Chapter 39: The Double Black
After sending the message, Chuuya Nakahara put his phone aside and continued rehearsing. As a core member of a popular band, his schedule was always packed, and every aspect needed to be perfect.
By the time the last section of the song was finished being tuned, dusk had already fallen outside the window.
He rubbed his aching neck and unlocked the screen, only to find the message he'd sent hours earlier still hovering alone in the chat box, unanswered. This was unusual.
Chuuya Nakahara knew all the ways that person could disappear, such as his phone being ruined by falling into the water, or his signal being cut off while he was sleeping in a container, or deliberately not answering the phone to try to make him furious.
But never before had he disappeared like this—given that they had met again after several years, Chuuya Nakahara knew that the possibility of the other suddenly disappearing was very low, a certainty without any reason.
Suddenly, images of their outing a few days prior flashed through his mind. A strange premonition caused Chuuya's brows to furrow involuntarily, and an inexplicable anxiety began to rise within him.
He found the phone number, pressed the call button, and the monotonous busy tone from the receiver indicated that the person he was looking for had disappeared unusually, and no one answered.
Currently, they have no location tracking or tracking program for each other, but Chuuya still remembers a safe house hidden on the outskirts of Tokyo, which was the location that Dazai Osamu finally chose after moving between several places.
Based on his understanding of his partner, when the mackerel suddenly quieted down, it was often brewing some trouble in the shadows.
So he stopped hesitating and drove to his destination, trying to find some troublesome guy.
The roar of the engine cut through the evening rush hour traffic. Two hours later, Chuuya's sports car stopped near an alleyway off the main road.
This neighborhood seemed like a corner forgotten by the tide of urbanization, with wires crawling on the mottled walls, reminding him of Yokohama's Raibou Street, but this place was safer and cleaner than that place.
A few pedestrians returning home from work showed no curiosity about the arrival of the unfamiliar vehicle, continuing to walk along their predetermined routes. Chuuya got off the car and followed the route he remembered.
After passing through a narrow alley that required him to squeeze through sideways, he arrived at the door of the secluded apartment where Dazai might be hiding.
He climbed the stairs, his thumb tracing the uneven, jagged edges on the key lying in his pocket. This was punishment for forcibly removing it from Dazai Osamu's keychain as revenge for his earlier prank; now, it served as the only pass to enter Dazai's house.
After finding the specific address, Chuuya would knock on the door a few times, the rhythm of his knocking carrying a kind of coded cadence—a habit he developed during his mafia days and has continued to this day.
He heard a muffled thud from inside the house, but no one answered the door. He paused for a moment before knocking again, then chose to unlock the door with his key.
As the key was inserted into the lock and turned, opening the door, Chuuya Nakahara heard someone breathing beside the door. It wasn't Dazai's lazy breathing, but rather a kind of excited, even phlegmy, panting.
Chuuya Nakahara pushed the door open forcefully, then suddenly dodged to the side. A baseball bat whistled past his ear, clumsily striking the air beside him, revealing the attacker's amateurishness.
The attacker's movements were completely erratic, relying entirely on instinct to swing his weapon. After dodging the first blow, he continued to swing his club, attempting to deliver the next strike.
Chuuya Nakahara gripped the baseball bat with his backhand and yanked it, simultaneously elbowing the attacker in the ribs and slamming his knee into the abdomen. With a painful groan, the attacker was pinned against the wall by Chuuya's instinctive disarming maneuver.
The attacker was tightly restrained by Chuuya Nakahara, and no matter how much he struggled, he could not break free. So he could only scream helplessly, shouting that the attacker's behavior constituted illegal assault. The content of his words only made Chuuya laugh.
Zhong had no patience to listen to the other person's nonsense. He swiftly knocked the person unconscious with a chop to the ground and tied him to a chair with a pile of hemp rope in the corner of the room.
Upon entering, the room was dimly lit. As night fell, the gray-blue sky outside the window seemed to be consuming the last ray of light from the room.
Chuuya Nakahara reached out and felt along the wall before pressing a button. The moment the light came on, his breath caught in his throat. A trail of blood snaked from the entryway into the depths of the bedroom. The attacker, bound to a chair, wore a T-shirt with a picture of Osamu Dazai on it, a frozen, twisted smile on his disheveled hair.
The blood seeping from under the bedroom door had darkened. The moment Chuuya kicked the door open, his fingertips almost dug into his palm. There lay Dazai Osamu, peacefully on the bed, his expression serene, as if he were simply asleep. Beside his pale face lay a bloodstained fruit knife.
The bandages that had been removed from his wrist were piled up next to the fruit knife, and old scars on his wrist clung to his pale skin like centipedes. But what truly made Chuuya's pupils contract was the fresh cut on the other man's neck, still oozing tiny beads of blood.
Just as the emergency number was about to be dialed, Dazai suddenly opened his iris-colored eyes and quickly interrupted Chuuya Nakahara's dialing action: "Wait, Chuuya."
Dazai slowly sat up, and he leisurely picked up the pile of bandages around him, wrapping them around his exposed skin again to hide the visible scars.
"I tried the new sleeping pills this afternoon, and the effect was amazing." He tied a small knot in his bandage, showing no suspicion about Zhong's presence, and instead briefly explained part of his actions.
Then, Dazai shook the phone he had pulled out from somewhere, the screen cracked and stained with a few traces of blood. "So the puppy came looking for me because he couldn't wait for a reply?" He said he had seen the message Chuuya had sent.
Nakahara Chuuya didn't answer either. Clearly, Dazai Osamu's behavior was unexpected. After a moment of mental blankness, he instantly realized that he might have been tricked. This made Nakahara Chuuya somewhat angry and embarrassed. He wanted to kick the bastard, but his kick stopped abruptly before it hit the bed frame.
He stared at the fresh blood seeping from the bandage on the other man's neck—there was definitely more than one shallow wound underneath. The man's feigned nonchalance only confirmed his suspicions—the intruder had been subdued too easily, there were no signs of a struggle in the bedroom, and Dazai Osamu had regained consciousness far too quickly. Everything indicated that this was all within the other man's expectations, and it might even have been orchestrated by that bastard.
As Dazai passed by him, Chuuya suddenly reached out and grabbed the other's wrist, feeling the skin his fingertips touched was surprisingly cold.
Dazai didn't dodge, but turned his head and laughed in an extremely tender voice, "What's wrong, Chuuya? Are you reluctant to see me leave?"
Chuuya didn't answer him, and Dazai didn't need to. He didn't choose to meet those beautiful cobalt blue eyes; instead, his gaze shifted to Chuuya's neck, where there was nothing there.
Since the other party didn't want to speak for the time being, Dazai didn't force him. He casually pulled his wrist forward, and when he felt that the other party had loosened his grip, he continued to walk forward.
The attacker had woken up sometime earlier and was struggling in the chair, shouting things like "Let me go." Upon looking up and spotting Dazai, he began to utter Dazai's name.
"This is a sasaeng fan, Chuuya."
Dazai casually picked up a baseball bat from the ground and used it to lift the intruder's chin. The man immediately let out an excited whimper, "This guy has been following 'me' for three months now. I didn't expect him to be able to find me even in a place like this."
Dazai knew this person; he had seen him in the information about Dazai Osamu before. This guy had started following Dazai Osamu a few months ago. At first, he seemed to be a paparazzi or detective hired by someone, but later it became purely a personal, crazy hobby. He forced Dazai Osamu to change residences several times, and finally moved to this remote place.
When Dazai first saw this information, he didn't understand why the other party was trying to avoid him, since this kind of guy was the easiest to deal with. But now, he understands a little better.
He looked at the attacker, then suddenly revealed a childlike, innocent smile. With an expression devoid of malice, he stuffed a rag into the attacker's mouth, silencing the noisy sounds coming from inside.
Chuuya Nakahara casually replied that he understood, but did not say anything else.
"Ding-dong." Dazai's lips made the shape, but no sound came out.
Chuuya's phone suddenly beeped.
As Chuuya lit up the screen, Dazai Osamu was leaning over to scrutinize the intruder. His iris-colored eyes held an emotion more suppressed than the deepest night. Despite having no expression, he exuded endless pressure and a sense of bloodshed, like some kind of ruthless monster. The attacker dared not utter a sound after meeting his gaze, feeling as if his consciousness was being devoured by this terrifying monster, and finally, he fainted again.
When Chuuya opened his phone, he saw Dazai's reply:
Of course, Chuuya. I'll arrive on time.
The fluorescent screen illuminated Chuuya's constricted pupils. He looked up, shifting his gaze from his phone to Dazai, and saw the other's figure standing with his back to him, trembling slightly. His bandaged fingertips pressed against the bleeding side of his neck, while the attacker had somehow passed out, his limp neck connecting to his head, slumped against the side of the chair.
Chuuya hadn't seen Dazai operate the phone, but the message he'd just received appeared at precisely the right time. He frowned, subconsciously pondering for a moment, then suddenly realized: the message might have been scheduled by Dazai. In other words, the other party had likely anticipated his arrival.
He walked around the room without stopping, observing the visible floor surfaces, and finally noticed the unusual distribution of bloodstains. There were numerous splattered bloodstains scattered around the headboard in the bedroom, and the bloodstains leading from the entryway to the bedroom looked like drag marks deliberately smeared.
“Dazai.” Chuuya’s voice suddenly broke the silence. “You were actually awake when that bastard barged in, weren’t you?”
Something seemed to shatter in those iris-colored eyes, but Dazai Osamu's smile remained, and his expression was still impeccable. For a moment, it was as if countless dark wisps of mist surged from the depths of his pupils, only to be quickly suppressed into a calm facade.
He turned his head to look at Chuuya. The dim light above him cast a shadow over his face, obscuring his expression.
"Chuuya has definitely become smarter."
Dazai spoke in a slightly raised tone, as if he were genuinely praising the other person, but both of them were well aware of each other's thoughts.
"Aren't you afraid that I won't come looking for you as you expect?" Chuuya's voice clearly contained suppressed anger.
Dazai Osamu tilted his head, puzzled as to why the other man had suddenly become angry. He saw the furrowed brows on the other man's face, and those sapphire-like eyes tempered by anger; even the dim light could not conceal their brilliance, causing Dazai's gaze to momentarily dazzle.
A hint of confusion appeared on his face at just the right moment, as if he didn't understand why the other person would suddenly say such a thing, or why they would suddenly get angry.
Ah...no, he should understand. It's just ridiculously caring...why care about someone like him?
However, in the end, Dazai didn't ask that question. The words that were on the tip of his tongue, when they finally came out, were:
"I knew China would come too."
Looking into those calm, almost indifferent, iris-colored eyes, Chuuya Nakahara understood the unspoken meaning: it's okay if you don't come, he doesn't care.
To be fair, nobody likes being led by the nose. This bastard mostly does things his own way, without considering other people's feelings. This was a prank Dazai Osamu played on Nakahara Chuuya, a bargaining chip placed in Chuuya's hands, betting on Dazai Osamu himself.
The bloodstains inside the house, the fatal wounds on Dazai's body, and the attacker's seemingly precarious mental state all told Chuuya Nakahara a cruel reality: if he hadn't arrived in time today, this guy would have truly achieved his long-awaited death.
...leaving him alone again.
Thinking of this, Chuuya Nakahara felt a surge of anger and couldn't help but clench his fist and punch Dazai in the face, knocking his face to the side.
The punch came with great force, but it didn't hurt as much as expected. Dazai Osamu's mind was also stimulated by the sudden action of his opponent, making him even more clear-headed, and even somewhat excited. He knew that Nakahara Chuuya had dissipated most of his power at the moment of the attack, simply to vent his anger.
That tiny slug head of his reveals his simple thoughts completely when they're written all over his face. Chuuya's emotions are so easy to understand; is he still a child? Why is he afraid of being left behind?
Thinking this through, Dazai refrained from further mockery or saying anything else, and instead obediently accepted the punch.
The attacker was taken away by the police. Dazai did not choose to go to the hospital, but instead followed Chuuya to his house.
The sound of police sirens shattered the tranquility of this secluded place at night. There were peeping Toms among the neighbors. Dazai knew he couldn't stay here any longer. Before leaving this world, he needed to find a new place to live, but this matter had become a reason for him to stay at Chuuya's house.
He once again occupied the guest room at Chuuya's house, replaced all the bandages on his body, and applied medicine to his wounds. And so, he spent another night in this other world.
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Author's Note: To be revised
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