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The redhead kicked a loose stone down the narrow alley. The journey back to the safe-house was largely spent glaring at Dazai’s back as the taller teen led the way.
“Why the hell did it have to be us?” he muttered, shoving his hands into the pockets of his coat. “We’ve got better things to do than play fetch for the boss.”
Dazai glanced over his shoulder with a smirk, black coat billowing slightly in the Autumn breeze. The dog joke went unsaid but Chuuya still heard it. He aimed the next stone that he kicked towards that smug face.
The mission was simple enough: retrieve stolen weapons from a rival group that interrupted
a trade deal out in Sendai. Surprisingly, there was little bloodshed required. The leader acquiesced quickly and ended up with three bullets in the back and a jaw cracked on the curb for his easy surrender.
There were already Mafia agents stationed nearby and the group wasn’t well-established, so the pair could only assume they were there to discourage anyone nearby with intentions to move in on the stolen shipment.
“You signed up for this.”
“No, I didn’t, damnit.” Chuuya definitely didn’t sign up to be stuck with the weirdest kid he’d ever met. It wasn’t news that he’d much rather spend time with... “Tamaki-san and the group had it handled,” he grumbled. “This was a waste of time.”
The ordeal was finished in a matter of hours, which included meeting with the agents who reported the ambush on the shipment. That was ninety percent Dazai scaring the shit out of his subordinates, and ten percent Chuuya rolling his eyes, barking to stop messing around and get on with it.
In their experience, mundane missions had a way of spiralling into something much more complicated, but that didn’t appear to be the case here. As he said – a complete waste of time.
They shared a glance and the redhead scoffed, turning his attention to the sky. The easy surrender and uncharacteristic incompetence smelled fishy like a certain mackerel, and he’d be more inclined to look into it if he didn’t have to do it with said asshole attached to his hip.
To hell with the fact that Mori probably sent them to look into it. He’d overfilled his quota of dealing with Dazai by however long he’d known him. If it was that interesting, he shouldn’t have to waste time reading between the lines.
“Uncharacteristically lazy of you to leave a mission unfinished, hm?” “You do it if you’re so interested.”
Dazai’s voice descended into something smug. “I’m sensing that you aren’t enjoying our little excursion together.”
“Who the hell could enjoy your company?” Chuuya snapped bitterly, “–and stop acting like you’re having the time of your life. We both know you’d rather be back home trying out a new way to top yourself.”
The brunet’s laughter echoed around them. Not the creepy, breathy wheezing he subjected opponents on the verge of death to, it was something softer that rang in the silence of the backstreet. He had a weird look in his eye, too. Made him look stupid.
“I could do that anywhere, hatrack,” and didn’t Chuuya know it. “I expected you to be a little happier to be out of Mori’s grasp. Think of it as a real holiday, hm?”
“Holiday, my ass,” Chuuya muttered, kicking another stone. “This is just another one of his stupid errands. We should be out taking down real enemies.”
“Chuuya’s such a brute,” Dazai sighed as if he was the one being inconvenienced by this. “You don’t have to show off on every mission, y’know. It’s refreshing not to have to run after you like the unruly dog you are.”
That statement was horribly false on the pretense that it was Dazai who ever did any chasing, and the redhead had no problem telling him so as they walked. Lucky for him that Chuuya was drained from boredom, otherwise the younger boy would’ve been catapulted into the nearest wall.
Sendai was the largest city in the Tohoku region, far enough north of Yokohama that it felt like another place entirely. It was the first time in what felt like forever that they were far from the madness back home and out of Mori’s hands, even if it was only for a little while.
The lack of eyes was welcome, even if they’d been sent as glorified lapdogs. The redhead had things he wanted to do back home – things that involved being far, far away from the punk he called his partner – but he would settle. Kouyou-san gave him a list of places he could visit if he got bored.
He was definitely bored.
Dazai, at some point, shortened his strides, falling in line with Chuuya. His gaze softened as he focused on the sky above. Peace didn’t often cross that face, and Chuuya cursed the way he was committing it to memory. He rarely saw it without the skeletal hands of Death hovering over his partner’s shoulders.
“Say, chibi,” he pointed to the sky, “do you remember what constellation that is?”
He squinted vaguely where he pointed. No... just stars. The embarrassment of staring at the other’s side profile set it when Dazai once again drew his attention.
“You must’ve forgotten,” that mischievous gleam in his eye said it all. “I drew it on your face last time you activated Corruption.”
His tone was light, expression calm while emanating the aura that begged Chuuya to punch him, but any retort sat bitter on the tip of his tongue. Corruption was an apt name. He hadn’t felt the same within himself since, and any hopes of ignoring it were squashed by hushed whispers and the boss’s infatuation.
It was surprising how vocal Dazai was about it. Chuuya was used to being discussed about being used. It shouldn’t have meant much that the brunet didn’t speak about him like that. Mori discussed its appropriate uses, Dazai discussed its limitations.
Dazai, who didn’t care all that much about other people’s abilities. Apathetic shitty Dazai. If the older boy was a weaker person, he could pretend to see the nonexistent possibility that Dazai cared more than he was curious.
It made him want to vomit, so he tried not to think about it.
The redhead listened to the mindless yapping from his partner about the stars, interjecting every now and then. After about five minutes, he’d jumped up to walk along a wall. He wasn’t running away, no, it was just annoying to be reminded. Forgive him if he hadn’t been as concerned with the random lines on his face as he was with the increasing amount of pain his new form put him through.
Besides that, Chuuya had been up high. High enough in the air to know how utterly unreachable those stars were regardless of how he pursued them. High enough to feel the exhilaration of falling with all the certainty that he could catch himself, but not high enough to make a dent in the journey to reach the twinkling beauty above.
He stole one last glance towards Dazai, small shiny lights reflected in his eye as he stared upwards. The rarity of free time held its own novelty. It was more valuable because it didn’t last. This was just a brief reprieve before they were thrown back into the chaos upon returning home. Maybe that was why neither of them prevented the natural ebbs and flows of this nonsensical conversation about the stars, bickering well into the evening.
Including when Dazai walked headfirst into a fake spiderweb hung for Halloween, and Chuuya didn’t even mind the comments about him being too short, happy to double over to laugh harder.
- - -
Dazai leaned back in his chair, eyes lazily tracing the cracks in the ceiling while Chuuya flipped through pages of the report in front of him, his scowl deepening with each line. It was obvious his partner botched his part so Chuuya would have to do it.
“You’re redoing this before we leave, jackass.”
Dazai shrugged, a half-smile playing on his lips. The kind that graced him when he knew the situation would turn to his favour. “Sure.”
Chuuya huffed, leaning on a fist with a roll of his eyes. The night was young, he didn’t want to spend it rewriting and crossing over messy kanji. “Do you have any idea how many reports you’ve dumped on me this month?”
“I lost count after the first two,” Dazai replied, completely unbothered, as if it were just another game to him. And in a way, it was. Anything to break the monotony of his sad, sad existence.
Chuuya let out an exasperated sigh, eyes narrowing. He had felled much stronger men, but Dazai was his true test.
“We could find one of those kids carnivals,” the brunet hummed.
“Where are we, Europe?” He scoffed, pushing the paper in his direction. “How about you do your job instead of forcing me to do everything?”
Dazai huffed, slumping over the table and leaning on crossed arms. “I said we. We, as in, let’s do a verbal and do what we want for the next few hours. Stupid dog.”
Chuuya tightened his grip on his pen.
“You’re so slow on the uptake, you really are such a slug,” the younger boy grumbled, dodging the phone chucked at his head without fanfare.
The last thing he wanted to do with his free time was spend it with his asshole partner. He said as much.
“If I wanted to go alone, I would’ve gone already.”
“No shit, that’s the point.” The redhead was past entertaining the idea that Dazai was capable of being candid in any normal circumstance. “You’re scheming. I’m not falling for it.”
“Oh, sure,” he said flippantly. “You’re telling me you wanna go home early for a repeat of last year?”
They both shuddered. This time last year, at the mercy of Elise-chan, the Port Mafia had been reduced to a days-long Halloween Party. No-one was safe, everyone had to dress up. Mori was beside himself with the amount of attention she wasn’t giving him. Chuuya had, thankfully, dodged most of those festivities, only being dragged in for a costume when the girl started yelling about not seeing him around.
... Albatross had offered to ‘chaperone’ him to a Halloween street party in Tokyo, but those plans didn’t come to fruition. The boy’s life lately was just one big question mark on what could’ve been.
It wasn’t all a loss, though. The redhead’s newly formed torture list for Dazai was put to good use with the amount of pumpkin jokes forced upon him. It was with the same single- mindedness that the brunet was whining with now.
“Fine!” He yelled, pushing himself up from the table. Something told him Dazai wasn’t going to let this go. “What do you want to do?”
“Something that isn’t boring!” The younger boy matched him, standing and huffing.
The older boy regarded his partner with narrowed eyes. Dazai was the last person he wanted to do anything fun with. Especially Dazai’s idea of fun. “Care to elaborate, assface?”
“No.”
Practising patience with Kouyou prepared him for this moment. I’ve given him enough. “We should go look at the actual good stuff in Sendai. The trees—”
“Too far,” he whined. “I wanna go to that kids place.”
The redhead’s eyebrows disappeared behind his hair. They’d passed a community-run, likely- quickly-put-together Halloween celebration on their way to the safe haven.
“Candy, Chuuya,” Dazai added in the silence.
That was now the second time the brunet had brought it up. Dazai didn’t do that. The first was enough, usually. It was obvious what this meant. Chuuya wrinkled his nose. “It’s so childish.”
“Ah, you’re missing the point. I’m babysitting, chibi.”
He also dodged the glass that smashed against the wall. There was no way Chuuya was going to some public kids party. Fuck. That.
- - -
“Look, they’re all your size! Go play with them!”
“Go impale yourself on that spike,” Chuuya grumbled.
Brown eyes trailed over the blunt wood, a sigh leaving his lips wistfully. “It would probably be very painful.”
“Don’t talk to me about ‘very painful.’”
It was mediocre. It was exactly what Chuuya expected. Even the Sheep had some entertainment for the holidays. If they were lucky, some of the kids who were still welcome at home would bring them sweets. The smaller public celebrations usually had free things to do, and at worst, they’d wreak havoc in the western-style haunted house and run before anyone could catch them.
That was fun. This was boring. The only thing he’d taken real note of was a house of mirrors, and it’d be a last ditch attempt to escape his partner if he got too annoying.
Though, faced with the thought of having to separate? It was... weird. The desire to explore the place disappeared when faced with the decision to leave Dazai’s side.
“Where first, doggy? The haunted house?”
The glint in his eyes said he was looking forward to something more than just that. Chuuya crossed his arms. They dealt with real gore everyday — water dyed red and handprints with running paint was offensive.
His eyes briefly scanned the area again. There were enough people to blend in, and no-one was paying them any mind.
“We deal with scarier shit everyday.”
“Yeah, but I’m going to be there. Which means you’ll have twice the reason to be on edge.” Dazai’s voice dipped, almost conspiratorially, as he leaned closer. “Who knows? I might even disappear in the middle of it.”
Chuuya stiffened for a split second, barely perceptible unless you knew what to look for — and of course, Dazai did. His expression twisted smugly as he straightened. Chuuya’s scowl deepened in response.
“Try it, and I’ll make sure you won’t even want to come out.”
Dazai grinned wider, not taking the threat seriously in the least. “Sounds like a challenge.”
Chuuya rolled his eyes but found himself walking in step with Dazai anyway, the strange pull toward his partner overriding the dullness of the festival. A haunted house was boring, maybe, but with Dazai? It could turn into something unexpectedly... interesting.
“Or...” his partner’s gaze swept the crowd around them, eyes losing their light, “You could go to that house of mirrors you eyed off,” he said, too nonchalantly.
Chuuya narrowed his eyes. There had to be a catch. His own voice fell flat. “Whatever. Scared to join me?”
Dazai’s lips quirked as he leaned into his space, eyes crinkling. “Are you?”
Chuuya froze for a moment, rage suspended for the smallest second as his brain apparently needed a moment to process them. “As if. I just think it’s stupid.”
Dazai didn’t respond immediately, expression falling slightly as his eyes drifted to gloved hands hidden in jacket pockets, then back to meet the piercing gaze. The older boy shoved him back and scoffed. Most likely someone had clocked them. He wasn’t worth a proper goodbye as Dazai set off ahead. “I’ll find you when I’m done. Assuming you don’t get stuck staring at yourself for too long.”
That hit a nerve. “You think I need you to get through this place?” Chuuya shot back, glaring at Dazai’s back. “Don’t cry when you realise I’m having fun without you.”
Dazai glanced over his shoulder, that infuriating smirk still in place. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”
With a growl, Chuuya spun away from his retreating figure. There was giggling from just inside the mirror house. Unbridled joy, if he had to place it. It was a sour reminder that others didn’t share his disdain for reflections.
A group of kids passed him to enter, pushing at each other and pointing to the height chart. That was pretty stupid, it’s not like it was a ride.
He wasn’t afraid of his reflection, he just didn’t like it. He wasn’t fit for the purpose of just staring into a mirror. He made himself presentable and that was fine. He could just walk away and it wouldn’t matter because it was just a stupid kids’ attraction.
His feet remained rooted to the spot though, frown pulling closer to the floor. That expression of Dazai’s hadn’t exactly fallen. His single brown eye softened with something anyone who didn’t know him would assign as understanding.
Before he could think otherwise, Chuuya placed one foot forward. Stopped. Then the other, striding towards the entrance.
The air was thick with the smell of dust, the musty scent that clung to the back of your throat and lingered even after you left. The kind that told anyone walking through it that the equipment used hadn’t been cleaned in far too long.
The chatter moved further in as Chuuya’s boots echoed against the cold, hard floor. Without thinking, he held onto the sound as he rounded the corner, nodding far too late to the man at the front who was using his evening to make sure no street kids like the Sheep entered to wreak havoc.
He came face to face with the first mirror, took himself in vaguely – dressed down in an outfit he’d more likely wear before the Mafia. The hairs on the back of his neck made him want to shirk out of his jacket. He blamed it on the ponytail. He needed a haircut, he needed–
One foot forward, cocking his head around the bend, Chuuya obviously couldn’t see where this hall of mirrors ended, just his own reflection, multiplied and distorted with every step.
“This is fine,” he murmured, lowering his eyes to the floor to walk. That bastard didn’t challenge him to study his damn reflection, only to get through a maze made for children, which was more of an insult to his intelligence than anything. He’d been stuck with him long enough to know that was the intention.
None of that exposure shit – ah. He’d nearly walked headfirst into a mirror.
‘You’re so small, you didn’t even see yourself approaching the mirror!’
... it wasn’t a hard connection to make. For a moment, it was just him—alone, trapped in a never-ending loop of his own image. He could handle that, the sight of his own face glaring back at him from every angle, red hair catching the dim light in strange patterns. But then, the reflections started to–
He coughed, blaming it on stray dust, and looked to the floor for the passage.
.
.
.
It was subtle at first, a shift in the shadows that wasn’t quite right. Chuuya’s pace slowed, eyes narrowing as he tried to focus on the mirrors ahead. The air was cold, a stillness hanging over the place that felt almost unnatural, as if time itself had slowed to a crawl.
Chuuya shook his head, pushing away the creeping unease that curled in the pit of his stomach.
“This is fine,” he whispered. It was not fine. There was no-one to respond, no-one to share his frustrations with. Dazai wasn’t here, no quick-witted remark to break the tension, just the silence of the mirrors and his own breath, harsh and unsteady in the quiet.
There was no-one there. Only him.
The sound of his footfalls was swallowed by the endless maze of mirrors that surrounded him.
... No. No, there were footfalls getting louder, blurring voices as he came to a halt, a flash of pink and grey in his periphery.
Time healed something, but seeing Yuan and Shirase in the reflection summoned an ache to the surface that he always pushed down in favour of loyalty to the Mafia.
They looked so young, not like himself, and yet their eyes were empty, hollow. It hadn’t been that long since he’d seen them – Shirase – but they looked so different standing next to him. That emptiness was like death, just like the death he’d imagined the Port Mafia had in store for them that day.
Limp bodies. The smell of decay. Alone amongst a sea of black uniforms that searched for survivors, only to snuff out whatever light remained in their eyes.
But it wasn’t real. He knew many members of the Sheep were alive, were fine — he’d checked. Never to face them again, they’d never know what he sacrificed. They’d never understand why he was the way he was. He couldn’t confess it to the figures shoulder-to- shoulder to him, his tongue was too heavy.
I keep fighting because it’s all I know how to do.
.
.
.
His vision was a pinhole, realisation striking deep in his bones like poison. The thudding in his ears was no longer a pulse.
The sickening thud of a body meeting concrete echoed in his ears, and Lippmann lay still, eyes vacant. The beast in his head roared.
Chuuya had long imagined how the Flags had thrown themselves into battle against Verlaine. He could imagine the brief flicker of disbelief before they were truly and utterly broken by a force far too powerful to combat.
With faces etched with a pain that Chuuya knew all too well. It didn’t matter how tightly he held Albatross’s body; it didn’t matter how tightly he gripped Doc’s collar.
It didn’t matter what Chuuya held dear. It all ended the same. The more I fight, the more I lose myself. I lose them.
He pressed his palms to the cold glass, his breath fogging the surface as he struggled to keep it together. They stared back at him, five unseeing pairs of eyes reflecting his doubt, his fear, his failures. Every mistake, every loss, every life that slipped through his fingers – they were all there, etched into the glass, inescapable.
.
.
.
The hollow echoing of a snap. At his feet, Murase’s eyes were wide open, glassy, staring through him as if still trying to understand why. His face – Chuuya couldn’t look away from his face. There was no sound, no gasping or pleading, just eerie silence.
No struggle. No release. He hadn’t done anything wrong. Even the people I care about are just passing through my life; all this power and I still couldn’t save them.
.
.
.
That's how you'll remember what you are.
The room felt smaller than before, suffocating, as if the walls were closing in. He could feel the phantom echoes of Arahabaki’s power searing painfully under his skin, barely contained and gnawing at the edges of his consciousness.
He was hollow. A part of himself had been left behind in that void where heat licked his skin. Why did his hair look so long?
A flicker in the corner of his vision. His eyes widened, fist drawn back in primal urge.
The glass shattered under his hand, shards splintering into his skin. The pain didn’t even register, and should it? A light flickered and Chuuya felt electricity coursing through his body. A car revved in the distance and all he could hear was the thump of a torso hitting the ground. He’d barely ridden the motorcycle left to him, the last ride leaving him bilious and angry.
Half a torso. Mangled bodies. A snapped neck. Dazai leaving him to be tortured, yet... yet...
.
.
.
It morphed in front of his very eyes. He was rooted to the spot as his reflection began to melt away.
You were never supposed to be born.
The mirrors around him began to crack, but Chuuya didn’t flinch. He watched as the fractures spread into jagged lines that fragmented his reflection, his face broken into a thousand pieces. Instead of shattering, they only reflected his failures, his guilt and shame in blank eyes.
The cracks in the glass were like the cracks in his own soul, deep and irreparable, spreading further with every breath he took.
Everything I touch falls apart.
It spread further, splintering into a thousand pieces in tinny chimes. No matter how many mirrors broke, no matter how many reflections shattered, the truth would always remain the same.
Because of you, Chuuya.
All I ever wanted was to be human.
...
“Chuuya...”
A hand in his own. A quiet voice. Where was he?
“— with me?"
There was a thumping in his ears. His... his...
“-riously, slug–”
More thumping, something cold on his face for moments before it retreated. It was... good. That feeling was good. Where did it go?
Both his hands were held to... a ribcage. So fragile, he could–
“Breathe.”
Chuuya blinked. He no longer felt like he was underwater, no longer felt like it was impossible to breathe. It nearly was, but not quite. The chest below his hands rose and fell rhythmically. The contrast to his own frantic pulse was almost laughable.
It would be so easy to crush it.
He couldn’t, though. The voice was terrifyingly kind. Grounding. It didn’t need to shout to make itself heard. He didn’t need to hurt himself to hold the attention of this voice.
“You’re back,” Dazai said. Simply a statement.
Was he? He flexed shaking hands, willing a curse to pass his lips but all that escaped was a shaking breath. He found his partner’s eyes, his own stinging.
This partner’s gaze was unreadable, those eyes that always seemed to know too much. Chuuya wanted to lash out, to demand why Dazai wasn’t saying more, why he wasn’t blaming him for the broken mirrors. But he couldn’t find the words, his energy sapped. All he could do was stand there, feeling like a ghost in his own skin.
What... the hell?
“You’re back,” Dazai repeated, softer this time, like a reassurance. But it didn’t feel like one. It felt like a reminder of everything Chuuya couldn’t escape – of the battles he fought, the blood on his hands, the power that threatened to consume him whole.
He wasn’t sure if he was back. Or if he ever would be. It still felt like he was drifting. He could feel the weight of bones becoming goo—
“I’ve got you,” the boy said, sensing Chuuya’s brief descent to delirium, and the conviction shocked something back to reality. That kind of sentiment was unbecoming of them – saved for real vulnerable moments like after Corruption, after a difficult mission. Not... not...
The quiet tone would’ve made him yell in any other circumstance – not a kid, damnit! – but his partner’s cadence brought him a comfort he received nowhere else. He was seen. He was heard.
He was safe. Dazai did have him.
“Dazai,” he whispered, swallowing harshly.
“Chuuya,” was that relief? No, it couldn’t be. “Perhaps I should’ve gotten you that leash. Running off without me and getting into trouble.”
The redhead didn’t have the energy to snap back at that, nor did he really care to. The fog was slowly clearing, but he honestly didn’t feel like there was much of himself left. He barely had the compunction to push him to engage in the teasing. Usually, he’d smack the bastard left and right... they were on the floor, no way did he have enough energy to raise his arm.
Nothing felt worth it in that moment and yet... he couldn’t give up.
In the absence of the friends he didn’t appreciate enough and the ones he lost too soon, he didn’t mind burying his mind elsewhere. A dreamless sleep. A pile of reports. A disagreement with his partner.
It was easier, safer, to fall into the rhythm of their old dynamics, where words were just words and not the sharp blades they could so easily become. Somehow, he knew Dazai wasn’t going to hurt him this time around.
“Yeah, maybe you should’ve,” Chuuya muttered, the reply weak but automatic, a muscle memory response to Dazai’s taunts.
His voice was rough, the edges frayed from exhaustion and something deeper, something he didn’t want to name. There was a time when he would’ve thrown a punch or at least a scathing retort, but now, all he could do was sit there, grounded in the bitter reality that it was Dazai who had always been there like a shadow he couldn’t shake.
The silence that followed wasn’t uncomfortable; it was thick with things unsaid, the weight of lives taken and saved. Chuuya could feel the ache in his chest where something had broken and never quite healed. Maybe it never would.
Dazai, for all his usual sarcasm, didn’t push. Instead, he tightened his arms around the smaller frame, enough for Chuuya to realise how solid and real he was in a world that often felt like it was slipping through his fingers.
“Next time,” Dazai murmured, snaking his hand to a bloodier one. The redhead couldn’t remember what happened to his gloves. They were there, then they weren’t. “Don’t go where I can’t follow.”
If it was a few minutes before he responded, that was between him and Dazai, like many things were.
“It was your idea,” he said eventually.
The sting of Dazai’s nail pressing into one of his wounds spoke without disturbing the silence. That’s not what I was talking about.
“The person tailing us was a traitor,” the brunet hummed, filling the silence. He had to have known Chuuya was barely listening. Only now was the redhead realising that every mirror surrounding them was smashed.
“We should get out of here,” he murmured, shifting in his partner’s hold. It was less claustrophobic than he thought it would be. Not that he fantasised about it. “We’ve attracted enough attention.”
Chuuya could see the smirk accompanying the huff without looking. “Who’s we?”
It was too quiet. Smashing glass when children were around was bound to have adults running, yet they’d met no disturbance. “I know you threatened someone out there to keep people away.”
The older boy’s head bounced with Dazai’s shrugged shoulders. “They’re preoccupied,” he nudged him, “I made someone’s Halloween.”
A heavy head rose and blue eyes pinned an all-encompassing brown. That could only mean a body was somewhere.
“You’re evil.”
“How hurtful...”
The light had returned to Dazai’s eyes as they sat on the floor. There’s always something worth protecting, even in the darkest places.