Chapter Text
Hungry work can mean several things. Some take it at face value, believing that they must work without getting anything in return. Others perceive hunger as a form of passion driver: when you want to do something right, you must be hungry for it. Chuuya believes he’s the only one who understands this metaphor correctly. Getting to know him requires patience. Every word exchanged with him returns as a dagger thrown at your heart. Being with him is walking a minefield in hopes of growing roses in it.
Loving him is hungry work.
Dazai, too, lived a happy life once.
He had everything they thought he could have dreamt of: a beautiful wife, a child, a home to come back to, someone’s hand to caress his head in his sleep; a job he liked doing; a place in the world that could be rightfully called his own. He deluded himself so deeply into believing that he valued everything he had that, when the time came to bid farewell to it, his heart never broke like it should have, which made him think he’d never had one in the first place.
First, his wife. Then, his job. Everyone and everything was disappearing in a rapid succession until it was just him left, standing alone in the middle of an empty room, wearing his grief like an ironed suit, his mourning on his sleeves for the world to see, except no one wanted to look at him anymore, squeamish like overfed stray cats, people turned away from him, not knowing what to say to a man they used to envy, the one that was suddenly left with less than nothing, less than he’d been once brought into the world with. Jealousy turned into pity, and Dazai hated being pitied. He’d rather be dead.
And now, his daughter. His sweet little princess, who took everything best after her mother, the only meaningful string left connecting Dazai with the rest of the world. Without her, there’s scarcely any purpose in his existence left. Dazai had promised he would give her a happy life, even though he’d never loved her mother; he’d never really loved anyone he knew, but her… He would teach himself to love just like people tend to love their most meaningful parts.
“So, you’re claiming that Sara was at school yesterday and then, at a random moment, she just… disappeared?” Kunikida Doppo, his ex-partner at work and someone he could call a good friend once, is giving him this signature look of “I can’t believe you’ve gotten even deeper into shit than you were before.”
“She didn’t disappear,” Dazai leans closer to him over the desk and lowers his voice to a whisper. “She was kidnapped. I saw the CCTV footage from the school’s yard, and it looked like a ghost snatched her away. One second she’s there, I blink, and there’s no trace of her.”
Kunikida, who’s been holding his hands above the keyboard for a solid minute, without typing, places them in his lap as he leans back in his chair. He takes his glasses off and draws in a deep breath as he wipes the lenses with a piece of cleaning cloth. “If you want to take this matter to the Agency, I have bad news for you. There’s no way anyone would agree to help, not after what you did.”
“Kunikida, that’s my child we’re talking about,” Dazai is balancing on a thin blade that is the limit of his sanity; he hasn’t slept for thirty hours; he consumed so many tranquillisers over the past day they might as well put his face in some anti-addiction social ad; he can’t eat, drink, or think, and he probably needs a good shower. If the Agency doesn’t help him, then no one else in Yokohama can. “What if they are torturing her? Or killing her? Or worse? ”
“Listen, as much as I want to help, the boss-”
“Fuck the boss. It’s not our first time doing something behind his back, is it?”
“You’re talking like I’ve already agreed on whatever your plan is. Wait, what exactly is your plan?”
Ideally, trace the kidnapper down and kill them, as swiftly and cleanly as possible. Almost nothing in Dazai’s professional streak has ever been ideal, so he expects complications; it’s just human to have them, after all, but with Kunikida and other folks from the Agency by his side, he has less of a chance to fuck things up.
“I think that whoever we’re looking at is an ability user.”
Kunikida crosses his arms over his chest and hums. “That kinda goes without saying. Is there anything else? What kind of an ability just makes people disappear out of the blue? Is it offensive? Defensive? Complementary? What if it’s a subsidiary to the main ability, which is much worse? What if it’s an amalgamation of many abilities? What if they work as a group?”
“A group of ability users to seize a six-year-old is…”
“Strange, yes. Unless Sara has an ability of hers as well.”
“She doesn’t,” Dazai says it too fast and almost bites his tongue. Now Kunikida gives him a weird look, showing that he has no trust in his claim whatsoever, which is fair.
Ability users rarely birth mortals, and Sara is not one either, but disclosing the truth would equal helping them point a gun at her chest, a child who hasn’t quite got a hold of her ability at such a tender age being a perfect target for power suckers, those bloodthirsty little roaches who crawl the streets at night, eager to steal the abilities of those who don’t know how or refuse to use them. Dazai knew about the risks and warned Sasaki multiple times, but she was adamant: Sara will go to a normal school, with normal kids, and live a normal life. Now, there is no point in blaming Sasaki for what happened, even if Dazai’s worst theory is true; not when she’s been long six feet under, wilted out and burnt by cancer in weeks, the nastiest and most ruthless of human diseases.
“If she’s not an ability user, then this story makes a really strange twist. Why would someone just kidnap a human child in broad daylight, with so many witnesses around? Unless it was urgent and inevitable, and we both know too well about your endless list of enemies.”
“No one has ever gone after my daughter before,” Dazai says, looking down at a half-used piece of an eraser he’s been fiddling with for the past minute. “I’d rather they’d gone after me. I would die a thousand times to protect Sara from everything there’s out there.”
Kunikida is silent for some time, just looking at him, unimpressed; then, he takes his glasses off again and puts them aside on the desk. “You’ve changed a lot since you left. It’s like you got more…”
He never finishes the sentence, but Dazai thinks he knows the word he’s looking for. Human. He’s definitely become more human after he sequestered himself from the endless murders, investigations, trials, and criminal cases; doing justice ended up even heavier on him, morally, than anything else he’d been through. Although he doesn’t work for the Agency anymore, he hasn’t for a long time now, this place still holds a handful of grudges, which Dazai would call dramatic if they weren’t partly justified. After all, he failed his very last mission on purpose, just so he could have grounds to leave; now, the killer is still somewhere there, free as the wind, not prosecuted due to the lack of evidence, which Dazai had conveniently disposed of. Everyone in the Agency knows, but it’s a secret to the public: who would want to have their reputation tarnished in such a way? You see, our detective lost his mind and assisted the suspect in escaping justice. That would have made headlines too fast if not for Fukuzawa, who put the Agency above everything else, even above honour.
This being said, the ADA has every right to want Dazai off the face of Earth, but getting rid of him would only add more fuel to the fire. At the same time, Dazai is sure that, had he enough audacity to show up at the doorstep of Fukuzawa’s office right now, he would probably never walk out of there alive.
“Kunikida. Will you help me or not?”
“It’s like you weren’t even in the room for the past fifteen minutes.” Kunikida has now stood up and approached the window on the opposite wall, looking out of it, resting his eyes. “Even if I had the right, how could I possibly help you?”
That’s the easier part. “I need a gun. And some brains. But from you, mostly, a gun.”
“That’s how you talk to someone contemplating whether to save your ass or not?”
“Not my ass, partner. I’m asking you to help me save my daughter. You might hold your grudges against me, but Sara is innocent; she did nothing wrong. And she might be closer to death with every second we spend here talking instead of looking for her.”
To Kunikida, making a gun is a matter of a minute. It’s like tying his shoelaces or adding an extra spoonful of sugar into his morning coffee; he just needs to draw a nice little picture in his notebook, and Dazai will get what he’s asking for. It will cost him nothing at all, and to Dazai, it will be a big change, a step forward in the case.
“Everything I create using my ability is tracked down by the Agency. By Fukuzawa himself, to be more precise. The second I make a gun that’s undeclared in the files without a direct request from the boss or one of the executives, with the boss’s prior approval, there will be questions. I’m not going to risk my job like that.”
“Can’t you create a non-traceable gun or something? Or lend me yours? It’s not gonna take long once I have a weapon, I promise.”
“How do you know that the one you’re looking for is not invincible to human weapons? What if the only way you can kill them is with an equally strong or a stronger ability?”
Dazai did consider that. If this is true, then he’s doomed, because his ability is not in any way suitable for attack; for defence, maybe, it can be perfect in making anyone shit their pants from helplessness; however, he can’t do much with it on his own, and he doesn’t count on any external help. Therefore, a simple human gun would be a nice kickstart, and from there, he’ll see how things go.
“Listen,” Kunikida breathes out at last. “For now, I can only wish you luck with your search and tell you to get your ass out of here. The lunch break’s over, which means that the others will be here any minute.” He doesn’t look at him as he speaks, actively typing something out on his phone instead.
At this point, Dazai doesn’t even care. The Agency, particularly Kunikida, was his first and last resort; without this gun, he’s practically helpless. He could try to get one from the black market, yes, but that would take considerably longer than just borrowing it from his former workplace. He’s chin-deep in the shit, and there’s barely any sunlight seen from here.
Outside, Dazai is on the verge of punching things. He dives into the nearest alleyway and leans against the wall, biting his cheek from the inside until it bleeds; there must be somewhere, someone, something he hasn’t thought of. The police? A mere thought of going to the precinct makes him laugh at its stupidity; the police are nothing against ability users, it has been proven a thousand times in Dazai’s experience only. For an ideal scenario, he needs a clear picture of what is going on and who is behind it, at least a vague understanding of where Sara might be held, a solid weapon, and someone smart, and he doesn’t mean book-smart or good at solving basic murder cases, he’s talking a real genius who could look at the case once and connect all the dots like there’s nothing even to connect in the first place. Dazai glances at his watch. Another hour has passed, and he’s achieved nothing. The longer he lags behind, the farther he is from finding out the truth.
“Kunikida told me you need my help?” Dazai opens his eyes and turns his head to the voice.
“Ranpo?” Talk genius. He’s standing there, wearing his usual trench coat even in a thirty-degree heat, and chewing on a handful of sour candy rings, those peach-and-apple flavoured that Dazai used to hate with his whole heart, but still bought them for Sara from time to time. “What are you doing here?”
“What does it look like?” His hand dives into the pack for another handful of gummies. “Kunikida texted me just five minutes ago and said that you showed up at the office and that your daughter’s in danger. He said you needed a gun and some brains.”
Dazai smiles; from relief, he knows. “So, do you have a spare gun?”
Just ten minutes later, they are sitting at a cafeteria across the road, deserted at this time of the day. Dazai is sipping on sparkling water with ice and a quarter of a lemon, while Ranpo is having the biggest marshmallow cocoa he could find on the menu, knowing too well that Dazai would pay their bill; it’s not like he has much of a choice. “Sara got kidnapped,” Dazai thinks that if he has to tell this story at least one more time, he might as well smash his head against the nearest wall. “I have a CCTV recording that doesn’t tell me much except that it was definitely an ability user’s doing. I have inspected the entire area multiple times and found nothing else, no trace whatsoever. They even stole her school backpack. There’s nothing left of what was on her on that day.”
“Right,” Ranpo replies like he hears hundreds of similar stories every day and puts his free hand, the one that’s not holding a paper straw, trying to catch as many marshmallows from the bottom of the cup as possible, on the table, his palm up. “Give me that CCTV and a couple of days. I’ll dig up everything I can.”
Dazai doesn’t have the guts to tell him that he might not have even one full day, let alone a couple of them. He mustn’t scare away the only possibility he has to get some actual help; he’s in an unfavourable position, and if it’s a game of poker, he’s holding the losing hand. “Here,” he says, retrieving the flash drive from his pocket and putting it into Ranpo’s palm. He takes it and hides it in his pocket without even sparing it a single look. “Why are you helping me?”
Ranpo takes his sweet time chewing and swallowing a bunch of marshmallows before answering. “You saved my life once, on a mission. You stopped the guy from killing me with your ability. Now, I owe you one, even though you left like a coward, and the entire Agency, myself included, hates your guts.”
“Ranpo, I-”
“I will only do what I promised and nothing more,” Ranpo cuts him off with a warning glance. “So go and get your gun from somewhere else,” he thinks for a second before adding, “Also, consider a shower.”
Dazai finishes his water in one gulp and thuds the empty glass against the table. “Deal.”
He does take a shower once he comes back to his apartment; he even shaves his face and cooks himself a proper meal, as proper as it can be in his current state anyway. Then, as the sun is slowly slipping down to the horizon, he gets dressed, sits down on the sofa in the living room, opens his laptop, and starts planning out his next big trespass. From the photograph on a coffee table, through the dusty glass, Sara is looking at him with her kind doe eyes, a better part of him, the person Dazai will never become again.
“Hang in there, little one,” he whispers as he smiles back at her. “I’m gonna get you back, even from the underworld.”
The place he ends up in the same evening is nothing short of an underworld, a dark building towering over the rest of the port, something that mortals tend to perceive as another unremarkable business centre, if only a bit creepier than the rest of them. Dazai takes his car to the Port Mafia headquarters at night, knowing too well that his means of defence are scarce. He has his ability, a printout with all the CCTV cameras and security checkpoints mapped, and a kitchen knife he uses to cut his morning toast under his belt. He doesn’t know what he’s doing here, but it’s about the last place he can still seek some hope in; the hope is shaped as a revolver gun with six bullet slots, a nice long rifle, or even a bow; he would take anything offered at this point, but nothing is offered unless he takes it by force. And this is how he starts the infiltration.
The Agency used to do business with the Mafia in the past; the executives knew other executives, although they were at each other’s throats on most days; during the little time that was left, they either drank together or fucked, or both. Dazai was always just a silent observer, but it was enough to learn about all the secret tunnels and entrances; with the little luck he has, unless they’ve changed and relocated everything over the years, he might actually find the armoury sooner than anyone finds him. He also took his sweet time digging around on Kunikida’s well-organised desk while he wasn’t looking, and managed to retrieve his old Port Mafia ID from the card holder, the one he’ll likely never use again.
He goes in through the back door used to upload and unload guns, bills, gems, and corpses; snaking along a narrow, dark corridor, he uses the flashlight on his phone to read the map as he walks. The place is dead silent, so much so that it’s almost alarming; Dazai rolls up his sleeves and braces himself for a possible fight when he crawls up a flight of stairs, using neon signs on the walls as his only path markers, and slows down when he hears remote voices approaching him. Cursing under his breath, he stops next to the closed door leading to the floor, hoping that the guards walking on the other side will bypass him. He counts down from a hundred in his head to calm down. He holds his breath as the voices grow closer and closer.
“So, what’s the boss going to do with the freaks?”
“Dunno, man, when does anyone think about this scum? At this point, my fart can kill more men than their so-called abilities.”
A sequence of laughs, each one louder and more annoying than the last. Dazai counts at least three. Right as they pass by the closed door, clanking their guns and thudding their heavy boots against the carpeted floor, he closes his eyes and prays to whoever is up there. Prayer has rarely ever helped him, but at times like this, it makes him feel bolder than he really is. Once the voices die out in the depths of the floor, he slides the ID down the security slot, grabs the doorknob and turns it slowly, trying not to make a sound as he dives from the darkness out into the light. He finds himself in a long, carmine-coloured corridor, covered in velvet carpets; he glances both ways and down at his map, trying to locate the armoury. If he’s lucky enough, he will get what he came for without fuss; quietly and cleanly like a jeweller, this is what he aims for.
Typically, the Port Mafia won’t be so stupid as to keep all of its guns in the same place. However, there must be at least something in here, some sort of emergency stock, and Dazai is intended to turn into a thief for the night. He needs to walk forward, take a turn left, then a turn right, and the armoury will be behind a heavy metal door; a vault, more precisely, and he’ll just have to figure out the code. Maybe he would be able to torture it out from one of the guards by neutralising their ability first. If only the guards at the Mafia still carried normal human guns around, then it would be so much easier for Dazai to finish his business here without getting his hands bloody.
Three doors from the armoury, he pauses in the middle of the hallway, stopped by the sound of someone’s steps, heavy and fast, getting closer with every second. Dazai stuffs the map and the phone into his pocket and glances around, trying to find anything he can use to hide. There are no curtains on the windows, only blinds; he tries several doors, at his own risk, but all of them are locked. The steps grow even faster, and at this point, it feels like someone is running exactly towards him. Dazai is not panicked, not yet; his breath is just slightly uneasy; if the deity from above loves him, it won’t be one of the executives: perhaps, just a lame little soldier alerted by the feeling of an intruder’s presence, and Dazai will neutralise him faster than he’ll get to blink.
Once a door opens at the farther end of the corridor, Dazai realises he’s trapped.
“Fuck,” he mutters under his breath and slowly turns around, holding both of his arms up, showing that he’s disarmed.
He’s looking at a gun.
The gun’s looking back at him.
A smirk touches the thin, bitten lips of the gun’s owner. “What a catch. The little bird’s not little at all.”
Then, all of a sudden, a metal chain tightens on Dazai’s neck, except when he tries to feel it, he finds no chain at all; but it is there, and he can do nothing to things he can’t touch, and so he lets it choke him until the picture before his eyes gets blurry, and the lack of oxygen makes his knees bend. Then, he starts falling, but the second before his head touches the floor, someone catches his body with their arms.
Dazai wakes up after god knows how long in what looks like a basement. Grey concrete walls, old wooden chairs, cardboard boxes instead of tables, and a single lightbulb hanging off the ceiling in lieu of a chandelier. Looking down, he realises that he’s tied to one of the chairs, with his hands and feet tied as well, some sort of odd-looking rope wrapping him up like a Christmas gift. A torture chamber? Double it up. A heavy door screeches open behind his back, and he can’t see who’s coming inside until a bunch of delinquents flock the room like vultures, some taking their spots on the vacant chairs, and others leaning against the walls, flashing their razor blades and unwelcoming glares.
“So,” a stranger pushes a chair forward and sits down in front of him, taking out a gun from their pocket. Dazai fixates on it right away, knowing that his eyes must probably sparkle like an excited puppy’s seeing his favourite treat. “What were you, a mortal, sniffing around the Mafia’s armoury?”
Come to think of it, it’s funny how they call anyone who doesn’t possess any sort of supernatural power a mortal. Having an ability doesn’t make its owner any less mortal, just less likely to die in a fight or from a natural cause. Right now, Dazai feels more fragile than ever, as far from immortality as from space.
“Who are you?” He’s not in a position to ask questions, this much he knows; and yet, his curiosity prevails over his survival instinct. “I don’t remember anyone like you guys around back when we were working with the Mafia.”
“We?” The person asks, not taking off a black bandana covering the lower side of their face, making identification impossible. “You from the ADA?”
Dazai takes a glance at the rest of the people in the room. Most of them look like teenagers; in dirty, shabby, torn clothes, with scars all over the exposed parts of their skin, they are far from the port Mafia’s elite, that much is clear. Not all of them are looking back at him; some seem not at all interested, probably counting down seconds to when they can finally leave and proceed with whatever business they had before Dazai had intruded into the regular order of things. Finally, he looks back at his interrogator.
“I used to be,” he decides that telling the truth would be the best tactic if he doesn’t want to cause any more trouble. “I’m on my own right now, and there’s no backup coming to save me; you may not worry.”
The person gives him a weird, dark look before letting out a short, amused laugh. “You think we can’t deal with you and your little army boys?” They move closer, now almost whispering into Dazai’s face through the fabric. “Watch us.”
The army boys? “Wait, you think I’m with the government?”
The person leans back in their chair, still polishing the gun with the tips of their fingers. “The raids have become more frequent. They’re trying to sniff out whatever they can use to discredit the Mafia. We took down six of their spies in the past week only, so there’s no reason for us to think that you’re not one of them unless you can give solid proof.”
Dazai licks his dry lips. His limbs have long gone numb; even if he magically gets released right now, he doubts he can run far before falling helplessly to the ground. Desperately, he laughs. “I’m afraid I can’t do that.”
“Then, give me one reason why I shouldn’t slit your throat right now.”
Someone calls them behind their back. “Gin,” it’s the guy from the corridor, the one with the gun; Dazai remembers him clearly now, a tall and scrawny redhead with a patch over the bridge of his nose. The moment their eyes meet, Dazai gets defensive; hadn’t it been for this fucker who caught him, he would have done everything fast and without leaving a trace. “Maybe we should take him to the boss?”
That’s bad. If they take him to Mori, the first thing he will do is contact Fukuzawa to find out why the Agency’s former employee is walking around the Mafia’s headquarters halls at night like it’s his private property. Then, things will spiral into fucked up too fast for Dazai to notice. He can’t, under any circumstances, be taken to the Mafia’s boss.
“I’ve already talked to him, Tachi,” Gin dismisses the guy, not even sparing him a look. “He wasn’t interested. Told me to annihilate, dispose of the corpse, and return to my duties.”
“And you’re going to do it?” Dazai makes sure to clarify.
Gin’s grin can be seen clearly even through the bandana. “As I said, unless you give me a compelling reason not to.”
Dazai grimaces and decides to flip the game around. “I might give you several… if you’d like.”
Gin puts the gun in their lap and leans forward, supporting their chin with their hands. “I’m listening.”
Although it does not take long, by the time Dazai finishes his story, he hasn’t been interrupted even once. It’s hard to read any emotions from Gin’s dark eyes only, so he keeps looking around the room, at all the people standing there next to the walls, listening to him without making a sound, polishing their guns, sharpening their knives. He keeps a lot of details to himself, though; some parts of his and his ex-wife’s family life, how she ended up being his wife in the first place, most of his past deeds with the Agency, and, of course, his ability. If these guys are not stupid, they must know that the ADA doesn’t accept mortals to work with them, that would be too much of a risk; still, no one seems to doubt the genuineness of his story, and Dazai almost wants to breathe out in relief.
At last, it’s the guy who seized him earlier, Tachi, who speaks. “I think we should help him.”
Gin gives him a glare over their shoulder. “How do we know that he’s telling the truth? What if he’s just saying any bullshit to get us to trust him?”
Dazai can’t help but smile a little – either from the stupidity of the situation or the depth of his own doom. Only a total psycho would come up with a story like his to make a group of thugs take him for their own.
“His daughter is missing, and it’s clear that he’s desperate if he made it all this way here without any backup or guns.” Dazai rather likes this Tachi guy; he seems like the only one who believes him unconditionally.
“He’s all talk and no proof,” Gin shakes their head and leans back in their chair, looking back at Dazai. “He might be as well just wasting our time. Or what if it’s a test from the boss? The longer we fiddle around not killing him, the more doubts he’ll have. I’d say he’s nothing more than a plant.”
“Gin! We’re not bad guys.”
Gin smirks. “You think?”
“Alright, we’re not entirely bad guys. If we don’t help, a child might die, and it will be our fault, too.”
“And what if we trust him, it turns out he’s lying, and then we will die? Who will take the blame then?”
“He’s telling the truth,” a voice that Dazai hasn’t heard in this room before, low and hoarse, belonging to someone way older than the three of them, comes from the farther, barely lit corner. Dazai squints and tries to make out the silhouette of whoever is standing there.
Gin’s face changes entirely. Slowly, they turn around and exchange looks with Tachi. “Do you hear this old man?”
Noticing Dazai’s confusion, Tachi gives him an understanding look. “Hirotsu is our clairvoyant; that’s his ability. Entirely useless most of the time, but about the most helpful among what the rest of us have.”
Dazai realised that he was dealing with ability users about half an hour ago; it was as clear as day. At the same time, there’s something inherently wrong with all of them; why hide their faces? Why use so many mortal weapons when you could use an ability instead? They seem reluctant to even bring up having any power in the first place, let alone brag about it.
He digs deeper into his memory of the past day before stumbling upon the exchange he heard earlier from the guards in the Mafia’s corridor.
So, what’s the boss going to do with the freaks?
Dunno, man, when does anyone think about this scum? At this point, my fart can kill more men than their so-called abilities.
His knowledge of the range of ability types is quite limited, and yet, even he has read about the genetic mutations in certain ability users, causing them to end up with a partly or entirely useless, as well as extremely specific (and mostly inapplicable) power. Something like making flowers wilt with one glance or growing mould in people’s pockets. Some of these abilities are fun, but most of them are inherently futile. In the end, those who possess them can’t be called entirely mortal, but the nature of their abilities prevents them from joining the higher circles, the elite, those whose powers are indispensable in combat. If this is true, and Dazai is dealing with the so-called freaks, then he’s even more doomed than he thought before. He needs to find a gun and get out of here as soon as possible.
“Okay, then,” Gin sighs at last, hiding the gun in the inner pocket of their jacket. “We’ll help you rescue your daughter. Who knows, maybe doing a good deed once in a while will finally give us our place under the sun.” Someone in the back chuckles quietly at these words, but Gin ignores them.
Another person steps forward, a red-haired woman in a long kimono, and gives Dazai a long, assessing glance before looking back at Gin. “Isn’t it kind of a decision that must be made with the entire group in?”
Confused, Tachi takes a glance around the room, stopping at every dark figure present one by one. “Wait, who’s out today?”
They all exchange looks for a short moment before sighing in unison, “Chuuya,” like it’s a given.
Dazai hears a lot of disappointment mixed with bitter humility in the way they pronounce this name.
Zama Sunflower Field, Kanagawa, Japan
Chuuya likes to ride his bike all the way here whenever he feels lonely, which is most of the time. The colour yellow, barely contrasting with his own hair or clothes, beige and white, gives him a strange and so needed feeling of tranquillity, the one he always so desperately runs to from the endless noise of the city. He likes touching sunflowers, running his hand over the petals and leaves as he walks deeper into the field, crossing it to the other side. Zama is the only place, except his own apartment, where he allows himself to take the gloves off and feel the world around himself the way it was always intended, skin to skin.
When he makes it to the other side, he feeds stray cats living in the neighbourhood and, occasionally, birds. He never throws away leftovers from lunches and dinners, putting the boxes in his tote bag instead and bringing them here, knowing for sure that there will be someone who needs this food more. He crouches under the tree, tucks his hair behind his ears, and waits for the strays to approach: they always rub against his legs first, purring quietly and demanding head pats. When Chuuya’s hand, uncovered and bare, meets the soft fur, ginger just like his own hair, he smiles. The feeling of purpose, even so little and so unimportant, fills his whole body with warmth. He doesn’t want to come back to humans; never, ever again. What good can he possibly be to them? How can he help? Every time his bare hands meet the skin of another human being, their memories, thoughts, emotions, and regrets swallow him like an avalanche, up until the point when he can’t breathe. A simple brush of hands in a packed metro train is enough; that’s why he stopped taking trains a long time ago. That’s why he must wear gloves whenever he steps outside, even if it’s just a short walk to the nearest grocery store. Chuuya has never known how it feels to touch someone and stay at ease; for him, this luxury will forever remain beyond reach.
He comes to Zama early in the morning and returns home long after sunset. He lives in a one-room apartment not far from the port, next to the Torihama train station. When he opens the windows at night, he can hear the noise of the sea from the bay, along with the voices of people he will never meet. With time, he grows to love his solitude.
Tonight, however, he’s not alone.
He closes the door behind himself slowly and quietly and crouches to untie and take off his ivory Converse shoes. The tabletop lamp on the dresser is lit, filling the hallway with soft tangerine light, and there’s sizzling coming from the kitchen, along with the smell of bergamote tea. Chuuya puts his backpack on the floor and proceeds inside, stopping in the doorway and crossing his arms over his chest.
“I thought I only gave you the keys for emergencies.”
Tachihara, tinkering with something (probably their dinner) on the stove, gives him a short glance over his shoulder and smiles. He’s calm, approachable, wearing an oversized t-shirt with some comic printed on the back and loose cotton pants; his hair is messy and damp, meaning that he probably took a shower before cooking. He knows every corner of Chuuya’s apartment by heart, like there’s a lot to know in the first place. He’s allergic to citrus; he doesn’t drink alcohol outside work because he’s scared of developing resistance, which would prevent him from using his ability, which only works when he’s drunk. He’s funny, witty, and kind; he even seems soft when he’s not holding his gun. And they are definitely not dating. Tachihara is just the only one Chuuya feels comfortable touching in places where friends don’t normally touch each other without hating himself for it afterwards.
“You weren’t at work today.” Tachihara flips the omelette in the pan and sprinkles it with some spices.
“I’m never at work,” Chuuya pushes back a chair and sits down at the dining table, where a dirty coffee cup and a half-eaten biscuit have been resting since morning. “Why? Something I should know about?”
Tachihara shrugs without looking back at him, and Chuuya can’t help but notice a flash of uneasiness in his posture, all his tall figure and broad shoulders. “Kind of,” he says as he opens a cabinet to take out two plates. “Last night, we caught an intruder. He was alone, didn’t carry a gun, not an ability user either.”
“Someone from the government?” Chuuya frowns, reaching for a crumpled pack of Marlboros on the table and taking out the last cigarette.
Tachihara hums, unsure. “Nope, didn’t look like it. He asked for our help, actually.”
Lighting the cigarette in his mouth, Chuuya takes the first drag. “Help? From the Mafia? Did he confuse the doors with a police precinct?”
At last, Tachihara sets the two plates with fresh, hot food on the table and sits down in front of him, not reaching for the cutlery yet. “He knew the exact location of our armoury and could open all of the doors on the way there. When we interrogated him, he admitted to having worked with the ADA in the past. The name’s Dazai Osamu.”
Tapping the cigarette filter against his lips, Chuuya tries to rummage for the name in his memory, but nothing relevant comes up. Whenever the Mafia had any business with the Agency, he made sure to never be there; the mere thought of working hand-in-hand with someone whose abilities were way more respectable and useful than his own filled him with sheer horror and a compelling desire to run away. Chuuya didn’t take part in a single mission, so it’s no wonder that he barely knows any names associated with the ADA.
“Right,” he taps the ash off into the dirty cup, watching as Tachihara starts at his omelette, not touching his own. “So, what exactly did he want our help with?”
“His little daughter vanished in broad daylight,” says Tachihara, still chewing with one side of his mouth. “He believes she was kidnapped by an ability user, and he wants all the help he can get to find her.”
“The honorary freaks of the Port Mafia are now doing charity deeds in finding missing children?” Chuuya smirks. “Isn’t it something that one must take to the police first and foremost? We’re talking a mortal child of a mortal father here.”
“If certain ability users are stealing mortal kids now, there’s definitely something fishy going on.”
Chuuya puts out his cigarette and stands up to fetch himself a glass of water and rinse his mouth. “And we agreed to help?” He clarifies, his back turned to Tachihara as he rummages in the drawers for a painkiller.
It takes Tachihara a moment to answer. “We did not,” he says, at last. “But we didn’t exactly say no either. In fact, we need you to be present when we decide what to do with him.”
“And when will that be?” Chuuya downs half a glass of water, hoping to tame the headache that has been bothering him ever since he left Zama an hour ago.
“Ideally, the sooner the better. The boss thinks we’ve already killed the guy and disposed of his corpse.”
“Right,” Chuuya finishes the water and comes back to the table, not touching his own food, not even sparing it a glance. “You know, I don’t really want to talk about work right now. Let’s do something else instead.”
He notices a familiar spark of excitement in Tachihara’s eyes, moments before he wipes his mouth with a napkin and stands up from his chair, grabbing the hem of Chuuya’s t-shirt as he leads him to the bedroom.
Chuuya’s fingertips and lips are the bridges that connect him to the rest of the world; there’s a clear boundary drawn between the edges of his ability and what or who he allows himself to touch. That’s why, every time he wants to make love, he must accept going through the horrors of another’s mental kingdom, or else, nothing will work out. With Tachihara, they’ve been rather creative in their ways of making Chuuya enjoy sex without having to use his ability unrestrained. The current modification is the one that Chuuya likes the least so far, but it’s also the one that stays within the frame of sexual without bordering on weird. Before going down on him, Tachihara ties Chuuya’s hands above his head, ensuring that he won’t be able to use them even out of reflex. Chuuya hates it like he hates everything that deprives him of any control over the situation, but desperate times call for desperate measures, and he trusts Tachihara just enough to relax and give in to his careful and tender touch.
An hour later, Tachihara is deep asleep, and Chuuya is finishing his second cigarette of the night on the balcony, with nothing but a blanket wrapped around his bare hips. He looks at his hands, pale and covered with barely visible freckles, and traces the rough skin of his fingers up and down, wondering if he’ll ever be free from the ordeal of knowing things but not being able to do anything about them. Chuuya can learn everything about anyone’s joy or doom in an instant just by touching any accessible part of their body; he doesn’t remember the last time he kissed anyone on the lips, because his lips can do something even worse than his hands. His entire body is a machine slowing down time, and Chuuya is the only one for whom the hands of the clock never stop or falter.
Back in the bedroom, he allows himself the frivolity of leaning over Tachihara’s peaceful sleeping face and touching his forehead with his fingertips. As his hand runs over the dishevelled strands of hair falling onto Tachihara’s eyes, Chuuya closes his own and shares his dream with him.
Tachihara is dreaming about the times when he was a kid, skating with his friends in a sunlit parking lot in late July. His knees scratched, both of his eyebrows split and stitched, a can of cold Sprite resting in the pocket of his denim jacket. Those days were so carefree, and Tachihara was the happiest back then. He will never return there, never meet or speak with those people again.
A lonely tear scatters down Chuuya’s face as he takes his hand away.
If only he could touch anyone once with his bare skin and not share their sorrow.
“So, you can kill a guy with a sneeze? That’s how it works?”
Dazai has been spending the past half of the day on the ground floor of the Mafia’s building, studying his surroundings and the insides of every room he’s been so far allowed into. So far, he’s felt like a child in daycare, getting fiddled with and passed on from and to whoever is free to spend some time with him. He spent last night at Hirotsu’s place, sleeping on the couch in his living room; the old man ended up the nicest of all the freaks, getting them food from a Chinese diner across the road, while Gin dug up some of their old boyish clothes that Dazai could change into after washing himself. He still can’t sleep for more than two hours in a row, constantly waking up from the urge to check his phone and see if there are any new messages from Ranpo. He said he needed a few days, and it has never been more than that, not even in the emergency cases, but when it’s Sara’s life that’s at stake, Dazai tends to question even his most deeply rooted beliefs.
Now, he’s in the leisure room with Akutagawa, helping him tidy the place up before the movie night that Gin has planned for this evening. Dazai is more than sure that movie night is just a code name for something more sinister, but so far, he has been spared the details. Among all the people he’s met by now, Akutagawa is the creepiest looking, partly because he seldom talks and only gives you this weird, withering glare whenever you try to address him.
“We are not to disclose the nature of our abilities to mortals,” he replies dryly, dusting one of the bookshelves behind the TV stand.
Dazai, who’s been sweeping the floor for the past ten minutes, only hums. “I thought I would find out sooner or later anyway. So, perhaps, sooner is better. You know, so that I could protect myself from the impact.”
Akutagawa freezes for a second; this made him think. He doesn’t look back at Dazai, speaking mostly to himself, “Just make sure to get as far away from me as possible the next time you notice that I’m about to sneeze.”
Every ability he learns about just gets weirder than the previous one. “Noted,” Dazai smirks, wondering how anyone can ever time their sneezes in combat so perfectly that they actually neutralise at least one of their enemies.
By the time the evening dawns, Dazai has managed to drink three coffees from an old and screeching espresso machine in the hallway and fall asleep anyway, taking a two-hour nap on the couch in the leisure room, in front of the TV broadcasting some cooking competition show. He wakes up when the door flies open and thuds against the wall, and then, a bright ceiling light fills the room. Sitting down on the couch, he rubs his eyes and runs a hand through his hair, dishevelled from sleep.
“Rise and shine, sleeping beauty.” Gin enters first, this time not wearing the bandana on their face. Hirotsu follows, chewing on an unlit cigarette in his mouth, and, finally, Kouyou, who sits down next to Dazai, letting her long dress come down in waves, spreading over the floor under her feet. This outfit must be extremely uncomfortable to wear in combat.
Gin turns off the TV and takes a look around the room before giving Akutagawa, who remains leaning against the wall next to the door, an approving glance. “Great job, brother. The place’s shining.”
Though warily, Dazai allows himself to chime in. “I don’t think that now’s the best time to be watching movies.”
Gin smirks. “Who said we were going to do anything of sorts? A movie night is what we call our weekly gathering, where we discuss the agenda and the plans for the upcoming week. It takes place every Sunday, religiously.”
It’s already Sunday. Dazai hasn’t been following the calendar ever since he found out about Sara’s disappearance. God knows how much time he has left, if there’s any at all.
He wants to ask what it is that they’ll be discussing today, but he’s interrupted by the door flying open again. He turns his head to the sound and sees Tachihara entering the room, and right behind him, someone Dazai hasn’t seen around here yet. From the way the muttering falls silent the moment he steps inside, Dazai realises that it must be Chuuya, someone whose presence is a rarity in the Port Mafia’s headquarters.
“You’re late,” Gin makes a point of letting them know.
“Tachihara wanted to walk because the weather is nice,” Chuuya replies rather dismissively, instantly hiding both of his hands in the pockets of his jacket. He takes a step farther from everyone else, standing with his back against the bookcase, and runs his eyes around the room before stopping at Dazai. It’s hard to tell what he makes of him from this glance alone, but the feeling nesting in Dazai’s chest is far from pleasant. “So, that’s the guy?”
“His daughter might be in danger,” Dazai doesn’t like this wording; Sara is in danger, and they all know it too well, but still do nothing to save her.
Chuuya moves his eyes to Gin, unimpressed. “Do we have the suspect? The mens rea? The last known trace of the victim?”
“Not yet.”
“So, how do we know the daughter even exists?”
“There were pictures of her on his phone.”
Chuuya scoffs. “Give me thirty minutes and a photo editing app, and I’ll be a single father too.”
With every word he says, Dazai’s desire to stand up and punch him in the face grows more and more unrestrained. Instead, he forces himself to stay collected. “My daughter exists and she is alive,” he says, making Chuuya glance at him instantly, as if not expecting him to speak at all. “At least, this is what I want to believe,” he gets up from the couch, intending to leave this room and never come back; he’s overstayed his welcome anyway. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll go and find her, with or without your help.” Barely one step away from the door, he gets stopped by Akutagawa, blocking the exit and holding the knob firmly in his hand. “What? You’re going to sneeze on me? I’m terrified. Already shitting my pants.”
“Dazai,” he hears Gin’s voice behind his back and turns his head. “We’re having a difficulty here, as you can see, and until everyone agrees on it, we won’t be able to help you.”
“Yeah, I can clearly see one ginger bitch getting in our way.” Upon hearing it, Chuuya gives Dazai a sharp glare, and something in his eyes flares up. Obviously, he is not used to direct confrontation or hearing insults addressed to himself, but Dazai is already at the limit of his courtesy; he’s tired of being nice when he doesn’t mean it. “Let me go.”
“I have a better idea,” Gin, unaffected by the possibility of a fight looming over their heads like a storm cloud, furrows their eyebrows. “If you don’t believe him, Chuuya, why don’t you see for yourself?”
It’s the second time in a row that Chuuya looks like he’s about to implode. He glares at Gin now, face full of disbelief. “No.” Tachihara, standing suspiciously close to him this entire time, leans in to whisper something into his ear, but Chuuya remains adamant. “I’m not touching him. You won’t force me.”
“If you refuse, we can call Higuchi down here and make her torture the truth out of him. Is this what you want?”
Chuuya grimaces like he’s just tasted something bitter and utterly disgusting; he almost looks like he’s about to cry. “And now you’re manipulating me.”
Gin nods, compelled. “Yes. Yes, I am, ginger bitch. Either the soft way or the hard way, but we must decide. It’s your call.”
Dazai has been screaming internally for the past minute.
Chuuya, still leaning against the wall and hiding his hands, turns back to him, assessing his entire figure from head to toe as if trying to read his real intentions off his face and body language alone. While there’s a bunch of other people in the room, right now, it suddenly feels like no one else exists but the two of them, and Dazai can’t say that he’s extremely fond of the concept. Although his self-preservation instinct is commanding him to get out of here, let it be through the window, when Chuuya looks at him like this, he can’t move a single limb. It gets exponentially worse when Chuuya steps forward at last, drawing a relieved breath from Gin, and slowly approaches Dazai before stopping right in front of him.
He’s much younger than he looks from a distance, and his voice is way too low for someone this young. His eyes are of a weird, unnatural colour, and there’s a scattering of barely visible freckles over his nose and cheeks that can only be seen up close. Dazai is equally curious and scared of whatever is going to happen next.
“Give me your hand,” Chuuya commands, taking his own out of his pocket.
“Will it kill me?” Dazai asks in return, not looking away from his eyes, but gives him what he asks for anyway.
Clearly, Chuuya is not extremely fond of having to use his ability on anyone. If that’s the case, Dazai has some good news to break. “If you’re lying to us, Akutagawa is already holding a gun to your gut,” Chuuya warns him and then, finally, covers Dazai’s palm with his own, repulsively cold.
A second passes; another one; and another. No one in the room seems to be breathing but Dazai. His breathing pattern is slow and calm as usual, but he can’t say the same about Chuuya. Even through the only touching point of their bodies, he can feel Chuuya’s heart making fast, unsteady flips in his chest, beating faster and faster the harder he squeezes Dazai’s palm in his own.
“What the…” He lets go of his hand and grabs another one, brazenly, without giving Dazai any warning. Chuuya squeezes his fingers firmly until his knuckles start to hurt, and then slides up to his wrist, as if trying to feel his pulse, to make sure that he’s even alive. Dazai keeps looking down at him, trying to cover his amusement, until Chuuya finally lets go of him and glances up, meeting his eyes. He looks… terrified, and it’s hard for Dazai to compare this exact emotion with anything else he’s seen before. “What are you?”
“Surprise?” Dazai tries to appear nonchalant, but internally, he’s crushing the walls and toppling over the furniture. This is not how he wanted to make his ability known, not to these people.
In the deafening silence that follows, he hears Gin whistle quietly behind Chuuya’s back. “Impressive. A nullifying ability.”
Chuuya instantly turns to them, and then back to Dazai, as if to make sure that he’s still there. “What the fuck does this mean?” He’s not asking anyone in particular, but his voice sounds like he’s reached the limit of his sanity. One wrong move, and the ticking bomb will go off.
“Your mind-reading thing won’t work on him,” Gin spares Dazai from the need to explain. “I guess it means that we’ll have to go for the majority vote.”
“Doesn’t it also technically mean that he’s invincible to the impact of any ability?” Now it’s Tachihara who speaks, visibly more worried than impressed.
Dazai cracks his knuckles, still looking at Chuuya, who hasn’t taken a step away from him in the past five minutes. “You got it right, Tachi.”
Something seems to break in Chuuya; he takes a deep breath and walks past Dazai, intentionally pushing him out of the way with his shoulder, storming out of the room and slamming the door shut behind himself.
For a moment, no one dares to speak.
“It’s decided now,” Gin breaks the silence first and flips a gun out of their inner pocket, throwing it at Dazai. He catches it effortlessly, and with it, he finally feels like a thousand-year weight has fallen off his shoulders. “Let’s go find your daughter.”