twisted devotion || Yandere!DAZAI/READER

[21] Ms Yamamoto

You wake earlier than Dazai, and instinctively find yourself turning fresh rice in the rice cooker in the early dusky hours of morning. He's still snoozing as you're preparing the egg rolls, only waking up to the poignant smell of coffee steaming in their respective mugs as you bring out breakfast into the living room. There is no feministic judgement here, of a woman waking early to serve her man breakfast in the kitchen; it is simply an act of love, of wanting your beloved to eat on the same table as you. Civilisation began when food was served; sharing bread was a transcendental language that bypassed all barriers, all societal and cultural barriers, into one universal language: I want us to eat good.

"This is heaven," He drearily says, his voice still dripping with lust from last night, husky and molten like drizzling lava. You roll your eyes playfully and put chopsticks before him, "Seriously."

"Eat, Dazai. You need energy for today," You command. He crawls out of his futon and whines something incoherent, before sitting up straight and saying a sleepy itadakimasu.

"Are we going to be busy today or something?" He asks, slowly waking up as he spoons rice into his mouth. You're splicing pieces of salmon fillet with your chopsticks as you shake your head.

"I'm going to be slightly busy with my own work today. I have unfinished business with an old neighbour of mine."

"A neighbour you know from here or your world?" He asks, fully awoken by this revelation.

"Same neighbour, but younger," You say, "It's weird to see her young when I've known her as a sweet old lady forever."

"It must be unsettling, the first time you saw her like that."

"Oh, very," You say, "I was shocked to my core."

XX

There's a certain sadness in walking the same route that's been imprinted into your muscle memory and realising you are now a completely different person, changed beyond recognition. That should be a crime within its own; with Dazai being the court defendant, having morphed you into a completely different character; even the light that shone from your face was different: a slightly dimmer light, as though the sun was finally beginning to rise from the depths of your murky, dusty heart.

You press the button on the lift and stand in silence as the antique elevator rises, the tension hammering in your head like a bell: hollow reverberations. What to say, what to do? These would be your final words to the old you, an eulogy to a pretend funeral, a metaphorical death, a stab to the front: the blood would be closure.

"Deep breaths, (First name)." You close your eyes and take a deep breath, hold it, and let it out in timed intervals. The lift dings, the door opens, and you're home.

You walk towards your former apartment. It is still boarded up, except...

"Talismans?" You gently lift one up in your hand: Pink with sakura patterns, it was an Omamori, a Buddhist talisman for luck and protection.

"Ah, hello!" The door beside you opens and you're met with the youthful face of Mrs, no, Ms Yamamoto, "I was expecting you."

"Me?" You point to your chest.

"Yes! You're the only person I know who's been curious about this apartment," She gestures to the wooden boarded up apartment flat, "I've been digging around ever since our first visit, and found some," Her voice drops mysteriously, and she cups the side her face as though someone else were listening to the exciting things that were to come out of her mouth, "Interesting things."

"Really?" You raise an eyebrow and turn your body towards her, "Like what?"

"Well, those talismans, I put them up after finding out that," She says, "No one's been buying or renting the place out after a corpse was discovered in it."

"A corpse?" You echo.

"Yes, a corpse. Everyone believed the flat was cursed after that because it was so mutilated. I think...yes, I believe that every organ was removed. It was reported to be," She looks around, before saying, "Something related to the Port Mafia."

"Organs? Maybe they were sold to the black market."

"Exactly, and no one wants to live in an apartment where there was a corpse disembowelled. Brings bad luck. Even more interesting, and don't tell anyone I've told you this, but," She furtively looks at the boarded up door, "There was a Port Mafia member living there."

"What? Are you serious?"

"Dead serious," She says. Her youthful face gleams under the light, "It was reported that one of them lived there before they were caught. They've never been seen ever since."

You chew the inside of your cheek, "Did you catch the name of this member?"

She shakes her head, "Unfortunately, no one knows," Then her gaze turns stern, "Now, you didn't hear this from me. Understood?"

"I understand," Your voice comes somewhere deep within you, as though it was an echo under the thick layer of lake ice. She says her farewells and closes her door, and you're left staring at the multiple talismans that littered the front door of your former apartment.

A former Port Mafia member? In this dingy place? You swallow a wad of spit that was beginning to form in your mouth, feeling more than unsettled at the revelation. Who was living in the place you once lived? In this alternate world?

You turn back around and swear that the door was staring back at you. You didn't even have the nerves to say your rehearsed farewell; it would have been like putting an inappropriate period at the middle of the sentence; no, you were determined to get to the bottom of this. Who was it that had formerly lived in your apartment, now boarded up?

You decide to head to the Agency. There were bound to be files that might denote something, anything.

There was no way, no way, that another version of you was living in this world with you, right?

XX

The walk to the Agency is short lived; you're entrenched in your questions and thoughts that leave you breathless. Not even the music that was plugged into your ears gave you reprieve from the relentless questions that were like a lethal miasma to your head. You mechanically press the button to the Agency lift, creaking and groaning, rumbling shut as it slowly begins its ascent. You pocket your earphones and turn off your phone, finding your way into the infirmary where Yosano was typing away.

"Excuse me," You break the silence. She presses enter and swivels around on her chair, "Hello, doctor."

"Hello, (first name), how can I help you?" She asks, standing up from her chair and picking a pen out of her white coat, "Are you hurt anywhere? Do you need treatment?"

"No, no, please," You gesture to her chair, "Sit back down. I just wanted to ask a few questions, that's all."

She looks mildly disappointed at that, "Well, go on."

"Remember when we first met? When I told you Dazai made me introduce myself to you?"

"Yes, you were a very different person then."

"You said something about our world." You pause, a beat filled with unsaid questions, "What did you mean by that? Did you mean from another world or from somewhere else?"

She looked baffled, almost offended, at the question. "I meant welcome to the Agency, of course. I know you, (first name)," She crosses her arms, almost defensively, as though protecting herself for what she was about to say next, "You were one of us in the Port Mafia."