Chapter I: So it starts
Chapter II: A late arrival
Chapter III: belive of be doomed
Chapter IV: What are we doing?
Chapter V: Last minute encounter
Chapter VI: Deciding to fall in love with you
Weird things I write:
Bakugou and Y/N getting together
One shots:
Shattered Boundaries- (Midoriya x Reader - Hurt)
Let's talk about the Caffeine addiction - (Kirishima x reader - Comfort)
Later - (Bakugo x Reader - Hurt)
Hello Again - (Hanta Sero x Reader)
Bittersweet Hello - (Midoriya x reader - hurt/comfort)
Requests:
No feelings of Loss (Dabi - hurt/comfort fluff)
Ashes (Dabi - Angst/Fluff)
Shinso, Hawks and Dabi with an oblivious reader (Fluff)
A Cozy Afternoon for a busy hero (Hawks - Fluff)
Hidden Sparks (power loader, fluff) (The Spicy stuff)
Haikyuu
Multipart
That's Really not what I meant (part 1) (part 2) (part 3) - Kuroo Tetsurō
Getting Back Together with your ex? (part 1) (part 2) - Suna
You left me stranded and I wanna fall in love again (part 1) - Atsumu
Friday nights and Volleyball (Part 1) - Iwazumi
One shots
A world of failed sets (Kageyama - hurt)
Healing together (Iwazumi -comfort).
Can you stop? (Sugawara - hurt/comfort)
Week 1 - (Oikawa Tooru - comfort)
A world of failed Sets (Kageyama Tobio - Angst)
I just wanted to help… (Osamu Miya x reader)
Kiss-Proof and Bokuto Approved - (Bokuto x influencer reader
Left Behind - (Hinata x reader)
Confession series:
Honestly, I didn't even think about that (Kuroo)
On a collision course (Tsukishima)
It's never too late for this (Tendo)
I celebrate by being honest with myself (Kageyama)
A long time coming (Bokuto)
All on up stream (Kenma)
Years after leaving the Port Mafia, Y/N meets Dazai at a familiar bar. Old tensions, unspoken feelings, and a looming threat from Dostoevsky force them to confront the past—and Dazai makes an offer she can’t refuse
She exhales slowly, shoulders sinking as the memory loosens its grip on her mind.
Fyodor Dostoevsky was definitely not the person she loved. There wasn't a quality about him that actually captures her interest; everything felt like... too much like Dazai, but not...quite.... right.
But she had to admit something to herself now, sitting there at her desk with the Agency office silent around her. This was going to be very complicated.
Not because of Fyodor.
Because of Osamu.
Her fingers press against the edge of the desk as she steadies herself. The aftershock of the ability lingers like electricity in her nerves, the familiar warning that she has used it too soon again. Her head throbs faintly, pressure blooming behind her eyes like a storm gathering offshore.
She closes them for a second. Squeezes them tight.
Just one second
The office smells like old paper and cheap coffee, and oddly enough she could catch Osamu's cologne still in the air. Ranpo’s candy wrappers rustle faintly where he left them behind, probably as he left in a daze. Kunikida’s chair is pushed perfectly under his desk. Dazai’s, predictably, is crooked and half turned toward the window like he had stood up mid-thought.
Her gaze drifts to it without meaning to.
“…This is going to be a nightmare,” she mutters.
Not the investigation.
That part she understands.
Threads, motives, timelines. Information behaves predictably if you know where to pull. Fyodor had always appreciated that about her, or so he said. The ability to see patterns before anyone else even realized there was a pattern to see.
But people…
People are chaos.
And the Agency is full of them.
Kunikida with his ideals. Atsushi with his anxious loyalty. Ranpo who probably already knows more than he’s letting on and is simply waiting for the moment it becomes entertaining.
And Dazai.
Always Dazai.
Her chest tightens slightly at the thought. She had to admit, the current state of their... whatever it was now, caused her distress. What was she to do, though? It's not like she didn't deserve it... or worse....
She leans forward, reaching for her laptop, forcing herself back into the present. The screen flickers awake under her touch, the mess of windows and notes glaring up at her like accusations.
Across the room, the office clock ticks quietly. Each second feels louder than it should.
She exhales through her nose.
“Alright,” she murmurs to herself. “Let’s keep going.”
Her fingers move again.
• Y/N identified as potential destabilization point
• Fyodor approaches three months later
Her mind drifts briefly back to that café.
The first time she saw him.
He had looked harmless then. Polite. Almost shy. Pale fingers wrapped around a cup of tea like he belonged in a library instead of the center of a war between ability users.
She almost laughs now thinking about it.
Of course he had known who she was before he ever walked through the door.
Of course the meeting had never been coincidence.
“You manipulative bastard,” she mutters softly.
Not angry.
Just… impressed. Slightly.
That thought alone makes her stomach twist.
A quiet sound behind her makes her freeze.
Footsteps.
She turns sharply.
Ranpo stands in the doorway.
He’s eating a lollipop now, one foot hooked lazily over the other as he leans against the frame. His green eyes watch her with open curiosity.
“How long have you been there?” she asks carefully.
“Long enough,” he replies around the candy stick.
He pushes himself upright and strolls inside like he owns the place. Which, in many ways, he does.
His eyes flick briefly to her screen.
Then to her.
Then back again.
“You’re thinking too small,” he says.
Her brows knit. “Excuse me?”
Ranpo shrugs, wandering toward the couch. “You’re still trying to figure out why Fyodor picked you.”
“Yes,” she says slowly. “Because that’s the logical—”
“That’s boring,” Ranpo interrupts.
He flops down onto the couch, stretching out like a cat claiming a sunbeam.
“You already know the answer,” he says.
Her stomach drops slightly.
“…Do I?”
He points his lollipop at her without looking.
“He didn’t pick you because you were in any way special”
She goes very still.
“He picked you,” Ranpo continues lazily, “because you were the only person in the entire city, arguably anywhere, who could break Dazai if he wanted to.”
The words land like a dropped knife.
Cold.
Precise.
She swallows as her fingers curl slowly against the keyboard.
Ranpo’s gaze sharpens.
“You’re missing the real question,” he says.
“And what’s that?” she asks.
He grins.
“What Fyodor actually learned from you.”
The office feels colder suddenly.
She'd never really told him anything explicit about Dazai, she always kept those details toher heart, the memories of Osamu had been her safe space... but people like Fyodor read between the lines.
He learned she loved Osamu Dazai.
And love, in a world like theirs, is the most dangerous leverage of all.
Y/n doesn’t answer right away.
Her fingers remain curled against the keyboard, knuckles pale, the cursor on the screen flashing patiently as if waiting for her to admit something she’s been avoiding for years.
Ranpo crunches the lollipop between his teeth.
The sound is obnoxiously loud in the quiet office. Every bite he took felt like it was grinding her patience down.
“Well?” he asks.
She exhales slowly through her nose. “You’re assuming Fyodor understood something about me, I didn’t.”
Ranpo tilts his head.
“Didn’t he?”
Her jaw tightens.
“I knew what I was doing, I was very aware of what was going on" she says.
“That’s not what I asked.”
He sits up slightly, elbows resting on his knees now. The lazy posture is gone. Ranpo when he’s bored is one thing. Ranpo when he’s interested is something else entirely.
“You knew you loved Dazai,” he continues casually. “But you didn’t realise how useful that made you, especially against him”
Her gaze flicks back to the screen.
“I wasn’t trying to be useful.”
“Exactly. You know better than anyone the sort of man Dazai is, and you better than anyone know that his one weak spot is the one place, very few people reach"
That word lands harder than it should. His heart.
Osamu rarely, if ever, allowed people to get too close to it. He cared deeply, yet felt detached from everything and everyone. He's always been devastatingly aware of his own shortcomings and overly conscious of his bad luck.
Osamu closed down his heart before he realised what it was to have one... and he'd only ever told her the words 'I love you'. She'd never really seen him be truly open and honest with anyone else....
Ranpo shrugs, popping the stick out of his mouth and waving it lightly.
“You weren’t playing the game,” he says. “Which made you the most interesting piece on the board.”
Her shoulders sag.
For a moment neither of them speaks.
Outside, a car passes on the street below. Somewhere in the building pipes knock faintly. The ordinary sounds of the world continue without noticing the quiet disaster unfolding in her head.
Ranpo finally leans back again.
“You know,” he says thoughtfully, “you’re also missing something else.”
She doesn’t look up this time.
“I’m not sure I want to hear it.”
“Too bad.” He gestures lazily toward the hallway. “Dazai already figured it out.”
Her fingers stop moving.
“…Figured what out?”
Ranpo’s grin is wicked.
“What Fyodor learned from you. Why Fyodor stopped using you.”
The words hit like a slap.
She turns fully in her chair now.
“He didn’t stop using me,” she says. “I left.”
Ranpo raises an eyebrow.
“You left physically,” he corrects.
Her stomach twists.
“That doesn’t mean he stopped.”
The office suddenly feels too small.
“What are you implying,” she asks quietly.
Ranpo spins the empty lollipop stick between his fingers.
“I’m implying,” he says, “that Fyodor is many things.”
“Manipulative.”
“Patient.”
“Theatrical.”
“But stupid?” Ranpo shakes his head. “Not even close.”
She stares at him.
“So if he spent a year keeping you close,” Ranpo continues, “learning how you think, watching how you react, memorising your habits, studying the way you orbit Dazai like a very dangerous little moon…”
Her throat tightens.
“…why would he ever let that investment go to waste?”
The answer forms instantly in the back of her mind.
She doesn’t want to say it out loud.
Ranpo does it for her.
“Because you’re still useful. So... why did he let you?”
The words hang there.
Cold.
Quiet.
Her pulse starts to hammer in her ears.
“That’s not possible,” she says automatically. “I haven’t spoken to him in years.”
Ranpo shrugs.
“You don’t need to.”
A slow chill creeps down her spine.
“Think about it,” he says. “You show up at the Agency again. Right when everything is starting to move. Right when Dazai’s back in the game.”
Her nails dig slightly into the desk.
“You’re suggesting he predicted—”
“No,” Ranpo interrupts.
His eyes gleam.
“I’m suggesting he counted on it.”
The room goes silent again.
Y/n leans back slowly in her chair, the weight of that possibility settling over her shoulders like wet concrete.
Fyodor had always played long games.
Longer than anyone else she’d ever met.
Except maybe—
The door creaks.
Both of them glance up.
Dazai stands in the doorway.
He looks like he’s been there long enough to hear everything.
His expression is unreadable.
Ranpo waves cheerfully. “Perfect timing.”
Dazai doesn’t respond.
His eyes remain fixed on Y/n.
“You’re supposed to be resting,” he says.
His voice is calm.
Too calm.
She leans back in her chair slightly. “I did.”
“You passed out for two hours.”
“That counts....”
Ranpo snorts.
Dazai ignores him.
His gaze drops briefly to her screen. The document. The notes. The timeline.
Then back to her face.
Dazai studies her for a long moment.
Then he walks into the room.
Slowly.
Dazai stops beside her desk.
“You’re looking in the wrong direction,” he says.
She frowns. “You too?”
“If you're going about it all wrong, I think it's fair people tell you that”
Her patience snaps slightly. “Then enlighten me.”
He leans down, resting one hand on the desk beside her keyboard.
His voice drops.
“The interesting question,” he says softly, “is why he let you leave alive.”
Her stomach drops straight through the floor “Yes... Rampo just told me that"
Dazai straightens again.
And for the first time since she walked into the office that morning, his mask slips just enough for her to see what’s underneath.
Worry.
Real, sharp worry.
“He doesn’t waste pieces,” Dazai says quietly.
The implication settles between them like a ticking clock.
Somewhere.
Somehow.
Fyodor Dostoevsky is still playing a move that involves her.
The silence that follows feels heavier than anything said before it.
Y/n stares at Dazai.
Not blinking. Not breathing properly either. The words echo in her head like a cracked bell.
He doesn’t waste pieces.
Her stomach twists.
“I’m not a piece,” she says quietly.
Ranpo hums from the couch. “Debatable.”
She shoots him a look sharp enough to cut glass. He grins back, unbothered.
Dazai doesn’t laugh.
He’s still watching her the way he does when he’s assembling something in his head. Not a puzzle exactly. More like a map of traps.
“You were,” he corrects calmly. “At the time, and I'd argue you still are”
Her jaw tightens. “Comforting.”
“You misunderstand,” he says.
He reaches over her shoulder and taps the screen of her laptop once. The timeline she wrote glows accusingly between them.
“You’re treating this like a sequence of events,” he continues. “Information gathered. Opportunity found. Plan executed.”
“Isn’t it?” she asks.
Dazai tilts his head.
“That’s how normal people plan things. Fyodor doesn’t plan like a normal person,” Dazai says.
He straightens, slipping his hands into his coat pockets.
“He plants inevitabilities. Cause and effect”
The phrase makes the air in the room feel colder.
Y/n leans back slightly in her chair.
“…Explain.”
Ranpo sighs dramatically. Dazai ignores him and answers.
“When Fyodor learned about Atsushi joining the Agency,” he begins, “he didn’t just gather information.”
“He finds that in this agency, there is a safety net and protection for his target. He learns all our strengths and weaknesses. He finds a member who is particularly hard to obstruct, so he gets creative..."
“He started positioning things.”
“Files on the Agency.”
“Identifying connections.”
Y/n nods slowly. “Yes. I saw that.”
“In that process, he learns about you.”
Her chest tightens.
Ranpo twirls the lollipop stick again.
“That was the jackpot moment,” he says.
Dazai nods slightly.
“You were close to me,” he says. “Close enough to influence me,”
“You y/n, even outside his plan, are a particularly interesting person; you're an information broker with access to multiple organisations and streams of very inaccessible information, and you have an ability that could avoid mistakes and even create alternatives”
Her fingers curl slightly at that.
“You were the perfect variable,” Dazai finishes.
A quiet breath escapes her.
“Except,” she says slowly, “I left.”
“Yes.”
“And that ruined the plan.”
Dazai looks at her.
There’s a faint shadow of amusement in his eyes.
“You still think you leaving changed the plan.”
The words hit harder than anything before them.
Her pulse spikes.
“Are you saying it didn’t?”
Ranpo answers before Dazai can.
“He's saying,” he says cheerfully, “you leaving probably was the plan.”
The room tilts.
“That’s ridiculous,” she says automatically.
“Is it?”
Dazai leans against the desk now, folding his arms.
“You leaving accomplished several things for him,” he says.
“First, it kept you from discovering the deeper parts of the operation or any evolving part that could grow too big to hide.”
“Second, it removed you from suspicion. You not being on the list of members of any of those organization leaves no impediment for me reaching out to you in a time of need... which directly causes...”
“the third benefit…”
He pauses.
Her heart pounds louder.
“…it made sure you would eventually come back. to me”
She stares at him.
“I had no intention of coming to the agency, I actively avoided it.”
Dazai’s eyebrow lifts slightly.
“You’re here, aren't you?”
Her mouth opens.
Closes again.
Ranpo grins.
“Checkmate.”
She drags a hand down her face.
“This is insane.”
“Probably,” Ranpo agrees.
Dazai doesn’t smile.
“Think about it,” he says quietly. “What did you do after you left?”
She frowns.
“I lived my life.”
“No.”
He shakes his head slightly.
“You did your job, information broker.”
Her chest tightens.
Because he’s right.
She watched the underworld. The Agency. The Port Mafia. The Guild. The Government... everything, like she always did.
She followed movements. Gathered rumors.
She told herself it was habit.
Ranpo nods enthusiastically.
“Which means Fyodor never needed to contact you again.”
“Why would he?” he adds. “You’re doing exactly what he expected.”
Her stomach drops.
“I’m helping you stop him.”
“Yes,” Dazai says.
“And that’s exactly why you’re dangerous to him.”
Her head snaps up.
“What?”
Dazai’s gaze sharpens.
“Fyodor didn’t miscalculate one thing,” he says quietly.
The word hangs in the air.
Ranpo tilts his head.
“He assumed you would always act in ways that protected Dazai. You're also eternally attached to time, you could see some things in the timeline that he doesn't want you to see, get ahead of the plan maybe... sport the weakness he works so hard to hide”
Y/n’s throat tightens.
Dazai’s voice is very calm.
“Now you’re actively working against him. Which is part of the plan, but it also makes you a bit of a liability”
A slow chill crawls up her spine.
Ranpo pops another candy into his mouth.
“So if I were a dramatic Russian mastermind with a god complex,” he says thoughtfully, “this would be the point where I’d try to remove the unpredictable variable.”
Y/n stares at him.
“…You mean kill me.”
Ranpo shrugs.
“Probably.”
The office goes very quiet.
Dazai watches her carefully.
Not teasing now.
Not distant.
“Which,” he says softly, “means you’re in more danger right now than you were when you lived with him.”
Her breath leaves her slowly.
“That’s comforting.”
“You asked for honesty.”
She lets out a weak laugh.
“Next time lie.”
Y/n rubs her temples, trying to push the growing headache back down.
“This keeps getting worse.”
“Yes,” Dazai says simply.
She looks up at him again.
“…Then why do I feel like there’s still something you’re not telling me?”
For a moment, neither man speaks.
Ranpo glances at Dazai with obvious amusement.
Y/n’s stomach sinks.
“Osamu.”
Dazai sighs.
Then he says the one thing she absolutely did not expect.
“Because if Fyodor was studying you for a year,” he says quietly, “then he knows exactly how to hurt me to distract me”
Her chest tightens.
“And the easiest way to do that,” Dazai continues, “would be to put you in a position where saving you becomes a mistake.”
Hello! I know you said you changed a few things about the Dazai story, would you be following what happens in the manga or kind of stray from it? Feel free to not answer this, I’m a bit too curious for my own good hehe..
Also, congratulations for the invite on the conference!! I don’t know what work is needed, but you got this!! Hope you’re having a good day :)
Hello there!
Feel as curious as you want! Thank you for being interested in my story 💕
As for what it'd be following? I like to use the source material to guide me on what would or wouldn't make sense, so I suppose I would be BASING it on the canon but the story itself wont really have a lot of it.
And thank you! I know i promised I'd post soon but my thesis has been a tad bit more time consuming than expected especially in combination with my upcoming presentation. So I do apologize.
Have a good day! And I hope this answer was satisfactory 🤍
If anyone cares, I was recently invited to a conference on fandom studies anddddd I am right on schedule (which is behind for my standards) and might keep all my writting on pause for a couple of weeks to catch up.
I am also supposed to submit a suggested bibliography to my advisor tomorrow, on top of having to discuss it with him and I decided to make some last-minute changes... which means I am very behind.
On that note, I have two edited chapters on the Dazai story (just finishing some editing, that I sould post somewhere in the next week)
Sorry to anyone who's waiting!
I wanted to take a minute to expain why I haven't updated.
For fun, and as an apology I'd like to share the title of a research paper I found this morning, I thought it was funny:
Bothe, G. (2014). ‘If fandom jumped off a bridge, it would be onto a ship’ An examination of conflict that occurs through shipping in fandom.
hello, i wanted to say that i love your dazai series! i can’t wait to see where it leads. i was wondering if you had a plan on how long it is? like an estimate of how many chapters total? ahhh i love the story a lot😭
i’m a new college student and i find myself struggling a bit, do you have any advice on how to juggle school and writing and stuff?
if you don’t want to answer any of this i completely understand, thank you and have a good day :)!
Hello!
Thank you so much for enjoying my series! As for plans? I was PLANNING on four more chapters, but considering I’ve recently decided on changing some things it could be longer than that... I'm not super sure on that yet (at least, I can promise four more).
As for juggling writting and studies, I got the hang of it in around the start of the 3rd year of my bachelor's (a couple moons ago 😭😭😭) after some trial and error. Mostly, it's being aware of your schedule and having a hang of your priorities. If you work on your school assignments ahead of time (do them even when they're weeks away), you'll find you have a lot more time.
I don't want to sound ridiculous, but I don't have much social media (other than Tumblr, A03, and Youtube), as I found it just EATS away at my time and the things I want to do. I think that instead of scrolling Instagram or TikTok mindlessly for 3 hours (and not remembering a SINGLE thing I saw) I can work on editing my chapters instead and maybe get ahead of that essay I've had half done for the passed 2 days, hell maybe I'll turn it in early.
(Boyfriend, Girlfriend, friends, parents, siblings, family and EVERYONE will keep you updated on everything you need to know. From pop culture to the news... i can assure you)
If you enjoy watching shows, or take the bus or the train to school, theyre good places to get ahead of work or personal writting too.
I'm sorry if this sounds pretentious in any way, it's the best I can offer:
1. Decide what your priorities are
2. Manage your time accordingly
2. See if there's any places in your schedule where you can sneak in extra time.
Never forget to still make time for yourself, and social time, call home if you have to too (they'll definetely be missing you).
Thank you for reaching out, and I hope this helps. I enjoy talking to people so much, so don't hesitate to reach out!
Years after leaving the Port Mafia, Y/N meets Dazai at a familiar bar. Old tensions, unspoken feelings, and a looming threat from Dostoevsky force them to confront the past—and Dazai makes an offer she can’t refuse
Y/n stands across the street from the Armed Detective Agency building, hands buried deep in her coat pockets, staring up at the unassuming facade like it might lunge at her if she gets too close. The windows catch the pale daylight, reflecting back a version of herself she doesn’t quite recognize. Tired. Hollowed out. Braced.
She is late. So, very, late.
Not by much. Ten minutes, maybe fifteen. Too late for her. Enough to matter to her, and definitely enough for the agency to notice. Normaly, she'd be an hour early…
Her fingers twitch at her side.
She could look.
Just a glimpse. One future. One outcome. See whether she walks out of this building alive.
The thought makes her stomach churn.
No.
She squeezes her eyes shut, forcing the ability down, shoving it back into the locked room in her mind where it waits, patient and cruel; even though it never really worked. Lately, every time she uses it, the pain doesn’t fade when she comes back. It lingers. Crawls under her skin. Whispers that one day she won’t make it back at all.
And part of her thinks that might be a relief.
She exhales shakily and steps forward. Crosses the street, and opens the door.
The door opens easily. Too easily.
The office is quiet.
Too quiet.
Not the usual chaos. No Kunikida shouting. No Dazai dangling from furniture. No Ranpo demanding snacks, or asking for a murder case as he usually is…
Every single member of the Agency is there.
Waiting.
Kunikida stands rigid near the windows, arms crossed, jaw tight. Ranpo lounges on the couch but his candy is untouched, eyes sharp beneath his bangs. Atsushi sits perched on the edge of a chair, hands folded anxiously in his lap. Tanizaki and Naomi stand close together near a desk, whispering cut short the moment she steps inside.
And Dazai.
He leans against the far wall, arms crossed, face carefully neutral. Not angry. Worse. Controlled. Deceptively relaxed… but if she knew Osamu Dazai at all, he was still irate.
The door clicks shut behind her.
Every eye in the room turns to her at once, quickly.
No one speaks.
Dazai says lightly, “You’re late.”
She swallows. “Sorry.”
Fukuzawa steps forward at last, calm as ever, gaze steady and weighing. "Everyone to the conference room,” he says. Once inside, he pointed to a chair oposite to him and adressed her "sit"
She does.
The chair feels too small. The room feels too bright. Her pulse thunders in her ears.
“Dazai informed us last night,” Fukuzawa continues, “of your history with Fyodor Dostoevsky.”
Her stomach twists.
“And of your involvement with the Rats,” he adds.
Kunikida finally snaps. “Involvement?” He steps forward, unable to contain himself. “You were a member?”
She nods once. “Yes.”
“And you didn’t think that was relevant information to share?” Kunikida demands.
“I did,” she replies evenly. “I also knew that if I told you too early, you would never let me near the investigation.”
“That’s not your decision to make! They're an enemy organization, of course we wouldn't trust you”
“So is the port mafia, and you gladly took me in when you found out I was an executive”
Kunikida gets up, slamming his hands on the table "The port mafia hasn't been trying to kill ability users!"
Dazai shifts.
The sound is small, but she feels it like a blade.
Fukuzawa raises a hand, silencing Kunikida with a look. “Explain,” he says to her. “Everything. From the beginning.”
Her fingers curl together in her lap.
And before she can stop herself, before she can anchor herself in the present, memory folds inward and takes her with it. To a past before Dostoevsky.
---
The room is dark, curtains half drawn. Yokohama breathes softly beyond the glass.
She is warm.
So warm…
…Too warm.
Bare skin against bare skin, tangled sheets, the slow rhythm of another person’s breathing pressed against her back. Dazai’s arm is draped loosely around her waist, hand resting just above her hip like it belongs there.
Because it does.
She's awake.
She has been awake for a while.
She doesn’t move. Doesn’t dare. She listens to the quiet, to the city, to him.
Dazai sleeps facing her, forehead pressed lightly against her shoulder. She can feel the soft brush of his lips on her skin. One leg hooked over hers, possessive even in rest.
She slowly, carely, ever so delicately moves enough to face him. Until she can clearly see his face.
A few strands of hair have fallen into his eyes, softening his face in a way no one else ever sees. Sunlight spills in through the thin curtains, painting his face in soft gold. He looks younger like this. Softer. His lashes cast faint shadows against his cheeks, lips parted slightly as he breathes. She guessed that if she were to ever tell Mori, or Chuuya or Akutagawa that Osamu ever looked like this, they'd call her a liar.
Her fingers move on their own, brushing a stray lock of hair away from his face. Then another. She tucks it behind his ear, her touch reverent, aching.
She memorizes him.
The faint scar near his collarbone. The way his brow creases even in sleep. The warmth of him, solid and alive, grounded her in a world that had never felt safe.
He doesn’t stir.
Her chest tightens.
This is dangerous, she thinks. This is how people stay.
She can't stay. She's tired of the never ending death, the suffering, the pain… this is all she's ever known and she wants to know more. More things. More happiness, not the blood and guts and gore she's grown decensitized to.
She traces the line of his jaw with her finger, with barely a touch. The curve of his mouth. The faint crease between his brows that never truly leaves him.
If she stays, she knows exactly what will happen.
They will become something. inevitably. He will pretend it means nothing. She will pretend she isn’t waiting. They will orbit each other until it hurts.
And then one of them will die. Or become a leverage for the other… or a weakness…
She swallows hard.
She studies his sleeping face. Etching it into her memory, her soul. She had no idea of ever guessing when she'd see him again if ever.
“I love you,” she whispers, knowing he won’t hear it.
She leans down and presses a soft, watery kiss to his lips.
Slow, tender, gentle….
A goodbye.
Her eyes burn as she pulls away, sliding out from beneath his arm. She reaches for her clothes, fingers shaking as she dresses quietly, painfully aware of every second ticking by.
She sniffles despite herself.
“I told you,” Dazai murmurs behind her.
She freezes.
He is still lying there, eyes closed, voice thick with sleep and something sharper beneath.
“I told you not to cry when you leave,” he says.
Her breath catches. “You’re awake.”
“Of course I am.”
She turns slowly.
He hasn’t moved. Still facing her side of the bed, eyes closed, arm curled where she had been.
“You were planning to leave tonight,” he continues softly. “You’ve been planning it for weeks.”
Of course he'd know. He was Osamu Dazai. Her 'Samu… ever perceptive… th one she was letting go.
She presses a hand to her mouth. “Osamu…”
“If you need to go,” he says, voice even, “then go.”
She steps closer to the bed, knees weak. “You’re not going to stop me?”
“No,” he replies. “Because if I do, you’ll resent me. You know I'm not a man to let things go easy, so don't take it for granted”
A pause.
“But stay off Mori’s radar,” he adds. “And mine.”
Her heart cracks.
“Because next time,” he says quietly, “I won’t let you go.”
She chokes back a sob. “I’m sorry.”
He doesn’t answer.
When she reaches the door, she looks back one last time.
He has turned away from her, back to the room, shoulders tight.
She leaves anyway.
---
“Y/n.”
Fukuzawa’s voice pulls her back.
She blinks, breath uneven, realizing she has been staring at the floor for too long. Time always just had a way of pulling her away from things.
“I didn’t know what Fyodor,” she starts, then stops, jaw tightening. “…Dosteovsky was planning.”
Dazai’s fingers twitch in his pockets.
“I sold information,” she continues. “That’s what I did. That’s what I’ve always done. I didn’t assign meaning to it. I didn’t ask what it would be used for.”
Ranpo scoffs. “That’s convenient.”
“Well, It’s the truth,” she replies. "I've been selling information my entire concious life, since before I understood what it meant. It’s what I do. What I’m good at. At this point in my life, it's who I am"
She flicks Ranpo a glance. “When Fyod—” She stops, frustrated, and exhales. “When Dostoevsky approached me, it didn’t feel different. He wanted information. I had it. I sold it”
Atsushi stiffens. “You told him about me?”
“Yes,” she says, meeting his eyes. “I'm sorry, Atsushi… I would've given him whatever information he asked for if he had it”
She stops, then thinks about what she'd just told Atsushi "Well… almost…". Her throat tightens. “He asked about you,” she says quietly, eyes flicking to Dazai. “Said you were the greatest threat to his… vision.”
Dazai’s smile flickers, sharp and humorless.
“I gave him surface-level information,” she continues. “Things he could’ve found himself, or anyone, for that matter. Age, criminal record, and well-known tendencies and habits. Nothing that would have actually caused you any real trouble… then I left.”
“I did,” she says. “Because he asked about Dazai. I-… it felt like my own personal red button.”
Silence drops like a guillotine.
“I realized then,” she continues slowly, “that something was wrong. That whatever he was planning required removing threats. Osamu was the biggest one.”
Dazai finally looks at her.
Not angry.
Worse.
Unreadable.
“I didn’t know the full plan,” she says. “I still don’t. I knew about the Clock Tower. The Rats in the House of the Dead. The Guild. That’s it. Mostly because the Christie and Fitzgerald would come for meetings. Fragments… Fyo," She stops and takes a deep frustrated sigh "Dosteovsky was smart enough to keep me away during the meetings, and smart eneough to make sure to check for camaras or bugs before saying anything important"
“Why didn’t you come to us?” Kunikida demands.
She laughs, dumbfounded. “Because why would I? I had no affiliation or care for you OR the armed detective agency.” She looks away and bites her lip, hard "The only reason there was even a red flag raised was because he asked about Dazai… often, and incessantly"
That earns her a sharp look from Dazai.
“I left,” she finishes quietly, “It might be stupid of me to admit, but I love Osamu Dazai to a fault… and I will protect him when I can. Osamu seems to be an important piece in how the plan develops, and I don't want him… or the things he cares for hurt.”
The room is silent.
Fukuzawa studies her for a long moment but before he could say anything he was interrupted
"the relationship,” he says lightly. “You forgot to mention that part.”
Her breath catches "is this really the place you want to have this conversation? You could've asked last night but you ask now?"
Dazai only stared at her, waiting intently for an answer.
“There was nothing meaningful, ok?” she says quickly. “It was sex. Good sex. Happy?”
She closes her eyes briefly. When she opens them, there’s something raw there.
“I left,” she says quietly. “Because I loved you. What else do you want from me?”
The words hang in the air, fragile and dangerous.
Dazai doesn’t react.
Not visibly.
She hesitates, nervously looking down at her hands. She felt embarrassed; that was clear.
She lifts her head. “He was a passing moment. I stayed longer than I should have because I didn’t know what else to do with myself.”
Her voice softens. “I was just… trying to live.”
No one speaks.
Dazai exhales slowly, gaze now fixed on the window.
“You’ll continue assisting the Agency,” Fukuzawa says at last. “Under supervision.”
She nods. “I expected nothing less.”
As the meeting disperses, tension lingering like smoke, Dazai passes her without a word.
But as he does, he murmurs, so quietly only she can hear it,
“Don’t call him Fyodor again.”
She closes her eyes.
“I’ll try,” she whispers.
The office empties. Everyone.
Y/n remains seated.
Her hands tremble now that there’s no one left to watch. The adrenaline drains out of her system all at once, leaving exhaustion in its wake. She presses her palms flat against the table, grounding herself in the grain of the wood, the reality of the room.
She made it through.
Barely.
She stands slowly, legs unsteady, and turns toward her desk. The laptop is still open where she left it the night before, screens layered with half-finished threads, maps of connections she can’t afford to stop chasing.
She takes one step.
Then another.
Then the uncontrollable end of her ability activates, for the second time that day. Surprisingly, again to her past, but a closer one.
---
The apartment is quiet in the way only Fyodor’s spaces ever are.
Not peaceful.
Not warm.
Just… controlled.
Y/n stands near the window, bare legs against cold wood floors, wearing nothing but one of his button-ups. It hangs loosely on her frame, sleeves too long, collar still faintly creased from the way he’d shrugged it off the night before. No underwear. No socks. No attempt at domestic comfort.
She never tried to pretend this was anything else.
The city beyond the glass is gray and distant, blurred by rain. Somewhere behind her, water runs. The shower. A steady, thoughtless sound. Fyodor is awake. Alert. Alive.
She doesn’t turn toward it.
On the small table beside the couch sits a folder. Thin. Precise. Tabs labeled in her handwriting. Everything she’d found about the Book. Not conclusions, not guesses. Connections. Sightings. Names that circled something ancient and dangerous without ever quite touching it.
Payment rendered.
She exhales slowly through her nose.
This relationship with Fyodor is… efficient. Clinical in its own way. He pays attention. Learns quickly. Worries when he feel she has to. Knows exactly how to pull a reaction from her body while never once mistaking it for intimacy. He treats pleasure like another lever to pull, another experiment to run. He never pretends their relationship was anything more than it was.
She’d never minded. She didn't want more than what it was.
Finally she heard the shower glass door open, and the subtle trickle of water. Probably adjusting the temperature.
She crosses the room quietly, moving toward his desk. It’s immaculate. Of course it is. Books aligned by size and language. Papers stacked with deliberate care. No clutter. No chaos. No cracks.
She opens a drawer.
Nothing useful.
Another. Empty.
She checks the bookshelf next, fingers brushing spines, eyes scanning titles in Russian, German, French. Philosophy. Theology. Criminal theory.
She smirks faintly.
“You’re really not subtle,” she murmurs to the empty room.
The water shuts off.
She stills.
A beat. Two.
The bathroom door opens.
Steam spills into the room like a living thing.
Fyodor steps out, toweling his hair dry, posture relaxed, eyes already on her. He takes in the sight of her without expression. Her hair, her face, her lack of clothes. There's no hunger. No possessiveness. Just assessment.
“You won’t find anything,” he says mildly.
She doesn’t look at him. “I didn’t expect to.”
“Then why bother?”
“Habit.”
He watches her for a moment longer, he studies her a little more closely now, head tilting a fraction. The wrinkle between her brows, the squint in her eyes, her tense psture even while she attempts to look relaxed.
“You have a headache,” he observes.
She exhales. “Always.”
“Did you sleep?”
She shrugs. “Eventually.”
A lie. He can tell.
He doesn’t call her on it. He just walks past her to the table, picks up the folder she'd provided, flips it open. His eyes move quickly. Sharply. He hums once, pleased.
“Excellent work,” he says. "As always.”
She finally turns, with a quiet hum, leaning back against the desk, arms folding loosely.
She studies him then. Barefoot. Towel around his wast. Damp hair. Calm as ever. A man who believes utterly in his own inevitability.
He steps closer, stopping just short of touching her. The air between them is charged, but not tender. Never tender. It hums with awareness, with calculation, with the quiet understanding that this moment is not fragile and therefore does not need to be protected.
“You had another episode last night,” he says.
Her smile fades a fraction. “Did I wake you?”
“No,” he replies. “You stopped breathing for seven seconds.”
Her stomach drops.
“I was... it was just a dream,” she says quickly.
“Right,” he agrees. “If that's what you wish me to belive.”
She looks away. Toward the window. Toward the rain.
With Fyodor, everything is clean. Defined. Transactional. She gives. He takes. He gives back. No illusions. No longing. No ache that settles into her bones when she looks at him too long.
Just bodies. Just information. Just power exchanged and spent.
With Dazai—
She closes her eyes briefly.
Fyodor reaches out then, fingers brushing the sleeve of his shirt, then for the edge of the opening, where it hangs open against her thigh. Not claiming. Not asking. Just… contact.
Clinical. Curious. Impersonal.
His fingers slide beneath the hem of the shirt, brushing the inside of her thigh with deliberate slowness, not to arouse but to measure. To confirm that she’s still here. Still compliant.
Her breath hitches at the sensation of him getting closer to the top of her thighs.
That, more than anything, seems to please him.
He steps back.
“Breakfast?” he asks, as if they’ve merely shared a conversation, not a bed. Not each other.
"I'm not hungry..." It was quiet, almost afraid; clearly back in her head.
He nods, almost as if he wasn't surprised at all "You never are... it will be there if you change your mind"
---
She exhales a deep breath and sits back on her desk.
Fyodor Dostoevsky was definitely not the person she loved, but she had to admit to herself... this was going to be very complicated.
Years after leaving the Port Mafia, Y/N meets Dazai at a familiar bar. Old tensions, unspoken feelings, and a looming threat from Dostoevsky force them to confront the past—and Dazai makes an offer she can’t refuse
The goal was simple.
Find Fyodor Dostoevsky.
Simple goals were always the most dangerous.
Y/n sat at her desk with her laptop open, spine straight, shoulders relaxed in a way that only came from years of learned vigilance. Her fingers moved quickly, decisively, the rhythm familiar enough that she didn’t have to think about it anymore. Windows layered over one another like panes of fractured glass. Social media feeds scrolled in half a dozen languages that weren’t meant to coexist. Shipping registries cross-referenced with shell corporations. Comment sections that looked like nothing, meant nothing, were nothing to anyone who didn’t know how to listen.
She listened.
That was what she had always done best.
Dazai’s voice echoed faintly in her memory, uninvited.
“Do you know a Dostoevsky?”
A pause.
“Fyodor.”
She hated talking about Dostoevsky.
Not because she didn’t know him.
Because she knew him too well.
Dazai thought he wanted her because of her ability. The Time Traveler’s Wife. Seeing through time, slipping into it when the fractures widened enough. A trump card. A contingency. Something Fyodor hadn’t accounted for.
That wasn’t entirely true.
Dazai didn't exactly know the full story. Dazai was good and figuring things out, but she had alwasy been a little bit harder for him to read. She could keep a secret or two from him.
She had sat across from him once. Shared meals with him. Listened as he spoke like a prophet who had grown tired of pretending he wasn’t a god.
Fyodor Dostoevsky had found her a few months after she left Yokohama.
After she left the Port Mafia.
She had gone north first. Then inland. Then nowhere in particular. She thought distance might cauterize something. Thought that if she kept moving, the ache would dull.
It didn’t.
She’d been sitting alone in a café when Fyodor approached her. He hadn’t introduced himself immediately. He never did. He ordered tea, sat across from her without asking, and looked at her like he was already several steps ahead in a conversation she hadn’t agreed to join.
“You miss someone,” he’d said calmly.
She hadn’t answered.
“You miss someone dangerous,” he corrected gently, eyes sharp with interest.
She should have left.
Instead, she stayed.
Fyodor spoke like that often.
“They say the world will be ruled by reason and science,” he told her once, fingers folded neatly over the edge of a chessboard neither of them were playing. “But man will deliberately go mad just to prove he is not a piano key.”
She remembered thinking he sounded like Dazai.
Not the jokes. Not the theatrics.
The shape of his mind.
She had missed Dazai then. Missed him in a way that felt like pressing on a bruise just to feel something familiar. Fyodor noticed. He always noticed.
The Rats welcomed her easily. Too easily. They liked broken things that still functioned. Liked people who could rationalize cruelty into philosophy.
At first, his words sounded comforting. Logical. Clean. He spoke of stripping the world of illusions. Of freeing humanity from the burden of meaning by destroying it altogether.
But slowly, she started to see the rot beneath the rhetoric.
How he turned people into mechanisms. How grief became a lever. How heartbreak was not something to heal, but something to weaponize. He spoke of choice, but allowed none. He preached freedom while tightening the cage.
And worst of all, she realized she had stopped moving.
She was stuck.
Stuck in a past she wanted to return to, even though it had nearly killed her. Stuck orbiting a man who mirrored parts of herself but never reached for her when it mattered. Stuck missing someone she had chosen to leave.
She missed Dazai. Always.
The idea of returning to the Port Mafia came to her often. Familiar hells were easier to navigate. But by then, Osamu Dazai was no longer there.
And somehow, she left the Rats too, chasing a ghost she’d already abandoned.
Her fingers paused over the keyboard.
A post caught her eye.
Three in the morning. Anonymous account. A manifesto disguised as a rambling thread. Nihilism dressed up in academic language. She flagged it automatically.
A beacon.
Evil is not an act, Fyodor had written once, but an affirmation of the self in a meaningless world.
She closed the tab with a sharp click.
Meaninglessness was a luxury.
It belonged to men who had never starved. Men who had never learned that survival was not philosophical. It was visceral. It was ugly. It was choosing to live when no one wanted you to.
Across the room, the Agency unfolded around her.
Dazai leaned against Kunikida’s desk, hands clasped behind his back, offering commentary no one had asked for. Kunikida’s pen scratched violently against paper.
Atsushi hovered nearby, trying very hard not to laugh. Ranpo lay upside-down on the couch, candy wrappers creeping toward the floor like an infestation.
It was chaos.
But it was soft.
No one was sharpening knives. No one was waiting for permission to breathe.
She glanced up just in time to catch Dazai looking at her.
Not obvious. Never obvious.
Just a quick check. Like taking a pulse.
She met his gaze for a heartbeat.
Then looked away.
She didn’t smile.
Before the Mafia, there had been hunger.
Not metaphorical. Not poetic.
Real.
She’d had loving parents once. Gentle hands. Overprotective smiles. A childhood that smelled like home and safety and too many rules.
Then there had been a car. A night. A knock at the door.
After that, there was her aunt’s voice. Her uncle’s hands. A house that felt like a cage pretending to be shelter.
They made sure she understood her place.
She ran when she was ten.
She didn’t cry when she did it. She didn’t look back.
She learned quickly that information was safer than money. Lighter to carry. Harder to steal. She listened through walls. Through vents. Through doors she was never meant to be near.
She stole from the Port Mafia without understanding what they were.
She sold what she heard to their enemies without understanding the danger.
She assumed she would die for it.
When Mori found her, she was prepared.
He crouched in front of her where she sat on a crate, ribs sharp beneath thin skin, eyes too old for her face.
“You’ve been listening,” he said.
She nodded.
“And selling.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because it works.”
Mori smiled.
“How would you like a meal?” he asked.
That was how she became one of his wards.
Dazai was already there.
Her screen filled with connections. Names. Routes. Familiar structures twisting into new shapes.
Fyodor again.
Always Fyodor.
He believed in proving that morality was fear. That pressure could hollow anyone out. That given the right circumstances, people would reveal themselves as nothing more than tools.
She had lived that experiment.
She looked up.
Dazai was laughing too loudly now, posture loose, eyes sharp beneath the performance. He caught her gaze again.
This time, he didn’t look away.
She did.
How was she supposed to tell Osamu Dazai that she was the reason Fyodor knew so much?
That she had been the bridge.
That she had given him pieces of two worlds because she didn’t know how to exist without serving something.
She supposed he would try to kill her.
Honestly?
She’d let him.
Her fingers hovered over the keyboard.
Then she closed the laptop.
“Hey, ‘Samu?”
He turned immediately. “Yeah?”
She stood, grabbing her coat. “Feel like joining me for a drink? Just us.”
His smile softened, just slightly.
“Sure,” he said easily.
And for the first time since she walked into the Agency, she felt something loosen in her chest.
She would tell him.
Or maybe she wouldn’t.
For now, she just wanted to sit across from him and remember what it felt like to be seen without being used.
The third drink tastes like regret.
Not the sharp, immediate kind. The slow one. The kind that settles behind the eyes and loosens the bolts holding a person together.
The bar has thinned out as the night drags on. The low hum of conversation has softened into something indistinct, background noise blending with the clink of ice and the occasional scrape of a chair. Smoke curls lazily toward the ceiling, catching in the warm, amber light.
Dazai is halfway through his second drink when she finishes her third.
She knows because she’s counting.
Not because she’s worried about getting drunk. That ship sailed a glass ago. It’s because she needs something solid to anchor herself to, something numerical and finite, while the rest of her feels like it’s starting to fray.
She sets her glass down carefully. Too carefully.
The ice knocks against the rim with a dull clack.
Dazai notices. Of course he does.
He’s leaned back in the booth, one arm draped casually along the top of the seat, coat still on despite the warmth. He looks relaxed. He always does, right up until the moment he isn’t. His gaze flicks to her empty glass, then to her face.
“…You’re quiet,” he says lightly. “That’s usually my job.”
She huffs a soft laugh. “Give it a minute. I’m working up to something.”
“Oh?” His smile sharpens, curious rather than playful. “Should I be excited or concerned?”
“Yes.”
That earns a small laugh from him, real enough to crease the corners of his eyes. He takes another sip of his drink, watching her over the rim of the glass.
She doesn’t look at him.
Her eyes are fixed on the table, on the faint scratches carved into the wood. Old marks. Old stories. People like them leave those behind everywhere they go.
“Dazai,” she says, finally.
He hums in response, an absent sound, but his posture shifts. Subtly. He’s listening now.
“I need you to promise me something.”
That makes him lower his glass.
His eyes lift fully to her face, dark and intent. “That depends,” he says gently. “Is this one of those promises that ends with me bleeding in an alley?”
She shakes her head. “No.”
“Ah. Emotional damage, then.”
“…Probably.”
A pause stretches between them.
Then he nods once. “All right. I’m listening.”
She exhales slowly, pressing her thumb against the condensation on her glass. Water beads beneath her skin, cold and grounding.
“I’m going to tell you something,” she says. “And once I do, you don’t get to interrupt. You don’t get to joke. You don’t get to pretend it doesn’t matter.”
His expression sobers instantly.
“You get to be angry afterward,” she continues. “You get to hate me. You get to decide I’m dead to you. But you don’t get to stop me halfway through.”
Dazai’s gaze doesn’t waver.
“…That bad?” he asks quietly.
“Yes.”
Another pause.
Then he leans forward, forearms resting on the table between them. The casual sprawl disappears, replaced by something sharp and focused.
“All right,” he says. “I won’t interrupt.”
She closes her eyes for a moment.
Three drinks. She promised herself three.
When she opens them again, she finally looks at him.
“I know Fyodor Dostoevsky,” she says.
The name lands between them like a dropped knife.
Dazai doesn’t move.
Not a blink. Not a twitch.
Only the slightest tightening at the corner of his mouth betrays that it’s registered.
“…I know,” she continues, voice steady now that she’s started. “Not as a target. Not as a rumor. Not as an abstract threat.”
She swallows.
“I knew him personally.”
Dazai’s fingers curl slowly against the wood of the table.
“How personally?” he asks, voice carefully neutral.
She lets out a breath that’s almost a laugh. It comes out hollow.
“I worked for him,” she says. “After I left Yokohama. After I left you.”
His eyes darken.
“The Rats,” she goes on. “I wasn’t just adjacent. I wasn’t just passing information. I was inside. Trusted. Useful.”
She tilts her head back slightly, staring at the ceiling.
“He found me,” she says. “A couple months after I disappeared. I thought I was being careful. I thought I was invisible. Turns out I was just… predictable.”
Dazai’s jaw tightens, but he says nothing.
“He liked me,” she continues. “Or whatever passes for liking in men like him. He liked my ability. Liked the way I think. Liked that I didn’t flinch when he talked about the world ending like it was a math problem.”
Her lips curl faintly. Bitter.
“He said I reminded him of someone once. I didn’t ask who.”
She lowers her gaze back to Dazai.
“We slept together,” she says.
The words are blunt. Deliberate.
Dazai inhales sharply through his nose.
Still doesn’t interrupt.
“It wasn’t…” She pauses, searching for the right phrasing. “It wasn’t like this. It wasn’t even like us, back then. It was need. Convenience. Strategy.”
She meets his eyes, unwavering.
“I was lonely,” she says. “And he knew exactly how to use that.”
Dazai looks away first.
His gaze drifts to the bar, to the bartender polishing a glass, to anything that isn’t her. His hand lifts, fingers brushing his lips as if grounding himself.
“You said…” he begins, then stops.
He closes his eyes briefly.
“…I promised not to interrupt,” he says, voice tight. “Keep going.”
She nods.
“I helped him,” she says. “Not because I believed in him. Not really. I told myself it was temporary. That I was just… watching. Learning.”
Her fingers curl into her palm.
“I gave him information,” she continues. “About the Port Mafia. About the Agency. About you.”
Dazai’s head snaps back to her.
“You—”
He cuts himself off with visible effort.
She forces herself not to look away.
“I told him about Atsushi,” she says. “Before you even realized he was important. I told him about the Book. About the pages. About how desperate everyone was to keep it hidden.”
Her voice drops.
“I told him where to look.”
The silence that follows is deafening.
The bar seems to recede, sound muffled as if they’re underwater.
Dazai stares at her like he’s trying to solve a puzzle that suddenly refuses to make sense.
“…You’re telling me,” he says slowly, “that Fyodor Dostoevsky knows what he knows because of you.”
She nods once.
“Yes.”
His laugh is soft. Disbelieving. Almost breathless.
“That’s…” He trails off, shaking his head. “That’s impressive. Horrifying. And incredibly on brand for my life.”
She winces despite herself.
“I didn’t understand what he was planning,” she says quickly. “Not at first. He never tells anyone everything. He lets people think they’re choosing.”
Her voice tightens.
“When I realized… when I saw where it was going, I left. I cut contact. I disappeared again.”
She scoffs quietly. “I thought that would be enough.”
Dazai leans back in his seat, running a hand through his hair.
“So,” he says softly, “you handed a nihilistic cult leader the keys to the city, slept with him, and then vanished.”
“When you say it like that—”
“It’s very you,” he finishes flatly.
She flinches.
“I wanted you,” she says suddenly.
His eyes snap back to her.
“Not him,” she continues. “Never him. I wanted you. I always did.”
The words hang between them, raw and unpolished.
“I was gone,” she says. “You were still in the Mafia. I thought if I came back, I’d just drag you further into it. Or Mori would use me to keep you there.”
Her voice drops to a whisper.
“So I stayed away. And I let someone else fill the space.”
Dazai doesn’t smile.
He doesn’t joke.
He doesn’t deflect.
He just looks at her, really looks at her, like he’s seeing all the years they missed stacked up behind her eyes.
“…And now?” he asks quietly.
She exhales.
“Now I’m sitting in a bar, three drinks in, telling you that the man trying to end the world knows how to do it because I taught him where to look.”
She tilts her head, meeting his gaze steadily.
“If you want to kill me,” she says, “I won’t stop you.”
Dazai studies her for a long moment.
Then he reaches for his glass, drains it in one go, and sets it down with a soft thud.
“…You know,” he says thoughtfully, “I was wondering how Fyodor always seemed one step ahead.”
She blinks. “…That’s it?”
He shrugs lightly. “I already assumed you were dangerous.”
“That’s not—”
“I also assumed,” he continues, cutting her off gently, “that if you ever betrayed me, you’d have a reason.”
She stares at him.
“You’re not angry?”
“Oh, I’m furious,” he says pleasantly. “But anger is boring. And killing you would be… inconvenient.”
A pause.
“If you told him how to end the world,” Dazai goes on, voice light enough to be cruel, “you’re going to help us save it. It’s time to overexert yourself and put your ability to full use.”
The words land wrong.
Not sharp. Not loud.
Heavy.
Like a door being shut from the inside.
Her fingers curl around the edge of the table. “Osamu—”
He finally looks angry.
Not explosive. Not dramatic. Not the kind of anger that throws punches or raises voices.
The kind that goes quiet.
The kind that calculates.
His smile is still there, faint and brittle, but his eyes have gone cold. That familiar, terrifying stillness she remembers from Mafia days. From interrogation rooms. From nights where people didn’t leave breathing.
“You don’t get to say my name like that right now,” he says calmly.
Her mouth snaps shut.
“You don’t get to soften this,” he continues, leaning forward just enough that she feels the shift in gravity. “You don’t get to look at me like I’m supposed to understand.”
“I wasn’t asking you to—”
“Yes, you were,” he cuts in, voice sharp now. “You walked in here knowing exactly who I am and exactly what this would do. You always do.”
She flinches, and that seems to make something snap.
He straightens abruptly, the booth creaking as he pushes back. The sudden movement draws a glance from the bartender, then another from a couple near the door. Dazai doesn’t care.
“You gave him Atsushi,” he says, no longer bothering to keep his voice low. Not shouting. Worse. Controlled. “You gave him the Book. You gave him leverage over two organizations that have already buried more people than either of us can count.”
“I didn’t know he’d—”
“I don’t care,” he says flatly.
That stops her cold.
“I don’t care what you knew or didn’t know,” he continues. “I care about outcomes. I care about bodies. I care about the fact that every move Fyodor makes now is informed by you.”
His hand clenches at his side.
“You don’t get absolution just because you regret it.”
Her chest tightens. “I didn’t ask for absolution.”
“No,” he agrees. “You asked for mercy.”
Silence stretches between them, thick and suffocating.
The bar feels suddenly too small. Too warm. The air tastes like alcohol and old wood and something bitter underneath.
Dazai exhales through his nose, a slow, measured breath.
“Do you know what the worst part is?” he asks quietly.
She shakes her head.
“I thought about you,” he says. “A lot.”
Her breath catches.
“I thought about what it would be like if you came back,” he continues, gaze fixed somewhere past her shoulder. “If you walked into the Agency like nothing had happened. If we pretended we were just… older versions of ourselves.”
He laughs softly, humorless. “I even thought about what it would be like to try.”
Her heart stutters painfully.
“Don’t,” she whispers.
He looks at her again.
“And now,” he says, eyes dark, “all I want to do is kill you.”
The honesty in it is devastating.
Not shouted. Not dramatized.
Stated like a fact.
She nods slowly, throat burning. “That’s fair.”
That seems to surprise him.
For a moment, something flickers across his face. Then it’s gone, buried under resolve.
“But I won’t,” he says. “Because you’re more useful alive.”
The words cut deeper than any blade.
“You’re going to fix this,” he continues. “You’re going to look at every timeline, every possible outcome, every version of the future where we don’t all end up dead.”
Her fingers tremble. “Osamu, my ability—”
“I know how it works,” he snaps. “I know it costs you. I know it hurts.”
He leans closer, lowering his voice again.
“I don’t care.”
The cruelty of it is deliberate. Surgical.
“You don’t get to rest,” he says. “You don’t get to stop when it becomes unbearable. You don’t get to collapse and tell me you’ve seen enough.”
She swallows hard.
“You’re going to overuse it,” he says. “You’re going to break yourself if that’s what it takes.”
A beat.
“You owe us that.”
She closes her eyes.
A familiar pressure builds behind them, phantom echoes of places she hasn’t been yet. Times she hasn’t seen. Futures pressing against her skull, impatient.
“…Okay,” she says quietly.
Dazai straightens.
“Good.”
He turns, grabbing his coat from the back of the booth. The movement is sharp, final.
“I’ll see you at the office tomorrow,” he says over his shoulder. “I’ll tell the Agency everything you told me tonight.”
Her eyes snap open. “You don’t have to—”
“I do,” he interrupts. “They deserve to know exactly who they’re standing next to.”
He pauses at the edge of the booth.
“Expect the worst,” he adds. “From them. From me.”
She watches him walk toward the door, every step measured, controlled. The bell above the door rings as he pushes it open, cold night air spilling briefly into the bar.
He stops just short of leaving.
Without turning around, he says, “If we survive this…”
Her breath catches.
“…we’ll talk.”
Then he’s gone.
The door swings shut.
The bell falls silent.
She remains where she is, staring at the empty space he left behind, heart pounding, ability already beginning to stir like a waking beast.
This is because I am angry and frustrated. I have been in the airport for about 24h now. I just wanted to see my family for christmas.
Stranded by delays and exhaustion, y/n and Dazai bicker, tease, and lean on the easy familiarity of a relationship forged in blood and paperwork alike. A little silly, a little tense, and very domestic, this fic explores what it means to choose each other even when the flight is late, the coffee is bad, and home feels impossibly far away.
The airport had the particular atmosphere of a place that had stopped believing in time. It was always this space between the real world and nowhere at all. Why did the airport always feel like the backrooms?
Holiday decorations drooped from the ceiling like they, too, were exhausted. Strings of lights blinked in uneven rhythms. Somewhere a child was crying with the dedication of a professional opera singer, loud and insistant, Y/n wondered where he got the oxigen. Y/n sat slouched in a molded plastic chair, her carry-on wedged between her boots, her phone dead, she'd lost one of her earbuds and her patience deceased and awaiting burial.
Their flight had been meant to leave at six in the morning.
It was now six the next morning.
Dazai, on the other hand, looked radiant. Comfortable even.
“This is fate,” he announced, sprawled across three chairs with the confidence of someone who had never met consequences. “The universe wants us to stay here forever. A romantic tragedy. Two lovers lost in an airport terminal. We subsist on pretzels and despair.”
Y/n slowly turned her head toward him. Very slowly. The kind of movement that preceded violence back in the Port Mafia days.
“Dazai,” she said, voice flat, “if you say one more thing about fate, I will demonstrate my ability in a way that violates several international laws.”
He smiled at her like that was the most affectionate threat he’d heard all year. “You’re grumpy.”
“I have been awake for twenty eight hours.”
“You slept on my shoulder.”
“I passed out, my neck hurts, I haven't slept!"
He sat up at that, scooting closer until his knee bumped hers. The familiarity of the contact softened something sharp in her chest, despite herself. Years together had sanded down the edges. Once, airports would have meant escape routes and contingency plans. Once, delays would have meant bloodshed. Now it meant lukewarm coffee and Dazai stealing her scarf.
Which he did, right on cue.
She reached for it. He lifted it out of range.
“Give it back.”
“No.”
“Dazai.”
“You love me.”
“That is unrelated.”
He looped the scarf around his neck anyway, too long ends dangling. “You’re irritated because the schedule was disrupted.”
She stared at the departure board. DELAYED glowed back at her in merciless yellow. “Our flight was supposed to land in Japan yesterday evening. I had plans.”
“Ah yes,” he said lightly. “You were going to glare at Atsushi for tracking mud into the office and pretend you didn’t miss Kunikida.”
“I do not miss Kunikida.”
“You wrote him a postcard.”
“It was sarcastic, I just wanted to annoy him”
“Three paragraphs of sarcasm.”
She sighed, rubbing her temples. Her ability thrummed faintly under her skin, a reflexive response to stress. She forced it down. This was an airport, not a battlefield. Mostly.
Around them, the terminal buzzed with contained chaos. People argued with airline staff. Someone sprinted past holding a boarding pass like a talisman. An announcement crackled overhead and cut out halfway through, as if even the PA system had given up.
Dazai watched it all with interest, chin in his hands. “You know,” he said, “this reminds me of that job in Marseille.”
Her mouth twitched despite herself. “The one where you got stuck in customs because you lied about your name.”
“Well, it was part of the job for no one to know my real name”
“You used a dead author’s passport. Normally you would've just gotten a fake one made”
“I was trying something new.”
She leaned back in her chair, eyes closing. “I hate airports.”
“You hate waiting.”
“I hate crowds.”
“You hate not being in control.”
Her eyes opened. She looked at him, really looked. The bandages, the soft smile that hid too much, the man who had once been her accomplice in crimes and was now her partner in paperwork and grocery runs.
“You’re enjoying this,” she accused.
“I enjoy you,” he corrected. “Especially when you’re like this. It’s nostalgic.”
She snorted. “You mean when I’m one mild inconvenience away from homicide.”
“Yes.”
She reached out, fisting the front of his coat and pulling him closer. He went easily, as he always did. Her forehead pressed briefly to his shoulder.
“This is stupid,” she muttered.
“It is,” he agreed warmly. “But we’re stupid together.”
They sat like that for a moment, insulated by shared exhaustion. The airport roared on around them. Somewhere, a gate agent shouted for volunteers. Someone dropped a suitcase. The lights flickered.
Then Dazai spoke again.
“If the flight gets delayed another day,” he said thoughtfully, “we could pretend to miss it on purpose. Start new lives. You could become a mysterious novelist. I could fake my death again.”
She lifted her head just enough to glare at him. “We are getting on that plane.”
He grinned. “See? Determined. That’s my girl.”
She let go of his coat, but her hand lingered, fingers brushing his wrist. “When we get back to Japan,” she said, “I’m taking a week off.”
“Together?”
“Yes.”
“Doing nothing?”
“Exactly.”
He leaned over and kissed her temple, brief and familiar, like punctuation rather than a declaration. “I’ll inform the universe,” he said. “It clearly needs better scheduling.”
The departure board chimed.
BOARDING.
Y/n blinked, then looked up.
Dazai was already on his feet, scarf still stolen, suitcase in hand. “Come on,” he said cheerfully. “Let’s go home.”
She stood, irritation drained into something softer, something earned. As they joined the crowd, she laced her fingers through his without looking.
Years after leaving the Port Mafia, Y/N meets Dazai at a familiar bar. Old tensions, unspoken feelings, and a looming threat from Dostoevsky force them to confront the past—and Dazai makes an offer she can’t refuse
She paused outside the building longer than necessary.
The Armed Detective Agency’s office didn’t look like much. Ordinary, almost aggressively so. A converted floor in an aging building, windows washed in morning light, the city humming below like nothing in the world was ending. No guards posted at the door. No visible weapons. No sense of a power structure that could crush you if you misstepped.
That, she thought, was either honesty or arrogance.
She stepped inside.
The door closed softly behind her, and the smell of paper, coffee, and old wood settled around her. A few people were already working. No one looked up immediately, which she appreciated. She scanned the room out of habit, eyes moving with the quiet efficiency that had once kept her alive.
A man sprawled across a couch, hat tipped over his eyes, surrounded by candy wrappers like offerings. Sharp posture gave him away even at rest. Ranpo, she guessed. Brilliant mind, no subtlety.
At a desk near the windows sat a blond man with glasses, posture rigid, pen moving with almost violent precision across a stack of paperwork. His irritation radiated like heat. Kunikida. She could already tell he’d be exhausting.
A white-haired boy hovered near a desk, shoulders drawn in, eyes flicking between his coworkers and his tasks like he was afraid of making noise. Atsushi. Too kind for this place. Too new.
Nearby, a man with soft features and a deceptively calm presence worked quietly beside a dark-haired woman. Tanizaki, if her memory served. She didn’t linger long enough to catalog the woman beside him.
She was in the middle of adjusting her coat when a familiar voice bloomed right beside her ear.
“Good morning, Y/n.”
Her reflexes kicked in before decorum could catch up.
“Jesus, Osamu, don’t do that!”
She spun, hand halfway to where a knife used to sit. Dazai stood there grinning, hands raised in mock surrender, eyes alight with satisfaction.
“You’re getting slow,” he said cheerfully.
“You’re getting punched next time.”
He leaned closer, lowering his voice. “You missed me.”
She scoffed and walked past him into the office proper. “I missed quiet.”
He followed, unbothered, hands clasped behind his back like a tour guide.
“Come on,” he said. “I’ll show you your desk.”
“My desk,” she repeated dryly.
“Yes, yes. Prime real estate.” He gestured grandly toward a desk tucked near a window, slightly removed from the main cluster. “Nice view. Clear light. Quiet. Easy escape routes.”
She glanced at the windows, then the door, then the hallway beyond. “That last one is unnecessary.”
“Never,” he said without missing a beat.
She set her bag down and looked to the desk beside hers. The surface was buried under a terrifying stack of documents, folders teetering like a warning.
“…Is that your desk?”
“Yes!” he said brightly.
She stared. “You’re a menace. You live like this?”
“I prefer ‘free spirit. I have a system’”
"A system? Osamu, that's a cry for help"
She could feel it then. The attention. Subtle, curious, wary. Every pair of eyes in the room had found her. She leaned closer to Dazai and murmured, “Are you going to introduce me, or should I start charging admission?”
“Ah,” he said, clapping his hands together. “Right. Introductions.”
He cleared his throat far more dramatically than necessary.
“Everyone,” Dazai announced, “this is Y/n. Former information broker. Former Port Mafia Executive. Currently just a civilian, until Fukuzawa oficially takes her in.”
Kunikida’s pen snapped mid-word. Atsushi stiffened. Tanizaki looked up sharply. Ranpo lifted his hat just enough to peer at her with interest.
“She’s very good,” Dazai continued easily. “Government files, criminal networks, black-market intelligence. If the information exists, she can find it. Anytime, anywhere”
She met their stares evenly. “I also make decent coffee.”
Before anyone could voice the objections she could see forming, a calm voice cut through the tension.
“That’s enough, Dazai.”
Fukuzawa stood in the doorway of his office, gaze steady and unreadable.
“Y/n,” he said. “Come with me. Dazai, you too.”
Dazai beamed like he’d won something.
Fukuzawa’s office was sparse. Clean. Purposeful. The kind of room that told you exactly what kind of man owned it. She stood comfortably, hands clasped behind her back, posture respectful without submission.
“I assume you know why you’re here,” Fukuzawa said.
“Dostoevsky,” she replied. “And because Osamu asked, you need help strategizing and a guarantee of correct information. ”
Fukuzawa regarded them both for a long moment. “Why should we trust you?”
She didn’t hesitate. “You shouldn’t. Not fully. But you can trust that my interests currently align with yours. And that I have the information to destroy you as an agency and I haven't”
“And your relationship with Dazai? Is it soemthing I should be concerned about?” he asked.
Surprisingly, that reminded her of one of theblast interaction she had with Dazai before she left the Port Mafia.
---
The night had settled deep into Yokohama, the kind that pressed its weight against the windows and made the city feel quieter than it ever truly was. One a.m. bled softly into the hour, neon lights reflected like oil slicks across the glass of her office windows.
Her office was one of the few places in the Port Mafia building that felt lived in rather than occupied. Books stacked in uneven towers. Cigarette burns in the desk from when someone else had borrowed it and never returned. A couch that had seen too many sleepless nights and not enough rest.
Chuuya sat on the couch with his back pressed against the backrest, shoulders relaxed for once, a bottle of wine balanced loosely in his hand. His hat was tossed carelessly onto the table. She faced him sideways, back against the armrest, legs draped comfortably over his lap like it was the most natural thing in the world.
Because with Chuuya, it was.
“So,” he said, pouring wine into two mismatched glasses, “you’re telling me the Red Harbor crew is working with the Eastern Syndicate now?”
She accepted the glass, fingers brushing his briefly. “Not officially. They’re using a shell operation. Shipping manifests don’t match the volume they’re claiming.”
Chuuya snorted. “Figures. Bastards never were good at their job anyway.”
“They don’t need to be,” she replied. “They think they’re untouchable. Until recently they weren't even in our radar"
“That’s what they all think,” Chuuya said, taking a drink. “Until someone reminds them otherwise.”
She smiled faintly. “I’ll send you the details tomorrow. Routes, times, who to hit first... shipment amounts and contents.”
He glanced at her, expression sharpening just a little. “You’ve been off lately.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Have I?”
“Yeah,” he said bluntly. “You’re still good. Don’t get me wrong. But you’re… somewhere else.”
She laughed it off, leaning back further into the armrest. “You say that like it’s somehow impossible for me to be off my game.”
“No,” Chuuya replied, gaze steady. “This is different.”
She didn’t answer immediately. The silence stretched comfortably between them, filled only by the hum of the building and distant city noise. Chuuya shifted slightly, careful not to disturb her legs where they rested over his.
“You and Dazai still doing… whatever it is you two do?” he asked casually.
Her smile faltered just a touch. “We haven’t talked in a couple of days.”
Chuuya frowned. “That’s not normal.”
She shrugged. “Maybe he got bored.”
Chuuya scoffed. “With you? I don't think so, he just realised he had a heart, why would he be bored?.”
She laughed despite herself, head tipping back. “You give him too much credit.”
“I don’t give him anything,” Chuuya said. “I just know him."
She was mid-laugh at something else he said when the door opened.
She felt it before she saw him.
The air shifted. Tightened.
Her laughter faded as she turned her head.
Dazai stood in the doorway.
Not relaxed. Not amused. His posture was rigid, shoulders drawn tight beneath his coat, jaw set in a way she’d seen only a handful of times. The look he wore was the same one he used when anyone under him failed him. When someone crossed a line. When someone did something he didn't like
Cold. Calculated. Murderous.
Her instincts kicked in immediately.
She straightened, drawing her legs back from Chuuya’s lap, feet finding the floor.
“What’s got you so angry?” she asked, carefully neutral.
“Chuuya,” Dazai said, voice flat. “Can you leave?”
Chuuya blinked. “What?”
“Chuuya,” Dazai repeated, sharper now. “Leave.”
Confusion flickered across Chuuya’s face. “The hell is your problem?”
“‘Samu—” she started, turning toward Dazai, trying to soften the edge in her voice.
It didn’t work.
“Chuuya,” Dazai snapped. “Out.”
The word cracked like a gunshot.
Chuuya looked between them, jaw tightening. “You serious?”
She swallowed and nodded slowly at him. “It’s fine.”
He stood, movements stiff, grabbing his hat and coat on his way toward the door. He paused beside her just long enough to murmur, “Good luck.”
Then he was gone.
The door shut quietly behind him.
The silence that followed was heavy.
Dazai didn’t look at her. He walked past her desk, deeper into the office, straight to the floor-to-ceiling window overlooking Yokohama. The city sprawled beneath them, alive and uncaring.
“‘Samu,” she said gently, approaching but not crowding him. “What’s wrong?”
He took a slow breath. Didn’t turn.
“You’re leaving.”
The words hit harder than she expected.
She froze. Just for a second.
“What?” she asked, forcing confusion into her voice.
“You’re leaving,” he said again. “You’ve been planning it for weeks.”
She turned away from the window, pulse quickening. “Dazai, that’s ridiculous. I’m not going anywhere.”
He moved fast.
One moment he was staring out into the horizon, the next, he was in front of her, crowding her space, hands braced on each side of her, forcing her to press herself against the glass. His breath brushed her cheek. His eyes were dark, furious.
“I don’t like people taking me for a fool,” he said quietly. “You know that.”
Her heart pounded, but she didn’t flinch.
“‘Samu,” she said, steady despite the tension crawling up her spine. “I’m not going anywhere. Why do you even think that?”
“The quality of your work.”
She blinked. “What?”
“It’s dropped,” he said bluntly. “Not useless. But sloppy. Less detailed. You barely even care if it’s accurate.”
“That’s not—”
“Either you’re hiding something,” he continued, eyes locked onto hers, “or you don’t care anymore.”
She stared at him.
He wasn’t wrong.
She didn’t care anymore. Not about the Mafia. Not about the endless cycle of blood and power. She was leaving by the end of the week.
But she couldn’t tell him.
Not when he still believed in this place. Not when he still loved it.
“I’m tired,” she said finally. “I’m overworked. That’s all.”
“Right,” Dazai replied flatly.
The word was sharp with disbelief.
“You don’t believe me,” she said softly.
“No,” he agreed. “I don’t.”
Silence stretched between them, thick and volatile.
“You should stop looking,” she added quietly. “You’ll just see things that aren’t there.”
He studied her for a long moment, anger slowly cooling into something sharper. Something more dangerous.
"I'm a detective y/n... I know what I see when I see it"
She simply swallwed, deciding not to reply, there was really nothing else she could say.
“If you leave,” he said, voice low, “you won’t get a clean exit.”
She met his gaze without fear. “I never expected one."
Something flickered across his face then. Hurt. Fear. Something he rarely allowed himself.
"Osamu... if you have something, anything, to tell me; please" she took a deep breath and exhaled trying to keep herself from saying too much "Tell me now?"
He stepped back.
“Get some rest,” he said finally. “You look exhausted.”
Then he turned and walked out, leaving the city reflected in the glass behind him.
She stayed where she was long after he left.
And for the first time, she wondered if leaving would hurt more than staying ever could.
---
She smiled thinly. “Friends. Former colleagues. Anything else we might be to each other is really none of your concern.”
Dazai laughed softly, eyes on her, something unreadable flickering there.
Fukuzawa nodded once. “Your ability?”
“The Time Traveler’s Wife,” she said. “I can see into any point and place in time for as long as I want. Occasionally without wanting to. Sometimes… I travel physically.”
Silence.
Ranpo would’ve loved this, she thought.
“You’ll be tested,” Fukuzawa said finally. “You won’t know when or how. Only that it will happen.”
She inclined her head. “That’s fair.”
As they left the office, Dazai leaned closer. “See? Easy.”
She glanced at him, expression softening just a fraction. “Don’t make me regret this, Osamu.”
His smile gentled, just barely. “I won’t.”
She walked out with him, with one thing in mind 'would it ever be apropriate to try again'
Years after leaving the Port Mafia, Y/N meets Dazai at a familiar bar. Old tensions, unspoken feelings, and a looming threat from Dostoevsky force them to confront the past—and Dazai makes an offer she can’t refuse
Before she went to the agency the next morning, she stopped.
Not physically. Yokohama was already moving around her, morning trains exhaling people like breath, sunlight catching on windows she’d once memorized for sniper sightlines. Her feet knew where to go. Her mind, however, drifted backward whether she permitted it or not.
They’d known each other since they were fourteen.
Too young. Laughably so. Children handed knives and told to smile while using them. Fitting inside murderous plots, tought to be ruthless.
She remembered him then. Bandages covering a lot more of his body then, eyes already too sharp for someone who still should have been worried about homework, already tried every version of suicide he could muster. He’d looked at the Port Mafia like it was a riddle begging to be solved, not a grave waiting patiently, it was a puzzle where he could feel something. She’d noticed him immediately. Not because he was charming. Because he was wrong in a way that felt familiar.
Shed been the same really, wrong in all sorts of ways, Mori had found her eavesdropping on one of his conversations and figured shed be a good spy for him.
Her crush on Dazai had been quiet. Observational. Something she never confessed because it never felt necessary. Dazai always noticed anyway.
She’d never indulged his suicidal tendencies. Not once.
She didn’t panic when he spoke about death like it was a dinner plan. She didn’t grab him, didn’t cry, didn’t beg. Exhausted as she often was by the sheer frequency of his attempts, she met them with reality. Cold, unromantic, immovable.
“If you die,” she’d told him once, flat and unflinching, “you won’t get peace. You’ll just be gone. And everything you left unfinished will stay that way.”
He’d stared at her then. Not offended. Not amused.
Listening.
She never idolized him. Never pretended he was perfect or misunderstood in some poetic way. He was brilliant, yes. He was also reckless, manipulative, and capable of cruelty when bored. She wasn’t afraid of him, even at his worst. And she never tried to save him.
She simply saw him.
Somewhere along the way, that turned into love.
It took him longer.
Dazai fell in love the way he did everything else: slowly, reluctantly, as if realizing too late that he’d already crossed a line. He noticed that she understood his thoughts before he voiced them. That she could predict his moves without playing along. That she stayed even when he made himself unbearable.
At the time, it had been her and Chuuya. The only two who truly grasped the full shape of him.
Months before she left the Mafia, things had shifted between them.
They started sleeping together, carefully, like it was another secret file tucked away where Mori wouldn’t look. No promises. No names for what it was. Just gravity pulling them into the same space again and again.
They never spoke about the future.
She’d wondered, sometimes, if staying would have changed that.
But wondering didn’t rewrite history.
---
It had started... unplanned as most things did
It started late.
Everything important in the Port Mafia always did. Anything that needed to be kept a secret too.
Her office was quiet in the way everything was in an empty building. Her floor to ceiling windows showing her a panoramic view of Yokohama with a beautiful night sky (sadly, she wasnt really even aware of it). Just the soft rustle of paper and the muted hum of electricity. She sat cross-legged on the couch with a file spread across the low table, pages neatly stacked and annotated in her handwriting. Mori wanted it as soon as posible. Names, movements, leverage points. Information reduced to something sharp and easy to use, her job to aquire information.
She was halfway through reorganizing a section when she felt it. Being watched.
No knocking or warning. Dazai never bothered with those.
“Still awake?” his voice drifted from behind her, light and lazy, like it didn’t matter that it was nearly four in the morning.
She didn’t look up. “Unfortunately.”
He leaned against the doorframe, arms folded, bandages peeking out from beneath his sleeves. He watched her work for a moment, in the reflection in the window right across from her, eyes tracing the familiar lines of her focus. The crease between her brows. The way she tapped the paper twice before turning the page.
She looked tired, he could see it in the way her eyes stayed half lidded, and the yawn she'd be fighting away.
“You know,” he said, “most people would be asleep by now. Work can wait for the morning"
“Most people don’t work for Mori.”
“Tragic.”
She snorted softly, still not looking at him. “If you’re here to distract me, go jump in the river.”
“Tempting,” he replied. “But you’d be upset.”
“I’d be annoyed,” she corrected.
That made him smile.
He crossed the room without asking, perching on the edge of the table, deliberately crowding her space. She shifted only slightly, enough to keep working, close enough that his knee brushed her arm.
“You’ve been at this for hours,” he said. “You’re going to give yourself a headache.”
She finally glanced at him. “You volunteering to help?”
He hummed thoughtfully. “No.”
“Then hush.”
He didn’t leave.
Minutes passed. Then more. The silence stretched, comfortable and strange, filled with the soft sound of pages turning. She became aware of how close he was. The warmth of him. The fact that he hadn’t made another joke.
Eventually, she sighed and leaned back against the couch, eyes closing briefly. “Why are you really here, 'Samu?”
He didn’t answer right away.
“I didn’t want to be alone,” he said finally, so casually it almost slipped past her.
She opened her eyes and looked at him again. He wasn’t smiling now.
Something shifted.
She closed the file and set it aside. “Then sit properly,” she said, nodding to the couch.
He blinked, just once, then complied, settling beside her with exaggerated care. Their shoulders touched. Neither moved away.
“You know,” he murmured, “this is how habits start.”
She turned her head slightly. “Bad ones?"
"Depends on who you ask"
That was the problem.
He looked at her then, really looked, like he was weighing a decision he already understood the consequences of. She didn’t rush him. Never did.
When he leaned in, it wasn’t dramatic. No sudden grab. No hunger. Just a quiet closeness that felt inevitable, like the room had already decided for them. She met him halfway, fingers curling lightly into his coat, grounding him as much as herself.
The shift happened somewhere between one breath and the next.
She was halfway undressed, and he seemed desperate.
The couch pressed against her back, the world narrowing to heat and weight and the soft hitch of her breath as she found herself beneath him. She bit her lip, instinctive, not to be quiet so much as to stay anchored. His presence crowded her senses. The warmth of his body, the steady control in the way he held her arms above her head with one hand, not rough, just firm enough to keep her still. His other hand settled at her waist, thumb pressing in as if to remind her exactly where she was.
He moved slowly, carefully... almost like he was enjoying her reactions.
His breath brushed her face, shallow and uncharacteristically unsteady, and for a fleeting moment she wondered if he was holding on just as tightly as she was.
Afterward, they didn’t talk about it.
They lay there in the dim light, listening to the building breathe around them. At some point, he shifted closer, an arm draped loosely over her waist like it belonged there.
She stared at the ceiling and wondered when exactly she had stopped putting the wall between them.
"Are you gonna finish the dosier?"
"Uhm... yeah, I should"
"Its 6am, go to your apartment and sleep. I'll tell Mori it was my fault somehow"
It happened again a week later.
Then again.
It never became anything they named. No promises. No expectations. Just a shared understanding that when the world pressed in too tightly, they could find each other.
A habit.
One she carried with her long after she left.
And one he never forgot.
----
She exhaled and straightened her coat.
Now she would be the Armed Detective Agency’s source of information. Back to the shadows. Back to favors and half-truths and knowing too much. She’d slipped out of that life once. For Dazai, she’d step back in.
Just this once.
He’d better appreciate it.
With that thought steadying her, she resumed walking.
The past could follow if it wanted. She wasn’t turning around.
i think because of the whole "writers write for themselves" notion that's becoming increasingly popularized, people forget that we still thrive off interaction and kindness. i write for myself but kudos and comments and bookmarks and really any sort of interaction with my fics genuinely motivates me to keep writing and keep sharing my works.
If you haven't heard, the em dash has been getting a lot of attention lately…
Because it was trained on pirated work—including freely accessible online writing (like fanfic, academic texts)—ChatGPT picked up patterns and quirks native to human writing.
Including (sigh) the em dash.
There are other victims here (RIP tapestry and delve 🫠), but the appropriation of the em dash—a punctuation mark beloved by writers everywhere—feels especially personal.
A kind of low-grade panic is ensuing. Writers who once memed their own em dash overuse—the greatest punctuation mark ever to grace the control-freak’s lexicon, frankly—are suddenly backing away to avoid accusations.
No. More. We have centuries of dash-abusing writers behind us. We will not sit quietly while AI repurposes our beloved stilted aside—or the just-one-more clarification the sentence demands—or the dramatic pause your comma could never—etc.
You don’t write like AI—AI writes like you.
Defend the em dash.
(Feel free to download/share/stick it where it matters!)
Between Shadows and Light - Kakashi x Reader (Pt 4)
part 1 Part 2 part 3
In the aftermath of the Uchiha massacre, Y/N finds herself grappling with loss, duty, and an unexpected connection with Kakashi Hatake. As she cares for Sasuke and navigates her feelings for the enigmatic Copy Ninja, their bond deepens amidst missions, village gossip, and unresolved emotions. But with Sasuke’s protectiveness and Itachi’s shadow looming over them, can Y/N truly find love and normalcy, or is her heart forever tied to the past?
Masterlist
The stars stayed cold and distant, and the crickets kept their rhythm, indifferent to the quiet unraveling happening in her chest. Y/N pressed her forehead to her knees, fingers curling into the fabric of her pants as if she could hold herself together by force alone.
Blind. Coward. Late.
The words tasted bitter.
She stayed there until the lantern burned low and the air grew sharp with the promise of dawn. When she finally stood, her legs felt unsteady, but her resolve was not. For the first time in years, she wasn’t running from the ache in her chest. She was following it.
Kakashi hadn’t meant to end up on the Hokage Monument.
He told himself that as he stood near the edge, hands in his pockets, village lights scattered below like fallen stars. It was a habit he’d picked up long ago. High places. Quiet ones. Spots where memories didn’t crowd quite so close.
He exhaled slowly, visible in the cool air.
You’ve never been alone.
Her words echoed back at him, tangled with the memory of her hand on his arm, the way she’d looked at him like she was standing at the edge of something terrifying and beautiful.
He’d meant what he said. Every word.
He just hadn’t expected how much it would cost to say them.
“You always pick the most dramatic places.”
Her voice reached him before her footsteps did.
Kakashi stiffened, then relaxed all at once, like a cord finally snapping loose. He turned, visible eye widening just slightly as Y/N stepped into view, her cloak thrown on hastily, hair loose around her shoulders. She looked tired. Worn thin. Determined.
“You followed me,” he said.
She snorted softly. “You’re predictable when you’re brooding.”
A pause stretched between them, heavy and fragile.
“You shouldn’t be out this late,” he added, quieter now.
“Neither should you.”
She stopped a few steps away, close enough that he could feel her presence like heat against his skin. The village below hummed on, unaware, uncaring.
“Kakashi,” she said, and this time she didn’t let herself hesitate. “I’m tired of lying to myself.”
His breath caught. He didn’t interrupt her.
“I’ve spent my whole life holding things together with my bare hands,” she continued, voice steady despite the way her fingers trembled at her sides. “Sasuke. The clan. The village. I told myself there wasn’t room for anything else. For anyone else.”
Her gaze lifted to meet his, dark and unflinching.
“But that was a lie.”
The word hung between them.
“You’ve been there through all of it,” she said softly. “When I didn’t know who I was anymore. When the past wouldn’t let go. You never pushed. You never left. You just… stayed.”
Kakashi swallowed. “Y/N—”
“No,” she said gently, stepping closer. “Let me say this before I lose my nerve.”
She was right in front of him now. Close enough that he could see the faint scar near her collarbone, the one he’d helped bandage years ago. Close enough that he could hear her breathing.
“I loved Itachi,” she said. The admission didn’t hurt the way it used to. It felt honest. Necessary. “And I think I thought that meant there was no room left in me for anything else. That loving someone again would somehow betray what I lost.”
Her lips curved into a sad, self-aware smile. “But grief doesn’t get to decide the rest of my life.”
Something in Kakashi’s chest broke open at that.
She took a breath, shoulders squaring. “I don’t know how to do this perfectly. I don’t even know if I’ll be good at it. But I know that when I imagine a future that doesn’t feel empty… you’re there.”
Silence crashed down, vast and terrifying.
Kakashi reached up slowly, hesitating just short of touching her cheek, the way he always did. “You don’t owe me anything,” he said, voice rough. “I never stayed because I was waiting for something.”
“I know,” she replied. “That’s why this matters.”
Her hand rose, this time without hesitation, fingers curling lightly into the fabric of his flak jacket, grounding herself. Grounding him.
“I want to choose you,” she said. “If you’ll let me.”
For a moment, Kakashi didn’t trust himself to speak.
Then he covered her hand with his own, warm and steady. “I’ve chosen you for years,” he admitted quietly. “I just didn’t think you’d ever turn around.”
She laughed softly, breath hitching halfway through. “I’m turning around now.”
That was all it took.
He closed the distance between them, careful, reverent. When his forehead rested against hers, the world seemed to narrow to the space between their breaths.
“Tell me to stop,” he murmured.
She tilted her head up, lips brushing the edge of his mask. “Don’t.”
He pulled the mask down just enough.
The kiss was not rushed. It wasn’t desperate. It was slow and grounding and achingly real, built from years of restraint and quiet understanding. When he kissed her, it felt like coming home after a lifetime of wandering.
She exhaled against his lips, fingers tightening in his jacket as if afraid he might disappear. He kissed her like he’d learned patience the hard way.
When they finally parted, foreheads still touching, the village lights blurred below them.
“So,” she said softly, a hint of humor threading through the emotion. “This is happening.”
Kakashi’s eye crinkled. “Looks like it.”
She rested her head against his chest, listening to the steady rhythm of his heart. For the first time in a long while, the weight on her shoulders eased.
Below them, the village slept on, unaware that two broken people had just chosen to live again.
Years after leaving the Port Mafia, Y/N meets Dazai at a familiar bar. Old tensions, unspoken feelings, and a looming threat from Dostoevsky force them to confront the past—and Dazai makes an offer she can’t refuse
It had been years since she’d left the Port Mafia.
Sometimes, late at night, she still wondered how she’d managed it—how Mori had let her walk away without a bullet in her back, how Dazai Osamu hadn’t tracked her down with that maddening smile and ended her the moment she turned her coat in. Back then, Dazai still trusted Mori. Still laughed in the blood-soaked halls of the Mafia as if it were all some elaborate joke meant only for him. He wasn’t ready to leave.
And she hadn’t been about to ask him to.
She exhales softly at the memory, lips curling into a faint smile despite herself. Dazai had always been terrible at admitting things—feelings, attachments, regrets. But she’d known him well enough to recognize a soft spot when she saw one.
The bar is dim, familiar in a way that makes her chest ache. One of his old haunts—neutral ground, just far enough from Mafia territory to pretend this meeting is coincidence. She’s slid into a booth near the back, nursing a Japanese Whiskey Sour, ice clinking softly as she tilts the glass. Her head rests against the worn leather seat, eyes half-lidded as she listens to the low murmur of conversation around her.
She’d laughed out loud when she got his message the night before.
Free tomorrow night? my treat. Same as always -Osamu
No explanation. No theatrics. Just… that.
Of course he would text. Of course he’d act like nothing about this was strange.
Now that she’s actually here, waiting, she hates how tight her chest feels. How her fingers drum restlessly against the glass. She tells herself it’s just habit. Just old instincts resurfacing.
Not nerves.
The bell above the door rings.
She doesn’t look up right away. She doesn’t need to. She recognizes the weight of his presence before he even speaks—the way the room subtly tilts, like the universe has decided to pay attention.
“Y/N.”
Her name, drawn out just enough to be unmistakably his.
She straightens, lifting her head and turning toward the voice. For a split second, she doesn’t recognize him.
Then she blinks.
Twice.
Dazai Osamu stands a few feet away, hands tucked casually into the pockets of his coat. He looks older. Not by much, but enough. The sharp edges have softened; the shadows under his eyes aren’t as dark. There’s something… steadier about him. Like whatever path he’s on now actually gives him a reason to wake up in the morning.
It unsettles her more than she expects.
“Dazai,” she says, watching him slide into the booth across from her. “I’m surprised you texted.”
“I was told that’s the modern thing to do,” he replies easily.
“That’s not what I meant.” She studies his face, searching for the familiar cracks. “I’m surprised you reached out at all. It’s been years, ’Samu.”
He hums, gaze flicking briefly to her untouched drink before returning to her. “Needed help.”
She scoffs. “You?”
There’s a pause—just a fraction too long.
“…I figured you were the only option.”
Her eyebrow arches. “Time travel is your only option now? What, did the end of the world finally track you down?” She smirks. “Not even Mori ever phrased it like that.”
“Funny you say that—”
She cuts him off, lifting her glass slightly. “Get a drink. If you’re going to ask for something stupid, at least say hi first.”
Dazai laughs under his breath and turns toward the bar. “Same thing she’s having,” he tells the bartender.
When the drink arrives, he takes one sip and grimaces. “Same order as always,” he mutters. “Still hate it.”
“You used to love it.”
“I liked the company.”
The words land heavier than she expects.
She looks up sharply, meeting his eyes—and for once, he doesn’t dodge it. No joke, no deflection. Just that steady, infuriatingly honest gaze. Her throat tightens. She swallows and looks away, fixing her attention on the condensation trailing down her glass.
“So,” she says after a moment, forcing her voice to steady. “You left the Port Mafia.”
“You heard?”
She snorts. “Are you kidding? Who hasn’t? Executives leaving is rare, and then two leave in a row?” She glances back at him. “People talked.”
“Had to be done,” he says lightly, though his eyes darken.
She studies him in silence for a few seconds. “…Sorry about Oda. And that I wasn’t there.”
“Don’t worry about it,” he replies. “I had to learn my lesson.”
“Maybe,” she says softly, “your best friend didn’t have to die for that.”
His smile fades. “Yeah. But he did.” A beat. “Let’s just… leave it at that.”
She nods, giving him the space to gather himself.
When he speaks again, his tone has shifted, lighter, but too controlled.
“Do you know a Dostoevsky?” he asks. “Fyodor.”
She stiffens, then leans back with a sigh. “Leader of the Rats. Underground criminal organization. I’ve been aware of them for some time.” Her lips thin. “I try to stay off his radar. He’s… nihilistic. And criminally insane, if I’m being generous.”
“Well,” Dazai says, swirling his drink, “he’s planning the end of the world.”
She blinks. “…Of course he is.”
“The Port Mafia and the Armed Detective Agency are his primary targets. Especially the Agency.”
“Why?”
“One of our members appears to be the key to the Book. Dostoevsky wants him.” Dazai’s smile turns sharp. “And then he wants the rest of us dead.”
Y/N leans back fully now, exhaling slowly. “So what do you want from me?”
“Join the Agency.”
She laughs, short and humorless. “Dazai. I left one organization. I really don’t want to join another. Besides—” she gestures vaguely “—if rumors are anything to go by, what makes you think simple time travel could help? Dostoevsky’s been pulling strings in the criminal underground for hundreds of years.”
“You know his ability?” he asks sharply, tension snapping into his posture.
She frowns. “You don’t?”
“I thought I did. He lied. I can’t pinpoint it.”
She rolls her eyes, irritation flaring. She hates talking about Fyodor. Hates that she knows this much at all. “Crime and Punishment,” she says. “It lets him take over the body of whoever kills him. Turns them into a copy of himself. Immortality through stolen vessels.” She grimaces. “The ‘Crime’ looks like instant death. The ‘Punishment’ is worse.”
Dazai goes still.
“Which means,” she continues, “even if you kill him, you lose.”
He looks at her then—really looks at her. “Y/N… please. You’re the only trump card I have. Your ability—The Time Traveler’s Wife—it’s something he hasn’t accounted for.”
She groans, rubbing her temple. “Fine. I’ll join your stupid little club.”
Relief flashes across his face before he masks it.
“But,” she adds, pointing at him, “if this goes wrong, I’m blaming you.”
“Fair.”
“They don’t know yet,” he says. “So keep it quiet until it gets worse.”
She stares at him. “Osamu, are you absolutely insane? Keeping them in the dark is a terrible idea.”
“It wasn’t mine,” he replies. “I have a boss, you know.”
She snorts. “Of course you do.”
She stared at him, then shook her head with a tired laugh. “Since when do you ever listen to anyone?.”
Chapters: Chapter I: So it starts
Chapter II: A late arrival
Chapter III: belive of be doomed
Chapter IV: What are we doing?
Chapter V: Last minute encounter
Chapter VI: Untittled
Not in the way it usually did when she forgot to regulate herself — not the creeping numbness in her fingers or the frost blooming along the windows — but something deeper. Like the heat had been pulled out of the room along with him, leaving behind a hollow stillness that pressed against her ears.
She stood there long after the balcony doors slid shut, forehead resting lightly against the glass, breath fogging the surface in shallow bursts. The city stretched out below her, distant and indifferent, lights blinking on and off without care for what had just happened several stories above.
Her knees finally gave.
She sank down against the doorframe, drawing her legs close, arms wrapping around herself like that might be enough to keep her together. Her body still remembered him too vividly — the heat of his hands, the weight of his presence, the way the bond had screamed when he touched her. It hadn’t felt like lust alone. It had felt like recognition. Like something in her had snapped back into place after years of grinding wrong.
That terrified her more than anything else.
Together, she had said.
The word replayed over and over in her mind, heavy and reckless and far too easy to promise. She hadn’t stopped to think about what it meant — not really. About what together looked like when one of them wore a hero license and the other burned cities.
Sleep came in fragments.
She woke more than once with her heart racing, skin damp, breath caught painfully in her throat. Every time, it was the same sensation — heat blooming along the bond, sharp and sudden, like someone striking a match just beneath her skin. She would lie there in the dark, staring at the ceiling, forcing herself to breathe through it, to cool herself down before the panic set in.
Alive, the bond whispered.
And that was the problem.
She didn’t make it to work the next morning.
Her hands were still unsteady when she tried to button her shirt, fingers stiff and clumsy from lingering frostbite. The skin along her forearms ached in a dull, persistent way — not severe enough to alarm her, but enough that every movement reminded her she’d pushed herself too far the day before.
Her phone buzzed on the counter.
Hawks.
She stared at the screen longer than necessary before answering.
“Hey,” she said, trying — and failing — to sound normal.
“You’re not at UA.”
“I’m aware.”
A pause. The faint sound of wings rustling on the other end of the line.
“You hurt?”
She exhaled slowly. “Define hurt.”
“Don’t do that.”
“I’m fine, Keigo.”
Another pause, longer this time. She could picture him perfectly — leaning against something he wasn’t supposed to, expression carefully neutral, eyes sharp.
“You were taken to the hospital,” he said. “You ran into Dabi. Alone.”
“I didn’t run into him,” she replied, irritation flaring despite herself. “He attacked me.”
“Did he.”
The question was quiet. Too quiet.
Her grip tightened around the phone. “What are you implying?”
“I’m implying,” he said carefully, “that villains don’t usually disengage unless they get what they want.”
“And what exactly do you think he wanted?” she shot back.
Silence.
Her stomach dropped.
“…Keigo.”
“I’m not accusing you,” he said quickly. “I’m worried about you.”
“That’s starting to sound the same.”
Another beat. Then, softer, “Endeavor’s calling a meeting. You’re expected.”
Her chest tightened. “I’m not cleared.”
“You are for this.”
________
The conference room was too bright.
The lights reflected harshly off the table’s polished surface, making it hard to look anywhere without feeling exposed. Endeavor stood at the head, arms crossed, flames rolling low and restrained beneath his skin. Shouto sat off to one side, posture stiff, eyes flicking toward her the moment she entered.
Hawks leaned against the wall near the door, wings tucked in neatly, expression unreadable.
She took the seat offered to her, spine straight despite the dull ache spreading through her shoulders.
“You were attacked by Dabi,” Endeavor said, getting straight to the point.
“Yes.”
“You engaged.”
“Yes.”
“And survived.”
“Yes.”
The silence stretched.
“Explain,” Endeavor ordered.
She swallowed. Her mouth felt dry. “He targeted me specifically. I stalled until evacuation was underway. He withdrew.”
Hawks’ gaze sharpened.
“Why you?” Endeavor asked.
“I don’t know.”
The lie tasted bitter.
“Dabi is not impulsive,” Hawks said mildly. “He doesn’t stalk random heroes.”
Her jaw clenched. “I wasn’t random.”
Endeavor’s eyes narrowed. “What does that mean.”
“It means,” she said carefully, “that I’ve been operating in his territory recently. Recon. Intelligence gathering.”
“That wasn’t your assignment,” Hawks cut in.
“No,” she admitted. “It wasn’t.”
Shouto shifted sharply in his chair. “She’s injured.”
Endeavor didn’t look at him. “I can see that.”
“I’m not a liability,” she said, voice tight. “I did my job.”
“You overextended,” Endeavor snapped. “And you paid for it.”
Hawks straightened. “Given the circumstances, I’m recommending temporary suspension from active duty.”
Her breath caught.
“What?”
“Benched,” he clarified. “Medical leave. Observation.”
“I don’t need—”
“You do,” Endeavor cut in. “And this is not a discussion.”
Her fingers curled against her thigh, nails biting into her skin. Anger flared hot and sharp in her chest, instinctively met with a rush of cold she barely managed to suppress.
“You think sitting me out will fix this?” she asked quietly.
“No,” Hawks said. “But it might keep you alive long enough for us to figure out what’s really going on.”
Shouto stood abruptly. “This isn’t fair.”
Endeavor finally turned to him. “Sit down.”
Shouto didn’t.
“She was targeted,” he said, voice tense. “Punishing her for surviving doesn’t make sense.”
Hawks’ eyes flicked between them. “We’re not punishing her.”
“It feels like it,” she said softly.
The room went still.
Endeavor exhaled sharply through his nose. “You’re benched,” he repeated. “Effective immediately.”
No missions. No patrols. No solo movement.
She nodded once.
“Understood.”
Endeavor took a moment to let her simmer in the tension before he continued "UA also demanded you take some time off. Your injuries could distract the children if not healed properly"
She bit her lip in frustration, but held back "Yes, sir"
_____
Being benched felt worse than the injuries.
Her days blurred together — ice packs, heating pads, restless pacing through her apartment like a caged animal. Her body healed slowly, stubbornly, as if it resented being forced to rest. Her hands ached when she tried to write. Her legs felt heavy, sluggish, disconnected from the instincts that usually guided her.
And underneath it all, the bond itched.
Touya didn’t come back.
That scared her more than if he had.
She felt him sometimes — sudden spikes of heat that made her gasp, flashes of anger so sharp they made her head throb, exhaustion so deep it settled into her bones like lead. She learned quickly to sit down when it happened, to breathe through it, to cool herself before the feedback spiraled out of control.
Hawks visited twice.
He never said what he was really thinking, but his eyes lingered too long on her arm, on the faint discoloration near her collarbone, on the way she flinched when sirens passed outside.
“You’re not as subtle as you think,” he said once, gently.
“About what,” she asked, not looking up.
“About lying.”
She didn’t answer.
The Todorokis checked in constantly. Shouto brought groceries. Fuyumi called every night. Natsuo hovered in doorways like he wanted to say something and didn’t know how.
Every kindness felt like another weight pressing on her chest.
Because she was lying to them too.
The knock on the balcony door came just after midnight.
Soft. Familiar.
Her heart stuttered painfully.
She didn’t move at first. Just sat there on the couch, fingers digging into the fabric, breath caught somewhere between hope and dread.
The knock came again.
“Stop pretending you didn’t hear me,” Touya murmured from the other side.
She stood slowly, joints stiff, and crossed the room. When she pulled the curtain back, he was there — silhouetted against the city lights, eyes bright and restless.
“You shouldn’t be here,” she said.
He smirked faintly. “Funny. That’s what they told you too, right?”
Her hand hovered over the lock.
“You’re hurt,” he said, eyes narrowing.
“yeah? Thanks to who?"
He just stared at her through the glass, not pushing... letting her decide what she wanted to do.
She hesitated. Then unlocked the door.
When he stepped inside, the room warmed instantly, the bond flaring so sharply she had to bite back a sound. He looked thinner. Tired. Angry in that simmering way that meant something was very wrong.
“They benched you,” he said.
“Yes.”
“They’re watching you.”
“Yes.”
“And you still let me in.”
She met his gaze. “I always will.”
For a moment, something raw and dangerous flickered across his face.
“…That’s going to get you killed,” he said quietly.
“Maybe,” she replied. Her voice didn’t shake, but her chest did. “But I think I knew that the second I realized you were Touya.”
The words didn’t echo. They didn’t need to. They settled between them, heavy and irrevocable, like a verdict that had already been passed.
Silence followed — thick, weighted, fragile in the way something precious becomes once you realize it can still be broken. Neither of them moved. Neither of them breathed quite right. She could feel her heart in her throat, could feel the bond thrumming beneath her skin like it was trying to decide which way to pull her apart.
Neither of them knew how many nights like this they had left.
And that knowledge — quiet, cruel — ached deeper than any injury.
The silence stretched. Then stretched more. Until it pressed against her ears and crawled up her spine and made the back of her eyes burn.
Touya was still standing just inside the balcony door. His hands hung loose at his sides, fingers twitching every so often like he was holding himself back from something — fire, movement, her. His posture looked relaxed if you didn’t know him, if you couldn’t feel the restless coil of energy beneath his skin, the way the bond hummed low and dangerous between them, tight and vibrating, waiting for permission to snap.
“You shouldn’t stay,” she said again, softer this time. Less like a rule. More like a request she already knew wouldn’t be granted.
He didn’t move. His eyes stayed on her, steady and knowing. “You don’t want me to go.”
It wasn’t a question.
Her throat tightened, breath catching painfully as the truth of it landed. She hated that he knew her this well. Hated that even death hadn’t been enough to loosen his grip on her, that he still read her like he always had — like she was something familiar, something his.
“I don’t want a lot of things,” she said after a moment, forcing the words out carefully. “Doesn’t mean they’re safe.”
Touya’s mouth curved faintly — not a smile, not really. Something tired and sharp and edged with resignation.
She hadn’t even realized she was blocking the door until his gaze flicked briefly to her hand braced against the frame. The gesture was small, almost absentminded. Still, it made heat rush to her face.
Slowly, she let her hand fall to her side.
He stepped closer. She took a step back and let him pass, her shoulder brushing the wall as he moved by. The warmth he carried with him lingered in the air, curling around her like smoke.
She followed him to the balcony, heart pounding, and took a careful look around before closing the door — the street below was quiet, rooftops empty, the city stretched wide and watchful beneath the night sky. Her gaze lingered a second too long, searching for movement, for wings, for the flash of red she’d learned to associate with safety and danger all at once.
She locked the door and leaned her forehead against it briefly before turning back to him.
“Keigo suspects something,” she said, breaking the silence. “He doesn’t know what. But he knows something’s wrong.”
“How?” Touya asked.
He’d already dropped onto her couch like he belonged there, elbows braced on his knees, shoulders hunched forward. The sight twisted something in her chest painfully — the familiarity of it, the way he occupied space like it was his.
She crossed the room and turned to face him. “Because you’re not impulsive,” she said quietly. “Not the way people think. And because, for all intents and purposes, I’m a random hero you decided to target… and then let live.”
She let out a breath and sat beside him, careful to leave space, careful in a way that felt almost laughable considering everything else.
“I’d be suspicious too.”
His jaw tightened, teeth grinding softly. “So what do you suggest?”
She hesitated. Her eyes drifted around the apartment — the quiet, the half-melted ice in the sink, the faint scorch mark still lingering near the window from an old accident. Her life, laid out in pieces that suddenly felt flimsy.
Then she looked back at him.
“What’s your end goal here, Touya?” she asked. Her voice dropped, steadier than she felt. “What do you want from me? We talked. I heard your side. You heard mine. But that doesn’t make this… sustainable.”
His laugh was sharp and humorless. “You sleep with me in an alley and now you want to have a strategy meeting?”
She froze.
The words hit harder than she expected, lodging somewhere deep in her chest. Right. Of course. He was a villain. She shouldn’t have expected tenderness. Or clarity. Or—
“You want to use me,” she said, the words brittle and thin. “For information. Access. Leverage.” Her voice faltered despite herself. “You don’t actually care about me. Do you?”
For a moment, he didn’t move.
Then he stood.
He paced once, twice, boots thudding against the floor harder each time, hands raking through his hair. The tension in the room spiked sharply — heat rolling off him in waves — and then his arm lashed out.
The vase shattered against the wall, ceramic exploding into fragments that skittered across the floor. She didn’t flinch, but her muscles tensed, breath hitching as instinctive cold crept up her spine.
“You’re still my soulmate!” Touya snapped, turning on her, eyes blazing. “Whether you like it or not. Want it or not. We’re each other’s everything.”
The bond flared violently, heat pressing against her lungs until breathing hurt.
“What,” he demanded, voice cracking under the anger, “you want me to turn myself in? Make it easy on you?”
“Touya,” she said, forcing her voice to stay calm, grounding herself where she stood. “This isn’t about easy.”
She met his glare, refusing to look away. “All of a sudden, the pressure’s on me. I’m benched. Watched. Cornered. And everything feels like it’s going exactly according to your plan.” Her hands curled into fists at her sides. “You didn’t even look at me with kindness until recently.”
She swallowed hard. “Turning yourself in could become helping the heroes. Actually helping. Would you do that? Spy for us?”
The anger surged through him, sharp and suffocating. She felt it slam through the bond, heat flooding her chest until it felt like her ribs were closing in.
He turned away abruptly, stalking toward the balcony.
“I have to go.”
“Touya.”
“I have to go,” he repeated, sharper now, hand closing around the door handle.
He paused there, shoulders tight, breath uneven. For a second, she thought he might turn back.
