It's 8 am.

It's 8 am on a Friday.

It's 8 am on a Friday and he has a message from Kouyou.

It's 8 am on a Friday and he has a message from Kouyou and Verlaine.

It's 8 am on a Friday, he has messages from Kouyou and Verlaine and he hasn't even showered.

It's 8 am on a Friday and holy fucking shit, he is going to rip off Verlaine’s ass and serve it to him like a steak.

Attempting to force him to join him as a brother when he was 16 apparently wasn't enough and Verlaine needs to take the whole fucking Agency hostage when he's 22.

When he arrives, it's chaos. Expected, but still dull and predictable. This last pleading attempt at making a duo of them is already failing, as in already Chuuya knows exactly what to do. Him and Paul are brothers. It's like a weaker version of Dazai.

Bricks and debris scatter the dusty floor and Chuuya is sure to be extra picky stepping around the piles of dust and trails of blood.

“I'm fucking here! Asshole!” He yells, grimacing when no response indicates he needs to actually enter the building.

He finds his brother in the main office area, all Agency members tied to chairs , only Dazai with a gun pressing against his pale temple.

“This is real pathetic, Paul,” Chuuya sneers, snapping his eyes over the row and finding the majority have mainly discreetly escaped the main form of binding, bonds around the chair just loose enough to slip from.

Verlaine smiles serenely back, not missing a beat, or even blinking, “But, surely you don't wish for more friends to die due to your stubbornness and stupidity? The Flags death was your lone fault.”

This game is easy, hardly fast paced at all, “Kill them. And I kill myself.” In sync, Chuuya pulls out a fully loaded gun, ebony and heavy in his palm and places the bullet hole right up on his forehead. No doubt cracks his face, no apprehension about suicide even flickers across his face, not even for the spiltest second, “Did you overlook the issue of your undying brotherly care for me?”

Verlaine’s face drains, like self-hostage isn't one of the oldest tricks in the book to get what you want, and Dazai’s face lights up, unable to stop grinning.

As good as this plan could've been years ago, any self preservation Chuuya had died and was scraped off the side of the road to be fuel for a bonfire.

“Now, that's hardly necessary, is it?” Verlaine is a good assassin. A good strategist in the field. A man overcome with emotion. An aging man. When his age grows, so does his disproportionate rationality, creating large loopholes and tears in his plan, “You won't do it,”

Chuuya just raises a brow and places his pointer finger on the steel trigger. Verlaine looks like he's going to be sick. Sick and angry. Sigry, his brain completely unhelpfully supplies.

He marches over, turning his back on the hostages and giving them the opportunity to slip from their binds and rise silently behind Verlaine. Chuuya doesn't flinch when his collar is roughly grabbed and Verlaine is boring into his eyes.

“You aren't stupid, Chuuya. Why are you seriously considering killing yourself in order to escape me?” Is angry, confused and even the slightest bit bitter or perhaps… saddened. The gun feels heavier in his hands than before.

“It's really the only way, isn't it?” Chuuya’s voice was meant to sound light, redirect the power of emotion to him, but it cracks foolishly, “You know everything.”

Verlaine pries the gun from his hands, no resistance in return now that the Agency members have escaped fully from their binds and can fend for their own sorry asses. Everything goes wrong from there.

Paul raises the gun to his own forehead in one swift motion and pulls the trigger even quicker.

A spray of blood catches across Chuuya’s face and runs down his cheek, as his face drops from calm indifference to absolute horror.

“Oh,” He hears himself say, and he's suddenly kneeling beside the already-dead man and shaking his body violently, “Oh my god, help. Help! Help him, please!” Tears mix with vermillion as they trail equally lazily and miserably down his face onto his neck. That's his brother.

A foreign few sets of hands lift Paul away and a trusted pair constrict around his side as he weakly struggles and sobs for his brother, arms giving out.

His wails fill the air and hurt the ears of occupants and acquaintances of the nearest mile around, inhumanely wavering in a Godly way. It's a banshee screech of grief, a siren song of loss and a mermaid snarl of disbelief. Time freezes when Arahabaki cries.

Debris shatters and the ground itself shakes. It will later be passed off as a rare, concerning earthquake, simply the result of two clashing tectonic plates and friction rather than a true tale of brotherly war and distress, suicide and consequences.

The horrific cries make way to fitful, piteous sobbing and gasping whimpers. Chuuya starts to come back into his own mind, shoved out by Arahabaki’s personal grief. Twisting his head up through tears, his eyes are met with curling brown hair, amber, soft eyes and wistful words muttered in his ear.

“Dazai,” Chuuya breathes through the tears, “Dazai, is he— okay?”

A pause, a beat, “No. He will not survive. I'm— I’m sorry.”

Yet another wave of screams crash over the earth, lesser but still terrifying. A window smashes, a dog whines and Chuuyas' throat dries up and becomes hoarse. Dazai’s arms tighten protectively around him, like a metal shield and the God will happily take shelter, stuttering breaths racking his frame.

The crying stops, strangely and abruptly. There's simply no more to come and he stands from his warm sanctuary on shaky legs.

“What,” He blinks, “Do I do now?”

Dazai doesn't speak any words, but hooks an arm around his waist and leads him toward the surprisingly only partly demolished Agency office. Eyes fix on him while clamouring seeps from under the doors to the hospital.

The President of the Agency stands, undeterred, in the middle of the dusty floor. His white hair sits majestically, neatly on his shoulders and his belt sits evenly on his high waist. Him and Chuuya look polar opposite, but when Fukuzawa catches his gaze for a moment, he feels for the first time in years, respected as an equal rather than a monster or a pawn.

Dazai leads him out the back door, toward a drywall line of dorms, each with their own personal touch, like a doormat, shoe scrubber or a grown ass cow tied to a pole. The furthest to the right, with the noose hanging on the door is Dazai’s, he already knows that from late night visits and early morning leaving.

The dorm is slightly grimier than Chuuya remembers, but he's hardly thinking about that. His mind is rather preoccupied. When Dazai lets go, his own arms wind around himself in a foolish replica of affection.

“You're in shock,” Dazai tells him, face blank and if Chuuya were anyone else, he would believe Dazai to be bored. Luckily, he can recognise nervousness on Dazai, “Sit down.” The double set of futons squished together does look lovely.

“He killed himself,” Chuuya says numbly, unable to feel his legs still, precariously wobbling to the bedding, “For m—me.”

Dazai says nothing, but turns the tap on.