Chapter 1
Notes:
beware the tags
Chapter Text
He guesses it had all started with a slip.
It was just a slip—he’d been on the ground; forgotten: a dirty child drowning ants with lighter fluid.
A slip of her elbow. The movement which had sent the wine glass plummeting towards the ground. The one which had resulted in it hitting the wooden floor and shattering into a thousand shimmering shards of glass.
He’d glanced at the shards curiously then. He’d pointed at the shiny things that looked like what Mom wore around her neck and exclaimed, “Pretty!”
He realises now that she’d been unstable. Or maybe he’d always known that but refused to acknowledge that Mom couldn’t have possibly loved him.
Mom picked up the largest shard. With trembling fingers, she’d pointed it at him. “Demon! The child is possessed!”
And then she’d thrown the shard right at him.
How can something broken break even further? That is the question.
The sharp edges of the yet again shattered glass had cut his soft, uncalloused feet; his oil-smeared hands. He’d cried out in pain, because of course it was painful, but Mom only screamed obscenities as Dad had tried to hold her back, preventing her from ‘damaging the child even more’.
Then he’d stopped crying—because he was old enough to understand. Who would save him? Who would tell him that it was alright to cry because he was in pain? Who would tell him that it was okay to stop crying, that the pain wasn’t all that bad anyway?
The men in navy blue suits had come to take Mom away. The flashing lights and loud sounds had frightened him, but there was never anyone there to comfort him and tell him it was okay. He didn’t know where Dad had gone, but he’d assumed it wasn’t important or related to him because he was left all alone in the dining room with his puddles of lighter fluid.
No one had come to bandage his wounds as they usually would. No one had come to switch on the lights he couldn’t reach. No one had come back home ever again.
He had been alone. Alone with the stinging pain of his clotting wounds for three whole days and three whole nights. Those three days and three nights had been enough to desensitise himself to the feeling of pain.
It had numbed down to a neverending ache that still somehow rests in his bones. It is likely why he hates pain. It is not because he cannot bear it, it is due to what it reminds him of; being the one person in that empty house.
…Person? But... he can’t call himself that. He’s barely human.
They said that when they’d found him, he was soiled and covered in his own blood and staring into nothing.
He doesn’t remember that. Perhaps he’d been old enough to start dissociating from reality.
They’d brought him to Mori. Mori, who’d taught him almost everything he knew. Mori, who’d shown him that it was okay to not detest pain. Mori, who’d used that tolerance to do unspeakable things to him.
He should have known that in the end, Mori has been just another one of the scheming adults using his body for their own ends and pleasures. He'd known that. The doctor hadn't even pretended to hide it.
Yet, it was different from negligence. They are all evil, but Mori is one of a kind. While the others shun the bad and practice it in secret, Mori embraces it. He manipulates everything from the smallest of character traits to one of the largest ports in the country.
He admires Mori’s control. Is that so bad?
It had been just a slip—just a tilting of that precariously balanced control that brought it all crashing down.
•
Chuuya. He's an enigma, yet his actions are so easy to predict. A contradiction—his violence is always unsurprising, but Dazai can never tell what he's actually thinking.
Dazai enjoys riling Chuuya up. Chuuya will get mad and often proceeds to beat him, and though Dazai complains when he gets hit, he can't deny Chuuya makes him feel a little more human.
After all, humans crave the companionship of their own kind, don’t they?
It doesn't matter that they are each other's exact foils. A monster masquerading as a human. A human too broken to be anything but a monster.
So it's not just because Chuuya hits him that Dazai enjoys his company. Dazai loves how utterly, ironically human Chuuya is. Chuuya never fails to give in to his temptations, his desires, his anger, his pride.
In a way, Chuuya is exactly who Dazai wants to be.
•
It was when they were fifteen. They were children, naive and stupid.
Children who didn't know any better; children who had grown up too fast.
Dazai knows damn well that the Chuuya of then would never have reciprocated his shallow feelings.
It was his fault. He'd been too demanding, too cruel and ruthless. How could he expect a person that had been verbally abused by him to like him, much less love him like no one had before?
Their companionship (no, it wasn't a companionship as much as just a mutual agreement to fight alongside one another) was an uneasy one at best. At worst, punches flew and blood flowed freely from reopened wounds.
It had hurt. It had hurt so much, that tightening in his chest, realising they would never be together because of what he was; of what he wasn't. It had made Dazai want to claw at his arms until he drew out more blood, made him want to rip out his heart and dangle it from its strings, then sever them one by one.
And yet, he still doesn't know what he truly wants. Was it to feel or not to feel the pain that always seems to be a constant in his life?
But now that he's trying to be better for Chuuya, would Chuuya accept Dazai? He doesn't think so. He's not delusional.
Somehow, he still feels like he's hoping for something that he could never attain anyway.
•
When they return from the mission, sweaty and dishevelled, Dazai is laughing in exhilaration. Chuuya just stares at him, an inscrutable look on his face.
Dazai can't stop laughing. He feels hysterical and he doesn't know why. The mission had involved a lot of killing, and that shouldn't have made him feel so, so alive.
He knows, rationally, that no person should find joy in killing. That's the thing—he doesn't delight in killing, but he can't deny that having the power to snuff out a few pathetic lives gives him the control he's always yearned for, no matter how temporary.
Then again, he isn’t a person, is he?
Chuuya says quietly, "I don't understand you. I feel terrible after murdering so many people just like that."
Dazai wipes a fake tear from his eye. “It was for the mission, Chuuya. Am I not allowed to enjoy carrying out my job?”
Chuuya continues staring that strange stare. It's almost unsettling Dazai.
“Have you ever thought about how you would feel if you were on the other side of the gun?” he says abruptly, almost fiercely.
Dazai sighs and closes his eyes. “Too many times, Chuuya. Too many times.”
Chuuya doesn’t respond. He picks at the blood crusting his nails. He’s thinking.
Dazai doesn’t like this tension-filled atmosphere. He feigns a yawn.
“But if I die,” he opens his eyes and grins at Chuuya, “you’d miss me, right?”
“Like hell I would,” mutters Chuuya.
Of course he wouldn’t, thinks Dazai. Would anyone miss him at all? His parents hadn’t. Mori thinks of him as a mere pawn, disposable and easily manipulated; he’d only mourn the loss of a useful piece. Chuuya…
He doesn’t care about what any of the others would feel, but Chuuya is an exception. Somehow, he always was.
“Dazai, I don’t understand you,” Chuuya repeats.
That makes two of us.
“You’re fake. You pretend all the time. You’re fucking messed up, and I’m sure you know that. You’re sadistic, you’re… I don’t even know why you’re like this. Why are you like this?”
What can he say to that?
He wants to scream at Chuuya. I don’t know why I’m like this it isn’t my fault please don’t hate me—
“I wasn’t taught to be anything other than a cold-hearted killing machine,” replies Dazai, voice low. “Is there anything wrong with that?”
Chuuya just shakes his head, the expression full of doubt. “Nothing.”
It’s a fragile reassurance, if a reassurance at all. And the gap between them just gets wider, until it’s a gaping, insurmountable chasm.
That’s right. They couldn’t be more different. They couldn’t be more wrong for each other.
•
When he’d left the Port Mafia, Dazai had still been reeling with the shock of Oda’s death.
He was greeted yet again with the silence of an empty, empty room. Overwhelmed with the stench of blood that couldn’t be scrubbed from his raw skin.
Chuuya hated him. Oda was gone. Ango… he didn’t want to think about Ango.
He was completely alone in this world that had never fated to give him a companion.
To err is human. And Dazai doesn’t make mistakes.
He tells himself that none of this had been a mistake. It was the right choice to distance himself from a person that would despise him anyway; mentoring a child that would grow up to hate him; leaving an organisation that could easily find replacements for his abilities.
What a joke. What a farce. It's all been decided. His fate is to be nothing but a burden to those around him. If he doesn’t sever the ties of his relationships with other people, they will only ever get hurt because of him.
So this is the logical decision.
Why does he feel so empty?
Chapter 2
Summary:
chuuya pov time! it's getting to the actual plot
•
"When will this suffering of mine ever end?"
"Never, if you continue considering it as your 'suffering'."
Notes:
flashbacks and actual present events might be a little mixed up so I put most stuff from the past in italics
Chapter Text
Dazai doesn't know what about Chuuya had rubbed off him the wrong way at first, but he can guess. It is probably because there are so many reasons that he cannot really pinpoint the exact one.
The main reason is probably that everything about Chuuya and his contrary character muddies and smears in one confusing canvas. Threads connect concepts, but they are ultimately so tangled Dazai cannot unravel them.
That is why—it is because Dazai can't predict Chuuya's thoughts. His actions, easy enough, but occasionally he will stare at Dazai in a way that contains no malice, yet is somehow so sad that Dazai can't help but want to comfort him. And Dazai cannot understand how... how those puppy eyes can sway him like that.
Dazai doesn't do comfort, so why does it even come to mind?
Chuuya always makes him feel things he doesn't want to. He never acts on those feelings, of course. That would be absolutely ludicrous.
Experiencing things like anger, hatred, fear—these are exclusive to being human. Animals, machines and the like—they can be trained; programmed to do exactly what you want. They cannot go against their instincts.
It is not their nature to go against their instincts.
Then again, perhaps the same could be said for humans. But humans... there will always be a select few who will deviate from the norm, for the sole reason of just not wanting to be what they are supposed to be. Chuuya isn't one of those humans. He may be quite a unique character, but he conforms to society's unsaid rules nonetheless. Because Chuuya cares about what people think of him.
Dazai can't say the same. Maybe he cared once, but he doesn't now. If he tries to impress someone, it'll only be because he's going to manipulate them for his own ends.
This is what Dazai tells himself.
•
"Dazai, you fucking idiot!" Chuuya yells as the assassin viciously swings a knife in Dazai's direction. "Watch where you're going!"
Red flashes across Dazai's vision, and he sees Chuuya watch him in shock as he laughs, staggers, and falls to the ground.
•
Chuuya stalks in front of the hospital bed, fuming.
"Why the fuck did you do that?!"
"I'm too tired for this," Dazai closes his eyes, sighing exaggeratedly. He presses his fingers over his temples as if soothing a headache. "Your voice is assaulting my delicate hearing..." He gestures at the bandage around his forehead.
Truth to be told, Dazai can never get enough of listening to Chuuya.
Chuuya growls. "Stop it, you faker. We both know you took that hit on purpose. Why did you do it? You endangered both our lives back there!"
Dazai smiles mockingly. "You shouldn't ask people stupid questions, Chuuya. If we know I took the hit on purpose, we know why I did it. Don't we?"
He leans as close to Chuuya as possible.
"I-"
Chuuya's pupils are blown wide, and he looks almost... scared? But of what?
Dazai smirks.
"Don't worry, darling Chuuya."
His dog goes red with anger.
"Shitty Dazai."
"Darling Chuuya."
"That sweet tone doesn't suit you. Shut the fuck up. I'm leaving."
"Have a nice night, my darling Chuuya!"
Chuuya looks like he wants to hiss at Dazai, but he turns and the door slams behind him. Dazai listens for the click of Chuuya's leaving footsteps, but it never comes.
Ah, he thinks.
•
That bastard must really be trying to kill himself, was what Chuuya had often thought to himself when he'd first become Dazai's partner.
Yeah, perhaps Dazai really was.
Chuuya doesn't get it. With the amount of superficial dedication to killing himself, Dazai could easily actually do it.
Is he just trying to get attention or is he just chickening out at the last minute every time he tries to take his life? Or does he seriously just have terrible luck?
If you ask Chuuya, Dazai's just doing it for attention. Probably not intentionally, but Chuuya'd learned a sufficient amount about Dazai's past; he's not stupid enough to not realise how Dazai had clung to him back then.
Most people in Dazai's life have mistreated or manipulated him, but Chuuya'd been the one to be manipulated by Dazai. That's why he was different. A little sad, isn't it? Two broken boys that couldn't have ever had a normal friendship because life had fucked them over way too many times.
Chuuya didn't know why he trusted Dazai so much because Dazai isn't trustworthy at all. It could have ended up killing him for all he knew, but somehow he'd just known it wouldn't.
Well, it hadn't, but the betrayal had been only second to that. Chuuya still remembers his innocent fifteen-year-old self going up to Mori and asking oh-so-politely, where is Dazai, only to be greeted with:
"Why, did he not tell you? I thought he'd at least let you of all people know..."
An increasingly frustrated Chuuya had growled and demanded Mori to give him a straightforward answer.
"He left. Dazai left the Mafia."
And his world had shattered.
•
He regrets it now, that he'd broken down in front of Mori. (Why did he leave without so much as telling me? Did I mean so little to him? Does he mean anything to me at all; why should I care anyways) And why, why, why had he--
Mori had smiled that disgustingly oily smile, no doubt plotting to use Chuuya's (admittedly obvious) affection for Dazai to his own ends.
That was the way things had always worked. Chuuya'd just been too much of an idiot then to realise.
Dazai had probably known it all too well. Perhaps that was just another reason he'd left. To protect himself from it all.
Maybe Dazai just hadn't wanted to be manipulated again. After all, who would, Chuuya thinks bitterly.
He'd all but given up after Dazai left. Worked his way to the top, because only that way could he keep an eye on Mori. To prevent him from doing the shit he did to Dazai to anyone else.
Chuuya couldn't sleep that night when he'd finally realised just what had happened to Dazai to mess him up so badly.
The truth of the matter had been cold and factual. At 7 years old, Dazai, abandoned by his parents, was adopted by Mori. Mori abused him badly under the pretext of making him a fighting machine. Dazai has trauma. So much of it, Chuuya can't even fathom how he'd dealt with it in these way too many years.
Chuuya still can't believe he had to learn all of that in an argument with that fucking fool. It was one of their petty arguments, the ones that happened after missions where Dazai was always strangely on edge. Somehow, it had escalated into Chuuya watching Dazai sobbing, hyperventilating, barely able to hold himself together.
•
Dazai grips the lapels of Chuuya's suit, and stares at him with those sad, cold, watery brown eyes.
"Don't you get it now?" he half-whispers, half-cries. "It-it's not my fault."
Chuuya has never blamed him for anything. And he has no idea what to do now other than hold the shaking boy before him to his chest and say, it's alright, it wasn't your fault. It's alright.
•
Things changed after that. Chuuya couldn't bring himself to look Dazai in the eye, and Dazai had seemed more clingy than ever.
In one of his whiny moods, Dazai once went up to Chuuya and grabbed his hand, saying, "Chuuya! Let's get ice cream~! I want ice cream, Chuuya. Chuuuuyyyaaaa..."
Of course, Chuuya'd slapped him and growled no, I don't want to have fucking ice cream, and even if I did, I wouldn't go with you.
Dazai had replied saying, well, there's no one else to go with, so just go with me! and he'd gripped Chuuya's hand tighter, and in that moment, Chuuya had never, never wanted to let go.
What they had back then, it wasn't love nor hate nor even friendship. Chuuya finds it indescribable, but in the tentative hand-holding, in those quiet nights where they'd just lie on Dazai's couch and talk, he'd known he'd found a companion for a lifetime.
Neither of them were ready for anything then, but they could be now. Chuuya hopes that they can yet be what he'd wanted since the very beginning.
He's going to the ADA.
•
"Oi, Dazai," Kunikida calls.
"Yeeeeees, Kunikida, coming..."
"Dazai, come here. Someone's calling for you," his coworker hisses.
"Alright, alright."
Dazai's not in a very good mood today.
Most of the ADA has the extra special ability of determining his various moods and has given him a wide berth since this morning. He doesn't feel like interacting with anyone right now.
So Dazai opens the office door and says as coldly and professionally as possible—
What the fuck?
He's back.
Chapter 3
Notes:
herjelelo I'm back and it's the holidays YIPPEEE
tw noncon(very minor), dazai has a panic attack, suicidal (?) ideation
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Dazai stares at Chuuya.
Chuuya stares right back.
"I—"
This can't be. No. No.
At the sight of him, Dazai feels like he's free-falling, hurtling down hundreds of metres off the side of a cliff. He slams the door in Chuuya's face.
"Oi, shitty Dazai," comes muffled through the door.
Dazai slides down to the floor, breathing heavily.
He's found me.
No—logically, Chuuya's always known where he's been.
But this is the first time—
Dazai buries his head between his knees, trying to control the rapid pounding in his chest.
Chuuya bangs on the door.
"Dazai, I swear if you don't open this door right now, I'll smash it right open—"
Chuuya bangs on the door again, and Dazai's head is going to burst.
He's been running away from it all—the memories of them two, the pain, the hurt, the betrayal...(his or Chuuya’s?) He no longer knows. And now that he's been found, it no longer matters.
It's too much to take in at once. And seeing Chuuya again...
Well, it's too much of a reminder of how much Dazai's felt for him.
He just stays there, head between his legs, trying to calm himself down. The banging on the door loudens.
"Aren't you the prodigy of the Mafia? Why can't you do such a simple thing? Get up, Dazai."
The door breaks off at the hinges, scattering wood all over Dazai and sending splinters everywhere. The cause behind it shouts at him, but he can't process it anymore. He tries to focus on his racing heart, but something's ringing in his ears like the tolling of a death knell.
A gloved hand rests on his shoulder, tugging.
Get up. Get up, you silly child.
Dazai wants to flinch away, but he's long lost control over his limbs. They're stiff like a corpse's and Dazai feels like he's being trapped in the prison of his own body.
Other voices ring out, merging into one deafening cacophony. The warmest, loudest one comes close to him, and he's pulled into someone's arms.
Wouldn't sleep be nice right about now? He thinks abruptly, as bright light pulses at the edge of his vision. His head hurts.
He would have to think about anything, really. Just dark, silent rest.
•
The dreams he experiences in this subconscious plane are no better than the ones of his waking world.
Shapes and shadows caper around him like caged beasts. They seem to roar, but not really. They move in complete silence; none really coming close to him, just lurking on the edges, ready to pounce.
With each step forward, yet another set of eyes start watching him.
•
Of course, Dazai would slam the door in his face the first time they saw each other again.
The look Chuuya's just seen on Dazai's face is the exact same as the one he'd worn when they first met. Cheerful, professional, and completely, utterly fake.
The Dazai trembling on the floor before him now is the same Dazai from the night he'd told Chuuya everything. The same vulnerable child, silently begging for the love he never had.
Chuuya can't bear to see him like this. He can't bear to face a side of Dazai that he can't insult, banter and constantly have a shield of hostility to confront with.
Chuuya can't stand to be reminded of how much he wants to comfort Dazai—poor, pathetic, Dazai.
Of course he understands Dazai's current condition. It had happened much too often after that confession. He's no stranger to this.
Well, it just went to show how afraid Dazai was of him, didn't it?
Chuuya tentatively places his hand on Dazai's shoulder.
"Come on, buddy. Get up."
Dazai's muscles are tense and he's not moving, only shaking and breathing fast, shallow breaths.
He hears yells from behind another door. What seems like the entirety of the ADA rushes out.
"Nakahara, what are you doing."
Chuuya stares coldly at the man with the blonde ponytail, unblinking. He then glances down at Dazai, who has gone completely still. Fainted, probably.
"Help me drag this guy."
•
Dazai awakes to the ceiling of Yosano's too-white, too-sterile, too-similar-to-his room. It reminds him of how the sheets were too itchy, and—
Someone's changed his bandages.
Dazai knows it's the ordinary, decent thing to do, but it still makes his skin crawl knowing that someone has seen what lies beneath those bandages. The scars that never really healed.
Beside him, Chuuya lets out a soft snore, hunching over in his chair to plant his face into the duvet.
Strangely, the sound doesn't make Dazai flinch. Instead, he almost feels like running his hand through Chuuya's hair.
He absently scratches at his new bandages, which are not the same kind he uses.
Chuuya snores again. Dazai almost laughs at the absurdity of it all. His mortal enemy, all open and vulnerable, right next to him.
Dazai lies back on the cot, sighing. The events of before he passed out flood back into his mind, and now that he can think with a clear head, he knows his reaction was not rational.
Of course, he knows why he's like this with anything that's related to his past. It is precisely because those things are related to his past that he does.
He tries not to remember how every time Chuuya would ask him shit about Mori after he'd revealed everything, he would do the same thing. Curling up on the ground, head buried between his knees, sobbing and trying to forget.
When he was being used, it was no better.
Mori would shove him against the bed.
Even when he resists, it's soon made clear to him that any sort of resistance is futile.
Mori would silence him with tender, reassuring words, all with a sinister, dark undertone.
"Don't worry, Dazai... It's your first time, isn't it? I'll be gentle with you."
Dazai would sob, begging Mori to get off, it hurts, you're hurting me!
Mori would just go on, laughing as he defiled a child's body. And when he was done, he'd leave Dazai alone in the room, too in pain and shocked to cry at all.
Dazai had thought he wasn't supposed to hate it. He'd thought it was normal. After all, was he not meant to be grateful to the person who'd taken him in?
He'd always thought it was his own fault until he and Chuuya had been watching the news—something about child sex trafficking, and he'd muttered, So what's the big deal?
Chuuya had gone ballistic. Dazai would never forget the look on his face—that of utter revulsion.
•
Dazai doesn't get it. Why's Chuuya overreacting? He cocks his head, saying quietly, "Then why didn't they rescue me?"
Chuuya's face drops immediately.
"What—what do you mean?"
"They didn't rescue me," Dazai says with blank, haunted eyes. "He did what they did. And no one ever said anything about it."
No one did. Dazai was untouchable--the boss's favourite toy, the Demon Prodigy.
"Dazai." whispers Chuuya. "Who. Is. He."
"Why, Mori, of course," Dazai says, smiling. "He said it was… experience that would be useful to me in the future."
What's wrong? Why is Chuuya reacting like that?
"You're smiling. I can't believe it. You're fucking smiling."
The look of disgust had morphed to something much more terrifying. Chuuya's eyes are wide. He’s shaking his head as if in disbelief, and his eyes reflect pure horror back at Dazai's.
"Just what has he been doing to you, all this time?"
What have I been doing, all this time?
•
Now, Dazai is finally starting to recognise how massively fucked up the things Mori had done to him were. A little too late, if you ask him. What remains is the question why.
He knows he has trauma but he can't understand why. It hurts, but why does it? Why did hate what Mori did to him? The pain had lessened over time, but he had still hated it. Mori gave him praise for being obedient, and he'd hated it so, so much.
And yet, I never really thought anything was your fault. It was always my fault, wasn't it?
Why couldn’t you have let me be my own person? Why did I somehow fulfill exactly what your twisted expectation of what a child should have been?
Dazai thinks rather bitterly that perhaps it is the innate human nature to contradict itself. To detest violence, and yet simultaneously crave it. Dazai had yearned for a semblance of normalcy, but when he had been faced with giving his old life up? He'd been afraid.
He’s a coward. He avoids his past, and when he faces a single reminder, all the fragility of his carefully built web of lies comes crashing down at once, leaving him with nothing to pick up the pieces of what has been broken.
Chaos is a natural order. Everyone’s actions result in consequences, that which will never be reversed. What has been broken will not be mended; what goes out of place will never return exactly where it used to be. But with enough control, the outcomes, the impacts of these events—they can be lessened; they can be magnified.
Dazai especially hates that he can't always control them.
Is that why he’d clung to Mori?
BECAUSE
Mori was the only sort of structure he had in his life that kept him in place, the only person that told him what to do, when to do it, how to do it.
BECAUSE
he was drifting about with no purpose and
Mori was the only person that gave him one.
BECAUSE
Mori was the only one.
Dazai feels like he needs a REASON to justify why he stayed with Mori for so long, even though he’d hated it. He feels like he’s going mad with how much he’s been questioning himself. He thought his thoughts had always been his own, but had they really? How much of it was manipulated by Mori to achieve the desired outcome: a toy that could be used; a killing machine that does whatever you order it to.
Then by that logic, he'd been doing the same thing to Chuuya. Manipulating Chuuya, saying things to anger him and entertain himself.
Because Chuuya'd been able to offer something—a semblance of stability. A bubble of fabricated reality where Dazai could easily act like someone he was not, and Chuuya had had no idea (had he? perhaps after he'd seen the cracks in Dazai's fabricated personality, he'd understood).
When Dazai had been pretending to be someone else, he'd felt more freedom than he could have ever enjoyed in his own real skin. It had been a second chance at life, to redo the childhood that was stolen from him, even if he could only experience it with someone that hated him. Perhaps it was his way of announcing to the world; to Mori: I and I alone have control over my fate, you cannot stop me!
Even if he had to fake it until there was nothing left of his original self, or manipulate Chuuya to the point he couldn't be read, at least there was the shallow comfort of being the one in control for once.
•
Lying in the cot in the room with the white ceiling and no windows, Dazai turns to face away from Chuuya's sleeping form. The redhead snores, contently unaware of anything around him.
"Now, how easy would it be?" Dazai murmurs to himself, crossing his legs and propping his head up on one arm.
How easy would it be for me to shove a knife through his back?
And never have to deal with those looks of pity ever again.
Too easy. But you know what would be easier?
Haha.
That would be, shoving a knife through his own heart, and not having to deal with anything ever again.
The destructive urge to reach for anything sharp and cut into his flesh, his soul—it nearly overwhelms Dazai—that desire for something to bleed and suffer and because he can't bear to hurt Chuuya, it just has to be himself.
To end the life of a demon, something inhuman—that should be welcome. For the rest of the world and the demon itself, because after such a long time of having lived in the darkness, death is redemption. A way to pay for its crimes with an illusion of a life.
Dazai grips the edge of the cot's frame, breathing hard. He claws at his chest, which itches with a strange feeling. Outside, through the thin walls, Dazai can hear low voices, and he catches a few words.
It's all about him.
Dazai staggers to the bathroom and promptly throws up.
I want to die.
Notes:
consider leaving a kudos if you liked the story :D I deleted the extra cuz it felt too out of place (and I might add it back sometime later)
Chapter 4
Notes:
please don't get shocked if the description keeps changing 😭😭 the more I read back my writings over the months the more I desire to change them
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Chuuya wakes up with a start, with cold sweat dripping down his back and his neck aching like crazy.
He wipes away the drool on his lips and raises his head from the duvet. He yawns, stretches and pauses—
Where's Dazai?
Before Chuuya dozed off, Dazai was...
Dazai was sleeping???
Was he really?????
The sheets are unnaturally neat; Dazai obviously made them and left. The room is quiet, there is no low sound of murmuring from outside—it must be nighttime.
Chuuya wonders if Dazai has gone home. Unlikely, he thinks.
In retrospect, blaring alarms should have been setting off in his head by now.
Chuuya gets up from the chair, languidly cracks his back and exits the room.
•
The night is warm and humid, but the moon hangs high in the sky, bright and round.
Dazai sits on the railing of the same bridge he'd met Atsushi at, humming an off-pitch tune. Every few minutes or so a car will drive by, and he will wave at it as it zooms off into the distance.
This is it.
He can't take it anymore. He can't take the reminders of the past off his mind the same way he did before.
He can't take the pitying glances of his fellow ADA members; he can't take Chuuya's unusual kindness, coming all too late. He's been nothing more than a deadweight to them for a long time now.
It's odd. He's been drowning for such a long time that now he's finally breathed in fresh air, he doesn't know how he lived before.
Dazai slowly walks down to the riverbank. He unstraps his shoes and slowly dips his feet into the water, socks and all.
The river is inexplicably cold for this time of spring.
There's no one around. Dazai doesn't want to admit it, but perhaps he'd wanted deep down, for someone—anyone, to care about him just this once.
For someone to finally realise that he was already killing himself from the inside.
For someone to witness the final waking moments he would have of this world.
All that is little more than sentimental nonsense now. He leaves his shoes on the bank and steps back onto the bridge.
His mind is clear of nearly all thoughts as he plunges.
The moon looks beautiful tonight.
He has no one to share the sight with.
•
Chuuya's on his way back to his apartment. The moon's reflected light casts an eerie whitish glow over everything, leaving the river a silent black.
He doesn't know what to do now.
He doesn't want to think of Dazai as a problem meant to be dealt with, because he isn't. But he knows that something, just something has to change.
For the better or the worse doesn't make a difference. Remaining like this just feels like the worst thing of all.
It is at times like now Chuuya thinks to himself,
When did it go wrong?
And he knows the answer is long, long before you even came into the picture.
He wants to comfort Dazai. He wants to scold Dazai. He wants to tell Dazai, I was suffering too. Stay here for me, won't you?
He wants Dazai.
There, now. He's said it.
That's the thing about love, lust, whatever you call it--it is not selfless, no matter how much one could convince themself it is. Chuuya may have wanted Dazai, but it was never enough for him to risk himself getting too close for.
Chuuya leans over the railing of the bridge, waiting for a cooler breeze to dry the sweat on his neck.
He hears shouting in the distance. It breaks him out of his daze.
Chuuya sighs and turns around, heading for home.
•
He’s back in his empty, dusty apartment.
He barely spends time here; Mori is always sending him on overseas missions.
His footsteps echo about the rooms that are much too large for just one person.
The expensive leather of the sofa creaks as it shifts under his weight, and he presses his head in his hands and sighs.
The question of what to do next swims in Chuuya's mind again.
He turns on the TV, letting the droning sound of a nature documentary overpower the static of his mind. He's just about to drop off into sleep when his phone buzzes, once, and again, almost insistently.
He picks up.
"Hello?? Is this... Nakahara Chuuya?"
The panicked voice is scratchy over the phone, and it doesn't seem familiar.
"Yeah, what's up?"
"Are you... Dazai Osamu's friend? We found this poor guy nearly drowned! Please come to the XXX bridge quickly... his breathing is getting slower and we've already called 911!"
What.
Chuuya's first thought is that someone pulled an elaborate prank, or this is some kind of ambush.
Then it hits him.
Dazai.
Who else would have set him as an emergency contact? Probably some ridiculous joke.
Dazai.
Dazai tried killing himself again.
Actually, this time.
Chuuya doesn't bother putting on his jacket, he just dashes out of the apartment, car keys in hand.
•
When he arrives, an ambulance is nearby, flashing lights reflecting off the river. They're lifting a body onto a stretcher.
Chuuya sprints. He doesn't realise he's yelling. He stops the stretcher before the paramedics close the door.
"Sir, please—"
"Dazai!"
Dazai lies unresponsive. His brown hair is plastered all over his forehead, his face pale and cold.
You idiot...
Chuuya doesn't know. He doesn't know how to feel, act, think; he doesn't know.
He's tired of all this crap. This confusion, this tangled knot of indecision; to trust Dazai, to yearn to understand Dazai, or to reject Dazai and push him away.
The paramedics gently guide him to the side as he keeps his gaze fixed on Dazai's unmoving form.
Sirens blare around him, drowning out the static buzzing in his ears.
He can't believe Dazai's finally had a near-successful suicide attempt. What scares him is that if Dazai'd straight up told Chuuya he was going to kill himself, Chuuya wouldn't have batted an eye.
He'd assume Dazai was just being his usual self.
But what is Dazai's usual self?
Suicidal?
Bipolar?
Borderline insane?
It begs the question of whether Chuuya should have started caring a long, long time ago.
The thing about being a human being is that when you've been exposed to too much of anything, it becomes terrifyingly easy to get used to.
He doesn't deserve to be called Dazai's partner. Ex-partner, even. How can two people be so synced yet so disconnected?
Chuuya doesn't understand how Dazai thinks. He'd bet Dazai doesn't understand him either.
Dazai's stretcher is wheeled into the ambulance. Chuuya stares blankly at the closing doors.
They tell him to make his way to the hospital.
•
Dazai's hooked up all sorts of machines. Sedatives keep him drowsy and partially paralysed.
Eyelids half closed, he glances to his right. The IV drip looks menacingly full. A glance to the left lets a beeping heart rate monitor come into view.
His chest feels cold and empty.
Dazai closes his eyes.
•
In the waiting room, they tell him it'll be a few hours before he can see Dazai, because of his condition, he blah blah blah.
Chuuya drifts in and out of sleep. When he next wakes up, he checks his phone to find that the time is an ungodly 4 am in the morning.
The corridors of the hospital are silent and cold. The fluorescent white lights make shadows too harsh a and all the more unsettling.
He hears the buzz of low voices.
“…the boss said…no… can't…”
“no one…just take him…”
Chuuya puts an ear to the door.
Then the voices inside go quiet.
Then he hears what seems to be a scuffle, a clicking of a lock, and the heavy breathing of two people.
The shattering of glass makes him jump. He immediately forces open the hospital room door to find a man ripping the IV drip from Dazai's pale arm, while the other is lifting him off the bed...
Chuuya narrows his eyes, quickly activating his ability. He knocks out the one carrying Dazai before he can react, and then grabs the one holding the IV drip and smashes his head against the floor.
The dust billows and settles, revealing a brutal scene.
There's glass all over the floor. Two bulky men lie unconscious on the floor and one is bleeding over his own personal crater.
Dazai stares at Chuuya with bleary eyes.
"Are you a dream?"
"What the fuck--no, I'm not. What the hell is wrong with you?"
Dazai merely laughs hoarsely. Chuuya can see that he tries to make an attempt to talk, but his throat is so ruined no sound comes out.
Chuuya can see that the fakely cheerful attitude that Dazai wears has been stripped away to its last dredges, like an animal bone licked clean of marrow.
Notes:
I'm back guhguuh
I wrote the last part on my phone so I couldn't format the em dashes nicely sorry
also I don't know the first thing on how to write a proper story
leyah on Chapter 2 Mon 30 Jun 2025 01:25AM UTC
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bberrycrumpet on Chapter 2 Mon 30 Jun 2025 09:27AM UTC
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