Archive of Our Own ^beta

Dazai Osamu was someone that was remarkably human and remarkably not.

He was made of flesh and bone, but possibly of other things as well. The different ideas of what he could be had spread amongst a wide variety of people before he even stepped into a life of organized crime, and there were only a select few people who were able to satiate that curiosity. That satiation usually came from a scarlet cut from a knife, a crack of bone from a strong hit, or from the sharp sting of a gunshot- the formerly curious tended to leave after that, content with leaving behind the strange child dealing with the consequences of what had been done to him.

Ogai Mori was not satisfied with the scars that he found scattered about his skin, nor was he satisfied with watching him choke on the water that had filled his lungs before he had been pulled from the river. He was only satisfied once he had pulled apart the child’s skin and muscle himself, his scalpel wielded as if it was some tool to sift through dust with the intent to uncover an artifact of some kind.

Dazai did not remember a lot from his early days in the Port Mafia. He remembered how the doctor that had taken him away from the river had introduced himself, and he remembered how that doctor did not use anesthesia during the surgery that he performed after introductions were over. The former boss’s dying gasp was a rather vivid memory, with the scarlet that decorated the walls and the doctor’s face being vivid in turn, but other than that, all Dazai knew was that he spent the rest of his fourteenth year surrounded by books.

Mori didn’t bother trying to supplement those memories, too intent on doing what he could to make the child that he found absolutely delightful into the diamond of a weapon he believed Dazai could be. All Dazai knew was the information that he had unwillingly learned during that time, the curriculum he was given literally beaten into his head. He could guess how he acted at some points in time, given his memories of himself at 15 and given how Elise acted, but he never really had a motivation to try and re-discover what he had lost during the latter half of that year. What fragments he could find, scattered about in his brain as they were, didn’t make him want to try.

As for his fifteenth year, Dazai remembered mixing hypertension and hypotension medicine together. He remembered being interrupted by the promise of a lethal poison, and then being sent off to Suribachi City with Hirotsu at his side and the Silver Oracle certificate clutched in his hands. And then he remembered getting thrown off his feet and looking up to see someone blocking out the sun above him.

Nakahara Chuuya was someone that was so remarkably human that Dazai felt that the creature he himself must be paled greatly in comparison.

After all, how could he be human when this crude, handsome, powerful brat glowed with enough vitality to outlast the sun itself? How could he even dare to call himself human when he had an ability that was cold enough to torch its host’s insides with permafrost, and that kid had an ability that was powerful enough to bring an entire city to its knees?

Dazai could still recognize the faces of the Sheep members to this day. He could still feel the brambles of hostility creep inside the gaping hole that was his heart (it was within that maw of torn flesh that something was held that wasn’t resentful, although he would have never guessed it was possible after what Mori had done) when the two kids demanded that Nakahara take the captured Sheep and beat back the Mafia, could still see the muted agitation flickering across his soon-to-be partner’s face as he was asked to do something that he didn’t really want to do.

The past was often viewed with lenses that afforded the observer perfect vision, and Dazai was given a pair of hindsight glasses that included some shaky, though newly learned, morals. He was surprised that Nakahara hadn’t followed through on his threat to take Dazai’s life while he was still his partner, as he knew more than anyone that his partner disliked being played as a puppet. Then again, given that Mori had already sunk his fingers into the kid’s psyche, it wasn’t like Dazai would have been able to change that much, especially not when Mori had had an iron hold on him as well.

One thing that Dazai did remember clearly was the awe that he felt whenever Nakahara- no, he had started calling him Chuuya by then (or had he already called him that after he met him?)- used his ability. He was a storm contained within a human body, a catastrophic event that could be unleashed with a blink of the eye and a glow of scarlet, and he was a blur of adrenaline-fuelled, lethal energy. How could anyone ever hope to look away?

Dazai was only a little ashamed to admit that he could count how many times his partner had used his ability in his presence. He was only slightly less ashamed because the only reason that he could was because that was what he could recall best; while the information, tactics, and more important things that occurred during his time in the mafia stayed burned into his memory, the day-to-day missions and assignments blurred together in a mess of blood, grime, bullets, scalpels, and alcohol. There were days where he hadn’t known how he had gotten to Bar Lupin to see Odasaku and Ango, or how he had gotten back to the shipping container, or why he was sitting in Mori’s clinic.

Then there were the days with Chuuya, and it was as if he was some tiny memory fairy, because Dazai could recall so much of the time he spent with him. He could taste the bite of the banter that they would yell at each other over radio channels and across rooms, feel the headiness of whatever alcohol one of them stole numbing his mind, and hear the shrill sounds of the arcade machines that they always found themselves racing back to.

And even if Dazai was doing something entirely unrelated, like eating a meal with Atsushi, staring at his computer while Kunikida yelled about some incomplete report, or carrying the bags of snacks that Ranpo would purchase, he was able to feel the dead weight of his partner whenever Corruption ended in his arms. The phantom feeling would always come at odd times, and he would be stuck glancing around for a glow of red or the sound of chaos, seeking out a momentarily deified Chuuya even when he knew that it was merely a memory.

Corruption was something that Dazai loved and hated. It was the most magnificent show of power and destruction that he had ever seen, but it was the flame that was eating away at the wick of his partner’s life with every second it was active. It was the thing that Dazai knew he could count on as a backup plan, but it was the thing that stripped away so much from the partner that he bickered with and walked alongside.

It was something that proved that Dazai was not the only one that struggled with his humanity, and it was something that Dazai could lose his partner to oh so easily. A misstep, a stray bullet, a hesitation- even a deep breath. All little things that could steal Nakahara Chuuya away from him if he wasn’t careful, and if he wasn’t fast.

He had once heard their partnership be called the “invincible Double Black” because of the chaotic pairing of No Longer Human and For the Tainted Sorrow. There were always comments made by those who witnessed and survived a bout of Corruption about how Chuuya appeared to be invincible in the moments where he lost all control of his ability. Sometimes, they were followed by remarks on how Dazai could never be touched when Chuuya was around, and that, if a person wasn’t careful and hurt him while his partner was around, they would feel the wrath of gravity itself for making the youngest executive in history bleed.

Dazai had teased his partner endlessly about that comment in particular, calling him the best dog he could ever have by his side and dodging the kicks that were promptly thrown in his direction while laughing. Though he never refuted the claims, and Chuuya never did either.

Hard to do that when Chuuya had slammed a man through concrete in front of a good amount of Mafia grunts because the aforementioned man had sliced open Dazai’s shoulder and then made a rather distasteful joke about him to his face. The rumors would be even stronger if any grunts knew how much power Chuuya put into the kicks that he directed into anyone disposable that made any more predatory advances toward his partner. If his loyalty toward the boss wasn’t so strong, what would he do to Mori if he knew?

Even if Dazai didn’t get hurt, Chuuya still made an effort to toss any bullets that went his way away from him, taunting their enemies while promising violence to his partner if Dazai didn’t get whatever they had come there for. It made missions a lot more entertaining than the ones he got sent on alone, or with Hirotsu or Akutagawa. He could know that there was a decreased risk of getting hurt because there was someone reliable watching his back, and missions got done at a higher success rate because of it. It tended to be a lot easier to think when his attention wasn’t divided between the task at hand and the act of not getting a bullet to the head.

But there were moments in which he got hurt on missions with Chuuya. To be honest, Dazai didn’t remember it very well; he could just feel the sharpness of pain and just hear the screech of rage from the other half of Double Black. Any memory of spending time in Mori’s clinic afterward, getting patched up, was skipped over, as if he had spontaneously appeared in his shipping container or in Chuuya’s house with all of his injuries suddenly dressed and a cocktail of painkillers running through his veins.

Only one of those occasions stood whole and unbroken in his memory, the clarity so strong that it could’ve happened yesterday.

Corruption was a horrible, awesome thing. Dazai knew that more than anyone else, as the sole individual to witness it every single time it was unleashed. However, it was a nightmare to anyone else who had even heard of it, including Mori. After all, there was an almost fixed guarantee that there would be casualties, and even the big bad mafia boss didn’t like seeing his ledger dyed with unnecessarily shed blood.

But the thing about Corruption was that it had a very specific rumor attached to it, one that had already rolled through Dazai’s mind today, and that very specific rumor was false.

‘When Chuuya was around, Dazai could not be touched. Especially not when Corruption was active.’

The first time that Chuuya had hurt him, actually hurt him, was during Corruption.

They had been 16, almost 17, still fresh off the paradoxical horror and power trip that Corruption gave the both of them. The mission was something that Dazai didn’t even remember well, an elimination of a whistleblower that was trying to take down a branch of some front company that Mori saw enough value in to protect. That whistleblower decided to make everything difficult by allying himself with a gifted organization that had a pair of gifted people with a rather annoying invulnerability thing going on, which forced them to jump to Corruption a little earlier than they usually would have.

The combatants took 26 seconds to take down, gifted pair included, and Dazai had then darted out to get ahold of Chuuya’s arm before his partner could lose too much blood.

For all his talents, for all his intelligence, for all his spatial awareness, Dazai hadn’t seen the metallic projectiles that had been in Chuuya’s reach before they were embedded into his abdomen.

He remembered it so vividly because he remembered choking on the pain from it, getting thrown off his feet and losing all the air in his lungs as he hit the concrete. The tiny things were cold, so cold that they rivaled the feeling of No Longer Human on a good day, and Dazai could feel them in the muscles that should have never had the opportunity to feel it. He remembered gasping, vision spotting as adrenaline kicked in and his thoughts screamed.

In the haze of his vision, Chuuya was a scarlet angel.

An angel that had walked toward him in slow, heavy steps, the concrete fracturing beneath his boots and being a better musical accompaniment than any orchestral piece.

Dazai didn’t recall being afraid. He didn’t have the thoughts to do it, so caught off guard by the injury and by what had happened that his mind could do nothing but spin with all of the force of a hurricane. There was a ringing in his ears that he wasn’t comfortable with, because it made it impossible for him to focus on anything but Chuuya coming toward him and the rod in his side, but it was definitely a low priority at that moment.

Chuuya had never spoken anything coherent during Corruption. All it was was a shriek of incoherency, laughter intermingling with the screams of an insane soul.

As Chuuya had stood above his body, staring down with the empty eyes of Arahabaki with blood painting his skin in dark stripes, he opened his mouth and said Dazai’s name.

The word had made Dazai’s body respond before his mind could, the hand not pressed against his wound jerked out and hit against his partner’s ankle. He splayed his fingers against it, grasping at the bone until they slipped beneath the fabric of Chuuya’s pant leg and touched skin.

Dazai had heard plenty of Chuuya’s screams before. Arahabaki had an apparent mission to snap his vocal cords in two by the time he turned 25.

Never had he heard his partner scream like he did that day, although it was possible that Dazai’s own mind was exaggerating what happened a little bit. He did lose consciousness pretty quickly after Corruption was safely turned off.

But Chuuya had screamed when he saw him, and he knew because when Dazai had woken up in Mori’s clinic, that sound was still echoing in his ears. It was paired with the visual of his partner on his knees next to him, swearing as his hands hovered helplessly over the injury.

When Dazai had been cleared, the first thing that Chuuya said to him was “did I do that?”

Dazai hadn’t answered.

Chuuya had practically thrown him out of harm’s way for every mission since then, snapping at him whenever he joked about how dogs don’t usually throw their masters like sticks and ignoring any questions about why he did it.

Even if Dazai wasn’t supposed to be on a mission with Chuuya and entered the battlefield late, his partner would still find some way to chuck him to the sidelines as soon as possible. It was like Chuuya had some sort of ‘Dazai danger sense’, because even if Dazai snuck up on him (and he was plenty stealthy, thank you very much) and he didn’t have the opportunity to get him out of the battlefield, he still kicked him in the knees and wiped out all of the enemies in one fell stroke.

But the thing about not going on missions with someone for a long time, the thing about not spending time with someone for a long time, was that learned instincts tended to fade. Even the strongest would lose something, gradually. If that special instinct was sand in an hourglass, even if there was something that was covering up the way to the bottom half, some grains would be able to slip through.

Dazai had been careful to stay back during the mission to rescue Q, holding his (what was Chuuya’s could probably be called his) knife to the Guild grape operative’s throat while staying back at the edge of the forest. His hesitation worked, and he wasn’t hurt besides that one lucky hit that Lovecraft got in. There was no comment about how Chuuya hadn’t launched him into the trees to get him a safe distance away from the eldritch operative.

And because of that, Dazai slipped up. Just like he always did when he got comfortable with a situation that seemed stable, with a situation that he believed that he didn’t need to worry about in the slightest.

Nakahara Chuuya would not admit that he missed being a part of Double Black.

4 years would usually be more than enough for anyone to get rid of any lingering affection for a partnership, especially when it ended with a blown up car, and Chuuya had thought that that had been enough time. He had found his stride as an executive, keeping the same kind of distance from the other executives and operatives that he had as half of Double Black and becoming more than successful on his missions. The anger that he had felt when he had gotten the call, staring at the wrecked skeleton of his car, became a part of the emotional energy that hummed in his veins every day. It was easier to be angry at life, because that made the moments when he allowed himself to be calm, to hold the fragile joy from something simple on his mind, all the sweeter.

He had gotten into a good rhythm. Not only that, but he became more proficient with his ability than ever before, able to effortlessly leap to the stars in a way he had only wished that he could do as a teenager. He had finally become an executive, and those files that Mori had kept from him for so long were finally his. They now sat in the office of his apartment, a few of the binders paged through and a few of them untouched.

Some of the binders’ titles alone made Chuuya decide to get drunk instead of open them, and as if the present moment, he was fine with that.

Overall, even though he was becoming more and more aware of the actions of the other executives, of some of the things that were normalized that he had never noticed when Dazai was at his side, it didn’t matter. Chuuya had become a strong individual in his own right without truly needing anyone or anything else, even without Corruption- which he didn’t miss all that much, to be honest.

He had built himself something that he was content with. He had Kouyou, he had his wine, he had the quiet of his days off.

Then Dazai showed up with the Agency, and Chuuya opened another bottle of Pétrus and a new bottle of vodka. He wasn’t able to get blackout drunk, not with Arahabaki in his veins, but he fell asleep on his couch with enough alcohol in his veins to kill a weaker man.

Despite his attempts to steer clear of his ex-partner, because he wasn’t quite sure if he would shoot him on sight or not, Chuuya would still find himself glancing over his shoulder in crowds to see if that one head of hair was the right one or not. He would catch a glimpse of someone with bandages winding up their limbs and have to tear his gaze away from some random injured person. There would be someone laughing with a familiar cadence, someone ordering a certain drink with a rough voice, or someone wearing a long coat that was either black or tan.

Not once did Chuuya find his ex-partner in those strangers’ features. That was fine.

What wasn’t fine was finding his ex-partner in the Port Mafia’s dungeon, chained up and on the chopping block. It wasn’t really great that it was so incredibly easy to fall back into their normal bickering habits, as if there wasn’t a betrayal and years of radio silence between them, but Chuuya would be lying to himself if he said that he hated the experience. Dazai was entertaining at times, even with his overwhelmingly annoying tendencies. Also, being able to punch the hell out of him was satisfying as hell.

He wasn’t surprised when Double Black reunited. Nor was he surprised that it felt as if no time had passed at all as they rescued Q and faced the Guild operatives. Every strategy they had ever made was fresh on his mind, as if they had been brainstormed and memorized yesterday. He relied on instincts that had lay still for so long, making sure that Dazai stayed in the tree line so that he wouldn’t have to deal with a bloody mackerel later-

Nakahara Chuuya was sixteen years old, and he was holding the body of someone who had gotten severely injured because of him for the second time in a year.

Arahabaki no longer ran rampant in his veins, lying just beyond his thoughts as No Longer Human feebly kept it back. Chuuya could feel the thing circling, right under his skin, as if such an abhorrent, alien creature was concerned because the key to its vessel’s continued survival was gasping for breath in his arms.

Dazai wasn’t even saying anything, his eye glazed over as his blood stained Chuuya’s clothes. It was like he was some kind of doll that was stuck on the border between life and death, too lifelike to be made of porcelain but too uncanny to truly be called human, and each breath he took in was staggered, as if his very lungs were trying to remove themselves from the skeleton of his body. The injuries that dotted his body were dying his dark coat an even darker color, and all Chuuya could do was try to hold him closer, try to do anything that would stop his partner from leaving him.

Chuuya had felt the ache in his throat for a while now, but it was only when his ears stopped ringing that he understood that he had been screaming. Screaming his partner’s name, his first name, and begging for him to move, to wake up, to do something that wasn’t being limp in his arms. 

Anything, so that Chuuya could pretend that he didn’t just hurt one of the select few people keeping him sane in this damned world.

-and so that he could fight without having to worry about the walking plant man. Dazai knew enough to have a steady hold on the operative so that all Chuuya would have to worry about was the eldritch guy instead of the eldritch guy and the entire damn forest, and since his ex-partner still hadn’t given his knife back, he was sure that he’d be fine.

Then the eldritch guy decided to become a literal eldritch guy and Chuuya momentarily wanted to rethink his life choices, because what the hell.

Using Corruption was something that felt familiar in the worst way possible.

His bones shifted beneath his skin and muscles in a way that he had once been used to, his blood a familiar wave of iron that coated his throat and lips with scarlet. He stopped thinking, his vision both a blur and something that was inhuman in its accuracy. The thing that was in front of him became a thing to destroy, not an operative called Lovecraft, and the forest around them became a useless backdrop, with trees that may serve as useful weapons.

Even though it hurt, it hurt in the way that his teenage years did. Chuuya knew that the smile that he wore, the gaping, inhuman grin that made him want to tear off the skin of his own body, wasn’t just because of Arahabaki. The devil that was his ability knew with all of the conviction that the both of them possessed that they had their partner back, that neither of them would fall to a shared rage because they had the person that cared enough to keep them living at their side. It was the same as before, and that fact alone (as poisonous as it was) was the most reassuring thing in the world.

It was only much later, long after Corruption had been neutralized and when he had opened his eyes to his bedroom’s ceiling, that he had realized that Dazai had done something different. They had had an unspoken habit when they were younger, that whenever Corruption was used the partners would stay together so that no enemy would take advantage of either of their weaknesses.

Chuuya had woken up alone.

To say that the next mission that they were thrown on together was awkward was an understatement. One thing that Dazai was, no matter what position he held and no matter how much darkness he held within those mercurial eyes of his, was perceptive, which was great for having him as a partner. It was also great when he noticed that Chuuya was not in the mood for any of his teasing and shut his trap within the first three minutes of the mission starting.

But Chuuya had always been a weak man, at least whenever emotion decided to interfere with his logic, and so it didn’t take too long for him to break the silence. He didn’t like Dazai when he was silent- it was unnerving, because he was only well and truly quiet after Chuuya cut him down or wrapped towels too tightly around his wrists or after- so he knew many ways to make him run his mouth, which was unfortunate for every type of circumstance except for this one. All it took was him muttering a reply to one of the petty jokes that his ex-partner had made in the first minute and the mackerel had lit up like a damn Christmas tree.

It should have been irritating, but it was hard to feign annoyance when he was fighting back a fit of laughter.

Then they got to the mission’s location- an old villa that was decorated by someone with horrible taste in interior and exterior design- and Chuuya got to worry about what he was tasked with doing instead of how he felt about his ex-partner.

It was just his luck that the bastards that had been bothering their respective organizations were tough enough for them to have to fall back on Corruption, which was more frustrating than anything else.

“You know,” Dazai had said, right before Chuuya had peeled off his gloves, “I think that I’m the only one who finds your Corrupted state absolutely breath-taking.”

Chuuya had stopped, thrown off by the candor with a finger hooked beneath the cuff of his gloves, and turned to face his ex-partner. A dumb move, considering that there had been at least five different guys with automatic guns and two different ability users with invulnerability powers that were both trying to personally chuck both of their asses down to hell, but he hadn’t really cared.

Dazai hadn’t been looking at him, playing with the trigger on the pistol that he held as if it was some kind of toy. There was a distant look on his face, which would have been familiar if one of his eyes had been covered, but the expression was blinked away when Chuuya’s change in focus had been noticed. He had laughed, gesturing toward their opponents with a carefree air, and told him that he found it breath-taking because Corruption permanently stole the breath from most of the opponents they faced with humor in his tone.

Chuuya didn’t believe him for a second, but he had allowed himself a moment so that Dazai could back away from him a little bit more before calling on Arahabaki.

The closest thing that he could compare the experience of Corruption to would be a dissociative episode. A painful, soundless, void of thought that was only filled with the sensation of his veins emptying of blood. That blood flowed up his throat, dispelling the air that was harshly pushed in and out of his lungs, and gathered at his eyes, pouring out of his tear ducts with a burn that made him want to take a razor to his face. He couldn’t exactly see, as everything was a blur of light and dark, and it wasn’t like he could hang on to any flickering moments of consciousness for more than a second.

Time was meaningless to him in that state, even though what was left of his consciousness was screaming, begging for it to end. While the desire had surfaced from time to time, Chuuya never truly wanted to die. Especially not at the hands of the thing that was his ability. Never like that.

He would never admit that he adored how No Longer Human felt in that moment. The cool touch was one of the first things he felt as Corruption lost its hold on his body, a balm on the open wounds that his ability left, and he could feel himself leaving the void that Arahabaki was usually shoved into in a haze of frost. Winter was something that he had always associated with the negation ability, and not just because the owner of it looked beautiful wreathed in snow. There was something so harmless and so harmful about it, which was quite befitting for Dazai’s ability.

Corruption was the burning summer that was defeated by the frostbitten wind of No Longer Human, and Chuuya wouldn’t have it any other way.

But this time was strange.

He could feel No Longer Human intertwining with Corruption, and with For The Tainted Sorrow, but there was something off. His vision was still blurry, and his other senses were faring no better, so all he could do was reach for the strange threads of cold and try to pull them closer. Maybe, just maybe, if he pulled them close enough, he could understand what was going-

“There you are,” Dazai whispered, the little smile on his face making his eyes crinkle at the corners. His lip was split, the blood dying it a deep red that trailed down to drip off of his chin. “There you are.”

Chuuya’s left hand was curled around his ex-partner’s head, buried in his hair with an almost possessive grip. Dazai leaned into it as if it was the first kind touch he had gotten in four years, as if he had no strength of his own to keep his own head up. His right hand was cupping Chuuya’s face, firmly pressed into his skin as if he couldn’t get enough of the heat that lingered in his body after Corruption retreated back into his bones.

There was a bend to Dazai’s left elbow that was not natural, with scarlet soaking through the sleeve of his coat. It hung at his side, his hand dragging against the ground as he breathed in and out with a stagger in each intake of air. He hunched in on himself, more on one side than the other, and the cloth on that one side was damaged, stained with dirt and rust and torn in places The collar of his shirt was also stained with the color of rust, a long gash tearing open the skin and muscle of his throat to expose the scarlet of the internal workings of Dazai’s body.

His ex-partner lay limp, only supported by the hand holding up his head. With the way that his smile flickered and his eyelids gradually fell further and further shut, it was clear that he was fighting the pull of unconsciousness. How quickly he would give into it was up to Dazai himself, and if it was already this bad, then there would only be a few minutes for him to do anything.

Chuuya didn’t know what he said. It could have been his ex-partner’s surname or his ex-partner’s first name, it could have been some curse word or it could have been some plea for something good to happen. Something was said, he knew that from how his throat began to ache with enough pain to make him want to rip it out, because it was stealing away his focus from the man that lay bleeding in front of him. The pain of Corruption’s aftershocks wasn’t as present either, aided by the fact that he was already on his knees, and he couldn’t even think about it, his thoughts tunneling on the one important thing before him.

His ex-partner was light in his arms, his body still made out of the same bird bones that it was when they were both teenagers, but it felt as if he held the weight of the world. The blood that was beginning to dye his sleeves was a color that Chuuya saw often as an executive, but it felt as if this was the first time that he had ever seen this much blood.

Chuuya was no doctor. He specialized in destruction, not in making sure that others could walk after being crushed in said destruction, so all that he knew how to do was a handful of basics to keep himself alive. Times like this was when he wished that he knew as much as one, because bile was biting at the back of his throat as he forced his focus to stay on Dazai and he could barely hear himself talk over the white noise that was building up in his ears due to the hurricane of insatiably annoying thoughts in his head.

Immobilizing the broken arm was the first thing he did, because Dazai let out a small sound of pain as Chuuya shifted his body a little bit to better hold him. The sound made him freeze for a moment before he grabbed a piece of that damned rod, pressed it against the broken limb, and ripped off his coat to wrap around it. Because of course the mackerel who dressed up as a mummy on a daily basis didn’t carry spare bandages around on his person, a habit that hadn’t changed since their days in the mafia.

He didn’t know what to do with the rod in Dazai’s side besides leaving it there to keep the injury from freely bleeding, so he tore off a section of his coat and put pressure on the gash on his neck. It took less than he expected to focus on Dazai instead of the fact that it wasn’t just his partner’s blood that dyed his coat scarlet, and he knew that he didn’t get close enough to their opponents for their blood to hit him.

What more could he do? Everyone’s dead here, Arahabaki would’ve made sure of that, and any medical anything would have been wrecked as well, because Chuuya couldn’t control himself and hurt someone precious again-

Not the time.

Chuuya had gotten better at relying on pure adrenaline instead of rage over the years, just as he had gotten better at delaying his grief until he was alone in his apartment. It was easier to hold back a scream of self-hatred when he was preoccupied with downing a few bottles of wine like water.

Here, he didn’t have that option. Not when adrenaline was the only thing that was keeping him upright, keeping him moving, and not when he didn’t even know the extent of the damage that Arahabaki had done to his body after not being used for a few years.

The only option that he had was his mind, which was failing at helping at the moment because all it was doing was overlapping the other time Corruption hurt his partner with this one, which was really not helping-

Dazai’s eyes opened, and he shifted, suddenly, air being pulled through gritted teeth with a hiss. A difference, a difference that he held on to, because it’s easy to dispel an overlap when there were enough of those. What couldn’t be done then could be done now, right?

“Hey- stay still.” Chuuya wound an arm around his shoulders, holding him up while keeping his ex-partner’s injured harm steady and away from his side wound. His free hand was preoccupied with putting pressure on the neck gash. There was something too soft in his voice, some tone that wasn’t supposed to be there when he was talking to his ex-partner, something that he only ever remembered using back when they were in a situation like this one. “Talk to me, Dazai. Are you hurt anywhere else besides your side, throat, and arm, or-”

“Right pocket, 0-4-2-9.” The words sounded like Dazai was spitting them out, as if there wasn’t enough breath in his lungs to properly enunciate anything. A pained, desperate tone didn’t sound good on him. Need to fix that.

Chuuya was not so out of practice to not immediately follow what the mackerel said to the letter.

The flip phone that he had seen his ex-partner answer calls he received from his irate current partner every few hours was sitting in that pocket, with part of the screen cracked and dirty from the dust and gravel that had been kicked up in the fight. He didn’t really care enough to wonder why the great Dazai Osamu only had a single password protecting his phone, but he paused when he found the contacts list filled with inane nicknames instead of useful names.

“The doctor, detective, or president?” Chuuya wasn’t going to call any of the kids, as useful as they could be at times. He wasn’t going to call Dazai’s current partner either, not when the three options he was okay with listing were available. It’s not jealousy.

“Jade.”

He was holding the phone to his ear within a second, the contact named “Detective Jade” lighting up the ‘outgoing call’ screen. It was a little hard to multitask, especially when the main object of his attention still had a stagger to his breaths, but he was able to hold the phone steady as the call went through.

“Hey Dazai, how-”

“I need an ambulance and your doctor here now.”

“Nakahara?”

“Now.”

Despite the immediate suspicion that had colored the detective’s tone upon hearing that it was not his coworker that had called him, Chuuya could hear him shouting things in the background, could hear people scrambling out of chairs and out of doors. He knew that Edogawa Ranpo was smart, and it was not just because he had watched the man point out hundreds of ‘murderer’ characters within an hour or two of being trapped in the damn book and then disappear into thin air with a mocking grin. Anyone who was known as the pillar of the great Armed Detective Agency had to be anything but dumb.

Also, if Dazai trusted someone enough to call them when he was the one injured, it was safe to guess that Chuuya was going to be fine if he went along with it.

“Situation?” There was not a single note of playfulness in his tone, all business in a way that was a bit jarring compared to the arrogant childishness that Edogawa usually displayed.

He almost declared that Corruption had been used before catching himself. No need to allow an enemy to know their finest card, and no need to make an enemy immediately by outing himself as the reason that one of their beloved coworkers was hurt. “Dazai’s injured, there’s a thing in his side, a wound on his neck, and what looks like a broken arm.”

“Well damn. Didn’t think that those guys would make that much of a punch, huh?”

Ranpo sounded like he knew something that he shouldn’t.

“They were not exactly fun to fight. What time-”

“Soon.”

“Soon,” Chuuya repeated. “Okay. Need me to stay on the line?”

“I mean, we know where you are, so unless there’s something that I shouldn’t here-”

“Get them here faster than ‘soon’ so your detective doesn’t bleed out on me.”

He then ended the call halfway through Ranpo making a sound that was somewhere between a word of protest and laughter, and Chuuya didn’t want to think about that. He had already stopped thinking about the way bitterness curled around the words ‘your detective’.

“Aw, chibi wants me all to himself?”

“Like anyone would want you all to themselves,” he reflexively bit back. “Pain level?”

Dazai twisted his head a little bit, wincing at the movement. “4. Adrenaline’s still there.”

It could be more, but it also could not be. Dazai didn’t over-exaggerate when he was actually wounded, but he also had a pain tolerance that could rival his own. However, if he felt okay enough to tease, he should be fine for a while. Right?

“Hey, what happened?” Chuuya tossed the phone to the ground, making sure that it didn’t shatter before using his newly freed hand to wrap around his ex-partner’s right wrist, feeling for his pulse. The twist of the action vaguely pained him, but his own adrenaline came rushing back, enough for him to forget the fact that his own blood had spilled from his body moments before. “Did I-”

The words felt like sacrilege. As if the question that he had never gotten a true answer about years ago (at least not from the one person whose response actually mattered) was stuck in his mind, as if the breath in his lungs was refusing to aid his vocal cords in producing the sound that was required for him to ask it. The practiced calmness that he had been able to keep up for so long was threatening to break, that grief that layered faces upon faces over Dazai’s- a one-eyed sixteen year old, bleeding and as limp as a doll, a young man with a blond braid and broken sunglasses, who was clutching his friend’s body as his own failed, a face that was just like his own, the bones of his body crumpled within the muscle- deciding that it was just the right time to overwhelm his thoughts.

“Chibi-”

“I did this to you.”

That was the first time he had ever admitted it, to his knowledge. Even in his own thoughts, it was ‘did I’ instead of ‘I did’. Even when Mori told him that Dazai being injured during the use of Corruption meant that it was most likely Chuuya’s fault, it was ‘Corruption hurt Dazai’. Never that he had hurt him. The mental gymnastics weren’t astonishing, exactly, but they were a little stupid when he backed up and looked at them.

Dazai was now staring at him with something sad in his gaze, the awareness that refused to flicker out focusing entirely on him. He wasn’t smiling, but there was too much emotion in his features for it to be a neutral expression.

“You did,” he said. Nothing more, nothing less. Sometimes Dazai was good at being blunt.

Chuuya closed his eyes for a moment. He looked up, out at the destruction that he had caused and didn’t regret, before looking down at the destruction that he did regret.

“I’m sorry.”

Dazai laughed, a huff of breath and amused sound. “Why?”

“I hurt you, how can you be laughing?” Bile rose in his throat, and he swallowed it down before it had the chance to do anything more than that. “You’re bleeding so much, and I-”

“Are you Arahabaki, or are you Chuuya?”

He bit his tongue.

“What kind of question is that?”

The arcade’s lights were down, dim in the last lingering minutes of the sun setting. There weren’t any other patrons left, only a staff member behind the prize counter counting out the earnings of the day, and it’s quiet. Some of the games do occasionally let out little jingles, but their music was in the background. Popcorn was spilled in the aisle nearest to him. It had been three months since the last time that Double Black used Corruption, and a week since his partner had been discharged.

Dazai sat on a cushioned stool, slowly spinning around in front of the machine that he and Chuuya had been using a little bit ago. Chuuya himself was leaning over the machine, his feet propped onto the cushion of his own stool, and was mildly regretting the choice, as the machine was a bit hot against his stomach.

There was a sparkle in Dazai’s eye, as if he found the response entertaining. “A normal one! Are you Chuuya Nakahara, the chibi that is unfortunately my partner, or are you Arahabaki, the scarlet monstrosity of a god?”

Chuuya swallowed. There was Dazai being playful, making mild digs at the way that the Sheep had treated him, and there was Dazai being cruel for his personal entertainment. Like him asking about the Flags after coming back from a failed mission at a hospital, like him joking about how Verlaine would like a kind of wine.

He’d grown a backbone since his partner had started making those, and he’d stopped tolerating them as soon as he had gotten over the fact that they were said to him.

“That’s not funny.”

“Funny?” Dazai blinked up at him, his smile freezing as he stopped moving. “I mean it, Chibi.”

“Mean it?” Chuuya frowned, leaning over a bit more. “No, why are you asking?”

“Because I want to know.” Dazai began to spin again, although his smile didn’t come back. “You haven’t used For The Tainted Sorrow ever since our last mission together.”

“Why does that matter?”

Dazai threw out a hand and stopped himself on the machine, getting thrown forward in a way that was almost forced on his own part. He stopped inches away from Chuuya’s face, and his expression was focused, curious in a placid, interested way.

“Because I want to know what you think. Are you Arahabaki, or are you Chuuya, chibi?”

“You can’t just ask me that.” Chuuya didn’t even have the emotion to spare when his voice cracked, any embarrassment he would have usually felt not even able to be summoned. “Don’t ask me that.”

“Aw.” Dazai sighed theatrically. “And here I was, about to say that I thought that chibi was the most distant thing from Arahabaki that ever existed…”

“What?” Chuuya pushed himself up to rest on his elbows.

All his partner did was laugh. Eventually, after Chuuya demanded that he repeat himself a few times, his partner repeated the question from earlier, and Chuuya was too frustrated by him to think before answering.

“I’m Chuuya Nakahara, not that damn god. Now what the hell did you-”

“Bingo!” Dazai yelled, throwing his arms up over his head as he kept spinning. “You did it!”

“Huh?”

Dazai jumped off his stool, stumbling a little bit before staggering over to the arcade machine and standing right in front of Chuuya. He kept himself up with hands settled on either side of him, and Chuuya tried not to blush at the sudden proximity, too enraptured by the pure joy on his partner’s face to think of much.

“Say it again! Again!”

“I’m Chuuya Nakahara?”

“Yeah, again!”

“I’m- bastard, what are you doing?”

“No, the full thing, the full thing!”

“I’m Chuuya Nakahara, not-”

“Not?” Dazai grinned at him, waiting for the answer.

Chuuya tentatively smiled back. “Not Arahabaki?”

“Yes!” Dazai leaned back to punch the air, like he had just won something, before leaning back in. “Are you Arahabaki, or are you Chuuya?”

“I’m Chuuya.”

“And does Chuuya have Corruption, or does Arahabaki?”

His smile faded a little. “D- we both do, but-”

“Nope! Arahabaki has what?”

“Corruption?” Chuuya started to catch on, and he felt like he wasn’t going to stop smiling for a while now. “Arahabaki has Corruption.”

“Yes! And are you Arahabaki?”

“I’m Chuuya,” he whispered. “I’m not Arahabaki.”

“There you go.” There was some of that old joy on Dazai’s face. “So why are you apologizing?”

“Because I should’ve made sure that you had gotten out of the way. Even if it was Arahabaki that did it.”

Dazai did some weird facsimile of a shrug. “Eh, I should’ve gotten further out of the way.”

“Don’t say that, I literally threw an iron rod through you! That’s not your fault, something should have kept me focused on the enemies like usual- wait, I did throw-”

“You did, no worries.”

“Oh.” He paused. “And your arm?”

“Well, once the dog threw a stick, I hit the ground a bit harder than I expected.”

Really? Dog jokes? “And your throat?”

“That was from when I dragged you down. Your nails are sharp, by the way. Do you not own nail clippers? Because damn.”

“Why is that- I scratched you? My nails aren’t sharp, how the hell did I do that?” Chuuya had thought that Dazai had gotten stabbed, or that something had taken a grab at his neck and taken a piece back with it. He hadn’t thought that he would be that something, and it was as he thought through that that he began to feel the stickiness of something stuck to the ends of his fingers. “And- dragged. You pulled me down in the middle of Corruption?”

“It was harder than I thought! Chibi has too much muscle.” Dazai’s eyes closed for a moment, then opened up a little wider than normal. “Heavy.”

“Hey, hey, hey, keep talking to me.” No one that was bleeding all over his clothes was allowed to fall unconscious, not on his watch. “Pain level the same?”

“Yeah, it sucks.” Dazai tilted his head back a tiny bit, as if trying to look behind him. “Pain is horrible. Where’s Yosano?”

“Coming soon, with an ambulance.”

His ex-partner groaned, with too much drama to be real. Thankfully. “Damn. Am I going to get thrown in the looney bin again?”

“For this?” Chuuya laughed, a sharp, bitten off sound. His throat ached from the abruptness of it. “I mean, unless you convince them you jumped in front of a flying rod in the middle of a fight to kill yourself from blood loss- which you cannot say to anyone or so help me, that lie is not one that I will tolerate- I think that they’d release you to Yosano pretty damn quick.”

“You think so?”

“As long as you keep the suicide jokes to a minimum and tell them that you’re seeing a therapist or some shit.”

“Chibi! You want me to lie to medical professionals?” If Dazai could freely move, he would probably have a hand dramatically laid across his forehead. “I am seeing no such psychiatric professional!”

“Pretty certain that your agency’s doctor or the guy with a stick up his ass could pretend to be one rather easily.”

“Kunikida would jump out a window within the first ten minutes if he actually was,” Dazai laughed, a hint of that pretty, lower note of his genuine voice breaking through that horrible pitch he usually used. “I think that he would have an aneurysm just pretending that he had made any progress with me.”

“Oh, yeah, I guess the doctors would ask for some details in case they needed to restrain you or some shit.”

“Then Yosano-sensei all the way.”

Chuuya nodded, continuing the motion as he raised his head to look around. It made him feel the tiniest bit woozy, as the adrenaline that came from his panic over Dazai’s injuries was dying down a bit, but he shoved the pain back as far as it would go. He hadn’t felt the exhaustion yet either, which was great for the situation, but probably awful for later. 

And going back to the doctor, he hadn’t really thought of how long it would take- the word ‘soon’ was a relative one- but they couldn’t have been more than an hour away from the Port Mafia’s headquarters, and he could guess that it wouldn’t have been too much further from the Armed Detective Agency. If the ambulance and Yosano weren’t obeying traffic laws, which they most likely were not doing, then it was going to be much sooner than that.

But, Arahabaki always screwed with his perception of time, so who knew how long it had been. He didn’t feel like checking the phone, because that would mean that he would have to shift Dazai around to reach behind him to grab it, and he didn’t want to accidentally hurt him any more than he already had.

Chuuya held him a little tighter, pulling him a tiny bit closer to his chest as carefully as he could. Dazai’s skin had lost some color, not enough to be truly worried but enough to be anxious, and there was a glaze over his eyes. There was a chance that he wouldn’t remember much of this encounter, that it would all blur together like he had once said his memories sometimes did, but Chuuya knew that it wouldn’t be easy to forget it. How pathetic could he be, for him to just know that he would feel the ghost of his ex-partner’s weight in his arms for weeks, maybe months to come?

It wasn’t as if he was desperate for touch, as he knew that his appearance alone was more than enough to get someone pretty into his bed, but it also wasn’t like his mind wasn’t traitorous enough to fully dispel the emotions that had developed out of the strange bond he’d had with a peculiar, suicidal teenager that he had once spent so much time with. He knew himself well enough to know that a lot of his flings, if he had them at all, tended to have shorter, darker hair, and that he always took home the ones that were sarcastic, the ones that weren’t all sweet talk and charisma. Even if it was just some coincidence of what his type was, Chuuya wasn’t enough of an idiot to understand that his heart had bound itself to the person that had up and left him- even when he knew that Dazai’s betrayal of the mafia was not personal, deep down.

But Chuuya didn’t have a Sakunosuke Oda, so he could be bitterly resentful as much as he wanted to, because those self-help books only help when a person actually decided to take what they said as something that they should do.

God, would he need a drink after this.

“Hey, Dazai.”

His ex-partner hummed, shifting a half-lidded gaze over to him. There were flecks of honey and stains of scarlet that stood out against the dark brown of his irises, and if Chuuya were a painter he would have devoted a gallery of artwork to just that blend of colors.

“I have another one of those bottles of wine back at my apartment, like the one I opened the night you-”

He hesitated. The words stuck in his mouth, coating it with a film of disdainful honey, and he felt as if his teeth could break if he let them be vocalized.

“The night you put a bomb under my car,” he said instead. “And while I don’t plan on kicking my drinking habits anytime soon, the thought of drinking it by myself makes me want to throw the damn thing away.”

“Pétrus, right?”

“That one, yeah. Real expensive, in a really nice bottle.”

“And it would be a shame to leave it to languish in your cabinet.”

“It would be.” Chuuya sighed, playing along. There was a tinge of bright, sharp pain in his ribs, one that wasn’t enough to draw his attention but noticeable nonetheless. “I’ve been planning on opening it this Sunday, but given the trouble of Corruption, I may have to open it in a few weeks.”

“Like in three weeks?”

“Sure. Although, if you’re still rotting in a hospital by that time, I’d be too horrified by the thought of you flirting with the nurses like you probably still do to even open the bottle, and have to postpone opening it to the next Sunday just for that.”

“You’re going through a lot of trouble just to have some wine, Chibi.”

“I guess I am.”

While his adrenaline apparently wasn’t wearing off, his exhaustion had had enough of being ignored. Chuuya could now see spots of darkness creeping onto his vision, his thoughts sluggish and his emotions matching their pace. He could feel himself swaying, although he had enough awareness left in him to not move in a way that jostled his ex-partner too much in his arms, and it was all made worse when the bastard started to hum.

It wasn’t that stupid suicide song that he had made Chuuya’s ringtone for his own contact, and it wasn’t the ‘don’t try suicide’ song that Chuuya had put into his phone, but it was some stupid thing that he could have sworn came from a hotel that they had visited a few times as a base for a mission. They had made fun of the fact that the hotel always had a band playing some kind of repetitive ‘ambiance’ music, and had made up a rather stupid and unimaginative set of lyrics that they would serenade each other with as they jumped up and down in the elevator or raced down the halls. God, the staff of that place had only tolerated them because of the endless stream of cash that they threw at them.

As sirens finally began to shriek in the distance, Chuuya found that he couldn’t even be annoyed by the song. He still remembered all the words, and could still sing it if he wasn’t so tired.

Perhaps it was the fact that he knew that help was going to reach them in time that allowed him to slip forward, his head resting on his ex-partner’s shoulder as he curled around his body in a semi-protective motion. Maybe it was the fact that Dazai had gone still at the movement, then continued to hum, but in a way that betrayed that there was a smile on his face as he did.

It could have been because Chuuya knew that it wasn’t going to be Dazai’s fault- or choice, if he was feeling particularly delusional- that he woke up alone this time.

Yosano Akiko had nothing personal against Nakahara Chuuya, which meant that she was free to be as suspicious and mean as she wanted to be toward the Port Mafia executive.

She knew that he was trustworthy, to an extent, because Dazai believed in the capabilities of his ex-partner. They most likely would not have been able to take down the Guild’s Lovecraft without Nakahara, and the man had made a point to say that his attacks against the Agency were ‘nothing personal’, freely admitting that he was acting on the mafia boss’s orders. The bluntness was nice, because then Yosano knew that she could try to rend his limbs from his body one afternoon and give him a polite nod at the nice liquor store that they both happened to frequent the next morning.

One thing that she did respect about him was that he had fantastic- though expensive- taste in wine. She had a pretty strong feeling that he was where Dazai had learned about everything, because whenever she had a conversation with her coworker about different wines, the names that were said with the most familiarity were the ones that Nakahara tended to have in his basket.

Besides the basic Nakahara-was-an-executive-loyal-to-that-particular-bastard, there was one other thing that she disliked about him, on a near-personal level.

And that was that Dazai, her coworker who was incredibly intelligent and incredibly frustrating, always came back injured in some way after he spent any considerable amount of time with him.

When Dazai had been captured by the mafia and reunited with his ex-partner, he came back with decent bruising on his shoulder blades and faint fingerprints reddening his throat, as well as some on his abdomen he barely let her see. His jovial act didn’t hide that he didn’t lean back against anything for the next week, even after Yosano had Ranpo give him a glass of grape juice with crushed painkillers mixed in and dare him to chug it in one go. When Dazai had fought the Guild as a member of Double Black, he returned with high spirits and head and neck wounds. He hadn’t let up the fact that he was fine, showing off his healed arm (which still hadn’t been completely healed when he had gone on the mission, despite what the idiot had said) as if there weren’t open wounds on his scalp and a strangely shaped wound on his neck, all from when Lovecraft had ‘punched him into a tree’. His words, not hers.

And then later, when Dazai would launch into a story-like tirade about Nakahara when the slightest thing reminded him of his partner, all without divulging anything but the most useless pieces of information while he did it. The glee on his face as he spoke with enough drama to make an A-list actor swoon was undeniable, even if his tone was a frustrated one, but that didn’t hide that there was something left behind that was left unspoken every time. Yosano had learned that Dazai would show a hint of his cards once the story had ended, once everyone had turned away and left behind the chapter that he had orchestrated, and whenever he told a story about Nakahara, there was something raw left behind on his face. He looked as if he was reminiscing on something he didn’t want to remember, as if he was struggling with distinguishing between the obvious exaggerations and lies that he wove into his stories and the actual memory of the event.

It didn’t stop him from telling them though. Not when Kunikida usually reacted by looking hopeful that Dazai would tell them something useful about the mafia, then either face-planted onto his desk in disappointment or almost burst a blood vessel in his forehead.

While Yosano was no therapist, she was a doctor, and she prioritized knowing everything she could about her patients. That being said, Dazai was Dazai, so that was like trying to convince a concrete brick to stop being concrete for most of the time.

Still, she knew enough from her own experiences, as well as what Ranpo had figured out, to understand that Dazai was similar to her- in the way that Mori Ogai had ruined another child. And given how Akutagawa, Kyouka, and Nakahara acted, it was pretty easy to guess that Mori’s intent with screwing with that particular child was to make a second version of himself. It was laughable to see how he had failed, and horrifying to see how he had succeeded.

Mori did not treat children like children, not in the way that they deserved to be treated. If they had something that he wanted- be it an ability, intellect, appearance, or a combination of any of that- he treated them as a canvas he could transform into a masterpiece. Or, he treated them as if they were a weapon that just needed to be sharpened in the correct way.

Yosano didn’t miss how Dazai disliked coming into her office. He seemed fine with visiting, but steered clear when it came to his own issues. She didn’t miss the way that something dead suffocated the light in his eyes when he returned to speak to the President after a mission that had not gone well to give his report. The President had noticed as well, before Ranpo or Yosano could tell him, and always kept the door or the window propped open when Haruno couldn’t be puttering around in the background.

She was not one to levy accusations at someone who already had enough red in his ledger to make the Prime Minister of Japan faint, but given how Vita Sexualis manifested itself, and given how the other soldiers and doctors made a point to have her sleep in different rooms every night (when she could get away from him herself), she could make a few uncomfortable guesses about what he could have done to a fourteen year old boy with unstable mental health that was left in his care.

However, Yosano also knew enough to know that the grown man that Dazai Osamu was would either run away from or pull a gun on her if she tried to bring it up at the wrong moment. The ‘wrong moment’ was most days, so she kept her suspicions to herself.

The second mission that the reunited Double Black was sent on ended with a phone call to Ranpo from the wrong person. 

As soon as Yosano heard him say the executive’s name instead of their coworker’s she was already at the door, far before he had begun to yell that they needed an ambulance. While she was far from the most physically capable of the Agency- that honor would go to Atsushi, although Kenji, Kunikida, the President, and Kyouka would be fighting over second place- she still got to the mission’s initial location before the ambulances came. It was something like a race, because she was driving a car with a full tank of gas at least 30 miles over the speed limit at any given moment and was continually catching glimpses of the red and blue lights of the mafia-approved medical vehicles on parallel blocks, or on the highway beside or behind her. 

Ranpo, who had thrown himself into the backseat while the car was already moving in one of the most impressive feats of physical ability that she had ever seen from him, was holding on to the safety handles while having a conversation on the phone with the President, not breathing a word of complaint while Yosano broke approximately fifteen traffic laws within twenty minutes. That was the thing that made her sink into her logic, shying away from her emotions, because when Ranpo lost his childishness it was time to listen to what he was doing or saying.

She had a feeling that someone had called Katai, because every light that they came across was green and every car on the road somehow knew to switch lanes before she or the ambulances were within two blocks of it. She made mental plans to pay for a housekeeper to come by his apartment as she turned a corner so sharply two of the wheels came off of the ground.

To say that Double Black had decimated the villa that the mission took place within was not an exaggeration. The place was missing its roof, and its walls were splattered with the remains of the combatants they had come to defeat. Right in the center of it all was the fearsome pair, curled over each other and appearing so still at this distance that Yosano felt the drop of cold that whispered you were too late crawl down her spine.

That drop was punted into the sun when she reached the two of them and found them both breathing, with hazy, honey-brown eyes peering up at her. The two of them were intertwined in what one could call a lovers’ embrace. Dazai was situated in Nakahara’s lap, with his arms holding him steady and his head resting on his ex-partner’s shoulder. Dazai did not seem to be bothered in the slightest by the position, which could be because of the iron rod (that was apparently the thing that Nakahara had mentioned being ‘in his side’) or it could be because of the emotions that he denied that he had about his ex-partner.

It was difficult to separate them, not just because both of them weren’t aware enough to be anything more than dead weight. Nakahara’s grip was strong, even when he was unconscious, and Dazai, even if he was awake in some form, did nothing to untangle himself from his ex-partner’s hold. Yosano did all that she could to be careful, prying Nakahara’s white-knuckled fingers off of Dazai’s coat while trying to ease her coworker’s body out of his lap. It got a little bit easier when the paramedics slid down to help, and it wasn’t too long before she was allowed to be alone with Chuuya with a chainsaw.

How Ranpo managed to convince everyone involved to let Yosano rip apart a patient in order to heal him was beyond her, but at least she didn’t have to spare the brainpower to do it.

Besides, it was a little therapeutic to tear into the man that had caused so much of the mental instability in her coworker. That was her bitterness talking, because she knew that she didn’t know the whole story, but didn’t really care. This was a Port Mafia Executive, after all- someone who most likely had a kill count in the hundreds, given the nature of his ability and how long he had been a member of the organization. Not only that, but no one got out of the mafia without something going wrong with their psyche, and even if Nakahara had a protector from the start-

“Would you allow me to send a brief message to a coworker of mine, doctor?”

Yosano glanced over her shoulder at the temporary resident of her office.

Kouyou was sitting up in bed with perfect posture, her hands settled in her lap. The makeup wipes that Naomi had lent her were neatly set on the side table, the used one folded up beside it. She didn’t look all that different from how she usually did, still imposing despite being in an environment where she held so little power.

Yosano turned back to her work, tapping her pencil against her clipboard. To be fair, to call what she was doing ‘work’ would be a stretch, because all it was was Dazai’s incomplete file. It was a mix of speculation and actual information, gleaned from patching him up after attempts or minor injuries or from the notes of actual hospitals when he was severely injured, and she had never put it away, finding it an interesting pastime.

“Why would I let you do that?” She made a small mark next to the note about Dazai’s right eye, then erased it. “I’m not in the business of letting hostages send coded messages for escape plans.”

“Oh, no, I’m not about to try the patience of a woman who rips people apart for fun, nor am I about to try the patience of that traitor. I simply wanted to let my coworker know to stand down.”

“What, would they try to raid the place to find you?”

“He could.”

Yosano put her pencil down, then took her time going through the members of the Port Mafia that she knew of. “Nakahara?”

“Yes.” Kouyou laughed. “Dazai told you? Given their partnership, I could have-”

“We already knew who he was before that,” Yosano interrupted. The word ‘partnership’ made a lot of things suddenly make sense with Dazai, but it wasn’t like she was going to tell the executive sitting in her office that. “Wouldn’t Nakahara already know that you’d be fine? Dazai made sure to say that you were in the message that was sent to your boss.”

“He will, but the lad will worry.”

“You’re the one who’s a hostage, and you’re thinking about someone who already knows that you’re fine worrying about you?” She scoffed, turning to look at a rather unimpressed Kouyou. “The worst that could happen to you right now is getting killed a few times at my hands, and you would literally come back better than you were before. What would you even say to him?”

“Just that I would have to put off tea with him for a few days.”

Yosano turned back around, turning her attention back to Dazai’s file and picking the pencil back up. She knew for sure what some of them were, as she had stitched together his forearms enough times to know what they looked like, but the rest she did not, leaving the sheets of paper full of mysteries. There was the mystery of his neck, for example, as she was eternally curious as to why it was always bandaged and hadn’t gotten anything out of the medical files she had received after he had attempted by hanging. It was a morbid curiosity, but it was easy enough to justify because of her profession.

“You were Mori’s girl, weren’t you?” Kouyou asked suddenly. “Back during the war.”

Yosano broke her pencil without thinking.

“Well.” The executive hummed to herself. “Not that it’s worth anything, but I do have a few words for you because of that.”

“And why would I want your words?” Yosano couldn’t help the fact that her voice had fallen down a few octaves, that there was something icy that poisoned her tone.

“You have no reason to want the words of someone loyal to him, but I still feel as if I want to share them with you,” Kouyou admitted. “But what if I said that my words to you will allow you to know what Mori thinks of you to this day, and may give you a clue as to why the traitor acts the way that he does?”

She probably saw the file. Yosano knew that this was some kind of manipulation, some kind of trick that would make her suspicious of Dazai, because what else could it be? The wielder of the Golden Demon was known for her honeyed tongue above all, because many of her victims could not taste the steel beneath the sweetness until it was too late.

Yosano spun her chair to face the executive, leaning over to rest her elbows on her knees and planting her feet firmly on the ground. She made no move to have good posture, widening her eyes in a way that she knew was unnerving as she smiled.

“I’ll play. Pray tell, what is it that you have to say?”

Kouyou didn’t so much as flinch, watching the movements with a learned, casual wariness. Then, she opened her mouth, and instead of venomous honey, something as dangerous as the brambles of a rose bush tumbled out with her voice.

“He still calls his ability ‘Elise’, but it acts like how you did, from what I know. Cocky, a child who dislikes Mori but is constantly demanding things.”

“I was never greedy.” Yosano couldn’t say anything else, as the build-up of her thoughts alone was enough to cause a migraine.

“No, you’re weren’t. But to Mori, Dazai was.”

Yosano felt the grin that she had been able to keep on her face fall.

“There was a reason I made sure to take the lad under my wing instead of letting him go with Dazai under Mori’s.” Kouyou smiled, a sad, sad thing. “Even if it meant that his focus was split, I couldn’t do that to another one. I may be loyal to the man who runs the mafia so well, but not even I can tolerate some things.”

-it wasn’t like he’d escaped the poison of the mafia.

It wasn’t as if she and Dazai were very close, just as neither of them had broached the topic of their similarities to each other. Yosano knew that Dazai was likely never going to bring up anything in regards to the Port Mafia boss, not unless it was absolutely pertinent to the situation, and she hated that the responsibility to start the conversation now rested on her shoulders.

But she didn’t need to be close to someone, didn’t need to know every memory that guided their actions, to feel protective over them. All Yosano needed was the courage to request enough information for her to support the man who’s already suffered enough- as a coworker, as a doctor, as someone with shared experiences, or as someone who could be a friend. Someone like him was someone who was failed by those around him, and she was not going to be the next person who did so.

If Yosano knocked back a shot or two of vodka before coming into work the day that Dazai was allowed to return to work, then that was nobody’s business. If she had a flask of Rosé in her bag, that was nobody’s business.

She was contemplating asking the President about how easily enemies of the state could get therapists when Dazai walked into the office.

His arrival was heralded by the sweetest members of the Agency yelling his name and (presumably) jumping at him, if the crashing noises had any merit to them. Kunikida’s voice rose above the din, scolding everyone for causing a ruckus and complimenting Dazai on actually being on time for once in the same breath. Dazai’s voice cut through the noise in reply, laughter raising his tone into something musical and kind.

Even though Yosano hadn’t stopped doodling in the margins of Kyouka’s medical file since the Agency’s door opened, she still froze when Ranpo leaned into the clinic. She didn’t need to look up to know that emerald eyes were trained upon her, didn’t need to look up to know that the expression on his face was one of concern and worry that matched what hers would be if she didn’t keep herself composed.

“Are you okay with me sending him in here?”

His voice was low, how it was when he was actively trying to appear calm. Anxiety didn’t sound good on him.

Yosano nodded. “I have to be.”

“No, you don’t. He would happily take the opportunity to avoid a check-up if we gave it to him.”

“When else would he agree to come in here and let me check his injuries?”

Ranpo had his gaze trained on the floor when she finally looked up at him.

Yosano pushed away from her desk, the wheels on her chair squeaking as they rolled backward. The sound of her heels against the tile of her office was comforting, the clicks emboldening her to set her shoulders back and achieve that perfect posture that little Yosano was so convinced would make her look professional. She had been able to achieve it in her first year with the Agency, that year of sunlight and new beginnings that filled her with enough joyous determination to make her feel as if she could do anything that she wanted to. Perfect posture was easy to achieve with that kind of emotion.

“Call Poe later,” she said, putting a hand on Ranpo’s shoulder. “We can all go out tonight and spend some time in that book he wrote for your birthday.”

Ranpo laughed, a choked bark of a sound. “The one that’s basically a vacation spot?”

“That one, yes. Now go sit with the President and call your author while I try to convince a chronically depressed war criminal to tell me how he feels.”

The detective hesitated, even as he reached into his pocket and took out his phone, fidgeting with the little crow keychain hanging from it. His eyes remained on the floor, as if the tile could provide all of the answers to all the questions that they had about their coworker. It was a strange sight to see, given that his gaze held all the weight of an individual who had lived a hundred years, yet his appearance was that of a twenty-six year old man. Ranpo had the eyes of someone who had grown weary of the world, and it was only in situations like this that he was relaxed enough to let that exhaustion peer through the cracks.

“Hey.” Yosano squeezed his shoulder. “He’s just like me, okay?”

“I think that there are a few notable differences between him and you.”

“Do you mean the fact that he’s a guy or the fact that he’s a former mafia member with a criminal record that was exceedingly difficult for the government to hide?” She raised her eyebrows. “Because we both know that that’s something I have in common with him.”

“Even then, he’s not like you were! You never-”

Ranpo cut himself off, closing his eyes and taking in a deep breath.

“I know that both of you had to deal with the same man,” he said, starting again. “But he has always been so much more dangerous than you. You were imprisoned before you had the chance to become him, and even if you were both kids, he- he was still the one with his hand on the trigger. He could never bring back everyone who fell at his hand, not like you could.”

Yosano frowned. It was hard to find fault with Ranpo’s logic, but it was easy to understand that Ranpo was anxious about her safety because of the ever-present threat that Dazai did pose. No matter how much their coworker had moved on, those trauma responses and experiences still existed in his mind and in his muscle memory. A man who was able to lead a completely normal life after being forced to evacuate a building as it burned down may learn not to run when he smelled something burning, but that flinch at the scent and sight of smoke would always exist. The fire that was the Port Mafia, that was Mori Ougai, had a tendency to reignite- Yosano knew that from how much joy she occasionally got from tearing someone apart and then watching their body weave itself back together.

Dazai may appear to be a creature of glass, forged from the ashes of a childhood lost to history and the embers of some bloody teen years, but glass still shattered if pushed the wrong way. No matter how strong it may be, there was always some portion of it that snapped much more easily, and when one piece broke, it was only a matter of time before the rest did. At least, it was only a matter of time if there wasn’t someone, or a group of someones, who made sure that only that piece was what broke.

Yosano smiled. “Do you remember what you told me you wanted from me, back when you were recruiting me to the Agency?”

Ranpo finally made eye contact, emerald irises burning into her own. “We didn’t want your ability, just you and-”

“My kindness and empathy,” she finished. “With the context of that question, why was it that Dazai was allowed to join the Agency?”

“Because he declared that he wanted to live on the side of the light. Save some orphans, help a person or two.”

“Right. Now, going back to me, I have a question.”

“Shoot.”

“Did you see yourself in me back then?”

Ranpo’s nervous fidgeting with his keychain abruptly stopped. “Explain.”

“This is all my deduction, but from what I know, we were both kids who had adult responsibilities too soon. I believe that you saw a kid whose experience felt familiar to you and felt the need to extend your own kindness just a bit more than you usually would have.”

“I don’t really think about it,” Ranpo admitted, “but that sounds logical. From what I remember, you seemed so sad, like a living corpse. I remember wanting to bring you back to life, because the President had told me about how you wanted to help people, but it seemed like you never helped yourself. Did you know that he slapped me once?”

“He what?”

“I know that sounds bad. But, it was just after we had met, and I decided to allow myself to get kidnapped to face a guy who had killed a few people in the case we were investigating, and the President had yelled at me for putting myself in danger. He’s apologized since, but he was so upset in that moment that he could have lost me that he hadn’t thought before doing anything.”

One corner of his mouth pulled up in a facsimile of a smile. Ranpo reached up and covered her hand with his unoccupied one.

There was something soft to his tone now. It was still riddled with that anxiety that lay just beneath the surface of his words, but there was some form of relief there too. “You might be right, and, if I’m understanding this correctly, you’re trying to say that you want to be to Dazai what I was to you back then.”

Yosano pulled her hand out from under his and snatched his hat off his head, then ruffled his hair until he tried to bat her arm away indignantly.

“Go to the President and call your author,” she repeated, placing the hat back on his head. “Now that you know what I’m going to do, you should know that I’ll be fine. I feel like, given recent events, I have a better chance at getting something out of him that has more candor than usual.”

“Sure, you might be right. You owe me lunch tomorrow, by the way.”

“Don’t I always?”

Ranpo spun around and began to walk back into the main office, and the laughter that emanated from his retreating silhouette sounded much better than it had earlier. He made no move to touch the door, leaving it wide open.

Yosano only had enough time to take two steps toward her desk before the door to her office suddenly closed.

“I heard you wanted to see me, Yosano-sensei?”

The memory of Kouyou in her office rocketed to the front of her mind as the sweet voice of the Port Mafia executive laid itself over the dulcet tones of her coworker. It occurred to her that she hadn’t asked what exactly the woman’s relationship with Dazai was, that all she knew was that Kouyou knew enough about Mori to keep Nakahara away from him. Nothing about if Kouyou had ever taught Dazai any of the skills that she herself used regularly.

“I did.” Yosano said, feeling as if she was going to break her teeth with how hard she was clenching her jaw. “While I do have trust in our country’s medical system, I’d rather make sure that your injuries are healing myself. I promise that it won’t take too long.”

Dazai was staring at her with a brittle smile, his body language relaxed and his hands in his pockets. The bandages on his neck had extra padding on one side, and he leaned casually on a crutch. His footsteps and movements had been silent despite that walking aid.

Yosano knew full well that there was most likely a gun on his person, possibly in one of those pockets. She also knew that this was one opponent that could prevent her from reviving herself, the one opponent she knew would present more than enough danger.

Funny enough, that didn’t scare her.

After all, Dazai wasn’t one that forgot the person who saved the man that he oh-so-clearly adored. That fact alone acted as enough insurance for Yosano to not feel afraid.

At his continued silence, she smiled. “Do you want to stand, sit on a chair, or a bed…?”

“I’ll take a seat next to you.” He smiled back, all honeyed sweetness, and gestured toward her desk chair and the stool beside it. “After you?”

Yosano didn’t turn away from him as they both moved to sit down. She didn’t miss the cool glance that Dazai gave the file she pulled toward her, the letters of his name standing out just as much as the blank spaces and question marks did.

“So, where should we start?” Dazai asked, his tone as jovial as ever.

“How about your pain level? On a scale from, let’s say, 1 to 10.”

“Hm, I would say that that would be a 2. The medicine the doctors gave me was quite the strong kind.”

“Quite the strong kind?” Yosano raised an eyebrow.

“Oxymorphone.”

She wrote that down. “How did you convince them to give you that?”

“Oh, you know.” He shrugged dramatically. “All it took was me waxing poetic about how horrible the experience was, and how it still felt as if there was something carving the marrow from my bones, and they were handing over the tablets.”

Shit. “Do you have them with you?”

“Oh, no. A certain dog of mine made sure that I couldn’t get my hands on anything but the recommended dose, which was truly a travesty. I’m sure I could have had quite the peaceful-”

“That’s nice.”

“-death. I’m sorry?”

“I said that that was nice.” Yosano’s smile was all teeth as she turned to her coworker. “That you trust Nakahara enough to allow him to dole out your medicine for you.”

“I don’t allow him to do anything, that slug took it upon himself to-”

“Please, Dazai.” She interrupted again. “We both know that you are way too intelligent to be forced to accept someone else making sure that you got the correct dose and only that. While you both have very different versions of intelligence, you and Ranpo are both quite similar in that way.”

“What, has Ranpo refused medication before?”

“Like you wouldn’t believe. He complains about the bitterness whenever he gets sick and will only take something if we find some version of the medicine that tastes sweet, or if we drown it in enough sugar.”

“How am I not surprised?” Dazai laughed.

Yosano smiled, then put her pencil down, folded her hands before her, and looked over at him. His smile faded a little bit as he watched her, any elation from his laughter retreating into nothingness immediately.

“Since I have the medical files from the hospital, I don’t really need to do too much paperwork. However, I do need to check on your injuries, so you should take off some layers. What do you want to do first? Neck, side, leg?”

The amount of tension that suddenly lined his limbs was indicative enough of what Dazai thought of that question, and the speed at which any sign of that tension disappeared was indicative enough of why he thought that way.

“Or we can wait?” She tilted her head to the side, just a little bit. “While this is meant to be a check-up appointment, I can ask you some questions about some blanks I have in your file instead. We can go there later.”

“Oh, I’m not so upset that I need anything like that, Yosano-sensei!” Dazai reached for the padding on his throat, easily sliding a fingernail beneath the gauze. “I was caught off guard by the sudden order for me to strip! Why, I was under the impression that-”

Yosano reached out and nudged that hand away from the bandages.

He stared at her with his hand still in the air. His sentence was left unfinished.

“So,” Yosano said. “How about we start with a few questions about your medical history? You can set the number, but it has to be more than one.”

Her coworker looked at her strangely, then put his hand on the knee of his injured leg. “Three.”

“I can work with that. Alright, how well can you see out of your right eye? On a scale of 1 to 5, five being 20/20 vision.”

Something sharpened in his gaze. That sharpness dissipated faster than she could blink, and all that was left was an emotion that appeared to be exhaustion.

“It would be a 1.”

She wrote down 'not well, 1 out of 5'. “Are the bite scars on your legs- don’t look at me like that, I saw because I had to sew you up once- from pitbulls or dobermanns?”

“Can you check the wound on my neck?”

Yosano set down her pen at once. “Of course.”

The injury had healed nicely, which made sense given that the person it belonged to healed very quickly, much to his own chagrin. It wasn’t incredibly deep to begin with, as the scratches had only sunk around a millimeter or two into his skin, but it was good to see that Dazai hadn’t done anything to sabotage the healing process. She’d throw one of those good coupons she had at Nakahara the next time she saw him. He deserved a bottle of wine for being so close to the mess that was Dazai Osamu for so long.

When Yosano began to turn back to the file on her desk, Dazai lifted his shirt over his head and asked her to look at his side wound. The bandages that he kept wound around his torso were a bit neater than they had been when she’d patched him up before, as if there was someone else carefully making sure that his skin was hidden away from sight. It was with a pang of mild joy that she realized that some of the bandages on his forearms laid flatter than they had before, and she allowed herself guess that it was because the wounds and scars that were beneath the gauze had been allowed to heal and flatten, the irritated, raised lines becoming mere marks on his skin.

The side injury, like the neck one, was healing well. It was still red, still obviously a fresh wound, but it was not as bad as it had been. There was no infection, no signs that it had caused anything internal or that anything major had happened with it. The bruising that surrounded it was a cause for some worry, but that could be solved with some bruise cream easily enough.

It was as she carefully placed pads of cotton on the injury and re-wrapped it that Dazai spoke.

His voice was low, not quite threatening but not kind.

“Why did you pick those kinds of dogs?”

Yosano focused on winding a new layer of gauze around the cotton padding. “He had a doberman for a little while when I was with him. Called it Ares.”

“How pretentious.” The words had no inflection to them, as if they were automatically generated without a thought given to what they were. There was a glaze over his eyes when she looked up at him.

“For him, yes.” While she had finished wrapping the injury, she fidgeted with the tie as if she wasn’t. “Never knew what became of the thing, but I figured that he preferred that kind.”

She leaned back after around half a minute of silence, dusting off her hands and peeling off her gloves. Part of her screeched at the fact that she was wasting gloves, but all she did was cross her arms and stare down at the open file on her desk.

One thing that she had learned early in her life was patience, because people always needed time, no matter what they said. All anything took was time, and then people would start talking, people would start moving, people would make choices about themselves that were different from the choices that they would have made if they did not have any time left.

“You’re right about the dogs,” Dazai said. The five words echoed.

It was a confession of context, a confession that answered multiple questions at once.

Yosano wrote 'doberman bites, possibly inflicted between the ages of 13 and 17'. She wasn’t about to ask the actual years, as she doubted that he remembered, but her own guesswork would do the trick for now.

It was in the silence that the pause in conversation provided that Yosano was allowed to think. She had one question left, and one injury left to check. There was so much to ask, and such a limited way to ask any of it. She could ask about why he felt as if death was the answer to his problems, ask why he was alive despite being more than capable of ending himself, why it was that he used attempts as self harm, why it was that he only bought canned food for himself, why it was that the only book that she had seen him hold that wasn’t that suicide book was one from a series by an author that had a name similar to Natsume’s-

Or, she could do one that would make him understand just how deeply he could relate to her. But how to phrase it?

Yosano could ask if he had any gunpowder scars. She could ask if he had insomniac tendencies, or if he had any pain in his back from having to sleep in awkward places. She could ask if-

Or she could cut to the chase and make sure that he knew exactly what she was talking about. But that would be at the risk of him pulling his gun on her, because wouldn’t it be insensitive to ask him about that?

No. No, it wouldn’t, because it would be phrased as something that wasn’t personal. It wouldn’t make it seem like Dazai would need to explain himself, just like how she phrased her other two questions in a way that allowed him to give a simple answer instead of having to give something that was more than one sentence or a handful of words. However, it would tell him exactly what she knew about the man who had the dobermans.

It was through a silent reminder to herself that she would be able to revive herself that she bit the bullet and hoped that one wouldn’t go through her skull in the next minute.

“How comfortable are you with sexual intimacy? On the scale of 1 to 5.”

Yosano didn’t hear him draw his gun, so focused on not snapping the pen in her hand that she forgot to listen to the sound of it. That meant that if she looked up, she would either see the barrel of a pistol or her coworker, and she had no way of knowing because she forgot to listen.

That train of spiraling, anxious thoughts was answered with the resounding, metallic click of her coworker setting his gun down on her desk. He set it down next to the file, with the barrel of it facing away from her. She didn’t let go of her pen, eyes trained on the weapon with enough tension in her body to make a weaker man pass out.

If Yosano didn’t have a mix of adrenaline and alcohol in her veins, she wouldn’t have heard his answer.

“2,” Dazai whispered. “It’s 2.”

“Okay.”

She began to write. ‘Not very comfortable with sexual inti-’

“How old were you?”

“11 years old.” She finished the word ‘intimacy’ and was able to draw a comma before her hand began to shake.

There was no sharp intake of breath, no mutter of surprise, from him. Only stillness.

“I met him when I was 14.”

“I’m sorry for asking a fourth question, but I have another to ask.” She was able to write ‘2 out of 5’. “When did you leave the Port Mafia?”

“When I was 18 years old.”

She couldn’t bring herself to think about what she wrote down. That was okay. She could re-read it when she had much more alcohol in her system.

“Do you think less of me because I stayed with him for so long?”

Yosano blinked and looked up at him. Dazai was studying her with a mercurial gaze, emotions flitting through his expression too quickly for her to label. There was a mask there, a barrier that hid away what they truly meant, and it made her curious. Was that how he kept people guessing about what his true motives were? Going between doll-like blankness and overwhelming vitality?

“No, although I guess that I should. I’ve seen enough corpses litter the street because of the mafia. But, then again, I also know who you were working under. I probably would be in your seat if I’d accepted his offer instead of Fukuzawa and Ranpo’s, if I had left at all.”

“You really think that someone as kind as you would be able to last in the mafia?” There was something mocking about his tone, something poignant in the way that he drawled out his words instead of just saying them. “He talked about you a few times. Saying that you were the prodigy that he had lost, but that you were too irritating to really shape into what he wanted.”

“Of course he talked about me.” Yosano laughed, a burst of sound that came out of her throat choked and harsh. “Did you recognize me because of that?”

“Yes and no. You’ve changed a bit from the child he talked about, but some of what you do reminds me of him.” He frowned. “I always feel the urge to speak the truth to you as well, which is definitely from him.”

She felt the blood drain from her face. “What?”

“Oh, don’t look at me like you’re taking advantage of me, Yosano-sensei! I have a choice here, that’s enough to be a difference!”

Dazai laughed through the answer. As if the confession wasn’t enough to make her want to march over to the Port Mafia headquarters and kill the boss herself, over and over until he was screaming for mercy.

“I’m sorry.”

Dazai cut himself off. “Hm?”

“I’m sorry that you had to go through that.” She glanced over at him, at his frozen expression. It was halfway through elation and confusion. “Never heard that before?”

“Well, it isn’t like I’m talking to someone who reminds me of situations of forced honesty every day.”

“We can stop. All I need to do is check your leg, and I can always ask someone to help. I stole your executive’s number from Ranpo.”

The tease came out without thinking, a return to normalcy that perhaps was too quick of a return because what settled onto Dazai’s face wasn’t exactly the emotion that she would have liked to see. It was something between aggression and anxiety, something between the face a child would wear when they would be caught doing something wrong and the face a person would make as the person they adore was shot in front of them. Yosano has seen both of those examples, so she felt bile begin to rise in her throat as she watched them displayed so blatantly across the expression of the person she had wanted to distract from the current subject.

“It doesn’t have to be him,” was the first thing out of her mouth, because her voice moved faster than her mind. “I would rather someone you’re comfortable check an injury in that part of your body, and since you were literally hugging him when we-”

“No, you- that wasn’t it.” He hesitated, shifting awkwardly in his seat as if he wanted to leave. “It wasn’t your phrasing, it wasn’t, but-”

“But I make you uncomfortable because I brought him up. So, do you want me to check your leg so that you can get out of here? We don’t have to talk about him.”

Dazai stared at her. There was a pinch to his expression, as if she was still saying the wrong thing. She raised her eyebrows, setting a smile on her face to show that she was genuine, as if she was fine with ending the conversation here.

“I guess that I should have expected it from how you feel about me, but I’ve got to say that I’m surprised that you trust a mafia executive enough to offer to call and invite him into the Agency.”

Damn, that was what she offered, wasn’t it? Shit, that would probably not have gone over well if an executive had randomly shown up before she or Dazai had the chance to say anything to everyone else.

“You aren’t comfortable with touch, but you trusted him enough to not struggle as he held you, even though he’s the one that was most likely the one responsible for your injuries.” There was a flash of aggression, pure, hot fury, in his eyes and Yosano leaned forward. “That’s my own guesswork, not what any legal document says. He won’t be held responsible for any of your injuries.”

That flash left his eyes, though that aggression didn’t completely leave. “So my trust in him is enough for you to trust him?”

“The fact that you just admitted to trusting him is decent enough.”

“That’s not what I said, I don’t trust that slug! All I said was-”

“I’m not going to press for details. I’m sure that it’s some needlessly complicated relationship, but I don’t need to know all of the details. However, I wouldn’t say that I trust him.”

“Because he’s an executive of the Port Mafia?”

“Because whenever you come back from a mission with him, you’re injured. Every time you spend some amount of time in his proximity, you come back with bruises, with broken bones, and with cuts. Of course there’s a level of distrust because he’s a mafia executive, but I can look past it if I’m given enough reason to believe that there’s a base line of reasonable morality.”

“I come back injured because we either fight each other or fight someone else every time. Surely you’re not implying that the slug is hurting me like some toxic, scorned wife?”

“I’m not implying what your relationship’s label is, I’m saying that I’m concerned because you get hurt every time that you spend any time with him. Given that there’s a mafia with less than shiny morals, and given that neither of you have picture-perfect mental health because of that, your relationship is bound to be at least a little bit toxic, but I don’t want you seeking him out as some new form of self harm, just as I don’t want you to get hurt every time you’re around him because he doesn’t care about your well-being or because he’s fine with hurting you for any given reason.”

Dazai opened his mouth to respond and Yosano held a hand up, a silent command to stay silent for a moment longer.

“I’m not making accusations. All I’m doing is stating my concerns given what I know based off of what I’ve seen in the aftermath of your meetings and off of what I know of your and the mafia’s history. You’re my coworker, and you’re someone who I have a lot of shared experiences with, so I’m going to look out for you.”

Her words hung in the air for a few seconds too long. That mercurial look was back in his gaze, that hazy look that made it seem like he wasn’t present in the conversation. But then Yosano would move her hand and his eyes would flick over to her pen, and any thought that he might be dissociating was gone because the only thing that was left in his gaze was awareness.

It was only after Yosano felt an incredibly strong urge to grab the wine flask from her bag that Dazai straightened in his seat and leaned forward, in a way that made it clear that he was trying not to put too much stress on his injured leg.

“I’m surprised that you didn’t immediately jump to telling me that I should put distance between the two of us. Not that there isn’t already distance there, but still,” he began, his voice quiet, as if he was uncomfortable with saying his thoughts out loud. Yosano made no move to stop him. “He’s- Chuuya was one of the few things that kept me sane back then, at least as sane as I was. When I left, I knew that he was going to be hurt by it, but I knew that everyone there knew how close we were- we were Double Black, after all- so I blew up his car to send the message that I was acting alone. It worked well enough, and he’s still pissed at me for doing it.”

“Deciding to go out with a bang is definitely a way to send a message,” Yosano commented without thinking. “Ah, sorry.”

“No, that’s a good way to put it!” There was a shred of joy in his smile before it sank back into the resigned hesitance that had made a home in his features. “All I want to say is that he has so much that he carries with him, and the fact that he hasn’t become like I was is something short of a miracle. He doesn’t want to hurt me, not outside of some kind of jest, and he does what he can to protect me like he did back then, but we haven’t worked together in four years. It’s taking longer than I expected to get back to how we were, even if some of our instincts haven’t faded, so mistakes were bound to happen.”

“And what happened on the last mission?”

“There’s a certain point that the slug can cross that makes it difficult for him to control his ability, and the precaution that we took didn’t work because I got too close. It’s not the first time that it’s happened, it’s the second, but you just have to know that it’s something that can barely be controlled by nature. If you combine the situation itself and that, then it was easy enough to get injured that badly.”

Little bits and pieces of information fit together like puzzle pieces in her head. “So if I were to guess what happened, I would guess that you got injured trying to save him from his own ability?”

He gave her a thin, brittle smile. “That’s a way to put it, yes.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.” Dazai hummed, nodding down at himself. “So can we get my leg checked so I can go home and get drunk off my ass?”

“My thoughts exactly. However, why wait until we get home?”

At Dazai’s raised eyebrow, Yosano leaned backward and rooted around in her bag. She produced her flask of wine with a victorious, wide grin, and a similar grin spread across her patient’s face as soon as he realized what it was.

Her coworker’s leg was healing well, and he was ambling out of her office within five minutes. The only problem with that part was that he accidentally spilled some wine when he tried to hand the flask back to her as she was reaching for a new roll of bandages.

Yosano allowed herself three minutes alone in her office to down the wine that remained in the flask before shoving the file into the cabinet all of her files lived in and grabbing her bag. She was out the door in an instant, shouting “he needs rest, doctor’s orders” over her shoulder as she beelined to the Agency’s front door. Given that someone (either Atsushi, Ranpo, or Dazai himself) yelled an “understood”, she trusted that Kunikida wouldn’t get on Dazai for waltzing out the door after being at work for around half an hour.

After flagging down the nearest taxi cab and tipping the driver once she got to her apartment complex, Yosano then decided to test her alcohol tolerance for the rest of the night. She was able to clean out three bottles of wine from her alcohol cabinet before she fell asleep in a drunken stupor.

Which was great, because that meant that her sleep wouldn’t be haunted by nightmares of her eleventh year like it tended to be whenever she spent too much time around an honest Dazai.

Kunikida had been more irritated with Dazai recently, and that had made it a little difficult for Atsushi to do any substantial work in the office.

It was strange, given that Kunikida was usually pretty lenient with Dazai after he got injured on a mission, but Atsushi had a mild suspicion that it was something to do with Nakahara. Actually, that suspicion wasn’t mild, it was pretty strong, but Atsushi wasn’t sure how many conclusions he wanted to jump to at once, so it stayed ‘mild’.

Dazai hadn’t stopped mentioning Nakahara since he had gotten released back to work, with his ex-partner’s name being brought up in conversation or in some random comment at least once a day. It would be something like how “the slug wouldn’t make him do so much paperwork” or how “even the slug would be more interesting than this”, all said in some playful tone that made Atsushi very curious about what their actual relationship was. On the other hand, he could also be overthinking and the two of them could just have a conflicted relationship, and Dazai was just using the example of his ex-partner to set off Kunikida now that the secret of him being ex-mafia was now out.

However, there was no way that Atsushi was going to get a straight answer about what was going on from Dazai, so the first thing that he did was ask Kunikida why he was so on edge. He let Kunikida get two minutes into a rant about Dazai’s work habits before excusing himself. It was almost comedic that the detective continued his rant for a good four more minutes, without stating a singular useful thing, before immediately going back to his laptop and typing so quickly that Atsushi could barely hear him mumbling about time he had wasted over the sound of the keys.

When Atsushi asked Tanizaki, all he got was a shrug and the suggestion that perhaps Kunikida had felt as if Dazai was calling him a bad partner by constantly bringing up Nakahara. It was the best response that he had gotten, and he felt lucky that it was only the second person that he asked! 

High of the lucky answer, he promptly got absolutely nothing from Kenji (who said that he didn’t know, but that maybe Kunikida needed to go take a break and pet a cow) and Naomi (who shrugged and suggested signing up the detective for a dating app so that he could get distracted by something else). All Ranpo did was proclaim that he had no clue, and then ask if he wanted to go with him to get strawberry shortcake.

While Atsushi had sunk into the lows of despair with every step, the shortcake was really good. Ranpo had chattered the entire time about some case he was working on, his words peppered by mentions of the Guild’s master architect and by complaints about the transportation system in the city, and Atsushi heard maybe half of it. The only people that he had left to ask in the Agency was Kyouka, Yosano, the President, and Haruno- he would include the other secretaries, but they all deferred to Haruno, so it was better to save some time instead of trying to track them down all at once. There was always Lucy downstairs, and the waitress, but who else could he ask? And at that, would the President even agree to answer the question? It was a pretty stupid question, and he was probably doing some very important things and wouldn’t have time for a question like-

“Hey, Atsushi! I just took three bites of your shortcake and you didn’t even blink! Do you not like it or something?”

Atsushi blinked back into reality and looked down to find that, yes, Ranpo had taken a good portion of his cake without his realizing. The detective was looking at him with raised eyebrows, the petulant expression on his face defeated by the thinly veiled concern in his question.

“No, no, it’s great!” To prove his point, he shoved a towering forkful of cake into his mouth, barely managing to swallow it without choking. “It’s- it’s great! What were you saying?”

“Ah, nothing.” Ranpo leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms. Light glinted off of his glasses, hiding his eyes from view behind twin lenses of whitened gold. “Say, why are you so concerned about Kunikida lately? Tanizaki mentioned that you asked him about him too.”

Tanizaki mentioned it? “It was- I just noticed that Kunikida’s been upset more easily at Dazai lately and wanted to know why. I tried asking him but didn’t get anything, and I know that Dazai will just ignore the question with some kind of joke.”

“So you’re conducting your own investigation?”

Atsushi felt his ears turn pink. “If you put it like that, I guess.”

“Aw, we’ve raised such a good little detective!” Ranpo mimed wiping away a tear, then rocked forward, his elbows slamming onto the table with a bang that shook the plates on the table. “So. What’s your current status report?”

“Uhm. Kunikida has been acting more irritated with Dazai since Dazai came back from his recovery period. He gets upset with him much faster, even if it’s over something that he would have just ignored on any other day. The only difference is that Dazai has been bringing up Nakahara a lot more in little remarks or side comments. When I asked Kunikida about it, he spent a few minutes ranting about Dazai’s work habits like usual without saying anything new.”

“What did Tanizaki say?”

“That it was possible that Kunikida felt like Dazai was calling him a bad partner by bringing up Nakahara so much.”

“And I said that I didn’t know. Who else did you ask?”

“I asked Kenji, who suggested that Kunikida needs to take a break, and Naomi, who suggested signing him up for a dating app so he’d be distracted.”

“Who else were you going to ask?”

“Yosano, Kyouka, Haruno, Lucy, the waitress downstairs, and maybe the President?” Atsushi counted off the names on his fingers. “I’m not really sure who else to ask, and I’m not sure if I can count Dazai as someone to ask or not.”

“Well, I can tell you what Haruno, Yosano, and the President would say for sure!”

He leaned forward, feeling his hopes rise and not feeling too bad about not immediately tamping down on them. This was Ranpo, after all! Even if he acted more childish than he did despite being 8 years older, this was their best detective.

“I’ll take that as you wanting me to continue! So, Haruno would tell you that she wasn’t sure, but that maybe Kunikida was concerned about him not taking his recovery seriously and overcompensating because of it!”

Overcompensation as a form of concern? That kind of sounded like what Kunikida could do. There’s a second theory, then.

“The President would say a combination of those two! He would say something like ‘Kunikida is showing concern by trying to ensure Dazai keeps up with his responsibilities, and may use his partner’s shortcomings as a way to understand how he could help him. However, Dazai repeatedly bringing up his former partner in comparison may upset him.’ Something like that!”

Ranpo gave a shockingly good impression of the President, and Atsushi shoved away the urge to ask if he had adopted Ranpo at some point. They acted enough like a family.

“As for Yosano, she would tell you the most vague answer!”

“Really?”

“Yep! She likes to keep some patient-doctor confidentiality, so she would probably know more from Dazai’s side but would keep her judgment short so that there weren’t any follow-up questions.”

“Huh, okay.”

“Mhm! Anyway, she would probably say something about how Kunikida was making judgments based on his ideals about Dazai because of how often he brought up Nakahara. Like he’s concerned for his well-being and all, but a lot of that irritation comes from the mentions of the executive.”

“So I should go ask Yosano for more details?”

“Nah, I think you’re good. Honestly, you could probably figure out what’s going on just from what I’ve told you. Hell, I understood what was going on as I talked!”

“Wait, really? So what-”

“No, no, no, I’m not going to cut off your investigation like that! How about- how’s this. I will help, but only if you look into a part of this case for me. And only you can do this certain investigation!”

“Oh.” Atsushi deflated. It actually would have been nice to just have the answer. “What is it?”

Ranpo rested a hand on his chin and winked. “Call your mafia boy and ask about Double Black.”

“Call- Akutagawa’s not mine!”

“That’s what you got hung up on?”

“Wh- no! It’s just, I don’t know, why would I even- how did you know that I had his number?”

“Because Kyouka meets with Yosano every week in pseudo-therapy sessions, and one thing that she mentioned last week was that she had been able to have a civil conversation with him through you. And by the way, Yosano asked her during the session and Kyouka’s fine with the fact that I know and that I told you.”

Oh, that. Kyouka had asked him about it just a month or so ago, and to say that he had been caught off-guard was a minor understatement.

-

“You- what?”

Kyouka’s expression was full of nothing but determination. Demon Snow’s phone was placed on the table in the corner, and she had her back turned to it. Atsushi held his own phone as if it was something sacrilegious, Akutagawa’s contact information staring up at him from the screen. His name was saved as ‘mafia goth’, a joke that he had gotten from Naomi when he went to complain to her about how annoying he was once.

The name was a rather tame thing. Like something you would give a friend.

Atsushi caught Kyouka’s glance down at the screen, the way that her eyes moved as she began to read what the name was, and he flipped his phone over in a move that wasn’t casual enough.

Disgust toward himself began to roll in his stomach, something bitter coiling itself around his heart. How could he do something as horrible as give the man that had hurt one of his closest friends something as kind as a nickname? It wasn’t even one that could be defended as an insult, it sounded like one that completely ignored the fact that he was a criminal, the fact that he was a member of the Port Mafia, the fact that he had literally tried to kill Atsushi several times over.

Why did he even think that it was okay to save his number in the first place?

Scratch that, why did he think it was okay to even call or text him?

Because he had done both. 

At least once a day, he would send a text that was some kind of insult- like a picture of a dirty coat on the ground with the comment ‘hey it’s you’- or he would receive a text that was, in return, another kind of insult- like a picture of a tiger in a zoo cage with the caption ‘i found your siblings’. If they called, sometimes the interactions would be short, lasting only a minute or two, and sometimes they were long, lasting an hour or two. There were calls where the only thing traded back and forth was vitriol, poison seeping into every word they snapped at each other, and there were calls where nothing was said. On the quiet calls, Atsushi could hear the drone of some TV program in the background, or a pen scratching on paper, or a microwave humming, and so he would set his phone down and work on casework he had brought home, or he would clean his dorm, or he would open the window and look out at the trees outside, hoping to catch a glimpse of a bird. There were also calls where they would talk, about inane, meaningless things, their conversations flashing between topics that didn’t matter (Akutagawa liked figs and tried to eat them at least 3 times a week, much to his sister’s irritation at the amount of figs in their apartment) and topics that mattered less (Atsushi had talked for well over fifteen minutes about a new book he had bought himself, the first one he had ever personally owned).

He found himself looking forward to getting a call, and felt bad whenever he had to decline it because he was on a mission or because he was at the Agency. But, then again, Akutagawa had to decline his calls as well, and he always sent a message saying ‘mission’ or ‘work’ as explanation. It was their own little non-apology system, and Atsushi didn’t really mind it.

But now Kyouka was sitting in front of him, asking if she could call Akutagawa, and all he could feel was repulsion at himself for allowing himself to look forward to nice interactions with someone who had hurt his best friend so much. How horrible could he be? He was happily spending time with the person who had hurt Kyouka, how-

“I know that you’ve been talking to him.”

Bile almost immediately rose in his throat. He couldn’t meet her eyes any more, tightening his grip on his phone and caving into himself.

“Don’t-” She stopped herself, then took a deep breath. “It’s okay, Atsushi.”

“How can it be okay? This whole time, I was just thinking of myself, and I wasn’t thinking of you at all,” Atsushi whispered. “I was so caught up in conversation that I didn’t even-”

“Atsushi. I- the last time that I saw Akutagawa, we tried to kill each other, and then he told me that he was glad that I had moved on to the light. He told me that he saw that I had grown, and that he was happy. Back then, back when I was still working under the Port Mafia, he would have never said something like that. He would have tried to kill me in earnest instead.”

There was a kind hand on his shoulder, and Atsushi flinched.

“You were the common denominator.”

“No,” Atsushi protested, looking up with a mildly desperate frown. “No, there was probably something else! Maybe Dazai-san did something, or maybe you leaving just-”

“Atsushi. Listen to me.”

“Okay.”

“You are the common denominator here. You.” Kyouka poked him in the chest for emphasis. “Not only that, but living in the light has given me a lot of insight into the differences between normal life and life under the mafia. Yosano-san has told me a lot about herself, and a little bit about Dazai-san, and I can’t help but think about Akutagawa too.”

Atsushi smiled a little bit. “I’m glad that you can talk to her.”

“Me too. But, what I was thinking about, which was that the way that you got me out was pretty unique. From what I know about how Dazai-san and Yosano-san left, they had unique experiences too, and I don’t think that any of our versions of leaving the mafia would work for Akutagawa.”

“Leaving- wait, are you going to try to convince Akutagawa to leave?”

“No, that’s something he should decide for himself.” Kyouka crossed her arms. “I just think that making him get some morals might be a good start so then he can actually decide if he wants to be in the mafia or not. But I’ll be honest and admit that the reason why I want to call him is because of a selfish reason.”

“What reason?”

She locked eyes with Atsushi, the determination back full force. “I want to tell him what I think of him, tell him that he hurt me, and tell him that I will never be like him. Then I will tell him good night and hang up.”

“Did Yosano-san suggest this?”

“She did!” Kyouka puffed up, a little like a happy penguin. “It’ll be one of my first official steps to moving on to a better place in life.”

It was reasonable, yet Atsushi hesitated to hand over the phone. But then again, it was very important to him that Kyouka stayed happy, and if this call meant that she could get to a good place, then of course he’d let her do it.

He traced the case of his phone with an idle finger. “Do you want me in here while you call him?”

She deflated a tiny bit. “If that’s okay.”

“It is! I’m fine being moral support. How about I call him and then hand it over to you?”

“Okay.”

It was easier than he expected to take the leap and press the call button. Akutagawa picked up within two rings.

“Jinko?”

“Hey, so, I’m going to need you to stay on the line,” Atsushi said, trying to sound assertive. “There’s something important that you need to hear.”

“What is it? Did you get yourself in trouble?”

He hoped that Kyouka couldn’t hear the semi-blatant concern in Akutagawa’s voice, holding the phone closer to his ear and wincing a bit at the volume. While the mafioso didn’t exactly speak loudly, the tiger’s ears were very sensitive and it kind of sucked at times.

“No, it’s not that at all! But I’m going to hand the phone over to someone who needs to talk to you, and you need to be civil to her, okay?”

“Civil?”

“Yes, civil. What, are you not capable of doing that?”

“Of course I am. Now hand the phone over so I can hear the voice of someone who isn’t you.”

Kyouka had her eyebrows raised when Atsushi turned to hand the phone over. He could feel a blush rising across his entire body as she took it from him, and stared down at the floor as she walked over to the window.

“Hello.”

Atsushi quietly reached up and covered his ears. Kyouka’s voice was muffled, as if through water, and he couldn’t hear Akutagawa’s.

“I think that you’re a mean man who is obsessed with your former teacher because you can’t see past your own insecurities, and I think that you’re terrifying and much stronger than you give yourself credit for. Also, I think that you deserve to be beaten up a couple of times for all the damage that you’ve done, although you shouldn’t have to die from your injuries.”

Oof. Harsh right out the gate, even though nothing she said was wrong.

“You hurt me a lot. I was supposed to be in middle school, but instead I had to deal with you controlling Demon Snow and making me do things that I didn’t want to do. No goodness that I could ever have will make me forgive you for doing that. I don’t forgive you.”

There was a pause.

“I’m never going to become like you. I found my place, and I’m not going to go anywhere else.”

Another pause. Atsushi’s eyes caught on a tea stain in the corner and he idly made a plan to clean it up later.

“No, I wasn’t forced to do this. He didn’t know anything until I asked him for his phone- no, he didn’t tell me anything. I don’t judge that kind of thing.”

Wait, did she just bring him up? She didn’t say anything about involving him in this!

“Hurt him again and I’ll slit your throat myself. Anyway, good night.”

Kyouka snapped the phone shut with a sense of finality. 

Atsushi lowered his hands from his ears as she turned to face him, his thoughts moving too fast for him to make sense of any of them. There were so many questions on the tip of his tongue, but they all faded abruptly when he saw her face.

Kyouka had the brightest smile on her face that he had ever seen.

“I did it,” she whispered. “I did it.”

-

“But why do you want me to call him? Couldn’t you call him yourself? I can give you his number.”

Ranpo laughed. “No, just make a short call! It’s not that hard, come on. Just call him sometime before you come into work tomorrow and you’ll be all good!”

“You’re saying that.” Atsushi slouched, letting his legs slide further under the table. “What about your half? What are you going to do to help?”

“I’m so glad you asked.”

Atsushi was suddenly not glad that he asked.

“Who do you think is the best at manipulation in the Agency, Atsushi?”

Manipulation? “On purpose or on accident?”

“Uh, both?”

“Well, I think that Kenji is the best at manipulation on accident, and that Dazai-san is the best at manipulation on purpose.”

“Good assessment! Well, what if I told you that I can do my fair share of manipulation too?”

Atsushi laughed awkwardly, not really sure how to respond to the enthusiastic questions about literal manipulation. “I wouldn’t be surprised! I mean, you’re really smart, so I wouldn’t think that it wasn’t a possibility.”

“Good!” Ranpo grinned wolfishly, and it suddenly occurred to Atsushi that it kind of seemed like he and Yosano had matching grins. Did Fukuzawa adopt her too? Were they siblings? It would explain the banter and the smiles and the intelligence and the- huh. “You shall see the world-class manipulation technique of yours truly, as I will take on the herculean effort of convincing the ever-intimidating Dazai Osamu of doing something that will expose the answers that you seek! Not only that, but you will see the fruits of my efforts tomorrow morning!”

Ranpo was not usually intimidating. Atsushi knew full well that he could take him in a fight, because a tiger could take down just about anyone when it was used in the right way, but never before had he been threatened by Ranpo’s intellect before. He was more scared of Fyodor, that was for sure, but Ranpo was someone that he was much closer to.

How would he be able to manipulate Dazai-san? And by tomorrow?

-

The next day dawned bright and early, and Atsushi decided to call Akutagawa while he was walking to the Agency.

Kyouka had taken the bus with the promise of a crepe at lunch, with only a raised eyebrow at his phone when he’d asked to walk alone. For as much time as she was spending around Yosano, Atsushi was really happy that she hadn’t started teasing him like the doctor did. He already felt the urge to blush like a tomato whenever he was around Yosano in casual settings for too long because memories of all of the jokes that she made overlapped with the present moment and made him more embarrassed at any teasing that she did do, so having to live with mini-Yosano 2.0 would be a bit too much.

Atsushi pulled up Akutagawa’s contact as he locked his dorm’s door, and actually pressed the ‘call’ button as he walked down the stairs to the road. It rang a grand total of four times before the mafioso picked up, which gave him both all the time in the world and no time at all to consider how he wanted to phrase the question about Double Black. Of course, he had stayed up last night staring at the ceiling while contemplating how the heck to have this conversation, but it wasn’t like exhausted thoughts were reliable.

“Jinko.” 

He sounded tired. Apparently Atsushi wasn’t the only one who didn’t get much sleep last night.

“Akutagawa.”

“This is an early call.”

“Not really.” Atsushi usually called him on his lunch break or after work, or at night. “I’ve got a question for you.”

“A question? What, did the detectives of your agency decide that convincing you to question me was their new strategy at getting mafia intel?”

Not in the way that he was thinking. “No, this is a personal question I’ve had for a while.”

“I’m in a good mood, so I’ll humor you.”

How kind of him. Atsushi took a breath, then layered on the honorifics. “What do you know about Double Black as people? Dazai-san has talked about Nakahara-san a lot lately, so I’m a bit curious.”

There was a pause. In the background of the call, he could distantly hear the turn signal of a car.

He frowned. “Are you driving right now?”

“Raushomon is holding my phone.”

“Oh, okay. Anyway, can you answer my question?”

“Double Black as people,” Akutagawa repeated, a tinge of something sardonic in his tone. “Well, I can’t say that I knew them well. Even when Dazai-san was in the mafia, I wasn’t personally close to him or Nakahara-san. I would say that now I’m closer to Nakahara-san, but that is only because I accompanied him on a few missions.”

So their relationship was an impersonal teacher-student relationship. Interesting, given how desperate Akutagawa was and is for Dazai’s approval.

“However, I did see them as Double Black quite often, although they were not spending much time together in the last year that Dazai-san was in the organization.”

Atsushi paused, waiting for the walk sign to flash before he crossed the street in front of him. “What were they like?”

“Children. Dazai-san was always teasing Nakahara-san, or they were always arguing, but Dazai-san was usually hanging off of Nakahara-san and they never truly hurt each other, or did anything that didn’t involve the other person, unless they were ordered to. They were the bane of a few branches’ existence because they always did half of the paperwork required, then tossed it over to a few trusted secretaries to piece everything together from whatever notes they left and from whatever was in the field reports. No matter what, though, they were always spending time together, despite proclaiming their hatred for each other so much.” Akutagawa let out a breath. “That was why Dazai-san’s departure caught so many of us off-guard.”

“What do you mean?” He had a few thoughts about what it could mean, but there was no way he wasn’t going to let Akutagawa be honest with him.

“Do you know why he left?"

Atsushi froze mid-step, then breathed in and kept walking. “No. That was something that none of us ever got an answer about.”

“Ah.” Akutagawa hesitated. “Then it’s not my place to share. But in the most vague of words, Dazai-san left because of a disagreement with the boss. There was a mission that affected him personally, and the boss- the whole organization, actually- benefited from it. However, because he held such a high rank, and because he was lauded as the boss’s right hand for so long, we thought that it wouldn’t make him leave.”

“I’m guessing that Nakahara-san played into that belief too?”

“Of course. Of the two of them, it was always thought that Nakahara-san would be the one to defect, because he had led an organization opposing us before he joined, and it was thought that if one went, the other would go with them.”

“Their relationship must have been strong at that time.”

“If one of them was injured, only the boss could send the other away. Even then, they argued about it sometimes, though I can’t think of a time where either member of Double Black won. Not only that, but Nakahara-san would make sure to protect Dazai-san no matter what, and even injured some of his own men at times because they got in his way while he tried to do that.”

“Was Dazai-san the same way?”

Akutagawa laughed. “Worse. There was a story that an enemy organization’s leader had tried to convince Dazai-san to join them by trying to kidnap Nakahara-san, and that story ended with Dazai-san leaving the leader’s body hanging where all of the organization’s allies could see it. He burned their headquarters and everyone involved too.”

“I think I understand why everyone says that Dazai-san is scary now.” Atsushi tried to imagine the lazy, dramatic mentor he knew as someone who killed an entire branch of an organization because they tried to kidnap his partner, and was mildly horrified by the fact that he didn’t have too much difficulty doing it. “If you can share, how did Nakahara-san play into Dazai-san’s departure?”

“He was overseas when the mission happened, and was still overseas when Dazai-san left. There was a suspicion that he was involved for a while, but then Nakahara-san’s car blew up because Dazai-san left some bombs in the engine with a timed detonator. Just Nakahara-san’s reaction was more than enough to prove that he wasn’t involved.”

“I’m guessing that it was something like rage?”

“Pure rage,” Akutagawa confirmed. There was a clicking sound in the background, like he was moving keys around. “I think that there was some grief there, too, but it has never been my place to ask.”

“I understand. Thank you for telling me.”

“Mhm.”

“Where are you headed?”

“Headquarters. I’m already there.”

“Oh. Have you just been sitting in your car?”

“Not for long. Are you on your way to the Agency?”

“Yeah, I’m almost there.” The building was about a block away, and Atsushi was looking forward to getting some coffee from the cafe downstairs. “I’ll let you go then. Thank you for the answer.”

“Mhm. Goodbye, jinko.”

“Bye.”

Atsushi stared at his phone, the ‘call ended’ screen disappearing in favor of showing Akutagawa’s contact. Then he went inside and ordered from Lucy, who practically screeched her judgment because he got something different than usual.

Five minutes later, he was sitting at his desk with the most sugary, caffeinated drink that was on the menu in front of him. Even Ranpo, who had waltzed over as soon as he’d walked through the door, was staring at it with a critical eye.

It tasted better than he had expected, although Atsushi wasn’t about to order it again.

“I didn’t know you liked that kind of coffee, Atsushi-kun,” Ranpo said, hopping up to sit on the edge of his desk. “Why the change?”

After glancing at Kunikida, who was talking to Tanizaki on the other side of the room, Atsushi leaned forward. “I wasn’t sure what I would need to get through whatever you were planning on doing, so I chose to try to get myself on a caffeine high and a sugar rush at the same time.”

“That’s a choice! Although your drink might not have enough time to kick in before the main event starts.”

“What do you mean?”

Ranpo jerked a thumb over his shoulder at the President’s office. “Dazai’s talking to the President right now about some case that came up, and Kunikida is going to jump his ass as soon as he sits down because there’s a bunch of paperwork that’s been incomplete for like a month.”

“And how is this going to be anything like you planned?”

“Well!” Ranpo smiled in a way that made Atsushi reach for his drink. “I might’ve mentioned to Dazai that Kunikida always seems particularly prickly whenever Nakahara is brought up, and Yosano- she’s in on this, by the way- has been working on trying to get Dazai to be more open with us, so she’s been saying that she’ll let the staff from the cafe get his paychecks, as he refuses to pay his tab, if he doesn’t just ask why people are acting in such a way. So far they have received two of his paychecks.”

Atsushi had started to drink when Ranpo said Yosano’s name, and it turned out that he could not drink this particular drink for that long at once. He gasped for air, choking because that was way too much sugar coffee at once, and Ranpo sympathetically thumped him on the back as he kept talking.

“Anyway, Yosano convinced the President to call a meeting with him this morning to discuss the paycheck thing, and so Dazai will now be more inclined to ask questions because the President is now involved. As for Kunikida, it’s as you said: he’s been more irritable, so I set him off by asking where some paperwork for a recent case was that I knew Dazai hadn’t done yet.”

The detective suddenly turned toward the President’s door, grinning in a near-maniac fashion, and Atsushi heard the door creak open. Ranpo patted him on the shoulder with a whispered “sit back and watch the show” and skipped over to his own desk. Kyouka, who had been facing them where she sat on Kenji’s desk, tilted her head at him in a silent question. Atsushi shrugged, trying to convey the mix of confusion, anxiety, and regret of life choices he was feeling at the moment, and then let his head fall and hit his own desk’s surface with a solid thud. The papers on it somewhat softened the blow.

Dazai fell into his chair with a rather dramatic flourish, the wheels on it screeching. There was a moment of silence, then-

“Are you doing okay down there, Atsushi-kun?”

Not all that willing to lift his head just yet, he gave his mentor a thumbs-up.

“Ah, alright then.” Dazai patted him a few times on the back. “Hopefully you wake up in time for lunch, then. We have a new case that we’re going to investigate afterward.”

“New case?” Atsushi forced out, his voice muffled by the desk.

“Yep! A young miss was stolen from recently, and it appears like she was the latest in a string of heists. If I’m not wrong, this will be your first phantom thief!”

Atsushi nodded into the papers that he was probably supposed to fill out today.

Dazai laughed. “Well, I’m sure we’ll get it finished by dinner tomorrow! It’ll be a notable experience nevertheless, so if you’re going to nap I would advise that you do it now so that you can-”

“Dazai!”

There’s Kunikida.

“Ah, Kunikida-kun! How is it that I can help you this lovely morning?”

“You know damn well how to help me! I had Ranpo-san come up to me earlier today and ask about some case notes, and you know what I had to tell him?”

“Hm, what? That Miss Haruno’s cat got to them?”

“No, I had to tell him that you still haven’t completed them! I know that I’ve been lenient with you about deadlines, but you have got to finish work! It’s something expected of everyone, and the fact that even Ranpo is able to get all of his paperwork done before you do is insane!”

“Ah, you’re so rigid, Kunikida-kun!”

“Rigid?! I am literally just telling you to do your job!”

“Yeah, and you’re such a stickler for your own rules!” Dazai scoffed. “The slug wouldn’t make me do this much work!”

Then there’s Dazai’s mention of Nakahara.

Atsushi raised his head off the desk, propping himself up with his elbows. A glance to his left gave him the image of a grinning Ranpo munching on popcorn with his feet up on his desk, watching what was going on with Yosano at his side. She stole a handful of popcorn as he watched, without as much as a complaint from Ranpo, and that felt more surprising than anything that would ever happen today for Atsushi.

On his right, Kunikida was standing over Dazai with his arms crossed. Dazai was leaning back in his chair, an entertained, unfazed expression on his face. His crutch was set against the desk, a tiny barrier against Kunikida.

Kunikida’s face turned an impressive shade of scarlet.

There’s Kunikida getting set off again.

“And?! Why is that a good excuse to not do your work? These are your responsibilities, not someone else’s! And if you put so much stock in his word, why not put stock in mine? I am literally your work partner!”

“Ah, but you don’t happen to be a chibi redhead, Kunikida-kun!”

“No, I happen to be someone who wants to get you to do your damn paperwork!”

There was a cough from the other side of the office, and Atsushi leaned back in his chair to look over at the source. Yosano raised her eyebrows, looking down slightly, at a point just behind him before grabbing another handful of popcorn from Ranpo, who still wasn’t complaining in the slightest.

Dazai shifted in his seat. “Actually, Kunikida-kun, why are you so upset? I didn’t take you as someone who let something as silly as comparisons get to you!”

And there’s the question.

“Comparisons- I don’t take comparisons to your ex-partner to heart!”

Dazai cocked his head to the side, as if daring him to keep talking. “Yeah, but you seem like you’re going to pop a blood vessel so much quicker now! It’s like the slug’s nickname is the match that blows up the propane tank!”

“I-” Kunikida’s face somehow got even redder. “Are you insinuating that I’m jealous of Nakahara? Why would I be jealous of a Port Mafia executive!”

“Well, you tell me! You’re the one who’s impersonating a tomato at the moment!” Dazai dramatically gasped, then pitched forward. “Wait! Don’t tell me that you’ve got a crush on my chibi ex-partner! Oh, I knew that those extensive pages were hiding something!”

“That is most definitely not what is going on!”

Atsushi agreed with Kunikida, but he also couldn’t quite tamp down on the grin that was threatening to make him look a lot less composed than he was trying to be.

“And yet you get oh-so upset whenever I say his name! That has got to lead to-”

“I am upset,” Kunikida said, putting so much emphasis on his words that it sounded like he was trying not to absolutely scream them out, “because you keep bringing up the man that put you in the damn hospital like he is some great person! Every time you spend time with him you come back injured, and excuse me for being concerned for your health and incredibly irritated that you keep talking about this man as if he isn’t horrible for you to be around! I can’t even begin to think of what he could have done to you, if you’re still talking about how better he is than me when he is from the goddamn mafia! You wax poetic about a man that you met in one of the most toxic organizations, who is one of its most dangerous and violent members, and all I can remember is how you keep needing medical attention whenever you spend time with him!”

By the end of his exclamation, Kunikida was almost shouting, visibly shaking from the apparent adrenaline that came from the outburst. Not a single person in the office dared to do anything more than breathe, all typing or casual sound completely halted in the face of one of their most composed detectives losing his mind. Even the President stood in his doorway, Haruno peeking out from behind her, eyes fixed on Kunikida with an expression that only spoke of concern.

Kunikida was growing more and more self-conscious with each second that ticked by, his chest heaving with exertion. The flush that colored his face became one of embarrassment instead of one of frustration as he stared down at his work partner, as if he wasn’t willing to face the rest of the room so he wasn’t going to look away from what had upset him so much.

It had to have been more than a minute, maybe even more than two, before the silence was broken.

Dazai barked out a laugh, the sound choked and harsh.

And he kept laughing, as if what Kunikida had said had been the funniest thing that he had ever heard, but it wasn’t happy. There was nothing jovial, nothing nice, about the way that he was laughing.

There was a passage in a book that Atsushi had read at the orphanage, a book that he should not have had his hands on when he was as young as he was when he read it, that described a man who had been locked within his house and gone slightly insane. The man had persevered for years, believing that there had been a disaster that had killed off almost all of the world because his father convinced him it had happened, receiving letters from his older brother about the poor state of the world regularly. He had been discovered by a group of cartographers years later when they had been surveying the area. While he had been silent during the explanation at first, he had begun to laugh as he realized how he had been deceived.

His laughter was described as a grating, harsh noise of grief, hopelessness, and fury. It was said to have resembled what broken glass and razors on a violin string sounded like, it was said to have sounded like something as threatening as it was sad.

Atsushi could have been fooled into thinking that the author had based that lonely character off of Dazai, because this was something that was more like that description than anything that he could have ever imagined.

Finally, the laughter choked off into desperate, low chuckles. They were no less chilling than the laughter, but Atsushi felt as if he could finally breathe.

“What would someone like you know about what it was like in the mafia, Kunikida?” Dazai spat. “Do your ideals really give you tunnel vision that’s strong enough for you not to notice how Chuuya tends to return in the same shape as me? And sure, there was an occasion that he didn’t, and you know why? Because we fought and I lost, because I knew that I was going to antagonize the best martial artist in the mafia.”

He stood up, his coat flaring out behind him, and put a hand on his desk to support himself.

“And you know what? I deserved the damn beating, because if the reason wasn’t that I abandoned him without a word, it’s because I dragged him into the mafia in the first place. You said that whenever I spend time with him, I get hurt, right? Tunnel vision, really, because every meeting I’ve gotten injured on besides the one with the fight I started were literal combat missions. Of course I got hurt on a combat mission, and especially because both times were because of mistakes that I made.”

Kunikida, whose jaw had been hanging open until this point, collected himself to try and interrupt. “But Nakahara hurt you on-”

“It was an accident. I literally got in the way!” Dazai had raised his unoccupied hand, shaking it for emphasis. “Oh, and toxic. Yes, he’s toxic, and you know what? Based on what I’m guessing is your little system of morality, I would be even more toxic than he is! I mean, I-”

“That’s enough. Dazai, stop.”

Dazai turned in an aggressive motion, expression ablaze with fury in a way that Atsushi had never seen before. Atsushi could only turn with him.

Yosano had taken a few steps away from Ranpo’s desk, her arms held loosely at her sides. The emotions that played across her face was similar to what was on Dazai’s, although the fury was cooler, molten rock instead of liquid fire ready to burn anything in its path. Behind her, Ranpo was staring at Dazai with his eyes wide open, not quite frowning at him but looking with enough concern to seem upset.

There were words that Dazai wanted to say to her. That much was obvious by the way that he opened and closed his mouth, the way that his expression smoothed over into nothingness before bursting back into the same fiery emotion that overwhelmed his features, but he stayed silent. Then, his jaw shut with a soft click, and he grabbed his crutch.

“To keep it short, Nakahara Chuuya was one of the few things that kept me sane for three years and I do not tolerate disrespect for him that is as serious as you say,” Dazai whispered, his tone not fragile at all despite the drop in volume. “Just know that the only time that he has ever hurt me is when I’ve deserved it, and never have those injuries been anything that couldn’t heal within a few days. If I hear anything about how he is someone that wishes to harm me, that all he will do is cause me harm until the day that he kills me or the day that he dies, I-”

“Well.” He ducked his head. “I’ve emptied my gun’s bullets over lighter insults.”

-

“Jinko?”

Atsushi didn’t say anything. His hands hadn’t stopped shaking, so it was miraculous that he had managed to pick up his phone at all. He had spilled his drink, and then gotten tossed out onto the roof by Ranpo so that Yosano could go after Dazai and the President could talk to Kunikida.

“You’re supposed to be at the Agency, yes? Isn’t it a bit early for a lunch break?”

The sky was blue, and there were clouds dotting it. There wasn’t any shade on the roof, so the concrete that Atsushi sat against and on was warm.

“...jinko?”

Kyouka had decided to stay with Kenji and Tanizaki. Naomi had gone to make tea with Haruno.

“Hey, did you call me by accident?”

Ranpo hadn’t even said anything of value to him. All he did was walk him up the stairs to the roof, apologize, and go back downstairs.

“...”

Was this all his fault?

Atsushi curled into himself, hugging his knees to his chest as if he was a child.

It was his investigation that had inspired Ranpo, and if Ranpo hadn’t said anything, then Dazai would have never-

“Atsushi.”

He jolted, dropping the phone and watching it hit the ground with a sudden thud. All bone-deep horror melted away in the face of scrambling for his phone and bringing it back up to his ear.

“I’m here. Sorry.”

“Jinko.” If Atsushi didn’t know any better, he would say that Akutagawa sounded concerned. “Did someone attack the Agency?”

“No, it- it wasn’t anything like that.”

“And yet you called me.”

“And yet I called you.” He repeated, mirroring the statement. “Sorry. I probably interrupted something important, didn’t I?”

“No, I wasn’t doing anything important. Today wasn’t- there wasn’t much to do today besides busywork.”

“Oh. Okay.”

“Still, if you could tell me why you called so early, I-”

“I’m sorry for bothering you, Akutagawa, but I’ll hang up,” Atsushi said, a bite in his voice that was a little unfamiliar to him. “Nothing happened. Bye.”

“What? W-”

As soon as he pressed the ‘end call’ button he felt sick.

Closing his eyes, Atsushi let his head loll back onto the concrete barrier, letting the sun-drenched stone warm his scalp. It felt nice, like sitting with your head against a heated blanket, and suddenly that’s all that Atsushi wanted. He had tried out one of those blankets once, because Yosano had one and had let him try it out after he stared at it for a few minutes, and it couldn’t be too hard to find one, right?

But didn’t Yosano say that it was expensive?

Bile rolled in his stomach again, and suddenly Atsushi didn’t want to move at all.

His phone buzzed in his hand, the vibrations light but annoying, and he flipped it open, intending to dismiss the notification. Then he read it once, twice, and three times.

And then he closed his eyes and groaned, wishing that he could melt into the warm concrete instead of facing the fact that his heart did a tiny little jump at the text that he had just received.

mafia goth, 10:04am:
I’m not meeting you at the pathetic excuse of a housing development that your Agency’s dormitories are, so if you would like to talk to me, or if you would like to stay somewhere that is not in urgent need of remodeling, I will be at the cafe down the street from your agency’s building at 10:20 with a car. I can promise that my apartment is much more comfortable than yours is.