parasite [YANDERE!O.DAZAI/READER]

NINE: THE MAN.

The ride to the morgue is quiet. The car hums as Dazai rolls down a window, relishing in the cool April winds flooding in. Kunikida drove with an expression of an endangered animal, as though something was tailing him, something from his nightmares. There was a look of primal concentration in his eyes, his jade-green eyes that reminded Dazai of the viridian background of your mansion.

"What's on your mind, Kunikida?" Dazai asks. He receives a grunt.

"This is the second time we're going to the morgue," He says, his hand on the wheel tightening, knuckles turning white. "And we're nowhere close to finding how to apprehend a suspect. Or two, if this body turns out differently."

"Relax, Kunikida~" Dazai sings, then puts his hand on his chest. "I promise I'm working on it."

"You?" Kunikida catches a glimpse of Dazai's smile in his peripherals. "How so?"

A mysterious smile is all he gets.

The two same morgue workers greet them as they enter the establishment, and true to your word, Dazai's met with a male body on the stainless steel table. They had stripped him of his clothes which lay in a folded pile on another table, a sheet covering the majority of his body. The upper part of the victim's body was pale, while the lower parts looked dark. He looked more like a plastic store mannequin than human.

"The most peculiar thing I've noticed is that," The morgue worker gestures for Kunikida and Dazai to come closer. "Bite marks on the neck. It's like a vampire bit him. But vampires don't exist, so it must be someone with really sharp teeth, right?"

Dazai looks at the bite marks. There were four holes, as if you had taken two bites to desiccate the body. The morgue worker receives no answer, so he nervously laughs and tries again.

"Right?"

"We don't know," Kunikida finally answers, pushing up his glasses. "It could be one."

"But that's impossible!" The worker exclaims, taking a step back. "How?"

"Please understand that this case is under the supervision of the Armed Detective Agency," Kunikida professionally answers. "Anything is possible."

"Where was this man found?" Dazai asks, and the morgue worker calms down at the smoothness of Dazai's voice.

"The KNOT hotel," He answers. "You probably won't find anything there; the entire place is cordoned off and there was nothing to be found at the crime scene. It's as if a...like a vampire came in, killed this man, and then disappeared into thin air."

"Oh, I know," Dazai flippantly replies. "Was wondering, though."

"Why? About what?" Kunikida asks.

"Just curious. It might be where our copy-cat killer might strike next."

Kunikida blinks. "You really think there are two killers?"

"Could you two pull up images from the last victim? The one with the cut on the boy's neck?" Dazai asks politely.

One of them turns on the projector and the images from the last victim flare to life on the wall. A cut to the neck, a clean neck wound, done by a knife or possibly a scalpel.

"Let's compare this to this body," Dazai gestures to the victim lying on the table. "Two differing wounds, with differing depletion of blood completed. There's no doubt about it: there's two killers."

–

Meanwhile, a man sits alone in his study.

His study is dusty: there are piles of books on the floor, precariously swaying side to side as though they were to drop and scatter like trading cards across the floor; his shelves are filled to the brim with classics and books on the supernatural; a portrait of a handsome man in a white suit hung on the wall in front of the desk; a picture of a woman was framed and placed upon his mahogany desk.

The scratching of pencil against paper. The rustling of sketching paper. The clatter of colour pencils against a tin box.

He is drawing and colouring in a picture of a woman. She has (eye colour) eyes that seemed to stare into the artist, which is a testament to his artistic skill and expertise. He takes a moment to sharpen his pencil with a scalpel. Pencil sheddings fall into the bin with a soft noise.

Once he finishes his drawing, he blows away the eraser shit off the paper and looks at his art with pride. He then picks a few rose buds from the roses sitting in a water-filled vase and places them on the paper, before closing the sketchbook shut and putting it under a pile of books as to press the rose petals. Their perfumed smell lingers in the air as he stands up, and he turns around. His eyes are a piercing blue, frighteningly blue, that looked more like a disc of the skies on a sunny day rather than a pair of irises. His brown hair is swept to the side with the help of some hair gel and a comb, shining under the light.

The man is vaguely handsome, resembling that of the portrait in front of the desk: It must have been him during his youth. He is wearing a brown, plaid suit with his jacket hanging off the chair, and he puts it on as he exits his study. He wore an expensive watch that reflected light and shone a white dot on the walls, frantically flickering while he descended the stairs. On his fingers were varying steel rings, with the most prominent one being Ouroboros: the snake that ate its own tail, forever in eternity.

He checks his watch. 2:00 PM.

He exits his house and enters his car: A sleek black Mercedes that shone under the sun like the back of a stag beetle. He slams the door as the engine roars to life. HIs eyes, caught in the sunlight, looked vacant and would have given the impression of falling to someone had they stared into them for too long. He turns on the radio, flickering through varying music channels before vintage rock comes on. He hums to the tune as he starts driving out of the driveway of his expensive home, and into the outskirts of Yokohama.

He is going to the forest.

A picture of the woman he was drawing earlier hangs from the rearview window. A small candid polaroid of her: she is looking sideways, unaware of the picture being taken. A small smile plays on her lips as her dress sways, captured as a blur in the picture. She is so beautiful that it deviates from the norm, resulting in her looking more so like a gross deformity.

He drives for a while before stopping by the forest. The cursed forest, as the children liked to call it, for the heart of the forest contained a mysterious chateau. He himself has not explored the chateau, but he supposed that changed today. He reaches for the glove box compartment and pulls out a pair of leather gloves. The April sunlight falls over his cheekbone and the engraved nose, noble and sloped like a Roman coin profile: He too deviates from the norm of soft Japanese facial features, for he looks more European than Asian.

He slams the car door shut. He takes a deep breath, inhaling the smell of damp soil and lush foliage and hearing the birds sing, before entering the forest.