Chapter Text
Nakahara Chuuya didn't dream. For him, waking up was like fast-forwarding a couple of hours. When he closes his eyes, it's like he's a computer that's been turned off. So when he starts getting visions, something is wrong.
At first, he's excited. The last seven years of his life were missing. His earliest memories involved a cry and an explosion. He didn't know if he was human or not and the new dreams that accompanied his nights were a clue to his humanity, a possible window to his past.
In those dreams, there is a bandaged boy. He's always got some kind of smile on that pretty face of his. Sometimes, it's cunning and sharp. It triggers the feral instincts inside of Chuuya. Other times, the smile is soft and boyish. Those are the ones that make Chuuya's cheeks flush.
They're always fighting; bickering about one useless thing to another. Their rivalry is infamous. Their partnership is even more renowned.
Despite all the name-calling and not-so-harmless pranks, there is something inherently right about being together. There is so much Chuuya is uncertain about. His origins and humanity, his next meal and friends' safety... But the one thing he knows for certain is his place by the bandaged boy's side.
Chuuya enjoys sleeping. Since the dreams began, he's been trying to sleep more and more just so he could see that boy. It's gotten noticeable enough for the other children of the Sheep to start asking questions.
He doesn't tell them about the boy. It's rather embarrassing and he doesn't know why. He doesn't understand why he wants to keep the boy to himself. But he doesn't question his weird selfishness either.
He doesn't tell anyone about how soft the boy's hair is. It's the perfect shade of chocolate. It's so fluffy, practically begging to be touched. He doesn't tell anyone about how slender his wrists are or how lovely his voice is. No one but him is supposed to know how small the brunette's waist is.
Those little details are for Chuuya and Chuuya only. The brunette boy was like a comforting secret, one that soothes the loneliness of not knowing what he truly is.
He should be resenting the boy. After all, it is because of the boy that his friends turn on him and stab a poisoned knife in his back. That dream in particular had been deeply unpleasant. He couldn't look at Shirase without making a face for days.
But he doesn't hate him.
Chuuya can't bring himself to hate the boy. No matter what he does or says, Chuuya can't hate him. Even if he burnt Yokohama to the ground, Chuuya would still find him to be the most beautiful person in the world.
Chuuya is ten years old. In his head are three different sets of memories. There is his, and then there are two others. In both, the bandaged boy grows up to be a very attractive adult. He grows into his long limbs and pretty features.
One lifetime stars a young man in a tan coat with bright eyes. There are fewer bandages on him and he's dressed in light colors. There's grief in his eyes but he looks healthy. He doesn't resort to violence unless necessary. He's become a wonderful mentor, a good man.
The other shows a boy who was forced to grow up too quickly. The maroon scarf hangs around his neck like a noose. Instead of his right eye, it's his left eye covered in bandages. He's a lonely child and a lonelier man. He's no different than a walking corpse.
Chuuya's dreams are no longer pleasant fantasies. They've become horrifying nightmares that refuse him relief. Every night...ever since he had that dream...he wakes up in a cold sweat with a hand gripping his chest.
Betrayal isn't foreign. It's almost a friend. He's never experienced betrayal but he has memories of being betrayed.
Shirase stabbed him in the back with a knife. The Sheep pointed their fingers at him and tried to have him killed. His brother killed his closest friends and would have killed everyone close to him out of some misguided sense of salvation.
He knows what it's like to be betrayed by friends, family, and subordinates.
But none of that can compare to being abandoned by Dazai.
Dazai was someone who was meant to be by his side. There was nothing more normal than being together. They fit one another, complimented the best and worst parts of each other. Nothing else mattered as long they had each other.
They trusted each other more than anything else. It was a trust so deep it could be called faith. Blindly placing their lives in one another's hands with no guarantee of safety was their act of faith.
The two of them never flinched in the face of death. They faced countless improbable situations with the certainty that they would come out on top. 'Fear' and 'hesitation' wouldn't protect their partner so it was necessary.
If it was for Dazai...
If it was for Dazai, Chuuya would have walked through Hell and back to see him again.
Yet Dazai had left him for another man's dream. He abandoned their partnership to fulfill the dying words of a man who lost his children. He ripped out Chuuya's heart and never gave it back.
It's pathetic. It's comical. It's the pointless story of a useless dog who couldn't hold onto anything.
Chuuya doesn't need much. He would have been satisfied with a small home and a flimsy roof over his head as long as he could reach his hands out and find Dazai. He only ever wanted to protect the one person who completed him.
Dazai wanted a double suicide so Chuuya promised to give one to him. Dazai wanted a quiet death that wouldn't inconvenience anyone. But he's always been afraid of loneliness even if he refused to admit it.
So Chuuya promised to kill him. He'll give him a painless death and then follow him to Hell because he's a dog who only knows how to chase.
In the end, Dazai's life was claimed by gravity. He accomplished his goal of giving Oda Sakunosuke a life surrounded by his children. He wanted Oda Sakunosuke to live and there was nothing left to live for. He jumped off a building, gravity claimed his body, and he was little more than a splat on the pavement.
In a way, Chuuya had fulfilled his promise. Dazai had been killed by gravity - the very thing Chuuya held dominion over. He should have been satisfied but he wasn't.
He didn't get it. He didn't know why he wasn't enough of a reason for Dazai to live.
Both lifetimes resulted in Chuuya losing Dazai. He can't stand it. He despises how hallow it left him. He hates how terrified he is. He can't stand the thought of never hearing Dazai's voice, never feeling his touch, and never seeing his smile.
Chuuya would have done anything to keep Dazai from leaving him. And now, he's been given a third chance. He can learn from his predecessors. He won't make the same mistakes they did.
They were too lenient. They trusted Dazai too much. They didn't think Dazai was capable of abandoning them. They thought death would never welcome Dazai.
Between the Sheep and Dazai, it's clear who Chuuya chooses.
He is ten years old but he has the memories of two lives. He is not them but they are a part of him. Their desperation and devotion have mixed with his own to create a hungry beast.
Chuuya has always protected Dazai. In the two sets of memories, protecting Dazai was as easy as breathing. He finds the same naturalness following him in this life as well.
Initially, he only planned on watching Dazai from afar. There isn't much he can do at his current age and body. He can't get a job or find suitable shelter with how young he is. All he has is his inhuman strength.
Based on the memories he has received over the course of three years, Dazai is currently in Yokohama. He was born in Aomori prefecture and lived there for the majority of his childhood. But his family would stay in Yokohama several times a year.
There's only one place Dazai's birth family stayed in when they're in Yokohama. On the outskirts of the city, located in the wealthy area of the city is a mansion. Chuuya only knows about it because Dazai once brought him to their burnt remains. He looked like he was in a drunken daze when he talked about how he drowned the mansion in oil and set it ablaze. In all honesty, Chuuya found the intact home more off-putting than the charcoal mess.
"Aren't I too young to be getting stalkers?"
It isn't... Those aren't the first words Chuuya thought they would share. He thought they would have some kind of heartfelt moment. He should have known that the stupid fish wouldn't make things that easy.
He waited for three years to hear that insufferable voice. It's sarcasm masked with faux innocence. It's every bit as mocking as the one he remembers from his dreams. It's so perfect he could cry.
"Shut up. I'm not a stalker," he says instead. He tries for something gruff but it comes out hopelessly fond.
The mansion is burning. Black fumes reach for the stars above as the crackling flames curl and lick around a collapsing building. The heat radiating off the burning mansion is intense, threatening to suffocate anyone nearby. A piece of the roof crumbles, tooling over the structure and crushing anything it would land on.
It was comeuppance. Divine judgement had declared the people inside the mansion had to die. By morning, their bodies would be charcoal. Nothing will remain. Not the walls, the gardens, or even the memories.
Chuuya knows he is capable of cruelty. He has seen what horrors his hands were capable of when he closes his eyes. If Heaven existed, the pearly gates were meant to close on people like him. He has long since resigned himself to Hell.
Before there was Dazai Osamu, there was Tsushima Shuuji. It won't be until he's fourteen that Shuuji is christened Dazai.
Shuuji is a child, a mere waif with big eyes and bony arms. But because he was born with unbridled genius, he was also burdened by expectations as a result. In that unstable household, Shuuji's already fractured sense of self had further deteriorated.
Tsushima Shuuji had been alienated from humanity the very moment he was born. He was further isolated as a result of his parents's inability to accept his individuality.
A bird born in a cage does not know it is a prisoner. The cage is all it has. Without knowing it was a prisoner, it dies happily. But Shuuji knew he was in a cage. He was aware of the barrier between him and the humans who poked and prodded him from outside the cage.
He has been hurt by those who love and resent him. He has been hurt by himself. Chuuya would be damned if he lets him get hurt anymore.
Carrying Dazai came to him like second nature just like how protecting him had been ingrained into his being. Chuuya has countless memories of carrying Dazai. But knowing something is very different from reality.
Chuuya was content with letting Shuuji grow up with his family. If they made him happy, that was all that mattered. Chuuya never knew why Dazai brought him to the burnt remains of his childhood home or why he killed his parents and brother but he thinks he knows now.
In this life, he killed Shuuji's parents and brother. He was responsible for burning their home down. He doesn't regret it. He only wishes he had done so sooner.
Pressing his lips against the brunette's forehead, Chuuya takes them away from the burning mansion.