blood money || YANDERE!Chuuya Nakahara

Seventeen: Defecting.

It is a dark and misty night when Dazai brings up the idea of defecting from the Port Mafia. It is done in whispers, it is done in written messages on paper, in fear that anyone would be hearing in on your conversation.

"What?" You notice his hands are covered in blood, the bandages that had once covered his eyes now gone. There was a blaze of determination in his eyes that you had never seen before; you had only seen the lackadaiscal look of a suicidal existence in those eyes, dull and reflecting the reflections of others as if there was nothing in those eyes but the presence of others. He was, is, a creature of manifold complexity; a creature that you could not understand, "What happened to you?"

"Odasaku is dead," His voice is devoid of emotions, but there is a firmness to it that you find yourself blinking rapidly at, "He's been killed."

"Are...Are you okay?" You tentatively ask.

"He told me to be on the side that saves people," Dazai replies, ignoring your question, "And I want you to come with me."

You point at your chest, "Me? Why?"

"Because you're the same as me."

By this point in your life you were by his side, on the same coin of a suicidal existence, contemplating taking your life from the waves of guilt that overwhelmed you. You were beginning to see blood in places where they shouldn't be; in toilets, in sinks, in the bathtub, on your hands, on your face, spilling down and staining your shirt from inside out. You were beginning to see, for the first time in your life, the truth of what you were doing. The pretend intentions of Mori about how this was the best for you.

You needed to die, was the conclusion you came to. That, or escape the Port Mafia, as soon as possible.

You had talked with Chuuya about the idea of breaking off this friends-with-benefits relationship. It hadn't gone well.

"What, you want others?" Chuuya had snapped, his eyes enraged and narrowed, "You want other people, don't you?"

"Not at all," You emotionlessly say, picking with your hangnails; not out of nervousness or anxiety, but more so of boredom, "Just...seeing an end to it. I don't see the point of it anymore."

"So you're just leaving me, like that?"

"Something akin to tha—" You dodge a fist that was about to swing at you, then realising he was to hit the wall behind you instead of your face, "Calm down."

"Calm down?" He sneers, a look of pain evident on his face. Perhaps it was from his own pride being affected, perhaps it was your sudden departure. You don't know. "You belong to me. What makes you think I'll simply let you leave like that?"

"Because I can," You then tilt your head to the side, "I belong to you? Nothing belongs to anything in the Mafia."

"But that's what makes us special," He says, leaning into you. His lips are brushing against yours, possessively, leering into your eyes as though he were brandishing your gaze into his, like the gleams in his eyes were white-hot irons, stamping you into vision permanently, "You're mine."

"I belong to no one," You gently push him off, "And no one belongs to me."

His ability revs up and he pins you to the wall, his grip painful and nails digging into your skin through his gloves. His gaze is narrowed, not quite devilish but not quite saintful. Your arms feel heavy, as if they've been nailed into the wall, leaving craters and cracks in the cement behind you. A flash of pain that thunders through your calm facade that he notices, before he sighs and releases his ability.

"You belong to me," He says, a guarded but messianic gleam creeping into his usually cool-as-ice eyes, "You have nothing going in your life but me."

You could fight him. You could start a bet with him: Win, and I belong to you. Lose, and I don't. It would be an easier take for sure, but the risks were high: Chuuya Nakahara, master of martial arts, gifted with the ability of gravity manipulation; and you, a former assassin, burdened with the guilt of having killed hundreds, with no ability. The risks were against you. Everything, including this world, was against you: everything was subtly hostile towards you.

"Alright," You drop your head to the side and watch him with a tilted gaze, "You want me to have nothing but you in your life. You want me alienated."

"I only want what's best for you," He says, "And that's me."

You blink in surprise, "You want the best for me?"

"Of course I do," He says, dusting off his hand from the debris that showered onto his hands from breaking the wall, "I...I like you."

You feel a wave of ice-cold shock wash over you. "What?"

"Don't make me repeat it!" He snaps, a dark blush overriding his usually pale skin, "I...I'm intrigued by you."

Something akin to tenderness blooms in your heart; the rose shakes off its petals as if shuddering in ecstasy to hear his voice. But you let it wilt, you let it become rotten and decrepit in the darkness of your heart, because it's something that you can't let it bloom into fruition; not when you're going to leave him.

Especially when you're going to leave him.

"Alright, then," You say, kicking off the wall with a foot, "I belong to you."

Chuuya's face brightens, and he smirks, "That's my girl."

You go back to your room that night with a heavy heart, a text message copied and pasted into your chat with Chuuya, your coat hanging by a coat hanger.

"You ready?" A whisper. Dazai. You don't turn to look at him, instead turn to look at Chuuya's room.

The room where once held so much pleasure and...no, you can't say the word. But it was, in fact, mutual intriguement. Love.

"What did you say?" Dazai repeats. You shake your head in surprise; had you said that outloud?

"Let's go," You say to Dazai. He sheds off his black coat that had been given by Mori, Boss, and lights a match; watches it burn and flicker before the flames die away under the misty night. "Goodbye, Chuuya."

XX

"Fuck! FUCK!" Chuuya breaks his phone at your text message; any message he tries to send turns green: your number had been given to someone else. He furiously texts message after message, desperate for anything, even just a full stop, even a single letter; but he receives nothing.

You were gone, out of his life, with—

"Did you hear? Executive Dazai Osamu defected with Scalpel!"

"What?!" Chuuya roars, nearly flipping a table as he stands up. Had he lost you?

It shouldn't be possible that this was happening; he finds himself shaking his head viciously as though willing himself to wake up, wake up from this razor-sharp painful nightmare. But he's still there, cracked phone in hand, a thundering fear in his chest that he couldn't quite quell. He swallows the lump in his throat, and his hands are shaking.

Had he lost you?

He had.

"FUCK!" He smashes a fist through the wall, uncaring if his subordinates were watching him with concerned and pitying eyes, "FUCK!!! That damned bastard Dazai—I'll kill him. I'll KILL him!" He snarls, and he can already envision Dazai, smug and triumphant, with an arm around your shoulders, marking you as his; no, that couldn't ever be a possibility. He would kill Dazai if that was what reality denoted.

He would brutally leave a path of blood until the day he found you again.