Chapter Text
Chuuya has had an awful week, where he’s gotten a collective nine hours of sleep over the span of seven days, and he is two seconds away from blowing a gasket at the next person he sees. So he’s glad to be going home, finally, after the awful week he’s had.
However, arriving home to a lock that has clearly been picked by a shitty Mackerel causes his anger level to reach it’s boiling point in ways it normally would never.
Kicking open the door to his penthouse, he snarls upon seeing Dazai seated at his counter, drinking a glass of what he’s pretty sure is whiskey rather than Chuuya’s prized wine. Small blessings, but Chuuya is already massively pissed off.
“Get the fuck out of my house, Dazai.” He snarls at the brunette, storming over to where he’s seated at his counter and snatching the whiskey out of his hands.
Dazai merely blinks at him, looking surprised.
“Rough day at work, Chibi?” He questions, tone careless in that way that pisses Chuuya off even more.
After dumping the contents down the drain, he slams the drink into the sink with nearly enough force to shatter. It cracks, nonetheless so he flings it into the trashcan.
“Oh, you’d know if you weren’t such a coward who always ran away from all of his problems, like you ran from the mafia four years ago.” Chuuya seethes.
He whirls around to look at Dazai, who looks completely taken aback, opening his mouth to say something. Chuuya cuts in before he can say anything, the red haze of anger and the blur of exhaustion making a toxic cocktail that’s quickly overtaking his mind.
“Don’t fucking come back here. I’m sick of seeing your face in my apartment when you’re not invited, always breaking in and messing with my shit. It should be easy for you to leave. That’s what you’re good at right – leaving when things get tough?”
Dazai’s mouth shuts with a click, and rather than arguing or needling back like Chuuya expects, he nods quietly, his bangs covering his eyes. He rises from his seat and heads towards the front door.
There’s part of Chuuya that screams at him for taking out his anger and exhaustion on Dazai, but he refuses to let it take front and center, instead he feels a dark sort of satisfaction at shutting up Dazai for once in his fucking life.
Dazai pauses at the front door for a brief second, as if waiting for something, and then when nothing but vicious silence follows, he mutely nods again and steps out the door, shutting it quietly as he goes.
---
Dazai walks through Yokohama, feeling numb.
His mind keeps going back to the one-sided shouting match with Chuuya he had this evening...He doesn’t even know how long ago it was now. It wasn’t their usual banter where he pokes at Chuuya and Chuuya snaps back but both walk away feeling okay if a bit aggravated.
No, it hurt.
He shouldn’t have broken into Chuuya’s penthouse today, but hindsight is 20/20 and all that. When Chuuya came inside in a rage instead of loudly complaining about him breaking in yet again, that was all he needed to know he’d made a mistake. And yet, he’d tried to play it off and act unbothered and cool as a cucumber. And didn’t that work out well for him.
Chuuya shared how he really felt about Dazai, and Dazai was a fool for thinking that the ginger would ever forgive him for all his failures and sins against him. The lanky man didn’t even try to deflect or joke like he usually would, he could tell these words were honest from Chuuya.
At the end of it all, Chuuya didn’t even need to toss him out, he left of his own volition. The words Chuuya said haven’t stopped looping in Dazai’s head.
“Oh, you’d know if you weren’t such a coward who always ran away from all of his problems, like you ran from the mafia four years ago.”
And then, what he said next, that took Dazai’s breath away, even though he knows he deserved it and it was the truth:
“Don’t fucking come back here. I’m sick of seeing your face in my apartment when you’re not invited, always breaking in and messing with my shit. It should be easy for you to leave. That’s what you’re good at right – leaving when things get tough?”
And Dazai had felt himself shut down upon hearing those words. The truth is painful, but that doesn’t make it any less true.
So now, he numbly walks through Yokohama at night.
He wants to see Yokohama from up high. That’s one of his old tricks he uses to reconnect his mind to his body, though it takes a bit to take effect.
Distantly, he finds himself stepping into the stairwell of a tall apartment complex that nobody he knows lives in, trudging up the stairs as he heads for the roof.
He doesn’t belong anywhere, does he? Certainly not with the ADA. He definitely doesn’t belong in the light, but he never really did to begin with.
He always was only playing the role of being a part of the light, but he never really was, was he?
Mafia black blood will always be black. He never stood a chance at changing who he is. But hell, he’d certainly tried, hadn’t he? He’d tried for Odasaku’s sake, right?
He’d made that promise to join the light, and he certainly tried to keep it.
But now...Now he’s a pariah around his coworkers – they know the monster in their midst and they merely tolerate it. What else is there to do in their shoes? Maybe they should put the monster down, send him on a suicide mission, but they’re too kind for that.
So regardless of if they want him around or not, they tolerate him.
Ha, as if there’s any question if they want the monster around. They saw beneath the facades, and they know that there’s nothing worth sticking around for underneath it all.
He makes it up to the second floor of the stairs when he registers the steps trailing behind his own. He stops ascending the stairs to turn around and look at the person. He doesn’t really care what his little shadow here does to him at this point.
There’s a moment of silence as they look at him, blinking like they’re surprised that he stopped just to turn around and look at them. The man offers him an awkward smile and then steps around Dazai, continuing up the stairs.
Oh.
Dazai had thought they were following him. His senses must be out of wack just like the rest of him if he was wrong about such a simple thing, and they weren’t following him-
Suddenly, there’s a strong shove to his back.
The brunette goes weightless for a moment, a choked off gasp escaping from his lungs – and then he’s falling down the stairs. He raises his arms to shield his head as much as he can, but as soon as his side collides with the first stairs, he feels something inside his ribcage snap and tastes copper in his mouth.
He continues his rapid tumble down the stairs, each staircase he hits heaping more agony onto his already screaming body. He stays silent despite the way his body screams in agony, blood filling his mouth.
Falling down the stairs hurts like hell. This is not how he wanted to go out.
It takes an excruciating infinity of tumbling before he comes to a stop at the bottom of the stairwell. He feels like a limp doll, tossed to the wayside. Except dolls cannot feel the fire mixed with numbness that fills every inch of his nerves.
He feels wetness pooling underneath his head as he lies on the ground, unable to move, the world spinning around him. Footsteps approach as the world goes hazy, and then he hears a phone call being made as the person who shoved him stands over him, watching him die with clinical coolness.
“I caught that pretty detective you’ve been eyeing, boss. The former Demon Prodigy, yeah. No, I’m not hurt, I caught him off guard; he was pretty out of it. You’re gonna need to bring medical staff and a clean up crew to clean up the blood. Bring Miss Austen too, he’s going to need her revive ability.”
Those are the last things he makes out before darkness consumes everything.
Waking up feels foggy and clouded and he’s not sure why his body feels so light and heavy simultaneously. He tries to think back to...Anything, really, but he finds there’s a neat void where any memories would be.
With a jolt, he realizes he can’t even remember his own name or where he is. A spike of panic flutters down his spine. Sitting up in a plush bed, he looks around at the gray-painted walls and the ornately-decorated bedroom he’s resting on the bed in. There’s an IV and a heart monitor attached to his arm and a giant mirror on the wall across from him.
He stares at his unfamiliar reflection: bedhead dark brown hair that goes down a little past his chin, deep brown eyes like voids, scars crisscrossing his arms and a jagged scar across his throat like it’s been slit before.
He has no recollection of how he got these scars. He doesn’t remember anything at all.
The heart beat monitor next to him rapidly kicks up it’s beeping.
The door to the room opens and he flinches back away from the unexpected noise. Then he turns his attention to the man entering the room.
A tall man with short ruby red hair and his lavish outfit reeking of wealth steps into the room. His pale silver eyes light up with relief when they fall on the man in the bed.
“Oh Osamu, you’re awake, thank god!” The man with vibrant gem-colored hair exclaims, sweeping into the room and towards the bed where the brunette is rooted to the spot.
He blinks a few times, his void like eyes studying the tall male approaching him.
“Osamu?” The bed-bound man echoes, voice sounding hoarse from disuse.
The other male pauses in his strides, looking caught off guard. Then his expression falls.
“Oh, honey. The doctor had said you might have memory issues after what happened. I didn’t think you’d forget your own name though.”
The man cups “Osamu’s” face in his hands, pale silver eyes scanning his face worriedly.
“Do you know where you are currently? Or who I am?” He asks, voice soft.
The amnesiac shakes his head slightly before wincing at the splitting pain in his skull. The other man sits gently on the side of the bed, taking his cold hands into his own warm ones.
“Okay. Your name is Dazai Osamu. You’re at our mansion in Yokohama. I’m your boyfriend, Matsumoto Masaharu, though you always call me “Haru”. You say my name is a tongue twister otherwise.” Masaharu, or Haru, chuckles.
The brunette frowns at that, nodding faintly.
“Dazai Osamu...Haru…” He tries out the names on his tongue for any sense of familiarity but finds none, before looking up at Haru.
Haru watches his face like he’s drinking in each and every expression, savoring them, even. Having such single-minded focus makes Osamu flush slightly and he looks away.
“What...What happened to me?” He asks after a moment passes, turning his dark brown eyes back to meet silver eyes.
Grief comes across the other man’s face.
“You tripped and fell down two flights of stairs. You’re lucky to be alive.”
Haru exhales shakily.
“Well, actually, you weren’t alive for a bit. But our friend Jane happened to be nearby, and she has a revive ability that was able to work since your own ability went offline when you died. So she was able to heal your fatal injuries and bring you back to life.”
Taking Osamu’s hand into his own larger and warmer hand, he presses a kiss to the scarred man’s pale knuckles.
“The other injuries, I had a doctor take care of, as Jane’s power doesn’t extend that far. You’ve been unconscious for about two weeks now while your body healed.” Haru explains.
Osamu digests the information quietly. He stares down at his hand in the tall male’s strong grip, his slender pale hand engulfed by the other man’s hand. His eyes drift down to his own scarred arms.
There’s no good reason he can think of for this man to be lying, and his story seems to make sense.
He looks up at Haru,
“Abilities? What are those?” He asks, voice quiet.
The red-headed man smiles at him gently, eyes crinkling as he reaches out with his free hand to tuck a brown lock of hair behind Osamu’s ear.
“I’ll explain, don’t worry. I’ll explain whatever you want me to.”
---
It’s been two weeks since Chuuya had chased Dazai out of his penthouse. And Dazai is...Staying away for once in his life.
Chuuya knows he said things he shouldn’t have. He fucked up, okay? He can admit it.
But he didn’t expect Dazai would actually stay away. The fishy bastard always shows up after one of their fights, acting as if nothing ever happened. Maybe this just shows how out of line Chuuya was this time.
He doesn’t know how he feels. Bad, of course. But also, he feels like he got something off his chest – frustrations he should have said in a much better way, but that have been bubbling up inside him for a long time now.
But Dazai never listens when he tells him to stay away, at least not for long. So what’s the difference this time?
Chuuya paces back and forth in his penthouse, which he’s been doing since he got back from work at the Port Mafia and found his place untouched by the shitty Mackerel for two straight weeks. He should be happy. Thrilled even. But damn it, he feels shitty.
He finally gives in and pulls his phone out of his pocket, scrolling through his contacts to the one that says “Mackerel”.
He’ll call the bandaged bastard, just to check on him. Make sure he’s still alive and kicking.
Yeah.
He taps the call button. It rings. And rings. And rings.
Then, it goes to voicemail, and Dazai’s lilting voice pours out.
“Looks like I’m not available right now! Try again later, or maybe I’ve found a lovely lady for a double suicide with, and then in which case, I’ll never be available again~”
Chuuya huffs a sigh at that, feeling like his chest tightens as he ends the call.
“Dazai is fine. He’s probably just giving me the cold shoulder.” He mutters.
He doesn’t feel great about what he said to Dazai, and especially not the way he said it to the brunette. But Dazai is an adult, he can take a bit of anger.
Besides, him? Apologize to Dazai? The tall bastard would never let him live it down.
That’s just not how they work. They don’t apologize to each other; they never have.
Running a hand through his hair, he decides to get ready for bed.
He manages to get through his whole nightly routine, and even gets into bed. But as he lies in bed, he finds he can’t sleep. His mind keeps going back to the way Dazai had hidden his face when he’d said what he’d said. He’d clearly struck something within the brunette, and he gets the feeling it wasn’t a nice thing.
Frustrated and fed up, Chuuya throws the blankets off himself.
Fucking fine. He’ll drop by Dazai’s dorm and check on the shitty bastard since he can’t be bothered to answer his fucking phone.
He gets dressed again, and then he grabs everything he needs to leave: his hat, keys, phone, wallet. The works.
Exiting his penthouse, he takes the elevator back to the bottom floor and heads out to the garage where his motorcycle is parked. It takes him no time at all to rev up the motorcycle and zoom off for the ADA dorms.
Upon arriving, he parks his motorcycle nearby, before walking the rest of the way.
“Stupid fucking Mackerel.” He mutters under his breath as he walks along the sidewalk for the dorms, keeping his hands in his pockets.
It only takes a few minutes for him to arrive at Dazai’s dorm, and he blinks at the unexpected sight of the weretiger knocking on the door at ten o’clock at night.
“Dazai, I’m going to come in, okay? If you’re in here, the President gave me the key to your dorm to check on you.” The weretiger calls, before stiffening and suddenly turning to look at Chuuya.
The two regard each other warily for a moment, before Chuuya raises his hands to show he means no harm.
“I’m actually here to see Dazai. I haven’t heard from the shitty bastard in two weeks.” He explains.
The white-haired male’s face screws up in concern.
“It’s been two weeks for you too?” He asks.
Chuuya blinks at that, dread building in his stomach.
“What do you mean for me “too”?” He asks.
Atsushi frowns, clearly chewing on the inside of his cheek as he debates explaining. Then he exhales and speaks.
“I’m here to check on Dazai. He hasn’t been to work, and none of the ADA have seen him for the past two weeks. While a couple of skipped days isn’t unusual, two consecutive weeks is alarming, even for Dazai. So, everyone is checking his favorite suicide spots, while the president sent me to his dorm.”
It feels like guilt and fear pile onto Chuuya. His throat feels dry, and he can’t manage to get any words out.
The weretiger eyes him for a moment, before shrugging and turning back to the door, pressing the key into the lock. He unlocks each lock on the door and then pushes the door open. The dorm is dark, without a single light on. Atsushi steps inside, and Chuuya follows.
“Dazai?” The weretiger calls cautiously, sweeping further into the dorm.
The counters have a thin layer of dust on them, and it looks like no one has been here for a bit. Chuuya is struck by the lack of any personal knickknacks or décor of Dazai’s.
In fact, it’s almost like a hotel room, with how there’s no personal touches.
He opens the pantry as if Dazai will be in there, which is empty aside from some dusty canned crab. Shutting the door, he turns back to Atsushi, who leads the way into the bedroom. It’s also empty, aside from the unmade futon and clothes in the closet.
“Where are you, you bandaged bastard?” Chuuya asks, voice coming out a touch strained.
His heart rate spikes as the last place left to check is the bathroom. Images of Dazai with slit wrists peacefully sleeping eternally in the bathtub appear in his mind, and he quickly throws open the door.
Nothing aside from rolls upon rolls of bandages scattered around the countertops.
His chest tightens with a foreboding feeling.
Where is Dazai, if not here? And how long has it been since he’s been here?
“He’s not here.” Atsushi says.
The words leave a bad taste in Chuuya’s mouth.
“Then where the fuck is he?” He grumbles.
Almost on cue, Atsushi’s phone starts to ring and the two both startle at the unexpected noise in the silent dorm. The white-haired male checks his phone.
“Oh, it’s Kunikida.”
He answers without hesitation.
“Hi Kunikida, did you find him?”
The weretiger goes dead quiet, a haunted look coming across his face as Kunikida speaks, not that Chuuya can make out what he’s saying, though he can hear the murmur of his voice from the respectful distance he’s standing away from Atsushi.
The phone slips out from the weretiger’s grip, and if not for Chuuya’s quick reflexes of diving to catch it, it would have shattered on the floor. He accidentally presses the end call button when he catches it, and winces at that. Oops. He didn’t mean to do that.
Atsushi’s voice comes as he stands back up, extending the phone to him, his segmented hetero-chromatic purple and golden eyes looking far away. He doesn’t take the phone.
“Kunikida found Dazai’s phone and shoes next to the river. Ranpo was with him, and confirmed they were Dazai’s. He said they look like they’ve been there for the full two weeks since he disappeared. Th-They think he-” Atsushi cuts himself off with an ugly sob, sinking to his knees, and tears welling up in his eyes.
Chuuya feels like his heart stops.
“No. No – that’s, that’s bullshit.” He breathes.
It feels like his whole world is crashing down around him, and he takes quick shaky breaths. A whimper escapes his lips as he starts frantically searching the dorm for any trace of Dazai pulling a prank. Some note. Something saying “Can’t believe you fell for that!”. Dazai himself popping out of some random nook or cranny. Any sign of Dazai coming home.
He tears apart the bathroom, looking for any sort of sign. Searches the trashcan. Bloody razors. Bloody bandages.
He staggers out of the bathroom, back into the bedroom. Lifts Dazai’s futon as if he’ll find anything under it. Nothing. The closet. Nothing but clothes left to rot, the owner with no intent to come home.
“No, no, no, god not like this-” Chuuya croaks out, dropping Atsushi’s phone, not caring what happens to it.
He makes it into the obviously underused kitchen, searching through the drawers and cabinets. Nothing. Nothing.
Nothing.
He staggers outside, falling to his knees in the doorway, before letting out an inhuman scream of despair. Calling the name of the man he loves, that he never told. That he’ll never get to tell now.
“Dazai!”