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Mori feels his breath stop, and he can’t take another one, no matter how hard he tries.
All of his limbs are too tense to move, and the temperature of his skin seems extremely hot now, to the point he senses the sweat running down his back.
It makes him feel disgusted with himself, but he can’t react to it in any way, because of the sight in front of him.
“Please, help me…” Kouyou whispers, but her voice is barely audible due to the loud ringing in his ears, as well as the dust and smoke surrounding them. Mori tries to move, to do whatever, but he can’t even breathe. “Ougai…” she begs with a weak voice, and the man wants to scream.
The paralysis lasts for a few seconds, during which he attempts to organize his thoughts coherently; he never panics, so he must stay calm right now as well. It’s what he always does, staying calm, thinking clearly, then coming up with a winning strategy. He should be able to do that without much trouble, because he’s used to it already. He has done it a lot of times.
And still, when Mori regains the control over his body, the first thing he does is instantly jump to Kouyou and scoop her into his arms worriedly, falling onto his knees. There’s little strength left in her, because her body goes almost limp when he holds her, yet she still opens her eyes a little to flash her beautiful, red irises at him; the only thing that’s wrong with it is that those eyes seem to gradually lose their spark.
“Kouyou,” he says, feeling his voice tremble; it never does. It’s almost awful to listen to himself in this state, but he has to ignore it for her sake. “Don’t say anything. You’ll be fine,” Mori promises, holding her tightly and pretending that he doesn’t sense how life slowly slips away from her.
All of his clothes are instantly covered in blood; gloved hands, no matter where he touched her, his knees, because a small pool had already formed under her, and his chest, because it came into direct contact with her body, and by now, her kimono is partially dark-red, to the point it could be a pattern of its own.
The more terrifying thing about it is that Mori keeps shaking and staring at the gunshot wound in Kouyou’s chest, feeling a definite and complete emptiness in his head. He should be doing something about it already; trying to stop the bleeding, or literally anything else, just to save her. Somehow, he can’t force his thoughts to focus on it.
It’s like hell, the awareness that he knows what he should do, but can’t.
“Ougai,” the executive starts again, in an extremely weak voice. Her red eyes raise up slightly to glance at him, but she cannot focus her gaze for more than a second. A trickle of blood falls from the corner of her lips, and he can’t do anything other than just watching in terror. “Why did you… leave me…?” Kouyou chokes out, looking up at him with a sadness and disappointment that lasts only a short while, but hits him with the force that knocks breath out of his lungs again.
“What?” Mori stutters out, bringing her closer, as if wanting to keep her alive just by holding her so tightly. “What are you talking about?”
He touches her cheek with his hand, and the blood that falls from her lips messes his glove, but he doesn’t care; the most important thing is to get her to keep looking at him, to at least try to make her stay awake for him.
“He’s… he’s here,” is all that comes out of her mouth, and Kouyou goes limp in his arms, her eyes closing. Mori attempts to pat her cheek a little, with the aim to wake her up, but it proves to be unsuccessful. She’s still breathing, fortunately, albeit very weakly, which gives him the motivation to slip one of his arms under her knees, ready to pick her up.
Until he realizes that he failed to consider her words first, and the click of an unlocked weapon echoes dangerously close to his ears.
Instinctively, Mori grabs her more firmly; if he has to run with her, he will. They have to survive this together, because it doesn’t seem like there is anyone else around to help her in her condition.
When he thinks of it some more, it’s indeed strange that he didn’t realize where they are earlier; just after the doubt appeared in his mind, the picture becomes clearer.
He’s outside, because he can see the buildings of Yokohama’s city center. Along with the Port Mafia headquarters.
With gigantic, eerily dark clouds of smoke emanating from them.
Mori’s breath stops, once again, but he doesn’t react to it as rapidly as he did before. Perhaps it’s because he’s starting to get used to it, or because there’s one more person standing in front of him right now.
And Dazai, with an emotionless expression, raises up his hand, holding a gun.
The older man freezes in place instantly. It’s like an ongoing nightmare that only gets worse and worse.
“And?” Dazai asks, seemingly without any emotion in his voice. “How does it feel?”
He stands tall above them, just a few steps away. The arm holding the gun doesn’t tremble at all; his stillness is actually quite terrifying, along with the unusually good state of his clothes, contrasting to what has happened to Kouyou and the city behind his back.
Mori doesn’t answer immediately, because there are simply no words that can voice his own thoughts and emotions right now. Dazai must sense it, because his mouth twists in a wicked kind of grin, while his eyes remain cold.
They are not those of the man who works for the Armed Detective Agency, happily slacking off and annoying his coworkers. Those eyes belong to the ruthless Demon Prodigy, the youngest mafia executive.
“Cat got your tongue?” Dazai asks, seemingly irritated a bit. “Answer me. How does it feel?” he clicks his tongue, as if rushing Mori to do it.
“How does what feel, Dazai?” he forces out with a quiet voice. The feeling of Kouyou’s breath slowing down doesn’t help; he has to run and get her to safety, but the gun pointed at him doesn’t make it very easy.
A smirk appears on the man’s lips again and he glances downwards momentarily.
“Don’t play dumb, Mori-san,” he chuckles dryly. “Someone as intelligent as you must have realized by now.”
And oh, he does.
The wound on Kouyou’s chest, and the gun. He’s here.
“Why?” is the only thing Mori can say. Dazai could have hated him, but he shouldn’t have any reason to do this to Kouyou. She took care of him and Chuuya when they were young, even. He treated her as some kind of an older sister figure, from what he could observe; maybe she considered him a traitor after he ran away from the mafia, but Mori was sure that she wouldn’t appreciate doing harm to him either. “Why would you do this?” he repeats, out of helplessness, feeling that he can’t do anything else.
“Why?” Dazai mocks him, and his eyes narrow with contempt. “You should know that very well, Mori-san.”
Of course he did, but he didn’t want to let the thought get to him.
It was a long time ago, but in his current position, everything stops. The current Dazai disappears, and his eighteen-year old self takes his place, still pointing a gun at Mori, but now with a clear desire for revenge in his eyes.
“You don’t know how big of a mistake you’re making,” he attempts, shakily. It’s pathetic, having to admit his inferiority to Dazai, of all people, but with Kouyou in his arms, he has to act quickly. The muscles in his arms and legs start to tense, ready to jump up and run away any second; all it takes is any signs of hesitation from his former protege.
It doesn’t come.
Instead, there is a loud bang, which causes Mori to instantly close his eyes and succumb into the darkness, thinking that this is the end.
“Ougai.”
He can’t recognize the voice at all, which pushes him to wonder if this is what death looks like; he’s cold, his body feels strange, and someone calls out for him.
“Ougai.”
The voice repeats itself, maybe with a firmer tone, but he still can’t open his eyes and see who it is. In fact, his breath now seems to have come back for good, although it speeds up dangerously, and he can’t really control it.
“Ougai!”
After the third time, it finally works, and he rapidly raises his upper body up with a series of short, ragged breaths and shivers taking over him.
He’s not dead. The light on one of the nightstands is on, and with that he can see his dimly lit bedroom in the Port Mafia building. Dazai isn’t here, and the dark smoke is nowhere to be seen. It’s one of the usual, peaceful nights in Yokohama.
“Ougai, what is going on?” Someone on his side speaks, and when Mori tilts his head a bit, a wave of instant relief overcomes him.
Kouyou is not dead. Maybe she looks as if she had just woken up, but she is fine; in her maroon nightgown and with her hair down, she looks at him with concern in her cherry red eyes.
The sight almost brings tears into his eyes, and as a result, he raises a hand to his face in order to hide it at least for a moment, for the duration of his breath returning back to normal.
“I… It’s nothing,” he explains to her in the meantime, although it proves to be a difficult task in his current state, focusing on two different things at the same time. “Just a nightmare,” he continues, because there’s probably no use in being dishonest with her right now.
Maybe he wouldn’t like her to lose sleep because of him, but he would like to get some more proof that she was actually alive and by his side, so Mori allows himself to be a little selfish this time.
Kouyou’s eyes widen in understanding, and the haze caused by drowsiness disappears from them in a second.
“Do you need me to get you something?” she asks, throwing away the blanket to signal that she’s ready to slip out of bed, but Mori stops her before he manages to think it through.
In a very pathetic way, he leaps forward and catches her in his arms, clinging to her tightly, placing his head on her chest to hear her firm, steady heartbeat. Kouyou seems surprised at this act, but doesn’t say anything; for that, he’s grateful.
“Stay, please,” he only murmurs, and the woman wraps her arms around him, stroking his back gently to help him calm down.
Mori doesn’t know how long they’re half-sitting and half-lying down like that, but ultimately, his breath returns to normal, as Dazai and his gun do not appear in front of his eyes anymore.
Instead, he starts to realize that the trembling has another reason, because it’s suddenly so cold, and holding her warm body so close only diminished that feeling a little. Kouyou acknowledges the fact too, because her palm wanders to his forehead and cheeks in the meantime.
“You’re very feverish,” she whispers into his ear, moving hair out of his sweaty forehead. His nightshirt is all damp too; it instantly makes Mori feel disgusted. “I’ll get you some medicine, alright?” she looks at him questioningly, asking for permission, and although he really doesn’t want to let her go, he nods.
She slips out his arms and puts her bathrobe on, then leaves for the kitchen to get to his impressive stash of all types of medication; the collection has been piling up in his office for a long time now, and as a result, he had everything ranging from basic painkillers to contraceptive pills (that weren’t completely of no use, to be fair).
Mori leans back against the pillows of the bed, trying to suppress the urge of covering himself with the blanket. Kouyou takes somewhat long, because he can also hear the water in the kitchen running, but he waits patiently.
She returns with a singular pill, a glass of water and a small towel in hand.
“Take this and lay down,” she instructs him in a quiet voice; he obeys it without hesitation, grateful for the feeling of water rushing down his dry throat, and when he fulfills the second command, Kouyou gently puts the cold, damp material on his forehead. “Am I doing alright, doctor?” she asks him softly with a small smirk and a teasing spark in her eye.
It makes him return the smile, welcoming the tiny dose of silliness with appreciation. It’s exactly what he needs right now.
“Very much alright,” he whispers back, reaching out for her hand and taking it into his while she sits at the edge of bed. She’s warm and real, and the awareness of it is soothing. “Come here,” Mori mutters, pointing to the space next to him.
“I will,” she promises, but doesn’t move, looking at him with concern. Mori senses that she probably wants to ask about the nightmare, but he decides that he should not reveal it to her. It’s for the best.
(And it’s embarrassing in a way, too. He doesn’t feel the need to hide the fact that cares about her, but rather the way it manifested in his dream. And it might be a bad omen.)
“Try to fall asleep,” Kouyou pleads, still holding his hand and reaching out with the other to wipe some sweat from his neck. It must be unpleasant for her too, but he withstands it, even leaning slightly into the touch. “I’ll stay with you.”
She tucks him in scrupulously and changes the towel on his forehead to its other, cooler side. Mori closes his eyes; Dazai no longer appears in front of him, with that threatening, numb expression of his.
The only thing on his mind right now is Kouyou, with her hair down, still in her nightgown. With concern and affection in her red eyes that look straight at him without the slightest bit of sadness or disappointment.
“I’d never leave you,” he confesses, and although it sounds out of place, he senses her gentle smile and a squeeze of his hand.
“I know,” she whispers and leans down to kiss him gently.