Fear.

You’ve been working alongside Dazai for two years now. He goes by many names, The demon prodigy, youngest leader in mafia history, but to you he was a pain in the ass. The most eccentric man you’ve ever met, always squirming around, distracted, cracking grim jokes… your name for him fit just fine.

Two years without finding a single soft spot this boy has. It’s not uncommon for people in the mafia to put on a tough facade, especially common for higher ranking individuals, but this man wouldn’t break. You’d given up on trying to find any semblance of normal human emotions in him.

Today you were teamed up for what was said to be a simple mission. Infiltrate enemy territory, take a man hostage, and let Dazai interrogate him back at HQ. Boy, was Mori wrong.

It started with Dazai teasing you so much that you tried to very gently shove him, which may or may not have ended up in him setting off an alarm via trip wire. Then you were ambushed, and throughout the cross fire the man you were supposed to kidnap was killed.

Now you were confronted by the last line of defense, a gifted. They essentially wielded an invisible and infinitely sharp sword, so while Dazai was trying to sneak up on them to nullify their ability, he almost got a blade through his heart.

He did deactivate their gift long enough for you to eliminate them though, which was a miracle. However, now you can’t seem to find Dazai.

It wasn’t rare for him to run off and go commit either war crimes or goofy shenanigans before you could find him again, but he usually knew when it was and wasn’t the time for that. Now wasn’t the time.

Limping around the enemy’s base for 30 minutes led you outside into the forest where you spotted a slumped over and sobbing figure in the distance. After approaching you identified them to be Dazai, clutching his chest, trying to hold his shirt that had been sliced open during the battle closed as he hiccuped and gasped, his binder having been destroyed. He was mortified of being so vulnerable.