High spirit | Dazai Osamu ff

Gardener

"So why has Mori put his men around your safe house?" She was currently breaking in to the garden shed of the mansion that was locked. She grunts trying to pull open the creaking door.

"Wait." Dazai makes her stand farther away. He finds another lock at the base of the door. He quickly pulls out a pin from his pocket as he starts working on the lock. She watches with apprehension as the lock clicks and he throws the doors open.She had insisted that he take care of the dead garden and revive it, while she'd take care of the mansion. 

"I'm not spending time in a rundown place."She had claimed with so much conviction. 

Dazai hated doing jobs like gardening. For him, he was not getting any profits in return for toiling away  for long hours. And such activities with bare minimum outcomes definitely did not interest him. 

But Dazai was a fair man. She had wordlessly provided for all necessities in this place. He was residing here free of costs, so if she insisted that he work in the garden, he would. It had nothing to do with the  threatening glare the emerald eyes had shot him, as if daring him to reject. Nothing at all.

So here they were now, rummaging through the many things at the garden shed as they tried to find gardening tools. They bring all the necessary things out in the garden and she begins to uproot the dead plants that are scattered around. They seem to retract themselves on their own, flinging into the air. The job is done rather cleanly, with almost no dirt left on the roots.

"My personal funds are kept in that safehouse, Mori-san and only a few higher ups know about. If he does not place men around the safehouse now, others will get suspicious of his plan of chasing me out of the mafia." He keeps her engaged in conversation as he maneuvers to spot he knows she can't see him.

Whilst she is in the middle of cleaning, she feels as if she is being pinched. She turns her head around in an abrupt motion to see a lock of her black hair being held between Dazai's fingers.

"I am not gifted. That ability of yours is not going to work on me." She sneers. 

He must have counted on the fact that since hair are dead cells, she will not feel him holding them. Unfortunately for him, she has died long ago and her entire being is one. So even if there is a slight stir in the air around her, she can sense it. She is a spirit for god sakes.

"Then how are you uprooting them?" He asks sheepishly, on being caught red handed.

"Spirit powers." She shrugs. She knows about his further onslaught of questions, so she beats him to the chase. 

"When I was alive I did have an ability, but it was left behind with my body when I died."

"What kind?" He enquires. They've started digging the soil synchronously as their breaths become laboured.

"It was a phantom like Koyou Ozaki's. Only instead of a woman demon, it would take the form of a dragon." She buries her shovel in the soil, propping her chin on it's handle. She has light smile on her face.

"I called it Ryuu."

"Very imaginative." He quips nodding along.She glares at him. 

"Anyways when are you going to the safe house to retrieve the money?"

 She did not know why he wanted to gather his funds. She belived she had provided for everything here and yet he said, they will need the money in the future. Mortal desires perhaps, she did not think much of it and went along with his scheme to retrieve the money. 

"Tonight." He smiles.

•••

In the afternoon, she visits the seaside cemetery  for the umpteenth time. She has a habit of coming here every now and then. She walks through the tranquil atmosphere when she notices a man standing in front of one of  the graves. She realises that it was the same grave where Dazai buried Sakkun the other day.