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“Why don’t you talk to your partner about this? Why me?”
“What partner?”
“Nakahara-san? Isn’t he your-”
Dazai spit out his drink, slammed his glass down, and groaned, dragging his hand down his face. Then he threw himself upon the bar, letting his arms fall to cover his head.
Muffled, he moaned, “Ugh, that hat rack. I hate him!”
“I see,” Oda said, taking a sip of his own drink.
Dazai stayed there for a while. The bartender continued to clean glasses, by now used to Dazai’s antics. Oda waited, thinking.
Everyone in the Port Mafia knew about the most powerful partnership in the organization. They’d earned themselves the name Double Black. Oda had seen Nakahara briefly but never talked to him. They were rarely in the same place at the same time. Therefore, Oda knew almost nothing about Nakahara other than his Ability, and the chaos it could cause.
Nakahara didn’t look like someone who could kill a dozen men in seconds, but then again, neither did Dazai and neither did Oda himself. Killers hardly ever looked the part. If Oda hadn’t been in the Mafia, no one would ever associate him with murder.
Even now, most in the Mafia didn’t.
Dazai pushed himself upright with a deep sigh and fixed Oda with a stare. “Do you really see?”
Oda shook his head. “I don’t even know what Nakahara-san is like. It seems like you work well together. I thought you would talk to him more.”
“I don’t spend my free time with Chuuya,” Dazai said, but the way he said it made it sound like he once had.
“Okay.”
Dazai picked up his glass and swirled the liquid around. “Chuuya hates whiskey. He likes wine. I think wine is boring. But Chuuya’s a lightweight.”
Oda hummed, not sure if he should really offer a verbal response. He was pretty sure he shouldn’t know something like that about Nakahara.
“We’ve been kept together since childhood,” Dazai added, staring at his drink, lips tugging downwards into a frown. “I’m meant to use him to his fullest potential.”
“Because you can stop him,” Oda said.
Dazai nodded. “You know, Odasaku, it’s strange.” He looked up, meeting Oda’s eyes. “Every time I look at him I see someone growing more and more tainted who shouldn’t be. Watching Chuuya is depressing.”
“Isn’t that how life works?” Oda asked. “We become more tainted with each passing day.”
Dazai’s lips twitched. “Some people,” he said, “notice the darkness and replace it with light.”
Oda didn’t know how to respond, and he didn’t have to. Dazai clapped his hands together, and demanded to know how Oda’s day went.
Oda recited the list of boring jobs he’d taken on, which Dazai always seemed to find fascinating. As he did, he thought about Dazai and Nakahara and how young they both were.
He never pitied Dazai. He never pitied anyone in the Mafia. There was nothing they could do to change their situation.
But every so often, like now, he felt a deep ache born, and wished that things could be different for all of them.