blood money || YANDERE!Chuuya Nakahara

Twenty: Jail.

"What do you mean she's in jail!?" Chuuya's ability triggers and he creates a crater around him in disbelief. His eyes are wide, jaw agape before snapping it shut, "You're lying to me, Boss."

"Why would I lie to you, Chuuya?" Mori asks. He's twirling a scalpel in his hand, almost toying with it, just as he had with you when you were an orphan in the slums, "She turned herself in after our brief conversation."

"It's just not possible that she would do that," Chuuya snaps, his gloves creasing as he clenches his fist.

"This is most certainly a loss," Mori calmly says. "We're mourning a death here."

"She's not dead," The orange-haired male argues back, "She's alive. Just in jail."

"Metaphorically, Chuuya," Mori's hair falls over his head, a darkness in his eyes that was unseen before, "She is dead to the Port Mafia."

XX

The prison cell is comfier than you imagined; it's no Chuuya's room, but it's confined enough to trigger a warm claustrophobic feeling that you thought of as being 'safe'. The walls are either a cool grey or a hypnotising white, hallways echoing with screeches or padding echoing footsteps.

No one can reach you here now. And you can't reach anyone here now. There is no escape. In prison, everything dies; illusions die, expectations die. greed for it all, wanting to have all be beautiful only—all of this dies. The only thing that comes out of prison is self reflection: was what I did wrong? Right? Should I have done something else? Do I regret what I did? Should I revel in my self righteousness? Those types of questions. No space for Yes or No. Questions that have an open ending, a reason, a motive. In prison, you are defined by what you have done; if you have assaulted a child, you are banished from even the general population of the prison, and into an isolation that is the point of no return.

But you? You cannot even be defined at all.

Off that sombre note, you're sitting shackled in one of the six cage-like cells lined up in a semicircle facing Dazai Osamu, who speaks in the background while you stare into middle distance, ignoring him. He's chatty as usual, his eyes closed and going off about a tangent on something. Your breathing and heartbeat is all you hear. You're imagining and seeing something else, a heavy trotting is intruding in your mind; the curtains of your eyes focus behind him, and the broad, white pair of antlers pierces the air as they manifest into reality—

You're startled out of the virtual reality of your own mind.

"What did you say?"

"I said, how are you feeling after turning yourself in?" Dazai retorts, pouting when he comes to the realisation you had been ignoring this entire time.

"Feels safe," You admit, crossing a leg over another, the shackles making a harsh rattling noise. You prop your chin on your palm, elbow digging into your thigh, "I feel like I can keep myself away from being dangerous."

"Noble of you," Dazai comments, "Very noble. Though I hadn't expected this at all. You look so drab in those clothes."

"Thanks," You sarcastically say, "It's not noble. I just...this is the only way the Port Mafia can't reach me."

He tuts, "I'm not sure about that."

You gesture to the white line scored across the floor, "Don't cross that."

"I wonder why'd they put that down."

"The mentally ill patients have a proclivity for having pissing contests with their visitors." You offhandedly comment. Dazai grins.

"Shall we have a pissing competition, (Last name)~?"

"What's wrong with you?" You snort, chortling at the melodic tinkling in his voice, "Seriously."

"In all seriousness," His face drops into that of solemnity, "The Port Mafia has ears and eyes everywhere. You may not even be safe here."

"The Port Mafia is intrigued with me."

Dazai smiles, a wan smile, a sarcastic, knowing smile, as if he had the same experience as you, "Obsessively so. They need you, always teetering on the edge, so that you won't be able to be on your own."

"What do they need me for?"

"The same reason you need a bullet to a gun," Dazai says. His words hang in the air for a moment, staring at each other.

"Y'know, Chuuya warned me not to talk to you," You say, "Got reeaaal mad."

"Ugh, gross," He cringes at that, "You're still talking to him?"

"We slept together." You casually admit, to which Dazai immediately feels violent a shiver of disgust crawl up his body.

"Don't say that! Stop! Disgusting!!" He exclaims, wrapping his arms around his slim body, "Stop! No more!"

"You're acting like I slept with a slug."

"You might as well have! That's even worse!" His face contorts into that of massive discomfort at the thought of Chuuya, "That is so gross."

"Is it?"

"You know," Dazai sighs, mussing up the back of his hair, "As much as I hate him, I do commend him, which is already disgusting to say, for his efforts in loving you."

The words take a while to process in your head.

"Chuuya is in love with me?"

Dazai looks confused, "You couldn't tell?"

You fumble with your hands, "I mean...He talks about belonging to him. But I've always thought that he just thought of me as his property, as something he just owns as his pride. You know how it is. Arm candy, as they call it."

"Well, that slug doesn't have time for that," He says, not even bothering to say his name properly, "Not in the Port Mafia."

"Your hours are now over," The guard steps in, and Dazai puts his hands up in surrender.

"Bye bye, (Last name)," He waves at you cheerfully, to which you half-heartedly reciprocate with a tired smile, "See you next time!"

"Goodbye."

You're escorted back to your cell in handcuffs, only releasing them from your wrists when you're locked in your confined space, the tiny room feeling like the chamber of a grey heart. It melts in your peripherals, slowly leaving rivulets of grey and drooling and onto the floor, shimmering and wavering as though the air was hot in August summer. You close your eyes and breathe in on your bed, hands crossed over your lap.

You can hear voices talking outside of your cell, in distant staccatos, picking up words, like morse code.

Visitor...again...(Last name)...

"You have another visitor, (last name)."

"Who is it?"

"A gentleman named Chuuya Nakahara wants to see you."

"Is that so?" You say. You know that to meet him is to die. He is the epitome of loyalty to Mori Ougai, Boss of the Port Mafia. There is a sweet spirit in him crushed by hatred, hatred for you for giving into the authority, hatred for you for not being as in 'love' as he is with you. You debate on meeting with him, debate on confronting him and having to explain as to why you had turned yourself in: because of him. To get away from everything. To escape from everything. To have some solitude for once in your life without having to worry about your shadow betraying you to the Port Mafia, "Tell him I'm not available."

A pause.

"He says he's not leaving unless he talks to you. And he just broke one of our walls," The guard says, a hint of panic in his voice. You sigh.

"Alright."