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There is an explosion of red, spreading dust and debri and blowing a gust of wind that billows Dazai's winter coat. The distance is enough that that is all he feels, and his feet remain rooted to the ground, curiosity taking over the hollow amber eyes that are turned toward the devastation. His heart did not stir, or even jolt, at this sudden event.

That is how dead it has become.

He contemplates walking away. He doesn't often care much for catatrosphies and tragedies. But instead he finds himself standing there, his eyes trained into the fog. There is something there, his intuition tells him. 

(Later he would call it fate).

In the absolute silence following the loud boom of an explosion, he can hear the taps of his own shoes, unhurried and calm, heading right into the eye of the storm.

In the center of it all, as the dust and smoke clears, is a tiny boy slumped on his knees, his redhaired head bowed. More and more it clears, until he can see the hospital gown down to his knees, black liquid all around him. Burn marks stretch across the ground like charred branches of a tree. 

Upon hearing the steps the boy's eyes snap up at him, stark sea blue against the grey of the devastation around him. He pushes up to his feet, wobbly as a cobalt's, as if he isn't used to them. Like a cornered puppy he growls threateningly at him, teeth clenched; body tensed and knees bending as if ready to fight.

He is so tiny, is Dazai's first thought. Not just in height. He is skin and bones.

He does not seem to know language, judging by the way he only makes threatening noises the closer Dazai comes towards him. He sees Dazai smirking, amused. He sees him cock his head.

The boy screams, high and loud, before chunks of debri glow red and rise high around him. Dazai touches one, and watches it fall. When the others charge at him, they too fall upon contact with his palms, instantly losing all the energy of the boy's ability. Gravity manipulation, Dazai understands. Then, with an arch of his brow, Interesting.

The boy's face falls, taken aback.

That's when the first of the fear comes over his face. And the wordless noises of terror, a cry and a whimper as he staggers back, trips on his bare feet and falls on his bottom.

In that second Dazai sees the horror of his life in his eyes, even if he doesn't know what they entailed. All he knows is that it lives in this boy's body, when he grips his red hair tightly in his fists in a way that must hurt, rocking back and forth, crying, shaking his head.

When Dazai comes closer, he can hear sounds that are almost words, though they are deformed and slurred. Did he perhaps know language, then, only forgot how to use it?

The deformed and shaky and broken whispers Dazai can make out are closest to nidoto modoranai, nidoto modoranai —

Never go back again, never go back again —

He looks like the loneliest creature in the world.

Dazai lowers to a knee before him. The boy jerks back with a gasp, on his palms behind him. Over the fear comes blazing anger, the burning and wild desire for survival, fingers curling into fistfuls of dust caked with the black, tar like liquid. Everything around him glows red again. So Dazai touches the top of his hair gently, and everything falls. 

"Hello there."

Something else happens, with the touch of his hand to the boy's head.

The anger fades from his face, replaced with something confused. The furrow between his brows smooth slightly, almost wondrous. Perhaps it was the gentleness as foreign to him as it is to Dazai, as foreign as the way he felt seeing this boy, as foreign as the fascination keeping his eyes wildly and closely roving over his — frankly, even under the grime and liquid — beautiful face. Perhaps it is the silence under one's skin brought by his ability.

"Well," Dazai whispers to him. "I guess I'm taking you."

He looks like the loneliest creature in the world; looking up at Dazai with wide blue eyes, seeming just as fascinated by him now.

***

By now at fourteen, having been on the streets for half his life at this point, Dazai is well aware of the many abandoned warehouses and buildings in Yokohama whenever he needs to stop somewhere, or take up temporary residence. But his favorites, of course, are all the vacation houses of the wealthy that are empty for months. He is well aware of the schedules of the caretakers that visit every now and then to tidy the house, so he knows when to stay out of the way. He breaks in during the winters, and leaves as June rolls around. 

He goes around wherever he pleases, like an untethered balloon in the wind, going nowhere and everywhere at once.

The thing about summerhouses, however, is that they are too far out in the city. And the only reason Dazai manages to break in without setting off security alarms is because he is...well, him, with his deft and clever hands and movements, a quick and sharp mind that recognizes the measures used instantly and how to dismantle them temporarily. But there's no guarantee a feral chibi gravity boy won't set something off, as well as the fact that the chibi is not in any condition to travel out so far.

Either way it's not a good idea to let the chibi act out with his ability in any way, or carry him around the city too long. There will be people investigating the explosion of the lab — people who are looking for him, and they want him. Namely the government, the Special Ability Division. The rumors will go around and if other organizations get wind of this then they, too, will come for him.

Dazai still doesn't know how intelligent this boy is, if he is at all that is. So far he only knows the chibi understands language but seems to have forgotten how to use his vocal chords. When Dazai asks him to read road signs or storeboards, though, the chibi just stares blankly at them. But then the chibi also looks as if he is about to faint any second, and can't seem to stop staring hungrily at the crepes and sandwiches in people's hands.

Dazai doesn't have any money but he garners pity from a young couple and brings it to the bench for the chibi.

He tries to say something, and Dazai is perhaps only able to understand the mess of words because of the mind he has. What is this? Is this edible? He is staring at the food with wonder and a desperate kind of hunger. 

"Mhm, it's called a crepe. Chibi should eat or else he will shrink even more until he disappears!"

That's all the incentive the chibi needs to shove it all in his mouth with both hands, scarfing it down with a kind of starvation that Dazai recognises, knows what it feels like, but oddly unnerves him all the same seeing it in this bony boy. It's clear it's not enough, because the chibi slumps back against the bench with weakness again and looks at Dazai with implore and yearning, and so Dazai chooses his next target and garners child-related sympathy and compassion from a middle-aged pair of parents until they give him their food, bringing it to the bench the chibi is on again. 

The chibi's bony state and dirty clothes as well as his own only help Dazai's persuasion even more. A few people come and offer their meals themselves even. He knows the chibi is beautiful, with his hair like autumn and his eyes as blue as the sea, and wonders if that makes people want to help him a little more. He does not remember people ever coming up to help him with this much frequency. He supposes, however, that he tends to scare people away if he doesn't deliberately make himself soft and pitiable. And of course, he is not as beautiful as the little fairy boy. Once, when he was seven, a drunk man on the street as he was kicking him in the gut told him he looked like a black mummy cat. 

After a time the chibi seems nauseous, slightly green. It makes sense if the chibi hasn't eaten anything in a while. Thankfully he manages to keep it down however because frankly Dazai does not do well with sick people. Not that it would make him sick too. He just doesn't like sick people.

Before evening Dazai finds an abandoned house to spend their day in. He asks the chibi questions and decodes his answers, slurred and hardly comprehensible to anyone except Dazai. But the more he speaks, the more he should gain control over his vocal chords and all related muscles and skills. 

"What do you remember about your life?"

The chibi shakes his head, a twitch of a frown taking over his face as he lowers his head, looking down at his fingers pulling at a thread on his sleeve; a shoplifted gray jumper with an orange puppy on it.

"You don't remember anything at all?" Dazai asks, equal parts fascinated and bewildered.

The lack of a response confirms it.

"Well, what about your name at least chibi?"

It's the first time he calls him that at a time the chibi is not too starved to focus on it, and the boy's face is overtaken by a scowl, bristling.

"Well it's not like I know what else to call you. You're so tiny it's all that comes to mind. You also remind me of a very small dog with your temper and growling noises. You know what! From now that's what you'll be. My dog."

It turns out he does remember his name. But this one is hard to understand, frankly, since names can be just about anything. There are too many options, so the misformed syllables can be a lot of things. But Dazai repeats after him, to the chibi's growing frustration, until he finally manages to settle on Nakahara Chuuya.

It's the first time Dazai sees the light in his eyes, setting his face bright with a delighted smile as he nods excitedly upon hearing his own name said by someone else, his breath becoming shallow and fast as if he can't breathe from the happiness. Suddenly he is glowing red in the air spinning around in circles from joy, truly like the tiny fairy Dazai thinks of him as. He comes back down quickly after several seconds just to beam at Dazai. It is perhaps the first time he can remember ever hearing anyone say his own name.

Dazai finds himself fixated on that light in his eyes, the first smile he has ever given him. Dazai is, essentially, the first person he has ever smiled at.

And there's something about that.

There's something about that that tugs at his cold, dead heart; the first threads of a feeling taking root inside it.

He is well aware that people do not belong to people.

But there's something about that that makes him feel like Nakahara Chuuya is all his.

___

They spend many days closed up inside the abandoned house, partially because Dazai is hyperaware of the authorities that would be looking for Chuuya. Now it isn't clear just how exactly Chuuya's abilities manifested into the devastation that was caused in that lab, because Dazai lacks the sufficient information that might be accessible to the higher ups but it's likely they have that information, so it's not impossible for them to connect the devastation to a gravity manipulator, to identify Chuuya.

Dazai going out alone to come back with any needed supplies and food, whether that's by playing a part that invokes sympathy, shoplifting, pickpocketing, by whatever means necessary. Chuuya draws attention since he doesn't always have full control over his ability and it's seemingly linked to his emotions. So firstly Dazai thinks they should get that under control, and also teach Chuuya about the world, and also how to talk.

That's what they do most of the time inside the abandoned house; Dazai spending hours telling him all about the world. There are times he makes up absurd things, namely about how babies are born (they are brought to your parents in a sack by storks) just because he can't wait for the day Chuuya will find out it was a lie.

But he tells him about the human body, and why they eat, and the elements of nature, and how people are born; first as babies, as tiny as your hands, then they grow bigger and bigger. Chuuya's face was of confusion, and it was, of course, because he couldn't remember being a child as small as those he has seen at the park. He tells Chuuya about the seasons, and animals — the cats and dogs he saw in the park, and about films in theaters, and the sea, which was one of the few things Dazai liked about the world ("I'll take you there one day.")

As the daylight turns to night, Dazai explains to him about that too; why the light is dimming outside the windows, about the moon and the stars, which they can't see as much from here because of the light pollution. He tells him about sunrises and sunsets, which they can't see from here either, blocked by buildings and architecture. But the orange-yellow light streams in through their windows when they open it, streaks across skies through clouds like a glimpse of heaven.

At the end of the evening, Dazai teaches him pronunciations of Japanese words, mouthing to show him the shape of them, emphasizing on the sound of the syllables. The chibi is fierce and aggressive so when he teases him or when he gets impatient and snaps he tends to get a smack in the stomach and an angry glare that's maybe more cute to Dazai than scary, unfortunately for the chibi. Because now it's pretty much all Dazai wants to do, tease him until he's screaming and trying to tear Dazai's hair out, Dazai's hands tight around his too small and thin wrists as he is smirking at him. Chuuya then floats up into a corner of the ceiling, upset, and ignores Dazai for an hour when he tries to get him to come down.

At night, as they are lying next to each other to sleep, Dazai's face close to Chuuya's, "Chuuya?"

When Dazai says his name, he gains Chuuya's attention, in a way that's brighter, softer. His eyes are attentive, as if he is drawn to the mere kindness of having his name said, and wants to be kind in return. And Dazai wonders about that, about what he is so used to that makes him feel it so keenly. Dazai has never thought about his own name much, but he realises that he can't remember the last time anyone has said his name either.

He thinks too hard and long about whether he should say what's on his mind. His heart is, bizarrely, racing a bit, and yet there is a strange yearning. 

"Can you say Osamu?" he whispers.

Chuuya blinks up at him, lying a bit below Dazai. The moonlight colors him a pale blue, blending into his eyes. Their pillows are makeshift, folded up clothes.

"O-sa-mu," Dazai tries to spell it out. If he didn't master control over every inch of himself at this point, his voice would have trembled. Even then it does, ever so slightly.

Chuuya tries to say it, his lips shaping around it with him. O, to Dazai's O, and sha to his 'sa', mu. It runs together, barely anything proper. Oshamu.

They try it over and over.

"O," Dazai leads.

"O," Chuuya follows.

"sa."

"sha."

"Not sha. Sa."

"...sha?"

Sigh.

"mu."

"mu."

Over and over. It is the one word Dazai finds himself patient with, repeating over and over, perhaps borne simply of that yearning to hear it in someone else's voice. In his voice. 

It is the first word Chuuya says with perfection. O-sa-mu , like a wave against the shore, and the smile that comes on his face is precious, slow — as awed as Dazai's own when he smiles down at him.

All his life, he has smiled only for a purpose, for a cause, despite the emptiness behind it. It has always been a deliberate, practiced thing, only to be wielded in situations that require it.

It's the first time he thinks it has come to him without warning or thought, the first time he feels it up to his crinkling eyes.

***

For the most part they've been cooped up inside the abandoned building except for when they needed to get something. There's no basic need that Dazai's survival and manipulation skills hasn't fulfilled; getting people to give him whatever he or Chuuya want or need, or just pickpocketing wallets and stealing off grocery stores if he can't be bothered with the hassle. Whatever Dazai noticed Chuuya's eyes linger on, he got it. Chuuya tends to get rather upset and angry if he can't eat, if there's something in the way or he goes hungry too long. Dazai's read enough medical books that he knows undernutrition and low blood sugar contributes to that. Also knows vitamin D deficiency is also a thing and you need to get it from the sun, so some days Dazai starts taking his tiny dog out to the park too.

Now that Chuuya's not hungry and thirsty and sick half the time, Dazai sees him be more observant of what goes on around him. He watches the birds. He watches people feeding birds and makes Dazai get bird seeds so he could do that too. He kneels before them and watches them with a pleased look on his face. He blinks at dogs and cats, seems to like them, the dogs far more than he should if you're asking Dazai. 

A lady asks Chuuya if he wants to pet her husky and Dazai thinks he just watched the chibi fall in love, his hand running through the fur, clearly feeling it and absorbing the sensation. Dazai kneels before him and touches him subtly, to make sure Chuuya doesn't end up floating and dancing around out of happiness again.

He watches people laugh and talk effortlessly and sing and dance and have picnics and play sports. He watches them keenly, as if he is trying to drink in as much of the world around him as he could. He watches people hug or hold hands and there's a strange flicker of something across his face, and then he looks to Dazai. 

It's not quite something that Dazai understands. When he looks around him, everything is dull and grey and boring. He sees the world around him through a hazy film that he can't reach through and touch with his awareness, despite never being able to stop noticing everything. It's as if the world looks like a painting he can see the silhouette lines of, always, to remind him it's not real. He sees humans like intelligent animals that can think and communicate and express emotions clearly, like he is an alien from another planet, except he is untethered to anything. Everything around him had already bled out its color a long time ago, before he was even aware of his own sad, pathetic, disgusting existence. He feels detached and cold and dead. He feels nothing. He likes the sun and the moon and the oceans, likes anything, in the way you know something, think something. Vaguely nice, soothing. Not in the way that you feel it.

He does not understand the range of emotions Chuuya feels at the smallest things, at everything. But he finds himself staring each time, trying to catch the light in his eyes, because it's the first time he feels the stirrings of something maybe real inside his chest.

***

Chuuya learns things faster than Dazai expects, which makes him realize that the chibi is in fact intelligent, more so than most people but, of course, not the way Dazai is. Nobody is. He knows he isn't the only one with a mind as cursed as his in the entire world. The probability is too small for that. But he has never met anyone like himself, and sometimes it feels that way. Like he is the only one that sees through life the way he does, the artificiality and pointlessness of it, sees the probability of every outcome possible, analyzes things faster than he can breathe. Like he is the only one whose mind never stops working in a hundred different directions. The only one who can't sleep until the sun sheds its first light onto the world, because his mind just won't go quiet.

The chibi is certainly the closest thing to it. It is certainly fascinating to see him pick up ten times more information and skills than most people would in the short amount of time he does.

He learns enough language to communicate in two weeks, though his pronunciation and syllables are collapsed like that of one still learning to speak. But it's enough to understand him, or so it is for Dazai anyway.

"Does Chuuya like this world so far?"

Sometimes when Dazai sees other people, blissfully ignorant and normal and effortless, he wants to borrow their consciousness for a moment. To be inside their mind and see life through their eyes. The value of it, the reasons why it's worth staying. Even if there aren't any it must be nice, the illusion of it.

He thinks it's something Chuuya seems to understand; the value of life and the world or whatever, though it's a different matter. A far more interesting matter for sure. Chuuya's eyes, the eyes he is seeing this world and life through, are like that of a newborn baby who is conscious enough to experience it all for the very first time. 

Of course it's not all positive exactly. Like those newborn babies, it's easy for the world to get overwhelming and overstimulating and too big for Chuuya. The first time they walked through a crowd was awful because Chuuya was hyperventilating by the end of it and didn't go out to the park for a week after. Dazai tries to make sure where they are is never too noisy whenever they are outside, and they don't stay longer than an hour or two before coming back to the abandoned house.

Chuuya hums, on the edge of a pleasant sleep.

Dazai wishes he could see the world through his eyes.

"What does Chuuya like about it?"

Chuuya seems to wake up a little, his eyes opening slightly.

"I like you," Chuuya mumbles, and Dazai's heart stops for a few seconds. Chuuya doesn't seem to notice, keeps going, and it takes Dazai a few times to blink past the strange tightness in his chest and listen to the rest, Dazai's mind clearing the pronunciations of certain syllables and consonants and vowels still being learned, "—dogs and cats. I like the birds. I like the grass and the trees and the sun when it's not too hot. I like the moon. I like people when they smile at me and give me food."

Well, what does Chuuya not like, is the better question. Dazai supposes he somewhat expected this answer from someone who's new to everything.

"Why?"

Let me see the world with wonder, through your eyes.

Maybe I will find a reason to live through them.

"Like ," Chuuya says, face scrunched as he is deeply concentrating on how to say what he wants. " Like you teach me things, and talk to me and bring me food, and you have pretty eyes, and when dogs are happy when you pet them, and their fur is soft. When cats cuddle your legs. It's cool that birds can fly so high— "

Chuuya's still going on but, well, frankly Dazai is getting bored and he does not understand why any of those things are nice. He likes cats at least, but that's about it, and he understands cognitively why birds flying is interesting to someone who is seeing most living creatures on the ground, but he's fairly certain it won't be that cool once Chuuya learns he can fly even higher than them if he manages to figure out how to control gravity. He tries to imagine what the world would look like if he saw it for the first time, but the bleakness and lackluster and numb feeling sticks to his thoughts and mind and everything is still dull and boring.

And half of his mind is still too stuck on, I like you and you have pretty eyes, for some reason.

'—people do nice things even if they never saw me before so I like them," brings Dazai back. This is not Dazai's experience with people, who mostly tended to ignore him when he was a child until he learned to be machiavellian and figure out what makes people tick. He's certain a big part of why it comes so easily to Chuuya is because Chuuya is beautiful even at his worst state. "But only the park people. Not the lab people."

Dazai's eyes drift to the scar on his throat, a thick line across the very front, right below his Adam's apple; the same scars that are on Chuuya's wrists, down the line of his sternum. On the back of his neck, he has been branded in small letters, A5158 , the skin raised like a thick burn scar. A lifetime scar. Dazai saw it all the first day as he was giving his dog a sponge bath after submerging him in the Yokohama river to clean off the black liquid (which was also a bad idea that was necessary, because apparently Chuuya had fears about drowning — indicative of something in his past considering he did not seem to even know what water was), cataloging each scar. 

His fingers twitch, a strange urge to touch those scars again. They look painful. Dazai doesn't like pain. He can't remember most of his early childhood but the scars on his own body, under the bandages, have always been there too. Like Chuuya, he doesn't have the memories of how they were made on him.

"Is there anything Chuuya remembers of the lab people?"

Chuuya's eyes are now fully open, staring at the ceiling. Even the thought of them seems to make him feel something visceral. Once Chuuya saw a syringe on the ground — likely used for drugs — and froze, hyperventilating by the time they got back to their abandoned house. Chuuya also doesn't like the dark so they always have to have a light on.

What did they do to you?

Chuuya shakes his head.

"Maybe the chibi remembers bits and pieces?"

There is a long silence. 

"I don't think I existed."

"Clearly chibi did," Dazai says, because it's only logical, not really even a reassurance, "why else would he be so scared of syringes and lab people? It's only that he doesn't remember all those years of his life, but it seems they are still in there somewhere."

Chuuya's eyes are on the ceiling, still wide. Dazai can't tell if it's fear, or a kind of relief at, perhaps, being a person like the others; that he was once a small child too, like the ones he sees at the park; that he did exist. Dazai knows people fear it; the nonexistence, the reason they fear death. But to Dazai it seems peaceful, like being asleep and never waking up. It seems like an escape. If only most ways to get there didn't seem to be so full of pain.

"You think so?"

"Mhm."

___

That night, like most nights, Dazai does not sleep, wide awake beside Chuuya with his hands on his abdomen, his brain running a mile a second in a hundred different clear directions. It never goes quiet. It never stops.

He is there to hear the first strangled noise that comes from Chuuya in his sleep; the twist of his face, the furrow of his brows as he squirms, arms spread out, bare feet moving on weak thrashes. He sleeps like that, broadly, comfortably, taking up too much space. He likes to sleep too.

What do you dream about? Dazai once asked, curious, as to what a mind like his dreams about; intelligent but unknowledgeable.

Chuuya stared at him blankly in confusion.

Ah, right, I should explain.

But Chuuya did not know anything about what those were. When he sleeps, he just sleeps and then wakes up, as if it's night and after a very long blink it's day.

And so...this is unexpected. A first.

It seems Chuuya is having a nightmare.

It starts with hitched breaths. Then heaves, gasps of pure terror.

And then he's screaming, high and loud, thrashing violently against whatever is holding him down in his dream. His back arches up. Dazai's up on his elbow in a few heartbeats once the initial shock wears off, and he's holding him down by the shoulders, which makes the thrashing and screaming and gasps even worse but it can't be helped. They sleep on the floor and it would hurt and leave bruises tomorrow morning if Chuuya keeps throwing himself around like this. He's still frail enough that he might break something.

"Chuuya! Chuuya wake up!" 

Dazai wraps his arms around him to hold him still and tight and off the floor, as Chuuya begins to dry heave and cry hysterically in his sleep, shoving and arching against his chest, his feet going wild against the ground beneath him. Dazai feels one bony knee kick him in the gut.

"Aghh, Chuuya! Chibi, open your eyes!"

With a gasping sob his eyes fly open, wide and frozen up on the ceiling and glistening in the moonlight, shaking violently with his mouth open and still crying, tears streaming down the corners of his eyes. The stunned shock and horror on his face is something beyond comprehension. Beyond bearable.

"Chuuya was dreaming," Dazai tells him, his voice quiet and gentler than he means it to be, almost a whisper as if anything louder would make Chuuya bolt like a spooked animal, "Chuuya was having a very bad dream. What did he see?"

Chuuya does not say anything. He just stares up with that same stunned shell-shock and horror, white as death and mouth opened and shaking awfully. Dazai is still holding him so tightly he can feel his heart hammering too fast and hard against his own chest; so fast he thinks it could have killed another person. Could kill him , with how fragile and weak his small body still seems to be. 

"I don't remember," is what Chuuya whispers, after a very long time.

______

The mind has many defense mechanisms. Dazai knows this. Among them is repression; memories that are so terrifying and painful your mind buries it deep until you can't remember any of it. But still it shows up anyway, one way or another. Sometimes it's in small ways, trickling into your every day life. Other times it bursts out, all against your will.

The horror and shell shock that leaves Chuuya trembling and frozen wears off eventually. Dazai couldn't tell you why he never quite let him go until he saw the focus come back into Chuuya's wet eyes, until he was turning them to look into Dazai's too-close face.

Then of course Chuuya seems to become aware of the way he is being held. Then of course Dazai remembers he should let go, tries to, until there's a grip on the chest of his shirt pulling him closer and their foreheads and noses are together in the dim lights, his other hand holding Dazai's arm to himself, and Chuuya's face is confused and desperate, as if he can't understand what he is feeling. Dazai does not know what he himself is feeling either; this hunger for more, more, more under his skin, the way his mind is hyperfocused on the warmth of Chuuya's body, the soft skin and bony angles, the urge to just melt against the other boy.

He wonders if this is what Chuuya is also feeling, which makes it feel less awful and — embarrassing. Weak.

There is the smallest whisper of, "don't let go."

The hunger under his skin is strong, and Dazai can't remember ever being touched this way, or touching anyone this way. Even when other people touched him in any way at all, he felt his skin crawl, the urge to break their fingers for it.

But this is different. This feels different.

Dazai lays back down beside Chuuya, shifting against the ground to make himself comfortable. Chuuya also shifts around so he is on his side, his face towards Dazai's and his eyes on his face, slightly wide and too young and his breaths somewhat erratic and shallow, in a new way. The terror has long left his body. 

It's starting to get cold, the first of the winter chills in the air, and Chuuya's body is so thin that it doesn't generate enough heat on its own so Dazai has stolen many blankets to cover him up. Maybe he should get someone to give him a double bed mattress for free soon, doesn't know why it didn't occur to him. A lot of things have started to occur to him more, he supposes, since Chuuya; things he didn't think about when it was just him. He hardly cared or remembered to eat most days. Now Chuuya would leave leftovers that Dazai eats, because he supposes he should eat something if he's going to be able to take care of his dog. 

It's in all the simple things — even things like the way he crossed roads now. Dazai never  bothered to be careful before, would just go past and hope he'd get hit but instead the cars would swerve or abruptly break, honking and cussing at him. But now that he has the chibi with him, and the chibi still doesn't know how to do that, Dazai is cautious too; holds his hand as they cross the road, makes sure the vehicles all pass first, since Chuuya is often too busy looking around him at everything.

Dazai adjusts the blankets up over Chuuya's shoulder, some strange ache and tenderness under his skin and in his chest making him; there's something about the silence, and Chuuya's eyes on his, sea blue lit in the lantern light from the corner, coloring them a faint yellow. There's something about just the two of them in his abandoned building, nothing matters but us. 

He watches Chuuya fall asleep, slow and soft, in small bits. He is so beautiful, and he is mine. All mine.

I am the first person he smiled at.

I am the first person who said his name.

I am the first person who has held him like this.

He is mine. He will always be mine now, after these things.

Dazai thinks, for a moment, that he might not ever get to feel things, or see the world the way most people do, or find a reason to live. But he can live for this, for him. For this boy. He does not care about birds or parks or trees or people, does not feel all that much when he sees the sunrise or sunset or the stars and the moon. He does not like dogs or children. He does not like the world. 

But he likes Chuuya. He likes the way Chuuya looks when he is looking at all these things. 

He likes the way Chuuya looks even when he is just falling asleep. And the way he feels.

He feels so human in his arms; his skin too soft and warm over his bones, the heat of him seeping into Dazai. His mind has gone quiet.

He is so beautiful, and he is mine. All mine.

***

Dazai actually manages to sleep well that night. When he wakes up, Chuuya is even closer to him, burrowed deeper against him. He has a leg thrown over Dazai's waist, forehead and nose pressed to his, the sleepy curl of his hands against Dazai's chest. His gray sweatshirt with a slug on the center is oversized on him (to accommodate an increasing weight eventually), almost swallowing him whole, and the sleeves are too long so they come up to his palms, trapped under his loosely folded fingers. Dazai can feel his hot breath on him. Smell it too, unfortunately, with Chuuya's mouth parted slightly, a little drool at the corner of his chin.

But for some reason he doesn't move.

He doesn't want to.

He just lightly nudges Chuuya's chin up with a knuckle so his mouth closes. And he finds himself staring at him in the daylight streaming in through the window, cutting shards of bright yellow across their bodies and faces. It's silent in this deserted part of Yokohoma, but for the morning birds chirping outside. 

Chuuya truly is beautiful; the kind of beautiful you can stare at for hours. Dazai has gone to art museums and never understood why people stand and stare at paintings, but now he thinks that maybe it's because it feels something like this.

The brush of his knuckles under Chuuya's chin seems to be the thing to stir him awake. Dazai's hand lowers slightly, hesitant for some reason now that he is about to be perceived.

Chuuya's eyes open, the first thing they land on, as always every morning, being Dazai's face. It's a different reaction than the usual though, because Chuuya, one eye half open and swollen and the other pinched shut, gives him a sleepy and soft smile, before he moves even closer with his thin arms raised and wraps them tightly around Dazai's neck, cheek squeezing to his. Dazai's heart clenches at the affection and warmth of the gesture, beating wildly against his sternum.

After a very long moment, when he thinks Chuuya might have fallen asleep against him again, Dazai's arms come around him; first his tiny waist, then across his pointy shoulderblades. He can feel their hearts beating against each other's chests, the rise and fall of each breath; his own too fast like a bird's wings, Chuuya's slow and sweet.

***

The problem is that the chibi is too cute and pretty, and sometimes Dazai just doesn't know what he's supposed to do with these feelings so he just —

Chuuya's red hair has grown out a little, enough that Dazai got a hair band for him. He combs out the many knots in his hair, makes a small ponytail out of it. And then, staring at it with his wide unbandaged eye and a small squinched, tempted smile — his hand twitching with the urge, his brain writhing around in his skull for a need to bother Chuuya — prompty pulls at it hard eough that it startles Chuuya, hands shooting up to it with a yelp.

"DAZAI!" Chuuya shrieks, fists hitting Dazai's chest. They're weak punches, since Chuuya's still just starting to gain the weight he needs. Dazai supposes he should be glad he can't use gravity on him.

Dazai laughs and dodges him, catching his wrists lightly.

"BASTARD!" Chuuya yells at him; a word he heard from someone in a road rage. He likely knew it before too, depending on how old he was when taken away, but sometimes it seems the events around him are what resurfaces knowledge and certain aspects of language or vocabulary; a particular word, a phrase.

Dazai is somewhat startled for a second, hearing him cuss at him like that, before he starts laughing again until his eyes water, folded at the abdomen with his hands clutching at it. 

It's certainly a more entertaining shift from the chibi's usual growls and aggressive noises, turning into a high screech towards the end.

Chuuya's stopped hitting him, and is now just staring at him. Dazai's laughter is still bubbling out of him, now beginning to quieten, a lingering grin left behind. Though even that fades when Chuuya's eyes on him persist.

"What?" Dazai asks, somehow managing to keep the discomfort out of his face and voice at the way Chuuya is looking at him.

It doesn't seem bad, but generally bad looks don't tend to faze Dazai much either. It's just that he felt like he gave a very big secret away, laughing the way he did. He can't remember the last time he laughed this hard; laughed at all, not without it being forced for some purpose, to charm someone into giving him something or to get out of a sticky situation.

The stare is just — intense, and very prolonged, and full of something that seems a lot like wonder, or fascination. He smirks. "Does Chuuya think I'm pretty?"

"I've never heard you laugh," Chuuya says. When he speaks, it's still with a stilt, a bit drawn out, as if he has to exert a bit of conscious effort to shape his words. His lips quirk, a slight smile. Dazai has learned that the chibi, for all the angry chibiness of him, seems to forget about things pretty fast. "I like that. I like the sound and the way you look."

Dazai flushes red and hot, though he clears his throat and keeps his face straight. "Chuuya should really learn to filter his thoughts. You can't just say everything you feel all the time." He pretends he doesn't think about it for hours after.

***

"See the thing about being tiny is that, it will be hard for people to see Chuuya. Like right now! I need a microscope just to be able to find you!"

"Hah?" Chuuya seems genuinely confused, brows furrowed tightly with one raised. "But you're looking at me right now. And — and what's a mic-micrasope? And stop calling me tiny!"

Dazai's eyes are now everywhere, pretending not to see him. Chuuya's reaction to being called tiny seems visceral, the way he used to bristle and make angry growling noises and screams whenever Dazai called him a chibi even before he could talk, which is frankly hilarious to Dazai that the chibi knows nothing about the world but still has such a complex about being small.

"That makes no sense you bastard!" 

Chuuya's new habit seems to be calling Dazai that word all the time. 

"Is that a fairy talking?"

Chuuya hits him on the chest, which tears a small oomph out of Dazai. Chuuya is getting stronger clearly, though he's still mostly skin and bones even after a month.

"Don't be an asshole!" That's another word he keeps using. It seems all the curse words are what appeal to the chibi's angry slug brain because once he learns them he doesn't stop using them. He reaches for Dazai's face to grab at it but Dazai pretends to absently turn away and miss Chuuya's hands, blinking around. He can feel Chuuya's pause behind him, staring at his back, before the angry footsteps rush up and whirl him around by the shoulder and take his face, wrenching it towards his own, "Look at me. Oi Dazai, look at me!"

When Chuuya gets angry, his face goes pink across the cheeks and nose, and his blue eyes blaze with wildfire, and it fascinates Dazai — such a pure and open display of emotion, of humanity. It doesn't always, with other people. But when it comes to Chuuya there is just something about him, when he feels something, the way he expresses himself without ever holding back. Sure Dazai thinks he could filter some of that, tailored to the way the world works so people don't try and take advantage or use it for their own agendas, to manipulate him, and Chuuya is still so naive and trusting and ignorant. But still, it's fascinating. Fascinating enough to keep him going anyhow.

And so.

"Woah that was a strong gust of wind that just turned me around. And I swear, I think there's a very tiny fairy in my ear talking to me but I just can't see him!" Dazai twists his head around this way and that against Chuuya's grip, trying to force Dazai to look at him.

"DAZAI!!" Chuuya screams.

"Oof," Dazai grimaces and jerks back, pressing a finger to his ear at how loud and in his face that was. Then, he feigns lighting up, "Ah, there you are Chuuya! I've been looking all around for you but you're so small it's easy to miss!"

Chuuya growls, his hands tightening around his jaw. Then, as he does sometimes whenever Dazai teases him too much, he floats up into a corner of the ceiling to sulk, ignoring Dazai.

That's how it is sometimes; Dazai teasing and annoying him until Chuuya seems ready to tear his hair out (and actually tries, once, but then stops at the yelp of pain Dazai gives out; staring at him wide-eyed, as if he didn't actually mean to hurt him) in some visceral response to all that he's feeling. Dazai feels like a kid. Feels giddy and excited and intrigued, like he's actually having fun for once in his life.

He lived in a big mansion once, when he was a child — until he was seven, to be precise, before he took all his things and ran away from home. He couldn't remember ever having fun. 

He remembers sitting rod straight and perfect and well-mannered at the dinner table when his father was home. He remembers his mother who would hardly ever even look at him, close the door in his face when he stood in the doorframe for her. He remembers wanting to make someone laugh, to have them want to be around him, so he'd do silly things hoping to make the servants laugh. And they did laugh. But Dazai never had fun , only remembered doing all those things out of some strange desperation to be seen and wanted. 

When he thinks of that younger version of himself and his desperation now, he can't understand it. He has grown so numb and dead at this point that he can't fathom why he ever cared that much. 

Out in the world he learned that a lot of people are like that; cold and apathetic like his mother, rageful and cruel like his father. There are normal people, of course, but normal people live their lives in blissful ignorance, in a world that is as different from Dazai's as day and night. 

Normal people are people Dazai doesn't understand or relate to. He knows how they work cognitively, intellectually. But he does not understand what it's like to experience and feel the way they do. Normal people are mostly indifferent to him, and he to them.

His solitude keeps him safe. Being alone has always kept him safe. 

When he was five, he learned that he needed to kill his feelings in order to not suffer, because that was why things hurt in the end, didn't it? His father's rage and fists and screaming. His mother's coldness and apathy. Being invisible and unwanted and lonely. Feeling too much was why he got scared; why everything scared him.

He remembers the anxious feelings that used to keep him up at night, when his mind ran a million miles a second about all things, about everything in the world that was wrong, about his mother and father, the way he felt cut off from everyone, the way he did not feel human — the way he could not connect to anyone or anything. He remembers he could not understand the purpose of being alive and here in this world, remembers how his mind would turn over and over, searching, trying to rationalize and logic his way into wanting to live. He remembers that he has always wanted to die.

***

Having been on the streets since he was seven, Dazai can smell a creep from a mile away at this point.

He and Chuuya are sitting on the park bench again. There are people around but not too many it would be noticeable that a strange, greasy man has just come and sat beside two young boys. 

"Hey, what are you two doing sitting here all alone?" the guy asks, feigning concern, "where are your parents?"

Due to the undernutrition Dazai supposes he and Chuuya look younger than they really are for people to be asking about their parents. Or well, it's not like he even knows how young Chuuya is. Clearly he's more on the other side of puberty though, so he shouldn't be much younger than Dazai is. At most he can only estimate he's a year or two younger.

Nonetheless it's clear the guy's just trying to get a feel for how vulnerable and easy prey they are.

Dazai doesn't know if Chuuya is managing to read the situation but when he glances at his face he is surprised to find Chuuya glaring at the other man, leaning against Dazai's shoulder, fingers curling around Dazai's black coat — meaning he has a better sense of danger than most people, which makes sense if Dazai really thinks about it.

If nothing else, Dazai's bored enough to fuck around with the guy. He's likely been watching them for some time.

"I don't know," Dazai mumbles, pretending to be timid. "I never knew mine. And neither does he."

The guy coos sympathetically. "I'm sorry to hear that. You get hurt or something recently?"

Dazai's bandages and dead eyes mostly make people stay away. But every now and then there are people who are stupid and annoying enough to ask about them.

"I jumped into a ditch trying to kill myself but it didn't work," he tells him, very solemnly, "no money for me to go to a hospital. I just stole these bandages to cover them up."

"Oh," the guy looks bewildered and thrown off, and tries to play it cool, "hey, don't you talk?" He turns to look at Chuuya.

Chuuya glares at him, pulling Dazai closer by grappling his arms around his waist and away from the man. "Fuck off," he snarls. Dazai tries to hold back a snicker.

The guy's face twists with anger, before he turns away to try and control it. He smiles pleasantly. "There's no need to be rude."

"Hey mister," Dazai says, "you got something for us to eat?"

Then he turns to Dazai, a kind of look in his eyes, something almost excited that he quickly puts away. Nothing ever goes past Dazai, of course, and the guy's too slow. "yeah, you hungry? I can make you something to eat back at my place. My car's right over there."

"Oh, well I was hoping you could buy us some of those crepes over there," Dazai says, pointing at the stall. He watches the guy squirm a little, seeing the small diversion from where he wants things to go.

"Ah those? I could make you something a hundred times better. Come with me. What's your name?"

"Shuuji. This is Fumiko."

"Well, Shuuji… let's go get you something to eat." He reaches for Dazai.

He's blatantly ignoring Chuuya, as if he doesn't exist, which is likely why he doesn't see it coming. To be fair though, for all his intellect and predictive abilities neither does Dazai, which is what makes it all the more glorious.

The first thing Dazai sees is a flash of red hair. The next he hears is a pained yelp. It takes him a second to fully take in what exactly he is seeing.

Chuuya's jaw is clamped down on the hand that was reaching for Dazai. His teeth are sunken deep and hard into the flesh stubbornly, and the guy is now screaming, panicking and trying to shake Chuuya off. "Fuck get off you little bastard! Get the fuck off!"

Everyone is now turning to look at them. Dazai has to hold in his laughter so he could put the final nail in the coffin. He quickly pulls at Chuuya, who lets go of the man's hand only at that cue, scrambling up to his feet while gripping his hand and staring wild-eyed at Chuuya with rage and fear. "You stupid little shit!"

Dazai turns Chuuya's face into his own shoulder, gripping the back of his redhead tightly to make it look as if Chuuya is crying into his shoulder. "Why were you trying to touch my friend like that!" He makes himself sound terrified and on the verge of tears, screaming loudly so everyone can hear it, "You were — why were you doing that? You made him feel scared and weird!"

"What? I didn't — I didn't touch him!"

End scene.

Now when people turn to look, they see a beautiful redhaired boy crying into his friend's shoulder, and a pedophile who is panicking at all the glares of disgust and anger coming over people's faces. Mothers, fathers, men and women, many of them coming to circle him.

Dazai takes Chuuya's hand and slips away, waiting until they were away to start laughing, wiping at his watery eyes. His stomach hurts. Chuuya is still glaring angrily in the direction of the guy.

"You really are my dog, aren't you Chuuya?"

***

The arcade has always been one of Dazai's most frequented places ever since he discovered it. Whenever he is bored completely out of his mind, this is one of the place he comes to, trying to stall thinking, maybe I'll kill myself after I try this new game. Maybe I'll kill myself after I beat the highscore. He used to come aimlessly, because there wasn't anything else, and he didn't know what to do with himself.

Bringing Chuuya here feels different. He supposes there is a strange sense of purpose and meaning to it — to showing things to him and trying to get his reaction.

In the arcade there are some games that get boring very quickly if he is playing with a computer, so frankly he is quite excited to bring Chuuya here so he can play with him.

Chuuya even gets the hang of it pretty quickly. Of course he isn't great at it or anything but it's a whole lot more stimulating for sure to be playing with an actual person, who gets angry and upset and hilariously competitive whenever he loses, seeing his character fall to the ground. 

They play a whole lot of games together, collecting and combining both their tokens together so they can get some sort of prize. Since Dazai doesn't actually care to get a single one of them, he lets Chuuya decide on that. When Chuuya decides on a small stuffed dog (he seems to have an obsession), Dazai almost laughs at him and asks, why did you get a stuffed toy version of yourself, Chuuya?

But he sort of forgets to do that when he sees Chuuya looking down at it in his hands with a pleased quirk of his mouth. 

"What else?" Dazai asks before he can help it, "What else does Chuuya want?" The feeling in his chest is strange, expanding. Like his ribs are too small for his heart. It's an uncomfortable feeling, and he sounds weird and awkward asking the question, as if someone else is speaking in his voice.

Chuuya looks up at him, then at the prizes. "You choose this time."

"I don't want anything. I'm asking the chibi."

"I want you to have something too."

There it is; that sincerity, kindness that softens the edges of the tiny slug's angry temperament. The question that comes to him is, where does it come from? In a boy who didn't think he even existed a month ago?

Is it just a part of some people? Is it a remnant of something taught to him from memories he doesn't remember.

Dazai takes some perishables to appease the chibi; candy and snacks, as well as a pen, since nothing really appeals to him or serves him in any way. The lady at the prize counter gives Chuuya a free slinky, Dazai supposes because she finds him cute. 

It's late by the time they leave the arcade. They're walking back to the abandoned warehouse and the route they take is fairly empty at this time, passing by a bar.

The drunken laughter reaches Dazai some feet away. There are eight men in total, gathered outside the bar, and his instincts scream alarm and danger. Dazai's encountered enough drunken men looking for physically easy targets to blow off steam on and have a power trip over to bother taking the risk.

Dazai grabs Chuuya's wrist and pulls him close, planning to turn back and change route. He is intelligent and good at getting out of sticky situations, but frankly even he has a hard time trying to deal with a group of eight unreasonable men in an unsound state of mind. Not that it's impossible for him, and depending on how the situation goes, their lack of mental clarity can be in his favor, but he'd rather avoid dealing with it where he can. Especially if Chuuya is with him.

"Hey! Hey you two! Where you goin'?"

The chorus of footsteps follow after them, coming nearer. Dazai plans to fully ignore them and keep going, but a few of them rush forward until they're in front of them, blocking their way. Now they are essentially surrounded by the men in a half circle, and Dazai quickly pulls Chuuya behind him.

The man in front of him takes a swig out of his bottle, grinning, leering at them. More specifically —

"Who's that pretty little thing you got there? Hey sweetheart, what's your name?"

Another guy laughs, "the fuck? She looks twelve, man."

"M' too drunk to care." The other goons all laugh. "I'll take anything at this point."

"He's a boy," Dazai says, neutrally, hoping that'd be enough to kill their interest.

"Huh," guy one says, smirking, "well you look like you're desperate for money. How much for your little friend there?" They're really counting on the fact that Chuuya can't fight physically. If only they knew. Chuuya may not have full control over his power yet, besides the mindless and mundane ways he uses it -- to bring something to him he's too lazy or tired to get up for, or floating up when he's really happy or upset and angry with Dazai — but if they make him angry or scared enough they'll regret it, based on the way Dazai's first meeting with Chuuya went. 

Dazai slowly lets go of Chuuya, making sure he's not touching him. Chuuya makes him stupid, unfortunately it seems. He'd reached for him without thinking.

The way they are all looking at Chuuya makes his skin crawl, like he's a piece of fresh meat and they are all hungry dogs.

"I don't know, why don't you ask him?"

Guy two laughs, looking straight at Chuuya, "How much for a night?"

"You wanna die for it?" Chuuya hisses at them. He clearly doesn't understand what's actually going on, but he's getting smart. Smart enough to pretend he is.

His response sends a wave of raucous laughter throughout the men, not taking him seriously.

"Come on, you know you want that money." Guy one's looking at Dazai again. He sounds like he's trying not to laugh. They're just messing with them. "Scrawny and banged up thing like you, we could just take him out of your hands. We're givin' you a chance here." Dazai's hand twitches at his sides.

"Hey by the way, what the fuck's up with all the bandages?" Guy four says, "You got into an accident or somethin', kid?"

"So how about it?" Guy two asks. "500 won? 1000?"

Dazai knows inverting a situation back on them, using reverse psychology, can go in many different ways. The point is to make them feel uncertain about what they're doing, what they're intending. If they're stupid enough, they'll get scared and back off, feeling like something isn't right. If they're stupider, they'll get angry and double down. Even stupider than that, they'll not take him seriously at all. Or they'll get threatened or do something violent. By Dazai's understanding and prediction, they seem to be of the last kind.

"You want him?" Dazai's face goes dark, giving them his best maniacal grin and his wildest eyes, head cocked. "Come and get him." He hopes they all die, slow and painful. Though that is a luxury, more than they deserve.

Dazai taps on Chuuya's arm behind him in the morse code he taught him. Ability.

Chuuya's breath hitches slightly behind him, which is a bad sign. It seems he isn't confident enough in his control of the ability. It's a big risk too, Dazai knows. If Chuuya uses too much of his power, especially in a public place like this, it will give the authorities a lead on him. Dazai knows without a doubt that they are already looking for him. And this close to the abandoned house means they will have to find a new place, and keep rotating for some time.

Even if Chuuya's combative skills using his ability are dubious, in any situation Dazai always has the power to make people feel uneasy and uncertain, just with his body language and expression. The guys look at each other, their smiles wiped off at the sudden twist of events. Now there is a kind of fear — dread — growing among them. Guy one turns back to look at him, eyes wide. That dread grows deeper, his breath hitched, stumbling back a bit. The rest of them seem to be feeling the same.

Your eyes — they are like the devil's , someone once said to him. The effect of it on these men is clear.

"Come on," Dazai goads, "you all want a piece of him don't you?"

They all stare at him, glancing at each other. The dread builds and builds in the silence that persists, Dazai's gaze unrelenting, his smirk hollow.

Dazai saw it coming, really; the violence under feeling threatened. But somehow he wasn't fast enough, and the only thing he can chalk it down to is that he has been somewhat weakened with half his mind stuck on the chibi, since he has never had to look out for anyone but himself before. He can feel Chuuya behind him too vividly. He can feel his hands twitch with the urge to reach for him and keep him safe, make sure their hands never touch him. 

He dodges the first two attacks; manages to get them hitting each other instead, which causes a fight between the three people as he intended. A fourth comes in as mediator. Four of them distracted, but there are still four more to go —

There is blinding, white hot pain , exploding all over his skull, glass shattering loudly inside his head and ears. He must have blacked out for a few seconds because the next time he becomes aware of anything past the agony, he is on the floor, hands hovering up over the hot trickle of blood at his temple. The world is spinning wildly around him. He can't breathe from how much it hurts.

In the spinning world all around on its axis, he sees Chuuya's terrified face, the men's hands grabbing at his arms and pulling him. Strange men, like the lab people. Strange men that want to hurt him. Chuuya's eyes are fixed on him as he is screaming what looks to be his name, Dazai can't hear or focus - he is thrashing wildly against their hold, trying to get to him. Dazai can hear his own blood drip on the ground.

"Run," Dazai rasps, forced out through grinded teeth and anguish, as four of them come looming over him, his heart pounding in his throat — for the first time in forever, pounding, not quite for himself, and making its existence known, "use — your ability — however — and just run — Chuuya!"

There's more pain — a hard strike across his face, then slamming into his gut, twice, thrice, and another blow at his lower back —

"Fucking freak."

There's a scream, high and loud, of horrible, horrible rage.

That is the last thing he hears, before everything is gone.

***

When he comes to, they're in an alley. Chuuya is sitting beside him, his hands shaking on his shoulders, fluttering over to his face. "Osamu?" His whisper trembles. He looks like he has been crying; eyes red rimmed, wide with fear and helplessness. Chuuya likely didn't even know what to do in a situation except to hide them away.

Dazai reaches for Chuuya's hands and takes them, trying to soothe the tremors by squeezing them weakly. He blames it on the head injury. 

There's a lot of noise out there; a crowd of people gathered together. It takes Dazai a minute at least to recall what happened through the hammering pain in his skull. There are a sting of glass cuts on his face.

From here, all he can infer is that a good part of the street has been leveled. Cracks are running across some length of it. The front of some buildings are damaged.

Dazai shifts across, twisting his head painstakingly around the alley corner trying to get a better look at the impact. He can see craters, eight of them to be exact, in the ground where people have been sidelined so it can be investigated, yellow tape being stretched out around the area. They will need to drag the corpses out. 

This is Chuuya's power.

For a moment he is overcome with wonder. For a moment he wishes he'd been awake to see it; the beautiful storm of destruction that caused this. This is Chuuya's power, likely just the tip of the iceberg of it. 

However satisfactory it is to know those men are dead, this will be a problem.

"We need — to get out of here," Dazai grits out, trying to get up. The area is being investigated, and they can't be found. Chuuya takes his biceps to help him up to his feet, which is frankly not much help due to how small and malnourished he is.

They break in through a backdoor with a pin; extremely difficult in the dark and through his headache, but Dazai has managed in worse states. The backdoor leads into a closed restaurant. They can stay here for the night, but they'll need to leave early in the dawn. They settle down behind the counter. It's dark except for the lights from the outside, of other places and streetlights, coming in through the laminated glass panels.

As Chuuya is using a cloth he found to clean the blood off him, soaked with water from the sink in the kitchen, Dazai tells him what he can about concussions, as briefly as he can instruct him, because right now all he wants to do is sleep to escape the pain. He lies down carefully on the floor, his coat folded up under his head as a pillow, "Wake me every hour, okay?"

Chuuya nods, "Okay." The fear has not left his eyes. It makes him look years younger. For some reason it's the first time it really hits Dazai; that Chuuya trusts him, wholly and absolutely. He trusts Dazai in a way no one ever has. 

You are all I have.

And I am all you have.

Dazai is nearly drifting away when he feels hands on his shirt, the weight of a body shifting against and over him; Chuuya's head and his hands are folded loosely on his chest, shoulders curled up sideways on top of him. Dazai wraps his arms around them, falls back asleep before he knows it.

***

They rotate for days, sleeping in empty alleys, behind counters of closed restaurants and cafes, new empty and abandoned houses and wherever else they can find. 

They sit on the edge of the streets to eat, putting the containers aside when they're done, dusting their hands off. They pull their coats in tighter, and when Chuuya is still trembling badly, Dazai raises his own big black coat and allows him to huddle against his side. The best way to keep warm is by other people's body heat. 

But Chuuya is cold . It is uncomfortable for Dazai, and he was already cold too as it was, his own lack of sufficient fat making it harder to keep warm, and it doesn't help when Chuuya seems to take that as invitation to push his hands up to his underarms, to his violent wince at the sudden jolt of ice through his shirt and into his skin, apparently just seeking warmth wherever was closest.

Dazai forced Chuuya into a few thick shoplifted sweaters but it seemed it wasn't really enough, and it became even less effective as the days went on and the season was getting colder. They can't stay sleeping on floors anymore. Dazai could have, despite his ill-wealth and thinness the human body is rather durable, but Chuuya's ill-health is on an entirely different level and is not quite up to par to be able to handle it. To be frank, Dazai is sometimes surprised at how Chuuya is able to walk around and talk at all.

"Ah," Dazai mumbles, voice strained, "maybe chibi should…" He pulls Chuuya's hands away and lets them hold his own instead. He even rubs Chuuya's hand between both of his because he's oh so nice. So Chuuya owes him big time for this — ten favors for this, really. 

Chuuya's hands get warm enough eventually, and Dazai thinks he should let go, but when he tries to Chuuya sort of just — doesn't. Let go. And well, Dazai supposes he can't really fight the chibi about it or else the chibi will get upset and float away, which is not safe out in the open, so of course it's very important that Dazai keeps holding his hand and nullifying him so he doesn't end up flying off into space or something.

Dazai keeps the tangle of their hands between them on the footpath. He doesn't move for a long time. The chibi falls asleep against his shoulder — he gets sleepy after eating, despite how little it is, his stomach full on a small portion due to low appetite. Dazai doesn't move. His back starts to hurt. 

He only moves, waking the chibi up with a small shake and a quiet voice in his ear, when it starts to become unbearable. 

"Time to go, Chuuya," Dazai says, and the chibi sits up. His head lolls a little on his neck, still half out of it, his eyes closed. It takes him a while to blink himself awake. Dazai watches him, surprisingly (to himself) patient. Or maybe it's just that there's something strangely mesmerizing and sweet about the way Chuuya wakes up. Or even falls asleep. 

"Where will we go?" Chuuya mumbles.

"We'll see." Dazai lets go of his hand, shrugs his coat off to leave it on Chuuya, and stands to his feet. He holds his bandaged hand out. "Come, chibi."

Chuuya puts his hand in his, letting Dazai draw him carefully up to his feet. He does not expect Chuuya to put the other side of the coat around Dazai's shoulders despite being still half-asleep as they begin to walk together down the street. Twilight has set over the city, and the sky is a deep purple-blue, the street lights turning on and illuminating the way with yellow light.

(Stupid chibi, squeezing at his cold little heart with his tiny hands.)

***

The destination they're heading to is on the countryside, far out from the city in an area that's fairly deserted.

They travel on the train towards the end of the line, sitting on the booths throughout the night, again huddled under the same big black coat, the only sound the steady whirr of the engine. Chuuya is pressed up against Dazai's side and watching out the window as the train travels up the arch and the city grows smaller under them, golden and white and blue points of light and rush of cars on long lit roads and shadowed silhouettes of buildings in the night. On the window they can see the reflection of their own faces. On the window Dazai watches Chuuya, eyes wide and still and fixed as a held breath, struck with wonder.

The train comes to a stop as Dazai is falling asleep. A announcement sounds over speakers, and the doors open with a beep. Someone steps off, and another steps on. He droops a little, jerking awake when he finds himself knocking against Chuuya's and straightens. 

Chuuya's head is also drooping against his shoulder, eventually settling against him fully. Dazai does not even realize it when he falls against him too, cheek pressed to his red hair.

They sleep.

___

Dazai's favorite vacation house to break into and live in is on the countryside with a large field of greenery and wheatfields. It is stocked up heavily on all kinds of fancy brands of food, has many films piled up in the drawer with the biggest screen tv in the main bedroom and the living room, and a huge bed that is actually so comfortable that it manages to put him to sleep some nights.

Disabling the security measures is a piece of cake for him, and he thinks it may be the safest place for them. Now that Chuuya's healthier and can manage the long trek, as well as the fact that it's necessary at this point to hide from the authorities, Dazai brings him there.

The vacation house is not the biggest Dazai has ever broken into. He didn't like those because they seemed unnecessarily spacious, especially when he was only one person.

This house is big, but not too much. It has another floor upstairs with maybe about five rooms, and the drawing room is a decent size with a huge screen tv and a couch and a kitchen island. He likes that the kitchen is stocked up with food that lasts years, like oats and pasta and canned food — canned crab, more specifically, along with olives, pickles, and whatnot. There's a bar too, full of some fine alcohol. They are underage of course, but it didn't stop Dazai from trying a few of them. He didn't like any of it much.

The house has a balcony and a terrace too, with a vast view of the countryside, miles and miles of greenery and wheat fields in the hazy distance. When the sun comes up and goes down, they can see it in its full form from here, unblocked by architecture and tall buildings. 

Chuuya has never really managed to catch the sun, considering they always limit their time outside due to Chuuya's tendency to get overwhelmed and overstimulated if they stay outside too long. He is still seemingly unhabituated to the noise and chaos of the world, but slowly he seems to grow his tolerance.

It's been a long time since Dazai has sat anywhere just to watch the dawn come alive. He knows in a cognitive way that it's lovely, it's pretty, even if he never really feels anything.

When they step out onto the balcony, Dazai looks to Chuuya, so he can see what he feels on his face. The orange-red dawn is glowing through the clouds like streaks of heaven, brilliant waves of light everywhere.

The two of them stand by the balustrade. Chuuya watches the sun come up while Dazai watches him, and the way his red hair shines in the sunrise, bright and vivid as fire, the way it makes his skin hazy with orange-yellow light, creates alchemy in his eyes.

And his face.

It's as if he is losing himself into it; all wide-eyed wonder and a hushed kind of joy, fixated on the sight. He is struggling to breathe from it all, his chest moving slightly on a small, hitched exhale, an almost soundless exhale, breathless.  His hand, at his side, scrabbles over the back of Dazai's until it finds it, entwining their fingers and holding it tightly, as if he is feeling so much it overwhelms him and he needs to be grounded, to squeeze some of that intensity into Dazai's hand.

The wind comes in and blows through them, through their hair and clothes, rustling tree branches and leaves somewhere in the distance. The birds chirp their songs. For the very first time perhaps, Dazai almost feels it all; the cold air raw on his nerves and skin, and the life in the wild and pounding beats of his heart. He can feel the warmth of the sun, and Chuuya's hand in his. He can hear every sound. Every rustle of the leaf on tree branches, far in the distance. Every chirp of the birdsong.

He is so beautiful.

As ethereal as an angel.

"Osamu," Chuuya's voice, breathed out thick into the whipping winds in their ears. He squeezes his hand even tighter. " Osamu." He says his name like it's a whole language. 

He is so beautiful. And Dazai feels wondrously, horribly alive.

***

Every morning they wake up to see the sunrise. Every evening they sit and watch the sun go down. Some afternoons they lie on the green fields next to each other, close enough that their heads are almost touching, and Dazai tells him what each cloud looks like, and sometimes that ends up making Chuuya angry because Dazai often makes shapes out of clouds in ways that make no sense to him, so Dazai starts pretending and makes outrageous claims and stories to confuse and anger Chuuya even more when he can't see what Dazai is seeing.

"Hah? What the fuck is wrong with you? How are you seeing all that?"

Dazai sighs at the cuss words. Truly Chuuya's face is too pretty and innocent for such words, yet they seem to have stuck to his tiny and aggressive slug brain from all the places they've heard it and now he won't stop using those words. He supposes it makes sense, that his angry personality would be so drawn to such angry words.

"I don't know how Chuuya can't see it. That is CLEARLY a man sitting on top of a crab with a spear in his hand."

"It's fucking round."

"It's not my fault Chuuya has no imagination."

Chuuya glares at him. 

"Well, Chuuya should tell me what that one looks like." Dazai points at a cloud. Their heads are close together.

"Like a puppy." Chuuya smiles slightly. Dazai still remembers the first time he saw a whole box of them, and started floating and spinning around in the air out of emotions, as if he couldn't handle his feelings and needed to let them out physically through his ability. Using his ability in congruence with his emotions, instinctually and naturally, was normal to him, until Dazai explained to him that the authorities were looking for him and he needed to hide his gift.

"Mm, boring."

"Oi!"

"Ne, does Chuuya know how to play tag?"

Dazai has only ever sat on the sidelines, on playground swings alone watching other children chase after each other, laughter ringing in the air. He wondered why it never came naturally to him, to want to do those things, to go and play and run around with other kids. He wondered what it was like to be effortless. Because every human thing, all Dazai's life, felt like effort. Felt like something he had to consciously exert himself to do against the void inside of him.

He has always been curious.

"Huh? How do you play that?"

Dazai smiles slightly. He sits up.

Then, he pulls at Chuuya's hair, gets up and runs, laughing as Chuuya's angry screams follow him across the distance. He runs right into the wheatfield.

He can hear Chuuya's running footsteps. "Dazai?!"

"You have to catch me," Dazai says, loudly, across the space and the wind between them, "I'll run, and you catch me."

Chuuya blinks. Then, he has a smile across his face that's daring and competitive, almost a smirk. "Alright."

"Without using your ability, Chuuya! That's cheating!"

Chuuya's smirk drops.

Dazai learns Chuuya is awfully competitive, because he seems to take the tag game so seriously that he gets angry when he tries to catch Dazai but can't, almost pouncing on him as Dazai dodges out of his way quickly each time, laughing — almost giggling even, a childish glee filling him up. But then there's a moment — he's staring at Dazai across the distance, seeming almost lost and breathing hard after so long of not being able to catch Dazai and not knowing how. The wind plays with their hair and clothes, whipping it to the side. Dazai is smiling at him from afar, waiting for him. Something in Chuuya's glare and scowl falls, softly.

After that he seems to let loose a little. He chases after Dazai, joining in his laughter -- his almost giggles. For a time that feels like ages they run around like children in the golden afternoon sunshine. At the end of it, they fall on the grass, trying to catch air and pleasantly exhausted, lying perpendicular to each other with bodies sprawled out in opposite directions and their heads upside down next to each other. 

***

There are some nights they sit out in the balcony under the stars, which are far more visible here with less of the light pollution of the city, before they head to bed.  

Dazai thinks it's very important for them to stay close at night since Chuuya's ability isn't fully in his control, so Dazai needs to be next to him in case he needs to be nullified, which is why they absolutely should sleep in the same bed. And the bed is so large it could hold ten of both of them, so it's not a problem or anything. And if Chuuya likes to sidle up against him to sleep, all warm and sweet, arms under his underarms, then that's only making it easier for Dazai to keep him nullified. Although it is of course very annoying that the chibi sticks to him so much like glue. It's too annoying. Chuuya even presses his cheek to his and smiles at him when he wakes up.

It turns out that Dazai was, in fact, correct about needing to be close.

The bed being so large, it's somewhat inevitable for Dazai to eventually drift away from Chuuya in the night, and this reveals a new development.

When Dazai's eyes open suddenly in the middle of the night, as it happens with his insomnia, it's to a sight right above him in the dark. Dazai rubs the remaining slumber out of his eyes and blinks up hard to clear his vision.

— Chuuya, floating high over the bed above Dazai, hair and clothes swaying in the air, his eyes closed and mouth slightly agape in sleep. The light of the full moon fills the room with a blue haze. 

Chuuya is floating away in his sleep.

Dazai snickers, getting up to his feet on the massive bed and reaching his arms up for him. His snickers are starting to, embarrassingly, sound more like giggles the longer it goes. He stands up high on his toes and reaches further for him to try and get a grip on him so he could pull him down.

"Chuuuyaaa~" He singsongs, in a quiet voice so as to not startle him — though that would be hilarious, seeing Chuuya wake screaming as he falls to the bed.

But then he remembers, for some reason, the last time Chuuya screamed in his sleep, fighting and thrashing violently against monsters he can't recall — the stunned horror on his white face, remaining for a good ten minutes after.

"Chuuya!" Dazai whisper-yells, his fingers outstretched for him. He jumps up a little. Even if he just brushes by him, it would be enough. It will startle Chuuya awake, but he will fall on the bed so it should be fine.

He jumps even higher, the bed creaking. He manages to catch Chuuya's sleeve.

He pulls, drawing him down without touching him directly, and only when Chuuya is low enough does he touch the skin of his wrist to nullify him. The distance he falls is small but gives enough impact to wake Chuuya abruptly, sat up on the bed with his eyes blinking fast and owlishly.

"You were floating in your sleep."

"Hah?" Chuuya blinks at him, still confused.

"Mhm."

After a few more seconds of blinking in owlish confusion, Chuuya scoots close and shifts over and against Dazai, head on his chest and grabbing Dazai's arm to put it around himself, "Why did you let me go?" he whispers, now glaring at him with bleary eyes, as if this was Dazai's fault.

Dazai snorts. "It's not my fault Chuuya can't stay in one place. And who told Chuuya to float in his sleep?"

"I can't control it asshole!"

"Excuses, excuses." Dazai yawns.

But the next time Dazai tries to make sure he has a good grip on Chuuya before he falls asleep. Now the problem is, the bed is big and comfortable, and Chuuya sleeps like the arm of a clock. There have been times, when they used to sleep on the floor, that Chuuya's feet somehow ended up near Dazai's head. Though Chuuya goes to sleep every night with his arms around him, it's not every morning that they wake up the same way as that first morning. Chuuya sleeps spaciously, arms fallen wide apart, legs spread — sometimes half on his stomach, sometimes like a starfish flat on his back.

And so. It tends to happen anyway. Each time Chuuya glares at him for letting him go, though the flush on his cheeks grows deeper each time it happens. It takes some nights getting used to, for them to be prepared. It's frankly annoying for it to be happening right now because Dazai is actually managing to sleep , his insomnia less severe — maybe it's the bed, although he can't say he's ever slept this soundly and warmly.

So there is only thing that's new about the situation — the tiny body that sleeps soundly and warmly against him.

One time Dazai wakes right on time to catch Chuuya by the back of his shirt as he is floating away. Another night, he grabs him by the ankle when he is already in the air, pulls him back down next to him. Another night, Dazai gets annoyed enough to just plop himself full body on top of Chuuya after another episode, to Chuuya's angry and indignant shrieks as he is being crushed under him. Another night, he catches Chuuya by the chest of his shirt and a wrist, then coming down to an arm while still holding on to the chest of his shirt with his other hand — pulling him down gently, sleepily on top of his chest and wrapping his arms around him.

It turns out to be a rather good idea, since Chuuya can't exactly spin around the bed while he's sleeping right on Dazai.

***

There's a CD player in the drawing room full of songs Dazai knows each one of at this point, having played them over and over for years to stave off the lonely silence. And because...

"There aren't many things in life that make me feel," Dazai begins as he puts a CD in the player and presses the play button. He closes his eyes as the first song starts, smiling slightly.  "But every now and then.'

His neck arches back, face tilted upward, trying to feel every note, every word of the song. The song is haunting, slow, sweet. The song is lonely, like being the only one left in the world.

Always, it feels like he is trying to reach through a chasm to experience it fully -- the numbness that eats up his feelings. But he likes this one — he always tries to feel it with his mind, if he can't with his heart and soul, tries to pay attention to each detail.

"Yeah?" 

He opens his eyes, looking at Chuuya, who is lounging back against the settee, arms across the back of it. He has heard songs of all kinds at this point, in the malls, the cafe jukeboxes that Dazai uses to ruin people's day — playing the rickroll or apple pen song ten times in a row — the people in apartments blaring trashy music as they pass by at night, the loud party music that pounds in your heart coming from a house. Most of them tended to overwhelm Chuuya, making him slap his hands over his ears tightly, or leave him irritable after.

"— but every now and then," Dazai continues, with a slight smile, and he's in front of Chuuya, leaning down with his hands on his knees so they're eye to eye, "there's a song that makes me feel.'

Chuuya's eyes are roving over his face. 

"My baby here on Earth..." His voice is gentle whispers, only just over the singer's, chin tilted up slightly. Chuuya's eyes stare into his own, the subtle convulsion of his throat, "... showed me what my heart was worth… "

So when it comes, to be my turn, could you shine it down here with her?

It's thrilling, when Dazai recognizes the look in Chuuya's hazy eyes. It gets his heart pumping, kicking up a storm, to be looked at the way Chuuya looks at sunrises — loses himself in them the way he is now in his voice, gentle and easy and a little off-key. But most people don't get to be serenaded by people as handsome as Dazai even throughout their entire lives, so he supposes the chibi should consider himself fortunate.

My love is mine, all mine… my love, my, my, mine…

"Nothing in the world belongs to me," he sings to him, "but my love, mine all mine."

Nothing in the world is mine for free, but my love, mine all mine all mine…

***

Chuuya's hair is not too long after months, but long enough to be past his nape, and long enough for Dazai to sit at his back on the bed, brush out all the knots in it and gather it all up in his bandaged hands from his shoulders and neck. He divides his hair in three sections and twists them together into rhythmic patterns, making a braid that starts out thick and ends small. He brushes the sides of Chuuya's hair back, tucks the stray strands behind his ear, and leaves it at the top of his spine. 

"What did you do to my hair?" Chuuya asks, curiously, touching it and running his fingers over.

"It's comfortable, isn't it?"

He learned to braid on ropes when he was bored once, seeing a mother do it to her young daughter. It's one of Dazai's many useless talents.

But Chuuya's hair is pretty — all curls and red like fire and autumn. It makes for a nice braid, though it's turned out to be messy, a few stray strands escaping and singularly alight in the golden light of the wall sconces. He supposes that useless talent finally came to use.

"Chuuya should stop shedding his hair so much. I know it's natural for dogs but I keep finding his hair all over me." Dazai pushes the braid over onto Chuuya's shoulder, away from his back.

At the nape of his neck where his hair is no longers hiding it, Dazai sees them again, the branded scars of those numbers; A5158. When Dazai first brushed his fingers on those branded numbers curiously an hour after he found him, Chuuya jerked away from him and scrambled into a corner, glaring at him with angry and betrayed eyes. He was shaking. When he came to his senses, he seemed confused by his own reaction. 

Dazai wonders if Chuuya trusts him enough now, if he would let him touch them. His fingers hover over them. 

I don't think I existed, Chuuya said. Dazai thinks about the way he spun around in the air with joy upon hearing his own name being said, the way he beamed at him. 

"What are these numbers?" Dazai whispers, despite having a rather good idea. "On the back of your neck?"

It wouldn't surprise him that they never graced Chuuya with the humanity and dignity of using his name. All signs point to it. To this day Chuuya loves the sound of his own name in Dazai's voice.

Chuuya does not seem to tense or get scared the way he did the first time. Dazai gets the strange thought of putting his lips to them, in an innocent and chaste kiss. A healing kiss. It's an illogical thought, there in his mind the same.

"I don't know," Chuuya says, his head bent down and forward; a show of trust that's beyond Dazai's comprehension,  "I think it was my lab number. I don't remember. I just know that I don't like it being touched, or remembering it's there. I don't even like seeing it because it… hurts. But I can't remember anything, why it makes me feel like that."

Dazai has an idea brewing in his mind; a certain neck accessory he's seen on display. His fingers touch the space below it, before he pulls Chuuya's braid back so it covers it, brushes his hands over his shoulders.

In the bedroom there is a whole stack of films. Chuuya has only seen a TV in passing, in the windows of shops playing music videos and films. This will be the first time they watch one properly together. He always predicts almost everything before the movie even starts really, which is why he prefers emotional and people-centered films (ironically considering how unfeeling and asocial and solitary he otherwise is) as well as comedies more than mystery and thrillers, so he hopes Chuuya chooses something like that.

"Since I'm feeling oh so generous, and because it's Chuuya's very first movie, I will let him choose what to watch."

Dazai spreads out the stack of DVDs for him to choose from. Chuuya leans over them and looks at them all curiously, hand hovering over them all.

He should have known, in hindsight. Dazai sighs in disgust.

It's a movie about a dog. Dazai already knows what happens at the end of it, and Chuuya's not going to like it, and — well, Dazai really doesn't want to be dealing with a crying chibi for his first ever movie, and Dazai's first ever movie with someone, with said crying chibi. 

He's watched lots of movies in the theater alone, in the very back of the seats of the cinema that was almost empty or with a few other people. Some days it was the only thing that kept him alive a little while longer — not because any of it was that good, but because he could lose himself in it enough to forget that he wanted to die — watching with exhaustion-bruised and hollow and sometimes distant eyes that haven't slept in days, eating popcorn bought from pickpocketed money with heavy hands mindlessly. 

Right now this feels different, a bit more exciting with the chibi. 

"Maybe something...happier."

Chuuya frowns. "Looks happy enough to me. It's about a dog, right?"

"Trust me. Pick something else."

Chuuya blinks, but turns back to his options and picks something else.

It turns out to be a cheesy romantic movie. And when Chuuya sees the couple cuddling while watching a movie, it seems to give him the idea that he can scoot up and lay his head against Dazai's shoulder and cuddle with him too. They kiss on the screen after, and Dazai feels warm all over his face and neck when he senses Chuuya's eyes drift to him curiously. Dazai adamantly keeps staring at the screen, almost unblinking, and wonders if Chuuya is thinking about doing it with him. 

Dazai sees the man rub circles over the girl's shoulder as he holds her. He doesn't know what it's really supposed to do but he finds himself strangely fascinated by the small gesture, watching it closely. He glances down at Chuuya, back up at the screen still thinking about it long after it's passed. He waits a few moments — before he tentatively puts his arm around Chuuya's shoulders, and starts to circle his thumb onto his skin.

Whatever it is that does, Chuuya seems to like it. He burrows closer into him and sighs, so Dazai keeps doing it. He makes notes of a few more things that catch his attention — like when the male lead plays with her hair, strokes it gently, runs them through it as he kisses her. Dazai is already planning out when he would do the hair thing with Chuuya. Maybe in bed at night, before they sleep, or maybe after Chuuya has slept if Dazai doesn't want to be perceived doing it. Or maybe when Dazai braids his hair again, if he feels bold enough.

***

Dazai doesn't know how they get to dancing by the dining table. Maybe it started when Chuuya saw the couple dancing in the film and it's been on his mind since. They are eating pasta topped with canned crab for breakfast — about all Dazai knows how to make — and there's music playing from the counter because it seems Chuuya likes it too much. 

And then there's a song that Chuuya particularly seems to like. 

Now Dazai is being forced to stand up to his feet, much less enthused due to not being a morning person.

"Silly chibi! I told you I don't want to!!" Dazai whines, bouncing on his feet like a child. Chuuya's fingers are gripping his sleeve and dragging his body moving along halfheartedly. "It's too early in the morning for this."

"I want to know what it's like," Chuuya insists. "They looked like they were having fun."

Chuuya takes his hands and pulls him onto the christened dance floor that is the kitchen slash dining room, and he doesn't know how to dance, it's clear, he's just trying to mimic whatever he's seen in the film as he is bouncing about to the beat of the music while holding Dazai's hands — feeling the song with his face taken up in a bright and ecstatic expression, his eyes closed and head tilted back in the morning sunlight, where it pours in between the translucent curtains on the kitchen window. He takes in experiences and life the way he takes in sunshine, or feels the rain on his skin.

Dazai didn't plan on complying to the chibi's demands, and the chibi is clearly more energetic and enthusiastic about this than he is, but still he dances with Chuuya in small ways that indulge him; rocks along gently to his movements, twirls him around under the hand holding his, gaze roving closely over his face and following his eyes along to the sways of Chuuya's head, the smallest, imperceptible tug at the corner of his mouth, only touching the wrinkle in the corner of his own eyes. They feel as tender as bruises as they watch him, soak up the joy in his face, how it radiates off his every move. 

***

Summer is coming around and the owners would likely return eventually to the vacation house, so Dazai puts everything exactly as he memorized when they came in. He knows it's unlikely they'd even remember but one never knows.

It's back to the heart of Yokohama city on train rides. They make it back and they go back to their old warehouse, because it's unlikely they would come looking for Chuuya here again after months of not finding him in it.

Passing by the window Dazai sees a music box, hands in his pockets as his own reflection on the glass stares back at him.

He stands there for a while, staring at the music box. Chuuya has stopped beside him, is looking between him and that music box. 

A long time ago before Chuuya knew it wasn't how the world worked, when Chuuya noticed him staring at another music box in another shop, assumed him wanting, he put his fingers to the glass and vibrated it until it shattered, to the screams of many around them, so he could reach in for the music box to give it to Dazai. Before he could do that though Dazai had caught his wrist and quickly dragged him away to whispers and scared voices talking behind them in a chorus. It was hilarious, of course, but really bad since they were trying not to bring attention to themselves and be on the radar of anyone wanting Chuuya.

Dazai does not stare at music boxes because he wants them.

"Let's go, chibi," Dazai says, tearing his eyes away and walking past Chuuya, "I have plans for us."

The plan aforementioned is an art museum. Like with cinema halls, Dazai comes here to try and forget.

There's a lot of art that doesn't speak to Dazai much. But when he first came here wandering, bored out of his mind and not expecting to find anything he liked, he was surprised to find paintings that he did vaguely like. Paintings with beauty. Paintings with meaning. Paintings about life and death.  It wasn't captivating, necessarily, but on some days when he wanted to die, he would come here and take in every detail, interpret every possible meaning, to stall against his urges; to search for a small reason to continue on, even if just for a while. Perhaps gain a perspective or understand something that lasts him another day, or find something he was curious enough about to go to the library and learn more on it.

"Tell me what paintings stand out to Chuuya, and I'll tell him all about it."

That is how their hours go by, Chuuya pointing at paintings, standing in front of one with his fingers curled into Dazai's sleeve. Dazai knows the art in this museum by heart at this point — excellent memory as well as frequent visits.

***

The moment they enter the carnival fair, they can hear the laughter and noise. 

In the night, the pale moon above them, the view is stunning; full of bright and vivid lights of all colors; the ferris wheel that stands tall above all. There are many people, a lot of noise, but it's not congested, still a vast and open space, so Chuuya seems fine. Still, Dazai keeps an eye on him, ready to take him away whenever there's the slightest sign of overstimulation.

At the moment though Chuuya seems to just be taken in by most of what's happening around him with wonder.

The day is fun. Dazai laughs when Chuuya breaks the strength tester game, using gravity as he brings the hammer down and the puck shoots through rapidly and there's a huge crack now on where it's struck. They eat cotton candy on the benches and ice cream that's melting already in the summer weather, staved off by the night breezes. They play a few carnival games here and there.

Chuuya's attention is pulled by the screaming coming from one of the rollercoasters.

Dazai snickers. "I bet Chuuya's too short for those rides."

"Don't be a dick," Chuuya says, staring up at the ride. "So, you wanna go?"

Absolutely not.

"I'm serious though, chibi. There really is a height limit, and you're only just 2 feet tall—"

Chuuya glances at the height limit board. His eyes widen. "Seriously? That's more than double my heig—"

Dazai should have expected this, considering they haven't yet touched on the topic of length and distance in mathematics, haven't really gone beyond basic arithmetic yet really but that's also because Dazai never bothered to comprehend maths beyond what was necessary for everyday life. But still, he laughs, folding over with his hands still in his pockets.

"What? Hey, asshole! What are you laughing at?" Chuuya smacks his shoulder.

"What would my life be without you, chibi? I'd be so bored."

"So I'm not 2 feet tall? It's just your shitty height jokes again." Chuuya crosses his arms with a scowl. Like an angry little puppy really. "Well how tall am I then, seriously? 'Cause I wanna go on that." He points at the rollercoaster. The worst one of all, in Dazai's opinion.

When they go up to the board that measures height, Dazai, perhaps absurdly, hopes Chuuya doesn't meet the requirement, because he can't exactly stop nor does he necessarily want to stop Chuuya from experiencing this, but if Chuuya goes then Dazai will have to as well, considering Chuuya's ability is unpredictable still and he is prone to breaking things if scared and unnuliified, and Dazai doesn't know how exactly Chuuya will feel about being on that rollercoaster. They don't need Chuuya breaking the rollercoaster and killing a lot of people and then attracting the attention of the government any more.

Unfortunately he does fit the requirement. Turns out Chuuya is perfectly fine, he laughs through his screams, and Dazai is just holding onto Chuuya's wrist and to the restraints for dear life (dying on a rollercoaster is just not a good way to die in his opinion, tensed and, frankly, terrified — his grip no longer about nullifying Chuuya after a certain point. He might have passed out once. He definitely throws up into a bush after.

"Shit," Chuuya says, rubbing his back the way Dazai did to him through his many fevers during the recovery period, "Why didn't you tell me it'd make you sick? I could have gone alone." 

"Unpredictable, your ability," Dazai manages through his heaves.

"We could have skipped then."

Dazai will never tell him the reason why they didn't. It's embarrassing, honestly, this pathetic desire to make sure Chuuya experiences everything he wants in life.

I want to give you everything , Dazai thinks, in a voice so quiet he could deny the existence of such a thought if he wanted, as Chuuya stares back at him with terrible worry and guilt.

Now that Dazai has seen that it's fine, it's easier to let Chuuya experience the roller coasters by himself while Dazai rides on the carousel alone. He's done it many times. There's something about the gentle up and down sway of it that's calming, that lets his thoughts run in easy waves, even if his thoughts are not so kind. 

He is thinking about this day, and the feelings that come with it.

Chuuya is there, climbing onto the bench next to him, after a while. Dazai usually prefers the horses, but he supposes he predicted Chuuya would join him soon. "Hey."

"Hi. Did Chuuya experience all the rides?"

"I ran out of money."

Dazai snickers. Still, he did pickpocket and steal a good amount for this, so he's sure Chuuya got to experience plenty.

"What are you thinking? You looked sad."

"Ah, I'm not sad, chibi. It's called having thoughts. I'm sure that's foreign to you."

"Why are you sad?"

It seems, unfortunately, that Chuuya has learned to read him more than he should. Especially a chibi that's only just started learning about people and the world.

Dazai lets the silence fall over them, but for the sounds of the movements of the carousel, the music, a child's laughter from nearby.

"Does Chuuya know it's my birthday?" Dazai asks, smiling slightly as he looks at him. He makes it seem like a different topic, a lighter one. In truth, it's the answer to Chuuya's questions.

Chuuya blinks, surprised. He then scowls and reaches over to smack him, nearly making Dazai slip.

"Ow!" Dazai yelps.

"Why didn't you fucking tell me?!"

"Because I don't care about it?"

"Why would you bring it up if you didn't?" Chuuya asks.

Well, Chuuya's getting uncomfortably smart about these things. Though Dazai doesn't know how to tell him he doesn't quite care in the way he thinks.

My birth was a mistake.

"It's good, isn't it? That it's your birthday?"

Dazai hums, noncommittal.

He doesn't really mean to talk about it. He doesn't plan on it. But all these thoughts, and all these feelings — sometimes they want to burst out of him, when the lifelong numbness subsides, when the void isn't eating them all up instead. He has been feeling this way more and more since Chuuya.

"I wish I wasn't born," Dazai says quietly. Almost hopes Chuuya didn't hear him over the carousel's whirs and thuds and music, but Chuuya is right next to him.

The silence is long as a breeze blows through Dazai's hair and clothes. He doesn't look at Chuuya. He supposes Chuuya didn't hear him, as he wanted.

But then, "Why?"

It's almost a whisper — full of confusion, bewilderment, maybe even fear. Chuuya knows so little about the world Dazai wonders if it has even occurred to him that not everyone lives with the zest and joy he does. Not everyone is as bright as him. Not everyone wants to live.

How does Dazai explain, that he has wanted to die all his life?

But one glance at Chuuya, his hands clinging to the rope of the carousel as he stares back at him with wide and torn eyes, and Dazai decides, what's the point? 

Why put such darkness in those beautiful eyes so soon?

"Well, heheh, there's nothing to do about it now, is there? I'm still here. Nothing to worry about." Dazai's voice lilts, a singsong in his last words.

Chuuya doesn't seem to know what to say. His eyes flick away, hesitantly down.

"Does Chuuya remember his birthday?" Dazai asks, to change the topic and take Chuuya's mind away. 

Still, the earlier emotions linger in Chuuya's eyes. He doesn't look up.

"No."

Dazai wondered if Chuuya might remember his birthday at least, the way he did his name. How unfortunate.

He can tell it matters to Chuuya, the frown that's pinching between his brows. He knows it bothers — hurts — Chuuya, that he doesn't know anything about his life, or who he is, or where he came from. Why wouldn't it? How does one feel human if they aren't tethered to anything, if they know nothing about who they are? 

But to him.

To him, Chuuya is the most human thing he has ever seen. The liveliest.

"We'll find it out some day. Chuuya's birthday," Dazai tells him. He doesn't look at Chuuya, but he can see Chuuya's head raise up at him in his peripheral vision, his eyes burning on the side of his face. "I'll help Chuuya find out who he is. There are ways." It would have to be thoroughly well-planned, of course, and it will take months or even years. Breaking into the facilities that hold such information is no easy feat. But Dazai is Dazai, and there are ways.

The wind plays up faster, Dazai's hair tousling up and in his eyes. Still, Chuuya's eyes are on the side of his face, and Dazai doesn't know what expression he must have. He wouldn't see the miniscule smile, growing hushedly, on Chuuya's lips. 

"Osamu?" 

"Hmm?"

"I'm glad you were born. Happy birthday."

It shouldn't matter to Dazai. He doesn't care about birthdays. He doesn't care if he matters to anyone either.

But the wind burns in his eyes as he stares ahead. He says nothing. The carousel keeps turning.

Their last ride is on the ferris wheel, which is spent mostly in silence. Both of them are tired. Chuuya watches the city and the carnival from the peak point of the wheel when they stop at the very top for only a few seconds. The rest of the time he is looking at Dazai. Dazai's eyes are unseeing out the window, ignoring him.

***

November has come, with the beginning chills of winter passing over the city. 

Dazai has been thinking about music boxes a lot these days. He thinks a lot about one particular music box. Sometimes he thinks about going back to find it. Sometimes he thinks about going back.

He doesn't know why. There is nothing there for him to go back to. 

But there's not much for him to do. Life is boring, so he thinks, why not? I might as well.

"Where are we going?"

"I just need to take something back."

"From where?"

"Does Chuuya want to come or not?"

When Dazai was born, he was still. He did not cry. They had to bring him back to life.

To this day, Dazai wishes they did not.

It was a servant, Asuka, back in his childhood Manor that told him this. She was a kind old lady, passed away not long before Dazai packed his bags and ran away from home.

He stands in his childhood Manor again, in the large doors. It's night, so there are no servants wandering about. It's as vast and hollow and haunting as he remembers it to be. 

The Manor is sleeping and dark. Chuuya trails behind him silently as Dazai makes his way up the long and wide stairs, to the left, three doors down into his old childhood room. He can feel Chuuya's eyes burning on his back. He can feel him there, and it is this that makes the suffocating weight of this house's air bearable.

As he expected, his room is bare and empty. All of his things have been thrown out (it doesn't mean anything to him, he thinks, tells himself. It doesn't mean anything).  Not that he supposes he left much behind in the first place. When Dazai lived here, he lived not unlike a stranger, with nothing of his own to fill his room, with only scripted and polite formalities. He only saw his mother properly at the dinner table. His father only spoke to him when he was drunk and screaming.

Dazai goes to a corner of the room, to a loose wooden plank. He unscrews it with a small screwdriver in his pocket, lifts the plank, and takes out the music box inside.

When he lifts the lid, there is a pair in a dancing position; a mother and son. They are both still now. The music doesn't play. It has stopped working after all these years, obviously.

"Is that what you came here for?" 

"Mhm," Dazai says, holding the music box in his lap. He reaches into his pocket and takes out the batteries.

"Why's it so important to you? Is that why you're always staring at them at the shops?"

"It's not important to me," Dazai tells him, clearing the dust delicately with his hands, before taking out the old batteries and putting the new batteries in. 

"Why come all the way here to get it then?"

"I was bored," Dazai says with a shrug, "and it's a nice music box." He puts it down on his lap and watches as the pair begin to spin, the music tinkling sweet and gentle.

"What is this place anyway?"

"This is where I lived as a child."

There is a very long pause.

"Oh." He sounds breathless. There is another long pause. "That's...important, yeah?"

Chuuya, who did not really come from anywhere, or at least can't remember where he came from. One would think he does not quite understand the weight of this. But he does, perhaps more than anyone.

"This is the only thing my mother ever gave me," Dazai tells him, quietly.

You were so small, I bet you don't even remember it, Asuka once whispered to him, smiling as she closed his small fingers around the box, but I was there when your mother gave this to you. You were her whole world. 

Once, was the unspoken word. His mother's face, whenever Dazai imagines it, is always cold now. He used to stand in her doorway, sleep outside her locked room with this music box, waiting to be her whole world again.

But oh, she grew so ill, and so sad. She stopped feeling joy, I believe.

It was pathetic.

(It's still pathetic.)

Chuuya comes and sits down beside him, crossing his legs. "Okay," is all he says. 

The music tinkles for a while. They watch it spin together.

"Why don't you live here anymore?" Chuuya asks.

Dazai doesn't know how to answer it.

I didn't know what I was living here for. 

I didn't know what I was living for.

I couldn't breathe.

I felt like I was drowning.

"Let's go," Dazai says, standing to his feet, closing the music box. "Before anyone sees us."

He is glad Chuuya doesn't ask anymore, just stands up beside him too and follows him out.

They are standing at the bottom of the stairs when Dazai hears it.

The pads of footsteps down the stairs. The sudden pause.

When Dazai turns, it's to frozen eyes staring back at him. They are the same eyes he sees in the mirror. It's funny, really, when she asks,

"Who are you?

People said that Dazai was all her.

He remembers she did not like hearing that.

Dazai smiles. It's not quite pleasant. "Hello, Mother."

***

"What are you doing here?" his mother asks coldly. She is a frail woman, with eyes that are vacant and haunting.

"Why, isn't this my house too? Do I need to have a reason to be here?" Dazai smiles wryly.

"You left," she says, "I thought that would be the last I see of you."

"Ah, well," Dazai says, "sorry to disappoint."

"Leave," she says, "before he wakes and sees you here. You uprooted everything when his only heir disappeared overnight. He was so furious he tore your room apart."

"Hmm," Dazai says, putting a finger to his lip contemplatively, "then I suppose he should have drank and beat me less, no? If he was that desperate for me to stay."

"Who's there?"

Dazai would like to say he does not flinch. He would like to say he does not feel ice flood his veins.

He would like to say his heart is still and calm.

His father stands at the highest step, staring down at him with eyes that are widening with dawning realization.

"Shuuji," he whispers. "After all these years, boy."

"Father," he says, steady and calm with perhaps too much practice. He learned it here first. He learned it even better on the streets.

"Why are you here?"

"You're both such wonderful parents, truly. No hi's and hellos. No how are yous. Don't you care?" Dazai's voice is mocking. "That your only son finally -- "

"You stopped being our son the day you walked out," his father sneers. "You were the heir. You had responsibilities. And don't be mistaken. Did you think we couldn't have children again after you?"

It's not like it hasn't occurred to Dazai. But it is truly something else when, as if the universe heard these words, a young boy — seven years old at most — comes out rubbing his eye. "What's going on, Ma?"

"Bunji," his mother calls, in a voice that —

Dazai freezes.

He does not think his mother was capable of sounding like that.

Like a mother. Like the sweet and gentle tinkling of the music box in his hands.

"What are you doing out of bed, my dear?" she says, putting her hands on his shoulders. She brushes her hand over Bunji's hair. Dazai's younger brother, technically, though it does not feel like it.

It is surreal; as if he is watching a dream, a hallucination that is taunting him. 

He is that child once more, watching her. He is sleeping outside her locked door again.

"What was so wrong with me?" Dazai asks her, very quietly; he did not mean to ask it out loud, but he couldn't help himself. He can feel Chuuya's eyes on the side of his face. He wishes he didn't say anything.

His mother's eyes raise suddenly to his. For a moment Dazai thinks he sees something - he could have mistaken it as guilt. But just as quickly, it disappears.

"You were a strange child," she says, looking down at Bunji's head, "I couldn't… no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't feel you as mine. I couldn't love you. You seemed so strange and… ugly, to me. Your mind was so strange and your eyes, your eyes were like the devil's. You — you never seemed human to me. And your ability — it's dangerous and cold to us ability users. Whenever I touched you, I was even less of myself than I already felt. The first time I tried to hold you I felt so empty."

Dazai looks down at the music box in his hands. It doesn't hurt or anything, he supposes. He killed all such human feelings when he was young, because he was tired of his sadness and pain and fear. He suffered only because he felt.

"I see," Dazai says, smiling thinly. "Then I suppose that's why you gave me this." He raises the music box, waves it. "Because you were trying."

When he raises his eyes up to hers again, all he finds is blankness, a lack of recognition. Confusion.

"I never gave you that."

You were so small I bet you don't even remember it.

You were her whole world.

It doesn't hurt.

It doesn't hurt.

Nothing hurts. Nothing ever does.

It was supposed to be a kindness. That was what Asuka thought it was. But it did not feel so kind now, standing there foolishly with the music box in his hands, staring at her empty face. 

"Leave," his father says, with a snarl. "You are not needed anymore."

"Perhaps Mother should ask you how many women you've slept with over the years," Dazai says, staring down at the music box in his hand, turning it around carelessly. He watches the pair spin with flat eyes. There is a beast inside of his chest, writhing for ruin.

The silence that comes over the whole house is heavy and long.

"What?" he hears her voice whisper, shocked and choked.

"You little BASTARD!" Then there are running footsteps, crazed, and Dazai looks up in time to see his father's hands reaching for his throat. He staggers back. He is a child again, with his drunken father's hands wrapped around his throat, thinking, I think he's really going to kill me this time. Thinking, unbiddenly, that wouldn't be so bad.

The hands never come. There is a glow of red. His father is held in place, and he is making noises of exertion, fighting against gravity. Chuuya's pushing Dazai behind his back.

"What is — this? Who is this — brat?"

"Don't touch him," Chuuya snarls. He flings his father back — in a way that likely must hurt, but wouldn't injure him. "I'll let you off the hook, because you're his dad. But I won't next time, if you try again."

Chuuya's fingers are slipping into Dazai's behind him. It makes it bearable. This house. These people.

"Your birth," his mother says, with her eyes heavy and pained, "was a mistake, Shuuji. There were times I wished they never brought your heartbeat back."

It doesn't hurt.

It doesn't hurt.

Nothing hurts. Nothing ever really does.

He suffered only if he felt.

"I see," Dazai says, with an unfazed smirk, "Well, good talk, Mother. Father." He bows, a mockery more than anything. "Let's go, Chuuya." He waves his fingers over his shoulder as he turns and begins to walk away.

He stops by the lit fireplace. His eyes are hollow as they look down at the music box in his hand.

Then, with a flick of his wrist, he throws it into the fire and continues on walking past towards the exit.

***

All the way back — the walk to the station, the train ride, the taxi drive back to their current residence — he feels Chuuya's glances at him. He feels his small finger curl around his. Dazai is so numb he barely feels it. He feels Chuuya curl up around him at night, holding him from behind. Dazai stares up at the ceiling in the dark.

Hours later, when his eyes are burning from exhaustion but sleep does not come, and his own circulating thoughts begin to bore and irritate him, Dazai turns in Chuuya's loose grasp. He stares at his face. He reaches up a hand, takes a strand of curls between his fingers and pulls it behind his ear. His thoughts go a bit quiet. He tries to focus just on Chuuya's breathing, the feel of his arms around him. His warmth.

The numbness makes it hard to seep in. His chest feels so cold and empty. But even then, it's the only thing left that makes him feel anything. Chuuya's the only thing left that makes him feel anything.

But all things in life are temporary and fickle.

All things in life are fleeting.

Nothing is promised forever. 

***

The beach is deserted and quiet at this time of winter, with only the two of them here. 

If there is one place Dazai can confidently say is his favorite, it's the beach. There is something about the sound of the waves, the roaring sea that makes calm wash over him. Something about the water running over his feet that soothes his thoughts. He always thought this should be where he dies, in the end. But he supposes it's a little bit better to bring Chuuya here instead, to show this to him. 

"Take my hand," Dazai says, even though he's already taking Chuuya's hand in his and carefully trying to lead him towards the water. He has made him take his sneakers and socks off.

He hasn't forgotten that Chuuya is terrified of water. But he does think Chuuya can stand to face it a little bit now. He does think it would be nice for Chuuya to start associating something better with the water.

"Dazai," Chuuya says, fear already creeping into his voice. He jerks back, before the water could touch him, and starts trying to pull Dazai back from it too. Trying to pull hard against his grip to get away. "Stop! Don't be an asshole!"

"Chuuya," Dazai murmurs gently, it's a voice that can make most people do anything he asks, "Chuuya, it's okay. It's okay. Come."

Chuuya makes a strangled noise between his quickening breaths — a hitched breath, his terrified gaze fixed on the vast, endless ocean. Quickly, he tries again to turn back. "No, let go of me, you bastard! I don't want — Osamu, please— " 

Dazai tugs him back again, both hands gripping his biceps. He focuses on just keeping Chuuya where he is. Eventually the waves will come and reach them. "Shh," he whispers, "Shh, just keep your eyes on me. Don't look out at the ocean. Okay? Just keep your eyes on me. Does Chuuya trust me?"

And oh, the way Chuuya stares with his wide eyes at him for a minute, his breaths stuttering and erratic, before Dazai feels his whole body begin to melt against him after.

"I'll keep Chuuya safe," Dazai promises.

So Chuuya keeps his eyes on him, as the first wave comes over their feet. Chuuya flinches, with a hitched breath, but Dazai holds him still and whispers, it's okay. Keep your eyes on me. Over and over again, the wave crashes over their feet. Dazai grips Chuuya steady, one hand coming up to his wrist, when the wave is a bit stronger, enough to tip them off their feet a bit and stumble. Dazai smiles down at him, and keeps holding him steady whenever the wave threatens to pull his footing out from under him. 

Eventually, by the twentieth wave, the fear starts to fade from Chuuya's eyes and face. It would, of course, be a long time before Chuuya can go any further than this, but for now it's okay. His fingers grapple to hold onto Dazai as he stumbles against another wave, and his eyes stay on Dazai's face, not straying for even a second. Chuuya starts to laugh a little, his brows raised and his grin taking up his whole face, as if surprised by the delight of this sensation that he can absorb better now that the fear has lessened. Dazai puts his forehead down to his, smiling slightly. 

The weather is cold, forming mist as they breathe. The birds overhead sing as they go home.

"The day I found Chuuya, I was going to end my life."

That was what he was walking towards that day, when he heard the explosion. He would not have made it another year if he hadn't met Chuuya that day. He was sure he would have been dead. He had stopped believing he would ever find a reason to keep living, to keep going.

And then came along Chuuya. Fiery, beautiful Chuuya.

Dazai doesn't see his face. It's more that he feels it; the air has become heavy. The light has dimmed. His body has become very still against his hands.

The sun is lowering into the horizon; coloring them golden. A breeze blows through them, rustling their hair and clothes.

"But why? Osamu." Chuuya's voice is but a whisper, breathless, "Life is so beautiful ."

Dazai draws back and looks into Chuuya's face. For a moment, he thinks he can believe him. Just for a moment.

Dazai brushes back the hair at Chuuya's temples behind his ears, to move it out of the way. Then he takes his face between his hands and kisses his forehead. It lingers, sweet and long. Chuuya's hands come up to his wrists. When Dazai moves his head back, Chuuya's eyes are already following his face, right on his eyes. Chuuya's face is wiped clean in the cold air, and he looks years younger. 

Dazai has been feeling the doubts creep in for days. But Chuuya is smart, and strong, as powerful as a beautiful storm. He has everything he needs. And he will survive.

"I don't understand why your mother said you weren't human," Chuuya says, a genuine and soft confusion between his brows, "there is so much feeling in your eyes right now, looking back at me."

Chuuya does not seem to grasp the fact that they are only ever full of feeling when they are looking back at him.

Another small wave runs over their bare feet. There's the sound of the sea, rushing against the shore. Dazai smiles gently down at him.

"Eat a lot of crepes and crab," he says, holding Chuuya's face as if he is precious, because he is, to him, "Don't miss the sunrise in the mornings, and the sunset in the evenings. Feel the warmth, and the wind in your hair. Dance when there's nice music, and make sure you feel every word of the song. Pet all the cats and dogs you see. Go to the arcade and the carnivals and art museums, go see everything that looks interesting and good to you. And when you come to the ocean, make sure you feel the sand between your toes, and the water run over your feet, just like this."

Beautiful things are made for someone as beautiful as you. The world is made for people like you. Life suits you, and you belong here, and all of it — all of it, belongs to you in my eyes.

"This world is yours, Chuuya," Dazai whispers, "So live."

I loved seeing you live.

I love you.

Chuuya stares up at him for a long time, and Dazai stares back, his gentle smile held in place. He can see it in his face; a kind of worry, a sense that something isn't quite right. 

"What's going on, Osamu?" Chuuya asks, so quietly his voice is barely there, nearly lost in the winds. It tousles up his hair, whips them into his eyes, a flame in the twilight.

The sky is beginning to darken, now a deep orange-yellow, casting shadows and creating silhouettes out of all things in the distance. He takes in every detail of Chuuya's lovely face; the tendrils of his red curls framing it, swaying softly in the breeze, and his ocean eyes reflecting the fading sun. He should like to remember it. He should like it to be his very last thought.

Dazai turns to look at the horizon, where the sun is more than half covered by it. "Ne, Chuuya. Look at the sunset. It's quite beautiful, isn't it?"

Chuuya's eyes draw away as if he has to forcefully tear them away from him. He is mostly just humoring him. It's enough. But Dazai stands there just long enough to watch Chuuya, as always, lose himself into the sight. Always, they woke up every morning in the vacation house so they could watch the sunrise, and sat out on the balcony to watch the sun go down. Always, Chuuya's hand reached for his after a while, overwhelmed, still yet fixated.

Live enough for me too.

Because I couldn't do it.

When Chuuya will reach for his hand today, he will come up empty. There will be nothing but the winter breeze in his place. And when he will look beside him, when he will frantically turn his head this way and that, stumble around in a circle — there will be no one there.

_______

The first thing Dazai realizes, as consciousness returns to him, is that he can't move.

His arms are held down tightly to something, covered snugly in bandages. They sting horribly from the deep cuts he made, sitting against a dumpster in an alley with the glass shard of a broken bottle in his hand. He can hear the beeping of a machine, the rhythm of his own heartbeats. There is something in his nose — a nasal cannula.

There is warmth over his hand. A familiar, smaller hand gripping it tightly.

The disappointment and anguish bears down on him horribly, at having woken up. His eyes close, turning his head away, lips pressed tight. His breath shudders, erratic, and he waits for the anger that should come, at Chuuya saving him, at being alive still, but it doesn't. All he feels is exhausted and disappointed and sad. All he feels is, as always, numb.

It takes him some time to open his eyes. He knows the look he will find on Chuuya's face. He can already feel his hurt suffocate the room. Even knowing this, when he finally does manage to muster the energy to open his eyes and see his face, he stops breathing at the expression that meets him.

Chuuya's face is set, brows furrowed over his eyes wide and stung red and bloodshot. There is as much anger there as terror and pain. 

"I flew over the entire city, looking for you."

Dazai doesn't know what to say to that, except, "you shouldn't have." Even though he knows it's the last thing Chuuya wants to hear. The truth is that he doesn't really regret it. Dazai has never pretended to be selfless or considerate of anyone's feelings, especially not when he believes he has every right to end his life whenever he wishes, because it's his. He didn't get to choose if he wanted to be born. Why shouldn't he get to choose if he wanted to die?

He wanted to die. He lived his entire life wanting to die, and isn't that a waste? What is the point of such a life? Why should he continue on if he can see past its illusions, if he has found no reason to live that would last him forever?

Abruptly, Chuuya stands up, his body tensed in anger. He is breathing hard. He has his back to Dazai, trying to gain composure. 

"Why?" Chuuya turns back around, after a while. His eyes are wild and frenzied, red-rimmed, as if he has been driving himself crazy for a while. Dazai doesn't know how long he's been out. "Why do you want to die so badly? So young? Is it — what happened there at your house, is that — ?"

"No," Dazai says, hoarse and croaky from disuse, because his desire to die comes from many more things than his mother believing his birth was a mistake. All it did was remind him of that fact, that's all. "It's because I can't find a reason to live. I can't — " he starts to cough. Quickly, Chuuya reaches for the cup of water he was likely instructed to give to Dazai. He helps him drink it, lets him regain his breaths.

"I don't know why I should live," he eventually continues, with slight breathlessness, "I don't like this world, or this life. I don't see any value in it. Chuuya."

"Then why?" Chuuya grits out, nearly a sob, "Why show me the whole world, all those things — if you didn't even care about any of it — " 

"Because you were so beautiful."

All there is is the sound of Dazai's heart beating on the monitor. Chuuya does not seem to know what to say — staring back at him with wreckage and helplessness in his eyes. 

"Because you could see it," Dazai says, a soft and calm voice. "And I liked seeing you."

I loved seeing you live.

I love you.

"You were going to leave me." Chuuya's voice is strained and small, "I don't even know half the things I'm supposed to. I don't — the world is so fucking big and strange and scary and I — I would have missed you so much."

"You would have survived on your own," Dazai says. "You have the ability. Even the intelligence, no matter how many jabs I take at it."

The truth, the truth at the very core of it, is that Dazai believes Chuuya only wants him to stay because he needs him to understand the world. It would not make any sense otherwise, of course, for him to want Dazai to stay with him that badly. It's nothing Dazai minds, however, because didn't he also use Chuuya in a way? Didn't he do all he could to see every emotion on Chuuya's beautiful face, all that joy and wonder and anger and annoyance and sweetness, to see his humanity, to see him live — because it gave him something to keep living for? Because he liked it?

Dazai's heart is empty and cold, and he does not have much warmth and goodness to offer. When he thinks of himself, he feels like a hallucination, unreal. There is nothing inside him, so there is nothing to care about. That and the fact that for the most part all relationships are transactional — people only want you around if you have something to give.

"I would have," Chuuya says, thickly and Dazai's eyes widen with surprise — shock, at the answer, said with full certainty, full faith in himself. There is a burn in Chuuya's eyes. He sniffs, swiping the back of his hand under his pink stung nose. "I would have survived, I know that, but — don't you get it? If you're gone — I can't go and watch the sunrise or the sunset, or listen to a song, or dance, or feel warmth and the wind in my hair, or go to arcades and carnivals and art museums — I can't go to the ocean because all of it — all of it, means you to me."

And oh. 

Oh.

All of Chuuya's very first memories have his face in them. And maybe, despite knowing this already, Dazai didn't really understand . He did it all, thinking only of himself, of what it made him feel or what it gave him. He did not quite think as much about what it would mean for Chuuya that he was there, that it was his hand holding Chuuya's all throughout. Did not feel himself as anything more than a specter in Chuuya's experiences. His life. Easy to fade away eventually.

"So — so you can't die on me, alright?" The tears are falling down his cheeks. "You are there in everything for me, and everything I'll look at will remind me of you. Osamu… you are the whole world to me."

Dazai doesn't know what to say. He doesn't know what it is he is even feeling. But all the memories he made with Chuuya seemed different, like he was a real part of them. Like he meant something. He could see himself standing next to Chuuya, instead of only seeing Chuuya in every memory, as if he is all there is.

"And you say you don't have a reason to live," his voice is seemingly growing frantic, as if he is grasping for anything he could to convince Dazai. Chuuya wipes his wrists under his eyes quickly. He has still not yet really learned to keep such expressions hidden from the world, how to control it. "that you don't like this world. But there was still a part of you that thought this world was worth showing to me. That there are things here I should be seeing. You're the one that showed me how beautiful it is."

"Chuuya — "

"You said you'd help me find out my birthday," he whispers, and Dazai knows now he has enough of a heart that it can ache, because he does not really like seeing tears in his eyes, the quiver of his lips he is trying to control by pressing them together, "You said you'd help me learn who I am."

"Chuuya…" Dazai closes his eyes, swallowing. He sees himself sitting alone in the back of empty cinemas, and playing games by himself at the arcades, and spending hours at art museums with a dead heart, trying to hold on. Tossing and turning in futons and vacation home beds and cold, dirty floors all across the city, wishing his brain would quiet already. "I really did try to keep living." 

I lived for you for a year, too, didn't I?

"I don't know what I'm supposed to do now." He sounds lost and small, to his own ears. Feels like it too.

"Wake up every morning and watch the sunrise with me." It's so quiet that it becomes a croak, only mouthed by the last word.

Chuuya says it as if it's that simple. If it were anyone else saying it, Dazai would laugh.

But it's Chuuya. And Dazai has done this already for a year. Maybe he can do it for another.

There were days he waited desperately for them to end, because they were exhausting, and all he wanted was to fall asleep in Chuuya's arms at night if he could, or just, lay in the silence of the night next to him, counting his freckles or playing with his hair as he slept. And then he woke up the next morning with Chuuya's nose against his cheek, and it was bearable. He had to do it all over again, but it was at least bearable.

It's not a foolproof solution, but maybe that's all he has to do for now, every day. All he has to do is make sure he wakes up every morning with Chuuya. All he has to do is get out of bed so they can watch the sunrise together. Even if nothing else. He doesn't know how long this will last. But he can't deny that the only thing he would regret about dying is that he will no longer be able to experience Chuuya.

His life is a waste. He will never stop believing that. His life feels like sleeping outside locked doors, and bruising hands around his throat, and your birth was a mistake and not being able to sleep at night because of all that was wrong until he killed his heart, and suffering anyway, because living while dead inside is a kind of agony all on its own. His life is hanging on to cinema films and paintings and videogames, desperately, even though he didn't know why. His life is lonely and boring and pathetic. His life is without a purpose to live, only small reasons to stall his end.

But —

Your birth was a mistake, Shuji. There were times I wished they never brought your heartbeat back.

I'm glad you were born. Happy birthday.

And your ability — it's dangerous and cold to us ability users.

Chuuya holding Dazai to keep himself from floating away, taking his hand whenever his emotions become too much.

Your eyes, they were like the devil's. You — you never seemed human to me.

I don't understand why your mother said you weren't human. There is so much feeling in your eyes right now, looking back at me.

Whenever I tried to hold you I felt so empty.

Chuuya curling up against his side every night, sleeping with his arms wrapped around him from behind, shifting half over him and placing his head to his chest —

Whenever I touched you I was even less of myself.

Chuuya always reaching for him, always touching him. Relaxing as soon as he does, as if something in him went quiet.

You were her whole world.

You are the whole world to me.

"Okay," Dazai says, softly.

Chuuya blinks, straightening. The light is beginning to come to his eyes, his lashes still clinging together. He passes the back of his hand over them, "Yeah?"

"Yeah, okay. Chuuya persuaded me." Dazai smiles slightly. "I've decided not to die."

Chuuya stares at him. He stares at him, his chest heavily slightly, and then —

He breathes a watery laugh, relief so painful it may as well just be a kind of pain in its own right, and then he's on him wrapping his arms around Dazai's neck tightly, more on top of his chest with his face buried into it. Dazai can't hold him back, what with his arms strapped down. He can feel a coolness seep through his shirt, and he can't see Chuuya's face anymore but his head is craned down trying to see as much of him as he could.

He doesn't know how long this will last, but for now the boy of the past who sat alone in the back of empty cinemas desperately hanging on, waiting for a reason to live, now sits next to a boy in a hospital gown who does not know his past, or himself, to whom the world is a stranger. A boy who has been hurt in the most horrific ways he can't remember. They smile at each other; the loneliest creatures in the world.

***

The door opens. In steps a tall man with long dark hair, clad in a doctor's coat. His purple eyes come to rest on Chuuya, then Dazai. 

"Ah, I see you're awake." The man smiles. "I'm Doctor Ougai. Mori Ougai. How are we feeling today?"