Chapter Text
Dazai moved like a ghost through shadows. No one stopped him, no one dared, even though everyone saw him sinking deeper and deeper than they were already used to.
One morning, during a strategic meeting in the main room, Dazai arrived with glazed eyes and a nervous tic at the corner of his mouth. He had snorted a line of cocaine in the bathroom minutes before, and the high made him drum his fingers on the table with manic energy.
Mori, at the front, was outlining plans for a new territory, but Dazai interrupted with a low, inappropriate laugh.
"How boring, boss. Why don't we just send Chuuya to blow it all up?" Chuuya, sitting on the other side, frowned, noticing the sweat on Dazai's forehead and how his dilated pupils danced aimlessly.
"Shut up, idiot. Are you high again?" " he muttered under his breath, but Dazai just smiled, shrugging. Mori raised an eyebrow, his expression impassive, but said nothing; he just carried on as if nothing had happened, though in his mind he could only think about how much more he could exploit Dazai's talent before it completely broke.
Hirotsu, in a corner, sighed discreetly, adjusting his gloves with a gesture of unspoken concern. Koyou, with her elegance, glanced at him sideways with a mixture of pity and irritation, thinking how a prodigy like him was being wasted in that downward spiral.
After a different mission that same afternoon—a routine interrogation that ended in blood and silence—Dazai slipped onto the roof of headquarters. The sun was setting over Yokohama, staining the sky red like an open wound. He pulled out a joint he had prepared earlier, rolled with low-quality marijuana stolen from a subordinate. He lit it with a rusty lighter, inhaling deeply as he leaned against an antenna.
The smoke filled his lungs, softening the sharp edges of the mission's memories: the crunching of bones, the stifled screams. Chuuya, who had been on the same operation, walked by and watched him from below, smelling the sweet smoke as it drifted down. "Damn bum," he muttered to himself, but didn't go up; he knew confronting him would only make him laugh harder.
Instead, he clenched his fists and kept walking, frustrated at watching his "partner" disintegrate without being able to do anything. Days later, at the Mafia's medical clinics, Dazai stormed into the supply room. He needed morphine to ease the comedown from a previous binge. He opened a drawer with trembling hands and took out a vial and syringe, injecting himself right there, sitting on the floor against the wall. The opiate warmth enveloped him, a fake embrace that made him sigh with relief. But a junior doctor entered at that moment, catching him in the act.
"Dazai-san! That's not allowed. The supplies are for emergencies." Dazai looked up, a lazy smile on his face and his eyes narrowed.
"Oh, really? And who are you going to tell? Mori? Tell him it was my idea. I'm an executive, remember? Get out of here before I make you try it." The doctor paled, taking a nervous step back; he knew Dazai wasn't joking, and his status shielded him from consequences.
Outside, Koyou, passing by in the corridor, overheard the exchange and shook her head, muttering to herself, "That kid... he's burning himself out just to see the ashes."
Hirotsu, later hearing about it through rumors, just smoked his cigarette in silence, thinking about how the Mafia devoured its youngsters. The subordinates saw it. The executives noticed it. Chuuya frowned from afar, Akutagawa lowered his gaze with something akin to fear when he knew he would see him later. Even Mori raised an eyebrow from time to time, but no one said anything.
Dazai was untouchable. Dazai was brilliant. Dazai was a weapon that worked, even if he smelled of smoke and self-destruction.
But Odasaku did speak.
It was during a quiet night at Lupin's, the bar almost empty. The two sat at the counter, Dazai with a whiskey he barely touched, and Odasaku with his usual beer and cigarette.
Cigarette smoke drifted lazily under the dim lights. Odasaku glanced at him for a moment before speaking, calm, as always.
"You're killing yourself faster than usual, Dazai." Dazai chuckled softly, twirling the glass between his bandaged fingers.
"And is that a bad thing? I thought you'd be happy to see me progressing toward my ultimate goal." Odasaku didn't smile. He just took a slow sip of his beer.
"You're smart. Smarter than anyone here. You know exactly what you're doing. You know everything. And yet you do it." Dazai was silent for a second, staring at the amber liquid in his glass.
"So what do you want me to say, Odasaku? That I'm going to stop? That I suddenly care about living?"
"No," Odasaku replied softly. "I just want you to know that I see it. That I see you running towards the bottom faster than ever. And it pisses me off to see it, because you're a guy with... too much talent to end up this empty." Dazai laughed again, but this time it sounded hollower. "You were already empty before, Odasaku. This just... makes it more bearable." Odasaku stared at him, without judgment, just with that sad calm that characterized him.
"Bearable isn't the same as alive, Dazai." Silence. The ice crunched in Dazai's glass. After a while, Dazai shrugged, dismissing it as unimportant.
"Bah, don't be so dramatic. I'm just... experimenting. One day I'll find the perfect dose to go without pain." Odasaku sighed, stubbing out his cigarette. "For once, I really hope you don't find it anytime soon." Dazai didn't reply. He just ordered another whiskey, which he wouldn't drink either.
And the next day, he went back to headquarters. Back to the white lines, the smoke, the needles. But for a moment, a very brief one, Odasaku's words lingered in some corner of his mind, like an annoying echo he couldn't quite ignore.