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A/N - I highly recommend that you press play on the song above and let it run throughout this chapter! ;)
Thunder came as if God's announcer had picked up a megaphone—whether or not He was actually going to be on your side today was up for question, because right now, it seemed like He had just cast you aside, especially when you needed Him the most. If you weren't religious before, then you certainly were tonight. In your monochrome musings the moon was a deep silver, as if she were a rock alone in space, turning pirouettes for no applause; shining a warm light into the cold room.
You sighed sullenly as you looked straight ahead, closely observing the man sitting directly opposite you. To you—this Machiavellian man was an extremely complicated character. His crimes and deviancy were not fuelled by the desire for money, ambition, or other ordinary motifs. The terror he spread throughout Yokohama was ideological, and his motivations were philosophical. Nobody—not even his subordinates—could ever get close to the truth behind his warped, strategic personality. The only person who had ever come at least somewhat close to Mori's true nature was possibly Dazai, who had acted as his right-hand man during his time at the Port Mafia.
The cruel man crossed one long leg over the other in one swift, elegant motion. "My dear Elise, could you please pass me that pack of cigarettes on the table next to you?"
The little blonde-haired girl, who was currently sat at a table with a piece of paper in front of her and a bunch of different coloured crayons, mindlessly drawing and scribbling away to distract herself from how utterly boring this game of poker was between you and Ogai, had nodded her head slowly in response before she passed the pack of cigarettes over to Mori. When she noticed what was written on the pack in bold, blaring letters, she immediately furrowed her eyebrows, something that Mori hated seeing her doing, because he was afraid that she'd get frown lines and ruin her perfect little face.
"Rintaro," she whined like an annoying little child. Every time she spoke, her squeaky, irritating voice made your ears feel like they were going to bleed. You didn't understand how Mori could possibly spend every waking moment with her. "It says smoking kills. That's bad! Bad Rintaro!"
Mori chuckled amusedly in response, before taking out a cigarette from the pack of twenty, as he grabbed a lighter from his pocket and lit up the cigarette for himself with spectral ease. He took a deep drag of his cigarette. The wrinkled toxic stick had a slow creeping stench. Within moments, its chemicals invaded everything that you were, from a sickly white film all over your skin to the air in your lungs. The cigarette smoke had this entitlement, to be closer to you than some subway creep breathing in your face, touching as if random yet calculated.
"It's just one cigarette, my darling." Mori reassured the little girl, as she shrugged her petite shoulders nonchalantly in response, before diving back into her drawing.
