It still doesn’t feel real.

The Agency’s guest room is too warm, too quiet, too safe for someone who spent the last four years calculating every step, every breath, every heartbeat. You sit on the bed with a blanket around your shoulders, muscles still coiled like springs—because even now, part of you expects your phone to buzz with Mori’s orders.

But the phone you used for him is smashed in a dumpster near the harbor.

The one you kept hidden for Dazai rests on the nightstand beside you.

Dazai stands near the window, arms loosely crossed, watching you with an expression that looks nothing like the man he shows the world. It’s raw. Tired. Soft in a way you never saw back in the Mafia, except at two in the morning when he whispered plans through encrypted calls.

“You’re really here,” he says quietly.

You let out a breath. “We actually did it.”

“Of course we did,” he says with a ghost of a smile. “We’ve been planning this since the day I left.”

You look up at him, and even now, your throat tightens with everything you never said out loud.

The night he walked out of the Mafia, he didn’t leave you behind.

He called you that same night.

You remember the first message he sent after disappearing—hidden behind a string of fake transactions only you would recognize:

Still here. Still with you. Wait for the right moment.

And you did.

For four long years.

Every coded message. Every careful meetup disguised as business. Every time he told you how to answer Mori’s questions so suspicion never landed on you. Every time he whispered, “Almost. Just stay alive a little longer.”

And the night he helped you remove the tracker—

Your hand lifts almost unconsciously to the fresh scar on your neck.

“You’re thinking about it,” Dazai says, stepping closer. “That night.”

“How could I not?” you whisper.

He sits on the edge of the bed, close but not touching you, giving you space you don’t quite want.

“That thing was in your neck for years,” he says, voice tighter now. “Mori didn’t implant it to monitor you. He implanted it to own you.”

“And you fried it with a stolen medical laser,” you remind him, a small laugh breaking through your exhaustion.

He winces. “A very high-end medical laser, thank you. Do you know how hard it was to steal something that expensive?”

“You made it look easy.”

He shoots you a look. “I was absolutely terrified. One wrong angle and I could’ve paralyzed you.”

“But you didn’t.” Your voice softens. “You saved me.”

Dazai looks away like the memory is heavier than he’ll admit. “I didn’t save you. I just helped you walk away from the thing that was killing you.”

Your breath catches.

You were never captive. Never powerless. You were Mori’s daughter, his trusted executive, feared by half of Yokohama. People stepped aside when you walked, bowed their heads when you spoke.

But inside?

Inside, you were suffocating.

And Dazai knew that before you ever said a word.

“I didn’t leave because I hated the Mafia,” you say quietly. “I left because I couldn’t stand being what he wanted me to be.”

“That’s why I waited,” Dazai replies. “You had to choose this. Not for me. Not out of fear. For yourself.”