Chapter Text
Atsushi’s back was pressed hard against a wall and a strong hand was wound securely around his throat.
He gritted his teeth against the pressure, strangled breaths escaping him as the only stretch of mercy he was given for his breathing to continue. Atsushi wasn’t quite sure how exactly he ended up in this situation. He remembered being in the middle of a mission, fighting the enemy with Junichirou not far off, and then suddenly his vision was blinded by a glaring burst of light.
He’d fallen into the blinding light, only managing to capture a fleeting glimpse of the spiralling blue vortex he was being swept away in. And then he was watching himself fall out of that same suctioning light. Atsushi had first felt his back hit a hard wooden surface before he could blinked his vision back. At the force of his fall, his body continued to slide across the hard surface, until he was quickly falling off.
Atsushi stumbled to catch his footing. But by the time his balance had made its way back to him, feet on solid ground, he found a hand wrapped around his throat, his back shoved to a wall and his tiger arms retreated back to his usual skin.
Atsushi’s eyes instinctively squeezed shut upon the sudden impact of being pushed roughly into a wall. After a second of letting his mind stabilise, he fluttered his eyes back open. A spark of relief was Atsushi’s body’s first instinctual reaction to seeing the familiar face before him, but like the descent of a shooting star, as quickly as it had risen, Atsushi’s stomach was dropping rapidly in the next passing second.
His eyes settled on the face of a man Atsushi had grown to know comfort in seeing. Only this time, when Atsushi looked at him, that comforting face was not the same. Atsushi met eyes of pure darkness, ones he knew that could be viewed as the colour of delicate caramel in the right lighting. But he got a distinct, shivering feeling that the lighting had nothing to do with the black pits of these eyes now.
Eyes that Atsushi knew should be brown had become blurred into the illusion of black, their gaze pierced through him.
He could only describe them like a starless night sky. Not vacated of light from the city’s light polluting the natural light. Not the moon’s light being dampened by a lace of thick clouds. But, instead, they were a simple black sky without any light ever living there to make its home. Not so much as hidden from view, just, merely, not there.
They looked entirely frightening and desolately too empty like that. There was none of those textures that Atsushi usually became distracted with during the times where he would make a game for himself out of finding the different shades of brown whenever he’d become lost in those eyes, and often could that be.
Their darkness was almost dangerously bewitching, swallowing him hole in a warning that he shouldn’t sink deeper, yet tempting him to fall further. It was beautiful in a strange way, if not terrifyingly so. To look into the eyes of a gaze so empty, so lifeless, yet relentlessly alert, it all felt like dizzying contradictory. But Atsushi couldn’t dare lose balance, not in the paralysed state he was rendered in.
Atsushi’s own gaze broke away from the darkness before he could lose focus on the yet to be understood situation he was in. Eyes darting to the left eye of the man before him, he only just realised that he had been on the receiving end of a one-eyed gaze. The left eye of the man in front of him was wrapped in bandages that masked the entire top half of his face, tied into a head of familiar brown hair.
Atsushi frowned. The bandage covering the other’s eye was new, as was his gaze itself, as were the features of his face entirely.
But the person before him, the person currently holding a harsh grip to his throat, skilfully cutting off the majority of Atsushi’s oxygen flow and sparing him few breaths— that person himself was not new.
Atsushi’s breath hitched, eyes widening.
Dazai.
The man before Atsushi was Dazai. The man keeping his back to the wall with a hand to his throat was Dazai.
Only, it wasn’t a Dazai Atsushi recognised, not entirely, not down to the immediate details that flared warning signs at Atsushi the moment he laid eyes on the other. The Dazai before him right now looked younger, features Atsushi knew as strikingly defined and flawless now appeared more soft around the edges, as if Dazai was close to growing into them but not quite there yet, give him a few more years.
The person in front of him was Dazai, he knew that much. A younger Dazai, he also knew. But the darkness that overshadowed him was unrecognisable.
This was not good.
Atsushi could feel the panic starting to bubble within him, the brief flicker of relief upon first seeing Dazai thoroughly rethought and overruled with his rising alarm for what exactly was happening. It might be Dazai who Atsushi was currently in the presence of, but he got the distinct and dreaded feeling that it wasn’t any Dazai he knew.
The signs were unmissable, given the abrupt youth to his appearance and the startlingly cold gaze he pinned on Atsushi. Dazai had never so much as gotten close to watching him like before. Not to mention that aura of his.
Atsushi could feel the aura of Dazai in this moment, right down to his bones. Both uncomfortably chilling and fatally hot, just like the gaze Dazai was carefully observing him with.
“Who are you?”
Atsushi was immediately questioned by the other with swift sharpness.
But he would have to disappoint Dazai and his expectancy at receiving an answer when Atsushi’s breath caught in his throat a second time. Suddenly he felt unable to speak and his mind was reeling, trying to form a response.
He frantically flicked his eyes away from Dazai, ignoring the question asked of him to instead observe his surroundings. Dazai would be proud for adapting so fast, refocusing on building an understanding of his current confusion— well, the older Dazai that was his mentor, that is—.
Atsushi scanned his gaze over the rows of displayed alcohol bottles set behind a bar, starting to get the idea that he had somehow ended up in an unfamiliar bar. Okay, that was a start.
His eyes continued to travel over the room. It was empty aside from the bartender. Oh, and there was a man sitting at the bar that Atsushi didn’t recognise who was watching him intently, curiously. And lastly…
Atsushi’s line of thought halted, squinting at the other man in the room. Was that Ango? Atsushi’s breathing was becoming unsteady and Dazai’s hand breaking up the flow of his oxygen was not helping.
This really wasn’t good.
Where was he? Or, looking back over at the younger Dazai, more importantly, when was he?
2 Hours Earlier…
To this day, few living souls knew the truth behind the timeline of Dazai and Atsushi’s first meeting.
Dazai Osamu and Nakajima Atsushi did not in fact first meet that day by the river, where Atsushi saved Dazai from death by drowning. Not even Atsushi knew that himself. Not until almost a year later from when he joined the Detective Agency, at least.
There was a saying within the Agency, an expected response to a certain question automated in their minds, and a mystery unsolved. It was a saying Atsushi knew nothing about, something Dazai seemed adamant on keeping that way. But Dazai himself was by far familiar with the saying. He was the host of the words that formed it, always the same.
The saying came about when the Agency all grew to understand that the nature of Dazai’s feelings towards his darling subordinate exceeded beyond that of a platonic care.
Yet, none of them truely did understand the way Dazai felt about Atsushi entirely. For some, they didn’t so much as scrape the surface of understanding. That was because of what the Agency’s— Dazai’s— saying was.
It went like clock work, the effortless prediction of the sun rising and setting each day, every day. Whenever someone were to mention Dazai’s feelings towards Atsushi to the bandaged man himself, Dazai would always, without exception, respond with an admittance that he was in love with Atsushi, but for longer than anyone who ever pointed it out knew.
Today was a continuation of that same routine.
Atsushi and Junichirou were paired together for a case they were about to head out on. Dazai was sitting at his desk, idly watching Atsushi at his own as the younger started neatly compiling a small stack of papers, making sure that he had all the last minute details of the case ready before heading out. Dazai hummed leisurely, watching the cute, subtle, focused frown set on Atsushi’s face for another second, before pushing himself onto his feet.
He let a grin begin to stretch across his face as he started happily bounding over to Atsushi, appearing as though he was without a care in the world. His humming picked up into a chipper tune. Reaching Atsushi’s desk, he draped himself over the shorter boy’s back without Atsushi so much as reacting, far too used to this by now. Atsushi continued aligning his stack of notes, while Dazai rested his chin on the top of Atsushi’s head, hands placed on the desk and arms on either side of Atsushi’s body, caging him In, with Atsushi’s arms on outside.
“Got everything you need for the case, Atsushi?” Dazai asked cheerily, closing his eyes and feeling Atsushi’s back against his front rise and fall in a huff from the other.
“I think so,” Atsushi replied, their wrists brushing every time the younger boy moved his arms while finalising his papers.
“Location?” Dazai began listing.
“Yes,” was Atsushi’s prepared response.
“Official documentation?”
Atsushi nodded seriously, ever the determined one to be professional with any case he was given. Big or small, Atsushi put his heart into anything that required him, and all Dazai wanted to do was keep it only to himself. Though, it was endearing to watch, even if that meant sharing the heart of gold that was his love’s.
“Gun?”
“Around my waist,” Atsushi responded absently, picking up the stack of papers and carefully knocking them against his desk three times to straighten them to perfection.
“Anything else you’re missing?” Dazai questioned with a slight tilt to his head, his chin shifting to the side on Atsushi’s head.
Atsushi rolled his eyes with a fondly exasperated smile. “I’ve been at the Agency for over a year now, Dazai. I am already more than prepared, I can assure you.”
He reached up one of his hands and placed two gentle pats to Dazai’s head in a gesture that the two both recognised for this occurrence, as well as many others, as Atsushi’s indicator for Dazai to move because he was about to get up.
Dazai obediently pulled back, an exaggerated frown pulling at his lips as he took a few steps backwards. “You’re growing up too fast. Soon enough I won’t have a need to be your mentor if you keep going at the rate you are now,” Dazai pouted pitifully.
Atsushi laughed briefly as he stood from his desk, taking his notes in hand. “My fast growth is credit to your good mentoring, Dazai—”Atsushi turned around, readying to push in his desk chair, when Dazai snatched Atsushi’s notes from his subordinate’s hands. “—Hey!”
Atsushi gasped and Dazai spun around to make his back face the other, holding the notes out of reach. But Atsushi attempted to get his notes back in his rightful possession anyway, reaching one of his hands in between Dazai’s arm and side. Dazai smoothly followed through by easily taking ahold of the hand Atsushi was reaching with, and instead pulled it up to his lips where the older placed one sweet, lingering kiss to the back of his palm.
A soft touch of lips, like the gentle kisses of a warm spring breeze to one’s skin.
Atsushi froze, stumped and showing no more signs of attempting to regain his notes. Dazai watched from the corner of his eyes as the pink flush started to tint the younger’s cheeks, painting a perfectly blank canvas the colour of beautiful roses.
“You shouldn’t cut your winnings short, Atsushi,” Dazai reminded, voice lacking his usual lightness as he let his words sink into Atsushi seriously. “Remember to give yourself credit for your growth, too.”
Atsushi opened his mouth, only managing a single strangled sound from the back of his throat for a moment. He composed himself in the next second, exhaling as a small smiled lifted upon his lips. He nodded. “I know.”
Dazai returned the smile, now satisfied. He let go of Atsushi’s hand, graciously handing him back his notes as he turned to face him, sticking his hands in his pockets.
“I’ll be off then, see you soon!” Atsushi waved Dazai off, briskly walking to the office’s main door to meet Junichirou, who had been patiently waiting there for the last few minutes.
Dazai wore his usual absent smile as he watched Atsushi go, but when directed at Atsushi, that smile always held more depth than mere mindlessness. Not matter how absent a smile towards Atsushi could be, it was always genuine. No matter how small or frequent, Dazai let Atsushi past his many barriers a long time ago, and since promised to never shut them on him again. Even if Atsushi didn’t know it just yet.
The door to the office clicked close, Atsushi and and Junichirou now out of sight, and like a switch had been flipped, Dazai instantly slumped. He inhaled as he lifted his shoulders once again, looking over his shoulder to find Kunikida for entertainment like he always did. He opened his mouth, ready to annoy Kunikida now that his main and only point of interest in the Agency was gone, the kind that unquestionably and invariably outshined anything else.
But, Kunikida was much too used to this routine by now, shutting down Dazai before he could even get a word in. “No. I do not care for your antics, you have paper work to do last time I checked,” Kunikida told him firmly, eyes never straying from his typing.
Dazai whined. “I always have paper work last time you checked.”
Kunikida spared him a glance then, raising one single unimpressed eyebrow. “Exactly.”
Dazai grinned nonetheless, taking small triumph in that he got Kunikida to look away from his work to entertain him, even if it was only for a few seconds, despite what Kunikida would unarguably deny. Dazai dragged his feet, lazily flopping back down on his desk chair as he looked up to the ceiling, spinning in aimless circles.
The office door opened and Dazai hoped for a second it would be Atsushi rushing back in claiming he forgot something. But Dazai knew that wasn’t going to be the case, both in how prepared Atsushi was before he left, and that Dazai recognised that the footsteps entering the room were not Atsushi’s.
It was Naomi who entered, crossing the room with a pile of documents tucked under her arm. She took one look at Dazai and was surely guessing, “Atsushi already left for his mission then?” She smiled knowingly, placing the pile of documents onto her brother’s currently empty desk.
Dazai hummed noncommittally in response and Naomi laughed in light humour, turning around and leaning her hip against the side of Junichirou’s desk as she folded her arms. “You’re really gone for our tiger-boy, aren’t you?”
“For longer than you know.”
And there it was. That familiar, always the same, never changed response.
Dazai felt the flicker of eyes on him and he too was expecting that. No matter how many times Dazai would say that reply, it never failed to earn a moments glance from those in the Agency who heard. It didn’t matter what they were working on, nor was it relevant if they hadn’t heard anything else but that response, because as long as they heard Dazai respond to someone with that ever predictable phrase, it gained the attention of anyone in the room, simply.
Why that was, was because each and every one of them held a hungrily growing intrigue to unravel the riddle in Dazai’s words. No one understood that response, yet it was the only one Dazai would ever give, religiously, without fail, every single time.
The case was going south. Atsushi had realised he and Junichirou’s case had gotten too much out of their control, and a part of him felt embarrassed for how assured he’d made Dazai of his preparedness before leaving. What was meant to be to be a case like many others he had handled in the past— busting a crime gang in a nearby warehouse dangerously close to the city bustle—, turned out not to be as simple as they’d been predicting.
Atsushi and Junichirou had missed one key factor of this case that held precarious value. When collecting all the details they managed to find before going into this, one thing they missed was that the gang had an ability user on them. It was a mutant like ability, irritatingly on par with Atsushi’s own, which had made the fight between them drag out.
During the fight, he and the other ability user had traveled out from the quieter area where the warehouse was left abandoned, instead into the edge of population again. Atsushi skidded backwards, digging his tiger claws into the ground to break the speed of his fall and come to a stop at the end of his self made claw marked trail. As soon as he regained balance he leapt up, pushing off with the force of his tiger legs and aiming for a solid punch to his enemy, unwittingly leaving himself open.
After Atsushi’s fist connected to his enemy’s face, the other managed to quickly grasp the upper hand, sending Atsushi flying backwards before falling to the ground himself. Due to pushing himself into the air when Atsushi had leapt at his opponent, as Atsushi was sent flying backwards he drifted through the air without leverage to cling onto in order to stop him from travelling.
Atsushi flew back into a footpath. But before he could make contact with the ground, amidst the scenery shooting quickly by around him, he turned his head just in time to glimpse a blur of a blue vortex that he found himself falling through before he could react.
The door to the Agency’s main office bursted open with an abrupt force, the door smacking harshly against the wall. That would definitely leave a hole. Junichirou stood in the entrance, having just slammed the door open with wide, frantic eyes that darted around the room as if in a knowingly futile hope to find something that was not going to be there.
That panicked look on the red-head’s face received everyone’s attention who was in the office, especially after that barrelling entrance. Kunikida was the first to move, standing up straight from his desk and walking over to Junichirou.
“What happened?” Kunikida questioned immediately, voice level in contrast to Junichirou’s demeanour.
Dazai merely looked up at the scene, head lifting from where it was resting against the back of his chair as he looked to see what all of the fuss was about. His eyes began seeking out Atsushi on instinct, and when he didn’t see the white-haired boy standing next to Junichirou as he should be, paired with the devastated look on Junichirou’s face, Dazai’s attention instantaneously fell onto Junichirou as seriously as everyone else.
“Where’s Atsushi?” Kunikida pressed, asking a different question when Junichirou hadn’t found his voice to respond to the first. Dazai’s posture straightened, carefully focusing as he waited for an answer to that question, the only question Dazai had any care in knowing a response to.
Junichirou’s eyes darted to Kunikida at his last question.
“I don’t know,” his voice shook around the edges, expression contorting warily. Dazai inhaled a sharp breath, his insides beginning to twist anxiously as the strings of his stomach knotted together. He remained with a stoic face, fixated intensely on Junichirou. “He’s gone— just disappeared into thin air. One moment I saw him fighting the enemy, and then the next time I looked over he wasn’t there.”
The knots in Dazai’s stomach tightened, expression gradually losing a grip on neutrality as his gaze weighed darker.
“I searched the entire surrounding area after the police came and took over the scene, but I couldn’t find him anywhere,” Junichirou continued, swallowing as he gained back more of his composure.
Still more calm and composed than the red-head, Kunikida continued his questioning. “How long ago was this?”
“An hour.” Junichirou nodded to himself. “I made sure to thoroughly search before coming back, just incase I found him unconscious or… worse. But there wasn’t anything at all! No traces of blood or unusually damaged areas suggesting his fight carried out further than my proximity.”
Dazai silently absorbed every bit of information, one of his first conclusions apparently reaching that of Kenji’s when the younger boy piped up.
“Perhaps Atsushi has been taken hostage! That has happened to him a lot over the last year,” Kenji offered from his place at his desk.
It was a reasonable deduction. No traces of blood or damaged areas around the city which would distinctly show signs of a battle did lead to the sensible assumption that Atsushi had been captured in the moment, rather than being further out. But, it didn’t entirely add up either. Junichirou claimed that Atsushi vanished within mere seconds, no capturing could be executed that quickly, especially for Atsushi to have been taken from sight before Junichirou could notice during those same few seconds.
Atsushi was a fighter, and as much as people seemed to take a liking to kidnapping his Atsushi, the boy had become a damn challenge for someone to take captive these days. Junichirou saw Atsushi last fighting the enemy, which meant Atsushi would have put up a rough fight if he truly were being suddenly kidnapped, further giving Junichirou enough time to notice. Yet, Junichirou hadn’t.
Dazai’s eyes sharply dragged across the room to meet a certain pair of green ones. Ranpo met his gaze, holding the pointed look for enough time to understand Dazai’s demand, more than a request. Ranpo pulled his eyes away, looking back to Junichirou as he released a small irritated sigh, but obliged Dazai regardless, for the same reason anyone would if Dazai looked at them that way.
“You were fighting out near a street last time you saw him, right? That is around the location you two were set for.” Junichirou nodded in confirmation and Ranpo continued, “Then there’s a likely chance there will be security cameras that may have captured the moment. Get me the footage.”
Dazai’s gaze moved down to his desk, heavy and unapproachable, the world around him fading into the background as the Agency members rushed to follow Ranpo’s orders. Whatever it was that had happened, Dazai knew one thing, and that was that Atsushi was missing. He hoped, for the sake of Atsushi’s belief in the type of person he was, that wherever Atsushi was, he was going to be okay.
2 Hours Later; Now…
Dazai observed the boy he had pinned to the back of Bar Lupin’s wall with his hand around the other’s throat.
He had been drinking late with Oda and Ango like usual, enjoying the peace of relaxation, knowing no one else would come and intrude when the owner always closed the bar early for them three, per Dazai’s wish. The sense of relaxation had been abruptly stripped from him, however, when all of a sudden a pale blue mixture of light with a jumble of unintelligible turquoise coloured words started spiralling in front of him in a portal liken scene.
Dazai, consistently quick to react, recognised the one common theme between all ability users: a trail of incoherent words. Much like the spiralling words of the portal suddenly appearing before him. He quickly slipped off his seat, senses alert and aware, far away from the carefree attitude he had been portraying while drinking with his two older friends just moments ago.
And that was when the boy he had beneath his grip now, came crashing through the ability portal. Dazai assessed him, a boy with snow-white hair that reminded him of winter; the fall of snowflakes descending from the sky as they all came to pile together, drowing the city. And amongst that pile of snow, within the boy’s light hair stood one trifling strand of black, in an unmissable contrasting colour.
It appeared, upon first glance, out of place, black and white entirely too different to exist within the same space. But for this boy, Dazai didn’t seem to think that. It was as though both the dark and light could coexist within this one person, naturally, like the boy had allowed it to make him its home. The throat beneath Dazai’s hand was small, not startlingly so, nor maturely wide, but the kind that matched close to Dazai’s own.
The detail made him move onto scanning the other’s features next, looking for all indicators that would immediately reveal details of this intruder, such as his age. But as soon as Dazai’s eyes moved from the boy’s hair down to his face, for the first, Dazai felt like a fool. What Dazai has meant to be a focused inspection of the possible enemy beneath his grip, had quickly slipped away from him.
He hadn’t meant it to, if it were in his control he would have simply inspected this boy like any and every other person. But that was just it, nothing had ever made him lose control of a situation, and something as insignificant as this was so far from Dazai’s considerations that it had never seemed like a possibility, entirely. His focus had fallen through his fingers before he could attempt to grip it harder. It was like a compulsion, in the same way the moon pulled the ocean’s currents, Dazai was all but the sea drawn to the moon.
The boy was young, no older than Dazai, and he was unique. His hair was unevenly cut and he had one stroke of black settled into his white hair like that was where it was meant to be. That, Dazai had already absorbed. His face, however, was what had unsuspectingly and completely unpredictably broken the what used to be unbreakable focus of the Demon Prodigy.
His skin was soft to look at, smooth like perfect porcelain as it laced over his nose, small with a low slope that Dazai had the inexplicable sudden urge to trace. The other’s lips wore a Cupid’s bow, visible even in his mouth’s currently twisted state caused by the abrupt force of Dazai shoving him into the wall.
The boy’s eyes fluttered open. And Dazai blanked.
Oh.
This boy had eyes unlike anything Dazai had ever seen before, soft and rounded and carrying within them two distinct colours. The flawless blend of purple and yellow, met each other halfway, like the unmistakable seam of where the setting sun’s reflected light came to meet the fading blue sky. And at the beginning stages of the sunset, where the sun was starting to leave for the day, the yellow that it trailed behind met the darkened blue sky that then mixed into purple.
All Dazai could see when he looked into the eyes of a person that he should be considering a threat, was that this boy— this threat— had the picturesque eyes of a faultless sunset. The boy truely was unique.
And Dazai was enchanted.
An utter fool.
He never lost focus the way he did just now. He had never been captivated by anyone or anything so dangerously. Whether someone had features or aspects alarmingly unattractive, or stunningly beautiful, Dazai never spared a thought to notice either one, because he only focused on the job, his strategy, the enemy. Something like this had never before happened to him and he had not even the slightest of a belief that it ever would.
Belatedly, he started reaching within himself to grasp control back into his fingers, the reality of this foreign, almost taboo experience striking something within him that he hadn’t the time to unravel right this moment.
An instant. One single, fleeting instant is all but which Dazai allowed himself to accept that he had lost control for. He told himself that he hadn’t been bewitched, he hadn’t been lost in thought thinking about the boy’s eyes, that he wouldn’t think about them a thousand times over to come.
But through that sunset gaze, as Dazai focused back in, he saw them flicker with a spark of familiarity as they settled on Dazai. The brunette’s usual conclusion when recognising this reaction within people, were that they knew of him and his reputation within the Mafia. When that happened, after the familiarity, people would respond in two ways.
Those who recognised him would either instantly shift into a guarded expression, features contorting tensely as they took caution, still holding themselves to Dazai’s challenge. Those were the less witted ones. The other reaction was simultaneous fear in the familiarity, an uncontrollable panic written so clearly on their face it was like they were trying to let Dazai read it.
Yet, the familiarity in this boy’s eyes wasn’t either of those two reactions. Dazai frowned. It was entirely different. His recognition shinned, glistening as though Dazai was the furthest thing to be afraid of upon recognising him. Dazai frowned deepened. This boy’s gaze had turned gentle around the edges as he looked at the brunette, like it was an automatic response he wasn’t completely aware of. It looked personal, which targeted Dazai’s confusion the most because he knew he had never before met this boy.
After all, those eyes were unforgettable.
“Who are you?”
Apparently this strange gaze the other held also bled into the boy’s lack of fear right now. Dazai waited for a response to his question, but instead, the boy’s eyes left him. Though, Dazai could tell they didn’t pull back from a sudden inability to hold eye contact out of fright. What an unusual reaction.
The white-haired boy put his attention on the room, leaving himself completely open with an apparent trust that Dazai wouldn’t take him off guard.
The brunette’s confusion was rising an unsatisfying amount. Dazai didn’t like to be out of the loop. He took pride in his ability to understand situations from the enemy’s perspective, almost like he was inside their own head. But he couldn’t make sense of the lacklustre reaction he was receiving from someone he was cutting the flow of oxygen from. He could sense the boy’s unease at most, but the majority of his expression simply lied in confusion.
Dazai watched a pair of sunset eyes catch on spots around the room, the emotions within them alternating between heavier confusion and alarmed familiarity. His gaze moved in a frantic absorption of information, as if trying to understand the situation he was in, attempting to make sense of his clearly spinning mind. Apparently Dazai— known as the Demon Prodigy and underboss of the Port Mafia— standing in front of the other right now, wasn’t important enough to have all of the boy’s attention locked onto.
Dazai unconsciously tilted his head the slightest bit to the side in intrigue. This boy wasn’t giving any reactions Dazai was used to receiving, which was outstandingly strange, because in a situation where someone uninvited broke into Mafia territory, Dazai catching them should be the only thing on their mind. However, becoming the one outlier to many things today, all this boy seemed to be emitting was a tangle of confusion that caused him to seem more stressed than fearful.
Patience wearing thin, Dazai repeated his question, slower. “Who are you?”
The boy met Dazai’s eyes again. He lifted his hand, clasping it onto Dazai’s wrist attached to the hand choking him. Finally, he was showing some kind of struggle against the brunette. Thin delicate finger’s dropped onto his skin and now Dazai could prove that his earlier prediction of the boy’s skin being soft was true, just from this small contact.
The boy pulled for it to be removed, but it lacked the strength needed to pry it off. Yet, just by observing the boy, the broadness in his shoulders and muscles in his forearms told Dazai that he could put up a good fight, much better than the one he was right now.
And, still, the boy purposely put a pause on his strength.
it seemed as though he had stopped applying the force behind his strength right before it could reach the level that would unavoidably hurt Dazai in the process of removing his hand. It didn’t make sense.
This boy was acting as though he would rather sacrifice the oxygen in his lungs if it meant avoiding the possibility of causing Dazai pain. It appeared the boy was the foolish one now. How stupid. He was going to risk his heart stopping when all he had to do was at least attempt to apply pressure that could harm Dazai to free himself.
But it wasn’t until the first word that was finally spoken by boy, had Dazai been caught in a net of irreversible interest.
“Dazai.”