anqelically

[anqelically]

ᡣ𐭩 I'LL TAKE THE NIGHT SHIFT

FEATURING: dazai osamu

SUMMARY: now that the chaos following the aftermath of the decay of angel incident has settled, mori intends on making good on the deal he made with the armed detective agency. and you have a very important decision to make.

(wordcount: 13.4k, fem!reader, port mafia executive!reader, angst with a happy ending (if u can believe it!!), port mafia business, a bit of arguing, depictions of dazai's depression, unedited.)

AUTHOR'S NOTES: one last age 22 fic before your girl goes on a slight break. the ada/pm swap YAYYYY, it honestly came out a lot less intense then i intended, and the happy ending was originally not supposed to happen BUT i think it's well-deserved for age 22 pmreader & dazai. they are grown now, and the whole theme of their reconcillation at 22 is that they're actually WORKING to make this work, so i thought it would be an injustice to not let this one end happily. ANYWAY, on another note, don't expect any fics from me in may! i'm going to be cracking down on civzai2 so i can have it ready to post for june! i hope you guys enjoy! reblogs appreciated!

Your phone has been ringing for the past twenty minutes.

You know it’s Mori frustrated at your absence, trying to call an executive meeting to discuss the upcoming parley with the Armed Detective Agency, where the Port Mafia will be taking one of theirs to drag into the dark. He can wait for all you care, you sigh as you lean back on your hands, the wind ruffling your hair as you look down into the window of the building before you.

You don’t know what you’re doing here.

You watch with a heavy, unwelcome feeling in your chest as Dazai laughs wildly at something a vaguely familiar man with purple and white hair says. The man looks distinctly put out by whatever Dazai is laughing at, as one usually is whenever Dazai is laughing because nine times out of ten, he’s laughing at someone else's expense. The other members of the Agency are hanging around too. You see the uptight blonde, Kunikida, pressing his fingers to the bridge of his nose. Mori’s favorite, Yosano, sits on his desk cackling, slapping Kunikida’s shoulder. The weretiger has his face buried in his arms, hiding himself from the world, while the other traitor, the girl that Kouyou obsesses over, hovers over him. There are others you don’t recognize, but they don’t really matter to you.

Only one does.

You don’t think you’ve ever seen him like this before. You’ve seen Dazai laugh countless times—snorts that he hides in your shoulder, mocking jeers as he taunts Chuuya, muffled snickers that he tries to bite back when he’s caught by surprise—but you don’t think you’ve ever seen this type of carefree, reckless happiness before. The corners of his eyes crinkle in a way that’s so genuine that you almost question whether or not you’re looking at Dazai Osamu or some lookalike imposter who has stolen his place; he laughs so hard that he looks like he’s struggling to breathe, doubling over and slapping the desk he’s sitting at.

He’s never looked so at home before. So comfortable. Even with you back before he defected, when you guys were alone with no one else to bear witness, he couldn’t rid himself of all of the protective layers he wears, he couldn’t let himself be at ease. He never fully let his guard down, not even for a second, not even for you.

Well, that’s not entirely true. He did a few times, but you can count them on one hand, and they were never by his own choice—only when he was pushed too far, when his mind caved in on him no matter how hard he tried to weld together the cracks in the dam. 

It wasn’t like this.

���He looks happy, doesn’t he?” you ask quietly as soon as you feel the familiar presence behind you.

“Why the fuck are you torturing yourself with this?” Nakahara Chuuya’s gruff voice meets your ears, the roof shaking behind you as he lands on top of it. You hear him make his way over to you, but you don’t turn to look at him.

“I’ve never seen him like this before,” you admit, letting the pain seep into your voice to the only person whom you can trust not to use it against you. “When he told me Oda Sakunosuke’s final request, I doubted him… not that I was going to let him know that… but he really has changed, hasn’t he? You see it too, don’t you?” 

Chuuya lets out a noise caught between doubt and amusement. “Wouldn’t be too sure. Y’know what they say about tigers and stripes.”

“Don’t be bitter, Chuuya, it’s an ugly look on you,” you say dryly, eyes following Dazai as he pushes himself to his feet, dancing away as the purple-haired man tries to whack him. Your lips curl up into a small smile when you see the genuine glee painted on his face. “He’s changed. We, of all people, should be able to see that.”

“I’m not bitter,” Chuuya says roughly, “and if I was, I have every damn right to be. So do you. More than me, even. How the fuck can you see him living his best life and not be bitter? After what he did to us? To you?”

“Bitterness ages the skin, it’s probably why you’ve started developing wrinkles at the ripe age of twenty-two,” you quip, just to hear the aggravated noise that Chuuya lets out.

“I do not have fucking wrinkles, quit saying that shit,” Chuuya complains, flicking the back of your head hard. “You didn’t answer my question.”

“Purposely,” you note, but then let out a soft puff of air. “I don’t know, Chuuya. I thought I would be bitter and angry. Sometimes, I still am. When I’m alone, usually drunk, I resent him so much that it makes me sick, but then…”

Then you see him. 

You see him happy. You see him surrounded by people who love him. You see him thriving in a way that he’d never be able to in the Port Mafia. Every day that passed while he was there, he somehow became darker and colder; less human, and more of an unfathomable concept. You could see it in his face when he would come home to your apartment, eyes empty and expression blank. His blood ran darker than anyone else’s in those towers, his mind a treacherous place that few would dare to even think of treading or even just understanding. He was never Dazai back then, he was the Port Mafia’s youngest executive, the Black Wraith, Mori’s heir. He was something to be feared and admired. He was the Mafia, everything it stood for, its incarnate. He was not Dazai. 

Not like how he is now.

You told him you forgave him when he showed up at your apartment three months ago, and you knew you meant it then, but you didn’t realize how much you meant it until now.

“He never fucking deserved you,” Chuuya says so quietly that you think he’s talking more to himself than you. Before you can comment on his words, he speaks up again, changing the subject: “Let’s get out of here. Mori sent me to come get you.”

You sigh, eyes lingering on Dazai for a moment longer before you finally turn to look at Chuuya. Despite the rough edge to his voice, you can see the concern plain on his face as he looks down at you, brows furrowed and lips curved down. He holds a gloved hand out to you, and you sigh as you place yours in it, letting him lift you to your feet. You wobble a bit, but he steadies you with a hand to your waist.

“Thanks,” you say quietly and then give him a small smile that has his eyes narrowing in suspicion instantly.

“Whatever it is, the answer is no.”

“What if I say pretty please?” you offer, linking your hands behind your back as you tilt your head to the side.

“Stop tryna look cute. You’re not cute,” Chuuya scowls, and you scowl right back at him, dropping the act. “What do you want?” 

“Can you stall Mori for another… hour-ish?” you ask with a sweet smile.

Chuuya's face drops as he stares at you, and your eyes turn up as your smile widens. After a few moments of him just staring at you, as if trying to figure out if you’re being legit, he lets out a sigh of utter suffering. “You fucking owe me, you understand? That ‘45 Conti is going back up on the auction in New York in two weeks. I want it.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll get you your fancy wine, Chuuya,” you agree, leaning in to brush your lips against his cheek. “You’re the best.”

He scoffs and rolls his eyes, but you see the way his cheeks heat up. “Whatever,” he mutters. “What’re you even doing that’s so important? You’re not usually one to hold up meetings like this.”

You sigh lightly, gaze tracking back to the window to where Dazai is leaning into the weretiger, trying to use him as a human shield. He laughs again, tossing his head back and jumping away, throwing a pen at Kunikida as the man tries to swipe him, and your throat feels a bit swollen, your heart tight. Not with jealousy or bitterness, but rather with content because four years ago, you never would have been able to picture something like this.

“I… have a decision I need to make before the meeting,” you finally tell Chuuya, voice a bit hesitant.

Chuuya gives you a long look, a heavy one, as if he knows exactly what decision you’re trying to make. You think that he probably does.

“I hope you make the right choice,” he says quietly.

“Yeah… I hope so too.”

---

It’s a Saturday afternoon, and the graveyard on the west side of the city is unusually busy—it’s just your luck, truly. There’s a distasteful expression on your face as your gaze traces across the mourners as they visit their lost loved ones. You’ve never liked graveyards; you can count the number of times you’ve been to them on one hand. Being here reminds you too much of a past you can’t remember—even though the corpses are buried well below the ground, the scent of rot somehow still finds its way to you, smothering and nauseating. 

“What the hell are we doing here?” Klaus asks from next to you, looking distinctly uncomfortable. “This place is creepy.”

“What do you think we’re doing here?” you ask dryly, resting your head against the cool window as your driver takes you down a dirt path leading to a more secluded part of the cemetery, toward the grave you’re seeking.

Klaus pauses and then offers, “Meeting an informant?” 

You roll your eyes. “We are visiting a grave.”

Klaus is clearly offended by your tone. “Forgive me, damn, it’s not like you’ve ever been sentimental before.”

“I guess there’s a first time for everything,” you say flatly, although sentiments are the last thing that drew you to this place—resentment is far more fitting.

“Riiiiiight,” Klaus drawls like he doesn’t actually believe you. “Are we going to be here long? Cemeteries give me the heebie-jeebies.”

“What the fuck is a heebie-jeebie?” you ask, turning your head to look at him so you can shoot him a strange expression.

“Seriously?” Klaus asks, blinking. “You’ve never heard that expression before?”

Your squinted gaze lingers on him for a second before the driver rolls to a stop in front of the small hill leading up to the grave you’re looking to visit. You shake your head and roll your eyes again as you step out of the car, instinctively holding your breath the moment the cemetery air reaches you. You have to force yourself to breathe, hoping you don’t look as uncomfortable as you feel. Your fingers tighten around the small bundle of petunias in your left hand.

“Isn’t that—” Klaus begins, frowning at the figure standing in front of the grave.

“Stay by the car,” you order as you make your way forward.

“But—”

“That’s an order, Klaus.”

You hear him sigh in irritation, displeased by your words, but he listens. Each step up to the grave is agonizing—you want to turn on your heel and leave, but you’ve already come too far to do that. Plus, it would feel like a wound to your pride now that he’s seen you.

“You’re the last person I expected to see here,” Sakaguchi Ango greets once you’ve come close enough. He looks down at the bundle of flowers in your hand curiously. “Especially with those.”

“It’s rude to approach someone’s resting site without a gift,” you reply blandly, brushing past him to kneel in front of Oda Sakunosuke’s grave, eyes lingering on the mossy cobblestone before you place the petunias down in front of it. “I have something I need to say, that’s all.”

“Not to me, I presume,” Sakaguchi replies, amused with himself. 

You’re not quite as amused.

“You’re lucky I don’t put a bullet through your head, traitor,” you murmur, giving the older man a cold look from the corner of your eye. “You’re lucky I don’t do worse.”

“Hah,” Sakaguchi says, pushing up his glasses—a nervous tick that makes your lips curl up. “You know, I never personally saw what you do to traitors, but I heard rumors through the grapevine. They say the executions you handled were more barbaric than Dazai-kun’s and Nakahara Chuuya’s combined. I found it hard to believe.”

A humorless smile rests on your lips as you stare at the grave in front of you. A necessary price—you don’t have an ability like Chuuya’s or a reputation like Dazai’s. Once it became clear you were in the running for the next open executive seat, you had to prove you were more than just Mori’s daughter. That the position should be yours and it wasn’t because of nepotism, and it wasn’t because you spread your legs for Double Black, as people liked to whisper back then. The easiest way of proving that was to make an example out of people, and with an ability like yours, it was easy to shatter a man’s mind before putting him in the grave.

“Chuuya’s never liked playing with his toys, and Dazai got bored with them long before I ever did,” you say absently, looking over your shoulder to focus your gaze on him. “I don’t get bored until they break.”

Sakaguchi’s throat bobs, and you watch his hand slip into his pocket—surely getting ready to send some sort of signal to his friends in the government.

“Relax,” you say easily, sitting back on your heels. “I don’t disrespect the dead—not even him. I wouldn’t do anything here.”

“How reassuring,” Sakaguchi scoffs, but his hand drops back to his side. “What on earth do you have to say to a man that’s been dead for four years?”

His voice wavers strangely—he’s defensive and in pain all at the same time, like he has some urge to shield a dead man from whatever words you want to speak to him, but it hurts him to admit he’s gone all the same. Rich, considering you’re pretty sure the man played a part in his death.

“I could ask you the same.”

“That’s different,” Sakaguchi says tightly.

“Is it?” you ask, amused.

“It is.”

You let out a puff of air, but the smile on your lips doesn’t reach your eyes. “Leave so I can say my piece. I don’t want to be here longer than I have to be.”

Sakaguchi doesn’t respond, but you hear him walk away. He goes far enough that he’s out of earshot of you, but he lingers close, which tells you that he has more to say to you, much to your displeasure.

You inhale slowly, eyes fluttering shut as you try to figure out what exactly you want to say. You tossed the words through your head the whole ride here, but now that you’re actually before the grave of the man you intended to speak them to, you find yourself at a loss.

“You… cannot fathom how deep my hatred of you runs,” you finally say, voice quiet. You swallow thickly, tongue pressing against the back of your teeth as you try to quell your rising resentment. “You’re the reason Dazai left me. You’re the reason he’s going to spend his life chasing after a goal he’ll always see as unattainable. You’re the reason that he’ll never let himself be at peace. You ruined him.”

You take in a shaky breath, blinking away the tears that suddenly sting at your eyes. “You saved him,” you correct after a moment, voice cracking. “I’ve never seen him as happy as he is now—not with you and Sakaguchi, not with Chuuya, not with me. You… wouldn’t believe how much he’s thrived in the light, or maybe you would, I don’t know. Maybe you saw something in him back then that I couldn’t, but I see it now. You would be proud of him… I’m proud of him.”

You exhale, shoulders slumping as you look down at the ground. “The President of the Agency made a deal with Mori—one member in exchange for protection when they needed it. Mori wants Dazai,” you say bitterly. You know that Fukuzawa shielded Yosano, and it makes you sick with rage that he didn’t do the same for Dazai. “I’ll… do whatever it takes to make sure it’s not him, but in return, you’re going to give him a sign that you’re proud of how far he’s come, understood? He can’t see it for himself, and I know he doesn’t fully believe me when I tell him, but he’d believe you. So find a way. You owe me that much.”

You feel crazy talking to a grave—Mori is a man of science, he’s never been religious, but Itou believed that the dead lingered, whether it was because of unfinished business or they just needed to see their loved ones some more, to protect them from the other side. You never really cared to hear his supernatural nonsense back when he was alive, but now you cling to it in hopes that maybe he’s still watching you, guiding you along the right path.

The wind picks up a little, and you swear you feel a brief warmth settle on your right shoulder—it’s probably just your imagination, but you’ll let yourself believe it’s Oda agreeing to your deal.

You rise to your feet with another shaky sigh. 

“Goodbye, Oda,” you murmur, throat tightening as you think back to the man who wanted you to come by his place to talk to the young girl he took in because he wanted her to have a strong woman to look up to—the only person who ever acknowledged how hard you worked to keep your place in the upper echelon. “One day, we’ll meet again. Hopefully not anytime soon.”

Without another word, you turn on your heel to leave, pointedly ignoring Sakaguchi when he tries to intercept you, walking straight past him back toward the car you came in.

“Do you know who he plans to choose?” Sakaguchi calls after you, voice wavering.

You don’t stop for him, but you say quietly, “I know who it won’t be.”

---

“Thank you for finally joining us,” Mori says dryly as you step into the conference room where all of the rest of the executives were waiting for you. “We’ve only been waiting for over an hour. Chuuya-kun has been trying to keep our attention on… office issues, I figured he was only trying to buy more time for you.”

Chuuya’ face reddens. “I don’t like the paper we write our reports on,” he says immediately, doubling down on whatever bullshit he’d been spewing to stall for you. “It’s too thick.”

“Right,” Mori agrees with a thin smile. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

Chuuya rubs the back of his neck and gives you a helpless look once Mori turns his attention back on you, but you don’t speak, staring down at the older man with an unreadable expression. You’d been wondering why he was so lackadaisical about filling Ace’s executive position—he blew you off every time you tried to bring it up. 

This was why. He didn’t need to fill it if he was just going to drag Dazai back and sit him in it.

You don’t say anything as you take your seat across from him at the executive table. He watches you curiously, like he has a feeling that you’re going to make things difficult for him today. He rests his elbows on the table, lacing his fingers together and resting his chin on top of them as his eyes drift between his four executives.

“I think it’s about time we call in on the debt that the Armed Detective Agency owes us, don’t you think?” he hums. “I, of course, have my ideas on who we should bring over, but I would like to hear your opinions.”

Verlaine waves his hand dismissively. “We all know who is coming back,” he says. “It’s best we keep this short so that I can go back down and prepare for when the Clocktower finally decides to make its move.”

“That boy is the only logical option,” Kouyou agrees flippantly, fanning herself as she leans back in her seat. “It’s best we get this over with.”

Chuuya looks distinctly uncomfortable, but he only averts his gaze to the table. You’re not actually sure what his opinion is on all of this—he could want Dazai back for all you know. He can’t safely use Corruption without him, can’t access the full extent of his ability, and you know Chuuya doesn’t like using Corruption, but he also doesn’t like the fact that he doesn’t even have the option of being able to use it. The two of you have talked about seeing if you could use your ability to put Arahabaki to sleep, but it’s all been theoretical; neither of you wants to risk actually trying it when there’s a chance it might not work.

“If you bring Dazai back to the Port Mafia, you may as well execute me now.”

Chuuya’s head snaps toward you, eyes wide, and Kouyou pauses mid-fan to look at you. Verlaine doesn’t react other than a slight raise of his eyebrows, but Mori’s lips curl up, amused.

“Oh?” he questions, “and here I thought you would be the most excited to have Dazai-kun back.”

“I don’t want him back here,” you reply flatly. “Bringing him back here when he doesn’t want to be here might as well be shooting us in the foot. He’ll work from the inside against us out of spite. I’m not going to sit here and watch while you make a decision that will cripple us. If he comes back, I will leave.”

Curiously, Mori tilts his head to the side, entertained by your words. “An ultimatum. You can’t possibly think that you’re worth more to me than Dazai-kun.”

You don’t think Mori means that. He likes saying things to get under your skin, he likes seeing how far he can push you until you snap, and nothing gets under your skin more than the idea of you being a second or third-choice to him. This time, though, you only hit him with the same amused smile he gives you.

“I know I don’t compare to either of your precious proteges,” you say, leaning back in your seat, and then pass the manila folder in your hand across the table to him. He looks down at it and then raises his eyebrows at you before humoring you, opening the folder to flip through the contents. You watch as his smile slowly falls as his eyes scan the profiles of six crime lords inside. “But you don’t think you’d be losing just me, do you?”

Oddly enough, Mori’s eyes gleam in delight at your words. “Is that so?” 

You exhale as you choose your words carefully. “Goldoni doesn't like you, Mori. He’s caught between the Port Mafia and the Order of the Clocktower, and it would be much easier for him to make peace with the Clocktower considering they’re on his border. The only reason why he chooses us is because of my friendship with him. Mishima might not outright betray you, but he’ll slowly start withdrawing support when you ask for it once he finds out that I’ve left. I was the one who helped Qu Yuan get her brother back from Cao Xueqin when the two organizations were on the brink of war. I was the one who made sure Paz got his foothold in the central U.S. while the Guild was here. I was the one who acted as the mediator for Nabokov when Bulgakov and the White Guard threatened to come down on the Pale Flame—he even gifted me his strongest ability user for it, offered me a permanent spot in St. Petersburg with him.”

Mori doesn’t immediately respond, squinting at you slightly as he listens to you speak. Kouyou looks between the two of you with an unreadable expression. Chuuya looks sick. Verlaine just looks like he wants to go back to his office.

“And you don’t need me to explain what Tolstoy would do if I asked him to,” you finish quietly. “He would do anything for me. He’s who I would go to after I leave here. He would give me an executive position, and in return, I would give him Japan.”

Kouyou says your name, aghast, but you ignore her.

“Without my connections, you lose your foothold in the government, you lose all of your major allies—you will be pushed out of Japan, and I would help him hunt you down to whatever dark crevice of the earth you try to hide in,” you continue, leaning forward. “You know better than anyone that I have the means of doing it.”

“The means, maybe,” Mori agrees, closing the folder to look up at you. Though his expression is serious, you can see the way his eyes gleam, like he’s pleased with the sudden turn of events. “But perhaps not the will.”

Your eyes narrow. “You think I’m bluffing.”

Mori shrugs, tapping his fingers against the closed folder. “I think you’re angry—anger is a fire that burns hot, but short. You’ve invested too much in this organization to truly walk away, let alone betray it. And you and I have been through far too much together, my dear.”

Your throat tightens at the reminder of your past with Mori, but you only raise your chin so as not to let the discomfort show on your face.

Chuuya exhales sharply, running a hand through his hair. "Boss—"

But Mori lifts a hand, silencing him. “That’s not to say your threats are without weight,” he continues, tilting his head. “The depth of your connections is impressive, your influence undeniable. You’ve built something that hinges on your continued existence here. I recognize that.”

“I’m not the same girl I was back then,” you say, lips tightening. “I know my worth, no matter what you do to try to make me feel it’s less. You can’t afford to lose me—try to call my bluff. I dare you.”

Mori hums, resting his chin on his hand as he observes you, violet eyes glittering. “No, you’re not. That girl would have never had the guts to stand against me like this.”

You don’t reply to that. The tension in the conference room becomes stifling as the two of you stare at each other, each waiting for the other to concede.

“You should know by now,” he finally says smoothly, “that I don’t deal in ultimatums. I deal in opportunities. So tell me—who do you propose we take instead of Dazai-kun? There is no one there with equal value.”

This is it, you think, regret swelling in your throat as you meet Mori’s gaze head-on. There’s no coming back from this, and there’s no forgiveness for it. Dazai will resent you for this as long as he lives.

“Nakajima,” you reply after a moment. “The tiger.”

Mori stares at you for a moment, eyes widening slightly. All three of the other executives turn to look at you in shock, and you stiffen when Mori suddenly laughs. It’s a bright and amused laugh, one that tells you he’s genuinely surprised by your answer, delighted by it even. His hand flies to his mouth to smother his giggles, but his shoulders continue to shake as he slowly calms down.

“And I would argue that he’s more valuable than Dazai,” you say once he’s mostly quieted down. Mori raises his eyebrows, entertained, but nods for you to explain. “Every conflict Yokohama has seen over the past six months has been centered around him. The Guild had a bounty worth seven billion yen on him and started a full-blown war for him, destroying their organization. Dostoevsky and the House of the Dead and the Decay of the Angel were hyper-focused on getting their hands on him. According to Akutagawa’s reports from the conflict between him, Atsushi, Dostoevsky, and Fukuchi, Dostoevsky spoke of him being connected to the reality-altering book that’s apparently here in Yokohama. And I know damn well Christie is coming for it, and him, too. If we can get our hands on him and understand what exactly his connection is with that book, we might be able to get ahead of the imminent conflict with the Clocktower. I trust I don’t need to explain just how destructive it will be if it happens in the heart of our territory.”

Mori’s amusement fades, and none of the other executives reply, so you take it as an opportunity to drive the point home.

“Okay, I will explain then,” you continue flatly. “The Order of the Clocktower is a British state organization. They’re not part of the underground—not really—and they’re not a simple secret society like the Guild. They are backed and empowered by the English government, and the English government is backed and empowered by the entire Western world. If Agatha Christie gets her way, it won’t just be the Order of the Clocktower on our doorstep, it’ll be the American AASF and the French SFCCA—”

“That would start a military conflict with our government—” Kouyou starts to disagree, shaking her head.

“No, it wouldn’t, because Christie will call a meeting with our Prime Minister first. She'll frame the situation in a way that makes us the sole target of the military operations. They’ll say we’ve gotten our hands on an artifact that could alter the very fabric of reality, and because of it, we’re a major global threat. They’ll use the incident with the Decay of the Angel as an example and claim we used that book to bring back our members who were lost to the vampire virus and the detectives who were killed by Fukuchi.—it doesn't matter if it's not true because it'll be believable. They’ll back him into a corner to where he would either have to agree or be deemed just as much of a global threat as us, and when he agrees, we’re going to be facing the full military force of the entire Western world. How exactly do you think that is going to turn out for us?” 

“It’s all ‘what ifs,’” Kouyou says, raising her chin. “How are you so sure that’s what Christie will do?” 

Your gaze slides to the side to focus on her. “Because that’s what I would do. Christie is a political monster, more than I am, even. She won’t make mistakes—she’s going to keep her hands squeaky clean on the legal front.”

“There are still holes,” Chuuya says, leaning forward on the table to look at you. “Yeah, they could say we used it to bring back our members, but we could tell them that Stoker just canceled his ability. And there’s no proof that the detectives were killed—the only people that know that are the detectives themselves, who aren’t going to give themselves up like that, Fukuchi, who is dead, and…”

Chuuya’s expression suddenly shifts. He sits up right, gaze focusing on you. “You don’t think Dostoevsky is dead,” he realizes quietly. “Did you hear something?” 

“Not only do I not think he’s dead, but I would bet my life he’s with Christie right now in England planning out their next attack,” you say quietly. “It’s going to come soon—they know we don’t have that book yet, and they know Nakajima still doesn’t understand his ability. They need to make their move before we get any closer to finding it, because they know once one side gets their hands on it, it’s game over. Our best chance of finding that book is through Nakajima, and that’s why he needs to be the one brought over here. The Agency’s President gives him control over his ability, but not understanding—he needs to understand his ability so that we can understand his connection to that book, so we can find it before we’re getting fucked by the West’s military.”

Mori lets out a long breath, rubbing at his face as he leans back in his chair. “I have a lot to consider,” he says tightly, waving the four of you off. “Go. Meeting dismissed.”

Verlaine is the first out of the room—he always is—but he gives you a long look as he leaves, signaling to you that he’s going to want to talk to you soon. You sigh, but nod at him before he heads out. Kouyou is the next out, a grimace on her face and her shoulders a bit too tense as she makes her way out of the room. Chuuya waits for you at the door, leaning against the frame as you rise to your feet to leave.

When you turn your back to Mori, he finally speaks up. You knew he would. “You understand that he’ll never forgive you for being the reason his precious protege is dragged into the dark.”

He speaks the last two words mockingly, you don’t have to look at him to see the amused expression on his face.

“I understand,” you murmur, ignoring Chuuya’s heavy gaze. “I didn’t make my decision lightly. Nakajima is the best option for the Port Mafia.”

You make your way over to Chuuya, freezing when Mori speaks again, “Do you know why I’ve always held Dazai-kun and Yosano-kun in higher regard than you?”

You stiffen, ignoring how Chuuya looks away, pretending he can’t hear the conversation between you and Mori. A part of you wants to just walk away—you don’t need to deal with him taunting you right now, but you know he’s not going to let you leave until he’s made whatever point he wants to make.

“Why is that?” you ask tightly.

“It’s because they think for themselves. They take the initiative. You follow orders like a loyal dog, good for a lot of things, but not what I want,” Mori says casually. Your jaw tightens—like he didn’t make you this way, you think bitterly, but bite your tongue. “I’m glad to see you finally taking a step out of your shell, my dear. Fascinating that it only took threatening Dazai-kun for it to happen. I do wonder how far you will go to preserve his light.”

 You stiffen, gaze snapping to the side to focus on Mori, but he only gives you an easy smile in return, violet eyes glittering maliciously.

“I’m eager to find out,” he murmurs, before waving his hand dismissively. “Go. I’ll consider your alternative.”

You exhale sharply, head snapping back to look in front of you as you storm out of his office and into the hallway. Chuuya lets the door shut behind the two of you, reaching out to grab your wrist before you can get too far. He pulls you back toward him, forcing you to face him. His gaze is concerned as he looks down at you, a frown tugging at his lips.

“Are you okay?” he asks quietly.

“I’m great,” you reply sarcastically, giving him an apologetic look when irritation flickers across his face. “He’s going to hate me, Chuuya.”

“Nakajima might not even be the one chosen,” Chuuya says. “The boss has been set on that bandaged freak. You know that.”

“Well then I’m dead,” you say with a tight smile. “I literally just announced my plans to betray the Mafia if Dazai is chosen. Kouyou will execute me on the spot.”

Chuuya’s expression darkens, and his voice is low as he promises, “I won’t let that happen.”

“Then you’ll be a traitor too,” you say airly. “Is that what you want?”

Chuuya doesn’t like the idea of that, you can tell from the way his face twists, but he doesn’t waver. Instead, he says again, “I won’t let that happen.”

Your throat tightens as you swallow, and Chuuya’s expression softens. He glances down the hall quickly to make sure nobody is around, and then he steps forward, reaching out to wrap an arm around you, cradling the back of your head as he pulls you close to him. You let out a shaky breath as you bury your face in the crook of his neck, arms hanging limp at your side.

“What are you going to do now?” he asks quietly.

“I don’t know,” you reply, voice wavering. “Go to him, maybe. It’ll probably be my last chance.”

“Don’t say that,” Chuuya murmurs. “The bastard loves you. He always has—”

“And I’m repaying his love with betrayal, Chuuya,” you interrupt tightly. “This isn’t just us being on opposite sides. I put his protege—the kid that he saved—up on the chopping block. It’s too personal. There’s no coming back from it.”

“You did it for him, though—”

“And that makes it even worse. You know that.”

Chuuya sighs, but he doesn’t refute what you’re saying, which makes your heart feel even heavier. “Are you going to tell him when you see him?”

“I should,” you reply quietly. “So he isn’t blindsided.”

“But are you?”

“... I don’t know.”

---

Dazai isn’t in his apartment when you get there, so you decide to explore.

You’ve never been to it before—it’s messy, too small, and there’s a spoiled smell coming from his fridge. The futon on the floor is stiff, the padding is nonexistent, and the blanket is dirty, crusted; he probably hasn’t washed it in ages. Dazai has always liked soft things—he buried himself in fluffy blankets, plush pillows, and comfortable loungewear back when he lived at your apartment. He makes himself uncomfortable as a way of punishment. He would wear bandages that itched his sensitive skin until you stocked up on softer ones, and in his shipping container, he slept on a thin pad with an even thinner blanket until he moved in with you.

Now, he’s doing it all over again.

You frown as you kneel next to his futon, fingers brushing over the uncomfortable fabric, but your gaze is pulled away when you hear his door unlocking. You sit back on your heels, looking up as Dazai enters his apartment. A soft smile curls on your lips when you see the tired expression on his face—he doesn’t notice you at first, but when he does, he jumps so badly that his phone drops right out of his hands.

“Jesus!” he gasps, shooting you a withering look when he sees the amusement on your face. “What are you doing here?”

“Not happy to see me?” you drawl, rising to your feet and tilting your head to the side.

“Of course, I am,” he says immediately, voice quiet. He looks embarrassed as he glances around his apartment, eyes lingering on the mess around him. “I wasn’t expecting company.”

“Want me to help you clean up?” you offer, making your way over to him. Dazai immediately leans down to brush his lips against yours in greeting. It’s so casual, so domestic, it makes your heart ache knowing that it’s not going to last. 

“Can you?” he asks softly. “I just—I haven’t been able to. I’ve tried.”

Your hands settle on his hips, thumbs rubbing gentle circles over his hipbones through his pants. Dazai is never able to bring himself to clean when he’s in his head, and he’s always in his head. In his shipping container, he didn’t have enough belongings to actually make a mess, but once he moved in with you, he struggled to keep his room clean, so more often than not, you had to help him with it otherwise your whole apartment would start reeking.

“I know you have,” you tell him. “I don’t mind helping.”

Dazai lets out a puff of air, lashes fluttering shut and head hanging forward for a moment. You lift your hand to cradle his cheek, and he instinctively leans into your touch.

“Thank you,” he breathes out, kissing your palm.

You give him a small smile. “Go figure out what’s making your fridge smell,” you tell him before wandering over to a stray bag he has lying around so you can start picking up the empty bottles of sake and half-eaten cans of crab.

“I think everything is making the fridge smell.” You hear him say as you frown down at the pile of trash near his futon. 

“Then throw it all out,” you answer. “I’ll send you some groceries tomorrow.”

“My savior,” Dazai coos teasingly, but when you look at him to roll your eyes, you see the fond expression on his face as he looks over at you, dark eyes swimming with adoration. “How could I ever repay you?”

The words are still teasing, but there’s a breathy edge to them that lets you know there’s some truth to them. Your expression softens, and you hope that he doesn’t notice the way guilt suddenly clogs your throat. You think he might, considering the way he squints at you slightly, as if trying to figure out what exactly is going on right now. You should’ve just texted him to come over to your place, coming to his was too suspicious.

“How about you repay me by getting rid of this and getting yourself something more comfortable to sleep in?” you finally say after clearing your throat, nodding your chin at his futon. “Why do you have to punish yourself, Osamu?”

Dazai’s gaze instantly lowers to the ground. “It’s not—It’s not punishment,” he disagrees as he turns his back to you to start filling a trash bag full of all of the food in his fridge. “I just… I can’t let myself get comfortable. I’m scared if I get too comfortable, I’ll start slipping back into old habits and—”

“You’re too hard on yourself,” you whisper, shaking your head as you tie off the bag and put it down near his door. You make your way over to him as he grimaces and tosses a whole carton of rotten strawberries into his garbage. He rises to his feet, an unreasonable expression on his face, and you slip your arms around his waist, resting your forehead on his shoulder blade.

“What’s really going on?” he asks quietly, lifting a hand to cradle the back of yours. “I know you wouldn’t come here for no reason.”

Always too perceptive, you think wryly, pressing your lips together so you don’t let out a damning sigh. You feel his thumb stroking the back of your hand, and you think you might be sick—you don’t deserve it. You don’t deserve the tenderness from him, not when you know what’s coming and he’s oblivious to it.

“I’ve done something… really bad, Osamu,” you whisper.

“You’ve done a lot of bad things,” Dazai tries to joke, but you can hear the concern in his voice. You can feel the way his grip tightens on your hand. “I’m sure this is nothing extraordinary.”

“It is, though,” you reply, throat spasming as you swallow. He gently pushes your arms off of him so he can spin to face you. He cups your cheek to lift your face, but you slide your eyes shut so you don’t have to look at him. “It really is, Osamu.”

“I know the worst thing you’ve done. It can’t possibly be worse than that,” Dazai says dryly, desperately trying to lighten the mood. His thumbs stroke your cheek as he tries to get you to look at him, but you don’t. “Talk to me.”

“It is,” you say. “It’s something you won’t forgive me for.”

Dazai swallows thickly, fingers tensing on your face. “There’s nothing I wouldn’t forgive you for,” he tells you, leaning down to brush his lips against your forehead. “Tell me what’s going on.”

You almost tell him. You really do. The words are on the tip of your tongue, threatening to let loose, and his touch his so gentle, his gaze so soft and imploring. He deserves to know, he shouldn’t be blindsided when Mori inevitably calls this meeting in a few days, but you can picture the way his expression would close off once he processes what you’ve done, the way he would step away from you, and you just can’t. 

Even if he deserves it, you can’t. 

“Can you just… hold me?” you ask quietly, voice wavering terribly. 

You feel so weak. This was your decision, and you knew exactly what it meant for you and Dazai when you made it, but now all you feel is regret. You know you did the right thing. If Dazai were dragged back into the Port Mafia, he would never get out a second time. He’d sink back into the dark and would never let himself see or feel the light again. But it being his protege, you know he’ll do anything he can to get him back. Nakajima Atsushi will be back with the Armed Detective Agency within a month of leaving.

But Dazai never would’ve allowed them to risk trying to get him back. He never would’ve let them risk incurring the wrath of the Port Mafia for reneging on a deal on his behalf. He doesn’t see himself as worth it. You couldn’t let it happen.

“Yeah,” he finally says, voice soft. “Come on.”

He leads you over to his couch, carefully pulling you into his lap. You sink into him, burying your face in the crook of his neck as you cling to his shoulders. Dazai’s arms are strong around your waist, one hand splayed on the small of your back, the other cradling the back of your head. He kisses your temple once before resting his forehead against the top of your head. You’re not usually the one being comforted like this—sometimes Chuuya will hold you when you’re upset, but more often than not, you’re the one doing the comforting—so you can’t help the way your eyes well with tears. 

Being in his arms doesn’t make you feel better, though. If anything, it only makes you feel worse. It makes the guilt in your chest swell, it makes the nausea building in your throat threaten to come up.

Dazai must feel when your tears start to spill over your cheeks, because his hand starts running up and down your back soothingly, fingers carding through your hair. He hums softly—it’s a vaguely familiar tune that you can’t quite place, maybe one of the ones he used to play on the piano for you—it’s low in your ear, you can feel the gentle vibrations of his chest through your body.

You love him. 

You love him so much that it makes you sick. You love him so much that you would do anything for him. He asked you months ago if you would ever choose the Port Mafia over him, and you told him no, but you were wrong. You would choose him—you would always choose him. You know that you’re fucking over the Port Mafia with this plan, you know that its going to get the short end of this deal—you don’t care, because it means that Dazai will be okay.

“I love you,” you rasp, voice cracking as you bite back a sob. “I love you, you know that, right?” 

He pauses in his humming briefly to say, “Of course.”

He says it so easily that it makes you choke, and he quickly resumes his soft hums, now subtly rocking you back and forth, kissing your temple again. He doesn’t say it back, and although he doesn’t need to—you can feel it in the way he holds you, in the way his lips touch your temple, in the way he hums softly to try to chase away whatever is distressing you—you’re glad that he doesn’t verbalize it. You don’t think you could handle hearing it from him right now, it would be just what you need to send you spiraling over the edge.

You know he wants to know what’s going on. Not knowing things makes him anxious, and he can’t hide the way his fingers are tense against your body, even if his touch is gentle—his hands have always been his tell. Four years ago, he would’ve insisted and insisted until the two of you either fought or you gave in and told him, but now, he’s content to hold you. Content to comfort you. Content to love you. Content to trust you.

And you’re going to repay him with a knife through the back.

It’s for him, you remind yourself desperately. It’s to protect him. He’ll be able to get Nakajima back, and everything will go back to normal for them, even if it won’t for the two of you. Dazai might never get over the betrayal, he’ll never get over the guilt of you putting Nakajima on the chopping block in his place, he’ll never get over the resentment. He’ll understand maybe after the initial shock why you did what you did, but he won’t ever get over it.

You should tell him. Warn him. It might not change anything, but he shouldn’t be blindsided, not by you, not ever. But he’ll try to convince you against it, or worse, he’ll go to Mori and offer himself up on his own once he realizes that his transfer isn’t guaranteed. You can’t risk that. 

“I’m so sorry, Osamu,” you gasp, fingers digging into his thin dress shirt as you cling to him. “I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay,” he tells you, voice low and soothing. “It’s okay.”

But you know it’s not.

You know it won’t be.

---

The fateful meeting with the Agency comes too quickly. 

“Ah, Fukuzawa-dono,” Mori greets when the Agency arrives at the small park where you’re meeting them. It’s a neutral site as demanded of this type of junction. You would’ve preferred the tea house in Nishi-ku, but Mori waved you off and said that it wouldn’t take that long. “I hope everything has gone well on your front in the aftermath of Dostoevsky’s attack. I heard the Ministry of Defense was trying to cause trouble again. If you’d like, I could have our lovely hime talk to Tonan-san on your behalf… for a price, of course.”

Mori’s lips curve up into a cruel smile. He knows Fukuzawa will never say yes, not when his last offer of assistance came with the price of one of his detectives. The President’s gaze hardens on Mori as he raises his chin.

“Unnecessary,” Fukuzawa replies coldly. “Spare the pleasantries. We’re here to fulfill our end of the bargain.”

Mori hums in delight, but he doesn’t immediately speak. Your gaze cards across the small group—all of them are here. Kunikida Doppo stands stiffly on the right side of the President, and Edogawa Ranpo rocks back and forth on his heels on his left. Yosano stands with her back turned in the far back—Kyouka and the tiger stand near her, along with an orange-haired boy that you dimly recognize as the illusionist. 

Dazai is here too. He stands separate from the rest, arms crossed over his chest and an unreadable expression on his face as he stares down at the ground. He won’t lift his eyes, not even to meet yours. You’re glad because you think if he looked at you right now, he’d see right through you.

“Of course,” Mori agrees. “Very well, I must say, it was a much more difficult decision than I originally anticipated.”

A ripple of unease spreads across the detectives. Daza finally opens his eyes. His lips turn down into a tight frown, dark eyes seeking answers as he looks directly at Mori before his gaze flickers over to you. You avert your gaze, swallowing as you raise your chin and focus your attention on Fukuzawa. You can tell this unsettles Dazai from the way he immediately straightens, looking between you and Mori uncertainly—he thought his transfer was a given, he’s realizing that maybe it was not.

“Nakajima-kun, won’t you come over here?”

Mori sounds too pleased as he speaks the words. His smile widens when he sees how Yosano immediately whips around, eyes wide. Most of the detectives look shocked, but Nakajima himself seems like he hasn’t even processed what Mori said. You can’t bring yourself to look at Dazai—Mori hasn’t even mentioned your involvement in this decision yet, but you know that he will. You can imagine the way his eyes widened at Mori’s words, and you know Mori probably took glee in it, considering how difficult it is to catch Dazai Osamu off guard, and the image of it makes your stomach churn.

Fukuzawa looks displeased. His jaw is tight, and his expression is hard; you can see in his eyes that he wasn’t expecting Nakajima to be the one chosen. He doesn’t protest—he knows better than to openly renege on a deal with a Port Mafia—but he does lower his gaze to the ground.

“Come now, Nakajima-kun,” Mori hums, beckoning the boy over. “Since our hime was the one who insisted on your transfer, you’ll be working directly under her… I do hope you’re comfortable with that arrangement.”

“What?” Dazai breathes out. “What?”

You ignore him, keeping your gaze trained on Nakajima, who finally reacts. You watch as the waves of realization visibly wash over him, eyes widening slowly before they snap over to you. His hands clench into fists at his side, and his lips part in disbelief as he struggles to find his words. 

Although your attention is on Nakajima, your mind is on Dazai—you can feel him looking at you, waiting for you to explain what all of this is about. The betrayal won’t hit him yet; if only because he believes you’re the last person who would ever betray him like this.

“I—what?” Nakajima stammers, voice barely above a whisper. His eyes flicker between you, Mori, and Fukuzawa, pleading for an explanation.

You remain still, forcing yourself to maintain the neutral expression you’ve mastered over the years. But inside, your chest tightens as you will yourself not to look at Dazai. He’ll start to understand what’s happening now, what you’ve done, and you won’t be able to bear watching how the betrayal slowly writes itself across his face.

Mori chuckles, reveling in the tension, in the way your relationship with Dazai is crumbling in front of everyone like this. “Yes, she was quite insistent,” he continues smoothly. “I was set on… a different prize until she opened my eyes to your potential. The Port Mafia is eager to have you amongst its ranks.”

Nakajima takes a step back. “That’s not—” His voice shakes, and he stops himself, taking a deep breath before turning to Fukuzawa. “President—”

Fukuzawa doesn’t lift his gaze from the ground. His silence is an answer in itself. Nakajima’s breath hitches; he looks helpless, like he’s about to start crying.

“When you said you did something I wouldn’t be able to forgive, I didn’t think you actually meant it.”

Dazai’s words cut deeper than any blade. Your chest tightens, throat swelling as you fight to keep your composure. You knew this moment would come, you knew Dazai would look at you like this, you knew this would be the end of everything.

It’s for him, you remind yourself. He’ll get Nakajima out of the Port Mafia one way or another, and Dazai never would’ve let himself escape a second time. You did what you had to do—you’ll always do what you have to do, whether he agrees with it or not. He’ll understand what you’re trying to do, whether he ever forgives you for it… Well, that’s another matter entirely. 

Before you can open your mouth to reply to Dazai, Mori claps his hands together, voice laced with mock cheer. “Well then, now that that’s settled, let’s not drag this out any longer. Hime, take our newest recruit back home, won’t you?” 

A command. A test. A punishment.

You swallow hard, raising your chin as your gaze settles on Nakajima, whose body is tense like he’s on the verge of bolting.

“Come,” you say, voice even. “We’re leaving. If you try to flee, punishment falls on the Armed Detective Agency for reneging on a deal.”

Nakajima’s shoulders slump instantly, head falling forward—all of his will to run or fight dissipates at the mention of his actions falling on his found family. His hands tremble at his sides before clenching into fists again as he steps forward to stand at your side.

“Good boy,” Mori murmurs approvingly before turning his attention back to Fukuzawa. “Always a pleasure doing business with you, Fukuzawa-dono. Until next time.”

The Agency watches in heavy silence as Nakajima forces himself to move. His steps are reluctant, but he walks toward you, expression twisted in disbelief. You can feel the weight of every stare pressing into you, most of all Dazai’s. You don’t dare lift your gaze to meet his.

“Let’s go,” you say coldly, turning on your heel.

Nakajima follows.

Dazai does nothing to stop you, but you hear him call your name—quiet, angry, but most of all, betrayed. You hesitate for a fraction of a second before continuing forward. You don’t look back, you can’t afford to.

Mori falls into step beside you, too pleased with the way this played out. His satisfaction drips from his voice as he speaks. “I do hope you enjoy your new subordinate, my dear. After all, you fought so hard for him.”

You don’t answer. You simply keep moving, ignoring the betrayal burning in Dazai’s gaze and the suffocating silence left behind by the Agency.

You did what had to be done. Even if it did cost you everything.

It’s only once you get to the car that Nakajima finally speaks. His voice shakes, like he’s nervous to say anything but forces himself to anyway. You would give him props for it if you weren’t so distressed by how everything went down. “You did this to protect Dazai-san, didn’t you?” 

Your gaze shifts to the side, focusing on the weretiger, who looks up at you nervously, waiting for your answer. You didn’t take him to be so perceptive, so you only raise your eyebrows at him curiously. He shrinks a bit under your gaze, but then he squares his shoulders and takes in a deep breath.

“You picked me to protect him,” he says again. “It would’ve been him otherwise. You had to convince them to pick someone else, and I was the most convincing option.”

“What makes you think that?” you ask coolly.

“It just makes sense.” Nakajima shrugs, fingers twisting nervously in his lap. “I think that I’m glad you did. Dazai-san… he’s good. I’m glad he doesn’t have to come back here. He tried to pretend everything was okay, but I could tell he was upset. He didn’t want to come back.”

“Hm,” you respond, turning your gaze away to look out the window, but it’s only to hide the way your expression drops at the confirmation of Dazai’s anxieties about returning to the Port Mafia. It makes you feel better about what you did, but only for a second, because you remember that no matter how much he didn’t want to come back, he never would’ve wanted his subordinate to come here in his place. “I doubt you’ll be here for long.”

“What?” Nakajima asks. “What do you mean?” 

“Do you really think Dazai will let you become a member of the Port Mafia?” you ask dryly. “I give it a month max before he figures out a way to force us to give you back up to them.”

“Won’t you get in trouble for that since you were the one to insist on me?” he questions, and to your amusement, he sounds like he’s genuinely concerned on your behalf. 

“Probably,” you agree absently.

“You must… really love him,” Nakajima says quietly.

Your throat spasms at his words, lashes fluttering shut as your head hangs forward. 

“Yeah,” you say softly. “I do.”

---

You don’t expect to see Dazai for weeks. You think that he’ll pretend you don’t exist, he’ll block your number, and stop coming around to see you. That’s what he would’ve done years ago when he was mad at you and feeling too hurt for him to come to terms with what happened—that’s what he did do years ago when he was mad at you and feeling too hurt for him to come to terms with. 

Instead, that very night, he barges into your apartment. 

You’re three glasses of wine in, drowning yourself in your sorrows, when you get the notification that someone is coming up to your apartment. You know it’s not Klaus, because he has a mission with Akutagawa in Tokyo for the next three days, and you know it’s not Atsushi, because although you told him that he could come up to your apartment whenever he needed after you showed him his, you knew it would be a long time before he ever felt comfortable enough with you to take you up on that.

You assume that it’s Chuuya, because he knows how upset you are and he knows you’re probably getting wasted by yourself. So when you get the notification someone is coming up to your apartment, you drag yourself out of your bedroom and down the stairs, wobbly on your feet. 

You get down there just as the elevator doors slide open. “Chuuya, do you—” you start to say, but cut yourself off abruptly when it is not in fact your best friend standing in the elevator.

“Osamu,” you whisper, eyes widening, taking a step back in shock. “What are you—”

“What am I doing here?” he finishes for you when your voice falls off—the words are cold and mocking, a harsh jab to the gut. He stalks forward in your direction and you step back quickly to keep space between you. “You would like that, wouldn’t you? Would’ve rathered me stay away so you can avoid taking responsibility for your shitty decision. Well, surprise! All of those years of getting pissed at me for avoiding confrontation are over—why do you look so upset? Isn’t this what you’ve always wanted? You should be happy.”

Your lips part to speak, but no words leave them. Dazai backs you into the wall and doesn’t give you the chance to run when he reaches out to grab your dress shirt hard. Your wine glass slips between your fingers and shatters against the ground as he tugs you closer to him so that you have nowhere to run or hide. 

Your breath is shaky as you look up at him, and he’s livid. You can see it in the way his eyes are black—the same darkness and intensity you remember back from his years with the Port Mafia, but they’d never been directed toward you before. You can see it in the way the corner of his lips twitches in fury. You can see it in the way his shoulders are tense, like he’s having to physically hold himself back.

He’s also hurt. His hands have always been his tell, and they’re not shoved in his pockets, so you see the way his fingers tremble around the material of your shirt. And his throat bobs as he swallows thickly, waiting for you to say something.

When you don’t say anything, Dazai’s expression twists in anger. He pushes you back against the wall as he lets go of your shirt. He’s not rough with you at all—he never is, even when he’s blinded with rage—but still, all of the air whooshes from your lungs when your back hits the wall.

He steps away, turning his back to you and running his fingers through his hair, tugging at the ends as he lets out a frustrated noise. 

“How could you?” he finally demands, but the words aren’t harsh—his voice cracks over them, and when he turns to look at you, you can see the hurt written plainly on his face. “How could you? After everything I’ve told you, how could you push for Atsushi? You know that he’s the only thing I have that proves that I’m doing something right. Something that Odasaku can be proud of. How could you? You? Of all people, I never expected you to do this to me.” 

You want to blame your speechlessness on the wine, but you know that’s not the case. You want to say something, you really do, but you can’t find the words for what you want to say. An apology isn’t enough, and you hadn’t anticipated that Dazai wouldn’t have put together what your plan was. You figured that he wouldn’t until he calmed down, but he’s usually pretty quick to set aside his emotions to look at things logically—but you suppose he never really has when it comes to you. That was an oversight, but what you really didn’t expect was seeing him tonight. You thought that he’d go quiet for a few days, a large part of you genuinely wondered if you’d ever hear from him again.

“Osamu,” you murmur, taking a step closer to him, but he steps away from you.

“No,” he says, holding up his hand before turning his back to you. “Stay over there. Don’t come closer. Explain. I need you to explain, and I need to think. I don’t think straight when you’re near me, so just stay over there and tell me why.”

You halt in your tracks as you stare at him. You still don’t say anything, and you can see him getting more and more frustrated with each passing second. You try to tell him that you only picked Atsushi because you knew Dazai would get him back, that you couldn’t let Dazai back because you knew he would never let the detectives do the same for him, but you can’t.

“Was the idea of me being back so bad?” he demands, eyes wild as he turns on you again. “Let me guess, you finally proved yourself to Mori while I was gone and didn’t want to be back in my shadow again. That’s it, isn’t it? That’s all you’ve ever cared about. It’s only ever been Mori and the Port Mafia. Now that you finally have it—his approval, in track for taking over after him—you don’t want to risk me coming back and taking it from you again.”

You draw back like you’ve been slapped—you may as well have been, you think, throat tightening. Your lips part to tell him no, of course that’s not the reason why, but you can’t force the words out.

Is that what he really thinks?

“You don’t think I knew back when we were kids that you were jealous of me?” he asks, laughing breathlessly as he looks down at you. “I knew it from the moment we met. You resented that Mori kept me in Yokohama and sent you away, that I replaced you—you hid it well, but I knew. I saw the way your expression got all twisted whenever he praised me, when I got the open executive spot, how you’d never look me in the eye when I came back from meetings.”

You stare at him, speechless, and then whisper, “I loved you.”

“Not mutually exclusive,” he scoffs. “Love and resentment are two sides of the same coin.”

“Is that what you really think?” you ask him quietly. Dazai has always known how to hit you where it hurts, but this was… “That I wanted Nakajima because of… selfishness? Because I was scared you’d come back and upstage me?” 

Your voice cracks, your eyes wet with tears as you take a step backward. You don’t know what you thought he would think of all of this, but realizing that he thinks so little of you makes you sick to your stomach. Dazai’s expression twists at your question, like he only just realizes the gravity of the words he said to you, but then anger flashes through his eyes again.

“I don’t know what to think because you won’t explain,” Dazai shouts—you’ve heard him yell a handful of times before at his subordinates while he was with the Mafia, but never at you. “Won’t you fucking tell me why you picked him?”

“Because I knew you would get him back!” You mean to yell at him, but your words get caught on a sob that you just can’t bite back. You want to blame it on the alcohol, but you know it’s a product of the guilt that has been weighing you down for days and the newfound understanding of just how little Dazai thinks of you. “I knew you would get him back, Osamu, and I knew you’d never let them risk getting you back. That’s why I insisted on Nakajima. If you came back here, you’d never get out a second time, and you’re right, I don’t want you back here but it’s not because of jealousy, it’s because you don’t belong here.”

Dazai stares at you, expression unreadable, but before he can say anything, you continue.

“I told you that I’ve seen how much you’ve changed for the better, I’m not going to let you ruin everything because you’re going to throw yourself back to the Port Mafia to be a fucking sacrificial lamb for the rest of them,” you continue. “And you know what? You’re right, I am selfish, because I don’t give a damn about any of them. I care about you, and because you care about them, I tried to figure out a way for the whole fucking Agency to come out of this deal unscathed, and the only way of ensuring that is making sure Nakajima was the one picked. I knew Mori would jump at the chance to put a wedge between us by flaunting my part in this decision to you at the meeting, and I knew you would fight tooth and nail to get him back, so your precious Agency would be whole again by the end of the month.” 

Dazai says your name quietly, but you shake your head, stumbling over to the couch so you can sit down. You feel too dizzy—nauseous. You can barely see straight and your whole body feels fuzzy from the wine you’d been drinking.

“That time we met after you defected,” you whisper, taking in a ragged breath. “You were so drunk, you probably don’t even remember what we talked about. But you told me I never would’ve chosen you over the Port Mafia, and that’s why you couldn’t say goodbye.”

You hear him making his way over to you, but you don’t dare look up from where you’ve buried your face in your hands.

“I told Mori that if he brought you back to the Port Mafia, he might as well execute me on the spot,” you say, ignoring the way he inhales sharply as he sits down next to you. “I told him I would leave. I’d go to Tolstoy. I would bury the Port Mafia and then him. I convinced him to pick Nakajima because I knew you would get him back, even though I knew it was screwing us over. I chose you, I’ll always choose you, Osamu, no matter what the cost is, even if you hate me for it.”

“I could never hate you,” he tells you quietly, tugging your hand to beckon you to look at him. “Look at me. Please.”

You let out a shaky breath and lift your head from your hands to look at him. The expression on his face is conflicted—you’re sure that he has plenty to say, but just doesn’t know where to start.

“Why didn’t you just tell me when you came over?” he asks desperately, threading his fingers through yours and squeezing tightly. “If you just explained—”

You shake your head. “I didn’t trust you not to go running to Mori to offer yourself up once you realized your transfer wasn’t a given,” you tell him quietly, “I did what I had to do.”

Dazai’s expression instantly twists. “But if you’d explained—”

“No,” you insist, looking away from him until he tugs your hand again. You let out a heavy sigh, eyes landing on his. “No, Osamu. You’re too emotional when they’re involved. I couldn’t risk it, I’m sorry.”

Dazai blanches. “Too emotional?” he demands, offended. “E-emotional? That’s ridiculous, I’m not emotional.”

Your lips curl up softly when you see how flustered he is by the accusation. “A little emotional,” you disagree, expression smoothing out when he lifts your hand to kiss your knuckles before pressing your palm against his face. “It’s endearing, but I just couldn’t risk it.”

His lashes flutter shut as he sighs heavily into your palm. Your throat tightens when he turns his face into your hand, forcing you to cradle his cheek. He doesn’t speak for a moment, but when he does, it makes your chest feel heavy.

“Promise me that if something like this happens again, you’ll tell me,” he whispers, dark eyes sliding back open to look at you. They’re a light amber in the dim lighting of your living room—too soft, too gentle, too imploring. “I—I need you to talk to me. I can’t—you don’t understand how it felt at the meeting. I was mad that Atsushi was chosen, but it felt like—the thought of you going behind my back. Betraying me. I couldn’t breathe, I’d never felt anything like that before. It felt like I was dying. It felt like I was losing you. I’d only ever felt this way before when—”

When Oda died, you finish for him when he cuts himself off abruptly, pulling his face away so he can turn his head in the opposite direction. You let out a soft sigh and shift in your seat to turn toward him. You lift your hand to his face to force him to look at you again—when he does, his eyes are glassy like he’s about to start crying.

“I can’t promise you that,” you tell him quietly, thumb stroking his cheekone gently. “I told you back during the Pushkin incident that I won’t be able to tell you everything anymore, but can you just trust that I’ll always choose you?”

Even after everything that’s happened the past few days, it scares you how much you mean those words. You will always choose him, no matter what the cost of it is. Your breath is shaky as you hold his gaze, searching his eyes for understanding.

Dazai is quiet for a long time, the silence thick between you. He’s still holding your other hand, and though his hand trembles, he holds onto you tightly, like you’re the only thing keeping him grounded.

“Okay,” he finally says. “I can… I can do that. I can try.”

“I will always choose you, Osamu,” you repeat quietly, squeezing his hand. “I promise.”

Dazai suddenly looks guilty, averting his gaze to the ground. “I didn’t mean what I said before,” he murmurs. “I—I was just angry. I—”

“I know,” you interrupt. “It’s okay.”

You don’t want to think about what he said before anymore—he was wrong, but he was also right. You had been jealous of him when you guys were younger, a part of you resented him as much as you loved him, and though you tried to push it away, it was always there. A constant reminder that there would always be someone more valuable than you to Mori. That you’d always be his second, third choice. You should’ve known Dazai had always been aware of it, but you never expected him to use it against you.

“It’s not,” he whispers. “I shouldn’t have—”

“Osamu, please,” you say, eyes sliding shut as you look away. “Drop it.”

His throat bobs as he swallows hard, voice cracking as he finally whispers, “You’re all I have. You’ve always been all I’ve had. I just… can’t lose you. I can’t.”

“You won’t,” you promise, shifting forward. “You—”

You bite back a yelp when Dazai suddenly grabs you. He lays back against the couch and pulls you onto his chest. You tense for a second, but then he wraps an arm around your waist and brings his free hand up to cradle the back of your head. He holds you close, you can feel his heart thrumming in his chest, the erratic pace evening out to match yours, and you bury your face in the crook of his neck. He kisses your temple before resting his forehead against the top of your head as you sink into his arms. 

Your eyes flutter shut, suddenly all too tired—the wine, the stress of the day, and the stress of this conversation with Dazai finally getting to you. The weight of Dazai’s arm around your waist and the feeling of his fingers absently toying with your hair is quickly lulling you to sleep.

He hums in protest, but the vibration only makes you sleepier. “You can’t sleep—we need to set up guidelines about Atsushi.”

You let out a soft laugh, but you don’t open your eyes. “This isn’t co-parenting, Osamu.”

“I mean, it kind of is,” he says. “Atsushi is my little protege, you’re my girlfriend, he’s going over to you, and we’re technically separated in two different organizations. So it’s kind of co-parenting, and like good co-parents, there needs to be rules and the first one—”

“Tomorrow, Osamu,” you yawn, shifting to nose his neck before you kiss his pulse point gently. “We’ll talk about it tomorrow.”

He lets out a dramatic sigh, but his arms tighten around you and he lifts his head briefly to kiss the top of yours again. “Fine, fine, I suppose it can wait until morning, but only because my sweet hime is sleepy.”

“I love you,” you whisper.

“I love you,” he echoes softly as you drift off to sleep. “More than you could ever imagine.”

---

Chuuya is quite glad that he decided against bringing up his ‘97 Petrus when he gets up to your apartment and finds you curled up on the couch fast asleep with the very fucker that Chuuya was coming up here to console you over.

He really should’ve expected this.

He stands at the side of the couch, arms crossed over his chest and lips twisted in a deep frown as he looks down at the two of you. For a long, heavy second, he can only stare, thoroughly uncomfortable when a strange, warm feeling bubbles in his chest. The sight is too familiar—if Dazai’s bandages were wrapped around the right side of his face, he could almost pretend the three of you were eighteen again and Chuuya came up to your apartment for a movie only to find the two of you passed out already.

Then, with a low scoff, he runs a hand through his hair and whispers, “Unbelievable.”

Dazai’s face is half-buried in your hair, one arm snug around your waist and the other cradling your head, and you’re fast asleep in his arms. He can’t see your face, but he doesn’t need to—he can picture the peaceful expression on it, one that he’s hardly seen since the bastard left four years ago.

Dazai is sleeping too. Chuuya’s almost surprised he didn’t wake up when the elevator arrived on your floor—he’s always been a light sleeper. He supposes it’s just testament to how much Dazai lets his guard down around you. How much he trusts you. How much he loves you.

Chuuya sighs as he rolls his eyes. “Told you it would be fine,” he mutters to you as he snatches a blanket off of the armchair to drape it over the two of you even though he knows you can’t hear him. “Worried over fuckin’ nothing.”

You shift in your sleep when you feel the blanket on top of you, and Chuuya’s throat tightens when he sees the tear tracks staining your cheeks. He lets out a puff of air, lifting a hand to stroke your hair gently for a moment before he shakes his head to leave the two of you in peace.

“Both fucking freaks. Deserve each other.”

If there’s a small, fond smile on his lips, then he’s glad neither of you are awake to see it.

[anqelically]

𝙗𝙡𝙪𝙚 𝙝𝙤𝙪𝙧 - gojo satoru x reader

He'll always make it back to you — even in the bluest hour, miles apart.

fluff. 1.7k words. coping because I miss him. rewritten from an old fic of mine

“Kiss me,” Satoru says, voice weak, like his soul is barely clinging on.

His words are dramatic as ever, but there’s something different about him tonight. His usual playfulness is there, but exhaustion clings to his features under it — the faint bags under his cerulean eyes, the slight droop of his frosty lashes, the way his soft lips part like he barely has the energy to keep them closed.

You sigh — he’s exhausted himself again — adjusting your grip on your phone. "Satoru, I can't. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but we’re on FaceTime. What do you want me to do, kiss my screen?"

"Yes," he replies without hesitation, almost offended that you asked him the obvious. "Now, hurry up. I’m miserable. About to die. I need a kiss to survive."

You laugh softly. "You're fine. You always overreact."

"Rude," he mutters, pouting as he leans closer to his camera. "And yes, you can. Just press your lips to the screen, like me.” He exaggerates his lips to pucker, ”Come on."

Despite his teasing smirks, a fine line of exhaustion lingers just underneath his features, but even like this, he’s still him—still Satoru, still effortlessly beautiful.

“You know I’ll kiss you when you come back," you remind him.

"Not soon enough," he grumbles.

Something in your chest tugs at his words. Because he’s right—it’s not soon enough.

Long distance has been an unbearable torment.

For him, it’s been endless missions, each one draining him further, on top of the weight of teaching, grading, and the frustration of dealing with useless higher-ups. No rest, no comfort, no chance to breathe. And worst of all, no you.

For you, it’s been waking up in a bed that feels like it’s grown too wide, every inch of it cold and empty without his warmth. Mornings spent without the familiar sound of his voice, nights that drag on without the weight of his body beside you. No him.

It’s a hollow ache that never quite fades.

You swallow it down, pushing past the loneliness in your chest, and ask, “How was your day?”

"Awful," Satoru groans, his voice heavy with exhaustion. "I’m completely drained. I smell like sweat and regret. My head feels like it’s about to explode. The elders won’t leave me alone. Ijichi is pure evil. And now my girlfriend won’t even kiss me to make me feel better. Can you believe that?"

You can’t help but giggle, though it comes out softer, more tender than you meant. "I love you, though."

Satoru pauses for a moment, his face scrunching in mock thought, before he tilts his head and repeats in a teasing, exaggerated high-pitched voice, "I love you, though."

"Rude," you murmur, rolling your eyes. "Never mind, I hate you."

"Wow, okay. First, no kisses. Now, you hate me. My life is over," Satoru complains dramatically, his voice dripping with mock sorrow.

You roll your eyes. "Drama queen."

"And you, you're a heartless monster. My poor, neglected heart," he adds, pouting for effect.

You let him continue whining, amusement tugging at your lips as you watch him. His bottom lip juts out in exaggerated sadness, his eyes half-lidded, and even through the grainy camera, you catch glimpses of him—the flutter of his white lashes against his skin, the way his collarbone peeks from beneath the loose fabric of his hoodie, the lazy way his fingers rake through his hair. It's a sight that tugs at something deep within you, something you hadn’t realized you’d been missing so desperately.

You swallow, trying to push back the sudden wave of longing.

"Are you outside?" you ask, noticing the change in the lighting, the shadows around him darker than before.

"Mm," he hums in reply, voice low. "Heading back to my hotel. Sneaking in some sweets because Ijichi wouldn’t let me."

"You know you're not supposed to be eating that," you chide, frowning. "And why are you dressed like that?"

"Shhh," he interrupts, dropping his voice to a playful whisper. "You’re being too loud, baby. People are sleeping. And Ijichi can’t know I’m out."

You pause. The way he says it—baby—is different this time. It’s slower, smoother, almost lazy. Softer, as if he’s letting the word linger on his tongue. It sends a tiny shiver down your spine.

There’s something in the way he says it, something that feels like more than just an endearment. His voice, low and intimate, wraps around your heart, and it clenches painfully in response.

He stops walking, his silhouette outlined by the dim glow of a streetlight, his eyes still locked on the screen.

"You sure you don’t wanna give me a kiss?" he asks again, but this time, his voice is softer—almost pleading, like he’s trying to coax you into giving him more than just a tease.

You hesitate, unsure if you can bear the weight of the longing in his words. His voice has dropped even lower now, almost hypnotic, pulling you in deeper. And the way his eyes watch you—sharp, focused, knowing—makes your breath catch in your throat.

"Satoru..." You whisper his name, the word a plea, a surrender.

He tilts his head, his gaze never leaving yours. "You miss me?"

Your throat tightens. The ache in your chest swells, but you can’t hide it anymore.

"Mhm," you admit, barely above a breath. "A lot."

His exhale is slow, like he’s been holding his breath, waiting for your answer. The weight of your words seems to ground him, steadying him in the darkness.

"That’s all I needed to hear," he whispers, voice thick with emotion.

And then, just like that, the screen goes dark.

"...Satoru?" You ask, feeling a knot of worry twist in your stomach.

There’s a pause, too long for your comfort. Then, his voice crackles through the silence.

"I’ll be home soon."

Beep.

The call ends.

You stare at the empty screen, your heart pounding in your chest. The familiar ache of longing tightens around your ribs, making it hard to breathe.

"See you soon?" you whisper to no one in particular, your voice barely audible in the quiet room. "But there are still nine more days."

The thought makes your body ache, that deep, hollow emptiness that only he can fill. You groan, rolling over and clutching his pillow tightly to your chest, burying your face in the lingering scent of him. It’s a small comfort, but it’s all you have right now.

Then—

Knock. Knock.

Your breath catches in your throat, a wave of disbelief crashing over you. It’s 5:43 AM—way too early for anyone to be knocking at your door. Your heart races, thudding painfully in your chest as you slowly make your way toward the door, each step heavier than the last.

You pause, hesitating for a brief moment, before cautiously peering through the peephole.

And then you freeze.

The air in your lungs stills.

There, standing on the other side of the door, is a figure draped in a hoodie, a hat pulled low over his face, and a mask that conceals half of his features. But you don’t need to see his full face to know who it is. His presence is unmistakable. His usual glasses perched on his nose, his posture so familiar, even in the dim light of the early morning.

Gojo Satoru.

Your Satoru.

You rip the door open and there he is— like a dream come true, or maybe something even more unbelievable than that, bewitching both your mind and soul.

"Satoru?! How—How the hell are you here?"

He tugs down his mask, revealing flushed cheeks, a crooked, boyish smirk, and those beautiful, blue eyes—eyes that look at you like you're the only thing in the world he wants to see.

"Before you get mad," he murmurs, voice rough from the cold and fatigue, stepping forward until the air between you disappears, "come here."

Immediately dropping his limitless, his hands, calloused and cold from the early morning air, cup your face with a gentleness that makes your heart ache. His touch is almost reverent, as if he’s making sure you’re real. His lips, warm and trembling slightly, find your forehead first—a lingering kiss full of something dangerously close to worship. Then your cheeks. The tip of your nose. Like he’s relearning you, piece by piece, desperate not to miss a single spot.

"How?" you breathe, mind spinning, barely able to form the words. "You’re supposed to be—" he cuts you off with a soft kiss against your lips, "—at—" another kiss, barely there, featherlight.

“Missed you too much," he mutters against your skin, his voice cracking ever so slightly as he buries his face into the crook of your neck. His arms tighten around you like he’s afraid you might slip away if he lets go for a second. "How the hell was I supposed to stay away when you were here... needing me just as bad?"

"You’re crazy," you breathe, laughing weakly, your fingers twisting into the fabric of his hoodie, trying to hold onto him, to anchor yourself. "You could’ve just... used your key."

"That’s not romantic," he murmurs against the shell of your ear, his lips dragging lazily to the corner of your mouth. "Had to see that look on your face when you opened the door. Needed you to miss me a little more."

"You missed me?" you ask, even though you already know the answer—you feel it in the way he holds you, desperate and aching.

He tilts your chin up with maddening tenderness, his nose brushing against yours, his mouth a breath away—taunting, savoring. His fingers curl against the small of your back like he can barely stand another second apart.

"You have no idea," he exhales, voice wrecked with longing.

And then he kisses you.

For real this time.

And when he kisses you—slow, deep, overwhelming—it feels like he’s trying to fuse your souls together. His hands find your waist, gripping hard enough to make you gasp against his mouth, and when he presses you against the door, bodies flush, heartbeats pounding—

You know now, in your bones: no amount of waiting could ever prepare you for the way he needs you.

And god, you need him just as much.

He was written into the fabric of your life, etched into every hope, every dream. Woven through your soul, destined to find his way back to you — no matter the distance, no matter the time.

And you, foolishly, lovingly, would always be waiting for him.

Under the bluest moon, where not even death could take him away from you.

author's note: I miss him you guys )) :

[anqelically]

my favourite trope is when someone believes they're hard to love and someone who loves them like it's breathing

[anqelically]

ᡣ𐭩 TO THINK THAT WE COULD STAY THE SAME

FEATURING: osamu dazai

SUMMARY: after your night out goes terribly wrong in every possible way, you find yourself at a strange house. you don't know if this is real or some elaborate trick of an ability—worse, you don't know which will hurt you more in the long run. you don't know how you're supposed to survive this. if you can survive this.

AUTHOR'S NOTES: YAYAAYAYAAAAYYYYYY PART TWO GUYS I HOPE U ENJOY <3333. reblogs appreciated!

GENERAL WARNINGS: fem!reader, port mafia executive!reader, beast!dazai, tragedy, angst, canon compliant.

CHAPTER SPECIFIC WARNINGS: lots of whiplash and confusion & lots of frustration. unprotected sex. oral (m->f).

SEE: TWO SLOW DANCERS SERIES MASTERLIST

You expect to wake up in a damp basement tied to a chair, cramped and uncomfortable. You hardly remember what happened last night—you remember drinking in Chuuya’s penthouse, the two of you sprawled out on top of each other in his bed after cracking open his nicest wine, and you remember Albatross’s incessant texts beckoning you guys to the bar. You vaguely remember getting to the bar and an argument breaking out between you and Iceman, but you can’t really remember what was said—maybe that’s for the best. 

And you remember the man that attacked you outside of the bar—not his face, but the panic that spread through your chest, the sharp scent of the rag placed over your mouth, the way your vision went dark.

Shit, you think, slowly coming to. You instinctively lift your hand to your head and then frown when you realize you can lift your hand. You’re not tied up… more than that, you’re not in pain. If anything, you’re comfortable. Your lashes flutter open, squinting at the early morning sun that’s rising directly in your eyes—you’re not underground either, clearly. You seem to be lying on some sort of couch—what is going on?

You’re careful not to make any noise as you slowly regain your bearings. You’re in a small room—a living room or something—you see a fireplace directly across from where you’re lying, a coffee table in front of you, your head is resting on a pillow that someone must have laid beneath you, and there’s a soft blanket pulled over you. You exhale softly, riddled with confusion as you try to figure out what’s going on. You wonder maybe if Chuuya or one of the Flags had figured out what was going on and intercepted the kidnapping before they could get you somewhere, or maybe Itou and Klaus were able to track you down, but this place doesn’t look reminiscent to any of the safehouses you guys use.

You’re uncertain as you sit up, looking around hesitantly as you try to pinpoint where you might be. You see a window to your left and make note of it if you need to escape, but you’re more curious about the view outside of it. You’re on the coastline? Your lips part, looking around the small area for any hints to where you may be, but the place is extraordinarily plain. There are no trinkets on the coffee table, no pictures on the walls—it looks like a freshly bought house, but you can see dust on the far cabinet, signaling that nobody has been here for a long time. If it were freshly bought, the real estate agents would’ve been sure to make sure it was spotless.

You turn your head to the left and find your breath catching at the sight of someone sitting at the kitchen table. Someone almost familiar, but your brain refuses to accept who it is that’s sitting there with your back to you. He’s hunched over the table, furiously writing away at something—it’s Dazai. Though you could only see the back of his head, you could recognize him anywhere. The dark hair, the bandages peeking out from under it, but he’s not wearing his black jacket. He’s dressed in a cozy gray sweatshirt and sweatpants—the sight is so disconcerting, so strange, that you almost think you might be hallucinating, you might be being affected by some sort of ability.

“Dazai?” you whisper softly, voice raspy. 

His head snaps to the side at the sound of your voice, and his dark eye is unusually warm as it focuses on you. He folds the paper he was writing on and puts it in his pocket, rising to his feet. His lips curl up into a soft smile, and you struggle to breathe. You’re confused, too hopeful for your liking, and still mostly convinced that this is some figment of your imagination.

“You’re awake,” he says quietly. “Hi.”

“Hi,” you reply, unsure. “What… is this? What is going on? The man who kidnapped me… You intercepted?”

Dazai’s cheeks suddenly go pink, gaze falling to the ground, and you’re baffled by it. You haven’t seen him so red in the face since you were eighteen and teasing him while the two of you were curled up in bed. You feel sick—if this is a joke, a trick, an ability, then there’s none as cruel as this, showing you the boy you loved, everything you’ve ever wanted. The number of times you’ve imagined escaping the Port Mafia with him, living a quiet life in the countryside; how many times have you wondered what life would’ve been like if you’d gotten to Mori’s office in time, if he never took over as boss, if he never became what he has. 

It’s too cruel—crueler than any words Dazai has ever spoken to you, crueler than what your life has become over the past four years.

“Uh, no,” Dazai says awkwardly. “That was me.”

“What?”

“I sent him.”

“What?”

“Are you feeling okay?” he suddenly asks, clearly trying to evade the subject. 

Your expression twists in frustration but instantly smooths when he takes a few steps closer to you. He presses the back of his hand against your forehead before letting his hand drop to your cheek. He caresses your cheek gently, thumb running along your cheekbone. 

You stare up at him, lips parted in shock. You’re not imagining the love in his gaze, not this time—it’s so plain that it has your chest painfully tight, it has your breath shaky, it has your eyes welling with tears that you’re not sure you’ll be able to hold back. You can’t help the way you lean into his touch, and that only makes his expression soften impossibly more. You don’t understand what’s going on, you don’t understand what’s caused this change, you don’t understand any of this.

You don’t realize that the tears have spilled over until you feel him wiping them away.

“I don’t understand,” you say, voice cracking as you take in a wet breath. “I don’t—is this real? I don't understand—”

“It’s real,” he tells you quietly, fingers gliding gently over your cheeks to wipe your tears before he tucks a strand of hair behind your ear. “It’s real.”

You know that’s something your mind would say to soothe your doubts, but his touch is so real. His fingers are warm, they’re callused from his gun, they’re so achingly familiar that you can hardly breathe—you want to believe that this is real, you so badly want to believe that this is real, but how could it be?

“I don’t understand, Dazai,” you whisper, shaking your head and pulling your face away from him. He doesn’t let you, his hand sliding to the back of your head to hold you in place. You can’t think straight with his hands on you, you’ve never been able to, but especially not like this, not when they’re so gentle, not when they’re everything you’ve ever wanted. Your voice comes out too much like a plea when you say his name, “Dazai, stop please—I don’t—what is this? Why are you…?”

Why are you dressed like this?

Why are you acting like this?

Why are you treating me like this?

What is going on?

You don’t even know what you want to ask, and you don’t know if you want to know the answer. A part of you just wants to bask in this—whether it’s a trick of your mind or an ability, you should take it as a blessing. You should bask in the time you have with your Dazai before you’re tossed back into your cruel reality, but the bigger part of you needs to know. If this is a trick or an ability, you don’t think you’ll survive being taunted with this only to have it ripped away.

Dazai’s expression twists, uncertainty in his eye as he looks down at you, like he doesn’t know what to say or how to explain it. His lips part to speak, but no words leave them. He lets out a shaky breath and then lets his gaze drop to your body. You realize you’re still wearing the dress from yesterday, albeit dirty and wrinkled now; his hand drops your face and you feel too cold without his touch, but you can at least think a bit more clearly now.

“What is going on?” you ask, voice steadier. “Where am I? Why are you here? Where are your guards? Is this place secure?”

Dazai looks at the ground, a resigned expression on his face. He doesn’t answer any of your questions, which has frustration bubbling in your chest along with a little mania, you have no idea what’s going on, you have no idea where you and Dazai are, you have no idea if this place is safe, you don’t see any of his guards standing watch, you don’t have your phone with you to call Chuuya or the Flags, you–

“You should get changed,” Dazai says quietly, much to your exasperation.

Your expression twists. “Dazai—”

“If it’s alright,” Dazai interrupts, voice unsteady, gaze still trained on the floor, “while we’re here, can you call me Osamu?”

Your mouth dries at the request, studying Dazai’s face as best as you can, but you come up infuriatingly blank as you try to figure out what might be going through his head right now. He almost looks like a kid again, back when you first met, sixteen and fumbling, unsure how to act around you but wanting desperately to be in your presence. He would force himself into your space and try to initiate conversation but would visibly get anxious as soon as he did, second-guessing his every word.

“Osamu,” you correct, and you don’t like how unfamiliar his given name is now on your tongue. It used to roll off easily, like it belonged there. Dazai’s shoulders slump in relief, gaze flickering up to meet yours. His eye looks like a pool of honey under the early morning sun, nothing like the black pit you’re used to. “Will you tell me what’s going on? At least if we’re safe here.”

“We’re safe here,” he confirms, swallowing thickly, and then repeats, “You should… get changed.”

You sigh as you look over to the bedroom he keeps glancing over at and then say, “Fine, but then you’re explaining.”

“Okay,” he agrees, voice unnervingly wobbly, but you only give him one last long, semi-suspicious look before making your way over to the bedroom. 

You don’t realize how much his presence has fogged your mind until you’re in the bedroom with the door shut behind you. You can suddenly breathe, you can suddenly see—you press your hands to your face as you sit on the edge of the bed and try to get ahold of yourself. You’re still not entirely sure that this is real; it could easily be a figment of your imagination, it could be a dream, it could be an ability. 

You exhale shakily—first and foremost, you need to figure out if this is real.

Your gaze lifts to the window in the bedroom. If this is an ability and you’re being taunted with your deepest desires, then you likely won’t be able to feel the fresh air. You’d be held in an enclosed area that’s masquerading as this beach house, there would be no wind or breeze when you try to step outside because you’re not actually outside. Holding your breath, you take a step forward—the window gets stuck a little as you try to push it up, but once you get it up, you’re immediately met with a fresh breeze from the bay. You can smell the faint scent of saltwater in the air, you can feel the warmth of the rising sun—it’s too real to be an ability.

Shit, you think, even more confused. Your gaze snaps up to the clock on the wall, watching the second-hand tick—you can read it just fine. Not a dream. What is going on?

You shake your head as you make your way over to the closet, sliding open the door to figure out what exactly Dazai wants you to change into. You pause when you see two outfits hanging up—one is casual loungewear, a matching set to what he’s wearing, and the other is one of your suits.

It’s a choice, you realize, throat tight as you take in a shuddered breath. He’s letting you choose whether you’re going to stay with him or if you’re going to go to the meeting with the Red Chamber.

Fuck, you think, rubbing your face hard, staring hard at the two outfits. You still don’t understand what’s going on, and you want to stay with Dazai. You really do, more than anything. You want answers, and you want to indulge, but you’re scared. You know that if you stay with him, indulge in whatever this is… you know it won’t last, and when you inevitably have to go back to reality, it’ll just make things hurt so much worse.

Your fingers graze the familiar fabric of your suit jacket, and for a second, you imagine going out there in it. You imagine the way Dazai’s expression will fall when he realizes you didn’t choose him. You imagine the way his throat will spasm as he nods in resignation and calls for a car so the two of you can leave. You imagine the hurt in his eyes, and it’s almost enough for you to choose to leave. The vindictiveness is tempting, the prospect of hurting him even a fraction as much as he’s hurt you the past four years is too enticing, but more than revenge, you want answers. You want to know what spurred this because you have a bad feeling in your gut about it. 

After a moment’s hesitation, you yank the loungewear off the hanger, slipping out of the dress you’ve been wearing for far too long to slide the thin sweatshirt over your head and pull on the shorts. They’re comfortable, the cotton is soft against your skin, and for some reason, it causes a heavy feeling to settle on your chest. You shake your head and leave the room before you can second-guess yourself.

Dazai is sitting on the couch, shoulders hunched over, back to you, head tilted toward the ground. He doesn’t hear you when you exit the bedroom; he doesn’t even look up until you clear your throat. When you do, his head snaps around instantly. There’s an uncertain expression on his face that quickly fades into relief when he realizes what you’re wearing.

“No,” you say immediately, glad that your voice comes out harsh instead of wavering. “You don’t get to look relieved. I want answers. What is this?” 

Dazai rises to his feet. His lips part, like he wants to say something but isn’t sure what. His brows furrow, and he looks down at the ground as he says, “I don’t know how to explain it.”

Frustrated, you snap, “Well, figure it out, Dazai.” Dazai has the audacity to withdraw, and you let out an exasperated sigh before correcting quietly, “Osamu.”

“I can’t—”

“You have to,” you say, raising your voice and taking a step forward. Dazai takes a step backward, expression falling. “I’ve dreamt of this, Osamu. Of waking up one day and things were suddenly the same again, like they were. I thought I would be happy, but I am so fucking angry. You don’t get to do this after everything you’ve put me through, not without an explanation.”

“I can’t,” he repeats, voice pitched, rising in distress. “I can’t. I can’t. I don’t—this was a mistake, I can’t—”

Dazai suddenly looks like he’s about to cry, and you hate how all of the anger immediately drains from you. He looks so much younger dressed like this in a sweatshirt too big for his thin shoulders, without his jacket acting like a shield from the rest of the world, without Mori’s scarf hanging around his shoulders, a reminder of all that he’s done. He looks like he’s sixteen again, startled awake from a nightmare, too lost and too alone, and just like back then, your instinct is to try to calm him down. 

“I don’t understand,” you say helplessly.

“You can’t understand,” he replies shrilly. “I shouldn't be here, you shouldn’t be here. I don’t know what I was thinking, I—”

He cuts himself off suddenly, and you watch as his expression hardens in an instant. His voice goes cold, and he says, “Forget it. We should go. I’m going to—”

“No,” you say harshly, reaching out to grab his wrist to stop him from walking past you. You shove your forearm against his chest to push back against the wall. He doesn’t fight back. When his back hits the wall, he only stares down at you, his visible eye wide and swirling with too many emotions. “You’re going to explain what’s happening. Please, Osamu.”

“I can’t,” he whispers. “We shouldn’t be here, I never meant—I just wanted—”

You sigh as you step away from him, looking away. You’re getting nowhere—you need to take a different route, you’re not going to get any answers from him this way. After a few moments, you ask, “What happened with the meeting with the Red Chamber? Who is going? What happened to the plan to assassinate Baoyu Jia?”

This is obviously the wrong question because Dazai looks embarrassed again as he looks away. “Lippmann is handling the meeting,” he says after a moment. 

“Lippmann doesn’t do assassinations,” you reply.

His gaze lowers. “He’s not killing him.”

You let your eyes slide shut, trying to calm yourself down. “You never planned to have me kill him,” you realize.

“No.”

“You lied to me.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

Dazai doesn’t meet your gaze as he stares to the side. “I planned to have you kidnapped on the way to the meeting. I figured it would be easier if you were thrown off and focused on an unusual mission. I only ended up doing it last night because…”

Because of how things went down yesterday, you finish for him silently. 

You rub your face as you step away. “Why did you kidnap me?” you ask flatly.

Dazai looks as if he doesn’t want to answer. His throat spasms and he almost looks like he wants to run away, but he knows you’ll be quick to stop him. As he realizes that fleeing is not an option, he starts to get visibly upset again.

“I just wanted one day—” he begins, his voice pitched again. Wobbly. He rubs at his face harshly, first his cheeks and then over his eyes. He lets out a shaky breath, and his body tenses like he’s going to bolt. You brace yourself to stop him, but his shoulders slump suddenly, and his head hangs forward. He says softly, “I’m so tired. I just wanted one day where things could be normal again.”

You swallow as you stare at Dazai. He looks… incredibly fragile right now, more so than you’ve ever seen him before. Even those nights when you woke to him screaming and sobbing, the night you raced to the rooftop to stop him from jumping—none of it compares to right now. His eye looks like glass, ready to shatter at a moment’s notice, and his lips are trembling; it’s only a thread that’s holding him together right now, and you could so easily pull it apart. 

All it would take is a single word.

It’s on the tip of your tongue, a bullet loaded in the chamber and ready to let fly. You could do it, and a part of you wants to. You want to hurt him—the vindictiveness you felt in the bedroom returns with a vengeance. You want to rip that thread away and watch him fall apart, you want him to shatter, you want him to hurt. 

“I—” You start to say, but the words die on your tongue when his gaze lifts to meet yours. The expression on his face is resigned, defeated, like he already knows what you’re going to say, like he knows that one day of normalcy could never be an option. And you can’t bring yourself to do it, can’t bring yourself to hurt him the same way he’s hurt you so much over the last four years. “You didn’t have to kidnap me, Osamu. You could’ve just asked me to come. I would have.”

You’re weak, you think bitterly. Dazai deserves your anger. He deserves your cruelty. He deserves your hatred. He’s treated you horribly over the last four years, and the moment he puts on a sad face, you fold for him. You should walk away, leave him here to break down on his own. You don’t give a fuck if he’s tired, you’re tired. You’re tired of the four years of hell your life has been, you’re tired of clinging to the past, you’re tired of Dazai. 

Your life would be so much easier if you could just hate him and move on, but you’ll never move on from Dazai Osamu. Your souls have been inexplicably entwined since the day the two of you met six years ago, so entangled that you no longer know where yours ends and his begins; there’s no world for you without him, and if that means letting him drag you through hell, if it means letting him ruin you, ruin everything you had with him, then you would let him. 

“Would you have really come?” he asks solemnly, like maybe he knows what you’re thinking.

You look away and answer, maybe a bit too bitterly, “I always come, don’t I?” 

“It doesn’t matter. It had to be this way,” Dazai responds after a moment.

“It had to be a kidnapping?” you ask dryly.

“Yes.”

“Why?” 

“... You wouldn’t understand.”

You let out yet another exasperated sigh, head falling back as you will yourself the patience because, of course, it’s back to this.

“Then help me understand,” you say tightly. “Osamu, would you please stop being difficult?”

“I can’t,” he repeats, much to your frustration. “I just—I can’t.”

You don’t respond this time, shaking your head and looking away. You don’t know if you’ll be able to indulge him the way he wants without an explanation. You want to know what’s going on—you need to know what’s going on. You have to understand what triggered this, you have to understand what has him so wound up. Just as you’re about to ask, he asks softly:

“Can we go to the cliffside?” 

You let out a heavy sigh. “Is this place even secure? I know you want one day to be normal, but you’re still you. You have billions of yen on your head, we can’t—”

“It’s secure,” he interrupts, looking uncomfortable by the reminder. Your gaze softens. You thought maybe you would be relieved with solid proof that the boy who loved you was still here, but it only makes you feel strange now. Bitter, maybe, hurt—if he’s still here, why has he hurt you so much in the past four years? A part of you wonders if maybe it would’ve been better if Chuuya was right; if Dazai was better off dead. “Please, let’s go out there.”

“Okay,” you agree, shoving your hands in your pockets and making your way over to the slippers Dazai left out for you before walking over to the back door. 

He trails after you slowly, remaining a pace behind you as you walk up the dirt path leading to the clifftop. The early morning sea breeze is cool against your skin, and the rising sun casts a pretty glow over the bay. Your hands are stuffed in your pockets as you drag your feet against the dirt—you don’t dare look back at Dazai.

You try to piece together all that you know. Something has Dazai highly distressed and emotionally unstable, you aren’t sure what. This place, for some reason, is special to him—he can’t seem to handle any form of coldness or cruelty from you while here. He can’t explain to you what’s going on, and he can’t explain why he can’t explain to you. This was evidently a whole plot he’d been planning for a while now, what with using the meeting with the Red Chamber and already having the house and property around it secured. It’s all too confusing, and you have a feeling you’re going to come out of this more hurt than you were to begin with.

You come to a stop at the cliff’s edge, but you don’t sit down. Dazai comes to stand next to you, shoulder brushing yours as the two of you look over the bay. 

“It’s my birthday today.”

Your head snaps to the side as you look up at him, eyes wide, “What?” 

“You know, in another universe, you found the files when you and Chuuya went looking for them,” Dazai says with a wry smile. 

Your lips part when he looks down at you—he looks stunning under the early morning sun, he looks alive, and you don’t think you’ve seen him look so at ease in four years. There are still bags visible under his eye, but his expression is smooth otherwise, his lips are curled up softly, and his dark eye looks golden under the rays of the sun. 

“You knew about that?” you ask quietly, voice coming out a bit more breathless than you mean for it to.

“… I know a lot of things,” he answers cryptically. “I made sure you couldn’t get your hands on them this time, though.”

In another universe, this time—his words finally start to register, and you frown, trying to piece together what he means. 

“Why?” you ask carefully.

There’s a faraway look in his eyes as he gazes out to the bay, like he’s looking at something that’s not really there. “I fell in love with you many times, but that night was always the night I fell the hardest. I was scared.” 

You let out a shaky breath as you stare up at him. You don’t know what he’s talking about, you don’t know what he means, but he’s saying what you’ve only dreamed of hearing from him, and it leaves you at a loss. You can only see the side of his face, but the corner of his lip is twitching down again, his brown eye soft beneath the sunlight. 

“Scared?”

“Scared,” he confirms quietly. “I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to follow through with what needed to be done… I… I wasn’t supposed to get close to you at all. I knew it would make things more difficult.”

What needed to be done—did he mean killing Mori? Did he have that planned for that long? How hadn’t you known?

You don’t know what to say—not because you’re at a loss for words now, but because you’re scared that if you ask the wrong thing, he’ll clam up again. You don’t know what he means, talking about another universe and ‘this time’ and how he wasn’t supposed ‘to get close to you’—he’s talking like he knows everything that was supposed to happen, everything that has happened in another life. It’s too strange, you don’t know if Dazai has genuinely gone off the deep end or if he’s been hiding something from you since the moment you met him. Both explanations are disconcerting.

“Then why?” you finally settle on. “Why did you get close to me? Why did you—”

Why did you fall in love with me?

Why did you make me fall in love with you?

If you knew how things were going to turn out, why would you put me through this?

Dazai looks down now, gaze trained on the rocks below as the water crashes against them. He looks sad. Your hand twitches to reach out for his, but you refrain, if only barely. 

“What if I told you it was to use you?” he asks quietly. “To make you love me so that you could make the power transition easier because I knew people wouldn’t question me if I had Mori’s daughter’s support.”

“I would call you a liar,” you reply. “Tell me why.”

“Because I love you,” he whispers, lips trembling, throat spasming. “I love you so much that I can barely breathe when you’re in the room. That I can’t think straight when you’re around, even when you’re not around. I become stupid, reckless—I don’t think at all. You’re everything I’ve ever wanted, and I tried so hard to stay away to protect you. I told myself it over and over again leading up to the day we met, but then I saw you, and I just—I couldn’t do it… I couldn’t do it.”

Dazai’s eye is glassy as he stares down at the water, and his fingers tremble in front of his body. He twists them awkwardly like he doesn’t know what to do with himself—the same way he did when he fumbled over words when you guys were seventeen and he was trying to ask you out on a date. 

This time, you do reach out. You brush your fingers against his, at first hesitantly, and then when he doesn’t immediately pull away, you slide your hands into his, entwining your fingers together. His grip on your hand is tight, like he’s afraid to let go in fear that you might disappear. Like he’s afraid this moment might slip through his fingers. 

“I don’t understand, Osamu,” you say quietly, grip tightening on his hand in case he decides to bolt once he hears your question. “Then why did you push me away so much? Why were you so…”

Cruel.

He grimaces like you spoke the word, incapable of looking you in the eye. He indeed tenses like he’s going to run, but then his shoulders slump. “Because I—I wasn’t supposed to—you’re not supposed to—you don’t understand, I can’t—”

“Help me understand,” you insist, frustration starting to pull at you again. “Osamu, please, I—”

“You were never supposed to be the price of this world,” Dazai finally blurts out, voice shrill again. He tries to pull away, but you don’t let him; he takes in a ragged breath, and your lips part in shock when you realize that the tears that had been welling in his visible eye have started to spill over. Again, he tries to yank his hand away and nearly sends himself careening off the side of the cliff, it’s only your quick reaction to tug him hard toward you that prevents him from tumbling back. The two of you crash backward onto the ground. “I’ve ruined everything, I’ve ruined you, I ruin everything I touch. Everything was supposed to work out perfectly for everyone, but I ruined it. I was supposed to stay away from you; I was supposed to let you live without me, but I couldn’t stay away. I was selfish, I’ve always been selfish, and it’s always at your expense. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I—”

You wrap your arms around his shoulders, and Dazai buries his face into the crook of your neck. He’s shaking terribly, and he feels so small wrapped up in your arms like this. He’s too thin, his shoulders feel frail—Dazai has never been good at taking care of himself, but you can’t help but wonder when the last time he’s eaten, if he’s eaten, with no one looking after him anymore. Your hand slides up to cradle the back of his head, and Dazai sobs, his whole body shudders, you can feel him clinging to the back of your sweatshirt desperately.

And you don’t know what to say to calm him down. You don’t know what he’s talking about, you can’t understand any of this. You don’t know if he’s gone crazy, and you don’t know what to do if he has because people are already starting to question his decisions. There are rumors spreading that something’s not right with Dazai—ever since all of this unnecessary tension with the Armed Detective Agency began a few weeks ago, there have been whispers, even among your closest confidants, that maybe Dazai’s reign as boss has come to an end, that maybe it’s time for a new regime to take his place. 

The Flags are eager, Itou and Klaus are ready for it, and Chuuya is resigned. He’s waiting for you to give up on Dazai so he can finally put his old partner out of his misery—or that’s what he’s telling himself, anyway.

But a small part of you wonders if there’s any truth to what he’s saying. 

Dazai has always been smart, but there were times when you questioned whether his intelligence was the product of his own natural instincts and skill or if maybe there was something else going on because sometimes he predicted things that he shouldn’t have possibly been able to predict. 

He knew about an assassination attempt on your life before anyone in the Port Mafia caught wind of it—not any of Verlaine’s girls, none of your contacts, none of Mori or Kouyou’s contacts, but somehow he knew. He knew that there was a trap laid out in Kyoto for you and Itou, and that’s why he was so insistent on being the one to go in your stead. Not only that, but he knew things about you before you ever told him—your interests, your fears, your desires. Sometimes, he would let you tell him them, but you could tell that you were only confirming what he already knew.

It never made any sense to you, but if he somehow knew what happened in other worlds and used that knowledge here… that would explain a lot, wouldn’t it?

But how? 

How would he have had that knowledge?

And why didn’t he tell you? Chuuya? Anyone?

He’s still talking, but you can’t make out any of the words he’s saying anymore. His voice is muffled against your skin, and he’s heaving over sobs. You wonder when the last time Dazai let himself cry like this—if he ever has.

“This was a mistake.” You finally make out the ragged words as he presses his face harder into your neck, like he’s trying to crawl inside your skin. “You shouldn’t be here. You’re not supposed to be here. I’m going to ruin everything, I don’t know what I was thinking, I—”

“It’s already ruined,” you say suddenly, feeling Dazai still in your arms as soon as your words register. “It’s ruined, I’m here. There’s no taking that back. So, why don’t we just enjoy your birthday, and we can figure everything else out tomorrow, okay?”

Dazai pulls back so he can look at you. His eye is still wet, and his cheek is smeared with tears, but they’re no longer steadily rolling over it. You lift your hand to caress his cheek, using your thumb to wipe his cheek gently. His lashes flutter shut as he instinctively leans into your touch, turning his face a little to the side so he can kiss your palm. When his eye reopens, the adoration swimming within it takes your breath away.

He hasn’t looked at you like this in years, and it makes your chest feel like it’s going to cave in—you’re not doing this to indulge, you tell yourself. Sure, you’re not going to complain about it; you’ve dreamt about this before, but it’s more important that you figure out what exactly is going on with him. You still don’t know what he means and haven’t managed to get a single answer out of Dazai. If anything, you have more questions. Your head has gone dizzy with all the possible explanations swimming around in your mind. The first thing you need to do is get Dazai to calm down, you’re not going to get anything out of him in this state, and then, you can try to figure out the best plan of attack for getting some answers.

“It’ll make everything worse,” he replies softly. “This was a mistake, I shouldn’t have—it’s just going to make everything worse, and—”

“Can it really get worse, Osamu?” you ask with a wry smile.

Dazai’s gaze lowers to the ground, the expression on his face is resigned, so you know that you’ve won, but his words still unsettle you deeply:

“Yeah,” he says. “It can.”

———

You thought maybe that once Dazai calmed down, you’d be able to get answers from him. That was a mistake, of course, because once Dazai calmed down, he became even more careful with his words. A part of you knows that you should’ve expected this—it’s Dazai, for fuck’s sake—but you can’t blame yourself for not thinking straight, all thing’s considered. Every time you tried to broach the topic, he expertly evaded with a soft smile and a change of subject; you were starting to get frustrated, but you were doing your best at not letting it show on your face.

The two of you are sitting on the beach now, shoulders brushing as you look out at the bay. The sand is soft between your fingers, the bay water cool against your toes as you bask in each other’s presence—you almost feel at peace. You want to feel at peace, but you can’t with the nagging fear that something is seriously wrong. You can’t with Dazai sitting next to you and not explaining why he treated you so cruelly for four years. Having to stay away isn’t an explanation, not enough for you to be at ease.

You need to understand. You need the truth.

Instead of going about it in a convoluted, sneaky manner, you decide to be upfront this time and quietly say, “I need to know why, Osamu.”

Dazai doesn’t respond to you, and when you glance at him, you find him looking down at his lap, a resigned expression on his face. His jaw tenses like he’s going to reply, but then his lashes flutter as he turns his face away—you’re so close, you can tell he’s on the brink of giving in. He wants to tell you, but something is stopping him, and you just have to get him to that point where the desire to explain overwhelms all of his common sense. 

You can do that.

“You hurt me,” you tell him. Your voice cracks, you don’t need to fake the pain that he’s made you feel over the last four years. You can only see the corners of his eye and his lips, but you can see the way they tighten at your words. “Do you even know how bad you hurt me, Osamu?”

“I do,” he whispers, his voice just as weak as yours is. “I—”

“You don’t,” you interrupt. “You don’t know because if you did, you wouldn’t be able to sit here with me and not give me an explanation.” 

Dazai doesn’t respond now, so you take the opportunity to continue.

“At first, I convinced myself it was because you loved me,” you say quietly, staring down at your lap. “You didn’t want people to think I conspired against Mori in case the coup went poorly. You didn’t want to put me in the middle and force me to choose. You were cruel because you were putting on a show for the rest of the Port Mafia because you loved me and didn’t want your actions to come crashing down on me if things took a turn for the worse.”

You still don’t look at Dazai; you can't bear to; you don’t want to know what he’s thinking. It’s taking all of your energy to keep yourself together as you speak all of this out loud for the first time. You think you’ll break if you look at him.

“We didn’t see each other for days because you were busy consolidating power, and I was busy in Tokyo with our allies. I made so many excuses for what you’d done during that time separated that I drowned myself in them; I couldn’t speak to Chuuya or Itou or the Flags without getting into an argument with them because I defended you after you murdered the closest thing I had to a father and taunted me about it.” 

The first time you and Chuuya got into a screaming match over Dazai was in the immediate aftermath of the coup. Chuuya had been just as blindsided as you, and he had been with you when you got up to Mori’s office and saw Dazai sitting at his desk. He heard what he said to you, how he treated you, and would’ve killed him on the spot if you hadn't been there to see it happen if he did. 

You were both drunk a few days after everything happened. It was a long day of talks with Mishima Yukio, and you guys were trying to relax, but the topic of Dazai came up, and everything went to shit. You couldn’t handle what Chuuya was implying when he was venting about Dazai going behind your backs for the coup, and you started voicing all of the excuses you’d been gathering in the back of your head, and things escalated until they blew up, as it always did whenever Dazai was brought up the past four years. 

“I defended you so much that I really believed it, Osamu,” you tell him, voice cracking again. You take in a wet breath, desperately trying to calm yourself down. You rub your face harshly, but it only bothers you more because the sand grates your skin. “When I came back to Yokohama after things settled with Mishima, I thought maybe I would get an explanation now that things had calmed down. After everything you did, I thought maybe there was still a chance that things could go back to normal. I thought there could still be a normal.”

You were ashamed of it. You can’t stop the sob that tumbles from your lips now, so you press your hand to your mouth to try to muffle it. Chuuya had never looked down on you the way he did when he realized what you were hoping for; it was the only time he didn’t get angry when Dazai was brought up after the coup. He walked away from you, and that was somehow worse.

Itou and the Flags—they never voiced their disapproval, but you knew they lost respect for you when they realized you were still clinging to Dazai after what he’d done. And it hurt, but it didn’t hurt quite as much as the thought of losing Dazai entirely, so you pushed through it and clung to your hope even if it was killing you.

“And then you called me to your office for the first time.”

You hear Dazai take in a sharp, shaky breath; he lets out a noise as he exhales—a whimper or the beginnings of a sob, you can’t tell. You think he wants to tell you to stop, but he knows he doesn’t have the right to.

“I think I understand now—you were angry at yourself, weren’t you? You were trying to push me away, but you couldn’t, so you were hoping that I wouldn’t come when you called, and when I did, you were angry. At yourself, at me, at the situation,” you continue, finally turning your head to the side so you can look at him. He’s buried his face in his hands like a coward, so you shake your head and look ahead again. “But I didn’t understand back then, Osamu.”

“I’m sorry,” he breathes out so quietly that you barely hear him. 

“I don’t know what I was expecting,” you whisper, helplessly looking up at the sky. “I really don’t, but it wasn’t that. Of everyone, I really thought you would be the last to use me like that, but even then, I thought that if this was the only way I could have you now, then I would be okay with it. I would let you ruin me. Ruin us.”

You don’t even know where you’re going with this anymore. You forgot how this started, forgot what you were getting at, but you think there’s something relieving getting all of this off your chest to the person who caused all of your distress.

“And then you fucking sent me away,” you spit, angry suddenly as you turn to look at him again. “You sent me away, Osamu. Not even twenty-four hours after you fucked me over Mori’s desk after you killed him. You had the audacity to send me abroad for a year.”

“I had to—”

“No, you didn’t,” you reply, raising your voice. “What did you think would change? Did you think that after a year away, when I came back, I wouldn’t come when you called for me? I always come when you call. Always. It was just more fucking humiliating crawling back to you like a dog after you sent me away.”

“It wasn’t like that—” Dazai tries to protest, voice cracking. “It wasn’t—”

“How am I supposed to know what it was like? You never explain anything, all I knew was that you sent me away with no explanation after you fucked me in the most degrading way possible, and the moment I came back to Yokohama, you had me bent over that desk again,” you snap. “Do you even know what people say about me? Do you even care?”

“How could you even ask that?” Dazai demands, voice ragged as he finally turns to face you. His dark eye is glassy with tears that roll over his cheek steadily—you can’t even find pleasure in it. “How could you—”

“How could I?” you repeat loudly, so frustrated that you almost want to grab him and shake him, hit him, anything. “How could I, Osamu? Because you treated me exactly the way they said. Like a fucking whore.”

“Please—”

“The shit you said to me, the way you mocked me because you were too fucking weak to let me go, so you wanted to force me into being the one to cut you off,” you interrupt him, pulling your knees to your chest as you take in another sharp breath. “You knew I would never, you had to have known.”

“I’m sorry,” he murmurs again, ashamed, regretful, but is it enough?

“If you’re sorry, then explain,” you insist, looking up at him again, but he’s turned his head away. “Look me in the eye and tell me after all of that you still can’t explain, Osamu.”

After what feels like an eternity, he drags his gaze to yours, and with tears rolling over his cheek, regret and sorrow swimming in his dark eye, he shakes his head and whispers, “I can’t.”

Your hand flies to your mouth to muffle the sob you don’t want to let out; you feel sick to your stomach, nauseous, but there’s nothing in you to throw up. Your hands are shaking—you think your whole body may be shaking—you feel defeated, resigned to the fact that you’ll never get a clear answer from Dazai as to why he did this to you.

“At least tell me if it’s worth it.” You hate that you’re begging him even now, but you need to know. “Even if it’s a lie, just tell me it’s worth it. Whatever you’re trying to do that cost us everything we had, tell me it’s worth it.”

You don’t look at him when he says shakily, “It is,” you don’t want to know if he's lying.

After a few moments of silence, he speaks again, voice just as resigned as you feel. “If you only stayed to get answers, you can still leave.”

Please, leave—you can see the desperation plain on his face when you look at him. 

Leave this time, he pleads, don’t stay. Let me go.

But what’s the point of leaving now? The damage has been done—there’s no coming back from this, there’s no shielding yourself from getting hurt any more than you already have. No matter what happens after this conversation, when things inevitably go back to how they were before he brought you here, it will destroy you. He will destroy you.

So, instead of leaving, you ask quietly, “Will you kiss me?”

Dazai doesn’t waste a second. 

For the first time in four years, his lips touch yours—you can taste the saltiness of his tears, the familiar mixture of tobacco and whiskey, the hint of iron. They quiver against yours terribly, his fingers tremble in his lap until he lifts them to cradle your face gently. Dazai kisses you like he’s afraid that you’ll disappear, like he’s trying to memorize the taste of you before it’s too late. It’s desperate, reverent. An apology. 

His breath catches as he pulls you closer, and you decide that just for today, you’ll let yourself pretend that this is enough. That his hands caressing your body and the way he kisses you like you’re the only thing in the world that matters is enough to rewrite four years of heartache, enough to undo all of the pain he’s caused that led you here. 

Just for today, it will be enough.

———

Dazai is in the shower. 

He’s been oddly antsy since dusk has fallen, and you’re not sure why. Maybe it’s because he’s realizing the day is ending and that when the sun rises tomorrow, things are going to have to go back to how they were. It certainly has you antsy—each passing second is a reminder that your time with him is limited, that this was never meant to last.

He’s also been oddly… distant. Maybe not emotionally, but physically—a total 180 from the past four years when you could only be close to him physically. Besides the kisses on the beach, Dazai has hardly touched you. When you made lunch, he hovered just close enough that you could almost imagine that his skin was brushing yours; when the two of you were lounging on the couch after a few hours in the sun, he subtly shifted away whenever your thighs touched. 

It’s strange, you think that maybe it has to do with your words from earlier: every time he touches you, he cringes away in a reminder of how he treated you the past four years. When his fingers brush your wrist, he’s reminded of the way your arms must’ve ached when he pinned your wrists to the small of your back after bending you over his desk; when his thigh touched yours, he glances down and sees fading purplish hue on your thighs from where the edge of his desk had dug a bit too deep into your skin with each thrust.

You want to remind him that you knew what you were getting into when you chose to go up to his office, you knew his touches weren’t going to be gentle, and you knew his words wouldn’t be kind. You went because you wanted him in any way you could have him, but you don’t think that will make him feel any better. You don’t know if you want him to feel better. A part of you is relishing in the agony he feels over how he’s treated you the past few years.

You’re snooping now. This is a different bedroom from the one you changed in; it’s not quite as empty as the rest of the house. There are little trinkets scattered on top of the dressers, and the dressers are actually full. Most of the clothes in them seem to just be more casual loungewear for Dazai. You thought that this place was unused at first glance, but now you can’t help but wonder how often he comes here. He used to disappear for days at a time before he took over as boss, and no matter how much you and Chuuya looked for him in his usual spots, you couldn’t find him.

Was he coming here?

You slide open another drawer and pause when you see clothes that are decidedly not loungewear and decidedly not Dazai’s. You tilt your head to the side as you skim your fingers against the silk lingerie—they’re soft under your touch, the tags still clipped on, your size. Your throat swells with something indecipherable. Fondness, maybe? Sadness? Both? Neither? You’re not sure. 

How long has he been planning to bring you here?

When you hear the bathroom door creak open, you ask lightly, “How many women have you brought here, hm? Am I one of many?”

You hear Dazai let out a huff of laughter, and you turn to face him, lips parting instinctively at the sight of him. He’s mostly rewound his bandages around his body—legs, arms, and torso all covered by the gauze—and his towel hangs low on his hips, but he hasn’t rewrapped his bandages around the left side of his face yet.

For the first time since you’ve known him when your gaze tracks up to his face, your eyes meet both of his. His gaze is soft as he looks over you, a longing expression on his face. Dazai is usually quick to school his expression around you, but he’s been disconcertingly open with you since you woke up here. Obviously, he’s still keeping things from you because he’s not explaining everything, but he’s not hiding anything. He’s not masking his emotions, he’s not hitting you with flimsy excuses to dodge the conversation. He’s been open—more open than Dazai Osamu has ever been with anyone. 

“Oh yes,” he drawls, giving you a languid smile before reaching over to grab a sweatshirt and pants. “Many women.”

You side-eye him. “Don’t even joke about that.”

He raises his eyebrows, looking unbearably amused, and then he murmurs, “You know you’re the only woman for me.”

You let out a pleased huff and raise your chin, giving him a simpering smile before he steps back into the bathroom to get his clothes on. As soon as he does, you’re looking back down at the lingerie, and with only enough time for a split second to make a decision, you glance back at the closed bathroom door, yank the set out of the drawer, and change into it as quickly as you can.

You’d like to see him keep his hands off of you while you’re dressed in this. 

You toss yourself on the bed, humming to yourself as you stretch, making sure the lingerie is fitted properly while you wait for him to get out of the bathroom. You don’t actually know if this is a good idea—the conversations you’ve had with him, the emotional intimacy, it’s a lot for one day, and a part of you is worried that he’s been avoiding physical intimacy because it would just be too much. How are either of you supposed to go back to how things were once you’ve fully indulged in what could be?

That’s also part of the reason why you need to seduce him. You need to show him that he doesn’t have to go back to how things were, that this could be the new norm if he just allowed it. You’re already not sure if you’ll be able to handle going back to how things used to be tomorrow, but you’re in too deep already that you may as well fully indulge. You may as well use this time to try to make him really understand what he could have if he just allowed it.

When you hear the bathroom door creak open, you don’t lift your head to look at him. You know the exact moment he notices you because he’s mid, “Do you want—” when his voice abruptly cuts off.

You hold your breath when you don’t immediately hear him walk in your direction, uncertainty rising in your chest when he also doesn’t speak. It’s an agonizing few seconds as you wait for him to do something. Eventually, you hear his feet padding against the ground as he makes his way over to you.

You don’t know if he’s approaching from behind your head or from your side, and you don’t want to crane your neck around to look. It’s only when you see movement from the corner of your eye as he reaches out to trace his finger up your body, starting from the valley between your breasts up to the middle of your throat. His touch burns, and you can’t think as he drags his finger against your skin. When he finally gets to your throat, he rests it there, and it feels like a brand, searing and heavy as if he’s pressing his claim into your skin with just the pads of his fingers. The air feels thick, suffocating, and you realize you’ve stopped breathing entirely. His pupils are blown wide as he stares down at you silently, gaze running up and down your body intensely, but his fingertips linger on that one spot at the center of your throat—unmoving, heavy, possessive.

You’ve succeeded, but at what cost?

“Tease,” he finally breathes out. The word is shaky, and his finger tenses on your neck before he drags it up to your cheek so he can caress your face. “You’re beautiful.”

You press your face into his hand, looking up at him through your lashes as you say softly, “I’m yours.”

He draws his hand back like he’s been burned, but he doesn’t move away, staring down at you with an expression that you just can’t place. After a few long moments, he whispers, “Don’t say that.”

“It’s true,” you repeat, pushing yourself up and shifting on your knees so you can look at him, sitting back on your heels. His throat spasms as he swallows, hardly able to keep his gaze on your face. “I’m yours. I always have been, always will be, you must know that by now.”

“You need to move on,” he tells you, voice wavering. His hand twitches like he wants to reach out again, but he stops himself. “You need to let me go. Please.”

Your lips curve up into a smile that you know doesn’t reach your eyes. “That’s not an option, Osamu.”

Silence stretches between the two of you, thick and suffocating. His jaw clenches, and his eyes are dark with something unreadable. He exhales sharply before looking away, shaking his head like he wants to argue, but he doesn’t. Instead, his hands curl into fists against his thighs, his breath shuddering as if he’s trying to steady himself.

Then, almost too quietly, he says, “You have no idea what you do to me. You don’t understand.”

His voice is hoarse; this time, he doesn’t stop himself from reaching out. His fingers tremble as they brush against your cheek. You swallow thickly and then give him a teasing smile to try to lighten the mood, winking as you say, “I can imagine.”

“You can't,” he replies, throat bobbing terribly as he looks at you with the same expression you imagine a condemned man wears to the gallows. “You can’t. I don’t even understand it. It’s… unfathomable—it consumes me, corrodes me from the inside out. What I feel for you, I feel it in my bones, in my blood. It’s unbearable. I tried to rid myself of it; I tried to rid myself of you to make things easier on both of us, but I couldn't.”

“Osamu—”

“I tried to make sense of it. I thought maybe understanding what I feel for you would help me learn how to be apart from you,” he interrupts, voice taking on a more manic tone. His eyes are glassy now as his gaze flits away for a moment, like he’s trying to regain some semblance of control over himself but fails. “I tried so hard, but it was impossible. You twist me up inside, whether you’re around or not. You—you haunted me. Haunt me. You’re alive—whether it’s a city away, ten floors down, or across the sea—but you haunt me. You’re in my every thought, seared behind my eyelids, a ghost in the mirror behind me. I can’t escape you, and I don’t want to escape you—you’re here when I close my eyes, and when I open them, I search for you without meaning to. I knew I would ruin you, I knew how things were going to end from the beginning, but being apart from you was… it was agonizing.”

You don’t know what to say as you stare up at him. His eyes—wild, dark, desperate—search yours as if looking for something that might make this easier, that might make it make sense. He wants you to understand, you realize, but how could you understand what he doesn’t even understand himself?

“I’ve known so much pain,” he continues quietly. His voice shakes, raw with something too heavy to name. His thumb brushes over your cheek. His hand is trembling, his touch adoring and aching, like he’s memorizing the feeling of your skin against his, like he’s afraid that you’re a mirage that will disappear if he presses down too hard. “More than you could ever know. So many lifetimes of it, I saw them all—lives of other mes and other yous. I’ve seen you die over and over again, I’ve felt death myself more times than I can count. None of that pain compared to the prospect of a single life without you in it.”

He swallows hard, and for a second, it looks like he might say more. Instead, he lets out a breathless laugh, humorless and tired. “You don’t understand,” he repeats, softer now, almost to himself, as he caresses your cheek. “You can’t… Maybe it’s for the best.”

“I want to understand,” you insist. When he tries to pull his hand away, you lift yours to grab it, entwining your fingers with his and holding it close. “Help me understand. Please.”

He looks down, and you think he’s about to say no. You see the conflicted expression on his face, the reluctance, but just as you’re going to sigh and look away, something changes. He looks up at you again, searching your eyes for some sort of answer, and whatever it is, he finds it. Your mouth dries when you see the small smile that curves to the corner of his lips, when you see the way his gaze softens. The mattress shifts as he comes to kneel next to you, and when he lifts his hand to cradle your face again, there’s no hesitation in his touch.

“In another life, you were my wife,” he breathes out softly, thumb running along your cheekbone as he commits your face to his memory. “In every other life, you were my wife. I wish it could’ve been this one, too.”

Your breath catches, heart stuttering in your chest as you stare up at him. You search his face for a lie, for madness, for anything to cling to that’s not hope, but all you find is truth. You don’t understand it. Dazai’s not explaining, but he fully believes in what he’s saying, and you want to, as well. You want to believe that there are lives out there where the two of you had been able to live happily and in love, but that would mean accepting that it was possible in this one, but Dazai didn’t allow it, and he won’t tell you why. 

Like he can see thoughts running through your head, his expression becomes a bit more solemn, the smile on his lips fading as he looks down. “I know I have no right to ask you this, but please, for the rest of the night, can we pretend?”

You should say no. You should demand more of an explanation. How can he say this—how can he call you his wife, how can he tell you all of this and not explain how he knows? How can he not explain why it couldn’t be this life, too? How can he not help you understand? But Dazai is begging you with the same expression he wore before—that of a condemned man, like he knows a dark fate is awaiting him and wants one last mercy from the woman he loves.

So again, you ask quietly, “Will you kiss me?”

Unlike on the beach, Dazai doesn’t kiss you immediately. His dark gaze remains trained on your face, and his expression is almost sad as his thumb gently caresses your skin. He looks at you and touches you like you’re something fragile, something precious, something he knows he shouldn’t be indulging in but can’t bring himself to stop.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers.

You’re frustrated because you still don’t know what he’s apologizing for. You don’t know why he’s so against being with you; you don’t know what he knows from these other lives he’s supposedly witnessed, and you don’t know how it affects the two of you. He doesn’t give you the chance to ask, though. All of your frustration and confusion wash away as soon as his lips touch yours.

He kisses you as gently as he cradles your face; it’s not nearly as intense as the kiss you shared on the beach. His lips move slowly against yours, savoring the moment, memorizing the shape of your mouth, the way you taste, the way you breathe against him. There’s no sense of urgency, no desperation—just quiet devotion, worship, a type of tenderness that makes your chest ache. His fingers cradle the back of your head, his thumb brushing soothing circles against your cheek as he deepens the kiss slightly.

It’s another apology.

“I don’t understand,” you gasp again as his lips glide to the corner of yours, down to your jaw, down to your neck. You can hardly breathe, and your hands are trembling as you lift them. You rest one on his shoulder and slide the other to the back of his head, fingers carding through his dark hair. “Osamu, I don’t understand.”

“I know,” he says softly. Your lashes flutter shut as he kisses the underside of your jaw again and then your pulse point. “I know, I’m sorry. You were never meant to understand, I’m scared now that you will.”

“Osamu—” you try again, voice pleading, but his name cuts off into a shaky moan when his hands slide down your body. Your breath wavers as he kisses down to your collarbone, teeth grazing your skin. You think he’ll maybe unhook the top piece of the lingerie, but he only pulls back so he can look at it more carefully, eyes dark and breath unsteady before he continues kissing down your chest. “I—”

His hands settle on your hips as his lips trail down to your navel, each kiss lingering, and your head feels foggy. Your fingers dig into the sheets, back arching as Dazai’s lips brush right above the red silk of your panties. He pulls back just a few centimeters, warm breath fanning across your skin. 

“You’ll never forgive me,” he whispers. “I know that, but I’m so selfish to want you to.”

You want to ask him to explain again, but he doesn’t give you the chance. Your breath catches when his hands slide from your hips to your thighs. You expect him to pull them off of you, but he only hooks a finger beneath them to pull them to the side. You try to say his name again, but it dies on your tongue when you see the intense expression on his face as he stares down at you.

“You’re beautiful,” he murmurs. His eyes slide shut as he kisses your inner thigh. Each kiss is reverent, like he’s trying to convey to you through actions, everything he can’t possibly articulate in words. “You’ve always deserved better than me. I’ve never understood…”

“You’re all I want,” you tell him shakily, brushing your fingers against his cheek. 

He looks up at you, and his lips curl up into a solemn smile. He says regretfully, “I know. I wish I weren’t.”

Your lips part to question him, but Dazai seems to sense the question on your lips because he finally stops teasing. A gasp tears from your lips as Dazai’s tongue dips into your cunt; he drags a long line between your folds before sucking gently on your clit.

“Oh god,” you breathe out, thighs trembling as Dazai’s tongue moves slowly, tracing patterns against your cunt—letters, maybe? You can’t tell. His hands are warm and steady as he keeps you open for him, lapping at you gently.

He hums against you, the vibration making you shudder. Each flick of his tongue has your body hot and fuzzy—just enough to keep you at the edge but never quite enough to push you over it. His mouth works over you like he’s savoring every reaction, relishing in every twitch of your hips as he holds you in place.

“You’re a drug,” he whispers, more to himself than to you. You forcibly lift your head so that you can look at him; he’s already looking up at you, his eyes dark and full of something you can’t place. “I can never get enough of you. Can never stay away. I tried so hard.”

His lashes flutter shut again as he returns to devote his attention to your pleasure. A needy moan spills from your lips when he seals his lips around your clit again, this time letting his teeth graze it before he sucks hard. His hands shoot from your thighs to your hips to hold you down when you try to grind your hips against his face.

Dazai hasn’t gone down on you at all in the last four years, and you’ve almost forgotten how good he is with his tongue. He knows your body like the back of his hand—he always has, but there’s something now that’s different. He’s just as skilled as you remember, but it’s not just that practiced expertise now—it’s desperation, hunger, a type of need that makes your whole body tremble. His fingers dig into your hips to keep you still, but there’s a tremor to them, like he’s physically having to hold himself back.

You won’t survive tonight, you think, head fuzzy as Dazai’s tongue swirls around you faster.

“Osamu,” you gasp, fingers tightening in his hair. He moans against you, lashes fluttering as he sucks hard, pulling a sharp cry from your lips. Your thighs quiver around his head, but he only hums in warning, the vibration sending you closer to that edge.

You expect a teasing remark or a smug comment, but Dazai is completely focused on making you come undone on his tongue—you can only hear the sound of your breathy moans and the lewd slide of his mouth against your cunt. The heat in your abdomen becomes unbearable, almost painful, and when he slides two fingers inside of you, curling them just right as he rolls your clit between his teeth, your whole body tenses.

“That’s it,” he breathes against you, voice pitched with need. “Let go for me, baby.”

And you do. You shatter as he holds you in his arms, coming apart on his tongue and fingers. Your eyes knock back as you take in a choked breath that shifts into a cry of his name, and when your back arches off the bed, Dazai’s free hand slides up and down your side soothingly. He rides out your high, fingers slowly pumping in and out of your cunt, before he pulls them out to replace it with his tongue, lapping up your cum with the eagerness of a man starved. He lets out a low groan, and your body spasms as pleasure shifts into overstimulation.

“Osamu,” you choke out again, trying to push at his head when he doesn’t relent. Your gaze is still blurry and dancing with spots when you try to look down at him again, but it’s like he doesn’t hear or feel you. His hips grind against the bed as he hikes your legs over his shoulders, dragging you closer so he can devour you. Your body is hot, too hot, and twitches uncontrollably as he fucks his tongue deep into your sensitive cunt. “I ca—haaah, fuck, ‘samu, please—”

“S’okay, baby,” he gasps, voice ragged. “I know your limits, you can give me another.”

You almost sob when you say, “I can’t,” but even as you say it, your head is lolling back, vision darkening as your hips jerk against his face. You think he lets out an obscenely lewd moan when he feels your walls tighten around his tongue, but your ears are ringing, your body on fire as you finish a second time within a matter of moments. 

You don’t know how long it takes you to settle down, you think you might’ve blacked out for a few seconds because you only really start to register what’s happening when you feel Dazai kissing back up your body. Your hand is trembling as you reach up to rest it on his shoulder; your breath shudders when he kisses your neck, deceptively gentle.

“Osamu,” you whisper weakly when he lifts his head to look at you. His dark eyes have a hazy look to them, and his lips curl up into a sweet smile as he reaches up to wipe away the drool pooling at the corner of your lips. 

“Lookit you,” he coos, but his voice is rough with need as he kisses your cheek. “So fucked out, and we’ve barely even done anything yet.”

I love you, you want to say, lifting a trembling hand to brush your fingers against his cheekbone. His lashes flutter shut as he leans into your touch. This is all you’ve ever wanted, you think—your eyes blur again, but this time, instead of from pleasure, it’s with tears. You realize you were wrong before, you hadn’t been in too deep at the beach or even after the conversation when he got out of the shower, but now… this… 

Your heart clenches as you stare up at him, throat tightening over a sob—you know this isn’t going to last. You should’ve left when you had the chance to survive this.

“Don’t cry,” he murmurs, wiping away your tears. “I’m sorry, I know this was a lot for one day. We can stop.”

“No,” you say immediately, reaching up to hold his hand to your cheek. “Please.”

He searches your face like he doesn’t trust what he’s hearing. His fingers twitch against your skin, expression flickering between hesitation and something more vulnerable.

“You’re sure?” he asks, voice quiet as he cradles your cheek gently. 

You nod, throat spasming as you swallow. “I’m sure.”

Dazai exhales slowly, thumb stroking your cheekbone, tracing the damp trail your tears left behind. His gaze softens, and then he leans down, pressing a lingering kiss to your forehead before trailing his lips down over the bridge of your nose, brushing against the corner of your mouth. He pauses there, waiting, giving you one last chance to change your mind.

But you don’t. You tilt your head up to close the distance between the two of you, and when your lips meet his, he melts into you with a soft sigh. You taste yourself on his lips; he kisses you slowly and threads his fingers through yours, holding your hand against his chest, right over the frantic beat of his heart, like he’s offering you a piece of himself that he’s never been able to before.

“At first, I wanted to run away,” he admits, voice shaking. You don’t know what he’s referring to, but you find yourself lost in his words anyway. “I was fifteen, and it was so much—too much—I just couldn’t handle it. I wanted to run, I bought this place because I was scared. It was the only place I could go where I felt like everything was… bearable. I felt less lonely here.”

His breath fans against your lips as he speaks. His expression is so frail—on the verge of breaking—that you can hardly bear to look at him. He seems to have more to say, so you stay quiet as you wait for him to speak.

“I bought it for us,” he whispers, throat bobbing as his eyes slide shut and he rests his forehead against yours. “I wanted to run away here with you.”

Your breath catches.

“We still can,” you say weakly, lifting your hands to cup his cheeks. His eyes slide back open so he can look at you—they’re warm, familiar, sad. You know his answer before he speaks it, but you try anyway. “We still can, Osamu. We don’t have to go back.”

“You still don’t understand,” he breathes out, lifting his hand to cradle the back of yours, holding it against his face. “I hope you never do.”

A heavy silence lingers between the two of you, thick with everything he refuses to tell you. His skin is warm, thumb stroking the back of your hand idly. Your fingers slip from his cheek, trailing down the sharp edge of his jaw, brushing along the column of his throat. His pulse thrums beneath your touch, quick and unsteady, and his eyes are dark and intense, and something about it—about the way he watches you, like he’s still holding himself back—makes that heat return low in your stomach.

“I love you,” you tell him, one last desperate plea for him to change his mind. “I’ve always loved you. I’ll never not love you, Osamu.”

“I know,” he murmurs, brown eyes glassy and expression distraught as he looks to the side. “I know, I’m so sorry. It was never supposed to be this way.”

Your hand flies to your mouth to muffle a sob, your chest tightening with the weight of his unspoken answer—your love for him isn’t enough. It never was and never will be. He says nothing, but you feel him brush your hair behind your ear, caressing your skin. His touch lingers, warm and gentle, and then a soft, wet drop lands against your skin. Then another.

Dazai is crying.

“Kiss me,” you say again.

Dazai inhales sharply, fingers stilling against your cheek. His breath is warm and uneven against your lips, but he doesn’t move. Your chest aches. You’ve never seen him like this—so unsure, so vulnerable. His walls have always been impossibly high, even before he took over as boss, but now they’re crumbling right in front of you.

“Please,” you whisper, tilting your head up, your lips barely brushing his. “Just kiss me.”

A shudder runs through his body, and then, his lips crash into yours. There’s nothing slow or unhurried about this kiss—it’s desperate, frantic, like he’s trying to consume you. His hands are everywhere, gripping your waist, sliding up your back, tangling into your hair—you can hardly breathe, slipping your own hands beneath his sweatshirt to slide against the bandages wrapped around his torso.

“Please,” you beg again, unsure of what exactly you’re begging for this time. His teeth graze your lower lip, and a soft whimper spills from your lips, swallowed immediately by his mouth. “Please.”

“I’ve got you,” he promises, but you can still taste the saltiness of your combined tears on your lips. “I’ve got you, baby. Tell me what you want.”

“You,” you tell him, voice shaky as your grip on his waist tightens. You want him—it’s always been him, only been him. From the day you met him, he was all you ever wanted. “I want you.”

“You have me,” he says, voice low and rough. He presses his forehead to yours again, the weight of his touch grounding you. “You’ve always had me. I’ve always been yours. Heart, body, and soul—I’m yours.”

“But it’s not enough,” you gasp. “It’s not enough, is it?” 

Dazai swallows as he shakes his head. “It’s not enough.”

You don’t ask him this time when you lean up to kiss him again, desperate to muffle the sob that threatens to spill from your lips. You make your intentions quite clear when you slide your leg up his body to hook it around his waist—you need to pretend just for tonight that you’re enough.

“Please,” you murmur against his lips, letting out a breathy moan when he kisses the underside of your jaw, hand dropping down to your thigh. “Please.”

“I’ve got you,” he repeats, even though you know it’s only for tonight. “Are you sure?”

“Yes.” 

The word hitches into a quiet whine when he rocks his hips against yours, biting down over your pulse point just hard enough to draw a gasp from your lips. The sharp sting melts into pleasure when his tongue soothes over his mark, breath hot against your skin. His grip on your hip tightens, the hand on your thigh sliding up and down soothingly.

“You have no idea what you do to me,” he groans against your throat, voice low and wrecked. “Fuck.”

He grinds his clothed cock against you again, slower this time. He kisses up and down your neck as his hand drops from your hip down to the waistband of his pants. He lets out a grunt as he yanks them down, and you lift one hand to his head so you can pull his face up to yours, pressing your lips to his right as he rolls his hips, cock sliding between your folds. 

“I’ve always been so selfish when it comes to you,” he gasps. You’re barely able to hold your eyes open as your body trembles in anticipation for the familiar feeling of his cock stretching you out—his tip presses against your entrance, but he doesn’t push in yet. His forehead presses against yours, breath hot and heavy. “I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay,” you tell him. Your voice is shaky, barely more than a breath as your hand slides from the back of his head to his cheek again. “It’s okay, you can be selfish. Please, be selfish.”

Another groan rips from his throat; this one is more ragged, like your words break something inside of him. His eyes are glassy with tears again—the hand on your thigh is tight, but the one cradling your face is gentle.

“It was never supposed to be like this,” he whispers. “You were never supposed to be the price.”

“I don’t know what you mean, Osamu,” you tell him again, voice breaking.

“I know,” he breathes out. “I hope you never do.”

He doesn’t give you the chance to reply as he finally sinks into you. Your breath catches, head falling back against the pillows, eyes half-rolled back at the familiar stretch of him. A broken moan escapes your lips, fingers trembling against his waist and shoulders, digging into the bandages covering his skin to try to pull him impossibly closer. His breath is hot against your throat, ragged and uneven, like he’s barely holding himself together.

“Fuck,” he gasps, voice strained as he buries himself to the hilt. He drags his lips from your neck up to your cheek, panting as he tries to maintain some semblance of control. “You feel—you’re perfect. You’re perfect. I’m sorry.”

Your hand slides back into his hair, fingers tangling in the soft, dark strands as you force him to look at you. His pupils are blown wide, his expression torn with regret and need. You tilt your hips up slightly, urging him to move, and he inhales sharply, lips brushing yours as his eyes slide shut.

“Please,” you breathe for the last time, and his restraint finally snaps.

He pulls back only to thrust forward again. He’s barely moved at all, and you’re already desperately trying to keep control of yourself. You’re drunk off the feeling of him inside of you again, the feeling of being whole is intoxicating. You tilt your head up to brush your lips against his jaw, and he instantly turns his face down to you, pressing his lips sloppily against yours to muffle the pitched moan that almost escapes him as he rocks his hips into you again.

His pace is nothing like you’re used to—he fucks you slow, each thrust deep and steady. Like he wants you to feel every inch of him. Like he’s trying to mold himself inside of you, dragging it out until you’re gasping, whining his name, writhing against him. It’s overwhelming—the way he holds you, the way his breath hitches with each roll of his hips, the way his fingers tighten on your skin like he’s afraid to let go.

His forehead stays pressed against yours, his lips brushing over yours in fleeting, teasing kisses. “I’m scared,” he confesses, hips stilling, voice trembling. “I’m so scared of what comes next. I don’t know if I’m doing the right thing. I act like I do, but I don’t, and I’m scared I’ve done everything wrong, and this was all for nothing.”

You cradle his cheek again, lifting his face so that he’s looking at you. “You’re Dazai Osamu—you’re the smartest and most infuriating man I’ve ever met,” you say, a small, shaky smile tugging at your lips when you see the pain and fear in his eyes. “I trust you, and I don’t know what your plan is, but I know you, and I know things always work out the way you want them to.”

“Not always,” he whispers. “You have too much faith in me.”

“You don’t have enough faith in yourself,” you counter, carding your fingers gently through his hair. “I love you.”

A strangled sound escapes him, something caught between a sigh and a sob, and then his lips crash to yours again. 

“I love you,” he gasps against your lips, picking up the pace of his hips. He lets out another moan into your mouth, lashes fluttering, dark eyes glazed over, hardly able to keep them open as he fucks you harder, pace quickening as he desperately chases his release. “I love you. I love you. I’m sorry.”

You can’t even say it back now, head falling back against the pillow, lips parted in a noiseless moan. Each thrust jolts your body further up the bed, the tip of his cock bullies so deep inside of you that it has you half-convinced that you can feel him up in your stomach. Your head spins, drowning in the obscene sound of Dazai’s cock driving in and out of you and the lewd slapping of skin-on-skin, lost in the incoherent babbles of I love yous, and I’m sorrys that keep spilling from his lips. Even before he took over as boss, Dazai had never been particularly loud when he fucks you, but he is now as he moans your name alongside the jumbled words, gasping and panting and cursing each time he feels your walls convulse around him.

“I—” 

You start to speak, but you don’t even know what you’re trying to say. Were you warning him that you were about to cum? Were you trying to say I love you too? Were you just speaking to speak? Your cheeks are wet, breath ragged, vision dancing with too many spots. Every time you try to breathe, you choke over another moan—he doesn’t even have his hand around your throat, and you just can’t get any air to your lungs.

One last thrust pushes you over the edge for a third time. When you cum on his cock, gasping over what you think is his name, there’s no question about whether you blacked out because, this time, you feel the sudden numbness that spreads through your body as your head lolls back. Dazai’s still fucking you through your orgasm by the time you come back to, lashes fluttering and gaze unfocused on the ceiling—you can feel his grip tight on your thigh, keeping it snug around his waist as he snaps his hips into yours even when you can’t hold it up yourself anymore, and his lips on your neck, breath warm as he pants against your skin, murmuring something you can’t quite grasp as he chases the last of his pleasure.

“Kiss me,” you try to say, unsure if the words are even comprehensible. Even if they aren’t, Dazai seems to get the gist of what you’re saying because he pulls his face from your neck. Even through your blurry, unfocused vision, Dazai is beautiful—his dark hair is matted to his forehead, his lips swollen and wet, cheeks flushed pink, eyes glazed over, and half rolled back—he’s so lost in the haze of pleasure that he seems to forget what you said almost immediately, so you take what you want instead.

Your hand trembles as you lift it to cup his cheek, dragging his face down so you can press your lips against his. As soon as you do, Dazai is wrecked, moaning into your mouth, hips stuttering against yours as he cums deep inside of you—you think you might’ve finished again, too, because your body spasms beneath his, hips jerking and eyes knocking back for a split second when you feel his cum filling you up, warm, thick, sticky. Dazai whimpers into your mouth when he feels your walls tightening around his sensitive cock, rolling his hips against yours slowly as he fucks his cum deep inside of you.

The grip on your thigh loosens until he’s sliding his hand up and down it soothingly; his free hand comes up to cup your cheek as he slants his lips against yours to deepen the kiss, mapping out the inside of your mouth with his tongue. You’re not sure how long you lay there with him; your hands eventually drop back down to his waist, settling on his bandaged hips as he kisses you. 

After what feels like an eternity, he pulls back just enough to rest his forehead against yours, his breath warm and uneven against your lips. His thumb strokes your cheekbone as he gazes at you, dark eyes swimming with too many emotions for you to name.

“I love you,” he says softly, voice aching as he traces your face with his fingers longingly. “More than you can ever imagine.”

Your chest tightens at the words you’ve been dying to hear for four years, but you find no relief in them. You only find resignation because you know his love for you doesn’t change reality.

“But it’s not enough.” Your voice is weak, cracking over the words as you look up at him, searching his face desperately for a different answer but not finding one. “It’s not enough, is it?” 

Dazai’s throat spasms as he swallows, lashes fluttering shut momentarily.

“No,” he breathes. “It’s not enough.”

[anqelically]

ᡣ𐭩 IF WE WERE YOUNG AGAIN

FEATURING: osamu dazai

SUMMARY: your day was a mess from start to finish, and you knew it would only go further downhill when dazai inevitably called you up to his office once you got back to headquarters. still, you never could've imagined just how badly it would take a turn for the worse.

AUTHOR'S NOTES: AHAHAHAHAHA GUYSSSSS ARE U READY ARE U READYYYYYYYYY BEAST AU PMREADER AT LAST!!!!!!!! anyway there's not much to say yet, i shall be saying my thank yous and my full piece at the end of the last part, so ENJOY! this first part is a doozy dafuhsdiufh sorry the summary sucks i couldnt think of one and just wanted to get this out for u guys. be gentle on our girl reader, she's going through it. reblogs appreciated!

GENERAL WARNINGS: fem!reader, port mafia executive!reader, beast!dazai, tragedy, angst, canon compliant.

CHAPTER SPECIFIC WARNINGS: dazai is quite cruel in this first part (with reason of course but it still might be hard to read). alcohol & drug usage. unprotected sex. finger sucking. a bit of implied/explicit misogny & slut shaming.

SEE: TWO SLOW DANCERS SERIES MASTERLIST

Dazai Osamu is dead—that’s what everyone tells you, at least.

Chuuya is convinced he died somewhere between his fifteenth and sixteenth birthday, months before you ever met either of them. He tells you that if you’d seen the way he acted when he and Chuuya first met—if you’d seen how bright his eyes got whenever he insulted Chuuya and goaded him into stupid challenges, if you’d seen the way he was so careless with his life and how he’d laugh gleefully when Mori panicked trying to keep him alive, if you’d seen him compared to how he acted afterward, you would know that something happened in those months that killed the boy that once went by that name. Chuuya is vehement in his belief that Dazai has been long dead, and the thing that lives on the top floor of the Mafia’s main headquarters is only a husk that wears his ex-partner’s face.

The Flags agree with him—they never knew Dazai well, but they knew of him enough to know that something had seriously changed in those few months. You’d never been convinced of it, though. You didn’t know Dazai before his ‘death’ date, but you know that he wasn’t dead when you met him. 

He was always odd; you could always tell that something heavy was hanging over him. There was an air of gloom and despair that clung to him like a second skin, and it made people keep him at arm’s length. Sometimes, when he thought no one was looking, he’d get a faraway look in his eyes like he was lost in some other world, and sometimes he became cold and standoffish for no reason at all. It would happen so suddenly that it would give you whiplash, and you never knew what triggered it. Still, you could see the way his fingers trembled with guilt after.

He was odd, but he was alive. You fought Chuuya tooth and nail about it for two years; he always tried to get you to distance yourself from Dazai, warning you that something was wrong with him, that he was not right, that something changed him for the worse, and every time would end with you slapping him and the two of you not speaking for days. Dazai was alive—it was so abundantly clear to you in every interaction with him. His eye shone brightly whenever you walked into the room. You could hear and feel his heart racing when the two of you were curled up on the couch or in bed. His cheeks would flush a pretty red whenever you teased him, his breath would catch when your lips brushed his—he was alive, and there was no one you wouldn’t fight about it.

Your partner, Itou, didn’t know Dazai before his speculated ‘death’ date either, but he too was skeptical of how adamant Chuuya and the Flags were about it because all he saw was the way he acted with you. It made you feel validated, you would vent to him about it whenever you and Chuuya got into fights because you didn’t want to tell Dazai what Chuuya was saying about him, although you had a feeling he already knew. 

Then he hopped on the bandwagon two months before Dazai took over as Port Mafia boss. You don’t quite know what happened between the two of them—Itou and Dazai were never friends. Dazai was always cold to the older boy, and Itou always kept a distance from him, but they were cordial for the most part. Something changed at eighteen when Dazai picked up a mission that was supposed to be yours. He went with your subordinates up to Kyoto to handle Ihara Saikaku, who was undoing all the work you’d done up there before you came to Yokohama. When they got back, Itou could never look at him the same. He wasn’t quite as loud and adamant about Dazai as Chuuya and the Flags were, but you could tell that he wasn’t fully on your side anymore when you vented to him.

So you were alone in your defense of Dazai. Alone, and for a long time, you never wavered—Dazai was odd, but he was indubitably alive, and he was indubitably human. You fought Chuuya on it, you fought Itou on it, but eventually, you had to fight yourself on it, too. 

Your throat swells as you look at the small metal trinket resting in your hands. It’s ugly, haphazardly made—a bunch of wires twisted into an indecipherable shape. It’s only because you remember the offended expression that crossed Dazai’s face when he saw the confusion on yours after handing it to you as a gift when you guys were sixteen that you know it’s supposed to be a crab, and he has his own to match. Had his own to match. Chuuya had one, too, but he destroyed it right before your eyes during one particularly bad fight three years ago. 

Dazai had made them after watching a movie with you and Chuuya before their shaky friendship fell apart entirely toward the end of the Dragon’s Head Conflict. You’re not really sure what pushed him to make them, but Chuuya immediately called them ugly and said that he didn’t want a stupid crab, and Dazai promptly threw it in his face. The two of them started brawling on the ground for almost an hour, but even after they fell out, you know Chuuya took careful care of the stupid crab—it brought you solace for a time because you knew it meant that a part of Chuuya, however small, still clung to his old friendship with Dazai even if they weren’t on good terms anymore. 

Until he used his ability to ensure that there wasn’t even dust left when he destroyed it, that is.

“You already finished up with Mishima? I thought you weren’t supposed to be back until tomorrow.”

You lift your gaze from the crab, eyes falling on Chuuya as he leans against the frame of the door to your office. There’s an odd expression on his face, and you realize that he’s not looking at you but instead at the object in your hands, trying to figure out what it is. As casually as you can, you lean back in your seat and bring your hands into your lap, giving him a wry smile.

“Dealing with Mishima never takes more than a couple of hours,” you say, quietly dropping the trinket in your desk drawer before sliding it shut. “I figured you’d be busy with the new recruits today. I heard they were incompetent.”

“Don’t get me started,” he replies dryly,  pushing himself off the doorframe to make his way over to you. He sits on your desk and you give him a withering look when he carelessly moves the documents you’d been reading. “I left Iceman to deal with it.”

“How considerate.”

“Always,” he agrees with a sharp smile. He leans back on his hands, hair falling in his eyes and hat crooked on his head as he looks down at you, eyes curious—you know him well enough that there’s a question on the tip of his tongue, but it’s likely a question he already knows the answer to and just wants to see what you say.

“We’re meeting at the bar in Hodogaya—you gonna come?”

It’s a casual question, an invite out with friends, so unassuming, but you know what the underlying question is. 

Are you going to answer him when he calls for you?

It’s a Thursday night. Dazai usually calls for you on Fridays because you’re not quite as busy trying to get together reports before the weekend—he knows you like to have them done before Friday morning—but you had a mission today, so you know, and Chuuya knows, that he’s going to use it as an excuse to call you up to his office tonight. 

There’s a heavy look in his eyes as he stares at you, waiting for a response, and you know what he wants to hear. He wants you to say yes, he wants you to turn your back on Dazai at last and come out with them instead—and you think he has some nerve expecting that of you when he still acts like Dazai’s loyal dog, killing and destroying on his command. This is going to lead to an argument between the two of you, not the first and certainly not the last. Every time you argue about this, he tells you that what he does for Dazai is different, he throws things in your face that you regret ever telling him, and then he’ll apologize when he calms down later. 

Then the same fight will happen next week like clockwork. 

“Chuuya,” you say quietly, letting out a sigh as you lean back in your chair, looking away. “You know—”

You sit upright when Chuuya suddenly leans forward, using his foot to push the drawer he’s sitting over open to grab what you tossed in there before he entered the room—you hadn’t been subtle enough. Your heart rate spikes, hand darting out to grab his wrist, but Chuuya is stronger than you, and he wrenches his hand away, staring down at the twisted wires with a disgusted expression

“Give it back,” you say tightly, holding your hand out. The air suddenly feels very hot, the room is suffocating. “Chuuya, give it to me.”

He doesn’t.

“You still have this shitty piece of scrap metal,” he spits, hand tightening around it. The Tainted Sorrow responds to his anger in an eerie red glow that emanates around his hand. Usually, Chuuya has impeccable control over his ability, he has to otherwise, destruction will follow him everywhere he goes, but the topic of Dazai is the only thing that manages to rattle the careful control he’s built. The only thing that wakes up the sleeping calamity god inside of him. “Why?”

“None of your business,” you say tightly, rising to your feet. “Give it back, Chuuya.”

“What the fuck are you still holding onto?” he demands, voice raising as he too comes to his feet, holding the trinket tight in his hands as he comes face to face with you. “He’s gone. How many fucking times does it have to be shoved in your face for you to understand? Dazai is gone.”

“Stop it,” you tell him, voice quiet but it wavers in a way you wish it didn’t. You’re not sure if you’re trying to convince yourself or Chuuya when you say, “He’s still there.”

“Dazai is dead,” Chuuya hisses. You can see he’s trying to calm himself down, but the frustration is whittling at his self-control. You used to be able to have conversations about Dazai, discussions about your opposing viewpoints, but now the instant his name is brought up, it’s like guns being drawn on both sides. “He died years ago. Whatever that thing is up in that office, it’s not him. Let him go, for fuck’s sake.”

“Rich,” you say with a laugh that you know grates his nerves. “Then why are you still here, Chuuya? You’re the strongest ability user in the world. No one could stop you if you wanted to leave, but you still answer his every whim like a well-trained dog.”

Chuuya’s expression twists like you’ve physically slapped him. A hurt expression crosses his face, and then something closer to guilt as he looks down at the ground. You know why—you know he partially blames himself for how Dazai changed. He thinks that there’s something he could’ve done differently in those months he knew him before he ‘died’ that could’ve led to a different outcome, and that’s why he stays at his side.

“Because once you’re done holding out hope that he’s still there,” Chuuya says, voice low and threatening in a way that has your hair on end—you’ve only ever heard him take this tone with enemies, “I’m going to fucking kill him.”

“Watch your fucking mouth,” you reply, voice just as low. “He’s still the boss.”

“He’s a walking corpse.” 

“Watch your mouth.”

Chuuya suddenly laughs, taking a step away as he shakes his head. His eyes are wild, and you tense, waiting for him to escalate the argument, but you can’t brace yourself for the words that fly from his mouth.

“Always running to his defense, all for him to treat you like a whore,” Chuuya spits, slamming his hands down on your desk. He’s loud enough that you know all of the subordinates wandering the halls can hear. You don’t breathe as you stare at him, words processing slowly. “He calls you up there because he wants to get his fucking dick wet, and you spread your legs for him every time. Where’s your fucking self-respect?”

Your hand shoots out before you can stop yourself, palm stinging painfully as you slap Chuuya so hard that his head snaps to the side. He doesn’t budge for a second, staring at the far wall, a guilty expression crossing his face as if he only just now realized the gravity of his words.

“You have no idea what you’re talking about,” you say, and you hate that your voice wavers. “Get out of my office.”

Chuuya says your name quietly, regretfully. “I—”

“Get out, Chuuya,” you scream at him, taking one of the books on your desk and throwing it at him hard. He could use his ability to stop it from hitting him, or he could dodge, but he lets it drive hard into his chest, grimacing at the pain. “Get the fuck out.”

He leaves without another word, placing the bundle of twisted wires back down on your desk and only sparing one last glance in your direction before shutting the door quietly behind him. As soon as he’s gone, your hand is flying to your mouth to muffle the ragged breath you take in. Your eyes blur with tears, but you don’t let them roll over your cheeks—you don’t even have the chance to because your phone is buzzing with a message you’ve been expecting since you got back to base. 

What timing, you think dryly, desperately trying to calm yourself down.

Dazai: Come up.

———

When you reach the top floor, your heart is in your throat. You don’t meet the eyes of either of the guards in the hall leading to Dazai’s office. You can’t even if you wanted to—as soon as you stepped out of the elevator, they averted their gaze to the ground. 

You only come up here once a week—you only see Dazai once a week. You can hardly handle being in that office, it reminds you too much of Mori. It’s been four years, and you still sometimes expect to see him when you walk down this hall and through the double doors at the very end of it. You still haven’t fully processed his death—how could you with no closure? Dazai never even let you say goodbye. He didn’t tell you what was happening and had Mori’s body dumped before you could even race up to the top floor to stop him. By the time you got to the office, the deed was done, and Dazai was sitting at his desk, blood still fresh on his face and Mori’s scarf draped around his shoulders—a spoil of war, a symbol of his conquest.

There was no apology. No explanation. Not even a hint of guilt over what he did—for keeping you in the dark, for not even giving you the chance to cry over your father’s corpse.

He looked at you and said, “You were slower than I expected.”

He let you yell at him, he let you cry, but he never rose from where he was sitting at his desk. He watched impassively as you screamed your throat raw and cried until there were no tears left to shed, and when you sat on the ground heaving, finally starting to calm down, he told you to pull yourself together. That he needed your help reconsolidating power because the weeks directly after the transition would be the most vulnerable to internal and external conflict. That you needed to reach out to Leo Tolstoy and Mishima Yukio to let them know about the power transition and to ensure they were vocal in support of him.

Sometimes, you wonder if Chuuya is right because you don’t understand how Dazai could be so callous. And to you of all people. You can’t reconcile the Dazai of that day to the Dazai you knew for years—the one who lived in your apartment, who failed miserably every time he tried to make dinner, whose fingers trembled when you kissed him the first time.

He adored you for years, he looked at you like you were his whole world—he was cold to everyone else, but never you. From the day he met you when the Dragon’s Head Conflict was raging through Yokohama, he was gentle, overly affectionate, he gave you silly trinkets that reminded him of you, and picked the shittiest movies on Friday nights. He couldn’t sleep unless you were near him—a week before he killed Mori, he was curled up in your bed and complaining when you took too long brushing your teeth. You’d known the night before it happened that something was wrong, but you never could have expected what happened. Not ever. Not from Dazai.

He never explained why he really killed Mori; he blows you off with some shitty excuse about how it was what was best for the Mafia. How Mori knew this was coming. How it was always meant to happen. But you know there’s something he isn’t telling you, and his refusal to do so is as much of a betrayal as the act itself was.

When you reach the tall wood doors leading to his office, you take a moment to collect yourself. You remind yourself that it’s Dazai behind them, that Mori is gone, Elise is gone—you do this every time you come up here, but it’s never enough to rid yourself of the hope that briefly swells in your chest before it’s crushed by the sight of Dazai.

After what feels like an eternity, you finally push the door open and step into the office. The air is cool, brisk compared to the stuffy air of the hallway, and Dazai is standing on the other side of his desk, back facing you, hands clasped behind him. The door slams shut behind you with a deafening thunk, and you stay rooted to the ground in front of it, staring at the back of Dazai’s head.

He turns his head to the side, looking at you from the corner of his eye. For a moment, you almost think that his gaze softens as it lands on you, but it’s wishful thinking. You brace yourself when you see the way the corners of his lips quirk up into a sharp smile, how his eye glitters with a type of amusement that can only be malicious. His hands slide from where they’re resting behind his back to his front, out of view, and he says:

“You were slower than I expected.”

The air whooshes from your lungs—you don’t know what you thought he would say, but it wasn’t that. You try not to let the pain show as you recover from the blow dealt, but you know you failed to stop a grimace from crossing your face with how Dazai’s eye crinkles. 

“You’re lucky I came at all,” you finally bite back, hating the way your voice so obviously wavers. 

It’s always him, only him, who hurts you like this—he’s the only one with the ability to do this to you. Even Chuuya’s worst doesn’t come close to the damage Dazai can do with a few words. With everyone else, you can fight back, you can match their cruelty, surpass their cruelty, but he leaves you at a loss for words. He always has. He used to tease you with it—he was sweet and flirty, and it left you flustered, but now he’s cruel. He digs his fingers into wounds that he created and twists, violently reopening them so he can watch you bleed, and the worst part is, you don’t know why.

“Is that right?” he drawls, voice low and languid as he finally turns to face you, gaze roving over your body once before settling back on your face. His lips are pale and chapped, cheeks a bit sunken, the bag under his visible eye is almost black—you want to find pleasure in the fact that he’s clearly not doing well, but you can’t. He takes a few steps closer to you, and it takes all of your willpower not to let him back you up against the door. He lifts two fingers to your chin, tilting your face up to him and forcing you to hold his gaze—his fingers are so cold that it makes you shiver. “As always, all bark, no bite—you and I both know you’re too obedient to go against a direct order.”

You slap his hand away hard. His lips curve up into an unsettling smile that doesn’t reach his eye. He takes a step back to put some space between the two of you, hands taking their place behind his back again.

“What do you want?” you ask him after a moment, shaking your head as you look away. You know what he wants—you just don’t know what game he wants to play before he gets it. Especially not right now; he’s been so irritable and unpredictable the past few weeks. Sometimes, he likes playing politics, asking you about missions and how relations are with the Port Mafia’s allies; other times, he likes testing your limits, seeing how cruel he can be until you finally break. It always ends the same way for you—bent over his desk. “Hm?”

Dazai tilts his head to the side, giving you a lazy smile. “So cynical. What makes you think I want something? Maybe I just wanted to see you.”

You know better than to fall for that, lips tightening before you say, “You always want something.”

He leans forward on the balls of his feet, head dipping down, and there’s a playful expression on his face that gives you whiplash. You shift back, and for a brief second you see the Dazai you remember. The Dazai who giggled as he held your phone out of reach and watched you struggle to get it back. The Dazai who teased you into giving him your first kiss when you guys were sixteen. The Dazai who learned the names and stories of all of the constellations in the sky for you.

The Dazai you loved.

The Dazai you desperately want to believe is still here.

“Do you know what tomorrow is?” he asks, visibly excited about whatever it is. But you don’t know what he means, so you don’t know how to answer, and your throat feels clogged with fear. 

What is tomorrow?

You’re fumbling, taking too long to answer, you know it, but you want this Dazai, you want him to stay, you want to drag him down to Chuuya and shove it in his face, ‘I told you it’s still him, don’t you see?’, and you want things to go back to how they were. You’re frustrated and panicked trying to come up with an answer for him, and on top of everything, you’re angry at yourself because you don’t know why you still cling so desperately to the boy he used to be after everything he’s done. 

His smile starts to fade when you don’t immediately respond, and you blurt out:

“We have a meeting with the Red Chamber tomorrow.”

It’s not the answer he wants—you know it as you say it, but it’s the only thing you can think of.

“Right,” he agrees quietly, smile gone and gaze lowering to the ground. For a moment, he looks disappointed but not surprised, and then he closes off from you again. His eyes empty of excitement, and his expression flattens—the Dazai you loved is gone again just like that. You know you shouldn't feel as gutted as you are, but you are. Not for the first time, you wish that you could rip out that traitorous beating thing in your chest. It would be so much easier if you could hate him. “Come.”

You don’t move immediately, a heaviness settling over you as you watch him pace back over to his desk, lithe fingers flipping through a manila folder lying on top of it. You swallow thickly before making your way over to him. He slides the folder in front of you and shifts so that he’s looking over your shoulder. He’s too close. You can smell the smoke on his breath from the cigarettes he chain-smokes, the whiskey staining his tongue, the familiar metallic scent of blood. Your gaze drags from the folder to the bandages that peek out from under the dark sleeve of his jacket and then up to his face.

He’s already looking at you through his lashes, eye half-lidded. His gaze isn’t empty anymore, it’s heavy, dark. You don’t know what he’s thinking—you used to be able to read him well, but you haven’t been able to in years. You wish you could now more than ever. 

“What is this?” you finally ask, voice quiet as you force yourself to look back down at the folder he passed over to you. The file is of an executive of the Red Chamber—an acquaintance of yours who worked to get Cao Xueqin to meet with you and Dazai tomorrow. “Why are you showing me this?”

“This friend of yours—”

“Acquaintance,” you correct with a frown.

“Acquaintance,” he echoes with an empty smile. “I want you to kill him tomorrow.”

What?

You don’t even realize you speak the word that instantly flies through your mind at the order he gives you. You turn to look at him again, and he’s watching you carefully now. You don’t know if this is a real order or if Dazai is just saying something ludicrous to get a reaction out of you. You can never tell with him.

“You heard me,” Dazai replies, dark eye dancing with amusement at your confusion.

“What purpose does that serve, Dazai?” you demand, shaking your head. You want to take a step away from him but his presence is magnetic, a black hole that relentlessly pulls you in. “Baoyu Jia is the closest to an ally that the Port Mafia has inside the Red Chamber. We may as well be shooting ourselves in the foot. You—”

Your words falter when Dazai reaches up with his left hand to grab your chin. He tilts your face up again, but this time, his thumb rests on your lower lip, effectively silencing you. He doesn’t speak for a moment, and you know that it’s a power play—forcing you to look at him, silencing you, and then just holding your gaze, daring you to continue. You want to rip your chin out of his grip and scoff at him.

You don’t.

“Don’t question me,” he finally tells you, voice cold, eye flashing with something indecipherable when he sees the rage that crosses your face, but it fades into disappointment when you don’t say anything. 

Did he want you to? 

You don’t understand him.

“I don’t do assassinations, Dazai,” you say instead, voice hard. The pads of his fingers are so hot against your skin, and his thumb against your lip feels too heavy. “I handle politics. You know that.”

His grip on your chin tightens just a smidge, there’s a cruel glint in his eye that you don’t like. You brace yourself for whatever he’s about to say, but nothing can prepare you for what he does.

“You slit your own mentor's throat in her sleep,” he says casually, like it wasn’t something you confided in him about when you were at your lowest years ago. “Surely, you can handle an acquaintance.”

You rip your chin from his grip, taking in a sharp breath as you physically step away. You turn your back to him so he doesn’t see the way your throat spasms as you swallow the sudden lump in it, the way your eyes sting with tears at his words. You don’t know what you expect coming up here every time he asks. You don’t know why you still have hope that he’ll treat you the same way he did before he put a knife in your father’s back and draped his red scarf around his shoulders while his corpse was still warm. 

You don’t know why you still want him to.

“I hate you,” you breathe out, hating how shaky your voice comes out.

Your breath catches when he takes a step closer to you, chest brushing your back, fingers ghosting your hips. His presence is deceptively warm, considering he has no heart to keep his blood pumping, and you hate the way it makes your hair stand on end. You hate the way he knows because you don’t have to look at him to know that his lips are curved up into an amused smile.

He leans down, breath fanning against the nape of your neck as he whispers, “Then leave.”

You won’t. You don’t. You never do.

One of his hands rests on your hip, fingers deceivingly gentle as he caresses you when his words feel like knives through your back. He lifts the other to graze your jaw, leaning in to brush his lip against where he’d touched before he lets his hand drop back to your side, sliding down your body to join the other on your opposite hip, holding you steady when your knees feel weak.

“Leave,” he tells you softly again. You press your lips together to hold back the moan that nearly tumbles out of your lips when his teeth graze that spot below your ear that makes your knees buckle. Luckily, you have enough control over yourself that your knees don’t give out, but you don’t think you were as successful at muffling the moan as you thought you were because you can feel Dazai’s lips curl up into a smug smirk against your skin. “Go, I won’t stop you.”

You should. You know it even as he resumes the slow, languid kisses down your jaw. You know it when you feel his hands slide from your hips to your upper thighs. You know it when he shifts you forward so that the front of your thighs are flush against his desk, the wood pressing uncomfortably into your skin, and you know how this is going to end. You should leave, you should shove him off of you and go back down to your office, you should give him a hateful look and tell him that the way he touches you makes you sick and you can hardly stand to look at him even if it is a lie just to see if he’s still human enough to be hurt by your words or if he’ll just stare at you with that unnervingly empty gaze that makes you question if Chuuya had been right from the beginning. 

But you don’t.

He pauses for a second. His hands go still on your thighs, his lips ghost your pulse point—he’s waiting to see if you’ll leave even though he knows that you won't. You never do. When you don’t move, you hear him take in a sharp breath, and you feel his grip tighten before he slides one hand up your back to fold you over his desk. 

Sometimes, you wonder if he wishes you would leave, if he wants you to fight back, if he’s disappointed when you don’t. 

You’re still wearing the black slip you wore to meet Mishima and his daughters. You purposely wore it because his daughters have wandering eyes and are prone to letting more information slip when they have something pretty to look at.

“You wore this for them.” 

It’s not really a question, but there’s an edge to Dazai’s tone that makes you hold your breath. You turn your head to the side to look at him from the corner of your eye, hoping to catch something on his face, but it’s as blank as ever, entirely unreadable even with you bent over his desk in front of him, hands on your thighs as he slides up your short dress.

“What does it matter?” you ask, voice tight. 

You don’t know how you want him to respond, but it’s certainly not with the way he does: “It doesn’t.”

His voice is as cold as it always is when he calls you up to his office for this. He’s never warm, never intimate—it’s always a quick fuck, it’s always over his desk and never in a bed, his fingers are always rough, and he never kisses you, not on the lips. He hasn’t since the two of you were eighteen. 

But sometimes you’ll hear his breath hitch when he’s deep inside you, you’ll feel his whole body shudder, fingers digging into you so hard like he’s terrified of letting go, and when you look back, you’ll see Dazai. The Dazai you know, the Dazai you loved, the Dazai you can’t let go of. You see it in his eye when he looks down at you—the adoration and the desperation, the tears that he tries desperately not to let spill over—and in the way his lips part like he wants to say something but can’t bring himself to. 

It’s why you keep coming back. It’s why you don’t leave when he tells you to. You cling to the idea that he’s still here like it’s the only thing that keeps you going. A part of you wonders if maybe it is the only thing that still keeps you going because the thought of your Dazai being gone leaves an aching hole in your chest that you don’t think will ever fill.

Sometimes, you wonder if you just imagine it. There’s no hidden intent. There’s no love that he pushes away because he can’t afford the weakness as boss of the Port Mafia; he’s not bringing you up here because he wants to indulge in something he shouldn’t be allowing himself to have. This is just another power play. He just wants to prove that he can have you whenever he wants—that you’re his even after everything he’s done. 

You’re just as much of a spoil of war as the scarf around his neck.

He lifts his hand to shift your hair out of the way, and the tips of his fingers brush the nape of your neck. You hear him let out a noise akin to a scoff when he sees the ribbon tied neatly around your throat. There’s a pinprick of satisfaction that flies through you when you get the audible reaction from him.

“You still wear this thing?” He’s careful to keep his voice calm as he asks the question, but you know from the way his fingers are tense against your neck that he’s bothered.

“It was a gift,” you reply quietly, watching him intently. Your cheek presses against the mahogany of his desk. It’s cool against your skin, but you feel like you’re on fire with the fingers of one of his hands digging into your hip and the other resting on your neck. “Why wouldn’t I?”

He leans down a bit more, his chest to your back, weight pressing down on top of you. His hips are flush with your ass, and you can feel him straining against his black slacks. Your lips part in a silent gasp when he presses his lips to the underside of your jaw, trailing slow, wet kisses down your neck.

“You cling to the past too much,” he murmurs against your skin, teeth grazing your pulse point before he bites down far more gently than he usually does. “You need to let go.”

You have a feeling that he’s not just talking about Mori.

“Letting go has never been my strong suit,” you whisper, lashes fluttering shut when he sucks a dark mark into the crook of your neck. Your eyes snap back open when you feel him grab one of the ends of the ribbon, preparing to take it off. You grab his wrist to stop him. “Don’t.”

He pauses, you can feel his sharp gaze trained on the side of your head, but you don’t look at him this time. You don’t want to know what he’s thinking right now—you can tell from his body language that he’s about to make a comment you’re not going to like.

“What a dirty girl you are,” he murmurs, kissing the crook of your neck over the bruise he left on it. It’s deceptively soft, which lets you know whatever he’s about to say is going to twist the knife still lodged in your back. “Letting me fuck you over Mori’s desk while you wear the first gift he gave you… I’m sure he’d be rolling if he knew.”

You physically jerk at his words, head snapping around, a shocked expression on your face, but before you can get out more than a ‘you—’ he uses his foot to knock your legs apart, hand dropping from your hip to slide against the silk material of your panties. You inhale sharply, lips parting in a moan that you can’t catch as Dazai circles his index finger around where your clit is hidden beneath your panties, his lips trail from the crook of your neck to the top of your spine, and he uses his free hand to slide the zipper of your dress down, revealing your bare back to him.

He doesn’t take off the ribbon around your neck. 

You almost wish now that he would.

“I hate you,” you say again, but your words catch over another gasp when he starts trailing hot kisses down your spine, fingers pushing your panties to the side so he can slide his fingers between your wet folds. You hate how your body is so quick to react to his touch. “I hate you.”

“So convincing, hime,” he drawls. You choke at the use of the title that Mori gave you as he sinks two fingers inside of you—it’s not his first time saying it, he used to tease you with it all the time four years ago. But it was always a soft teasing, you could see the way the corners of his lips curled up gently and the way his gaze was fond. This is mocking. It’s sharp. It’s the same tone people took when they used the title to insult you, to imply you weren’t worthy of your high-ranking position in the Mafia, that the only reason you had a seat at the table was because of your relationship with Mori. The ribbon around your neck suddenly feels too tight, cutting off the airflow to your lungs. “I can feel your hatred dripping all over my hand.”

“Fuck you,” you spit out, blinking away the tears of frustration that suddenly sting your eyes. Chuuya’s words ring through your head: where’s your fucking self-respect? “Fuck you, Dazai.”

You feel his lips curl up into an unkind smile against your spine. “In due time.”

A part of you wonders if the fleeting sight of the boy you once knew is worth dealing with who he’s become. If the pleasure you feel when he touches you is worth putting up with the cruelty. You enjoy the time you have with him—physically, at least. Dazai knows how to touch you in ways that no one else can compare to; he knows all of the ins and outs of your body and can bring you to the precipice with just a few touches like he’s doing now. You’ve tried seeking out others to warm your bed, but they paled in comparison to the way Dazai makes you feel.

But he knows your mind as well as your body; he knows all of the ways to make you hurt, and he knows how to make it as painful as possible. He reopens a wound slowly with honeyed words and sweet smiles before digging his fingers in and twisting. The hime was intentionally cruel—not just to remind you of Mori, of where you are, of what Dazai did, but also to remind you of who Dazai once was. He was shoving it in your face again, just like Chuuya always says he does—you cling to the past too much, you need to let go.

“I hate you,” you gasp again, but your lashes flutter as he fucks his fingers deep into you, slow and steady—the stretch is pleasant, familiar, dizzying in a way that no one can replicate. He hums against your skin as he drags his tongue back up the length of your spine after he’s left a trail of bruises down it, like he’s marking his territory on you. “I—hah—”

He kisses the nape of your neck at the same time as he presses that spot deep inside you that makes your eyes knockback. You claw at the mahogany of the desk you’re on top of, breath quick and thighs trembling as he leaves you on the edge.

“Things would be so much easier if you did,” he murmurs, and you think you’re not meant to hear it. You try to look back at him, and you catch an oddly resigned expression on his face as he stares down at the marks he left on your spine, the fingers of his free hand tracing them delicately. It’s so out-of-character that it draws you back from the edge, which is what finally pulls him out of whatever trance he was in, something strange crossing his face when he realizes that you caught him staring. 

At once, his fingers slip out of your well-stretched hole, and you can’t stop the pitched whine that slips from your lips, breathing heavily as you try to regain your senses after having been brought so close to your high. Your cheek rests back down against the desk, vision a bit blurry as you reel from the loss of his fingers, but you know you won’t have to wait for long because you can hear him undoing his belt, pulling out his cock to use his drenched fingers to stroke his cock before he presses his tip to your entrance.

Your body shudders at the familiar feeling, eyes half-rolled back, just knowing what’s about to happen. You feel him lean over you again, chest to your back, and he lifts his fingers to press the two that were inside of you to your lips. It takes a moment for your gaze to focus on his expectant face, and you’re too out of it to consider turning your head away to be spiteful, lips parting so that he can push his fingers into your mouth, tongue instinctively swirling around them.

Where’s your fucking self-respect?

Again, the question echoes through your mind, but before you have the chance to answer it, Dazai fucks it away as he thrusts forward, hips flush to your ass as he suddenly pushes his cock deep into you. And fuck, if the stretch of his fingers was pleasant, the stretch of his cock is heavenly, the closest to rapture you’ll ever get. The moan of his name that spills out of your lips is garbled and unintelligible around his fingers, and he lets out a breathy noise—a scoff? a moan?—you can’t tell, too focused on the intoxicating feeling of being split open on his cock.

For the first time since you left his office last week, you feel whole, and maybe that’s the reason why you keep coming back. Dazai Osamu has ruined you to the point where you can’t feel whole without him—you need him in you, on you, around you. You want to be consumed by him, you want to consume him. From the day you met him when you were sixteen, you knew it would be him. It was always him, it could only be him. He loved you in a way that you never thought you’d be loved from the moment you met. He had you as early as that night he brought you to the rooftop to tell you the stories of the stars—you were his, and you thought he was yours. 

You fell so hard for him, so quickly, it was almost unreal. He understood you in ways nobody else ever did. Sometimes, you swore it felt like he knew you before he ever actually knew you. You’d never felt so seen by someone before, you’d never felt so loved. You spent years alone in Kyoto, and before that, you were following around a man who was hyper-focused on your ability and your failures. Dazai was the first person who saw you for you. He was the first person to make you feel like your life had meaning beyond just furthering the interests of the Port Mafia for Mori.

And Dazai is observant, sure, but you've seen how he interacts with everyone. You studied it carefully because, at first, you were worried that you were reading into things you shouldn’t be, especially with Chuuya’s warnings about him ringing through your head. But the way he saw everyone else was different from how he’d seen you—he saw them for their weaknesses and their faults, so he could exploit them whenever he pleased, but he saw you. He knew you—he knew little things that he had no reason to know, that he couldn’t exploit: how you took your coffee, that you love thrillers and are bored by comedies, he knew your favorite book, your favorite constellation, your favorite color, he knew everything from trivial details to all of the fears that you could never bring yourself to speak out loud.

That’s why you cling to the past, that’s why you keep coming, that’s why you never leave. You can’t accept that he’s gone, you can’t accept that he sees you now the same way he sees everyone else: as a pawn, as someone to exploit. So even if it means having to endure his cruelty and the whirlwind of emotions that follow every meeting with him, if you can get a glimpse of who he used to be, any shred of proof that the boy you loved, the boy who loved you is still there, it makes it worth it. Because it’s easier to deal with cruel words than it is to deal with the loss of meaning in your life that would follow accepting that he's gone. It wouldn’t just be losing him, you would be losing the only other thing that’s kept you moving, too, because Dazai became the Port Mafia as soon as he took over as boss.

The breath you take in around his fingers is ragged. You don’t know why you’re suddenly thinking of this—maybe it’s because Chuuya’s words are haunting you, demanding to know where your self-respect has gone, maybe you just need to rationalize why you’re so dependent on someone who treats you like this. You don’t realize you’re crying until Dazai’s hips suddenly still, and he pulls his fingers from your mouth to grab your chin, turning your head to force you to look at him.

Something strange crosses his face—pain, guilt—and it’s only then that you realize that your vision is blurry, that your cheeks are wet. His throat bobs as he swallows, and he’s uncharacteristically gentle as he uses his thumb to wipe away your tears. His hand drops from your face, and you lay your head back down on the desk, taking in a shuddered breath when Dazai rests his weight on top of you. He kisses your shoulder blade, and he kisses up to the crook of your neck again before burying his face in it for a moment—it’s almost intimate, it almost feels like an apology, but you know better than to hope for that. 

You don’t know how long you lay there with him like that, but you bask in the intimacy he rarely allows you. One of his hands runs up and down your side soothingly, his breath steady against your neck, you can feel his heartbeat against your back. 

A reminder that he’s alive, a reminder that Chuuya is wrong.

For a second, your Dazai is back. The Dazai that loved you.

It’s only when your breathing starts to steady and the tears stop rolling over your cheeks that Dazai finally moves, but it’s not to pick up where he stopped. Your lungs are drained of the air within them when you feel him move away from you, when you hear him tuck himself back into his pants, when his fingers brush the small of your back to zip your dress back up. Just like that, you’re left hollow again, a shell, half of a whole without him to complete you.

“Dazai—”

“Get out,” he says, voice cold and sharp. It’s not the same teasing ‘then leave’ he says every time you come in. It causes a pit to form in your gut, uncertainty riddling you as you stand up unsteadily. His back is to you, hands out of sight in front of him as he looks out the window over the skyline of the city, only lit up by various buildings now that night has fallen.

“But—”

“Get out,” he repeats, harsher this time. “That’s an order. Don’t question me. And don’t make me say it again.”

Your throat swells as you stare at the back of his head in disbelief. “I—”

“Now.”

You feel sick to your stomach, straightening out your dress as best as you can, fixing your hair, and making sure your makeup isn’t terribly smeared. You don’t dare to look at him, you think you might cry if you do. So you set your gaze on the far wall as you fix yourself up, not looking back even when you hear him moving.

Once you feel somewhat presentable, you raise your chin and make your way out of his office, only pausing when you get to the double doors to spare a short glance behind you. Dazai is sitting at his desk, face buried in his hands, fingers trembling almost as much as his shoulders are shaking. Your throat swells—you want to say something.

You know better.

You leave his office quietly, making sure to hold yourself together as you walk past his curious guards. You know they must have an idea of what goes down in his office when you’re called up; they’re probably the reason why so many rumors circle around about you sleeping your way into an executive position, but you refuse to let them see you with your head hanging, so you only meet their curious stares with a cold one of your own before taking the elevator back down to your floor. 

It doesn’t take long for you to get down to your office, and you inhale as you brace yourself for your subordinates’ attention, but you freeze when the elevator doors open and you’re met with an empty hall. This hall is never empty, and it’s only when you see Chuuya waiting for you at the end of it near your office that you realize he must have cleared them out.

His expression is taut, but his eyes are gentle as they roam over you, and you let out a wet, shaky breath when you realize that he’s here to make sure you aren’t alone even after the argument the two of you had. You take one step toward him, and then another, and then you’re breaking over a sob and rushing toward him a bit faster—he meets you halfway, strong arms circling your waist as you cling to his shoulders.

“It’s not—” You don’t even know what you’re trying to say as you choke over your words. “It’s not simple, Chuuya. I can’t just—you don’t understand—”

“I know,” he murmurs, turning his head to the side to press his lips to your temple. “I’m sorry. Let’s get out of here, yeah?”

“... Yeah.”

———

You’re already wasted by the time you get to the bar with Chuuya. The two of you went to his penthouse to drink away your sorrows before Albatross started spam-texting you, trying to get you to come to the bar with them. Chuuya was planning on ignoring him and spending the night relaxing with you, but you didn’t want them to think something was wrong, so, against better judgment, you ended up making your way to meet them.

They’re already there and several drinks in by the time you and Chuuya arrive. You’re still steady on your feet, but you can feel the wine that the two of you had been drinking getting to your head. You just want a nice night, you want to forget about Dazai, you want to get drunk with your friends, and maybe if you’re feeling especially spiteful, bring someone back to your bed because you know it will get back to Dazai because everything gets back to Dazai.

No, you remind yourself, no more thinking of Dazai tonight. Even in spite. 

Unfortunately, your hopes are crushed the moment you approach the private booth where the Flags are drinking.

“Do you hear half of the shit they say about her?” Iceman asks, not realizing that you and Chuuya are approaching. “I beat the shit out of one of my own subordinates who thought it would be okay to say shit about her around me. When the fuck did they start getting so bold?”

“I’m just worried about her,” Lippmann murmurs as he takes a sip of his drink. “You haven’t seen her lately, she’s…”

Great, you think, teeth grinding together as you try to push their words out of your mind. Chuuya squeezes your bicep before his arm drops from around you, clearing his throat and giving Iceman a heavy side-eye. Iceman and Lippmann, to their credit, do go quiet when they realize that you overheard what they said.

You force a smile onto your face as you move forward to take a seat in the booth, knocking your hip against Albatross to force him to move in. Chuuya sits on your other side, squeezing you between the two of them. You reach out to take Albatross’s drink from him, not caring what it is or what it might be laced with knowing the older boy, you just want to fucking forget about Dazai tonight, and if that means consuming Albatross’s questionable choice of liquor, then so be it.

“You guys are so dramatic,” you say. “I’m fine.”

You can tell that they don’t believe you. Lippmann and Iceman exchange a long look with one another, and Doc’s gaze lowers to the table. The corner of your lips waver, throat tight as you look down at the drink in your hands before taking a long swig of it. The plain vodka nearly makes you gag, but there’s an odd sweet aftertaste that leaves you a bit suspicious. Before you can swallow, you feel Albatross toss an arm around your shoulders and drag you into him, causing you to nearly choke over the liquid.

“I knew you’d come out,” Albatross croons, pressing his face hard into the side of your head and nuzzling. He kisses your temple obnoxiously twice before licking your cheek; you slap him away with a scowl. “My favorite girl’d never let me down like that.”

His sunglasses hang off the bridge of his nose, and when you see the way his pupils are the size of nickels, you start to question what exactly is in the drink you just took from him. He seems to know exactly what you’re thinking from the way he tosses a wink at you and leans back against the booth, arm still snug around your shoulder.

“It’ll make you feel good,” he promises with a sharp smile before turning to Doc. “Hey, so about that…”

You tune Albatross out as you turn your attention back to Chuuya, who gives the glass in your hands a reproachful look but otherwise doesn’t say anything else. You give him a pointed stare before you take a sip of it, you don’t have to look at him to know he’s rolling his eyes at you.

You turn your attention to Iceman and say, “You should probably stop going out of your way to defend me. Otherwise, there’s just going to be more rumors about me spreading my legs for the whole upper echelon. They already say I’m sleeping with Chuuya, Albatross, and Piano Man too.”

Piano Man’s expression twists in disgust at your words, immediately taking another sip of his drink, and Albatross quiets down, looking at you from the corner of his eye. Chuuya only gives you a heavy look that you can’t bring yourself to look at him. 

“So you just want us to let them talk about you like that?” Iceman asks with a frown, taking a long drag of his cigarette. “They’re tearing your reputation to shreds.”

“It works in my favor,” you reply, although your voice is strained as you say the words, lips pressing together as you look down at your drink. “It makes it easier during negotiations, our enemies aren’t as guarded because they think I wasn’t given my position through merit.”

“Bullshit,” Iceman snaps, the corner of his lips curling into a sneer at your words. You shoot him a flinty look, but he’s unrepentant. “You can sit there trying to convince yourself that to make yourself feel better, but not me. I’m not going to sit and let my subordinates disrespect one of our executives.”

“Rich, considering how you talk about Dazai behind closed doors,” you say lightly, but your fingers are tight around your glass as you take another sip. Dazai’s name feels like ash on your tongue, a heavy feeling settling over your chest as you remember what happened in his office—weren’t you supposed to forget about him for the night? 

Always running to his defense, all for him to treat you like a whore.

You think Chuuya is reminded of his words from earlier, too, because you see his throat spasm as he looks down at the table. The moment Dazai’s name is spoken, the tension at the table spikes—sharp and sudden. You’ve never confronted them about their resentment toward their boss. It’s always been an unspoken rule, a line carefully danced around but never crossed. They respect him, acknowledge how he’s elevated the Port Mafia to new heights, but his name still leaves a bitter taste in their mouths—especially when it comes to his treatment of you and Chuuya.

But it’s more than that. It’s not just bitterness and resentment—they don’t understand him. They never did, even before he took over as boss. To them, Dazai is something cold, something wrong, something inhuman. They prescribe to the same belief Chuuya has: Dazai Osamu died seven years ago, and the thing living on the top floor of the building is a husk that wears his face. He doesn’t think like they do, doesn’t feel like they do. When they report casualties from missions, he turns a vacant gaze on them and tells them to leave; you don’t think they ever fully got over how he murdered Mori and how he treated you afterward. He’s a machine—a monster—in the shape of a man, all calculations and sharp edges where warmth should be. They might fear him, might even admire all he’s done for the Port Mafia, but they’ll never trust him, and they’ll never like him.

On nights like this, when you all have a few drinks in you, they get a bit bolder with their opinions—especially Doc and Iceman. You made a mistake bringing him up, you don’t want to argue with them—not tonight, not after you argued with both Chuuya and Dazai already. You’re so tired, you just wanted a nice night out after how shitty the rest of your day had been. 

“Oh my,” Piano Man sighs airily. 

“Come on, guys,” Albatross complains. “Can we not?” 

But Iceman has a temper. The table shakes as his fist drops onto it, he leans over to get closer to you, putting his cigarette out on the ashtray. “It’s because of that bastard that half of the fucking Mafia thinks you’re a walking fleshlight—”

“Jesus Christ, Iceman,” Chuuya spits, interrupting him as he slams his hands against the table and rises to his feet. You don’t react to the comment—it’s nothing you don’t know, nothing you’re not used to hearing in whispers. You finish the glass of vodka, that sweet aftertaste lingering in your mouth. “Watch your goddamn mouth.”

“Come on, man,” Albatross complains again, rubbing his face. “Too far.”

“I’m only repeating what I have to hear,” Iceman says, holding his hands up before he lights another cigarette. You can tell he’s upset because it takes three tries for him to get it lit, fumbling with the lighter. “What I have to hear because of how he fuckin’ treats her, only for her to keep defending him.”

You should be angry, you think, but whatever was in Albatross’s drinks must be working because all you can feel is a dull haze as your fingers thrum against the tabletop.

“I have free will,” you say, voice distant even to your own ears. Doc raises his eyebrows and looks down at the table, not commenting but making his position clear with how he gives you a long look. “I choose to go up there, I let him fuck me. Albatross whores himself out like no tomorrow. He spends every night in a different person’s bed. Why is it an issue when I fuck one guy?”

“Yo, why am I catching strays?” 

“Because of the optics of it,” Doc replies, ignoring Albatross as he fiddles with something under the table. “Because of who you are, who he is. Because of how it looks.”

“I know the first thing Kitada-san taught you was the importance of optics,” Lippmann agrees quietly. “He knows, too. He could have anyone he wants, there’s no reason for him to be letting the Mafia drag your name through the mud like this.”

The thought of Dazai with anyone else makes you feel distinctly unsettled to the point where the intoxicated haze starts to abruptly fade away. 

“He could easily find a whore to fuck if that’s what he wants,” Iceman adds with a scoff. “He knows what he’s doing to you by making you spread your legs for him, he knows how it looks on you. On both of you.”

 And just like that, lines are drawn. Doc, Lippmann, and Iceman are on one side; you, Chuuya, and Albatross on the other. Piano Man remains in the middle, ready to intervene if things escalate. Though you know Chuuya and Albatross agree with the other three, they’ll always take your side in public, and you know the other three are only angry because they’re angry on your behalf, but it makes you sick to your stomach to know that they think… they think what? That Dazai calls you up there, and you have no say in the matter, that you let him on you, in you, because you can’t say no to the boss and not because you want it.

“I don’t give a shit,” you say tightly. “He’s not making me do anything. If I want to fuck Dazai, then I’ll fuck Dazai. If I don’t want to fuck him, I won’t fuck him.”

“Right,” Iceman drawls sarcastically. “You think that piece of shit gives a fuck about what you want?”

The rage hits you suddenly—you don’t know if it’s the alcohol, the stress that’s been weighing on you all day, or whatever Albatross had in his drink, but it makes your vision go red too quickly for you to control. You rise to your feet, the table shaking as your palms hit it hard—you think it must be a combination of the alcohol and whatever was in Albatross’s drink because you don’t even feel the pain you should feel when a piece of glass cuts into your hand.

“What the fuck does that mean?” you demand.

Iceman raises his chin, exhaling a cloud of smoke before he says coolly, “Exactly what it implies.”

“Fuck you,” you reply, eyes stinging with sudden tears as you stare down at Iceman. The older man has the decency to at least look ashamed when he sees your reaction, but he’s unapologetic otherwise. “You don’t know shit about Dazai, and you clearly don’t know shit about me either. This was a mistake.”

You move to leave, but Chuuya is in your way. Glaring down at him, you snap, “Move.”

“You’re drunk and fucked up on whatever Albatross is on,” Chuuya says, disagreeing, but when your face twists in frustration, he lets out a heavy sigh and moves out of the way. “Let me come with you.”

“I just need some air,” you say, voice rougher than you intended as you stumble out of the booth. “I’ll be back.”

Distantly, you hear Albatross spitting something at Iceman, and you can hear the anger dripping from his tone. Albatross never gets angry, and you don’t know why that makes you tear up more. You feel too suffocated in the bar; you can feel too many eyes on you, and you just can’t breathe. You slap away the hand of an attendant who tries to help you when you stumble, pushing the door open and greedily inhaling the cool air of the midsummer night. 

You rest your back against the wall of the building, trying not to let the tears in your eyes roll over your cheeks. You don’t know why today has left you so emotional—it’s just like any other day you meet Dazai. You argue with Chuuya, you go to meet Dazai, and then you deal with all of the emotions that the meeting drags up. Maybe it’s just that you’re drained from dealing with the Mishimas all day, or maybe it’s because Chuuya didn’t have to spend hours trying to calm down before he came back to you, or maybe it’s because you don’t know what went so wrong earlier with Dazai.

You still don’t fully understand why you spiraled so much. More than that, you wish you hadn’t left when Dazai had told you to. The way his fingers were trembling, the way his shoulders were shaking—there was no hiding that he was crying, and you think that if maybe you’d stayed, if you tried to press a little harder, you might’ve been able to get some answers out of him at last.

You take in a wet, shuddered breath as you try to get ahold of yourself. You miss Dazai, you miss how things used to be, and you don’t know how much more you can take of whatever this is.

You hear noise from your left, and you think that Chuuya or one of the Flags came out to check on you, but you’re startled by an unfamiliar face staring down at you, expression unreadable.

“Who-”

You yelp when his hand darts out to grab your arm. He tugs you into his chest harshly, and you don’t even have time to scream for Chuuya before there's a rag being placed over your mouth. Your hand claws at his wrist when the familiar sharp scent meets your nose, but it’s to no avail. You find your vision darkening and your knees going out—and the last thing you think of before everything goes black is him.

[anqelically]

when he’s so in love that it makes his features visibly softer over time <3 his voice warmer <3 his words kinder <3

[anqelically]

put on a new screen protector and i suddenly feel like i have a new phone

[anqelically]

જ⁀♡⊹｡° he got that boyish look that i like in a man ;)

♡ a/n — first bsd post in a longggg while!!! enjoy this drabble!

♡ word count — 571

♡ content — ranpo edogawa x gn! reader, secret relationship, fluff, not much else to say tbh, not proofread

♡ synopsis — Wrapped in golden sunlight and the shared knowledge of something no one else in the world knows...this is how you and ranpo edogawa like to spend your time.

Ranpo has his head in your lap again.

The blinds in the agency office are tilted just enough to let the late afternoon sunlight spill across the floor, warm and honey-colored. Everyone else has gone — Atsushi and Kunikida wrapped up their case earlier, and even Dazai made his usual theatrical exit an hour ago. You’d stayed behind to finish reports, and Ranpo… 

Well, Ranpo had declared he was “on break from being brilliant.”

Which, in Ranpo terms, meant crawling into the couch, eating two lollipops, and then making himself comfortable with his head in your lap.

Your fingers move instinctively to his hair, brushing through the dark strands, careful not to dislodge his ever-present cap. He hums softly, not quite asleep, not quite awake, utterly content in that lazy, boyish way he always is when it's just the two of you.

“Someone’s going to walk in one day,” you say, voice low and amused. “You’re not exactly subtle.”

Ranpo’s eyes stay closed, but his lips curl into a smirk. “They won’t. I locked the door.”

You raise an eyebrow. “You locked the—Ranpo.”

“Relax,” he mumbles, patting your knee like you’re the one that’s overreacting. “They all think I went home. Besides… it’s more fun this way, right?”

You exhale through a small laugh, shaking your head. “You and your secrets.”

He peeks up at you, one green eye glittering with mischief. “You like it.”

And he’s not wrong.

There’s no real reason your relationship is a secret. It isn’t forbidden, or complicated, or shameful. 

But there’s something intoxicating about having this quiet little world that belongs to only the two of you — something about the way his hand brushes yours in the hallway when no one’s looking, the way he’ll pass you notes folded into candy wrappers, or catch your eye in a meeting and wink like you’re sharing a joke no one else is in on.

It’s private. 

It’s safe. 

And it’s yours.

Ranpo stretches like a cat, limbs long and lazy. “You know, if I were anyone else, I’d get tired of hiding,” he muses. “But I’m the greatest detective in the world. I know how to cover my tracks.”

“Mm. Impressive.”

“And I know,” he adds, voice softening, “that you like keeping secrets.”

You glance down. He’s watching you now, gaze open and sharp despite how relaxed he looks. He’s infuriatingly perceptive sometimes, catching emotions you didn’t even realize you were feeling. 

You wonder if he knows how your heart stutters when he looks at you like that — like you’re not just someone he likes, but someone he chooses, again and again.

Your fingers brush along his cheek. “You make it hard not to.”

His grin widens. “Because I’m cute?”

You laugh under your breath. “Because you’re you.”

It’s a simple answer, but it’s the truth. 

You could list a thousand reasons: his genius, his ridiculous sweet tooth, the way he somehow always finds the softest parts of you without even trying. 

But in the end, it’s just… him. All of him. 

The boyish charm, the childlike laziness, the startling flashes of brilliance — you love it all.

Ranpo hums again, content. He pulls your hand into his, weaving your fingers together and resting them on his chest.

And for a little while, you both just stay like that. 

Quiet. 

Hidden. 

Safe. 

Wrapped in golden sunlight and the shared knowledge of something no one else in the world knows.

is the bsd fandom still alive?

likes, comments, and reblogs are appreciated

⋆.˚✮ 2025 ©airybcby ✮˚.⋆

[anqelically]

mira thanks for tagging like always i love games 😛 since i have sm drafts and wips i only listed oneshots i’ve actually started writing and any series i’ve planned out/started writing 🙏

memento mori - yuta okkotsu (series)

ghost of you ??? - satoru gojo (oneshot)

bloom into you - sanemi shinazugawa (oneshot)

unnamed - serial killer!michael kaiser (oneshot)

reflections- michael kaiser (oneshot)

idol s/o - seishiro nagi (oneshot)

ghost of you - osamu dazai (oneshot)

“immortal” reader - osamu dazai (oneshot)

runaways - ranpo edogawa (series)

unnamed - yukichi fukuzawa (series)

fever dream - aki hayakawa (series)

open tags !!

WIP Game

Thanks @sincerelylancelot for the tag!

Rules: make a new post with the names of all the files in your WIP folder, regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous and tag as many people as you have WIPs. People send an ask with the title that most intrigues them, then you post a snippet or tell them something about it!

OK so I did this at the end of Jan and I've removed the ones that I'd already answered asks on from that round. You can still ask about those, they're just on the other list (is this so I look less insane? perhaps).

In Your Arms (Lestappen Timeloop AU)

Luminous Fall (SF Lestappen AU)

Flickering Lights - Lestappen

Hallowed Ground 2 - Lestappen

If You Could See 'Em Now (You'd Be Proud) - Strolawstappen

I Won't Let You Burn - Lestappen Rally

WDC x 2 on 1

What You Touch - Beartoleto (Crazy/Beautiful)

A Moment - Beartoleto smth smth canon

Hotshot - Lestappen (Speed AU)

Kiss With A Fist (Norlestappen 1920's boxer AU)

Zombie AU - Lestappen A/B/O

Tagging (I don't know who has done this recently, I'm sorry in advance): @cosmicscuderia, @oopslandiia, @ravenrage27, @arkhammaid, @formulaocean, & anyone else who wants to!

[anqelically]

circi!! thank you for tagging me <3 i wish i was carrying around onigir to snack on whenever.. one day 🥲

open tags !!

✧˖°. [picrew] would you sit with me?

can you believe this was drafted two years ago? but yeah I found this cute picrew qrt (?) game in twt i just had to share (picrew link under cut)

[anqelically]

ANGEL !!! hello there, my fellow itzy stan 🥹💗 i’ve missed your presence greatly !! i hope you’ve been taking care & hydrating :3 u are so so special to mee never forget that -> here is a juice box for u 🧃 unless you don’t like apple juice … side eye /j

— vessa

VESSA BABYYY HII 🤍 omgg how have you been?

i’m currently debating if i should redownload genshin, and the only con to it is that my phone battery is already bad so having the game on my phone again will make it worse… but i’ve been missing the game ever since i picked up hsr 😓

oh and thank you sm for the juice ehe here’s a homemade cookie 🍪

[anqelically]

MIRAAA !! thank you for tagging me bb <3 when it comes to tumblr i’ve written a lot more drabbles and headcanons than oneshots/fics so my choices were limited 🙂‍↕️

GOODBYE, MY DARLING - OSAMU DAZAI (ONESHOT)

You’ve set up a meeting with a member of the Port Mafia to gain information, yet the man that greets you treats you like an old friend from the past

note. DON’T GET ME STARTED ON THIS !!!! i absolutely LOVE this oneshot just as much as i love beast!dazai (a lot). this is obviously inspired by what happens in beast but the fact that y/n, dazai’s lover in the og universe, takes oda’s place just hurts sm more and i love it </3 i’m an angst fiend and beast did it so well i need more beast content out there 🙂‍↕️

TILL DEATH DO US PART - YUTA OKKOTSU (SERIES)

Set in Edo Japan, you, daughter of the L/N Clan’s head, are left powerless while your clan is on the brink of war with the Zenin. In order to protect the clan’s future leader, your father assigned a samurai to remain by your side. Although his duty is inly to protect you, Yuta Okkotsu couldn’t help the feelings that developed along the way

note. my first au!fic, which i also happen to love so much 😛 this was originally supposed to be a oneshot but ended up turning into a mini-series with long chapters. i am more happy with it that way because i get to develop y/n and yuta’s relationship more !! that final chapter is in the works don’t worry i’ve been writing for it here and there ehe

LOSING GAME - RANPO EDOGAWA (ONESHOT)

Your love for Ranpo is a double-edged sword, and unfortunately for you, the pain it causes is much greater than you could imagine

note. i just reread this oneshot and my heart hurts ughhksjdkejd. i love serious ranpo in this one since he tries to not hurt y/n’s feelings more than he already has :,( i also love the unrequited love trope so 🧍‍♀️ but looking at my bsd masterlist had made me realize how much angst i was writing then 😭 i love it but jeez who hurt me 😣

LOVING YOU - YUTA OKKOTSU (SERIES)

You, Y/N Fushiguro, didn't ask for much in your life. All you wanted was to protect the ones you hold dear, and you had become a jujutsu sorcerer to do so. With your half sister cursed in a comatose state and younger brother soon coming to her school, you needed to become stronger. You thought you knew what life had in store, but everything changed with the arrival of a new student in your class of four. The moment you fell for Yuta Okkotsu was when your destiny as star-crossed lovers was set in stone

note. okay if i’m being honest i forgot i was cross-posting this on tumblr LOL. this story (which is originally from my wattpad 😣) is an x oc, so i had to edit every chapter to fit it as an x reader. definitely a lot of work, and if there’s anything i hate it’s editing chapters 😭 anyways, definitely makes the list because of the chapters i’ve written for wattpad which i hopefully will get to post on tumblr soon enough 🙏 part two has sm angst planned i love it

YOU DON’T GET TO CRY - OSAMU DAZAI (ONESHOT)

In which Dazai’s past meets his present through you, whom he loved during his Port Mafia days, and now needs to kill

note. another angst piece… are we even shocked? 😭 dazai will never catch a break when i’m writing for him and you can clearly see that here LOL. i love dazai confronting the port mafia and anything that has to do with what he did during those days

open tags !! <3

fic authors self rec! when you get this, reply with your favorite five fics that you've written, then pass on to at least five of your other fave writers. spread the self-love!

thank you for tagging me @suguwu sorry this took me a sec to get to!! i have been cooking it up in my mind though !! hehe

Threefold | Honkai Star Rail — Mydei

When the husband you’ve never met returns from the war you’ve never understood, he comes bearing a strange and inexplicable gift — a prince in chains who he refuses to kill.

notes: this is my most recent project ergo i am the happiest with it atm HAHA i think my prose is at its strongest here!! honestly the idea for the plot really came to me in a vision…the image of mydeimos as the reluctant prisoner appeared so clearly to me that i had no choice but to build entire world to make it a reality!! (although in terms of world building i have done the bare minimum i feel LMAO very fast and loose fs) even though i haven’t met him in-game yet hehe he’s just very handsome yk haunts my waking hours and whatnot

Seabird | Blue Lock — Sae Itoshi

Thanks to a chance encounter on the beach, you spend your vacation trying to apologize to the famous soccer player you inadvertently offended. Unfortunately, Sae Itoshi has other plans.

notes: i feel like i would be remiss if i didn’t mention seabird!! this one was so much fun to write if only because reader and sae had the funniest dynamic i think i’ve ever written. they are so hater4hater and all of their conversations (plus the little brother’s snarky asides) had me giggling as i came up with them. i think in terms of prose it’s definitely a lot more functional compared to like threefold but that kind of lends it that silliness and charm?? so i still love it HAHA

Hierophant | Honkai Star Rail — Sunday

Sunday is your mirror, as you are his — or, how meeting him spells your doom, just like losing you spells his.

notes: did i know anything about sunday when i wrote this?? debatable (it was a birthday gift). forget about robin LMAOO this is definitely THE most ooc oak siblings you will ever see but i enjoyed it making it regardless!! it’s a 𝓯𝓻𝓮𝓪𝓴𝓭𝓪𝔂 fic more than anything and very speculative/open to interpretation in its entirety which is what i was hoping to get across hehe like i have my ideas for what i think happened but truly it’s not clear at all and it was fun withholding everything LFKDJD if that makes sense…coming up with the differences between halovians and humans as well as writing sunday’s slow deterioration and eventual breakdown was very fun for me!! i also loved switching between past tense and present tense for the different povs hehe it was a fun exercise writing-wise as well!!

The Instrument | Blue Lock — Michael Kaiser

Michael Kaiser is like a rose, and you are the songbird he cannot bear to lose.

notes: yes my opp michael kaiser is making an appearance here because unfortunately i actually do really love this piece LMAO i am not as much a fan of the part two because i only wrote it upon popular demand (i prefer leaving things open-ended) but part one i do by and large enjoy!! this was my first time ever writing in the present tense and i loveddd it HAHA it really unlocks a different style and vibe of writing for me so although i don’t always use it i def do like pulling it out every now and again which i wouldn’t have learned i can do without the instrument!!

Polar | Blue Lock — Nagi-Centric Genfic

This time, when Seishiro Nagi’s talent at soccer is discovered, it’s by a boy named Oliver Aiku — which goes about as well as you’d expect it to.

notes: this one is definitely a crazy one to put on here given that this is a genfic and i am a reader insert author but. i LOVE polar LMAOAOAO it was born of a silly conversation i had with one of my friends (jei if you’re seeing this hi) but it ended up being over 20k words of nagi character study in an au where he’s found by oliver instead of reo!! i love writing it hehe i think this is the proof nagi is my fav because like writing a genfic from a character’s pov is smth i’ve never done before and probs never will do again. but it was a blast at the time!!

no-pressure tagging: @luvether @loverducky @mewnbuns @kazucee @veraties (if any of you were tagged already i am sorry 🥹 i tried switching up who i tag too so i hope you all are okay with it please lmk if not so ik for next time 💖)

[anqelically]

Hello! :) If you don't mind, I have a request! I would like Giyuu, Sanemi and Mitsuri with a weak partner. Weak as in a poor immune system and too injured to fight.

If your interested in a little extra story to it- maybe the reader was once a slayer but became so weak after fighting an incredibly strong demon!

THEM WITH A S/O IN POOR HEALTH

FEATURING. sanemi shinazugawa, giyuu tomioka & mitsuri kanroji

WARNINGS. gn!reader, comfort(??), hcs in drabble form, reader is weak from past injuries

NAVI | KNY MASTERLIST

SANEMI SHINAZUGAWA became more gentle with you after your body weakened. before your current predicament, the two of you were rivals of sorts. you would always challenge each other, whether it was a training match or being the one to slay more demons in a week.

it was the latter situation when you sustained a fatal blow that, somehow, you miraculously survived. it took everything they had, but the girls of the butterfly estate had saved your life. however, when you woke up, you were told that you could no longer be a demon slayer. your body was no longer the same, so you had to be extremely careful and not risk any more injuries.

knowing that being a slayer was all you had going for you, you were devastated. everyone told you it would be okay, but you knew they were only saying that out of pity. the only one you didn’t hear such words from was sanemi. instead, he told you that your injuries would affect the rest of your life, but for as long as you needed, he’d be by your side. for the first time, you shed tears in front of him.

the dynamic between the two of you had switched since then. since you were no longer a demon slayer, neither of you bothered to challenge the other for fun. and instead of your usual banter, sanemi’s words were more carefully chosen, besides his occasional sarcastic remark. to accompany his kinder words, sanemi had also started to care for you during your recovery and all the times when you fell ill.

sanemi held your hand when your stomach pain was too much to handle and even cooked you meals, which he barely did for himself, when you had no other food to eat. this side of sanemi wasn’t just for anyone to see. aware of that, the two of you knew what it meant. you leaned on him, holding his hand for comfort, and he didn’t push you away. it was then that you knew that you’d have his hand to hold whenever you needed it, just like he had promised.

GIYUU TOMIOKA treats you as if you were more fragile than you actually are. although the two of you were once at the same level of strength, ever since you retired as a hashira, he had treated you with the utmost care. giyuu was always gentle with you, but his new way of things was on another level.

the reason for your retirement was also the same reason why giyuu treated you the way he did. after you sustained serious injuries in a fight with an upper moon demon, your body had not been the same. your frame had grown weak, and you could no longer fight like you used to.

you became ill often, and it happened so much that the head of the corps suggested your early retirement. knowing you could not fight in the state you were in, you had agreed with the master and retired early. through all of this, the one to stay by your side was giyuu.

his actions were always louder than words. when you were under the weather, he’d tend to you unless he was assigned a mission, and when that happened, he always made sure that someone else was there to support you. it often ended up being tanjiro, who conveniently happened to have nothing else to do during those times. he also no longer spoke of those missions unless you asked, aware that you liked being a demon slayer since it was a way to save those in need.

and although his care can sometimes be a tad much, you knew that every action came from the depths of giyuu’s heart, which also held the fear that maybe one day he’d lose you. he wasn’t the type to act overbearing, but the fact that he did so much to care for you meant that his actions were of good intent. giyuu tomioka loved you, and no matter what, he would do anything to look after you.

MITSURI KANROJI worries all too often, even if there is nothing to worry about. before the two of you even met, your body was growing weaker with every mission you went on. after a battle with a certain demon, you became so injured that your body still faced the repercussions of the fight after your recovery.

you met mitsuri when the two of you were assigned on a mission together. the mission was a near disaster when your stomach began to twist, and you were in so much pain that you struggled to move. fortunately, mitsuri was strong and was able to finish the mission herself. 

you quit the corps after your mission together while you were recovering in the butterfly estate. mitsuri, being as kind as she was, chose to visit you, even if the time you spent on the mission together was brief. one visit led to the second, the third, next, and so on. mitsuri learned of your physical state after all the time she spent with you and, not to your surprise, was often worried.

if she ever saw you holding a heavy bag of groceries, the hashira would whisk it out of your hands and carry it the rest of the way. mitsuri also made you the best sweet treats, with lots of fruit to balance the sugar out, and made sure to help you get exorcise. though, your workouts together were the most dreadful because of her endless energy, and you often had to remind her you couldn’t move half as well as she did.

all of mitsuri’s actions, frantic or not, brought a smile to your face. although you were still weak, your pain always felt alleviated whenever she was around. standing by her side, you knew that mitsuri was the remedy you’d forever be healed by.

NOTE. ee guess who finally did a request after forever (this was the first one I got after my recent post LOL). i didn't end up mentioning the fact that the readers issues after her injuries had to do with her immune system, but I still hope this is okay 😭 thank you for requesting as always !

—requests are open + join my taglist !

@aureatchi @soleelia @hauntingthissite @bloodmoon-bites @sanemistar

[anqelically]

what was everyone's first mitski song ever. mine was crazy it was happy i think i blacked out for about an hour

[anqelically]

best friend satoru who shared all of his first with you.

best friend satoru who held your hand for the first time when you were kids, long before either of you really understood what friendship meant. he had just met you, but something about you made him decide—you were going to be stuck with him. so, without a word, he grabbed your hand and laced your fingers together like it was the most natural thing in the world. you grinned and called him clingy, but you didn’t let go. after that, he never really stopped. even as you both got older, his fingers would always find yours—dragging you through crowded streets, squeezing your hand when he was nervous before a big mission, pulling you closer when you were upset. “my hands are made for greatness,” he’d say, smirking so smugly you wanted to punch his teeth out if it wasn’t for his next words, “but mostly, they’re made for holding yours.”

best friend satoru who gave you your first sleepover, barging into your dorm with his blanket and pillow, declaring he was staying the night because his room is too cold and suguru was adamant torturing him with his music since the walls were thin. he flopped onto your futon like he owned it, making himself at home, and spent half the night talking your ear off about anything and everything—his newest favorite sweets, some dumb prank he pulled on suguru, a technique he was trying to perfect. at some point, you must have dozed off, because when you woke up, he was curled into your side, his hair tickling your cheek, his breath warm against your shoulder. you poked his forehead to wake him, and he just mumbled something incoherent before tightening his hold on your waist. “five more minutes,” he yawned, refusing to let go. (you let him have ten.)

best friend satoru who gave you your first hug after a rough mission, his arms winding around you before you even had time to process what was happening. “you okay?” he asked, his voice softer than usual. the weight of him was solid, grounding, as he held you like he was afraid you’d slip through his fingers. he smelled like bubble gum and sugar, and when you tried to tease him about it, to distract yourself from the way your fractured arm screamed for some attention— he just squeezed you tighter, pressing his chin against your shoulder. “shut up, dummy,” he mumbled, “just let me hug you for a second.”

best friend satoru who gave you your first kiss in the most satoru way possible—without warning and just to prove a point, just because you said that he looks like he’d be an awful kisser and noted how he doesn’t even go out of jujutsu tech that much for his stories about kissing girls to be true. satoru’s ears tinged with baby pink but before you could tease him about it he cupped your face and planted a wet kiss on your lips. “now you can brag that i was your first kiss!” he grinned after pulling away, his voice teasing, but the tips of his ears were a little pink. you were too stunned to speak, and he took that as his victory until you came back to your senses and jumped on him with all sorts if curses flying out of your mouth. from then on, he’d bring it up constantly—“remember when i was your first kiss? don’t lie, i know you do!”—just to get a reaction out of you. but he never did it again, and you never asked why, although your lips tingled for a while after that.

best friend satoru who made you skip class with him for the first time, dragging you out of jujutsu tech with an easy grin and a mischievous glint in his eyes. “what’s more important—some boring lesson or spending time with me?” he asked, slinging an arm around your shoulders. he took you to get sweets, made you laugh until your stomach hurt, and even convinced you to run through the rain with him when the weather turned. “see?” he beamed, soaked and breathless, “way better than school.”

best friend satoru who was the first person to celebrate your birthday properly, showing up at midnight with cake, balloons, and a stupidly extravagant gift because “you’re my best friend, duh, you deserve the best!” him, suguru and shoko sang happy birthday so off-key it made your ears bleed, but nevertheless you were happy. he made the entire day about you, dragging you to all your favorite places, spoiling you rotten, and making sure you never stopped smiling. he even made you wear a ridiculous birthday hat all day, much to your embarrassment. but when you saw how happy it made him, you let him have his fun.

best friend satoru who sweared that he was not nervous when you were having sex for the first time. “i’m not nervous, silly,” he insisted, but the way he fumbled with his shirt told a different story. you giggled, unable to stop, and it only made him more flustered. “hey, don’t laugh at me!” he whined, glaring at you. it was awkward, giggly, and full of clumsy moments, but it was also somehow perfect. you both laughed through it, but it was just that: laughter and warmth, and the kind of ease that comes from years of being best friends. and even though there were moments of clumsiness—fingers slipping, positions not quite right—it was pleasurable. he took his time, making sure you were comfortable, teasing you when you’d squirm. “what’s wrong, huh? too much?” he’d ask, grinning when you playfully shoved him away. despite the teasing and the jokes, satoru was patient, making sure you were comfortable, and his usual cocky grin softened into something more genuine. between bursts of laughter, there were moments of intimacy, a quiet connection that wasn’t just about the fun but about being there with each other. his mischievous smile never quite disappeared, even as he whispered, “you know, you’re kinda perfect like this.” and while you thought it was just arousal speaking it still made you all warm and fuzzy inside. when it was over, you were both out of breath and a little tangled up, but you couldn’t stop smiling, feeling the joy and warmth of the moment. satoru pulled you close, pressing a kiss to your forehead as you both tried to catch your breath, and didn’t let go until the morning.

best friend satoru who told you he loved you first—except it wasn’t the kind of confession you were expecting. he said it so casually, like it was a fact, like it was something he had always known. “i love you, y’know?” he shrugged, popping a piece of candy into his mouth while you stared at him, popsicle dripping down your palm and wrist from the heat. “you’re my favorite person.” and just like every first before this, he didn’t realize how much he meant it until later. neither did you.

best friend satoru who, somewhere along the way, realized that maybe he wanted to be your last too.

[anqelically]

tumblr pls stop updating the app

[anqelically]

I just came across your account so I wanted to say that I love your stories and everything! I also wanted to know if you are doing any stories requests or anything?🌷✨🤗🍒

OMG tysm i’m so happy to hear that you love them 🥹🤍 my requests for oneshots/headcanons are also open !! here are the rules + the list of characters i write for