Prologue

.

Rush. Nothing felt more incredible than the pleasant sensation of adrenaline in her veins.

Sun on her face, wind in her hair, the growl of an engine; she steered her motorcycle, zipping past those cold-shelled lagging cars and railroad terminals with cool ease. She liked it. No, she loved it. And maybe, carelessly so as she drove passed them, losing herself in the fast pace and the energy whirling about her in waves.

Swerving to the left, she sped through the path and her periphery was greeted with monochrome silhouettes of faces and suits bleeding in between smoke. It was one of the high-end parts of Yokohama, where the streets were busiest and the people crowded the area like a trail of ants on small hills: in line, on track, back to the grinder. It was the most mundane thing you could ever see.

At the end of the lane, parking at the curb, her foot stepped on the brake. Behind blue-tinted glasses, her eyes met the unwelcome sight of a building. Nothing memorable to say the least. Like today, and the yesterdays that spun around like a routine of sorts; ejecting of keys, unpacking a package, and followed by the typical polite exchanges, signing of receipts, and off she went. It was a bit more gratifying when she found herself out, just when the stuffiness died down and the breeze waved at her like an old friend.

As much as she would gladly head on back to the road, it didn't expect to spot a distant figure in that said building. On its roof. She wasn't one to gawk for so long, but what drew her in was that the figure wasn't just a post or some random object flung on the railing. It was a man.

It was none of her business, and neither did she have some sliver of compassion for strangers that she barely met. Though what made her charge herself back into the building was moved by an impulse. The reason behind it, however, hadn't lent itself clear or justifiably moral as she wanted to. It was a spur in the moment, an instance where she thought she had to do something quick.

Maybe, she was remembering an old withering thought, a feeling so long ago, of something so familiar, something like loss and senseless tragedy.

It would have been simpler; if she could have just told the guards or one of their clerks of her recent sighting, but the attention could further provoke him to kill himself or either way it could be too late. Police often came so belatedly nowadays. But she's no police, no friend—not the help, either.

So, when the words shaped out from the man's mouth: "who are you?"

No one in particular. It didn't matter who she was, where she came from; the right thing to ask was why she was there in the first place.

Regardless, it surprised her really. How no one had seen him, barely grasping at the edges. He watched the world below him, like how a curious child peered at an unbothered ant line under his shoe.

She padded forward and stopped at an arm's length away from him the moment he began to speak further.

"Here and then I thought I found a perfect spot to commit suicide without rousing too much attention," he sighed. "A shame, too. But then again, this place seems far too lonesome and quiet to fall off, don't you think?"

"I find it quite a pitiful place to die," she said, shrugging. "What are you thinking about?"

He chuckled. And it was lively and amused, for a man who supposedly wanted to die. "You see a man about to commit suicide and that's the first thing you ask me. It should be obvious, shouldn't it?"

She frowned. "It isn't unlikely to hesitate before you, well," she tried to properly form her words, but found herself drifting in them. She breathed in. "Maybe something's on your mind. Something you're still holding onto—maybe, that's why you're still here," then breathed out, "hesitating."

"And why did you assume I'm hesitating?"

"We're still talking," came her reply, her tone more confident than her last. "You might as well as have thrown yourself off awhile ago."

"Ah, I still very much intend to," he said and she could almost feel an amused smile from his pleased tone. "I admit that I've delayed a bit but I was contemplating whether I should fall off the building or drown in a nearby river instead. It's difficult to decide what kind of suicide suits me best, but, of course, the choice always depends on which death is least painful."

She blinked. Perhaps, she was a little grateful that his back was turned against her because he might notice that she had no inkling how to handle him at that moment, appearing so startled to respond. Is he serious?

She went on humoring him anyway. "The decision should be simple. Both are painful thus terrible choices."

He paused for a moment. It was as if he put so much consideration in her answer.

"Well, falling off a building should be quick and easy."

"But there's the possibility of you somehow managing to survive."

"Hm, then again dying from drowning sounds rather poetic."

"Aside from the former, drowning is an excruciatingly slow process to die."

"You're a peculiar woman."

She resisted the urge to scoff. "Am I now?"

Just as another gust swept by them, she heard scuffing from the concrete wall and the soft flap of his coat. He didn't separate himself from his recent position, from behind the railing which he was growing more comfortable to be on. He turned aptly to face her. Instead of a firm grip, he was casually leaning on the railing, subject on pursuing their talk. "Oftentimes, when strangers find me committing suicide, they do their best to stop me."

The stranger was curious of her, she could tell. If it wasn't apparent from his words, it glistened from his eyes.

She cocked her brow. "You've attempted this before?"

His head tilted, musing. "Yes, plenty of times," he said. "But each attempt failed."

Now that she thought about it; when she had a good look at him, there were bandages on his wrists and his neck, and while it came across as an evident consequence to his actions, she couldn't remove herself from the gut feeling that there was something to hide. Her hand adjusted her glasses, pushing it up. "Well, I'm discouraging you."

He didn't appear upset of her intentions, but he seemed more intrigued. "Then again you do seem relatively calm about it. Is it a habit of yours conversing with suicidal men?"

When he uttered it, it didn't feel like a taunt. It was more like a speculation. Perhaps, it was the mild affable tone of his voice. Although she would admit that he did have a point about her having conversations to unwholesome company—or lack thereof.

"Not particularly," she lied. "If you must know, I prefer conversing to another person from the other side of the railing."

He smiled wryly. "Ah, but the view is quite lovely from here," he let his eyes wander, and she followed after his gaze, tracing the outline of Minato Mirai against the harsh red-orange glare of the setting sun, the lamplights sparking like dull embers looming above the hard pavement that he had better off label as his grave. The height never seemed to bother him.

Absentmindedly, she wondered if he was reminiscing, if the scenery held some whit of sentiment, a token of vague familiarity, because he might be grinning at her now, giving off the impression of insouciance at the face of death, when she couldn't really tell what swam in his thoughts, what he made out of this situation.

Perhaps, it was presumptuous of her, but a suicidal mind, while often liable to mercurial bouts in behavior, wasn't a complete conundrum to read. The least she could confirm was that he was always contemplative. She noticed it from that distinct far-off look in his eyes. In the very way he spoke and acted. Like he's not supposed to be here.

Leaning at the edge, he then sighed under his breath. Heavier, reflective. "You really are stopping me."

"One may say I'm doing you a favor," she shrugged. "But I'd like to think that I'm sparing you from hospital bills."

"Though you're not the most inspiring of sorts," he said, a hint of humor in his voice. "Not even a prep talk about the wonders of life?"

He laughed at his own joke.

She frowned. "It appears you like to stall."

He lifted his shoulders in an unabashed shrug. "I do fancy a nice distraction," he admitted. "The company of a beautiful woman always does the trick."

She disregarded his compliment. "You're a man without friends, aren't you?"

"Well, I do have some friends back at the Agency."

"You mean one of the clerks down here?"

"Oh? No, not at all. I don't work here."

She didn't bother questioning him about that.

He proved to be an absolute eccentric. That served as a good reason enough.

Before she could voice out any opinions of her own, she then realized that their exchanges had simply been more productive in prolonging their unusual conversation and had done less to come close to the outcome she wanted. It was getting late. Although this confrontation had been nothing more but an inconvenience, she wasn't entirely concerned if she stayed for awhile on a roof with an even more puzzling stranger.

Diversion was an enticing thing and often passed by with so much to offer.

"Say, I didn't quite catch your name."

She blinked, not skipping a beat. "Not that it matters."

"Frankly, it'd be a shame. It would be nice to know the name of the last person I have ever spoken to," he said, glancing back at her. "Or possibly my savior."

His persuasion was a bit lacking in that line, but she had to give credit on that smile. It was easy on the eyes.

Pulling her leather jacket closer to her, she stuffed her hands on its pockets. "I'm fine being tagged as a stranger." It was a piss-poor excuse and her tone would have given it away, but she preferred to be nameless. The prospect of meeting him again in the future was rather bleak and far-fetched. "But if you'd like, you can call me by any name. Or guess it. I don't really care. I'll warn you, though. I won't hint anything."

"Ah, you seem to fancy anonymity."

"Sure. There's still thrill in guessing, isn't there?"

"Maybe. Nevertheless, I'll humor you," he said, amused. "Well, you do strike me as . . . Mariko. Or maybe Natsuko. Is that close enough?"

Close.

Her mouth broke into an offhanded smile. "Nice try."

Pouting, the stranger relented to a resigned nod. Once he leaned on the palm of his hand, he sent her a knowing look in which she returned with a one-shouldered shrug. "I wouldn't mind playing this guessing game with you, but I'm not the sort to introduce myself anonymously," he said. "I'm Osamu Dazai."

"Dazai," she repeated, testing the name. "You know, you shouldn't have."

It would have been better if he didn't. Though if they had lived in different circumstances and in a more suitable setting, she wouldn't have minded personally keeping in touch with him. He seemed like an interesting person. But the less people she met, the less burden she had to go through with their involvement in her life. The risk of it always had inevitable consequences.

"Consider it as a keepsake."

A keepsake, hm.

"For wha—what are you doing?"

His brows rose from the change of tone in her voice. One hand grappled at the railing while he leaned back. He was dangling.

Dazai gestured at his actions. "This? I've considered to die here, as I planned earlier."

Crossing her arms, she frowned at his stubborness. "So you're just going to ignore what I'm doing?"

Guiltless, he stared at her. "Yes."

It had to be some sort of joke. If it was, it wasn't funny.

Dazai was still wearing that grin, gazing below as if the consequences unfazed him, enamored him. His feet edged closer to empty space, lured them inch by inch. His grasp loosened. He flicked his eyes at her for a brief second, wringing out her thoughts, and she must have been a show-stopper, the butt end of a joke; impatient and racked to her nerves, as she was now. Then was it really just for a laugh after all? Did he really possess such a morbid sense of humor for the sake of seeing her bawl out?

There unravelled the moment, like how films rolled out a scene, when his hand released the railing.

And she, impetuously inclined to act, lunged forward. As Dazai leaned back near the railing, he stood still. He didn't fall. It had been a joke. Because his smile was still there, a very larking one at that. His gaze shone in what appeared to be in sickeningly immature amusement. He opened his mouth, about to reveal his intentions to calm her down.

As much as she wanted to simply drag him by the collar to conclude this mishap, it was too late when she began to close in on him, cutting his sentence short before it had been enunciated in full.

When their eyes met. And a spate of power uncoiled within her.

From her abrupt movements her blue-tinted shades slid off her face, tumbling on the ground.

"Stop!"

And he stopped.

Just as she said.

Dazai stared at her. Thunderstruck. Petrified.

She felt everything all at once. Confusion. Alarm. Suspicion. His emotions and thoughts rung like knells inside her head, bellowing in great magnitude each moment she unintentionally pervaded further in the deep recesses of his mind. Vague pieces of memories stormed in. Gunfire and carnage. A decade of inflicting torture. A doctor slitting the throat of a bedridden man. Death, death, death.

Cold sweat beaded on her forehead. Resting her hand on her temple, she groaned in pain. She eagerly wanted to lurch forward and retch the bile rising on her throat. Those terrible images—rather, his memories, or at least what she had seen so far were wretched, even though she couldn't quite piece together its disjointed sequence. Couldn't accept them. He didn't appear like a murderer. But her ability always made her a fool. It always made her see the things she refused to see.

Swallowing a breath, she looked at him. Felt the concern from his eyes and the cautious alert at the back of his head. Can't blame him for that.

"Get back here. Away from the railing."

She used it again. She had to unless he was frozen in that position for who knows when.

She bent down to swipe her glasses. Wiping them with the back of her gloved hand, she adjusted them back on the bridge of her nose. Biting her tongue, she tamped the urge to groan as she felt another migraine rupture her mind. Endure it.

"You're an ability-user."

Shit.

It was too dangerous for someone to know what she could do. Focusing her attention on him, she couldn't determine the look in his eyes, but she was sure of one thing: there was certainty within them and whatever that certainty was, no matter if it was for a good or bad end, she would always see it as an adversity.

Indifferently disregarding his statement, she cleared her throat and brushed it off. She turned away from him and went for the door. As long as he didn't have any information about her, she was fine. She was safe. And this whole misfortune of a meeting could be treated as some sort of misunderstanding, easily forgotten and taken care of.

This stranger should pose no threat. He had nothing against her.

"Ah—hey, wait!"

Dazai trailed behind her as she hurried down the stairs. She would rather avoid him in hopes of losing his tracks on her, though much to her dismay, he didn't stray away, following her like a bloodhound on its lead, even after exiting out of the building, and in spite of his prompting, he persevered in reaching out to her. His purposes in doing so was beyond her because it could be anything. Information. Money. An explanation.

She considered the latter, but it didn't matter all the same.

She sighed. Damn it.

"Leave me alone."

Behind her, he replied, "I would if you would just listen."

She thought about it, but to trust him was still up to debate.

Turning a heel to confront him, she crossed her arms. "What?"

"I want to compensate."

She went with the conclusion that it was an accident. An inconvenient meeting between two strangers who were meant for different paths. Nothing about his background indicated that he recognized her, but that one drop of suspicion bled through his curiosity, like ink unfurling in diluted water.

Osamu Dazai was many things, she was sure. He wasn't a spy sent to track her down and she would like to think the odds weren't completely against her favor. But suspicion was a dangerous thing, contorting everything it touched beyond repair. He was suspicious of her and his connection with the underground - or otherwise, it still didn't matter which is which - made him a suspicious man.

A shame, she thought. She would admit that she did enjoy what little time she spent with him, before she knew what he was. Monster. Shaking her head, she dashed that one out. She didn't like putting a label to a lot of things, but she couldn't shrug off his fragmented memories embedded in her mind and the pestering thought that she still went out of her way to drink with him. What made her agree, that made her reconsider her decision.

Without reservation, she downed her glass.

"Would you like a refill?" Dazai offered, nursing his untouched drink.

She sighed. It had been awhile since she had a good drink of whiskey or stayed in a decent bar. She was always lurking around the seedy ones that sold cheap alcohol these days. The scent of tobacco and burnished wood lingered in the room. A part of her craved for a smoke, but it was a past habit that she was trying to break and she committed.

"Sure."

Dazai nodded, calling for the barman who poured her glass.

She eyed the whiskey before taking a sip. "I don't plan to stay long."

Then she waited for a reaction: furrowed brows, a twitch of the mouth, anything. However, the only thing he could make out of it was the small gesture of swirling the brandy in slow contemplative circles.

"Would you enlighten me on something?" There was that inquisitive tone in his voice. It disarmed her, again. How amiable it sounded, and the blithe curl of his lips. "I failed to ask you why you tried to stop my suicide attempt."

She would have argued why he made fun of it, done it in poor taste, but she fought back the urge. "My reason is obvious, isn't it?"

"Well, I find the reason such as to save another life rather redundant, you see. That isn't to say I think little of it. It's rather, hm, admirable, I suppose." The last string of his sentence rang hollow, a shade unaffected, despite his patent curiosity. She listened. "But you don't seem like the kind of person who'd meddle in someone's business."

"Yet you barged in anyway without a second thought," Dazai said, finally drinking his brandy. "Still hesitant about the whole thing you've thrust yourself into."

The room's lighting played with his features, smoke and shadow hazing in, making his face softer, sharper. She couldn't decide which of the two.

"Why are you asking me this?"

Dazai locked eyes with her, a half smile peering from the palm bent casually under his cheek. "Because you're interesting," he said this like a genuine compliment, and while it might pass as openly flirting to some, it didn't quite come across as flattery to her. It was a surmisal. An incomplete afterthought. "That should count, no? Now, please, don't disappoint with an answer."

"You're quite demanding, aren't you?"

Dazai made an amused snort. "Am I really pushing it, though?"

"Redundant as it is, saving a life isn't a dull answer."

"Yet it is a tedious one."

Pressing her lips together, she did rethink about it—the harmless question, the reason behind his odd pursuit for an answer—and it didn't take her long to abandon the subject, never minding how the aftertaste of her conclusions had gotten stale at the back of her tongue. No drop of liquor could cure the sentiment, or the stark outlook of what their small exchanges entailed, implied.

"I honestly think you're the tedious one," she went with being evasive, sharing a friendly jab even. "It makes me wonder if you just take out the people who stop your suicide attempts to ask them random questions."

Dazai let out a laugh. Markedly genuine. It was a distraction, a pleasant distraction, she decided, mulling over the slight quirk of her mouth. She had to hide it by lifting the glass to her lips, drowning the sound with alcohol down her throat.

"That's a first," Dazai said that from the final beats of his snickering. "I'll gladly admit I don't, not really. I'd just like you to humor me," and then he added, with a wink, "I'm paying for your drink after all."

"Well, I did humor you, didn't I?"

"But you still didn't answer the question."

"What's more to say?"

"Hm, perhaps committing a double-suicide with a stranger, for one."

"You're not serious," she said in a moment of full-blown disbelief.

"It's an example," Dazai clarified, and despite the levity of his words, there was something telling about his smile, or the manner how his eyes began to wander away from her questioning stare. He lifted up an unabashed shrug. "But it can be an invitation."

An odd conclusion for him to draw at though it wasn't a particularly unexpected response from him. He never seemed to be deterred in bringing up the strangest things in conversations, and while it didn't really nag her, she humored him anyway. "Then what's the point of me stopping you in the first place?"

Dazai made a soft noise from the back of his throat; his smile wavering. "Well, that makes for a good a question," he said vaguely. "What is the point?"

"You don't make a lot of sense. Asking, overthinking about it . . . just what kind of answer are you trying to find, exactly?"

Unhesitatingly, Dazai looked back at her. "That's what I'm trying to figure out myself."

She returned back his gaze. It felt different, purposely dark and obscure. She already had a glimpse of his past, a sliver of what lurked and twisted in the shadow of his mind, and yet he remained so unreachable, so enigmatic. Monster, murderer, mafioso. Lightly shaking her head, she tried to remove herself from those voices, from a memory, stained in black and red.

"You make it sound like it's a puzzle you have to solve," but the thought occurred, whispering thoroughly in her ear, alone: what if the puzzle never wanted to be solved? She mulled over her glass, watching the ice melt excruciatingly slow. "It's gotten to you, hasn't it? What happened earlier."

That didn't take him by surprise, but Dazai affected an apologetic smile. "You looked upset about what happened so I didn't pry about it, but would you mind if I ask now?"

She paused for a moment.

"No."

Dazai looked rather disappointed. "Then why bring up the question?"

Her hand placed down her drink, reverberating a dull thud on the wooden bar stand. "It's because you're unbothered." She seized him with a long mooting stare. "There are only a few who're accepting of"—super-powered freaks, aberrations . . . ability-users—"people like me."

"So this is about me recognizing you're a gifted," Dazai scrutinized her, reading closely into her inflections, "and it bothers you."

She dismissed his observation, though she did pick up on his words, repeating it, "gifted? Ah, that's one way of putting it," she said, expressing her blatant distaste for the term. She finished her drink there, waiting for that bitter warmth to sink in and ignite her skin on fire. A disappointing turn came about; she felt colder inside.

"You let on more than you look. From what I know, the public isn't fully aware that there's such a thing as ability-users."

She knew there was an estranged relationship present in broadcasts and television when confronted about the matter. Newspapers articles were all covered-up by a story that certain events happened because of terrorists or small-scale calamities. Laws were passed for the restriction of powers. Fukuoka censored everything related to unusually gifted individuals. Hokkaido even banned the term ability-users after the Tokachi-Oki earthquake, speculated to have been caused by one.

"And you don't beat around the bush," Dazai grinned yet the curve on his lips was more knowing and amused than jovial. He leaned in and grasped her hand, as if to reach out in congenial terms. "But you don't have to be afraid," he whispered conspiratorially. "I'm an ability-user myself."

"You are?"

"I want to recruit you," Dazai said, giving her hand a light squeeze.

"I work for the Armed Detective Agency," he showed her his detective badge from his coat. "It's a private government organization that deals with special cases, you can say, and it also admits ability-users for that purpose. You seem capable. Sharp. Although I think you'll still need a little practice, you possess an extraordinary ability, nonetheless. I'm certain you'll qualify in."

Her words seemed to fail her from his sudden proposition. Her eyes flicked undecidedly at him and the hand wrapped around hers. Private government organization. A detective—he's a detective now, she recalled, registering. It wasn't far-fetched for the government to be involved with ability-users, using them when the problem arose. Yokohama practically teemed with them.

"That's a nice offer," she said flatly. "But I'm not interested."

A heavy sigh rolled off her lips. The list unfolded on itself and the voices screamed at her like warning bells. Monster, murderer, mafioso, detective—government dog. Ability-user. Pick one and make a choice. A part of her would like to claim that it was guilt, hammering in like this before the act was done, but it wasn't like the last time, or the one before it. She opened her mouth. "Actually, I'd prefer it if you," her hand slid down her blue-tinted glasses, exposing her eyes, "forget we ever met."

A thick silence walled between them.

That was until his pointer finger tapped the skin of her wrist, and the blood started to pound at her ears in steady beats at first, until it rose and rose above the drone of mindless white noise, and all that came was a blare of ice-cold dread knocking at her chest.

"Has anyone ever told you that you have lovely eyes?" Dazai said, calmly drinking his brandy to the last drop. "It's quite a shame that you'd rather have me forget them."

A second of hesitance. The air was dry and stifled, unfiltered with second-hand smoke. She drew in a breath. A frantic thought raced in her mind, as if there hadn't been more enough already, that she was so sure she used it against him, this time. That power flowed through her. She felt it from the glimmer in her eye, ringing like steel in her voice.

And then in a blink—nothing.

"You . . ."

Despite it all, damned as it was, she had never felt so . . . relieved and apprehensive at the same time.

His smile was distracting in a sense that it was indecipherable. Something about it aggravated her, affronted more than approached. Her eyes lingered at him, then to the hand that grasped her wrist. There was something off. Then it occurred to her that he admitted that he was an ability-user. She ruminated over the possibility, the lingering hope, that maybe, could be.

". . . are able to negate my ability," she confirmed thoughtfully, sighing after. "Mind letting me go?"

Pleased of her speculation, Dazai still kept that smile. Amused as ever. "Self-defense," he said. "Although equally useless, it is rather convenient in this kind of situation, no? After all, you used your ability on me."

Annoyed, she sighed again. "Well, it didn't work."

"I exercise precaution."

"We're a few inches apart," she gestured his secure grip on her hand. "I can . . . settle for a compromise."

Dazai gave her a discriminating look for five agonizing seconds until he finally nodded in agreement, respecting her request as he released her hand and kept his folded atop his lap. Placid and genteel, as any good law-abiding man should.

Practiced, that's what she called it, cut with a stab of distrust.

She examined her wrist, the skin of her palm beneath her glove. "Is it gone, the ability," a tentative silence, "for good?"

"Temporarily," Dazai said, but it might as well end in a question mark. He didn't elaborate how long.

"I've discovered two things about you." Dazai raised two fingers to endorse his statement. "One, you are only able to use your ability when you articulate it. Two, this," he grabbed her glasses from the bar stand, "hinders your ability, doesn't it? That's because your ability requires direct eye-contact. Correct?"

There was no reason denying it if he was going to see right through her, picking at the truth behind her teeth. Though she won't give him the satisfaction of saying a yes.

Dazai laughed under his breath. Not the jeering sort. It sounded overjoyed. "And in spite all of that, I still don't know your name."

Retrieving back her glasses from him, she placed them at the bridge of her nose. "I prefer keeping it that way."

"I recall we are to be in a compromise."

Dazai stared her down, gouging out her thoughts. Perhaps, she underestimated him in some aspects, believing she couldn't take such an eccentric man seriously. After awhile, she realized she quite disliked his eyes, the way it could switch off and turn cold and calculating. However, the most bothering fact was that it was unfathomable, like bottomless pits. Nothing could be sought within them.

She steeled her nerves. "We are," she said. "But you don't have to know who I am."

"Quite unfair. After having introduced myself and told you where my loyalties lie." There returned the implications, the dense layers of his masked tone, and then Dazai came at her with a final drawl. "You don't play fair at all, do you?"

"I'm not playing anything."

"So why gamble? You didn't follow me here blind."

"I wanted to confirm something for myself," she admitted, tightlipped. "I hadn't expected . . . this."

"Do you work?" Dazai asked and the question might as well be a politely demanding who do you work for. It aligned well when he brought up which side he was on—government dog—and probed for an answer, eagerly wanting to know whose boundary he was crossing on.

She was aware how interrogations worked. How it relied heavily on intimidation as the simplest means of information extraction. It was strange when he had done it, seamlessly playing his words and redressing it into the disguise of small talk.

She glared at him. "As a part-timer, yes."

"Oh, really? As what then, if you don't mind me asking."

"I'm a courier." The words dangled, stuck at the roof of her mouth, and he seemed so intent to pluck it out of her. She wouldn't buckle over, but for now, she'd let this one slide, with a sharp sigh. "From Hishou."

"Hishou," Dazai let the word roll off his tongue, his brows slowly creeping up beneath his dark curls. That was a surprise to see. He appeared a bit startled at the realization. "The same one popping up in the news recently, right?"

"It's gotten a bit popular as of late," she shrugged noncommittally, recalling the daily obituaries that one morning ago, and the senseless tabloids about the company that sprang up after.

"Then that gives you an even more valid reason to reconsider my offer," Dazai said, despite what transpired earlier. "Just as I've said, I'd like you to join the Agency."

"No."

"Why not?" Dazai asked, childishly pouting. "I'm willing to even recommend you."

"Personal preference." She was figuring him out, testing if she could read between the lines of what made a lie and what didn't, trying and failing in tandem as she did so. How literal was this offer, how much of it was a clever trap. "The last thing I want is clerkship."

"I didn't mean clerkship," Dazai corrected, musing at the prospect. "I acknowledged your potential. Actually, getting you in the front lines should fit you. I think you'll fare well as a personal investigator."

You don't know what's best for me, was what she wanted to hiss out and she had to clench her fists from her sides to repress uttering it aloud. Even if he had all the information he could scrounge about her, utilize against her, one thing was certain and it would cling on him like blood on his lips. You don't know me.

"I don't like using my ability."

"It's still a powerful gift," Dazai reminded pointedly. "You can save lives with it. Change everything." There was a hollowness in his voice, like an echo from a deep tunnel. Distant, detached somehow, despite the encouraging words and the meaning backed behind his wry smile.

However the idea, optimistic as it was, never truly sat well with her. Gifted with a power to change everything. There was a stark dichotomy in it, split the world black and white, and what bled on the will behind it made everything gray and misleading—and for the most part, worse.

"I'm not the only one out there, I'm sure," she sighed. "There's no reason for you to go after me."

"Even after attempting to erase my memories of you awhile ago?" Dazai brought it up so casually. There was no hint of grudge in the way he spoke about it, but there was weight. A recurring undertone of gravity in his amused voice. "Without a license, I'm sure."

She had to, but she bit her tongue before the excuse slipped out. "I don't trust you."

"You didn't have to," Dazai said, and it stung. "You could have easily walked away from this."

"Don't remind me," she grouched out, balling her hands into fists. "Are you going to take me in?" it was still a minor offence, after all; one she would certainly serve time in a special detention cell. Self-defense never condoned as an excuse if you're different. Money was the ticket out, but her wage wouldn't come close to paying up half the penalty fine. It'd be so much easier if he wasn't gifted.

Problems stacked against the other, forging a castle of brass from it, and atop it all was the compromise of her identity, her damned ability, and the hapless turn of her plans simply because she unknowingly saved a detective, who refused to forget about her.

"No."

His fingers drummed on the bar stand, nails against wood. Ba-thump, it went, as if he was listening to her pulse. "I'm going to do you a favor," then all together, the rhythm stopped, a dead flatline, and there flashed his eyes fixed on hers. "For a favor."

Manipulative, she thought. Monster, murderer, mafioso, government dog. Liar.

"What is it?"

Her voice was firm, sharp as steel but nicked, nearly blunted out, because she couldn't swallow, couldn't breathe. He didn't let her. He kept her there, as if he had a knife poised at her throat, and the cold tension grappled her by the shoulders.

Dazai smiled. An enigma in itself.

"Tell me your name."