A Life Untold

Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at http://archiveofourown.org/works/45205399.

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Archive Warning: Major Character Death
Category: M/M
Fandom: 文豪ストレイドッグス | Bungou Stray Dogs
Relationship: Dazai Osamu/Nakahara Chuuya (Bungou Stray Dogs)
Character: Bungou Stray Dogs Ensemble
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Post-Canon, Angst, Mystery,
but also misery lol, Unhappy Ending, Nakahara Chuuya-centric
(Bungou Stray Dogs), Mind Manipulation, Betrayal, you will be
confused, and you will be sad
Language: English
Stats: Published: 2023-02-20 Words: 14573

A Life Untold
by arkastadt

Summary

His life is perfectly fine as it is, but sometimes, just sometimes, he feels an integral piece of
him missing. This tiny brick from the scaffolding of Nakahara Chuuya. Not big enough to
make him collapse, only to waver from time to time; like now, wandering the hallways, a
little lost, a little mystified.

Maybe that’s what living is with something like Arahabaki harbored inside of him. No
matter how deeply he submerges himself into this great and devastating world, a part of
him will always feel disconnected. Trapped in a fish tank, watching people come and go,
leaving him with nothing but grainy memories.

Notes

See the end of the work for notes

06:00.

Beep-beep-beep-bee—

Chuuya shuts off his alarm clock, then rolls onto his back and stares at his ceiling. Sighs. Time to
get up.

For a twenty-seven-year-old mafia executive, his life sure is predictable sometimes. A hamster
wheel of the same morning rituals, work meetings, after-hours relaxations, and night habits –
except that the hamster is filthy rich and his cage is a penthouse in the most expensive district in
the city.
It’s a good life though, he thinks, studying the reflection in the mirror while brushing his teeth with
more enthusiasm than sometimes is healthy, according to his dentist. The very reason he has fallen
into a comfortable routine is that it works. His position at the Port Mafia still creates enough
variety to keep him on his toes. Any—

An incoming call cuts off the song that has been keeping him company. Chuuya scowls when he
sees the name on the screen.

Well, life is good most of the time. Being called by his shitty ex falls into the minority where it
stinks.

He declines the call before spitting out toothpaste and rinsing his mouth.

Bastard.

As the smell of freshly brewed coffee begins to waft through the kitchen, Chuuya starts counting
his barbell squats. A glistening sheen of sweat covers his bare chest once he gets up to have his
coffee. He grabs his mug – and frowns because there are two on the counter instead of just one.

“Huh,” he says to himself.

He prepares his breakfast while sipping from his coffee. Has his second cup while eating. Then it’s
time for the shower. And finally, his favorite part of the morning: taking his baby out for a spin.

His Nissan GT-R Nismo comes alive with a purr that never fails to send a thrill down his spine. He
would fuck this car if he could. As it is, he settles on making her roar when he pulls out of his
driveway and onto the streets of Yokohama.

Half an hour later, Chuuya strolls through the HQ's lobby, greeting black-clad people that pass him
with nods. It’s a common mistake to assume that the Port Mafia operates mostly at night – one that
Chuuya made when he first joined too. He expected life-or-death battles, armed showdowns and
top-secret missions. What he got was bureaucracy. A lot of it. It’s called organized crime for a
reason. All that money has to be handled somehow.

That’s why his days, when things are going well, begin in the morning and end somewhere in the
afternoon just like they do for regular people. The only difference is that when he gets a call,
whether it’s at nine in the evening or four in the morning, and something is burning, he has to
swing his ass out of bed and put the fire out. No exceptions, unless he is injured, out of the country
or dead.

There have not been many such calls in the past months. Part of being an executive means
delegating and delegating means that usually someone exists who is able to do what he would
without him having to go anywhere. It also requires trust and that doesn’t come easy for many
people in the Port Mafia. Nor did it for Chuuya, at first, but he likes to think that he has gotten
better at it.

It's been more than twelve years now since he went down on one knee and handed his loyalty, his
soul, to Mori. The Port Mafia – it’s more than just his well-paid job. It’s his family. He would kill
and die for these people, as they would for him. This kind of blood-thick devotion wouldn’t run
well without any trust.

With a hum, the elevator comes to a halt on the thirty-second floor. The doors slide open.

“Good morning, Nakahara-san,” Sora and Kurou say, giving him respectful bows that still, after all
these years, make Chuuya cringe on the inside. He would much rather have people demonstrate
their respect through daily actions than meaningless displays of authority.

“Morning, guys,” he greets back. “How’d everything go yesterday? Did you get all the
shipments?”

Sora’s cheeks are flushed when he receives several nods from her. “Everything went okay! Thanks
for asking, Nakahara-san.”

He offers another smile before brushing past them with a sigh. Puppies. So adorable. So clumsy.

His secretary jumps to her feet as soon as she sees him. The pile of files on her desk is dangerously
high.

“Morning, May. Please tell me you’re just applying to other places and these are all your
documents.”

“Like I would ever leave this place,” she jokes back with a wry smile, already following him inside
his office.

Like she ever could.

“I don’t know if I’d call this morning good but it is a morning, so, hello. Morning. I like the hat.
Very professional.”

She is one of the few people here who talks to Chuuya like an old colleague rather than an
executive. Admittedly, it took some time – and maybe he threatened to fire her if she didn’t stop
with the frivolous pleasantries – but the result is worth it. Well, it means that he has to hear her
make fun of his sense of fashion every now and then, but. Still worth it.

The hat is one of their long-running jokes. She thinks that it’s hideous and outdated, making him
look way older than he is. Chuuya thinks it doesn’t really matter what it makes him look like
because it’s the only thing that keeps him, and everyone else, safe from someone using Arahabaki
to cause chaos and destruction. Also worth it.

“Does the not-so-good morning have anything to do with that obscene stack of files?” he asks.
Sunlight streams into his office, painting an even more majestic picture of Yokohama’s skyline.
Yup. Definitely a good life. After tossing his coat onto the back of his chair, he finally faces the
pile.

“Not really. More with the fact that my neighbor is an ignorant little –” May cuts herself off and
clears her throat. “Neighbor problems. Nothing that’s worth mentioning.”

Chuuya lifts his eyes to her. “Anything I can do to help?”

“It’s not a big deal. Really. So anyways.” She starts pointing at the files. “New recruits.
Yesterday’s mission and financial reports. The documents from executive Kouyou that you asked
for. And –”

“Advertisement,” Chuuya says with a dry scoff, looking at the flyer for an Arcade downtown that
has somehow snuck its way into his paperwork. “Is business so bad that they’d risk bothering the
mafia?”

His eyes slide over the picture again. Squinting. Funny. That looks exactly like the –

May steals the flyer out of his hands and clutches it to her chest. “That’s mine – I must have lost it
while sorting the files earlier.” Her smile flutters nervously. “I’m so sorry. My mistake.”

“You planning to go to the Arcade?” he asks with an amused huff.

“It was in my mail. I was going to throw it away but accidentally took it with me to work.” She
puffs out a breath. “That neighbor, I’m telling you. She ruined my whole morning.”

“Bet she wouldn’t have if she knew who you worked for.”

“I wouldn’t be doing my job right if she did.”

“That,” he raises his fingers even as he begins flipping through the mission reports, “is true.”

“This should be it for now. Do you want coffee?”

“Please.”

It just so happens that Chuuya gets one of those calls the very same day. Or, to put it more
precisely, a visit.

“I’m about to head home,” he tells Kouyou the moment she enters his office with that ‘I’m about to
ruin your night’ look on her face, “so this better be important.”

“Yuchigo Hugio’s son has gotten himself into trouble with a rogue gang on the southern side of the
city. Yuchigo has requested our help to get him out. Discreetly, of course.”

Yuchigo Hugio is one of the many politicians that are in hoots with the Port Mafia. After working
as a policy advisor for a local government, he decided to run for office and was elected as a
member of the House of Representatives last year. His son is infamous for his substance abuse and
gambling problems.

“That’s not important,” Chuuya remarks dryly even though he dutifully accepts the document she
hands him, skimming the information. “That’s a job for one of the puppies.”

The gang doesn’t even have any ability users. They’re just armed thugs.

“It’s a job from the boss himself.”

Of course it is.

Despite the fact that anyone with a decent offensive ability could rescue the brat in distress, clients
prefer if someone like Chuuya does it. For some reason that he quite doesn’t understand himself,
he is popular with business affiliates and partners. The reputation that used to earn him distrust and
fear on the streets has transformed into one that now earns him respect and admiration – and, yeah,
still a healthy amount of fear. Gravity manipulation intimidates people, so they prefer to have him
on their side.

With a sigh, Chuuya pockets the document and gets up. “At least this shouldn’t take too long.”

Kouyou falls into step beside him. “Your unit is already on standby.”

“What are you doing here so late anyway, Ane-san?”

Being one of the four executives, Kouyou has an office here on the 32nd floor as well, though she
barely uses it, favoring the main brothel that she oversees. That is when she isn’t holed up in the
interrogation unit. Considering that Verlaine hasn’t shown his face anywhere other than the
basement, it makes for a pretty lonely floor. Not as lonely as it used to be since the newest
executive, Mishima Yukio, has moved in, albeit he only shows up sporadically. That damned
intelligence department…

Most of the time it’s just Chuuya and May here.

The boss should fill the fifth seat already. Chuuya isn’t sure why he hasn’t yet.

“I wanted to see how you were doing. It’s been a moment since we last talked.”

Chuuya snorts. “Yeah, like five days.”

Kouyou has always been rather fond of spending time with him outside of work duties but she has
been extra attentive lately, stopping by his office every few days and stealing him away for tea
ceremonies, walks, and dinners. Not that Chuuya minds. He used to be a bit scared of Kouyou as a
teen, but the older he grows, the more he learns to appreciate her friendship. He does wonder
whether there is a reason for her frequent visits though, especially when she says things like that.

“We both know how much time that is in our line of work.”

“Well, I’m fine. I’m not sure what to cook for dinner though.” He looks at his once-mentor from
the side. “Any suggestions?

The mission itself takes little more than ten minutes. In, out, and done. It’s the prepping and the
aftermath that takes the longest; in this case, it means hand-delivering the brat to safety.

“Come on,” Chuuya directs Yuchigo junior toward their car with a firm hand on his back, “your
father is anxious to see you in one piece.”

“You mean he’s worried that someone will find out that one of his precious family members was
involved in some shady business.”

“Same thing.”

“Pah! Let him worry.” Yuchigo’s eyes seize him with wild excitement when Chuuya slides into the
backseat next to him. “That was really cool what you did back there. You do this often? God, I
wish I had an ability! I’d kick ass day and night! Day and night!” He punches his fists into the air
as if to demonstrate how exactly he would do that – very badly, as it seems. “Oi, do the likes of you
accept people without abilities as well? Father keeps telling me to look for a serious job. I think I
just discovered what I want to do!”

“You couldn’t even gamble without having to be saved,” Chuuya replies flatly. “Listen to your dad
and do something better with your life while you still can.”

Like a gummy ball, it bounces off the brat without any lasting impact.

“I’ve tried doing what was expected of me! It didn’t work! Bored me to death. I’d rather live a
short but fulfilled life while I still can, thank you very much!”

Well.

It’s not like Chuuya’s task was to help junior Yuchigo here reach his full potential. If he even has
any, that is.

“By the way, haven’t we met before?”

Frowning at his phone, Chuuya feels his brows rise even higher. “I doubt it.”

“Oh, for sure! I remember you! You – you were there with that partner of yours! At Kirameki!” As
Chuuya’s scowl deepens, Yuchigo throws back his head and laughs like a hyena. “That was such a
fun night! I should call my ex…”

“You must have taken too many drugs because whoever you saw there wasn't me.”

Kirameki is not a club that he’d ever visit. Far away from Port Mafia territory and crowded with
low lives and nobodies.

“Then that guy I saw throwing it back to Bitch Better Have My Money wasn’t you?”

The weirdest thing is that Chuuya does occasionally throw it back to Bitch Better Have My Money.
But only when he is by himself – and very drunk. He would never humiliate himself like that in
public, let alone with that disloyal piece of shit of an ex.

Never.

Yuchigo takes his silence for an answer and shrugs, a glazed sheen clouding his eyes as he leans
back and exhales deeply. “Oh well. I could have sworn it was you.”

The kid’s pupils are so shot he probably can’t even think his way out of a paper bag, and yet
something about the odd coincidence can’t seem to let go of Chuuya. Or rather, he cannot let go of
it.

The seed begins to grow roots.

To celebrate his successful mission and the end of his work day, Chuuya plops a cigarette between
his lips after leaving the building where Yuchigo works. He signals his driver to wait, takes a deep
inhale, and lets the nicotine flood his lungs. Sweet, sweet –

“You won’t BELIEVE what just happened to me! I’m telling you, the CRAZIEST thing!”

His satisfaction quickly fades into a scowl as the woman up ahead continues to talk on the phone
like whoever is on the other end of the line is deaf. Seriously. Some people should grow some
manners. No one needs to speak this loudly in public, for fuck’s sake.

“— and then he just walked away without even apologizing! What a bastard! But anyways, I’m on
my way home now. I just need to do groceries first. I was thinking crab. Or maybe fish. I’m
craving some mackerel. It’s been ages since I’ve last had some.”

Now thoroughly annoyed, Chuuya tosses his half-finished cigarette to the concrete and puts it out
with his boot. He barely resists stealing that woman’s phone and crushing it between his fingers.

“Where to, Nakahara-san?” his driver asks.

Chuuya settles back in his seat. “Headquarters.”

His baby is waiting for him, and –

Ironic as it sounds, the woman just reminded him that he still needs to do groceries and pick
something to eat for dinner.

He is in the grocery store.

Actually, he’s in the alcohol aisle but, for some reason, he is studying the choices of sake. How
weird. How awful. Why would he drink that when there is a perfectly good section of red wines
just a few feet away?

Still, he finds himself picking up a bottle of sake anyway and adding it to his cart. Maybe it’s
nostalgia. He’s been having a lot of such moments lately, his chest cramping up all of a sudden and
longing for something that isn’t there anymore. It’s silly. His life is perfectly fine as it is, but
sometimes, just sometimes, he feels an integral piece of him missing. This tiny brick from the
scaffolding of Nakahara Chuuya. Not big enough to make him collapse, only to waver from time to
time. Like now, wandering the hallways, a little lost, a little mystified.

Maybe that’s what living is with something like Arahabaki harbored inside of him. No matter how
deeply he submerges himself into this great and devastating world, a part of him will always feel
disconnected. Trapped in a fish tank, watching people come and go, leaving him with nothing but
grainy memories.

That evening, he ends up cooking steamed crab meat with sake, soy sauce, and sugar.

He has put the dishes away and is on his second glass of wine when his phone rings. Grimacing, he
picks it up. It certainly wouldn’t be his first time showing up to work tipsy but that doesn’t mean
he wants to repeat it.

“Good evening, Mr. Nakahara. I’m Mr. Akito with Manhasset Security. You sent us an E-Mail
regarding your alarm system recently. Is that correct?”

Chuuya hums, remembering. “That’s right. The thing has been acting funny lately. It started
blaring twice even though there was no one there but me.”

“By lately, you mean in the last few months?”

“Last week, actually.”

“I see. So the alarm last month was correct?”

“Last month,” he repeats, blinking. “Last month…”

“It says here it was triggered on June 15th at 22:23.”

Last month. June 15th.

Chuuya thinks so hard that his head starts throbbing, but still, the place where his memories should
be stored, remains eerily blank. Huffing out a breath, he tries again. He’s never been as good at
remembering tidbits as certain other people, especially when liquor is involved — and, okay, liquor
is often involved — though he doesn’t forget entire days either.

Last month.

June.

What the hell was he doing last month?

The only thing that comes to him is work. That’s it.

He woke up in the morning – if he didn’t work the night before. He brushed his teeth. He made
coffee. He worked out. He had breakfast. He drove to work. Lots of meetings and paperwork and
calls. Then, home, dinner, a glass or two of wine, shower.

And repeat.

The general picture is there. The details are missing. What did he cook for dinner? Fish or meat?
Did he take the long way to work or the fast one? Was he out with friends or colleagues? Fuck, did
he live at all?

“Mr. Nakahara, are you still there?”

“Yeah, uh –” Falling onto a chair, he rubs his forehead. Lost. “Still here. Sorry, my memory’s kind
of funky, but I’m pretty sure the alarm last month was fine. The issues have been recent.”

The security employee in his ear continues talking but his voice barely reaches Chuuya. He sits
there and stares at the wall of his dining room.

Is something wrong with him? Is he sick? Is that why he can’t remember shit anymore?

Or is it just… a rut that he has somehow fallen into? Getting so comfortable with a routine that he
completely forgot to live for an entire month – has forgotten. He is still stuck in that loop. Still
nursing a glass of wine only so he can go to bed an hour later, wake up, and do it all over again.

Shit, Chuuya never thought he’d be one of those people. He didn’t even think he could. Who
would have thought that the kid who was fostered in a laboratory like some kind of rat, sent out
onto the streets before joining the fucking mafia would end up having a life so dull and predictable
that he doesn’t bother to remember what happened anymore?

His fifteen-year-old self would kick his ass for that.

So he makes a decision. From now on, none of that anymore. It’s time to spice things up again.
Time to live, for fuck’s sake.

Last night, he had the entire bottle of wine rather than just two glasses, and perhaps he ended up
sending that piece of shit that goes by his ex’s name a few… inebriated messages, telling him what
he really thinks – as in, he asked said ex to come over for a quick fuck but luckily he passed out
before receiving a reply.

Today, he pays for his mistakes with a violent throbbing in the back of his head that refuses to
wane no matter how much water and painkillers he swallows.

Hey, at least, he broke his routine though.

He woke up at eight. He skipped the workout for once. He had his coffee after showering and
having breakfast. Now he’s sitting in his kitchen and reading the newspaper – something he hasn’t
done in a while… or ever. Work keeps him updated on what’s happening in the city. Everything
else is irrelevant.

But today is supposed to be different, so.

He skips the section about international politics. Boring. He skips the business news too. Makes
him yawn. Skips the weather because he can look outside. Skips the editorial columns. Not
interesting enough at first glance. He pauses at the page covering the local news.

There is an article talking about a memorial held this week for the victims of the Dragonhead
conflict that took place eleven years ago now.
Chuuya drops the paper and closes his eyes to test his memory. The Dragonhead conflict. 88 days
of bloodshed. The darkest battle in Yokohama's history. He was part of that. He was there when it
started after an ability user died and left behind their fortune. He was there when it ended.

Rationally, he knows that. Yet when he tries to summon the specific details of those never-ending
nights, he comes up empty. It’s like reaching for something and expecting to touch substance but
only grasping fog. There is nothing.

Chuuya opens his mouth and, again, nothing comes out.

The Dragonhead conflict ended because Shibusawa was put out. That time at least. His brows
furrow. When was the other time? And how?

The clock on the wall clicks away – tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock. The carousel of life continues to
spin on and on and on. It never stops.

Slowly, Chuuya lifts his hand and traces the indent of a long-forgotten scar. He has made peace
with his history. His perverse upbringing. The deaths that he has caused. The people he has lost
because of it. Even the question of his identity that used to eat away at him more viciously than a
rabid parasite. If the Port Mafia was willing to bleed for him, how could he not make peace with
the fact that he will never know, for certain, who or what he is, and instead embrace the fact that he
knows who he belongs to? The Port Mafia. His family, his people, his blood. It didn’t matter
whether he was human or not. They accepted him as he was. That was enough.

What if that was a mistake?

What if, this entire time, he has been a puppet on someone else's string?

“Nakahara-san, are you feeling quite alright? You look a little pale.”

Chuuya’s eyelids flutter several times before he realizes that Higuchi, who must have entered the
Port Mafia’s break room at some point, is talking to him. “Huh?”

It takes another few seconds for his vision to focus again.

“I was wondering whether you’re feeling okay,” Higuchi says with a sympathetic frown that’s
usually reserved only for her beloved senpai. She’s been doing better about her obsession though.
He even heard her tell Akutagawa that she had a night off last week. “Maybe you should sit down,
drink a glass of –”

“I’m fine,” he cuts in, briskly waving her concerns aside. “I drank too much yesterday. Can’t a guy
have a hangover in peace?”

He doesn’t wait for a reply. He needs… he glances around the room. He is not sure what he needs.
Answers. Certainty. Maybe a holding cell.

Then he spots Hirotsu at the coffee machine and his heart sings. Yes, he needs the old man.

“Hirotsu-san,” he says, striding up to him.

“Nakahara-kun,” the old man greets back with an acknowledging nod.

“I need you to tell me something.”

Hirotsu’s spine straightens; he turns to face Chuuya and ducks his head. “Of course. What would
you like to know?”

Having someone older – and frankly, much wiser – than him show submission just because of their
ranks will never not make Chuuya cringe, but it’s quickly forgotten for once.

“How’d the Dragonhead conflict end?” he blurts out.

Hirotsu’s eyes narrow for a millisecond before softening once again. “It ended with the defeat of
the ability user Shibusawa. Are you feeling alright?”

“I’m fine,” he snaps. “I know that, but how?”

“How what, Nakahara-san?”

“How did we defeat Shibusawa?”

“What’s going on, gentlemen?” Kouyou’s voice suddenly infiltrates their conversation. She
glances between them with a feather-light smile. “I wasn’t aware that we had a trivia day.”

“It’s not – I can’t seem to remember how exactly the conflict ended.” Chuuya scratches the back of
his neck with a scowl, aware of how weak his explanation sounds. But he can’t exactly say that
he’s suspecting of being a mind-controlled clone who is malfunctioning now, can he?

Kouyou lifts her sleeve to cover her mouth as she chuckles warmly. “That’s probably a sign to lay
off the wine.”

He crosses his arms. “I’m serious.”

“Why don’t you sit down?” Kouyou tells him. “You’re as pale as a sheet of paper. Are you feeling
quite alright?”

Fuck, why does everybody keep asking him that?

“I’m fine,” he declares, intentionally stepping out of their little circle, “and I’m leaving.”

He only hears a soft-spoken “boys…” before storming away.

He is not quite sure where he is going, only that his steps are fast and long. Does he really look that
sick today? His hangover was horrific enough to make him two hours late but it has mostly
subsided. He is fine. Physically, at least. Mentally, he is, admittedly, freaked about the whole
memory thing. But what if it started with his mind and is now infecting his body?

What if his program is failing?

“Easy,” he tells himself, entering the elevator – thankfully empty. “Deep breaths. You’ve been
through worse.”

He has been stabbed with poisoned knives, prodded with electric rods, crashed into buildings – he
has experienced the full spectrum of pain that exists. This is nothing in comparison. Just a little
hiccup.

The elevator hums. Stops at a random floor because Chuuya didn’t press the button when he got in.
The doors slide open and reveal a bustling hallway, people in black suits running around like their
ass is on fire.

Puppies.
Chuuya’s posture straightens. Taking a deep breath, he marches out of the elevator and towards one
of the meeting rooms with a bunch of grunts in it. He stops in the doorway.

“Oi, you,” he calls out. A dozen heads jerk towards them – as soon as they recognize who he is,
they all jerk up to their feet as well like a bunch of obedient, little soldiers. Adorable but also super
convenient. “Yeah, all of you. Who here knows their facts about the Dragonhead conflict?”

All hands in the room fly up.

“You.” Chuuya nods at a young woman with black hair and glasses. “Speak.”

“The Dragonhead conflict started when a man named Oshitou Komusi died, who left behind –”

“Everyone knows how it began. I want to know how it ended.”

The woman opens her mouth to speak, then falters. Her brows furrow. “I – I’m not quite sure, sir.”

“And you call yourself a mafioso? Embarrassing.” Chuuya tsks loudly before gesturing toward
another eager puppy raising his hand. “You.”

“It ended with the capture of the ability user Shibusawa.”

“And how’d they capture him?”

“That’s – that’s classified information.”

Chuuya, who has been making his rounds through the room, pauses to raise his brows. “Oh, really
now? That’s your excuse?”

Some of the puppies murmur among themselves.

Chuuya looks around. “What, a dozen mafiosi and no one here knows how we defeated
Shibusawa?”

“I heard it was an explosion,” someone blurts out. “The blast took out Shibusawa. Then the
department for special abilities captured him.”

“And what kind of explosion would that have been?”

“An ability user?”

“What kind of ability-user?”

“… Kajii?”

Chuuya scoffs. “You think Kajii single-handedly ended the Dragonhead conflict?”

Secretly, he wonders though: did he?

“It could have been simple explosives,” someone else suggests. “There is more to the Port Mafia
than its ability users. We excel at strategy and weaponry!”

Then why does Chuuya have a feeling that he was involved somehow?

“Good guess,” he relents. “But who here has the actual answer for me?” Silence. “Seriously?
Nobody?”
Someone in the corner of the room shyly raises their hand. Chuuya just looks at them to tell them
to speak. “You?”

“Me what?”

“You –” They clear their throat. “You were the one who defeated Shibusawa. Right?”

Chuuya’s chin lifts. “And how’d I do that?”

“Well… you’ve got a powerful ability.”

“Sure, but it was an explosion that ended the whole thing. An entire building collapsed.”

In theory, for the tainted sorrow is even powerful enough to accomplish that, but. Something is
missing. It has to be. The answer can’t be that simple.

“You weren’t alone,” the same grunt mumbles.

“Louder,” Chuuya demands. “No one hears you when you mumble like that.”

“You weren’t alone.” Their voice is firmer this time. “You and your –” someone elbows them from
the side, causing Chuuya to frown, but the person continues “—partner.” Their face blanches. “Ex-
partner…”

Right.

Chuuya plants his hands on his hips as he thinks. His brain must be fucking disintegrating if he
completely forgot the fact that he wasn't working alone all the time. They made a good team once
upon a time – before the bastard turned traitor, that is.

Now the reminder just makes his teeth grind.

What a waste of time. Seriously.

“My former partner and I, huh?” he murmurs, more to himself than the litter of puppies standing
stock still around him. It makes sense. Disloyal traitor or not, the asshole wasn’t entirely useless in
a fight.

If anyone could have done it, it would have been the two of them.

That’s the answer.

Just why does it still not feel satisfying?

Probably because it comes from some random grunt and not Chuuya himself. He wanted to
remember. Not to get told what to believe in.

This was fucking useless.

“What are you standing here around for?” Chuuya snaps after another moment passes. His hand
jerks into the air. “Back to work.”

They explode into movement like a colony of busy ants, grabbing papers and files and hurrying out
of the room. They know what they have to do. And so does Chuuya. Fuck, at least he hopes so.

“Listen, asshole. I need to talk to you about something. I have questions and I think you’re one of
the only people who can help me get them. So call me back as soon as you get this.” Chuuya
pauses for a second before adding, “And this isn’t a booty call or anything of the sort – despite
what I might have texted you while I was drunk, so – whatever. Call me.”

He pockets his phone before checking himself out in the mirror one last time. By some miracle,
Akutagawa came up to him earlier at work and asked if he’d like to go out. Chuuya’s not sure who
died to make it possible but he’s not going to question it. A fun night out is exactly what he needs.
Not only because it’s been a while since he’s done that and thus a change in routine but because if
his head is melting, he might as well go out intoxicated. Besides, it’s an opportunity to pick
Akutagawa’s brain as well. Maybe he can help him get some of his own fucking history back.

The club that they visit, The Setting Sun, is mafia-affiliated, of course, and a mixture of a wild
dance floor with a lot of nasty grinding and a more relaxed bar area where Mafiosi can relax after
work hours, have a drink or two with their co-workers.

Upon entering the scene, Chuuya’s not surprised that Akutagawa brought Higuchi and Gin along.
He probably even asked Hirotsu. Anything else would have been too dramatic even for such an odd
day.

The first hour is okay. Neither of his three colleagues is the most enthusiastic conversationalist out
there but after a few shots and a glass of wine, Chuuya can work with anything. So does his dick
apparently.

It doesn’t take him long to notice the intense pair of eyes that, not so subtly, stare at him from the
table at the other end of the room. They belong to a man, middle to late twenties, tall, with dark
brown hair framing his symmetric face – it’s his gaze though that arrests Chuuya’s heart. Okay,
maybe that’s his melodramatic drunk self-talking, and it’s not really his heart that curls with heat
but his stomach. Being looked at like that in a room full of people is intoxicating. Despite being
fully clothed, he feels perversely naked and exposed, undressed by the stranger’s mere eyes.

“Time to change that,” Chuuya mutters to himself, pulling his shoulders back.

Akutagawa stares at him. “What are you talking about?”

“Do I look okay?” Chuuya flashes him his teeth and drives a hand through his hair when his reply
is a very unenthusiastic and silent stare that is the closest thing he’ll get to a confirmation. “I’m
going to have a little fun. Don’t wait for me.”

It’s embarrassing to admit but it’s been a while since he has done this. Chuuya can’t remember the
last time he tasted a stranger’s mouth – or anyone’s really except for –

The point is it’s been a hot minute since has gotten any, let alone since he was the one to approach
someone. He, kind of, stopped letting people in at some point. Figured it was easier that way. No
losses, no attachments, no weaknesses. But a one-time lay is hardly a risk, especially since the
guy’s spending his time in a Port Mafia club anyway.

The pulse of Chuuya’s heart is all heat and anticipation. And the man doesn’t stop looking at him
even when Chuuya approaches him. Impressive.

“You know,” he starts, leaning against his table with one arm, “usually you come up to introduce
yourself when someone catches you staring. Otherwise it’s just creepy.”

“Is that why you’re here then?” the stranger replies, tipping his head to the side to feign curiosity.
“To tell me to stop staring?”
“Among other things.”

“And what other things?”

Chuuya unabashedly meets his eyes. “To tell you to dance with me.”

“To tell me? I think I will be the one telling you what to do tonight.”

The heat in Chuuya’s blood wavers for a moment. While he isn’t opposed to certain dynamics in
bed, he doesn’t appreciate comments like these. There is such a thing as coming on too strong.
Way too strong. A turn-off. Buuut he is tipsy enough to ignore that mishap.

“We’ll see about that,” he replies, shoving that topic aside for now, and offers the man his hand.
“Chuuya.”

Standing up, the stranger accepts his hand and doesn’t let it go. Instead he promptly pulls Chuuya
onto the dance floor. He was hoping for a name first but this is fine too. This is simply about
satisfying an urge and scratching an itch.

They fall into a dirty rhythm of grinding against each other. The stranger’s hands are large, firm, as
they grip Chuuya’s hip bones, his chest solid against his back, and the breath that washes over
Chuuya’s neck sends a bolt of electricity down his spine. Yeah, he can work with that.

A finger curls in Chuuya’s choker. Jerks him close.

“Chibi likes being tugged around, huh?”

The whispered words make Chuuya stiffen against him.

For some reason, the stranger takes that as a cue to continue. His fingers cup Chuuya’s jaw, tilting
his head up to him. “I should have brought a leash, hm?”

“Let go,” Chuuya says softly.

The stranger chuckles. His breath suddenly reeks like a tavern, making him grimace in the
perpetual darkness. “What was tha – ah!” His voice bleeds into a shrill yelp as Chuuya’s fingers
grow heavy, heavier, around his wrist. Enough to cause some bruising but nothing permanent. Yet
he jumps away from Chuuya like his hand is broken. So damn dramatic.

“What’s your problem?!” he yells, accidentally knocking into a couple behind him.

“Should have listened when I told you to let go,” Chuuya says a little louder than he would like.
The volume of the music makes it hard to have a relaxed conversation. Though maybe it’s not a
bad thing. Raising his voice feels good. Exhilarating. “And by the way, that whole dominant alpha
act you’re trying to pull off is really embarrassing. ‘Chibi’ – really? Really?!”

Maybe what he has been craving is a proper fight.

“I thought you were into that stuff!”

Chuuya’s throat goes dry in bewilderment. “Do I fucking look like I’m into that stuff?!” Only
pricks would try to flirt like that.

“Doesn’t mean you had to crush my hand!”

Sure. But it was more fun that way.

Chuuya doesn’t waste any more of his breath arguing with such a loser after that. Whatever
excitement he felt ten minutes prior to this has already bled out of him, leaving him annoyed, tired
and ready to go home. What a shitty fucking day.

“Nakahara-san!” Higuchi exclaims when he reclaims his spot at their table. “Weren’t you going
to…?”

“Dude was a prick,” Chuuya mutters, grabbing the first cocktail that he can get his hands on and
emptying it within seconds before slamming it back down on the table with a scowl. “He called me
chibi. Chibi. Can you believe it? Do I look like a fucking chibi to him?!”

“No, Nakahara-san,” Gin tells him. “You don’t.”

“Not to mention that he acted like I’m a fucking dog.” Chuuya glares at his hands as they clench
into fists. “Who in the world would be into shit like that?!” His gaze lifts to find another drink to
down only to catch Higuchi exchanging a loaded glance with Akutagawa.

“What?” he snaps.

Higuchi’s eyes dart to him, widening in alarmed surprise. “Nothing! That’s really horrible,
Nakahara-san. Was that the guy that you talked to?”

“Yes.” He frowns. “Why?”

“Nothing! It’s a shame that our own business would allow someone inside who talks like this to an
executive.”

Chuuya rolls his eyes. It’s not his rank that makes the guy’s behavior so outrageous, but his
behavior in general. People these days have forgotten how to flirt. “Whatever. I’m over it.”

“I need to make a phone call,” Higuchi says, offering a dutiful smile before excusing herself and
disappearing in a corner.

“I want to go home,” Akutagawa murmurs to himself.

“I have to piss,” Chuuya says with a sigh. “We’ll wait ‘till Higuchi’s back, then get out of here.
This shack sucks.”

He spends his trip to the bathroom mulling over ways to end this disastrous day on a better note.
Drink more wine before bed? He did that yesterday and all it got him was a raging headache.
Watch his favorite movie? That only makes him frown. Does he even have a favorite movie? He
feels like he should have, yet like every other memory that goes deeper than the surface, the
answer slips from his mind. Find someone else to spend the night with? One asshole doesn’t
necessarily mean that there aren’t others. The thought reminds him to check his phone.

No new calls.

Chuuya aggressively turns off the tap. He’ll just go to sleep then. Whatever.

At least, Higuchi’s back, he notices, approaching their table from behind. Means they can all go
home.

He’s just about to announce his return when the words that he hears exchanged between them
make him halt in his step.
“— shouldn’t have done that,” Akutagawa hisses at Higuchi, who, for once, doesn't cower under
his disapproval. “It was just some guy.”

“A guy who called Nakahara-san chibi and compared him to a dog, senpai.”

“That doesn’t have to mean anything.”

“That’s what we’re going to find out.”

“Oi,” Chuuya announces his arrival by slamming his hand on the table and looking between the
two of them, “what’s going on?”

Higuchi flinches in surprise before plastering a well-behaved smile on her face. “Nothing much.
We’re discussing tomorrow’s tasks. Are you ready to leave, Nakahara-san?”

She is lying.

Chuuya’s gaze travels to Akutagawa, who keeps his lips pressed together. But the shadow of guilt
that has befallen him speaks for itself.

“Sure,” Chuuya says after a moment without taking his eyes off the man, “let’s go.”

Higuchi and Gin grab their purses and set off. Akutagawa unfolds himself from the table to follow
them. Chuuya grabs his arm. Waits until they look at each other.

“Akutagawa-kun,” he says, deceptively calm despite the way his heart has begun to slam in his
chest, “I’ll ask again. What is going on?”

For a long moment, Akutagawa stares back at him. Then: “Higuchi had the man you danced with
taken into captivity.” A pause. “He might have lacked manners and decency, but you should
probably still make sure he comes out of it alive.”

Chuuya understands loyalty and how deep it runs – more than anyone else in the Port Mafia,
probably. Yet, no matter how he turns and twists it, he cannot grasp why in the world Higuchi
would do such a thing. Disrespecting an executive is a serious offense, sure, but it’s the executive
who decides whether that offense requires punishment, and Chuuya has made it clear he doesn’t
care enough to do that. Hell, apparently even Akutagawa disagreed. So why?

The question is on the tip of his tongue, and the answer –

The answer is in the depth of Akutagawa’s eyes: I can’t tell you.

In an organization where hierarchy is everything, that means treason. It just doesn’t make any
sense. Why challenge the hierarchy to… interrogate a man that slightly offended Chuuya? It’s
simply not that serious. Unless…

Unless it’s part of a larger scheme that is happening. A betrayal that will cut deeper.

Chuuya lets go of Akutagawa’s arm. “Tell Higuchi and Gin that I met a co-worker on the way out.
We’re currently catching up.”

How far he has fallen to make up excuses for the very people that he is supposed to trust with his
life. That’s the thing about loyalty though: it blinds you.

Yamazaki Eiji.
That’s the name of the man Chuuya met at the club and the man who is currently being held in a
Port Mafia interrogation cell.

It was the easiest thing in the world to march into the building and announce that he is taking over
to the grunts who were expecting none other than Kouyou Ozaki herself. That means that whatever
scheme is at hand here doesn’t run deep enough yet to dismantle Chuuya’s position of power. But
something is going on, he is sure of it now, and apparently, Kouyou plays a role in it too.

Does the boss?

Does everyone? Or is it a limited group of people?

And what is their goal?

Well, that’s what Chuuya is going to find out now.

The metal door slams close after he enters the cell and swallows the room in oppressive silence.
Yamazaki does a double-take upon seeing him.

“You?!” he sputters. “You’re the reason why I’m here? All because I called you chibi?!”

“I didn’t order your capture,” Chuuya says, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Then why am I here?”

“That’s what I’m trying to find out.” He tips his head to the side, studying the man in the dim
lights. “You’re not part of the mafia, are you?” Or else, his reaction would look somewhat
different.

Yamazaki shakes his head. “I work for one of the shell companies, so I-I know about some of the
business going on in the city.”

“And why you hang out in our establishments.”

“Black suits tend to be very tense... they’re good in the shack!”

Chuuya’s confusion swells but he keeps his expression cautiously neutral. It doesn’t make sense. If
he is telling the truth, he doesn't deserve to be interrogated by Kouyou. That’s a treatment only an
elite number of Port Mafia rivals, enemies and prisoners get. Certainly not this guy.

Now there is always a possibility that Yamazaki is lying. The thing is that if Higuchi suspected
him to be an enemy, he should have told Chuuya about it, not lied.

Switching tactics, he takes a couple of steps toward Yamazaki. “So you have not the slightest clue
why anybody would want to talk to you?” Chuuya’s next step positions him directly between
Yamazaki’s thighs. It’s a vulnerable position to be in – especially for a man who likes to act like a
stereotypical alpha macho guy in his free time. “None?”

A droplet of sweat rolls across Yamazaki’s forehead as he stares up at him. His eyelids flutter
several times. “No! I mean – I guess I could have been more honest to you but I didn’t know that
not baring my entire soul to you was a crime!”

Aha.

“Honest about what?”

“I've been thinking about approaching you for a while now — months! I just didn’t know how!”

“That’s it?”

“You tell me!” Ducking his head, Yamazaki curses under his breath. “Damn it, I never should have
listened to that guy’s advice.”

Chuuya’s eyes narrow. “What guy?”

He shakes his head.

“Yamazaki. What. Guy?”

“That guy, you know! Your ex! I met him one time and I – I stupidly asked him for tips on how to
talk to you! Should have known he’d tell me the opposite of what you like to sabotage me! Stupid!”

Some of Chuuya’s confusion clears but the main question, the one looming overhead in gigantic,
bold, red letters stubbornly remains.

“You asked my ex for advice?” he questions. “Tachihara Michizou?”

Former mafioso, former member of the black lizard and, for some idiotic reason, former partner of
Chuuya. It’s safe to say that their relationship crashed and burned the moment Tachihara’s
treacherous activities came to light. That damned bastard had been a spy, actually working for the
Hunting Dogs – except that they were led by a psychopathic terrorist. It was a whole mess.

“Who?” Yamazaki’s brows knit together. “No. The guy I talked to was Dazai! Dazai Osamu.”

Chuuya’s head slowly draws back. “Who the hell is Dazai Osamu?”

“What… what do you mean?”

“I mean I don’t know anyone by that name.” He stares at Yamazaki, trying to determine if he is
telling the truth or spitting bullshit. “I don’t know who you talked to but it wasn’t my ex.”

“It wasn’t? But – but he said…” He makes a face. “Please, you have to believe me! The guy –
Dazai – said he was your former partner, so I trusted him! I have no idea why someone would lie
about that!”

Neither does Chuuya.

With each new word, his confusion magnifies. He came here for answers and now he has even
more questions. And he is running out of time. Kouyou will probably be here any minute.

“Thank you,” he tells Yamazaki, not sure what he is thanking him for considering he didn’t tell
him anything useful whatsoever. Well, except one thing. One name. Something to go on. “And…
good luck.”

He hears Yamazaki strain against his chains after he turns around. “Wait! You’re just going to
leave me here?! They’ll torture me!”

That they will, but Chuuya can’t let him go without exposing himself, so. He is sure Kouyou will
realize that Yamazaki is nothing more than a poor bastard who ended up at the wrong place at the
wrong time talking to the wrong person.

Eventually.
Dazai Osamu.

Chuuya is lying in his bed and staring at the ceiling like it will give him the answers he so craves.

Who is Dazai Osamu? What role does he play in what is going on at the Port Mafia? And is this
connected to his missing memories?

He decided to honor his rational side that the Port Mafia has nurtured so carefully over the past
decade and get a good night’s sleep before investigating. Rest, however, only came in fleeting
bursts and feverish dreams. His alarm rang at six in the morning and saved him from more tossing
and turning, but he hasn’t gotten out of bed yet either.

The Port Mafia is no longer a safe place anymore.

Coming to this conclusion is strange.

Twelve years.

Twelve years, he has worked and fought and bled for them, and now, he is rethinking every
interaction and conversation to find out where it all went wrong. At which point his people turned
against him.

There is dread, slithering down his spine like melting ice – and there is numbness; it sluggishly
eats its way from limb to limb, sucking the heat out of his blood. The greatest risk right now is that
someone will notice what Chuuya has been up to, leading to fatal consequences. He can hold his
ground against almost anyone, maybe even the Port Mafia if he tries hard enough. If he does not —
if they use his weaknesses against him…

Then it’s over.

But that’s not what Chuuya is afraid of.

What scares him more is what will happen if he does manage to hold his ground. He is afraid of
what will come after.

The Port Mafia has been his reason to go to bed at night and wake up in the morning for twelve
years. Without it, he has nothing. Without it, he is not even sure that he is something. What
happens when the organization that he based his entire identity upon betrays and discards him like
a used dish rag?

The answer, it keeps him tied to his bed, unable to get up or fight or do something.

Chuuya’s eyes slide shut.

Who are you, Dazai Osamu?

His phone starts ringing.

Dread rises inside of him like bile.

But missing phone calls and showing up late are uncanny behaviors that he cannot afford at the
moment. So he swallows his nerves. He rolls over, takes his phone, a soft tremor in his fingers, and
accepts the call. He presses it to his ear.

“Weirdest thing. I was going over last week’s mission reports earlier and one of them mentioned
this subordinate, Dazai Osamu, but when I looked him up, I found no profile of him or anything.”
Smacking his lips, Chuuya lifts his eyes from his bowl of food to the woman seated across from
him. Kouyou Ozaki. He tilts his head. “You wouldn’t happen to know anyone that goes by that
name, would you?”

It's a lie, of course. As soon as he got done with this top-priority work, he started digging through
the archives. He dug and he dug and nothing but meaningless dirt. The complete and total absence
of any information only adds to the suspicion. This isn’t Chuuya fishing for answers but seeing
what Kouyou will do with such a question.

“Dazai Osamu, you say?” She dabs the corner of her mouth with a napkin – first the right side,
then the other. Seconds pass. Chuuya hears every single beat of his heart in his ears. “The name
doesn’t tell me anything but our organization is a big one. Who was it that mentioned him?”

Kouyou has always been an excellent liar. It’s a necessity in her line of work. That heeds the
question whether she considers him as a friend or a just another captive.

Chuuya tears his gaze off her and shrugs one shoulder. “One of the puppies.” His vagueness is a
safety measure to prevent anyone else from getting interrogated because of him. “You know how
they are. Careless with their paperwork; always so eager to get on the battlefield.”

“Hm, I distinctly remember you being the same not too long ago.” Kouyou’s eyes light up with
nostalgic joy. “It still takes me hours to decode your writing, lad.”

“It’s not that bad,” he grumbles under his breath. Instead of reminiscing about the past, he should
be steering the conversation back to the point that he brought up but something makes him cling to
this moment, as though already knowing it will be the last.

Kouyou has her faults. Everyone does. Fuck, why else would she be in the mafia? But through all
the years of knowing her, she has never done anything just because she craved power. She is
fiercely devoted to the organization. To its members. To her people. If she is a part of the betrayal,
she must have a good reason.

“Ane-san,” he finds her eyes, “do you think I make a good executive?”

“The best.”

She sounds so certain, so sure of it; as if there is not a single doubt in her mind.

But Kouyou has always been an excellent liar. Her smile is perfect. So perfect that it looks frozen
in time, preserved for moments like these.

“Someday,” she adds, “you will make just as good a boss.”

Chuuya blinks. He obviously hasn’t been deaf to the whispers about him, how people refer to him
sometimes, as the boss’s right-hand man, groomed to take over someday. That someday still seems
so far away though – now more than ever – that he didn’t bother to think too much about the
implications.

“I’m not so sure about that,” he admits, breaking eye contact. “Last time I was someone’s leader,
my people ended up stabbing me in the back with a poisoned knife.”

Following order – that is what Chuuya is good at. He is a soldier, a weapon, a follower – but a
leader? Not so much.
“You were fifteen. A child.” Kouyou pauses to take a sip of her tea before continuing. “You have
grown since then, and you will have grown even more by the time it’s time to assume that role.”

If he has a supposed fixed future here at the Port Mafia, why does this lunch feel like another
poisoned knife in his back?

Exhaling a breath, Chuuya raises his eyes again. “Maybe I misread the mission report.” Kouyou’s
gaze twitches. “It was pretty hard to decipher their scrawl.”

“Maybe,” she retorts… dutifully. “Don’t neglect to teach your subordinates the art of writing. It is
more important than you think.”

“Yeah,” he says, “I’ll keep that in mind for the future.”

After he finishes his work for the day –

After he bids his goodbyes to May and to the grunts he passes in the hallway and to Hirotsu, who
nods at him while he is in a conversation with someone else –

After the doors fall closed behind him and he is out of the tower –

After everything is said and done, Chuuya finds himself in a part of the city he has only visited on
rare and involuntary occasions – on the doorstep of the Armed Detective Agency.

Don’t ask him why, he doesn’t have an answer either. It’s this feeling, deep in his guts. A pull at
the back of his mind. An invisible thread tugging him in a certain direction – and, for some reason,
it has led him here, knocking on the door of a rival organization that consists of misfits and boring
goody two shoes.

Even in times of temporary truces, Chuuya has never been too fond of the detectives. Why would
he? He is a mafioso through and through, and they are –

Not for the first time, he searches for words that are right on the tip of his tongue but. Simply. Not.
Close. Enough. Damn it.

He just knows that the mere thought of the Agency has always pissed him off, and now he knows
that in order to find the truth, he needs to be here. Not at the Port Mafia, searching for a name of a
person that has been seemingly erased or setting traps for his colleagues and friends. But here.

Right here.

So he opens the door and he steps inside.

The detectives are spread around the office, busy, their work day not yet finished. Akutagawa’s
weretiger is frowning at his laptop screen. That blonde guy with the glasses is bent over a desk,
talking to – what was his name? – Ranmpo? Ranpo? Genius and annoying as fuck. And that kid,
the one always wearing a straw hat, is flipping through a file on the other end of the room. He is
also the first one to notice Chuuya standing in the middle of the room like a lost lamb. Pathetic,
really.

“Nakahara-san,” the kid says, rising to his feet. He has grown into a young man over the years, tall
and broad-shouldered, but his obnoxiously cheerful and bright eyes haven’t gone out – just
toughened a little.

That gets everyone's attention. Heads snap to him. Spines straighten. Eyes narrow.
Chuuya’s shoulders pull back. “I –” His throat has gone so dry that his voice cracks like pavement
beneath gravity. He clears his throat. “Don’t worry, I’m not here as mafia,” he announces. “I have a
job for you.”

He expects the barrel of a gun in his face. Raised voices. A myriad of reasons why a Port Mafia
executive walking into the Agency’s office sounds like the beginning of a bad joke and not
something that is possible. He expects a “fuck you” and a “no.”

What he doesn’t expect is Glasses to regard him, cross-armed and stern-faced, before saying,
“What job would that be?”

Honestly, Chuuya didn’t expect to come this far. He frowns, thinking. “I need you to find someone
for me,” he eventually says. “His name is Dazai Osamu. I think… I think he can help me with
something.”

“Okay,” Glasses says. Just like that. “We can do that.”

“You can?”

“Do you or do you not want to find him?”

“Why don’t you sit down, Mister?” one of the secretaries suggests, guiding him toward a green
couch with a hand on his back that is surprisingly confident. Well, she does work in an office full of
other ability users…

“Sure, I just didn’t think it’d be that easy,” Chuuya mutters and takes a seat, glancing around.
“Don’t you guys want to check me for weapons first? Or ask your boss before taking the case?”

He knows he would have to before agreeing to work with or for a rival organization.

“Sweetheart, you are the weapon,” their doctor drawls with a careless shrug. “And we’re all a
bunch of capable adults that are able to deal with the consequences of our actions.”

“Besides, you look like you need some help,” Glasses adds. “That’s what we are here for.”

Chuuya thinks that he hears Ranpo murmur, “It’s about time” under his breath. It makes him
frown.

“So how does this work?”

“You sit,” Yosano says. “We do the work.”

“I don’t have to watch you guys wo—”

“I figured out the address of that Dazai Osamu,” Ranpo suddenly announces and, impersonating an
over-enthusiastic student, he raises a sheet of paper into the air.

Yosano shoots him a ‘see?’ look – and Chuuya has the strangest case of deja-vu overcome him. He
has been here before. Has had this conversation. Has seen that expression directed at him.

Or so it feels.

“Are you free right now?” Glasses asks him. “We can give you a ride.”

Chuuya’s first instinct is to deny the request. He doesn’t need them to babysit him while he checks
out that guy’s apartment – he is a capable adult able to deal with the consequences of his choices as
well. Then he realizes. This is still the Agency’s gig. He asked them for their help and an address is
not always the end result. Sometimes it’s just a lead.

“All right.” He stands up. “Let’s go.”

To his surprise, it’s not Glasses who grabs his jacket but the doctor and Kenji. It seems to be a
unanimous decision too. Chuuya’s not one to give out compliments quickly but he has to admit that
the Agency’s groupthink is remarkable.

“I get why you’re here,” Chuuya says in the elevator, nodding at Kenji, before he slides a glance at
Yosano, “but why you? Are you expecting someone to get hurt?”

“That’s because I’m not only a doctor, darling,” she replies, barely taking her eyes off her nails.
“They don’t call me a detective for nothing.”

He hums, not sure if he buys that. Then his eyes fall to the address on the paper. He knows the
neighborhood. It’s a nice one. Not exactly part of the mafia territory but close enough. He has
always wanted to move there someday.

“So what’s the plan?”

“We knock and hope for the best,” Kenji replies.

Chuuya raises his brows. “That’s it? That’s the best you can offer me?” Kenji turns to him with a
grin and – ah. “Ha ha, very funny, kid.”

“I’m nineteen, you know. Not a kid anymore.”

“Then act like it. What’s the plan?”

“We’ll check out the apartment complex, talk to his neighbors if he’s not there, set up
surveillance.” The doors slide open. “It all depends on what we find though.”

“You do realize I’m not just going to wait patiently for something to happen if he’s not there,
right?” Chuuya asks, following the detectives to their car.

Huffing out a laugh, Kenji shoots him a look over his shoulder. “We’re aware, yeah.”

It’s a fifteen-minute ride that Chuuya spends staring out of the window and drumming his fingers
against his thigh. He has never been a very patient person, but today, every second seems to drag.
By the time the car stops at a side curb, his entire nervous system is alight with thrumming
electricity, his heart pulsing, pulsing, pulsing…

He needs to find something. Anything.

“Come on, what are you waiting for?” he mutters to the two detectives, his hand already reaching
for the door. If he catches a flash of apprehension on the doctor’s face, he pretends not to see it.
Whatever issues she is going through right now simply have to wait for later and are, quite frankly,
not his problem.

He leads the way to the apartment complex. As he is about to open the door, an elderly woman
leaves the building, very well-styled for her age. Her expression shutters when she glances at him,
an invisible shadow passing over her, and she opens her mouth only to close it again a moment
later.
Chuuya catches the door from crushing her. “Um,” he says, “hello?”

“Oh… hello. I, uh…” Her gaze darts between Chuuya and everything that is behind him. “Hello. I
am so sorry, dear…”

And she is off.

“Okay,” says Chuuya slowly before tilting his head to look at the detectives. “Did anyone else find
that weird or just me?”

“Maybe I should stay behind and talk to the lady,” Kenji offers, already turning around, but a hand
around his arm pushes him inside the foyer instead.

“You can do it later,” Yosano tells him. “Right now, you’re needed here.”

Kenji lets out a sigh.

Right.

“Did Ranpo say what floor?” Furrowing his brows hard enough to make his head ache, Chuuya
punches the elevator button. This is all very strange. Maybe he made a mistake hiring the Agency.
Maybe their shockingly nonchalant cooperation was a sign he shouldn’t have ignored.

“Fourteenth,” Kenji murmurs quietly, gazing at the floor.

Yosano’s wearing an equally miserable thousand-yard stare as she kneads her fingers over and over,
over and over, over and –

“Did we accidentally run over a stray dog on the way here or something?”

Kenji’s eyes close.

Chuuya’s narrow.

“It’s just been a long day. I want to be home with a glass of wine, not here listening to you talk
shit,” Yosano says, fixing her posture in time for the damned elevator to arrive. “And the sun’s not
exactly shining out of your ass either.”

Chuuya steps into the cramped space with a bemused frown. Since when have they been on a first
name basis?

“I’ve never pretended to act otherwise, but you…” He elbows Kenji’s side with a pointed look.
“Aren’t you all sparkles and rainbows?”

“I told you. Not a kid anymore.”

“Damn,” he mutters. “What’d you guys do to him over there? And I thought that the mafia was
depressing sometimes.”

The rest of the lift passes in an oppressive silence.

Arriving at the top not only means getting this much closer to an answer but also out of the weird
atmosphere in the air; Chuuya lets out a breath of relief when the doors slide open and reveal a
dim-lit hallway, a staircase, and a door. The name tag says S. TSUSHIMA.

“You sure this is it?”

Yosano nods. “He used a different name.”

Kenji raises his hand to ring the doorbell but Chuuya stops him with a pointed glance and signals
that he has a better way. He touches the doorknob, applies some pressure, and a moment later, the
door clicks open. The wonders of gravity manipulation.

He takes the lead.

A painting hangs on the white wall. Good taste, Chuuya thinks moving deeper inside while taking
stock of everything. A clothes rack in the corner, hosts several coats, most of them dark with just a
single beige trench coat that’s a bit hard on the eyes.

Around the corner is the kitchen. Big refrigerator. Four burner-stoves. A table with two chairs. A
bunch of utensils crowd the countertops. A cutting board with crumbs and a knife next to it is still
out as though the person living here left in a hurry.

The colorful post-it notes are what draw Chuuya closer. One is just a bad doodle of an
extraordinarily angry slug. Another says, ‘I left some crab for you <3’ That makes Chuuya snort
before his gaze wanders higher. ‘I feel neglected by my boyfriend ☹ he is busy working all the
time instead of spending time with me.’

This is the home of not one but two people. Two people who love each other.

The reply that’s scrawled right underneath it wipes the amused smile off Chuuya’s face.

‘SOMEONE has to pay the bills.’

It’s not what’s written on there that paralyzes him. It’s how it is written. In writing that Chuuya is
painfully intimate with – because it belongs to him.

Messy, Kouyou always tells him. Some would say it’s practically illegible, Chuuya’s writing.

Dazed, he shuffles back a step. And another.

“What the hell?” he mutters under his breath. This isn’t possible. Either someone out there just so
happens to have similar writing to Chuuya or – it’s a trap. It has to be a trap. Coincidences are for
fools, someone once told him. He doesn’t know who it was.

Chuuya spins around to call for the detectives when something in the corner of the kitchen catches
his attention. A bottle of wine standing on the very top of the liquor cabinet. Château Margaux
1999. His favorite. Rare, too.

His thoughts begin to fog. He can’t think. All he can do is stand there and be bombarded with all
the tiny details that he missed earlier because he is so used to them. The colors, the same ones that
his own kitchen is styled in. The way the mugs are arranged in the cupboards. The candleholders
standing on the table. The receipts that are stuck to the fridge; they are from the grocery store that
Chuuya usually visits as well. It’s farther away than the other ones but it has the best liquor and
meat section.

He stands there and every single thing that he sees tells a story – a story that somehow belongs to
him, yet a story that he cannot remember reading.

Fuck.

He staggers back and grips the wall for support. It’s not just a goddamn story that is missing. It’s
an entire life.

That’s not possible.

“Hey.” What is supposed to be a shout comes out as a thin whisper. His sweaty fingers ball into
fists. “Hey!” he says – he screams again, pushing himself away from the wall and away.

Away from this kitchen and this place and all the secrets that it hides. Away.

But life doesn’t work that way. There is no such thing as escaping the truth, only delaying it, and it
has come for him. Time has caught up with Chuuya.

He realizes that when his feet stop at the sight of the half-opened door in the hallway even though
every instinct inside him begs him to run. He doesn’t remember going in but a part of him already
senses what will linger inside. As well as he senses that there is no use examining the bathroom,
the living room, or the office because the only things he will find are parts of himself spread across
every surface and they will confuse him so terribly that his head will crack like an egg.

Closing his eyes, he enters.

The answers to all of his questions are a mere breath away now. So close, in fact, that it’s like the
essence of that knowledge has already begun to seep into him. His heart understands. And it
hardens, chaining him to the floor, telling him not to go any further, to stay here, blind and ignorant
but blissful.

He can’t do that though.

It wouldn’t be right.

He would rather see the truth for what it is than be a happy fool. Taking the easy way out has never
been an option.

He sucks in a breath and he opens his eyes and he stares the truth in its face.

It’s a master bedroom. Big bed. Silk sheets. Windows that let the golden evening light pour in like
water. And…

As if in a trance, he walks over to the nightstand.

A framed picture stands there.

It depicts two men in some kind of bar. One of them is leaning against a billiard table and smirking
into the camera. That man is Chuuya. The other one has shaggy, brown hair; his grin is all play and
mischief, but his eyes, gazing at Chuuya, are alarmingly earnest.

Chuuya can’t recall the photograph ever being taken. Can’t recall living that moment or knowing
the man that looks at him so earnestly. His memories remain blank sheets of paper.

But his heart remembers.

His heart knows that Chuuya loves that man. That the man loves him too. That it was a good night
– one of the first of many others. That it led to rough kisses in the alley and to a bottle of wine at
home, right here, in this apartment, and to a night that felt so endless that it could swallow the
whole world.
His heart remembers that the man is Dazai Osamu because his heart has made space for that man
over the years; it has swelled, grown, and torn itself apart to let him live in there and his brain
might have forgotten but his heart could not.

Not ever.

“Chuuya?”

The small voice behind him makes him blink away warm tears. He aggressively wipes at his eyes
before turning around. “What?”

“You’re ignoring me,” Dazai says with a melodramatic sigh, coming up behind him. “You know
how much I don’t like that.” His mouth hovers above his ear. “It makes me do stupid things.”

“Everything you do is stupid,” Chuuya mutters, too breathless to sound convincing. Then again,
this is Dazai. Motherfucker has been able to read him like an open book from day one. “And I
wasn’t ignoring you. I was thinking.”

“Oh yeah? What were you thinking about?”

Why does every word that comes out of the man’s mouth sound so fucking dirty?

Chuuya leans back against him, craning his neck. “Things.”

“How insightful,” Dazai mock-gasps, which earns him an elbow to his stomach. “And how
aggressive…”

“When are you getting off work?”

“Five. On the dot.”

Chuuya snorts. “I’d like to see Kunikida hear that.”

“I can handle Kunikida. The question is can you handle delegating your business to someone else
if one of your precious work emergencies comes up?”

Dazai doesn’t even have to ask when Chuuya is coming home. He knew Chuuya’s schedule during
their mafia days, during his absence, and still does. It would be creepy if it weren’t also a little
adorable. As adorable as this freak gets anyway.

Huffing, Chuuya turns around in his arms. “I can delegate.”

“Uh-uh,” Dazai retorts, smiling down at him with that ‘I’m calling your bluff’ expression of his.
“Sure you can.”

“I can,” Chuuya insists, narrowing his eyes. “I delegate all the time.”

“That’s why I wake up alone more often than not.”

“That’s because you oversleep more often than not and –” Chuuya lifts his index finger to ram it
into Dazai’s chest “— because there are a lot of work emergencies. Trust me, if I didn’t delegate,
I’d never even leave that building.”

Being the devil that he is, Dazai catches his hand and raises it to his mouth, dropping a feather-
light kiss to his knuckles, knowing exactly how to make Chuuya unspool. Bastard.
“Shut up,” he snaps, very aware of the heat that has set his cheeks ablaze. “Don’t look at me like
that.”

“Like what?”

“Like that.”

“Can I not look at my boyfriend now?” Dazai tips his head to the side, feigning innocence. “Is that
forbidden?”

“You’re changing topics,” Chuuya accuses him, though he doesn’t bother to steal back his fingers.
As violent as everyday intimacy can feel, it is also as ecstatic. He is still learning to love it.

“You act like you aren’t talking to someone who has been an executive in the same organization as
well. Chibi, I remember what that life looked like.”

Chuuya rolls his eyes. “You were an executive for two and a half years.”

“That is a lot of time.”

“I’ve been an executive for nine.”

Dazai waves his free hand at him. “Basically the same.”

“’Basically the same,’ he says.” Chuuya parrots with a scoff. “A lot has changed – and by the way,
what you did as an executive wasn’t delegating, it was being a lazy piece of ass.”

“But it worked.”

“I’m not like you.”

“I know,” Dazai murmurs, eyes growing soft. His hand brushes a few stray locks out of Chuuya’s
face. “You’re better.”

“Don't get all gooey on me,” he warns. “It’s gross.”

Drawing Chuuya into a clingy hug, Dazai sighs petulantly against his neck. “I told you ignoring me
makes me do silly things. It’s all your fault!”

“And I told you I wasn’t ignoring you, you overgrown child…” The warmth that their bodies foster
is delicious, almost tempting enough to close his eyes and break his track record of never being
late for work. Just one more second, he thinks to himself, savoring Dazai’s smell. One tiny little
second. “I’ll make dinner tonight.”

That earns him an interested hum.

“We’ll have wine and –” A yawn cuts him off mid-speech. Chuuya stifles it against Dazai’s biceps.

“And?” Dazai prompts after a moment.

“I forgot what I was going to say…”

The way Dazai looks at him when he draws away is too much, even after all these years. Chuuya
knows how to deal with punches and knives and verbal lectures that are on par with beatings. He is
never sure what to do with this – tenderness. It’s so fragile. Vulnerable. One wrong word and it
will shatter quicker than spun glass.
Chuuya’s way of loving – of living and everything else, really – has always been hard though.
Violent. He loves Dazai the same way he fights: with a passion so ferocious that it burns him alive
from the inside out.

Letting Dazai love him, on the other hand, is like being naked, all the time, his skin stripped away,
the system of nerves and muscles that keeps him stitched together exposed and on display.
Sometimes Dazai reaches inside him and Chuuya still wants more, wants to be devoured. Other
times the slightest brush of his fingertips against skin makes him recoil in pain.

The way Dazai looks at him now feels like that. It bruises him. His gaze carries a weight that his
soul has not learned to bear just yet.

But there is a reason why Chuuya has stayed this entire time, even when it could have been so
much easier to exploit their ‘one foot out of the door at all times’ policy and walk away – it’s not
like anyone actually ever expected the two of them to make it.

That reason is the hand that slides into Chuuya’s hair and yanks him into a kiss that no longer cuts
through his skin but that crushes their mouths together until it hurts. Dazai knows him. Just like
Chuuya knows him, knows when to call him out on his bullshit and when to just listen, knows
when to push and when to pull. They know each other and sometimes it’s awful to be so
interconnected to another human being and other times it’s easy. Simple.

Chuuya’s chest is falling and rising heavily once they break apart, his lips swollen and tender from
Dazai’s devotion. “You’re going to make me late, asshole…”

“So be late,” Dazai whispers, brushing their noses together. “You’re the second most powerful man
in the Port Mafia. You can afford to be late.”

“Third most. Kouyou’s… higher than me…”

“I said man, chibi.”

He huffs out a breath. “Shut up.”

One more second. Just one more. He always wants one more whenever he is with Dazai.

But Dazai is wrong. Chuuya might be an executive but that doesn’t mean it’s time to slack off now.
He has a duty and he isn’t going to abandon it anytime soon. Even when his stupid partner tempts
him sometimes.

Nope.

After one final self-indulgent moment, Chuuya pushes himself away with a hand on Dazai’s chest.
“You’re a terrible boyfriend,” he says. “But I still want to see you back home at five on the dot, so
be nice to your colleagues.”

For reasons, Chuuya cannot explain he finds himself spending time with Dazai’s co-workers more
often than he has ever wished for – and Mori probably too – which means he has been witness to
Dazai’s antics. Usually, he enjoys them. Finds them even better when he gets to participate. But
today, he wants Dazai to be at home on time, so that means ordering him to be on his best
behavior.

Dazai watches him walk away with a pout on his face. “You could at least try to be a little nicer to
me while making such tiresome demands.”
“Five on the dot!” Chuuya shouts, already out of the bedroom.

“Only if you delegate!”

“I delegate!”

"Chuuya?”

Tears run down his cheeks and shatter on the floor. He sucks in a breath. His hand grips the framed
photograph so tightly that the glass splinters.

“Do you remember now?”

His head snaps around. Even with his vision blurred, he recognizes Yosano and Kenji as they hover
on the threshold, unsure and cautious as though they are approaching a wild animal on the road.

“I don’t understand,” he croaks out, his spine bending under the weight of the flashback. He both
remembers and doesn’t. “What the fuck is happening to me?”

Just as he pushes out the last syllable, another memory slams into him. The events that happened
after that morning. And another one. Their first kiss. They were only sixteen. Shouting at each
other as they played against each other in the arcade while investigating Arahabaki. Waking up in
Dazai’s lap after defeating Shibusawa.

His head unseals Dazai, and as though the memories have been sleeping inside of him the entire
time, they begin to wake up. Growing bigger and louder and more real.

The wild desperation of their first time sleeping with each other. How grand each brush of lips felt.
How loud the beat of their hearts was, and how each gasp felt like the last one. The taste of the
Petrus as it burned its way down his throat after Dazai disappeared. Seeing Dazai chained to a wall
in the basement. The heat of bitter resentment and vicious longing. Using corruption for the first
time in years. The first kiss after. The first morning together. The flip of his stomach when Dazai
told him how pretty he looked asleep. Chuuya almost punched him for that. The feeling of being
turned into a vampire. The tightness of his lungs as he was drowning. The tightness of Dazai’s
arms for weeks afterward. The kisses, the nights, the mornings, the big moments, and the tiny ones
in between and –

The last morning. The last conversation. Then the call. How wrong it felt to hear that the great
Dazai Osamu had died because of a simple mission that had gone wrong. How anticlimactic. How
strange it was to imagine Dazai taking one last breath and simply never waking up again. The
shock. The denial. The violence of his grief. The funeral. The colorless hue that swallowed the
world and made every little thing feel so terribly hollow.

The grief.

Chuuya squeezes his eyes shut.

Oh god, the grief – a grief barely remembered. It split him in half.

He had stretched the walls of his heart until there was enough space for Dazai in there, for the two
of them and suddenly Dazai was gone and Chuuya was alone again – but his heart remained big
enough for two. There was too much space. It was too big. It hurt too much.

It hurts now.
He groans against his hands, a groan so primal and animalistic he doesn’t feel human. The grief is
heavier though. Heavier than everything else in the world.

He remembers.

Arms wrap around him. A voice whispers comforting words against his hair. Chuuya remembers.
It’s a friend. Yosano has become his friend over the last four years. But she can’t take away the
pain that sweeps over him. She can’t silence the echo of his memories. She can’t bring back the
one person that could.

“I remember,” he gasps out over and over, barely able to breathe with the tightness around his
lungs. “I remember him.”

How could he have ever forgotten.

Hours later, or maybe minutes – time has flatlined for Chuuya ever since it all came back to him –
he gathers the strength to lift his eyes off his floor and to Yosano. “I need you to tell me what
happened.” His jaw aches from grinding his teeth. “Tell me what happened.”

“What do you want to know?” she asks, on the floor with him.

Chuuya’s hands flex aimlessly in his lap as he opens his mouth but his voice gives out. Terror fills
his lungs like cold water. “Did I do this? Did I take away my own memories?”

Is he that much of a coward?

“No.”

He stops.

Yosano sighs. Her gaze flickers to Kenji, still hovering in the doorway, before returning to
Chuuya. “A few weeks after his death, you stopped responding to our calls,” she begins slowly.
“We assumed you needed some time and space, so we let you be for a while. It wasn’t until I saw
you in a bar and you looked past me like you didn’t even know me that I knew something was
wrong. It was like…” She pauses, searching for words. “It was like you were a different person.
None of us is a stranger to grief but grief doesn’t turn you in someone entirely else. Someone who
just forgets. You did though. You had forgotten.”

“Not by choice,” Chuuya hisses.

“We discovered that soon after.” Her smile is sad. “I know that Dazai was the reason you spent
time with us but you had become a friend to us, Chuuya. We had just lost him and then –” Shaking
her head, she takes a breath before starting again. “We decided to treat it like a case. We
investigated. We found out that the Port Mafia had been in contact with an ability user who is able
to manipulate memories at the same time as you stopped talking to us. From there on, it wasn’t
hard to conclude what had happened.

“But it wasn’t easy to do something about it either. The Port Mafia… they basically swallowed
you, Chuuya. It was impossible to get close to you.”

Chuuya’s knuckles twitch. “They were keeping me away from you.”

“They had to,” Yosano confirms.

“They didn’t want me to remember.”

Because they were the ones to steal it all in the first place.

“You know how things work over there,” Yosano murmurs with a tight smile. “They wanted to
protect you. No matter what it took.”

And so, they took Dazai.

They took the memories of Dazai. Their history. The only thing that Chuuya had left of him. And
they took it.

“Tell me the rest.”

Yosano draws in a breath. Lets it out. “Even if we were to get close to you, we didn’t know what
your altered memories said about us. If we had simply tried to tell you about Dazai… you might
have not believed us.”

“So you tried to make me remember myself,” he says, not sure whether it’s an answer or a
question. He looks at Yosano.

A nod.

“We weren’t able to get close to you without attracting too much attention but others could. We
made up false missions just so someone would tell you about seeing you at a bar that you used to
visit with Dazai.” Yuchigo. “We hired an actor to talk about things that you used to associate with
Dazai near to you.” The… woman on the street. “We hired another actor to talk about your ex.”
Yamazaki.

“And it worked,” Chuuya whispers.

“It did.”

Neither of them sounds happy about it. Neither of them is.

“I’m so sorry. We couldn’t let you live with your memory robbed like that. We knew you wouldn’t
have ever done that to yourself. And he wouldn’t have either.”

He lifts his hand and watches himself bring it to his chest, to the place where his heart sits. “It
hurts.”

“I know.”

“But I’d rather spend the rest of my life hurting than forgetting him. They had no right to take him
from me. They… they had no right.” The last word drips poison. “They shouldn’t have done that.”

For twelve years, Chuuya killed and lived and died countless little deaths for the Port Mafia. For
twelve years, he bled for them. For twelve years, he offered them his unconditional loyalty like a
leash to his collar.

And so they treated him exactly like that.

Like their dog.

Their obedient, loyal dog.

So when his grief swallowed him and dared to affect his damn work ethic, they decided to take
away the thing that was causing the bad behavior. The root of that pain, that grief. Dazai.
 They took away Dazai.

It’s unforgivable.

Yosano reaches over to squeeze his wrist. “Whatever you need from us…”

“We have your back,” Kenji adds. “For Dazai.”

“For Dazai,” Yosano echoes.

For Dazai, Chuuya thinks, his name taking on the shape of a new vow, a promise, a prayer.

For Dazai.

End Notes

Fun fact: I'm rewatching the Vampire Diaries and it's the compulsion thing that inspired
this fic lol, so if you're sad, blame the TV show, not me. I'm just the messenger. And thanks
for reading <3 You can find me on twitter and Tumblr I'm @arkastadt everywhere

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