PART I: SEEDS

On the morning of Dazai 's first day as the new leader of the port mafia, the sky is bleeding crimson-red.

Fitting

, Dazai supposes, considering how much blood has been spilled over the last week in which the European organization Mimic invaded Yokohama and set the underworld ablaze to find absolution in its righteous flames.

Lives were lost. Buildings destroyed. Books uncovered. An old boss perished. A new one arose.

Dazai lets out a sigh as he steps away from the sight of the city skyline and turns to regard the office instead. Fine antique furniture. Black ceiling. Black floors. A carpet that matches the wine-red color of the scarf. Dark, rich, and mystical ' just like Mori was. All things considered, it fits Dazai like a glove; he 's fully aware of that. Still, he will have to change things around here.

The shrill ring of the phone shatters the silence in the room, and Dazai feels his bones grow already tired of all the tedious interactions that come with this position.

'Yes? '

'B-Boss, Akutagawa Gin is here to see you. '

Dazai smiles quietly. 'Let them in. '

As the seconds tick by, he makes himself comfortable behind the desk, adjusting the height of his chair before effortlessly slipping into his new role once he hears the doors open.

Gin is followed by several guards trailing after them. Another rule: no meetings with strangers unless someone else is present. Tedious. Irritating. Efficient.

'I hope you 're bearing presents, ' Dazai drawls, placing his chin on his intertwined fingers.

Gin offers him a timid nod before placing a thick, overfilling folder on the desk. 'I dug as far as I could. The last eleven years were child 's play, but everything before that... ' They press their lips together. 'Hard. But not impossible. '

Not even a few days ago, Gin was a forgotten child in the slum, raised by a handful of kids and their brother who, in the end, chose mindless violence for a drop of revenge over them. Dazai gave them a choice: die in that dumpster they called a house or come work for him.

Dazai could have gone for one of Mori 's trusted subordinates for this task, especially with

this,

but he has an inkling that, unlike the scarf, trust does not get handed down from one leader to another. It gets earned. So as easy as it would be to simply take over everything Mori built here, Dazai will have to create his own castle if he wants to remain sitting on the throne, and that means creating his own inner circle as he locates and eradicates the pests. Gin is the first step of a thousand-kilometer track.

And Gin grew up in Suribachi City. That 's why he gave them this specific task as their first assignment.

'Let 's see. ' Dazai grabs the folder and opens it to a candid photograph on the first page. It must have been taken in the last twenty-four hours. Looking at it, Dazai murmurs, 'there you are. '

His ascension to the highest floor of the building might have happened less than a day ago, but Dazai 's been busy since then. It wouldn 't be an exaggeration to say that he learned more in that time than he did over the last eighteen years of his pitiful existence.

And one of his first tasks to his subordinates was to find one specific person.

' ' various conflicts with them. It would have been very easy to take them out if not for the gravity manipulation skill. He 's strong. Their current base is an abandoned railroad yard northeast from here. '

Dazai nods then flicks his fingers towards Gin. 'You can go now. Thank you. '

They bow their head and let the guards guide them out of the office, leaving Dazai shrouded in rays of blazing red rays of daylight as he traces his fingers over the photograph of a young man, his obnoxiously bright ginger hair ridiculously long and pulled up in a ponytail, wearing a tattered oversized leather-coat with a bunch of knives strapped to him. His face is twisted into a permanent glare. He looks like a vigilante character out of a superhero show. Somehow he still makes it work.

The king of the sheep.

The gravity manipulator.

A5158.

Nakahara Chuuya.

'Found you. '

***

16 months later

"You can still change your mind, you know. We can still run."

Chuuya stares back at Yuan's reflection in the vanity mirror, her pink braids the brightest thing in the room. "And get hunted by the mafia for the rest of our lives? Fuck, no."

Her fingers momentarily tighten on the thick, slick strands of his hair that she's combing back into a bun.

"We've dealt with them before, ' Yuan says. 'We can do it again."

That was different.

Chuuya raises his chin. "C 'mon finish this. And be fucking careful. The walls might have ears."

Running might have still been an option yesterday when they weren't in a building full of mafia members ' in a building with the mafia boss

himself.

Perhaps they still had a chance to slip out of the city then. Although, if he 's being entirely honest, escaping without any casualties was all but impossible the moment Chuuya agreed to this marriage.

The minute he uttered the words

yes

, his fate was sealed. Bound to the mafia. The only way out of that now is death. And he still has quite the list of things to do before that.

Yuan's face is narrowed into a miserable glare, and although he gets it, he does; he hopes she'll pull herself together once the ceremony starts. Chuuya heard the mafia boss has a habit of nitpicking, among many other character traits.

When Yuan is done with the subtle but defining make upon his face, she turns his chin to look at himself in the mirror. Chuuya's hand trembles when he lifts it to his cheekbone.

So far, he's managed to stay calm given his circumstances, but '

The sheep are about to be handed off to

the fucking port mafia

' an organization they've been at cold war with for

years

, and Chuuya, their leader, is about to marry

the boss

of that organization.

The demon prodigy.

Yokohama 's living nightmare.

An inhuman monster.

God knows what else people on the streets like to call him. So the last thing Chuuya's people need right now is for their leader to lose his cool ' even if he is, in fact,

this

close to doing just that.

There is simply no time to fall apart at the moment.

Yet as the clock on the wall ticks silently, Chuuya feels his nerves light with firebolts, coursing through his blood like recurring heart attacks.

He's turning twenty in a few days and he is about to be

married

.

All he ever wanted was to give the sheep something to live for. A place to call home. A place where they could feel safe.

Not this.

Never this.

"Chuuya..." he hears Yuan murmur, her voice thick with unshed tears and apologies that she doesn't owe him. Because what it ultimately comes down to is this: the marriage was a deal offered to the sheep, to Chuuya specifically in exchange for saving Shirase from prison. Hardly a deal when it's like offering a piece of food to a starving man, but it was the only way to save him, and Chuuya's not going to start regretting the choice now.

Shirase is family. Crucial to their little band of misfits. Chuuya would marry the devil himself if it meant he could, at least, try to save him ' though, ironically, that is exactly what's happening here.

And there

is

a faint, feeble light at the end of the tunnel.

The sheep will become insiders, earning a spot right inside the beating heart of the devil's nest. It's as good of an opportunity as it gets to ruin this fucking organization once and for all.

The clock on the wall beats in time with Chuuya's pulse. He lets out a strained breath. "It's time."

Yuan's grip around his arm as he gets up from the chair is so tight it will probably leave a few bruises, but she grants him his wish and stays silent. Instead, she gives him a once-over, tucks a few loose strands out of his face, and brushes a finger over the place where the kohl eyeliner is.

For as long as he can remember, Chuuya never cared about his physical appearance, simply because there was never any time for that. Sure, he made sure to find a place to wash his body once in a while, brush his teeth, and comb through the messy, overgrown hair falling from his head, but that has always been about maintaining some sort of hygiene even while living on the streets. Never about looking attractive. Being dolled up, especially for someone else, feels ridiculous, but those were one of the few conditions he was given when he agreed to go through this. The port mafia's advocate, Lippmann, called it

helpful advice

, but Chuuya's not stupid. It's an

order

.

Because the man he's about to fucking marry ' a low shudder crawls through him ' likes his things

pretty

and

clean.

As Chuuya and Yuan navigate through the dimly lit hallways of the building, he finally allows himself to picture the person that's he going to face soon.

Over the years, Chuuya has heard many, many things about the port mafia boss.

That he's a sadist.

That he once crushed an entire enemy organization from the west in one single day with only one man by his side.

That he likes to torture his prisoners for weeks, sometimes months on end.

Once, an old drunk from the docks claimed that he saw the boss drink someone's blood, though Chuuya thinks that rumor has more to do with a little too much

gin

and less with the

truth

. Vampires don't fucking exist.

And what's even less believable is that the boss simply took a stroll at the port, when everyone knows for a fact that he never steps outside his impenetrable tower, especially not without a myriad of bodyguards and men. Always surrounded by walls, just like the bandages he's

supposed to be wearing.

Another rumor that went around is that the boss already has ten wives and husbands, which is why Chuuya was more shocked about the mafia proposing a marriage with

him

than about the part with the marriage. Apparently, the organization never grew past the fifties. Though, Chuuya supposes there is reason to it.

It is an act safer than a truce ' something that can be broken at any given moment, especially when every person that somehow ended up in the mafia's vices was never heard of again.

Marry them. Kill them. Easy.

Chuuya doesn't plan to make it that easy for them. Not if he has any say in it.

He will survive this old fucker ' and judging by all the stories going around, rumors about his sheer power and brain, it has to be some old, wrinkly man like one of those politicians he always sees in the news. Even if it's the last thing Chuuya will do.

It's the final thought on his mind before they reach the rusty stealth doors that separate the sheep from the mafia.

Next to him, Yuan squeezes his hand in a bruising grip. "Ready?"

"As much as I'll ever be," Chuuya murmurs with a trembling nod. "Let's do this."

An agonizing second passes, both of them everything

but

ready, but in the end, Yuan pushes the doors open, revealing a room bathed in dark and blood-red hues. There are two rows of seats. Chuuya recognizes his people on one side. Not many mafia members present on the other.

It's an intimate affair.

But his stomach lurches when he looks at the platform and finds it

empty.

He was supposed to see the boss there, or at least, someone who will tell him what to do except stand here and gape and '

Chuuya's skin heats with humiliation.

This is the mafia making a fool out of him, and it's not going to stop with this either.

Chuuya grinds his teeth together, though, and forces his feet to move anyway. If they want him to do the first step, then fine, he'll do that. He ignores the heavy stares following him as he strides down the short aisle and onto the platform, keeping his chin and gaze high the whole time. Only then and there does he dare to look at the mafia members sitting in the rows.

There are six of them. Three men in the front row. Two behind them. And one in the back, his one leg thrown over the other as he wears the most aggravatingly amused expression Chuuya has ever seen.

Yeah, laugh all you want for now.

Chuuya swallows. The man in the front row is

old

, like

ancient

with greying hair and ' is

that

the boss? Surely, he'd do something other than stare straight ahead as if waiting for instructions, right? That can't be it.

No one else looks worthy of the grand title either.

Is this perhaps a trick, after all? Have they gathered the sheep here to slaughter them instead? Will '

"Oh, well," says a voice from the far back, annoyingly chipper for a situation this grave, "this is awkward. If no one's going to say anything, then I'll make the introductions." It's the guy sitting by himself, though he gets up as he speaks, dusting off his black suit before offering the room a dry smile. "For a wedding, the mood is astronomically low."

Chuuya barely restrains himself from snapping at this stupid self-declared clown. "Where is your boss?" he grits out once the man ' though he hardly looks older than him ' reaches the podium.

"Right in front of you."

The words ring through the small, almost empty room like a gunshot.

Chuuya stares, processing, fighting the instinct to call bullshit because the man is already starting to lose jacket and shirt, revealing a plethora of white.

Bandages

.

The boss is rumored to wear bandages.

Chuuya assumed because he was

old

and trying to protect himself. Or covering up his tattoos in public. Or something.

But he never even thought to believe the fucking boss of the port mafia was a mere

guy

.

A kid.

Just like Chuuya.

"Hey, Chuuya," the boss casually says while one of his people, now next to him, offers him a black kimono to slip into. "I've been waiting for you."

His brain barely manages to deal with all these shocking revelations, but once he forces air back in and out of his lungs, Chuuya finds his voice again, even though it's laced with hostility. "

I

wasn't the one who was late."

He doesn't register the people around them reaching for their weapons until the boss lazily lifts his hand. Not a word is said, but the gesture is clear enough.

Stand down.

Chuuya blows out another strained breath.

"Hirotsu-san, will you do us the honors?" And in a more quiet tone, Chuuya's fucking soon-to-be-husband murmurs, "You're a feisty one. I can already see."

The older man steps between the two of them and starts talking.

It's not a long ceremony, perfunctory and simple. The entire time Chuuya stares at the other man, taking in every line and striking feature of his face. Sharp. Daggered. Even with that idle smile of his. Maybe

because

of it. The lighting makes his only visible eye glow red.

Chuuya thinks he is about to marry the devil.

Assuming that he would be an old, unattractive wrinkly man was an honest mistake, but now everything else makes even more sense. What do they always say about demons and devils? They're beautiful.

They come in a shape so desirable just to claw out your heart with their pretty little smiles and their pretty little fingers. And the boss is nothing short of

breathtakingly gorgeous

.

Hirotsu makes them share and exchange cups of sake. The vows are a front to bind the sheep to the mafia. Chuuya, and the sheep, learn his name.

Dazai Osamu.

The port mafia boss and now ' Chuuya's husband.

After Hirotsu-san gives them their offerings, they exchange rings, and Dazai never, not once, breaks eye contact even as they're instructed to kiss. Chuuya expects a wet tongue in his mouth as some sort of demonstration of dominance, so he's surprised when Dazai's hand lifts to cover them both, and the only thing that's pressed to his lips ' the corner of his mouth, to be precise ' is a dry, fleeting kiss.

And then it's done.

Chuuya is officially, irrevocably married to the one and only head of the mafia.

***

The "celebrations" are hosted several floors above the makeshift shrine. A lot more people are in attendance this time, the mood not as frigid and gloomy as it was during the ceremony.

Soft, melodic music is playing from the speakers, the guests mingling even though Chuuya can feel their judgemental, wary eyes puncturing the back of his skull where he's sitting with Dazai.

Their table is spacious, to say the least, but only hosts a handful of people. Hirotsu, and a young woman with red, tied-up hair and flamingo-pink eyeliner ' definitely prettier than Chuuya's which she makes sure to let him know with a scrutinizing glare.

Meanwhile, the sheep have been seated somewhere ten tables away, left alone to the beastly-cold welcome of the mafia. So much about an

alliance

.

"If you're scared about getting poisoned," Chuuya suddenly hears next to him, the first thing the boss is saying to him after his unexpected entrance, "then don't waste your time. I'd advise you to be careful with any food that comes from outside this building, but here..." Dazai pillows his chin on his folded hands. "... I would not have gone through all of the trouble of marrying you only to kill you on your first night."

It's not so much fear as the utter lack of appetite. Not only because of fried nerves but because the amount of delicacies around them is obscene. In Suribachi city, kids like him have to dig through trash to find something to eat, and here...

He knows for a fact that most of it will be thrown away by the end of the night.

Still, Chuuya levels his glare at Dazai. "You trust your people that much?" In an organization like the sheep that has twenty-seven members? It's possible. But in the mafia? Trusting all thousands of his men? It seems foolish.

"This has nothing to do with trust," Dazai tells him, "and everything to do with hierarchy. I gave the order not to touch you. That order is absolute."

"What about the rest of us? Did you tell your people to leave the sheep alone as well?"

Dazai disentangles his long fingers and leans back in his chair, arching one brow. "Surely they can defend themselves, no? As creative as you lot have been in the past."

In the past

was completely different.

It was the sheep against

fractions

of the mafia, not the entire goddamn building. The sheep with a

plan.

Not even ten minutes ago, Chuuya saw some mafia-grunt not-so-accidentally run into Shirase and try to make a scene out of it.

"Just because they can, doesn't mean they have to," Chuuya hisses. "This isn't just you and me. It's about the sheep and the mafia working together, too, so you better stick to your own damn words or '"

"Or what?"

"Or, I'll run your fucking organization into the ground." Chuuya at least thinks of keeping his voice low, but every other sense of self-preservation gets shoved aside by the explosive temper pumping through his veins.

He had a plan. He still has. Play along. Become part of the mafia. Not only symbolically but practically. Gain their trust. Then ruin them from the inside.

That vague plan doesn't mean that Chuuya has to become entirely pliant and obedient ' not unless the boss wants him to ' because that would be too transparent to see through. So his little outbreak ' it's not precisely

stepping over the line

but

walking the tightrope

, and the outcome of it entirely depends on the man sitting across from him.

Dazai cradles his chin in his hands. Then he shrugs. "You can try."

It's... not what Chuuya expected, but for now, it 's good enough.

"I want to be with my people," he announces.

"These are your people now."

"Then I want to be with

the sheep

."

"And I want a brain with a perfect chemical balance," Dazai retorts. "What do you think it will look like when you leave your

husband

all alone during your celebratory dinner?" Chuuya balls his hands into fists under the table and forces out a breath. He might not like it, but Dazai's right. Sort of. "If you want port mafia to continue seeing you as an enemy within the ranks, then go ahead. Go over there. Show everyone how much this marriage means to you."

Ah, shit.

Chuuya hates this guy. He really does.

"It's an arranged marriage," he mutters, even though his plans to leave this table to be with his family have been decimated. "You know it. I know it. Everyone else in this room does too."

"A symbol," Dazai says in a voice that flows like milk and honey, "is a thing that stands for something, representing something abstract, something we associate. Take

sheep

as an example. When people think of them, they think of obedience. Following rules. Brainlessly so. Sheep know their place." Chuuya feels his neck flush as he holds the bastard's aggravating gaze. "You and your merry bands of misfits took that symbol and spat on it, right? You wanted to show that you were everything but obedient, little animals."

Well...

"Are you going somewhere with this?!"

Dazai acts like he didn't even speak. "You know why symbols matter. Don't start being ignorant now."

Rolling his eyes, Chuuya finally turns away, sliding his fingers around a knife just to have something to fidget with. "No rumor ever mentioned how annoying you are,

husband.

"

"You'll soon come to see that there is a lot that the rumors have gotten wrong."

After the party, Dazai orders one of his subordinates to show Chuuya their accommodations and then promptly disappears into the crowd before Chuuya can even blink, let alone ask any questions.

He barely managed to swallow down a few pieces of duck, but now, as the young woman, Higuchi, leads them through dark, glass-covered hallways, the anxiety in the pit of his stomach grows bigger and bigger with each step.

He's not sure what will await him behind closed doors tonight.

So far, nothing is as Chuuya expected.

Dazai isn't eighty years old ' at least, he doesn't look like it. He doesn't shoot people that look at him the wrong way. He was

polite

to their waitress. Right now, the worst thing about him seems to be the fact that he's incredibly irritating ' but that kind of behavior can be lethal in its deception. If Chuuya just so much as relaxes for one second, it could cost him.

Maybe the rumored beast inside Dazai is still slumbering, biding its time for the perfect moment to strike.

"This is it," Higuchi says once they step out of the elevator, and in time with her voice, lights all around them flicker to life, revealing space. Lots and lots of space.

It's the entire floor,

Chuuya realizes somewhere in the back of his head.

He never even had his own room

.

"Here is the card. You swipe it in the elevator before getting on it, so only specific people have access. The boss stocked the fridge before your arrival, but you can call service any time and either order a meal or send someone to buy groceries for you. There's the living room. The bathroom. The bedroom..."

Chuuya's head swims.

This is too much. Way too much.

Then again, he did just marry into the wealthiest organization in the entire goddamn city. What did he expect? A modest two-room apartment?

"So Dazai lives here?"

"

The boss

," Higuchi corrects, "owns the entire building. He chooses to live wherever he wants to."

Chuuya doesn't know what's more ridiculous: that she expects him to call Dazai

the boss

all the time or that she clearly has no idea where Dazai lives but doesn't want to admit it outright. It's late, though, and a headache has been forming in the back of his skull since the ceremony, so he lets it go with a twitch of lips, following her tour without any more comments.

Once the door falls shut after Higuchi leaves, dropping Chuuya into a fortress of eerie silence, he stands there for a moment or two. Looking out of the curtain wall and over Yokohama's skyline glimmering and flashing in the darkness of the night.

This is it, huh?

Chuuya doesn't own a lot of things, so one small bag is all he brought. It only takes a few minutes to unpack the clothes and possessions that he doesn't mind Dazai seeing. The rest he leaves locked up in the bag, hidden under the bed.

Because of that, Chuuya's left with time to spare.

He could sneak out, find his friends and the quarters they were placed in, but tonight of all nights, it would send the wrong message. So he waits. He waits and waits and waits because he refuses Dazai to take advantage of his exhaustion. He'll be prepared when the devil comes for him.

Apparently, his body doesn't care because while he waits, Chuuya accidentally dozes off and only jerks out of it when the sound of the elevator doors sliding open echoes through the apartment. It takes him a few seconds to orient himself, to remember that he's in the infamous mafia nest and not sleeping on a shabby coat in an abandoned house. He wipes a few strands out of his face, then glances down at himself, tucking his ink-black silk yukata into place ' the only thing he's wearing.

Making the first move is the plan to feel less like this is something he

has to do

and more like something he

wants

.

Dazai must take his sweet time because it feels like a few agonizing hours pass before he finally appears in the doorframe, coming to a halt and leaning against it.

Chuuya doesn't look away even as he's being scrutinized, taken in, from top to bottom. He doesn't sweat or falter. He waits.

"Lovely, really," Dazai finally drawls then, flicking two nimble fingers towards him, "but you can put away all this. I only came here to say something."

Angry heat pulses through Chuuya's veins, making his jaw clench involuntarily, as he forces himself to stare back at that condescending prick. "Say

what

?" he growls out.

"I'll be giving you your initiation tattoo in a few days. You know about the procedure, yes?"

Chuuya nods, puzzled.

"Wonderful ~. Then keep your nights free."

And the bastard just turns away.

Chuuya is too surprised to reply, let alone ask

where the fuck are you going?!

But as silence once again falls over the room, emotional exhaustion seeping into him like a drug, he decides that maybe it's for the best. This way Chuuya can keep his dignity ' or as much as there's left of it ' for another day.