Chapter Text
“Oh god— Yes, yes!”
It couldn’t be. Not again.
“Up, yeah, oh— hm yes, there—"
Ok, wonderful. Tonight someone needed directions.
Chuuya groaned, hands sinking in the pillow under his head in utter frustration.
“There, a little right— mh, oh my god baby you’re good!”
A little right, seriously?
Well, Chuuya had some stage directions for her: exeunt, curtain call, and go fuck yourself. At least she wasn’t as loud as the girl that sang when she came. Literally tweeted like an opera house. He’d had nightmares about it for days.
The headboard of the bed kept banging against the wall, harder and faster than it was five seconds before. If glares and intention could kill, he would have obliterated the couple even through the wall.
It was a little depressing if Chuuya thought about it: the guy kept around only women who filled the silence of his nights. Never uttered a word himself. Never twice the same voice.
It was a little bit sad, right?
“Oh YES! Harder, harder!”
...Nope, not sad. The guy deserved hell.
With a growl, Chuuya tucked his head under the pillow and tried to remind himself that he had to wake up at 6 am and drive all the way to Tokyo for a promotional shooting. The photoshoot wasn’t until noon, but Kaji would have wanted to take his sweet fucking time for the makeup and Higuchi had issues with the mood boards for the styling-- therefore, 6 am.
“Oh, baby, higher, yeah, yes! ”
He could already see the headlines: up-and-coming actor Nakahara Chuuya, 22, dies in a car crash for lack of sleep.
If only his fucking neighbor would have been so kind to stop at his fourth orgasm and let him sleep for a change… but apparently it was too much to ask. The headboard banged against the wall hard. A high-pitched wail made Chuuya cringe.
Chuuya felt the inhuman need to punch a hole in said wall and show those bastards how quickly death could be bestowed upon them, but he tried to sleep anyway.
*
Nakahara Chuuya loved his new home.
The airy loft overlooking the bay occupied half of the 30th floor in a modern building. A nice building in a young area, the letting agent had assured him: only young CEOs, minor movie stars and sons of tycoons lived nearby. All people who were more interested in minding their own business than networking.
Just to be considered for such property had Chuuya’s heart flutter.
Damn, the stamp with his signature was ready almost before he could see the house because— come on, a penthouse? It was a dream.
Now, Chuuya didn’t care that the loft took a little more than half of the entire top floor, especially because the overall property was placed on two levels.
The square footage was way bigger than his old apartment. He would have woken up every day in a queen-sized surrounded by floor-to-ceiling windows, padding around barefoot on his shiny wooden floor to his shiny fume and glass kitchen. The bedroom overlooked the space from a spacious mezzanine with a walk-in-closet. Not to mention the huge terrace with the Jacuzzi.
But of course, Akutagawa and Kaji wouldn’t care about all the pros of the house and had to pester him with stupid questions.
“So there’s another flat? You know who your neighbor is?”
“… Hah?”
“Your neighbor, Chuuya. The person who lives close to you, usually next door?”
Chuuya scrunched his nose, securing the phone in between his ear and his shoulder as he poured himself a glass of wine.
“I don't need the fucking Cambridge dictionary definition, Ryuu,” he said, looking at the glass with a cocked eyebrow for a moment before shrugging and adding two fingers more. It was 11 am in Yokohama but 5 pm somewhere, right? “But no, I don’t know them.”
“You want your dear friend to deliver them a fruit basket? And, by fruit, I mean lemons.”
…On a second thought, Chuuya added more wine. He couldn’t deal with Kaji’s lemon jokes, not sober.
“No, never. Stay away from my house, thank you.”
“Chuuya.” Ryuunosuke’s voice was low and slightly exasperated. “You bought a house and didn’t ask about the person next door? Your terraces confine!”
“What the fuck do you want from me, Ryuu?! The agent didn’t mention any shitty neighbors!”
“And you didn’t think of asking?”
He didn’t like the fact that Akutagawa sounded like the mature one between them.
Chuuya was the oldest, yeah? And by extension, he should have been the wisest one in their friendship.
He was also the only one in their group who had enough money to buy a home that boasted a Jacuzzi and had enough space in the garage for both his babies, meaning the bike and the brand new sports car.
So why did Akutagawa sound like he had a point?
“It’s not like I’m going to become friends with them,” he replied, irritation bubbling in his stomach. Now it did sound like a good question since he shared the walls with someone. Shit. “And, this might shock you but people in the modern world value their privacy so I’m not sure I was even allowed to ask.”
“They could be a terrorist,” Kaji chimed in.
When he heard Akutagawa sigh in the background, Chuuya could relate.
“Kaji, I don’t think terrorists can afford apartments in that building.”
“What do you know? Maybe they’re a mafia boss lying low after a terrorist attack,” Kaji reiterated, with a roaring laugh that made Chuuya cringe.
He clasped the wine glass tighter.
“Maybe you should go fuck yourself, huh, Kaji?”
“Chuuya, don’t be mad because you didn’t think—”
“I’m not mad,” he growled over Akutagawa’s controlled voice before the other could remind him again that he wasn’t even mature enough to ask the right questions. He was definitely mad — especially at himself. “Anyway, it’s not a big deal. And the contract is signed so it’s whatever. Y’all can shut the fuck up and start focusing on the important things, like the wine cellar in my new house.”
With a tut, Chuuya really hoped that his nosy friends wouldn’t bug him with questions and could be just fucking happy for him.
Just for once.
Just that once.
…He also wished that, fantastic wine cellar and Jacuzzi aside, the walls would have been thicker.
That same night, Chuuya’s eyes snapped open. A suspicious noise, weirdly resembling someone softly head-butting the wall, made the man grow tense in his queen-sized bed.
It was a rather tale-telling sound but it couldn’t be, right?
He couldn’t be so ridiculously unlucky, right?
He grabbed the phone from the nightstand, scowling at the time: 3 am.
The memory of the vicious agent reassuring him about the quietness of the area passed through his brain as Chuuya pressed two fingers over his eyes, telling himself that it was just a coincidence. So what if the neighbors were banging?
Good for them.
It was just pounding. He could handle some level of white noise.
Then, the cry.
A high-pitched, feminine, lewd wail that made his entire body stiffen with second-hand embarrassment and irritation.
“Oh my fucking god,” Chuuya groaned, rolling into a burrito of blankets and tucking his head under the pillow.
What were the odds? His loser neighbor had the girlfriend over, or vice versa, right on Chuuya’s first night in his new home. A bummer, but it wasn’t exactly anybody’s fault, right? Even if they lived together, how many couples did it every night and multiple times?
Chuuya was just very unlucky, that was all.
Well— as it turned out in the days after, the guy didn’t have a girlfriend. He either had a harem or a flourishing career as a sex worker.
And Chuuya wished it was only a one-night thing.
He almost wished his neighbor were a mafia executive, actually: at least, from what he’d seen on YouTube, those bosses were discreet with their encounters.
This guy definitely wasn’t discreet. What a shit show.
*
So, Mafia Boss Guy — further referred as Mafia — was having the time of his life banging a woman through the night.
Again.
Nestled under the covers, Chuuya moved the cursor on his laptop to glance at the hour for the umpteenth time that night. Midnight. Midnight on a weekday and he was bingeing the third season of Hannibal, too tired to go clubbing and too on edge to sleep.
If the crescendo of moans wasn’t enough, the pounding of the headboard against the idiot’s walls throbbed in synch with his headache.
Unsure if he was supposed to laugh or kick the wall down, Chuuya rolled his eyes.
He didn’t know shit about Mafia, but something he knew alright: this man had a problem. Wasn’t he ever exhausted ? Did laws of physic not work on him?
At least the bed didn’t exactly confine with Chuuya’s bedroom, but with his walk-in-closet: Chuuya didn’t think he could have survived this whole ordeal being bed-to-bed with the bastard.
He swore he wasn’t bitter at all as he clicked on a new tab to open the chat, letting Will Graham talk in the background as he texted Ryuu.
To: Ryuu
He’s at it again.
The phone pinged back after a moment, signaling Ryuunosuke’s answer.
And honestly, Chuuya didn’t know what he expected from a sassy emo best friend he’d known most of his life, but surely it was a little bit more sympathy than a "Il Padrino" gif.
Chuuya rolled his eyes. This mafia joke was getting old.
Since Kaji had decided to bring up the “mafia boss” again while refreshing Chuuya’s makeup in between takes, his neighbor was officially known by his team as Mafia or Mafia Guy.
Although he had tried to counter that no mafioso would be so disrespectful and not mysterious and secretive and sexy-but-in-a-dangerous-way, the joke still stuck. Tsujimura even dared to text him, comparing his (depressing) love life with the guy’s escapades.
She didn't even seem bothered by the fact that she was still single because she was a damn workaholic and had no right to tease anyone about their love life, which bugged Chuuya even more.
After a while, he had just started to think he had picked a stupid team of stupid friends.
To: Ryuu
You hexed me.
Spiteful, who, him? Yes, ma’am. Especially when the little emo had a point.
From: Ryuu
…don’t let me say “I told you so”
To: Ryuu
This bastard. I’m gonna murder him.
From: Ryuu
You have to give it to Mafia tho, his stamina is remarkable. How many times, tonight?
Chuuya growled, staring daggers at the walls.
The pounding had stopped, but the squeals didn’t. Chuuya could hear the girl's wails in every pause of the Hannibal episode on his laptop.
He’d started to keep whatever he was watching purposefully loud every time Mafia went at it, but no one ever showed up to tell him something about the noise. Which was a pity, to be honest, because he half-hoped that the guy would have the nerve to complain first so Chuuya could punch him in the nose.
To: Ryuu
Three. It’s the second girl tonight. Or he’s slaughtering a goat.
From: Ryuu
If he’s not a coward, he’s doing both.
Stupid, edgy, right-most-of-the-time Ryuu.
With a small sigh, Chuuya wondered where he’d be if he hadn’t met Akutagawa Ryuunosuke at his first audition for the drama club in high school. Who would have held his hand through the many more, and much more serious, auditions to come? Who would have brought him cake to cheer him up when his bike was stuck in the shop?
Who would have creeped the fuck out of him with people fucking whilst slaughtering animals?
To: Ryuu
Next up I’m gonna put on Transformers. All the damn movies. See who’s louder, if this bastard or Michael fucking Bay.
He barely registered Ryuu’s last message (“ Yeah, good luck with that, I’m gonna sleep now ”, fucking unhelpful huh?) before he plugged the phone and placed it on the nightstand.
From the other end of the wall, the girl moaned almost ridiculously and said something in a foreign language.
Yokohama wasn’t big enough for this guy’s dick. He was fishing abroad now and, in all this, Chuuya couldn’t find a decent boyfriend. And yes, he was aware that a good pair of AirPods would have solved the problem but it had become a battle of wills: his beauty sleep against the female population of Yokohama parading in and out of that goddamn apartment.
And who was this guy, anyway? Part of Chuuya seethed with curiosity. Part of him also wanted to skin the bastard alive.
Smacking the wall with the thin hope that it would get the message through ( it didn’t stop them before, why the hell should it work now? , his Ryuu-brain cell provided), Chuuya sighed and forced himself to return to his TV series.
And he was worried he’d bother people by leaving at 3 am to shoot.
*
It was halfway through the second week that Chuuya snapped under the pressure and knocked at Mafia’s door.
His team had a packed schedule, therefore he couldn’t afford either to lose sleep or look like a plane crash survivor. He was even feeling shitty about his love life, now, and had bags under his eyes. Entire sets of luggage.
Then, you might ask, why did it take him so long to confront Mafia Guy? Well, Chuuya didn’t want to.
He liked drunken brawls and bike races and barking insults, sure and he could also snap the bitch in two during a martial arts match, but he was also a Taurus to the core. Meaning: he was genetically modeled to run the fuck away from conflicts and deal with confrontations never.
That time, though, Nakahara Chuuya didn’t run.
He braced himself for the most awkward talk ever and knocked again, harder this time, to make sure his idiot of a neighbor would come to the door quickly. Rustle noises from inside.
His heart ran faster in his ribcage. The steps behind the door grew closer.
In that painfully stretched time, waiting for someone he had no intention to meet ever, Chuuya low-key considered retreat: nothing was worth this kind of stress. Yet, he didn’t move.
Scanning the frantic pounding of his own heart with his heel on the doormat, Chuuya glanced at the phone in his hand and almost yeeted it out of the hallway window when he spotted a text:
From: Tsujimura
ThE TiMe To ChIcKeN OuT AnD Go HoMe Is NeVeEeR
“Very fucking funny,” he mumbled under his breath, going to stow his phone in his back pocket— and almost jumping out of his skin when a voice chirped:
“What’s funny?”
Shit.
Frozen in place, Chuuya slowly raised his eyes.
His neighbor was taller than him, so what? Duh, Chuuya was 5’ 2, most of the world population was taller than him.
However, the guy seemed to be towering over him for almost twenty centimeters. He also had the nerve to have messy brown hair and big, cute eyes. Mafia seemed curious as he looked at him, and Chuuya couldn’t but stare right back: he felt like he couldn’t breathe, drowning in that amber-brown gaze and well-shaped lips and sharp jawline.
A heartbeat.
Two heartbeats.
Three.
Chuuya parted his lips, mustering the courage to say something, anything, but it felt like someone had grabbed his brain cells and put them just out of Chuuya’s reach.
No matter how hard he stretched to put them back in place there was nothing in his brain, which seemed stripped of every thought but one: ok, sorry, I changed my mind, slam me against the wall, thank you.
“...You needed something?”
Taking a deep breath, Chuuya stepped back.
He hadn’t realized how close he was standing to the door until he was almost chest-to-chest with his idiotic neighbor, and could inhale the scent of mint and coffee and— medical supplies?
“Are you injured?” he asked, cocking an eyebrow and registering the bandages covering the man’s neck.
“So rude, answering a question with another question,” the guy said. He was staring back, mirth dancing in his warm eyes.
Rude.
The word sent a fire down Chuuya’s spine, reminding him why he was there.
“Right.” he coughed, trying to clear his voice and his mind. “Right. Sorry to bother you, I recently moved next door.”
The guy cocked his head to the side, an 'o’ forming on his lips. They looked soft. An oddly specific thing to notice, but Chuuya tried to ignore it.
“Oh.”
“And I need you to keep your— your sexual encounters to a decent volume if you don’t mind. Try to be a little respectful here, yeah?”
The man seemed to think it over, tilting his head a little. Maybe this would end well, after all. Maybe Chuuya had gotten anxious over nothing.
“... What if I don’t?”
What the actual fuck.
“I’m fucking gonna kick this door down and break your dick.”
Now, when he snarled that threat, he didn’t foresee that the idiot would open in a wide, sly, confident smile. Who the hell would smirk when threatened by a stranger?
Still, there was mild interest shining in his eyes when Mafia nodded. As he raised a hand to touch his chin pensively, Chuuya noticed that the bandages reached half of the man’s palms.
“You’re Nakahara-san, aren’t you?”
Chuuya shrugged away the question, wishing it could erase the sour taste that the sound of his own surname left on the roof of his mouth.
“Chuuya,” he replied.
Not that he didn’t expect to be recognized, and he was quickly getting accustomed to that, but the lingering gaze of Mafia and the way he repeated his name made Chuuya want to disappear.
It seemed — ugh — endearing.
No surprise the guy had a damn queue out of his door.
...Not the point, Chuuya. Stay focused.
“If you know who I am, maybe you’ll want to be fucking considered before I sue the hell out of you.”
“Hm. Wouldn’t that be interesting, now?”
Why was he still giving him that half-lidded smile, as if it wasn’t the first lawsuit he ever received? And why did he look like he killed his old neighbor? Shivers ran down Chuuya’s spine, making the hair on the back of his neck stand up.
Damn Akutagawa and his talk about people slaughtering animals.
“I told you who I am, bastard. Are you gonna say your name back or just stare at me like a fucking fish?” He mustered his most convincing grin, trying to change the subject. “Or should I just call you with a fish’s name? Mackerel seems trashy and cheap enough.”
“For a chibi you really like to listen to the sound of your own voice, huh?”
“What the fuck, I’m not that short!”
To be fair, Chuuya did like to listen to the sound of his own voice. Was that a crime?! He had a lovely voice, thank you very much.
Usually, though, people acted respectful around him, if nothing because they had heard about former-thug-now-star Nakahara Chuuya’s infamous temper, so he’d be excused if the way the man drawled out the nickname made his hands itch.
“Oh, but you are.” The guy’s smile only widened, but he carried on before Chuuya had a chance to carve his creepy mackerel’s eyes out: “I’m Dazai, by the way. Dazai Osamu.”
Chuuya nodded, biting his lower lip and giving him a curt bow of his head.
“‘K, nice to meet you I fucking guess,” he said.
He seriously hoped he didn’t have to use that name ever, but the more you know, right? Plus, he suspected that no one of Dazai’s lovers knew his name, or they’d surely wailed that too.
The silence settled between them like dust.
At first, it seemed effortless, almost nice: just a polite pause within the conversation. Soon, though, the lack of small talk weight on Chuuya. He’d said ‘nice to meet you’, so wasn’t Dazai supposed to say something? And why was the bastard staring at him?
“Oi. What are you waiting for?”
“I’m giving chibi the time to google my name. It’s the character for thick and--”
“Why the fuck would I do that?!” Chuuya barked, turning on his heels to return to his door. “See you never, bastard. And keep your damn lovers in check.”
He hated how Dazai’s low chuckle followed him as he walked away. For the record, he was definitely going home to google Dazai’s silly sounding name, but he would have done that in the privacy of his own living room, with a glass of wine and no knowing gaze looming over his face.
He patted his back pockets, eyes widening oh-so-slightly when he didn’t feel the familiar bulge of phone and keys under his fingers.
“What the hell?!?”
As he turned, he registered the obscene smile Dazai was giving him. Son of a bitch. He was twirling the keys around his index finger, a victorious expression painted on his lips, and held Chuuya’s phone in the other hand.
When the hell did Dazai picked his pockets, Chuuya had no idea. Maybe he was a mafia boss after all.
“I was thinking… It’s a pity I don’t know you, Chuuya.”
Which meant: I will never let go of your keys until I decided I had my fun.
With a deep sigh, Chuuya turned again and begun to walk towards Dazai’s door.
In that moment, he would have liked to say so many things-- that he already knew Dazai enough to decide that he wanted nothing to do with him, for starters-- but he had a few hours to kill.
After all, the shitty personality and sly smirk didn’t erase the fact that Dazai was hot, so why not?
“Call me chibi again and I’ll kill you.”
“That’s a very generous offer for a chibikko,” Dazai chirped, effortlessly sidestepping the kick Chuuya aimed at his shin. “But I’ll only die with a beautiful woman.”
“ Hah?”
...In retrospect, Chuuya really should have stopped saying ‘why not?’ to the shit life kept throwing at him and that he refused to dodge.
*
The only thing Chuuya wanted to hear that morning was the sound of his own breaths inhaling and exhaling nicotine. The deep exhales, a few seconds of bliss after an entire night of shooting.
The calming crack of fire consuming the cigarette. Just him, the sweet smoke hitting his senses and the muffled screeches of the seagulls flying over the bay.
Instead, because life is a bitch, the first thing Chuuya heard that morning was his name. It came from the opposite end of the bushes that separated his terrace from Dazai’s.
“Chuu—u—ya! Good morning!”
“Shut the fuck up!” Chuuya hissed. “You’re gonna wake up the whole building, jackass!”
The redhead squinted at the delighted sound that he earned back, and the soft thud of a body leaning against the rail. Through the leaves, Chuuya couldn’t see more than a silhouette bathed in the milky grey light of dawn.
He took a deep inhale, drawing smoke in his lungs.
Why was the fucker up and screaming before cockcrow? And why was he even trying to hush Dazai? The idiot basked in the power bestowed upon him by his unnerving talent in bothering others.
“Up so soon?” Dazai asked.
Chuuya frowned, leaning further against the metal-and-glass rail that separated him from a 30-stories fall. Gravity wouldn’t be kind on him if he’d fall from there.
“I never went to bed,” he explained, “work stuff, I just got back. You?”
“I never went to bed.”
No explanation.
Chuuya had a bunch of theories about Dazai’s fucked-up sleeping schedule, by now. Insomnia was the one he actually believed in, especially after hearing he messing with bottles and glasses in the dead of night.
It happened on one of the rare evenings the man was alone, and Chuuya had been startled by the loud crash of glass hitting the ground and a slurred string of curses. When drunk, Dazai hissed through gritted teeth. It sounded like him and, at the same time, it didn’t.
The absurd thing was, the Internet had nothing over Dazai.
Not a Facebook profile, not an Instagram account, not even Mixi. Ryuu tried to no avail, then Tsujimura tried, then Gin tried; nothing. Not a single link popped up.
Dazai Osamu was a very loud ghost.
“Ne, Chuuya--”
In response, Chuuya inhaled a mouthful of smoke.
He waited for him to go on, but the phantom of his name just lingered between them. The way Dazai’s voice rolled the vowels made them so soft, but after a bunch of seconds, Chuuya realized he had to nag the question out of the idiot.
“What?”
“Would you mind if I come over? We can watch the sunrise together.” Dazai’s chuckle took him off guard. It sounded hollow. Chuuya was pretty sure that Dazai was smiling, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “It’s rather lonesome in here.”
He hesitated.
Dazai had a point: it was rather lonesome, smoking a cigarette and trying to fight the deafening silence of an empty home. Chuuya sighed. Tiredness washed over him, and a headache had started to throb in the back of his head.
He and Dazai weren’t even really friends, yet: they were neighbors on good terms, who sometimes played Mario Kart and shared a drink. People didn’t become friends in a few weeks, not in real life, but Chuuya supposed that they were moving small steps in that direction despite Dazai being an insufferable brat.
Still, Chuuya would have been happy just to share a blanket with Dazai and drift into sleep together.
Knowing he’d helped made him feel oddly light, but perhaps that was the cig and the sleep deprivation mixed with his (tiny) crush for Dazai.
“I don’t mind,” he said after a moment, taking a drag. “I’m gonna take a nap later, though. Still wanna join?”
He could sense the relief in Dazai’s voice.
“Sure.”
“Then hurry up, shitty Dazai. The sun’s almost up.”