Chapter Text
The body is still in good condition. There are no blemishes on the pale face or along the bandaged arms, not a single sign of struggle. Stiffness has yet to settle in the limbs. Were it not for the drenched state of his clothes, one would have thought that the young man had simply been sleeping.
Being the one who fished him out of the river, Sakunosuke knows the truth—the man is dead, his pulse gone. He had been somewhere in his early twenties, with straggly black hair and a lanky frame. If he was lucky, there would be people to mourn him.
Filing away these observations, Sakunosuke kneels by the side of the corpse and reaches into the pocket of its sand-colored trench coat. He’d gotten a bit wet wading into the river, and the morning sun washing over his back does little to combat the chill of soaked sleeves and trousers. His fingers feel heavy as they brush against the smooth fabric of the coat.
It isn’t guilt that plagues him—a dead man has no use for a wallet, after all. Sakunosuke certainly needs it more than him, considering his savings, his safehouses, and his few possessions have all gone up in smoke, along with the ability user who got him into this mess.
He just can’t shake off the thought that it’s too clean to have been anything but a suicide.
Sakunosuke is no stranger to death, having caused his fair share of it. Yet, there’s something unnerving about the corpse of a suicide victim—about a person drowning in despair deep enough to take their own life.
(And maybe that speaks more to his own naive desire of finding something beyond the emptiness, despite how little value the act of living really holds.)
His search turns up empty. Bummer. He’d made his peace with having to sleep outside for another day, but he’d been hoping to at least get a meal for all his effort. As if protesting this outcome, his stomach lurches, and he fights back a wave of dizziness. Bracing an arm against the grassy bank, he curses himself for having been so careless.
This really had been his last resort, short of flat-out stealing.
Returning his attention to the corpse, he decides he might as well search the pants pockets too. But as he reaches for it, slender fingers clamp over his wrist.
Sakunosuke jolts back, almost falling over. His free hand instinctively flies towards his holsters, only for him to remember that he doesn’t have those or his guns anymore.
The corpse—no, the man—jerks up into a sitting position, coughs wracking his body as he tries to fill his lungs with oxygen.
“As timely as ever, Atsushi-kun,” he says once he’s caught his breath, sounding far too blasé for someone who nearly drowned not long ago. “This is starting to become our weekly routine, isn’t it?” Blinking the water out of his eyes, he turns to look in Sakunosuke’s direction and freezes.
Sakunosuke stares back, at a loss for words. The grip on his wrist burns, and it’s only his current bout of faintness that keeps him from shoving the man away.
“You’re not Atsushi-kun,” the man finally says, as if stating a simple observation.
“I’m not.”
It feels as if that’s all Sakunosuke can respond with. His eyes move past the measured expression on the stranger’s face to take in the bandages covering his neck and arms again. To think that his appearance would be the least eccentric part of him. “You were trying to commit suicide,” he observes.
“Yep.”
“Why?”
The hand around Sakunosuke’s wrist pulls back to make a peace sign in the air. “It’s my hobby!”
Sakunosuke doesn’t comment on that.
Unbothered by the lack of reaction, the man hops to his feet, wringing the ends of his trench coat. “Well, I was aiming for a bright and clean suicide that wouldn’t inconvenience anyone, but I seem to have caused you some trouble.” He grins, perfectly at ease despite the wind picking up and sending his coat billowing out behind him. “I’m Dazai. Dazai Osamu. What’s your name, kid?”
Normally, this would be the point where Sakunosuke retreats. In fact, he should have done so the moment the corpse turned out to be more than a corpse. Only the sheer absurdness of the situation had made him stay longer than intended.
Now, something else roots him to his spot. Maybe it’s the part of him, bogged down by hunger and fatigue and disorientation, that’s urging him to trade safety for a few scraps of compassion. Or it’s the fact that this man he thought was dead had suddenly sprung back to life. Or it’s the hint of darkness lurking beneath brown eyes that wouldn’t seem out of place on the other side of a mirror.
Regardless of the reason, the words leave his mouth before he can reconsider his decision.
“…Sakunosuke.”
He regrets it almost immediately. Not even an alias…what was he thinking? Even in a world like this, where his name no longer seems to cause a stir, giving away his personal details is far too reckless.
Oblivious to the slip-up, Dazai offers his hand. “Alright, Sakunosuke-kun! As an apology, how about I treat you to lunch? You look like you could use a meal.”
His better judgment says no. His stomach says yes. It’s clear which one is the louder of the two when he takes the hand with a stiff nod. If this turns out to be a trap, he’d better hope that Flawless can get him out of it. (Nevermind that his overreliance on Flawless is the reason he ended up like this in the first place…)
Dazai fishes a phone out of his pocket, shaking off some water before dialing a number.
As soon as the call connects, he says in a cheerful voice, “Hey Kunikida-kun, can you lend me some money? My wallet washed away in the river!”
An ear-shatteringly loud voice blasts through the receiver, bombarding him with reprimands. Dazai simply nods through the tirade and then responds with a demure “Please?”
Sakunosuke isn’t sure how Dazai manages to convince that Kunikida person, considering the rest of the call consists of incensed yelling and Dazai giving extremely weak bargaining offers, but somehow he does.
Snapping his phone shut, Dazai turns towards Sakunosuke with an easygoing smile. “Atsushi-kun will be over in five. We can get lunch then. But before that, let’s get out of these wet clothes. Mind accompanying me for a bit?”
Sakunosuke eyes him warily. “Where?”
“The mall, of course~”
“Ooh! Try this one too, Sakunosuke-kun!”
Dazai drops something on top of the growing pile of clothes in Sakunosuke’s arms—a collared shirt that looks nearly identical to the last three he picked out. Then he’s moving on to the next aisle, mumbling about how he should bring Atsushi-kun here sometime because his wardrobe needs a serious revamp.
Sakunosuke watches the man’s retreating figure for a few seconds before slowly following after him. Dazai had convinced him, somehow or other, that they needed a change of clothes in order to stand out less. This had sounded good in theory, but he seems to have lost sight of their initial goal, if the way he’s flitting around the store is any indication.
A shop employee hovers a few meters away, watching them nervously. One can only imagine how the two of them look to outsiders—a strange bandaged man and a teenage boy in disheveled clothing, dripping water all over the floor.
“Sakunosuke-kun, look at this!” Dazai’s excited voice calls out from the sleepwear section.
Making his way over, Sakunosuke catches sight of the fuzzy tiger onesie in Dazai’s hands and narrows his eyes. “What the fuck.”
“But it looks so comfortable!” Dazai insists.
“No.”
Dazai places the offending item back on the rack, sighing in dejection. “If it was Atsushi-kun, I could have tricked him into wearing it…”
Watching him pick through a pile of trousers, Sakunosuke wonders how he’d even gotten himself into this situation. “Dazai-san—” he starts, but a dramatic groan cuts him off.
“Please don’t use san with me. It makes me feel so old.”
Nonsensical reason aside, the request throws Sakunosuke for a loop. From what he’d seen, adults were very particular about hierarchy. His clients had always made it very clear how they felt about being disrespected by a mere child, often in the same breath they talked down to him. Yet Dazai was requesting no honorifics. It really is a mystery what goes on inside his head.
“Dazai,” he amends, receiving a nod in response. “Was that person from earlier your subordinate?”
The one he’s referring to, of course, is the boy with the uneven bangs who had come by to pass something on to Dazai, along with a request to please take it easy on Kunikida-san. He must have been a few years older than Sakunosuke, but his nervous mannerisms lent him an air of naivete.
Atsushi-kun, Dazai had called him, affectionately ruffling the boy’s hair when they met up. The same Atsushi that Dazai had been expecting on the riverbank, the one he seems to hold a fondness for.
Sakunosuke is reminded of another pair—a silver-haired bodyguard and his young ward—that he had encountered not so long ago on a job. Just like back then, an inexplicable sense of envy had crept up on him when he witnessed the bond between the two. How must it feel to have someone who cared for you like that? For once, he had wanted to indulge his childish desire to know.
Dazai folds a pair of brown trousers, a tiny smile tugging at his lips. “Atsushi-kun, huh? I guess you could say I’m his mentor. I found him by that same river we were at, actually. Helped him get a job at my workplace and a place to stay. Er, well, he found me, but that’s not important.”
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why did you do all of that for him?”
A destitute and homeless child has nothing to offer in return. Even if there were people capable of genuine goodness—like that bodyguard—benevolence had its limits. Most people would be inconvenienced if they went that far for someone they didn’t know.
Dazai gives him a thoughtful look, hand hovering in the space between them. At the last second, he lets it fall onto the pile of clothes in Sakunosuke’s arms, patting it several times.
“Because I made an important promise to someone, that I would save the weak and protect the orphaned,” he answers simply. His mouth pulls into a cheeky grin as he promptly spins Sakunosuke around by the shoulders and propels him towards the fitting rooms. “That includes this poor shivering lad here, who’s sure to catch a cold if he doesn’t change into dry clothes soon!”
“Wha—”
Sakunosuke is pushed into an empty stall before he can protest, the door shutting behind him with a click.
He ends up being forced to try on every single article of clothing Dazai picked out—even the stuffy formal wear, tie and all. To find the best match, Dazai had insisted. Whatever that means.
With a sigh, Sakunosuke adjusts the clasps on his suspenders while checking them in the mirror. They look like thinner versions of his holsters, reminding him once again of the absence of his guns. He fights back the restless twitch in his fingers.
Maybe Dazai is actually a creep. Or maybe he just has a massive case of savior complex. It doesn’t matter to Sakunosuke. He’ll put up with this farce for a little bit longer, get his free food, and then go on his way.
“He throws himself into rivers and picks up strays…what a weirdo…”
A thick, glistening sauce poured over tender-cooked vegetables and fluffy, steaming white rice. Neatly breaded pork cutlets, fried to a perfect crispy brown, drizzled with rich tonkatsu sauce. All of this garnished with fukujinzuke on the side, a red sweetness to temper the spicy heat of the meal. The fragrant scent of onions suffuses the air.
If Sakunosuke were to describe the physical manifestation of a warm embrace (not that he’s ever received one), it would be the plate of curry that sits before him now. He stares at it intently, the hand holding his spoon trembling slightly. His mouth feels so incredibly dry. It’s been three days since he last ate anything. Yet he continues to stare without doing anything.
In his hunger-induced state, he’d forgotten one crucial fact—poisons are generally too slow-acting for Flawless to detect. Owing to that blind spot in his ability, he doesn’t make it a habit to eat things from unknown sources. (Especially, when those sources come with shady men in trench coats attached.) And yet, he’s desperate enough right now to break his unspoken rule.
“Afraid of a little spice?” Dazai asks, amused by his hesitation. “It won’t do for kids to be so meek.” Reaching over, he steals a spoonful of curry off Sakunosuke’s plate and stuffs it into his mouth.
Not even a second elapses before his eyes widen and he starts choking violently. While he’s busy trying to wash down the tear-inducing burn with a glass of water, Sakunosuke calmly digs into his meal. There are few things worth dying for, but curry has to be one of them.
Fortunately, he doesn’t end up keeling over halfway through eating. Or even having a vision of it. The rest of the meal is uneventful, barring Dazai’s attempt to flirt with a waitress, which results in him receiving a tray to the face.
At some point, Dazai tries to strike up a conversation, and Sakunosuke, feeling more receptive to social interaction now that he’s eaten, decides to humor him.
“You’re a detective?”
Sakunosuke must have sounded dubious, because Dazai frowns petulantly. “You don’t believe me?”
Frankly, from what he’s seen so far, he would have a hard time believing the man could even hold down a job.
Dazai draws a lazy loop in the air with his spoon. “I may not be as smart as our agency’s number one, but I’d like to think I’m pretty good. For example…” His eyes fall to Sakunosuke’s spoon-bearing hand. “Though you favor your right hand, you’re actually ambidextrous.”
“Anyone could see that if they paid close enough attention.”
“Alright, alright.” Dazai taps a finger against his chin. “You used to live around here, but you’ve been away for the last couple of years, haven’t you?”
Sakunosuke almost lets his surprise show. The conclusion might be wrong, but it’s not far from the truth—he hasn’t seen the Yokohama of recent years, because he isn’t from this time.
“What makes you say that?” he asks, keeping his tone carefully neutral.
“You know the general location of things. When I told you we were eating in Minato Mirai, you didn’t ask where that was. At the same time, you didn’t seem to recognize the name of the Armed Detective Agency, which had been established in recent years. You also referred to one of the shops along this block by an outdated name. In other words, the Yokohama you’re familiar with is one of the past.”
The unintentional reference to the past makes his pulse pick up, and he recalls the moment everything went to hell—the careening vehicle, the wide-eyed fear of the young girl he’d pushed out of the way, a bright flash of light, and then the uncanny sense that things weren’t quite the same anymore.
Dazai is sharper than he lets on. If it’s him, he might actually know a way for Sakunosuke to get back…
But that’s only if he can be trusted.
“Fine, you’re a detective,” Sakunosuke concedes. “So why were you trying to commit suicide so early in the day? Don’t you have any cases to solve?”
“I’m glad you asked!” Dazai leans over conspiratorially. “I was actually in the middle of a high-profile case when you found me.”
Knowing what little he does about this person, it’s probably something mundane and trivial.
“Were you looking for a cat or something?”
“Er, yeah. Actually, I was…”
“Seriously?”
“It’s not just any cat though!” Dazai hastily tacks on. “It’s the prized cat of Taneda Santouka, director of the Special Operations Division! A veritable celebrity, if you will!”
Sakunosuke is unimpressed. “So some bigshot loses his cat and hires an entire armed task force to find it? Must be nice to be rich and in power.”
“Hey now, don’t say that about Director Taneda. He really treasures that cat. And he’s done a lot for this city.”
“Having money probably helped with that.”
“Oh, I’m sure it did,” Dazai chuckles, pushing around some of his leftover rice with his spoon. “Well, I’ve talked enough about myself. What about you? Things must not be going too well if you had to resort to pickpocketing someone.”
So he had noticed that after all. Dropping his gaze, Sakunosuke tugs at the sleeve of his new shirt—a dark gray button up similar to his old one. He’s never been all that good at acting, but runaway kid with a troubled past doesn’t seem too hard to pull off.
“Nevermind. You’ve probably got your circumstances,” Dazai says, sensing his unwillingness to talk. His voice is sympathetic, and Sakunosuke wonders if he’s bought into the act. “Then, how about this? Since you’re free, would you mind helping me out for a bit with my search?”
Not for the first time that day, Sakunosuke gives Dazai a blank look. “You want me to help you look for a cat? Why don’t you ask your coworkers?”
Dazai shakes his head. “Unfortunately, most of them are currently preoccupied with another case. I’m actually the only one assigned to this one. The director’s cat has a tendency to wander, and it’s a lot of ground to cover for one person. I thought it’d be nice to have an assistant.”
There’s a lot to be said about the irony of an assassin playing assistant to a detective, but Sakunosuke doesn’t refuse right away. Regardless of intent, it’s a fact that Dazai has done a lot for him by paying for his food and clothes (well, his colleague had, at least). He might even have saved his life. And when it comes to debts, Sakunosuke prefers to pay them off sooner rather than later.
“Alright. I’ll help you,” he says, earning a winning smile from Dazai.
“Thanks, Sakunosuke-kun! To show my gratitude, I’ll buy you thirty plates of curry!”
“There’s no way I can eat all of that.”
Dazai then goes on to recount the time Atsushi ate thirty bowls of chazuke—or, in his words, inhaled them like a vacuum cleaner—and Sakunosuke only half-listens, making adjustments to his plans. He’ll have to put off searching for that ability user for a day or two, but he’s in no hurry to leave anyway.
After all, it’s not like there’s anyone waiting for him to return.
