Chapter Text
Dazai had not thought that the worst experience of his life would start at 3pm on an innocuous Tuesday afternoon, but he supposed that it was on par for the course his life was taking so far, after Fukuzawa had completely wrecked the delicate separation of his past and present lives by allowing an alliance between the ADA and the Port Mafia. Even so, Dazai had found that he’d grown into somewhat of an optimist during the past four years, and had naively held onto some hope that maybe, possibly, an alliance between the two organizations that held the two people most notorious for working together during the Mafia’s Reign of Terror didn’t actually mean what everyone thought it meant, and that the two people in question might not have to work together after all.
He was wrong, of course, like he so often was these days. Was that the kind of price that came with being on the side of the light?
Dazai had had a perfectly ordinary day- he’d woken up three hours after he needed to be at work, ignored the five missed calls from Kunikida, bought himself an extra-sugar-extra-cream-with-extra-caramel-drizzle coffee on his leisurely stroll to the office, sent Kunikida a selfie of him holding said coffee, finally arrived at the office, annoyed Kunikida some more, ate the bento box that Kunikida prepared for him, and doodled over his paperwork before handing it off to Atsushi to complete.
Overall, it had been a pretty productive day. Dazai had never really felt guilty about not getting any paperwork done. As if boring, repetitive paperwork was what he had set out to achieve when he’d joined the ADA. Odasaku had said, ‘Save the orphans, Dazai’, and Dazai had. He’d accomplished what he’d set out to do! Odasaku hadn’t said, ‘Don’t evade your taxes, Dazai,’ or, ‘Don’t blow up your ex-partner’s car, Dazai,’ or, ‘Don’t offload your work onto your juniors and promise to take them out for crepes later but never actually follow through with it because you forgot that you had ‘Throw myself in the river at 4pm’ on your schedule, Dazai.’ Now those things would’ve been a lot harder to do. Saving orphans was easy. Trying to fit into the mould of what was considered a ‘productive’ member of society by filling out meaningless forms? Forget it. Weren’t they all going to die anyway? He just didn’t see the point in pushing paper around before it happened.
‘Dazai-kun,’ Fukuzawa had said, five minutes before he would deal the most devastating news of Dazai’s life, which was actually impressive when you thought about it because his life was admittedly short but definitely eventful and definitely had a lot of contenders for Top Ten Worst News Moments- the number one spot before this had been that Chuuya had just went and bought himself a new car mere minutes after Dazai’d blown his old one up, without even any tears or snot or drinking himself silly like Dazai had anticipated- ‘come into my office, please.’
Dazai, who had been in the middle of pulling on Kunikida’s ears to the tune of ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star’ complete with obnoxious English singing to see which of Kunikida’s eyes would twitch first, had obediently straightened up and followed Fukuzawa into the office, but he’d thrown a glance back at Kunikida before he went inside. Ah, so it was Kunikida’s right eye that twitched first when he was annoyed…
‘Dazai-kun, are you paying attention to me?’ Fukuzawa had asked, lifting an eyebrow.
‘Yes. You were saying that there has been some supernatural activity on the outskirts of Yokohama, and you want someone to investigate it,’ Dazai had replied, a little insulted that Fukuzawa thought he couldn’t stare at the door Kunikida was behind and think of more ways to annoy him while also paying attention to whatever the president was saying at the same time. He’d basically done it for three years in the Mafia, when Mori had briefed him and Chuuya on missions and Dazai had nodded obediently while kicking Chuuya’s feet relentlessly under the table. Chuuya had always lost it halfway and strangled Dazai. Ah, what nostalgic times…
Fukuzawa had nodded, projecting a PowerPoint slide onto the screen. ‘The villagers have filed a complaint to the ADA, claiming that there’s a spirit of a god haunting their shrine,’ he had said. ‘According to them, the god sends people away for days or sometimes weeks, before they suddenly reappear and claim that they had been spirited away to a different universe. The most anyone has been gone is two weeks. So far, there have been no casualties, but I fear that it won’t stay that way for long if we don’t do something about it soon.’
‘A god,’ Dazai had repeated, growing increasingly more skeptical by the second. ‘It’s not really a god, is it? Or else, you wouldn’t send me on this mission. I can’t nullify gods.’
‘Can’t you?’ Fukuzawa had said. ‘Didn’t you regularly nullify the power of a god for three years?’
‘That’s different,’ Dazai had said, after a pause. ‘Chuuya’s… different. It’s technically an ability for him, anyway.’
‘That may be,’ Fukuzawa had said, with a shrug that made him look like he wasn’t convinced, ‘but out of all the Agency, you’re the best candidate to go on this mission. In any case, Ranpo-kun and Atsushi-kun have to deal with the smuggling incident on the docks, and Kunikida-kun has enough on his plate as it is, after the hot chilli pepper subway incident left enough paperwork for the Agency to do for the next month.’ Paperwork that you haven’t helped with at all, went the unspoken sentence.
‘I see. So I’m the fourth best option,’ Dazai had concluded, before pouting. ‘Aw, does this mean Kunikida-kun’s not going to come with me?’ he had sighed dramatically. ‘I’m so sad. I’ll be all alone, with no one to keep me company… President, how am I supposed to face a scary ghost by myself alone? You should tell Kunikida-kun to take a break from all his paperwork and come with-‘
‘Like hell I’m going anywhere with you again, Dazai, after you tricked me into rubbing chilli peppers into my eyes!’ Kunikida’s enraged voice had sounded from outside the office.
‘It’s not very professional to eavesdrop, Kunikida-kun!’ Dazai had called out, singsong, through the door. ‘Also, that was so long ago. Are you still not over that?’
‘That was last week, asshole!’ Kunikida had yelled back.
Fukuzawa had cleared his throat. ‘Excuse me,’ he had said, and both Dazai and Kunikida had quieted down. Dazai had heard the telltale signs of keyboard clacking outside the office, which meant that Kunikida had already returned to being annoyingly productive. Not even a five-minute break where he paced around the desks angrily and looked like he was close to ripping out his hair… Dazai would have to up his game in the future. He could do better than that. ‘Dazai, you won’t be alone. You’ll have Nakahara-kun to accompany you.’
‘What,’ Dazai had said, but it hadn’t been a surprised ‘what’. It had been a genuinely confused ‘what’, because everyone called Chuuya by his first name so often that Dazai had nearly forgotten that people sometimes did address him as Nakahara-kun. It took him a moment to place the name to the face- ‘Oh, you mean Chuuya?’ before the shock hit him, and- ‘Wait, you mean Chuuya?’
Dazai hadn’t even had time to whip out his Notes app list of reasons why he and Chuuya should never, ever work together again- not least because the last time they’d done so, they’d only ended up nearly killing each other a total of five times, which was less than all the other times they’d worked together but was actually a sign that their partnership was deteriorating and that it was awkward and stilted because they weren’t close enough to try and kill each other every few seconds. Which didn’t make sense to anyone other than Dazai and Chuuya, but then again, it didn’t have to. He and Chuuya were… well, it was strange to go from knowing someone so well to not knowing them at all anymore. Dazai still knew the trivial things- the exact speed that Chuuya’s breaths quickened during a fight, the timing of his thrusts, the way he always swung with his legs first and how he focused more on his right side than his left- but he didn’t know the things that mattered anymore. Like what Chuuya’s new favourite foods were, or why he’d suddenly developed a taste for the new fine art pieces hung up in his apartment, or what kinds of shenanigans his subordinates had gotten up to today or how his smile looked like when he was still exasperated but a little amused. He knew Chuuya, but he didn’t know Chuuya. Not like he used to. And he wasn’t planning on fixing that! He was perfectly content with running away from any situation that promised having him to show even a modicum of emotional vulnerability, thank you very much.
Fukuzawa hadn’t even let Dazai argue with him, which had felt very unfair. So here he is, sitting blankly at his desk staring at a fly moseying along the wall, too stunned to even annoy Kunikida, who looks genuinely concerned that he isn’t being harassed by Dazai in three different ways right now.
‘Are you alright, Dazai?’ Kunikida asks him. ‘You haven’t even put salt into my coffee yet, or whatever petty pranks you’d planned on pulling this afternoon.’
‘Aw, Kunikida-kun, I didn’t realise how much you cared about me,’ Dazai teases, but even that falls flat.
Kunikida’s brows crease, and he presses a hand against Dazai’s forehead. ‘You don’t have a fever,’ he determines. ‘You’re not sick.’
‘I am sick,’ Dazai insists, whining like a little kid. ‘I’m sick at having to work with Chuuya! With the way Fukuzawa and Mori are trying to pair us up at every chance, it’s almost like the alliance between the Port Mafia and the Agency was created solely to put me together with that- that- tiny, violent hatrack!’
‘Yes, who could imagine that,’ Kunikida states dryly. ‘The alliance created to ally people together? Unimaginable.’
‘Kunikida-kun!’ Dazai gasps scandalously, swatting his shoulder. ‘Don’t go getting all sarcastic on me! It’s wrong that you even know how to be sarcastic. You’re defying the expectations of the carefully planned, one-dimensional character archetypes of everyone in this office!’
‘Really?’ Kunikida asks, raising an eyebrow. ‘And pray tell, what is everyone’s one-dimensional character archetype?’
‘Well, I’m the handsome bachelor with a charming smile, a mysterious past, and zero arc development besides sitting there and looking pretty, of course,’ Dazai begins, ‘and if I had long, sweeping bangs, this is where I would toss them back right now. Sadly, my face shape complements a shorter hairstyle.’
‘Your past isn’t mysterious anymore, Dazai-san,’ Atsushi chimes in from the corner, not even looking away from the screen where he’s diligently typing reports. ‘It’s just a little sad. You have the tragic backstory.’
‘You have the tragic backstory,’ Dazai shoots back. ‘And anyway, I thought you were supposed to be investigating the smuggling case with Ranpo-san! When did you get back here?’
‘I’ve been here this whole time,’ Atsushi replies, finally looking at Dazai with a weird expression. ‘Ranpo and I aren’t starting our investigation until tomorrow. Today is his snack day, so he’s out buying doughnuts. Dazai-san, are you sure you’re alright?’
‘No, I’m losing my mind,’ says Dazai. ‘Anyway, Kunikida-kun is the strict and annoying colleague who doesn’t understand humour and is incapable of not doing work or relaxing for two seconds. You, my dear Atsushi-kun, are the impulsive junior who never listens to what his wise and sage mentor has to say.’
‘Uh huh,’ Atsushi nods doubtfully, despite the fact that it’s totally true and that Dazai has had to rescue his ass more times than he can count. Dazai can’t believe that Atsushi, out of all people, has an undeserved reputation of being good and responsible. Newsflash, Kunikida- just because someone does all their paperwork on time does not mean that they’re not capable of flinging themselves into an exploding factory face-first just because their mortal enemy, Some Guy With A Coat, was rumoured to possibly maybe be there and then wasn’t even there after all. ‘So first you’re a handsome bachelor, and then you’re wise and sage? I thought these stereotypes were supposed to be one-dimensional. You can’t have character depth.’
‘Yes I can, because I’m clearly the protagonist,’ Dazai says, rolling his eyes. ‘The protagonist is allowed to have a maximum of three different character traits.’
‘Clearly, Ranpo-san is the protagonist,’ Atsushi disagrees, which Dazai thinks is funny because if anyone besides Dazai were to be the protagonist then it would be Atsushi.
‘No, no, you’ve got it all wrong,’ Dazai argues. ‘Ranpo-san is too overpowered to be the protagonist. He’s like the… eccentric, sometimes lazy mentor whose thought process is a mystery to everyone else and whom the protagonist has to put up with.’
Both Kunikida and Atsushi stare at him. ‘…What?’ Dazai asks, feeling uncomfortably ruffled.
‘Repeat that sentence again to yourself,’ Kunikida begins, ‘but slowly.’
‘I’m not eccentric and lazy,’ Dazai exclaims, feeling slighted. Sure, he might slack off on work occasionally… and by occasionally he means on every occasion there is to slack off on work… but at least he’s never cancelled an appointment with the government because his pastries just arrived fresh out of the oven and he needs to savour them while they’re still warm and flaky! ‘I’m calm, and rational, and I like to save energy! And my thought process is perfectly clear at all times! It’s just other people who don’t bother to try keeping up.’
Kunikida sighs. ‘I’ve wasted enough time entertaining your shenanigans,’ he says, shaking his head. His fingers start flying over the keyboard again, typing a string of characters for the incident report about the hot chilli pepper subway incident that mean absolutely nothing to Dazai considering he forgot everything about the incident the second it was over. Which probably means that there’s something deeply wrong with his memory, but everything is wrong with him, so that’s just another thing to add on to the list.
‘Aw, don’t be like that, Kunikida-kun,’ Dazai whines, shaking his shoulder, but his mind is so occupied with thoughts of having to work with Chuuya once again that he only shakes Kunikida five times before giving up and leaning back into his chair. ‘Ugh, what am I going to do… I don’t want to work with that stupid slug again…’
‘I’m sure he doesn’t want to work with you, either,’ Kunikida mutters. ‘Being your partner for three years can’t have been easy for the poor soul.’
It suddenly strikes Dazai that he’s been partners with Kunikida for as long as he was partners with Chuuya, now that he’s twenty-three and joined the Agency when he was twenty. If he thinks about this for one more second he’ll actually kill himself for real this time, so instead, Dazai resolves to ignore that statement and stands up, stretching his arms above his head and yawning. ‘I think it’s time to get myself a doughnut,’ he nods thoughtfully. ‘And maybe a drink.’
It’s a testament to how much he slacks off work that Kunikida doesn’t even bother reprimanding him with so much as an ‘It’s three in the afternoon, Dazai’. He and Atsushi barely look up as Dazai leaves the office… honestly, one would think his shining and brilliant beacon of a presence disappearing would have more effect on even stone-cold hearts such as theirs, but alas…
In the end, he doesn’t get either a doughnut or a drink. He goes home and sleeps like the dead. It would be better if he actually were dead. Then maybe he wouldn’t have to endure the awkward tension of working with his ex-partner who is also, in every literal sense of the word, his ex-partner. Dazai can’t believe he knows the inside of Chuuya’s mouth… and also the inside of Chuuya… but not the inside of his brain. Sixteen-year-old him would’ve been thrilled at that, but twenty-three-year-old Dazai? Not so much. He’s greedy for emotional intimacy now, which is just sickening to think about. He liked it better when he was mindlessly horny every time Chuuya kicked someone’s ass in battle. Now instead of fantasizing about sex acts, he’s fantasizing about… the mortifying ordeal of being loved, and held, and cherished… ugh. This is so cringe…
He’s sure that Chuuya must have loved him at some point, since they were together for a good year, and he’s like, a good 70% sure that he still loves him now. But their partnership isn’t as ironclad as it was during their Mafia days. They’ve grown. They’ve changed, without each other. And they still care for one another on a fundamental level- that, Dazai is sure neither of them will grow out of- but it just means that they’ll come when the other calls, not that they’ll come as the other comes, in another sense of the word. Sure, Chuuya will always be there for Dazai if he has an overdose, or if he needs someone to pick him up from a bar- but he won’t, like, slam Dazai’s back against the wall and furiously make out with him like they’re seventeen again. Which has honestly been the subject of every one of Dazai’s fantasies since he was old enough to have fantasies. They’ll be there for each other, but they won’t be there with each other. It’s a strange dynamic, and Dazai feels both comforted by it and loathes it at the same time. They don’t dangerously toe the line between love and hate anymore. It’s almost like they’re just… normal, kind of distant friends who have no real interaction beyond meeting up with each other for a drink once a month. Ew. He doesn’t know how to deal with this. He’s so used to them either hating or loving each other that being normal feels abnormal.
By the time the next day rolls around, Dazai is regretting every single decision in his life that lead to joining the Agency, up to and including being born in the first place. He drags himself out of bed and to the office at the average pace of a slug, and by the time he arrives, it’s already half past eleven and the real slug is sitting leisurely in Dazai’s chair, hands behind his head and feet propped up on his desk as if he’s not inconsiderately and rudely taking up the little space Dazai has to himself in the office.
‘Hey,’ Dazai says. ‘Get out of my chair.’
‘No thanks,’ says Chuuya.
‘Get out or I’ll push you out.’
‘You can try.’
Dazai does try. He shoves the chair over and Chuuya tumbles out onto the ground in one fell swoop. ‘Hey,’ Chuuya squawks, looking far too surprised at being pushed off a chair for someone who was just told in no uncertain terms that they would be pushed off a chair, and lunges back at Dazai in a flash, tackling him to the ground, and from there it delves into a mess of shoving and pushing to be the first one to get back on the seat like they’re both five years old and this is the last round of musical chairs.
‘Get- off- me, you slimy slug,’ Dazai pants, pinning Chuuya to the floor again and scrambling to get on the chair, but Chuuya throws himself off easily and reverses their positions, slamming Dazai to the ground.
‘You get off me first, asshole,’ Chuuya grits out, despite the fact that he’s very clearly on top of Dazai right now, using one hand to pin Dazai’s shoulder to the ground and the other to reach for the chair that’s rolling away.
‘I left you alone for five minutes, Chuuya-kun,’ a dry, all-too-familiar exasperated voice deadpans above their heads, and both Chuuya and Dazai immediately freeze and look up from the floor to see Mori and Fukuzawa peering at them.
‘Dazai-kun, I should hope you don’t act like this around everyone that allies with us,’ Fukuzawa says sternly.
‘No, President,’ Dazai coughs, scrambling to get up from the ground with all the grace of a newborn calf, ‘just Chuuya.’
‘Oh, so I’m special,’ Chuuya says sarcastically. ‘I’m so honoured.’
‘You are special,’ Dazai informs him gravely. ‘Specially vertically challenged.’
Dazai ducks the punch from Chuuya a moment before he even throws it.
‘Boys,’ says Mori, and it’s so familiar a rebuke that Dazai almost feels like he’s sixteen again and Mori’s caught them beating the shit out of each other for the fifth time that week just because Chuuya used up all the soy sauce for his miso soup even though that was Dazai’s soy sauce and everyone knew that- even if, perhaps, the soy sauce might have possibly been bought with Chuuya’s money. Not that that detail mattered, though. ‘Behave yourselves.’
Despite the fact that it’s nothing Mori hasn’t said before, the casual remark still makes Dazai’s hackles rise inexplicably. As if Mori has any right to tell him how to fucking behave, as if Dazai is his ward again to experiment and toy with and cut open and not a grown adult man who hasn’t visited a doctor since he left the mafia. Just the sight of seeing his old boss in his current office is enough to make the hairs on the back of Dazai’s neck stand on edge. He knows it’s a necessary evil- after all, it’s not like it’s appropriate to relegate their allies- and the Port Mafia, at that- to meet them in a coffee shop somewhere, but that doesn’t mean that Dazai has to like it that Mori can just waltz into the Agency whenever he fancies.
Even after all these years, Mori is intimidating and evil and has a smile that chills Dazai to the bone and it’s because of him that Dazai is still wary of scalpels and too-bright lights and fucking Yosano, out of all people, which is supremely unfair and wrong and makes Dazai feel sickeningly guilty every time he flinches when Yosano comes near because Yosano suffered under Mori possibly even more than Dazai did and yet all he ever does is think about her in relation to the person who hurt her the most. She probably thinks about him the same way, too- Dazai and Yosano, the strategist and the doctor. Two halves of a whole. If you cut them in half and stitched them together you’d get Mori. It’s a shame that they still flinch when the other comes near, how they can’t help of being reminded of what the other represents.
Yosano doesn’t come to the office on days when Mori visits, and Dazai doesn’t blame her. If he had a choice, he wouldn’t, either. He usually goes out drinking with her afterwards, and they drag Kyouka along because neither of them trust Mori to be around a little girl. It’s one of the things Fukuzawa hates about this arrangement- that Mori drives his best doctor, his best strategist and his pseudo-granddaughter away from the office and towards the bottle- or towards the crepe, in Kyouka’s case- by simply being near them.
‘Yes, Mori-san,’ Chuuya says obediently, dusting off his suit.
‘Yes, Mori-san,’ Dazai mocks in a high-pitched voice, just barely tamping down the anger he feels- not at Chuuya, but at Mori. ‘Wow, you’ve grown into such a good dog since I last saw you, Chuuya-‘
‘Mori-san, you know I never doubt that the orders you make are for the Port Mafia’s benefit,’ Chuuya cuts in, ‘but I seriously don’t understand why you’re asking me to work with him.’
‘Whatever happened to opening a conversation with, ‘It’s nice to see you too, Dazai’?’ Dazai wonders.
‘Well, I’m not a liar,’ Chuuya shrugs.
‘Now, now,’ Mori says, still with his signature creepy smile plastered onto his bandage-white face. Dazai’s fingers twitch with the urge to snatch the scalpel from his belt and slash his throat just like Mori slashed the throat of the old boss. ‘Don’t you think it’s about time to behave maturely with one another? The time for acting the same as your fifteen-year-old selves has long passed. You’re adults, after all.’
‘Tell that to Chuuya’s vertically challenged body,’ Dazai says, his mouth running on its own to distract from his shaking hands. ‘I don’t think his height got the memo.’
‘I’m not going to punch you, because I’m mature,’ Chuuya informs him, and then shoves Dazai so hard into his desk that the entire thing just collapses underneath him like a tower of cards. ‘Mature enough to know that you deserve more punishment than that.’
Dozens of sheets of paperwork and books fly everywhere, fluttering to land on the ground and in the air vents and in plates of half-eaten snacks. Not that that’s Dazai’s problem, because he’s not cleaning that up if you gave him a mop and a broom and put a gun to his head, but Kunikida is going to have one hell of a day once he returns from his coffee run. Strangely, Dazai feels better than he did before Chuuya pushed him, even though he banged his head rather hard against the desk. It feels good to be distracted by pain and not Mori, standing in front of him like he owns the place- like he still owns Dazai, after all these years.
Dazai has never known what it feels like to be free. Even after he left the Port Mafia, the threat of Mori still hung over his head like an ever-present grey cloud. There’s never been a day where he hasn’t been haunted by Mori. Sometimes he wonders what life would’ve been like if he’d just joined the Agency from the get-go, like Ranpo did. Maybe he’d be too preoccupied with sweets to have a care in the world, too.
‘President,’ Dazai whines, going as limp as he can to exacerbate any injuries he might possibly have from getting shoved less than a metre into a flimsy desk. ‘Did you see? The Port Mafia is threatening me! Their Executive just committed an unjustified act of violence against me! President, I’m so scared-‘
‘Dazai-kun, stand up,’ Fukuzawa says flatly, and Dazai gets to his feet and stays silent. The president seems to be in an unusually stern mood today. ‘Nakahara-kun. Please refrain from causing property damage, or I will have to ask you to leave.’
Chuuya just nods once, looking appropriately sheepish.
Fukuzawa clears his throat. Today, he looks much older than he is, with the wrinkles under his eyes exacerbating his age. The fluorescent lights of the office that turn his grey hair a blinding white and cast deep shadows on the crevices of his face don’t do him any justice, either. He looks… utterly exhausted, for lack of a better term, and Dazai doesn’t blame him. The Agency hasn’t had many dangerous major cases recently beyond the hot chilli pepper incident, but its fame has been growing steadily since the battle with the Guild, and the amount of small cases and commissions they receive in general has been shooting upwards steadily, casting straws on the camel’s back little by little. Normally, this wouldn’t be a problem for other companies, who would just hire more staff to manage the workload- but the Agency apparently has a prerequisite for a tragic backstory in order to hire someone, with tragic-backstory-because-of-one’s-ability preferred, and tragic-backstory-because-of-one’s-ability- and -ties-with-the-Port-Mafia most ideal. So, with that being said, the Agency and especially Fukuzawa have been hard-pressed to find potential detectives- especially ones who can put up with being in constant mortal danger nearly all the time without warning, who have to accept that they can be called at 2 in the morning, and rarest of all, ones who can put up with Ranpo’s general… Ranponess. That last one has been driving everyone in the office nuts, trying to find new candidates who won’t just walk away in exasperation and annoyance at a twenty-six-year-old man demanding that they share their snacks with him.
‘There have been a series of supernatural incidents occurring in a town on the outskirts of Yokohama,’ Fukuzawa states. ‘People disappear mysteriously for a period of time, before reappearing again and saying that they experienced what seemed to be a fantasy world of sorts. The latest woman who experienced this curious phenomenon reported that she was transported to a world where her life had happened extremely differently. Before her, we were unsure if this was merely a mass hallucination ability where the people disappeared as they hallucinated, for some odd reason, but this woman reportedly dyed her hair pink in the universe she had been transported to, and came back with pink hair. Therefore, we can conclude that these people aren’t just mass dreaming, and experience real physical consequences in the worlds they travel to.’
‘Any casualties?’ Chuuya asks, all business. ‘This seems like it could go wrong very quickly. Someone is going to be transported into a world too dangerous for them, where they might get killed.’
‘That’s exactly what we’re worried about,’ Fukuzawa says. ‘So far, there have been none, but people have come back physically and mentally impacted. The two of you are assigned to stop this phenomenon at its source.’
Chuuya frowns. ‘That doesn’t sound good,’ he says, ‘but why me, specifically? Doesn’t Dazai have a new partner at the Agency now?’ His mouth twists with disgust.
‘Kunikida-kun is dealing with… another incident,’ Fukuzawa says, because saying the words ‘hot chilli pepper incident’ just sounds stupid, which is exactly why Dazai came up with the name. ‘Also, if I may be so blunt, I have reason to believe that this is caused by a god. So…’
‘You want a god to fight a god,’ Chuuya says flatly, before sighing. ‘I suppose we do owe you.’
‘This is quite an extraordinary ask, Fukuzawa-dono,’ Mori hums lightly. ‘One of my Executives, gone for an unknown period of time. My best fighter at that, too.’
‘This is an extraordinary problem,’ Fukuzawa says calmly. ‘What will it be, Doctor? We can manage without Nakahara-kun. But then you’ll still be in our debt for how we helped you last month. You shouldn’t think of it as a job. Instead, think of it as repaying your debts.’
Mori’s mouth twists unpleasantly. It’s the smile he gets when he’s backed into a corner. Dazai had the pleasure of seeing it all too often during the year after the old boss had died, when Mori had been bound by too many strings pulling him this way and that like a choked marionette. It’s always been amusing, to see the exact moment when Mori realizes he can’t win. Suddenly, Dazai wishes that Yosano were here beside him with a sharp, burning ferocity that startles even himself. She’d know what he was thinking. She’d laugh silently along with him, exchanging eye contact with twin smiles dancing in their dark pupils, to see Mori facing the consequences of his own actions when he called the Agency last month to assist in a case that the Mafia simply couldn’t solve. She’d want to see Mori on his knees. It’s a shame she’s out, getting new medical supplies to stock the cabinets, or so she says. Dazai has a hunch that she’s probably getting drunk off her ass to distract from the fact that Mori’s in an office he by all means shouldn’t have had the right to even go near.
‘Well, Chuuya-kun, I suppose you’d better start packing,’ Mori says, and Dazai knows they’ve won. Not that he counts going on a mission with Chuuya, his ex-partner and ex-partner, as a win, but. Well. Sometimes you have to take what you can get.
‘Well, now that that’s all settled,’ Dazai begins, feeling a desperate desire to get out of this office now, with Mori’s gaze on him feeling like it’s burning holes through his body, ‘I think I’ll go assist Kunikida-kun in his investigation. Email me the details of the trip.’
He doesn’t throw up after he exits the office, but it’s a near thing. Instead of finding Kunikida like he’d said, he goes to meet up with Yosano. He hadn’t mentioned her name in front of Mori simply because Mori would’ve gotten a sick kick out of hearing how his two prodigies, scarred and burnt and sick in the head because of him, manage to find comfort and horror and disgust in each other’s presence all at the same time. And also he doesn’t want Mori to know how they meet up for lunch sometimes.
When he arrives at the bar Yosano is drinking herself silly at, he sees that she’s brought Kyouka again, which makes him want to laugh and cry at the same time. The three ex-Mafia members of the Agency all walk into a bar together. There must be some joke in that. Or maybe the joke is just his life.
Despite being a little too young to touch a drink yet, Kyouka is sitting at the bar next to Yosano anyway, munching on a strawberry cream crepe. She looks up as Dazai arrives and nods her head once in acknowledgment, before going back to eating her crepe. He couldn’t sneak up on her if he tried. Kyouka’s inhuman reflexes and senses have Mafia training written all over them- and not just Mafia training, but Akutagawa’s drills, specifically. Which were the same drills that Dazai used to train him with. In a way, Kyouka is sort of like Dazai’s grand-mentee, except the only thing he passed down was a relentless cycle of abuse.
Dazai orders vodka for himself before taking a seat on Yosano’s other side, and they both pretend that she doesn’t flinch at his soundless steps and sudden presence, so like how Mori used to make an entrance.
‘Vodka? It’s late afternoon,’ Yosano says, despite the fact that her wine glass is already mostly empty. ‘Should I be worried about you?’
‘Worry about yourself first,’ Dazai retorts automatically, shooting a pointed look at her wine glass, before he slumps in his seat. ‘Mori-san is in the office.’
‘I know,’ Yosano says, taking another swig of wine. ‘That’s why I’m out here.’
‘He makes me want to kill myself even more than I already do,’ Dazai laments, and nods a thanks to the bartender who puts the shot of vodka in front of him, before throwing it back down his dry throat immediately.
‘Me too,’ Kyouka agrees, and Yosano and Dazai almost spit out the alcohol in their mouths. ‘I don’t like Mori-san.’
‘Kyouka-chan, don’t ever repeat whatever this suicidal bastard says,’ Yosano warns, and Dazai nods solemnly beside her. ‘Mori-san does not have enough power over you to make you want to die. You’re free now. Weren’t you under Ozaki-san and Akutagawa-kun most of the time, anyway?’
‘I met him a few times,’ Kyouka says, staring at her crepe like it’s the most interesting thing in the world. ‘When I was younger. He didn’t like me much after I grew older. That was a relief.’
Dazai feels sick. The Port Mafia is not a safe place for little girls, especially ones under Mori’s care. Sometimes it’s a relief to know that being born the opposite gender saved him from another bucketload of trauma to deal with, but now he just feels desperately sorry for Kyouka and Yosano. Yosano, whose image was responsible for the way Elise acts today, whose childhood self will forever be immortalized in the doll of the girl that is Mori’s companion. He feels nauseous. ‘Oh,’ is all he says, sharing a look with Yosano, and trying not to betray how much he wants to vomit. ‘That is a relief. Let’s go get you another crepe, hmm? We don’t have to go back to the office today.’
Save the orphans, Oda had said. Well, he’s trying, alright? The way to Kyouka and Atsushi’s happiness is through their stomachs.
After they walk out of the bar and buy Kyouka a few more crepes for her, bottles of wine for Yosano and bandages for Dazai, the moon slowly starts creeping up on the sun, and Dazai and Yosano walk Kyouka to her dorm.
‘I’m glad we didn’t go back to the office today,’ Kyouka says suddenly. It occurs to Dazai, belatedly, that this outing was more for Kyouka’s benefit than Yosano’s. Yosano is stronger than she was years ago- strong enough to withstand Mori, anyway, but Kyouka, fresh out of the Port Mafia with murder counts hanging around her neck like accessories, hasn’t yet had a chance to distance herself from her past. ‘I don’t want- I don’t like working with the Port Mafia. I don’t like that they can come in whenever they want. I thought I was finally going to be free.’
‘They can’t really,’ Yosano says, trying to comfort her. ‘It’s a temporary truce. It’s not like it’s going to be like this forever. You are free. Remember that.’
‘I’m free,’ Kyouka repeats, like the words taste foreign in her mouth. ‘It doesn’t seem that way.’ She pauses. ‘I always feel like I’m one small mistake away from going back there.’
‘Don’t we all?’ Dazai asks to no one in particular, staring up at the full, waxy moon, before he turns to Kyouka with a smile that he doesn’t feel. ‘It’s alright. I’ve murdered far more people than you, anyway, and they haven’t sent me back yet. And your records are wiped, too. When we say you’re free, we mean it.’
‘Even if you murder someone again, Dazai-kun knows people,’ Yosano nods conspiratorially, lowering her voice like it’s a secret to get Kyouka to laugh quietly even though it’s not really a joke at all, just the truth. ‘He’ll get his friends at the Special Division to wipe your record so squeaky clean it’ll look better than it was in the first place, and it’ll be like any mistake you made never happened at all. In fact, we’ll personally take care of anyone who dares lie that they know of any incident that never happened. Right, Dazai-kun?’
‘Of course,’ Dazai smiles easily, and suppresses a laugh at the thought of having to threaten Ango to wipe Kyouka’s record once again. He’d be so annoyed, which is what makes Dazai want to do it. ‘And Yosano-san can make anyone look like they died of natural causes, so you don’t have to worry about anything, Kyouka-chan.’
‘Right,’ Kyouka says doubtfully. ‘I’m sure ‘natural causes’ will be the first thing on everyone’s minds when they see a decapitated corpse.’
Dazai and Yosano burst out laughing. ‘Kyouka-chan,’ Yosano admonishes, once her laughter subsides. ‘We’ll think of a solution if need be. Leave it to the adults, alright? There’s only two things a girl like you should focus on at your age- doing your job right and eating well. You shouldn’t worry about anything beyond that.’
Kyouka nods obediently as the three of them walk up to the dorm that she and Atsushi live in. ‘I’ll try,’ she shrugs, and rummages in her bag for the key. Once she unlocks the door, she announces, ‘I’m home.’
‘Welcome home!’ Atsushi’s cheerful voice calls from inside, and Kyouka bids them farewell.
Dazai would walk Yosano home, too, if not for the fact that their apartments couldn’t be farther away from each other. Yosano lives around an hour away from work, while Dazai lives in a tiny apartment ten minutes away from the Agency that he bought solely for convenience, because God knows it would be even harder than it already is to pick himself up and go to work if he lived more than fifteen minutes away. So instead, he bids farewell to Yosano, and drags himself to his apartment on exhausted limbs that feel like they’re about to fold underneath his own weight.
He doesn’t have to unlock his apartment door. It’s already slightly ajar. He knows who it is before he even sees them.
‘Chibi,’ Dazai calls out in mild curiosity, toeing off his shoes at the genkan. ‘What are you doing in my house?’
‘If you can even call it that,’ Chuuya remarks, wrinkling his nose in distaste as he emerges carrying three garbage bags from Dazai’s room. ‘Do you seriously not throw your takeout boxes away, like, ever?’
Dazai shrugs. ‘What if I need them someday?’
‘Yeah, because greasy takeout containers are so in-demand these days,’ Chuuya retorts, before he uses his ability to compress them into tiny balls, which he floats into the garbage bin in the hallway. ‘You’re so… messy,’ he says judgmentally, looking around the living room, which surprisingly has about half the garbage gone, the books organised and the clothes that were strewn around the room this morning neatly folded in a pile on the couch.
It’s actually the tidiest things have been since Dazai moved in, and he says as much.
‘Yeah, because I cleaned everything for you,’ Chuuya sighs, as if it’s some sort of punishment that Dazai forced him to do and not a completely voluntary action that he took upon himself.
Despite Dazai’s less-than-surprised reaction to Chuuya’s presence in his house, he is actually, contrary to the evidence, quite surprised. Sure, it’s not the first time Chuuya’s broken into his house, but it’s like… the second time. Ever since they met again after four years of no contact, Chuuya has been steering clear of him, and Dazai can’t blame him. Besides the threats to kill each other, and the fact that they somehow always end up in a dangerous situation, and how they get on each other’s nerves, it’s just… well… kind of awkward… Like, what do you even say to the person whom you dated for like a year and broke up with by blowing their car up but also you’re not really sure if they knew it was you who did that, which begs the question of: does Chuuya think they’re technically not broken up? Dazai supposes that after four years of no contact, he can’t reasonably assume that they’re still together, but Chuuya has assumed a lot of presumptuous things before- like the fact that Dazai still cares about him enough to nullify Corruption as soon as possible. He’s right, of course, because one half of Dazai is still head over heels in love with Chuuya while the other half is trying desperately to ignore that fact, but it doesn’t mean that Dazai has to like it. He likes to be an emotional enigma, and Chuuya destroys his carefully constructed mysterious-guy image without even trying.
‘So,’ Dazai says once he’s closed the door and poured himself a shot of vodka, because God knows he’s going to need it. ‘Would you care to tell me why you’re in my house? And being my own personal cleaner right now?’
‘Give me that,’ Chuuya says instead of answering him, and gulps straight from the bottle of vodka. He wipes his mouth with his sleeve once he’s done. Dazai can’t help but stare at his smooth, pale throat. He’s reminded of the times they used to sit on the rooftop of their shared penthouse, sharing a bottle of wine and a few cigarettes between them before they were even old to drink or smoke. Dazai had to quit cigarettes after Kunikida kept bitching about the smell and passive-aggressively handing him informative leaflets on the dangers of smoking complete with grotesque pictures of smokers’ lungs inside every time he came to work smelling like an ashtray, but he hasn’t kicked his drinking habits even though they mix with his antidepressants, and it seems neither has Chuuya, judging by the way he downs the vodka like it’s water.
Dazai raises an eyebrow once Chuuya’s polished off the bottle. ‘You done?’
Chuuya rolls his eyes. ‘Did you check your email?’
Dazai has not so much as glanced at his phone once since he left the office. ‘Yes,’ he says.
‘You’re such a fucking liar,’ Chuuya sighs, sounding insultingly unsurprised that Dazai hasn’t done any work since he left the office. ‘Anyway, if you’d checked, you would’ve seen that Mori-san and Fukuzawa-san sent you an itinerary. We’re leaving on a train to the village at 6am tomorrow.’
‘What?’ Dazai demands. ‘What kind of genius thought waking up at the asscrack of dawn was a good idea?’
‘Me,’ Chuuya says, sounding far too surprised for someone who had to deal with three years of Dazai never being a morning person. Why he would think that Dazai would suddenly, miraculously be able to channel the energy to wake up five hours before he normally does or ever did is beyond Dazai’s comprehension, especially when he was the one who always dragged Dazai out to meetings when he refused to wake up. ‘And 6am is hardly the asscrack of dawn. It’s when most normal people with a job wake up, you know.’
‘Do I look like most normal people with a job?’ Dazai asks rhetorically. ‘You’ll have to drag me out of bed before I’ll ever get on that train.’
‘Oh, don’t worry,’ says Chuuya darkly, cracking his knuckles. ‘I’m more than prepared for that eventuality.’
‘Help,’ Dazai says in the most monotonous tone known to mankind. ‘The Port Mafia is threatening me.’ He reaches for the glass that he put on the counter this morning, only to find that it’s gone. ‘Did you…’ He stops. ‘Did you wash my dishes?’
‘I knew you wouldn’t,’ Chuuya retorts, but he’s blushing slightly out of embarrassment. ‘I only came in here to help you pack, because I knew you’d forget and we’d be late and miss the train, but I couldn’t just leave the apartment like this. I don’t even know how you leave the apartment like this. It’s a pigsty.’
‘Oh,’ says Dazai, feeling oddly touched. He’d forgotten how much of a neat freak Chuuya is, for someone who lived in the slums for the majority of his early teen years. Maybe that’s why he’s so obsessed with cleanliness now, because he never had any of it growing up. For Dazai, who had spent years and years of his childhood in a sterilized doctor’s office that always smelt of rubbing alcohol and plastic, cleanliness had never been something that he lacked, which meant that it wasn’t something he really desired all that much. Chuuya had lost it when they were sixteen and he’d found out that Dazai lived in a mouldy shipping container. After that, Dazai had mostly slept over at Chuuya’s place, unless he had really pissed Chuuya off that day, which he had endeavoured to do every day but didn’t always succeed because at some point Chuuya had started finding his antics endearing even though he never said so out loud, which Dazai was simultaneously baffled, annoyed and delighted about. ‘Thanks.’
Chuuya blinks, halfway through clearing the cracker crumbs on the counter away. ‘Come again?’
‘I said thanks,’ Dazai repeats. It’s worth it to see Chuuya’s mouth drop open in shock. ‘Why are you acting like I killed someone in front of you?’
‘I would not be this surprised if you killed someone in front of me,’ Chuuya echoes, still blinking rapidly. ‘I can’t believe you expressed a modicum of gratitude… Have I already been transported to another universe by that god…? Or maybe I have a fever and I’m hallucinating…’ He presses a hand to his head.
‘Oh my God, you’re such a dramatic little shrimp,’ Dazai groans. ‘Is it really more believable to think that you’ve been transported into another universe than to think that perhaps, I’ve just become a better person?’
‘Yes,’ Chuuya answers immediately. ‘If you were a better person you’d help me pack your stupid shit.’ He gestures to the clothes he’s half-stuffed in the suitcase lying open on the floor.
Dazai shrugs and walks over. He goes to his room and opens his closet to fetch a few clothes, which he then promptly dumps unceremoniously into the suitcase. ‘Happy?’
‘Properly,’ Chuuya grumbles, and uses his ability to fold the clothes neatly into the suitcase. ‘And you need toiletries. Your toothbrush. Soap. A hairbrush.’
Dazai just blinks. ‘I don’t own a hairbrush,’ he says.
Chuuya looks at him incredulously. ‘Are you serious? Why the fuck not?’
‘I don’t have long enough hair to brush,’ Dazai says, as if it’s obvious, because it is. His hair isn’t even shoulder-length, after all. As if to prove his point, he picks up a strand of hair between his fingers, pulling it to reveal how short it is. ‘I’ve never owned a brush, because I’ve never had long hair.’
‘You’re kidding me,’ Chuuya mutters under his breath. ‘You’re actually kidding me. All this time I thought that that blanket-head just-woke-up fluffy style was a signature stylistic choice you made each day.’
‘No,’ says Dazai earnestly. ‘Why would I style my head to make it look like I just woke up when I could really just wake up like that and not style it? Also, what kind of person wastes time styling their hair every day? That seems like such a pain.’
He stares pointedly at Chuuya’s perfectly curled strand of hair that rests on his shoulder, but Chuuya doesn’t take the bait. Instead, his eyebrows start to rise even higher. ‘But I saw you use a comb when we used to…’
There’s no easy way to say slept together, is there? Dazai would help Chuuya, but then again, no he wouldn’t, because it’s funny to see him flail for words. ‘Oh my God,’ Chuuya mutters, once Dazai is still smiling at him blankly, waiting for him to finish his sentence, ‘you know what I’m talking about!’
‘I really don’t,’ Dazai says pleasantly. ‘When we used to what, Chuuya?’
‘Wake up together in the morning,’ says Chuuya, skirting around the words ‘have sex’ like they’ll poison him if he so much as utters them. Chuuya glares at Dazai like he wants to kill him with his eyes. For someone seemingly so brash and loud, Chuuya can be such a prude. Or maybe he’s not, and he just doesn’t want to admit out loud that he ever had sex with Dazai. Yeah, that’s probably why.
‘Really? You’ll have to remind me again about that,’ Dazai says, feigning ignorance. ‘Huh. Why did we used to wake up in the same bed, again?’
Chuuya hits him. ‘Oh, I wonder that too,’ he snaps. ‘I ask myself why I did that every single day.’
‘You think about me every single day?’ Dazai gasps, batting his eyelashes with a playfulness he doesn’t feel. Chuuya is so close to him that it makes him dizzy. Before, touch used to be something commonplace between them- their fingers would interlock during a car ride, Dazai would lean his head on Chuuya’s shoulder whenever they watched a movie, and of course, they would take care of each other at the end of missions, especially when Chuuya used Corruption, which involved a lot of touching. Chuuya’s touch used to be comforting. Now it’s electrifying. It sets all the hairs on the back of his neck on edge. It feels like first love all over again, and Dazai hates it. He already fell in love with Chuuya once, and it was horrible. It had him actually cleaning up his shipping container once in a while in case Chuuya decided to drop by unannounced, obsessing over what to wear even though he always wore the same thing anyway so the most he did was wrap his bandages slightly looser, and calling Odasaku at all hours of the night to complain about whatever Chuuya did that made his heart feel like it was going to beat out of his chest until even Odasaku, the man with the patience of a saint and like six kids, had to hang up on him for his own sanity. After all that, is it really crazy to think that Dazai doesn’t want a repeat experience on the woes of first love?
‘Yes. I’m thinking about ways to kill you every single day,’ Chuuya tells him flatly.
‘How romantic,’ Dazai sighs. ‘Anyway, if you must know, the comb was one of your many hair accessories that you had piled up in your bathroom. One day I started using it and you probably didn’t even notice that it was originally yours, because you had as much hair products as Kouyou-san by that point.’
‘Ane-san has a reasonable amount of hair products,’ Chuuya defends.
‘Last I checked, your Ane-san had three cabinets overflowing with just hair masks,’ Dazai points out.
‘Five,’ Chuuya mumbles.
‘What?’
‘It’s five cabinets now,’ Chuuya corrects, and the blush on his cheeks makes Dazai want to kiss him so much his chest physically aches with it, with the want and the longing that he’s repressed for four years now. It’s not fair to either of them, but it’s especially not fair to Chuuya, who came to his apartment to help pack but ended up cleaning the whole place just because he couldn’t bear to leave Dazai living in a mess, and went above and beyond just to help someone who left him for dead and betrayed him. He’s so good. He’s so human. It’s not fair. Dazai can’t do this to someone like Chuuya. He can’t. Maybe Chuuya is the one still working for the Mafia, while Dazai is working for the Agency, but Chuuya will always be a better person than he could ever hope to become in his wildest dreams. It’s not right to taint Chuuya like this, with his presence that makes everything sick and shrivelled and half-dead. It’s not right. And maybe before he wouldn’t care, but he’s trying to do things right, now. He’s trying to be a good person.
‘What?’ Chuuya asks, squinting at the weird look on Dazai’s face. ‘What is it? You’re thinking about something weird, aren’t you?’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Dazai lies.
‘Bullshit,’ Chuuya scoffs. ‘I fucking know you.’
‘I wish you didn’t,’ says Dazai without thinking, before his eyes widen. If he were a person with less control over his body, his hand would’ve flown to cover his mouth, but he’s not. Instead he just stares at Chuuya like a deer frozen in headlights. ‘I didn’t mean that.’
‘You did,’ Chuuya says after a moment. His expression is, for once, unreadable. ‘It’s fine. I know. I get it. I should go. I’m not- we’re not- like this anymore.’
‘No,’ Dazai blurts out, grabbing Chuuya’s wrist. He doesn’t know what to say, but he knows he can’t let Chuuya just leave like this. Dazai doesn’t want Chuuya to know him because he’s irreversibly fucked up and awful and a flimsy excuse for a human being, not because of anything against Chuuya. It just feels too uncomfortably vulnerable, for someone to know all the worst parts about you that you’ve tried to hide, and that they can see through you like you’re made of glass even though you made such an effort to paint yourself opaque. It’s Chuuya, which makes it a little better than if it was anyone else. But it’s still- just- awful. He doesn’t want anyone to see him. But he doesn’t want Chuuya to leave, either, caught up in this weird desire to love someone and still not be known himself that’s pulling his body in two different directions. To be loved is to be known, and God, he knows that. But he just wishes being known wasn’t so- so- excruciating, and-
‘No, what?’ Chuuya asks, his voice carefully measured, but Dazai can see a flicker of- something- in his blue eyes.
‘Your apartment is pretty far from here,’ Dazai says, in lieu of a proper response.
‘Not really,’ Chuuya counters. ‘It’s only around 25 minutes away, and I brought my motorcycle.’
‘But you drank a whole bottle of vodka,’ Dazai presses. ‘Should you really be driving while intoxicated?’
‘It’s not like I’ll die,’ Chuuya points out stubbornly. He’s really just going to make Dazai say it. ‘I’ll just use my ability if I get into trouble.’
‘But what if you crash your motorcycle in the process? You love that thing.’
Chuuya sighs, and looks straight at Dazai. ‘Dazai,’ he begins. ‘What are you trying to tell me?’
They both know what he’s trying to say, but maybe it makes a difference to say it out loud anyway. ‘Chuuya,’ Dazai begins, his voice tremulous. ‘Stay the night.’
Chuuya doesn’t say anything for a long moment. ‘Why?’ he asks quietly. ‘Why now, of all times? We’re not even-‘ He lets the words dissipate, but Dazai hears them anyway.
Friends. They’re not even friends, anymore. Of course it hurt to lose his partner, when Dazai left. But he wasn’t just losing his partner, his colleague, the other half of Double Black. He was losing his best friend too. Before anything else, before his first love and first kiss and first heartbreak, Chuuya had been his first ever friend.
‘I know,’ Dazai finds himself saying. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t know what to say.’
‘Of course you don’t,’ Chuuya mutters. ‘That’s fine. I know what you want to say. Just,’ and at that he looks up, ocean-blue gaze meeting Dazai’s own, ‘it doesn’t hurt to try and say some things out loud once in a while, you know? I know- I know what you mean and I know what’s going on in that head of yours that makes everything more complicated than it really is. But just because I know what you’re thinking,’ he sighs, shoulders deflating, ‘doesn’t mean that I don’t want to hear you say it.’
‘Okay,’ says Dazai. ‘So will you stay the night, Chuuya?’
Chuuya squeezes his hand once. ‘Where do you keep your pyjamas?’ he asks instead, and Dazai’s face bursts out into a surprised smile.
Chuuya refuses to go to bed with the apartment such a mess, so Dazai leaves him to clean up some more and heads to bed first. He feels sixteen again, heady and dizzy and intoxicated with the fever of first love, and his heart is beating so fast it feels like it could break right out of his chest. Chuuya is in his apartment- Chuuya is going to sleep in his bed. He paces around the room a few times to calm his racing heart before he decides that he’s just being silly and goes to bed. Chuuya slides in a few minutes after, smelling of clean coconut soap from God knows where, because Dazai only buys the brands that smell like lemon.
‘Hey,’ says Dazai quietly in the darkness. It’s oddly reminiscent of the many times they used to fall asleep next to each other just like this, except now, there’s a strange distance between them that feels impossible to breach. They’re lying side by side without touching, and Dazai, at least, is making an effort to keep his back ramrod-straight for fear of scaring Chuuya off like his touch is poisonous. It probably is.
‘Hey,’ says Chuuya, and there’s a hint of a smile in his voice. ‘Go to sleep.’
‘I can’t,’ Dazai whines. ‘I’m so cold.’
‘It’s… the middle of July?’
‘I’m still cold,’ Dazai laments.
Chuuya sighs, before shifting closer to lie on Dazai’s chest. ‘Are you warm now?’ he asks, as if Dazai isn’t currently speed-running through the process of turning into a furnace from the way his whole body seems to light up like a firework at one touch from Chuuya. He almost regrets that he hadn’t taken off his bandages to bed, but then again, if Chuuya actually touched him skin-to-skin without any barriers in-between, Dazai thinks he would combust.
‘Better,’ Dazai breathes out, and they both pretend not to notice how his voice shakes. Chuuya’s hair tickles the tip of his chin, and he’s hyper-aware of every slow, measured inhale that Chuuya takes in, every inch of his skin that’s touching Dazai’s own, every hair strand of his that falls endearingly out of place. ‘But I could be a little warmer.’
Chuuya’s body shakes in silent laughter, and he slings an arm around Dazai, lying fully on top of him like a pillow. ‘How about now?’
‘Now’s perfect,’ Dazai exhales.
‘Alright,’ Chuuya whispers, carving out a space for his head between Dazai’s ribs. Dazai feels like he’s made of brittle glass- that the slightest wrong movement will shatter him into pieces. But Chuuya doesn’t make wrong movements when it comes to Dazai, because he knows him. ‘I’m glad.’
They lie there in silence for so long that Dazai would think Chuuya had fallen asleep, if he didn’t know how his breaths fell when he was unconscious. Chuuya’s still awake, but barely. Dazai can’t fall asleep until Chuuya does- his body is still on fire with the sensation of touching Chuuya, getting to be near Chuuya, feeling Chuuya’s body weight ground him into reality. He’s tried other things to help him be present in the moment, when it feels like his mind is floating off somewhere else- he’s ordered weighted blankets, eaten ice cubes, even done math equations, but nothing works quite as well as the sensation of Chuuya’s body bringing him back down to Earth.
‘I missed this,’ Chuuya mumbles sleepily. ‘I missed- I missed you.’ He lifts his head up a little, to stare at Dazai with sleep-heavy blue eyes that seem to glow like nightlights in the dark. ‘Where did you go?’
The alcohol must be getting to his system, because Dazai knows Chuuya knows perfectly well where he was for those past four years, which is partly because Chuuya stalked him and also because Dazai kept sending him annoying updates about where he was a day after he’d already moved from that location, during the two years in which he was aimlessly floating around before joining the Agency. But he also knows that’s not really what Chuuya is trying to say. What he means is- what he can’t say is, even when he’s drunk and exhausted and half-asleep is- ‘Why did you leave me?’
‘Away,’ Dazai says simply, running a hand through Chuuya’s impossibly soft hair. ‘But I’m back now. So you don’t have to worry.’
‘Wasn’t- wasn’t worried, asshole,’ Chuuya mumbles, letting his head drop back onto Dazai’s chest. ‘Knew you could take care of yourself. I just missed you.’
Dazai swallows an inexplicable lump in his throat. ‘Ah,’ he says, blinking back sudden moisture in his eyes. ‘I-‘ he can’t say it. It’s not fair. He can’t do this again to Chuuya, who deserves so much better than what he got. Whom Dazai brought into the Mafia and left for dead. Who cares about everyone he interacts with, from his subordinates to the cats on the roadside to the shop-owners of the bakery he frequents to Dazai, of all people, who deserves Chuuya’s kindness the least out of literally everyone he knows and yet somehow ends up receiving it the most. ‘Go to sleep,’ he finally manages to say.
He can’t say it. But he knows that Chuuya will know what he means, why the words are stuck in his throat like glue.
But-
‘Just because I know what you’re thinking doesn’t mean that I don’t want to hear you say it.’
‘I missed you too,’ Dazai whispers, and he listens to Chuuya’s breaths, the ones that still happen too fast for him to be properly asleep. His mouth feels sick with wanting and longing and grief, but God, he’s going to swallow down the glue in his mouth to get the words that he should’ve said ages ago to finally, finally come out for Chuuya’s sake. ‘You know that I missed you. That I- I miss you.’
In the end, Dazai does fall asleep first.