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Dazai leaves the Port Mafia with an explosion followed by dead silence.
His absence echoes through the entire organization—it’s in the bags beneath Chuuya’s eyes, in Ryuunosuke’s constant looking over his shoulder, in the empty office on the executive floor. It’s in the shuffling around of positions, though Mori does not appoint a new executive to take Dazai’s place, like he expects the traitor to return with his tail between his legs.
Like, if that happens, he’ll place Dazai right back at his right hand, as if he never left in the first place.
But the weeks drag on, and the silence never breaks. There is an invisible shadow in every hallway, a ghost behind every door, a skeleton in every closet. Dazai’s presence haunts like nothing Gin has ever known. It is the voice in the back of their mind, warning them to keep their guard up, warning them that, though Dazai may be gone, there will be no moving on.
Ryuunosuke speaks like he’ll return.
Chuuya speaks like he’s already dead.
Kouyou and Hirotsu say nothing at all.
And Gin—
In the deathly silence, hollow and cold, which seeps into the bones of every mafia member who ever interacted with the Demon Prodigy,
Gin waits for the mission no one else can carry out.
—
Gin waits, and it never comes.
—
Instead, Gin gets a new subordinate. A kid about their age with hair dyed burnt-orange and a band-aid over his nose. He can already shoot a gun with deadly accuracy, and Hirotsu commends his skills, but Gin is not amused by the useless distraction.
They call it what it is to Hirotsu, and he hesitates before replying, “I do not think the Boss is stalling.”
Gin raises an eyebrow. If he isn’t stalling, waiting for Dazai to come back so he doesn’t have to send out the order to have him executed for his betrayal, what could he possibly be doing? They highly doubt he recruited someone else to do it; Verlaine once told Gin that very few people in the Port Mafia could go toe-to-toe with Dazai and come out alive, let alone victorious.
And he said: I will make you one of them.
Dazai can nullify any ability with a single touch, but Gin does not rely on some supernatural power to bring down their enemies. Gin and Dazai stand on even ground in that sense. They are the only person in the entire mafia who is suited for the job.
Hirotsu looks at Gin. Sincerely, he says, “I do not think the Boss intends to have Dazai-kun killed at all.”
—
Gin waits, patience wearing thin, until Mori calls them into his office to say:
“You are not to track down Dazai-kun. I do not care what your personal grievances may be with him; he is not to be assassinated.”
Hypocrite, Gin thinks, because they have killed for far less than this.
But they say nothing. Silence is their weapon just as much as Dazai has turned it into his. They bow, and they leave, without agreeing to Mori’s orders at all.
—
(Hidden away in the outskirts of the city, Dazai Osamu, Demon Prodigy, former Port Mafia Executive, counts the days in tallies drawn with his own blood.
Fifty-nine days down. Six hundred seventy-one to go.)
—
Gin tracks Dazai to a dingy bar on the outskirts of Yokohama.
They lie in wait under the cover of darkness, watching a handful of patrons enter and exit the building. They remain stone-still, silent, draped in shadows. Like a loaded gun. Like a perfect display of what the Port Mafia should be. Gin is the person they are today because of Dazai—it is only because Dazai saw the potential in them that they were sent to train under Verlaine, it is only because of him that they have become a blackened and bloody knife.
If he wants to escape the darkness, Gin will not let him go without facing the consequences of all he left in his wake. Why should the Demon Prodigy—the Boss’ right-hand man, the man born for a life in the dark—earn the right to bask in the sun when all those he brought down with him are left behind?
Time passes slowly. The moon inches across the sky.
Until—finally—
A man with dark hair and a long tan coat stumbles out of the bar. His face is on full display, and he exits alone. As he fumbles with a cigarette and a match beneath the flickering light of a streetlamp, Gin makes their move.
They approach from behind, hidden in the shadows until the last moment, when their hand darts into the light for a split-second before dragging Dazai into the alley behind the bar. His match falls to the ground as Gin clamps their other hand over his mouth to prevent him from calling for help. Not that they imagine there are many people around at this hour who would bother.
Not for Dazai Osamu, of all people.
(Even Chuuya swears they’ll kill him with such ferocity and sincerity that Gin fully believes they would have done it, were they given the opportunity.)
The match flames flicker briefly against the concrete as they hit the ground.
Gin and Dazai are both gone by the time the light goes out.
Dazai’s back hits the wall with a thump, and in the next instant, the blade of Gin’s knife is flush against his throat. They pierce his skin, blood beading at the point of incision, and he could be dead before his next breath, but—
He smiles, and Gin stops.
“I thought Chuuya would find me first,” he comments idly. Like this is a casual conversation between two friends rather than an assassination. “Too bad; I would’ve preferred dying by their hand. But I suppose this works too.”
Gin narrows their eyes. His life is in their hands, and he still won’t treat them as anything other than a joke. They’ve done what no one else ever has—what no one else ever will—putting Dazai at their mercy. They could kill him without a word.
They should kill him.
They will kill him.
But—
their hand won’t move.
“Come onnn,” Dazai whines, petulant and childish. “Why are you hesitating? That’s so unlike you, Gin-chan!”
He’s right. Gin should already be disposing of the body—making Dazai disappear without a trace. It’s what they set out to do. It’s what he deserves. For how he treated Ryuunosuke, for betraying the mafia, for dragging Gin and Ryuunosuke into the mafia in the first place. For the gaping wound he left after pulling the mafia’s heart from its chest when he decided it wasn’t a place that was suited for him anymore.
How could he just leave?!
Does it all mean so little to him?
The mafia offered Gin and Ryuunosuke a home when they had none. Through the blood, they pieced together something akin to a family. While Verlaine taught them how to wield a knife, Hirotsu taught them how to drive and Chuuya told them tricks for staying awake late into the night and Kajii showed them easy meals for when there’s no time to cook and Kouyou took Gin to buy new clothes. The mafia is not a kind place to be—it hardens you, or it kills you. And yet—
Gin cannot imagine just walking away.
There was even a moment with Dazai, shortly after Gin and Ryuunosuke first joined the mafia, when he seemed to be human. Gin caught a frog on the way to work, and when they arrived, they showed it off to Dazai, hoping to scare him.
Instead, he fawned over the frog alongside Gin. He asked to hold it and let it crawl up the sleeve of his coat. He chattered about frog facts and told Gin his favorite frogs were the poison ones—the ones with brightly colored skin to ward off predators, which live in rainforests across the ocean in South America. He said he saw blue ones at the zoo once, when he was ten, before the mafia ever touched him. Before he was Dazai Osamu.
There was a moment when Gin thought the chasm between them could be bridged—a moment in which Gin saw the boy behind the executive title and the oversized black coat.
Perhaps this is why the knife in their hand won’t slice any deeper than the skin of Dazai’s throat. Rage courses through their veins, a fire Dazai himself set alight years ago when he extended his hand and told Gin, Your skills could rival those of your brother’s with the proper training. You’re welcome to join, too. They are sick with the anger, with the frustration, with the seething envy of Dazai’s great escape.
And yet—
He is more demon than human, but there is humanity inside of him. Gin has seen it.
Gin grits their teeth. They have a knife sheathed in their other sleeve; they could dig it into his stomach and leave him to bleed out. Maybe he would die, or maybe he would live. They could leave it up to fate and the kindness of strangers.
“Gin,” Dazai whispers, voice rough and dark.
Finally, he’s speaking to them in the same tone he used for their brother. The glint in his eyes no longer teases, and he looks strikingly sober for someone who has spent all night in a bar by himself. He levels Gin with an expression only a mafia executive can wear—something dangerous, something that warns this is about to be the last face you will ever see.
Gin slips their other knife into their free hand, pressing the flat edge of it against Dazai’s stomach. They’re certain, even through the layers of his clothing and the bandages beneath, he knows exactly what it is digging into him.
“Ah,” he says, lifeless.
It’s a different lifelessness than the one he wore with his coat in the mafia. This one is truly hollow.
For a second, Gin finds it within themself to feel bad for him.
But there is no room for pity in the Port Mafia. Dazai told them that himself, when they leapt to Ryuunosuke’s defense after they saw how he trained him. When they stood themself between Dazai and their brother, with nothing but their shaking fists and a voice that never fit them, and ripped their throat apart demanding he STOP HURTING MY BROTHER.
Looking back, Gin knows better—it was not pity they felt for Ryuunosuke; it was love.
But they do not love Dazai.
They respect him, and they hate him. And they are going to kill him.
“I must say,” Dazai comments, with nothing in his voice at all, “I didn’t think Mori-san would decide to scare me like this.”
Gin raises an eyebrow. Mori-san?
What a joke.
“No,” they hiss, because they need Dazai to know exactly why they are here—there should be no mistake that he is not dying due to the Port Mafia Boss unleashing a wild card to threaten him; the knife at his throat and stomach were drawn from Gin’s righteous rage alone.
They were drawn from Gin’s love alone.
Because they love their brother too much, too deeply, to wholly, to let the man who tore him to shreds and left him to rot in the dark simply get away.
“Mori-san did not send me,” they tell him. His eyes widen, almost imperceptibly, and for the first time since Gin has known him, something that could almost be called fear flickers across his face. But Dazai is never afraid, because Dazai can predict anything.
(He prepared for an encounter with Chuuya, or a scare orchestrated by Mori. He has always underestimated Gin.)
(Your skills could rival those of your brother, he’d said. What he left in the silence was, but I won’t let them.
It’s a shame silence is always where Gin has found their strength.)
Dazai swallows. His throat bobs against the knife, and another drop of blood slips from beneath the blade. He says, strained, “You would condemn yourself just to take me down?”
Gin tells him, words forced out by an anger that can never be satiated, “I would condemn myself to avenge my brother.” They don’t waste their voice finishing with, You should know this, because Dazai will see his own shortsightedness without Gin pointing it out to him.
Dazai’s mouth twitches.
He smiles, in the way he does when he knows he has defeated an enemy, when his enemy knows it too, and they are both merely awaiting the inevitability of death. But Gin will not lay down unless they take Dazai with them. If he intends to kill them, Gin won’t hesitate a single second longer.
Dazai’s greatest weapon has always been his mind; not his ability. Because of this, he fights evasively, and he uses his words to throw his enemies off. He can talk himself out of nearly any situation. Gin has watched him dodge punches with his hands in his pockets, snarking heartlessly the entire time, and end the fight with one touch in the exact moment his opponent has fallen into his distraction.
Gin does not lower their guard.
But they don’t have to, because Dazai is not aiming for distraction with them.
He leans in closer, whispering, his breath like a ghost against Gin’s skin, “And what would your brother think of that?”
He would understand, Gin wants to say, though they know that is a lie. He would come around eventually, because Gin is his sibling, and Gin has only ever done what they believe to be best for him. But in the time between, he would shut Gin out like they were the mafia traitor. He would turn his rage onto them, threaten to cut them open, and while he would not hurt them, he wouldn’t ever truly forgive them either.
He doesn’t have to know, Gin tries, but that argument is flimsy too. Gin could evade Mori’s wrath, could hide their act of treason from the rest of the mafia, but—
Ryuunosuke would know.
He knows Gin too well to be fooled like all of the others.
What would Ryuunosuke think of this? Truly? Without any fantasy or wishful thinking clouding Gin’s judgment?
He would hate them.
He would hate them just as fiercely as Gin hates Dazai. With all of the conflict twisting in their gut, because Dazai saved their lives, and Gin saved Ryuunosuke’s, but how can you ever forgive someone who hurt the person you love most in this world? If Ryuunosuke is the star around which Gin orbits, Dazai is the black hole which Ryuunosuke will always be pulled towards.
The entire galaxy drifts apart if you eliminate one part.
This, Gin realizes, is why Mori refused to have Dazai killed.
It’s why Chuuya hasn’t gone after him themself, why Hirotsu pushed to distract Gin by training a new recruit, why even Verlaine had nothing to say about Dazai’s betrayal. Even removed from the mafia, he is still a binding tie that holds the organization together. Even with the hatred boiling in Gin’s stomach, they cannot say they hold no respect for him.
Dazai smirks like he’s won.
Gin almost kills him just to prove he hasn’t.
But they think of their brother, on a mission in a neighboring prefecture, scheduled to return tomorrow night. They think of him returning to an empty apartment—to news of Gin’s betrayal and subsequent execution—or to Gin sitting huddled on the couch coated in a fresh layer of blood that cannot be explained away by orders from a higher-up. They think of how, if they kill Dazai, nothing will ever be the same.
They pull the knife back from his throat.
“Oh,” Dazai says, like he’s surprised.
“Do not patronize me.” Gin sheaths one knife, and then the second. Dazai watches, mutely, and before he can move, Gin grabs hold of his throat. They press their thumb against the incision they made, forcing Dazai to look them in the eye.
“Wherever you find yourself after this,” they say, “do not treat those around you in the same way you treated Ryuunosuke. I will not be so merciful next time.”
Dazai blinks, all emotion sliding off of his face. “Wherever I find myself after this,” he repeats.
Gin lets him go.
They turn their back, disgusted with both him and themself. They know they’ve made the right choice, but it still settles wrongly in their chest. They wish there was a way to hurt Dazai and maintain their relationship with Ryuunosuke, but—
if the choice is between revenge and their brother, they will always choose to show grace.
Before they make it out of earshot, Dazai says—like he’s talking to himself, like he doesn’t expect an answer— “You think I’m going to live that long?”
Gin pauses, brow furrowing. They look over their shoulder to find Dazai’s fingers brushing against the wound on his neck. He’s looking at them. Looking at them. And there is something vulnerable—something human—shining in his eyes. Something that looks a lot like hope.
Gin can’t recall ever seeing such a thing in Dazai before.
“Of course,” they tell him. “You are Dazai Osamu, and Dazai Osamu can’t die.”
It’s a curse as much as it is a blessing; it’s damnation as much as it is belief. Gin doesn’t use their words lightly, and Dazai knows anything that comes directly from their tongue holds a heavy weight.
So they leave him with that.
And they return home.