Chapter Text
Dazais eyes widened in surprise as the moonlight reflected in the silver of the small ring in his partner's hands, casting a small light in the dark night. In the soft night breeze, the fiery curls played around the face of the shorter man, who did not dare to look into his partner's eyes and only continued to hold out his elegant jewellery in the direction of the brunette.
"That's a promise," escaped Chuyuas lips hesitantly before he bit down on them.
Dazai’s almost black eyes moved from the ring to the slightly blushed face of his otherwise so confident partner. His cautious voice rang out, the volume almost no more than a whisper: "A... promise?"
"Yes, exactly," Chuuya still couldn't manage to lift his gaze: "A promise that you will never leave me."
An almost unbearable silence fell over the two of them and the redhead didn't dare move a muscle. Just one wrong motion and this vulnerable situation could shatter.
When he was nearly ready to give up, the brunette's voice finally rang out, so softly that he thought the wind would carry the words away with it: "…I promise, Chuuya."
His gaze shot up and his breath caught when he met the eyes of his partner. These normally so infinitive empty eyes, seemed to be reflecting the brightness of the little jewel. For the first time since he had met the idiot, Chuuya felt that there was life in those eyes.
He couldn't suppress a smile as he slipped the ring over his partner's cold finger: "Then it's sealed, we'll stay together forever."
His tired eyes seemed to work against him and only with much effort could he open his heavy lids. As soon as the bright light hit his sensitive pupils he regretted this decision immediately and let them fall shut again. The brunette felt terrible, absolutely bottomlessly horrible. His head was pounding, his body seemed numb and he was freezing in a way that he usually only felt in his heart.
For further, agonisingly long minutes, Dazai simply remained in this state with his eyes closed. Where was he actually? He couldn't remember, and at the moment he had neither the energy nor the motivation to dig around in his dulled mind for recollections, or to expose his eyes to the harsh brightness, in order to find out.
It was actually nice to have some peace and quiet for a while. He can't remember the last time he was able to switch off his brain and just listen to the silence. Normally, his head raged with racing thoughts that he could neither grasp nor shut off and thus every hour, minute and second of every single day was occupied by planning various missions, analysing people, situations or environments, memorising and linking all the information and whatever else his mind deemed as important.
In addition, there were of course his negative thoughts, the feelings he would like to suppress and the memories he would do anything in the world to forget. Even when the night began and all his colleagues entered the dream world, he was unable to silence his thoughts and was often kept awake by them for days on end. Even if he fell asleep, it was certain that after a couple of hours his past sins would catch up with him and make him wake up drenched in sweat.
So having a bit of a break for a change was... nice. Normally, he could only turn off his thoughts in two other situations. Either when his former mentor was using him as a test subject for his various drug inventions, or when he was together with a certain redhead...
His thumb subconsciously found his ring finger to rotate the silver ring, a habit he had acquired when he was overthinking and could not get rid of. But right when his thumb was supposed to touch the cool silver, he could feel nothing but the chafed skin of his ring finger.
A cold shiver ran through his body, the ring had been part of his life for many years now and he wore it at all times, whether sleeping, showering or on missions. By now it had become completely normal for him to no longer notice the piece of jewellery in everyday life, but he usually touched or looked at it several times a day, thus reassuring himself again and again that this object of irreplaceable value was still in his possession.
The jewellery didn't look particularly valuable to outsiders, therefore a deliberate theft was rather unlikely. So how could he have lost his ring? When and where had he last seen it and how long had it been? The brunettes breathing became increasingly faster, he would not have thought that such a small ring could throw him off so much when he could be shot without batting an eyelid.
Yet here he was, Dazai Osamu, the emotionless monster, having a panic attack because he couldn't feel a goddamn ring. He felt so ridiculous, there was definitely something wrong with him. But then again, when has anything ever been right with him?
A dirty laugh from an unknown voice snapped him out of his thoughts and instantly all his muscles tensed. "I didn't know all it would take to drive the Demon Prodigy to despair was a small, worthless ring," the dark male voice sneered at him.
Dazai winced almost imperceptibly at the nickname, but of course this did not escape the stranger's notice and another taunting giggle left his mouth. Even though the detective hated this name from the bottom of his heart, the man had given him an important clue to reduce the long list of potential enemies at least a bit.
"You could probably only dream of such a ring. I don't even have to look at you to know that women probably run away from you screaming,” Dazai immediately provoked back and although his voice sounded more fragile than he would have liked, every word was clearly echoing with mockery.
Apparently these words were right on the mark, his knowledge of human nature did not let him down once again, because his counterpart's offended growl was clearly audible: "In your situation you dare to be so cheeky?! Just wait, when I'm done with you, we'll see if you're still able to make jokes like that!”
With these words the brunette only heard angry footsteps quickly moving away, followed by a slamming of a door. As soon as the door fell into the lock, Dazai's survival instinct kicked in and his years of experience with such situations immediately called to mind the next steps he now had to take.
He had to find out more about this man and then maybe he would get out of this situation in one piece. He had been violently overwhelmed by the stranger or his subordinates and held captive somewhere under the radar, that much was sure. Judging by the temperature, he must be in some kind of basement or refrigerated room, and his numb limbs were certainly the result of being tied up too tightly.
It felt as if his body was in a freezer and he could neither tell whether he was lying, sitting, or standing, that's how numb everything felt. So, he definitely could not use the few minutes for a surprise escape if he did not even know how he was being restrained. All that remained was to develop a good strategy for his next course of action, to become familiar with his surroundings and his captor, and then either negotiate with him or find a way to escape.
He would have liked to just open his eyes to confirm his theories, but through his closed lids alone, the lamps seemed too bright and the buzzing in his head made it difficult for him to even attempt to move a finger. He didn't want to admit defeat though, after all, the ability to see and analyse his surroundings was a crucial factor for his escape. So, he forced his lids to open a tiny crack anyway, the white floor reflected the bright light directly into his eyes. To avoid overwhelming his so head directly, he decided that he would slowly get used to the light. Even this small gap was better than nothing right now. After all, the jackass was not there at the moment, so he had enough time to observe the circumstances.
His body was next. Carefully, he tried to move first his ankles and then his wrists to test his freedom of movement. His feet seemed to hang mostly in the air and only the tips of his toes could feel a cold floor that was as icy as the air around him. As soon as he tried to shift his hands a little, he flinched at the first small motion and immediately paused in pain. His arms were clamped together above his head at the wrists with a chain, which was attached to the ceiling. Therefore, his hands carried almost his entire body weight and already without blood circulation and full load, pain stretched from his fingertips all the way to his strained shoulders, tense back, legs and nearly frozen toes.
How long had he already been trapped in this position? With no memory of his last whereabouts or any way of knowing the time of day, he could do nothing but guess, which he simply hated. He let a long sigh escape his lips, he could have imagined many more fun afternoon activities than hanging from a stranger's ceiling and probably being at the mercy of his filthiest fantasies for the next few days or weeks.
After all, who was supposed to find him? His colleagues at the ADA probably assumed that he had attempted suicide again or satisfied their worries with the thought that he was just hanging around in some dark corners of Yokohama and would soon reappear. It was not an uncommon occurrence for Dazai to disappear for days at a time, after all, either to drown his self-hatred in alcohol or the nearest river, or to independently gather information for a plan that the other detectives would probably only be able to see coming in several weeks.
Being kidnapped and held captive was not an isolated incident either, but normally he would squeeze the desired information out of his captors and then release himself from the handcuffs, only to reappear a few days later on the sofa in the office with a few more bandages than usual. That a captivity was a discussed part of a mission or that an entire squad searched every corner of the underworld for him was long in the past. Although he would not return to the Mafia under any circumstances, he would love to see one more time how a whirlwind of fiery curls blew through an entire crew of men, only to release him from his shackles behind a mountain of corpses.
Dazai had to chuckle slightly at this image and his thumb once again found the empty spot on his finger, which immediately wiped out the smile on his face. His heart felt colder without the comforting jewellery by his side.
"That's a promise," sounded softly in the distance of his mind.
He let his head drop tiredly, his brown curls falling along the side of his face and covering the view of his eyes. By now, his eyelids were halfway open and his gaze reflected nothing but black emptiness: 'Sorry, Chuuya, now I've not only broken our promise, but I've also lost the only thing I have left of you.’
The unlocking of the door made his head snap upwards again, this time he could see the white wall full of dried bloodstains across from him, metal tables and shelves and quietly whirring air conditioners through his half-open lids. His gaze found the double door through which an older, well-built man with dark hair was walking. Dazai could not make out his face clearly and only by his stature could he recollect a lot of people who wanted him dead.
"I see, the fine prince has finally chosen to open his eyes," came the mocking voice of the approaching man, who was pulling a metal cart full of tools behind him.
"I've been called plenty of names, but I've never been entitled prince before," Dazai replied just as derisively, his eyes fixed on the stranger.
The latter stared back and despite his excessive grin, his eyes remained icy: "So I'm the first then? I am touched."
He stopped in front of his prisoner and turned his attention to his tools on the cart. "But I can understand why no one would associate you with that word. If I were to assign you to a character in a storybook, it would be quite clear..." He slowly turned to him with a pair of pliers, a wicked grin on his face: "The devil!"
The brunette exhaled in amusement and looked up at his captor, what a freak.
This was going to be fun...