The Wild Geese || DAZAI OSAMU/CHUUYA NAKAHARA

[二十] DREAMING, UNLOVEABLE.

The traitor is shot in the head with a sack placed over her head, her hands tied behind her back. You are the one to put a bullet into her head, the sack becoming stained with tears and sweat and blood and curses—curses to the one who betrayed her in the first place.

Betrayal comes with expectations. Expectations to keep the secret. And all of that had come clattering to the ground.

Should have kept to your own. In the Port Mafia, it was a dog-eat-dog world. Any secret exposed to anyone would mean your underbelly was exposed.

At least that's how you saw it. You trusted no one. Maybe you trusted Chuuya, since he had entrusted you with his own secret: A secret handshake.

You toss your gun to one of your subordinates crowding around the execution, their faces a cold mask of apathy. One fumbles with your careless toss, before holding it tightly in their fingers as though blessed.

"Bitch," You say, casually, as though you didn't just kill another human being. In times like these, self control has no meanings; rules of reverence do not apply, and evil is a pressure that is the shape of you. But what is a single death to you in the face of a dozen, hundreds of deaths that you have committed? When one has fought a war, one hardly knows any more what a dead person is. And if a dead person has no significance, unless one has seen them dead, another one to the mix spread through history like just mist in an imagination. You sneer at the blackening sack where the blood was beginning to seep into the coarse fabric, rendering it the darkest shades of red. You turn away and the clicking of your shoes echo in the dungeons, the corrugated walls shiny as though sweating under the sheer murderous presence of you. "Shouldn't have bailed on the Port Mafia."

"Cold blooded as always, my dear one." Mori's voice descends down the staircase, and his purple eyes gleam with satisfaction at your deadpan face. You were a wonderful creation: Perfect for every dirty task he needed to be carried out. At some point you were the hidden tumour of his unspeakable, doomed passion, always resting on his lap and immortalised in the hallway portrait, like a fly trapped in the sticky traps of tree sap. You were in your own amber, your own world—isolation was your thing, just as lip gloss was a typical girl's things.

Your type of isolation was different, however; it was marked with your name, which made it all the more potent and lethal. One second in your orbit and anyone would get contaminated by you, rapacious remains of yourself clinging onto their shirt like stubborn perfume. You are the snake of Eden, made in Mori's image and likeness, and corrupted every Adam and Eve that dared to trespass into your Eden. Your sunlight is dark, dim, heavy, polluted; it is ruthless, cold, and sharp-edged. A single touch from you was a modified blow—it could kill if you touched hard enough.

"Just how you like it, daddy," You mock yourself with a high-pitched voice, before your gaze drops like an anvil. "Whatever. I did what you wanted me to do."

"That, you did," He puts a hand on your shoulder just like he used to do all those years ago, but this time, you shrug it off carelessly. "Well done."

"I don't need your nice words now," You snap, feeling particularly volatile. "Shut your trap."

"Calm down," Chuuya intervenes, his blue-steel eyes narrowed at the disrespect. "Don't talk to Boss like that."

You sneer in his direction. "I'll do whatever I want just like he did whatever he wanted with me. Don't get in my way."

"Regardless, well done, both of you," Mori smiles, tilting his head slightly to the left. He looked unaffected by your words like rain to a tarpaulin. "We've managed to get the names of the vigilante group. That is a huge step forward. We can now track down any Hora Kasumi names in this region. Once their leader is killed, their group will collapse like paper to water."