Archive of Our Own ^beta

Dazai wipes coffee off the sides of his mouth as Chuuya sits down in front of him. “What are you doing here?” He asks, pretending to be shocked. It’s nothing new to see a regular doing his regular things in his routine. 

“Annoying you.” Chuuya says, raising his brow at the stillness in Dazai. “Eat your food.” He lightly kicks at Dazai’s shoes under the table while he cuts his muffin and butters it. 

Dazai listens to him. The pastry’s fluffy, the outer shell crunches with the hours it sat in the glass casing, strawberry jam and almonds on the inside. Chuuya looks around him as he does, sips his latte with ease. He watches a couple people eat their food and talk to each other, listening to the conversations around them like the nosy eavesdropper he is. 

Dazai can’t really worry about that. He does the same. It’s how he knew Chuuya comes here every morning for a latte and an egg sandwich, at exactly nine in the morning, and watches the world spin before he does whatever the Port Mafia requires of him. Port Mafia has their informants and he wonders what any of them would say at the sight of double black sitting together eating peacefully. 

Chuuya doesn’t say anything. Except, on his way out with an empty ceramic mug in his hands and breadcrumbs on his gloves, “If you wanted to see me you could have just texted.” 

Dazai taps his fingers on his phone. “Would you have responded? I thought I was blocked.”

Chuuya scowls at him, a hair short of actual anger. “You didn’t eat anything here. Text me and I’ll pick for next time.” 

Dazai watches him leave, orange hair hung loose over his shoulder, tension straightening his posture as the mafia executive part of his personality makes it’s way forward. It’s a delight to witness. 

___

Dazai takes his word for it. 

(5:54) I bought tickets for this movie. It starts at 8, lets go

(5:55) what the fuck give me time  

(5:55) You have 2 hours! Is chuuya trying to dress up for me :o 

Chuuya doesn’t dress up for him. He does change out of his bloodied work clothes and comes to the theater in a loose silk chiffon blouse, a new pair of leather gloves, and his obnoxious pink bike parked on the side. Discrete has never known Chuuya Nakahara’s name. 

“I said I would pick the next one.” Chuuya says, walking up to him with his jacket slung over his shoulders. 

“You said you’d pick the next place we eat at.” Dazai walks into the theater with him, showing tickets at the door. Chuuya follows him in, buys movie snacks without a complaint, sits down next to him in a dark hall, the movie promotions reflecting off his shirts. 

Chuuya’s eyes near glow in the dark as they look at him. Dazai keeps the contact for as long as he can, a different type of pressure in his head. 

The movie’s cute. Dazai pays only half a mind to the zombie movie he’d brought them to, while it holds Chuuya’s attention the entire time. Dazai peeks over at him periodically, knowing he’d enjoy it, smug in being right. 

He steals popcorn in Chuuya’s lap. He counts the times Chuuya leans forward in anticipation. When the movie’s over, the lights back on, he tucks a strand of hair behind Chuuya’s ear and watches a blush bloom over the curl of his ear. 

___

It should be coincidence they bump into each other at the supermarket. Dazai doesn’t eat healthily and his needs are covered by coworkers or the nearest convenience store, while Chuuya doesn’t live anywhere in the area. 

This time it wasn’t Dazai planning this meeting. Chuuya tosses potatoes into his basket and walks forward, staring at his basket of vegetables. 

“Who are you and what did you do to Dazai?” Chuuya asks, anger darkening his eyes, a promise of violence deepening his voice. He somehow towers in his suspicion. Dazai sighs at the protectiveness. 

“It’s me.” Dazai switches hands on his basket, balances it on his hip. “Look.” He breaches the bubble of righteous anger and strokes Chuuya’s cheekbone lightly. A feather touch. 

Immediately the tension evaporates, replacing it with fond exasperation. Chuuya leans back and rolls his eyes at him, turns to the tomatoes Dazai was looking at. 

“Who would have thought you’d be buying vegetables. Someone scare you into it?” Chuuya picks vine tomatoes and stows them neatly beside his mushrooms. 

“This is for Yosano. It’s a favor.” Dazai explains. “Chuuya is so funny, sometimes.” 

“Huh?” Chuuya asks, distracted. He walks down to grab ginger, glancing at Dazai, wordlessly asking him to keep talking. 

“I could cancel whatever ability would make a clone of me walking around if that’s what you were thinking.” Dazai says, tilting his head. Not a trace of the heady rush of anger Chuuya stepped with remains on his face. A touch of indignation lights his brows. 

“It doesn’t mean you would have anything against something that’s not an ability.” Chuuya points out, hands on eggplants.

Dazai feels like he skipped a step walking. Tripped on the heels of the thought that Chuuya immediately took scope of the situation and prepared for the worst. A part of him wants to see it. Would he have handed himself over to Arahabaki to drag Dazai back to him? Would he have glowed red, a bright neon stick cracked too many times, a warning to everyone on the certainty that he would get Dazai back or die trying? 

“Oh.” Dazai breathes. He knows he would have. It’s another to see a glimpse of it, then see it muted at the graze of his fingertips. 

___

Dazai finds them on a walk around markets, digesting his lunch without the loudness of the agency office. They sparkle in the afternoon light and call him as urgently as Chuuya himself would. Serrated edges on some, clean straight edges on others, silver handles with engraved crosshatch for grip. 

He weighs them in his hand and marvels at their fit. Instantly, he buys them and folds them into foam packaging. The blades gleam at him as he wraps the gift together, a warm reflection. 

“We should go eat dinner tonight. When can you be free?” Dazai asks on the phone, for once not looking into Chuuya’s work schedule. 

“Uh, I can do tonight around 9. But I’m picking.” Chuuya emphasizes, then hangs up. Dazai stares at his phone, waiting for the text of where to meet up. 

Dazai borrows the company car to drive up to the fancy restaurant Chuuya reserved for them. It’s upscale enough to require his suit, so he picks the white he’d worn only once before. It’s delightfully pristine and Dazai’s sure if there’s a suit to die in, it’s this one. 

Chuuya can even test his knives on him. Red camelias of blood would pop on the fabric. 

He waits with his thin box in his inner pocket. When Chuuya walks into the hall, fitting into the scenery in a blue and brown suit, he can see the excitement in his smile. 

“Did you want to eat here for a long time?” Dazai asks, admiring the stretch of fabric over Chuuya’s muscles. They’re always there but wrapped up like he is, good enough to eat, is entirely different. 

Chuuya grins at him, for once the ratty hat not covering his face from the world. “It’s so good you’ll lose your mind. Shut up. Stop laughing.” He adds, the more Dazai laughs at him. 

He can’t shake the image of Chuuya sitting alone at a table, eating his paycheck away and vibrating with joy over the thought of bringing others to share the experience. Chuuya swats at him halfheartedly, leads them to their table and immediately picks the menu up. 

Dazai can’t understand half the things on the menu. He’s more familiar with the string of snacks the five block community of convenience stores has near his apartment. Chuuya picks a wine off the wine list for them both and Dazai picks a steak along with roasted potatoes. 

Chuuya happily smears butter on bread, sips the dark red wine out of his crystal glass. Dazai wonders if he listens closely over the orchestra, he’ll hear Chuuya humming as he eats. 

The food comes longer than expected, Chuuya’s already polished half the bottle of wine, more him than Dazai, and he’s clearly feeling the effects with the way he softly smiles at the orchestra and closes his eyes. It is just as good as Chuuya had said it would be. The steak melts in his mouth, the potatoes warm him, the wine rushes to his head and settles there, pushing his brain to it’s edges. 

Chuuya laughs at him and he wonders how he looks drunk. A blush runs across the bridge of Chuuya’s nose, down his cheeks and his neck. His hair falls out of it’s immaculate hold to brush his temples. 

“I have something for you.” Dazai says, pulling the thin box out of his coat. 

Chuuya opens his eyes and looks at him, covering his smile with his hands. “What?” He asks, near dozing in his seat while waiting for dessert. Another bottle of wine sits in the ice bucket, opened and dwindling. 

“Open it.” Dazai passes him the box and watches his face light up. 

The set of knives look back at him, shiny and new. Chuuya picks one up, fingers dancing, and twirls it around his knuckles like a baton. He tosses it in the air and catches it, expression soft and fond. 

“Thank you.” He says, touching each of the five knives in the box. Dazai raises his glass of wine and sips it, as Chuuya covers the gift and puts it away. He rests his cheek on his palm and periodically looks at the box through their dessert, as if he can’t believe it’s there. 

___

“I heard you needed a ride.” Dazai reaches across the shift and passenger’s seat to throw open the door. “Here, I even brought tissues.” 

Chuuya cradles his arm close to him and stares, making no moves to sit in the car. 

Dazai stares back, looking at the blood splattered on his cheeks, matting his hair, unidentified fascia dotting his clothes. The gloves are still on but they streak when he moves his hand. Chuuya’s a painting before him on the side of the road. 

His actual mess sits in the building just a few minutes away. Even further is Chuuya’s bike, an ordeal to drive with a broken arm, gravity manipulation or not.  

“Why are you here?” Chuuya asks. He doesn’t ask how. Dazai smiles at him in answer. “Ugh, don’t complain to me about the upholstery.” 

He folds himself into the seat and falls asleep just ten minutes into the ride. It’s quiet, easy, at once a reversal of how they were in the mafia and at the same time, the same. 

Dazai watches him nap on the side as he drives the agency car back to his own apartment. He breathes carefully, not moving a muscle more than needed, nothing to jostle the arm. It’s a smooth ride with the imperceptible noise, the unmistakable presence of Chuuya even while unconscious. 

In front of his apartment, Dazai parks the car and taps at Chuuya. He startles awake, reflex pulling him up with his good arm. 

“Where are we?” He asks, groggily, stretching up to look out the window. 

“My place.” Dazai opens the door and walks around to Chuuya, sure he’s hiding other injuries on pride. “Come on, I’ll help you up.” 

Chuuya looks at his shoes, caked with dirt. It’ll be a hard time to get out. He looks up at him, street lamps throwing his face dramatically, blood flaking on his cheeks. “Why did you bring me here?” He asks, voice low. 

Dazai wasn’t expecting genuine confusion. “You’re my partner.” It explains everything to Dazai. 

“You’re not in the mafia.” Chuuya starts. He takes a tissue out of the box Dazai had left next to the gear shift. “We aren’t partners.” 

The thought stings at him. They were partners, they’ll be partners, there isn’t a moment in time that Chuuya isn’t his partner as long as he’s alive. He didn’t die from corruption, he didn’t die from the bomb Dazai planted as a goodbye gift, and he certainly won’t die without Dazai having a hand in it. 

“Don’t be stubborn. Come on.” He asks, reaching out a hand. 

Chuuya looks at it and stands up on his own, closing his eyes to stifle a wince. Dazai catches it and closes the car door behind him. 

In his apartment, Dazai passes him spare clothes and sends him to the shower. There’s a spare futon he unrolls, and digs the actual first aid kit he keeps out. 

Chuuya sits on a chair by the kitchen table and silently watches Dazai pick debris out of his wounds. It’s only superficial to hold the blood in until he can take Chuuya to Yosano in the morning, but he holds Chuuya’s forearm in one hand and plucks rocks out of his arm in silence. 

Dazai doesn’t rush to fill it the way he would with Kunikida. Chuuya takes the air out of his apartment with his heavy gaze. He wraps gauze around the open wounds and holds till they don’t stain anymore. 

“You could have dropped me somewhere. Port Mafia would have taken care of me.” Chuuya says, not a hint of emotion in his voice. Dazai finds it in the set of his jaws anyways. 

“I’m not taking care of you?” Dazai says lightly. He takes his chair and moves it around to Chuuya’s back, dabs the open ones with alcohol. 

“I don’t know why you are.” Chuuya turns his head to look at him from the corner of his eye. 

“I told you.” Dazai binds the bandages sharply, tight with the irritation of it all. “You’re my partner.” 

He lets go of Chuuya’s shoulders, looking back at him. Chuuya reads the irritation and takes his arm in his hands, bare from his shower. “When did I start being your partner again?” He watches his every expression with a seriousness he reserves for his job and it bothers Dazai, cuts him that he would. 

Dazai breathes out of his nose, licks his lips together with annoyance, a strange haze that Chuuya thinks he’d ever stopped. He tells him as such, watches the same annoyance take Chuuya’s features and turn them. 

“Do you turn on corruption for someone who’s not your partner too?” He whispers, his wrist still caught in Chuuya’s grip. “The partnership was with you, Chuuya, not the mafia. You’re my partner until you’re not here anymore.” He hammers in, shocked Chuuya hadn’t already known. 

Chuuya pulls him forward, eyes wide. He holds Dazai’s cheek, cradles it to his nape, and yanks him forward for a harsh kiss, bruising in it’s intensity, loud in understanding. Chuuya holds him closer, matching the possessive ember in his gut, billowing it with a hand heavy down his chest. 

Dazai scrambles into his lap, legs thrown over hard muscle thighs, and he’s careful with Chuuya’s injury but he’s swept into it till all he can hear, all he can smell, all he can taste is Chuuya. 

He wants to make it so it’s the same the other way around. There can’t be any other thoughts of someone else as his partner, still shocked Chuuya didn’t believe it. The kiss sears hot, trailing down his neck and Dazai rocks forward, pressing into him. “Ask me when you stopped.” He mocks, rolling forward once, hard. “Ask me.” 

Chuuya’s good arm snakes around his waist and crushes their chests together. “You blew my car up.” He breathes hot, eyes narrowed, tipping his mouth forward to bite at Dazai’s collarbone. 

“Did you die though?” Dazai says, gripping Chuuya’s hair. “You won’t. You can’t.” He says, and puts his work into crashing all thoughts in Chuuya’s mind. 

___

Chuuya makes a quick recovery of all and any bruises, broken bones, scratches the next morning at Yosano’s office. Port Mafia’s eyes watch Chuuya leave the agency with a spring in his step that tells the world of his perfect health. 

___

Dazai drops by Chuuya’s apartment with a bottle wrapped with a gold ribbon. It took tracking down and a serious payment of hush money to liquor owners around the area, but he’d found the bottle Chuuya had near inhaled after he left the mafia. 

In his hand is the closest relative to it. A different flavor profile, any sommelier will swear on, but recognizant of the other. 

Dazai knocks on the door with the bottle in his hand. 

“Took you long enough, I was expecting you hours ago--” Chuuya starts as he opens the door, stops in his tracks and reaches out for the wine. He runs his fingers down the label quietly. “What’s this for?” 

Dazai shrugs, waves a hand in the air. “I wanted to. Without the car explosion.” 

Chuuya raises his brows. “Oh, you love me, huh? No explosion? Promise? Swear on it or I’ll light your clothes on fire.” 

“And inflict the whole of Yokohama with my nakedness? Sounds like a problem for you, not for me.” Dazai closes the door behind him, relaxed now that Chuuya said it for him. It’s something he’ll never miss, and something he won’t have to miss. 

*