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[Chuuya had felt groggy and unfocused since he woke up, a feeling not even coffee had been able to make a dent in. He'd gotten to work purely on muscle memory, and then he'd mostly stared at his desk until Kouyou dropped by for lunch and ordered him to go home and sleep it off.
He wasn't sure there was anything to sleep off, but he didn't argue with his Ane-san.
And then he'd gone home, and passed out, and woken up about an hour later as panic gripped his chest tight.
Dazai.
He had to find Dazai.
He hurried out of his apartment, grabbed his motorcycle for speed, and set off in the direction of Dazai's place. Would he even be at his place? Or with that Agency of his? He'd check both, if he had to, although he'd prefer not having to explain to any stray agency members that he wasn't there to kill them. So he'd check his apartment first, and maybe call him from there.
It was only when he parked his bike outside Dazai's building that he realized he wasn't sure what he was panicking about.
Dazai has nothing to do with him anymore, but there was something, a thought buried behind the fog of his brain that told him there was more. Something was supposed to have changed--
Shit.
His head hurt. He hadn't been drinking, and it didn't feel like a hangover, but it did feel similar to a blackout. Dazai and he had been--
Dancing?
No, that made no sense. Chuuya headed into the building, and climbed the stairs, five at a time because he didn't have time for gravity.
They'd been in the city and--
That city.
Chuuya stopped, hand raised to knock, as a few memories started to come back to him. It wasn't possible. Someone had planted that in his head somehow.
They had been dancing. ]
DAZAI!
[He shouted through the door and then knocked hard, making the door shake.]
OPEN UP, DAZAI.
He wasn't sure there was anything to sleep off, but he didn't argue with his Ane-san.
And then he'd gone home, and passed out, and woken up about an hour later as panic gripped his chest tight.
Dazai.
He had to find Dazai.
He hurried out of his apartment, grabbed his motorcycle for speed, and set off in the direction of Dazai's place. Would he even be at his place? Or with that Agency of his? He'd check both, if he had to, although he'd prefer not having to explain to any stray agency members that he wasn't there to kill them. So he'd check his apartment first, and maybe call him from there.
It was only when he parked his bike outside Dazai's building that he realized he wasn't sure what he was panicking about.
Dazai has nothing to do with him anymore, but there was something, a thought buried behind the fog of his brain that told him there was more. Something was supposed to have changed--
Shit.
His head hurt. He hadn't been drinking, and it didn't feel like a hangover, but it did feel similar to a blackout. Dazai and he had been--
Dancing?
No, that made no sense. Chuuya headed into the building, and climbed the stairs, five at a time because he didn't have time for gravity.
They'd been in the city and--
That city.
Chuuya stopped, hand raised to knock, as a few memories started to come back to him. It wasn't possible. Someone had planted that in his head somehow.
They had been dancing. ]
DAZAI!
[He shouted through the door and then knocked hard, making the door shake.]
OPEN UP, DAZAI.
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More for the duration than the succeeding actual death. You got the idea.]
Got out already, hat rack?
[Dazai's lips were curved in an empty smile when he opened the door, his clothes from the previous day wrinkled from when he fell asleep. Pre-coffee hours were low energy hours. Surely Chuuya knew that?]
As much as I appreciate the idea of trapping in you in a mystery novel, all the credit is strictly Ranpo-san's.
Well, how was it? I bet Chuuya's single brain cell's a zombified version of itself, after being fried multiple times from the collosal task of solving a murder mystery with a thousand possible culprits.
[Chuuya's expression, he noted, wasn't just the usual "goddammit Dazai what did you just put me through I'll murder you" variety. The underlying desperation was something he rarely saw out in the open, and he refrained from commenting, unsure as he was on what to make of it.]
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[The memories are coming back now, months spent in a strange world, living with Dazai. It can't be real, but it's so clear in his head that it can't be ignored either.
So the mention of that annoying detective threw him off for a second. That felt like it had been ages ago, although when he thought about it some more, he was pretty sure he'd only just got out. It was strange, like his memories were overlapping with each other.
He shook his head, and then pushed his way past Dazai into his apartment.]
Forget about that.
[Chuuya definitely wasn't forgetting about it, but his enemy there was Ranpo, not Dazai. And it could wait.
This was more urgent.]
How's your head?
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"How's your head?"
Two unexpected lines followed by being freed from a trap that should've made Chuuya rage, though to a lesser degree once he slept off the exhaustion. Yet there was none of that here, an outright dismissal followed by an open expression of concern.
No physical damage would've been transferred over once the victim had exited Poe's novel. Was the story itself that touching to overturn the rage Chuuya nursed for four years?
No, that wasn't possible. Moreover, the mystery's events wouldn't have taken that long. The one before him was either Chuuya himself, when Dazai knew his ex-partner's body language and speech patterns well, or it was a very, very skilled impostor.
Dazai poked the other's cheek. Nope, not disappearing. No change. Not an ability.]
Still better than yours.
[He remained standing by the open doorway, stuffing down that bit of reservation welling in his chest. Whatever this was, he could be patient. Bide his time until he got the full story. Maybe check in with Ranpo on if there were any characters of note. That world might have been fictional, but Chuuya was the sentimental sort.]
So what do I owe the displeasure of your company? Clearly you're over having to fight your way out of that trap, and it seems you've miraculously forgiven everyone involved, to boot. Perhaps I shall pass on the good news to Ranpo-san., in case he wants to undergo another challenge and involve you with it.
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He has shit coffee, of course, but Chuuya starts making some anyway.]
I haven't forgiven anyway. But I told you to forget about that. [He pauses, then clarifies:] For now.
[Chuuya isn't very good at letting go of anger. But he can push it aside if he absolutely has to.]
You feel fine? You really don't know why I'm here?
[He's so confused. Dazai has touched him, so he's at least not under the influence of some Ability now. But maybe he had been?
It really feels so real, but Dazai is acting like the asshole he's always been. ]
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While Chuuya could hold a grudge, Dazai didn't see signs of it at the moment. No, his ex-partner looked as he always did when he was puzzling over something. Openly confused. A little frustrated. Busying himself because thinking left him restless.
He leaned on the wall and slipped his hands in his pockets as he watched Chuuya fall into easy familiarity with his kitchen. Why this sort of openness now? A week after and people were still winding down from the Rats' attack. Moreover, Kunikida was detained once the deaths of those five children were pinned on him. The mafia should still be in the middle of tightening security, and Chuuya's first visit to after being freed should've been to Mori and Anee-san. After all, the last thing he knew was that Mori had been poisoned, and the deadline wasn't over.]
Saa. You're here to check up on me and ask more of these annoying questions.
[The obvious guesses, with how loud Chuuya yelled to get through his door with the actual courtesy of knocking instead of just barging in.]
Ranpo-san made it out earlier than you, so I have to ask: did you take years living through the novel's plot? Or did you actually die in there, and this is the ghost of your regrets possessing your body?
[Unlikely. Also, that second possibility was creepy, amongst other things, but no, no.
No matter what hang-ups Chuuya had in the past, he was always one to move forward. In the horrifying event that the afterlife existed. the hat rack would head to the nearest drinking spot, if there was a spiritual equivalent of it, and get smashed.
Talk about living life to the fullest, for how tenuous the beginning of his existence was.]
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Of course he wouldn't, if it hadn't happened to him. If it had been an Ability, Chuuya was the only one of them who could have been affected, so his memories of Dazai would have been invented, created.
But he couldn't accept that, either. He knew his partner too well. He wouldn't have been fooled, by anyone. And it felt so overwhelmingly real that he couldn't just let go of it, no matter how unrealistic the whole thing was. The two of them couldn't get along, couldn't live together, couldn't be partners again.
Except they had been.
But Dazai didn't remember, and didn't want him there now. That was clear. ]
I'm good at getting people to confess. I don't have to figure out some mystery for that.
[Because maybe if he answered, Dazai would stop annoying him about it. It had been months since he really thought about that book.
The coffee was starting to brew. Even cheap coffee smelled delicious and tempting, but it didn't seem like Chuuya would get to stay to drink it. That was probably a good thing, since it was bound to be disappointing.]
Since you don't know, I'm leaving.
[Shit. What was he supposed to do now?]
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Finally making a decision, Dazai closed the door and leaned on it. The soft click of the lock was audible in the otherwise quiet room, and he smiled to himself.
Finish what you started, Chuuya. His insomnia was going to be worse later if he was left with all these unanswered questions.]
After all the trouble you went through to run here and scream my name? Not so fast, hat rack. Might as well make yourself comfortable and enjoy the coffee you made.
[If Chuuya managed to ignore the tin can and bottle collection that was in Dazai's kitchen, that was. His ex-partner didn't care if someone else littered, except when it came to Dazai. Something about polluting the environment with his bad influence.]
Out with it. What has you up this early on a weekend that you even skipped out on grudge drinking?
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And Dazai was making a point that he had to stay.]
Fine.
[He rubbed at the back of his neck. He wasn't sure how to explain any of this, or even if he should offer any details. It was pretty insane.
He found two mugs, and then rinsed them out with hot water to make sure they were actually clean. Or semi-clean. This place was a mess. ]
Do you know of anyone else with powers similar to that book?
[There. Dazai didn't need to know any more details than that. He didn't need to know that Chuuya was remembering napping on a couch together.]
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If I did, why would I tell you? This alliance will only last as long as both the Mafia and the Agency have a common enemy, and we have a long way to go before this is over.
[Normally, he would've left it at that. Except, no, he did want to find out why Chuuya was acting unusually today.]
But to answer your question: no. Not at the present.
[Unless someone got ahold of the Book? Not outside the realm of possibility, but given the nature of the players after it, why was it as if nothing discernible in their reality had changed??]
Let me tell you now - writing yourself as a few inches taller won't change the fact that you'll always be short. Civilizations may fall and the sun might implode, but one truth shall remain: that height complex of yours is going to last forever.
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[His frustration was increasing. He had memories of two different versions of Dazai in his head, and the one that felt like it should be most recent wasn't the one in front of him. It felt like he was being denied something.
It felt like he was losing Dazai all over again.
But no, he refused to think about that. His memories weren't real. And one thing that always remained true, was that Dazai knew him. He knew Chuuya wasn't there as an enemy. He could tell this was important.
He was just being an ass, and that part of Dazai had never changed, either.]
Do you want to know or not? Because you might need it, to protect your little friends, and you just pointed out I don't have to help you.
[This is about Chuuya needing help, but if someone is fucking with him on this level, it's definitely relevant to all of them.]
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Assuming anyone knew about it, anyway. Lucky for him, clandestine meetings like this with unexpected visitors to his apartment slipped through the cracks. No one but him and Chuuya would know this ever happened, and neither of them were going to mention it to anyone else.]
I said nothing of the sort, Chuuya. Your imagination's working wonders on this dreadful morning. Or should I say 'delusion?'
[He wasn't aware of just how that joke was in poor taste. Dazai casually strode over to sit across Chuuya, resting his chin over the net of his fingers.]
Out with it, then.
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Shit.
This was going to be awkward.
He rubbed at the back of his neck again.]
There might be someone in Yokohama who --
[How did he put this to minimize the future mocking?]
Who can plant false memories in people.
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[Not precisely a nightmare, but that was probably the gist of what Chuuya experienced. If it was someone else important on the receiving end of this, he would've been more angry-demanding.
Dazai took a sip of his coffee. Paused. Peered into his cup, because this tasted like his usual. At what point recently had he stirred in sugar and cream into coffee when Chuuya was around? A thought to bother himself with later.]
Hmm. I bet they showed you everyone dying. [A guess, both callous and casual. Well, if such a person was around who knew Chuuya this well, that was going to be a problem. Perhaps he'd find out based on the other's reaction.] Was it that time after Q went on the rampage?
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No.
[Except sort of, that time in the fog. He hadn't seen people dying, but he had been all alone, abandoned and a target.
He felt a bit abandoned right now.]
It's nothing like that, okay? Just memories. Day to day stuff.
[That's all he's saying. That's all Dazai needs to know. He looked down into his coffee, swirled it around for a bit before sipping it, making a slight face.]
Just keep an ear out. Or don't. I'll figure it out.
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Doubtful. The reminder of Dazai abandoning the Port Mafia would've only made him angrier. Chuuya wouldn't have bothered making coffee either, when it meant he planned on staying long.]
Fine, fine, have it your way. [Dazai cradled the shells of his ears, as if listening to whispers from both sides.] I'm listening. Time to listen to Chuuya's diary.
[If Chuuya had one of those, it would be covered in red snakeskin, made with high-quality paper, and have a metal charm in the style of some sort of rocker symbol. He'd write on it with a Sharpie while the tip of his tongue stuck out of the corner of his mouth, and all his poetry would have titles worthy of angsty chuunibyou.]
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You don't have to be an ass.
[He didn't want to give more details. He didn't really want to think about it, because it was just a constant reminder that he and Dazai didn't have anything between them anymore, let alone what they had in these memories. If this was someone's way of fucking with him, it was working.
Although it wasn't going to stop him, or even slow him down. He'd find them and he'd destroy them and then he'd move on.
Dazai wasn't worth his time anyway.]
It's either false memories or I was - trapped somewhere else for several months.
[Which was difficult to say, the way Dazai had been mocking him.]
A different world. The people there were trapped from different places, but there wasn't anyone I knew.
[A huge lie. Whatever.]
It wasn't at all like that trap your little friend set for me.
[And now that bitterness was back. He needed to punch someone.]
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(Ow.)]
Describe that place, then. And the people you met. What you did there, too, for that matter.
[A test of sorts. Chuuya wasn't one whose imagination went off the rails. Ability or no (likely not since No Longer Human didn't activate, and that made this all the more unusual), what Chuuya saw might be a clue to whatever happened.
Assuming a person was behind this, and that it was done with intent. If Dazai factored in the possibility of using the Book, an influence which surpassed abilities, it was all too easy to imagine an assortment of scenarios.]
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It was like something out of a damn manga. The world was affected by emotions. If you got angry, things might start falling apart.
[No comments about how he feels too much, Dazai. He's ready to kick again, harder this time.]
And there were these obnoxious Gods tied to different emotions.
They were trying to rebuild the world, but I was mostly trying to figure out how to get back.
[Did he succeed? Or rather: Did Dazai succeed? He couldn't remember figuring anything out that might have helped.]
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There would be little comments on Chuuya's reactive nature for now, but no guarantees it would be the same for the rest of the conversation.]
You'll have to be more specific than that, don't you think? Nothing with what you said gives me a clear idea of why you even want to rid yourself of this dream or memory, even if it wasn't cast on you with malicious intent.
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[And he had wanted to know it touching Dazai would make it disappear, but it hadn't.]
Even if it wasn't used with malicious intent now, that can easily change.
[Imagine Mori getting his hands on something like that. Chuuya would support his boss, of course, but part of him still questions his decision to use Q. It doesn't seem like this Ability was deadly, but he had no doubt it could be destructive.]
I'll figure out who did it. And I won't go easy on them.
[And he's not satisfying Dazai's curiosity about that world any more if he can help it. He knows he'll slip up.]
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[And before Chuuya could kick him --]
How about this. You are correct that, if this phenomenon, for the lack of a better term, can be controlled and applied to many, it will spell trouble. Imagine the chaos mass hysteria might bring. At this point, you've also determined that this might not be an ability, given that you still remember the events you spoke of after I touched your face. In which case, wouldn't it be sensible if I helped you along? No Longer Human is supposed to be absolute, and I'm sure you recall the situation we were in when we encountered that very tall person from the Guild.
[Lovecraft. Another possibility: he temporarily drove Q to insanity. What if there was another being like him roaming around, and he could also be coaxed into forming a contract?
Imagine what problems that would bring.]
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[But Dazai is right that it's most likely not implanted memories. That said, though: An escape!]
I'm not here for your company. You're at least half decent at figuring these things out.
[Thats not why he's there at all. He was there because he remembered being in that world with Dazai, and his first instinct had been to check up on him, in case they'd both been sent back together. He'd wanted to know he was safe.
He couldn't tell him that.
So the excuse that he was there seeking Dazai's help was a better one. Never mind that before those months in that other world, his pride wouldn't have let him ask his ex-partner for help. It wouldn't have mattered how desperate the situation was. Dazai has decided to leave his life, after all.
Dazai might see through that one. He might not care. Chuuya wasn't sharing the truth, either way. ]
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So that's a yes or a no, Chuuya?
[To his earlier question on partnering up for whatever this was. The answer was likely a 'yes.' Dazai just wanted to hear him say it.]
Before you had these extra memories, what's the last thing you remember? And let's reverse that earlier question - why are you fine with having extra baggage in your head? Aren't you going to be taxed by having too many unnecessary thoughts?
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[Dazai was never useless, not unless he intentionally decided to be. Chuuya was lying pretty much non stop during this conversation.
It was not a fun conversation. ]
I remember coming back, the boss being cured, that rat bastard caught. I got back to work again. I wasn't missing at any point after that.
[Did he have to answer that second question? If he dodged it, Dazai would definitely notice. And he's probably be an annoying bastard and keep pushing.
How long could Chuuya keep Dazai from noticing that he was hiding something?]
They're boring memories. It's not important, just annoying.
[More lies. Some partnership.]
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You haven't missed much, then.
So if those new memories of yours were so boring and annoying, what was with coming over here and looking as if someone had died?
[Well no, not really. But Chuuya's actions were desperate.
Don't try to worm out of this, slug.]
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