Chapter Text
“Where is Akutagawa?” Chuuya asks, looking around.
An uncomfortable silence takes over the jolly group. Their calm smiles falter. An instant sense of worry rushes through his mind. Emo boy shouldn’t be a sour subject unless he’s become a traitor.
This is a sort of environment where people will blab shit they think he can’t handle, he remembers the same expression on Mori’s grim face while he said Dazai’s been sighted two years ago and then offered him a ticket to Paris with an incredibly long mission planned. It was a horrible meeting and he left Japan right after.
“S-Senpai’s interrogating a member of the Armed Detective Agency.”
Chuuya blinks, what in the world is the Armed Detective Agency? A detective agency with people walking around with machine guns in their hands? As amusing as that may seem, it’s one of the few organisations with a special ability permit. That much Chuuya remembers from having read.
A foreboding feeling ensnares him, he can hear the drums of war burst in his ears like in the period Japanese movie he watched a few days ago on the flight, it’s because of that bastard.
“I’ll go see him.” Chuuya picks up his hanging coat from the chair, he’ll see him, his legs start moving on their own he could be jumping out of the window. Murderous intent is ebbing out of him and he can feel the power this anger begets.
A gentle hand halts him. He looks at Ane-san.
“You” -are playing into his hands? Are being an idiot? Shouldn’t go? Should fucking kill him when you see him? Should not act reckless?
“Should take your hat and call the driver.”
His eyebrows furrow, he was being rude and Ane-san just– “I apologise for my bad manners.” He parrots a phrase he learnt to use very often while training under Kouyou when he was a junior.
She just nods her head slightly while placing the hat on his head, mouthing a go. An unsaid don’t come back miserable falls into his ears. He leaves.
His lips burn with a desire to have a cigarette puckered between them, but he belatedly realises that Hirotsu borrowed his pack and still has it.
The old fags tryin’ to make him quit smoking for a very long time. A hypocrite given his love for cigars.
Chuuya’s too hurried, even if he’s trying not to be. So he doesn't ask anyone for a light.
He reaches the port mafia’s maze-like dungeons, skidding here and there to finally see a furious Akutagawa smashing the small iron door shut.
“Chuuya-san?” Akutagawa says when their eyes meet. Blinking as if in disbelief.
The kid's fist is glaringly red against his pale, almost albinic complexion. Dazai deserves this and more. He beat and kicked a helpless orphan into a horrible messed up killing machine. Akutagawa has every right to extract revenge Mafia style.
Somepart of Chuuya, however enraged and disgusted by the bandaged jerkface, still wants him to be okay – not hurt too gravely per say. It’s his competitive side, the one that seeks a fair fight against his lifelong rival.
“Welcome back home, I was told you would be joining in the evening. What purpose brings you here?”
Chuuya shrugs, pressing skip on the question.
“Is Dazai locked up, in here?” His finger points towards the door with a slight tremor. The name, he hasn't spoken that name in years.
Akutagawa scowls, murmuring a slight hum.
“How? Why?” Chuuya asks. The fucker’s too meticulous. He’d never do anything unwillingly even while sleeping.
“We have received a hefty bounty on a weretiger. Dazai got sloppy and got caught in the process,” Akutagawa replied.
Chuuya’s in a daze, Dazai protecting people? Akutagawa reads his astonished expression.
“The weretiger is a member of the Armed Detective Agency.”
Right, Dazai is a member of the Armed Detective Agency.
He doesn't know anything about this agency. He'd been not home for such a long time, avoiding it at times when he could visit back. A foreigner to all soil on Earth. An Earth that crumbles under him, pulls on his command but doesn't accept him.
“Give me a quick debrief,” he orders his subordinate.
Long agonising minutes later he’s lowering his head to trot down the narrow fleet of stairs.
He looks up to see Dazai chained to a wall in this dimly lit basement.
Dazai's changed. He’s wearing a beige coat and a bolo tie and there is a missing patch of bandages that used to hide a part of his face.
It's the first time he's looking at both of Dazai’s eyes, captivating him with the brightness they hold.
“You being chained here is like a painting worth a million dollars.”
It's not that much, they aren't that bright at all, in fact they are dim but they aren't hollow like they used to be on most days.
He'd seen only one eye gleam at him with brightness and it was only at the moment Dazai had joked or lied to him.
He feels his throat constrict, irritated at how shaken his resolve of killing Dazai has become already.
Dazai curses under his breath, an overly dramatic horrified expression plastered on his face.
“Still as short as ever I see and hiding a bald patch under this hideous hat are we
Chuuya~”
Yeah he's regained the sentiment, this is it, Chuuya Nakahara would grant a suicidal maniac his life’s wish today. Strangulation would be the attributed reason in the post mortem report.
“And I bet you are still obsessed with suicide. It will make the happiest man out of me strangle you.”
“Yes, but you see Chuuya my goal has changed, I now seek a beautiful women to commit double suicide with.”
He clicks his knuckles. There's a lot of things he needs to ask. He’s just waiting till he gets those answers.
“You can fool Akutagawa but you can not fool me. I was your partner after all.” The word partner leaves a bitter aftertaste on his tongue and he instantly feels the urge to smoke rise. He grits his teeth with an attempt to quash it.
“What are you up to?”
Dazai looks away with a bored expression, one of dismissal as he says “What am I up to? As you see I got caught and am waiting to be executed.”
Anger pulsated in him, rapid and thunderous. He felt his body shake, a hollow jitter in every muscle and bone. Crossing his arms to steady himself he gritted.
“The Dazai wouldn't have been captured out of bad luck or carelessness, if you were that incompetent I would have killed you long ago.”
Dazai smiles at him. Look at him invigoratingly with both his eyes.
“Don't fret so much, you will lose all your hair.”
Chuuya removes his hat, blinking up at Dazai. His red hair is as glossy and bouncy as ever.
He looks down at rugged tiles. “I didn't come all the way here to chat with you.”
He would never, he hadn't seen Dazai in years, he didn't want to see him ever. He might be similar but who Chuuya remembers is a stagnant image of a person he once knew. This is just a distorted reflection, an alternate universe. All of a sudden everything felt wrong, he wanted to leave.
“Why are you here?” Dazai whispers, Chuuya looks up with a start.
There's a rare genuineness in Dazai’s eyes, and the tone he used to utter those words is a replica.
“Why is Chuuya here?”
Bitterness swirls in his heart, dissolving itself into the ugly synthetic web. He doesn't care how pathetic the smile he plasters on his face is but he is sure it's ugly.
“Why? To spite you of course.”
A clock ticks in his head. It had been for a while counting:
One
“Back then your spite was almost an art. You made a fool out of everyone, be it friend or foe. But...”
He breaks the chains and the wall with a swift swing of his leg.
Dazai wants to stab himself, he will crush the blade, Dazai wants to eat? He'd burn all the food in Yokohama. Mother fucker wants to stay here chatting? He will break the chains and send him away.
Two
“Duel me.”
“Chuuya. You want to foil my plan?.. You must be kidding right?”
Of course the bastard snaps his fingers like a magician to unlock the shackles. He could’ve escaped whenever he wanted.
Three
He launches forward. Aiming a left hand jab at Dazai's face.
He doesn't feel the crack of a nose under his first. Surprised by Dazai's firm hand grabbing his wrist.
A punch lands on his abdomen. He recoils to reduce the impact. It's stronger than before, more powerful, yes. But.
“What kind of punch is this?” A sinister smile spreads on Chuuya's face.
Dazai’s back hits the wall with a satisfying crack.
He thinks he could have packed more power in the roundhouse kick. He got a bit sloppy on the technique, missing the moment while being a bit shaky because of emotions.
“It's even weaker than a massage.”
Dazai squats up energetically. “As expected from the best martial artist of the port mafia.”
Dazai stretches his arm over his head. He's looking down at him. “I thought the arm I used to block the attack would be broken.”
“After all, I’ve been your partner for a long time. I know all your moves and habits like the back of my hand.”
His eyes twinkle as he says “That's what being a partner means, right?”
It's appalling Dazai thinks he knows him, after all this time. When Chuuya sees Dazai as so drastically changed and different. Where Chuuya sees all but a similarly bandaged stranger, Dazai says he’s a partner.
Partner his foot.
He jumps, punching left and right, stopping with fingers wrapped around Dazai's neck.
“You think you can win just because you know my moves?”
He withdraws a knife from his coat pocket. This abomination of Dazai, there's no way he'd let it roam around this earth.
He could do it. He could do it.
His lips move on their own accord. “One last thing, tell me.” The hat chain falls on his left eye blocking his view.
“Why did you let yourself be captured?”
Why? When Dazai knew everything. Why? When he's left this place. Why? When Dazai knew Chuuya would kill him.
He could do it, he really could but he never can, he never can.
He needs to stop Dazai from breaking the only semblance of stability he’s finally found.
“It’s… mainly.. because A-Atsushi-kun,” Dazai chokes out.
A wave of relief washes over Chuuya, intermixed with something sour and burning, but he focuses on the better.
The weretiger really? One the port mafia has a bounty on. The Dazai he remembers would never have cared about subordinates, he’d mock him for being kind hearted. Too weak for the Mafia.
“What a touching story… Is what I wanted to say, but this is how it ends.”
No it isn't.
“You’re a shadow of the man you used to be.”
Dazai isn't coming back, that much he will ensure. Dazai didn't come to mess with the mafia, about that he's relieved. Dazai isn't interested in him anymore, he would most likely stay away and for that he is glad. He really is glad in the only twisted sort of way he's ever felt himself be.
He stalls for an upcoming super-smart and snarky revelation.
Dazai laughs after saying, “let me tell you something interesting, there will be a five boss conference tomorrow.”
It's tomorrow? Really, it totally slipped Chuuya's mind.
“No way, the five-boss conference is tomorrow?”
He’s not even looked at the debriefing files, fuck! Mori and Kouyou would be furious- he’d forgotten about the one before and not showed up altogether. Going to a foreign country shouldn't mean a complete disconnect from your own. Shit.
Does he have the letter?
“I wasn't contacted though.”
Most probably, Dazai’s expression tells him as much.
“It's because I sent a letter to the higher ups a few days ago. You won't kill me, you will tell me where to find information about the one offering the bounty and then,” he's saying this part like it's something hysterical, “you will walk out of this room talking like a girl with your feet turned in.”
This bandaged freak! The letter was something about the traitor betraying Port Mafia secrets. An executive held pivotal information, the whole organisation would collapse.
Chuuya moves back with a thud, he is planning on messing with the Mafia after all?
“It will be treason to execute me without the conference having made a decision.”
The knife falls out of Chuuya’s hand as it trembles, he didn't have the choice from the beginning.
A mad frenzy takes over him. “But you wanna die, I bet you will welcome it if I killed you right fucking now.”
“Yes of course Chuuya,” Dazai says, ecstatic. He gestures for Chuuya to come at him.
Enraged Chuuya shakes with no choice but to stand, still wanting to die. This jerk.
“Chuuya, hunted by the Port Mafia because of me. How great would that be!”
Pain blooms afresh from the right side of his lower back to the front of his abdomen. He can feel that poisoned dagger digging deeper and more vicious.
He lost.
“You li’l shit!”
It's so glaringly obvious now, the stink face wanted to force the information out of him. He still wants to mess with him, how can someone be so atrocious!
Killing him wouldn't have been so bad after all. Chuuya gets all emotional at the wrong times.
Chuuya starts walking up the stairs after helping Dazai as per his demands. Still irritated and buzzing.
“Chuuuya~~ Aren't you forgetting something?”
Uhm yeah, and it was intentional.
“Don’t think this is over.” He twists his legs in, speaking in a high pitched feminine voice. “There will be no next time.”
Dazai starts laughing wildly at that, it's as if he has discovered the funniest possible thing in the whole world. Tears brimming in his eyes as he rolls.
Chuuya walks out as calmly as he can, Dazai's laugh radiating through his being bringing a warmth he didn't know he had missed. Then he rushes home, not wanting to be seen given the amount of damage the jerk’s caused.
He prays this is the last time he dealt with anyone in the Armed Detective Agency. He doesn't want to so much as touch the air molecules that had passed nearby the great mummy.
As fate would have it, Chuuya Nakahara doesn't ever get what he wants.
He’s standing helplessly in front of Ane-san who's crying like a woman with a dead husband in that old kano painting by Mishima Sosho. He doesn't think she'd be crying about that though.
It's so weird for him. Does he go try and comfort her right now? He didn't even think Kouyou could cry. This is a supernatural occurrence.
“The damn detective agency took away Kyoka!”
Ok, she does care about the girl. However, Chuuya blinks twice
“Let's go get her back then, what's with this distressed damsel thing?”
Kouyou glares at him with red and puffy eyes. “She left willingly! She left me willingly! Oh a flower that grows in the dark, how must it survive in those blindingly bright lights. It can’t!”
Mori had requested Chuuya to convince Kouyou- “your Ane-san” to be precise- against doing what she was going to do. Which is still unclear to him.
“What are you doing?”
Ane-san blows her nose in a handkerchief, and looks cute while doing it. Chuuya’s surprised just a tinsy bit.
“I am going to get her back.”
Chuuya looks up at the ceiling, Mori had only kindly requested him. It wasn't an order technically. She’d be back before anybody knows.
Kyoka isn't worth the trouble. Trying to leave the Mafia is punishable, but only if the boss thinks it's in their benefit.
He sighs.
“Come back quickly.” Telling Ane-san to be careful isn’t his jurisdiction so he doesn't. People are always chasing something or the other running in circles, in squares.
He sits back down in his chair, pouting at a fish shaped cloud outside the office window.
He mindlessly thought about a fish faced man, hoping he won't cause trouble here. Who was he kidding, he probably would.
Chuuya rolls back on his chair getting up to go towards the boss’ floor. The least he can do is tell Mori, he'll say ‘I tried to stop her, she didn't listen.’ The boss will probably tell him to wear another outfit of a kitsune as punishment. No harm no foul.
He steps out of the elevator into the grim hallway. A sudden sense of unease swirls inside of him, making him hyper aware of the eerie carpets and dark glazed walls and the gravity that holds these things as is. A distortion in gravitation fields around him signal the presence of a short statured human somewhere in the halls.
“Chuuya-san, good to see you again!” a child-ish voice says from behind.
It's not Elise, no one as kind as Elise. There aren't a lot of things Chuuya is afraid of, but this voice has him shaking with it.
He steps forward and turns back gently, maintaining a calm exterior.
“How?” he asks, voice cracking.
“I don't care,” Kyusaku shrugs. Swinging his macabre doll in one hand while jumping on.
“Bye Chuuya-san, see you around.”
Chuuya stares at the elevator as it closes with a ring. Fuck! Fuck!
He rushes to Mori’s office absolutely furious. Throwing the gate open, he burst inside.
“Why is Q freed?” Comes out more like a scream than a question.
In his opinion there is nothing in this world that warrants the freedom of someone with such a despicable ability. The aftermath of letting Q roam free would harbringing absolute devastation. He can already see rivers filled with blood.
“Relax, Chuuya-kun.”
Mori looks at him, a sympathetic tilt in smile. Elise on the other hand jumps on him for a hug unannounced. That makes him relax just a bit.
“I had sent you a memo regarding, you have a few days off. It's a half-day for you, go home, look around Yokohama. It has changed.”
He points at the corridors, “talk about Q.”
“They are not of concern to you, I assure you there shall be no further interactions between you both.” Mori’s expression states an unless somewhere in his dialogue.
Son of a bitch. Not his concern.
Elise pats his head. Still latched onto him like a koala on a branch.
“They are behaving well, Chuuya-san. No trouble for you, Rintarou here just wanted to check if Q can be an asset. Right now he's eating sugar puffs in the canteen.”
“Live a little Chuuya-kun.” Mori says it with an expression of a mother telling her introverted child to play outside.
That’s it, Mori is saying this isn't his place to argue. Mori never does anything without a reason, his reason is always the port mafia. So whatever it is, it’s fine. He leaves with Elise out of spite.
“Hey! Why are you taking Elise with you! Leave Elise here!! Chuuya-kun!” He hears Mori shout desperately.
The blonde girl jumps back to the floor,
“Do you want to come with me on an outing, Elise-chan?”
“I would love to! Not today though, Riantaro will be a bitch about it in future.” Elise says smiling.
Chuuya nods his head and walks out.
Looking at Kyusaku’s doll after five years made him feel uncomfortable in his own skin. An ugly beast gnawing at his heart. He was drained.
The first day passed by casually, he had invited the black lizards and some other subordinates for dinner and spent the day preparing for the same. The second day of his paid compulsory holiday was a lot harder, he got out of bed, sat on the couch, on the floor. There was nothing to do.
He stared at the ceiling fan mindlessly. Everything has changed so much in Yokohama. He can barely recognise it, there's no belonging for him. Not here, not there, not anywhere.
A meow reaches his ears from a distance, he jolts up. Outside under the potted palm of his balcony sits a black furred one eyed cat gnawing at a bamboo chair. He didn't expect the stray to be alive.
“Hey! Don't do that.” Chuuya lifts the scrawny thing with one hand. It has an ugly scar on one of its eyes stitched shut by a vet. A stray cat Lipman used to feed. He said the cat was very similar to Chuuya, he got irked by those silly jabs at the time. Constantly avoiding those freaks.
Funny how now that they're gone he will give up anything to hear those jabs again. Pianoman’s ghastly piano playing, it sounded like nails scratching a chalkboard- an intervention to change his name was needed- or perhaps just a stupid game of billards.
“Come on, let's feed you.” He brings it to the kitchen.
Strangely, Chuuya remembers the cat had a distinct stench back then. Today it didn't smell at all, someone might have dumped a bucket of water on it.
A bowl full of milk and cereal is poured. He thinks the cat will eat it, he remembers Shirase bringing them cat food when they were young, it tasted like cereal.
“Oi! Little stink, why aren't you eating?” He glares at the thing for a bit, then hmms opening up a can of tuna from the drawer. Chuuya squats in front of the cat as it devours the fish. He stared at the wounded eye, one stitched together by a vet. The wound has healed but left permanent disability.
The black menace walks near his leg and starts purring. Guilt pools in Chuuya’s stomach as if from a body with a bashed head. Living creatures are so strange. This cat wasn't always one eyed, a few weeks after the flags died, Chuuya threw a cup at it. He was screaming at it to leave, telling him Lipman won't feed him anymore. He will not find Lipman by following him around. None of the people that cared about the cat are left. The cup shattered on hitting a cabinet beside the cat, a long shard cut a gash on its eye and blood gushed through it like a fountain.
Any normal animal would have become scared of him, or shown hostility but this cat has always followed him like a shadow, as if he never hurt it. Stupid cat. Chuuya starts petting it softly.
It starts gnawing at his gloved hand.
“Come on, let it go! I will never pet you again, bad cat! You’ll tear my glove oi!”
He tries to snatch his hand back. The glove tears up from the cat's sharp teeth in the tussle, a scratch on the back of his hand. He shrugs the torn fabric off, growling at the cat. The black glove tearing monster lols his head underneath his ungloved hand.
“You! Wanted to be pet with my bare hand!?”
The cat is infuriating, why does he attract such beings? He is going to drop this cat off the balcony. He grabs it and throws it into a bag. In truth Chuuya's taking the cat to a vet, make sure it doesn't have rabies or something, he is sure it has at least a hundred diseases to transmit given how utterly trash it looks.
He slings the bag over his shoulders, olive boots pull a red bike off its stand. He puts on the helmet and vrooms, driving on his bike like an absolute diva. Lightning McQueen in red, he is speed.
He waits at the doctor’s office for an hour and a half, a few people comment on how he could get a better cat, he might have hissed a too hostile no thank you to them. The cat is horrible and ugly make no mistake, and he likes dogs better, true, but this cat is an idiot.
There's a flower shop a few steps away from the vet, so he buys some yellow chrysanthemums for his friend's graves, better to visit it with something that will irritate him distract his mind off the corpses buried in rubble he still hallucinates about on bad days.
The old man at the shop looks at him sorrowfully saying, “How can a young man like you have so many people to offer remembrances to?”
Chuuya wants to ignore him, this is such a loaded question, what the fuck?
“How much for them?” Chuuya says bitterly. Shut up old man. He just wants to pay and leave. The old man doesn't take the cash right away, preferring to write a note and handing it to him.
At about three in the afternoon of a cloudy winter day in Yokohama he’s placing flower bouquets-some of them distorted- on graves laying between spider lilies and embrowed by leafless cherry blossoms. He doesn't get a moment of silence however, as the cat springs out of the bag jumping from one gravestone to another. It's crazy, absolutely crazy. That is for the record not his fault he is pretty sure the cup didn't hit its head, probably.
Chuuya sits down on some grass hugging his knees to his torso, a butterfly flutters up and down in the wind. A serene and beautiful graveyard, just like death he supposes. The means of these people ending up here might have been disgustingly violent and gruesome, or maybe just normal dying in bed with a cardiac arrest sorta thing. However, they’ve all ended up here. It's like a life burnt out and the ash remains, not as radiant as before, just silent and calm, still beautiful but that beauty is overshadowed by what once was, by what has been lost as the result of obtaining such a place. So maybe it can't be considered beautiful, losses and gains in accounting. Chuuya hates accounting and taxes.
“Chuuya.” A gentle voice calls.