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Chuuya ran quietly through the halls, his rapid footsteps barely audible as he had been trained to sound.
He was running towards the chambers of the King's advisor, Ace. Today was supposed to be one of his few rare days off, but he had a nasty gut feeling not long ago and rushed to Ace's room immediately. His instincts were almost never wrong.
He burst open the locked doors, flying towards the figure bent over the sleeping Ace, knife at his throat, about to slice.
He tackled the figure- a man- to the floor, rolling around a little bit until they both hit the wall, Chuuya sitting on the attacker with his dagger at the man's throat, ironically enough.
His scrunched eyebrows shot up, the man's face contorting in a sadistic smile. The surprise Chuuya felt upon seeing the man's face was the only moment the man needed to throw Chuuya off of him, rolling away to where his own knife had flown away, picking it up by the hilt, careful not to touch the steel.
Chuuya trembled just the slightest bit while he stood up, eyes glued to the intruder's face. Was he seeing things right? He hadn't seen that face in seven years.
The man looked much more different than he did when they were fifteen. His shoulders were broader, he was a whole lot taller, and the bandages he used to wear around his right eye were gone. Chuuya had never seen that eye before, and it shone with mirth at him now, no signs of surprise whatsoever at Chuuya catching him.
His childhood rival. The one who went missing seven years ago and was never found.
The one who he had always despised and always dreamed of killing. The one who he had continued looking for long after everybody had already stopped, all assuming he had offed himself in some remote area of some forest.
He still remembered how he hadn't cared at first when he heard the news of his disappearance, assuming the boy was just being an annoying asshole as usual. He still remembered trudging through the rainy nights alone through forests and streets not long after, soaked to the bone yet still determined to search for his friend even if no one else would.
The way his older sister, Kouyou, would try to rub his back in a comforting way after he returned home more hopeless than ever every single time he went to look would never escape his memory.
He was a high-ranked guard in this Kingdom. He also lived in his own chamber in the castle, just like Ace. It was why he was able to get to him so fast.
Today was supposed to be one of his few rare days off. Having such an important job did not leave much time for rest, but he did have three days a year to take off, the dates being his own choice. His birthday, a sick day, and today. If others knew the reason he always took today off, they never said anything about it, knowing he'd never admit to the reason.
It was on this day that the man disappeared seven years ago.
"...Dazai?" he breathed out, still unsure of whether or not he was hallucinating.
The man grinned. "Chuuya never grew one bit."
Yup, it was Dazai, alright.
Chuuya's trance snapped and he rushed forward to put himself between Dazai and Ace, not pulling out the Kingdom spear on his back but keeping his personal dagger poised to strike.
"What the fuck are you doing?!" He settled to bark out at the man who was also ready to attack. A "where have you been" wouldn't have been suited for something of Chuuya's rank to say, after all.
"Chuuya hasn't changed a single bit in all these years! Still a brute. Not a single 'How have you been?' to his best friend."
Chuuya scowled, refusing to let his guard down.
Dazai giggled. "Fufufu, I'm comitting first degree murder, of course!" He calmed down, choosing instead to stare into the distance.
"Aahh, Chuuya, my darling needs me to help him with his work. He needs some information, you see," he said, waving out a file he must have stolen from Ace's room just before going to murder him.
"H-how did you get that?!" Chuuya gaped.
Dazai wiggled his eyebrows. "I've always been good with my hands." He displayed a bobby pin with his fingers, and nodded towards the basement below Ace's room, where a trapdoor lay open, storing various files of information, most of it fake, intended to throw anybody who tried to steal it off.
He continued on with his previous speech. "I quite love him. I want to be useful to him. Would you believe that I fell in love with a man rather than a woman? Ah, but Chuuya!" He was speaking and faster, his words gushing out of him. If you looked close enough, you would almost be able to see the hearts forming in his eyes.
"He has the most beautiful hair! Dark raven like a beautiful maiden's, but no other person could ever truly compare to him. His eyes are a vibrant violet, so gorgeous I would love nothing more than to drown in them!"
Chuuya unconsciously noted that Dazai still retained his suicidal tendencies.
"His skin is so gorgeously pale. The moon gives it the most beautiful glimmer when it shines on him. And oh, Chuuya!" Chuuya was nearly throwing up. "He understands me like no else! He's just like me. I think I could even convince him to a double suicide one day," he finished off in a dreamy voice.
"Is that so," Chuuya growled out. "I couldn't give less of a fuck about what he looks like. If you're here to kill Ace, you're my fucking enemy either way."
Dazai giggled airily again, rushing forward at Chuuya. Chuuya braced his body for an attack, but no such thing ever came.
Instead, Dazai grabbed him by the wrist, another hand looping around his waist quickly, sweeping along in a dance.
Chuuya tried to free himself but Dazai's grip around his wrist was tight, and as he was about to use his knees to kick the other in the balls, the man began speaking again, stunning the unconsenting dancing Chuuya into silence.
"I think you will care who he is if I tell you."
"And you want me to believe you'll actually tell me?"
Another lovestruck grin broke across the taller man's face.
"Fyodor- Fyodor Dostoyevsky."
Chuuya froze, then unconsciously shoved the once-again-giggling man off of him.
Fyodor Dostoyevsky, the man who they had been on a secret hunt for for a while. It was rumoured he was the one behind the recent and drastic spikes in criminal activity, so the kingdom's workers had no choice but to try and track him down to turn the perilous streets safe again.
Dazai was with this man?
"Dazai, what the fuck?! You-you can't be serious!"
Then a thought struck him. None of the criminals rumoured to have been led by Dostoyevsky ever failed in their goals. He rushed towards the bed in which Ace lay, fearing the silence he hadn't noticed from the man earlier. He had interrupted Dazai when he was going to slit his throat. He can't have killed Ace, right?
His face contorted in horror upon scrambling over and seeing Ace's face. Blood poured out of his eyes in silent tears, his entire body sweaty and red. There was a prominent red mark on his neck where Dazai had set his knife earlier.
He whipped back around to Dazai, who was now perched in front of the window, ready to escape. They both heard guards rushing towards the room, predictably because of all their yelling and clamouring.
"How-?!" Chuuya yelled out, voice strained.
Dazai brandished the knife he had earlier.
"My darling Fyodor created his very own brand of poison, which my knife is laced with. It kills upon contact, so I never needed to slice Ace-san's throat in the first place! Ahh," he sighed, "Isn't he a genius?"
Chuuya felt anger crawl up his spine, so many unanswered questions. Where had Dazai been all these years? What happened? How did he get involved with Dostoyevsky? Where was Dostoyevsky?
Dazai seemed to have a never-ending supply of smiles, flashing him yet another one.
"It's been funny seeing you, Chuu-Chuu. To think the old gang leader would become the King's personal guard! Just as Fyodor predicted. But I must return to my beloved." His smile turned menacing. "I'll await the time I'll get to see you as a corpse."
He jumped out the window backwards, knife in hand. Chuuya raced forward to try and catch him, but the moment the end of his coat stopped its flurrying he was gone from sight. Not below the window, at the 20-metre drop, not above the window, nowhere to the sides, nowhere to be seen.
He returned to Ace swiftly, observing his failure once again, when he did a double take, noticing something at the bottom of his neck. There seemed to be tiny words carved into his skin. But how-?! There was no blood on the knife Dazai had been using. Was it possible that Dazai carved out the message beforehand and then posed with a different knife above Ace, just to make his presence shown to Chuuya?
He ignored the difficulty he was having trying to predict the other in favour of reading the bloody letters. In varying depths of skin was written:
Returning to this place after all these years has been so fun, too bad I can't stay!
But this place could never compare to the comfort of darling Fyodor's arms.
Fufu, I've found my one and only to accompany me forever and ever.
Tiny chibi fairies wouldn't understand the feeling of being lovestruck!
But my love is quite demanding, if I don't do as he desires, he won't love me.
I will give Chuuya a hint for what he is planning.
He will purge sinners.
Chuuya felt nausea overtake his senses before his eyes were blown wide and he reread the sentences, wanting to make sure he read them right in case he was correct about his theory.
He felt a trickle of sweat slide down his face. He was right.
"Returning to this place after all these years has been so fun, too bad I can't stay!"
20 syllables.
"But this place could never compare to the comfort of darling Fyodor's arms."
18 syllables.
"Fufu, I've found my one and only to accompany me forever and ever."
21 syllables.
"Tiny chibi fairies wouldn't understand the feeling of being lovestruck!"
19 syllables.
"But my love is quite demanding, if I don't do as he desires, he won't love me."
20 syllables again.
"I will give Chuuya a hint for what he is planning."
13 syllables.
"He will purge sinners."
5 syllables.
The 20th letter of the alphabet was T. The 18th, R. The 21st, 19th, and still 20th were U, S, and T.
13th and 5th were M and E.
Trust Me.
He exhaled shakily. A simple code, one so plain and obvious nobody would ever think to apply it to the genius that Dazai Osamu is, or at least was known to be. Only somebody who knew him inside out would know that the man was probably just too lazy to come up with something more complicated. Didn't this mean that the Dostoyevsky guy would know the code as well, according to Dazai?
"He understands me like no else! He's just like me."
Was Dostoyevsky completely unaware of this message, then? Was Dazai going against some sort of orders leaving this message? Was this just another trick to make Chuuya let his guard down?
How did Dazai expect Chuuya to trust him if he was with the enemy? Was this a message admitting betrayal to the man he seemed to be so enamored with? Did he have some sort of plan going against Dostoyevsky? What the fuck?
And while the guards came pouring in the room, some shoving Chuuya over to see Ace's condition and some fervently questioning Chuuya with questions he couldn't hear, all Chuuya could do was stare at the blue moonlight-lit window where the intruder had disappeared, face stricken with despair, and wonder not for the first time what had happened to Dazai during all these seven years.