Chapter Text
| APRIL 1ST, 2010 |
Dreaming is as foreign to Chuuya Nakahara as death is to the living.
Sleep comes in shades of black and darker shades of red; in aches and bruises on his body slowly healing. Sleep comes despite the dread of waking in the morning, and it’s been this way since he was eight years old and falling asleep on cracked, uneven pavement.
Still, it isn’t uneven pavement or a big, plush bed that greets him when he wakes this time; it’s an uncomfortable, flat cot digging into his back, a thin blanket pulled over him, and a light shining in his eyes, forcing him to squint.
It never takes Chuuya long to orient when he wakes, a habit born of necessity rather than choice; hospital cot, hospital gown, hospital blanket, hospital, hospital, hospital.
His eyes snap open, throwing the blanket off of him and nearly yanking an IV out of his arm when he does so, glancing around in a panic only to find red brick walls rather than the dry hall and sterile white he expected, a curtain pulled halfway out, blocking out only half of the sunlight streaming in from a framed window.
His breathing slows, but that doesn’t stop the wide pupils or the grit teeth, hissing as he moves his arm back. He used to pull his IVs out, whenever he got injured, but all it ever does is cause more pain than anything of use.
There’s a heart monitoring device around his middle finger, but the machine seems to be off. So much good that’s doing, then.
Chuuya scoffs, a yawn slipping between his lips as he takes the room in: it’s familiar, and familiar is safe in the worst way, but he can’t pinpoint where, precisely, he recognizes the room.
In fact, what is the last thing that happened before he woke up here?
Chuuya rubs his eyes, frowning at the lack of gloves and the feeling of scratches across his face, as he tries to recall precisely what ended with his presence here; as far as he knows, the last thing he did was try and grab groceries after leaving Akutagawa’s place.
He was at Akutagawa’s place on the mafioso’s birthday, which was March 1st.
The calendar idly sitting on the wall is dated for April, though. The ink that seeped from the further page indicates that the user crosses out dates after they’ve passed, but April doesn’t have any.
April 1st?
That’s - that’s a month -
Suddenly, Chuuya is moving quicker, throwing his legs over the side of the cot and hissing at the ache. It’s a subtle thing until brought to the forefront, and he’d like to keep it that way - he reaches out and holds the IV pole to steady himself.
April 1st, that’s a month he can’t account for and one spent in an unfamiliar location. Damage control. First, locate where he is; second, figure out what happened while he was out, and third, figure out whose ass he’s kicking because someone’s getting fucking murdered.
He’s stable when he stands, but the silent chill in the air puts him on guard. This is not a place in the Port Mafia’s territory. He can see that much from the quick view of the outside.
Glancing down at himself, there doesn’t seem to be any lasting injuries other than the IV in his arm and a bandage around his torso; when he digs his thumb under the bandage, stitches greet him, a familiar feeling under his nail. Before he’d touched them, he hadn’t noticed them, which means the laceration is older and perhaps from around the time he started missing his memories, lately?
The bandages are also clean, which means they’ve been changed regularly.
Chuuya tries to suppress his shudder at the idea of anyone touching him without his permission. Without his knowledge. The feeling of skin-on-skin is something he’s never craved, never needed, never wanted.
(Another to add to the list of things that make him different than the average person, but the list is so long that he isn’t able to keep track of it anymore.)
Once he’s assessed his own injuries and stands on steady legs, CHuuya gives himself a nod of acknowledgment before walking toward the only door in the place. This appears to be an infirmary, nothing sinister, but he’s a fucking Port Mafia Executive, anywhere could be a threat.
The door isn’t locked.
That’s… more surprising than he’s willing to admit, the door opening easily once he pushes the latch, swinging open to reveal a drab, white hallway with few adornments to it.
Alright, then. A hallway. That’s… normal. In fact, it’s so normal that it’s setting off alarm bells in Chuuya’s head, louder than the pull of For The Tainted Sorrow has ever been.
Wait - Tainted.
Chuuya tries to summon his ability, the one companion that hasn’t left him yet, but nothing happens other than a dull glow around his palm.
Tainted comes from the heart. It’s an irrational ability by nature, not meant to be tamed, as it’s a force of nature; Dazai’s ability may come from his mind, No Longer Human a reflection of the void he feels, but Tainted has always manifested as a beat of his heart.
Nothing. Nothing.
Chuuya wants to panic, but he’s in unknown territory and so he settles for gritting his teeth and digging his nails into the metal pole of the IV, carrying it along with him.
It isn’t the middle of the day, or so says the little light that had filtered in from the window; in the hallway, though, it’s only artificial light, half of the big rectangular lights on and half turned on. One end of the hallway has a closed door, and so Chuuya heads toward the open turn.
No one comes to greet or attack him, only furthering his resolve to remain on guard.
If these are kidnappers who managed to keep him under for a month or cause amnesia, they sure didn’t think past that. Then again, he’s much more of an asset with his memories intact, so perhaps it was unintentional…
When Chuuya rounds the corner, instead of guns or enemies or even a knife, what greets him are desks. Office desks.
Ten or so of them, by the looks of it, various amounts of paperwork and knick-knacks adorning each one, and a dread sharper than any fear embeds itself into the framework of his ribs, causing his heart to stutter a beat.
He knows exactly where he is.
The Armed Detective Agency.
When he reads the analog clock on the wall, it cheerfully informs him that it’s barely minutes past nine at night, far later than anyone should be in the office; then again, who’s stupid enough to leave a Port Mafia Executive unattended in their infirmary, well aware they’re a rival organization?
Were they not expecting Chuuya to wake?
That’s the only logical conclusion he can come to - Chuuya’s better fortified against mental abilities than most, and he’s read the Operation Blackburn file extensively, a digital archive of every known ability user not just in Yokohama, but the world.
There isn’t mention of anyone capable of picking and choosing memories to erase, or full-blown amnesia abilities. It isn’t physically possible unless it’s the side effect of an ability or his own head.
But…
God, all this thinking is making his head spin.
Where are his clothes? He doesn’t want to be in this shitty hospital gown anymore; it’s shitty, cheap, and thin, itchy against his skin, and none too kind to the sensitivity of his ears as he moves.
Fuck. That’s a great way to sum up the situation.
Chuuya doesn’t jump as he hears heels clicking against the wooden floors, but he tenses regardless, not turning around until he hears the person speak.
“Had a feeling you’d be waking up soon.”
He knows that voice. Chuuya hums, long-suffering and well aware of his disadvantage as he turns, slowly, testing out the mobility of his limbs against the soreness. Akiko Yosano is a woman of many faces, or so he’s heard, but she stands against the wall of the hallway he’d just left.
Her hair is short with a purple sheen and a shining butterfly clip if only accentuating the intimidation her presence gives rather than making her seem childish, high gloves up her arms and a crooked tie against a white shirt and black slacks, black heels making her miles taller than Chuuya.
(Not that it’s difficult.)
He doesn’t bother to smile at the doctor. “Is there a reason I’m here?”
“Wasn’t planning on letting you go anywhere else,” she says conversationally, gesturing to the empty office around them. “I mean, we’re all friends here, right?”
If a tentative truce counted as being friends, Chuuya had the most friends in the world. He scoffs, not bothering to hide the disdain dripping from his words. “What do you want from me?”
“Right now?” Yosano asks, raising a brow. “A check-up.”
“And later?”
“Later isn’t up to me.”
“Like hell I’m going to let you give me a check-up,” Chuuya says, crossing his arms and subconsciously picking at the IV without removing it.
Yosano gives a saccharine smile, tapping her finger against her arm with little regard for the wonders it does to Chuuya’s patience. “You don’t have a choice, Nakahara. Come here.”
“I don’t need a check-up. Where the hell are my clothes?” he asks instead, because he hates doctors more than he hates most things in the world, for reasons he could go in-depth about and consistently chooses not to.
Yosano tilts her head to the side. “Oh? It’s funny that you think that’s your decision. Check-ups are mandatory after you’ve spent two weeks in a coma you never should’ve been in to start with.”
Two weeks.
Two weeks means he was conscious for the other two.
Two weeks means he’s missing important memories, like what landed him in a coma; he hadn’t even thought of the option he’d been asleep that entire time, how long has he been away from work, what is he supposed to say when he gets back -
Yosano must see when he stops fighting her because she gestures for him to follow her back to the infirmary and he doesn’t fight her, this time.
Perhaps it’ll offer an explanation if nothing else.
The infirmary gives him a cold welcome back, the IV pole creaking as it moved, but Yosano waits for him to enter the room before closing the door behind her.
She doesn’t turn the lights on.
“Late to be in the office, isn’t it?” Chuuya asks. Not particularly inclined for a conversation but refusing to be poked and prodded in silence, really.
Yosano hums. She doesn’t verbally respond as she pinches and presses at the crook of his elbow, a slip of her tongue showing as she quickly and efficiently removes the IV from his arm, only a few drops of blood leaking out. “Perhaps. It’s late to wake, too, isn’t it?”
“It’s different when it’s from a coma,” Chuuya mumbles, more annoyance in his words than was intended. In his defense, it’s a lot to handle, and perhaps anyone other than him would be panicking by now.
Panicking is the right option, but Chuuya’s been far removed from the notion of normal for two decades, now, give or take six years. Instead, he mulls over his options as he quietly lets Yosano do what she wants to do, taking his temperature and picking at the bandages on his torso without removing them, which is odd. Not enough to warrant commenting on it.
If he’s at the Agency, then something has likely happened to the mafia; if he doesn’t have his memories, it has to be something catastrophic, right? If that’s the case, it’s in his best interests to sit quietly until he learns more information, if it’s safe for him to leave, if there truly is danger that managed to knock him out for two fucking weeks.
Sitting quietly, however, has never been in his skillset.
Sitting quietly makes him anxious, makes him unfocused, makes him dangerous; his self-control is one of the few things that keeps certain mafia members alive, and if he doesn’t have that, well -
He needs to get out of here.
But he can’t, and he knows that.
“You caused quite the debacle,” Yosano continues, as though there wasn’t a giant gap of silence sitting between them, not unlike the canyon that exists between their ideals.
“Did I, now?” Chuuya asks dryly, staring up at the ceiling. As much as he hates doctors, infirmaries, and anything of the sort, he knows the Agency’s doctor is no fool: he knows she won’t do anything unsavory.
If she did, not only would she be entertaining Chuuya’s own wrath, but breaking the truce between their organizations. The Agency may be strategically smarter than the Mafia - that, he will admit - but in terms of manpower, they’re entirely unmatched.
One cannot exist without the other, something like that; Chuuya hadn’t been listening when the Boss had given the lecture. Just that they were not to harm the Armed Detective Agency under any circumstances.
“You did,” she sighs; the exhale is soft, drifts across his skin, and makes him tense. Too close, too close.
(Chuuya’s always had what Kouyou liked to call touch aversion. That touch was never something craved, always something to be avoided. It isn’t quite human, but neither is he.)
“And what did I do, exactly?” Chuuya drawls, for no reason other than to taste the syllables on his tongue. His mouth tastes like chalk in that it feels grimy like he needs two bottles of mouthwash to feel human again.
What he needs, he thinks, is a shower, and to never be in this fucking place again.
“Do you not remember?” Yosano asks, and for the first time since she sat him down, Chuuya glances toward her.
Her head is tilted toward the side, bangs falling across her startling purple gaze, butterfly clip shining under the low light around them.
Chuuya shakes his head. It makes something near his temples ache, but he’s used to aches and sores that never quite go away.
It should concern him more, really; but missing memories is not new to Chuuya, and so the feeling is not foreign. Perhaps it would shock someone else, perhaps cause a panic attack, but Chuuya has the pieces he needs and for right now, that’s enough.
Human memory isn’t reliable, after all. Missing a few memories means he isn’t exempt from that.
(Still, a whole month…)
Yosano’s lips thin into a tight line, examining her options, whatever they are: and whatever happened, she chooses not to tell him. Instead, what she says, as she gives him a once-over, apparently done with her examination, is this: “you scared us.”
“Who is us?”
“Who would you like it to be?”
Chuuya doesn’t have an answer for that.
It seems that Yosano expected as much, as she stands to her full height and shakes her head to the side, just slightly. “You’ll be remaining at the Agency for the time being.”
“Not happening,” Chuuya says immediately, narrowing his eyes in suspicion. He shouldn’t be here, he shouldn’t be anywhere near here, really.
The only reason he hasn’t voiced that so far is because they’ve been hospitable enough and it’s rude to simply walk out on your hosts if they’ve been treating your injuries. Although, he has no proof that they weren’t the ones who injured him in the first place.
“You have no choice,” Yosano continues, like he hadn’t spoken at all, which gets on his nerves more than he’d like to admit. “The Agency’s already discussed with your side of the line. It’s necessary.”
“For whom?”
Yosano doesn’t bother to answer that. He sort of wants to strangle her with those fucking gloves of hers. “Your clothes are in the laundry, should be folded by now. You can stay here for the night, we’ll have your accommodations ready by morning. Do try to keep from killing yourself.”
She laughs darkly like she’s stumbled upon the best joke of the year, and all it does is further Chuuya’s temper.
“Even if I did,” Chuuya says, well aware he’s doing little to leash his waning patience. “Don’t you have that nifty ability of yours?”
“It isn’t working on you, or our resident weretiger. Food for thought.”
With that, Yosano disappears, out of the infirmary, leaving only Chuuya’s thoughts with him and the draft that goes through the room despite the closed window and the now closed door.
It’s nine at night, and he’s wide awake; nothing out of the normal, except for the entire circumstances. Fuck. What’s he going to do?
If the Agency has already talked it out with the Mafia… in what world is it acceptable for this to happen? In what world is the Mafia willing to make deals with the Agency for their most powerful Ability user? Is there something that Chuuya’s missing?
Does it have something to do with his inability to use Tainted?
(Does that make him useless?)
| APRIL 1ST, 2010 |
Chuuya doesn’t sleep. Being in a coma for two weeks leaves him exhausted and wide awake, but his body is used to the hours of the Port Mafia and those are from dusk to dawn, and so he spends most of his time staring at the city outside the infirmary’s window, trying not to move in case it drags the hospital gown around.
He isn’t a morning person by any means, but when the clock hits nine in the morning the next day, he’s still wide awake, despite how his eyes are screaming for him to sleep and his body aches from the lack of movement, from sitting on his ass all night when he’s itching for a fight.
Nine in the morning seems to be when the Armed Detective Agency comes to life. He can hear movement outside the infirmary, knows there is life to this drab building; knows he is a wall and door away from rejoining the real world, and getting his life back, but he makes no move to stand.
The hallway lights are on, now, and the infirmary is dark comparatively, but the solace of the infirmary is as much a blessing as it is a curse. Chuuya does not belong here.
He belongs back in his penthouse, perhaps with a nice bottle of wine to celebrate yet another event he shouldn’t have made it out alive from, perhaps with a new pack of cigarettes or someone to warm his bed; he shouldn’t be in the Armed Detective Agency’s infirmary in a hospital gown that makes his skin crawl.
Still, he can’t move. Does he not want to move, or can he not? That’s the question, one he has no intention of answering.
It’s answered for him when the door swings open; Chuuya doesn’t bother to glance over to the door with his gaze firmly planted on the ceiling, knowing damn well who it is when he sees beige and brown out of his peripheral vision.
“Chuuya~!” Dazai sing-songs, hands in his pockets and his coat around his shoulders, as per usual. That damn thing still doesn’t fit him, and at this point, will likely always be too big. Not lengthwise, but simply because the bastard is never going to pack on any muscle, eternally damned to being lanky and lithe. “What brings you here?”
“You already know, shitty bastard,” Chuuya says automatically, a sigh leaving his lips as he mechanically pulls his gaze away from the ceiling. He doesn’t tack on what’s implied, doesn’t know if Yosano has told him: You know because I don’t. You have to know because it’s like I’m eight years old all over again.
Dazai’s smile doesn’t drop, but they both know it’s faked when he takes a step toward Chuuya’s hospital cot, but not getting within five feet of it. Like he knows Chuuya might try to throttle him if he does, and it isn’t too far off from the truth. “How was your rest, Sleeping Beauty?”
“Shit, considering there was two fucking weeks’ worth of it.”
Dazai hums his acknowledgment and little else, surveying Chuuya and the state he’s in: the gown and the bandages - at least not super visible, although the gown is somewhat transparent and that’s worse than the itchiness. “I’d imagine. Has Yosano informed you of the plan?”
“What plan?” Stay here and lie low isn’t much of a plan. More of an order. (God, he needs to drag his ass out of here and get his phone, he needs to call the Boss, Kouyou, and maybe even Hirotsu for good measure, because Hirotsu usually tells him bluntly when he’s being an asshole.)
Where Chuuya’s expecting Dazai’s usual jokes and chatter, he receives nothing of the sort as silence reigns between the two of them.
Dazai’s still keeping an eye on his bandages, flickering between those and Chuuya’s wrists for reasons Chuuya couldn’t name if there was a gun to his head (and there has been, many, many times.) “You’ll be staying at the Agency, for the time being.”
Chuuya means to snarl his words, to curl his lip, but he doesn’t have the energy to do so. “So I’ve been told. Is there a reason for that?”
“A reason Chuuya would accept? No.”
“A reason the Boss would accept?”
Dazai hums, not taking his hands out of his pockets but still managing to look every bit the Detective he’s supposedly been for the last two years. “It’s safer for you, here. For the time being, at least. You’re a wild card no one accounted for.”
“I’ve been told that plenty of fucking times before, why is it so different now?”
“Because…” Dazai never does finish his sentence, shaking his head as though to start the thought over entirely. “Because I said so! Let’s get you out of those drab clothes, they make you look smaller than you are, I didn’t know that was even possible -”
“Shut the fuck up,” Chuuya grumbles.
As expected, Dazai doesn’t shut the fuck up and instead, Chuuya ends up dragging his body out of the cot to follow Dazai to the laundry, where all of his belongings, supposedly, are. He says supposedly because it wouldn’t be the first time Dazai’s taken his things and tried to replace them with cheap replicas covered in dog stickers.
Following Dazai isn’t something he’s made a habit of since he was eighteen and broke it for the first time, but Chuuya doesn’t object when it means he can get his things back. He’s a material person, he knows, something born of want and access rather than for the pure, simple instinct to own things, but it seems like a necessity now when there’s little else marking him as the person he is.
He wants his choker back. It isn’t on his neck and he feels exposed, bared to this shitty Detective Agency like a pig to slaughter.
Dazai doesn’t try to verbally direct him, nor does he try to grab Chuuya’s bare wrist. His choker, his gloves, and his coat. Those are the essentials, really.
The Agency building astounds him in that they don’t even own the whole building, just a floor or two of it. One floor is offices, the other is dorms, in which they live; the second and third floors are for other apartments, and the ground level is the Cafe Uzumaki.
(How are they the most notorious Detective Agency in Yokohama when they don’t even have the means to own their own building?)
As such, Dazai leads him to the third floor using the elevator, and directs Chuuya to the shelves above the singular dryers with a flourish: “Ta-da! The Petit Mafioso will look every bit the part once again!”
Chuuya takes one look at his clothes and glares at Dazai with enough force to make mountains part from fear. “Why the hell is my fucking shirt pink?”
Dazai simply smiles.
Chuuya takes a deep, calming breath, trying to remember that Tainted will not help him in this situation. (Dazai might be able to nullify Chuuya’s effect on gravity, but that does little change how hard he can throw things.)
Instead of screaming, he bites his tongue and thanks God - one he doesn’t believe in, in the first place - that the rest of his clothes are black. While the washing instructions were certainly ignored, and his white shirt was washed with red clothes, there isn’t a pink or red tint to anything else.
A pink shirt is fine. It matches his fucking bike, at least, even if Chuuya is contemplating how long it’ll take his body to be back in tip-top shape to beat the shit out of Dazai.
(With how he’s feeling right now, Dazai might actually be able to land a hit on him. It isn’t a comforting thought.)
“Is something the matter?” Dazai asks cheerfully, choosing to ignore Chuuya’s comment about his pink shirt as the mafioso grabs the stack of clothes, his boots sitting on top of his folded coat and beneath his haphazardly thrown hat.
“Where’s the bathroom around here?” Chuuya asks, picking his battles like the sensible person he is, not the temper-less brat Dazai likes to describe him as.
Dazai gestures vaguely down the hall. “Over there.”
“So helpful.”
“Aw, thank you!”
Chuuya throws him one last withering glare, if only because he knows the bastard is immune to them at this point and therefore won’t end up six feet under.
Chuuya doesn’t recall much of the walk to the bathroom, or the act of undressing and putting on his clothes: what he does remember is hissing as he touches his tangled hair, and then splashing water on his face, and by the time his coat is sitting snugly over his shoulders like it's supposed to, he feels remarkably more awake and remarkably less agitated.
Of course, the agitation comes back when he walks out of the bathroom and sees Dazai leaning against a wall, playing an obnoxiously loud mobile game on his poor cracked phone. It’s a wonder that goddamn device even works.
Chuuya just stares at him. There are words on the tip of his tongue, or there should be, but there aren’t; he stares because he has hundreds of questions he wants to ask and few that actually matter, and Dazai knows him well enough to sort through the bunch without a word needing to be spoken between them.
By the time Dazai actually looks up from his phone, that notion rings true: he pockets the device and sighs theatrically, heavily, as though talking to Chuuya is the worst thing he’s ever had to do. “I suppose you might want to retrieve your things.”
Chuuya blinks.
What he was expecting is something even he doesn’t know, but it definitely wasn’t that.
(The comfort of his own blankets feels like heaven right now, especially on the ache in the small of his back that won’t seem to go away, made worse when he walks. Everything aches, in fact, in a way that Chuuya isn’t used to. Something about Arahabaki always making sure its host is in prime physical condition, an anomaly to every doctor he’s ever seen.)
He narrows his gaze anyway, as he always does in Dazai’s presence. “What’s the catch?”
Dazai tilts his head to the side, tsking over and over again like a cat in heat that smells another cat. How annoying. “Why does there need to be a catch? Does Chuuya not want to go get all of his fancy expensive things?”
“They’d lose half their value the moment they touch the same fucking air as this building.”
“How rude! I’ll have you know, we at the Detective Agency strive for a good, honest living -”
“Honest my ass, the last time you were honest -”
“Are you arguing with me?” Dazai asks with an exaggerated scoff, and while falling into their typical dynamic makes Chuuya want to melt with relief, the rest of him knows well enough to keep his guard up.
He always gets hurt around Dazai. It’s not Dazai’s fault, but rather the fault of the ever-beating heart in Chuuya’s chest that’s far too large for his ribcage and his lungs, taking up space where it shouldn’t. And no, that didn’t even come from one of Dazai’s shitty short jokes, although the bastard has certainly thought about it once or twice.
“No shit I’m arguing with you, you know-”
Going back and forth is easy.
In fact, it’s so easy that Chuuya’s busy throwing his arms out to emphasize his point when he and Dazai get back into the elevator, and only haphazardly does he realize that they’re going down to the ground floor and not to the Agency.
“There is a catch, Chibikko is right,” Dazai laughs. “Whoever will the Chibi sleep with?”
Chuuya doesn’t punch him, but it’s a near thing.
| FEBRUARY 18TH, 2004 |
“Chuuya~!” Dazai sing-songs, letting himself into the safehouse without an ounce of regard for the mafioso he’s intruding on.
Dazai himself is odd, always in and out at even odder hours and with news that typically makes Chuuya shiver; he doesn’t ever care what Chuuya’s doing.
Chuuya wishes he would, though. Dazai seems to want to act like the so-called Verlaine Incident didn’t happen just a month ago. If Chuuya’s being honest with himself, he wants to bash his brain every time he talks to Dazai, lately.
Maybe it’s a growing pain. Maybe it’s because part of him is angry and part of him realizes that Dazai is the only one who could maybe understand what he’s going through.
(Albatross’ funeral is next week. All of the funerals have been staggered, at Chuuya’s request - he wants each of the Flags to be remembered as they are and not as a group. They’ve gotten through everyone beyond Albatross’ and Chuuya’s footsteps keep getting heavier the closer they are.)
He’s in the kitchen, throwing together a meal that consists of half-cooked noodles and what he thinks is a white sauce because it’s in the back of the fridge in a safe house that he typically isn’t in.
(He can’t stand to go to his place, that’s where Albatross and Doc were, and he can’t - he can’t -)
In a numb sort of haze, as everything he does these days, he turns to Dazai, the boy always far too energetic for the subject matter and his coat flowing freely behind him, too short around the sleeves.
What is in his hands, though - that snaps Chuuya back to the dim reality he’d so wanted to escape.
Releasing a pathetic mewl at the sight of a new person, the kitten in Dazai’s arms squirms, though barely; too injured to do more, it seems.
It has to be a kitten, perhaps only a few weeks old from the goop around its eyes and how small it is, even against Dazai, someone who grows taller but never fills out. It’s got a mangled front paw and what looks to be oil against its fur, sticking it together, and something red and irritated in its ear.
“What the fuck is wrong with you Dazai?” Chuuya hisses on instinct, the sound of his own voice propelling him forward as he drops the pot he was holding and instead takes the small kitten out of Dazai’s arms.
Dazai doesn’t protest, watching Chuuya not with that sadistic spark of glee in his eyes but something darker, something more calculating; it sends a shiver down Chuuya’s spine, but he ignores Dazai’s gaze in favor of cooing at the little kitten.
“Hey, hey, you’ll be alright,” Chuuya says, rocking on the balls of his feet, and he doesn’t realize until the kitten squirms again that its back leg looks just as mangled as its front paw. “Why the fuck did you bring it here? It should be going to a vet!”
“She’s going to die soon,” Dazai shrugs. “What’s the point in bringing it to a vet?”
“What’s the point of bringing it here, you asshole?” Chuuya fires back, his volume rising in time with his temper; he wants to slam his palms into something and he can’t on account of the kitten in his arms.
The kitten in his arms is far colder than it should be, apparent even through Chuuya’s sleeves.
Dazai doesn’t answer, his silence far more telling than any bullshit that would run through that mouth of his.
“Hold her,” Chuuya demands, holding his arms out and feeling the poor thing’s bones under his thumb, squeezing too tight on accident - it makes the kitten mewl again and Chuuya doesn’t have a chance to apologize to her before Dazai snatches her back. “We’re gonna - we’re gonna go to a vet.”
“Why? I told you,” Dazai asks, tilting his head. “She’s gonna die soon.”
“Why the hell did you bring her here?”
Dazai, as expected, does not respond to any of Chuuya’s yelling, doesn’t rise to the bait when he wants something, and chooses only to fuel the fire as he watches Chuuya run around the living room without moving a foot; he lets Chuuya grab his keys, fumble with his jacket, and fumble to get his shoes on with nothing beyond a cursory glance and the compulsive rise and fall of his chest.
“What are you staring at?” Chuuya snaps, as though Dazai will answer, a snarl on his lips as he marches back into the kitchen to grab Dazai’s sleeve and tug him out the door without hurting the already injured kitten, struggling to keep her eyes open.
Dazai simply says, “oh, you’ll try to save her,” under his breath as they leave.
Chuuya nearly smacks him.
And, as they get into the car, a black BMV that Chuuya doesn’t actually own, he realizes he’s breathing harder than he should be, that his hands shake so badly as he puts the keys in the ignition that it takes him three tries.
He isn’t - he’s not - Chuuya isn’t going to -
The kitten sits in Dazai’s lap limply, though Chuuya knows that if she opened her eyes again, they’d be staring right at him. He thinks, without the oil and the muck and the grime, that she’d be a beige sort of color.
Chuuya isn’t going to -
“Drive, Chuuya,” Dazai instructs calmly, the pillar in the middle of Chuuya’s rising temper, despite him bringing half of it on, a flood of something in Chuuya’s stomach at the words.
Chuuya doesn’t cry, but his throat is dry and he and Dazai sit in dead silence as they make their way to the nearest clinic, far quicker than Chuuya should be going, he’s not going to, he can’t -
The kitten will live.
Chuuya can’t see anything die again. Not right now. Not right now not right now not right now.
Chuuya drives. Chuuya drives and Chuuya makes it to the clinic and he’s hopping out of the car before Dazai even opens the passenger door, so Chuuya takes over; when he throws the door open, he doesn’t bother to greet Dazai before taking the kitten out of his arms.
When he walks in, everyone looks up to stare at him due to the stomping of his boots and the frantic aura around him, like a cornered dog or a lost child, holding the kitten close to him as though it isn’t limp and it feels like a corpse in his arms -
Another another another another -
“She needs help,” Chuuya says, his voice shakier than he’d anticipated as he approaches the receptionist, a lady who looks far too kind to live in the slums of Yokohama, kind eyes and a frown pulling at her lips as she sees the kitten in Chuuya’s arms. “She - she needs help right now.”
He doesn’t yell and he doesn’t shout, like he’s lost his voice without Dazai around to rile him up.
Instead, he holds the kitten closer, and bile rises in his throat when he realizes how small she actually is, how she feels, how the oil in her fur sort of feels like blood, how just a month ago -
“We’ll do what we can,” the receptionist says; what stands out about her is how kind she is, how she doesn’t look at Chuuya with disgust, how her pity is directed at the animal and not him -
After that, it’s a blur.
Someone takes the kitten out of his arms. He sits down in one of the plastic chairs. Dazai walks in. Dazai talks to the receptionist too. Dazai sits down.
Chuuya stares at the wall for three hours.
The clinic closed three hours ago. He knows this because he’s been tapping his foot for two and after the first hour, the janitor stared at him in annoyance before moving past the lobby. Dazai doesn’t try to talk to him and Dazai doesn’t try to stop him or convince him to leave.
Chuuya doesn’t know if he breathes in those three years. He knows he does, logically, but it doesn’t feel like it.
His ribs collapse in on his lungs, lines of code -
“Chuuya,” Dazai says softly, finally, his voice not laced with the venom that typically accompanies it, foreign, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong wrong wrong.
“Chuuya,” Dazai repeats, his voice taking on a harder edge, and that, that finally gets Chuuya to look at him, startled gaze meeting startled gaze. “Chuuya, you’re blanking out and it’s fucking freaky. Get it together, would you?”
“I’m sorry,” Chuuya murmurs, but he’s staring through Dazai, through brown eyes and to - he doesn’t know where.
It isn’t Dazai he’s talking to, he knows that. He doesn’t want to know more - if he does, then he’ll have to unpack it, and if he does that -
“It’s… okay,” Dazai says slowly, though it’s obvious he’s out of his comfort zone and he flinches away further when Chuuya dares so much as breathe too heavily - an odd thing, considering Chuuya doesn’t feel like he’s breathing at all.
All he knows is that his body is doing the necessary functions to keep him alive and that, that is too much, too much too much shouldn’t have been them shouldn’t have been them should’ve been him can’t let anyone else die -
“Don’t be,” Dazai says abruptly once again, standing up from his chair and his coat brushing over Chuuya’s knuckles.
Where he goes, Chuuya doesn’t bother to watch; doesn’t know if he can tear his gaze from where it rests on the corner of the wall by the vet’s hallway. The clinic closed, but no one told him that the kitten was dead.
Did he get here in time? Or is the kitten dead and no one wanted to tell him?
Chuuya stares, and stares, and stares, and his eyelids are heavy but his heart is beating too quickly and his body is on fire, he can’t move because if he does, Tainted might leave his control, and then the entire clinic will end up destroyed, and then he’ll only hurt even more -
When Chuuya’s gaze finally snaps up again, it’s because Dazai obstructs his view.
“What do you want?” Chuuya snaps, his voice far more hoarse than he was expecting, before his gaze snaps up to meet Dazai’s, who stands far too close to him, except -
The kitten.
The kitten sits in Dazai’s arm, tail bandaged up and both a front and a back paw in tiny casts, the goop out of her eyes and her head relaxed on Dazai’s arm.
Chuuya stands, the back of his knee bumping into the plastic chair and he couldn’t give a shit about that, reaching forward to touch the sleeping kitten.
He takes his hand back like it burned, though; all he ever does is hurt.
“She’ll be okay,” Dazai says slowly, leaning forward to allow Chuuya a better view of the sleeping kitten. Now that she’s been cleaned and bandaged up, Chuuya finds he was right: she is a sandy beige, with flecks of ginger here and there. A pretty cat, all things considered. “The vet said she’s a month old. She’s way too young to be out by herself.”
“One month…” Chuuya murmurs, thinking back on what he was doing about a month ago. “One month, huh? But she’ll be okay?”
He doesn’t want to acknowledge the relief that spills into his veins when he hears that; he doesn’t want to touch her in the fear that if he does, there will suddenly be a reason for her to die out of the blue, to make all of this null and void.
“That’s what I just said, stupid,” Dazai says, but he still doesn’t have a bite to his voice and his insult falls flat.
Maybe Dazai, who took a bloody and injured kitten to their safehouse and not a clinic, should not be holding the kitten. But Chuuya isn’t going to be the one to take it from him, isn’t going to be the one to cause more damage than he already has.
“She’s okay,” Chuuya echoes, just to say something, just to hear Dazai talk again, just to hear some confirmation that this is real and the kitten in Dazai’s hands isn’t some sick trick on an already-addled mind.
Dazai nods. “You seem attached to her so you have to - name her, or something, I’m not keeping her.”
“I’ll keep her,” Chuuya says immediately, not bothering to entertain the idea of anything else. As he stares at the kitten’s sandy coat and the tiny cast around her little paws, it’s settled.
“Albatross.”
Dazai tilts his head and pushes the kitten toward Chuuya once again to get him to take her.
Chuuya doesn’t, his hands still shaking too much for him to carry anything beyond the broken pieces of his pride. “I’ll name her Albatross.”
| APRIL 1ST, 2010 |
Chuuya’s penthouse is not one he’s lived in for long, but he takes care to make it personal and not simply someplace he goes back to at the end of the day.
It was a gift, actually; he didn’t use to live here, but on his twentieth birthday, Kouyou and Akutagawa commissioned him this penthouse, taking up the entire thirty-ninth floor of one of the Port Mafia’s buildings, the black furniture, and the red accent wall just to his tastes.
Everything is state of the art, there are cabinets in the kitchen dedicated to wine collection, not that he keeps anything vintage there, and there’s a bookshelf along a wall that he’ll never get to, but appreciates regardless.
Either way, the entire place reeks of money and vanity in a way that Dazai’s rundown dump certainly couldn’t, apparent by the way the mackerel decides to drape himself on Chuuya’s couch the first moment they step in, not bothering to take his shoes off on the dark-stained wooden floors.
Chuuya wants to get this done and over with as soon as possible.
If he does, then perhaps he can make the next few weeks go by quicker; and perhaps, if this goes quickly, he can avoid Dazai’s prying eyes in his things, in his residence, in the place he considers home.
The last time he did that, the apartment ended up burnt to the ground and Chuuya acted as though he did nothing but light his cigarette, another casualty to the already-long list of property damage he’s caused or indirectly caused.
“Hurry up,” Dazai whines, despite having been lounging on Chuuya’s couch for a grand total of the thirty seconds they’ve been in his home.
Chuuya, like a sensible person, which should not be the best way to describe a mafioso, kicks off his shoes in the doorway and doesn’t slam the door behind him, as much as Dazai riles his temper. “I’m getting there. I was cat-sitting. The food and the water should’ve been a while, but…”
And it’s true that he isn’t worried: that goddamn demon of a cat most certainly found her food and there’s no way she could’ve wandered off with all the windows locked, the door closed, and the air as stale as a haunted house.
Well, she was a black cat, and Chuuya likely nearly died (even if he doesn’t remember as such.) It might as well be a haunted house.
“Aw, did you get demoted?” Dazai laughs, throwing his arms out like he owns the place or has more than ten yen in his wallet at any given time.
“I didn’t get demoted, you dumbfuck,” Chuuya scoffs, waving him off. He doesn’t bother to look at Dazai as he makes his way to the kitchen, hissing as the smell of rotting milk hits his nose worse than the smell of a battlefield ever has; at least those, he can leave.
This, however - it’s just gross, opening up his fridge and the smell intensifying, the offending jug of milk sitting innocuously in the fridge.
Dazai’s fault. This is all Dazai’s fault somehow, Chuuya’s sure of it.
Whatever hope he has of getting Demon - that is why he calls her a demon cat, because it’s in her name regardless - out of the hiding spot she’s certainly crawled into is entirely null until that smell is gone.
It’s second nature to try and use Tainted to pick the jug up, intent on having to get his hands dirty, but a dull red glow surrounds him and little else happens.
The jug doesn’t move, Chuuya’s ability doesn’t respond, and he can’t feel the push and pull of the gravity above and below him.
(The thing about For The Tainted Sorrow, what makes it so tragic - Chuuya doesn’t know. But he does know what the weather will be and where the drafty areas are, and he does know how long before something hits the ground, invisible lines pushing around him and responding when he tugs on them.)
“It’s Gin’s cat,” Chuuya continues before Dazai has a chance to make the obligatory comment about his ability not working and him being otherwise useless. “You remember Demon?”
Dazai’s frown isn’t visible to Chuuya as he isn’t going to give the slimy mackerel the time of day as he pulls the jug out of the fridge, but it’s so palpable that Chuuya can feel it. “She still has that thing?”
“Yeah, of course she does. You know what? I hope Demon claws you in the face again. That was hilarious.”
“You’re such a rude Chibikko! Didn’t they teach you any manners?”
“My manners are spectacular, you just don’t deserve them,” Chuuya retorts, holding the jug upside down over the drain to hopefully minimize the smell as much as possible, nose scrunching in distaste as he does so.
He could grab a knife and stab another hole in the jug to make it go quicker, but if he grabs a knife, he might end up stabbing Dazai wholly.
That’s not good for business if the Boss has given the okay for Chuuya to remain at the Agency for the time being.
“Do you still have your mangy stray?” Dazai asks with a note of curiosity in his voice.
Chuuya looks over despite his better judgment, seeing just Dazai’s head poking up from the back of the couch, his brown eyes bright and his lips curled into a curious expression.
He barely has to think for a second before answering - “fucking obviously, who do you take me for? Albatross is way better than you, anyway.”
Albatross is, ironically, not in the house right now; Chuuya tends to give the cat to Kouyou whenever he feels something might go wrong or Arahabaki is suspiciously loud in his head, so Albatross is no doubt curled up in Kouyou’s ridiculously luxury dog beds, for her labs, living the high life.
“I can’t believe he’s still alive,” Dazai scoffs, rolling his eyes. “I mean, -”
“I don’t wanna fucking hear it,” Chuuya interjects, before Dazai has the chance to continue.
Dazai’s never had anything good to say about Albatross, despite the several times Chuuya’s seen him passed out with the cat in his lap.
“Demon’s gonna be pissed,” Dazai scoffs, waving off everything that might concern him, as he typically does; it makes Chuuya’s blood boil, but that’s a habit that Dazai’s always strived for.
“Yeah, she always is.” Chuuya isn’t in the mood to talk, food and water on the counter whenever the cat wants to crawl out of her hiding place.
Albatross wouldn’t hide like that, but Albatross has no reason to be in his penthouse right now. Not when Chuuya can see an empty wine bottle out of the corner of his eye and he can see the way Dazai eyes it, too.
“I see you haven’t kicked that habit,” Dazai drawls, the most worthwhile thing he’s done in years, but certainly not the thing Chuuya wants to hear.
His habits are none of Dazai’s concern, and after his missing fucking memories, he thinks he deserves a drink anyway. Or a smoke - whichever he grabs first.
Considering the look Dazai’s giving him, though, Chuuya figures he’ll smoke. Likely, including blowing smoke into Dazai’s fucking face because then maybe the mackerel will finally shut his mouth.
Chuuya doesn’t dignify that with an answer, not with his duffel bag pulled over his shoulder of everything he could possibly need in the next few days, or weeks, or however long he’s going to be stuck at the hellhole that is the Armed Detective Agency.
It isn’t that he thinks all the people there are bad, it’s that they tolerate Dazai, and that isn’t something Chuuya can fathom; he’s never gotten along with the mackerel and he doesn’t understand anyone who does, or someone who can get along with him and not end up burned.
(Chuuya used to tolerate him, at certain moments, in certain times, and there was a ring on his finger for a while, but that time is long gone and now the mention of his name makes him want to crush something in his fists just to make sure that his hands are free, not tied down to anything or anyone who might seek to control him. Control - it’s always been something that Chuuya either lacks or has too much of. There’s a delicate balance and he’s never found it, but the closest he got was after Dazai left.)
“Let’s go,” Chuuya says, and on second thought, he takes the duffel bag off his shoulder and throws it at Dazai; even without Tainted, it’s easy to throw and Dazai is easy to knock down, the man tumbling back to the cushions as the bag slams into him.
Such a lanky man, and nothing to keep him from falling over like an overly talkative telephone poll.
“Thought you had to get the cat?” Dazai asks, pushing the duffel bag off him with a grunt that Chuuya certainly isn’t supposed to hear.
“She’ll be out soon,” Chuuya hums. “Once she hears the door open, she’ll come to get the water, and when she gets the water, you can come back in and get her in her crate.”
Dazai scoffs dramatically, playfully, like he didn’t up and abandon Chuuya for four fucking years because he was irritated his friend died. Chuuya pushes all the resentment down to his stomach, somewhere behind his ribs and below his heart; he’s gone the same with his thoughts toward the missing memories he has, ignoring them entirely. “You’re gonna make me do it? I see you’re the same Chibi as always!”
Chuuya ignores the comment on the tip of his tongue about his pink shirt and how Dazai hasn’t done anything else in his miserable life, rolling his eyes and walking toward the front door.
It takes him a minute to get his shoes on, and in that minute, Dazai manages to throw the duffel bag back at him - with effort, and Chuuya catches it with ease - and teeter toward the kitchen, unbalanced on the balls of his feet to refuse to enter the kitchen.
He doesn’t try to ask about why Chuuya keeps the things he does, though Chuuya notices Dazai’s gaze linger on the hand-painted sign that lives in front of his counter backsplash; you’re the worst, slug! written by Dazai in finger paint and signed by the rest of the Flags.
(Ah, the anniversary of their deaths was a while ago; Chuuya had brought flowers to the graves, but he should go and replace them now.)
Before Dazai has the chance to comment on it, Chuuya tugs his duffel bag into the hallway after opening the front door and slamming it behind him.
The rattling will startle Demon, and once she’s startled, she’ll barrel into the living room to find the commotion, see the water, run to the water, and likely, when she notices him, attack Dazai. She’s done so in the past, taught by Albatross that Dazai was enemy number one since she was a kitten.
He waits out any sounds of claws against his floors and squeals from an unprepared grown man who’d underestimated a seven-inch tall cat’s hatred of him, tapping his foot with his arms crossed.
He leans against the wall, head against the drywall when the door finally opens.
Dazai’s hair is mused, his bandages are ripped to shreds, but his coat is mysteriously intact and there’s a cat crate in his arms. He’s holding it in the same way one would hold a particularly irritating box, to his chest vertically.
There’s a scratch lining his face, parallel to one of the deep scars already set in pale skin, barely noticeable to anyone other than Dazai’s ex-partner and ex-lover, wrapped into one like the world’s shittiest combination roulette.
“I got her,” he announces, but there’s nothing smarmy or smug in his tone; pure desperation and success, Chuuya thinks, his breathing heavy.
Chuuya rolls his eyes. “Hold the crate right and she might not even kill you when she’s out. Where the fuck are we going from here? Can I talk to Gin about it, since, you know, you have her cat?”
Dazai laughs, gently taking the crate off his chest and tilting it correctly. He takes enough time between turns to allow Demon to orient herself, far kinder than he would be only four years ago. (Not enough to make a difference -). Still, all too quickly, he says, “no, Gin’s out at the moment. No one can find her, actually.”
“She doesn’t want to be found by her enemies, you dumb mackerel.”
“That’s not it, I promise!”
Oh, Chuuya knows that based on the way Dazai walks and the tone of his voice, a liar until the end and a liar from the beginning; perhaps even the beating of his heart is a lie. If that’s the case, then Chuuya can understand why Dazai so fears being human or the lack of such traits.
Chuuya doesn’t ask where Gin is, or why Dazai certainly knows and isn’t telling him.
The most he can hope for is that Dazai tells him when the time comes because there’s no other option; it’s how they’ve always worked. Dazai hides things, Chuuya pries them out of him, Chuuya gets burned, Dazai tells him, and they finally get over the hurdle and onto the next stage of the battle.
It’s always a fight with them. Always, always, always.
Soukoku. Double Black. Twin Dark - whatever they were called, the end result and the notoriety were the same: destruction. That’s all they’re good for together - the destruction of life for the sake of private agendas.
Yeah, there’s a reason Chuuya operates on his own now, and only half of that reason is that he had no other option. (He was never given one, after all, though Mori did ask if Chuuya wanted a mission partner after Dazai’s defection and Chuuya had refused.)
“She’ll stay with you,” Chuuya announces, if only because Dazai will probably try to release the cat into the street otherwise. Or perhaps he’s grown from his uncaring attitude, but Chuuya isn’t going to take that chance. “In your dorm.”
“You’re staying in my dorm too, slug, or did you forget?”
“I’m not staying with you,” Chuuya scoffs. “I’d rather anything than living in that filth you call home. Your living habits are worse than a spider on LSD.”
“I’ve done LSD, I don’t understand why people are so -”
“I’m not staying with you,” Chuuya cuts him off, if only because otherwise, they’ll start arguing completely unrelated topics.
At this, Dazai tilts his head, and it isn’t confusion that mars his expression but rather something far more complex, something that Chuuya truly doesn’t want to unpack as he takes in the level of emotion that paints Dazai’s face like a portrait. “Why not? It’s the safest place for you, you know. With what happened and all.”
“You’re not going to tell me what happened if I ask.” Chuuya already knows this - they don’t need to go over it again. (He’s trusting Dazai again, trusting him not to put Chuuya in danger when Dazai’s never had qualms with it before -) “And I’m not going to be anywhere near you without a declaration sixty-two pages long.”
For once, Dazai doesn’t argue with him. Instead, beats of silence between them as beats of life interject between steps, from the building to the elevator to the lobby to the sidewalk.
Finally, finally, Dazai responds, a frown pulling at his lips in a show of emotion that’s so obviously planted. “I suppose you could stay in the infirmary if Yosano doesn’t kill you for it.”
Chuuya knows his decision before the sentence is even finished; he’s already nodding, even. “I’ll talk to her about it. But I’m staying the hell away from you, you hear?”
It’s not a question, really. Dazai knows, and Chuuya’s well aware of what lies beneath the surface: I’d rather die than spend more time with you than I have to.
It’s a declaration in and of itself, and as such, Chuuya doesn’t feel bad about dragging his feet as they walk and forcing Dazai to go slower as they walk back to the Agency, though it does garner several comments about his height that he refuses to give a reaction to.
I’d rather, I’d rather, I’d rather. All things Chuuya typically has no choice in, but this isn’t like when he wasn’t fifteen, sixteen, seventeen - they don’t belong to the same organization anymore, and the Demon Prodigy doesn’t linger like a ghoul trying to right its human skin after every mission.
Instead, Dazai wears that mask of his lies and doesn’t know what’s beneath. Chuuya wonders what would happen if those Agency fucks were to see the Dazai that existed years ago, wonders what they would say- would they be disgusted? Would he be fired? Would they accept him as he is, that he’s changed?
(Chuuya doesn’t believe in change. He’s seen too much tragedy and too much wrong place wrong time that he aches to believe in something, but change is not the religion that has garnered his devotion. Nothing beyond calamity has.)
“What’s Yosano’s problem?” Chuuya asks bluntly, deflecting any attention away from him in a show that Dazai certainly sees past.
“Hm? Did she try and cut you open or something? She does that quite often, just keep your genitals out of -”
“Hey, hey, why the fuck are you talking about genitals? Is she the one that has your balls? Is that why you’re such a fucking loser now?” Chuuya bites back automatically, before bringing the topic back around to his intended question. “What’s her problem? She seems to not like me very much.”
Dazai shrugs; chooses not to respond to Chuuya’s comment about his cowardice and his associated balls. “You’re Mafia. That alone makes you an enemy, you know.”
“It’s something… more with her.” Chuuya can’t shake the feeling of her gaze off his skin and if he’s going to be spending the next few nights in her infirmary, he’d like to know the rundown of the woman who runs it.
He can get by with less information, but he wouldn’t like to.
“You think so?” Leave it to Dazai to never take anything seriously. “I’m sure she’ll answer your silly questions if you take her out for some tea. Oh! Or wine. She’s much like you that way, she doesn’t -”
Chuuya notices the way some life returns to Dazai’s eyes when he talks about his coworkers rather than his past as Chuuya’s partner, and - and part of him -
Well, Chuuya doesn’t want to think about it, pushing that memory to the back of his mind, a younger Dazai, a younger Chuuya.
It’s good that Dazai’s alive, at least.