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Muffled noises swarm through the ADA. It’s a familiar, pleasant background noise. Kunikida is berating someone. Atsushi is startled by Kyouka. The Tanizaki siblings are being indecent. The others…
Dazai opens one eye and looks at the small calendar on his desk – a cute and simple calendar, one Haruno gave him for their last Secret Santa. It’s the last day of April and, yesterday, Dazai crossed the little square of ‘April 29th’. It was Chuuya’s twenty-fourth birthday. Dazai obviously didn’t wish it.
He wonders what he’s up to, though.
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An obnoxious ringing blasts through his room at full volume and Chuuya jumps in his bed, his heart on the verge of bumping out of his chest. He frantically hangs up and swears at his phone – or, rather, at the prick who had the nerves to call him; it’s a bit on him though, he should have checked before taking a nap that this bastard Dazai hadn’t played with his phone yet again.
(As it appears, he did.)
Chuuya lowers the volume quickly, and he knows he was right to do so when his phone starts ringing again with this stupid idol pop song. The name ‘Mackerel’ pops on the screen like a middle finger, as well as Dazai’s profile photo that he put there himself: him sending a kiss with a ridiculous filter that gives him lots of idiotic blush and glitter on the face. Chuuya only didn’t bother to change it because Dazai looks as ridiculous as he deserves on it.
“What the fuck do you want?” he growls when he gives up and answers, rubbing his sleepy eyes.
“Chibi! You didn’t forget what we promised to do today, right?”
“Huh?”
“My, a slug through and through…”
“Shut the fuck up, mackerel, I just woke up thanks to your bullshit. What do you want?”
“Duh. The beach, Chibi, the beach!” Dazai whines through the phone like the child he is. “You promised we would go!”
“The beach? We agreed to go tonight to see the night scenery.”
“Nuh-hu, I want to watch the sunset, it’s prettier.”
“It’s not,” Chuuya scoffs. “But whatever, it’s too early for the sunset too.”
“Yeah, but I wanna get ice cream at the beach!”
“You could’ve gone there without me.”
“I’m not so heartless that I’d go out without my dog.”
Chuuya hangs up on him. He swears he can vividly see Dazai’s smirk even from here, and it infuriates him even more. Since Dazai became an executive, he seems even more intent on bringing him everywhere while claiming he’s his dog… The joke is getting old, and Dazai nowhere near tired of making it. But Chuuya is the fool between them, because he still gets ready to go.
The sun is high in the cloudless sky, so blinding that Chuuya has to squint his eyes and immediately regrets not bringing sunglasses with him. Hands stuffed in his pockets, nose scrunched up in a disgruntled pout just to make sure everyone’s aware he’s here against his will, he trots to the teenager covered in bandages that waits by the ice cream truck. Dazai’s all in black, bandages all over his body, all over his right eye, and Chuuya wonders how the fuck is he not sweating like a pig under the heat.
“Aw, slug, finally!”
“I’m gonna strangle you.”
“Dying by the hands of a tiny little orange cat? Ew, thanks no thanks. Not even sure you could reach my neck.”
Chuuya kicks him behind the knees and Dazai yelps as he bends in two and falls stupidly to the ground. Chuuya snorts with satisfaction.
“You make me sick. Did you buy your damn ice cream or not?”
“Mean,” Dazai grumbles as he gets up. “I was waiting for my little doggie.”
Tired of his bullshit, Chuuya doesn’t answer – he just kicks him again, this time on the butt. Dazai lets out another dramatic whine before they get in line to get their ice cream. While Chuuya only gets a passion fruit flavour, Dazai takes three: chocolate chip cookie dough, raspberry ripple and, of course, the damn crab flavour. Even though Dazai insists that it’s delicious, Chuuya would rather die than taste it and admit it is. He’ll keep saying that Dazai’s weird and that this flavour is probably as awful as him.
They walk along the beach for a while, savouring their ice cream, bickering as usual; Chuuya licks the ice cream that melted on his fingers and revels in the intense look Dazai gives him – it makes him feel hot in the best kind of way, but he says nothing and continues, except for the one glance he shoots at his partner. The latter gulps and averts his gaze, cheeks pink. It’s a look too adorable to be on him, yet here it is.
When the sun slowly starts setting, they come down on the beach, walking there until they reach a portion of the beach far away enough for it to be totally empty. They throw their shoes somewhere so they can walk bare foot on the sand, feel it get between their toes. The sound of the waves is soothing. Some birds are chirping further away. The salty water tickles Chuuya’s nostrils, and he inhales the smell deeply – he loves it. He feels eyes on him again.
“Chibi.”
“Mh?”
The sun is setting now. The sky looks ablaze: furious brushstrokes painted fiery strokes on the celestial canvas, red, orange, pink, a whirlwind of shimmering colours, a sight that is nothing but breathtaking. Standing just in front of it, Dazai looks like a shadow. He smiles.
“Let’s go walk in the water.”
Chuuya hums in agreement. They come closer to the edge of the shore, until the sand is damp and small waves roll to their ankles, grazing their skin like wet and fresh kisses. It’s pleasant. Chuuya inhales the sea spray again. When he turns his head, Dazai isn’t looking at the sunset but right at him. It makes him blush and he mumbles:
“What?”
“Nothing.” Dazai smiles again. It’s somehow melancholic. “Your hair’s as ugly as the sky.”
Chuuya snickers. “Nice try, but the sky’s beautiful.”
Dazai’s smile widens as he looks at the mesmerizing landscape in the distance. “I know.”
Chuuya’s heart skips a beat. He waits for something, anything. And just when it starts to get too long, just when he opens his mouth to speak, Dazai throws his top on the shore behind him and runs in the water, smiling with all his teeth.
“I’m gonna swim!”
“Wh—Ha?! Wait for me, you dumb beanpole!”
He hurries to undress too, but he’s too troubled and impatient, so he gets stuck trying to take off his shirt. He hears Dazai’s loud laugh mock him further away – it’s getting further and further, which means Dazai’s swimming away, and Chuuya is late and left behind. There’s an anxious lump weighing down his chest.
That’s not what’s supposed to happen, an older voice tells him. His voice?
He shakes his head and throws his shirt when he finally manages to take it off. Then he looks for Dazai in the water, only to see nothing. Another prank? He growls, annoyed, but starts running in the water then swims to where he saw Dazai go a mere minute ago.
“Oi, mackerel! Where the fuck are you?”
No answer. Well, if it’s a prank, it was to be expected. Chuuya sighs loudly, irritated, because this is not funny – like the majority of Dazai’s pranks to be fair – and also because… that’s not what’s supposed to happen. He doesn’t know why he has this feeling. He just—There are unknown memories ticking at his brain, trying to resurface, trying to tell him what is supposed to happen if not that. But it’s blurry, and Chuuya’s focused on finding his idiot of a partner, who has already disappeared for several minutes now.
“Hey, Daz—"
He narrows his eyes at something a few meters away from him, floating in the water like trash. The comparison is enough to make him think that it must finally be Dazai. He once again sighs loudly and hurries to come closer, smacking the motherfucker on the head as soon as he’s just next to him.
“Oi, stop that now. Let’s get back a bit closer to the shore.”
No reaction. Chuuya smacks him harder.
“Hey, bastard. I told you to stop. I’m leaving you there if you continue.”
No reaction. Chuuya frowns.
“Dazai?”
No reaction.
“Hey—”
He abruptly grabs the mackerel by the hair to lift his head. And—Dazai’s eyes are wide open, glazed, empty. His skin is pale and his veins start showing. He isn’t breathing. He isn’t breathing. Chuuya barely registers that the bandages are gone and Dazai’s scars on full display. He isn’t breathing. The hollow, dead gaze seems to mock him. He isn’t breathing. The ocean looks like it’s getting filled with blood – Dazai’s not bleeding. He isn’t breathing. Chuuya starts suffocating. He isn’t breathing. He chokes. He isn’t breathing. He—
“Too late!”
Chuuya snaps his head towards the beach. A child is there. He’s grinning from ear to ear, dressed in black, covered in bandages, hair dark and fluffy, eyes brown and empty. Dazai Osamu.
“Daz—”
He passes out.
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It’s June 1st.
Dazai wakes up to loud banging on his door, that he peacefully ignores as he stretches on his futon, yawns, then stays there. After all, Kunikida is probably the one making all this noise to get him to get to work, and Dazai is very adamant on pissing off Kunikida, so he obviously doesn’t get up. Except it’s not Kunikida’s voice that he hears:
“Dazai, I am here too. We need the whole Agency, so please come.”
Dazai’s eyes shoot open when he hears Fukuzawa’s voice. In merely two minutes – even less –, he’s out of his dorm room, fully dressed albeit dishevelled. At least he wasn’t wrong when assuming Kunikida was the one doing the loud banging: his partner is standing right next to the president, arms folded and brows furrowed, but uncharacteristically quiet. That unusual behaviour coupled with Fukuzawa’s presence is more than enough to mean that something is really, really wrong.
“What happened?”
Fukuzawa closes his eyes for a few seconds.
“Come with us to the Agency.”
There is a heavy silence weighing on the whole ADA when Dazai gets there alongside Fukuzawa and Kunikida. Even Ranpo looks dead serious. Dazai carefully stares at the people present, if only to make sure that none of them had died – which would have maybe explained this kind of atmosphere. Everyone seems fine, though.
“The Port Mafia has been attacked,” Fukuzawa immediately announces.
“Isn’t it a regular occurrence? I mean, it’s the Mafia,” Tanizaki comments.
Fukuzawa nods solemnly.
“It is. But it’s the largest attack on the Mafia that has ever happened under Mori’s reign…” Dazai’s jaw clenches. “… and it’s taken proportions so large that the entirety of Yokohama might be in danger. Which is why I accepted to help.”
“What exactly is happening?” Dazai asks seriously. “If it’s a matter of manpower, they should have enough.”
“But as you implied, this is not a matter of manpower.” Fukuzawa lowers his gaze. A deep frown creases his face, making him look older than he is. “The attackers have a set of ability-users quite… unusual, and some of the Mafia’s best assets have been taken care of prior to the attack.”
“Taken care of?” Atsushi carefully asks – he can’t hide his worry well though, and the president quickly reassures him.
“I don’t think the ones you’re thinking about are dead. But I heard Akutagawa was found in a coma…”
Dazai scowls and cuts in:
“As long as Chuuya’s here, I can come up with a plan.”
The look Fukuzawa gives him is one he expected, but it doesn’t lessen the heavy lump obstructing his throat, nor does it prevent his heart from sinking in his chest.
“Nakahara is among the missing assets.”
… Wait.
“What do you mean, missing? He isn’t in a coma like Akutagawa?”
Fukuzawa shakes his head.
“Seems like it’s two different abilities. While Akutagawa is under the Mafia’s care and in a coma… Nakahara seems to have simply vanished. He’s nowhere to be found.”
Dazai cracks the pen he was holding.
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Chuuya jumps in his bed when an awful pop idol song blasts through his room. It feels like his heart is going to bounce out of his chest and he curses out loud against the motherfucker responsible for nearly killing him. Rubbing his face with both his palms, he grumbles before grabbing his phone and shoots a nasty glare at his screen, where ‘Mackerel’ keeps calling him. The ridiculous photo that comes with it doesn’t soothe his annoyance one bit.
“What the fuck do you want?”
“Chibi! You didn’t forget what we promised to do today, right?”
“Huh?”
“My, a slug through and through…”
“Shut the fuck up, mackerel, I just woke up thanks to your bullshit. What do you want?”
“Duh. The beach, Chibi, the beach!” Dazai whines through the phone like the child he is. “You promised we would go!”
Chuuya opens his mouth to answer, but he freezes. Wait. The words want to slip out of his mouth, usual, familiar, already known. Wait. He knows what he’s going to say. He also knows what Dazai is going to respond. Wait. His brain starts racing and he doesn’t register it when Dazai calls him again with annoyance in his stupid voice. Wait.
He already lived that day.
“Damn, if you’re trying to fully live up to your slug title, I’m hanging—”
“You sure you wanna go to the beach today?” Chuuya asks meekly. “I kinda just want to watch a movie tonight.”
Silence answers him. Chuuya feels his heart pounding hard and like it’s going to jump out of his chest, but not because of some loud, sudden ridiculous music; this is hard, painful—this is his feelings clawing at his heart so cruelly he can feel it bleed within his ribcage.
“… But you promised we’d go to the beach,” Dazai whines. “You wanted to watch the night scenery! Well, the sunset’s better anyway, but…”
“Let’s go tomorrow?” Chuuya offers clumsily. “I really promise this time.”
Dazai takes a while before answering again. It’s enough for Chuuya to realise he’s shaking. Big, glazed and empty eyes stare at him somewhere in his bedroom. Pale skin. Blue veins. Ocean full of blood like a gruesome staging. He wants to throw up.
“Okay.” Dazai’s sigh snaps him out of his thoughts. “But you’re paying then. Because of you I can’t get the ice cream I wanted.”
Chocolate chip cookie dough, raspberry ripple and crab. Chuuya remembers. He remembers a little too vividly for his own taste.
“Okay, I’ll pay.”
“… You’re strange today, Chibi. Well, let’s meet in an hour. I’m gonna order as much as I can later to rip you as much as possible.”
“Sure.”
“Damn, you’re giving me the creeps,” Dazai says with a disgusted tone before abruptly hanging up on him.
Chuuya looks at his phone, still in a daze. He blinks rapidly, dumbfounded, frozen in his bed, frozen in his mind—he doesn’t understand what’s happening. It’s a random day of a random week, it’s August, they are seventeen and they have a day off. It’s supposed to be a normal day. Well, almost normal. Right—this day, what’s supposed to happen is that they…
They…
He groans when a throbbing headache makes him wince and hold his head with a grimace. What is supposed to happen that day? Why does today is the same as yesterday? Why is Dazai… Didn’t Dazai… In the ocean… Was it a dream? But it was so vivid. And the words they just exchanged over the phone… They were the same, he’s sure of that. Is it only a déjà-vu coupled with a nightmare he had this night and just doesn’t remember? He never remembers if he dreams or not, so maybe that’s it. Maybe…
Wide, glazed and hollow eyes stare at him from across the bedroom.
No.
He winces again, bent in two as he holds his throbbing head in his hands. He can still see and feel Dazai’s corpse in his arms. He’s sure of it. Dazai was dead. He was dead. Then why isn’t he anymore?
(Why are they seventeen? Why is he here?)
He shakes his head despite the pain, hoping the images will go away. It’s okay. All they need to do is go somewhere else, not at the beach. As long as they don’t go to the beach, it’s good. Even if he’s just being paranoid… Well, better be safe than sorry.
Dazai gulps down his expensive and ridiculously complex coffee order – which, by the way, sounds and looks nothing like coffee, but rather tons of sugar in different forms. Just looking at it is enough for Chuuya to think he’s got diabetes now.
“You’re disgusting.”
“Chibi just got no taste.”
“You’re definitely speaking about yourself.”
Dazai snorts but keeps drinking his overly sweet drink. When he isn’t paying attention, Chuuya gives him a fond look – because Dazai Osamu is stupid, but that’s his partner, his stupid partner, and although Chuuya would rather be caught dead than admit such a cheesy thing out loud, he does care deeply for this idiot. Maybe that’s why he’s still alive after all these years fighting side by side; because Chuuya’s been making sure he doesn’t die. It’s easy to make it pass like he’s forced to take care of him, for Chuuya can’t use Corruption without the ability of the bastard – but the trick doesn’t work on himself; not really, not anymore.
“What movie do you want to watch?”
“Hm?”
“You said you wanted to watch a movie,” Dazai deadpans with a pout. “So, which one?”
“Huh… I don’t know. Thought we could just choose once at the cinema.”
Dazai sighs deeply. “Sure, whatever the slug says. You’re buying the popcorn.”
“Yeah I got that already, fucker.”
A grin is all he gets in return, which makes him roll his eyes. They get to the cinema early in the evening. The sun is setting. The sky is ablaze.
“So?”
“Wait, let me check what’s there…”
Chuuya narrows his eyes at the list of movies, letting Dazai do whatever he wants. He hears him humming and trotting around, and at some point it even sounds like he’s pranking random passers-by. Chuuya finally settles on a movie and smirks before turning back towards his partner.
“Oi, mackerel, what d’ya think of—”
A loud scream makes him choke on his words. A heavy decoration for one of those new superheroes movies falls from the ceiling. People shriek and step aside, except for one frozen person, the one standing right under the decoration. Chuuya’s eyes widen. His heartbeat quickens. He opens his mouth to scream, he starts running—
A flick of brown eyes meets his.
Dazai’s head gets crushed to the ground. There’s a dreadful cracking sound, blood spills everywhere and limbs get twisted in weird angles. A large scarlet pool keeps getting bigger and bigger. Everyone screeches, everyone runs, everyone flees. Chuuya gets stuck in place. His mouth is hanging open and he can feel his heart pounding in his skull.
“Too late again!” someone giggles on his right.
He slowly turns around. Dazai’s childlike form – all in black, all in bandages – grins at him sinisterly. Those eyes aren’t brown, though. No, before he passes out, Chuuya could swear they were red.
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The joint reunion between the ADA and the Port Mafia is brief, with few people, and the atmosphere is electric. Tension is palpable and no one is able to crack a single smile. Dazai glances at Kouyou and Kouyou glances right back at him – silent questions, silent answers, and both are disappointed when they look away.
At last, Mori enters the room, and Fukuzawa doesn’t bother standing up to greet him – the ADA’s members don’t either, only the Port Mafia’s ones do, which is to be expected. Mori sits beside his old friend and rests his chin upon his joint fingers. A classic look from him. Dazai didn’t miss it.
“So, now that we’re all here today… Let’s exchange information, shall we?”
Files get open, people rummage through papers, and the discussion starts.
The organization targeting the Port Mafia, and subsequently Yokohama as a whole, apparently is a former famous mafia group from the south of Japan. They call themselves Yonaka and have gathered a lot of underground ability users over the course of the last years. What is problematic is that those ability users are some powerful ones, and the extent of their powers has been able to flourish in such an organization.
The one who plunged Akutagawa in a coma is named Yukio Mishima: apparently, his ability Temple of the Golden Pavilion exploits one’s inner madness and amplifies it while proportionally giving the victim the impression that they’ve been set on fire. Needless to say, Akutagawa is one of the most mad and unstable people of the Mafia: that’s why this ability put him in a coma.
There are a lot of other people, but the one Mori suspects from being responsible for the disappearance of his executive Nakahara is an old guy named Haruki Murakami. Some intel tells them that his ability is named Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World. It sounds ridiculously long and fancy in Dazai’s humble opinion, and that props him to speak up:
“Do we really have no information at all on this guy? If he is able to deal with Chuuya, he’s the biggest threat out there.”
“He sure is,” Mori confirms. “And believe me, Dazai, when I say that catching him is our utmost priority, as well as retrieving Chuuya as soon as possible. But since it made Chuuya disappear… or at least sent him somewhere where we’re unable to find him, it does make it complicated to learn anything about this ability.”
“Don’t you have any lead? Or are your grunts that useless?”
A silence falls upon the room and the Mafia members shoot cold glares at Dazai, who doesn’t falter one bit, expression casual but eyes equally glacial. Fukuzawa frowns and Kunikida elbows his partner in the ribs with a glare that screams ‘Stop acting rashly and disrespectfully in front of the Port Mafia’. Dazai doesn’t really care about that, but they do need the information, so he begrudgingly obliges.
“… The Armed Detective Agency is absolutely welcome to share their wonderful skills,” Mori carefully pursues with a pinched smile. “However, I hope the Mafia’s experience shows that it is in no way simple. As for the leads… We have some regarding where our enemies may strike next as well as where they could be hiding. Some teams are already on that.”
“Already? Wouldn’t it have been wiser to wait for us?” Fukuzawa asks like he’s politely berating his old friend.
Mori doesn’t look offended, at least. He grins wider.
“The Port Mafia doesn’t need the ADA regarding something that only needs manpower. But I appreciate the thought, Fukuzawa.”
Another tense silence engulfs the room and some swallow nervously. Kouyou suddenly claps her fan and gives everyone an icy look.
“Does the ADA have anything to provide? If not, I humbly request to go. I intend to personally look for Chuuya.”
“Apologize, Kouyou,” Fukuzawa makes her halt. “We do have some information about some other ability users. And we also have some plans to suggest.”
“… Very well. Let’s be quick then. Yonaka won’t wait for us to be ready.”
Everyone nods solemnly and Fukuzawa starts explaining everything that they were able to gather, assisted by Kunikida and his meticulous explanations and descriptions. Dazai shrinks in his chair, bored out of his mind because the end of this meeting does not interest him in the slightest. He’s learnt everything he could learn, and now he has to be on the move. Chuuya being gone means that the most powerful ability user of Yokohama can’t help them. That goes without mentioning if he ever will be able to help them again, for no one knows what exactly is the ability Chuuya has fallen prey to.
And that also goes without mentioning that Chuuya being gone means Nakahara Chuuya is gone, his status is unknown, and that is worse than knowing he’s dead. If he was dead, Dazai could rationalize it, learn to overcome it – he thinks so at the very least. But this situation? Not knowing where Chuuya is, what he’s possibly enduring, if he’s alive or not? Well.
That’s one way to make Dazai Osamu silently go crazy.
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An awful pop idol song, a phone call, an obnoxious voice, a rendezvous. The ocean’s waves crash loudly in the distance; it’s a soothing sound by the shore. The sky starts turning pink, orange and red, and the summer breeze carries the smell of salt, warmth and tenderness. The landscape is a beautiful painting that feels like a dream – and maybe that’s what it should stay as: a dream, for what apparently has to come next is gruesome tragedy.
Dazai grins widely and opens his arms like he’s welcoming the sea itself. And for a moment Chuuya thinks he does; for a moment he thinks a tsunami will appear, a giant wave will engulf them; he’ll survive, soaked and choked, and Dazai will die, limp corpse floating somewhere on the water. Nothing happens. Dazai just keeps grinning at the peaceful water and the flaming sky.
“Let’s go swimming!”
“No.”
The seventeen years old boy with dark hair and eyes pouts like an actual child – the one he so rarely gets to genuinely be.
“Why not?”
Chuuya shrugs. “The current is bad today. Too dangerous.”
“I mean, dying under such a beautiful sky doesn’t sound so bad…”
“Shut the fuck up.” Chuuya glares at him hotly, and his rash anger seems to take Dazai aback. “We’re not fucking going for a swim, you got that?”
“Chibi’s barking loudly today,” Dazai whines. “But fine.”
Chuuya sighs loudly, fists clenched inside his pockets. He thought that maybe, if he followed the first script, knowing how it ends, he can avoid it better. If he creates a different path, he doesn’t know from what exactly he should protect Dazai. But if he goes the same way and avoids the catalyst of this way’s tragedy, wouldn’t it be alright? That way the day can end with Dazai alive. That way the day can end.
Whatever all of this is, this is twisted and cruel.
Several days have gone by already. Therefore he tried several things. Different paths, one outcome only—and it all begins all over again: him waking up to this unsufferable ringtone, Dazai chirping in his ear, them meeting, him dying. And again. And again. And now they’re standing in front of the ocean and Chuuya wants to think he found the trick, he can succeed, he can stop it all.
(Please, stop tearing his heart apart. Stop doing that to him. He can’t bear this sight, he can’t bear this feeling, this awful feeling gnawing at his heart like it’s being ripped out, like it’s being crushed and explodes in grotesque, viscous pieces of red flesh, blood spilling everywhere, one macabre spectacle for another. He’s crying and vomiting blood, everything hurts, because he keeps losing him—again, and again, and again, and again, and again.)
He shuts his eyes, inhales deeply.
“Say, slug.”
He slowly opens his eyes again. “Yeah?”
“What would you do if I left one day?”
Chuuya doesn’t answer immediately. The question floats in the air, silent warning of a future he now remembers. For he isn’t seventeen, he’s twenty-four, and Dazai left long ago already. He can leave again, though, in another way – in a definitive way. Who knows what kind of leaving this Dazai is talking about? He can bear one – he did. But the other…
(His soul hurls and cries within his tightened chest.)
“Dunno. Guess I’ll open a bottle of fine wine to celebrate.”
Dazai snorts. It’s fond. “Then I’ll blow up your car.”
Chuuya can’t help but smile. “Bastard.”
Minutes fly by and the sunset is almost over. Chuuya thinks that that’s it, he succeeded. He’ll be able to watch the night scenery with Dazai. Then they’ll go back home, they’ll sleep and there will be an actual tomorrow.
But fate mocks him.
Time mocks him.
Everything in this godforsaken time loop mocks him.
They go back home, alright. They whisper and snicker and bump into each other’s shoulders along the roads. Faint stars shine in the sky, it’s still hot because it’s summer, and being seventeen has never felt more right. The day didn’t go as it is supposed to, but it’s okay, because they’re laughing and they’re both alive.
But then there’s a car, and then there’s an accident, and then Chuuya’s standing next to the crumpled body of the boy he loves, his teenage-self frozen in fear and shock and horror because—no. Not again. Please, please, please—not again.
Yet here it is: disjointed limbs, twisted like a broken puppet, crushed and shredded, skull in mush, a pool of blood on the floor that grows and stinks and makes him suffocate. He suffocates, yes—because the horror freezes his body and his heart and everything is unbearable – he would rather be the corpse, he would rather be a victim of the gravity he controls, anything rather than suffering through this again.
Here come the cold giggle and the child-like ghost. The familiar face of the one he keeps witnessing the death of is unsettling. It makes his nerves tremble and explode. It drives him mad – mad, mad, so mad. But the boy laughs, and it almost sounds innocent.
“Too bad!”
Everything fades to dark.
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The door slams loudly behind him. All heads snap towards him, expectant: everyone knows that whatever method Dazai uses to interrogate others works like a charm. He always gets the information he wants. That’s part of his persona at this point.
His dark look scares the Agency.
“What did you learn?” Yosano asks tentatively.
“Nothing.”
A heavy silence sucks away everyone’s breath.
“… Nothing at all?”
“Nothing,” Dazai repeats, expression blank and icy.
He sighs and goes to his desk, slumping on his chair brutally. A frown finally appears on his face, only sign of the boiling anger that growls within him. He isn’t one to lose composure. Hell, everyone does but him, that’s kind of his thing: staying silly, always prepared or always ready to adapt, mastermind of Yokohama, tricking the ones who think they tricked him. He’s never this restless, even internally.
But usually, he has a secret card to play: the trust one. The one he shares with one specific person he insists on not stopping to call his partner.
This card is gone at the moment.
“Here is the new report,” Kunikida announces as he pushes up his glasses. “Seems like Yonaka is gaining ground against the Mafia. The government itself is divided. They must have pawns that infiltrated their ranks.”
“Expected,” Dazai mutters.
“Still no sign of Nakahara. Akutagawa is still in a coma, but looks like he’s doing better.”
“What about Murakami?”
“No one knows anything about him.”
Dazai grits his teeth and, fortunately, Kenji speaks before he does: “How did they even come to know anything about him if now they can’t find anything anymore?”
“The people who first talked about Murakami are dead. But the Mafia is looking into it quite seriously. Actually, Higuchi came earlier with files regarding their progress…”
“Give it to me.”
Dazai is in front of Kunida’s desk in a second, hand extended, waiting for the files like he’s absolutely certain that Kunikida won’t dare to refuse him. He’s right: his partner hesitates a moment, glances at Ranpo, but in the end gives Dazai the files.
“Share what you find with us, if you find anything.”
“Sure!” Dazai answers, absolutely unconvincing, before storming out of the Agency with a grin.
His smile fades immediately after and he looks through the files with furrowed brows. Murakami, Murakami… He needs to find something on this man. He needs to find Chuuya. Whatever it takes. If his current methods for interrogation do not work… He knows other ways.
He’ll use them if he has to.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Awful pop song.
Phone call.
Meeting.
Death.
Chuuya wakes up with a headache, sore limbs and a dying dream. His phone is ringing not far from his face. He feels numb – he feels so empty, so devoid of his usual roaring emotions that he considers not picking up at all. How many days have passed already? He can’t quite say if it’s been a week, a month or a year. He keeps fighting though, for he never gives up; he keeps dreaming of success, for running away isn’t an option.
Yet it feels useless, because Dazai keeps dying and he keeps waking up.
Exhausted, he rubs his eyes and weakly extends an arm to pick up the phone. An obnoxious and familiar voice chirps in his ear.
“Chibi! You didn’t forget what we promised to do today, right?”
He doesn’t answer, just sighs deeply, burdened by the weight of a time that doesn’t pass. He is seventeen, yet he is twenty-four. Dazai is alive, until he’s not anymore.
“Are you bailing on me, Chibi? I wanna get ice cream.”
“I’m tired,” he says. “Let’s meet tomorrow.”
“Eeeh? We won’t have a day off tomorrow, slug. And who knows when’s the next?”
“I don’t know, I don’t care. I’m tired, Dazai.”
He hangs up and turns his phone on silent mode not to be bothered anymore. Maybe that’s what it takes: them not meeting. Maybe it’s a lesson: staying away from Dazai is the only thing that will keep him alive, and that’s why defecting the Mafia was the right thing for him to do. Maybe Chuuya really is the bane of his existence, a nightmare on his own, an inhuman being who jinxes any meaningful relationship he has. Perhaps he can spare Dazai by staying away.
How awful it is, though—realizing that while stuck in a loop during the day that is supposed to be the one of their first kiss.
A kiss on the shore, lulled by the sound of the waves, framed by the beauty of the sky.
The first of many other stolen ones.
Did they mean anything?
(Dazai came to see him since Chuuya wouldn’t budge nor answer. He gets shot in the chest by a revengeful grunt just in front of Chuuya’s building, and Chuuya sees it all by the window. Someone chuckles behind him.)
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“I think I’ve been patient enough.” The smile that upcurves his lips is icy cold, dark and hollow. “But I guess you really don’t need your fingers.”
The trembling man shrinks in front of him, bottom lip quivering so harshly that it seems like it will fall. He’s pale, atrociously so, and his bleeding fingers without nails anymore are also shaking violently. Bloodshot, wide scared eyes meet empty, dark scary ones. Towering over his poor victim, Dazai feels numb, devoid of any emotion. It’s strange how at ease he feels. Everything is calm, cold and natural. He does his job wonderfully and he’ll get the information he needs.
That’s how he is, the Demon Prodigy.
Hollow, cruel, distant—nothing matters, especially not the lives he plays with. It’s strange and frightening how at ease he feels. Because maybe it means he never really stopped being the Demon Prodigy, if it’s that easy to slip again in this persona; maybe the path he chose after Odasaku’s death truly meant nothing at all and he hasn’t changed. He wants to regret his current actions, knows he’d get scolded for it by his colleagues, yet he can’t. He regrets absolutely nothing.
“The… The… The gravity manipulator…”
Not an ounce of emotion nor reaction flickers across Dazai’s face, but he stares at the guy to show he’s listening. The man shudders even more, his eyes juggling between Dazai’s face and the tool he holds between his hands, ready to snap some fingers. A lot of blood already covers the floor, pecks of red drawn from wounds nowhere near fatal – a neat, meticulous torture.
“He’s… He’s… trapped,” the man utters, choking on his own breath.
“Where?”
“Not in… Not in this world.” Another choke among ragged breaths. “Not in this… space.”
Dazai vaguely thinks of his first ever mission with Chuuya. He thinks of Rimbaud’s hyperspace and—yes, he guesses that could have been a possibility he should have thought about. Chuuya being trapped there yet elsewhere. That’s why no one could find him.
“A loop… It’s a loop.”
Blinking, Dazai focuses on the man again. He was going to ask where Murakami is, but his traumatized prey seems to have other things to say after all. About Murakami’s ability, apparently.
“What is a loop?”
“The… The space.” The man gulps with difficulty. “You get trapped in a memory… a fond one… but it turns into a tragedy. And it—it repeats. A loop.”
Dazai hums pensively. He drops his tool as he thinks more extensively about what exactly could this loop and space look like, and his victim lets out a sigh of relief. He almost passes out though – almost, because Dazai grabs his jaw to wake him before he does.
“How can one get out of the loop?”
“I—I don’t know.”
“Can an outsider get into the loop?”
“I’m… I’m not sure…”
“What do you mean you’re not sure?”
“I—I heard that if… if you go to the place of the memory the loop transforms, you can… maybe… It’s thinner between the two spaces, so maybe…”
Dazai narrows his eyes. That’s extremely important information. But it implies that he needs to find what fond memory Chuuya is trapped in, reliving as a nightmare. Dazai sure hopes it’s somewhere in Yokohama and not abroad, otherwise it would deeply suck.
“Where’s Murakami?”
“I—I don’t know.”
“Really?” He grabs his tool again.
“Rea-Really!” the man cries.
Dazai sighs with annoyance and throws away his tool when he’s sure that the man isn’t lying. A cold hatred makes him want to kill him. He really, really wants to, but—well. Maybe he did change a bit. And what would Chuuya say if he learns Dazai killed a useless person for him? He’d probably call him an idiot, insult his life choices and walk away in disgust. Yeah. That sounds fitting.
He sighs again, louder, then gets up and stuffs his hands in his pockets. He has to clean his clothes: there are too many blood stains on it. It would probably be for the better if no one sees him with them, especially the ADA.
“I guess you can rot here, then,” he clicks his tongue before turning on his heels.
He distinctly hears the man slump on the ground – he collapsed, surely. As for him, his mind is blurry, his heart is icy, and he’s focused on a sole priority: getting Chuuya out of whatever hell he’s been sent into.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Too many days have passed.
Dazai has drowned, he got caught on fire, he got crushed, he got shot, he got run over, he got strangled, he got stabbed, he got choked, he—
He got too many things.
He died too many times.
Chuuya witnesses it all, and slowly loses his mind.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
“I need your help to figure out where he is.”
Ranpo blinks at Dazai, then ogles the papers that his colleague just threw on his desk. He’s a funny one, Dazai, and part of it is that he always finds a way not to do a single report. The file lying in front of Ranpo is definitely a report: it’s unusual, it’s serious, and Ranpo doesn’t need to be a genius to know why.
It’s personal.
He swiftly takes his feet off the desk and sits better in his chair, grabbing the file to look through it with attention. His green eyes juggle quickly along the lines and narrow at the information that’s here and that no one, even among the Port Mafia, managed to get before, even though their common investigation against Yonaka started over a month ago.
“Where did you get this intel?”
“It doesn’t matter. Does it help?”
Ranpo squints at his colleague, but Dazai has shoved his hands in the pockets of his trench coat and looks as innocent as one can be. Which means he isn’t at all, and the implications of that don’t sit well with Ranpo – still, he won’t snitch him to the others; if Dazai relapsed, maybe it’s for a good reason. Ranpo suspects all too well what this reason might be, but… Well. Dazai is a tomb and the best liar in the world when it comes to hide and deny the extent of the bond between him and the gravity manipulator. Ranpo knows – feels – that there is more than trust, more than history, even more than love between them; but it’s something too complicated to understand, even for him.
They’re like that, Double Black.
“… I think I might find something, but I need to review the information the other teams gathered about the possible enemies’ positions first.”
“I’ll ask Kunikida for them.”
“Dazai.”
“Hm?”
“You okay?” The way Dazai’s eyes widen tells him that he really didn’t expect Ranpo to ask such a question, and to be fair, Ranpo feels uncharacteristically shy himself. But it’s not like he doesn’t care for his friends, and Dazai is a friend.
“Yeah. Just doing my job.”
“That’s a bit more dedicated than usual,” Ranpo chuckles before he can help himself.
“Not really.”
“Look, I know you don’t like talking about whatever’s going on between you and mister fancy hat—”
“Duh, because there’s nothing between me and the slug.”
“—but you’re being a bit too frantic about his disappearance to be convincing.”
Dazai frowns. It’s a fuck-you-for-being-so-smart-where-I-don’t-need-you-to frown. Ranpo doesn’t mind: he received this particular grimace more times than he can count and he honestly never gets tired of it. It’s always a small victory.
“Without Chuuya,” Dazai carefully says, “Yokohama is done for.”
“There was a time where Chuuya wasn’t here, you know.” Silence answers him and he feels bold, provocative. “Aren’t you the one who’s done for without him?”
There’s another frown on Dazai’s face before he turns on his heels and leaves without replying.
It’s a fuck-you-for-figuring-out-what-I-keep-denying-to-myself frown.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Once he gets the necessary information, it takes Ranpo less than two days to find the hideout of Haruki Murakami – at least, his most probable hideout. Dazai is ready to go right away, but Fukuzawa insists that a team goes, and he’s forced to wait. Ultimately, a joint team – with ADA and Port Mafia members – is built and goes to the hideout: Dazai, obviously; Yosano, especially in case the culprit tries to kill himself; Tanizaki, to hide them; and the Black Lizards for the offensive force. Dazai would have suggested to bring the Shin Soukoku duo if stealth wasn’t a key to their plan.
Infiltrating the hideout goes ridiculously well. To be fair, Tanizaki’s Light Snow is way more powerful than it may seem, and the Black Lizards look like they take note of that – after all, that’s the ability that allowed a teenage boy to almost kill their boss once. Still, this is too easy. Or perhaps Dazai is too on edge – he’s aware of his mask, it’s heavy and obstructs his sight, obstructs his mind, but it’s his only way to go on. He cannot afford to lose focus. So adrenaline it is, cautiousness it is, defiance it is, paranoia if he must—he’s not letting this mission fail.
How scary it is, to be afraid for someone.
That’s the thing though: Dazai never is. Especially not for Chuuya. Ranpo’s words aside, Dazai just never had to truly worry about Chuuya – for Chuuya is strong, the strongest, and even if Corruption is worrisome, at least Dazai is confident in his ability to save Chuuya from it. Now Chuuya is gone and no one knows where he is or if he’s okay, and this ignorance is a wound in which time keeps twisting a knife. During their four years apart, Dazai always knew that Chuuya was okay. He would hear about him here and there, always.
(There was always a place for Chuuya in the corner of his mind—of his existence.)
Not being in control is terrifying.
“I’ll check the door,” Gin whispers before swiftly moving to the said door.
They move on. The hideout is in a disused building on Yokohama’s borders, a place so in shambles that no one would dare look there normally, if only because it looks like it would collapse at any second. Yet as they travel further inside, it seems way more solid than it looked from the outside, and at least it comforts them into thinking that this is truly the right place.
As the mission goes on, Dazai gets lost in his thoughts. It happens when you realise your whole world is hanging by a thin thread all of a sudden – not his life but his world. Dazai thinks of himself as a selfish person – that much is easy to see. He tried not to be. He tries not to be – not too much at least.
His heart is an empty shell where he stores the pearls and scraps he finds along the way. It makes him feel full. He remembers the day he picked up a diamond, a diamond so big he didn't know where to put it in his heart; so he held it in his hand, awkwardly, and one morning put it on his bedside table before leaving. He never came back.
Adolescence is a waking nightmare and Dazai never thought he'd survive it. Odasaku pulled him out of the darkness he was drowning in, but he was only ever able to stay afloat thanks to Chuuya. Chuuya could have hung a ball and chain from his foot, but he gave him a buoy. Chuuya could have looked away, but he grabbed his hand. Dazai hated drowning: it was too painful. Yet he thought about it vividly that evening on the beach, when he was seventeen, on the day where a misguided spontaneity could have lost him his only reason for living.
Red cheeks and dreamy eyes, the childlike charm of a teenager who too often forgot he was one: Dazai had confessed without realising it, in a roundabout way that was all too clear to his partner, and jumping in the water to drown himself had seemed the most pertinent idea he'd ever had.
When Chuuya kissed him, he remembered that he existed. That he was alive – a diamond so big, a diamond too big.
A year later he'd left and given up all hope of finding back that treasure.
“Here.”
Hirotsu suddenly destroys a door and Tachihara takes care of the weapons pointed at them. Gin slaughters them as soon as they see it’s not Murakami. Tanizaki helps avoiding casualties. Yosano stands ready behind the Black Lizards. Dazai glares at the back of the room.
There’s a man in a chair.
He’s not looking at them, but rather at screens showing way too many places of Yokohama. The arcade, the wheel, the city office, the port, the largest department store—everything’s here under his scrutinizing gaze. Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World. Dazai half expects the situation to turn into a bad horror movie.
He’s the one who comes forward, because no way the man’s ability is going to affect him, and they could see his empty hands from behind, so it looks like he’s unarmed – in any case, he can react sharply and the others too. So he moves forward, slipping into a persona he thought was buried in the past, but life loves mocking him – a suicidal who doesn’t die, a traitor who didn’t change. Demon Prodigy through and through. Odasaku would be disappointed, and Chuuya… it doesn’t matter what Chuuya thinks.
“My, getting our hands on you was such a hass—”
He freezes.
“Dazai?” Yosano’s worried voice comes from behind him. “What’s going on?”
He doesn’t answer, just keeps staring at the man in front of him.
“Dazai?”
Slowly, he makes the chair spin so the others can look at Murakami. Tachihara and Tanizaki gasp in unison. It’s funny, really. These hollow, abyssal eyes look into nothingness, forever frozen on a face that age and madness turned into a macabre statue. Yosano doesn’t even try to use her ability.
“… He’s dead,” Hirotsu whispers for everyone.
Gin clenches her fists. This single gesture is enough to say she regrets killing the others – they could have gotten information from them.
“How come we haven’t found Executive Nakahara then?” Tanizaki stutters. “The ability should have stopped working if he’s dead…”
“Unless it doesn’t,” Dazai answers, voice empty.
“… What?”
“Maybe the loop created by his ability exists independently once created, which means that even his death wouldn’t destroy it. Which means the person trapped inside has to get out by themselves, or someone needs to get them out. Perhaps he killed himself to make sure he wouldn’t get tortured into deactivating the loop himself, so that Chuuya would stay trapped. If he’s as loyal to Yonaka as the intel says he was, that’s possible.”
The silence that fills the small room lit up by the screens’ light is horribly heavy. Tachihara is the one who speaks up, uneasy and nervous:
“Then how can we help Nakahara…?”
Dazai sighs loudly. He wants – desperately so – to know the answer too.
“The layers between the two worlds – the real one and the one created by the ability – should be thinner at the place where the loop is supposed to happen.”
“What does that mean?”
Dazai sighs with annoyance, irritated to have to explain basic things. Yosano gives a pointed look that he ignores.
“It means that if the victim is stuck in a loop of a fond memory happening at the amusement park for example, then going to the amusement park improves our chances to reach out to them. Maybe we can talk to them or something like that.”
“Is there a way to know where Nakahara’s loop is?” Tachihara continues without acknowledging Dazai’s disrespect.
“Except going to all the potential places possible? Not really.”
Bitterness invades his mouth. Dazai wants to puke. No—first he wants to poke out the fucking frozen eyes staring into nothingness. They make him sick—and angry, furious, enraged.
He’s going insane.
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“Where is he?”
Ranpo lifts his eyes to meet Kunikida’s. Behind him, Atsushi keeps glancing their way, clearly worried and interested in the answer. It’s a bit annoying that neither of them – or the others – could answer to the question themselves, but for once, Ranpo doesn’t exactly blame them: everyone’s on edge and he’s the one who spoke to Dazai the most at the ADA these past few days, since Dazai kept coming to him for help – which was odd, by the way, but he brought candies as bribery so Ranpo dropped the teasing.
“In town.”
“Where?”
“How should I know? He’s going to places mister fancy hat apparently has fond memories of.”
Kunikida frowns. He evidently tries to hide it, but he’s clearly a bit restless. Ranpo can see the way his eyes juggle from one point to another, how he picks at his fingers’ skin, how he’s stiff, how he’s—anyway, it’s not the time to deduce all these things. Kunikida being stressed for Dazai is not exactly new.
“He shouldn’t do that alone.”
At that, Ranpo cracks a smile – half-fond, half-bitter.
“Maybe he shouldn’t,” he murmurs. “But he has to.”
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Dazai goes to a lot of places. He goes to the arcade, to Chuuya’s old apartment, to his current one, to the coffee shops they used to hang out at, to the bars he knows Chuuya likes now, to the places he goes out with his friends and subordinates, to the alley streets they used to hide in and do pranks, even to the parks where lots of (awful) dogs are running around. He goes to many places he thinks could be ones where Chuuya has fond memories, but none seems different, and there’s not a single sign that Chuuya’s here when Dazai calls him.
He must look like a degenerate.
Dazai Osamu is a lot of things, and maybe degenerate is actually a pretty common adjective to qualify him, but he’s not a frantic one, he’s not a desperate one. But people think he’s a lot of things he’s not, and he thinks himself he’s not a lot of things he is. For once, he never thought Chuuya would worry him to this extent, because he never had to worry for him to this extent – Chuuya is smart, strong, the strongest even, and he always bounces back. But this whole affair brought up a question:
What if he doesn’t?
Dazai started thinking back to their teenage years. He started thinking about their mutual murder attempts, their pranks, their games, their plans—
(their hugs, their nightmares, their scars, their wobbly confessions at 3 AM in the bathroom, their kisses)
—their screams, their insults, their betrayals, their reunions. For Chuuya is a lot of things, and people think he’s a lot of things he’s not, and he thinks himself he’s not a lot of things he is. But Dazai knows Chuuya like Chuuya knows him, and that always made distance irrelevant between them, because the other was always there, in the corner, in the back of their minds. Safe and sound, supposedly – maybe Chuuya had accepted long ago the possibility of Dazai being dead one morning, but Dazai never considered the fact that he could be the one waking up to a dead Chuuya, and that’s always been a fundamental difference between them. He is the one supposed to die first.
“You don’t understand,” he says to Ranpo at some point, days merging together. “He can’t die.”
He doesn’t elaborate. He doesn’t need to.
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Chuuya is tired.
People can be tired in a lot of ways. Overworked-tired, sleep-deprived-tired, annoyed-tired… Chuuya is everything at once. He’s exhausted. He’s tired of waking up, of getting up, of breathing and living. He lost count of the days at some point and it broke him; now time feels inexistent and he feels numb to the core, drowning every evening at the sight of Dazai’s corpse. He’s seen Dazai in a lot of colours, from red to blue, from dark to white—at each day its new way of killing the man who could never kill himself. It’s ironic, really. It’s laughable.
God, Chuuya wants to laugh.
He does. It’s hollow, it’s mechanic, and the seventeen years old Dazai that speaks to him every day always points it out, but he never explains himself. He’s talking to a doll soon to be broken. And he thought that maybe the pain would be eased as time goes on – if time still means anything – but he keeps feeling emptier and emptier, more and more hurt, and—why did no one tell him that it was possible for one’s soul to be torn apart even more each day? He would have thought it was a one-time thing, that it would be easier after.
Watching Dazai die doesn’t get easier. Even though he’s used to it, even though he expects it, somehow it hurts even more every time.
God, Chuuya wants to be the one who dies.
Arahabaki should stir inside him but doesn’t. Maybe Corruption can’t be activated here. Chuuya thought about it, because it would have been an easy way out if he really wanted to – unless this Dazai can cancel Arahabaki too and in that case, fuck him probably.
“You’re awfully quiet today, Chibi.”
“I’m tired.”
The sky is a beautiful canvas of fiery colours. Strokes of red, orange and pink paint the evening sky above the peaceful sea, and the waves purr lowly in the distance, kissing the shore languidly. It’s the place where they first kissed. It’s the memory of his first kiss with Dazai, when he was still in the Port Mafia, when they were still teenagers lost amidst an unforgiving darkness that stole their childhood. But they had each other.
“Is there something you want to do?”
Chuuya can’t help but snicker. He must truly look awful for Dazai to ask him such a question.
“What I want to do…”
He thinks seriously. What does he want? What should he want? He tried everything he could to stop this madness, to get out, to run away. Nothing worked. Despite his best efforts, fated tragedy followed his every choice and the loop kept going on, a mockery in the form of a ghostly child laughing at him. What hasn’t he tried yet?
God, Chuuya wants to be the one who dies.
Dazai would never let him. He has a feeling that where he fails, Dazai would succeed, because this loop is that kind of bitch. So what’s left? What is a scenario in which Dazai can’t save him? A scenario in which everything gets to finally come to an end?
He turns his head towards Dazai and meets a single eye: it’s a pool of shadows, a well without a bottom. Yet the sunset shines across it and pecks of gold gleam in this void – the eye becomes hazel, chestnut iris, and Dazai looks more human. A real child. An unfortunate one.
“Didn’t you always want to do a double suicide?”
The words leave his mouth before he can think about it twice. Dazai’s eye widens in pure shock.
“What?”
“I said—”
“I heard you.” Dazai stumbles over his words. His shock is almost endearing. “Why are you saying that?”
Chuuya hums and looks at the water in front of them. He still remembers vividly the very first day of this waking nightmare, when they ran into the water, when Dazai disappeared, when he found his lifeless body floating away. Hollow, glazed eyes. Death on a face in a way he never saw it before despite all the dead and killings he encountered.
“I’m not a pretty lady but maybe I can do the trick for you.”
“Chibi’s gone mad,” Dazai chuckles sombrely. “Don’t joke like that.”
“I’m not joking.”
“It’s really not funny.”
“I’m not joking, mackerel.”
He can feel Dazai’s gaze on him. It’s heavy, and he has a feeling it would be suffocating if he looked at him, so he doesn’t.
Maybe that’s the trick.
Doing a double suicide with Dazai is something he would never do – hell, never consider. He’s not suicidal. He won’t indulge Dazai in his morbid fantasies. But perhaps that’s the way out—acting in an unpredictable way, a destructive way, something that would make the loop glitch. He can’t get out of here through punches, after all, so he needs to think out of the box. He’s a twenty-four years old Port Mafia Executive. He’s not afraid of death if that’s the exit.
“You can’t die,” Dazai chokes out.
“Even with you?”
“Especially with me.” Because of me goes unsaid, but is heard nonetheless. “Why would I want to do a double suicide with a slug anyway?”
Chuuya doesn’t take offense and instead grabs Dazai’s hand. He can hear his partner’s breath hitch.
“Let’s go walk in the water.”
He pulls Dazai with him and Dazai meekly follows, troubled, confused, but oddly docile. They kick their shoes off and walk on the damp sand until cold water licks their feet. Chuuya doesn’t even bother undressing. As for Dazai… He seems weirdly hypnotized by the turn of events – or is too shocked to react. Maybe he zoned out.
“I’m gonna swim,” Chuuya says when the water reaches his waist.
He still hasn’t let go of Dazai’s hand. They look at each other, hand in hand, hugged by a water who could be their hangman. Dazai looks pained, but Chuuya is determined. He’s jaded. His eyes ask are you gonna swim too? – his eyes ask are you gonna die too?.
“So, is that how Double Black ends?” Dazai forces a laugh. “Kinda stupid.”
“Funny coming from a stupid suicidal like you.”
“Chibi’s the one who suggested this double suicide.”
“Yeah.”
The lack of explanation seems to make Dazai nervous. But whatever look he has on his face, Chuuya thinks it’s effective, for Dazai doesn’t fight him like he expected him to. Their gazes battle and Chuuya’s wins. So here they go, and here they die.
“I have a request,” Dazai says.
“Go on.”
“You must not let go of my hand.”
Chuuya cracks his first genuine smile for what feels like an eternity.
“Of course not, idiot.”
Two crimson pearls shine on the beach, bandages loosen, hair dishevelled; the ghost of child Dazai looks at them from afar, and it’s the first time Chuuya sees him afraid. He hiccups and trembles, stunned, frozen in fear, and there’s something weirdly exhilarating in this sight. They slowly go under the water, and Chuuya can see the shaking rays of sunshine above them, flaming colours fading underneath the waves. Dazai was right. Dying under such a beautiful sky isn’t so bad.
He hopes it won’t be too painful.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
The waves are softly snoring, rolling on the beach lazily. It’s the middle of the afternoon. The sun is still high, but it’s setting on Yokohama on the other side of the city, and Dazai can’t help but be disappointed that Yokohama is a port city on the east coast rather than the west: he’d like to see the sun set on the water – he’s rarely up for the sunrise.
Soon enough, he kicks off his shoes to walk on the sand. It itches his skin with memories he buried long ago. He never took himself for a dreamer, but there are dreams in the summer evening breeze on Yokohama’s beach; there are secrets hidden in corners, echoes of laughter that died with the remnants of a childhood in parentheses. There is a lot that the eyes can’t see but that the heart can feel, and breathing suddenly seems a bit harder, a bit heavier, and Dazai halts.
They kissed here. It was the first time.
“Chuuya?”
Waves answer him in the distance, peacefully crashing on the shore like a muffled lullaby.
“Chuuya?”
He moves closer to the water. He thinks he feels something, but maybe that’s his heart talking. Maybe it’s his own nostalgia – or his despair. Maybe Chuuya doesn’t even think of their first kiss as a fond memory – after his betrayal, it would only be fair. Yet he clings to this last option in a desperate attempt to finally find him, and perhaps a part of him painfully hopes to be the one Chuuya would hold dear enough to his heart to be hurt by it.
He's selfish like that.
His feet enter the water up to his ankles and he looks at the ocean, wistful, dejected. What if Chuuya’s truly dead? What if he never finds him again? What if the loop kills him? There’s no way of knowing. With Murakami dead, it will be difficult to avenge him. Destroying Yonaka doesn’t feel like enough, although he’ll do it for sure. Even if he makes every member suffer, it won’t feel like enough. Dazai doesn’t even know if there’s something enough to do in retaliation for Chuuya’s death. Chuuya dying before him is something that is not supposed to happen. It should—
He squints his eyes.
There’s someone in the water? Floating?
They widen.
There’s a hat next to them.
Suddenly, Dazai’s plunging into the water, swimming erratically to the body in the distance, using his every effort to get close, closer, fast, faster, and get a hold of what he hopes isn’t a corpse. He recognizes red hair, he recognizes hat, choker and gloves, and as soon as he does nothing else matters. Chuuya. He got him. Chuuya. He hurries to drag him to the shore as best as he can. Chuuya, don’t be dead, please. He’s frantic, uncertain and unfocused, mind racing and heart exploding; glimpses of memories get covered by morbid images, and he barely notices that he’s shaking when he throws Chuuya’s body on the sand.
Immediately, he puts his ear on his chest, two fingers pressed at the same time on Chuuya’s neck just under his jaw. Then he waits.
Waits.
Wai—
Ba-dump.
A strangled noise escapes him. There’s no witness here—no reason to hold back what’s been choking him for so long.
“You’re alive,” he stutters as his trembling fingers claw at Chuuya’s chest.
Chuuya’s alive. Chuuya’s alive. He’s alive—thanks gods he’s alive.
He’s alive.
He’s alive.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Chuuya wakes up with a loud gasp, shuddering all over, eyes completely wide and mouth agape, struggling to catch his breath. He frantically looks around him but he can’t focus, he can’t see shit, he can’t remember and he—
There’s no ringtone.
That’s what snaps him out of his thoughts. He blinks, confused, heartbeats so loud it gives him a headache, but at least his eyes start to function again. He’s not in his room. He’s not even sure he recognizes the place. Slowly, he swallows, then turns his head to his left to check his phone—it’s not there. He blinks again. He’s in too much of a shock to react properly.
A door opens.
He turns his head so quickly towards it his neck hurts, but it’s nothing compared to the way his heart bounces in his ribcage the moment his eyes fall upon the person that just entered. Dazai looks equally shocked: his eyes widen as much as Chuuya’s, he drops the compress he was holding and, all in all, he just freezes at the threshold of the room.
He’s alive.
He’s alive.
Dazai’s alive.
A sob escapes him before he can stop it. And then it’s already too late: his vision gets blurry again and he bursts into tears, shaking uncontrollably, throat knotted and stomach flipped, mind chaotic and heart so full it could explode. In a matter of seconds, Dazai is right next to him, cupping his cheeks, trying to calm him down – but Chuuya barely hears him and absolutely cannot get a good look at his face because of all his tears, but at least Dazai is here. And he’s twenty-four – almost? And he’s alive. God, he’s alive.
“Da—Da—”
“Chibi, breathe. You’re gonna choke on your own breath, stupid.”
The voice is fond and slightly wobbly, and Chuuya whimpers, sniffs and sobs again, still trembling like a leaf. He can’t help it. His body is just out of control.
“Fu—Fuck you…”
“Good, good, if you’re insulting me that’s good,” Dazai faintly chuckles.
Soft thumbs stroke his cheeks, wiping off tears that come back mere seconds later, damping his face all over again. But Dazai never gets tired of wiping it off, and soon there’s a forehead on his, a warm breath on his lips, and Chuuya can feel his eyelids being kissed ever so gently. It’s so tender that he can only melt, whimpering like a wounded animal. And he feels so broken, so utterly broken like he’s been fighting and holding for so long and he can finally allow himself to break down properly.
They stay like this – Chuuya lying in bed, sobbing, Dazai so close, holding him, stroking his cheeks and kissing his face – for what feels like hours. Eventually, even though he just woke up, sleep hits him again: he feels incredibly tired after having cried his eyes out. Besides, his eyes are all puffy, he has a runny nose and his headache is horrendous.
“Drink some water,” Dazai commands softly.
Chuuya sits up a bit to do so, and he notices that he’s still trembling, although less than before. He didn’t think his body would react so harshly to the shock he went through.
“How do you feel?”
“… Better.”
“Wanna eat?”
Chuuya blinks and tries thinking of an answer. But just as he was focusing on the hunger he might or not feel, his stomach grumbles. He blushes a bit.
“Yeah, I guess.”
“Cool,” Dazai snickers. “Fancy stuff or junk food, Chibi?”
“Huh… Junk.” He isn’t in the mood for something fancy.
“Burgers and fries are okay with you?”
“Mh.”
“I’ll go get that.”
Dazai stands up, and suddenly everything feels cold, everything feels dark and Chuuya can almost see two crimson eyes in the corner and hear an icy chuckle and he just—he grabs Dazai’s sleeve aggressively, earning him a surprised stare.
“Can you… Can you just order? Take-out?”
“… You don’t want me to leave you alone, slug?”
“Yeah,” he breathes out.
The easy admission and its vulnerable tone make Dazai flinch. Chuuya knows he isn’t being himself, but how could he? He still feels so terrified. What if he isn’t really out? What if it continues? What if it’s just another… step or something? He can’t let Dazai go out. What if he dies? He can’t. Not again. Never again. Not like this.
“… Okay, I won’t ask for now. I still have to go get my phone in the living room though.”
Chuuya doesn’t let go of his sleeve, never meeting his eyes. He doesn’t know what expression Dazai is making, and maybe he could pinpoint what emotions he’s feeling if he does look at him, but he can’t bring himself to. There’s a sigh – a loud one, a dramatic one, something that is clearly there for good measure only. Then the blankets are shoved aside and Dazai lifts Chuuya so he can cling to him like a koala.
“I’m the princess here, I’m supposed to be the one lifted around!” he whines as he makes his way into the living room. “Chibi’s abusing me.”
“Mmh… Been a while since I carried you,” he murmurs, arms wrapped tightly around Dazai’s shoulder and nose nuzzled in the crook of his neck.
“Right? I remember the last time you carried me bridal-style…”
“We were eighteen. Then you blew up my car.”
“Oh, true. It was ugly anyway, like you.”
Chuuya doesn’t answer and hugs him tighter. Dazai halts for a moment, then he grabs his phone and slumps on the couch, Chuuya still in his arms. He calls a restaurant with one hand and caresses Chuuya’s nape and hair with the other.
“Yeah? It’s to order take-out, please. I’d like two of your Signature burgers and…”
Chuuya half listens, soothed by the soft touch of Dazai’s fingertips. He closes his eyes as his breath on Dazai’s neck becomes more and more regular. Dazai’s alive.
He’s alive.
He’s alive.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Dazai turns on his screen to look at the time. It’s past midnight. Then he looks at the man who looks like a boy in his bed, curled up on himself, sleeping like a baby with red puffy eyes and the blankets up to his chin. Chuuya is anything but a baby, whatever insult and taunt Dazai might say; Chuuya is the independent one, the strong one, the fiery one, the one who takes care of others, the one who sucks it in and moves on because people rely on him and he’s not about to crumble when that’s the case. Chuuya doesn’t break down – ever. At least not anymore.
At least he’s not supposed to.
With a deep, shaky breath, Dazai averts his gaze, clenching his fists on the sheets. He can’t sleep. Insomnia is strangling him and every time he closes his eyes, he can see and hear Chuuya bawling his eyes out like he hasn’t done so in front of him for years. When was the last time? Sometime after the Flags’ death, maybe? So, so long ago, and it was a sight he was supposed to never see again.
What happened? What did he have to go through?
He’s alive. That’s what matters. And Dazai should leave him here, like he always leaves him, because leaving has become easier than staying (leaving doesn’t require any explanation, because Chuuya expects it; staying feels like showing up naked in front of an ex-partner he can’t even stop calling his partner). But Chuuya’s heart is bleeding and crying: it’s a fact, and the ADA taught Dazai gentleness and care in a way he couldn’t accept them before—so, just this once, he stays.
The buzzing of his phone props him to leave his bedroom for a short bit, not without running a hand through Chuuya’s red locks first. He hurries to the living room of the safehouse and snorts when he sees the name. He told the news about finding Chuuya only an hour ago, and he’s not surprised that it’s not an ADA member calling him.
“I guess someone at the ADA told you. Kunikida? Fukuzawa? Ah, maybe Yosano? You two hit it off last—”
“I don’t have time for that. How is he?”
Kouyou’s voice is dry, authoritative but dripping with worry. She goes straight to the point and it makes Dazai smile a little – Chuuya really is loved, isn’t he?
“He’s exhausted,” he answers honestly. “He kept falling asleep between fits of crying.”
“Fits of… What?”
“Surprising, right?”
“Let me see him.”
“Absolutely not.” Dazai’s surprised himself by how fast and firm his answer is. An old protective and possessive instinct, perhaps; Chuuya’s the only one he showed all of his ugly and vulnerable sides to, and he wants to remain the only one for Chuuya too. “He’s not in a good place right now. He doesn’t really want to see others.”
“But he wants to see you?” Kouyou snickers, and it’s mean. “Don’t make me laugh.”
“Believe it or not, he does,” Dazai bites back. “He clung to me all evening.”
“You’re spouting bullshit.”
“I’m not,” Dazai says earnestly, and Kouyou must be troubled to hear it because she stays silent for a while. “I don’t know what he went through yet. But it broke him, alright? So he’s staying with me right now.”
“And you think you’re the best one to take care of him when he’s in that state? You’ve lost that right six years ago.”
It hurts to know that she’s right. But Dazai is a petty guy: he’s also obnoxious, stubborn, and overall a real little shit. So he decides to live up to these characteristics and he smirks wickedly even though Kouyou can’t see him – he smirks with all the pain, the frustration and the desires that burn within him, emotions he buries and forgets until they burst.
“Interesting. I guess it would have been a relevant point if I gave a fuck.”
“Wha—Daz—“
“Unfortunately I gotta go. See, I actually take very seriously the duty of taking care of my partner.”
He hangs up before she can answer and cuss him. He knows he’s being the most hypocritical bastard in Yokohama, because, well—taking very seriously the duty of taking care of his partner? The same partner he abandons in a field after a hard fight? … Yes, Chuuya didn’t exactly need anyone to take care of him at that time. And yes, Dazai did take care of him when he needed too. That doesn’t exactly make him less of a hypocrite.
That doesn’t make him less sincere too, though: he goes back to the bedroom and breathes a sigh of relief when he sees Chuuya in the same position than earlier, still breathing evenly. He’s slightly shaking, though; so Dazai slides in the bed beside him and holds him close, wraps him in his arms until the shaking stops, silent, caring, patient. And when Chuuya exhales softly and contently against his collarbones, Dazai ignores the stutter of his heart.
He kisses the red hair and nuzzles his nose here, inhaling their smell – he doesn’t recognize the usual lavender shampoo Chuuya uses; instead, it’s the smell of salty water, and it’s become a bitter smell as of today. Dazai resolves to buy some lavender shampoo tomorrow.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
“No. Order online.”
Chuuya glares at him, commanding. He slept like a rock and got up after noon, something that didn’t happen in years. The vulnerability he showed yesterday is gone: he’s back to being frank, direct and assertive. The only similar thing is that his demands are the same: he wants Dazai to stay here with him and not get out of his sight. Even though it’s the first time since what feels like an eternity that the time moves again and that there is an actual tomorrow, Chuuya still doesn’t feel entirely at ease.
(And to be honest, he doesn’t know when he will.)
In front of him, Dazai blinks dumbly. With a pout, he sits heavily on the bed next to Chuuya and ignores the scowl and the folded arms of the redhead – Chuuya is sure that this is an intimidating pose, but maybe it isn’t as effective when he looks like shit and wears a shirt too big falling off his shoulder.
“Chibi,” Dazai deadpans like he’s talking to an idiot, and Chuuya sees red. “You’re acting like a leech.”
“Fuck. You. I said order online.”
Dazai frowns but eventually takes out his phone.
“You’ll have to tell me at some point why you don’t want me to go out.”
“I told you that you could, but you had to bring me with you.”
Dazai ostensibly grimaces.
“… You’re still in a bad place,” he says more like an excuse than anything, before mumbling more lowly: “And they’re going to find you and snatch you away if you go out…”
Chuuya arches a brow but doesn’t comment on that. He’s used to Dazai’s dishonesty anyway.
“Whatever, I don’t fucking care but you can’t get out of my sight, understood?”
“You’re so bossyyy,” Dazai whines as he orders the lavender shampoo and other stuff online. “Now we have to wait until the end of the day to get all this!”
Chuuya rolls his eyes and huffs before lying down again in the bed, still exhausted. He doesn’t care about Dazai’s whining as long as his ex-partner listens to him – and he actually does, which is… odd, but pleasant. Reassuring, also.
A body slouches over him and he groans before shooting another glare at the beanpole lying on him.
“It’s not because I want you here that I want you on me.”
“But you want me here so deal with it,” Dazai counters childishly.
At that, Chuuya rolls his eyes without answering. He supposes that it’s fair. And he’d be lying if he said that it didn’t help him relax to feel Dazai so close, heart beating, warm, alive. He saw him cold and dead so many times now that perhaps he needs at least just as many times of this kind of touch to feel enough at ease again. It’s pathetic, when he thinks about it—he went through unimaginable trauma already, and far younger too – far too young –, yet even during those times he rarely broke down like this. To be fair, maybe he would have broken down too if he had to watch the Flags die dozens and dozens of times…
This is also about Dazai. Annoying prick, obnoxious bastard, pathological liar Dazai. The partner who left him but still calls him partner; his first kiss and his first love, his best friend and best enemy too. There’s this thin, cliché line between love and hate around which they played all their life together, so for nearly a decade now. Hating is tiring though: they never did, not truly. They’ve been loving dishonestly because it was always easier—they’ve been loving through actions because words were scary. It’s still the case.
“Chuuya.” The whisper tickles his ear and Chuuya opens an eye, shuddering a bit.
“What?”
“You should tell me what happened.”
He remains mute for a few seconds. “You told me you already know about the ability of this guy. Who’s dead now. I would have loved to kill him.”
“I would have killed him before.”
An odd wave of warmth overwhelms him and he growls, tries to hide better underneath the blankets when he feels blood rushing to his head. I would have killed him for you goes unsaid.
“You don’t kill anymore, shitty Dazai. Remember? You’re stuck in your bullshit light and all.”
He says that as if he’s not glad for him. Dazai knows what he means, though—he always does, so Chuuya doesn’t bother adding anything.
“I guess,” he chuckles wryly – it’s weird and disturbing. Chuuya frowns.
“… Don’t tell me you—”
“I didn’t,” Dazai cuts him off quickly. “But I may have… gone overboard a bit. In any case the others are dealing with the rest of Yonaka right now.”
“What? It’s not over?”
Given the way Dazai winces, he must regret saying that. Chuuya tries standing up, but Dazai is still slouched over him and doesn’t show any sign of wanting to budge.
“We have to help them!”
“No, Chibi. Did you see your state?”
“I’m better now, fuck off.”
“Better?” Dazai scoffs meanly. “You were shaking like a leaf mere hours ago. You cried your eyes out, you slept like a little girl and you won’t let go of me.”
Chuuya flushes with embarrassment and anger. “Shut the fuck—”
“You are clearly shocked and traumatised, and you won’t even tell me what it’s all about,” Dazai continues without listening to him. “I don’t know what you went through so I clearly cannot let you—”
“I watched you die!” Chuuya shouts.
Silence.
Dazai’s eyes widen. His mouth hangs open. There’s a mix of shock, understanding and confusion at the same time in his eyes. Eyes fluttering, hazel and alive – not hollow, dark and glazed.
“… What?”
“I watched you die,” Chuuya chokes out, like saying it makes it even more real, like it’ll happen once more – and here he is, trembling again. “Countless times. The day kept repeating, on and on, and whatever the—whatever the fuck I did, you—”
He takes a sharp breath. A thick lump obstructs his throat. His head spins. His heart tightens. His eyes burn and he—and he—fuck, he wants to cry again, as if he didn’t do it enough. He wants to break down, to hurl, to crumble—just remembering all of that as he knows that this is finally over is too much.
“You kept—dying, and then there was this, this… child-you, laughing at me, and I would collapse, and I would… wake up again and—and it would start all over again and you would die in front of me in a hundred different ways! You drowned, you burned, you were stabbed, shot, crushed—”
His breath hitches and he swallows back a sob. He’s shaking violently now, and Dazai awkwardly leans in to hug him, drawing soft little patterns on his back.
“So—fucking excuse me if I don’t want you to get out of my fucking sight,” he snarls through gritted teeth. “But I… I don’t want to go through that again.”
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Dazai is speechless.
He could ask Chuuya if the twisted memory the loop was based on was the day of their first kiss, but he knows it is—so he doesn’t ask anything. He could joke about the countless times Chuuya said he would kill him or would rather see him dead, but he’s always known it wasn’t true—so he doesn’t joke at all. There’s admittedly a lot of things he could say, but talking now feels blasphemous, and he’s content with only holding Chuuya tighter in his arms.
His partner – ex-partner – is shivering again, fists clutched on his shirt, and he struggles to breathe. Dazai sticks his cheek against Chuuya’s temple and murmurs softly after a while:
“Easy, Chuuya. Breathe in. Breathe out.”
Breathe in. Breathe out.
It happened a lot when they were younger. When madness was lurking around them every day, waiting to corner them every mission, every mistake, every night. Dazai would be the one whispering these little words when Corruption was acting up even after he nullified it; Chuuya would do it when panic overwhelmed Dazai and made him try to cut his whole body open. They were here for each other every mission, every mistake, every night.
It felt right.
“Breathe in. Breathe out.”
Eventually, Chuuya calms down, but he still clings to Dazai for dear life. Dazai tries to understand: he tries to imagine what it would have felt like, reliving this precious day he holds dear to his heart too, and instead seeing Chuuya die—not once, not twice, but dozens if not hundreds of times, because who knows if the loop was repeating every day or after some hours only? Chuuya drowning, Chuuya burning, Chuuya being stabbed, shot, crushed—and no. He can’t do that. He would have gone mad.
He would have…
“Chuuya…”
There’s no answer, but a slight shifting informs Dazai that Chuuya’s listening.
“How did you get out?”
He hears Chuuya inhaling deeply. God, he still seems so damn exhausted after having slept for so long, it’s uncanny – it’s not the Chuuya he knows, and he hates the feeling of overwhelming worry that tweaks his heart and flips his stomach.
“I…” Chuuya grimaces a bit. “I don’t really want to say it.”
“Why?” Dazai can’t help but pout, vexed.
“That’s not something I would do in any other circumstances,” he mumbles.
Dazai doesn’t respond and thinks. What could Chuuya do that would normally be out of character? What could be something that would break the loop? If the loop is about Chuuya watching him die countless times without being able to do anything to stop it, what could be the breaking point, what could be the only thing that enables him to break this pattern of—
He freezes.
Oh.
Chuuya freezes too when he understands that Dazai understood.
“You…”
“With you.”
“… With me?”
“In the sea,” he whispers, so low, voice muffled against his chest that Dazai can barely hear him.
He doesn’t mean to, but his grip on Chuuya hardens against his will: he stiffens, jaw tight, eyes wide, mind buzzing. With him. In the sea. A double suicide.
He can’t help it: the laugh bubbles in his ribcage and comes out disarrayed. It’s weird, awkward and ugly, it’s broken and feels wrong but he can’t stop it. Chuuya takes a sharp inhale and holds him more tightly, but Dazai doesn’t stop—so Chuuya lifts his head and grabs his jaw with one hand, glaring at him hotly, and it barely manages to calm him down.
“What the fuck are you on?”
“You committed—haha—you committed a… a double suicide! With me—hahaha…”
Chuuya clenches his teeth and slaps him. Some chuckles still escape him, but it fades away. Slowly.
“This loop is so badly done,” he sighs with a dry smile. “I would have never accepted the slug to be my double suicide.”
“You didn’t accept at first.”
“I would have never accepted.”
Chuuya looks away, unsure, troubled. He looks like he’s wearing a whole town on his shoulders with how heavy his shrug feels.
“Well, there, it worked. We died, I guess. Then I woke up here.”
“I found you,” Dazai confesses. “In the ocean. In front of the part of the beach where we… you know.”
“I know.”
They both avert their gazes, lips pinched and hearts ablaze. Actions, not words. Tacit understanding. Unspoken agreement. A gaze for a gaze, a memory for a memory.
They know, yes.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Chuuya hums contentedly when Dazai’s long fingers glide through his hair and scratch his scalp meticulously, applying the shampoo everywhere. The water is warm. Dazai is sitting behind him and helps him bathe and wash his hair, and it’s soft, and it’s peaceful, and it’s soothing.
(They fought before that. Chuuya screamed that he was perfectly capable to do that shit himself and that he didn’t need Dazai to act like a fucking babysitter; Dazai retorted that Chuuya had drowned to break the loop and that there was no way of knowing if he wouldn’t have a damn panic attack or something in the bath. That was a fair point, but it was admitting weakness and Chuuya had enough of being weak these last days, so he told him to fuck off. Eventually, Dazai changed tactics and whined that he wanted his hair to be washed too. Chuuya caved.)
“Don’t fall asleep,” Dazai’s low voice vibrates close to his ear.
“Mh, am not,” he grumbles back.
A scoff. “Sure, slug.”
Chuuya ignores him and closes his eyes – he tells himself that it is so no shampoo gets in them, but really it’s just to enjoy the sensations. Being taken care of is not so bad every now and then.
“Don’t fall asleep.”
“I’m not,” he groans louder.
“You were leaning forward.”
“I’m just tired, bastard.”
He can feel Dazai’s eyeroll even without seeing it. The fact that Dazai rolling his eyes is an habit he mostly took because of him is even more upsetting. Neither of them says anything more, though, and Dazai grabs the shower head to rinse Chuuya’s hair. Eyelids tightly shut, Chuuya bends his head backwards so that it’s easier. Of course Dazai puts the water jet just in front of his nostrils to fuck with him.
“You fucking—!”
He elbows Dazai’s ribs and shifts in the bath, splashing the whole bathroom in the process and making Dazai whine dramatically.
“Chibi’s elbows are pointy!”
“And you’re annoying.”
“At least you didn’t panic.”
“What would you have done if it gave me a panic attack, asshole?”
“My, I would have calmed you down, of course.”
Chuuya huffs, and then they resume what they were doing: Dazai rinsing Chuuya’s hair. It’s natural, soft and pleasant. Chuuya likes feeling again Dazai’s long fingers running through his locks – comforting feeling of fond memories. The scent of lavender lingers in the damp air and feels like a hug.
“… I knew you wouldn’t have a panic attack,” Dazai offers lowly. “Otherwise you would have already had one.”
“I know,” Chuuya only answers.
Silence falls upon them again, and Dazai thoroughly washes away the shampoo sticking to Chuuya’s locks. When he’s done, they both wordlessly turn around, Dazai gives the shampoo to Chuuya and the latter opens it again to wash Dazai’s hair this time. He runs his fingers through dark fluffy curls, and the familiar domesticity of it makes it hard to breathe. He feels seventeen again, and it’s bad for his heart – for he has already been seventeen a bit too long recently.
As he was rinsing Dazai’s hair, shoving it away from the other’s forehead, a phone starts ringing. Chuuya’s heart jumps in his chest. He half expected to hear an awful pop idol song, but it’s a basic ringtone – Dazai’s. The latter clicks his tongue.
“Ignore it.”
“What if it’s important?”
“Nothing’s more important.” Than this.
“What if it’s the Agency?”
“I’m being pampered, they can wait.”
Chuuya snorts and rolls his eyes, but he listens and ignores the ringing. By the time he finishes washing Dazai, the phone hasn’t stopped ringing even once. Whoever is calling, they are stubborn as hell. But whoever they are… Well—it’s Dazai, and he’s stubborn as hell too. Chuuya knows it firsthand.
They get out of the bath and Dazai grabs towels for the both of them. He ruffles Chuuya’s hair with it – not gently, clearly to annoy him, so Chuuya does the same and it turns into a competition until both their hairs are completely dishevelled and not particularly dried. Then they wrap towels around their waists and Dazai finally answers the call – Chuuya was ready to crush the phone with gravity at this point.
“What?” he spits angrily.
A muffled voice comes from it. Chuuya can’t decipher who it is, but it sounds feminine. It immediately annoys him and he gets out of the bathroom to slump on the bed – he does not want to hear anything about Dazai’s adventures, especially since by the looks of it (the girl knows his phone number and calls him endlessly) it’s an obsessed fangirl or something. What is there to be obsessed about with this guy anyway?
(His own obsession goes unmentioned here.)
“What do you mean, you need him now?” he hears Dazai’s voice go up, irritated like he rarely shows it. “Can’t you deal with that yourselves? Are you that useless?”
Chuuya lifts his head.
… Maybe it’s not an obsessive past hook-up, actually.
“Duh. No. I said no.”
The person on the other end of the line must be screaming, because even from the bedroom Chuuya can hear some sounds coming from the phone.
“Oh, please!” Dazai’s silly, obnoxious voice is back. “Be my guest and find me if you can! You’ll just waste time and energy you might have used to end this mess. But that’s on you!”
A screech is cut off when Dazai hangs up, and Chuuya can almost see his dark expression despite the half-closed door separating them. The next second, Dazai enters the bedroom with a casual look plastered on his face like nothing just happened. He drops – bounces – on the bed beside Chuuya and grins widely at him, giddy like a child – and there’s always been something about Dazai acting like a genuine child that made Chuuya weak in the knees; perhaps because he was robbed of being one. Like him—it’s a them thing.
“What was it all about?” he grumbles more softly than intended.
“Nothing! Just an ugly witch.”
Chuuya quirks a brow. It definitely wasn’t.
“… Is the Mafia waiting for me?”
“Don’t you think they would have barged in here already if that was the case?”
“Don’t be a smartass,” Chuuya scoffs as he gives him a flick on the forehead – Dazai yelps. “I know you’re good enough to find a safehouse even the Mafia could not find.”
“Duh. And what tells you the Mafia needs you, hm?”
“Because first, I’m getting more and more convinced you just talked to Kouyou. And second, you just asked what tells me the Mafia needs me although I asked if the Mafia is waiting for me. And you used the terms ‘needing him’ on the phone. So thanks for answering my questions, bastard.”
Chuuya stands up, throwing away his towel to grab some clothes. Dazai rushes to get up too, suddenly pale, and he grabs Chuuya’s arm to stop him – it earns him a glare.
“Don’t fucking try stopping me, mackerel.”
“Funny coming from the one who didn’t want me to get out of his sight.”
“Fuck you. This is different.”
Chuuya pulls his arm back and dresses up quickly. Dazai hovers restlessly next to him, still naked, stiff and itching to do something – it’s visible in the way his fingers twitch nervously, in the tightness of his jaw and in his widened frozen eyes. Chuuya ignores him. Instead, he grabs some other clothes from the closet and throws them at him with a stare that leaves no space for arguing.
“Stop that and dress up too.”
“Huh?”
“You’re obviously coming with me, idiot.”
They are out of the safehouse mere minutes later. Chuuya takes a few seconds to register where they are exactly, then he’s walking at a fast pace towards the Mafia HQ, Dazai on his heels.
“Give me your phone.”
“Urgh. Why?”
“Mine’s dead, remember? Soaked and shit. I need to call Kouyou, give me your phone.”
“I don’t want to.”
“Mackerel, I swear I’m gonna—”
“Executive Nakahara?”
They both freeze and Chuuya can hear Dazai cuss in a low voice. In front of them, a wide-eyed Tachihara has his mouth agape, and even Gin beside him looks a bit shocked. Her gaze juggles between Dazai and her superior, and that’s Chuuya’s cue to move forward and cut short their quizzical looks.
“Long story short, I’m fine, the mackerel found me, we can go because I heard you needed me. Is that correct?”
“Huh… Uh… Yeah. Yeah it is! It is, sorry.” Tachihara stumbles a bit over his words. “Let’s go right now. I’ll give a call to Hirotsu to let him know we found you.”
“Cool.”
Dazai grabs Chuuya’s arm and there’s an edge of despair in the gesture, one that makes Chuuya’s heart do a flip in his chest. He gives his ex-partner a strange stare, but what he gets back is a hardened gaze. He swallows hard. He knows what’s coming.
“What happened to not letting me out of your sight?”
Chuuya grimaces, because his two colleagues are listening. He gets closer to Dazai to whisper-shout to him:
“Listen, are you really being difficult right now?”
“Difficult is my second name,” Dazai retorts immediately.
“… Right. Bastard.” He huffs with irritation. “Come with me then.”
“What, so you’re fine now? All better?”
“Do I look like I’m fucking not?”
“You weren’t. You’re dropping everything because it involves the Mafia needing you and you’re a damn loyal dog, even if it means going against the desires you expressed for yourself.”
“Shut the fuck—aren’t you just mad I’m leaving you?! Who’s acting like a fucking leech now?!”
“What if I am?” Dazai squeaks. “You’re my dog, don’t leave—”
“You left me first!” Chuuya shouts as a last resort.
And it does the trick, because Dazai falls silent, eyes wide and mouth hanging open, and the Mafia members are looking at them with shock painted across their faces. It’s a low blow—Chuuya knows it. Dazai’s betrayal has always been a sensitive topic for both of them. They never mentioned it, not on a personal level at least – the most they talked about was their respective celebration of it, a blown-up car and an expensive wine. Superficial things, really. Exactly like how they wanted the other to think they were taking this.
As always, a fucking lie.
Dishonesty poisons the honesty they cannot hide from the other, for they know each other too well. That’s why Chuuya knows Dazai is aware of how these shouted words have no real meaning – Chuuya isn’t blaming him, not now, it’s vain and ridiculous; he’s saying that as an attack because attack is the best defence, and biting and hurting has always been their first form of communication.
(There were a lot of parentheses in this, though. Parentheses of hugs, of games, of kisses and of sleeping together. Parentheses of smiles and laughter, of teenage years feeling teenage-like, of a lot of firsts. Parentheses of nightmares and demons, of comfort and presence, amidst a darkness and a loneliness no one else will ever be able to share.)
“I’ll be waiting at the safehouse,” Dazai utters suddenly.
Come.
“Okay.”
I will.
They part ways.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
As it turns out, Chuuya comes back.
And they stay there.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
The clock ticks away. Tic, tac. Tic, tac. It’s oddly loud in the silent room where the ADA is gathered.
“Why does everyone look dead?”
Ranpo slumps on his chair and opens a packet of chips. It screeches, then he starts munching the chips, absolutely unbothered. The noises echo through the whole room.
“Huh…” Atsushi awkwardly speaks up. “Dazai hasn’t come back.”
“Uh-hu. And?”
“But apparently, the gravity manipulator returned and resolved the last problems associated with Yonaka.”
“Mh-mh. And?”
Atsushi glances at Kunikida with a grimace, unsure of what to add. True to himself, Kunikida pushes up his glasses and sternly explains:
“Well, he should have, since his weird behaviour was related to the gravity manipulator being missing. He isn’t anymore. Dazai should be here. And since he doesn’t answer to any of our calls, we don’t know where he is or if he’s safe or—”
“Huh? But he’s in his safehouse.”
Silence.
Then, slowly, heads turn towards the detective munching chips with feet on his desk. He arches a brow.
“What?”
“… How do you know that?”
“How do I know that? How do you not is what I should be asking.”
“… You know what?” Kunikida sighs loudly, arms in the air. “I don’t even want to know. I don’t! I had enough of him. He’s safe, that’s all that matters. He better comes back to work soon or I’m—I’m—I’ll make him pay when he comes back!”
He storms out of the Agency for the dramatic effect, slamming the door behind him.
(He comes back in sheepishly to finish his work.)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
In the secret of a shared bed of a shared safehouse, whispers tickle the skin amidst the night’s quiet.
“You don’t have to stay here.”
“Chibi’s going to have nightmares if I’m not here.”
“I don’t dream, Dazai.”
“You do.”
There’s a breath against an ear, then a soft hand brushing away some red locks. Chuuya opens his eyes and imagines Dazai’s hazel ones in the darkness.
“You’re shaking and whimpering sometimes,” Dazai murmurs against his lips. “And you’re frantic every time you wake up. You think you’re there again.”
Feather-light touches stroke his cheek and Chuuya shuts his eyes again. Dazai inhales deeply, then presses their foreheads together. Underneath the blankets, their limbs are tangled and their toes brush the other’s skin every now and then. Chuuya should normally feel upset that such vulnerable behaviours of his are being pointed out – Dazai knows it –, but it’s them only, it’s the night, it’s quiet, and it’s safe here. Dazai knows that too.
“Yeah,” Chuuya exhales so very low.
A palm cups his cheek. He melts into it and leans in closer if possible, legs all mingled together, noses brushing. Warm breath on warm lips.
“So I’ll stay here,” Dazai continues in this too fond, too loving whisper. “So every night I can soothe you, and every day I can reassure you.”
“Yeah,” Chuuya sighs again.
“There’s a tomorrow, Chuuya.”
“And you’re in it.”
“And I’m in it.”