Chapter 1: I Know the End
Chapter Text
“There he is!” yelled a police officer from the other end of the alleyway. “The Demon Prodigy! Call for backup then go after him! He’s dangerous!”
Osamu Dazai didn’t think he was dangerous.
Oh what was he saying, of course he was dangerous. He was the most feared member of most feared group in all of Yokohama; The Port Mafia.
He wasn’t just feared for that, however.
It was well known that the Demon Prodigy, as he was known by everyone outside of the Port Mafia, was young. His exact age was unknown by most, but it was widely known that he was much too young to have a reputation like he had.
He was far too young to have such a reputation.
But that was simply because Mori Ougai, the leader of the Port Mafia, had recruited him a year earlier after a suicide attempt, and brought him into the famed Port Mafia as the youngest high-ranking executive in the organization’s history.
Even people in the Mafia feared him.
For good reason.
His list of kills was the longest in the whole Mafia. There was more blood on his hands than water that ran in most rivers.
He’d been wanted by the police ever since he started with the Mafia. As soon as the word of the Demon Prodigy’s missions got out, he was put on the “Most Wanted and Most Dangerous” people in Yokohama list.
Not surprising, to Dazai, at least.
He’d expected it.
But they didn’t know who he was, which was good. They would never know exactly who he was, even if they knew his name.
Mori had erased all files on the boy when he joined the Port Mafia. All of his medical, hospital, school and any other records that might allow him to be found.
He was a blank slate as he entered the Mafia. A slate that Mori could write on and erase to become whatever he wanted.
If he wanted Dazai to do something, it only took a little convincing.
A little rewriting.
A little editing.
Like a book that was still being written.
That was what Dazai was to Mori.
A story of his own creation that started when he met Dazai. The boy’s life before the Mafia didn’t matter anymore, all that mattered was his time in the organization.
That was what Mori told him.
And he had been conditioned to trust Mori, however sketchy he was. It had only been a year of him being in the Mafia, and he was already a puppet for the man.
Despite being smarter, he was a puppet.
Who couldn’t resist.
Who didn’t know how to resist.
He never had, not with Mori. Mori was a master in the manipulation of people. It was something Dazai had observed in his first few days knowing the man.
Dazai was even better at manipulating people, but he trusted Mori. (Which, in hindsight, was probably not a good idea, but whatever.)
“Don’t lose sight of him!” The policeman who’d shouted earlier screamed as Dazai wound through the alleyways he was hiding in.
He wasn’t sure how they’d found him.
The only way that someone would have found him was if someone who knew where he was told them. Which was possible, but unlikely.
Someone had set him up.
Someone in the Port Mafia. That was the only explanation. Someone in the Port Mafia had set him up with this mission, and had alerted the police.
Yes, that made sense.
But… who could it have been?
And then, out of the blue, Dazai hit a wall. He hadn’t been looking where he’d been going, and he’d hit a dead end.
Shit.
Pain shot through Dazai’s right shoulder suddenly, and he let out a gasp and a mix of a yelp and a scream. Quiet, but loud. Pained, but also… strangely excited.
He’d been shot.
He was going to die!
Was his dream coming true?
Another bang from behind him.
Another burst of pain somewhere in his body. Somewhere in his legs. He was too delirious to tell exactly where.
Unfortunately… not lethal. He could tell that much. Neither wound was in a place that would kill him immediately, which he’d hoped the second shot from the gun would do.
Maybe a shot to the head. Or through the chest. Didn’t matter now, neither shot had been lethal. Unless they left him to bleed out.
Though… that would be painful. He didn’t like pain.
That’s why shooting himself had never really been on his list of ideas for suicide attempts. Because it was too painful.
And he hated pain.
Damn it.
He had hoped that the police would have had orders to kill on sight.
Then he wouldn’t have to be captured.
Well…
You can’t always get what you want.
It wasn’t very often that a new inmate came to the prison.
It was Yokohama’s highest security prison, meaning that only the most dangerous and insane prisoners were kept there.
Or… like in the case of Chuuya Nakahara, the children of criminals whose entire family were sentenced to prison, even if no crimes were committed.
Chuuya had only been five years old when his mother and father were sentenced to life in prison, but even though he’d only been a child, law enforcement had brought him in. Chuuya wasn’t even sure what his parents had done. Nobody ever told him, and when he asked his older sister, Kouyou, she said it didn’t matter, because they were dead now.
Which was unfortunate.
Chuuya had always been curious.
And when it came to the topic of why his parents were imprisoned, he was extra curious, because nobody would tell him, and there was no real way to investigate it in such a secure prison.
And even though his parents were dead, Chuuya still had to serve the sentence given to his entire close family.
Kouyou was still around, though she worked as the prison healer. And for that reason, Chuuya never saw her very often, because she rarely left the healer’s room.
But, as previously mentioned, new inmates were rare.
And there was a new inmate arriving today, so of course, Chuuya, being as curious as he was, was intrigued.
It was announced during lunch that there would be a new inmate arriving, and Chuuya had been a little shaken.
A new inmate meant that they were dangerous.
Not that Chuuya would be in danger, he was the leader of a small group of younger (most of them were children) inmates called The Sheep. He led it with his friends Shirase and Yuan, who were also innocent victims of family sentencing, like Chuuya.
And like Chuuya, their parents were dead.
And because they weren’t considered as dangerous as the other inmates, since they were teenagers, they had cellmates.
Shirase shared a cell with Chuuya, and Yuan shared a cell with a girl named Akira. That was, unfortunately, the extent of The Sheep’s mutual rooming assignments. A couple of the others were alone, because they were considered dangerous, or they were rooming with other inmates of the prison.
The Sheep would protect Chuuya, and Chuuya would protect The Sheep. That’s why the new inmate wouldn’t be a danger to Chuuya.
That didn’t diminish his curiosity, however.
From what Chuuya remembered from what the warden had said at lunch over the loudspeakers, this new inmate was male, and he would be kept in solitary.
Not surprising, because in the rare instance that a new inmate did arrive, they were put in solitary before they were deemed sane, or safe enough to be out in the working life of prisoners.
There were many jobs that prisoners were assigned, and some of them were worse than others.
Some people were forced to do horrible physical labour, some were forced to be blacksmiths without training, which was, a) a health hazard, and b) a main cause of deaths in the prison.
Chuuya worked in one of the less rigorous physical labour programs, which just involved moving around and bringing supplies to different areas in the prison.
Many inmates complained about this job, saying it was one of the worst to be put in, but Chuuya didn’t mind. Despite being short, he was actually quite strong, which made moving things around quite easy.
And Shirase worked in it too.
And even when they weren’t allowed to talk, it was nice having someone you knew working with you.
During the rest of the day, Chuuya paid close attention to the guards stationed around the prison, watching them closely to see if they were bringing in a new inmate.
“Hey, Chuu? What— or who are you looking for?” Shirase asked as they moved boxes of coal to the blacksmith’s rooms in one of the lower levels of the prison.
Chuuya was startled out of his thoughts at that, shaking his head a couple times to get his bearings again. He’d stopped moving at some point, so he started moving immediately to catch up with the group before he was disciplined.
It was talking hours, so Chuuya was allowed to reply.
“Huh? Fuck— did I zone out? Damn it! Oh— I’m looking to see if… you know… the new inmate is dragged through the halls or anything. I wanna see him.” Chuuya explained with a slight shrug that was a little awkward because of the large box of coal he was carrying, but he knew that Shirase got the message.
“Of course you are.” Shirase teased, rolling his eyes playfully.
Chuuya would’ve flipped him off if he could. But because of the box in his hands, he couldn’t.
“Fuck off, Shirase.” he replied instead, shaking his head in mock disgust.
“Never!” replied the spiky-haired boy, grinning from ear to ear.
That— made Chuuya happy.
It was rare that anyone smiled while they were in prison, so seeing a genuine one was rarer than finding a four leafed clover at exactly 11:11.
He smiled back, though it felt forced.
So much was forced.
It was his reality, at this point.
“Boxes down, then we head back to level 3 to grab boxes of seeds for the gardens!” barked the guard leading them around, gesturing to a pile of coal boxes in the coal room.
Each inmate assigned to this task put their box down one by one, then followed the guard out of the room and toward the stairs that would lead them up to level 3.
“Silence during this trip, A5158 and H14511.” The guard said as they walked, and Shirase and Chuuya immediately shut up. They may have been in a prison group that plotted escape plans (mostly as jokes, escaping was nearly impossible), but they knew better than to cross the guards.
They’d seen the punishments.
Neither of them wanted to be humiliated in the way that so many inmates who defied the rules and orders of the prison and prison guards had.
So they listened and shut their mouths, walking in a tense silence.
When they finally reached level 3, Chuuya let out a soft breath that could barely be heard over the sounds of fans blowing to disperse the awful smell of the prison.
Those fans were only on level 3 and not any other level simply because the gardens were on level 3, and level 3 was where the off-duty guards slept.
So it had to be liveable for them, of course.
None of the other levels got fans. It just perpetually smelled awful.
Everyone got used to it at some point.
They continued walking to their destination until the guard leading them around moved them to stand against the wall to let a parade of guards through. They seemed to be leading a prisoner somewhere.
The new inmate?
Yes, that was it.
In the middle of the group guards was a tall boy, maybe around Chuuya’s age, covered in bandages.
He wore a white shirt and pants, which was the standard for inmates in solitary.
But when he turned his face to look around, Chuuya’s breath caught.
He was beautiful.
Stunning.
Even with the bandage covering one eye, and the medical patch on the opposite cheek. Both would likely be removed by the prison officials, unless he was missing an eye or had… a chunk taken out of his cheek, or something.
But he was beautiful.
Chuuya had been trying to convince himself that he was straight for years before this, but at the appearance of this boy, he was no longer trying to deny it.
To snap himself out of his daze, he had to remind himself that this was someone insane enough to have a parade of guards leading him around the prison.
He was not boyfriend material.
In any way, shape or form. Just as a general rule, don’t date prisoners in prison.
Bad idea.
But then Chuuya registered that this dangerous inmate being led around was his age. Fifteen or sixteen, at most.
He must have done some stuff to be led around like he would blow up the prison with a single thought at such an age.
Maybe he was older, and he just looked younger. Chuuya hoped that was the case…
Because if it wasn’t?
That would be… terrifying.
Dazai had been hoping that they would kill him once he got to the prison as some grand thing.
But nope!
They were sending him into solitary until they deemed him safe enough to go into regular prison life.
It wasn’t like it was his first time in a solitary environment, he’d been to a hospital after a suicide attempt.
But this, he was pretty sure, was like padded room purgatory.
Waiting for them to realize he would get out either way.
He’d find a way to die here. It couldn’t possibly be that hard. He just had to escape the padded room and find the healer’s room, steal some meds, try and overdose, then sneak back into the padded room and die.
If he didn’t manage to execute the last part of his plan that was fine too.
He could die anywhere.
It would just be hilarious if they didn’t notice him sneaking in and out and they found him dead in the room.
That would be the perfect way for him to go out. While being a menace.
“Oi, kid. Is the bandage covering a missing eye or can we remove it?” A guard asked harshly as he shoved Dazai into the medical room.
Maybe he’d be able to steal meds while he was in here. He highly doubted it, considering how many guards there were in here.
But he had to get checked up for the recovery of his gunshot wounds. He’d been at a hospital for prisoners for a bit while he recovered from the wounds, but now it was time for real prison.
Yay!
A beautiful pink haired lady with bangs covering one of her eyes stepped into the room, and Dazai grinned. Maybe he could get meds after all.
Just a little charm here, a little smirk there and—
“Hey! I asked you a fucking question!” shouted the guard, all the while pushing him down onto an examination table.
“The bandage on my eye can come off, yes.” Dazai replied with an eye roll, smirking at the guard before removing the bandage. He winced as the tail of it poked his eye but didn’t say anything.
“Good. Hand that here.”
He obediently handed the guard the bandage. They wouldn’t know to take it away from him to prevent
him from committing suicide with it, because there were no records on him.
If Mori was smart, he would have noticed Dazai’s disappearance right away and erased everything about the Demon Prodigy from the internet.
He probably had noticed.
Dazai had been at the hospital, recovering, for several weeks. Maybe even a month.
He wasn’t sure, they wouldn’t bother to even tell him the time. How rude.
Mori was smart.
He’d have done all of that already.
The pretty lady approached Dazai with a kind smile, far too kind for the type of person Dazai was.
“What’s your name, Demon Prodigy? Your real one. Not your full name, I’m sure there will be no records of you. We just need your name for medical records within the hospital.” said the pink haired lady, pulling out some random medical equipment to examine Dazai.
He hadn’t planned on answering, but the sharp whack on the back from the guard made him talk so he wouldn’t go through more pain.
Giving his surname wouldn’t hurt.
“Dazai.” he answered simply, letting the girl examine him with watchful eyes.
“Any known illnesses, Dazai?” she asked, squinting at the bandages on his arms.
“Other than my mental ones, no.”
“Ah, well, here we can’t help with those, however unfortunate that is. It’s too expensive to fund psychological medication.”
That was too bad.
That meant Dazai couldn’t overdose on his own medication. Damn it.
“Oh well.” he answered, despite his internal annoyance. Maybe, if he was lucky, he could get into the guard’s stash. There was no way that the guards weren’t provided with their meds, otherwise they’d go even more insane.
“Why do you wear the bandages? Self-harm?” The lady asked, her voice not judging in the slightest.
Dazai scoffed.
“No. I’ve considered it, but too painful for me. I wear them to prevent small cuts while I’m working. And to freak people out. And… to remind myself that I wouldn’t like self-harm if I tried it.” Dazai answered honestly, not seeing any point in lying to the pretty lady, if he was going to try and trick her into giving him medication he could overdose with.
“Understood.” she said, jotting down a note on a paper. “Suicidal tendencies?”
Shit.
Dazai would have to lie his way out of this one.
“No, again, too painful.” he lied, resting back on his hands as the lady walked over to a run down cabinet to grab something.
Not medication, unfortunately.
Just a bottle of water.
She handed it to Dazai and he drank it. He may have not eaten well with the Port Mafia on purpose, but he didn’t avoid water, because of the headaches that came with it.
“Thank you.” Dazai said, smirking at her. “What’s your name?”
A guard spoke instead.
“That is Kouyou, our prison healer.” they said harshly, tugging Dazai off of the examination desk. “And if she has nothing left to say or examine, we’re bringing you to your cell.”
The lady— Kouyou, stopped them.
“I must examine him further. Please help him sit back down.” she remarked, gesturing assertively to the guard who had their hand on Dazai’s wrist.
The guard grumbled under their breath but led Dazai back to the table and sat him down.
“Finish the bottle of water, please, while I prepare the next thing.” Kouyou said, rummaging through that cupboard or cabinet again. Dazai obliged, downing the water in a couple seconds.
He had been quite thirsty.
A new voice broke through the silence as Kouyou searched through the cabinet.
“Hey Ane-san?” asked a rough male voice. “There’s someone who needs your attention—“
It was coming from a short redhead. Albeit a cute redhead. Just Dazai’s type in a man, if he was being honest to himself. He was maybe around fifteen, just like Dazai.
Why was he in prison? He didn’t seem like the type to commit any major crimes.
Dazai would find out eventually, if he survived past tonight.
“Oh who do we have here?” Dazai drawled, resting his chin in his hand. “Such a short boy… do you not get enough milk at meals? You really should request it.”
That set the redhead off.
His face flushed in embarrassment and he growled. “Shut your mouth, asshole! I’m only fifteen, I’m still growing, damn it!”
So he was fifteen, just as Dazai suspected.
“Shut up, the both of you, or you risk discipline!” shouted the guard, causing the boy to be quiet. “What do you need from Kouyou-san, A5158?”
“I require an ankle wrap for a guard who sprained their ankle walking down the stairs. I was sent by them to get it. Shirase-san is with me.” said the redhead, or as the guard called him, A5158
“Alright, Chuuya-kun, I’ll be there in a moment.” Kouyou said. Chuuya? Was that the boy’s true name? Perhaps they were siblings. There was some resemblance, yes. Maybe half siblings. Kouyou handed Chuuya an ankle wrap and he flipped off Dazai once before running off.
Dazai just laughed.
What an odd character Chuuya was.
Maybe he wouldn’t die just yet. Just to know more about this… Chuuya.
Chapter 2: Who Is He?
Summary:
Chuuya talks to Kouyou about Dazai
TW: Mentions of Death, murder, serial killers n stuff
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
What the fuck was wrong with that guy?
That was what Chuuya was asking himself as he walked back with Shirase, ankle wrap in hand. They had to be quick, and not say a word, as speaking hours were over, unless you were speaking to guards.
The boy in the medical room… and the boy from the hall… they were the same person. The boy that Chuuya had thought was beautiful… that was him. And he was…
Fucking annoying.
And insane, by the looks of it.
Another question running through Chuuya’s head was:
Why the bandages?
The boy didn’t seem to be injured, in any way, he looked completely fine, except maybe he was malnourished. He looked hollow, almost shattered, and yet so painstakingly beautiful it hurt. And yet… Chuuya couldn’t help but wonder… Why was he here?
That was a question that he had asked his whole life, whenever a new inmate was brought into the facilities.
What brought them here?
What kind of horrific crimes did they commit to deserve ending up here?
Rumours spread around the prison like wildfire. All of them about the beautiful boy Chuuya saw in the hall. So many rumours, so many theories. Even with the no-talking rules, people were still talking. Every single rumor just freaked people out more, even though 90% of the people in Fuchu prison were psychopaths.
If literal serial killers and mental cases were scared, that’s when you know something is up.
Code names and nicknames for the boy circulated around as well.
The Nameless Monster.
Man-killer.
The Devil in Human Form.
Not many stood out to most people, because a lot of them were made up and nobody had ever heard of them before. But one stood out more than most.
The Demon Prodigy.
Even Chuuya had heard of the Demon Prodigy, and he’d been in Fuchu since he was five years of age. According to what he’d heard from other inmates, and associates of the Demon Prodigy who had since been arrested, he was the most dangerous mafioso in all of Yokohama, and the youngest.
Which made sense, he looked young.
The Demon Prodigy was new, apparently. He’d joined the Port Mafia about a year ago, and he’d already amassed a terrifying kill count and mission success rate in his first four to six months. It was around six to eight months ago that Chuuya started hearing stories about the Demon prodigy from both guards and inmates.
Nobody knew who the Demon Prodigy was underneath. Many police stations had apparently attempted to research and get information on him, but to no avail. He had no records, no information… nothing.
And they’d caught him, somehow.
Though, rumor had it he was shot twice to get him down, and it was an inside job with a mole in the Port Mafia. That someone sent him on a fake mission and he went without question, and then was shot down by the police who were working with the double agent.
Chuuya had a couple hours off today, so he was going to visit Kouyou to talk to her about the Demon Prodigy, because when Chuuya had come for the ankle wrap for the guard, she’d been examining him.
And she was good at getting information out of people so…
Maybe she could provide her little brother with some. Half-brother, but that wasn’t important. They had the same father, before he died in the prison about two years after the family’s arrest, along with Chuuya’s mother. Kouyou’s biological mother died giving birth to her, so neither of them had met her.
He walked quietly down the halls of Fuchu prison, making sure that he didn’t make much sound and disturb the guards. It wasn’t that he wasn’t allowed to be out of his cell or anything, they just didn’t enjoy excessive noise, and footsteps on the floors were apparently “excessive”.
The walk from where he’d been for work last and to the medical centre was a long one, but he didn’t mind. Well… he minded a little, just because of the stupid amount of stairs this place had.
If you wanted to talk about excessive, that was the perfect thing to call excessive. Any time stairs could be used? They were used.
Even on the smallest declines or inclines, there were stairs.
It pissed Chuuya off to no end.
When he finally got to the medical wing, he knocked on the already open door before entering, hoping that his sister wasn’t treating anyone at the moment. Thankfully, she wasn’t, and he could talk to her without issue. She was sitting at her desk, going over some paperwork or something, like she always was. Perhaps she was sending in a request for a shipment of more basic medication, which was always needed.
Like, always needed.
“Ane-san?” he said, alerting her that he was there.
Kouyou immediately looked up and smiled softly. “Chuuya! Come in, come in.”
He obliged and stepped fully into the medical wing, reveling in the nice scent of herbs and flowers that Kouyou loved so much. The medical centre was the only decent-smelling place in the entire facility, and Chuuya loved to spend time there because of it, but also because he could talk to his half-sister.
“I didn’t know you had hours off today!” Kouyou exclaimed, standing up out of her chair to hug Chuuya. When she opened her arms, he stepped into them, allowing her warmth to envelop him.
“I’ve been working hard to get them.” Chuuya murmured, not letting go of her just yet. “So I could come here and see you.”
His sister laughed softly. “How thoughtful, Chuuya. What did you need to ask me?”
Chuuya sighed and pulled away. She saw right through him. He was happy to see her, but that wasn’t the main reason he’d come. He’d come to ask her about the boy, the Demon Prodigy. About who he actually was.
“Well…” Chuuya started, unsure of how to phrase his question.
“Go on, I’m waiting.” Kouyou prompted, sitting back down in her chair while resting her hands in her lap. Chuuya thought about it for a little longer before finally picking the right (or what he thought was the right) phrasing for his question.
“A couple days ago, I came to grab an ankle wrap and there was someone new in here. Rumor has it he’s the Demon Prodigy? Do you know anything about him?” Chuuya asked, then immediately regretted it. That question had sounded so much better in his head. It had sounded more clear, more confident.
But he’d hesitated, and it had come out shaky.
Kouyou didn’t point it out, like she usually did, she simply nodded and thought about it for a moment, tapping her chin with a slender and pale finger.
“The Demon Prodigy, mm? Well, he told me that his name was Dazai. I’m quite sure it’s his surname, but he seems to respond to it. I know he’s in solitary for the time being, and that he’s beyond smart. Like, genius genius.” Kouyou finally replied somewhat calmly.
Dazai?
Who the hell was named Dazai?
“You’re sure he didn’t just make up that name?” Chuuya asked, raising an eyebrow in suspicion.
When his sister nodded, he scoffed.
“I do not believe he would lie about that.” she said softly, glancing around the room as if checking to see if someone was there. When she saw it was empty except for her and Chuuya she nodded softly and brushed her bangs out of her eye and pinned them back with a golden bobby pin.
She had normal eyes, unlike Chuuya.
Chuuya had heterochromia, meaning that he had two different coloured eyes. One brown, one blue. And he’d always hated it, because it made him different. In the prison, nobody judged him for it, but he’d always thought that someone was going to make fun of him for it, or something.
Kouyou had always called Chuuya’s eyes pretty, but he disagreed. They were weird, and they added to his belief that he wasn’t actually human.
He didn’t think he was human for a number of reasons.
His main one being that he didn’t feel like he was his own person. He felt like he was a clone of someone else, even though he knew that he wasn’t. He wasn’t even sure whose clone he thought he was, but it was just a running theory and thought inside his mind.
His thoughts were always strange things, really.
Sometimes he couldn’t trust them.
One time, his brain told him that he was a corrupted vessel of a god that would snap at any moment. Though… that thought had been based off of a recurring nightmare he’d had for three years straight. It had stopped, though, and he hadn’t had the nightmare since he was ten years old.
Another time, he convinced himself that he wasn’t real, and he was just part of a simulation controlled by the government.
He’d been seven.
And that had been weird.
He was pretty sure he’d traumatized the guard who’d been assigned to basically be his babysitter when he’d told her. Apparently, his theories were too realistic and made too much sense for a little child.
She left the prison soon after that, and he had been assigned a less kind babysitter.
“You’re sure that’s all you know about him? What about the bandages?” Chuuya asked, sitting down on one of the examination tables near Kouyou’s desk. It was cold, but not too cold that he had to get off of it right away.
“The bandages are a private thing that I cannot share.” she replied, and shook her head when Chuuya tried to get her to explain. “I cannot tell you, that is private information that cannot be shared.”
Chuuya sighed.
At least he knew that this kid was actually the Demon Prodigy. It made a lot more sense as to why he was in Fuchu prison now. A lot more.
He probably deserved it more than anyone in the prison at the moment.
And Chuuya was very anti-prison, despite living in one his entire life, basically. He didn’t think that children should be sentenced to Fuchu. And… Dazai was a child…
He wouldn’t think about that. He didn’t want to support what the Demon Prodigy had done. Even though… he was probably acting on orders that if he didn’t complete, he would be killed.
But still!
He was a bad person. A very bad person who had probably killed hundreds of people.
And he was also fucking annoying, so there was that too.
“Was he annoying and a dick to you too?” Chuuya asked after yet another moment of silence. When Kouyou shook his head he protested in jealousy.
“Lucky! You saw how rude he was to me, the asshole!”
“He flirted with me, I think as a joke.” Kouyou said, causing Chuuya to burst out laughing.
“Tell me everything.”
Notes:
I hope you enjoyed! Chapters will get longer as we progress, and a plot will kind of appear at some point! (soon, i swear) We just gotta get Dazai out of that padded room >;3
Chapter 3: Mental Misdirection
Summary:
Dazai hatches a plan to escape Fuchu Prison, then he meets Oda through that plan and gets attached to him. (Not a ship!!) He then gets released from the padded room and gets assigned to work in the same cohort as Chuuya.
Chuuya is not amused.
TW: Mentions of torture, child abuse, suicide, death, among other things, refrences to eating disorders
but anyways!
*throws a 4.7k word chapter at you*
if you see typos i didn't beta read this give me a break pls
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Dazai got sick of the padded room after about three weeks. Which was more time than he predicted, he’d originally thought that he would have gone even more insane after about two. But hey! He lasted three, and that was too much already.
He would get out by faking good behaviour.
It wasn’t like it would be hard, most of the guards were dimwits compared to Dazai, anyway. He knew that he would be able to get out of the padded room. Probably would still be kept in a separate cell from anyone else, and would never be getting a cellmate.
That was not something he was sad about.
He just needed to get out of solitary, then figure out a way to get out of the prison. It wouldn’t be hard once he got put to work and had time to examine and memorize every possible escape route, and the ones that would draw the most attention.
He hadn’t been able to analyze it carefully as he’d hoped when they’d been walking him to the medical centre, but that was only because the guards were crowding him and covering all possible views of everything but the ceiling.
There were a couple possible escapes through the ceiling, but they were risky. He probably wouldn’t be able to get into the ceiling easily, even though he’d worked in the mafia. He was stealthy, but probably not stealthy enough.
Based on how much time it may take for him to be let out of solitary confinement in the padded room, and how much time it would take to analyze every part of the prison, he was looking at about six and a half months.
Which was… less than ideal… but… he’d make it work.
Mori wouldn’t miss him that much. There were other competent members, people who weren’t as good as Dazai, but they were good enough for Mori while Dazai worked on getting out of prison.
He had some steps.
- Get out of solitary padded room confinement by faking good behaviour and less insanity. Maybe getting close with one of the guards as well.
- Get put to work moving things around the facility so he can analyze the prison + find possible escape routes.
- Find the perfect day to escape, not night, because security is higher at night, based on previous escapes done by inmates in other prisons.
There were many other sub-steps, but those were the main ones. And they would work. Dazai rarely, if not never, failed when he had steps for things, or a concrete mission. And this was concrete, at least in his head.
He had plans, and they would work.
If he figured out how to be patient and wait for the perfect opportunity, which may take months, but he didn’t care. He just needed out so he could go back to the mafia.
So he could go back to being good for Mori. Being a good executive and Port Mafia leader.
A couple months in prison wouldn’t stop him from being a good executive. He knew it wouldn’t, because he had the best memory of anyone he knew, even though he pretended to forget stuff to annoy people in the mafia that he didn’t like.
But…
Step One had to be executed soon.
Or… that timeframe of only six and a half months would be extended to more than that, maybe even looking at a year. And that was even less ideal than the six and a half months timeline.
First things first, he would try to get close to one of the guards stationed inside the padded room and convince them that he was sane enough to be in normal confinement.
There was a guard inside the padded room that was heavily armed, then there were three outside the room who were even more heavily armed, because Dazai was deemed, “extremely dangerous.” Which, they weren’t wrong about, but it was still not great for him, when it came to getting close to people.
There was one that came around at the guard switch once a day, who didn’t look too old, maybe 21… possibly 24, that seemed approachable enough. He had red hair and was quite tall, and stood a little more relaxed than all of the guards that came around.
The next time he came inside at the changing of Dazai’s guards, the brunet would try and talk to him. Just a little, maybe a lot. Who knew what would happen. It was Dazai and an unknown variable that Dazai had never spoken to.
It would be okay.
He was good at tricking and manipulating people.
It wouldn’t be that hard to trick one measly guard, would it?
Turns out, getting the guard to talk wasn’t that hard. He had spoken to Dazai without hesitation when Dazai had advanced.
He’d even answered honestly when Dazai had asked for his name.
Oda Sakunosuke.
And he was 23, which… was Dazai’s other guess. But, surprisingly, Oda, or Odasaku, as Dazai called him in his mind, was quite easy to talk to. He was soft-spoken, but sharp. He wasn’t someone who took Dazai for a monster, and that was strangely refreshing.
But he also called Dazai out on his bullshit and seemed to notice… everything. It was like he knew exactly what Dazai was going to do or say and he already had a response planned out in his head. Like Dazai. That was something Dazai did.
Dazai had never met someone who did that before.
Someone who wasn’t as smart as him, but didn’t try to be smarter, or act like he was a freak of nature. He understood Dazai, and that was scary.
It was scary that Oda understood Dazai in a way that not even Mori had.
“Dazai, you’re spacing out again.” Oda pointed out as Dazai lay flat on the floor, staring at the padded ceiling. It wasn’t interesting, this padded ceiling, and that was because it was the same thing every time Dazai stared at it.
He’d stared at it long enough to memorize every single crease in the padding, which was honestly sad, if you thought about it.
He had been spacing out. Dazai had been thinking about how he was going to convince Odasaku of all people that he was normal. The man saw through everything! It had been three weeks since he’d started talking to Oda, and literally no progress had been made.
Well… maybe a little.
Odasaku seemed to be noticing his more “normal” behaviour, and was pointing it out with confusion. Like he was starting to maybe consider that Dazai was sane enough to go into “normal” prison life. However normal being kept in the prison for the most dangerous people in Japan was, well that was up for debate, but it didn’t matter much in the grand scheme of things.
As long as Oda had the idea in his head that Dazai could be somewhat sane, Dazai could feed on that and manipulate his new… friend, he supposed, into thinking he could be brought into a less… padded room.
“Sorry. This ceiling is just soooo interesting.” Dazai finally replied, choosing his words carefully, as usual.
Odasaku snorted a disbelieving laugh.
“Yeah, right. I know you well enough now to know you’re plotting something. Whether it’s an escape or a prank on one of the other guards I can’t tell.” said the older man, rolling his eyes, though he still didn’t move. Though he broke the stereotype that guards never spoke to inmates unless it was giving them an order, Oda still followed all of his other orders, one of which was not moving from his assigned position.
So he never moved from the door.
“What if I was plotting to steal… uh… Ango, was it?” Dazai said, trying to remember the name of one of the other guards that rotated posts inside his room that Oda had once mentioned. “What if I was plotting to steal Ango’s whiteboard marker that he has on him at all times; super weird, by the way, and draw all over the walls?”
Oda chuckled. “As funny as that would be, it wouldn’t help you get let out of solitary sooner. And before you ask how I know that, I know it because that’s the goal of everyone stuck in a padded room. No matter their motive, that’s always the goal. And I can’t say I know your goal, but I know that that is one of them. And I want to help you.”
Dazai froze.
A guard… of Fuchu prison… wanted to help… the Demon Prodigy… get out of solitary confinement in a padded room? Even knowing his reputation? Oda must have been crazy.
“What?” Dazai asked quietly, still in shock.
“You heard me. I want to help you out of this room, at least. Nobody deserves to be locked in this… this… hell, for as much time as you have. Even with how insane you are.” Oda finished, a small smile playing on his lips.
“Really?”
“Yes, really, what do you take me for, an idiot?”
Dazai definitely didn’t. Out of all the things Oda was, an idiot was not one of them. He was smart, but not too smart, at least by Dazai’s standards. He was calm, but he had a temper when you fired him up. And even when he was angry, he was still annoyingly calm.
It was that type of calm anger that psyched you out the first time you encountered it.
Fortunately, Dazai had encountered it before, and it didn’t phase him in the slightest.
“No, not at all, Odasaku.” Dazai responded, twirling a lock of his hair in his hands. He’d gotten a haircut from one of the guards, and it was choppy, but not horrible. Apparently he needed to keep his hair short so he didn’t try and strangle himself while stuck in the room.
They didn’t even know he was suicidal, but apparently that was a concern that they voiced with every inmate stuck in a similar situation to the brunet.
“Good. Because I genuinely do want to help you.” Oda said, adjusting his grip on the weapon he was holding in his hands, per the rules.
“That’s news to me. Isn’t that against the rules?”
“Actually, it isn’t. Though we have long since strayed from the original ideas of keeping someone in prison, I still try to believe in them. Being in prison is to help correct you and your behaviour, and I personally don’t believe that solitary confinement is the right way to do that.” Oda answered, his voice flat, but not emotionless.
Huh.
Dazai hadn’t really expected that.
But he had one question.
“Will you still be a guard assigned to me if I get out?” Dazai asked sheepishly, slightly embarrassed at how clingy he sounded. Even though he was manipulating him, he truly cared for Odasaku. He was like the brother, or father, that Dazai never had, and that was refreshing.
Oda laughed softly.
“Yes, I will. My boss has noticed the positive impact I’ve had on you, and thinks that if I stay with you if you get out of here, you might get even better.”
Dazai highly doubted that, but he was happy that his plan to manipulate literally everyone into thinking that he was recovering, or something, was working.
But he was also extremely happy that Odasaku would be staying with him.
He wouldn’t know what to do without the man, honestly. Just because… he cared. Dazai knew he cared. They spent six and a half hours together every single day from 12:30 to 19:00 every day. They knew each other very well, even if they didn’t know much about each other at all.
“I’m happy.”
“Because I’ll stay with you as a guard no matter where you go in this god-forsaken place?” Oda said, shaking his head in what appeared to be disbelief. “You didn’t strike me as a clingy one, Dazai.”
Dazai gasped dramatically.
“I am not clingy! You’re just the only not brain-dead guard here!”
“Well, I’ll take that as a compliment, I guess?”
“You should. I don’t give compliments very often.”
“I noticed.”
Dazai just didn’t know how to give compliments. Nobody in his life had ever really deserved one before. Certainly not anyone in the Port Mafia, even though he worked for them, they were all idiots.
Even the smart ones, like Mori.
He definitely didn’t deserve any compliments.
A loud buzzer rang through the room and Dazai sighed dramatically.
“Goodbye, Odasaku. I will see you tomorrow.”
“See you tomorrow, Dazai. Try not to annoy Ango too much.”
Dazai couldn’t promise anything.
Well, it took Dazai about another month, but he was finally being released from the padded room and brought to his own private cell in the prison.
Yes, the cell had worse facilities than the padded room did, but at least it wasn’t white. Dazai was sick and tired of seeing the colour white. He was elated when they changed him into a grey outfit instead of the white one he’d been wearing for like two months.
That was a big day.
Today was a big day as well. He was finally being put to work. Right away, which was unprecedented, but not unwelcome. And Odasaku would be following him around to make sure he wasn’t killing anyone with his bare hands, so that was a plus.
And apparently, Odasaku and Ango were the only guards that would ever be stationed outside Dazai’s cell, because he’d gotten along with them the most.
Again, he wasn’t complaining.
He was actually secretly hoping that he got put on the work team that that kid Chuuya was on, just so he could annoy him and get some fun out of being in prison.
Chuuya was the perfect target.
“Today, we have a new inmate joining our crew, Dazai, and before you ask, no we don’t know if that’s his first or last name, yes he’s the person you heard about being kept in solitary, and yes he’s somewhat better now. There will be an extra guard accompanying us around to supervise him at all times.” said the guard that led Chuuya’s cohort of physical labourers.
He couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
He was going to have to work… with that asshole?
There was no way in hell. Chuuya turned to look at Shirase, who was also gaping at the guard who had announced the news.
“No fucking way.” Shirase muttered, shaking his head.
Chuuya just silently groaned. He wanted a transfer. He’d had one brief conversation with Dazai and he already hated him, so this didn’t bode well.
“This is Dazai,” the guard said, pointing to the brunet boy who had a guard shadowing him. “And he follows the same rules as all of you. Hear that, kid? You follow all of our rules and don’t disobey direct orders.”
“Hi everyone! And yes, I understand the rules completely. You see my guard here… great guy by the way, explained them all to me on the walk here! I promise, I won’t be much trouble.” Dazai said, his voice deceptively kind. He almost sounded… sane, despite all of the things he’d done as the Demon Prodigy.
How could he live with himself, knowing all that he’d done? Chuuya couldn’t fathom being able to function if he had done what Dazai apparently had.
“That means… Dazai, that you will be quiet.” the guard snapped. “Talking is only allowed during specific times, or if you are told you are allowed to by a guard or one of your superiors.”
Dazai stiffened, and so did everyone else in the group.
Chuuya glanced at Shirase, then at another member of the Sheep named Shougo who was transferred to this cohort a couple weeks ago, then groaned under his breath again.
This was not going to end well.
“Hey Chuuya~” Dazai drawled from beside Chuuya as they carried materials to somewhere in the prison. What that somewhere was, or where somewhere was, Chuuya didn’t know, and he frankly didn’t care. Dazai did this a lot, and it was quite frankly annoying. It had been two days since he’d joined the cohort of physical labourers that Chuuya worked in, and things could not be going worse.
Dazai was just as annoying as Chuuya originally thought.
Constant taunting, constant teasing…
Constant breaking the rules, despite the guard that was always shadowing him. But… if Chuuya was being honest, the guard didn’t really seem to care.
“Shut up.” Chuuya replied, his voice as quiet as it could possibly be. “We aren’t supposed to be talking right now.”
“Oh I know, but I just have one question…” Dazai said, grinning at Chuuya.
“What is it?” Chuuya hissed. “Make it quick.”
“What’d a guy like you do to end up here?” Dazai asked, and despite the heavy load he was carrying, there was a spring in his step, almost like he was happy. He was being quiet, just like Chuuya, but not quiet enough that his guard wouldn’t hear, further solidifying Chuuya’s theory that the guard literally didn’t care.
But then Dazai’s question registered.
Dazai had realized that Chuuya didn’t belong here, despite his tough-guy facade, and that wasn’t ideal for Chuuya. The truth was, Chuuya didn’t belong here.
And Dazai knew that.
He’d noticed it, probably from Chuuya’s young age.
“I’m here due to an unfair and probably illegal unfair sentencing.” replied Chuuya. “This is all I’ve ever known. I’m being punished for the crimes of those who came before me.”
“That’s unfair, don't you think? You never committed the crimes that got your family imprisoned.” Dazai countered, cocking his head out of curiosity.
He made a good point.
Chuuya had never committed any crimes, though… some of the fights he’d gotten into while in prison hadn’t been pretty. But he’d never committed a crime, even inside of Fuchu prison, that would deserve him a sentence at Fuchu.
Nothing he’d ever done deserved him a sentence in prison, even. Maybe a couple weeks in jail or a correctional centre or something but not… Fuchu Prison.
The place where only the highly dangerous were kept. The people who were threats to society.
“Aw… So quiet now, Chibi? I didn’t know that was something you could do!” Dazai exclaimed quietly, grinning from ear to ear.
“Don’t call me that!” Chuuya said, voice raising in volume ever so slightly to convey his anger. Not enough to alert the guard at the front, but just enough that it was loud enough for Shirase to hear it from in front of him.
The grey-haired boy turned his head and frowned at Chuuya, but Chuuya shook his head at his friend, telling him to drop it and that he had it under control without saying any words.
“Fuck off, Dazai.”
“Aw… but you’d miss me and my charming personality!” Dazai whined.
God he was the worst.
“I fucking hate you.” Chuuya growled, trying to focus on walking to his destination and following the group rather than punching Dazai, which was the idea currently floating through his mind.
It would be so satisfying, if Chuuya finally got to punch Dazai. But unfortunately, he had that guard by him at all times that made that a teensy bit difficult. But it was okay, Chuuya would find a way to clobber the brunet eventually.
“Oh I know. Trust me, most people say they hate me at least once.” Dazai replied cheerfully, setting down the materials, as instructed by the guard at the front once they reached their destination.
“You’ll be hearing it a lot more, asshole.”
“Funny, the thing is, most people who tell me they hate me don’t actually mean it. Are you lying to me, Chuuya?” Dazai teased, poking Chuuya in the arm softly.
Punching him currently seemed like the best plan.
“Dazai, let’s not touch other people.” said his guard, pulling him back from Chuuya.
“But Chuuya’s so responsive! It’s so fun to mess with him!” Dazai retorted, turning his head to look up at his guard. Chuuya remembered this guard… he was someone who’d been assigned to keep the Sheep under control at lunch one time, when Shirase had almost started a prison riot.
Oda, was it?
Sakunosuke. That was his surname. Chuuya remembered that. He was nice. Far too nice a guy to be put with Dazai of all people.
And yet Dazai seemed to listen to him.
Which was a fucking miracle. Dazai listened to nobody. Not even the higher ups who could literally torture him if he pushed too far. He didn’t listen to them unless it suited his needs. He was a master at getting what he wanted, no matter the price he’d pay for it in the end.
No matter if he got hurt or not.
Chuuya was quite sure that he was some type of suicidal maniac, considering how many times he wistfully spoke about death. Not that that was something Chuuya hadn’t seen before, many prisoners were suicidal. Many prisoners in Fuchu had killed themselves to be free of the torture.
Chuuya himself had never witnessed a suicide, but Shirase, unfortunately had. He’d gotten the same sentencing Chuuya had, unfortunately, due to a major crime committed by his father. Or… a string of crimes? Chuuya couldn’t remember exactly what the story was. They’d only spoken of it once, and it had been painful to say the least.
“My mom.” Shirase had said. “Killed herself after three months. She wasn’t even the one who committed the crime. It was my father. But like you, we were all sentenced here. She hung herself in the cell I shared with her and my aunt one night. I thought she was just doing something weird, because she’d been acting a little cuckoo for a while before that.”
Chuuya hadn’t been able to respond for a very long time.
And they’d never spoken of it again.
“Do not harass Nakahara, Dazai.” Oda said again, pulling Dazai back further.
Yep, this was Oda.
All the times that Oda had spoken to Chuuya, he’d called him Nakahara without fail. Out of respect, or just the fact that the man had forgotten Chuuya’s name, he wasn’t sure.
But Chuuya responded to it all the same.
“Fineee…. I guess I’ll stop…” Dazai grumbled, pouting a little, like a petulant little child who just got denied their favourite toy.
Chuuya hoped that he wouldn’t become Dazai’s favourite toy.
That would be his worst nightmare, among other things.
“Good. Now follow the group.” Oda said, gesturing for both Dazai and Chuuya to follow the group of labourers that had already started walking without them. Chuuya immediately rushed to hurry up, not wanting to get punished.
But Dazai, on the other hand, just slacked off and lazily walked towards the group, clearly not caring if he was punished or not.
Fucking masochist, that one.
He said he didn’t like pain, and yet he seemed to constantly be putting himself in painful situations. It was like a paradox. He wanted to never experience pain, and yet he chased it like it was the only thing he needed in life to survive.
Chuuya had never understood masochists. Probably never would.
And he definitely didn’t want to understand the masochist walking behind him. That was a mystery he would be glad not to ever solve.
“You may talk amongst yourselves as we walk to lunch.” announced the guard at the front, and Chuuya and Shirase immediately turned to each other.
“You okay, man?” Shirase asked, nodding back to Dazai, who was still strolling behind them by a couple meters, Oda in tow.
“He’s a fucking asshole, if that tells you anything.” Chuuya grumbled, staring at the floor as he walked towards the cafeteria with the group. Lunch wouldn’t be good, it rarely ever was. It was only very good on days that someone was inspecting or visiting the prison, and those days were rare.
Nobody wanted to visit Fuchu Prison.
Who would, honestly?
It was underfunded and the staff were often horrible, and on top of all of that, the worst of the worst were kept there, give or take a few innocents.
But that was that.
Nobody visited without good reason, and many of those reasons were just inspection of the facilities done by some rando who was clearly forced to do it. Chuuya felt bad for them, whenever they entered the prison. It wasn’t pretty. People dying in cells, screaming from the mentally unstable… not a fun place to be in by a long shot.
“We all know that by now, honestly.” Shirase said with a sigh. “But hey, it’s finally lunch! Even though it’ll be gross as hell, we have a break, right?”
Shirase always did this, even before Dazai came around. He reminded Chuuya that at least they had a break anytime he complained about lunch, or complained about something else before lunch.
And yes, the forty-five minute lunch break they got was nice.
Breaks were always appreciated by the inmates, especially the ones who were forced to do physical labour.
And, for Shirase and Chuuya, they got to spend time with Yuan and the rest of the Sheep.
That was a good thing.
One of the few good things about their lunch break.
Seeing their friends.
And as if on cue, when they entered the cafeteria, a short, pink-haired girl was waving them over from one of the tables at the back of the cafeteria.
“Over here!” Yuan called, pointing to the table.
Shirase, Chuuya, and Shougo immediately grabbed their lunch and went over to the table where the rest of the Sheep were waiting. Nobody seemed to be touching their lunch, though there were a couple empty trays.
You ate as much as you could without puking, basically.
That was how you ate at Fuchu prison.
And sometimes you could eat all of your food, sometimes you couldn’t. It really depended on what lunch it was and how much of an appetite you had from breakfast. You learned to have a stronger stomach, eventually. Until they changed the menu and you had to adapt to it again.
It was like they wanted you to stay malnourished, or something.
Chuuya wasn’t, he always ate all of his food, even if it was absolutely rancid and practically inedible. He didn’t want to be weak or lose any more weight than he already had. He was a small guy already, but not eating would make him smaller.
And that wasn’t exactly ideal, considering what he worked in at the prison. Physical labourers always ate what was on their plate so that they didn’t faint during work. Even those in Chuuya’s cohort, who had the easier end of the labour.
If you wanted to survive, you did what you had to do.
Everyone knew that.
And if you didn’t want to live… well… you didn’t have to do much to die.
Dying was easy, if you put your mind to it. At least at Fuchu. It was much easier to die than live.
But Chuuya was determined to live.
He would get out of prison one day (hopefully), and he would go into the world and live a somewhat normal life. Hopefully.
There was no way to tell if getting out of prison was in his future, and based on the looks of it, that time was nowhere soon. But there would be a time. Hopefully.
And if he wasn’t out by age twenty, he would escape somehow.
How he would escape was undecided. He had all of his teenage years (at least those that he had left) to decide on that. It wouldn’t be easy, and there was a high likelihood of death, but he’d try to get him and all of the Sheep out of prison before he was twenty.
It would happen.
They would all be free eventually. None of them deserved what had happened to them, and Chuuya knew that better than anyone.
So they all deserved freedom.
They were just kids, after all. Kids who had gotten the short end of the life stick and lived through hell literally their entire lives. Which was unfair. Nobody deserved to be underfed, overworked, tortured, verbally abused, and hurt at such a young age.
He would get out eventually.
They would get out eventually.
Notes:
heh. heheh
hehehhe
'
hehehhe
i meant slow burn in the tags btw
jahahahhah
Chapter 4: With The Lights On, It's Less Dangerous
Summary:
Dazai is a little shit. Chuuya is losing his mind.
The plot doesn't thicken this is purely filler.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
“Dazai, you can’t make your only goal “piss off everyone in Fuchu Prison in my first week out of solitary”.” Odasaku said to Dazai one afternoon as he sat in his cell. He’d been taken away from working for the afternoon because apparently he was being too “disruptive”.
Which was probably true. He’d been purposely trying to piss off Chuuya and his friends at every turn. He’d also taken to annoying the guard that led their working group, simply because it was easy. He just got so annoyed, so easily. He got annoyed so easily, the same way that Chuuya got annoyed.
And Odasaku had to stop Dazai many times.
More than many, at this point, and it had only been a week since he’d been let out of that white padded room.
“But it’s the only goal that keeps me from going more insane than I already am!” Dazai whined, burying his face in his hands, trying to get some sympathy from Odasaku, even though he knew that he wouldn’t be receiving any. Odasaku knew better than to sympathize with Dazai.
Which was annoying.
But Dazai’s grand plan to manipulate Oda into thinking he was mentally stable had worked, so… maybe he didn’t have to try and manipulate Oda any longer. He just had to continue his plan to get out of the prison and return to the Port Mafia.
“Find anything else to do. You’re driving poor Nakahara insane.” Oda said, facepalming.
Nakahara?
That was Chuuya, no? His surname was Nakahara? That was new information to Dazai. Not that he really planned on calling Chuuya by his surname, he had many more nicknames to use on Chuuya. Many, many more nicknames.
Nicknames could be called his secondary passion, after all, second only to being a menace, which was, of course, first. Dazai lived to be a menace. It was, as he called it, his sole purpose in life. Being a menace kept life interesting. And if Oda was trying to prevent him from doing so…
“I cannot! It is my sole purpose in life. The Chibi must be annoyed!” Dazai exclaimed dramatically, falling back onto the hard mattress found on the metal bedframe in his cell. He let out an oof, not liking how he didn’t really sink into the mattress.
He was used to uncomfortable sleeping arrangements; he slept in a literal storage container while he was with the Port Mafia, because he refused to stay with Mori. Refused, because Mori was kind of a creep.
Especially when it came to his daughter, Elise.
Dazai wanted nothing more than to save Elise from Mori, despite trusting Mori as his boss.
Just because he trusted Mori as his boss didn’t mean he trusted Mori as a person. He was a horrible person, even more so than anyone in the mafia. But… aside from that, he paid Dazai well, and gave him a job he could do.
And that was enough for him to stay working for him, among other things.
“The… Chibi? You call… Nakahara… Chibi?” Odasaku said in disbelief, then he started to stifle a laugh. Dazai knew that he wouldn’t hear Oda actually laugh, because it was against the rules of the guards. But Dazai tried to lighten the mood anyway.
A stifled laugh was progress.
Not much, but it was progress.
–
“Chibi~” Dazai drawled one day as he walked over to sit next to Chuuya at lunch. Oda warned him that it was a bad idea, and that Chuuya very well may start a fight with Dazai, but the brunet didn’t really care about fights.
He’d been in many fights before.
Many fights before.
A mafia member would always know what fights were like, even if they weren’t that active in the mafia that much.
“What do you want?” Chuuya snarled, stopping his conversation with Shirase, the spiky haired kid, to turn to Dazai with an angry expression on his face. The redhead was adorable when he was angry, but not in a really endearing way. More in a, “I love to annoy this person” type of way.
He was most definitely not attracted to Chuuya in any way. Yes, Chuuya was exactly his type in men; shorter, redheads, and with a little bite to them. A little temper. But Chuuya had a bit too much of a temper. Not that Dazai really minded, but it was a little too much for his liking.
“What do I want?” Dazai mused, tapping his chin thoughtfully. “Well, that’s a loaded question, no?”
“Just answer the fucking question and leave. You don’t have any lunch with you anyways.” Chuuya hissed, clearly getting more mad by the second.
What did Dazai want, other than to annoy Chuuya?
He couldn’t really say that, or he’d be sat somewhere else by Odasaku, who was sitting directly beside him.
“I’m just here to hang out with my absolute most favourite person, of course!” Dazai exclaimed, his voice laced with false-sweetness.
Chuuya snorted a laugh. “Your favourite person? I highly doubt that. And if I am, then you should really find another person, because I don’t like you whatsoever.”
“Oh I know that, that’s why you’re my favourite!” Dazai said with a giggle, enjoying Chuuya’s confusion. “I love annoying you!”
“You’re a fucking pain in my ass.” Chuuya muttered, shaking his head in disbelief. “You need to go back into solitary and die, man.”
Chuuya didn’t seem to be super serious about that. He wished death on Dazai a lot, but Dazai knew that he didn’t mean it. That was probably because he was kind at heart. Maybe he had a temper, and maybe he was less than nice to Dazai, but he was kind.
And he couldn’t control that fact no matter how hard he tried to be tough.
He was tough, but not as tough as he liked to believe.
And that was good. Being kind in such a hard place to live was a rare sight, one that Dazai was sure that he was never going to see.
Unless he magically got Chuuya to like him, which wasn’t something he planned on doing, simply because Chuuya hating him kept him entertained. It kept him from annoying Odasaku too much.
Which wasn’t something Dazai was sure was a good idea.
“Oh I know.” he said, grinning at the redhead. “I love it.”
“Dazai.” Odasaku said, elbowing Dazai in his side, eliciting a yelp from the brunet.
“How dare you, Odasaku!” Dazai exclaimed, clutching his side dramatically. “I’m wounded.”
Oda raised an eyebrow in confusion. “By what?”
“Have you not realized I use a lot of sarcasm?”
“Oh. My apologies.”
“Oda, I really thought you knew me better.” Dazai tsked, shaking his head in faux-disappointment.
“You really should listen to your guard, you know.” Chuuya muttered. He then turned back to his friends, complaining about “shitty Dazai” this, and “stupid Dazai” that.
It was all the same, with Chuuya. He never really got creative with his insults, unlike Dazai. Dazai was quite creative with his insults when he wanted to be.
“No, Chibi, I don’t think I will!” Dazai chirped, grinning as he sipped the water Odasaku made him drink every time he refused to eat. If he wouldn’t eat, he drank water, and that was it. Obviously, that wasn’t healthy, but Dazai didn’t particularly care.
Chuuya slowly turned to look at Dazai, shock and anger written across his face.
“What. Did. You. Just. Call. Me?” Chuuya growled, running a hand through his red hair. Dazai considered ruffling it, but…
No, he’d probably start a fight.
And he didn’t want to start a fight.
So he wouldn’t.
—
Chuuya was so done with Dazai at this point.
Another three weeks had passed, and it was… exhausting.
He was constantly getting on Chuuya’s nerves at this point, and it was actually the worst. He wanted to die every time he saw Dazai come to work with their group. Why couldn’t he be moved? Why couldn’t he go anywhere else?
It was the most stupid thing that Chuuya had ever experienced within the prison.
Why couldn’t he be moved?
The guards knew that he purposely caused a ruckus with Dazai, which was technically against the code. Not that anyone cared about the code anyways.
He was going to ask Oda if anything could be done about Dazai.
Because he was getting on Chuuya’s last nerve and it was the absolute worst thing imaginable. He couldn’t even talk to Shirase during speaking hours without Dazai intervening.
And his stupid fucking nicknames! The worst!
“Ane-san… “ Chuuya said one day as he walked into the medical wing. “Please let me become your apprentice or something.”
Kouyou laughed softly.
“Back to complaining about the other kid again? Dazai, was it? Bandages, right?” Kouyou murmured, working on some needlework. She had taken up embroidery in her time in the prison, and Chuuya found it rather cool, because sometimes, she’d give him some of her works to entertain himself when he was up at night.
“Yes… the tall fucker wont stop!”
“Maybe he likes you?” she offered, stifling a laugh with her needle-less hold.
Chuuya gagged dramatically.
“EW! ANE-SAN! NO!” Chuuya cried, covering his face with his hands, shaking his head. “Absolutely not!”
Kouyou raised an eyebrow. “I was talking about him, not you.”
Chuuya calmed down immediately.
“Oh. Sorry for the outburst, then.” Chuuya said, bowing his head to apologize. “But no, he doesn’t like me either.”
“Are you sure? Sometimes people tease you because they like you.”
“You sound like a mom.”
“I doubt you can even remember having a mom.” Kouyou snapped back playfully.
“That was low.”
“You’re laughing, though.” she remarked.
He was.
Full body laughter, at this point.
After all, how could Dazai ever like him?
And how could he ever like Dazai?
Notes:
g a y
p e o p l e
Bestsilly_pickle on Chapter 3 Mon 08 Sep 2025 03:20AM UTC
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fand0m_obsessedeevee on Chapter 3 Mon 08 Sep 2025 10:04AM UTC
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DepressedJester on Chapter 3 Sun 14 Sep 2025 09:06PM UTC
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fand0m_obsessedeevee on Chapter 3 Sun 14 Sep 2025 09:57PM UTC
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DepressedJester on Chapter 3 Mon 15 Sep 2025 12:12AM UTC
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