Chapter Text
Dazai’s not sure what brings him back to the orphanage — now nothing more than an empty shell of what was once a lively home.
But Odasaku is dead, and it feels like someone should come back to pay their last respects. He’s in hiding anyway, so it’s not like he has anything better to do — though he’s possibly the worst person to be here. After all, in a way, the children’s deaths are his fault.
Still, he lays a bouquet of flowers on the remains of the burned-out van. It’s one of those moments that reminds him he might actually be human — because while he doesn’t cry, there’s something tugging at his chest that could almost be sadness.
He thinks of the few times Odasaku had brought him to meet and play with the orphans. For whatever reason, they’d liked him — probably a side effect of being too young to make good decisions.
Then again, Odasaku had liked him too — and he hadn’t been a child. Maybe some people are just bad judges of character.
He’s yanked out of his memories by crying — soft, pathetic, and almost too quiet to catch. It’s coming from what he thought was an empty house, all its residents either dead or gone.
Frowning, he walks toward the orphanage. The door isn’t even closed, and the air inside is stale. He moves through the halls, past crayon drawings and dried-out plants, toward one of the back rooms. He’s never been there before — it was for the younger children, and babies have always scared him.
That thought makes him pause.
Does he even want to find whatever — or whoever — is making that sound?
Then he remembers Odasaku, telling him to save people, and sighs — more of a childish whine than a groan.
Being a good person is hard.
He opens the last door, the one the crying’s coming from — and there she is. Lying in a crib in the far-left corner of the room. Slowly, Dazai walks closer.
She’s a toddler. Can’t be older than one.
He almost snorts when she looks up at him with big brown eyes and a tuft of red hair.
Chuuya always wanted kids. Though he always knew he’d never be in the right environment to have them. Especially not with Dazai — not even counting the biological impossibility.
Dazai might not know much about human anatomy that doesn’t involve torture, but he’s pretty sure a woman has to be involved somewhere in the process.
As carefully as he can, he lifts the baby — who instantly stops crying at his touch. Another bad judge of character.
He blinks at her.
She blinks back.
She smells. Probably needs a new diaper. And a bath. And definitely food. He has no idea how long she’s been here alone.
“Can you already eat solid food?” he asks.
She answers with unintelligible babble.
He nods. “That’s what I thought.”
Sighing, he carries her through the house to the kitchen, where luckily the fridge is still stocked.
With the kid on his hip (he’s seen people carry toddlers like this in movies), he pulls out a jar of carrot baby food and finds a spoon in one of the drawers.
Feeding her turns out to be harder than carrying her. She twists her head left and right, dodging the spoon like a pro.
“I don’t like carrots either,” he sighs. “But I’m afraid you can’t be picky right now.”
He frowns. “Can toddlers eat crab?”
Eventually, he manages to sneak a spoonful into her mouth before she can shut it again. After the first bite, feeding her gets easier.
Maybe she thought he was trying to poison her. Maybe she’s a good judge of character after all.
Bathing her and changing her diaper isn’t actually that hard. Dazai’s seen a lot of disgusting things in his life, and this definitely isn’t the worst of it.
Once he’s done — clothes changed, tiny hands wiped clean — he collapses onto an ugly green couch in the living room. The baby fell asleep somewhere between the amateur baby-caring and the third lullaby he hummed. Not that they were actual lullabies. He doesn’t know any lullabies. Just a few random pop songs he could remember on the fly.
He stares down at her, small and curled up on his chest. She looks so fragile in his arms — and he isn’t even that big a person, but even in his bony hands, she feels breakable.
“Huh,” he murmurs. “What to do with you?”
Since he found her, an idea’s been forming in his head.
A really dumb idea.
Not the dumbest he’s ever had — but close.
He should probably bring her to another orphanage. She’s young enough to still have a chance at adoption. Maybe even a nice family. One with stability.
Or he could just… take her with him.
Which, now that he thinks about it, might actually be the dumbest idea he’s ever had after all. And not even just because he’s Dazai Osamu, demon prodigy and just overall a terrible person — but because he’s currently hiding. From the Mafia. From the government. From life, mostly.
Literally anyone else would be a better candidate for parenthood.
It’s just… she’s one of Odasaku’s. One of his orphans — maybe the last thing left of his best friend. And she looks like a weird mashup of him and Chuuya. Red hair, brown eyes. Like a bad joke the universe wrote just for him.
She reminds him of the only two people he’s ever really cared about.
Okay, maybe he cared a bit about Ryuunosuke and Gin. But he fucked that up in spectacular fashion.
Not that he and Chuuya ever had a pleasant conversation, either. But the sex had been good. That has to count for something, right?
He sighs, long and low.
He should really not be responsible for another person’s life.
Instead of thinking more about it, he lies down on the couch — the baby still in his arms, snoring lightly. He can make a decision after a short nap. It’s not like anyone will come looking for him at an abandoned orphanage. The only person who’d think he’d be this sentimental is dead.
//
He wakes to a tiny hand on his cheek and something wet on his neck.
It takes a moment to remember where he is — and then why someone’s drooling on him.
Right in front of his face are big brown eyes. The kid isn’t just touching him — she’s petting him.
“Morning to you too,” he mumbles — and immediately gets a hand stuffed in his mouth.
Carefully, he pulls the little hand out.
“That’s my mouth. Take your own.”
If a baby can look offended, she does. They stare each other down until Dazai mutters, “Fuck,” and opens his mouth again.
It’s instantly filled with toddler hand. She giggles and says, “Fuff!”
Well, at least she’s a fast learner, Dazai thinks — though maybe he should teach her a few other words before she learns to curse.
She giggles again and smacks him in the face with the hand that isn’t in his mouth. With all the force of a teddy bear.
Then, satisfied, she finally pulls her hand out of his mouth and wipes it in his hair.
And Dazai makes a decision.
He’s always been selfish anyway.
//
When he leaves the orphanage, the baby in his arms, Dazai realizes he has nowhere to go. His old apartment had belonged to the Mafia — so that’s a definite no — and the only other places he ever stayed were Oda’s or Chuuya’s. Neither of those is an option anymore.
Sure, he has a deal with the government — a position waiting for him at the Armed Detective Agency (a name he still thinks could use serious work) — but that won’t start for another two years. Until then, he’s supposed to disappear.
He looks down at the toddler and reconsiders, for what must be the tenth time, whether taking her with him is really a good idea.
In response, she blows a raspberry.
“I was thinking the same thing,” he mutters, then adjusts her in his arms and makes his way toward the nearest bank.
He’s one hundred percent sure Mori has already frozen his Mafia-linked account. But he’d been careful. Years ago, he started transferring large sums into a personal one — just in case.
And he’d been an executive. If there’s one thing Dazai doesn’t lack, it’s money.
He could probably buy the kid a castle if he wanted to — though what she really needs is a fake identity.
Fortunately, being a former Mafia executive with deep connections to the underground has its perks.
After withdrawing a significant amount of cash, Dazai heads to the guy he knows makes the best fake IDs in Yokohama.
Luckily, the man is far too scared of him to question the baby in his arms — or to delay getting started.
When he asks for names, Dazai says: Nakahara Osamu and Nakahara Osaki. He hopes Odasaku would appreciate the reference… and knows Chuuya would absolutely hate it.
“You like the name Osaki, right?” Dazai asks the baby in the cab on the way to the airport. “You’re named after the best man I ever knew… and the most annoying one, I guess.”
He shrugs. “But it’s only for two years. After that, it’s back to Dazai.”
The airport is packed. Not a single person spares a glance at the teenager in a wrinkled suit with a baby drooling on his shoulder.
“Well, Osaki,” he says, stopping in front of the departures board. “Where do you want to go?”
He holds her up so she can see the flight list.
“It has to be long-distance,” he explains, “and it should be a country where I speak the language.”
Osaki tilts her head, confused — just a bit to the left, at an odd angle. With a stretch of the imagination, it might be toward Flight 937 to Hangzhou.
Dazai nods solemnly.
“Good choice. My Mandarin is actually awesome.”
//
The flight is long — and not nearly as stressful as Dazai expected. In fact, it's going so smoothly that, for the first time, he starts to worry something might be wrong with Osaki.
Shouldn’t babies cry more? They always do in movies. Especially on planes. And especially when it’s meant to annoy everyone else on board.
But it can't be hunger or thirst that exhaust her too much to cry — he packed every jar of baby mush and bottle of water he could find at the orphanage.
Then Osaki lifts her head and promptly climbs onto his shoulder, grabbing a fistful of his hair with surprising strength.
So… maybe he shouldn’t be worried. She seems lively enough without the screaming.
“You and your daughter are so adorable,” says the older woman sitting beside them. She looks like she might cry from sheer adoration.
“Are you going to China for a holiday?” she asks.
Dazai shakes his head, careful not to jostle Osaki too much.
“Oh, no. We're running from the government and the Mafia, you know.”
He flashes her a charming grin, and she laughs loudly.
Dazai will never stop being astonished by how easy it is to mess with people. All it takes is a pretty face, some knowledge of the human psyche, and the right amount of confidence.
He’ll make sure Osaki is never that easy to manipulate.
//
Hangzhou is a nice town — full of parks, with a beautiful landscape and — as a quick Google search tells Dazai — significantly less crime than Yokohama.
It’s actually a great place to raise a child, even though Dazai hadn’t taken that into account at all when he let Osaki "choose" where they were going.
The first thing they do is get a room in a decent-looking hotel. Like the old woman on the plane, the receptionist is instantly charmed by the attractive young man with a toddler perched on his shoulders.
She gives them the best room available and promises to send up room service immediately after Dazai explains they’ve just come off a long flight.
In the room, they sit at the window and stare down at the crowded street. Or at least, that’s what Dazai does — he’s not entirely sure one-year-olds have enough brain function for that kind of existential contemplation. Still, he says,
“Look at them. Running around, shopping, heading to their boring jobs, living boring little lives where nothing interesting ever happens. I’d rather die than become that boring.”
He blinks at that — because he realizes…
He can’t just die anymore. He stole a toddler and fled to another country. He can’t just leave her behind.
When he glances down at her, she stares right back and says:
“Nat borrrrang.”
He nods solemnly. “Exactly. We’re never going to be that boring.”
Room service arrives, and Dazai decides he should probably eat something. He’s not really hungry — hasn’t been for a while — but it’s been over three days since his last meal and, well… he’s got a kid now.
He should probably try to be a role model.
So he eats. Feeds Osaki. Bathes her. Finds her clean clothes and changes her.
Only once they’re curled up together in the hotel’s double bed does he realize just how thoroughly exhausted he is.
He falls asleep in record time — to sleepy babbles and the warm, damp press of drool on his shirt.
//
The next day, they go shopping — because, at the moment, they have exactly nothing, aside from the few things Dazai stole from the orphanage.
And his suit is starting to smell.
So they head to the nearest mall and buy everything he can think of: baby food, juice, clothes, diapers, wipes, and toys. Probably too many toys — but, well, no one ever bought Dazai any. And he’s decided Osaki is going to have the exact opposite of his childhood.
What she likes best is a glittery, glowing wand and a headband with pink mouse ears. She giggles so hard when Dazai tries one on that he buys two headbands — and they spend the rest of the trip wandering the mall in matching mouse ears.
They pick up clothes for him too — and not a single suit in sight. Just pullovers, T-shirts, and cargo pants. Stuff he figures a normal teenage dad would wear.
Then they make a quick stop at the hotel to drop off their things and take a short break before heading out again to find a flat. Because Dazai refuses to live in a hotel for two years.
For anyone else, apartment hunting might be hard or time-consuming — but not for Dazai. He skims through listings, picks one he’s certain is posted by an older woman (the wording gives it away), and spins a perfectly tragic sob story: dead parents, a girlfriend who left him, and the crushing weight of becoming a single father at such a young age.
They get the apartment. Move-in is next week.
The woman even apologizes for the wait. She’s actually crying by the end of the conversation — maybe Dazai overdid it a bit.
//
After they move in, Dazai wonders — for all of three minutes — if he should get a job.
Sure, he doesn’t have any references, but he’s confident he could forge some or just bullshit his way through an interview.
But then he remembers he has a one-year-old he can’t exactly leave home alone.
And that — even though he’s decided he can’t kill himself anymore — working as a clerk might just do that for him without his help.
So he spends two years living off his savings and spending every moment with Osaki. No killing, no violence, no blackmailing — not even sex. Just playgrounds, children’s books, and lake trips.
For the first time in his life, Dazai is… content. He wonders if Odasaku would already be proud of him. Probably not. He hasn’t really saved anyone — just kidnapped a toddler.
A toddler who’s become the center of his world. He always thought people were stupidly sentimental when it came to their kids, but he gets it now. If anyone ever hurt Osaki, he’d kill them — and then himself. Screw any promises he made to Odasaku.
Osaki is the first person Dazai is one hundred percent sure he loves. And when she calls him “Dada” for the first time, he doesn’t cry — but it’s a really close call.
He doesn’t even know where she picked up the word. He definitely never called himself her dad.
Probably from one of the many single mothers who try to talk to him — who also made him realize he has absolutely no interest in women.
Sometimes he thinks of Chuuya. Wonders what his old partner is doing now. If he finally grew a bit.
If he still thinks about Dazai — just from time to time.
Even if he does, he’s probably just happy Dazai’s gone. After all, they hated each other.
Though the more in touch with his emotions Dazai becomes, the more he starts to wonder if he ever really hated Chuuya.
Every time that question finds its way into his thoughts, he distracts himself instantly. He’s always loved denial.
//
And just like that, the time passes.
One minute he’s buying baby food and changing diapers and the next, Osaki’s racing through parks, demanding stories, asking impossible questions.
He still doesn’t know if a frog loves the same way as a fish.
Dazai almost forgets who he used to be. He stops counting the days.
Until one morning, he checks the date — and realizes it’s time. Time to go back to Yokohama.