Keane
Some words changed to fit the situation (only like one or two)
—-
Dazai POV
For most people Friday is the godsend that comes at the end of the week that signals the beginning of a small break in their normal life and allows them to act for themselves for two days before they have to go back to the real world once more. It's something that people can't wait for and raises serotonin levels once's it comes, and normally I would agree with this sentiment, but today if the day had been a physical thing, I would have set it on fire.
Fucking Friday.
—-
3rd person/ switching POV
The Agency members all left the office in a small hub bub. They had all long since stoped looking at the lone detective that consents stay behind most days, those that didn't know why just attributed it to a new facet of the strangeness that the man often showed and payed it little thought other than that. Those that did know just followed the others out and pretended that they didn't.
The President, Ranpo, Yosano, and Atsushi, all those that knew of the situation other than Kyoka, huddled outside of the closed door, the three younger ones choosing to sit down on the ground while they waited while their boss stood as if sitting was beneath him. There was a tenses to the air that seemed to be chocking the four. They knew that something was going to happen today, something that Dazai obviously didn't want to, but they just didn't know how bad it was going to be or if it was going to be bad at all.
"I walked across an empty land
I knew the pathway like the back of my hand
I felt the earth beneath my feet
Sat by the sea and it made me complete"
Though most of those outside of the room didn't quite understand what the man meant, Dazai knew exactly what he was saying. Over the years, Dazai had gone to see his friend enough that he knew the way to graveyard better than the lines on the back of his hand or the scars on his wrists. He knew the smell of the sea and was close to it enough that the scent often clung to him in the way he was sure it would have clung to Odasaku had he gotten his wish. By this time Dazai could tell you the schedule of each ship coming in and out of the harbor on any given day.
An image of a grave by the sea came to Atsushi's mind and he knew that the assumption that he had made the day before was right. Everything that has been going on with his mentor has been because of that man. He didn't know if he should be mad at the dead man for causing Dazai grief even years after his passing or thankful for being the reason that Dazai left the mafia. He wasn't sure what kind of person that man had been back then, but he would like to think that he had been a good one.
"Oh, simple thing, where have you gone?
I'm gettin' old, and I need something to rely on"
Some of the others glanced at each other at the words the other detective had said. The man was only twenty-two, it didn't make sense to most of them that he would say that he was getting old when he was the age that most students were when they first graduated from college. But Ranpo understood, it was easy for him to do so. He knew that anyone would feel old at this age if they hadn't been planning on living past the age of fourteen. Though the detective supposed that this wasn't something that those around him needed to know.
"So, tell me when you're gonna let me in
I'm gettin' tired, and I need somewhere to begin"
Odasaku had wanted Dazai to live, to become a good man and to help others. Dazai just wanted to know when it was enough. When he would become good enough, when it could all be enough in the other's eyes. Because it has been four years, four lonely years and he was tired, he didn't want to have to take it anymore.
"I came across a fallen tree
I felt the branches of it looking at me
Is this the place we used to love?
Is this the place that I've been dreaming of?
Oh, simple thing, where have you gone?
I'm gettin' old, and I need something to rely on
So, tell me when you're gonna let me in
I'm gettin' tired, and I need somewhere to begin
And if you have a minute, why don't we go
Talk about it somewhere only we know?
This could be the end of everything
So, why don't we go
Somewhere only we know?
Somewhere only we know"
An image of a bar flashed in Dazai's mind. Of round ice, clanking glasses, and a old cat following the three of them around. Of the same bartender since he was sixteen. Of spinning seats and golden drinks. A little hole in the wall place where he had finally beat his first true friend at cards, that only the two of them had really known about before they brought their third in. It certainly felt like somewhere only they knew.
Ranpo listened to the words being sung, to the desperation in the younger man's voice. Out of everything that the man has said so far today he liked the words 'this could be the end of everything' the least. He wished that he had his glasses to know exactly what it was that the younger detective meant, but he didn't so he could only guess. With everything that he had learned, the detective could only guess that the other man was talking about whatever strange friendship it was that he'd had with the government mole and the moral mafioso coming to an end. He didn't want to think about what the alternative could be.
"Oh, simple thing, where have you gone?
I'm getting old, and I need something to rely on
So, tell me when you're gonna let me in
I'm getting tired, and I need somewhere to begin
And if you have a minute, why don't we go
Talk about it somewhere only we know?
This could be the end of everything
So, why don't we go?
So, why don't we go?
Ooh, hey, hey
Oh-oh-oh
This could be the end of everything
So, why don't we go somewhere only we know?
Somewhere only we know
Somewhere only we know"
The three Agency members on the ground stood up silently with varying degrees of grace and went to the cafe on the first floor, unknowingly taking the same booth that Atsushi and Kyoka had taken only the day before, something that the boy noticed but didn't comment on.
"Well that gave us nothing," Yosano grumbled from Atsushi's side as they were in one half of the booth and the President and Ranpo in the other.
"Were you honestly expecting it to?" Ranpo asked, idly flipping through the menu even though he had seen it too many times before to not know everything in there by heart.
Privately Atsushi disagreed with the bickering siblings, as he had learned something from the sad song. He knew now that while the song had been about the man in the grave, it hadn't been directed at him, but someone else. He had been singing it for the third friend, the one that he blames in part for the other's death. Maybe everyone else already knew that would be the case, but he hadn't.
"If we want real answers then we're going to have to follow him, aren't we?" Atsushi asked, sinking down into the seat a little bit as three pair of eyes turned to him.
"Do you have any idea where he's going?" Fukuzawa asked. Out of everyone at the table, Atsushi was the only one that Kunikida had ever sent out to go and search for the detective on the days that he would disappear from the Agency for hours on end, an occurrence that none of them had ever thought that they would miss, but now they did.
The boy nodded his head stiffly. "I believe so, sir."
"Ranpo?" The President asked, turning to the bored looking man.
"The kid is right," the detective decided. "Both about following him and where to."
The President nodded. "Then that's what we'll do," he decided.
—-
Everyone in the Agency watched as the once hyper man walked out of the office early for the first time since he had joined two years ago with permission, but they didn't see that man, only a ghost of who he had been. The four let the man get a ten minute head start before following behind the man, earning their own bout of strange looks from their coworkers and employees, not that any of them paid the attention any mind.
Dazai walked slowly to the graveyard, the mid winter air biting harshly into his skin even with the tan coat and bandages adding extra warmth to it, though a small part of him felt as if he deserved the cold. It was his fault after all that he was having to go there at all.
The cemetery is empty when he steps through the old worn gate, hues of green and red coloring it from exposure to the elements. There wasn't a soul around yet, though that was what Dazai had been aiming for when he came so early. Between the winter weather and the cruelty of the sea's harsh breeze, no one in their right mind would come here at this time of year. Which seemed fitting to Dazai because he knew that he was anything but in his right mind, if he had ever been.
The detective sat down atop the grave stone that he always leaned against when he came to visit. The name on it was to worn with time for Dazai to be able to read, but he knew that it had to have been some mafioso, most of the graves in the cemetery were after all. They belonged to the ones that died while still remaining loyal to the Port Mafia. Traitors' corspes were left where the man died to be found and buried by the city. That is if they weren't taken in alive. The mafia had their own procedures for when they took in a traitor alive, they had been the only reason that Dazai didn't leave the Port Mafia during his first year there when Mori had made it all too clear that he was t actually going to let the boy die.
"You shouldn't do that you know," a familiar voice chided the younger man. "It's disrespectful to the dead."
Dazai could see the owner of the voice step up next to him out of the corner of his eye, dressed in his normal dark tan suit with the same hair cut that he's had since the day that the three had met. The man pushed his glasses up his nose with steady hands and a neutral face, but Dazai could tell that it was a forced calm. He knew that the other wanted to be here just about as much as he did despite the fact that he had been the one to arrange that they meet like this.
"Hello Ango," the detective answered, pulling himself up slowly to his feet. He tired his best to keep any negative emotion out of his voice, at least for today. After all, it was the first time that the three of them were together once more, even if one of them was gone.
"Hello Dazai."
The Agency members watched as their colleague was approached by a man that they all recognized on sight as Ango from the Special Division for Unusual Powers, someone that everyone but Ranpo and Fukuzawa didn't understand how they knew one another. In the other two eyes, there was no reason for the pair to have ever even met or come across one another, but that didn't change the situation at hand.
The four watched as the pair stood silently together staring down at the grave just in front of them and for a long time no one said a thing.
"Who's grave do you think that is?" Yosano asked, whispering quietly to the other three.
None of them bothered looking at one another, not wanting to look away and miss something.
"A fool that knew that he was going to die and left them anyways," Ranpo answered, his voice holding more than a hint of bitterness as he popped a new candy into his mouth.
The small group quieted their conversation as they saw Dazai lift his head to look out at the sea and Ango doing the same. In the time that they had been watching the two men, they knew that Dazai had only said two words to the older, so they were mildly surprised when he was the first of the pair to break the silence.
"If you have a minute, why don't we go somewhere only we know?" The detective asked, repeating the same words that he had said only a few hours earlier.
The government agent looked at him with a slightly startled look, clearly not have been expecting the invitation after having to all but coercive the younger into meeting him, though he still suspected that the man had only come because he was going to come anyways with or without the invitation. Dazai didn't acknowledge the other's gaze, just as he didn't acknowledge the prying eyes that he had felt on him since walking into the cemetery.
"This could be the end of everything," he continued as if it explained everything that the other needed to know.
It did.
The surprised look on the man's face turned into one of understanding and resignation as the onlookers felt their own confusion only deepen. The agent knew exactly what the other man meant and he knew that he wouldn't be able to stop him this time.
Ranpo felt his gut twist with understanding as he questioned the assumption that he had made earlier, the one that he had wanted to believe. The way that the other detective was speaking, Ranpo knew that he wasn't talking about the past anymore. But for the first time he didn't know what to do about it. Ranpo knew that if the other detective set his mind to doing something, especially something like this, the only thing that they could do to stop it would be to have someone watching him at all times, but he also knew that doing so would only make everything worse.
"So why don't we go..." Dazai continued.
"...Somewhere only we know," Ango finished.
The four watched as the men left the cemetery, but none of them made a move to follow them
—-
Dazai POV
The Lupin Bar normally held a warmth to it whenever I walked into the building, but today the cold followed us in like a spirit waiting in the wings. I watched the way that Ango faltered as he walked in through the door and knew that he hadn't had been in the bar since this night all those years ago. A large part of me found joy in the other's mental anguish.
Ango walked over to his old spot at the bar slowly and I knew that if this had been the old days I would have sat down right next to him, but it wasn't. I sat down with one seat between us. In Odasaku's seat. Something that I was sure didn't go unnoticed by the other man.
The bartered came and went, sitting down our drinks in front of us without having to even ask what it was that we wanted. He put one down on top of the counter at the missing seat even though he knew as well as I did the no one else was coming, but did it anyways because he knew that there should be a third person here even though there wasn't. There was a small flower in the drink and that said all that we needed to know.
A foreign silence that shouldn't have existed while we were here hung between us. Ango let it hang until each of us were half way through our drinks.
"The end of everything?" He asked, sitting the slightly watered down glass gingerly.
I shrugged lightly, still not bothering to look at the man fully. "I've fulfilled the promise that I made him," I explained. "I have no reason left to stay."
I joined the light, I've been on the side that saves people, even helped an orphan who in turn saved another from a much crueler fate than she deserved. I'm done.
"What about that kid of your?" He asked, seemingly grasping at straws for something that would change my mind now that he knew that the main leverage he had was gone.
I slouched down against the bar and sighed, playing with the ice in the cup as I had when I was younger. "Atsushi..." I said the word carefully as if tasting it on my tongue. "I got him somewhere safe. Somewhere where he will be cared for and won't have to worry about the next meal. But me... I'm poison, I ruin everything that I touch. It'll be better for him if I leave now before I ruin him anymore than I already have."
"And Akutugawa?" He questioned. "You've screwed that boy up enough, are really just going to leave him going the way that he is?"
I sighed heavily wishing that I had drank more before we had started this conversation. "I already settled things with him during the Moby Dick incident," I explained. "And I found him a partner like I have been trying to do since I realized that he would never be able to exercise restraint unless there was someone there to show him how to."
"Atsushi," Ango said like he had just understood something that had been bugging him for some time now.
"They'll take good care of one another," I explained. "Make one another better than they could hope to be on their own."
"Or he'll make Atsushi worse," Ango retorted, taking a long sip of his drink.
A small laugh escapes my lips. "Maybe he needs it. You can only remain so innocent in this city and hope to survive."
It was his turn to sigh as he sat his glass back down. "There's no changing your mind is there?"
I shook my head no, knowing that the other was still looking at me. "I've stayed much longer than something like me was ever meant to."
Ango nodded somberly. "When?" He asked at last.
"Sunday," I decided. I know that I have a lunch date with Atsushi and Kyoka that day, so I'll do it that night. "...I'll call you before if nothing gets in the way."
"Do so as well even if something does," he instructed. I only nodded and that seemed to be enough for him. "You want me to have you buried next to him," he said.
It wasn't a question, but I treated it as such.
"Of course."
Finishing the lasting on my drink I stood and grabbed the full glass, leaving a little extra money on the table to cover the cost for a new one. Walking towards the door, I stopped with my hand still on the handle before turning to look at the other man fully for the first time all night.
"Goodbye, Ango," I said, just loud enough for him to hear.
I wasn't really expecting a response and wasn't surprised when I didn't get one before stepping out into the cold night.
—-
Ango POV
I watched the fading figure of the younger man that I had watched grow for two years. That I had lied to and hurt in ways that I don't think I'll ever be able to fully understand.
"Goodbye, Dazai."
—-
Dazai POV
The night was freezing in a way that I hadn't thought that it would be by the time that I made it to the cemetery once more, but the shipping container had been much colder than this during the winters so it didn't phase me a much as I knew that it should.
I sat the full drink down on top of the simple gravestone and sat down in my usual spot, curling up slightly against the cold. I watched as what was left of the ice bobbed up and down in the glass from all of the movement, the flower had long sense fallen in so I pulled it back out as well.
The night got colder, but I still stayed.