Archive of Our Own ^beta

In hindsight, Dazai knew he should have told Mori to go fuck himself. 

The mission he and Chuuya had returned from was gruesome—they were caked in dirt and grime and the blood of hundreds, and every one of their bones ached. It was the moment they stumbled into the Mori Corp building, wrapped around each other to keep from collapsing, that they’d been escorted to the highest floor. Mori had told them to sit—Dazai had barely managed to keep some of his dignity as he restrained himself from crumpling into one of the chairs like some kind of rag doll—and smiled that sticky, sickly smile of his. 

“You two will be visiting the Hidaka Mountains.” 

“What? It’s like a frozen hell out there right now,” Chuuya exclaimed, gripping the arms of his chair tightly enough that the wood began to groan. 

Mori’s passive expression didn’t waver. “Ability user Yasunari Kawabata is currently living there. He has ties to a rival organization overseas as an informant, and you two will be apprehending him.” Mori handed Dazai a smooth manila folder—he was too tired to leaf through it, though, and Chuuya was too tired to take it from him. 

“There’s a mafia-owned cabin there for you to stay in, stocked for three days. It shouldn’t take you any longer than that.” 

It sounded innocuous enough, the way he said that, but Dazai saw it for the threat that it was. He knew Chuuya did, too. 

“Anything else we should know, Boss?” Chuuya asked, barely bothering to mask his apprehension. 

Mori smiled again. “No, you’re dismissed. Good luck.” 

As they were told, Dazai and Chuuya ended up in the mafia-owned cabin, which was indeed stocked for three days. What they were not told was that the cabin had the insulation of a dog house, or that the “stock” they were promised consisted almost exclusively of canned beans and grains that were likely older than they were. 

“Goddammit. It’s fucking cold,” Chuuya hissed, wrapping the moth-eaten blanket around his shoulders like a shawl. Dazai, not for the first time since they’d arrived, was too inclined to agree. 

The first day they’d arrived in the Hidaka mountains was primarily recon. Dazai had been very helpful as Chuuya practically dragged him all over the mountain—it was unsettling to feel his cold fingers because it was usually Dazai who was cold—kicking up snow and getting them lost at least three times. Now, on the night of day two, they were both thoroughly frozen; Dazai couldn’t even throw the damp wood into the fireplace if he wanted to, which he absolutely didn’t. 

“Oi, get off your ass and help me,” Chuuya grumbled, and Dazai watched him as he continued to poke uselessly at the pile of wood. 

“No.” 

“Do you do anything on these missions?” 

“If you hadn’t forgotten to put the wood inside before we left, this wouldn’t be a problem.” Dazai wrapped his own blanket tighter around himself, curling his knees into his chest as if that would bring feeling back into his fingers and toes again. 

“That—” Chuuya cut himself off, exhaling loudly through his nose, and did not continue. Normally, this would strike Dazai as strange, but he understood the exhaustion weighing on Chuuya at the moment—it weighed on him, too. Most of the time, their missions were ones that took less than a day, because they were Double Black, and they were the best. But because of the wide, unfamiliar expanse of the Hidaka Mountains, Chuuya’s gravity could do little to improve the terrain, and not even Dazai’s genius would make them any warmer. Perhaps they were getting too comfortable—three years of straight success might have been making them intolerant. 

“What’s for dinner?”

“Fucking old beans or fucking old oats.” 

Dazai grimaced. “Ew.” 

“Get used to it—we’ve still got another day in this hellhole.” 

“Can’t you just go out and catch us a bird or something? You can fly.” 

“If you wanna eat a raw bird for dinner, be my guest,” Chuuya grumbled, plopping down on the ground with a sigh as he apparently gave up on starting a fire. 

Dazai had always thought that Chuuya was pretty—it had taken him nearly two years to acknowledge it, but now he was very comfortable with that fact. If he didn’t know Chuuya so intimately—know of his foul temper, his knack for destruction, his inability to accept defeat—he might even call Chuuya attractive. Red curls like his were a rarity in Yokohama, and eyes so blue were even more so. They reminded Dazai of a thundering sky, oftentimes, especially when Chuuya was angry. 

Dinner was quiet (by their standards.) Chuuya dragged Dazai off the couch to get the beans instead of shouting at him, and Dazai grumbled quietly about how violent he was. They ate in silence—Dazai barely touched his food, because meals were hard enough when they weren’t expired—and long after the sun had gone down, they tried to retire to bed. 

Tried. 

“You spent all evening on that couch anyway, what’s a couple more hours?” Chuuya was saying, arms crossed over his chest and scowl set deep into his cherry-red lips. He’d long ago stopped bothering to hide the fact that he was cold, and was now glaring at Dazai from beneath four ratty blankets as he shivered from head to toe. 

Dazai huffed—he could see his breath. “That’s exactly why I should get the bed.” 

“I spent fuck-knows how long on a fire while all you did was sit and watched—after carrying you all over the damn mountains for two days straight!” 

The thundering skies were back, and something behind Dazai’s ribs feathered in reply. 

“Are you even listening to me? Y’know what, fuck this, move.” 

Suddenly, Chuuya was shouldering past him—warmth brushed his arm—and toward the bedroom. 

Dazai would have reached out to grab his wrist if he didn’t think his fingers would fall off. 

“Not fair! Get back here.” 

“Make me,” Chuuya tossed over his shoulder, and Dazai paused momentarily because that could have implied a myriad of things in another circumstance, and suddenly his cheeks were heating up despite the frost that may as well have been settling into his hair by now. 

When he finally came back to reality, Chuuya was curled up on the bed beneath the comforter—it didn’t have holes in it, luckily—and still trembling furiously, much the same way Dazai was. 

“You look pathetic, slug,” he found himself saying, though that wasn’t entirely true—something about the sight made his cheeks feel hot again. 

Chuuya didn’t see that, though, and scoffed. “Shut up. You look like you’re about to pass out.” 

Dazai often thought that he always looked that way, but he didn’t say that when Chuuya rolled over to face him from where he still stood frozen in the doorway, blue eyes narrowed. 

“You just gonna stand there?” 

Even wrapped up in age-old blankets that might be disintegrated by the morning, Chuuya still managed to look like that. What “that” was, Dazai wasn’t sure, but it made his stomach turn. 

Chuuya arched a brow and watched him for a moment with his thunderstorm eyes before rolling back over. “Go to bed, stupid, we’ve got more mountains to climb tomorrow. You’re being weird.” 

Dazai blinked himself from the reverie, falling back into his (very, very cold) body, and found himself wandering out to the couch without argument. He would have stolen Chuuya’s blankets or tried to pull him off the bed on another day, but he was tired after all they’d had to do today. Tired.

To his credit, Dazai did try to fall asleep, insomnia be damned. It pained him to admit it, but Chuuya was right about their long day tomorrow and he couldn’t afford to perform less than perfectly if they were going to live to see Yokohama afterward. 

Unfortunately, after curling up on the couch for what only felt like an hour or so, Dazai couldn’t feel his fingers or toes. 

It turned out that being at the mercy of the Hidaka morning storms was nothing compared to the night’s temperatures, and despite the layers he’d had thrown on, he could barely move, let alone fall asleep. 

Chuuya was likely already asleep, Dazai figured—there wasn’t a time or place he’d failed to pass out since Dazai met him. 

It had only been two years since then, Dazai thought vaguely, and frowned because that felt much too short and much too long a measure of their time tangled up in each other’s lives. 

“Hey, Chuuya?”

Dazai cringed—his voice sounded feeble. 

He waited a moment for a response on the off-chance that Chuuya was struggling with sleep as much as he was, and blinked at the response. 

“Fuck d’you want, mackerel?” The words trembled as they trailed out of the bedroom and Dazai didn’t think he’d ever heard Chuuya sound so weak before, not even after Corruption. Something about it was deeply disturbing to him, though he couldn’t quite place why. 

Double Black, bested by the bitter cold of the Hidaka mountains. Pathetic. 

Without further dwelling, Dazai took in one large, long breath, and forced himself to sit up. 

Immediately, the cabin air began biting ferociously at his skin, and Dazai wrapped his sorry excuses for blankets and coats tighter around his shoulders as he attempted to shuffle toward the bedroom. It proved more difficult than he anticipated as he wobbled on numb feet, and only when he’d finally reached the bed did Chuuya stir from beneath the mountain of what should’ve really been considered rags. 

“Oi, mackerel, what—“

Dazai didn’t give him time to finish. Without a word, he tossed the covers open and plopped onto the mattress, nearly sitting on Chuuya’s arm as he wormed his way properly onto the bed. 

“Dazai, what the hell?” Chuuya hissed, twisting around like a fish out of water. “Shit, you’re fucking cold.” 

“We’ll die by the end of the night if we don’t stay close, chibi,” was all Dazai said in explanation, back to Chuuya. This close, he could hear Chuuya’s heartbeat and feel his breath on the back of his neck—he shivered. 

“Jesus fuck,” Chuuya sighed, rustling the covers more as he shifted to and fro. “And you didn’t feel like saying anything sooner?” 

“You're practically a furnace, so I didn’t think you'd have much trouble,” Dazai replied, focusing on keeping his breathing even. He and Chuuya had shared a bed too often to count in the two years since they’d met. Usually, the twisting feeling in Dazai’s stomach could be easily chalked up to exhaustion or dread at getting a poor night’s sleep—Chuuya was a fitful sleeper and seemed to enjoy sticking a foot or an elbow into Dazai’s face. 

Dazai didn’t feel dread about that now, though, and wondered why the feeling in his gut still insisted on staying there. 

“You’re awful, you know that?” 

A sigh, and then Dazai felt everything in him lock up as an arm was thrown around his waist. 

He was vaguely aware of his increase in heart rate, the way he felt it hammering against his ribs as Chuuya’s grip on him tightened, and yet he could do nothing. He lay, stiff and frozen and still trembling furiously, as Chuuya tugged at him until he was turning over onto his back, and again onto his other side until he met thunder and stormy skies. 

“This doesn’t work too well if you’re facing the wrong way,” Chuuya murmured, and Dazai could only stare as Chuuya stared back, pink dusting his cheeks and freckles dotting his nose. 

Dazai desperately loved Chuuya’s freckles. 

“What?” he breathed, intelligent as ever. Where was his silver tongue when he needed it?

“Aren’t you supposed to be the brains of the operation, mister Port Mafia genius?” was Chuuya’s teasing, trembling answer. From the cold or something akin to nervousness, Dazai didn’t know, but something in his chest warmed anyway. Chuuya would never call him the Demon Prodigy, not even when they’d first met. Dazai had never thought to ask why. 

He opened his mouth—to say what, he didn’t know—but before he could, Chuuya threw his arms around his waist and pulled them close, so they were now pressed flush against each other as their legs tangled together and Chuuya pressed his nose into Dazai’s collarbone. 

He wasn’t sure if he could breathe anymore. 

His arms were splayed awkwardly on the mattress, and it took a deep and thorough concentration to wrap them around Chuuya—lightly, hesitantly, nothing like Chuuya's assuredness a moment ago.

They were a trembling tangle of limbs, hidden under a heap of moth-eaten blankets and their own frosty coats, but Dazai’s cheeks were burning as he twined his fingers into Chuuya’s hair. 

That was another thing Dazai loved about Chuuya. His fiery curls were as unique in a place like Yokohama as he was, and they were just as bright, as fierce. It made him look alive, alive in a way that Dazai could never be and always found himself speechless by, because never would he have dreamed that someone could be so full of bursting, passionate life in a world that had been so careless and so cruel to him—someone who didn’t even think he was human despite that life all about him, clinging to his thunderstorm eyes and the sharp edges of his grin. 

Oh.  

Chuuya’s voice brushed his collarbone—it might’ve seeped into his bones with his marrow, for all Dazai knew. “Huh?” 

“I’m in love with you,” he breathed. 

Chuuya froze. Even his trembling seemed to pause briefly, though Dazai barely noticed. 

“Oh,” he said quietly, and Dazai vaguely wanted to chuckle at that. He certainly hadn’t meant to say anything—the realization was still rocking him back and forth in a hazy trance, but for the first time in a very long time, Dazai’s lips and throat betrayed him. 

They’d only ever betrayed him for Chuuya. 

Dazai couldn’t see his face but he could feel Chuuya’s thumping heartbeat against his ribs. It was quick. 

“I didn’t mean to say that,” Dazai whispered, perhaps to himself. 

Chuuya’s chuckle was pressed into his skin—he half-wished it would scar. “Didn’t think so.” 

The fragile quiet went on, and though both of their tremors had slowly begun to wane into ordinary shivering, Dazai couldn’t move. His limbs were cemented in place, his jaw locked, his heart still beating erratically against his will. 

“Did you mean it?” 

It was not the first time he’d heard Chuuya sound unsure, but it always brought with it a shadow of what could’ve been surprise—they were no good at vulnerability. 

“Yes,” was Dazai’s quiet—painfully quiet—reply, pressed into Chuuya’s burning hair. There was a faint tendril of fear curling around his ribs—perhaps Chuuya would be disgusted, perhaps he would leave them both to freeze, perhaps the admission would turn into one more weapon to be used against him. 

But Dazai should have known better, because Chuuya was many things—a murderer, a god, a scarred and desperate boy—but he was not unkind when it meant something, as so little in their lives did.  

“I’m not sure what love’s supposed to feel like,” Chuuya began slowly, hesitantly, arms loose around Dazai’s waist and quiet in a way he rarely was, “and I don’t know if I’ll ever get to know, since I’m—y’know. But I think—I think you’re as close as it’ll get for me.”

It was a roundabout not-confession, and Dazai couldn’t have hoped for anything better. 

“Do you think I understand anything about it either? Chuuya, you’re the human of the two of us, you know that. We won’t get close to what love really is,” was Dazai's breathless reply, and he couldn’t decide if he felt bitter about that or not. He didn’t think so. 

Chuuya huffed a chuckle—Chuuya might be bitter about it, Dazai thought—and replied with a smile. Dazai knew because he felt it burning into his bones like a sun-kissed blade, like the sweetest frostbite. “Let’s do what we can, then, yeah?” 

Dazai let out a short breath. “Are you confessing to wanting to be my boyfriend?” he asked, though something about that tasted unpleasantly salty on his tongue. It was too common, too ordinary a word for the mess that they were. 

“Of course not,” Chuuya snorted, wrapping his arms tighter around Dazai’s waist. “We’re partners.” 

Partners. They’d already been partners, but something about the word now had a new sound that made his stomach flip. 

“Okay,” Dazai murmured and buried his smile in the fire of Chuuya’s hair. “Partners.”