Work Text:
Crack.
Dazai stares down at the chipped plate in his hands, unblinking.
Ah.
It's an accident, for once. He was actually following the Official Household Chore Schedule and doing the dishes while Chuuya was out getting groceries. But one of the plates was slipperier than he expected, and as he attempted to dry it, it fumbled just enough out of his grip to crack against the countertop, chipping a bit off the edge.
It isn’t one of Chuuya’s fancy plates. Dazai is fairly certain that Chuuya has no particular attachment to this dish at all, actually. It’s plain white and utilitarian, part of a larger set.
So Dazai can’t explain why he’s frozen in place, rooted to the floor by some welling emotion he can’t quite pinpoint.
Perhaps it’s simply the fact that for all their years of bickering and conflict, all of Dazai’s worst actions, the way Dazai intentionally destroyed their partnership when he left the Port Mafia—
This is the first time he’s broken something belonging to Chuuya by accident. Usually he has time to think through all the consequences before he, say, plants a bomb beneath Chuuya’s car.
But now, he’s staring at a situation that he isn’t prepared for, and he thinks rather distantly that he might be panicking.
That’s not good. He can’t stay frozen, Chuuya will be back from the stores soon, and he’ll be expecting the dishes to be done.
And if they aren’t done, and Chuuya sees the chipped plate, he might decide Dazai can’t be trusted to do the dishes, and then he might decide Dazai doesn’t do enough around the apartment to be tolerated as a housemate. Then he might want Dazai to move back out, and it’s only been a few months since they moved in together—the mere thought of having to pack up his few possessions and go back to his agency dorm forces Dazai’s insides into twisted knots.
Before he can fully wrangle that fear under control, a worse concern dawns on him. What if Chuuya thinks Dazai broke the plate on purpose in order to get out of doing the dishes? It isn’t exactly uncommon for Dazai to do underhanded things to get his way, will Chuuya believe that he was honestly trying to help this time?
Nevermind. All the more reason to deal with this before Chuuya returns. Dazai shakes himself out of his daze and goes to pick the chip off the floor, careful not to nick his fingers on the sharp edges. The broken piece is small in his hand, and Dazai looks between it and the plate, conflicted.
His first instinct is to hide the evidence and pretend that it didn’t happen, but the more rational part of his mind immediately recoils from this strategy. If Chuuya notices there’s a plate missing and finds out Dazai didn’t tell him about it, he might see it as a betrayal of trust, and then throw him out for that .
However, even if Dazai makes a clean slate of the entire thing, he has to find a way to explain what happened without either being so blunt that Chuuya sees him as uncaring and apathetic, or acting so sorrowful that Chuuya sees him as manipulative. It’s a tightrope balance of sincerity; Dazai has always found that he can’t trust his genuine emotions to come across properly to other people. If he acts ‘natural’ it seems conversely unnatural and stilted, so his displays of emotion always have to maintain elements of a performance to compensate. Generally it works, but this situation is so far outside of his usual playbook of life that he’s struggling to pinpoint the most appropriate expression of remorse.
The rest of the dishes are still in the sink, submerged in soapy water, waiting for him, but Dazai finds himself once again stuck, standing stock still with the chip in one hand and the plate in the other, gazing at his own mess.
…Would it be a waste of time to try to fix it? Did people bother to mend plates? It’s such a small chip, but the edges are sharp, and it would take a strong glue to hold up under regular use.
If Chuuya were here, he would probably toss the plate out without a second thought. It’s damaged, and Chuuya can afford to get a replacement. He doesn’t keep broken things.
Involuntarily, Dazai’s grip tightens on the plate, knuckles whitening.
Chuuya doesn’t keep broken things.
Dazai forces himself to breathe and sets the plate down on the counter, leaving the chip on top of it. This is ridiculous. He needs to finish his chores, not stand around feeling kinship with a chipped plate. Since he can’t risk disposing of it on his own, and he doesn’t have time to try and learn how to fix it, his best strategy is to make a clean breast of everything to Chuuya while maintaining a casual tone. Though not too casual.
It’s fine. He’s talked himself out of worse situations before. Sure, his entire relationship with Chuuya might be on the line, but…
Alright. Maybe there is a bit of a reason to panic.
Nonetheless, he leaves the plate out in plain sight, fighting his urge to hide, stubbornly ignoring the jagged edges that feel like they’re going to poke out through his own skin, and keeps his eyes on his work. He scrubs at the remaining dishes, rinses them, then dries them carefully, keeping the cups and bowls firmly in his hands en route to the cupboards. He’s not going to make the same mistake a second time.
He’s finished with the place settings and is moving on to the heavier cookware when he hears the front door open, and Chuuya’s voice drifts in down the entryway.
“Hey, mackerel, I’m back,” Chuuya announces over the rustle of bags. There’s a barely audible curse as the door swings shut and Dazai hears his partner hopping on one foot, probably trying to regain balance after kicking the door closed behind him. The hatrack must be carrying all the grocery bags himself, rather than using his ability. A slight smile passes unbidden over Dazai’s lips at that, though he keeps to his task, scrubbing at a pot diligently. It’s rather endearing how Chuuya goes out and lets himself be a regular person every once in a while, shopping like anyone else would. As though he can’t lift up the entire store with one hand.
“Welcome back, darling slug,” Dazai calls back in a flawless imitation of his usual careless sing-song. “You were gone for so long! How cruel, leaving me alone to pine away for you.”
“It was less than an hour, you needy bastard,” Chuuya huffs out, entering the kitchen still in his jacket and hat, bags hanging off his arms. “And before you ask, yes, I got you crab. But mark my words, I’m going to get you to eat something different this week.”
Dazai hums, bent over the sink, gaze fixated on the soapy water. “I suppose I could be convinced. Chuuya’s cooking is tolerable,” he concedes.
“More than tolerable, thank you very much,” Chuuya says, setting the groceries on the counter. Out of the corner of his eye, Dazai sees the exact moment he notices the plate. “Hm? What happened to this?”
“I chipped it, and I wasn’t sure what I should do with it,” Dazai says, keeping his voice light with a careful note of apology. He scrubs harder at the pot. “Sorry.”
Chuuya shrugs. “That’s alright. It happens,” he says, scooping the plate up and moving behind Dazai. The hinge of the trash can creaks, and there’s a quick, unceremonious thud, then the light bump of the lid closing. “It didn’t cut your fingers, right?”
Ah. His prediction was correct, of course. Chuuya has enough money that a small loss such as this hardly registers to him. The unconcern should be a relief, and it is, at least to a certain extent.
And yet…
Chuuya threw it out so easily.
“I’m fine,” Dazai says, and although he has already finished cleaning the pot, he keeps his arms submerged up to his elbows, staring down into the soap bubbles without really seeing them. “It wasn’t a large chip.”
“Yeah, but the edges looked pretty sharp,” Chuuya says, returning to the bags to begin unpacking. “Next time you can just get rid of it, it’s not worth keeping around something that could hurt you. We can always get another one.”
“Right,” Dazai says distantly. “Not worth it.”
The mounds of soap suds are behaving a little oddly under his gaze. There are little hollows forming in them between Dazai’s arms, like an invisible finger poking at the surface of the foam. Weird.
He hears a steady plip plop, like the drip of a tap. He must’ve not shut the water off properly.
“Dazai? Oh no,” Chuuya’s voice sounds far away, but the sudden tone of urgency stirs Dazai to attention. “Osamu, hey, hey—why are you crying? What’s wrong?”
Dazai comes back to himself with a jolt and realizes his cheeks are damp, his vision blurring. Burning tracks of tears pool and fall down his face in such quantities that although Dazai himself is dead silent, the drops hitting the water below him are audible, incriminating.
Oops. That wasn’t supposed to happen.
In an instant, Chuuya abandons the carton of eggs he had been unpacking on the countertop. Chuuya’s hands, quickly stripped of their gloves, land warm on Dazai’s cheeks, guiding his face around to meet Chuuya’s wide blue eyes.
“Sweetheart,” Chuuya says urgently, standing up on his tiptoes, searching across Dazai’s features. “What happened? Are you actually hurt?”
“I’m fine,” Dazai says, but his voice comes out weaker than he hoped. “I’m just—it’s stupid.”
Chuuya frowns. “Whatever it is, it isn’t stupid if it’s affecting you like this. Shit, you’re shaking—c’mon, dry your hands and we’ll go sit down, okay?”
Dazai shakes his head and takes in a shuddering breath. “I have to finish the dishes,” he says, and makes to pull away from Chuuya’s grip, feeling around beneath the water for a pan he knows is still submerged in the suds.
“No, you don’t,” Chuuya says, and his voice is so low and gentle Dazai feels more unbidden tears welling in his eyes. “We can take care of them later.”
Dazai lets Chuuya tug his arms out of the water, and watches numbly as Chuuya dries them off with a hand towel, painstakingly careful with his scarred skin. Then Chuuya pulls his sleeves down and takes his hand to pull him out of the kitchen, but Dazai digs his heels in, resistant.
“The groceries might spoil if you don’t put them away now,” Dazai says, his voice determinedly steady as tears continue to spill down over his cheeks. He knows there are perishables in there, and Chuuya already walked home with them in the afternoon sun. He shouldn’t be distracting him.
Chuuya looks up at him, a little exasperated, but kind in that subtle way of his that always makes Dazai want to shrink away and draw closer at the same time. “I’m a lot more worried about you right now, Osamu,” Chuuya says, squeezing at Dazai’s hand.
Dazai shakes his head, unsure why it seems so important at this moment, but insistent nonetheless. Maybe he just doesn’t want to ruin something else by accident. “I don’t want the groceries to spoil,” he settles on saying.
“...Okay,” Chuuya relents, brow furrowed. “Okay. Do you want to hold on to me while I put them away? Or would you rather sit down?”
A choice. But not really a choice, not for Dazai. “...I want to hold on to you,” Dazai says. “But, I could help—”
“You’re still shaking, love,” Chuuya says, craning up to press a kiss to Dazai’s cheek. “It’s alright. I can do this myself.”
So they shuffle about the kitchen in an odd little dance, Dazai trailing after Chuuya like a lost ghost, tethered to the earth by Chuuya’s hand. He tries to let go once, when Chuuya is struggling to maneuver the milk into the fridge one-handed, but Chuuya’s grip only tightens stubbornly over his own. His tears slowly dry, but the heaviness stays.
Once the last of everything is away and the grocery bags are hung up in the hall closet along with Chuuya’s hat and coat, Chuuya turns back to Dazai, calm but obstinate.
“Do you think you can talk about it?” he asks, rubbing his thumb across Dazai’s knuckles soothingly.
“I told you, it’s stupid,” Dazai sighs. It’s true, he thinks privately. It really shouldn’t be a big deal.
“I still care, even if it’s stupid,” Chuuya says, setting his jaw adamantly. “Please?”
Dazai slumps, eyes aching and crusted with drying salt, too emotionally off balance to continue dodging the issue. “…Can’t we fix it?” he says to Chuuya’s house slippers.
Chuuya’s head tilts in the periphery of his vision. “Fix what? Wait, hold on—is this about that plate?”
“I know I broke it, but it was only a little chipped,” Dazai says, refusing to look up from the floor.
“Yeah, but—Osamu, you know I’m not angry about the plate, right?” Chuuya says, audibly baffled. “I mean, we probably could fix it? But it would be a lot of work over something that might just come undone when we’re cleaning it, and I don’t want it to break again and hurt either of us. It’s not worth the effort when we can just get a new one.”
“I’ve hurt you more than the plate ever could,” Dazai says. “And I’m a lot more broken. Why are you keeping me around, then?”
There’s a sharp intake of breath from his partner. The sound breaks Dazai out of his haze of misery, pulls him out of himself, and all at once he feels overdramatic and rather ridiculous. He pulls his hand out of Chuuya’s suddenly slack grip and turns away, running a palm over his face and scrubbing at his eyes, cursing himself. His fingertips are leathery from being in the water still, and they feel odd against his skin. “Sorry,” he says, and tries unsuccessfully for a light laugh. “You don’t have to answer that, I told you it was stupid. I know it’s just a plate, and it’s not about me, and—well, anyway, don’t worry about it, I can finish the dishes now.”
Before he can take more than a single step towards the sink, arms come around his chest to tug him backwards, and he stumbles unsteadily into Chuuya’s embrace, breath squeezed out of him all at once. He feels Chuuya’s forehead pressing in between his shoulder blades, the grip around him unyielding and warm.
“Chuuya?” Dazai says blankly, resting his hand on Chuuya’s interlocked arms.
“You know what the difference is, right?” Chuuya says, his voice a little muffled by Dazai’s waistcoat. “Between you and the plate?”
“...That I’m a person?” Dazai tries. “I know I’m not a plate, Chuuya, really—”
“No, the difference is that I love you, you dense bastard,” Chuuya snaps, voice wavering despite his harsh tone, hugging Dazai impossibly ever closer. “Whereas I don’t love the plate. Obviously.”
Dazai stills, and something cold and brittle melts away inside him, finally letting him breathe properly. It isn’t the first time Chuuya has said he loves him, but it never fails to catch Dazai by surprise when he says it unprompted, so easily and earnestly.
He twists around in Chuuya’s grasp, and leans down to return the embrace, clinging to his partner just as tightly, arms winding around his shoulders like a vice. “I love you too,” he whispers into blazing, comforting locks of hair. “So much. I just don’t want to make you regret this—to make you regret letting me live here with you.”
“Shit, sweetheart,” Chuuya breathes against his ear, propping his chin on Dazai’s shoulder. “Is that why you were so fixated on the dishes? I’m not going to kick you out if you mess up once, Osamu. I’ve dealt with far too much of your nonsense over the years for that to be my breaking point. Especially if it’s an accident.”
“...But it’s like you say, you have dealt with a lot of my nonsense already,” Dazai points out.
“Yeah, and I still asked you to move in with me,” Chuuya says, and nuzzles his face into Dazai’s neck. “I wouldn’t have done it if I thought I would get tired of you that easily.” Then Chuuya pulls back and looks Dazai directly in the eyes, expression pinched like he isn’t far from tears himself. “Osamu. I will never kick you out just because we’re having issues, not without sitting down and trying to work things out first. Understand?”
Dazai’s eyes are burning again. Damnit. “Okay,” he says, and even on that one word, he can’t keep his voice from cracking.
He ducks his head down in a silent request, and Chuuya, attuned to him as ever, pushes himself up onto his toes to press a slow, comforting kiss to his lips. This type of softness is more familiar these days, and Dazai often finds himself more at home with it than with the directness of words. He kisses back carefully and painstakingly, hoping Chuuya can tell what he means, like he always seems to.
They part but stay hovering in each other’s space, just breathing and existing inside their own priceless bubble of peace.
“…Do you want me to fish the plate back out of the trash?” Chuuya breaks the silence hesitantly, glancing over at the garbage can. “Uh. The chip might be hard to find in there, but we can, if it’s still upsetting you.”
Overcome with this awkward sincerity, Dazai dissolves into relieved laughter and leans all his weight into Chuuya, knowing his partner can and will hold him up. “No, it’s okay,” Dazai says between his giggles. “You were right about it being a bit dangerous. I don’t want my tiny darling to cut his fingers on it either.”
“You sure? Not going to cry over it again?” Chuuya says, poking him. His tone is half joking, half genuinely concerned. “If it’s important to you, then we could figure something out.”
Warmth blooms in Dazai’s chest, and he smiles against Chuuya’s hair. “I’m sure,” he says. “I have you. You’re more important.”
Chuuya makes a strangled little noise and shoves at his shoulders, face turning a deep red. “You can’t just say shit like that!”
“Eh? But Chuuya said way more embarrassing things just now!” Dazai teases, dotting kisses across Chuuya’s cheeks to distract himself from his own traitorously fluttering heart. “What, are you the only one allowed to be sweet?”
“I’m the direct one, you’re evasive and emotionally constipated,” Chuuya grumbles, tilting his head up and accepting the kisses in spite of his words. “...I’m not saying you should stop, though. I suppose you could stand to use your words properly every once in a while.”
Ah, that’s unfairly endearing. Chuuya really is the more direct of the two of them. Still, Dazai can push past many of his own limitations in the name of flustering his partner. “Is that so? Then I’ll continue! Did you know I love waking up to your face every morning?” he says with a wicked grin, ignoring the difficulty of leveraging each truth out of the guarded lockbox in his chest. “Counting your freckles is one of the highlights of my day. Speaking of highlights, your eyes get this little sparkle when you talk about poetry or wine—I suppose you’ve never been able to see it yourself. I wish you could, it’s beautiful. I could listen to you talk about anything forever, your voice sounds like home to me. Let’s see, what else…ah, this is more of a complaint, but I want to kiss you all the time! Even when you’re messy and gross, and it’s very distracting. Like on that one mission, with the venomous pearl? I nearly got bitten by the damn thing because I was staring at you, and then—”
“Okay, I changed my mind, stop, stop!” Chuuya squawks, pitching forward to bury his face in Dazai’s chest. “Bastard, how did you even come up with all that so quickly, did you have a fucking list at the ready?!”
“Hmm, nope,” Dazai says. “I just love everything about Chuuya.”
“You’re a menace,” Chuuya mumbles. “...I love you too.”
Before Dazai can kiss him again, Chuuya pulls away, cheeks still flushed, but with the same steely glint in his eye that he gets whenever he faces down a tricky enemy on the battlefield. “Let’s finish the dishes together,” he says, pulling Dazai over to the sink. “And then we’re making hotcakes.”
Dazai huffs out a laugh, grinning helplessly. “For dinner?”
“Yeah,” Chuuya says, rapidly rolling up his sleeves before plunging his hands into the still soapy water. “Fuck it. It’s a day for comfort food.”
Dazai sighs gustily, but slides beside Chuuya with a cloth ready for drying. “All my hard work, and you want to make more dirty dishes by cooking! The cruel cycle of fate at work once again.”
“Right, such torment I put you through, making you eat good food,” Chuuya says, flicking water at him with an eye roll.
“Hotcakes are good food, now?” Dazai says, flicking bubbles back in retaliation. “They can’t be healthier than canned crab.”
“Healthier, maybe not. But a warm, freshly-cooked meal feels different,” Chuuya retorts. One of the bubble projectiles pops against his nose and his face screws up like an angry cat. “Oi. Behave.”
Damn the dishes, Dazai really, really wants to kiss him again already. How dare his partner be adorable when his hands are full.
“I suppose Chuuya might be right,” he says instead, barely restraining himself from tossing the dishcloth to the side and making a soapy mess of them both. “Well, in that case, I want whipped cream and strawberries on mine! I saw Chuuya got fresh ones.”
“Sure, sure,” Chuuya says with a snort, passing Dazai a clean, rinsed pan. “I suppose that’s one way to get you to eat fruit. Hey, leave that pan out on the stove when you’re done drying it, we’ll use it for the hotcakes.”
The rest of the dishes go much faster with both of them working in tandem, and soon Chuuya is drying his hands and pacing about the kitchen with the kind of determination one would expect to see during a high priority mission, rather than a quiet evening cooking together. Dazai trails behind him, more at ease than before but still driven by an impulse to stay close, and drinks in Chuuya’s every movement as he begins to pull ingredients from the pantry shelves.
“You get the milk and eggs out, I’ll get the mixing bowls—wait, where did they go?” Chuuya says, opening the cupboard and frowning at the glaringly obvious empty space on the shelf inside.
Dazai freezes behind him.
“...Dazai. Did you move the mixing bowls to the top shelf again?” Chuuya says, voice quivering with poorly contained emotion.
“Er. I had forgotten about that. In my defense, I did that before the plate incident,” Dazai says, blinking at the back of Chuuya’s head with a wary, uncertain grin. “Can you blame me? It’s fun to watch you have to float up and grab them.”
Chuuya bursts out laughing. “You little shit,” he says affectionately, spinning around to swat at Dazai’s shoulder. “In that case, you can get them down with your stupid beanpole limbs, and I’ll get the milk.”
“Aww, but then I won’t get to cancel your ability while you’re floating up! I won’t be able to make you drop the bowls! Doesn’t Chuuya want me to break all of his dishes? Or at least the ones he doesn’t like?” Dazai protests, eyes wide and guileless. “Also, they’re up a little too high for me too, actually. I used a stool to get them up there.”
Chuuya sighs, but he’s still smiling. “Bastard. How’s this, if you promise not to drop me, you can lift me up so I can grab them. I am not using my ability with you standing right there, I might trust you with my life but I don’t trust you not to be a brat.”
“As you wish,” Dazai says, and immediately scoops Chuuya up off the ground and into his arms, not bothering to hide his enthusiasm.
At the sudden ambush, Chuuya yelps and grips at Dazai’s shoulders to steady himself, looking down to meet his eyes with shock. The shock is quickly replaced with narrow suspicion as Chuuya takes in his sunny expression of innocence.
“Hold on. Did you put the bowls up there just so you would have the excuse to pick me up—?” Chuuya splutters. “You dumbass! You do know that you can just do that without rigging the kitchen—”
Dazai hefts Chuuya up higher and laughs against his chest, bubbling and light, and for the time being, he lets his partner’s exasperated words and the gentle hands weaving through his hair chase away his shadows.
Maybe, Dazai considers as he lifts Chuuya up to grab the bowls, just maybe, he’ll be allowed to keep this. Maybe, he hopes as he cracks the eggs and stirs the batter to Chuuya’s instructions, maybe this sanctuary isn’t as fragile as he thought.
Soon the kitchen is warm, full of the thick, golden-syrup light of the sunset and the smell of hotcakes .