011

You weren’t surprised when he started lingering.

Dazai had always been quiet, but lately, he was too quiet.

Present when he didn’t need to be, walking in step with you when you hadn’t said a word.

He didn’t speak much, didn’t ask permission, didn’t explain.

But you noticed.

You noticed the way he began appearing at your side more often than necessary.

How his gaze would rest on you for a fraction longer than before.

How he seemed to be waiting for something, though he didn’t know what.

Mori noticed it too, probably. But he said nothing.

He didn’t need to.

When today’s mission came in, low risk, surveillance only.

Mori handed the folder to you.

Not you and Dazai. Just you.

And yet, when you slipped into the shadows of the slums, trailing behind your target through the broken gutters of Yokohama, Dazai was there.

He didn’t greet you. Didn’t offer to help. Just fell in beside you with his hands in his pockets, like he belonged there.

You gave him a look out of the corner of your eye. “This wasn’t your assignment.”

He shrugged, staring straight ahead. “Didn’t feel like being alone.”

You smiled faintly. Amused, not touched. “You’re stalking me, Dazai.”

“That makes two of us.”

You let that hang in the air, the corners of your mouth tugging a little higher.

The two of you settled in a derelict apartment building, second floor, broken blinds angled just right to give you a view of the street below.

Your target, a middleman smuggler with suspected ability connections, was pacing outside the bar across the road, phone to his ear, checking over his shoulder every ten seconds like he knew he was being watched.

Not that it mattered. This wasn’t a kill order. Just observation. Quiet. Simple.

So you watched.

The silence stretched long and thin.

Dazai didn’t fidget. Didn’t hum or sigh or tap his foot. He simply was, existing in the same space as you, head tilted slightly as he tracked the smuggler’s movements with a vacant stare.

Then, without looking away, he spoke.

“What would you do if I died right now?”

You blinked. Slowly.

The question wasn’t shocking. It was the timing that made your head tilt.

“I’d want to know why,” you said.

“Why what?”

You shifted your weight against the cracked windowsill. “Why it had to be now. Why without warning. Why without answers. I don’t like loose ends.”

He didn’t laugh, didn’t scoff, didn’t mock. He just gave you a faint smile.

Like that was the first time someone had answered without begging him not to go.

You both knew the kind of death he wanted.

Quiet. Painless. Unremarkable. An ending without a climax.

And you?

You weren’t the type to stop him. You’d just want to know why.

That was what made you different.

You didn’t love him. Not like people understood love.

But you were interested. Curious. In the way children take apart clocks just to see what makes them tick.

And Dazai, he was starting to feel the same way.

Not that he’d admit it.

Not yet.

Later, in the deep hours of the night, your surveillance post long since abandoned, you found yourself in a cheap hotel Mori had arranged for your temporary cover.

The sheets were stiff, the air stale, and the lights dimmed low.

You were curled on the mattress, half awake, letting the ceiling blur into abstract shapes.

You felt it before you saw it. Eyes on you.

Not the sharp threat of an assassin. Just the weight of someone watching.

You didn’t flinch.

“Still afraid I’ll disappear before you figure me out?” you asked, voice soft in the dark.

A pause. Then—

“No. Just… wondering if I should kill you before you do the same.”

You smiled. “You won’t.”

“Why not?”

You turned your head slightly on the pillow, enough to see the silhouette of his frame leaning against the doorframe.

“Because I’m the only one who’d understand why.”

Silence again. Deeper, this time.

You didn’t need to say anything else. You knew he was thinking about it.

About you. About the why.

The next morning, he was still there. Same clothes. Same eyes.

No one else had ever stayed that long.

Two weeks passed.

Dazai didn’t leave.

He trailed behind you on missions, loitered outside Mori’s office when you were called in, followed you to morgues, hospitals, warehouses.

He didn’t ask for meaning. Didn’t explain himself.

But you saw it. His observation had shifted.

He wasn’t just watching what you did anymore. He was watching why.

He started bringing up your philosophies in fragments.

At breakfast, unprovoked. “Do you think pain is the only truth because it’s constant, or because you were conditioned to believe nothing else matters?”

In the elevator, quiet. “You said suffering is the point. What if it isn’t? What if that’s just what you need it to be, to justify everything you’ve done?”

Outside a burning building, bodies still warm. “If life is pain, why do you look disappointed when someone dies too easily?”

You never gave him straight answers.

Sometimes you turned his questions back on him. Other times, you just smiled and said, “You’ll understand when you’re ready.”

He didn’t get frustrated. He just kept coming back.

Like your existence was a puzzle he needed to solve.

Like if he could understand you, he might understand himself.

And you? You let him. Encouraged it, even.

Because this wasn’t manipulation. Not anymore.

This was connection.

Twisted, yes. Morbid. Unhealthy. But real.

You had stopped trying to tether him to you. And that made him cling all the more.

The next job should’ve been routine.

A minor cleanup, loose ends from an old operation gone stale.

You handled it with practiced ease, dispatching the last rogue with a flick of your blade and a flash—Yūgen no Tobari swallowing sound and sight in one breathless pulse.

You turned to leave, blood still drying on your sleeve.

But the ceiling above you cracked, debris collapsing, slow motion in your senses.

And then a hand grabbed your wrist.

Pulled you back, hard.

The rubble crashed down exactly where you’d been standing.

Your back hit the floor, vision sharp and spinning, and when you looked up—

Dazai hovered above you, arm shielding your face, body curled instinctively over yours.

You stared at him.

He stared back.

There was no smirk. No dry wit. Just eyes wide, breathing shallow, like he hadn’t realized what he’d done until it was already done.

“Why?” you asked.

He didn’t answer immediately.

Then, quietly, “Loose ends.”

You blinked. Something in your chest twisted, slow and unfamiliar.

You smiled. Not mockingly.

Softly. Genuinely.

“You’re starting to get it.”

That night, you walked together through the city’s empty streets.

No mission. No destination. Just momentum.

He didn’t ask why you hadn’t teleported home.

You didn’t ask why he hadn’t left your side.

Eventually, he spoke again.

“If you died,” he murmured, “I don’t think I’d want to know why.”

You tilted your head. “No?”

“No.” He looked at you, expression unreadable. “I think I’d just want you not to.”

That silence returned. Heavy and whole.

You didn’t say anything.

You just reached out. And for the first time, he didn’t pull away.

Your fingers brushed his sleeve. His hand.

A flicker of something passed between you.

Not affection.

Not safety.

But recognition.

He was still looking for a reason to live. Still reaching in the dark, searching for a tether that wouldn’t rot away beneath his grip.

And you?

You didn’t offer him hope. Or love. Or lies.

You offered him truth.

That pain was the only constant.

That life didn’t need a meaning to be endured.

And maybe, just maybe…

You offered him yourself.

All for your curiosity. For your entertainment and satisfaction.