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

Chapter 21: conflicting gravitation

-thirty minutes ago-

Chuuya has a headache.

It took far more willpower than he expected it to in order to walk back to his office instead of locking himself up in his dorm or going back to the apartment and the stained couch he still hasn't thrown out. But he did, waving his hand to dismiss the subordinates that tried to follow him. They had dispersed without question, the door to his spacious office closing with all the finality of a coffin as he now stands in front of the bank of windows that look over the port, out towards the sea, where he can see the boardwalk and the bridge and the lazy turn of the ferris wheel. The sun is heading steadily for the horizon, heavy in its descent into the glittering sea. It's a familiar sight, one that brings him calm, and...

Can he really leave it behind?

Yokohama is all that he's ever known. Suribachi City, the underground, each and every district within the city markers have all been his home. He knows it, and while he's been sent overseas and to other cities on Port Mafia business plenty of times, it still feels better to be here, where things are familiar. Change is never easy; he knows that maybe better than most do. But the idea of leaving Yokohama, of potentially never being able to come back, of turning his back on an organization that has given him a livelihood for the past seven years... It doesn't settle well with him at all. It scares him. And to be leaving with Dazai?

He wants him. He knows that he wants him, and maybe he never stopped wanting him. Even Koko sat on his lap today, hugging and cuddling him like she was completely comfortable, and he was able to trick himself into thinking for a moment that he could have that. A family. Koko isn't his, neither is Dazai, but he wants them to be. He wants that with them. He wants to protect them, to keep them safe, to be with them... To be able to face Dazai's love confession and be able to say it back and watch Koko grow up somewhere that will allow her to safely bloom.

But can he trust it?

Can he trust Dazai?

He doesn't know. Dazai left him once before, and there's still a bitter hole in his chest that whispers what if? What if he does it again? What if he does it when they've left this city, when Chuuya has left everything behind? What if Chuuya is left behind with nothing?

It's terrifying. Terrifying to be in love with someone he isn't sure if he can trust.

He shrugs out of his coat to throw it over the back of his desk chair, pausing when he hears something clatter to the ground with a muted sound against the carpet that sounds much louder than it really is in the silence of the office. Curious, he pulls the chair out to crouch down and find what fell, and something cold settles into his gut when his fingers find a small black disc with a tiny antenna; no bigger than a one-yen coin and hardly any thicker. There's a small red light in the center, blinking quietly. Innocently, almost.

It's a bug.

Someone bugged him.

He stands slowly, staring at the device for a long moment as his mind races to think of who could have put it on him. Dazai would have no reason to bug him; the man hadn't even touched him, and he doubts he would have put his daughter up to that kind of task. So he thinks about earlier today, about the people he's seen, about-

There was a meeting earlier in the afternoon, once Mori had returned, free of the virus ability. He remembers that he sat next to Verlaine, because his usual seat was occupied by Elise, because Kyouyou was pinning her hair back for her like the meeting room was a fucking salon. He remembers Verlaine smiling at him and telling him he was relieved to see him after that affair with the book and the detective yesterday evening. How he had brushed an imaginary wrinkle off his coat when he told him that he needs to work on keeping his temperament under control, lest he fall for such a trap again. A brief touch, one he had immediately recoiled from, yet it would have enough.