Chrysanthemum Garden [Dazai x Reader] ✓

19. Bait

I was provided with a fresh set of clothes and escorted to the office where the detectives worked (where they believed it would be a more appropriate setting to discuss Dazai's disappearance), and I sat across Kunikida and Atsushi on a secluded lounge area surrounded by stained-glass screens.

The silver-haired male (who had been present behind Kunikida once I had woken up from my unconscious state in the infirmary) now stood between the panels and blocked the only passage to the office, forearms dug deep into the sleeves of his yukata in a collected
stance;

In another occasion, I may have offered him the seat beside mine or stood up for him to replace me and make himself comfortable, but at this particular time I could not bring myself to speak up in such a way that would be audible, and neither could I convince myself that he would've favoured sharing a couch with me – I doubt anyone from the Agency would due to my involvement in Dazai's missing status.

'We'll be asking you a few questions and ask that you answer as truly and accurately to detail as you can,' Kunikida began, holding his green notebook open at his grip with a thumb holding the pages open and a pen on the other hand. 'We are not here to harm you in any way, and if at any point you begin feeling overwhelmed, you are granted the right to stop, and we are, therefore, obliged to give you said time to breathe. Is that reasonable?' I nodded silently.

Said "interrogation" did not start as abruptly as I had expected it would (especially considering how it had been the first time (with Atsushi taking the lead)), but rather took a gradual process of first acquainting with the detectives before me;

Kunikida introduced himself to be – "quite unfortunately", he added – Dazai's partner, both of these males having worked together since the brunet had first joined the Agency two years ago, and that due to such, Kunikida could now count four new strands of white hair on his head as a result of the stress his partner caused. Atsushi chuckled silently at the precision of detail, but I could not manage to react the same way.

How these people could be so calm around me when the possibility that one of their members died by my hands is beyond me.

'Dazai was the one who offered me a placement here,' Atsushi began, and despite not having looked up to meet his gaze nor study his expression, I could tell that on his face was a newly pasted, gentle smile, and his voice softened as it spoke: 'Dazai may not seem like it most of the time, but he's really kind; I was on the brink of death once, starving and homeless, but it was thanks to him that I am now where I am today: Dazai saved me.'

"Dazai saved me." – that hurts to hear. It hurts to hear because wasn't he on his way to save me, too?

Since day one, he'd promised a trade of possessions with one another so that I would stick by him and drive myself out of the organisation he actively wanted to rid me from, but once he broke such oath first, I suggested one of my own, that once he gave me a good reason to leave the Mafia I would do so; he was my reason for wanting to leave the Port Mafia...

Where's my reason now?

Would it be right for me to abandon all the work he'd put in for me because he was no longer my guide?

The goodwill of the Agency alienates me but...

Dazai was hurting for me – no, he was hurting because of me. I bore a past he didn't want to forget, somehow. Am I the past that's making him sit on the fence?

I looked down at the bolo tie I refused to let go off and stroked the opal stone sitting on the brooch with my thumb; this was important somehow, and it seems to have been the reason he became who he is today. Am I related to this gem?