PIED PIPER | dazai osamu

14: bleeding; the memory tempts.

a/n: as usual, because i like gore, there's another somewhat graphic scene.

—

If there was anything you knew from experience, it was that you shouldn't follow the women of the Port Mafia anywhere; especially when it was night-time, and a single flick of the wrist could result in an easy decapitation. But you were curious. It was like Alice in Wonderland all over again, plummeting down the rabbit hole.

"Where are you taking me?" You ask. "Hopefully not to Lupin. Been there twice now."

"We're not."

You don't ask her for her name. You feel like she wouldn't give it to you anyway, but the question remained on the tip of your tongue so evidently that it was almost tangible. But she ignores this expertly.

Past the walls and store and brothels and clubs and bars were rows and rows and rows of warehouses. You must be in official Port Mafia territory by now—you jest, saying duh, that's obvious, but you quickly shut up when you see armed guards walking about with their dark sunglasses. The sight of the prominent member elicits nods and brief greetings, but they don't pester her who was behind her.

You walk past one, two, three, four, five warehouses, and stop at the final one at the back. All of which was padlocked with a rusty, golden lock that rivalled the size of your fist. She looks at you, almost expectantly, but upon seeing no sparks of recognition contorting your face, her mask twitches with a turn of her lips.

But she tries anyway. "Do you remember anything about a warehouse?"

"No."

A single swipe of her knife against the lock has it shattering. You stare at her when she pushes the doors open.

The creaking of the door does nothing to relieve the cold tension encasing your spine, nor does her composure beginning to break under the breeze, wooden smell of the warehouse. The inside of the warehouse was a lot cooler than the outside. Shelves and shelves of boxes and chests of European and American bullets and bombs and...god knows what else they hid from the government, stashed on the yellow shelves; there was something so simple and ordinary about seeing those boxes on those shelves like it was the back of a retail store, a  quotidian chore for the average worker.

You don't know why your breath hitches in your throat. "Why are you taking me here?"

This woman might kill you right now. It wasn't that the possibility was ruled out in your head, but more so that there was something so plain and useless about you that she wouldn't even consider it.

"I was hoping you would remember," She says. Wistfully. "If you didn't even bother asking for my name...thought it meant that you didn't even remember who I was."

"You're absolutely correct."

"..."

A rather rude answer, really, but you were snappy when you were afraid.

You step forwards. Looking around the insides, craning your neck back to the ceiling, wondering if she would take this opportunity to slit a knife clean across it. But she doesn't. Rather, a breeze rolls over it, and with a sigh, you turn your eyes back down.