Chapter Text
7 Years after the Death of the Flags
If Dazai sees another billboard with Nakahara Chuuya on it, he’s going to murder Mori. He can’t even escape from Chuuya when he’s on his lunch break! As if all the movie posters a year ago weren't bad enough, now he has to cope with all the billboards having Chuuya in ugly flashy poses on them all over the city.
Billboard Chuuya doesn’t have the same look in his eye that he has when he’s yelling at Dazai or in combat. Billboard Chuuya’s not enjoying his time up there, and Dazai isn’t enjoying having to look at him. Dazai snickers. The chibi just doesn’t fit the role of mysterious pretty boy. That was always Dazai's role in their partnership. Chuuya was supposed to be the loud, angry one.
"Dazai-san?" Atsushi calls out as he walks into the Café Uzumaki, disrupting Dazai’s train of thought.
Dazai turns to face Atsushi, blinking innocently. "Is there something you need?"
Dazai notices that Atsushi isn't very fazed by his intense staring. Instead, Atsushi looks more…confused.
"Lunch break ended fifteen minutes ago, Dazai-san. Also, there’s a client waiting."
Dazai groans, "Kunikida sent you, didn't he? Tell him I'll be up once I finish my coffee. And why don’t you take the client, Atsushi-kun? I can look for the lost cat instead!"
"You didn't order anything," Atsushi stares at him, “and the client specifically requested you."
A special request then, he thinks. This likely wasn't going to go well, considering the amount of women he gives his number to. The Mafia is also a possibility, but since the whole fiasco with Fitzgerald, and then Shibusawa, they were being relatively quiet. Well, other than the giant billboards of Chuuya everywhere, that is.
Dazai huffs. "You can stop looking at me like I've grown three heads, Atsushi-kun! I'll head up right now if it's so important."
He grumbles about it, yet begrudgingly gets up and makes his way back to the Armed Detective Agency.
"Right," Atsushi stops before he opens the door, fidgeting with his tie, "the client’s just waiting on the couch."
Dazai sighs and opens the door, mentally preparing himself to be screamed at by a justifiably jilted woman. Instead, he hears no one screaming, so he turns his head towards the couch.
Chuuya was, up until this point, having a wonderful morning. He's received a well-deserved two-week break after dealing with the whole Fitzgerald fiasco, the giant fucking dragon, and of course, the horribly boring modeling photoshoots. As if that wasn’t enough, in between all that he had to turn on his best negotiating face and talk with all the companies that wanted a deal with Mori Corp., the slightly more legal side of the Port Mafia. Frankly, it was exhausting. The past year left him feeling as though he had used Corruption every day for a month.
So it seems like a cruel joke when, on the first day of his vacation, he receives a letter. It’s tucked under his door all innocent-like.
He does not want to deal with anything today, but he sighs and picks it up anyway. Whatever. It’s likely that the letter is just a prank, or some fan mail from a stalker, or some hate mail from a stalker, he considers as he picks it up. Or it could be a letter from the boss, he supposes. It's odd, but there’s a first time for everything.
He observes the envelope. There’s nothing written on it. He turns it around. Also nothing. Sighing, Chuuya opens it. Probably work then. Better to get it over with. The letter is typed in a neat and fancy font.
Dear Chuuya,
How are you? I do hope you are well. I see you are following in your old friend’s footsteps. Are you making him proud? Is the boss satisfied? I sure hope he is- you know how he likes to get rid of useless fodder. Don’t pretend like he didn’t have to pull strings to get you where you are. You’re not a good liar anyways, not as good as him.
The envelope is completely blank- there isn’t even an address written on it, yet it somehow found its way to his apartment. Was it mistakenly sent to him? He flips it around to make sure he isn't misremembering. Like before, there's no address. Chuuya shakes his head. There’s no way the letter was sent by accident- it talks about things that Chuuya never discusses with anyone, things he wouldn’t say even if he was drunk out of his mind. (He rants about Dazai when he’s drunk, according to Hirotsu.) It’s clearly an issue, Chuuya can’t have his private information known, and the mildly threatening tone of the letter does worry him a little.
Chuuya looks over the letter and the envelope for any possible clues that the sender could’ve left. But there’s simply no clues- the letter has nothing written on the envelope, the paper is the standard blank A4 paper you can get anywhere, and, well, the letter quite literally just appeared.
Chuuya reads it again. That mention of his old friend must mean him, but it can’t be, he thinks, growing desperate. He lays on his couch with his arm thrown over his face. There’s no way- no one is supposed to know.
2 Years After the Death of the Flags
The long room is dimly lit by two lamps at the side of an elaborate mahogany desk. The plush carpet is a deep red, if any blood were to be spilled on the carpet, it would blend right in. The windows that take up most of the left wall of the office have no curtains. Outside them, the sky is pitch-black. Only when you look down, you see the lights of the city. A little girl with long yellow curls sits on the floor, drawing with crayons. The images are violent, filled with death and blood. No one pays her any mind, except the Boss.
It is in this room that Chuuya is given a will and a chance.
Chuuya takes off his hat and kneels. “Boss, you wanted to see me?”
“Chuuya-kun, I’m glad to see you here, you may rise.”
“”Of course, Boss. What can I do for you?”
Mori pulls out a folder from his desk drawer, “You may stand, I’ll get straight to the point.”
Chuuya rises to face Mori.
“Yesterday, we found Lippmann’s will. We were unaware that he had left one.”
Chuuya’s eyes widen, though he tries to suppress his surprise. “Did he leave me something?”
“He left you his entire estate, including his penthouse apartment.”
Chuuya knits his brows, “He doesn’t have family?”
Mori looks amused. “He does not. It seems to be a common trait around these parts.”
Chuuya pauses before concluding, “So, I just get all his stuff.”
“Not just his stuff, Chuuya-kun. He also left a statement. ‘In the event that Nakahara Chuuya survives me by more than thirty days, I wish that he takes my place, in other words, I wish for him to become an actor. If he is unwilling to do so, he does not have to.”
“He…wants me to do his job?”
Mori nods. “Normally, I wouldn’t bring this up, but considering the recent events with Dazai-kun…”
Chuuya winces. He’s aware what Dazai leaving left him with- they hadn’t figured out a position for Chuuya yet, though he is an executive, so was Dazai, and they acted as a pair. His role in the Port Mafia is shaky at the moment, considering he can’t use Corruption, his usefulness is limited. Corruption had been beautiful in its raw destructive power that had brought down so many, and now, it’s gone. It had been a month since Dazai’s desertion, and Chuuya still didn’t have any assignments or missions. Just paperwork.
Mori’s reassuring tone breaks Chuuya out of his thoughts. “Chuuya-kun, I know you might be reluctant, considering you are not as good a negotiator as Dazai or Lippman, but you are charismatic enough for the job, and we will train you in negotiation tactics and such. If you decline, I will simply assign you something else, I was thinking maybe the shipping department? Lippmann’s will simply gave me another idea for you.”
Lippmann made this whole thing more complicated. One of the Flags, his group of friends when he was sixteen- his first good friends in the Mafia. (Dazai didn’t count- to this day, he’s not sure if they’re friends or not.) Lippmann, who, with the rest of the flags, gave him the only picture he had of his family- they had even gone against the boss’ orders to do so. He hadn’t thought of them in so long, with Dazai’s desertion lingering on the back of his mind instead. Guilt rises in his chest- the Flags had done so much for him, yet he hadn’t spared them a single thought recently. Lippmann, who joked about them becoming stars on the silver screen together, Doc, creepy but endearing all the same, Pianoman- who had been the closest of them to become an executive, Iceman- stoic and sharp, and Albatross, who had given Chuuya his treasured motorcycle.
Of course, his first good group of friends was ripped away from him by Verlaine, his “brother”. He doesn’t want to think about that. He shakes the thought from his head.
Chuuya had said no to acting when Lippmann had asked him that time- he hated the thought of being seen by so many people. But now, things are different. He takes a deep breath. “Just to clarify, Boss, if I take Lippmann’s previous position, I would have to become an actor and the Head of Public Relations for the Port Mafia.”
“Well, I suppose you don’t have to become an actor, you could become a singer instead, Chuuya-kun.”
“I don’t think anyone would want to hear my singing, Boss,” Chuuya says wryly.
“So,” Mori clasps his hands together, “it’s settled then? You wish to take Lippmann’s previous position?”
“I’ll take the position,” Chuuya replies, mildly amused.
“Excellent. You’ll start training under Kouyou-kun in negotiation tactics tomorrow. You are dismissed.”
Chuuya bows. As he heads out, he decides to visit the Flags’ graves today and put the whole Dazai situation behind him for a moment. The sun scatters its rays on the tops of the buildings, signaling the dawn of a new day.
7 Years after the Death of the Flags
It wouldn’t be too surprising if he has a stalker, Chuuya considers. No one was supposed to know about Lippmann’s will other than Chuuya and the boss. The more he thought about it, the weirder the letter got. It knew exactly where to poke to irritate him- Mori, Lippmann, his insecurities. The letter implying that the sender knew secret Port Mafia information was also concerning, but not so concerning that it would warrant a visit to the Boss. It's just personal information, not the Port Mafia’s shipping routes. Chuuya’s unwilling to admit it, but he’s had these doubts such as those mentioned in the letter before, so the letter is simply…bothersome.
He can deal with this himself, he decides. Resting back in his armchair, he considers all the possibilities, before realizing he barely knows where to start with figuring it out. It’s detective work, essentially. And Chuuya doesn’t have any tools a typical detective would use.
He sighs. For all his acting on the silver screen as a dashing detective, Chuuya doesn’t think he can figure out who the letter is from. He’s not sure where to start. His mind races- is it the boss, perhaps? But the letter clearly mentions the boss, so it must be an outsider. Maybe Dazai? But they’ve been avoiding each other, and he wants to believe that Dazai wouldn’t be so cruel. Maybe there’s a mole in the Mafia, though that would be difficult to investigate without drawing suspicion. Low ranking mafia members didn’t know he was Mafia (he wears a disguise whenever he has to interact with them). He could talk to Hirotsu and Akutagawa, but they weren’t detectives. They would listen to his rants about how horrible the modeling shoots were (in private bars or when Chuuya was in disguise, of course, Chuuya couldn’t be seen with known mafiosos), but they wouldn’t be able to help him solve the case.
Eventually he gives up and puts the letter onto the kitchen table and tries to forget about it, though the letter’s words linger in the back of his mind whenever he starts thinking for too long. Annoyed and mildly exhausted, he assumes that he’ll figure it out eventually, and attempts to go on with his day. He closes his eyes, reclines on his couch, and attempts to relax. A nap will help, he figures it’s better to not think about it.
…Turns out, it is impossible to not think about it.
The letter drags all his thoughts towards it. Like the moon controlling the tides, his thoughts are at the mercy of the letter. When musing on what he should eat tonight, his mind draws him towards thoughts of the letter sitting on his kitchen table. When checking his fridge, there’s the thought in the back of his head that the letter is behind him and that someone had to have known all that personal info on him somehow, so maybe his house is bugged?
It's annoying, to say the least. For one, he knows his house isn’t bugged (he checked, multiple times), and he knows that the letter is pretty much non-threatening. It’s just essentially creepy hate mail that knows more than it should. Frankly, he thinks it’s stupid that it affects him this much. He’s on break! For the first time in months he gets a break, and he can’t even relax. He knows if doesn’t get this solved and out of his mind immediately, it’ll plague him for the rest of his week.
Chuuya groans. This just circles back to his main point. He’s not a fucking detective, he doesn’t know how he’s supposed to solve this. He can’t contact the police, and he doesn’t know any shady underground detectives. Yeah, Mori could probably solve this in an instant, but Chuuya isn’t about to contact his Boss about a singular disturbing letter. All he can do is make theories, but all that planning about how to solve the case and whatever…well, planning was never his strong suit. That was always-
…Shit.
Chuuya wants to slap himself. There are real detectives. Real detectives not exactly connected to the police. Real detectives which the Port Mafia had even worked with before- especially a certain fishy bastard of a detective who knows essentially everything about him. If he wanted to find the sender quickly, well, the lanky bandaged beanpole would indeed be the one to contact. He wouldn’t question anything about Chuuya’s past, and Chuuya wouldn’t have to explain anything to him. The caveat of this was, of course, dealing with the walking waste of bandages himself. That would be absolute hell.
Chuuya groans again and rolls over on his couch, trying to think of any other solution. In a futile attempt to avoid the unavoidable, he briefly considers ignoring the letter, before realizing that it still weighs on his consciousness more than he’d like to admit. Fuck. There’s no way his break would be enjoyable with it on his mind. Pulling himself off his couch, Chuuya makes plans for what is going to be the worst Thursday of his life.
He still hasn’t figured out what to eat for dinner, for fuck’s sake.