Chapter Text
After Chuuya left, Dazai could only say he felt…
Weird.
Two years of forced rehab from something that used to feel like second nature—and now all it would take was a walk to the bathroom, a few clean slashes, and he could relish the familiar, almost comforting sight of blood trickling down his arms, just like he had done so many times before.
He curled into himself on the couch, tried sleeping even, but there was no way he’d fall into slumber with his thoughts racing like this. He was free. Free to do whatever the hell he wanted. Free to jump right out of the window this very second, if he felt like it.
But did he? He promised Chuuya he’d be here when he came back, and for some reason, this promise meant something to him. Some part of him twisted in disgust at the thought of Chuuya finding him with his arms all cut open, or as a pool of blood on the pavement. No, he wouldn’t be that much of a coward.. He could endure today, he could be here for today. Tomorrow, he would see.
He stared at the ceiling, trying to dissociate himself to make time pass faster, but his mind kept circling back to the same thoughts like a broken record player. It was strange. For two years, he had dreamed of this moment—the moment that invisible leash would finally be cut, when he could reclaim control over his own existence and end it on his terms. But here he was, nowhere near any bridge or tall building, just sitting pathetically on his couch, waiting for some vampire to come back like a kid waiting for fucking Santa Claus.
The apartment was quieter too. For the past few weeks, there hadn’t been a time when he and Chuuya had parted ways like that. Every second they were home, they were together—even if hours passed in silence, or in separate rooms, there was always that awareness of the other’s presence close by. They went out together too, to bars, for night walks, to the beach once. Even when Chuuya went to feed, Dazai insisted on tagging along every time. He never admitted out loud how beautiful he found the sight.
The silence stretched on, broken only by the distant hum of the city beyond the drawn curtains. Dazai forced himself to stand up, his knees wobbling slightly, a wave of dizziness passing over him, but he managed to ignore it, walking to the window instead. He opened the curtains lazily—it was about midnight anyway, Chuuya wouldn’t burn from the light of the stars—and grabbed the pack of cigarettes from the windowsill, lighting one up without even bothering to step out onto the balcony.
Restless, he moved again—pacing the apartment, walking in slow, useless circles around the living room like a caged animal with nowhere to go. Except he wasn’t caged, not anymore. And that was what bothered him.
He stepped into the bathroom, without even locking the door behind him. The mirror reflected his pale face, circles under his eyes—though not as prominent as he remembered them to be—and hair sticking up at odd angles from not brushing it all day. He leaned his back against the sink, eyes drifting upward toward the medicine cabinet.
It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Chuuya. He did, but needed to be sure himself. Just to know. Just to see. He hadn’t waited two years just to never do it again. It wasn’t like he wanted to die, not right now, at least. He just needed to see if the compulsion was really gone.
He opened the cabinet with hands steadier than they should’ve been and pulled out the small blade he had stashed there, untouched for months now. It lay in his open palm like an old friend, with the faint trace of dried blood still clinging to the edge. He remembered not washing it, because he thought it was aesthetic.
Dazai rolled up the sleeve of his left arm, exposing the bandages wound tightly around it. With practiced ease, he began to unwrap them, letting the cloth fall to the floor in a loose heap, revealing the canvas his skin had become, etched with old cuts and scars. They were pale now, fading slowly with the passage of time, but never meant to be gone. That was okay, Dazai thought. He didn’t want them gone. Because that would mean all the suffering, all the history behind them, would suddenly lose its meaning.
They told a story. Many people in his life claimed it was a story of survival, but Dazai never really looked at it that way. It was a story full of moments of weakness, of passing out on the bathroom floor, of giving in to a habit he shouldn’t still be falling back into.
Some were thin, near-invisible threads, healed over so lightly they could almost be missed if someone didn’t know where to look. Others were deeper, thicker, slightly raised beneath the skin, so Dazai could feel them even with his eyes closed. Most were horizontal, only a few vertical—those usually made when he’d been dissociating so badly he didn’t even have control over what he was doing.
With a surprisingly steady hand, he reached for the razor, holding it tightly between his thumb and index finger. And then, slowly, gently almost, pressed it to his skin.
The pain bloomed, sharp and immediate, followed by the warm trickle of blood down his arm. And with it came the rush—that intoxicating mix of control and release he had been denied for so long. He was free. He could do this. The compulsion was really, really gone.
A high and breathless laugh bubbled up from his throat. He did it again, another line parallel to the first, watching the red beads well up and spill over. A few drops hit the floor, blooming into tiny stains of crimson.
His hands were shaking now, but not from fear. From excitement. From the pure, overwhelming relief of being able to drown himself in this familiar feeling again. The bathroom walls seemed to spin around him, his vision tunneling to focus only on the blade, the blood, the beautiful proof that he was in control again. By then, the blade moved almost of its own accord. Dazai felt like a painter who had lost control of their brush, letting the inspiration speak through him, line after line, stroke after stroke, guided not by any rational thought but by pure instinct. He could do anything now. He could cut deeper, could find that perfect spot where—
Then his gaze drifted back at his reflection in the mirror.
It was blurry—probably already due to blood loss, Dazai had always had a weak body—but still, unfortunately, recognizable. And what Dazai saw wasn’t the person who had made a promise to Chuuya just an hour earlier. It was the boy who attempted at fourteen, it was the boy who cried late at night in his room in the Port Mafia headquarters at sixteen, it was the boy who had Oda’s blood on his hands at eighteen, and the adult who finally thought it would all be the end at twenty.
It was the scared version of him.
The blade slipped from his grip, clattering to the floor with a metallic sound. He leaned heavily on the sink, both arms trembling under his weight, eyes dropping to the bloody mess of his arm. It was still flowing, dripping down to his fingertips and onto the porcelain. He breathed heavily, chest rising and falling in uneven rhythm, trying not to hiss in pain. Once his high started wearing off the itching and stinging hit him all at once.
Dazai turned on the faucet, watching his blood swirl down the drain. The water was cold against his cuts, enough to eventually make him hiss through his teeth. He needed to patch it up. Before Chuuya got back.
Because he didn’t want Chuuya to think this was about him. This wasn’t about trust or promises. It was about the physical need to see, with his own eyes, if he had really been given back something he had lost for two years. It was about regaining it, about confirmation. It was about Dazai, and Dazai only.
He reached for the bandages stacked in the drawer in the hallway, careful not to let the blood drip onto the floor, before returning to the bathroom. He wrapped his arm carefully, making sure there wasn’t any way for the blood to soak through. Fortunately, the cuts weren’t as deep as he knew he was capable of making—they stung, but they wouldn’t open again unless provoked. He must’ve stopped himself before reaching that point, though he wasn’t entirely sure why. Maybe some small part of him really had changed. Or maybe he was just out of practice.
He unwrapped the bandage from his other, clean arm too, swapping it out for a fresh one. It would look less suspicious this way, just like changing old bandages more out of habit than necessity. Definitely nothing new to see under them.
And while he was at it, he might as well change the ones around his neck too. Those were the ones that always bothered him the most—but also the ones he hated touching. Like always, never happy with any option. He unwound the fabric slowly, throwing it into the sink, trying not to glance at the mirror. But, he caught his reflection anyway.
The scar looped unevenly around his throat, slightly off-center, like some ridiculous necklace he was never going to be able to take off. Smaller marks branched out from the main wound, where the rope had shifted and bitten deeper into his skin during those desperate moments, when his body had resisted what his mind had already decided.
It was ugly. There wasn’t any other word for it. Mostly red, but scattered with pale white streaks and purple spots, because Dazai was too proud back then to even let it heal properly. It was the kind of scar that made strangers look away quickly, their faces tightening in discomfort as they stole glances loaded with curiosity and pity. And that was exactly why, ever since the incident, Dazai had never once left his apartment without that bandage wrapped tightly around his neck.
He remembered the day well. He was seventeen, and it was after a mission—one of the very, very few he had ever failed. Or not exactly failed, he had executed the main objective efficiently, but lost a lot of his people in the process. And for Mori, anything less than perfection was still considered a failure. After a few harsh… displays of power from the man, and even harsher words, Dazai had returned to his room, numb and shivering with something he didn’t even have the vocabulary for.
He didn’t cry, didn’t scream, just stared numbly at the four walls around him as if begging them to close in and end it for him. He didn’t even remember reaching for the rope, not really—not until he was standing on the chair with it tied around his neck and looped over the ceiling lamp above. Then came the panic. That pure, primal panic, the urge to scream even though no sound could escape his mouth. The wild thrashing of his whole body, just to make it stop.
Oda found him. He was unconscious, lying in a mess of shattered glass and broken wood, the lamp splintered around him, his face pale from the lack of oxygen. Oda had taken him to a friend, since he was well aware of how Dazai hated hospitals and even more that the last thing he needed was being treated by Mori. They told Dazai he was lucky, that the rope had slipped just enough, and the lamp had snapped just in time. Lucky. As if surviving was what he had been hoping for.
The day after, Oda took him to his favorite place to eat and brought him to visit the kids he was taking care of—just so Dazai could feel something that even slightly resembled human normalcy after the trauma. It wasn’t much, but it helped. Dazai was still grateful for it to this day.
The rope burn had been so severe that for weeks afterward, he couldn’t speak above a whisper, couldn’t swallow without agony, couldn’t turn his head without feeling like the skin might split open again. This, of course, frustrated Mori.
He hadn’t been assigned any mission for nearly a month, not because Mori was merciful, but because Dazai had become inconvenient—visibly damaged, not presentable enough for meetings or giving orders, too physically weak to be useful in combat. But Mori still kept him close, like a faulty weapon that needed to be under observation over how well it was repairing itself. Just in case. Just to remind Dazai who he belonged to.
Three hundred sixty and one steps to Mori’s office. It had been three years since Dazai had this number memorized. He knocked on the door and opened it without waiting for an answer. It had been two years since Dazai had stopped waiting for one.
And it had been three days since he had last tried—unsuccessfully—to take his own life. And first time to face Mori after the incident.
The office looked exactly the same as always—heavy black curtains drawn over the tall windows, cloaking the room in half-shadow, but somehow, Dazai felt smaller than ever. Maybe it was because, in such a short span of time, he had already managed to fail twice.
Mori was seated, as always, behind his desk, while Elise was sprawled comfortably on the floor, drawing something with crayons scattered all around her. She smiled at Dazai as he walked in, and he had to fight the urge to twist his face in disgust in response.
“Dazai-kun.” Mori’s voice was warm, almost paternal, in that way that always made Dazai's skin crawl. “Sit.”
Dazai moved carefully to the chair across from the desk, each step measured and deliberate. His throat throbbed with every swallow, but he tried not to let it show—he was hyper aware of Mori already cataloging his every wince, every shallow breath, every sign of lingering damage.
“How are you feeling?” Mori asked.
That was a trick question, and Dazai knew there was no right answer for it.
“Fine,” he managed to choke out, his throat burning like flames.
“Mhm,” Mori hummed, tilting his head in observation. “Take this ridiculous bandage off. You must have been so sure of yourself three days ago, so certain of your decision, so why be so ashamed about it now?”
For a moment, Dazai considered refusing. Mori never asked him to remove the bandages from his arms, not unless he was already preparing a set of new ones for change during medical check-ups. But this, the way Mori looked at him now, with that emotionless, unreadable expression, didn’t bode well.
With trembling fingers, Dazai began to reluctantly unwrap the bandage. It took a few minutes, but eventually the bandage fell to his lap, leaving his throat bare and exposed. Mori’s eyes lit up with something that might have been satisfaction, curiosity, or even both—with him, it was often impossible to tell the difference.
“Much better,” he said, leaning back in his chair. “Hiding it only makes it seem like you’re ashamed of your choices. Are you ashamed, Dazai-kun?”
Another trap. If he said yes, Mori would twist it into weakness, into lack of confidence, into another episode of losing control and not being able to deal with the consequences afterwards. If he said no, it would be just simple hypocrisy and an insult to his usefulness.
“I’m ashamed that I failed,” he said quietly, every word more painful than the previous.
“At what exactly?” Mori asked sharply. “That mission a few days ago? Or killing yourself?”
“Both,” Dazai whispered.
Mori only smiled and shook his head, folding his hands neatly atop the desk.
“You were out of it for three days now,” he said. “I don’t like seeing my tools broken, Dazai-kun.”
Tools. Because that’s what he was, wasn’t it? And what is a tool without its usefulness?
Dazai wanted to be useful. He never fought against it—not after his first mission at fourteen, not after the first blood on his hands—because being useful meant he was worth something. And for his whole damn life, he had been yearning to mean anything .
At sixteen, he was already the youngest executive in history. And he was happy—not because he craved power, he never cared about that—but because it meant fewer people could hurt him. It meant he could be the one doing the hurting.
But moments like this reminded him that he was still far, far from the top of the ladder. That there was always someone above him, someone who would gladly remind him who Osamu really was.
“I—” he paused, having to take a breath to continue. “I won’t fail—again.”
“I hope you won’t,” Mori said calmly. “Although, there’s one more thing I’m interested in.”
Dazai didn’t speak, just waited for Mori to continue.
“Was it really about dying?”
That caught Dazai off guard for a second. What kind of question even was that? No, he had fucking hung himself from the ceiling lamp because he was bored. Of course it was about dying, what else could it even be about?
“Because,” Mori went on, not bothering to wait for an answer. “I think you were just craving attention.”
Dazai blinked, once. Then again. Still didn’t say a word.
“What were you thinking in those last moments? Fighting for air that wouldn’t come?” Mori leaned closer, staring right into his eyes. “Knowing it was all your decision?”
“I don’t remember,” Dazai lied.
“Pity,” Mori leaned back in his chair. “Because I believe, you were already thinking of someone finding you, whether still alive or only your body. Whether that person would even care. Of how many people would come to your funeral, if there even was one.”
“It—”
“Maybe it wasn’t about dying after all,” Mori said. “Maybe it was about forcing everyone around you to focus on your pain instead of your failures.”
“No,” Dazai managed to choke out, but the word came out weak, unconvincing even to his own ears.
“No?” Mori echoed. “Then explain to me why, three days later, you’re sitting in my office instead of lying in a morgue.”
It couldn’t be true. He wanted to be dead, right? Mori was just messing with his head, like always—planting doubts to fuck him up even more. But what if it was true? What if he somehow unconsciously sabotaged even his own suicide?
“Rintarou is right,” Elise piped up from the floor, not looking up from her drawing. “Dazai-kun just wanted attention. Like when I pretend to be sick so I don’t have to do boring things.”
The comparison made Dazai feel sick. Reduced to the level of a child’s manipulation, after literally trying to take his own life.
“Elise-chan makes an excellent point,” Mori said, smiling widely at the kid. “Children often engage in dramatic behavior when they feel their needs aren’t being met. The difference is that children eventually grow out of such tactics.”
“It won’t happen again,” Dazai whispered.
“Good,” Mori said, his tone again cold as ice. “Your first assignment is waiting in your office.”
Just a simple dismissal after words that were probably enough to send Dazai spiraling for the next few nights.
Dazai bowed his head and stood up, sliding his chair back behind him, but just as he was about to walk away, someone tugged at his arm. He turned around to see Elise grinning widely, proudly holding up a drawing with both her hands for him to see.
It was a stick figure with a sad face, with a few strokes of brown crayon for hair. Above it was a poorly drawn ceiling lamp, with a line connecting it to the figure’s neck.
Dazai felt as if all the oxygen was suddenly sucked out of the room. His throat closed up in a way that had nothing to do with his recent injuries.
“You can keep it if you want,” Elise offered sweetly, extending the drawing toward him. “I made it just for you! To remember your special day.”
“I’m sure he would love to,” Mori cut him. “Wouldn’t you, Dazai-kun?”
Dazai nodded quickly. If there was one thing Mori could get angry about to the point of snapping, it was mistreating Elise. And Dazai had enough of Mori’s harsh words for one day.
“Thank you,” he said quietly, grabbing the drawing so carefully as if it was poisoned.
“No problem!” Elise smiled. “Next time, invite me so I can see it myself and draw an even better one!”
Dazai left without another word, closing the door behind him with hands that shook so badly he could barely grip the handle. He didn’t even remember how he made it back to his room.
Only the heat of the fire in which he later burned the drawing.
Dazai adjusted the bandage on his neck for the last time, before it felt comfortable enough to call it a day. He always had to be careful with the tension—too loose and it would slip, too tight and he would spend the day feeling like he was being strangled all over again. It was a delicate balance he had perfected over the years, muscle memory guiding his hands as he covered the ugliness beneath clean white cloth.
He made his way back to the living room, flopping on the couch. How much longer until Chuuya would come back? If he would ever. Dazai was starting to get bored.
Being left alone with his own thoughts had always been Dazai’s greatest enemy. He had spent tens of hours—no, more like hundreds—psychoanalyzing every event of his life, going back to every word that had ever triggered the slightest emotion in him, reliving it all over again simply because his mind decided he had to, because it chose to replay every failure, every wrong word, every look someone gave him that felt just a bit too sharp. It was frustrating, annoying, and above all exhausting.
Maybe that was why he was always so tired, because he felt like he was living three lives at once—the one that was happening right now, the one that had already happened, and the one his mind twisted into countless versions of what could have been. Because with every new day, something—some phrase, some smell, some passing glance—would trigger the past, dragging him into memories even years old, making him see them as vividly as if they were happening right in front of him all over again. It had always been like this, and there wasn’t any escape for that.
Or… maybe there was? He felt less like this with Chuuya. With Chuuya he felt more… present, grounded. Of course he would still dissociate sometimes, he doubted he would ever stop getting those episodes, but they weren’t as frequent or as long as they used to be. Chuuya couldn’t make the memories disappear entirely, nothing could do that. But somehow, when Chuuya was near, they felt less urgent, less powerful, like he was an obstacle on Dazai’s mind’s way to consume him.
He shifted on the couch, pulling the blanket tighter around himself. The same blanket Chuuya had draped over him just hours ago, when they had fallen asleep pressed together like it was the most natural thing in the world. The fabric still held traces of Chuuya’s scent—a mix of mint, red wine and something that could only be described as Chuuya-like.
Right, Chuuya. Dazai had promised to make his favourite drink, he might as well. He unfolded himself from the couch and padded to the kitchen counter. He had gotten surprisingly good at making Chuuya's preferred blend—equal parts coffee and blood, heated to just the right temperature, with a dash of something sweet that made Chuuya's eyes light up in a way that did dangerous things to Dazai’s chest. This time Dazai settled on adding some melted chocolate.
He stared at two mugs as he finished—one of course without the blood, just the thought of taking a sip of the other that contained it made him want to puke—blinking slowly. Now, Chuuya had to come back. Dazai didn’t spend the whole five minutes on him for nothing!
For the next hour, Dazai drifted through the apartment like a ghost, too restless to sit, too drained to do anything productive. He picked up a book and put it down after two pages, turned on the TV and muted it within minutes. He paced, stared out the window, and checked his phone more times than he’d ever admit, even though he knew Chuuya wouldn’t text. He reheated the drinks twice. Eventually, he curled back up on the couch, legs pulled to his chest, body aching from boredom.
The sound of the front door opening was quiet, and could easily be missed, but Dazai’s head snapped up instantly.
“You’re back,” he said, trying to keep his voice casual, but the relief was bleeding through anyway.
“I promised I would, didn’t I?” Chuuya closed the door behind him, shrugging off his coat.
He looked tired. Drained even. His eyes were red. And Dazai already knew he wasn’t bringing any good news.
“I made you your coffee,” he said, a desperate attempt to keep things from falling apart and prolonging the inevitable for just a minute longer.
“Didn’t think you actually would,” Chuuya smiled a little, reaching for the mug and taking a sip. “Tastes nice. Is that chocolate?”
Dazai nodded, forcing himself up off the coach and walking over to the counter. “Yeah. Though I have to warn you, I may have put too much AB-negative in this. You might be insufferably cheerful.”
“I could use it,” Chuuya muttered, bringing the mug up to his lips again.
They stood in silence for a moment, but it wasn’t comfortable. Not when both of them were just waiting for the other one to speak up.
“How are you feeling?” Chuuya asked eventually.
“Fi—”
“I mean, overall,” Chuuya cut him off. “In general.”
Overall. How did he feel overall for the last weeks? Different, that much was certain. And, paradoxically, a bit better.
Yeah, Dazai did feel better, and he knew exactly why he did—because he had something, someone to look forward to. To wait for Chuuya to come home. To wait for Chuuya to finish making his drink so they can cuddle on the couch. To wait for Chuuya to stop listening to some old vinyl with an annoyingly long saxophone solo so Dazai could finally rant about the book he had read. There was waiting, yes, but the reward at the end was definitely worth it.
It wasn’t that Chuuya fixed him—no, Dazai wasn’t delusional. He knew very well that mental illness wasn’t something that could be fixed with just one person’s presence, one person’s love even. It was more complicated than that, it came from chemicals and trauma, and he knew it would come back—episodes of depression and not being able to brush his teeth for days, nights when he would feel like someone else was controlling his body, moments when he’d dissociate so bad he wouldn’t be able to recognize the person in the mirror.
But there was one fundamental thing that Chuuya alone could change. That he had changed.
For the first time in life, Dazai wanted to fight for something,
He would endure the cringe therapy sessions if he had to. He would take his medication like a good patient, even if they made him feel hollow or sleepy for the majority of the day. He would let Chuuya into his life.
He would. That didn’t mean he would have the chance to.
“Better,” Dazai simply said.
Chuuya nodded, looking away for a second. “I’m glad.”
His voice was a bit quieter than usual, eyes wandering everywhere that wasn’t Dazai’s face, arms slumped in defeat. Dazai did not like it at all.
“You’re looking like someone died, Chuuya,” Dazai said.
“No one died,” Chuuya muttered.
“Then what happened?”
Chuuya visibly hesitated before responding. “She knows.”
Dazai couldn’t say he didn’t expect it. It had been lurking at the edges of his mind all this time—that inevitability. That one day it would all crash down around them—and now it had. Which meant Chuuya would have to choose soon. Between loyalty and betrayal. Between safety and ruin. Between Kouyou and Dazai.
And now all he could think about was the look on Chuuya’s face. How tired he looked. How much it must’ve cost him to gamble with the trust of the person he valued most.
“I see,” he said finally, voice carefully neutral. “What does she know, exactly?”
He kept his tone even, detached—because if he let anything else slip through, even a sliver of fear or anger or guilt, it would all start pouring out. And he didn’t know if he could stop once it did.
“Everything,” Chuuya said. “She figured us out some time ago, she was just waiting for me to confess at this point,” he let out a dry laugh. “After two hundred years of friendship, she had hope I’d trust her enough to tell the truth.”
“What gave us out?” Dazai asked quietly.
“Verlaine hasn’t been in Japan for the last fifty years,” Chuuya said. “Fuck, it was so stupid for me to even try to blame him.”
“So our story fell apart.”
“Completely,” Chuuya’s fist clenched around the mug handle. “She knew from the beginning that someone had fed you information that would point to him specifically. Someone who knew enough about him to make the description believable.”
“Someone like you.”
“Someone exactly like me.” Chuuya sighed. “And we made a slip at the very beginning.”
Dazai furrowed his brows. “What?”
“Remember when she came here with me?” Chuuya said. “You invited her in, only her specifically. And I still could walk in without any problem.”
Dazai stilled. He hadn’t thought of that moment since maybe a day after it happened. But now the memory resurfaced, and he remembered perfectly how he had done that on purpose back then. To give Kouyou a hint, back when all he wanted was to ruin Chuuya’s life. And now, to his regret, it seemed to work perfectly.
“Oh,” he choked out.
He wanted to tell Chuuya the truth—that it wasn’t some innocent mistake, that Dazai had deliberately planted that seed of suspicion because he had been so consumed with hatred and the need to make Chuuya pay for those two years of stolen choice. But looking at Chuuya now, seeing the exhaustion and guilt etched into every line of his face, Dazai couldn’t bring himself to add another burden. No. Some truths weren’t to share, especially when they served no purpose other than to inflict more pain.
“And what happens now?” Dazai asked.
The look Chuuya gave him, filled with pure pain, told him that it wasn’t going to be anything either of them would like.
“I have to clean up my mess,” Chuuya said. “If I won’t, Kouyou will, or even worse, someone like Mori would find out and then—”
Dazai’s whole body went still.
Chuuya kept talking, but the words weren’t reaching Dazai’s ear anymore.
His brain stopped. Everything—all the thoughts, all the noise—shut off like a switch had been flipped. The whole chaos in his mind quieted, interrupted only by one name splitting through his skull. If he hadn’t put the mug down a few minutes earlier, it would have for sure slipped his hands.
“Dazai? Are you even listening to me?” Chuuya’s voice reached him through the fog, but it was muffled, as if he was talking from another room.
“What did you just say?” Dazai asked, his voice barely above a whisper.
Chuuya looked up, confusion flickering across his features. “I said that Kouyou—” He stopped mid-sentence, taking in Dazai's expression. “What’s wrong with you?”
The world seemed to tilt sideways for a moment, and Dazai had to grip the edge of the counter to keep himself upright. He could hear his heartbeat in his ears, could feel his breath coming shorter.
“The name,” Dazai said, his voice sharp and shaky at the same time. “What the fuck did you say?”
Chuuya hesitated for a moment, as if he was aware that this one single word could start an outburst he wouldn’t be able to stop.
“Mori,” Chuuya repeated carefully.
Dazai’s hands were trembling now. No, no, no, this couldn’t be. He wasn’t the type to lose control. Not over himself, not over a situation. And definitely not over both.
But what were the chances for it to be a coincidence? There wasn’t any other Mori in Yokohama, other than the man who shaped him into whatever inhuman thing he was, other than the one who taught him how to pull the trigger without blinking at fourteen years old. The man who had twisted his mind, carved out pieces of his soul—did he even have one?—and convinced him that his only value lay in how efficiently he could destroy others
“What, you know him?” Chuuya asked.
“Don’t play fucking dumb!” Dazai snapped.
He had been stupid and naive to trust Chuuya. Of course this was all just a big fucking plan to get him back. What else would it be? It was always a plan. It was always about getting him back.
Everything, absolutely everything, suddenly made sense in the worst possible way. The convenient timing of Chuuya finding him by the river that day. The compulsion to keep him alive, because that would keep him useful. The way Chuuya had appeared back in his life, how he monitored him, how he made sure to witness every aspect of Dazai’s pathetic life.
It was all for him to use.
“First name,” Dazai said, his voice wavering.
Chuuya took a step toward him, but Dazai stepped back immediately, like a wary animal. That was enough. He was supposed to be the manipulator here. The one plotting. Not the one unraveling.
“Ougai. I think.” Chuuya said quietly.
Dazai laughed. It wasn’t the laugh that usually echoed there for the past two weeks. It was bitter, edging on hysterical, and full of panic he couldn’t yet name. The room started spinning again, or maybe it was just him, Dazai couldn’t tell anymore. His vision tunneled, focusing only on Chuuya’s face—that face he had started to trust, started to care about, started to believe actually gave a damn about him.
“He was my boss, the one I told you about,” Dazai said finally, each word deliberate and sharp. “For four years. In the Port Mafia. But you would already know that, wouldn’t you?”
Chuuya’s eyes widened. Pathetic, Dazai thought. Still acting, pretending to be surprised after being all fucking figured out.
“You… what? You worked for Mori?”
“Just fucking stop!” The words came out louder than Dazai had intended, his hand slamming against the kitchen counter. Get it together, get it together, get it together! “Stop fucking lying!”
“I’m not lying about anything!” Chuuya shouted, his voice raising for the first time. “You’re the one acting like you’re on the verge of a panic attack and won’t even tell me why!”
Dazai laughed again, his laugh sharp, unhinged. “Oh, come on. You seriously expect me to believe this wasn’t some setup? The vampire who just happens to find me dying, compels me to live, and just so happens to be working under Mori? Funny how these things work out, don’t you think? What are even the odds?”
“I do not work for Mori,” Chuuya said, his fists clenching at his sides. “I’ve never—”
“Fuck, this was all so obvious,” Dazai laughed again, pressing his face into his hands, arms braced against the counter. “The compulsion, the whole arrangement, all of it. So when did he send you to find me? Was it those two years ago or even fucking earlier?”
“That’s insane! I had no fucking idea!” Chuuya’s voice was raw with emotions—anger, frustration, desperation? Probably a mix of all of it.
“You knew,” Dazai said, his voice cracking. “You knew exactly who I was from the beginning. That’s why you were there that night. That's why you saved me. Not because you gave a shit about some stranger dying by a river, but because your boss told you to keep his favorite weapon alive.”
The panic was spreading through his body now, making his hands shake, making his skin feel too tight on his bones. He could feel his pulse hammering against his chest, the ringing in his ears getting louder with each second. The walls seemed to be closing in on him, the familiar space suddenly feeling like a trap he couldn’t escape.
This is what Mori does. This is what he has always done. He finds your weakness and he exploits it. He makes you think someone cares, and then he uses that against you. This is what you get for hoping. This is what you get for believing that maybe, just maybe, someone could look at you and see something worth saving that isn’t tied to how useful you could be.
“Dazai, listen to me—”
“No!” Dazai snapped. “No, I’m done listening! This whole time, this whole fucking time, this was planned?”
Breathing became harder. His face was buried in his hands, nails digging into his forehead like knives. His heart was pounding too fast, his mind was working too fast, nothing but a blur of betrayal, panic and rage.
He was Dazai Osamu. He was the Demon Prodigy. He was the genius, the one who always pulled the strings.
He was the one who was supposed to gain Chuuya’s trust and then betray him when the right moment came. He wasn’t supposed to be the one being betrayed.
“Nothing was planned!” Chuuya snapped. “I don’t work for Mori, I only answer to Kouyou, and even she only reports to him when she has to, that’s it. No one here is playing some master-level fucking conspiracy!”
“Right,” Dazai whispered, finally lifting his head from his hands. His eyes were wild, locked somewhere on the floor. “Jesus, he—Mori—how could he even be one of you? This whole time—it all doesn’t make fucking sense, it doesn’t, it doesn’t—”
He couldn’t finish. His throat was closing up, the same way it had in Mori’s office all those years ago. The same suffocating feeling of being trapped, of being played, of being nothing more than a piece on someone else’s board, in someone else’s hand.
“Dazai, calm down for fuck’s sake,” Chuuya said through gritted teeth, not daring to move closer.
“So that’s why you saved me,” Dazai went on, ignoring him completely. “Because you needed me alive. Because Mori needed me alive. And then you’d bring me all the way back to him, to this fucked-up organization.”
It all made sense. Because Dazai didn’t believe in fate. Never had. Everything that happened to him had always been the result of someone’s calculated actions—usually his own. Even Oda’s death, or why Mori had found him in that damn hospital in the first place, was all because of him. Simple consequence. Not some stupid thing people liked to call destiny.
“I’ve met the guy like three times in two centuries!” Chuuya’s voice was cracking slowly. “I saved you because you were dying, not because someone told me to!”
“Saved me,” Dazai laughed bitterly. “You keep saying that. But you never fucking saved me, Chuuya. You just trapped me and hoped I’d save myself in the process. Spoiler, I fucking didn’t. Some people can’t be saved.”
“I—” Chuuya’s mouth opened and closed, the words dying in his throat.
“You know what might’ve actually saved me?” Dazai’s voice wavered. “If you fucking stayed, after casting your little compulsion. Maybe if you’d shown even an ounce of effort instead of vanishing for two fucking years. But I guess now I know why you did.”
“I… I fucked up, fine! But for the last time, I didn’t—I don’t work for Mori, for fuck’s sake!” Chuuya snapped, his hand tearing at the edge of the couch cushion so hard Dazai could hear the fabric strain under his grip.
“Then why?” Dazai asked quieter. “Why couldn’t you let me die? What was so special about me that you had to intervene?”
Chuuya went silent, his chest heaving with ragged breaths. Dazai only scoffed. Of course, he had no explanation. The truth was already uncovered, his only options were either staying silent or digging his hole even deeper.
“I…” Chuuya started, then stopped. “I don’t know.”
“Of course you don’t,” Dazai said coldly. “What do you even know, Chuuya?”
“I know that I didn’t get involved with you because of Mori,” he said sharply. “I know how it looks. I know how fucking insane it sounds, but I swear, on everything I have left, that I didn’t know.”
“Everything you have left?” Dazai laughed bitterly. “What's that, exactly? Since, you know, you’ve already shattered Kouyou’s trust, and you’re a few steps away from getting executed for breaking some vampire protocol.”
He wasn’t really sure what he was saying anymore. His mind was a chorus of static, screaming one word over and over— hurt. And his brain knew no better response to pain than to cause it back.
“You,” Chuuya’s voice cracked. “You’re everything I have left!”
The words hung in the air between them, and everything went silent for a while. Dazai's face went completely blank for a moment, like he was processing a language he didn’t understand.
Him? Chuuya was getting more and more ridiculous every second. He wasn’t to be cared about. It was a mistake he had believed that for a second in the first place.
“If that’s true, which I doubt,” Dazai said coldly. “Then you’re screwed. Don’t—Don’t try to manipulate me with that bullshit!”
“It’s not manipulation!” Chuuya took a step forward, his hands reaching out. “These past weeks—”
“Were a lie,” Dazai finished, backing away. “Everything. Every conversation, every moment, every time you—” He cut himself off, pressing his hands to his temples.
“Every time I what?” Chuuya asked quietly.
“Nothing,” Dazai said, his voice cracking. “It doesn't matter now.”
“It does matter. It matters because whatever this is between us—”
“There is no ‘us’!” Dazai exploded. “There never was! It was all just part of the job, wasn’t it? Make the target feel safe, make him trust you, make him think he actually means something to someone for once in his pathetic fucking life!
Which was exactly what he had planned on doing from the beginning. And he didn’t know if he hated Chuuya or himself more for it.
“How long have you been reporting back to him?” Dazai demanded, his voice cracking. “Every conversation we’ve had, every moment I thought was real, was he listening to all of it?”
He finally looked up at Chuuya, his vision swimming a little. He didn’t care about keeping the blank expression anymore, didn’t care that Chuuya probably could see his best efforts to hold back tears—ironic, Dazai usually never cried—he just stared.
At the angel whose wings he had planned to cut off from the start. And it was only his own damn fault that he had gotten lost in those heavenly eyes somewhere along the way.
“I swear,” Chuuya said, his voice strained. “I had no idea that Mori was the one who did all that to you.”
“You’re repeating yourself a lot, Chuuya,” Dazai bit his lip.
The years in the Mafia hadn’t shaped his mind to rely on personal feelings. Hell, his whole life was about him struggling with his capability of even having such. He was shaped to rely on facts, on evidence, on patterns. And facts were, all this was too much to be just a coincidence.
A vampire ‘saves’ him, compels to stay alive, to stay useful, and suddenly happens to be connected to Mori. To the one person Dazai had spent years trying to escape. Because if he went back, if he got dragged back into the Port Mafia, back into the world of darkness, then the only promise to Oda he’d managed to keep would be crushed beneath his own fingers.
He couldn’t let that happen. So no, he couldn’t believe Chuuya. Even if he wanted to. Even seeing the pleading vulnerability written behind those two-colored eyes.
He took a few hesitant steps forward, his gaze flicking up to meet Chuuya’s face. Why was he still putting that look up? That defeated, so stupidly human look that made Dazai feel weaker than it should have.
“I was right the first time,” Dazai laughed again, the sound eerie even to his own ears. “I should have hated you. Should have stuck with the plan to destroy you. At least then I would have been honest about what this was.”
Chuuya’s face went even paler than Dazai thought it was possible.
“What plan?” he asked quietly.
Dazai had thought about it a few times over the past few days—whether he would ever tell Chuuya what his original plan was, about how it had slowly receded to the back of his mind until it disappeared completely. After a few internal monologues, he figured some things were better left unsaid, so he dismissed the thought and decided not to bring it up unless absolutely necessary.
But this? This changed everything. Because standing in front of him wasn’t the Chuuya he had grown to l̶o̶v̶e̶ tolerate over the past few weeks, the one who listened to him and understood him in ways Dazai had never thought possible. No. Standing in front of him was a lie. A play. A manipulation Dazai had fallen for.
“You want to know what I was really doing this whole time?” Dazai looked up at him, his eyes cold and empty. “I was planning to kill you. To gain your trust, make you care about me, and then betray you and destroy you for what you did to me. For taking away my choice, for keeping me trapped, for making me live when all I wanted was to die.”
He thought he had seen Chuuya’s pain before, but now it was just pure agony. His eyes twitched, his mouth parted slightly, as if trying to speak, but nothing came out. And he looked utterly, so utterly destroyed.
And that meant that Dazai got what he wanted, didn’t he? Then why did it make him want to tear his own skin apart?
“So I guess we’re even now,” Dazai continued, his voice cracking ever so slightly. “You were manipulating me for your boss, and I was manipulating you for revenge. The only difference is that you were better at it than I was. You actually made me believe it was real.”
Chuuya stood there, looking like Dazai had just reached into his chest and torn his heart out with bare hands. And maybe he had.
“I never—” Chuuya’s voice was raspy, and he choked down a sob even if no tears fell from his eyes. “You got it all fucking wrong, Dazai.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Then I’ll repeat myself until you fucking believe me.” Chuuya said through gritted teeth, not breaking eye contact even for a second.”
Dazai looked towards the window. The first rays of morning sun should be already hitting the ground.
“Too bad.”
Before Chuuya could even register Dazai’s eyes flicking to the window behind him, Dazai reached past him and yanked the curtain open, sunlight bursting into the room.
His body jerked back like he had been shot, stumbling into the far corner with unnatural speed. A hiss of pain tore from his throat, something too close to a cry as he wrapped his own arms around his chest in a defensive manner. His skin was already reddening beneath his collar, angry marks spreading down his right arm, probably across his back too—though that was pressed flat against the wall, trembling, as he clung to the narrow sliver of shadow like his life depended on it. Well, it did.
“You son of a bitch,” he gasped, pressing himself further into the corner.
“Been called worse,” Dazai said with a shrug.
“This is insane,” Chuuya muttered. “Draw that fucking curtain right now. Or are you too stupid to have a civilized conversation without trying to kill me?”
“I’m done talking.” Dazai’s voice quieted. “I’m done with all of it.”
Dazai grabbed his jacket from the chair, shrugging it on with deliberate slowness.
“You won’t.” Chuuya’s voice broke a little, his gaze flicking from the window to Dazai. “The sun won’t set for hours.”
“I know,” Dazai said simply. “That’s kind of the point.”
“Dazai,” Chuuya pleaded, desperation bleeding into his tone—probably at the realization that he had already lifted the compulsion earlier. “Don’t do anything stupid. Please.”
Dazai paused at the door, his hand on the handle, for a moment something almost like regret passing through his expression. But then Mori’s name echoed in his head. The image of Chuuya laughing over cheap wine flashed in his mind. Every late-night talk, every shoulder brush, every fragile moment, all this just a perfectly set-up lie.
“You left me for two years,” Dazai said quietly. “I think you can handle a few hours.”
He didn’t wait for Chuuya’s response before shutting the doors behind him.
The morning sun beat down on his shoulders as he walked through the streets of Yokohama, hands shoved deep in the pockets of his coat. With shaking fingers he lit up a cigarette, barely getting two inhales in before he started coughing, God knows for what reason.
The hot air stung his skin, sweat trickled down his temple as the sunlight lit up the old scars on his arms and the heavy shadows under his eyes, making him feel exposed in a way he couldn’t describe. He tilted his face up toward the sky, as if daring it to burn him, too.
The city looked different in daylight. Cleaner, innocent, almost. Funny, he thought. He had nearly forgotten what it looked like, because of his nocturnal lifestyle for the past few weeks. Now, the world was bright and humming. People passed him by, smiling, talking casually, completely unaware that monsters walked among them. That vampires hunted for them in dark alleys. That the man once called the Demon Prodigy was making his way, step by step, back toward the one place he swore he would never return to.
Mori. It had always been him. Everything always circled back to him.
Dazai wasn’t afraid of him, God, no. He used to, of course, but now if anything he wouldn’t be surprised if it was the other way around. But if there was any feeling Dazai could trust in his fucked-up, rotted-out mind, it was how deeply he despised him.
But he had to know. He had to understand what game was being played here, and more importantly, what role he was playing in it.