009

It wasn’t that you were loyal.

Never were.

After joining the Port Mafia, you quickly became something of a favorite.

Respected, feared, whispered about with a mixture of awe and unease.

Some said you were more beloved than Mori himself. Not that it mattered to you.

“They talk about you like you’re the real boss,” Dazai commented one afternoon, idly peeling the label off a bottle of sake he wasn’t old enough to drink.

You looked up from your seat by the window, sunlight casting lines across your face.

“Maybe they’re just bored. People cling to whatever’s interesting.”

“Flattering,” he said.

“And here I thought they liked you for your charm.”

You gave a slight smile. “Charm is a useful illusion.”

“Is that what you’re doing now? Charming me?”

You tilted your head, curious. “Do you want to be charmed?”

There was silence for a moment, then, your tone became playful.

“Sorry, but I'm into older people. Preferably the kind that can catch me off guard,” you shrugged, glancing at him for his reaction.

Dazai blinked. “Is there anyone who can catch you off guard?” he asked.

“The overly bold ones.”

“...I see.”

It wasn’t loyalty that kept you working. It was… entertainment.

The missions were interesting. The humans? More so.

You didn’t mind being sent out constantly. In fact, you preferred it.

You moved like a ghost, your teleportation clean and deadly. In and out before most realized they were being hunted. No witnesses. No mess. Unless you wanted mess.

And Dazai?

He was your shadow more often than not.

“You don’t talk as much when we’re alone,” he remarked once, during a walk back from a mission.

“You don’t either.”

“Touché.”

You glanced at him, half-lidded eyes unreadable. “Do you want me to talk more?”

He tilted his head, considering. “Not particularly. I just want to know what goes on in that head of yours.”

“Nothing you’d understand.”

He smirked. “Try me.”

You didn’t. But you didn't say no either.

Mori gave you orders still. Formally. Calmly. With that usual air of paternal elegance.

But you both knew the leash had thinned throughout the years.

“You’ve gotten efficient,” he said one night, hands laced behind his back as you delivered another flawless report.

“Too efficient, perhaps. Am I going to have to worry about you one day?”

You looked him in the eye. “If I was going to take over, I’d already have your seat.”

He smiled, unfazed. “True. But I wonder... do you ever think about it?”

You gave a light shrug. “I think about many things. Doesn’t mean I want them.”

Mori studied you for a long second, then nodded. “Good. Keep Dazai busy. He listens to you more than he listens to me.”

“Because I entertain him.”

Mori chuckled. “And that’s all he needs?”

You leaned in slightly, voice low and amused. “We’re not so different. You entertained me once, remember?”

Mori didn’t deny it.

You were more detached now. Not colder, just… further away.

Missions amused you.

Civilians provided fleeting moments of intrigue. The way they trembled when you feigned innocence, the way they reached for your outstretched hand only to be pulled into something darker.

It was like theatre. Beautiful, manipulative theatre.

“You’re playing with them again,” Dazai said once, watching you speak sweetly to a blushing shop owner.

“Of course I am,” you said, tone breezy.

“Why?”

You gave a soft smile. “Because they believe me.”

He was quiet for a moment.

“Would you lie to me like that?”

You gave him a long look. “You wouldn’t believe me if I did.”

“…True,” he admitted.

You rarely asked Mori anything anymore. There was no need.

You already knew how he thought, how he moved, how he calculated.

The only mystery left was how long he'd keep pretending to be a benevolent leader.

“How long do you think this lasts?” Dazai asked one evening, both of you sitting on the roof of a building you’d just painted red.

You didn’t ask with what.

“Until someone gets bored,” you replied.

He tilted his head. “You?”

You shook your head. “Not yet. There’s still plenty to see.”

“People? Or blood?”

“Both.”

He laughed softly, though it didn’t reach his eyes.

You liked the silence after a mission.

That stillness only you called peace.

When everything had been dealt with and there were no screams left to fill the air.

Just blood cooling on the concrete and you wiping your hands clean.

Peace, in your own language, meant no one else breathing in your presence unless you allowed it.

“You call that peace?” Dazai asked once, watching you light a cigarette as bodies cooled around you.

You inhaled slowly. “It’s peaceful to me.”

He didn’t argue. But he watched you longer than he usually did.

One day, after a particularly vicious mission, you asked him:

“Do you think they like me?”

“The others?”

“Mmm.”

“They’re terrified of you.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

He glanced at you. “They admire you. They think you’re what the mafia should be.”

You smiled, faint and cold. “They’re wrong.”

“Are they?”

You turned toward him, voice calm. “I’m what happens when Mori stops pretending he cares. They just don’t know that yet.”

Dazai studied you for a long time.

“…I don’t think he controls you anymore.”

“He never did,” you said. “He just… made me feel like he did.”

“You could leave.”

You stared at him. “So could you.”

He didn’t reply.

That night, walking beside him, the city lights flickering like dying stars, you said softly, “You know I’m not here because I’m bound, right?”

“Yeah,” he replied.

You looked at him. “I stay because it’s amusing.”

“I figured.”

“But one day,” you murmured, “if the amusement dies, I’ll disappear. No warning.”

He nodded, slowly. “I think I’ll follow.”

You blinked. “Why?”

“I want to see where you go.”

You laughed then, genuinely. “Is that so?”

And the two of you walked on, quiet monsters beneath a dark sky, finding in each other not warmth, not comfort.

But something worse.

A mirror.