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The job was a bust.
There was always a particular feeling that came with a failed mission—a tight, crawling irritation under the skin that didn’t fade when the fighting stopped. Gravity still thrummed faintly through Chuuya’s bones, like his body hadn’t caught up with the fact that it was done. The night air hung heavy and damp, rain threatening but not committing, the street slick with old puddles and newer blood.
Too quiet.
The target had bolted. One second they’d been there—pinned, cornered, exactly where Dazai had said they’d be—and the next there was nothing but an alley stretching empty into shadow. Chuuya stood there staring at it, jaw clenched hard enough that his teeth ached.
Behind him, Dazai sighed.
By the time Chuuya turned around, the bastard was already walking away. Strolling down the damn street like the night hadn’t gone sideways, hands tucked into his coat pockets, shoulders loose. His bandages were still clean enough to pass inspection. No blood on him. No visible damage. He looked—infuriatingly—fine.
“You’re fucking kidding me,” Chuuya said.
Dazai didn’t stop.
That was the first real spark. Not the escape. Not even the failed plan. It was that—Dazai’s back to him, retreating at an angle that said this part’s over, and it doesn’t matter.
Chuuya followed him without thinking, boots splashing through shallow puddles. “Hey, asshole. I’m talking to you.”
Dazai tilted his head just slightly, like he’d heard something interesting in the distance. “Hm? Was that a little bug I heard!”
That tone. Light. Airy. Empty.
Chuuya felt his irritation spike, sharp and sudden. It wasn’t just that Dazai wasn’t taking this seriously—it was the way he never did when it mattered, the way he slid out of consequences like oil through fingers. The way he had to insult him to boot.
“You let him get away,” Chuuya accused. “That was your call.”
Dazai shrugged, and something ugly twisted in Chuuya’s chest.
“Don’t do that,” he snapped. “Don’t act like this wasn’t a major fuckup.”
Finally, Dazai stopped walking and turned around with that faint, unreadable smile that always felt like it was aimed just past Chuuya instead of at him.
“Relax, slug,” he said. “It’s not the end of the world.”
So it could get worse.
Chuuya laughed once, sharp and humorless. “Oh, right. Sorry. Guess I missed the part where we were supposed to just let him goddamn run.”
Dazai didn’t answer right away. His gaze drifted—not to Chuuya, but to the empty alley behind them, like he was checking something only he could see. For a second, Chuuya almost thought he looked tired.
“If you’d followed the goddamn plan,” Chuuya continued, words coming sharper now, riding the leftover adrenaline, “we’d have had him boxed in. You said you’d cut him off.”
“I did,” Dazai said mildly.
“No, you didn’t.”
Dazai hummed, noncommittal.
Chuuya felt the heat rise up his spine. “You hesitated.”
That got Dazai’s attention. Just a flicker—but Chuuya caught it. A subtle tightening around his eyes before the expression smoothed back out.
“The hatrack is overreacting,” Dazai said with a theatrical shrug. “It happens, so what? We’ll just get him next time.”
“It doesn’t happen when you don’t screw around.”
There it was. The line crossing his tongue before he’d really decided to say it.
Dazai’s smile thinned. “Careful, Chuuya.”
“Careful?” Chuuya shot back. “I’m not the one who lost the damn target we’ve been trailing for a week.”
Silence stretched between them, thin and uncomfortable. Dazai looked away again, like the conversation was already drifting out of reach.
That familiar irritation crawled back in Chuuya’s chest, sharper this time. He hated when Dazai did that—checked out halfway through, like nothing mattered enough to stick with. Like Chuuya was wasting his breath.
“Are you even listening to me?” he demanded.
Dazai didn’t answer. He stood there, weight shifted slightly back on his heels, hands still buried in his pockets. His eyes weren’t focused on anything in particular. They slid past Chuuya’s face, unfixed, glassy in a way that made Chuuya’s stomach twist.
“Don’t ignore me, bastard,” Chuuya snapped. “You always do this. Something goes wrong and you just—what, decide it’s not worth dealing with?”
Still nothing.
Chuuya stepped closer, invading Dazai’s space without really registering it. “You think this is funny or something?”
Dazai blinked, slow. “I didn’t say that.”
“No, you just act like you don’t give a shit.”
That landed somewhere. Chuuya saw it, faint but real—a ripple under the surface.
“Hey, slug. Cut it out,” Dazai said quietly.
That should’ve been a warning. It wasn’t.
Chuuya scoffed. “You don’t get to check out when you mess up, shitty brat. If you’re gonna be useful, you have to actually—”
He stopped himself short, but the words were already lined up, already familiar in his mouth. The same sharp, corrective phrasing he’d heard before from people who always seemed to know better.
Think.
Pay attention.
Do you understand what you did wrong?
Dazai’s shoulders tensed.
“All I’m asking,” Chuuya said, voice tight, “is for you to take this seriously for once in your miserable goddamn life.”
At last, Dazai’s gaze slid back to him. Not meeting his eyes—just close enough to pass for it.
“I am,” Dazai said, flat.
The silence stretched.
Chuuya hated silence like that—the kind that wasn’t calm, wasn’t earned, just sitting there between them like something unfinished. Dazai had always been good at weaponizing it. He’d go quiet, let the other person fill the gap, let them say too much. Chuuya knew the trick. He wasn’t falling for it.
“Don’t look at me like that,” he snapped.
Dazai hadn’t been looking at him at all. His eyes had drifted again, somewhere over Chuuya’s shoulder, unfocused, like he was listening to something else entirely. His breathing had gone shallow, barely noticeable, chest rising and falling in a rhythm that didn’t quite match the moment.
If Chuuya had been calmer, if the adrenaline hadn’t still been buzzing in his veins, he might’ve noticed how still Dazai was holding himself. How wrong it was for someone who never stopped fidgeting unless it meant something.
Instead, all Chuuya saw was withdrawal.
“I know that look,” he went on. “You think if you just check out, it’ll all blow over—hell no. You don’t get to do that, asshole. Not when people could’ve gotten hurt.”
A pause.
Then, quietly: “No one did.”
“That’s not the point,” Chuuya snapped. “You don’t wait until someone does—are you trying to ruin everything?”
Dazai’s fingers curled slightly in his sleeves, wrinkling the fabric just so. Chuuya stepped closer again, crowding him without thinking. He could feel the heat coming off Dazai now, too aware of the narrow space between them, the way Dazai didn’t move to reestablish distance.
“You hesitated,” Chuuya said again. “You froze like a useless goddamn moron.”
“I didn’t,” Dazai replied.
Another lie. Or what sounded like one.
“You did,” Chuuya insisted. “I saw it.”
Dazai’s gaze flickered—down this time, toward the pavement between their feet. The streetlight cast harsh shadows across his face, hollowing his one visible eye, making him look older and smaller at the same time. There was a faint tremor in his hands now, barely there, like a vibration under the skin.
Chuuya mistook it for nerves. Guilt.
Good, he thought distantly. He should feel guilty. Not that he thought Dazai could feel emotions like that.
“So what was it?” Chuuya pressed. “You gonna tell me, or am I supposed to play some shitty guessing game because it suits your dumbass whims?”
The quiet pressed in again, heavier this time. Chuuya felt it crawling under his skin, the sense that he was being ignored on purpose. Like Dazai had already decided Chuuya wasn’t worth engaging with anymore.
“Hey,” he said, sharper now. “Answer me, brat.”
Dazai blinked, slow. His eyes finally found Chuuya’s face, but they didn’t land there. They slid, unfocused, like he was looking through him instead of at him.
Something cold went down the back of Chuuya’s neck. He ignored it.
“You always do this,” he muttered. “Every time something goes wrong, you act like it doesn’t matter at all. Like nothing touches you. Maybe if you actually gave a shit about anything, but instead you’re just—” Chuuya cut himself off, but the rest of the sentence was already echoing in his head, familiar and sharp. “—just a goddam walking corpse.”
Chuuya caught the moment Dazai flinched. He frowned. The feeling at the back of his neck sharpened, uneasy now.
“What?” he demanded. “You wanna tell me I’m wrong?”
Dazai opened his mouth. Closed it again. His hands were clenched tight in his sleeves now, knuckles white where the fabric pulled thin.
“Look at me,” Chuuya said. The words came out harsh. Commanding.
Dazai didn’t.
That was when irritation tipped over into something hotter, something closer to rage.
“Don’t ignore me, you bandaged piece of shit,” Chuuya snapped. “I’m talking to you.”
Dazai’s gaze darted up at that—too fast, startled. For a split second, his eyes were wide and bright, pupils blown, fear flashing naked across his face before it vanished again.
There. That.
Chuuya’s stomach twisted, confused. That wasn’t the reaction he’d expected.
Not sarcasm. Not boredom. Not even anger.
“What the hell is your problem?” he asked, unable to mask his cresting uneasiness.
Dazai swallowed, and his lips parted, like he was about to speak, but only the silence rushed in, weightier than before. It felt wrong now. Pressurized. Like something was about to break. Chuuya’s heart thudded once, hard, as the adrenaline spiked again, misfiring. He took another step forward, too close, too close, crowding Dazai up against the brick wall at his back.
“Pay attention,” Chuuya said, like he was spelling it out for a child who had misbehaved. “You’re here. This is real. You fucked up. You can’t just drift off.”
The words hung there between them. Dazai stayed very, very still. Still, like a rabbit freezing in tall grass.
That cold feeling in Chuuya’s spine sharpened into something like dread—but he didn’t know what to do with it. He mistook it for frustration, for the anger of being stonewalled.
“So say something, asshole,” he demanded. “Anything.”
A sound scraped out of Dazai’s throat, too quiet to be a word.
Chuuya grabbed him.
One second Dazai was standing there, unresponsive, half-gone in that infuriating way of his, and the next Chuuya’s hand was on his tie, fingers fisting the fabric at his chest.
“Don’t,” Dazai said.
The word came out small. Not sharp. Not defiant.
That should’ve stopped him.
Instead, it made something snap.
“Don’t what?” Chuuya shot back. “Stand there like you’re not even here?”
He shoved him back a step. Dazai stumbled, heel catching on uneven pavement, and then there was nowhere else to go—the brick wall at his back, cold and solid, boxing him in. Chuuya didn’t slam him into it. He didn’t need to. The space just… disappeared.
Chuuya planted his forearm against the wall beside Dazai’s head, caging him in without quite realizing that was what he was doing.
“Look at me,” he said again, low and tight. “I’m not letting you tune out, bastard.”
Dazai froze.
Not the casual stillness he wore like a joke. This was different. His shoulders locked, spine straightening too rigidly, breath catching high in his chest. His hands slid out of his pockets and hovered uselessly at his sides, fingers twitching like he didn’t know where to put them.
Chuuya felt it then—that wrongness again, louder now, sharper, clearer. The way Dazai wasn’t pushing back. The way he wasn’t trying to slip past or mouth off or do anything.
“Hey,” Chuuya said, frowning. “What the hell is that look? Don’t look at me like that.”
Dazai’s eyes were wide but unfocused, pupils blown so dark they swallowed the color. He wasn’t tracking Chuuya’s face. He wasn’t tracking anything.
“You can’t just stand there, shithead,” Chuuya pressed, uneasy. “Say something.”
Dazai’s throat worked. His mouth opened.
Nothing.
Chuuya’s grip tightened without him meaning to, knuckles pressing into Dazai’s coat. “This is your fault,” he said, the words coming out rougher than he’d meant. “You messed up, and now you won’t even—”
Dazai flinched. Hard this time. A full-body recoil, like the words had hit him instead of the wall.
Chuuya stopped short. “What?” he demanded, confused now, adrenaline crashing into something colder. “What is that?”
Dazai’s breathing went uneven, quick shallow pulls that didn’t seem to be doing much. His gaze finally snapped into focus—but it didn’t land on Chuuya’s eyes. It fixed somewhere lower, around his collarbone, like looking up was too much.
“I said—” Chuuya started.
“I tried.”
Two words. Barely audible.
They didn’t sound like an argument. They didn’t sound like an excuse.
They sounded… scared.
Dazai didn’t get scared.
Chuuya stared at him.
“What?” he said, stupidly.
“I tried,” Dazai repeated, quieter still.
Something in Chuuya’s chest dropped out.
The world tilted, just slightly. Enough for things to fall into focus—the glassy eyes, the way Dazai was holding himself too straight, like he’d been taught not to move. The way his hands were shaking now that he wasn’t hiding them. The way his breathing kept catching, like his body didn’t remember how to do it automatically.
Chuuya pulled back immediately. His arm dropped from the wall. His hand came away from Dazai’s tie like he’d been burned.
“—Hey,” he said, the anger draining out of his voice all at once, leaving it rough and uncertain. “I didn’t mean—”
Dazai didn’t move. He stayed there, pinned by nothing now but the wall itself, eyes still unfocused, gaze fixed unmoving somewhere past Chuuya’s shoulder. He looked… far away. Gone in a way Chuuya had never seen before, even as often as Dazai went somewhere else like this.
Chuuya took a step back. Then another.
“Dazai,” he said, slower. Careful. Like approaching something skittish. “I didn’t mean it like that. Like… like however you’re taking it.”
No response.
“I was just—” Chuuya swallowed, searching for words that didn’t feel suddenly dangerous. “I was pissed. Okay? I didn’t know you—”
He trailed off.
Didn’t know you what?
Dazai finally blinked. Once. Twice. Like he was surfacing from deep water.
“I know,” he said automatically.
That hurt worse than if he’d said nothing.
Chuuya rubbed the back of his neck, adrenaline finally bleeding out of him, leaving his hands unsteady. “I shouldn’t have grabbed you like that,” he muttered. “That was—”
Stupid. Wrong. Too much.
Dazai nodded. A small, mechanical movement.
“It’s fine, slug,” he said.
It wasn’t.
Chuuya knew that, even if he didn’t know why.
He stepped aside, giving Dazai space, suddenly hyperaware of how close he had been, how easily it had happened. How all the times they’d tussled before, it had never gone like this. Dazai didn’t take the opening right away. He lingered for a second longer, like his body hadn’t caught up with the change yet. Then he slipped past Chuuya without looking at him.
Just one careful step sideways, like he was disengaging from a trap he didn’t want to set off again. His shoulder brushed the wall as he moved, then settled there, back against the brick, head tipped slightly forward.
Close enough to touch.
Far enough that Chuuya didn’t know how to reach him.
The night rushed back in around them—rain finally starting to fall in a gloomy drizzle, thin and cold, needling through the gaps in Chuuya’s coat. It soaked into Dazai’s hair almost immediately, darkening it, plastering loose strands against his forehead. He didn’t react to it. Didn’t shake it off or complain or make a joke about how miserable it was.
He just stood there.
Chuuya didn’t try to reach him. He had the sinking sense that if he did, Dazai wouldn’t hear it anyway.
He had words—sharp ones, defensive ones, the kind that came easily when he was cornered—but none of them fit anymore. Everything he reached for felt wrong in his hands, like he’d picked up a tool meant for something else entirely.
“I didn’t—” he started, then stopped himself.
Dazai didn’t look up.
“I was just pissed,” Chuuya tried again, just a statement, like he could ground himself in it if he said it out loud.
Dazai nodded once, shrugged a shoulder. Still didn’t meet his eyes.
“That doesn’t mean—” Chuuya said, then trailed off again.
Doesn’t mean what?
That he deserved it? That it wasn’t his fault? Chuuya didn’t know. The shape of the problem kept slipping out of focus.
Dazai shifted his weight slightly, the movement small and stiff, like he was still braced for impact. His hands were tucked back into his sleeves now, fingers hidden, posture carefully neutral. He looked… blank. Emptied out.
Chuuya frowned.
It didn’t make sense.
Dazai never reacted like that. He brushed things off. He laughed. He bit back harder. He didn’t freeze up over a few harsh words and a hand on his coat. If anything, he usually pushed until Chuuya snapped—and then laughed about it afterward.
This was… something else.
“I don’t get why you—” Chuuya stopped himself again, jaw tightening.
Dazai’s shoulders rose and fell in a shallow breath. “It was nothing,” he said, same automatic tone as before.
Chuuya looked at him properly this time—really looked. The hazy eyes. The way he wasn’t quite aligned with the moment, like he was standing half a second behind it. The way his expression didn’t match the words coming out of his mouth.
Something itched under Chuuya’s skin. An uncomfortable, crawling awareness.
“This wasn’t supposed to be a big deal,” Chuuya muttered, more to himself than to Dazai. “You act like nothing ever gets to you.”
Dazai’s mouth twitched. Not a smile.
“We should go,” he said mildly. “We’ll be late reporting back.”
There it was. Logistics. Procedure. Retreat into structure.
Chuuya hesitated. He didn’t want to leave it like this. He didn’t even know what “this” was—but the idea of walking away with that look still burned into his head made his chest feel tight in a way he didn’t like.
“Dazai,” he said, trying one last time, low and careful. “I wasn’t trying to—”
Dazai finally looked at him. For a second, their eyes met—and Chuuya flinched internally at what he saw there. Not anger. Not hurt.
Distance.
“I know,” Dazai said again. Then he looked away, gaze sliding past Chuuya like he’d already moved on.
That was it. The conversation, such as it was, shutting down without ever opening properly.
Chuuya stood there for another beat, rain soaking into his sleeves, feeling stupid and restless and uncomfortably aware of his own hands. He didn’t say anything else. Didn’t try again.
Eventually, he turned and started toward the street, footsteps heavy against the wet pavement. Dazai fell into step beside him a moment later.
Chuuya didn’t know why that unsettled him more than if Dazai had walked off completely.
He kept thinking about the way Dazai had said I tried—flat, resigned, like it was a verdict instead of a defense—and about how badly he wanted to rewind the moment before it, even though he couldn’t have said what he would’ve done differently.
The rain blurred the street into streaks of light and shadow, the kind of night that swallowed details if you didn’t look straight at them. Chuuya kept his eyes ahead. He didn’t trust himself to check what Dazai’s face was doing—didn’t want to see that blank distance again, or worse, find it gone and have to account for the relief.
He told himself it was nothing. A bad minute. A misread signal. Dazai had always been strange about things that should’ve rolled off him. This didn’t have to mean anything.
Except it did.
The words stuck in his head anyway, refusing to smooth over: I tried.
Chuuya flexed his hand, fingers aching where they’d tightened earlier. He shoved them into his pockets, grounding himself in the familiar weight there.
Beside him, Dazai walked easily enough, posture loose again, expression settled back into something neutral. Anyone watching would’ve missed it. Would’ve thought the moment had passed cleanly.
Chuuya knew better.
Whatever he had hit back there hadn’t been the mission, or the fuck-up, or even the fight. It had been something already sore. Something he hadn’t known was his to touch. Something that wasn’t his to touch.
That sat wrong with him.
Chuuya told himself he would forget it by morning. He was good at that—at filing things away until they stopped scraping.
But even as they disappeared into the rain, he had the uneasy sense that he had just learned something he wasn’t supposed to know yet.
He didn’t look over. He didn’t say anything else.
Didn’t want to make it worse.
And Dazai didn’t either.