Chapter Text
| APRIL 21ST, 2010 |
The arcade is one of the few places that Chuuya holds fond memories of from when he was younger. He and Dazai used to go often, to settle any rivalry, to fuck around, on dates when they were engaged and too block-headed to call them dates.
They haven’t gone in years.
Chuuya avoids the place like the plague, if only because it reminds him too much of being naive and young and addicted to the obsession with Dazai that festered under his skin, hate that built and built into something that he could twist like hot iron into infatuation. Love, he’d called it at the time.
Dazai never elaborates on his gift, and at the end of his shift at the Agency, he insists that Chuuya take a detour back to his penthouse while Dazai does something for a grand total of two hours before meeting back up at the arcade. Chuuya obliges the request because he doesn’t know what Dazai has up his sleeve, but it can’t be all that bad. Not with that look in Dazai’s eye.
Chuuya recalls Poe’s words as he walks. I don’t know how they figured out what was meant to happen. But they demanded a happy ending. They were - I still think about them.
Poe hadn’t been able to answer his final question - if they, as ability users, would be able to demand a happy ending? Were they capable of it?
Chuuya supposes he will soon find out, though there are still wars to be waged and wars that he will start by himself; it is all dependent on whether he will wage those wars with someone by his side or with a lonely crown.
The arcade is not as rundown as Chuuya expects it to be, though he assumes that is due to the generous donation they get monthly; a fraction of Chuuya’s paycheck that he’s willing to push away for nostalgic purposes.
When he gets to the arcade, the rain starts to drizzle from cloudy skies that have chosen to form since this morning, the rain filtering down around him, unable to touch him from the slight use of his ability, Chuuya simply sighs as he pushes down the familiar doors and is greeted with the sight of newly painted walls and oddly clean, neon carpet.
Dazai is sitting at one of the many retro tables, flipping through a magazine that he’s clearly not reading with a video game on the cover despite the fact that Dazai doesn’t even own a game console, and likely never will. This is because he’d used to just break into Chuuya’s place and use his - though Chuuya figures he might have found someone else to break into their place and play their games. Maybe Atsushi, though the weretiger doesn’t give the impression of using his own spare time to entertain himself; maybe the ever-uptight Kunikida, though Chuuya cannot imagine the man loosening up enough for that.
Then again, Chuuya has never met any of Dazai’s coworkers outside of their respective jobs; he’s always had a cordial relationship with the Agency when the situation calls for it, but he isn’t going out of his way to have tea and lunch with them. Even if the weretiger acts like he is.
“Chuuya,” Dazai says pleasantly, which makes Chuuya instantly narrow his eyes as he sits across from Dazai. Typically, when they’re in the arcade - or when they were - Dazai would pull out all the stops with the shitty nicknames that possibly made Chuuya homicidal because he liked eliciting the rage out of Chuuya. After that, it had simply become a habit.
So why isn’t he using them now? Chuuya. Not Chibi. Not Chibbiko, or hatrack. Chuuya isn’t complaining, but the lack makes his hackles rise.
“Did someone die?” Chuuya asks instantly, his legs hitting Dazai’s as he adjusts. These tables are meant for tired babysitters and teen kids passing the time with money that was lent to them, not for two grown adults. Therefore, the foot space is a bit cramped, and Chuuya takes the opportunity to step on Dazai’s foot when Dazai intentionally hits his knee.
“Not quite,” Dazai hums, setting the magazine down. “Is it not enough to want to greet my dear Chuuya with such a nice greeting?”
“And follow it up with a nice sentence about me? Yeah, it sure isn’t. Did you fuck up again? Are we going to argue? Are you trying to butter me up? Because if so, you might want to try a different brand because it isn’t working.”
Dazai laughs. It’s light. It’s suspicious. “So paranoid, aren’t you?”
“I wonder why,” Chuuya says dryly.
Dazai waves it off. “I wanted to challenge you to a game, of course. I figured if I was extra-nice, the hatrack might extend me the honor of agreeing without excessive use of expletives.”
Chuuya rolls his eyes, batting at Dazai’s arm, though the contact - however slight - is comforting in a way that he can’t quite describe. “I can use however many fucking expletives I want. What’s your challenge?”
“If I win,” Dazai starts, that mischievous gleam taking over his eye and proving Chuuya’s initial suspicions correct. “Then you have to do one thing I ask.”
“And if I win?”
“You get to ask for a secret.”
The requirements of the bet leave Chuuya even more suspicious than he was at first. Why would Dazai possibly want to offer up a secret?
Still, Chuuya will play this game because he has an inkling that Dazai will get something that he wants either way - and Chuuya will be content so long as this answers his burning question, which he knows it will.
They’re here for a reason, after all.
Dazai will give him what he demands, or he won’t. It’s that simple. (Chuuya is begging Dazai to give him what he demands. To meet him where he is. To not leave him alone again. Chuuya is begging to love someone who will not leave -)
(It was a naive notion the first time he had the thought. But it aches, burns itself into the shape of kanji on his heart; forcing arteries and blood around it, a desolate area waiting to be filled again. I need to love something that will not leave me.)
“I get to pick the game, and you have a deal,” Chuuya says simply, holding his hand out over the table for Dazai to shake if he so pleases.
He notes that Dazai smells better than usual, something that Chuuya vaguely recognizes; it brings up blurry memories of sitting in a bathtub with nerve damage so severe he could barely think, of a kind hand helping him get through it. Ah. Oda’s cologne.
Chuuya does not comment on it. He doesn’t need to bring cruelty to somewhere like this, the one common ground they’ve had since they were kids, the place they could be kids.
Sure, they went to the arcade often after missions and notably due to their status as members of rival organizations the first time they’d met, and they talked about work often, but it was always while playing stupid games. Never anything gut-wrenching, never again that had Chuuya wanting to taste blood in his mouth.
Dazai, brazenly, takes his head with a sly smile and shakes it. His hands are softer than usual, though they’re perpetually callused and scarred, perpetually Dazai. “Then it seems we’re on the same terms. What are playing today, Chuuya?”
He didn’t even argue with my clause?
Chuuya has the startling realization that Dazai - wearing Oda’s cologne, having recently showered, his clothes less crumpled than usual - has cleaned himself up for this. Like one does for a date.
Chuuya cannot recall a single time when they’d been together before, that Dazai had put any effort into his appearance if Chuuya hadn’t chosen his clothes for him.
“What was your gift, anyway?” Chuuya hums, rather than answering the question. He’s still deciding. Dazai always wins at Streetfighter, the claw machines are rigged, and there’s a fifty-fifty on skee-ball.
“This deal is a win-win situation for you,” Dazai winks. “So either reward will be your gift!”
“Yeah, I don’t think so,” Chuuya says flatly.
Dazai beams.
(It’s a good look on him. No matter how sarcastic or how much of a facade Dazai puts on - a smile is a good look on him. And when Chuuya can see the affection and the fondness that dots it beyond the general smug demeanor, that makes it all the better.)
“So what are we playing?” Dazai asks again, tapping his fingers impatiently.
Chuuya tsks. “You could be patient, you know.”
He waits for a beat to continue. Dazai stares at him much like a cat.
Chuuya snickers. Neither of them has ever been patient, and it won’t start now. “I want to play skeeball. And I want the ski-ball on the left.”
“Best two out of three?”
“Ha! As if. Best three out of five.”
Dazai pouts.
Chuuya sticks his tongue out.
They both awkwardly slide out of the chairs they’re at, a familiar feeling in the midst of bloom with Chuuya’s ribcage as its garden.
The rib cage, to Chuuya, has always been a metaphor for the overwhelming sense of horror that he possesses. The horror of love. The horror of grief. The horror of rot, thick and festering, yellow and swelling. The horror of heartache and brittle bones of an experimental heart. The horror of something as mundane as a soft glow in his face at the retreating form of the man who has held Chuuya’s body open and scrounged around his insides like a game of what makes him tick.
It’s quite brutal, really, that it ends where it begins, that Chuuya is back here and the love - adoration, not infatuation; faith, not obsession - that resides in his chest is not going to eat him alive like he’s used to.
“Chuuya,” Dazai whines, “You’re taking forever!”
Still calling me by my name, huh? Must be on his best behavior.
The skeeball games are located at the back of the arcade, with faded logos and designs, and the vinyl of the points stickers on the circular barriers starting to peel with time. There are five of them next to each other, and Chuuya takes the one closest to the wall while Dazai takes the one next to him.
He already has a plastic cup full of faded coins, and Chuuya represses the snicker that rises in his throat considering he’d seen that same cup not four minutes ago sitting next to a rather bored teenager sitting on their phone, uninterested in the game, and Dazai has always had sticky fingers.
Well, it’s better than nothing.
“Start at the same time?’ Chuuya asks, though it’s not particularly a question he’s expecting an answer to.
“Duh,” Dazai scoffs, taking a handful of coins and pushing them into the machine’s coin slot on both machines, for Chuuya’s sake.
Well, at least he knows that Dazai is being more considerate than usual; Chuuya’s almost startled that he didn’t get a find your own coins with your mafia salary, chibi!
Dazai seems to be treating this more like a date than an outing. More like a game than a talk.
And Chuuya is alright with it because he’s got the itching feeling that Dazai has a plan up his sleeve.
Speaking of sleeves - Chuuya adjusts his. “You’re playing with your left hand, mackerel.”
“Wha - why?” There’s the signature whining. It’s far more endearing than it should be.
Chuuya holds up his bandaged wrist, where a slight ache still resides, though it’s faded to the back of his mind. He has a habit with pain, forgetting about it until he needs to use the affected ligament - it’s happened with arm injuries, torso injuries, and notably, with a broken leg once.
“That’s so not far. Chuuya is so much stronger than I am even when he’s throwing with the wrong arm!”
“Seriously, what are you buttering me up for? Complimenting me doesn’t make you look better, it makes me wonder if I need to get the hell out of here before a bucket of paint is dropped on my head.”
“You’ll find out.” There’s that stupid wink again. Chuuya would be exasperated if he wasn’t so stupidly, dumbly happy to be here with Dazai.
Chuuya’s naivety has always been his downfall, and he sincerely doubts that Dazai will be the exception; but it is his heart on the line and his soul that aches with the weight of being lonely.
When the correct amount of coins are dispensed and Dazai stands up to his full sight, the skeeballs being released from the lock of the machine, Chuuya picks one up with his uninjured arm.
He could, theoretically, throw with his dominant arm, and in an inane game of skeeball, he doesn’t think it would require too much force. However, while Chuuya might be used to fighting tooth and nail, injuries be damned, he sincerely doubts it’s either recommendable or something Dazai would allow him to do at the moment.
If Chuuya had to take a guess, he figures that if he starts throwing with his dominant arm and agitating the stitches, then Dazai will pretend to smash his finger or something and pull them away from skeeball. Dazai never does like admitting that he cares out loud; and honestly, Chuuya wouldn’t want him to, anyway.
Neither of them are built for things like concern, for care. Chuuya will soak up all of the attention he gets from Dazai without words needing to be spoken, knowing his place in the soul that fills Dazai to the brim despite the man himself not knowing it, without ever needing Dazai to look at him.
Part of Chuuya wants to test his theory.
He doesn’t.
He tosses the ball in his good hand, testing the weight and debating how much of a cheater he’d be if he used his ability. While Chuuya’s right hand isn’t his dominant hand, he’s still rather used to throwing with both; it shouldn’t be too much of an issue.
Dazai, the fucker, is somewhat ambidextrous. Somewhat, because while he can write with both hands, Chuuya’s seen him try and throw with his left hand and he fails miserably every time.
Yeah, Chuuya has the natural advantage here.
The fact that Dazai allowed it is what is making Chuuya question his motivations.
Either way -
“On three?” Chuuya says, holding up the skee ball and eyeing the 100-point slot. He can make the shot, easy. He’d be able to make it easier with his dominant hand, but you win some, you lose some.
“One,” Dazai starts, his tongue sticking out between his teeth in concentration. It isn’t quite genuine, but it isn’t all faked, either. It’s one of the tells that he’s allowed himself to have through the years.
“Two,” Chuuya interjects. The scoreboard flashes red above them, both scores solidly at zero without having thrown anything.
Chuuya throws the skee ball before Dazai has the chance to get to three, which isn’t considered cheating only because Dazai does the exact same thing, at the exact same time - in sync even when they don’t have to speak about it.
Whereas the skee ball Chuuya throws goes straight into the 100-point slot, Dazai just snags the 50-point slot and the ball neatly slides into the 40-point ring. His distaste is apparent with the whine that he gives, and they must look so odd, two grown adults playing skee ball with so much history between them that it’s etched even in the way they stand next to each other.
“Looks like this’ll be an easy victory for me,” Chuuya taunts easily, falling back into the old routine of banter as easily as breathing.
(Oh, and how it aches, to have this ritual back, in this arcade. Not in some Agency in France, not in a hospital, not on a boardwalk, but here, where Chuuya thinks he can find some semblance of home in the way that his soul has been scattered around this city like pieces of a puzzle not even he can complete if he has a soul at all.)
Chuuya wins their bet 4-1. Part of it might be that Dazai can’t throw for shit with his left hand, and part of it might be because Dazai kept getting distracted staring at Chuuya to the point where he once threw the ball into the wrong machine and scored points for Chuuya.
The easy defeat doesn’t come without its downsides, though, because it is still Dazai.
“But Chuuya!” Dazai whines, holding onto Chuuya’s uninjured arm like a child afraid to get lost at the theme park. “You cheated!”
“I did not, and you know it,” Chuuya retorts, though his voice is painfully fond and he wonders when there stopped being that tinge of resentment that has painted his words for a very long time, a varnish over their original intentions. “You let me win, mackerel.”
“I let you win, huh? Whatever would give you that impression?” Dazai says, but the way he emphasizes his words proves Chuuya’s point correct without Chuuya needing any evidence.
Still, Chuuya adores their routine. “Because my victory reeked of fish, and I’ve never seen you get so many ten-pointers in a row. I’ve seen you shoot a gun. You can aim a giant ball much better than that.”
“It was with the wrong hand!”
“Do you not remember Venice at all?” Chuuya scoffs playfully, bumping shoulders with Dazai and relishing in the touch yet again.
Dazai just pouts. Venice isn’t a great memory for either of them, but they are the sum total of the experiences they’ve had together, the good and the bad, and now that they are at a point in their lives where Chuuya isn’t bursting at the seams, it’s easy to talk about the bad.
Do ability users ever get happy endings?
“So, do I get my prize now?” Chuuya asks easily, walking up with Dazai to the beverage station at the arcade and simply ordering a lemonade in its large size. He doesn’t need to drink an entire lemonade, and he often finds that anything other than homemade lemonade is too sweet for him, but he knows Dazai has a sweet tooth and that he likely hasn’t eaten today.
Dazai doesn’t say anything beyond vague observances of the things that have changed in the arcade until they sit down, sitting on the lemonade that he takes out of Chuuya’s hands without Chuuya’s prompting. Then - “I suppose you do. What secret would you like, Chuuya? I have quite a few. How about why I found that kitten? Or the singular time I had a conversation with Albatross? Ah - or how about what Adam and I talked about when you weren’t there?”
“You’re bad at red herrings,” Chuuya points out, though it’s not true.
There’s something particular that Dazai wants him to ask. That much is obvious - he wants Chuuya to ask something specific, and he already has a question in mind. It’s simply up to Chuuya to figure out what, though it’s somewhat hard to go through his options with Dazai loudly slurping a lemonade in his ear.
What secret would Dazai be willing to give up?
It isn’t like they typically keep secrets, at least not secrets that can’t be sniffed out with the barest effort required.
Chuuya’s eye catches on Dazai’s bare hand, holding the cup.
He thinks back to grief and rage and sorrow, and he thinks about the way that Dazai is holding the cup in his left hand with the logo facing toward himself, so Chuuya can’t see the logo. Bringing attention to it. Dazai isn’t left-handed.
Ah.
Chuuya narrows his eyes, Dazai’s intentions already discovered and vetted.
“Actually, I think I have a different question,” Chuuya says evenly, seeing the way that Dazai’s eyes nearly light up, the same way they used to when they were younger, the same way that Dazai looked at him last night, the same way that speaks of an infatuation that Chuuya doesn’t deserve. “What did you do with our rings?”
Dazai’s more than happy to answer.
He sets the cup on the table, waving his hand around dramatically. “Oh, now Chibi cares about where his ring was? After such a long separation?”
“Hey - cut it with the nicknames, I thought you were on your best behavior?”
“Aw, shoot.”
Still, Dazai doesn’t backtrack to correct himself and Chuuya doesn’t expect him to.
“Well? Answer the question,” Chuuya says, leaning back in the small chair; it doesn’t feel great against his back, though if he makes a comment about it, he’s likely going to get a face-full of commentary about how it must be for children if it’s too small for the minuscule Chuuya, and while it’s somewhat endearing when he’s in a good mood, he’s more inclined to hear the secret that Dazai wanted to reveal.
Dazai tsks, shaking his head. His hair shakes, too, and it looks soft. This must be important to him if he conquered his distaste of the shower . “Be patient, could you? Maybe I’d like to lead up to the surprise.”
Chuuya would love to say he stifles his smile. He does not. “We’ve been over that one today, mackerel, if you don’t recall. So? What is it?”
“I’m sure that you recall that you don’t have your ring,” Dazai starts dramatically. One of his hands is still holding the drink that he’s stopped sipping and the other is under the table, likely in his pocket. He has them on him, doesn’t he? “And I’m sure you aren’t expecting it back…”
“Get on with it.”
(Chuuya wonders if it’d be nice to have his ring back. They aren’t anything official, they aren’t good at labels; but Chuuya loves with as much devotion as a devout worshiper, and he wonders if it’d feel right on a chain around his neck. He used to wear his ring on his finger, though with as often as he fought, it got dented and scratched, a testament to the weathered, strained nature of their relationship until the very end.)
Dazai’s smile is small, and it’s the genuine kind; the genuine kind that does not quite have the tell-tale image of an upcurved lip, but pushes smile lines into his mouth and his lips turn somewhat downward. The kind that Dazai tried his damnedest to train out of himself when he was young, some jackass telling him that wasn’t how you were supposed to smile. “Well - I made some calls while we were in France.”
“If it’s another rebar ring, I swear to god -”
“No construction materials were necessary,” Dazai interjects. His smile doesn’t leave, his annoyance entirely faked.
The arcade’s music is outdated and from a decade ago, but it provides an ambiance that Chuuya is used to, and it feels so nostalgic, and it feels like the end, but the end doesn’t feel like goodbye.
Chuuya is never good at good-byes. Whether they’re because he gets too attached too easily or because he never has the chance to give them, he doesn’t know; this isn’t a goodbye. He knows what those feel like.
“Can Chuuya close his eyes?” Dazai asks, softly, softer than Chuuya expected, and Chuuya’s stomach twists at the affection that dots Dazai’s tone.
As such, Chuuya obliges without accusing Dazai of a trick. He closes his eyes and perhaps forgets how to breathe as he feels Dazai’s palms take his own from off the table, turning his hand around to where his palm is facing upward, and Chuuya’s awareness is solely from Dazai’s touch.
“Surprise,” Dazai murmurs, and sets something cold and metal in Chuuya’s hands.
Chuuya opens his eyes.
He isn’t particularly surprised by the sight, but - that isn’t his ring. It’s only one, so it isn’t a pair, but… It’s not his old, dented, scratched ring. It isn’t discolored from blood and guilt, it wasn’t forged from the depths of wherever Chuuya had clawed his humanity out of.
It’s silver, and the same size as his old one - the right size, that is - but there is a band of darker silver in the middle that Chuuya must look confused about, because Dazai interjects before Chuuya has the chance to ask about it.
“The old ring,” Dazai explains. “I figured we could both use new beginnings, no? So I got the old ring melted down and put it into the shiny, polished new one.”
Still, Chuuya hears what Dazai doesn’t say aloud.
I see our past and I know we’re more than that. I know you told me to meet you in the middle and that’s what I’m doing. You’ve given your demands and I’ll meet them blow-for-blow. My other half. My partner.
Everything that he and Dazai can’t say - be it because they don’t need to, because it’s cheesy, because Chuuya cannot condense down the universe that is his emotions, it rests in the silence and Chuuya can pull them all out of the air.
He twists the ring around in his hand, examining it from every angle. He isn’t surprised to find the inside of the ring engraved with a single word; partner.
He isn’t surprised to find that the ring slips easily over his ring finger, that it fits perfectly.
“There’s no way you could afford this,” Chuuya says out loud instead, because he can’t spend the entire time marveling over the gesture; that isn’t his style, and it isn’t Dazai’s. The unspoken has always been their bible.
You went out of your way for this. Is this how desperate you are for forgiveness? Is it desperation, or is it infatuation? Is this where we end - at a new beginning?
Dazai huffs a laugh, waving it off easily. “Well, I got the idea from Ane-san, if that helps.”
“She would never pay for this.” Kouyou and Dazai’s relationship has always been messy, and will remain that way until the end of time; long past both of their deaths, Chuuya thinks. He doesn’t know why, and he doesn’t like prodding. It’s odd to think of both of them talking, but if it was for Chuuya’s sake…
Well, isn’t that just heartwarming, or whatever it’s supposed to feel like for normal people when family members who don’t like each other get along for your sake?
“Nope,” Dazai says. “Do you know who owed me a favor, though?”
“The Japanese government?”
“For several reasons. But no, not them.”
“...Poe?”
“Bingo! It was Poe,” Dazai hums. “You know, he didn’t mind paying for it whatsoever, but I couldn’t tell him why, or else I think it’d be written into a novel.”
“Please. Poe writes horror. He wouldn’t write that into a novel unless the ring came alive and ate me because your devotion was too much, or whatever.” Chuuya hasn’t read much of Poe’s work, but he’d been stuck in the book with the hundreds of murderers or what have you, and Poe can certainly write more horror-prone plots than mysteries.
“Don’t orders like these usually take months?”
Dazai winks again, his gaze firmly on the ring that now adorns Chuuya’s finger. “They do. How could I let them take so long when it’s going to one of the most bougie men in Yokohama? Certainly, you don’t like waiting.”
“Hey, just because I like the finer things in life doesn’t mean I’m bougie.”
“You have a private jet.”
“It’s mafia property! And you used to have one too.”
“Uh-huh.”
Chuuya rolls his eyes, still remarkably fond, but his eye catches on Dazai’s still-empty finger. “Where’s yours?” he asks curiously.
“Huh?”
Dazai follows Chuuya’s gaze, at the lack of a ring on his own finger, and his smile fades slightly, something more uncertain making its home in Dazai’s mouth, like flowers coming up to choke him. “Ah. I see. I have it, though I wasn’t sure whether my slug would like mine, as well.”
Chuuya blinks.
He finds that it’s such a habit - to blink when he’s startled - that Dazai has started to blink back at him whenever he does.
“Is this…” Chuuya starts slowly, all the pieces slotting together, “is this your way of asking me to get back together with you?”
“Do you have to put it so crudely?”
“Did you give me back my engagement ring before asking if I even wanted to be with you?” Chuuya asks, though his incredulousness is mostly faked considering that’s exactly what Dazai did, and exactly what Chuuya expects of him.
They skip the dull part of things, and they always have; they went from being solely work partners to engaged without ever testing the waters in the dating stage. A horrific idea, truly, but Chuuya has a soft spot for the way they function in the same way one has a soft spot for their favorite movie or book.
Dazai shrugs innocently, as though he has nothing to do with the way he decided to propose this to Chuuya. Or, to propose to Chuuya.
“Dazai,” Chuuya says slowly, twisting the ring on his finger and dragging Dazai’s gaze back to him. When they make eye contact, brown meeting blue, Chuuya continues. “What was the question you were going to ask me if you won the bet?”
Dazai is quiet.
“Dazai,” Chuuya repeats.
Dazai huffs dramatically, though it’s an admittance all on its own. “It wasn’t going to be a marriage proposal if that makes you feel better. You know how it ended last time.”
“I didn’t end it -”
“Well, someone needed to.”
Chuuya would be bitter about that, except Dazai is right and Chuuya is goddamn glad they never continued that relationship; that he’s able to pick up here, with a partner he trusts more than anything who does not toy with his emotions for fun, a partner that knows his worth in the way that Chuuya does.
(Chuuya is reminded viscerally that Dazai has not tried to kill himself over the last two months. That no one had said anything about Dazai attempting while Chuuya was comatose. Does that mean something?)
“I suppose,” Chuuya says easily, a reaction that Dazai seems startled at. “What was the question, if not a marriage proposal? Thank you for not proposing, by the way.”
“You’re welcome,” Dazai says. “Though now I suppose it’s odd that you have a ring.”
“I could take it off if you’d like.”
“No.”
Chuuya laughs.
“Anyway,” Dazai continues, “The question I was going to ask was whether you’d like to… I don’t know, share a space again?”
“Will you ever learn how to ask for things in a normal way?” Chuuya asks, though his exasperation is faked and he pushes his hand across the table, threading it with Dazai’s and noting the way that Dazai gingerly touches him, aware of the injuries and trying to avoid them.
(Not something that the Dazai of the past would do, the boy that pushed him until he broke, that Chuuya ran dead all the same.)
“Well? Your answer?”
“Yes, fucker, you can live with me.”
Chuuya would like to twist the ring around more, but what’s the point when he has the better part right here?
A man in a beige trench coat instead of a mafia black one; one that bleeds red with a beating heart rather than one tearing himself apart from the inside out.
The man who slow-danced with Chuuya and looked after him for months on end. The man willing to give up almost everything for Chuuya - and it is the almost that Chuuya aches for because there has been a man willing to give everything up for Chuuya and he gave away what little humanity he had in his desperation.
(Then again, are Verlaine and Dazai even comparable?)
Dazai’s smile is wide and genuine and that almost upside-down smile again, and Chuuya has to duck his head to hide his own affections.
| APRIL 25TH, 2010 |
“Chuuya,” Dazai whines from the kitchen, sitting on Chuuya’s counter with his house slippers on the ground rather than on his feet, in a pair of hot pink sweatpants that say DOPPO on the pocket that Dazai certainly stole while he was moving his meager amount of belongings. “It’s going to bite me!”
“Stop calling her an it,” Chuuya chides, walking to the kitchen while sliding his phone into his pocket - work emails don’t need his attention that much, after all - as he searches for the cat in question.
The cat in question - Albatross - had been overjoyed to see Chuuya, and Chuuya had found that Kouyou had clearly gotten her professionally groomed to Kouyou’s standard, though there are lingering marks from a literal catfight with Demon that Chuuya wasn’t privy to. As it is, Albatross isn’t exactly happy that Dazai is now a regular in Chuuya’s life, and Chuuya finds the distaste between the two quite hilarious.
As of right now, she’s sitting on Dazai’s house slippers with her tail waving frantically, ready to pounce, though Dazai’s pulled his legs up onto the kitchen island and is crawling backward like a goddamn coward.
“Albatross,” Chuuya hums, reaching down and scooping up the cat without hesitation. He twists the animal toward him, gently poking her on the nose. “What did I tell you about attacking Dazai? Only when I’m not here.”
Albatross meows innocently.
Chuuya’s inclined to her innocence than Dazai’s.
He tsks, getting her attention as he makes his way toward the cupboard next to the stove, shaking a bag in front of her face. That, Albatross is interested in.
“Are - are you teaching your cat to attack me?!” Dazai practically shrieks, his face laughably pouty when Chuuya steals a glance.
“Not at all,” Chuuya says in a high-pitched, drawled voice implying the opposite as he clicks at the cat and feeds her a treat. “No, I would never do that, right, Albatross?”
“I’m going to get back at you for this,” Dazai huffs, crossing his arms.
“If you do that, then I’m going to get a dog,” Chuuya says flatly.
“No! Why must you hate me, Chuuya? I thought we were on good terms! A dog can’t own a dog too, that’s dog inception!”
“That’s how you end up sleeping on the couch,” Chuuya says, flicking vaguely in Dazai’s direction as he continues to coo at the cat in his arms. Albatross the cat is quite fond of him, and truly seems happy to be away from Demon and Kouyou’s dogs, and Chuuya is simply happy to be holding his cat again.
Call it the simple things in life.
If possible, Dazai’s pout intensifies. There’s a silver band that hangs around a gray chain on his neck, durable, high quality; certainly something he wouldn’t pick out for himself. (Chuuya had picked it out; the receipt is still in his coat pocket.) “You’re mean, you know that?”
“Oh, that’s why you’re dating me again, huh? Because I’m so cruel?”
Dazai sticks his tongue out.
Chuuya throws a cat treat onto it.
And to Chuuya’s horror, Dazai eats it.
And with a smug expression, Dazai watches unperturbed as Chuuya has to drop his cat gently in shock and awe. “How did Mori not have poison control on speed dial for you when we were in the mafia?”
Typically, Chuuya avoids bringing up the past in a light-hearted manner, considering the bitter way it usually ends; he’s getting more comfortable with the idea of it, though. The idea that he doesn’t have to reinvent himself and distance himself from the boy he used to be just because the boy he used to be had a heart bigger than his brain, and naivete to match.
“He did.”
“You should not sound so smug about it.”
It’s easy to settle into something familiar, it’s familiarity marred by the undercurrent of I know you better than yourself. You know things about me that I cannot even fathom.
| APRIL 26TH, 2010 |
“Hey, slug?”
Chuuya glances up from the book he’s reading, though he’s in the process of looking up one of the more obscure kanji. “What is it?”
Dazai stands by the front door, drenched from head to toe with his coat hanging limply over his body. He looks somewhat like Albatross the cat when Albatross needs to take a bath, and Chuuya files it away with his other memories of Dazai looking like a cat. He even eats cat treats.
Either way, he’s holding a package in his hands, turning the cardboard around and around as he’s already read the shipping label. “Do you have any clue what this is?”
“What, you didn’t figure it out by shaking it around?” Still, Chuuya stands, dog-earring the page in his book before setting it on a side table and walking toward the door.
He takes the package out of Dazai’s wet hands, glancing at the label. From: Andre Malraux, huh?
Dazai glances curiously over his shoulder the entire time, and the only reason that Chuuya doesn’t chide him for not immediately changing into dry clothes is because he took his shoes off, even though they’re also soaked, and so are his socks. It’s like Dazai is being domesticated. At least Chuuya gets a prize. (It was his fiance.)
Chuuya runs his nail under the tape securing the flaps of the box closed, the noise making Dazai wince behind him - he has always hated that sound. When Chuuya opens the box, he finds there’s a short letter at the top with tissue paper obscuring everything underneath it.
The card doesn’t have any specific designs on it, and Chuuya opens it only to find a singular paragraph.
Chuuya Nakahara,
Well, you didn’t cause an international incident, but you were close. Edith advised me to curse the ground you walk on - did you sleep with her? Why is your type detectives? Either way - let’s hope next time we meet it’s under less violent circumstances. I was quite intrigued to meet this ex of yours. I didn’t know one could hate the other half of their soul and yet ache for it at the same time. I dredged up things I figured you’d want.
Shoot me a text when you get the chance,
Andre Malraux.
Chuuya hands Dazai the letter, uncaring of the water that prunes Dazai’s hands and proceeds to shove the tissue paper in his chest, too.
Underneath it, he finds a case file. A familiar one.
A case file about a building collapse in France.
And attached to the case file are unreleased photographs from the scene by a local photographer; one of them is rather beautiful, actually, if you ignore the carnage. Chuuya can almost see himself and Dazai through the haze of smoke that surrounds the collapse, a light flare selling the picture as something that’s going to live on Chuuya’s wall now.
Underneath the case file lies another set of photos, though Chuuya goes through these ones much gentler.
Him, lying unconscious in a hospital bed, with Dazai by his side, passed out with his face pressed into Chuuya’s thin blanket. Ranpo, giving the camera a peace sign in the next with the same scene, making it clear that either Poe or Andre are the ones taking the photos. More photos, all of them throughout the various situations France had put them through.
Chuuya’s favorite might be the candid photo of one of the worst moments on this trip - when he’d jumped off that building. He’s soaring through the air in a free-fall, back toward the ground, and the wind had been too loud and the fall too quick for Chuuya to see it, but there’s an expression of grief across Dazai’s face, something that Chuuya has not seen of him in all the years they’ve known each other.
“Well, that makes for a gory candid,” Dazai says from over his shoulder.
It encapsulates everything, though.
Unbidden, Chuuya turns on his heel and sets the box down in a frenzy, wrapping his arms around Dazai’s waist.
He’s unnaturally cold, the rain from his coat beginning to seep into Chuuya’s clothes the longer he hugs him, but it is wholly Dazai.
If Dazai is surprised about Chuuya stuffing his face into the cold fabric of his soaked shirt, he doesn’t say anything about it.
Instead, Dazai simply hums, not saying anything snarky, wrapping his arms around Chuuya, like this is something that they will allow to stay soft and not stained with the harsh words of the past and the emotional volatility that has followed them for years.
“It’s good to have you back,” Dazai murmurs, soft, quiet, a hint of Chuuya’s better half, of a genius made human, part of the dam of Dazai’s heart fracturing, a crack that Chuuya fits in so perfectly.
| APRIL 29TH, 2010 |
The Armed Detective Agency seems to be getting more and more used to Chuuya swinging by, though they never seem less perplexed with the way that he and Dazai interact.
As it is, they have dinner tonight. Something that would be romantic, perhaps, but they’re having dinner at a high-profile restaurant due to a case; the Boss thinks that a client is skimming money, and the Agency is involved because the client is on a dinner date with one of the Agency’s clients, who hired them because she thinks her date is a scam. He is, but they need evidence of it.
It also happens to be a day that Dazai is very persistent they work together, and he assures Kunikida endlessly that he and Chuuya are quite capable of going out for dinner without causing a scene and jeopardizing the mission.
Chuuya thinks that’s untrue, and he isn’t sure why Dazai is so pressed about this, but he certainly is.
It’s past hours for the Agency, everyone having gone home for the day save for him and Dazai.
Not wanting to look conspicuous, Dazai’s dressed up.
Chuuya doesn’t believe that reasoning for a second.
It’s been a long time since he’s seen Dazai in a suit, though he’ll count this; it’s a suit jacket, though the shirt underneath isn’t a button-down. He’s got the slacks, though, and everything is a bit cheaper than Chuuya would find acceptable considering his salary, but it’s intrinsically Dazai in the way there are watercolor stains on Dazai’s cuffs, something smells like whiskey, and he’s even tucked a lock of hair behind his ear.
(It’s still odd, seeing both of Dazai’s eyes; like he’s finally able to see the light in something that isn’t his own demise. He looks at Chuuya like he’s the sum total of the universe and it leaves Chuuya breathless; Dazai looks at him like an astrologist looks at the stars.)
“Are you ready to go?” Chuuya asks mildly, sitting on the desk next to Dazai’s. Kunikida’s, he thinks.
Dazai’s been sitting in his desk chair and fiddling with his tie for a couple of minutes, something on his mind that he doesn’t want to share but is comfortable enough letting Chuuya see the frustration on his face rather than hiding it behind the masks that he so naturally finds.
(It’s endearing, Chuuya thinks, the way that Dazai, who is so used to his lies, puts the effort in to let Chuuya understand him. They’re meeting in the middle - Dazai lets down his guard just barely in public, something that isn’t perceptible to anyone but Chuuya, and Chuuya uses the extensive knowledge he has on the fucker to read him.)
“Almost,” Dazai says. He has his wallet in his pocket - though he won’t be using it - and his tie is perfectly tied; he’s simply not wanting to tighten it. He’s delaying the inevitable - going out to dinner isn’t that bad, Chuuya thinks.
It’d be worse if it was in France, but they aren’t in France, so Dazai has jackshit to complain about it.
“What are you waiting on?” Chuuya asks. He slides off the desk as he walks, finding himself slotted between Dazai’s legs and grabbing his tie to tighten it. It’s odd to see him without the bolo tie, too, but Chuuya supposes certain things need to be forsaken for the undercover aspect.
Mostly, he thinks that Dazai was trying to dress up for a reason. Certainly not another date, but Chuuya doesn’t know why.
Still, Dazai’s breath hitches when Chuuya’s hands come near his throat, barely brushing the skin as he smooths down the tie.
Chuuya takes his opening, grinning wickedly and tugging the tie up, not adding pressure to Dazai’s neck but forcing them eye-to-eye, considering Dazai’s sitting.
“Hey,” Chuuya says conversationally, noting the way that Dazai’s eyes are immediately drawn to his lips. Like a dog to water, Chuuya thinks, more confident of that than anything else in the last few months. “Don’t get distracted, yeah?”
“I’m not distracted,” Dazai murmurs, though he surges up to grab Chuuya’s wrist and keep his grip on the tie when Chuuya goes to release the garment. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”
“Oh, you dream of me plenty,” Chuuya tsks, their noses almost touching; the colors of Dazai’s eyes blur from the proximity, but Chuuya finds beauty in it all the same. The only person in the world allowed this close to him - the only person in the goddamn world that he would die for. The only person in the universe who understands the loneliness that resides in Chuuya and eats him away, away, away, until he’s nothing more than a shell of a person, who chose to stand by Chuuya and make them partners in their loneliness.
Maybe he’s just a sap. Oh, he knows that he is.
Dazai smiles, smug and guilty at the same time. “You have me figured out that easily?”
They have dinner reservations to get to.
Chuuya should let him go. He wouldn’t have trouble forcing Dazai’s hands off him.
He doesn’t.
Instead, he leans forward; their lips barely brush, a surge of warmth that hits Chuuya like a lifeline, leaning into the space he’s created for himself in Dazai’s life and gently, ever so gently, moving in tandem.
After all - you’re supposed to celebrate an engagement, aren’t you? Chuuya hasn’t even had the chance to celebrate such a thing beyond the way they’d fallen into bed last night, too exhausted from the day to do much more than lie together and exchange the small talk of a married couple and old friends.
Dazai responds to his movements in mind, his grip loosening around Chuuya’s as he places his hands on Chuuya’s waist instead, keeping him right where he is, right next to him, the warmth of their kiss turning into something like heated desperation.
Which is about when Chuuya pulls away, the kiss not even heavy enough to give Dazai’s lips a spit-slick shine. “I thought I told you not to get distracted.”
“I have better things on my mind,” Dazai hums, looping his fingers through Chuuya’s belt loops.
Chuuya raises a brow.
Dazai sighs, releasing him.
“That’s what I thought,” Chuuya says, releasing Dazai’s tie. “Maybe later. I think your Agency partner might actually kill you if you skip this -”
“What? You? Telling me to get to work on time when we could be doing other things?”
“We ain’t married, we ain’t consummating shit.”
“Chuuya’s mean!”
“For telling you that we’re not having desk sex in your office?”
“Well, we use -”
“Shut your mouth.”
The restaurant is upscale, even for Chuuya’s standards; it looks like a place that Kouyou would bring him to when he was younger and she was trying to teach him etiquette. It’s somewhere that Chuuya wouldn’t go on his own nowadays, and certainly somewhere Dazai can’t afford.
(Plus, they’re here, and unless they have seafood of some sort, Chuuya already knows Dazai won’t be eating it; he’ll order something that he won’t eat and then steal the bread off Chuuya’s plate because it’s the only thing his stomach will let him eat.)
They’ve got their eye on the target, and Chuuya truly does not care much for the pair. It’s boring work, and Chuuya determined in the first two fucking minutes of walking into the restaurant that the man was skimming, and how much; he’d been briefed on this, and men who make that much without taking any cuts off the side don’t wear their wealth the way that man does.
Someone else will have it handled by the end of the night, but he’s already here, and it’d be rude to leave the restaurant. Dazai still has to do his job, too, though. Not that Dazai hasn’t already come to the same conclusion.
(It’s a lousy mission. Chuuya’s honestly been wondering why they, of all people, have been dispatched for it. Not only is it something that any low-level grunt could do, but it’s something that pales, like an ant to a mountain, the duo that is Double Black. The fact that they were separately assigned their missions and then decided to work together doesn’t mitigate this, because Chuuya knows Dazai, and it didn’t happen by accident.)
“So? What does the Chibbiko want from the menu?”
“Your head on a stick,” Chuuya says without missing a beat, humming as he looks over the menu. Nothing looks of interest to him, though he’s been craving something sweet since leaving France that even the sweets shops around Yokohama can’t fill. Maybe he’ll have Andre express-ship him some pastries.
“No, you just want my -”
“I am stopping you there.”
Dazai childishly sticks down his tongue, and Chuuya suppresses the smile that rises out of him as he reads further down the menu. Honestly, he might just skip to dessert. He didn’t have intentions of eating much anyway, intending to be here for a lackluster job that didn’t need his expertise.
“Chuuya~” Dazai sing-songs, drawing Chuuya’s attention back up to him.
“Huh?”
“Chuuya,” Dazai repeats, pushing the menu in Chuuya’s hands back onto the table. “What do you say I pay tonight?”
Chuuya blinks, leans across the table, and pinches Dazai on the ear where the man had gotten a rejected ear piercing years and years back.
Dazai yelps, pushing Chuuya away and garnering looks from snotty bastards that Chuuya could crush under his thumb if he so tried. “Hey! What was that for?!”
“Just making sure you weren’t possessed and that you were still you,” Chuuya snorts. “If you wanna pay? Fine. But if you pay by taking my card, you’re gonna be sleeping on the couch for a week -”
“That was one time six years ago!”
“Oh, so you are scared of sleeping on the cou -”
“The couch is not comfortable!”
“Could you just admit that you’re touch-starved, it might get you fur -”
“Fine, I’d like to cuddle my goddamn slug, is that too much to -”
“Why are you yelling so loudly -”
Chuuya and Dazai both stop instantly as the waitress awkwardly clears her throat, though there’s no sense of embarrassment on either of their faces.
“What may I get started for you?” she asks, and Chuuya, who has still not finished figuring out what he wants, waits for Dazai.
Dazai picks up the slack, sees where Chuuya is floundering, and takes it in stride. “I’d like an order of lobster bisque and - if I’m right - a square of chocolate cake.”
Dazai looks so goddamn nonchalant about Chuuya.
It’s a simple act.
Chuuya doesn’t know why it leaves him breathless.
(He needs to love someone who will not leave. He needs to love someone who will not leave. He loves someone who will not leave.)
“Chuuya?”
Chuuya blinks, again, and Dazai doesn’t mimic the gesture this time. “Ah - he is right. Square of cake.”
He’d love to know how Dazai figured out how he was craving something sweet, though he figures he’ll get something straight out of a detective manual and he’ll be forced to make fun of Dazai for the rest of the night; that being said, he doesn’t ask.
Most of dinner is spent playing footsies under the table, turning more and more violent the longer time goes on, while loudly making small talk about the weather so they don’t get weird looks from the other restaurant-goers since they’re older and more mature and because they’re focused.
They are not, and it takes two minutes before they start yelling, but there is a warm feeling in Chuuya’s chest that refuses to leave when he makes eye contact with brown eyes that have welcomed him back home like he’d never left.
(Dazai’s changed, and so has Chuuya. They are fundamentally different people than when they met, but their souls are the same, tainted in the same way, coming together to fill in a gap where something has left. Chuuya is Dazai’s one and only, and the same goes vice versa; there is no question about it, no reality where it isn’t true, no possible world in which Chuuya Nakahara does not find his way back to Dazai Osamu.)
When their food comes out, the most startling thing is the fact that Dazai pushes away his lobster bisque in order to grab at Chuuya’s cake.
Chuuya snatches it back, thank you very much, promising a fight if Dazai does not let his plate go because he didn’t get the chance to eat earlier and he wants what he ordered. Even better if he isn’t paying for it, though this is still severely out of Dazai’s pay range.
(Does he have Kunikida’s card?)
“Please?” Dazai even puts on his best puppy dog eyes. “I won’t eat any, I promise!”
Chuuya narrows his eyes.
He sees no hint of a lie in Dazai’s eyes, though a hint is all he would see anyway, but he slowly releases his grip on the edge of the plate.
Dazai beams, big and cheesy, and reaches into his suit pocket as the cake is slid over to him before producing a -
A candle?
It’s a simple candle, just a stick of red wax in his hands that he mashes into the top of the cake.
He gestures to Chuuya, and dumbfounded, Chuuya pulls his lighter out of his pocket and hands it to his partner.
Dazai doesn’t waste time in flicking it on, Chuuya’s gaze straying to the surefire way he trusts that the lighter will ignite on the first flick, lighting the candle with a practiced ease and pushing it back to Chuuya.
“What’s this for?” Chuuya asks, staring at Dazai and not the cake; the flame is little, barely providing light as it is, but it illuminates Dazai’s face in the best of ways.
Home.
I think I’m home.
“It’s your birthday,” Dazai says, genuine, earnest affection seeping into his voice like an infection he can’t help. Doesn’t want to help, anyway. “Or don’t you remember? You’re the ancient age of twenty-three now, you know.”
It’s a quip that Chuuya should respond to, banter that usually falls easy off his lips.
There’s a tilt to Dazai’s mouth, slanting just so.
He’s nervous about this. About a little candle on a piece of cake that Chuuya from some fuck-off restaurant he doesn’t even know the name of.
And Chuuya can only stare, perhaps too long, a surge of things rushing up his throat and trying to clamor out of his mouth.
You remembered my birthday. You know me better than anyone else. How could I ever lose you? In all this time, I never questioned that you cared about me. Trusted me. I have never met anyone like you and I never want to. You’re the only one.
“...Chuuya?” Uncertainty.
It took seven years - eight, now - but the detective in front of him - detective, not Demon Prodigy, not some monster in the dark - is willing to show the humanity he lets lie under his skin to Chuuya, of all people, and it’s overwhelming, the realization, hitting Chuuya so hard he can barely breathe. It’s worse than any fight he’s ever had.
With a shaking jaw, Chuuya blows out the singular birthday candle, the wax having run onto the frosting but easy enough to clean up.
“I know you aren’t a fan of things that don’t cost an arm and a leg,” Dazai murmurs, reaching across the table and with the most tender of grasps, holding Chuuya’s hand. If he notices the tremor there, too, he doesn’t comment on it.
(It isn’t Chuuya’s fault that his brand of love has to be overwhelming, all-consuming, filled to the brim.)
“But I got you something anyway,” Dazai says, running his thumb along Chuuya’s palm, soothing, something that almost makes Chuuya start to stare again.
“Do I get to know what it is?” Chuuya asks when he finds his voice again, taking his hand from Dazai’s only to remove the candle from the cake so he can eat what he’d ordered.
Dazai’s smile is small, but there, still that slant to his lips that Chuuya adores. “Well, I did get you that snazzy ring and all, but when we were younger, I don’t think I ever thought about practicality, did I?”
“It was… during a building collapse that it was made, so no, I don’t think practicality was part of it.”
“It’s impractical for you to throw a punch with metal on your hand, no? It’d be good to do damage, but all it will do is dent the ring and hurt your knuckles.”
“I… suppose.” Still, Chuuya protectively curls his hand to his chest. It’s his.
“So I thought of a solution more creative than sticking it around your neck,” Dazai hums, and reaches into his pocket yet again, pulling it out with a closed fist and gesturing for Chuuya to take the item.
With suspicion, Chuuya does.
When he opens his palm, he finds himself staring at two dog tags.
They both have engravings, though it looks somewhat like it was done intricately by someone with too much time and a pocket knife. (He likes it better than he would anything professional.)
Let’s meet in the middle, one says. It’s got a star on the back of it.
To Chuuya Nakahara-Dazai and Osamu Nakahara-Dazai, to-be.
Chuuya doesn’t say anything for a long moment, words caught in his throat yet again. Eventually, he hisses out, “This is not the place for this - and - dog tags? Really? You had to make the joke?”
Dazai beams. “I could take them back if you don’t like them…”
Quickly, Chuuya puts them around his neck, turning his head. “No way in hell. And you better make one for yourself, or whatever, ‘cos I’m keeping these.”
“Oh? Is that so?”
“It’s a gift. You can’t take it back! We’re a package deal now.”
“I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
If Chuuya were to be asked - do ability users get happy endings? Can you demand such a thing?
He has an answer, now.
The answer is yes, but a happy ending comes with all the things you didn’t know you were missing until it smacks you in the face. The warmth of a smile and dots of frosting on his nose, making a fool of himself in an upscale restaurant.
A twenty-third birthday being the first he can remember that isn’t coated in bloodshed.
A ring around his finger that promises I will not leave you again. I will not let your soul rot.
Dog tags around his neck of a bond that can’t be broken again.
Pictures sitting in a box in Chuuya’s bedroom next to the dozens of pictures when they were younger, the past and the present bleeding into the man that Chuuya is today, the man that has something Chuuya has craved since he was young.
Trust.
I trust you, Osamu Dazai. I trust you with my life and my soul, and you trust me the same; the world will attempt to make us bend and break and I will always end at your side.