To See You Again (Chuuya Nakahara x Reader x Dazai Osamu)

Chapter Two

When Dazai got off work that evening, he was astonished to find Y/n leaning against the brick wall by the door. Hearing the door open, she looked over. Her face betrayed nothing as Dazai let it fall shut behind him and turned to face her.

"Were you waiting long?" he asked and she shook her head no.

"I wasn't planning on speaking with you again."

"But here you are."

Lifting herself from the wall, she stood straight before him, her calculating gaze crashing over Dazai's every feature. He felt like he was being tested on something and had not informed of what ahead of time. Was this the way he had made people feel in his hay-day? Was this something he did to them still?

"You left. I want you to tell me how."

Dazai smirked, putting his hands in his pockets and leaning into Y/n. If she was going to use her tricks, whether she knew she was doing so or not, he would use his. Much to his amusement, she didn't even flinch maintained eye contact with the tall man as he inched closer.

"I joined the Agency."

Curious to see how the girl would respond, Dazai loomed over her. Y/n simply shook her head in disagreement, barley seeming to notice his attempt at intimidation.

"Don't fuck with me, I'm not joining your stupid little Agency. I'm not stupid, you were underground for two years before that happened and I want to know how you did it."

Straightening himself up, Dazai began to make his way towards his apartment. Without hesitation, Y/n fell into step beside him. She was the perfect image of the heartless Mafioso Mori had always been so obsessed with cultivating: calm, collected, and full of a driving rage that simmered just below the surface of it all.

"The Agency helped me with that too."

She scoffed.

"You're useless on your own, aren't you."

"No, I'm goal oriented."

"If saying it that way is what makes you feel better."

The pair fell into silence, only for it to quickly be broken again by Y/n.

"A hundred and thirty eight murders to your name that we know of, among countless other crimes, why would they take you?"

"The President is a good man. He is able to see the potential in worn out weapons such as ourselves." he shrugged.

"I'm not worn out."

"You haven't been an active asset in years, don't kid yourself."

"For one of the 'good guys' you sure know how to hurt a girl."

They had reached Dazai's apartment by now and he stopped, turning to face Y/n.

"Would you like to come in?"

After a moments thought, she shook her head.

"What, do you not trust me?" he joked.

"You're too committed to this new role you're playing to do anything bad to me."

"Are you so sure about that?"

Y/n caught the cruelness the flashed in Dazai's eyes as he asked the question and had to keep herself from laughing.

"Your act is too obvious, you've put on pieces of your old persona like a mask."

It was Dazai's turn to laugh, and laugh he did.

"You're a strange one, Y/n."

"Good. Maybe if I'm odd enough you'll leave me alone."

"If I'm recalling correctly, you're the one who waited for me outside my place of work and proceeded to follow me home, not the other way around."

"I just needed to figure out if you were worth my time."

"And the verdict?"

Y/n let her eyes gloss over Dazai's frame before returning them to his own.

"You want the truth?"

"And nothing but it."

She sighed, shoving her hands deeper into her pockets.

"You're arrogant and self obsessed. You think you've moved on with your life and them some old scrap of it turned up and you fell right back into it. Theres an attempt you've clearly made to intermingle the two, to stitch them together but they're incompatible. You haven't achieved any of your most recent accomplishments on your own and yet, take total credit for them even when you claim you don't. You've been obsessed with me since the day you first saw me and it doesn't seem to be stopping anytime soon."

"I asked whether or not I was worthy of your time, not for a psychoanalysis. Besides, I wouldn't say I'm obsessed with you so much as that you intrigue me."

"I can't tell yet."

"Can't tell what?"

"That's my answer. It's cold, you should go in."

Disbelief crowded Dazai's mind. With every word Y/n said, more questions seemed to appear. He had wanted answers from conversing with the girl, but it was explicit to him now that it wasn't going to happen. Not this time at any rate.

"Bold of you to invite me into my own home." he said at last.

Y/n adjusted her scarf so it covered more of her face.

"Well, you can stand out here all night if you want. I don't care. I'm going home."

And with those final words, she turned on her heel and walked away. Dazai watched her retreating form until it was out of sight before slowly unlocking and entering his own home.

"Just what is it you're after, Y/n?" he asked the emptiness of his apartment as he took his jacket off, relishing in the way her name rolled off his tongue.

He couldn't stop the old sickness from returning. Why was it she was so intent on not being affiliated with anyone at all? Was she trying to protect someone? From the limited information Dazai had on Y/n, it was hard to believe she had anyone waiting for her in whatever place she called a home but, Dazai had been wrong before.

Where had she been for all those years if not dead? There was a need for information that started in the pit of his stomach and spread through every inch of his being. He felt like he was just a kid again, watching her drag bodies into Mori's clinic.

Whatever had happened, whoever she had been and whoever she now found herself to be, Dazai was certain about one thing: he wanted her in the Agency. He knew what a Mafia upbringing was like and he saw the same shadow in Y/n's eyes today that he had placed in his old subordinate's years before. She was good at hiding it, sure, but when you yourself are full of that same, solemn emptiness it becomes much easier to recognize in others and that emptiness was all Dazai had ever had. He craved it like it was the last food on earth and would follow it anywhere. Above all else in life, his allegiance had always lain within it.

The agency had helped relieve that hunger, but it had never gone away entirely and after seeing Y/n again after so many years, it roared to life inside him. Like a moth to the flame, Dazai felt her tugging at him. He needed to know. He needed to not be alone, to have someone else born with the hunger rather than people who had been given it over the years, someone else who had learned to live with it rather than burry it under the monotony of daily life and somewhere deep in his mind, he intrinsically knew it had to be her. No one else would do. He could tell, they were both monsters beneath their human skins and he knew, could feel it in his very bones, that Y/n saw it too. It was why she had come back to wait for him.

"Y/n." he said again, and the air devoured the words from his lips.

Dazai smiled. He had spent such a very long time being bored.