#BECAUSE ITS THE SAME THING. AKUTAGAWA DIED FOR HIM. HOW COULD HE TAKE THAT LIFE AWAY

[makiema]

finally finished writing about how much stormbringer enhances the skk dynamic which was at a nascent stage in Fifteen and anticipates the developments which happen later and culminate in Dead Apple where the faith they have in each other is absolutely remarkable! the fact that i said i’d do this in a few hours yesterday but it took me like 24 hrs to finish i have an attention span of a whole 2 minutes 💀

my favorite thing about stormbringer is that it actually builds up on the concepts/themes introduced in Fifteen so it's a glimpse into what has changed in dazai and dazai & dhuuya after one year of being together. As much as it's about chuuya confronting his past and his identity this is also about dazai’s development from who he was in fifteen. chuuya and rimbaud both left their marks on dazai and in Stormbringer we see him, actually trying to emulate or follow in a sense a way of life, that chuuya and rimbaud represented. Stormbringer is not just about chuuya, abt his test of humanity, or he coming in terms with who or what he is. it's about dazai too. it's about dazai developing or at least attempting to develop what he calls “boyish”/ “ordinary” in Fifteen. its not about chuya having an identity crisis. in fact what we understand from Code 04's last section is that chuuya never considered it as his crisis and neither did dazai. so to dazai “saving chuuya is important, human or not doesn't matter” and when dazai gives chuuya time to think abt what the operation will cost him chuuya doesnt so much as flinch form his purpose. This goes on to show unlike verlaine he doesnt care about memory and certainly doesnt consider it as the only determinant of someone being human. He cares more abt yokohama and his friends and in that, in caring abt his “family”, he is just as human as the next person. whether he’s factually human or not comes secondary to his desire to save people. This is a message that the quality of being human has more to do with embodying human qualities or humanity than having memories and lineage. so yeah stormbringer is essentially about embracing humanity but this happens on 2 levels: both chuuya and dazai embrace humanity. Going back to the boyish or ordinary bit, im talking abt this segment:

here dazai is shocked because he assumed everyone “gangsta” and everyone crazy powerful delighted in homicide, in deliberately indulging in the macabre. but he is proved wrong. He logically concluded that anyone with power more than average and belonging to the underground would kill people and delight in that because it’s a given they lack any kind of moral understanding. To that end, they’d be exalted at the prospect of relentlessly shooting a dead body, mutilating it and dishonoring it. The mafia code (any general mafia code) works in a way where honor and death goes hand in hand. So only the lowest of the low would do that to a dying person, who even when faced with certain death is loyal to his own organisation. This really shows that even within the mafia dazai is the only person whos like the devil incarnate. So yeah dazai at this sate far lower than even a mafia member. But chuuya who actually embodiess the mafia code and is incredibly loyal to his organisation and “family” [ putting family in quotes bc he himself calls his friends family 🥺] ofc kicks the gun away. From dazai’s pov chuuya being as insanely powerful as he is should also do the same. But chuuya comes along and suggests that even enemies should be shown respect where it’s due. And that is what an ordinary person, oblivious to mafia life (mafia life as in waht dazai makes of it) thinks. So in undermining the binary between “ordinary” and “mafia” chuuya proves that being mafia doesnt necessarily mean selling your soul to the devil and giving up the last smidge of humanity. In fact by embodying qualities like compassion and kindness and mutual respect, you can make the mafia a better place for yourself and for the other members. Now in Stormbringer, we see how this affected dazai. here dazai is introduced as someone mercilessly killing to set up the channel. 

Now to expand the channel one would need to keep doing it right? To mercilessly kill ppl and stuff but instead what he does is hand the channel over to chuuya bc he knows chuuya wouldnt handle it like him. im not suggesting that dazai miraculously becomes v good or anything with dazai the key words is “try” or “to some extent” like in Fifteen when Chuuya asks “do u wanna live” he’s like “ not to that extent”. similarly its not to say he doesnt kill people anymore. it is that he tries to lessen the number of casualties by handing over one of the most troublesome channels to chuuya who would manage it in a much more humane way. That dazai draws from his friends/at least tries to is smth we’ll see again later on when he deals with akutagawa. He talks about odasaku and ofc its baffling to him that a mafia member as powerful as him would be taking acre of orphans. and dazai says but he cant afford to be that kind and proceeds to shoot akutagswa but again does so in a calculated way such that he doesnt end up killing him ( im NOT justifying dazai’s abuse not at all im just saying that its hard to believe he coincidentally knew the exact no of bullets that aku could block. and had odasaku’s words and his way of life not been in the back of his mind he could’ve ended up killing aku) coming back to chuuya and dazai we also see him avoiding further conversation on the jewelry channel thing as he says “leave that for now”. He does a similar thing again when mori brings up the concept of double suiciding with chuuya.

 Its a HUGE thing for him to digest that him suiciding would inevitably spell the doom for chuuya. this puts an unimaginable responsibility on him. And he avoids further discussion on this. Now we know dazai is the rambly type. Even in the most dire moments he goe son with his LOONG monologues so really he is the last person who’d avoid a conversation but he deliberately does it in these 2 instances because its hard for him to grasp these things. That he can go against his nature and do a conscientious thing by handing over one of the most grisly channels to chuuya (i dont think dazai’s nature is evil. Or even if it is, its a a social construct keeping in mind the war ravaged times or its mori’s construct because he does exploit dazai to the hilt. but dazai ofc thinks of himself as non-human, devious. perfectly devilish...etc.) And also the fact that someone as suicidal as him is actually responsible for the life of someone else is really too much to take in. a whole 10 seconds pause indicates just how much he was thrown off when mori opened his eyes to the reality of things: if he dies, chuuya inexorably dies as a consequence. also i dont think the “wow” here or the next bit :

is something jokey. if it was like haha double suicide with chuuya is the worst haha wanna do it w pretty lady kind of a deal. that pause would have been unnecessary. dazai’s immediate reaction would’ve been whining and shit. the use of “froze” too implies the gravity of the situation. so ofc what is “wow” is how much meaning his life has for someone else. and for some so much....better than him. and what is unacceptable is this sad, sad truth that his life (to which he ascribes no value) would be so inextricably linked with someone else’s and hold so much meaning to them. it is like when a suicidal person at the brink of suicide understanding his life is not his own. his life and death holds consequences for ppl surrounding him. so both of these are huge things to grasp and at both these times dazai is visibly shaken up so much so that he doesnt want to do his favorite thing- ramble in a condescending tone. smth he does in so many instances. this really is a testimony to the fact that things are changing in him. the redemption process has begun. he’s no longer the kind of maniac he was before he encountered chuuya. when zuko underwent his transition in atla he was so shaken up after one (1) right decision he had a fever. i think this is true for anyone who’s trying to change. change is after all a huge thing for everyone. ofc he’ll be unsettled. so anyways this is proof that he has indeed come a long way from being someone who revelled at the prospect of meaningless bloodshed.

now coming to the concept of love he assumes he’d get sick of love and die:

and that death is the singular goal worth chasing after because it makes you feel more alive/get a fuller picture of what living entails. but here he is erring by supposing love is something that’ll bore him/have no meaning. and it cant provide him that “something” he’s looking for. at this point he hasn’t loved so he doesnt know whether he’ll be sick of it or if it'll have no impact. And yet he’s morose and regretful. this is a kind of self-imposed constraint hes putting on himself. he cancels out the v idea of love because hes convinced it isnt worth it. he hasnt even been in love okay scratch being in love that sounds romantic and i really dont mean love in a romantic sense here...its just love. in general. any form is cool. anyway so dazai is not familiar with any kind of love. He is entirely alien to the concept. he doesnt even know what a friend/partner is so he doesnt know what love is. this is cleared out here when rimbaud confesses he did everything for paul and dazai is unconvinced:

chuuya ofc admonishes him and shuts him up for good, he says dazai has no right lookind down upon smth he doesnt understand. he doesnt understand friendship, love. or loyalty. or how important those feelings are at this point. now this situation is turned on its head in stormbringer. but before we go into that let’s look at the message rimbaud had for both of them. ik he specifically asks for chuuya to “live” but there’s purpose behind including both of them in the frame. it’s a message they should both take to heart. and at the end of it its implied both are changed after hearing it:

and in this message the first bit is for chuuya. what he says is basically memory doesn’t make u human... ”you are you” just a frame or not doesnt matter. and even if hes just a frame, he is still beautiful. beauty actually is a v important concept in literature starting right from Plato to Shakespeare. i’d not bring this here but because bsd is so deeply rooted in literature i feel like the reference to beauty, and later on to soul and even warmth and also the universal tone of this message carries some meaning. so the thing is  both Plato and Shakespeare were endorsed the idea of love as a force awakened in the world by beauty which then leads the soul to perfection. so humans and by extension, all life are beautiful frames that can inspire love. this concept is also there in Romantic poetry like Keats and Wordsworth all of them talked about loving beauty in nature and how that can elevate the body mind and soul. so essentially in telling this to chuuya what ehe basically means is that chuuya just by being him, by being a beautiful framework can inspire love and warmth in others and thats a great purpose! how much chuuya understands of this purpose with his one (1) braincell and his low self esteem is questionable but he gets some sense of belonging. now this is a two way relationship so ofc dazai has to be factored in. he comes in the next part: 

these are from 2 different translation so the disparity im sorry ;-; but anyway,  this last part abt the world being a cold place. then paul. then “warmth” is a message to dazai who’s been introduced to us as cold-hearted and having like no bearings of a human being. this is the reason why its important for both o f them to be there. now going back to chuuya being a beautiful framework, the framework can be beautiful in so far as its beauty is appreciate by someone and inspires warmth and love in someone. this again is the whole beauty/beholder nature/the romantic concept that is there in shakespeare and in Romantic poetry where both are a part of a codependent relationship. so what rimbaud implies here is that dazai can have that kind of a relationship with another person (chuuya) just like rimbaud had with paul which makes him warm and the world doesnt feel cold anymore. rimbaud has no regrets about what he did because. so the idea is that dazai and chuuya can share the same dynamic. also after this, the narrative says that their hearts are now changed and wont return to what they were before....and even their souls are refined in a way. but in Fifteen we dont have a concrete proof of how this happened bc the novel ends at this point. Instead, Stormbringer shows exactly how deep the impact of those words is: 

this is the third instance of dazai showing hesitation and once again this has to do with chuuya. the seed of the dynamic that rimbaud was talking about  is already germinating in him. his reactions, his fidgeting, his hesitancy, in response to chuuya’s situation is such a big contrast to his cocksure self when he’s conversing with adam and verlaine. after this of course we have: 

not only does he clearly express his concern but he gives chuuya 2 whole mins to make a decision and based on that he’s prepared to overturn the operation. the success rate of an alternative plan will ofc be lesser than the og one but that doesnt faze dazai. he’s ready to turn the tide for chuuya’s sake and if this is not development idk what is. just a year ago, he was someone to whom the concept of rimbaud going thru all that trouble for his friend was a lost concept. ironically enough, now he finds himself doing something that is along the same lines. he puts chuuya above his mission. to him, chuuya is more important than getting a satisfactory result. another bit that i wanna talk abt is that one controversial section where dazai says he’ll save chuuya, human or not, and then the justification is: 

i think a lot of people got mad bc of this and honestly at first glance i was peeved too. as a chuuya stan some of the shit dazai has done so far did rub me the wrong way. i love skk obv but still those were moments that kind of left a bad taste in the mouth. i’ll discuss them later on bc stormbringer helps allay that feeling. coming back to the “i wanna see chuuya suffer” part firstly context is important. ofc someone like dazai cant be expected to be upfront about his feelings with ppl (or AI) he barely knows. so what be relays to adam, is only partly true and its actually a kind of a twist in concept. the things is, and this is  smth dazai knows all too well is that ppl suffer simply on account of being human. human suffering is brought on because humans, by virtue of being humans, feel. so when he says he’s willing to acknowledge chuuya as human despite what N and Verlaine said he’s already admitting that chuuya suffers. so there is really nothing “new” to see for him. he knows chuuya suffers already and he does too because they’re both humans trying to make it thru their messed up lives. also chuuya “ceasing to be human” is a p huge concern for him bc he himself is like that. just like with the suicide thing, it bothers dazai when someone else shares his situation/his fate like as long as his life is his own, he has no problem ending it whenever but the situation is complicated when someone else’s life span is determined by that decision. and similarly, as long as he is “no longer human” its not that much of an issue because he’s like resigned to a doomed fate but someone like chuuya ceasing to be human or worse yet never getting to know if hes human or not are pressing matters. so anyways what he actually means here is that in saving chuuya, he saves someone who suffers just like he does and in their case, even the cause of suffering boils down to a shared psychological conflict: what essentially constitutes being human and if im human or not. now this sharing of pain and suffering is the foundation of forming a connection with someone, which makes life a little better. here again, what rimaud imparted to dazai and chuuya is driven home. also dazai’s key anxiety is not finding meaning/anything. this “anything” can be assumed to be something that justifies life. so all his anxiety and frustration stems from the fact that there really is no discernible meaning to be found in the mechanism of life. so it is an empty pursuit because it is true that nothing can explain why feelings of pain and suffering are exponentially heavier than feelings of happiness or why after getting to experience one (1) free day we’re back to square one where life is grueling. these are questions that really dont have an answer so every time dazai like gazes into the abyss and says he didnt  find anything, he is not so much asking if he’ll ever find anything as swallowing the hard truth that there is nothing to be found, no singular entity exists that can magically justify everything. again drawing upon literature or philosophy more specifically, there’s a concept called Absurdism which says the only philosophical truth so to say is this that life is absurd and looking for meaning is futile. instead what we can do is accept that it is absurd and deal with it in the best way possible, by finding little sources and moments of happiness, and strewing them together so we feel somewhat content. even if it is just for a fleeting second. and this happiness/contentment amidst a wretched life (altho temporal) can be found in friendship, in sharing, and even in having fun with people you’re comfortable with! this is actually why dazai wants to save chuuya and now it may seem like im interpreting his words through the shipping lens but thats not so and it can be corroborated by looking into dazai’s words to odasaku. after chuuya, dazai’s next attempt at friendship was odasaku who he found “interesting”. now when odasaku sort of like threw hands and chose death over having to live a life without the orphans, dazai tried to stop him not by saying stuff like life is good. and things will def change for the better. but instead he admits that living is hard and the sense of void is ubiquitous and yet he doesnt want him to  up and die because then he would be sad. because the little comfort that he got from odasaku and something he probably assumed odasaku also got from him would be gone. [how much odasaku considered dazai a source of comfort remains unclear. in fact the reason odasaku gave up and died was because he did not have this. this feeling of sharing in someone else’s suffering and seeking comfort in friends in the real world. instead he was too vested in his ideal world. his over reliance on an entirely idealistic concept is actually what pushed him over the edge. and this would have been the case for dazai too had he not encountered and sought comfort and companionship in chuuya and eventually in odasaku ] so this again goes on to show how rimbaud’s words changed dazai’s heart. and in a way dazai really has been doing this unconsciously form the v beginning like by teasing chuuya continually in Fifteen. you dont expect someone as cold as him to indulge in friendly bickering and taunting so often but he does. that there is significance and even happiness in that is something he learns over time, after rimbaud’s words to him. although these things seem futile on the surface they give a moment’s respite. so although chuuya spinning dazai on a rope in stormbringer might seem weird to everyone, they still serve a purpose:  

what shirase puts forward is particularly relevant here because neither dazai nor chuuya is fully aware of the extent of their feelings (or even what those feelings are like they dont know what label to put. so typical oblivious lovers) for each other or what they stand to gain just by driving each other nuts but there is something intangible but satisfying to be felt. a kind of contentment that helps him continue. one day at a time. there is no one great “thing” that can make him like wake up one day feeling like he doesnt want to die ever again. but again like i said before, the key word for dazai is “extent” so, these little things to some extent contribute to a sense of fulfilment which helps him keep death at bay. thats why he’s bent on saving chuuya bc he knows they can share in their suffering and make life better for each other. its not like he wants chuuya to suffer. chuuya will suffer nonetheless like every other human. but in suffering together there is something to be found so he doesnt want him to cease being human. 

this covers more or less the intertextuality between Stormbringer and Fifteen. i just wanna talk a bit more about a couple other moments in Stormbringer that i feel are p important because they put some things in the series in perspective and also made the dead apple moment 10x more emotional 🥺 one thing that really strikes me is the absolute fanon level of comfort that dazai and chuuya share in Strombringer. its like scenes form k-drama lol. 

so yeah this stuff. compare this with dazai’s reaction @atsushi when he drops im not saying that its not just a joke and that what im saying should be the right way to look at this contrast. its not like that at all. but what this does is give an estimate to the readers just how close and comfortable dazai feels when its chuuya. and this plus everything i rambling on abt for so long also gives us an estimate about the sincerity of dazais feelings. now 2 things always bothered me : the fact that dazai actually left chuuya and the fact that after the fight against lovecraft he actualy deserted him (this again can ofc be construed as just a humorous bit but still it did leave a bad taste in my mouth) dazai leaving the mafia is ofc something he had to do to fulfil oda’s dying wish but it still dint sit right with me that he would abandon chuuya. just like oda levaing is harder on dazai, dazai leaving is harder on chuuya. its always harder on the one left behind. so anyway, these sorts of things sometimes made me doubt dazai’s feelings but now that stormbringer clears it all up i do think there is a larger motif at work here. when mori offers dazai to come back to the mafia in s2 we see him saying that it was mori who kicked him out and that he did so because he was afraid dazai would usurp his position. so he set it up in a way that dazai would be forced to leave but on his own accord. now more than usurpation i believe what mori really did fear is that dazai had no allegiance to the mafia (which is actually true) bc he doesnt have that sense of loyalty and that to him his friends were more important than swearing allegiance to mori. (which again is true). so by getting oda killed, the message that mori seemed to be giving out was if dazai didnt leave he would do it again. and if we consider ango’s betrayal which had already transpired at that point, the one mori would next target to sort of get at dazai would inevitably be chuuya. this is only conjecture but still, i do believe this might as well be true because then it would explain why dazai didnt carry chuuya back to the base after their fight [something he was v comfortable doing in Stormbringer. in fact in the first case he carries chuuya back to the billiards bar and not to the mafia’s base so he could hear albatross’ last words 🥺] its because mori needs to know unlike dazai, chuuya is absolutely loyal to him which regrettably he is. it kinda becomes imperative therefore on part of dazai to make it seem that way to mori. that they really are at each others throats and that dazai is insignificant to chuuya. and that the mafia comes before dazai. (which is not true bc we see chuuya protecting his friend [shirase] while also staying loyal to the mafia in Stormbringer) 

mori also in his own way tries to provoke hostility b/w them like in Dead Dpple when he was all like yeah so dazai is the star and chuuya is merely bait. so it kinda makes sense if dazai left the mafia not only to like do good work but also to protect chuuya from mori. also the fact that chuuya did the same thing— left the Sheep and joined PM to protect Shirase from the mafia makes be believe that my speculation is plausible given all the parallels we find between dazai and chuuya. 

and the last bit is about the brilliant Dead Apple scene and how much added context it gets in light of Stormbringer. 

in this scene dazai first says: “you used Corruption believing in me?” and then the translation is “how beautiful” which is an okay translation but the exact thing dazai said was “nakasetekurerune” which literally is : youre gonna make me cry you know? now my knowledge of japanese is like duolingo level but i do know “nakasete” has to do with crying and “kureru” is used by the receiver to indicate he’s receiving a feeling/object from someone close. so basically chuuya trusting him is something so beautiful that it could almost move him to tears. now lets look at dazai’s intro in Stormbringer:

dazai, being dazai, ofc would be able to tell genuine trust from fealty out of fear so ofc the fact that chuuya has this kind of blind faith in him is overwhelming for him. also stormbringer really expands on the sight effects of Corruption in full detail. its so PAINFUL and to think that chuuya would jump into it right away for dazai’s sake.....no wonder he is so soft when deactivating him. and then he proceeds to flirt for a little bit with the Snow White and the kiss of life reference. but this flirting doesnt seem even a little out of place now. it doesn't feel like smth meaningless or smth that dazai is just saying as a joke. that there is absoluetly no subtext to making a statement like that. instead that kind of flirting feels like smth inspired from a deep, deep familiarity with someone who really shares his heart and soul. when he talks to chuuya abt the problem of not knowing whether he is human or not, it is a problem that is as central to him as it’s to chuuya. not feeling fully reconciled to a human identity is a problem thats fundamental to both of them. I don’t think familiarity gets any deeper than this where you share the exact same psychological problem. so its really wonderful how we can trace the skk development now: what starts out as a crush on part of dazai or not a crush exactly rather, a feeling of perplexed admiration because chuuya is breathtakingly beautiful inside out, eventually gain all these layers and develops into something meaningful where they have so much faith in each other and where they literally help each other live. knowing someone out there shares your exact issue so you’re really not alone in this is perhaps the greatest comfort in the world. also now its clear how both of them would have turned out had they not met each other and had they not taken in rimbaud’s advice. chuuya in his desire to learn about himself and frustration at not being able to do the same would have perhaps spiralled downward and ended up becoming like verlaine. he is his double here after all. and had dazai not seen chuuya up close being the wonderful person he is, he too would have probably ended up developing a god complex and becoming like fyodor. dazai is there to save chuuya literally from dying a monster and chuuya is there to remind him he too can try and mend his ways and embrace his human side. after all chuuya has so much trust him in! (despite him having questionable methods) for both of them, it starts out as an attempt to be more human, then establishing a fruitful partnership, and finally coming in terms with their feelings to some extent. for dazai, he’s comfortable enough to engage in occasional flirting at this point and for chuuya it’s playing along with dazai’s antics (well with the ones he get 💀 pretty boy has half a functional braincell) and openly showing his concern for him. so really by confirming their feelings what strombringer does is enhance the skk development in a way that Dead Apple doesnt seem like fan service anymore. the fact that dazai would casually flirt or be comfortable with chuuya landing on his crotch 💀 all that isnt as ridiculous as it first seemed because stormbringer lays the groundwork and anticipates all the intimate/flirty skk moments that have happened till now and ig will happen again soon. 

#bsd #stormbringer #soukoku #dazai osamu #chuuya nakahara #bungou stray dogs #stormbringer spoilers #bsd meta #bsd analysis

[elia-de-silentio]

Recap on the Book (+ a theory on Atsushi)

The Book is an element that received little attention compared to the character drama in Bungo Stray Dogs, but it's actually the element instigating it, as the thing almost everyone desires. This time, I want to make a recap on it, and take a look on an interesting theory regarding the connection between it and Atsushi.

The first one to mention it is Fitzgerald. He describes it as pretty much Aladdin's lamp from the original fairy tale: something to make all wishes come true, in his case the resurrection of his daughter. Appearently, Atsushi is the 'guidepost' to the Book, and that's why there was such an hefty bounty on him at the start of the series. Whatever that means, we are all still waiting to know.

It also mentions that it is 'impervious to fire and all abilities'.

But Fitzgerald was in cahoots with two other amiable fellows who were after the same thing: Fyodor Dostoevsky and Agatha Christie. While the latter has not appeared since except for Dead Apple, the former has given us new infos on the prized Book.

He too wants to use the Book, but in his case, the goal is a little more lofty: he wants to recreate the world, one without the 'sin' of ability users. So, the Book's powers aren't limited to just bring back the dead, they really have a reality-altering scale.

(translation by @akai-koutei)

At the start of the Decay of Angels arc, Chief Taneda gives Ranpo a few more informations about our object of interest.

It is in the hands of the government, and it has been studied, via a single page extracted from it, that holds the same power as the whole Book (like a Death Note).

Moreover, we find the first limitation to the power: 'the written content must conform to the rules of karma'. In other words - and we're going deliciously meta here - it must have narrative consistency, unlike the 'real world' in which accidents of any kind and without any meaning happen all the time. Of course it does! If a book had inconsistent plot development and characterization, wouldn't we all be complaining about bad writing?

Lastly, it's suggested that it was created by an ability user, which set its rules to prevent excessive and senseless destruction.

This rule begs the question - do Fitzgerald or Fyodor know about it? 'A girl suddenly springs back to life' doesn't have much narrative consistence, and neither 'all Ability users suddenly vanish'. A way to work around this limit would be rewrite history itself: Fitzgerald's daughter never died/Abilities never existed in the first place. It would erase the timeline in which these events would be impossible, and create another in which they have consistency.

This would also be the reason for the initial plan of the Decay of Angels, using the page to depict the ADA as terrorists ... but before that, they had to 'create' their crimes by killing relevant people that had spoken against the Agency, giving them plausible actions and motives.

It also fits with the Sky Casino: a building that was woven back in time with a complete backstory, instead of just popping out from nothingness. Still, this also show us that there's no need for the details to be absolutely accurate: Dazai managed to figure out that the building had been written from the Book because the 'top secret' details of its creation didn't exist in the first place. Still, these details are ones that do not 'disturb' the flow of a story: it's a freaking flying casino, who is going to think about the funds? Just enjoy the story!

But then we find an outstanding exception: Sigma. A whole human being brought into existence by the Book, without any past that he can remember. He appeared three years ago, in a desert, with only the clothes on his back and a train ticket. No backstory from him.

How was this possible? It's not very narratively coherent, a person popping into existence.

Well, we must consider that we know only what Fyodor says about it. He might be withholding information from Dazai and the audience, or even lying to confuse his opponent; or maybe he doesn't know the answer himself. He recruited Sigma, likely after hearing about his Ability, but did not create him personally.

Maybe Sigma's 'parent' actually did have a backstory and purpose planned for his 'character', but for some reason, they weren't received. Or maybe they knew some trick to circumvent the limitations of the Book. Maybe the government was experimenting with it, and for some reason someone was like 'hey, let's see if we can make a person pop out in the desert, without anyone being around to check if it happens or take care of the eventual human being!'.

Yeah ... this part is rather confusing. I look forward to an explaination on Sigma's origins.

The last time that the rules of the Book are mentioned, is to show us a way to circumvent them. Fyodor had written that 'no police officer will believe the Agency's innocence' ... but he didn't factor Tachihara in. As a member of the Hunting Dogs, he is a police officer; but during his infiltration of the Mafia, he acquired this second identity. He is an officer, and at the same time, he is not. As soon as he inquires other mafiosi on the matter, he becomes clear to him the ADA's guiltlessness, in which he couldn't believe when talking with the othe Hunting Dogs.

And Ranpo in later chapters used a similar strategy, bringing his proofs to a group of journalists to make the masses think; and in turn, this divided the police between those who still obeyed the rule and those who adopted a new perspective.

The human ability to put ourselves in other points of view is the uncontrollable variable that can break the Book's powers.

(By the way, I wonder if that was actually Fyodor's plan. He seems too smart and well-informed to not take this possibility into consideration. Considering that the clashes among the police resulted in riots and chaos; and he commented earlier, talking to himself, that he didn't create the 'perfect' plan his colleagues required because that would be boring ... maybe this is his own plan to undermine Fukuchi's power and get him out of his way, to be the one who will actually puts his hands on the Book?)

After that, an interesting comment was made: the Decay of Angels planned to use the Book 'the next full moon'. It's uncertain if it's because it can only be used in this time frame, or if it can be just be found (in both cases, the Book has another rule that limits its use)

The last time any piece of the Book made an appearence, it was with Fukuchi dangling the famous page, and the possibility of rewriting it, in front of Atsushi and Akutagawa; but that was also the first sound defeat for the Shin Soukoku. Fukuchi still has the page, and now our hopes reside in Tachihara, currently about to face him.

Then, there is supplementary material: the BEAST AU. I haven't read the light novel or manga, so any information I can provide is from the wiki and @looking-for-stray-dogs 's summary.

In this AU, Dazai has managed to obtain the Book, but thanks to his Ability, he retains his memories even in different universes. But didn't Fitzgerald say that the Book is immune to all Abilities? Or only those which try to destroy it?

Still, Dazai used the Book to create his own pet universe - kind of like Fyodor wants to do, but with a much more personal goal: creating a universe in which Odasaku lives. This appearently can happen only if he never becomes Dazai's friend.

However, the definition of 'make what is written in it into reality' is not exact: it is more like a 'container' for every possible universe in existence, and what is written in the pages will not 'rewrite reality', but 'call forth the universe in which it happens'.

Think of it like Michelangelo's ideas about sculpting: the statue is already in the block of stone, the artist merely brings it out.

Beast!Dazai then mentions another clause: if three or more people know the truth about a world created by the Book, the stability of said world gets compromised, and it gets higher possibilities of ceasing to exist. Which is pretty much what is happening in the canon manga.

And this is all we know insofar. Is it enough to make theories? Of course! Anything is enough to make theories!

One I've seen circulating, and that I really like, is 'Atsushi is a creation of the Book'.

Supporting it:

• Atsushi is considered so valuable because he is a 'guidepost' to the Book; it would actually make sense that someone created by the Book mantained some connection to it.

Contradicting it:

• There already is someone who was for sure created by the Book: Sigma. And he is already in the Decay of Angels: if all sentient beings created by the Book mantained a connection to it, wouldn't that mean that they don't need Atsushi? Instead, not only they are still looking for tiger boy, but Sigma needed to threaten and use his Ability on Taneda to find out just where one page was.

Solution: maybe Atsushi was specifically written to be a 'tracker' for the Book, while Sigma wasn't?

Supporting it:

• Atsushi doesn't have any certified past, someone threw him on the streets without giving him anything that could lead back to a birth family. And appearently, nobody noticed someone had a suddenly missing child, or tried to investigate on the abandonment of a toddler.

Contradicting it:

• Who the hell creates a supernatural being that can lead to an even more supernatural book and then throws him in the trash?!

Solution: who the hell creates a supernatural being who can exchange informations and throws him in the desert?! Whatever the keeper of the Book is on, it can't be legal, or even well-cut for the matter.

More seriously, we are told that Atsushi's parents abandoned him, but it was the Headmaster that said it, and he's not the most reliable guy around. Atsushi not only does not have any proof for that, but he also has a faulty memory due to trauma: if he forgot Shibusawa, what else could he have forgotten?

Supporting it:

• The Book can appearently be used - or maybe retrieved, the phrasing is a bit ambiguous on that - under the full moon. Atsushi's Ability is called 'Beast Beneath the Moonlight', and he himself is called a 'weretiger', derivated from 'werewolf', a creature that has a traditional connection to the full moon.

Contradicting it:

• It might be a coincidence?

Supporting it:

• Shibusawa took a very specific interest in him, even going to the point of torturing him to make the 'Beast under the Moonlight' manifest

Contradicting it:

• Shibusawa was obsessed in finding the 'ultimate ability'. The fact that appearently Atsushi has it does not mean that it is related to the Book, or even that it is an objective statement.

Supporting it:

• Fyodor took a very specific interest in him. He was the one who directed Shibusawa to him, as far as six years ago, when Atsushi likely hadn't manifested his Ability. So, how did this rat, who is very interested in the Book and probably spent a lot of time finding ways to get it, know about him?

Contradicting it:

• Dazai appearently knows nothing about it. Considering how smart and careful he is, it would be expected that he did his research on why everyone was so fixated on the Agency's newest recruit. Instead, he looked genuinely shocked when he's told about Sigma's birth. So, whatever Atsushi's connection to the Book is, it's not of that kind. Moreover, Fyodor hasn't had a single interaction with Atsushi insofar. Wouldn't be more logical trying to somehow secure his willing cooperation if he needs it? From his side, Atsushi doesn't seem to know how he looks like (when he thinks about him, the face is always obscured), nor he acts like he vaguely recognize the name before - something that instead happened with Shibusawa

Possible solution: maybe Dazai isn't God the All-Knowing for once in this manga?! Or maybe he was lying to keep a margin of advantage. And Fyodor rarely acts in a very direct way, usually putting other people and convoluted plans between himself and anyone who could be involved. Sending Shibusawa to Atsushi might have been such a case.

Contradicting it:

• Fukuchi has no problem attacking Atsushi. The whole Decay of Angels's plan put the life of Tiger Boy in danger multiple times. An odd thing to do, if they goal is something that can be reached only through him.

Possible solution: they know he has regenerative abilities on a nearly Koro-sensei level? I admit, I'm not very sure on this point.

All in all, I think it's a very plausible theory. And do we want to talk about the drama character development it would bring about? Atsushi already questions his right to live, how would knowing that he had been created for some purpose decided by someone else impact his worldview?

In conclusion, I think that the Book is a very interesting, mysterious element, and I really look forward to see if it will be used, by whom, and why Atsushi seems so connected to it.

Thanks to anyone who bothered to read my ramblings!

#bsd #bungou stray dogs #bsd the book #bsd atsushi #bsd sigma #bsd tachihara #bsd fyodor #bsd fitzgerald #bsd shibusawa #bsd meta #bsd theories #bsd spoilers #elia's recaps

[spacegirlapollo]

Can’t Be Friends [Dazai x Reader Smut]

Dazai x Reader Smutty One shot 

4,000+ words

Summary: After the death of his beloved friend, Dazai can’t trust love. But then you come bumbling into the picture and he can’t resist falling for you. 

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dazai had always been fascinated by magnets, that somewhere written deep in the earth's rules, it had been decided that two objects would eternally be bound together if fate allows them to. On the other hand they could push the other away, with the same ease. 

He’s lived his life like a magnet, especially after Oda’s death. He couldn’t help it, although he desperately tried to not care about others it was simply impossible. To fulfill Oda’s dying wishes , he had to care about the people around him. He dared not admit it but he cared. He cared about Kunikida and the others at the agency. He especially cared about Atsushi and thought quite often of Chuuya and Akutagawa and how they were faring. To many souls to think about. So he cared, drawing them all in like magnets, connecting and then turning away pushing back against them when they got to close. 

And at the center of it all was you. You were the crowning jewel in his grand hall of people he cared about, thought and worried and languished about. You reminded him of Oda sometimes. And if he squinted at you maybe he could see Oda’s piercing eyes and not so easy smile.

He was in love with you, that much was sure, and it was a secret, to everyone but him. He was much too smart to not understand his longing for you, the way his heart rate picked up at your closeness and he often found himself longing to hear your voice. 

He didn’t think it would happen to him of all people. Sure he loved Oda, and he wasn’t sure if it was just as friends either, but this was different. 

He’d met you almost immediately after his return to society, now on the side of the “good guys”. You were Fukizawa’s niece and a fixture at the agency. He wondered often how long his stay at the agency would have been had it not been for you. 

In the beginning, Dazai couldn’t help himself, he had absolutely no self control over his magnets and the two of you connected, making quick friends. Wherever you went he would gladly follow. 

Then you’d been attacked, remnants of Dazai’s past life finally rearing consequences upon you. You’d nearly died, even though you were a force to recon with in battle. Fukizawa had been the one to save you in the end. It was salt over Dazai’s wound that you were hurt because of him, and he hadn’t been there to save you. 

It was a hard way to learn a lesson. To be smacked in the face with his universal truth. Everyone he gets close to will die, and it’ll be his fault. 

You weren’t so easy to push away though, ripping you from his life was taking a piece of his soul slowly, and besides he’d promised to be good and the Agency was the best place for that. So he stayed, but your friendship suffered in its wake. You got the message eventually, not bothering to call upon him at midnight anymore and late night trips for food had stopped. 

You’d never let on how it made you feel, and that somehow was worse for Dazai. 

He’d thought you’d replace him, he was mentally prepared to see you and Kunikida laughing At the lunch table. But it was more often that you’d head to lunch alone, or leave work alone. 

With newcomer Atsushi, things changed a little. You’d taken a strong liking to the boy, and he could tell you’d adopted Atsushi, as If you were his mother or aunt or something. Fretting and worrying. Dazai could see that the two of you were co-parenting in a way. 

Then Kyouka came and you and Atsushi’s time spent together became less, and you ate alone once again. 

Dazai observed this all as if he was peering into a fish bowl. Observing the lives of others and indirectly interacting with them but never jumping into the water. He thought himself clever. No one would know how much he loved you. That was until simple, observant Atsushi said something. 

“Dazai-San?” 

“Yeah?” 

They were both sitting in the open floor plan area of the agency, paperwork stacking high between the two of them. On his part Atsushi was trying to conquer the work while Dazai was listening in to your conversation with Kunikida from across the room. You were laughing, and Dazai thought maybe this was it, you were finally replacing him. Good. 

“Uh…” 

Dazai lifted his eyes from you and his partner to rest upon Atsushi, whose voice was uncertain. Dazai had learned from day two, that he should listen to Atsushi, who occasionally sculpted diamonds from words. 

Atsushi tensed with Dazai’s eyes upon him. 

“I was just .... “ he sighed and swallowed his voice coming out low and a whisper. 

“Are you and Y/N dating?” 

Dazai blinked. Not responding, although that might give away more than he would have liked. 

“It’s just that.” Atsushi seemed even more unnerved by Dazai’s non answer, seeing as the brown hair boy loved to talk. 

“You always look up when she enters a room, like you know she’s there. You always stare at each other when you think the other isn’t looking.” Atsushi’s voice faded off. “Stuff- stuff like that.” 

Dazai was half stuck thinking that he’d made a good choice of Atsushi for the Agency, and the other half was thinking about what he’d said. - staring at each other.- 

You looked at him too? 

“S-sorry.” Atsushi said, fearing he’d said too much. He had but that was fine. 

“Am I really that easy to read?” Dazai asked his eyes back on you and Kunikida. Kunikida was blushing as you walked away, his eyes firmly on your lower back side. Dazai felt a feeling stirring in him. But he shoved it down harsly. There was no place for those feelings to show. 

Atsushi shook his head. “No, you're quite hard to read. Dazai-San. Y/N is much easier to read, once I understood why she looks at you like that I realized you were looking at her the same way.”

Diamonds. Dazai thought , Atsushi was capable of making diamonds. 

————-

It was the fall time, the leaves had departed from their family tree or changed colors and the roads of Yokahama were cold and filled with that feeling you only got during the coming of winter. 

Dazai had to work late, once Kunikida found out just how behind he was on his work, Dazai had been essentially chained to his desk. He could tell there were a few people left in the office as some lights were still on. Signing the last page he sighed standing up immediately, Kunikida would be satisfied with his progress and he could pick it up again on Monday, although he was secretary hoping for a case to come and push the paperwork to the side. 

He tucked his hands in his pocket and made his way outside. It was a moment later that he realized that it was raining. The door to the cafe closed behind him and he stood under the awning, thinking with dread about walking through the rain to the subway station.

“No umbrella ?” You asked, and Dazai wasn’t sure how you’d been standing there that whole time and he did not notice. He turned to you his heart thudding rhythmically in his chest. You were as beautiful as ever, and you looked warm, swathed in faux fur jackets. He thought about how wonderful it would feel to lay in your lap and feel your fingers through his hair. 

You turned away from him breaking his guilty illusion and rummaged around in your bag. You pulled out an umbrella, identical to the one you were already holding. You extended it out to him with a smile playing on your lips. 

“You never carry an umbrella, Dazai.” 

His name on your lips was joy, he realized as his lips parted in surprise. You knew him entirely too well and Atsushi was starting to as well. How had he failed so spectacularly in pushing people away. 

He took the umbrella, unable to stop the smile on his face. 

“Why would I ,Y/N when I always have you to have an extra for me?” He teased. He couldn’t help it, months of pushing you away and he was cracking like an egg from a simple gesture. 

Your eyes met and he saw the faintest blush upon your cheeks. He wanted to kiss you. Badly. He blinked and looked away. This wouldn’t do, he needed to get home and fast. 

He would let his mind slip for one night, maybe have a drink or two and stroke himself, your name hanging off his lips like smoke to a cigarette. That’s what he would do. He just needed to get to the station now. 

“Dazai?” 

Your words were soft but firm. The way you sounded when you’d gathered up all tour couraged and readied yourself for a fight. 

He turned back to you, and your eyes shone with determination. 

“Let’s go get dinner together.” 

————-

Dinner, was located in a small corner of Yokohama, that only the locals seemed to know about. You either lived there or crashed there by accident. The restaurant was a hole in the wall, quite literally. It was an interesting place, made of stone and brick, with no real windows or doors, just, holes in the stone. It reminded Dazai of an old century oven, it had a large awning covering to keep the rain from the tables out front. Strings of light were laced around the stone building illuminating it in the darkness of the Yokahama streets. 

It was a place that the both of you were familiar with, having spent many nights here, sipping hot tea and talking. Upon seeing it for the first time in months, Dazai saw just how romantic the place really was and was regretting his decision to follow you here. 

Now seated you picked up the menu and started to scan it. 

“You already know what you want. Y/N” Dazai said amused. “You always order the same thing.” 

His smile grew as you put down the menu and glared at his teasing. “What if I wanted something different this time.” 

“Hell would freeze over Y/N. And the flying pigs would be out as soon as the rain stopped.” 

You scoffed cutely. “just for that I’m ordering something different.” 

“I wouldn’t.” Dazai said, “ you remember the last time you were adventurous.” 

Your eyes were wide with embarrassment. 

“You swore you would never bring it up!” 

“To anyone else.” Dazai corrected. He thought back on the time you’d ordered something new, and were so sick he’d brought you home, and had to hold your hair as you puked over the toilet. Obviously embarrassing for you but a fondly domestic memory for Dazai. 

The waitress interrupted whatever you were going to say next and further Dazai’s amusement you ordered your regular. 

“Dazai” you said after the waitress had collected your orders and it had been quiet for a while. Dazai’s heart started to thump again, the real reason you’d asked him to come to dinner was coming. He wasn’t sure if he was ready for it. 

You had that look again, that stored up courage look. “ Let’s be friends again.”

He wasn’t sure if this was on his list of things he expected you to say. Some irrational part of his thought this would be your announcement of your engagement to Kunikida which he would have congratulated you on and then left to get very very drunk. 

Your fists were clenched in your lap as you forced yourself to look at him.

“I’m sorry… if I did something wrong, and that’s why you stopped wanting to be around me. If I was - annoying or something I can-“

“Y/N” you blinked almost jerking at Dazai’s sudden harsh tone. He was angry, suddenly, 

“You could never annoy me.” 

The statement hung heavy in the air like cement. 

“And you don’t have anything to apologize for.” He tried to soften his voice as he wasn’t angry at you. He was more angry at himself. That’s why you thought he’d pushed you away? 

“Then why-“

“We can’t be friends.. Y/N” better to cut this off now. A few drinks was sounding better by the second. He dared a glance at your face and regretted it. You looked shattered, then confused, then angry. He hadn’t really seen you angry. It was beautiful in a way. 

A hot tear pressed down your cheek and you angrily wiped it away. 

“Why.” You asked now a wobble in your otherwise hard tone. 

“It’s better to remain professional in the workplace.” Dazai offered up, it was weak but his mind was spinning so his normal snake charming words were not coming to him. 

“Bullshit.” You said leaning forward. “You're not that way with anyone else in the agency. Hell you're not professional at all.” 

Dazai smiled at this, despite how heavy he was feeling.

“That’s fair.” He said softly. 

“Stop fucking with me Dazai.” You said anger still dripping over your tone although you were trying to keep it down since others were around. 

“One night were drunk together and up till 4am telling each other everything and the next week you stopped talking to me.” 

Your voice broke at the end of that. Another angry tear wipe. You pointed at him now.

“You let me in, you let me see you, and now you're going to pretend like we weren’t something?”

“Yes.” Dazai said with an edge . “ yes I am going to pretend.” 

“Why!” Your voice went a little higher than a regular speaking voice drawing a few more eyes but neither of you cared. There was only the person sitting in front of the other. 

“Because Y/N. I don’t want to be just friends.” Dazai felt like a popped balloon, that air just coming out of him rapidly. Years of holding that very phrase in and here he was whisper- shouting it at you in his favorite hole in the wall. That was only his favorite because of his memories with you. 

He kept going now, no sense in stopping now. “ I want to hold your hand, to kiss you, to be the last thing you see at night and the first thing you see in the morning. I want to hold you when you're sad, and tease you when you do something embarrassing. I want you to fill up my life with your light” it was a mouthful, and Dazai sighed, looking up at you now, your face in shock. 

You smiled suddenly, another tear falling but you didn’t make a move to wipe it away.

“I don’t want to be just friends either Dazai.” You said and he felt his heart starting its kathunk kathunk in his chest again. 

“I thought maybe you didn’t feel the same way as I did. But I wanted to be near you. And things were so great when we were friends. And then we stopped and I thought at least I could still be around you. But I don’t want that it’s not enough. Just being around you, just being your friend isn’t enough. I want to be with you. Dazai.”

Dazai swallowed hard, if Atsushi’s words were diamonds you were like the rain. Cleansing away the unsightly parts of himself that he hated, he picked at. Soothing the old wounds that he’d left open as punishment to himself. 

“We can’t… I can’t….” Dazai couldn’t finish. He looked up to you. “Every Time I love someone they die.” He shook his head slightly. “and I won’t lose you too.” 

He thought then of Oda. He still couldn’t decide how he’d loved the man, there was a seed there, growing, and if he’d had more time, Dazai thinks he could have figured it out. Did he love Oda the way he loved Atshushi or Kunikida or did he love Oda the way he’d loved you?

But for Oda to be alive, and Dazai to have an answer to that question, Dazai needed to have removed himself from Oda’s life.

 Dazai’s thoughts of Oda evaporated as he felt the warm touch of your hand to his. He looked up at you then, your eyes a calm steady sea to his stormy brooding ones.

He wanted to steal you away from the others eyes, take you somewhere safe where only he could gaze upon you. Strange feelings from someone who spent so much effort in not caring. 

“You're a good person, Dazai.” You said. “I’ve seen it, I’ve seen your soul. Death is not the punishment for love. Life takes who she wants when she wants regardless of who we love and what we want. I’d rather die, having known your love than live forever without it.” 

He kissed you then, over the tea that had gone cold, besides the people who were pretending not to listen to your conversation. The only thing he could hear was the sounds of rain dancing on the canopy above your heads. 

———

Somehow the both of you knew that going home alone wasn’t an option. As the hole in the wall was closest to your place, it was decided without speaking that that is where you would go. You walked there holding hands. 

Dazai’s mind was spinning with thoughts of your kiss, thoughts of you he’d tried to keep down but it wasn’t working and his pants were stiffening. 

You’d looked at him, one look, that set him on fire. And as you crossed into your apartment threshold, he couldn’t seem to grab enough of you. The umbrella he’d borrowed from you was on the floor, along with your  pretty coat, leaving wet stains on the floor. You were pressed between him in the wall, your hands deep into his tresses as he kissed you, his hands gripping almost painfully at your sides. 

He pressed his lower body up against you unable to control the moan that came from his mouth at the contact of his hardened self against you.

“I need you.” He breathed out sounding so impossibly vulnerable.

“You have me.” You said between kisses, and so he did, his wide palms sliding below your waist end scooping you into the air, your legs wrapped around his lanky figure. 

He carried you to your room, my memory as you had yet to stop kissing him, and he couldn’t see. 

When he was there you fell into the bed, soft covers swallowing you up. He had thoughts to tease you, to take things slow, and feel every single moment of this. But as his fingers seperated your pants buttons and found their way to your core he couldn’t stop himself from pleasuring you. 

Your moans were honey, as he slid down your clothing and his mouth latched to your clit. One of your hands had traveled to his hair and the other was gripping his arm which was around your waist keeping your hips down to the bed. 

He wanted more from you working his tongue and fingers at a devastating pace. His cock painful in his pants at your honey dripped moans. His hand pressed down hard against your waist as you bucked against his face, sweat beading on your chest, it felt terribly good. 

“Daz-“ you choked out as you reached your end, your hand pulling at the base of his roots causing him to moan into your pussy. 

You couldn’t hold back your moan as you came, hard and fast, cheeks hot as he kept going riding you through your orgasm. 

Dazai felt your body go limp after you came, and he stood up reaching to unbutton his shirt but then your hands over lapped his and you began to remove his shirt. His lips were on your again as your removed his clothes. 

Dazai let out a small noise of surprise when you turned and pushed him towards the bed. He went willingly though his eyes half lidded in lust as you crawled over to him straddling his waist. He was taking you in, and fuck if he couldn’t come now just looking at you. 

You leaned forward ticking a finger under his chin and guiding his lips back to yours. Dazai felt his control slipping but he didn’t mind. He wanted to be yours, all yours. You could do whatever you wanted to him.

“Let me make you feel good.”’you whispered 

He hissed as you sank slowly down onto him your warmth wrapping around him like a vice. Damnit.

You moved again rising up your hips and bringing them back down at an agonizingly slow pace. This whole time he’d thought to tease you and it was you teasing him. 

Almost as if you were reading his mind you smirked dipping slower to kiss his neck. Dazai jerked, another moan on his lips as you kissed at his newly discovered sensitive spot. 

You’d hip were starting to pick up the pace a bit, sucking hard against his neck. Your pace and attack on his neck was torture, the best kind. 

His hands gripped your ass tightly now as you rode him, biting deeply against his neck. With each slap of skin you moved faster, Dazai felt like he could explode, and maybe he would. 

He couldn’t help himself, his hips snapping up into you suddenly causing you to throw your head back and moan. Oh yes he wanted more of that. 

Your hands fell to his chest as he fucked you, his dick pressing up against that spot that was making you unravel. 

In one swift motion he’d switched the flow and you were on your back again, and he was in between you. Your hands flew around his neck as he re-entered you. 

“Mhfph” you choked out as he pressed deep into you, moaning your name sweetly into your ear. 

He was one with you, as close as his magnet could reach, and though the fear of losing you still loomed in his mind, Dazai was in true bliss. 

You were close, that feeling of knitting in your stomach, his strong deep strokes had left you gasping. 

“Osamu” you crooned, and he looked down at you now. 

“Say that again.” He breathed out. 

Dazai felt like he was going to unravel, right as you’d said his name, the way it slipped from your mouth had his heart racing. 

He thrusted faster , kissing along your neck now. 

“Say it, say it again.” He moaned out.

“Mmm Osamu, “ you repeated his name over and over again like a holy chant. “Please.” 

His strokes were coming uneven, as he leaned down to take your sweet lips with his again, fucking hell he was going to come now, in the woman he’d loved for years. 

“Come with me.” He breathed out and you nodded rapidly, he pressed his forehead to yours as you felt yourself come apart at the edges. Sweeping in nothing but pleasure you both came.

“Osamu!” You cried out eyes shut in ecstasy. 

———-

Neither of you could be bothered to leave the bed. Dazai was holding you to his chest, your face in the crook of his neck, your heartbeats matching each other’s. 

“You know it’s too late for you now right?” You whispered, his fingers playing with your hair. 

Dazai smiled. “It was too late for me since the moment we met.” 

You chuckled softly, “that’s so cheesy.” 

Dazai chuckled back, placing a kiss on your forehead. 

“Yeah to bad you’ve got to deal with it from now on.”

“I love you, Osamu” Dazai heard you say, and even if he maybe thought he knew you did, it was different to hear you say it. He felt like he could break into a million pieces. Some stone cold bastard he was, he was absolute putty in your hands. 

“I love you to, Y/N” 

#dazai osamu #osamu dazai #dazai x reader #dazai x reader smut #bungou stray dogs #bsd #bsd smut #bsd fanfic

[dinosaurtsukki]

BSD x university au hc’s | pt. 2

part 2 of the university au hc’s !! i am obviously a slut for chuuya and fyodor so don’t mind me. i hope you guys like this !!

check out pt. 1 here

***********************************************

Akutagawa Ryuunosuke:

i love akutagawa ryuunosuke my angst child but i’m just like ‘hmmmmmmm’ when it comes to what his course would probably be

after extensive research aka reading his character page on wiki i feel like maybe he’d be a history major because,,,, he likes antiques?

well his clothes do seem very dark academia-esque and i can see him liking something as cool as history

akutagawa’s probably into something like war history but he’s not weird about it he just finds it really cool how different strategies work or analyzing what exactly makes the winners win

he absolutely HATES the fact that he keeps having to read the Iliad for class

he’s also that classmate who INTENSIVELY DEFENDS achilles for being a bit of a little bitch (but he fully agrees that patroclus and achilles were gay af ok this was random moving on)

akutagawa has practically no social life. he doesn’t go to parties, he doesn’t talk to his roommate, he doesn’t even like to eat in the dining hall

BUT he absolutely loves being in debate team because WINNING

he’s such a nightmare to work with though but he just delivers so well when it’s time for him to speak. like, if he’s on a negative and it’s time to hash out rebuttals, just prepare to get MURDERED

other debaters: “esteemed scholars and adjudicators...”

akutagawa: “you, sir, have no idea how wrong you are.”

that is until dazai decided to randomly show up at a debate tournament all ‘la di da da’ like and completely crushed akutagawa along with his ego

from then on he started stalking dazai and just SOMEHOW managed to end up in his circle of friends

even though he’s antisocial in real life, akutagawa 100% runs a dark academia aesthetic blog on tumblr i’m right and i don’t accept criticism

it’s actually really good he has a ton of followers and even does requests for moodboards if someone asks nicely

atsushi was the one who actually found out about it but he’s nice so he didn’t tell akutagawa about it

kunikida probably follows that blog

Chuuya Nakahara:

if this part sounds like i’m just thirsting for chuuya then you’re absolutely right i love wine man

don’t get mad at me but i can ABSOLUTELY SEE HIM MAJORING IN FASHION DESIGN I MEAN LOOK AT HIM

he’s just always had such a good eye for fashion and he’s veryyy meticulous when it comes to snipping and putting together clothes

chuuya also carries a sketchbook full of designs and his drawings look amazing and he isn’t afraid to just show them off

that said he doesn’t dress like a tired uni student at all, like he just always looks so on-point and unbothered by his five million deadlines

dazai: chuuya, i said this was a CASUAL LUNCH

chuuya, dressed in what looks like silk pajamas: THIS IS CASUAL

tbh if he just wore a white t-shirt and jeans i would die maybe he’s actually saving us from this ordeal

he has so much talent though as a designer he’s probably had several internships with design companies all throughout his years at uni

i feel like chuuya’s also really active in extracurriculars and has been in leadership positions in some of them (he probably runs the student org for fashion design)

chuuya in a student band though oh my gosh i can’t breathe i can’t breathe him as a VOCALIST?? and wearing torn jeans and eyeliner and that same hat in concerts ican’t brEATHE

okay in all honesty he would thrive being in a band chuuya loves the attention and the creativity of being able to design their whole look and write songs

tbh i don’t know if he’d have a roommate chuuya’s probably the type who’d rather have one of those single rooms or just rent a flat for him to stay in even after graduation

because his social life is super vibrant, he does have a lot of friends and he does make an effort to get to know all of them individually 

but he’s more open around those who he’s been friends with for a really long time and as much as he’d like to say dazai isn’t one of them, he is

also chuuya is definitely the type to party hard during the weekends and has more than once crashed in someone’s house after drinking too much (dazai drew on his face on more than one occasion)

Oda Sakunosuke:

i love this man SO MUCH you guys have no idea i would literally die for him

100% this guy majors in creative writing because this is supported by FACTS and not just me wanting to be coursemates with him in this fictional world

super serious and diligent with his work especially since he’s passionate about writing. he loves to read in his spare time and is such a fan of classic novels about social realism or philosophy

oda spends 99% of his time in second-hand bookshops that the owner probably knows him by name at this point

he’s super old school when it comes to writing though, like he still keeps and writes in a notebook before typing it up on a laptop and no matter how many times dazai tells him its impractical, oda just keeps doing it

lmao whenever workshops come around he’s super nice with his critique. i bet a lot of his fellow classmates like sending their writing drafts to him

he draws smiley faces and always adds ‘nice work’ on people’s drafts omg i love odasaku

he’s such an old soul, he probably doesn’t do a whole lot of partying but he likes more quiet, private social events like drinking with close friends or just hanging out and talking at other people’s houses

he and dazai probably met when dazai decided to take an intro to creative writing class and wrote a long poem about double suicide on his first day that kind of put off everyone in the class from wanting to sit with him

odasaku was the only one who wasn’t exactly bothered but he did give dazai some comments to help him with his poetry and dazai instantly wanted to be his friend

in terms of extracurricular life, i can definitely see odasaku joining a writing organization and even the campus newspaper. he does find joy in interviewing students for newspaper articles

he’s also pretty into photography and uses a really old, second-hand camera that he bought at an antique store and fixed himself. at one point he won a prize in a contest

odasaku would be the best roommate. he’s super sensitive to when you have a bad day and will invite you to sit on his bed and hug his pillow and talk about your problems

scratch that, everyone talks to odasaku about their problems and now your room is like a therapist’s office

Edgar Allan Poe:

i swear this was the only gif i could find other than actual edgar allan poe

ANOTHER CREATIVE WRITING BUDDY AHHH I WOULD LOVE TO BE BESTIES WITH HIM AHHH

well actually i feel like since he’s super ambitious and already has a fixed idea on the stuff he likes to write, he’d probably double major in something like forensic science because he’d use it to write his mystery novels

omg that’s where he meets ranpo and now pretty much every main character poe writes is slightly based on on ranpo

it’s a problem. his professor brings it up more than once during his classes but it’s poe’s Thing now

he also has such an unending passion for gothic literature and he wears those white, long-sleeved blouses and waistcoats on a REGULAR BASIS

chuuya probably saw him once and was like ‘hmm, i could pull that off’

poe’s daily route is just going to the library and to class and then go home and that’s about it

he ended up working as a student assistant at the library because he’s just super familiar with the book collections and it’s a job that’s peaceful and quiet 

more than once though, he’d just be really in-deep with his writing to the point that he doesn’t even notice that the library has closed or that he hasn’t eaten the entire day

that’s alright though because ranpo always passes by the library at night to check on his friend and (reluctantly) give him some snacks

also since poe’s pretty much a recluse, he doesn’t go to any social event UNLESS it’s a halloween-themed one

he loves going all out with his costumes because he’s a Drama Queen like that but the problem is he keeps dressing up as gothic novel characters and nobody gets it

dazai, trying to guess his costume: umm,, Two-Face from Batman?

poe: IT’S DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

there was this one time when poe took it upon himself to host the halloween party and it was EPIC

he basically designed it as a murder mystery night wherein everyone who came pretended to be guests at a house and then a murder happened

the only problem was that ranpo was conspiring with poe and it was pretty much unfair

except for the fact that ranpo was frustrated at how bad everyone was at deducing that he ended up solving the mystery for them

Fyodor Dostoevsky:

one of my favorite scenes of him in s3 was of fyodor playing the cello because god damn that is beautiful and therefore i am hc-ing him as a music major and you can’t tell me otherwise

fyodor is an absolute music genius and he was definitely scouted by the university’s music program and then he was granted a scholarship (because in this ideal university, the arts are valued)

he purposely decided to go to a university rather than a music conservatory because he’s also interested in learning a bunch of other things

aside from his music classes, he ventures into comparative literature and philosophy, even a bit of computer science at some point

people always assume that since he’s a music major he probably wouldn’t do well in other subjects but SURPRISE BITCH

anyway, fyodor’s a genius because god clearly has favorites

aside from attending class, he’s even part of an official orchestra and has even landed a few solos 

that said, he’s quite busy and very preoccupied in his own work to actually have a social life either

you’ll often find him rehearsing by himself in an empty classroom for hours and hours on end (someone pls bring him food he’s also the type to forget to eat or even drink water)

if you are able to catch him perform at an orchestra or just practice by himself, it’s quite a mesmerizing sight. his eyes are often closed so he could focus on the sound alone and his fingers move so elegantly along the neck of the cello

(sorry i just love people who play any form of stringed instrument)

fyodor also takes such good care of his cello. also he would probably kill you on the spot if you touched his bow

he has a fairly small group of friends and they like playing chess together (even though fyodor is better than all of them) and just talk about um,, idk philosophy and stuff (whatever it is smart people do idk i’m not one of them)

i have a feeling he actually follows akutagawa’s dark academia blog and loves his content, even to the point of requesting ‘cello player moodboards’

also because he’s a cello player he needs to take care of his fingers so he wears gloves a lot (idk why i find this hot)

***********************************************

taglist (check out my post for details on being part of my taglist): @waitforitillwritemywayout @tpwkatsumu @laure-chan

#bungou stray dogs #bsd #bsd writing #bsd headcanons #bungou stray dogs writing #bungou stray dogs headcanons #akutagawa ryuunosuke #chuuya nakahara #oda sakunosuke #edgar allan poe #fyodor dostoevsky #bungou stray dogs university au #bsd uni au #bungou stray dogs scenarios #bsd scenarios

[soukokuwu]

hi !! angst scenario request? imagine chuuya engaging in one of his corruption form rampages. his s/o trying to calm him down, and in this state he kills her without understanding who she is? when he comes to (w help of dazai’s ability) he realizes what happened, finding the mangled body of his s/o laying in front of him. if u could write this i think i’d cry

➥ angst [chuuya x reader]

➥ warning/s: death, very slight gore

➥ word count: 1.7k

➥ a/n: hello anony thank you for the idea i absolutely love it & i tried not to make this too heavy, but i hope you enjoy reading this 🤍✨

➥ info: tanzaku — small pieces of coloured paper

This is life.

Its beauty lies in the fact that it can be so wonderfully or horribly unpredictable at times; it could make you feel on cloud nine one day and the next it takes it all away.

But he knows better than to blame life. No, this is all his doing. If he hadn’t been damned with this ability, you would still be here, next to him, holding his arm and kissing him with those gentle, soft lips of yours. He still remembers the feeling of it pressing against his cheek. Will he ever be able to forget it? No — he better not. He doesn’t want to ever forget it, because he can’t have it any more.

Don’t let me forget. Please.

The redhead doesn’t know who he’s begging to. Life? The gods above? It’s useless, but a part of him says it’s better to wish than to not. Which part of him was that again?

You.

He still remembers the words you uttered that day, fresh in his mind like it was yesterday.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

A year ago.

“What are you going to wish for?”

Chuuya chuckled, already penning down his wish. “I thought we weren’t supposed to share wishes?”

You pouted and scoffed. “Fine then, be that way,” you resigned, before hurriedly scribbling your wish on the tanzaku.

“What are you wishing for?”

“Nah, you’d probably think it’s stupid.”

“Then why’re you still wishing for it?” Chuuya had asked, watching curiously as you smiled looking over your wish.

“Better to wish than to not, right?” And you flashed him such a sweet smile he remembers it so clearly until this day.

It was your seventh month together, and it fell on the seventh day of the seventh month. You had had an idea to drive up to a shrine a half hour away from Yokohama to celebrate tanabata; the day the star-crossed lovers would be able to meet.

The two of you hung your wishes up on the same branch that dusk. You looked so wonderful that day, in your blue floral yukata. You chose that because it resembled the color of his sky blue eyes, you had said. You had asked him to get one of a similar color, so that the two of you ‘would look better together’.

It didn’t matter though, because Chuuya believed you looked beautiful everyday. It was just you — the way your lips curled up in a smile, the wrinkles forming as your eyes turned into crescents as you laughed, the way they sparkled every time after he kissed you. It would never be the same with anyone else, he was sure of it. No one could make him feel the way you do. Never.

And as the two of you continued to appreciate the festival after hanging your wishes, Chuuya couldn’t help but feel the warmth building up inside his chest everytime he looked at you. He helped you secure your wish around the branch, and he accidentally caught a glimpse of it.

I wish to stay with Chuuya forever.

Chuuya remembered the way your hands felt, with fingers intertwined in his, as you bounced from stall to stall, getting him to try all sorts of snacks and sweets. He remembered the melodic sound of your laugh travelling to his ears, he remembered how fluffy your hair looked, with the moonlight threading in between your gorgeous locks.

But then an urgent call from Mori got in the way. An incapacitated Akutagawa meant trouble for Higuchi and the other grunts — and possibly all of Yokohama.

He still remembered what you told him from the passenger side, still all smiles despite having your evening interrupted.

“Hey, Chuuya?” you called.

Chuuya didn’t even glance in your direction. He just replied with a “yes, princess?”

“Will you take me here every year?”

This time he stopped at a red light and looked over at you, hands cupping your cheeks. “I promise you, next year we’ll be here and nothing will disturb us,” and he places a kiss on your nose. “And every year after that.”

You were satisfied with that, because you giggled and bit your lower lip, probably to keep yourself from smiling too hard. “I’ll hold you to that, Chuu.”

Chuuya chuckled and ruffled your hair before turning his attention back to the street. He hated that nickname, but he always let it slide with you. It sounded so good rolling off your tongue. Only you.

It was a bloody sight, so many grunts knocked out by the time he got there. By a… monster. Huge, unforgiving.

He needed to use it. He needed corruption. It was too destructive for anything normal to be able to knock it out; heck, even Akutagawa was passed out. He still remembered the desperation in your eyes as you pleaded with him, but there wasn’t time to fight. If he didn’t stop it here, it would destroy Yokohama and everyone in it. He knew you didn’t want him to, but some things had to be done.

“Oh, grantors of dark disgrace. You need not wake me again.”

The next thing he remembered during the fight is your voice, coming to him all muffled and stuttery.

“He’s coming,” he heard you say. “So please, please baby, please hold on until then.”

He remembered seeing your face, smiling even through all your tears, trying desperately to hold onto him, your arms tightening around his waist. You kept calling his name, pleading for you to stop, and for a moment he felt like he had control over his limbs again, for just that split second. But it vanished just as soon as it came.

And it was like in that moment, both of you knew what was going on in each other’s minds. Chuuya was panicking, he willed every part of him to stop. He knew what was coming.

No, no, no! No, stop, don’t —

But his hands were already moving. The hands that only knew how to destroy, how to kill. And you knew that. Yet you still smiled so sweetly up at him as you gave him a last embrace.

You were mumbling against his chest, but he heard it somehow, loud and clear. “I’m happy enough to have been with you, Chuuya. I love you, always.”

There wasn’t even a scream, he was almost sure you held it back. He was sure you didn’t want him to hear that scream as the last thing that escaped your lips. You wanted to leave him some good last words, didn’t you?

When he came to, the first thing he saw was a familiar pair of brown eyes looking down at him. So that’s who you meant was coming.

And then he recalled what happened earlier. And then his heart fell. He needed to find you.

Please don’t be dead.

It came in an instinctive prayer.

Every muscle in his body was screaming at him to stop moving, everywhere ached, but he had to find you. He struggled but he managed to stand up, and spotted you where everyone else was circling around.

And even from that distance, he could see your arms and legs a little twisted, and the blood that pooled around you.

“Chuuya!”

He could hear Dazai calling out to him but he didn’t care.

When he got to you, he fell to his knees, hunched over your body, arms not knowing whether to even touch you; your body was so... mangled.

That night he stayed by your side, all the way, wherever they brought your body, until Kouyou had to pull him away and get him to rest.

He was wrong.

The monster wasn’t the thing that tried to destroy the city. The monster... was him.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Even now he winces at the memory.

Chuuya looks up at the colorfully decorated bamboo branches. The same spot where you had hung your wishes with him a year ago. It feels so much emptier without you next to him.

He looks down at the urn he brought.

“Here we are, princess, just like I promised,” he croaks out.

The leaves of the trees hanging overhead sway in the breeze, and he instinctively presses the urn tighter against his body, like how he would do to you, because you always got cold easily.

He looks down at his hands, opening his palms. The same hands that killed you. He sees the same yukata he’s wearing that same day you died. Your voice is clear in his mind as he recalls your words, “well, doesn’t my executive look so handsome today?”

Rain starts pelting down, interrupting his thoughts. And he should really go for shelter, but he doesn’t. He doesn’t want to move from this spot. Though he does make sure to cover your urn with his sleeve. He crushes the tanzaku in his hand. It doesn’t deserve to be hung up. He doesn’t deserve to wish for anything. Everything is the way it is because of him anyway.

He recalls that second he saw your wish. He remembers how warm it felt. To see you wish for the same thing as he did. He had written: For you to be with me forever.

And now? In his hand?

I wish for her to come back.

How absolutely ridiculous; to wish for something that is impossible. And still he tries to give you what you wished for; to be with him forever, always carrying you wherever he went, with the exception of missions.

How absolutely ridiculous all this was. And yet, as he continues to stand in the rain, Chuuya keeps repeating it in his head.

Please come back to me.

Even as your last words replay in his head.

Please come back to me.

Even as he grabbed on tighter to your urn.

Please come back to me.

Even as nothing happened.

Please come back to me.

Even as he fell to his knees and screamed until he choked on his own tears.

There’s only one thing he wants.

Please come back to me.

This is life.

And it is hell.

tags: @yokelish @gogolparadise @fyowyn-writes

#bsd #bungou stray dogs #bungo stray dogs #bsd oneshot #bsd scenarios #bsd x reader #bsd chuuya #rachwrote #bsd nakahara chuuya #chuuya x reader #nakahara chuuya x reader #bungo stray dogs chuuya #bungou stray dogs chuuya #bsd oneshots #bsd imagines #bsd scenario #bungo stray dogs x reader #bungou stray dogs x reader #bsd chuuya x reader #bsd chuuya oneshot #bsd chuuya scenario #bsd chuuya imagines #bsd angst

[masked-buffoon]

Chapter 8: The withering flower (Part 5)

Warnings: none

Author notes : Ogawa comes back to the Port Mafia... What kind of welcome do you think she’ll receive?

The back alleys of Yokohama felt like home, I knew every single shortcut and dead-end, it was not hard to find my way back toward the headquarters. As the automatic sliding doors opened onto me, a wave of muttering erupted in the hall, among the henchmen on a break or guarding the entrance. Rumours of my death had apparently spread among the members of the underground organisation, and seeing me well-alive was not to everyone's taste. I headed toward Akutagawa's office, where he never spent time, but where I knew I could find Higuchi. The poor woman was often stuck doing paperwork, much like how I used to be with Dazai. She would be able to tell me if my name still belonged to the Port Mafia.

"Ogawa-san...?" Her face lit up as she saw me "You're alive...!"

"Blood and flesh." I hummed "So, am I still alive for the Mafia, too...?"

"Oh, you are." She answered my question "Senpai knew you would never lose your life if you were with 'that person'... But he fired you from the squadron."

"Fired me...?" I frowned "What does that mean?"

"You do not work under him anymore." She explained, running a hand through her messy blonde hair "But don't worry, Ogawa-san...! Nakahara-san successfully promoted you to lieutenant under his orders...! But I wonder... Why such an important position so early...?"

"Why... That's what I used to be, after all... He's only giving me my former position back." I told her.

"Your former — wait, how could you be demoted...?"

"I would gladly tell you that story around a cup of coffee, someday." I smiled "For now... Would you mind telling me where Akutagwa is, please?"

"Sure… He said he was in the training room…" She recalled.

"Thank you… Stay well, Higuchi." I glanced over my shoulder as I exited the office.

"So do you, Ogawa-san."

The elevator climbed toward one of the highest floors of the headquarters. The familiar corridor appeared in my field of view as the doors opened and I carefully walked onto the fancy carpet. Nothing had really changed, except that Dazai's office was still empty and remained untouched. I decided to stop by, taking a quick look inside. The atmosphere was still the same, quiet and comfortable, and nothing had been moved. It was exactly as he had left it... I let my fingers wander on the back of the couch, remembering how its leather would make the best bed when I was given sleep... Those days were gone, now... And they would never come back again, unless I decided to make a move toward him. However, if I were to drape myself into this simulacre of happiness, would I not be deceived by the same man again...? I had no way to know if he was being honest toward me... I had assured Odasaku that I would stay by Dazai's side, but as he had left me, could I not go back and forget about everything...? Somehow, I felt those memories would last forever in my mind, engraved even deeper than any physical scar. I could simply not ignore that I had felt happy around him, and it was human to desire tasting such happiness again, even if I could be disappointed afterwards. But if I did not try... No, I wanted to be happy again... I wanted to spend time by this person's side, because he was my reason to live, because I could not keep breathing without his presence near me. There was no point in seeing tomorrow if he could not see it with me...

I closed the door behind me and headed toward Nakahara-san's office. I had made a decision to follow Dazai… It was regrettable, but I would have to turn down the executive's offer for a job. I knocked and was immediately ordered to come in.

"I was expecting you, Ogawa-kun." He looked up at me.

His office was different from Dazai's. It was way more fancy, more sparkly and more... Customised. In the corner, I could not help noticing the wine cave, where he surely kept a few of his favourite expensive bottles. Well, at least, his paperwork seemed done and classified, and his desk was devoid of any trace of feet.

"Did you not believe I was dead...?" I questioned, sitting in front of him.

"How could I? If you met the bastard, he would not let you die so easily. Besides, I believed you would come back to me and got out of my way to get you this job. How do you like it?" He grinned, leaning onto the back of his chair proudly.

"I am really grateful." I nodded at him "Thank you for promoting me..."

"It was your previous rank..." He remembered "I thought it was pretty unfair. I'll prove to the Boss you need not be called disposable anymore."

"Unfortunately, we both know I'm not going to last much longer..." I murmured "Do you still want me to work under you, knowing such a fact...?"

"I do." He affirmed "You were the mackerel's lieutenant, he regularly entrusted you with difficult missions and I remember your strategies were excellent, although it is painful to admit he taught you well… You are fit for the job, even if you have to die soon, your place is there. Besides, we've already talked about it. I'm not that keen on being your superior."

"Even so…" I sighed "I am grateful… I struggled to get by your side, and yet… I cannot accept your offer… Not anymore…"

"Then, I'll have to give you this, I suppose." He handed me a document "You encountered the bandage wasting device, it is obvious that keeping you there is pointless."

"An official authorisation to leave the Port Mafia...?!" My eyes widened "How...? Why...?"

"You've been living solely to see him again..." Nakahara-san crossed his arms "If you were not so determined to meet him again, I am certain you would have died long ago, but you're still living, and you have this new kind of light in your eyes. You hope again, and I figured you would like to be by his side more than staying there until death gets you. Besides, it was easy. Since I'm an executive."

I smiled sincerely at him, extremely grateful he had thought about me to this extent.

"I am touched..." I said "How can I ever repay you for this kindness...?"

"Three things; you stay alive no matter what, you tell that bandage wasting device that I'll definitely kill him, and you call me Chūya. That's all I ask as a payment." He stated.

"Thank you, Chūya..." I smiled "I will not die so easily..."

"I hope so." He smirked, crossing his arm "Good luck out there. It won't be easy."

"Yes… Mmh… May I be so bold as to ask you for a last favour…?"

"What is it, Ogawa?"

"Could you… Could you keep an eye on Akutagawa, please…?

You are a good person, finally..."

"I-I'm not!! I'm a ruthless executive...!! Leave before I'm really pissed off...!!"

#bsd #bsd oc #bsd fanfic #bsd dazai #bsd imagines #bungo stray dogs #bungou stray dogs #bungou stray dogs oc #dazai osamu #bsd chuuya #nakahara chuuya

[astxlphe-fics]

Pink Flowers  // Fukumori

Mori had his feelings for Fukuzawa cut out of him years ago. Hanahaki AU

Word count : ~1700

CW some blood, one murder, one medical malpractice 

When they’re younger, when they’re still a doctor and his bodyguard, Mori is the target of many attempted murders and kidnappings.  

Despite his constant misgivings about bodyguarding, despite the simple fact that Mori doesn’t, actually, need any kind of rescuing, Fukuzawa comes for him.  

Every single time.  

Then they fight together, back to back, as a team, against threats to the fragile balance of Mori’s world, of the neutrality of his underground clinic.  

It’s during those fights that Mori realizes than yes, sometimes he needs Fukuzawa by his side, and that he enjoys his company. They collapse, letting themselves fall sitting on the ground, side by side, bloody and tired.  

Mori sighs and there is a tingle in his throat.  

He doesn’t think much of it, barely notices it, but he does feel the beginning of a fondness for the man.  

+  

The itch at the back of his throat takes months to turn into a full cough, and he spits out the first petal in his own sink, thankfully.  

Having a patient around while he discovers his own illness would be less than ideal. Rumors go fast in the underbelly of Yokohama, and if the news escape his office it’ll quickly make its way to his enemies.  

He picks it up and studies it carefully.  

“How bothersome,” he declares, throwing it in the trash.  

But what can he do about it?  

There are several things he can do, in fact.  

First option — kill Fukuzawa before this disease takes a hold of him. But it’ll upset Natsume, and he isn’t sure he is capable of killing his bodyguard.  

Second option — get rid of the feeling altogether. While this is something he can eventually do on his own, letting it fade, an operation would be a sure way to fix the issue. The problem: he can’t operate himself.

Third option — seduce the man. Make sure that what Mori apparently feels for him is returned. Keep him by his sides, for good.  

This thought is infinitely more appealing than the first two.  

He doesn’t have to decide immediately. He doesn’t want to.  

“What do you think, Elise?”  

She looks up from her picture book. “I think you’re gross.”  

His laughter makes him cough again. Another petal comes out, and he thinks of every possibility again. He thinks of Fukuzawa, of the flowers fading from his lungs as the man holds him close.  

He’ll cross that bridge when he gets to it. Hanahaki isn’t a kind illness, but it’s considerate enough to make the killing slow.  

+  

Elise doesn’t start looking worried until a few months later, when he wakes up gasping for breath, petals sticking to the back of his throat and spilling out of his mouth.  

Her reaction tells him the situation might become critical soon.  

It’s more anger than worry, to be fair, and she throws some of his tools to the ground in a fit of rage. “Just kill him!” she yells, before crossing her arms and setting her face into a pout. “I’m starting to feel sick too, so get rid of him before he kills the both of us.”  

He would, usually, cave in to whatever Elise demands of him. He loves her, after all, and anything she wants is worth getting for her.  

But not this. This is something he can’t give her.  

+  

By the time Fukuzawa finds out about Yosano, Mori is throwing up whole flowers. It’s starting to affect his work, but it doesn’t look like Fukuzawa has noticed.  

If he has, he hasn’t said anything about it, which is fine by Mori.  

They fight — of course they fight, but it’s not like they usually do.  

Everyday fighting is banter and annoying each other, it’s Fukuzawa coming for him every time he gets into trouble, no matter how much he doesn’t need it.  

Everyday fighting makes the flowers in Mori’s lungs grow larger. It makes Mori want this man to love him.  

His chest tightens, thinking about what they have the potential to be, about how much they could do for this city just by being together, about the kind of embrace he could give him.

Fukuzawa draws his sword, and Mori almost chokes, swallowing down the flowers threatening to fall from his lips.

There is no fixing it now.  

+  

Their partnership broken, the illness gains more ground, with no hope of recovery through more...traditional means.  

It quickly becomes urgent to do something about it. The flowers are larger than ever, and if he was a lesser man, he would cry thinking about what they could have been, he would go back to Fukuzawa and ask him to reconsider, to come back to him.  

Gritting his teeth, he closes his eyes, grieving for a relationship that doesn’t exist, which was doomed from the day he threw up that first petal.

He is not a lesser man, however. He shoves his own fingers down his throat to drag the flowers out. They clog the sink, bloodied and of a horribly cheerful pink color.  

How those feelings have made him weak. They make him sick with a deadly disease, shift his focus, make him yearn for something he knows he can never have.  

He needs to get rid of them as soon as he can.  

“Look at you!” Elise scolds him. “I told you, we should have killed him.”  

“I’m sorry Elise.” He smiles at her sheepishly, because she is right. He should have dealt with it a long time ago. He just hadn’t wanted to.  

They make him irrational.  

There are other underground doctors in the city, though none of them as skilled, none of them as reputed, as he is. He will find someone to take care of it.  

She scowls, eyebrows drawing together, and she tugs at his sleeve. “You’re so stupid, Rintarou.”  

+  

The other doctor is surprised to see him, of all people, but he gets to work quickly. He looks smug, knowing such a thing about Mori Ougai, about the weakness taking over him.  

He will use it against him, in the future, if he can.  

Mori doesn’t let him entertain the idea.  

He refuses any kind of anesthetics, unwilling to put himself at the mercy of another person with a scalpel, and Elise stands guard. The other doctor underestimates her, but Mori knows she can recognize any suspicious medical action and rise up to protect him with barely any prompting.  

The doctor opens him up and fixes him, and the pain means nothing when he’s finally getting rid of the feelings he has for Fukuzawa Yukichi, for they have been weighing on him since the beginning, far more than he ever admitted to.  

When it’s done, he’s both curious and satisfied to realize that what he feels is now little more than indifference. Everything he has wished for since the start, to have him standing by his side, for lips on his skin and to be the only one in his eyes, seems ludicrous now. A waste of time and energy.  

He cuts the doctor’s throat once he’s done and looks for any witness. Then, he puts Fukuzawa out of his mind, and moves on.  

His work won’t do itself. He has a Mafia boss to take care of.  

Time to get down to business.  

+  

"It’s a pity.”  

Blood seeps out of Fukuzawa’s neck, and Mori is regretful, surprising even himself, though it’s not as personal as it could have been, once.  

His feelings for Fukuzawa were cut out of him years ago.  

Without this virus, they could have been a team again and crushed those rats with ease. They were always a deadly combination, so this is nothing but a missed opportunity.  

But first comes the security and well-being of his own, and any feeling he allows himself those days is for them, for the Mafia — and for Elise, of course, but she is something else entirely.

He still apologizes for cheating. He may not love the man anymore, but he respects his strength and a fair fight would have ended in Mori’s defeat. It’s not something he can allow again, not with so much at stake.

All he needs now, is to wait for Elise to pop back up into existence, stay here until Fukuzawa dies — it’s the least he can do for his old teammate — and prepare for the rage of the Detective Agency.  

Until Natsume shows up to scold them and drags them away to Dostoievski’s hideout.  

Later, as they’re on their way, it’s plain in the way Natsume looks at him that he knows. Mori doesn’t care. He has done what needed to be done.  

Elise reappears soon after, and he gives her a hug that she pretends to protest to. She will always be the most constant thing in his life, the only one who he knows will stand by him until his last breath.  

+  

The virus fades, and the ability user at the origin of it tries to run. Fukuzawa and Mori grab him before he can, together, like old times.

It makes Fukuzawa nostalgic, in a sense. He misses the team they used to be, before they each took a different walk of life. Before he learned of Yosano.

A part of him wishes that, when this is over, when they have won against Dostoievski, they can stay this way — a little bit of a team, again.

He wonders what Dazai is planning, forcing Akutagawa and Atsushi together.  

Both boys are like rough diamonds, and Dazai is playing a dangerous game, hitting them against each other like this. There is little he can do but trust Dazai’s judgement and hope the sparks he makes don’t start too big of a fire.

Though, knowing him, he would probably say it’s the point.

Mori, he can tell, is thinking the same, though he doesn’t speak of it. He catches him glancing at the pair, eyes lingering on Atsushi, and Fukuzawa can’t blame him for it. He’s just as doubtful of the black-clad young man with whom his subordinate already seems to have a quiet understanding.

The Mafia leaves. Fukuzawa watches as Mori’s red scarf billows in the wind.  

There is an itch in his throat.  

#bsd #fukumori #fukuzawa yukichi #mori ougai #bsd fukuzawa #bsd mori #hanahaki #cw blood #writing

[leviathans-tail]

So if anyone couldn’t tell, I’ve been reading some literature over the past couple of weeks. I have mostly been focusing on Dazai and Akutagawa partly due to the third season of Bungou Stray Dogs coming out and re-sparking my interest. I have had these authors and books on my “to-read list” for the longest time and now I’m finally getting around to it and I’m glad I did. I would like to thank BSD for rekindling my interest in reading stuff other than fanfic (not that fanfic is bad but reading on screens hurts my eyes cus my sensory problems and I feel bad printing out five to read them bc trees). Anyway, I still believe that it’s important to read classics from all over the world and growing up in the west, we didn’t exactly have great exposure to authors past the British and French. I remember reading just one of Dostoyevsky’s books in High School and that qualifies as “world literature.” And I absolutely loved the American authors in my American lit class but I was curious about other authors so I’m thankful for BSD for exposing me to some different literature.

Thus far, I can definitely say that i find it interesting to read classic literature that isn’t through a Christian lens bc even Dostoyevsky and other European and American authors often rely on Christianity for their views on morality so it was refreshing to read authors who had a different perspective and I even learned more of Buddhism in the process so that was a big plus. Dazai has a short story where he basically tells the story of Jesus’ betrayal through Judas’ perspective which would not happen from many western authors cus like it’s “sacrelgious” or whatever, so that was interesting. And as a Christian myself, I was very interested to see how someone not raised in this Christian culture would interpret and react to scripture. Akutagawa also has a couple short stories about the persecution of Christians during the Tokugawa goverment’s reign and the Shimabara Rebellion. My favorite was O-Gin because of its tragedy. It was also interesting to see Christianity taking the role of the “suppressed” because we rarely if ever see that through our Western Christianized world lens.

Second thing is big kudos to Dazai for just being a bi-icon (from “Memories”) and just casually stating that he had a crush on a male classmate but then was grossed out bc the guy gave him a newt and he hates newts. Another thing I gotta say about Dazai is that he always finds a way in his short stories (haven’t read his longer works yet they are in the mail), to insert himself but make it vague whereas you know when Akutagawa wants to talk about himself vs just give you a funny story or a historical fiction work.

I think my favorite Dazai short story is “Crackling Mountain” even though Dazai basically says that some women are devious and seduce men and then are cruel blah blah blah. I really enjoy his style of writing and I could really interchange between seeing the main characters as animals and people at the same time which was weird but good. my favorite Akutagawa short story is “Hell Screen” (although Rashomon is a close second). I could make a while post just on Hell Screen bc there’s A LOT there. And “Horse Legs” omg I highly recommend if you like surreal tragicomic works. I actually laughed out loud while reading this which doesn’t happen often when reading.

This post is already all over the place so I might as well add this on. I just finished reading “The Life of a Stupid Man” by Akutagawa which was published after his suicide and it was like one of the last things he left. It’s kind of an autobiography and kind of a suicide note if you ask me. Whatever the case, it definitely made me feel differently about Akutagawa as an actual person. Going into this I knew he was feeling a lot of pressure from his extended family bc he was the primary breadwinner for all of them and he had kids that would get sick, and relatives that were killing themselves or losing jobs, etc. so I just thought that he couldn’t take the pressure and eventually snapped. I wasn’t aware that he was uhhh just f***ing around. Like this one chick he pursued aggressively then was like “woah there jk” when she started pursuing him back. She even told him that a kid she had with her husband was his like what. According to himself,Akutagawa stopped cheating on his wife when he was thirty and you can tell that in “The Life of a Stupid Man” that he feels some sort of regret for his affairs. He keeps saying how he’s an awful husband, father, and brother but like he was supporting everyone which was admirable so why feel that way otherwise? One thing I found almost comical in this short story was when he talked about his platonic woman friend that he made after turning thirty and he was like “He did not die with her, but he took a certain satisfaction in his never having touched her.” Like good job bud you managed not to f*** one of your woman friends. But I think he was proud because if he has this “affliction” it would be easy to fall back into your old ways lol. Maybe having a platonic relationship with a woman was a goal of his before he died idk. He also makes reference to himself and other authors (including Gogol) being possessed by some sort of demon and that’s why they all go crazy and/or commit suicide and he knew that he was gonna do one or the other too. He says “all that lay before him was madness or suicide,” and then talks about how a close friend of his went mad and is in the hospital.

There’s another quote a little bit before that where Akutagawa states that “not everyone is moved by literature. His own works were unlikely to appeal to people who were not like him and had not lived a life like his...” and like idk how much I agree with him there if I’m being honest. I’d say I’m one of the furthest things from the type of person Akutagawa was and I still very much enjoyed his literature. And there I think he is again doubting his abilities and being self-deprecating (duh the title). He was able to write stories that despite their placement in history showed the best and worst parts of humanity and that will resonate with every generation. And like I think anyone will laugh at “Horse Legs” -it’s a dude walking around with hooves that he has to hide bc the death people messed up and he died too early and they needed to send him back but his own legs were rotten already and Horse Legs were all that was available. Cmon that’s funny

Anyway I might add on later or make another post to document my feelings/reactions to more literature idk

#kat speaks #opinion #literature #japanese literature #dazai osamu #akutagawa ryunosuke #bungou stray dogs #bsd #long post #tw suicide

[raven-writes-requests]

Corruption

Rating: Everyone Word count: 2,1 K Fandom: Bungou Stray Dogs Pairing: OC x Chuuya Nakahara Genre: Angst

__________________________________________________________

It was a normal day for her at work, at least as normal as a day in the mafia could be. She was running around with tons of paperwork in her hands, so she barely had time to check her phone notifications, which seemed to be endless as she wouldn't stop feeling it ringing inside of her pocket. 

It was around half an hour later, when she had finally had a break and took her phone out, ready to see who needed her so desperately. She looked at the almost fifty missed calls from Dazai speechless. What could he possibly want now to be so insistent? 

Just as she was about to read his messages, her phone began to ring. The caller was Dazai, again. 

"What is it? Why are you calling me so insistently? Don't you know that I'm busy working?" she said angrily as she picked up the call. 

"Listen, this is an emergency." he said and she laughed. 

"What's the emergency this time? You're hanging upside down because you're too stupid to properly kill yourself?" she was seriously done with Dazai ridiculous calls. 

"No, not this time…" he barely managed to speak before she cut him off again. 

"Then what? Do you want to show me a new way to do that? Or is it that you want me to find you new and innovative ways to do it…?" she kept going, completely ignoring the urgency in Dazai’s voice.

"It's Chuuya!" he screamed, cutting her off. She immediately shut up, panic taking over her whole body as she heard the red haired’s name. "He…" Dazai sighed. "He used Corruption and I wasn't able to stop him in time… I… I don't think he has much time left." His voice was barely a whisper as he finished the sentence, probably because he was scared of what she could say to him at that moment.

She could feel her phone slipping through her fingers and crashing against the ground beneath her. Her world was literally breaking down at the thought of a universe where Chuuya didn't exist, a universe where Chuuya wasn’t there beside her. 

She got up immediately, her legs trembling as well as her hands as ran out of the small office where she was. She felt herself crush into someone, probably Kōyō. But she kept running anyways, she didn’t had the time to deal with anyone, she had to make it to Chuuya's side immediately. 

She could hear sirens in the distance and the cold salty air of Yokohama City filled her lungs. Near the most important warehouses of the Port Mafia, she could see smoke and a building suddenly crumbling down.

Panic coursed through her even harder as she saw that. Were they okay? What was going on? Why did Chuuya chose to willingly use Corruption? Why didn’t Dazai stop him on time? She ran as fast as her feet would carry her, she had to get to both of them.

People and cars were accumulating in the streets and the police and ambulances were trying to get to the place of the incident. Some of them were annoyed, others were simply curious to see why the building had fallen down.

“We’re working to see what had happened. So far, we can’t give you any kind of information.” one of the policeman that were already at the scene were telling the people who were looking around with horrified looks, others were just recording the place of the incident.

After pushing people around and getting to the front lines, she was stopped by one of the police officers. “You can’t walk in there. Civilians are not allowed in.”

“I don’t care.” she tried to get past the officer, but was stopped again.

“You can’t walk in there.” the person insisted. “I know, you probably have a loved one there, but you’ll have to wait until the rescue unit comes. They will take care of it.” the officer’s voice sounded as if they were trying to reassure her, but that wasn’t what she needed at the moment. She needed to see him.

“I said, I don’t care.” she said again and walked past the officer, running so no one would stop her before time.

“Dazai!” she screamed as she walked around, stepping on pieces of debris as she desperately tried to find the two of them.

“Over here!” she heard Dazai’s voice screaming at her. As she turned around, she saw Dazai down on his knees, Chuuya’s head on his lap. Even in the distance, he looked as if he was agonizing.

When she finally got to the two of them, she kneeled next to Dazai and took Chuuya’s head on her lap. “Oi, you dumbass. She’s finally here.” the brown haired nudged Chuuya, making him open his eyes a little.

“Huh? She’s here?” he whispered, his voice sounded exhausted and she could see him having some difficulties to breathe as he breathed in.

“Hey, I’m here.” she whispered as she slowly caressed his hair. His hat was a few feet away from them, his gloves were missing and his skin was covered in red furious marks, evidence that he had used his ability to its full potential to the point where we was now dying an agonizing death.

The day had started as a brand new, happy day for her. It was only a few hours prior that she was making some dinner plans with her boyfriend over the phone and now… Now she was struggling not to cry in front of him as he was dying.

His eyes were still closed as his hand reached to caress her cheek. She was surprised he even had the strength left in his body to do such a thing. “Don’t cry.” he said, she could see the faint smile on his face. How could he say such a thing in a moment like that? “I don’t want to see you crying.” his voice was soft and caring.

His hand began to drop, he was clearly even more exhausted. She immediately grabbed it, feeling strange as she felt his skin against hers. It felt foreign to her, but she enjoyed the sensation anyways.

His eyes opened up again and he extended his other hand, taking ahold of his hat. He moved it towards her head and left the hat resting on top of her head.

“Wh… What are you doing? Don’t move too much!” she said with a trembling voice.

“It’s yours now, keep it. I love the way it looks on you.” he smiled weakly at her. She could feel the tears wanting to be free, but she refused to cry.

The last thing she heard coming out of his mouth was a whisper in the form of her name, a whisper that she was sure she would never forget for as long as she kept living.

Time seemed to stop when she noticed it, tears began to fall freely now, there was nothing left to stop them. She gripped his hand tightly, slowly let it go. 

“Chūya?” she whispered as she nudged him carefully. He didn’t even moved, even if she wanted to deny it, she couldn’t. Deep down, she knew the truth, Chuuya was dead.

“Are you okay?” she could hear Dazai’s soft and gentle voice next to her as he put a hand on her shoulder. Even if he hated her, he couldn’t bring himself to say something about his enemy dying. It just felt… wrong for him to do so in a moment like that.

She didn’t answer. Instead, she broke down, hugging his boyfriend’s body as if he would disappear if she let go.

It had been a few days since the day when she lost him, she was currently sitting in a bar somewhere around the Port Mafia’s headquarters. She was playing with glass of wine that she was holding between her fingers and a bottle of wine was sitting next to her elbow, on top of the counter.

“You see why I called you?” near by, a red haired nudged a brown haired male, who look really uncomfortable standing in the middle of the Port Mafia’s headquarters and looking at the scene in front of him.

“Not really, what am I supposed to do?” he asked, confused by the reason why he was summoned there. Was he supposed to cheer her up? Him out of all people?

“I want you to talk to her. She hasn’t been talking to anyone. Not with me, not with Tachihara, not with Akutagawa nor with Gin… and you know how close she is to the three of them.” the red haired said and looked at the man beside her. “You know I would never ask anything of you, specially not after you left the Mafia like that. But please, could you try talking to her, Dazai?”

He had to admit, the sight in front of him was depressing. Never in his life he thought he would see the girl in such a state, and having Kōyō Ozaki personally asking him a favor such as this… He couldn’t refuse.

With slow, careful steps he walked up to her. Her eyes didn’t move from the glass in front of her, still filled with a wine he remembered too well, a bottle of 1889 Pétrus. In front of her, a pack of cigarettes was half open, beside it was a lighter, ready in case someone wanted a smoke. Dazai chuckled softly at the sight before himself. Again, another sight he would have never thought he would see in his lifetime.

“What do you want?” her voice was merely a whisper, but he could still hear the anger in it even if he could barely hear the words she spoke.

“Someone asked me to come and see you. They told me you looked miserable, but I was certainly not ready for this.” he said, catching her attention and making her look up, revealing the face that Chuuya’s hat had been hiding from him.

“What do you mean this?” if looks could kill, Dazai was sure that she would have buried him six feet under. Still, he smiled softly at her.

“Are you trying to pick up his habits or something?” he asked, pointing at the bottle of wine and the pack of cigarettes that were in front of her. She sighed at his words and he kept going. “Even if he usually did that, it doesn’t mean he would have wanted you doing the same things, you know?”

She laughed humorlessly. “I’m not. I can’t even do this. I’ve been staring at this glass of wine for the last thirty minutes, trying to decide whether I should drink it or not, but I can’t do it. I thought this would help me ease the pain I feel inside of me, but… I don’t think this is actually working.”

Dazai put a hand on her shoulder, trying to comfort her. “I know what it feels like.” he said, making her look at him with a really confused look. “I guess I should explain myself… I had a friend, whom I held dearly, who died a few years ago.” he began to explain. “I didn’t knew how to deal with his death at first, until I remembered what his last words were. He had told me to be a good person, to do something good with my life.”

As Dazai’s eyes looked at the distance with an expression she was sure she had never seen in her eyes, she began to wonder where he was going with that.

“What I mean is… Don’t waste your time crying for him. Instead, do something better, live your life the way he would’ve wanted you to live it.” he smiled as he got up. “You never know where it might take you to.”

Dazai left her alone after that. She was shocked, there were no tears on her face. She was just staring blankly at the large selection of drinks that was in front of her. To live her life the way Chuuya would’ve wanted her to live it?

Her gaze went down to her drink again. This time, she took it to her lips, taking a large sip of the wine. Then, she left the glass down again and smiled.

The girl had no idea how much she needed Dazai’s words until she heard them, and that was what she was going to do. She was going to stop crying around for him and closing herself inside of a cocoon and begin to live her life the way she knew Chuuya would’ve wanted her to live.

#Ravenwritesrequests #bungou stray dogs #bsd fanfic #bsd chuuya #chuuya nakahara

[fraink5-writes]

Human Qualification- Chapter 26

June

So this is it, the last chapter. I can't believe it. This is my first finished multi-chapter, so I'm going to indulge in some sappiness.

First, as always, I want to thank my editors @missmizpah​ @gracieuxetoile​ and @deathly-oreos​ for working with me on this fic and helping me improve it. Special thank you to @missmizpah​ for not only beta-reading the entire thing but also listening to my complaints. Thank you so much!

Next, I'd like to thank @4nimenut​ for drawing such lovely art for chapter 9. With such fine attention to detail, it really brought the scene to life. I'll always treasure it; thank you!

I want to thank @leio13​ for supporting me and this fic from the beginning (even advertising it). I wouldn't have made it this far without you; thank you!!

Finally, I want to thank all my wonderful readers! It really was a pleasure to share this with all of you, and I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did! I hope I can exceed your expectations in the future. Thank you so much!!

A note about the chapter: Japanese funerals are rather different than western funerals. I’ve included at the end a number of sources which might be of use to you.

Summary: To slowly lose all your functions until you are nothing but a trapped mind in a deteriorated shell, that’s what it means to be ‘No Longer Human.’

This chapter can also be found on Ao3 here. Without further ado, please enjoy!

It was over. For a long time, Chuuya had lived alone. He was alone again, but this loneliness was a stranger, colder, quieter, and sadder. It haunted him like a ghost. But he was alone; there were no footsteps besides his own; no other voices, no other breathing.

Dazai lay in the other room where he wouldn’t stir. No more choking, no more clothes changing, no more moaning. He was still. On the table beside him, there was a mess of flowers, a candle and suffocating incense.

With quivering hands, Chuuya took out his knife and placed it gently on Dazai’s chest. It was dirty with Chuuya’s crimes, but it could protect Dazai, if he needed such protection anymore. It was all Chuuya could do. He had been powerless before, when it might have mattered.

There was a knock on the door, which Chuuya trudged to answer. The pink-haired woman at the door was cloaked in a midnight kimono. “May I come in?”

Chuuya nodded, leading Kouyou into his apartment.

“I heard the news. I’m sorry. How are you doing? Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” Chuuya was alive, at the least.

“Don’t forget to take care of yourself. I brought food—and alcohol~!”

“Thanks.”

Honestly, Chuuya hadn’t thought at all about eating (or doing anything) before Kouyou arrived with food. Then suddenly he realized he was extremely hungry. He stacked the food on his plate and filled two glasses with wine, handing one to Kouyou. He shoveled the food into his mouth between gulps of wine.

The food disappeared, but he still felt empty. He decided to fill it with more wine. Its warmth comforted him, easing the ache within him. He was happy. For the first time in months, he was happy.

Until the illusion crashed, and his emotions churned along with the contents of his stomach. He had to get to the bathroom, but he couldn’t walk. Even now he was powerless, held down by the weight of his own incompetence and guilt.

“Chuuya,” Kouyou sighed. “You really need to take better care of yourself.”

What was the point?

Kouyou lifted Chuuya into the bathroom. She held his hair back and gently patted his back as he leaned over the toilet bowl, letting out a mixture of emotions and vomit.

Soon he was empty again; no more vomit, no more tears, no more feelings. He just wanted to sleep.

Chuuya stood at the entrance of the building, his whole body shaking with excessive energy—or rather energy which had been diverted from his will to do anything into his trembling. Guests were beginning to creep up to the entrance: people who Chuuya had worked with in his career, who he hadn’t seen in months, whose arrival meant that this was official. Chuuya couldn’t escape.

One of the first guests to greet Chuuya was Akutagawa; serious-faced and dressed in black, he didn’t appear all that different than usual. If he was hit hard by what happened, he didn’t show it. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

“Thank you.”

“I must become even stronger for Dazai-san,” Akutagawa muttered. “So one day he will acknowledge my strength.”

“I’m sure that will please him.”

Akutagawa turned to go to the registry with a slight bow.

“Umm, Akutagawa?” Chuuya called softly after him. “Dazai probably never told you, but he thought of you as a good trainee.”

A rare smile, barely noticeable, flickered on Akutagawa’s face as he walked away.

After Akutagawa, guest after guest filtered in, each stopping to offer Chuuya their condolences. ‘Sorry,’ ‘sorry,’ ‘sorry’... Each compounded the immensity of their loss. Dazai would have hated it.

The wake began with a Buddhist sutra. It rang hollowly through the hall. The words, which never meant anything to a non-believer, slurred together into a mournful tune. The entire ceremony was a systematic act, and Chuuya was the leader. He approached the table before him, bowed, and lit the incense. Behind him, the guests mimicked his actions at another altar.

In front of him, Dazai lay in his casket under the elaborate display of flowers. But it was hard to believe he was there at all; the only indicator was his portrait on display. Just a few months ago, he had been alive and moving. Even in the hospital, he had been alive, even if he was reliant on life support.

Now he was dead. When Chuuya saw Dazai last, he looked just as he had when he was alive—barely so, but alive nonetheless. When he was alive, Dazai looked like death, so much so that his death didn’t feel real. The end of his life had been so painful, so incapacitating, that death was only a tiny change; it was just an extension. Maybe that should have made things easier to accept, but they weren’t. Chuuya had expected the day to come for so long that when it finally came, he was unprepared.

So, he sat by the altar completely numb.

After the wake, most of the guests took their leave, so only a handful of guests remained for the vigil: Mori, Dazai’s two friends, Oda and Sakaguchi, and Chuuya himself. Chuuya hoped to spend the night alone with the alcohol, but that prospect was quickly crushed.

“Chuuya-kun.”

“Boss.”

“I hope you’ve been taking care of yourself.” Mori took on the friendly persona of a doctor.

“I’m fine,” Chuuya spoke curtly, hoping Mori would bother someone else.

“Good!” Mori grinned (such a grin which shook Chuuya to his spine) before returning to a serious face. “It’s quite a shame what happened. Dazai was still so young; he had so much potential.” The words seemed on the surface to be mournful, but they were the lamentations of a shrewd businessman. Dazai was a lost pawn in his game. To say Mori raised Dazai was only superficially true. He shaped Dazai into a scheming genius, but he had also deprived him of so many things: affection, empathy, happiness. Chuuya resented Mori. What right did he have to show up too late and pretend to care?

“Oh, by the way, Chuuya-kun, will you be resuming work sometime soon?”

It was impossible to think about such things now.

“When you return, the executive spot is waiting for you.”

Bastard! Chuuya squeezed his fists, ready to swing at Mori’s face.

“Don’t worry,” Mori chuckled nervously. “It’s not Dazai’s former spot; that’s still empty. I did some rearranging.”

Was that the truth? Either way, Chuuya was heating up with indignation at the callous offer. The prospect of working for the greasy doctor was repulsive. But he couldn’t leave the Mafia, Kouyou, his colleagues, his subordinates. “I’ll think about it.” He gulped down a cup of sake and walked away.

Oda and Sakaguchi sat to themselves, seemingly in a deep conversation. The taller one, Oda, had tears rolling down his face. He really was unfit for the Mafia; his feelings were genuine and his lifestyle honest. Chuuya could see why he had caught Dazai’s attention.

The other, Sakaguchi, was much more reserved. Aside from the frown (which looked to be a permanent feature), he was composed as he comforted his friend. In the mafia, he was considered a responsible type, something Dazai must have believed.

The two of them had been friends with Dazai before Chuuya. They must have known so much more and experienced so much more with him; Chuuya felt unworthy standing next to them.

If Chuuya had reached out to Dazai sooner, if he had stopped instigating petty fights earlier, would he still wish that they had more time? It was only natural to regret such a young death, yet Chuuya was certain he could have done more. He had watched helplessly as Dazai died; it was unbearable to think he hadn’t done enough but completely hopeless to concede there was nothing which could’ve been done. In the mafia, Chuuya was taught it was meaningless to brood over past things, but to stop was almost to forget. He clung desperately to their shared suffering because the memory was all they had left. Through his remembrance and guilt, maybe he could atone for his powerlessness.

It was the last night Chuuya and Dazai would spend in the same room together, yet Chuuya felt completely alone.

The funeral hall was emptier and quieter than the previous day, filled largely by the sutras of the monk. The song droned slowly as though the melody was weighed down by death. Chuuya was the first to approach the altar with heavy, unstable steps, carrying the burden of his regrets. Alone, he felt exposed by the eyes of the people behind him and Dazai in front of him. Kneeling before the altar, he sprinkled an offering of incense three times; the smoke irritated his swollen eyes. Then, he bowed deeply in respect to the portrait of Dazai, which Chuuya knew very well; he had taken the photo in February when Dazai was emaciated but not skeletal, when he could still move his left arm (in which he held a box of chocolates), when he could smile. That smile, despite being the product of a whack on the head, was so full of life; it was normally easy to overlook the rest. Except then, the photo stared down at Chuuya as a cruel reminder of what he’d lost.

This was Chuuya’s last chance to offer prayers, but all his thoughts collided frantically, unable to create a coherent idea. Regret, pity and guilt fought against love and well-wishes. Dazai would have hated the former, but they crushed Chuuya as he knelt; he couldn’t fight them. In the end, he had nothing to offer besides the incense and the occasional tear which overflowed from his eyes.

Chuuya had watched Dazai’s body deteriorate over months, yet it completely disappeared in less than two hours. All that remained were a pile of ash and bones. Even as his hair, fat, and muscles fell away, he had always been undeniably Dazai with captivating brown eyes and a wry grin which he so sparingly showed. The pile in front of Chuuya had no signs of Dazai and very little humanity. They were death, cold and unfeeling. They were the death Dazai had always wanted.

About Japanese funerals:

https://www.japanvisitor.com/japanese-culture/japanese-funerals

http://traditionscustoms.com/death-rites/japanese-funeral

http://thefuneralsource.org/trad140205.html

https://savvytokyo.com/the-complicated-rituals-of-japanese-funerals/

http://www.realestate-tokyo.com/news/japanese-funerals/

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#Bungou Stray Dogs #Soukoku #Human Qualification #Nakahara Chuuya #Dazai Osamu #Ozaki Kouyou #Akutagawa Ryuunosuke #Mori Ougai #Oda Sakunosuke #Sakaguchi Ango

[izanyas]

Nothing Noble (1)

First chapter of the roleswap Soukoku fic, feat. agency member Chuuya and mafia executive Dazai. Inspired by the Soukoku Christmas 2017 prompt  “Nobility.”

Rating: M Words: 10,600 Warnings: character death, grief/mourning, violence, abuse.

Nothing Noble Chapter 1

Mori's voice was velvet through the silence, tempered, measured. Dazai knew how little of that sweetness was real, but where he usually found amusement in the fact that Mori lied about this as he lied about everything else—straight-faced and kind-looking—he found that he couldn't laugh tonight. Not even in the privacy of his own head.

His head was crowded. His ears rang with the sound of Chuuya's voice like they would after an earthquake. He wished he could allow himself to step out of the office, to step out of his own mind, as he had wanted to since the thunder of the shot had struck down his hearing.

His trigger finger ached. He couldn't uncurl it fully.

Mori was done recounting the events of the night to the other executives, now. Dazai pinpointed Oda's careful breathing at the back of the room, focused his attention on it rather than on Hirotsu's voice asking, "What do we do now, Boss?"

"Search for him, of course," Mori replied. "I have already sent men after him, and I have to ask you three to share your resources as well. Chuuya-kun is only one boy, but I think we all know better than to underestimate him now."

Ah, Dazai thought. That one was for me.

"With all due respect," Ace interjected, soft and honeyed. The glance he leveled with Dazai was positively gleeful. "None of this would have happened if Dazai had done his job, Boss. Do you think it wise to include him in the search party? He's the one who let Nakahara go."

"I think I would very much like to have Dazai-kun protecting my life, yes," Mori answered.

Ace sneered. "If you life even needs protecting."

"It does," Dazai said.

Oda's breathing pattern had shifted. His pace had been forcefully calm, deep and chest-wide; now it hurried at the sound of Dazai's voice, and the rhythm it took was one he only ever used for worry.

"I wasn't lying," he went on. His eyes found Mori's across the shadowed length of the room. "Chuuya will have your head. He was pretty adamant about me telling you this, actually, which I think was a bit stupid of him."

"And what would you do," Mori asked, "If it were you instead of Chuuya-kun?"

What would Dazai do, if it were him and not Chuuya?

Dazai couldn't imagine it. He couldn't see himself wrecked with the kind of grief Chuuya had shown, couldn't picture wearing such suffering over his open face. His mind was slow, still, with the aftermath of the affair. He stood still in the middle of the room, under Mori's scrutiny and Ace's thinly-veiled rancor, because it was better than to move, heavy-footed and sluggish.

His ears ached from the sound of the gunshot. On his hands, Chuuya's blood was no longer slick. It was no longer warm.

"I wouldn't tell you I'd be back for revenge for one," Dazai said, staring absently somewhere below Mori's chin. "Though, it wouldn't be hard to guess his intentions either way."

"Foolish," Ace said haughtily. "He was never very bright, was he."

Dazai was surprised by how irritated the words made him feel. "He won't go after you yet, Boss," he continued, pushing down the flash of bright anger. Mori had made no comment of Ace's insult. He stared at Dazai silently, waiting for him to conclude. "Chuuya doesn't like strategizing on the long term, but he knows you're too well-guarded now. He'll be patient. Wait for his chance to strike. There are other people he can take care of in the meantime, people who aren't so heavily protected."

"Even years from now?" Mori asked, mouth turned to a pout.

Oda wasn't breathing anymore. Dazai thought of Ango, whose name Chuuya had said in those last moments with soul-deep hatred; he thought of Chuuya in Corruption, standing deathly still in the ruins of the hilltop house, waiting for his power to consume him; he thought of the corpse he had found hours ago in the dim-lit mansion he had so often visited.

Its face had looked peaceful. It wasn't hard to guess who had taken the time to wipe away the blood, to change the clothes it wore, to lay it atop a bed as one lay a sick child. One of its hands had been out of the sheet. It had still possessed living warmth when Dazai had touched it, from being held by another.

He laughed.

Ace looked at him with outrage, Hirotsu with bored silence; Dazai rode out the nerves, rode out the emptiness, and he said, "You don't understand. Chuuya doesn't care about anything else, now." He smiled at his boss. "You took away the only thing he cherished," he said. "You cut down the one person tethering him to this organization. And now he wants equal payment. He wants what you care about the most—he wants your life, and he won't die until he has it. He won't rest until he has it. It doesn't matter if it takes him two months or two decades."

That was the sort of drive Chuuya possessed. The sort of loyalty that grief could inspire, the sort of love only one person had ever brought out of his heart.

"It seems we are in a bit of a predicament, then," Mori said.

"Dazai should be kept away from the investigation—"

"You need me to catch him," Dazai cut in. Ace glared at him, almost bare-toothed, a sharp contrast to the obsequious elegance he boasted. Dazai smiled at him thinly. "Unless you want to test your ability against his," he added. "Tell me—how much do you think Chuuya's life is worth in money, and how little do you think gravity manipulation cares?"

Ace looked about ready to try and strangle him. Dazai winked and looked away.

"We can kill him without you, Dazai-sama," Hirotsu said lowly.

Dazai didn't smile at him. He had never needed such niceties for the few members he respected. "I'm not sure about that," he replied. "Turns out, he can stop bullets."

"Even he has to sleep sometimes. And he's weakened right now. We just need to locate him and catch him unawares."

The rest of the conversation unfolded much the same. Dazai stood outside of it, vaguely trying to massage the ache out of his finger, blinking through the same images that he had for hours—Corruption, the destroyed house, Kouyou laid out on a bed, loved and grieved over.

Mori dismissed everyone but Dazai from the room, at one point. It didn't surprise Dazai, and it didn't surprise anyone else either. They trickled out of the office with heavy steps and resentful eyes, Oda without a word and Akutagawa without a care, Ace glaring, Hirotsu silent.

Dazai missed the sound of Oda's breathing the moment the door closed on it.

"I thought that this whole affair would go under much more smoothly," Mori complained, leaning back into his chair. "To think Chuuya-kun would betray us… I can't say that I predicted this. No, I really never thought such a thing could happen."

"Me neither," Dazai murmured distractedly.

He was looking at the black permit still resting over the mahogany desk, eyeing the gold letters printed on it, the gloss of its expensive paper. Mori said nothing when he approached and took it, not even when he opened it and smeared a brownish stain on the letter inside. Maybe the blood wasn't as dry yet as Dazai had thought.

"I wonder," he said out loud, "whether you thought Mimic would attack me instead."

Mori didn't answer.

Dazai's lips stretched joylessly. "Thought so," he muttered. "It's a shame Chuuya didn't like me nearly as much as he liked Kouyou."

"I don't believe for one second that Gide would've been able to kill you," Mori replied, nonchalant. "Not unless you wanted him to, and you've always so disliked the idea of death by bullet wound, haven't you."

"Odasaku's ability works on me, you know. Gide could've done it."

Mori gave him a very amused glance.

"I guess your loss is double this time," Dazai said, sighing. "If you'd cared more about me, Chuuya would have taken my life as a way to get back to you."

"He thinks of you as a partner."

Dazai huffed softly. "Not anymore," he replied.

Not even Chuuya would hang on to partnership after being shot in the face.

Dazai let the permit fall back onto the desk. The blood stain on it would be unwashable unless Mori risked blurring the text inside, and there was some satisfaction in that. There was some catharsis to be found in knowing that this prize was stained with blood, literally and metaphorically.

"Was it worth it?" he asked. It was the only thing he could think of saying. "You've lost a very influential executive, and now the port mafia's most destructive ability user is out to kill you. All for a piece of paper."

Mori was a hard person to read even to Dazai. But Dazai had an advantage, for a given value of the word, in that he had grown with Mori. He had an advantage in that learning to read what the man thought had always meant survival. He met the eyes of his mentor above the shining surface of the wooden desk, pressing his aching finger onto it, smearing viscous blood over its varnish; he searched the bleak depth of that familiar stare for even a hint of regret.

And in the smothered space of his own chest, where his heart beat only in name, Dazai thought that regret must feel how he felt. He thought regret must be the stickiness of drying blood on his hands; he thought regret must be cold metal against his finger, the click of a trigger and the sound of a gunshot, as a bond he had never had a name for snapped.

"Dazai-kun," Mori called a minute later, as Dazai was on his way out of the room.

Dazai looked back, blinking fast under the strain of the bandage keeping his right eye shut. He'd have to take it off soon. "What?" he asked.

"You think he can do it, don't you. You think Chuuya-kun will have my head one day."

"I think there's nothing to be done if he gets close enough to you to activate Corruption," Dazai replied. "He doesn't care anymore whether I'm here to stop it."

Chuuya hadn't cared at all that he would have died killing Mimic's members if Dazai hadn't caught him in time. He hadn't even known that Dazai would be there.

"Unless you're by my side," Mori pointed out calmly.

Dazai bent at the hip, smiling at him.

"I hope this will help you reconsider my usefulness, Boss," he said. Straightening out of the bow, he added, "I would so hate for you to die just because I wasn't there to help."

--

Dazai found Oda and Akutagawa on his doorstep. Oda was sitting on the floor, already looking at the doors of the elevator before they opened; Akutagawa was standing some distance away from him, despite the shaking in what Dazai guessed to be an injured thigh, and he was glaring at him. His face was still bruised from Dazai's punch.

The good thing with Akutagawa being in his vicinity was that Dazai always had the energy to be irritated with him, no matter the numbness.

"What are you doing here?" he asked curtly.

Akutagawa jumped, not having heard him approach. He seemed to hesitate before speaking, not knowing which of them Dazai was addressing—it only made Dazai want to curl his lips back with disgust. He would never talk to Oda that way, as Oda well knew.

"Send me after him," Akutagawa said. His voice, as always, sounded like a dying man's.

Dazai walked past him and slid his key into the lock of his door. He shoved his hand through the frame once it was ajar, disarming the trap there with deft fingers. "After who?" he asked, though the answer was obvious.

"Nakahara Chuuya."

"I thought you liked Chuuya."

It hadn't been an accusation, only an observation. Akutagawa did like Chuuya, admired him even, and it had nothing to do with what Dazai was aware of—Chuuya going behind his back occasionally and trying to lift the boy's spirits, with plethora of insults for Dazai's person as a perk. Anyone else would have welcomed the support eagerly, but not Akutagawa. No, Akutagawa admired Chuuya because Akutagawa only ever admired brute strength.

Of all the reasons to look up to his former partner, it was by far the least interesting; and Akutagawa, of course, took Dazai's words for insult.

"He's a traitor," he said slowly. He spoke with a very light lisp, because of the teeth he had spat out the day before.

Oda was getting to his feet now, looking between the two of them warily. He walked into the apartment behind Dazai. Akutagawa hovered in the entrance, doubting his right to do so as well. In the end, he followed with gauche steps, though he didn't go further in than the hallway. His eyes kept flickering to the walls around him and then to Dazai himself, quick and careful.

"I do not sympathize with traitors," he added for good measure.

Dazai hummed. He dropped his keys into the silver box sat atop his liquor cabinet. He shrugged off his coat, hung it on the back of a chair, and he said, "Sure. Go look for him."

There was a moment of silence.

"What?" Dazai questioned pleasantly. "You thought I wouldn't allow it?"

Akutagawa opened his mouth, stricken, and for a second Dazai half-hoped that he would dare oppose him. But—"No," he said. "Of course. I'll go at once."

"Dazai," Oda said quietly.

Dazai ignored him. "Chuuya might hesitate to strike you down, since he likes you too," he told Akutagawa. The boy had taken half a step back, thinking he was allowed to leave; he stilled at the sound of Dazai's voice. "Or he might not. He wasn't exactly in his right mind when I saw him last. Do you know how Chuuya gets when he's truly angry, Akutagawa?"

"Yes," Akutagawa replied hesitantly.

"The right answer was no."

Rashoumon shuddered around him, the sharp edges of the beast flickering to life on the curve of cloth on his shoulders. "I can take him," he whispered.

"Then go, by all means," Dazai replied. He extended an arm toward the door, almost touching Akutagawa himself on the way. "If your death can serve to tell us where he is, you'll finally be of some use to me."

Akutagawa didn't look like he had a single word left in him anymore. The look on his face was one Dazai knew well, one he would have revelled in at another time, under different circumstances; he looked almost waifish still under the heavy coat bestowed upon him, skinny and pale and utterly clueless. In the faint glow of the window, lit only by the night streets, the sight of him was ghostly.

"Then again," Dazai went on coldly, "you'll definitely get some experience in using that worthless ability of yours for defense. If you last longer than five minutes, maybe the lesson will even have time to stick."

"Dazai-san—"

"Maybe I should phrase it differently," Dazai mused, glancing toward Oda as if looking for input. Oda only stared back darkly. "How would you feel if I were to shoot Gin-chan in the head, Akutagawa?"

Akutagawa's whole body shuddered.

"I bet you wouldn't be very happy with me. I think you might even find it in yourself to attack me." Dazai stepped toward Akutagawa's still form, meeting his eyes again, finding them wide with fear. "Maybe Chuuya didn't value you enough to tell you that," he murmured, "but Kouyou raised him. She took him out of the streets, like I did with you, but she wasn't unkind to him, oh no. She loved him like a brother. And he loved her like a sister."

Dazai smiled. Akutagawa flinched. His shoulder was tense as a bow, the line of it like stone under Dazai's palm, once he raised a hand to touch it.

"I think you should stop thinking that you're anywhere near strong enough to take down Chuuya on your own," he said. "Or anyone, really. And I think you should go spend some time with your sister—she's going to be under investigation too, after all."

"Please," Akutagawa breathed. Dazai squeezed his shoulder, and his mouth snapped shut once more.

"I could put in a nice word for her, tell Boss that I know for sure Chuuya acted on impulse and didn't consort with anyone, including his favorite student." Dazai felt the weight of Akutagawa's plea almost physically, in the width of his pale eyes, in the choked workings of his throat. His neck was trembling visibly. "Or I could tell him to get rid of her," he said softly. "Just in case. We wouldn't want to risk another traitor in our ranks."

"Gin would never—"

"Shut up."

Akutagawa actually fought with himself for the barest second, the protest almost bursting out of him, pushed forth by his despair. Dazai waited patiently for it.

It didn't come.

Fatigue won over disgust and curiosity alike, in the end. Dazai gave a light shove to Akutagawa's shoulder and said, "You've never provided me with proof that I should trust you with this sort of responsibility. In fact, your stupidity in this whole affair considerably slowed down my investigation. You might yet claim responsibility for Kouyou's death." His lips curved cruelly. "Maybe Chuuya will figure that out in time, too," he continued. "He's probably finalizing his list of targets right now—I wonder if he'll add your name to it?"

"I," said Akutagawa.

"You must be proud of yourself. You and I, finally put down as equals."

"Dazai."

Dazai stilled. He didn't immediately understand that the weight on his back wasn't the heavy nothing he had felt since leaving the ruins of Corruption—it was Oda's hand, and that had been Oda's voice, sharp with disapproval. Once the realization crept in, he found himself wordless.

"You should go," Oda told Akutagawa. His tone was firm, lacking the usual drag of laziness and alcohol, but Akutagawa barely seemed to hear it. He was staring at Dazai, transfixed.

Dazai shrugged off Oda's hand. "Get out of my sight," he let out tiredly.

It wasn't until he turned around and walked into the living-room that Akutagawa obeyed. Dazai crouched by his liquor cabinet, pulled out the first bottle his unseeing eyes found, and didn't move from there until he heard the door slam closed.

Then, he exhaled.

"I'm guessing you're here about Ango," he made himself say, standing up once more.

"Not only," Oda replied.

Dazai turned around to face him. He blinked, after Oda turned on the light—he hadn't realized how dark his apartment had been until then. Oda took the offered bottle wordlessly. He walked to the kitchen and set it down there without opening it.

"You said Nakahara might put Ango on his hit list," he said.

"Not might. Will."

Ango had been one of three certain names. Dazai couldn't be sure about the rest.

"Ango's smarter than all of us combined," Dazai said. "I'm sure he already knows about Chuuya's defection, and since we're not allowed to harm him thanks to our Boss's deal with the special ability department, he only has that to worry about. Piece of cake, after playing three gifted organizations for fools. He'll be well-hidden until Chuuya makes it out of city."

Oda took the information in stride. If he was worried, he didn't show it, which was the smart thing to do.

Ango was a traitor as well.

"And you?" he asked lowly. "Are you gonna be okay?"

Dazai leaned against the back of his couch. "I said that to mess with Akutagawa," he answered. "I can't imagine Chuuya's very happy with me right now, but I'm not responsible for Kouyou's death."

"I wasn't talking about that."

Oda looked as unperturbed as ever. Dazai had never heard him utter judgment in either words or tone, and he wasn't judging now. If Dazai decided to do something as foolish as obey the weakness in his body and collapse, Oda would not think him the lesser for it.

"Are you okay?" Oda asked again.

"Why wouldn't I be?" Dazai replied.

Oda blinked slowly; he put a hand in the pocket of his rumpled jeans. "You were close to Ozaki, weren't you."

The picture burned itself into his mind again, of Kouyou's peaceful corpse tended to with a care Dazai himself would have never had the strength to muster up. He couldn't understand how Chuuya had even looked at her for so long, let alone cleaned her up and held her hand and grieved by her deathbed.

Dazai's throat closed up. "I'm fine," he let out, forcefully calm.

He took his right index finger in his left hand and tried to squeeze the tension out of it once more.

"You grew up with—"

"I don't really care about Chuuya leaving, Odasaku," Dazai cut in. "If I'm lucky I'll never have to see his ugly mug in person again."

Oda hesitated. "All right," he conceded, unconvinced. "We can just drink if you want."

And suddenly Dazai couldn't do it at all. He couldn't keep up the pretense, not even long enough to get drunk. Not with Oda looking at him with such compassion on his face. Space itself felt like too much; the sound of Oda's voice, the feeling of crusted blood on his hands, the ringing in his ears that hadn't stopped since he had fired the shot, everything collapsed together into a mass of overwhelming stimuli, of white noise and prickling goosebumps. He wanted to scream it away. He wanted to lock himself into a cramped room and fold his own body down to nothing. In two, in four, in eight, until he was reduced to dust.

"I'm sorry," he said, turning away. His own ribs felt like a cage, trapping the air inside of his own chest. He was having trouble breathing, he realized. "I think I'll just head to bed for now. You know," he waved a hand awkwardly, "gotta get a search team together in the morning. Else Ace will try to come up with another clever plan to get me out of the executive position."

"I don't much like this guy," Oda declared thoughtfully.

"I don't think anyone does."

Dazai stared at the unlit screen of his TV rather than look in the direction Oda was moving. A small red light kept blinking at the bottom of it. It was somewhat soothing.

"There's something I want to say," came Oda's voice. "If you'll hear me out."

Dazai closed his eyes. "Sure," he replied tightly.

Oda must be standing in the hallway already, maybe with one hand on the door, maybe with both in his pockets, his slouch hiding the swell of cloth over the twin guns he carried.

"I wasn't sure about it before today," Oda said. "And now is probably not the right time to say it, but I don't know if I'm going to get a better chance. I know we don't really… well. We meet for drinks, and I like that, but more than that, I consider you a friend. You and Ango."

Time slowed like a sticky substance; it stretched and pulled without ever snapping, tugging Dazai's skin along with it, expanding through his body like steam.

"So whatever happens next," Oda continued. "Whatever you decide to do, I'll be on your side of it."

"You don't know what you're saying," Dazai replied.

"I know exactly what I'm saying."

Dazai breathed in. He looked over his shoulder.

Oda wasn't slouching at all.

"Your side, Dazai," he said, meeting his eyes evenly. "Not Mori's. Not the port mafia's. You're the only person here that I want to follow."

--

Katai often came out of sleep with progressive consciousness. His dreams were a tangled mess of screen-bright images, mostly soundless, mostly impossible to describe. He crawled to awareness the way he crawled out of it; surrounded by the dark, windows closed and curtains drawn, so that no natural light filtered through the single room where he lived.

So he didn't notice anything different at first. His limbs were always heavy to him, weak from lack of use, his tongue dry and his heart slow. He awoke in his bed with the faint scent of burned plastic clogging his nose, with fresher air than he was used to running over the bare skin of his arms, and that was when wrongness settled in.

Someone was in his house.

He tried to move his head as slowly as possible and couldn't. He tried to lift an arm and couldn't. He felt suddenly impossibly heavy, pushed down by inexorable force, pressed face-first into his futon by no hand that he could feel.

Something sharp touched the exposed line of his nape, and a voice he couldn't recognize said, "Don't move."

"Please," he whimpered.

He didn't know what he wanted to say—please don't kill me, please let this be a dream—but it didn't matter. He had to plea.

There came a hiss. The blade resting on the side of his neck was shaking.

"Please, oh God, don't—"

"Shut the fuck up," the voice said—it hissed once more with the words.

Katai had no room in him for shame when tears started dripping down his face. It was still mostly pushed into his pillow, unable to move, and so they crashed there and wetted the fabric until his entire nose felt damp.

"Calm down," the voice said. "I'm not going to hurt you as long as you do as I say."

Katai choked on a whimper.

Some of the weight on him shifted. He hadn't realized that someone was straddling him, and he found that the sudden absence did nothing to alleviate whatever kept him trapped where he was.

An ability, he thought, and terror knotted up his throat tightly.

"You're Tayama Katai," the voice said. There was something pained about it, about the regular intakes of sharp air and the uneven grip on the knife. It did nothing to reassure Katai at all. "You're an information broker. Your ability allows you to have complete control of any electronics you set your eyes on, as long as you're not touching them."

The person shifted again, level with Katai's left shoulder. Something made them stumble forward, and the hand that the stranger put on the wooden floor to catch themself broke through Katai's eyesight. It was marred with bruises, covered with slick blood.

"Answer me," the voice panted.

"Yes," Katai rasped. "Yes, yes, everything you said is true, I'm Katai."

"Good."

The knife left the side of his neck. Katai thought he would soon wet himself with more than tears.

"I screened your place for any electronics I could find," the stranger continued. "Destroyed most of it. Sorry about that. I kept your phone, but I took out the battery, so you won't be able to call for help."

"You can have all my money," Katai sobbed.

"I don't want your money. No—shit, stop crying, you're a grown man," the person said, as more hiccups wrecked Katai's trapped body. "Fuck, listen, I'm not going to kill you. I swear I won't even put a scratch on you. I just need a favor."

"I'll do anything, anything—"

The weight lifted.

Katai didn't move at all at first. He heaved into his damp pillow, breathing through his mouth, tasting salt on his lips. His toes wiggled when he made them. His arm bent at the elbow, once he brought his hand closer to his head.

Once he had checked each of his fingers and found them whole, he pushed himself to his knees shakily and turned around.

The darkness was thicker in the absence of his many laptops and tablets, at least one of which was always lit as if to make up for daylight; but his windows was ajar, the blinds pulled up by force and the latch awkwardly bent, and the nighttime breeze wasn't the only thing filtering through its opening.

Streetlight made out the silhouette of a boy, crouched by the bed, wavering slightly. It shone off of his matted hair. It belied the unfocused quality of his eyes. The boy had a hand on the floor and another pressed against the side of his face—blood was running between his fingers and down the length of his bruised wrist.

"What," Katai let out. "Who, who are you?"

The boy didn't answer. "I need a place to stay for a couple days," he said. Each word pulled a grimace out of him, made him press his hands closer to the bleeding on his cheek. "And I need you to use your ability for me."

He was shaking from head to toe, Katai realized; he was pale, very much so, with blood loss or something else, and his grip on the long knife he held was loose-fingered.

"Okay," Katai said.

The boy held the knife more firmly. "I'll be watching," he threatened. "So don't even think of doing anything funny. If you tell anyone about my presence here, I will kill you."

He let go of the floor and pulled something from behind himself. A laptop, and soon after the battery to go with it.

There were about a dozen ways for Katai to call for help unnoticed with a laptop at his disposal, but he wisely said nothing of it. "What do you want me to do?" he asked, with what he hoped was no relief at all.

"Turn it on," the boy replied, pushing laptop and battery toward him.

Katai grabbed it with the tips of his fingers.

It didn't take long for him to turn the laptop on. It was a sleek thing, expensive and new, protected by better security than even he used for himself. Katai kept it half a meter away from himself as he slowly worked his way through password upon password, and he thought he might open an email right there and then and send it to Kunikida or the police or both, unseen by all but the sharp static of his ability. This trail of thoughts halted once he finally saw the name of the machine's owner.

"This belongs to Taneda of the special ability department," he said, stunned.

"Yeah," was the boy's reply.

Katai didn't even think of looking at him; his eyes flew over the screen, opening secured file after secured file, and his wariness grew with each. By the time he closed every window and came back to the innocuous desktop background, he felt nauseous with nerves.

"This isn't just Taneda's personal laptop," he said.

The boy sat on his behind. "No," he replied. "It's the masterkey of the whole department's archives. You can access everything with it."

"How did you get your hands on it?"

"Don't ask questions you don't want the answers to."

Katai looked at him again. He took in the cold distance in his eyes, the blood splattered all over him, the trembling hand he kept pressed against his wounded face.

Instead of insisting, instead of emailing Kunikida, Katai asked: "What do you want me to do?"

The boy's knife lowered. He looked exhausted. In the distant light of the neighboring building, his eyes were very bright.

"I want you to erase everything you can find about Nakahara Chuuya," he replied. "Can you do that?"

Katai could. Easily. "How erased are we speaking?" he said. "Should I make it look like the file is simply empty or—"

"Erase everything. Every single mention of the name and everything associated with it, even if you have to take down half of the damn archive to do it. I don't want them to be able to look up the name and find any result."

"They'll know instantly," Katai replied. "There must be at least a dozen people monitoring the data."

"Then you better hurry up before they realize their chief didn't only lose his head."

Katai wanted to protest, but something about the boy's eyes then told him that it would be a bad idea. Or perhaps the menacing glint of the knife, shining oil-like in the soft light.

"How do you write it?" he asked, eyes shifting back to the screen.

Pulling up the file, once the boy spelled it out for him, was only a matter of seconds. Katai wasn't surprised at all to find that Nakahara Chuuya was the name of his intruder himself; he took a moment to look over the whole gallery of pictures kept by the department, most of which were taken outside of Nakahra's knowledge, judging by the face he pulled. Katai found row upon row of feral smiles and dangerous looks. He found videos. He found Nakahara scowling and Nakahara smiling, and he found him, in one, blurry enough to be unrecognizable, surrounded by black spheres of sizzling energy.

He deleted them all. Nakahara said nothing.

Katai saw the words port mafia repeated enough times that he thought he would never get them out of his mind. He saw a body count, which he chose to forget. He worked his way through the data until everything bearing Nakahara's name was either empty or viciously edited. About half of the information related to someone named Dazai Osamu found itself lost that way.

"Thank you," Nakahara said, once Katai ran a search of his name to prove that he could no longer be found in the archive.

It had taken only ten minutes, and the moment it was done, Nakahara clenched his fist. The sleek laptop glowed red. It flattened itself against the ground until it was thin as paper, the scent of burned plastic bristling through the air once again, every coil and screw become useless sheets of metal.

It was completely broken. Katai hadn't even thought of sending that email.

Some tension seemed to drop out of Nakahara, then. The line of his shoulders eased, the hand he kept over his face lowered, unveiling a deep, thick gash, running horizontally through his cheekbone and still seeping droplets of gleaming blood. This entire left side of his face looked swollen.

"I'll pay for the stuff I destroyed," he said, startling Katai out of his numb stupor. "And for food. I'll be out of your way in a couple days."

"Are you—"

"I'm going to do something really fucking stupid now," Nakahara interrupted. His voice was growing rougher by the second. "So I'm sorry for that too. You can go back to sleep if you want."

And then he burst into tears.

Katai's mouth hung open, wordless and probably ridiculous, but Nakahara didn't seem to mind. He wasn't even looking. He shook and cried and sobbed with all of his body and, it seemed, all of his heart; he dragged his knees up against his chest, pushed his bleeding face into the space that opened there, and did everything short of scream out the grief wrecking him.

It was somehow more terrifying than anything Nakahara had done until then. It made Katai feel like the intruder instead of the other way around, and he could do nothing but watch each hiccup shake in Nakahara's shoulders. He could do nothing but feel each drawn-out moan reverberate through his chest. There was something heartbreaking about the way Nakahara held himself, making himself smaller, choking every sound he made into the cage of his arms. There was something painfully, infinitely child-like about the way his voice cracked not even after a minute, out of gritty depth and back to higher wails.

Katai didn't go to sleep.

He stood to his feet shakily, waiting for Nakahara to notice and threaten him again, but the boy didn't. He showed no sign of having heard or seen him. So Katai walked to the tiny kitchenette on the other side of the room and put some water to boil. He stood by the kettle until it hissed at him, and not even that sound was enough to cover the expiation going on three meters away.

The tea was long seeped by the time Nakahara quieted. His violent sobs turned to whimpers; his gushing tears to quiet weeping. He stilled as he was, face cradled into the crook of his folded arms, looking at the space between his chest and knees, silent and immobile.

Katai set a mug full of hot tea next to him on the floor. He sat with another on the unmade futon he lived in, resting it in against his thigh until it cooled enough to be drinkable.

"Well," Nakahara said, voice scratchy with the aftermath of his breakdown. "That's out of the way at least."

Katai debated with himself for a moment before asking, "Are you okay?"

Nakahara's head lifted just enough that he could meet his eyes above the barrier that his arms made. The deep gash in his cheek looked even more inflamed now, and Katai winced, thinking about how painful tears must have felt.

"I, ah, I made you tea," he said awkwardly. With his free hand, he gestured to the mug sitting by Nakahara's left leg.

Nakahara looked at it silently.

"Do you make tea for everyone who breaks into your home and destroys all your shit?" he asked weakly.

"Only when they start crying in front of me," Katai muttered. He took a sip of scalding tea, hoping the burn would help him feel less out of his depth.

He barely noticed that all of his fear was gone.

Nakahara spent another moment as he was, hunched over with misery; then he dropped a hand to the floor and grabbed the mug by its handle. It shook badly in his grip, the way the knife had before. It was even easier now to see the bruises marbling his skin from fingertips to elbow.

"I lost someone," he said faintly.

Katai chewed the inside of his cheek lightly. "I'm—sorry for your loss," he replied.

The glance Nakahara gave him then would've been amused, he thought, if not for how tired he looked. "Anyone ever told you that you're a fucking idiot?"

"It's been brought up occasionally."

Nakahara looked at his tea with red-rimmed eyes. It seemed his wound had stopped bleeding at last, but it remained crimson and raw-looking. It looked very out of place on him, cutting through the handsome features he must have boasted all his life.

"She used to make me tea too," Nakahara murmured. "Just… every time she was upset, or she thought I was upset, or we'd argue about something. She'd just shove her damn tea into my face like some miracle fucking cure. I started drinking wine instead to piss her off."

"Many people find tea calming," Katai replied mildly.

Nakahara drank from the mug; he shoved his trembling fingers through his unwashed hair; he hunched over again, eyes wet, mouth tight. "The funny thing is," he said harshly, "I'd give anything to hear her yell at me again. Anything."

There was nothing Katai, or anyone, could say to that.

--

Sleeping with an assassin of the port mafia in his home did not turn out to be as horrific an experience as Katai would have expected. He offered his first aid kit, once Chuuya—as he requested to be called—asked for it. He sat by him when his wavering hands failed him, holding disinfectant to the awful wound in his face, cringing when it touched skin, even though Chuuya himself only winced.

"I don't think you can get that stitched up," Katai said hesitantly.

It was a deep cut, wide of a centimeter and stretching for at least five in length, a whole strip of face gone and leaving slick muscle exposed. The skin around it looked burned as well.

"That's fine," Chuuya replied. "Just get me one of those gauze things. The greasy ones."

He couldn't put it on himself, because his shaking was too severe, so Katai ended up doing that for him too. For all that Chuuya had berated him his kindness, he didn't seem very worried that Katai would use the occasion to hurt him. He sat as still as possible through the process, and by the time Katai was done, he was only sporting a square piece of bandage over his left cheekbone.

"That's going to take forever to heal and scar horribly, isn't it," Chuuya said to no one, eyeing his reflection in the broken window. The blind had been shut back down behind it, hiding Katai's entire place from view once more.

"Who did that to you?" Katai asked.

He wasn't talking only about his face; Chuuya had taken off his jacket and shoes sometime during the night, laying the skin of his arms and feet bare, and they were stained with blue and black. The bruises crawled all the way up his throat.

"Myself, mostly," Chuuya replied. He had been strangely forthcoming ever since the tea, maybe because he didn't care, maybe because his light fever was clouding his judgment. "The face was a parting gift from a friend, though."

Katai wanted to ask more, but Chuuya silenced him with a look, before asking to use his shower.

He left him to it while rummaging through his closet for clothes that would fit an eighteen year-old half his size. He found old high school garments at the very bottom: a rumpled uniform shirt whose logo he cut off with kitchen scissors and a pair of jeans way too tight on him now. It would still be too long for Chuuya, but at least Katai had once been skinny enough that the waistband should fit.

Chuuya came out of the bathroom washed of all grime and blood. He had tied up his wet hair with something, took the offered clothes with a murmur of thanks, slipped them on right in the room with no care at all that someone else was present.

He slept, after that. Curled up in a corner where a computer had stood only hours ago and dropped out of consciousness almost instantly. Katai watched him for almost an hour before feeling tired enough to do the same. He took the time to drop a spare blanket on Chuuya's shoulders, waking him instantly, before passing out himself. Chuuya only said, "I'm a light sleeper, so don't try to pull any shit."

Katai didn't wake up paralyzed this time.

Actually, he woke up before Chuuya, and so he gathered his strength and headed toward his kitchen, wincing at the sight of the dirty dishes he had let accumulate there for weeks now. He washed enough of them by hand to make for a good breakfast. His fridge still had some eggs, thankfully, as well as an sealed bottle of orange juice.

He didn't open the blinds, though the day felt like one when he might appreciate a touch of sunlight—there was Chuuya to contend with, after all, and he was obviously running from something. Or someone.

The entire port mafia on the hunt, Katai thought in quiet panic, and I'm the one hiding what they're looking for.

Maybe he should call Kunikida after all.

Chuuya stirred from the corner of the room only a few minutes later, looking groggy and pained but not shaking nearly as much as the previous day. The bruises over his hands had turned more green than black already.

"You're too fucking nice," he mumbled, sitting down at the table and accepting his half of the sweet omelette Katai had made.

He ate it slowly, sparingly, his chopsticks clicking against the plate in time with his tremors. The only outward sign of irritation he showed at that was a frown, which made Katai wonder if he suffered them often. Physical health issues of the sort didn't seem very compatible with the number of kills or rumored kills associated with him.

Then again, neither did his age or stature. And he had implied, very strongly, that he had murdered the special ability department chief himself while injured.

Katai wondered what it said about him that he couldn't find it in himself to be more afraid of him for it.

"Say, kid," he said, idly playing with the last piece of his food.

"What?"

"How did you even know about me?"

Chuuya took the time to finish chewing before answering. "Someone I used to work with told me about you ages ago," he said.

"Who?"

Another pause. "Sakaguchi Ango."

"Oh," Katai said, smiling. "Haven't heard from him in a while. I was wondering where he'd gone."

His words halted under the look Chuuya was giving him. "What do you mean?" Chuuya asked.

"Well, Ango's always been my contact with the special ability department," he replied. "Up till a year ago when everyone said he'd quit. But then no one could tell me where he'd gone, so I guess, if he was working with you…"

It was hard to imagine someone like Ango in the port mafia, but Ango was the type of smart who could adapt to any work environment. Katai doubted that whatever Ango had done there had much to do with gunfights.

Chuuya wasn't playing with his food anymore. Katai eyed him warily. "Is there something wrong?" he asked.

"No," Chuuya replied. "Tell me about him. Sakaguchi."

"Why?"

"Just curious. We never talked much."

"I don't know what to tell you," Kazai replied, puzzled. "He's the one who got me this job, pretty much. Found out about my ability and gave me a use for it. He was always nice to me—he used to pay for maids to come clean up my place once in a while, just because, he said. Weird guy."

"Yeah," Chuuya echoed, staring at his empty plate. "Weird guy."

Chuuya looked away before Katai could ask anything; his eyes found the edge of the sink, and he rose from his chair, grabbing the wide scissors resting there.

"You wouldn't happen to have any hair dye with you, right?" he asked.

"No," Katai replied, surprised by the change in topic. Then, licking his lips surreptitiously: "I could go buy some if you want."

It wasn't an easy offer, even to escape the attention of the criminal holding him hostage; Katai hadn't left his apartment in months and always ordered his groceries online. He never so much as took the trash out of the building either—there was a chute right outside his front door. The last time he had tried, a panic attack had stuck him to the bottom of the staircase.

But Chuuya had no way of knowing that.

He seemed to consider the thought, weighing his options without ever looking away from Katai. Katai felt sweat gather at his temples. He felt it slick his back and stick his shirt to his skin.

"All right," he said. "Where's the nearest convenience store?"

"Right outside the building."

"You have ten minutes."

Katai held his breath. Chuuya raised an eyebrow.

He found himself at the entrance of his building with his panic kept tightly in check. He still lost almost a minute standing there, staring at the stretch of street separating him from the store; in the end it was thoughtless obligation that made him push the doors open and walk out.

The cold was very harsh on his skin in spite of the many layers he wore. He wondered, waiting for his turn to cross the road, if Chuuya had suffered from it while coming to find him, what with the injuries he sported.

Katai couldn't see anything or anyone suspicious around. He entered the store to a gush of too-warm air, skin rippling with instant shivers, and made his way toward the cosmetics section.

He picked the first bottle of black hair dye he found regardless of the price. He took more gauze and wound-cleaning things, as well. He hesitated, and grabbed a prepaid phone so quickly that his wrist ached with the movement.

Once he was out of the store, he called the only number he knew by heart.

"It's me," he said as soon as the line opened.

"Katai?" The sound of Kunikida's voice sent a shock of heat through Katai's chest, made his heart beat fast enough to ache. "Can you call me back later, I'm at work—"

"There's someone in my house," Katai blurted.

"What?"

"He let me out to buy a couple things and I won't have any other occasion to contact you so I thought I'd let you know just in case something happened." He sucked in a breath once he was done, and the icy air did nothing to appease the frantic pace of his heart.

"Hang on—are you being threatened?"

"No," Katai said. "Well, yes."

"I'm calling the police—"

"No!" His shout startled a passerby; Katai swallowed painfully. "No, he's, he hasn't hurt me. He won't hurt me. I think."

There was a second of silence. "What happened," Kunikida said. It sounded like an order.

"He broke in. Needed my help with something. He said he wouldn't do anything to me if I obeyed and he hasn't. Listen, Kunikida, I don't have much time—he's just a kid. Eighteen years old. He's injured too."

"What did he want you to do?"

That wasn't something Katai felt much like answering. Getting access to the special ability department's archives had been a blessing, and he had glimpsed quite a bit of useful information as he deleted everything pertaining to Chuuya himself—including the contents of his own file, which he had edited liberally. He didn't want to admit to his own participation in something this illegal, or to his enjoyment of it.

"He's a member of the port mafia," he said. "I think he's running away from them."

It took a moment for Kunikida to absorb that information.

"You're harboring a fugitive of the port mafia," he repeated faintly.

"Yeah. A pretty notorious member too, I think."

"So the police is out of the question, because they'll know immediately, and then you're going to be in danger when they come and fetch him." He sighed. "How do you get in these situations without ever leaving your place?"

"I don't know!" More people were looking at him now. Katai bit his lip, and it split open easily, because the cold had dried it so quickly. He walked across the road with the rest of the waiting walkers and sucked the blood into his mouth. "Listen, Kunikida—you said you were scouted for something. Some gifted police agency."

"Detective agency," Kunikida corrected instantly, unable to help himself despite his obvious worry. The thought made Katai smile. "Yeah, I met with their director a week ago."

"Are you going to take the job?"

"Probably, but why—"

"Could this detective agency protect someone running away from the mafia?"

Kunikida sucked in an audible breath. It cracked over the line in endless static, similar to the sounds that ran through Katai's ears whenever Futon was in use. "Katai," he said. "I can't show up on my first day on the job and ask if my new boss would be okay with protecting a criminal."

"Please," Katai forced out.

"There's something you're not telling me."

The words almost made him laugh.

"It's nothing."

"It's not nothing if it's making you ask for help on behalf of the guy holding you hostage."

"It's really nothing, it's just—he was crying." Katai pushed open the door of his building, groceries in hand, his numb fingers keeping the bulky phone pressed onto his ear. His fear of being outside couldn't push past the threshold of his current conversation. "He hasn't even been mean or rude. He just needed a place to stay for a day, and some help erasing his presence. And then once that was done he cried, and he let me help a bit with his injuries, and I just think he doesn't have anyone right now. He's running away from an entire criminal organization on his own, and he's a kid. He's—he's short, and he's bruised all over, and I know he's probably done horrible things, but he's just a kid, Kunikida. He's trying to get away."

Not that Kunikida wasn't a kid himself in many ways still, no matter that he had turned twenty and earned the right to his first drink, no matter that he was a legal adult with a job. But Katai had spent the night dreaming of the numbers he had seen, of the pictures of Chuuya much younger than he was now, surrounded by armed men or cleaning knives free of blood, looking all the way a child looked.

He wondered how young Chuuya was the first time he had been made to hurt someone. He wondered how one could ever recover from growing up that way.

"Just think about it," he finished, starting his climb up the stairs. "It's okay if you can't. I have to hang up now."

Kunikida sighed again. "I'll see what I can do," he muttered. "Be careful."

"I will."

The line cut with sinister beeping. Katai took a few seconds in the staircase, leaning against the old wooden railing and catching what was left of his breath, before stepping out into his floor's hallway. He threw the phone down the garbage chute. Opened the door of his apartment.

Chuuya grabbed him by the neck in the following second, slamming the door shut and then slamming him against it, his grip tight enough that almost no air came through.

The otherworldly weight of the previous night was back, sticking him to the floor, disabling him of movement; yet somehow that threat felt less consequent than the dark gaze leveled with his, than the vicious fury etched onto Chuuya's face that made him look a lot older.

"You called someone," he said lowly.

Kata pawed uselessly at the hand suffocating him, arms heavy, eyesight blurring at the edges. "A—friend," he managed, "he's not going to tell anyone—"

Chuuya's grip tightened. "Did you tell him my name?"

"No—"

He was released, then, of all but the foreign gravity. Katai slid toward the floor helplessly and didn't move again. If he hadn't had the door at his back, he would've laid down in full.

He had completely forgotten about the fact that the store he had gone to could be seen from his window. Chuuya must have peeked through the cracks of the blinds.

The wide knife Chuuya had threatened him with was in his hand again, and this time, his grip was a lot more secure when he pressed the blade to the side of Katai's face. "Why did you have to go and do something stupid like that?" he questioned tiredly. "I really hoped I wouldn't have to kill you."

"It's not what you think," Katai wheezed. His throat burned with the words, burned with the air.

"You think I'm about to trust you now?"

He shook his head helplessly.

Chuuya crouched in front of him, putting their faces level; he slid the knife under Katai's chin to make him lift it, to make their eyes meet. "Do you think this is a game, Katai?" he asked.

"No," Katai replied.

"You know who I am. You probably know that better than anyone alive right now." The blade dug further into his skin, not yet to the point of a cut but not very far from it. Katai dared not breathe at all. "I probably have the entire port mafia looking for me right now," Chuuya said. "And trust me, you don't want to know what they can make of the smallest clue I leave behind. Such as a passerby hearing you talk about me on the phone."

"I didn't say your name," Katai repeated breezily.

"These people know me through a lot more than my name."

Something warm dripped down the hollow of Katai's throat; with a jolt of pain, he realized that it was his own blood.

"Do you want to know why I left?" Chuuya asked softly.

Katai couldn't think of anything he wanted to know less. Chuuya looked nothing now like the broken child Katai had glimpsed, the young man curled in on himself and choking on every sob, on every tear, as he tried to pour all the grief out of himself in one go. His eyes were very dark under the unflattering light. His hair looked like spilled blood.

Chuuya didn't seem in the mood to share more than that, thankfully. "Tell me what you told your friend," he ordered. "And tell me everything you can about him."

Katai opened his mouth and said, "I called him to ask if there was a way for the gifted organization he's a part of to shelter you."

Chuuya stilled.

"What gifted organization?" he asked.

"It's very new," Katai explained shakily. "A detective agency, specializing in cases involving ability users. I, I heard their director only got the permit a few weeks ago. My friend's going to work there very soon, I might work with them too—he's an ability user, his name is Kunikida Doppo, and I promise you he's not going to tell anyone about you being here. He's a good man. Never broke a promise he made to anyone."

The knife drew back from his throat, and Katai raised a trembling hand to touch the stinging cut left behind. It was barely deep enough to bleed at all, not life-threatening in any way.

"You called someone to ask if there was a way to protect me," Chuuya said.

Katai kept his fingers on the cut. "Yeah," he replied.

"Why would you do that?"

He flushed, knowing without needing to ask that Chuuya would not appreciate the reasoning he had laid out for Kunikida earlier. "It just seemed like the right thing to do," he mumbled.

Neither of them moved for a while. Katai touched the cut until he stopped aching, until blood stop seeping out; Chuuya crouched in front of him and looked at the floor in silence.

"You're a fucking idiot," he said.

He didn't sound so angry anymore.

Katai startled when he rose up anyway, and even more so when Chuuya's ability loosened its hold on him. "I'm not staying in Yokohama," Chuuya declared. "I need to get out of here and lay low until they start having better things to do than look for me."

"Kunikida said the agency didn't only operate in Yokohama," Katai replied roughly. "They need help scouting members all over the country—"

"Thank you," Chuuya said abruptly. The sincerity in his voice made Katai's falter. "But I'll be fine on my own once I'm out of the city. And I'll be leaving today, so you can go back to your life and never think about this again."

Katai blinked at him tiredly. "I thought you needed a couple days," he replied.

"I just needed to hide until the shaking calmed down."

He lifted his hands, which indeed were no longer trembling. The bruises were still very stark on his skin.

"I'm borrowing your bathroom," Chuuya declared then. He took hold of the bag of groceries, satisfied with what he saw inside, and with his free hand, he grabbed the kitchen scissors. They left the side of Katai's counter with an uncomfortable shriek of metal. "Don't do any more stupid shit or I'll kill you."

--

Chuuya emerged from the bathroom an hour later.

He had cut his hair to about the same length Katai sported himself, dyed it black, and changed the dressing of his wound. With the ill-fitting shirt and jeans he wore now, he drew a very different picture than the boy with red hair who had waited for Katai to wake up with a knife at his neck.

Katai didn't say anything of the change, or of the way Chuuya's eyes seemed even more striking with black than red. Chuuya didn't look like he would care very much about his opinion.

There was nothing to do but watch from the comfort of his bed as Chuuya meticulously destroyed every hint of his passage. He shoved all of his bloodied clothes into a plastic bag, swept the whole place up, wiped clean of fingerprints everything he had touched. With no care in the world, he opened Katai's closet and rummaged through it until he found a pair of gloves his size. They were woolen, soft to the touch, Katai knew; they had been his favorites until he had outgrown them.

Then Chuuya dropped a ridiculous amount of cash on the coffee table. Katai choked at the sight of it.

"Sorry about the stains," he said, waving vaguely. "Just tell people you had a nosebleed or something. That usually works."

"This is way too much," Katai replied faintly.

"I threatened your fucking—you know what, never mind. Never fucking mind." Chuuya sighed. "Just take the damn money," he said tiredly. "I have enough left on me to last me a while, I don't need this much, and you're gonna need to pay for all the stuff I broke."

Chuuya put on the green coat he had been given, despite the fact that its sleeves fell way over his hands. He wrapped a thick scarf around his shoulders until most of his lower face was hidden in it. If not for his eyes, he would have been unrecognizable.

"Wait," Katai let out, right as Chuuya took hold of the doorknob.

He scrambled for paper and pen under Chuuya's curious eyes; with trembling fingers, he wrote down what he needed, and then handed the paper to Chuuya.

"Kunikida's number," he explained, as Chuuya looked over the digits.

"I don't need it," Chuuya said. He held it back toward Katai.

"No—please," Katai said. "Just keep it. Call him, whenever you come back to Yokohama."

"Katai—"

"Call him," Katai cut in. "Kunikida's a good guy. He's not going to tell anyone about you, and if you tell him about your situations—he'll help. He'll let you meet with the agency director."

"You think what I want now is to be part of another gifted organization?"

"You'll need to, eventually," Katai said. He swallowed before adding, "You know they can't let someone like you be on the run forever. Not with… with what I saw on those pictures."

Not with Corruption ranked at such a high danger level in the ministry's archives. Only three other files had been there alongside Chuuya's own, for the entire country.

"If you don't join a group eventually, they'll all be after you," he went on. "Not just the port mafia. This agency… I don't think it's a bad one to be a part of."

"I'm not really made for catching criminals," Chuuya replied quietly. "I'm more the kind to pat them on the back for a job well done."

He looked over the slip of paper for another moment before pocketing it.

He met Katai's eyes, then, watching over his face intently. Kazai withstood it with as much grace as he could.

"You're not a bad guy," Chuuya said.

Katai laughed nervously. "I'm a shut-in living in a dump, and you're a murderer," he replied.

"Yeah, well."

Chuuya took hold of the door once again. He pushed it open, letting the kinder light of the hallway fall onto him. It shone off of his hair with unnatural blue tints; it washed over the reddish stain that had already spread through the new bandage he wore.

"Thank you for the tea," he murmured. He bowed at the neck, surprisingly proper.

Kazai nodded back wordlessly.

He stood by the door for a very long time after it had fallen shut.

[NEXT]

#bsd #skkchristmas17 #soukoku #nakahara chuuya #dazai osamu #fic: nothing noble

[ahis2013-blog]

yashiro dissection

This is gonna be long so it’s also gonna be under the cut

Hi. I read very deeply into things. The nice thing, though, is the author of BokuMachi seems to write very, very much to read into.

I want to start with a disclaimer: while I draw heavily from canon, many topics I will discuss will also have a heavy basis in headcanon and personal interpretation. Since peoples’ interpretations can vary, you may not agree with everything I put down. Still, my main goal is to give food for thought; Yashiro is a fascinating character no matter how you decide to interpret him.

I will be sticking to the manga’s canon strictly, and I also want to make a note that I’m going to be more or less regarding Another Record as non-canon, as some of its claims simply don’t line up with the canon of BokuMachi and BokuMachi Gaiden (namely, that Yashiro in Another Record claimed he targeted girls who “knew that life was hell,” when it was made clear in the manga that Nakanishi Aya actually had a fine home life, and Hiromi was killed out of convenience. The first girl he targeted, Atko-chan, he targeted because he became interested since she also had a hamster).

So, without further ado: Mikohara Gaku, aka Yashiro Gaku, aka Nishizono Manabu.

The Canon:

It’s important to have a starting point, and so, let’s start from all the things we concretely know about Yashiro Gaku.

He is roughly 18 years older than Satoru biologically, as Satoru is 29 when he travels back in time, and in 1988, Yashiro is 28 years old. This makes him born in roughly 1960, and puts his fifth year - ages 10-11 - at 1970. His brother’s death occurred in the year 1972, during Yashiro’s seventh year, and presumably, he moved out shortly after with his mother, when his parents divorced. He left for college at age 18 in the year 1978; in his third year, he returned to Mikoto Elementary for a two-week teaching practice. His third year would be about 1980. It’s at this time that he attempts his first serial murder, though it’s thwarted by Satoru (who is, at most, three years old at the time). Three years later - 1983 - he becomes engaged to an unnamed child psychologist, whom he later kills. It is at that point he begins to see the spider’s thread on his own head. And finally, in 1987, he becomes the teacher for Satoru’s fifth-year class, setting the scene for the events in 1988.

In the final timeline, the serial murders of children end after Satoru’s “accident,” though the way Kenya phrases it, Yashiro did not stop murdering altogether (as he did in the anime). During the 18 years of Satoru’s coma, Yashiro marries into the Nishizono family, changes his last name and his first name’s reading (same kanji, but apparently “Manabu” is the more common pronunciation), and inherits his father-in-law’s position on the city council. He becomes the budget planner. His wife is never seen, so it is most often presumed that he killed her, as well.

Using an event planned for the hospital, Nishizono intends to reawaken Satoru’s memories and kill Satoru (and, less importantly, Kumi). However, Satoru catches him while he’s in the middle of his preparations, confronts him, and tackles him off the bridge he set alight to try to kill them both, where law enforcement is waiting. At this point, Yashiro’s own spider’s thread snaps, and he gives a full confession to law enforcement with “a smile on his face,” and is practically set to earn the death penalty for his crimes.

Yashiro’s murders have a very clear modus operandi - at least, the ones before Satoru’s “accident.” Yashiro will kill a target - most often a young girl, ages 8-12, sometimes multiple, and pin the blame on an unwitting patsy. This MO is so particular that the lack of a scapegoat in Satoru’s case is evidence enough for Sawada and Kenya to believe that Satoru somehow managed to throw the killer off his game - however, because of the patsy’s existence, official police never look further than a convicted suspect, thus allowing Yashiro to get away cleanly after each “murderer” is caught and start again somewhere new. It can be thus assumed that any murders he commits without a patsy are significant in some way. The murders have no sign of sexual violence, though Yashiro will definitely use sexual attraction to cast suspicion on his scapegoats, and the murders themselves are often dispassionate. Of our known murder methods, only one was outright violent - smashing Hiromi’s head open (more on this later) - while the other three are very tame - smothering a drugged girl with CO2 fumes, freezing someone to death quickly, setting a drugged girl afloat on a lake with a leaky boat. He also authored two “suicides,” which are only appropriately violent.

Yashiro also mentions that he targets people on whose heads he can see a spider’s thread - though the exact nature of these threads - supernatural, like Revival, or a product of Yashiro’s own delusions - is unknown. I am inclined to believe they are a product of Yashiro’s own delusions, for reasons I will elaborate on further; this essay as a whole will assume they are merely the result of Yashiro’s mind, and not some supernatural external force.

Satoru has never had a thread.

The entire conceit of Yashiro’s spider threads stems from a short story of particular interest to him, “The Spider’s Thread” by Akutagawa Ryuunosuke. The story itself is interesting, but not as important as Yashiro’s interpretation - and he helpfully provides a summary for us in his backstory chapter. There will be more on this later.

Finally, Yashiro once owned a pet hamster named Spice. He owned Spice some time after his brother’s rapes began and Spice died about two years later, some time after Yashiro’s brother died. Spice was the only hamster of a litter Yashiro attempted to drown that survived, and the sight was “so thrilling” that Yashiro decided to raise Spice.

That about does it for the hard canon that we are using as our framework. All sections after this will feature a heavy dose of theorizing.

Analysis: Childhood (1960-1973)

Yashiro Gaku was born Mikohara Gaku to a wealthy father in Ishikari. He attended Mikoto Elementary School, same as Satoru.

Now, the main problem we encounter when analyzing Yashiro’s backstory is that he is something of an unreliable narrator, but not in the traditional sense. I have no doubt that he is truthful about his account of the backstory - I would even call him candid - but Yashiro fundamentally lacks the emotional lens necessary for the reader to fully grasp the situations he describes without reading between the lines. That is what I hope to provide.

Now, the way Yashiro describes his life before his brother’s rapes begin is this: he is showered with blind love for his outstanding grades, he is adored by his classmates despite not being very close to them, his brother has always been violent and foul-tempered, and, upon becoming the unfavorite of their parents, began to take out his frustration about it on Yashiro through physical violence.

Yashiro’s tone remains dispassionate and practically apathetic throughout, even going so far as to say he was “indifferent” to his brother’s “daily” beatings.

Yashiro is a ten-year-old or younger when the beatings begin. There is no possible way for a child - human being, even - to actually be indifferent about receiving daily beatings so severe that they leave you bruised and bleeding.

Just ask Kayo.

The people who WERE indifferent were his parents. Yashiro’s beatings - an everyday occurrence that left him with bruises and bloody noses - happened in their own home (in Yashiro’s own room, even)! His mother is depicted as a housewife, who has the leisure time to hang out with friends after school, so it’s very easy to assume that at least one of the parents are present in the house while this violence is happening. And yet, for all the “blind love” they rain down on Yashiro, not a single mention is made of any attempt to stop his brother from committing brutal violence on him every single day.

There is also the specific language Yashiro uses to depict his parents’ relationship with his brother - that they “gave up” on him, that they “didn’t know how to cope” with him, and - most damning of all - that his brother became “useless” to them.

The point at which one child would describe his brother as being “useless” to his parents is the point at which those parents are, beyond a shadow of a doubt, failing in their duties as parents.

So when you extract from his indifferent tone the actual circumstances of Yashiro’s “oppressive” childhood, you get a horrific picture of daily violence, parents who refuse to do so much as chastise the one doing the beatings, teachers that don’t do anything despite how well-known the older brother’s problems are (it can be easily explained away as that the father is using his wealth to keep the school quiet to avoid scandal), classmates he can’t sympathize with, and pressure to continue to succeed to receive what little scraps of parental affection are actually up for offer.

Yashiro is not “indifferent” to his situation out of choice, but out of necessity. He understands that there is no one who will come to his aid, that there is no way to escape or relieve his suffering. His parents will not help him, the teachers will not help him, his classmates cannot help him, and furthermore, cannot even understand his position.

Here we can draw another parallel to Kayo - where Kayo reached out for help, sent an SOS in the form of her essay for the class anthology, Yashiro instead turned inwards, blunting his own emotions to the point that he could say that he was “indifferent” to the senseless violence that had become merely a fact of life. In order to rationalize his situation, he sympathized with his brother. No one would say “it’s fine that he beats me, it’s necessary for him” while in their right minds, but that’s exactly what Yashiro does: “He needed a target, now that he was useless to our parents.” Yashiro’s parents have taught him that his suffering - his very identity - are practically non-entities. All his parents can see is his apparent success at school; they intentionally turn a blind eye to his pain.

By the time his brother begins to force Yashiro to help him rape girls, Yashiro is already emotionally blunted and in a heavy state of learned helplessness.

In this section of his backstory, it is once again important to remember that Yashiro’s recollections may be factually accurate, but lack an emotional lens to process the information with, as a result of the emotional blunting he carried with him all through his life. He describes himself as participating “earnestly” as his brother’s assistant, but more often than that, he actually mentions how much of an unwilling accomplice he is.

Because of his apathetic tone, it’s easy to assume it wasn’t a big deal to him, but we have to remember his emotional state by this point, even if Yashiro himself fails to acknowledge it. Yashiro has been taught through what has likely been years of experience by this point that there is no one on his side. That he doesn’t have any avenues to go to for help: his parents obviously don’t care, the school likely has its hands tied with regards to the wealthy Mikoharas, and obviously, Yashiro’s 11-year-old classmates aren’t of any use.

For Yashiro, he only has two options available: either he refuses to help his brother (and this is assuming that the first time his brother asked for help, 11-year-old Mikohara Gaku even knew what sex and rape were) and gets “severely punished,” or he gets his brother what he wants and doesn’t get beaten like he has every day for the past few years of his life.

His brother would rape a girl “every month or so,” and in exchange, Yashiro stopped being beaten. Now, I won’t say Yashiro was born an angel - I think, even in the most idyllic of childhoods, he still would have grown up somewhat cold and aloof - but let’s be honest: this is a practically impossible choice to make for anyone. Daily, painful beatings, knowing no one will ever come to your aid, or tricking a girl every month or so into getting raped?

Yashiro is the type of idiot that goes all-or-nothing in whatever he chooses to do, so once he made his choice, he went whole-hog on it.

Again, Yashiro is incredibly candid and forthcoming with his backstory in this chapter, and it never at any point seems like he’s trying to excuse his actions - only give a factual account of the events that occurred. Therefore, as much as we should trust that he performed his job “earnestly,” we should also trust just as much that he was an “unwilling accomplice.”

Since, again, Yashiro was only 10 or 11 at the time, it’s also easy to interpret this as his first try being not only unwilling but unwitting, that he didn’t actually know what his brother was going to do, and, once he DID know, that it was already too late to back out.

In any case, there’s a line he says in this part that’s very interesting:

“I was not convinced of the ‘me who was forced by my big brother.’“

Now, it’s important to note that around this age is where children start to really develop their own identities. Yashiro is beginning to wonder exactly who he is, and he isn’t “convinced” of the “accomplice” role he’s being forced into - and, by extension, the “golden child” roles his parents and teachers expect of him. The Spider’s Thread comes into play at this point of his life. The exact way that Yashiro interprets it, too, is also rather interesting.

In the original tale, after the thread snaps, the Buddha watches with sadness; though in his eyes, a corrupt heart wishing only for his own salvation falling back into hell is just. Then he continues on.

Yashiro’s version makes the Buddha seem much colder in comparison, having the Buddha simply wander away while quipping “what a merciless man.”

Even more interesting are the questions Yashiro asks about the story. “What if the thread had broken under Kandata’s legs? ...Didn’t the Buddha predict what Kandata would do? Then, was it just his whim to send the spider’s thread down?”

These questions are easy to gloss over, but I think they’re vital to understanding the self-identity Yashiro begins to build during this critical point in his development. He is incriminating the Buddha for being frivolous.

If the Buddha had already predicted that Kandata would do as he did - if he already knew what the outcome would be before he sent the thread down - then, walking away while shaking his head, it’s as if all of Kandata’s suffering was merely entertainment for the Buddha to prove himself right.

This lends more meaning to Yashiro’s follow-up questions: “I wonder if Kandata kept staring up at the ceiling with longing every day? Or if he became nicer to the other sinners even though he’s stuck in Hell?”

There’s an obvious answer to the second question, and it’s no - why would Kandata become nicer, knowing there’s no second chance? What could Buddha have been trying to achieve, by basically proving to Kandata that Kandata deserved everything he had coming to him?

“What would Buddha do?”

The Buddha in Yashiro’s story is not a nice one at all.

It’s also important to notice his act of “vicarious gratification” with a younger Shiratori Jun here: he gives him a pair of shoes (because Yashiro has another pair at home, it’s not a loss to him at all) and then spouts some “mature-sounding lines” about courage. He later muses that those words were meant for himself. What are those words, exactly?

“No matter how strong a man is, he has his fair share of problems. Courage is all about your determination not to give up in times of trouble.”

These are words meant not for Jun, but for Yashiro himself. Obviously, Yashiro’s “times of trouble” are his current predicament of continuing to be his brother’s unwilling accomplice, or being severely beaten. So what does giving up mean?

For Yashiro, “giving up” already means “dying.” He has no other options available to him, after all - his brother is already strong enough to simply smother a girl to death; the next beating Yashiro takes from him could be his last. (Again, obvious solutions of reaching out to CPS and the like are nonexistent in Yashiro’s mind.)

It is also directly after this that Yashiro meets Spice.

Now, Yashiro’s drowning of the hamsters is about as far from the standard “sociopath tortures animals for fun” bit as you can get. Yashiro just needs to “take care” of them. Easiest, most efficient way to do that is just to kill them (death is already on his mind, after all). He doesn’t even stick around to watch them struggle; he leaves for dinner and the comes back to find the hamster that will become Spice standing on the corpses of his siblings.

Why the name “Spice”?

This is a manga in which names are meaningful - and, in most cases, almost painfully on-the-nose. “Satoru” means “to understand” (and, according to jisho, “to achieve enlightement”). Sawada’s first name, Makoto, means “truth.” “Kenya” means “to be wise,” Kayo means “addition,” Airi means “love,” Hiromi means “beautiful,” and Mirai, of course, means “future.” It just sort of continues on like that.

So what’s the meaning behind the name “Spice”?

Well, here’s where things really get interesting, since I think my theory diverges a bit from popular conceptions on this point.

“Spice” is named after the “spider” in the story of the Spider’s Thread.

First of all, phrases like “spice of my life” don’t really exist in Japanese, and while we can argue that the author knows a fair bit of English, it still seems out of place in a story with so many names so laser-guided to be on-the-nose. The theory becomes more plausible when we look at the katakana for both the words -

スパイス vs. スパイダー

Now, the more common way to say spider in Japan is “kumo,” but if we’re willing to assume the author decided on the name “Spice” because they knew some English, then why not assume as well that they knew enough English to know how “spider” sounds in it?

As we’ve seen with Yashiro’s interaction with Shiratori Jun, he’s desperately trying to convince himself to stay alive despite his suffering. And then, coincidentally, here comes a hamster who is succeeding in doing just that: fighting for his life and his right to live, Spice is practically a miracle.

What does “vicarious gratification” mean? It means gratification through the feelings or actions of another. Spice is the “spider” that Yashiro is saving, and the “spider” that will save Yashiro - because Yashiro can live vicariously through Spice. Spice, who has so much fire to live that he’s willing to step over the corpses of his siblings. Spice, who - if Spice can continue on, then Yashiro can, to.

Yashiro is not a sociopath. For his own safety, he’s simply blunted his emotions to the point where he’s unable to directly experience them. His emotional life consists only of the “void” left behind when he obliterates his own negative emotions, and the “thrill” that comes of things that make him feel as though he has worth in being alive, through “vicarious gratification.”

So - then Yashiro’s brother accidentally kills a girl.

Now, let’s remember that Yashiro actually sympathizes with his brother to an extent. He understands why his brother is lashing out, and even feels a little responsibility for it. So for Yashiro, when his brother attempts to frame Yashiro for the crime, is betrayed.

The spider’s threads are Yashiro’s own delusions, born of his own intentions. The moment he sees the spider’s thread on his brother is the moment, unconsciously, that he has decided to kill him.

If Spice can live standing atop the corpses of his siblings, well - so can Yashiro.

It is at the moment Yashiro kills his brother that Yashiro asserts himself as his own entity. The murder of his brother is Yashiro’s defining moment as his own identity. It is when Yashiro stops being the “me forced by my big brother.”

Too bad he can’t let anyone know about it.

In any case, to add more proof to the unhappy household fire, the parents divorce over a scandal, when a loving family should be banding together even tighter. For all Yashiro’s posturing, this was not a happy family by any measure of the word.

Analysis: Teenage and College Years (1973-1987)

“You often hear that someone is ‘as good as dead.’ What does that mean? It means they’re not fulfilled, either mentally or physically. Right, in other words... “...I’m dead, at this very moment, as I’m living a peaceful life without risk.”

Of all the few scenes we have of Yashiro as a high schooler, one of them was a pointed shot of him on the outside of the fence on a building’s roof, in the exact panels we have where he talks about how little attachment he has to life - his, or anyone else’s.

Now, Yashiro never explicitly mentions a wish to die. It’s likely he’s not even aware of it himself, considering how blunted his emotions have become by this point. However, he DOES mention that what kept him alive was Spice, and, well...he’s gone now.

There’s some other stuff in this chapter that I will be covering later when I get to analyzing his murder methods, so let’s just move on to the juicier topic:

His fiancee.

Now, Yashiro’s opinion of her is rather high. She’s smart, she’s pretty, and having her fail to recognize him was enough of a disappointment that Yashiro began to see the spider’s thread on himself.

This, again, has the same problem of being told in a completely apathetic tone, so let’s review the actual situation, and try to find the emotional lens that Yashiro was experiencing the events with, even if he’s not consciously aware of it.

The fiancee is a child psychologist Yashiro met when she did a talk at one of the schools he was teaching at. This being three years after his third year of college (read: he’s only had maybe two years of teaching under his belt, period), it probably means they were dating for perhaps a year prior to the engagement.

Because of Yashiro’s apathetic tone, it’s easy to write her off. However, there are four reasons why she’s actually a very pivotal character in Yashiro’s backstory:

1. She’s brought up in his backstory at all. In fact, several pages are dedicated to her, where a one-off text-bubble about once having a fiancee who got too close to the truth and then having to dispose of her would do. In fact, she’s more important than Spice’s death and all of Yashiro’s high school years combined, just going by page count.

2. Yashiro actually references her earlier in the story, when Satoru asks him out of the blue why he isn’t married yet. She’s the “painful mistake.” Now, this may just be her use to him as a “factor to project my normalcy,” but the wording is rather specific (and I checked the japanese raws to make sure) - he calls her a painful mistake. (”So I’ve been too careful, I guess...”) That’s an odd word to use when the official ruling was a suicide - if your former fiancee committed suicide before the wedding, wouldn’t you call it more of a painful “experience”?

Yashiro is, in that panel, telling the full truth - which he actually likes to do quite often. He views her as a “mistake,” not an experience. There was something that went wrong there that was significant enough to warrant referencing her as early as chapter 27.

3. Her murder is one without a false culprit. Again, there not being a false culprit for Satoru’s accident is enough for Sawada and Kenya to assume that Satoru managed to throw the killer off his game. The same can be said of the fiancee’s death.

4. It’s after her murder that Yashiro sees the spider’s thread on himself. This is a fact that can’t really be ignored: why her? Why then? The spider’s thread, after all, has a single meaning given to us: Yashiro kills people that has the spider’s thread on them (or, rather, once he has decided who to kill, he sees the spider’s thread on them). And yet, he’s unwilling to kill himself. And yet, the spider’s thread becomes present after he murders his fiancee and gets away with it. Why?

Well...Yashiro wants to get caught.

Someone as brilliant as he is can easily cook up lies that don’t rely so heavily on the truth. If he really never wanted to get caught, he could do it easily - he evaded Sawada and Kenya for eighteen years, after all. And yet, when he interacts with Satoru in 1988, he’s constantly dropping hints and half-jokes as to his true identity - “so only kidnappers like you visit a place like that,” “Kayo is now safe,” the entirety of his speech on how to get close to a girl and, as mentioned above, his calling his fiancee a “mistake.”

Remember all that discussion on the building of his identity? Here’s the culmination of it: Yashiro’s identity has been cemented as that of a murderer, and he can’t tell anyone about it.

He is completely alone, just like he was when he was a child. Not a single thing has changed. And Yashiro’s emotions are so deadened and disconnected from his conscious processing that he’s unable to realize that not being alone is what he truly wants, but on some level, it’s all he wants.

This woman, his fiancee, was brilliant. And she was a psychologist. AND she was his fiancee. If ANYONE would be able to piece it together and figure it out, it would be her.

Now, here’s the thing about suicides - the jumping-from-a-building kind is relatively hard to fake. If there’s signs of a struggle, it points to foul play; if there’s drugs in their system, it points to foul play; if the person in question obviously has lots of plans and an active social life, it points to foul play. The margin for error for making sure that it looks like a suicide is very low. And, what’s more...

...Her death probably took place quite a while after she asked the “forbidden question” as a result. Meaning that Yashiro was able to whip out an alibi he probably had prepared in advance, and assuaged his fiancee’s fears enough that he was able to maneuver her into a position where he could kill her and make it look like she jumped due to stress from her job.

The “mistake” Yashiro made was the hope that she would see him for what he truly was, because, by all accounts, she should have. When she died, so, too, did Yashiro’s hope that someone would be able to see him. That he would no longer be alone.

(In other words, that was when Yashiro realized he was in hell.)

But who would be the one to cut his thread, then, if no one could even prove he existed at all?

Analysis: Murder MO

Yashiro kills a young girl or girls and then frames someone. Then he skips towns, rinse and repeat.

Why?

We know he’s not sexually attracted to young girls - the lack of sexual violence and the dispassionate murder methods are proof enough of that. We know he doesn’t have grudges against young girls. So...why?

I’ve seen lots of interpretations, and I think mine is...quite a bit different.

Yashiro is recreating his brother’s murder.

“My big brother was living inside of me.”

Yashiro kills a young girl, just like his brother did. Then, like his brother tried to frame him, Yashiro frames an innocent person. And then he sticks around to watch them be apprehended. (Why else would he stick around to watch Satoru get apprehended by police, and risk Airi or Satoru recognizing him?)

“I needed ‘something else’ that could take Spice’s role. I was quick to find the answer. Someone's death on my behalf. And the sight of someone else who resists death, or their tragic fate...they made ‘life’ feel real to me.”

We’ve already established that Spice’s “role” to Yashiro was basically that of a surrogate life. If Spice could live, then Yashiro could live. And with Spice gone, Yashiro was faced with his loneliness, emptiness, and death once more.

The most crucial aspect to his crime is not the murder itself, but the false culprit that he sets up. The murder itself is just an aspect of the “scenario” he keeps repeating: the moment that he asserted his own identity, his own right to live. What he really gets out of murdering is that same feeling - the feeling of being alive - by watching his scapegoats struggle for their own lives.

What’s up with the spider’s thread imagery, then?

Well, let’s go back to one of Yashiro’s more pressing questions about that story: “What would Buddha do?”

Buddha, as Yashiro sees him, is not a benevolent figure. Yashiro’s Buddha is frivolous, toying with Kandata on a whim for “vicarious gratification.” In a way, Yashiro is emulating him, but let me be clear - Yashiro’s role in the story is not that of the Buddha. Yashiro sees himself as the sinner, which is why Spice - the “spider” - is so important to him.

If the Buddha sends down a spider’s thread of salvation on a whim, then on that same whim, Yashiro will cut it. What would Buddha do? Yashiro is only following by example.

Yashiro is interesting to me because of his tragic self-destructing nature. What he really wants is, in a sense, to be validated. For someone to see him as he truly is, for someone to acknowledge his true identity and existence. However, he’s too smart and too clever to get caught, and he’s too dissociated from his own emotions to realize what he actually wants.

He’s someone who’s been alone for all his life that desperately craves some nature of interaction with another person on a level deeper than superficial, but because of what he’s decided to do (that is, serial kill), he’s unable to share that with anyone. On one hand, he felt like he had no choice - he had to keep living, he’d do whatever it took to keep living - but on the other hand, he’s practically destroyed his own hope with his own hands, and on some level, he recognizes that, hence why he has a spider’s thread on his own head.

Analysis: Post-Satoru (1988- )

“You’re the man that is supposed to bring life’s happiness to me.”

Yashiro’s fixation on Satoru is also very interesting, since it’s basically the culmination of all his repressed feelings focused on a single point.

When Satoru was able to predict Yashiro’s movements and circumvent them, to Yashiro, it was like everything his fiancee was supposed to be.

Again, Yashiro’s only capability of experiencing emotions has become a “void” of blunted emotions and the “thrill” of anything even remotely resembling a positive emotion. (Yashiro’s life is full of misery, self-imposed or not, so his “void” is rather large). So Satoru represents to Yashiro a great many things:

Satoru is, first of all, an equal. Someone who sees Yashiro’s presence, someone who can validate Yashiro’s existence. On that count alone, Satoru fills Yashiro with thrill - because Yashiro is not alone anymore. However, after miraculously surviving the murder attempt, Satoru also takes the place of Spice in Yashiro’s mind - the “spider” that is to save him.

What is the decision Yashiro ultimately makes?

“I choose...to move towards the ‘end’ using my own hands. And so, Satoru, the things you risked your life for...take the form of ‘death,’ and be my ‘end’...”

In other words,

“The spider’s thread is mine alone!”

And, just like Kandata, the thread snaps, and Yashiro is sent back to hell - Satoru wants nothing to do with him, everyone glares at him with contempt in their eyes, and he has nothing left but the memories of the spider’s threads and all of his regrets.

Well, this scene can also be interpreted as Yashiro making it to “Paradise,” since, after all, he’s fished out of a lotus-filled pond - and make no mistake, BokuMachi is a work without coincidences. I’m still puzzling this one out, in any case. Thoughts are welcome, haha.

Though, since Yashiro is poised to get the death sentence...maybe it’s Paradise after all?

(In the end, Yashiro isn’t someone who holds grudges or hard feelings. I think the reason he admits to all of his crimes at court, rather than just accept the rulings on the few that Kenya and Sawada managed to actually nail him with, is just his final act of “vicarious gratification” - when the hero wins, they should win absolutely, don’t you think, Satoru?)

#Boku Dake ga Inai Machi #erased #erased spoilers #yashisato #yashiro gaku

[codename-bewareofthefangirl]

Dazai finds a kid the way home and bring the child with him and tells chuuya he want to adopt the kid cos he/she so cute? But Chuuya is more responsible and tells him its not that easy but he starts to like the kiddo too? And its just happens?

THIS ASK WASSO GOOD?! THANK YOU! Really, I’ve definitely exaggerated with the fluff but comeon, those two need a happiness in their lives alright? Don’t judge me, I’m asucker for fluff. I hope you’re going to enjoy this, because I’m pretty happyabout the result!

Have a niceday!

Soukoku(DazaixChuuya), Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Daily Life, Child Involved

Blue Eyes

Chuuya would have liked to go back in time and slaphimself. Hard. Because he had made two unforgivable mistakes in his life: first,falling for the idiot Dazai was; second, deciding to share an apartment withhim.

In any other occasion, he would have already been outside,searching for a bar where drinking Dazai and his stupidity away until the hispartner would come to pick him up; unfortunately, now it was definitely not anacceptable solution.

“Dazai, no,” he stated firmly, crossing hi arms. Hewas seated at the table of their small dining room, with his partner on theother side. He was drenched with rain and the floor was already a reduced to apuddle.

“Come on, Chuuya-kun!” he whined like a kicked puppy, “Lookhow cute she is!” he chirped raising by the waist the small kid he was keepingon his lap.

Chuuya took a deep breath to not curse in front of achild.

“I can see she’s cute and all BUT IT’S NOT OURS!” Hescreamed running his hands through the hair, exasperated.

“I know it’s not ours, I picked her up from thestreet,” Dazai shrugged hugging the little girl. She was wearing ragged clothesand her brown hair where styled in two messy piggy tails. She seemed happy tobe with Dazai and was looking around quietly, without uttering a single wordeven if she was probably three or four.

Chuuya felt like hitting him. Hard enough to make him unconsciousfor the next month.

“Did you want me to leave her there, alone under therain? It’s November!” Dazai asked narrowing his eyes and a disapproving pout onhis lips.

“No, I wanted to bring her to the police and searchfor her real parents,” Chuuya hissed through gritted teeth, “That’s exactly whatwe are going to do tomorrow morning.”

“I refuse!”

“Dazai!”

“I. Refuse,” the other insisted, protectively shieldingthe little girl into his arms.

“We can’t adopt her!” Chuuya grunted in disbelief,raising his hands to the ceiling.

“Why not?” Dazai batted his eyelashes, while he absentmindedlylet the girl play with his bandages.

That…was cute. But not enough to make Chuuya give in.

“Because first, we’re not sure her parents have reallyabandoned her and we need to try and search for them,” He started gesturingwith his hand; Dazai gave him a pointed look, but he ignored it. “Second, a memberof Port Mafia and one of The Detective Agency being good parents? Really?”

Dazai chuckled, covering his mouth with a hand.

“You’d be an awesome mom, since you’re so good atnagging,” he mocked him with a wink and Chuuya groaned. Maybe a little embarrassedat his words. Maybe.

“In fact, I’m worried about your influence on her, notmine,” he rebutted rolling his eyes.

“See? We’re already bickering like real parents.”

Chuuya covered his face with a hand and sighed deeply.

“Come on, babe.” Chuuya blushed a little at the petname. “She was alone in a card box, under the rain. Her parents have abandonedher and you know it. And, lately we’ve not had that much work to do, haven’twe? The city is calm and the new generations are doing a pretty good job,” theman cooed trying to persuade him.

He looked at Dazai’ still damp hair and the frail girlthat was starting to doze off in his arms, grabbing his coat with her littlefingers. And maybe, just maybe, something moved in him.

“That Atsushi and Akutagawa spend half of their timequarreling and destructing the city, the other half pining around each other.How’s that a “good job”?” Chuuya grumbled averting his eyes before the mancould see his crack, but it was too late.

“They’re just slow at accepting their feelings. I findit funny,” he shrugged innocently, “Just like me and you,” then he added in asultry voice and Chuuya felt heating up.

“Don’t change the topic.” He glared, but regretted hiswords immediately. Dazai was waiting for that opening.

“Alright!” he chirped bouncing up and reaching hisboyfriend, who vainly tried to escape. “Take the girl and bath her while I takea shower, dear,” he said putting in Chuuya’s hands the girl.

“Oi Daz-” he burst, but the little girl interruptedhim with a giggle.

He froze, while she planted her hands on his face andsmiled brightly.

“Hi!” she chirped.

“H-hi…” He greeted back, softening his awkwardexpression.

Dazai gave them a fond glance and disappeared in the bathroomhumming happily.

Chuuya and the girl stared at each other, until theman sighed.

“Come on, let’s change those wet clothes,” he mumbledtoo sweet for someone who should have been the voice of reason.

While he undressed her and softly washed her body, hecouldn’t do nothing but thinking. It was the most foolish idea Dazai had evercame up with and that said it all. Yet, when he watched how the girl splashedhappily in the water or the way she smiled at him while he brushed her softhair, he found part of him thinking “Why not?”

At some point, when he was dressing her with one ofhis older t-shirt, which he had cut so that it was a sort of mini dress, thelittle girl tugged his shirt and he instinctively smiled at her.

“Yes?” he asked, crouching to be on the same level asher.

She watched him with her big blue eyes and smiledwidely, pointing at her own chest.

“Hana!” she bubbled excitedly and then waited for hisresponse.

Chuuya let out a small chuckle and patted her head.

“What a beautiful name, Hana-chan!” complimented her,who beamed, and then gestured at himself, “Chuuya.”

“Chuua?”

“Chuuya.”

“Chuu…ya!”

“Good girl!” he shined picking her in his arms andleaving a kiss on her chubby cheek.

“I see you’re getting along,” Dazai laughed warmly.Chuuya turned horrified and found him leaning against the frame of the shower, wearinghis bathrobe, slightly loose, and with a knowing smile on his lips.

Damn. He had heard everything.

“Please, dress properly, there’s a child,” he scowledcovering the eyes of the innocent girl and storming out of the bathroom.

“Then keep your thoughts pure, Chuuya-kun!” Dazaichirped amused, combing back his dark hair, making his boyfriend’s ears growingred.

 Half an hour later, Chuuya was in the dining room withthe girl asleep in his arms and he was looking at Dazai, cooking in their smallkitchen with a stupid frilly apron on. The man was humming cheerfully, asalways not worried about his partner’s internal conflicts.

“Dazai,” Chuuya called him exasperated, looking downat Hana, “Why do you always pick up strays? You should stop with this habit ofyours,” he grumbled upset. The entire new generation of the Detective Agencywas made of strays he had picked up. Why he had always to-

“Should I?” he turned to look at him with an unexpectedbittersweet smile on his face, “But every time I see a stray I think about youand me and I can’t let they be. Where would we be now if no one had picked usup back then?” asked softly staring straight in his eyes.

Whatever witty comeback Chuuya was coming up with, itdied in his throat. He blushed and averted his eyes.

“This was unfair,” he murmured, hiding his red cheeks withan arm.

“But it’s true,” Dazai shrugged, paying attentionagain at the pot, “And, if I have to be honest, she had your blue eyes.”

This was the last drop.

Chuuya slammed his head against the table mumbling unintelligiblethings.

“Tomorrow,” he blurted with his heart pumping loudly, “We’llgo to the police. If no one claims her back, she’ll stay with us.”

Dazai put down everything, turned and, bouncing,reached Chuuya with a delighted, childish smile.

“Thanks, Chuuya-kun!” he leaned and pressed a kiss onhis lips.

“I hate you,” the other replied pouting.

“Yeah, I hate you too.”

#bungou stray dogs #bsd #nakahara chuuya #osamu dazai #soukoku #fluff #chuuya #dazai #chuuyaxdazai #Dazai picks up strays #we know he has this habit #Slice of life #romance #being parents #kiss #chuuya is to gullible #Hana-chan #blue eyes #Can we talk about Chuuya's eyes? #I bet Dazai has a soft spot for them too #Dazai being a manipulative little shit #mentions of shinsoukoku #dazaixchuuya #they deserve happiness #tooth-rotting fluff #bsd ff #child #parents!soukoku #living together #established relationship

[ol-razzle-dazazzle]

A Moral Compass Directs You to a Bar

An attempt to properly give Kunikida and Chuuya the correct characterisation they deserve, also with some shippy stuff. I tend to see these two mischaracterised and flanderized in fanfics so I figured I'd try kill two birds with one stone here, anyway- enjoy. --------------- It was a late night for Kunikida. It always was. While he never was one to show his nervousness (or at least he considered himself as such), it was difficult. He was walking along, flickering through the pages in his notebook. It didn't matter where he was or how he was going, but it was hard. The city was somewhat salvaged, and he didn't want to look up at the debris that lingered around the place. He felt sick. He felt like he failed. Fukuzawa was talking about him the other day, how he was to be the next successor for the Armed Detective Agency. Sure, it figured that he fit the bill, and was the 'ideal' person for the job but... a smashed car, he looked to the side, there was brown, but the rusty colour of dried blood. He was in a seedy area, and the police hadn't cleared everything up. How many people had died? And in the end, it wasn't even him that saved them. Kunikida always helped, of course he did- he always tried to be the best person, from taking extra missions because of urgency or just cleaning up around the office. He held himself to a high standard, why wouldn't he? But he always went through the same thing. The schedule would always be uninterrupted, the 'ideal' would never come about. It hurt, though he resists and persists, but it still aches. Especially ever since...everything with the Azure King. He brushed it aside, but it all managed to catch up with him. With a sigh, he glanced up at some dimly lit bar, well why the hell not? Well the first few reasons include safety, drinking clouds judgement but oh he's already through the door. This is stupid, this is the kind of behaviour that gets people killed. There weren't many people, a metaphoric twist in the knife. "Just a...glass of cold water, to clear my head." Kunikida murmurs to the barkeep, knowing it's not going to stay for that long. A voice almost speaks his mind, "You come all the way over to this hole for a glass of water? I can't tell whether you're an idiot or you want to pretend you have class." The seat next to him gets occupied, and Kunikida freezes, hands clutched to his notebook. "I'd rather not get into a fight drunk, considering your reputation, Nakahara." Kunikida squints at him, unsure as to why the mafiosi hasn't changed in his disposition. "Look, normally I'd love the chance to pound one of you into the ground, but with everything going on lately, the Mafia's wanting a little break from wars." He gives a smirk, "How about a little truce, huh? We can even make a toast if you want." Kunikida shakes his head, but sets the notebook aside. "Seriously? You think I'd lie to you? I mean, I don't want to have to answer to /him/ again anyway." "I know you're honest, but I'd rather not sully myself with the likes of you." Chuuya frowned, a finger moving to the notebook, "Ideal, hmm?" It was swiped away, earning a glare from the other man. "Calm down, I didn't mean to disarm you." Kunikida sneers, "I know that, you're a man of class and an idiot." Chuuya accepts the verbal blow, smiling, "See? Now we're getting somewhere. Barkeep, two glasses." Now with a swirled glass in hand, Chuuya leans back into the seat. "One glass, enough to stir the senses, don't you think?" Kunikida takes a sip, "I suppose, they say a glass a day prolongs your lifespan." "Especially if you're a lightweight, like yours truly." "I don't drink often." Kunikida looks at the pooled red. "Not ideal?" "Stop going on about that." "Well, I don't know much about you outside of files, so that's all I have to go off." Kunikida grits his teeth, "and I don't have much to know about you apart from being a reckless, brutal, drunkard who can't mind his own business." "Well none of those things are true, to that extent- I feel the records flanderize me." "And my ideals are important to me, which is why I can't stand going against them. It's why I go against people like you." Chuuya frowned, "And how's that been going for you so far?" Kunikida stiffened. "You came all this way because life is going along to your little storybook? I can't believe that." "It's not." Kunikida mumbled, "Things haven't been going as planned." "No shit." Chuuya took a sip, raising a glass, "Tons of our people died in all that mess, a lot more than you'd think." "And who is 'our people'? The same criminal dogs who kick morals to the curb?" The glass in Chuuya's hand dropped, rattling. "Well, allow me to enlighten you. Do you have any clue why a mafia is made?" "It's a crime syndicate used to earn money." Kunikida stared back. "I'm not asking for dictionaries, dipshit. The very first one, why was it formed?" Upon seeing no answer, "It was to protect everybody who couldn't go to the police because they were corrupt." "How dare you say that we're-" "You misunderstand. I just mean that not all of us are 10 million yen orphan tigers or math teachers with a lucky break." Chuuya stares at him, "I'm not completely devoid of human sympathy, we all have standards." Kunikida raises an eyebrow, "I don't get why you're telling me all this." "Because I want you to stop being so stupidly strict on yourself and just at least try to enjoy yourself." "Is that where Dazai got it from?" "No, I'm just...look, I feel like fucking shit right now, so I figured 'misery loves company' and that I would at least try to be civil." Chuuya settles his head on the table. "I don't want to sleep because I wake up every morning and there's less people. You can sense it in the air." "That pungent scent of failure." Kunikida looks down. "Yep." Kunikida sighs, clinking his glass with Chuuya's. "To impossible to achieve standards." Chuuya merely nods, propping himself up on the chair. "So what's gotten you all upset? You're the one that gets all the credit, after all, that agency." "It's...a lot of things. Mainly that I didn't do enough." "I hear that. Fucking Akutagawa fixed up everything, my subordinate! Can you believe that shit? And what did I do? Just stand around, doing a few flips?" "You did look rather cool, Kenji couldn't stop talking about you afterwards." "R-Really?" The flush came too quickly on Chuuya's face, coughing. "Didn't expect that." "Not to mention Lovecraft, he was difficult enough regularly with the other one, let alone with that...ability?" "Would you have liked to have seen my kickflips then?" Chuuya smirks. "Yes, I would." Kunikida rolls his eyes. "Well, when you lay it all out like that it sounds like we did quite a bit." The two sigh, "But it wasn't enough." "They always say 'you did the best you could', but you know deep down you could do more." Kunikida flicks through the pages, uncaring of he glances. "Well, you know- there's always a difference between theory and practise. You could specifically plan everything to its best potential, but when it actually happens it never works out that way." "That just means you have to try harder." "What it means is that you have to allow room for 'error'. You got a pen?" Chuuya asks, a hand splayed out, as he scrawls what he said, on the back page. "Don't rip it out, will you?" "Thanks for the free calling card. If there's every any handwriting analysis I'll be sure to know if it's yours." Kunikida jokes. "Nah, we get Elise or Mori to write those anyway, they prefers it like that." Chuuya waves a dismissal hand, "Besides, it's nice to have something on record that isn't 'idiotic aggressive drunkard'." "And what, you're going to update my own 'file'?" "Maybe, but it's nice to know you aren't half as annoying as I thought you'd be." "Likewise." Kunikida took back his pen, writing once more. "Hm...? 'Can't be in the Port Mafia'? Wait, this is under 'ideal partner'." Chuuya exhales, "Well that's fucking rude. You had to add another restriction just for me." "Well it's like you said, I can't achieve a perfect ideal, because life doesn't work that way." "What's this? You think I'd be a decent partner except for that one part?" Kunikida merely sets judgement aside, and sets his lips on Chuuya's own. Objectively, it wouldn't be perfect, but the imperfections made the world around him soften slightly. "Well my ideal is to not have anyone from the Agency, so I guess that doesn't work out nicely." But it did, and for a while it felt like those contradictions made sense.

#idk wtf that title was #chuunikida #is that the ship name? #Kunikida #chuuya #bsd #my writing

[lenin-it-to-win-it]

“Atsushi’s Favorite Gift”

Summary: Atsushi enjoys a relaxing picnic with Chuuya and Akutagawa to celebrate his birthday

Notes: Happy birthday atsushi!!!!!!! so this fic was kind of rushed (i didnt even realize may 5 was his birthday until like, noon of may 4 lmao) but its still very sweet and fluffy and no one dies! also this is based on my chuuakuatsu headcanons I posted about a while ago, but basically all you need to know is that atsushi is trans and he’s pregnant with chuuya’s baby and this is NOT some kind of mpreg/genderbend/fetish thing, and my comrades @akuchuus and @anemiaman have already promised to fight anyone who misconstrues it as such so yeah! I hope you all enjoy this!

*****************************************************************************************************

It was Chuuya’s idea to have a picnic.

Even as they were sitting outside on a blanket laid on the soft grass behind their house, new leaves and budding flowers swaying in the gentle breeze, Atsushi couldn’t help but wonder if there was something else up Chuuya’s sleeves. After all, this was the same Chuuya Nakahara who insisted on throwing elaborate parties for every occasion, celebrating holidays and the time Akutagawa “saved” his life by crushing a spider with equal enthusiasm. Atsushi had told Chuuya he didn’t want anything special for this birthday, but a part of him was still surprised Chuuya had listened.

Chuuya had gone inside to grab the cake; Akutagawa claimed the sun was too bright and was looking for an umbrella, leaving Atsushi alone in the garden. A squirrel darted by, casting curious glances at the blanket. Atsushi gathered some crumbs off the blanket and held them toward the squirrel with a soft, inviting meow, but the squirrel just chittered and scampered up a tree. Daffodils bobbed their bright yellow heads in the wind, and Atsushi smiled, reaching toward the brilliant petals with one hand as he remebered how much fun it had been planting this garden with Chuuya and Akutagawa almost two years ago.

A few months after Chuuya had been dating Atsushi and Akutagawa, he had got it into his mind to buy a “proper home” as he called it, away from the heat of the city and stench of the port, somewhere they could relax. Another reason, one Chuuya never said aloud but Atsushi understood implicitly, was that Akutagawa’s coughing fits had been getting worse and he was convinced fresh air would be easier on his fragile lungs. Rare as it was for everybody to be able to get their time off to coincide, the house really only saw use on the weekends, though Akutagawa did seem to cough less when they were there.

From the moment he saw the house, Chuuya had been determined to make it perfect from top to bottom, including the large, untamed backyard. For the first few weeks, Chuuya was constantly on the phone, asking Kouyou whether or not koi ponds were still in style, consulting Kajii about which brand of fertilizer was scientifically the best, and trying not to snicker as he ordered sacks full of seed, but after some time had passed, Chuuya calmed down and began planting flowers himself, asking Akutagawa and Atsushi for help.

Akutagawa hated plants. No one knew why. Still, Akutagawa had tried to overcome his hatred for all of five minutes before hissing at a leaf that brushed against his hand and storming off, muttering to himself about the evils of vegetation. Although Atsushi would have loved having Akutagawa around, he couldn’t help but be a little happy to have Chuuya all to himself for a while. Akutagawa and Chuuya had known eachother for years before Atsushi had come into their lives; Atsushi was never jealous of them, but he did feel left out sometimes, and it meant the world to him anytime Chuuya or Akutagawa spent time with him in particular.

Atsushi loved every minute he and Chuuya spent together in the garden, even when he get a splinter stuck in his hand from the handle of a shovel, or when Chuuya tripped over a rake and spent a solid thirty minutes shrieking obscenities at it, or the countless times they had to stop entirely because Chuuya was laughing hysterically at the prospect of using a hoe.

Atsushi tried to be the voice of reason. “Come on, Chuuya-san, why don’t you just pick that up-”

Chuuya failed to choke back a laugh. “Pick what up, baby? I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Atsushi blushed and pointed at the hoe. “That.”

Chuuya raised an eyebrow. “You want me to grab that hoe?” A grin spread across Chuuya’s face. “Y’know, I totally would, but, you see, the handle-” Chuuya’s words dissolved into laughter; he had to take a moment to compose himself. “-the handle’s all covered in dirt.” Chuuya’s eyes sparkled as he smirked at Atsushi. “Do you really want me to get my hands on that dirty hoe?”

Atsushi was taken out of the memory when he heard the door open.

Akutagawa glared at the sun as he sat beside Atsushi, unfolding his umbrella and holding it over their heads. Atsushi wrapped an arm around Akutagawa, leaning toward him so their cheeks were pressed together. “Is it dark enough for you now, Ryuu?”

“It’s never dark enough.”

Atsushi laughed, then moved so he and Akutagawa were facing eachother. “Why don’t you just sit inside? You can turn the lights off and hide under the blankets.” “Well. . .” Akutagawa coughed, staring at the ground for a moment before looking back at Atsushi’s smiling face. “You’re out here.”

“Ryuu!” Atsushi hugged Akutagawa, pulling away the instant he felt his stomach press against Akutagawa’s. “Oh, sorry,” he said, embarrased

Akutagawa blushed. “Don’t apologize.” His eyes gravitated toward Atsushi’s round stomach, already starting to push against the new shirt Chuuya had bought for him a few weeks ago. “It’s-” Akutagawa coughed, making his face even redder. “It’s strange to think about, you having a baby- or, two babies,” he added, correcting himself. “Twins.”

“Do you wanna see if you can feel them?” Atsushi asked. “I felt a kick earlier today.”

Akutagawa nodded, eyes widening, and placed one trembling hand on Atsushi’s stomach.

Atsushi put his hand on top of Akutagawa’s and smiled.

After a few seconds, Akutagawa pulled his hand away, disappointed. “I didn’t feel anything.”

“Well, obviously they don’t kick all the time.” Atsushi couldn’t help but laugh at Akutagawa’s sour face, but he reached out and caressed Akutagawa’s cheek. “Next time I feel something, I’ll make sure to let you know, okay?”

“I got something both of you can feel!” Chuuya proclaimed, striding through the door with the cake, his mischievous eyes gleaming brighter than the lit candles.

Akutagawa scowled. “Nakahara-san, if you say ‘deez nuts’, I swear I’ll-”

“Deez nuts!”

Akutagawa got up to leave, but Atsushi touched his wrist. “Please, don’t go,” he said. “I don’t want to eat the cake without you.”

“I-I guess I can stay, if that’s the case,” Akutagawa said, blushing again as he sat down.

Chuuya sat across from Atsushi and Akutagawa and placed the cake in front of Atsushi. “Alright, now let’s hurry up and sing before the wind blows out the candles.”

After an hour had passed and several pieces of cake had been eaten, the sun began to set, and the air grew colder. Atsushi shivered as a cool gust of wind danced through his hair.

“Are you cold?” Chuuya asked. “We can go back inside, if you want.”

Atsushi smiled. “I’m okay, Chuuya-san.” He gazed at the sunset, then up at the faint stars blossoming above and sighed, content. “It’s a beautiful evening.”

Akutagawa slipped out of the oversized sweater he was wearing over his shirt and handed it to Atsushi. “Put this on. You’ll get sick if you don’t stay warm.” Atsushi laughed. “Ryuu, I’m fine.” He ran his hands over the fluffy sweater; Chuuya had made it himself, and the odd little bits of yarn sticking out in places proved it. “Besides, you get sick more than I do.”

“Please, put it on.” Akutagawa’s gray eyes gleamed with anxiety. “I want you to be safe.” He looked down at Atsushi’s stomach. “And the babies.”

“Oh, okay.” Atsushi hugged Akutagawa, giving him a soft kiss on the cheek before pulling away. “You worry too much,” he said, wriggling into Akutagawa’s sweater. Although the sweater hung off Akutagawa’s bony frame, it barely covered half of Atsushi’s stomach. He tugged at the bottom of the sweater, in a vain attempt to cover himself better, then gave up, sighing. “I hope I don’t stretch this out too much. . .”

Chuuya leaned over and rested his head on Atsushi’s stomach. “If you do, I’ll just knit him another one. Don’t worry about it.” Atsushi felt a flutter in his tummy, and apparently Chuuya felt it as well, if his joyful shriek was any indication. “Atsushi, the babies!”

Atsushi laughed and nodded, smiling wide enough to make his cheeks ache. “I know, I feel it, too, Chuuya-san.”

Akutagawa’s eyes widened. “The babies kicked?” He shoved Chuuya aside and pressed the side of his head against Atsushi’s stomach. After a few moments, he pulled away, scowling. “I still didn’t feel anything!”

“Yeah, I think they stopped now.” Atsushi held back a laugh. “Sorry, Ryuu.”

“What are you apologizing to Ryuu for?” Chuuya complained, crossing his arms. “I’m the one who got pushed onto the fuckin’ ground.”

Atsushi leaned forward and gave Chuuya a kiss. “Sorry, Chuuya-san.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Akutagawa huffed, clearly not over his disappointment. He coughed into his hand. “At least you got to feel the babies.”

Atsushi hugged Akutagawa. “Maybe you can’t feel the babies, but you can feel this, right?”

Akutagawa leaned into Atsushi’s embrace, closing his eyes. “Yes.”

Chuuya wrapped his arms around both of them. “And everyone can feel deez-”

“I fucking swear, Nakahara-san, if you-”

“Deez hugs!” Chuuya sounded insulted. “I was gonna say hugs.”

After sitting outside for a few more hours, Atsushi was starting to get a little sleepy. He yawned, and before he could so much as cover his mouth, Chuuya was holding him.

“You tired, baby?” Chuuya asked, his voice low and gentle in Atsushi’s ear.

Atsushi blushed. “You don’t have to carry me, Chuuya-san. I know I’m kind of heavy, and I-”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Chuuya gave Atsushi a kiss on the nose. “Nothing’s too heavy for me.”

“Okay, then.” Atsushi nestled closer to Chuuya and wrapped his arms around him. “But promise-” Atsushi yawned again. “-promise you’ll let me carry you around sometime, okay?”

Chuuya laughed. “Sure thing, babe. Once the babies arrive and we’re all worked to the bone, you can carry me around as much as you want.”

“I could help.” Akutagawa stood off to the side with his arms wrapped around himself, scowling at the ground. “If I’m needed.”

“Of course you’ll help, dumbass,” said Chuuya, matter-of-fact. “Don’t think you’re exempt from diaper duty just because the babies aren’t made with your sex fluid.”

“Chuuya-san!” Atsushi cried, blushing ear to ear. “There has to be another way to phrase that!”

“Bodily secretions? Baby gravy? Sexy-time goo-goo juice?”

Atsushi pretended to struggle against Chuuya’s grasp, giggling. “Put me down! I don’t know where your filthy hands have been!”

Akutagawa reached for Atsushi. “Yes, let me hold him. Your hands must be slippery from all those fluids, Nakahara-san.”

Chuuya stepped toward Akutagawa and allowed him to reach out so Atsushi was cradled in both of their arms. “An extra pair of hands never hurt,” Chuuya said with a wink. “C’mon, now, let’s get him off to bed. Not that I’m tired, of course,” he added, puffing his chest. “But you need your rest, sweetie,” he said, giving Atsushi a quick kiss. “It’s hard work carrying those babies around all day, isn’t it?”

Chuuya fell asleep the moment his head hit the pillow; Atsushi and Akutagawa stayed awake for a while longer.

Atsushi was just starting to drift off when he felt the babies kicking. Without saying a word, he took Akutagawa’s hand and placed it on his round tummy.

Akutagawa gasped. “That’s- that’s them? The babies?”

Atsushi laughed, then yawned. “That’s them. They’re saying hello to you, Ryuu-chan.”

Tears sparkled in Akutagawa’s eyes. “Hello.” He rested his head on top of Atsushi’s tummy but kept his eyes trained on Atsushi’s face. “Do you think-” Akutagawa was quiet for a moment, then coughed. “Atsushi. . . will they love me?”

Atsushi stroked Akutagawa’s hair. “Of course,” he whispered. “They’ll love you every bit as much as Chuuya-san and I do.”

Akutagawa inhaled a deep, shuddering breath and fell silent. Minutes later, he fell asleep, his dull, raspy snores as sweet and familiar as a lullaby.

Atsushi glanced at Chuuya’s sleeping face, then Akutagawa’s, then down at his own round tummy and smiled. Chuuya and Akutagawa had given him many gifts- pancakes shaped like cat faces with syrupy smiles at breakfast, bouquets of flowers, tiger plushes, warm bowls of chazuke, and a lovely picnic to top it all off- but no gift could ever make Atsushi happier than his wonderful family.

#bungou stray dogs #chuuakuatsu #happy birthday atsushi! #a good cat who deserves love #here come dat fic o shit waddup

[fraink5-writes]

Human Qualification- Chapter 5

August 5

Chapter 5 is here! Once again, thank you, @missmizpah @gracieuxetoile and @deathly-oreos for reading it over!

Summary: To slowly lose all your functions until you are nothing but a trapped mind in a deteriorated shell, that’s what it means to be ‘No Longer Human.’

This chapter can also be found on Ao3 here. Without further ado, please enjoy!

Over his accelerating heartbeat and rapid breaths, Dazai tried to slow his surroundings. A punch hurled towards his stomach. He couldn’t prepare in time, and a fist crashed into his abdomen and jostled its contents. From the corner of his eye, Dazai spotted another hand: this time an open palm. It lurched towards his arm, but Dazai wouldn’t let it get away cleanly. He seized his attacker and twisted.

“Ah!” The boy let out a short yelp, but he quickly curbed it.

“Too slow.” Dazai’s face showed no emotion as he threw the black-haired kid to the ground. In the brief reprieve after his victory, Dazai’s breath scrambled to catch up. His stomach churned, seething at the unwelcomed attack. Even without injury, his whole body ached, a muted urge for Dazai to stop. Of course, that wouldn’t happen. “Try again. Faster this time. Just the flip.”

Without a word, the boy lunged at Dazai, gripping his shoulder. His other hand went for Dazai’s opposite sleeve. Like the previous time, Dazai planned on throwing off his subordinate, but his arm froze. His muscles tensed like ice with a searing pain. In his momentary pause, Akutagawa had already rotated around, keeping the same grip on Dazai (which only amplified the pain). With his back towards Dazai, he swept the brunet off the ground with his right leg and threw him onto the ground.

Dazai lay there, clutching his malfunctioning arm. His entire body resisted movement with a dull ache. Even his eyes demanded rest. With every blink, they remained closed a bit longer.

“Dazai-san, I did it.” Though he tried to suppress it, Akutagawa wore a slight smile.

“Not yet.” Dazai climbed wearily to his feet. “See how I’m standing now? You haven’t accomplished anything.”

“Oh.” At this point, the smile had disappeared on its own.

“You need to be faster, stronger.”

Akutagawa simply nodded and went for his next flip. Dazai noticed no difference in the boy’s approach, but that didn’t change the outcome. Once again, Dazai’s right arm refused to cooperate, and he was lifted into the air. After the thud on the ground, he heard a tiny groan leak from his throat.

“Dazai-san...”

Akutagawa was the last person Dazai wanted pity from. Hastily, he stood to his now-shaking legs. Although he preferred Akutagawa didn’t notice his tremors, that was irrelevant; he wouldn’t stop until there was a marked improvement in his subordinate’s performance. Otherwise, what was the point? “Continue. Do it again. Faster, I said.”

Again and again, Akutagawa threw Dazai onto the floor, and with each landing, it became increasingly difficult to rise. Finally, Dazai hit the ground and didn’t budge. Not even his vocal cords had the strength to make a sound. The floor was his bed, lulling his eyes closed. Lying on the concrete mattress, he wondered if this was what death was like: unmoving with a persistent ache.

“Nakahara-san? It’s Akutagawa… I think Dazai-san..” Dazai listened to Akutagawa’s shaky voice before even his ears turned off.

“Get up, asshole!” Dazai’s eyes snapped open to the abrasive tone of Chuuya’s voice and the realization that his shoe was ready to stomp down on him.

“I’m up.” In a slight hurry, Dazai struggled to his feet. He surveyed the room. Akutagawa was missing. “Akutagawa-kun is…?”

“I sent him off. I’ll be taking care of you.”

“How kind of you,” Dazai snarked before his legs nearly dropped him.

“Jeez.” Chuuya shook his head and wrapped his arm around Dazai’s back to support him. “I’m not helping you because I want to, okay? It’s because I sent Akutagawa away.”

“I wasn’t asking for your kindness anyway.”

Chuuya shot a pointed glare at the brunet. “I’m going to drop you.”

“Please don’t.”

The two of them hobbled slowly towards Dazai’s apartment, arms around each others’ backs. Chuuya kept his eyes glued in front of him, humming to himself. Dazai, on the other hand, could feel himself drifting to sleep on Chuuya’s shoulder. Although he tried to resist, the rhythm of their movement combined with his fatigue was hypnotizing.

“Oi.”

“Sorry.” For a brief moment, Dazai tried to keep his head on his own shoulders. He hoped that conversation could keep him awake. “What happened with Akutagawa-kun? ...Did you tell him?”

“No.” Before Dazai could be relieved, Chuuya continued. “But your training sessions are over.”

“What?” Feeling more alert, Dazai pulled away from the redhead.

“Yeah. In fact, I just sent him to tell the Boss.”

“...Why? I can still train him. Even today, he improved.”

“No. If you keep training, you probably won’t survive. Today, it ended with you asleep, but it’s setting a bad precedent.”

“Who’s going to train him then?” Dazai snapped. “He’s still weak. He needs training.”

“I am.”

“You?” Dazai blinked at Chuuya. “Don’t you think it’s going to set him back to suddenly start working with someone else?”

“He and I agreed on it.”

Dazai gritted his teeth, struggling to think up a response.

“It’s over, Dazai.” Chuuya couldn’t look Dazai in the eyes, looking instead at the nearby wall. “I’m sorry.”

Dazai felt empty as though something important was just stolen from him. His role as Akutagawa’s trainer was only a part of his job, yet when it ended, it felt like his whole life went with it. He was useless, replaced as though he had already died. But this was just the beginning. One after another, things would disappear until only his ashes remained. Deprived of his responsibilities, Dazai felt vulnerable.

Along with this realization, Dazai’s momentary energy depleted, and his legs began to tremble. He gripped the wall for support, but he couldn’t depend on it. He cursed his fate under his breath; Chuuya—of all people—was the only one there. With no resolve, he sent his partner a shamefully helpless glance. “...Chuuya...”

The redhead rolled his eyes—“fine”—and picked up the executive. “Seriously, what am I going to do with you?”

“Sorry…” It was pity more for himself (even if he hated it).

“Just fucking go to sleep already. I like you better when you’re quiet anyway.”

Leaning against Chuuya’s back, Dazai quickly nodded to sleep. Even through Dazai’s increasing failures, there was something stubbornly dependable about Chuuya.

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#Bungou Stray Dogs #Soukoku #Human Qualification #Dazai Osamu #Nakahara Chuuya #Akutagawa Ryuunosuke #Angst