Pain Before Love (Soukoku)

Smarter than he looks

Dazai's left side of his face scrunched up when he heard the name Tachihara gave him, he muttered, " Dazai's fine..." The red head just chuckled in response with Chuuya sending a quick call to his subordinates and the rest of the officers.

"Gather your men and get to the backup base. I'll meet you there."

Ending the call, Chuuya glanced over to Tachihara and Dazai. The red-haired male who overheard what the ginger said, commented, " We're going to the backup base? Isn't that used as a hiding place?"

The ginger shook his head, " Our normal office got terrorised and 3 of our men were killed. We have a royalty with us. Our top priority is to keep him safe." Chuuya pointed at Dazai as he sighed. "How troublesome..."

Tachihara patted Chuuya comfortingly on the shoulder as he smiled slightly, " Then we should get going." Chuuya nodded as he glanced back at the brunette who was currently packing a haversack to carry. Dropping a few pairs of clothes in, he zipped it up and his eyes met Chuuya's. The ginger could see that in those caramel brown eyes, there was excitement and fear at the same time. The ginger bit his lip before reassuring Dazai, " You'll be fine. Just stay close." The brunette just nodded and once again, supported with Tachihara's help, he got off as they headed out of the house.

—-

"Now that I think about it, our backup base is quite close to Dazai's house."

Chuuya thought about it as he nodded his head in agreement. "3 blocks down, a right turn and two lanes down." Dazai visualised it and he remembered that there was an abandoned building which was out of bounds to citizens. "You meet in an abandoned building?" He questioned the ginger who seemed surprised.

"Wow! You guessed right! How?" Tachihara chirped in as he was as surprised as Chuuya. "Hearing Chuuya's description."

"You know the location just by my brief description?" The ginger asked, shocked. Dazai just nodded, finding nothing wrong with that fact.

The two officers knew that Dazai was unaware of his own talent and skill. He could be a great help in the case they are doing now.

 However, they had to focus on the task on hand which was to get to the backup base without anyone interfering. Sure enough, after a few minutes of walking, they reached the abandoned building Dazai talked about. The surrounding area around the building was dirty and the land was bare unlike a few lanes back where they were trees and bushes.

A few windows broken and shards of glass on the ground outside. The grey clouds above them make the building look eerie. On closer inspection, the door handle and lock looked rusted and it seemed like the door would break off its hinges anytime.

"Hurry, it's going to rain." Chuuya's gloved hand gripped onto the rusty door handle tightly as he pushed the door open with his arm as the door was stiff in place. The two behind the ginger followed right behind, scared of being left behind as the door slammed back close. Inside the building, what met them was a hallway with multiple doors on both sides.

The ginger walked through the hallways full of doors confidently as if he had mapped the whole building at the tip of his fingers, which was true figuratively and literally. Tachihara behind, however, was following cluelessly. Despite knowing where the base was, he had no idea where is where. Walking up the stairs, sticks and leaves crunched below their footsteps as they headed to the second level of the building.

Counting the doors in his head, Chuuya stopped at the fourth door in row as he knocked in a rhythmic way. Almost, immediately, the door opened to show at least ten men the surprisingly big room.

All hastily stood up and bowed respectfully to the ginger as the three of them went into the room. Dazai felt the most awkward, noticing all the eyes on him.