Work Text:
The call arrived on a bright Sunday morning, so bright that it hurt to crack his eyes open – but not as much as when he saw the caller’s name.
To be perfectly fair, this is how Dazai spends most of his Sunday mornings. Saturdays are the only times he can convince Kunikida, the workaholic that he is, to go out and have a drink. It’s been a rough week, Dazai would say. They all deserve to loosen up; and since they’re coworkers, why not? No, of course he won’t bail out and make Kunikida foot the bill, the last three times didn’t count. Yes, his schedule of the day did not include going out to have a drink, but it’s not like it strictly forbade that either. If Kunikida wouldn’t go, there was a chance Dazai would end up at the bottom of some river and Sunday is normally a day off so his body wouldn’t be found until Monday, and Kunikida-kun wouldn’t want that, would he?
In the end, Kunikida always relented. A part of Dazai hated that, how his eyes would soften and cloud over with worry – worry for his sake. Because Kunikida was kinder than he would ever allow himself to admit, even towards a homeless runaway orphan and especially towards a partner that brought him nothing but grief. But Dazai doesn’t allow himself to dwell on those thoughts for more than a second, and off they went to another night that would definitely leave them dead drunk and with a killer hangover the next morning.
And so, understandably, Dazai briefly entertains the thought of homicide as his headache, the bright sunlight, the bustle of diligent people (he abhors the thought) going about their day, and his phone’s ringtone all hit him like a truck. After what seems like forever (maybe half a minute) he blearily picks up the phone, spares a glance at the caller –
…And he wonders if even the president can bail him out of the mass murder of a certain organization.
．．．．．．
Dazai likes to think he put his phone on silent and left Mori there to roast for probably an hour, which would be completely justified in his opinion. In truth, he knows more than anyone else that Mori hates being ignored, and Dazai being the problem child that he is, Mori would have taken extra measures to make sure he would want to hear what the slimy bastard has to say.
Dazai hates even more that Mori probably knows he’s guessed it and he has no choice even then.
“Oh, Dazai-kun! How gracious of you to answer so quickly.”
Of course. “What would you have done if I hadn’t picked up?”
“Why, you know how I hate being ignored.” The old man laughs heartily, but his words send an involuntary chill down Dazai’s spine. The alcohol-induced haze is all but gone from his head. “I would have done whatever necessary to gain your full, undivided attention, of course.”
Dazai sighs. “Of course. Well then, to what do I owe the displeasure, Mori-san?”
“Well, about that. It’s been quite a few years since you disappeared, has it?”
“This is surely not something as silly as another offer for me to return, is it?”
“Why, no. I’m aware that you are, and excuse me for being blunt, a lost cause. I know when to cut my losses.”
“Well then, Mori-san, should there be a reason for you to be talking to this lost cause right now? Shouldn’t you be enjoying your day and leave decent people like us to enjoy our own?” He bites back – perhaps a little more bitterly than he’d preferred. It is after all a Sunday morning, his head feels like someone whacked a hammer on it fifty times, and danger-induced alertness still does nothing for his vertigo. Mori laughs.
“Normally I would not, but…”
A hesitant pause. Dazai’s heart sinks.
“You know what tomorrow is. I didn’t want to tell her about you. …She burst out crying last year, and now that Kyouka-chan…Kouyou-kun is trying to talk to her, but you...”
“It’s not my problem.” And it is worth it, to feel a slight hitch of breath from Mori’s end. He might have anticipated the rejection, but even Mori can’t help panicking at the thought of making his beloved Elise-chan be saddened on her birthday.
“Daz–“
“Better luck next year, Mori-san.” The scathing farewell is the last thing Mori heard before the call disconnected and a satisfied grin breaks out on Dazai’s face.
．．．．．．
Elise’s birthday is a particular ordeal.
That’s not to say it was something the mafia all abhor – that would have to be her shopping sprees. He doesn’t know what to call it, really. Awkward? A little creepy? Would probably make a world record for most freaky birthday party ever? Or maybe a combination of all three.
Eloquent as Dazai is, he really doesn’t know how to put into words the sheer dissonance of it. It’s a young girl’s birthday party, her guests are heartless killers and shrewd conmen who probably got cajoled back from their latest mission (most of them have to bring another suit and rack up a huge dry cleaning fee to get rid of the smell of blood), all of whom bring her gifts from wherever they were sent to (some guy forgot about the party and booked a holiday to France; he had to cancel every booking and buy her a huge plush rabbit on his way back –)
(Wait, he remembers now. That guy was Chuuya. Elise-chan ended up giving that rabbit to Kyouka too, so Dazai managed to get a good laugh over him for the rest of the night. That was one of his happier memories.)
But anyway. It’s a little girl’s birthday party, and of course Mori spare no expenses. If Elise wanted a marching band, Mori would have gotten her one – they would just have to be silenced the following day by one of the Mafia’s elite squads. Mori wouldn’t take any chances after all. It helps that Elise isn’t too much into pink and glitter, and Q actually used to get some token decoration suggestions in.
…Right, the second reason why Mori is so insistent on everyone being present: the birthday party is actually for both Elise and Q.
After all, the brat never knew his parents, much less his birthday. It’s like he woke up one day and he’s been in the mafia since forever, has cursed and killed ever since he was born. He might have even killed his parents with that ability. So his birthday, January 4th AKA tomorrow, is because it is Elise’s. They throw a double party for the youngest children in this organization that kills for a living. Dazai is sure that kind of heartwrenching story could have been made into a movie trilogy or a series of bestselling drama novels, but in the mafia they are a dime a dozen. It would have made him a little sad if not for the fact that he didn’t care.
But even as he thinks it, he knows it’s not exactly true. He looks at the phone on his hand, a phone that has until a while ago stayed silent, and wonders.
About how it is still here even though years have passed. How the number, the ringtone, even the photos taken have not changed.
(The number stays the same, but he never waits for the phone to ring and it almost never does.)
(The ringtone is the standard one. He used to have a recording of himself singing the little double suicide tune, but even that seems to be too weird for this already mismatched Mafia bunch. It was also becoming something of a calling card – heh – so his targets could single him out in an undercover mission.)
(Dazai isn’t the type to take photos with his phone; the last photo, dated four years ago, showed only a blurry finger. Chuuya had gotten hold of it during one of his drunken episodes and accidentally took five or so photos just like this.)
(Four years, and yet he remembers all of it like yesterday.)
It’s almost cruel. Four years. The entire world has collapsed and been rebuilt in those four years, and yet it is nothing more than a time stamp on this stupid, meaningless picture.
“What would you expect, Dazai-kun?” If he concentrates, he can hear Mori chastising the tiny, cheeky brat he was – yes, almost like yesterday.
“Photos are records, evidence. The only feelings they may hold are the ones our fragile, sentimental human minds have attached to them.”
．．．．．．
The photos Mori takes are usually limited to one per year.
It’s always the same one, on Elise’s birthday. Most of the guests have gone, either to go on another mission or sleep the night off before their next one. For the recent years, only a select few head down to the dungeons where Q is sealed. That is what his birthday presents ever amount to – a few moments of the freshest air the dungeons could offer, to tide him over and fuel his longing for the outside until the following year.
They stand the same way every year. Chuuya and Dazai stands at either side of Kouyou – holding Kyouka’s tiny shoulders in front of her – and Hirotsu; Mori crouches down eye to eye with Elise. The little girl stands with Mori’s hand on her shoulders, her smile never faltering. Q, locked into a deep sleep, has his head peeked out from behind Hirotsu. They all crowd together to fit into the frame, this messed-up failure of a family that, if Dazai were to be honest with himself, would have been a happy one if they weren’t part of the mafia. Usually, Gin and Higuchi have the best eye for taking photos, so they rotate the duty every two years or so. Once in a while Tachihara takes over, but they end up having to retake a few times when he does. Once, even Oda–
Dazai grits his teeth and wills himself to think about something else. Anything else.
He can’t.
He remembers the feeling of having his life ripped away. To have nothing but despair and a vague future that should by all means be cut short. The hatred at the people, this ‘family’ that took everything away from him and then some.
In retrospect, this was probably his first mistake. This was never anything resembling a family. Like the guests who wear suits, talk about their favorite food among each other and give brightly-colored gifts to the birthday girl but in the end are cogs in a cold-blooded machine. The man who smiles proudly at the smiling girl like a parent at his daughter’s first play controls the darkest side of Yokohama; the two young men smiling into the camera are mass murderers; the peacefully sleeping little boy probably has a higher kill count than half the mafia.
And yet, their smiles somehow feel real. If he closes his eyes and pictures the scene in his mind, if he puts everything in his mind away, he can delude himself and believe that this is real, that there is happiness and a future –
But Dazai has never been a fan of lying to himself. Nor could he ever will this constantly aching pain, as if from a fresh wound even after four years, to magically fade away.
．．．．．．
He passes by Atsushi on his way out. Out where, he doesn’t know. Dazai is a firm believer in chance encounters; a river he chose to drown in in advance is just boring compared to one he can find by a stroke of luck strolling across town.
“Morning, Atsushi-kun.”
“Morning, Dazai-san.” The young boy smiles back. “Heading out so early?”
“Hm-mmm.” He gives a noncommittal shrug in return. Atsushi’s too used to his behavior to ask any more questions.
“Then, I’ll be off.” The boy says. “I should be heading for the flower shop.” It is only then that he notices the couple of white, slightly wilting flowers Atsushi has been holding.
“So it’s a new one this week? I don’t think I know its name, but I’ve never been well-versed in flowers.”
While he can’t say he dislikes flowers, he’s never been too interested. Flowers waste away eventually. So do plants, and small pets, disposable pawns, life. There’s no point caring for something that would disintegrate into ashes in a matter of days, because being the one who was left behind once was enough.
“The owner told me it’s called ‘asphodel’, I think. I’m not an expert either, but eventually it’s just become a habit for me to pass by the flower shop every week and talk to the owner. He always sends me off with some like these at the end. He is a really kind man.”
“He certainly is.” Dazai agrees. “Then, have a nice day, Atsushi-kun.”
“You too, Dazai-san.”
．．．．．．
Atsushi, bless his fragile, kind heart, is undoubtedly the sentimental sort. He cries at emotional scenes of a movie, he sympathizes too much with unfortunate souls like himself, he buys flowers at the same shop every week to mourn a man that both saved and destroyed his life. At the same time he cannot let go of hatred for all the man has done to shatter his heart of glass and throw him down an endless cliff of self-deprecation, he cannot help but feel a twisted gratitude for keeping him alive. Dazai can replay those moments of that bright, sunny day vividly in his mind, for this young boy’s pain has shot an arrow of ice through his heart. His hoarse screams like the cries of a wounded animal – for the death of a father, for all the suffering he’s went through, for the ultimate irony that is his life and his inability to wish for death – are confused; a voiceless question of how did it come to this? Why did it have to be me, why did it have to be like this?
Back then, Dazai’s heart ached against his will – a freezing burn that he had not felt for years towards any other human being. He wanted to laugh. He wanted to cry. He wanted to marvel at this finest example of irony he had ever witnessed, and yet, involuntarily, he wanted to make this painful experience completely disappear from the boy’s memory. It is certainly strange, because Dazai knows more than anyone else that you cannot choose your circumstances. Dazai, unlike Atsushi, has barely ever felt a tinge of sentimentality. What matters to him are results, because that is how he has been raised and taught to view the world. That is how Mori has always operated.
But then he remembers: this man, this embodiment of logic, regrets and wallows in what-ifs. Even he cannot escape from the onerous burden that is called being human. He gives up to bouts of feelings, familial or otherwise; he, without fail, takes the same photo every year; he would deign to make peace with a wild card, a dangerous traitor, to be able to take this same photo once again.
(Of course, Mori is not a fool. There will be measures to ensure Dazai doesn’t pull any tricks. And every Mafia member worth their hefty pay knows that causing a ruckus at Elise-chan's party is suicide. Even so…)
Even so, allowing Public Enemy Number One of the Port Mafia into a party where half the people present can’t wait to murder him, all for the sake of traditions of all things, is beyond any stretch of logic. It’s not really for Elise-chan’s sake either; the girl only grudgingly stands still for this photo, which is the only time she ever obediently does what Mori says.
Sentimentality. That’s the only conclusion his notorious observation skills can offer him.
Sentimentality for the past. Sentimentality for how times have changed, how hatred has slowly receded from the woman’s eyes, how the bantering children from the photos have grown up to be fine young men (expert fighters and murderers), how more promising, wide-eyed children (killers, natural assassins) have joined this family, how the years have crushed them all to dust and rebuilt them from scratch.
(Photos are records, evidence. Of a time long gone, of what will never return. And Dazai, too, now knows a little about things that can never return.)
He is not sure what possesses him to fish this despicable phone from his pocket. He is not sure why his heart lightens and beats a little faster, why he remembers his own words to Atsushi (when someone’s father passes away, they will cry), or why he feels a lump in his throat. All he knows is that he dials the same number, and waits.
The other side picks up in less than three seconds. Dazai clears his throat, “This does not mean anything.”
And, as if this is an illusion his weak, sentimental mind cooks up, Mori’s voice is light, wistful, without a trace of malice.
“Of course.”