Chapter Text
A young messy haired brunette man sat lazily in his room, leaning next to the window. His room as usual was unkempt and dirty with no sign of tidiness. It wasn’t like he didn’t have time to clean up his living space. He just preferred not to. This was how Dazai Osamu, Armed Detective Agency member and former Port Mafia Executive lived. A lifestyle his coworker Kunikida highly looked down upon.
Dazai sat by the windowsill and held his cellphone against his ear to wait for a call ring. But what he immediately got in response was an out of service message and the follow up tone.
Beeeep Beeeep Beeeep
Dazai hung up his phone and placed it down on the windowsill. He looked down at it silently with a serious expression on his face.
“What an ominous feeling” he said as he narrowed his eyes and looked outside. The morning sky in Yokohama looked darker than usual. A sign that a calamitous event would soon occur.
~~~~~
A silver haired adolescent boy walked down the street of Yokohama in a strut with a serious expression on his face. The youth was Nakajima Atsushi, an employee of the Armed Detective Agency. He gave off a menacing aura that was not like his usual pleasant demeanor. No one. Not a single person would get in his way. No, not today. For it was a special day for him. A very important day. It was the long awaited day. Yes, the day.
He steadily moved along and came to a certain area of Yokohama. He took a deep breath and lifted his face, making a fierce expression of determination before sighing out a heated single string of words.
“Pay Day”
Yes, pay day. The one few days out of the month that brought much joy to Atsushi. It was the day that he could splurge on grocery shopping.
“What should I buy today?”
Atsushi practically skipped around with his shopping basket as he looked around. When pay day came around, his stomach would think for him rather than his brain. It meant he could spend more on food than usual and look forward to more of Kyouka’s high quality cooking. He giggled to himself as he thought of the things he could buy.
“Some maguro? Maybe some prime rate salmon? Or should I go all out and buy some Wagyuu?!”
As he came to his last thought, he crashed into something or rather someone in front of him. Atsushi was immediately slapped back into reality as he stumbled backwards.
“I-I’m so sorry! I wasn’t looking where I was goi-!”
Atsushi fumbled with his words, but cut himself off when he saw who was before him. A thin young man with pale skin and jet black hair with white tips. He was dressed in all black and was wearing sunglasses.
“A-Akutagawa?”
Indeed it was none other than the Port Mafia’s rabid dog, Akutagawa Ryunosuke. A sense of de ja vu flooded Atsushi. A similar scene had happened not too long ago. He recalled the humiliation and shock of that day. It was so…bitter. He composed himself and readied himself for another bitter interaction with Akutagawa. Their interactions were never pleasant anyways.
“What, shopping here again for dinner?” Atsushi scoffed at the man before him. He immediately braced himself for a snappy comeback. But the man made no comeback.
“……”
To Atsushi’s amazement, he merely looked at him in silence then quickly moved on.
“H-Hey!”
Atsushi chased after him, forgetting about the grocery shopping he had so badly looked forward to. The man had ignored him. Ignored him! Somehow he couldn’t just let this go. When he finally managed to catch up, he grabbed the man in black by the shoulder.
“What’re you ignoring me for?” he demanded. He knew such things could result in him getting his fingers shredded as Akutagawa had once threatened before, but he felt something was off.
The last time they had met was during the calamity of the terrorist attack of the Decay of Angels. It was a global event that had affected and involved several countries. The mastermind had been the captain of the prolific military police group, the Hunting Dogs, Fukuchi Ouchi. He had a personal grudge against the President of the Armed Detective Agency, Fukuzawa Yukichi and the world’s governments. He wished to crush them all. In the aftermath of Atsushi and Akutagawa’s initial battle with him at sea, Akutagawa had once died and was turned into the messenger agent that infected the Port Mafia and later several others with a vampire virus of Count Bram Stoker. In the end, everyone involved had barely made it out alive and most if not all things were settled. All thanks to the courageous actions of one normal girl and her cellular phone.
In the end, it was Atsushi and Akutagawa who had done a lot of the grunt worK per Dazai’s instructions. But to Akutagawa, his failures outweighed his success in his mission. And he lamented that he wasn’t worthy of Dazai’s praise; something he had been seeking after for years. It was something even Atsushi felt a little bad about afterwards. Perhaps Akutagawa was still bitter about it.
As he thought about these things, Atsushi opened his mouth to speak once more. “If you’re still sore about what happened-”
“Who are you?”
Atsushi froze. Akutagawa had just said it so simply with not a hint of malice.
“What…?” Atsushi took his hand off of Akutagawa’s shoulder. Akutagawa turned to face him.
“You’ve been trailing me around for the past few minutes, but you must be confused with another person”
Atsushi was bewildered. Confused. Blown away. What in the world was he talking about? “You-you’re Akutagawa aren’t you?” he stammered a bit.
“Indeed I am Akutagawa. But I have never seen you before. Today is the first”
Atsushi thought back to their first interaction. The words he just uttered vaguely sounded similar to what he had said when they first met. What was this?
“Apologies but I must go. My master awaits”
Atsushi stood frozen as he watched Akutagawa walk away from him. He soon disappeared into the crowd of people.
“What the hell…?”
He couldn’t comprehend what had just occurred.
~~~~~~
Elsewhere, Dazai walked into a dark alleyway. Yokohama was full of these areas and he knew every single one. Leftover perks during his time in the Port Mafia. And otherwise of course.
He zig zagged his way through the maze-like area. He moved deeper and deeper into a narrow area until he came across an open area. It was unkempt and foul smelling, surrounded with abandoned garbage. In the middle of it all was a single pay phone stall.
“Here, huh?” Dazai walked towards the pay phone stall and went inside. The phone began to ring almost immediately as if it was waiting just for him to enter the stall.
Ring ring ring
Dazai closed the stall door behind him.
Ring ring ring
He let the phone ring a few more times then picked it up and placed it to his ear. He immediately spoke into it.
“Hello there, it’s been a while hasn’t it?”
To be Continued