The first time Ranpo laid eyes on Osamu Dazai, he knew something horrible had happened to him. He had this... dead look in his eyes. Like he had been through hell and couldn't figure out how to crawl his way back out of it. Even when he smiled, the empty look never faded from his chocolate-colored eyes and Ranpo could clearly see that every emotion he displayed to the world was simply a show he put on. None of it was real, but at the same time, Ranpo could also see how desperately Dazai wished that it was; how much he wanted to feel something.

It couldn't be easy to live life without feeling anything genuine. To have to fake everything. It was probably this emptiness that caused Dazai's desire for his own death.

Mostly Ranpo just felt sad for Dazai. He didn't want to think about what he must have went through to lose all sense of emotion and feeling. He knew if he thought hard enough—looked close enough—he could get a pretty good idea, but that wasn't something Ranpo wanted to have at the back of his mind every time he looked at Dazai, so he let it go.

Still though, he watched Dazai curiously. Every time Dazai pulled a prank or did something crazy, every time Dazai sounded like he was genuinely laughing, Ranpo would check to see if finally Dazai had some life in his dead eyes, but to no avail. He saw how Dazai froze up momentarily every time someone touched him, as though anticipating pain from even the simplest contact. As though that was the only reason someone would want to touch him.

And most of all, Ranpo saw the rare, brief moments his mask would slip when no one else was looking and Dazai's face would go completely blank, matching the emotionlessness of his eyes. He looked so lonely at those times—and Ranpo knew it was with emthat/em expression he tried to kill himself—that Ranpo thought maybe it would be better for Dazai if he did know. Maybe then he could ask Yosano for her help on the matter. She would know what to do, how to help him, unlike Ranpo himself.

But still he refrained, it wasn't any of his business and it didn't effect him in anyway. As long as he didn't poke at it, there was no way it would come up. All's well that's well with him, after all.

That was the only time in his life Ranpo had ever been so wrong, and he regretted not pushing aside his fears to help him.

Ranpo sat lazily on his swirly chair, feet lounged on the desk in front of him as he sucked on a strawberry lollipop, humming a little tune. Today was a good day. He had finished a case for the police the other day and now he could sit here as long as he wants, with no business that needs his attention. This was his favorite part of his day, when he could sit in the Agency he and Fukuzawa created together and watch the other members as they mingled about.

He liked watching them.

He liked that they were happy here, that they felt like they could belong here. They were his family, though he wouldn't say it outright, and he liked interacting with them. Dazai was especially entertaining, as his wit and intelligence nearly matched Ranpo's own. Dazai could keep up with him and Ranpo found it quite refreshing. Of course, no matter what, Ranpo was still a lot better than Dazai.

As Ranpo thought, Haruno passed by him carrying a stack of mail which she placed on an empty desk near him. As she did so, one of the packages caught his eye.

"Haruno, what is that?" He asked inquisitively as she turned to look at what he meant.

"Hmm? Oh, you mean this envelope?" Haruno picked it up before holding it out to Ranpo, "I don't know, it doesn't have a return address nor is it addressed to somebody specific. I thought it might be an anonymous request. I was going to look at it later, but you can do it now if you want."

Ranpo takes the package and examines it, no longer paying attention to Haruno. It was just a simple manilla envelope. Nothing distinctive about it at all. He didn't know what about it caught his interest, but now his curiosity was piqued. Ranpo removes his feet off from the desk, planting them firmly on the floor and slowly unclasped the top of the envelope. Looking inside, he sees what he thinks are photographs. Humming slightly in interest, Ranpo removes one of the photos with the tips of his fingers.

With the picture in full view, Ranpo's emerald eyes widen in horror. The envelope fell from his numb hands, crashing onto the floor and scattering the photos across the surface. Everyone, shocked by the sudden noise, stopped what they were doing and watched in concern as Ranpo abruptly stood up, not noticing his poncho falling from his shoulders as he continued looking at the photo held within trembling hands.

Atsushi, being the closest to Ranpo and noticing his face rapidly draining of color, stepped closer to Ranpo, "Ranpo, are you okay? What's wrong?-"

Before Atsushi could get the question all the way out, Ranpo started to shout at the top of his lungs, "President! PRESIDENT! PRESIDENT!"

Each word got louder every time he said it and Ranpo didn't stop yelling until finally Fukuzawa hurried through the door, his usually stoic expression showing concern as he frantically searched around the room for Ranpo. Spotting Ranpo, he swiftly made his way over to him.

"Ranpo," Fukuzawa looked Ranpo for any clue as to what had caused his distress, "what has happened? Are you hurt?"

Rather than answering Fukuzawa, Ranpo instead shakily handed the president the photograph he held, trying his hardest to keep the growing tears at bay. Ranpo had seen a lot of things in his life, but rarely had he seen anything that had effected him so much. The last thing he could remember that had, had been his parents' death and this was much worse, if simply because of the brutality of it all.

Fukuzawa carefully took the photo from Ranpo's trembling hand, ignoring everyone crowding around the pair, before turning to study the object that had caused his ward so much grief.

What he saw in one simple photograph would give him nightmares for weeks to come.

In the photo, he saw a young boy of about seven years old. The boy was gaunt, looking starved to the point you could count every one of his fragile, protruding ribs, and as pale as death. The child's dark unruly hair clung to his face, damp with sweat of great pain and no light reached his wide, sunken, brown eyes. They were completely empty and filled with so much agony—so much emfear/em—it was a wonder his little heart hadn't given out yet. Massive purple, black, and blue bruises littered his skin and blood flowed freely from numerous lacerations—many deep enough to see the white of bone, and if one looked closely enough remnants of terrible burns, through all that crimson—carved along his arms, legs and torso, completely covering the floor the child lied on and much of his discolored flesh.

Worst of all, as though this tiny child hadn't suffered enough, cruel metal shackles encased his bird-like wrists and ankles, holding him taut against the bloodstained floor. They cut mercilessly into delicate flesh, rubbing them raw as the young boy thrashed violently, trying to get away. Kneeing over him, a man twice his size slashed into his already abused body like butter. His expression contorted into a permanent scream, forever caught by the camera for somebody's sick pleasure as they cruelly tortured this poor boy.

As Fukuzawa looked at this scene in absolute horror, nausea coursing through him at such gross mistreatment of a child, something familiar struck him about the boy. Looking past the blood, the bruises, and the face distorted in pure agony Fukuzawa realized he knew this boy. This child was...

"Is that... Dazai?" Fukuzawa almost jumped in surprise, having forgotten anyone else was around, before looking over at Atsushi's appalled face as the boy took the photo with such care it looked as though he thought it would bite him.

Ranpo answered before Fukuzawa had the chance to think of any sort of reply for the now traumatized boy, face contorted in self-reproach, "Yeah... yeah that's definitely Dazai. Hell, I should have known! I should've... should've done something!"

"This isn't your fault. You couldn't have done anything," everyone turned to look at Kunikida as he spoke, voice rumbling with barely contained anger, not removing his gaze from the photo, "None of us could have done anything, this happened a long time ago and Dazai didn't tell us anything. How could we have helped when he didn't trust us enough to tell us?"

Kunikida was angry. He was angry at the people who would hurt a helpless child like that, and took pictures for later enjoyment. He was angry at Dazai for never mentioning this to anyone just like he never mentioned being part of the mafia before. Most of all, he was angry at himself for not seeing how much pain Dazai must be in under what he now realized was probably a happy facade. How could he not have seen it? Was Dazai that good at hiding how he felt that no one noticed?

"I don't think it was about trust," Atsushi whispered, looking at the floor, no longer able to look at the photo, and wrapped his arm around his torso, one hand covering the poker burns he received from the orphanage headmaster, "it's... just not something that's easy to talk about."

The room was silent after that. Everyone caught up in their own thoughts. Naomi clung to her brother for comfort, both wearing pained expressions, to the left of Kunikida; Kenji sat on a desk, head hung in sorrow as Haruno placed a comforting hand on his back; Ranpo stood, grief-stricken face staring pleading at Fukuzawa with Yosano hovering close behind; Atsushi still held himself protectively, only coming out of it when Kyouka pulled on his sleeve.

He looked at her and when he did her shocked expression and pale face worried him. Noticing she had Atsushi's full attention, Kyouka raised a shaking hand and pointed at something on the ground where Ranpo stood earlier, "Look. There are more photos."

Atsushi turned his head in the direction Kyouka pointed and saw more photographs stacked atop each other.

He cautiously walked towards them, Kyouka close behind, and paused on the edge of the pile. Doing so, he got a clearer view of the contents of the pictures.

President," Atsushi said with trepidation as he knelt on the floor to sift through the other photos Ranpo had dropped and gathered them in his shaking hands with the first one, "All of these... they're... they're..."

Atsushi couldn't finish his sentence, but he didn't need to. On the floor, dozen of pictures depicted various gruesome ways Dazai had been tortured—some seeming to be psychological torture rather than just physical. As Atsushi stared blankly at the brutality being enacted on Dazai, he realized he could see an age progression within the photos. Starting at what Atsushi thought was a five year old Dazai, the images continued until he was as old as fourteen.

"He was tortured for nine years?!"

Atsushi jumped at the voice that suddenly sounded next to his ear and turned to see a fuming Yosano. He had never seen Yosano this livid before and Atsushi felt a brief stab of fear as he looked into her blazing gaze. As she reached out towards him, Atsushi couldn't help the slight flinch that went through him and didn't protest when Yosano snatched the photographs right out of his hands.

If it were possible, the anger in her expression grew more intense as she got a closer look at each horrifying photo.

"This is just sick," she growled heatedly, disgust and hatred clear in her voice as she looked at a bawling six year old Dazai, mouth pouring blood as cruel hands held it open to pull more of his tiny teeth out with pliers, "he was just a child. Who could do something so deplorable to a child?! I'll kill them."

"Calm down," Fukuzawa said calmly as he put his hand on Yosano's shoulder, though you could see the smoldering rage shimmering behind his hard eyes, "Getting angry will not help anyone now, least of all Dazai. What we need to do now is figure who sent these photographs to us in the first place, and most of all, why? What do they achieve by doing this?"

While this did nothing to ease the anger and horror at the situation, it did get everyone to stop and think.

Yosano's grip loosened on the photos, expression falling into solemnity as her anger had no outlet to keep it fueled for long. Ranpo stepped closer to her, wanting to comfort, but not quite sure how to when he himself was just as shaken as she.

Before he could even think of what to say or how to say it, the door to the entrance of the office opened, drawing everyone's attention, and in strolled the very person that had everyone so upset.

Dazai had on his usual lackadaisical smile planted firmly on his face, seeming to all as though he hadn't a care in the world. Just looking at him, no one could have guessed what horrors he lived through in his life. He let nothing slip through his cheerful persona, but as the ADA members studied him closer, now knowing what they knew, they could see the same dullness to his eyes as in the photos.

Just emhow much/em did they miss? How much more was there about Dazai that no one knew, that no one had bothered asking or even wondered about?

They watched as Dazai walked into the room, humming the tune of his suicide song enthusiastically, not yet noticing the stares from his coworkers.

"Morning everyone! It's such a lovely day to commit suicide, don't you think?" He chimed in his usual flamboyant greeting.

When he received no response, not even Kunikida's griping about being late or getting to work, he blinked in wonder, smile still stuck on his face.

He turned his attention to the others and saw them all standing in a circle with worrying expressions as they all continued to just stare at Dazai. Kunikida and Yosano shared a weird mix of anger and anguish on their faces. Ranpo's eyes shimmered with regret and strangely enough guilt, though Dazai could not fathom what Ranpo could possibly feel guilty about, especially when regarding him. Atsushi's face held so much sorrow and painful understanding that it physically hurt Dazai to look at. Kyouka's usually impassive expression spoke of pure heartbreak and confusion, and she held tightly onto Atsushi as though he was the only thing keeping her together. Tears streamed down poor Kenji's face—looking so horribly wrong on such a cheerful boy—and he hiccuped softly while Haruno held him, not looking much better than Kenji herself. The Tanizaki siblings had a shocked horror-filled countenance as they clung to each other, for once not inappropriately, and they looked as though they wanted to say something to him, but couldn't get their voices out through all of the tears.

With each person Dazai examined, he became more and more confused about what had caused this mass breakdown. He had never seen them all quite so upset before, and never all at the same time.

He looked to Fukuzawa, thinking he might find some stability from the stoic leader, but his expression more than anyone's disconcerted Dazai. Fukuzawa looked at Dazai with such sorrow—such utter remorse and grief—it knocked the air right out of Dazai's lungs.

For a moment he couldn't breathe, all the air froze in his lungs and he thought he might actually die from this. Never before had anyone directed such expressions at him. Never before had anyone cared enough to feel emotions as strong as these for him. Everything about the situation was foreign and he didn't even know what had brought this all about.

Forcing himself to bring air back into his burning lungs, and pushing aside the strange heaviness building within his numb, unfeeling heart, Dazai analyzed them more rigorously, trying to determine what had brought this all about. That was when he saw how white Yosano's knuckles were as she tightly gripped a stack of papers. Pretending he hadn't noticed their distressed states and keeping up his blithe charade, Dazai casually waltzed up to the group.

"What are you all looking at over here, hmm?"

Not really expecting a response from the horrified group, Dazai came up to Yosano and stole the photos right out of her hands before she could do much else but gasp in a cut off protest.

Smiling at how easy he took the photos, Dazai looked down at them and immediately froze. All expression drained from his face abruptly, becoming hollow and blank, almost as though there was never any expression on it in the first place. His eyes grew cold and lifeless—darker even than before when filled with fake emotion—giving them a frightening flashback of what he must have looked like when in the mafia. All sound around him faded away and, in its place, memories crashed into him violently as his eyes refused to look away from the horrors on the first photograph the agency saw.

Dazai remembered that day. He remembered screaming until his throat tore itself into raw and began drowning him in his own metallic blood. He remembered begging for it to stop only for the pain to intensify because He didn't like it when Dazai begged. He remembered his entire body burning from agony to the bone like a raging inferno eating him alive and trying to keep in the acidic vomit, knowing if he didn't the torture would continue for another few hours. He remembered tears falling from his young, emaciated face—when he had still had tears to cry—long after his voice ran itself ragged, being the only thing he had strength left to do. The only way he had left to deal with the pain, but not helping at all.

Then, Dazai remembered when the torture stopped. When that man came up to his prone form, petted his hair in a way that could almost be described as gentle, loving even, and told him he did this for Dazai's own good. How one day, Dazai would understand why he did this to him and he would be thankful—Dazai's still waiting for that part to happen. Then he gingerly pick him up off of the crimson soaked floor, whispering comforting words in Dazai's ear, and took him to Mori to have him looked after.

After what felt like an eternity to everyone else in the room as they watched Dazai stare vacantly at the abhorrent photograph, he finally spoke, so softly they almost missed it, "Where did you get these?"

Unnerved by his deadened tone, but not willing to comment on it just yet, Atsushi timidly answered, "We... we don't know, Dazai. It was sent anonymously so we just thought... it was a case. We're really sorry, we didn't know... Are you okay?"

Dazai didn't seem to be listening to Atsushi anymore. Instead, he quickly packed the photographs back into the manila envelope they came in and stormed out of the room, coat flaring and expression unchanging from its blank appearance. Ranpo, having finally gotten over his shock, tried calling after Dazai, "Wait, where are you going? Dazai—Dazai come back!"

But he didn't, he just continued to walk away and everyone could only watch him go.

"What are we going to do now?" Ranpo asked, sounding lost and looking to Fukuzawa for direction.

In response, Fukuzawa's eyes filled with steel, "We look into every angle, every clue and resources we have and find out who is responsible for this. Who sent it, why, how did they get it access to it, everything."

As Fukuzawa spoke, everyone went into motion; making calls, writing notes, and searching through piles of paper to see if anything else was sent, "We leave no stone unturned. One of our own is in danger and we will not let him fend for himself."

Pausing for a moment in his speech, Fukuzawa looked over at Yosano and Ranpo, who still stood beside him.

"We will need to get those photos back from Dazai if we have any hope of learning more," looking briefly uncomfortable, he continued, "and we'll have to ask him about the... situation in the photos. Do you think you can take care of that?"

Ranpo could certainly see why Fukuzawa asked Yosano and him. Yosano had knowledge in medicine, injuries, and the effect they'd have on a person, being a doctor and all, so she'd be able to understand the damage done to Dazai. She wouldn't let up until Dazai allowed her to help and could actively watch him for any signs of remaining damage, physical or otherwise, which Ranpo had no doubt there were.

On the other hand, Ranpo would be able to deduce things Dazai wouldn't say just by looking at him and he could and would call him out on any lies he tried to tell them, and inform Yosano. Dazai was a great liar, but even he wouldn't be able to keep a level tone when discussing something so painful.

With determination in their eyes, Ranpo and Yosano agreed, "Yes, President!"

Reviews are greatly appreciated!