What I never told you (ReaderxDazai)

JUU KYU

"Hey, has something happened?" he suddenly startles me, making me come back to reality and stop getting lost in thoughts.

"At the Port Mafia?" I say, slumping on the couch and making eye contact with him. "Well, yeah." I reply, leaning my head on his shoulder, just like I did in the past. I had had that habit even when he left, but I only ended up lying on the sofa. But this time it is different. He is here to hold me. He doesn't say anything about being uncomfortable, so I remain like this as I speak. "A lot of stuff, actually."

"Do... Do you want to talk about it?" I bite my lip and give him a worried glare, one that he obviously notices. And seems to understand. "Does... Does the Port Mafia know about me?"

"Not the Mafia." The tension I felt coming from his body a few seconds ago vanishes in a blink of an eye when I tell him so, but still, I am sorry for what I'm about to say. "But there was a prisoner that did know that you were alive. And he said his superiors would come after you and Chuuya to murder you both. Mori-san has sent Chuuya to the southern part of the country as a way to protect him, though. I'm sure he knows something I'm missing..."

He looks at me as if this was something irrelevant, and it hurts me. He has a good life now, how can he be so calmed? I know he's been in danger his whole life, but still...

"Why us?"

"Because... Because you're my weakness." Saying it out loud, it makes more sense than when I was in the interrogatories' room. He said I was fragile of mind and body, and he was right. I have injuries from the Red Brick Warehouse that suppose a disadvantage for me if I battle somebody, and discovering that Dazai didn't die but he somewhat abandoned me has made me lose control over my emotions, at least temporarily. "But I'm sure you've always known how I feel about you, Dazai. Our past is rather complicated and messed up... And Chuuya is the only person who hasn't ditched me or tried benefitting from me, even if we aren't as close as when you were at the Port Mafia. Somebody's been able to tell that far and is willing to use the information against me."

He smiles feebly, and simply nods, telling me in his own way to keep on letting everything out. "The prisoner with this information said that if I break, Yokohama will be destroyed, and it will be easier to find a rare item... He... He called me cursed vessel before he died." I close my eyes for one second, trying to assess all the information I have for the time being, and trying to find a connection. "But it's the first time I hear somebody calling me that. It's just so... frustrating..."

With that, he lifts my chin with his thin fingers, and forces me to look him in the face. When I get lost in those chocolate eyes and all the emotions that overflow in him now, he raises his other hand and, gentle as he has always been with me, he presses his thumb against my cheek, wiping away a tear that I didn't even notice myself. The same way I had been trembling without knowing.

"It's alright, Kera-chan. We'll figure it out." That 'we' is all I had been wishing these four years. I wanted to be whole again, to be his partner. It could be true. That was now a possible future. But at what price? He is once again in danger, all because of somebody who knows something about me even I ignore. "Just like the old times."

"No, we can't." I tell him, pushing myself away from him and giving him a gloomy glare. "Dazai, this is my fight, not yours. If I'm revealing this is because you're already in danger because you know me. You should search for more protection. If you get even more involved with me, your plan to have a better life will be ruined, so-"

"Kera-chan, do you know why I left the Mafia?" The question startles me. I wasn't expecting him to answer me with another question. I stay silent, not knowing what to say and, in the end, he tells me everything. A truth I had ignored. "Odasaku asked me to be on the side that saves people. That it would be better than staying in the Port Mafia. That no matter where I look, I won't get rid of this loneliness inside me. That I won't find a reason to be."