blood money || YANDERE!Chuuya Nakahara

Eight: The Wine.

You're resting in one of the common lounges of the Port Mafia, nursing a glass of water in your hand, when you're met with a barrage of punches from a headache. You squeeze your eyes shut, wishing for an aspirin or a paracetamol, before it ebbs away with the rhythmic ticking of the clock on the wall. Smoking would be a fire hazard in this room: there are papers and books stored on the light brown shelves flanking the wall, though you weren't sure if they were purely for decorative purposes.

You sigh and tilt your head back, closing your eyes.

Why had you rejoined this place?

You succumbed to your own pain, that was why. A dead end complex. Innumerable escapes and choices would be there for you and you would always be back where you started. What a fatalistic approach, one might think; but when you begin in the mafia, your end will always be self made in the mafia. There is no escape. Remnants of the past will haunt you. Why do you think Dazai plays up his comedic clownery? It haunts him to think he was ever a different person than the person suit he is occupying now. It haunts him, to his very core, that his doings were the opposite of what his dear friend wanted, that he would be descretating Odasaku's grave by continuing to be an executive of the Port Mafia. And of course you'd know that: he had told you everything while he was on the route to running away.

You could always kill yourself, though. You could take on the route of Dazai and slit your wrists and die a painful death in the bathtub, where they'd discover your corpse, bloated and soaked to the bone, with rose-coloured water floating around you: Drowned Ophelia.

You sigh. You want to take a smoke, but you know better.

"What're you sighing about?" A familiar voice. You roll your head to the side lazily, still swirling a cup of water in your hand. Your eyes narrow into a glare once they process it's Chuuya Nakahara standing there.

"Well, if it isn't the man who fucked up my entire life," You say, putting the cup down on the glass coffee table. The table's limbs were of ornamental golden lion paws, with the glass itself being held up by their wrinkled foreheads, forever stuck in a roar, "Chuuya."

"I'm guessing you're back with us, eh?" He says, "Come here. Let's have a toast."

"Nah," You roll your head back to the ceiling. You can't blame him entirely, not when it had been your choosing and somewhat your calling to join back, "I have a headache. Can't drink."

"It's a Cabernet Sauvignon '92," He says, "You ought to try. Cost a fortune."

You contemplate for a second, "Hand me a glass."

He carefully uncorks the bottle and gently pours you a glass, the brick red liquid swirling in the crystalline glass. The neck of the glass feels like a slim swan's neck, capable of snapping if you hold it too hard. You take a sniff of the wine.

"Sweet smelling," You take a small sip, "Tastes sweet too."

"Well aren't you a wine connoisseur," Chuuya taunts, pouring himself a larger glass, "A toast, to the Scalpel returning to the Port Mafia."

A sonorous clang, echoed gently by vibrating against each other. 

"It feels weird to be back," You say, "You're a little bastard, by the way, fucking with my shit like that."

"Language, princess," He chortles, before snarling at you, "I simply did what I needed to do. And I'm not little!"

"You haven't grown an inch since the last time I've met you," You say, your voice hollow as you speak into the cusp of the wine glass. His thin brows narrow and his grip on the glass tightens, "Careful. Don't break the glass."

"Don't lecture me!"

"Hot headed as usual," You say, "And here I thought you would have changed."

"You've changed," Chuuya retorts. His grey eyes are reminiscent of a grey, cloudless sky, sharp but poignant in its dullness, "Very much."

"I have," You admit, "I've changed a lot. I think it was for the better."

"You've outgrown yourself and now you're stuck in a position where nothing works anymore," He predicts, "You've outgrown your child suit. Now what?"

"Now I go back into business," You say, with a voice carved out of violence.

"You didn't know what you were doing back then, now you do," He takes a sip of the expensive wine, "Wouldn't that be considered sadism, huh?"

"Maybe. Maybe not. But I need money," You say. You one-shot the rest of the drink and put the glass down, "And I want to survive. I was born to survive."

You pinch the space between your eyes when your headache thunders back.

"I shouldn't have had that wine," You say, "Made the headache worse."

"Go visit the infirmary after this then."

"What is 'this' you are talking ab—oompf," He topples over you and down onto the lounge couch, the comfortable olive cushions underneath your back giving in under the sudden weight. Chuuya's arm is a pillar next to your head, streaked with jade veins and scars from his time as a Mafioso. You turn your gaze from his arm to his looming head, his hat toppling off of him and onto the ground. You pick it up, "What? Are you doing?"

"You know, I missed you lots," He says, murmuring almost. There's a flush on his cheeks: He must be a lightweight in alcoholism, "Hurt to see you go."

"Did it now?" You gently put your hands on his shoulders and push him back so that he was now sitting besides you instead of hovering over you. You put his hat back on, adjust it for good measure, before patting the brim almost affectionately, "Did it hurt that much you fuck up my new life?"

"Memories stay awake," He says, slurring in his words, "Why'd you leave me?"

"I left because I couldn't handle it anymore," You know there's no use in talking to a drunk, but you need to get this pressure off your chest, this constricting pressure that ties around your heart like a boa constrictor, "You know how it is."

"I don't," He says, "How is it?"

"I felt like I was frozen in my own—Oh, he's asleep."