Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Osamu Dazai is an empty shell of a man, half heartedly filled with regrets. A man that lives to fulfill a promise made to the dead. A man with no light inside of him that left the darkness he belonged in a grief-induced whim. 

He does not regret that whim. Of all the things he has done and he will do, leaving the mafia is not something he will ever regret. Yet-

There was a person in the mafia he left. A person so loyal Dazai compared him to a dog, everyday. A person so lively it was annoying how contagious he could be, in his zest for life. A person so real it was difficult to see him as anything but. 

Back then, he thought he had nothing left in the mafia without Odasaku. He was his friend, a true friend. He was a person who listened to Dazai without judging, who saw him as a person instead of a demon, who supported him. Who-

Somehow along the years, irrationally and against all prospects, Dazai started to feel that thing called hope. To see a way out of the darkness, even if it was nothing more than an ember, tiny and fragile and apt to go out at any moment. Without noticing, he gave this fragile, small light to Odasaku to safekeep. But he died and without him the light went out. And just like that, all the humanity Dazai had managed to gather without noticing, the mangy thing it was, died with him. He was all alone in a darkness that felt all the depeer, because his eyes were no longer accustomed to it. As the saying went, it was hard to miss something you didn't know but it was harder to miss something you knew and lost. He turned into a living corpse, in those four years of hiding. He felt dead, still, planning a future he could not see, not really, and one he could not find within himself to want. He did things mechanically, obliged,  just to maybe one day become the man that Odasaku asked him to be. 

You see, he promised . 

Promises never meant much to Dazai, before, or keeping his word. It would be very stupid if he acted otherwise. Dazai is a liar, a manipulator, a person who uses his words as others do their ability. Even before he joined the mafia, he knew better than to say the things he means or mean the things he says. Transparency always meant vulnerability, which was asking for your weakness to be exploited. Dazai decided early on that, as much as he doesn’t care, he prefers to be the one pulling the strings instead of the one whose strings are pulled. It was even entertaining, for a while, to reach and tug at the strings that pull at people and try to be on top. Entertaining and bloody.

Thus was the path walked by the Dark Prodigy of the Mafia. He spent years like that, drifting in putrid waters, emptying the poison within himself in others. He was the very deifinition of toxicity. 

And yet, when Odasaku died in his arms, when he made him promise to live a life in the light, to protect the weak and save the orphans and Dazai-

Dazai’s word was pretty much worthless, but nonetheless Odasaku asked it of him, so he will keep it, just this one time. That, over the hungry void of his grief, was what made him leave the mafia. Join the ADA. Dazai was supposed to care about the weak and the orphans now. He was. 

In truth, he did not care at all. Honestly, he wasn't that different from the boy he was, with Odasaku, with Chuu-

Before. Maybe that made it worse, how his foolish heart breathed his last and neither Dazai nor the world considered it an event worth changing for. He blinked, and he found that the world without Odasaku was just the same as it was with him. And so was Dazai. Like all suffering, he was meaningless. 

Yet, for some inane reason, he still kept his promise to Odasaku, the only thing he could manage to care about most days. That was it, the difference - Simple and ridiculous and completely self-inflicted. Odasaku will never look at him and tell him he did a good job, but Dazai still persevered. He does not know why - his grief is still an open wound, but there is no use found in it. Just anger, and bleeding at its edges, an inescapable sadness. Maybe some (improbable) part of him wants to become someone people can look and say “he is a good man”

Dazai is not a good man. He could never be, not with his hands mafia black -the black of old blood, dried and dirty and completely unwashable. Odasaku also told him he’d never be free from the emptiness that drowns him. He was right. But a small foolish part of Dazai couldn’t help but wonder, would that still be true, if Odasaku was alive?

(Would that still be true, if he still had Chuu-?)

Maybe his humanity is a foregone conclusion. An impossibility. The probability of such an outcome is very high, Dazai has always been conscious of it -no longer human is the name of his ability for a reason - but it does not make it less painful. After Odasaku’s last wish, it is agonizing. Because Dazai is not a good man. He doesn’t know how to be good , not when goodness seems to him like foolishness or naïveté. Not when doing the right thing is always out of his reach. Not when he sees the outcome of facts and tries to change it and to do so more-

(Is it enough, or forgivable or truly good, if Dazai does deplorable things in the name of saving lives? Or is he just an accepted evil, the better bad option, a thing one suffers when it is necessary? Can you wash the blood away with blood? Isn’t Dazai himself just a deplorable thing allowed in the name of saving lives?)

He was never a person that cared for right or wrong. If he had to care, which was a stretch into itself, it would be about efficiency. About results. The truth of things, maybe, or maybe just it’s most influential facet. Back in the mafia, the easiest thing to do was to see everyone as pawns, there but not quite alive, moving figures that did not mean anything to him because humanity was just a pretty word that hid the nastiness beneath. A puppet show, the analogy of Plato on strings. Or maybe a Game. Not of chess, not of shogi - more like poker. Ultimately a chance game, with little to control, a lot to lose and to win, and how to play with the uncertainity of the other's cards as well as your own. But instead of cards, you deal with humanity, in all its shades of ugly. At some point, Dazai had become an expert on ugliness. How to see it in others, how to see it in himself, how to mold it, use it, shape it. Back in the mafia, it was so easy to say just the right things, to imply with just the right balance between terror and compliance, to place everyone in accordance with those plans. 

Then there was Chuuya. 

Since the moment he met him, he knew what he was: a queen, an ace, the most powerful piece on the board, any board, anyone could have. The first thing he thought of him was how wasted he was in the hands of the incompetent sheep. The second, well. 

The second thing was blank, brain too busy with the pain of his ribs bursting under a tiny feet he did not see coming and a feeling of being seen he didn’t know what to do with. Being seen and found wanting. 

Dazai hated it. 

(He might have reacted a little vindictively about it. Just a little)

There is a thing, that no one says, about depressed people. They don’t want things. It sounds simple, even a little harmless, but it is anything but. You don’t want to make friends, or go out, or study, or do well at school. Maybe you do these things, maybe you don't. It makes no difference. You go with your friends, it is a waste of time, you’d be more comfortable at home. You stay at home, your friends go out with you and you realize they neither miss you nor need you. You do well to school, it seems stupid, why should you bother. You do bad instead, but you struggle to care about these “notes”, they are just the opinions of a bored public servant that are accepted for some stupid social reason as the norm. 

So you stop doing things. They are useless, you get nothing from them. You might as well do nothing because at least doing nothing is easier. Comforting. Safe. You stop feeling things, too. Like happiness or dread or joy or even sadness. You just feel tired, and numb. 

Then you stop wanting other things, basic things, necessary things. Food, for once, or a regular sleeping schedule. Getting up in the mornings. Watching tv. Showering. Brushing your teeth. Answering calls, or mails, or messages. Things stop to matter until all you do is lay in your bedroom, alone with your spiraling thoughts. 

You are conscious of what a waste of everything it is. You do not care - you have to want, to feel, to care for things, you see? You want something to stay good, or safe or whole - but then there is the guilt. There is the regret. There is the loneliness. 

Then it becomes more complicated, because slowly, you start to want again. You want to stop . But wanting is a thing so distant from you, so far out of your deplorable reach, that wanting is just an abstract yearning. It comes and goes, like a tide. Dazai dreams of letting the tide drown him, one day, in which he finally can stop wanting. Forever.

Death is the first thing Dazai wanted in a very long time. The very first thing he longed for, since he can remember. A thing he was denied, time and time again. 

First, it was by Mori, and after Dazai was too busy knee deep in the Mafia, his blood burned black. It was, looking back, maybe not the conscious decision Dazai always remembered it as. But-

Instincts are a beautiful, terrible thing. You can lose any wish for life before you lose those, and the first year Dazai spent at the Mafia was a battle of survival he spent distracted on the rush of adrenaline -so real, so tangible, so near to his ultimate goal- to bother with being afraid. 

Then Chuuya came into his life like a meteorite, creating all kinds of destruction and desolation and of course Dazai hated him for it. How could he not? And yet-

Somehow, that chuuni made him come alive. Not on purpose, god, that stupid dog never did it on purpose, which was the worst part about it. He even, in the farce that was loyalty and affection in their mafia black world, cared for Dazai. He tried to protect him. He shouted at him, defied him, challenged him, made fun of him, resented him, and hated him. He was the first person who cared for him, too, in a very long time. It made him hate him even more, if he is honest. Because he made Dazai care and then he went and needed him. Like actually relying on Dazai, of all people, to survive. 

Corruption, they called it. 

The final stage of his ability, his true power. He was a force of nature, and it made him a queen useful only to an specific hand: Dazai’s

(How dare he, to try and make Dazai want to live just to turn around and die, right in front of him? How dare he, to spat at him for his lack of self preservation, for his yearning for suicide, and then act the self-sacrifying martyr for something as banal and ridiculous as loyalty to the Mafia?)

The worst thing was that to Chuuya it never mattered if Dazai was human or not, at the end of it, he would be loyal regardless of what he was. Regardless of whether he hurt him or helped him or left him behind. If he was a monster, or a good man, Chuuya’s loyalty was something guaranteed. It had nothing to do with who Dazai was, but with what he could do. 

Not that Chuuya himself seemed aware of it, the stupid fool he was. He was a person who didn’t know anything else apart from being used, who didnt see what was wrong with it, as if his relationship with the Sheep was anything resenbling utilitarian on his end, and it-

It was-

Most people are loyal to the people that use them, not to the people they use. It is incredibly stupid and too shortsighted, for sure, but Dazai knows most people are dumb like that. Chuuya was no different in this, in fact, he was the leading expert in this phenomenon. Of course, the very first thing Mori did, after recruiting Chuuya, was to make him swear loyalty. 

(Dazai had already made him promise to be his dog for life, but Chuuya did not swear to him. He denied him, he refused him, he exploded and threatened and blushed a fire truck red and, as amusing as it was, it was not a real promise. But Chuuya always acted differently to him than others.)

Chuuya swore himself a tool of the mafia just like that. For a time, Dazai thought he could compete with that. He was Mafia Black, after all, and he and Chuuya were a team. Wasn’t his loyalty to the Mafia just loyalty to him, in the end?

(‘Wasn’t this what you wanted?’ The tiniest frown in the tiniest face asked him, seconds after prostrating himself to Mori Ougai, of all people. No.)

It wasn’t. 

(Dazai was different because Chuuya considered him his equal from the start, and it shouldn’t hurt. It did. Because Chuuya never saw himself as human, and by logic, he didn’t see Dazai as one, either.)

Dazai has never been greedy - that implied an ambition Dazai was far too empty to have - but he became greedy about Chuuya. Desperate, even. He wanted to consume him, drown in him, destroy him and keep him and-

Yet, Chuuya certainly considered it so. He never was obvious about his regard to Dazai but there were signs of his loyalty, if one were to look. His choker for once, a custom made collar to remind him of how he really is his dog. His. Dazai even secretly sewed a tracker on it, because what sort of owner would Dazai be if he let his dog be lost? Or so he said. In reality well. 

Chuuya has already been taken, once, by the government. Not only was he a secret experiment, but he was a successful one, an escaped one.  No one had found him, that first time. Not until it was too late. 

Chuuya needed Dazai to keep him safe, alive and whole and Dazai has never been needed before. He both despised and adored it, Chuuya’s dependency on him. It was a constant in a life marked for its impermanence. A thing that Dazai thought he had forever. And as everything worth having, it just took for him to hold it to make it disappear. 

Now Dazai is alone, left voluntary unlike Odasaku, and he-

He mourns Odasaku, everyday. His death is like a wish, promising him the absolution found in death, the company that awaits him and the nothingness that will absorb him. His promises are like a noose, holding him accountable and unmovable in this hell, he lives day in and out. Dazai is resilient. He is used to getting hurt. He can stand living in a world without Odasaku, even when he feels he lives on ashes. He is numb to griego, in a Life full of mourning.

For some reason, he could not stand if Chuuya-

(Dazai trusted Odasaku with himself. He didn’t trust Chuuya with himself, because that chuuni was never careful with his own person and soukoku was a whole in two halves so Dazai would not be any different, but he trusted Chuuya with the world .)

Odasaku was his precious friend but he never was the other half of his whole. Even if that whole was a terrible, mafia black thing. Even when Dazai hated that whole because it was Dazai’s, and that was the worst thing one could be, and hated it even more because he never could hated it full heartedly, because it was not . It was Chuuya, and as much as he tried, his loathing was never genuine, at its core. Even if that whole did nothing to him but engulfed him in the worst part of himself, because that whole-

Chuuya made him feel alive. With Chuuya, Dazai wants things, as simple as breathing. He wants to beat Chuuya at games and win at bets so he can make him do humiliating things, like talking like an ojou-sama or promising to be his dog for life. They are not big things, god no, they are small. Petty. Impermanent things. Most of them terribly stupid - and Dazai wants them all the more for their irreverence

(Dazai hates them because they are just a distraction, not a solution, and his insides remain hollow)

He wants all of Chuuya focus on him but he cannot stand when it is soft-

(And Chuuya can be so tender, behind his facade. So incomprehensibly kind. Dazai hadn’t met a lot of kind people. Atsushi, Odasaku, Fukutawa. But Odasaku’s kindness - and Fukutawa’s, too- had been different, a conscious choice despite the risks, and while it had made it all the more admirable to Dazai Chuuya’s kindness, well.

Chuuya never thinks. He acts. Like his heart is an open book and he doesn’t quite care if you read it. It’s…it’s brave and stupid and beautiful. But mainly stupid.)

Maybe this is why it’s so hard to understand how Chuuya could leave everything behind. Because Dazai might have left the Mafia, but not that life, not truly, he just changed his blacks for whites. The game remains the same, he just stands on the other side of the board. 

Chuuya threw the whole set through the window like it was nothing and continued with his life. And the worst thing? The worst thing is that Dazai has never seen him happier. Or at least healthier. 

It stung, when Dazai realized the last one. Of all the things he noticed about his partner, all the things he observed and used and twisted and coveted, it turns out he never was aware just how pale he was becoming. How he had starting to get permanent eyebags. How his hair fell flatter, duller. How thin he was, all barbed muscle, under his suits. 

And sure, maybe whatever talented stylists he has now had a lot to do with how good he looks in all the ads, all the interviews, all his catwalks but Dazai knows better. Chuuya was a star that had shone the brightest, even when it was dulling, and had he not left, he would have been consumed. And Dazai would be standing over the ashes, probably, and knowing him, his hand would be still holding the torch that lit the flames on the first place.

(Sometimes he dreams of this, of Chuuya dying, a casualty of his plans. He never takes long to follow. He always, always wakes up before he can truly join that slug in his slumber.)

(There is a reason why Dazai isn’t dead yet. How could a genius fall at something so many times? Simply put, he doesn’t. Dazai is tethered to this earth by gravity itself and he cannot leave this world a second before him. 

Because if he did, and calamity consumed himself into a black hole…there are very few things that Dazai cannot stomach, cannot allow. This is the first of them)

Did Chuuya feel like this, seeing from the shadows of the Mafia, back then when he started as a detective? Dazai doesn’t think so. In the mafia, the only thing that matters is your loyalty, not your health or your happiness. Those, those are factors that are not considered in the equation.

(Does it say something about Dazai that the first thing he can see in his allies, in strangers, in enemies and even in himself, is how they could help with Chuuya’s ability? Not as in being able to stop Corruption, no. But with Chuuya .  Not to deal with him, or stop him but to support him. Fukuzawa so he has control, so he doesn’t fear a part of himself. Tanizaki, with his power over illusions, with his easy camaderie, opens the possibility of a life without hiding. Yosano-sensei in case he gets too much damage, because no damage but death is irreversible to her. Ranpo as a mind for Chuuya’s brawn, as someone who sees more and can outplan anyone. Things Dazai brought to their partnership, but better . He can even see it in his younger allies, for all that he knows that Chuuya would look at them and see them as something to protect, not be protected by. The things he never could give Chuuya, the things he didn’t have within himself to give.  Atsushi’s kindness will be a balm to his wounds, the emotional ones. Kyoka continued innocence, despite the blood in her hands, as a show of redemption, a possibility of a different way of life. Kenji, with his simplistic views, for his easy happiness, to match that eager joy that lights Chuuya up about the silliest things. 

The whole armed detective agency, and Dazai looks at them - at his friends, or as close as he can consider someone his friends after Odasaku -  and in his heart he just sees the way they compliment his old partner. This is why he never listens to his heart. It is just as stupid or even stupider than the chibi.)

So no. Chuuya left, left their whole world behind, left Dazai, and he is not dealing with it well. Or at all. Because, if Mori and Kouyo are to be believed, if Chuuya’s last visit is as significant as Dazai has ignored it at the time, well. Chuuya him because he could no longer stand being tied to Dazai. 

They were in opposite sides, only in contact for the direst of situations, not really partners and yet, yet Chuuya found him so intolerable that he had to leave his whole fucking life to get rid of him. 

Dazai is a person used to getting hurt, and by norm he is usually too numb to it to give an emotional response but that? Chuuya leaving? Dazai managing to be the only thing, the only thing in the whole world that made that stupid over powered chuuni to run away? To cower?

(Hey Odasaku, what does it mean to protect the weak and save the orphans when the only person that Dazai wants to save hates him so much he’d left the country?)

Dazai has always known he was something like a monster but he never fancied feeling like one. 

(It hurts Odasaku. It hurts so much Dazai feels like he’s dying, even when he’s not. He would prefer to be.)

Chuuya takes a deep breath. This is fine. Everything is fine. 

He would have preferred to not do this alone but Morishige is busy taking one of his many (seriously, as a single father who needed so many children? Shit. Maybe Chuuya should give him a raise for a nanny or something) kids to the doctor. Mononucleosis. Chuuya totally hadn’t told him that was a sickness transmitted through kisses and that kids sure started young with the romance these days. 

Morishige hadn’t been very amused. Considering the child is nine, Chuuya is definitively giving him a raise.

Anyway. Chuuya would have preferred to do this with some human support, and Morishige is surprisingly steady for all that he can be kind of bland, but beggars can't be choosers. 

(Nevermind that Chuuya stopped being a beggar the moment he joined the Sheep. Which was…a week after waking up, naked and in a crater, surrounded by destruction. A fitting cradle, for the god of it. 

Anyway,)

He is not a coward so he takes a deep breath, pulls down on his hoodie to hide his hair - fame has its bad sides too. Like people accosting you on the streets, and you are not allowed to hit back unless you want to appear on the news. - and enters the unimpressive building. It is fine. 

Even if that asshole was there, and there is a huge possibility that he isn’t - he is allergic to paperwork and an actual schedule, after all, not to mention a professional slacker, - then Chuuya can just ignore him. If not, to ask him to let him alone. 

It’s laughable, his plan to make Dazai Osamu leave him alone is to ask , but Chuuya is not going back to being a rabid dog biting at everything he disagrees with. He is no longer going to waste time barking after his so-called owner and blindly following orders. He is not . Chuuya is tired of playing a script he did not read beforehand, and if the only way to change it is to be stupidly vulnerable, well.

Then Chuuya is going to ask, he is going to make known what he wants . Dazai…Dazai just has to listen. 

It's one of the stupidiest plan he has ever made, and Chuuya has never been particularly smart. At least this way Dazai will have to give him an honest answer, instead of just deflecting or saying something that is hidden between 27 other possible meanings and that Chuuya will end up ignoring, in favor of listening to his gut. Furthermore, Chuuya  is tired of being trapped in a one-way communication channel. Dazai won’t say what he means for the life of him, Chuuya will understand him anyway and gripe about it without saying anything of what he really thinks or feels, and Dazai will answer as if he had spoken after all. Only about what he thinks, though, the loser is allergic to feelings. 

Feelings, for the Dark Prodigy of the mafia, were the most useless thing in the world. When he wasn’t twisting them into a pretzel of pain and impotent rage, he was stomping over them like a child jumping on a puddle.

Well, Chuuya is no longer willing to be a bastard-translator (and for all that Dazai somehow changed in the ADA, he is still the same.) and he is tired of ignoring his feelings for the sake of the mission - he does not even do missions, now. The old way of their partnership, that elaborate minefield of a guessing game is no longer practical, when his new job in life is to be astonishingly handsome and mortally stylish. Chuuya was born with a God-like (ha!) face and body, and a love for pampering himself with the best of the best. He was not born a mind-reader.

If he has anything to say about it, and he does, there will be no pretzel-like feelings or stomping childishly onto vulnerabilities. If the price to achieve that is to show said vulnerabilities to Dazai on a silver platter? Then Chuuya will do it. 

Even if the idea seems to him a lot like mutually assured destruction. But without the mutually, really, because Chuuya will probably drop a skyscraper or three on Dazai if he gets angry (hurt) enough for it, but to reach that asshole, emotionally? Even for Chuuya, such a thing is out of reach. 

Still, it made sense, in the weird way the things Mr. Frankl says tend to do. Half an understatement, half something so alien and stupid-sounding only a drugged as hell person could say. Like, ‘You have to speak if you want to be heard.’

Technically, yes, that is undeniably true, but practically? Since when people listen ? Was this man brown yesterday, or has he lived his whole life surrounded by saints?

Either way, Chuuya is doing it. It’s the height of stupidity, but he wants to be heard.

He wants, foolish and hopeful and just the thing he was trying to get rid of, for Dazai to listen. No games, no jokes or insults or threats. Just Chuuya, and the truth, and Dazai listening to him. Not assuming, not anticipating or dictating but listening . 

And if Dazai doesn't listen, Mr. Frankl had assured him, then that is Dazai’s problem. Not Chuuya's. Chuuya can leave. He can yeet himself through the window like a bullet, if he has to. There is no battle, Mr Frankl insisted, if one refuses to fight. 

Chuuya had replied with a dry “uh, if you don't defend yourself, then it's a massacre because you just get killed” but Mr Frankl just stared weirdly at him for a beat. He had laughed. "If a fly tried to fight you, and you ignored it", he had said, "is that a massacre?" 

So. 

Dazai is just a fly. Chuuya can deal with a fly, as annoying as they can be.

(Chuuya carefully did not mention Mr Frankl how often he squashed flies with barely a thought. It-

It's thoughtless violence. Mr Frankl has been working so hard with Chuuya to make it so violence is not his universal solution, the lens he sees the world from. How disappointed would he be if he knew violence was automatic for him? 

And it's not like he's going to kill Dazai now , after all he has already endured, either way) 

So. Dazai the fly he can ignore. If he’s even there. He’s probably not. This is the worst case scenario after all. A worst case scenario of an already cursed situation. It’s ridiculous how he needs the ADA for this after all, but there are no other options available. 

He is doing this for his future, to become the next face of Versace, his second favorite designer. Nobody is making him. It’s not even necessary. Chuuya just… accidentally volunteered.

Fuck. 

In his defense, it’s more common that it looks. People can be shameless, and Chuuya oozes competence, it's what he does. He could not feign uselessness even if you paid him. He has never been truly helpless a day in his life, and it shows. 

It started nicely enough, like all evil things set out to torture him, with his manager calling him - first to ask for Shirase, who calls himself his PA but really is his errand boy. He had disappeared. Tough. Somehow, this is Chuuya’s problem, because there is no one that is doing his job. 

The thing is, jumbling Shirase’s job alongside his? Not that hard for Chuuya to do.  Chuuya had managed the security of a group of unruly teenagers at 15, then the five years of the partnership with he who shall not be recalled and he spent four years of his life as a port mafia executive, the one that went to the ground the most. Chuuya's organization skills are almost as good as his fighting skills. 

Frankly, life as a top model, as busy and demanding as it can be, has nothing on past experiences. For example, if Chuuya were to fuck up, his subordinates will probably whine, his boss will have a stern talk to him or something, and maybe, at the worst of it, he could lose a contract. Objectively no good things, but in his previous job, when Chuuya (rarely) did not execute his plans perfectly then half of his men would have come home in wooden boxes, and those are the lucky ones. Maybe it would be a massacre, maybe they will lose millions in merchandise or he will have to activate Corruption and die in awful pain taking the most of the world he can in his agony. Maybe he will be betrayed (again) or left for dead (…again) or set up in an impossible situation where he only survived by the skin of his teeth (again). Compared to that, modeling is not stressful at all. 

But other people lack the discernment to diferencie between a life threatening situation from a job mishap. And he is no longer surrounded by the hardened mafia. People cry, and break down, and completely fall into hysterics. Like his manager, Arakawa, who called him in tears after Shirase disappeared. Chuuya is at first silent, because to offer an assasination is taken well until people realize you are serious (for some reason. Personally, Chuuya takes more offense if someone offered him something they were not committed with)  Arakawa pays no mind and continúes to cry. Great heaving sobs. She started ranting about how everything was a disaster, and she was going to be fired over this, and her family will starve yadda, yadda, yadda. 

Chuuya was weak to subordinates crying, okay? He was their boss! It was his job to help them!

Chuuya muffles a groan on his oversized sleeves, letting the soft paws sewed on his sweatshirt massage his face. Who is he kidding, this was such a mistake. He should have never caved to tears. Now Chuuya is in the last place he wanted to be, woefully unprepared to face that bastard. He is so unwilling to do it that he is even wearing a foolproof disguise to fool his ex partner. And it was foolproof, even if Morishige was very unimpressed when he asked him if he was recognizable before he left the hotel. First of all, what does he know about the art of subterfuge anyway. Second of all, he was not even the intended target for this disguise to work. 

Third of all, Chuuya’s disguise is the perfect solution to evade an awful situation. He has not changed any facial features, no, that was a too obvious solution for such a twisted mind. He instead has changed his wardrobe. No one that knows him could hope to dream to see him like this. He was unrecognizable .

Dressed up in an oversized Neko hoodie, with its cute rounded ears on the hood, and its ridiculous paws on the end of the sleeves. With his skinny jeans full of holes in them, - and Chuuya likes skinny jeans, he does, but he hates holes in clothes. It’s lazy tailoring, and he was done with holes on clothes after the whole Sheep thing. The mafia didn’t come with a lot of nice things, but the clothes? Oh, those were sinful to fifteen year old Chuuya. He was lost at the first touch of real silk. 

If you pair the outfit with the huge white sneakers and a smiling face mask with whiskers, it’s the most stupid, most kawaii thing he has ever worn. He looks, and he dares to say it without throwing up, disgustingly cute . 

When he saw his outfit, Morishige asked him if he wanted to go back to high school. After Chuuya shouted at him, he wanted to know if he raided the closet of his teenage daughter. Chuuya did not, but only because Katsumi is a sweetheart and lent him the clothes. Morishige is also not getting a raise.

Basically, it’s a foolproof disguise. He would be caught dead wearing this in any other situation. For starters, his past self would have not considered it badass enough, even if he secretly loved to flap the sleeves (and the ears) around. They were adorable and so soft. Also, he is a model right now, a fashion icon. Nothing he is wearing screams of his actual fashion preferences, even if it’s much comfier. (So soft ) to top it all, he is wearing both a hood and a mask. This should make him look like a suspicious individual, but in reality only makes him look like a moody teenager. Morishige might not get a raise after saying that to his face, but it was the perfect weapon to fool a person like Dazai.  

Objectively, his disguise is only passable to most people because it hides most of his face. But for someone like Dazai? It’s unthinkable that Chuuya is capable of wearing this outfit in particular. He looks young, cute, harmless. It’s on purpose. There is no way that Nakahara Chuuya, the current most famous supermodel in the world, an ex executive of the port mafia, the scarier half of soukoku (look. Dazai can be very scary when he wants to, Chuuya will give him that, but you can’t be scarier than a god. There is no stopping or reasoning with a force of nature, just death) of being a moody teenager. Not in that fishy mind. 

(Also, what right does that asshole have to be so tall and manly-looking he could never be confused with a teenager? Is it Chuuya’s fault that his skin is flawless and wrinkle-free? No! His perfect face is his current breadwinner and Morishige should be ashamed of himself for daring to call it a “baby face”! If anything, Chuuya has a millions-worth-face, because it has earned him a lot of money!)

His disguise does not need to last a lot of time either, because Chuuya doesn’t intend to stay more than necessary in the ADA building. Get in, get what he needs, and get out. He can do this. 

Five minutes later, Chuuya is hiding in a dark alley because some random man with brown hair walked by whistling. It’s not even that stupid ‘suicide song’ that got onto his brain like an ear worm. The man is not even the right build to be- 

Maybe Chuuya can’t do this. He is directly tempting the cosmos and his luck has always been terrible. This is an awful idea. Chuuya should call his manager right now and tell her he can’t do this and to find another solution. He really, really should. 

Except that Chuuya has never failed a mission before. Except turning back now feels like admiring defeat and Chuuya does not lose. Except-

If he doesn’t do this, a part of him would feel like all he did was for nothing, that he had arrived at his starting point all over again, when most of his decisions were taken in accordance with Dazai Osamu and when he was nothing but a loyal dog. 

He takes a deep breath, hides himself more in the soft texture of the most comfortable and ridiculous hoodie he has ever worn, and keeps on walking. 

It feels like a second passes before he is blinking to the secretary of the ADA.

“Hello, how can I help you?” The woman, more or less his age, smiled politely at him. Chuuya crinkled his eyes above his mask in a practiced smile, carefully to not let his hair show. He had striking physical characteristics and while he has never appreciated them more (along with his flawless face and perfect body - being a model does wonders for your self image) it is sometimes inconvenient. 

“Yes, I was searching for-”

“Oh please no, not again” A voice that Chuuya doesn’t recognize (and it immediately puts up his guard, for all that he has no intention of fighting.) interrupts them “what is it now? A poster? A photo session? A signed body pillow?? Please tell me that it is not aegiou, we barely survived that time”

Good to know that Dazai’s coworkers are just as batshit insane as he is. Thankfully the man left after a threatening glare from the clerk. 

(Also, what the fuck is aegiou? Would Morishige know? Maybe if he tells him Chuuya would reconsider that raise)

“Please ignore Tanizaki-kun, he is overwrought a vacation and very stressed about it” the clerk tells him. Chuuya shrugs lightly, not giving much thought. 

“I was looking for Sushi” Chuuya says, sure of himself. It’s a weird name, he is not going to lie, but it’s very funny for the weretiger to be named after fish. Akutagawa once whines about how obsessed with food his archnemesis was, and cats like fish. 

“I am sorry?” The lady blinked, still polite but very obviously confused. 

“Sushi” Chuuya repeats, “I want Sushi”

“…I am sorry but I’m afraid there’s been a misunderstanding. We are a detective agency, not a restaurant.”

Chuuya takes a deep breath. Very carefully, he shoves the question of Dazai teaching his co-workers to be as annoying as him aside. He would end up losing it if he lets his brain follow that thought. To make things easier, he softens his voice and slows his words, to make sure he is completely understood.

“Yes,” he grits out, because softening was never one of his fortes, “I am aware of where I am, thank you. Now, can you bring me Sushi?”

“Look kid,” the fucking toddler that was whining like a baby five seconds before cuts in, his baby face making a valiant attempt at being intimidating. “You are clearly in the wrong here. Don’t be rude.” The only reason why Chuuya does not laugh in his face it’s because he is incognito. “Also, isn’t it a school day? You should go back to class before your teacher notices you skipped”

“…”

Chuuya has never been more tempted to commit manslaughter. It would not even repercute on him if he did! There is no alliance with the ADA to hold him back, he’s disguised and rich enough to probably pay his way out on the worst case scenario, which won’t happen because there is no way to link him to the scene of the crime so-

No. Chuuya has left his bloody ways behind.  

“You know what?” He says, because he has also left his tendency to hold himself back from what he wants behind. Restraint is overrated. “I will get him myself”

Both the receptionist and the asshole make an attempt to stop him. Key word being attempt because, even though Armed is the first word that defines this detective agency, they are pathetically weak. They ended up tied and gagged in the closet. One of them may have a dislocated shoulder and a twisted ankle. On both legs, but details. 

(That should teach him. Chuuya, in high school? Skipping classes? He should have broken both legs and arms, why, how dare that weakling-!)

Of course, after doing that, Chuuya finds himself facing a chainsaw and the sharp eyes of the second most detestable person there. Also, for some reason, there is a real high schooler shaking a mallet at him threatening, not that Chuuya is worried about her. She seemed a little unhinged but definitively not a threat. Few people are, for him. 

The good news is that as hoped, Dazai isn’t there. 

The bad news is that the second worst detective ever takes a look at him and starts laughing his ass off. 

(It is so tempting to just…murder everyone in this room. So, so tempting. It would not even take a lot of effort, just enough gravity to imitate the pressure in the floor of the ocean when he found the giant crabs and he will make pancake mix out of these losers.)

“If it isn’t Mr. Fancy!” The asshole announces, as if he is not summoning the devil that way. Chuuya grits his teeth, and slowly lets the urge to murder go. It’s more difficult than he thought. As much as he has stopped killing, he has also lost the habit of restrain.

(Fuck, there was a reason why he didn’t want to go back to Yokohama initially. He’s backsliding right back into his worst habits already. Violence is the only natural response for him here. It was ingrained to what he was, what he did. His daily companion.)

“What,” says the woman with the chainsaw, “Mr. Fancy Mr. Fancy? Here of all places?” She sounds very skeptical of the fact which is very fair. Chuuya never wanted to get back here. “But why would he- He does know that Dazai works here, right?”

(Not if he has to say anything about it, though.)

Chuuya takes a deep breath. Relaxes. Tries to look as he has lowered down his guard as he puts his face mask down. 

“I’m not here for him,” he announces very clearly, dropping the mask now that he is discovered, “in fact, if you could not mention him to me at all, that would be welcome,” then he smiles . Not like a threat - this group has seen him threatening before and it did little to them (very foolish on their part, to be truthful, but also kind of brave, for potential pancake mix). He smiles to disarm, to charm. The way he has learned this year - with his whole face. Eyes squished, brows relaxed and a mouth with soft lips that hint at dimples. 

As a very synchronizated group the ADA blinks at him. They seem a little slow to the uptake, all of a sudden. It’s a weird side effect of his new kind of smile, but Chuuya is used to it. It is better than the former side effect to his smile, which was people literally pissing their pants. Dazai used to laugh at it, before, no matter how many times it already happened. It is, shamefully, the main reason why Chuuya kept doing it, even with the aftersmell. 

(It was almost a game, at the beginning of it, when their missions together where something more than gore and death. They made bets about it, and compared how many guys they made piss their pants. Looking back, Mori put an end to it. Chuuya used to think it was only normal, he was a boss trying to reign in a pair of overpowered unruly teenagers but now he wonders if that was all there was to it. 

Because missions with Dazai were frustrating, and messy and a completely unpredictable shitfest, but they were also fun , at the beginning.)

“ God , that was-” the high schooler begins, making Chuuya snap back from his thoughts. He makes sure to put on his most inoffensive face before interrupting the girl.

(It did not last.)

“But I do have come for someone,” Chuuya starts saying before he hears the subtle click of a door opening. He does not need to turn to know who will be at the other side of that door. His body is as annoyingly tuned to the presence of the other as ever. 

How disheartening. 

“Oh? Do tell” A voice - self-assured, smooth in the artificial impersonal way plastic surfaces are smooth, and so fucking annoying - purrs by his ear. Chuuya tries his best not to bristle but his smile is already gone. 

“No.” Chuuya says firmly, and turns to stare at his ex partner with confidence. It is not even fake, or the defensive iron wall he used to wear before, to avoid showing any weakness. Dazai eyes widen minutely when they register the stupid outfit he decided to wear in a anxiety-induced whim and Chuuya pauses at the sight of him. 

It’s annoying and he will never admit this out loud but back then when they were partners Chuuya got into this awful habit in which he carefully examines everything detail of Dazai’s appearance because-

His suicide talk was not only talk , once upon a time. Chuuya found him once, and only once, at the very beginning of their partnership. Wrists torn open, stare lost in the ceiling and a absent-minded smile on his face - so honest compared with his paper thin expressions, so relieved. He rushed to save him in time. Dazai, who until that moment was…not open, never that, but maybe careless with himself shut him out completely. And Chuuya, the desperate loyal dog he was, could do nothing but watch, out of his head with what he would never admit aloud was worry. He learn to make even the slightest hint of body movement into a language, to distinguish between the lies and the hidden hurt. In the end, all he could do was to stand watch while his partner deteriorated. To make sure he did not repeat the attempt to-

Either way, it was a stupid habit, one that has hurt a lot more than it has ever helped anyone and yet-

Dazai is paler than before, just a tad. Thinner, too, almost getting close to gaunt. His eyebags - those he normally hides with makeup, if only to hide a vulnerability - are more pronounced and he…he smells a little of sake, like a fading aftershave. His clothes are too messy for it to be artful or calculated and he has a stain on his coat. Even his bandages are looser than usual. 

Chuuya should not care. He should not care that Dazai is in the worst shape he has been since he was in the mafia. Hell, a year ago he would delight in his misfortune-

But he does. He still does care, somehow, despite everything. Mr Frankl had made him take on this awful habit of being honest with himself and he knows, he knows a year ago he would have not rested until he knew what was what plagues his ex partner. Then, once the damning information reached his hands-

“What is wrong with you?” Escapes his mouth before he can catch it. Frustrating. But not as frustrating as not knowing what had happened to him, to make him look this bad, or how he still worried about him, even if it was a waste of time. Worse of all, the uncertainty of what he would have done, if he knew what hurt him. Would he protect him, despite everything? “Don’t answer that”

…or would he harm him, just like he has been hurt, for the petty pleasure of it?

Because the damning truth of it, Chuuya thinks a little hysterically while watching as if something in Dazai’s hollow gaze seems to, if not lighten, then at least lift, is that Dazai is not the only one that has hurt the other in their partnership. 

(But he was, he was hurting all the time. Being Dazai’s partner was being his dog and it was so painful, so devastating . What does it matter, that his pain was echoed? Dogs don’t bite back, but Chuuya has never really been a dog, has he?)

“Oh?” Dazai smiles, as empty yet dramatic as ever, and draws close enough (…down enough, fuck him) that their noses are almost touching. “Is the big bad slug worried about little old me?” He pouts, all childish dramatics and 5D chess moves, “or are you a kitty now?”

(What does it matter, if he hurt Dazai? He deserves it)

Chuuya takes a sharp breath, to get more air to shout, and then stops. Frowns. He wants to shout his head off - but he doesn’t have to, he realizes. Maybe it’s because he is not stressed all the time anymore, or constantly angry, but the urge to explode and shout, the undeniable want of beating that smug face to the ground…the debilitating loss of rationality…well. It’s not gone. He can feel it, under the surface, like an itch under his skin but it’s no longer overwhelming.  He can ignore it, suppress it, chose to not to act upon it and it’s- 

(He deserves it, for all that he did to Chuuya)

For the first time, he is not just reacting to an already written script - he is in control of himself. Dazai’s rule no longer controls him. 

(Right?)

“Not very much, no,” Chuuya says, distracted. He doesn’t look at Dazai.

(But what does it matter, anyway, if he had hurt him in the past? Chuuya has left all of this behind. He is no longer part of soukoku.)

How liberating . 

Overtaken by giddiness, Chuuya lets himself smile without care and turns to his old partner with a glint of mischief in his eyes.

“Just a little bit worried,” he teases, drawing his fingers close until they almost touch. He is completely at ease, which only makes the situation more amusing. 

Because Dazai’s floundering. His eyes are so wide they absorb his entire face face, light enough in their surprise to look almost sweet, like milk chocolate, and he doesn’t seem to breathe. For a glorious, short yet eternal moment, Dazai, the Scrooge of the underground, no matter the color of his stripes, looks completely confused, out of his depth. Then calculation sets in, and all innocence is shed in favor of an intense, calculating man that-

Chuuya remembers. It’s a mistake, to be this careless with this man. Has Chuuya learned nothing? He will find any weakness, exposed or otherwise, and poke at them until he reaches the nerve. Then, when the pain is a sure, invisible thing he bites down. He leaves no trace, no wound, no lasting damage.

(But it hurts. It always, always hurts.

No longer.)

“I admit, you are very good,” Dazai chuckles, a dark warning that has most of the office tensing, but Chuuya only tilts his head to the side. He is more curious than scared of Dazai, always has been. “You almost had me fooled, but that last thing?” He clicks his tongue in fake disapproval, “you showed your hand too soon,-”

“You think I’m a fake” Chuuya deadpans

Dazai puts his finger up, like a teacher correcting a favorite student. It’s not as irritating as usual, because he is so wrong he is almost being funny. 

“A very good one, actually, I’m almost impressed, which is a very hard thing to-”

Sadly, Chuuya is no longer a dog learning tricks for his old master, all but salivating for praise. 

“Anyway.” he turns to the other person that accompanied his deranged ex-partner. “I’m here for you”

There is a beat of silence, only interrupted by the sound of people eating popcorn and badly muffling their laughter. Ugh , no wonder Dazai left the Mafia for this shabby place, they have the same lame taste in jokes as him.   

“M-me!?” Said person shrieks loudly, pointing at his chest as if to ask Chuuya is he is sure. 

“Yes, you .” Chuuya rolls his eyes

“But, but,” Sushi splutters, looking half as if his brain is exploding and half as if he were to fall in a dead faint in a heartbeat. “…why?” he whispers, loudly. Chuuya resists the temptation to roll his eyes or snap again, in the name of his cooperation.

“I need you,” he says simply. The kid shrieks loudly as if he almost stolen his soul, and starts to tremble. 

“To kill me, right?” He asks with desperation. Chuuya has been in torture sessions with people less eager to convince him of what they are saying. “Or, or to kidnap me, yes? Something nefarious like that??”

He is also throwing increasingly more scared glances at where his (suspiciously silent) ex-partner is being generally shady at. Chuuya doesn’t turn, he is not interested in whatever he is doing. He smiles to himself. 

(He is more tempted to turn and shout at Dazai how insignificant he is to him now, to show him as pettily as possible how over him he is, how well he is doing without him)

“No,” Chuuya raises an eyebrow rather judgmentally, but the giddiness in his chest makes it hard to wear a frown, “I am not a mafia executive anymor-”

(But that would be terribly childish, and it’s below him anyway. Like stupidly showing Dazai the broken links of the chain that used to go to his neck. To his deranged old partner, just asking for him to chain the links back)

“Ah, I understand know” says the (stupid) receptionist, hosting her palm with her fist. Chuuya had been vaguely aware when the ADA let her and the other one outside of the closet and vaguely regrets letting them do it. “So, when you said you wanted Sushi, you were using a cutesy nickname!”

C-cu…cutesy nickname? 

Chuuya feels how his eyes get wide and his cheeks redden against his will at the sudden unexpected attack. Is…is this his kitten sweatshirt fault? Is his outfit so kawaii people are just assuming that everything related to him is now cute? 

“What the f- lady, that is his name!”

Chuuya is not cute. He is badass and beautiful. Like a force of nature.

…Foolproof kawaii disguise aside, that is.  

“It’s not, though?” Apparently not-sushi tilts his head to the side.

Chuuya frowns. 

“It’s not?” His confusion vanishes among the familiar sensation that preludes murder. His smile becomes tight. His intelligence was faulty. Ah, it has been a long time since this has felt this, the sting of betrayal. Incorrect information could only mean a snitch, and there was only one way to deal with those: instant extermination. 

Being betrayed is discouraging, but not as discouraging as betraying Chuuya will be, once he gets his hands on them. After all, he was one of the best executives of the maf-

“Wait.” Chuuya suddenly stops, “what do you do if someone betrays you and murder is no longer an option?”

“…so you can take the man out of the mafia-”

“I like to outsource it,” Dazai interrupts Not-sushi. He sounds almost normal again, which is great, because then Chuuya can pretend he didn’t notice the extra fakeness of his cheer. In return, he graciously considers his words. 

“Huh”, so this is what it feels like when you have the power to order the murders. It is a rather…vapid feeling. No wonder people can order massacres so easily, it’s nothing like the real thing. “Nice to know”

“Please don’t outsource your murders, that is illegal and we will have to arrest you,” cults in a smooth woman’s voice. Chuuya eyes her - it is the doctor, the one with the chainsaw. Probably, outside of him and the preppy guy with the glasses, the strongest fighter here. 

“Ha,” Chuuya smirks at her. She is wearing the perfume he announced last, and his smirks takes a sultrier edge. The promise of what it’s to come, “as if you could catch me”

The woman smirks back, the (blood) lust returned and mixed with a challenge.

“Don’t mind if I do,” her voice has lowered with just a hint of raspiness. Ah, how sweet, she is even softly caressing her chainsaw in a double mimick of what she intends to do to him. It’s almost enough to make this interesting. 

“No!” Dazai suddenly throws himself in the middle of them to start wailing, “whatever this is? It’s not allowed, not allowed at all!!”

And just like that, his interest is gone. It is a pity, because the woman - Yosano according to his untrustable source- was flirting back. Chuuya likes it. Flirting is fun, and mostly harmless - also, according to his coworkers, a basic skill of a model. Logically, Chuuya has become a master at it. 

(And no matter what Morishige or Shirase say, his flirting habits are not violent urges badly masked. Chuuya is a grown man, he knows the difference between fighting and flirting.)

“Anyway, Sushi, weretiger, whoever the fuck you are,” Chuuya returns to the reason why he bothered to enter Dazai’s current haunting place, “I want you”

It’s a pity he can’t continue flirting, he rarely indulges. 

(For some reason, people tend to get really nervous when he flirts. Shirase says because he is scary, which duh, but Morishige says it’s because Chuuya flirts like a deranged madman that only speaks on threats.)

“…please don’t say things like that, every time you do I lose years of life,” the weretiger whispers and Chuuya rolls his eyes, completely exasperated by his nonsensical dramatics

“So?” He asks him, still trying to be considerate. He needs the weretiger, “if you want those years so bad, I can give them back to you”

His manager (not Shirase, his actual competent manager, Arakawa-san) has heavily advised him to stop his consideration. It caused too many misunderstandings, for some reason. 

“Is…was that a confession? Did he just confess to Atsushi? Atsushi? ” The high schooler with a mallet is not even bothering to whisper. She is talking normally, to his still tied up brother. Chuuya frowns lightly. Those were not the knots he sent him into the closet with. They look very pretty, even if they are very impractical and time-wasting. 

“I hope not. He’ll be brutally killed otherwise”, the tied-up brother answers, pretty comfy despite the restraints. Dior proposed him a similar photo shot where he would be tied up, for his new perfume ‘golden captivity’ but he had already signed up with Jean-paul’s ‘Sinful Divinity’, the one that Yosano is wearing. 

Maybe he can call him after he finishes with Versace’s.

“Tanizaki-kun,” said Atsushi rather weakly, “please don’t joke like that.”

“His name is Najashima Atsushi, slug, and I want him back in one piece”, Dazai cuts in, sounding more serious that he usually is, 95% of the time, “he is my precious menteé, after all,” he ditches the seriousness immediately, “and I still has so much to teach him~”

Chuuya side-eyes him. Dazai is poking the weretiger, acting as if he’s paying Chuuya no attention at all. Chuuya refrains from making a face. Ugh . 

He just knows that stupid mackerel is planning something just as fishy as he is. 

Atsushi has not decided what sort of afterlife he believes it’s true. Has he done good enough to reach the heavens? Is he damned to hell? Or is he just an incarnation of a soul, forever caught in the cycle of life? Normally, Atsushi is not a very philosophical person with no time for this kind of existential questions, but the answer of this question in particular has become more imperative at this point of his life. 

You see, Atsushi is very sure he is going to die very soon. Maybe before the day ends. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe in a week. Whatever the timing, death is imminent. 

Najashima Atsushi withholds a sigh at the unfairness of existence. Oh well. 

He better make the best of the time he has left. 

“Fuck!”, his probable executioner #1 shouts at nothing the moment they are out of the street, “I forgot about my plan!”

Atsushi tries to bite his tongue to avoid asking about said plan. The misterious plan. The plan he had, their former enemy-turned-into-ambiguous-ally, about the ADA. He really, really tried. 

“Plan? What plan?”

Atsushi failed. 

In his defense, though, it is hard to not ask things or be curious about things or be swayed by the necessity to know all the details about things when that was literally his job description . So maybe, for normal standards he was being rude or something. However, to detective standards, he was just being normal.

“And what is it to you, weretiger?” Nakahara Chuuya's previously dazzling blue eyes turn forbidding. They are as pretty as before, but instead of the cloudless sky, the endless blue is more like a tsunami about to crash into you, so big and unstoppable you can no longer see anything but death. 

“Um,” Atsushi swallowed., “that, I was just…”, no wonder Dazai-San (aka his probable executioner  #2) was such a good detective, their standards required you to be activately suicidal. “Curious?”

Nakahara stared at him for a bit. Atsushi was not going to last till dinner, never mind a week. He has been too ambitious. He was dying today. Now. 

Goodbye world , Atsushi despaired inside his mind, where he was safe, I’ll miss eating chasuke most of all.

“Ah right,” Nakahara blinked the natural disaster away, “I forgot being curious is practically your job”, he shrugged easily and Atsushi could breathe normally again. “Speaking of jobs, I have one for you. Have you ever modeled?”

There was a noise in the back of Atsushi’s mind, nails on a classroom board with ‘poaching season’ written on one side and ‘never-ending chasuke’ written in the other. Dazai-San was smiling at him cheerfully with a ruler that shined like a blade and asking him to choose. 

“N-no!” Atsushi shouted, “I am very flattered you consider me handsome enough to be a model, but I am loyal to the ADA!”

There was a beat. If one paid attention to Yokohama background noise, one could heard someone narcissist enough to call himself the best detective in the world on a daily basis laughing his head off. 

“Believe me, with brains like those, they can afford to lose you”, Nakahara-san deadpanned. Atsushi tried not to feel more out of touch than insulted and failed. “I need a tiger for a new photoshop and for some stinking reason,” Nakahara’s face twitched, “there are no other tigers available in Yokohama.”

“Ah”, Atsushi sweated a bit, and wisely decided to not tell the ADA’s disastrous encounter with all zoos, pet stores and natural reservations in Yokohama. “That’s so…”

“Stop right there”, Nakahara put a hand before his face, “I’m not dumb, I am perfectly aware that shitty mentor of yours is involved but do I give a single fuck for him or his pretentious plans?”

Atsushi winced a bit, and tried not to marvel at Nakahara’s intuition in everything regarding his partner. He had managed to deduce more than Atsushi had, even, and he was not even in Japan at the time of the incidents! Soukoku teamwork, even as enemies, even as broken up…or whatever the equivalent is partners, is truly unmatched. 

“The answer is no, Sushi, I do not”

“Um, I already told you that my name is not Sushi?” Atsushi grasped for something safe to say in the minefield that was soukoku dramatics. He has been shot enough (not!!) rubber bullets to know better. And Dazai-San was his mentor, he was (somewhat, hopefully) invested in his future.

Who knew what Nakahara Chuuya, ex-executive of the mafia and the most lethal fighter of it, could do to him. 

“Yeah, it’s a cutesy nickname now,” Nakahara declared loudly , staring intensely at his eyes, “the very first cutesy nickname that I have given anybody. You better treasure it.”

Nope, scratch that, the bigger worry here it’s what Dazai-San is going to do to him, definitively. 

Atsushi's ongoing$ nightmares about his imminent and brutally gruesome death are interrupted by a muffled shout that comes out of what seems to be a bag of garbage. He stares. It’s a big bag, and it looks like it’s moving. 

“Tch, they have really let themselves go without me here, huh,” the ex mafia executive declares in a very despective manner. “What kind of half-hearted corpse disposal is this?”

On further consideration, Atsushi's ongoing nightmares are not interrupted but instead replaced by a brand new sort of nightmares now. Who knew an ex-mafia could get so dark so casually?

(Atsushi, whose own mentor is ex-mafia black and cannot last a day without talking about death in some explicit way, usually his own, definitively knew this)

“Should we not, like, um, help the obvious victim in the body bag?” Atsushi says quietly, from where he is staying very silent and very still, to prevent anyone from the temptation of putting him in a body bag and then threw him into the trash. From a practical point of view, this is very inefficient. From a metaphorical point of view, however, it’s brutal . 

“Ah, that’s right!” Nakahara said, hitting his fist on his palm. With that innocent expression and the uncharacteristic outfit, it makes him look like a little kid, “I don’t do body disposals anymore”

Atsushi swallows with some difficulty. What a terrifying little kid. 

Nonetheless, he follows the adult to the (still screaming through what probably is a muffle) body bag and does not jump or squeak when Nakahara brings out a huge serrated knife out of seemingly nowhere and starts cutting the bag open. They were right, it was a person.

A very much alive, muffled person. Atsushi squints. It looked even familiar, has he met him?

“Shirase?” Nakahara exclaims after seeing the not-corpse, then he smirks. It’s looks mean and very pretty, “so that’s where you went. Ha, what a loser”

“Nakahara-San, you know him?” Atsushi asks, trying to get a better look at the person’s face. It’s a little bruised and a lot disheveled, so it’s hard to see the factions. Also, it’s kind of difficult to look at another person when Nakahara is sharpening his own beauty like that. 

“Yeah, this is my shitty PA,” Nakahara says, distracted by the phone on his hand. Atsushi frowns a little at how unhurried he seems. It’s seems pretty uncaring, but maybe that’s Atsushi’s fault for expecting something out of someone that spent years in the higher post of the mafia. 

“Arakawa-san? You can call off the search party,” the severe and professional tone of Nakahara cuts him off, “yeah, I have found Shirase” Atsushi grimaces, a little ashamed of himself. Maybe Atsushi’s prejudices against the mafia had conditioned him to see Nakahara Chuuya under a very violent and terrifying lens.

Internally berating himself, Atsushi smiles and starts to unravel the very long rope Shirase was knotted under like a pretzel. 

“It’s okay now, we are going to get you help and-”

“What he was doing? Oh” Nakahara gaze locks on Shirase dirty and battled form, still thrown about in the trash and makes the very pretty smirk from before, “he was visiting family”

Atsushi gasps. That was so mean!

“You are right, Arakawa-san, that was so rude of him,” far from being done, Nakahara continues his verbal beatdown to a person who was already beaten. “Maybe he missed home. He certainly looks as if he’s where he belongs now,” he was merciless!

“Chuuya!” Shirase, finally free from his muzzle, whines loudly at the man who is both his angry boss and an ex-executive of the mafia. “How long are you going to hold the past over my head? I already said I was sorry!”

Atsushi looks at the (familiar) tie on his hand that had been used as a muzzle and side-eyes Nakahara’s expression. He puts the muzzle back on

“This is for your own good, believe me”, he tells the man as kindly as he can. The man stares back hatefully, but also terrified out of his mind. Something in the back of Atsushi’s mind connects, “ah! I remember you now!” Then he frowns, “but why was your name different before? Nakahara-san, I think this man is not you PA”

“Oh?” Nakahara raises a perfectly groomed eyebrow. Atsushi’s metaphorical tiger's ear twitches. Why are all his expressions so beautiful? No wonder he is Japan’s top model!

“Yes.” Atsushi nonetheless nods eagerly. Dazai-san can never know a small part of him wants to impress the other half of soukoku with his detective skills. “This is a very dangerous individual, a mass murderer, if I recall right! And also, his name is not Shirase, it’s Shit Ase!”

Nakahara’s other eyebrow slowly rises to match up its twin. He has even opened his mouth in amazed surprise, that’s how much Atsushi’s skill has impressed him. Then the man speaks

“So even the ADA has their pity hires?” He says lightly, and Atsushi’s dreams and illusions deflate like a balloon. Nakahara sighs like an exasperated parent and starts walking away, “You moron, what kind of detective can’t recognize his shitty co-worker’s scheme when it’s right in front of you?”

Atsushi gapes but doesn’t hesitate to follow. Shirase lays where they found them, and Atsushi feels a little bad for leaving him there, so he quickly sends Kyoka a text. She’ll know what to do.

“This is part of Dazai’s plan then?” He asks, reaching Nakahara-San, “but we are not working on a case right now!”

Nakahara Chuuya does not change his indifferent, if exasperated, expression but suddenly he looks very tired. Like a teenager that spent the whole week without sleep because he was playing video games at night. 

(It’s not Atsushi’s fault if Nakahara’s outfit makes him look so young and harmless. It is not!

…but it’s very cute, and that the cat of the hoodie is a white tiger does not make it any less adorable)

“I just know this plan involves me” Nakahara exhales a long breath, “argh! I already hate it!” he exclaims, eyes blazing. “This is why I didn’t want to come here, that guy always-” he takes several deep breaths, very regular, as if his he were counting the time spent on every intake and outtake of air. “It doesn’t matter anyway”

Atsushi bites his lips. He has definitively tempted fate enough today to speak carelessly now, and yet he finds he doesn’t want to stop himself. 

“I think it’s because he missed you”, he says, trying not to wince under the weight of Nakahara’s intense eyes. Forget about Tsunamis, they are nothing compared to the infinite pressure they hint at now. “It’s true!” He adds on defensely, “Dazai-San has been sad since you left! The day he heard you came back was the first time in a long time that I saw him-”

“He doesn’t deserve this kind of loyalty, you know?” Chuuya cuts him off, and for all that he looks forbidding, he also looks melancholic, “he is no capable of returning it”

Atsushi frowns back. 

“That’s not true, and even if it were, I am not asking him to!” He says, “I know Dazai-San is not the…easiest person to get along with, or to understand. I don’t really understand him at all even now but” Atsushi tries to put what he observed in words, “Nakahara-San is special to him”

Atsushi is kind of afraid of what would happen if the Nakahara Chuuya truly gets angry at him, but he also could not keep quiet. Not when Nakahara said those kind of things about his mentor. 

“It doesn’t matter,” it’s all that Nakahara says after a tense silence. He doesn’t sound angry nor sad. Maybe resigned, but lighter. “This past year…I have changed a lot. I am not the same person who was no longer content with scraps and orders from the people in my life. I want it all, or I want nothing. Do you understand what I am saying?”

The thing is, Atsushi does. 

It’s sad, and heartbreaking, and maybe beautiful too, in the way a goodbye can be beautiful. Because what Nakahara is asking is not hard, but not a person like Dazai-San. Not to a person who can’t say what he wants, or speak honestly at all. But still, still, Nakahara Chuuya is not a stranger to Dazai. If Atsushi can sometimes understand why his mentor does what he does, then Nakahara surely does too. They are soukoku, they understand each other like no one else does. 

Dazai-San is not a demonstrative person, but his actions these past years, even before Nakahara-San left, speak for themselves. When he is in Nakahara-San presence, Dazai-san gets into childish arguments over nothing, and teases and cajole him all the time, as if he could not stand if Nakahara’s attention was not on him. It’s not his usual antics either, even if they are similar enough. It’s more. Maybe that’s it, that Dazai-san is just more when he is with Nakahara-San. 

Above all that, Dazai-San is the person who saved him, who saw something worthwhile in Atsushi. He owes a lot to him. Is it bad, for Atsushi to want his mentor to be happy? Is it selfish, to try and get him his happiness?

“I still think you should give Dazai-San a chance.” Atsushi says, “he might surprise you”

 Nakahara-San doesn’t hesitate before he answer

“And why should I?” He asks, “why should I put his supposed feelings and wants before my own? I told you, I’m not interested in being a dog anymore”

Atsushi is not sure if Nakahara-San or Dazai-San really know what a dog is, because they say that sentence on and on like it means another thing than it does. 

“Weretiger”, Nakahara-San tells him seriously, having stopped walking before a door of one of the tallest buildings in Yokohama, “I have answered your very personal and intrusive questions out of courtesy, but I don’t owe you answers. Now transform, we have a photo shoot to attend’’

Atsushi sweat drops at the sudden change of conversation, but agrees easily enough. He transforms into a tiger and gets to work.