Chrysanthemum Garden [Dazai x Reader] ✓

22. How thoughtful, Elise

'I heard you killed Dazai; is that true?'

I looked down at the notebook under my eyes and absorbed as much detail as I could from the profiles beneath me, a shutting the spine hesitantly while hoping that by doing so I would buy myself enough time to come up with some brilliant idea to dissolve the situation in the most placid way possible.

He repeated the question, the tone of his voice fierce this time, simultaneously eager to hear my confession in regards to the hurtful truth; I couldn't help but notice that the bottom of his coat began swaying impatiently by his ankles, and with reluctance, I returned the notebook to its drawer and slid it closed with trembling hands.

'I don't know...'

'What do you mean you don't know? How can you not know if you killed someone or not?'

I've experienced enough confrontation just today in regards to this topic, Akutagawa, and I don't want nor need any more of it – not from you, especially; [Y/N] [L/N] is the one person most responsible for his disappearance (and probable death by now), and I have felt a lifetime worth of shame, guilt, pain and regret for promising to fulfil his dream of committing a double-suicide in exchange of a reason for me to stay away from the Port Mafia.

That reason is gone... Dazai is gone...

I held my palms to my temples and supported my head above the desk by the elbows, pressing deeply onto the structure of my skull when the black-haired male before me insured on the matter further. 'Stop saying his name –'

'Does it peck at you? Are you trying to brush aside the recognition you got from "going out on your way to kill an Agency member willingly"?' he interrupted, voice raised and with no evident fear of drawing attention to anyone standing on the outer side of the hallway. He stepped in fully and slammed the door behind him. 'This is disappointing, [Y/N]: not only did you become a Mafia member, but you went straight for the position of an executive? – after all the work he put in for you?!'

By now I must've been leaving red marks on my temples from massaging continuous circles from the stress, keeping my head low and avoiding any form of eye contact with the only person whom any hope of being understood in the Port Mafia was still pinned on – someone who had earlier the same week aided my escape from its organization's prison cell.

I made a mistake, I know, but let me hear something kind... something that'll take my wrong choices back onto the right path – even if I don't deserve to hear such things; just this once...

The clicking of his heels approached the desk, his hovering shadow leaning over my cowering figure, and his hand supporting him up by slamming abruptly on the desktop only a few inches from my head.

Silence prevailed.

'You overdid it this time, [Y/N]. I will never forgive you for this – if it's true,' he whispered, and the unfamiliar warmth of his hand met with the top of my head and gently rested on a bundle of messy hair. 'I heard it from that widower – she was boasting about a successful coalition between the two of you, resulting in the drowning of, well –' – he cleared his throat, concealing the pain it brought him to confess the eavesdropping he'd performed. 'I find it hard to believe because that's not like you at all; you'd never do something of that sort unless you were forced to – as you've always been.

'I couldn't care less about the fact that the detective agency may crumble after losing one of its most relevant links, to be frank, but Dazai?' – he removed his hand from its warming spot on my head and left in its place a bitter chill of sorrow. 'What did she – that darned witch – promise you, huh? What is it she offered you that Dazai didn't have?'