable silence washes over the room and it settles solidly on Dazai’s shoulders. He finds he doesn’t mind the weight.
“You’re a softie,” Dazai says into the quiet, grinning.
Chuuya’s grip around his hand tightens exponentially, and Dazai lets out a strangled noise. “Don’t think I won’t beat your ass,” Chuuya threatens viciously, hand squeezing his so hard it’s going numb. “Because I fucking will.”
But he doesn’t let go.
+
Dazai stalks exactly two people in the one year he’s spent in hiding so far after leaving the mafia.
The first—Akutagawa. Rather uneventful and slightly disappointing. He’s more violent than ever, lashing out unnecessarily and causing even more problems. Stronger, sure, but Dazai grimaces as he watches another man get pierced through the chest. Still far from where he needs to be. It’s almost fun, in a way, to spy on people like this. He knows his life is on the line but, well, perhaps that’s the fun of it.
The second—Hirotsu. For no real reason other than entertainment. He has a soft spot for that old man and his hilarious inability to utilize technology. Dazai watches from a good distance away as Gin and Tachihara glare at each other over what appears to be a disagreement in attack strategy. Hirotsu just sighs—
And promptly knocks both of them flat on their backs. Dazai bites back a small huff of amusement as Hirotsu drags them both up on their feet again. Tachihara and Gin have the decency to look just slightly ashamed, head lowered in apology.
“Hey,” Comes a sharp, amused laugh, and Dazai stills. “What’s going on over here?”
The three of them turn quickly towards the left, bowing slightly. “Chuuya-san,” Hirotsu says in acknowledgement. “Apologies, we were simply—”
Ah. Dazai turns and is already creeping away silently. His time is up. The familiar lilt of Chuuya’s voice settles uncomfortably heavy around his neck. Not too tight or too loose, but like a noose waiting eagerly for him to kick out the chair and take his breath away.
+
“Oh,” Atsushi sighs, exasperated, and Dazai can almost see him physically deflate. “So you were just looking for another way to die.”
Dazai stays silent and counts down slowly in his head. Three, two, one—
“Oh!” Atsushi perks up again. “Isn’t it still possible to find your soulmate, though? I mean, barely anyone has ever had their string burnt by the other side. So if we could find someone that does remember that, and we can confirm that they remember it happening when—um—whatever year you were eleven, then—”
+
“Have you retrieved the documents?”
Dazai nods imperceptibly, folder tucked in his coat as he ducks into a corner. He doesn’t say anything—knows that Ango can probably see his response somehow, through a camera or whatever other elaborate government technology he has up his sleeve.
The wound is still unbearably fresh. Odasaku’s death presses down relentlessly on his chest, the man’s last words and dark eyes infiltrating all of his senses and leaving him unable to think of anything else. It eats away at his body like poison, gnawing and tearing at his heart.
“Good,” comes Ango’s tinny voice through the earpiece. “Defecting should be much easier now that you have those—you can use the information in the files as leverage or blackmail if you so choose. But, like I said before, remember—”
“I’m aware,” he snaps despite himself. It comes out excessively harsh and cracked around the edges, and Ango goes silent. A long pause follows.
"You are not the only one mourning his death, Dazai-kun," Ango says quietly, as if he’s forcing his voice to stay calm.
Dazai bites back a scathing response and opts instead to let a tense silence settle over them. Ango doesn’t say anything else, and Dazai quickly peeks at his surroundings before darting closer to the elevator. He checks one of the clocks in the hallway idly. Approximately four minutes before he needs to get to ground level and meet up with Ango to cash in the biggest favor of his life. A minute early or a minute late could change everything.
“Move,” comes the sudden, harsh command into his ear. “The elevator is going up. Someone’s coming.”
Dazai slides into an empty office room immediately, heart jumping out of his skin as he hides himself behind a tall cabinet. He waits tensely as the elevator opens with a ding and he hears two sets of footsteps make their way down the hallway. Ango hisses a sharp inhale at the same time Dazai registers the familiar walking patterns.
“A new mission already?” Comes Kouyou’s sharp voice. “That boy is likely still in grief over the death of his friend. What on earth is so urgent that it can’t wait?”
Mori hums. “The mafia does not stop for one death. He should understand, of all people.”
Their footsteps grow louder and Dazai has never known fear quite like this before—hoping, praying that they pass by the room. The desperation in his gut is foreign, thrashing around wildly.
“Maybe we should send Chuuya instead,” Kouyou interjects. And Dazai’s heart does a strange flip.
“Oh, I was already planning on sending them together, of course.” Mori pauses. “The volatility of this group most definitely requires the work of their partnership.” It’s silent for a moment, their steps growing louder and louder. Dazai’s hands are sweating, shaking, when the pair finally makes their way past the room without a cursory glance. He feels his muscles relax, ever-so-slightly.
“Do you suppose they’ll ever find out?” Kouyou asks. His body tenses again.
“That they’re soulmates?” Mori chuckles. “I have no doubt they will eventually. I’m just curious as to who will be the first to know.” Their footsteps fade down the hallway as the conversation grows inaudible, and before long silence settles over the room once again.
His blood feels like ice.
The thrum of his own heartbeat in his ears is thunderous as Dazai’s mind jumps to harsh glares, kicks, a foot on his chest. Chuuya throughout the years: at fifteen, and at sixteen, and seventeen, eighteen. All that power packed into a tiny body, ready to explode at any time. Eyes brighter than he’s ever seen, hands softer than he can remember. Lips, nose, cheeks. Chuuya’s cheeky, knowing smile as he closes his eyes and leans in—
“—kun? Dazai-kun?”
“Yes.” he replies, swallowing. “Clear.”
A huff. “You didn’t reply for quite a while.” Ango pauses, a touch of hesitance in his tone, and Dazai already knows what he’s going to ask. “Are you sure you want to go through with this?”
“I’m sure,” he answers back immediately. His chest aches as he wipes his sweaty palms on his pants and stares down at his hands.
The scar looks back at him, mocking.
“Sorry,” he murmurs quietly into the earpiece. “I’m simply mourning a death.”
+
“Stop moving,” he hisses despite the bitter, metallic taste of panic on his tongue. His hands are shaking, ever-so-slightly, as he grips the bloodied skin of Chuuya’s arm.
“Fuck,” Chuuya pants, and Dazai sews another stitch into the wound. He traces the curve of Chuuya’s neck with his eyes, pale and sweaty as the other tilts his head upwards to stare unyieldingly at the bathroom ceiling. “Talk about—something. I don’t know, just—shit—distract me.”
The panic settles in more deeply into his bones now, growing roots and refusing to let go. And Dazai’s mind is a frantic haze as he watches Chuuya continue to bleed out. He presses the cloth tighter over blood and observes as Chuuya’s fist clenches, then unclenches. The scar catches his eye, and then, “do you believe in soulmates?” He asks, hand still shaking on Chuuya’s arm.
Chuuya snorts weakly at the ceiling, but keeps his gaze upwards. “Really? Of everything you could talk about?”
Dazai has half a mind to press deeper into the other’s wound. “I’m distracting you,” he mutters petulantly. “Do you want me to shut up?”
“Fine,” Chuuya sighs. Dazai inserts the needle again and Chuuya flinches, jaw clenched in an obvious attempt to silence himself. “No,” he says finally, after a pained silence. “I don’t.”
Dazai hums, pulling the cloth back. The bleeding is slowing down. “Why not? Thought you’d be into that kind of romantic stuff.”
“Fuck off,” Chuuya says tiredly. He tries to kick, but his leg is shaking when it barely brushes Dazai’s waist, and Dazai just snickers. Chuuya glares at him, before hissing in pain and turning back up to the ceiling. “I just don’t think,” he starts, breath stilted. “The universe can tell us what to do. Like, why do we have to follow—ow, fuck—follow whatever fate tells us to do?”
The bleeding has stopped. Dazai exhales, feeling oddly off-balance as he glances up at Chuuya again. His hair is bright against the cold whites of the bathroom, sweaty and pressed flush to the skin on the back of his neck. Chuuya’s chest is bare, shirt thrown off haphazardly somewhere else, and Dazai’s eyes linger on the ridge of his collarbones. His mouth feels dry. “So you just hate following rules, huh.”
Chuuya bristles. “Anyways,” he says forcefully, ignoring him. “Even if I did know who my—soulmate, or whatever—was,” he exhales as Dazai pulls out the needle for the last stitch. “We can’t have that kind of stuff anyways.” Not in the mafia, Dazai almost hears him say.
Dazai peeks at the stitches. “Done,” he sighs.
“Thanks,” Chuuya mutters begrudgingly. He doesn’t move from where he’s sitting on the floor, just breathes out heavily and closes his eyes, tipping his head backwards to rest against the wall.
“No one would want to be with a midget anyways,” Dazai cuts into the silence, voice airy like he doesn’t have Chuuya’s blood all over his hands or the slope of Chuuya’s shoulders imprinted in his mind.
Chuuya doesn’t even open his eyes, but Dazai watches as a corner of his mouth lifts into a tired smirk. “No one wants to be with a suicidal freak, either.”
+
“And then?” Dazai echoes, still smiling. The lift of his mouth is beginning to grow sore, and a familiar, distinct emptiness begins gnawing away at his chest. “Go around the entire country of Japan searching for a burn mark barely visible to the eye and memories from over a decade ago?”
Atsushi shuts up.
“And even if someone does hold those memories, would they willingly be sought out? Given the knowledge of the mafia tradition? Given that their own soulmate willingly burnt their connection? Given the young age?” He keeps the smile pasted on his face, beaming brightly down at Atsushi.
“Dazai-san—"
“And if, against all odds,” he stretches his grin wider, ignoring the feeling of his heart being sliced and diced into hilariously small, organized pieces. Almost like meat—ready to be cooked. “They were willing to be found,” he glances up at the ceiling. “Who’s to say they wouldn’t be an enemy by now?”
+
Correction. Dazai stalks exactly three people in the one year he’s spent hiding so far from the mafia.
The third is not part of the plan.
He only means to linger in the small, empty apartment for a few minutes. A safehouse, for the incessant nightmares that have been plaguing him these nights. The alarm clock on the nightstand table reads a sad 4:21 AM, and as Dazai swipes a finger across the floor—dust. Rampant signs of abandonment plague the place, and Dazai chances a look outside at the darkness of the night. There’s no way this apartment is going to be used anytime soon, especially not when he knows the other has so many other pieces of property scattered throughout Yokohama.
And yet.
“Give me one reason I shouldn’t kill you. Right here and right now,” Chuuya hisses out, voice scathing in the silence of his apartment. The blade of his knife presses tight against the skin of Dazai’s neck, and he can already feel a thin line of blood forming.
Dazai can tell he’s not lying.
“Chuuya,” he forces out. The lights are still off, and all he can see are the faint outlines of Chuuya’s face lit up by the window. His mind races, as he weighs his options. To run, or to fight. The knife cuts in further to his skin and he makes a noise despite himself.
“No,” Chuuya snaps. “Don’t you fucking dare. Dazai—”
“Chuuya,” he murmurs against the edge of the blade. He stares at the hard set of Chuuya’s eyes and the clench of his jaw, barely illuminated by the moonlight. “This is a dream.”
As expected, Chuuya swings with his other arm. Dazai ducks accordingly, knocking away the hand with the knife and kicking Chuuya’s legs out from under him in one fluid motion. Chuuya’s reflexes are still sharp for the odd hour of the night, but Dazai manages to pin him down on the ground, ignoring the way Chuuya thrashes underneath his touch.
“Chuuya,” he repeats, with a touch of urgency. “This is a dream.”
And then he kisses him.
Chuuya goes completely still under him. He doesn’t make to push or shove Dazai away, but he doesn’t kiss back either. Dazai swallows the feeling of disappointment bubbling up in his throat and pulls away quickly, looking down at the other. His eyes land on Chuuya’s, cold and hard and, for one of the first times ever—unreadable.
“Are you a fucking idiot?” Chuuya says finally.
Yes, but probably not in the way Chuuya is thinking. He knows there’s no way Chuuya is ever going to go along with the idea of a dream—he’s not so stupid as to think Chuuya will let go so easily. But in every other way possible, the way he wants to reach out and touch, feel, breathe; the way he made the mistake of going to this apartment in the first place—yes. He’s a royal idiot.
“Maybe,” he replies, smiling lopsidedly.
Chuuya just sighs, and Dazai can see the fight drain out of his body. He’s tired, that much is obvious, with the way the shadows drag under his eyes. Lack of sleep and stress, it seems. Dazai almost comments on it, but catches himself quickly. He doesn’t quite have the right to worry about Chuuya anymore.
“Even if I ask,” Chuuya mutters quietly into the dark space of the room. “You’re not gonna answer anything.”
He says it like a statement, not a question, and the smallest seed of guilt sprouts in Dazai’s chest. Because he’s right—there’s so much Chuuya could ask. Dazai could probably think of twenty questions off the top of his head: why did you leave? What happened? What are you doing now? What are you doing here?
“Correct,” he answers pleasantly. Chuuya just rolls his eyes, and Dazai feels a frustratingly familiar rush of affection at the action. Silence lingers over them, and Dazai takes the opportunity to release Chuuya from where he’s still lying flat on his back. Chuuya sits up quietly, and Dazai eyes him wearily, waiting for the telltale flash of a knife or blur of a kick.
It doesn’t come.
In a flash, he grabs at Dazai’s shirt and yanks him in. And oh, is all Dazai thinks as Chuuya’s mouth slides against his. He licks at the seam of Chuuya’s lips and the other relents with a small sigh that lodges itself somewhere deep in Dazai’s heart he knows he won’t be able to remove anytime soon. But the feeling of Chuuya’s lips pressed warm and soft against his, and the cut of his jaw under Dazai’s hands—it’s almost intoxicating.
Dazai pulls away. “Are you stupid?” He murmurs, echoing Chuuya’s sentiment from earlier. His eyes drift to the other’s hands, resting on his scarred pinky for a quick moment and he wonders, what if—
“No,” Chuuya snorts. And when he looks up again Dazai knows he’s lost. Chuuya’s eyes are so much brighter than in any of his dreams; the way he stares, fire burning steadily in his expression. Chuuya sweeps his tongue over his lips and Dazai’s body is going to burst into flames at any given moment. “I’m just trying to have a good dream,” Chuuya says, the faintest touch of a grin on his face.
And then he leans in again.
(In the end, Dazai still knocks him unconscious and carries Chuuya gingerly over to his bed. Throws a blanket haphazardly over him, cleans off the speck of blood on the ground, and leaves with bruised lips and a battered heart.)
+
“This way,” he explains quietly. “Kyouka will be saved, as will Yokohama.”
Kouyou stares at him. “So I am to stay here as the Agency’s hostage during the Guild war in return for Kyouka’s livelihood.” The dull light in the Agency hospital does nothing to fade the sharpness of her features as her eyes pin Dazai in place.
“Correct,” Dazai says, smiling widely, as he makes to leave. “I’m glad you understand.”
“Dazai,” she calls as his back is turned. And immediately, Dazai knows with a deep and resonating certainty that he cannot run. “Isn’t there something else you wanted to ask me?”
He turns around slowly. Kouyou’s face doesn’t betray anything away; she simply looks at him with hard, severe eyes. Waiting. The room feels infinitely colder, though Dazai is sure he saw Yosano switch off the fan earlier.
“You knew,” he says simply. His stomach feels hollow as she eyes him critically.
“Indeed,” she answers flatly. “But that is not your question.”
Silence stretches over the room as they stare at each other for a long moment. “Since you seem to know me so well,” Dazai starts coolly. “You may do the honors.”
Kouyou smirks, the edges of her mouth lifting. “I’ve missed that sharp tongue of yours.” She leans forward, taking her back off the infirmary bed to cut closer into his space. “You want to know if he knows.”
Dazai can already feel, with a dark and twisting sense of frustration, that he won’t get an answer out of Kouyou. Not now, maybe not ever. He looks at her calmly, eyes brushing over her raised brow and impassive features. Hears the faint outline of her voice in his head, do you suppose they’ll ever find out—
“Does it matter?” She asks, when he doesn’t say anything.
The air has grown impossibly heavy. His stomach churns uncomfortably when he realizes that, for maybe one of the first times in his life, he doesn’t know the correct answer. Kouyou is still staring at him, eyes sharpened like a blade. Her gaze shreds at his skin, filing away until nothing is left.
“No,” he sighs lightly, as he stands from his seat beside her. Dazai turns to exit the infirmary. “I suppose it doesn’t.”
+
Atsushi’s hands are shaking, Dazai notices a beat too late. Oops. Maybe he went a bit too far. He lets a few minutes of silence wash over them as he continues to type away absentmindedly on his laptop. He’s writing a report for something he can barely remember, words and characters flying across the screen as he hardly gives them a second glance. Dazai thinks of fire-red hair and eyes cut of ice.
“Sometimes,” Ranpo’s muffled voice cuts in. Atsushi jolts in surprise. “It’s better not to know, than to know.” He gives a solemn, overly-serious nod to the two of them, mouth stuffed with cookies, from five desks away. Dazai shoots him a glance and finds the other giving him a deep, knowing look. He just hums.
There’s a small, shaky sigh. “I’m sorry,” Atsushi tries again. Dazai waves him off impatiently. “I was just curious. I didn’t know something could be so—so depressing.”
Dazai just gives him another smile. “And that, Atsushi-kun,” he reaches forward to tap the other cheerfully on the nose. Atsushi yelps. “Is exactly why I need to find a beautiful woman out there to be my partner in suicide. Don’t you agree?”