Withering moon lit rose

Chapter 15

It had been fifteen minutes since Akutagawa had mumbled his question to the couple, Chuuya brought out his laptop and began to scroll through the listed ability users the Mafia had documents on.

"We could be scrolling for hours, do you have any idea how many ability users there are?" Chuuya whined while continuing the glaze over the screen. "We could always just have me touch him?" Dazai offered, Ryuunosuke nodded and then spoke. "But what if they can tell when it's been deactivated? We should match a face and try to locate them prior to awakening Nakajima." Dazai smirked, "No Weretiger anymore?" Ryuunosuke shrugged his shoulders while keeping his gaze fixed on the screen. "After everything I'm doing for him I may as well call him by his name."

Two hours had gone past and to no avail had Chuuya found anyone who stuck out, Ryuunosuke decided he would have a look himself. He was sure they had to have missed something. "Here." Chuuya offered Akutagawa a cup of green tea, however he had no interest in drinking at the minute so Chuuya resorted to putting it on the table in front of him. "So I have a question." Chuuya spoke to Akutagawa who was mindlessly scrolling still. "I am aware you haven't made a decision on what I informed you of yesterday." Akutagawa continued to scroll while taking in Chuuya's words.

"Them finding out isn't the only reason you don't want to wake Nakajima, is it?" Akutagawa froze in his search for a second and met eyes with Chuuya. "I'm right aren't I?" He asked while adjusting his hands on the mug of coffee. "Why does it matter?" Akutagawa scowled as he went back to his search.

"After all, it's always been like that." He muttered but Chuuya caught his words, "Why has it always been like that?" Chuuya questioned. Akutagawa sighed and leant back on the sofa knowing he wouldn't be able to focus on his research any further. "Because it is, do you want to know the truth of what happened when I got close to someone last time?" Chuuya felt he was forcing Ryuunosuke to revisit an old wound, but it was too late for him to back out now.

"He died. It was entirely my fault. There was a shipment, it was supposed to be delivered by low level Port Mafia members. Some of the kids overheard them, including him. The thugs. They, they came to beat us all up. Me and Gin were the only ones to escape. When we returned all the others had been beaten to the edge of their lives. Some were lucky enough to give us final words to us, others were already corpses." Chuuya placed his hand against Ryuunosuke's leg as a way of comfort, the man was thankful for it.

"I returned to the port in order to exact revenge for the death of my friends, my family. That was when I met Dazai. He'd ordered six men dead as a gift to me of sorts." Chuuya looked at Dazai in shock, he had never told him this. When he took Akutagawa in all he said was he had picked him up from the slums. Nothing more and Chuuya was smart enough at the time to not pry further.

"I gave him two options that day," Dazai spoke with his back turned to them, "I'd offered him enough money so he and his sister would never have to worry about poverty ever again, or to become my subordinate. You can tell which he took." Dazai didn't say anything after that. "Do you have any idea how many years it was until I was actually able to get somewhat close to Gin again after the incident?" Ryuunosuke asked Chuuya in a somewhat mocking tone. "A couple of months? Half a year at least." That was how long it had taken Chuuya to get over the loss of the sheep, although betraying him did help him to get over it a little quicker.

"Five years." Chuuya didn't know what to say to the younger. Ryuunosuke lifted the laptop from his lap and disappeared into the spare bedroom with it. Leaving the two men alone in silence.