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“I used Corruption because I trusted you. You… better take me… to the extraction point.” Chuuya’s words slurred together as he succumbed to gravity and slumped to the ground. Dazai glanced over him, estimating his condition.
“You got it, buddy,” he said with a smile. If Chuuya wasn’t beyond hearing yet, he’d fade to darkness with the reassurance that he’d be safe. Dazai adjusted his position to make sure he wouldn’t choke on any additional blood that might fill his mouth and collected Chuuya’s hat and coat, folding them neatly by his side. The weather was temperate with no immediate threat of rain. Considering Chuuya’s position in the Port Mafia, Dazai was sure back-up was already on its way, if not already at the extraction point.
“Until next time,” Dazai said softly over his shoulder and walked away.
***
Matsumura Kaiji’s day was abruptly interrupted by loud crashes and bright lights that carried to his cabin from what sounded like not too far away. He frowned heavily. There was a reason he moved to his grandparents’ old seasonal home far from civilisation. Adapting to the inconvenience of carrying water from a well and spending his nights by candle light was a fair price to pay for not having to endure the incessant presence and noise of people. He drove to town once a month for supplies, and not a single day more frequently than that.
And now, his tranquillity was shattered by something he couldn’t easily identify. There had been no earthquake to explain the crashes that had sounded like the ground shifting, and he knew of nothing that could produce such intense flashes of light without thunder. He considered ignoring the phenomenon since it had ended already, but he had little desire to be startled by it again if it repeated. Even less so if it posed a danger to himself or his hut. Kaiji put his boots on and headed out to investigate.
The source of the disturbance was not difficult to find. Smoke or dust whirled in the air, giving it a heavy yet unidentifiable scent. Kaiji walked with brisk steps and followed his nose, heading towards a nearby meadow. He emerged from the woods and froze.
The ground was littered with some substance he couldn’t recognise, and there were small craters, as if the earth had just disappeared from them. The environmental devastation only held part of Kaiji’s attention though. His gaze was drawn by a person clad in black on the ground. The hair was fiery red, like Kenta’s.
Kaiji shook his head. The image of his child came unbidden into his mind, and refused to leave. Kenta would’ve been a teenager now, probably roughly the same size as the person lying insensate before him. There was too much blood on his face to tell his age, but his clothing was not that of a child. An unfortunate soul, perhaps the victim of an attack of some sort. Kaiji paused. He saw no one else in the area, only the ruins of what had been a beautiful meadow. No vehicles were parked within his sight, and he didn’t spot any tracks nearby either. It was too much of a coincidence, it couldn’t be… and yet. In Kaiji’s mind, there could be only one explanation to the strange signs he saw all around them. This person must’ve fallen victim to his own ability. Perhaps it was also something he couldn’t control properly. Something too big for a child to handle.
“Not a child,” Kaiji said, speaking aloud to strike the point home to himself. “This is not…”
He couldn’t say the name. It had been years, yet the pain hadn’t faded. He squatted down to look at the person more closely. Despite the drying blood on his face, Kaiji could tell it was a young man. A small one at that, and one who appeared to be in a bad way. He reached his hand to touch the neck above a black choker the man wore. A strong pulse, but the skin felt heated under his fingers.
A decision was upon him. Go back home and pretend he saw nothing, continue his peaceful and solitary existence, undisturbed by what happened outside his little cottage. It would certainly be the easier choice, but he could almost feel the disapproval of not just Kenta, but Junko as well. Kaiji felt his breath shudder. It had been a long while since he’d thought of Junko’s dark eyes. Endless sorrow kept haunting them, even in his memories. There was a time when his wife was young and full of life, unburdened by the misery of what her future would hold. She would never have walked away from someone in need.
“Yet you walked away from me…” Kaiji whispered. He couldn’t hide the bitterness in his voice. She had taken the easy path, the coward’s way, leaving him alone to mourn not just his child but the love of his life as well. He shouldn’t care about what she wanted, not after what she had done.
And still. The woman he had pledged his heart to, the one unwounded by tragedy, her warmth had once filled his life and guided his path. She would not have hesitated.
Kaiji bent down to slip his arms under the red-haired man’s knees and behind his back and lifted. Beyond a soft grunt and a slight squinting of his closed eyes, the man gave no conscious reaction. The warmth in Kaiji’s arms felt achingly familiar. Late nights of carrying his sleeping son from the car to the house filled his mind and he smiled wistfully.
“Kenta, Junko that was, this is for you,” he said as he chose the harder path.
***
Chuuya became aware slowly and gradually. He gathered the centre of his being with great effort and existed. He didn’t know why that would be in question. Everything was darkness and pain and disjointed flashes of coming together. He didn’t know where he was or what had happened. The sensation of his body solidified slowly, finally becoming something real. It hurt and was heavy, and he felt a shudder travel through him. Yet despite the unpleasantness, it was his and he was in control, and that was a victory.
Ah, Corruption.
It had been so long since he’d last used it that his mind had pushed the familiar pain – and the even sharper hurt of the associated betrayal – far from his surface thoughts. This shouldn’t have happened again, so why remember the fear of losing control and perhaps not being able to return. But here he was: helpless, confused, in agony and angry at Dazai. Like he never left.
A voice drew Chuuya’s attention. His scrambled brain couldn’t catch onto the words, but the tone was soothing. Not familiar, yet not threatening. He allowed it to wash over him and drew comfort from not being in immediate danger, as far as his exhausted mind could gather. He could be wrong, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. The bastard had left.
***
Kaiji repeated his question, but the man on the sofa didn’t reply, despite turning his face towards him, as if listening. He bent down to wipe the small trickle of fresh blood from the man’s chin with his handkerchief. His eyes were closed and he seemed to be breathing more shallowly than he had a moment before. With the blood wiped off his face, he looked very pale, and younger than Kaiji had expected. Not like a child, but he couldn’t be much over twenty. Kaiji had checked his body after laying him down on the sofa to make sure there were no bleeding wounds, but he hadn’t found any, just red patches that looked like mild burns. The blood he kept bringing up in his mouth had to come from somewhere, but whatever the source, it had calmed down, which suited Kaiji fine since he had no desire to make the trip to town to bring the man to medical care. And if that thought made his wife frown, he ignored it. They had never been able to help Kenta.
Kaiji had wiped the visible blood from the man’s face and hands in his search for injuries, but he hadn’t removed his clothes. Observing him now, he took note of the quality of the black trousers and the grey vest the man wore. Even his formerly white undershirt felt much finer and crisper than anything Kaiji had ever worn in his life. He suspected the shoes he’d carried to the entrance might have cost more than the entire cabin.
“Just who are you?” he asked, this time knowing there would be no response. The man gave a stronger shudder and grunted softly. Kaiji looked at him. He was trembling slightly and had been doing so since he’d brought him in. His skin felt heated, unpleasantly so. Kaiji had tended to his son’s fevers in the past, but they had never felt this aggressive. He had nothing to measure the man’s temperature with, but he suspected it was rising quickly.
“I’m going out to get more water. Something tells me we’ll need it,” Kaiji said and pulled his boots back on. He wasn’t too keen on leaving the strange man alone in his cabin, but he didn’t seem to be capable of causing any trouble at the moment, and appeared unlikely to recover in the few minutes it would take Kaiji to walk to the well and back. As far as he could tell, the man was stable for now. And frankly, if he wasn’t, there was very little Kaiji would know how to do about it.
“Don’t move,” he said and walked out the door with his water canisters.
***
“– move,” Chuuya heard, as if coming to him under water. His impulse was to obey, if only because the word was the only coherent thought in his head, but his body was exhausted. More than that, it was in immense pain that was becoming worse with every moment that he gained clarity. It even hurt to breathe.
Didn’t we do this already? Chuuya thought. Yes, we’re in the aftermath. You’ve been here before, you know what’s going on. Yet what’s different?
Chuuya didn’t know, but the nagging thought wouldn’t leave him alone. His mind and body tried to go on alert but he couldn’t follow their reasoning. He was lying on something soft, probably his bed if Dazai had kept his promise (Had he actually promised anything?) and taken him to the extraction point. He had no concept of how much time had passed. He was safe, everything was familiar.
Nothing was familiar. He couldn’t hear the thrum of air conditioning or distant traffic. What caught his ears was the faint singing of a bird. His nose was tickled by something earthy and primordial, not the artificial notes of cleaning substances. And his body wasn’t pressed against his expensive high-tech mattress, he could feel sturdy cushions that gave no mercy to the ache in his every joint. Opening his eyes was a monumental task, but Chuuya was concerned enough to tackle it.
A wooden ceiling made of planks with visible knotholes. A small open window with a lacy curtain that danced in a breeze. Equally wooden floor with a frayed rug on it. Shelves, tables, endless amounts of knickknacks his brain deemed unimportant enough to linger on. Occasionally the image jerked when a stronger shudder travelled through his body, but he had caught onto the most crucial piece of information: he had no idea where he was. And he was too weak to even sit up.
And the door creaked open.
***
Kaiji stepped in with the water. His gaze immediately sought the sofa, and he jerked in surprise when he found blue eyes looking back at him. He wasn’t sure whether he was glad or disappointed. Interaction wasn’t something he craved, but he couldn’t deny a measure of curiosity towards the stranger.
“Hello,” he said. “Who are you?” Perhaps not the most eloquent, but he wasn’t known for his social skills anyway. It was a miracle Junko had ever put up with him.
“W-where?” the man on the sofa asked, his voice weak and broken.
“In my cabin. I’m Matsumura Kaiji, what’s your name?”
The man on the sofa looked at him for a long moment. Kaiji wasn’t sure if he was thinking or distracted as several stronger shudders ran through him. Finally, he spoke in the same soft voice: “Chuuya.”
“Chuuya. What happened to you?”
This time there was no answer. Kaiji removed his boots and took the water canisters where they belonged. Chuuya remained quiet, leaning back on the pillows and trying to follow Kaiji with his eyes whenever he was visible from behind the backrest of the sofa.
“Are you hungry?” Kaiji asked, to equal silence. He shrugged and set about making dinner for himself. With perhaps a bit of a larger portion than usual just in case.
“When?”
The question caused Kaiji to walk to the sofa and look down at Chuuya. He told him the date and what time it was. This seemed to satisfy Chuuya who closed his eyes and nodded.
“If you’re capable of talking, you could tell what happened,” Kaiji said and waited. Chuuya’s eyes remained closed.
“If you’re a criminal, I’d be well within my rights to –” Kaiji started but was interrupted when Chuuya suddenly tossed his head back and seemed to stiffen with his back arched. This lasted only for a moment before he started making rapid, uncoordinated movements that slowed into rhythmic convulsions. Kaiji could only stare. Being as Chuuya was on the sofa, he wasn’t in threat of hurting himself, and Kaiji knew enough first aid to not interfere forcefully.
He waited while the seizure ran its course. Once Chuuya was still, just breathing heavily, Kaiji rolled him onto his side and tucked the blanket around him snugly. The action brought flashes of doing the same to Kenta. First as a baby, then a toddler, even as a young child. Kenta outgrew listening to his father read him stories at night, but Kaiji never stopped checking on him when he passed his room or when Kenta was ill, and adjusting his blanket as needed. Without conscious thought, his hand reached for Chuuya’s cheek and gave it a soft caress. The skin was too warm, and for a moment the memories were so potent Kaiji could see his sleeping son’s face instead of the strange man. He shook his head and returned to the stove to cook dinner.
***
Chuuya was starting to lose track. Of time, place, order of events. He was too hot and too cold and everything hurt. Sounds flitted in and out of his awareness, and whatever he heard meant nothing. There was the occasional sensation of touch. He couldn’t understand it either.
Dazai? his mind kept asking. He knew it had been years since he last saw Dazai. Or had it? Weren’t they just together, like the old days, facing enemies too powerful for anyone else to handle. But Dazai had left. He had returned. And left again? But he promised… what?
“Don’t leave me,” Chuuya mumbled, and immediately followed it with: “Stay away from me.”
“Who are you?” someone asked.
“I’m lost,” Chuuya whispered. It was the wrong answer, but he had nothing else to offer.
***
Kaiji was trying to read a book but his mind kept wandering, along with his eyes that sought the red-haired man on the sofa again and again. He’d been sleeping for the last couple of hours while Kaiji finished cooking dinner and ate it with a beer or two. Apart from occasional twitches and groans, Chuuya was still and silent. Not quite peaceful, but insensate. Helpless.
Kenta’s large, pleading eyes flickered in Kaiji’s vision. Even in the cabin, Kenta had been unable to escape the obtrusive voices of people that penetrated into his consciousness without respite. Every word and thought Kaiji and Junko wanted to keep from their son reverberated in his mind through the ability that Kenta couldn’t control. Towards the end, he’d been helpless. Not like a baby still learning about the world, but like an old man whose cognitive functions had declined. Kenta had once been so bright. And Kaiji had failed to protect him.
“Are you my second chance?” Kaiji asked, surprising himself. “What a silly thought. You’re a grown man. What’s lost is lost.”
Kaiji forced his attention back to the book, but the words just sat on the page without transferring to him. He got up and poured himself a cup of sake. He had to count Junko as his failure as well. Could he really blame her for taking the easy way out, considering the circumstances? Yes, he could. Whether it was fair or not was another question. One that Kaiji didn’t want to ponder. It was easier to be angry. He downed the cup quickly.
“You know, I don’t much appreciate company, especially when it makes me think about things long in the past,” he said to Chuuya. Unsurprisingly, there was no indication that he even heard him. For a fleeting moment, Kaiji considered taking Chuuya back to where he’d found him, but he banished the thought. He was enough of a decent human being to acknowledge how vulnerable Chuuya was now. So much like Kenta…
Kaiji shook his head and checked that Chuuya was breathing steadily. Nothing more he could do for the man. Either he lived through the night, or not. He downed another cup of sake, much too quickly, in the vain hope that it would push the memories to a distance where they wouldn’t be so loud. He headed to his bed and settled down. The nights could get long and dark without anyone to share them with, only the memory of Junko’s warm, soft body next to him. Even after all these years, he still missed her presence. Her smile, her laughter, her compassion. And the greatest gift of all that she had given him: their son.
Sleep snuck up on Kaiji and pulled him into its enticing embrace. His dreams were filled with Kenta. Running, climbing, splashing through water, all the things normal children did. But Kenta had been far from normal. Eventually the vibrant laughter faded and only the empty shell remained. He was alive, but not living. None of the thoughts in his head were his. There was simply nothing left.
His passing had not been peaceful. No sleep that stretched into eternity. Kenta had wasted away day by day, his mind becoming less his with each passing moment, filling with things that made him scared and anxious, completely overwhelmed until he felt nothing at all. Kaiji’s biggest regret was that he hadn’t had the courage to put an end to it. He’d watched his child suffer, and he’d done nothing to relieve him of it. A mistake he could never repair.
Kaiji jerked awake. His emotions ran close to the surface, more potent than they had in a long while. In the darkness of the night, he could barely find himself in the midst of it all. There was pain, longing, and such deep guilt he felt like it would suffocate him if he didn’t alleviate it somehow. He stood up. The cabin was usually a comforting sanctuary, but now it felt oppressive. The walls were too close. The silence… was broken. Kaiji looked to the direction of the sound he’d heard. A soft gasp followed by regular breathing. He wasn’t alone.
Kaiji moved to the kitchen. His thoughts were racing in a loop. Kenta had no chance, Junko chose her way. He was the only one left, yet his solitude was intruded upon. Kaiji’s hand found a knife from the drying rack on the counter. What Kenta never had, what Junko took, it was his to give.
“You won’t have to suffer anymore,” Kaiji said as he stood above Chuuya. “I’m sorry I didn’t have the courage to do this before. You’re free now.”
Moving stiffly and mechanically, Kaiji lowered the knife tip to Chuuya’s unprotected stomach and plunged it in. Blood welled up along the edges of the cut. It wasn’t enough.
“You remain a coward,” Kaiji told himself.
“What?” Chuuya gasped. His eyes flew open, coming to focus on Kaiji. When Kaiji lifted his hand and struck the knife towards Chuuya’s chest, trembling hands caught his arm and stopped the movement.
“What the hell?! Get the fuck off me!” Chuuya cried. His voice gained strength as his body slammed into survival mode. The man standing over him made another threatening move and Chuuya reacted on pure adrenaline-fuelled instinct. His proficiency with martial arts helped him wrestle the knife away from Kaiji. Not that Kaiji resisted beyond his natural grip strength. A child could’ve plucked the weapon off his hands with the right technique.
“Who the fuck are you?” Chuuya asked. He managed to sit up and bring his knees up between him and Kaiji. “Where am I?”
“I’m gifting you freedom,” Kaiji said, speaking with no inflection or emotion in his voice. He looked at the bloodied knife that Chuuya now held. “It was my duty.”
Chuuya held his free hand against his bleeding stomach. He was scrambling to understand the situation and to identify the threats and to formulate an escape plan. Still affected by Corruption, his ability wouldn’t be reliable, if usable at all. He didn’t know where he was. Glancing down quickly, he saw that he was wearing his clothes, excluding the shoes. With his eyes firmly on the strange man leaning over him, he patted his pockets with the hand that held the knife. When his fingers met the hard rectangle of his phone, he felt a spark of relief. It would allow him to focus on escaping the immediate situation first and to figure out how to get to safety later, without needing anything from the strange man.
Yet getting up proved harder than Chuuya was willing to admit. His muscles were sore and shaky, slow to obey him. He forced his feet on the floor and got up in a rolling lurch. Vertigo made his head spin but he immediately started taking steps away from the man, staggering like a newborn fawn but staying upright. The man was obviously crazy, and although he seemed docile for now, that could change in an instant, and weakened as he was, Chuuya intended to be far away when that happened. He kept the pressure on his stomach and made his unsteady way towards the door. No sound of footsteps followed him, to his immense relief.
“Where are you going Kenta?”
The man’s voice sounded pleading. Chuuya quenched the urge to snap at him and spoke in a calm manner: “Just going outside for a bit.” He kept walking. The door wavered in his eyes, but his hand found the handle and pressed down.
“You shouldn’t go alone,” the man said. He took a few steps towards Chuuya.
“I’ll be fine. You just wait here.” Chuuya had no idea who the man was or who he thought Chuuya was, but he instinctively played along. With no strength to fight, his only chance was to avoid another confrontation. The door opened on silent hinges, letting in cool night air. “I’ll be right back.”
Chuuya closed the door behind him and looked around. His eyes followed a path to a shed that had tyre tracks in front of it, leading to a road at the edge of how far Chuuya could see with the light shining through the windows of the cabin. He didn’t notice any other clear routes through the surrounding forest. Hesitating for a moment, Chuuya chose a direction opposite the road and slipped between two tall trees. Walking along the road would be easiest, but also obvious. Should the man follow him, he’d be discovered in an instant. The ground was wet from dew that immediately soaked through Chuuya’s socks, but stopping to find and put on shoes would’ve been a gamble that might not have paid off. And with a bleeding stab wound on his stomach, wet feet were among the least of Chuuya’s immediate concerns.
After putting a little bit of distance between himself and the cabin, pushing his way through several lush bushes and around thick trees, Chuuya took out his phone to check the battery and cell coverage. His hands shook so violently the small figures just danced and blurred in his eyes, giving him no information. He stopped walking and leaned his head against a tree, wedging the phone between his chest and the rough bark to stabilise it. Finally he could make out the small bars, seeing there were enough that a connection should be possible. With trembling fingers, he unlocked the phone and opened his contacts.
“Miss me already?” Dazai asked. He was smacking obnoxiously, clearly chewing something and making a show of it.
Chuuya nearly dropped the phone. He had meant to call his subordinates for a pick up. The forest made a sickening revolution around him and he forgot all about his mutinous fingers.
“Help,” he managed to say, voice barely above a whisper.
“Chuuya? What’s going on?” the voice on the other end sounded sharper, as if immediately having caught on that something was wrong.
Chuuya’s knees buckled and his shins made contact with wet moss. The phone fell from his fingers face-down, dimming the light. From somewhere not too far away, Chuuya heard the sound of a door slamming shut.
“Kenta? Where did you go?”
Chuuya froze. He was hidden by the darkness and the underbrush, but Dazai was shouting questions at him. Fearing that picking up his phone would light it up and reveal his location, Chuuya stayed still. The man kept calling for Kenta, evidently not having heard anything. The sound of his footsteps grew more distant. Chuuya felt his heart hammering in his chest, amazed that the beat wasn’t thunderous enough to reach the man. He leaned his head on the ground.
“Be quiet,” he whispered. He meant to pick up his phone and start walking again, but his body refused to cooperate. Chuuya grit his teeth and tried to get up, straining his trembling muscles yet they wouldn’t support his weight. He slumped into the moist moss with a quiet squelch.
“Chuuya?” Dazai asked in a notably lower tone.
“I… can’t,” Chuuya whispered. Some plant was pressing against his face, forcing him to keep his eyes closed. He wasn’t convinced he could’ve opened them anyway.
“Where are you?”
Was Dazai panicking? Chuuya should mock him for it. Too much effort.
“Chuuya! Where are you?”
“You left me behind.”
A moment of silence from the other end of the line.
“You’re still there?” Dazai asked.
“Forest,” Chuuya mumbled.
Various sounds came through, filtered by the moss. Rustling, movement, and a final click followed by what sounded like hasty footsteps running down stairs.
“I’m on my way. Hang in there.”
Chuuya nodded, barely aware that Dazai couldn’t see it. He’d left him behind, drifted apart, the distance between them a gaping chasm. Years that made the sharp edges grow dull and Chuuya question why he was loyal to this man who abandoned him in the first place. But he was coming back. The trust wasn’t misplaced.
Dazai had him.