Chapter Text
???:
??? ???.
"Kill me, Chuuya!"
BANG.
After that shot his memories abruptly stopped, what followed next was total darkness. For a moment, Chuuya thought he was lying on his futon at that moment, inside his small but cozy apartment. His head ached and he felt a really nagging sensation: it was as if his brain was being tossed from side to side, just like a pinball machine.
'...-Wake up!'
Chuuya was unable to dream. That was indeed a fact.
He was unable to dream and yet why-...why could he see and hear a figure right now, if it could be called as such, inside his head? Maybe it was the final product of many fragmented memories thrown together? The strange silhouette was blurred and massless, just like a cloud, and right now, it seemed to be trying to communicate something but Chuuya wasn't able to fully understand what it was saying. He tried to look around, as far as it was possible to observe the space inside a hypothetical and bizarre reproduction of what could be defined as a dream: the space was dark, apparently infinite and without superfluous objects. Plus, when he tried to perform a trivial action such as walking forward in order to reach out the mysterious figure, it seemed simply impossible: his feet were nailed firmly to the ground, as if someone had sprinkled them with quick-setting cement above. The figure in the distance seemed to keep repeating a sentence, raising his voice more and more everytime it spoke and judging by the tone, if that robotic and distant sound could be called like that, it was alarmed.
'...Wa...ke-...up!'
Chuuya tried to open his mouth but was immediately stopped in his action: below him, five arms emerged from nowhere, two to costrict his arms, two for his legs and finally one to shut his mouth. The arms began to carry him down, making him sink and as much as he was trying to resist nothing seemed to work, he felt his breath getting weaker and weaker. Then, something happened.
The dark space was replaced by nothingness: pure silence and tranquillity, followed by a tepid warmth that seemed to envelop him in a warm embrace, making him instantly forget that place and that frightening figure. He was in a kind of strange limbo, but it was warm and welcoming.
All his worries were gone all of a sudden.
Everything was fine.
Now, he didn't had any reason to wake up.
First of all, why on earth would he want to do that? Chuuya was at home now, away from work, away from everyone, comfortable in his futon and he won't let anyone or anything take away his well deserved hours of sleep during his only day off. His colleagues would've taken care of carrying out the remaining trainings of the 'Stray Sheep' and once fully awake and rested, he would've smoked a cigarette, perhaps in the company of-
...
Of who, exactly?
'Chuuya, wake up!'
That warm embrace suddenly turned into a lethal grip, where the white and welcoming space was replaced once again by total darkness. To say he felt fucking confused was only the tip of the iceberg.
The voice spoke again, suddenly becoming louder and clearer: it was a familiar male voice but despite everything, Chuuya couldn't associate who it belonged to, as if he had suddenly forgotten the existence of someone important to him. He saw the strange figure approaching at an impressive speed, continuing to scream in a chilling way: 'What do you want?', 'Who are you?' wanted to ask Chuuya, but his voice refused to get out of his lips.
The answers to those questions came when, although the sensation wasn't real, a strong pressure rested on his shoulders: the figure had quickly became solid, more like a real person and now it was squeezing Chuuya with both hands, pushing him forcefully down, causing him an absurd pain. Then Chuuya looked up, finally able to recognize the miserable figure in front of him: Shirase.
That's who the voice belonged to.
It was a Shirase different from usual: Chuuya knew perfectly well that that man had never been an well-ordered type, neither in his clothing nor in all the matters that concerned a minimum of responsibility. In short, it was the norm to see him arrive during these two weeks at the Agency's office with his shirt out of place or with the tie that, somehow, became a papillon. The Shirase in front of him was completely different: it wasn't messy, no, it was much worse. His suit was unrecognizable, his shirt was no longer white but red due to the blood dripping incessantly from a mortal wound on his neck, a Shirase that was anything but calm and uncaring. That macabre version of his friend was shaking him, was begging him in tears, as the blood prevented him more and more from expressing himself coherently, to leave as soon as possible from that place, to wake up immediately.
Chuuya remained petrified, as if reality had to stab him straight where the wound was still open, bleeding and clearly visible to make him regain some salt back into his brain. He wanted to throw up but he couldn't, he wanted to scream but he couldn't, he wanted to cry but he couldn't.
The box, the black envelope, Dazai, the Port Mafia-
Shirase was brutally killed. He was dead.
"Get out of here!"
__________
"Fuck-...!"
As much as that curse should have sounded like a liberating scream, the dryness of his throat prevented it, transforming it in asuffocated and silent sound, similar as a whisper: how long passed since he had drank some water?
Even breathing was tiring. Chuuya tried to store as much oxygen as possible, as if he had just resurfaced from the water after being under it for too long plus, even opening his eyes at that moment was comparable to perform a titanic gesture: his eyelids were heavy, refusing to open up to welcome a minimum of light, always bringing him back to the starting point and unfortunately, due to the non-cooperation of his body, his vision remained blurred for some time more. All he could see right now were just a lot of colors mixed together, not a defined space.
On the other hand, even if his eyes were useless, his nose was perfectly functional and he easily managed to pick up unpleasant and pungent smells, most of them were a clear reminder of his past: blood, rotteness, humidity and finally, an intense smell that Chuuya detected many times during his previous career, coming directly from the scum who filled their mouth with pure shit and nothing more, praising themself and how killing ordinary civilians to sell their organs on the black market was the most normal thing in world. At the same time, the same smell came from his, at the time, superiors while Chuuya watched them working, concentrated on extrapolating informations from some thugs mouths who were part of a nameless gang, that had the brilliant idea of threatening, among all organizations, the Port Mafia itself. Over time then, Chuuya saw a single person take their place in this field, becoming the nightmare of many people and the executor of others, acquiring their own smell. The smell of madness.
Chuuya managed to understand at grand lines where he was and after a few minutes, his vision confirmed it, even if the details were not fully visible: currently, he was in the Port Mafia basement, more precisely where the unfortunate souls who ended up under there , before exhaling their last breath, would have been subjected to tortures far worse than death itself.
Technically, he was a traitor, so it was more than reasonable that they reserved a place for him in there, they even took the trouble to make him wear metal chains that constricted his wrists, an impeccable service indeed.
"Ooh! I can finally see that Chuuya has decided to wake up from his beauty sleep."
Of all the things he would have expected to see and hear once he was awake and more or less alert, Dazai Osamu, the man who had orchestrated Shirase's murder, certainly wasn't one of them. "You sure took a really long time to wake up, you know? I was just wondering what I could've scribble on your face." As if to confirm his words, that annoying man, currently crouched on the ground, busy looking him up and down, waved a black fountain pen in front of him, immediately putting it back in one of the back pockets of his trousers. "Or maybe I could've wake you you up with a kiss, you know, just like in 'Sleeping Bea-..."
"Shut your fucking mouth up!"
Every word he uttered costed Chuuya a really unpleasant feeling in his throat and as much as he wanted to be intimidating, the impression he was giving of himself now was simply pathetic. Fuck dehydration. Fuck Dazai.
"Come on, you shouldn't try to bark so hard and loud in this state." Dazai stood up, straightening his jacket and brushing off the dirt that had settled on it by lightly patting his overcoat. "I know very well how excited Chuuya is and how he can't wait to be able to talk to his truly one again after so many years of separation, but for now it would seem quite difficult given your actual conditions."
Totally thrilled, in fact he was so excited that he wanted to smash Dazai's head to a wall to calm down.
Chuuya, despite the effort in forcing his eyelids to remain open, collected within himself all the possible concentration he could have, following and scrutinizing every single movement, even the most insignificant one, that Dazai made. Position of the hands, facial expressions, breathing: as always, his every action was disgustingly perfect, acted, calculated. The man before him seemed more like an automaton than a human being. Chuuya shifted his attention to the clothing, which also remained essentially the same as he remembered, not that he expected a particularly and new change in it, especially from someone who had the same aesthetic sense as a scarecrow.
After that, his eyes fell elsewhere, more specifically on the brunette's face: it was certainly not the first time he saw his ex-partner without the bandages he once wore on his face, which hid his perfectly healthy right eye, but one thing it was seeing him in the photos, in the surveillance recordings kept at the Agency, and one thing was to be able to see him in real life, at a very close distance.
Dazai nonchalantly took the trouble to invade what little personal space Chuuya could possess in that situation, to such an extent that he could clearly feel the stench of rotten fish corroding his sense of smell.
"How silent we are." The young Executive stopped a span away from the Detective's face: the eyes of the taller man were more similar to two black holes than eyeballs, devoid of light, in contrast to the luminosity that Chuuya's blue eyes emanated. Neither of them was willing to look away from the other first, obviously out of pure personal pride.
"That's not like you, Chuuya. Are you trying to give me the silent treatment?" Dazai hinted a small laugh, bringing his index and middle finger under the traitor's chin, the way he touched him was very similar to a gentle caress. "We both know how much you love being vocal, so why not talk?" Chuuya felt small shivers creep up from where the bastard had touched him straight to his toes. He hated that feeling.
"Get those fucking fingers off of me." The detective's tone clearly showed disdain, as if in front of him there was someone comparable to a filthy garbage bag. The taller one could perceive very well the strong anger that hovered like an aura around the little guy and he couldn't help but be more than amused by his reaction. He loved when his little chihuahua got so worked up to the point that to appear more intimidating in Dazai's eyes he was trying to imitate a big and scary rottweiler. Though he'll never openly say it out loud, Dazai admitted that he had missed moments like that between the two of them.
So, will he stop teasing him? Absolutely not, not now that after four years he was able to have Chuuya in front of his eyes again, not now that he could observe his reactions closely, not now that he could see those little details that he had never been able to notice before. Were those freckles on the redhead's cheeks?
"Oh?" the brunette man gave him one of his beloved little know-it-all smiles, slowly sliding his fingers down, tracing with his fingertips a vertical line that started from under the chin until he touched the redhead's Adam's apple: Chuuya would have liked bite off those disgusting fingers, in truth, he would've wanted to completely tear Dazai apart until he became a mass of confetti, he would've torn out his arms, his legs, even his dick-
"AH-...!"
"I don't think you're in a position to be arguing about my actions, Chuuya."
That bastard was choking him!
"Son-...of-...a-...bitct-...AH SHIT-...!" The grip on his neck tightened but it wasn't lethal, Dazai dindn't intend to kill him, at least not for now. "You passed out before we could settle things between us." He applied light pressure, squeezing just enough to let muffled curses and a few breathless sounds come out of Chuuya's lips. There was something about those aching sounds that Dazai found extremely fascinating: they were sounds he heard every day from the filthy mouths of insignificant people, yet hearing them coming directly from Chuuya was totally different, music for his ears.
"We reunited after four long years, in an abrupt way I admit it, but don't you think it's better to savor this moment, rather than start insulting me like a kid?" Chuuya lowered his head, until now turned upwards to store what little oxygen he could use between one breath and another, giving Dazai what could be defined a look that could kill.
"Fuck-... you!"
Honestly, he was fed up with listening to the cosmic bullshit the other was shooting out of his mouth without doing anything, so he started wiggling left and right provoking an echo of clanging noises inside the dungeon and causing Dazai to involuntarily pull his hand off from his neck, but before he could have a chance to put it back on top of it, Chuuya leaned forward slightly, opened his mouth and-
"OUCH!" the brunette withdrew back massaging the back of his hand with the palm of the other, looking troubled at the red mark that had just formed above it. "Did you seriously just bite my hand?" Dazai gave Chuuya a surprised and confused look at the same time, accompanied by an uncomposed and pissed tone of voice, not calm as it was until a few moments before. "It hurts so bad! Chuuya, you should know I hate pain and what are you, a dog at all effects now? Do you bite all your enemies like that?"
"I don't know, ask that rookie of yours, Akutagawa. To me, he seems much more experienced in this field." the redhead narrowed his gaze, slightly clenching his teeth. "Shirase certainly didn't like it when his head was bitten off."
"..." For a moment, Chuuya was quite sure that he had succeeded in his attempt to silence that rotten mackerel, he admitted he felt kinda prideful right now. "Why do you care so much?" Dazai said that phrase softly, monotonously, almost in a whisper and if it hadn't been for the echo, probably not even half a word would've reached the detective's ears. What the hell was he saying now? And why was Dazai the one with a grim, annoyed expression between the two?
"What the fuck do you mean-"
"Why do you care so much about someone like Shirase?"
He didn't-... Dazai didn't asked that seriously. Right?
"Why do you care so much about the life of someone who has took advantage of you for years just because of your special ability, just to always be sure that his back was protected. Someone who has betrayed you at the first opportunity, stabbing you in the stomach with a poisoned knife and -...!"
"...-And who saved me from living under a fucking bridge by sparing me the street rat lifestyle, who extended his hand to me first, welcoming me into the group, without caring of my miserable appearance at the time and without asking me questions about my origins. Someone who supported me during Verlaine's attack and who after that he still decided to remain my best friend!"
Chuuya didn't notice when he gradually began to raise his voice or to feel his eyes getting swollen and watery. "Bet you knew all that stuff, right? After becoming Executive you surerly didn't think twice about snooping deeper into my documents, I bet you were shivering with excitement. Yet you killed him." Chuuya leaned his back against the cold surface of the wall, lowering his head and turning his gaze towards the floor, accompanied by the constant noises of the chains in the background.
"All for what? Did you think it was funny? Did you think I would've laughed after seeing Shirase's head chopped in that gift box? Or maybe, you thought that blackmailing me would've scared me, trying so bad to keep the word to that old promise I made with the Boss years ago." God, to say he was burning with rage inside his body it would be insulting, because he could perfectly feel how Arahabaki was itching to continue consuming that intense, unbearable emotion until it was to much and have an opportunity to came out of him.
"Did you seriously think that after that fucking joke of yours I would show up in front of the Port Mafia begging you and the Boss on my knees to take me back into the organization, maybe while kissing your shoes?" Chuuya looked up and it only took him one glance to understand that, approximately speaking, Dazai's plan was exactly that.
"Seriously, you are the biggest piece of shit I've ever met in my life."
Crack.
"You're wrong."
"Wrong, me? Do you hear yourself when you speak? You're acting like a spoiled child!"
Crack.
"I assure you that you are the more immature of the two, Chuuya. Your anger is only a product of your stubbornness and inability to analyze the situation with cold blood."
"And what would be there to analyze, uh?! The actions speak for themselves Dazai: Shirase died unjustly only because of you and your disgusting and morbid desire to play God, because apparently you have no better pastime than fucking up other people's lives from top to bottom!"
C r a c k.
"Funny how you say that Chuuya, when you fucked up mine first!"
...
What had he just said?
Dazai remained motionless, fists clenched near his hips that Chuuya noticed shaking slightly for a fraction of a second before they were released and returned to normal, just as he noticed a spark of panic creeping into his face: the mafioso tried to open his mouth, trying to justify himself but he didn't say anything at the end, he simply closed it completely diverting his gaze elsewhere.
Dazai didn't have the slightest idea of what expression he was showing to Chuuya at that moment. That sentence was certainly not something he had calculated to say, in theory it should never have come out of his mouth first of all, remaining in the depths of his mind, in reality he had let himself be corroded by the same stubbornness that little man had!
As a result, he was walking in the dark. He dind't known in which position his eyebrows were, what fold his eyes and mouth had taken. What emotion his glance was transmitting to his interlocutor at that moment? These doubts were doubled, if not tripled, by the obvious absence of a mirror to observe himself.
Chuuya on the other hand, could see his expression very well, watching closely.
One thing was certain: Dazai was, without a shadow of a doubt, really pissed off. A more unique than rare event, almost like winning the lottery, since Dazai Osamu and the word 'emotions' were never associated together. Okay, maybe he was lying by saying it was something extremely rare, well because it actually was, but Chuuya, as much as digging up his past in the Port Mafia gave him a weird itch every time, he could remember how his former partner had shown more than once something real, even if those occasions could be counted with the fingers of a single hand: sometimes they were more direct, other times you could only notice the simple intention but this was already a big step for someone like the brunet. Were they intentional demonstrations? An unplanned reaction? He didn't know then and probably he'll never know now.
Still, Chuuya vividly remembered that time when Dazai had shown him pure amusement and perhaps, even if he still isn't completely sure today, for the first time he seened to allow himself to undress from his own masks.
It happened on Chuuya's eighteenth birthday four years ago, exactly one month and one week before he left the organization. That day Dazai was more clingy and annoying than usual, still insisting that he wanted to spend a 'business partner's night' togheter with him. Chuuya refused the offer on the spot and, unfortunately for him, he remembered how that day he had to endure being constantly followed by Dazai while he illustrated him 'the five thousand reasons why you should go out drinking with Dazai Osamu' and various bullshit, useless to say that in the end he had to give up purerly in exasperation and to shut him up.
__________
4 years ago:
B
ar Lupin.
"Oi, why did you bring me here, shitty Dazai? Were your little friends unavailable tonight? Or maybe they finally figured out how boring you are and stood you up."
"No, no, no! What you should say now is 'thank you so much, oh my great benefactor Dazai Osamu, for deciding to keep a lonely slug like me company, instead of emptying my fine wines into the sink while I was sleeping!', do you understand? Come on, repeat it."
"The only thing I will repeat will be your last words in front of all the Port Mafia during your funeral if you don't stop saying bullshits this very second."
"Ugh, no thanks, I don't want people to think that of all people, I was with you during my last moments of life."
"At least they'll save themselves the trouble of figuring out the killer's identity."
"You are funny, Chuuya."
"What? Are you kidding me-"
"I'm happy to be here with you."
"..."
"Obviously because you are the birthday boy, so you'll pay!"
"Oi, what are you saying-...!"
"Sorry Chuuya, but it's the rules! Bartender! Give me a glass of whiskey, the most expensive you own! Obviously my dearest friend next to me will pay, fufufu!"
"You bastard! That's why you insisted so much on coming at this place! 'partners drinking night', like hell! You wanted to completely make me go broke!"
"Your accusations hurts me! I say it's right to spoil yourself a little bit on your birthday, don't you think so too?"
"The only one who's spoiled here is you, Dazai! Ugh, it was way better when I celebrated it that time with the 'Fla-..."
"..."
"...-I hate you, you know that?"
"The feeling is mutual, Chuuya."
"I'll make you pay back when your eighteenth birthday arrives, I swear you'll go to the Boss crying, begging him on your knees to help you pay off your debts since I'll make you spend so much money on fine alcohol!"
"Mm, we'll see."
But that day never came.
In the following month Mimic entered Yokohama and from there the events surrounding Mori's twisted plan to get a stupid piece of paper signed by the Government started like domino effect, but at the same time those same events led to Chuuya's escape from the Port Mafia .
On June 19 of that year, Dazai found himself celebrating his eighteenth birthday in the old dormitory that both he and his partner had been using until, well, until his disappearance. The door had been locked since now that was considered an uninhabited and useless room since Dazai was no longer constrained by having to share the room in order to maintain a good relationship with his partner because he had just lost him and now, he simply didn't have no more reason to be attracted to that room.
Or at least, it had to be like that.
It didn't take long before Dazai was able to unlock the door and finally enter, turning on the light with a switch placed on the wall. The room hadn't changed since the last time he'd set foot in it, and now that he looked at it better, through the eyes of an eighteen-year-old and not those of a fifteen-year-old excited by having someone of his same age to share his video games with, he realized that in the end, the room didn't had any sort of special peculiarity, indeed it was a rather normal room. Of course, it was decent and tidy, suitable for two kids who had lived there most of their adolescence playing (arguing) video games and eventually experimenting with alcohol and the inebriation of drugs, both things in theory forbidden to them, but hey, Dazai had connections and they were actually members of the Port Mafia, what even someone could've tell them? That things like that were illegal to do at their age? Yeah, right.
The first thing he saw once inside was their old bunk bed: Dazai could remember very well the sleepless night that the two spent playing Super Smash Bros to decide who should get which bed. At the end, Dazai managed to win the upper bed, not because he liked being up there and watching everything from above but just out of pure spite, knowing that he had obtained something that Chuuya wanted with all his heart. Both beds were tidy, no sheets out of place or creases in sight, even the two pillows the shortie used to sleep with were left in place.
He started walking around the room, opening the drawers and doors of Chuuya's closet, finding some clothes, to be more specific two sweatshirts, one of which was two sizes bigger and a few pairs of sweatpants, in short, clothes that even if forgotten were easily replaceable and that certainly hadn't costed a fortune. Before closing it, Dazai later noticed the posters of various rock bands that Chuuya had become passionate about over the years, attached in a random way inside the wardrobe doors, noticing how the tape of one of them had slightly detached, causing it to lean forward.
Finally, his attention was drawn to the direction of the small mini-bar that Chuuya used to keep between his bed and his desk. Although Dazai had explained to him that if he wanted, he could have someone bring any fresh wine directly to taste it on the spot, Chuuya preferred to be a serial accumulator by filling the poor fridge with bottles as time progresses, using them later during the night to 'quench his thirst', even though Dazai frankly had never seen anyone relieve nighttime thirst with a glass of Chianti.
He reached it and squatting down he then opened it, but as soon as he did it Dazai was greeted by something that he honestly would never have expected to see: the fridge was essentially empty, if not for a few cans of energizers, but the most surprising thing was the presence of an expensive bottle of red wine not yet open. It must have been because of the general panic of the preparations for the escape but Dazai knew very well that Chuuya would've preferred be caught in the act of fleeing with his suitcases in hand rather than leave one of his beloved and precious bottles behind, especially with someone like Dazai as roomate. To be sure that he wasn't actually dreaming he pinched himself, it hurted so it was all true, even if it was a very strange situation.
His lips curved upwards, forming a satisfied grin, as he pulled the treasure he'd just found from the fridge. Apparently, Dazai did find out a way to put a cheerful note on his birthday.
"Wherever you are now Chuuya, I hope you feel a little heartache inside your chest knowing I'm about to empty the whole bottle down the toilet!"
Dazai closed the mini-bar, starting his task to open it which ended in about ten minutes: five to remove the aluminum cap and another five to be able to pop off the cork which, for the record, ended up right against the bathroom door. "Perfect!" Pleased with the result of his efforts Dazai leapt off the ground, humming happily as he headed towards his final goal. "Time to give the sanitary a drink!" he opened the bathroom door, turning on the light, noticing how even that room also remained the same as he remembered it, but before he could step both feet into the it, something stopped him.
"Oi Dazai, drop that bottle now before I take it from your hand and smash it over your head!"
His body stiffened, feeling a thump in his heart and sudden electric shocks making their way inside him, increasing his heartbeat in just a few moments.
Ever since Dazai remembered being, unfortunately, under Mori's care, his mentor had always repeated to him over and over again how human emotions constituted in the most dangerous weapon a human being could possess, as they made you vulnerable, therefore an easy target. For this reason, Mori was magnanimous enough to take the trouble to teach Dazai the art of masking, or rather, of suppressing that part that made him fragile, a simple human.
As much as he hated that doctor, Dazai thought, for the first and only time in his life, that Mori had actually done him a favor by teaching that trick to him because in the end, the concept of 'emotions' was a subject far too complicated to explore, even for someone like Dazai. Even if in truth, over time he had become curious, trying to observe other people's emotions, including Chuuya, but as he suspected right from the start it was a far too vast field of research and not within his competence .
Emotions made people do absurd and irrational things most of the time and Dazai had always thought that this was the stupidest concept in the world, on the contrary, human beings themselves were stupid enough to get fooled by such abstract things.
Yet, stupid as it was, even Dazai at that moment fitted perfectly into that circle of people.
"Chuuya!"
It almost made him throw up the way the other's name came out of his mouth in such an exasperated tone but, at least for now, he didn't want to think about it, not with his heart currently pounding crazy and his stomach hurting so bad from how nervous he was.
Dazai turned his head: the room was empty, nobody was there.
Obviously it was empty, what he was even thinking? It was impossible for Chuuya to be there in that room with him. His partner had left for good, cutting ties with the Port Mafia and consequently with Dazai himself and only then, he realized how stupid it actually was the idea that the redhead had tried to sneak inside the organization from which he had taken a thousand risks to be able to leave once and for all, only to return for a stupid birthday! Only someone crazy enough could ever think of doing something like that!
Crazy, yeah, that's right.
"..."
Dazai didn't say anything, he just closed the bathroom door, heading towards the bunk bed and dropping onto Chuuya's, coming into contact with the water mattress that made him dance up and down for a few seconds, closing his lids slowly for the first time in months, Dazai let all the build up fatigue overcome him. On the sheets he could still smell the disgustingly strong and sweet cologne that Chuuya insisted on putting every day before going out somewhere. "Great, now I'll be pervaded by this perfume for days, not even acid would be able to get it off my skin."
The sleepy sensation fell upon him within twenty minutes, making him falling completely asleep.
"I'll make you pay back when your eighteenth birthday arrives, I swear you'll go to the Boss crying, begging him on your knees to help you pay off your debts since I'll make you spend so much money on fine alcohol!"
"Mm, we'll see."
Dazai's sleep was interrupted by an incessant vibration that came from inside a pocket of his jacket: someone was calling him but right now he didn't have the slightest intention of answering, especially if that someone was probably Mori .
The phone stopped vibrating and after a few seconds, another short vibration was heard, a message: okay, thinking twice maybe it was better to check, because if it was really Mori he didn't want him to send someone to get him, because that meant that a thug would show up inside the room where Dazai previously lived with a traitor and certainly his mentor would've began to ask him an infinite number of uncomfortable questions that he wouldn't dare to answer even under torture.
"So tired..." Dazai blinked several times, trying to wake up even if he didn't want to, feeling a slight headache forming. How long had he slept on that bed? The boy stretched his arms upwards, slightly arching his back and emitting a few sleepy moans, then sitting cross-legged with his head still hanging down and feeling his body gradually lose the warmth of the blankets. Dazai slipped his right hand into the pocket where he kept his phone, pulling it out and turning it on seeing the time: it were four in the afternoon.
Once unlocked, he lowered the curtain, noticing two notifications: a missed call and a message, both were from Mori, he knew it. Dazai exalated a long sigh and by clicking on the message icon, he opened it.
From: Mori Ougai.
'Dazai-kun, please come to my office in twenty minutes. I want to personally deliver your eighteenth birthday present to you.'
He didn't want to go, he didn't care about the present, he didn't even care about his birthday either but he also couldn't not show up, not after having deliberately ignored a call from him. Dazai let out another sigh, this time more bored and turning his head on the side, he noticed how the bottle of wine was still there, resting on the sheets a few centimeters away from him.
If he was forced to present himself in front of Mori to listen to one of his very long speeches and, above all, in his honor, Dazai would've preferred to go there with a modest amount of alcohol circulating in his body.
Having said that, he stretched out his left arm, taking the bottle firmly in his hand, opening it: it was red wine, it had a pungent aroma and his nose twitched a little because of this. "I would much rather have whiskey right now." But despite his complaints, the next moment his lips found themselves in contact with the neck of the bottle, drinking the liquid in one go, which unlike the pungent aroma, it had a rather sweet taste. If Kouyou had seen him at that moment, chugging down wine from that bottle like a drunkard, she wouldn't even had the time to lecture him as she surerly would have passed out from an instantaneous heart attack.
"Bwuahh-...!"
He pulled away, taking a breath and feeling a tiny hint of heat creep up his cheeks, his eyes noted how the liquid had steadily decreased, now remaining for almost halfway the bottle. "I've always been right, Chuuya." Dazai didn't know if it was because of the alcohol or not but gradually a relaxed smile appeared on his face.
"Wine really sucks."
__________
Dazai was still as a statue, staring elsewhere except on Chuuya, as if he was afraid to be seen and this, inexplicably, further pissed off the detective.
"What I have done to you? Are you serious right now?" Chuuya tried to move one step forward, not a great distance, and as much as he was wishing to be in a distance short enough to headbutt Dazai under the chin, for now he had to settle with that. "So, now I'm the one who fucked your life when you, first of all, have always been one of the main causes, if not directly the orchestrator, of all the bullshits you've made me suffer all these years!" anyone could clearly tell from Chuuya's tone of voice how much he was having enough of carrying on this senseless conversation with the 'Demon Prodigy', currently stripped of this title because he wasn't really seeing any kind of prodigy right in front of him, he was currently looking at Dazai Osamu, a twenty-two-year-old man possessing a considerate charm and, most importantly, in a vulnerable state.
"You're exaggerating, we were young and stupid kids at that time."
Ah, so he still had a tongue to speak.
"Don't even try to justify yourself, Dazai." the brunette still didn't give any sign of wanting to turn around. "We were never normal kids with normal adolescence, like hell! We smoked drugs of unknown origins at sixteen! Not to mention the clubs we usually went to, we were seventeen and I remind you how girls-..."
"I'd say our conversation can end here."
Dazai's voice overcame the detective's shutting him up, pronouncing each word loudly and sharply, suddenly becoming serious. "We can continue talking in another occasion, that's all for the meantime." having said that, the Executive turned away giving his back to the other man.
Oh no, he wasn't going to let him go just like that.
"The great Dazai Osamu, the most feared man within the Port Mafia as much as the Boss himself, running away with his tail between his legs too scared to engage a conversation about how fucking childish his own behavior is." Chuuya made an irritated click with his tongue, with every intention of annoying the taller man: after all, this kinda of game was meant to be played by two peple and he certainly wasn't going to let Dazai be the only one to enjoy all the fun.
In fact, it didn't take long before the mafioso suddenly stopped on the stairs, but this time he turned completely towards him. "I'm not running away, Chuuya. We're just done talking, at least for now." No expression, no emotion, the vulnerability that Dazai had shown him a few minutes ago had vanished into thin air.
"Fucking liar." he whispered irritably, partly disappointed for not having obtained the desired results from their strange conversation. Chuuya returned to leaning his back and head against the cold surface of the wall, feeling how the pain in his head hadn't decreased a bit, on the contrary it had amplified twice as much. "Holy shit, my head is exploding."
"I'd say it's more than normal." Dazai intervened. "You too should know that migraines are a side effect of sedatives."
"What?"
Chuuya swore he heard that smart asshole huffing in annoyance. "The sedative, you know, the one Odasaku shot straight into your neck before you could do anything to me and finish me off."
Sedative?
"Now you're suffering the side effects."
Oh.
"That's why you should rest, you have a dinner to attend tonight."
Now he remembered.
__________
8 hours before:
Port Mafia Headquarters.
Inside his body, in his veins and in his blood, a jolt of pure adrenaline was currently flowing, accompanied by tremors of anticipation, translated as the tremendous desire to take Dazai by the collar of his shirt and punch him in the face perhaps succeeding, once and for all, to break all the masks he persisted wearing. He also had just a few thirty punches to deliver from Shirase as well.
Chuuya went from one building to another, gradually descending until both wheels of the motorcycle touched the ground again, passing the invisible border that separated urban normality from the territory under the direct control of the Port Mafia, Chuuya didn't even think once about slowing down speed or trying to go unnoticed, absolutely not.
One of the Five Executives, the mastermind behind Shirase's death, had officially invited him to kick his ass live in front of the whole Port Mafia and it was safe to say he'll make sure to do his worst.
Chuuya accelerated, increasing speed and as like he remembered, he saw a bunch of snipers stationed on high points of the buildings, ready to shoot him and so it started: the fire opened and countless bullets began to arrive. Some of the snipers tried to aim at the tyres of his bike in an attempt to pierce them, while others aimed directly at him but both attempts were almost useless as Chuuya shielded himself with his own ability, stopping the bullets and at the same time further increasing his speed, making it difficult to perceive.
From this distance he could clearly see the main entrance of the Port Mafia: the small square outside was well maintained and elegant looking as always, but the thing that really caught his attention were the five guards, positioned above the stairs and near the semi-obscured windows, who were keeping the entrance under close surveillance, equipped with rifles ready for use.
He would get through them, one way or another.
Once shortened the distance, Chuuya could see how the five men immediately put themselves on guard firmly pointing their weapons in his direction but their intentions were stopped from the start by their target who, protected by the reddish aura, darted straight against the glass doors, motorcycle included, smashing them into thousand glass pieces and finally managing to enter the building.
Once inside, Chuuya was immediately surrounded on all sides by about twenty armed men, perfectly positioned to shoot him from any angle but for some reason, no one pulled the trigger. With a turn of the keys, the bike turned off to then be positioned in a stable way with the stand, and only after making sure that his vehicle was secure, he deactivated his ability, dropping pieces of glass that he blocked a few moments earlier to the ground.
"If only one of you tries to shoot and damage my bike, I cannot guarantee the safety of any of you." With this warning, he took off his helmet letting his flaming red hair, now very disheveled, freely out, beginning to pace around the room, glaring at everyone present.
"So, do we do one-on-one? Or all together?"
Nobody uttered a word.
"So? It's the same thing for me."
Then, one of the twenty men stepped forward: finally someone with balls, thought Chuuya, wrong! The man held up a walkie-talkie in front of him, almost pressing it to his face. "Huh? What the fuck does that mean?" His patience was already very stretched, the tremors hadn't stopped yet and they wouldn't stop until he forced Dazai to do a plastic surgery to have his face fixed since that day he would've completely destroyed it.
"Dazai-san, your guest just broke into the main entrance." And there the string was stretched too much. Chuuya felt an internal thud at the mere mention of that name pronounced with so much undeserved respect. "What did you just say?" his right hand moved by itself firmly gripping the collar of the poor unfortunate man in front of him, visibly intimidated. "Oi, Dazai! Stop acting like a fucking coward and come here to welcome me personally, I really feel like tearing your limbs off one by one." after a while, an amused laugh was heard from the other side which, judging by the shocked and surprised faces of the men around him, it was a sound not often heard within those walls. "I am happy that Chuuya accepted my invitation in such a rush way."
"I would've still broken in without your written invitation." the words came out sharp and very similar to growls. "I'm here to kill you, Dazai. You'd better hide, because as soon as I find you and get my hands on you, it will be over." The grip on the collar of the poor man's shirt tightened. "You will be able to bow your head to the ground and beg forgiveness directly face to face with Shirase." his body was full with rage and thought he'll be exploding any time now.
"Oh, my dear chihuahua, you know perfectly well that I don't beg." Chuuya didn't need to see the bastard's face directly to understand that stuck to his lips was one of his fucking grins. "Moreover, if I hid, it would be disrespectful towards you, don't you think? After all, I'm the one who invited you, it seems to me the least to let me be present."
"Then as a guest I'll tell you that it's an asshole behaviour to be escorted by someone else while a certain cheap Executive is sitting comfortably waiting for my arrival in the Boss's office." Chuuya promised himself that once he reached the top floor he would've kicked down the door of that damn room.
"Escorted?" the annoying voice began to speak again, using a lower tone but calm as always . "I don't think I ever mentioned that." The atmosphere around the detective suddenly became much more tense, heavy. "I invited you, this is the truth but I want to remind you, my dear Chuuya, that you are a traitor at all effects." The safe of a pistol was removed. "I think you can remember the Port Mafia's treatment for people like you."
Chuuya looked down, seeing the satisfied expression of the man he currently held by his shirt collar, pointing a gun directly under his chin. "Are you dying to meet me?" the voice coming from the walkie-talkie began to become garbled, Dazai was about to close the communication.
"Then please, take a seat my precious guest. Let's see if you still remember how to get to Mori's office, if you ever get there in one piece obviously! Well, good luck Chuuya!"
The communication ended definitively: the hunt had officially begun.
Chuuya moved the position of his hand with a fast movement, passing it from the collar to the man's wrist, jerking his arm upwards and making him shoot straight at the ceiling. "Damned bastard, I knew it wouldn't be that easy!" To finish him off, he landed a knee straight into his opponent's stomach to destabilize him, stealing his walkie-talkie from his other hand and finally delivering the decisive blow that sent him straight to kiss the floor. He then turned around, noticing the terrified and amazed faces of his other opponents, Chuuya starterd walking, placing himself in the center of the room.
"We can resolve this in two ways: first option, you let me pass without bitching or second option, you shoot me and I'll make you all become part of the walls and floor."
At first, Chuuya thought he still had a little influence inside that place, just enough to scare people like them off, convincing them with fear, but just as he tried to take a few steps forward a bullet arrived at a close distance from his shoes. "We're not going to be fooled! A bloody traitor like you will never intimidate us!" an adult voice spoke: he was a man in his thirties, judging by the tone of voice he was quite full of himself and in almost all probability, he hadn't been working within the organization for a long time if he didn't know who Chuuya was.
"Oh I see, so you choose to go with the second option. Alright, I really needed to get out some adrenaline from my system." Chuuya turned his gaze to the unnamed guy who had spoken. "You there." a dim red light began to appear around him. "Do you want to know what it's like to fight against gravity?" cracks formed under the soles of his shoes in a span of seconds, gradually destroying the floor tiles, generating small shocks.
This time, Chuuya was clearly able to hear a lot of safes being removed and at the same time, the sounds of gunfire started to fill the room: there were some man who fired the bullet before and those after but at that moment, he wasn't the one who was in a disadvantaged position.
"Special Ability: For The Tainted Sorrow."
The floor started shaking and what followed next was pure chaos.
__________
"So much noise." Dazai sighed, swinging the walkie-talkie back and forth like a pendulum. "Hurry up and get there, slug." he whispered bored to himself, leaning forward and pressing his forehead against the cold glass in front of him.
"Dazai-kun." Mori, currently sitting comfortably behind his desk, busy filling out document after document as if hell wasn't breaking loose on the floors below, called him. "If you're so impatient to see Chuuya-kun again you should go meet him, that would be a more than optimal solution and what's more, you would save me money to spend on repairing the damage your ex partner is currently causing."
Dazai slid slowly down on the glass. "Too easy, Mori-san. Also, I want to remind you that Chuuya is a traitor, it would go against the morals of the organization to give him a special treatment." he turned to face his mentor, wearing a blank stare, flattening his left cheek against the surface in front of him too. "Money is certainly something that isn't lacking here and I would like to add that your beloved furniture is being destroyed solely and exclusively because it's your fault, Mori-san."
Mori, always concetrated on signing documents, was intrigued and amused by the young man's answer. "Oh? What do you mean by that, Dazai-kun?" The brunette, now slipped far too low, moved away from the window, walking towards the center of the office. "If four years ago you hadn't agreed to exchange Chuuya for a sheet of paper to frame and hang on the wall, the situation would have been quite different now." His tone of voice was very serious all of a sudden.
"If everything had remained as it was then I wouldn't needed to resort to such brutal methods now. Chuuya would've remained my partner, unable to escape after blowing up his plan and right now, in the lower floors there wouldn't be a small angry dog that is coming after me with the sole purpose of biting all my limbs off." His gaze narrowed, putting in evidence his dull brown eyes. "Too bad, apparently you'll have to spend a lot of money in renovation."
He's still tying that matter to his finger after all this time, Mori thought with a hint of a smile forming on his lips. I understand, it's also an implicit revenge towards me, truly diabolical.
"Apparently." he repeated in response to Dazai, placing his expensive fountain pen on the side. "But at the same time, I can't afford to see my expensive furniture break so easily one after another." Mori looked up straight into the eyes of the boy in front of him. "What do you propose to do, Executive Dazai Osamu?"
The brunette exhaled a long breath, turning his back to that man: under normal circumstances, this would be considered a lack of respect, especially if the person he's turning his back is the Boss of the Port Mafia, but Dazai didn't care less. "Don't worry, I have freed out of his cage the stray dog that I have constantly trained over these past few years."
__________
Interferences could be heard from the walkie-talkie and then, a voice began to speak. "Akutagawa, be kind and go welcome our guest."
The boy answered the order immediately. "It will be done, Dazai-san." His steps were calm but quick: the man he was about to face was a traitor and from what he understood, Dazai's ex partner too: fool, it was the first thing that came to his mind about his opponent. Today he would've had the opportunity to demonstrate how fearsome he had become in all these years of training, to prove himself against someone who possessed a powerful but not unbeatable ability and finally earning the approval of his strength from his mentor.
He was wrong, he was very wrong.
That man named Chuuya Nakahara was an indomitable fury: as soon as he arrived at the scene of the battle, Akutagawa could see the unconscious bodies of the guards on the ground and then him, in the middle of the room with his hands in his pockets. "Look who I'm seeing again, Akutagawa." the detective stepped forward, completely ignoring how a few moments later a dozen of slashes were aimed at his direction but with skill and experience Chuuya managed to dodge them, quickly shorting their distance and delivering a powerful kick in the stomach of the youngest, making him fall painfully to his knees, coughing and spitting saliva. "If I remember correctly, you're that bandaged asshole's apprentice." Chuuya approached him, lowering himself to his level, immediately squeezing a gloved hand around his neck: he would've teached some good manners to that boy. "You were the one who bit off Shirase's head with your ability, am I right?" the grip tightened and Akutagawa gasped, trying to defend himself with his ability but every effort seemed to vanish before his eyes, as every blow was parried or dodged despite the current position.
"I don't care if it was a direct order from that bastard Dazai, you're just as guilty as him." I hate it. "Just out of curiosity: did you feel anything when tou killed him?" I hate it. "Did you felt remorse? Sadness? Guilt? Or, did you played the part of the good dog, following what you were told to do, waiting for praise and shit like that?"
Bingo.
Akutagawa's body instantly stiffened at that question, while continuing to try to free himself from Chuuya's death grip. "Let me give you some advice, boy." inside him the redhead could sense the fire of hatred and anger that was constantly burning, fomented by Arahabaki and ready to carbonize him at any moment. "You'd better take other examples of people you want aspire to be, because your image of the man called Dazai Osamu is false, as is everything else about him." after this advice, translated much more like in 'Dazai is the greatest scum on the face of earth.' Chuuya let go, knocking the younger man out with a blow on the back of his neck, letting him fall on the floor along with all the other men beaten up earlier.
He left behind that trail of unconscious bodies but despite everything, a strong homicidal intent could be still perceived in the air: Chuuya turned around but in the exact moment he performed that action a slash came straight in his direction, piercing and wounding his right shoulder. "Fuck!" with his left hand he immediately removed the cloth blade, pressing the wound with his palm to avoid an excessive bleeding. "Didn't Dazai teached you that it's a cowardly move to strike an opponent from behind?" said Chuuya, trying to remain as impassive as possible, biting the inside of his cheek to suppress the pain. "It doesn't end here... Detective." was the last thing he heard Akutagawa say before passing out.
"Fuck this hurt..." he whispered to himself, picking up the walkie-talkie kindly borrowed from the man who earlier tried to shoot him in the chin. "Oi, Dazai!" Chuuya continually changed frequencies, hoping to find the right one. "I put your dog to sleep, I'm always one step closer to rip your balls off and hanging them on some chandelier!" There was a match: Dazai's voice could be heard again, this time very annoyed by the comment he'd just heard.
"Ugh, always so violent." Chuuya walked in direction of the elevator, calling it: it was a disgustingly familiar scene. "Why aim at my genitals when you can rip out my heart with your bare hands or slit my throat with a dagger? Wouldn't that give you more satisfaction than castrating me?" the redhead answered with a snap of disapproval. "Don't worry, I'll get to that too but if I rip your balls off at least I'd be doing a favor to all the women who came to me crying their eyes out because of you and your shitty behaviour." an amused and mischievous chuckle escaped from the other side.
"Oh Chuuya, you always act like some sort of superhero but we both know they were mere sporadic encounters that didn't last more than one night." The elevator arrived, opening its sliding metal doors. "Plus, I'd like to remind you how in those years I had only one sexual partner, you haven't forgotten that, right Chuu-"
"Another word and in addition to the balls I'll also bite your tongue off." with a quick step, Chuuya entered the elevator by pressing the button corresponding to the floor where his objective was: the top floor, inside Mori's office. "Is this an invitation to kiss me? My god Chuuya, how bold we are! I must remind you though that we are on a shared frequency, I'm a little embarrassed to let other people hear this conversation."
The desire to immediately break that communication device was great, too much even but he couldn't afford losing the small advantage he had obtained. "Be less of an asshole and start thinking seriously about your last words." the sliding doors closed and the ascent to the upper floors began. Chuuya took a few steps forward, leaning his forehead against the doors, feeling the vibrations caused by the lift, letting out a long sigh.
Shirase, just a few more minutes and I'll make your killer pay.
"In this moment it's kinda hard to think about it but fortunately, I still have some time before your arrival!" Dazai's voice was calm and too excited given the current situation, but as he had just said, it was Dazai he was talking about and honestly Chuuya wasn't surprised that much by his way of doing. But at the same time...
What did he meant?
His gaze moved to the side panel: currently he was on the twenty-sixth floor of forty. "Chuuya, I think you should move away from those doors, you know? Unless you want a hole in your forehead, of course." The communication broke off abruptly after the end of that sentence and from outside, Chuuya was able to hear footsteps and then the unmistakable sound of a katana being unsheathed.
"Shit!"
With a very quick step, he moved backwards until his back was against the metal wall, accidentally hitting his wounded and still bleeding shoulder.
I absolutely have to find something to cover it with, I could tear off a piece of my shirt and-
Moments later, the blade of a giant katana pierced the doors of the elevator, causing it to shake abruptly and stop instantly. "Oh shit." he whispered to himself, keeping his gaze fixed on that weapon he knew far too much well: Chuuya knew who it belonged to and frankly speaking, she was the last person he would've wanted to fight with.
The katana withdrew, breaking the metal doors as if they were butter and revealing his opponent: Chuuya found himself in front of a huge floating figure and behind it he could see the unmistakable cloak, so long that it touched the ground, which the woman wore over the kimono, along with her cherry red hair, adorned with traditional accessories, rigorously elegant and refined.
"We meet again after four years, lad."
Her voice was always composed and elegant as he remembered, yet Chuuya swore he sensed a small note of sadness and anger within it.
"Ane-san."