Chapter Text
The Switch is a phenomenon that occurs when the two souls dwelling deep within the body swap places with one another.
A normal person would only experience a handful of Switch in their entire lifetime.
An emotionally unstable or easily distraught person would experience twice the amount of an ordinary person.
Dazai Osamu, however, experiences Switch on a daily basis.
It was unheard of for anyone to be able to turn the Switch on and off whenever they please, but Dazai did.
He made it work.
It was a simple method, but it was a method no one dared to try. Even if they did, they usually die the second time if they were lucky.
When Dazai first committed suicide, he was ten.
He had jumped off a bridge, face towards the sky and limbs sprawled out. From a fall at such height, he had hoped to feel the water that would become as hard as concrete shattering every single bone in his body—preferably starting with his skull.
Unfortunately for him, that did not happen.
It only felt like a blink to him, and the next thing he knew it, Dazai was sitting by the shore. He stared dumbly at the bridge in the distance where he had jumped off. His body was completely dry, showing no signs of ever having fallen into the water.
Needless to say, Dazai Osamu was annoyed.
He knew that he had experienced the Switch. His meddling Soul Mate had stepped in to deny him of his blissful death!
When Dazai checked the time in a nearby park, only ten minutes had passed. Even if he jumped onto a boat, there was no way he could get to the bridge in ten minutes. Considering how he clearly never touched the water either, Dazai Osamu has a pretty good lead on his Soul Mate’s Ability.
Ever since then, Dazai would attempt to commit suicide every day, as if trying to prove something.
Every single day, his Soul Mate would intervene, as if taunting how stupid his efforts were.
Every single day was like war. This was a game that only existed between the two of them.
Shoot himself in the head.
His Soul Mate deflects the bullet.
Hanging.
His Soul Mate breaks the rope.
Cutting.
His Soul Mate admits him to the nearest hospital.
Consuming Poison.
His Soul Mate admits him to the nearest asylum.
Starve.
His Soul Mate stuffs him full of food.
Jump off the tallest building.
His Soul Mate can fly.
Jump in front of an oncoming train.
His Soul Mate smashes the train into pieces.
Jump into a battlefield between two rivaling gangs.
His Soul Mate annihilates both gangs.
His Soul Mate’s Ability was strong—so strong that the other was able to save him from every sure death situation. Halfway through his suicides, he didn’t even care if it was painless or not. He wanted to win his Soul Mate.
After the first two failed attempts, Dazai started covering his Soul Mate’s eye. Since Soul Mates can only see through the eye, they cannot hear or feel anything else that is going on with the body. This was a fact proven after interviewing with Soul Mates that had met and researching through people when undergoing the Switched.
Unfortunately for Dazai, covering his eye didn’t make a difference at all—not that he expected otherwise. He just wanted to blindfold his Soul Mate to irritate him. The brunet could already tell that his Soul Mate was something less than human with superior instincts that will even put animals to shame.
“Definitely a dog,” Dazai muttered one evening as he watched the sunset…before promptly throwing himself off another building.
Dazai loathed dogs. The brunet would even bet his life that this Soul Mate of his was one of those tiny dogs that needed to bark all day and night in order to feel self-importance. With those thoughts in mind, he stuck his foot into the bucket of wet concrete he had stolen from a nearby construction site. After the concrete hardened, he tossed himself into Tokyo bay.
As expected, he woke up at the shore later that day with the bucket of concrete gone from his feet.
In the sand next to him were angry scrawls left by none other than his Soul Mate who he had competed for a whole year.
[QUIT IT YOU ASSHOLE!!]
Dazai stared at it with rounded brown eye. He stared at the words for a whole minute before he burst into laughter.
With his hand that was already stained in sand thanks to his Soul Mate, he erased the words and wrote down a message of his own.
[Your writing is ugly.]
He pulled out a gun he had stolen from a yakuza back in the gang fight and released the safety. He pointed the gun against his forehead and pulled the trigger.
To Dazai, it all happened in a blink of an eye. The scenery didn’t change, but he knew he had Switched. His ears were ringing from the loud gunfire sound and his arm was throbbing in pain from the rebound.
He glanced down at the flattened bullet lying by his feet and the remains of the gun that was grounded into fine dust slowly being carried away in the wind. He looked over to the message he had left. His words were erased, replaced by the ugly scribbling and sad excuse of Japanese.
[SHUT UP!]
Dazai laughed again.
Yep, his Soul Mate was definitely a dog.
After a whole year of competing and trying to leave this boring world, Dazai found something that sparked his interest for the first time in his life.
Since then, their communication began.
Before Dazai tried to take his own life, he would always make sure to leave a message somewhere he was sure his Soul Mate could see. Whenever he wakes up from the Switch, he would always be inevitably facing the ugly scribbles of his Soul Mate.
Strangely, they began to establish a bond. Most of their messages were them throwing insults at one another, but at some rare times when Dazai was so utterly bored, they would have normal conversations. Although those conversations only lasted until the bullets in the guns Dazai had stolen ran out.
As if God had something against him, Dazai’s Soul Mate was someone completely opposite of him. In other words, the type that he hated the most. This made Dazai want to mess with the other, so much that he gradually found it more interesting than dying.
It wasn’t until Dazai turned fourteen that this game of theirs stopped.
It was the day of his birthday, the day Dazai hated the most out of all the other days in the year. He wasn’t in any mood to play games with his Soul Mate. The yearning for death was overwhelming that Dazai slit his wrists and watched as his blood poured down his arms.
He stared at it until black spots covered his visions, until he couldn’t feel anything as he collapsed. Before he did, Dazai could hear a frantic and angry scream echoing from the back of his mind, causing the corner of his lips to lift up by the slightest bit.
When Dazai opened his eyes again, he was in a private clinic.
“Ah, I see you are awake.”
That was how he met Ougai Mori, marking the end to his idle days.
Two weeks after meeting this man, Dazai became an official member of the underground world. He watched from the shadow of the man as he devised his plans and took the filthy seat of an old geezer.
He watched this man take over the Port Mafia and began bringing his own changes into the organization. Dazai couldn’t care less about this man or the Port Mafia as long as there was something interesting for him to pass time.
Ever since his cutting, Dazai hadn’t seriously attempted another suicide. That meant he hadn’t activated Switch for two whole weeks. He gently touched the blue eye under the layers of bandages.
He could still recall that horrified scream as he blacked out.
That voice was extremely distorted, sounding like his own, but Dazai knew it wasn’t his voice. That was his Soul Mate’s scream. It was the first time Dazai had heard this, despite having gone through the Switch so many times.
As much as he didn’t want to, Dazai knew he'd need to go through another Switch soon.
If there was anything Dazai needed to protect, it was the fact that he can activate the Switch. Mori cannot find out about Dazai’s Soul Mate or Dazai’s real Ability. Both of them were his trump cards, after all.
So the brunet came up with an idea, but this will only work with the cooperation of his Soul Mate.
Due to Mori’s foundation still being shaky, the man needed Dazai to stay alive. He needed as many trustworthy people as he could get to stabilize the Port Mafia. This meant that Dazai was constantly being sent out on missions. It was also a test so that Mori can find out what the brunet’s capabilities are. Naturally, that includes whether or not he was an Ability user. Whenever Mori asked, Dazai would breeze it through, giving no confirmed answer to his questions.
Mori was a patient man. He never pushed the topic and always went with the flow. However, Dazai knew that the man wasn’t going to let his eyes off him until he showed the man something the other could hold over him.
So during one mission to take down a small organization targeting the Port Mafia, Dazai allowed himself to get shot. He had his hands tucked in his pockets when it happened—his right hand gripping tightly onto a book.
The moment the bullet was going to pierce through his brain, Dazai’s vision turned black.
When Dazai opened his eyes again, he was sitting in the back of a car, staring at the book that was supposed to be in his pocket.
The first thing Dazai noticed was the eerie silence in the vehicle. Despite there only being him and the driver, he could tell the driver was strangely tense and was even glancing back at him every now and then with a weird look on his face.
The second thing Dazai noticed was the sting on his cheek. He acted perfectly normal as he pulled out his phone from his pocket. He didn’t turn it on and just used the reflection on the screen to check that huge bruise on the side of his left cheek.
The brunet huffed. He didn’t need to think to figure out what had happened.
His Soul Mate punched him. To be precise, used his body to punch himself. What an idiot. That’s basically the same as self-harming! Was his Soul Mate a masochist?!
Dazai then looked down at the book he was holding open and saw the pages in there ripped apart by something like a sharp needle, writing out the words, [FUCK YOU].
Dazai checked the lock-picking tool he hid under his bandages.
Yup, it was gone.
He snorted, causing the driver to jump and hurriedly turned his eyes back to the road. The brunet’s dark eye narrowed at the driver. To think someone like this would exist within the Port Mafia…he will really need to have a talk with his so-called boss.
Dazai flipped through the pages of his book.
Instead of listing out the many suicide methods, Dazai had taken out the original pages and replaced it with pages containing his own handwriting. He wrote in great detail documenting everything that had happened that led him to become part of the Port Mafia, as well as his current situation and what his Soul Mate needed to do.
Become me—that was the last line, or what was supposed to be the last line until his Soul Mate pretty much tore his book up.
How barbaric.
Dazai lifted the book to his face, covering his smirk from the driver.
This will certainly be fun.
That day, words of Dazai’s Ability quickly spread throughout the Port Mafia. Dazai eavesdropped on some of them, curious as to what he had done. He enjoyed listening to the grunts singing his praises, talking of how he was able to stop bullets and mow down his enemies with only his feet (explaining the blood on his shoes) and how he leveled the entire hideout of the organization they were sent to bring down.
Words of his Ability reached Mori, but the man never said anything. He continued to send Dazai on missions, each one more dangerous than the last. Mori was trying to figure out his Soul Mate’s Ability and testing the limits.
It was perfect because this will give both him and his Soul Mate time to adjust to their new roles.
After every fight, Dazai would speak with some of the grunts on the scene, trying to figure out the personality his Soul Mate was portraying. Thankfully, his Soul Mate wasn’t entirely an idiot. While his Soul Mate did not know how to properly act, he knew that the less he speaks, the less likely he will slip up. So his Soul Mate always fought with an apathetic face and only speaks when absolutely necessary.
Dazai must say, his Soul Mate had done a pretty good job. That was the very first time that Dazai realized he didn’t know as much about his Soul Mate as he thought he did.
Since then, the entire underground knew of a frightening monster that the Port Mafia has been keeping. He was a lone Ability user so strong that he could destroy an entire organization in a single night.
They called him—Arahabaki.
With the brain to create flawless strategies and the power to carry it through, Arahabaki’s existence was enough to stabilize the internal conflict that had been going on within the Port Mafia ever since the new boss took over.
There had always been speculations of the previous boss’s death, but the followers weren’t able to do anything as long as Arahabaki was supporting the current boss. Many believed that Arahabaki was the current boss’s most loyal subordinate…but they couldn’t be anymore wrong.
Dazai was anything but loyal, just as how Mori was far from a benevolent boss.
It wasn’t when Dazai turned fifteen that he found out who his Soul Mate was.
Nakahara Chuuya, the King of Sheep.
Dazai never met the boy, nor did he know what the other looked like. All he heard was that the infamous King of Sheep’s Ability was gravity manipulation and he was certain that this was his Soul Mate. After all, Dazai had years of experience with his Soul Mate foiling his suicides with that Ability.
Thanks to his careful manipulations, no one has linked his Soul Mate’s Ability with Nakahara Chuuya yet. His Soul Mate (the one inside his body) had done that job splendidly. Even now, the people around him thought his power was something akin to psychokinesis. Unfortunately, Dazai knew it was only a matter of time before Mori caught on. Right now, all the large organizations were looking into the King of Sheep.
Of course, this included the Port Mafia. Such a powerful Ability user cannot be wasted in a gang of kids after all.
The brunet also needed to make preparations for when Mori sent him out. He can’t risk seeing or getting seen by his Soul Mate. The moment their eyes meet, they will trigger their soul within each other’s bodies.
Both of them will be in danger if anyone found out about their relationships.
There was nowhere safe for them in this world.
At least, not yet.
Just as Dazai expected, Mori’s next mission for him was to seek out the King of Sheep and to recruit him into the Port Mafia. While he pondered over how to pull this one over Mori, there had been a change of plans.
The GSS and the Sheep have formed an alliance.
A higher level of information that only a few organizations were able to get their hands on said that the King of Sheep was the price for the alliance. The Sheep had sold their King to the GSS for protection. What’s more, there were rumours circulating that the King of Sheep was sold into Yokohama’s most famous red-light district.
Dazai didn’t know what to think. For the first time in his life, his brain stopped working. He sat there, staring at the reports on his desk for five full minutes before something hot burned him from inside out.
For the first time in his life, Dazai was angry.
No...not angry. He was livid.
He threw the reports onto the floor, his usually brown eye turning darker than the night sky. Dazai was quick to control his expression, yet the cold stoic look on his face only looked more dangerous. The first thing Dazai did was to erase the news before it could reach Mori’s ears. Since he got this information first hand due to keeping an eye on Nakahara Chuuya, words haven’t spread out yet.
Dazai immediately got to work while carrying out Mori’s change of order to eliminate both the Sheep and the GSS.
Rather than a battle, it was a bloody massacre. Dazai couldn’t care less about the GSS and left most of his men to deal with them while taking only a handful to corner the Sheep.
It wasn’t hard to bring them down, considering they were only a bunch of kids with throwing knives as their weapons. It was obvious how well they were protected just from that simple fact. Kids like them wouldn’t even survive in the underground world, let alone creating an organization that was striving.
Just by looking at them, Dazai could feel the love his idiotic Soul Mate poured into them.
How utterly disgusting.
“You don’t have guns, you can’t even fight properly, and you lack intelligence.” Dazai grabbed a dirty old chair, spinning it around and taking a seat while the men he brought surrounded the remaining children. There were too many of them, so Dazai had to trim their numbers down to ten. “I’m really curious. What makes you think you are in any position to go up against other organizations? What gave you such delusions?”
The kids stared at Dazai in a mixture of fright and anger.
“Oh come on, don’t look at me like that!” Dazai laughed light-heartedly. “I’m just here to talk.”
“You murdered everyone and you’re saying you’re just here to talk?!” The white-haired one shouted at him. Dazai recognized him. He had done his research after all, so he knew that this was the current leader of the Sheep—as well as Nakahara Chuuya’s childhood friend.
“You’re right, pardon me.” Dazai waved his hand. The sounds of gunfire echoed throughout the old warehouse, bringing out more blood-curdling screams. In a blink of an eye, ten kids were reduced to two.
“Now that I have murdered everyone else, yes, I’m here to talk.” Dazai smiled, legs crossed with his elbow on his knee and his chin rested in his left palm. He stared at the two quivering kids with his brown eye.
He waved his free hand, signaling the men to leave them.
His subordinates walked off, leaving Dazai alone with the two kids that were his age.
“What do you want?” The white-haired one demanded, eyes darting, obviously looking for an escape route. His hand was also on his ankle and from that small gesture, Dazai knew there was a hidden weapon in his boot—likely a dagger.
Right now, that boy was probably thinking of how to escape by taking him hostage. They were too easy to read, there wasn’t even a challenge at all.
“Nothing you can give me,” Dazai replied. “After all, you already sold your only protection to the red-light district, didn’t you?”
“Chuuya?” The purple-haired girl gasped, coming out of shock from the murder of her comrades. “You know Chuuya?!”
Dazai took a closer look at them. The girl’s eyes were shining with hope while the boy’s eyes were filled with rage.
“The two of you were his childhood friends,” Dazai pointed out. “Yet you betrayed him and handed him over to the GSS.”
“What’s it to you?!” The white-haired brat shouted, eyes crazed. It was the eyes of someone who was too used to having power—too used to getting what they wanted. Immediately, Dazai could link up to what had happened that led to his Soul Mate’s downfall.
“If he had just listened—”
“Listened?” Dazai chuckled. “He was the King of Sheep. He was your only fighting force and basically your leader. Who are you, a brat with no brain or brawns to order him around?”
“He’s not our leader!” The white-haired boy screamed, volume raised by another notch. A classic reaction from someone with an inferiority issue. For whatever reason, these types of people always had to scream to feel confident in themselves.
“Unlike a pack of sheep that dutifully follow their leader, you’re nothing but a bunch of hyenas fighting and plotting for dominance.”
“T-that’s not true! We…Chuuya was…AAAH!” The girl cried when Dazai pulled out a gun from his coat and shot her in the leg. She fell over, crying as she clenched onto the wound where blood was pouring out of.
“Yuan!” The white-haired boy wanted to go to her, but was wary of the gun in Dazai’s hand. Seeing that, Dazai casually tossed the gun away, letting it clatter onto the hard cement floor.
His action shocked the Sheep boy. Not only had he not expected Dazai to so easily toss away his weapon, but also afraid of the gun misfiring from the impact.
“Shirase! It hurt!” The girl wailed pitifully when the boy reached her and cradled her into his arms.
“What do you want from us?!” He barked.
“I told you, nothing that you can give,” Dazai responded with an icy tone. “I would also appreciate it if you never speak of my Soul Mate’s name from your filthy tongue.”
“Soul…Mate?!” The boy gaped, staring at Dazai with eyes so wide that Dazai was tempted to put a bamboo column against his eye and hammer it down hard. Apparently this was an ancient torture method that can get the eyeball to pop out.
Perhaps he should try that out the next time Kouyou called him for assistance in the torture chamber.
“Y-you’re Chuuya’s…!” The girl choked out between broken cries. “Chuuya won’t forgive you!” She hollered. “If you kill us, he’ll never forgive you!”
“T-that’s right!” The boy joined in as well. Although his eyes were brimming with hatred towards both Dazai and Chuuya, he was still shamelessly using Chuuya as a shield. Even though they threw their childhood friend away, they were still making use of him.
“Chuuya will never forgive you if you hurt us, even if you are his Soul Mate!” The boy’s words were getting more and more certain as he shouted out this nonsense. It seemed they got the wrong idea because Dazai left the two of them as the only survivors.
Dazai was already bored.
With just this little amount of conversations, he was already able to find out everything he needed, including his Soul Mate’s personality. As much as he hated to admit, there was a reason that those two kids were so confident that he wouldn’t kill them after hearing that Chuuya was his Soul Mate.
If Chuuya learned that he was the one who killed these brats he worked so hard to protect, he likely wouldn’t forgive him. It wouldn’t matter if these people betrayed him...because that was the type of person his Soul Mate was.
Dazai got up, turned and headed for the door.
The two brats stopped shouting, but Dazai could clearly hear loud footsteps darting across the pavement. The footstep was loud and heavy, belonging to the boy’s.
Dazai didn’t turn around. He kept walking even when the boy had picked up his discarded handgun and pointed at him.
Click
“H-huh?!” The boy stared at the gun before pulling the trigger multiple times. Nothing came out. He opened up the gun and found that there weren't any bullets in them.
By now, Dazai was already out of the warehouse. He took five steps away before hearing the explosion from within the factory. It wasn’t a huge explosion, but it was big enough to shatter the glass in every window as black fumes blew out.
The men waiting outside were already prepared. They shielded Dazai with umbrellas as shards from the broken glass showered down at them, some stabbing into the umbrellas.
“Now then…” Dazai looked up at the clear blue sky.
If he was in his Soul Mate’s situation, what would he do? What would he need?
Dazai didn’t need to think long, for that the answer came to him almost instantly.
The brunet turned to the men escorting him. “Bring me all the files of every organization and the current situation within the underground.”
What he needed to do right now was to gather knowledge.
That entire night, Dazai spent his time in his room, looking through all the documents he could get his hands. Relationship between gangs, trades, funding, projects, embezzlements...Dazai looked into everything. If Mori found his behavior weird, he didn’t point it out. As long as Dazai didn’t direct his search to a specific area, Mori won’t be able to figure out anything.
To avoid suspicion, Dazai never looked into what happened to Chuuya. He was confident that the information he provided his other half was more than enough.
His Soul Mate might come to hate him after learning the truth of what happened to the Sheep...but Dazai has no intention of letting the other find out.
Just like this, time quietly drifted by.
It wasn’t until a year later that Dazai’s life became a little more interesting.
It was the year when he met Oda Sakunosuke and later on, Sakaguchi Ango.
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Night time in Yokohama was never quiet.
Under the guises of the shadows, secret deals were being made and wars were being fought within the darkness. However, there was one place in Yokohama that was always bright during night time.
That place was Yokohama’s red-light district.
The entire street was bathed in red from the red lanterns lighting up the streets. Beautiful men and women would wave from their stores, inviting any passing men inside for a rest.
The red-light district was the only cease-fire zone within Yokohama.
It was a place meant for people to relax and exchange information.
“AAAAAH!!!”
As long as people know their place within this special district, that is.
“FUCK!” The man shouted, sitting on the cold comment floor and cradling his broken arm. “Are you crazy?!” He snarled at the youth dressed in crimson kimono with camelia pattern. “Do you know who I am?!”
“Does it look like I give a fuck?” The youth responded coldly and continued walking, ignoring the man on the ground.
“What are you morons doing?! Get him!” The man bellowed to his bodyguards who were also on the ground, each of them sporting a nasty swell on different parts of their faces. None of the bodyguards responded. They were all knocked out in a single hit.
The youth walked away, his orange hair swaying in the wind and his wooden sandals making clattering sounds against the pavement.
It was another usual night within the Yokohama red-light district.
When the youth walked around the corner, he saw a couple of men dragging a blond-haired boy out of a truck.
This wasn’t an unusual sight, as most people being sold here were from human trafficking. The redhead had seen plenty enough not to be surprised anymore, yet he stopped when he saw the look on the blond’s face.
The calmness on that face separated him from the rest of the slaves cowering inside the truck.
The redhead paused to stare a couple of minutes longer. Sensing his gaze, the blond turned and for the very first time, their gaze met. His left eye was gray like the cloudy sky and his right one was blue…just the sky after heavy rain.
It was a beautiful, matching colour.
More importantly, those were the eyes that haven’t been tainted in darkness. This person was someone kidnapped from the light. People from the light wouldn’t be calm in a situation like this...so that meant he got something to be confident about.
There was only one thing the redhead could think of.
That boy was an Ability user like him.
“Hey you!” The redhead walked towards the group. The men looked at him in alarm, but the redhead didn’t even care, eyes fixed on the blond.
“What’s your name, kid?”
The blond furrowed his brows, but didn’t rebuke how the redhead was also a kid as well.
“Kunikida Doppo,” he answered.
“Got a family or anywhere to go back to?”
“…No, I don’t.”
“How good are you with math?”
“Math?” The blond blinked in surprise.
“Hey kid, what do you want?” One of the men snapped impatiently, but the redhead continued to ignore them.
“Management, account books, sales—math.” The redhead waved his hand impatiently. “Well?”
“I’m good at those,” the blond answered, seeming to know where the other boy was getting at.
The redhead smirked. He liked this boy more and more now.
“Nakahara Chuuya,” the redhead known as Chuuya introduced before turning to the human traffickers. “Name your price, I’ll take him.”
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Oda Sakunosuke—or Odasaku as he liked to call him—was the first and only person who knew the truth of him and his Soul Mate.
It was a decision Dazai came to after a year of knowing this man. Not even Ango was aware of Dazai’s Soul Mate.
With the Sheep no longer existing, people were quick to forget about the little gang of children in the underworld—including the King of Sheep that once led them. They became one of the many organizations to perish, never to be remembered again.
Having Odasaku know who the real Arahabaki was, life had become simpler for Dazai. Since Odasaku was an ordinary grunt, Dazai could drag him around whenever and wherever he liked, so long as his orders didn't clash with his boss’s.
This also allowed him and his Soul Mate to have a proper conversation for the first in a long time thanks to the middle man. Dazai also enjoyed the look on Odasaku’s face every time he shot himself to activate the Switch. It was the look of a man that wanted to be done with his life, and Dazai couldn’t help but find amusement out of it.
There was never a time where Dazai felt bored with Odasaku around. Unfortunately the giddiness Dazai felt soured when he learned that his Soul Mate and Odasaku were getting it on better than him! Whenever his Soul Mate got complaints against him (which was ninety percent of the times), Odasaku would side with his Soul Mate and not him!
Since then, whenever Odasaku asked about his Soul Mate, Dazai would behave like the perfect image of a jealous girlfriend and demanded, “Why? Is he better than me?”
“Yes,” Odasaku replied without an ounce of hesitation, scooping up a spoonful of curry and putting it into his mouth.
Dazai deflated on the other side of the table. He rested his cheek on the smooth wooden surface poked at his curry with a silver spoon.
Odasaku ate calmly, completely ignoring the sulking teenager in front of him.
“Have you ever wondered what your Soul Mate is like, Odasaku?” Dazai suddenly asked while tapping his spoon against his glass of cold water.
“What’s this all the sudden?” Odasaku arched his brow.
“Since you always had to listen to our lovey-dovey sweet talks, I thought you might feel lonely~” Dazai swooned with pink hearts fluttering out of him.
“Only you would find cursing and death threats sweet talks,” Odasaku sighed, feeling extremely sorry for the young Executive’s Soul Mate. “I have no interest in looking for my Soul Mate.”
“Oh?” Dazai acted surprised despite the fact that he had seen it coming. After all, Oda Sakunosuke was that kind of man. Being in the Port Mafia, there was no way he would drag his mate into his life. “What a pity. We could have gone on a double date!”
“The only thing I’ll be doing is stopping Chuuya from strangling you,” Odasaku replied, not even needing his Ability to see such a future. “So? When are you going to meet him?”
“Why would I ever want to meet that slimy little slug?” Dazai asked with a smile playing on his lips.
“Really? Then sorry about that.” Odasaku went back to eating, not the least affected by Dazai’s answer.
That was obviously not the response the brunet was expecting to hear. He blinked, lifting his head a little to look at the older man.
“What is it?” Odasaku asked when the brunet kept staring at him without uttering a single word.
“You’re not going to ask?”
“What’s there to ask?” Odasaku took another bite of his curry. “You’re going to meet him anyways.”
Dazai blinked again before he started snickering.
“You always say the most unexpected things.”
“Have you ever wondered that it’s you who is complicating things?” Odasaku questioned back.
“I don’t deny that,” Dazai shrugged. He sat up, finally taking his head off the table and used his spoon to scoop up the curry and rice.
“Say, Odasaku. Have you ever wondered how two souls exist in one body?” Dazai asked, shoving the food into his mouth.
“What do you mean?”
“Take me for example.” Dazai waved the silver spoon with his nimble fingers. “You know what my Ability is. If our Abilities are part of our souls and the two souls exist in one space, then shouldn’t my Ability be able to cancel out the other one?”
Odasaku set his spoon down, seeming to be seriously considering the answer.
“However, that’s not what happened. Otherwise, I would have succeeded in my suicides long ago,” Dazai sighed mournfully. Then, he perked up with a smile on his lips.
“So here’s what I think!” He raised his spoon and waved it around in the air. “Our soul takes up our entire body while our Soul Mate gets the tiny room over here.” Dazai used the spoon to point at his bandaged eye. “Since this body doesn’t belong to the second soul, they are weaker. They weren’t strong enough to fight us over the right to the larger space, so they were locked inside here by us. Whenever we feel like we are in danger, our soul would unlock that smaller room, releasing the second soul to deal with our trouble while we hide in our own room in the other eye where it’s the only place they can’t access in our body~”
Dazai gave Odasaku a mocking smile, his burnt umber eye was like a murky puddle of mud threatening to swallow everything he sees.
“That’s why the slug’s able to use his Ability without the interference of mine, because our souls were never touching. That’s why when we come face to face with our Soul Mate, our Soul Mate’s eye will be the first to react, because that’s where their soul dwells.”
The brunet started fiddling with his spoon and Odasaku just watched quietly.
“Once your eye is gone, the Soul Mate’s soul will be released into the body where it will clash with the dominant soul. Well, under normal circumstances losing an eye isn’t a big deal, especially when it’s just your Soul Mate’s, but it’s a different matter once you meet your Soul Mate. That secondary soul inside your body will begin to fight you to figure out a way to return to their own body.”
“So you’re basically saying we’re bad roommates,” was what Odasaku said after hearing his friend’s theory.
Dazai looked up from his spoon in shock. He stared at Odasaku, his eye widening for a split second before breaking into laughter.
“I said all that and you came to the conclusion that we’re roommates?” He laughed while clutching onto his stomach.
“Why not? They’re our Soul Mates.”
If anything, the bad pun made Dazai laugh even harder. The brunet didn’t even bother explaining his real intention of telling Odasaku such story. Not when Odasaku’s answer was better than anything he had anticipated.
Roommates—not a bad way to describe him and the tiny slug.
That evening, Dazai left Odasaku’s home and rode in the back of a car heading for the Port Mafia headquarters. He denied Odasaku’s offer to drive him back and called for one of his subordinates to pick him up.
As he watched the lights flickered by outside the car window, he slowly pulled out a picture. It was a picture of a blond-haired man walking in the middle of the street dressed in a beige vest and matching pants.
His right eye was blue, while his left one was gray.
Both were colours Dazai was all too familiar with.
The brunet stared at his own reflection in the car window. He couldn’t help but let his gaze linger on his bandaged eye, wanting to take a look at that brilliant blue brimming with life.
He sighed and leaned his forehead against the window. The scenery outside passed by in a blur thanks to the speed the car was going at. Dazai perked up when he saw a tank truck not far away on the next lane. He glanced at the front of the truck, noticing there were some slight damages around the bumpers. His eyes then shifted to the truck driver and a smirk spread over his lips.
Should he open the door and fall to his death?
If he was lucky, he’ll get caught under the wheel and have a swift death.
“Dazai-sama?” His subordinate reacted too late as the next moment, the Executive opened the door and jumped out—falling towards the incoming truck.
The next morning, the explosion on the highway made it on every news broadcaster and the front page of the newspaper.
Ordinary citizens thought there was an accident that caused the tank truck to explode, but everyone in the Port Mafia knew better.
The youngest Executive has killed off an assassin that came to assassinate him. The assassin originally planned to use the tank truck to cause an explosion and kill Arahabaki, but never did he expect the brunet to jump out on his own. He also didn’t expect to be killed by the explosion he had planned for the other.
It was just another usual day in Yokohama.
Dazai wouldn’t have minded if life continued like this, but he knew that wasn’t possible. His first and main issue was his boss, Mori. The man was becoming more and more wary of him. Despite constantly using him to deal with the Port Mafia’s conflicts, Dazai knew his time was running out.
However, before Dazai could deal with Mori, Mori made the first move to dispose of Odasaku. And to make matters worse, Ango—the only other person he had trusted—turned out to be a spy.
Dazai sat next to the hospital bed, staring at the auburn-haired man sleeping soundlessly on the bed. The vital sign monitor was beeping rhythmically in the quiet room, signaling that the man on the bed was very much alive.
The brunet’s elbows were resting on his knees with his face buried behind his laced fingers.
He almost couldn’t make it.
No, he didn’t make it. He didn’t do anything at all.
It was so pathetic that Dazai wanted to laugh.
He was in Mori’s office when it had happened. For the first time in his life, the Switch was triggered without him doing anything. Without any dangers or suicide attempts, Chuuya took control over his body.
Perhaps it was due to the panic and the emotions Dazai couldn’t even describe jumbled inside him. Although he acted perfectly neutral in front of Mori, he could feel his own heartbeat quickening and the air around him becoming harder and harder to breathe.
Even without needing to see, Chuuya sensed his distraught and took over his body, kicking Dazai’s soul back into his room and locking the door.
Dazai was so focused on logic and partially believing that Odasaku wouldn’t be so stupid that he nearly lost his only friend.
“Chuuya…Chuuya…” Dazai whispered the name of his Soul Mate for the first time in his life, over and over like a mantra.
Chuuya had saved Odasaku.
Without Chuuya, Odasaku would have been dead.
“…Go see him,” a voice suddenly came from the bed.
Dazai immediately jumped out of the chair and saw Odasaku looking at him.
“Odasaku!” Dazai leaned over Odasaku, searching over his body to make sure nothing was wrong.
“Chuuya punched me,” Odasaku muttered, unable to speak clearly thanks to the gigantic bruise covering the entire left side of his face.
“Yeah…I can tell.” Dazai smiled weakly while admiring the handiwork of his Soul Mate.
“Called me an idiot.”
“I doubt that chibi would have much vocabulary.”
Odasaku stared at Dazai, his eyes lingering over the dark circles under the other’s eyes.
“…I’m sorry, Dazai.”
Dazai stared at Odasaku. He stared at him for a whole minute before finally asking the question that was on his mind the moment he woke up in this hospital room.
“Why did you go along with what he wanted?”
“…It’s not important anymore,” Odasaku replied. “It’s already over.”
“I don’t understand.”
Odasaku smiled before he reached out a weak hand. Dazai stayed still and allowed that hand to rest on the top of his head.
“Go see your Soul Mate, Dazai.”
Dazai stiffened before a small smile slowly crept over his lips. “I’m a slave driver.”
“I know.”
“I won’t be any better than the current boss.”
“I know.”
“I’ll work you hard.”
“I know.”
“I won’t pay as—”
“Dazai,” Odasaku cut the brunet off impatiently. “…I’ll stay with you a bit longer.”
“Yeah…”
That evening, Dazai arrived at the Port Mafia headquarters. The first thing he noticed when he walked into his boss’s office was the missing window panel and broken shards of glass scattered over the checkered floor.
“Ah, Dazai-kun,” Mori called from behind his mahogany desk. “I’ve been expecting you.”
“I see you had some renovation to your office,” Dazai joked.
“All thanks to you…or shall I say your Soul Mate?” Mori’s crimson eyes shone with great interest. “You’ve done well in hiding the existence of your Soul Mate for so many years. I would have never found out if not for Oda-kun.”
Dazai smiled, but it was a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. The darkness swirling within his eyes wasn’t any less than Mori’s.
“Mori-san, you killed your Soul Mate, didn’t you?”
That made Mori’s smile drop by a small fraction.
“Soul Mates are our biggest weakness. Taking them out of the picture would be the most logical decision for you, even if it means risking the possibility of becoming mentally unstable. Isn’t that right?”
“Did you come here to discuss my private life, Dazai-kun?”
“No, I’m here to negotiate,” Dazai walked forward to stand in front of Mori with only the desk separating the two. “By the end of tonight, you will make me the next boss.”
“Oh?” Mori’s smile widened, yet bloodlust poured out of him as he stared at the impudent boy in front of him.
Dazai returned that smile, not backing down in the slightest.
No one knew of the exchange that happened that night.
All they knew was that not long after the battle with Mimic, a new boss was announced.
Dazai Osamu—the youngest to become Executive in the history of the Port Mafia—has become the history’s youngest boss.
No one knew what had happened to Ougai Mori. The former boss disappeared, leaving behind only a letter declaring Dazai as the next boss. Many in the Port Mafia that were on Mori’s side tried to look for their boss, yet there wasn’t a single clue as to where Mori had gone…or what happened to him.
In the end, many speculated that the former boss died at the hands of the new boss. These rumours and speculations traveled throughout Yokohama and soon became popular beliefs. The truth was never found, nor did anyone care. Conflicts within the Port Mafia began to rise. Those loyal to the former boss rejected the new boss.
It was just like when Mori had first attained the position of the Port Mafia boss.
However, Dazai wasn’t Mori.
Unlike Mori, he already had a place within the Port Mafia with countless supporters as well as most of the Executives on his side. He swiftly stabilized the Port Mafia and under his leadership, the Port Mafia began to expand like never before.
It only took a year for Dazai to expand the forces of the Port Mafia into twice what it used to be.
But that wasn’t enough. His foundation wasn’t firm enough, and those can only be built through time, not accomplishments.
So Dazai waited.
He waited for two more years.
Every day, he would stare at the calendar and counted down the day when they could finally meet.
It was painful.
Dazai hadn’t known how painful this separation was until now which was funny considering he never really cared about it before. Maybe it was because now he has a date he could look forward to seeing—a goal visible in front of his eyes.
And then…that day finally came.
The day Dazai turned twenty-one.
The brunet was humming in front of the mirror, fixing his tie and polishing his leather shoes until they were practically sparkling.
Odasaku sat in a chair behind his boss, watching the idiot with a frown on his face.
“Dazai, that shoe is going to break if you keep polishing it.”
“But it’s not enough!” Dazai whined, holding out his shoe and turning it around in his hand.
“Dazai,” Odasaku sighed. He knew the other was aware, but he still felt the obligation to point it out to him. “Chuuya will be hostile towards you.”
Dazai stopped his weird act. He slowly lowered his shoe and the playful look on his face was completely gone.
“I know,” Dazai said, his tone not betraying a single emotion. “Knowing Chuuya, he most likely wants to kill me right now.”
“Dazai—”
“Can you get the car ready, Odasaku? I’ll join you in a bit.”
Odasaku looked at his friend for a moment before he got up. As he headed towards the door, Flawless activated. Without even looking, he raised his hand and caught the object thrown towards the back of his head.
Odasaku glanced down to find a pair of sunglasses in his hand.
“Take that with you. You’ll need it later.”
Odasaku didn’t ask any questions. He pocketed the sunglasses and walked out, leaving Dazai alone in the large room.
Dazai stared at his own reflection for the longest time before he slowly began to unravel the bandage around his eye. Little by little, his left eye was revealed and Dazai finally saw that sky blue he had longed to see.
He stared at the eye for the longest time, taking in the colour before his gaze shifted to his own mouth. He began to speak, his lips forming around the soundless words. After he was done, he covered his Soul Mate’s eye once more and walked out of his office.
It was time to meet his Soul Mate.