Summary: The death of Kouyou. The disappearance of Chuuya. Dazai frowned. The hunt for Kouyou's killer was on, and at the front of the pack was undoubtedly his missing former partner.
"Man reckons with immortality, and forgets to reckon with death."--Milan Kundera
Chuuya stared at the body. The pink kimono was splattered with blood. That itself wasn't usual. He had seen Kouyou kill before. What made him unable to breathe and wrenched all hope and thought from him was who most of the blood belonged to.
Kouyou's hair had fallen out of its usually elegant updo. Now the long red strands had tangles and was spread out. The katana was also red with blood, the steel from one of her enemies and the handle splattered with her own. There was a large hole in her obi, below it blood had congregated into a dark puddle.
He opened his lips to say something, anything, but found that he couldn't.
Chuuya took off his hat, his lips tightened into a thin line. He stood there, holding his hat over his heart for a few moments.
He bowed deeply and perched his fedora on top of his head. He turned, then vanished into the night.
XXX
It was Hirotsu who brought the news to Mori, the discovery of Kouyou's corpse.
Mori nodded at the end of Hirotsu's report. His face was serious. His usual fake happy voice was solemn. The death of his long time coworker and trusted friend was sobering. It hit too close to home for him, in a way most of the goings on of Yokohama rarely did. "Do a full autopsy in the body. Then, schedule a small funeral and place for her to rest." He paused and looked at Hirotsu, his eyebrows furrowed. "When was the last time someone saw Chuuya?"
Hirotsu's eyes widened. He understood the question, the very important question both of them had missed until now. "I do not know, Boss."
"I assume you have a team analyzing the footage from the cameras, if Chuuya showed up on it, tell me."
Hirotsu nodded, pulled out his phone, and quickly issued the order. A rare frown darkened his features as he listened to the reply. "Chuuya saw Kouyou's corpse and then walked off." He paused and waited, his ear still pressed to his phone. "He disappeared after that, assumably on purpose."
"Thank you Hirotsu. You're dismissed," Mori crisply stated.
Elise looked up from her drawings. "What are you going to do Rintarou?"
Mori smiled and leaned back into his chair. "I would say Chuuya has become a loose canon, but that would be untrue. He is an unstoppable force, loyal to those he respects. Kouyou has more then I." He paused, a frown curled the edges of his lips downwards. "Or that is to say, had? He will hunt down whoever did this, I have no worries about that. What he will decide to do after..." He paused, then admitted, "I don't exactly know. But I would regret having to fill two Executive spots."
"But, why did he have to go missing to do it?" Elise questioned, curious.
"Possibly because someone has access to the information the Port Mafia does. Perhaps a traitor. Perhaps an unknown hacker is watching us as we speak. Or perhaps Chuuya is just a feeling reckless, or is overly paranoid. Until I talk with him or do some investigating, I won't know."
XXX
Dazai received news about goings on from a network of people who had their ears to the ground-information brokers, bartenders, and the more shady people who seemed to always hear something important by coincidence.
He was in the Agency office. Dazai was distracted from his paperwork as usual-on his phone-when he got a flood of updates. He stared in disbelief at the first piece of information, the many duplicates spoke to the validity of the claim. Kouyou was dead.
Then, there was the second new rumor that followed a few minutes after-Chuuya had disappeared. It waseither heard word of mouth from a Port Mafia member that was a bit too loose with their information-or, possibly, the Port Mafia was using the grapevine to ferret out Chuuya. Considering Mori's tendency to use everything at his disposal in a time of crisis, Dazai assumed the latter. Or maybe Dazai was wrong and the Port Mafia recruiting standards had dropped in the last few years. But, that line of thought wasn't very important right now.
The death of Kouyou. The disappearance of Chuuya. Dazai frowned. The hunt for Kouyou's killer was on, and at the front of the pack was undoubtedly his missing former partner.
"I need to borrow this," Dazai chirped. He neatly slipped Kunikida's laptop out from under his partner's fingers.
"Dazai," Kunikida growled.
Dazai hummed as he set the laptop down on his desk. He opened up a browser and put in the username R3dWin3.
The only reason he knew about this was because he found a burner phone in Chuuya's jacket years ago. He had spent a few minutes guessing the password and got in. As it turned out, Chuuya secretly ran a popular wine tasting blog, anonymously of course. Theblog was set up with a Port Mafia unconnected email, so Dazai hoped Chuuya would still be using it.Unfortunately, Dazai didn't remember what Chuuya's email was. Hence, he headed straight to the blog.
He went to the Request tab. Dazai continued to hum as he tapped out a message.
Slug,
I heard about Ane-San.
Do you want help?
Come to the office if you do.
—Mackerel
XXX
There was a small house in the slums. Well, in the slums there were many small houses. But this one was unique, it was a safe house owned by a Port Mafia Executive. Said executive, was resting there.
As anyone with common sense would know, sleep is important for proper function. Which was why Chuuya Nakahara was conked out on a mat. His fedora had been placed beside him and under his pillow one of his hands clutched his combat knife.
He was awoken was a buzz from his phone. The device was in his pant pocket. He pulled it out to see what the notification was for. Therefore was a new email alerting him that someone had Requested on his blog. Chuuya read the message, andfrowned.
Things would go faster with Dazai's help. That was true.But Chuuya didn't like it.
It was not that thought of the thought of working with Dazai grated on Chuuya's sense of pride. No,he was adverse to it because he knew that the Agency would try to get in the way. They were the type that didn't like killing. They preferred a jail cell, a prison sentence, for their enemies, not death.
There was another buzz.
Slug,
The longer you wait, the harder it's going to be to find them.
But...your choice.
—Mackerel
He scowled slightly.
XXX
The office was quiet. There had been a dryspell of cases. At least the exciting ones that was. It was five in the afternoon and the Agency had found two lost kids and three lost pets so far.
The wooden door to the hallway opened. It did not creak, as Kunikida obsessively oiled the hinges. The person who opened it did so in a smooth confident motion. The person stepped into the room.
Dazai had sprung up at the sight of the person's shadow through the door's mosaic window. He instantly recognized the outline of a fedora, and the person's short height. He had a grin on his face as he quickly skipped over.
Chuuya's eyes were cold and dark. They were usually warm and bright, a playful cool river that shimmered under the scorching heat. But now, now they showed the bottom of the ocean, where no light reached.
Dazai recoiled as he looked at his former partner's eyes. He halted and instinctively took a half step back. It was the reaction of a person who had expected a pan to be of normal temperature, but had gotten burned andjolted away from it to prevent further pain.
The thoughts and strategies he had fled from his mind, replaced by thoughts and observations that dashed through his head quickly. But the observations weren't adding up. He couldn't see why Chuuya's eyes looked like that. Dazai had seen Chuuya experienced death before, the loss of many friends. But his former partner's response was always anger, not defeat, not an icy cold. Chuuya's eyes had never looked...dead before.
Dazai forced a grin on his face and turned around. He cheerfully announced, "We have a new client." His coworkers stared at him in disbelief.
XXX
It was to be a joint venture. Chuuya would not accept being cut out of The investigation.
The hunt for Kouyou's killer was slow going over the next few hours. Every time the Agency and Chuuya found a good lead, they hit a dead end.
The cold in Chuuya's eyes was numbing, Dazai slowly got used to it. Except it always came as a shock every time he made a jab or insult and Chuuya ignored it. He was too used to their banter, the fiery comebacks Chuuya would immediately counter with. The lack of reaction always stunned him for a second. His face would flatten into a neutral expression. It looked wrong on his face, because Dazai never looked blank to others. He was either bouncing off the walls with glee or smugly revealing a genius plan.
But his coworkers didn't notice. Except for Ranpo, and he refused to point it out.
XXX
Chuuya couldn't go back to his apartment-what with all the missing Port Mafia Executive business. Which gave Dazai an opening to suggest Chuuya stay at his.
Chuuya agreed after Dazai argued that his apartment was closer then whatever safe house Chuuya had.
The Agency dorms had two floors. Dazai's was on the one on the far right, the first door you reached if you used the right staircase. He opened his door and cheerfully waltzed inside.
Chuuya silently followed.
The place was rather spartan. There was a book shelf and a couch, but that was the only visible furniture. There were no knick knacks on the bookshelves either, instead the pine wood was stuffed full of various books. Some were philosophical or historical, others medical or political.
It didn't take long for Dazai to propose drinking together. After that, it took only a few seconds-a casual comment and subtle argument-before Chuuya calmly accepted a cup.
There was something that was gnawing at Chuuya. Dazai knew that. But he didn't know what it was.
The death of Kouyou shouldn't have effected Chuuya like this. No, Chuuya should be outraged right now. He should be impatient, his fire only made the bright by the loss. But instead, he was crushed, empty. And Dazai wanted to know.
He wanted to know so Dazai just waited. He waited for Chuuya to finish two glasses and waited for the eventual outpouring of feelings. He had used this method on the few occasions that Chuuya had refused to share what he was thinking and whatever troubling problem affected him horribly.
Chuuya was drunk, Dazai could tell. But instead of impassioned shouting,' of annoyance or anger, Chuuya was still acting calm.
"I wish I could die," Chuuya admitted. His voice was a whisper and his face was dark. "Not, not right now of course," he amended. "But I...but I wish I could die, someday."
Dazai, felt a trickle of dread at the implication of Chuuya's words. It gathered in his stomach, a dark gloomy acidic puddle. This is what had been bothering Chuuya, the question of if he was unable to die.
"D*n it all. My God, I wish I was f*king human," Chuuya spat out. It was a bitter sentence, a sincere longing that could never be fulfilled. "Because I'm not!" His voice dropped again. "And...I don't know."
Dazai frowned. He didn't know what to say. He didn't know what to do. And that was unusual for him. It was uncommon for him to have a looming sense of uncertainty and apprehension over how to handle someone.
"Could you kill me, Dazai?" Chuuya questioned. "Is that the only way I can die?"
"You're not allowed to," Dazai immediately replied without thinking. "You're not allowed to die before me."
That was what they had agreed, what they had joked about for years-death from enemies...and Dazia's suicide attempts.
Chuuya blinked slowly. "Oh...right," he murmured. "Right." His clouded eyes focused on Dazai. "But...do you think I can die, Dazai? Like a regular person? I'm not just going to have to watch everyone I like die?"
Dazai frowned. He wiped all doubt from his face and cheerfully replied,
"Yup. Yup, you can, Chuuya. You can die, I'm sure of it."
Chuuya smiled and propped his head on top of his hand. "Good." He slurred the words, "That's good. Really really good."
XXX
The confrontation happened next morning.
Chuuya had the tip of his knife pressed against the boss of the perpetrators's throat.
"Don't. Don't Chuuya," Dazai warned. His tone wasn't serious or cheerful, it was flat and normal. It was blunt, with no pretense.
Chuuya and Dazai were usually twin unstoppable forces. But Dazai this time Dazai chose to be the unmovable object. The outcome shifted.
"Fine," Chuuya quietly growled. He clicked his tongue and punched the man in the solar plexus and jabbed the diaphragm.
The boss collapsed to the ground. He was in immense pain. He wheezed as he tried to regain the oxygen he had lost.
Dazai smirked.
Chuuya slipped his knife back into it's sheath. He turned towards the detectives. "You'll receive your payment when he ends up in a jail cell. Understood?"
XXX
"We've already established that you will keep your position. And that this excursion of yours will be officially classified as an important top secret mission to hunt down Kouyou's killers. So, Chuuya, what's still bothering you?" Mori asked forthright. Playing implication games with Chuuya wouldn't amount to much. Whenever Chuuya wanted to stay silent about something, he shut up.
Chuuya shifted slightly, uncomfortable. "I don't know whether I will die."
"And why does that matter to you?" Mori questioned, rather callously.
However, Chuuya did not bristle at Mori's tone. He honestly responded, "I don't want to see everyone around me die, Boss."
Mori sighed, it was world weary and sympathetic. "I do not know if you will. No one does," he pointed out. "But, I have one suggestion...live your life, however long or short it is. You will not know until whether you can until it happens. Therefore, live and enjoy what you can." He smiled wryly, "And figure out whether you are immortal or not later. Does that make sense?"
Chuuya inclined his head. "Thank you for the advice, Boss." He paused. "I..." He trailed off. "Thank you."
A/N
Writing a Chuuya that's somewhat unpredictable for Dazai was fun.
I'm actually really sad I killed off Kouyou, I like her a lot. Ehh, but it was necessary to started everything off.
Also, since I've written an immortal!Chuuya in the oneshot Bury Me Shallow, I'll Be Back and the multi-chapter story Kindle (they come out in 2019), I found the question of whether he is in canon very interesting. And what does he thinks of death? Does Chuuya think he is immortal or mortal? Does he dread the possibility of being immortal? I find exploring these questions very interesting.
-Silver