Dazai let out a low whistle, surveying the wreckage all around him. "Don't you think you went a little overboard?"

"Hah?" Chuuya breathed heavily, collecting himself. "You strategised every action!"

The two stood atop a pile of rubble. The debris consisted of mostly cement and people. The buildings around them have been destroyed; their metal skeletons glinting in the sun's first rays of the morning. For about a 50 metre radius around them, everything had been decimated and reduced to ruins.

Chuuya huffed as he walked across the rubble, searching. Finally, he came upon her. The mangled body of whom he had thought to be Okamoto Kanoko.

Dazai joined his side. Immediately, he took out his phone to snap a photo of her.

"What the hell are you doing?!" Chuuya demanded.

"Why, I've taken on an Agency case to find this girl! I need to document her death …" Dazai blinked at the redhead's bewildered expression. "Oh, you mean I never mentioned that?"

Chuuya made a swipe at Dazai's head, but the taller man ducked as he kneeled down to pick up the body.

"Tell me what is going on, you asshole!"

Dazai sighed, carrying the body as he started walking off in a direction. "You're so noisy this early in the morning …"

The two headed off, away from the scene of their crime and before the police could arrive. Dazai was lost in thought and remained silent. With this, he can say the case has been completely resolved. The girl has been found – it didn't matter if she was dead or alive, and all he had to do after this was write a report detailing her involvement with Blood Raid and her death after fighting with the Port Mafia.

Except that … he hasn't addressed the one thing lingering in his mind the whole time –this whole … thing with Chuuya. The past few weeks had been forcing him to constantly recall his days in the Mafia with the redhead. And it had all culminated to this moment. Dazai had taken the initiative to call up Mori and save Chuuya … even though he knew Chuuya could have probably come out of this alive without his aid. Albeit, even more confused and possibly injured. But Dazai chose to come along with his own plans because he wanted to solve the case, and also because, if he were to be honest with himself, of something else …

"Oi, you shitty waste of bandages!" Chuuya called impatiently. "Are you going to talk?"

Dazai laughed, his prior thoughts dissipating. "Fine, since I pity your stupidity. The reality is … this girl is from Blood Raid."

"I KNOW THAT NOW!"

"But what you didn't know is that this girl also went missing months ago here in Kawasaki. Turns out she disappeared to join Blood Raid … so she can seek revenge on the Port Mafia."

Chuuya frowned. "Why?"

"Even after all this you still can't put it together?"

"Dazai," said Chuuya in a warning tone, fists clenched.

The brunette smirked again. "Her dear father was shot and killed by the Port Mafia, seven years ago."

Chuuya paused, frozen in his tracks. His mind was whirring, putting it all together. So that conversation in his living room … with that old woman. This "Okamoto Kanoko" was the café owner's daughter? The same girl who overheard her mother tell her father to not come home and later blamed him for his death? The same girl who moved away to another city for work and cut off ties with her mother?

"Yes, that's right," Dazai spoke up, reading Chuuya's thoughts. "Can you hurry up? The car's right there."

Chuuya ran up to the detective and stared at the black sedan in front of him in surprise. "Where the hell did you get that?"

"I hot-wired it, duh." Dazai rolled his eyes. "Not everyone likes to blow a fortune on a car when you can just steal one, you know?"

"What's wrong with you?" Chuuya asked, watching Dazai put the girl across the backseat.

"Hmm?" Dazai closed the door then made his way to sit at the driver's seat. "Why are you so shocked? You're always the first to say I never fitted in with the Agency people."

Chuuya got into the front seat, next to Dazai. "No, I mean, your insults are lamer than usual. What's wrong with you?"

Dazai started the car, choosing to keep quiet for the moment. Yeah, what's wrong with him?

For a while, the two sat in silence as they set off towards Yokohama. Chuuya was pointedly looking out of the window as if the most interesting sights were whizzing by. But he was growing more uncomfortable by the minute. It was just not like chatterbox Dazai to simply … shut up. What the hell was going on?

"Umm," started Chuuya awkwardly. "So this girl's name …"

"She was born as Onuki Kano," Dazai explained simply. "A government official who was also secretly working for Blood Raid helped her alter her identity and documents."

Chuuya sighed deeply. "I don't know how I'm going to explain all this to Boss."

"I think he already knows. When I called, he told me he was investigating the same thing – her."

"Wait, you were the one who called?" Chuuya sat up, incredulous. "You have some nerve."

Then, silence fell between them again. Chuuya can't help but feel exasperated at Dazai.

"Come on, talk to me!" He burst out involuntarily.

"Chuuya," Dazai started, his eyes still glued to the road, "why were you crying yesterday?"

Taken aback, Chuuya knitted his brows. Crying? When? He was so surprised he actually voiced his confusion aloud.

"Last night, in that café. When I walked in, you were … crying."

The memories of that fateful night suddenly bombarded Chuuya's mind. He remembered running in already tearing up. He felt thankful the old lady didn't ask any questions and just gave him a cup of warm tea. He remembered remembering memories of the past … of a certain someone. The anger he felt towards him, the pain of harbouring even more hate to hide other unwanted feelings towards him, and the bitter taste of failure as he fell depressed, at his betrayal. He rememberd how he felt so utterly hopeless at his chances of mending the relationship with that someone. And finally, he remembered the cathartic release that came with crying his eyeballs out.

Chuuya looked out into the window. "I wasn't crying."

The car suddenly violently swerved, knocking Chuuya into Dazai's lap (because dammit he forgot his seatbelt) and came to a forced stop at the side of the road.

"What the heck – are you trying to kill us?!" Chuuya yelled, scrambling to get a hold of himself.

"I'm not moving until you tell me why you were crying." Dazai's eyes flashed as he looked down at the redhead.

Chuuya pushed himself up from Dazai's lap, feeling very disorientated but also ten times more self-conscious (if it were possible to feel disorientated and still be super conscious at the same time). "We're in the middle of a HIGHWAY!"

Several cars behind beeped and honked angrily as they went past; many drivers shooting dirty looks and flipping them off. However, Dazai honestly couldn't care less. He wasn't even sure why he wanted answers but he does and he wanted them now.

"Not moving~" he sang half-heartedly.

"Dammit shitty Dazai," Chuuya glared. "Why do you care?"

"I don't," he replied without hesitation. "I'm just curious."

Chuuya crossed his arms. "That sounded rehearsed as fuck. Did you say that to the old lady afterwards, when she asked?"

Dazai involuntarily reached out to grab Chuuya's cheeks with his left hand then, forcing his blue eyes on brown. Though Dazai's face showed no emotion, he felt like he was internally imploding. This was a first too. Involuntary actions. Usually every move he made was calculated for but what is logic when you are in the middle of a highway with a stolen car and dead body, right? Something was coursing through his veins and it was making him act weird and his pulse accelerate.

Chuuya's eyes reflected surprise back at him. The very same beautiful blue eyes filled with melancholy and pain just last night.

And now at this moment, the blue eyes were slowly becoming clouded by confusion and anger and …

"I hate you, you know," Chuuya finally said in a quiet voice. "I really do."

"Oh?" Dazai replied, equally as soft.

"I've hated you since the day I met you."

"As did I."

"You've been the bane of my life for as long as I could remember."

"I can say the same about you."

"And when you left, my hatred for you only increased."

"Yes, you have become more annoying."

Chuuya closed his eyes and took a deep breath before opening them again. "But I only hated you more because I hated myself for missing you."

A silent beat passed. Transfixed right now, Dazai couldn't help but be marveled by the bright blue irises, filled with genuine hurt and genuine pain. He marveled how they were sparkling with just the slightest hint of trepidation as well as frustration at his own person. He marveled at how his heart could ache so much hearing that.

"Will you let go of me now?" Chuuya lowered his eyes, unable to continue staring into Dazai's.

Then, Dazai released him – only to move his hand to Chuuya's shoulder. Without thinking for once, he just pulled the other man closer.

His mouth came up to Chuuya's ear and he whispered sincerely, "I'm sorry."

Chuuya

I stared after the car that had dropped me off in front of Headquarters. There were many thoughts scrambling to occupy the space at the front of my mind but now's just not the time to entertain those thoughts.

I practically marched into his office. Not caring an iota about my disheveled looks or how I had almost kicked down the doors as the guards outside frantically rushed to open them.

"Oh Chuuya-kun, you're back in one piece! How nice!" came a chirpy voice from the end of the room.

The Boss was standing up from his seat for once, leaning against his expensive mahogany table.

"Where's Okamoto-kun?"

I stopped a few metres away from him. "She's dead."

Mori's eyes glinted in the morning sun. "Oh? What happened?"

"She betrayed us and with Blood Raid, tried to threaten me. So I killed all of them, as you had requested."

Mori smiled. "You've done your job well."

"Indeed," I agreed, never missing a beat. "You put her under me so that you could feed her hand-picked information about the Mafia, didn't you? And because I had no idea what was going on, Onuki Kano wasn't able to detect that she was playing right into your hands."

The Mafia boss's smiled widened. "Guilty as charged."

"So tell me now," I pressed. "When did you know?"

Mori chuckled. "Oh, I was suspicious from the start. So I pretended to invest in a certain state-of-the-art weapons manufacturing company. I ensured that the both of you were handling sensitive information like the company's address –"

"And when the building blew up …" I completed Mori's sentence slowly. That all made sense now … all of Mori's crazy schemes to pour as much money as he can into the weapons company – so that it eventually became a seemingly large enough target for Blood Raid to act on to further their plans to destroy the Port Mafia.

"It looks like Dazai-kun has managed to prime your thinking well," said Mori, cutting into my thoughts.

My breathing quickened at the mention of that offending name. "Dazai – that was you. That was your plan too!"

"Actually no," Mori assured me quickly. "Dazai-kun was truthfully an unexpected development. There was no way I could have calculated the slightest possibility of receiving a call from him."

I frowned. Mori's words weren't quite getting through to me. You mean, he really didn't predict Dazai would do this? The implications of this were quite … scary. So then, what Dazai had done must have been completely … out of his character and mind? My mind scrambled to understand why. I couldn't tell if it was because of some clever scheme Dazai himself had devised to take Mori and I by surprise or if it was because of something else …

"I'm so worried about Dazai-kun," Mori sighed. "I wonder if something happened to him of late?"

I turned away from Mori's piercing gaze. "I, I wouldn't know, Boss."

After an uncomfortable pause, Mori finally spoke again. "Well, you've done well, Chuuya-kun. And it seems you have a lot of thoughts to sort out. Go back and have a good rest. We'll have a meeting later when work starts."

Not needing to be told twice, I bowed and then quickly exited.

As I sluggishly made my way back home, I finally allowed the torrent of thoughts I had been holding back, attack my brain.

I flashbacked to Dazai finding me in Kawasaki, his complete change in expression, the genuine quiet anger he exuded, Onuki Kano's deception and our cooperation in the complete eradication of Blood Raid.

But the most vivid and clear of which were the memories of what had transpired in the car earlier …

Dazai's behaviour had been weird since the aftermath of the utter destruction of Blood Raid 2. I mean, my thoughts were all over the place as well but I never expected Dazai to completely lose his head … as evident in what he did in the car.

I reached home (and made a mental note to fix that lock) and went to lie down on my bed immediately. But despite my exhaustion, my raging thoughts kept me from sleep.

Why the hell did he ask about my crying?

And why did I tell him …

I bit my lip. Why do I let him affect me this way? Every time I see him, let alone work with him after his betrayal (and this is the third time already!) … it makes it so much harder to let go.

With a pain in my heart, I had to agree with my earlier self in the car, when I admitted that I missed him.

Surprisingly, that wasn't the hardest confession I had ever made. Maybe it was the toffee eyes, or his intense gaze, or the adrenaline and emotions from the revival of Double Black for the third time …

Or maybe it was because I was tired of hating him when all I really wanted, was to miss him.

And with that final thought, sleep finally welcomed me into its arms.

A/N: Hope everyone enjoyed their weekend!