Chapter Text
It didn't matter how many times she tried. Again and again, he continued to plunge into darkness with every step he took, with every thought he had.
She couldn't count the number of times he had tried to end his life. Even if the others took this fact lightly, seeing him trying but never succeeding, (Y/N) didn't find anything funny about it.
Besides, Dazai was plagued by something that he couldn't get a handle on. She had tried to understand him, to show him that he had a place in this world like everyone else, but nothing helped.
A person who simply ignores the light can't be saved by a few reassuring words and a little love thrown out the window. Perhaps their membership in the Mafia didn't help matters, far from it.
Darkness reigned supreme in this man's life, since long before (Y/N) met him. She wasn't known for her kindness, preferring to ignore the ills of others most of the time, but with Dazai things were different.
The fact that they were often sent on missions together meant that they were bound to see each other many times. And (Y/N) had seen with her own eyes this man trying by all possible means to take his own life, always with that smile that was anything but genuine.
For the first time, she felt some empathy towards someone, no matter how strange it was. But how could she get him to stop wanting to kill himself, which seemed to be the very foundation of his existence?
And, above all, how to avoid falling into darkness herself, while trying in vain to save someone who apparently did not want to be saved? She had tried everything in her power, or so she hoped.
She didn't even know why. Their work was dangerous as hell, and losing her comrades was an inevitable thing. So why had she become so attached to Dazai, without knowing if he felt the same way?
She was afraid of losing herself. She loved him, undeniably and shamefully, but she couldn't stand this morbid atmosphere that radiated from him like a second skin.
How could she continue to love him if even he didn't love himself?
These were the questions she repeated to herself every time the pain gripped her heart, when she realized she was powerless against this man. Of all the missions she had accomplished, this was the only one that was, even today, unfinished.
Incomplete.
How can you love someone who hates himself? Who simply doesn't know how to live?
So, she had taken the painful decision to distance herself from Dazai. A cowardly decision, she knew it perfectly well, but which had for only objective to spare herself. In order not to have to sink too, especially with their macabre work, she had taken the decision to abandon Dazai to his sad fate.
He had not even resented her, something she had noticed by the ever more false smiles he kept sending her when they crossed each other from far. As if he was prepared for such a finality, as if he was used to this kind of thing. To be abandoned for lack of courage and determination.
As if he knew that his malaise was a part of him, a part that he could never erase and that would accompany him until his last sigh. This last sigh that he was looking for like a real treasure.
Of all the people, Dazai was the one who embodied the darkness the best, as if he was made to live in it. That's why, when the announcement of his departure had reached (Y/N)'s ears, she had not believed it.
Dazai had left the Mafia and joined a detective agency, a few years later, directly opposed to his world of origin. Leaving the darkness of their organization behind him, as if he had finally rid himself of this second skin that was pushing him to die.
But one did not leave the Mafia so easily, far from it. Especially when one was as talented as Dazai was, and as indispensable for the good of their organization. To think that he was now on the other side of the fence was not in the Mafia's favor at all.
(Y/N) had stopped counting the number of people who, before Dazai, had tried to return to a normal life, away from the murders and dubious trafficking. She had also stopped counting the number of people she had killed in this way, to make them regret their decision and their wishful thinking.
When one is born in the dark, when one has lived in the blood all his life, the desire to get out of it was unthinkable. And yet, when she had taken her former colleague under surveillance, she had been astonished to see that he was adapting quite well to his new life, surrounded by new warm and sparkling people.
As if he had forgotten the many years he had spent at the side of the Mafia. At her side.
Had he totally forgotten her, finally? After being abandoned by (Y/N), had Dazai convinced himself that it was no longer worth thinking about his former colleague?
How could he afford to do that when she was still thinking about him? Had his new comrades managed to succeed where she had so cowardly given up?
If she had found the right words to hold him back, would he have stayed by her side?
Did he even know who she was anymore? Or had he dismissed her memory with a wave of his hand, along with his tumultuous past?
The look he had given her, when they had finally come face to face, said quite the opposite. She had followed him home late at night as the rain began to fall harder and harder, and he hadn't seemed surprised for a second to see her. It was as if he had always expected this situation.
As if he knew that he only had a short time left to live, now that he had left the Mafia. And that he knew that, sooner or later, someone would be sent to silence him forever.
He had not, however, expected that it would be (Y/N) herself who was ordered to kill him. But, upon reflection, this finality was not so horrible.
Dazai had always been better at thinking than fighting. Against a fighter of (Y/N)'s caliber, he knew he would not last long. He knew the young woman well enough to know that she was merciless with her targets, and especially how strong she was. He could dodge most of her blows, but what was the point? The end result would remain the same.
Without needing to use her ability, which she knew was useless against Dazai's anyway, (Y/N) had finally accomplished her mission: her blade had gone straight into her opponent's chest, just missing his heart, which collapsed the next moment while spitting blood.
(Y/N)'s own heart was beating furiously, adrenaline pulsing through her veins as her target collapsed before her eyes. After a few seconds, she let out a loud laugh at the sad sight, as the rain intensified even more, drowning out her laughter with the cacophony of drops hitting the bloody ground.
When she looked down victoriously at the one she had just stabbed, her laughter faded almost immediately in her throat. Dazai was smiling at her, lying in his own blood, with a smile she had never known before.
More genuine than ever, as the dark puddle beneath his body grew larger by the minute. She knew it was only a matter of time before he breathed his last. Her mission would be successful the moment the traitor's heart stopped beating.
That smile made her fall to the ground, as her legs buckled under her weight. Her knees landed in the blood of her former colleague, splattering her jet-black clothes in the process, as her blade slipped from her grasp with a loud, rain-smothered clatter.
"Why are you smiling...?" (Y/N) finally whispered in a trembling voice, looking Dazai straight in the eyes.
The one saw his smile growing even more at the words of the young woman, answering him with a broken but nevertheless satisfied voice.
As if the pain he felt, a real agony, was nothing more than a simple constant of his sad life.
"I always dreamed of dying at the hands of a pretty girl."
So, closing his eyes, the last sigh of the man passed his lips, which were now frozen in a final indelible smile. A smile that would haunt (Y/N)'s thoughts for the rest of her life.
A few seconds later, as the driving rain soaked her clothes and ran down her skin in torrents, her body jerked many times, while her sobs became more and more pronounced.
She finally let her tears consume her as she clung to the now lifeless body of her former colleague, her hands covered in his blood, her cries muffled by the silent rainy night.
Why did it have to end like this? Why had he accepted his fate without even trying to defend himself, as if he...
As if he had been waiting for this opportunity forever.
Now Dazai was gone. Definitely.
When he had left the Mafia, she had felt devastated without knowing why. Today, she finally understood the reason behind this abominable feeling.
She was angry at him for leaving her behind. Was it that feeling he had experienced when she herself had abandoned him, too much of a coward to continue loving him?
She had failed to make him happy, the one and only mission she could never accomplish. But the worst part of it all...
It was that, despite all her efforts, despite all her sacrifices, she had finally lost herself.
By thrusting her blade in Dazai's chest, it was her own heart that she had finished.