Bad Kind of Butterflies ♧ DazaiXReaderXDOA

A Tale of the Past

Context: a SHORT extra chapter for whoever wants to read it, featuring the first time you met Sigma and the basis of your relationship with him.

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All you ever wanted was an escape, and so you ran. You left everything behind because you wanted nothing to do with it, you betrayed some and broke others' hearts, while the rest were more than happy to pretend you had died, your presence in your past become that of a ghost. In some ways you had been forced to turn to such desperate measures, forced to survive on your own on the run, but in other ways you had brought this upon yourself.

Your ability was too much sometimes, a burden to your own health, both physically and psychologically, hearing hearts constantly like drums that followed you into any wonderland you may fall into. There was no escape.

Unless you used it to your advantage. So you did.

From the most talented con artists to the most regular of civilians, one touch and their heart became yours, and so over a very small amount of time you had begun to gain a bit of a resume. And then you found yourself at Sky Casino, the kingdom in the sky for those that wanted to become their vices.

At Sky Casino, you started small with your tricks. Just reading people's heartbeats and deciding when to fail and when to win, just by their change in pulse, change in breathing — it all affected the way their heart played its music. But then even that wasn't enough. You began to love winning much more than you loved control.

You spent 1 month at Sky Casino paying for your stay there with your earnings without a word from the dealers. You knew they watched you closely, you knew they couldn't figure out how you won so often or guessed so accurately, but you weren't counting cards, and that much was obvious, so you thought you were safe from accusations of cheating.

You were wrong.

The day after exactly 1 month, you had been asked to play a game by another regular, an older man with too much money. Just from the request, you had been able to sense something was off, but you couldn't figure out what.

It isn't until you are standing in front of Sky Casino's manager with the old man yelling in an outrage that you realized this game had been a set up to accuse you of playing dirty and rigging games, taking advantage of the honesty of the casino. In this moment, your face is riddled with fear, eyes wide and heart pounding in you chest, your ears overwhelmed with the sound of your own anxiety.

This was the first time you had truly met Sky Casino's manager. After calming the older man, assuring him he'd take care of everything and giving him a few complementary gambling chips, voice smooth and full of charm, the manager — introduced to you as Sigma — had taken one long look at you and had beckoned you to follow him.

Walking behind Sigma, who was moving through the crowds with ease and a stride of confidence, long two coloured hair swaying behind him mesmerizingly, heels against the floor a sure announcement to others to give him space, you contemplate your two options in these few moments before he questioned you:

You run and start over elsewhere, or for once you stay.

The former looked much more appealing to you as you are led into Sigma's office, body freezing at the entrance with skepticism. You try to clear your head of your own fears and listen to the heart beat of the manager, trying to sense his anger or anything else, but instead you find nothing but a calmness within him, and instead of any anger, you found that perhaps those unsteady changes in his pulse were signs of a nervousness that paralleled yours. So you stay.