Chapter Text
Thoughts and deeds indict each other
The trilemma of intellect, emotion, and will reduces to a lie
The heart muddles somewhere
Between the portable lanterns and the banquet hall
Yes, before love revealed itself
Was when it should have failed.
-Chuuya Nakahara
✦────────────────────────────✦
The silence didn’t last.
Because soon, the screams started.
Within days, Yokohama’s underground was painted with blood. It started with a government prison being torn apart. Then the organisations that lurked in the shadows were hit. The Port Mafia was brutal, efficient down to the bone in how they hunted the rival organisations under the orders of the new boss.
The common saying that used to echo in the underworld– “ All those who defy the Port Mafia will be crushed by vicious gravity”, earned a new fear in the following days. A terror like never seen before. Because now, gravity didn’t just crush. It obliterated.
The previous boss had hidden in the shadows, pulling strings in silence, weighting humans like chess pieces on his board. The new boss announced his reign like a king laying claim on his kingdom.
He was loud.
Loud in violence. Loud in message. Loud in the silence that followed every massacre.
Any who saw him would only have one thing to say: that he fought like a man who had long stopped caring for whether he lived or died. This disregard for his own life made him vicious. It made him reckless. Rabid. Like a hound finally sinking its teeth into prey it had been denied for too long.
And it showed.
In the cobblestone streets slick with blood. In the silence of rivals crushed before they could beg. The gangs that had once dared challenge the Port Mafia were no more, stomped out with a brutality Yokohama had long forgotten.
But it wasn’t enough. It wasn’t even close enough to satisfy the hunger of the man who started this. The new boss’ hunt for answers was just beginning.
His new office was a mess of papers and clipped rage. Files strewn across the table, the floor, the shelves–across any surface available. Maps, mission reports, military records, intelligence observations, from both the underworld and the government. Half the text was underlined in red.
Chuuya sat in the center of it, back hunched forward, elbows on his knees, fingers laced tightly together like he was barely holding himself in place. The chair creaked beneath him, the only sound in the room besides the occasional rustle of paper under his boots.
His eyes were bloodshot.
Not from the lack of sleep, though there had been none.
Not from the tears, though there had been few.
But from the pressure of it all. Of holding it all in.
His posture was closed off, coiled like a snake ready to strike. With six assassination attempts in the past twenty-four hours, it was but instinct.
Dried blood clung beneath his nails and on the walls as he snatched another file off the pile, hands trembling with something more than fatigue– a slow dragging weakness in his limbs. He knew what it was. He couldn’t care enough to fix it.
He couldn’t care enough to do anything these days. Except for searching.
Searching for something to explain it. The reason. The plan. The grand story. Because there had to be something. A pattern. A trace. A thread to pull. Dazai never did anything without a reason. Never. Not without a dozen backup plans and at least three layers of lies covering it.
So where the hell was it?
He slammed the file shut, gritting his teeth and threw it across the room. Nothing. This file didn’t have a clue either.
Where was it? Where was the trail? Why couldn’t he find it?
He tore open another folder. A mission log. Old. Pointless. No leads. Useless.
No.
No.
This wasn’t it. Couldn’t be it. He hadn’t spent seven years dragged through the mud by that bastard just for him to leave nothing. Chuuya slammed the folder down, lips curled in a snarl, breathing ragged.
His mind spun. Maybe there was a code in the last message. The raid plans? No–no, he’d already checked them. The CCTV footage of that day? It was deleted. Dazai’s handiwork, no doubt. How long did the intelligence team say it would take them to recover it again? They’d better be quick about it because Chuuya didn’t know how long he could hold it in–
KNOCK. KNOCK.
Two firm raps against the door broke him from his spiral. Chuuya flinched, straightening his posture.
“... Come in.” He said stiffly.
The door creaked open, the rustle of a silk sleeve brushing against the wood.
Chuuya didn’t look up. He didn’t need to. Only one person in this wretched building walked like that. With a gait so soft that she could be mistaken for a delicate lady of some rich house, but only those in the mafia knew what a foolish mistake that would be.
“Boss.” The woman greeted.
Kouyou Ozaki, the most skilled torturer in the mafia after Dazai, was a spider lily incarnate. Hypnotic in her beauty but rooted in death, blooming brightest where blood had been spilled. Her kimono barely made a sound as she stepped inside, the hem gliding over the bloodstained floor like mist. The scent of faint cherry blossoms followed her, a subtle mockery of the decay clinging to the walls.
“Kouyou-san.”
Gone was the affectionate nickname he had given his former mentor, gone was the familiar warmth in his eyes as he looked at her. He was the boss now. He couldn’t afford to be anyone’s junior, couldn’t afford softness, not even for the one person who taught him how to survive in this world with dignity.
The title weighed too heavy on his shoulders for that.
And wasn’t that an irony in itself? For the most visceral man in the mafia to have no choice but to become a mask.
He hated it.
With how her scarlet eyes shone with understanding, Kouyou knew that. She closed the door behind her with a soft click. For a long moment neither of them spoke.
Then:
“You haven’t been sleeping.”
Her voice was as composed as always.
Chuuya didn’t respond immediately. The papers cracked under his boots as he spun, reaching for another folder.
“I have no time for sleep.”
“Mm. That’s what Dazai used to say too.”
That made him pause.
For a moment the air in the room thickened. Not with anger, not quite. But something worse. Something jagged and tight and too heavy to name.
He set the folder down. Finally lifting his eyes. They were rimmed with red. Not softened. But just raw.
“I’m not him.”
“No,” Kouyou agreed gently. “You aren’t.”
Her gaze scanned the room, the organised chaos, the storm of notes and string maps and blood splatters. Her fingers tightened against her parasol.
“You haven’t been eating either.”
Chuuya huffed, the corner of his mouth twitching, not quite a smile, not quite disdain. “What, are you here to mother me now?”
“No,” She said, stepping closer, her scarlet hair flowing down her back. “I’m here to make sure you don’t die before you finish what you started.”
Her words weren’t sharp, but they hit him like bricks. Not a threat. Not even a rebuke. Just a plain simple truth laid bare between two people who had long since stopped lying to themselves.
Chuuya let the silence hang.
Then he looked down at his hands, still trembling. Still bloodstained. Still empty.
“... I wasn’t the one who started it.”
“Does it matter?” She asked, raising a perfectly arched eyebrow, “You’re the only one who can finish it. But with the way you’re going, you’ll collapse before you find out anything.”
“I don’t care.”
“Chuuya.”
That stopped him again. No title. No honorific. Just his name, low and steady and spoken with the weight of someone who had taught him how to make it matter when he was nothing but a dog on the streets.
He finally met her eyes.
“I don’t care,” he repeated. “He left. Without a word. Without a goodbye. Without a reason. Without a goddamn apology. I–” His jaw clenched, and the next words scraped their way out like glass. “I want to know why.”
Kouyou didn’t speak. She simply stepped forward, reaching out slowly, deliberately, and set a wrapped bento box on the edge of his desk.
“For later,” she said, not pressing.
Then she turned to leave but stopped mid-step as she felt a small tug on her kimono.
Chuuya had grasped the edge of her sleeve before he could stop himself. His breaths came out in short, heavy gasps. “Ane-san…” His shoulders trembled, “what did– what did I do wrong?”
Kouyou froze.
She didn’t turn immediately. She didn’t need to. She felt it, the shift. The cracking of a dam that had held for too long.
Chuuya’s grip on her sleeve was tight, desperate, but never hurting, no. He had far too much control for that. He just needed to anchor himself to something– anything – that hadn’t yet left him alone.
“What did I do wrong?” he asked again, softer this time. Like a child trying not to cry in a room that never allowed weakness. “Why would he–” His voice broke. “Why would–”
He couldn’t finish that sentence. Finishing it would mean admitting to the guilt of having failed his duty. He couldn’t admit it. Not in front of her.
Kouyou turned slowly, enough to meet his eyes, and for once, she let her expression soften completely. She knelt in front of him without a sound. The parasol slipped from her fingers, forgotten. She reached for his hand, the one gripping her sleeve, and held it between both of hers.
“You didn’t do anything wrong,” she said, her voice quieter than before. “You loved him.”
And love, she didn’t say, is never a guarantee of answers. Or goodbyes.
“But it wasn’t enough.” He rasped, shaking his head, “I gave him everything, but it wasn’t enough. He still left. He still chose that– he still chose death over me.”
“I can’t breathe, Ane-san… He knew .” Chuuya choked, voice raw and ragged. “That motherfucker knew exactly what it meant. And he still– he still used my ability to die.”
His breath hitched, shoulders trembling, whole frame curling in on itself like something caving in under too much weight.
“He left me that ,” he whispered, almost inaudibly. “Not a note. Not a goodbye. Just gravity. Just me .”
Kouyou’s fingers tightened around his, steady and grounding. She said nothing—not yet. Because what answer could you give a man mourning a ghost that had tailored his own death into the shape of a curse?
“It wasn’t mercy,” Chuuya went on, bitter and breathless. “It was punishment. I don’t even know what for. For trusting him? For needing him?” He looked at her, finally, and the look in his eyes wasn’t fury. It was grief made feral. “Was I really that easy to throw away?”
“No,” Kouyou said, fierce now, her voice the steel beneath silk. “You were never disposable. Not to me. And not to him.”
“Then why ?”
The word came out as a cry, hoarse and gut-wrenching, ripped from somewhere too deep for logic to reach. His fingers trembled in hers, and for a second he looked young again. Too young to be the one the mafia knelt to.
“I don’t know,” she said, and the honesty in it nearly undid him.
“But I do know this—he was a bastard, Chuuya. Cold, cruel, brilliant… and a coward when it came to facing what mattered. But if he chose to die like that, it wasn’t because you weren’t enough.”
Chuuya didn’t answer. Couldn’t. His breath came in stuttering waves, his throat raw, but he didn’t cry.
“... He must be happy now, right? He got what he always wanted.”
“Maybe.” Kouyou agreed, standing back up. “But happiness and peace aren’t the same thing.”
She brushed her manicured fingers across his frenzied curls tenderly, only a ghost touch– only as far she could dare to go, grounding him. “And if I know Dazai… even in death, I doubt he’s found either.”
Chuuya huffed a laugh, quiet and hollow. “Good. I hope he’s miserable. I hope whatever afterlife he’s rotting in has gravity and pulls his smug ass down by the throat.”
Kouyou didn’t smile. Neither did she chastise him. Just let the bitterness bleed through the room, unchallenged.
After one long moment, Chuuya exhaled, finally pulling back.
“I can’t afford this,” he muttered, shaking the fog in his head. “I don’t have time to fall apart. Not yet.”
“No,” Kouyou agreed, pulling back her parasol with practiced ease. “You don’t. That makes it all the more important to take care of yourself.”
Before she reached the door, Chuuya asked one final question:
“Will you hate me… for… what I’m about to do?”
Kouyou paused at the threshold.
Her back remained to him, the parasol resting lightly against her shoulder. For a moment, it seemed she might not answer. But then she turned her head just enough for him to see her profile, her eyes unreadable beneath the veil of her lashes.
“I could never hate you, Chuuya.”
Her voice was calm. Too calm. Like still water just before it boils.
“But,” she added, and this time her words were heavier, measured, “I may grieve you.”
That struck deeper than any scolding ever could.
“I haven’t lost you yet,” she said softly, almost to herself. “Don’t make me mourn another child I couldn’t protect… not while they’re still breathing.”
And with that, she stepped through the doorway and left him alone once more. The silence returned, heavier than before.
Chuuya stared down at the bento box on his desk. He didn’t touch it. Not yet.
Instead, he looked toward the windows—toward the skyline Dazai used to haunt—and whispered, almost too quietly for the room to hear:
“Then I’ll just have to make sure no one mourns me until it’s done.”
Just then, the phone rang. Chuuya glanced at the caller ID. And for the first time since Dazai’s death, he smiled. A sharp, dangerous smirk.
✦────────────────────✦
Gin was being followed. She had noticed the tail half-an-hour ago and the persistence was starting to get on her nerves.
The surveillance was competent, she would give them that– maintaining sufficient distance to vanish around corners while staying close enough to track her movements through Yokohama’s deteriorating back streets. But competence alone wasn’t enough when facing someone trained by the Port Mafia’s most talented.
She walked faster, weaving through alleys in the lesser districts of Yokohama, places where eyes turned away and the air stank of smoke. This part of the city hadn’t slept since Dazai’s death. Chuuya Nakahara had ripped the underground wide open and the splatter had reached even here. Dismembered small-time gang members decorated the streets like grotesque installations. Severed arms dangled from the fire-escapes, their fingers still wrapped around weapons they would never use again. Torsos split open from chest to pelvis, their contents spilled across pavement in abstract patterns of viscera and shattered bone; served as grim reminders of a brutality that made bile rise up her throat.
The civilian population remained untouched but even they knew something was wrong and kept away from the bloodied back streets. Blood that soaked into the bricks, thick and sticky, long since dried into black stains. It permeated fear.
Gin darted down a narrow stairwell wedged between two old buildings, her footsteps silent against the crumbling concrete. Behind her, the steps creaked under less practiced feet– not loud enough to suggest amature work, but audible enough to confirm her suspicions. The tail had dropped all pretense of staying hidden and picked up speed, which meant the trap was closing.
She muttered a curse under her breath that would have made Dazai proud and ducked into an alley barely wide enough for her shoulders, taking cover behind an overturned cart that reeked of stale fish. Broken glass pressed into her palm as she crouched, but it was an irrelevant pain.
Shadows began appearing at the mouth of the alleyway. First one. Then another. Then five more, until the narrow passage was effectively sealed.
Gin swore another colorful string of curses at her brother and the life he had now subjected her to because of his blind whims. Whatever fantasies he had thought up in his head, of him ‘ saving’ her from the Port Mafia when he stormed the headquarters had resulted in the Boss’ death and her unwilling defection. Which circled to now, when a rival organisation had somehow figured out she was Dazai’s secretary and put up a bounty for her capture.
They probably thought she knew things. That Dazai had shared the mafia’s deepest, darkest secrets with her, things they could leverage against the current boss in exchange for survival against his indiscriminate slaughter.
Idiots.
And like always, Ryuunosuke never considered the consequences his actions would bring, leaving her behind to suffer through his mess. Though… she doubted she could somehow clean her own guts from the walls this time.
Gravel whispered behind her back and she whipped out her tanto blade, turning just in time to block a downward slash, steel sparkling against steel. The force shoved her back, her boots skidding against stone and broken glass.
“Hello, darling~” The perpetrator purred, grinning, the scar on his lip wrinkling into something ugly. “Been lookin’ for you.”
Gin only glared, jumping back. She was at a disadvantage, with a blade no longer than nine inches. She would have to seek close combat. Keeping an eye on the man she had identified as the leader and the others, she kicked off the wall, aiming for the throat of the nearest enemy.
The alley burst into a cacophony of steel and violence as the men sprung into action. She ducked under a wild strike, driving her elbow into another’s gut and turned the blade into his side, slashing through muscle with practiced efficiency. Blood sprayed onto her face, the heavy scent of iron and rot filling her nostrils as warmth dripped past her lips. She didn’t flinch, not even when the man screamed, a guttural, wretched sound. He stumbled back, throat gurgling as his insides spilled out in wet ropes, slick against her boots.
The leader, the one who had attacked her the first time, whistled, clapping his hands. “You’ve got guts, brat but it ain’t enough. Give up. We just wanna talk.”
Talk as in interrogate.
She would sooner have her tongue ripped out than reveal Port Mafia secrets. Traitors were not taken to kindly in her former organisation, and Gin knew better than anyone that whatever torture others might inflict didn’t hold a candle to what happens in the mafia’s basement.
She opened her mouth to retort, but that distraction cost her. Her shoulder slammed into a dumpster, ribs rattling from impact as her wrist was twisted enough to make her hiss and drop her weapon. She was pulled back, then slammed against the wall again.
Gin cried out, lip splitting against her teeth as her head cracked off the concrete. Stars exploded behind her eyes. Another blow landed, this time in her stomach, forcing the breath from her lungs in a choked wheeze. Her knees buckled, but a hand fastened around her collar, dragging her upright like a ragdoll.
“You thought you could handle all of us?” The leader’s laughter was echoed by his subordinates, a chorus of toxic ecstasy.
Then his laugh cut off as something wet hit the concrete.
For several seconds, his expression registered only confusion as he stared at his hand, which was now but a stump with blood spurting out in rhythmic pulses, painting his shirt red. With lost eyes, he tracked the trajectory of his severed appendage, gaze landing on where the hand had dropped against the wall. Blood shot out of his wrist stump in thick spurts, coating the wall, the ground, spattering across Gin's face. The metallic taste filled her mouth and she gagged, swallowing some of it by accident.
The leader dropped to his knees, his remaining hand clamped over the spurting wound. Blood seeped between his fingers. His face went gray-white and he started crying. "My hand, my fucking hand," he sobbed.
Before comprehension could form, before screams could erupt from constricted throats, systematic slaughter erupted in the confined space.
A figure in white and red tore through the gang. The first man’s throat split open like a second mouth, the sword ripping through his vocal box. His vocal chords shredded with acute precision, severed so cleanly his scream erupted as nothing but a wet gasp. The wound gaped open, jagged and torn. Blood bubbled and frothed as he tried to breathe through the hole in his neck. Pink foam started spilling out of his mouth as his lungs filled with blood. He clawed at his throat with both hands, fingernails scraping against the exposed cartilage and muscle, only making the wound wider. The gurgling sound lasted only for thirty seconds as he drowned in his own blood, legs kicked against the pavement.
By then, the mysterious figure had already moved to her next target– the blade caught the second man’s stomach, twisting and pulling out roughly. His intestines bulged out of the wound, pink and pulsing. He stared down at his guts with wide eyes, trying to push them back inside with shaking hands. The loops of bowel were slippery with blood and digestive fluids, sliding through his fingers. The smell hit immediately– blood, but also ruptured bowels, bile, partially digested food. He vomited. The contents of his stomach joined the puddle of blood forming at his feet, creating a chunky, yellowish mess that made Gin’s stomach lurch.
Another’s skull met brick with a wet, crunching sound, splitting open on impact. Brain tissue burst out in clumps, chunks sliding down the walls, trailing viscous fluid. The body jerked once before going limp and sliding down to the floor, blood pulsing from his head in thick, arterial pulses.
Gin was released as a torso caved inward beneath crushing force. Ribs cracked in multiple places, their jagged edges piercing through soft tissue. Lungs ruptured, blocking all air passage. The man’s hands grasped at his chest, trying to stop the blood that spurted out in waves as his heart ruptured, drowning Gin from head to toe in the thick, metallic liquid. She stumbled away from him, shaking her head wildly, one hand pressing against her nose and mouth, trying not to breathe in the revolting scent or adding her own puke to the ever growing pile of blood, digestive juices, jagged pieces of bone, organ tissue and vomit already on the ground.
The leader, still on his knees, holding a part of his torn shirt at his wrist, trying to stop the bleeding, stared at the gruesome massacre with eyes wide-open and mouth frozen mid-scream. “The–the Thirty Five killer…” He whispered, his voice coming out in a scratching gasp. The cloth pressed against his wrist dripped with blood, slick and fast, failing to stop the steady gush pouring from the raw, open stump. His breath rattled from pain, shallow and uneven.
He choked on his own breath. “You–you’re not supposed to be with the mafia,” he croaked, voice cracking as blood gurgled in his throat. “You’re–you’re a damn–cough-ackh–” A coughing fit interrupted his confession.
The figure only blinked, dull blue eyes boring into him, devoid of any mercy as he writhed on his own breath. Then she stepped in.
The blade rammed into his abdomen and drove upward, splitting tissue and muscle with wet resistance. He convulsed as blood erupted from his mouth, thick and dark, chunks of organ tissue spilling out in wet, squelching plops. The blade came down again, cleaving through his collarbone, snapping it clean as bones crunched beneath the blade, echoing loudly in the empty alley. His shoulder split open as the blade forced its way through. His body seized, spine arching before collapsing back down.
The figure yanked it free, and buried it once more, this time directly into his chest. Bone cracked. The sternum split open, blood surging through the open wound in violent pulses, soaking his only left hand as it flailed weakly. The heart burst open under the force, spraying a final wave of blood across the already-soaked ground. His eyes were wide, unfocused, staring past her. He understood, just before the light went out—this wasn’t just a killing. It was a message.
His body hit the floor with a wet, final sound, joining the rest.
By the time the final body dropped, it fell onto the man’s spilled organs. They burst under his weight, wet and squelching and slipping blood everywhere. The alley had become a butcher house. Intestines lay coiled on the ground, still twitching. Blood pooled in thick puddles, torn organ tissues, flesh, muscles mixed with vomit and digestive juices. The air was thick with the repugnant smell of death and decay.
Gin stumbled backward, leaning against the wall as she watched the girl step towards her, her boots squelching against the bloodsoaked floor–her supposed ally.
Izumi Kyouka of the Port Mafia. Fourteen-year-old, subordinate to raid captain Nakajima Atsushi, youngest assassin in the organisation and the bearer of the special ability, Demon Snow. Kimono matted with organ matter and muscle tissues, raven hair drenched in blood, pinned by flower accessories shining in the moonlight with blood-soaked petals…
Finally here to take her head, it seemed.
“What are you waiting for?” Gin breathed through her injuries, closing her eyes. “Slit my throat as is due, Kyouka-chan.”
Kyouka tilted her head with the curious expression of a child examining an interesting specimen, completely unperturbed by the human wreckage surrounding her like some infernal garden. “The boss has summoned you, Gin-san.” Her voice still held a child-like innocence, “he does not wish to kill you.”
A pause. Then–
“Yet.”
✦────────────────────✦
Dazai Osamu had been dead for approximately fourteen days, ten hours, and if the position of the light filtering through the high windows of the Port Mafia’s top floor east-wing office was any indication, thirty-eight minutes. Not that he was keeping count. No, certainly not. He wasn’t that desperate. He was, however, floating upside down three feet above Chuuya’s head, reciting increasingly bizarre nicknames in a last-ditch effort to get noticed.
This time, he challenged himself to create Disney themed insults. “Oi, midget.” He called loudly, drifting sideways with an exaggerated sigh. “Vertically-challenged prince charming. Shorty White. Teacup-sized terror. Oi! Dwarf of mass destruction!”
Silence. Chuuya continued scribbling across some file in front of him, completely unaware of the ghost that had been latched onto him in some cosmic punishment. Dazai flipped midair and slammed his face into the top of Chuuya’s head. It phased right through, of course. Like everything else. Completely useless.
“Unbelievable,” he muttered into the non-existent surface of Chuuya’s stupid hair.
If Dazai had to rate the afterlife, he’d give it a solid three out of ten. Maybe two, depending on whether he counted Chuuya ignoring him as a bonus or a curse.
He’d expected some kind of grand reveal, at least. A light. A clipboard. An angel in a miniskirt asking him what his sins were, and whether he wanted coffee or damnation. Instead, he got chain-linked to Chuuya like an unwanted afterthought.
Seriously. He couldn’t move more than twenty meters from the guy. He’d tested it. Got as far as the hallway bathroom before something cosmic yoinked him back like a balloon on a string. He’d clipped through three walls and a very suspicious looking hidden nook that had two subordinates making out. Pity that being a ghost he didn’t even get to watch.
And forget ghost powers. He couldn’t haunt a teaspoon. He’d tried knocking over a lamp. His hand just passed through it like it was air. Tried rattling some chains he didn’t actually have. Nothing. Not even a dramatic flicker of lights. Tried whispering “I’m watching you~” in Chuuya’s ear. Got zero reaction. Not even a twitch.
He spent four hours after that shouting insults.
“Oi, Hat Rack, don’t you dare spill wine on that dossier, I seduced three intelligence officers for it—!”
“You think the choker makes you look intimidating? You look like a BDSM elf!”
“Your handwriting looks like a war crime!”
He didn’t even receive a blink in response. Seriously, what an ungrateful Chibi.
So now Dazai was floating upside down in the ceiling corner like a deranged bat, arms crossed, legs kicked up, watching Chuuya shuffle through papers like his life depended on it. Which, okay, technically it probably did. But Dazai was bored.
He rubbed at his temple, or would’ve, if he had a physical body to rub anything with. “Okay. Think, Dazai. Ghosts stick around for unfinished business. Classic trope. Makes sense. But what the hell is my unfinished business?”
He summersaulted mid-air, hovering above Chuuya’s desk like a disappointed chandelier. “Is it the fact that I didn’t file my taxes last year? Because I refuse to believe that’s a sin greater than murder.”
No response. Of course.
He made a list. Literally. He used his finger to draw it in the air, because that’s what desperation looked like now.
The Top Ten Possible Reasons I Am Now A Ghost
- Karma. For faking a coma for two weeks just to get out of paperwork.
- Book nonsense.
- Mori jinxed me. For the time I Photoshopped his face onto a baby angel and sent it to the Prime Minister six years ago.
- The universe just hates me.
- I mocked a shrine once and now I’m spiritually tethered to a red-haired war god like some divine keychain.
- This is the afterlife’s way of forcing me into emotional growth. Step One: watch the love of your life implode. Step Two: float.
- I insulted a vending machine spirit in 2009. This is revenge.
- I installed a voice chip in Chuuya’s hat that said “I’m short and angry!” every time he put it on, last year on Christmas. He broke three mirrors that week. Worth it.
- I switched Atsushi’s cloak for a blanket with cat ears. He wore it for three hours before realizing.
- This is the result of messing around with singularities.
What a mess.
Dazai hadn’t been paying much attention when Kouyou walked in, more interested in pretending to dive off the bookshelf like a ghostly Olympic swimmer. But then he heard Chuuya’s voice. It was nothing like he remembered it to be. It was too broken, too desperate.
“What did I do wrong?”
Dazai stilled mid-dive, hovering in place like a ragdoll suspended in midair.
He watched as Kouyou knelt beside Chuuya, heard the quiet words exchanged—the guilt, the pain—and something inside him began to twist.
“You loved him.”
Dazai couldn’t focus on anything else, distracted by the fact that he was now lying facedown on the floor in shock despite being a ghost—but the confession began to sink in. And that broke all the rules Dazai had lived by.
He retraced everything in his head like a crime scene. He’d planned it perfectly. The death. The message to Atsushi and Akutagawa. The goodbye to Odasaku. The clean break with the mafia. The preparation for the coming war. But this–this was a variable he never calculated.
Dazai turned in a slow, stunned circle. “ Loved me?! Since when?!”
He floated back and forth like a pacing ghost crab. “No. No, no. That can’t be right. I was awful to you. I made sure of it. I was insufferable. I dragged you into missions I knew you’d hate. I called you names. I handcuffed you to a bomb on your birthday.”
He threw his hands in the air. “I insulted your hat fourteen times a day!”
He stared at Chuuya, who was still hunched over the desk, knuckles white around a folder.
“You were supposed to hate me,” Dazai whispered, sudden quiet creeping in. “That was the point. I made sure of it. If you hated me, it wouldn’t hurt. If you hated me, you could move on.”
The air around him felt heavier than ever. Maybe it was Arahabaki. Maybe it was just grief. Chuuya didn’t look up. His breathing was shallow, his hands trembling. Dazai floated backward until his back hit the ceiling. His eyes narrowed.
“That motherfucker knew exactly what it meant.”
“NO! No no no, you stupid, idiot, short-brained slug!” Dazai screeched in response, his voice mute to the one person he wanted it to reach. “What makes you think you’re so important, huh?! The jump was never about you! It was supposed to be a fucking release!”
Dazai scoffed, as once again, his words went completely ignored.
This was starting to feel less like karma and more like fate rubbing it in. The afterlife hadn’t welcomed him. The world hadn’t mourned him. The universe had decided that if anyone deserved to witness the fallout of Dazai Osamu's death, it was Dazai Osamu himself.
In that regard, Ane-san seemed to have been a prophet in her past life. Because Dazai hadn’t gotten peace in death. And he most certainly hadn’t gotten happiness.
He flailed a bit in the air, spun in a slow, morose circle, and then shouted into the void, “EXCUSE ME, AFTERLIFE TECH SUPPORT? I think I’ve been misplaced! I’m supposed to be in a nice quiet nothingness, not stuck here watching my ex-partner spiral into blood-soaked madness while I float around like some unpaid onryō intern!”
Nothing answered. Not that he expected it to. Eventually, he drifted back down to where Chuuya sat and screamed into his ear again, without success this time either. And for his genius strategies, he didn’t know what to do.
.
.
… There was another thing Kouyou had been right about. Dazai really was the biggest coward in the world.