•• ━━━━━ ••●•• ━━━━━ ••
You love him despite the burden of Atlas
resting on his shoulders,
and he loves you despite the death
still clinging to your lips,
and the blood drying at its corners.
What a pair you make.
-the greatest lovers in hell || L.H.Z
•• ━━━━━ ••●•• ━━━━━ ••
Silence reigned in the hallway, resting over the shoulders of the two guards who stood in wait in front of the elevator, weighing upon their already straight spines and straining the air with something that needed to be spoken.
At last, when it became too much to handle, the younger of the two decided to speak up, for the sake of his own mind as it rebelled against the thought of staying idle. "Who exactly are we expecting?" he asked his senior, knowing that the other man had been informed of whoever they were awaiting.
The elder man glanced at his junior from the corner of his eye, although it was nearly impossible to tell thanks to the dark-tinted glasses covering his eyes. "Executive Dazai Osamu and his partner, (L/n) (Y/n)," he answered, his tone clipped and quiet to somehow match the atmosphere of the silent building.
Eyebrows furrowing, the younger frowned. "I've heard of them," he muttered, suppressing the chill that ran down his spine at the remembrance of the rumors he had managed to pick up in his short time with the Port Mafia. "The youngest executive of the Mafia, isn't he? And there was some name for (L/n), as well..." the man trailed off, struggling to remember.
"The Devil's Apprentice," his senior supplied instead, bringing the younger male to nod dazedly. "She earned the name before she joined the Mafia. She may not be an Executive, but she is a well respected member and may as well have the title given her authority around here."
Now, the junior's eyebrows rose. "Aren't the both of them really young? Eighteen, I think."
"Does it matter?" The older of the two snorted. "They may be young, but their blood is blacker than almost anyone else's in this hell-hole. Stay out of their way as much as you can, kid, if you want to live peacefully. People like them aren't the kind you wanna get involved with."
Eyes widening, the younger found himself facing forward due to the elevator doors sliding open before he could quite get to responding. Faced with the pair they had just been talking about, he felt more one edge than he usually was, carefully ensuring that his eyes didn't meet theirs.
"Dazai Osamu," the brunet introduced cheerfully, sporting a smile as he stepped out of the elevator.
"(L/n) (Y/n)," the girl followed, evidently more subdued than her partner. "The Boss called for us."
They were let through with no fuss-- no words exchanged beyond that as the guards merely parted to let them pass.
Before the younger guard could get to releasing the breath he'd been holding, however, (L/n) looked into his eyes undeterred by the dark shades that covered them, the knowing gaze serving to knock the wind out of him without her having uttered a word to him.
There was nothing malicious in the stare-- it was simply pointed and sharp with awareness, making him feel like she reached through and gazed right into his soul.
And just like that, she looked back to the front like nothing had happened while he was left barely refraining from gasping for air.
"I think you scared him."
(Y/n) inclined her head slightly in Dazai's direction to acknowledge his conspiratorial whisper. "I meant to do nothing of the sort," she assured, lips twitching up when Dazai snorted.
She really hadn't. (Y/n) had simply glanced at him. It had nothing to do with the fact that she was perfectly aware of the conversation that had taken place just seconds prior to their arrival. If the guard was fainthearted, then that was hardly her fault.
They passed another set of guards before finally being let in to meet Mori-- the man currently in charge of Yokohama's Port Mafia. He gave them their mission and then they were dismissed.
"I wish you could just transport us there," Dazai voiced around a wistful sigh, stretching his arms over his head as the pair headed out to the location Mori had given them where they would find the rest of their team for the task.
(Y/n) glanced at him in her peripheral vision. "Your ability cancels mine," she reminded. "Either way, you'll have to get there normally."
At the reminder, the brunet slumped, looking dangerously close to pouting. "How cruel," he grumbled. "Have you no sympathy for me? I thought I was dearer to you than this, my Nightshade."
Perhaps, after all the time she spent with him, (Y/n) ought to have been used to the theatrics Dazai tends to overreact with when he was keen on not acting serious, but she still rolled her eyes at him. "I'm walking with you, aren't I?" she pointed out. "I could've left you behind."
"Ah, that's true." Dazai grinned, his hand coming up to rest against the small of her back almost like he didn't have to think about the action as he did it. "My Nightshade has never forsaken me. I am a lucky man to have a beautiful woman by my side."
Her lips twitched again, vague amusement filling her as they neared the warehouse they'd been assigned to, reaching the men who would be assisting them on the mission. Dazai's nonchalant flirting was what fed the gossip mills of the Port Mafia, leading quite a few to believe that the both of them were more than just partners and friends.
Romance blooming within the Mafia wasn't unheard of even if it wasn't necessarily looked upon too kindly. Weakness of any sort, after all, was frowned upon, and romantic feelings usually resulted in just that. Still, no one ever outright said anything to her or Dazai. Perhaps it was because they were far from weak.
They weren't lovers either, to be fair. So the rumors were nothing more than whispers traded behind their backs when there wasn't anything more interesting going on; never confirmed or denied or even acknowledged.
She recalled one rumor that had begun several months ago, claiming that Chuuya, Dazai and herself were in a polygamous relationship. Dazai had been quick to dispel that one, loudly citing his extreme dislike of his redheaded partner with Chuuya's aggressive agreement.
Her streak of unrelated but amusing thoughts was quickly broken, however, with the loud slam on a warehouse door being kicked down.
Instinctively moving at the abrupt noise which was rapidly followed by the cocking of several guns, (Y/n) found herself being faced with a relatively small group of vigilantes, locked in a shootout. She had pulled out her own twin guns from the holsters that were hidden by her coat mere seconds into the scuffle, joining in on the action as opposed to Dazai who merely stood there with a detached stare.
Sighing to herself, (Y/n) resolved to dividing her attention between the more or less mindless shooting, and the shadows that lurked behind the vigilantes. Her eyebrows furrowed in concentration, a familiar pounding finding its home in her cranium as she focused on solidifying the shadows before dropping her guns and spreading her arms out when she was satisfied with the shadows' consistency.
All at once, the attackers were blanketed in tangible clouds of darkness that tightened around them until there was no room for even light to enter and they were being suffocated. (Y/n)'s eyes narrowed at the evident struggle against the clutches of the shadows, and she raised her hand, clenching it into a fist before releasing it a few moments later.
The ball of darkness having disappeared, the vigilantes dropped to the ground devoid of any life.
She stared at the heap of bodies for a second before straightening up with a sigh. The warehouse block was silent now, and the lack of sound was only serving to set her on edge when all she had to focus on was her own heartbeat. She could feel the stares on her back and the stench of fear in the air from the subordinates that had been assigned to assist her and Dazai during their task.
Unfortunately, the reaction was one she had grown used to over time. After all, wielding shadows was met with a lot of stigma and the notion that she was inherently evil because her ability utilized the darkness. It used to bother her at first, but she had been brought up to believe that fear was power.
And while she knew now that fear wasn't synonymous with power, she also knew that without the fear that her reputation was met with, it would've been impossible to survive in the Port Mafia.
In the underworld, fear meant respect.
"How disappointing," Dazai remarked with a heavy sigh. "I was hoping that they would help speed up my suicide. Did you have to get rid of them so soon, Nightshade?"
(Y/n) didn't respond to that. Instead, she turned her back to the pile of bodies and began walking away, stuffing her hands in the pockets of her coat to hide away the fists she had balled them into, her nails digging into her flesh.
Killing had become something she could no longer take to easily. It always left her feeling guilty and dirty. The only thing was that she had grown used to sudden heaviness in the pit of her stomach; enough for her to ignore the feeling in favor of paying attention to the negligible pricks of pain from where her short nails were digging into her palms but not really breaking skin.
It was a given, really. (Y/n) had been trained in the delicate art of assassination by an external covert organization before she had been a part of the Mafia. Her ability-- Ater Umbra-- only made it easier for her to blend in and go unseen until she found the right time to strike.
That was how she had earned her reputation. She knew what they called her. 'The Devil's Apprentice'. The title had followed her around for so many years now-- ever since her first successful kill. It wasn't some glorified taunt, however. (Y/n) had earned that name after staining her hands with so much blood that she could only ever see black when she looked at them.
There was no point in trying to outrun the name even after that organization had fallen to the hands of the Mafia. Sure, she no longer specialized in assassinations. Nor did she go out of her way to kill unlike some of the more bloodthirsty members. But she didn't need to when the horror stories of her past were already etched into her skin and the whispers that followed her around only passed them on.
She had thought that it would be the same story within the Mafia as well. She had grown accustomed to the silence of solitude, all too used to becoming one of the very shadows she controlled. (Y/n) hadn't counted on finding him, however.
"What's on your mind, Nightshade?" Seemingly out of nowhere, Dazai had shown up by her side, walking along leisurely with a pleasant smile on his face.
Dazai Osamu had been one of the first partners she had been assigned to work with since having joined the Port Mafia. She had been there for over eight months by then and had picked up on the rumors that floated around about him. About how deadly he was despite his age.
There was a saying in the Port Mafia that the biggest misfortune of Dazai's enemies was that they were Dazai's enemies.
(Y/n) didn't really have any particular expectations pertaining him when she had first met him, but she couldn't have anticipated his personality even if she had tried. It hadn't been the unassuming carelessness about him that had thrown her off-- it had been the hollowness in his eyes.
She'd seen that in the eyes of so many other people when she was with her prior affiliations, but never to the same extent. It was hard to keep hope and the courage to carry on when there was so much darkness surrounding a person, but many did it with the goal of escaping the tunnel, so to speak.
They ran because at some point the race would have to end, right?
But Dazai's eyes told her a different story. He didn't have anything to keep him going, she realized. (Y/n) knew this because, for quite a while, she didn't have that either. She lived because she had to-- she was told that she couldn't just die and waste her skills, so she lived, assuming she didn't have the permission nor privilege to just end herself.
Now, she was glad she didn't, but at the time, she had barely gotten through each day, feeling a constant pit of emptiness brewing in her chest. She had been miserable without anything to look forward to.
As many others in the Mafia, she could only hope that a day would come when she could leave the life of crime and blood behind her. When she could pretend that the red staining her fingers wasn't blood, but just paint from her attempts at capturing the dusk that closed this chapter in her life.
Dazai wasn't an easy person to get a read on, and she had learned as much at the beginning of their partnership. She had never met anyone who was so silent despite the loud persona he typically had on show. The only thing that ever gave him away was his eyes-- so dark and deep that they left her feeling like she was being pulled in by the gravity of twin blackholes if she stared for too long.
But despite not being able to always predict just what went on in his mind, she found herself able to understand him and all the things he never said. She was well acquainted with that sense of aimless drifting and the vertigo that accompanied it, and it proved helpful in staring through Dazai's facade and at the lost boy he was trying to hide.
He was just so sad.
A big factor as to why she got along so well with him was because they were both kindred spirits. (Y/n) knew that they saw some of themselves in the other, and that similarity was what tied her to him.
They were both lost souls-- children, really-- that had found security in one another against the tide of the rest of the world.
And, yes, (Y/n) was no longer the broken glass doll she had once been, but Dazai wasn't broken either. He was cracked in the places where she had used glue to piece herself back together. A little different, but their marks and scars were in the same places, and perhaps he stumbled upon a sense of belonging when he found himself drowning in the deceptive depths of her own eyes.
"Nightshade?" Dazai repeated, raising an eyebrow at her as he waved his hand in her face only for her to promptly smack it away. He shot her a wounded look, cradling his hand to his chest dramatically. "This is cruel repayment for my concern, (Y/n)," he declared with an indignant sniff.
She rolled her eyes at his theatrics, hiding her amusement at his subsequent gasp. "Would you like for me to kiss it better?"
At this, he smiled widely, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively. "Would you?"
(Y/n) snorted, shaking her head. "No chance," she stated plainly, laughing when he protested in 'outrage'.
It was always so strange to her. The concept of acting so carefree and casual with him like they didn't have blood as dark as tar running in their veins would forever be something she'd never be able to quite get over. She almost admired Dazai's skill in masking his truth so well.
It was no secret within the Mafia that Dazai was perhaps the darkest of them all. He didn't become the youngest Executive in Mafia history for nothing, after all. Rumors had it that he was most likely to become Boss after Mori.
For years now, (Y/n) had gotten used to the same label of 'dark' clinging to her as though it were etched into her skin. Some swore that she was a shadow herself.
(Y/n) was born a child of darkness, and she supposed she would die as such as well. The lack of light had become so intertwined with the fabrics of her being that she was almost the darkness itself.
But darkness did not always equal evil.
She wasn't good, she knew that, but she wasn't exactly evil either. And on some days, that was her greatest achievement of all.
Once they had finished reporting to Mori of what had transpired during their mission, the pair found themselves wandering the streets of Yokohama, relishing in the nightlife where they truly thrived.
With the sundown, (Y/n) could feel herself growing more aware as the shadows grew taller and truly spread to every corner of the city, thereby making her own ability stronger. She raised her head, looking to the sky as she breathed in deeply, letting the air fill her lungs while her bones thrummed with something cold and crisp.
"You look happier, Nightshade," Dazai observed quietly, matching the volume around them as they traversed through alleyways rather than sidewalks, consequently avoiding anyone else who might be out at that hour.
She hummed. "Do I?"
He nodded, glancing at her from the corner of his eye, his lips pulling up in a thin smile that reached all the levels of genuine he could muster right then. With just his Nightshade around for company, it always proved harder for him to get away with faking his emotions. "Today's mission seemed to have dampened your mood briefly," he commented, "so, yes, you do look happier."
"I like the night-time," she answered simply with a shrug. There really wasn't anything else to it.
Dazai tilted his head, considering her response. "(Y/n)," he began, earning another hum from her, "why did you intervene today? If it so clearly affects you then shouldn't you have been more active about avoiding killing?"
Looking at him sideways, she smiled-- an empty expression made purely for the lack of anything else to do with her face. "You know, after all this time, you'd think it wouldn't bother me at all," she remarked. "However, the fact that it does doesn't mean that it's something I can run away from. In our line of work, that's not something we can afford to do."
He turned to face her properly, eyes narrowed slightly. "Is that really all there is to it, Nightshade?"
(Y/n) pursed her lips. "In that instance?" She shook her head. "No, not really. I wanted it to end before any casualty took place on our end, so I figured I may as well step in." She didn't mention that the casualty she'd been worried about was Dazai. The boy had stood without a care as bullets whizzed past him, and the likelihood of him getting fatally wounded had prompted her into action.
She knew that he was reckless with his life. Who hadn't heard of his multiple suicide attempts, after all? But even if Dazai saw no reason for him to carry on, she wasn't going to let him die on her watch. Perhaps it was selfish of her to do so, but (Y/n) would be damned if she allowed Dazai be as reckless with himself while she was around. She couldn't stand by and watch him do that.
The brunet looked at her like he knew this without her having vocalized it, smiling knowingly though it did not reach his eyes. Dazai hummed to himself, nonchalantly reaching for her hand and interlacing their fingers together like it was the most natural thing in the world.
To anyone else, they would have looked like any other teenage couple, out to enjoy their youth.
Maybe age was something that was often disregarded or forgotten in the criminal world. Given their deeds, their pasts, and the futures written out for them, it was easy to forget that they were only eighteen-year-olds.
Even though they were far from it, Dazai still gave her some sense of certainty in her warped life.
"Do you have any plans for tonight?" she asked him, brushing her hair away from her eyes distractedly.
He looked at her briefly before turning back to face forward. "Well, unless you're offering your company, I suppose I'll go have a drink."
Chuckling softly, she shook her head. "Unfortunately, I'm not. Not tonight, Dazai."
With a heavy sigh, Dazai nodded. "Of course," he muttered. "Fate would not be as kind to grant me the presence of my lovely Nightshade on such a lovely night."
"You're hardly going to be alone," she pointed out, raising her eyebrows at him.
He paused in consideration before nodding. "I suppose not," he agreed. "If I'm lucky, that is. Although I have a feeling they'll show up today."
"Well, you wouldn't want to be late, then." She smiled.
Dazai stopped, bringing her to turn back to him, their hands still holding onto each other. "You're always welcome to come with me, you know," he offered.
Squeezing his hand, she shook her head. "I really don't want to intrude on whatever arrangement you have going on with Oda-san and Ango-san."
"That's awfully thoughtful of you, Nightshade," he noted, making her lips twitch up. "I'm afraid this is goodbye, then."
Watching him carefully for a moment, she raised their joint hands to her mouth, pressing a kiss to his fingertips before releasing them and turning away, shooting him a coy smile over her shoulder as she walked away and let the shadows engulf her, taking her away to where she needed to go and leaving Dazai alone in the alleyway.
He stood still for a second, staring at the spot where she had been before looking down at his hand and chuckling to himself. "She really did kiss it better," he stated to no one in particular.
Taking a page out of her book, Dazai turned to leave as well, tucking his hands away into the pockets of his coat. He could almost feel her essence still lingering on him and in the scent of the rain that hadn't quite begun to fall yet.
It really was a lovely night.
AN: I've been toying around with this idea for quite some time now, so I'm excited for this.
How was chapter 1? What do you think about Reader and her personality? I haven't shown too much of it, but just from what we have seen. Also what about her dynamics with Dazai? It's an established 'something' but there's no label to it.
Thanks for reading this chapter.
Bye!