Chapter Text
A car drives off into the distance.
Dazai watches as it fades away to a mere speck in the horizon. Odasaku was in that car. A man who had taught him about spicy curry and the beauty of redemption. The beauty of seeing the light in even the darkest things.
At first, everything about the idea was absurd. Just a thought that had come from a drunken stupor, a thought that the saddest of men entertained when they could find solace in drinks and drugs no longer.
Traitors to the Port Mafia always met a fate worse than death. They were tortured for any possible information, and any other members they might’ve been close to are probed for information alongside them. As for the death itself, a broken jaw and three shots to the chest sounded gruesome even on paper. But perhaps it was the last chance they had.
So, after nights and nights of sleepless thinking, of glasses of whiskey on the rocks, of careful, careful, planning, that drunken thought had finally come to fruition.
At precisely 3:00 AM, Oda Sakunosuke, alongside five children, would get in an entirely inconspicuous-looking car driven by someone blackmailed by Dazai Osamu. Then, at 3:15 AM, the car would drive off to a series of cities in a seemingly random order, staying in each place for random amounts of time until finally reaching the seaside. From here, they would board a small ship captained once again by someone blackmailed by himself. They would sail to a nearby island, live there for a few months, then take the ship back to the coast and fly to a whole different country.
The plan was ridiculously intricate, fashioned by a demon prodigy who knew the workings, inside and out, of not only the Port Mafia but underground organizations stretching from Yokohama to countries far and farther.
Such a complicated plan for a low-ranking traitor who refused to kill and just five little orphaned children as accomplices.
But tensions were rising. It was either keep them out of harm’s way, or keep harm out of their way, and Dazai was running short on time.
He clutches his hand into a fist.
Did I make a mistake?
This plan might fail. Someone might find them, someone might betray them, someone might kill them. He has bombs ticking around people’s necks and invisible guns pointed at people’s heads, but there’s still might, might, might.
Was it worth it?
He would miss Odasaku. He would miss their conversations at the bar, and he would miss the fleeting, impossible idea that he could one day redeem himself as well.
But he imagines the last pages of a novel, written happily in a room with an ocean view. Children would live, promises would live, innocence would live. If this is all in exchange for Dazai’s last chance at a redemption he’s beginning to doubt would ever work, the trade was more than fair.
It would’ve been hopeless in the end, anyway, he tells himself when his mouth curves into a hollow smile and the empty feeling inside of him purges a little more of the light in his eyes.
“Nothing in this world can fill the hole that is your loneliness. You will wander the darkness for eternity,” the man had said, sounding cruel for telling the truth but never as cruel as making him feel as if he could be redeemed.
Dazai watches as the car fades away to a mere speck in the horizon, then to nothing at all.
It was done.
Oda was never coming back.
Dazai feels so tired.