Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Best friends is too simple a term to squash the entire dynamic of Dazai Osamu and Nakahara Chuuya within.

Sure, they’ve known each other since they were children, and they’re each other’s #1 on their best friend lists on Snapchat, and Chuuya’s been seen one too many times in his hoodies. People have also noticed how Dazai’s main muse for his volunteer hobby of polaroid photographer is the redhead himself.

But…

It’s not exactly a best friend thing to pick on each other almost every time they’re near one another.

Or to pull relentless and borderline heartless pranks every single week.

Or to punch each other (though the punching is usually from Chuuya’s side, because he’s much more short-tempered than his ‘best friend’).

And—dare say—if you ever make the mistake of calling them best friends to their faces, you might even witness a rare moment in which they team up, and beat your ass into dust with their own hands. And they’ll pummel you and pummel you, as if the label is an insult to their entire existence.

So, yeah—people don’t exactly call them that anymore.

At first, they changed it from best friends to enemies, but that didn’t exactly work either, because they found Chuuya tending to Dazai’s sprained wrist that one time he fell off a tree that he was too stubborn to not climb. He even went so far as to call the ambulance in the midst of his worry, but the school nurse came to the scene quickly, and whisked Dazai away.

And Chuuya just so happened to stay by his side the entire time.

So then it went from enemies to, well… lovers.

Only because a first-year said she ‘shipped them’ online, which just created a whole new branch of rumours, and then someone even had the fucking nerve to photoshop Dazai stroking Chuuya’s hair.

The picture’s long gone now.

Because a certain redhead kind of beat the person responsible unconscious.

And he got suspended, but it was worth it. And they deserved it. Because, honestly—who’s crazy enough to ship two real life men who very clearly hate each other? And then even go so far as to photoshop their disgusting delusions into an uncomfortable picture that honestly just looked so fake? (Chuuya also happened to get pissed at Dazai when he started criticising the lighting in the picture and the unrelated looks on their faces rather than the very obvious gay position they were in—he didn’t exactly have his priorities straight.)

So, the lovers term was extinguished far quicker than the previous two. It’s all but extinct now, because after what happened to the person responsible for the picture, no one had the guts to mention that term even behind the two men’s backs.

From lovers, it kind of went to rivals. Which is the most accurate one out of all of the ones so far, but people didn’t really like the sound of it, so it didn’t get too popular.

Nowadays, it doesn’t tend to hover around friends, rivals, or even the specific hate-each-other-but-are-sometimes-seen-caring-for-each-other-and-doing-best-friend-things.

Basically, people don’t really but a label on them anymore.

It got exhausting.

So, they’re kind of just…

Dazai and Chuuya.

Chuuya and Dazai.

Whatever way you want. It doesn’t really matter.

“Hurry the fuck up!” Chuuya yells loudly, picking up another rock from the floor and hurling it into Dazai’s window, creating another one of many scratches on the glass. In fact, over the years, his window’s become so scratched by the rocks that it’s hard to find a spot in it where you can look out and see the world clearly.

One time, Chuuya hurled a rock that was a little too big a little too hard, and it cracked a small hole in the window that Dazai’s father duct taped all the while glaring at a sheepish redhead stood in the corner of the room.

And to be honest, Chuuya is so loud and angry that Dazai’s entire family (which is just him, his father, and his little sister) use him as their alarms. They used to have real alarms; Mori had one on his phone, Elise had an alarm clock on her bedside table, and Dazai just trusted himself to wake up on time, which he never did. But then with the way that Chuuya would start screaming at Dazai just five minutes after their alarms went off, they realised they might as well use his loud ass voice to wake up rather than go through the strenuous task of listening to such unpleasant ringing first thing when they wake up.

Not that Chuuya’s screaming is pleasant either, but it’s better. Somewhat.

And, just like an alarm clock, he doesn’t stop until you tell him to.

“Dazai!” Chuuya yells, picking up another deliciously perfect rock from the ground. “Get up! If I get late because of your stupid ass, then—”

“Shut up!” one of the neighbours yells, leaning out of her window, glaring at the redhead that ruins her sleep every single day for the sole purpose of waking her neighbour up.

Chuuya pauses, and then twists on his feet to face the woman, even glaring at her. “Why don’t you?” he shoots back loudly. Then, he lifts the rock to her sight. “You want some too, Margaret?”

The woman, whose name definitely isn’t Margaret, gapes at the redhead. “Don’t you threaten me, boy-o!” she yells. Chuuya notices the bags under her eyes, and he has enough shame to feel bad for it, but there’s not exactly a way to solve the situation other than this. “I’ll call the police on you!”

Chuuya scoffs and rolls his eyes. “Wouldn’t be my first time,” he snaps before turning back to Dazai’s window and hurling the rock at it. “Dazai!”

“I swear to—” non-Margaret yells, cutting herself off and then turning to stare at Dazai’s father’s window instead. “Mori! Mori! Get this redhead off your porch for once, will you? I need my sleep!”

After a few moments, the window for Mori’s room slides open, and a very groggy forty-one-year-old leans out, watching Chuuya for a few seconds and then turning to look at non-Margaret poking her head out of her bedroom.

“What do you want, Margaret?” Mori asks, his voice rough and deep and very sleep-induced.

Non-Margaret gapes. “My name isn’t Margaret, Mori! You know that. Get the boy off your porch!”

Mori glances at Chuuya, who raises his eyebrows at him, and then the older man scoffs. “Trust me, I’ve tried,” he says, leaning back and shutting his window.

Whilst he draws the curtains, non-Margaret gapes further at Mori’s very obvious evasiveness and then glares at the redhead. “I’ll get you one day!” she snaps, closing her window with a slam.

Chuuya sighs exasperatedly and turns back to Dazai’s window. He pauses, for a moment, when he finds the brunette stood by his window, staring at him. His annoying brown blob of hair is as messy as ever, and his hoodie hugs his body. The sleeves have been rolled up to his elbows, so you can see his bandages, and when Chuuya looks back up at his face, he’s smirking.

Whilst Dazai opens his window, the redhead eyes his hoodie.

A teal colour, huh?

Chuuya doesn’t have a teal colour version of Dazai’s hoodies. He needs to get it. He needs to.

And even though it surprisingly goes well with Dazai’s dark eyes and hair combination, Chuuya doesn’t really care, because c’mon, it’ll look way better on him.

“Wow, Chuuya,” Dazai starts, lips still pulled into a smirk as he puts his forearms on the window ledge and leans out. “You really haven’t grown since I last saw you, huh?”

Chuuya clenches his jaw, his chest burning with pure rage. “Maybe because you just saw me yesterday, you fucking mackerel!” he snaps, throwing the rock and purposely missing, watching as it slams against the brick wall next to Dazai’s window and then hurtles down into a bush. “And I’m a young, growing boy!”

Dazai raises his eyebrow sceptically. “Really?” he asks. “Because, y’know, I’ve grown almost twenty centimetres in the past three years and you haven’t even grown two.”

“It’s not my fault if you get growth spurts like a fucking freak!” Chuuya yells. And, honestly, they’ve had this conversation—or argument, more precisely—about a billion times already in their lifetime. But Dazai still always initiates it, because Chuuya gets insulted so much by it, as if it’s the first time, and something about seeing him get enraged by the same thing every single day is just hilarious to the brunette. “And hurry the fuck up, will you? It’s almost half past; we’ve got ten minutes.”

Dazai stares at him for a few more seconds. You’d think he’d get exhausted waking up every day to a short redhead screaming his brains out, and then having to walk to his window like a half-dead zombie, and watch the same face, with the same height and words and insults.

But, no—

Something about is refreshing. And it gets Dazai up better than any other way. Alarms are easy to ignore, and Mori eventually gives up on trying to wake him up, but Chuuya won’t allow for himself to be ignored and will definitely not give up on getting Dazai to wake up.

Which Dazai finds annoying, sometimes.

Mostly amusing though.

“Be patient, will you?” Dazai says. “I’ll be down in a sec, slug.”

Chuuya picks up another rock, throwing it at the window whilst the brunette shuts it closed. “The real slug is you,” he retorts. Then, he just leans against the gate, and tips his head back, watching the sky, waiting for Dazai to get down.

The teal hoodie. It has to be new. Chuuya has every single old hoodie of Dazai’s, and whenever he buys another one, Chuuya makes it his life goal to get it—and when he’s determined, he genuinely gets shit done. Even if it’s against the Dazai Osamu.

And now the teal hoodie is his new goal.

It will be his new memento.

And it’s very obvious that Dazai is just enticing him. Because it’s almost summer, which means it’s rather hot, so there’s no need for a hoodie, and definitely no need to sleep in one. He knew exactly what he was doing when he walked to the window with the hoodie on.

Chuuya will get it.

No matter what.

It takes twelve minutes for Dazai to emerge from the house. Which isn’t ideal at all, because they only had ten minutes to begin with, and now they’d be late even if they teleported to school. And with the twenty-minute walk to school, it’s pretty obvious they’re going to miss homeroom.

“If you’re that pissed about getting late,” Dazai says, his bag over his shoulder and camera around his neck, walking at a slower place as usual since the redhead’s short legs aren’t exactly ideal for fast walking, “then I can get my dad to drop us off. You don’t have to start punching me.”

“I wasn’t punching you,” Chuuya states. And he wasn’t. Just, y’know… light pats with a closed fist. “And you know that I saw that stupid hoodie of yours, right? I want it.”

Dazai snorts. “You have to win to get it. Like always.”

“Okay. When?”

The brunette glances at him, and then smirks. “I’m free whenever,” he says. He always says that. Even when he isn’t free. He could be having a binge-watching late-night therapy session or a heart surgery and he’ll still say he’s free. And he’ll actually show up, too, albeit late. Pushing and shoving at his schedule to make time is the closest Dazai gets to affection.

Chuuya sighs. “I’m free, too,” he says. “For like half a week. We just gonna do the usual challenge?”

Dazai thinks about it, and then nods. “Mhm. There’s a new shop open out near the bridge. We can do it there.”

“Isn’t that a bit too far?”

The brunette looks down at him, and then grins, a bright grin, a cheeky one that has Chuuya staring at him for too long. “That just makes it fun,” he says.

The redhead rolls his eyes. “Whatever, you fucking psycho. I’ll meet ya there at seven.”

Dazai blinks blankly. “Is this the part where I go ‘it’s a date’?” he asks.

And, well, yeah…

He ends up getting chased by Chuuya all the way to school, which is a bit of a win, because they get there in half the usual time, which means Chuuya actually gets to attend homeroom.

Or at least half of it.

Chuuya would never call Dazai a friend. Ever.

But there are some people he doesn’t mind calling friends.

Like the certain light-haired boy standing in line with him, with his lips pulled up into a friendly smile, and his eyes as kind as ever. “Chuuya-san, you look really nice today!” Atsushi exclaims, repeating the line he says every day.

Which is fine, because, let’s face it, Chuuya’s drop-dead gorgeous. And he knows it. Even when he’s just dressed in the school’s depressing blue-and-white uniform, he likes to think that he looks good in it.

“Oh—thanks, Atsushi,” Chuuya says, smiling lopsidedly at him. “You look nice, too.”

Notice how Chuuya knows how to be kind? To a certain extent, at least. He isn’t completely a short-tempered, fiery redhead that swears in every other sentence. That personality is usually only brung out by an annoying asshole. Everyone else generally gets to see a generous handful of Chuuya’s good side.

Atsushi beams and turns to the dinner lady, who plops scoops of chips in his tray, and a grilled fish, too. He takes one of the plastic forks and knives and then leaves the line. Chuuya mirrors his actions, but gently coaxes the dinner lady to put an extra scoop of chips in his plate. By gently, he obviously means with a nice, friendly glare paired with a sweet snarl and a soft threat.

Chuuya sighs and grabs two plastic forks and a plastic knife, settling it onto his tray.

And even though it’s not necessarily allowed to leave the diners with a tray, Chuuya has, over the years, normalised himself leaving with the tray, so no one questions it or stops him anymore. They’re fine with it, because Chuuya’s proved continuously that he’ll bring the tray back—at the very least, he’ll send someone to drop off his tray. So the trays always come back, and the dinner ladies are spared his wrath that they’d undoubtedly have to handle if he were stopped from leaving.

“The summer holidays are coming soon,” Atsushi says as the two walk down to the field, trays in hand, the sun beaming on their backs. “Are you excited?”

Chuuya scoffs. The summer holidays are always the same—stay inside with the parents, wasting away time on his phone and computer, and then meeting up with Dazai at least once every couple of days to wreak havoc once again. No wonder Chuuya’s step-mother has never liked him. She likes him as a person, sure, and even laughs at his jokes, but she doesn’t want Dazai to be a ‘bad influence’ on Chuuya. Which is laughable, because they’re both bad influences on each other. Chuuya’s not any better.

“Nah, it’s just gonna be the same old,” the redhead replies. “What about you? Got any plans?”

Atsushi smiles and shakes his head. “Not exactly. I might go around the city with my family, though. We’ve been here for three months already and we’ve barely seen anything.”

“Sounds decent,” Chuuya says. “I’ve lived here all my life. If you want suggestions of where to visit, I can tell ya some.”

Atsushi grins brightly. “I’d love that!”

The field is packed. As expected. Whenever it gets this warm, the entire school jumps to whatever spot they can find, and the grassy area becomes overcrowded with stinking teens. Chuuya and his friends always have the same spot, though—the one under the large oak tree. No one ever really dares to sit there. To have to deal with Nakahara Chuuya, Dazai Osamu, and the rest of their pack isn’t exactly a situation to fantasise about. They just scurry off somewhere else and settle down.

The two of them make their way to the oak tree, having to step around and even over several people when there’s hardly any place to walk. Most of them just move out of the way; either because they have manners, or because they fear Nakahara Chuuya.

Chuuya doesn’t care whichever one it is.

At the tree, they’re all sat in an uneven circle. Dazai, leaning against the tree as always, taking the most comfortable spot as if it’s his to take. Akutagawa is sat there too, and Yosano next to him, and Kunikida next to her. The only missing idiot got himself suspended... again.

Chuuya notices, most primarily, the two girls clinging to each of Dazai’s arms. He doesn’t remember either girl’s name. They’re pretty, though—pretty enough that Dazai might even get interested.

“Chuuya-san,” Atsushi says from where he’s already sat down next to Kunikida. “There’s space here.”

Chuuya watches the gap between Atsushi and Kunikida. “Nah,” he says, looking back at the girls. “I’m sitting there.”

Atsushi doesn’t understand where ‘there’ is, exactly, because there doesn’t seem to be place anywhere else.

Chuuya steps into the circle and walks towards Dazai. The brunette grins at something one of the girls says, and then notices the redhead stood in front of him, looking down with a stoic expression.

“Oh, the midget’s here!” Dazai exclaims.

The girls turn to look at Chuuya, but Chuuya ignores them both. Instead, he squints down at the brunette. “Spread your legs,” he snaps irritably.

Dazai raises his eyebrows, a snicker escaping his mouth. “Is this you coming out to me?” he asks.

Chuuya pauses.

When he realises how ‘spread your legs’ sounds, he can’t help but blush the tiniest bit, his eyes averting to the grass around his feet before he looks back up into Dazai’s eyes, which seem to sparkle under the dancing sunlight coming through the leaves of the tree.

“I swear, I’ll punch ya,” Chuuya promises.

Dazai opens his mouth, no doubt to say something even more embarrassing, so the redhead quickly springs to action and kicks his legs apart, sitting down in between them as casually as ever.

It’s not like this is the first time Chuuya’s sat between the asshole’s long legs. He’s done it quite a few times before, and everyone apart from Atsushi, the transfer student, has seen them do this before. So it’s not odd, exactly—but Chuuya still feels the tiniest bit annoyed at himself for saying ‘spread your legs’ out of everything he could have said, and listening back to it in his brain just makes him go redder with every passing second.

And, finally, the girls let go of Dazai, a little confused. “You guys are a bit close,” the one to the left says.

Chuuya turns to glare at her just as he leans back into Dazai. “Shut up,” he says, not able to disguise the disgust he feels. “Scurry off while you can.”

And sure, Chuuya threatens females (sometimes, at least, only when he’s pissed) but he’d never act on them. So they’re usually empty threats, because he doesn’t often indulge in the idea of raising a hand to a female. It’s perhaps the only thing him and the brunette can relate on.

Dazai sighs and slumps a little as he watches the pretty girls walk off, undoubtedly going to target a different guy that might show them interest. “You know, slug,” Dazai starts, “You don’t have to ruin every single chance I get with a girl.”

Chuuya turns to glare at him, eyes fierce and blue, which makes Dazai smile the tiniest bit, despite himself. “You get what you give. Each time I went out with Yuan, you literally fucked up every single date. So don’t expect me to sit back and let you have a peaceful love life, you got that?” After a moment, Chuuya raises the tray in his hands and shoves it towards the brunette. “And eat. I know you didn’t eat breakfast. You’re getting so scrawny, and if you go down another size in hoodies, they might start actually fitting me, and I don’t want that.”

Dazai can’t stop smiling. His eyes sparkle a little, and he leans down closer to the the redhead, so close that Chuuya can see the little faded scar under his left eye that he got when he slipped on a slide and fell face-first into the rocks at the bottom. He bled excessively, and since they were only seven, Chuuya panicked, and thought he was going to die.

Obviously, with the way he’s staring at him right now, his lips pulling up, and his eyes shining, he’s not dead at all.

Right now, Chuuya really wishes he was.

“What makes you think I didn’t eat breakfast?” he asks curiously.

The redhead rolls his eyes and turns back around so that he doesn’t have to spend another second staring into those annoying eyes of his. “Your breath smelt of toothpaste this morning,” he states simply, taking a chip and putting it into his mouth. “You always brush before breakfast. So, you didn’t eat.”

Atsushi can’t help but stare at the two of them, whilst the others have learnt to just mind their own business. Because he’s never seen a friend sitting between another friend’s legs. Isn’t that what couples do? But he’s gotten to know them enough in the past three months to understand that he’ll be killed if he says that out loud.

But…

Atsushi squints his eyes, observing Dazai’s face.

…He never smiles like that towards anyone else.

Does Dazai ever smile?

It’s usually just smirks and cheeky grins.

Not smiles.

“You’ve gotten disgustingly observant,” Dazai says. He leans even further forwards, until his face is right above Chuuya’s, and then takes a handful of chips. “I’ll eat some for you, though, Hatrack.”

The redhead scoffs and shoves the tray closer to Dazai. “Yeah, you better. And have half the fish, too. I won’t be able to finish it by myself.”

“And if I don’t?” Dazai asks curiously, his eyes trained on the little bit of side profile he can see of Chuuya as he swallows down some chips.

“Then I’ll shove your sorry excuse of a face into the mud.”

Dazai raises a curious eyebrow. “This ‘sorry excuse of a face’ gets more girls than you ever will,” he teases, feeling proud when the boy emits his pissed back-of-the-throat sound.

“That’s because you ruin every goddamn chance I have with a girl,” Chuuya snaps back.

The brunette watches him for a moment, and then shrugs with one shoulder. “So do you,” he states simply.

And he’s not wrong—Chuuya does it as well. But only as revenge. He didn’t start it, and probably wouldn’t have ever started it. It was all Dazai’s fault. It first happened when they were eleven, and a girl called Chuuya’s hair pretty. Chuuya got the tiniest bit of a crush on her after that, because he loves compliments, and getting it from a girl just seemed a bit endearing and charming. He even gathered the guts to go talk to her eventually, about two weeks after the compliment, but when he got close to her and she saw him approaching, she ran away.

Needless to say, Chuuya was really confused. It took Dazai a week, but he eventually fessed up, telling the redhead that he’d lied to her so that she stops liking Chuuya. He told her that Chuuya picks his nose, and doesn’t shower until weeks pass, and that his hair is a wig. All were lies, of course, because Chuuya priorities hygiene more than your average person. And his hair is very much authentic. 

So then Chuuya obviously got pissed. And punched him. And didn’t talk to him for an entire day, which he was proud of himself for, because that’s a hard achievement.

Dazai never apologised, but Chuuya thought he’d have the shame to feel some remorse.

At the very least, he expected Dazai to not do that ever again.

But he did.

Chuuya was sixteen the next time it happened. They’d just started their second-year in high school, and Yuan asked the redhead out—so he said yes, obviously, because Yuan’s a pretty, kind girl with nice pink hair and a sweet smile. And another plus: she’s shorter than Chuuya. And she’s funny. Sometimes.

Maybe it was Chuuya’s fault a little bit for provoking Dazai so much. He couldn’t stop rubbing it in his face, and when the brunette finally snapped, he glared at the redhead and ran off down the street. Chuuya had laughed at that. It was such a nice sight, to see Dazai’s face fall, to see him run away.

But Dazai got back at him. Maybe as revenge for Chuuya’s provoking, or because he just wants Chuuya to suffer for the rest of his life. It doesn’t matter. He still did it. He still coaxed Chuuya to come into the garage with him, and then locked the redhead in, without his phone and with no key.

So, yeah.

Chuuya never got to attend that date.

Dazai sat outside the garage the entire time, leaning against the shutter, listening as Chuuya cussed him out. He let him out two hours later. The redhead was pissed—like pissed pissed, but he didn’t hit Dazai. No, he just scolded him.

It hurt a bit more than a punch. But Dazai doesn’t regret it. He’d do it again, if he had to.

It took a bit of convincing to make Yuan believe that it wasn’t Chuuya’s fault that he stood her up. When she did eventually become convinced and accepted the redhead’s apologies, they officially dated.

For four days.

Yuan broke up with Chuuya after those four days, because, and I quote:

“You’re too close with Dazai.”

Chuuya was the tiniest bit upset about it for three days. He got over it when Dazai lent him a hoodie to borrow which Chuuya, of course, didn’t return.

So, in short—

Unless they cut each other off from their lives, they’ll probably just remain lonely, single fucks until they die.

But Chuuya has never considered that. Even when Yuan said that, he didn’t think, “Oh, maybe I should put some distance between myself and Dazai.” No—he let her break up with him, and then went to Dazai’s to cuss him out.

Both of them know that cutting each other off, in simple terms, is impossible.

They don’t know why.

It just feels like something that can never happen.

“You started it,” Chuuya says, using one of the forks to pick at the chips before forcefully stuffing the other fork into Dazai’s stupidly perfect hands, because seeing people eat with their bare hands without washing them makes him squirm.

The brunette shrugs and puts a chip into his mouth. “Seeing you happy makes me sad,” he states simply.

Chuuya gapes, slightly offended. He twists around a little, both for the sake of facing the brunette better so that he can glare at him, and also so they can eat without having Dazai’s long arm reaching across and brushing against his every single time.

“And seeing you alive makes me sad,” Chuuya snaps.

Dazai rolls his eyes. “Then let me kill myself in peace,” he mumbles. The only reason he mumbles it is so that nobody else hears—and sure, the brunette is pretty open about his suicidal tendencies, but that’s mostly as comic relief rather than anything serious.

But having Chuuya bandaging up his slit wrists those few months ago, well—

That’s pretty serious.

“No,” Chuuya says, but his heart pangs, and he has to look away from the brunette’s face. “You’re not allowed to pass on without me. It’s not fair.”

Dazai pauses, and then grins cheekily, eyes squinted the tiniest bit. “Is this you inviting me to a double suicide?”

Chuuya scoffs. “As if,” he snaps. “Shut up and eat already. You’re gonna piss me off.”

“As if that isn’t your default mode already.”

“Wanna get stabbed by a plastic fork?”

“As long as it kills me.”

“It won’t.”

“Then no thanks.”

“Then shut the fuck up.”

“Aw~, is the little midget angry~?” Dazai asks, leaning forward to pinch the redhead’s cheek.

Chuuya slaps his hand away harshly. “I’m always pissed off around you, you long ass freak. God, what I wouldn’t give to just have you shut up for two seconds.”

“It’s your fault. I wouldn’t even be talking to you if you let those girls stay here,” Dazai says, smiling a little, his head leaned down close enough for Chuuya to see that scar again.

“Yeah, well,” Chuuya says with a roll of his eyes. “Don’t expect me to let you have a love life if you won’t let me, you piece of shit.”

Dazai stares at him for a second; and Chuuya can’t help but stare back, their eyes locked for a beat too long before the brunette finally looks away, pupils averting to the tray that still his half the food on it. “I don’t want a love life,” he states simply.

Chuuya raises his eyebrows. “Everyone wants a love life.”

“Nah,” Dazai says. He breaks off a piece of the fish and eats it, because Chuuya really wasn’t lying when he said he won’t be able to finish it by himself. “Never met anyone that piqued my interests.”

The redhead scoffs. “A tacky bastard like you shouldn’t be the one to have high standards.”

“They’re not high,” Dazai says.

Chuuya expects him to carry on, but he doesn’t.

After a moment, Chuuya realises that him and Dazai aren’t the only people in the world. It takes him a long while to notice this, as always, but once he does realise, he turns back towards his friends and engages in a small conversation with Atsushi when he asks him what the best place to visit is.

Dazai smiles.

He lifts his polaroid camera and takes a quick shot of Chuuya’s side profile whilst he talks about that one place by the port that lends view of the best sunsets.

Whenever Chuuya talks about something he’s passionate about, his face lights up indiscreetly, eyes sparkling, his hair redder than usual.

Dazai always takes a picture of him when he’s like that.

And then, once the photograph is printed, the brunette shields it from the sun with his hand and thigh and waits for the photograph to appear.

Chuuya notices the picture.

He only rolls his eyes at Dazai. Doesn’t punch him, or scold him, mainly because he’s used to having his pictures taken out of the blue. The same way he’s used to Dazai’s insults to do with his height, so he usually lets his annoying nicknames slide.

But the pictures Dazai takes of him...

Well, they infuriatingly end up being the prettiest pictures Chuuya’s ever seen.

And they both know, that when they go to Chuuya’s garage together again, that very picture is probably going to end up in the Polaroid Photo Box in the corner.

Or, if it’s pretty enough, it might even get the privilege of being hung up somewhere on one of the tightly cramped walls.

Chapter Text

“You ready?” Dazai asks.

Chuuya rolls his eyes and dons his black mask, eyeing the smirk on the brunet’s lips before it gets hidden behind his very own black mask. “You ask me this each time,” he says, his voice a little muffled behind the fabric. “Just shut the fuck up, and let’s do this.”

“Maybe your step-mummy’s right,” Dazai continues, and even though Chuuya can’t see his mouth, he just knows that he’s grinning. “I’m a bad influence on you.”

The redhead glares at him. “Yeah, no shit. I never used to steal before you brought it up.”

Dazai snickers. “I know,” he states simply. He turns to the shop, its lights on due to the sun having been set half an hour ago, the front doors of the new business shut. “C’mon then, my little partner in crime.”

“Shut up,” Chuuya sighs, and then his eyes fall to the scrunched-up plastic bag that Dazai pulls out of his pocket. “Oi—what the fuck? That’s chea—”

But all Dazai does is grin at him, before he runs off into the shop.

Chuuya is left dumbfounded on the spot for a second.

But then the next second, his blood is firing up, and he can’t help but smirk.

What a fucking cheat.

Chuuya sprints into the shop after Dazai. Unsurprisingly, the brunet’s already caused chaos, items scattered across the floor, the cashiers and employees in a blizzard, unsure of what to do when someone is running around and stealing from them very obviously.

One yells, “Stop in your tracks! Stop right now!” and another shouts, “We’re calling the police!”

Their chaos works in Chuuya’s favour, because he manages to slip through aisles easily whilst they chase after Dazai, and quickly stuffs as much junk as he can see into his pockets and arms, a grin on his face, the feeling of pure thrill running through his veins as usual. The adrenaline always makes the entire situation a hundred times better.

A cashier that’s skidding around after Dazai suddenly stops at Chuuya’s aisle, and gapes at the boy who has an entire stack of snacks in his hands in the shape of a mountain. “Guys!” the man yells, lifting an arm to point at the redhead. “There’s another kid here! Another one!”

“Oh, you’ve got to be fucking kidding me!” someone else yells.

Chuuya can’t help but chuckle under his breath.

It’s probably due time to abort the mission now.

He quickly twists on the balls of his feet and starts running away as fast as he can, grabbing a few more things he can see on the way, the man sprinting on his tail as he swerves around the aisles and heads towards the front double doors.

With the way that the employees are running out of the shop,

It must mean that Dazai has just ran out, too.

“Kid!” the man on Chuuya’s tail yells. “Stop! There’ll be consequences to your actions! We know who you are—you're the two kids who run around stealing from supermarkets around Yokohama, aren’t you?”

Chuuya grins.

As he passes by a trolley, he quickly slides it behind him to slow the man down and then bolts out of the front doors that open automatically for him.

And then he’s into the night.

Chuuya runs and runs. Even after he turns the corner and the supermarket employees tire out far behind him, he carries on sprinting, because he’s gathered up incredible stamina after having been doing this for so long.

He lets out a small laugh into still air.

About half a mile away from the shop, he slows down, slows into a walk, panting and heaving. He must have dropped about a couple dozen things on his run, but…

This feeling, this adrenaline, this large, goofy grin—

It makes it worth it, even if he loses.

Which he definitely hasn’t, because Dazai cheated.

Chuuya starts walking home. He doesn’t understand why Dazai felt the need to cheat. It’s not his first time cheating, but Chuuya’s never understood why he does that, since their abilities seem to even each other out, so it’s a fifty-fifty chance that one of them gets to win. And when he cheats, well—

Chuuya won’t ever let him take a win.

So cheating is a guaranteed loss.

What a shame.

Chuuya stuffs as many things as he can into his pockets and cargo pants, and then he pulls out his phone to quickly ring Dazai, because there’s no way he’ll be able to text when his arms are this full.

Dazai picks up on the sixth ring—as perfectly infuriating as always.

“Is there something you want, Hatrack?” he asks. Chuuya grins at the sound of his breathless voice—his stamina isn’t as prominent as the redhead’s.

“Where are you?” Chuuya asks.

Dazai waits a second, and then yawns, loudly and for a long time, which makes Chuuya groan with frustration. “I’m almost at yours,” he states. “Where are you?”

Chuuya sighs. “I went the opposite way, so I’m a mile or something away. You gotta wait on me, asshole.”

“Wouldn’t be my first time, slug.”

“Don’t use that tone on me!” Chuuya yells.

“So, what tone do you want me to use?” Dazai asks curiously. The next time he speaks, it’s soft and gentle, almost a whisper, and it feels more like a touch than a tone. “This one?”

Chuuya feels his heart skip the smallest of beats, and he pauses for a second, waiting for the unwelcome feeling to leave before he picks up his pace again. “No—you sound like a fucking child when you speak like that.”

He doesn’t.

He sounds more like what Chuuya would expect someone to sound after they spend a passionate time in bed with their one true love.

“Is that so?” Dazai asks, even though he doesn’t sound like he believes him at all. “It’s more like the tone I’d use after sex.”

Chuuya clenches his jaw. “A lot of bold talk coming from a virgin,” he retorts mockingly.

He hears a soft laugh on the other end, and Chuuya’s eyes widen just the tiniest bit, because... Dazai never laughs like that. At least, he hasn’t been laughing like that. Not for a while. “I’d have been laid five times already if you weren’t such a hindrance to my sex life,” Dazai says.

Chuuya watches the pavement in front of him for a few seconds.

He kicks at a rock, and then sighs.

“Shitty Dazai,” he mumbles. “I’m gonna ask you a question.”

The redhead’s heart speeds up, and then he hears Dazai stop breathing for a few seconds on the other line, before he asks, “What do you want?”

Chuuya sighs again.

“If I genuinely ever like a girl—like, genuinely…” he starts, his voice not snappy than usual, eyes downcast to the floor in front of him. When a laces packet falls to the floor with a gentle rustle, he doesn’t bother to stop and pick it up. “What would you do?”

Dazai doesn’t respond.

He just hangs up.

Chuuya blinks.

And then grins.

“Well,” he says, his voice bright and a bit animalistic as he turns to look at the brown-haired boy next to him. “I think it’s pretty obvious I won.”

Dazai’s frown isn’t something he tries to hide. He stares at his stash of junk food, which is significantly less than Chuuya’s mountain, and sighs exasperatedly. “No! Let’s count,” he exclaims as he jumps down onto his butt and starts counting the number of items in his stash.

The redhead rolls his eyes. “Don’t be a sore loser, mackerel,” he says, squatting down. “I won. You know I did. Give me my prize.”

Dazai stops counting to turn and glare at Chuuya. “It’s not fair~!” he drawls out irritably. “You’re so short that the cashiers didn’t even see you. Obviously you’d get away easily whilst I had to drop some things to make him trip.”

Chuuya stares at him, unamused. “Sounds really interesting—now give me my damn prize.”

“You’re no fun!”

“Oh, so I’m no fun ’cause I won?”

“You’re a cheat!”

“Dazai, you had a fucking plastic bag to fill up and you still lost! You’re a failed cheat. It’s an embarrassment.”

“Don’t call me an embarrassment!”

“Give me my fucking prize!”

“Oh, for God’s sake,” Dazai grumbles. Without wasting another second, he grabs the hem of the precious, beautiful teal hoodie he’s wearing and pulls it off his head, throwing it at Chuuya’s feet. “Take your stupid prize.”

Chuuya pauses,

and then he can’t help but smile.

Finally.

He picks up the hoodie at his feet and, without even taking off the shirt he’s wearing, and without doing anything, really, he puts his head into the hoodie, slips his arms through the sleeves, and watches as it falls down around him, all warm and big and comfortable.

It’s a bit too big, considering how much taller and bigger Dazai is than him. But that just makes it better.

And then he lets out a satisfied sigh.

“Yay,” Chuuya mumbles quietly, collapsing onto one of the beanbags in the garage.

Dazai rolls his eyes. He doesn’t know why exactly he thought it would be a good idea to not wear a shirt under the hoodie. Probably because he didn’t expect Chuuya to win, and it would have been funny to rub it in his face if he’d won that he didn’t even wear a shirt because he was so confident he’d win. But now it’s just embarrassing, if anything.

“You’ve robbed all of my hoodies,” Dazai states, standing up and walking towards the little redhead on the beanbag, picking up a random sweets packet on his way.

And when Chuuya looks up at him, with his eyes glowing, and a cheeky smile on his lips, Dazai’s breath gets caught in his throat for a good five seconds. “Well, buy more,” the redhead orders. “Because I’ll be stealin’ lots more from you. They’re mementos of all my wins against your sorry ass.”

Dazai scoffs. “Sorry ass,” he repeats bitterly, still a bit irked over the loss as he sits down next to Chuuya.

There are three more beanbags in the room.

Chuuya doesn’t understand why he came to the one he’s very obviously occupying.

“Chuuya,” Dazai says, turning to look at the redhead. “Scoot over a little.”

Chuuya blinks. “Why?”

“Let’s watch the stars together.”

“I’m the one that won, so you don’t get to—”

“Please?”

Chuuya pauses. Then, since he’s in a good mood because he won and he has Dazai’s hoodie, he scoots over, and Dazai settles down on his back next to him, their shoulders pressed up against each other.

“This is way too small for both of us,” Chuuya mumbles, a bit hyperaware that Dazai is literally shirtless next to him. It’s not his first time seeing him shirtless—just his first time being in contact with him shirtless for years. He’s seen him shirtless many times, because they’re more comfortable around each other than they’d ever admit, and he’s even seen him without his ugly bandages.

Not that it was a pretty sight.

Not that it’s something he wants to remember.

Dazai nods in agreement. “Yeah—half of my body isn’t even on it.”

“Yeah, ‘cause you’re so fucking big,” Chuuya snaps, but he scoots over a little more anyway, and then even more, and then he just decides to resolve the situation by lying down on his right arm.

That’s not a good idea, entirely—because now he can see Dazai’s face, and they’re so fucking close, and he feels his entire body warming up, and he’s sweating a little, too, and he should probably take off the hoodie.

But he won’t.

He’d rather wear the hoodie and die by heatstroke than take it off.

“Here,” the brunet says, offering the sweets packet to Chuuya whilst he gazes out of the skylight on the ceiling.

The redhead sighs and takes it, pulling the packet open and then picking one of sweets. He plops it into his mouth, and rests his hand on Dazai’s stomach, so that he can take some too, if he wants. He glances out of the skylight. The sky is as bare as a baby’s butt.

“You won’t be able to see any stars,” Chuuya states, turning to look at Dazai’s face. “Light pollution still exists.”

Dazai shrugs. “Doesn’t matter.”

The two of them don’t say anything for a few minutes. Dazai takes only one sweet, and then doesn’t take another, and they just look outside of the skylight, even though the sky is just black and dark and has no stars. They can’t even see the moon out of the skylight.

After a few moments, Chuuya feels Dazai shift under his hand, and then realises that he’s just reaching into his pocket to pull something out.

And what Dazai pulls out,

Is the picture of Chuuya he’d taken earlier in the day.

He lifts it upwards, blocking the view of the skylight with it, and the two of them just watch it for a moment.

Chuuya blinks. He looks... nice. Half of Atsushi’s face is in the shot in the left, and the school building can be seen in the distance. The focus of the picture is, of course, the redhead, with the smile on his face, his lips opened mid-talk, his cheeks a bit rosy and his hair dotted with the bright light that filtered through the leaves. You can even see a handful of his subtle freckles that are hard to notice unless light is shone on them or you’re close enough to see them.

It’s a pretty picture, as always.

“Couldn’t see any stars, but we got to see a short, obnoxious slug,” Dazai mumbles into the comfortable silence of the room.

Chuuya scoffs and slaps Dazai’s stomach—not his chest like he usually would, because the wounds there might still hurt him, even though they’ve long since been healed and he knows it. “Shut your mouth,” he mutters, his voice less venomous than it is when they’re around others. “What are you gonna do with it?”

Dazai blinks. He tilts it a bit, in all directions. Contemplating. When Chuuya looks away from the picture to glance at the brunet’s face, there’s the softest of smiles on his lips; his chest warms up a fraction at the sight of it.

“I’m putting it on the wall,” Dazai answers after a bit.

Chuuya raises his eyebrows. “You think it’s good enough for that?”

“They’re all good,” Dazai replies, not hesitating for even a second. “Some are just better than others. I’d hang up all the ones in the box if I could. Oh—what do you think about getting washing lines? We could hang some on them.”

“This isn’t a goddamn laundry room.”

“But I have some that I wanna hang up!” Dazai argues, frowning exaggeratedly.

Chuuya scoffs and rolls his eyes. “We’re not getting washing lines,” he snaps. “It’s creepy enough as it is to walk in here and see my face everywhere on the walls.”

“Some of them are of me!”

“Eighty percent of them are me!” Chuuya retorts, glaring at him. “And then ten percent is just you, and the other ten is landscapes.”

“You’re no fun,” Dazai mumbles.

The redhead shoves the boy a little and then rolls off the beanbag. He heads towards Dazai’s school bag, tugs the zip open, and pulls out his camera. It’s not his first time using it. He’s used it several times, and sometimes he’s actually captured pretty gratifying pictures, but he’s nowhere near as skilled with it as Dazai is.

Chuuya turns around to face Dazai, who’s watching him curiously.

“Dazai,” Chuuya says, walking forward a little. “You’re ugly as fuck.”

The brunet scoffs and rolls his eyes. “That’s definitely not what everyone else sa—”

Click.

Chuuya smiles a little.

When the photo is printed, he switches off the light for a few moments, waiting patiently for the image to appear.

It’s funny. Every single photo they’ve ever taken of each other has been spontaneous. No posing, no forced smiles or wearing nice, classy clothes.

They both know it.

It’s when they have a natural, relaxed look on their faces,

That they look the best.

Natural expressions. Be that angry, or happy, or passionate, or determined. It’s those everyday mundane looks that get out the prettiest, most realistic results. Posing is unnatural. Forcing a smile is tense and weird.

And when the photo is printed and he switches the light back on, Chuuya can’t help but smile a little bit.

Dazai has one of his annoyed, insulted looks on because of what Chuuya had said.

The redhead knows that the brunet is good looking. He’d never admit it to his face, though, because there’s no need to add to his ever-growing ego. He has the sharpest jawline, the gentlest lips, the prettiest nose. And his eyes—all brown and shiny and deep, as if they’re latching onto you with claws and won’t ever let go.

Chuuya immediately walks over to the table in the corner of the garage and pulls out a bit of blue tack, attaching it to the back and then hanging it up on the wall. The lack of space on the wall means that the photos are starting to overlap now, but that doesn’t matter, because they still look nice. And they’ve both practically memorised what all the pictures look like.

“That’s a shit photo,” Dazai states, sitting up on the beanbag. “The angle is as ugly as your fashion sense.”

Chuuya whips around at lightning-fast speed. “The hell is that supposed to mean, you social misfit?” he retaliates, picking up a cushion and throwing it at him harshly. “My fashion sense is better than anything you’ve ever worn, asshole!”

Dazai catches the cushion before it hits his face and then smirks. “We both know that’s a lie, Chuuya~,” he states, standing up from the beanbag.

“It is not,” the redhead snaps whilst the brunet approaches the table he’s stood next to.

Dazai snickers and pulls out some blue tack, too, before attaching it to the back of the picture of Chuuya. “This coming from the boy that steals my hoodies all the time like a lovesick girl?” he asks, his voice purely teasing as he attaches the picture to the closest somewhat bare-looking area he finds.

Chuuya’s eyes widen a little.

Some blood rushes to his neck, so he quickly tightens the strings of the hoodie to hide his neck, clenching his jaw to get rid of the warmth. It’s almost summer. He doesn’t need any more warmth.

“Lovesick girl?” Chuuya repeats, feeling almost nauseous from distaste. “Don’t make me laugh. I’m not one of those girls that cling to you. Hell, I’m not even a girl. I only take ‘em ‘cause they’re comfortable.”

When Dazai turns to face him again, his eyebrow is raised, and a small smirk plays at his lips. “I’m sure you can buy hoodies that size by yourself online,” he states simply.

Chuuya is stunned at that, because—

Well, he’s not wrong.

Chuuya could.

But something about putting a hoodie in his basket and then buying it without Dazai ever having worn it first, just...

Seems unsatisfying.

And they’d never smell like Dazai’s hoodies. They’d smell new, and fresh, and foreign. They wouldn’t smell like the teal hoodie smells. Nothing would ever smell like this.

“Maybe I just like taking things from you,” Chuuya responds when he realises he’s been silent a beat too long.

Dazai snickers. “That’s a good excuse,” he says, heading towards the beanbag again.

Chuuya pauses. And then gapes. “It’s not an excuse, you bastard!”

“Mhm,” Dazai agrees, but his tone is clearly disbelieving, and Chuuya is just about to bite back at him when he speaks up again. “When do you have to sleep?”

The redhead sighs and walks forward just as Dazai collapses down on the beanbag again. “I don’t know—like an hour or something?”

“Okay. C’mon, let’s watch something.”

Chuuya shrugs, because he doesn’t have anything better to do. As he walks past Dazai’s pile of junk, he picks up one of the spicy crisps, and then pulls it open, sitting down on a different beanbag to the brunet.

Whilst Dazai puts on some random show that neither of them has ever heard of, he says, “I’d rip you away from her.”

Chuuya chokes indiscreetly on the crisp in his throat, and then quickly gulps it down.

“What the hell did you just say?” he asks confusedly.

Dazai turns to glance at him. Chuuya isn’t used to a look like that. No smirk, no smile, no cheeky grin. No glint to his eyes. Such a straight face, all poker-like, the same way he’d been at his brother’s funeral.

“If you ever met a girl that you actually liked,” Dazai responds, and Chuuya’s eyes narrow, thinking back to the question he’d asked almost an hour ago that Dazai had ignored very blatantly. “I’d rip you away from her.”

Chuuya’s jaw slackens. At first he’s full of surprise and disbelief, but anger isn’t far behind.

“That’s not fair at all,” he says.

Dazai waits a beat, and then turns back to the TV, pressing start. “I don’t care,” he responds.

They watch two episodes.

Chuuya doesn’t register much of what’s going on. He spends the fifty minutes side-glancing at the brunet, wondering what he deserved to have met someone as crazy as him.

Chuuya gets back home a little later than an hour.

(A little later = two hours)

Mainly because Dazai decided it would be a fun idea to put sweets into Chuuya’s open mouth when he had dozed off, and then when he awoke not long later because he felt something sugary in his mouth, he choked on the sweets for a good minute. It was a bit funny to see Dazai’s slightly panicked face and feel his spindly hand smacking against his back, but obviously Chuuya won’t let him get away with it.

He’ll have to plan something for tomorrow.

Maybe he could pull their everyday cliché spill-something-over-their-head-when-they-walk-into-the-room prank? It’s their safest and most common prank. Both of them have learnt to pack an extra set of school clothes in their backpacks, because neither can ever tell when the other is going to tip water or lemonade or powder or milk down on them in the middle of the day. It’s rather inconvenient, really.

Sometimes their pranks get a little bit imaginative, like when Dazai tied a zip tie around a perfume’s spray activator, which he threw into Chuuya’s room and then laughed each time Chuuya complained that his room had a particularly pungent smell of roses in it. So strong that even when he opened his windows, it barely halved, and he spent three days sleeping on the sofa in his living room to avoid lung damage, cooking up a way to get back at the brunet. Some days he swears that he can still smell it on the walls.

Chuuya once also brought a Pringles packet, gently rinsed them under the water (enough for the flavour to vanish but not enough to make it go completely soggy and fall apart) and then waited for them to completely dry (which took a few days) before he went and offered them to Dazai. Of course, when Dazai ate them, they were stale, lacked flavour, and probably tasted a bit like how you would expect sand to taste like. He was disgusted. Chuuya quickly took advantage of his fallen open mouth and stuffed as many Pringles as he could into it, which Dazai spat onto him, and then Chuuya wrestled him to the floor and napped on his chest.

Dazai got him back for the food prank, of course, with doughnuts filled with mayonnaise.

So, yeah—

When they’re up to the task, they can get a little creative.

But usually, Chuuya doesn’t have the brainpower to think up of something they haven’t already used in the past twelve years that they’ve known each other, and Dazai is too lazy to bother with anything that requires a trip to the store. So the imaginative ones aren’t very common. But when they do happen, it always makes Chuuya cackle his head off (at least when he’s not on the receiving end).

Chuuya sighs.

As he spits the toothpaste out into the sink, he tries to think of something.

A food prank? It probably won’t work, especially if they’re around other people, because they’re usually a bit hyperaware of how the other person could have messed with the food. And they both prefer to prank each other where others can see it (it adds to the humiliation) so Dazai would most probably be on his guard.

So, maybe he should go with the spilling prank.

But with what? Water is too easy, but anything else requires too much money. Maybe he could steal the flour in the kitchen, mix it with water, and create a nice, little sludge to throw onto Dazai.

Yeah.

That could work.

“You’re home late.”

Chuuya jumps a little. He turns his head to see his step-mother leant against the doorframe, her eyes as bored and heavy as ever, arms crossed over her chest. She’s dressed in a night robe. Her pink-red hair has been tied up into a messy bun. With those straight lips and unimpressed expression, Chuuya knows he’s in some trouble.

“I was in the garage,” he answers, turning to the sink to rinse off his toothbrush and his mouth. “That’s basically just home. It’s in our drive—”

“It’s not home. Home is here, with your family.”

Chuuya lets out a slightly exasperated sigh and places his toothbrush into the cup before turning around to face the woman. “And what would I do here?” he asks curiously. “I’d just be sitting in my room, dad would be cooking, and you’d be at work. Doesn’t sound much more productive than what I do in there.”

Kouyou raises an inquisitive eyebrow. “And what do you do in there, Chuuya?”

Chuuya rolls his eyes. “Me and Dazai just... I don’t know, we just watch TV or something.”

“Or something?” she prompts.

“Okay, we just sit there. Is that good enough for you?”

“Is that any way to speak to me?”

Chuuya gapes a little with disbelief, and then closes his mouth and shakes his head. “No, I’m sorry,” he mumbles, sighing a little. “But, seriously. It’s not a big deal.”

Kouyou watches Chuuya.

And then blinks.

“I just want the best for you, buddy,” she mumbles. When she leans forward and takes Chuuya’s hand, he doesn’t slither away from her like he usually does, because something about her face tells him that he might receive one of her painful manicured slaps if he tries to push her buttons a second longer. “That boy is bad news. He’s awfully charming, though! Come on, you should sleep. It’s a school night.”

“Mhm,” Chuuya mutters.

Kouyou nods and lets go of his hand. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” she says. With one of her signature perfect smiles, she twists on the heels of her feet, and walks off to her room.

A separate one from the one she used to share with Chuuya’s father Kansuke.

Things haven’t really been the same since a year ago, after all.

The sludge is surprisingly heavy.

There’s no way Chuuya would be able to carry an entire bucket of it, so instead he’s just brought it in a little jug, which is fine, because it’ll do the job, especially with the extra water that’s been mixed into it, making it sluggish and runny and disgusting.

It’s a bit tedious and tiring to stand at the balcony on top of the cafeteria door, jug in hand, waiting for the brunet. Everyone that can see him just turns away and minds their own business—the ordeal is between Dazai and Chuuya, after all, and they know better than to get involved or stare too long. This waiting and pranking and tormenting has become normalised for most of the high schoolers in the school.

And if it isn’t normalised for some of them, then it eventually will be.

It’s inevitable.

“Chuuya-san!”

Chuuya snaps his head down to glance at Atsushi, who waves at him with a kind smile, eyes bright and wide. “What are you doing up there?” he asks.

Chuuya blinks. “I’m getting back at Dazai for something. Now stop waving at me! You’ll give me away.”

Atsushi looks down at the jug in Chuuya’s hands, and then his eyes widen a little, mouth falling open. “Are you going to drop that on him?” he exclaims.

The redhead raises his eyebrows. “Uh-huh,” he responds.

The boy is still a bit wide-eyed and gobsmacked. “B-But that’s not nice, and... and he’ll be... and the teachers, they—”

“They’re used to it,” Chuuya snaps, leaning over the balcony a little. “Now get lost! You’ll give me away!”

Atsushi’s eyes widen further.

He opens his mouth again, probably to carry on talking and hope that something he says will make Chuuya a bit more responsible.

But then the double doors beneath Chuuya open,

And a familiar mop of brown hair can be seen.

Of course, Chuuya confirms that it’s Dazai first—there’s been one too many incidents where he mistook some other scrawny brunet as Dazai, but when he notices the bandages wrapped around his arms, Chuuya grins and tips over the jug easily, and half the people in the room snap their head over for a quick glance.

Everyone’s entranced for a minute as the beige sluggish mixture falls.

Dazai looks up in the split second before it reaches him.

Chuuya looks up too, each time he himself walks into the cafeteria—it’s their most popular place to pull pranks, after all, so they have trust issues with it.

But him looking up works in Chuuya’s favour, because it falls on his face with a smack—

And Chuuya bursts out laughing.

Half of the mixture falls to the floor wastefully, but the other half remains on Dazai’s face and the front of his clothes.

At least it’s better than the time when Chuuya tried to drench him in honey, and it all spilled on the floor, missing Dazai completely. That was embarrassing as fuck. And then the dinner ladies made Chuuya clean up all the honey from the floor after school was over—and Dazai obviously sat on one of the cafeteria seats, watching the redhead scrub, and laughed in his face every now and then.

And then when Dazai asked for water, Chuuya obviously got him it.

Because he’s such a kind-hearted person.

(Definitely didn’t just rinse his dirty rag into the glass and then watch Dazai almost puke when he took a sip of it.)

“Take that, asshole!” Chuuya yells down at Dazai, who’s been frozen in spot.

One of the teachers stares at the scene and then gapes up at the redhead. “Nakahara-kun!” he yells. “That’s your responsibility to clean now!”

It’s funny how not even the teachers bother interfering in the two’s… business? Rivalry? Whatever you wanna call it.

Chuuya laughs again and then drops the plastic jug down too, but it misses Dazai, and just plops against the floor, rolling away.

Dazai raises a hand and picks off as much of the mixture as he can off his face—

And his expression.

It’s beautiful.

Angry, so fucking angry, with his eyebrows pulled in, and his eyes deadly and dark.

It’s the best thing Chuuya will see all month.

“Chuuya, you better fucking run!” Dazai announces loudly.

And when Dazai throws his bag on the floor to get rid of the weight, and starts sprinting full speed, Chuuya can’t help but rumble with loud laughter, his heartbeat rising and adrenaline thumping as he twists on his heels and bolts away.

They both know their way perfectly around the school, because, well… it’s not their first time chasing each other through the hallways. It’s usually Chuuya doing the chasing, but if Dazai gets pissed off enough—

Then he’s pretty much unstoppable.

“Nakahara-kun!” a teacher yells as the redhead bolts past, barely a blur from how fast he’s running from Dazai, who’s catching up bit by bit, because he can go faster than anyone when he tries.

“Sorry, Tanaka sensei!” Chuuya yells behind. “I’ll do my homework for tomorrow!”

He won’t, obviously.

But at least Mr. Tanaka won’t try and chase after him too.

Chuuya sprints down the hallway, almost bumping into a wide-eyed, innocent-faced first year, and then almost into another teacher, who also yells at him, and then he skids across the corner and practically trips over thin air.

Luckily, he manages to regain balance before he face-plants, and then he’s off again.

He can’t stop grinning.

He never can, when he’s doing something like this.

In simple terms, Chuuya is probably what they call an adrenaline junkie.

“Chuuya!” Dazai yells, and God, he’s closer than the redhead had thought. “You fucking—do you think this is funny?”

Chuuya makes an entire show of laughing villainously, throwing his head back a little as he sprints away. “It’s the funniest thing I’ve ever seen!” he replies in a breathless yell.

That’s probably a bit of a stretch, but right now, with his wide smile, and pumping heart, and running adrenaline, it really does feeling like the funniest thing he’s ever seen. At least in the moment.

“You ruined my fucking hair!” Dazai yells.

Chuuya just laughs more at that.

Not just because he ruined his oh-so-precious hair, but because Dazai doesn’t really swear this much in such a short span of time, so he must be pissed pissed. Which is just wonderful, of course.

“You’re welcome!” Chuuya yells.

And then, Chuuya makes the most rookie mistake that he could—

He sprints into the boy’s toilet.

The toilet is the worst place to go if you’re being chased unless there’s a window of escape (literally). And there definitely won’t be, because they’re currently on the first floor. If you’re in the toilet with someone chasing you, you’re surely going to get caught, even if you lock yourself in a cubicle. Because you have to get out of the cubicle eventually, and when you’re dealing with someone as crazy as Dazai, they’re sure to wait patiently for you.

And then you’ll be caught.

As soon as this thought registers in Chuuya’s brain, he quickly turns and tries to run out of the toilet while he can, but Dazai is right there in the doorway, so he twists and tries to run deeper into the toilet instead.

And he tries to head for a cubicle, because at least that’ll allow him some time to plan through the ordeal or maybe get Dazai off his guard.

But Dazai has long legs, and he’s fast, so he can easily cut off the single metre distance left between the two of them.

And then he naturally wraps his arms around Chuuya from behind, effectively trapping him, his arms forced against his sides, his body unable to move.

“Let go!” Chuuya yells. When he tries to kick Dazai, the man effortlessly avoids it, because he’s completely honed to the way Chuuya attacks after having known him for so long.

“Is choking on a sweet really worthy of being dumped on by soggy dough?” Dazai asks incredulously, tightening the hold he has on the redhead.

Chuuya scoffs and rolls his eyes. “Please—what about the time when I only waxed one stupid eyebrow of yours and you decided to spread a rumour about me that I’m sexually into puppies?”

“Those even each other out!” Dazai yells.

“No, they really don’t!” Chuuya snaps back.

The brunette groans and tugs the boy in his arms in front of a mirror.

Chuuya’s eyes immediately land onto Dazai’s reflection, and he is a bit embarrassed—as always—that he only reaches to his chest, but at least that lets Chuuya see his face completely clearly.

And then he snickers at the dough in his hair.

“What do you think you’re laughing at?” Dazai growls, bending down a little, until his chin rests on top of Chuuya’s hair. “Look at my eyebrow. It still hasn’t grown back completely. Do you see the shit you do to me? I go so mediocre on you, and you ruin my life as best you can.”

Chuuya snickers again, this time more because he can’t believe what the idiot is saying. “You go mediocre on me?” he repeats curiously, before tilting his head to the side to look at Dazai in real life; and the brunet looks back down, his eyes still a little dark, cheeks the tiniest bit flushed. “What a fucking joke. How about you do one of your more extreme ones next time then, if you’re really holding back?”

He says it as a challenge, because he knows that Dazai doesn’t like to back down from a challenge.

“Are you sure about that?” Dazai asks, leaning down a little. “Even if it puts your life in danger?”

The theatrics make Chuuya scoff, but he finds himself unable to break eye contact. “You might hate me, Dazai,” he starts, smiling minutely, “but you wouldn’t endanger me.”

Dazai doesn’t say anything.

He leans further down, bites Chuuya’s nose a bit painfully, and then lets go of him.

And Chuuya would come to find out, in less than a week…

Just how wrong he was.

Chapter Text

On the day that it happens, the morning starts off pretty much the same as every other day.

Chuuya wakes up, takes a breakfast bar, and tries to slip out of the house without having to interact with either of his parents. Not because he hates them. He loves them, actually, but having to communicate with them first thing in the morning tends to drain Chuuya’s energy for the entire day, so he always tries to leave as soon as he can.

And then he goes to Dazai’s house to blow his horns and wake up the entire street.

And then they walk to school together, a few minutes late as usual.

Chuuya’s obviously a bit on his toes because he had challenged Dazai, which means the brunet is definitely going to do something, and it’s already been six days. So either he’s been too lazy to think of anything, or the prank is taking a while to lay out and he needs everything to be perfect.

Chuuya seriously doubts the latter option. It doesn’t sound like Dazai at all. If Dazai does any planning, it’s always the night before, and not for six days straight.

The boy is lazier than Chuuya’s father.

“Summer break’s in two days,” Akutagawa states at break time. He looks as grumpy as always, his lips pulled down a little, eyelids relaxed to make him look like he’d rather be anywhere else.

“Yep,” Yosano says, a contemplative look on her face. “I think we can try and meet up at least once a week. All of us, okay? We can even go to the beach.”

Atsushi’s eyes widen, his face lighting up. “The beach?” he repeats. “I’ve never been to a beach. I wanna see the ocean.”

“We’re going to have lots of work to do,” Kunikida states, pushing his glasses back up his nose. “If you guys try to slack off and procrastinate, I’ll show up at your houses with ten textbooks and a gun.”

“Roleplaying kink?” Yosano asks the boy.

Kunikida’s cheeks turn pink. “No! That’s—I meant to study,” he grumbles with a roll of his eyes. “Only Dazai out of the lot of you gets good grades.”

“Oi!” Chuuya snaps, picking up a stick and throwing it at the blond boy. He probably would have lunged at him, maybe shook him by his collar, but a certain brunet has his head in his lap, so he can’t exactly get up. “I get better grades than that dickhead.”

Dazai scoffs into Chuuya’s knee. His eyes are closed, but he’s not sleeping. “Better grades, my ass. You almost failed Social Studies in the mid-terms.”

“‘Almost’ being the key term,” Chuuya responds, grabbing a fistful of Dazai’s brown hair and tugging hard enough to hurt his scalp, earning him a small wince. “I got an eighty-two in Japanese literature.”

“Oh, yeah? I got a hundred. And I also got seventh place in all of Japan. You gonna carry on arguing, loser?” Dazai asks. He cracks his left eye open just for the purpose of seeing the redhead’s annoyed face, and then smirks a little, letting it fall shut again.

“Well—” Chuuya grumbles, a little bummed out. “I could get better if—”

“If you wanted to?” Dazai finishes with a short snort. “I definitely haven’t heard that one before.”

“Stop being sarcastic!”

“Stop being delusional!”

“I can do anything better than you!”

“You’re literally a foot shorter than me!”

“Not an entire foot, okay? And what does that prove?”

“It proves I’m better than you.”

“If you really were better than me, I’d have jumped off a building long ago.”

“Can I join you?”

“I’m not jumping off a fucking building, shithead!”

“But you just said you would.”

“If you were better.”

“I am.”

“You’re really not.”

“Shut up,” Kunikida grumbles with a roll of his eyes, pushing his glasses up his nose again. “You two are eating into my poor head.”

Atsushi smiles and tilts his head. “It would be so wonderful if you two got along,” he states a little too enthusiastically.

And then the poor boy receives glares from Chuuya, Dazai, and even Akutagawa, which makes him shrink away a little.

“Don’t glare at Atsushi,” Yosano snaps at the three of them. She grabs the boy’s arm and tugs him closer, almost as a small shelter. “Keep your dirty looks to yourselves, you assholes.”

Dazai sighs and closes his eyes again. “I’m sorry, Atsushi-kun,” he mumbles.

“It’s okay, Dazai-san. You don’t have to apologise.”

“Atsushi,” Yosano says, eyes twinkling with excitement but countenance still overall reserved. “You’ll come with me everywhere, right? This summer isn’t one to waste!”

Atsushi nods eagerly. “Of course, Yosano senpai! I have so much left that I want to see.”

“Drop the senpai!”

“Okay!”

Dazai’s ears drown out from the conversation. He screws his eyes shut, and the only thing he can hear anymore is Chuuya’s voice, blurring out somewhere above him, talking to Kunikida and Akutagawa about something. For a second, he hears the redhead’s stomach rumble very subtly, and wonders whether he had enough to eat for breakfast. He probably didn’t. But even though Chuuya’s a short, small boy, he actually has a hefty appetite, and generally always has room to eat something more. Dazai can use him as a dog to lick up his leftovers sometimes.

The brunet lets out a soft sigh and flops onto his back, the nape of his neck now on Chuuya’s thigh as he stares up at the redhead, who isn’t paying any attention to him because he’s busy talking about something to do with ramen and fish cakes.

Wanna know one of the many reasons that Dazai hates Chuuya?

He’s too compassionate.

He sometimes hides it well with his tough-going attitude, short temperament, and ruthless death glares. But he cares more than anyone else. He notices everything about everyone, whether they ate enough, whether they look happy, whether they’re being included, and then he fixes that problem as inconspicuously as he can. He makes sure it’s resolved before he moves onto the next person. And he’s always been like that. It’s one of his most infuriating habits, and Dazai utterly despises him for it.

What’s the need to be like that? It’s just going to get him trampled over by girls like Yuan. It’s going to get him used and bruised and broken.

Dazai blinks up at Chuuya’s face, which still hasn’t even glanced at him.

This is probably the ugliest angle that you can look at someone from. With their neck and chin on full show, and you can practically look up their nose, and notice pimples and scars and all that shit.

But Chuuya...

Where does he get the nerve to look ethereal in even this angle?

Jawline sharp enough to cut through lead, and his ugly, gothic black choker around his neck, and his sloped nose, and his gentle lips, and his fluttering, bold ginger eyelashes.

Dazai blinks again.

And sighs again.

He puts a hand palm-down against his own chest, and scrunches up the polo shirt into a fist, irritated.

And then Chuuya looks down at him, and…

The wind blows, gently, making some of his red fringes crash into his face, which he tucks behind his ear with those perfect fingers of his.

For a moment, the scene feels frozen in time. In slo-motion.

Which, in turn, makes Dazai’s eyes widen the tiniest bit. “Chuuya...” he breathes, his heart skipping the smallest of beats.

Chuuya scowls down at him, but his eyes are warm. “What?” 

And Dazai evidently can’t do anything. He can’t speak, and he can’t touch, and he can’t look for too long. So, he ends up using the best alternative, as always;

He lifts his camera, and quickly snaps a photo before Chuuya can look away.

The door is probably the creakiest shit any of them have ever heard.

“Are you sure we’re allowed here?” Atsushi asks, his voice a tiny whisper, clearly afraid of being caught.

Akutagawa scoffs and rolls his eyes. “Of course we’re allowed,” he responds, his voice the snappiest it can be whilst remaining close to monotone. “People just don’t come here.”

“Because it’s not allowed,” Yosano states, which earns her a whimper of fear from Atsushi.

“It is,” Akutagawa insists. “I saw some third-years here just a week ago and nothing happened to them. It’s allowed. So, chill. It’s better than that overcrowded field.” (Definitely not defending the place because it was Dazai who advised that they should come here.)

“Not really,” Kunikida interjects as Dazai pushes the door further open. “The field is low on the ground and we have shade there. This is a roof, so the sun is literally going to be on us, and there’s no shade.”

“Just live with it!” Akutagawa snaps.

Meanwhile, Chuuya shoves lightly (albeit impatiently) at Dazai’s back. “Hurry up,” he prods.

“I’m trying,” Dazai retorts back, pushing harsher against the heavy, stuck door. “You wouldn’t do any better, you midget. This door feels like it hasn’t been opened in a while.”

Atsushi pauses, confused. “But,” he says, turning to Akutagawa. “You said you saw some third-years a week—”

“I lied.”

“Oh, God!” Atsushi whimpers, crumbling a little into himself.

Dazai finally gets the door open with one more rough nudge, and then lets out a satisfied sigh, turning around to face the rest of them. “C’mon,” he says, stepping onto the roof of the school building.

Chuuya follows him onto the roof, and then everyone filters in after the redhead.

And the first thing they all notice is that Kunikida was right—it feels hotter, for whatever reason, and there doesn’t seem to be any shade at all on the roof. There’s a subtle wind, though, something that they don’t get much on the ground. In each corner of the roof, there are four clay flower pots, and two of them have flowers in them, which are dead and browned and wrinkly. The other two seem to be empty. There’s a fence encircling each side of the roof; that also seems to be old, and a bit unreliable, too. It seems to have been originally painted a green colour, but the green has been weathered away and a nasty brown mainly remains.

“This is disgusting,” Akutagawa mumbles, walking in deeper. He winces at the sight of the floor: bird shit, some mould (though luckily there isn’t too much) and a few dead leaves, probably from the plants in the pots. “I’m not sitting on the floor.”

Dazai rolls his eyes. “Just sit on your bags. It’s not that bad.” He finds a spot where there’s no bird shit and throws his bag onto it, before settling down on it with his butt.

Everyone seems to follow suit.

Chuuya, however, carries on staring at the fence whilst everyone sits down on their bags. He walks towards it with deliberate steps and smiles once he reaches the edge.

The redhead puts a hesitant hand on the fence. Some of the delicate green paint falls off at his gentle touch, crashing onto the floor and shattering into pieces. He grips the railing tightly, and then leans forward, looking down at the floor below him. It seems miles away. He can see some classmates coming out of the diners, and they look small enough that Chuuya could step on them. The cars, too, in the parking lot—they seem small, vulnerable. Everything just seems so… irrelevant.

He lets out a sigh.

It seems peaceful, despite the fact that he’s just one large jump away from death. He probably wouldn’t be able to jump this much though, since the fence reaches to his waist.

“Chuuya-san!”

Chuuya pauses and turns around, blinking blankly at Atsushi.

“Come on,” the boy says, pointing to the space next to him.

Chuuya blinks again.

He looks back at the scenery below him one last time, and then steps away from the edge, walking over to Atsushi.

“When’s Ranpo senpai coming back?”

Chuuya shrugs at Atsushi’s question and checks the date on his phone. “He woulda been coming back in less than a week if it wasn’t the summer holidays,” he replies, taking a bite out of his sandwich. “But now he’s gonna be coming back next term. What an idiot.”

Atsushi hums, thinking. “We should invite him with us,” he offers.

“Invite him to what?” the redhead asks confusedly.

“When we go out in the summer,” the boy says, smiling. “You’ll be coming too, right, Chuuya-san?”

Chuuya sighs and shrugs, tucking his phone away. “If I’m allowed, I’d jump at any opportunity,” he mumbles.

Just then, the bell rings. It seems a bit distant from the roof, almost as if it’s background noise, so nobody really notices it at first—apart from Atsushi.

“Oh! That’s the bell,” he says, springing to his feet. After a short moment, he looks over at Akutagawa, a little hesitant. “C’mon, Akutagawa, we’ve got a—”

Akutagawa glares at the boy. “Don’t talk to me,” he says.

Dazai looks over at the dark-haired boy with a stern expression. “Don’t be mean to Atsushi-kun,” he orders. “Listen to him.”

Akutagawa clenches his jaw for a moment, contemplating, and then sighs. He gets off his bag and swoops it off the floor, throwing it over his shoulders. “Whatever,” he grumbles, glancing at Atsushi, who’s still smiling at him, though this time it’s more passive aggressive and irritated. “We’re going to my locker first, okay? I’m not carrying around this heap of a bag all day.”

Atsushi rolls his eyes and nods. Once Akutagawa starts walking towards the open door, Atsushi follows after him, sending one last farewell to everyone before slipping out.

Kunikida lets out a sigh and gets onto his feet, too. “Dazai, Yosano, hurry up. We have a class together,” he says, turning around and walking away, too.

Yosano lets out a small sigh and jumps onto her feet from where she hadn’t even been sitting on a bag. Chuuya gets up, too, but he leaves his bag on the floor, and instead walks over to the edge again. Might as well get one last look—they probably won’t want to come back to the roof again, after all, because it really is a bit disgusting. And the view isn’t anything special, but Chuuya likes it. The height just shows you how fragile human life is. It makes his heart thump a little in his ribcage, and he likes that feeling. A subtle resemblance of how it feels when he’s being chased and is running away with adrenaline pumping through his veins.

“Dazai, you comin’?” Yosano asks from somewhere behind Chuuya.

Dazai takes a few seconds to respond. “Mhm,” he says. “Give me a sec, I’ll be right there.”

“Okay. See you, Chuuya.”

Chuuya glances back at the girl. “See ya, Yosano,” he says. And then, after one last smile, she’s gone too, through the open door, disappearing.

The redhead watches the ground below as kids walk around in a small crowd, trying to get in the building so that they can head to class. Chuuya recognises a few of them. The others are too hard to see properly or he just doesn’t know them.

“Is it really that interesting?”

Chuuya freezes, and then rolls his eyes, turning his head to glance at Dazai, who’s stood there with one hand in his pocket and the other clutching the bag strap on his shoulder. “Piss off,” he grumbles, turning back around to watch the floor. “Go with Yosano.”

Dazai shrugs with one shoulder and walks over to stand next to the redhead. “Your chibi arms won’t be able to reach that door handle by yourself,” he says.

“It’s a fucking door, Dazai, how hard could it be?”

“You’d be surprised.” Dazai glances at the ground below and then turns to watch Chuuya’s side profile. “Will you hurry up? You’re gonna get us both late.”

“No, I’m gonna get me late. I’m not forcing you to stay here.”

Dazai squints a little as Chuuya leans into the fence, settling half his weight onto it. He observes the redhead’s face, his scintillating eyes, his flying hair.

So, y’know, it’s only natural to pick up the camera around his neck, lift it, and take a quick photo of him.

Chuuya snaps his head around at the sound of the small click. “Seriously?” he asks, but there’s the smallest of smiles on his face. “That’s two in one day.”

Dazai scoffs and puts the photo into his backpack once it’s printed. “I used to take about ten a day back when we were, like, thirteen.”

“Yeah, before you became a perfectionist.”

“I’m not a perfectionist.”

“You totally are. You’re always crying about the lighting like a freak.”

Dazai chuckles a little, lips pulling up into a small grin. “That’s only because I like to get out the best in a picture.”

“Oh, wow,” Chuuya drawls with a roll of his eyes. “Sounds like a perfectly sugar-coated way of saying ‘perfectionist’.”

Dazai grins wider, eyes shining, and Chuuya can just tell that he’s about to say something insulting. “If I wanted perfection, then I’d take pictures of someone else,” he says.

And his tone is teasing. It’s a joke, most probably, intended to insult and get back at Chuuya for calling him a perfectionist. But for whatever reason, it does kind of hurt (enough to make his heart pang) and his smile falters the tiniest bit—it’s something that Dazai notices, but he has no idea how to… how to deal with it when he hurts Chuuya’s feelings. It’s not something very common, after all. He can get him annoyed easily, sure, and pissed too, and sometimes even smiling.

Genuinely hurting him is sometimes still a foreign concept. To both of them.

Chuuya blinks at him, his smile gone, and turns back to look at the ground. “Take pictures of someone else, then,” he responds bitterly.

And Dazai has no idea what to say. “Well… you’re the only one that doesn’t mind,” is probably not the best thing to say, but he still says it, because it’s just the most natural thing to say to him. It’s what Chuuya would expect to come out of his mouth.

The redhead bites on the insides of his cheeks, and then sighs, rolling his eyes. “I’ll start to mind, then.”

“But then I won’t have anyone.”

“Is that my problem?”

“Do you really want pictures of someone else on our walls?”

Chuuya doesn’t.

At all.

“I don’t care,” Chuuya mutters.

Dazai watches the side of his face.

Wanna know something else Dazai hates about Chuuya?

He can’t hide his emotions. Like, at all. He’s shit at it. If he’s happy, he’s not able to stop from grinning or smiling, and his entire face lights up. If he’s pissed, that’s more obvious than any other emotion. And even when he’s hurt, like right now, he can’t hide it for shit. His eyebrows pulled in, his lips in a frown, eyes downcast, tone bitter and defensive. It’s literally laid all on a silver platter for anyone to see.

It’s so stupid. Who can’t hide their emotions? It’s so moronic and vulnerable of him to be like that.

Anyone could take advantage of those annoying emotions and twist it to be in their benefit.

“I won’t be taking pictures of someone else,” Dazai states, stepping closer. “So stop crying about it.”

“I’m not crying!” Chuuya snaps, glaring at him harshly.

The second bell rings. It’s distant, again, but they both hear it in the tense silence. They have two minutes to get to class.

And then Dazai glances at the fence again.

And at Chuuya again.

And grins.

“Chuuya,” he says, eyes glinting. “Shall I do my prank right now?”

Chuuya’s eyes widen. “Here?” he exclaims, looking around. “There’s nothing to do here.”

“Bet,” Dazai says.

And when he reaches out his arm, the last thing Chuuya would expect is for him to put it on his back.

And the one thing he’d never expect from Dazai—because he trusts him more than anyone else (another thing he’d never admit)—is for him to push Chuuya. But that’s exactly what he does.

Now, let me get this straight: Dazai knows his strength. And he knows Chuuya’s weight. After pushing and shoving each other both literally and figuratively all their lives, it’s inevitable for them to become completely accustomed to their own strength’s influence on the other’s body.

So, Dazai only pushes him enough for him to lose his footing, and not to actually fall off the fence; meant to give him the biggest scare of his life, but not to harm him.

Chuuya does lose his footing. He’s not falling, but he feels his stomach plummet, the same way when you’re swinging back on a chair and you swing too far and you know you’re going to fall on your back and you can’t do anything about it.

And his biggest mistake, in that moment?

He clutches the fence too tightly for support.

If he didn’t clutch it, Chuuya would have fallen backwards, and onto the roof of the building. And even if he somehow fell forwards, Dazai would have easily caught him.

But because he clutches the fence, it ruins everything.

Because the fence is old, and it’s rusty, and unreliable, and unsafe, and everything that amounts to insecure.

So, there’s a small click, and a weak creak—

And if the fence fell backwards, Chuuya would be safe again, and fall onto the roof.

But it falls forwards, because Chuuya is placing all his body weight into it.

And then he’s falling over the edge.

And his stomach plummets even more.

Dazai is frozen for a second in spot, confused, and also frightened more than he’s ever been. He sees a blur of red, a garble of a small yell and the collapse of a fence.

And then he leaps forward, his bag falling off his shoulder.

And he searches to grab onto Chuuya from anything. His arm, or maybe his leg, or his shirt—

Hell, even his hair would at least save him.

So when he feels his hands encase around something of Chuuya’s, he feels like crying out of relief.

When the brunet looks down, the first thing his eyes register is Chuuya’s frightened face, his eyes wide with disbelief and horror as Dazai grips his forearm with such a firm, rough hold that it’s sure to bruise later.

“Chuuya,” Dazai shouts. “Chuuya, you’re okay, just hold on. Grab onto me, okay? Grab on.”

Chuuya’s body is shaking vehemently. He listens to the brunet, using his hand to grab onto Dazai’s forearm too, clutching tightly, as if he’s his life-force.

And Chuuya would be okay. He wouldn’t be shaking this much, and his heart wouldn’t be pounding this much, if only one of Dazai’s legs weren’t hanging off too, the other leg planted on the edge of the building as his only source of holding on.

He trusts Dazai.

And he knows he won’t let go.

But he can’t trust the building to not slip from under Dazai’s leg.

And Chuuya doesn’t know why he says what he says next. It’s not like he wants to die. In fact, by hanging off this building, with Dazai clutching him tightly, the only thing he can think of is how much he wants to live.

So, why…?

“Dazai,” Chuuya says, his voice shaky from both the nerves and the breeze. “Dazai, if you let go of me, you can climb back on.”

Dazai’s eyes widen immediately. “Are you fucking crazy?” he shouts at the redhead. “I’m not letting go. Just give me a sec, I-I’ll figure something out.”

The brunet feels his supporting knee slip the tiniest bit, and he tries his best to put all his weight onto the knee because that would save them both, but with Chuuya hanging off his arm, there’s more weight on that side.

So, yes…

If he lets go, he’d survive.

“Chuuya,” he says, gripping his arm tighter. “Listen to me. Are you listening?”

Chuuya nods vigorously, determined not to look down and see the world below, the world that he’s hanging on top of.

“Okay, good. There’s a window. It’s open. It’s right below you. If my leg slips, I need you to try your best to grab onto the ledge, okay? You have to grab on. It’s the only way to survive if we both fall.”

Chuuya’s eyes widen, and he makes a grumble of protest, tightening his grip on Dazai. “Don’t worry,” Dazai whispers, and his voice is so soft that it really does calm Chuuya down a bit. “You’ll survive. I know you will.”

Chuuya shakes his head. “But what about you?” he cries, and his eyes are filling with tears now, his heart banging against his ribcage.

“Don’t worry about me,” Dazai orders. “I’m gonna yell for help now. Just keep holding onto me. And be prepared to grab onto the ledge, because I could slip any moment. You got that? I need you to understand.”

Chuuya lets out a sharp breath, a tear slipping down the corner of his eye, and he nods, his body still shaking. “I understand,” he whispers back.

“Okay,” Dazai whispers. And then he turns his head, and opens his mouth wide, and starts yelling for help. He yells again and again, over and over, so loud that Chuuya feels momentarily deaf for some moments.

Chaos arises after about half a minute. Someone from below on the ground hears the yells, and she quickly rushes into the building, alerting the grown-ups and the teachers, who start running immediately. Someone calls the police, and someone else bolts up the stairs to the roof. Classes are put on hold, children left by themselves as their teachers rush out, confused and worried.

Dazai’s hand gets the tiniest bit sweaty. But he doesn’t let go of Chuuya. It’s the only thing he can think of.

Can’t let go, can’t let go, won’t let go.

A mathematics teacher sprints onto the roof a minute and a half later. He quickly rushes over to Dazai, and then more teachers are running in as well, and there’s a distant blare of a police alarm.

The teacher bends down and wraps his arms around Dazai’s waist. “I’ve got you,” he assures the brunet, whose face is crumpled up in fear as he stares down at Chuuya, who’s still looking up at him with that horribly pale face. “Don’t let go of your friend, okay? Hang on tight. I’m going to start pulling.”

Dazai nods in response. The teacher pulls and pulls, heaving Dazai onto the roof, and as soon as the brunet finds his footing and is securely on the roof, he shrugs the teacher’s hands off him and pulls Chuuya up and up, until the redhead grabs onto the edge with his free hand. The other teachers jump in to help as well, grabbing Chuuya from his shirt and shoulders and helping to heave him onto the roof.

It feels like ages before Chuuya is safely on the roof, feels like years that Dazai has to spend staring at him, hoping to whatever unknown force there may be to keep him the fuck alive.

“The fence broke,” a teacher mutters.

Another mutters, “They shouldn’t have come here. What were they thinking?”

Chuuya is bombarded by three teachers for a minute. They ask him question after question, shaking him, but his face is so pale, his eyes wide and lifeless. His body is as still as a statue. Another female teacher, someone Dazai recognises as an English teacher, pulls them away from the redhead, telling them to give him space and let him have time to calm down.

“Chuuya,” Dazai mumbles, his heart aching. Before he can help himself, he leaps forward, pulling Chuuya in by his upper arm. The redhead crashes into his chest, and then Dazai wraps his arms around him securely, holding him as tight as he can.

And Chuuya is baffled.

Because Dazai never hugs him.

They never hug.

Sure, they do some shit. They lay in each other’s laps and sit on the same beanbags and can sleep in the same bed as casually as sleeping alone.

But they’ve never hugged.

Like, ever.

“I’m so sorry,” Dazai whimpers into Chuuya’s hair, his voice muffled and weak with panic, and after a moment the redhead realises that his neck feels wet because Dazai is crying. “I’m so, so sorry.”

Is this a glitch in the system?

Dazai doesn’t cry. He doesn’t say the word ‘sorry’. The closest he gets to an apology is saying, “I apologise,” which is usually used sarcastically, and is only sincere when he’s speaking to Chuuya’s parents or a handful of teachers.

He doesn’t say I’m sorry.

He doesn’t sob into Chuuya’s hair.

“I’m so sorry,” he repeats for the third time, tightening his arms around Chuuya, who’s become wide-eyed and red-faced. “I didn’t mean for that to happen. Shit, I’m such a dickhead.” And then he sobs, just once, his entire body racking with it, and—

And when you see someone that never cries start to sob into your fucking neck, it...

it kind of hurts.

“Dazai,” Chuuya mumbles, lifting his arms and limply resting his hands on the brunet’s back. “Calm down. It’s okay.”

“How the fuck can you call any of this okay?” he practically yells into Chuuya’s neck.

The redhead sighs and closes his eyes, letting his head fall and collapse onto Dazai’s shoulder. “It’s okay,” he repeats, and for some reason, those two simple words really do help the brunet, and his body relaxes a little in Chuuya’s solid arms. “We’re both okay. You saved my life.”

Dazai clenches his hands into fists. “I put you in danger first.”

“You saved my life.”

“I put you in—”

“You saved my life.”

Dazai groans out of frustration, pulling the redhead closer, so close that their chests press up together. “You idiot,” he mumbles bitterly. “At least be mad at me.”

Chuuya shakes his head. “I’m not mad.”

“You should be.”

“You were a fucking idiot, sure,” Chuuya mutters, rolling his eyes from under his eyelids. “But I’m not mad. So calm down. I’m okay.”

Dazai tuts. After a moment, he pulls away from the redhead, and the look on his face is so dangerous that it’s as if he’s going to tear the building apart brick by brick and stomp it into smithereens. “So, what, you get mad at me for locking you in a garage for two hours but not when I almost kill you?” he yells, catching the attention of the teachers, whose eyes widen at the sound of what he’s saying. “Are you braindead or just plain stupid? Or are you pitying me for crying?”

Chuuya’s face twists into one of genuine rage, eyes squinted and a grimace on his lips as he leans forward a little. “I’m not pitying you, Dazai, I mean it! I’m not fucking mad at you!”

“I can’t believe you,” the brunet mumbles incredulously, shaking his head. “I honestly can’t believe you.”

The English teacher walks towards Dazai, and bends down to him from where he’s sat on the ground. Her eyes are firm, red lips set in a straight line. “Dazai-kun,” she says, her voice steady and serious. “What did you mean when you said you almost killed him?”

Chuuya stiffens. “He didn’t mean anything,” he quickly interjects, panic making his heart pound again. “It was a slip of the tongue.”

Dazai tilts his head to look at the woman, and then glances at Chuuya, whose eyes are begging him to remain quiet.

But that’s not fair.

It’s not fair to lie. It’s not fair to get away from something as horrible as this without punishment.

“I pushed him,” Dazai admits.

That makes the woman’s eyes widen, and she waits a beat, before standing up straight. “Dazai!” Chuuya yells, frustrated, before he turns to look at the teacher. “It was an accident; he didn’t mean for me to actually fall. It was the school’s fault, if anything. Who puts a faulty fence like that on a fucking roof?”

The mathematics teacher grabs Dazai by his arm, tugging him upwards. “Get up, Dazai-kun,” he says. “We have to take you away. Kobayashi sensei, can you deal with Nakahara-kun?”

Miss Kobayashi nods, holding out a hand to the redhead. “Yeah. I’ll ring up his parents. Go a bit gentle on the boy. I’m sure he didn’t mean for him to fall, but it was really dangerous.”

“Are we getting the police involved?” a different teacher asks.

Chuuya gets onto his feet without taking the woman’s hand, his eyes trained on Dazai, who’s walking away obligingly with the mathematics teacher that he doesn’t know the name of. “No,” the redhead says to the teacher, but obviously he’s not the one they were asking.

“I’m sure we’ll have to discuss it with them,” Miss Kobayashi sighs, shaking her head. “Hopefully, it’s not considered too serious. Since Nakahara-kun is a legal adult, it’s up to him whether or not he wants to press charges.”

“I’m not pressing charges!” Chuuya yells incredulously.

Miss Kobayashi looks down at the redhead, and then sighs again. “You don’t have to, of course,” she says, trying to force a smile for his sake, even though she’s clearly a little distressed and worried for the wellbeing of her students. “But you know what this means, don’t you, Nakahara-kun?”

Chuuya clenches his jaw, looking away. “What?” he mumbles.

Miss Kobayashi looks over at where the fence had fallen, and then back at the redhead, who isn’t looking at her, because he obviously knows the gist of what she’s going to say.

“Dazai-kun will be expelled.”

Chapter Text

“Oh, Chuuya!” Kouyou exclaims, scooping the redhead up into a bear hug, her arms so tight around him that it seems to be suffocating. Chuuya feels like his head is spinning—both from what’s happened in the day and because of the layers of perfume that she, for some reason, thought was a good idea to wear. Kouyou pulls away after a moment, and sandwiches Chuuya’s face in between her hands, swiping hair off his face with swoops of her thumbs. “Are you okay? Are you hurt anywhere? Baby, what happened?”

“Kouyou-san, please,” Fukuzawa—the headmaster—says, motioning to the seat next to Chuuya. “Take a seat, and I’ll explain everything to you.”

Kouyou watches the headmaster sceptically for a second and then nods, sitting down on the wooden seat next to the redhead, taking and clutching his hand tightly. Chuuya grimaces and refrains from pulling his hand away.

“It would do everyone a lot of good if you remain calm and patient with me,” Fukuzawa starts. Kouyou glances at the police officer stood next to his desk, and shivers discreetly, turning back to look at the headmaster. “Now, first, I’d like to assure you that Nakahara-kun is completely fine. He’s got no injuries and doesn’t seem to have taken the experience very traumatically. Isn’t that right, Nakahara-kun?”

Chuuya nods obligingly. “Yes,” he responds.

“This afternoon, at about one o’clock,” Fukuzawa starts, his eyes trained warily on Chuuya’s step-mother, “Dazai-kun accidentally pushed Nakahara-kun a little too hard off the edge of the roof, and he almost fell had—”

“It wasn’t a little too hard!” Chuuya interjects. “It was nothing. It’s all the fucking fence’s fault.”

Fukuzawa’s stare at Chuuya is pointed and stern. “I apologise for the misinformation, Nakahara-kun, but please refrain from swearing in my office.”

Chuuya tuts and slumps a little in his seat. “Sorry,” he mumbles bitterly.

“As I was saying,” Fukuzawa says, turning back to Kouyou. “Nakahara-kun almost fell. In fact, he did fall, but Dazai-kun grabbed him in time and saved him. Some of the staff had to get involved because the situation was about to lead to them both toppling over the edge of the roof.”

Kouyou’s face is pale, her eyes wide—and Chuuya can’t see any rise and drop of her chest, as if she isn’t even breathing.

“Have you understood what I just said?” Fukuzawa asks patiently.

Kouyou is as stiff as a statue, and from where her hand has clutched Chuuya, her skin has gone as cold as ice, too. “Y-Yes,” she mutters, dumbfounded.

Fukuzawa nods and moves on. “I’d like to tell you that the staff and I myself know both Dazai-kun and Nakahara-kun very well. They’ve had their differences, but their rivalry has never gotten to any stage as dangerous as this. It hasn’t ever actually been dangerous. Therefore, I can assure you that this was all an accident. Nakahara-kun has said so himself, and he’s not one to defend Dazai-kun had he meant for that to actually happen.”

“That’s—” Kouyou starts, bewildered, her eyes wide. “That’s attempted murder! How can that be an accident?”

This time, it’s the police officer that speaks up. “There haven’t been any hints of the intention being murder. Nakahara-kun has denied it many times already, along with denying to press charges. Of course, the situation had still been far too delicate, but right now punishment does not lie with us due to insufficient evidence for such an accusation.”

Fukuzawa nods in agreement and leans back in his seat. “I’d even like to add that it was my own fault,” he states. “I didn’t expect students to ever touch the roof again. I completely neglected it, and forgot all these years to replace the fencing up there. It was very unreliable. And for that, I’ll be held accountable accordingly. I hope you two will forgive me.”

But it’s as if Kouyou isn’t even listening anymore.

“There has to be some sort of punishment!” she shrieks, leaning forward. “I won’t allow for him to just get away with this!”

Fukuzawa nods and glances at the desk. After a moment, he looks back up at Kouyou, his face a little remorseful. “Don’t worry, Kouyou-san. He’s been suspended until further notice.”

“Suspended?” she bellows, her face becoming red with anger. “I want him expelled and then thrown into prison! You can’t just allow this!”

Fukuzawa sighs and picks up a pen off his desk, just to have something in his hands, twirling it around his fingers. “Please be reasonable, Kouyou-san,” he requests gently. “I know my students very well. Dazai-kun is not a threat. I’m thinking of both his and Nakahara-kun’s future. If I expel Dazai-kun right now, under these circumstances, he’ll definitely have a hard time finding another high school to get accepted into, even with his grades.”

“Is that our problem?” Kouyou yells, letting go of Chuuya’s hand to stand up from the seat and march over to the desk. “He tried to kill my son!”

“I understand, Kouyou-san, but—”

“No, you don’t understand a thing! I already lost my daughter last year, dammit! And now you expect me to just allow a murderer to stay around Chuuya like this? I want him gone! Gone for good!”

Chuuya stands up too. “He’s not a murderer!” he exclaims, frustrated. “If he wanted to kill me, he could have done it in the past twelve years that we’ve known each other!”

Kouyou whips her head around and glares at the redhead so harshly that it actually frightens him for a moment, his heart clenching in his chest. “Do not interfere, Chuuya,” she snaps.

The yelling carries on for five minutes.

Fukuzawa tries to reason with her as best as he can, but it becomes near impossible when all she’s doing is shrieking, and begging for Dazai to be thrown into prison to rot.

Of course, he’s not going to be thrown into prison.

But by the end of her lecturing, she at least receives something that puts her mind to ease just the tiniest bit;

Fukuzawa says that he will genuinely consider expelling Dazai.

And that he probably will, before the next term starts.

The yelling and shouting starts almost as soon as Chuuya and Kouyou get back into their house.

Chuuya is about to run up the stairs and text Dazai, but he’s stopped by a firm grip on his arm, pulling him to a halt. Kansuke is sat on the sofa nearby, his eyes wide with worry.

“Chuuya,” he breathes, jumping onto his feet. “Son, are you okay? I heard what happened on the—”

“Not now, Kansuke,” Kouyou snaps, glaring at Chuuya’s father, shutting him up before she turns to look at the redhead again. “Chuuya, I have so much to say. So much that my brain’s about to explode. I don’t understand how... how could you defend him?”

And apparently that’s a rhetorical question, because as soon as Chuuya opens his mouth, he’s cut off before he can get a sound out.

“You know what has to happen, right?” Kouyou asks, before reaching out her hand, palm-up. “Give me it.”

Chuuya blinks blankly at her. “Give you... what?”

The woman sighs impatiently and juts out her hand closer. “Your phone, obviously.”

“...Why?” he asks cautiously.

“Why do you think?” she snaps, stepping closer. “I’m deleting him from your life. He’s not allowed anywhere near you ever again.”

Chuuya’s mouth falls open.

“Huh?” he exclaims incredulously.

“You heard me, Chuuya. I want your phone. Unlocked. Right now.”

Chuuya stares at her as if she’s lost her mind. Which she has. Definitely has.

“That’s not happening,” he says, tucking his phone away into his pocket defensively.

Kouyou clenches her jaw and steps even closer. “I’m not asking you, Chuuya,” she whispers, her voice stern and cold. “Give it to me right now.”

Kansuke steps forward and puts a hand onto Kouyou’s shoulder, looking down at the redhead with the same look that the woman has on. “I agree with her, Chuuya. What he did isn’t acceptable.”

“You agree with everything she says!” Chuuya yells, his heart clenching with both panic and outrage, eyes wide. “You guys don’t get to do this; it’s not fair!”

“He pushed you off a building, Chuuya!” Kouyou yells loudly.

“He saved me, too!” the redhead bellows louder, louder than he ever has, because... he can’t be separated from Dazai. It’s the last thing that can happen. “You’re being way too overdramatic!”

“I am your mother, so I get—”

“No, you’re not,” Chuuya seethes, stepping backwards, his breathing laboured. “You’re Kyouka’s mother, and she died, so now you just want to use me as some replacement! Just leave me the fuck alone.”

Kouyou’s eyes widen, and her face falls. And when tears start to gather in her eyes, Chuuya feels the tiniest bit bad, but not completely. Because this isn’t fair. It’s not fair, it’s not fair, it’s not fair at all. “That’s it,” the woman whispers, her voice deadly as she steps closer again. “You will listen to me, Chuuya. I want him gone from your life.”

“You can’t fucking do that!” he yells desperately, stepping backwards again. “He’s my—”

Chuuya cuts himself off.

“He’s your what?” Kouyou urges, and for once, Kansuke is paying attention too, eyes trained on his son.

It’s a question both his parents want to know the answer to, after all.

“My...” Chuuya starts, his breath catching into his throat. “My... everything.” 

Kouyou’s eyes widen at that, and she leaps forward, grabbing the redhead by his collar and shaking him. “Snap out of it, Chuuya,” she barks into his face. “You sound like some stupid girl in love with him. Snap out of it. You’re a boy, for God’s sake!”

“I didn’t mean it like that,” Chuuya defends helplessly.

And he’s so afraid, so afraid of being separated from Dazai, and afraid of being slapped, and afraid of Kouyou, who’s literally all up in his face, and even afraid of his own father, who never defends him, never ever; and he’s so afraid that he can’t help but tear up a little for the second time in the same day, something he doesn’t ever do.

“Then delete him from everywhere,” Kouyou snaps, letting go of the redhead with a sharp shove. “If you don’t love him, delete him. I want him gone. You’re not to be near that boy ever again.”

Chuuya shakes his head, walking backwards until the back of his legs hit the sofa’s armrest. “I won’t let you separate us,” he snaps.

Kouyou clenches her jaw. “If you don’t...” she starts, her voice small but deadly, “...I’ll make you leave school and force you to be home schooled. You’ll study day and night, and you won’t be able to leave this house, ever.”

That sounds horrible.

It sounds like the worst thing that could literally happen to Chuuya.

The second worst thing.

Chuuya exhales, mulling over the options in his head. His chest aches and head feels swollen. “Okay,” he mutters eventually, clenching his hands into fists. “I’ll do what you want. Just... don’t make me delete him.”

Kouyou’s face is absolutely incredulous. “You’re seriously going to choose him even if it means being home schooled and grounded for life?” she shrieks.

Chuuya waits about five seconds, and then nods, a single tear escaping.

Kouyou shakes her head, shocked into disbelief. She walks away in very fast steps, and Chuuya feels like she’s gone, like she finally gave up, and the relief that he gets from imagining the situation makes him lose the grip on his knees, and he sits down on the armrest, his mind and heart reeling.

But when Kouyou returns...

It’s with a baseball bat.

One that Kansuke used to use, back when he had a small phase with baseball when Chuuya was eleven.

Both Kansuke and Chuuya’s eyes widen at the sight of it. The redhead flinches away, completely expecting the woman to raise it and bash it down on him, but...

She doesn’t.

She walks out of the front door.

Chuuya and Kansuke exchange glances at each other.

“Chuuya...” the man with the unshaven beard starts, reaching out to touch him.

Chuuya slaps his hand away with a harsh glare. “Don’t talk to me,” he mutters, and then he jogs after Kouyou, because he has a really bad feeling about what she’s doing with that baseball bat.

He just follows Kouyou, at first, because the fear makes his heart constrict until he can barely make a sound.

And then Kouyou turns the corner,

And heads towards the garage.

Chuuya doesn’t know what she’s going to do at first. For some reason, he expects her to go to the back garden instead, because he just can’t fathom the garage ever being touched by anyone other than him and Dazai.

But when the woman reaches the garage,

She raises the baseball bat, and smashes it against the shutters, creating a large dent in it with that single forceful swoop alone.

“Wait,” Chuuya whispers, his jogging picking up the pace, until he’s sprinting. “Wait!”

Kouyou doesn’t listen. She raises it, and bashes down again, creating another dent, this time one that’s a little bit smaller.

When she raises it again, Chuuya skids to a stop in between the bat and the shutters, spreading out his arms as if that’s meant to protect the place. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?!” he yells, his hands becoming fists.

Kouyou clenches her jaw tight enough that it clicks. “I’m destroying the stupid garage, obviously,” she snaps. “If you won’t listen to me, then I’m going to smash it into pieces. I promise that!”

She raises the bat higher, intending to crash it down against the part of the shutters that Chuuya isn’t covering, but he jumps in front again, he heart thudding.

“Stop!” he shouts, eyebrows deeply furrowed. “Just stop it. You’re fucking crazy.”

“I just want to protect you!”

“Then leave me the hell alone!”

“That’s what I’ve been doing, Chuuya!” she yells, and the tears coming back to her eyes, the tip of her nose going red. “I left Kyouka alone, and look where she is now. She’s dead. And I left you alone, too, and you almost fell off a building, for God’s sake. And if the only way to protect you is to destroy a dangerous relationship between you and someone else, then by God, I will do that! Even if you hate me for it!”

Chuuya can see it.

The determination in her eyes. It’s unflinching, unwavering, something that can’t be smothered or persuaded or confused for anything else other than pure resolve.

And, honestly…

Even if him and Dazai are separated, he knows they’ll find their way back to each other.

There’s no way in hell that their relationship can ever be broken for good. It’s not just friendship. And if it’s something that no one can identify, then it’s something that no one can know how to break apart.

But if the garage is torn apart…

All their little secrets will be revealed. It’s nothing that would be too embarrassing, or something they’d never dare talk about—it’s just something that’s theirs. Theirs and theirs alone. If it’s shared, then it ruins the entire thing, the entire dynamic.

And they’ll never be able get that back.

If Kouyou destroys everything, too, they can never get them back.

Not the beanbags, or the fake red camellias in the pot in the corner, or the thousands of photos across the walls and in the box, or the TV, or the circular table where they store blue-tacks for the polaroids, or their countless worn board games, or the toys they shared back when they were in elementary.

And Chuuya knows that the thought of having all that trampled on and destroyed…

Would break Dazai’s heart too.

“Okay, fine,” Chuuya retorts. “I’ll delete him from everywhere.”

Kouyou stiffens, her eyes widening the tiniest bit.

After a few tense seconds, she drops the bat, and it falls onto the floor, rolling away. She then steps forward and envelopes Chuuya in a large hug, but…

But Chuuya feels so unsafe.

“I knew you’d come to your senses,” she whispers, her lips lifting into a smile. “I knew you would. Thank you, Chuuya. I love you, baby, you know that?”

Chuuya sighs tiredly. “Yeah,” he whispers.

Kouyou nods and then pulls away. “Okay,” she says, grinning. “Go on. I want to watch and confirm that you block him on everything.”

Chuuya nods in understanding.

He pulls out his phone, unlocks it, and goes on Snapchat.

When he opens Dazai’s and his messages, he quickly types:

come to my window in an hour

And then he blocks him. And shows Kouyou, who nods with approval, and watches the redhead do the same thing on every other social media, and in contacts, too.

When it’s over with, Chuuya feels empty.

Dazai’s not first on his best friend’s list anymore.

Now it’s Akutagawa.

It feels so unnatural.

“I’m so proud of you,” Kouyou mumbles supportively. When she raises a hand, Chuuya squints his eyes suspiciously, and the woman pauses, a little offended, before she lets her arm relax back down to her side. “I know it’s difficult, but I’m here for you. I’m sorry for frightening you, I really am, but I was scared, too. I would never hurt you, though, Chuuya.”

Chuuya scoffs in his brain. Yeah, right, he thinks. That’s not what the hand imprints on my cheeks said.

“I’ll go tell Kansuke to cook something for us, hm?” she suggests, smiling gently. “Oh, and I’ll have you leave your phone downstairs before you go to bed every night. And I need to know your phone password so that I can check he’s always blocked.”

Chuuya feels his stomach plummet for the tenth time in the same day, and he gapes, on the verge of tearing the world apart limb by limb. “You can’t be serious,” he snaps.

“Oh, I am,” Kouyou says, still smiling. “The phone password, please. And if you try to change it, then I’ll break it.”

Chuuya steps backwards, shocked.

What a fucking psycho.

“The phone password,” Kouyou urges impatiently when the redhead takes his sweet time gaping at her incredulously.

“One—” Chuuya starts, suddenly needing to take a deep breath to compose his bubbling anger. “One-nine-oh-six.”

Kouyou nods. “Is that two ones or one one at the beginning?”

“Just one,” Chuuya mumbles.

The woman nods again, and then grins, and the redhead notices how she’d be so beautiful if she wasn’t batshit crazy. “Thank you, Chuuya. Now come inside. We’ll help your dad with dinner, hm?”

“Actually…” Chuuya starts, remembering the text he’d sent to Dazai. “Can I… can I go in the bath for a bit?”

Kouyou nods. “Of course you can. But just leave your phone downstairs, okay?”

Chuuya nods obligingly.

“Okay,” he responds.

Chuuya finishes his bath in fifty minutes. It’s much longer than the usual time he takes to bathe and shower, but if he finishes early, then Kouyou might call him down to help with dinner when she realises that he’s taking too long to change and is probably loitering around in his bedroom. So, if he takes fifty minutes, then ten minutes is a sensible amount of time to change,

And then maybe he can see Dazai before Kouyou starts yelling at him.

When the redhead gets to his room, he draws the curtains closed in case Dazai decides to show up early, and then drops the towel, quickly getting changed into one of Dazai’s hoodies—a grey one that’s much lighter than the rest, so it’s somewhat summer appropriate, and even though it’s lost its scent now, it still provides a lot of comfort—and a simple pair of basketball shorts. He towel dries his hair, too, but not too rigorously, because that always makes it fluff up.

Once his hair is dry enough to stop leaking, the redhead sighs and goes over to his window, tugging the curtains open—

And then comes face to face with brown eyes.

And that stupid mop of brown hair.

Chuuya immediately goes to fumble for the window lock, unlocking it with his hands, and then he lifts it upwards with excessive strength in desperation of removing the barrier between himself and the one person he wants to see. Literally the only person he wants to see right now.

“Dazai,” Chuuya breathes, leaning out of the window. “You came.”

Dazai seems a bit dumbfounded for a second, and then he nods, moving back to create space so that Chuuya can come out onto the roof, too. “I saw your text,” he says, helping the redhead by grabbing onto his elbow when he struggles to climb out a bit due to his short ass legs. “I asked why, and it said it was pending, so I knew you blocked me. I thought something bad happened, so I came.”

Chuuya nods a little vigorously, and before he can help himself, he grabs a fistful of Dazai’s shirt in his right hand, pulling him down. “Somethin’ bad did happen,” he says. And the brunet’s never seen him like this—so desperate, so wide-eyed, so shocked… he almost seems traumatised. “She’s—she’s forbidden me from ever seeing you. She made me block you from everything, and made me tell her my phone password so that she can—so she can see everything, and I have no fucking privacy left anymore. I feel like some goddamn prisoner, Dazai. She threatened to destroy the garage, so I had to listen. She’s gone fucking batshit crazy. And dad just listens to her. Everythin’ she says. He was my dad before he was her husband, and he still—how the fuck does he call himself a dad?”

“Chuuya,” Dazai breathes, placing his hands over Chuuya’s gently, observing his crumpled face. “Calm down.”

The redhead shakes his head, pulling Dazai even further down, because for some reason he just really wants to be close to him. “You don’t understand,” he emphasises with an embarrassing undertone of desperation. “I can’t ever see you.”

Dazai’s face softens, the brown in his eyes so gentle and warm that it looks like a liquid. “I do understand,” he mumbles, gently easing Chuuya’s hand from his shirt.

“Y-You don’t. How can you be so calm right now?” the redhead demands.

“Because I…” Dazai says. He doesn’t let go of Chuuya’s hand, just grips it tighter, settling it down onto his lap. “I agree with her.”

Chuuya freezes, and then…

And then he feels as if his brain is malfunctioning.

“You what?” he exclaims.

Dazai lowers his eyes until he’s staring at their joint hands, and Chuuya’s never seen such a despaired look on his face. Not even when his brother died (he just got numb back then, unable to feel—it was worse than being sad). With his eyebrows pulled in, and eyes downcast, lips tilted downwards the slightest bit to form an upset frown.

“It’s all my fault that this is happening to you,” Dazai whispers, closing his eyes tightly. “I’m such a shit guy. I always knew I was, but I… didn’t think I was this bad. But I am.”

“Dazai, you—”

“Chuuya, just listen to me.”

The redhead pauses, a little annoyed, but then sucks up his ego and nods with a small slump.

“No matter what you say, whether I saved you or not… I put you in that position from which you had to be the saved. I did the bare minimum, Chuuya—I’m not some fucking hero. And I don’t care about my own life. You know that. So it only makes sense that I’d save you. Anyone would do that.”

Chuuya scoffs. “That’s not true at all.”

“It is,” Dazai mumbles with a small sigh. After a second, he looks up again, meeting the redhead’s eyes. “And now you’ve lost your privacy.”

“It’s not that big of a deal, Dazai, I can live without—”

“Stop it, Chuuya.”

Chuuya stiffens, his heart thumping in his chest.

“Stop trying to get this to last,” Dazai whispers, and then he lets go of Chuuya’s hand, which all of a sudden feels so empty and cold. “What we have isn’t friendship. We’re not nice to each other. I’m such a dickhead, and you just need me around because I’ve always been there. I’m just a routine for you.”

“That’s not—”

“And that’s all you are for me, too.”

Chuuya pauses, his breathing coming to a halt.

Well.

That hurt.

“It’s the same shit, over and over,” Dazai carries on, taking advantage of Chuuya’s pained speechlessness to fit more hurtful words in. “You wake me up, we argue on the way to school, sit together at break and lunch, meet up at the garage some days after school and at least once on the weekends, and we fight the majority of the time we’re near each other. We steal and then win prizes from each other. It’s not healthy. And I’m a bad influence.”

Chuuya tries to absorb the words, but..

But suddenly he feels…

The redhead pulls his hand off Dazai’s lap and presses his fingers between his brows, where he’s developing a skull-deep headache out of the blue, screwing his eyes shut to hide any moisture that might be climbing its way up. “This is the shittiest day of my life,” he whispers to no one in particular, his body beginning to shake.

The silence that lasts between them is extremely prolonged.

It seems to last for minutes on end, and Chuuya can hear some distant cluttering in the background, probably of plates starting to be put down on the dining table.

And then he’ll be called down any second.

Chuuya gulps away the dryness in his mouth, and then drops his hands down into his own lap.

“So…” Chuuya starts, forcing his voice to be void of emotion. “You’re just gonna… leave?”

Dazai can’t look him in the face anymore. “I think it’s what’s best for you.”

“For fuck’s sake, Dazai, if you’re fed up of me, just gather the fucking guts and say so!” Chuuya yells. “Stop saying you want what’s best for me! You don’t give a single shit.”

Dazai shivers, just once, so indiscreetly that Chuuya doesn’t spot it in his blind rage. “Chuuya, I don’t think you understand,” the brunet says, his voice slow, spelling each word out as if he’s talking to a premature child. “I. Almost. Killed. You.”

“Okay, but I’m not dead!”

“I almost fucking killed you!”

“I’m not dead!”

Dazai tuts, and then grabs the window, slamming it down, probably to drown out their voices and avoid being heard. Then, he grabs the redhead by the collar of his hoodie and tugs him closer—not painfully like Kouyou does, and neither does it make Chuuya feel unsafe at all, but it’s not meant to be a nice tug, either.

“Listen to me, Chuuya,” he whispers. “I almost killed you. You’re the one not understanding that. If I hadn’t luckily grabbed you in time, you would literally be in a fucking morgue right now, and your funeral would start to be planned, and I’d be getting done in for manslaughter. Do you understand how definite death is? Don’t you get it?”

Chuuya inhales through his teeth, brows furrowed with rage as he blinks up at the brunet. “For the millionth time, Dazai…” he grumbles, “In the end, I’m not dead. I’m perfectly fine. You saved me. You’re not that much of an asshole. And you put your life on the line.”

Dazai stares down at him, right in the eyes, and even though his brown eyes seem to burn and tear and hurt, the redhead doesn’t look away from them for a single second. Not even when he really wants to.

And then, eventually, Dazai looks away, letting go of Chuuya’s collar with a scoff. “You’re so stupid,” the brunet mumbles under his breath.

Chuuya lets that insult slide, because…

Dazai probably isn’t wrong.

It’s probably normal to hate someone that almost kills you. That pushes you as a prank. But it was a prank gone wrong, which still has enough basis for hate, but…

Chuuya can’t hate Dazai.

Not in this way. He hates him in other ways. But not in the I-never-want-to-see-your-face-again kind of way.

Chuuya watches as Dazai approaches the edge of the roof, sitting down, probably getting ready to jump off to the ground.

The redhead quickly lurches forward and grabs Dazai’s arm, tugging. “What are you doing?” he demands.

The brunet doesn’t glance at him. “Leaving, obviously.”

Chuuya suddenly feels incredibly choked up. “Leaving… for good?” he asks cautiously.

Dazai waits a beat, and then nods.

Chuuya hates this.

He just wants to redo the entire day, from the very top.

“I’m only gonna say this once,” Chuuya mumbles, gripping his arm tightly. “Don’t leave.”

Dazai doesn’t reply for a few seconds. He just swings his legs, not looking at Chuuya.

But then he does look at him. After a second, he takes his hand, and for whatever reason, he brings it up to his lips, and Chuuya’s eye twitches, his heart skipping a beat, his body heating up.

But Dazai doesn’t kiss his hand.

He just puts his lips against it—gently, softly, flutteringly.

And then he lets go.

“I really am sorry,” he says, lifting his eyes to meet the redhead’s. “For everything.”

And then Chuuya just sits there,

And watches Dazai walk off his driveway, disappearing down the street.

And somewhere in the background, he hears Kouyou summoning him downstairs—

But Chuuya spends the next five minutes pressing his lips against where Dazai had pressed them on his hand,

And trying his hardest not to sob.

Chapter Text

I’m just a routine for you.

Chuuya stabs at a couple of peas, his eyes trained on the faded bruise on his arm in the shape of fingers.

And that’s all you are for me, too.

When Chuuya presses down on the bruise, it doesn’t hurt anymore.

He wishes it would.

You just need me around because I’ve always been there.

Chuuya feels like a prisoner. An actual one. Even though he didn’t do a thing wrong, he’s being treated like shit by all the people that matter.

You’re so stupid.

What did Chuuya do to deserve this?

He wasn’t the one that pushed himself off the building. And yet he’s the one that has his phone on surveillance, the one that’s not allowed to leave his house, the one who was left behind by the person who caused all of this.

The one locked in his house during summer break.

“Chuuya.”

The redhead jolts a little.

He snaps his head upwards to look at Kouyou, who’s watching him with a concerned face, lips downturned and eyebrows pulled in. When he glances at his plate, he notices that he’s absent-mindedly squashed half the peas into a mush.

“That’s my fourth time calling your name,” Kouyou states, putting down her fork.

She gets no response, let alone an apology. Chuuya just carries on mushing the peas.

“Stop doing that to your food,” the woman snaps. “Look, Chuuya, this silence thing you’ve got going on? I’m not having it.”

Chuuya clenches his jaw. “It’s only polite to remain quiet at a dinner table,” he mumbles bitterly.

Kouyou scoffs, shaking her head. “You and I both know you’re not one to give a damn about politeness,” she says, leaning back in her seat. “You’ve been acting like this for the past week. Get over yourself.”

Chuuya blinks at his plate.

He really doesn’t have the appetite.

After a moment, the redhead pushes the plate away from him, standing up. “Looks delicious,” he says emotionlessly. “I can’t be bothered eating right now, though.”

“Sit down and eat, Chuuya,” Kansuke orders in his usual bored tone from where he sits a seat closer to Kouyou than Chuuya.

Chuuya has to refrain from glaring at his father—he is his father after all, whether or not he’s been failing at it for a long while, so maybe he deserves at least some respect. “No thanks,” Chuuya says, picking up his plate and walking to the joint kitchen. There, he puts his remaining food into the plastic container that’ll probably go into the fridge to be ate as leftovers later on, and then washes his plate and utensils, setting them onto the drying rack.

As he walks past the dining table on his way upstairs, he says, “I’m going out to the park tomorrow.”

“With who?” Kouyou asks.

“By myself.”

“No.”

“What do you mean, no?” the redhead asks, stopping walking to turn around and face the woman.

Kouyou rolls her eyes. “I mean what I said. You’re not leaving the house by yourself.”

Chuuya scoffs, shaking his head. “I’m an eighteen-year-old boy. It’s my last summer of high school. Give me a fucking break. You’re acting as if Dazai’s gonna show up in the park at the exact same time as me and stab me with a fucking kitchen knife.”

Kouyou waits a beat, and then lifts her head, meeting the redhead’s eyes. “You know, Chuuya, I don’t like how comfortable you are with swearing,” she states simply.

Chuuya can’t help but chuckle humourlessly at that. “You don’t like anythin’ I do,” he snaps viciously. “I’m not changing shit for you, you got that? I’m upholding my end of the deal so that you don’t trash the garage. Don’t ask for anything more, ‘cause I won’t be listening. And you know what? Havin’ to stay prisoner in this house wasn’t part of the deal. So I will be going out. Don’t try to fucking stop me. I’m going through enough ‘cause of you.”

Kouyou observes Chuuya for a minute, at his distressed face, at the fading bruise on his arm, and the way that he’s become so much less lively in the past week. And he’s always walking around in a stupid hoodie of Dazai’s—which she finds so stupid, because he should be trying to let him go, not trying to cling on desperately. And it’s summer, for heaven’s sake.

“I could very well add to the deal,” she says, her eyes bored. “I could threaten to destroy the garage if you ask to leave.” At the sight of Chuuya’s incredulous face, Kouyou carries on quickly, suddenly appalled by how controlling she just sounded. “But I won’t. I don’t take pleasure in punishing you, Chuuya. I’m sorry for all the sadness I’ve brought you. I’m just trying to protect you, baby. And if it really makes you feel a bit better, then you can go out to the park.” She forces herself to smile. “You can even go with some friends, if you’d like.”

Chuuya hesitated, and then asks a very useless question. “Can I go with Dazai?”

And, obviously, she replies with:

“No.”

What must be obvious by now is that Ozaki Kouyou wasn’t always like this.

She wasn’t always overprotective like this, and wasn’t always this obsessive or ill in the head.

It started after her daughter, Kyouka, died. She used to live with the three of them—Kouyou, Chuuya, and Kansuke—ever since her mother married Chuuya’s father five years ago. She was younger than Chuuya by four years, and was a small girl, with a small voice, and a small face, though her eyes were as wide as saucers. She didn’t talk much, but when she did, it was always to say something kind. Something like, “Oh, I hope that butterfly will be alright,” or, “Chuuya-Nii, are you feeling okay?” or, “I hope things with you and Dazai-san are alright,” or, “Mummy, do you need any help with your work?”

She was an illegitimate child of a one-night stand. Perhaps it was the absence of a father, or the presence of such a caring mother, that made her who she was. Kouyou was the sweetest parent to her. Of course, Chuuya didn’t expect Kouyou to love him as much as she loved her own daughter that she’d known for much longer, but Kouyou never made Chuuya feel like he was worth less. Maybe loved less than Kyouka, but not worth less. And he never blamed Kouyou, not once, for loving Kyouka more, because he understood, and he had his own dad, who wasn’t as useless and depressed back then as he is now.

Chuuya developed a liking to Kyouka in just a month after her and her mother moved in with him and his father.

They got along well. She was the only one he didn’t swear around, the only one he didn’t glare at, didn’t shout at, and smiled at, all the time. He even braided her hair and painted her nails for her. He loved her as if she really were his sister.

He really loved her.

It made him so fucking proud whenever she came back from school, certificate in hand.

It made him happy to see her smile and sad to see her cry.

And he remembers that one boy that teased Kyouka for her signature pigtail hairstyle, saying that she looks like some sully cartoon character with that hairstyle, and she ran to Chuuya about it. Not her mother, not Kansuke, and not a friend of hers.

She came to Chuuya.

And Chuuya sorted him out, of course, because who the fuck did that kid think he was?

And maybe it was a bit immature of Chuuya to pick a fight with a boy four years younger than him, but c’mon, if you have a sister like Kyouka, who deserves the heavens to be laid at her feet, you can’t just let her get treated like that.

Kouyou was protective of Kyouka, because she was her only child, and she was a timid girl incapable of defending herself if something were to happen to her. But instead of protecting her, Kouyou should have taught her some things instead, things that would be good for her survival, things that would be good for a girl her age to know. Even something simple, like how to cross a road properly.

But, no.

Kouyou didn’t do that.

She busied herself in overprotecting her daughter instead. And the one time she let Kyouka go out with her friends with no restrictions…

She never came back home.

Got run over. Drunk driver. Crossing the street without looking properly to the right. She was travelling in a small crowd with seven other friends.

Six of them were hit, and two were run over, including Kyouka. They both died. It made headlines for half a month.

It was the worst year of Chuuya’s life. He lost his fucking sister.

And the toll that it took on Kansuke and Kouyou wasn’t any better. Kansuke became an overeater with no concept of hygiene, and Kouyou became a mentally ill woman that became imposingly overprotective of the one person she can still—perhaps—call her child.

Then in the same year, Odasaku died, and Chuuya had to watch the one person that was keeping him together fall apart.

Dazai ended up spiralling. And even though Chuuya hadn’t completely gotten himself back together after Kyouka, he had to force himself, because he had to be there.

Even Dazai hadn’t gotten over what happened to Kyouka when his brother suddenly died. And Chuuya had known Odasaku as long as he’d known the brunet, so it took a large toll on him too, and things were essentially in chaos.

Dazai and Chuuya didn’t comfort each other. They didn’t say things like, “It’ll be okay,” or, “They’re in a better place,” and they didn’t hug or cuddle or wipe each other’s tears.

They just distracted each other.

It’s what they’ve always been best at.

So last year was the year that they went on a shit ton of stealing sprees, just distracting themselves. It was last year that they both learnt the true nature of their relationship—something that isn’t friendship but isn’t enemies, either. It was a month into this year, when Dazai became numb to the distractions, that Chuuya found the brunet slitting his arm in his bathtub.

It was last year that was the worst for both of them.

It was last year that strengthened their relationship, evolving it from concrete into iron.

They were joint at the hip even before, but after everything that happened, they became inseparable. It’s partly the reason that Chuuya feels like shit without him. Because it’s like losing support. Losing the foundation, the scaffolding, the thing that’s just always been there. And as Chuuya lies in his bed a few days later, he realises...

Dazai wasn’t wrong, no matter how much it hurts.

The brunet was always a routine for him. Always wake up at the same time, argue the same way, be near each other in the same manner. He was a routine. And perhaps Chuuya was a routine for him, too.

They always knew what to expect from each other. And when that balance was tipped, like when Chuuya became a little depressed after Kyouka, and when Dazai lost the sparkle in his eyes after Odasaku, they didn’t know how to react. How to comfort. How to adjust to that routine. They stepped on eggshells around each other, and decided that distracting each other was the only way to get through it.

And that’s all you are for me, too.

That line, however...

Chuuya can’t agree with it.

Dazai may have been a routine. But that’s not all he was. If you think about it, everyone is a routine. That’s why it hurts so much when they leave, and why it feels a bit strange when someone comes in. But you don’t only long for someone, or want them, because they tipped your life off balance... it’s also because you genuinely, frustratingly, miss them. The way their presence just felt. The way they looked at you, or touched you, or...

That’s not all Dazai is to him.

Chuuya can admit to himself (but never to Dazai) that he might, perhaps... care about Dazai.

A little.

Only the tiniest bit.

Because it genuinely aches Chuuya’s heart to think of what headspace Dazai might be in right now. To remember that night when he came to his roof, how out of it he felt, how gentle he was with Chuuya’s hands, as if the redhead’s entire body had become fragile just because he hung off a building and obeyed the forces of gravity.

Dazai is much worse at talking about his emotions than Chuuya. Much, much worse. And that’s saying something, because Chuuya is not a very open person, but even after all these years, Chuuya can’t always tell what Dazai’s feeling. Can’t tell whether his smile is real, whether he’s actually frustrated or just playing along, whether he’s fed up of Chuuya or wants him around a little while longer.

Chuuya can tell usually, though. His soft smiles are always genuine. He can’t fake those.

But something the redhead can’t figure out is whether Dazai was lying or not when he said, “And that’s all you are for me, too.” Because that can’t possibly be right... right?

Dazai was there for Chuuya, too. With Kyouka. When he scraped his knee falling off the scooter. Even when they first met in elementary, for God’s sake, when the brunet caught his hat before it flew away too far and handed it back with the cutest smile Chuuya had ever seen on someone. The hat is buried somewhere deep within Chuuya’s wardrobe, now. It became too tattered and ugly and old-fashioned to wear anymore, but the redhead won’t ever throw it away, because he’s had it since he was a child (and because it’s a memento of when the two first met).

But Dazai might have only been there because he didn’t want to lose Chuuya, who was maintaining the balance in his life.

And even if that is true, then... if you trust someone enough to allow them to maintain the balance in your life, you must care about them, right?

Chuuya exhales sharply with frustration.

Why the fuck is his thinking about this so deeply at four a.m. whilst the rest of the world is asleep?

He hates this.

But at least the overthinking lets Chuuya realise a few things:

1. Chuuya cares about Dazai. Whether he likes it or not, whether he ever says it out loud or not, he cares about him. He wouldn’t spend hours bandaging him up if he didn’t. He wouldn’t waste away years of his life at the brunet’s door.

2. Dazai was probably lying when he said, “And that’s all you are for me, too.” Because he’s shit with emotions. Absolutely shit. He probably made it up on the spot.

3. He won’t be letting Dazai just leave him like that.

“I thought you were on house arrest.”

Chuuya sighs and stretches his legs out on the grass. He leans back into his palms, throwing his head back to relish a little in the summer sun. “I am,” he mumbles, feeling the warmth on his skin. “She’s being a bit more lenient. And she trusts you, so she let me come out.”

Atsushi smiles a little and then looks down at the grass, skimming his fingers across the three-leaf clovers. “I’m glad she trusts me, but… I don’t think it’s very fair to have you locked in your house.”

The redhead scoffs and brings his head back down, opening his eyes. “Tell that to her,” he says bitterly. “She thinks she’s protectin’ me. Has herself fully convinced that Dazai’s some fucking murderer.”

Atsushi gapes a little. “Dazai-san’s not a murderer!” he exclaims incredulously.

“Again, tell that to her,” Chuuya mumbles, taking a short swig of his water bottle. “I can’t ever talk to him or see him again.”

Atsushi watches Chuuya closely: his face, and the slight bags under his eyes, and the irritation on his face that’s become too common lately. He opens his mouth before hesitantly asking, “Are you… okay with that?”

“Like hell I’m okay with it.” Chuuya sits up straight, because his wrists are starting to ache, and then just crosses his legs together and lets out an exasperated sigh. “I’ve tried my best to respect her ‘cause of what happened last year and everything. This is just too much though. I won’t be listening to her, obviously.”

Atsushi tilts his head curiously, some of his grey bangs falling into his face. “So, you two will meet up secretly?” he asks.

Chuuya shrugs, slumping a little as he picks at the grass, his heart giving a small pang in his chest. “I don’t know,” he mumbles distastefully. “He left.”

“Left what?”

“Me.”

“…Why?”

The redhead feels his left hand clench into a fist without his will, but then he slowly unclenches it and tries to keep his anger at bay. “Because he thinks it’s what’s best for me. Probably feels guilty and shit, for what happened.” He sees, for a second, what seems to be a four leaf clover, but upon closer inspection, it seems to be just two three-leafs overlapping.

Atsushi thinks about what he says for a second, and then leans forward, lying down on his stomach. “So… are you just going to give up on him?” he asks, even though it’s very obvious what the answer is.

“No.”

“Is that his shirt you’re wearing?”

Chuuya blinks, and then glances down at the shirt he’s wearing, a sage green one with a printed vintage picture on it that includes a dragon and some cherry blossom trees. “How can you tell?” he asks, gently skimming the dragon’s tail with gentle fingertips. He won it from Dazai on one of their sprees. He has more hoodies of Dazai’s than shirts, and he prefers the hoodies, so he wears them much more (and they maintain their scent longer), but it would be a bit ridiculous to wear a hoodie out in such blaring heat.

Atsushi chuckles gently and points at Chuuya’s shoulder, where the shirt is a centimetre away from slipping off. “The size is way too big for you,” he answers, still smiling.

Chuuya blinks and quickly fixes the shirt. “Does it look bad?” he asks hesitantly, because he’s never really thought about whether he even suits the clothes, they just… they always look good on Dazai, at least, but he looks really different to Chuuya, so there’s no telling if Chuuya even looks good in them.

Atsushi nods eagerly, as expected. “You look wonderful, Chuuya-san!” he exclaims. “Dazai-san’s things really suit you. And you two even look nice stood next to each other.”

Chuuya stops moving at that. It’s a somewhat casual thing to say, but still his heart skips a beat, and it’s such an unfamiliar feeling that he quickly shoves Atsushi a little, his head reeling. “Don’t say shit like that, moron,” he snaps, glaring.

Atsushi notices the boy’s embarrassment and laughs a little. “Sorry, Chuuya-san,” he apologises gently, but there’s a small, teasing lilt to it that makes Chuuya want to rip his own hair out. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

The redhead hurls his head to his direction. “What do you mean, ‘like that’?” he snaps.

Atsushi smiles a little. “Nothing,” he answers in a slightly sing-songy voice.

Chuuya huffs with irritation and then rolls his eyes, looking away again.

Atsushi realises Chuuya doesn’t intend to speak more, so he sits up onto his legs, looking out at the trees. “If you want,” the grey-haired boy starts, “I can invite Dazai-san here.”

Chuuya clenches his jaw, and then shakes his head softly. “No,” he responds. “He won’t come if he knows I’m here.”

“…I can lie to him for you.”

“That won’t work. We’re too close to his house right now. If he sees me, he’ll just run away back home before we spot him.”

Atsushi blinks. “Then we can go somewhere a bit far away one day, and then he can’t run,” he offers, his face still gleaming and bright when Chuuya spares him a small peek from the corner of his eyes.

“Mm...” the redhead mumbles, thinking about it. “I don’t know. Knowin’ him, he might even run all the way home from there, too.”

Atsushi nods in agreement. After a moment, he pulls out his phone from his pocket, and Chuuya glances at the screen, his heart stuttering to a stop when he realises the boy is texting Dazai. “Oi,” he snaps, just as Atsushi presses send. “You’re not actually inviting him, are you? It’s not gonna work.”

Atsushi shakes his head. “I just told him I’m here with you.”

“Why the fuck would you—”

“Don’t worry, I didn’t bring it up randomly,” the boy says, smiling reassuringly. “I was replying to a text. I thought now would be a perfect time to reply. Now he can decide whether he wants to come or not.”

Chuuya relaxes a little at that. But he still feels so on edge that he can’t think straight. “He won’t come...” he mumbles, gazing at the grass. And it’s true—he won’t. It would be unlike him.

But there are some times where Dazai can be unpredictable, too.

The next eleven minutes of waiting for Dazai’s reply is its own form of torture. A thudding heart, a sweating upper lip, and a wide-eyed look of anxiousness and anticipation all seem to accompany Chuuya’s discomfort as he awaits the asshole’s response. It’s so annoying, because he hasn’t always felt like this. And he’s not even the one texting him. It’s Atsushi’s conversation. Whenever Chuuya and Dazai spoke, it wasn’t them asking each other what they’re doing, or whatever friends do. It usually was them throwing creative insults at each other or Dazai teasing him and Chuuya flipping him off or Dazai even jokingly flirting, because he knew that’s what pissed the redhead off the most. But when Chuuya jokingly flirted with him, the shithead would leave him on read, as if he had no clue how to respond. They played iMessage games, too—as competition, obviously, and they used them as a way to win their desired prizes when they were too lazy to go on a stealing spree.

The ting of Atsushi’s phone makes Chuuya jump a little.

Before the redhead can help it, he’s pushing himself onto his knees and looking over Atsushi’s shoulder down at the screen, his chest tingling.

The reply makes Atsushi snicker despite himself, but it causes Chuuya to grit his teeth together, seriously having to refrain from yeeting the phone fifty metres away.

Dazai: I’m so sorry u have to go through that

Atsushi starts typing back.

“If you agree with him, I’ll claw your skin off,” Chuuya snaps into the boy’s ear. He’d usually leave such graphic threats for a certain someone, but he’s so unnerved right now that he can’t hold back.

Atsushi shakes his head, grinning a little with amusement. “Of course I don’t agree, Chuuya-san,” he says.

The redhead bites down on his thumb to help calm his nerves whilst the grey-haired boy sends his text.

Atsushi: No, I’m having a nice time

This time, Dazai replies much quicker.

Dazai: ha

Dazai: couldn’t be me

Atsushi: But you’re really close to him?

Dazai: nope

Chuuya’s small smile drops from his face, and he blinks, his chest constricting a little, making it almost difficult to breathe. He bites down harder on his fingers, trying to stay calm.

Atsushi notices how tense Chuuya is and turns to face him. He’s never seen the redhead look so distressed.

“Here,” Atsushi says, offering the phone to Chuuya. “Do you want to speak to him?”

Chuuya gulps and shakes his head. “No,” he replies, but he takes the phone anyways, and the words that he starts writing just come so naturally to his fingers, as if they’ve got a mind of their own.

Atsushi: Stop lying you fucking asshole

Atsushi’s eyes widen as he reads the words. “Chuuya-san!” he exclaims, his tone similar to that of a scolding mother’s. “He’s going to think that’s me being rude!”

Chuuya tries to smile at the boy. “Don’t worry, he’ll know it’s me.”

“How could he possibly—”

Dazai: i knew you’d be reading the chat, slug

Atsushi’s eyes widen a little, but then he just shrugs, silently accepting the fact that the two are probably connected through telepathic communication.

Atsushi: What the fuck do u mean by nope?

Dazai: i mean what i said obviously

Chuuya sighs exasperatedly.

Atsushi: Do you honestly believe uve gotten rid of me that easily?

There’s a pause, one that lasts for half a minute, even after Dazai has read the text.

Dazai: what do you want

Atsushi: Come to the park

Dazai: no

Atsushi: ffs Dazai if you really left then you wouldn’t be replying rn u shithead

Chuuya stares as Dazai starts typing, but the message never comes.

The redhead lets out a frustrated groan, annoyed at himself for saying that, because now Dazai’s not going to reply like the egotistical bastard that he is.

Atsushi: Dazai

Atsushi: Dazai

Atsushi: Dazai

Atsushi: Dazai

Atsushi: Dazai

Atsushi: Dazai

Atsushi: Dazai

Dazai: can you leave me alone?

Atsushi: asshole

Dazai: ik

Atsushi: COME TO THE FUCKING PARK

Dazai: NO PISS OFF

“You guys text so weird,” Atsushi mumbles, bending down. “Your tones just completely changed.”

Atsushi: I’ll rip up ur fav photo of me if u don’t come

That one actually seems to make Dazai hesitate a little.

Dazai: u don’t know which one is my favourite

Atsushi: The one where we rode to the hill and watched the sunrise and i was smiling and looking all stupid

Dazai: ur seriously threatening me to come there right now?

Dazai: is that how much u love me?

Dazai: <3

Atsushi’s eyes widen at that one, and Chuuya clenches his jaw tightly.

Atsushi: That’s how much i wanna beat up ur ass

Dazai: well

Dazai: even if I come, i'll have no interest in being there

Chuuya lets out a sigh and collapses onto his back on the grass, staring up at the sky, his heart hurting.

It’s never hurt this much.

Is this really how much influence the brunet has on him?

After a moment, he lifts up the phone again, and—

Atsushi: Don’t come then

Atsushi: as if i fucking care

Chuuya turns the phone off after that, his heart thudding, his eyes burning. “Can I throw your phone against that tree?” he asks, his voice numb.

Atsushi’s smile is cautious. “I’d rather you not,” he replies gently, and then he moves to Chuuya’s hand, softly prying the phone away from his hold. “That didn’t go well?”

The redhead clenches his hands into fists.

“Fuck him,” he whispers.

But the hurt stays, even after Chuuya says those two magic words, even after he convinces himself that Dazai doesn’t mean a thing to him.

It stays for days and days.

Chapter Text

Dinner time is just as stiff as every other dinner time has been for the past three weeks. Kouyou eats away politely, not making any noise, observing Chuuya closely, whilst the redhead doesn’t utter a word and stabs frustratedly at his food more than he consumes it. Kansuke is as invisible as ever; head bowed, eyebrows furrowed, so quiet and small that you can’t notice his presence at all.

It’s so awkward and stiff that Chuuya almost doesn’t say what he’s been wanting to say.

But then he does.

“I wanna get a summer job.”

Both his parents pause at that.

As expected, Kansuke remains silent, unaffected, waiting for Kouyou to take the wheel and be the parent.

The woman swallows down the bite in her mouth and then puts down her utensils, watching her son. “Oh?” she questions. “What brought this on?”

Chuuya stabs at the piece of fish on his plate. And all he can think is ‘Mackerel’ even though it’s not a mackerel, even though he should have stopped thinking about him by now. “I’m just sick of this place,” he mumbles distastefully, some of his irritation showing through. “I wanna get out. Somewhere I won’t be interrogated by you each time I leave the house about who I’m meeting with and how well they know Dazai.”

Kouyou ignores Chuuya’s very obvious passive-aggressive remark. “And where would you get this summer job, exactly?”

The redhead pauses, and then slowly lifts his head—not enough to look the woman in the eyes, but enough to see her robe, and the familiar navy. “I don’t know,” he admits. “I didn’t expect you to let me.”

Kouyou shrugs. “I don’t mind. It would be good for you. Like I said, Chuuya, I don’t want to imprison you or anything. I just want to keep you away from that boy.”

That alone is imprisoning him.

God, it’s almost been three weeks since Chuuya last saw Dazai, and one since he last spoke to him.

It’s the longest they’ve gone without seeing or texting each other. They’ve always texted many times a day, so even going without a single day is awkward, and they haven’t been separated in real life for longer than two weeks, and that was back when Dazai went on holiday with his family when they were first-years.

Chuuya had felt an ache whilst Dazai was gone.

He feels it now, too. Only it’s stronger. More permanent. Painful, right in the middle of his chest, like a biting, pinching hurt that makes him want to curl up in a warm bath and soak in it forever.

His baths have been getting quite longer, actually. Gives him both an excuse to stay away from his parents for a bit and not have to think of anything but the scalding water on his reddening skin. Other things have been increasing too, like the feeling of void emptiness he feels whenever he sees the garage (he still hasn’t gathered the guts to go in it alone), the intervals between when he picks up his phone, how many things of Dazai’s he wears in a week. He makes excuses to both Kouyou and himself that it’s because he owns more of the brunette’s clothes than he does his own, and even if it’s true, Chuuya has many clothes of his own that he can mix and match with. He could easily avoid wearing Dazai’s things if he wanted to.

But he doesn’t want to avoid it, obviously.

Things that have been lessening, however?

His sleep.

He can’t sleep. Not properly, anyways.

He doesn’t get exhausted until five a.m. and wakes up before nine a.m. every day. It makes him worry about what’ll happen once school starts, but that’s a month away, so maybe he can avoid thinking about that for now.

Chuuya has had insomnia phases before. Like back when he was mad with Dazai because of Yuan, and when Kyouka died, and when Odasaku died, too. The Kyouka one was the worst. He’d unintentionally pull all-nighter after all-nighter, exhausted, running purely on caffeine and was partially braindead. He’d gone four full days in a row without sleep when Dazai got concerned—like, really concerned, something the redhead had never seen before, with a crinkled forehead and such a strong stubbornness that Chuuya had burst out crying in frustration, burst out crying with every emotion he’d been hiding.

And Dazai pretty much forced Chuuya to let him stay over. He got under Chuuya’s covers, and held him closer than usual, and he let the redhead use his arm as a pillow, even though it made it fall asleep and go tingly and numb.

They didn’t speak much that night.

Chuuya slept like a baby for fifteen hours,

And Dazai didn’t even consider leaving.

Chuuya lets out a small sigh, his heart clenching at the memory, eyes drooping from exhaustion to look down at the plate in front of him, half the food still on it.

“Yeah,” he mumbles. “Whatever. I don’t care. I’ll ask around in case there’s any slots still open.”

Kouyou watches Chuuya, and then nods. “Sure. Do it. Try and stay close to home?”

“No.”

The woman pauses, and—to Chuuya’s surprise—chuckles, shaking her head a little. When she meets the redhead’s eyes, hers are soft, her face a little compassionate.

“Do you hate me, Chuuya?” she asks.

Chuuya doesn’t meet her eyes. “Sometimes.”

“Do you hate me right now?”

The redhead doesn’t answer for a few seconds, a little distracted with pressing the fish into a mush. “No,” he responds eventually. “Just fed up with you.”

“I just let you have what you wanted with no complaint.”

“You won’t let me have what I truly want.”

“For God’s sake—let the boy go, Chuuya. He’s not your lifeline.”

“No.”

“And stop doing that to your food all the time.”

“No.”

Chuuya: Dudeee

Chuuya: U still working part time at that movie theatre?

The reply comes ten hours later, as expected.

Ranpo: no?? I told you I got fired for stealing the popcorn lmaoo

Ranpo: it wasn’t even nice they were stale i could sue them

Chuuya: Pfft idiot

Ranpo: why ask? looking for a job?

Chuuya: Kinda

Chuuya: Just for the summer

Ranpo: oh talk to akiko then, pretty sure she still works there

Chuuya: thank GOD

Chuuya: And you asshole what have u even been up to? Just cuz ur suspended doesn’t mean ur allowed to stay inside all summer

Ranpo: get me a mountain of snacks if you want me to get out

Chuuya: Fuckig introvert

Ranpo: no, i’m a businessman

Ranpo: there’s a difference

Chuuya: Stuff ur businessman up ur ass you idiot

After that, Chuuya moves onto Yosano, and quickly shoots her a text.

Chuuya: Yo, you still working at that movie theatre?

Chuuya’s considered a few jobs so far. There’s a small café nearby, but he doesn’t think he’ll be very good as a waiter or a barista, so he’d rather not. His temperament tends to be spiked with customers—the annoying ones, at least, and annoying ones are always guaranteed to come at some point, and then the redhead would get kicked out the next second. Sometimes they even manage to piss him off enough to compete with Dazai.

So, even if he does score a job at the theatre, he’d prefer to avoid being a cashier and just, like, hoover the screens or something. But being the cashier for a movie theatre is much easier, because the people there usually have their orders in mind and aren’t much of Karens (unless there’s an eight-people family or something).

He considered babysitting too, but that job might be better off with someone who actually knows how to handle kids well, so that’s one of his last resorts.

Maybe just a pet sitter?

Meh.

The only animals Chuuya likes are puppies. He doesn’t even like grown dogs as much as them.

Yosano: Yeah

Yosano: You need something?

Chuuya: Got any job slots open?

Yosano: summer only?

Chuuya: Yeah

Yosano: I’ll check up on that for you

Yosano’s next text comes over eight hours later, when Chuuya is sat next to his window, gazing down at the garage as if he’s fucking Rapunzel locked in his tall tower.

Yosano: Manager says he could use extra hands but like you’ll have to have an interview

Chuuya: What a fucking drag

Yosano: Are you not up for it?

Chuuya: I’ll just put it on hold for now

Yosano: Okay

Yosano: Also whats up with you and dazai?? Did you guys fall out?

Chuuya: No my stepmum just won’t let me see him cause of what happened

Yosano: Are you FR

Yosano: How are u guys still alive wtf??

Chuuya: I don’t need him for oxygen you fucking idiot

Yosano: Okay but u still need each other

Chuuya: Not rlly

Yosano: Is that why ur always up at five a.m. these days?

Chuuya: Wtf how do you even knownthat

Yosano: I pay attention. Go see him someday

Chuuya: He doesn’t wanna see me

Yosano: Are u fucking kidding me??!!!

Yosano: DO I REALLY NEED TO COUPLE COUNSEL THE TWO OF YOU??

Chuuya: YOU SHITHEAD ARE YOU TRYING TO GET BEAT UP

Chuuya: DON’TCALL US THE C WORD

Chuuya: But no we dont need counselling it’s fine

Yosano: I cant believe it

Yosano: So you two genuinely haven’t seen each other innnn

Yosano: how long exactly?

Chuuya: Abt three weeks

Yosano: With NO contact???

Chuuya: We talked a bit

Chuuya: He made it pretty clear he doesn’t wanna see me

Yosano: DO YOU HONESTLY BELIEVE THAT

Chuuya: No

Chuuya: do I look like im a fucking child

Yosano: Bruh

Yosano: Hold on Im gonna call you this texting shit is so stressful I can’t get my emotions across

Chuuya shrugs at that text, and gazes out of the window again, waiting for her to call.

She calls immediately after, obviously, and Chuuya picks it up, putting it against his ear, staring down at the garage again.

“Hey, Chuuya.” Yosano greets. “I think this is our first time calling each other to just have a conversation. Odd, right? Need something?”

Chuuya rolls his eyes. “You’re the one that called me,” he replies.

“Oh—couple counselling? Sure, I can do that.” The redhead hears some shuffling, and a short huff, as if the girl just collapsed on something soft. “Anyways, where were we? Oh, that Dazai very blatantly lied to you and you didn’t believe it but you listened to him anyways? Yeah, what’s that about?”

Chuuya sighs and pulls a knee to his chest, resting his elbow on it. “Why are you so interested?” he inquires.

Yosano scoffs in response. “It’s pretty obvious, you idiot. We’re friends. You’d do the same if it was like this between me and Ranpo or something, right?”

“I guess so.”

“So? Go on.”

Chuuya bites the insides of his cheeks in contemplation. Is it really okay to tell everyone this? Not that it’s a big deal, and not that Dazai even cares about whether or not people know, and not that Chuuya should care whether Dazai cares. But, still…

Ugh, fuck it.

“He thinks…” Chuuya starts, gritting his teeth together a little. “He’s just blaming himself. He’s a fucktard blaming himself, and that’s all it is. Says it’s better for me and shit that he stays away from me. Same as my step-mum.”

Yosano lets out a deep, thoughtful sigh. “And… he hasn’t come to see you?”

The redhead shakes his head even though she can’t see. “No,” he replies, staring down at his bare feet. “Probably more ‘cause he needs to protect his ego than he needs to protect me. But I texted him on Atsushi’s phone, and he texted back even though he knew it was me, so maybe he’s… y’know, not entirely avoiding me.”

Yosano hums thoughtfully. “Is there any more information to input before I start speaking?”

“Are you a fucking machine or what?”

“No more information?”

“I don’t know… oh, he said I’m just a routine for him.”

“…huh?”

Chuuya chuckles a little. “He said our relationship is just the same thing every day. And that it’s unhealthy.”

“How the hell—” Yosano cuts her disbelieving tone off with a scoff, and the redhead can clearly imagine her eyes being rolled to the north and south pole. “By that stupid logic, all relationships are routines. Who the fuck cares though? As long as you’re having a nice time, that’s all that matters. What an asshole.”

Chuuya hums lowly in agreement, eyes glued on the little part on the window that shows a bit of a rainbow when you let the light shine on it just right. “Do you think…” he starts, his voice distant as he stares at the array of colours, “…that we’re unhealthy?”

Yosano lets out a sigh. “Unhealthy? No. Shit at feelings? Yes.”

“What does that—”

“Shut up, Chuuya. You have to listen to me now.”

Chuuya scoffs, but shuts up nonetheless.

“Good,” Yosano says, and then the redhead hears shuffling, as if she’s getting comfortable for a rant, before she starts speaking again:

“You and Dazai…” she states, tone dead serious, “…are stupid.”

Silence.

More silence.

Even more silence.

Prolonged silence.

“Uh…” Chuuya says hesitantly. “Is that all?”

“Pretty much.”

“You’re useless.”

“Shut up!” Yosano snaps, her tone scolding, mimicking an elder sister. “Listen to it clearly. You two are stupid. You understand each other perfectly, but you don’t understand each other at all. Dazai genuinely wants what’s best for you, Chuuya—hell, it’s not every day that you get pushed off a fucking building by your—by whatever he is to you! Try to understand him, Chuuya. He’s not completely in the wrong here. He thinks it’s unhealthy and routinely because he almost killed you in one of your everyday pranks. Try to put yourself in his shoes. Imagine the guilt you’d be feeling.”

Chuuya lets every word sink in, his eyes falling shut.

“And Dazai can’t fucking understand that it’s not actually unhealthy and that you two being near each other is safer than him being away from you. You two are insane. It makes me want to rip my hair out, truly. You have one of the closest relationships I’ve ever seen between two people, so don’t let it go unless being together makes you upset. If it does that, then it’s unhealthy, do you understand? If you’re happy being with him, then everything will be okay.”

Chuuya doesn’t say anything. His breathing is even, steady-paced, his eyes still closed, whilst his ears are wide open.

“And he obviously hasn’t broken it off completely if he’s texting you back. Do you see that? He can’t ignore you. Did he come to see you for, well, some sort of ‘a last meeting’ or something?”

Chuuya opens his eyes again. Having all his positive thoughts reassured makes him feel weirdly better. “Kind of,” he says, putting his hand over his heart and scrunching up the shirt he’s wearing (Dazai’s, obviously) into a fist. “Outside my window. On the day it happened. He told me he’s leaving. I asked him not to. Then he put his lips on my hand.”

Yosano lightly gasps. “He what?” she shrieks, making Chuuya pull the phone away from his ear for a second before bringing it back.

Well.

He wasn’t planning to confess that, but—

Oh, well.

“He just put his lips on my hand,” he repeats, but now that he does, his face is heating up at the memory, and he immediately turns away from the window, as if someone’s going to catch him through it red-faced on the phone right now. “It’s not that big of a deal, stop screaming.” But it is, because Chuuya’s heart is skipping beats. And he’s also oddly pleased at the shock in Yosano’s voice.

“He kissed your hand?” Yosano yells, her voice so loud that Chuuya feels as if he accidentally put the phone on speaker mode. “He—he fucking kissed your hand?”

“The fuck is wrong with—”

“He kissed your hand and you just let him go?” Yosano shouts.

Chuuya huffs exasperatedly. “It wasn’t a kiss, okay? There was no smooch. He just put his lips on it and then stopped.”

“So, he was going to kiss your hand and then didn’t—what the fuck, Chuuya? When’s the wedding?”

The redhead’s eyes widen immensely, and he draws the curtains closed on the window, his heart thudding. “Shut up!” he yells. “Stop making it gay!”

“I’m not the one making it gay! That’s you guys. I’m just saying it as it is.”

“That’s not true!”

“Well, I don’t hear of many friends that kiss each other’s hands.”

“I didn’t kiss his!”

“So, you admit he kissed yours?”

“Yosano.”

“Okay, okay, whatever…” the girl mumbles, her voice drifting off. After a moment, she whispers: “Gay.”

“Shut up,” the redhead snaps, his voice much weaker than he expected, because his stomach is doing flips and his chest feels fuzzy and he sits down on the edge of his bed, staring at the floor, a warm smile on his face.

Why does it…

Why does it feel good?

Don’t people generally say ‘gay’ as an insult?

But homosexuals are getting more normalised these days, and it’s not hard to find one…

If you didn’t live in Japan, that is.

Chuuya, for a split second, remembers Kouyou’s words.

Snap out of it.

He sucks in a sharp breath, eyes clouding.

You sound like some stupid girl in love with him.

No…

You’re a boy, for God’s sake!

So what?

Chuuya’s eyes widen, and he clutches the phone tightly, appalled with himself.

Did he just…

did he just think ‘so what’?

“…Chuuya?” Yosano asks, her voice gentler than before. “You there?”

The redhead blinks. “Huh? Yeah. I’m-I’m here. What were we talking about?” he asks.

“…You being gay?” the girl suggests.

Chuuya wants to break apart his bedside drawer. “Fuckin’ hell,” he snaps. “I’m not gay. I literally went out with Yuan.”

Yosano barks a laugh. “You want a new word of the day, Chu? It’s called bisexuality. It’s a very nice word that means—”

“I know what that means!” Chuuya exclaims defensively. “I’m not that, either. I’m straight.”

There’s a long, awkward silence.

“Right…” Yosano drawls, clearly disbelieving, “…anyways, I’m going to invite everyone to the beach next Saturday. You in? I’ll even drag Ranpo out.”

The redhead blinks, flopping onto his back on the bed. “Yeah, man,” he replies with a sigh. “I really wanna get out. It’s so suffocating here. Oh, and tell your manager my contact details. I might as well do the interview. I can’t be bothered with anything else.”

“Got it. I’ll text the group chat about Saturday. Talk to you later, Chuuya.”

“See ya.”

And then Yosano hangs up, and Chuuya curls up into a ball, his mind in pieces.

Chuuya glances at himself in the mirror.

He was unsure about the hat at first, but it actually doesn’t look all that bad. Although the blue doesn’t really go well with his hair. A black or brown would work better, but it’s not like it’s his choice, because this is the uniform.

Someone knocks really quickly on the door. “Chuuya,” Yosano exclaims from the other side. “You done?”

“Huh? Yeah, I’m done. Come in if you want.” The redhead turns away from the mirror and faces the door, adjusting the hat on his head.

As soon as Yosano steps into the room, she grins, recognising the look on his face. “Don’t be too scared,” she drawls teasingly, her eyes bright. “I’ll—”

“I’m not scared.”

Yosano blinks blankly. “Uh-huh… anyways, I’ll be showing you around. I’ll introduce you to the staff that you’ll be around first, though. I can’t believe you aced an interview. You, of all people.”

Chuuya scoffs, following the girl outside, and shutting the door to the room behind them. “What’s that supposed to mean?” he demands whilst they walk down a cramped hallway. “And I didn’t even ace shit. I just said, ‘I’m looking for a job and this seems more like my thing’ and he asked if I work hard so I said yes, obviously—and then he just hired me.”

Yosano barks out an amused laugh, her eyes crinkling a little with sincerity. “Yeah, the manager is really sloppy when he’s desperate for employees.” As they walk past a pair of people, Yosano waves at them, and they wave back with wide smiles. They turn and wave at Chuuya too, with bright, friendly smiles, as if they know each other, and Chuuya’s so surprised that it takes him a beat too long to raise his hand and wave back.

“That’s Kenji and Tachi,” Yosano states as they carry on walking forwards. “They’re in the middle of work so we’ll bother them later. I’ll take you to the staff room—the people we’ll work closely with are probably there. Oh, and you don’t wanna be at the till, right?”

Chuuya shrugs with one shoulder. “Pretty much.”

“But what if you had to sometimes? Because things get a bit cramped some days and some employees are asked to just man an extra cash register or help with making slushies and stuff.”

“Yeah of course, I can do it if it’s needed,” the redhead says, putting his hands into his trouser pockets.

“M’kay, good to know.” Yosano’s steps are quick and confident, and she’s several inches taller than Chuuya, but his strides are quite wide so he doesn’t struggle to keep up with her successfully. From the way she carries herself in this place, she’s obviously comfortable and self-assured. She has been working at the place for over a year—she’d initially started it as a summer job, too, the prior year, but then she sort of fell in love with it and continued to work part-time.

The staff room is mainly empty when they get inside.

There’s a blonde girl wearing sunglasses situated on a red chair in the corner. And a boy, a tall one, and he doesn’t look to be Japanese at all—perhaps Russian? And a different boy, too, his face buried in a book, with dark hair completely covering his eyes.

All of them look up as soon as Chuuya enters the room with Yosano.

The blonde one takes off her sunglasses (who wears those inside?) and the Russian straightens up and the other boy puts down his book and—

Chuuya stands there, hands in pockets, with what he hopes is a good enough first impression grin.

“Hey, guys,” Yosano greets, dragging Chuuya further inside. “We got a new partner. Chuuya, that’s Higuchi with the sunglasses, and that’s… Ivan, and that’s Poe. And guys, this is Chuuya, my bestie.”

Chuuya scoffs and shoves Yosano’s hand off him. “Bestie, my ass,” he grumbles with a roll of his eyes. “Anyways—hi, guys.”

The silver-haired Russian, Ivan, raises a curious eyebrow, his eyes scanning the redhead up and down before resting back onto his eyes. “Nice to meet you… Chuuya.” His smile is suspicious, and the glint in his eyes makes Chuuya’s nose curl with distaste.

“Nice to meet you too,” the redhead says sceptically. “If you stop lookin’ at me like that.”

That makes Ivan laugh. A full throw-your-head-back-and-guffaw kind of laugh.

Higuchi nods and folds the sunglasses shut. “Ignore him. He’s an asshole,” she states, standing up to reach a hand out to the redhead. “It’s nice to meet you, Chuuya-kun. I’m sure you’ll bring a bit more sanity into this hellhole.”

Chuuya takes her hand and shakes it firmly. “It’s nice to meet you too. And, please, just call me Chuuya.”

“As you wish.” With one last smile, Higuchi sits back down on her chair.

When Chuuya glances at Poe, the boy immediately shrinks away, even shivering the tiniest bit. It worries the redhead; he immediately looks away, afraid that his sour face might have accidentally intimidated him. He wouldn’t be surprised—his resting bitch face even scares himself sometimes when he looks in the mirror.

And it’s all Dazai’s fault for making that a permanent look.

“Don’t worry too much about Poe,” Yosano says, her hands on her hips. “He has severe social anxiety. He barely talks, so he can’t man the registers. We just make him do the clean-up jobs cause of that.”

Chuuya feels kind of bad now.

But, still, he tries to smile, and faces Poe again. “Well, it’s nice to meet you anyways,” the redhead says, his voice soft—similar to the way he used to speak to Kyouka.

Poe relaxes just a fraction. He doesn’t respond in words, but just nods, shakily clutching his book to his chest.

“He got along with Ranpo really well,” Yosano states with a sigh. “But then that shithead went and got fired. Now Poe’s back to like he always was. Anyways—your shift’s starting in ten. We don’t really have designated times for having a rest, so just come whenever you get tired. We manage the theatre by ourselves. The manager’s a lazy ass. Maximum is five in the staff room. We can’t be having too many people slacking off at the same time. Now, I’d take you around with me but I’m going to the front. If you prefer to do some clean-up, either go with Ivan or catch up with Kenji and Tachi. It’s up to you whichever one you choose, but I suggest you go with the other two. You got all of that?”

Chuuya blinks, his mind clogged. “Uh…” he grumbles, “…I think so?”

Yosano chuckles and pats the redhead’s shoulder as she walks past him. “Good. I’m off then. Higuchi, remind him of anything he forgets. See ya guys in a bit!” And then the woman leaves, shutting the door behind her.

As soon as she leaves, the room is plunged into silence.

The Russian, Ivan, slumps in his seat with a huff. “She acts as if she runs the place,” he mumbles bitterly.

Chuuya does not appreciate that.

Sure, he doesn’t express his affection for Yosano, or for anyone, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t like them. He genuinely considers the girl his friend.

So he doesn’t like Ivan talking about her in that tone at all.

“Say that to her face then,” Chuuya says, meeting the man’s stare. “Fuckin’ asshole. I’m going to Kenji and the other guy.”

Ivan’s lips pull up into a sneaky grin, eyes squinted and gleaming. “Oh, come on,” he drawls, pushing himself up into a standing position. “They have each other. I could use an extra pair of hands. Whaddya say?”

Chuuya maintains eye contact with him. “I say shove your extra pair of hands up your ass.”

Ivan laughs at that. From the corner, Higuchi eyes the two of them sceptically, because she wasn’t lying when she called out the man for being an asshole. Even Poe from behind the book has his ears peeled.

“Come on, Chuuya,” Ivan says. “I’ll show you around. I’m very reliable.”

“Stop being naggy. It’s not cool.”

The Russian laughs a little again. “You’re not afraid to speak your mind, huh?” he drawls, leaning down a little. When he licks his lips, Chuuya’s hand clenches into a fist in his pocket, his blood boiling with something close to disgust. “I like that.”

Higuchi scoffs from the corner, her sunglasses back on her face, a phone in her hands. “Stop bothering him, Ivan,” she snaps irritably. “Chuuya, if you’d like, I can show you around a bit. I mainly do the cash register but I still know the place well.”

But Chuuya’s already noticed why she wears sunglasses.

He’s seen the bags under her eyes, more prominent than his own, and she’s not sat here to slack off. She’s probably trying to rest a little.

So he doesn’t want to bother her, especially since she seems so nice.

“Nah, I’m good,” the redhead says, smiling tightly. “I’ll just go find Kenji and Tachi. Thanks, though.”

Ivan is more persistent than he seems, however. Actually, at first glance, he could almost be presumed to be as lazy as Dazai. With his hunched spine and laid-back attitude, you could probably assume this. And the first time Chuuya meets him is here, in this staff room, where he seems to be slacking off, since he doesn’t look overworked at all. The more the redhead observes Ivan, the more he nit-picks at things, things that are similar to Dazai. Like the clean-shaven face. Or the glint in his eyes. Or the lazy smirk. Or the medium length hair that rests on their faces slightly. Or their nose shapes. Or their body structure.

Chuuya doesn’t realise how spaced out he’d gotten until a hand waves in front of his line of sight, jolting him out of the trance.

“Earth to Chuuya?” Ivan asks, his voice very obviously twinged with amusement. “Is this face of mine really that handsome?”

Chuuya scoffs with disbelief. Even though he wants more space between them, he doesn’t step back, just because their interaction almost feels like a face off. “No,” he says truthfully. “I was just thinkin’ of someone else.”

Ivan raises a curious eyebrow. “Well—that someone must be handsome. Is he your boyfriend?”

“Haah?” Chuuya screeches, some blood rushing to his face as he takes a step backwards, his heart starting to hammer a little. “No, don’t be ridiculous!” The high-pitched waver of his voice doesn’t help Chuuya’s case, and suddenly all three people in the room are watching him sceptically. “You just—you just get what we need to clean up! I’ll go with you, so hurry the hell up.”

Ivan continues to grin, and it’s almost as if he wants to say more, but then he just shrugs. “It’s a win for me,” the man mumbles instead. Whilst he walks past Higuchi, he sends her a wink, which causes her to glare at him: a death glare. A serious one. The kind someone gives to someone that just murdered their entire family.

Ivan and Chuuya end up walking down the hallway, towards the ‘Storage Room’ which is apparently where they keep the vacuum cleaners. The man has a small iPad in his hands, and he clicks on a few things, his face scrunching up the tiniest bit.

“We can go to screen thirteen,” Ivan states, tucking the iPad back into its case. “I think Kenji and Tachihara have got fifteen, and thirteen just finished its viewing, but it’s got another in an hour and a half so we’ll have to do a quick sweep rather than a thorough clean.”

Chuuya walks with his hands in his pockets, a thoughtful look on his face. “So... we’re just meant to vacuum?” he asks.

Ivan nods and then yawns the tiniest bit. “Uh-huh,” he replies. “We’ll pick up the garbage and vacuum under the seats as quickly as we can. That’s about it.”

Yeah... that definitely seems like more of a two-man job than a one-man one. It would be more sensible for there to be three to four people, actually, but they probably can’t reserve so many vacuums all for one screen, and neither do they seem to have that much staff. The movie theatre isn’t very big. Not like the ones in town, which are large and spacious and have over twenty-five screens, but it is the biggest one in the local area, so it gets quite good business that probably requires a few more workers than just—what—twelve? Maybe a bit more or less.

“Do you think I’m an asshole?” Ivan asks once they reach the storage room.

Chuuya is carrying a vacuum out of the room when he hears the question. He rolls his eyes, and carries on walking to wherever the fuck screen thirteen is, trying to ignore the presence behind him. “I don’t even know you,” he grumbles in response.

“Yeah, but...” Ivan responds. His voice has no strain; he must be used to carrying the vacuums around. “Higuchi and the rest kind of think I’m one, because...”

Chuuya glances at the man very briefly. He doesn’t like the way he reminds him of Dazai. “Because what?”

Ivan hesitates for a brief moment, before he admits: “Because I’m bisexual.”

The redhead trips over the pipe of the vacuum, his brain malfunctioning a little.

He’s...

Bisexual?

What the fuck does that mean? He likes both girls and boys? Ivan can like boys? And he admits to it? Is he not embarrassed? Or even... a little disgusted with himself? Does he not... care what people think?

These questions circle around in Chuuya’s brain, and his jaw unhinges a little as he takes hold of the vacuum properly again, starting to walk, hoping Ivan doesn’t find it too amusing the way that the redhead almost just tripped and ate the nasty carpet.

Does that mean Ivan wanted Chuuya with him because he’s... interested in him?

No way, they just met.

And even thinking of touching Ivan like that makes the redhead want to vomit all over the colourful carpet.

“So, you’re, uh...” Chuuya starts cautiously, “...interested in both genders?”

“Boys and girls,” Ivan responds in confirmation. “You’re an adult, right?”

The redhead side-eyes the man, weirded out, a sense if trepidation settling on his chest. “Yeah. Just barely,” he mutters.

Ivan can’t be younger than twenty. But he doesn’t seem to be older than twenty-five. Maybe... twenty-two-ish? Something around there, probably.

“Tell me about your boyfriend,” Ivan states.

Chuuya immediately jerks in response, halting in his journey to turn and glare at the man before he looks to his right and notices that they’re stood right beside screen thirteen. “I don’t have a fucking boyfriend,” he snaps, hoping to hell that his heating cheeks aren’t visible as he rushes towards the doors of the screen in large strides, his heart thudding a little against his ribcage. “I’m only interested in girls.”

“Oh—so he’s just a crush for now?”

“I don’t have a fucking crush on him!”

“Oh, really?”

“I just told you—I'm only interested on women.”

Ivan raises two eyebrows, following Chuuya into the screen, heaving the vacuum with one arm. “That’s what I thought too when I was your age,” he says. “Though I was just in denial.”

“I’m not in denial,” Chuuya claps back.

“Then why are you actually thinking of a certain boy right now?” Ivan asks, his tone lilting, and teasing, and irritating. “If you don’t have a crush on a dude, then ‘boyfriend’ could just mean any random idiot.”

The redhead’s eyes widen, and he groans in the back of his throat, making sure to keep his face away from the Russian’s line of sight as they walk up the ramp into the screen. “Well, obviously I thought by ‘boyfriend’ you meant the one I was imagining you as,” Chuuya retorts, attempting as hard as possible to not expose his deep, shameful embarrassment.

Ivan lets out a small chuckle. It’s not a nice, heartfelt sound that sparks the heart within Chuuya’s chest, unlike Dazai. Something about his laugh is… off, actually, and Chuuya can’t help but wonder if there’s something else that everyone calls him an asshole for. Because Higuchi seemed way too nice to judge someone based on their sexuality, and even Yosano was giving the man wary looks, and she’s definitely not homophobic.

Ivan lets out another small chuckle. “Why were you even imagining him on me?” he drawls, whilst the redhead bends down to a socket and plugs in the vacuum.

“Because you look like him a little,” Chuuya says plainly. “Now can we actually work, rather than just talk about Dazai?”

“So Dazai’s his name, huh...?”

“Oi, I mean it. We need to work.”

“Yes, boss.”

“Shut the fuck up.”

“Yes, boss.”

Chapter Text

“I’m going to the beach with some friends tomorrow.”

Kouyou pauses from where she’d been chopping carrots. Though she’s not much of a cook, and Kansuke tends to be the one that cooks (despite being so lazy that they have to order from outside at least three days a week), she still knows the basics, like how to use a knife and what certain flavours taste like when paired up. Right now, she’s making a salad in the form of a night-time snack before she heads back to bed for an early morning start.

Her hair is all pulled up into a tight bun that leaves no strand astray. It defines her sharp jaw and cheekbones to an extent that’s almost intimidating whilst she turns her head to look at Chuuya, with her eyes slightly squinted.

“I see,” Kouyou drawls slowly, frustratingly, as if the topic is the most ridiculous thing she’s ever heard of. “Which friends, exactly?”

Chuuya blinks. Well, he hasn’t bought the conversation up with Yosano, so he has no idea who’s actually going. Atsushi is practically certain to come, and honestly, Akutagawa is more extroverted than he seems; Kunikida’s a tough shell to crack but he’ll end up giving in; Ranpo can’t be more than a fifty-fifty chance. He has no idea if Yosano’s going to call her co-workers over too, like Higuchi, Poe, Kenji and Tachihara. There might be a fat chance.

“Just... a few of us from school,” Chuuya lies. Well, it’s only a half lie.

Kouyou clicks her tongue, and turns back to the carrot, proceeding to chop it up into pieces. “Will Dazai be there?” she asks monotonously.

Chuuya hesitates.

Dazai...?

Oh, fuck—

He hadn’t even thought that he might be getting an invite.

But it would be a bit suspicious now to just slip out of the kitchen and go text Yosano, because that means Kouyou will understand that the people he’s going with are close to Dazai and might invite him, and then there’s no way Chuuya will be allowed to go to the fucking beach.

But he wants to go.

He really wants to.

And, after realising that Dazai might have been invited...

Well, that just adds to the anticipation.

“No,” lies Chuuya. It almost scares him how smoothly it comes out of his mouth, like soft butter spreading on warm bread. “They’re not really close to Dazai.”

Kouyou turns for a split second to glance at the redhead, her eyes detached, but warm. “Okay. Will you get back before it gets too dark?” she asks softly.

Chuuya nods a little too eagerly, his heart thumping with relief that she accepted, that there may be a small chance of finally getting to see Dazai. “Yeah,” he says, turning on his feet and starting to walk out. “I’ll try to come back during sunset.”

Chuuya feels Kouyou’s gaze on the back of his head like two sharp knives.

Pointy, and pushing,

pushing into his flesh, and into his brain.

“I’m trusting you, Chuuya,” Kouyou states.

The redhead nods.

And he hates those three words, because once Chuuya is back in the safe solitude of his room, he feels something lodge in his throat. Something awfully similar to guilt.

But, then again—

Since Kouyou even felt the need to point out how she’s ‘trusting’ him...

It probably means she doesn’t trust him at all.

Chuuya stares at himself, his heart thumping softly.

He glances down at the phone clutched tightly in his hands, and considers for the last time that maybe he should ask Yosano whether she’s invited Dazai, but...

But that might dishearten Chuuya.

Now that he’s gotten his hopes up, seeing a ‘no’ will drain his energy and make him not want to go. And if she replies with a ‘yes’ then he’ll have too much energy, and it would be way too suspicious, and he might end up spending an extra hour on how he looks.

And he does not have the time for that.

Chuuya dubiously tucks his phone into the back pocket of his shorts. He adjusts the kimono cardigan around his shoulders—obviously Dazai’s from its size and distinct style and smell—and slightly pushes the bucket hat further down on his head. He had been second-guessing the bucket hat, because although it does conceal his beautifully braided hair, it also helps shield his eyes from the harsh, glaring sunlight that is beaming down on Japan twice as ferociously as usual.

After a few more minutes of staring at himself in the mirror, and taking one too many deep breaths, Chuuya finally gathers the courage to leave his room, grabbing only his wallet. He won’t be needing much. He tucks the wallet into his free back pocket, and then bounds down the steps, brimming with nervous energy to an extent that makes him extremely hyper and bouncy.

“Is that you, Chuuya?”

The redhead pauses at the bottom of the staircase. He turns to face Kansuke, who’s laid out on the sofa, a can of beer in his hands, his eyes slightly squinted from where he gazes at his son.

“Uh-huh,” Chuuya replies, trying not to gag at the sight of his lazy dad being so miserable. “You need somethin’, or can I go?”

Kansuke shakes his head, and then takes another solemn chug out of the can. “Don’t need a thing. Have fun... wherever you’re going.”

“I will,” the redhead says.

He stares at his dad for a second.

Chuuya loves his father.

He really does.

Because he might be a good-for-nothing husband and father, a man that doesn’t have a clue how to show affection or be there for the people that matter, and he might be a little addicted to the taste of mild alcohol every now and then, and he might be someone that has been neglecting Chuuya practically his entire fucking life, but—

He never left.

He never walked out the door, and didn’t come back.

So, although he’s mostly a piece of shit. He has his ways.

“See you later, dad,” Chuuya mumbles.

It makes his heart clench a little to acknowledge how even the word ‘dad’ has become strained, and... awkward.

Kansuke merely nods. “See ya,” he grumbles.

After a moment, the man’s eyes fall shut, and he begins dozing off, quiet snores emitting from his slightly agape mouth.

Chuuya watches him for a moment, and then turns—

Only to find his other parent.

Standing there with her arms crossed, dressed in a pencil skirt and white blouse and black pumps.

“Good morning, Chuuya,” Kouyou greets, her smile contrived as she looks the redhead up and down.

Chuuya clenches his jaw a little. “Morning,” he mumbles in response, walking towards the front door.

Kouyou blinks, and watches as her step-son swings the door open, ready to walk out.

“You look very nice.”

Chuuya stops.

He slowly turns his head to look at her. And though her smile is still artificial, there’s...

There’s still that warmth in her eyes. That small crease of worry on her forehead. That strained look on her face.

The redhead nods in response. “Thanks,” he responds. “I... I’ll be back before dark. I promise.”

Kouyou nods. “I’ll hold you to that,” she states. After a moment, the woman looks over at Kansuke, who’s laid out on the sofa, beer slightly dripping out of the can from where it’s been tilted over the edge too much in his sleep. “Disgusting,” she grumbles repulsively. “Kansuke, get up, will you? You’re so miserable, it’s—”

Chuuya leaves, and shuts the door behind him.

He has no desire to see them argue.

Not that you can even call it an argument, considering that Kansuke bends at the woman’s every will, doing whatever she likes, whatever she wants (though he always ends up going back to his old ways in the end).

But even seeing that irritates Chuuya.

So he leaves,

Catches the next bus,

And progresses towards people he feels much happier around.

“Here’s a popsicle, Chuuya-san."

Chuuya jolts a little, and then turns to face Atsushi, who’s gleaming so brightly that he could easily be used as replacement for the fucking sun if it ever decided to malfunction and break down. His amber eyes are big and eager, happy and calm. He’s wearing a hat, too, though his is a large straw hat, completely shielding his entire face from the sun, since he claims to be extremely prone to sunburns. He even lathered his entire body in layers of sunscreen. When he’d asked Akutagawa to get his back, the black-haired boy grimaced and denied, but obeyed calmly when Chuuya asked him to do his back. In the end, the redhead ended up having to do Atsushi’s back for him.

“Thanks,” Chuuya says, taking the popsicle and clutching to it from the stick. “Where’d you get these?”

Atsushi grins and points at a nearby stall. “From there. They’re only one-hundred yen each, so I bought one for each of us.”

Chuuya glances around. There’s ten of them, so if Atsushi really bought one for each of them, that’d be a thousand yen.

The redhead quickly pulls his wallet out of his back pocket and grabs a five-hundred yen coin. “Here,” says, reaching it out to the boy. “I’ll pay half.”

“Oh, don’t worry about it,” Atsushi denies worriedly. “It’s really no problem.”

Chuuya scoffs and shoves the coin further towards the boy. “Just take it, you moron.”

It takes half a minute of convincing, but in the end, Chuuya succeeds, and Atsushi sheepishly takes the coin, sending the redhead one last grin before he jumps back to his feet and walks over to where Tachihara and Kunikida are sat, probably to hand them a popsicle, too.

“It’s so hot,” Akutagawa grumbles from where he’s laid next to Chuuya on the plaid sheet, a sun umbrella shielding them from the blaring sun.

“The heat is so wonderful, though!” Kenji exclaims; he’s sat on the corner of the sheet, away from the shade. “Some people say it gives you skin cancer, but I think the sunburns feel good!”

Chuuya has his legs crossed. He’s half in the sun, and half in the shade, occasionally glancing around (definitely not in hopes of a certain brunet showing up). “You’re a psycho,” he tells the kid.

“No!” Kenji denies excitedly, grinning at the redhead. “It’s just that my house is always so cold, even in the summer, because my mum’s from Canada so she prefers the cold! Oh, and did I tell you guys that she had a farm in Canada? Apparently it was a little hard to maintain because of the temperature and conditions, but their business was pretty successful, and they earned a lot of money! She even has this whole photo album! She showed me a few photos of Poppy—a cow of theirs—and honestly I just fell in—”

There goes Kenji again, beginning to rant for the third time.

Honestly, neither Chuuya or Akutagawa mind. It’s refreshing to hear someone talk so much, actually, and Kenji’s face is so sweet and cute that you can’t help but want to listen to every word he says just so you can reply and get along with him. Akutagawa laps up each sentence the boy says, and his life story is pretty regular, but the enthusiasm and glee in his voice makes it sound extravagant, and beautiful, and complicated. Chuuya tries to pay attention, but he’s the tiniest bit distracted, so he can’t help but miss a few words and sentences here and there.

After a few minutes, Atsushi waddles back to the three of them and settles down cross-legged on a free spot on the sheet. “God, it’s boiling!” he exclaims, wiping some sweat off his upper lip as he gently licks on the popsicle. “Global warming is definitely real, huh?”

“No shit, birdbrain,” Akutagawa mumbles, still laid down, but with his eyes closed.

“Hey, that’s not nice,” Atsushi complains, nudging Akutagawa’s foot with his elbow. “Why are you laid under the shade anyways? Secretly a vampire?”

Akutagawa scoffs. “Yeah, I’m gonna drain you of blood.”

Chuuya smirks. “Kinky,” he accuses, to which Akutagawa’s eyes snap open, his cheeks flooding with colour.

“Th-That’s not kinky!” he denies loudly, pushing himself up into a sitting position as he glares at the redhead, who only laughs in response. “Not funny, Chuuya-san.”

Kenji grins. “I thought it was funny,” he counters happily, his bright teeth showing through his open-mouthed smile, the popsicle in his hand starting to drip down the stick.

Akutagawa, for the first time, glares at Kenji, too. “Shut your trap!”

“Hey!” both Atsushi and Chuuya snap. With a tug, Atsushi pulls Kenji closer, wrapping his arms around him in an exaggerated defensive move. “Don’t say that to Kenji!”

Kenji giggles into Atsushi’s shoulder. “It’s okay,” he assures, pulling away from the boy to grin at Akutagawa. “You’re funny too, Akutagawa senpai.”

The dark-haired boy only scoffs in response, jumping to his feet. “Whatever. I’m going to the restroom.” He quickly finishes the popsicle, and then throws it into the plastic bag, walking off towards the nearby café, where there may be a toilet.

Chuuya laughs again once he’s gone, quickly licking at his popsicle since his is starting to melt, too. “You guys should go in the water,” he advises. Even on the other plaid sheet, where Yosano, Ranpo, Tachihara, Kunikida, Higuchi, and Poe are sat, none of them have even touched the sea yet.

“Oh, yeah, we will,” Atsushi says. “Just waiting for the full party to arrive, I guess.”

Chuuya’s eyebrows furrow, his lips slightly parting. “...Full party?” he questions sceptically. “Aren’t we all here?”

Atsushi glances at the redhead, and then shakes his head, smiling a little, before his eyes catch onto something behind Chuuya, and he raises his hand to wave. “No,” he replies in the meantime. “He’s walking towards us now. Fashionably late as always!”

Is it...?

Whilst Atsushi waves at whoever it is, Chuuya hesitantly twists his head around, his heart speeding up a little.

No, it can’t be...

He came here, and the brunet wasn’t here. There was no sign of him. It’s been near half an hour since, so Chuuya had practically given up on the idea that he’d be coming, but he should have known better, because that asshole is always late, and there’s no telling whether he’ll be five minutes late or two hours late or any time in between and after.

Even so, he didn’t want to get his hopes up.

(Totally had his hopes up.)

But once Chuuya’s eyes meet brown ones, and Dazai stops walking as soon as he realises whose eyes he’s gazing into—

He knows it was worth it.

Worth dressing up, and worth saying yes, and worth it coming here.

Chuuya can’t help it, really. His face brightens and softens and sharpens, one hundred emotions all at once, and there’s something so stormy in his grey-blue eyes, and his lips hint at a smile but he can’t be considered smiling, either, and his eyebrows are relaxed, his left arm tugging the hat down against his head, and his right clutching onto the half-eaten popsicle. Even the sun seems to be doing him a favour, beating down onto his face, lighting it up like a candle in a pitch-black room.

And his hair...

It seems to be on fire.

So Dazai can’t help it, either.

Can you blame him?

His hands immediately latch onto the camera around his neck, and even though he’s still a few steps too far away, he can’t let this moment pass him by. So he raises the camera to his eye, zooms in only a little, and wastes not another second in snapping a picture, his heart tingling with a familiarly unfamiliar feeling.

And then he smiles.

“Dazai!” Yosano yells from where she’s sat, leaning back into Ranpo casually. “Stop smiling like a lovesick puppy and get your ass over here! What are you so late for?”

Dazai places the photo into his trouser pocket and zips it up once it’s printed, staring at Chuuya for close to three seconds before he glances over at the girl. “I missed my bus,” he states, letting the camera fall back down against his bare stomach. It’s the only part of his torso that isn’t wrapped in bandages. His arms, and most of his chest, is wrapped in spotless white cloth.

“Well, get over here then!” Yosano shouts.

Dazai shakes his head in response.

“I’m leaving,” he announces, twisting on his feet.

Chuuya’s heart plummets, and his mouth falls open.

“What?” Yosano screeches. “Get back here, idiot!”

Dazai doesn’t listen.

He raises an arm, and waves goodbye at no one in particular as he walks away.

A warmth spreads across Chuuya’s chest.

It’s biting, and hot, and it makes his jaw clench, his eyes shooting daggers. It takes him a few seconds to recognise it as pure rage, because he hasn’t felt it in such a sincere way for an entire month.

He hasn’t felt it since Dazai left.

“Oh, no, you don’t,” Chuuya whispers under his breath. Atsushi hears it, and his eyes widen, and he almost bothers to protest, because Chuuya being in that mood never ends well.

But before he can even open his mouth, Chuuya is on his feet,

And he begins sprinting.

“You fucking asshole!” the redhead bellows. Whilst Dazai turns around, his eyes wide with shock, a family sat nearby quickly covers their children’s ears. “You’re not allowed to just leave!”

Dazai gapes at the approaching redhead, surprised.

And then, he quickly turns back around, and starts sprinting, too, until Chuuya is just left to chase him.

To be honest, there’s not much Chuuya can defeat Dazai in. The brunet’s a shithead, sure, but he’s annoyingly smart, horribly in control of his emotions (usually) and can destroy the redhead in anything that involves tactical thinking, and most of the time, even in luck.

But when it comes to athleticism? Chuuya is short, but he’s not small, and he’s also been an active person ever since he was a child, so he’s agile, trained, muscular, and has a hell of a lot of stamina.

On the other hand, there’s Dazai, a lazy asshole who takes thirty minutes to just open his fucking eyes in the morning.

So, when there’s a matter of running—

Chuuya’s got the upper hand.

“Stop chasing me!” Dazai yells, briskly dodging a child that runs into his way, a beach ball in hand.

Chuuya growls venomously. When the beach ball starts heading his way mid-throw, the redhead ducks and somersaults amidst his determined frenzy, and then doesn’t waste another second in getting to his feet and starting to sprint once again. “Dazai!” he shouts angrily. The brunet’s already running out of breath, his thighs cramping, his eyes blurring. “Just stop!”

“No, you’re literally chasing me!”

“Then stop running!”

“What do you mean?!” Dazai yells, gasping and panting for air, his legs slowing down. “Just go. Away!”

“No!”

Five metres left.

And Dazai is slowing down.

Four metres.

Three.

Two.

One.

Chuuya leaps at the last second, his momentum pushing him forward, and he lands onto Dazai’s back, the sudden weight making him fall.

They topple together into the hot sand with a soft thud.

“Oh, fuck,” Dazai mutters as soon as they crash. Some sand gets into his mouth, and he quickly spits it out, grimacing at the dry, grainy taste.

“You... fuckhead,” Chuuya pants, lifting himself up enough that Dazai can flip onto his back, not face-planting the warm sand anymore. Their eyes meet, and the redhead’s chest brims with rage again, so he lifts a fisted hand. “You think—you think you can just run away from me?!”

Dazai waits a beat, and then smirks a little lazily, his hair messy, and now dotted with sand. “No,” he states plainly. “You’ve always been faster than me.”

“Then what was the point of running away?” Chuuya demands incredulously.

The brunet giggles like a girl and grabs a fistful of sand, throwing it weakly against Chuuya’s toned chest. “It was fun,” he replies.

Chuuya pauses.

Dazai...

He’s sparkling.

There’s a distinct glint in his eyes, and his face...

It looks happy.

Even his body, and his aura, they all seem happy.

He hasn’t been like this ever since Odasaku died.

He hasn’t been like this ever since forever.

“You...” Chuuya whispers, dropping his fist, and resting it against the brunet’s chest. Their eyes meet again, and the breath feels like it’s being squeezed out of Chuuya’s lungs. “You’re... such a goddamn numbskull.”

Dazai can’t help but grin. “It’s nice to see you too, slug.”

Chuuya’s heart skips a beat. He closes his eyes for a second, and slightly moves his leg.

And feels bare skin rub against his.

The redhead’s eyes shoot open as he looks down.

“What the fuck?” Chuuya whispers.

“What?” Dazai asks, glancing down. “Oh, you didn’t notice that you’re straddling my waist as if we’re star-crossed lovers?”

Chuuya’s eyes widen slightly, his cheeks on fire. “You—shut the hell up! It was an accident.”

Dazai nods slowly. “Uh-huh... is that why you’re not moving?”

“God, I really—” Chuuya jumps off his waist, his face scorching warmer than the sun, “—I really fucking hate you.”

“Hate you too, Chibi,” Dazai mutters with a sigh. He pushes himself up into a sitting position, and then turns to face Chuuya, who’s just staring at the sand that’s being squashed under the weight of his hand. “You’re red as fuck.”

“Yeah, because it’s hot as fuck!” Chuuya snaps.

Dazai smirks. “Right,” he states disbelievingly.

“Man, shut the hell up. Why’d she even invite you?”

“Aren’t you the one that just chased me down as if I’m some delicious prey?”

“Yeah, to murder,” Chuuya threatens. He jumps to his feet, staring down at the brunet with a harsh glare in his eyes. He winces, and then suddenly he hates having to think that by the end of the day, he might have to spend another month with Dazai just avoiding him.

Again.

“I’ve got somethin’ to ask.”

Dazai shrugs lazily. “Shoot.”

“Are you going to...” Chuuya starts, his heart clenching painfully for a second, “...stop avoiding me?”

Dazai pauses, his eyes meeting Chuuya’s. Then, he turns away, biting the insides of his cheeks in contemplation.

“It was stupid of me for thinking I could avoid you,” he mumbles in response.

Chuuya’s lips lift into a small smile, and he squats down. “It was,” he agrees. “We have way too many friends in common for you to actually be able to—”

“No.”

“...What?”

“That’s not why.” Dazai grabs Chuuya’s arm and tugs, pulling him a bit closer, and the redhead’s left hand automatically clenches into a fist, ready to punch the asshole straight in the face. “Don’t you get it, Chuuya?” he mutters, leaning down just a fraction, his lips lifted into a small smile. “We can’t be separated.”

Oh, fuck.

Way to make Chuuya fucking speechless.

And hot.

God, he feels so hot. Scorching. As if he’s in an oven. In Death Valley, wearing layers and layers of sweatshirts.

“I...” Chuuya breathes, his voice distant and faded. “Do you really believe that?”

Dazai smirks a little. But his cheeks are pink too. “Do you not?”

“I do,” the redhead admits in a mumble. “But I’ve always known that. You only just figured it out.”

“I’m slow sometimes.”

“You’re slow all the fucking time, you bastard.”

“Is that my cardigan you’re wearing?”

Chuuya smirks. “Obviously.”

“Can’t get enough of me?” Dazai teases.

That earns him a punch from Chuuya, straight to the chest.

“Don’t fucking mess with me,” the redhead growls, rolling his eyes. “Now that you’ve come to your senses, let’s go back to the rest of ‘em.”

But, as soon as Chuuya tries to stand back up, Dazai tugs him again, forcing him to sit down.

Chuuya glares at him. “What the hell are you—”

“Let’s stay here,” Dazai requests, a soft smile on his face, looking the redhead right in the eyes. “Just the two of us. Just for a bit.”

It’s such a soft, simple request.

And honestly...

That’s all Chuuya wants right now, too.

So he says, “Fine, moron, but not for too long,” and then they both lay down on the sand, and whilst they talk—and argue... mostly argue—Chuuya somehow finds his head on Dazai’s shoulder, and Dazai’s arm around his, and the two of them are entwined again, in more ways than one.

And, before either of them manages to take notice...

‘For a bit’ becomes ten minutes.

And then thirty.

And then an hour.

And then two.

“So...?”

Chuuya plops down in the free space between Ranpo and Higuchi, yawning the tiniest bit, even though he hasn’t done anything but lay in the sand for two fucking hours. With a tilt of his head, he faces Yosano, who’s sat on the other side of Ranpo. “So, what?” he asks, his tone deadpan whilst Dazai sits down in between Atsushi and Tachihara.

Yosano raises her eyebrows as she takes small sips from a cocktail in her hands. “So what the hell have you two been up to?” she asks, glancing over at Dazai, who’s acting all nonchalant, leaning back into his palms, a feigned look of boredom on his face. “You two were gone for so long that we thought you left.”

“He kidnapped me,” Chuuya says.

Dazai scoffs, rolling his eyes. “You’d be the last person I’d kidnap,” he grumbles.

“This coming from the guy who locked me in a garage for over two hours?”

“This coming from the guy that was just cuddling me in the sand?”

Chuuya freezes, as does everyone else.

And then he feels his blood boil.

And his skin burns.

“Dazai...” he whispers, his voice quiet but deadly. “I’m gonna fucking kill you.”

But the brunet just smirks, eyes twinkling under the shine of the sunlight. “I’d love that, actually,” he says, which just makes Chuuya’s cheeks burn, his heart thumping in his chest.

“You!” Chuuya snaps aimlessly, his sharp tongue uncharacteristically tongue-tied. “You’re such a dickhead.”

“Oh, c’mon, you can do better than that,” Ranpo interrupts, gently urging the redhead on with a nudge of his elbow.

“Don’t encourage him!” Yosano scolds, smacking Ranpo’s bicep, to which he just frowns at her until she softens and pats at his hair like a mother. “Fine, fine, it’s okay... just don’t do that again.”

“But I haven’t seen them argue in so long, and I missed it,” the man complains, eating away at a bar of chocolate.

Chuuya glares at Ranpo, who winks back at him for no reason at all. “We don’t argue for you entertainment, asshole,” he snaps.

“Then...” Ranpo begins, eyebrows raised, “...what do you argue for?”

“Because he’s a dickhead.”

“Because he’s a brat.”

The answers that come in unison from both men in question makes everyone pause, and then Chuuya and Dazai glare death glares at each other, irritated.

“Not that I know what’s going on...” Tachihara begins, turning to face Chuuya with a kind smile. “But you’re the new employee, right? It’s nice to meet you properly, Chuuya-kun.”

The redhead takes Tachihara’s hand and shakes it, once, before letting go, whilst Dazai’s eyebrows pull in. “Yeah, that’s me. It’s nice to meet you too, Tachihara. And please just call me Chuuya.”

At that, Tachihara smiles kindly, and nods obligingly. “Of course,” he replies.

“...Employee?” Dazai questions confusedly.

Yosano glances at the brunet, and then chuckles a little. “You didn’t know?” she asks curiously. “Chuuya’s working a summer job at our movie theatre.”

Dazai squints his eyes, turning to look at Chuuya. “Why?” he asks.

“Because I needed somethin’ to do, obviously,” the redhead grumbles with a roll of his eyes. “Being stuck at home all day makes my brain rot.”

The brunette raises an eyebrow. “So, things that don’t exist can rot these days, too?”

Chuuya scoffs. “Hilarious, aren’t you?”

“Glad to see you’ve accepted my impeccable comedic pizazz.”

“You saying the word ‘pizazz’ just goes to show how wrong that sentence is.”

“Your face.”

“No matter how many times you make that joke, it doesn’t make sense.”

“Your face doesn’t make sense.”

“Oh my fucking—”

“Okay, guys, let’s stop arguing!” Atsushi butts in, all wide smiles and sparkling eyes and bright voices. “How about we all go for a swim?”

Akutagawa rolls his eyes. “How about you go drown?” he snaps.

“There’s too much negativity here!” Kenji exclaims excitedly, jumping to his feet. “Let’s all be kind to each other! Let’s say nice things!”

“M’kay,” Akutagawa mumbles from where he’s laid down again, eyes shut. “Nakajima, I hope you drown. But nicely.”

Kunikida can’t help but snicker lightly from where he’s pretending to be asleep just so no one bothers him.

Kenji beams brightly. “Thanks for cooperating, Akutagawa senpai!” he says happily.

“That doesn’t make it any better!” Atsushi complains.

“God, there’s so much testosterone here,” Higuchi mumbles under her breath, eyes covered by sunglasses yet again, though this time in a more appropriate setting.

Yosano barks out a small laugh. “Agreed.”

Chuuya pauses, realising that Higuchi is literally sat right next to him.

He turns his head to glance at her, and she glances back, even smiling at him—a small, civil gesture that he returns, and then looks away.

Would now be a good time to ask...?

He doesn’t want to exactly ask in front of everyone else, but pulling her away will be suspicious, and he won’t have any way to contact her again until they’re back at work, where they might not even be able to talk.

Chuuya gulps a little, and then leans closer to the woman. “Higuchi,” he starts, his voice quieter, so that everyone else remains immersed in their conversation and doesn’t pay them much mind.

Higuchi turns to look at the redhead, tilting her head a little. “Yes?” she prompts gently.

“Are you...” Chuuya begins warily, “...homophobic?”

The question makes the blonde’s eyebrows shoot upwards, lips pulling up into a tiny, amused smile. “That’s a sudden question. What brought that up?” she asks curiously.

“Ivan,” he answers, to which the woman’s small smile drops, her face straightening out. “He said you called him an asshole because he’s bisexual. Apparently. I just don’t fully believe him, I guess.”

Higuchi stays still for a few moments. After those few moments are up, she lets out a small sigh and sits up straight, glancing at the redhead from beneath her sunglasses. “I’m not, actually,” she answers, grabbing the glasses from her nose and pulling them off. “To tell you the truth, I’m gay, too.”

Chuuya pauses, tilting his head a bit. “You’re gay?” he asks.

“Well, the term’s lesbian for a girl. So, yeah.” Higuchi still doesn’t smile. She turns to the redhead, and from what he can see, her hazel eyes are a bit hollow. “That’s not why I called him an asshole.”

Chuuya’s eyebrows furrow, and he frowns a little, leaning back. “Then why?” he asks curiously.

The woman sighs again and sets her folded sunglasses aside. Her eye bags are much less prominent than before, either because she actually managed to sleep or because her makeup is doing a job well done, but the redhead can still see a shade of them from where he’s sat.

It takes Higuchi a few moments to answer. Chuuya scratches at his knee in anticipation, trying to think of what she might say. Maybe he cheats on his partners? Maybe he flirts with everyone? Maybe he cheated on Higuchi? Wait—but she’s a lesbian. Maybe he just has an asshole personality like Dazai’s that he isn’t aware—

(The TW comes in here!)

“Sexual assault.”

Chuuya feels his heart drop.

“…Huh?” he exclaims, eyes widening, his face paling.

The two words catch mostly everyone’s attention. Atsushi and Akutagawa, however, continue arguing about drowning in the background.

Higuchi looks up, meeting Chuuya’s eyes. “He’s been accused many times before. Girls come to us, telling us he grabbed their asses, or stroked their hair even after they established that they weren’t interested. It’s mainly small touches like that. A boy came to us too, this year… said how Ivan was too ‘touchy’ when asked to show him the way to bathroom. Touched his elbow, his hip, his ass, his thing… whatnot.”

Chuuya feels like his lungs have been squeezed.

He had spent almost an hour in an empty room with him. Of course, he hasn’t gauged Ivan’s strength at all, apart from the ease with which he’d carried the vacuum cleaners, but Chuuya had carried them with ease too. His regular gym visits aren’t for nothing.

Maybe the lack of any initiation during that hour just means that Ivan isn’t interested in him?

After a few seconds, the redhead swallows away the dryness in hus mouth, his shock subsiding. “…Mainly small touches?” he questions reluctantly.

Higuchi sighs, and shrugs, looking away. “I can guarantee he’d do much more if so many people weren’t around all the time. I can completely guarantee it. The asshole even put his hand up my skirt one time.”

Yosano gasps, leaning forward. “Ichiyou,” she snaps, face pale. “You didn’t even tell me…”

The blonde shakes her head, looking away. “It didn’t bother me that much,” she mumbles, though the glares she usually sends to Ivan under her sunglasses beg to differ. “Don’t worry about it, Akiko.”

“Don’t worry about it?” Yosano barks incredulously.

Chuuya clenches his jaw. He can feel his body shaking already with bone-deep frustration. “Why the fuck hasn’t he been fired?” he demands, a strong tinge of irritation to his tone.

Since Higuchi has gone a bit quiet now, Yosano speaks up, her face still as pale as paper. “Excuses,” she answers with a scoff. “According to the manager, we’re short-staffed and Ivan has been working for two years, so he’s apparently ‘good’ at the job. Also, there’s no proof—though I think that if enough people are saying they’ve been sexually assaulted by the same guy, then they’ve been fucking sexually assaulted by the same guy. I did a bit of digging last year, though. Ivan is the manager’s first cousin.”

Chuuya winces.

For the first time, Dazai leans forward, eyes squinted again, eyebrows furrowed. “And he’s… bisexual?” he asks.

“…Yeah,” Yosano answers.

That makes the brunet stiffen for a moment, his forehead creased with wrinkle upon wrinkle when he turns to look at Chuuya. Their eyes meet, and Dazai opens his mouth, hesitating for a second, before he reluctantly asks, “Has he..?”

Chuuya stares at him for a beat, confused.

And then his eyes widen, his jaw unhinging. “No!” he quickly denies. “He hasn’t done anything to me.”

Dazai slumps a little at that, relaxing, and then nods. He glances at Yosano, who still looks distressed—probably because of Ivan, and especially because of what he did to Higuchi. “What’s his name again?” he asks.

Yosano blinks. “Ivan.”

“And you’ve tried everything you can to get him fired?”

“Everything in my power.” The woman sighs and rubs a hand against her bare legs, still pale. “I even lectured the manager and everything… he threatened to fire me.”

“Us guys should just leave!” Kenji opts.

“Nah,” Ranpo begins, shaking his head a little. “You lot being there is probably the only thing stopping Ivan from going too far.”

Dazai frowns, a little frustrated. “But…” After a moment, the brunet looks back at Chuuya, who’s staring at his own feet, a little deep in thought. “Chuuya.”

The redhead looks up. “What?”

“Leave.”

“Leave… what? The job?”

Dazai nods, to which Chuuya scoffs, rolling his eyes. After hearing about Ivan, the redhead has indeed become uncomfortable, but now he’s even more hesitant on leaving. Because Yosano is his friend. And even Higuchi, and Poe, and Kenji and Tachihara—they’re all such nice people that leaving them there and then resigning is like running away. It’s like leaving them behind to return to their cycle whilst Chuuya crawls back into the hole he came out of.

On top of that, Chuuya knows how to defend himself. He hasn’t been practicing martial arts for most of his life just to let himself or someone else get molested. He’ll defend everyone, and he’ll make sure Ivan is fired, and worse.

He’ll make sure that asshole gets what he’s got coming.

“No,” Chuuya replies. “I’m not leaving.”

Higuchi snaps her head towards the redhead. “You should. Trust me—the way he looked at you on your first day was not safe.”

“Oh, so he’s already expressed interest?” Dazai exclaims incredulously, leaning forward with his eyebrows furrowed.

“Hardly,” Chuuya scoffs. “We were literally alone for a while and he didn’t do shit.”

“Because you were in a screen. They have cameras there,” Tachihara states, frowning a little.

“And besides,” Yosano starts up, “I wouldn’t put it past him to try to develop an emotional connection with you just so he can get in your pants.”

(The TW ends here!)

         (Summary of the conversation: Higuchi explains that Ivan touches people without their consent. Chuuya is shocked. Ivan hasn’t been fired because of the manager’s excuses since they’re first cousins. Higuchi admits that he did it to her, too. Dazai asks Chuuya to leave the job but he denies doing so, despite Higuchi saying that Ivan has clearly expressed interest. Yosano tells Chuuya Ivan is probably trying to develop an emotional connection to get in his pants.)

Dazai stares at the redhead. Though he clearly feels disgust, and is definitely uncomfortable, he can see it on his face as prominent as the sun is at noon: the determination. The brunet loves to argue with Chuuya, sure, but this isn’t just like picking at his height and getting him frustrated. This is different. This is a battle that he knows he can’t win.

“Then…” Dazai starts, sliding his eyes over to Yosano. “Let me apply, too.”

Chuuya gapes. “You can’t be serious!” he yells.

“Oh, I am.”

“I’m not a fucking child, Dazai; I can take care of myself. What the fuck do you think I—”

“And what if he can, too?” the brunet questions, his voice rising slightly in volume. “What if he’s a black belt or something? What then?”

Chuuya hadn’t thought of that.

Everyone can tell that he hadn’t thought of that; it’s pretty clear from the way the redhead freezes, body slowly slumping down.

“But…” Chuuya scrunches up his hands into fists, the plaid sheet getting caught in between his fingers. “I don’t want to drag you… or anyone, into this.” It’s precisely at that moment that the redhead’s eyes catch onto it. That part on Dazai’s forearm, that seems more bandaged up than the others; a double—no, a triple—wrap. When Chuuya sees it, his heart physically feels as if it’s slowing down, his jaw slightly unhinging, face paling. And from the way Dazai aggressively shoves his arm away and hides it from Chuuya’s line of sight, it’s pretty obvious that he noticed him noticing it.

“Can we…” Poe starts up for the first time, his voice uncertain and shaky, “…stop talking about this now?”

Higuchi nods in agreement. “Yeah—I’d like that too.”

“I’m sorry for bringing it up,” Chuuya mumbles, trying to make eye-contact with Dazai, who’s suddenly found the wet sand a few metres away from there undeniably fascinating.

As always, it’s Yosano that breaks the ice. “Anyways!” she yells excitedly, jumping onto her feet. “Who’s going to come into the water with me?”

“Me!” Atsushi and Kenji exclaim excitedly in unison.

Akutagawa sits up with a grunt. “Might as well,” he grumbles, and suddenly, Kunikida is awake too, saying, “Eh, sure,” and getting onto his feet. When Ranpo gets up with a stretch, Poe follows suit. Chuuya notices the way that Ranpo causally throws an arm around Poe’s shoulders as they walk towards the shore side-by-side, and is momentarily impressed by the way that Poe doesn’t pull away or cringe or shrink into himself. He actually seems to relax.

Higuchi, Tachihara and Dazai stand up too. The blonde lets out a small yawn. “Come on,” she says, patting Chuuya’s head as she walks past. “Let’s have a swim.”

The redhead shuffles onto his feet as he watches them all start to head to the shore. “Dazai!” 

Dazai stops.

And turns his head.

“What?” he asks, his voice void of emotion.

Chuuya’s eyes drift down to his arm, and then travel back up to his eyes, as hollow as ever, all dark and brown and borderline creepy. “Why did you...?” he asks, his heart twinging a little with pain.

Dazai just stares at him for a moment. Then, his lips pull up into a smile, and he turns back around, walking off. “I’m here to have fun,” he says. “We can talk about it later.”

Chuuya knows him too well.

We can talk about it later = I’ll never talk about it.

And he wouldn’t. Ever. But Chuuya’s a stubborn bitch, and when he wants to know something, he’ll find it out.

Even if he’s up against Dazai Osamu.

Chapter Text

By the time Atsushi and Kenji have had their fill of swimming in the ocean, the eleven of them head to a nearby seafood restaurant, where they all eat a bit. Dazai, unsurprisingly enough, orders crab—Chuuya gags at that very indiscreetly, leading the brunette to hide a little piece of it in his salad when the redhead goes to the bathroom for a quick leak. And then, obviously, when he comes back, he eats a little bit of salad—

And is met with the unexpected taste of crab.

Which he spits out onto Dazai’s plate.

And then the two of them get kicked out by both their friends and also a nearby disgusted waiter.

“Was that really necessary?” the redhead snaps as the two of them wait on a bench outside for their friends to be done with their food.

Dazai rolls his eyes as he scrolls through his phone absentmindedly. “Was it really necessary to spit onto my food?”

Chuuya curses at him.

After almost half an hour, the other nine people finally filter out of the restaurant, and they all go for a small walk up and down the pier and along the street food stalls. They’re still way too full to eat street food, but some of them order a little bit of ice-cream, and then they all carry on forwards. The day is still hot, but has cooled down now from the midday blaring heat. The sky is starting to hint at clouds. The sun has also dipped down at least halfway across the sky, and Chuuya sees the moon when he looks up at it. Sunset isn’t too far away now; he still remembers the promise he’d made to Kouyou.

They’re sat on the docks when Chuuya says, “I probably have to go now.”

Since the majority of them know about his parents, they don’t nudge him too much. The redhead gets onto his feet, brushes any remaining sand off his legs and arms, and bids his farewells until next time.

“And you,” Chuuya snaps, tugging harshly at Dazai’s hair, “are coming with me.”

The brunet immediately bursts out into whines. “Do I have to~?” he complains, lips tugged down into an exaggerated frown.

It’s a pathetic attempt of trying to get away just so Chuuya can’t confront him about the bandages. A pathetic, failed attempt.

“Yes, you have to,” Chuuya orders, forcing the man onto his feet. “I’ll see you guys later.”

“See ya, Chuuya.”

Chuuya and Dazai are heading back towards the bus stops when the redhead decides to try and speak up, sneaking a small glance at the brunet. His face is straight, emotionless, the perfect poker face—he’s spent years perfecting it. And perfect it, he has. The redhead has watched him gradually perfect it, however, for each emotion, so he can nit-pick at certain attributes and differences in his poker faces to come to a conclusion about his well-hidden emotions.

The emotion he gets closest to this time is worry.

“So—” Chuuya starts.

Dazai immediately interjects. “Do you want ice-cream?”

“Huh? No. Stop being a dick.”

“I’m being a dick for asking you if you want ice-cream?”

“You’re being a dick for not talking to me.”

“I am talking to you.”

Chuuya doesn’t reply at first. They walk in silence for a few moments, and the redhead absentmindedly kicks at small rocks in his way, randomly comparing the size of Dazai’s feet with his. The brunet’s are obviously larger to support his taller body, but Chuuya’s aren’t as proportionally smaller as his height, because his body is broader than Dazai’s. 

“I don’t get it,” he mumbles eventually. The sky has turned into a darker shade of blue, on the verge of sunset. “Why would you avoid me for basically an entire month and then just be okay with talking to me?”

Dazai laughs. There’s nothing humorous about it. “You think I’m okay with it?” he questions blandly.

Chuuya snaps his head over to look at him. “Then...?” he questions warily.

“I don’t know,” the brunet mumbles with a shrug. “Maybe I felt a bit selfish. Or I felt like I finally deserved it, after... or I-I just wanted to hang out with the others and you just happened to be here—I don’t know, it just... it doesn’t make sense to me, either.”

To an outsider, his little rant could very well be discarded as ‘gibberish’.

Chuuya understands what he’s saying, though.

It makes him stop walking, which in turn makes Dazai stop, too.

And then the redhead just stares, his face gradually getting more and more frustrated with every passing second.

“You’ve got to be kidding me...” Chuuya whispers, his voice cracking a little.

Dazai can’t meet his eyes. “I didn’t mean to. You wanted to know. I suspected you’d be here, since we were all getting together, so I had to be prepared.”

“You...” Chuuya starts, his voice a little breathless, his heart aching. After a second, the redhead grabs Dazai’s arm and unwraps the triple layer across his forearm.

Blood.

Blood.

Real blood. Dazai’s blood. It’s seeped through the first layer, and even a bit through the second, so he’s had to layer it three times just so the stains are hidden.

“You did this to yourself... after you promised me you’d stop,” Chuuya begins again, his voice muffled with disbelief and hurt, “...just because you thought you deserved to go through something in order to see me again?”

Dazai quickly pulls his arm away and wraps it up again, jaw clenched. “I almost killed you,” he snaps. “I deserved it.”

“Dazai, are you fucking crazy?”

Dazai doesn’t like that tone. Desperate, pained, incredulous, genuinely hurt.

It breaks down their relationship and warps it into one where they actually care about each other. Something unfamiliarly familiar, something tricky but beautiful. But God, It's so fucking frightening.

Chuuya leaps forward, and suddenly he’s grabbing Dazai’s shoulders because he doesn’t have a collar to grab onto, and then he’s shaking him, his face so pale that the brunet can even see his light freckles. “When you pulled this shit in February,” Chuuya starts, his voice menacing but hurt—so hurt, “I could somehow stand it, because you were in pain, Dazai, and y-you were hopeless and all that shit. I understood it. Because you lost your fucking older brother so it made sense. But—but this is different. If you did this to yourself because of me, then I’m just as to blame for this as you were for pushing me off the fucking roof.”

Dazai’s eyes widen. “That’s not—you can’t blame yourself! I did it to myself.”

“Don’t get me wrong, asshole,” Chuuya growls, eyes wet and evil, lips quivering from both fury and sorrow. “It might be your style to leave me behind when you get all guilty, but don’t for a second think that’s my style. But if you ever—ever—hurt yourself because of me again... I will never forgive you. I will beat you up. I’ll fucking kill you. I promise.”

Dazai stares at him unblinkingly.

Chuuya waits a moment, looking him right in the eyes, and then tears his own away, letting go of his shoulders and falling back down to his feet.

The silence gets too much, so he finds himself speaking again.

“Do you...” the redhead starts, his heart still clenching a little with guilt whenever he glances at Dazai’s arm, “...want me to come to your house?”

Chuuya wants him to say yes.

Even though he’s not allowed to be near him. Even though he’s meant to be home in less than half an hour. Even though he made a promise to Kouyou.

None of it would matter, if Dazai just says yes.

But Dazai only solemnly shakes his head. “No. I know you have to get home. I won’t... I won’t hurt myself. You don’t have to worry.”

Chuuya gulps slightly, and then looks up at the brunet.

Dazai stares back down at him. And there’s something in his face—so soft, so hidden, so ambiguous—that makes Chuuya’s heart jump, that fires up his nerves and makes him want to smush his face into Dazai’s chest.

“Did you attempt?” Chuuya asks daringly.

And when Dazai shakes his head, the redhead feels a rush of relief wash over him, his legs going a bit wobbly with gratefulness for half a second. “I kind of thought of it a few times, I guess,” Dazai mumbles, sheepishly scratching at the back of his neck, his eyes not meeting Chuuya’s again. “But I didn’t go through with them. It’s weird what goes on in my head, Chuuya… I only thought of them when I felt lonely.”

Chuuya’s eyebrows furrow. “...Lonely? You’ve never tried an attempt because of that before.”

Dazai bites down on his bottom lip. When his cheeks go a little pink, Chuuya brushes it aside as colouring from the sunset, even though the heart in his chest sparks at the sight of it. “Yeah, I guess,” the brunet mutters quietly.

Chuuya watches him for a couple more seconds. He notices the subtle pink on Dazai’s cheeks, the little bite he nibbles on the corner of his bottom lip, the flutter of his thick eyelashes, the gentle swish of his hair in the light breeze. Before he can talk himself out of it, he’s grabbing the camera from around Dazai’s neck, tugging at it, which incidentally forces the brunet to stumble closer. And then he lifts the camera, focuses the lens, and clicks a quick picture of a bemused Dazai.

And much to his luck, the sunset does wonders to Dazai’s eyes.

“What the hell was that for?” Dazai lazily moans as Chuuya pulls out the printed photograph to shove into his pocket. He lets the camera fall back down against the brunet’s stomach and smirks up at him.

“A taste of your own medicine,” Chuuya replies, turning on his feet to carry on walking. “Now, since I’m not invited to your house, I’m gonna head home, ’cause Kouyou’s gonna rage if I don’t.”

Dazai easily falls into step with him. “And you were just going to let her rage on you if you came to my house?”

“Well... yeah.”

The brunet scoffs. “You’re as stupid as ever,” he mumbles under his breath, but his voice is soft, and it makes the skin on Chuuya’s stomach tingle.

“Shut the fuck up,” the redhead growls, glaring at Dazai. “You’re stupid. I’ll have you know that I did some of my English homework and Ranpo marked it for me and I got a seventy-two.”

“Oh, wow, that’s only twenty-eight less than me!”

“Yeah, exac—oh, shut the fuck up, Dazai.”

Dazai bursts out into a chuckle, eyes glimmering. “You could never beat me,” he states simply.

“Oh, please. If I actually tried, you’d be on your fucking knees right now.”

The brunet grins. “Doing what?” he croons. “Proposing to you?”

Chuuya’s eyes slightly widen. The next thing he knows, he’s leaping at the brunet, shoving his face away again and again so that he can’t turn his eyes and notice him being almost blatantly red-faced. “Just shut—shut it for once!”

Dazai chuckles again, grabbing the redhead’s wrists to push away his hands. “Stop hitting me, slug,” he says, earning him a deep scowl. When his brown eyes drift over to Chuuya, he does a small double-take, the corner of his lips pulling up a little. “Wow, Chuuya, you’ve gone really red, huh?”

Chuuya doesn’t even have time to respond—he’s in the middle of plotting a murder and clenching his fists to really manage uttering a word.

“Are you gonna blame it on the sun again?” Dazai asks, eyes twinkling.

Chuuya hates him.

Absolutely hates him. His words, his tone, his annoying body, his stupid hair, his disgusting eyes, his repugnant personality.

He hates all of it.

“Have I made you speechless?” Dazai taunts, automatically bending down to Chuuya’s height. “Aw~, does little Chuuya have a little crush on me?”

The redhead freezes.

Dazai waits a moment, his own cheeks suddenly tinted pink, and then sighs, rolling his eyes before standing up straight. “Come on now,” he says, pushing gently at Chuuya’s arm. “Stop giving me the cold shoulder. I won’t drop you off if you carry—”

“I hate you.”

Dazai meets his eyes.

The blue in them is glowing.

It makes the brunet grin. “I know,” he says.

“Like, I really—” Chuuya steps closer, and he unclenches his fists just to hook his fingers around Dazai’s bandages from the front and clench them into new, unbreakable fists, “—really fucking hate you. So much that I would drive a knife into your chest right now if I had one.” Dazai opens his mouth, no doubt to say something like ‘I’m looking forward to it’ but then Chuuya is tugging him down, and it makes the brunet’s throat close up immediately, until making a sound is nothing short of impossible. Not when he’s this close to Chuuya, not when he can feel his bare fingers skimming the skin under his bandages, not when he’s basically being forced to stare right into his blue-grey eyes, which have been enhanced under the sunset’s light, just like they were in that one picture he took when they had travelled to the top of a hill.

“Are you really gonna drop me off?” Chuuya mumbles.

Dazai is almost getting whiplash at this point from the distinct difference between his harsh, rough confession of hatred to such a vulnerable question. “...That’s the plan,” the brunet says, his voice a little scratchy.

“As in... all the way and not just to the bus stop?” Chuuya asks, his hands clenching tighter, a little afraid to let go.

Dazai swallows a bit—it’s awfully close to a gulp. “Yeah. Probably just to the top of your street though, because... y’know, your step-mum might see me,” he answers.

Chuuya blinks. His pupils have been blown wide, but they’re so gentle, as if they’re made of liquid. “And then you’ll leave again?” he asks. His tone is emotionless, but his white-knuckled grip on Dazai’s bandages isn’t co-operating with his façade.

That makes the brunet sigh, his eyes drifting down to Chuuya’s chin, and then his lips, and then his eyes again. “I don’t want to hurt you,” he whispers.

“And what if...” the redhead starts, his mouth a little dry, “...what if you leaving hurts me?”

That makes Dazai pause.

Even his skin grows cold, from underneath Chuuya’s touch.

That’s partially what makes the redhead snap out of it a little. The cold skin, the blank, bewildered stare, the shift in the wind, the feeling that they’re the only people left on the world that even matter.

“If you’re gonna be a dick about it, then don’t,” Chuuya orders, letting go of Dazai’s bandages and breaking eye contact, embarrassment starting to wash over him. “It’s just a hypothetical question.”

The brunet waits a moment, just staring at him, blatantly ignoring the weird feeling in his chest before he stands back up straight. “Well, then... hypothetically answering...” Dazai starts, a smile lifting onto his face, “...I won’t leave.”

Chuuya freezes.

Oh.

Oh.

He didn’t think it would be that easy, but...

Well, he’s certainly not complaining.

After a few seconds, Chuuya lifts his head again, meeting brown eyes. “Do you really mean that?” he asks warily.

“Yeah,” Dazai replies with a one-shoulder shrug. “I mean, it’s selfish and all, but I don’t really care at this point.”

“So... can you be selfish again tomorrow?”

“Okay.”

“And the day after that?”

“Okay.”

“And... the days after that?”

“Okay.”

“...” Chuuya looks away, his heart pounding. “...Get a move on now, vagabond. I’ll be late.”

“Aw, chibi Chuuya has a curfew~?”

“And it’s all your fucking fault, dickhead!”

“Ha. Guilty as charged.”

Chuuya shuts the door behind him, locking it with both the bolt and the key. Neither Kouyou nor Kansuke miss the stupid smile on his face, lifted on both corners, some of his teeth showing through, too. They don’t miss that or his attitude, all bouncing on his feet—something that had become foreign in the past lonesome month they’ve all spent.

“Good evening, Chuuya,” the woman greets sceptically.

“Good evening,” Chuuya replies, his voice a little too bright. “What are you two doin’ just sitting there?”

Kouyou shuts the book she was reading with a slam, pulling down her reading glasses a little to the tip of her nose. On the seat next to her, Kansuke is sat, a little more tidied up, no beer in hand—obviously Kouyou’s doing. “Waiting for you to return home safely,” she replies, voice a little firm. “Did you enjoy it?”

Chuuya finds himself nodding a little too quickly before he can help it. “Yeah, it was fun,” he answers, stepping out of his sandals.

The woman eyes him up a little. Some sand still clings to his body. There’s some on his cardigan, and some on his torso as well, as if he’d been rolling around in it (more like lying in it... for two hours... with the very person he’s not allowed to see). “I’m glad to hear it,” Kouyou says, and with the way she relaxes a little, her body becoming less tense, her lips lifting into a soft smile—it’s as if she really means it. “Did you see Dazai?”

Chuuya meets her eyes, and then shakes his head. “He wasn’t there,” he lies, turning and heading towards the stairs.

“I’m gonna go take a bath,” the redhead announces.

And then that’s the end of that.

It isn’t until he’s freshly showered and is about to throw his shorts into the laundry that Chuuya remembers the polaroid photograph.

The redhead quickly pulls it out of the shorts and stuffs it into his night short pockets instead. Then, he skilfully dodges the living room on his way upstairs, and shuts the bedroom door firmly behind him before he collapses onto his bed with a loud huff.

It’s only then—after a short, sharp breath—that he pulls the photo out and looks at it.

Dazai is the first thought he thinks, of course, since he’s very clearly the subject of the photo.

Something along the lines of geez is what he thinks next.

There’s a slight blur on the edges of the photo, because Chuuya had hastily clicked the picture with only a split-second focus, and Dazai was in the middle of stumbling forward when he’d taken it. But it just adds to the aesthetic, if anything. The brunet’s eyes are a little squinted, lips a little curled with confusion, nose the tiniest bit scrunched up. The sunset beats down on his face, lighting his iris’s up into a million stars. Millions and millions, all encased in those stupid brown eyes of his. Even more than when Dazai had won a spree so he could choose a prize, and he’d told him to come watch the stars with him, and they had to ride on their bicycles for half an hour just to get to a part of the countryside that had at least ten stars showing.

There are so many in his eyes.

Stars.

Chuuya doesn’t realise that he’s grinning a stupid, wistful grin until he feels his cheeks starting to hurt. He doesn’t realise that he’s carefully outlining Dazai’s face with his index finger until he has to forcefully pull it away. He doesn’t realise that his heart is skipping one too many beats to be considered normal until he feels a tingle in the pit of his stomach.

Aw~, does little Chuuya have a little crush on me?

Chuuya feels his eyes widening at the memory.

And then he laughs—because how ridiculous is that? Like, seriously?

Chuuya having a crush on Dazai?

Ha.

The redhead goes to sleep with butterflies in his stomach that night, hugging his pillow a little too tightly.

Even though things are only... somewhat resolved, something about stepping in the garage by himself feels immensely odd.

(Definitely not an excuse to temporarily unblock a certain asshole and shoot him a quick text.)

Chuuya: oi SHITHEAD

Chuuya: Get over here

Chuuya really needs to hang Dazai’s photo up. It felt criminal enough just leaving it on his desk overnight to catch some dust.

The brunet’s reply takes no more than ten seconds.

Dazai: should chibi really be unblocking me?

Dazai: wont u be getting into trouble with step mummy?

Chuuya: I’m blocking ur ass again right after

Chuuya: Now come here

Dazai: was one booty call not enough for you? </3

Chuuya: DAZAI I SWEAR TO GOD

Dazai: i don’t really do two night stands sweetheart

Chuuya grits his teeth.

Chuuya: The garage

Chuuya: just come to the fucking garage and stop being an ASSHOLE

Dazai: whatever ur boroing

Dazai: see u in a bit babygirl <3

Chuuya: boroing

Dazai: fuck off

Chuuya snickers. In real life.

And then immediately shuts up, and tucks his phone away.

Kouyou is at her law firm, and Kansuke is most probably lazing around, still asleep even though it’s almost three in the afternoon. So it shouldn’t be much of a task having to sneak Dazai through down to the garage.

But when the brunet does show up, Chuuya ends up scoffing at least five times with the way that he bends and stares at the windows and even somersaults across the floor as if there’s lasers set out in one of those bank robbery movies.

“You’re overdoing it,” the redhead states, shooting Dazai a bored look as he pulls up the shutters. “Get in, dickhead.”

Dazai sighs out of disappointment. “I was acting like I was in a movie. You always ruin my vibe,” he mumbles bitterly, walking over to the shutters. His eyes catch onto the metal, and then his eyebrows shoot up with curiosity. “Geez, what are these dents? Did some airplane crash-land in your driveway?”

Chuuya exhales impatiently and kicks the brunet into the garage. “No. Kouyou smashed them in with a bat.” After a moment, Chuuya ducks under the shutters too, and lets them fall down, before he naturally finds the light rope and pulls at it, switching on the lightbulb.

Only to find Dazai’s slightly horrified face.

“...She what?” he exclaims.

“I told you she threatened to destroy the garage,” Chuuya says, immediately heading over to the table in the corner with the blue tack. He never thought he’d so dearly miss this creepy ass room where his face is everywhere. But he’s missed it almost as much as he missed Dazai.

Okay, that was a weird thing to admit. Even to himself.

“She would have literally torn it into pieces if I didn’t go along with what she was saying,” the redhead carries on, desperate to get the previous thought out of his brain. “Stop actin’ all shocked, you fucking bastard. You’re the one that up and left when I literally needed you.”

Chuuya freezes at his own words.

His hands automatically clench into fists, blood rushing to his neck; so he ducks his head, using his hair to cover his face like curtains. “I didn’t mean that,” he quickly mutters.

Fuck, what is happening to him?

He never used to say such blatantly disgusting things before.

Chuuya quickly busies himself with attaching blu tack to the back of the photograph, but even he himself can’t ignore the way that his hands slightly tremble, or the way he bites into his bottom lip almost painfully.

why did I say that why did I say that why did I say that

why the fuck would I say that

The next time Chuuya is pulled back into reality, it’s by a gentle touch on his hand—just fingertips skimming the knuckle on his thumb, but it brings him back anyways, grounding him and making the thoughts in his brain stutter to a stop, as if the train just pulled down the emergency brake.

“I’m sorry,” Dazai mumbles.

Chuuya just stares at his hands, unable to look up, unable to handle the idea of meeting his eyes.

“Shut the fuck up,” he snaps lightly, finally getting the blu tack right. “I don’t want you to apologise.”

But he does. He really wants an apology.

And he deserves one.

Because this past month has been hell and it’s all Dazai’s fault.

Not because he pushed him off a roof.

But because he left.

“Chuuya,” Dazai says, as if to get his complete attention, which is so stupid, because Chuuya’s always paying attention to— “I’m serious.” The next thing the redhead knows, a finger is suddenly under his chin, and his skin starts to burn so heatedly that he can’t even resist the gentle tug that forces him to look up.

Seeing those brown eyes never gets easier.

“I hate you,” Chuuya whispers, his voice breaking.

Dazai’s smile is ominously sad. “I know.”

“I hate you.”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

“Literally everything you do makes me sick.”

“Yeah,” Dazai says, just absent-mindedly agreeing at this point, even though he’d definitely get offended if he was really paying attention. His eyes drift down, but the redhead completely refuses to believe that he was glancing at his lips. “You stupid, annoying brat...” he starts with a sigh, “…I needed you, too.”

That means more to Chuuya than he’d ever admit.

It almost brings tears to his eyes.

“...Don’t bullshit me,” the redhead mumbles, shoving Dazai’s hand away and then turning his face, trying to find an empty spot along the walls.

“I wish I was,” Dazai scoffs, collapsing down onto a nearby green beanbag. The next thing he says is so muffled that Chuuya would have missed it if it wasn’t dead silent in the room whilst he stuck the picture onto a moderately empty slot.

“...I literally told you I thought about doing it a few times when I felt lonely.”

The redhead pauses.

And then turns to look at Dazai with the most bewildered expression he’s ever worn.

“You...” he starts, his voice a breathy exhale.

Dazai isn’t facing him, desperately trying to hide his face for whatever reason. “It was only a few times,” he snaps stubbornly, but now Chuuya’s eyes are gleaming, and whatever stupid excuse the brunet tries to make up won’t work. “And, like—only when I was in a bad headspace or whatever. I can tell you’re smiling without even having to look. Shouldn’t you have more remorse for someone that’s suicidal?”

Chuuya’s grin only widens, and he walks over to Dazai. “So...” he starts, letting the word drawl out across his tongue for quite a long time. “...You felt lonely without me?”

The redhead can practically picture Dazai wincing.

“Shut up. You’re the one going all ‘oh my God, I needed you, and you weren’t there!’ on me.”

“Asshole, you just said that back to me!”

“...I thought you would have tried denying it by now.”

“Well—it’s—you haven’t tried, either!”

“Yeah... weird, right?”

Chuuya can’t even deny that.

It’s definitely weird.

Even though their mutual confessions of kind of, perhaps, missing each other has been a bit chaotic, it’s definitely something neither of them expected to ever happen.

Because they don’t say this shit. They might feel it, but it’s hard to even admit it to themselves, let alone to each other.

It’s like...

Crossing a boundary.

“Bandage-wasting-machine,” Chuuya starts, looking down at the brunet, who’s still hiding his face. “Do you want to watch something?”

“...Like what?”

“I don’t know. Somethin’ stupid. I don’t really care.”

“Aw~, is this the part where you say ‘your presence is all I care about’?”

“No, this is the part where I beat the fucking life out of you.”

“I’ll take you up on that offer. Make it quick.”

“Have I ever told you that you’re a serious pain in the ass?”

“Have I ever told you that you’re an obnoxious slug?”

“Drop dead.”

“I’m trying. Put the movie on now!”

“What are we watching?”

“I don’t really care.” Then, after a beat: “Your presence is all that matters.”

Chuuya hurls the remote right into Dazai’s head.

Chapter Text

It’s chilly here in the past.

It’s February. The temperature has at least risen from the biting cold it was in January, but it’s still coat-worthy, so Chuuya finds himself putting on a jade-coloured hoodie he won from Dazai a few months ago, and then slips his arms through a fluffy jacket and leaves home. His parents are nowhere to be seen, as usual. Kansuke is probably getting drunk on chug after chug of mild alcohol, and Kouyou is probably weeping at her daughter’s grave for the third time in the same day.

Chuuya hasn’t seen her grave ever since the funeral.

He knows it’s because he’s weak.

He’s never been the most emotionally strong person. Rage, sadness, happiness—all of it comes so easily and with such a rush that it sometimes makes him regret being human. There’s no balance in his emotions, not like Dazai. Although it could be argued that Dazai’s on the other end of the spectrum himself; imbalanced in his own way.

Chuuya leaves his bike behind in case black ice has found its way onto the street again. The brunette doesn’t live too far away, so he doesn’t mind walking in the cold for fifteen minutes, swerving through streets that are emptier than usual.

He passes an old woman. She shoots him a commiserate gaze, probably because she knows who he is. All he gives her in return is a very abrupt turn of the head, hoping it looked like he never saw her in the first place.

Once he arrives, Dazai’s house almost seems like something out of a horror movie.

It’s no different from all the other houses on the street, and yet it almost seems blacker, and darker, and more ominous. The curtains have all been pulled closed. The car in the driveway has developed ice, and underneath the car is a clear rectangle, meaning it hasn’t been backed out from the spot for a while now. The grass in the front has overgrown with neglect, reaching up to Chuuya’s shins as he trudges through, heading towards the front door. Everything is so cold. Everything feels so cold.

Chuuya’s gloved hand shivers a little as he puts his finger on the bell and pushes.

The door opens after forty seconds. It feels much longer than it sounds.

Mori is stood on the other side, eyes immediately meeting Chuuya’s. They stare for a second before the man steps aside, and the redhead walks in, door falling shut behind him.

Chuuya ignores Mori’s eye-bags. He ignores his unshaven beard, and his ghastly clothes, and his droopy expression. He’s been ignoring it all for almost three months.

“You’re here for Dazai?” Mori asks.

“Yeah,” Chuuya sighs, stepping out of his shoes. “Is he in his room?”

“Mhm.”

The redhead glances at the man. Even though he’s definitely taller than Chuuya, he just seems so shrunk, so crouched and small. “Where’s Elise?” Chuuya asks.

Mori sighs and shuffles into the living room. “She’s in her room, too. Could you... could you check up on her? She skipped dinner and... she’s just not talking to anyone.”

“Okay.”

Chuuya makes his way upstairs, keeping his footsteps soft, careful not to break the sombre aura of the house, because it’s so fragile, so delicate, as if it’ll break apart at his fingertips. And whatever happens when it breaks isn’t something Chuuya bothers spending his energy on thinking about.

The redhead gently knocks on Elise’s door and pushes it open when he receives no response.

The twelve-year-old is curled up in bed. She has no blanket over her, and she has no layers of clothing on either, apart from a pair of leggings and a short-sleeved shirt. But she isn’t shivering. Even her stare into the wall is blank and practically unblinking.

For a second, Chuuya really mistakes her for a corpse.

“Elise?” he prompts gently.

That makes the blonde jolt slightly, as if being snapped out of something, and then she slowly sits up on the bed, blinking. “Chuuya-san...” she starts, her voice so small that it’s barely there.

She’s always insisted on calling him Chuuya-san, no matter how much he tells her to call him just Chuuya.

“Hey,” the redhead says softly, walking further into the room. It’s dark. The lightbulb is off, and the curtains are closed, and sunset is almost over. “Aren’t you cold?”

Elise looks down at herself, and then back up at the boy. “Yeah, I am,” she whispers.

Chuuya walks over to her wardrobe. He pulls the double doors open, and then sifts through the messy pile of clothes on the bottom, pulling out a large grey hoodie and a pair of sweatpants. He closes the door of the cupboards and then heads over to the bed, where Elise has thrown her legs over the edge.

“Thank you,” the blonde says, leaning forward to grab the clothes out of his hands, but Chuuya just pulls them away from her reach.

“It’s fine,” he assures. “Just wear them on top of what you’re wearing.”

Elise sighs. “I haven’t even showered for five days,” she mumbles quietly, but she doesn’t fight it when Chuuya starts lifting her arms and slipping them through the sleeves, or when he tugs the hem down her torso.

“Doesn’t matter,” the redhead says plainly. “Just stay alive for now.” He says it as a joke, but his heart clenches.

The girl chuckles a little. “I’m trying,” she replies, standing up and slipping the sweatpants on with a light huff. “You can go to Nii-san, by the way. I’ll be fine.”

“I will, after you’ve eaten.” Chuuya grabs the girls elbow and starts gently tugging her to the door.

Elise rolls her eyes, a weak smile on her lips. “I’m not even hungry,” she states, but she doesn’t fight against Chuuya’s grip; that’s mainly because she’s so weak and her skin is so numb with cold that she can barely stand.

Downstairs, Mori is curled up on the couch, watching something on the TV. He’s not actually watching whatever is on. His face is blank, lips downturned, eyes hollow.

When Elise and Chuuya walk into the room, Mori catches sight of his daughter and immediately sits up. “Hi, dad,” the girl greets sheepishly.

“Elise,” the man breathes with relief, standing up from the armchair. “Sweetheart, I made some Lasagna. That’s your favourite foreign dish, right? Do you want me to heat some up for you?”

After a beat, Elise nods, slipping away from Chuuya’s gentle grip to go sit on the sofa. “Sure. Thanks, dad.”

Mori is almost out of the room when he turns back around and meets the redhead’s eyes. “Where’s Osamu?” he asks.

Chuuya sighs. “I haven’t gone to his room yet. I’ll bring him down.”

“Please do.”

The redhead trudges back up the stairs. Upstairs, like before, the hallway lights are turned off, and the entire floor is plunged into a deep darkness that makes everything seem so uneasy. Chuuya despises that feeling. He despises being uncomfortable, or careful, or anxious. After a moment, the boy walks over to the wall and flicks on the light switch. The lightbulbs stutter for a moment—clearly in need of replacement—before they blink on for good.

Chuuya stills.

The uneasiness…

It still hasn’t gone away.

This makes Chuuya’s heart clench uncomfortably. He hurries down the hallway, heartbeat rising slightly, eyes a little wide as he approaches Dazai’s door.

Once there, the redhead pauses for a moment, listening to the deafening silence, the silence that is too silent.

And then he pushes the door open.

And is greeted with a black even deeper than in Elise’s room.

“Dazai?” Chuuya asks whilst he shuts the door behind him, sapphire eyes scanning the hollow room. “Oi, you idiot. I came to get you for a quick run to the shops but I think Mori wants you to—”

Empty.

The room is empty.

Chuuya walks further in. “Bastard, where are you?” he mutters, leaning across to switch the light on.

Once the room is bright, Chuuya looks it over. It’s a mess, as always, with clothes covering the floor more than wood, the bedsheet half off the mattress, a pillow strewn off near the wardrobe that’s breaking off his hinges, considering that it’s over forty years old.

Chuuya walks over to the bed.

And he freezes.

In mid-step, his entire body comes to a halt, his legs unmoving, his heart without a beat.

That…

That red thing in the middle of the mattress, that’s…

Blood.

“Dazai?” Chuuya croaks out, his voice desperate now, fear enveloping his heart until he can’t breathe. The redhead quickly rushes over to the other door in the room,

The one that leads to the bathroom.

As soon as Chuuya puts his hand on the handle, he hears a discreet slosh of water, and the relief that piles on his chest comes with such a rush that he can’t help but tear up the slightest. He immediately nudges on the door.

When it doesn’t open, since it’s locked, Chuuya barges his entire body weight against it.

Once.

Twice.

Thrice.

Luckily, Chuuya is strong, and the lock is pretty weak, too. The bolt goes flying off and the door drifts open.

What Chuuya sees next,

He does not see only once.

He continues on to dream of that scene for many, many days to come. It drifts in his mind like a plague, latching onto him, unable to let go; even when he’s awake for the next few months, the scene is something he sees flashing before his very eyes when he least expects it.

(TW  starts here!)

A truly horrid scene.

A scene of blood. Of water tainted red in a bathtub. Of a weak bloody handprint smeared on the mirror. Of three razors lined up against one another on the edge of the bathtub.

Of Dazai, sitting up in the bathtub with another razor of his, pinched between his fingers, heading towards his wrist.

As soon as Chuuya walks in, Dazai’s eyes flash upwards to meet his,

And Chuuya can never forget that moment, either.

Because he has never seen someone look so lifeless whilst their heart is still beating.

Chuuya considers screaming.

He considers crying, too, and he considers whipping out his phone and dialling the ambulance, and he considers running down to call Mori.

But he sees the blood.

And he knows he doesn’t have time to consider shit.

So, what he does next is something completely out of character for him. It would be normal of him to show emotion, be that sadness, or disbelief, or anger.

But instead, Chuuya walks closer.

Wordlessly.

The most hint of an emotion Dazai sees on him is a wince. There’s wetness in his eyes too, but the brunet can barely see this through his eyes that have been blurred with fatigue and numbness.

“Give me that,” Chuuya orders when he’s close enough, bending down slightly and holding out a gloved palm. Dazai doesn’t listen at first—he just stares. “I said, give me it.”

Dazai places it in the redhead’s palm.

Chuuya picks up the other three razors on the edge of the tub, all doused with blood, and throws them in the sink before he turns to face Dazai. He quickly shrugs off his jacket, and his green hoodie, and the shirt he’s wearing underneath, until he’s shirtless, and then he slips off his gloves and leans over the edge of the bathtub. The redhead grabs the drain plug and tugs at it. The bloody water starts to lower.

“I think I’m in pain.”

Chuuya snaps his neck looking over at Dazai. The brunet stares back, his face completely straight. It’s the first and last time he has ever had a perfect poker face. Eyes drooped, lips set in a straight line, no sign of pain whatsoever. No sign of anything.

“No shit,” Chuuya says, but his voice is croaky, and it cracks, and he can feel his resolve starting to slip. “You just… you’ve slitted line after line on your skin on both your arms and your chest. That’s gonna fucking hurt, y-you goddamn shithead.”

Dazai blinks. “Don’t call the ambulance.”

Chuuya scoffs. “I have to. I’m not some fucking doctor.”

“Let me die.”

The redhead’s heart clenches. A tear slips out of his eye, and Dazai’s eyes follow the movement of it down Chuuya’s cheek. “The only time I’ll let you die is after I’m dead,” he snaps, gulping away a sob. But his voice is getting shaky. And his eyes are watering even more.

“Don’t call an ambulance,” Dazai says again, voice hollow. And then, since the brunet knows Chuuya won’t let him die in peace: “Stitch me up yourself. You have steady hands.”

Chuuya laughs ironically and lifts his hands to Dazai’s view. “Do these look steady to you?” he questions incredulously. They don’t. They’re shaking as if they’re rubble in an 8.0 earthquake.

“Please, Chuuya,” Dazai whispers.

Chuuya doesn’t spend too long staring at him, because he is literally bleeding out in his bathtub.

It takes him a minute, but after the redhead has found rolls of bandages, a needle (thoroughly cleaned by himself), and some thread, he heads back to the bathtub.

Chuuya turns the shower on again, but leaves the plug out. He washes off the lingering blood on the tub left behind by the bloody water, and then aims the shower head at Dazai, keeping the water pressure low, and cleans the excess blood off his skin. The brunette winces again and again as fresh water meets open wounds, but barely makes a sound.

Chuuya turns the shower off after Dazai’s been cleaned and then climbs into the bathtub. Like him, the brunet isn’t wearing a shirt, but he has his trousers on. Grey sweatpants that are now tinted pink.

“I should really take you to a fuckin’ hospital,” Chuuya mumbles, his voice still wobbling as he pulls the thread through the eye of the needle. “They need to disinfect you and shit. All I can do is stitch you up. You have to let me call someone, Dazai.”

“No. Only you.”

Chuuya clenches his jaw.

After the redhead slips his fingers through two plastic gloves he found in Mori’s drawer (perks of having a doctor as a father), he climbs onto Dazai’s lap to get closer, and then presses the tip of the needle against the top of his left arm, where there’s a particularly deep gash that’s continuously dripping blood down his arm. His hands are still shivering, but they’ve mostly calmed down because Chuuya needs to do this. He needs to keep this asshole alive.

“It’s going to hurt,” he states.

Dazai stares at him emotionlessly. “I know,” he says.

Chuuya stares back for a moment, his throat dry, and then tears his eyes away and sinks the needle into his skin. After that slit is done, the redhead moves onto the next deep cut and works his way through it. And then the next. And the next. And the next. And the next.

Chuuya ignores Dazai, who is still staring at him.

The brunette watches as Chuuya cries without noise. Just tear after tear after tear, and his cheeks are soaked by the time it’s over, and his eyes are red and as fiery as his hair, which he’s tightly tied back.

Dazai wonders, for a moment, whether Chuuya really cares for him. He’s always known it. But this much?

“I think I’m in pain,” he repeats when Chuuya’s onto his last cut.

The redhead pauses for the first time, eyes lifting to meet brown bordering on black, before he gets back to work. “You are,” he says. “You obviously are, you fucking moron.”

“You won’t even stop insulting me in this situation?”

“I’ll always hate you.”

Dazai’s lips, for the first time, lift into a weak smile. “I’ve never hated you.”

Both of them will go on to pretend he never said that.

Once Chuuya is finished, he climbs off Dazai’s lap. Then, he gently assists the brunette into standing up, which is a slow and painful process, and then he makes him climb out of the tub. Chuuya wipes off the blood one last time before grabbing the rolls of bandages, which he then proceeds to wrap around Dazai, all the way around his arms and chest.

“These bandages don’t look too bad,” Dazai states, watching himself in the mirror.

Chuuya shakes his head. “Shut up,” he whispers. His voice breaks for the fifteenth time.

Once the bandages are on properly, the redhead forces Dazai onto the bed after putting a new pair of pants on his legs.

“Sleep,” he orders.

They both know the brunet won’t do that. Instead, he just lays there, watching Chuuya through the open-door bathroom as he cleans the mirror and the bathtub again and then throws away his plastic gloves and stores the bandages and needle and thread away. The redhead even gets on his knees and scrubs the floor clean too, huffing and rinsing and scrubbing for the good part of an hour.

(TW ends here!)

      (Summary: Chuuya finds Dazai hurting himself in the bathtub, about to commit suicide. He stops him. Dazai asks him to not tell anyone, and Chuuya listens, but stitches him up, and then cleans him up and wraps him in bandages. Chuuya then proceeds to make Dazai lie on the bed whilst he goes to clean the bathroom.)

Once he’s finished with that, Chuuya walks out of the bathroom and shuts the door behind him, his clothes in hand. “Your mattress has a stain,” he states. “I’ll scrub it tomorrow.”

Dazai doesn’t say anything.

Chuuya only puts on his hoodie and leaves his shirt and jacket on Dazai’s drawer.

When he starts heading toward the door, the brunet calls out with, “Where are you going?”

And Chuuya pretends not to notice the tinge of desperation in his tone. “To tell Mori you’re asleep,” he states. He slips out of the door, relays the information to Dazai’s dad (who clearly doesn’t believe it because Chuuya was gone for over an hour—but he lets it slide because the boy looks to be on the verge of collapse) and then returns.

He sincerely hopes Dazai will have fallen asleep.

He obviously hasn’t.

“Chuuya,” the brunet starts as soon as the smaller one is stood next to his bed. “Are you staying the night?”

Chuuya wouldn’t be able to leave even if he wanted to. Not when he knows what Dazai could do to himself when no one else is around.

“Yeah,” the redhead huffs, collapsing down on the bed next to him.

“Mm,” Dazai hums, letting out a sigh. “Come closer.”

“…Why?”

“You make me feel better.”

Chuuya listens. He wants Dazai to feel better. He slides closer to him, careful not to touch him, because he’s lined with cut after cut. Even a small gust of wind might hurt him.

“Chuuya. It won’t hurt. Come closer.”

The redhead clenches his jaw, but obliges, hesitantly lying onto his right and letting his head fall against Dazai’s bandaged shoulder. He’s tense at first, unable to relax, because his relaxed body weight might hurt him. But his shoulder did have less wounds and he doesn’t seem to be in pain—so Chuuya lets himself slump a little more.

There’s no way either of them will be able to sleep.

Not like this.

Even though they’re both mentally and physically exhausted, they’ll probably spend the entire night awake.

It’s after twenty minutes of silence that Chuuya speaks up.

“Why didn’t you tell me before?”

“Tell you what?”

Chuuya sighs, blinking away the wetness in his eyes. “That you’re… in pain.”

“Well, I didn’t know.”

“…That’s the shittiest excuse you’ve ever made.”

Chuuya feels Dazai’s chuckle vibrating through him. “I thought you’d say that,” he mumbles, gently nuzzling the top of the redhead’s hair with his cheek. Chuuya feels his heart thump. “You’re such a brat, Chuuya. If I told you, you’d have put 24/7 surveillance on me. And even without telling you, you’ve somehow managed to force me to stay.”

Chuuya clenches his hands into fists.

When the tears start slipping again, he buries his face into Dazai’s neck, and the fact that it has the metallic scent of blood doesn’t help his tears to calm down.

“Why would you do this?” Chuuya whimpers into his neck, the tears dampening his skin and some of his bandages.

“I tho—”

“Am I not enough?”

Dazai’s eyes slightly widen.

Chuuya carries on crying.

For the first time in that day—and for a month now, actually—Dazai feels something.

Clearly.

It’s not clouded, or hidden, or smothered like all his vague emotions have been ever since Oda died.

It’s there.

The guilt.

The regret.

“Chuuya,” Dazai starts, his voice a little uncertain with desperation; he can’t let Chuuya carry on feeling like this. “I-I wasn’t thinking, okay? This just—it didn’t have anything to do with you.”

The redhead lightly smacks his fist against Dazai’s stomach, which is clear of wounds. “I just spent an hour cleaning up your fucking blood, Dazai, how did it not have anything to do with me? I fucking hate you.”

“Chuu—”

“Just shut up.”

He does.

Chuuya shifts even closer, throwing a leg over Dazai’s, burying his face even more against his neck.

And for the first time, he actually makes a sound to accompany his tears.

He does more than that, actually.

He sobs. Loud, guttural, open-mouthed sobs, right into Dazai’s skin.

They don’t say much more that night. They just lie there, mostly, with their limbs intertwined. It’s the longest they’ve gone being near each other without speaking.

And, after dawn eventually breaks—

They both make an unspoken pact to never speak of that day again.

Not a single word.

That, however, is not the only situation in the past year that the two have had an unspoken truce to never mention again.

There’s another instance over a month after the previous one. Dazai had invited Chuuya out, not for stealing and not for anything in particular, actually. In friendly terms, it could be considered ‘hanging out’, but since it’s the friendly term, they don’t decide to call it that at all. They’re just two humans that can’t stand each other somehow walking side-by-side down a street. That’s all it is.

Chuuya is busy cursing Dazai out whilst they stand on the edge of the street. The pedestrian crossing sign is red. The brunette is still wrapped in his bandages; even though the wounds have healed and have more or less developed into scars, they’re not exactly something he wants to flash to the world. So he’s become accustomed to throwing in an extra roll of bandages when he’s shopping. And also in buying longer-sleeved shirts.

“You know what? Fuck you,” Chuuya sighs. Someone passes his peripheral vision, wearing green, and somehow that registers in his brain as the sign going green, because he’s too invested in his conversation—or rather, argument—to pay any real attention to the world. Even one that plays a part in his safety. “I shouldn’t have come out today. I don’t know why I always fucking do this. You’re such a pain in the ass.” He starts walking.

Dazai almost starts to, as well. But he hears it much earlier than Chuuya does. The distant crunch of rock under tyre, the whipping of the wind, the blur of a honk.

His eyes snap upwards, the subtle smirk on his face dropping.

The sign is red.

And the car seems way too close to be able to brake in time. Even if the driver slams his foot down, he will definitely hit the redhead hard enough to throw him away a few metres.

Dazai immediately lurches forward.

The honk turns louder, more blaring, and Chuuya finally hears it.

He would be too late to get to safety, though. That is, if a large hand didn’t clasp around his elbow, and pull, so hard that he almost face-plants the floor, but it’s just hard enough, because the car only barely skims the redhead’s back as it shuttles past, still honking furiously.

The honks drown out as the car turns the corner.

Some people are staring. It’s not every day that you see a young boy just barely avoid death—or, at the very least, serious injury.

Chuuya only hears the hammering of his heart once the car is gone.

He only notices that it’s not the hammering of his own heart that he’s listening to when he realises that his ear is pressed up against Dazai’s chest.

The redhead hesitantly pulls his head off the brunette’s chest and glances up. They’re close. Much closer than usual. It’s not a hug—no fucking way—but rather just...

Okay, Chuuya has no idea what this is.

And he has no idea why Dazai’s death grip on his elbow isn’t lessening.

“Oi, shithead,” he whispers, his voice a little shaky, the fear still there. “Move. We’re still on the road.”

Dazai doesn’t move. He’s staring straight ahead, and only after a moment does he bother tilting his head down to look at the redhead he’s still clutching tightly.

The light turns green.

People start passing.

Dazai winces when their eyes meet.

One more thing to know about Dazai Osamu: he does not yell. He doesn’t even raise his voice. It’s always in one tone, in one volume, whether they’re in a library or a loud nightclub. It is almost always the same. In very rare occasions, such as when he desperately needs to call out to Chuuya across the playground, or when Kyouka used to sleep nearby, he would raise or lower his voice.

So, it comes as an honest-to-God surprise when he lets go of Chuuya’s arm just to grab onto his shoulders,

and then starts yelling right in his face.

“Are you fucking crazy?!” Dazai bellows. People are looking over even more now, but neither of them is paying attention. Chuuya’s eyes widen with shock, and the surprise twists and turns his tongue until he can’t make a single sound, and can only move when the brunette shakes at his shoulders out of desperation. “Can you not read road signs? Are you a child? Do I seriously need to shove your ass back into elementary? For fuck’s sake, Chuuya!”

Chuuya opens his mouth.

Nothing comes out.

“Are you trying to leave me, too?”

Chuuya’s eyes widen even more.

Dazai stares at him with a look close to frenzy.

The redhead doesn’t miss the tears, just barely there, sitting in the bottom of Dazai’s eyes, pooling right above his eyelashes.