Red String

The sun has fallen by the time Chuuya awakens. It is pitch black above his head, the only light coming from a buzzing streetlamp a few feet away. The stars are hidden away, leaving him with only a sorry golden glow that he can hardly see over the buildings he's sandwiched between.

Slowly, he pushes himself up onto his knees. Getting his bearings is an incredibly slow process, prolonged by his inability to sit up straight and still. His body does not feel entirely under his control, leaving him unsure on just how to steady himself when he begins to sway. He falls against the wall behind him, the brick catching the back of his shirt and just barely keeping him up.

Everything is silent. The only noise Chuuya hears is the incredible pounding that floods his ears, his heart beating like mad as he tries to collect his thoughts. The last thing he remembers is encountering the sorry bastards that tried to ambush him. No, the last thing he remembers is Dazai. Dazai's touch. Dazai bringing him back down to Earth.

Dazai abandoned him again. What a shithead.

Chuuya tries sitting up on his own once again, wobbling a bit once he leaves the support of the wall but proving a lot better off the second time around.

Now if he can focus on keeping steady long enough to leave, he'll be fine, won't he?

Chuuya waits a moment before attempting another movement, pausing his progress so he can focus on breathing. His heart does eventually slow, though not as much as he'd like. He understands that he doesn't have time to waste on waiting around, though, and decides to reach out in front of him in the hopes that there will be something to help pull him up. Alas, there is nothing but air, the wall opposite him just a little too far for him to hang onto. With a small grunt, he braces his hands on the rough surface behind him, easing himself up.

He is immediately made aware of the fact that he is damp, a short breeze nipping at uncomfortably wet skin. His pants feel much too heavy on his legs, weighed down by slick stains he can't quite make out in such little light. There is something in the back of his head, a sharp nagging that is telling him he knows exactly what it is.

He chooses not to acknowledge it right now.

There is nothing for him here in this small, shallow alley but darkness and concrete. Chuuya draws himself close as he shuffles out into the open, his eyes darting all around as he takes in his surroundings. His vision is incredibly blurred at the edges, and though it's both confusing and concerning, Chuuya is just relieved he can see at all. He blames the awful sight on the splitting headache that has seemed to crop up in the past minute or two, so intense that he wants nothing more than to curl up and block out the world.

He can't do that, though; he needs to get home. No one's coming to get him at this hour out of the goodness of their heart, after all, especially if Dazai has anything to do with it.

Still a bit disoriented and now a little pissed, Chuuya takes a few steps forward and fishes for his phone in his pocket. It's right where it should be, thank God. The cracks on the display are minimal, hardly catching the pad of his thumb as he swipes at the screen to unlock it. No gloves, huh?

He's got three text messages and two calls waiting for him. One of each is from Dazai - that bastard has some nerve -, while the remaining attempts to contact him are from his subordinate, Kunikida. With a short, breathy curse, Chuuya opens the messages first and begins his slow stagger to the streetlight.

Mackerel, 23:38: Chuuya~! Sorry I left you out there, I had important things to do! You'll be alright, though, won't you?
☆〜（ゝ。∂）
Kunikida, 00:39: I've finally been told what happened. I'm sorry it took me so long to reach you. Are you still alone?
Kunikida, 00:43: I will remain awake until you contact me back or I know you're safe, but I will continue to attempt searching for you in the meantime.

Chuuya leans against the base of the streetlamp, lowering his phone so he can try to lessen the ache in his arm and head. He'll be sure to give Dazai a good kick in the ass, and maybe a knife to the neck, when he gets back.

Get back. Damn.

His mind, while fuzzy, is still working to some extent. He recognizes immediately that he has no idea where in the hell this is. Nothing, absolutely nothing looks familiar. There's a steady, sharp pain that builds behind his eyes as he sinks to the ground with a slow-coming realization: if he has to rely on himself, he is not making it home before the sun comes up.

He closes his eyes when he dials Kunikida's number, skipping straight over the idea of contacting Dazai despite his number being saved to Chuuya's memory. He kind of hopes his newest (read: only) subordinate is still awake, like he said he would be, but he can't bring himself to care too much about whether or not he's disturbing anyone. He's sticky, he's wet, he's cold and tired and his head is trying to split in half and he can barely fucking see his own hand in front of his face. All he can really make out is that it, like his pants, is covered in dark splotches. He needs someone. He's all but dead on his own.

"Nakahara-san," comes Kunikida's voice after the second ring. He sounds drowsy, but it doesn't seem as though Chuuya has woken him. "You're alright?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine. Are you still out?"

"Of course. I haven't found you yet." There's a short pause filled with a small bit of shuffling on Kunikida's end. "The tracking device in your phone is currently inactive, but I've been told your mission was in Tsurumi."

Inactive? That could be Dazai's doing, but then, the asshole has never been the greatest with technology. If he were the one to deactivate it, he probably would have just crushed the entire phone beneath his foot. Perhaps Chuuya simply ruined it himself somehow.

"How hard did you have to twist that bastard's arm for him to tell you where he left me?"

"...I didn't. Dazai-san was preoccupied, so I asked around."

"Preoccupied," Chuuya snorts. "With what, exactly?"

"Akutagawa."

The name alone is all the answer Chuuya needs. He can just imagine the devilish sneer Dazai's got cutting into his face, blood on his heels and finger on the trigger. Instead of dwelling on it, he turns the conversation away from Dazai altogether. He can only stand to talk about him for so long. "Well, I haven't moved, I don't think, so I should be easy to find if you know where I was sent."

"That is reassuring. But, Nakahara-san, do you not remember yourself?" Kunikida's stiff speech is almost funny. He's incredibly robotic half of the time. It's unclear whether he does this out of fear of messing up before his superiors or if he's just that way.

"It'll come back to me," Chuuya huffs, waving it off despite being the only one able to see such a gesture. He winces when the motion sends a flash of pain through his arm. "How far are you?"

"Not very, if you are where they said you were. Please hold on a little longer."

The conversation dies after that. With no one to pull any words out of him, Kunikida goes silent, focusing solely on carrying out his duties. Chuuya can't say he's too upset about it. Just closing his mouth has his headache coiling back a small bit, and closing his eyes does him even better.

He's dozed off against the streetlamp when he hears someone pull up before him.

Though he just closed his eyes seconds ago, opening them seems like a monumental task. He's close to just saying he's gone blind to save himself the trouble, but his eyelids eventually part and he is greeted by a pair of extremely long legs. "Kunikida," he breathes, clasping the younger man's hand as tight as he can when it is presented to him, "nice night, eh?"

"You're covered in blood," Kunikida mutters in place of a greeting. His grey eyes are hard behind his glasses and, for a moment, Chuuya forgets which one is the subordinate here. "You don't look well. I'm surprised Dazai-san would leave you in such a state."

"I'm not. You haven't been around long enough to see how shitty that guy really is."

Instead of saying more, Kunikida simply leads Chuuya to the passenger side and opens the door. This is not a familiar car; it must be Kunikida's own, or one he has borrowed. The Port Mafia certainly doesn't trust him enough to lend him one and Dazai probably doesn't, either, leaving him to his own devices. It's as spotless as a car in Kunikida's care is expected to be; it looks as though he's vacuumed the seats and floor and maybe even taken a rag to the dashboard.

Chuuya almost feels bad for bloodying it up.

"You were a good eight minutes from where the mission was said to have been, so I'm a little later than I should've been." Chuuya would tell Kunikida not to worry about it and that he was enjoying his little nap, anyway, but Kunikida doesn't really sound worried. He's just stating facts. "Do you know how much of that blood is your own, Nakahara-san?"

Absolutely not. Instead of saying so, Chuuya says, "You can call me Chuuya." It's not the first time he's said it, and probably won't be the last. "Everyone else does it, no one gives a shit. You should, too. It's kinda weird, you being the only addressing me like that."

Kunikida only replies, "It's disrespectful," and that is the end of the conversation. He's a good conversation-killer.



The shower is agonizing.

Chuuya hardly has enough energy to stand upright, but he doesn't dare fall asleep dirty. The thought of dried mud and blood settling in his hair and on his skin through the night is all the motivation he needs to suffer for twenty more minutes.

As he's scrubbing stains off of his arms, fragments of his mission come trickling in.

He remembers guns pointed at him from every angle. His back was covered only because Dazai was against it, towering over him and snickering at the enemy's gall. He remembers men spitting at his feet and on the Port Mafia's name. And he remembers Dazai pushing him, pushing him, "Chuuya~ Corruption's the only way we'll get out of here alive. Go on. 'O, Grantors of dark disgrace,' right?"

It isn't the whole story, but he figures that this alone is enough to understand waking up the way he did. He's done thinking about it for now; all of his focus is dedicated to cleaning himself and getting to bed. He simply stares at his body and the mess swirling around the drain and it doesn't take him away, but it helps to quiet things down a a bit.

He ends his shower five minutes early. He's clean enough.

Chuuya collapses atop his bed, dressed only in an old shirt and shorts he outgrew last year. It's much different than the intricate outfit he likes to pull on when he's on mafia business, and so much more freeing. He feels like a different person whenever he dresses down and it is fantastic.

He's curling up beneath his cover when his phone rings. "Fuckin'...," he hisses, throwing his arm out and slapping his hand around the nightstand until he finds it. It isn't his mafia-issued phone that's going off, so it can only be a handful of people.

He can just barely make out Dazai's contact name on the screen before he drops the phone on the floor and rolls over. He refuses for Dazai to be the last thing on his mind before he falls asleep; having a nightmare about him would be awful, yes, but having a legitimately pleasant dream about him might be enough to make Chuuya violently ill, maybe even unfit for work come morning.

It doesn't stop ringing for what feels like centuries. Christ, even without his physical presence, Dazai manages to be the absolute worst thing in the room.

"God, shut up!"

Chuuya pulls his pillow tight over his head in a last-ditch effort to block out the noise and force himself to sleep. It doesn't work in the slightest, because Dazai is relentless and the longer he tries to get in contact with Chuuya, the more awake Chuuya becomes. The ache that's grabbed hold of his body seems to intensify the more he considers answering that damned―

It stops. Dazai has given up for the night.

He remains frozen for a moment, sure that his phone is going to start going crazy again as soon as he relaxes. But it doesn't. It remains silent, even when he reaches down and slides it across the room. Chuuya can barely breathe out a, "Thank you," before he's out.