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osarina · 4 months ago

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ᡣ𐭩 WORSHIP LIKE A DOG AT THE SHRINE OF YOUR LIES

FEATURING: dazai osamu

SUMMARY: an unfortunately timed encounter with dazai drives you to make a reckless decision, and reckless decisions have devastating consequences. your attachment to him is becoming dangerous: too many people are becoming suspicious of it, and dazai is becoming suspicious of you. it has to end.

AUTHOR'S NOTES: PART TWO AT LAST!!! i will have you guys know i literally went through 6 different crises writing this chapter, rewrote it literally 4 times and nearly cried because i couldn't figure out what was wrong with it BUT i'm pretty pleased with how it turned out!! i hope you guys enjoy!! also for those of you that keep up with the general pm!reader universe, we're finally being introduced to one of the major charas i've been talking about there <.< anyway, take dazai slowly starting to figure things out but then being willfully blind and reader being an absolute fool. they're both stupid for each other i fear

GENERAL WARNINGS: fem!reader, port mafia executive!reader, civilian!dazai, dazai's struggles w suicide & sh, reader partakes in mafia business, dazai isn't dazai without a bit of obsessiveness and possessiveness (the possessiveness doesn't come til later but the obsessiveness starts from day 0).

CHAPTER SPECIFIC WARNINGS: reader gets slapped (not by dazai LOL), reader also gets hurt pretty bad in this chapter, we get into some general world building for bsd!europe & japan here too

SEE: WASTELAND, BABY! SERIES MASTERLIST

The next time you run into Dazai, it is very unfortunately timed.

You’re with one of your subordinates—Klaus, Klaus of all fucking people—trying to hunt down one of the members of the Inagawa-kai who has been sticking his nose too close to one of the Port Mafia’s biggest warehouses in the ports of Kanagawa-ku. It’s almost dusk, and it’s about to start raining, so the last thing you expect to hear is a confused call of your name from behind you.

“What the fuck?” Klaus mutters, turning to face the direction that the voice had come from, but you stop him before he can, physically stopping him from turning his head by pressing your palm flat against his face and forcing him to look forward

“Go to the warehouse,” you say coolly, hoping your voice doesn’t come out half as taken off guard as you feel. You think you succeeded from the way Klaus gives you an irritated look instead of a concerned one. “That’s an order, Klaus.”

Klaus bristles, clearly having no intention of budging. Stubborn boy, you think, and it’s usually with a distinct fondness, smiling to yourself when he’s not looking over how the kid went from hating your guts to throwing his life on the line to keep you safe, but now it’s only with frustration because you cannot allow Klaus to meet Dazai. You care about him, you do, he wormed his way into your life after Itou’s death in a way that you didn’t think anyone would ever be capable of, but he’ll expose you. Dazai is much sharper and calculating than he likes to make himself appear. If he interacts with Klaus, there’s no way he won’t figure out something is up, and if he does…

No loose ends.

“If those Inagawa fuckers show up-” Klaus begins, snapping you out of your train of thought, voice tight and body tense, but you cut him off sharply.

“To the warehouse,” you say, harsher this time. “Now. Or next time, I’ll bring Akutagawa.”

Klaus gives you a surprised look but then scowls at you, snapping his head forward and promptly storming away from you in the direction of the ports, making a show of how displeased he is. You roll your eyes and turn to face Dazai, who’s looking between the two of you curiously, an iced coffee cradled between his hands, one that you’re sure is filled with a copious amount of milk and sugar.

“It’s cold out,” you say dryly, making sure your voice comes across as judgmental as possible to offend him, knowing it’ll draw him out of whatever suspicious thoughts he’s currently having.

Dazai instantly scowls at you, and amusement bubbles in your chest. He’s dressed up today, compared to how you usually see him, wearing black pants and a white sweater with black stripes, a suit jacket that’s too big for him draped over his shoulders. Cute, you think, a bit of warmth spreading through your chest at the sight of him, but that makes you frown, Chuuya’s words from the other night ringing through your ears.

“You’ve been ignoring me,” Dazai sighs whimsically instead of acknowledging your veiled insult, words drawn a bit long into a whine and lip pushed out.

“I always ignore you,” you say dryly, leaning back against the wall, tilting your head to the side as you look over him once. “I have literally only ever responded to one of your messages.”

“Yeah, but you always read them.” Dazai is undeterred, pushing his lip out more as he gives you big, doe-like eyes. “You’re not even reading them anymore.”

“I’m busy,” you shrug, and it’s not entirely a lie.

You are busy—more than busy, actually, you’ve been completely swamped with trying to get things together for the event taking place in a week and a half. You’ve had meetings every day, you’ve hardly slept at all the past week or so, and you’re sure it shows.

But it’s not an excuse as to why you’re not reading Dazai’s messages, because you enjoy reading Dazai’s messages. They’re a nice break from reality, being able to scroll through and read all of his complaints about his class assignments, and classmates, and professors.

they didn’t have my favorite pastry today at the cafe o(〒﹏〒)o i saw this plushie and it made me think of u. get it, cuz it’s a penguin, and u always wear fancy suits (⁀ᗢ⁀) penguins r one of my favorite animals btw ;) there’s a reallyyyyy nice restaurant by campus i wanted to go to. hint hint. HINT.

It’s not a matter of being busy—it’s a matter of Chuuya’s warning haunting you every time you get a break from work. You do go to look at his messages whenever you have time, but when you’re about to click on the message thread, you find yourself chickening out, the thought of one of your enemies getting their hands on him too real of a threat for you to ignore.

This is dangerous, too, you realize, with a lump in your throat. You’re here with Klaus to get your hands on one of the members of Inagawa-kai, the syndicate that’s been pushing further into the northern wards. They’ve had scouts pressing too close to one of the Port Mafia’s biggest weapons warehouses, and you need to handle this before it escalates.

“Too busy to even read my texts?” He sounds aggrieved, drawing you from your thoughts, and it makes your lips curl up slightly. “I think-I, uh, I think-I…”

Dazai stares at you, face flushed, and you raise your eyebrows, wondering why he’s stuttering so hard over his words.

“You think…?” you drawl, urging him to continue, but Dazai only stares at you, lips parted and dark eyes soft and pretty—the setting sun hitting them in a way that makes them look like warm pools of honey. The quip on your lip dies quickly as you watch the light spread across his face, breath hitching at the sight.

Oh.

“I think you’re really pretty,” Dazai says softly and then snaps his lips shut as if he hadn’t meant to say it out loud. He fumbles as he forces out, “Really pretty annoying. I mean, honestly, I take time out of my day to give you all of my life updates, the least you can do is acknowledge them.”

“Oh yeah?” you say, a smile tugging at the corners of your lips—a genuine one, and you try to remind yourself again of Chuuya’s warnings. You try to picture what could happen to Dazai if you continue this, but all you can picture is his flustered expression under the golden rays of the sun and the way it made your chest all light and fluttery.

“Yes,” Dazai stresses, lifting his chin as if to make a point. “That’s what I said, yes.”

Your lips part to speak, but before you can, a loud crash comes from one of the back alleys behind you leading to the ports. Your smile drops instantly, gaze cutting to the side as you try to figure out what’s going on.

Shit, you think, remembering why you’re here. Did the Inagawa-kai show up?

You look back at Dazai and catch the curious look that drags between you and the alley behind you, obviously having put together that whatever it is, it has to do with you—and that’s not good. You need to get him out of here. You’re sure Klaus is somewhere back there dealing with this, but if the fighting draws out into the open…

“I have to go,” you say, trying not to come across as too suspicious, but you’re pretty sure it’s a lost cause from how Dazai is studying you. “I’ll read your texts later.”

Dazai doesn’t answer them for a moment, as if trying to decide whether or not he’s going to press you for answers, be annoying and try to tag along (which you obviously can’t let happen), or if he’s just going to leave. You have to physically hold back a sigh of relief when he chooses the latter.

“Will you answer them too?” Dazai presses with a sweet smile, eyes wide and imploring.

“Don’t push it.”

Dazai sighs dramatically, tilting his head back. “She ignores me, she shoos me away like a bug, and now she spurns me,” he whines melodramatically. “My sweet bella hates me. She wants me dead.”

“You’re so dramatic,” you tell him before lifting your hand and waving your hand to literally shoo him away, snorting as he gasps in offense. “Goodbye, Dazai.”

“Goodbye, cruel world,” Dazai pouts, gaze lingering on you for a moment before he turns to leave. You watch him walk away—as soon as he’s out of sight, you’re turning on your heel and making your way down the side street where the crash had come from, hand slipping into your suit jacket to grab the grip of your gun, flipping off the safety before turning the corner.

You pause when you see Klaus there, pinning an unfamiliar man to the ground hard, teeth grit as he spits out whatever vile insults come to mind. A kyodai of the Inagawa-kai, you recognize after a moment, dread starting to tug at your stomach. Klaus silences when he hears you approach and when you raise your brows, questioning, he presses his lips together.

“He was watching you with that guy,” Klaus says tightly, and instantly, your world comes to a halt. “Was about to take a picture. I stopped him.”

You take in a short breath, mind racing as your gaze focuses on the man pinned to the ground by Klaus’s foot. His cheek is pressed hard against the asphalt as he glares up at you, lips sealed. You make sure to keep your expression void of the panic spreading through your chest, the realization of just how close the Inagawa-kai had come to learning about Dazai. Your heart races, a pit forming in your stomach.

Fuck.

“What do we do with him?” Klaus asks, putting more weight on the man’s back when he tries to push up, holding him firmly in place. “If we kill him, it’ll start a war with the Inagawa-kai. He’s one of their kyodai, and they won’t take this without some form of retribution. The boss didn’t want that yet.”

Fuck. Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck. For the first time in years, you’re at a loss as to what to do. Your mind fails you, desperately trying to come up with solutions but not a single one is viable. If you bring him back to headquarters, there’s a chance that Dazai’s existence will get out to the rest of the Mafia, and if Mori finds out… You don’t even want to think about that. More than that, there’s a chance he’ll escape, and then Dazai will be a target of the Inagawa-kai. Letting him go isn’t an option, obviously. And killing him…

You’d start a war. You’d throw Yokohama into a conflict that could escalate to the heights of the Dragon’s Head at its peak if you and Chuuya can’t get a handle on it before it explodes. If you kill him now, you’ll have to have Chuuya act tonight, and last-minute operations never end well.

But if you don’t…

“He attacked you,” Klaus finally decides for you, blue eyes darting up to meet yours. “He attacked you, and I reacted. That’s what happened.”

“Klaus, no. You’ll get in trouble,” you tell him quietly, shaking your head. “Mori will be livid. He-”

You’re cut off by a disgusting crunch, eyes fluttering shut as blood splatters up, staining your pants and shirt. Your lip curls up in revulsion when you see that Klaus’s foot crushed right into the man’s back through to his chest. He grimaces as he pulls his foot out of his body, looking up to catch your gaze again.

“Klaus,” you breathe out, horrified. “No. What did you do?”

“He saw you with that guy. He was a civilian, wasn’t he? Looked like and you looked… I had to. If anyone knew you were seeing a…” Klaus’s throat bobs as he swallows, eyes flickering toward you nervously. He suddenly looks a lot like the seventeen-year-old he is, skittish and afraid. He asks quietly, “What do we do now?”

“... Call Chuuya. Get back to base and get everyone else ready for an operation. We need to act now.”

Hours later, Dazai is still puzzled. He sits on his futon, frowning as he stares at his phone. You have yet to read any of his messages like you promised, and Dazai isn’t stupid—far from it, in fact, no matter how much he tries to portray himself as it. He’d seen the concern flit across your face when you heard the crash from the alley, and he’d noticed how you were immediately trying to rush him out of there.

Dazai had half a mind to trail after you, to see for himself what was going on, but he had a feeling that you might not forgive him for that when you were so plainly trying to get him to leave, and Dazai isn’t keen on losing the one person he can actually consider a friend.

He sighs as he sits cross-legged, resting his chin on his hand, elbow propped up on his knee as he absently scrolls through his phone.

He pulls up your message thread, typing out another message.

Dazai: helloooooo :(

He doesn’t send it.

What were you doing there?

Dazai was only cutting through the area because he had an appointment in Tsurumi, and it was faster to cut through the outer edges of the port shipyards to get to his apartment building than to go all the way around. But the ports are a bad area—shady people ranging from addicts to rapists skulk around the outskirts looking for unfortunate people to prey on, and in the inner parts of the ports, everyone knows the Mafia controls them. If you even try to get within half a mile of them, you’ll be shot, and your body will be dumped in the bay.

It’s not a place he would’ve ever expected to see you, of all people, a woman with more money than god and a strong taste for the finer things in life. Why were you in one of the sketchiest parts of the city? And why did you seem comfortable there? Even Dazai is uncomfortable crossing through the outskirts of the ports to get to his apartments, will outright avoid it if the sun is going to set before he can get back to Hodogaya-ku. It makes no sense.

It’s suspicious.

Dazai’s mind begins to race with theories, none of which make any sense to him. He gnaws his bottom lip raw, brows furrowing in frustration, and then-

And then the entire city shakes.

Dazai’s eyes widen, hands flying to the ground to steady himself as his apartment rattles so hard that the dishes on his counter tumble over and shatter onto the ground, his whole bookshelf swaying back and forth dangerously. It lasts long—too long—Dazai swears that it goes on for over two minutes, dragging himself beneath the nearby counter to wait it out.

When it finally ends, he sits up straight and crawls out from beneath the counter to look out the window, trying to figure out what that was. He hears sirens in the distance, sees flames rising up above the skyline in the distance up in the northern wards

An earthquake?

It had to have been.

What else could it be?

But something in Dazai’s stomach isn’t sitting right. He glances down at his phone, lying haphazardly on his futon, where his message thread with you is still open. He swallows thickly as he reaches to pick it up, deleting the drawn-out ‘hello’ he’d been debating on sending earlier.

Dazai: are you okay?

This time, when you don’t respond, Dazai’s heart sinks down into his stomach, a distinct feeling spreading through him that something is seriously wrong.

You can’t breathe.

Ash and smoke clog your lungs, pain spreading through your body from the gaping wound on your side. You’d made it to Chuuya, and that’s what matters the most—the Black Lizards will have gotten to him by now. They’ll extract him and bring him back to the headquarters.

Forty seconds, that’s how long he’d been in Corruption before you were able to put that wretched calamity god to sleep with your ability. Chuuya will be fine—his body will ache and be sore, he’ll sleep for almost a full day, but he’ll be okay. You, on the other hand? Your entire body feels like it's been set aflame, wounds litter your skin, everything protests as you try to push yourself forward—the high costs of trying to get near a deity of destruction that can manipulate gravity, you’re lucky you hadn’t been crushed into a pile of blood and dust.

Where the fuck even are you?

All you can see is fire and rubble, black spots dotting your vision. Your ears ring, you can’t hear anything. Your phone is gone, so you can’t even call for help. The northern half of Tsuzuki-ku had been obliterated by Arahabaki—no residential districts in the ward, luckily, but a ton of manufacturing centers had been demolished by the initial blast. Most of the Inagawa-kai branch that had been sent to expand into Yokohama should have been eliminated, and those that weren’t will be hunted down in the coming hours by the Black Lizards and your subordinates.

It was as successful as it could be considering how short of time you had to act on—Chuuya will be okay. The Port Mafia has landed a decisive strike on the Inagawa-kai. You just need to figure out where you are. You need to get back to headquarters. You need to-

Your knees buckle, and you lean against a crumbling wall, pressing your fingers to the laceration cutting through your abdomen caused by a shrapnel from the blast. Blood spills through them, pooling on the ground beneath you, and your head spins.

Where are you? How had you gotten so separated from Chuuya and your subordinates? Did Arahabaki get one last blast off before it was put to sleep? Where is Klaus? Akutagawa? Kyouka and that new weretiger? The Black Lizards?

Your eyes feel heavy and blurry as you drag yourself forward. Southern Tsuzuki? Did you cross over into Midori? You can’t tell; there’s still rubble around, but not nearly as much as there would be if you were still up in the northern part of the ward. How the fuck did you get so far away? What had happened? The last you remember, you were crumpled on the ground near Chuuya, hardly withstanding the rising pressure around him, blood dribbling from your ears and head aching, reaching out for his arm, and now you’re… where?

You want to call out for Klaus, or Akutagawa, or anyone, but your throat is clogged with ash, and you fear that maybe you were dragged out here by surviving members of the Inagawa-ku, captured but for some reason, they’d gotten separated from you and you don’t want to alert them to where you are.

Where can you go?

You’ll never make it all the way to Naka-ku. Never. Your wound is too big, you’re bleeding too fast—you’ll never make it. There’s no one you can call, your phone is gone, and there’s no one in sight. You’ll die. You’ll die if you can’t get to someone you trust soon.

Where can you go?

Your eyes slide shut, and soft brown eyes burn behind your eyelids, a smile that’s become so achingly familiar.

No, you think desperately. No, it’s too risky.

But do you have another choice?

Dazai almost doesn’t hear the knock at his door. It’s weak, barely audible over the sirens resounding throughout the city, but he does hear it, so he sighs as he forces himself out of his futon, stumbling around through the dark to get to his front door. He’s irritated and bitter because he hardly ever sleeps if he’s not drunk or popping sleeping pills like candy, so when he opens the door, it’s with a twisted expression and vile words, ready to lash out at whoever decided three in the morning would be a good time to show up at his apartment.

“You-” The words die on his lips instantly, lips parting when he sees you leaning against the wall of the hallway.

For a second, Dazai is giddy. His expression lights up, his heart flutters in his chest; you’re in front of his door and Dazai’s world feels bright and warm again, like it always does whenever he’s around you.

And then he sees the blood.

Well, he smells it before he actually sees it. The thick scent of iron is one he’s unfortunately familiar with, so as soon as he inhales at the sight of you, it invades all of his senses. At once, his face drops, gaze lowering to your body, trying to seek out where the blood is coming from, but you’re wearing a long black jacket that you have tucked neatly around you as if purposefully hiding from him.

“I need to use your bathroom,” you finally say. Your voice is weaker than usual, breathier. You wince when you speak as if it physically hurts you, and your eyes are a bit unfocused. Dazai can only stare because what is going on?

“You’re bleeding,” he points out astutely.

“I’m on my period.”

Dazai watches as blood drips down from beneath your coat onto the gray tiles of the complex’s hallway, stares at it for a moment before he looks back up at you, partly in disbelief at your excuse and partly concerned.

“It’s heavy,” you add after a moment, seemingly noticing what he’s looking at. “Bathroom?”

Dazai’s body moves on its own, blinking a few times as he steps out of the way for you, letting you into his apartment. Should he call an ambulance? Would there even be one available with the earthquake that just took place? He doubts it, so-

As soon as you take a step into his apartment, your knees buckle, and Dazai’s hands dart out to stop you from hitting the ground hard, sputtering out apologies when you gasp and cringe away from him after his hand makes contact with your side, which must be where the wound is. His heartbeat is erratic in his chest as he tries to figure out what to do, gaze darting around his messy apartment, actively trying to keep his breath steady. Your jacket is soaked with blood. His hands slide against the material as he tries to keep you steady, and his throat spasms when he sees how the warm, red substance smears across his skin and white sweatshirt, gagging.

He’s used to blood. He is. The number of times he’s had to stitch himself up, the number of times he’s been dragged to the hospital to get stitched up, Dazai is so used to blood by now, so then why-

He has to force himself to move. His legs are stiff and uncooperative as he carefully scoops you up. He lets his mind wander to try to distract himself from your weight in his arms because, no, this is not how he imagined his first time being able to hold you would go, but he doesn’t really have time to think of that right now. He brings you over to the couch, laying you down carefully before kneeling on the ground next to you.

His eyes drag from where he’s pretty sure the wound is on your side back up to your face. His hands are shaking in his lap, and he’s glad you can’t set them because you’re studying him carefully, eyes a bit more unfocused than they usually are, and Dazai’s swallows thickly, wondering how much blood you lost.

He needs to-

He needs to see the wound. Right. He needs to see the wound to stop the bleeding.

“Can I…?” Dazai says hesitantly, motioning to your dark jacket.

You look reluctant, but after a moment, you nod, and Dazai reaches out to shift your jacket to the side, eyes bulging when he sees the deep wound cutting through your side. The thin leather top you’re wearing is shredded around it, and the material seems to be so wet and sticky with blood that it’s sinking into the wound.

“How-”

“I tripped and fell,” you say flatly, wincing as you shift a bit to rummage through one of your pockets. Dazai’s lips part to tell you to stop moving, that you’re only going to make the wound worse, but his throat is dry, and no words can be pushed out. By the time he thinks he can speak, you’re already settling against the couch again. You pull out a pack of cigarettes and frown as if you were looking for something else. Then you look at him and ask, “Do you have a lighter?”

Dazai stares at you, appalled. The sheer audacity of your question momentarily draws him out of his frozen state.

“Seriously?” he asks, voice riddled with disbelief, “Now?”

But he does go over to his kitchen and grab his lighter, tossing it over to you before rushing into this bathroom. And for a moment, he just stands there at the sink, staring into the mirror, wasting time that he knows he doesn’t have.

He fumbles to turn on the water of the sink, eyes lingering on how blood smears across the metal of the faucet.

God, the last time he was covered in someone else’s blood-

“Wash your hands before trying to treat the wound, Dazai. You’re going to cause an infection.”

Dazai flinches as Odasaku’s words ring through his ears, urging him to get moving. He takes in a sharp, shaky breath as he shifts his trembling hands under the faucet, watching the clear water start to run red as it slides over his hands.

“Soap, Dazai.”

Dazai’s dark gaze flickers up to the disinfectant soap sitting on the edge of the sink, desperately trying to keep his heart rate steady as he squirts some out over his hands before putting them back under the water, watching it pool in the white sink, the half clogged drain not able to drain the water fast enough.

“Odasaku! Odasaku! What do I do? I don’t know what to do!”

Stop.

Dazai’s breath shudders as his surroundings tunnel and blur, shifting from the tiles of his walls to a familiar street in Naka-ku. There are too many people around. They’re watching, no one is helping, and Odasaku is on the ground—he’s on the ground, and there’s blood everywhere, all over Dazai, all over the pavement, and Dazai tries to stop the bleeding, he tries, he does but-

“The longer you wait in here, the more likely she is to bleed out. Get moving, Dazai.”

Dazai takes in a sharp breath, eyes wide as he looks around the bathroom again, remembering where he is, remembering what happened, remembering where you are. He pulls his hands from under the running water to drop to his knees, quickly rifling through his cabinet to find the supplies he needs.

He finds his bandages quickly, grateful that he had to restock the other day, but it takes quite a bit longer for him to find his medical kit because it’s stuffed behind several other boxes under his sink. As he grimaces, stretching his arm to the back of his cabinet, his mind races. He has to actively work to keep his mind off of Odasaku, off of what happened four years ago—he can’t afford to freeze up with you in there bleeding so heavily.

So instead, he focuses on you.

I tripped and fell.

That’s a fucking lie if Dazai’s ever heard one. He doesn’t care how badly you fell; no type of fall would leave you with a wound like that. Did you get caught up in that earthquake, maybe? But why would you lie about that? It doesn’t make any sense.

He seeks out answers desperately, thinking back to his notebook, where he’s listed all of the odd things he’s noticed about you. Why didn’t you go to a hospital? Why did you come to him? It doesn’t make any sense. It doesn’t make sense. What is he missing?

He finally gets his fingers around the medical kit and snatches it, rising to his feet and rushing back out toward you. Maybe he can bring it up to you, see how you react because-

“Stop!” Dazai says loudly, voice shrill when he catches sight of you on the couch.

His eyes are wide as he crosses the room in four long strides, grabbing your wrist to stop you from pressing a hot blade against the wound on your stomach. His lips part in disbelief, realizing that you hadn’t asked for the lighter to light a cigarette—or well, you had; he can see one dangling between your lips as you shoot him a withering look, not very effective considering your gaze is all unfocused from blood loss—but clearly, your main intention behind asking for the lighter was so you could try to cauterize your wound on your own.

Where did you even get the knife? Why is that your first instinct? What the fuck is going on? Who are you? What is happening? Dazai thinks he might be going crazy. His heart thuds in his chest erratically, and his breath is all pitched and shallow.

“Calm down, Dazai. Focus.”

“I’m going to bleed out if I don’t stop the bleeding,” you say tightly, trying to pull your wrist from his hold, but Dazai doesn’t let you go.

“I’ll stitch it,” he tells you, showing you the medical kit, hoping you don’t notice the way his fingers still tremble.

He thinks the look you give him is almost offensive, doubtful, and full of suspicion. “I think I’d be better off cauterizing it,” you mutter more to yourself than to him, but you stop struggling against him, so Dazai takes the knife—why do you carry a knife around?—and places it on the coffee table.

Dazai breathes. Three in, three out, just like Odasaku taught him to do whenever he started to feel panic claw at his chest, threatening to consume him entirely. He lays out the medical kit on the coffee table, kneeling in front of where you’re lying on the couch.

“Clean the wound, Dazai. Come on, you know this.”

That’s right, Dazai grabs the saline solution in the kit, turning back toward you and looking down at the wound on the right side of your body. Oh, he thinks, a bit nauseous—first, he has to get your shirt out of the wound.

“Dazai,” you sigh. “Give me that, I’ll do it.”

Dazai ignores you, shifting closer and putting the solution down as his fingers curl around the hem of your shirt. He lifts it just high enough to expose the wound, grimacing as he watches the shredded strands pull up from where they’d embedded in your skin. You hardly seem to react to it, your lashes flutter, and you look up at the ceiling, but that’s all the physical reaction you have to what Dazai knows must be agonizing pain.

Dazai doesn't know what the fuck is going on.

As Dazai takes all of the shredded parts of your shirt out of the wound, picking up the saline solution to rinse it clean, he starts talking—partly to distract himself from what he’s doing because the longer he stares at the wound, the more it seems to morph from the deep laceration on your side to a familiar, lethal bullet wound to the chest, and partly to try to get some answers.

“Did you get caught up in the earthquake?” Dazai asks, hands no longer shaking as he gets to work, glancing up at your face.

“Is that what that was?” There’s a lilt to your voice, one that strikes Dazai as odd. His brows furrow slightly, listening as you continue. “I don’t know. I don’t remember. Woke up in Midori-ku with the wound… the last I remember before that… I don’t know. I must have, I guess.”

You trail off, a strange look crossing over your face as you stare ahead, and Dazai thinks. His mind spins as he tries to figure out what pieces he’s missing right now, as he tries to figure out what exactly that odd lilt to your tone meant. You’d questioned the earthquake, but it seems like you already knew what it was. As if it was something else, and you know it was something else, but you’re trying to play it off as if you didn’t know.

Why though? And if it wasn’t an earthquake, what was that? Dazai doesn’t understand, head aching as he tries to come up with answers. Nothing about you adds up: the wealth, the way people address you, how comfortable you were by the ports in Kanagawa-ku, what is he missing?

The last bit of what you said seems to be the truth, up until you trailed off, trying to recall the last you remember, but Dazai is more focused on where you had woken up and finally asks the question that has plagued him since he opened his door.

“There are three hospitals between my complex and Midori-ku,” Dazai notes off-handedly, watching you from the corner of his eye as he leans back to grab the sutures from the bottom of the kit before turning to face you again, looking down at the wound and trying to figure out how to start this.

“Ninety-degree angle. 4 millimeters from the edge of the wound.”

“I don’t like hospitals.” Your voice is tight as Dazai gets to work. He’s not sure if it’s because you’re in pain or if it’s because you don’t like this topic. He hopes it’s the latter, mostly because he doesn’t want to hurt you, but also partially because he’s hoping to get some answers out of you, and if he’s getting into a topic you don’t like, he can only assume he’s getting close to answers you don’t want to give. “Where did you learn to do this?”

You’re quick to change the subject, which is frustrating, yes, but it means Dazai was on the right track about something. He just has to ease back there somehow. He becomes more relaxed as he gives his mind something else to work on, letting it bounce around seeking out answers while Odasaku’s voice guides him through helping you.

“Ah… I also don’t like hospitals,” he admits, throat tightening a little as he continues, “that friend I told you about… the one who asked me to finish his book. He taught me how to stitch up wounds in case I got hurt so I don’t have to go to one.”

You make a noise in the back of your throat, and Dazai looks up at you, catching the curious expression on your face. “What a broad skill set,” you say more to yourself than to him.

Dazai realizes that he’s probably not the only one trying to get answers from this situation, and that scares him because whenever people see beneath the shallow mask Dazai wears and see him for what he truly is, they always run. And it’s been nice having someone to talk to for the first time since Odasaku’s death. It’s been nice not being alone, having something to look forward to. He doesn’t want to lose this.

“Is it?” Dazai asks, voice wavering now as he tries to figure out what to do. Maybe if he stops asking questions, you’ll stop, but then he’ll have to give up his chance of trying to actually know you, and he doesn’t want to do that.

“Mhm,” is all you say as a response.

Dazai glances down at the wound, now half stitched up, trying to figure out what you mean. Odasaku never told Dazai what his job was in the past; he always kept it vague, always changed the subject. Dazai noticed—how could he not?—but he never pressed it, fearing that if he pushed too hard, he’d drive away the first person who had seen him for what he was and stayed.

“Why don’t you like hospitals?” he finally questions as he continues closing up the wound, hoping it comes across more as him trying to keep the conversation going than prying.

“Why don’t you like hospitals?” you counter instead, and Dazai grimaces.

“Fair enough,” he says more to himself than to you, realizing that he’s in the same exact situation as he was with Odasaku: nervous to push because of the lingering threat that you might leave entirely if he does.

He had to change his angle somehow—make his questions less prying into your personal life and more vague. But what vague questions can he ask that might give him more insight into you? What other topics are there?

Small talk won’t cut it, clearly. He doesn’t think talking about literature will give him any good insight, even if the conversation would be enjoyable. So maybe-

Politics?

“The military bill passing through the Diet is going to draw all of the criminal organizations in Japan out of the woodwork to try to get it to stop. The Morning Glory, the Sun and Steel, the Port Mafia—if this bill passes, the military will have complete discretion to do whatever they want to eliminate organized crime in Japan. Those three groups and the major Yakuza syndicates are going to do whatever it takes to prevent this bill from passing. If we have any chance to expose them, this will be it—they’ll be desperate in their attempts to turn Representatives and Councillors against the bill. Reckless.”

No, Dazai immediately thinks, pausing from where he’s about to finish off the stitches, eyes drawing from the wound back up to your face. You tilt your head to the side curiously, and Dazai remembers all of the things he listed off before: the wealth, the evasiveness, the respect. More than that, the fear that his landlord had shown at your presence—Dazai had assumed it was because he didn’t want to lose his job, but was he wrong? The sketchy situations—first at the port, now tonight.

The ports-

The ports.

How had he overlooked something so obvious?

No, he thinks again. He must be wrong.

Still, he finds his lips moving.

“Can I ask you something?” Dazai asks after a few moments, keeping his gaze pinned on the wound he has to force himself to finish off, fingers stiff and clunky, trying to ignore your sharp gaze.

“You don’t usually ask,” you say dryly. “What’s so important that you have to ask before bombarding me?”

Dazai hesitates, glancing up at you briefly before looking down again. “Do you have an… opinion on the military bill proposed to the Diet?”

It comes out stunted and awkward, and Dazai almost feels embarrassed. More so when he notices the unimpressed look you’re giving him—god, how do you still have it you to look so judgmental when you’re bleeding out on his couch?

You raise your eyebrows, watching Dazai carefully before asking, “You’re a political science major now too?”

Dazai scowls. “It’s a big topic in my journalism class right now-” Not exactly a lie, but not exactly the truth “-and can’t I care about what our government is doing without needing a reason?”

The look you give him is nothing short of amused. “Fair enough,” you drawl. “What makes you think I have an opinion on it?”

You’re still studying his face as if trying to figure out if there are any underlying motives—which there are, so Dazai is especially careful to keep his expression smooth as he finishes off stitching your wound.

“Rich people always have loud opinions,” Dazai scoffs, maybe a little bitter and you definitely notice from how you snort.

You hum, and Dazai leans back on his heels when he finishes, looking up at you. The look in your eyes is intense, it almost makes his breath catch, and Dazai wonders if he’s right, if he’s right, and you know what suspicions he’s having right now.

After what feels like an eternity, you sigh and look away. “Have you been to Europe?” you ask quietly.

Dazai doesn’t know how this relates, but he has a feeling you’re not trying to change the subject so he humors the question.

“No.”

“What do you know about the Great War?”

“Not much,” Dazai admits. “Just what everyone knows, really. First war utilizing ability users. More deaths than in World War II.”

“Mainland Europe was devastated by the war,” you say, eyes trained up to the ceiling. “Cites turned to rubble, populations massacred. What happened here was only a fraction of the destruction that the European mainland faced. After the war, the general population and governments took a very strong anti-ability user stance. To be expected, I guess, seeing what happened, but because of this, all of these ability users who fought for their countries during the war started being forced underground because of backlash. Eventually, the mainland countries started passing bills—similar to this one—giving their militaries complete discretion as to handling hostile ability users.”

Dazai squints, trying to conjure up all of his minuscule knowledge of European politics, trying to figure out where you’re going with this. Ango had always been quick to talk about politics, but Dazai tended to tune him out whenever he opened his mouth about it.

“And targeting hostile ability users is a bad thing?” he finally asks, and you give him a wry smile.

“What’s your definition of hostile?” you ask instead.

“Aggressive? Violent?” Dazai offers.

“You’d think,” you reply dryly. “The legislatures were careful not to give a definition of the word so it could be construed broadly. A child who doesn’t know how to control their ability? Hostile. A teenager being bullied by his classmates and accidentally triggering his ability? Hostile. A circus performer using their ability for one of their acts? Hostile. It got to the point that an ability user’s existence was considered hostile. For the past ten years, ability users have been actively persecuted in Europe—imprisoned, killed, trafficked, or forced into the underground. Did you see that boy with me near the ports before I sent him off?”

“Yes,” Dazai agrees, brows furrowing as he thinks, remembering the blonde who had cast him a dirty look before rushing off.

“He’s an ability user that was stuck in one of the biggest trafficking rings in Europe. From six years old when his ability manifested to fifteen. One of the branches of the ring ended up coming into conflict with one of our… subsidiaries. I was sent to Europe to work with law enforcement in getting things handled. I met him there. His name is Klaus.”

A smile twitches on your lips as you speak of the boy, a warmth in your expression that Dazai finds himself longing for, lips parting a bit as he watches you. He has to force himself out of the half-dazed state to ask:

“But their bill was specifically targeting ability users. This one is about organized crime.”

The look you give him makes Dazai feel like he’s stupid.

“Is that what you really think?” you ask him, the fond smile shifting into a more sardonic one. “Organized crime has always been an epidemic in Japan. What’s changed in the past few years that makes them want to target it now?”

“… Ability users,” Dazai says quietly, remembering all of the studies he’s read about ability users being dragged into criminal organizations from a young age, most sold off by their own families.

“For all of the noble and honorable reasons they might give for this bill, it just comes down to the same thing that it did in Europe. They give no definition of organized crime in their bill. Right now, it may be Yakuza syndicates and other mafias, but what about in two years? Five? How long do we have until peaceful gatherings of ability users are considered a crime? Until a group of children playing outside who happen to be ability users is considered a crime? How long do we have until the word crime becomes synonymous with ability users? The crime itself is their existence, just as the mere existence of ability in Europe is now considered hostile?”

Oh, Dazai thinks, one last question on the tip of his tongue but he’s not even sure if he should ask it. Would he even get a straight answer from you? Dazai suddenly becomes acutely aware of just how little he knows about you—not for a lack of effort on his part, but you’ve expertly evaded every inquiry, every attempt for him to get closer to you. Before Dazai can even process it himself, his mouth is moving, and the question is flying past his lips.

“Are you an ability user?”

You suddenly look tired, sighing as you turn your head away from him, and Dazai swallows thickly.

“Go to sleep, Dazai,” you say quietly. “I’ve kept you up late enough. Don’t you have class in the morning?”

Dazai doesn’t even have it in him to feel giddy over the fact that you know his class schedule because his breath is catching at the unintentional confirmation you just gave him. You are an ability user—that’s the only reason why you would evade the question like that. He wants to push, he wants to know what your ability is, wants to know who you are, but he has a feeling that this right here is the tipping point, that if he keeps pushing right now, this is when you’ll draw back, disappear, and Dazai doesn’t want that.

He forces himself to be content with getting to know something about you—something big, even. Huge. So, he nods, rising to his feet.

“Yeah, I do,” he says, the words feeling bitter on his tongue. “You'll still be here in the morning? I mean, you’re not exactly in a condition to move, so…”

“Yeah, I’ll be here,” you agree with a sigh, shifting to get a bit more comfortable on the couch, grimacing. “Your couch sucks. Where did you even get it? A dumpster?”

Dazai almost snorts.

“Hah… well, about that,” Dazai laughs, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly. Immediately, you give him an alarmed look. “Kidding. Kind of.”

“Kind of?” you ask, appalled.

Dazai only gives you a simpering smile. “Goodnight, bella.”

“Dazai,” you hiss, but Dazai is already making his way over to his futon, making himself comfortable. He listens to you let out a sigh, and his chest feels warm and fluttery when he hears you say back, “Goodnight, Dazai.”

But even as the warmth starts to spread through him, and he’s slowly lulled to sleep, his mind still races.

Everything he’s noticed in his past encounters with you, your stance on the military bill, likely being an ability user yourself… doesn’t all of that add up to…

You’re gone when Dazai wakes up.

A part of him expected it deep down—knew that the promise you gave him to stay was flimsy at best—but a larger part of him is disappointed, eyes lingering on the couch you’d been laying on. There’s a blood stain where you’d been that Dazai knows is never going to come out, but Dazai can’t even bring himself to be annoyed, more anxious than anything else because walking around on that wound so quickly can’t be good.

He sighs as he pushes himself off of his futon, running his hand through his hair and yawning. He makes his way across the room toward his kitchen, not sure where he left his phone last night in his haste to get you patched up, absently wondering if you’d even shot him a message before taking off.

As the thought crosses his mind, his eyes catch a sticky note pinned to his fridge.

Thanks. Ordering you a new couch. Will be here Friday. That disease-ridden excuse of a piece of furniture better be gone by the next time I’m here.

A smile curls at Dazai’s lips, a fluttery feeling in his chest as he pulls the sticky note off of his fridge and holds it in his hand, looking down at it. All of the suspicions from the night before entirely disregarded at the sight of the ‘next time’ written clearly on the yellow paper, insinuating that you would be here again one day.

The entire right half of your face stings.

You stare at the wall, head snapped to the side under the strength of the slap that’s just been laid across your cheek. The door to the meeting room is still closing, the other executives just finishing filing out of the conference room—you’re sure they all heard. You have to force yourself to turn your head back forward again to look at Mori, who stares down at you with an eerily blank expression beside the cold rage plainly visible in his eyes.

“Tell me,” Mori says as the door closes, taking a few steps back to sit down in the chair at the head of the conference table. “What exactly made you think sending your subordinate to lie about the beginning of this conflict was a good idea?”

Klaus, you realize, lips pressed together tightly. He really had followed through with keeping Dazai a secret and taking the blame for the operation. Your chest tightens with worry at the thought, but you don’t speak as you wait for Mori to continue.

“Don’t worry,” Mori says with a thin smile, folding his hands over each other as he rests them on the table. “He is being dealt with properly.”

“I can handle my own subordinates’ punishments,” you tell him tightly. “I-”

“You have started a war,” Mori finishes, leaning back in a seat. “Two, actually, in the span of a matter of three weeks. First with the Guild and now with the Inagawa-kai. You are not usually this reckless. I’ve been thinking for quite a while now, trying to figure out what could have led to this sudden change…”

You don’t like where this is going. You can feel your heart thudding painfully in your chest as you wait for Mori to finish talking. The wound on your side hurts; every second you remain on your feet sends pain rocketing through your body so badly that you think you might pass out.

“And I remembered when you left the meeting a week ago,” he continues and you take in a sharp breath, shaking your head. Mori only gives you a cool smile in return. “It’s not often that something unnerves you enough to make you have a physical reaction, much less one in front of other executives. You’re always so careful to retain control over yourself… Which leads me to believe one thing: something—someone—has compromised you emotionally.”

“I am not emotionally compromised,” you say instantly, voice hard. “Keeping Nakajima from the Guild was a logical decision. They want his ability desperately, it’s not worth giving up until we know why. For all we know, he could have the power to destroy this city.”

“And the Inagawa-kai?” Mori hums, looking as if your response has only further confirmed his suspicions.

You don’t even know how to respond to him, staring at him for a split second with no smart words on your tongue. The pain in your side muddles your thought process, and you know that you’re only making things worse for yourself when you force out the lesson that Mori taught you years ago: “He who strikes the first blow…”

The way Mori smiles chills you, a lump in your throat as you wait for his next words.

“And you think that gives you the authority to start a war without my approval?” he questions, resting his chin on his hand as he peers up at you. “No, this was rash. Driven by fear. The question that remains is what exactly has you so scared that you’ve forgotten all of our lessons over the years? That makes you think you can lie to my face without getting caught?”

You don’t respond. Dazai’s face burns the inside of your eyelids every time your eyes slide shut. The peaceful expression on his face as he slept on the futon a few feet away from you, the fear that spread across his face when he realized you were hurt, the way he pushed through an imminent panic attack just so he could help you even though you told him you could do it.

God, you don’t think you’ve ever had someone go out of their way to take care of you like that. Not when they're fighting through their own pain, not without ulterior motives. You had wanted to stay with him as you promised, you did, but you were riddled with fear over whether or not the Port Mafia would come looking for you. And if they did… if Mori finds out about him-

You can’t let that happen. You can’t. He won’t take kindly to anyone interfering with your focus on the Mafia, much less a civilian. He wasn’t pleased with Chuuya back then; he’ll hate it even more with you now. You wouldn’t put it past him to get rid of the distraction by any means necessary. He’s too careful to have it traced back to him, and he’s done it before.

“It must be something you’re trying to hide from me,” Mori notes, working through his theories right in front of you, fingers thrumming against the desk, clearly enjoying the way he’s stressing you out. “You’ve never hid anything from me before, little hime. I’m almost proud. If you were anyone else, I’d assume betrayal, but you don’t have that in you… So, a lover then? You rushed off so quickly during the meeting. Maybe you thought they were in trouble? Thought that they were being targeted by the Inagawa-kai? Maybe they were, and that’s why you rushed for this operation… No, the timing isn't right…”

“I don’t have a lover,” you say, careful to keep your voice steady and void of the rising panic you feel. “You’re way off-base. I only did what I thought was necessary.”

“An almost-lover then,” Mori corrects, smiling lightly, ignoring your words. “The Inagawa-kai saw you with them. You couldn’t risk your… closeness to them getting out, so you ordered the operation to take place the same night. I wonder… you were sent to the ports in Kanagawa-ku yesterday, and it wasn’t long after that you started making the moves necessary to start the operation. Tell me, have you had the chance to wipe the cameras around the ports yet? Like you did at that apartment complex a few weeks ago?”

You have to physically stop yourself from blanching at his words, not realizing he’s noticed that much already—since weeks ago when you ran into Dazai at the apartment complex before you even left that meeting. “I don’t have a lover or an almost lover,” you tell him, but your voice is tighter now, betraying your nerves.

“I’m interested in seeing how long you keep up this little ruse,” Mori says with an amused smile. “If you let it affect our business again, I’ll be removing the distraction. Do you understand?”

You don’t respond, jaw tight as you stare at him, but Mori is unperturbed. He rises to his feet, resting his hand on top of your head, deceptively gentle.

“Come, little hime,” Mori sighs. “Let me fix that wound you’ve been trying to hide from me this whole time so you can focus on final preparations for the event on Friday while I handle the situation with the Inagawa-kai… What would you do without me to clean up all of your messes, hm?”

When you find yourself back at his apartment two days later, you have a multitude of excuses at your disposal.

You were already in the area, so it’s not like you’re going out of your way to see him. (Given by in the area you mean in the ward, and you were definitely not anywhere near the apartment complex, this excuse is weak, but you don’t acknowledge that)

You want to make sure the couch was delivered properly. Otherwise, you’ll have to have words with the people you sent to drop it off. Dazai didn’t text you earlier when you got the notification for delivery, and he texts you about everything so you can only assume it never arrived. Actually, he hasn’t texted you all day, which is a bit concerning.

You already have the cameras at the complex being looped so that no one sees you enter or leave.

You’re going to cut him off. For real, this time, no more fucking around. You’re done with him. Mori suspecting his existence is more than enough to scare you straight. He cannot find out about Dazai under any circumstances. It’s bad enough that he knows there’s someone. It’s only a matter of time before he finds out who if you keep this up.

Still, you know deep down that you’re making a mistake as you raise your hand to knock on his door.

You do it anyway.

When Dazai doesn’t answer the door, you frown. It’s late enough that you think he should be back from classes, and from what you’ve noticed of him through his texts, he doesn’t really go anywhere except class and back. Sometimes to a bar, but not usually on a night when he has a morning class, like tonight.

So you stand there, becoming increasingly more impatient. When two whole minutes pass, you raise your fist again to knock harder but pause when you finally hear the door unlock, lowering your hand to cross your arms over your chest.

The witty comment on your tongue dies when you see the dark bags underneath his eyes, blacker than usual as he stares at you. He’s frustratingly quick to hide it, but you can tell that he’s forcing his expression to light up at the sight of you because he can’t fully get rid of that empty look in his eyes.

“Hey,” you say a bit awkwardly before he can go off into some half-assed tangent to distract you. “Can I come in?”

His lips part to reply, but no sound comes out, so he just nods. You hardly wait for him to step out of the way, slipping into his apartment so you can shoot a text to your subordinate to resume the camera feed—the less time it’s looped, the less likely someone is to notice it. You’ll have to be quick to message him before you leave too.

His apartment is a mess. You’d noticed it when you were here the other night, but however bad it was then, it’s ten times worse now. Half-empty cans of crab clutter all over his coffee table and kitchen, empty bottles of sake are littered on the ground near his futon, and books are haphazardly tossed on the ground. You glance back at him and note that he looks embarrassed, eyes flitting around all of the garbage lying around his small apartment.

Your eyes land on the new couch set up in front of his television—there’s a crack in it that hadn’t been there the night before, a shattered bottle of sake lying on the ground in front of it.

“You didn’t text me after it was delivered,” you say absently, making your way over and sitting down on one corner of it, pulling out your phone to send the text about the cameras. “You like it?”

“I, uh, I meant to text,” Dazai says, making his way over to you, hands stuffed in the pockets of his dirty sweatshirt. When he notices you glance down at the stains on it, his face flushes. “I like it. A lot. It’s really comfy. My sweet bella spoils me.”

He hardly sounds into the comment—his whimsical tone falling flat as he takes a seat on the opposite side of the couch. His hands drop onto his lap, fingers twisting in a way that makes you realize he must be uncomfortable or nervous.

“Yeah, well, I’m surprised you didn’t catch a disease from that thing,” you respond vaguely, resting your head on the back of the couch as you eye him. “You good?”

He stares at you for a moment as if not comprehending what you’re asking, and then his brows furrow. “Of course I’m good, I’m with my bella,” he says with a smile that’s soft around the edges, would seem genuine were it not for the distant look in his eyes, one that makes your chest tighten with concern.

You want to press, but you don’t. There’s a more important conversation to be had.

This has to end.

“Did you come because you missed me?” Dazai teases, the light slowly returning to his eyes. It’s faint, but it’s there and you find you much rather prefer it to that awful black emptiness that had been there when you first walked in.

I want nothing to do with you.

I don’t want to be your friend.

I’m blocking your number.

“Maybe,” you tell him instead, watching as his smile becomes a bit more genuine.

“I knew it,” he says brightly. “You love me.”

You roll your eyes instantly, regretting your words as soon as he opens his mouth, more mad at yourself than anything because why can’t you force out what you need to say? This has to end. Even if the Inagawa-kai have been taken care of—which they haven’t been yet—there are still their allies to worry about: the Shimazaki-kai and the Murakami-kai are violent and aggressive. If Mori isn’t able to come to terms with them, there’s going to be a war on the scale of the Dragon’s Head Conflict. Even if you don’t have the Yakuza syndicates to worry about, there’s the Guild, who will undoubtedly be making their move soon and you need to have your full attention on that. Even if you don’t have the Guild to worry about, there’s Mori.

There’s Mori.

“Dazai,” you start to say, but you falter when he looks over at you, brown eyes wide and imploring, waiting for whatever you’re about to say.

Say it, you tell yourself. Get it over with.

His expression falters when you don’t say anything right away, his smile starting to drop and a hesitant look crossing over his face. Your chest feels unusually tight, words lodged in your throat before you can even formulate them.

Get it over with.

“I’m leaving the country for a while,” you finally tell him—definitely not what you mean to say but you can work with it at least. “I don’t know when I’ll be back.”

“Oh,” Dazai says quietly, face falling. He sounds disappointed, so much so that you almost feel guilty. Jesus Christ, what is wrong with you? You’re an executive in the Port Mafia, and here you are, feeling bad for hurting Dazai’s feelings. You’re trying to spare him from a brutal and untimely death, but you feel guilty about a bunch of words. You need to get a hold of yourself. “When are you leaving?”

“In the morning,” you lie, watching as he averts his gaze down to the ground.

“Oh…” he says, softer this time, “but I’ll still be able to text you, won’t I?”

Fuck.

You should be mean. You know you should be mean. You should tell him to fuck off and find someone else to bother, even if he’s very much not bothering you anymore. In fact, you’ve started to look forward to his messages, which is why you were so disconcerted by him not sending any today. But you would be doing him a favor if you were mean; cut this off at the root so he’s not sitting around waiting for you when you’re never going to come back to him.

But you feel guilty. The lonely expression on his face in the library. The wistful way he spoke about his dead friend. The empty look in his eyes when he first opened the door. Dazai Osamu is someone who has lost. The melancholy in his eyes is something you’re very intimately familiar with—you saw it in the mirror every day after Itou’s death up until you met Klaus almost a whole year later, when the shades of blues and grays had finally started to bloom into color again.

You have to physically force yourself to say, “I don’t know. I’m going to be really busy. Probably not.”

You’re softening the blows too much. Christ, this is so unlike you. What are you trying to shield him from? It’s just going to hurt more in the long run if you give him hope. You’re doing this to protect him, aren’t you? So, what the fuck are you doing then?

“I see…” Dazai’s voice is strained. “Well… Do you maybe want to stay for a bit? It’s late already… If you're leaving in the morning, you may as well get some sleep here. I’ve got a new couch, y’know? It’s pretty comfy.”

No. No. No. Get the fuck up and walk out of the apartment.

“... Yeah, that’d be good.”

Shit.

But Dazai’s face lightens at your words, and the tenseness in his shoulders dissipates. When he looks at you, the smile on his lips is soft, and it makes your chest warm. You want to regret giving in—just like at the boutique, you hadn’t been able to go through with it—but you can’t even muster disappointment in yourself.

You sigh as you take another look around his apartment, eyes lingering on the half-eaten cans of crab littered throughout the room and the sake that you can still smell on him. You turn your attention back to Dazai, whose smile had fallen a bit when he noticed what you were looking at.

“I hope you’ve eaten more than canned crab the past few days,” you say dryly.

“Canned crab is good food,” Dazai protests, raising his chin at you and pointedly looking away.

“A meal fit for kings, truly,” you say sarcastically, pulling out your phone to order real food. Mostly because you’re hungry. You didn’t have the chance to grab food before coming over here. But also because you figure if you’re going to stay for the night, you might as well get some actual food in his apartment; you glance at the now cracked television and sigh, maybe a new TV too. “What do you eat besides crab?”

“... Ramen?”

“Ugh,” you mutter more to yourself than to him, ignoring the offended look he gives you as you scroll through the app, trying to find what you’re looking for. He leans close to you so he can watch what you’re doing. You can feel his chest brushing your shoulder.

It feels too familiar. Too comfortable. You’re too at ease with his presence already, and you’re acutely reminded of Chuuya’s words from a week ago. The threat from the Inagawa-kai and their allies, the threat from the Guild, and the threat from Mori. What are you doing? You should stand up and go back to your own apartment—you know that, but you don’t. Can’t even bring yourself to push him away.

Maybe one last night is okay—you can pretend just for a little longer that you’re living a normal life. A life where your parents hadn’t been killed during the Great War, where you hadn’t been taken in by a man who stripped you of your childhood to groom you into becoming the perfect Mafia heir, where there was no blood on your hands, and you could go to college and sit at a cafe with a pretty boy your age and debate whether or not the translation of Il Canzoniere stripped it of its emotional expression without having to fear that the wrong person seeing you with him could lead to his corpse being dumped and abandoned in a mass grave.

But it’s gone too far. You think of how excited he gets when he sees you, and you’re reminded of the fate he’ll face if the wrong person catches him with you: body cold and rotting in the dumping grounds, forgotten and nameless, left for the rats to devour. You think of the warm feeling that had started spreading through your chest when Dazai fumbled around awkwardly trying to help Kido take his measurements, the fluttering whenever he directs that soft smile toward you, and you remind yourself of what happened with Chuuya two years ago, and how he has yet to recover from it, a shell of who he once was.

You think of the what ifs—what if you don’t cut him off? What if you let him into your life? What if you give this a chance?—and you remember Mori’s threat. His promise.

It’s gone too far.

He points to a tub of ice cream as you pause, lost in your own thoughts. When you side-eye him, Dazai only gives you a sweet smile. You roll your eyes and add it to the cart.

One last indulgence, and then you disappear.

It’s not easy to watch a movie on a cracked TV screen, but somehow, he makes it work. It’s a bit embarrassing that you showed up just in time to see the results of a depressive episode, albeit it’s only the first stage of one. It’s uncomfortable all the same. Bottles of alcohol are strewn about the room, half-eaten canned crab haphazardly tossed about his kitchen and floor, and then there’s the screen of the television that cost him three paychecks. The right half of the picture webbed due to a bout of irritability that he couldn’t control, but you don’t seem to judge him for it.

Or, well, you definitely do judge him, but more so, you’re judging his choice of food and alcohol rather than the state of his apartment and blatant instability.

He doesn’t even know how this one came on so quickly. Usually, he can feel them coming from a mile away—like that night he met you at the bar, he’d felt one looming, threatening to overwhelm him if he gave it the chance, but meeting you had driven it away at least momentarily. Distracted him enough for him to ignore the emptiness.

This one came on so hard and so fast that it’d left him crippled this morning, curled up in his futon, knees to his chest as he tried to push it away. He’d hardly been able to force himself out of bed to open the door when the delivery crew arrived with the couch, wanted so badly to text you about it but couldn’t even bring himself to look at his phone, much less muster the energy to send a text.

He thought for sure he’d end the night in the river or on his bathroom floor. His vision had been blurring and tunneling from where he’d been sitting on his futon, the shadows at the edges of his vision edging inward. The heaviness on his chest made it hard for him to breathe, coldness spreading from his core to his limbs. His skin has felt numb and prickly all day. He’s been itching for something to feel through the emptiness.

And then you showed up. Again.

And you pulled him out. Again.

You’d helped him clean up the garbage while making snide comments about canned crab of all things—which he takes personal offense to because canned crab is his favorite food. You ordered groceries because you claimed you were hungry, but you got enough to stock his fridge and freezer for two weeks, and even though you rolled your eyes whenever he pointed out something he wanted, you added it to the cart. And now you’re sitting with him on the couch watching a movie that’s half unwatchable, considering half of the screen is broken, but you don’t even seem to mind.

Dazai thinks he might be in love.

Oh.

The gravity of his thoughts hit him hard, breath catching in the back of his throat as his eyes widen. No, he can’t possibly be in love. Dazai isn’t even sure if he’s capable of it, but… the way his chest flutters around you, the way he feels so warm, the way even just your presence seems to be able to push away the void that’s been threatening to consume him his entire life. Maybe not love—not yet, the correction scares him—but something damn close to it.

He turns to look at you, and then-

And then, he halts. He doesn’t even notice how close he shifted toward you while watching the movie until he tilts his face to the side to look at you and nearly bumps noses with you because you were evidently already looking at him. His breath hitches when you don’t immediately move away from him, an unreadable expression on your face as your eyes search his—he doesn’t know what you’re looking for, but it makes him nervous. He doesn’t know if he likes how you seem to be able to read him so well or if it scares him.

Maybe both.

He wants to kiss you. He’s so close, all it would take was the tiniest lean forward for him to brush his lips against yours and he wants it so bad that his chest aches at the mere thought of it. His gaze flickers down to your lips, lingering for the sparest moment before focusing back on your eyes. He wants to, but he knows he shouldn’t. A mistake like that could cost him—it could cost him huge. If he tries to kiss you and you’re uncomfortable with it, the last thing he wants to do is drive you away.

You’re his friend—his first one since Odasaku—he can’t risk ruining that.

But you haven’t moved away yet, the traitorous voice in the back of his head whispers, urging him to try.

He shouldn’t, but he does.

Dazai’s breath is shaky, lashes fluttering shut as he leans forward just enough to let his lips graze yours, waiting to see your reaction before pressing his lips to yours more firmly. He waits—for an agonizing three long seconds, he waits for you to react. To kiss him back. To pull away. Something. But you’re like a statue.

He pulls away, heart in his throat and an apology on his lips, hoping to salvage what he can. He hardly has enough time to catch the conflicted expression on your face before you lean in to press your lips against his, hand coming up to cup his cheek as you move your lips slowly as if savoring the taste of him.

His breath catches, eyes slipping shut, and hands dropping to your waist as you move closer to him, half on his lap. You don’t move to deepen the kiss, your touch never becomes impatient or harsh. Dazai has kissed a lot of people in his life—men and women alike, whoever he could woo into his bed for a night just so he could have a reprieve from his own mind—but none have ever felt like this.

They were always impatient, a clashing of teeth and a rush to remove Dazai from his clothes—he would end the night with the taste of blood in his mouth and bruises on his body. But you kiss him slowly. Your lips are soft against his chapped ones, your hand is warm and gentle against his cheek, fingers brushing through the tips of his hair. You kiss Dazai in a way that he’s only ever dreamed of being kissed—like he’s something worth being treasured, something capable of being loved.

When you finally pull away, Dazai chases after your lips, but you don’t let him, your hand against his chest stopping him from capturing yours again. He stares up at you, breathless, taking note of the expression on your face—even more conflicted than before, like you’re internally warring with yourself about something.

His fingers tighten on your waist, wondering if you’re regretting the kiss, but before the thought can even fully process, you’re leaning forward again. You kiss him harder this time—just as gentle as the first one but firmer, head tilted to the side as you lay him back against the plush cushions of his new couch. His lashes flutter shut again, helping you adjust so that you’re straddling his hips; his lips part for you, and he sighs into your mouth when your hand shifts to the back of his head, fingers entwined with his hair as you hold him close to finally deepen the kiss.

With his lips sliding against yours and his hands on your body, he can almost forget that everything you said earlier in the night was a blatant lie.

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