"I don't care what you're saying
I don't wanna participate in your game of manipulation
And no I don't want your sympathy, all this love is suffocating"
- Crush Culture, Conan Gray
Yokohama was a city surrounded by the flow of water. The sound of waves crashing, the ocean winds sending gusts towards the city and the soft trickle of the nearby streams never ceased to amaze Fuji. The sky was azure, white clouds as fluffy as they looked, drifted hazily across her peripheral vision, thousands and thousands of feet away from her mellow eyes. The harsh gaze of the sun had dwindled in the early morning, now emitting a more soft beam of light down on the port city, the sunlight reflecting off the glassy windows.
It was a good day to go outside, enjoy the dew that sprinkled the tall grass and breathe in what seemed to be fresh air. It was a good day to feel alive, which is exactly what all the slowly suffocating residents of Yokohama needed. It seemed that even Chuuya Nakahara was taking to nature because early that quiet Monday morning, the Port Mafia executive was walking along the riverside, his thoughts troubled and mind swirling with countless things. Things he didn't want to deal with but knew stubbornly that he would have to deal with them sooner or later.
His striking orange hair was ruffled by the breeze, especially since his notable fedora was hanging on a hat rack back at his dorm. His stormy eyes were calmer than usual, pertaining a twinkling grey as he scoured his surroundings. Mori didn't know of his little expedition, in fact Chuuya was confident that he had managed to slip out of the Port Mafia's base without being seen. He didn't know why but he was feeling a lot more calmer, as though someone was no longer breathing down on his neck. Being in the Port Mafia was rewarding for the teenager, who revelled in fighting and loyalty, but he was lately finding it draining. Especially since Mori had upped his measures against the Jewellers, including guerrilla tactics bound to maim the enemy organisation's members. And, not to mention he was still exponentially failing at his mission, which was to recover Loot.
Chuuya kicked a stray jagged piece of rock across the path out of frustration, both hands in his pocket as he watched the bit of earth traverse shakily down the dirt-trodden trail. Fucking Loot. I don't even know who the damn person is and Mori expects me to grab them.
The rock made a small sound as it clattered and it landed in the stream of water with a splash, prompting Chuuya to tear his grey eyes off the uninteresting ground beneath him and at the river in which he was walking past. The rock sunk to the bottom and Chuuya unemotionally watched, somehow equating the gravel to himself. The stirring feeling in his chest had turned to a sort of anguish he couldn't quite describe. It was clawing at him from within, haunting his heart like a burden weighing him down day and night. He too, like that rock, felt like he was drowning. Drowning in the pain of love, of course, but Chuuya didn't realise it.
He heard grass rustle and someone sigh, instantly swivelling his head. His shoulders quickly hunched and the calm composure the teenager had displayed earlier disappeared as he was placed on his guard. With a cautious expression, his wary eyes searched until he found the source. They widened in surprise when he caught sight of strawberry blonde hair mingling with the soft tall grass.
"It's you," He said instinctively. Somehow his feet moved without him thinking and he edged nearer, the sound of quiet humming and the trickle of the stream filling his ears pleasantly.
Fuji Miyamoto was laying on the grass, her head resting on her arms which were behind her back. Her legs, slightly cold from the wind, were folded over one another as she gazed at the nature around her. Her eyes caught a sparkle under the sunlight and Chuuya swore they shone as she looked at him. He could have sworn he saw something in her expression. But what it was escaped him.
"Truthfully, I thought you had a bald spot under that fedora," She drawled with a sigh. Her stomach was doing the 'weird thingy' as she had dubbed it, where it felt like there were dozens of butterflies inside it.
Any person, including Dazai, who sent a remark like that hurling at the executive would have found themselves being punched but Chuuya didn't even clench his fists at what Fuji said. Instead, he sauntered over to where she was sitting and hovered, stormy eyes staring at the girl who was beginning to grow more and more on him.
"I left it back at my dorm," He said. Per usual, his tone was seethed with both hot-headedness and an eerie quietness that nobody could quite place their finger on it. It was like his voice had softened yet retained it's cold edge.
Fuji patted the green grass besides her, golden eyes staring at Chuuya, "You can sit down if you want."
Chuuya folded his arms, "Why on earth do you think I'll do that?" Is she assuming I'll listen to her? Because fuck, no.
"It's your call," She murmured quietly. Her voice was as quiet as a mouse, no longer loud and cynical as it normally was. She had grown to hate herself over the past month thanks to everything that had happened. She couldn't speak anymore after her voice had grown hoarse from all the crying behind locked doors and the screaming inside the endurance chamber. There was nothing left for her to say really and so Fuji's lips trembled, showing vulnerability for the first time in front of someone for a long, long time.
Chuuya's dark scowl quickly fell upon seeing Fuji's expression and somehow he ignored his mind which was screaming at him and followed his heart which had the quietest of whispers inside him, beating so profoundly just simply being in Fuji's presence. Sit with her, his heart said.
And for once, since Chuuya had met Fuji all that time ago, he followed his heart.
The grass was not itchy like he had expected it to be, no, it was soft like the clouds that hung in the baby blue sky. He almost wanted to equate it to Fuji's long straggly hair which was inches away from him, but then he realised he had never ran his fingers through it and so knew not what it felt like. And suddenly his yearned to feel the strands of her hair and he immediately told his heart to shut up.
Well, internally of course. Yelling at your heart to shut up out loud would have given Fuji the impression she was sitting with a deluded teenager, and somehow he didn't want her to think of him like that. He didn't realise it but he cared about what she thought of him.
"That cloud looks like you," She mumbled, pointing to the sky with her fingers which if one looked closer upon further inspection, would reveal the scars of her battles with herself and her cruel fate.
Chuuya grumbled, resting his head on the ground like Fuji. He couldn't believe he was doing this, this, of all things. And yet he was. "It's just a hat."
"Exactly," She replied, stifling a laugh.
Chuuya blinked. He had just heard her laugh, well partially. And the sound of it made his heart tingle and his breath become flustered. He was immediately overcome with an annoyed expression but that dissipated when he savoured what he had heard.
He didn't reply, instead plunging the conversation into silence. For a few minutes it felt like it was just them two against the world. The sky was starting to change colour, now a rosy pink as the clouds swayed and jumbled and soon faded in the distance, just as the sun swam behind them, a beautiful golden colour. Golden just like Fuji's eyes. Birds chirped in the distance, cooing at their mothers and flapping their wings as they cuddled together inside small nests and flew into the sunset with a majestic aura making even Chuuya breathless. The river before him was quiet, somber as the water moved back and forth with a soft trickle, adding to the tranquility of their surroundings.
After a few minutes, Chuuya broke the silence, a burning question eating away at him. He sat up, lowering his head and letting orange curls cover his eyes as he spoke, "Why did you show me all those... images?"
Images was a kind word to define the horrors that defiled his mind that night.
Fuji's lips trembled, No! I'm not gonna cry in front of fucking Fedora Boy. She pulled herself together, speaking softly and quietly as though she was recounting a wise man's tale and not the story of pain and suffering that she was forced to call her past. "I know your past so it's only fair you know mine."
"Fair?" Chuuya repeated bitterly, the images tearing at his mind. What she had experienced was beyond anything Chuuya had imagined and he was, unwillingly, overcome with tremendous pain and sympathy. "What I saw... was not fair."
Fuji scoffed, "Story of my life."
By this point the strong-minded teenager was sincerely struggling to hold back tears as she spoke. Even she couldn't keep up the facade of everything being alright for so long. She sat up, lowering her head just like Chuuya's and letting her long hair hide her face.
"I'll tell you," He said finally, forcing out some words. "I'll tell you what Arahabaki is."
Fuji weakly smiled, "You don't have to, Chuuya."
It was the first time she had said his name. And saying it was bliss. It rolled off her tongue with such ease and softness that Chuuya momentarily faltered, not wanting to admit it but he liked it.
"No," He whispered, the Arahabaki screaming at him inside for Corruption, "But I want to."
When his story was over and his final sentence came quietly from his chapped lips, Fuji felt like she finally knew Chuuya. She knew him before but not in the way she did know. Their... relationship... was growing more intimate as their encounters increased and neither one wanted to admit it. Because admitting feelings like that in a world like this, especially since they were supposed to be enemies, was like asking to be killed. And they didn't want to die in their youth.
Fuji opened her mouth to speak but stopped when Chuuya's irritated shouts beat her to it. She furrowed her eyebrows as the teenager who immediately got to his feet, a string of profanities being hissed under his breath venomously. "Fucking idiot! Oi, shitty Dazai!"
Dazai Osamu was standing on the top of the railing that coveted the bridge parked over the river. His brown hair looked soft in the gushing wind and his black trench coat fluttered. He looked equally riveting and saddened. Yet, his impeccable facade quickly resumed when he saw Chuuya's angry-looking figure marching towards him.
"Oooh!" Dazai smirked, "I hope I'm not interrupting your date."
Fuji narrowed her eyes, "It's not a date!"
"Sure, sure," Dazai smiled, looking down at the water, "Chuuya, look away. I can't bear it if my best friend watched me commit suicide."
"We are not best friends!" Chuuya looked like he was going to explode and he was glowing a crimson red, claret spirals from For the Tainted Sorrow encasing his hands. "Get down from there! It was only last month I saved your ass when you let yourself get kidnapped!"
Dazai folded his arms and pouted, "You're no fun, Chuuya. I've always wanted to die by drowning. I'll have to try again tomorrow." He sighed and hopped down from the railing, his brown eyes that were filled with an indecipherable expression were still lingering on the water.
Fuji rubbed her temple sorely, knowing what was coming next. And she was right, because for the next ten minutes she trailed a very angry Chuuya and a laughing Dazai, both of them proceeded to engage in a dangerous fight in public and then have Chuuya strangle Dazai by shaking the hem of his white shirt. She sighed, only one thing come to mind when she looked at Soukoku bicker, It's like me and Mina.
***
Seeing as it was quite literally the perfect day, around the same time Chuuya and Dazai were clawing at each other's throat all while Fuji watched with partial amusement, Mito Fukuzawa was sitting coolly inside the Vortex cafe. She was drumming her fingers along the wooden table, her gold eyes fixed on the door to the cafe as she waited impatiently for her uncle. It was becoming more and more frequent that the niece and uncle meet, perhaps it was because Fukuzawa had reached out to Mito first and while the woman accepted with reluctance, she was begrudgingly admitting that his presence was welcoming.
Fukuzawa entered the cafe quietly, almost going unnoticed like that sometimes, perhaps it was just a bad habit he couldn't break from his days as Silver Wolf. But all he had to do was stand in the doorway and suddenly he had total control of the room, just like that. Mito sighed, he could also do that sometimes.
The tall man walked closer and almost smiled upon seeing his niece, but Mito rarely saw him smile. He took a seat, his silver hair that reached his nape moved as he did so. Mito began dryly, riling up a conversation. "It's been a while," She mused.
He nodded, "Busy times, I suppose. The Jewellers have been keeping you busy?"
It wasn't often a man of his impassive demeanour would initiate small talk but he felt he pertained a sense of responsibility over Mito, who had lost her parents all that time ago. She was his only living relative.
"I guess," She sighed, "The Port Mafia just won't stop with their stupid attacks. Anyway, I hear you're going straight."
Fukuzawa almost looked befuddled for a moment but maintained his normal composure, "I am. I am planning to open an agency of sorts."
"Based on that Rampo guy, right? The loser you met at that crime scene for your last job?" Mito murmured, faintly recalling it.
Her uncle let out a sigh as his niece, "Rampo is many things but I feel yourself calling him a 'loser' is almost too harsh on the man."
"From what you tell me he sounds like a pain in the ass," Mito rolled her eyes. "Anyway, what about this agency? What's it called?"
She leaned in closer, brown hair falling from her shoulder as she did so.
Fukuzawa still had his arms folded, "I'm calling it the Armed Detective Agency."
The Armed Detective Agency, eh? That has quite the ring to it.