Chapter Text
A crash rang out from upstairs, followed by screams. Atsushi stared at the ceiling, not quite comprehending what he was hearing. Then, gunshots.
Muffled shouts echoed down into the cellar. Atsushi folded his knees against his chest, chain rattling. The door slammed open under the weight of a burly man being thrown into it. Atsushi watched, dumbfounded, as the man spilled down the steep staircase. The man hit the ground with a crunch and didn’t move. Atsushi had never seen the man before, but he crept up to the bars to get a better look.
He was dead. The man was dead. Blood pooled beneath his neck and his blank eyes stared just past Atsushi’s head.
“Well, well. Not such an innocent bunch, are they?” He looked up.
A tall, slender man in a tan trench coat and suit watched him. The light of the orphanage halls illuminated him like an angel, brown curls glistening and obscuring his face. He leaned a massive gun against his hip.
“Do you usually sleep down here?” the man asked. Atsushi opened his mouth to answer, but nothing more than a croak came out.
A crack of gunfire and the wall above the man’s head exploded. He didn’t duck, didn’t curse or run. He stared balefully at what Atsushi assumed was the shooter and sighed. “You couldn’t have aimed a bit lower?”
Slivers of wood were caught in his messy dark hair, floating around him. He cast a final look down at Atsushi. “Give me a moment.”
The door slammed shut and the gunfire resumed. Screams echoed out, making Atsushi flinch. His breathing drew ragged and his heart hammered in his throat. It only became more obvious when the silence finally fell.
The door opened again, slower this time.
The man in the coat stood there. He didn’t have his gun with him, but the white collar of his shirt was dyed a bright red. He lifted his hands and walked calmly down the stairs, intent on Atsushi.
“I asked you a question earlier.”
Atsushi blinked, eking out a “huh?”
“Do you usually sleep down here?”
“Not…” his voice crackled from disuse. “Not usually.”
The man nodded, a tight frown on his face. He stared at the padlock keeping Atsushi inside for a moment before pointing at it with a long finger. “Do you want to come out?”
“The headmaster – “
“Is dead.” The man had an eerily flat look to him. His face was slack in a way that might have passed for stupidity were it not for the frighteningly sharp glint in his eyes.
Atsushi bit his lip. “Yes. I want to come out.”
“Do you want to come with me to Yokohama?”
“Will you lock me up?”
“Probably not. But I definitely won’t hurt you.” The man cocked his head. “Do the other orphans get locked in here, too?”
Atsushi shook his head. “No. Just me.”
“Just you.” He seemed to taste the words as they left his mouth. The man’s eyes slid across the cell, at the chains and blood and shit that covered the boy within. They fluttered shut for a split second before opening wide. “Well then, we can’t waste a moment.”
Just like that, his face snapped to a smile. He gave a closed smile to Atsushi before running a hand through his hair and coming away with a pin. He leaned forward and undid the padlock in a couple deft motions, mouth twisting to a victorious smirk as he did. The cage door swung open and the man stepped inside.
“Yeesh. Stinks in here. Come on, let’s get those cuffs off you as well.”
The man’s cold fingers brushed the bare skin of Atsushi’s ankle as he unlocked the cuff. Then the pin vanished into his sleeve and an extended hand found itself in front of Atsushi’s face.
“What’s your name?”
“Atsushi,” he muttered.
“You can call me Dazai.”
Atsushi nodded, not daring to speak against him. He put his hand in Dazai’s and tried to stand. His knees gave out beneath him and he stumbled into the man’s arms. To his surprise, Dazai staggered, hissing as though Atsushi had pressed against a wound.
Which he probably had.
Atsushi scrambled back, spewing apologies one after the other. Dazai straightened.
Before, Atsushi had only seen Dazai in shadows. With the light to his front, Dazai was much slimmer than he’d first thought. His neck and wrists were wrapped in once-white bandages, blood spattered and seeping over them. His suit was quite old and wrinkled, his coat unwashed with a patch sewn over one side of his abdomen. He was entirely spattered and smeared in blood. Whether it was his or someone else’s was impossible to determine.
A turquoise pendant dangled from his neck.
Dazai smiled. “Ah. Sorry about that. Can you walk?”
He couldn’t. Atsushi winced and tried again, his legs weak as cooked noodles beneath him.
“Can’t be helped,” Dazai said, as if it were nothing. Then he stepped forward and swept Atsushi over his shoulder.
Atsushi screeched and flailed at the strange sensation of being carried rump over head.
“Oh, do me a favor and close your eyes. I’m afraid I made a bit of a mess upstairs.”
As he climbed the stairs, the temptation to look was staggering. Atsushi gave in after feeling Dazai’s stride even out on flat ground.
He regretted it.
Four men lay sprawled across the hall, covered in their own blood. Bile threatened the back of his throat and he slammed his eyes shut again.
“You looked.” There might have been a hint of apology in his voice. “I was caught a bit off guard. Had to improvise with a submachine gun and a kitchen knife.”
Atsushi had just agreed to go to Yokohama with a serial killer. Or a spree killer. Either way it was a killer. He took a shaking breath. The air tasted like blood. “It’s fine.”
Dazai hummed and patted Atsushi’s leg. “You’ll get used to it.”
Oh no.
The air went cold as Dazai stepped outside. “Keep them closed for now. There’s some stuff to clean up out here as well.”
Dazai set him down with surprising ease. The sound of a car door unlocking made Atsushi’s hackles rise. He opened his eyes, keeping his gaze where he figured Dazai’s face would be.
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why are you bringing me with you?”
The man sighed, putting a hand in his pocket. “A little voice in my head told me to. If you want to stay, then stay. The police will be here soon and I’m sure they’ll send you to a nice home.”
Atsushi wasn’t sure if Dazai was being sarcastic or not. But he was sure that he didn’t want to go with the police. Didn’t want a nice home.
Dazai had saved him, bloody as it was.
“I promise I won’t hurt you.” Dazai tilted his head again. “Well, I’ll hurt you if you try to kill someone. Feel free to try and kill me, though, I don’t mind.”
He snickered and rounded the car, leaving the backseat door open for Atsushi. He slid into the driver’s seat, making no move to start the car.
Atsushi looked back to the orphanage against all logic. It was another massacre. The blood seeped into the grass, reminding him far too much of the ruined chicken coops.
“I should tell you, there’s a tiger around here,” Atsushi said. “Killed our chickens. Destroyed the crops. It’s part of why I was in the cellar.”
Dazai sighed, rolling his head to the side to stare at him. “What do you want me to do about it?”
The toneless delivery made it difficult to tell what he meant by that. Atsushi was half-convinced that Dazai was truly offering to get rid of the tiger.
“I just – I thought you should know.”
He nodded firmly. “Thank you, then. Are you hungry?”
Atsushi’s stomach roiled at the thought of food. He hadn’t eaten anything but porridge in a month, less in the past week. But the image of the men Dazai had killed was seared into his eyes.
Even so, Dazai reached into the glove compartment and pulled out a bag of jerky and a bottle of water. He tossed both in the backseat, as if laying a trap for some forest creature. He might as well have been. Atsushi hopped into the seat, leaving the door open.
Sure, he might feel like vomiting, but food was food. He was on his third jerky strip before he managed to say, “thank you, sir.”
Dazai waved halfheartedly over his shoulder. “You’re welcome. Are you coming or not? Last chance.”
“Do you have more food?”
Dazai gave him a hard look with those frighteningly sharp amber eyes. “You can’t just trust any random person who offers you food.”
“But do you have more food?”
“I have money for food. That’s better than food, isn’t it?”
Atsushi closed the door and buckled in.