Letters and Dogs
Mori was such a pain. Dazai was an executive, not an errand boy. He had tackled far more and brought back excellent results, and so there was no reason for him to do Mori’s errands.
Dazai sighed inwardly, it was annoying being assigned to such low-level tasks, but if Mori wanted some guy killed, that was what he had to do.
He followed his victim into an alley, not a good move after stealing Port Mafia intel. Dazai let his hand fall to his pistol, given to him earlier by Hirotsu.
He could just shoot himself in the head now and be done with it, he thought. It would be so easy, and painless too. He shook his head, drawing his pistol and
approached the alleyway.
As his target had probably discovered by now, this alleyway led to a dead end. Dazai turned the corner, taking only a second to aim, and shot. He fired twice more when his first shot missed, his aim wasn’t too accurate anymore. The third shot finally hit its mark, the bullet embedding itself in the target’s chest.
He hadn’t bothered aiming for the head, it would never hit. Dazai walked the rest of the way to the downed man, shooting him in the chest twice more to finish him off.
For a moment, it wasn’t the man on the ground, it was Dumbledore, dead in front of his house, he’d died not three months ago. Dazai saw Pomfrey, petrified in the infirmary. He blinked his eye, pushing the image away, a heaviness settling in his chest that could only be the feeling of a job well done.
He made his way back to the Port Mafia base without a second glance.
“Come in,” Mori called. Dazai opened the door to the Boss’s office and stepped in. “Ah Dazai, back from your little task, are you?”
“Yup, it wasn’t exactly difficult. All I had to do was shoot the guy,” Dazai rolled his eye as he walked over to the Boss’s desk.
“So blunt, as always! I can only assume this means that it went well, and you got the file back?”
“Yeah, yeah. Of course it did, I have it right here,” Dazai reached into his coat and pulled out the file, he’d retrieved it from the corpse earlier. It supposedly contained important Port Mafia intel, though, knowing Mori it could be as simple as his grocery list and he’d still have been sent to kill the guy.
He placed it on the desk in front of Mori.
“You’re so cute when you’re on a job, Dazai! But why do you look upset? I should hope it isn’t to do with the job,” Mori’s slimy voice became chiding. Dazai forced himself not to stiffen at the change.
“Blegh! Of course not. Mori’s just gross,” Dazai huffed. He couldn’t bluff his way out, gross Mori had already caught on to him, but he could delay the inevitable.
Mori’s eyes narrowed slightly, but he dropped it. That could either be good for now, or very bad soon. It set Dazai on edge.
“So mean Dazai! I got you a new dress and everything! You should go to your room and try it on,” a new dress, how wonderful. Dazai wouldn’t have minded crossdressing occasionally, but Mori’s sliminess had completely ruined it. Still, he was dismissed. He wasn’t interested in being near the boss any longer than he had to be, so he did as he was told and began his trek back to his room.
Dazai closed his door behind him and turned to see Featherbrain perched on his desk. He smiled slightly, noticing the paper she was carrying. He took the letter from her and opened it carefully, it was from Blaise, as usual. He made sure to listen out for approaching footsteps before reading the letter’s contents:
Dazai,
I hope you’re doing ok over there, it’s been a while since you wrote back. Have you been busy? Have you done anything you wanted to do lately? You need to give yourself a break sometimes, PM or not.
My family (and most other influential families in the wizarding world) have started talking about the Malfoy Gala coming up. Will you be there again? It’d be more bearable if you were.
I hope you can find time to write back soon,
Blaise
Dazai felt something soft and warm in his chest, along with a slight tug. This usually happened when he got Blaise’s letters, it was probably pride for his subordinate’s loyalty. That made the most sense. He unlocked a drawer and tucked the letter away with the others.
Mori hadn’t specifically ordered Dazai not to write to his friends subordinates over break, but he had discouraged any kind of unnecessary contact with them. Well, it was hardly Dazai’s fault if his clingy subordinates kept sending him letters.
Right. The new dress Mori bought for him. Dazai turned to his bed, pulling a face at the red frilly thing in front of him.
The dress was mostly red, and was covered in black lace. The skirt wouldn’t reach anywhere near his knees, and the neckline, despite being covered in lace, would leave most of his shoulders exposed. It was horrendous. Dazai hated when Mori got this kind of thing for him. It had puffy little sleeves that were clearly purely decorative, and probably extremely uncomfortable. There was a little note sitting on top of the thing, written of course in Mori’s handwriting.
White really is much too pure for you, this one suits you far better. You won’t need to stain this one red –
He stopped reading as the note devolved into little red hearts drawn on in Elise’s crayons. It made Dazai want to gag. Mori would come soon and make him try the dress on, while Dazai would complain as bitterly as he could while avoiding being punished for disrespect.
Dazai let out a small sigh, he needed to put Featherbrain back in her cage before Mori got back. He picked it up from the floor and began ushering Featherbrain inside when he heard his door creak open.
Dazai stiffened instantly, quickly latching the cage shut before turning to his door.
“Oh Dazai,” Mori tutted, his voice was honey, but Dazai could easily hear the danger in it, “so careless, you’re getting sloppy,” he chided. Dazai forced himself to relax, slowly as not to make it obvious.
“Though, I suppose it would be my fault for not stopping this silly behaviour of yours sooner. I had hoped you would cease this letter writing with your little gang on your own, and I wouldn’t have to punish you so harshly,” he continued. Dazai couldn’t move. “Unfortunately, it has come to this. I can’t let you go soft and become disobedient now that your father isn’t here to punish you now, can I?” he spoke as if to a small child, his voice sickly sweet.
Dazai looked down, bracing himself for a blow to the face. He waited, one, two, and- nothing? Carefully, he looked up.
Mori’s gaze sharpened. “oh, there’s no reason to look at me like that, you know that it was only your father that resorted to such physical measures. No, I think that for this you can spent a night in the kennels, and we’ll see in the morning whether you’re ready to come out of not.”
Dazai felt numb. He knew that wouldn’t last long, panic would bleed in when he saw the kennels, as it always did. He nodded and followed Mori as he led him out of the room.
It wasn’t a long walk, the kennels were built into the ground level of the Port mafia base, which sat not far from the house. It didn’t feel that way to Dazai, though. To him, the short fifteen minutes felt like an eternity of walking numbly after his guardian, his boss, towards certain pain that would last probably for weeks. He doubted he’d be let out in the morning though, at least not early, so perhaps it would take a month or so for him to heal properly.
He prepared himself in the moments before it came into view, anticipating and expecting the familiar panic that blared in his skull the second he saw the entrance. He felt himself shut down as his senses homed in on everything around him all at once. He abruptly became hyperaware of the blind spot on his left side. He’d be left vulnerable in a way he wasn’t used to, if he were attacked on that side, he’d have no warning.
Knowing what was coming allowed Dazai to brace himself for the pain, dodging was futile and often ended in him getting even more badly injured. Dogs. The barbaric things loved to tear apart anything that moved.
Mori opened the door to the kennel, guiding Dazai in with a hand on his back. Dazai hadn’t even had to try on Mori’s new dress, he thought belatedly.
Then he was on the floor. Dogs. Drool, mouth. Teeth, coming towards him- blood. Pain. Get out get out getoutgetougetout-
When Mori came back to collect Dazai at noon the next day, he came out silently. He didn’t make any quips about how gross the dogs were, didn’t complain about
Mori’s hand resting on his neck. He barely limped, despite the gash in his leg leaving a bloody trail behind him.
Mori sat him down on a bed in the infirmary, the artificial lights highlighting the paleness of his face. The blood seeping from his leg was almost black under the blue-white lights.
Mori got to work, cleaning Dazai’s leg and bandaging it efficiently as always. Dazai didn’t ask for pain meds. Mori didn’t offer them. He moved onto Dazai’s left arm, which he was holding close to his body at an odd angle.
“Dazai. Arm,” Mori demanded. Dazai reached out, wincing at the sharp pain that tore through the arm at the movement. Mori held his arm in one hand, pulling over a small, wheeled table with the other. He set Dazai’s arm on it and looked at him, “I think it’s time you learn to clean yourself up, wouldn’t you agree? With your tendency to get hurt so often,” he trailed off and tutted. He hadn’t lost his train of thought, and Dazai knew it. He only did it for the effect.
Dazai nodded slightly, despite the ache that it caused. His whole body hurt, from openly injured places to the areas that had simply been tense for so many hours straight or cramped into uncomfortable positions when he had curled up in a corner.
Mori walked him through the steps, forcing his arm back into its proper position and allowing Dazai to splint it. He would fix Dazai’s sloppy work as he went, but otherwise offered only instructions in his sickeningly sweet tone, and tools as Dazai patched up the extensive damage he’d endured in the past 24 hours.
It was one of the least pleasant visits to Mori’s old office that Dazai had ever experienced. Not the worst, but it was definitely up there. His arm was badly broken, leaving him with only one hand to work with. He’d have to go without much use of the left arm for months.
Mori’s instructions were effective, but filled with an almost impressive amount of sweet talk as though he wasn’t watching Dazai go through hell trying to fix the mess the dogs had made of him.
By the time Dazai finally made it back to his room, it was dark, and he had forgotten all about the letter sitting in his drawer. He collapsed on his bed and promptly passed out from sheer exhaustion. Between the adrenaline crash, the blood loss, the pain, and having to deal with Mori, he doubted he could’ve resisted sleep if he’d tried.
A few days later, Blaise is sitting in his room, wondering why he hasn’t heard back from his best friend. It was worrying to say the least, especially after Dazai had come back from the last holidays with a mess of gauze around his face. Blaise shuddered. He couldn’t stand the thought of Dazai enduring something like that again.
He still didn’t actually know how bad the injury had been, though the fact that Dazai had been wearing the bandage for the entirety of school after Winter break suggested that it was pretty bad. He concernedly wondered if Dazai had gone completely blind in the left eye. He probably had.
Blaise wished Dazai were with him and not in the mafia, he was worried for him.
He couldn’t do anything about it now, though. The Malfoy Charity Gala was only a week away, hopefully he would see Dazai then. If not, Hogwarts would be back in session only a week after that.
Blaise would have to wait. And send more letters, of course.
Still… he wished he had some kind of confirmation that Dazai was ok.
Dazai woke up around twelve hours after he collapsed, as he discovered upon checking the clock on his desk. Every part of his body ached, stung, or hurt in some other way. He’d had worse though, so he got up. His vision went dark almost immediately, and he leant on his desk to keep from falling or passing out. He must have lost a relatively significant amount of blood, then.
He waited for his vision to clear, blinking his eye until he could see clearly again before looking to see if Mori had put anything in his room while he was asleep. He suppressed a shudder at the thought of Mori being in his room while he was unconscious.
He took his time moving around, it would do him no good to pass out again.
He didn’t see anything on his desk, but upon reaching out to open his door, he found a note stuck to the inside, ordering him to check in once he was awake.
He made sure to take his time getting there, ending up at the boss’s office only an hour after he woke up.
“Dazai, so good to see you’re up and about again!” Mori said happily as Dazai entered the office. Elise was drawing on the walls behind the boss, seemingly not caring for the blank paper that Mori had stacked up specifically for her on his desk.
“Of course. Anyway, what did you need me here for?” Dazai asked. He couldn’t find it in him to keep the pouting demeanour he usually would. He was tired, pain shot excruciatingly up his arm every time he so much as jostled it, and Mori was stalling.
“Do I need a reason to want to see my favourite executive? You’re so cruel,” Mori pouted at him. Dazai made a face. “You didn’t get a chance to try on that lovely new dress I got you the other day! I thought it would be lovely to have you try it on now instead. I know you’ll look so cute in it.”
The dress, right. The whole ordeal with the kennels still hadn’t gotten him out of that, huh. “That thing is horrendous. Why does Mori always get the most itchy looking things he can find?” Dazai complained.
Mori reached into a drawer in his desk, taking out the dress in question. Dazai made a face.
“I’m not changing here,” Dazai stated.
Dazai scowled down at the monstrosity clinging to his body. He had been right, the lace itched horribly and rubbed, making the pain from the last day even worse.
Getting changed had jostled his newly-broken arm too, much to Dazai’s annoyance.
“Red does look so cute on you Dazai! And the black lace makes for such an adorable little villain look,” Mori crooned.
“Ah, but I suppose I should fill you in, hm? DOE will be attending the Malfoy Gala again, we need to be making regular appearances in order to gain reputation among the magical community after all.
“You will be coming along again, the gala is only a week before Hogwarts goes back, so you will be expected to find accommodation for the week. You will be playing the role of villain this year. Make people fear you, but don’t let anyone get you killed or expelled.”
This was a first. Mori was never this clear when it came to instructions so far in advance. Dazai supposed that could only mean he wasn’t required to be kept in the dark so much anymore. And of course, that Mori had far more information and that this was whatever scraps he considered necessary for Dazai to do his job.
Unfortunately, Mori did not elaborate on what exactly DOE would be doing at the gala. Dazai complained internally about the lack of context he was being given. He only hoped it wouldn’t cause him problems later.