you can take my Soul, but never my Heart (omegaverse)

Chapter 20: time's up

Yosano is the one that opens the door and peeks her head into the nursery with a teasing, "Atsushi's back, boss. You wanted a meeting?"

In the fifteen, maybe twenty minutes that it's been since Koko fell asleep, Dazai hasn't gotten any sleep at all. He hasn't gotten very far in his plan of how he's about to break the news, either. He's never been good at trying to word things gently. So he just sighs heavily, and his reaction makes Yosano's expression falter.

"Alright. I'll be in the meeting room in a few minutes."

She hesitates, as if she's going to ask what's going on, but she understands that she'll get her answers in a few minutes. She just nods, gently closing the door before she walks away to start gathering everyone.

Koko stirs when he nudges her, whining at her nap being cut so short.

He knows this isn't going to be easy on her. It's breaking her heart, which in turn is breaking his, but he's made his mind up. The second he saw her reach out a cup towards a man that could have killed her with a single touch, he knew they couldn't stay. Yokohama is too dangerous for her, even if Dostoevsky is out of the way. She can't live here, because the Port Mafia is not going to stand down. Dazai will die before he lets her get hurt. This is the best option, because a broken heart is easier to repair than one that has stopped beating altogether.

"We have to go say goodbye," he says softly, pressing a kiss to her forehead to try to make the news less jarring. "Do you wanna do that?"

She blinks, then shakes her head, burying her face in the nest with a sleepy whine.

"Koko..." He's not going to force her. She needs to have the closure, yes, but it's not worth harassing her over. They aren't leaving right this minute. She has at least the rest of today and probably some of tomorrow to get her goodbyes in. "I'm going to go talk to everyone. Do you want to stay here?"

A nod. She doesn't lift her head out of the nest. It's one of Yosano's blouses that she's hiding in, actually. It smells of gentle spring pollen.

"Okay. I'll be back in a little bit."

He's not going to force Koko to come with him, but getting up and leaving the nursery to face the goodbyes on his own makes him feel terribly vulnerable. He still hasn't worked out a way he can say it gently, and he knows not everyone is going to accept it. Ranpo and Fukuzawa might be the only ones that understand, that won't fight him on it. He hopes they can all realize that this goodbye isn't negotiable. It's not an "I want to leave Yokohama" but an "I'm leaving Yokohama". Saying goodbye is better than just going without a word, though, so he needs to face this. He can't just run without an explanation, because then they'll come looking for him. And with Ranpo, he's sure they could find him sooner rather than later.

When he steps into the meeting room, he finds everyone else already there. They're all chatting amongst themselves, going over the day's events, and Kunikida is still scribbling out paperwork as he sits at the meeting room table. All eyes go to Dazai when he steps in, but he doesn't meet any of them. He just walks to the opposite side of the room, to the head of the table, taking the chair that, more often than not, is where Fukuzawa sits. But the alpha is on his left instead, giving the most important seat to the man that wanted to talk to them all in the first place. Yosano is at his right, eying him closely, but all of them are. He's not wearing the bright mask he usually does. He's still wearing one, because he would feel naked without some kind of armor, though he's schooled his expression to careful stoic blankness.

The idle chatter quiets, and twenty attentive eyes turn to him in the silence that follows.

Dazai's words are his greatest weapon, and he knows how to use them. He can use them to beat around the bush, to draw things out, to make people guess. He can speak in riddles and watch people try to translate what he's even talking about, only for them to come to the wrong conclusions. He can lead entire establishments in circles; trigger a downfall or an uprising. But right now, he does none of that. These people, each and every one of them, have become his family. He loves them all, even Kyouka, and he honestly thinks he wouldn't be alive today without them. He owes them, at the very least, his honesty. He owes them an explanation.