Bungo stray dogs One Shots

Soukoku - Return

There was a place that normal people called home. A Home was a place your heart belonged to. Where you felt at home. Where your family resides, not necessarily related to you by blood. A Home was a heartwarming place you could say.

A place that will warm your frozen heart. That will make you feel at ease. Where you could talk about anything. A Home was probably a wonderful place. Or that's what Chuuya always thought about it.

Who wouldn't want a place where you're accepted? A place where you can return to no matter what? Where you're loved? It was such a safe place, just rejecting it seemed to be pure stupidity to the executive.

Chuuya never really had a home, to begin with. Sheep had been his home until he got stabbed in the back. Or more like literally stabbed. They tried to kill him for THEIR benefit. They didn't even consider him their family for a second.

At that moment they broke something important within Chuuya. You can argue that they were children themselves but what they did was crueler than Mori and Dazai working together. They didn't succeed in killing Chuuya but they did kill his trust and his hope.

Tell me, how would you feel if your family would try to kill you? Try to kill you for their benefit? If they only saw you as a tool? They nullified all their happy memories with Chuuya. They made him lose trust and hope forever. Because your upbringing influences you greatly. And since Chuuya didn't remember anything Sheep was the organization that raised him. That told him he could only trust in them. That they were his everything. That all other people are evil. That everything is tainted except them. And then they shattered the image he had of them as well. Leaving behind a child with no trust, no hope, and no common sense. They didn't just betray him but broke him in the worst way.

Could he ever trust so freely and openly once again? No. It was a simple no. It's such a deeply rooted problem that it will affect him forever. That he will never gain a home as everyone else considers normal.

Chuuya seemed like the most open and trusting person in the mafia though. He laughed with all his colleagues, no matter which rank. He openly showed his emotions. He didn't linger on his tragic past like Koyo.

Yet he was very broken. He never showed whom he cared for. He lived in the moment trying his best. After all, all relationships in the mafia were mostly superficial. He cared for them, yes, but the more he cared the more he did by himself.

He would rather complete a mission by himself than ask Akutagawa to join him how he was originally assigned to. He put all his underlings in the backlines so that they wouldn't "get in his way". He simply destroyed everything that could hurt the mafia. That could hurt the closest thing to home for him.

The mafia was simple. As long as he had good results he wouldn't be cast away. He wouldn't be killed unless it was really necessary. He wouldn't be judged for not truly showing his emotions. For not talking about his feelings. For swallowing all his regret and turning it into anger.

So this almost safe place was something he tried to protect at all costs. Because he knew if the mafia would end then once again he would have nothing. Then he would be fully alone with no place to go and no other skill than to destroy.

And that was also why he took Dazai's betrayal so personally. Because once again someone in his almost family left him behind. The one who even knew his unshattered and naive self. And this person left. Who dragged him into this. Who destroyed his life yet freed him from the shackles of sheep.

Defining his feelings for his former partner was difficult. He hated him. Hated him for destroying his life that had been so good until now. Hated him that Dazai didn't show him anything different: He had killed for sheep and now he kills for the mafia. He still took another person's life. Ended what they build even though he could never do something like that. But it was the only thing he could do. Plus Dazai had betrayed and could easily once again destroy his new home.