The cold metal of the gun pressed against your temple, the barrel steady despite the trembling in your own body. The world seemed to narrow to the sound of your heartbeat — thudding, frantic, echoing in the dimly lit room. Above you stood a boy who shouldn’t have looked so calm holding a weapon. Sixteen, maybe, though his expression belonged to someone who had already lived a lifetime too long. Osamu Dazai’s eyes were distant, unreadable, their darkness reflecting the faint light like still water.

“This isn’t personal,” he murmured, voice low, almost kind. “Just a message.”

You wanted to speak, to plead, but your voice caught somewhere between fear and disbelief. His finger shifted slightly against the trigger. The faint click was drowned by the sudden crash of a door slamming open.

“Dazai!”

Men burst in — sharp suits, quick steps, the glint of drawn guns. In an instant, you were surrounded. The emblem on their sleeves marked them unmistakably as the rival mafia, your own. Dazai didn’t flinch. His eyes flicked over them, assessing, detached, as though this had all been inevitable.

Then one man stepped forward. The boss of the opposing Organisation. He couldn’t have been more than eighteen, but the authority in his gaze froze the room. He moved between you and the gun, placing himself directly in Dazai’s line of fire.

“That’s enough,” the man said quietly, his tone cutting through the chaos like steel through glass.

Dazai stared at him — long, searchingly. The gun lowered a fraction, his brow furrowing as something unreadable flickered across his face. Recognition? Memory? It was there and gone too fast to name.

For a heartbeat, the world stilled. The rival mafioso’s men waited tensely for an order; Dazai’s silence stretched, a thread on the verge of snapping. Then, softly, he exhaled a laugh — humorless, hollow.

“Deja vu,” he said under his breath, almost to himself. “Strange… I feel like we’ve done this before.”

His grip on the gun loosened slightly, the sharp glint in his eyes dimming into something more human — or perhaps more haunted. Around him, the air felt heavy, charged not with violence now, but with something far more dangerous: familiarity.