Dazai Osamu Angst ~Hello, Demon~ Soukoku

Morning, sunshine

Dazai woke with a start, breathing heavily and shaking. He took a deep breath, doing his best to calm down.

Damned nightmares.

The detective often found himself dreaming of haunting things. The shaky, dying breaths of everyone he held dear resounding throughout his head. 

Barely managing to calm his pounding heart, he got dressed for work. He checked twice to make sure his bandages were tight. 

He always wore bandages. 

They hid the scars of his past...attempts. 

Dazai hadn't always had such an aversion to pain. In fact, he used to seek it out. 

At least, when he was in pain, he felt something. 

Once he made it to work, he plastered a smirk on his face, closing his eyes and wearing headphones to drown out the sounds of his terrible dreams. Kunikida glared at him, forcing his attention towards a stack of papers on his desk. 

     "A new mission?" The brunette asked, acting as disinterested as possible despite the big red letters that spelled out MIMIC on the description page and the image of Chuuya in the folder.

     "Yeah, we've been asked to investigate this new group called MIMIC that sprung up recently. It's been bothering the Mafia so much that they assigned one of theirs to our team." He scoffed. "As if I want to work with him." 

Dazai almost smiled. It would actually be nice to see Chuuya again, though he was certain he was the only one of the pair who felt that way. He allowed himself to grin while imagining how angry Chuuya would have gotten when he learned about this. 

     "So, Kunikida, who else is coming with?" He raised his head to face his friend (not that Kunikida considered Dazai to be a friend). 

Kunikida paused, getting a small ridge between his eyebrows as he considered that question.    

     "I suppose it might be good for Atsushi to join us. More field experience couldn't hurt." The idealist mused. Dazai nodded and got up, stretching (not unlike a cat) before moving to collect his younger colleague. 

     "Atsushi!" He called, startling the boy who was sitting and talking to Kyoka. Dazai smiled faintly when he looked up at him. "Hey, we need you for a mission!" 

     "R-Really? Okay, who else was assigned?" He asked, darting to his feet and collecting what little he needed with him. 

     "Myself, Kunikida, and a mafioso called Chuuya." Dazai exclaimed cheerfully.
Atsushi choked. 

     "We're taking someone from the Port Mafia with us?! Why?!" He gasped. 

     "He's really strong, and this is a problem that pertains to the Mafia as well." Dazai replied, already turning to join Kunikida at the door. He glanced back at Atsushi. "He's pretty nice too, I'm sure you'll be glad to have him on the team." 

Finally, once they were all in the car, they headed out. They were supposed to meet Chuuya halfway and pick him up so they could go to the zone of investigation together. 

Kunikida blabbed endlessly during the drive and Atsushi listened attentively. Dazai, however, sat quietly, looking out the window and trying not to panic. 

MIMIC. 

MIMIC was the organization who killed Oda. 

Dazai had been so sure that Oda won that duel. Hell, he had seen the corpse of the leader all those years ago. 

How was this possible?!

The car jostled as they ran over a pothole in the road, knocking Dazai out of his increasingly frantic thoughts. 

Finally zoning in to the conversation between his colleagues, he attempted to fill in what had already been explained.

     "So we need to be prepared. I've been informed that they are dangerous and heavily armed." Kunikida was explaining, not noticing the slight glimmer of mania in Dazai's eyes. Not noticing how his stance was much more closed than usual, arms crossed and nails digging into his skin.

After maybe 20 more minutes of explanation on Kunikida's part, he glanced in the rear-view mirror and fell eerily silent. Atsushi followed his gaze and yelped in dismay. 

Dazai was confused as to what was so awful, or at least he was until Atsushi began pleading with him for something. 

In that moment, Dazai noticed that everything sounded muffled, his vision blurry and his breathing coming out in short, panicky gasps. 

He couldn't hear what Atsushi was pleading about, but apparently it was enough to make Kunikida pull over. 

Dazai couldn't breath, his eyes burning with tears that threatened to overflow. 

Kunikida rushed to the side of the car, increasingly concerned and very confused. 

Atsushi was doing his best to calm Dazai down, trying and failing to pry his tightening hands away from his arms. 

Finally, Dazai managed to breath properly again, taking deep shaky breaths while Atsushi and Kunikida were able to take a moment to relax. 

Glancing down at his faintly throbbing arms, Dazai was rather surprised to find that his nails had managed to dig so far into his skin that they had drawn blood. 

Dazai's vision cleared, and his panic faded more. 

In the car, hearing about MIMIC, Dazai could almost feel the cold, shaking body of his friend in his arms, the sickly, warm sensation of blood dripping on his fingers and to the tiled floor below.

Calm enough to breath normally again, he left the car for a few, just to pull a small bundle of clean bandages from his pocket, with which he wrapped his slightly dripping arms before they dirtied the surrounding bandages too much. 

Returning to the car again, he saw that both Kunikida and Atsushi were staring at him like he'd either burst out crying or shatter into a million tiny pieces at any moment. 

"A-are you okay? What was that?!" Atsushi demanded, standing to inspect his arms like worried mother. 

Dazai almost burst out laughing at Atsushi's concern. This wasn't abnormal at all to him, it happened more often than he cared to recall. 

"Dazai, are you alright?" Kunikida asked after they had all settled back into the car, both still staring at him like he was insane. 

"Yeah, I'm fine now. Sorry 'bout that!" Dazai said with a grin. When the two continued to look at him like he was a madman, he frowned slightly. "What's wrong?"

Atsushi looked at him like he had sprouted a second head. 

     "What's wrong!? You just started to panic out of nowhere! You clawed your arms open! Are we not supposed to be concerned?!" The 18 year old asked ludicrously. Dazai's frown deepened. This is exactly what he hoped to avoid by having his little attacks alone. 

     "Oh please, Atsushi! This happens all the time. It's nothing, really." He assured the boy. Atsushi looked like he wanted to say something more but before he had the chance to, Kunikida slammed the brakes. 

In the middle of the road, just ahead of them, stood Chuuya. 

     "Took you idiots long enough." He hissed, but his insult seemed mostly aimed at Dazai since he was making eye contact with him. 

     "Hey there Chuuya!" Dazai grinned, his voice almost gaining a sing-song quality. "I've missed you, pal!"