The Wild Geese || DAZAI OSAMU/CHUUYA NAKAHARA

[2] CHUUYA NAKAHARA.

The door rips off its hinges, glowing red. You look up and the phone drops to the floor, with Chuuya accidentally stepping on it and smashing it into pieces. His eyes widen at the bomb in your hands—immediately he grabs it with one strong and smashes it into pieces, the scraps of metal coming apart.

It was a flimsy thing. After all, it was made by inexperienced hands of Suribachi city.

"What were you THINKING?" He shouts at you, grabbing you by both of your arms and shaking you lightly. "You know how worried I was about you?"

"I..." You find yourself stuttering over your own words. Your eyes are wide open with adrenaline, tears spilling over your cheeks as Chuuya looks fiercely into your eyes.

"I could have LOST you," He says. His voice is near that of a plea, with relief because oh God you could have died, you could have left him alone in the Port Mafia. "You have ANY idea how worried I was? Do you even care?"

"I'm not sure," You look past him and the hallways are empty. "Where are the others?"

"Boss called back the orders," Chuuya says. His grip on you loosens, and he sighs. His hands drop to the sides. Your bottom lip quivers, and you drop to the floor again, by his shiny polished shoes that look more like a beetle's back than anything, and continue crying. He pauses.

You looked so small below him. He could have mistaken you for a child, and in a sense, you had the bones and marrow of a child: lonely, scared, and stunted growth. He crouches down and pets the back of your head. Almost lovingly. So softly that his hand was shaking in its own gentleness.

"Why're you crying? Tell me where it hurts."

You sob into your hands, legs sprawled out into a W position. Your soul dies, little by little, burying itself in the closed chamber of your heart, into the loosened mind, into the thorns and thistles, dim ventricles of the heart now exposed for the world to see.

"I want to live," You say, choking on your own words. "But I can't live here. I can't take this anymore. I wanted to die, but when faced with death, I was just someone who wanted to be saved all along. Where do I go? What should I do?"

He crouched, listening, among the faint crying of your throat. Was this a God's lament he was hearing? He listened carefully, and in your sobs, all sounds were sad. Despairing. Hit a new low you didn't even know was there. You sounded so cornered, with no escape; your voice was claustrophobia incarnate, suffocating and gasping and collapsing in on itself, like the underside of a wet box holding a raw human heart.

"I'll get you out of here," Chuuya says. You look up, tears pouring down your cheeks in thick globules.

"What?"

"I'll get you out of here."

"How?"

"I'll help you defect. I'll kill the successor. The Agency will handle the rest. But you need to go underground again."

You shake your head. "I'm not killing anymore."

"You don't have to. Change your name and number. Go beyond the radar. I'll help you," Chuuya says. "As much as I want you to remain in the Port Mafia with me, it's not good for you."

"When have you cared about what I need?" You say, thickly. Chuuya raises an eyebrow.

"Ever since you told me about what you did, I knew that I had to somehow be there for you," He says. "Why do you think I was so insistent on smoking and drinking with you? I wanted to be there for you in times of loneliness."

Your heart breaks into two, cleanly, with a sharp TINK noise. More and more frequently the edges of you dissolve, the concrete, infinite walls that you have built up beginning to fade as though it was a simple mirage, a trick of the eye. Certainly, you are not used to this—you have always thought it was too late for you to be saved, to be held, to be loved—you shudder, while you long for someone to help you, and you pour yourself out into the cologne-infused embrace of Chuuya Nakahara. Your glassy eyes fall close and tears bead at your waterline, dappling his vest with tear spots.