The day when I was favored by my brothers

Everything I saw that day... was it a dream or reality?

Behind the pale and thin arms, the dark and eerie corridor, and a heavy iron door, a small voice timidly asked him if he could be her brother.

For several days, Zhongyuan Zhongya was frowning and thinking about this issue.

If it were just a dream... the sense of reality would be too strong.

After waking up from the dream, when he first saw the "blood stains" on his palms, he almost suddenly thought that everything in the dream had really happened, but he soon realized that the red paint was just a prank by his partner, and he rushed out of the door.

Come out and beat Dazai Osamu from the upstairs to the downstairs of the port mafia as usual.

"I feel very energetic early in the morning."

A few floors away, Mori Ogai, the current leader of the Port Mafia, could hear the crackling noise downstairs in his office, and exclaimed with a smile: "It's good to be young."

The work must be completed as usual.

Nakahara Nakaya has always been conscientious in his tasks and is a role model among port mafia cadres. His serious attitude towards work is in sharp contrast to Osamu Dazai.

"Nakaya."

"ha?"

A few days later, after a mission to eliminate other troublemaking organizations in Yokohama, while both parties had free time, Dazai Osamu changed his careless attitude and chatted with Nakahara Chuuya in a rather serious tone.

"Are you worried about anything recently?" Osamu Dazai asked tentatively.

Zhongyuan Zhong was also startled.

Has he been acting very obvious recently? Why can even Dazai, a bastard, see it?

Zhongyuan Zhongya rarely looked at his partner and found that his expression was extremely serious. It was not like he was joking just to tease him.

"Tell me about it."

Osamu Dazai turned his back to the sea of ​​​​fire caused by the mission just now, and sat on the ruins with his legs crossed, his expression calm, and he looked like he was listening.

To be honest, when Dazai Osamu was normal, he looked like a frail and harmless black-haired handsome boy.

Zhongyuan Zhongya was blinded by his serious look for a moment, and he subconsciously expressed his concerns: "...remember that time you ran into my dormitory without permission a few days ago?"

Dazai Osamu nodded.

In fact, he has gone to his partner's dormitory countless times without permission, but at this time, he just nodded.

"I had a dream before you woke me up."

"I dreamed of a girl...ah, just listening to the voice, she is a few years younger than us."

Dazai Osamu's expression changed immediately, and he looked at his partner with wide eyes.

To be honest, Dazai Osamu would never believe that the word "girl" would pop out of Nakahara Chuuya's mouth.

"Hey! It's not what you think!" Nakahara Chuuya saw Dazai Osamu's shocked expression and immediately understood what he was thinking. He spoke faster and explained: "She is a child who was imprisoned."

Osamu Dazai:...Prison, prison play?

"In short, she asked me in her dream if I could be her brother, and then said that she would be very good and obedient..."

"Nakaya."

Dazai Osamu looked serious and interrupted Nakahara Chuuya, who was getting darker and darker: "I originally thought it was just a simple boy reaching puberty, but now when I hear your dream, I think you are really a pervert."

Zhongyuan Zhongya was stunned: "......???No, it's not what you think!"

"No need to explain, you are really a pervert. You dare to think about anything in your dreams, and you still think about it when you wake up."

"Ha——? You bastard mackerel! I told you I didn't mean it that way!"

His partner seemed unable to understand human speech, which made Zhongyuan Zhongya feel melancholy.

However, as time passed, he gradually forgot the strange dream in his memory.

After all, no matter how realistic it is, it is just a dream.

As usual, he devoted himself to his work, using his terrifyingly powerful abilities to safeguard the interests of his organization and his absolute authority in the city of Yokohama.

...until a few weeks later.

After dragging his exhausted body back to rest after the mission, he fell on the bed and closed his eyes. He suddenly found himself back in that ancient house with a terrible environment.

This time, after concentrating for a second, he quickened his pace without hesitation, taking three steps in two steps, and rushed to the end of the corridor as quickly as possible——

"Are you here?"

...Sure enough, she is still here.

It was still the familiar, small, gentle voice, with an unconcealable joy in her tone, as if she was welcoming an old friend whom she hadn't seen for a long time, and happily asked him: Are you here?

There was no tone of blame or complaint, no sadness for his current situation or any need for help, he just said hello to him.

For a moment, Zhongyuan Zhongya didn't know how to reply.

...Is this really just a dream?

Then, the child asked again: "Have you promised to be my brother?"

This time, Zhongyuan Zhongya did not refuse the offer like last time.

But then again...how much does she want a brother? She asked him this question persistently as soon as they met.

He leaned forward, trying to see something through the fence.

Unfortunately, it was pitch dark and I couldn't see anything.

"Why do you want me to be your brother so much?" Nakahara Chuuya asked.

"That's because..." The voice thought for a while: "Because... Xiao Mo feels that he should have a brother!"

She added another sentence: "Handsome, gentle, and strong brother!"

Nakahara Chuuya: ...Unexpectedly, he gave a rather willful answer to this seemingly well-behaved child.

"...Then your requirements are quite high." Faced with the unexpected answer, Zhongyuan Zhongya couldn't reply for a while, and even forgot to criticize her that she had nothing to do with the word gentle. He frowned and guessed: "Could it be that

,Have you ever had a brother like this?"

"I...don't remember." The voice became frustrated.

Zhongyuan Zhongya couldn't help but laugh. He sighed and continued to talk to the child in front of him with twelve times more patience.

"What if I promise you?"

"...Huh?"

Zhongyuan Zhong also lowered the brim of his hat and lowered his eyes to look at the fragmented fence cutting into the darkness - there was still wet blood stains on the small fence window, and the bright red looked particularly dazzling against the dark red.

Although no one told him, he could realize that this was the child's blood.

Freshly stained blood.

"What if I promise you that I can be your brother?"

After Zhongyuan Zhongya finished speaking these words, the only sound left in the surroundings was his own breathing.

This is really strange.

For no reason, he felt an unprecedented sense of protectiveness towards a child he had met a second time.

Just like...a brother's desire to protect his sister.

Somehow, there seemed to be some strange force that guided him to ask that question.

He didn't have much time to think about whether the decision he made was correct or not.

After a sound of iron chains rattling, through the thick darkness behind the railing, he suddenly met a pair of eyes as bright as sapphires without any precautions.

The golden eyelashes trembled slightly, but they still couldn't block the breathtakingly beautiful light in these eyes.

[When they looked at each other for the first time, he found that there were stars in the child's eyes. 】

【These should not be eyes that exist in this world.】

He held his breath and felt that his heartbeat almost stopped.

"Really?" She was full of expectations and repeated the question: "Brother, can you really be Xiao Mo's brother?"

"……ah."

Such pure and flawless eyes made Zhongyuan Zhongya lose his mind for a moment.

His eyes shifted, and the girl's face was pale, yet exuding a fragile and ethereal beauty. Her long golden hair was spread down, emitting a faint brilliance, just like an elf that only existed in fairy tale books.

It's a pity that the beautiful elf was imprisoned, with terrible scars all over her body, and a pair of eyes hiding stars, and she could only stay in the darkness of this gloomy old house.

This is more than just a dream.

Zhongyuan Zhongya said to himself in his heart.

The moment he saw the girl's face clearly, he made up his mind.

"Then...if you agree, you have to pull the hook." She stretched out her arm that was suspended by the chain from the fence again, raised her little finger, looked at him and said seriously: "The lying child will swallow a thousand needles!"

Being willing to be a child's older brother requires more than just a promise.

However, knowing that this was not a dream, Zhongyuan Zhongya still made his response.

He stretched out his hand and gently hooked the girl's little finger.

When I saw this child's stretched smile, it was like seeing a furry animal, and my heart softened.

But the next second, after Zhongyuan Zhongya finally saw clearly the old and new scars on the girl's arms and cheeks, the softness in his heart instantly collapsed and turned into anger.

"Don't worry." He gritted his teeth and said word by word: "Brother will definitely crush those bastards who did these things to you with gravity."