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Dazai groaned from his brown, circular seat, only to lean forward, his face hitting the bar. It tapped against the clean, illuminated surface rather than it smacked against it, and so Oda concluded that it was nothing more than a dramatic display—the workings of a skilled actor. “My chest hurts,” the brunet whined, and it was clear that the teenager wanted the statement to be followed with brazen curiosity.
Unfortunately, Oda was not a brazen person. If he was likened to anything in the world, it would likely be unflavored water—and even that felt too important.
Still, the redhead pulled the glass—clear, small, textured—away from his whiskey-coated lips, raising an eyebrow. “Hurt on the job?” he questioned, believing that it would make the most sense. Dazai and his partner were, understandably, placed in the most dangerous situations.
“No,” Dazai answered, nearly sounding disappointed. He had ranted about boring paperwork numerous times, even if it always seemed to get done. Perhaps he wanted an excuse to get out of it. “Binding.” The mafioso turned his head to look at him, his cheek squished against the bar. With dark hair framing his face, Oda only saw a bandaged child—a being of pain and puzzles. “Not all of us have gotten our surgeries.”
Oda only hummed at the jealous jab. He wouldn’t give Dazai what he sought without any determination: a location to get sketchy surgeries for lots of cash, with no ties to an organization. Oda hadn’t even been happy to visit it, so long ago, and Dazai was still a teenager. The mafia executive could get the procedures he wanted in due time, by actual professionals.
Though, his binder shouldn’t be hurting him. It was supposed to squeeze a bit—the redhead could distantly remember the snug fit of his own, long and dependable, despite the washes it needed—but it wasn’t meant to cause any pain.
Was he wearing it all day? Was he sleeping in it? Unfortunately, the mafioso could see the brunet doing both, his self-preservation nonexistent, so the man settled on something less accusatory. “Do you need a bigger size?”
“A bigger size?” Dazai repeated, sounding confused. It was strange, really. He was a child cursed with more knowledge than one should ever hold. He was hardly perplexed. “It’s naturally the perfect size.”
“Naturally?” Oda repeated in return, curiosity forming faintly beneath his tan skin. Did they make a new kind of binder? Rationally, it sounded confusing, but where was that when he was a kid?
“Yeah?” Dazai answered, sitting up—a shift of skin and bones. The teenager’s leanness was a cause for concern, of course, but a successful suicide attempt would kill him quicker than poor nutrition could. It would be pointless to tell Dazai to eat more when he jumped off bridges and injected himself with narcotics. “Bandages move, you know,” the boy added, the snarky comment similar to the ones he had made when they had first met, albeit softer, now.
Still, the mafioso paused, catching on quickly. He would never be the smartest person in the room, he was certain, especially now, yet his mind was sharp—honed with the instincts of an ex-assassin and the comprehension of an engaged reader.
“You’re binding with bandages?” he questioned, his voice level. Admittedly, the fact didn’t surprise him, but he couldn’t imagine that the material did any good. It wasn’t supportive. It wasn’t durable. It wasn’t breathable.
“They work fine,” Dazai stated, giving his answer. As Oda took another sip of his drink, the taste of whiskey—smooth, complex—brushing against his tongue, he noted what a shame it would be, really, for Dazai to suffocate from the bandages that he used as a shield.
They didn’t hide his pain. They only hid the marks.
“That’s not healthy,” the redhead noted, merely for Ango’s sake. He wasn’t optimistic enough to believe that his words would suddenly strike a chord in the teenager’s battered chest, eliciting a storybook transformation, but the dark-haired man would be disappointed in him if he didn’t at least make an effort to reach Dazai’s dark soul. If Ango wanted him to be a bit more stern, then that was on him. He shouldn’t have canceled for work’s sake.
The brunet shifted at the words, placing his covered elbow on the smooth, wooden bar. With a lean, he pressed against his raised hand, his soft cheek brushing against scarred skin. Dazai’s eyes were like an abyss, as he glanced at him: dark, endless. It couldn’t be cured with praise or alcohol. It couldn’t be cured at all.
Slowly, the teenager smiled in unseemly amusement. “Is anything I do healthy?”
“No,” Oda answered bluntly, not having to think about it. It wasn’t just skipping meals or abusing certain substances. Dazai kept his mind contained in a place with dust and rot, and he let his body follow suit. It made sense, unfortunately. He was a boy built on ruin. Someone like that could not be saved.
“Are you going to get me to stop drinking, next?” Dazai pressed, despite already knowing the answer. Regardless of the topic, he presented the words in a playful manner—the mafia’s best performer.
Nothing would change if Oda told him to stop drinking. Nothing would change if Oda told him to live. At the end of the day, it was better for Dazai to see the bottom of an empty bottle than to see Death.
Oda kept that in mind as he took another sip from his rocks glass, his grip warm and firm. It wasn’t that he didn’t care about Dazai’s welfare—because he did, changing as much as he had. It was just that Dazai couldn’t exist without destruction, so the less damage was the better.
“I don’t care what you do, Dazai.”
The brunet smiled, then, just a little wider, the yellow-tinted lights catching on his teeth. There was a certain softness to his parted lips—to his pinched eyes, but it shouldn’t have been mistaken for happiness. Dazai couldn’t feel that—not completely. In a way, he reminded Oda of his younger self: hiding, running, and killing with a blank expression.
“That’s why you’re the best,” the young mafioso cooed, yet it was not the compliment that Dazai might have thought it was.
After all, if Oda was a better person, he would do much more to help. He would rival Dazai’s freedom in order to keep him safe. He would let him be picked apart by specialists and put back together by benzodiazepines and surgical sutures.
But that wouldn’t help him in the way that it was supposed to.
Dazai would fake results. Slowly, he would begin to smile more. Slowly, his silence would be filled with a compliment or a joke. Slowly, his answers would grow longer, and when a psychiatrist finally asked him what he had to live for, he would say his friends like he was excited, and the release papers would be signed.
So, Oda wasn’t the best.
But he didn’t think that he was the worst.
★ ★ ★
“Can I ask for a favor?” the mafioso inquired, his brown, leather shoes planted on the sidewalk. There was a gentle breeze in Yokohama, and it brushed against Oda’s hair, the short, red strands swaying slightly.
For Ango, nothing changed. His hair, much like the rest of him, was neat, pushed back so that it couldn’t affect his vision. He seemed to dislike disorder more than one typically would. There had been times when a strand or two would fall upon the man’s glasses, and he would sigh before reaching upwards, as if he had dropped his food or stepped in mud.
“I have plenty of work to do already,” the dark-haired man answered, after a pause: something Dazai likely would’ve taken into consideration. Oda understood that Ango’s workload was heavy, and he really wouldn’t press if this was another occupational task, but this one was far more unremarkable.
Perhaps there was room for agreement. It would be fine, too, if there wasn’t.
“This isn’t about work,” Oda voiced, his tone flat: a natural thing. He found, with the memory of blood on his hands, that it was difficult to express himself. His thoughts were much more clear, flowing smoothly like a pebble down a stream, but he wouldn’t allow himself to write them—to pour them into characters, until he atoned for his wrongdoings.
Ango raised a dark eyebrow at the statement, seeming to contemplate the notion. Still, even considering their friendship, the man was a cautious person by nature. He was familiar with the mind’s innerworkings—the kind; the ugly. He saw people’s rights, and people’s wrongs, and the spaces in-between, and so it came as no surprise when he carefully questioned the other’s intentions.
“What is it that you need?”
Oda was not like Dazai. Oda was not like most people—especially not the ones in his line of work. He would not act kinder than he was in order to get what he wanted. He would not don a mask of charm and deceit, parading as if it were his face. He accepted who he was, in his state of atonement, and so he was honest.
The words that fell from his lips were no different. “I’d really appreciate it, if you could pick up something for Dazai.”
Ango paused, again, his eyebrows falling and his lips pinching. Oda briefly questioned his line of thinking, until the man finally parted his lips. “Is it drugs?” he asked plainly, with a slight tilt of his head, like it would be of no surprise if Oda were to confirm such.
“No,” Oda answered, and despite his lonely heart, he found himself smiling faintly at the inquiry, rubbing his tan fingers on his lower face. Dazai sure had a reputation. Nonetheless, he was not interested in getting the teenager drugs, and even if he was, for whatever reason, he would not task Ango, of all people, with getting them. People would think he was a police officer quicker than they would think he was a client. “No, it’s not drugs.”
The shorter man merely hummed, the sound a clear sign of suspicion. It was understandable, in a way. Oda often did go along with Dazai’s whims, regardless of their nature, commiserating a child who was tired of the world and was waiting for Death to arrive at his shipping container with an intricate hourglass in hand.
Facing speculation, Oda reached into the pocket of his long, beige coat, pulling out an envelope: white, unsealed, and marked with black ink. Carefully, he held it out by one of its sides, his fingers pinched, and the other man took it, pale, slim hands grasping paper.
“Everything you need is written on the front,” the redhead told him, his smile gone. That didn’t mean that he was unhappy. “I put the yen inside.”
Curious, Ango glanced over the envelope’s cover, reading the neat handwriting: a skill Oda had honed at an early age, after finding himself bored. Once the shorter man was finished, his expression visibly softened—sharp features smoothing. He was focused, as he unfolded the envelope, staring at the yen inside, and his light-colored eyes flicked back in Oda’s direction.
“You can’t go shopping on your own?” the dark-haired man asked, although there was nothing sharp about his words. “If they ask me about anything else, I won’t know what to say.”
“I’m busy,” the taller man explained, thinking of the five rowdy kids that awaited him, ready to pounce on him the moment that he walked through the door. Their reactions were getting quicker. The thought made him smile a bit. “And I trust you.”
There was something relieving, really, about how quickly the words escaped him. Growing up, he was a lethal boy that didn’t trust anyone, forcing his clients to sign contracts, so that if he fell, they fell, too. He would not do their dirty work, only to be betrayed. At that time, he couldn’t even bring himself to trust the strangers that offered him onigiri or tea.
At the statement, Ango stayed silent, like something about it was important. Maybe it was. Maybe it wasn’t. Oda wasn’t a good enough person, yet, to believe that his words truly meant something. Even thinking that they could be, one day, felt a bit arrogant. Aside from his past, he was a rather unremarkable individual: a mafia member that didn’t kill.
Then, the dark-haired man sighed, the sound soft, tucking the white-colored envelope into the pocket of his pale brown blazer. “Fine,” he voiced, gently pressing his circular glasses further up his nose. “Will I get a favor in return?”
“Whatever you need,” Oda replied, only to pause in realization. He didn’t entirely mean that, now, and he didn’t want to cause any confusion, forming hope only to diminish it. That would be cruel. “With limits.”
“Nothing, at the moment,” Ango remarked impassively, only for his thin lips to curl into a small, revered smile. “I was simply curious what your answer would be.”
★ ★ ★
Oda saw Dazai five seconds before he truly had, Flawless activating the moment it was clear that there was another presence on the other side of his front door. Even with Dazai’s quiet footsteps—his own fading presence, Oda had always been a perceptive individual. With his life on the line, for all of his life, he was given no choice but to be.
Still, even with the warning, the redhead did not allow himself the time to think. One second, he unlocked the door, and in another, he opened it, staring at the boy that awaited him with a pout and a present. The black binder was visible through its clear packaging, yet if Oda didn’t know what it was, already, even he would’ve assumed that the folded item was just another piece of clothing.
“Do you think I’m an idiot?” the brunet pressed, clearly frustrated, and the question took Oda off guard, even if he did not express it with wide, blue eyes and pink, open lips.
“No,” Oda answered, because that was the truth. If anything, he thought Dazai was too smart, cursed with more knowledge than he knew what to do with. His mind had aided the Port Mafia significantly—everyone knew that—but one person shouldn’t have been capable of helping on such a grand scale. It was worse, too, that Dazai hadn’t even hit adulthood yet. “I’ve never thought that.”
“Ango gave me this,” Dazai said, with a quiet breath and narrowed eyes, and he lifted the package in his hand not as it was weightless, but as if it was heavy, his grip tight and wobbly. “But I know it’s from you.”
For anyone else—aside from particular individuals, who Oda knew from Dazai’s blabbering—the confident statement would have left no room for disagreement. Dazai was as certain as the rising sun, and very few people wanted to challenge the Port Mafia’s Black Wraith, but Oda did find a flaw in the other’s declaration. He wouldn’t have cared, of course, if it didn’t undermine Ango’s efforts and underestimate his good will.
Good deeds deserved to be noticed for the treasures that they were—regardless of the size of their impact.
It was also a fact. “He did get it.”
“With your money, I’m sure,” the brunet said quickly, and it was strange to see Dazai act like the child that he really was instead of the adult that he often pretended to be.
His suicidal tendencies had always managed to age him—it took a certain kind of mind to suffer so deeply—but there was a way that Dazai typically carried himself, now, that was unlike before. Maybe it was how he held his head. Maybe it was how he straightened his posture. Maybe it was how he stared: less eerie and more exhausted.
“Are you upset?” Oda asked, acknowledging that, presently, there were signs of such. He didn’t understand why Dazai would be upset, really—even if he could easily try to draw a few conclusions—but he could never completely understand Dazai.
Honestly, that was part of the awful, rotten charm of the human mind. Every person was different, shaped by their own experiences, and human empathy could only stretch so far. There was something comforting about man’s opaqueness. There was something frightening about the loneliness it caused.
Dazai paused at the question, and likely its lack of vexation, his dark eyes widening briefly. “No. No,” he said again, “I just—”
The boy hesitated, his words growing softer, and for someone so unabashed, it was like an unspoken apology.
“I told you that my bandages work fine,” the mafioso stated, and that was the truth. “And I make more money than you,” he added, just as honest—unfortunately—as he began to babble. “I could’ve gotten this myself. Odasaku, you use your money for—”
“That’s enough, Dazai,” Oda cut in, though not unkindly. He simply knew where the teenager’s mind was: focused on the kids.
Dazai really didn’t seem to notice how capable of care he was. It was a tragic thing. Although he would never be good, his morals distorted, if Dazai’s roots had been embedded in a different place, rather than the mafia, perhaps he could’ve worked in teaching or healthcare.
The boy was sensitive to other people’s emotions, when he wanted to be—his lips curling when someone laughed; his frown deepening when someone sighed. Perhaps that was why he sealed his lips, now, looking up at Oda like he was hanging onto his words, and was ready to snap his own neck.
“I wanted you to have it,” Oda voiced, serious, because he wouldn’t have bought—paid for—the binder if he didn’t want to. Dazai hadn’t asked for him to get it, his words sugary sweet. Dazai hadn’t even implied that he wanted it. It was Oda’s choice: a thing Dazai needed to note, before he tore himself to pieces—more than usual—over something so little.
Oda was not a victim of his manipulation. He was just a friend.
“Sakura’s green marker is drying up,” the brunet said—a talking corpse. If his statement was an argument, it was hardly a good one. Over all, binders provided much more solace than extra markers. Still, there was something endearing about Dazai noticing such a thing—especially when the children tackled him, too. “And Katsumi’s baseball is scuffed.”
“And your chest hurts,” Oda acknowledged, not disagreeing. He wasn’t foolish. He knew where his money could go.
He paid the owner of a curry shop to keep the kids safe and healthy. He needed to buy them food—acknowledging their picky habits. He needed to buy them clothes—noting their different tastes and aversions to certain textures. He needed soap, and toothpaste, and all of those little things, and he needed toys.
Oda had killed people, and he still found himself bored. He couldn’t imagine how difficult it would’ve been to entertain himself, before he could read better things. Then again, he didn’t have four other siblings keeping him company.
At the end of the day, Dazai wasn’t an orphan, but he was a child who needed help, too.
The boy looked away. “And my chest hurts,” he admitted, instead of pretending that he had never said such a thing. “But it’s not intolerable.” He said it like a boast—like it was a good thing that he could handle the pain, and not a problem that it was present. “Every day,” Dazai started, his voice flat, “I feel like my brain is pressing against my skull, just trying to pop out—and I handle it.”
Oda could’ve flinched. Oda could’ve gasped. Oda could’ve sobbed. Instead, he found himself still, his tan, stubbled face following suit. His only change wasn’t visible: a thorny knot forming deep in his stomach. Dazai was miserable, and nobody could fix it. It was awful, watching someone suffer through an unbreakable glass. Screaming and punching wouldn’t do a thing. It was better to conserve energy, if only to watch longer.
“Maybe this will give you just a little bit less to handle.”
Dazai looked at the binder, then, as if it were like him: a reckless killer who pretended to have more power than he truly possessed. He was a victim to his own mind—it told him to observe, copy, and die—and still, he persisted. It was admirable, yet the boy couldn’t see that.
“I don’t need this, Odasaku,” the young mafioso said, his words like a storm: utterly unpredictable. He stepped forward on quiet soles, his words similar. “I don’t need this.”
Before Oda could open his mouth, he was enveloped.
It would be an injustice to call it a hug—and not to Dazai. Hugs were comforting—a hot bowl of curry. Hugs were firm—a friendly handshake. Hugs were loving, yet Dazai pressed against him weakly. Nonetheless, Oda gently placed his rough palms on the boy’s covered back, staring out the open door. He wasn’t affectionate, either: a trait they had in common.
Still, although he didn’t say it, Oda savored Dazai’s faint breathing. After all, he never knew when Dazai would stop. The thought alone was enough to tighten the stubborn knot in his stomach.
“I don’t regret it,” the man voiced, finally realizing how tired he sounded. He could really use a cigarette. There was a pack in his coat pocket.
“Thank you,” Dazai spoke against him, and it was funny, almost, to think about how he was likely part of a lucky few. Dazai wasn’t a grateful person. It was hard to imagine who else had heard the words—although they were slightly muffled against Oda’s beige-colored coat. The brunet paused, then, his pale, bandaged face pressing closer. “Even if it—this—is stupid.”
“It’s for your comfort,” the redhead noted, detecting the insult. It was a double-edged sword, stabbing the both of them. Oda was supposedly stupid for giving him something, and Dazai was supposedly stupid for liking it. Strangely, it felt like a concept befitting a teenager. “That’s not stupid.”
“I’m not going to be like you,” Dazai said suddenly, pulling away. Oda let him go just as easily as the boy had shifted, knowing that he would never stay forever. The teenager didn’t leave, however. He stood in place, gazing upwards, his eyes the same abyss that they had always been. “Even as an adult,” Dazai said, in what was likely clarification. “Some people are going to see me and know that I used to be a girl.”
“That’s what I thought, too,” Oda voiced, after recalling the memories that he had tried to tuck away, his past a cruel ghoul.
He had been very young when he realized that he was a boy. There had been no one to control him—to tell him that he couldn’t wear pants or cut his hair, yet that had come at the cost of his safety. People had called him a young man, yet those people had paid for mashed brains and sliced throats.
Ever so slightly, Dazai scrunched his dark eyebrows. “What?” he questioned, letting his confusion show. The walls he carefully put up were a bit shorter, when it was just the two of them. “But you’re so—”
“You have to give yourself time to change, Dazai,” the redhead interrupted, giving the words that, so long ago, he had needed to hear himself. Even now, he likely needed them, despite the different circumstances—feeling a flash of guilt when his fingers gripped a gun.
If Dazai appreciated them, he certainly didn’t seem like it. He only huffed, the sound childish, and Oda knew what to expect. “I’m not going to be here long,” the boy countered, the sentence coming as no surprise. “I don’t have time.”
In response, Oda sighed. He could almost taste a cigarette on his lips: bitter, earthly. “Then, you should be more lenient.” He knew Dazai wasn’t listening—not with his soul, so he paused, letting himself be curious. “Do you like it, at least?”
“It’s short,” the mafioso answered, and he said it positively, so Oda took it as such. He had always preferred longer binders, but shorter ones had their advantages, too. “And it isn’t itchy. And there’s a shooting star in the corner.”
What?
“Oh,” Oda said flatly, blinking quickly. He certainly hadn’t written that. “It was supposed to be a plain, black one.”
Despite the change, Dazai slowly began to smile. “Ango’s decision, then.”