Chrysanthemum Garden [Dazai x Reader] ✓

11. Perfect eleventh-hour

I was moderately dubious about gullibly entrusting my escape to Akutagawa; the Port Mafia or even Mother herself could've effortlessly plotted for him to lure me into a trap (for she knew I would accept his help with much more ease than anybody else in the organisation), but in the end, I chose to follow the lucidity of his assistance in my lenient breakout from my cell while I fiddled with the small key in the rusty lock of the door.

He sounded reasonably serious when proclaiming my presence in the Mafia's headquarters to serve only as bait for a former member, and his exact words were pronounced with clarity in my head in blaring circles, sounding almost louder than the jamming of the key as I tried to pull it back out.

'Ryunosuke,' I called out, having his grey eyes look back at me over his shoulders and drift to the lock in my palm. 'This... isn't the right key.'

He went silent and looked straight ahead, clearing his throat before turning to me and standing before my shrunken figure... It was too good to be true (that you'd help so selflessly), but why am I disappointed as I'm looking at you watching me behind these bars?

'Take your hands away from it.'

'What?'

Despite the confusion of his order, I rapidly cupped my hands closer to my chest when the brim of his coat swiftly shot up to the jammed key and tore the lock in half - as easily as one would do with paper - and the red-outlined creature he manipulated lingered for a few seconds longer, catching the severed metal article in its teeth to lay it quietly by my feet.

I hesitated before looking back up at him. 'I don't mean to sound ungrateful, but what will you tell Boss when he finds out that Rashomon tampered with the lock? If the key was kept jammed inside, they could've easily assumed that I stole -'

'You provoked me and took advantage of that to strategically use my ability to sever it open,' he suggested monotonously, maintaining his posture erect in front of the wall, not a single muscle flinching as I pulled the door open.

'Thanks...' I whispered as he stepped aside to allow me out, my shoes brushing against the apple peel Mother had left on the floor - the contemplation to eat it in an act of starved desperation certainly rang loudly inside me; the last thing I'd munched on had been the wagashi Yosano had bought for me, along with a couple of sips of unusually bitter Matcha tea - all this time went without realising I'd gone on a look for Dazai on an empty stomach. 'What time is it? What day...?'

He told me a day had passed perhaps, but he wasn't sure of the time exactly; assuming by Mori's babbling to tuck Elise into bed, he said, it must've been night-time – the best chance I had to flee was in the dark. Akutagawa figured I was capable of decent stealth and able to find my way out quietly enough without fearing that anyone would hear me leave, but I could not trust my stomach to possess similar integrity.

'There's no point in you being here at all,' Akutagawa responded to my hesitant question as to why he was helping me. 'Your arms are being pulled at from both sides, so someone has to push you into the right direction. Besides, Dazai said -' - he pursed his lips after pronouncing the brunet's name and glared at the door at the far end of the room.

'Dazai said...?

'He doesn't want you here, and I trust he knows the fittest place for those he meets.'

In his eyes was a grim dullness, but as I addressed this, he simply dismissed it with a witty remark.

'Dazai is far superior to us - you and me combined - so he's able to see through the raw surface of your ability and knows it can be used for something better than this.'