#appropriate

Chuuya: The loyal hound, trained to drag himself back to his master's side, battered and bruised and broken, who's used to the heavy weight around his neck, to the short leash he's kept on. To the disciplinary action that's used to keep him in check. He's a wild beast, after all; if he's supposed to masquerade as a human being in not quite polite society, then sometimes he has to be reminded of the appropriate behaviour.

But what does a dog do, when he's lost his way, when he doesn't have that next command to follow, when his master's voice is gone?

That's right; the dog follows his master's scent, the trail he left, back to the beginning. Back to a shipping container, buried under mountains of steel in a container graveyard. They're nothing to a determined hound. Hunting dogs are trained to dig for their prey, after all.

And so he dives. Doesn't want to cause a scene, he's rampaged enough lately. Instead of throwing the containers around, he increases his gravity until the metal gives way beneath him. It's the least impressive trick he's stolen from his brother.

He sinks and sinks, through one container, two, three, four. Then, finally, the black container's ceiling gives, and lets him sink into a time capsule.

In the lightless void, buried beneath tons of steel, the scents slither into his lung. Smoke, gone acrid with time. Cheap whiskey, drunkenly spilled at night. Petroleum, leaking out of the portable heater even though Dazai swears he's fixed it. Metal; whether it's rust, blood, or the container itself is hard to tell. And beneath it all, the faint remnants of citrus, of the cologne Mori had gifted Dazai to hide the stench of death that clung to him.

He breathes in deep; the stale air is so achingly familiar it burns in his lungs.

Chuuya takes off his jacket, throws it upwards against the hole he left when breaking in; with the help of Tainted, it seals him off from the world. What little moonlight fell through the hole before is now extinguished; he's left with nothing but the void, and the creaking of the container walls around him.

The crimson glow of Upon the Tainted sorrow isn't enough to illuminate the space; but the tactical flashlight he brought along makes short work of the darkness. Its beam cuts through the room, blinds Chuuya just as effectively as the darkness before it for a few seconds; but he blinks through it, through the tears that form involuntarily in the bright light.

He sees, now, what his nose already told him; a few motes of dust fall to the floor like snow, but as a whole, the stale air is surprisingly clear. There aren't that many things that can live this far away from light and water and fresh air, and it's been years since Dazai moved into the towers. Whatever could have lived here, probably has died already, like its owner.

The container is so very empty; most of what meager belongings Dazai had possessed, he'd taken with him when he moved. And so, Chuuya's first step rings out loud enough to wake the dead. He startles himself, but doesn't flinch; merely lightens gravity for himself, so he may slink quietly across the floor.

A ghost who disturbs a grave.

Among the remaining furniture is a bookshelf, a large and heavy table, a flimsy metal chair, that damn leaky heater, and the fold-out futon Dazai used to sleep on, complete with a threadbare blanket and pillow. It is that last set Chuuya has come to find tonight.

Perhaps it was left here because it was no longer needed; perhaps it was supposed to be an option to return here, before Dazai decided to bury his past beneath a dozen more containers.

Chuuya never asked, and Dazai couldn't tell.

It's a futile hope he clings to; just once, the very first time he broke down the door to the container, he's seen Dazai startled. An animal just like himself, hackles raised and wide eye wild, Dazai had drawn his gun on Chuuya.

Of course, the threat was laughable; bullets could barely even scratch him anymore, at the time. But the traitorous shimmer in Dazai's eye had made him back off anyways, because damnit, they were supposed to be partners, now, and partners weren't supposed to make one another cry.

Someone had to be the bigger person, and it wasn't ever gonna be Dazai, despite his stupid comments about height.

Barely, from the corner of his eye, he had seen Dazai stuff a bunch of papers into the pillowcase. Back then, he hadn't asked, and Dazai hadn't offered an explanation either. He had simply come out of the container a moment later, face smoothed into that creepy stillness of his.

Chuuya kneels before the futon as if it was an altar, prays to any gods who listen that he might find a clue, at least, to grant him understanding. Of what happened, of why He's gone. Of what he's supposed to do, now.

He reaches for the pillow, and, sure enough, there's something inside. Better than hiding one's valuables beneath the pillow, Chuuya supposes, but not by much. It's only because the paper is soft and fraying at the edges that it doesn't immediately give its presence away to anyone who touches the pillow. Not that Dazai had a habit of bringing his conquests home.

Chuuya extracts several sheets of paper from the pillowcase, almost black with how dense the writing on them is. He recognises the ugly scrawl of Dazai's shorthand, connecting loops and swirls in Takusari. It gives him a headache to just look at; but if Dazai deemed this important enough to keep, it might be worth a look.

He takes out his notebook and pen, sticks his flashlight to the ceiling as a makeshift lamp, and gets to work.

It takes him hours. Even as familiar as he is with Dazai's cryptic orders and codes, he has to try several decryption methods to finally get to something readable. It seems Dazai wrote in bursts; the codes and keywords shift three times per page.

Dazai was being cautious, but for what? What Chuuya decrypts makes no sense at all. It's names and places, lists and plans, names Chuuya has never heard of, and some he's too-familiar with.

Kunikida. Odasaku. Akutagawa.

Atsushi. Kyouka. Chuuya.

It's percentages and risk assessments and chains of events, in half-finished sentences and codewords that must have been enough for Dazai. Chuuya can only guess at their meaning from context; because some of the plans are familiar.

Operation Stingray. Mimic. Shibusawa.

Some of the plans seem utterly unrealistic. Really, for Dazai to swallow a tracker, get kidnapped, and have Chuuya come after him? Yeah, that's unlikely. Nobody would be able to touch him, let alone abduct Dazai, under Chuuya's watch.

Like a red thread guiding him through the labyrinth, Chuuya's own name is scrawled over and over, in nearly all of the scenarios Dazai has written down. Other people come and go, are considered and crossed out again, but never Chuuya.

The words make his head spin. These documents are old, have been untouched for at least five years, and yet, Dazai is laying out events that happened three years ago, two months ago.

One week ago.

Dazai was taught to plan ahead by Mori, Chuuya knows this. But there has to be a point where planning for eventualities crosses over into making self-fulfilling prophecies. Or writing the script of one's demise.

He stares at the last page, at the last line.

The final phase. At least as far back as five years ago, Dazai was planning for his death.

And for what? The stupid pages do not say. Dazai surely knew what he wanted, he wouldn't have needed to write it down. But it's the one thing Chuuya wants to know, the unresolved thread that keeps him from snapping fully. And of course, Dazai has denied him the answer.

His grip on the pages tightens, as if he could somehow tear the truth from them. Dazai's mocking voice is in his ear, lilting: "oh, can the stray dog not read?"

He can, he can, he can even break the locks Dazai put on his words; but he is staring at them, at the fragments of Dazai's thoughts, and the shattered pieces don't align for him. Dazai saw the truth with one eye blinded, but no matter which angle Chuuya tries, he cannot find the right perspective.

All that is left to him are a mad prophet's ramblings, circling back to Chuuya's name forever and ever, as if he meant something. As if Dazai wanted, needed him to do... whatever he was up to.

It's useless.

Beneath his trembling grip, the pages rip. Before he can stop himself, he's tearing them apart methodically, into small scraps, the ink smeared on his fingers like bloodstains in the twilight. A mockery of the children's game, when the answer has always been obvious:

He loves me not.

Chuuya isn't sure what he expected, but even deconstructing and rearranging the words, a kaleidoscope of codes before him, leaves him with nothing. No final words, no message for him. He wasn't ever supposed to see this, even if Dazai spilled his name on every page a dozen times, as if to summon him.

He slumps down on the table, frustrated. The paper flakes stir and settle like snow around him. If only they would melt as well; then he wouldn't have to keep staring at the words.

Chuuya. Chuuya. Chuuya.

His name. No derogatory nicknames. No numbers. Just him.

He picks himself out of the destruction; every instance of Chuuya a little different, but all of them his name filled with intent, by Dazai. He shoves the scraps into his wallet.

It makes no sense. Nothing makes sense. The remaining words blur before his eyes, mix and swirl, as incomprehensible as the night sky. He can stare at them. They are real. But their meaning is up to him to decipher.

His head hurts, and his chest hurts, and his body feels too heavy to move, gravity be damned.

Tomorrow, he will start investigating those names that come up more often in the notes; one of them will have to know something about Dazai's intentions. He's not going to let Dazai go without the answers that he's owed, damnit.

But for tonight, he crawls onto the futon, and drowns himself in the familiar scent that burns his lungs.