31 Days Of Dazai

dragged away

The club is closed for the moment, leaving the workers, bartender and the children to their own devices. The bartender, Li Qiang, was packing up to go home for the day, since the sun hand risen a mere hour ago, leaving this section, the area where their more unique, wealthy clients came to was closed, only opening under the cover of the night to mask their excursions.

Dazai (Hashibami) is sat at a booth table, scooched into the cornering with set of papers stapled together, going over the percentages of what he's been managing to bring in. Ever since Dazai had turned thirteen, Dao had been getting more demanding of him, asking for more and more with no real reward other then not being locked up in the basement or losing his second eye, which frankly is no reward. Just a lack of punishment.

Dazai refused to do certain things, to Dao's chagrin, but the idea of managing to appease the man for a short time, to get him to leave him alone, to stop pestering with absurd raises in work and to simply allow him to attempt to function the best he could in this environment, it was tempting, though in the end whatever measly remains of his dignity held him back from allowing these vile acts to be forced upon him.

Sighing, Dazai slumps back into the chair, relaxing against the cushion and shutting his eyes, depositing the sheets of paper atop the table. He pulls his legs up to his chest, wrapping one arm around them and the other resting on top, jutting outwards as exhaustion filled his body. Soon, he was likely going to get up and go to bed, clock out for the day before getting up in the evening to get back to work, to trying and rest his continually weakening body.

His body was giving out on him, he knew, the doctor knew and Dao most certainly knew. There wasn't a whole lot they could do to attempt to help rebuild Dazai's health, so many of these physical symptoms were result mental health issues, issues caused by these people and the work they forced him into doing, there was no real way to attempt recover. They couldn't stop putting him in that bar with customers, he raked in too much money, he was too valuable, but they also couldn't bring down the amount of drugs they kept him hopped up on, considering his violent streak, along with his previous escape attempts. Either way, it didn't work in Dao's favour, so the man simply shoved food down his throat and sent him back out, piling more stress on with telling him that he needed to make more money, no matter what lest he face the consequences.

To dumb it down, Dazai was doing pretty shitty right now. He'd made little headway in gathering information on that Doctor, so his current plan of escape was not going particularly well, bringing a bone deep sense of frustration at how little the customers lately have been spilling.

He knew those men were far too stupid to be purposefully hiding this information from him, nor did they even know he was digging for information, but nonetheless they didn't seem to know anything new about the Doctor, all he got was the same spiel he received everytime, that the man was a cure-all miracle maker, that he shared the same interests as these customers, and that he was in the Port Mafia.

Same words, nothing new and completely and utterly useless to him.

With a bitter scoff, Dazai allowed his head to fall forward against his knees, taking in a deep breath and attempted to clear his mind, to bring about inky blackness, complete nothingness to just simply be able to not think for a mere, precious moment.

Just as this kind nothingness had finally began to take over his mind, a loud, shrill scream cut through the air, startling everyone inside, including Dazai himself, who's head raised and body contorted to attempted to catch a glimpse of the source of the racket.

A little girl, perhaps a year old than Dazai threw herself onto the floor, attempting get out of the grip of one of Dao's employees, who was seemingly attempting to drag her to the basement.

Her screams, viscous and animalistic in nature continued as she thrashed and kicked, truly putting her all into shaking off the far larger man who was subduing her.

She begged and pled for help, scratching at his arms as she wept out deep, throaty things, all eyes having turned to her, seeing her plight clearly.

No one came to her aid.

The man seemed to get tired of this fight, and so simply and without warning, he pulled a pistol and fired two shots into her head, the booms of the gunpowder chain reaction echoing throughout the room, bringing about many flinches from other children. Many diverted their gazes shamefully, others remained blank faced and watching. Dazai was one of the latter.

From the way she was fighting, he had a feeling that she knew she was going to die, and was making one last ditch effort at escape, and perhaps she had thought that maybe someone would try to help her, save her and play the hero, but they all knew that none of them were capable of going against Dao and his employees. They were helpless against them, the big, healthy adults against the small, frail traumatized children. There was no fight, it'd be over and done with so easily.

Dazai watched the blood and brains settle upon the linoleum, the way her body had deflated for one last time as air rushed out of her, the twitching of her fingertips and legs, they way it all ended so quickly and easily, and he realized that he might be slightly jealous that she was allowed to escape, even if said escape was through death itself.

Him and the others likely wouldn't be so lucky.

The man grabbed her by the ankles and began to drag her away towards the basement, blood and brains smearing across the floor, hair and fine skull fragments scattered by where her head first sat. Dazai listened passively as she was pulled down the stairs, the disgusting wet conk of what remained of her head slamming onto each step as they went, and the attentive stillness in the bar lasted only a minute longer, the children and bartender turning back and returning to their tasks, silence reigning but they couldn't find it in themselves to linger on the girl.

Each and everyone of them was replaceable, interchangeable and unworthy of further thought, the children were all made very aware of this fact, and so this mindset stuck and they turned their back on their fellow child and worker.

Dazai shook his head and put his legs back down, leaning on the table and picking up the papers again, continuing to work on figuring out a plan on how to raise what he brought in.

The janitor began to mop the girl away.

It'd soon be as if she never existed amongst them, and they did not mind this fact at all.