Latest Posts by n0thum4ny - Page 2

RIP Regulus I guess

ronmort 1950s meetcute

addendum:

NEED

do you like my 2 keychain designs??

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A guide to worship of Nike - cheat sheets

Hellenic cheat sheets

If you like my content consider supporting me on: https://ko-fi.com/screeching0wlet

reblog for higher sample size!!!

The colleges AU saga continues! 👏 No like seriously, this is a direct continuation of the previous post (nevermind the fact that I drew this one first). Anyways they had gathered in Sigma's apartment to study for a group project but ended up playing board games and nerly burning the apartment down (Sigma has officially banned them of playing board games in his apartment now), hair braiding while some of them, *cough *cough fyolai *cough, passionately making out in the corner. It wasn't all that bad untill Fyodor pulled out a bottle of vodka, seemingly out of thin air, and oh well, the rest is history!

murase would be the type of dad to purposefully embarrass his son (chuuya) in front of his friends

Ehahagageheg >,< this is literally so amazing!!

Hii hellooo !!!

I would like to request something with yandere! chuuya, anything you'd like to write about him really :)

a/n: yes of course.ᐟ.ᐟ help i love this request sm :,) chuuya & jouno's my fav so gotta prioritize this hehe.ᐟ.ᐟ also, i don't write nsfw unless u specifically request for it, so pls keep that in mind , if u want it contact me and i'll add it.ᐟ (´･ᴗ･ `) anyway ty for requesting, enjoy <3

𝕪𝕒𝕟𝕕𝕖𝕣𝕖.ᐟ 𝕔𝕙𝕦𝕦𝕪𝕒

[Warnings: yandere themes, unhealthy relationship, angst✰] [Word count: 288 || 𝓮𝓷𝓳𝓸𝔂.ᐟ]🍓

sfw. hcs

actually one of the safer yanderes to be around out there, he just loves you way too much

already overprotective yall, being yandere would probably throw him over the edge

feels like he's the only one who can protect u

hovering over you at all times, doesn't trust you AT ALL

at first it was kinda sweet, then it's obvious he has no concept of personal space

rip to anyone whos dumb enough to hit on you

(he'll do it when no one's watching)

100% excessive affection

def. expect hugs, hand holding, constant 'im only doing this because i care abt u' moments

gets jealous easily, really frustrated when u don't give him enough attention

needs constant reassurance

keeps asking u if u still love and want to be w/ him

extremely clingy, don't even try to escape

patience meter is zero, he loves u but that doesn't mean he wouldn't resort to violence if u try to leave him hot

if you always did what he told you, you'll be fine

if not your fucked

his punishments are BRUTAL

would twist your arm behind your back until you cry and beg for him to stop

feels terrible afterwards but won't hesitate to do it again if he needs to

next day would act like nothing happened while ur literally shaking in the corner

hates to see u scared of him but doesn't say anything

will treat you really well if you don't try to escape tho

would pamper u with lots of expensive presents and take u on romantic dates

you two would almost seem like a real couple...almost

danger meter: 7/10 , you'll be safe (if u listen)

just pls dont test his patience 🙃

chuuya im single

a/n: I HAD SO MUCH FUN WRITING THIS AHHHH chuuya's my baby \(★ω★)/ i love him sm <3 happy (early) thanksgiving to everyone, stay safe out there.ᐟ♡

𝓽𝓱𝓪𝓷𝓴 𝔂𝓸𝓾.ᐟ ʚ🍓ɞ ʀᴇʙʟᴏɢs + ʟɪᴋᴇs ʜɪɢʜʟʏ ᴀᴘᴘʀᴇᴄɪᴀᴛᴇᴅ

o(≧▽≦)o

finished verrrr 🫡

Silly Halloween comic 🎃 (pretend I posted this on time)

Anyflip links to complete bsd light novels

dazai’s entrance exam - https://anyflip.com/gxcnw/vpeu/

dark era - https://anyflip.com/gxcnw/pcxl/

untold origins - https://anyflip.com/gxcnw/ghzd/

55 minutes - https://anyflip.com/gxcnw/ppxc/

dead apple - https://anyflip.com/gxcnw/wvkq/

beast - https://anyflip.com/gxcnw/vaqg/

fifteen - https://anyflip.com/gxcnw/msym/

stormbringer - https://anyflip.com/gxcnw/gbxf/

i got a hold of these while z library was still in it’s full glory and thought i’d share! the translation on these is by yen press, if you want a site where you can download them dm me, send any complaints to my ask box :3 i also recommend checking out @/bsd-bibliophile’s website for fan translations 

Oh Dazai, how can you be so criminally pretty when all you've done is tuck a strand of hair behind your ear.

i got too optimistic and forgot kamala harris was dealing with the combined powers of racism and misogyny

Maybe you dislike them because they're everything you can not be.

Loyal, devoted, effortlessly loving and happy, trusting...

Maybe you dislike them because loyalty took Odasaku from you.

Loyalty killed him. Be it to the mafia, to the children, to his personal values. The way he still clung to some sense of morality that you, yourself, tossed away. Or rather, never had to begin with.

You always were pretending anyway.

-Nix🌙

coraline au !

reblog if you believe fanfics are as valid as books that were published and sold by authors who write as their main careers. I'm trying to prove a point

i hate these idiots

Genuinely in shock, I was NOT ready for this 😭 I am not fine.

ᡣ𐭩 I PRAY, DON'T FALL AWAY FROM ME

FEATURING: dazai osamu

SUMMARY: murphy's law has never been more true. anything that can go wrong will go wrong. and it does.

AUTHOR'S NOTES: HAPPY FRIDAYYYYYYY, we're finally getting into the thick of this series, the next few chapters will be INTENSE, i hope you enjoy them as much as i enjoyed writing them ;) this chapter was actually a doozy for me - i struggled a bit with reconciling civzai with canon!dazai and figuring out how to make civzai react to everything that's happened in a way that a civilian would, but i didn't want to make it too far removed from how canon!dazai would act. i ended up rewriting a few times, but i'm mostly happy with how it came out. anyway!! reblogs and comments greatly appreciated as always!! ENJOY heheh!

GENERAL WARNINGS: fem!reader, port mafia executive!reader, civilian!dazai, dazai's struggles w suicide & sh, reader partakes in mafia business, dazai isn't dazai without a bit of obsessiveness and possessiveness (the possessiveness doesn't come til later but the obsessiveness starts from day 0).

CHAPTER SPECIFIC WARNINGS: hardly edited. depictions of dissociation, brief depiction of gore in first scene, dazai's implied to be in a bit of a manic episode in the second scene and then crashes hard in the third (he is not coping well with everything that happened), reader is all strung up and agitated most of this chapter which leads to some very stupid decisions, dazai also makes some very stupid decisions.

ANOTHER THING TO NOTE: our lovely reader IS A MAFIA EXECUTIVE !! as a port mafia executive, she does port mafia things, this will become very apparent in the next chapter and the rest of the upcoming chapters. it hasn't been as apparent in the past few, so it might be a bit jarring to read but it is something to keep in mind. additionally, she is FLAWED and that is very apparent in how an argument goes down in this chapter. i wanted to add this warning just to give you all a bit of a heads up.

SEE: WASTELAND, BABY! SERIES MASTERLIST

You look so… serene. 

Dazai’s knees are tucked to his chest as he sits on the bed next to you, watching as you rest. You’re fast asleep, even puffs of air escaping your lips as you curl up close to him beneath the comforter. You look a lot younger right now, not anything like the hardened mafia executive that he knows you are. Dazai’s breath catches when he sees you shift to get a bit more comfortable, moving closer to him so that your forehead is pressed against the side of his thigh.

Still, none of this feels real. He hardly breathes as he reaches out to brush the back of his knuckles against your cheek, watching as you let out a soft noise in your sleep before nuzzling a bit closer to him. Dazai believed that he was a man destined to be alone for his whole life; never in his wildest dreams did he ever think someone would love him for who he is, much less someone like you who could have anyone you wanted.

It doesn’t feel real.

Was it all just a dream? 

A nightmare? 

He blinks and suddenly blood stains the back of his knuckles where he’d been touching you, dribbling from your lips to the mattress below. Your eyes are still closed, but Dazai knows if they were open, they’d be glassy and empty. His breath quickens and his gaze flickers down the bed to your torso where he knows the gaping wound is hidden beneath the sheets. He feels the weight of a gun in his right hand and hears a thud to his left of a body hitting the ground and-

“Stop thinking so hard.”

He physically jumps at the sound of your voice, eyes widening as he looks down at you. Your eyes are still closed and you haven’t budged an inch, but the blood is gone and the weight in his hand has disappeared. For a split second, Dazai thinks he might’ve imagined your voice, but then, as if you can sense the thought, your eyes crack open, sharp and squinted, not at all glassy or empty.

Just his mind playing tricks. 

“I can feel the shitty thoughts tossing around up there,” you mutter with a yawn, stretching a bit next to him. His face heats up when you press your lips against the sliver of bandages peeking out from where his shirt is riding up his sides. You sigh as you push yourself into a sitting position, dropping your head on his shoulder. “What time is it?”

“Half-past seven ish,” he answers, voice catching as he looks down at you. “You slept late. Your meeting is in twenty minutes.”

“Did you sleep at all?” you ask with a frown. You sit up straight again to look at him, a concerned expression on your face. “You’re not usually up this early.”

Dazai did not, in fact, sleep. Besides the fact that every time he closes his eyes, he’s plagued with the sight of your dead body, his mind has been in shambles over how easy it had been to pull the trigger of the gun you’d given him. Odasaku had instilled morals into him, morals that Dazai has strictly followed since the day he met the man, even more so after he died to save Dazai to honor the older man. And Dazai had known that being with you would compromise said morals but…

But it’s different when he’s actually the one stomping all over them.

Life should be treasured. Spend your days helping people.

Why had pulling the trigger been so easy?

Dazai stares down at his hands, willing an answer to come to him. He thinks the worst part is that even now, he can’t muster guilt. He should feel guilty—he knows that—he took someone’s life, someone who had people waiting on him if what you were saying held any merit, but he’d done it to protect you and he just can’t seem to feel guilty when it had been a choice between your life and an enemy’s.

Still, he thinks, it shouldn’t have been so easy.

He shouldn’t feel nothing.

Not for the first time, Dazai thinks there’s something fundamentally wrong with him. Something that sets him painfully apart from the rest of humanity. Something that leaves him grasping at straws as he tries to put on a face and convince the world that he’s just like everyone else. Something dark and empty that festers—it festered while he was on his own in Suribachi, it festered after Odasaku’s death, and it festers now with blood on his hands and no remorse to be found. 

“Osamu,” you say, more concerned now, but you sound like you’re underwater and Dazai can’t even turn his head to look at you.

That’s not even to mention the message from Professor Ui. The more he thinks about it, the more anxious he gets. A tip-off. Professor Ui hadn’t given enough context for him to try to narrow down what it might be about, and there’s been so much going on recently that Dazai couldn’t possibly hope to narrow it down on his own. The only given is that it would be bad for you.

He almost doesn’t want to tell you.

No, he doesn’t want to tell you. Not at all. Not yet. Not when all he can give you is more to stress about, more to be paranoid about. All he’s been able to do is come to you with issue after issue, he’s been a burden—the least he can do is figure out the scope of this new problem before saddling you with it.

He can handle it himself. He can. He’ll go to the meeting and figure out what Professor Ui’s tip-off is about so when he brings it to you, you can formulate a plan of action to handle it. He can’t just tell you ‘Hey! Remember that journalist that’s trying to target you! He got a tip-off that he’s planning to do something about!’ when you already have so much on your plate.

He-

“Osamu,” you say, reaching for his wrist but the sudden touch jolts him out of his spiral.

His heart rate spikes and his surroundings blur and Dazai is instinctively pushing you away from him as panic subsumes all coherent thought, unsure of where he is and what’s going on. The sheets feel too much like the soft dirt, the fingers on his wrist are too tight, the air is too brisk and cold, the early morning light shining through your blinds into your apartment is so reminiscent of the way it shone through the tall trees into the forest.

“Don’t touch me.”

His feet tangle against the sheets as he scrambles away and tumbles right off of the side of the bed—pain shoots up his ankle and for a moment, Dazai forgets where he is and it’s not you on the bed reaching out to him, but the rotted skin of Arahabaki, your blood dripping off its fingers. Dazai can hardly breathe as he tries to reorient himself, nails digging into his palms.

It takes a concerning amount of time for Dazai to remember where he is, who he’s with. By the time he does, you’re kneeling at the edge of the bed, an expression on your face that Dazai is just too out of it to understand, and Dazai can feel his face heating up in embarrassment, a heavy feeling of mortification spreading through his chest when he realizes how he just lashed out at you.

“Osamu,” you try again, voice a bit softer and there’s no mistaking the concern in your eyes now, but Dazai just wants to bury himself alive, throat spasming as he hides his face in his lap. “Hey, it’s-”

“Go away,” he snaps, humiliated. “Go away. I’m fine. Don’t you have a meeting to get to?”

“It can wait,” you say, too understanding. “Osamu, I-”

A burden. 

He’s a burden—he brings you issue after issue, distracts you from your work and gets you in trouble. For some reason, despite all of that, you still want him, and all he can repay you with is lashing out at you and causing more trouble. Now because he’s fucked in the head, you’re going to be late to another meeting that you can’t afford to be late to because you’re worried about him and he’s just so tired of being a liability all the time. 

“Go.” His voice cracks over the word, he hates the way it comes across as more pleading than angry; he doesn’t have to look up at you to know the way you must be looking at him. “Please just go. I’m fine. Please.”

For a terrible, terrible second, you don’t respond and Dazai thinks you might be about to press more. He’s not sure if he can handle that. He just needs you to go to your meeting so it’s one less thing that he’s fucked up for you. He needs you to go.

“Okay,” you finally say after a few moments. “Okay. I’m going to get dressed.”

The breath that Dazai lets out is too heavy and too relieved. He doesn’t dare to look up until he hears you shuffle off of the bed and make your way to your closet. His eyes slide shut as he leans his head against the wall he’d backed himself against, forcibly calming his unsteady heart.

After a few minutes, you finally come to kneel in front of him, dressed in your suit and ready to head out. He looks up at you, hoping he doesn’t look nearly as much of a mess as he feels, but he thinks he fails because the conflicted expression on your face only becomes even more worried.

“Please go,” he repeats, voice raspy.

You sigh, gaze lowering to the ground, but you nod so Dazai can only feel relief. His lashes flutter shut as you lean in to brush your lips against his forehead and again, Dazai’s chest swarms with guilt and self-loathing because he wishes he could just be normal.

“I’ll order you some takeout,” you finally say as you lean back to look at him again. “I probably won’t be back until late tonight. You have any preferences for lunch and dinner?”

Dazai’s throat spasms as he swallows. “Crab?” he asks, voice too strained for comfort.

You roll your eyes, but you smile. “You’re not eating crab for lunch and dinner,” you say lightly, and Dazai smiles back a bit, but his smile feels a lot more wobbly than yours looks. “I’ll order it for lunch, I’ll pick dinner.”

Dazai’s nose wrinkles. “No mushrooms.”

“No mushrooms,” you agree as you rise to your feet. “I’ll see you later, yeah? Call me if you need anything.”

He definitely won’t, but he nods anyway. “See you,” he whispers.

You don’t immediately walk away, lips drawn tight as you look down at him. “I love you,” you say after a few moments and Dazai inhales sharply, gaze flickering up to you.

“... I love you too,” he echoes, the tightness in his chest easing when he sees how your expression smooths out at his words. You linger for a few seconds longer before sighing and leaving your bedroom without another word.

Dazai doesn’t budge until he hears the elevator bing, signaling its arrival to your floor.

Even when he’s sure that it’s gone—and you with it—he doesn’t move. 

He doesn’t want to. His hands sting where he’d pushed you away from him and his legs feel bolted to the ground beneath him. He can hear his phone buzzing somewhere in front of him, probably tangled in the sheets he’d dragged off of the bed with him. He knows that he should get up and check—the meeting is in two hours and Dazai not only needs to get dressed, but he needs to figure out how he’s going to sneak out of this building without alerting any of your subordinates.

For you, he reminds himself as he sighs and pushes himself to his hands and knees and drags himself over to the mess of sheets on the ground, rifling through them until his hand closes around his cell phone. He’ll go to the meeting, get the information, and come back before you’re even finished with work… before that actually, he’ll need to get back by noon when you send someone here with takeout. If they show up and he’s not here, they’ll definitely report that back to you and he doesn’t want you to know that he’s going out because that’ll just cause you more stress and the whole point of this is to try to lessen your burden.

He unlocks his phone to see a few messages in the group chat and he cringes as soon as he reads them.

Koda Hinami: Is it okay if we meet a bit later today? I have an appointment in Tokyo and the soonest train I can catch is at 14:30.

Professor Ui: Does 15:30 work?

Otsuka Ayato: good with me, i’m free all day

Koda Hinami: Yup! That’s perfect.

Professor Ui: Dazai-kun?

Dazai supposes that this gives him more time at least—he doesn’t have to rush back before you send food for lunch. He doubts that you’ll be back before nightfall, and you probably won’t send dinner until 19:00 so that gives him almost four hours, which is more than enough time. He can spend the morning plotting out how he’s going to get out of the building without being seen.

Dazai: that works

He puts his phone back on the charger, a bit more pep in his step as he tells himself that he’ll make everything up to you. He pushes away all of the thoughts plaguing him, dressing himself in one of the outfits he’d left at your apartment. Those nagging feelings of doubt and self-loathing linger in spite of his attempts to shoo them away, but he does his best to ignore it. He needs to get himself into a better mood before seeing his professor and classmates—he doubts they would notice, but on the off chance they did, he needed to be ready to distract them from it in some way and he most definitely is not ready for that now.

But he has time now, so-

Was that the elevator?

Dazai’s head whips to the side to look out your bedroom door just as he finishes pulling on the new sweater you bought him. He creeps out of your bedroom slowly, wondering if you came back because you forgot something, but when he steps out of your room to the top of the staircase, he freezes because it is not you standing in the living room but instead a different, but unfortunately familiar, face.

Great, he thinks bitterly, expression twisting into distaste when he sees Nakahara Chuuya leaning on a pair of crutches. The man looks equally irate at the sight of Dazai standing on the balcony, making no effort to hide the way he scoffs and rolls his eyes. 

“Why are you here?” Dazai asks, eyes squinted as he stares down at the other man. 

He looks awful and Dazai isn’t sure why it makes him feel smug, but it does. Chuuya looks like he’s hardly able to hold himself up, leaning heavily on his crutches, face pale and beaded with sweat. He’s dressed in a thin t-shirt and sweats, so Dazai can see the aggravated scars running up his arms, but his eyes can’t help but linger on Chuuya’s hand. 

His left hand—the same one that had torn through your body, that had killed you, the same one that had tried and failed to kill him. If Dazai looks hard enough, he swears he can see the rot spreading across the other man’s skin again, from his fingertips to his wrist to his elbow, as Arahabaki takes back over, so Dazai forces his gaze back up to his face.

All of the aggression that had been plain on Chuuya’s face disappears when he notices where Dazai was looking. He shakes his head and asks roughly, “Where the hell is she?”

Dazai scowls. “Why do you want to know?” 

“You little-” Chuuya hisses, gaze sharpening. “Where is she?”

Just to be annoying, and because Dazai has no sense of self-preservation, he asks, “Why should I tell you?”

“I’m going to rip your head off,” Chuuya spits out, unnervingly quick on his crutches as he makes his way over to the staircase. Dazai darts into your bedroom, hand on the door so he can quickly slam it shut if Chuuya tries to come closer, although he’s not sure if a door is going to be enough to stop him. “Get back here.”

“You tried that already,” Dazai says lightly, watching Chuuya’s reaction carefully. “You failed, remember? … Or that’s right, you wouldn’t, would you? What’s his face… Fireboy? He mentioned that you probably wouldn’t… So, was he right? How much do you remember?”

Chuuya’s entire expression shifts at Dazai’s words, lips tightening and gaze averting down to the ground. The shame is clear on his face as he lets out a sigh, glancing up to see the bruises around Dazai’s neck just too shake his head and look away again.

“Enough,” he says quietly. “I remember enough.”

Dazai tilts his head to the side as he examines Chuuya. The scars on his arms indicate the shadow of Arahabaki’s presence in his body—Arahabaki, the violent and destructive god who had killed you and tried to kill Dazai. He expected to be more anxious around, or even scared of, Chuuya after what happened. He supposes he is to some extent, he can feel the itchiness on his tongue that always signals those unwelcome emotions approaching, but Dazai thinks it’s not because of Chuuya himself like he expected—he still feels the ever present urge to antagonize the man due to petty jealousy and the acute irritation his appearance and existence in general causes him.

 It’s natural, he rationalizes. It’s not like Chuuya is Arahabaki or Arahabaki is him, so there’s no reason for Dazai to be scared of Nakahara Chuuya. Arahabaki, on the other hand… he watched you die to it and he nearly died himself, although the former is decidedly more traumatizing, so it makes sense. But Dazai has never been fond of fear, he’s learned through his own experiences alone in Suribachi and from Odasaku that it’s the most treacherous emotion, the quickest to kill, so he’s swift in his efforts to channel those lingering nerves that Arahabaki is causing into an emotion he’s much more capable of processing: curiosity.

To kill fear of something that’s mostly unknown to him, it must first become known.

He doesn’t know much about Arahabaki, only the few vague things you mentioned and the fact that it seems to be incapable of touching Dazai without being neutralized, which Dazai supposes he can also use as a blanket of security. But he has to know more.

“Can you speak to it?” Dazai blurts out, unable to help himself from firing out the question, hardly holding back the forty more.

“What?” Chuuya asks, voice flat.

“Arahabaki,” Dazai says, and then adds, “obviously.”

Chuuya gives him a withering look and instead of responding, he repeats his question from earlier. “Where is she?”

Dazai’s lips flatten as he squints again, not appreciating the way the man blew off his question entirely, but this time he decides to respond. “She went to an executive meeting, shouldn’t you be there if you’re up and about?”

“I thought I could catch her before she left,” Chuuya sighs, suddenly looking very tired, which naturally piques Dazai’s interest because why was he trying to catch you before you left? “I’m not supposed to be up yet. Doc’s gonna fuckin’ skin me alive when he finds me.”

“Why were you looking for her?” Dazai prods.

Chuuya pointedly doesn’t respond, side-eyeing Dazai before turning to walk back down the stairs. Dazai’s jaw drops in disbelief at the way he was so blatantly ignored and darts forward, kicking his leg out to drive it into the back of Chuuya’s knee. He’s smug when the other man lets out a surprised yelp, knee buckling as he drops; he’s not quite as smug when he steadies himself with his ability and turns back to Dazai, eyes blazing.

“I’m going to kill you, you shitty bastard,” Chuuya spits out and Dazai’s eyes widen as he darts right back into your bedroom, slamming the door shut hard behind him. “Do you really think that’s going to stop me, you dumb fuck?”

Dazai presses his full body weight against the door as Chuuya drives his shoulder into it to force it open. He’s the one yelping now as he goes sprawling forward onto your floor when Chuuya pushes the door open so hard that it comes off the top hinge.

“She’ll kill you if you kill me in her apartment,” Dazai threatens before he can take another step forward, voice a bit too squeaky for comfort. “She will.”

Chuuya sounds and looks like an angry bull when he lets out a heavy breath as he tries to calm himself. Dazai almost comments on it, but he bites his tongue. He might seem to be impervious to the man’s gravity manipulating powers, but he’s not quite as impervious to the brute force he’s capable of.

“What the fuck was that for?” Chuuya hisses.

“I asked you a question,” Dazai says, raising his chin as he stands back up and looks down at Chuuya, enjoying the way the mafioso’s eye twitches when he has to look up to meet his gaze. “You ignored me.”

“You-” Chuuya begins before taking a deep breath again. “I just wanted to talk to her, that’s all.”

“But why?”

Chuuya doesn’t look amused by Dazai’s insistence, but that only makes Dazai more insistent. He clearly had a reason for seeking you out and it must’ve been an important one considering how upset he seemed after realizing that you’d left already, and nobody could really blame Dazai for being curious.

Chuuya stares at Dazai for a second before sighing. “She’s… not doing good. Boss has been putting her through the wringer lately and Piano Man said it was even worse yesterday, probably gonna be just as bad today. I wanted to check in on her before she left.”

Dazai’s throat spasms as he swallows, suddenly all of the amusement he was getting out of irritating Chuuya withers away as the man’s words register. He knew you weren’t doing good—he knew it, he could tell from the tense expression you had whenever you thought he wasn’t looking, could tell from the way your laughs and words seemed strained, could tell from the way your smile was frayed at the edges. It’s why he doesn’t want to come to you with another issue and no solution, but hearing it from someone else…

“Don’t feel bad if you didn’t notice,” Chuuya starts to say, noticing the expression on Dazai’s face. “I’m sure she’s careful to put up a front to not worry you, does that with everyone, but she’d do it especially with y-”

“I noticed,” Dazai says, bristling. “I just… Why is he putting her through the wringer? How?” 

Chuuya looks uncomfortable, like he doesn’t want to respond, and Dazai has his answer.

“Because of me,” he realizes, a lump in his throat.

“No,” Chuuya snaps before hesitating. “Not just you. He blames this whole shitshow with the Guild on her, and then there was the stuff with the Inagawa-kai and Shimazaki-kai-”

“Which happened because of me,” Dazai interjects, lashes lowering as he looks away. Dark claws pull at his heart again and Dazai can’t push them away this time.

“We were gonna go to war with them sooner or later anyway,” Chuuya says, shaking his head. “Whether it was then or later, doesn’t matter. Not on you or her.”

Dazai doesn’t think he agrees with that, and he doesn’t even think Chuuya agrees with that considering how he reacted to finding out that Dazai was the reason for you deciding to rush the attack on the Inagawa, but he doesn’t feel like arguing about it. Chuuya doesn’t let him anyway, starts talking before Dazai can get a word in.

“Now he’s pissed about the battle with Lovecraft and Steinbeck. I had to use Corruption, and I’m pretty sure he figured out that damned doctor from the Agency was the one to save her life,” he continues, grimacing. “He’s gonna hold that over her head.”

Oh? 

Dazai’s focus zeroes in on that, brows furrowing. He’d been wondering how you managed to survive the wound Arahabaki dealt but every time he asks you, you evade.

“Why?”

“Why what?” Chuuya asks brusquely, looking a bit startled almost, as if he’d forgotten he was talking to Dazai and had started venting on his own.

“Why is he going to hold it over her?” he asks carefully.

“That’s not for me to say,” Chuuya says after a few moments, much to Dazai’s frustration. “You’ll have to ask her-”

“She wouldn’t even tell me how she survived,” Dazai interrupts, annoyed. “I just want to… I want to understand what’s going on so I can help her.”

Chuuya looks conflicted, so Dazai takes the opportunity to press.

“I can’t help her if I don’t understand what’s going on, I can try to help. You’re worried about her, aren’t you?” Dazai demands, and then adds through gritted teeth, “Please.”

“Did she… tell you about her past with the Boss? During the war?” Chuuya finally asks, leaning against the railing as he waits for Dazai to respond.

“She told me that he brought her in after her town was massacred,” Dazai tells him, fingers thrumming against his thigh. “That she spent two years trying to figure out how to use her ability to help him create an immortal military unit.”

Chuuya lets out a breath as he looks away. “She wasn’t the only one that the Boss had taken in. There was another girl—Yosano Akiko—who had the ability to bring people back from the brink of death over and over and over again. From what she’s told me, and that’s not much, Yosano was prodigious with her ability and she… wasn’t. The Boss held it over her, pit the two of them against each other and to this day, compares her to Yosano. It’s a… touchy subject for her, I’m not surprised she evades it.”

Dazai’s face twists. “But she’s good at using her ability now,” he protests even though he knows it’s not that simple.

“I know,” Chuuya says, voice solemn. “Doesn’t matter though. It’ll never be enough—not for her or for him.”

Dazai has never met the Boss of the Port Mafia, but he thinks that he hates him more than anyone else Dazai has ever known. A bitter feeling claws at his chest as he thinks of a much younger you being rescued from a warzone only to find yourself in the hands of a cruel and manipulative man that guises as your savior. Dazai is not a man who has ever been inclined to turn to violence—he much prefers battles of wits—but god, if his fingers don’t twitch for it now.

The words slip from his lips before he can stop them, tight and angry: “He’s a piece of shit.”

Chuuya stares at Dazai for a moment in disbelief before barking out a laugh and then promptly slapping his hand over his mouth and forcing himself to quiet down. 

“Shut the fuck up,” he says dutifully. “He’s still the Boss.”

“Your boss, not mine.” Dazai rolls his eyes.

“Whatever,” Chuuya replies dryly, ever clever in his response. “I’m going to go try to run into her before Doc manages to sniff me out… Don’t do anything stupid while she’s gone.”

Dazai gives Chuuya a side eye. “Wasn’t planning to,” he lies, possibly. He hasn’t decided yet if going to this meeting is a stupid idea—it might be, but the rewards outweigh the risks anyway.

Chuuya stares at him for a second suspiciously. “Whatever,” he repeats, so astute. He hesitates as he moves to leave and Dazai raises his eyebrows, waiting for him to say whatever might be running through the slow brain of his.

“Why aren’t you scared of me?” Chuuya asks after a few moments, looking uncharacteristically unguarded as he stares at Dazai, waiting for an answer.

“Why would I be scared of someone the size of a slug?” Dazai counters, giving Chuuya a simpering smile as the man’s face immediately tightens in anger.

“You’re incorrigible,” Chuuya spits.

“Big word for such a small brain,” he taunts, “did she teach you it?”

Chuuya doesn’t even respond, hissing out insults under his breath as he promptly makes his way back down the stairs. 

Dazai is unbearably pleased with himself as he gives the ginger a mocking wave while he waits for the elevator, leaning over the railing looking down at the first floor. Chuuya promptly flips Dazai off, face so red that it clashes painfully with his hair.

As soon as Chuuya’s in the elevator and out of sight, Dazai disregards the warning and begins the first phase of his plan—finding your laptop to see if you happen to have a layout of the building anywhere on it so he can figure out how to sneak out—suddenly feeling significantly more inspired to do whatever he can to ease the burden that’s been placed on you.

You know something is wrong when you get up to your apartment and find it dead silent—there’s no trashy reality show playing in the living room, no sound of that new fighting game that Dazai had bought on your card, no excited call of your name because you came home early with food instead of sending someone with it. The elevator closes behind you and the takeout in your left hand weighs uncomfortably heavy, your gaze draws from the hallway leading to the guest room over to the kitchen.

He’s not in the living room and you don’t see him in the kitchen, so you look up at the stairs leading to your bedroom. Maybe he went back to sleep—you could tell this morning that he hadn’t slept much, if at all, last night, and when Albatross stopped by with lunch for him (after much complaining, naturally), he said that Dazai looked half dead on his feet. 

It’s why you made sure to finish up your last meeting early—it was a video call with Tolstoy anyway, he didn’t mind you running out early, only wanted to let you know that he had to go with Repin to New York but could be in Yokohama by the end of the day on Thursday if you needed. You don’t really want to rely on the Three Deaths for help in this conflict, it would make the Port Mafia look weak, but depending on how this vote goes in the Diet on Friday, you might not have a choice. The Port Mafia isn’t in the position to handle the full force of the Guild and the military at the same time. 

Why didn’t he come down when he heard the elevator?

You place the food down on the table in the living room before making your way to the staircase. He must be up there, so you don’t know why you suddenly feel so dreadful and you don’t know why it’s suddenly hard for you to make yourself move forward, like you’re walking through waist-deep water and the current is running against you. Your heart thuds painfully in your chest as you walk up the stairs to your bedroom.

He’s sleeping.

Since when was your staircase so long, it feels like each step you go up, ten more appear in front of you. You’re half convinced that it’s an ability messing with you and not just your mind playing tricks.

He’s a light sleeper. He would’ve woken up.

By the time you get up to your apartment, you know he won’t be there, but your heart still sinks to your feet when you push your door open and see the bed empty and the bathroom door open. 

Dazai is nowhere to be seen.

Your lashes flutter as you force yourself to take a deep breath, trying to keep yourself calm. You’re stiff as you walk back out to the balcony looking over your apartment. Your voice is just as tense as you raise your voice to call: “Osamu?”

No response. 

Shit, you think, vision spinning a bit as you shut your eyes, counting your breaths as your heart rate spikes. Shit, where did he go? Did someone break in? No. No one could have gotten through the building’s security. He must have left… but why? Why would he do that when he knows how dangerous it is out there? How did he sneak out with no one noticing? It doesn’t make sense.

You shouldn’t have left this morning. You knew that you shouldn't have left the moment you stepped into the elevator, but he’d just been so distressed and the longer you lingered, the worse it got. It was only when you agreed to go that he finally started calming down, so you thought you were doing what was best for him, regardless of how it made you feel, but fuck, you should have known better.

You blame Mori. You always blame Mori, but the bitterness and anger is so intense now that it has your blood pressure skyrocketing. He’s been keeping you busy on purpose—busy and angry and stressed—you’ve hardly even gotten the chance to talk to Dazai since everything that happened. When you do have time with him, you’re either exhausted or in a bad mood trying to mask it from him. He watched Arahabaki kill you, he almost died, and-

And he killed someone.

It’s a fact that you've yet to fully acknowledge yourself; it makes you sick with guilt and self-loathing, knowing that it’s your fault that it happened and that you had promised him it wouldn’t. And it’s selfish because it means he’s been coping on his own and how is a twenty-two year old kid whose biggest problem three weeks ago was a group project supposed to cope with the fact that he killed someone?

This morning had been a red flag—one that you should’ve listened to, but instead, you took the easy way out. You didn’t know what to do without being able to use your ability to calm someone down, you’ve done it for Chuuya countless times, Klaus and Akutagawa too, but for Dazai, you could only watch as he worked himself up into a panic attack over everything that happened, the only thing seemingly calming him down being you leaving. So you left. 

But you should have stayed. You never should have left him—not yesterday after the attack, not this morning. He doesn’t belong in this life, he never has, but you dragged him into it anyway and now what? You’re leaving him to process it on his own? You’re leaving him to cope with the consequences of your actions? Your selfishness? What else was supposed to happen besides him getting overwhelmed and having a breakdown over it? 

Of course he ran—you can’t blame him, how else is he supposed to react to all of this? There’s no way that the average kid would ever be able to come to terms with what had happened yesterday, especially not alone, without any sort of support system to help him. Cooped up in your apartment with only his own mind as company—of course he ran.

You had been his life jacket and you had left him to drown. 

You need to find him. He had to have gone back to his apartment, unless…

Your throat feels tight as you swallow, remembering the morning you woke up to the call from the hospital.

Fuck, you have to-

The elevator?

Your gaze cuts down to the first floor of your apartment, watching as the elevator doors slide open. You watch with bated breath as you wait for whoever came up to your apartment to step out of the elevator, fingers wrapped tight around your phone. 

It’s only when a familiar head of brown hair steps out of it can you finally breathe.

Dazai doesn’t look half as much of the mess he was this morning—there’s more of a pep to his step, his face doesn’t look as gaunt and pale, he’s dressed in one of the cashmere sweaters and comfortable dress pants you bought him. He looks… good, like he did before everything that happened—untainted by all of the darkness you’ve brought into his life.

What changed from this morning?

He freezes as soon as he sees the takeout that you dropped on the coffee table, shrugging his backpack off of his shoulders and dropping it to the ground near where you hang your jackets. His eyes are wide as he looks around the apartment trying to pinpoint where you are, it takes him a few seconds before he finally looks up and sees you staring down at him from the balcony.

The smile he gives you is nervous and it puts you on edge. 

“Hi,” he says sheepishly. “You’re back early.”

You’re relieved—you are. He’s okay. He’s safe. He’s back. He didn’t run off and get himself hurt, or worse. The Guild didn’t get their hands on him. He’s safe and you’re relieved. 

So why are you still so tense and angry?

“What did you get to eat?” he presses, creeping forward to look at the bag of food on the table. He sniffs as he peeks inside. “Chinese?”

“Where were you?” you finally ask. 

Your voice sounds distant even to your own ears, your body feels tense no matter how much you try to relax. Dazai looks up at you with wide eyes, a hesitant expression on his face like he doesn’t want to admit to wherever he went and you can hear blood rushing through your ears as frustration washes over you. 

God, you’ve just spent a whole day dealing with Mori and various other unsavory people—you’d been looking forward to coming home to Dazai and now he’s pulling this. You know you need to calm down, that you shouldn’t take out your general irritation of the day onto him when he’s already had a rough few days, but fuck the least he could do is-

“I went for a walk.”

The least he could do is not lie to you.

“You went for a walk,” you echo flatly.

“Mhm. I went for a walk,” he agrees.

You stare down at him from the balcony, not budging an inch. Dazai shifts uncomfortably under your stare, and a part of you thinks you should go downstairs and just drop this but you can’t. Dazai is lying to you—why he’s lying to you is an issue in itself, but you’re more concerned with knowing where he actually went because you need to make sure that no public CCTV tapes caught him going to and from the headquarters.

“Where did you walk to?” you ask, voice tight.

“Just… around.”

You inhale sharply and look away, biting your tongue to force yourself to calm down. “Osamu,” you say his name, low with warning when he tries to evade answering the question properly. 

He bristles. “I didn’t realize I was under house arrest,” he says defensively, raising his voice a little.

Your eye twitches as you take a sharp breath and step away from the balcony. You pace a few steps back to your room and look up at the ceiling, willing yourself the patience to not let this blow up into an argument. It’s the last thing the two of you need right now, but god he’s making it difficult.

After a few moments, you drag yourself back over to the staircase. This time, instead of leaning against the railing and looking down at him, you make your way down the steps so you can stand in front of him, arms folded across your chest. Dazai looks guilty already, chewing the inside of his cheek as he refuses to look you in the eye. 

“Osamu, I’ve had a long day. Please just tell me where you went so I can make sure no cameras caught you going to and from the headquarters,” you say tiredly. “You’re not under house arrest, I just-we need to be careful the next few weeks, okay? Just until things calm down.”

“I just went to the school,” Dazai finally admits.

Instantly, your brows are furrowing. “The school?” you question, confused. “You don’t have classes today after twelve. Why did you go there? And why didn’t you tell me? I would’ve had Albatross drive you.”

The way Dazai refuses to meet your eyes is unsettling. You feel even more on edge than before as you wait for him to respond. Fuck, you just wanted to have a glass of wine and watch him play one of his stupid games. 

“It wasn’t for class, I was meeting people for a group project,” he says after a few moments, pointedly not answering your second question.

A group project.

The only ‘group project’ he has is for his journalism class… and the fact that he didn’t tell you so you could have someone drive him…

“You met with Ui,” you realize, staring blankly at Dazai. “Why?”

“I was helping,” Dazai says and however much on edge you might’ve been before, you’re even more now. “I was-”

“You were helping?” you ask, not sure what that might mean and not even sure if you want to know. 

Ui is bad news and for Dazai to go out to meet him now of all times… He’s supposed to be smart. You rub your face with your hands, feeling the tightly wound cord that’s been threatening to snap for the past twenty-four hours becoming even more strained. It’s only a matter of time before it does snap and you don’t want Dazai to take the brunt of your anger, not when most of it is directed at Mori.

“I was!” Dazai insists, voice getting louder. You can see the way his fists are closing and opening at his sides and how his nails leave bloody crescents in his palms. You tell yourself to calm down and talk this out with him, that you’re both not in the best mental states and you need to be lenient with him, but his next words are enough to send you teetering off the edge. “I was helping, I helped. He texted last night saying he had a tip-off about our project and I went to go figure out what it was so I could warn you.”

What the fuck?

“Why on earth would you ever go there on your own?” you hiss, just barely maintaining enough control to not raise your voice at him. “Especially after what happened yesterday. The Guild knows about you, Osamu. It could’ve been a set up.”

God, you almost want to rip out your hair. In what world could he have possibly thought that was a good idea. The Ivory Eagle getting a tip-off the same night after a major conflict with the Guild is not a coincidence and you should probably be more focused on that than you are, but you just can’t get over Dazai’s stupidity. 

If he had used that brain that you know he has, he would have realized it was no coincidence. The Guild must have gone to the Ivory Eagle with information about the Port Mafia and considering that Steinbeck made a comment about Fitzgerald getting the confirmation he needed about Dazai…

Fuck, you feel sick. 

“Oh yeah, because my professor is going to set me up to be captured by a criminal organization, right,” he says sarcastically.

“You don’t know shit about this world, Osamu,” you snap at him, taking a step closer but he doesn’t budge, unrepentant. “The lengths people will go to so they can take the Mafia down. Do you even know why the Ivory Eagle is so set on us?”

“That doesn’t matter-”

“Of course it matters-”

“No, it doesn’t,” he interrupts, voice pitched with hysteria. “What matters is that I helped. I got the information you need and-and I can help more. I can help more, I’m not incapable, I don’t need to be a liability anymore. You should be thanking me, not yelling at me. I-“

What is your life? 

You almost want to cry as you shake your head and take a step away and press your hands to your lips. You can’t do this right now—not after the day you had today and yesterday, you’re going to snap and say something you regret. You need to end this conversation before it goes any further.

“No. No, I am not having this conversation with you. Sit down on the couch, eat the food I bought and be quiet.” 

“I’m having this conversation,” Dazai, much to your distress, presses the conversation. “I’m tired of being a liability, I want to be helpful-“

Helpful? What is he even getting at? He better not be getting at what you think he’s getting at?

“What the fuck, Osamu?” you demand. “You’re not a liability, where is this coming from?”

“If I’m not a liability then let me help-“

Oh my god.

“No.”

“Why?” He sounds more like he’s begging than arguing now and your heart feels like it’s lodged in your throat because you don’t know what you’ve done to make him feel like he’s a liability to you, and more importantly, you don’t know how to fix it. “I can do it. I can. And this way, there doesn’t have to be push back from your friends about us—not if I’m part of the organization too, and-”

What the fuck is your life?

You can’t even hide the way your expression twists at his words, can’t hide the way you instinctually step away from him, can’t hide the way that your hands tremble so you stuff them in your pockets and shake your head furiously. A part of you wants to believe that you’d just imagined those last few words but they ring so soundly through your head that you know you didn’t.

“What the f…” You don’t even know what to say as you stare at him in disbelief. He’s still talking, you can see his lips moving but you can’t hear anything. Your ears are ringing and you’re desperately trying to make sure the wound up cord inside you doesn’t snap. “Hold on. Hold on. You are not part of this life, Osamu. You’re a civilian-“

“I killed someone,” Dazai cries out. His voice wavers and cracks, his eyes are wide and wild, and his hands are shaking just as much as yours but he’s not even thinking straight enough to hide them like he usually would. “What type of civilian kills people? I don’t-I don’t belong there anymore. I don’t belong there, I belong with you.”

“You killed one person in self defense, someone who was trying to kill us. That’s nothing compared to being in the Mafia, Osamu.” You try to calm him down but you don’t think there’s any calming him down now and you feel sick at the sight of him collapsing like this. You do your best to soften your tone as you continue, “Why would you want to be in the Mafia? Come on, Osamu, you’ve got good things going for you, your friend’s book to write, you don’t want this.”

“I can’t just go back to worrying about classes and homework after all of this,” he says, voice pitched as he shakes his head and tugs his hair a bit. “I can’t. I don’t belong there, I belong here, I stopped being a civilian the moment you let me into your life-”

“That’s not fair,” you breathe out, shaking your head. “That is not fair, Osamu. You forced yourself into my life just as much as I let you into it. That’s not fair.”

“It’s the truth. You could’ve cut me off at any point and you know that. You admitted it,” he hisses at you, throwing your words back into your face and it feels like a slap. “So, you can’t sit there and judge me for trying to make the most of it so things can be easier on both of us. I can do this. I belong here, belong with you. I helped you figure out how to try to get the Guild out of Yokohama, I sat there and helped you with plans, I killed someone, and I got this information for you—the Port Mafia would’ve stumbled right into the trap if I hadn’t. And you should be thanking me. You should be thanking me.”

Just like that, the cord snaps.

“This isn’t something to be fucking proud of, Osamu,” you shout at him, but he doesn’t even flinch, stands his ground about what he wants and it only pisses you off more. “None of this is shit to be proud of. Do you think I’m proud of who I am? You think Chuuya, or the Flags, or Klaus are? Do you think any of us are proud of what we do? Fuck, Osamu, how can you sit here and ask me to let you be part of this?”

“Because I could help. I could help you. Arahabaki couldn’t kill me, couldn’t even touch me—I could help, I could be the one sent to handle it instead of you. And-and I could do more, no one would expect a college kid to be part of the Mafia, I’d be able to get information for you, and I could-”

“Enough!” Your voice goes hoarse as you yell at him, unable to listen to this anymore. “Enough, what the fuck is wrong with you?”

You don’t see the way Dazai’s face falls at your words, the crestfallen expression that crosses over his face as soon as your words process through his head. You turn away from him, breathing heavily because you think you feel nauseous. 

How the fuck did this happen? 

You can’t let anyone find out about Dazai—his type of ability, the nullification, not even the West has developed anti-ability technology to this degree, they would kill to get their hands on Dazai. They’d put the bounty that had been on Atsushi to shame and you wouldn’t be able to protect him. He’d spend the rest of his life in labs being experimented on so they could replicate his ability in weapons.

Your phone starts ringing and you don’t even look to see who it is before you’re muttering out an excuse to Dazai and lifting it to your ear, pacing back to the stairs to go up to your bedroom for a few minutes alone to calm yourself down.

Except naturally, the person on the other line only induces more stress in you.

“How prompt, you’re not usually so quick to answer the phone when you’re with that little distraction of yours, little hime… lover’s spat, perhaps?”

Oh, for fuck’s sake.

“I thought you were someone else,” you say, voice dry and sharp. “Why are you calling me so late? Haven’t I seen enough of you today?” 

Mori laughs airly on the opposite line. “My, your time spent with that boy has sharpened your tongue… To think that all it would take for you to start stepping out of your shell is this…”

“I’m not in the mood,” you cut him off before he can continue, tongue running along the back of your teeth in frustration. “What do you want?” 

“There’s an issue at a warehouse by our ports in Shinko. The ones with the weapons being ready for transportation to Brazil. Take your subordinate and go ensure nothing is out of order—we can’t afford to be late on another shipment to Machado considering you redirected the last one to Paz.”

Instantly, you’re rolling your eyes. “Shinko is Ace’s port. Send him to get control over his territory,” you snap. “I’m busy.”

“Unfortunately, I’ve asked you. So, you’ll be going. You’ve caused enough trouble the past few weeks, I recommend you do as told without making a fuss.”

You grit your teeth but you bite back the next comment threatening to spill from your lips. Instead, you ask tightly, “What’s the issue there? What am I walking into?” 

Mori doesn’t respond for a moment. “... I’m not sure. Ace got word from one of his subordinates that something was going down there, but the line went dead before he could get a response. Our cameras are down. Take your subordinate, I can have the Black Lizards ready if you wish too.”

“No,” you say, shaking your head, wandering over to your closet to grab one of your longer dark jackets. As you shrug it over your shoulders, you say, “I’ll go figure it out. I’m not making it into a big operation.”

Mori sighs. “If that’s what you want… Call me once you’re done.”

You roll your eyes as you hang up the phone, stuffing it in your pocket before leaving your room. “Look, Osamu,” you say loudly as you head down the stairs. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have let that escalate like that. I have to head out for a bit but…”

Your voice trails off when you make it down the steps and find that Dazai is nowhere to be seen. Instantly, that sick, dreadful feeling returns.

“Osamu?” you call louder, voice a bit more strained, cracking over his name. 

No response.

Fuck.

“Fuck!” you shout, slamming your hands against the back of the couch before resting on it, trying to push back the nausea that builds up quickly in your through. 

You fumble for your phone, finding Dazai’s contact so you can call him but your hopes are quashed when you hear it buzzing on the floor near where you’re standing—must’ve fallen out of his pocket in his rush to leave. Your vision blurs and your eyes sting with tears, your breath becomes so shuddered that you think you might be on the verge of a panic attack.

God, you can’t even remember the last time you cried, but your cheeks are unmistakably wet and there’s no torrential downpour for you to mask them with.

Now’s not the time to cry, though. You need to move. The ports are on the way to Dazai’s apartment—you’ll check out what’s happening there and if there’s some sort of disturbance, you’ll… shit, you don’t even know. Chuuya is out of commission from Corruption, Akutagawa is out of commission because the wounds he received from Arahabaki aggravated his respiratory issue, and Klaus is out of commission because he’s still suffering the effects of using his ability to heal himself as much as he did.

Maybe you’ll see if Iceman and Albatross can handle it, but Albatross already did you a favor today…

You’ll figure it out as you drive there. You can’t waste time on it now, you need to get moving. The quicker you get to the ports, the better.

Because you need to get to Dazai. 

What the fuck is wrong with you?

Your words ring through Dazai’s head on repeat as he stumbles down the sidewalks in the direction of his apartment complex. He can hardly even breathe, his breath is ragged and uneven and his vision is so blurry that he can hardly see where he’s stepping.

What the fuck is wrong with you?

Dazai doesn’t know. He doesn’t know. He’s always known that there was something wrong with him—it’s why people could hardly stand to look at him, why his mother killed herself, why his aunt abandoned him, why no matter how hard he tried to be likable, people still turned their back to him. He’s always known there was something fundamentally wrong with him, but when he’s with you, you make him forget that. 

You make him feel normal. Make him feel human. Like there was never anything wrong with him, but it was everyone else in the world who was wrong instead. Like he didn’t deserve everything bad that’s happened to him. 

Dazai has never had faith in anything—not in any god because that would mean he had to admit that even god had forsaken him and certainly not in himself because Dazai has only ever failed himself, but he had faith in you. He let himself have hope when he was with you because you looked at him like he was worthy of being loved, like he was the only thing in the world that mattered to you.

What the fuck is wrong with you?

You looked at Dazai like you’ve never really seen him before that moment and he just… He couldn’t stay there, not with you looking at him like that, not when he realized the day that he’s been dreading has finally come to pass. 

What the fuck is wrong with you?

You’ve finally seen what everyone else does when they look at him. He knew this day was coming. He knew it, and he knew he’d been pressing his luck, that he was on borrowed time, but he had hope. He had hope that maybe this time would be different, that someone would see past all of his fronts and love him for him but he should’ve known better. Dazai is not someone capable of being loved. His own blood scorned and rejected him, the woman who gave birth to him killed herself to be free of him—Dazai is not someone capable of being loved. 

What the fuck is wrong with you?

He hiccups over another intake of air, tripping over uneven ground before steadying himself against the brickwall of a nearby building. He can see his apartment complex in the distance, it’s not far now, but Dazai feels sick. He feels sick and he can hardly breathe and-

And he misses you. He wants to go back to your apartment even if he’s met with contemptuous looks and rejection. He presses his hand to his mouth to hide the way he nearly chokes over a dry sob, feeling far too lost and alone. If he doesn’t belong with you, he doesn’t belong with anyone. Doesn’t belong anywhere. He wants to call you and ask you to come get him just to see if you’ll show, but he’s too scared that you won’t—and he doesn’t feel the familiar weight of his phone in his pocket anyway.

He forces himself to keep moving forward. He’s tired and it’s cold and Dazai just wants to lay in his cheap futon and cling to the thinning hope that you might come for him even if you did think he was a monster just like the rest of the world.

His feet drag against the concrete, the noise around him drowns out and his surroundings blur together, he keeps his gaze pinned to the ground as he moves forward. 

What is wrong with him? He’d known you were stressed with work, Nakahara Chuuya had told him that you were doing a lot worse than you were letting on, and he thought going out and putting himself in danger would be helpful… He’d just been so blinded by the idea of doing something useful…

It’s not until he gets to the steps of the complex that he realizes something is wrong. That someone is watching him. His gaze lifts as he looks around, eyes wide—for a moment, he doesn’t see anybody and he’s about to rush into the building but then he sees the shadow of a figure shift out of the overhang, waving his hand in the air.

“There you are, we’ve been waiting for ya,” a cheerful voice greets and Dazai’s hair stands on end as his gaze focuses on an unfamiliar redhead. He has an accent—American—and holds a handgun haphazardly in the hand he’s waving. “Damn, you look like you’ve had a shit night.”

This must be a member of the Guild.

You were right—they have been looking for Dazai and he… he just walked right into their hands. He lets out a breath, gaze darting up to the gun before swiveling around the area. He can’t outrun a gun, but he doubts that they’re going to shoot to kill if they plan to use him against you. If he could at least get a bit further out on the sidewalk… you have your subordinates monitor those cameras, they would see him get taken and report to you and-

And you would come for him. You would. You had to. 

Right?

“Thanks for the flashdrive, by the way,” the man grins as he bounds down the steps closer to Dazai. Dazai takes steps back to match the steps the Guild member takes forward, hoping that he can get far enough into the view of the cameras. “We can finally get little miss princess out of the way. Now that girl is a piece of work, takin’ this city’s gonna be much easier with her behind bars.”

Dazai stops dead in his tracks.

“What?” he breathes out. “What did you just say?”

His smile sharpens as he lifts his hand, showing off a very familiar hard drive tucked between his middle and index finger. “Gotta give you props, we’ve been trying for so long to get something to hold over her. She’s one slippery bitch, that’s for sure. And she’s got way too many allies. I kinda wanted to meet her just to see what all of the hype is about, but guess I’m not gonna get the chance.”

Dazai can hardly think—or, he is thinking but he’s thinking too much, so much that he can’t even tell one thought from the next because they’re all tumbling over each other and jumbling together.

“Give me that,” Dazai whispers before steadying his voice. “Give me that back now.”

The redhead shrugs and tosses him the flash drive. He cradles it to his chest instantly, throat spasming as he swallows.

“Sure,” the other man says. “Not like it matters, damage is already done. Hear that?”

Dazai becomes acutely aware of the sirens in the distance and he shakes his head, not willing to believe what’s happening. He-he can’t even do anything—he can’t call you to warn you, can’t out run a gun. Dazai feels so frustrated that he’s almost sick again. He’s never felt so entirely helpless before, never not been able to think his way out of a situation.

This is all his fault. 

He never should have sought out this footage, he should’ve destroyed it ages ago. He can never do anything right. He understands now why so many people were against him being in your life and for a brief second, he wishes that they’d succeeded in convincing you to cut him off because you’d be better off that way.

This is his fault.

What the fuck is wrong with him?

“Sorry kid,” he sighs lazily, not sounding sorry at all. “I fear I’m boutta make your shitty night a whole lot worse. Go on, James. Let’s bring him in.”

Dazai doesn’t even have the chance to react when he catches movement from the corner of his eye, a baton cracks against the side of his head so hard that his brain rattles against his skull and he doesn’t even register hitting the ground until he can feel the cool concrete against the side of his face.

Dazai’s vision blurs before it starts fading in and out, his body limp and uncooperative even as he tries to drag himself away from his assailants. He feels two hands grab him and hoist him over their shoulder, and as his body finally starts to succumb to the tantalizing lull of darkness, all he can think of is you.

I’m sorry, he thinks, wishing you could hear him. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’msorryimsorryimsorryi-

You hear police sirens in the distance as you arrive at the ferry leading to Shinko. It takes about five seconds for irritation to cloud your mind, realizing that the ferrymaster is not, in fact, waiting for you even though you called Ace and told him to have the ferry ready for you so you can check this out as soon as possible. You hate that despicable man but you need to get to Dazai, so speaking to him was a displeasure you were forced to deal with.

What a bastard, you think bitterly, shooting a text to Albatross to ask if he’s busy. You sigh as you lean against the cool wall, tilting your head up to look up at the colors the setting sun paints across the sky as you wait for a response.

You never should’ve let that fight escalate.

The thought has been plaguing you since you left your apartment. You knew better. Dazai is a civilian, he’s struggling to cope with everything that’s happened, of course he’s going to feel out of place with other civilians after what he saw, after what he did. He’d already opened up to you about his struggles to fit in with people and you knew this would make those insecurities worse but…

But hearing him say that he belonged in the Mafia scared you. He doesn’t belong there and he seemed to well and truly believe that it was the only place for him. The thought of the likes of Mori getting his hands on Dazai’s nullifying ability… It scared you beyond words could describe. Dazai belongs with you, yes, but he doesn’t belong with the Mafia. 

Still, you shouldn’t have reacted the way you did. Of course he ran, he’d been on the verge of collapse and you yelled at him, you scorned him, he was lost and looking for something to hold onto, looking for you to tell him everything would be okay, and you walked away.

Your eyes sting again. Even though no one is around to bear witness, you still close them to hide the way they mist over with regret. You’ve made many mistakes in your life—mistakes that got Itou killed, mistakes that ruined Chuuya’s life, and now mistakes that might’ve pushed away the only person who you could safely say loved you for who you are, unconditionally and unrepentantly.

You only force yourself to reopen your eyes when you feel your phone buzzing again, hopefully Albatross responding to your text. Before you can even unlock your phone, there are several more texts coming through, too quick for you to read what they’re saying—Chuuya, Kouyou, Doc, Lippmann, Piano Man, Klaus. You straighten, a heavy feeling settling over you as you look down at your phone and get ready to click one of the messages from Kouyou.

It’s only when Iceman calls that you pick up.

“What’s going on?” you ask, your voice steady even if your throat spasms with nerves.

Is it Dazai? Did something happen to him?

“Where are you?” Iceman demands. “I’m in the car with Albatross. Give us your location now.”

“I’m at the ferry terminal leading to Shinko. What is going on? Is Os-Dazai okay?” you question sharply, fingers tight and trembling around your phone. “Iceman-”

“I don’t know shit about your boyfriend,” Iceman snaps. “Have you even seen the news?”

You pull your phone from your ear without another word, fingers trembling as you pull up the news app. Your ears ring with the approaching police sirens as you read the trending headline, vision swimming and a shaky breath escaping your lips as you lean your weight against the wall so you don’t crumple to the ground. 

Vice Chair of the Mori Corporation suspected of Mafia affiliation after the release of footage from behind the Tokyo City Hall. What does this mean for the rest of the Corporation?

“No,” you breathe out, shaking your head as you stare down at the news article. You can hear Iceman and Albatross yelling on the opposite line, trying to get your attention, but you can hardly make out what they’re saying. The sound of the sirens is too loud, too near. “This isn’t real. We… got rid of the…”

“Footage from behind the Tokyo City Hall… you and the ginger with the ugly hat… splattered six guys against the wall.”

Dazai… what did you do?

No, he would never. No matter how upset he is at you. He would never hand over the footage. The real question is: what happened to him? How did they get ahold of the footage he’s been hiding? What did they do to him?

You feel sick as soon as the thought crosses your mind. The regret you felt moments before triples, quadruples, weighs on you so heavily that you think if you jumped in the bay, you would sink to the bottom. You never should have let the fight escalate, never should have given him the chance to leave.

You can see the flashing lights now, they’re rapidly closing in on you. You need to think—you don’t have much time left. You need to figure out how the Ivory Eagle got their hands on the video; they had to have gotten it through Dazai, but because Dazai would never give it up willingly… And the meeting about the tip-off right after the conflict with the Guild where Steinbeck confirmed that Fitzgerald knew about Dazai… 

The Guild must be involved. They must have worked with the journalists. They did the dirty work to get the footage from Dazai and passed it along to the journalists. You could send Klaus after the journalists, but it would condemn you if they were attacked or killed the day after they released an exposé on you. It would all but confirm your position in the mafia.

But Dazai could be in trouble.

And just like that, your decision is made.

“It’s too late, the cops are here,” you finally tell Iceman, “don’t bother coming.”

“But-”

“Shut up and listen to me, I don’t have much time,” you say sharply. “Ace set this up—have Piano Man call an executive meeting to have him executed. The Ivory Eagle journalism house. There’s a journalist called Ui Koutarou working there. He needs to be captured and interrogated immediately. Tonight. There’s a good chance that they worked with the Guild to get this video. Have Klaus do it, he’ll know what to do once he has the information… Kill the rest of them, I want them dead before I’m out on bail.”

“If we kill them now-”

“I know,” you spit. “I know what it means for me. I don’t care. Have it done.”

With Klaus behind the interrogation, as soon as Ui cracks and admits they had the Guild get the video through force from Dazai, he’ll know to go after the Guild to get to Dazai, and hopefully, Ui will have decent enough information about how he should go about it. If all goes well, Dazai will be back in your apartment and under a serious protection detail before you even get released from holding.

If it doesn’t go well… you’ll be arraigned by the court either tomorrow or the day after, Mori or Lippmann will handle bail, and you’ll put the Guild in its fucking grave before the prosecution is forced to drop the charges against you.

Dazai just needs to wait for you. 

He needs to trust you, even if he doesn’t have much reason to right now.

You toss your phone into the bay as several police cars skid to a stop at the front of the pier. The sirens are loud and piercing, the lights blinding, and you can hardly hear the words the officers are shouting as they approach you with guns drawn. You can hear the rotor blades of a helicopter thundering in the air above you as a spotlight shines down on you and the approaching officers.

You lift your hands in the air before you’re forced to your knees, arms twisted painfully behind your back as metal cuffs are locked around your wrists. You're dragged back to your feet, and the charges against you and your rights are read, but you don’t hear any of it. Your mind is only trained on one thing—one person.

Dazai, you think desperately, wait for me.

Dazai is the ultimate consequence. Thoughts and prayers for kunikida

Basically chapter 119

dazai come get ur mentee

Elias if he was EVIL: I will respect your boundaries and have a healthy relationship with you

Silas if he was EVIL: You want to stay up late? Haha you don't have to tell me I'm not your mom or anything

Lavi if he was EVIL: I'll take care of you today darling you just lay down

Ciaran if he was EVIL: I have self respect

Theo if he was EVIL: I'll actually go up and talk to you like a normal person

Micah if he was EVIL: I seek physiological help

Elias if he was EVIL: I will respect your boundaries and have a healthy relationship with you

Silas is he was EVIL: You want to stay up late? Haha you don't have to tell me I'm not your mom or anything

Lavi if he was EVIL: I'll take care of you today darling you just lay down

Ciaran if he was EVIL: I have self respect

Theo if he was EVIL: I'll actually go up and talk to you like a normal person

Micah if he was EVIL: I seek physiological help

I dont know who needs to see this but: BSD name chart

Story-wise, I do not want Dazai to just show up and save the day again

Emotionally though, I want Dazai to show up and beat the shit of Fyodor for what he just pulled with Atsushi

It’s been clear that the Tanizakis aren’t siblings from the very beginning

here’s some evidence now that it’s been confirmed canon…

everyone who’s read irl Tanizaki’s book knew that Junichiro & Naomi weren’t siblings as soon as they introduced themselves

BUT just because the Tanizakis aren’t siblings doesn’t mean you can’t feel uncomfortable about them. if you feel uncomfortable, GOOD. that’s exactly what they want

the Tanizakis, Mori— they all use these disturbing ruses to disarm or distract people in order to protect themselves, or to accomplish their goals. this is a writing device that asagiri commonly employs as a way to parallel the irl literature (it’s actually ingenious)

there are 4 main indicators that have always made it clear to me that Junichiro & Naomi are not siblings:

1. most obviously— their character designs. Harukawa is extremely intentional with character designs, & she very intentionally made Naomi & Junichiro look nothing alike

their eye shapes are purposely different

their color palettes are contrasting

even their differing styles of clothing have meaning

this was all done so that the audience could PLAINLY see that they’re not related— so that WE know that they’re lying when they say they ARE related

2. how the people around them respond to their act.

the general reaction is “don’t question it”— which is exactly what they want. “be distracted by how uncomfortable you feel so that you look away from what we’re hiding” (this is likely a protective measure)

3. most importantly, this is meant to parallel irl Tanizaki’s book “Naomi,” where the main character Joji picks up Naomi to raise her into his ideal woman, but since she's so young (& a minor) they call each other cousins (Joji makes no sexual advances on young Naomi btw)

however, his plan backfires because when Naomi gets older & they get married, she flips the script on him & manipulates HIM so that he's under her thumb (which is why bsd Tanizaki is at a domineering Naomi's mercy). Joji let her have her way because of his masochistic tendencies

4. lastly is the emphasis that Asagiri and the Tanizakis themselves put on calling each other siblings.

over & over, it’s “my brother this” & “my sister that”

like they’re desperately trying to convince us that it’s true (“don’t let your lying eyes deceive you”)

here are just a few of many examples from the light novels…

again, if you’ve read “Naomi” you knew that Junichiro & Naomi weren’t siblings as soon as they introduced themselves

just like if you’ve read irl Mori’s works, it’s clear that bsd Mori isn’t a pedophile

just like if you’ve read No Longer Human you know that Dazai’s an unreliable narrator. he makes you think he’s a bad person bc he believes he’s a bad person, but those around him see him differently (btw this doesn’t mean he’s never done anything “bad,” though bsd isn’t about morality— but that’s another discussion)

anyway, i’m so excited for the Tanizakis backstory to be revealed so that we can better understand why they use this defense!!

also let this be a reminder to READ THE LITERATURE if you’re able to!! even reading synopses & analyses of the coordinating books makes bsd make much more sense 🥹

reminder that this how you’re supposed to react while reading bsd:

also, if you’re interested in a post explaining how Mori isn’t a pedo, i wrote this analysis on twt. OR you can read this document that one of my moots sent me (remember: analyzing a character does NOT mean you condone any actions they may or may not commit!)

Tänään kaveri kysyi, että miksi käytän usein sanasta "raha" termiä "rahet". Se katsoi mua kuin mielipuolta kun koitin selittää, että nuoruudessani katsoin videon nimeltä "AKUN KAKKA ONKLEMA XDDDDDD" liian monta kertaa ja "rahe" tulee niin vahvasti mun selkärangasta että en edes huomaa käyttäväni sitä termiä.

Saanko vajota johonki maanrakoon niinku just nyt

Tanizaki deciding this was the best time to clear the incest allegations i'm ctfu this could've been sorted out in like. an email or smth 6 months ago but nahhh he really just accepted his colleagues side eyeing him this whole time lmfaooo