Work Text:
The day he defected from the mafia, Dazai gave up a part of himself.
He lost his best friend, taken out by a bullet Dazai could predict but not stop.
He lost Ango, the traitor, and a chunk of his old life — for better or for worse, the Port Mafia was the only family Dazai ever knew. He also lost his partner, on a level, since the Agency works differently than the mafia and Fukuzawa has been trying to make the former Soukoku collaborate with everybody in the office to build camaraderie and trust.
It's working, Dazai reckons.
Hell, of course it's working: Fukuzawa knows what he's doing.
But that also means he lost half of his black-stained heart.
He lost Chuuya.
His partner, his boyfriend, doesn't love him best anymore.
Sure, Chuuya swears he loves him, but that’s clearly a lie because...
“Oi. Kenji-kun and I are heading out. Later, loser.”
...Because Chuuya has been spending way too much time babysitting Kenji.
Sometimes he also talks books with Ranpo, picks outfits with Naomi, plays cards with Haruno, or chats about upcoming cases with Kunikida. He even has tea with Fukuzawa, when he's not filing up reports.
Then off he goes, babysitting Kenji again because the kid is his favorite coworker now.
Well.
Perhaps babysitting is too strong a word, given that Kenji is Chuuya’s mentee and work partner for most missions, these days.
The sugar-rush-child and the same-height-as-a-child duo, isn't that cute?
Every day they scurry around the city, solving cases and destroying public and private property in the process. Then they treat themselves to a nice lunch on the company's credit card and saunter back to the Agency like the best of friends.
It’s disgusting.
It’s not like Dazai would ever dare question Fukuzawa, but that doesn’t mean he likes this usurpation.
Yes, Chuuya still does his extra paperwork when Dazai whines.
Yes, he’s had enough one-to-one time with Chuuya’s stupid face and overflowing closet during two years of hiding in a tiny safe house, lying low as the government cleared their records.
Yes, sometimes Chuuya faintly brushes the back of Dazai’s hand, and their fingers intertwine under the table during meetings.
He sees Chuuya at work.
They sometimes still go on missions together, especially when things need to get solved quickly.
But it’s not quite the same, is it?
Because Chuuya is his—
The deaf smack of a notebook landing on his head interrupts Dazai’s musings.
“Dazai! Move, we’re late.”
Damn.
Dazai doesn’t reply, hearing his partner and ignoring him. If he’ll ignore him, Kunikida will decide he's not worth the pain and leave without forcing him to work.
“Dazai, get up. We have a meeting with the police.”
He’ll leave, he tells himself.
Kunikida will leave. He has to.
It works with paralysis demons, why shouldn’t it work with humans?
“Oi, you waste of bandages, stop staring at the wall and let’s go.”
Instead, Dazai tilts his head back, tipping the chair until it’s almost standing on the two rear legs.
Maybe he could fall and break his neck, he considers, before wrinkling his nose. No, too painful. A fall wouldn't cure his heart either, because if he'll survive he'll have to deal with Chuuya ignoring him all over again — and that would be far from ideal.
"Hey. Are you dead?"
No, he thinks. Unfortunately, he's very much alive.
But how can his partner understand? How can Kunikida-kun begin to fathom the machinations of a young, bleeding heart?
He’s desperately single, as far as Dazai can tell, and he’s—
“Kunikida-kun is old," he mutters.
“Hah!?”
“Kunikida-kun is old,” Dazai repeats, voice leveled. He turns his head to face the other man, owlishly, and blinks in Kunikida’s direction. “And single. Obviously, you don’t understand the aching of a young heart!”
Kunikida’s mouth snaps open.
Then he closes it, and opens it again — he wheezes out a breath that sounds half-excruciated and half-confused before collecting himself and closing with a strident sound of clashing teeth.
He scoffs, shoulders straightening up.
"What nonsense is this about?”
“Chuuya doesn’t love me.”
Sighing, Kunikida pinches his nose. "Did you two fight again? You should keep your private business out of the office.”
“We didn't fight," Dazai says.
He hasn't seen Chuuya enough to even piss him off for a brawl-turned-make-out-session, lately; it's that bad.
Even though he technically has a boyfriend, he's practically as single as Kunikida.
“Then you're fine. Come on, let's go.”
“But I don't feel like working."
Kunikida rolls his eyes. "Color me shocked."
"Ne, I heard stress is bad for productivity and it kills three brain cells per second, you know? You should write that down." He melts into a deep sigh, sinking into his chair. He must be doing something wrong, too, because Kunikida doesn't start taking notes and... and, frankly, Dazai doesn't care either. He doesn't care about pranks and bothering others when he lost his shrimp to a boy who talks to flowers and thinks cows are domesticated animals. "I want my dog to entertain me.”
“Your dog?" A pause. He can see Kunikida's face changing color as he realizes that Chuuya is his dog. "You know what? I don’t want to know. I am going."
"Good luck, Kunikida-kuu-u-un~"
"Thanks. Stay here and lose your job," the detective says, turning on his heels and walking away.
He waves his notebook as if smacking the air might make him feel better (spoiler: Dazai doubts it) and pretending not to care that Dazai is making him do all the work alone (spoiler: for the nth time this week).
As a matter of fact, though, Dazai likes his new job. He likes it very much.
And he needs a workplace that saves people if he wants to uphold his promise and make Odasaku proud.
He desires nothing more than to grow into the good person Odasaku saw he could become; he will help civilians thrive and, in the process, buy a nice house with a nice yard so his Chibi boyfriend can run around and don’t bark.
So he jumps on his feet, following Kunikida out of the Agency.
He throws one last glance at Chuuya’s empty desk, though, telling himself he should keep his dog on a shorter leash.
—
Dazai doesn’t hear anything from Chuuya all day.
Not a call, not a peep, not even an ‘I’m thinking about how annoying you are’ text.
He sends Chuuya an allusive gif of a parrot downing a banana only for the sake of earning a reaction, to make his boyfriend scream that he’s a pain in the ass even when they are working, but the text goes unnoticed and unanswered.
The whole predicament is offensive.
Dazai works very hard every day to make sure Chuuya never forgets how annoying he is, and the Chibikko has no right to ignore him.
Chuuya even has the guts to text him a selfie of himself, Kenji and Ranpo beaming in the middle of a devastated road. They’re all doing heart signs with their fingers, and Ranpo is grinning with a lollipop in his mouth.
In the background, he can glimpse at round holes opening in the concrete, no doubt courtesy of Tainted, crumbling buildings and traffic signs plucked out of the ground like daisies.
Part of Dazai inwardly groans in annoyance.
Part of him, though, wonders when did Chuuya learn to smile like this — this brighter-than-the-sun beam that the mafia had suffocated with its darkness. What he refuses to admit even to himself, though, is how his stomach dips and insecurity wrenches at his heart.
This is terrible.
How dare Chuuya have fun without him.
—
“Fukuzawa said I’d be a good father.”
Dazai’s head snaps up.
There must be something funny in the latte he’s drinking — too bitter for his taste buds but, apparently, the owner of the Uzumaki cafe is a coffee master and knows his brews — because he’s hearing weird things: Chuuya just said that Fukuzawa went crazy overnight.
Pity. He liked Fukuzawa.
A shame that the world has lost a great swordsman.
“Did he?” Yosano interjects.
She's sitting in front of them, fidgeting with a mug of Americano; next to her, Kunikida ordered the same. Dazai tried it once, and it was a mistake.
Trying to bite off his lips the bitterness of the coffee, the brunet waits for the conversation to unravel. His foot occasionally bumps against Chuuya's ankle, seeking contact but also softly kicking the redhead in a half-hearted attempt to annoy him.
His left hand rests on the redhead's thigh, discrete but obvious; much to his surprise, Chuuya hasn't shoved him away yet. 'We have to keep it professional in the office. It's called respect,' the redhead insists, though Dazai doesn't really see the point of having breaks if he can't spend them with his hands on his boyfriend's body; it's simply a waste, isn't it?
Besides, Chuuya didn't mind it when they kept things unprofessional in the mafia.
Anyway.
He's ready to blame the proximity on No Longer Human if asked but, if Chuuya can ignore him for their co-workers, then Dazai can touch him casually and pretend it’s not the only thing keeping him alive.
Chuuya nods, petting his tiny mug of concentrated caffeine-from-hell (read, a double espresso). Much to Dazai’s disappointment, he didn’t order milk.
“Yeah. We were talking about Kenji, and he said that.”
He sounds so surprised.
Dazai purses his lips.
Dumb as always, Chuuya didn’t even notice he’s indeed very good with kids — he was nice to Elise, sweet to Yumeno, and now he’s alright with Kenji. It must have something to do with his height, because he's always seen eye-to-eye with children and dogs alike.
"The President is right,” Kunikida says, taking a sip of watered-down americano. “I see you with Kenji-kun. You’re an excellent teacher.”
Chuuya grimaces. “I like Kenji. He's a good kid."
"He is," Kunikida agrees. "It's nice to see that you're taking care of him."
"It's really no problem; as I said, I like him. And, anyway, being a decent mentor is different from being a good father.”
“Not necessarily.”
"Do you want to be a good father, one day?" Yosano asks.
Dazai scowls, searching for Chuuya's eyes and realizing he can't quite predict the answer to that question.
Does Chuuya want children?
Maybe not today, but in the future; it's not the kind of question you ask yourself in the Port Mafia, and he tries to tell himself he's not disappointed when Chuuya clicks his tongue and shakes his head.
“I tried to lead a bunch of kids, once. It didn’t end well.”
"True that," Dazai agrees, bobbing his head as if he didn't intentionally jeopardize that. He doesn't regret it.
Yosano's hmm rings delicate as she lifts her coffee to her lips. “From what I hear, you were a kid yourself."
Dazai grimaces.
They're still kids, someone might argue.
They’re not even twenty, for God’s sake, they should be in school.
They should find part-time jobs at coffee shops, travel the world, make dumb mistakes and form new friendships.
They shouldn’t run around and save the city and hold guns more often than they hold their cell phones.
But Dazai has been part of the Mafia since he was fifteen, and his fingers have pulled a trigger more times than they closed around his boyfriend’s hand.
What kind of teachers and fathers can they grow up to be, one day?
Only because Chuuya is decently patient with children and Kunikida used to be a teacher, it doesn’t mean they have the right to be around kids and taint them with their blood-soaked hands. It doesn't make them educators.
“Isn't that funny, though?” Dazai echoes, languidly, a giggle dancing in his voice.
Kunikida's eyebrows shoot up. “What's funny?”
“Well, considering that a toddler is taller than the Chibi~”
“Oi! What’d be so funny about it?” Chuuya snaps, turning to him.
He’s ready to fight, the crimson shade of Tainted and the heaviness of adrenaline buzzing in the air.
“Nothing, nothing. It's just that Fukuzawa is wrong. Kenji likes you because Chuuya is the office’s wine aunt,” Dazai explains, cocking his head to the side to avoid the spoon Chuuya has tried to stick in his ear. “The one that shows up drunk, has three cats and complains about her life when she’s drunk.”
“Damn, I wish I had three cats,” Yosano murmurs, into a generous sip of coffee.
Chuuya ignores her, eyes narrowing as he faces Dazai.
“If I complain, it’s because of you?!”
“True that,” Kunikida adds, under his breath.
Yosano nods. “You two do complain a lot.”
“And Chuuya also dresses tacky like a wine aunt.”
“What!? Care to repeat that, you ass?”
“Gladly! Chibi is an old, cranky wine aunt~”
“WANNA DIE?!”
See?
Chibi wouldn’t get so flustered if it wasn’t true.
Dazai’s a decent detective: he might not be the most experienced in the Agency, but he can read certain clues.
He swears that Chuuya is the office’s wine aunt, and thrives in his role filled with cheap wine, tacky clothes and general appreciation for being funny and good-natured. Like every dog, he is a pack animal; he gets sick when he spends too many days working solo, and appreciates spending time with his fellow yapping dogs coworkers.
Lo and behold, he likes it better than being exclusively annoyed by Dazai one-to-one.
How dare he.
—
“Hey, shitty Dazai. I’m taking the kid to lunch. See ya later.”
What?
Dazai gapes.
He barely realizes the raspy lilt of Chuuya's voice, and how he quickly lands a kiss on his cheek before heading for the Agency's door.
Just like that, Chuuya is gone.
Just like that, Dazai's intention of spending their lunch break together somewhere quiet evaporates.
As previously stated, Dazai is a detective.
The textbook definition of his job is to disclose mysteries and, unlike the nasty rumors spread by his coworkers, he takes his role very seriously. How Chuuya can ignore him, the best boyfriend who ever stepped on God’s green earth, is a case worth being delved into.
Now, because desperate times call for desperate measures, Dazai simply has to follow them, dragging Kunikida with him because he has a partner, too. He's not alone. He doesn't need a chibi dog to solve cases; he doesn't need a chibi dog at all.
As a testament to the seriousness of the situation, Ranpo tags along too.
‘I’ll stay for the good food and the tea. It's gonna be hilarious,' the detective says, though Dazai is not laughing at all.
If anything, once they reach the restaurant, he’s cringing inside.
Dazai expected the office’s resident shrimp-slash-wine-aunt to take Kenji to some cheap restaurant. He'd foreseen a casual place with steak and lots of wine (and a good selection of Ramune for Kenji, because Chuuya will be damned before he allows underage drinking. Chuuya. A former mafioso.) where the Chibikko can show off and play the adult before their next mission.
What Dazai didn’t expect was Chuuya taking Kenji — his beloved mentee. His, gasp!, friend — to an izakaya in deep Port Mafia territory.
Dazai’s stomach drops as he recognizes the mahogany wood of the door, the inviting whiff of broth and the traditional tatami of the interior.
Loitering close to the entrance, Kunikida lifts an eyebrow. “Are we here?”
“It’s nice,” Ranpo says, tilting his head in approval.
“It’s the place where Ane-san used to take Chuuya after missions,” Dazai murmurs.
Chuuya has celebrated his seventeenth birthday in the same restaurant, too: part a birthday celebration, part mourning on the anniversary of the Flags passing. Ane-san had tea with them both in this same place countless times.
And he and Chuuya... they used to have dates here. Lunch breaks, late-night dinners after missions, anniversaries, rare weekends of peace.
The memories assault Dazai, a siege of recollections from a life that seems gone and buried but that still crawls back to haunt him and, it seems, to haunt Chuuya.
“Should we go in?” the brunet says, tongue heavy in his mouth as he speaks.
“Ah, right. We’re here because you’re being clingy,” Ranpo says.
Dazai scrunches his nose. “I’m not clingy.”
“Then why are we following Chuuya-kun?” Kunikida asks, stepping into the restaurant first.
“I’m just worried my dog could be up to something. And, as the risk committee, we have to monitor Arahabaki.”
“Dazai.” Kunikida sighs. “We don’t have a risk committee.”
“Now we do,” Dazai says.
He’s definitely acting clingy.
When they sit at a table, Ranpo going about the daily specials on the menu and Kunikida ready to enjoy a proper lunch break for once, Dazai’s throat is dry and his heart is heavy.
Despite all his talk, he never asked Chuuya if he misses Kouyou like he misses Odasaku — or worse, perhaps, because he didn’t betray Odasaku like Chuuya betrayed Kouyou.
He knows what the Chibi will say, with a distant smile and his gaze lost toward the setting sun like some dumb anime character: “She would never betray the organization, and I’m my own person. Our paths split. Simple as that.”
He'd say it as the notes of a sappy ending song float in the air, hands in his pockets and pretending to be ok while he's clearly not, and Dazai would want to retch because of a dramatic shrimp trying to act cool.
But they are no character of no shōnen anime, and life has never been romantic or gentle with them. Dazai never asked the right questions in front of a blazing sunset — he never asked them at all.
He never asked.
He whisked Chuuya away from the Port Mafia and never looked back; it’s been a mutual rescuing and an elopement of some sort. Is it possible that Chuuya has been half-heartedly glancing behind all along?
What if Dazai was never enough?
From another table, separated by their own by a few room dividers and a wooden folding screen, the roar of Chuuya’s voice makes him wince. He’s laughing, and Dazai’s stomach closes. Chuuya seldom laughs like this around him — so open, so loud.
“Dazai?” Kunikida calls, making him flinch again.
It’s the subtle worry in his partner's voice, the concern flashing on his face, that nicks at him.
Every once in a while, the Agency reminds him that he's not used to caring and kindness.
“Hm?”
Kunikida hands him the menu. “What do you want?” A pause, and the man’s lips twist. “Don’t skip your meal. It’s not healthy.”
Swallowing, Dazai has no heart to refuse when Kunikida looks so worried about his diet.
His chest hurts whenever he catches the echoes of Chuuya and Kenji laughing — the boy letting out a loud ‘oh’ that resonates in the establishment when Chuuya allows him to wear his hat — but he somehow makes it through the meal.
His heart might be aching, but his stomach is full and Ranpo and Kunikida keep him distracted with all the recent cases they have in the pipeline. A woman who had her purse stolen, a missing kitty, an Ability User who’s looking for their son.
His day-to-day cases are similar to Odasaku’s old job, Dazai has come to realize: the tasks are never too violent, and it’s seldom a matter of life and death, but he learned to find relevance in the smallest cases.
As he imagined, saving kittens from trees is more thrilling than ordering and covering up murders as a mafia executive. Every day, his job doesn’t lacerate his humanity — on the contrary, it mends it.
Dazai is halfway through a bowl of ramen, and Kunikida is lazily citing the next steps to find the Ability User’s son, when Chuuya and Kenji pass them by.
Mind you, it wasn’t planned. It’s no accident, either.
Dazai picked the table specifically to make sure Chuuya wouldn’t notice them: he decided to sit at the extreme east corner of the restaurant knowing exactly what table the Chibikko would choose (the one in the luminous west corner, next to a window that overlooks a peach tree and a small pond) and from where direction he’d leave (the shortest route on the opposite side of the restaurant).
He’d calculated pretty solid probabilities that their paths would never cross. It was a foolproof plan, based on habits and a thought process Dazai knows like the back of his hand; Chuuya’s patterns are easy to read and easier to remember.
Too bad he didn’t forecast one thing: the rogue variant.
The little agent of chaos, the wild card Dazai has not predicted.
Because Ranpo obviously hates peace and harmony and decides it’s a great idea to flag down Chuuya and call for him the moment two familiar figures show up — a short redhead in black trousers and a brown leather jacket and a blonde boy in a denim salopettes.
Dazai can barely register that Kenji is wearing Chuuya’s hat, when—
“Oi! Mr. Fancy Hat.”
Kunikida’s shoulders go rigid.
Dazai's blood freezes.
He considers dashing under the table, but it’s too late.
“What the f—”
“Over here!” Ranpo calls, a little louder, waving.
“Ranpo-san?” Kenji chirps. His smile widens. "Ah, Kunikida-san!"
Chuuya’s eyes darken. They rest on him, fragments of blue plucked from the sky, and Dazai’s throat closes. “Dazai?”
Oh no.
Jumping on his feet, because if he can’t hide he will absolutely make a spectacle of the entire situation, Dazai plasters on his face his best shit-eating grin.
“Ah, Chuuya! What a coincidence~”
His partner’s eyes narrow into slits — honest, so openly puzzled that, for a moment, Dazai’s heart trips over itself. It might be an honest-to-god coincidence, but Chuuya knows better than blaming fate when he knows Dazai is always scheming; it’s the tragedy of reading each other like open books.
Chuuya knows, and Dazai knows he messed up.
“Coincidence my ass. Were you following us?” the redhead pushes forward, stepping in their direction.
Dazai lets out a raspy laugh.
“Me? Don’t be ridiculous. I have better things to do than follow a pipsqueak.”
“He was following you,” Ranpo confirms, waving his chopsticks in Dazai's direction.
His blood sings, annoyed and panicked and horrified, though a smile cuts his face.
"I had reasons."
“Oh? Why?” Kenji asks.
“We’re on risk committee business,” Kunikida says, deadpan.
Dazai might kiss his blonde partner for the admittedly unexpected support but Ranpo’s impish grin is entirely dedicated to Chuuya. “Take a wild guess.”
Kenji twists his nose. “Chuuya-san said the restaurant is popular. Did he recommend it?”
“In a way,” Kunikida allows.
Ranpo hums, shrugging with a condescending attitude that flies over Kenji’s head — bless his pure little heart — but that Chuuya doesn't miss.
The detective doesn't clarify further, but neither does Dazai, too busy reading the disappointment etched on his boyfriend's face as the redhead quirks one eyebrow. He must have practiced for years in front of the mirror, the brunet thinks, because it's surely not normal to move a face like that.
For a second, as Chuuya steps closer and stops in front of him, Dazai suspects the redhead will punch him square in the jaw for being ridiculous.
Yes, he does lift a hand.
Yes, he does lean closer.
And Dazai is tempted to side-step a right hook that never arrives, because Chuuya’s fingers frame his face instead. Gentle. Delicate.
It’s not a punch, but it makes Dazai’s stomach dip all the same.
“You weirdo,” Chuuya murmurs, voice heavy with care. “If you wanted to join, you could have said so.”
Oh.
Dazai opens his mouth and closes it again.
How was he supposed to know?
In the Port Mafia, he used to have lunch with Ango and Odasaku when Chuuya was out drinking with his subordinates.
He never had to share him with… others, while he watched and found himself alone. He never had to deal with loneliness before.
How is he supposed to interact with so many people without making mistakes? How can he trust people and exist in a group when he still misses Ango and Odasaku, when he's still mourning the time they spent together and all the pipe dreams they talked about?
He never had to ask Chuuya anything, before.
He didn’t know it was that easy.
And Dazai might feel a little dumb, but won’t give the redhead the satisfaction to admit it.
“Chuuya didn’t invite me," he says, around Chuuya’s hands cupping his cheeks.
“You’re always invited, dumbass.”
“But the Slug said he was taking the kid to lunch specifically.”
“And all you have to say is, ‘I’m coming along too.’” Chuuya’s thumb grazes down Dazai’s cheek, lingering just a little shy of his bottom lip. “It’s not a shitty club. Do I have to spell out I want you around, Mackerel? For real?”
‘After all the shit we went through?’ is a subtext left only for the brunet to hear.
It hints at a secret past that is theirs and theirs alone to remember, fight and forget.
Dazai gnaws at the inside of his cheek, conscious that this is the time to bow gracefully and retreat; but he doesn't.
“Do you miss Ane-San?” he blurts out instead.
Chuuya winces as if the question had mauled him.
His lips curl up, twisting into a bittersweet smile as he retreats, the warmth of his fingertips leaving Dazai’s face.
“Sometimes,” he replies. It sounds too meek; the tone of a Chuuya that is about to crumble, but he's putting up a strong front. “I’ll see you at the office.”
As the redhead and Kenji walk out of the restaurant, Chuuya’s hands hidden in the pockets of his jacket, Dazai vaguely hears the boy ask if Chuuya has a sister.
He doesn’t grasp the answer, but he can summon it from the past: “Yes, I have an older Ane-San and a brother.”
Despite Dazai’s hopes that Chuuya will forget all about the Lunch Incident™, he doubts he will ever let him live with it.
Dogs have a decent long-term memory, after all.
—
On second thought, maybe Chuuya forgot about it.
It might be plausible, considering that the Chibikko said nothing to Dazai after work, nor in the office, and didn’t taunt Dazai when the brunet sauntered to the kitchen for a cup of tea.
This silence rings suspicious.
Maybe Dazai embarrassed himself beyond repair.
Maybe Chuuya is mad at him.
However, Dazai muses, what is sure is that he didn’t train his sheepdog as well as he thought.
Come evening, Chuuya heads to his room without a spare glance for his boyfriend: he kisses him on the lips hurriedly, squeezes his hand and disappears into his dorm room without a single goodbye.
He even turns down Dazai's offer to play video games.
Indeed, this is a tragedy.
—
They came up with a secret knocking code when they were fifteen.
Two knocks, a pause, three more. A longer pause, and then one more knock.
‘Wake up. Bitch.’
Now, Dazai must be dreaming: it’s seven in the morning, most of the Agency members are sleeping, he hasn’t wrapped himself in fresh bandages yet after a disastrous night spent drifting in and out the usual mix of light sleep and nightmares, and there’s a microorganism standing in front of his door.
"Chuuya?"
His brain registers the "'morning, Mackerel" that Chuuya grumbles back, though with some difficulty.
Chuuya is at his door.
Bed hair, freckled skin, the red crinkles of the pillow still printed on his cheek.
He’s wearing a furious blush and one of Dazai’s old shirts, the one he thought he left behind in the container by the sea he used to call home.
The blue flannel shirt, oversized for Dazai and ridiculously huge on the redhead, reaches his otherwise bare mid-thighs — and it makes Dazai, with his grey t-shit and baggy grey sweatpants, feel almost overdressed.
What’s more absurd, though, is that Chuuya is holding a picnic basket.
Dazai blinks; first in the redhead’s direction, then letting his gaze land on the basket.
“Is that a bomb?” he asks, forcing a smile on his tired face, leaning against the door frame. “Is Chuuya trying to kill me so early in the morning? I hope it’s fast.”
“It’s a breakfast, you dumb fuck.”
Ah, Chuuya’s just a poet, isn’t he?
Especially when he’s flustered.
Dazai squints. "Poison, then. Ingenious."
Is he Chuuya's Snow White, now?
Killed before he can see a new day by a poisoned apple pie, or whatever is in that basket that smells like cinnamon; it doesn't sound so bad.
He's lived with Chuuya in the Government's safe house for long enough to know the boy has a thing for homemade pastry for breakfast, and he suspects there are worse ways to go than with a full belly and the sweetness of icing sugar on his tongue.
“It’s not poisoned. You seemed off, and I thought you might have a fever, so I brought you food.” A pause. Hesitant, accompanied by the faintest blush as the redhead pushes the picnic basket in his direction until Dazai takes it. “Here."
"...Thanks, I guess?"
"You know you’re still my partner, right?”
Taken aback, Dazai halts.
His throat closes, a fist grasping his chest and blocking the air in his lungs. "What?"
“The lunch was ridiculous. And I know things have been a mixed bag, lately.” Chuuya says — it’s rough, that harsh-yet-tender tone only his yapping partner can master. “But you’re my partner.”
“Am I?” he says, trying to dissipate the growing tension — because Chuuya’s eyes are searing, and Dazai’s grip on the picnic basket is so tight that his fingertips are digging in the plastic. Dazai’s eyes darken. “It’s unfortunate you think you have to put up with me when the President made sure we’re not forced to work as Double Black if we don’t want to.”
“But I enjoy putting up with you, you ass.”
Dazai’s lips open in a quick, mirthless grin. “Weird, because I thought Chibi didn't like me anymore.”
“You know what, I like you more now that it’s not just us all the time."
"We never work together, Chuuya, in case you didn't notice."
Rolling his eyes to the sky, Chuuya waves the comment away. "Ok, fine, maybe we can ask to work together more often. But that doesn't change the fact that I still love you.”
I still love you.
Dazai’s heart loses a beat.
Chuuya confessed for the first time a month after their escape from the mafia.
He screamed it during the usual fight that escalated out of control because of the tension, the constant paranoia and the stress of being stuck 24/7 in a safe house with the square footage of a tuna can.
Chuuya told him he loved him and, two years later, Dazai still has to compute it fully.
How can somebody love him? When will he lose this love too, like he's lost everything else he cared about?
Every time he hears about Chuuya’s feelings for him, it feels a little unreal.
But... even as they're getting used to a new life, Chuuya loves him.
Chuuya chose him once, and twice, and keeps choosing him.
They’re a bundle, a partnership, a soulmate bond that appears once every thousand years — they're a set.
Chuuya’s presence is a familiar reassurance, and Dazai tends to forget about it, but it’s his absence that truly can’t go by unnoticed.
His silence screams.
“Of course,” Dazai says, though, because he can’t quite bring himself to say the same back yet. He loves Chuuya, he does. It’s just that emotions never came easily to him. “Why didn’t you tell me you miss Ane-san?”
“I didn’t want to be indelicate.” Chuuya shrugs. “I miss Ane-san. I miss Elise. I miss my old apartment, because 'Tross is gone and now I left the building too and I feel like I abandoned the last memory I had of him. But I stand by the decision I made the day I left.”
The day I chose you.
Once again it goes unsaid, but it reaches Dazai’s heart so loud, so clear, that it leaves him speechless for a moment.
“Do you regret your decision?”
Brow crinkled and lips curled down, Chuuya looks hurt — truly hurt — for the first time in as long as Dazai can recall.
A bone-crushing, heart-wrenching sadness.
If he were an actual dog, Dazai supposes his ears would have lowered and his puppy-like tail would have stopped sweeping the floor. He regrets asking, but it's too late to eat his words and pretend they never left his mouth.
“No, I don’t,” he says. "I don't. I’m sorry I made you feel ignored.”
Dazai shrugs.
Being ignored was boring, and scary, and frustrating. After several years of being Soukoku against the world, reaching out and not finding Chuuya by his side anymore disoriented him; but maybe, just maybe, the fact that he couldn't see Chuuya anymore never meant that the boy had left him too.
No matter where Chuuya decided to wander, he never strayed too far. Never for long. Never leaving forever.
He is a well-trained dog, after all.
“It’s ok, it’s— an adjustment.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s really fine.” Dazai throws a glance behind his shoulder, eager to escape the situation; his heart is pounding, and embarrassment tinges his cheeks red, and he’ll eat rocks before he allows Chuuya to see him embarrassed. “Chuuya was a disobedient dog, but I’m very magnanimous. I do have two questions, though.”
Chuuya’s eyebrows arch. “Shoot.”
“Do you like being partners with Kenji more than me?”
“W— Can you not be jealous of a kid?”
“Just humor me," he insists, ignoring the other's thunderous scowl.
"I hope you’re not seriously getting insecure over me working with someone else.”
Oh, he is. One hundred percent.
But he also shrugs the comment away as if the idea of the Dazai Osamu being insecure is absolute madness. “Of course not. I want to hear it for science.”
“Oh my God, 'Samu, no. I still like you better.” Chuuya throws up his hands, exasperated, though Dazai suspects the redhead has no idea of how deeply the answer reassured him. “That was dumb. Next?”
“Do you want to come in?”
Immediately, Chuuya grins.
His cornflower-blue eyes glisten, lambent in the timid morning light, and his lips twist into a smile that is cocky, yet so enticing. “Yes, I would love that.”
“And do you want to have lunch together?”
This makes it three questions, but Dazai won’t call himself out and Chuuya doesn’t seem to mind.
“With you?” The redhead echoes, wrinkling his nose. “Ugh. If I eat with a rotting Mackerel, I’ll puke and die.”
It’s such a well-rehearsed response, forged in years of mutual bickering, that Dazai can only taste absolute, unguarded fondness in the insult.
And it’s been a while, Dazai realizes, since Chuuya has fallen asleep on him, heartbeats drumming in synch and limbs tangled together. It’s been a while since he felt Chuuya’s nose bumping clumsily against his in the heat of a kiss.
He smiles — indulgent, tender.
“I couldn’t eat next to Chuuya either, so we can go to the roof. There’s plenty of fresh air, so I don’t have to stand your stench of wet dog. We can— we can talk a little, I guess.” Truth is, they never talk much when they manage to get some alone time. But maybe that's exactly what he needs: to hold his boyfriend, and kiss him and feel him. "How does that sound?”
“Great," the redhead says. "It sounds great.”
Now, Dazai knows Chuuya never likes his plans, too risky and crafty, but this one makes his eyes shine with anticipation.
They're so blue.
Dazai's breath stutters, caught between a smile and a terrified gasp.
It sinks in, then: Chuuya loves him. God knows why, but his partner truly loves him — barely a human, damaged and lonely and cursed to never find true happiness — out of all the people in the world.
He still loves him best.
And he's beautiful, his Chuuya, as he stands proud in the morning light; even if he's barely awake, wearing an oversized shirt and the faintest smell of cinnamon, his head dipping in a nod as Dazai presses his back against his room's door.
He is soft and familiar under Dazai’s fingertips as the brunet touches the small of his back to invite him in.
It's an exercise in futility to hide the fact that Dazai needs his boyfriend close all day, all night, for all the days they have to come; maybe he’ll ask Fukuzawa if he and Chuuya can share a dorm room, instead of living next door.
The day he defected from the mafia and followed the thread unraveled by Odasaku's last words, Dazai found many things.
A healthy workplace, friends, a life drenched in light, a future that is as bright as the sun that rises over the city he vowed to protect — its rays washing over Chuuya’s grinning face, blue eyes glistening and setting his fire-red locks ablaze.
When he's spent so much time knowing nothing but darkness, Dazai is not surprised he's quickly getting addicted to the light.
Chuuya's lips taste like coffee, like sunlight, when Dazai bends over him.
He senses the mute laughter through the redhead's chest, pressed against his body as Chuuya rises on steady tiptoes. His gentle hands find soft dark locks, sinking in them, tugging playfully as Dazai basks in the attention he's been yearning for.
"You sure you still like me more than the others?" he whispers, and Chuuya chuckles.
"Positive."
"Good," Dazai murmurs. "Good."
All is well, then.
After all, he should have known that well-trained dogs always find their way home.