Chapter 23

                                    

                                          
The beeps of the heart monitor increasing had been the first indicator that something was happening with Chuuya- whether it be good or bad. There were a number of possibilities, he could be having an increased amount of brain activity, more stress to the body, or even be waking up.
                          
Yosano let it continue for a few beats to make sure it wasn't just a spike in his heart rate, the other occupants of the meeting room also listening intently. They had been discussing the Port Mafia encroaching on the Nakahara situation. It had been yet another week, the longest he had stayed one age, (perhaps because he was in a coma) and the mafia was growing restless.
                          
"Is that Nakahara-San?" Atsushi asked, perking up in his chair.
                          
Yosano nodded, already up and out of her chair.
                          
Then followed the sound of a flatline and the shattering of glass.
                          
The agency followed hot on her heels as she threw the door open. As expected, as soon as she flung the door open and the agency members poured into the room.
                          
"What... Where did he go?" Tanizaki asked, sounding highly panicked as he flung the restroom door open only for that room to be unoccupied also.
                          
The sheets on Chuuya's bed were rumpled and the blanket was thrown to the floor. A short distance away glass coated the floor with the window above it broken.
                          
"It seems that our little delinquent has escaped," Yosano murmured, kicking some of the glass aside. Her office was a wreck and once she got her hands on that kid she was going to force him to clean it top and bottom until it was shiny.
                          
"What do we do?" Atsushi asked, getting on the bandwagon and panicking with Tanizaki.
                          
Kunikida held a hand up, "send half of the members out and keep half here in case of emergency. And someone call Dazai, he'll know more about the situation," he sighed, "it's going to be a long night."
                          
 
——

                          
Unlike the other times Chuuya had aged up, Dazai was regretfully absent when Chuuya emerged from his coma at the age of eighteen.
                          
Though he had certainly been the first in line to hear about it.
                          
Dazai almost didn't hear the sound of his phone ringing over the rushing of the shower water and his thoughts. Yosano and Kunikida once again had forced him to his own place for the night and he supposed that while he still had the energy to take a shower then he should before he lost the motivation. Because here, in his own dorm, left him in solitary with his thoughts, and for someone whose mind ran like his, it was bound to be a harrowing experience.
                          
Dazai wasn't aware of how many times his phone had rung, too busy staring at the tiled wall and letting the water scald and wrinkle his skin until he felt something and-
                          
He pushed past the flimsy curtain, nearly slipping on the wet floor in his haste to grab the phone and wrap a towel around himself. His heart dropped when he saw the familiar phone number. Yosano wouldn't be calling him during his 'time off' unless something had happened to Chuuya.
                          
Discarding the fact that he smudged his screen with water when he swiped the call button, Dazai put it up to his ear. "What is it?" he asked, sounding a bit too breathless for his liking, especially with the humid mist blurring the mirror and clinging to the ceiling, stealing away any fresh air in his lungs.
                          
"Your problem child," Yosano immediately started without a greeting, "he's not in his coma anymore."
                          
The admission made the room lighter than the heavier atmosphere it had been before, something cracking open in his chest just for a small second before he taped the crack back up. Dazai was already toweling dry his hair and throwing on the clothes he had previously been wearing before the shower.