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Chapter Text

──── PART 1 ────

Ever since Dazai had been a little boy, it had felt like he had been carrying a deep grief in his heart. He had never found a reason to justify that emptiness, and nothing he ever did managed to fill it. He wasn’t sure if he would ever learn to live with it or if the weight of it would one day bury him alive.

Was there a way for him to get rid of the gaping hole on his chest? Would he ever find what he was missing? It didn’t seem possible; not after twenty six years of roaming around the earth desperately searching for something unknown.

Waking up in an empty apartment, Dazai tried to push the thoughts to the back of his mind. He had a job to do, and there was no room for existential dread while he was out there playing the hero. 

In the fire house, he was the young reckless firefighter who didn’t think before he acted. He was the one making jokes to lighten the mood and overshared about his sex life at the least appropriate moments. He had a role to play, he couldn’t ruin the only stable thing he had in his life by revealing more of himself than anyone could handle. 

“Look at this,” Dazai practically shouted as he entered the station, fashionably late. He shoved his phone in Fukuzawa’s and Kunikids’s faces, uncaring about the conversation he had most likely interrupted. “Don’t these look good?”

Their captain only nodded with his usual polite smile while Kunikida openly cringed as Dazai kept swiping through the photos.

“What am I looking at and why would you force me to look at this first thing in the morning?”

“You’re causing trouble already, kid?” Kouyou asked as she made her way towards them, taking a peak at his screen and joining Kunikida in cringing.

“Ha, you may not appreciate my good looks but we’re about a week away from submissions for the Hot Days, Smoldering Nights: Men of the LAFD wall calendar and these” —he pointed to the collection of photos on his phone— “are getting me a place in it.”

“Do you really need to use that whole title? You could just say that idiotic, reductive, sexist calendar that insults the dignity of this organization,” Kunikida pointed out, impressively, in one breath.

“Yeah, that’s not any less words.” He gave him the cheeky smile that always made the other man look like he was about to smack him. 

“Kunikida, come on, it’s for charity.” Fukuzawa’s voice surprised them all.

“No, captain, you too?” Kunikida turned to him with a mix of exasperation and betrayal.

“Well, why not? Just because I’m fifty it doesn’t mean I can’t participate in things like that.”

“The second divorce is really hitting you, huh?” Kouyou questioned, never one to be hesitant about teasing their captain. “Either way, you’re both wrong. I think sorority houses all across the nation are ready for a new female sex symbol. 2019 is gonna be the year of the gays.”

“I think it’s great. You know? I like that you’re both going for it,” Dazai said with a faux sweet smile, earning a light smack on the arm from Kouyou.

“Oh, because you don’t think that we stand a chance?”

Dazai protectively cradled his arm in front of his chest. “I didn’t say that! I mean, sure, let’s be real. They are only picking one candidate from each station and I am the—”

“Okay, that is a beautiful man,” Kunikida interrupted the conversation, pointing towards the locker room (that for some reason whoever had built it had decided it had to have glass walls).

Kouyou’s eyes followed Kunikida’s hand, visibly widening when they found what he was pointing at. “Where’s the lie? And I like girls.”

That was enough to make Dazai turn around to see what they were staring at. There, behind the glass walls of their locker room, was the most gorgeous man Dazai had ever seen. Longish ginger locks tied in a low ponytail, a side profile envied by the Gods and —why was Dazai still looking?— a chest and abs that definitely put his to shame.

By the time Dazai had finished staring at him, the guy had (thankfully) finished changing into his uniform and started making his way towards them.

“Who is that brat?” Dazai asked loudly, forcing his gaze away from him.

“Who are you calling a brat?” The voice that came out of the arguably petit man was deep and husky. Dazai’s eyes flew back at him.

“Chuuya Nakahara, new recruit,” Fukuzawa started talking, completely ignoring the sudden tension in the room. “He graduated top of his class just this week. Several stations were fighting to have him but I convinced him to join us.”

“What do we need him for?” 

Before Chuuya got the chance to finish gaping at Dazai in disbelief and reply, Kouyou rushed ahead with introductions. “I’m Kouyou, this is Kunikida, and the actual brat of the house is Dazai.”

The three of them laughed as they exchanged handshakes, Dazai pointendly keeping his arms tightly by his side. He felt their captain’s gaze burn the side of his face when Chuuya stood in front of him with his arm outstretched and he begrudgingly reached forward to shake his hand. Chuuya smiled as he gripped his hand unnecessarily tightly.

“Chuuya served multiple tours in Afghanistan as an Army medic, earning himself a Silver Star,” Fukuzawa continued, putting his hand on Dazai’s shoulder once Chuuya had stepped back, almost like he was afraid he would rush forward to attack him. “I think he’ll be a great addition to our team.”

Dazai wasn’t sure why they needed an addition . It had taken him a while to adjust to the whole working as a team thing, but things had been good in the past few months. Even if there were still members of their crew that didn’t take him seriously, for the most part, he had started feeling like he finally belonged somewhere. He wasn’t into the idea of some new guy upsetting the fragile balance he had fought tooth and nail to create.

Kouyou and Kunikida certainly didn’t share the same sentiment, rushing ahead to invite the guy upstairs to the loft where the kitchen and what they called their ‘hanging out area’ were located. Dazai’s initial urge to run away and hide in the bunk room to sulk was defeated by his even stronger urge to learn as much information as he could about this new guy. There had to be something wrong with him, and Dazai was going to discover it sooner or later.

Considering that the bell rang not even five minutes after he settled down on the couch with his book, the perfect distance from their dining table where he could pretend to be indifferent about the new guy but still eavesdrop on the conversation, it seemed like it would have to be later.

“9-1-1 what’s your emergency?”

“Yeah. You gotta send someone to Hector’s rim and tire shop. My boss fell on the nozzle of the compressor and he’s blowing up.”

“So, silver star, huh?” Kunikida turned to Chuuya once they were in the engine.

“Yeah.” 

Dazai didn’t miss the strained smile on his face and the way the man tried to keep his gaze to the window. It would have actually been quite hard for him to miss it considering that Kouyou had pushed him to sit crumpled right across their new member when they were entering the engine with a conspiratorial smile on her face.

“Did you save a platoon or something?” 

“No, no, nothing like that.” Chuuya seemed to be forcing himself to make eye contact with him. “Uh, just a convoy.” 

Kouyou, much better at picking up social cues than Kunikida, jumped in to save the situation, “Chuuya, have you heard about the hot firefighter calendar?”

Dazai sent a glare at her for that, gaining a grin from the woman.

“Sorry, the what ?” Chuuya seemed genuinely confused.

“It’s for charity,” she informed him, which didn’t really seem to clear up things for him but made everyone laugh. “If they’re going to go for a guy they could at least go with an actual good looking one and not a scrawny kid.”

Although she accompanied the comment with a teasing wink, Dazai couldn’t help but get uncharacteristically annoyed at the situation. (What was wrong with him?) While he had certainly been a scrawny kid once upon a time, training to become a firefighter had quickly changed that. And if anything—

“I’m surprised they let you become a firefighter. What are you, 4’11?” Dazai said a bit more aggressively than he meant, breaking the pleasant atmosphere. He could feel Fukuzawa turning to glance at him from the front of the engine.

“5'3, and you should know there aren’t height requirements to join the LAFD.” It didn’t sound like it was the first time Chuuya had to answer that. Dazai only felt bad about it for a second before opening his big mouth once again.

“Do people ever call you ‘Nakahara’?”

“Not if they want me to respond.”

“Well, we usually go by last names here, we can’t call you by your first name.”

Chuuya turned to Kouyou, who had certainly not introduced herself by a last name. “I can’t tell if he’s being serious or not.”

“I like to always operate under the assumption that nothing he says is serious.” That gained a laugh out of Chuuya. Dazai kept his mouth shut for the rest of the ride to the scene.

“The air nozzle is embedded in his ass cheek,” the employee leading them to their patient informed them. “I shut it off, but I was afraid to move him”

“Hector, can you hear me?” Fukuzawa crunched down next to the blown up man who gave him a slight nod. “Alright, hang in there, sir.” Their captain then turned to address Dazai, Chuuya and Kouyou. “Let’s get him on his side. Maintain pressure on the wound.”

The four of them moved the distressed man and Kunikida rushed in to take a look at him.

Dazai read the label of the machine and informed them, “It’s a hundred pounds per square inch of air pumped through his entire body.”

“Breathing’s shallow, heart’s racing.” Kunikida started his assessment. “Air has filled his stomach, his chest, even behind his eyelids. I’m more concerned about the space around his heart and lungs.”

Their captain nodded and turned to them with new instructions. “Chuuya, start a nasal cannula. Kouyou, get him some morphine.” 

“It’s like trying to inject a needle into stone,” Kouyou said, quickly followed by Chuuya adding, “The pressure is pushing everything out. I can’t even get air through the nostril.” 

“Jugular venous distention, tachycardia, hypotension, diminished breath, we’re looking at tension pneumothorax.” Kunikida sent a concerned look at Fukuzawa.

“The air pressure is collapsing his organs. We need to get in there and drain the fluid. Dazai, I need you to get a 14-gauge angiocath. We need to start decompressing the pleural cavity.”

“Alright, alright.” Dazai quickly grabbed the angiocath and kneeled by Hector’s side.

“Want me to help?” Chuuya, who was still hovering over the patient's head, asked.

“I got it.”

“Hang in there, Hector,” Fukuzawa encouraged him as Dazai prepared for the insertion.

“I’d go lower,” Chuuya stopped him.

“What? No. Second intercostal space. Midclavicular line.” Dazai pointed where he knew he had to make the insertion.

“The chest wall is thinner at the fifth intercostal at the anterior axillary line. There’s a decreased chance of injuring any vital organs.” Chuuya turned to their captain. “I’ve treated guys with collapsed lungs in combat.”

“Go ahead,” Fukuzawa seemed to agree with him.

Chuuya turned back to Dazai, gesturing to the angiocath. “Let me?”

Despite Chuuya’s professional attitude during the entire conversation, Dazai couldn’t help but get pissed off at being disregarded like that. Nonetheless, it wasn’t the time for him to be petty. He handed it over without even glaring at him.

“Thank you.” 

See? Dazai could be mature and professional. 

“Can you help me out with the shirt?”

Okay, scratch that. Dazai might have been professional —he did proceed to unbutton Hector’s shirt— but he wasn’t that mature, some glaring might have happened as he watched Chuuya quickly and efficiently save the guy and then get congratulated by everyone. The only thing Dazai had been allowed to do on his first day as a probationary firefighter had been breaking a door and climbing a tree to get a cat down.

The rest of the shift continued like that. Chuuya kept being unfailingly impressive and competent and Dazai got stuck helping him around like he was the probie.

By the time his shift ended and he made it back to the apartment, Dazai felt drained, worse than he did after a gruesome shift even though nothing big had happened that day. He threw his bag on the floor and turned to make his way to the bathroom to wash his hands when he heard it. 

There was noise coming from the kitchen. 

Well, whoever had decided to rob him clearly didn’t have an eye for it because there was nothing left in this apartment worth stealing besides the TV. Dazai momentarily considered whether he should just give up and accept becoming a statistic in home burglaries turned homicides when his eyes landed on a purple suitcase by the couch.

How many burglars brought a purple suitcase decorated with butterflies with them when breaking and entering? Well, apparently at least one, unless…

“Osamu, you’re home!” His sister casually greeted him as she exited the kitchen, like it had only been a day since they had seen each other and not seven whole years.

“Akiko? What are you doing here?” 

“Well, I was in town and I wanted to see my little brother.” Despite the easygoingness in her tone, Dazai could recognize the hesitance in her body language, like she wasn't quite sure if she was welcomed there or not. Before either of them could overthink it more, he rushed ahead and tightly embraced his sister.

“You’re really here.” The voice that came out of him sounded more like the 19 year old boy he had been during their last face to face conversation than the 26 year old man he was. 

After several long moments, Akiko pulled back but kept her hands on his arms. There was genuine wonder in her voice when she said, “You’re so big now.” 

Dazai’s first instinct was to make a jab about how she wouldn’t have been surprised about it if she had ever bothered to come see him earlier, but something about the weariness surrounding her made him shallow back the ugly words fighting to come out.

“How did you even get in here?” He asked instead. 

Akiko let go of him and turned to walk back into the kitchen with an amused smile. “I told the building manager I was your sister.”

“And he just believed you?” He asked, slightly alarmed about the security of the building as he followed her.

“Well, having boobs doesn’t hurt.”

Dazai chose to ignore that comment and instead set on making his sister breakfast. “How did you know where I live?”

“Well, first I went to the address the Christmas cards keep coming from, and the guy said you were here.”

“Wait, so you did get those Christmas cards?” 

Akiko flinched, looking away for a moment before turning her eyes back on him. “I’m sorry I haven’t been in touch much lately.”

“Three years, Akiko.” Dazai tried to keep the anger out of his voice but all he managed was sounding hurt, which only made his sister look more guilty. “I haven’t heard from you in three years.”

“Yeah, I know. And it’s not what I wanted.”

“Where is Tekkan?” Just saying his name made him feel sick.

She gave him a forced smile. “Our divorce just got finalized.”

“You left him?”

“Finally.”

Dazai sighed in relief. “What took you so long?” He hadn’t even been a teenager when she had started dating him but even as a ten year old child he could tell he hated the guy.

“What can I say? Mom was right.” Akiko laughed bitterly. Dazai held back from commenting that their mother’s opinion was irrelevant.

“Do they know?”

“No one knows,” She shook her head.” And please don’t tell them if they call. I don’t want to deal with them too right now.”

“I won’t. Has Tekkan left you alone or is he bothering you?”

“More or less.”

He raised an eyebrow, ready to call her out on her bullshit, but Akiko spoke again before he had a chance. “So what happened to you ? Because this place is nice, and clean, and you just cooked me food” —she pointed to the plate he placed in front of her— “actual food. Is there a shallot in here?”

Dazai rolled his eyes playfully. “Yeah, my boss could honestly become a chef if being a fire captain doesn’t work out. He’s been teaching me how to cook, though we haven’t made it past breakfast.” He pointed around the room. “And this is my ex girlfriend's place. I’m looking after it while she’s out of town for a couple months.”

Akiko blinked at him. “You’re looking after your ex girlfriend’s place?”

“Technically she hasn’t broken up with me yet.”

There was silence for a moment. Dazai took a big bite of his meal as he let his sister process the information.

“Was that supposed to help me understand the situation?” She asked eventually.

“Well, we were together for a few months. I thought it was going serious so I had started slowly moving myself in. You saw the place I was living before, five roommates and all. Amy’s mother had Alzheimer's, and she had been taking care of her for the last couple of years so she felt pretty lost when she passed away. She said she wanted to” —he raised his hands in air quotes— “travel around the world to find herself again.”

“So she broke up with you but let you stay here rent free?”

“No, as I said, she didn’t break up with me. She said she would come back.”

“Osamu, are you trying to confuse me on purpose, I swear—”

“She said she would come back and then stopped responding to me after a month,” He clarified. “It’s been about four months since I told her I would wait for her to come back at the airport, three since I got any update about her that wasn’t from an instagram post. Apparently she’s in Italy now.”

The most pathetic thing about the situation was that Dazai had actually believed her. She had been the first woman that he had felt he had a real connection with. He had let himself dive headfirst into this relationship and invest in it in a way he had never done before, and what did that get him besides saving up on paying rent? 

Amy —a seasoned 9-1-1 dispatcher at age 42— had been going through a hard time taking care of her sick mother while working such a demanding job and Dazai had been the young firefighter she could have fun with and use to forget about her struggles for a while. Dazai wouldn’t have even blamed her for it if she hadn’t let him believe that it was something more.

But was it really a surprise that another person in his life had left him behind?

“Oh ‘Samu…” Akiko reached forward to gently hold his hand.

“It’s fine,” Dazai dismissed her concern, easily falling back to his joking tone, even if he didn’t try to take his hand away from her comforting grip. “As you said, I do currently live in this very nice apartment rent free.”

“And you think that’s good for you? Still living in her place?”

“Akiko, if you see the rent prices in L.A you’ll understand.” His sister still looked like she had more to say about the matter, so Dazai rushed ahead to change the topic. “Speaking of, this is your first time here. Are you going to see the sights? Hang around for a bit?”

Akiko shook her head. “I’m just passing through.” 

“Ah.” Was that all he was going to get after seven years? His sister making a brief appearance in his life before disappearing again? Maybe he could try to convince her to stay and find out more about why she had appeared so suddenly, though it didn’t feel like that moment was the right one. “Okay, even if you are just here for a few days, welcome to L.A. It was getting pretty lonely around here.”

His sister opened her mouth, looking like she had something serious to say, but at the last moment, she cleared her throat, and what came out instead was, “So how was work? You came back from a shift, didn’t you? According to your last postcard you’re still a firefighter.”

“Ugh, let me tell you about this new guy…”

Dazai chose to start his next shift with a workout, something he rarely did —Kunikida had looked like he wanted to take his temperature when he watched him enter the gym first thing in the morning— but the new guy was already there going at it at the punching bag and Dazai wasn’t going to let him win. 

(Win what? He wasn’t sure.)

Alright, maybe he was stealing glances at him while doing the most half hearted bicep curls in human history, but the fact that Chuuya was wearing a very distracting black tank top that barely covered anything wasn’t his fault. Seriously, didn’t the guy know about professional attire? He might as well have been shirtless. Not that Dazai was interested in seeing him shirtless or anything, he just wanted to ensure that no one ruined the sanctuary of their gym.

Chuuya slowed down his workout to chat with Kouyou as she joined them, the two of them easily bonding about the right angles and lighting to take photos for the calendar, even as Kunikida made sure to remind them his opinion about the whole affair. Even the fact that he was judging them didn’t take away from the pleasant atmosphere surrounding them. What was Dazai doing there? 

He switched to doing hammer curls, taking them more seriously as he dismissed Chuuya’s efforts to get him to join in their conversation. By the third time, he seemed to have given up on trying to be friendly. Instead, he approached Dazai with a full glare. “What’s your problem, man?”

“You. You’re my problem.” Dazai made sure to include all the venom that had been forming inside of him in his tone. “Your comfort level. You’re not supposed to just walk in here like you’ve been here for years. It’s meant to be a getting-to-know-you period. You’re meant to respect your elders.”

“You’re not his elder, Dazai,” Kunikida commented from the elliptical. Dazai kept his eyes on Chuuya, looking down at him as he waited for his resolve to break. 

Despite his fiery gaze, Chuuya didn’t explode. He took a deep breath before replying, “Look, I in no way meant to be, uh, too familiar or step on anybody’s toes. I know you’re going through some personal stuff right now.”

“What personal stuff?” Dazai took a step forward, not against using his height for intimidation purposes. Chuuya only snorted at that, clearly not intimidated.

“I know your girlfriend recently broke up with you and you’re coming to terms with that.”

The sounds of the elliptical stopped. The culprit of spreading around gossip wouldn’t have been difficult to guess either way. (Though Kunikida claimed that knowing about his coworker’s personal lives was for practical reasons and not gossip.)

“No, I’m not. And she didn’t break up with me. Who told you that?”

Kunikida picked up the pace again as Dazai turned to glare at him.

“I’m just saying,” Chuuya continued. “I hear you’re a good guy, and I’m sorry you’re going through something difficult, but you don’t need to take it out on me or be threatened by me. We’re on the same team.”

Dazai sneered, taking one more step forward. “Why would I be threatened by you?”

Chuuya held his ground, glancing up at him steadily. The sweat running down his neck slowly made its way down the exposed hair of his chest. “Exactly. There’s no need to be. We do the same thing. I’ve just done it while people are shooting at me.”

“We’re not broken up,” was all Dazai managed to reply as Chuuya turned and walked away. Why was he getting so frustrated over this guy? It must have been his infuriating confidence. Who walked around so sure of themselves on their first week at work?

“9-1-1 what’s your emergency?”

“Help. It went off. I don’t know what happened.”

“What went off, sir?”

“Grenade.”

“Fire and Rescue. Hello?” Fukuzawa opened the door of the grenade guy’s house —Charlie, as dispatch had informed them— Dazai following behind him.

A muffled voice came from further into the house. “I’m back here, help me.”

As they followed the voice, Dazai couldn’t miss a certain theme in the decor. “Some kind of militia nut?” The vintage guns stored in glass cabinets were one thing, but the life sized dolls dressed in various military uniforms made Dazai very sure about his guess.

It took them a few moments to find the room that Charlie was in. Fukuzawa rushed to his side, introducing himself and asking him his name and what had happened.

“Damn grenade went off while I was taking it apart.”

Dazai kneeled down on his other side. “Why are you taking apart a grenade?” The answer wasn’t hard to guess, but asking easy questions to keep patients aware and talking was part of the job.

“I was cleaning it. I’m a collector,” Charlie replied coherently enough.

“You pulled the pin?” Dazai continued his questions as Fukuzawa inspected the wound.

“Oh, it ain’t that kind of grenade. It’s a 40-mike-mike. A practice round for an M203 grenade launcher. I picked it up at a flea market in Brea, part of my ‘Nam collection. My screwdriver must have touched the propelling charge. I…”

“All right, I see metal. A lot of shrapnel,” Fukuzawa cut him off. “Femoral artery has been nicked. We gotta get him transported now.”

The process after that was routine. Another firefighter joined them with a gurney and after transporting Charlie on it, they carefully made their way outside as their captain used his radio to inform Dispatch about the situation. Dazai caught sight of Chuuya as they lifted the patient inside the ambulance. 

He went to take a step back when Fukuzawa put a hand on his shoulder. “Dazai, I want you to travel with him to the hospital, keep him stable.”

In the least annoyed tone he could manage, Dazai replied, “Copy that, captain.”

He mustn’t have done a very good job because Fukuzawa gave him one of his famous stern but fatherly looks. “You got to learn to play nice. It’s one team, Dazai.”

“Hey, Fukuzawa, am I gonna be alright?” Charlie questioned, still surprisingly coherent, as Dazai climbed in, taking a seat next to Chuuya

“My boys have got you. But you might want to consider switching to collecting baseball cards after this.”

“I guess you’ve seen a lot of shrapnel wounds,” Dazai asked over the siren as the both of them worked on the patient.

“My share.”

“Have you ever seen someone with a length of rebar stuck through their skull?” The image of Kouyou during the car accident she had had the previous year with that rebar still haunted his dreams, but that didn’t deter him from using it in this… contest?

“What are we measuring here, Dazai?”

Charlie groaned underneath them. Chuuya’s full attention went back to him. “I need to change those dressings. They’re soaking through.”

Dazai only had to remind himself that he was a professional once to calm down his annoyance and follow the instructions the other man gave him. He couldn’t keep his mouth shut, though.

“I’m just saying, working the streets of L.A. is not exactly stress free. It may not be the same kind of pressure you have in a war zone, but—”

“Hold on.” Chuuya stopped his movements, his eyes glued on the wound on Charlie’s thigh. “I thought you said this was a practice round.”

“It is,” the man insisted.

“Uhm, what’s going on?” Dazai wisely kept his hands away.

“You see the cap?” Chuuya pointed to the open wound. “Practice rounds have blue caps. Gold caps are live.”

The cap was definitely not blue.

“Pull over!” Chuuya yelled at the driver.

The bomb squad met them at the hospital’s parking lot and confirmed Chuuya’s claim.

“I thought this thing already went off?” Dazai asked the member of the bomb squad that was talking to Fukuzawa. Grenades weren’t exactly his field of expertise.

Chuuya jumped into an explanation before the bomb squad guy (Jim? Dazai was pretty sure that that was the name he had given them) had a chance. “The launch grenade has two components, gunpowder which makes it travel and an explosive charge that makes it go boom.”

“Okay, so why didn’t this one go boom?”

“It’s fitted with a proximity fuse. It’s a little smart sensor that tells the cap it’s traveled a safe enough distance from the shooter to explode. From his hand to his leg probably wasn’t far enough.”

“Well, we can’t bring him inside a hospital full of people, not with that still stuck inside him,” Fukuzawa concluded.

Jim nodded. “We called the military for help.”

Dazai raised an eyebrow. “The military? Uh, you can’t do it? You’re the bomb squad.”

“You can’t diffuse a grenade. We need to find someone who knows how to pull that thing out of him without setting it off. They’re sending someone up from Pendleton. Should be here within the hour.”

“He doesn’t have an hour,” Dazai pointed out, turning to Fukuzawa. Before their captain could respond, Chuuya spoke with the same confidence that had tremendously infuriated Dazai during their last shift.

“I can do it. If he doesn’t go to surgery soon, he’ll die.”

“Have you done this before?” Fukuzawa asked.

“Well, none of the guys I served with were dumb enough to shoot a live round in themselves, but I’m familiar with the ordnance.”

“I’m in,” Dazai said before he could really think about it. Despite the intense irritation the new guy made him experience, there was some part inside of him that had him following him around, almost like he couldn’t keep himself away.

Neither Fukuzawa or Jim seemed thrilled about the idea, yet Chuuya’s annoyingly dependable attitude convinced them quickly enough. That still didn’t deter Fukuzawa from stopping Dazai right after he finished putting the vest that the bomb squad had handed him to say, “Listen, Dazai, you don’t have to do this.”

“You think I’m gonna let the new guy have all the fun?” Dazai immediately argued. “Besides, you wanted us to bond. We might end up real close.”

Getting into the ambulance with Chuuya for the second time felt different. Maybe it was the adrenaline of trying to get a live grenade out of a guy’s leg, or the acceptance that Chuuya was as competent as he seemed, but Dazai wasn’t as mad about getting squeezed next to him by Charlie’s side.

“You ready?” Chuuya turned to him once they had finished the preparations. Dazai had to remind himself that it really wasn’t the time to focus on his coworker’s really blue eyes; getting blown up didn’t even seem like a fun way to die. 

He took a breath and nodded, “Yeah.”

Once he had uncovered Charlie’s wound, it became clear that their time was running out. “He’s losing a lot of blood.”

“Keep pressure on it,” Chuuya urged him.

The process had sounded simple enough when Jim had explained it to them —carefully get the shell out and put it in the box he had handed them— yet Dazai couldn’t say he felt that confident about it as he kept putting pressure on the wound while Chuuya tried to get a good grip on the shell with the tool.

“There it is.”

“Alright, so pull it out. Come on.”

“I got… to be careful.” Although Dazai couldn't take his eyes away from the process, the strain of the effort in Chuuya’s voice wasn’t hard to miss. “The sensor measures the distance traveled based on how many rotations the shell made after the launch. The key is not to turn the shell while we pull it out.”

“Okay, so don’t turn it.” Dazai was sure Chuuya would be glaring at him if he could. Getting him angry wasn’t really beneficial for him at the moment, so he made sure to add a quiet, “You got this.”

“Gonna have to just…” —Chuuya continued to slowly pull the shell out of Charlie’s thigh— “a bit…” By the time it was fully out, Dazai could feel sweat running down his face. 

“Get the box,” Chuuya rushed him, voice coming out as a groan.

Somehow watching him transport the shell in the box was even more stressful than watching him pull it out of Charlie. Chuuya moved slowly, his heavy breathing the only sound in the ambulance. Dazai kept the box as steady as he could, very aware of the fact that the three of them were only a few rotations away from getting blown up. 

When the shell finally touched the bottom of the box, Dazai couldn’t help but grin at the man next to him, relief mixed with adrenaline almost completely erasing his jealousy and annoyance towards him. Chuuya grinned back as they closed the box.

Huh, he really had a nice smile. Perhaps being under such pressure like that with someone could actually help you bond with them.

“Let’s get the robot in there,” Jim spoke onto his radio as Dazai and Chuuya wheeled Charlied away from the ambulance and towards the hospital staff that waited to take over.

Once they had handed him over to them, Chuuya turned to him “You’re a badass under pressure.” 

“Me?” Dazai replied, taken off guard by the genuineness in his voice.

“Hell yeah. You can have my back any day.”

“Yeah. Or you know, you could… you could have mine.”

Chuuya laughed, extending his hand to him. “Deal.” Dazai shook it with a smile of his own.

“Nice work, boys. I’m glad you both made it out of there.” Fukuzawa approached them.

“We are both professionals, you shouldn’t have worried in the first place.”

The ambulance chose that moment to explode, making Fukuzawa and Dazai violently flinch and crouch down. Dazai didn’t miss that Chuuya barely moved.

“Cancel the robot,” Jim spoke into his radio again.

“You guys hungry?” Chuuya asked, not missing a beat.

“—and I will only admit it to you because you are my sister but I swear my heart stopped at least five times during that whole ordeal, I really didn’t want to be taken out by a grenade stuck in an ambulance with Chuuya of all people—”

“Wasn’t there that old guy in there too?” Akiko interrupted him to ask from the other side of the couch.

Dazai waved her off, almost spilling wine out of his glass in the process. “Sure, but if I had died there with Chuuya it would have almost been like a double suicide—”

“Would it qualify as a suicide if it was an accident? That Chuuya guy doesn’t sound like he was trying to blow you up on purpose. I would argue that maybe he would be interested in some different kind of blowing—”

“Akiko, do not finish that sentence. Haven’t you heard about how annoying he is? I could write ten books about it.”

“All I’ve heard is that you’ve only had two shifts with the guy and you’re already obsessed with him,” Akiko said with a smug smile, taking a long sip of her wine. “Besides, you already admitted you thought he was cool in there.”

“Now you’re just putting words in my mouth.”

“Oh, would you like for a certain redhead to put something else in your—”

“I’m kicking you out of my house.”

“I regret to inform you it’s not your house.”

“Ugh, I really hadn’t missed you at all,” Dazai said with a pout. Akiko laughed brightly at his reaction, decisively patting his head even as he tried his best to dodge. Even if his sister was making fun of him, having her there beside him safe and happy was the best thing that had happened to him in years.

“Anyway,” Akiko said after she got her laughter under control. “It sounds like your rivalry with him was short lived, so play nice. You're gonna be seeing the guy a lot.”

“We're still not friends. I will just not be actively hating him.”

“Right, right. I believe you.”

“9-1-1 What's your emergency?”

“Yeah. We need help. My friend got a microwave stuck on his head.”

“His head is stuck in a microwave?”

“No, it’s cemented on.”

“Quick they’re in the back,” a boy who couldn’t be older than seventeen greeted them at the door, leading them around the impressively massive house towards the pool. “We put a tube in so he could breathe. I think the cement smushed it.”

“Was it for a YouTube prank?” Kouyou questioned. Even though she was walking ahead of the rest of them, Dazai could feel the eyebrow raise. 

“Don’t judge,” the kid replied. “Followers equal cash.”

Once the guy with the microwave cemented on his head came into view along with their other dumb blond friend trying to hold him upright, Chuuya leaned in towards Dazai and whispered, “Do we ever get normal calls?”

Dazai had to hide his chuckle behind a cough. “This is L.A.”

“Let’s get some screwdrivers, try to get this frame off,” their captain decided once he took in the situation. Chuuya rushed to follow his instruction while Kunikida took his vitals.

“Pulse 120, BP 150/110.”

“He’s panicking,” Dazai pointed out as the guy started moving more and more fervently.

“Alright, he’s starting to choke.”

“Saliva’s probably aspirated through the breathing tube.”

Before they could do anything about it, the microwave guy —who they were informed was called Jessie— somehow managed to get up. But of course, with a whole microwave stuck on his head, gravity wasn’t on his side. After only a few distraught steps, Jessie tumbled forward, falling straight into the pool. 

Dazai barely let a second pass before jumping in after him, and a second splash followed right after. Within seconds he and Chuuya, in a freaky show of synchronization, had grabbed the guy and brought him to the surface, letting the rest of their crew pull him out of the pool and help him lie down. 

Kunikida rushed to reevaluate him. “His pulse is weak. I have no respiration.”

“Is there a plastic bag in there or something?” Kouyou asked.

“Yeah, we put it on his head before we poured the concrete,” the blond kid replied. Perhaps the situation finally had dawned on him because he followed that with a frantic, “Please don't let him die. He's been my best friend since kindergarten.”

Dazai met Chuuya's eyes as they were both in the middle of hiding a scoff, matching soaking wet blue uniforms dripping all over the place while they worked on getting the frame off.

“We had 30 minutes to get him out of there. Now we’ve got 30 seconds.” Fukuzawa turned to the two paramedics.

“No response to sternal rub.”

“Pulse is fading. Still no respiration.”

“All right, Dazai,” Fukuzawa addressed him this time. “Once we get this frame off, you and I are gonna go hammer and chisel on that block.”

“All right.”

“Starting compressions,” Kouyou announced just seconds before they finally managed to get the frame off. 

Fukuzawa handed Dazai the hammer and positioned the chisel on top of the cemented microwave. “Let's go.” 

The two of them worked quickly, everyone exhaling in relief when the cement started to crack and they could free Jessie. Kunikida was immediately on him with the bag valve mask while Kouyou continued the compressions. The boy burst into coughing soon enough and, with the adrenaline gone, Dazai could finally think about how uncomfortable the uniform felt stuck on his skin.

“Shay Reed here, fans. And today's Shay-nanigan is maybe our most intense yet!” The blond boy —Shay?— who had been on the verge of sobbing just moments ago, somehow had already taken his phone out of his pocket and turned it towards them, filming his friend as they helped him recover.

“Are you filming this?” Fukuzawa asked the two boys who probably didn’t know him well enough to pick out the anger in his tone.

“Yeah, bro. If we didn't film it, it didn't happen.”

“You were just crying like two minutes ago,” Dazai couldn’t help but say.

“Yeah, two minutes ago, he was gonna die. Now he's gonna live and be a legend,” Shay replied with a grin. “Say hello, Shay's Army.”

“Hello, Shay's army,” Fukuzawa said deadpan as he grabbed the phone out of the boy’s hand and threw it in the pool.

“What the hell, man?!”

“Good-bye, Shay Army.”

“Dude!”

“I bet you hadn’t seen that on the battlefield.” Dazai bumped his shoulder into Chuuya’s as they made their way into the shower room, neither of them fans of smelling like chlorine for the rest of their shift.

Chuuya snorted. “I’m really starting to doubt my decision to move to L.A.” 

Dazai opened his mouth to make yet another smart comment, but the words got stuck in his throat as his eyes caught sight of the other man, nonchalantly stripping out of his uniform.

One thing that Dazai was sure of, was that he wasn’t a prude. His sexual life had always leaned towards sex addiction (self-diagnosed), and his job required him to change in the same room with other people day in day out. Casual nudity wasn’t something he was unfamiliar with, he had seen Kunikida’s bare ass more times than anyone should have. So why was he averting his gaze away from Chuuya’s annoyingly toned chest and — Jesus, how did he hide all that under the uniform? — muscular thighs like he was a thirteen year old in a locker room whose hormones had just started acting up?

Chuuya continued talking (About what? He couldn’t focus enough to listen) and Dazai almost collided with the door of the shower stall in his effort to enter it without looking at the other man again.

“Why do you even start a conversation if you’re gonna go back to ignoring me afterwards?” Dazai finally picked out as he closed the door of the stall behind him, but he knew his voice would betray exactly what he was feeling if he spoke.

“How was your shift?” Akiko asked as he joined her in the kitchen for breakfast. This little ritual had already become familiar enough that Dazai knew he would miss it once his sister left again. Nonetheless, at that moment, he had another problem to focus on.

“I think I need to change stations.”

“That’s… a grand statement. What happened?” Akiko’s expression was caught between confusion and concern.

“I don’t think I can stand to work with Chuuya any longer.” Dazai leaned on the table and buried his face in his hands.

“Hasn’t it only been three shifts? What did he even do?”

And what was Dazai supposed to reply to that? He wasn’t a thirteen year old boy going through puberty and God, Chuuya was his new annoying coworker, why was he focusing so much on the fact that the guy had such perfect physique? Every person who did their job had to be fit, it shouldn’t be a surprise.He pathetically groaned into his hands, trying to rid his mind of certain images that kept coming back.

Akiko only let him have his moment for a minute before she laughed. “So it’s that kind of problem.”

“It’s not, he’s just annoying,” Dazai rushed to defend himself.

“I swear if I hear the word annoying come out of your mouth one more time—”

By their sixth shift together, Dazai was stuck in a loop of constantly seeking out Chuuya to annoy him half of the time and avoiding him like the plague the other half. To say the other man was confused by his behavior was an understatement. He was in the middle of the first half of the loop, harassing Chuuya who was entertaining himself at the pinball machine about possible nicknames he could call him instead of his name (Chuuya protested loudly about all the ones that alluded to his short height), when Fukuzawa walked up towards them and their rest of their crew hanging out in the loft of the station.

“Alright, listen up, everyone. I’ve got an announcement to make. I just got off the phone with the people from the calendar, and they have made their choice.”

“No hard feelings no matter who won, little snail.”

“I definitely didn’t consent to that,” Chuuya hurried to protest.

“That’s good, Dazai, because they didn’t pick you,” Fukuzawa informed him.

“Well, it’s obviously a fix,” he said with faux seriousness, before laughing. “No, congratulations anyway, pipsqueak!”

“They didn’t pick him either,” Fukuzawa added before Chuuya could complain about the nickname again.

Dazai was genuinely confused. They hadn’t picked Chuuya? “No? You?” 

“No.” Fukuzawa turned to Kouyou who was standing behind the kitchen counter. “Congratulations, Kouyou. Or should I say Miss April?”

Kouyou burst into delighted laughter. “Wow, 2019 is really gonna be the year for the lesbians!” 

While Kouyou was graciously accepting her congratulations (and certainly not rubbing her win in anybody’s face…) a new pair of footsteps made their way up the loft.

“Hello everyone!” Ranpo’s loud voice greeted them. “What’s for lunch?” 

Without missing a beat, the man made himself comfortable at the dining table, and just like that, Fukuzawa’s attention was solely focused on him. 

“Who’s this?” Chuuya whispered to Kouyou, Kunikida and Dazai, curious gaze following the interaction.

“That’s Ranpo, the captain’s son,” Kunikida attempted to whisper back.

“Ah, I didn’t know he had a kid. He’s not married, is he?”

“He’s currently going through a divorce,” Kouyou informed him. “It must be, what? His third now?”

“Third?” Chuuya questioned, probably a bit louder than he intended to, considering that Fukuzawa momentarily turned around to stare at them.

“Number 1 and 3 are with the same person. Allegedly,” Dazai chimed in. 

Chuuya narrowed his eyes in confusion. “So he got married with someone, divorced them, married someone else who he also divorced, and then got back together with the first person—”

“And divorced them again, yeah,” Dazai helped him conclude. “At least that’s what we have concluded from the information we’ve gathered. Kunikida claims to have met both the ex husbands.”

“I have!” Kunikida replied exasperatedly, apparently not even attempting to whisper anymore. “We’ve all met Fukuchi—”

“Husband 1 and 3,” Dazai added for Chuuya’s sake.

“Yes, and I met Mori when I first started working here seven years ago—”

“Cause he’s actually geriatric—”

“Dazai stop interrupting me!” Kunikida hit him with a spatula that had been left on the counter before continuing, “Yeah, I met Mori briefly back when they were still married, though I believe the marriage was short-lived.”

“As short as—”

Chuuya grabbed the spatula out of Kunikida’s hand and hit Dazai himself before he could finish the sentence.

“Ouch, Chuuya! And here I was ready to share all the juicy details I know with you!”

“What juicy details do you even know?” Kouyou rolled her eyes.

“Like who has custody of Ranpo.”

“Ranpo is pushing thirty, I doubt it matters who are legally his fathers.”

“I heard there is a third guy who was between the alleged number 1 and 2 who is actually Ranpo’s dad—”

“Now you’re just making stuff up,” Kouyou stopped him before he could share his conspiracy theory. 

Fukuzawa loudly cleared his throat, approaching them to get the food he had prepared out of the oven. “You guys know you stopped whispering several minutes ago, don’t you?”

While Kunikida attempted to make excuses for them, the rest of them made their escape to the table. 

With Ranpo joining them, Dazai found himself sitting next to Chuuya, their elbows bumping into each other while they ate.

It was weird. Even though the two of them had barely known each other for three weeks by that point, as Dazai sat there at the table, it felt almost like that was how things were supposed to be; the two of them next to each other.

Chapter Text

Ever since Chuuya had been a little boy, it had felt like he never did anything for himself. He had never truly known what it was like to do things simply because he wanted to, and not out of duty. He wasn’t sure if he even knew himself enough to understand what he wanted. 

All his life had been about what he had to do, what his role in this life was. First, when his parents deemed him old enough at age ten, he had to step up and help with his younger sisters, be the man of the house while his father was away for work. Then, when he got his highschool girlfriend pregnant at eighteen, he had to fix his mistake and marry her, become the provider. He had to work, he had to take care of his family, he had to know what he needed to do, he had to listen to his parents when they decided all his decisions were wrong.

Even after twenty six years of roaming around the earth, Chuuya had no idea who he was. It felt like he had skipped the part where he discovered himself and what he desired. He was more than okay with dedicating his life to his son, but he couldn’t help but think there was something in his life that was missing.

Would he ever find it when he didn’t know what he was searching for? Would he ever get the opportunity to get to know himself? He doubted he was going to find the answer in Los Angeles, but moving away from his overbearing parents and attempting to build a new life with his son on his own terms seemed like at least worth the effort.

“Hey dad, I have a question,” Isamu said as they slowly made their way towards the entrance of his school. Since he had turned seven and started second grade he had decided he was way too old to be carried around by his dad all the time, so Chuuya had to hold back from offering to help, letting his son get more comfortable with using his crutches full time. 

“Yeah?”

“Do you think dogs know they’re dogs?”

“What do you mean?”

“You know, like, I’m a person and a dog is a dog,” Isamu explained seriously. He stopped walking once they had gotten close enough to the door of the building. Apparently, having his dad walk him any closer would be too embarrassing. Chuuya already knew he had some terrifying years ahead of him once Isamu became a teenager.

“Mm-hmm.” He crouched down next to him, fixing the strap of his backpack. 

“But do dogs just think we’re bigger, less hairier, smarter dogs that walk funny?”

Chuuya chuckled, delighted. One thing about having a seven year old who had just started developing his own personality was that conversations never got boring. “That’s a good question, I’ll have to think about it.”

It was just his luck, the bell rang before Chuuya could try to come up with an answer that would satisfy his son’s endless curiosity.

“All right, you got to hustle up. We can debate about this on the way home later, okay?”

“Okay, love you dad.” Kisses in front of his classmates were a no-no, but Chuuya could at least still get this.

“I love you too, son. Have a good day.”

Once he made sure that Isamu had made it alive inside the building, Chuuya hurried back to his car, hoping that morning traffic would be kind to him for once. (It wasn’t, but at least he arrived at work before Dazai did.)

Apart from a call not even fifteen minutes into their shift (kitchen fire that hadn’t taken more than twenty minutes to be resolved —Fukuzawa’s 10 minute speech about fire safely included), the morning was quiet. Perhaps Chuuya should have seen the storm coming. If he had, he would have considered ignoring Fukuzawa’s chore instructions and would have taken a big nap to make up for his lack of sleep the night before.

As it was, when the ground started violently shaking, Chuuya was on a creeper under the firetruck doing maintenance. If Kunikida hadn’t grabbed him and helped him up, Chuuya would have surely been hit by one of the oxygen tanks that had fallen and were rolling towards him.

Thankfully, after what couldn’t have been more than thirty seconds of chaos but had surely felt like a lot more, everyone was safe and accounted for outside the station. They didn't get the chance to take a breath before the bell was ringing and they were running back inside to get into the vehicles and hurry to wherever they had been dispatched. 

Everything was in disarray. They passed over half collapsed buildings, fallen trees and utility poles, countless shops with broken windows, cars that had lost control and ended up in one predicament or another. Their driver skillfully took detours to get them to their destination as fast as possible. 

After the third collapsed building Chuuya had counted, he forced his eyes back to his phone, dread filling his chest as yet another text failed to be sent. There had been a massive earthquake and Chuuya couldn’t even—

“Is everything okay?” It was Dazai of all people who interrupted his spiral before it could properly start to ask.

“Yeah, there’s no service,” He replied, trying and failing to keep the stress out of his voice. “Texts won’t even get through.”

“Who are you trying to get a hold of?” 

Chuuya hesitated. He hadn’t been keeping the fact that he was a parent a secret, but he hadn’t particularly felt the urge to volunteer the information either, even when other people on his shift had talked about their kids. It wasn’t hard for people to do the math when they learned he was twenty six with a seven year old kid, and Chuuya had really wanted to at least have one space where his decisions weren’t judged. 

But, it wasn’t like he could keep running circles around the subject forever. He spent twenty four hour shifts with these people; they would find out at some point. Dazai’s expression was curious when Chuuya turned back to look at him. Despite Chuuya’s prolonged silence, he seemed to be waiting patiently for a reply.

“My son. I’m trying to reach my son.”

He didn’t really know what reaction to expect from him. Osamu Dazai had been a mystery that Chuuya had yet to crack. When he had signed up to be a firefighter he hadn’t considered that the most challenging thing about his new job would be trying to understand how his coworker’s mind worked. Every time he thought he had finally started to figure out Dazai, the man did something that he would have never predicted.

Perhaps Chuuya shouldn’t have been focusing so much of his energy on this, but despite how annoying Dazai could get, there was something about him that was pulling Chuuya towards him —against his will, he would argue. On the rare occasions Dazai wasn’t spending every free moment between calls bothering him, Chuuya found himself seeking him out. He wouldn’t be able to explain why if anyone asked him. 

Dazai seemed to be far too talkative and cocky, two traits that usually made Chuuya run towards the opposite direction when he came across them in person, yet, despite only having known him for a few weeks, it was clear to Chuuya that Dazai was playing a character. It all felt forced, like Dazai had decided he had to fill every silence, but he wasn’t actually used to doing that, or at least he didn’t have the confidence of someone who had that kind of personality and had been doing that their whole life (and Chuuya would know— his youngest sister had self diagnosed herself as a chronic yapper, whatever that meant).

There were sure to be some parts of his real personality in that facade. Chuuya felt an almost instinctive urge to try and figure out which of those traits were genuine and which Dazai had fabricated along with the reason behind them. But, there was only so much one could learn about someone during work, even when they were forced to be in close quarters for an entire day at a time.

Dazai’s reaction to his reveal was the beginning of that journey.

“Whoa, you have a kid?” The excitement in his voice felt genuine.

“Isamu. He’s seven.” 

Chuuya unlocked his phone to show him the picture of him he had set as his background. He had taken it only days before when the two of them had taken advantage of his four-off falling on a weekend to spend an entire day at the beach. It had already become his favorite. Isamu had spent the whole time with a wide smile on his face, watching people surf and asking him every ten minutes if he was old enough to learn how to surf too. Chuuya, even though he probably couldn’t afford it, had started doing some research to figure out if it was possible.

“And super adorable. I love kids.”

“I love this one.” He could have stopped at that. But maybe it was the stress of the situation, or the palpable interest lighting up Dazai’s entire being that made him share more. “I’m all he’s got. His mother’s not in the picture.”

“He’s at school?” Chuuya was grateful he wasn’t trying to find out more than he was ready to share.

“Yeah.” 

He made another attempt to call his school. Nothing again.

“Hey, I’m sure he’s fine,” Dazai tried to reassure him as they pulled up to the scene. Chuuya nodded, though he was struggling with letting himself believe it. Every moment he spent apart from his son when his safety wasn’t guaranteed felt like torture. His heart wouldn’t be able to relax until he was holding his boy in his arms again. 

Still, he had a job to do in the meantime. 

Their team had been sent to a crumbling high-rise hotel. Looking up at how much it had tilted, Chuuya wasn’t sure how it was still standing.

“Have you guys ever dealt with anything like this before?” he asked. Everyone stood gazing at it for a few more moments.

“No.” It was their captain who replied before leading them to the incident commander. They had to pass through a couple begging the police officers at the scene to let them back in the building to search for their missing daughter. Chuuya felt another sting in his heart hearing their screams of anguish. 

“Chief Agatha, incident commander,” the incident commander greeted their team once they reached her. 

“Captain Yukichi Fukuzawa. How can we help you?”

Chief Agatha started leading them through the triage area. “Hotel manager said they were between checkout and check-in when the quake hit, so they were light on guests. We’ve made contact with most of those. Multiple evac operations in progress. All but 12 of the 68 staff have been accounted for. It’s been pretty chaotic.”

“The family back there said their little girl is still missing,” Kunikida interrupted her. 

The chief replied without missing a beat, stopping in front of an easel with what seemed to be the floor plan of the building on it. “As long as it’s still safe to do so, we’ll be looking for any survivors.” 

“What do your engineers have to say?” Fukuzawa asked, pointing at the floor plan.

“Looks like we had a brittle failure in the prestressed concrete section of the building’s underground parking garage, causing it to pancake at an angle. Right now the reinforced steel is the only thing keeping it from completely collapsing. One good aftershock…”

“And the whole thing could come down,” their captain finished for her.

“A high-rise is supposed to be the safest place to be when an earthquake hits,” Dazai shared his fan fact of the day. A habit that Chuuya believed to be one of his genuine personality traits.

“Not when you’re built right on top of a fault line,” Chief Agatha countered. “This quake was a 7.1.”

“How many crews do you have in there?” Fukuzawa asked.

“Not enough. We’ve put in a request for Heavy Rescue 3, but they’re on their way to a freeway collapse. We can use every hand we can get.”

The chief was pulled away by a firefighter from another station after wishing them good luck. Fukuzawa turned to address the whole team.

“Alright, listen up. Here’s how you make it to the end of the day. You don’t worry about the things that you can’t do anything about. Focus on one task at a time. I can’t order you guys to go inside that building, and I’m not going to judge you if you decide not to.”

“Kunikida, you have a kid, so…” Kouyou started.

“Yeah, and I’d hope if someone whose job was to save her had the chance, they’d do it. No matter what.”

Fukuzawa nodded at him and turned to Chuuya, who apart from being a parent, was also technically only a few weeks into his probationary year.

“Where do you want us?” Chuuya asked instead. He and Kunikida definitely agreed on that.

A police officer interrupted before Fukuzawa could reply. “You guys will want to see this.” 

He quickly led them to the other side of the building and pointed at one of the windows where a man in a bathrobe seemed to be squeezed between the glass and some furniture. 

“We could set up a bag street-side in case that window gives.” Kouyou suggested.

“Nobody works under that side of the building. Somebody's gonna have to get him from the inside.” Fukuzawa replied, his eyes scanning the sixteen floor building.

“Dazai, you say that's the eleventh floor?” Chuuya turned to the man beside him. Despite the fact that he wasn’t sure if the two of them actually got along on a personal level, their captain had been mostly pairing them up with each other. Chuuya was at least sure that they worked well together.

“I would. I bet we could take the ladder to that fifth floor. Cut the distance in half.” Dazai’s answer came easily. He was never one to run away from dangerous rescues.

“Head on up,” Fukuzawa gave them his approval after only a moment of thought.

Making their way to the eleventh floor was sure to be a challenge, so they only grabbed the bare minimum tools before going up the ladder to the fifth floor. Chuuya used the halligan to break the window and started clearing the remaining pieces of glass as Dazai decided to share another fact.

“After Northridge, FEMA spent $200 million retrofitting every school in the LAUSD. Ceiling tiles, lighting fixtures... Chuuya, your kid is in the safest place he can be.”

Chuuya turned back to look at him, snorting. “Thought that was a high-rise.” He caught Dazai smiling as he turned around to climb in (or jump down? He wasn’t sure what was the correct terminology with the situation they were in) through the window. Dazai followed behind him as they started making their way up the stairs, humming an unfamiliar song.

The humming lasted only about one floor before it turned to panting. The angle of the building was no joke.

“Only five floors left. Not exactly Mount Everest,” Chuuya tried to joke, even if he wasn’t fairing much better.

“Yeah, expect Everest might not tip over and crush you like a bug.” 

There was a loud noise in the deathly quiet building as Dazai must have tripped on something behind him. 

“You good, Dazai?” 

“Yeah. Let's keep going. I’m not into dying by an aftershock.”

Chuuya didn’t have time or energy to process that.

Once they reached the eleventh floor and Chuuya managed to open the door with a loud grunt, the real fun began. 

“You ready?” 

Dazai nodded and took a deep breath before jumping. He landed on the wall on the other side that mostly served as a floor in that situation. He started walking sideways down the corridor, using the wall on the opposite side for balance.

“Are you long enough for this or will I have to rescue you too?” he asked after Chuuya went to follow him.

“Shut up.” 

Chuuya wasn’t going to admit he was struggling a bit. It wasn’t his fault Dazai’s limbs were unnaturally long and he seemed to be doing that with ease.  

Dazai chuckled before he called out, “Hello! Hello! LAFD!”

Two voices, a man’s and a woman’s were heard from one of the rooms ahead, calling for help.

Chuuya was the one who found the room first. “This one here.” The door seemed to be locked so Dazai used the cut-off saw on it. Chuuya kicked the door open once he was done, letting Dazai with his long limbs go in first and jump to balance himself on the kitchen counter that was still standing in place near the door.

“Hello! LAFD!” 

“We're in here! In here!” Chuuya’s eyes quickly followed the male voice to find the man they had seen from below trapped under what seemed to be a part of a wall, a table and a couch, the glass of the window the only thing preventing him from falling to his death.

“Oh God. Thank God.” The woman’s voice followed. She had managed to stop herself from falling towards the window by holding on to one of the pillars. “Please, please, get me out of here.” She made a sudden movement towards them.

“Whoa, whoa, ma'am, I need you to just sit tight.” Dazai stopped her. “I will come and I will get you. Okay?”

“Okay.” 

Before either of them could think about rescuing anyone, they had to secure themselves first. Chuuya looked around in search of something stable enough to hold the weight of multiple people. His eyes landed on another pillar close enough to the door that looked stable. Dazai nodded his approval when he pointed at it. 

Chuuya tied the rope around it and then secured it on his harness. 

“Uh, no offense, but I think this might be a situation where ‘women and children first’ does not apply.” The old man’s tone was way too contemptuous considering the situation he was in.

Chuuya threw one end of the rope to Dazai who caught it and started hooking it on his harness.

“Did you just say ‘no offense’? Everything about you is offensive,” The woman replied, clearly angry at this man for reasons other than getting trapped with him during an earthquake.

Dazai gestured to him to follow, so Chuuya made the jump towards him. His partner easily caught him and the two of them checked out each other’s harness to make sure they were secure.

“First date?” Chuuya hadn’t planned to get involved in whatever drama was clearly going on, but Dazai didn’t seem to share the sentiment, asking the question with way too much enthusiasm. 

“Yeah, he wishes. I was here for work. Amazingly, that sweaty, fat, pock-marked pig is married with five kids. Didn't stop him from asking me to shower with him.”

“Sir, have you not watched the news at all over the past year?” Dazai replied to them before addressing Chuuya. “All right, you're good.” 

Chuuya nodded and started making his way towards the man. “Seriously, catch up with the times.” 

“All right, fine, so I'm a dinosaur. A forgotten relic of a forgotten age. For God's sake, just get me the hell out of here. Hurry!” The man yelled. Chuuya really had to hold himself back from telling him to shut up. He was a professional, damn it.

Dazai, behind him, spoke to the woman. “I'm gonna throw you a rope, okay? I'm gonna need you to try and secure yourself.”

“Okay,” the woman replied. 

Their conversation continued as Chuuya began to move the furniture that were trapping the man aside as carefully as he could. He hadn’t managed to finish with it when the glass under the man started creaking.

“Don't move. Don't breathe,” he warned him.

The man didn’t keep his mouth shut as the sound of creaking filled the room. “Oh, God. Please don't let this be the end.”

Chuuya decided to ignore the remaining furniture and whatnot blocking his way and approached him from the side. As calmly as he could, he explained to him what he was trying to do. “All right. I'm gonna tie this webbing around you, and we're gonna get you away from the glass.”

The man whimpered a quiet, “Okay.”

He never got the chance to even try. The moment he started reaching towards him, the dreaded aftershock decided to make its appearance. Within seconds, as the building shook violently, the glass unceremoniously broke. All Chuuya could do was uselessly try to reach ahead to catch the man as he screamed and slipped away from his grasp.

Even from so many floors up, Chuuya swore he heard the sound of each one of his bones breaking when he reached the ground with a heavy thud.

It wasn’t by far the first time Chuuya had watched someone die, it wasn’t even the first time it had happened after he started working as a probationary firefighter, but it was the first time since he started this job that he was solely the only one responsible for it.

There wasn’t a chance for him to process it for more than half a second before Dazai’s scream interrupted him.

“Chuuya! Chuuya! Catch her!” 

The woman, who mustn't have done the best job at tying the rope securely around her (it was harder than most people would think), slipped past him. Chuuya managed to catch one of her hands at the last possible moment. She dangled over the edge of the building as he struggled to reach for the other one. Once he did, with Dazai helping pull both of their weights towards him, Chuuya managed to get her back inside.

The three of them were quiet as they slowly started making their way down the stairs. Chuuya was leading, while the woman, who introduced herself as Ailey, followed behind him, with Dazai in the rear.

“That's it. You're doing great. You've done this before, haven't you?” Dazai broke the silence after the third floor to… flirt? Chuuya could never be sure with Dazai.

“Yeah. It was, uh, my major at the Rhode Island School of Design,” Ailey replied rather flatly. She followed it after only a moment with, “Sorry. Sarcasm is my fallback for pretty much everything.” 

“I totally get it.”

And yup, that was certainly his flirting with a woman at an inappropriate time voice.

Chuuya turned around to offer her his hand to help her with the next steps. 

“I got you.” 

She accepted it and asked, hesitantly, “You think he'll still be on the sidewalk when we get down there?”

“No. And we're not going out that side, anyway.” Dazai replied before Chuuya could, replacing Chuuya in helping her walk down.

“Let's hustle up, you two. We don't want to be here for the next aftershock.” Chuuya ruined their moment, inexplicably annoyed by it. It wasn’t even the first time that he had had to deal with this side of Dazai at work.

“Wait, what do you mean, the next aftershock?” Ailey asked, terrified tone back to her voice.

Chuuya’s job was to reassure her, so he gave it a go. “Don’t worry, you’re gonna be fine. He’s right behind you.” He hoped it didn’t come out as bitter as it sounded in his own ears.

When they took a turn, ready to reach the third floor, they were in for an unfortunate surprise. There was debris blocking the way. With the few tools that they had with them, it was almost impossible to move it away before the entire building collapsed on them. 

“Oh, you gotta be kidding me,” Chuuya groaned.

“We're not getting out this way.” Dazai inspected it and seemed to reach the same conclusion as him.

 “Now what?” Ailey asked, her gaze stuck on the debris that was standing between them and their escape.

“We go back up.” 

Dazai groaned at Chuuya’s words, while Ailey almost screeched, “Back up? ”

Fukuzawa’s voice over the radio interrupted their conversation. “Ladder 118, respond. This is Captain Fukuzawa. I need a headcount.”

“Ladder 118 responding. Nakahara, Dazai, we're good, Captain,” Chuuya spoke for the both of them. 

They stayed silent to hear the rest of the team respond. Everyone did, apart from Kunikida.

“Kunikida, do you copy? Kunikida?” Chuuya and Dazai exchanged a worried glance. Kunikida along with some others had gone to rescue the guests that had fallen when the ground floor had collapsed. Who knew how worse that had gotten after the aftershock. “This is Captain Fukuzawa for Doppo Kunikida. Do you copy?”

Again, there was no response.

“Is that a friend of yours?” Ailey asked, kindly.

“Let's keep moving,” Chuuya said instead of replying to her question. There hadn’t been an evacuation order yet, but Chuuya wasn’t sure the building could survive another aftershock.

Going up the stairs again seemed harder than the previous time. Dazai and Chuuya took turns helping Ailey, who hadn’t seemed to have stopped shaking ever since they found her.

“What if it's blocked, too?” She asked. “Can't you guys get a ladder into one of the windows?”

“It's too risky. Building shifted too much,” Chuuya replied to her honestly. He would have loved a faster way out himself. His legs had really started feeling all the climbing he had done that day and his son was still stuck at school.

“We got this, Amy. We'll get you out of here.” Dazai put his sickening sweet voice back to work.

“Ailey.”

“What?” 

“You called me Amy. My name's Ailey.”

Dazai seemed taken off guard for a moment. “Oh, yeah, sorry. Amy is my... It's complicated.”

Chuuya only kept back his snort because they had a victim with them.

“Isn't it always?” Ailey replied as they made it back to the fourth floor and started walking down the corridor to find the staircase on the other side of the building.

Dazai opened his mouth to speak again, but no sound came out. Chuuya was about to ask him what the hell he was doing when he heard.

There was a faint male voice coming from one of the rooms.

“Did you hear that?” Dazai asked them. Chuuya nodded, looking around like he would be able to tell where the person was just by staring at the doors hard enough.

“Help! Is anyone there?” The voice returned louder. 

Dazai, who had been walking ahead, found the right door and opened it. It took them a moment to spot the man behind a few chairs that had fallen on him.

“I knew help would come,” the man said. He was lying still, one hand holding his shoulder. There was blood on the right side of his face and on his elbow. 

“That's right. We're here, we got you, buddy,” Chuuya told him. He read the name ‘Batari’ on his uniform tag. With Dazai’s help, they moved him into a better position and Chuuya started inspecting him. 

“I... uh, I soiled myself,” Batari admitted.

“Forget about that, okay?”

“Not my proudest moment.”

Chuuya took his shoes and socks off. “Can you wiggle your toes for me?” 

Batari nodded, but his toes didn’t move. Dazai had already started searching the room for something to use to carry him. Chuuya gave Batari a few more reassuring words before he joined him.

“Numbness in his legs, loss of bladder control…” Dazai pointed out.

“Spinal injury. We have to move him out now.”

“On what? We don't have a backboard, and every millimeter counts.” 

The two of them kept looking around when Ailey’s voice came from the door. “Guys. What about this?” —she pointed at what she was holding— “Ironing board.” 

Chuuya nodded. “Could work, but how are we gonna get him down the stairwell?” 

“Maybe we don't use the stairwell,” Dazai replied ominously. 

Of course, Dazai’s idea was to go down the elevator hoistway. Chuuya really wanted to argue with him, but their options at the moment were very limited. Once they found it, he begrudgingly used his flashlight to check its condition. 

“At least we're not blocked by any debris.”

“Or an elevator,” Ailey pointed out, joining him in looking. Chuuya turned the flashlight upwards and there it was, the elevator seemed to be about five floors above them. “Um, how much do you think that weighs?

“2,500. 3,000 pounds?” 

“I like our chances,” Dazai chimed in, taking a look too.

“Yeah.” Chuuya agreed reluctantly. He really didn’t wanna get crushed by an elevator of all things.

They decided Batari had to go down first. Chuuya, after the appropriate strapping in, went with him. Dazai took the role of lowering them down.

“How you doing, Batari?” 

The man gave him a thumbs up. 

The hoistway seemed endless, but eventually Chuuya could see the door for what he really hoped was the first floor.

“You guys are doing great. You're almost there,” Dazai yelled from above.

“Eight more feet, Dazai.” 

Once they reached the door, Chuuya began prying the door open with his foot. “All right. Get down here, Dazai,” he shouted at the same time.

“On my way!”

First, came the rumbling.

Then, Batari, his voice full of panic, asked, “Is the building vibrating?”

The building shook once more. Chuuya tried to stop Batari from getting thrown around and worsening his injuries, letting the door close back in the meantime. Dazai, with Ailey in his arms, was dangling in the air about one floor above them. The shaking stopped, but before they could breath in relief, the elevator started making some worrying sounds.

Ailey screamed when it started sliding down.

“Chuuya! Kick that door open!”

Chuuya did just that and pushed Batari inside. “Let's go, Dazai! Move your ass!”

“All right, here we come. Here we come!” His partner yelled as he lowered himself and Ailey far too quickly than it was usually recommended. Even with his speed, they barely made it fast enough for Chuuya to grab them both and throw them inside. 

The three of them collapsed, panting, on a pile on the floor (thankfully not on top of Batari) when the sound of the elevator crushing down could be heard.

Dazai, way too smugly considering he had been about a second away from getting crushed by an elevator, laughed, “I told you I liked our chances.”

Chuuya found Dazai’s arm through the mix of limbs to lightly punch it. “I swear it’s like you enjoy the near death experiences sometimes.”

“Perhaps my plans are just perfect and I know I’m gonna be okay in the end.”

Both Chuuya and Ailey snorted at that. Dazai, made an offended noise as he helped the two of them get up.

Getting out of the building after that was significantly easier. After they handed over their patients the two of them started making their way to a worried looking Chief Agatha, ready to ask her if she had any news about their missing team member when Fukuzawa’s voice was heard through the radio.

“This is Captain Fukuzawa. We are on the move. I need jackhammers, diamond saws, jaws, every heavy duty piece of equipment you have and every available pair of hands. We are going down to the southern corner of the garage, level B3.”

Chief Agatha immediately grabbed her radio to reply. “Negative, Captain. Engineers have warned of a possible complete collapse. We need to begin the evacuation.”

“No can do. We still have a firefighter trapped down here.”

“I'm sorry, I understand, but this is a direct order.”

Chuuya made eye contact with Dazai. They both knew Fukuzawa would never leave one of their own behind if there was something he could do about it. Even with the evacuation order sounding through the radio, the two of them turned around to make their way back inside.

“Where do you two think you’re going?” Chief Agatha’s voice came from behind them. When they turned around to look at her stern face, Chuuya instinctively stood at attention. 

Dazai, far more relaxed next to him, clapped his hands. “Well, Chief, you see… Chuuya here forgot his sunglasses inside and we were just going to grab their real quick.” 

“Firefighter Dazai, you could at least try to find a believable excuse.” 

Chuuya wanted to get back inside the building and hope the next aftershock would take him, but at least the chief seemed more amused at Dazai’s clearly unserious attempt at an excuse than anything else. 

“Okay, let me try…”

Well, that was the day that Chuuya learned his partner was terrifyingly impressive at persuading people. He prayed for the person who would end up marrying him, he couldn’t imagine having to argue with this man on a regular basis, doing it at work was already exhausting enough.

They found Fukuzawa and Kouyou standing in front of a pile of debris and smashed cars, matching distraught expressions on their faces. 

“Looks like we got here just in time,” Dazai said. 

The relief on both of their faces was palpable. 

“Yeah, seems like they were planning on having all the fun without us,” Chuuya chimed in, standing next to Dazai with his arms crossed.

“We heard over the radio you needed some equipment and available hands down here.

“You know you guys are disobeying a direct order,” Fukuzawa shook his head but he didn’t look like he was about to tell them to leave.

“And they'll be duly reprimanded, as soon as we're done here.” Chief Agatha followed behind them, joined by a few more firefighters from various stations that had volunteered to help. They had all carried as much equipment as they could with them.

Fukuzawa raised an eyebrow. “Looks like you're gonna have to reprimand yourself, as well.”

“I'm seriously considering it. Your people are very persuasive and persistent,” she laughed. Her expression got more serious before she added, “One shot, Captain. Either way, no one's coming to rescue us.”

Fukuzawa nodded and they all quickly got to work, the stress of an imminent third aftershock clearly on everyone’s mind. They managed to pull the car that had been blocking their path out of the way and use support beams to secure the rumble above it. They cleared the smaller pieces of debris that had fallen and then broke the wall that should have been the only thing separating them from where they had predicted Kunikida should have been.

For a moment, there was only silence.

“Kunikida, are you there?” Dazai kneeled down, looking like he was ready to crawl and get to the other side to search for him.  

Kunikida appeared at the opening before he could, carrying a small girl on his back. The members of their team immediately reached forward to help them. Chief Agatha allowed them a few moments of hugs and celebration before she ordered them all to not risk their lives any further and follow her to safety.

Chuuya’s entire body hurt, and he knew he would be sore at places he had no idea someone could be sore the following day, but watching the little girl’s tearful reunion with her parents made all his efforts worth it. He couldn’t wait to give his own child a hug like that.

Thankfully, by the time they had returned all their tools at their rightful place and were getting ready to leave the scene and return to the station, service was back. Chuuya quickly contacted Isamu’s school, getting confirmation that his kid was okay and a teacher had stayed behind with him to wait until he could be picked up. 

Once they made it back to the firestation, he barely stopped long enough to exchange any words with anyone before he was hopping into the shower for the least amount of time necessary and then getting dressed in record time. He rushed to his car that he had stupidly parked by the street that morning instead of in the garage only to find a fallen tree blocking his exit.

He stood there for a few seconds, cursing every god in existence and also himself. He would never admit he was panicking, but his son had spent almost twelve hours since the earthquake left at the school, and he couldn’t let him wait any longer. He wanted to grab the tree and lift it with his bare hands and break every speed limit to get to him.

Suddenly, there was a honk behind him. Chuuya jumped, caught off guard. He turned around to see Dazai gesturing to him. “Get in.”

“I need to— Isamu is still—”

“At school, I know. Come on, I’ll give you a ride.”

Accepting help from other people like that always left a bad taste in his mouth, but there was no way he could say no at a time like that. 

During the too long ride to Isamu’s school —traffic in L.A. was even worse than usual after a natural disaster— Chuuya did not talk much. Dazai kept a constant chatter, but he didn’t push him to reply, he didn’t even seem to expect him to be paying attention to him. Chuuya did. His mind might have wandered a few times but he tried to stay present in that car and focus on Dazai’s words. With the adrenaline gone, he knew if he let his mind unattended he was going to drown himself in his stress. Even if it took them double the amount of time to get to the school than usual, Chuuya had to keep calm and be ready to be there for his son. 

Once they finally reached it, he threw the door open and jumped out of the car before it had even completely stopped. There was no reason to run, his kid wasn’t going to disappear if he took a few extra seconds to get to him, but Chuuya ran; he couldn’t help it. Isamu had been sitting on a bench close to the door with his teacher, his eyes seemingly searching the street, waiting. When he spotted him he jumped out of his seat too. He only had to take a few hurried steps forward before Chuuya reached him, his arms immediately wrapping around his small body and holding him close. Isamu’s delighted laughter in his ears healed every scratch and bruise he had gotten that day. 

After thanking the teacher that had stayed behind with his kid and wishing him a good night, Chuuya grabbed Isamu’s crunches that had fallen on the floor and went to hand them to him. Isamu hesitated, clinging to his leg.

“Want me to carry you to the car?” he asked, just to be sure.

Isamu nodded. “Yeah, I’m a little tired.”

“That’s okay buddy, it’s been a long day.”

His muscles might have been screaming at him when crunched down to pick him up, but Chuuya was never going to say no to carrying his son, no matter how tired he was or how big his kid had gotten. The feeling of having him safe in his arms after a day like that was worth it.

They had only gotten a few steps away from the door when Isamu asked, “Where’s your car?”

“Oh right.” Chuuya hesitated. He hadn’t really thought that far when he accepted Dazai’s offer. “Uhm, my friend from work is giving us a ride because there was a tree blocking my car. He’s nice to do that for us so make sure to tell him thank you, okay?” 

Calling Dazai a friend was definitely an exaggeration, but Chuuya was fine with a few white lies if it made his kid feel more comfortable about meeting a stranger. Not that he really had to worry; Isamu was far more social than his father had ever been. He accepted his answer with enthusiasm and had already asked several questions about his friend before they had even reached the car. Chuuya didn’t even get to answer any of them before he was opening the back door and Isamu was bombarding Dazai with questions instead.

“Hi! I’m Isamu! What’s your name? I’m seven, how old are you? Were you saving people from the earthquake with dad?”

Chuuya closed the door behind them and opened his mouth to tell his kid to slow down, but Dazai surprised him by immediately answering almost at the same speed as his son.

“Hi Isamu, it’s nice to meet you. People mostly call me Dazai but my first name is Osamu! I’m 26, and yes your dad and I climbed a very tall building to save people today.”

“Osamu?” Isamu’s eyes instantly lit up. “Can I call you that?”

“Sure!” 

“You’re the same age as my dad!”

“I am! That’s why we are best friends!”

“You’re best friends?”

They were definitely not best friends, but Chuuya hesitated to correct Dazai’s statement in the face of his son’s enthusiasm.

“We are!”

“You are dad’s first friend in L.A.! He only hangs out with me and Baa-chan.”

Okay, there was really no reason to expose him like that.

Dazai laughed, turning around to start the car. “Are you two okay back there?”

Chuuya wished he had remembered to grab Isamu’s car seat from his car, but there wasn’t anything he could do about it at the moment. “Yeah, yeah, thank you for driving us home.”

“Yeah, thank you Osamu!” Isamu chimed in. He seemed to have gotten over his urge to cling to his dad, attempting to lean forward so he could see Dazai better even with his seatbelt on. Chuuya did his best to hold him back with an arm over his chest that Isamu totally ignored.

“You’re welcome! Do you guys want me to put some music on?”

“Music, music, music!” Isamu chanted instantly, clapping his hands. He had told Chuuya just the previous week that his favorite part of the day was the drive to the school each morning where Chuuya let him choose the music. It was sweet, but Chuuya still wondered how he had ended up with a kid that was apparently a morning person.

“Let’s let Dazai pick this time, okay?” 

He wasn’t about to ask his coworker to play Disney soundtracks when he was already doing him a huge favor. Isamu pouted, but he nodded his agreement. Dazai turned the radio on to some channel that was playing generic pop music, leaving it low enough that they could still chat over the music.

“How was your day?” Chuuya asked his son. 

“Well, it was a little scary when the earthquake happened but after we all went outside and played games while we waited for our parents,” Isamu said casually, like it had been any other day. Chuuya still felt bad that his kid had been the last one there.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t come pick you up earlier, ‘Samu.”

“It’s okay, daddy! I knew you were saving people. Mr. Ramirez let me play games on his iPad when I got bored. He has angry birds!”

“Yeah?” 

“Yeah. And he also had a game where I made planes. It was really fun! Can we download it too?”

Chuuya had sworn he wouldn’t raise an iPad kid, but he had given in to Isamu’s request to buy him an iPad two Christmases prior with the condition that he would have a set screentime limit. Isamu was usually complying enough so Chuuya had yet to regret his decision, no matter what his parents thought about it. (No, Isamu’s bad eyesight hadn’t been caused by playing a few games.)

“Sure, we can look for it.”

“Yay!” Isamu cheered. “Osamu, do you play games too?”

Dazai seemed momentarily surprised to be included in the conversation again but he bounced back quickly. “I play video games. I used to play more when I had roommates.”

“Dad plays too! He lets me watch him sometimes. Not all the time because he says some games are not for kids.”

“That’s true. You can play those when you get older,” Dazai replied easily. 

“But you can play with my dad until then!”

Dazai chuckled, “I can!” 

Chuuya could see the mirth in his eyes in the rearview mirror. 

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” he had to say.

“Why? You said playing games is more fun when you do it with your friends,” Isamu said innocently. And, yeah, that sounded like something Chuuya must have said, but his son was definitely taking it wildly out of context. 

“Yeah, Chuuya, playing games is more fun with your friends! ” Dazai chimed in. 

Chuuya, unfortunately, couldn’t curse him in front of his son. 

Isamu nodded quite aggressively next to him. “Yeah, Chuuya. ” He repeated with a laugh.

“Okay, we’re not doing that.” Chuuya turned to point a reprimanding finger at him. That only seemed to make Isamu laugh harder. 

Chuuya turned his finger to Dazai’s back. “Not even fifteen minutes in the car with my kid and you’re already a bad influence on him.”

“Oops, we made daddy angry,” Dazai had the nerve to say.

Isamu’s laughter turned almost hysterical. “Daddy don’t- don’t be angry.”

Chuuya rolled his eyes, but his voice came out soft when he said, “You two should never hang out again.” It was quite challenging to even pretend to be angry when his son looked so happy.

The rest of the drive to their house was filled with similar chatter. Dazai, Chuuya noticed, didn't seem to struggle to have a conversation with a seven year old, which wasn't something that he could say about most adults. He wasn't sure if it was because Isamu was smaller than most kids his age or because of his disability, but a lot of people, Chuuya's parents included, treated him like he was way younger than he actually was. It obviously annoyed Isamu, even if he didn't always voice it. 

“Ah! Dad! I almost forgot,” Isamu said, tapping his knee. 

“What is it?”

“Did you think about it?”

…What was Chuuya supposed to have thought about? “Think about what?” 

“Daaad!” His son whined. “If dogs know they're dogs! You said you'd think about it!”

“Uhm…” Chuuya was coming up empty. He couldn’t say the topic had crossed his mind while he had been climbing up a building earlier that day. Isamu kept tapping on his knee, not so patiently waiting for an answer. 

“I have a theory for this,” Dazai said then, pulling into their driveway. 

Isamu took his hand off Chuuya's knee and leaned forward to look at Dazai. Chuuya let him this time. “You do?” he asked eagerly. 

“Yeah! So if you think about it dogs are—”

It had been a very long shift. Since the earthquake had happened that morning, they hadn't really had any time to rest or to eat a proper meal. Yet Dazai had offered to drive him to pick up his son and he had happily chatted with a seven year old kid in the car and did not seem even a little annoyed that his day was being prolonged even more by having to debate the self awareness of dogs for ten minutes on his coworker's driveway. 

Chuuya hadn’t considered Dazai a friend at the beginning of the day, he wasn’t quite sure if he could consider him one at the end of it either, but that was the day he knew.  

Osamu Dazai was going to make his way into his life.

On their first shift following the earthquake, Chuuya was, unsurprisingly, not well rested. He opened the kitchen cabinet to grab his mug but no matter how much he moved all the mugs around, he couldn’t find his own. Had he accidentally taken it home? Had it fallen down and broke during the earthquake?

He was ready to find someone to ask when he turned around and saw an orange mug he didn’t recognize on the counter. It wasn’t a suspicious sight per se, yet Chuuya instantly was on guard. He slowly approached the mug and turned it around.

There were just four letters written on it in a simple white font. 

Chuuya took the mug into his hands and brought it closer to his face, like those letters were magically going to change if he took a closer look. He didn’t know how long his sleep deprived self stood there looking at the mug like it had personally offended him, but his trance was broken by a sudden laugh.

When he turned his head, he found Dazai standing at the top of the stairs, barely holding himself up from laughing too hard.

“I’m going to kill you,” Chuuya announced. He would have probably thrown the mug with the word ‘DILF’ written on it to his head if the bell hadn't rung. 

Chapter Text

“Kunikida?”

Dazai and Kunikida were cleaning the side of the engine that had been covered in mud during their last call. It was a little before 7 A.M., so even if everyone was up doing the last chores before their shift ended, Dazai’s voice was the only one that was breaking the silence.

“Hmm?” Kunikida acknowledged him absentmindedly, way too passionate about polishing the engine than anyone should be at that time of the day.

“What is it like being a father?”

Dazai’s question made Kunikuda pause his movements. He slowly turned his head towards him, genuinely sounding confused when he asked, “You've known me for more than a year, why are you asking now?”

“Can't I be interested in my friend's life?” he argued. 

Kunikida didn’t look convinced. “You can, I’m just weirded out that you suddenly are.”

“Ahh that hurts, Kunikida. Here I was trying to ask a genuine question and you are so cruelly shutting me down!”

Kunikida waved him off, used to his nonsensical whining. Although Dazai wouldn’t admit that he was a tad disappointed about not getting an answer, he crouched down to clean the lower half of the door, and was, perhaps, quietly pouting. 

“I don’t really think it’s something you can explain,” Kunikida said after a minute or two. “It’s— well. I guess it’s one of those things you have to experience to understand. But if I tried to explain it I'd say that having a child is like walking around with your heart outside your body.”

Dazai furrowed his brows. That sounded quite macabre. He was ready to ask Kunikida for an elaboration when —as it usually happened at their line of work— their conversation was cut short by the sound of the bell. 

“9-1-1 what is your emergency?”

“Shut up, shut up. I’m talking to 9-1-1 right now. Hi 9-1-1, this is Tanya.”

“Hi Tanya, this line is reserved for emergencies.”

(laughing) “No, I totally have an emergency. I'm sorry. My friend is just laughing, and it's making me laugh, and… Okay, I'm fine now, for real. So, anyway, we're at Saddle Ranch on Sunset, and my friend just got her head stuck in a pipe.”

“What kind of pipe?”

“It's, like, metal, I think.”

“Is it a drainpipe, or a sewer?”

“A sewer? God, no. It's attached to this guy's truck.”

“You mean a tailpipe?”

“Yeah! That.”

“Grab a creeper and some blocks,” Fukuzawa instructed as soon as they got off the engine.

“She’s over here,” A woman in her early twenties greeted them at the door of the restaurant, leading them inside. Dazai, with the creeper in his arms, passed by her quickly to walk to the direction she was pointing at, Chuuya following close behind him.

“Holy crap, you are hot,” he vaguely heard the woman say.

It went without saying that a group of firefighters entering a Saddle Ranch in WEHO at 7 A.M. and passing through a crowd of people who had been drinking all night meant that they heard far worse comments than that ( “The strippers are here!” inevitably included) until they made it to the parking lot where their victim was. 

The girl was kneeling on the asphalt with her head stuck in an inarguably huge tailpipe, thankfully looking quite calm, considering her predicament. A group of young women were gathered on one side, giggling to each other as soon as they saw them arrive, and a guy was leaning against the (ugly-ass) truck that the girl was trapped under on the other side. 

“Hi, what’s her name?” Kouyou asked the group of intoxicated people.

“Betty,” the guy replied, quickly followed by a muffled, “Jennifer,” from the girl.

At the looks he received from everyone gathered at the parking lot, the guy only shrugged. “Sorry, I thought you meant my truck.”

Fukuzawa didn’t look impressed by his excuse as he questioned, “This is your truck?”

The guy raised his hands in a defensive motion. “Yeah, but it's not like I backed into her. She did this out of her own free will.”

“You dared her to,” one of the girl’s friends immediately corrected. Dazai side eyed the guy as he got on the creeper and began sliding under the truck. 

“We were flirting!”

“Your idea of flirting with a girl is daring her to stick her head in your tailpipe?” Chuuya asked. Dazai was quite disappointed to miss the expression on his face, though he could almost picture it, just from Chuuya’s tone.

“Hi, Jennifer. LAFD.” Dazai could half see Kunikida moving close to the girl to assess her. “How are you feeling?”

“Uh, pretty good, actually. Except for this whole, you know, ginormous tailpipe on my head.”

Before Dazai even had to ask for it, Chuuya kneeled down next to his legs and handed him a measuring tape and a pen for him to mark down where they had to cut the pipe just above the girl’s head.

“Hey, Jennifer, you're gonna feel me poking around. We're just checking you out, okay?” Kunikida started checking her condition.

“All right.”

“Why is this tailpipe so large?” Kouyou asked the thing everyone had been wondering about.

“It's custom—” 

The guy sounded like he wanted to explain all about his beloved custom tailpipe, but their captain had another question for him.

“Where'd she get these bruises on her arm?”

“That wasn't me!”

“It's from the bull. She rode it, like, five times.” The girl’s friend saved the guy from his inevitable death by Fukuzawa’s hands.

“Get me out of this thing,” the girl complained as Dazai slided out and took another look at the humongous pipe.

“These things are meant to increase the power to the engine.”

“Yup,” the guy replied proudly, clearly not sensing the contempt in Dazai’s voice.

“TSA 230 saw should do the job,” Fukuzawa declared casually.

“Oh, yeah, like a knife through butter,” Chuuya played along.

The situation started sinking in the guy’s mind. Kouyou showed up with said jaw just in time.

“What?!” He asked, horrified. “No, I spent 1,200 bucks on that tailpipe!”

“You might want to close your eyes during this part then,” their captain quickly dismissed him.

Before Dazai could chime in and say something equally insensitive to horrify the guy even further, the woman who had greeted them at the door thrust her phone in front of his face.

“Just type your number in my phone, and I'll text you so you have mine.”

Although Dazai appreciated a confident woman, he was supposed to be rehabilitating from his days of sleeping around, so he told her as kindly as he could, “Thank you, but I actually have a girlfriend, and I need to focus right now so my captain doesn’t cut your friend’s head off.”

Was that actually kind? Dazai wouldn’t be able to confirm. He was far more used to accepting everyone’s advances than rejecting anyone. He was, at least, a little proud of himself for not jumping at the opportunity.

“Hi.” He heard a different girl approach Chuuya. “Do you have Snapchat?”

“No,” Chuuya replied bluntly, barely glancing at her. It seemed like there was someone worse than Dazai at rejecting ladies gently. “And, uh, I don't think I'm what you're looking for. I have a son.”

That made Dazai raise an eyebrow, even as he followed Fukuzawa’s instructions and started making the necessary preparations and could no longer look at Chuuya and judge if he really meant what he said based on his expressions. He could see why dating would be more complicated for someone with a child, but a lot of single parents found love again, right?

“That's great. So do I,” the woman replied, unbothered. It seemed like the women in this place were one bolder than the other.

Chuuya was saved from having to come up with more excuses by Jennifer, her head still stuck inside that pipeline, declaring, “I think I'm gonna puke.”

“You better not,” the first woman, not bothered by Dazai’s rejection at all, told her. “These fire guys are totally hot.”

“All right, let’s move the peanut gallery a few steps over this way. Thank you.” Kouyou, fed up with the group of drunk girls, led them a safe distance away. “Everybody back a little bit, thank you.”

Meanwhile, Kunikida kneeled down at the girl’s side once more to prepare her for their next moves. “Okay, Jennifer, keep your head completely still. You're gonna hear a lot of noise, but everything is fine,” he said reassuringly.

Fukuzawa, after putting on his helmet, got on the creeper and slided under the truck to cut the pipe.

“What are you doing?!” the girl yelled despite the warning as soon as the saw started whirring. Kunikida thankfully managed to get her to relax again just enough time for their captain to finish cutting the pipe. As soon as that was done, Kunikida and Chuuya helped her move to a sitting position, looking for ways to get the part that was still stuck on her head out without hurting her.

“We need lube,” Dazai declared.

“I have some.” One of the women immediately handed him a bottle. Dazai didn’t question it and just started pouring some over the girl’s head until Chuuya and Kunikida were able to drag the piece of metal over her head. 

Her friends, and the rest of the drunk crowd that had gathered to watch the spectacle, immediately started clapping and yelling excitedly.

The girl stared blankly at Chuuya in front of her before blurting out, “Wow, you really are hot.”

Kunikida, ignoring her statement, asked, professionally, “Would you like us to transport you to the hospital to get checked out?”

“She just needs another drink,” her friend laughed.

“No, what she needs to do is go home. All three of you do, in a cab.” Fukuzawa said sternly. Jennifer’s stare turned to him. “Listen to me,” Fukuzawa continued with his fatherly voice. “When you sober up, if you feel like you have a headache or blurry vision, or if you feel confused, you have to get yourself to a hospital, do you understand?”

The girl, clearly drunk and not understanding a single word that came out of their admittedly handsome captain’s mouth, just giggled and continued staring at him in fascination.

“Condolences on Betty.” Kunikida handed the remains of the pipe to the guy, not sounding apologetic at all.

Dazai managed to hold back from questioning Chuuya until they were making their way back to the engine. This time they wisely chose to walk around the restaurant to avoid passing through the crowd. Dazai nudged Chuuya’s arm with his elbow to get his full attention. 

“So is your son really the reason you don't date?” 

Chuuya nudged him back, slightly harder.

“That, and… they weren't my type,” he offered.

In what way? Dazai wanted to ask. Was it their age? The drinking? Something else? He couldn’t ask outright but you bet he would try to coax it out of him.

“Not mine either. Not anymore,” he felt the need to clarify first. “But I’m talking in general.” Did he not date at all?

“It's complicated when you have a kid.”

“That's a weak excuse.”

“Aren’t you living in your ex girlfriend’s house and telling people you two are still together?”

Low blow, Dazai was about to say (It was also complicated for him. Perhaps he wanted to hold on to the fantasy that someone wanted him for a little longer. Was that so bad?). Chuuya’s phone began ringing before he had the chance to make himself sound as miserable as he felt.

Chuuya’s expression turned worried as he looked at the caller. He walked a few steps forward to answer. Dazai was close enough to hear the short one sided conversation.

“Hello? What? Which one? I’ll come, yes, thank— thank you.”

Chuuya abruptly turned around to face Dazai, a lost look on his face. Dazai had gotten so used to his (annoying) confidence that he felt a little lost himself seeing that expression on him.

“I— I need to go to the hospital,” was the only thing Chuuya said before he turned back around to walk towards the engine. He only took three hurried steps forward before he seemed to remember he was still at work and couldn’t just just take their engine and abandon the rest of his team there. He stood frozen in place for a few moments, until Dazai’s mind finally woke up. 

“Get to the engine, I’ll tell the others to hurry.”

Since it was almost the end of their shift, when Dazai informed their captain that Chuuya had a family emergency, Fukuzawa suggested right away to drop them off at the hospital on their way back to the station. Although Dazai wasn’t sure why the captain had decided he needed to be the one who accompanied Chuuya, he made no objections and just hurried back to Chuuya’s side to inform him.

Way quicker than it would have been if they had had to drive through LA morning traffic by car, Dazai and Chuuya reached the hospital. The moment the elevator door opened to the floor that had been given to Chuuya, he rushed out, speed walking towards the petite woman with short auburn hair he spotted by the reception. Dazai had to hurry behind him. 

“My aunt,” Chuuya told him, pointing at her.

“Chuuya, you’re here,” she greeted him.

“What happened? Is Isamu okay?”

The woman, even though she looked tired, shook her head with an amused laugh. “You mean Prince Charming? He’s peachy.” She gestured to the direction of the young boy, who was in the middle of an animated conversation with two female nurses who seemed absolutely enamored with him. Dazai couldn’t say he didn’t understand the sentiment. 

“It’s your grandma. She broke her hip.”

“What? How?”

“She was out back on the steps and calling Isamu to come inside for breakfast. She lost her balance. Isamu called 911. The rescue got there really quick.”

The relief that had shown up on Chuuya’s face once he had seen his son safe and sound almost disappeared at the news about his grandmother. He looked towards the direction of one of the rooms, distress clear on his face, and declared, “I want to see her.”

“No,” his aunt said gently. “She’s sleeping now.”

Chuuya looked ready to argue but before he could, his aunt seemed to finally notice the strange man awkwardly standing a few paces away.

“And, uh, who is this?” she asked with a raised eyebrow. Dazai started thinking that that must be the Nakahara look. Even Isamu had given him one of those the one time he met him.

“This is Dazai. We work together,” Chuuya replied. Dazai gave the woman a nod, feeling out of place during the family conversations.

“Mm,” She smiled slightly. “I thought you just dressed alike.”

Chuuya rolled his eyes at his aunt and introduced her, “This is my Aunt Hanako. Hana.”

“Hello.” Dazai gave his hand for a handshake.

Hana returned it with a polite smile before turning back to her nephew, a more serious expression on her face. “Chuuya, you can’t keep doing this. You cannot keep leaving him with her. She’s not up to it.”

“I know,” Chuuya sighed. “I know and I’m sorry. I… I’m trying to find some permanent help. It’s just too many forms to fill out. It’s worse than the V.A.”

“I can't believe your ex stuck you with all of this.” Hana shook her head.

“I'm not stuck,” Chuuya argued immediately.

“Do you have to go to work tomorrow?” She asked, clearly wanting to make a point. They all knew the answer. “Ah. And you're not stuck. I can take a day off and keep him, but you need to get this figured out.”

“Daddy,” Isamu yelled then, breaking the tension of the moment. 

Chuuya’s attention turned to him. Despite the situation, the smile on his face was genuine as he walked towards his son, picking him up for a hug as soon as he reached him. Dazai couldn’t hear their conversation, but Isamu’s sweet laughter could be heard even from that distance.

“It must be rough,” he commented. Chuuya hadn’t let anyone at work know how much he had been struggling. The situation was becoming apparent to him then.

“Raising any child alone is rough,” Hana said. “My nephew is a saint. But I pray for him anyway.”

The loft of the station was filled with laughter.

“I talk about rules too much?” Kunikida asked. He tried to look offended even if he couldn’t hide his amusement at the child’s statement. 

“Yeah!” Isamu confirmed excitedly, sitting on the couch by his father’s side. 

“We all agree, believe me,” Dazai chimed in, making Isamu laugh even harder.

“Isamu, I thought we were becoming friends, what happened?” Kunikida fake cried.

While everyone was distracted laughing and teasing their colleague, Dazai seemed to be the only one who noticed their captain walking up the stairs (how did he manage to walk so lightly with their uniform’s boots on, no one could tell) and joining them at the couches. 

“What’s this?” He asked with a smile, jumpscaring almost everyone. “I don’t remember asking the chief for reinforcements.”

Chuuya’s previous amused demeanor instantly crumbled, replaced by panic, no matter how obvious it was to every other person in the room that their captain was not bothered by the situation.

“Are you any good with a hose, kid?” Fukuzawa asked Isamu, his voice soft.

“I can try,” Isamu replied with a bright smile. He then turned to his dad, looking like he wanted to ask him something (probably if he could actually try to use a hose), yet before he could, Chuuya gave him a quick pat on the back and got up to speak with their captain.

“I’m really sorry, captain. My aunt couldn’t get a day off to watch him. She’s trying to get off work early, but until then, I… I didn’t know where to take him.”

“Yes, you did,” Fukuzawa smiled reassuringly. “Right here. Dazai gave me a heads-up. I already cleared it with the chief.”

Chuuya gave Dazai a grateful smile which Dazai returned with an awkward nod. He wasn’t used to being on the receiving end of such looks from the other man, and it’s not like he had done anything worthwhile.

The first alarm of the day sounded not much later. Although Dazai always volunteered himself to sit on the captain’s seat in the engine whenever Fukuzawa drove in the fire command vehicle, this time he was a little disappointed about sitting in the passenger seat and being away from all the fun at the jumpseat area.

“These are great, see,” Dazai heard Kouyou say through his headset. “Because we can talk to each other despite the sirens. Though sometimes I wish I had a mute button for Dazai.”

Dazai, very maturely, used his front seat privilege to honk the horn several times, before saying, “Oh, I’m sorry. Were you saying something?”

He turned back to see Kouyou shaking her head at him.

“You have a scar on your head,” Isamu said, pointing to Kouyou’s forehead.

Dazai, still turned around, saw the visible panic on Chuuya’s face at his son’s sudden statement, but before he could make him apologize, Kouyou replied casually, “That’s very observant, kid. I had an accident last year. I got a big metal rod stuck in my head but the doctor took care of it and now I’m fine. Have you ever had surgery?”

Isamu lifted two fingers. “Two times”

“Actually, three times,” Chuuya corrected him gently. Dazai was getting a bit dizzy facing backwards but he didn’t want to miss this.

“Well, you got me beat,” Kouyou said. “Now I feel kind of lame.”

“Because you are,” Dazai found an opportunity to chime in, getting Isamu to laugh loudly.

The scene that they were called to was luckily only a fender bender. Fukuzawa let them deal with it while he stayed with Isamu at the truck, observing them and giving instructions when he needed to. As Dazai passed by to grab the jaws to open the door of one of the cars that was jammed, he overheard a part of their conversation.

“Now, you see, her airbags went off, so that protected her. She's gonna be fine,” Fukuzawa told the boy. “You know what happens sometimes?” He pointed to the door.

“People get stuck.”

“That's right, people get stuck. But we have a tool called the Jaws of Life. And that's what your dad and Dazai are going to use right now. Thanks to them, she's gonna make it home for dinner.”

Dazai helped Chuuya get the door open with a little more enthusiasm than usual.

Back at the station, they found various ways to entertain Isamu between calls. Since the shift ended up being pretty q-word (yes, Dazai refused to even think that word when he was on shift, he couldn’t risk jinxing it), most of the day turned into finding new ways to entertain their seven year old member. Kouyou played with him at the pinball machine, Fukuzawa made him several snacks to try, Dazai gave him a full tour of the station filled with embarrassing stories about his dad.

When, inevitably, Isamu asked if he could try going down the firepole, of course no one could tell him no. Dazai happily gave the boy a demonstration first and then, when it was Chuuya’s turn, pretended that he was going to catch him. He barely avoided getting Chuuya’s boot on his face, but at least Isamu found the whole thing hilarious.

Kouyou and Kunikida stayed upstairs to help the little boy wrap himself securely around the pole while Dazai stayed with Chuuya downstairs to catch him.

“Come down, bud,” Chuuya encouraged his son.

Isamu only hesitated a second before bravely sliding down into Chuuya and Dazai’s arms.

“Good job,” Dazai told him, a smile he couldn’t contain on his face. He only half held the boy in his arms for a moment before handing him over to his dad.

Hana walked into the station before Isamu could ask if he could go down the firepole one more time. 

“All right, fun’s over,” Chuuya said as soon as he saw her, giving his son a kiss on his head and walking towards her. 

Dazai awkwardly waved at her and would have escaped upstairs if it hadn’t been for Isamu including him in his retelling of his many adventures as a firefighter while Chuuya ran upstairs to get his bag and his forgotten crunches. At least he got a personalized “See you later, Osamu!” when the boy was leaving. (Ha! Not even Fukuzawa who bribed him with snacks got one!)

“I just feel bad for him, you know? Chuuya, I mean. Not Isamu. Isamu’s great. He’s smart, adorable, funny. He just needs a little extra help.” Even though Dazai was well aware that the situation had nothing to do with him, he couldn’t stop thinking about it.

“Cerebral palsy, right?” Akiko asked while she filled two glasses of wine. Dazai had never been a wine guy but he had also thought that he would never get to share a drink with his sister, so he didn’t mind compromising.

“Chuuya’s aunt said that he got stuck in the birth canal. There were some complications and then…”

“Well, did she explain what’s happening with the child care situation? Because there are programs.” Akiko took a sip of her drink, looking pensive after everything Dazai had shared with her about his coworker’s struggles.`

“Chuuya’s working on it. He has insurance. And there's other stuff through the city, state and county, but the requirements are all different. You can apply for one, and it can disqualify you from another.” Dazai might have done some extensive googling during his last shift when everyone had been sleeping. “It's a whole, giant bureaucratic mess. I can't get my head around it.”

His sister nodded in sympathy. “I am a doctor, remember? The only people who truly navigate a bureaucracy are the people who work inside it.”

“It shouldn't be that way, though,” Dazai felt the need to argue. He took a hold of the glass Akiko had handed him and twirled it around, watching the liquid’s limited movements inside the vessel it was stuck in. Seriously, why was he getting so invested in this? “Chuuya, always wondering how to take care of Isamu, and Isamu feeling like a burden on his dad.” Chuuya, obviously, hadn’t shared that many details about his situation but Hana’s brief rant to him at the hospital had been all the information he needed to put two and two together.

“Chuuya doesn't feel that way, does he?”

“Not even a little,” he confirmed immediately. “He really loves that kid, it’s obvious. He’s a really great dad.” Dazai didn’t have firsthand knowledge of great dads, but he was confident about his statement. 

Akiko took a small sip and then smiled teasingly. “So, does this boy crush on Chuuya mean that you’re finally ready to move on from Amy?”

“That’s cute.” Dazai waved her off, not giving her comment much thought. Sure, Chuuya was unfailingly attractive and the fact that he was a great dad only added to his charm, but Dazai wouldn’t risk the friendship they had started to build just to fuck him. There were plenty of attractive people out there if he wanted to have to sex.

“I have some news,” his sister changed the topic before his mind could lead him to thinking about sex and Chuuya together. “I found an apartment. It’s not far from the hospital. Two bedrooms, secure building, parking included.”

“So you're really moving out? Already?”

Dazai knew he should have just been grateful that his sister had chosen to stay in L.A. at all, that he had gotten several weeks of living with her, yet he had hoped that they could have stayed in their little bubble a little longer. Akiko’s shifts at the hospital often overlapped with his. If she moved away, would they see each other so often? Would they try to catch up once a week only to inevitably drift apart again due to their busy schedules? It had been so nice to have his sister so close to him, he didn’t want her to leave him again so soon.

“I told you that I wasn’t gonna be able to live here forever,” she argued. “Look, when I left Tekkan, I didn’t have a plan. I just grabbed up all my stuff and ran to the first place I could think of, and I’m so glad I did and that you convinced me to start over here, to make a brand new life in L.A.”

“I’m really glad I convinced you too.”

Akiko reached over and took his hand into hers, holding it gently. “I’m grateful for how much you helped me during this big transition, but I know this new life isn’t going to feel like mine unless I’m standing on my own two feet. That’s the only way I’m gonna know it’s real.”

Dazai couldn’t argue with her about this. He could, in part, understand how she felt. When he had run away from home he hadn't even wanted to use the money his parents had given him. He had preferred sleeping in his car rather than making a withdrawal from the account his parents had never stopped transferring money to. 

Yet, Dazai couldn’t completely smother the selfish part of him —which sounded suspiciously a lot like a ten year old kid— that didn’t want his sister to move away from him.

A dew days later, after Dazai had accompanied his sister to sign the lease of her new apartment and had let her meet up with some new friends from work to celebrate with brunch, he only let himself wallow in his misery for an hour before he made the phone call he had been considering for almost a week. He could only hope he wasn’t overstepping too much.

“Thought you said we were helping your sister move,” Chuuya said as he walked into Amy’s apartment, looking around. “Doesn't look like she's packed anything.”

“Oh, everything here is Amy’s,” Dazai replied nonchalantly. “I lied about the whole moving thing. Well, my sister is moving, she just doesn’t really have that much stuff.”

Chuuya raised an eyebrow. He glanced at the door like he was making sure he knew where to run if he needed to. “What’s going on, Dazai?”

“I asked you here 'cause there's someone I want you to meet.”

Chuuya glanced at the door again, this time fearfully of who could walk in. “You didn't set me up, did you?”

“No,” Dazai chuckled. “But trust me, this woman is… exactly what you need.”

The dread on the other man’s face only got more obvious when there was a knock on the door. Dazai chuckled one more time at his reaction, even if he was a little scared himself as he opened the door. 

“Dazai!” the woman he had invited shouted excitedly, quickly rushing in to give him a tight hug.

“Corrine, it’s so good to see you.” Dazai returned the hug happily. 

Corrine had been the home aid Amy had hired to take care of her mother during the last year of her life. Since that had coincided with the time Dazai had dated Amy, he had also had the pleasure of getting to know Corrine. The two of them had formed as much of a friendship a twenty five year old guy could form with a woman in her fifties, a friendship that had even survived them losing the person who connected them once Amy had fled the country, even if it had mostly been via texts and phone calls. (Corrine always said that she much preferred to hear his voice, so Dazai made sure to pick up her calls even if he usually ignored everyone else.)

“Baby... Ah! Goodness, I missed your face.” She patted his cheeks, making him laugh.

“Oh, everyday without you has been torture,” he teased, getting the loud laugh out of her that he had been aiming for. “Come on in. Chuuya, this is my friend Corrine.”

“Nice to meet you, Chuuya,” Corrine said, giving Chuuya a bright smile.

Chuuya still obviously couldn’t guess what was going on, but he replied with a polite expression, “Likewise.”

Although the thought of making up some weird story about who Corrine was certainly crossed Dazai’s mind (a top contender was that she was his sex therapist), that day seemed to be one of the rare ones where he took things (mostly) seriously. 

“Corrine is L.A.'s finest home health care aid. She has years of experience navigating giant bureaucracies, and I thought she could help you figure out how to get Isamu what he needs.” 

“I'm red tape's worst nightmare,” Corrine confirmed with a chuckle. “Now, let’s go sit down and see what you’re working with. Besides that perfect bone structure.” 

There was still some lingering confusion on Chuuya’s (perfectly built) face, but he gave Dazai one of what Dazai had started learning to be his most sincere smiles as he followed Corrine to the living room. 

Dazai, reassured at last that he hadn't horribly overstepped, headed to the kitchen to be a good host and make coffee for his guests. 

“Dazai, I seriously can't thank you enough for this,” Chuuya said once the door closed behind Corrine.

“Come on, no need for that.” Dazai couldn’t handle so much sincerity being directed at him in one day. He made sure not to hide the mirth from his face when he spoke next, “But there is one thing you can do for me if you’re really that grateful.”

That was enough to replace Chuuya’s sincerity with apprehension. “Which is?”

Well, Dazai hadn’t thought that far. He turned around to lead Chuuya back to the living room and only after they were both sitting down and Chuuya looked ready to pounce at him to get an answer did he declare, “Let’s have a movie night!”

“A movie night?” Chuuya furrowed his eyebrows. “Uhm, when? Corrine isn’t starting until Monday so I will have to ask my aunt if she can watch Isamu and she already—”

Dazai waved him off. “You won’t have to. Obviously, we will need Isamu there if we’re going to watch Finding Nemo.”

“Eh? We— what?” Chuuya stumbled on his words. “We’re going to watch Finding Nemo?”

“Yup! I heard Kunikida the other day talk about how he rewatched Finding Dory with his daughter and his wife and I realized I haven’t watched it yet.” Dazai wasn’t lying, but he hadn’t been too concerned about the fact until this moment either. “So we should start with Finding Nemo to refresh our memories— or my memory. I only watched it once when it first came out.”

When Chuuya stayed silent instead of either accepting or denying the proposal, he had to ask, “Does Isamu not like Finding Nemo?” It was a classic, surely even kids born in 2011 liked it. Or was Dazai’s knowledge about kids’ interests out of touch?

“Uh no, no, he loves it. It’s probably his favorite movie,” Chuuya finally said.

“Then, are you two free tomorrow evening?”

“Are you sure you don’t have anything better to do on a Saturday night?”

Although Chuuya’s words could be taken as an attempt for a light rejection, Dazai had learned enough about him to understand that this wasn’t the case. He could look back at all the times someone from the station had asked Chuuya to hang out with them outside of work and gotten a polite rejection and realize that it hadn’t been that Chuuya didn’t want to spend more time with them. He had just felt like he couldn’t burden his family with watching his son while he went out to have some fun. Dazai didn’t like how flabbergasted Chuuya looked by the simple fact that someone had willingly included his son in their plans.

“What could be better than leeching off you for an entire evening? And I’ll finally get to see the Nakahara household!”

“You’re inviting yourself over?”

“I am!”

“Ugh, whatever. Only because I feel nice today.”

“Yay! Movie night with the Nakaharas!” Dazai said in an exaggerated excited voice.

“I’m so gonna regret this.”

Despite Dazai’s promise to Chuuya to leech off him, the following day he showed up at his house with two large pizzas in hand. Chuuya rolled his eyes at him but he took it from him and didn’t immediately kick him out so Dazai thought of it as a win.

“Osamu!” Chuuya’s son yelled as soon as Dazai walked in.

“Isamu!” Dazai yelled back, going for a high five. The boy returned it enthusiastically before patting the space on the couch on his right for him to sit. Dazai easily accepted it and made himself comfortable.

“We’ve put the movie on already!” Isamu pointed to the TV where the screen was paused at the Pixar logo. “Dad said that if we finish it early enough we can watch Finding Dory too after.”

“Only if Dazai has time,” Chuuya corrected as he returned to the living room with 3 plates for the pizza.

“I have time,” Dazai confirmed before the pout could fully form on Isamu’s face.

“Yay!” Isamu cheered. 

Chuuya took a seat on the other side of the couch and the boy quickly moved to curl himself on his side. Chuuya absentmindedly wrapped his arm around his son and brought him closer while he fumbled with the remote to unpause the movie with his other hand. Isamu giggled when his dad accidentally restarted the movie instead of pressing play.

Dazai watched them from his corner and realized how similar the two of them looked. Isamu’s hair was brown rather than ginger, but the way it curled was the exact same way as his dad’s. Their eye shapes and noses were identical and, even though Isamu didn’t have Chuuya’s mouth, the way they softly smiled at the screen was the same.

Him being there next to them suddenly felt a bit too much. Could he really intrude on what could have been a family moment? Sure, Isamu had seemed excited to see him, but wouldn’t he have been more comfortable if it had been just his dad there? Perhaps suggesting this was a mistake after all. Dazai wouldn’t be a good influence on a child either way.

Dazai stayed mostly quiet, keeping to his side of the couch just until Dory first showed up on screen and Isamu turned to him, his eyes sparkling with a sudden idea. “If I went missing, would you help my dad find me, like Dory?”

For a moment Dazai didn’t know what to respond to that, caught off guard. Chuuya saved him from his pondering about how seriously he should answer that question by bursting into sudden, loud laughter. 

“Ah, ‘Samu, you nailed it. Dazai is exactly like Dory,” he said between laughter. 

“Hey!” Dazai protested. He was sure Chuuya was using the opportunity to call him annoying.

“Yeah,” Isamu agreed, innocently. “So he’d help you find me and we would all come back home safe!”

“Yeah, I guess,” Chuuya replied, indulging his son. And then, because he couldn’t waste the opportunity, added, “Ugh, I’d have to keep Dazai out of trouble the whole time.”

“You say this, but without Dory’s help Marlin would have never found Nemo,” Dazai argued.

“That’s true!” Isamu confirmed, nodding. 

“Alright, alright.” Chuuya chose not to argue with his son. “Let’s focus back on the movie now, boys.”

“Okay,” Dazai and Isamu said at the exact same time, both giggling when they realized. Chuuya shushed them and pointed at the screen, urging them to return their attention to it.

By the time Finding Nemo had ended and Finding Dory had started playing, Isamu, full of the pizza Dazai had brought and the juice Chuuya must have kept at their house, moved himself to lie down on his dad’s lap. He didn’t seem to hesitate at all to throw his feet over Dazai’s legs and make himself comfortable. 

It was a gamble whether the young boy would manage to stay awake for the ending of the second movie too in that position, but, surprisingly, his eyes only started to close when the ending credits began to roll. Still, when Chuuya paused the TV and went to carry Isamu to his room, the boy abruptly sat up, and with his eyes still half open, and mumbled, “No, I don’t want to sleep yet. Let’s watch another movie.”

Dazai smiled and told him gently, “It’s late, Isamu. I can come back another time to watch more movies.”

“Really? You’ll come back?”

“Of course I will.” 

Dazai could only hope Chuuya wouldn’t be opposed to the idea.

Chuuya went to gather the boy in his arms once more, this time meeting no resistance. “Next time you can pick the movie,” he told his son. Though, whether he heard him or not was uncertain as his eyes had fallen shut.

Dazai waited on the couch, mindlessly scrolling on his phone while Chuuya put Isamu to bed. He wasn’t sure what the etiquette was here. Chuuya had agreed to a movie night with his son, so was he expecting Dazai to get up to say his goodbyes and leave once he came back? Would he want Dazai to stay to hang out more? It wasn’t actually late; surely Dazai wouldn’t be imposing if he stayed for a little longer, right?

His train of thought was interrupted when Chuuya walked into the room and raised his arms over his head to stretch with a sigh. His shirt lifted up slightly, exposing his toned stomach. Dazai averted his gaze back to the paused screen, suddenly very interested at the credits pictured there. 

“I'd offer you some wine but you have to drive back,” Chuuya said then. “How about some more of that Sprite for our next movie?”

“Next movie?” Dazai had to ask. 

Chuuya hummed and threw him the remote. Dazai barely managed to catch it. “And this one doesn't have to be PG so choose whatever you want.”

“Okay, how about Fifty Shades of Grey, then?”

“Definitely not that.”

“Hey, you said I could choose!”

“Choose something good!”

“How does Chuuya know it isn't good? Have you watched it before?”

“Ugh, maybe I should kick you out.”

“You just don't want to admit that you have wa—”

Chuuya knelt on the couch and grabbed one of the pillows, shoving it to Dazai's face. While Dazai fumbled to free himself between muffled laughter, Chuuya almost ended up all the way up his lap. He didn't seem bothered by their position as he kept attempting to suffocate Dazai. 

In the end, after Chuuya had finished his murder attempt and went back to sitting normally on the couch, they put on some random action movie to watch. Neither of them paid too much attention to it, instead spending the whole time talking and bickering. Dazai couldn't tell you a single thing that happened in the movie when the credits rolled, but had internally categorized it as one of his favorites. 

Amy’s empty apartment felt even colder than usual when he returned. He hastily took a warm shower, hoping that it would make him feel better, but even as he lay down under the covers of the lonely bed he had been sleeping on for months, he still felt cold. 

Amy wasn't coming back, Dazai already knew that. He would argue he had even accepted it months before. Yet he was still stuck there, in her apartment, surrounded by all her things and all the memories she had created here without him. He would never be part of her life, and, perhaps Dazai was truly starting to realize that he didn't want to anyway, not anymore.

He could find something else, someone else to build a life with.

It was time for him to get out of there. 

Chapter Text

Chuuya moved his gaze from the couch to the door of Akiko’s new apartment. “Maybe we pop the hinges off the door.”

“Or we use the jaws of life,” Dazai suggested.

“No, no, no,” Dazai’s sister rushed out of the door to tell them, looking at Dazai like she expected to find him holding the jaws. “It has to fit. I measured it twice. Can't you guys just, you know, turn it around the other way?”

“Then the pizza will slide off,” Dazai replied in mock seriousness. 

Akiko looked ready to murder her brother. “You have pizza on my new sofa?”

“It's on the plastic!”

With a glare directed at both of them (Why was Chuuya also being targeted??) Akiko grabbed the three boxes of pizza from the couch and returned inside. Chuuya heard her address Kouyou, much more sweetly, “I'm sorry. You were showing me the security app.”

Dazai suddenly frowned. Chuuya couldn’t guess why, though he didn’t bother asking. Dazai would share it with him either right away or at their next shift. 

“Let’s turn it to the side, I guess,” Dazai said then.

“All right.” Chuuya grabbed one end of the couch. “Pivot.”

As they struggled to maneuver the couch through the door, they could hear Kouyou’s voice. “Okay, so, basically, you can check everything on here.” Their grunting made her stop and look at them. “Lift with your legs,” she advised, before going back to whatever she was explaining to Akiko. “And you can also check it on your phone if you're not at home.

“That's great 'cause now if I hear a noise in the middle of the night, I don't have to get out of bed to know it's the ice maker,” Akiko chuckled. Dazai frowned again from the other end of the couch. 

“Hey, thank you, guys, for helping me on your day off,” Akiko addressed all three of them once they had successfully put the couch down at the spot she pointed them to.

“Don’t worry about it,” Chuuya reassured her. He walked over to take the boxes of pizza she was still holding and asked, “Plates?”

“Countertop,” she replied, and then pointed to a half opened door to his right. “Kitchen’s that way.”

Chuuya followed her direction and found the plates easily enough. Kouyou followed him into the room a few moments later, opening the fridge, most likely searching for something to drink. Chuuya, realizing that he hadn’t asked whether they were going to eat in the kitchen or in the living room, headed for the door again, but Dazai’s half whispered conversation with his sister made him pause.

“Damn, you should have introduced me to your coworker earlier,” Akiko said.

“Chuuya isn’t dating right now because he wants to focus on his kid,” Dazai countered.

“I was not talking about Chuuya,” Akiko chuckled and turned towards the kitchen door. 

Chuuya barely managed to walk back to the counter and make himself look busy when she entered. When Dazai joined them too, a frown yet again on his face, Chuuya already knew what he was going to be hearing about on their next shift.

“9-1-1 what’s your emergency?”

“This is Morgan Eli with your morning traffic update… and we are going down!”

They were called to a baseball club where a news helicopter had made an emergency landing. The pilot must have tried to land it on the field, but he hadn’t quite succeeded; the helicopter had smashed into the bleachers at the edge of it. The person who had called 9-1-1 had reported that the pilot had lost consciousness after the crash and that the helicopter was too unstable for her to move and turn the engine off. Rocks and abandoned baseball equipment were flying off, forcing people to run to take cover.

“Hey, stay down! Stay down!” A police officer yelled at the onlookers. He had been ducking behind the open door of his car, though once he spotted their team arriving, he rushed to their side.

Chuuya was surprised to witness Fukuzawa grab his hand and quickly pull him towards him to take cover behind their vehicle, and even more surprised by the familiarity of the movement and the hand that briefly rested on the police officer’s back. Dazai nudged his shoulder with a pointed look, but even he wasn’t shameless enough to explain what was going on right in front of their captain.

“When the pilot radioed they were having mechanical trouble. Looks like he tried to put it down in the field over there,” the officer, who on a closer look seemed to be a sergeant, yelled to be heard over the sound of the helicopter.

“Yeah, it got close.” Fukuzawa commented, looking at the helicopter dangling over the bleachers.

“Yeah, not close enough,” the sergeant said with a smile. 

Chuuya was watching their interaction with a little too much interest, waiting to see where their conversation would go. He didn’t have to glance at his coworkers to know that they were doing the same thing.

Unfortunately, their show got cut short. After sending one more smile towards their captain, the sergeant turned to look at the people still lingering at the cantine that were watching the helicopter instead of taking cover, and left to continue his job and instruct the crowds.

“That’s husband one and three,” Dazai managed to whisper (yell) in his ear before Fukuzawa addressed the team, confirming Chuuya’s suspicions.

“All right, guys, we're gonna fan out, go behind those bleachers. Chuuya, after we get the people out, do you think you can kill that engine?”

At the sound of his name, Chuuya  focused all his attention back to the job. “I think so, I'm just worried about the dynamic rollover.”

“The dynamic what?” Dazai furrowed his eyebrows.

“We change the weight ratio by pulling people out, whole thing could tip over, rotors could snap off,” Chuuya turned to tell him. Although he hadn’t been a helicopter pilot in the army, he had enough experience flying in one as part of the medevac team.

“And then flying rocks are gonna be the least of our problems.” Dazai concluded.

Fukuzawa considered their options for a few moments before he seemed to decide how they were going to handle the situation. “All right, visors down. Let's go!”

The team moved towards the bleachers, approaching the helicopter carefully.

“Dazai, get her out of there,” Fukuzawa instructed Dazai, pointing at the female reporter that was sitting in the backseat. He then moved to open the front door to get access to the pilot.

“Put your arms around me,” Chuuya heard Dazai instruct the scared woman. When she did, he lifted her in his arms and swiftly carried her to a safe distance. 

Once the reporter was secured, Chuuya helped their captain drag the unconscious pilot out and then, without delay, he jumped in to take his seat. He killed the engine before the helicopter could tip over.

Things calmed down after that. Chuuya helped Kouyou with the transportation of the pilot to the ambulance while Dazai went to assist Kunikida who was doing a quick check up on the reporter. Chuuya joined them as soon as he was done with his task.

“Pulse/ox is good,” Kunikida stated. “You can take this off now.” He helped the woman with the oxygen mask.

“How are you doing?” Chuuya asked her. Although she still looked understandably shaken, judging by the fact that Kunikida hadn’t loaded her up in an ambulance yet, she would only be sent to the hospital as a precaution.

“I'm not sure,” the reporter replied, voice trembling. “How's Trent? Is he okay?”

“Your pilot's gonna be just fine,” he reassured her. In the two seconds it took Chuuya to consider whether he should inform her of the pilot’s exact injury or not, Dazai had slided closer to her side and smiled that annoyingly charming smile of his.

“Hey, do me a favor. Say, And on the 405, speeds are under five miles an hour, making your morning commute a rough one. ”

“Seriously?” Kunikida voiced everyone’s thoughts.

“I know that voice!” Dazai protested. “It's Morgan Eli reporting, right? Skywitness News Eight.”

“That's me.” Morgan Eli was obviously taken aback, though at least Dazai embarrassing himself meant that she was sufficiently distracted from her near death experience.

“Wow. It's weird to hear that voice come out of a face,” Dazai continued, undeterred. 

“Thank you?”

“You have helped me beat traffic in this city more times than you will ever know.”

Even the sergeant standing close by rolled his eyes.

Morgan Eli chuckled before she replied, “Oh, you might want to Uber tomorrow.”

“You accidentally had sex with the reporter.”

“Yes.”

“Twice.”

“Yes.”

“How do you accidentally have sex with someone?” Chuuya should have stopped being surprised by the things he heard in this fire station but he really couldn't. He stood up from the couch and headed for the kitchen with no particular purpose in mind. He then made eye contact with the DILF mug Dazai had gifted him that was innocently placed on the counter and turned right back to listen to the rest of Dazai’s story.

“Well, Akiko invited me out for drinks at this karaoke bar, right?” Dazai was explaining to the room. “And then Kouyou showed up, because apparently my sister had invited her to join us, because apparently they are friends who hang out now? Weird, by the way.” He turned to point to Kouyou. “Since when are you two so close? Anyway, the two of them started ignoring me pretty quickly to sing a duet and then suddenly Morgan showed up and bought me a drink to thank me for saving her. And then we accidentally ended up in a bathroom stall.”

“Where you accidentally had sex?” Chuuya had to question one more time.

“Exactly.” Dazai nodded like anything he said made sense. 

“Alright, let’s say that’s logical,” Chuuya replied when it became obvious he wasn’t going to ever understand Dazai’s logic. “How did you accidentally have sex with her a second time at a different location?”

“Well, she gave me her number so I texted her the next day to meet up. I swear I was just planning to talk to her but then when I showed up at the location she sent me we accidentally had sex in the news van.”

“At least it wasn't a fire engine this time,” Kunikida said casually.

Chuuya turned to him, asking before he could regret it, “Uhm, what do you mean?”

"Ah right, you didn't meet Dazai 1.0,” Kunikida nodded in understanding.

"I'm a changed man now, I've left that life behind. Dazai 2.0, remember?" 

Chuuya looked from one person to another, waiting for someone to explain what the fuck they were talking about. "Two point what?" 

"Dazai 1.0 was Dazai before the upgrade when he was openly a whore,” Kouyou explained bluntly. “Dazai 2.0 is Dazai after he met Amy and decided not to be a whore anymore.”

"You're exaggerating now,” Dazai protested.

“One time during a call for a jumper he was tasked with talking her down and instead he suggested they jump together and make it a lovers double suicide. Thankfully the woman was weirded out and got distracted for enough time for someone to push her back inside her apartment.”

“You did not.” Chuuya turned to Dazai, but the man just shrugged. 

“And then, of course, there was the time he stole the engine to have sex with a woman we had saved that day. I think that was the time the captain fired him. Or was it that time when he—”

"Okay, okay, you made your point," Dazai laughed. 

Chuuya was curious —despite himself— about the rest of the stories, yet he held himself back from encouraging the conversation any further when he noticed the uncomfortable edge to Dazai’s laughs. 

The other man had talked to him about it a little, about how meeting Amy had changed his perspective on relationships and made him want to have something real instead of sleeping around. Chuuya couldn’t fully understand him considering the only woman he had slept with was the mother of his child, but he could recognize the desire for a deep relationship. It was also something he had missed once Isamu’s mother had left. The memory of their relationship was haunting him, perhaps in a similar way that Amy was haunting Dazai.

“Do we have any updates on Fukuzawa rekindling his relationship with the cop?” Chuuya ungracefully changed the subject. 

Kunikida was the first to bite the bait. “I heard him on the phone earlier and he was using that tone—”

Corrine was truly a blessing to Chuuya’s and Isamu’s lives. Within two weeks of working for him, apart from taking care of Isamu while he was at work, she had helped him figure out how to get the best help for his son with his insurance and had arranged an appointment with what Chuuya was finding out to be the best possible school for Isamu.

“Our grounds include two outdoor play areas, state-of-the-art gymnasium, music, theater, the full range of academic offerings, as well as behavioral and cognitive programs,” the principal said as they continued the tour.

“Look, the programs sound good, but Isamu's happiness is what's important to me. I want him to feel normal, not like some special-needs charity case,” Chuuya made sure to point out. 

The principal smiled in understanding. “Every child is special. And, yes, some do have additional needs, but they're all equally our children. They learn as much from each other as they do from us.”

“I think Isamu would be well cared for here,” Corrine chimed in from his side. 

Chuuya had learned to trust her judgement so he nodded at the principal. “Okay. Let's do it.”

They exchanged a handshake, and just when Chuuya was about to relax, the principal added, “The only thing left would be the family interview.”

“I'm sorry?”

“Oh, Isamu is terrific. We have your information. All we need now is to meet Mrs. Nakahara. That won't be a problem, will it?”

“No, it will definitely be a problem.” Chuuya told Corrine as they walked away. Was it him or was it particularly hot that day? He used one of the leaflets the Principal had given him to fan himself.

“Look, I know Isamu's mother is a touchy subject with you, but I'm sure if we explain the situation to Principal Summers we can find a workaround. Do you have a copy of the custody agreement?” 

Corrine’s reassurance was reasonable and grounding as usual, though there was one piece of information she was missing. She had told him during their first meeting that she wouldn’t be able to help him fully unless he was honest with her, and of course, the one thing Chuuya had chosen not to mention had come back to bite him in the ass.

“There isn't one.”

“Huh? You didn’t get one when you got divorced?”

“We're still married.”

Chuuya kept pacing up and down the small corridor in his house. He had already cleaned and tidied the whole place and he had made sure Corrine would keep Isamu away until he called her. He rearranged the throw pillows on the couch for what was possibly the hundredth time. 

He hadn’t seen Erica in two years. He hadn’t heard her voice in just as long. He briefly wondered if she had changed the way she had been styling her hair since highschool or if she had stopped wearing yellow everytime it was sunny outside. Did she still have those white snickers he had bought for her on her 19th birthday, just a few days before they found out she was pregnant? They had been the only shoes she had worn during those months and she had kept wearing them long after they had turned gray. Did she still wear her wedding ring? The rings had been one of the very few things they had gotten to choose themselves before their shotgun wedding. Chuuya had only stopped wearing his when he moved to L.A.

He shook his head and put the throw pillow he had been squeezing back on the couch. Then he tilted it a little to the side before straightening it back. There was no reason for him to stress about whether Erica would like how he had decorated his house or if she thought he had put way too many pillows on the couch. They had fought about it once, when Isamu had been two and their relationship was already falling apart. He picked up two pillows from the couch and went to store them in his bedroom. He had made it to his door when he decided that he should just let them on the couch after all. If Erica didn’t like it, it was her problem.

As he repositioned them on the couch, ranting to himself in his mind about how he couldn’t care less about what Erica thought of his life, he realized that he probably should care. Even if her opinion about decorative pillows was irrelevant, her opinion about how he was raising their kid wasn’t. She had left them, but she was still Isamu’s mother, and legally had the same rights as he did.

Could she claim that Chuuya had moved their son to a different state without consulting her? Chuuya had sent her a text letting her know they were moving after he had already bought the house and rented a moving truck for their things. She hadn’t responded, but she must have seen it, right? No matter how much she disagreed with his decisions, she couldn’t take his son away, could she? Chuuya didn’t have a lawyer, perhaps he should have gotten one.

He let out a bitter chuckle at the thought. Erica had been his best friend since he had met her in sophomore year. She had been new both to the school and the area, and after bonding about their detest for their algebra teacher, the two of them had started an easy friendship. She had understood him in a way none of his other friends ever did and she had never made fun of his nerdy interests. Chuuya always talked to her first when he had a problem and she always came to him for reassurance. They had loved going to the movies together and grabbing a quick meal after.

All his guy friends had congratulated him when they had started dating in senior year for finally getting his shit together and asking her out. Chuuya had never admitted to them that Erica had been the one to kiss him one fateful night when he had driven her back to her place with his dad’s car. Her mother had just been diagnosed with cancer, the first time out of the two, the one she had had recovered from. Erica had been crying on and off for the entire day Chuuya had taken her out to distract her. When Chuuya had pulled over in front of her house and reached over, intending to give her a hug goodbye, she had leaned in and kissed him, her face still stained with tears. She had smiled shyly at him after and Chuuya had given her a firm hug before sending her off. His sisters, when he told them, had all but bullied him into asking her out on a real date. 

Those first few months of their relationship had been fun. Not much had felt like it had changed, apart from the added kissing and eventual sex when Erica had told him she was ready. His parents hadn’t been excited about his choice in a girlfriend, both because she was only half Japanese and because they didn’t approve of her mother who had never married her father. Chuuya hadn’t paid their complaining too much attention; he had liked Erica, but he hadn’t considered she would be the person he married until she was holding two positive pregnancy tests in front of his face with tears in her eyes.

Things after that happened quickly. His mother had called her friend whose brother owned a small place they could use as a wedding venue only ten minutes after she had stopped screaming at him about his carelessness. His father had given him a speech about what a husband’s duty was and had driven him to buy an engagement ring even when Chuuya wasn’t sure what Erica’s ring size was. Erica had told him no the first time he showed her the ring, one that had been too big for her finger. He hadn’t even dropped on one knee or worn something nice. Erica’s eyes were swollen from crying and she had been wearing one of his shirts he had left in her house and a pair of shorts she had had since elementary school. She had screamed at him that they weren’t ready and she had cried for half an hour about how she wasn’t going to be a good mother. Chuuya had tried his best to reassure her that she would be great and that they would work it out together, even if he also wanted to join her in screaming and crying.

Chuuya hadn’t been ready, and neither had Erica. She had told him yes the second time he suggested they get married, and there had been a few blissful days where they had been talking on the phone late at night thinking of baby names and wedding cake flavors. It was only after the wedding that Chuuya’s mother had organized almost all by herself just three weeks after the news of Erica’s pregnancy that things started feeling real. 

They moved into an apartment five minutes away from his parents’ house. It had been small and old and the door to their bedroom never closed properly. Erica’s health had been good enough during her pregnancy but her mood swings got worse and worse, and Chuuya had been too tired after coming back home from his second shift of the day to be a great husband. He only made it two weeks in that apartment he felt suffocated in before he enlisted in the army. His father, a retired military pilot, had been encouraging him and telling him how it was the best option to take care of his family. Erica had screamed at him when he told her, and she had never gotten over the fact that he hadn’t consulted her in his decision.

Considering how awful of a husband he had been, Chuuya wasn’t particularly shocked when he woke up one day, when Isamu was five and Chuuya couldn’t say he knew what his favorite color was, to find a letter from Erica telling him she had left to take care of her sick mother. She had asked him to move to L.A. with her, just once, during the welcome home party his family had thrown for him when he had been discharged from the military. Chuuya had yet to have a full night’s sleep without waking up from a night terror, so he had dismissed her quickly, telling her he needed some time. 

Erica had given up on waiting for him, and Chuuya had understood that. He had understood when she left, he had understood when she didn’t return his calls. He had known that he had fucked up and deserved that treatment. But, he had also expected her to come back. He found out about her mother’s passing from a Facebook post of Erica’s cousin. He had thought that meant that Erica would return, if not for him then for their son, but she never did. Chuuya had gotten so angry, both at her and at himself, and he had sworn he would never forgive her.

There was a knock on the door. 

Chuuya walked slowly and cleared his throat before opening the door.

Erica didn’t look much different than she had two years before. It was a cloudy day, so she was wearing a maroon shirt under her black jacket. Her hair was shorter than it had been the last time he saw her, but it was styled the same way. When she smiled at him and told him “Hi” her voice sounded like that day in algebra class.

“Hi.” Chuuya stepped back to let her walk in and took her jacket to hang on the coat rack. “Thanks for coming.”

“Yeah,” she replied. 

Chuuya wasn’t sure whether he should lead her to the couch and offer her something to drink or maybe if this conversation was better suited for the kitchen, but, the more Erica’s gaze moved around his living room that he had decorated himself, the less he wanted her to see his house. “Do you want to see Isamu’s room?” he asked. The boy had been excited to decorate it himself once they had moved in and Chuuya thought talking there would make his intention to only talk about their kid clear

Erica nodded and silently followed him to the room. 

“He's gotten so big,” she commented, looking at the framed pictures on Isamu’s desk. “Has… he asked about me?”

“Not in a while,” he answered honestly. “He has a lot to keep him busy, though… the move, new school, new city, new people.”

“Sure, sure. Yeah. He must've been shocked when you said you were leaving Texas. I sure was when you sent me that text.”

“Erica…” 

Her tone was the one that most usually started their fights. Chuuya used to jump at the opportunity to argue back, yet that wasn’t the case anymore. More than anything he wanted her to leave and let him continue the life he had been built here by himself, even if there was a part of him that wished they could make things work out for Isamu’s sake. 

Thankfully, Erica, after glancing down at Isamu’s picture one more time, looked up to him and said, “So... tell me about this school.”

“They want to meet you. Well, need to meet you. It's a requirement for admission.”

“It looks... fancy. Not the kind of place I thought you'd be into.”

“Classes are smaller. Ten kids instead of thirty. It has a great art studio. Isamu was so excited, you should have seen him,” he added the last phrase without thinking and regretted it right after.

“Can I? See him?” Erica asked, making eye contact. Chuuya forced himself to hold her gaze. “I mean, this is a big step. Switching schools when he just got here. Maybe I could talk to him? Make sure it's what he wants.”

“I don't think that's a good idea. It... it might confuse him.”

“What's confusing? I'm his mom.”

“Who he hasn't seen in two years?” he had to remind her. It was fine to leave him, but what about Isamu? How was it fair to him? He was still too young to understand why his mother had suddenly disappeared from his life.

“My mother was sick. She was all alone,” Erica defended herself.

“I... I know why you had to go. Yeah, but we were expecting you to come back. And you didn't.”

Erica shook her head. “You could've come with me. But you didn't want to leave Texas and your parents and your sisters, and… At least not until it was something that was important to you.”

“That's not fair,” he argued. “I was trying to do what's best for Isamu.”

And just like that, they were back to yelling at each other.

“Right. Because Chuuya always knows what's best for everyone. I mean, God forbid you stop for a second and actually ask them what they need!”

“What did you need that I didn't give you?”

“You! I needed a husband and a co-parent. And instead, all I got was a life alone in Texas with a baby and you on another continent. I needed someone to have my back.”

“I always had your back.”

“No. You were in Afghanistan.”

Erica turned around to leave, and Chuuya didn’t move to stop her. He sat on Isamu’s bed with his head in his hands long after the sound of a slammed door came. When he called Corrine to let her know she could bring Isamu back home, he didn’t know how to reply to her questions about how it went and if she was going to cause any problems with the school.

Halloween was all Isamu had been talking about since the start of October. Chuuya had taken him on numerous shopping trips, hoping that his son would find a costume he liked. Unfortunately for him, Isamu was at the age where he had very strong opinions about such things and wasn’t satisfied with a simple superhero costume. After every trip had ended with Isamu complaining that none of these costumes were good enough for going treat or tricking with his new friends, Chuuya had ended recruiting the help of his aunt to make Isamu’s request to dress up as a werewolf come true. His aunt had even convinced him that since he had volunteered himself as a chaperone, he ought to dress up as well. Chuuya couldn’t remember the last time he had dressed up since his parents had never been too fond of this American tradition, but Hana had made this suggestion in front of Isamu and after his son had gotten excited about the idea, there was no way he could say no.

Even though it was Corrine’s day off, she had come over to help Chuuya with Isamu’s werewolf makeup. After they were sure that the boy was satisfied with both his costume and makeup, Chuuya went to put his own costume on.

“Ta-da,” he exclaimed, re-entering the living room where Corrine was waiting for him.

She looked him up and down in visible confusion before asking, “Are you some kind of pirate?” 

“Snake Plissken?” Chuuya pointed at himself. He possibly had only remembered that he was supposed to dress up too the previous evening and had had to improvise with whatever he could find at the last possible moment. At the lack of acknowledgement from Corrine he continued, “Escape from New York? Kurt Russell? John Carpenter's masterpiece?”

“Oh, right, right. Well, I prefer Tango & Cash myself. But you look cute, so I approve,” She laughed. “Though I'm disappointed that the costume didn't come with a smile.”

“I had a fight with Erica,” Chuuya sighed. “When I asked her to help with Isamu and the school, she asked to see Isamu first.”

Corrine furrowed her brows. “And you said no? If you want her back in your life, you're gonna have to ease her back into it at some point.”

“Who said I want her back in my life?” Chuuya crossed his arms. 

“Please,” Corrine waved him off. “So you decided to leave Texas, and you just so happened to choose a job working minutes from where your ex lives?”

“LAFD are the best in the country. In the world.”

“If she's gotten herself back together, you know what's best for your son. And that's for his mother to be back in his life. Sooner than later.”

Chuuya wanted to argue that he was all his son needed, that he could offer him everything he wanted, yet he had never actually been very confident about his capabilities as a father. He had been absent for the first few years of Isamu’s life and although he had been trying his best for the past two years, deep down he feared that he would never be enough.

Could he really do it alone? His parents had only waited half a year after Erica had left him to start pestering him about finding a girlfriend, claiming that every kid needed a mother. If Erica wanted to come back, did he really have the right to stop her?

“What if she screws up again?” he had to ask. Above everything, he had to protect his son.

“Both of you have grown up a lot over the years. And a boy needs his mama.”

Chuuya swallowed hard. It all came back to that.

“Daddy?” Isamu slowly made his way towards them, obviously unaware of the seriousness of the conversation he had just interrupted. 

Chuuya found himself smiling at the sight of him in his costume. 

“You ready to go buddy?” 

Isamu growled in response, making both of them laugh.

Corrine leaned down to pinch his cheek. “You’re even cuter than your father.”

Chuuya let out his own growl to protest. Corrine reached out to pinch his cheek too.

The dreaded day came two days after Halloween. Chuuya leaned against his car, his eyes locked to the entrance of the school. He kept loosening and retying his ponytail, desperate for something to do with his hands.

Eventually the door opened. Even from the parking lot, Chuuya spotted Erica walking out with Principle Summers right away. The two women seemed to be saying their goodbyes as they exchanged a handshake. Chuuya was aware that it was kind of creepy for him to just be there and watch them but he hadn’t been able to sleep all night in anticipation of this appointment.

Erica made her way towards him, almost like she knew that she would find him there waiting. It was a sunny day and she was wearing a yellow floral dress that Chuuya had never seen before.

“Hey,” Chuuya greeted her when she was close enough.

“Hey.”

“School called to tell me about your appointment. Thought I'd head over,” he felt the need to explain himself.

“Well, don't worry. I didn't tank the interview, okay? At least, I don't think I did,” Erica laughed awkwardly.

“I'm sure you did great. I appreciate it. Isamu will, too.”

“That's why you're here… to pass along thank-yous from my own son?”

Chuuya suppressed a groan and tried to remind himself that he had decided that he would give Erica the chance to explain herself and hold back from arguing with her again.

“When you left… I understood. Or at least I tried to. You were taking care of your mother, and I was taking care of Isamu, and… we drifted further away from each other. But I always thought you’d come home. I waited for you, thinking that maybe we’d have a chance to make things right. But you didn’t. So I guess, I just… I need to know. Why?”

Why? Why hadn’t she come back? Why had she cut contact with him? Why hadn’t she asked for a divorce if she never planned to return? Why was she standing there at that moment looking so much like the girl he had met at fifteen yet Chuuya didn’t think he knew who she was anymore? 

Why?

“I… didn’t know how. The longer I was gone, the harder it was to come back. To face you and Isamu. He…” she paused, looking away and then up. She always did that when she was trying not to cry. “He must hate me.” 

The crack in her voice made Chuuya instinctively reach forward to touch her arm to comfort her. “What are you talking about? Why would Isamu hate you?”

“Because I did this to him.” Erica gave up on holding back her tears. Chuuya barely realized that he had started rubbing her arm. “I have relived every moment of that pregnancy so many times, just trying to figure out how it happened, and… what I did wrong. And I thought I could make up for it, so I did all this research, finding new treatments and different therapies. But it was all still so overwhelming and exhausting, and I just… needed a break. So then, the mother who hurt her kid left him. I'm sorry.”

She covered her face with her hands. At the sight of her shaking with sobs, Chuuya moved to wrap her into a hug. He had never been able to hold back from comforting her whenever she cried. 

“You didn't do anything wrong. What happened wasn't your fault.” 

That was one truth Chuuya believed no matter how much his parents had tried to claim otherwise. Either way, Isamu was perfect just the way he was. His disability perhaps made some part of his life more complicated, but Chuuya knew their son was not going to let anything hold him back. He was a bright kid who was going to achieve great things. 

Erica sniffled. “I… I know that. I just… I don't feel it.”

Chuuya pulled back enough just to cup her face into his hands. “Isamu loves you, and he misses you.” Erica stared at him with her big brown eyes. Chuuya felt like he was seventeen again and he was consoling his crying best friend in his father’s car. “I miss you,” he added, his own voice cracking.

Just like that time, Erica leaned over and kissed him before he realized what was happening. He kissed her back out of instinct for what must have been a second or two before pulling back.

“Erica, I—”

I’m not sure if this is what I want.

Chuuya had thought that at seventeen, and he thought it at twenty six. He didn’t get a chance to express it in either of those times. 

“I missed you,” Erica told him, hugging him close. 

Chuuya tightened his arms around her. He had missed having her in his life, he had missed their conversations and their easy closeness. Perhaps… perhaps this is what he was meant to be doing.

Chapter Text

“9-1-1 what’s your emergency?”

“My husband has fallen down the balcony.”

“I’m not your husband!”

“Paul, the divorce hasn’t been finalized yet.”

Dazai absentmindedly stared out of the window as they headed to their next call. The job took them all over the city on a daily basis, so at first, he didn’t think anything of the familiar street they were driving on. It took the engine making one final turn for him to abruptly shake off his daze and realize where they were.

“Oh God, no. Please tell me we’re not going where I think we’re going,” Kouyou, sitting next to him, voiced his exact thoughts. The same look of trepidation was reflected on everyone’s face, except for one.

“Eh? What am I missing here?” Chuuya asked, looking from one person to another.

“Oh, my sweet child,” Kouyou said as she patted his knee. Chuuya furrowed his eyebrows as he stared at her, waiting for an explanation.

As much as Dazai enjoyed watching Chuuya’s confused face (he was very expressive), he only let him sit in confusion for a few more moments before taking the reins and explaining the situation to him. 

“There’s this weird couple whose house we keep getting called to every few months.”

“What for?”

“It’s a different thing every time. The last time their kitchen was on fire.”

“Dazai has only been there twice,” Kouyou clarified. “I have gone six or seven times? And Kunikida at least ten.”

“Isn’t that… suspicious? ” Chuuya asked. A fair question.

“We haven’t found foul play,” Fukuzawa was the one who replied. “Although it’s clear that their arguing is the cause of all the accidents.”

“Some people just aren’t meant to be together.” Kunikida shook his head. 

“Weren’t they divorcing last time?” Dazai asked, even though he was sure of the answer. The blond one had spent the entire time they had been at their house informing him of all the details of the divorce.

“Maybe they’re trying to rekindle their relationship,” Kouyou replied. “Who knows with the two of them.”

They pulled up in front of the  —quite extravagant— mansion at the same time as a police car. Dazai barely held back a groan when Sergeant Fukuchi was the one to step out of the vehicle, greeting Fukuzawa with a warm smile. Speculating about his captain’s love life had been fun; up until the point where Fukuzawa had started walking around the station with a permanent stupid grin on his face, serving as a constant reminder of the lack of love in Dazai’s life.

No, Dazai wasn’t bitter about other people having love lives while he couldn’t get a person to want anything more than sex with him, but he was sure he would have been having a better time if his coworkers weren’t rubbing their success on his face.

Arthur, the least annoying out of the two husbands, opened the front door for them and led them to the courtyard. There they found Paul on his back clenching his clearly dislocated shoulder. His blond hair was far longer than Dazai remembered and tied in a seamless braid at the side of his head. Dazai held back from asking if it was a wig.

“Ahh you guys got a new one,” Paul exclaimed when they approached him, staring at Chuuya. Dazai took a step closer to him in an attempt to hide Chuuya from his line of sight. 

“This is Chuuya, our new probationary firefighter,” Fukuzawa introduced him as Kunikida and Kouyou kneeled on either side of the man to examine him.

“Definitely an upgrade from the last one,” Paul said approvingly. Dazai openly rolled his eyes. “Ah he looks like me when I was younger, doesn’t he, Arthur?”

“He does, mon chéri.”

It was a testament to Dazai’s professionalism that he managed to stop himself from refuting this outrageous statement. Even if Paul had been easier on the eyes when he had been younger, there was no universe where he could have been even remotely as attractive as Chuuya. (And there was the part where he was French, you know.)

“My hair was that color too,” Paul continued rambling. “Oh, Chuuya, perhaps you are my long lost little brother.”

Dazai pleadingly looked at Kunikida and Kouyou, silently asking if they were done with their assessment. Kouyou nodded her head no. Dazai looked up to the balcony where Paul must have fallen from and briefly considered climbing up there to jump. 

“Ah I was this beautiful once too before Arthur stole all my youth.”

Things escalated quickly after that statement. 

“Paul —”

“I curse the day that I met you!”

“Paul, please. Let’s not—”

“Everything bad that has happened in my life has been because of you!”

“Please mon chéri —”

“You ruined everything! Everything! How could you do this to me?!”

 Poor Arthur could barely get a word in. “Please, Paul. Let’s not do this right now. You are injured—”

“And whose fault is it?!”

Dazai could see Fukuchi from where he was standing attentively watching the exchange. The man had recently moved back to L.A. after living abroad for a few years so it was likely that he didn’t know that this couple was just like that.

“Paul, you were the one who tried to climb up and fell down. Let’s just focus on making sure you’re okay, alright?” Arthur pleaded.

“Why were you trying to climb up the balcony?” Chuuya asked Paul. Dazai sighed, realizing that he should have warned him not to ask any questions while he had the chance earlier. Paul didn’t need more prompting to get back on the program. 

“Because I’m a fool, that’s why! I thought this marriage could still be saved but I should have stopped trying long ago! Love can get you only so far when you’re so incompatible with someone,” Paul shouted. Chuuya seemed more invested in his outburst than Dazai would have expected, paying attention to the nonsense that was being yelled even as Paul’s cries turned back to his husband. “I loathe the day I agreed to marry you! All these years I spent by your side and you still can’t understand me, and maybe I can’t understand you either. This is the end, I’m telling you! I’m done with you. You’ll be hearing from my lawyer next!”

“Alright, he’s ready for transport,” Kouyou announced. 

Paul kept yelling and cursing his decisions all the way to the ambulance, but he didn’t stop Arthur from getting in to accompany him to the hospital. Dazai was beyond grateful that he wasn’t the one who had to ride in the ambulance with them.

“He never explained why he was climbing up the balcony,” he heard Chuuya mutter as they entered the engine.

Dazai did not want to know.

The clock struck midnight.

Dazai was sitting on a stool by the kitchen counter at the station, staring at the half-filled coffee mug that Chuuya had abandoned just a few minutes before to try his luck at getting some sleep.

“Do you also get the feeling that Chuuya is hiding something?” He asked the only other person who had stayed in the kitchen with him. 

Chuuya was quite straightforward as a person in a lot of ways. Although it was clear that he had been hesitant to share about his personal life his first few weeks at the station, he had eventually grown comfortable around the team. He still told them stories about his son and hung out with them on occasion, but for the past month or so Dazai felt like they had lost the progress they had made in their friendship. Where was Chuuya going all those evenings when he wasn't free to hang out with him but Dazai knew from Corrine that Isamu was with her?

Kunikida hummed. “He does seem… distracted.”

“Do you think he’s dating?”

It couldn’t be that, could it be? Chuuya had been adamant about how he wasn’t ready to try dating yet, so what could have changed? And when could he have met this mystery person? As much as the possibility didn’t make sense to Dazai, he couldn’t think of anything else that would justify his sudden secretive behavior. 

“Maybe?” Kunikida wondered aloud. “He’s been on his phone a lot.”

Dazai had noticed that too. He had even jokingly asked Chuuya who he had been texting on a couple of occasions, but Chuuya had waved him away each time, telling him to mind his business. Why wouldn’t Chuuya tell him if he was seeing someone? What was there to hide?

Dazai’s phone suddenly buzzed, startling him. He ignored the weird look Kunikida sent his way and unlocked it to see who had texted him, assuming it was probably his sister who was also on shift that night.

Hi, sorry for the weird hour, but I figured if you’re on shift you’re probably awake.

This is Ailey (earthquake girl) btw, I don’t know if you remember giving me your phone number 😂

I’m back in L.A. for a while and I was wondering if you’d like to grab coffee sometime if the offer still stands? 

Dazai blinked down at his screen. He had honestly forgotten giving Ailey his number. Thinking back, although she had been his type, she had justifiably been still quite shaken when he went to check on her before leaving the scene, and he had mostly offered his number so she could have someone to talk to if she needed it.

That could still be the purpose of her reaching out, but Dazai had a feeling it wasn’t. He reread her texts again and then went to look at the last exchange he had had with Morgan Eli a week prior. He had asked if she wanted to grab dinner with him and she had shut him down, telling him she was working, only to text him at 1 A.M. to ask if he was up. Dazai had been awake looking at apartment listings on Kouyou’s couch and he had shamefully driven in the middle of the night to her place to hook up. Morgan had all but kicked him out in the early morning to get to work and Kouyou had watched him do the walk of shame back into her apartment dressed in his date clothes.

He sat there for several minutes before he clicked on his latest conversation and began typing.

Sure, if we find a day that works for both of us

Ailey’s reply came right away.

Are you free Thursday morning maybe? Around 10:30? 

I’ll be done with my morning appointment by 10 the latest.

Dazai hesitated once more. Thursday fell right in the middle of his four-off so there was no reason to say no. If you ignored the fact that he had met Ailey on a call and the possibility that she would not like the person he was without his uniform was considerably high.

Yeah that works

Ailey’s next text was a location, followed by a question about whether that place was convenient for him. It was a bit out of his way, but he only replied with a “Sure” before he could regret agreeing to go.

Great! It’s a date then🥰

Dazai typed, ‘It’s a date!’ and then deleted it right away. He settled for a ‘see you’ and put his phone back in his pocket. He wasn’t too confident this could lead to anything, but it wouldn’t hurt to give it a try, would it? If even Chuuya was giving dating a try, why would Dazai not have a go at it, too?

Thursday came before Dazai realized it.

“You made it!” Ailey greeted him at the door of the coffee shop. It was probably the most fancy coffee place Dazai had been to and he felt out of place in his casual outfit.

“Hey,” he greeted the woman with a smile regardless. “Did you change your hair?”

Ailey’s hair was styled in a long bob identical to the one she had had the day Dazai had met her (although definitely less messy), but this time it was a dark brown color instead of the light blonde it had been back then.

“Yeah. Well, after the earthquake and almost dying twice... It makes you reevaluate a few things. So, back to my roots,” she laughed, charmingly. 

“It looks great,” Dazai replied honestly. Although he tended to go for people with lighter hair color, Dazai wasn’t one to discriminate for such trivial reasons. Both Amy and Morgan had ginger hair yet neither of those relationships had worked out for him, had they?

“Thanks. I wasn't sure if you were gonna show. You seemed a little hesitant over text.”

“Yeah,” he admitted. “Dazai 1.0. wouldn’t have thought twice about it. Dazai 2.0 has to ask, you... you didn't call me 'cause you felt some kind of weird debt, right? Me saving your life and all.”

“Oh, is that the way you remember it?” Ailey smiled, cheekily. “'Cause I seem to remember Chuuya catching me as I was falling out the window.”

Dazai replied with mock offense, “Um, I told him to do that.”

“Wow, maybe I should have texted him.”

For some reason, the picture of Chuuya on a date with Ailey made Dazai momentarily frown. He quickly fixed his expression into the smile that all women found charming and replied to her, “Well, I'm glad you didn't.”

“Come on, I already got us a table.” Ailey urged him to follow her in. Dazai had to admire her confidence, it was a trait he always found attractive. “So, is there a reason why you're referring to yourself as Dazai 1 and 2.0?”

“It's a long story.”

Ailey chucked as they sat down across from each other. “We have time, don’t we?”

“Wait... a news van?” Akiko asked, grimacing in disgust. “Don't other people use that? What if you get caught? She could get fired.”

“Your brother sure did,” Kouyou reassured her. 

Dazai should have known it would be a mistake to hang out with the two of them alone. Kouyou ignored his silent plea to change the subject and continued subjecting him to public humiliation.

“Oh, he didn't tell you about the time he stole a fire truck from work so he could have sex in it?”

“Ugh,” Dazai buried his face in his hands. Perhaps he was generally shameless, but that didn’t mean he wanted his sister to know that many details about his sex life. “Thank you for that.”

“Anytime, roomie,” Kouyou replied with a chuckle. Perhaps this was part of her evil plan to force him to find an apartment of his own quicker. It was kind of working.

“Damn it. They didn't put it in here again,” Akiko muttered as she opened a bag of takeout. Dazai could see three more on the kitchen counter.

“Oh, uh…” Kouyou turned and quickly pulled something out of the cabinet. “Ta-da.”

Akiko gasped in delight. “You made me hot mustard.”

Kouyou smiled warmly at her. “I just can't anymore, with the whole sad face every time they forget it, so…”

Dazai had so much he wanted to say about the ridiculous exchange he was witnessing, but he chose to clear his throat as they made their way to the living room and then asked, "Anyway, why so much food?”

“Oh, it's Buffriday,” Akiko replied with a smile. 

At Dazai’s confused look, Kouyou elaborated, “Buffet Fridays. It's the one day we indulge your sister's complete inability to choose what she's in the mood for.”

“Yeah, so we order everything,” Akiko chimed in.

“And, because of your sister's hatred for leftovers, I don't have to buy groceries. It's a win-win situation.”

Dazai opened his mouth to comment on that but Akiko spoke again before he had the chance.

“Let's go back to you stealing a hook and ladder for a hookup.”

“It's your fault.” Dazai pointed at her. “You know, you always told me to go after what I wanted. Be confident. Girls aren't scary.”

“Um, you were 11. Don't you have impulse control?”

“That's not the problem right now. All I'm saying is she's beautiful, she's cool, she’s exactly my type, but she only texts me to hook up.”

“What about earthquake girl, then? You’re dating her, then?”

“We’re not dating, we only went for coffee once.” 

Akiko and Kouyou turned to look at each other and seemed to have a silent conversation. Dazai decided he had had enough of them.

“But you two are. You guys are… dating each other.”

“That's crazy,” Kouyou immediately deflected. “We're…”

“Friends who hang out,” Akiko finished the sentence for her.

“Yeah. Just hanging out.”

Dazai couldn’t help rolling his eyes. “No,” he stated. “You’re always talking or texting each other. You sing karaoke together. You do Buffridays. You finish each other’s sentences… Guys, come on. You’re a couple.”

“No, no, that’s definitely not what’s happening here,” Akiko argued.

“Yeah, can’t two queer women be friends with each other, Dazai?” Kouyou crossed her hands over her chest.

“Yeah, Osamu. Are you homophobic?”

“I’m literally bisexual!” 

“Excuses,” they both said at the same time. Dazai gestured between them in exasperation. He knew he wasn’t wrong. The urge to start a full on interrogation was strong, but his protective brotherly instinct (just barely) won over his vexation and he let it go. (For the moment.) Akiko couldn’t keep using the excuse that she had just come out of a toxic relationship forever to avoid talking about whatever was going on with his coworker. He let her change the subject.

“Let’s go back to earthquake girl. What did you say her name was?” 

“Ailey.”

“Another A name,” Kouyou pointed out. “You sure it’s wise to date people whose names’ rhyme with each other?”

Akiko laughed like Kouyou had said the funniest joke, slapping her thigh for good measure. Dazai suppressed an eye roll. 

“I don’t know why I bother asking the two of you for advice.”

“Oh, come on, we’ll help,” Akiko hurried to say. Her hand had stayed on Kouyou’s thigh. “You liked the reporter but you two are not looking for the same thing. That happens. But this Ailey girl reached out to you and took you out on a date. Why are you hesitating? You didn’t have a good time with her?”

“I had a good time,” Dazai replied honestly. 

Ailey had a sharp sense of humor that had made conversation with her flow easily. She had listened in interest to the stories about his work he had shared with her and she had offered funny stories from her own job. Her laugh had been charming and Dazai had found the way she kept tucking her hair behind her ear endearing. The two of them had walked together to the parking lot only to find out that they had coincidentally parked their cars right next to each other. She had given him a brief hug and had told him to text her if he wanted to do that again.

“Then what’s the problem?” His sister insisted. “I think you’re only holding yourself back because, unlike the situation with Morgan Eli, this could evolve into something more serious and you’re not sure if you’re ready for it.”

“When did this turn into a therapy session?” Dazai groaned. 

“Am I wrong?”

“I think you’re tight,” Kouyou replied from her side. 

Dazai groaned even louder. Just because Akiko was right she didn’t have to say it.

“Alright, I’ll text her and give it a shot,” he said either way. 

“Yay!” Akiko and Kouyou turned to high five each other.

Dazai wasn’t actually sure if this thing with Ailey could turn into something serious, but the fact that she hadn’t already tried to jump him and wanted to go out on dates was already an improvement from his past experiences. He supposed he would never find out if he could have something with her if he didn’t give her a chance.

“9-1-1, what’s your emergency?”

“I need an ambulance at 2237 Westbrook Avenue! It’s my husband, please. It's — Dear God, send somebody!”

“Sir, can you tell me exactly what happened?”

“My husband. He was outside, and-and the car must have… I don't know, it-it... it rolled. Perhaps I should move the car.”

“Sir, I am being told that you should not move the vehicle. Just leave everything as it is.”

“He's not breathing!”

“Help is on the way.”

“He can't go! He's my heart, my everything.”

When they made it to the scene, the elderly man who had been crushed against the front gate of his house by the car was already gone. Since there wasn’t anything for Dazai to do while the others moved him, he sat next to his husband, Thomas, wanting to make sure he would be okay after what he had just witnessed. 

Of course, there was no way for Thomas to be okay. Tears freely ran down his face as he told Dazai their story.

“When we got married… we thought, what the hell, we have so little life left, we might as well live,” the man smiled sadly, not taking his eyes away from the body of his husband. “That was Mitchell, always... daring the clock. And me, I always followed along.” He seemed to be struggling to breathe as he continued talking. “All those foolish things we did. We only ever wanted to… to go together. That's love.”

What could Dazai say after a statement like that? He felt his eyes sting with unshed tears as he looked at the pure grief on the elderly man’s face. “I'm sorry. I really am. I guess I can only hope to find something that good.”

Although he was socially aware enough that he wouldn’t say that outloud, he kept thinking that Thomas was lucky to have experienced a love so great that losing it hurt him so devastatingly. Dazai wanted to believe it was worth it.

Thomas turned and looked at him for the first time as he corrected him, “You don't find it, son. You make it. ”

Before Dazai could even begin processing his words, Thomas’ gaze had turned back to his husband, who had been covered with a white sheet, and asked, “Son, you mind if I have just a few moments alone with him?”

“Of course. It's no problem. Here.” Dazai helped him walk up to the body and kneel by his side and then busied himself with picking up the fallen photographs from the ground that the couple had planned to go get digitized. The photos seemed to span over many decades, depicting the two men from their early twenties up until recent times. Dazai smiled at the photo of them in undeniable eighties outfits. He had picked up most of them when he turned back to see Thomas leaning on Mitchell’s uncovered body, unmoving.

The photographs dropped to the ground once more in his haste to go check on him. “Thomas?” he asked, shaking him. There was no response. “Chuuya, Captain! Come here,” he yelled. The two men rushed to his side right away. “I-I don't know what happened. He was just talking, he was responsive, and then…”

They quickly turned Thomas on his back and after searching for a pulse and not finding one, Fukuzawa instructed, “All right, start compressions.”

Together with Chuuya, they took turns for several minutes doing compressions and using the bag valve mask, but Thomas stayed unresponsive.

“Stay with us, Thomas,” Dazai almost pleaded. “Come on, Thomas. Come on. Stay with me. Come on.”

Eventually, Fukuzawa put a hand on his shoulder and stopped him. “He's gone, kid.”

Dazai wanted to tell him that he could go on, that he hadn’t even started to get tired yet, but deep down he knew that at Thomas’ age, resuscitation when they were such a distance away from the hospital had been improbable from the beginning. 

He stared down at Thomas’ hand that tightly held on to his husband’s hand and thought to himself, ‘That's love.’

Christmas nearing meant that it was time for the LAFD annual toy drive. Dazai had happily accepted the Santa hat Kunikida had handed to him that morning and had enjoyed giving out gifts to all the kids entering the station with their parents. 

When it was nearing lunchtime and the flow of new kids entering had slowed down, Dazai left Kunikida to handle the rest and went to help Kouyou with handing out beverages. Chuuya, as their probie, had been left with the least fun task, which was receiving and wrapping the toys people brought to donate. 

Dazai was about to tease him about it when a woman wearing an orange cardigan over a floral dress walked up to Chuuya, holding a large toy box. Kouyou nudged him to continue filling up cups but Dazai’s eyes stayed on the woman. It shouldn’t have been possible to recognize her considering he had only seen a picture of her once, one of the first times he had been to Chuuya’s house and Isamu had wanted to show him his room, yet Dazai instantly knew who she was.

“Erica? What are you doing here?” Chuuya asked the woman. 

“You won't answer my texts or return my calls,” she replied, handing over the box to him with slightly more force than necessary. 

Chuuya gave a fake smile to another woman who came to hand him a toy and then told Erica, “This is not the place.”

“Maybe it's the perfect place. We can actually have a conversation that doesn't end up with us in bed.”

…

Even Kouyou turned to openly stare at the scene unfolding just a few steps away from them. When Chuuya turned to briefly glance at the two of them, they both quickly averted their gazes, pretending they were busy filling up cups.

“Follow me,” Dazai heard Chuuya say. When he turned around again, he caught sight of Chuuya leading Erica to their changing room. 

“Who was that?” Kouyou asked him with a raised eyebrow.

“Isamu’s mother.”

“He’s sleeping with his ex wife? Who is he, Fukuzawa?”

Dazai forced out a chuckle. “It’s spreading.”

“Maybe he’ll also marry her again,” Kouyou said, sounding greatly amused.

“Maybe.”

Chuuya’s conversation with Erica didn’t last long. Less than five minutes after he had led her to the changing room, the woman stormed out of the station, leaving an air of awkwardness behind her.

“So…” Kouyou addressed Chuuya once he joined them again. “The ex wife?”

Chuuya sighed. “The current wife.”

“You remarried her already?”

“We never got divorced.”

Kouyou furrowed her eyebrows. “I feel like I should have known this about you.”

Dazai definitely shared the sentiment, but he kept his mouth shut, refocusing on his task.

Although Chuuya had never outwardly said that he had been divorced, he had only referred to Erica as Isamu’s mother, the one he had married as a teenager and who neither father or son had seen for two years. Dazai, along with everyone at the station, had assumed that a divorce must have occurred at some point. Chuuya had told him that she had left them , why would they still be married?

Dazai overfilled one of the cups and spilled orange juice on his hand. A few kids waiting in line laughed at him and Dazai stuck his tongue out at them, earning a scowl from Kunikida who happened to be passing by. 

For the rest of the day, Dazai tried to blame his foul mood on his sticky hand. Though, even long after he had gone to the bathroom to wash his hands, the feeling stayed, hovering over his skin.

Dazai wouldn’t say he had been avoiding Chuuya, but perhaps it was true that he had been seeking him out less. It just so happened to be the week where Ailey was L.A. and he wanted to spend as much time with her as possible before she left again to travel for work. Although their ‘relationship’ was nowhere near serious, things were progressing steadily and Dazai had to put effort in it, right? He couldn’t spend time thinking about Chuuya’s marriage drama.

Just a few days before Christmas, though, Chuuya sent him a text asking if he wanted to go to the Christmas park with him and Isamu that evening. Dazai barely thought about it for a second before replying yes.

And just like that, he found himself sitting next to Chuuya on a bench, looking at Chuuya’s son waiting in line to speak with Santa Claus. The weather was warm enough that Dazai barely needed the jacket he was wearing, yet, in search of something to do with his hands, he zipped it up all the way. 

“I offered to wait in line with him, but he said this is private,” Chuuya said with a smile. His eyes kept following his kid. When Isamu turned around to glance at them, Chuuya instantly raised his hand in a wave.

Dazai chuckled. Talking about Isamu was easy. “I love the way he always wants to do everything on his own.”

“It hurts my feelings a little but it’s an unavoidable part of parenthood.”

Dazai nodded, choosing to keep his eyes on Isamu too. 

“So... not gonna say anything?” Chuuya spoke again.

“About what?” Dazai played nonchalant. That was the part that he hadn’t been that excited to talk about. Perhaps he should have convinced Isamu to let him wait in line with him.

“You know what about.”

“I figured it was none of my business.”

“It's not.”

“That's what I'm saying.”

“It just kind of happened, okay? It's not like I planned it.”

“I never said you did.”

Chuuya sighed loudly. He raised one hand to rub at his forehead.  “I only even reached out to her because I needed her help getting Isamu into his new school.”

“Totally understandable,” Dazai offered with as much sincerity as he could muster.

“We just kind of… ended up in bed.”

“Happens to the best of us. And it’s not like you’re breaking any commandments. You’re still married to her, after all.”

Thanks for telling me about that by the way, he thought to add, but ultimately held himself back. 

“Yeah. I'm sneaking around behind my kid's back with his mother.”

“Isamu doesn't know?” Dazai asked.

“I don't know what he knows,” Chuuya shook his head. “Kids sense these things, right? The other day, she slept over while Isamu stayed with my grandma and I made her sneak out so he wouldn't see her there when my grandma brought him back earlier than I thought she would.”

No matter how ridiculous the situation was, Dazai felt the need to justify Chuuya’s actions. “You’re trying to protect your kid. I mean, she ran out on him, right?”

Chuuya shook his head again. “I ran out first. I ran out on both of them. See, when Isamu was first diagnosed I was in Afghanistan. Right at the end of my tour. Instead of going back home… I reenlisted. I told myself it was to pay the bills, but…”

“But you were running away, too.”

“Yeah,” Chuuya nodded. “But I got to pretend like it was for a noble cause. When Erica broke, nobody thought she was a hero. She just got called evil.”

Dazai still felt that what Erica had done had been worse, considering that she had gone no contact with her son for two years and most likely hadn’t even sent Chuuya money to help, but he still lacked many of the details to judge clearly. Besides, it didn’t feel like that was something Chuuya needed to hear at that moment. 

“And now she wants to get back in his life, right?” he asked instead. 

“Yeah.”

“So why don't you let her? Seems like she's already back in yours.”

“That's... that's what's got me confused,” Chuuya almost muttered. “Would I be doing it for Isamu or for me? I guess sex complicates everything.”

“Tell me about it,” Dazai chuckled, humorlessly. 

There were numerous questions he wanted to ask, but before anything else could be said, they both spotted Isamu making his way towards them, accompanied by a woman dressed as an elf.

“How'd it go, ‘Samu?” Chuuya asked with the smile he only reserved for his son.

“It went great,” Isamu replied, excitedly. 

“So what'd you ask for?” Chuuya tried.

“Can't tell.” Isamu shook his head. “Santa said he'd work on it.”

Dazai chuckled as Chuuya made a few more attempts to convince his son to reveal the big secret. Before long though, he gave up, picking Isamu up to carry him to the car. The boy had been walking around on his own for more than two hours, so he didn’t complain about it.

Dazai went to follow behind them when the woman dressed as an elf spoke to him. 

“You two have an adorable son.”

“Um…” Dazai blinked at her for a moment. He looked back at the retreating figures of Chuuya and Isamu and then back at her. It wasn’t outrageous for someone to make such an assumption about them. Dazai of one week prior wouldn’t have even thought about it too deeply before dismissing it. But in the light of the conversation they had just had, Dazai’s feelings were in turmoil. 

Dazai wasn’t part of their family. Chuuya had already let his wife back into his life and he was soon going to let her into Isamu’s life too. Dazai should be happy about that, right? And in a way he was. The feeling of being unwanted by your parents was one he was a bit too familiar with, and Isamu was such a bright boy with a soft heart, he wouldn’t wish for him to learn it. 

No, it was good that Isamu’s mother wanted to return to his life. That was what was best for the boy. And wouldn’t it also be best for Chuuya? He had clearly struggled as a single parent, it would be great for him to have a co-parent, someone he could rely on and share the struggles of parenthood with. The fact that he hadn’t even tried to divorce her must have meant that he had never stopped loving her. The rekindling of their relationship could only be a good thing, right?

“Thank you.” He smiled at the woman. There was no point in correcting her and making her feel awkward. 

When Chuuya asked him if he wanted to follow them back to their house for dinner, Dazai declined, even if it broke his heart to see Isamu’s disappointed little face. It wouldn’t be good for him to get so attached to them. He had thought it was fine when Chuuya had seemed just as lonely as he had, but evidently, that wasn’t the case anymore, if it had ever been.

Dazai sat curled up on Kouyou’s couch. The apartment was silent save for the sound of the clock above Dazai’s head. It kept ticking and ticking and time kept passing and passing but Dazai’s heart stayed in the same state, the one it had been in since the day he was born. There wasn’t anything he could do to fix it, hadn’t he already come to terms with that? 

Hoping for something one could not have was beyond idiotic.

His phone buzzed with a notification. He unlocked it to find a text from Ailey asking if he wanted to do anything the following day. Dazai kind of wanted to stay in and think about how miserable his life was, but, in the end, he decided to send back a positive reply. 

Thomas had told him that love was something one should build, that you don’t just come across it. Dazai wanted to try still, even if he knew he would fail. At least he would have something to do in the meantime. Something to kill time with until the inevitable day of his death.

Chapter Text

Chuuya wasn’t sure how things ended up like that.

The kiss he had shared with Erica at the parking lot of Isamu’s new school had caught him completely off guard. Perhaps it shouldn’t have, though. Every person in his life who knew that he had never attempted to ask Erica for a divorce would most likely tell him that it was inevitable, that he had never gotten over her to begin with.

And Chuuya hadn’t, right? He still loved her, he was sure. He had missed her every holiday when she wasn’t there with him and their son, he had longed to have her next to him when Isamu had had to go through another surgery, he had never even looked at another woman with any kind of desire. He was almost sure that there could be no one else for him, no one he could share that kind of intimacy and closeness with. 

Erica rolled off him and laughed, pushing him away. She had always complained that his body was way too warm after sex and she couldn’t stay too close to him for long.

“Oh, we suck at this,” she said, fanning herself with her hands. 

Chuuya wanted to pull her close to him again, to enjoy a few more moments of closeness, but Erica batted his hand away when he turned to his side and tried to wrap one arm around her waist.

“Really? You seemed like you were having a good time.”

She rolled her eyes. “You know what I mean. We say we're gonna talk and work things out, but we just keep ending up like this.”

The previous evening too, Erica had asked if she could come over to talk about Isamu. Their son had spent the day at his great grandmother’s house and the woman hadn’t refused when Chuuya had called to ask if it was possible she could bring him home the following day instead of after dinner. Erica had shown up at his door with a bottle of wine and there had been no talk about anything at all.

“It's a different way of working things out,” Chuuya tried. 

He knew they had to talk. They couldn’t go on without doing so, yet he kept taking any opportunity to avoid the conversation. Erica had always gotten easily distracted by sex. Chuuya only had to lean in to kiss her once and she would immediately forget all about what she wanted to talk to him about and climb onto his lap instead. Was it unfair that Chuuya kept taking advantage of that? Perhaps. But Erica wasn’t complaining about it, and she certainly was smart enough to realize his strategy after almost two months of it.

She rolled over to half lie on top of him. Her breasts felt cold where they touched Chuuya’s chest. She let out a noise of complaint that Chuuya understood as ‘you’re still too warm,’ but she didn’t try to get away from him again. Chuuya happily wrapped an arm around her to pull her closer.

“You're getting the tree today?” she mumbled against his chest. Her breath tickled him, causing him to momentarily shake.

“Mm-hmm.” He nodded his head. “The annual tradition of convincing him that, no, a sixteen-foot tree does not fit in the house.”

Erica chuckled before admitting, “You know, I caved one year. That last Christmas before you got back. He hadn't been feeling well, and… we missed you. When Isamu looked up at that giant tree, I couldn't say no.”

“Where'd you put it?”

“The backyard.”

“Really?”

She hummed. “But we didn't have enough ornaments to cover it, so we just loaded it up with lights and ribbon. And I got the sleeping bags out, and we laid under it, just staring up at the branches for hours.”

Chuuya could picture it. Christmas had always been Isamu’s favorite time of the year. He could sit for hours staring at the Christmas lights and playing with the ornaments on the tree.

“He must have loved that.”

“He did,” Erica said with a smile. 

“You know, he still won't tell me what he wants for Christmas. I've tried everything.”

“Did you take him to see Santa?”

Chuuya’s reaction was instinctive. “You mean the creepy guy at the mall with a fake beard? Hell no.”

“Oh, my God,” Erica laughed loudly. “You still haven't let that go. Look, just because you got scared and threw up all over Santa, that doesn't mean—”

“First off,” Chuuya cut her off. “It was very wrong of my grandma to tell you that story. And second, no. I wasn't scared. I… The old guy smelled bad, and I had a stomach flu.”

Erica laughed even louder. “Really? Two years in a row you had the stomach flu? Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Chuuya replied with a giggle of his own. He couldn’t remember the last time things had been so perfect. He had missed talking and bantering with Erica. He had missed when they would spend time together and it wouldn’t end up in a blown out fight. He had missed having her close and hearing her laugh and not worrying about what his role was and what he should be doing.

“Daddy!”

The sound of that voice violently shattered the moment. In just a blink of an eye, the woman lying on top of him went from being his best friend to being his estranged wife. 

“Chuuya? Are you here?” His grandmother’s voice followed the chorus of daddy’s.

Both Erica and Chuuya hurried to put their clothes back on.

“Why is he here?” Erica asked, almost tripping as she put on her skirt. “I thought she wouldn’t bring him back until after noon?”

That had been the plan, but Chuuya didn’t have the time to argue. “I'll distract them. You-you head out from the back door.”

“Whoa, w-wait.

“What?

Erica stared at him like he was crazy. “You want me to sneak out? That's our son out there. Look, we've been trying to figure out how to tell him. Maybe this is the moment.”

“Daddy. Daddy. Dad?” Isamu’s voice was coming closer. 

Chuuya hurried to fix his hair, yelling a quick, “Coming!” at the door before he turned to look at Erica one last time. “This is not the moment, okay? You have to go. Please, you have to go.”

He opened the door and immediately swept his son into his arms, leading him to the living room where his grandmother was tidying up the couch. 

“How is my superman doing?” he asked him before adding,“Thought you were supposed to have lunch at baa-chan’s house?”

His grandmother smiled. “Oh, he was so excited about decorating that he couldn't wait to get home.” She stopped to stare at the two empty glasses of wine at the coffee table. “Did you have company?”

“What?” Chuuya stared down at the glasses. He had completely forgotten about them. “Oh, you know, I'm not the best housekeeper.”

It was clear that his grandmother didn’t believe him, but, thankfully, she didn’t push him for an honest answer. 

Chuuya heard the back door closing and hurried to cover the sound. “Hey, show me what you got there.” He pointed at the shopping bag by the couch.

Isamu proudly held up two small Christmas trees, one slightly bigger than the other.

His grandmother pointed to the bigger tree and then at the smaller one and said, “He told me that this is daddy and this is him.”

“Yeah?” Chuuya couldn’t keep the cheesy smile out of his face. He leaned forward to hug his son, the two trees that represented them squeezed between them.

He would do anything to protect the happiness of this kid.

The LAFD annual toy drive was supposed to be a nice break from usual work. Chuuya had been kind of excited about the event, even if he knew that, as the newest member of the team, he would be assigned to the least fun task. 

Still, it wasn’t actually that bad. His cheeks were starting to hurt from all the fake smiles he was giving to the adults coming to hand in presents to donate, but Dazai was always either close enough to offer some entertainment or far enough that Chuuya could enjoy the sight of him in his stupid Christmas hat without having to listen to his teasing.

He heard Dazai’s chuckle from his right side and knew that if he turned around he would be met with another joking remark about his boring role. Just when he was about to give in to the urge and turn to look at him though, a woman he was far too familiar with approached him, holding a big toy box.

“Erica? What are you doing here?” he asked her. He was distantly aware of the dread filling his voice.

“You won't answer my texts or return my calls.” She almost threw the box at him instead of handing it over. 

“This is not the place,” Chuuya desperately tried to stop her. The fire station was supposed to be his safe place, he didn’t want this part of his life to intrude there too. He knew it hadn’t been wise to ignore Erica after she had started being more adamant about letting her see Isamu, but had desperately wanted to avoid the confrontation as long as possible.

By the look on his wife’s face, he knew the time had come whether he wanted to or not.

“Maybe it's the perfect place. We can actually have a conversation that doesn't end up with us in bed.”

…

Her choice of words in front of his coworkers made the situation even more mortifying than he had imagined it. He briefly turned to glance at Dazai and Kouyou and caught them averting their gazes away and pretending to be busy with their task.

Urgently, he turned back to Erica. “Follow me,” he beckoned, leading her to the changing room. He closed the door behind them in an effort to get even a semblance of privacy in this station where nothing ever stayed secret for long.

“I can't do this here, not now.”

“Then where and when?” Erica almost yelled. “It's been almost two months, and right now, I feel even further away from him and from you than I ever did when we weren't speaking. Are you ever gonna let me see Isamu?”

“Of course. Eventually,” he attempted to calm things down. Obviously, with Erica, he always said the wrong thing.

She laughed bitterly. “Does he know that I'm here? In L.A.?”

“I didn't want to confuse him. Not until I was sure.”

“Of me? Because you seemed pretty sure when we started having sex again.”

Chuuya didn’t like the implication of that. “Is that how you see this? Some transaction? What, you sleep with me so I let you see Isamu?” 

Erica scoffed, like she always did when she thought Chuuya had said something utterly ridiculous. “I thought it was a reconciliation. Right up until the moment when... you hid me from our son.”

“I didn't know what else to do!” Chuuya rushed to defend himself. He still wasn’t sure why he had done it, but at that moment, the thought of letting Erica back into his son’s life just for her to walk out again after he inevitably disappointed her once more had overtaken his more logical thoughts. “I didn't know what else to do,’ he repeated, slightly more calm. “And I'm not keeping you from our son like some kind of punishment.”

Erica stared at him for a few moments. Chuuya wondered if she believed him. He wondered if any of their happy moments in the past few weeks had been real or if she had only tried to appease him to get him to let her back into Isamu’s life.

“Whatever I need to do to prove myself and to fix things, name it. I am there. But you and me and hiding it from him? That is starting to make everything feel… more broken.”

Chuuya shook his head. He didn’t know what he was doing. He didn’t know what he was supposed to do. There was no guide anywhere for him to read and understand what the right thing to do was.

“You keep looking at me like I have the answers. I don't.”

“No. Just the power, ” She stated. “I'm the one who screwed up, the one who left. I know I don't get to have a say. So I'm following your lead. But... where are we going? When will you be able to forgive me?”

“I can forgive you. I'm just not sure I can trust you.”

It all came back to that. He could understand why Erica had left, he could even sympathize with her. He had loved her for so long, it wasn’t that hard to forgive her. But trusting her? Trusting that she wouldn’t hurt their son again? That part was much harder. He wasn’t sure if he would ever go to sleep at night without fearing that he would wake up to another letter letting him know that Erica had left.

Erica left the station not long after, with another plea for him to finally make a decision. He both didn’t feel qualified to make it and didn’t want anyone else to make it for him. 

Needless to say, the conversation with Kouyou and Dazai that followed was awkward beyond belief. Even more so because Dazai didn’t attempt to make a joke about the reveal or tease him about his predicament. Chuuya noticed that he was strangely quiet afterwards too, enough that it almost distracted Chuuya from the turmoil of his own mind.

With only a few days left before Christmas and with no clear answer from Isamu about what he really wanted as a gift, Chuuya decided to give in and take him to a Christmas park nearby to see Santa as a last resort. He wasn’t sure if Dazai had been avoiding him for the past week or if Chuuya saw enemies everywhere, but, either way, he texted the man to invite him to join them that evening. (Certainly not for moral support.)

The three of them spent two hours seeing everything the park had to offer. Dazai kept buying them snacks and picking up Isamu whenever the boy wanted to see something from higher up.

“Wow it’s so tall up here,” Isamu hard remarked the first time.

"Yeah, I bet you've never seen this view before with Chuuya as your father,” Dazai had said, wiggling his eyebrows at Chuuya.

"I would knock you down if you didn't have my son on your shoulders." 

Chuuya would have loved for all their conversations that evening to follow that route, but, for some reason, the moment they were alone for the first time, he was the one to bring up the elephant in the room. 

“And now she wants to get back in his life, right?” Dazai asked after Chuuya’s attempt at explaining himself.

“Yeah.”

“So why don't you let her? Seems like she's already back in yours.”

Those words followed him into the night. He was still thinking about them while tucking Isamu in.

He had just given his son a kiss goodnight on his forehead when Isamu asked, “Dad, is Santa real?”

“Hmm?” 

“Is Santa real?”

“Why?” Chuuya was instantly alarmed once he understood that he hadn’t misheard him. “Did someone say he wasn't? What do you think? Do you think he's real?”

Isamu nodded. “W-When you were gone, I asked Santa for you to come back, and you did.”

The pain in his chest that he knew would never heal, the one that followed after every reminder that he had wasted years being away from his son, came back tenfold. 

“When I was in Afghanistan?” Isamu nodded, and the pain intensified. “You know, buddy, Christmas wishes aren't like birthday wishes. You can say them out loud and they'll still come true.”

“Really?” his son asked, hesitantly.

“Yeah, really.”

Isamu’s voice came out hushed. “I asked him to find Mom. Will he?” 

“He's sure gonna try.”

Chuuya knew what he had to do.

On Christmas day, Isamu was already jumping on his bed at seven A.M.

“Dad! Dad? Wake up! It's Christmas!”

Chuuya managed to get five minutes of cuddling his son in bed before he was forced to get up to open the presents with him. The morning was filled with laughter and smiles, yet Chuuya knew that there was something missing for the both of them. When he got the text that had been waiting for, he rushed Isamu to put his coat on.

“Come on, buddy. There’s one last present left for you.”

“Really? What is it?”

“Let’s go outside and you’ll find out, yeah?”

Isamu was young enough that he didn’t question him further and excitedly followed him outside. The moment his eyes fell on the woman waiting for him at the porch wearing a white and red sweater, Chuuya knew that the missing piece had been found for at least one of them.

“Mommy! Mommy!” Isamu jumped into his mother’s arms.

“Oh, merry Christmas, baby.” Erica held him close, leaving kisses all over his face. “I missed you so much.”

“I knew Santa could do it again.”

The four months that followed were some of the best of Chuuya’s life. Isamu was thriving with both his parents in his life, it was hard not to share in his joy. Although Erica lived in her own apartment, Isamu got to spend most of the evenings and nights that Chuuya was working with his mother. Whenever Chuuya had the weekend off, the three of them often went to the beach together, even if the weather was not yet warm enough for a swim. 

The sign Chuuya had been waiting for came on one of those days.

“Look at him,” he smiled, looking at Isamu building his third sand castle near the water. Chuuya and Erica were sitting on a beach towel a few feet away from him. Erica was wearing the pink floral dress he had chosen for her a few weeks prior when the three of them had gone shopping together.

“Our son seems happy,” she said, voicing his thoughts. 

“I swear, that kid was born happy.”

Erica chuckled. “I have no idea where he gets it.”

Chuuya gasped, faking offence. “From me.”

“You?” Erica laughed. “Mr. Broody?”

“Who’s broody?” Chuuya questioned, putting his best brooding face on. “Well, hopefully he gets your brains. He can't get by just on my good looks.”

“Nice. Good one.” Erica rolled her eyes.

Chuuya turned his eyes back on their son and he felt Erica do the same. Isamu waved at them and pointed to his castles excitedly. Chuuya gave him a big thumbs up, feeling his chest fill with warmth.

“He loves having you around,” he told Erica, still staring at their son.

“Does he?” 

Erica’s tone was uncertain, Chuuya felt the need to reassure her even more.

“We both do.” He turned to smile at her and leaned in to softly kiss her lips.

“Chuuya,” Erica chuckled awkwardly. “What are we doing?”

Chuuya leaned back on his hands, putting some distance between them. “What do you mean?”

“I need to know what you want.”

Chuuya hesitated a moment before saying, “I want this” —he pointed to their son and then at them — “I want to have a nice day on the beach with my son and his mother.”

“Okay. So... is that what I am to you? Isamu's mother? Because, hey, if that's what it is, it's fine. I just… I need to know.”

“Erica…” Chuuya felt himself starting to panic but he swallowed it down before it could consume him. “I don’t know. These last months have been good. Really good. I don’t know… I guess I’m waiting for a sign. Something… to know which way to step.”

Although the two of them had been spending more time together than they did before Erica reunited with Isamu, Chuuya was still unsure about where their relationship was going. They acted like a couple when Isamu was around and they kissed goodbye when Erica would leave to go back to her place, yet Chuuya could barely remember the last time they had had sex. Perhaps they had reverted back to how married couples were? Only having sex every few weeks? Chuuya hadn’t found himself missing it. He was happy with having Erica as a constant in his life again.

“I think I might be pregnant,” Erica blurted out. 

And if that wasn’t the sign Chuuya had been waiting for, what was?

“9-1-1 what’s your emergency?”

“Quick! Send help! It’s- it’s my wife. She- Oh my God. Oh god, please be okay.”

“Sir, I’m gonna need you to tell me what happened to your wife.”

“B-bomb. There was a bomb.”

Fukuchi was once again the police officer who greeted them at the scene, giving them the information they needed. “Mail bomb. Wife's in rough shape, but she's still in one piece. The house hasn't been cleared yet. Bomb squad's still a couple of minutes out.” 

“Copy that,” Fukuzawa told him, briefly patting his arm before turning back to his team. “Let's move!”

“Here!” A middle aged man yelled at them urgently from the doorstep. “She's not breathing! I tried talking to her, but she wouldn't answer.” 

“She can't hear you 'cause her eardrums are blown out,” Fukuzawa informed the husband of the victim, lightly pushing him back. “All right, let's turn her.”

Kunikida and Kouyou rushed to follow the instruction. Kouyou gave her assessment soon after.

“Breathing's shallow. We're looking at a bilateral pneumothorax. If we don't release the pressure, she could suffocate.”

“Get some fentanyl, slow drip,” Kunikida followed up, cutting the woman’s shirt off with the pair of scissors Chuuya handed him. “Four-inch catheter, ten-gauge.”

Once Fukuzawa was sure his paramedics had everything under control he turned back to the rest of them. “All right, Dazai and Chuuya, there could be a secondary device. We need to get everyone off the X.” He pointed discreetly to the husband.

“Sir, is there anyone else in the house?” Dazai asked the guy, moving to grasp one of his arms. Chuuya joined him and grabbed the other one.

“No, no. Is she gonna make it?” The man tried to resist their pull. “Please, please, please tell me she's gonna make it.”

“Why don't you come with us? We can check you out,” Chuuya tried, pushing him back harder. He felt Dazai do the same.

“No, no, no, it’s our anniversary. She has to know that-that we weren't just going out to dinner. I had tickets for us to Fiji!”

“You can tell her yourself later, I promise.” 

Chuuya and Dazai managed to push him back to a safe distance just in time for the bomb squad to arrive. Once the woman was stabilized enough for transport, Kouyou yelled for the two of them to come help move her. The victim’s husband ran after the gurney and jumped into the ambulance the moment his wife was in, immediately taking her hand into his.

“I'm here, sweetheart. I'm right here,” Chuuya heard him tell her. “I love you.”

The door of the ambulance closed and the siren started. Chuuya watched it drive away, unable to get the image of the man holding his wife’s charred hand and offering her soft reassurances. 

Once they were back at the station and found some free time for chores, Chuuya briefly slipped away, feeling the need to talk to his son and Erica. Erica picked up the video call right away.

“Hi!” Erica and Isamu said in unison, waving at him. They seemed to be sitting at a cafe outside. Chuuya couldn't help the big smile on his face as he waved back at them.

“We just had lunch with your”  —she turned the camera to show the older woman sitting next to them— “grandma.”

“Konbanwa.” His grandmother waved at him too.

“Konbanwa.”

Erica turned the camera back to her and their son. “And now, we're gonna get some…”

“Ice cream!” Isamu shouted excitedly.

“Ice cream?” Chuuya chuckled. “Well, I do not envy you putting him to sleep tonight.”

“When I call you later to complain, just don't say I told you so?”

“All right, I’ll try,” he replied. He could hear Dazai lurking behind him, most likely with a cloth and cleaning agent in his hands, so he waved again at the two of them and said, “Alright, I have to go. I love you.”

“We love you!” Erica and Isamu chorused back.

“Ooh! When's the wedding?” Dazai asked as he handed him the spray bottle. Chuuya started spraying the glass window and Dazai followed with the wipe.

“We're already married,” Chuuya argued absentmindedly before pausing, suddenly reconsidering things. “Wait. We don't have to get married again, do we?”

Dazai snorted. “Talk to Fukuzawa. Maybe he can get you guys a discount.”

Chuuya, when he was being rational, obviously knew that he didn’t have to marry Erica again. The two of them were already married, he just had to remember to wear his wedding ring whenever he was off work. His finger felt a bit weird carrying the weight again, but Chuuya was sure he would get used to it. He had made a point of wearing it that night as he sat across from his wife at the too fancy for his paycheck roof restaurant and presented her a box of her favorite chocolates.

“Voilà.”

Erica gasped and reached forward to take the box. “Ooh, Chuuya, I love these.” Although Chuuya noticed that she wasn’t wearing her ring, he didn’t let it deter him. “So is this some kind of Forrest Gump reference? Life is like a box of chocolates?”

Chuuya thought back to the guy they had had to rescue the previous day who had fallen into a vat of molten chocolate during a visit to a chocolate factory in his effort to taste some of it. Dazai had almost fallen in too while they struggled to pull him out.

“Actually, life is like a vat of molten chocolate. Sometimes you... you fall into it, it drags you down, but it's... it's warm, you know? It-It's... and it's... It's sweet.” Chuuya struggled to find his words. He had planned to be far more eloquent during the conversation. 

“This is a very weird metaphor,” Erica laughed. She was wearing silver earrings, even though Chuuya always remembered her preferring gold.

He shook his head. He had to focus on what he had to say.

“When you came back into our lives, I was so glad. And afraid. I knew Isamu missed you, but I-I… I don't think I realized just… how much I did, too.”

“Chuuya, I think…”

“Please, just let me say this,” Chuuya stopped her. He had to get the words out before he lost the courage. “We were so young the first time. You know, young and not ready. But we had this amazing kid. Being his dad has been the single greatest joy of my life. And that little boy has taught me more about being a man than war ever did.”

“You're a good dad. You're a great dad,” Erica reassured him right away.

“Well, if I am, it's because he deserves it.”

“Yeah,” she nodded. Chuuya reached forward to hold her hand, the one that her wedding band should have been on and squeezed it.

“But he deserves his mommy, too. He loves his mommy. So do I. I want us to be a family again. I wished for a sign. And I got one.”

He expected Erica to turn her hand around to hold his properly. To squeeze it back and agree with him. It was what she wanted too, right? This time, they could do everything right.

Instead, Erica pulled her hand back. “I'm not pregnant,” the words rushed out of her mouth.

“What?” The weight of the ring on his left hand suddenly felt unimaginably heavy.

“I'm not... pregnant. I... I was just late. I freaked out, and then, I freaked you out, too, and I'm sorry. That's got to be a relief, right?”

Chuuya didn’t give himself time to really process it. 

“It... it doesn't change a thing,” he rushed to say. He felt like he had to hold her hand again to reassure her but Erica had left both her hands resting on her lap.

“It does for me.”

“What?”

Erica started talking. Although her tone was hesitant, there was enough certainty in her choice of words that Chuuya could tell this was a speech she had prepared herself to make. “I wrote this letter a few years ago right after I left, or, actually, after I… didn't come back… to Isamu… trying to explain why I couldn't be there. And I figured that if, for some reason, I never found my way back, that he'd want answers. And he needed to know that… it wasn't his fault. That his mother didn't leave because she didn't love him. She left because she did. I never sent it, obviously. And then, when I found out today that I wasn't pregnant, I took that letter out, I read it. Chuuya, I never want to have to send that letter.”

“Why would you ever?”

Chuuya moved his hands under the table too, squeezing them into fists. Erica’s eyes were tearing up.

“Because if I try to do this again before I'm ready, there won't be a second chance. I can't fail him again, or you, and I won't.” She jerkingly wiped a stray tear away before continuing, “I'm still learning how to be someone's mother. And after that, maybe I can learn how to be someone's wife.”

Chuuya was wearing his wedding ring. He had worn his best suit and had paid extra attention to his hair. He had asked his aunt to have Isamu for the night and he had brought his wife to an expensive restaurant that he knew she would like. They were sitting surrounded by candles and flowers and happy looking couples talking quietly to each other. 

“We're still married,” he told her, like she could have forgotten. 

“I think we should get a divorce.”

Chuuya returned home alone with the card of Erica’s divorce lawyer in the pocket of his dress pants. He sat on the couch, hugging one of Isamu's plushies that he had left there, and didn’t take the card out. Maybe if he never added the lawyer’s number in his contract it wouldn’t become real. If he never acknowledged it he wouldn’t have to come to terms with his utter failure. 

He squeezed the plushie tighter. His mind went to the conversation he had overheard his parents having just a day before his wedding with Erica.

“I mean, he got her pregnant. This is the right thing to do, but…”

“But you don’t think it’s going to last.”

“Do you?”

“Well, Chuuya likes her. I’m not sure he loves her. But he can learn to love her.”

“Let’s hope he does. Let’s hope that’s going to be enough.”

Chuuya could only imagine what they were going to tell him when he admitted to them that they had been right all along. That he had loved Erica and it still hadn’t been enough to keep her. His parents had never liked her as his wife, they had never liked her as Isamu’s mother either. Both of them had sounded skeptical when Chuuya had told them over the phone that he was letting Erica back into his and his son’s life. He could only hope that this time she wouldn’t leave both of them.

“9-1-1, what's your emergency?”

“A car just drove through a crowd of people at a crosswalk! It looks really bad!”

“Where are you?”

“Rose Avenue.”

The driver responsible for the accident was a woman in a red car. She seemed to have crashed into the side of a black car right after running some people over at the crosswalk. When they arrived at the scene the driver of the black car had already come out of the car on their own while the driver of the red car was still inside hers, seemingly in shock.

“All right, make way! LAFD!” Fukuzawa yelled as they made their way between the group of people that had gathered at the scene. Most of them were surrounding the people hit at the crosswalk so Chuuya couldn’t take a good look there to see how many were badly injured. 

“All right, Kouyou, triage the minor injuries. Kunikida, you’re with me. Dazai and Chuuya, check the driver,” Fukuzawa instructed. 

Chuuya followed Dazai to the red car, opening the door on the driver’s side to take a look at her. Dazai went to the other side and slided to the seat next to her.

“Ma'am, can you hear me?” Chuuya asked, opening his bag with the necessary supplies.

“I, um…I tried to stop, but I didn't see any of them. Are they okay?”

“We're taking care of the others,” Dazai reassured her. “Right now, we need to see if you're okay.”

“Um, m-my neck hurts. Oh God.”

Chuuya had already gotten the cervical collar out of the bag.

“Okay, ma'am, we're gonna put this on you as a precaution until the doctors at the hospital can check you out,” he told her as he carefully put it on her with Dazai’s help.

“Th-There was a lady. Is-is she all right?”

Dazai got out of the car and looked towards the direction of the crosswalk. People must have cleared away enough that he could take a better look at it. Chuuya was about to ask the woman a follow up question when he noticed Dazai freeze as he stared ahead.

“Dazai? What's going on?” he asked, confused. 

He stopped crunching down and turned his head to look in the same direction.

“Chuuya—”

Dazai tried to stop him, but it was too late. Chuuya had seen her.

It was a sunny day. There was a woman in a yellow blouse lying unmoving at the crosswalk. 

“Chuuya. Chuuya, wait. Chuuya…” 

Chuuya pushed Dazai back and ran to her, kneeling by her side. Her eyes were open but unfocused. She blinked up at him in clear confusion.

“Chuuya, let me handle this,” Kunikida put a hand on his arm but didn’t push him away.

“How bad is it?” He had to ask. He had to know.

“It's bad.”

“Spinal injury?”

“Maybe worse.”

The woman’s eyes seemed to focus for a second. She stared at him in recognition, still unmoving.

“Erica, hey.”

“Hey. Are you here?” Her voice sounded strange. Chuuya wasn’t sure he would have recognized it if he hadn’t been staring straight at her.

“I'm here,” he reassured her. He was afraid to touch her, terrified that he would somehow make her injuries worse. At that moment, all his qualifications and experiences were forgotten.

“God. This is so embarrassing,” she muttered. Chuuya was sure she would have laughed if she had had the strength. 

“Vitals trending downward,” he distantly heard Kouyou say from Erica’s other side.

“All right, let's get her on the backboard! Get her transported, now!” Fukuzawa’s voice followed.

Chuuya stayed staring at the blood stain on the concrete for a few seconds after Erica had been lifted up and transported to the gurney. The sun burned on his back and his ring finger felt empty. He abruptly turned around and ran to the ambulance.

“I'm riding with her,” he declared to Fukuzawa who was standing right outside of it.

“She's decompensating. We got to intubate her,” Kunikida yelled.

“Chuuya.” Fukuzawa blocked his path and stared at him right in the eyes. “We put that tube in, there's a good chance it never comes back out.”

Chuuya’s vision was blurring. He couldn’t let a word out as he stared back at Fukuzawa.

“Kunikida, stop. Do not intubate. Not yet.”

“Captain…”

“I know. He knows. Get in there and say goodbye to your wife.”

Chuuya climbed into the ambulance and sat down next to her. He took her hand into both of his. He could hear someone shutting the door closed behind them and the sirens starting to blare as the ambulance moved but he could only focus on the woman lying on the gurney that he was far too familiar with.

“I don't feel anything. That can't be good, right?” Erica cried. She had more and more trouble speaking. “Leaving again. I'm so sorry. I'd love... a little more time.”

“Just be silent,” Chuuya told her, squeezing her hand. Erica would never have the strength to squeeze his back. “I love you so much. Isamu loves you so much.”

“I… love you… both.” Erica barely managed to get the words out. The heart monitor beeped in alarm.

“Kunikida, go,” he heard someone say as he was gently pushed back.

“Intubating.”

He stood there and watched as his wife got intubated. He saw the life of the once energetic bubbly girl he had loved die down. Chuuya had watched plenty of people die before, yet it had never felt quite so sudden. It happened too fast. He knew as Kunikida and Kouyou kept performing CPR, as they reached the hospital and handed her over to the doctors, he knew. He knew that it was all in vain, that Erica would never open her eyes again. That she would never witness Isamu grow up. He wanted to stop it, more than he had wanted anything in the world, but he knew he couldn’t. There was nothing that could be done anymore.

The hospital staff let him see her one last time after she was declared dead. The tubes were still there and Chuuya hated that he was always going to remember her like this. Covered in tubes and smelling of blood in her yellow blouse that looked too bright in the cold hospital room. Someone handed it to him in a bag later, along with the rest of Erica’s belongings that she had had with her. Chuuya wanted to throw it all away, to never look at it, he wanted to hold it close and smell her scent before it disappeared forever.

Dazai drove him to his grandmother’s house where Isamu was, joined by Hana. Chuuya had already called to let the two women know but he knew he had to be the one to tell his son. Dazai asked if he wanted him to stay but Chuuya had shook his head no. He watched Dazai drive away and only when he couldn’t see his car anymore he walked to the door. 

He would never forget Isamu’s face that day. 

He hadn’t even turned eight yet. He was too young to experience that pain. Chuuya couldn’t protect him from it. He could do nothing but hold him close and let him cry in his arms.

After Isamu had finally gone to sleep, Chuuya took his aunt’s car and drove to the beach, to the last place the tree of them had gone together. He sat down on the sand and read the letter that he had found in Erica’s belongings.

Dear Isamu, 

I'm sure you're wondering where I am. Or maybe not. You're so young. Maybe you've already adapted to a world without me. I hope for that and fear it at the same time. Please know that I love you and I want all the best things in life for you. But I'm starting to think that I'm not one of those things. At least, not right now. I've made a lot of mistakes. They weigh on me. Some days, it feels like they're gonna pull me under. Some days, I wish they would. And that scares me. Not for myself but for you. You are a beautiful, amazing boy. I want your life to be happy and free and full of joy. And I'm not sure that's possible with me in it. It's okay to hate me for leaving. I will understand if you never forgive me. But always know that I love you, baby. Even if it's from a distance.

Love, your mommy

The day after Erica’s funeral all of Chuuya’s family members that had flown to L.A. gathered at his grandmother’s house for a meal. Although Chuuya appreciated that so many people had travelled a long way to support them, he would have preferred a quiet day in a room alone with his emotions. On the other hand, Isamu seemed distracted by the company of the cousins he hadn’t seen in almost a year, so Chuuya tried his best to be patient. 

He still escaped to the comfort of his grandmother’s kitchen after the meal was done, absentmindedly watching the news.

“Hello, everybody,” the reporter on screen said. “Thanks for spending your afternoon with us today. Angelenos woke up a little bit on edge this morning after a second package bomb has exploded in the Southland in as many days. Now, the first victim, Miranda Filson, she's a criminal defense attorney from South Pasadena, and somehow survived the blast. The second victim, a retired insurance adjustor, is clinging to life at this very hour. Authorities are urging the public to stay vigilant. If you see something, say something.”

Chuuya’s mind went back to that first victim and how distressed her husband had been. He was glad to learn of her survival, yet there was a bitter, unkind part of him that felt jealous that his own wife hadn’t had the same fate. Why did some people die while others lived? Who was the one that decided that? Erica had been young and healthy. She had so many things left to live for. Why was she the one crossing the street on that day at the hour? It had been the middle of the day. Chuuya hadn’t even known she had had the day off. Why hadn’t she gone to work? Where had she been going? Chuuya would never learn. He would never learn any new thing about his wife again.

“Chuuya, come outside. What are you doing here on your own?” His mother’s voice broke his daze. He hadn’t heard her come into the room.

“O-okay.” 

Chuuya followed her outside. He ruffled Isamu’s hair as he passed him by, smiling at the sight of him playing some kind of card game with his cousins, before joining his mother at the table she was sitting with his father, his grandmother and his aunt.

“He is growing up way too fast,” his mother sighed as she handed him a drink, looking at Isamu. “He was so brave yesterday at the funeral.” 

“Bravest kid I know,” Chuuya replied, no matter how much it pained him that his son had had to be brave in the first place.

“Yep, yep. Just like his father,” his mom smiled.

Chuuya didn’t like what her tone implied. “His mom was pretty brave, too,” he pointed out.

His father snorted. “How? By running out on him?” 

“Kensuke,” Chuuya’s grandmother immediately scolded her son.

“Dad, we're not doing this.”

“I apologize,” his dad had the decency to say. Chuuya doubted his sincerity, but it wasn’t the day to have an argument about it, not with Isamu sitting within hearing distance.

“Look, honey,” his mother used that tone of fake sympathetic voice that Chuuya knew that whatever followed would guarantee he wouldn’t be able to leave the conversation without getting angry. “We know Erica loved Isamu.” 

“ Of course, Mom.”

“Okay. But she's gone… and you are a single father, again. And the hours you work… Chuuya, come home.”

“To El Paso?”

“Texas has fires, too. You could join a department there,” his dad chimed in.

Chuuya shook his head in exasperation. “Dad. It's not that simple. I'm still a probationary firefighter. I'm so close to earning my shield. You want me to just throw away the last year of my life?” He stared at both his parents sitting across from him and it suddenly dawned on him. “Right. Is that why you all flew in here, huh? Not for the funeral, but to bring us back. Was that the plan?”

His mother didn’t even try to deny it. “Yeah, and we could help you. And Isamu would be close to family, and you could have a life there.” 

“We have a life here,” Chuuya pointed out, trying to keep his voice down. “ And family.”

“Thank you, Chuuya,” his aunt replied with a huff. She pointed to Chuuya’s grandmother sitting next to her. “We are sitting right here.” 

“I won't uproot him again,” Chuuya attempted to have the final word. Isamu was his son. He was the one making all the decisions about his life.

Obviously his dad wouldn’t respect his decisions so easily.

“Isamu hasn't been here long enough to put down roots... he spent the first six years of his life in El Paso, with us.” 

“Being with me is what's best for Isamu. I chose this life for a reason.”

“You can choose another one.” 

Chuuya didn’t entertain his father with another reply. He left his untouched drink back at the table and grabbed the chair he had been sitting on to move it next to his son. Isamu was all he needed. No matter how incapable his family thought he was of raising his own child, Chuuya would do it, alone.  

The first day back on shift brought Chuuya some relief. Fukuzawa had reassured him that he could take more time off if he needed to, but Chuuya had refused. He wanted to return to some semblance of normalcy as soon as possible.

That involved having Dazai following him around all shift, bombarding him with pictures of the new apartment he had just signed a lease for. If Chuuya had been the one helping him look for apartments instead of his girlfriend he would have advised him against loft apartments (seriously, how was that practical?), but since he hadn’t been involved in the decision making, he just nodded as Dazai listed the advantages of loft apartments.

All in all, the shift had felt relatively normal  —if one could ignore the looks of pity someone whose wife had died less than two weeks prior got— up until the point where Fukuchi showed up with a concerned look on his face.

Chuuya had been sitting on the couch, watching some soap opera on TV on low volume while Kunikida read his book next to him. Fukuzawa had been in the middle of cooking but abandoned it all at the sight of Fukuchi walking up to him in a hurry. 

“What happened?” he questioned.

Chuuya didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but the two men didn’t bother to move their conversation to a more private setting, so he didn’t have much of a choice. 

“Apparently I’m on the bomber’s mailing list,” Fukuchi said.

“What? You got sent one? Are you okay?” 

Chuuya saw Fukuzawa move closer to Fukuchi, as if to assess him for any injuries.

“I’m alright,” Fukuchi reassured him in a soft voice. The sound of Kunikida turning the pages of his book was suspiciously absent. “I was with Ranpo. He detected that the mailbox at the door was suspicious before I even spotted it and we called it in right away.”

“Thank God.” Fukuzawa let out a sigh of relief. “Are they sure it’s related to the other two bombings?”

Fukuchi nodded. “The bomb squad confirmed that the gold foil seems to be consistent. And it’s three bombings now.”

“Three?”

“There was another this morning. Vernon Clemmons. L.A. Superior Court judge.”

“You know him?” Fukuzawa asked.

“I've been in his courtroom more than once.”

“Is he okay?”

“Pronounced dead on the scene.”

There was a dire silence for a moment, as the two men seemed to understand the gravity of the events. Chuuya found himself lowering the volume of the TV even more.

Just as the conversation was resuming, a man Chuuya didn’t recognize walked up the stairs to the loft, rushing to where Fukuchi and Fukuzawa were standing.

“Sergeant Fukuchi, they told me I’d find you here,” the man said.

“Agent Boyd,” Fukuchi greeted him. “Do we have any new developments?”

The agent nodded. “Do you remember working on an arson case about five years back? It was a restaurant. Guillermo's.”

Fukuchi’s gaze immediately turned to Fukuzawa. “I, um... Agent Boyd, this is Captain Fukuzawa of LAFD. We worked on that case together.”

“It's the only time I've had to testify since I moved to L.A,”  Fukuzawa confirmed with a nod. “The owner was Victor Costas. He got eight years. He should still be in prison.”

“Well, he was released early, on account of he's dead,” the agent informed them. “About three months ago. Cancer.”

Realization seemed to dawn on Fukuzawa’s face.

“He had a wife and a kid. A teenager. And his son, Freddie I think? He was really angry when his father got arrested.”

“His father is dead. I wonder how angry he is now,” Fukuchi said.

Fukuzawa was visibly on edge after Fukuchi and the agent left. Kunikida filled him in on the story that seemed to be behind the bombings.

Five years in the past, right before Fukuzawa’s second divorce with Fukuchi (third overall), they had been called to a fire at a restaurant where the owner and his son had been trapped. Both of them had been rescued but the owner had been in rough shape, and Fukuzawa had had to reassure his teenage son that things were going to be alright. 

Usually that would be where the job of a firefighter ended, but since Fukuzawa had been married to a police sergeant, he had shared his concerns about the source of the fire with him and the two of them had discovered that it had been arson and not an accident. The owner, struggling to make ends meet with a lack of customers, had decided in a desperate moment to set the restaurant on fire so his family could start over using the money from the insurance. He hadn’t predicted his son returning to the restaurant to pick up the laptop he had forgotten after he had left earlier, so he had ran back in trying to rescue the boy.

The son had been angry, Kunikida stressed. He had seemed especially furious at Fukuzawa for promising him that things were going to be alright only to end up being the one putting his father in prison. If that boy  —a man at this point— was out attacking every person involved in the imprisonment of his father, he would certainly not leave Fukuzawa out of it.

They were on their way to a call, siren on blast, when a voice sounded from the radio.

“118, 118, this is Dispatch. Got Ranpo on the line. He says it's important.”

“Wait, what?” Chuuya heard Fukuzawa wonder before he spoke into his radio. “Dispatch? Dispatch, please repeat.”

There was abruptly a loud noise. 

Chuuya was familiar with the sound of explosions, he had learned not to flinch at the sound of them. Yet this time, looking back as the ladder truck that was driving behind the fire engine lit up in an explosion and fell sideways, Chuuya’s whole body shuddered.

The fire engine stopped and everyone jumped out in seconds. Chuuya was just about to run towards the fallen ladder truck when Kunikida held him back, pointing at a young looking man with what looked like a bomb wrapped around his chest making his way towards the truck.  

As the smoke started to clear, Chuuya could spot three out of the four people he knew had been riding in the vehicle lying on the ground a few feet away from it. One of them was attempting to crawl away.

“I told you not to move!” the man yelled. “Where is the captain?”

“Is that the guy? Freddie?” Kunikida asked their captain who nodded.

Chuuya’s eyes kept searching. He had seen Dazai getting in the passenger seat of the ladder truck, so where was he? Was he trapped inside the vehicle?

The smoke cleared some more. That was when Chuuya saw him. Dazai had been ejected from the ladder truck too, but unlike the rest of their crewmates, he seemed to be pinned under the truck.

Kunikida next to him gasped. “Looks like a crush injury. Those can be tricky. Hypovolemic shock. Hyperkalemia. We need to get him out of there soon.”

Chuuya took a step forward again, but Kunikida pulled him back once more. “You know we can’t go right now.”

Chuuya knew, yet he loathed every second that passed while he was just standing there doing nothing. Dazai, his friend, was lying on the street being crushed under a heavy vehicle and Chuuya couldn’t do anything about it.

Fukuzawa seemed to share some of his frustration. 

“Dispatch, this is the Captain of 118. What is the play? I’ve got people dying in the street.”

“Hold your position, 118,” the same dispatcher that had tried to warn them earlier said through the radio.

“Get me the captain!” Freddie yelled again, angrier. “Where's the captain?!”

Fukuzawa seemed ready to rush in to meet the guy head on when Fukuchi hurriedly ran to him, grabbing his arm. 

“Don’t even think about it, Yukichi,” he told him. There was obvious desperation in his voice.

Fukuzawa smiled at him gently before a look of determination took over his face. “I have to. I’m the one he is after. And I’m the captain. I can’t let my firefighter die under my watch.”

Fukuchi shook his head. “Let the bomb squad handle it. They’re still guessing the blast radius on that thing.”

“I love you,” Fukuzawa replied, shaking Fukuchi’s hand off his arm and rushing forward.

“Yukichi!” 

“Captain Fukuzawa!” Another police officer’s yell followed. “Don't confront him!”

“He wants me,” Fukuzawa shouted back as he approached Freddie.

“He wants you dead!”

“Captain Fukuzawa! Don’t do this!”

Fukuzawa ignored the rest of the shouts and continued forward, his arms raised in surrender as he yelled, “Freddie!”

Chuuya could hear the conversation that followed through his radio.

“Thought you'd be on the truck,” Freddie told him when he turned around and spotted him.

“I was on the fire engine. But I’m here now. What’s next? It's what you wanted.”

“I wanted you dead.”

“I get that. But what about them? What about him?” Fukuzawa pointed to Dazai, still trapped under the truck. “He has parents, a sister, a girlfriend, and he never did anything to you. He wasn't even a firefighter when your father burned down that restaurant.”

“Collateral damage,” Freddie replied.

Chuuya’s blood boiled. He heard Fukuchi next to him ask someone urgently on the phone, “How far away are you?”

Fukuzawa took a few steps closer to the guy. “Is that how you see yourself? An unintended victim in all this?”

“Stop.” Freddie raised the detonator he was holding higher. “One more step, we all go boom.”

“Freddie, you got dealt a bad hand, and I am sorry about that. But what you did with it… That's a choice. You stopped being a victim the moment you left that first bomb.”

“That lawyer! She—”

“Did her job. We were all doing our jobs.”

“ Destroying my family. My mom and I lost everything. She was in so much pain.”

Ranpo rushed to Fukuchi, holding a woman up by the arm. Fukuzawa’s gaze also seemed to notice their arrival.

“Want to make it worse?” He said louder. “You want to make her watch you die?”

“Freddie,” the woman cried out.

The man looked more like a boy at that moment, shuttering a broken mom as he turned and saw her. Fukuzawa took advantage of his momentary distraction and grabbed him from behind, fighting him to get the detonator out of his hand. 

In just a few seconds they were surrounded by multiple people in bulletproof jackets, pointing their guns at Freddie.

“Freeze! Freeze!”

“Don't move!”

“Dead-man's trigger,” Fukuzawa shouted, and one of them helped him get the detonator.

“All clear!” someone shouted. 

That was enough for Chuuya to finally run towards Dazai. Kunikida and Kouyou joined him in seconds, medical bags in hand. All three of them kneeled by his side to assess him.

“Still with us, Dazai?” Kouyou asked.

Dazai lifted his head slightly but didn’t reply. He was bleeding from the left side of his face and his eyes seemed unfocused.

“Dazai, how are we doing?” Kunikida prompted him too.

“Kind of numb,” Dazai mumbled. 

“I'm gonna run two lines,” Kunikida said.

Chuuya took hold of his arm to inspect it. “Skin is cold and pale.”

“All right. Push sodium bicarbonate,” Kouyou said. “Just hang in there, Dazai.”

“Hang on, Dazai,” Chuuya echoed, putting the cervical collar that Kunikida handed him on him.

“This is Captain 118,” he heard Fukuzawa say from next to them. “We've got a probable crush injury. I need all hands on deck to move this truck and clear a path to the nearest trauma center.” The captain then turned to them. “How is he doing?”

“We're out of time, Captain,” Kouyou replied honestly.

There wasn’t much else they could do for him there, so Chuuya stayed kneeled by his side, holding his cold hand.

Every firefighter on scene rushed to the truck after Fukuzawa’s call. They all took position, trying to get a good grip on the ladder that was attached to it.

“All right, let's try to lift this off him, yeah?” Fukuzawa urged them.

“Okay, okay, we got to try to lift this!”

“Get a hand on.”

“Come in! Come in! Come in!”

“Get some hands in here.”

“Let's lift this.”

“You ready? Hang in there, Dazai,” Fukuzawa told the man, before he turned back to every person who had gathered to help. “Ready! Lift!”

Dazai screamed and screamed as they attempted to lift the truck, his voice coming out rough and unrecognizable. Chuuya stayed by his side, holding his hand, both to reassure him and to be ready to pull him forward when the moment was right.

“Come on! Come on, come on!”

“Got to lift higher!”

They only managed to pull him forward a few inches before they had to lower the truck again, unable to hold it up for long. Dazai’s screams continued. Chuuya squeezed his hand tighter.

“Hang in there,” he told him. “Just a little more, just a little more.” 

He wasn’t sure if Dazai could hear him as the second attempt began. Chuuya could at least take comfort in the fact that his eyes stayed open. He wasn’t sure he could handle it if they closed.

“Come on!” The shouts continued.

“Lift a little higher!”

“Higher!”

They had to stop again. They couldn’t lift the truck high enough to pull Dazai out without further crushing his leg.

“She's too heavy,” Fukuzawa shook his head.

“We got anything on the truck we can use for leverage?” Chuuya asked.

“No. We need more people. I'll radio again,” Fukuzawa replied. “Dispatch, this is the captain—”

All the firefighters watched in wonder as crowds of people rushed in. Some of them were police officers, but most of them were civilians.They all surrounded the truck and took position to help lift it as a bewildered Fukuzawa instructed them.

“Everybody, put a hand in where you can!”

“We can do this!” someone shouted.

“Get in here!”

“Hurry, hurry, hurry, hurry!”

“On three. One... two... three!”

With that many people helping, they finally managed to lift the truck high enough.

“Okay, we got him! We got him! We got him!” Kunikida shouted and helped Chuuya pull him forward. “He's almost clear! Hold it!”

The moment Dazai’s leg was free, Chuuya felt like he could breathe properly again. 

“All right, we got him out!” Kunikida yelled, and the truck was left to fall back on the ground.

Chuuya joined their two paramedics in lifting him first to the backboard and then to the gurney. Dazai’s eyes started to close and Chuuya jumped into the ambulance after him without asking for permission. 

“Stay with us, Dazai,” he told him, uncaring about the obvious desperation in his voice. He didn’t want to watch another person he cared about die in the back of the ambulance. “Hospital's four minutes away, okay? Come on,” he pleaded.

Dazai was in surgery for hours. 

Chuuya was grateful that Isamu was spending the night at his aunt’s house and he didn’t have to worry about having to go back to him right away. Corrine joined them in the waiting room too, reassuring him that she would pick up and drive Isamu to school the following morning as planned.

It was even more hours before Chuuya was able to see Dazai awake. He walked into the room where Akiko and Corrine already were and met Dazai’s disoriented stare.

“Chuuya?” Dazai called, his voice hoarse. “Are you here?”

Chuuya wasn’t sure why his eyes were tearing up at the question. He had known for hours already that Dazai wasn’t in any danger of dying. The doctor had even reassured them that even if they were unsure about whether he would be able to continue his career as a firefighter, they were positive he was going to walk again with the proper rehabilitation. 

“I’m here,” he reassured him. He walked to stand next to him, hesitating for a moment before  he took a hold of hand. He was relieved to find it much warmer than before.

“Thank you for being here,” Dazai mumbled. His eyes started to close. Chuuya wasn’t sure how conscious he was of what was happening. 

“I would like it noted that he didn't thank either of us for being here,” he heard Akiko say.

“Girl, I don't think he knows we're still in the room,” Corrine laughed.

“Is he awake?” Another woman asked as she joined the room. Chuuya didn’t recognize her voice but when he turned around and saw who she was he immediately dropped Dazai’s hand and moved to make way for her. 

“Hey, Ailey. You just missed him,” he informed her. 

Ailey smiled at him as she moved to sit on the chair next to Dazai’s bed that Chuuya had been hovering over. “It’s been a while, Chuuya. I wish we could have met again under better circumstances.”

“Yeah, me too.” Chuuya did his best to smile back at her. 

Ailey reached forward to hold Dazai’s hand, rubbing circles on his skin with her thumb. Chuuya wasn’t sure why the sight made him sick. He averted his gaze, staring at the cast on Dazai’s left leg that started from his foot to his mid thigh.

Someone put a hand on his arm. He turned his head to see Akiko giving him a soft smile. “Corrine and I are going to go get something from the cafeteria. Are you coming with us?”

“Uhm, no thank you.” Chuuya shook his head. “I need to get back to my son.”

He walked out of the room with the two of them, leaving Ailey alone with Dazai. After he had parted ways with the women a few corridors down and made his way to the exit, Chuuya had to briefly stop walking and compose himself. 

Why was he feeling like this? Was it the fact that he spent a day at the hospital so soon after he had watched his wife die in another one? He wasn’t sure. Dazai was going to be alright, Chuuya had to pull himself together. His friend was going to need his help to recover and Isamu was still in a fragile state, Chuuya couldn’t afford to be weak. 

Chapter Text

──── PART 2 ────

Dazai woke up to a bright light over his head. His eyes struggled to adjust to it, and for a moment he thought he must have fallen asleep on the couch at the station during his shift. 

“Welcome back,” a voice said from his right. 

Dazai recognized it instantly, but he was still confused when he turned to see Corrine standing next to the hospital bed.

“Corrine… You-You're here.”

“Of course I'm here.” She smiled at him. “Hey, if I see my friend on the news being crushed by a fire truck, I'm here.”

It came back as a violent reminder. Dazai’s eyes immediately looked down at his left leg, which was propped up on a pillow and covered almost entirely by a cast. He knew he must have been too numb from drugs to feel any pain, yet just the sight of it instantly filled him with an agonizing ache all over his body. He tried to sit up to take a better look at it.

“Okay, okay, okay, Dazai,” Corrine said with a hand on his shoulder, pushing him back into the bed. “It's gonna be okay. It's gonna be okay.”

Although her voice was comforting and it reminded Dazai of his sister, he couldn’t really trust it. Not with the knowledge of what an injury like this could mean for his life.

“Is it?” he asked. “Did you speak to the doctor? Did he say anything about how the surgery went?”

Corrine sat down at the chair next to his bed and replied,  “Just that you made it through. And you're now the proud owner of one titanium rod and four beautifully cobalt-chromed screws.” 

Dazai’s gaze returned to his leg again, looking at it like he could manage to feel the rods and screws inside it.

“You were hoping for something more?” Corrine spoke again.

“Before they wheeled me in, the doctor, uh… he said he didn't know how it was gonna go.”

“You'll walk again,” she reassured him. But that wasn’t Dazai’s concern.

“Yeah. He-he said… he said he was pretty confident about that. He, uh, he just... he didn't know if I would ever… work again.”

Corrine took a moment to consider her words before telling him, “Okay, I'm not gonna lie to you and tell you that it's gonna be alright. But I don't think you need to be borrowing trouble, not yet. Let's just take this moment and be glad that you're alive.”

Dazai couldn’t outright tell her he wasn’t, so he kept his mouth shut and looked around the room, trying to find a distraction in the white walls and medical equipment surrounding him. Mercifully, he could already feel that he wasn’t going to stay awake for long.

“You’ve got a lot of people coming to see you,” Corrine started talking again. “Chuuya must have been here since last night, last I saw him he was still in his uniform. Oh, and I met Ailey too. She seems nice.”

Is Chuuya here, Dazai wanted to ask, but just then the door opened and his sister walked in. She was dressed in what Dazai knew was her after work outfit, meaning she must have gotten to the hospital he was in from the one she worked at without going home. Dazai didn’t know how many hours had passed since he had gone into surgery, but it had certainly been enough for the night to turn into a new day.

Akiko was immediately on his side, asking him how he was feeling. Dazai took comfort in her voice and slowly felt himself falling asleep. He would have if it hadn’t been for the door opening once more. 

Dazai forcefully opened his eyes and stared at the man lingering by the door.

“Chuuya?” he called. “Are you here?”

“I’m here,” Chuuya replied. Dazai wanted to wave him over, but his limbs felt too heavy for him to move. Thankfully, though, Chuuya finally walked over and gently put his hand over Dazai’s. An immediate warmth filled Dazai’s chest.

“Thank you for being here,” Dazai heard himself mumble before his eyes started to close again.

When he woke up again, hours later, he couldn’t remember what he had dreamed about, yet he felt like two familiar laughs had kept him company in his dreams.

The day of Dazai’s discharge from the hospital finally came. Although Dazai knew he had a long journey of physical therapy and further treatments ahead of him, he still felt excited to be able to return to his apartment.

“Easy,” Ailey said as she followed behind him. Dazai had used crutches twice in the past so he had assumed he would have an easy time with them. But, what he hadn’t considered, was how much the huge cast he had this time would affect his balance. 

Ailey’s hands hovered over his arm. Dazai laughed at the thought of this tiny woman trying to hold him up if he were to fall down. 

“Be careful, I don't want you to fall and break the other one,” she attempted to coax him. 

“I am just glad to be out of the hospital.”

“Yeah?”

Dazai nodded. “I miss my own bed.” He looked up at the loft where his bed was and all the excitement he had been feeling died down. “Which I won't see for the next three months. Guess I am sleeping down here.” 

At least he had a couch. He slowly made his way towards it. It would have to do until he was able to go up and down stairs on his own again.

“You're like a perpetual roommate,” Ailey laughed. “Even in your own place.”

Dazai forced out a smile. “Never sign a lease if you intend on being crushed by municipal equipment.”

“Uh, or better idea? How about not get crushed by municipal equipment?”

Ailey’s smile was starting to look strained too. Dazai had been dreading the moment where his girlfriend would decide he was well enough to have a serious conversation. He put on his best teasing smile and tried to postpone the inevitable for just a little longer.

“Huh. Now, why didn't I think of that?” 

“I don't know.” Ailey sat down next to him on the couch. Judging by the look on her face, Dazai instantly knew his attempt had failed. “So… have you, uh, have you thought about what's next? Once you take this thing off.” She pointed to his cast.

Dazai blinked at her. “Why? Did-did the doctor say something to you?”

“No,” she reassured him. 

Dazai tried to calm himself down. If he ever wanted to get back to work, he had to stay determined. He couldn’t let something as insignificant as fear sway him away from his goal.

“Well, first, a lot of physical therapy, and then—”

“You'll probably want to just get right back out there,” Ailey concluded for him.

“Yeah, of course,” Dazai nodded. “I mean… What else?” There was nothing else for him after all. 

Ailey hesitated. “Uh…” 

“What?” Dazai snapped. Ailey retreated the hand she had put on his uninjured knee and Dazai barely found himself feeling bad. He took a deep breath and asked, calmer, “Come on, what's going on?”

“I watched you almost die, Osamu,” Ailey said, looking down.

“Yeah, but I didn't.”

He briefly thought that he should have been trying to console her, but he wasn’t sure how to do that, or that he even wanted to. He was a firefighter, risks came with the job.

“But you could have.”

“But I didn't.”

“I know,” Ailey sighed. “I… I know. Thank God. Look, I… It's not like I didn't know you were in a dangerous line of work when I met you, you know, ten stories up of a collapsing high rise.”

“Exactly.”

Ailey knew. It shouldn’t have been a problem. He hadn’t even done anything reckless to put himself in the hospital this time. All he had done was sit at the wrong seat in the ladder truck.

“That was one day… one day of my life, Osamu. It's every day for you. I'm just starting to really understand what that means.”

“Wait, so you want me to quit my job, that's what you're asking me to do?” 

Dazai was still taking high doses of pain medication so he hardly felt any pain. The discomfort of the cast though was something that couldn’t be soothed. He knew it had made him irritable, he knew he had been quicker to complain and lash out than usual, but for this one, he felt that he was justified.

“No, I would never... I would never ask you to do that,” Ailey replied immediately. 

She had been patient with him at the hospital. She hadn’t complained about his attitude once. She had visited daily, had sat next to his bed with a smile even when he had been less than pleasant. Dazai had left the hospital with her feeling for the first time that perhaps this relationship could go somewhere.

“Listen,” Ailey continued. “I know it's who you are. I'm just not sure—”

“If it's who you are.”

Ailey lifted one hand to wipe away a tear that had started running down Dazai’s face. His eyes had been stinging ever since the accident. His tears had been yet another thing that he had felt unable to control.

“Hey. I don't know yet. Okay?” 

Dazai nodded. He didn’t believe her. Her endless patience ever since the accident suddenly felt more like the tolerance and indulgences that you would show a sick partner just before leaving them out of guilt, as if to soften the blow. He still let her wipe away the rest of his tears and hold him in her arms. Dazai knew it would end, but he was pathetic enough to suck dry any affection given to him. He had gotten used to it getting taken away before he was ready to let go.

Ailey broke up with him two weeks later. Dazai didn’t cry when she did, though he spent the entire rest of the day buried under the covers on his couch, binge watching a series his sister had recommended to him. Akiko was on shift that day and Dazai didn’t want to disturb her anymore than he already did, so he only let her know two days later when she came over to drive him to Chuuya’s shield ceremony.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked him, a worried look on her face. “I could have come yesterday with ice cream.”

Dazai rolled his eyes. “I’m not a fifteen year old girl who got broken up for the first time.”

“But you liked Ailey, right? You even let her pick an apartment for you.” She pointed at the space around them. 

Dazai was unsure of what to reply. Although he had liked Ailey, he wasn’t sure if he would have been half as upset about the break-up if it hadn’t happened right after his accident. The injury had already caused him to lose so much, the break-up had felt like the cherry on top. Once more in his life, he was left with nothing of his own.

“I’ll get over it,” he told his sister. 

He was confident about that. Although he had had fun with Ailey, he hadn’t quite let himself fall in love. The apartment she had chosen and decorated for him could be a problem but, surely, Dazai could make it his own with time. Well, once he could access his bedroom again. 

“Now, fix this for me please.” He handed Akiko the pants of his uniform and a pair of scissors.  “There’s no way I can fit them over the cast.”

Akiko briefly inspected the pants and then started cutting the left pant leg. 

“That’s too long,” Dazai commented before she was even done.

Akiko took a few more inches. “What about now?”

“Still too long.”

There was obvious annoyance on his sister’s face as she went to cut it again. She was halfway through cutting it, struggling with the less than ideal scissors to cut thick fabric, when she suddenly abandoned the scissors and ripped the rest of the pant leg with her bare hands.

“Hey! Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Dazai protested. “Come on, be careful.”

“Uh, were you gonna sew these two pieces back together?” Akiko raised an eyebrow. “I don't think so.”

“Doesn't mean you had to rip them. Looks terrible,” he all but whined.

Under normal circumstances, his sister would have rolled her eyes and called him a baby. Dazai would have whined even more exaggeratedly until Akiko was forced to fake console him. 

But things hadn’t been normal for a while.

“It's gonna be fine, okay? We're just gonna tuck it in the top of your cast,” she reassured him, genuinely. “I don't even know why I'm taking you. You shouldn't be on your feet; you need to be healing.”

“Well, this is more important.” Dazai felt like a little kid as he crossed his arms over his chest. He wasn’t going to let anyone stop him from going. “If I break anything else, they can just fix that, too, with the other stuff.”

Akiko suddenly looked alarmed. “Wait. What other stuff?” 

“They want me to have another surgery. The doctor wasn't happy with what he saw on the X-rays, so he wants to go back in and replace the rod and do some bone grafts.”

“Well, do they think it's a delayed union or nonunion? I mean, if it's just healing slower than expected, you could just wait a few weeks.”

“I'm not waiting,” he declared. “The sooner I have the surgery, the sooner I can go back to work.”

“So the doctor does want you to wait,” Akiko concluded. “You should listen to him. We're talking about your health. Your ability to walk. We're talking about the rest of your life.”

“No, being a firefighter is my life. It is the only thing I have ever done that was important and that mattered, okay? Without that, I-I-I don't have…”

I don’t have anything. There’s nothing else in my life worth living for. There’s no point for me to keep going otherwise. 

Akiko reached forward to hold his hand. “You will still be Osamu and we will all love you. There are lots of other important things that you can do with your life.”

Her voice was soft and kind. Dazai wanted to believe her, he really did, yet he couldn’t. He couldn’t. 

“No,” he stated firmly. “No, I've already made my choice.”

Although it was obvious that his sister didn’t agree with his decision and Dazai knew she wasn’t going to let it go that easily, she kept her mouth shut. Dazai knew they were going to come back to that same conversation several times later, but he was glad it wouldn’t have to happen at that moment at least.

“Come on, since you want to go so bad, let’s not be late at least,” she prompted him to go change into the uniform.

The drive to the station wasn’t silent. Akiko updated him on the latest gossip from her hospital and told him all about the nice little restaurant she and Kouyou had stumbled upon during their date the previous day. Dazai listened to her and offered commentary when necessary, yet there was an air of awkwardness surrounding them all the way to the station. Dazai only felt it dispel once he had set foot inside the station for the first time in a month.

The room was stacked with chairs and tables and there were quite a few people Dazai only recognized as Chuuya’s family from the one time he had seen them at Erica’s funeral. There was food and drinks and people milling around, laughing and talking with each other. It was far from the usual scene Dazai would walk into the station on a regular shift, yet just being there brought him the comfort the apartment that was meant to be his home never did.

Isamu walked over to greet him as soon as he spotted him. “Osamu!” he yelled, drowning every other noise around Dazai.

“Isamu!” he yelled back, feeling more energetic than he had felt in weeks. 

Chuuya had brought the kid to visit him twice in the past two weeks that he had left the hospital, but this was the first time Isamu was seeing him walking again. The boy pointed at his crutches, excitedly. 

“We match!” 

“We do!” Dazai attempted to lift one of his crutches and tap Isamu’s, but he lost his balance the moment it left the ground. 

“Easy.” A strong hand on his arm held him up before he could fall on his face (or worse, fall on Isamu). “Are you trying to break more bones?” 

Dazai laughed at Chuuya’s words like he had said the funniest thing in the world. Chuuya looked at him weirdly, hand still on his arm, but his expression soon morphed into a smile. Dazai was suddenly so happy to see the two of them. He didn’t even care that his entire body ached with every step he attempted to make. 

“Come on, let’s find you a seat.” Chuuya started leading him towards an empty seat on the third row. Isamu followed behind them using his crutches much more skillfully. “Maybe Isamu can give you a tutorial on how to better walk with crutches,” Chuuya laughed, as Isamu overtook them and even started dragging a second chair for Dazai to rest his foot. 

Dazai found himself smiling as Chuuya helped him sit down. He didn’t even protest when Chuuya lifted his leg on the second chair and moved it around until Dazai reassured him he had found a comfortable position. Isamu lingered next to him, talking about what kinds of food he had already tried from the buffet until his grandmother came to drag him back to his own seat, telling him the ceremony was about to start. Chuuya gave him one final teasing warning about not falling down and ruining his moment before he too was summoned by their captain. 

After the necessary greetings, Fukuzawa started his speech. “People assume we choose this life. I'm not so sure. Sometimes I think this life chooses us. For those that answer the call, there can be no doubt, no equivocation. It's not just the lives of those we serve that depend on us, but our own. The lives of our fellow firefighters and first responders. Today we welcome into those ranks a new brother.” He turned to look at Chuuya with a pleased look on his face. “After a year of hard work and dedication, I am proud to officially declare that your probationary period is at an end. Welcome to the Los Angeles Fire Department, Firefighter Nakahara.”

“Thank you, sir,” Dazai heard Chuuya reply amongst the cheers and clapping of every person in the room. 

The cheers quickly changed into aw’s and ah’s as Isamu, holding Chuuya’s helmet with his new shield, walked up to his dad.

“What do you got for me, son?” Chuuya asked him.

“I got your helmet.”

“Yeah, my helmet?”

“Congratulations, Dad.”

There was a brilliant smile on Chuuya’s face as he crouched down and accepted the helmet from his son’s hands. Dazai had missed seeing him smile so brightly. His friend had felt like a shadow of himself ever since his wife’s death, and Dazai hadn’t been able to properly be there for him amidst the chaos of his accident and recovery. 

“Oh, thank you so much, Isamu.” 

Chuuya lifted the boy in the air in a hug and Isamu’s laughter filled the room. Dazai thought that if he could get more moments like this, perhaps he could manage to go on until he got his life back.

Five months after his injury and two surgeries and too many weeks of cruel physical therapy sessions later, Dazai finally got the green light from his doctors to start training for the LAFD recertification test. It took one more month of hard work for his body to feel ready to take the test, but finally, the day arrived.

Dazai followed behind his sister as they headed for the door of Fukuzawa’s house, giddy to tell his captain that he had broken the record of the test and he was more than ready to get back to work. His leg only slightly ached. 

“Surprise!” the voices of various people yelled once the door was opened. 

Dazai couldn’t help the smile on his face as he looked around at every person he cared about gathered in the living room of his captain’s house, all looking happy to see him. “Aw, did you do this?” he turned to ask his sister.

Akiko nodded. “Yeah.” 

Dazai gave her a brief hug before he was dragged around the room to receive congratulatory hugs from every person there. Chuuya’s arms lingered around him for a moment too long. Dazai would have been content to stay there and not break out of the embrace if it hadn’t been for Isamu poking his thigh intently. Dazai broke out of the hug with Chuuya to reach down and hug his son. 

“This is for you,” Isamu said shyly as he handed him a handmade card.

On the cover ‘OSAMU’ was written in big bold letters followed by a slightly smaller ‘(BFF)’ under it. A drawing accompanied the words, depicting what could only be the two of them, Dazai in his firefighter uniform with a tiny Isamu standing next to him holding a surfboard on the beach. Dazai smiled thinking of all the photos he had received of the boy always looking excited at his surf lessons that Chuuya had caved in and had started taking him to during the summer. 

“Wow, thanks, buddy. Wow. This is great,” he told the boy. 

“It's you and me.”

“Oh, and what's that? It's a surfboard, right?

Chuuya laughed. “He's obsessed, yeah.” 

Dazai, with a smile that almost hurt on his face, opened the card to read the dedication too.

"Dear Osamu, you are an awesome firefighter. Love, Isamu,” he read out loud. “That’s very sweet, Isamu. Thank you.” 

The following fifteen minutes were spent in the backyard of Fukuzawa’s house where the party was set up, with Dazai jumping from one conversation to another, both to thank people for coming and to catch up on the latest gossip. 

“I can't believe you managed to keep this a secret,” he told his sister once he found her again. 

Akiko smiled at him as he handed him a piece of cake. “You were so focused on training, it wasn’t that hard.”

Daizai laughed before taking a bite of the cake and saying, “Oh, this is good.”

“Isn’t it?” Kouyou chimed in. “Come on, Akiko, have some too.” 

Right there, right in front of Dazai’s celebratory cake, his friend and coworker playfully spoon fed his sister some cake. As glad as he was that the two of them had finally figured things out, he didn’t exactly want to witness all that. Still, in favor of this being a happy day, he only half grimaced as he teased them, “Aww, you guys should get married already.” 

“Oh, just don't forget to invite us,” Kunikida commented as he passed by. 

Everyone turned to pointedly stare at Fukuzawa and his new (or old?) husband. The news of their captain’s (third) marriage with Fukuchi (fourth overall) had reached everyone after the fact, the two of them having chosen to have an express marriage ceremony with only their son there to witness it. 

Fukuzawa laughed good naturedly at the jab. He seemed far more relaxed and happy than when Dazai had first met him, so Dazai decided he would not join the others in complaining about the decision. Not wanting to witness any more PDA from his sister and Kouyou, the moment he saw Fukuchi head for the inside of the house he approached his captain to chat with him instead.

“Congratulations again,” Fukuzawa told him, giving his shoulder a firm pat. “They are sending me the paperwork in the morning and you will officially be back. How's that feel?” 

“Oh, I'm just glad it's over,” Dazai replied honestly. “You know, I hated not being with you guys.” 

His captain smiled at him. “Yeah, we missed you too. It'll be nice to have the whole team back together.”

“Thanks, Captain. And I don't just mean for the party and the cakes. Um... Thank you for being there, you know... for the surgeries and the rehabs.. I know I wasn't always the easiest person to be around.”

That was probably the understatement of the century. Dazai wasn’t sure how he still had friends after how miserable it must have been to be around him during those first weeks of rehab where nothing seemed to be going right.

“You weren't that bad,” Fukuzawa reassured him either way. 

“You should ask my ex—” Dazai’s words got interrupted by a cough. He cleared his throat to continue his sentence. “Ex-girlfriend. Sorry.”

“Hey, she just wasn't the right fit. You'll find someone new.”

Dazai wanted to laugh again, and he also wanted to reassure Fukuzawa that he was going to be okay, but the few coughs quickly turned into a coughing fit. 

“Sorry, I, uh…” 

“You okay?”  Fukuzawa’s voice sounded like it came from far away.

“Yeah, I…” he tried to reply, but he couldn’t get words out anymore. His throat hurt from the force of his cough and a sudden wave of dizziness overtook him. He looked down at the hand he used to cover his mouth while he coughed and spotted something red.

“Dazai?”

After that, everything went dark.

Dazai woke up in a hospital room once more. His first thought when he came to was that they should reserve a room just for him with how often he ended up there. That thought got quickly covered by a string of confusion. Dazai didn’t remember why he was there this time.

Although his sister, Fukuzawa and the doctor explained to him what happened, Dazai was still left with a lot of questions.

“You got lucky,” the doctor said. “Most people who suffer a pulmonary embolism don't do it surrounded by trained medical professionals. It saved your life.”

“But what caused the blood clot?” he asked.

“Clots, plural,” the doctor corrected. “There's the one that hit your lungs, and then there's two more in your leg. As to the cause? It's unclear.”

“Yeah, but he just got a clean bill of health last week. This came out of nowhere,” Akiko said.

The doctor stared at him sternly. “Did it? No pain or tenderness in the leg? Skin discoloration, swelling?”

“I thought I just pulled a muscle or something,” Dazai admitted. “I've been training for my LAFD recertification test.” 

“Well, it's not surprising,” the doctor nodded. “Training hard can lead to dehydration, which can increase the risk of clots.

“Well, that’s great.” Dazai’s life just got better and better. What did the universe have saved for him next? “Look, I’m not dead. You found the clots. When can I get out of here?”

Both Fukuzawa and Akiko gave him a look for that. Dazai knew he wouldn’t be able to avoid a scolding even if he didn’t feel he had done anything wrong. He had gone through months of rehab, he had cried himself to sleep from the pain as he relearned how to walk, he had been diligent about stretching and whatnot every morning even if the only thing he wanted was to lie back down and never move again. He had transitioned from one step of his recovery to another only when given permission from his doctors. He had known he couldn’t afford to take unnecessary risks with this. 

“We'll move you to a room. Keep you on the anticoagulants. Tomorrow, we'll run some more tests. And then, we'll see.” The doctor’s unclear answer was enough to let Dazai know that he wouldn’t be seeing his bed for the next few days.

“Thank you doctor,” Fukuzawa addressed the man before he turned back to Dazai. “I’m going to go tell everyone that you're okay. Let them know that you're staying awhile, all right?”

Dazai nodded yes, even if he really wanted to ask his captain to stay and protect him from the wrath of his sister for a little longer.

“When did your leg start bothering you?” Akiko demanded to know once they were alone.

Lying to his sister was only going to postpone the scolding so Dazai replied honestly, “Like a day or two ago. Akiko, I was not ignoring this, okay? I didn't know what it was. I thought I had a leg cramp or something.”

Akiko didn’t look like she believed him. “Well, you need to be more careful. Because if this had happened when you were alone, you could have died.”

“But I didn't, did I? I just passed out.”

“Yeah, just passed out after vomiting up blood.”

“What?” Dazai blinked. “I don't... I don't remember that. I vomited up blood? At Fukuzawa and Fukuchi's house?”

“Yes.” Akiko crossed her arms in front of her chest with a deep sigh. 

“Oh, no.” 

“Oh, yes.”

A sudden thought occurred to him. “Did Isamu see that too?”

“Not the whole thing,” his sister reassured him. “Kunikida’s wife took all the kids inside as soon as we realized what was happening.

Dazai would have preferred if the kids present hadn’t witnessed anything at all, especially Isamu so soon after he had lost his mother, but he was at least glad they had missed the worst of it.

“Get some rest, alright?” Akiko said then. “You’re gonna get a lot of visitors once they move you to a room.”

The following few days at the hospital were somehow even less fun than after he had woken up from surgery, perhaps because this time he wasn’t on strong pain medication. Honestly, Dazai kind of missed feeling numb and losing track of time. This time, he felt every second.

He ran into Fukuzawa while he was taking a walk around the hospital. He already knew every corner and every corridor on the floor by heart.

“You sure it's okay to be walking around like this?” his captain asked.

“Yeah, they want me up and moving. You know, it's better for the blood flow in my legs,” Dazai replied with a sigh. “Seriously, if I'm not being poked or they're not testing me, they're making me walk.”

“So all that testing, do they have any theories yet as to what caused the clots?”

“Not yet, but the meds are working. They're finally gonna send me home tonight.” Dazai was beyond glad to get out of there. “Oh, by the way, do I need the hospital to sign some kind of form or anything, you know, for the Department? My clearance?”

“Um…” Fukuzawa hesitated. “But you're not... you're not cleared, Dazai. Not yet.”

“What?” The word came out more aggressively than Dazai had wanted. “No, I passed my physical and my recertification test. I've got everything I need.”

He had worked so hard for this. He had, after so much blood and tears, been about to get his life back, they couldn’t take it away from him again.

“It's the blood thinners, kid. The department is concerned about liability issues, and since the doctors haven't figured out what's causing the clots—” 

“I can't come back to work?” Dazai cut him off.

“Well, Dazai, if we were out on a call and something happened to you—”

“I would have two paramedics standing next to me. I would be fine!” he said too loudly for the quiet hospital corridors. “Fukuzawa, you... you know how hard I have worked for this. They can't... They can't do this to me. You can't let them take away my job.” 

You can’t let them take away my life.

“Hey, we're not,” Fukuzawa tried to reassure him. “You were injured in the line of duty, and no one is forgetting that. Chief Wells thinks that in a few weeks, if you're doing okay on the meds, she can clear you for light duty.”

“Light duty?” Dazai laughed bitterly. “You mean like a desk job?” 

“Now, listen, Dazai, I—” 

“Out there, in the world, helping people. That is where I belong,” Dazai snapped, at last. “That is what I’m meant to be doing. That is where I have spent six months fighting to get back to. And now, you're gonna tell me I can't?”

“Listen, Dazai, I know this is hard, but at least light—”

“No,” he stopped him. He didn’t want to listen to any more of that crap. “No, I don't want light duty, okay? And neither would you. They’re not putting me behind a desk. I quit.”

“Dazai, let’s think about this rationally—”

Dazai didn’t want to think about it rationally, he didn't want to think about it at all. If he couldn’t do the one thing that had given this worthless life of his purpose, then he wasn’t sure there was a point for him to do anything else at all. He pushed out every useless reassurance Fukuzawa attempted to give him as he followed him back to his room and closed the door to his face once they got there. Perhaps he would feel bad about the outburst later, or perhaps he would not. He could hardly manage to feel anything at all. 

As he got back into the uncomfortable hospital bed, he pulled to his lap the bag with his belongings his sister had brought for him. Once he found what he was looking for, he tossed the bag on the floor and opened his wallet, carefully taking out the picture he kept there.

The picture, slightly crooked on one side from the day it had been given to him and he had carelessly tossed it in his backpack, showed three boys. One looked serious, one smiled softly, and one looked ready to run away. Dazai’s eyes lingered to the boy in the middle and the smile he would never see again.

He had failed him. He had failed to keep the promise he had made. 

Dazai stopped counting the days. Every morning he woke up and stayed in bed until he couldn’t ignore the protests of his stomach any more. Once he had eaten whatever leftovers he could find, he would go straight back to bed. Sometimes he would get a phone call, or even a visit from someone who felt pity for poor miserable old him —mostly his sister— but those rarely lasted long. Dazai knew he had managed to become even more unbearable to be around.

It was a morning when Dazai had still been blissfully asleep when his body suddenly felt cold and a loud voice sounded right over his ear.

“Get up.” 

Dazai groaned, pulling the covers that had been cruelly taken from him back up. “Why, man? Come on.”

Chuuya only let him enjoy the warmth of his duvet for one second before he pulled it down again.

“Because it's morning and you have things to do.” 

“No, I really don't,” Dazai refuted. He fought with Chuuya for the covers for a few more moments before giving up and getting out of bed with more groans. Surely he could manage to annoy Chuuya out of staying for long pretty quickly and he would be back into his bed in no time.

“You need to get out of this house and take a walk around the block and get some fresh air,” Chuuya said as he walked down the stairs from the loft of his apartment, heading for the kitchen.

“Why? What's the point?” Dazai followed behind him slower, walking in just his socks, not bothering to search for his slippers.

“Well, the point is, your life isn't over just because you're not a firefighter.” 

“Says the firefighter,” Dazai pointed out with a huff.

“You know, that blood clot could've almost killed you. But it didn't. You have your whole life ahead of you, so why don't you just take it as a win and stop feeling sorry for yourself?”

Dazai took a deep breath, ready to skillfully turn this into an argument where things that should never be said got said, but a third, much sweeter voice sounded in the apartment.

“Hey, Osamu!”

Dazai had just gotten to the end of the staircase and had to turn around and take a step to the right to be able to spot Chuuya’s son sitting on his couch, a bright orange shirt on.

“Hey, Isamu. Uh, what are you doing here?”

“He's hanging out with his Osamu today! Cause I have to go to work today.” Chuuya announced, quickly walking past him to go give his son a hug. 

Dazai stared at the two of them in disbelief. “Where's Corrine?”

“She went to Morongo,” Isamu let him know. 

“Mm-hmm.” Chuuya nodded. “So take him out, have some fun. I’ve left some money and a bag with his things on your kitchen counter.” 

“Chuuya you can’t just—”

“I can,” Chuuya interrupted him as he walked up to him. “Maybe you'll learn something. He never feels sorry for himself.” He pointed to Isamu with his head. “Love you, buddy,” he said, louder to his kid before almost running out of the door.

“Love you, dad!” Isamu yelled after him.

Dazai stared at his front door for a few seconds, unsure of what to do. Isamu had already found his TV controller and turned the TV on, searching the channels for something to watch. Dazai was definitely nowhere near prepared for this, yet with Isamu there for twenty four hours to entertain, he couldn’t go back to his initial plan for the day.

“So,” he said as he sat next to the kid. “What do you like to do for fun?”

When an eight year old was asked that kind of question, getting pancakes for breakfast wasn’t an unexpected answer. Dazai took Isamu to a cafeteria near his apartment that he knew made great pancakes and let the boy put everything he wanted on them. He snapped a picture of the two of them, with two piles of way too sweet pancakes in front of them, and sent it to Chuuya, along with two texts.

I’m probably going to regret this later

We might go see a movie after this

Isamu finished every last bite of his pancakes and, most likely aware that Dazai was an easy target and wasn’t going to refuse him anything, asked for their next stop to be the Santa Monica Pier. Dazai had him in his car with the soundtrack of Mulan blasting through his stereo within ten minutes.

The weather was sunny. There was barely even a cloud in the sky and the pier was filled with people. Kids were running around, parents were chasing after them, couples were taking strolls and sharing cotton candy. Isamu was most excited about seeing the beach, so the first thing the two of them did was go watch the waves for a bit. 

Once Isamu had taken his fill, they went straight to the Pacific Park amusement park. Isamu had been there a few times during the summer so he was excited to take Dazai to all his favorite rides and games. Dazai found himself enjoying his time with the boy, relaxing more and more as Isamu’s smile stayed bright on his face.

Eventually, they ended up at a shooting game. Since the fake gun was a bit too heavy for Isamu to properly hold up on his own, Dazai stood behind him and helped him stabilize it as the boy shot the targets. After only a few tries, Isamu managed to hit the necessary targets and win a prize.

“Congrats, ‘Samu!” he told the boy, feeling giddy himself. “Give me a high five!”

Isamu laughed brightly as he complied with his request. Dazai was about to ask him which one of the rewards he wanted when the sudden sound of a siren closing by caught his attention. He turned to see an elderly man not too far away collapsed on the floor quickly being surrounded by paramedics.

“Osamu! Osamu!” Isamu’s voice cut him out of his daze. He returned his attention to the boy, trying to ignore how the universe was mocking him.

“Oh, sorry, buddy. Which one do you want?”

“The bear!” Isamu pointed to a big brown teddy bear. The owner of the shop quickly handed it to Dazai. The bear was definitely a bit too big for the kid to carry while also holding his crunches. 

“Let's go see the waves again!” Isamu started leading him to the edge of the pier right away. Dazai, with an unfortunately sour mood once again, followed behind him with no complaints.

Isamu found a bench for them and immediately attempted to climb up on it. Dazai set the teddy bear on the bench and helped the boy up. He sat next to him, facing the amusement park instead of the sea, and held a firm grip on his shirt as Isamu stared at the sea.

“You ever think about what you want to do with your life? What you want to be when you grow up?” Dazai asked after a while.

Isamu seemed to think about it seriously before replying, “Astronaut or a pirate.” 

“Some good choices,” Dazai nodded. “Cool outfits too.”

“No, wait. A firefighter!” 

“Yeah, me too,” Dazai chuckled, sadly. “But, Isamu, if those career paths don't work out, I… I hope you do find something you love. You know, something you're good at. That makes you feel like you matter. Something you could do forever and will give your life purpose. That is the best feeling, and I hope you get that. And I hope you get to keep it.”

Dazai was sure his words had sounded pretty casual and that he had managed to hide his melancholy from the boy. He thought Isamu was a bit too young still to think too hard about why the two of them were there that day.

Isamu turned around to look at him and gently placed his small hand on Dazai’s cheek. “You're gonna be okay, kid,” he told him.

The phrase was said so softly yet so seriously that Dazai wanted to both laugh at being told this by an eight year old and cry at being directed such sincere words from a person so tiny.

The cries of seagulls got louder and a man a few feet away from them suddenly shouted, “Check that out!”

Dazai focused back to the present and heard the sound of the waves swishing louder and louder.

“Where did all the water go?” Isamu asked then.

Dazai, hand still gripping Isamu’s shirt, abruptly stood up and turned to look at the ocean. 

The seawater had retreated from the shoreline for what could be hundreds of meters.

An unprecedented amount of panic instantly filled Dazai’s whole body.

Chapter Text

“Where did all the water go?”

Isamu’s question echoed in Dazai’s head.

At first, it was far enough that it was hard to make out. Within just a few seconds though, everyone looking at the ocean could spot the same thing.

“It’s a tsunami!” someone yelled from their right at the same time a siren started wailing. The siren was loud and eerie, the kind of sound that would make one feel anxious without even knowing what it was warning people for.

For a second, Dazai couldn’t take his eyes away from the wave. Its size seemed enormous and the speed it moved with was jolting, he was almost in awe that nature could create such a thing. If Dazai just stayed there, at the edge of the pier, it would only take a few more seconds, maybe a minute or two, for nature to reclaim him in its path of destruction. It would happen fast, wouldn’t it? Dazai could close his eyes and wait for it.

Perhaps he would have done exactly that if it wasn’t for the small, terrified voice next to him calling his name. Dazai took one look at Isamu’s face, too young to be caught in a thing like that, too young to be taken away, and grabbed the boy, throwing him over his shoulder.

“Run! Run, run!” he yelled to the people around him still stuck in place as he started sprinting. “Go! Get off the pier!” 

“Everyone, high ground! Incoming flood, let's go!” Another voice, someone in a firefighter uniform, joined him in guiding the crowds. “Move, move, move! Let's go! Get off the pier!”

Dazai knew they couldn’t outrun the wave. He could hear it, the noise of it approaching, erasing every other sound in his ears. Isamu was squeezing the back of shirt and Dazai could feel the boy trembling in fear.

Suddenly, his eyes caught sight of one of the booths they had spent a few minutes at before Isamu had gotten bored of the game and had dragged him to the next one. Dazai hadn’t paid attention to the material it was built with or checked if it was sturdy, but in that moment, with the wave only seconds behind them, that random booth was their only choice. He threw Isamu inside before jumping in after him, mere moments before the wave reached them.

He held onto Isamu as tightly as he could. He gripped Isamu in what was most definitely a painful embrace, yet it still wasn’t enough. 

It hurt. Dazai hadn’t thought it would hurt that much. It felt like running into a wall at full speed, only the wall didn’t let you fall down. It held onto you, it surrounded you, it choked you, it made you lose all sense of space and direction. Dazai didn’t know where was up and down and left and right or if there even was a way out. He could tell he was being dragged away by the wave, unable to do anything about it. Things kept hitting him as he fought to swim, to free himself, to find a way out of there.

It would have been easy, so easy, to let go, to let nature do whatever it wanted with him, to let it drag him to the other side. But he couldn’t. He couldn’t give up. Not when there was a little boy depending on him. Not when he had, even reluctantly, agreed to take care of him for the day. 

Isamu was only eight. If Dazai let himself drown, then Isamu would drown too. Dazai fought against the flood, he fought with all his strength. He summoned vigour he didn’t know he was capable of just to break the surface, to take that first breath.

The moment he finally did it, the moment his head was out of the water and he had grabbed onto the first thing he could to stop himself from being dragged further away, even though his eyes stung and his throat burned, he yelled as loudly as he could, “Isamu! Isamu! Isamu! Isamu! Isamu!”

For a few seconds too long, he couldn’t see the boy anywhere or hear a response. But then it came, a voice sounding just as desperate as his. 

“Osamu! Osamu! Osamu!”

“Isamu!” Dazai yelled back. His eyes were stinging even more. “Just stay there! I’m coming! Just hang on!”

The boy was holding onto the column of a street light. His head was barely out of the water and his glasses had slid down to his chin, most likely only staying there because of the strap attached to them. Dazai didn’t spare a second thought before he let go of the string lights connecting two buildings that he had been holding on to swim towards Isamu.

The water dragged him forward along with everything else it had taken during its journey. Dazai extended both his hands once he was close enough to the boy, shouting, “Grab my hands! Isamu, reach out! Grab my hands!”

Isamu reached out with one hand, still holding onto the pole with the other. Before Dazai could grab it though, the current pulled him away. 

“No!” he cried out, watching the boy struggle to wrap his arm around the column for a second time. “Isamu! ‘Samu! ‘Samu! Stay over there!”

“I can't hold on!”

“Just hold on, ‘Samu!”

Dazai managed to stop himself, grabbing onto a car. He felt his shoulder jolt as he did so. Isamu’s strength seemed to reach its limit at the same time. The boy let go of the column. Dazai, even in his desperation to get to hold the boy in his arms again, waited as patiently as he could for the right moment to jump and catch him. 

Once the moment came and the two of them were finally reunited, they both held onto each other tightly.

“I got you! I got you, I got you.”

Isamu breathed hard on his shoulder and Dazai tried to hold him as high up as he could while also keeping them afloat. The current had slowed down a bit, but Dazai knew that could change any moment. He couldn’t relax; he had to find some place high enough for them to climb and find shelter.

The universe really enjoyed laughing at him, thus the first thing Dazai spotted that could serve as their haven was the ladder truck of the station that must have been responding to the incident he saw earlier. Although most of it was submerged into the water, the top part was visible and could keep them dry. Holding onto Isamu, he swam towards it.

Just as he was about to try to climb on top of it, a pile of objects, including what looked to be a small boat, aggressively made their way towards them. Dazai hurriedly threw the boy on top of the vehicle but knew he didn’t have time to climb on top of it too. He could only take a deep breath and dive down holding onto the side of the truck to avoid being hit by the pile. Something must have grazed him as he felt his cheek sting when he emerged from the water, but that was the least of his concerns at that moment. 

The first thing Dazai did when he climbed onto the firetruck was hug Isamu. The boy was trembling, but he seemed to relax more and more as Dazai held him. He felt so small in his arms, even smaller than a little over a year prior when the two of them had first met. 

Even though Dazai didn’t want to ever let go of him again, he reluctantly did so in order to check on any possible injuries. Thankfully, apart from some small scratches and bruises, Isamu seemed to be okay. Dazai helped him put his glasses back on and settled the boy in the middle of the roof of the truck, in the safest spot he could manage.

With one hand securely wrapped around Isamu’s ankle, Dazai moved to a kneeling position to take a better look at the scene around them. He could hardly recognize the street they had been dragged to with everything that should have been there either hidden underwater or taken away by the wave, but, with the help of a few landmarks, he got the general idea of where they were. The water stretched out endlessly in both directions, so the only thing that was sure was that they would have to stay there a while.

***

Chuuya finished putting the equipment back into the fire truck and took his phone out of his pocket to check for any new messages from Dazai.

“Any word on how Operation Cheer Dazai up is going?” Kunikida asked, looking over his shoulder at his screen. Kouyou joined them from his other side.

“This was this morning.” Chuuya showed him the texts and the picture attached to them.

I’m probably going to regret this later

We might go see a movie after this

“By now, Isamu has come down from a serious sugar high and Dazai is regretting his life choices.” 

The three of them laughed, looking at the picture of Dazai with Isamu and the pile of pancakes in front of them, when their captain asked, “Hey, did someone leave a hydrant open?” 

Chuuya looked down to see that the street had started filling with water and then back at his screen when he felt his phone buzz. A warning appeared over the picture of his son and his best friend.

SMS Tsunami Warning

WARNING - Earthquake/Tsunami Alert

Event Type: SEAQUAKE Magnitude 7.5

Location: Santa Monica, Los Angeles County

“I don't think it's a hydrant, Captain,” he said, showing his team the alert.

Everyone started it silently for a few moments, the severity of the situation sinking in. The call for their station to join the rescue of the tsunami victims came within the minute, forcing them to get into the engine and drive to the scene before having the chance to get back to the station for the lunch that had been waiting for them. Chuuya shot a quick text to Dazai, letting him know that his shift would surely last longer than anticipated, before putting his phone in the waterproof case Kunikida handed to him. 

As they drove towards the Santa Monica pier, he prepared himself for the horrors he was about to witness, though he found solace in the knowledge that both his son and Dazai were far away from it all, probably still watching a movie at the cinema. He didn’t think anything of the lack of response from Dazai, perhaps the news hadn’t even reached them yet.

They had to leave their vehicles a good distance away from the pier, unable to drive any closer. Chuuya could spot at least five different stations already at the scene. Some must have already set out to find survivors while others were being guided to the boats prepared for the search and rescue teams.

“One wave did all of this?” Kouyou asked as the incident commander guided them to two inflatable boats. 

“We already had two so far. Expect another four or five before it starts to recede,” the incident commander replied. “We're commandeering everything that'll float to supplement our Zodiacs.” He pointed to the few remaining zodiac boats. 

“I heard there were four firehouses in the path of this thing,” Fukuzawa said.

The incident commander grimaced. “Yeah, they've all checked in except for the 136. They were responding to a call at the pier when the surge hit, so... if you see any blue out there…”

“We'll holler,” their captain reassured him. 

As they climbed on the boats, joined by a few people from the coast guard, and started making their way towards the first place they were needed, Chuuya couldn’t take his eyes away from the destruction all around him. The streets that had gotten quite familiar with all the times he had taken Isamu to the Santa Monica pier scarcely looked recognizable.

***

“You good, Isamu?” Dazai asked the boy, holding him close. 

The current had sped up again and the firetruck wavered from time to time. 

“Yep,” Isamu replied with a smile. “I took surfing lessons.”

Dazai couldn’t help but chuckle. “Oh, well, maybe you can teach me.” He would have loved to have something for the two of them to use to float further inland, though he wasn’t familiar enough with how tsunamis worked to know if he should expect another wave to reach them soon. “We’re gonna have to hang out here a little longer,” he informed the boy.

Isamu didn’t seem deterred by the news. “We have a firetruck,” he let him know.

“Yeah, we do,” Dazai said with another chuckle.

A woman’s voice broke their little bubble. 

“Help! Help me! Help!” 

Dazai struggled for a moment to spot her, but as she screamed more he eventually caught sight of her holding onto a pole at the corner of a building some distance away. Dazai’s first instinct was to stay with Isamu, to not let him out of his sight for even a moment. But a second urge, one that he had slowly cultivated over the course of his career, was to go out there and rescue every person he could. Even if he was currently out of a job, Dazai was still a firefighter.  

“I’ll help you!” he yelled back. “Wait there! I’m gonna come for you!” 

He turned to Isamu, making sure the boy was making eye contact with him before telling him, “I’m going to help that lady, okay? I need you to sit right here for me. Do you promise me?”

“I promise,” the boy reassured him with a firm nod.

“Okay, right here,” Dazai repeated, just to be sure.

“Yeah.”

“Right here.”

“Yeah.”

Satisfied enough, he leaned in to give him a quick kiss on his forehead before he turned around to open the ladder of the truck. With a few maneuvers he managed to let it drop on top of a pile of cars, making it stable enough for him to climb on it. He grabbed one of the hoses and set out to get to the other side, trying to not hyperfixate on the fact that he had left Isamu alone and to trust that the boy would keep his promise. 

The woman’s screams continued as Dazai reached the pile of cars and started to try to climb on top of it. 

“Help, I can’t get out. I can’t get out.” 

A different cry for help came from under him. The voice was quieter and belonged to a man. Dazai looked down to see a young looking guy trapped on the driver’s seat of the car he was currently on top of. Blood was leaking out of a wound on his head.

“I’ll help you,” he reassured him. “I will come back. Okay? I promise. Just wait for me.”

The man nodded his head and Dazai nodded back, his mind already trying to come up with ways to get him out of that car without jolting him too much. But first, he had to get to the woman who had started screaming that she couldn’t hold on anymore.

With a decisive move, Dazai jumped into the water and reached one of the few still standing trees nearby. He tied the hose he had been carrying with him around it as securely as he could and then he turned to shout at the woman, “Hey, you can let go! Okay?”

Even without being able to clearly see the woman’s face, it was obvious she was hesitating to listen to his instruction without knowing what his plan was. There wasn’t exactly time for him to explain what he was trying to do though, so he just yelled at her to let go again, hoping to convince her.

Thankfully, this time the woman listened to him, so Dazai, holding onto the hose that now connected the firetruck and the tree, swam to the spot he was expecting the woman to reach as she was half swimming and half being dragged by the flood.

“You’re doing great,” he told her as she was nearing, extending his hand. “Give me your hand.” 

The woman grabbed his hand and Dazai brought her closer to him, telling her to hold onto him as he used the hose as a rope to get them to the firetruck. Once they got there and he helped the woman up, he swam to the side Isamu was to check on him. The boy didn’t seem to have moved an inch, though before Dazai could tell him good job Isamu pointed with one hand back at the direction he had just come from.

“Look, there’s more people.”

When Dazai turned around, he could spot at least seven people being dragged by the water towards them. He hurriedly turned to the woman to ask her, “Will you watch him?” 

The woman looked at Isamu and nodded, still catching her breath. Dazai watched for a moment as she moved closer to the boy and took a hold of his hand before he felt reassured enough to swim back to the center of the rope to make sure all the people approaching would grab it. He helped them one by one climb on the truck, always keeping an eye on Isamu so he wouldn’t accidentally slip as the truck shook from all the movements. He left the guy in the car for last, but thankfully getting him out didn’t end up being that much of a challenge. 

***

Most of the people their team came across along their way were beyond help. They put the necessary tags on the victims in order for the retrieval teams to be able to find them later and soberly kept travelling further. The absence of anyone to actually rescue was visibly taking a toll on everyone on the boats, so the moment the first cries for help could be heard the atmosphere immediately improved. 

Their first rescue was an elderly couple who were about to get married on a boat near the pier along with the woman’s son and one crew member. The four of them had escaped inside the cabin the moment they had seen the first wave approaching and their boat had been dragged miles away. The woman and the crew member didn’t seem to have serious injuries, but the antenna from a radio station had pierced the hull along with the son and husband-to-be. The two men were skewered together from the son’s shoulder through the fiance’s abdomen to the bottom of the boat.

The boat had already started taking in water so their team had to act fast. Normally, with such injuries, it would be preferred to travel the two of them with the object piercing them intact and let the ER sort it out. Except, for this case, the object was a radio station antenna and a boat. With the separation becoming necessary, the danger of the extraction significantly rose. 

“Can we separate them?” Fukuzawa asked.

Kunikida looked unsure as he replied, “It seems to have missed the kid's heart and lungs. I'm not sure about the stepdad. He's got about a half dozen vital organs it could've hit. But as long as we keep both pieces in them, maybe.”

“That's not a no,” Fukuzawa nodded. 

Chuuya got the okay from the captain to go secure the antenna so it wouldn’t jolt when they moved them, so he entered the cabin to start working on that.

“Adele, please,” the man begged his fiance who had been refusing to leave and get looked at properly. 

“No, I'm not leaving you... either of you,” the woman replied. Her wedding dress was soaked and there were patches of blood scattered over it, though she didn’t seem to be bothered about the state she was in. Her concern was clearly focused only on the two men.

“Whatever happened to love, honor and obey?”

“I never said obey,” she chuckled between tears. “We didn't even finish the ceremony.”

“It's okay, mom,” her son chimed in. “Please, just go.”

“He's right, ma'am. Best thing to do now is just let us work,” Chuuya coaxed her. 

Leaving them behind was probably the last thing she wanted to do, but thankfully she seemed to understand that it was needed. With a few last I love you’s, she let Chuuya lead her outside to be looked at by Kunikida. Once she was securely on the rescue boat, Chuuya returned inside the cabin.

“Okay, we have a plan,” Fukuzawa was saying.

“Only one plan,” the stepdad interrupted him. “You save this kid.”  

“What? No, Chuck, you're already insufferable. Don't be insufferable and magnanimous. I can't take it,” the younger man immediately protested.

“She is the love of my life. He is the love of hers. Save... save him. Please.”

Before his stepson could argue further, Fukuzawa cut their dilemma short.

“Our job is to save you both, so that's what we're gonna do.”

One extraction was significantly less complicated than the other. Chuuya and Kouyou held the son up as their captain cut the antenna from both sides with the saws. He screamed from the pain as he was carried out, but all of them were positive he was going to make it. 

The stepdad’s situation wasn’t that straightforward. After some deliberation, it was decided that one of them had to dive into the water and cut the antenna from underneath the hull. Their captain volunteered to be the one to do it, so Chuuya stayed to help Kouyou keep the patient stable. A sudden surge of water almost threw their whole operation astray, but thankfully, in the end, they managed to extract the elder man too without worsening his injury.

Once both patients were loaded on one of the rescue boats, a voice came from Fukuzawa’s radio. 

“If you read, 118, we need backup at the Santa Monica Pier.”

“Copy that, we’re on our way,” their captain replied through the radio. He then turned to address the team. “Kouyou, Kunikida, you two transport the patients. Chuuya, you’re with me. We’ll regroup at the staging area.”

*** 

“Okay, I spy, with my little eye, something that... moves people around.” 

“Um…” Isamu looked around for a few seconds. “Oh! A scooter.”

“Ah, yeah. Nice one.” Dazai gave him a high five. “Okay, genius. Your turn.” 

“I spy… a shopping cart.”

“What? No, come on,” Dazai chuckled. “Hey, that's not how the game works. You can't just yell stuff out.” 

“But yelling stuff out is the fun part!” Isamu yelled.

After Dazai had checked out all the people he had managed to pull out of the water and helped them to the best of his ability, the atmosphere on top of the firetruck had been somber. Surviving a tsunami did that to people, they didn’t exactly have energy for small talk with strangers. Dazai would have probably stayed quiet too if he didn’t have a kid with him. Although this day would inevitably end up on Isamu’s most traumatizing days of his life list, if Dazai could make it just a little better, just a little more bearable, he would do anything.

Suggesting to play games worked better than expected. Perhaps it was because Isamu was young enough that he couldn’t fully grasp the severity of the situation, but, either way, he was easily distracted as long as Dazai kept him entertained with games. Though the kid was still a little confused about how ‘I spy’ worked.

“You amaze me, buddy,” Dazai told him anyway.

“Why?” Isamu asked, looking up at him with a smile.

Dazai couldn’t help but hug him a little closer.

“I got some bad news at work the other day, and I didn't wanna get out of bed for a whole week. But you, after the day you had, here you are, with a big smile on your face. You never gave up. Even when that water was rushing over you back there. You just kept on swimming.” 

Isamu’s eyes lit up instantly. “Like Dory,” he said excitedly. 

“Yeah, like Dory,” Dazai replied with a chuckle. “And not just today, you know. Every day. You never say no, you never complain. How do you do that?” Dazai definitely wasn’t like that at his age.

Isamu seemed to seriously think about it for a second before replying, “Well, I complained once, but it didn't work.”

“So what did you do?” 

“Just kept on swimming.” 

“Like Dory,” Dazai nodded. He wished he could have the logic of a child with a soul as pure as Isamu’s. Things would be much less complicated if every other thought in his mind wasn’t haunted by years of self-distrust. 

The little bubble he had built with Isamu was broken once more by the horrified gasps of the other people on the firetruck.

“Oh, my God, look over there,” one of the men said, pointing to a few corpses that the current was dragging along.

“Oh, my god.”

“Oh, no.”

Dazai swallowed down everything he was feeling and, before Isamu could catch on to what was happening, he skillfully turned the boy around so his back would be to the horrifying scene in the water.

“I…” He cleared his throat. “I spy, with my little eye, something that is high.”

Isamu looked up and said, “A street sign?” 

“Uh, higher than that. Like…”

***

“You see this, Captain?” Chuuya said, pointing to the half submerged ferris wheel on what once was the Santa Monica pier. Along with the people who had managed to stay inside their carriages when the wave hit, there were also quite a few of them hanging onto the beams.

Fukuzawa nodded. “Kinda hard not to, Chuuya.”

The moment the rescue boats were spotted, the survivors started screaming for help. Chuuya spoke with some people who were floating on what must have been part of a boat right next to the ferris wheel to get a better grasp of the situation.

“Hey, we could use a hand up here,” a female voice yelled from above them.

“Who’s up there?” Fukuzawa asked, trying to shield his eyes from the sun to look up.

“Fire lady,” Chuuya let him know. 

A blonde woman in a firefighter’s uniform was waving at them from one of the lower carriages. Chuuya could tell from the state of her hair and clothes that she belonged to station 136, the one that had been caught by the wave. 

Fukuzawa seemed to relax at the sight of one more person there that could help them.

“All right, grab an extra harness, rope, pulleys, figure eight plates,” he told Chuuya. “I'll coordinate evac and transport some down here.”

Chuuya nodded, already starting to grab the necessary equipment for both him and the firefighter from 136. “Sounds like a plan, Captain.” 

After putting his harness on and stuffing the rest of the stuff in two bags, he began climbing on the beams until he reached the carriage where the firefighter was at. There was a man in civilian’s clothing kneeling down in the middle of the carriage and hugging the beam that was there.

The entire ferris wheel shook suddenly, almost causing Chuuya to lose his balance.

“That's not part of the ride,” he joked as the firefighter helped him climb inside. 

“No, the spokes are coming off the hub. This thing's been thrashed,” she told him. 

Chuuya looked at the man and then at her. There were two big scratches on the woman’s face, but Chuuya couldn’t see any other injury on either of them. “What about you? Are you hurt?”

“No.” She shook her head. “And neither is he.”

“I'm not going anywhere, not until the water's gone,” the man cried out. Based on the firefighter’s expression, Chuuya could figure out it wasn’t the first time he had made a statement like that. 

Still, she was patient when she told him, “Sir, if you don't come with us, this whole thing will be gone.” 

“Don't worry, buddy,” Chuuya chimed in. “I'm gonna get you down safely. I'm just gonna put this harness around you, okay?” 

“Okay, okay,” the man agreed reluctantly.   

The woman shot him a grateful look and got on with helping him strap the man in.

“Chuuya Nakahara, 118,” he introduced himself.

“Lexi Davis, 136.”

“You were on the pit when it hit,” Chuuya guessed.

“Yeah,” Lexi nodded.

“Where's your crew?”

Lexi looked down at the water before telling him, “Got separated... to all the spin cycle.”

Chuuya could imagine how out of the depth she must have been feeling to be split up from her team in such a way and he didn’t want to make her think about it more than she must already be. 

“All right. Let's get you up. Let's get you up,” he said to the man instead, helping him stand up. 

The man was still clearly hesitant about it, but he didn’t resist as Lexi secured the rope to his harness and the two of them lifted him up and over the edge of the carriage.

“Coming to you, captain,” Chuuya yelled. 

Fukuzawa nodded and switched to a better position to be ready to catch the man once he was low enough, joined by one of the people from the coast guard.

“Don’t drop me. Don’t drop me,” the man begged them as they bagan lowering him down.

“It’s okay, we got you,” Fukuzawa reassured him.

Fukuzawa already had a hand on the man’s harness when the ferris wheel violently shook again. Screams sounded from all over, but thankfully the man was lowered down to the boat successfully.

“When the wave hit, how'd you get back here?” 

Lexi finished putting on her own harness and replied, casually, “Swam.” 

Chuuya chuckled. “You sure did. And then you climbed.” 

“Free climb on the weekends, soldier.”

“How'd you know I was in the service?” Chuuya raised an eyebrow.

“You all carry yourselves the same way. My captain served, army.”

“I was an army medic.”

Lexi nodded. “Makes sense.”

Chuuya wasn’t one to volunteer information about his service so he didn’t partially want to know what Lexi meant by that either. He only gave her a nod before he started climbing up to the top carriage where a woman was yelling for them.

“Ma'am, stay put. We're coming to you,” he told her.

“Stay where you are. We're coming,” Lexi joined him. 

“Please hurry. Hurry! It’s my husband!”

“Hold on. Just a little bit longer,” Lexi reassured her.

She reached the carriage quicker than he did and Chuuya heard her ask, “What happened here, Ma'am?”

“He hit his neck when the wave came, and he can't feel his fingers,” the woman cried out. Chuuya had reached the carriage by that point and he and Lexi both climbed inside as carefully as they could.

“My arms went numb,” the man lying on the floor said. “A couple minutes later, my legs gave out. Am I paralyzed?” 

“That's too soon to tell. You said you lost sensation in your arms first and then your legs?” Chuuya asked.

“Yeah.” 

“Okay. Well, that might be a sign of swelling, which means you bruised your neck instead of breaking it.”

There was barely enough time for the man and his wife to let out a sigh of relief before the wheel shook once more. Chuuya looked down to see one of the other firefighter’s dangling from the rope he had been tied on.

“Captain,” he yelled. “We can get one down to you, but the other one's a possible spinal. We're gonna need a Hail Mary.”

“I'll order one up for you,” Fukuzawa shouted back with a thumbs up. 

“You should be fine. Help's on the way,” he heard Lexi telling the couple.

***

“I don't know what I'm gonna tell your father,” Dazai sighed. “I take you out one time and... look what happens.” 

There was no way Chuuya was going to trust him with his son again. Obviously, Dazai hadn’t brought Isamu to the pier knowing there was going to be a tsunami, but he was still the one who had put Isamu in this situation. Plus, Chuuya didn’t even know they were there. If Dazai hadn’t forgotten to update Chuuya about the change of plans, then there would at least be someone out there looking for them.

“You saved me,” Isamu said, putting a temporary stop to his spiral. “And you saved them.” He pointed to the other people on the firetruck. 

Dazai could sense their gazes on him —having a private conversation wasn’t exactly viable when there were a dozen people sitting cramped on top of a vehicle— and felt strangely embarrassed by the attention. His job was to save people. (Or at least it had been, before he had quit.) He had gotten used to people expressing their gratitude and singing his praises for helping them. This time shouldn’t have felt any different from other times, but the fact that Isamu had been there to see it and had acknowledged it somehow made it feel special.

“No, we did that together,” he told the boy. Dazai wouldn’t have been able to summon half the strength he had had if Isamu hadn’t been there. “Me and you make a great team. Give me a high five.” Isamu agreed easily. Dazai held onto his hand for a moment. “I'm proud of you,” he had to tell him. “Really.”

“Thank you, Osamu.” The boy gave him one more of his warm hugs. 

They stayed there for a few moments. In the midst of all the chaos, they at least had each other.

Abruptly, the sound of water rushing towards them came. Dazai, arms still wrapped around Isamu, lifted his head to look towards the direction of the ocean before he realized what was happening. There wasn’t another wave. The water was going in the other direction, back out to sea.

The firetruck shook violently. Dazai held onto the boy tighter, hoping this surge would be the last one. If they made it through this, things would turn out okay. Once the water level fell enough, Dazai would be able to pick up Isamu and walk them further inland to find help.

“No, no, no!” one of the men screamed. Dazai turned his head in his direction just in time to see him fall off the firetruck.

The loud splash was followed by the scream of another man, leaning downwards to help his friend. “Kevin!” 

“Hey, everybody hold on! Hold on! Stay down!” Dazai yelled. The more people moved, the less stable the vehicle became.

The man who had been leaning down fell after his friend. The splash was followed by more splashes as a few more people lost their balance.

It must have been close to two hours since the group of them had found refuge on the roof of the fire truck. Dazai hadn’t had time to get to know any of the people after the initial tired introductions, too busy focusing on keeping Isamu comfortable. But he remembered their names and that Kevin and Jonah had been friends since elementary school. He remembered that Nadia had been at the pier with her younger sister who she had lost during that first wave. He remembered that Nina was looking for her husband and that Carlos had been separated from his friend group and was worrying about their fates.   

The sound of their bodies hitting the water and the screams that followed scratched at Dazai’s heart. These people were practically strangers, people Dazai would have probably never interacted with if they hadn’t all been seized by the same wave. Yet they had. They had met in the middle of this disaster and they had survived until that moment together. Even without his uniform on, Dazai couldn’t just sit back and watch them drown. 

“Sit tight,” he told Isamu, squeezing him in his arms one last time before he let go. 

He turned around and immediately started pulling people up, ignoring the burning on his arms and the pain on his ribs every time the water made the truck jolt and the railing at the edge of the roof slammed onto him. He had managed to help two people back up when another surge hit the truck and there was a sudden splash, coming from the other side of the truck. Dazai had been about to extend his arm for the woman clinging to the side of the truck, but the moment he heard that noise, even before turning around to see who it was, he knew.

It was like the earth’s axis had shifted, like everything had abruptly become off balance. Dazai felt it in his heart, he felt it in his bones, he felt it in his lungs that suddenly seemed drained of all oxygen. He turned around and Isamu was no longer where he had left him. Dazai crawled to the other side, manically looking at the water for any sign of him. 

“Isamu!” The force of his scream scratched his throat. Dazai kept shouting anyway.
“Isamu! Isamu! Isamu!”

The sea didn’t reply to him. 

There was someone behind him pulling on his arm and he could vaguely hear a woman’s voice calling his name. Dazai got to his feet and leaped into the water.

It was colder than he remembered it being and Dazai felt like he couldn’t breath. He felt like his heart wasn’t beating and the blood in his body had stopped moving around. His own screams echoed back to his ears but no reply ever reached him.

***

The helicopter of the coast guard thankfully arrived quickly enough. Lexi and Chuuya had already put a c-collar on the man and transferred him on a board, so once the basket was lowered from the helicopter they quickly got to moving him inside and strapping him in securely. His wife shouted her goodbyes from where she had been lowered to the boat and Chuuya felt a smile on his face as he and Lexi high fived each other for a job well done.

That was the moment the ferris wheel chose to shake violently again.

“Incoming, debris!” Fukuzawa yelled from the boats.

Chuuya looked towards the direction of the land to see the water rushing back out to the sea. He knew the ferris wheel wasn’t going to be able to survive that.

“Free climb,” he turned to tell Lexi. “How 'bout free fall?”

Lexi didn’t entertain his joke and rushed to untie the rope from her harness. Chuuya had already begun doing the same thing but felt a tang of disappointment for the lack of response. All of sudden, he wished Dazai had been there to make a stupid joke about the situation that would have most likely infuriated Chuuya so much that he would have happily jumped several feet down at the water to escape him. 

As it was, although Chuuya did have to jump down anyway, he did so without that annoying laughter following behind him. 

Chuuya was thrilled to be able to walk on solid ground again, even if there still was water lingering around. Since the boats weren’t necessary anymore, they let the coast guard take care of them and continued on foot.

“Our team is still stuck on the other side,” Fukuzawa said. “Our trucks can't get through just yet. Earth movers are still clearing the roads.” 

“118's hoofing it for a while,” Chuuya concluded.

“It looks that way. Hen and Chimney are readying some turnout backpacks until we're mobile again. Davis.” Fukuzawa turned to the woman. “Your crew from your house are all alive and accounted for except for Captain Cooper. He's still MIA. I'm sorry.”

For a moment, Lexi looked crushed at hearing those news but then she shook her head, as if to shake herself out of the worry and said, “Well, if it's all the same to you, Captain, I'm gonna stick around and look for him.”

Chuuya was expecting the man to easily agree but his captain stared at Lexi for a few moments before asking, “Why are you holding yourself like that?”

Lexi was standing with her arms weirdly positioned over her left rib, almost like she was holding herself together. Chuuya had thought it slightly odd but hadn’t had the chance to think more of it. After Fukuzawa had mentioned it though, he noticed more and more signs.

“It's nothing, bruised rib,” Lexi tried. Her voice came out shaking.

“Let me take a look at it,” Chuuya volunteered.  

“I said it's nothing.” 

“Clearly, it's not nothing.” 

“Are you gonna drop this?” she asked angrily, taking a step back. 

“Hey, Davis.” Fukuzawa’s voice stopped her from walking any further back. “Let him have a look. I'm not asking.” 

Chuuya kneeled down at her side and, after probing around for a bit, concluded, “Yeah, that's not a bruise. It's broken. Must be hurting like a bitch.” 

“Yeah, well, breathing isn't super fun,” Lexi replied bitterly.

“I'm calling it. You're off the field,” Fukuzawa announced. 

“Sir, I said I'm fine.”

The captain dismissed all her complaints and turned to tell Chuuya, “USAR Command is setting up the VA hospital on Sawtelle. I want you to stick with her just in case her desire to track down her captain causes her to lose her way. I'm gonna meet up with the 118. Rendezvous with us when you can.”

“Copy that, Captain,” Chuuya nodded.

Thankfully, Lexi didn’t resist further. Chuuya helped her climb onto the truck that would take them to the field hospital and got his phone out of his pocket, happy to see that the waterproof case had done its job.

“Who are you calling?” Lexi asked, curiously.

“My son,” Chuuya replied, finding Dazai’s contact on his most recent calls. “Lost his mother a few months ago, don't want him to worry.” 

There were no new messages or missed calls from Dazai, but Chuuya didn’t think it was too odd. The water couldn’t have reached that far inland but he knew phone service had been affected all around L.A. He decided on leaving a voice note, not wanting to bother with taking the phone out of the case to type out a message.

“Hey, Dazai, it's me. I just want you to tell Isamu I'll be a little late picking him up, we got our hands full here, as you can imagine. It's a good thing you're missing it. Hope you guys are having fun.”

***

Dazai wasn’t sure how long he had swam for. His throat was sore and his bad leg felt heavy. Every time he bumped into something it hurt, like his body had transformed into one giant bruise (which could actually be the case, considering that he was on blood thinners). 

At some point the water had receded enough that Dazai had switched to walking. He kept yelling Isamu’s name and asking every person he encountered if they had seen a little boy in a yellow shirt. No one ever gave him a positive answer so he kept walking and upturning the debris on his way, uncaring about the new cuts on his arms.

“Has anyone seen a boy in the water?” he yelled desperately. “Come on. Hey! He's got brown hair, glasses, yellow T-shirt... have you seen a little boy? 

“No, I'm sorry.”

The woman who replied looked at him with pity in her eyes. Dazai knew what she must have been thinking but it wasn’t true, it couldn’t be. Isamu was somewhere out there, looking for him, and Dazai was going to find him. He was going to find him and take him home to his father. There was no other way this could end.

Dazai walked by multiple corpses, though he barely found it in himself to care about anything other than the boy he was looking for. He moved them around carefully when he needed to check under them, but he felt incapable of feeling sad, of feeling anything at all apart from pure terror. 

As he was walking through the water and tripped on something he couldn’t make out, that was when he saw them. A pair of black and red glasses with a bright red strap attached to them. Dazai immediately rushed to pick them up and had his fears confirmed. 

They were Isamu’s. They were Isamu’s glasses.

Dazai stood there, just staring at them for several moments.

No, he tried telling himself. He couldn’t lose hope. He had to go on. Isamu was still out there, and Dazai was going to find him.

He held the glasses close to his chest. His heart had stopped beating hours ago and the only thing his lungs carried was sorrow. Carefully, as if his hands would be the ones to break them after they had survived the ocean, Dazai put them around his neck. The weight of them held him in place for a minute or two, but he knew he couldn’t waste time.

So Dazai kept walking. 

He walked and walked and screamed Isamu’s name. He helped whoever he could on the way, but never lingered there. 

“Hey! There's a kid under here!” A woman yelled from around the corner. 

Dazai immediately ran towards her, Isamu’s name on his lips. The woman pointed to what looked like a child trapped under the sign of one of the shops. “Hey, big guy.” He waved at a tall man passing by. “Help me with this.”

The sign scratched his arms as he went to pull it, but Dazai ignored the pain, focusing on the child that was uncovered instead.

It was a little girl. Probably a year or two older than Isamu. She immediately cried out and the woman rushed to her side, asking her if she was okay. A group of people gathered around, but none of them seemed to know the little girl. Dazai stared at them silently, feeling numb. He couldn’t participate in their relief and worry about the little lost girl.

“Hey, excuse me,” he called out to them before they could walk away. “I'm looking for an eight year old boy. His name is Isamu. He's got CP, Cerebral Palsy so he’d have trouble walking on his own. He's got brown hair, yellow shirt.”

Dazai had stopped expecting a positive answer hours ago, so he didn’t expect one of the people in the group, a young looking man, to tell him, “Oh, yeah. I think I saw him.”

“Where?” The question rushed out of his mouth. It felt as if some air had returned to his lungs.

“He was headed with a group to that Cupcakery place. I heard they're handing out water.”

“Cupcakery, what is that?” 

“You know, cupcake bakery. It's about six or seven blocks south of here on Strand.” 

“Thank you. Thank you.”

Dazai turned around and ran. 

The sun was on its way down by the time Dazai made it to the Cupcakery. A crowd of people had gathered around the place, all in various stages of dishevelment. There was a man in a brown-ish pink shirt —most likely once just pink— with the logo of the shop on it directing people to the left for fresh water and to the right for first aid and blankets.

Dazai’s eyes skimmed through the crowd of people, searching for a young boy in a yellow shirt. He spotted a child, a girl not older than ten in a purple shirt. Then another, a boy definitely younger than eight, who was wearing a yellow shirt but his hair was too dark and too long to be Isamu’s. He saw another boy, but he was taller and his shirt was green. 

Dazai walked through the crowd, uncaring about whether he was bumping into people. He looked at every child, he searched for a familiar mop of brown curly hair and the most adorable smile he had ever seen. His eyes lingered on every yellow shirt, on every young child that was around Isamu’s size.

There was a woman at the edge of the crowd, crouching in front of a young boy with brown curly hair, looking like she was comforting him. The boy had his back turned to him, but Dazai had to check. He had to check. 

“Isamu,” he tried to yell. 

His voice barely came out. He pushed through the crowd with just one thought in his mind. 

Please be Isamu. Please be okay. 

Dazai fell to his knees next to the boy and reached out with one hand to touch his shoulder. 

“Isamu,” he called him. “I’m here.”

The boy flinched away from his touch. Dazai’s hand stayed empty, hovering, grasping at nothing. When the boy turned around to look at him, he looked startled, and he definitely didn’t look like Isamu. The woman, possibly his mother, dragged the child away and gave Dazai, the strange man who had spooked her kid, a weird look. Dazai watched them walk away and realized that the boy’s shirt hadn’t even been yellow. 

His knees trembled as he stood up. He couldn’t make himself take a step forward. Where could he even go? It had been hours since he had lost Isamu, and the boy was too young and too vulnerable to be left alone for so long. Dazai had failed to protect him. He had had the boy right there, in his grasp, and he had somehow managed to fuck it up. Dazai’s vision blurred and he felt something dripping down his leg.

“Mister, are you okay?” A teenager’s voice startled him. Dazai turned to look at him, though he wasn’t sure why he was asking him in the midst of a crowd of injured people. “You’re bleeding,” the young man added.

He was staring at Dazai’s right arm, so Dazai turned his gaze on it too. 

Huh, he was actually bleeding. 

His arm, from a little under his elbow down to his fingers, was covered in blood. Dazai couldn’t remember how he had gotten it cut or the size of the injury. He could barely feel it even as he watched the blood drip down to his leg.

“Can I get you something for that?” The teenager’s voice came again. 

A morbid fascination filled Dazai as his eyes lingered on the little pool of blood that had started to form on the ground. It would have been easy enough for him to bleed out even from a not major injury with the medication he was on. He could have just stood there and watched it happen. He hoped it wouldn’t take long. He was already feeling so tired, he wanted to get some rest.

He swayed on his feet and then felt two pairs of hands on his arms helping him sit down. He was confused about what was going on for a few moments, until he felt pressure on his right arm and turned to see the same teenager from earlier tie his wound with a white cloth. 

It was clear the boy mustn't have done something like this before that day. The makeshift bandage wasn’t as tight as it should have been, yet Dazai didn’t bother telling him. He only sat there with him in silence until he felt strong enough to stand up without collapsing and followed a group of people further inland. 

***

It was dark by the time Chuuya and Lexi got to the VA hospital. Chuuya made sure to support her on her injured side and not let her walk on her own no matter how much she complained about it.

“Hey. Hey!” he said as soon as he spotted a nurse. “My friend's got at least one broken rib and showing signs—” 

“Can I get your names for the list, please?” The nurse interrupted him, pointing to the clipboard she was holding.

“You have a list?” Lexi asked as she escaped Chuuya’s hold to grab it out of her hands.

“Excuse me!”

Chuuya let out a deep sigh and quickly grabbed the clipboard out of Lexi’s hands to hand it back to the nurse. Of course, even without Dazai there, he still had an idiot around to deal with.

“Lexi, let’s get you fixed up first, then you can spiral,” he told her, guiding one of her arms around his shoulders again. He then turned to the nurse to tell her their names for the list. “I’m Chuuya Nakahara and this is Lexi Davis.”

“Have you seen a Ronnie Cooper on the list? Fire captain, station 136,” Lexi insisted.

The nurse skimmed through the pages of names and sounded confident when she replied, “I haven't. Head on inside and someone will be with you.”

It clearly wasn’t what Lexi wanted to hear, and Chuuya was sure that she would have been running around the field hospital searching for her captain if he hadn’t been there to guide her inside, so he was grateful that Fukuzawa had sent him with her. He found her a vacant bed and made her sit down to wait for an available doctor to check her up.

“Okay, Nakahara, you got your wish. I'm here,” she said in an exasperated tone. “You don't have to babysit me.”

Chuuya didn’t bother to tell her that he didn’t trust her enough to leave her alone.

“Look, I get it. If my captain was out there…” 

“Coop's not just my captain, okay?” She interrupted him. “He believed in me. He made me who I am.” 

He had planned to say more, but his gaze fell on a little boy a few beds away, coughing slightly as his mother rubbed his back. The boy looked around Isamu’s age, and looking at him reminded Chuuya how much he wanted to go home to his own kid.

“He reminds you of your son?” Lexi asked him, following his gaze.

“I guess a little,” Chuuya admitted.

The boy’s coughs got louder and more intense.

“Sorry about his mom. That's rough.”

Chuuya was about to turn around to reply to Lexi when the kid started gagging. 

“Kyle, what's wrong?” His mother asked, panic clear in her voice.

Chuuya knew what was going on.

“He's drowning,” he called out as he rushed to the boy’s side.

He quickly grabbed him and laid him on his side on the floor. He took out his flashlight from his pocket and looked at the boy’s mouth, finding something stuck on his throat like he had been expecting.

“What's in his mouth?” His mother asked as Chuuya carefully grabbed the edge of the leaf that was visible in the boy’s mouth and pulled it out. Water came out of his mouth along with it.

The child’s coughing stopped, but Chuuya knew he wasn’t out of danger yet. A doctor and a nurse had rushed over so he helped them lift him to a gurney.

“Get him to X-ray,” the doctor instructed. “See which pulmonary specialist is available.”

Chuuya watched the boy’s mother, who looked injured herself, running behind her son and prayed that the boy would escape the worst.

“Delayed secondary drowning. I've never seen one of those. Good catch,” Lexi told him, joining him. 

Before Chuuya could scold her about walking around with her injury, the doctor came back and asked him, looking hopeful, “Paramedic? 

Chuuya shook his head. “No, but I was a medic in the service.”

“In case you couldn't tell, we are severely shorthanded. Any chance that you could—”

“Yeah, sure,” Chuuya immediately agreed. If he had to stay there, it was best to make himself useful. “Just point me where to wash up.” The doctor rushed to point him to the bathroom, so Chuuya hurriedly turned to inform Lexi, “Sorry, looks like you're not getting rid of me anytime soon.

The next half an hour or so was spent with Chuuya running around the field hospital to everywhere he was needed. He mostly had to clean and bandage wounds, so it was easy to keep an eye on Lexi to make sure she stayed waiting for her turn on the bed. 

When he had just finished bandaging a man’s arms and spotted her approaching him, he had to ask to make sure, “You all fixed up?”

“All taped up, pain killed, and rarin' to get back out,” she replied. Of course…

“You gotta be kidding me,” he sighed. 

“My captain's still somewhere out there,” Lexi argued.  

“And there are already people looking for him.” 

“There's gonna be one more.”

“Man, you're stubborn.”

“You can try to stop me, if you wanna know exactly what two broken ribs feels like.” 

Chuuya did know, and was about to inform her, when he spotted Fukuchi with the corner of his eye. The man seemed to have just arrived at the VA hospital and his uniform and hands were covered in blood. Chuuya rushed to greet him, scanning him up and down to find the source of the blood.

“It’s not my blood, kid,” Fukuchi informed him. “It’s his.” His captain’s husband pointed to the man who was being transported inside the hospital on a gurney. His left arm had clearly just been amputated. Chuuya didn’t recognize the man, but Lexi clearly did.

“Cap,” she said as she rushed to his side. “Are you okay? Can you hear me?”

“Lexi?” The man asked, looking up at her in relief. “You’re okay.”

“Yeah, the crew is too.”

Lexi gave him what was most likely her first genuine smile of the night as she followed behind her captain. Chuuya nodded at her and turned to get the story from Fukuchi.

“He got trapped under a car after the wave hit, his left arm got stuck. He had to tie his arm with his belt to avoid bleeding out but he had already been there for hours when I found him, his arm was gone. Help would take too long to arrive so he made me” —Fukuchi looked down at the blood covering his uniform— “amputate it to free him.” 

The Sergeant, understandably, looked shaken up by the experience. Even though Chuuya didn’t know the man that well, he felt obligated to lead him to the bathroom to wash his hands and find him a clean shirt to change into.

*** 

The VA hospital was overwhelmed with people. Dazai walked hurriedly, his eyes never stopping their search for the little boy in yellow shirt. This field hospital was his last hope of finding Isamu, the only place he hadn’t checked yet. He walked through the beds that had been set up outside until he found a nurse with a clipboard that looked like she was in charge.

“Hey, excuse me,” he told her, trying to keep his voice clear and steady. “I'm looking for a kid. He's got brown curly hair. He’s wearing a yellow shirt.”

“How old?” 

“He’s eight. Isamu Nakahara. He has CP.”

She flipped through the list, lingering on the pages that must have the names of the kids.

“Isamu Nakahara,” she muttered to herself. “No, he’s not here. You may wanna check over there at the black tent.” She pointed to his left. Her voice was kind, but not overly emotional. She had probably been there for hours directing people to look for their loved ones at that looming black tent.

“Isn't that the…” Dazai couldn’t say the word. He didn’t want to speak it out loud.

“The morgue,” the nurse finished the sentence for him anyway. She excused herself after and left Dazai standing there, frozen in place, staring at the black tent.

He didn’t want to go in there, but he had no choice. It was his responsibility to check. His legs were too heavy for him to lift, yet he dragged them there, step by step. There was a man standing at the entrance, who, once informed about who he was looking for, quietly led him to a section with smaller body bags and opened them one by one for him. Dazai lost count of how many lifeless bodies of little boys he saw. He felt numb by the end of it, but guiltidly also relieved that none of them had been his boy.

So many parents were going to grieve the loss of their children that day, but, at least, if Chuuya wasn’t one of them, Dazai could manage to survive another day. 

Out of options about where else he could search, he asked one of the nurses at the scene to borrow their phone and called one of the few numbers he knew by heart.

“Hello?” His sister’s voice came from the other line.

“Hey, it's me.”

“Osamu?” Akiko asked, clearly confused. “Where are you? I don't know this number.” 

“I borrowed someone else's phone. Akiko, I need your help.” 

“Okay, tell me what's wrong. Are you hurt?” His sister sounded ready to abandon everything to come find him.

“Chuuya dropped Isamu off with me,” he started to explain, dragging the words out of his mouth. “He thought, you know, doing some activities with him would get me out of my apartment... out of my head. Akiko, I brought him to the pier.”

Akiko gasped. “Oh, my God, you were there? Are you okay?”

“And I had him. All right, Akiko? I had him. I kept him safe. We were... uh... we were on top of the ladder truck, then the water receded—” 

“Okay, you're not answering me. Are you injured, bleeding?” His sister interrupted him.

“No, it doesn't matter!” Dazai yelled. “Don't you hear what I am saying? Isamu is gone. I've checked the emergency refugee camps at the Promenade, at the high school—”

“Okay, did you check the VA hospital? The Command Center, you know, on Sawtelle?” 

“I'm here now and he—” He isn’t here, he wanted to say. But then, as he turned his head towards the entrance of the hospital, he spotted a different familiar face. “Oh, God. God, God, no.”

“What? What happened?” Akiko asked him, her voice getting louder. 

Dazai ducked behind one of the tents, hiding himself from view. “Chuuya's here,” he explained to his sister.

“Does he know what happened?”

Dazai stayed quiet at the question, struggling to keep the phone up to his ear with how much his hands were trembling. Akiko found her answer in his silence.

“Osamu, you have to tell him.”

“How?” Dazai cried out. “How do you tell your best friend that you lost his son?” 

“No, no, no. He's his father. You have to tell him that Isamu's missing,” Akiko insisted, her voice firm.

“No, Akiko, I need to keep on looking for him. I need to find him.” 

Dazai couldn’t do it, he couldn’t possibly look Chuuya in the eyes and tell him he had lost his son.

“Look, it’s clear you are in no condition to go looking for Isamu by yourself. I'm coming down there.” 

“No, no. Akiko! Akiko!” Dazai tried to stop her. If she came to the VA hospital, she was going to tell Chuuya herself. Dazai didn’t want to tell Chuuya, but if someone had to, it was better for the person to be him. He couldn’t add being a fucking coward and letting his older sister take care of his mistakes to the list of things he had done wrong that day. “I’ll tell him, okay? I’ll go now.”

“That’s good,” Akiko sighed. “Call me again, okay? I’ll try to come there to find you as soon as I can.”

Dazai blurted a quick reassurance and goodbye before finding the nurse whose phone he had burrowed. Chuuya was still lingering around the entrance so Dazai slowly made his way towards him. He couldn’t find his voice to call out his name. He waited, like the coward he was, until Chuuya spotted him amongst the crowd of people.

“Dazai?” Chuuya called out once his eyes fell on him. With a few quick steps he was on his side, lifting his arm with the bloody bandage to look at it. “Wait, what are you doing here? Are you okay?” For a few seconds, he seemed genuinely confused, like he couldn’t fathom the thought of what was going on. “Wait, where's Isamu?” 

“Chuuya—” 

“Why do you have his glasses?” 

Chuuya let go of Dazai's arm and grabbed onto the glasses hanging from his neck instead. Dazai, as gently as he could with his trembling hands, guided Chuuya’s hand away so he could take the glasses off him. 

He held them tingly for a second, preparing himself for what he had to say.

“We, um... me and Isamu,” he stammered, staring at the glasses. “We were... at the beach, and... um... and listen to me, okay? I swear to you... okay, I tried... And I just…” He handed the glasses to Chuuya. He didn’t want to do it, he didn’t want to do it at all. It was the hardest thing he ever had to do, yet he lifted his head and met Chuuya’s gaze. “Chuuya, I just don't know how to say it. He... he just... he... he just vanished.”

Chuuya stared at him in silence. His eyes were glassy, yet tears weren’t falling down, almost like he was stuck in time, refusing to move on to this new reality.

Dazai braced his heart and went to try again. “Chuuya—”

“Isamu?” Chuuya whispered. His eyes had left Dazai’s gaze and were staring somewhere behind him.

“Chuuya, hey—”

“Isamu?” Chuuya repeated louder. He gently pushed Dazai aside and then yelled “Isamu!”

Dazai turned around to see him running towards one of the trucks that must have just arrived. There was an unfamiliar woman standing in front of it, with a little boy in a yellow shirt in her arms. 

At Chuuya’s yell, the boy turned around in her grasp and shouted back, “Dad!”

It was the little voice Dazai had wanted to hear all day. 

Within seconds Chuuya had Isamu in his arms, hugging him tightly while he thanked the woman beside him.

“You're Osamu?” the woman asked him.

“No, I'm his father, Chuuya.” 

“He was looking for Osamu.” 

Chuuya’s head turned to Dazai then, their eyes meeting once more. Dazai hadn’t taken a step closer to them, he didn’t know if he could, but just the sight of the two of them, safe and together, was enough to fill him with relief.

“Dazai, what happened to you?” It was Kouyou who asked him, putting a gentle hand on his arm. 

Dazai couldn’t turn to look at her, he couldn’t take his eyes away from Chuuya and Isamu. Isamu’s head was buried in his father’s neck, but Chuuya was still staring at him.  

“Hey. You two okay?" Fukuzawa asked. Dazai didn’t know where his team had been or when they had arrived, but he couldn’t really find it in himself to think about it much as they all surrounded him, asking him questions.

“Yeah, we're great,” was the only thing he managed to answer.

Chuuya’s gaze on him was the last thing he saw before he gave into the exhaustion, adrenaline no longer there to keep him going.

Chapter Text

After terrible accidents, the victims’ loved ones often say that the moment it happened, they felt it. That even though they weren’t there or had any idea of what was going on, they felt a sudden ache in their chest or woke up startled, overtaken by inexplicable anxiety. 

When the first wave hit the Santa Monica pier and his son almost drowned, Chuuya hadn’t felt anything. There had been no pain in his chest or a sense of uneasiness. When he had learned of the situation, the thought that Isamu could have been in danger hadn’t even crossed his mind.

It all came down to this simple fact; Isamu had been with Dazai. 

Chuuya hadn't doubted, not even for a second, that his son had been safe.

As he knelt on the ground, hugging the trembling but relatively unharmed body of his son, his eyes fell on Dazai. His best friend was covered in bruises and scratches and he was visibly bleeding from several wounds. His shirt was ripped in multiple places and covered in blood and mud. All things considered, he should have collapsed hours before, it should have been impossible for him to keep going in that condition for so long.

Yet he had. And Chuuya knew why. He squeezed Isamu tighter in his arms.

His son was safe and Chuuya still didn’t doubt his decision to trust him with his best friend.

When Dazai collapsed, Isamu’s head immediately turned towards him, even though Chuuya hadn't even told him that Dazai was there yet.

“Osamu!” the boy yelled. 

He tugged on Chuuya’s uniform, urging him to move closer. Chuuya secured him in his arms and stood up, walking towards where Dazai was being surrounded by their team.

“How is he?” He asked Kouyou who was taking his vitals.

“He’s mildly dehydrated. He doesn’t have any severe wounds but due to his medication he’s bled a lot, he may need a blood transfer and definitely some antibiotics to avoid infection,” she informed him. With the help of Kunikida and a nurse that had arrived, they lifted him on a gurney to be taken inside. “The doctors can fix him up though, I’m sure.” 

Chuuya wasn’t sure if she was reassuring him or the kid in his arms.

“Let’s go with him, dad.” Isamu tugged on his uniform again. He seemed to get more and more agitated as Dazai was wheeled away.

“Let’s have someone check you up too first, okay? And then we can go see Dazai.”

“No.” Isamu shook his head fiercely. “I want to go with Osamu.”

“The faster you get checked, the faster we can go with him, okay?” Chuuya tried to reason with his son. Even if he looked fine, he still needed the few scratches he had cleaned. “Please, baby. I promise we’ll go see Osamu right after.”

Isamu didn’t look totally convinced, but when Kouyou tentatively approached them to offer to be the one who checked him up, he agreed easily enough. His eyes stayed locked at the direction Dazai had been taken.

“All done,” Kouyou announced only after a few minutes, securing a bandaid on a little scratch above Isamu’s eyebrow. “You must be great at swimming, you barely have any wounds.”

“Osamu saved me,” the boy said, voice sure and loud. “We found a firetruck and we helped lots of other people too. I learned how to play I spy.”

Chuuya would have to get the full story eventually, but for the moment all he wanted was to squeeze his kid into his arms again and to go see Dazai. When Isamu reminded him of his promise a moment later, Chuuya was quick to pick him up and go search for where Dazai had been taken. 

“I don’t see him,” Isamu said anxiously, eyes jumping from one bed to another. 

Chuuya was impatient to see him too, but he had to reassure his son. “There’s a lot of people here, buddy. We’ll find him, don’t worry.”

He spotted Kunikida first, lingering over a bed. Then his gaze fell on Dazai’s figure on the bed. His eyes were closed but all his wounds seemed to have been cleaned and bandaged, and some color had returned to his face.

“Osamu!” Isamu yelled when he noticed him too.

For once, the expected “Isamu!’ didn’t echo after his son’s call. 

Isamu almost fought to get out of his arms to get to his Osamu quicker, so Chuuya sped up his steps. Kunikida’s gaze relaxed once they reached them.

“He’s okay?” Kunikida gestured with his head to Isamu who had successfully gotten out of Chuuya’s arms and climbed on the side of Dazai’s bed. He was careful not to touch the IV drip or his bandaged wounds, so Chuuya let him be. He could tell his son needed the comfort of being near Dazai.

“He’s fine, yes,” Chuuya reassured Kunikida. “What about Dazai?”

“He’ll be alright. He can go home as soon as this drip is done. Though the doctor said that it’ll be best for him to check up with his doctor as soon as he can.”

Chuuya nodded, feeling himself relax. Dazai alway beat the odds, it shouldn’t have been a surprise that he would survive even a tsunami. 

“Will you guys stay around for a bit?” Kunikida asked. “Captain just told me our team got an early release but I thought I’d stay here to help for as long as I can. Akiko is on her way but I didn’t want to leave this one alone.” He pointed to Dazai’s sleeping form.

“We’ll stay,” Isamu replied before Chuuya had the chance. He then turned to him and added, “Daddy, I want to stay with Osamu. We’ll stay, right?”

“Of course,” Chuuya reassured him quickly. 

He would eventually need to get his son home to get him cleaned up properly and make sure he gets some rest, but he was sure Isamu was going to throw a fit if he tried to get him away from his Osamu at that moment. Plus, if he was being honest with himself, he couldn’t imagine leaving Dazai alone either.

Isamu stayed curled up to Dazai’s side for the following twenty minutes, occasionally asking his dad questions, mostly about when Dazai was going to wake up or about the reason why he was sleeping for so long. Chuuya answered as truthfully as Isamu’s age allowed and managed to resist the urge to join the two of them on the bed on Dazai’s other side.

When Akiko rushed into the room, Isamu was wrapped around Dazai’s free arm and had started softly snoring. Akiko stopped to quietly ask Chuuya about his son and to thank him for staying with her brother before she went to find the doctor who had seen Dazai. 

Chuuya waited until she was back to, as carefully as possible, extract Isamu from Dazai’s side. Thankfully, his son seemed to have fallen into deep enough sleep that he continued snoring all the way back home and only briefly woke up when Chuuya was giving him a quick shower. 

That night Isamu slept soundly in Chuuya’s bed. Chuuya could hardly close his eyes long enough to join him, unable to stop thinking all the ways the day could have gone wrong and how there had been a chance that he would have returned home without his son. 

Isamu woke up close to midday and the first thing he asked was where Dazai was. Chuuya managed to get him to eat a late breakfast but the boy kept whining throughout it about wanting to go see Dazai. Chuuya didn’t want his son to get upset, but he had already spoken to Akiko on the phone and knew she had only woken up her brother in the morning to take him to his doctor and then Dazai had fallen right back asleep. It was clear the other man needed his rest, so Chuuya tried his best to convince his son to wait until the following day.

Isamu was awake before him the next morning. Chuuya found him already dressed in his room shoving Legos inside a bag. He knelt next to his son, and after kissing him good morning, he helped him pack a few more things and then led him to the kitchen for breakfast. Isamu ate much quicker than he usually did so within fifteen minutes the two of them were rushing out of the door.

The drive to Dazai’s house was filled with Isamu’s chatter. The boy talked about all the ideas he had about what he could do with Dazai for the day. If it wasn’t for the little scar on his son’s face, Chuuya could have pretended it was Saturday and not Monday, that Isamu had never had to spend a whole day trying to survive a tsunami. 

Life didn’t give people second chances to redo a day, though, so Chuuya could only try to keep the smile on his face and hope this day wouldn’t be one he would want to do-over.

Dazai took almost a whole minute to open the door. When he finally did, Chuuya could tell from his stance that he was favoring one leg over the other.

“Good morning, Osamu,” Isamu greeted him excitedly. He attached himself to Dazai’s good leg for a lingering hug.

“Good morning, Dazai,” Chuuya followed. 

He skillfully bypassed them to leave Isamu’s bag on the kitchen counter, along with some cash. He turned back to find Dazai looking at him, a stunned expression on his face even as one of his hands was rubbing Isamu’s back.

“Good morning?” 

“Okay,” Chuuya clapped his hands in an attempt to break Dazai out of it. Dazai flinched at the sound but continued to look at him like he couldn’t believe he was there. “There's a morning snack and midday snack, two coloring books and a bunch of Legos,” Chuuya went ahead with telling him anyway. Isamu, done with his hug, was already heading for his usual seat on Dazai’s couch. “There's 20 bucks for pizza, and if I were you, I'd eat a couple extra slices. You look like you're wasting away to nothing.”

“Chuuya…”

“I will say, honestly, you being laid up is working out for me. I mean, you're not my grandma and definitely not Corrine, but you'll do in a pinch,” Chuuya tried going for a joke, hoping that Dazai wasn’t looking at him like that for the reason he thought.

“You want me to watch Isamu?” Dazai’s voice was both hesitant and incredulous. 

“It's easy. He's not very fast.” 

“After everything that happened?”

“A natural disaster happened, Dazai.”

“I lost him, Chuuya.”

“No, you saved him.” Chuuya took a few bold steps towards him until they were standing close enough to touch, if one of them were to cross that line. “That's how he remembers it. And now, it's his turn to do the same for you.”

Of course he had brought Isamu to Dazai because he knew his son needed to see him, but the fact that he knew that Dazai was in need of his company just as much had made him rush out of his house that morning just a little faster.

Dazai shook his head. “I was supposed to look out for him.” 

“And what, you think you failed?” Chuuya was caught between being angry at Dazai for blaming himself for something that had been completely out of his control and feeling incredibly upset that he couldn’t just take all his friend’s fears and doubts away. “I’ve failed that kid more times than I can count, and I'm his father. But I love him enough to never stop trying, and I know you do too.”

With a half step closer and a hand that landed on Dazai’s shoulder, a bit too close to his neck, Chuuya crossed the line. His thumb pressed against the bare skin of his best friend’s collarbone and forced him to make eye contact with him.

“Dazai... there's nobody in this world I trust with my son more than you.”

Chuuya could only hold his gaze for a second after those words left his mouth. They had been easy to say, a truth he hadn’t needed to force out, yet he couldn’t stay there looking at Dazai’s eyes shining with unshed tears any longer than that. 

He turned and walked fast to the couch, leaning down to kiss his son goodbye.

“Okay, buddy, I gotta go. Be good for Dazai, okay?”

“Okay,” Isamu agreed easily. 

“Love you, have fun,” he added, walking back towards the door.

“Love you, dad.”

Dazai followed him to the door but seemed unsure of what to say. It was definitely too soon, but Chuuya couldn’t miss the opportunity to be the one to make the joke since Dazai clearly wasn’t going to. 

“Maybe try going to the zoo this time, something inland.”

He was the only one who chuckled at his words, but Dazai at least didn’t look a second away from crying anymore. 

Chuuya had already half closed the door when he felt the need to add, “Oh, and thank you, for not giving up.”

Twelve hours later, Chuuya was finally done with his shift. Even though it had technically been half a shift, it had felt longer than the twenty four hour ones. Dazai had texted him photos and updates about every place they had gone to throughout the day yet Chuuya was still a little anxious as he got to Dazai’s apartment. He pulled out of his bag the key that Dazai had given him for emergencies and unlocked the door without announcing his arrival.

“Chuuya?” Dazai’s voice came right away.

“It’s me, yeah,” Chuuya confirmed. 

Walking in, he found the two of them curled up together on the couch watching Finding Nemo. Isamu was hugging what seemed to be a shark plushie to his chest. He only gave his dad a brief wave before returning all his attention back to Marlin and Dory on the screen. Chuuya, a little more relieved than he would have liked to admit to seeing both of them alive and well, chose not to be offended by his son’s lack of enthusiasm about his arrival. 

He sat on the couch next to Dazai and waited until the movie was over to ask, “So, how was the zoo?”

Without fish on the screen distracting him, Isamu seemed to remember that he had a father. “It was so cool! We saw a baby rhino, she was so cute!”

“Yeah? Was she your favorite?”

Isamu seemed to think about it for a moment. “I really liked the koalas too. And the— How were those cats called?”

“Ocelots,” Dazai provided the answer. “They’re larger than a housecat but smaller than a bobcat. They kinda look like smaller and cuter leopards.”

“The sign said they live in Texas too! Did we see any when we lived there?”

“Probably?” replied Chuuya, unsure. He had taken Isamu to the El Paso zoo once when he was six, so even if neither of them remembered it, they probably had seen ocelots if they were native to Texas. What he remembered most about that trip was that he had been too overwhelmed from the heat and all the noise to pay attention to anything other than his son.

“Maybe I can tag along next time you go, if you guys want me there,” Chuuya decided to suggest. Perhaps it would be a more pleasant experience if he didn’t have to do it alone. 

“I don’t know.” Dazai pretended to think about it with a few exaggerated hmm’s. “What does my favorite Nakahara say? Do we want dad with us?”

“Osamu!” Isamu giggled. “You always want to hang out with dad!”

“Lies!” Dazai immediately protested, though he joined Isamu in giggling. “I only hang out with your dad to see you.”

Isamu seemed to find the statement hilarious. He reached over Dazai to put a hand on Chuuya's knee. 

“Don't worry, dad,” he said with another giggle. “I like hanging out with you.”

“I appreciate it, son,” Chuuya chuckled. 

He patted Isamu’s hand lightly and when Isamu seemed to be less expecting him he grabbed him from under his arms to drag him to his lap. Dazai held him back, wrapping his arms around the boy's waist.

“Nooo! Don't take him away!” He shouted dramatically. “Isamu! I won't let him steal you away!”

Isamu continued laughing instead of taking anyone's side, happy to let the two men fight over whose side he would be snuggling against. After a few more dramatic yells and light pulling they settled the boy between them, holding one arm each. Isamu fell asleep just like that and Chuuya couldn't find it in him to wake him up and take him home.

“Just stay here,” Dazai suggested after a while. “I'll inflate Isamu's air mattress and you can take my bed. I'm fine with the couch.

Chuuya scoffed. “Do you even fit lying down on this couch with your abnormally long limbs?”

“Are mine abnormally long or yours abnormally short?”

Chuuya couldn't reach out with his hands to hit him without disturbing his son's sleep but he definitely could kick him. 

“Ouch, you're a brute,” Dazai hissed quietly. “But even then I can't let my guest sleep on the couch, can I? I slept here while recovering anyway, I fit just fine.”

That was a fact that Chuuya had totally forgotten, yet he still didn’t feel like backing down. “Just because you were stupid and you didn’t let us bring your bed downstairs then it doesn’t mean it’s fine for you to sleep on the couch now that you’re recovering again.”

“I’m not recovering from anything now, I’m fine.”

“Fine my ass.” 

“Why are we bringing your fine ass into this? I thought we were talking about sleeping arrangements.”

“You—”

Chuuya had a colorful string of words ready but he was interrupted by his son’s voice.

“Just sleep together,” Isamu murmured without even opening his eyes.

Dazai’s gaze met his in the dark room only lit up by the TV light. For a second, the two of them looked at each other in silence, taken by surprise by that statement. In the next second, they were both muffling their laughter in their arms. 

“Your kid has a point,” Dazai said once they calmed down. “Hold him while I bring the air mattress down, will you?”

Chuuya nodded and helped Dazai detach himself from the boy to be able to get up. Isamu whined a little the moment Dazai’s warmth left his side but the man quickly covered him with a blanket before he could wake up again. 

It only took a few minutes for Dazai to prepare the air mattress. Chuuya tucked Isamu under the covers and, after turning off the TV, he followed Dazai up the stairs to his bedroom. 

Dazai’s bed was big enough that Chuuya knew they could both comfortably fit on it, yet he paused a little at the sight of Dazai sitting down on one side and leaving the other empty for him.

It was technically not late enough for two adult men to go to sleep but Chuuya hadn’t had any time to rest during his twelve hour shift and Dazai was still recovering from the tsunami, no matter what he was claiming. 

Chuuya tried to ignore any weird thoughts and cleared his throat to ask Dazai, “Uhm, do you have anything I can borrow to sleep in?”

“Ah right,” Dazai replied, getting up to walk to the closet. “Let me see if I have any clothes left from when I was in middle school.”

“You’re not funny,” Chuuya let him know. He was prepared for whatever clothes Dazai handed him to be too big for him but he wasn’t going to admit it.

In the end, Dazai found him a pair of shorts that fit him fine enough and a t-shirt that was definitely too long for him, but it at least didn’t look like a dress. Chuuya took the clothes with him to the bathroom to change, even if Dazai had definitely seen him naked multiple times at the locker rooms by that point. He wasn’t sure why it felt different this time around, but he was glad to close the door behind him and not wonder if Dazai’s gaze was on him while he was changing.

When he returned to the bed, Dazai was already lying down on his back, checking his phone. Once Chuuya joined him he turned the screen off and left it at his bedside table. He then turned to Chuuya and asked, “Am I the first man who has gotten you into his bed?”

The question was so unexpected that Dazai had started quietly laughing before Chuuya had gotten the joke. The moment he did, though, he reached over and slapped his arm. 

“If this is how you talk to people you’re trying to get in your bed then no wonder this bed has stayed empty for a while.”

“Wow, low blow,” Dazai pouted. “And here I was, trying to break the ice.”

“The ice has been broken to shreds, congrats.”

“Thanks, I knew it was a good line.”

It had been. Chuuya had felt inexplicably nervous getting into the bed but Dazai, with his stupid line, had reminded him just who was next to him. 

“If your goal was to disgust me, yeah.”

“Aww, Chuuya. Don’t be like that. People are lining up to be where you are.”

“I’ll tell them it’s not worth it.” 

Chuuya covered himself with the blanket and then pointedly turned his back to Dazai.

Dazai poked his back with his finger. “Not even going to say good night?”

“Good night,” Chuuya mumbled, feeling his eyelids getting heavier. “If you try to cuddle me in your sleep I’m going to punch you.”

“Same goes for you,” Dazai replied, poking him one more time, harder. He took his hand away and Chuuya heard him turn around before he had the chance to tell him off. 

“Good night, Chuuya.”

Those first few days after the tsunami, Chuuya had felt lucky. Not only had his son survived physically unharmed, he seemed to be handling the experience much better than expected as well. He slept through the night with minimal problems and even insisted on going back to school after only missing three days. 

Chuuya had really thought he had lucked out, until the nightmares began.

Exactly one week after that fateful day, Isamu woke up screaming. It was so unexpected after the quiet week they had had that, for a few seconds after Chuuya got woken up, he couldn’t believe that those broken screams were coming from his son’s mouth. 

The moment it hit him, Chuuya ran. He got out of bed and was at Isamu’s side at record speed. His son’s face was wet with tears and sweat and his eyes were unfocused, like he wasn’t fully awake yet. The screams had stopped but the moment Chuuya tried to nudge him awake, Isamu started whimpering words that Chuuya couldn’t really understand.

“Isamu? Baby?” He tried. “It was just a dream, come on, baby. Come on. I’m here, I’m here. Daddy is here.”

Isamu’s gasps and whimpers went on for a minute or two. Chuuya could only hold him close and rub his back, whispering sweet reassurances. His heart felt like it was being ripped out of his chest. He hated seeing his son in pain more than anything, especially when there was nothing he could do to take the pain away.

When his son finally calmed down, Chuuya managed to breathe without a suffocating ache in his chest. 

“You with me, ‘Samu?” He asked gently, letting go of his son just enough to be able to look into his eyes.

Isamu nodded and then he buried himself back into his father’s arms. Chuuya felt fresh tears wet his shirt.

“It’s okay, ‘Samu. You’re okay. I’m here, yeah? I’m here. It was just a bad dream. You’re okay now.”

He wasn’t sure if his son believed him or not, but he soon fell back asleep in his arms. Chuuya stayed there, holding him, for more than an hour, wanting to make sure that nothing else was going to haunt his dreams.

That first night, Chuuya had thought it might have been a one time thing. Isamu had gone through a traumatizing experience, so a nightmare at the one week anniversary wasn’t unexpected. He didn’t tell anyone about it, apart from the child therapist he had taken Isamu those first few months after his mother’s death. Doctor Choi suggested seeing the boy again, so Chuuya booked the first available appointment. 

It wasn’t a one time thing. 

Almost every night after that first one, Isamu woke up from nightmares. Chuuya could barely let himself sleep, always on edge about when the next one would come. He left his bedroom door open to make sure any noise coming from Isamu’s room would wake him up. On the nights after a particularly bad nightmare he would fall asleep leaning against his son’s door, afraid of not being close enough to get to him on time.

Isamu’s mood during the day was seemingly on par with his usual one, but there was something subdued about the way he carried himself. He was less chatty when the two of them shared meals and he didn’t sing along to the songs in the mornings Chuuya drove him to school. He would ask to go to his friends’ house to play but he never begged to stay for a sleepover like he used to.  

Chuuya tried to get him to talk about what was bothering him and what exactly his nightmares were about but the boy tried every technique in the book to get him to change the subject. As much as Chuuya wanted to learn what was going on with his son, he was trying to be patient and not force him to share his feelings before he was ready.

All those sleepless nights and endless worry meant that Chuuya was more cranky than usual, more so on the day that was forced to participate in a fire drill on what he had planned to be his day off. 

“Everyone, please keep moving to the designated safe area,” he instructed the crowd of office workers of the building that was definitely not on fire.

The fire alarm kept ringing and despite the lack of actual danger, the chaos that followed the evacuation was overwhelming.

“My God, that's the biggest damn fire I've never seen,” he heard one of the other firefighters joke.

Chuuya didn't have it in him to join his coworkers’ joking so he just stated, “I hate fire drills.” 

“City mandates we do them every three years. W can't fight city hall,” Kunikida let him know, unhelpfully.

“First alarm was triggered at 12:20. Call came in 30 seconds later. Boots down, hoses out by 12:43,” their captain joined them to announce.

“That's what? Four minutes over our allotted response time?” Kouyu asked. “Ouch, that's gonna cost us some points.”

Kunikida sighed dramatically enough that it could only mean one thing. “Somebody's gonna have to explain that to the new fire marshal.”

Dazai walked towards them, clipboard in hand. He tapped the clipboard with his pen and shook his head in an exaggeratedly disappointed manner.

Fukuzawa rushed to explain the situation before Dazai could talk. “There was a stalled bus blocking both directions on Grand. Vehicles couldn't clear a path, which delayed our arrival.” 

“And yet the 144 managed a response time in under six minutes. That's a full 17 minutes ahead of the 118,” Dazai argued back, barely managing to hide the smile on his face. 

He was clearly enjoying the situation far too much. Chuuya both wanted to punch him and to drag him back to their team to keep him company on those quiet night shifts when he couldn’t stop looking at his phone, waiting for Corrine to text him about a potential nightmare. Between work and trying to find the source of Isamu’s night terrors, he hadn’t even had much time to hang out with Dazai properly. 

“The 144 is five blocks away,” Fukuzawa insisted. 

“I hear you, Captain Fukuzawa, I do. And I wanna help. But I gotta be impartial here, you know?” Chuuya waited until Dazai’s gaze turned to him to roll his eyes. Dazai continued talking, undeterred. “Look, if I'm gonna do this kind of light duty, I gotta take it seriously, gotta be strictly by the book, just how you would want me to be.”

Chuuya was sure that their captain knew that Dazai was being a brat on purpose, but he still answered, quite sincerely, “For what it's worth, I'm proud of you. I'm glad you didn't throw away your career just because you had a little setback.”

Dazai looked a bit taken aback by the reply. He cleared his throat before saying, “Well, you know. I'll keep on fighting until I get back to where I belong. Someone has to help you put out fake fires.”

“They need to take your clipboard away,” Chuuya couldn't resist saying. Dazai gave him a subtle middle finger in response. Even for a brief moment, it felt nice to banter with him. 

Dazai got to put his clipboard to use again very soon after. One of the many office workers being evacuated through the stairs started having a seizure, causing all the people ahead of him to fall down like dominos. The man recovered quickly enough and there were no serious injuries but everyone from their team looked anxiously at Dazai and his clipboard.

Chuuya helped Kunikida transport the man outside.

“These things are unpredictable. Epileptic seizures could be triggered by strobing lights, even sounds,’ Kunikida reassured the man.

“I'm just so embarrassed.”

“No need to be. The event seems over. Just to be safe, we're gonna get you to the hospital, okay?”

“Okay, thank you.”

“Hey, there, I'm Ango Sakaguchi,” A sudden voice interrupted them. Chuuya turned to find a man in a full suit and a briefcase approaching the person who had had the seizure with a card in his hand. “Tenth floor, Sakaguchi, Gaskin and Whitmore. I want you to know I saw everything and I have reason to believe this building is not in compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act. There's several legal options you might wish to consider.”

“Sir?” Kunikida tried to stop him from getting too close to their patient.

“Hmm?”

“You might wanna wait until he's in the ambulance before you start chasing it.”

The lawyer didn't seem too bothered by the comment. After he said what he had to say he turned around and walked back into the building. Chuuya noticed Dazai staring at him with a weird expression on his face but when he joined the other man at the door, Dazai was back to his usual self.

“Well, it's a good thing this wasn't an actual five-alarm fire,” Dazai said.

Chuuya noded. “Yeah, that is a good thing.”

“Probably doesn't help that you're a man down. You know, I will be sure to mention that in my report.”

Chuuya rolled his eyes. “The team will be forever grateful to you.”

The team had to leave and Dazai had to return inside the building to finish his job for the day, so Chuuya quickly waved him goodbye, thinking that he should try to find time to hang out with the other man more.

“I really wasn’t sure what to say after that,” Chuuya heard Kouyou say. Her voice sounded like it was coming from far away even though she was standing right next to him. “Hey, Akiko, you know I’m nothing like your psycho ex-husband, right? You don’t need to be afraid of me? Because she was. Even if it was just for a second, she looked scared when I dropped that glass. I don’t know what I am supposed to do.”

Chuuya tried to focus on her words, vaguely aware that she was talking about something important, but it was 9 A.M. and he hadn’t slept more than four hours at once in a week. He let out a rather loud yawn.

“Oh, I'm sorry, is my crisis boring you?” Kouyou asked, raising an eyebrow. 

“I’m sorry,” Chuuya answered genuinely. “I didn't get much sleep last night. Isamu’s been having nightmares ever since the tsunami.”

Kouyou’s face softened. “How bad is it?”

Chuuya rubbed his forehead tiredly. “He's waking up screaming and crying. I’ve tried talking to him about it, but he won't open up to me. Says he's fine.”

“Ah, there is a lot of that going around,” Kouyou commented. 

Before Chuuya could ask her to elaborate, Kunikida’s voice warned them, “Careful, guys. Hall monitor's here.”

“You guys paint?” Dazai asked as he walked into the station. “Why does the place look smaller? 

“I think your head just got bigger,” Kunikida replied, making people laugh.

Fukuzawa, hearing the commotion, quickly joined them. “So Fire Marshal Dazai decides to drop off his report in person. Is that a sign of maturity? Or is it just revenge for all the times I've written you up?”

“Actually, you passed,” Dazai informed them. “I bumped up the numbers, got fancy with the math.”

“You don't know math,” the captain immediately argued.

“Which will be my excuse if anybody calls me out on it. Speaking of, did any of you guys get a call from that lawyer?”

“The ambulance chaser?” Chuuya asked. He focused on Dazai’s expression, trying to see if he could detect any weird feelings on his face again. No matter how hard he looked, he couldn’t find anything.

Dazai simply nodded. “He wants to talk to me about the building violations. I think somebody might be suing them.”

“Yeah, he was passing out cards like candy,” Kouyou chimed in.

Chuuya wanted to share his opinion about the guy, but Lexi Davis, who had been temporarily transferred to their station since her team had been caught up in the middle of the tsunami, called him over from the gym. 

“Hey, Nakahara, I need a spot over here.”

“Got you,” Chuuya replied to her. He then turned to Dazai to say, “Hey, good to see you, man.” Dazai didn’t have much of a reaction so Chuuya quickly got distracted helping Lexi with her bench presses.

“Dad!” 

Isamu’s scream woke Chuuya up once more. He was at his bedside within seconds.

“Isamu,” he whispered as he held his boy close.

Isamu clanged onto him and kept muttering, “She was drowning. She was drowning. She was drowning. She was drowning. She was drowning.”

“Hey, ‘Samu, hey,” Chuuya tried to snap him out of it.

“She was drowning. She was drowning,” Isamu’s gasps continued. Chuuya squeezed him in his arms even tighter, wishing he could somehow take his pain and feel it himself.

“Oh, it's okay, buddy. I'm here,” he told him. “It was just a dream. It's just a dream. You're safe.”

Neither of them slept more that night. Isamu’s terrified words kept playing in Chuuya’s mind on repeat.

In the morning, he took Isamu to an emergency session with Doctor Choi instead of taking him to school. His son was so tired by the lack of sleep that he didn’t even protest about it.

“Has he talked about the tsunami at all? I'm still not sure what he saw that day,” Chuuya asked the therapist after the session.

“We're getting there. Isamu talked about being at the pier with Osamu, how they played games,” Doctor Choi replied.

“That part isn't the reason he's waking up every night screaming,” Chuuya argued. He had already heard from Dazai about the hours they had spent together on top of the firetruck. What he didn’t know was what Isamu saw all those hours after.

“His subconscious is still processing the trauma,” Doctor Choi replied. “He's working his way through it. I know it's hard. You love your son. You wanna fix this. But it'll take some time.”

“Just wish he'd talk to me about it,” Chuuya admitted as he looked at his son drawing in the waiting room. 

“Maybe he's trying to communicate in other ways,” the therapist suggested.

Chuuya stared at his son and his drawing a little more. Isamu had always been the artistic type and coloring had been his favorite activity since he could hold a pen. He had been drawing more ever since the tsunami, though Chuuya had thought it was just a comfort thing. He stepped a little closer to him and looked down at the drawing. 

“A drowning woman,” he said as he returned to Doctor Choi’s side. That must be what the drawing was depicting. Isamu had been drawing a similar figure ever since the tsunami.

“Yes,” Doctor Choi confirmed. “He does seem to be fixated on her.”

“Lot of people died in that tsunami. I know Dazai tried to shield Isamu from most of it, but…” 

“I'm sure your friend did the best he could,” the therapist nodded sympathetically. 

“They were separated for a long time. Who knows what else he saw. Or who this drowning woman was.”

“He'll tell us when he's ready. In fact, if the opportunity's right, he might tell you first.”

“Is there anything I can do until then?” Chuuya asked, desperate for an answer. He couldn’t just wait, could he?

“Just keep loving him.”

"Just keep loving him?” Lexi laughed when he told her on their next shift. “Did he write that on a prescription pad?”

“Doesn't sound like you're a fan.” 

They were working out together again. They had been doing that a lot ever since Lexi started working at the 118. 

Lexi sighed. “The headshrinkers have their place. It's a very touchy-feely place, but that works for some people.”

“Oh, not you?” Chuuya raised an eyebrow.

“I went to one once, when I was a kid after my dad died. This lady had hand puppets,” she scoffed. 

“Did that help?”

“I made her cry, and then I told my mom I didn't wanna go back.”

Chuuya half chuckled-half sighed. “Oh, great, I feel encouraged.”

“Look, everyone deals with trauma differently,” Lexi argued as she kicked the punching bag. “I don't know your kid, but I know what worked for me. It was when my mom told me how she was feeling, that she was sad and that it was okay. However we felt, we were in it together, no matter what.”

“Sounds like good advice,” Chuuya nodded. Had he talked to Isamu about how much he missed Erica too? He wasn’t sure he had. He always asked his son to talk to him about his feelings yet he hesitated to tell him about his, afraid of burdening him with his sadness.

“She's a good mom,” Lexi agreed. 

Maybe Chuuya could take a page out of Lexi’s mom’s book.

The following night, Chuuya tucked his son into bed, praying that it would be a peaceful one.

“Did you brush your teeth?” he asked the boy.

Isamu smiled brightly at him as a response, showing off his clean teeth.

“Whoah.” Chuuya covered his eyes. “Good job, that almost blinded me.”

Isamu giggled and lifted the blanket to cover his mouth. 

Chuuya stroked his hair for a second before telling him, “Hey, “Samu, you know. If there's anything bothering you, you can talk to me. You know that, right?”

“I know, Daddy,” Isamu nodded.

“Love you. Good night.”

“Love you.”

Chuuya closed the door behind him and headed to the living room. A few of Isamu’s drawings were there so he quickly gathered them to put them away. The same woman as before was depicted in all of them, though this time Isamu had drawn her in a pink dress. Chuuya’s eyes fell on a picture at the corner of the room, the last picture ever that Isamu had taken with both his parents that day on the beach. Erica’s dress was pink.

He grabbed the drawings and returned to Isamu’s room, turning the light back on.

“Isamu, is this mom?” he asked the boy. Isamu blinked his eyes open and nodded. “Is this who you’ve been dreaming about? Why didn’t you tell me?”

His son lowered his gaze and whispered, “I don't wanna make you sad.”

Chuuya found it hard to breathe for a second or two. His heart was gasping for oxygen. 

“Hey, hey. There’s nothing wrong with being sad,” he told him once he managed to get his voice back. “I loved your mom and I miss her, probably always will. But... we still got each other, which means we're gonna be okay.”

“Okay. I love you, Daddy.”

Chuuya hugged his son tight. For once, he didn’t hold back his tears, letting them fall down his cheeks. Isamu was happy to stay in his embrace for a few minutes before he started yawning loudly in his father’s chest. Chuuya tucked him in again but stayed sitting on the side of the bed until the boy was asleep. 

He wasn’t sure what more he could do for him other than be there. The therapist seemed to believe it was enough, but Chuuya couldn’t be sure. He had been the only parent in the boy’s life for years, yet this time, he didn’t feel equipped to deal with this issue alone. He wished he had someone to turn to at this moment, someone he could wake up in the middle of the night to ask for advice, someone who would always be there no matter what.

His phone lit up with a text from Dazai asking him what seemed to be a completely random question. Chuuya unlocked his phone with a quiet chuckle to text him back. 

Dazai had been a constant in their life ever since they moved to L.A. Chuuya hadn’t realized how or when the other man had gotten so involved in it, yet he had somehow become the first person Chuuya thought of when he needed help. Maybe it was time to actually ask him for it.

Chapter Text

Dazai was dealing with being put on light duty just fine. He was definitely not miserable or jealous of everyone else who got to be out there and do the actual job of a firefighter instead of being stuck inspecting buildings with a clipboard in his hands. It was fine, really. It was temporary, after all. Dazai only had to be patient for a few more weeks and then the higher ups would give him the okay to get back to his life.

He made his way to the high-rise building that was being used for his station’s fire drill in a relatively cheerful mood. The job of a fire marshal was beyond boring on most days, but at least this time he would get the opportunity to tease ( cough torture cough ) his team to his heart’s content.

Armed with his clipboard, he stayed as close to them as he could, doing his best to look like he was taking this job seriously. It was clear all his team members could see through his bullshit, but Dazai gave his all to annoy them anyway. Chuuya was being more moody than usual so Dazai tried especially hard to get reactions out of him. 

The day was turning out to be the most fun he had had in his new job thus far, up until he saw the face of someone he had never thought he would meet again.

Dazai had been lurking by the entrance of the building as the 118 finished evacuating the office workers and Kunikida and Chuuya transferred the man who had suffered a seizure to the ambulance. Hearing the hurried steps of someone approaching, he turned around to see someone he used to call a friend crossing the entrance to get outside.

“Hey, there, I'm Ango Sakaguchi,” the man said loudly when he reached the patient. “Tenth floor, Sakaguchi, Gaskin and Whitmore. I want you to know I saw everything and I have reason to believe this building is not in compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act. There's several legal options you might wish to consider.”

Back when they used to know each other, Dazai had only ever seen the man wearing suits, even during casual hangouts. The suits he had worn back then, though, had been bought second hand and had been ill-fitted, as Ango had only been an underpaid intern. The one he wore now was clearly custom made and cost more than Dazai’s monthly salary. Dazai wouldn’t have been able to tease him about the too wide leg pants or the short sleeves of the jacket.

Ango got to the point right away as he usually did, uncaring about the opinions of the people around him. He was just doing his job, he would have insisted back then. If people broke the law, they only had themselves to blame.

His old friend didn’t notice him until he was making his way back into the building. His eyes widened as their gazes met for the first time in seven years, his steps stumbling for just a moment. Ango didn’t stop to acknowledge him though, and Dazai didn’t try to speak to him either. He let him go, hoping that would be the last of it.

The next morning, Dazai got a call from an unknown number. He usually ignored those, yet for some reason, that morning, he decided to hit accept on the call. Ango’s voice greeted him on the other side of the line.

“Hello, Osamu, it’s—”

“It’s Dazai,” he interrupted him. “Everyone calls me Dazai these days.”

“O-okay,” Ango replied, unsure. “You recognized who I am, then.”

“I got a fresh reminder of your voice just yesterday.”

“Ah. I’m sorry I didn’t stay to talk. I was taken off guard and was back in my office before I realized what had happened.”

Dazai didn’t care about his excuses so he just asked, “How did you get my number?”

“I asked for the contact of the fire marshall so I could discuss the building violations with him. A case has been opened.”

“Good luck with that,” Dazai sneered and then promptly hung up on him.

Whether Ango was just using this as an opportunity to talk to him or if he was genuinely looking for his help, Dazai didn’t care. He had no desire to ever speak to him again.

When the report of 118’s fire drill was ready, Dazai didn’t miss the opportunity to hand it in to his captain in person. The station had felt more like a home than any house he had ever lived in. Dazai felt quite desperate to find some comfort at the familiar place. Getting to speak with his team that he rarely saw these days was definitely a plus.

“Speaking of, did any of you guys get a call from that lawyer?” he had to ask eventually. He didn’t want Ango to get involved in the life he had painstakingly built for himself.

“The ambulance chaser?” Chuuya asked. His gaze on Dazai was intense. 

Dazai had noticed that the other man had sensed his discomfort at the arrival of the lawyer the day of the fire drill so his poker face when he nodded and gave his reply was perfect.

“He wants to talk to me about the building violations. I think somebody might be suing them.”

“Yeah, he was passing out cards like candy,” Kouyou informed him. 

Dazai had intended to ask a few more questions to get a sense of what exactly Ango had been up to, but the sudden call from a female voice he didn’t recognize interrupted him.

“Hey, Nakahara, I need a spot over here.”

“Got you,” Chuuya replied easily to her. He was already on his way towards the gym when he turned to Dazai and said, “Hey, good to see you, man.” 

Dazai watched him walk away with a sour taste in his mouth.

“Uh, who... who's that?” He asked Fukuzawa.

“That’s Lexi Davis,” Fukuzawa informed him. “Her station was smack in the middle of the impact zone and her crew was temporarily reassigned, so I brought her over here.”

It wasn’t unreasonable. Dazai had been out of work for months and someone had to fill in his position. Still, Dazai felt like he was back in the body of his six year old self after he had first watched his mother be sweet and loving to the children she taught at school when she couldn’t even spare a glance at him at home.

“You replaced me?” he asked, childly. 

“What? No.” Fukuzawa sounded confused. Like he couldn’t get where Dazai was coming from.

“Then what's that right there?” Dazai, continuing his tantrum, pointed to the tag above the hanger he had been assigned to at the station to hang his overcoat where a sticker with Lexi Davis’ name was covering his. 

“Dazai, relax. I promise you your place will still be here for you when you're ready.”

Dazai had heard enough of that. “I'm ready now,” he declared.

What if he stayed out of work for too long and nothing was the same when he came back? What if Chuuya learnt to work better with Lexi and was disappointed to get Dazai back as his partner? What if nothing ever went back to how it was before the accident?

“Dazai, listen to me—” Fukuzawa started, but the bell cut him off before he could finish his sentence. “We will talk soon,” he told Dazai hurriedly as he ran to join his team.

Dazai stayed to watch them get into the vehicles and drive away, leaving him alone at the place he wanted to return to the most.

Dazai had really planned to never speak with Ango again. For days, he ignored his calls and texts. He didn’t listen to the voice messages the man left him and made sure to tell the people he worked with not to let any lawyers come into his office. He would have continued doing exactly that until the text he got from Chuuya.

We ran into that ambulance chaser again. He tried to give me his card lol

Dazai was sitting across from Ango in his office the following day.

“So, we could agree there was some negligence during this fire drill,” Ango was telling him, all serious and unblinking.

“I wouldn’t agree with that, no,” Dazai scoffed. Had Ango really approached him just for this?

“Your after-action report says the LAFD exceeded the evacuation time requirement by 12 minutes.”

“That's actually a pretty decent time for clearing a 35-story building,” Dazai argued. “Look, all your questions seem to be about the department. I thought your client was suing the building.”

“Clients,” Ango corrected. “Forty two injured people the LAFD failed to protect. This is a class action against the city on all of their behalfs.”

“You're suing the city?” Dazai was ready to start laughing.

Ango hummed in response. 

“And you think I'm gonna help you with that?”

“I find disgruntled employees often make the best witnesses.”

“I'm not disgruntled,” Dazai responded, a tad too quickly.

“I looked into you after we ran into each other. I know about the accident and how you’ve been fighting with the LAFD to return to full duty because of the blood thinners.”

Dazai felt the animalistic urge to reach over the desk and claw at Ango’s eyes for daring to look into his life. Whatever issue Dazai had with the LAFD, he knew not to trust Ango to fix it.

“They're just trying to protect the department,” he informed the man with the calmest tone he could master.

“And who's protecting you?” Ango asked then. Behind those glasses he always wore, Dazai caught a glimpse of the boy he had once thought would be a lifelong friend. 

He pushed the thought aside as fast as he could.

“I can take care of myself,” he replied simply.

Dazai was used to that. What was more, he had chosen to put his trust in his captain to do whatever he could to get him his job back. He wasn’t going to let someone like Ango get into his head about this.

Fukuzawa and Fukuchi invited him over to their house for dinner at the end of that week. Dazai was happy to accept, excited to eat something made by his captain again. As much as his cooking skills had improved, he knew he was nowhere near Fukuzawa’s level yet.

At the dinner table, Dazai brought up Ango himself. He wasn’t sure why he felt the need to, but the words were out of his mouth before he could stop himself.

“So I told him off,” he clarified. “I told him there’s no way he could get me to sign any affidavit that blames the 118 for anything.”

“I appreciate that.” Fukuzawa smiled gently.

“Please, the nerve of that guy to think I would turn on my friends?” Dazai continued. He could tell his tone was getting a tad too heated so gave Fukuzawa and Fukuchi the most sincere chuckle he could master at the moment. “I missed your cooking, captain,” he added for good measure.

“Well, I missed your eating.” Fukuzawa said with another smile. “I never have to worry about leftovers. 

“Collard greens?” Fukuchi asked then, holding the plate for him.

Dazai shook his head. “Oh, no, not for me. I can’t eat those, not while I'm on the blood thinners. Too much vitamin K.”

“Oh, it sounds like you're taking your health very seriously.” Fukuchi nodded in approval.

“I figured the better I manage this, the sooner I can go back to work.” 

It had been hard to get himself to care about things like this after the embolism, but Dazai was trying his hardest. Taking care of himself had never been his strongest point, it was a challenge every day to make good decisions for his health.

“That's very mature of you, Dazai,” Fukuzawa gave his approval too.

“Thank you,” Dazai replied sincerely. “Hey, An— uhm, that lawyer got me thinking. There’s strength in numbers, right? Maybe I could get everyone to sign a statement of support or something, show the higher-ups that you guys don't think I'm a liability.”

“Dazai—”

“They'd have to listen, right?” 

Dazai was aware that he was sounding more and more desperate but he didn’t know how many days of forcing himself to eat healthy meals and taking walks around his neighborhood he had left in him.

“I want you to listen to me,” Fukuzawa tried to stop him but Dazai continued his rant.

“If you told them that I was ready, I mean, these... these dumbasses, they would have no right to keep me—”

“I'm the dumbass,” Fukuzawa declared all of a sudden.

“What?” Dazai questioned, genuinely confused.  

“You're not ready. That's what I told them when they asked.”

“Would anybody like any corn bread?” Fukuchi offered, trying to catch Dazai’s attention.

But all of Dazai’s attention was on his captain. The man he had put all his trust in for one of the most important things in his life.

“You're the reason they won't let me back?” 

He was back to being the unwanted child.

“The medication is the reason,” Fukuzawa replied. 

“Yukichi is just worried about you, Dazai, that's all,” Fukuchi tried to help the situation.

At that moment, Dazai wasn’t sure if any excuse could make him feel better. It was one thing for Fukuzawa to not think he was ready. It was another thing entirely to hide the fact from him in this way. Was he never planning to let him come back? Had it been his goal all this time to keep reassuring Dazai that he could get his job back until Dazai grew too tired of waiting and gave up?

“I thought you were on my side,” the words came out quietly, a bit wet.

For once, for the first time in years, he had thought he had found his people. The ones who wouldn’t betray him.

“I am on your side. I am also the captain of almost twenty other firefighters whose lives and safety depend on decisions I make, and I can't put them at risk. If you're not operating at 100%—”

Dazai got up abruptly. His chair toppled over and fell on the floor with a loud bang from the force of his movement. 

“I am at 100%! Maybe even more. I've never felt so good.” 

He had tried more than he had tried his entire life to get his body to be okay.

“Dazai, I know that you went through a lot in that tsunami and maybe you feel like you can survive anything—”

“Anything. Like a knife in my back,” Dazai laughed bitterly. He then turned to Fukuchi and said, as politely as he could, “Thank you for inviting me. I’m sorry, I have to go.”

He turned around to walk to the door before either of them could reply.

“Dazai, hold on,” he heard Fukuzawa say.

“You don't have to leave,” Fukuchi tried.

“Dazai, wait!”

Dazai drove himself back to his apartment in silence. Once he was inside and his door was locked he got his phone out of his pocket and sent a message to a number he still had memorized.

“If you go down this road, I need you to know suing the city is not a small matter,” Ango informed him for what seemed to be the fifth time.

“Look, all I want is my job back.” Dazai didn’t care about the details as long as got to be a firefighter again. “You know how to win a case no matter what, right? That’s what you’re best at.”

Ango frowned but didn’t deny it. “I can win you the case, if that’s what you want.”

“That’s what I want.”

I want to be back with the 118, with the people I consider family, he hesitated to add. Ango didn’t have to find out the most vulnerable parts of him, not when he was feeling so raw.

“You should also be aware that during this process, it's best to have no contact with anyone from or tangentially connected to your station house. That means no texts, no calls, nothing that could compromise our case.”

“I'm not sure we have much to say to each other right now anyway.”

Ango nodded and started briefing him on the procedure. Dazai only paid half a mind to his words and answered all the questions the man asked him less carefully than he probably should have. Ango had once been his friend. Perhaps it was stupid, yet Dazai hoped that Ango would know how to help him.

The same night, he returned to Fukuzawa’s house with a newfound determination setting on his shoulders.

“Dazai, is everything all right?”

“I'm sorry to come by so late,” Dazai replied. “I wanted to apologize to both you and your husband for walking out on dinner.”

“Oh, things just got a little heated. No need to apologize.” Fukuzawa waved him off. “Why don't you come in?”

“Sorry, I can't do that. This will be the last time we can talk for a while.”

Fukuzawa looked at him, confusion mixed with what could have been concern on his face. “Dazai, what is going on? What are you talking about?”

“I thought you should hear it from me. I figured I should be the one to deliver this. I'm suing the city, the department, and you for wrongful termination,” Dazai delivered the words calmly, steadily. 

“Come again?”

“I told you I wouldn't stop fighting until I got my job back. And I won't. Even if it means fighting you.”

It was clear that his former captain had more to say, but Dazai didn’t stay to listen. With a few determined steps he made his way back to his car and closed the door before he had even sat down on the seat properly. He turned the radio on while he drove back to his apartment but he wasn’t sure he listened to a single note of the songs that played. 

Sooner than expected, Dazai found himself in a meeting room next to Ango wearing a rented suit that the lawyer had gotten for him. The suit fit him perfectly, yet his skin felt more and more itchy as time passed.

“This is not a trial, and I am not a judge,” the arbitrator started the meeting. “This arbitration will address Mr. Dazai’s claim against the Los Angeles Fire Department for wrongful termination.”

“Dazai wasn't terminated. He still has his job,” Fukuzawa countered from across the table.

Dazai kept silent as Ango had instructed him, his gaze lowered. He listened to the words being exchanged between his former captain and Ango like the topic of discussion was about a third person and not himself.

“It's our position that Firefighter Dazai, while not technically fired, has been constructively terminated from all components of firefighting duty. A defacto firing. Which is a direct result of a pattern of discriminatory and unequal treatment on the part of Captain Fukuzawa.” 

“Unequal treatment? I don't treat Dazai any differently than I do any other firefighter under my watch.”

“Really?” 

“Really. Dazai has a chronic medical condition. I made this decision in order to protect both Dazai and the rest of my team.”

“Firefighter Dazai has been cleared to return to active duty by his doctors. Is the decision really up to you?”

“As the captain of the station, yes, part of it is. It’s my responsibility to ensure the safety of everyone under my watch. The Chief asked for my opinion about Dazai’s reinstatement and I gave her my honest answer.”  

“Have you treated all the firefighters under your watch that have been injured in the same way?”

Fukuzawa paused, just for a moment, before replying, “Yes. I haven’t let anyone return to active duty before being sure they were ready.”

The next person from his team that took part in the arbitration was Kouyou. She sat across from him, her expression not betraying a single feeling as Ango drilled her with questions.

“Yes, I was hit from behind with a construction truck and the rebar entered the back of my skull and went right through my brain and exited my forehead,” she confirmed. She pointed to the scar on her forehead and added, “This little scar here is all I ended up with.” 

“That's miraculous,” Ango pointed out. “And how long did it take before you returned to work?”

“Several weeks. About a month I’d say. I’m a quick healer, evidently.”

“Evidently,” Ango nodded, a sly smile on his face. “And wasn’t there that time that a patient accidentally stabbed you when you went to treat him? How long did it take for you to get back with the 118 that time?”

“That was also about a month.”

“Hm. So it's fair to say Captain Fukuzawa has followed a pattern of allowing firefighters with serious injuries back after less than a month.”

“No, I don't think it is fair to say. Every patient is different. Every injury is different. The blood thinners that Dazai has to take right now makes it very dangerous for him to be in the field.”

Kunikida followed after Kouyou. He was the only person who smiled at Dazai before sitting down. 

“Tell me... do you recognize this brochure?” Ango asked the man as soon as he confirmed he was ready, handing him a brochure. 

“Yes,” Kunikida nodded after briefly scanning it with his eyes.

“Can you tell us what it is?”

“It's a commercial brochure for anticoagulant blood thinner medication.”

“Medications that you yourself sold in your former career as a pharmaceutical rep. Is that right?”

“Yes,” Kunikida nodded again. The man had done quite a few random jobs before becoming a paramedic.

“And in your sales pitch to your doctor clients, was it your contention that these medications would allow patients to resume their normal lives?”

“I was a sales rep, not a doctor.”

“But now you’ve been working as a paramedic for years. Do you share the opinion of your captain that Dazai can’t return to work because of his medication?”

Kunikida hesitated to answer. “I agree that there are risks with letting him return to active duty, but I’m still not qualified to make that decision.” 

“If you had the rank to make it, would you have chosen the same?”

“I— I can’t be sure. Risks come after every type of injury. There are a lot of factors to consider here. A captain has to think of the big picture.”

“So an employee’s right to return to his job can be dismissed then? Because of the so-called big picture?”

Chuuya was the last person that joined them in the meeting room. Dazai’s gaze unconsciously searched for his, but the moment their eyes met and Dazai was confronted by the fire behind Chuuya’s eyes, he had to break eye contact and stare at the table instead. Chuuya hadn’t even looked at him like that when he had first entered the station and Dazai had spent their first two shifts together actively hating him.

“You were a field medic,” Ango prompted Chuuya soon enough. 

“Still doesn't qualify me to comment on Dazai's medical status. It does make me understand the chain of command. And if the captain says he's not ready, then he's not ready.” 

The words echoed loud and clear in Dazai’s head.

“Were you ready, Firefighter Nakahara, to return to work after your wife's death?” Ango asked all of a sudden. 

Dazai’s head turned to him right away. Dazai hadn’t even mentioned this fact to him, why was Ango bringing it up?

“That's my business,” Chuuya tried to shut him down.

“It's also your Captain's business, as you’ve made it clear. He never suggested you take some time off? See a counselor?”

“He suggested it.”

“But you didn’t follow up with the suggestion.”

“It was a suggestion, not an order. I didn’t find it necessary. Being back at work helped me more than a counselor ever could.”

“So captain Nash was lenient with you and let you make the decision about whether you were ready or not.

“Grieving and a medical condition are two completely different things. I don’t see how this is relevant to this proceeding.”

“Dealing with a loss like that can affect your mental state and can be considered a risk in a work field like firefighting. This illustrates perfectly how everyone expect Mr. Dazai is allowed to return to the job, no matter the injury or detriment.”

Chuuya left the room without sparing a single glance to Dazai. After more than a year of having the man’s full attention every time they had been in a room together, it felt uncanny to not receive even a glare. 

Dazai got up and followed him out of the room and down the corridor before Ango could stop him. He found Chuuya entering the elevator along with the rest of his team and impulsively called after them. Kunikida gave him a weak wave but didn’t stop Chuuya from pressing the button to close the elevator door. 

Dazai stood unmoving in front of the elevator door until Ango found him.

“Ah there you are,” the man said casually. “I think that went great. I’ll let you know what I hear, okay? You did good.” 

Dazai hadn’t uttered a single word during the entire proceeding. He had stayed silent and had let Ango win the case like they had agreed. 

They were going to win, he could tell. Ango had used every story Dazai had told him to their advantage and hadn’t hesitated to dig out personal information to make his points. Dazai had been angry when they had been planning this. He had thought he was ready to fight everyone who stood in his way to getting back to his job. Yet, that evening, as he had sat in that meeting room watching helplessly every important relationship he had been building in the past few years break apart, he wanted to take it all back. 

He wished he had never seen that kind of anger in Chuuya’s eyes. He wished he hadn’t witnessed Kouyou’s cold disappointment and Kunikida’s struggle to take sides. He wished that Fukuzawa had never talked about him so apathetically. 

Even if they won, could Dazai get back what he had really wanted?

Ango didn’t take more than a few days to call him to his office. Dazai had barely been awake when his phone rang, having stayed up late the previous night, yet he was dressed and out of his door within five minutes.

“Ah, you got here fast,” Ango greeted him as soon as he let him into his office.

“You said you had big news?”

Ango nodded, smiling. “The biggest.” He handed Dazai a piece of paper.

“Uh, what is this?” Dazai asked, his eyes starting to scan the document.

“That is the city's offer. They wanna settle. Now, it's only a jumping off point. We can counter.”

Dazai read it once, and then twice. He read it a third time to be sure. “This... this is all they're offering?” he asked eventually.

Ango chuckled. “Did I forget a zero?” He leaned into Dazai’s space to take a look at the document. “No, I got it right. You do understand they're offering you millions of dollars.”

“I don't want millions of dollars,” Dazai replied petulantly.

“You don’t?” Ango asked, sounding genuinely confused. “You told me you wanted to win.”

“I wanted to win to get my job back.”

“But you’ll be a millionaire. You never have to have a job again. Didn’t you tell me once that that was your goal in life? To just sit around and never work?”

“I said that when I was nineteen and hadn’t found a job that gave me purpose yet. Did you really think I was doing all this for money?”

His younger self probably would have done that. The Dazai who thought that nothing in his life had meaning and barely worked enough to feed himself would have happily accepted the money and lived his pointless life with no complaint.

But Dazai had changed. That fateful winter day when his first real friend died in his arms was the start. Although it had taken him a few years to succeed, the promise he had made followed him around everywhere. 

“Unlike you, some of us grew up to care about things other than money,” he jabbed out. “I did this so that I could go back to doing what I love. To be back with my team.”

Ango laughed then. Loudly and bitterly. “You really think they're gonna welcome you back after this? If you actually cared about them so much, why did you give me all that ammo to fire at them?”

“That was just information, I hadn’t wanted you to use it against them.”

“How could I have used it, then, to win your case? You think we could have won by sparing everyone’s feelings? That’s not how this works. You know that’s not how it works, you’re not stupid.” Ango sighed and rubbed his forehead, like this conversation with Dazai was giving him a headache. “Look, we won. Just like how you asked me to. I did this to help you.”

Dazai could almost believe it, that Ango had genuinely wanted to help. But even if he could believe it, he had clearly forgotten that he and Ango had completely different definitions of a job well done.

“This doesn’t feel like winning,” Dazai muttered.

Ango didn’t try to stop him from leaving, but he did tell him to meet again to talk. This time Dazai was sure that he was never going to speak to this man ever again.

It was totally pathetic. Dazai was well aware that it was pathetic, yet there he was, at the grocery store closest to the fire station. He knew that Fukuzawa took the team grocery shopping every Monday that they were on shift early in the morning before Los Angeles started having their first emergencies of the week. He lurked in a random aisle like a creep until he heard their voices.

“Dazai?” Kouyou noticed him first. 

“Whoa, hey guys. What's up?” Dazai tried to play it casual. 

“What are you doing here?” Kunikida asked him.

“Me?  I'm just here to... to do some... some shopping.”

“Eight miles from your apartment?”

Dazai hadn’t exactly prepared an excuse. “Yeah, well, this is the only place that has…”  He hurriedly looked around and picked the first thing his eyes landed on. “Happy Cat laxative powder.” 

“You're buying cat laxative?” Kouyou raised an eyebrow.

“Yeah,” Dazai nodded, confidently. “I've been thinking of getting a cat.”

“And you're anticipating your new cat will be constipated.”

“You know me, I like to be prepared.” 

None of them seemed impressed by his pitiful performance so Dazai decided to spare everyone’s sanity and be honest.

“Um... Listen, I came here to apologize. I never meant for things to get so out of hand with the lawsuit and…”

“Yeah? What'd you think was gonna happen?” Chuuya finally spoke. “The lawsuit's bad enough, but you told your lawyer everything about us... personal things.”

“You're supposed to be truthful with your lawyer,” Dazai tried to argue. He had regretted putting his trust in Ango, but Chuuya’s attitude seemed a little too much even considering Dazai’s fuck up. “Why are you so pissed at me?” He had to ask him. He had thought Chuuya of all people would have understood that he needed to get his job back.

“Because you're exhausting,” Chuuya fired back, pointing an angry finger at him. “We all have our own problems, but you don't see us whining about it. No, somehow, we just manage to suck it up. Why can't you?”

“That's kinda harsh,” Kouyou stepped in. “It's not like the guy asked to be crushed by a ladder truck.”

“No, but he filed a stupid lawsuit, and now I can't even talk to you because of it. You know how much Isamu misses you? How could you? You're not around.”

Dazai had been ready to argue back, yet those words stopped him in his tracks. 

“I... I didn't realize that,” he admitted, shamefully. He had been so focused on himself that he hadn’t spared enough thought about the kid he had recently gone through a traumatic experience with. “Maybe I can come and visit Isamu. You know the lawsuit doesn't prevent that.”

“No, it prevents me from reaching out to you. I couldn't even call you to bail me out of jail,” Chuuya said, still looking angry. When everyone looked at him in surprise he hurriedly added, “If that was something that happened.”

Dazai wanted to ask what he meant by that, to find out all about what Chuuya had been up to, but a certain thought lingered in his head, despite everything. “Why can’t you see my side of this?” he asked.

“'Cause that's all you see!” Chuuya took a step closer to him and looked seconds away from grabbing the collar of his shirt or swinging a punch at him.

A loud crash outside stopped the argument before it could escalate any further. Dazai turned his head from the storm that was Chuuya to see that two cars had crashed into each other right outside the grocery store.

Fukuzawa, who had yet to speak any words to him, turned to the team and instructed them to follow him. Dazai let them run outside before he followed them, lingering at the entrance. 

He watched as they all worked together to help the passengers of the two cars and wished, more than anything, that he could be part of them again. 

No money could replace the home he had created with those people.

Could Dazai get it back? After how much he had fucked up?

Would Chuuya ever look at him without anger in his eyes again?

Chapter Text

The day after the arbitration, Chuuya decided to get his hair cut. It had been a while since his last haircut and his hair was getting a bit too long to take care of with his busy lifestyle. The problem was that every hair salon in his area he called was apparently booked until the following week. Chuuya wasn’t sure why everyone in Los Angeles was suddenly in need of a hairdresser, but after the fifth rejection he grabbed a pair of scissors from Isamu’s room and headed for the bathroom. 

It wasn’t his first time cutting his own hair, but as it had happened in those times as well, the haircut Chuuya gave himself was slightly uneven. Although Chuuya had perhaps passed the age where it was socially acceptable to be walking around in public with a clearly DIY haircut, he didn’t care enough about it to try to fix it. 

Isamu was the first to comment on it when Chuuya picked him up for school. As he was lifting him up on the car seat the boy gently tugged at the strand of hair that Chuuya knew was longer than the rest.

“What happened to your ponytail?” Isamu asked, innocently. Chuuya had been growing out his hair ever since he returned home from the army, this was the first time he had cut it since then. 

“I wanted to try something new,” Chuuya told him. It wasn’t really the truth, but it was probably the best explanation for his son.

Isamu nodded. “I like it like this too.”

Chuuya smiled at him fondly. “Thank you. Do you want to get a haircut too?”

“Will you cut it for me?” Isamu asked with a raised eyebrow, making Chuuya burst into laughter at how that expression looked on his son’s little face.

“How did you know I cut my hair myself?”

Isamu tugged on the longer strand again instead of replying.

“Alright, I get it.” Chuuya laughed again. “If you want a haircut I’ll book an appointment for you, okay?”

“Okay,” the boy nodded, seemingly relieved that he wouldn’t have to have uneven hair too. “Will Osamu come to play video games on Sunday?”

This was the third time Isamu was asking. Chuuya hated that he had to tell him no, and even more that he couldn’t explain to him why.

“No, buddy. Dazai is busy this weekend. We can play games, though, alright?”

“Why is he busy?” Isamu insisted. “He doesn't work on Sundays now.”

“Well, he has other plans. He’s sorry that he can’t make it.”

At least Chuuya hoped he was. He hoped Dazai was just being momentarily stupid and that he hadn’t stopped caring about Isamu.

“When will I see him then?” Isamu didn’t look ready to let the topic go this time.

Chuuya felt helpless as he tried to find an excuse. Over the past year his son had gotten used to having Dazai in his life and seeing him regularly. Especially after his mother’s death, even though Dazai had been dealing with his own problems, he had always made sure to spend some time with Isamu.

How could Chuuya explain to his son that he wasn’t allowed to see one of the most important people in his life? Chuuya couldn’t break his heart again. Isamu had already lost way too many people, he didn’t want to add one more to the list.

Chuuya tried to smile at his son. He couldn’t lie, but he couldn’t explain to him the real reason either. He settled for what he wished to be the truth.

“Soon, I hope.”

Isamu’s lips had formed a pout on his face. It was the kind of expression that normally made Chuuya smile at the adorableness of it and kiss his son’s cheeks. This time though, Chuuya’s mind couldn’t be eased by the cuteness of his kid. Isamu was clearly upset about not seeing Dazai this week, but he didn’t know that there was a chance that he would never spend time with him again. Chuuya’s heart broke at the thought of never seeing Isamu laugh while building lego sets with Dazai ever again.

“Let’s- let’s go home now, okay?” Chuuya patted Isamu’s cheek and moved back to close the door behind him. “Are you ready for the party and the sleepover?” He asked as he started the car, a moment later.

Isamu cheered up at the mention of that. “Dillon said we’re gonna sleep in a tent!”

“A tent, huh?” Chuuya asked as if he hadn’t had several phone calls about this with Dillon’s mother. “That sounds fun.”

A few hours later, Chuuya was parking outside the party playroom where Isamu’s friend was celebrating his birthday.

“Are you sure about this? I can ask Corrine to pick you up after the party,” he felt the need to say one more time. This was going to be Isamu’s first sleepover at a friend’s house, Chuuya wanted to be sure his son was ready.

“No, dad. I wanna go,” Isamu whined.

“Hey, guys! You made it!” Dillon’s mother greeted them just then, walking up to them. “Dillon is so excited! Maybe now he'll stop talking about it. Wait, who am I kidding,” she laughed. “No, he won't.”

“You got my emails, right?” Chuuya asked. 

Although they had talked about it over the phone, he had thought that having things written down could be useful. Isamu wouldn’t require much of a special care for just one night, but if something went wrong Chuuya wanted to have prepared Dillon’s parents as much as possible.

“I did. Very detailed,” Tasha teased him, not unkindly. She was one of the few parents at his son’s school that Chuuya could call a friend. 

“All right.” Chuuya turned back to Isamu. “Be good, have fun. Call me if you need anything, okay?” 

“Okay, Dad. I love you.” 

“I love you too, kid.” He leaned down to kiss his son’s cheek goodbye. With the corner of his eyes he spotted Dillon lingering at the door, clearly impatient for his friend to join him. “Now go, go, go.” Chuuya laughed as he rushed his son to join his friend.

“He's going to be okay, Chuuya,” Tasha reassured him once their boys had gone inside. 

“I know. He hasn't had a nightmare in a week. The doctor says a sleepover will be great for him. I'm not sure how good it's gonna be for me.”

“Listen, don't worry. Dillon's got this whole camping situation set up in the backyard, and Ron will be in the tent next to them. We'll call you if there's any problem,” Tasha said with a light pat on his arm. “Now, go relax. Recharge. I will return him to you in one piece tomorrow.”

Chuuya leaned in to give her a brief hug. “Thanks, Tasha. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

After she went back inside, Chuuya lingered in front of his car for a minute or two, staring at the closed door of the party playroom. Isamu was going to be with people he trusted, but he was still going to spend a night in someone else’s house where Chuuya couldn’t comfort him if he had a nightmare. There were few people in Chuuya’s life that he could let take care of his son without staying awake all night thinking about it, and one of them was currently not allowed to speak to him.

“Hey, that's a handicapped spot,” the voice of a man broke his thought as he finally turned to get back into his car.

“I know,” Chuuya dismissed him, initially. This wasn’t the first time someone tried to have this conversation with him.

“Oh, you know,” the man laughed. “Oh, that's rich. I had knee surgery and had to park three rows in, but, uh, look at you. Must be nice to own the world.”

Chuuya really wasn’t in the mood to argue with a stranger. “Look, I'm not doing this with you, man. My kid has CP and I just dropped him off.”

“Yeah, I'm sure. Like those guys that put dummies in their passenger seats so they can use the carpool lane.”

Chuuya paused, the driver’s door still only half open. “Did you just insult my kid? 

“I ain't insulting anybody. I'm calling you out. You got something to say about that?”

On any other day, Chuuya would have probably just told the man to go fuck himself before getting into his car to leave. If the man reported him, there was no reason for Chuuya to worry as he had been telling the truth. 

But Chuuya really wasn’t having a good day, or a good week. As he looked at that man who clearly could walk just fine, smirking at him like that, he couldn’t hold back the anger that had been building inside him all day. He took a few sudden steps forward and landed a punch on the man’s jaw.

“Thanks for coming to bail me out,” Chuuya told Lexi an hour later.

“I was surprised to get your call,” Lexi replied as she led him out of the police station. “I didn't realize we had reached the bail each other out of jail phase of our friendship.”

“Well, there's no way I was gonna call my grandma or the 118, and I'm not allowed to talk to Dazai.”

Chuuya had been beyond mortified that he had to call anyone at all, but his first thought when he had been given the phone had been Dazai. Dazai would have laughed at his face and probably brought it up to him even years later, yet Chuuya would have still chosen him if he had had the option.

“Look, I don't mind the bailing, but I'm a little concerned about the jailing part,” Lexi sighed.

“I guess I just snapped.”

“You punched a handicapped guy.”

“He wasn't handicapped,” Chuuya argued immediately. “He had a bad knee, there's a difference. It won't happen again. Lesson learned.”

“Hope so. I also hope this guy doesn't have a lawyer.”

Chuuya hoped so too. There was a limit to how many lawsuits one guy could deal with in a week.

“Come on now, I know a place to blow some steam off.” Lexi beckoned him to follow her to the parking lot. Chuuya wasn’t sure if it was a good idea to go on any more adventures that day, yet he didn’t want to return to his empty house either. With a tired sigh he joined his new friend in her car.

The place that Lexi took him seemed to be an abandoned parking lot next to a dilapidated building. There was a makeshift boxing ring in the middle of it where two shirtless men were currently fighting and dozens of people around them —mostly men— cheering and yelling.

Lexi walked through the crowd with enough confidence that Chuuya could tell she had to have been there before at least a few times. She quickly led him to a shady guy with a few coolers around him and bought them some lukewarm beer. Chuuya didn’t protest about being brought to a clearly illegal place right after getting bailed out of jail, but he wasn’t particularly interested in what was going on either. He could drink his lukewarm beer and then call himself an uber to get back to his car.

“Stock market's closed, you don't need to check your portfolio,” Lexi teased him when she caught him looking at his phone instead of the fight happening only a few feet away from them.

“I'm making sure Isamu didn't text,” Chuuya protested. He was afraid he had taken after his mother and had become a helicopter parent.

“He's not gonna text.” Lexi rolled her eyes. “He's having the time of his life. You, on the other hand, are so amped you can't see straight.”

Chuuya rolled his eyes too at her sarcasm. “What am I missing, anyways, besides fake fight club? This is your idea of helping me?”

“You're a powder keg. You beat up a guy over a parking space. But a place like this could be a healthy outlet for your issues.”

“What are you, my therapist now?” Chuuya chuckled. Even if he was a little more angry than usual lately, it wasn’t that bad. He just had a bad day. He would get some sleep and get over it.

“Just the chick who bailed you out of jail,” Lexi smiled at him.

“I thought we weren't talking about that.”

Before Lexi could reply, the guy who Chuuya had concluded was the fight organizer walked up towards them and yelled, “Davis! You’re up!” 

Chuuya blinked. He stared as Lexi took her jacket off and handed it to him, along with the beer she hadn’t yet finished.

“You're fighting, ” Chuuya concluded.

“You’re not the only one with stuff to work out.” 

Chuuya stood there watching Lexi beat three men much bulkier than her in a row and felt something inside him relax at the sound of the cheers and jeers. When she approached him after her third fight to ask if he wanted to take over Chuuya didn’t hesitate to hand her stuff back to her and take his shirt off. 

Martial arts had once been Chuuya’s place to get the tension out of his body and relax. He had enjoyed the boxing lessons his parents had put him in as a kid and he had dabbled with muay thai and taekwondo as an adult. He landed the first punch on his opponent expecting to get this restless energy that had taken over his body since Erica’s death out of it, yet nothing of that sort happened.

Instead, every punch and kick filled Chuuya with even more rage. He pushed and clawed at his opponent, but even after he had defeated him, Chuuya was still burning with rage. Lexi pulled him back after his fourth round and bought him another lukewarm beer. Chuuya didn’t protest or try to go back for another fight, but his hands ached with the need to punch something again.

Work didn’t even feel like Chuuya’s safe haven anymore. His thoughts went back to what he had told Dazai’s lawyer, that getting back to his job had helped in his mourning more than anything else could. It had been true, he was sure. Firefighting gave him a purpose and it was also tiring enough of a job that Chuuya managed to get a few hours of sleep every day no matter how bad his insomnia was. 

Yet half of what had helped wasn’t the job itself, but the camaraderie he had built with his team. During every shift Chuuya could be sure that his coworkers would try to meddle into each other’s personal lives and that he would get teased and comforted all at the same time. Even after Dazai’s accident, although his absence was definitely noticeable, Chuuya had felt reassured that his friend was going to come back. 

That day, as they were wrapping up yet another crazy call that seemed to be the norm in Los Angeles, Chuuya got his phone out of his pocket to text Dazai about it. He had already typed the first two words when he remembered that he wasn’t allowed to do that anymore. Chuuya angrily shoved his phone back into his pocket and went outside without waiting for the rest of his team. 

Everything seemed to be falling apart these days. Fukuzawa rarely cooked full meals during their shift and Kunikida gossiped less than he used to. Kouyou was still mostly herself but she had joined Chuuya in being more irritable than usual. There was the topic that everyone tried to avoid, the one that was lurking over their heads.

Their captain took them grocery shopping first thing in the morning on their next shift. He paired them up and gave them assignments, treating this trip with far more seriousness than he used to. Chuuya walked with Lexi to the baking aisle when he heard Kouyou from the aisle next to them ask, “Dazai?”

“Whoa, hey guys. What's up?” Dazai’s voice was unmistakable. 

“What are you doing here?” Kunikida asked him. 

“Me? I'm just here to... to do some... some shopping.”

Chuuya didn’t try to listen to the rest of their conversation. Without giving any warnings to Lexi he turned around and followed the sound of Dazai’s voice. Quickly enough, the entire team was gathered in the pet aisle of the grocery store.

“Um... Listen, I came here to apologize. I never meant for things to get so out of hand with the lawsuit and…”

“Yeah? What'd you think was gonna happen?” Chuuya couldn’t hold back the question. Dazai wasn’t stupid or naive, he couldn’t have been ignorant to the consequences of his actions. “The lawsuit's bad enough, but you told your lawyer everything about us... personal things.”

“You're supposed to be truthful with your lawyer,” Dazai replied, like that could excuse the betrayal. “Why are you so pissed at me?” 

“Because you're exhausting,” Chuuya fired back, pointing an angry finger at him. The past weeks had been exhausting. Chuuya couldn’t even have his best friend to talk to. “We all have our own problems, but you don't see us whining about it. No, somehow, we just manage to suck it up. Why can't you?”

He was aware that his words were cruel, that Dazai had gone through a lot too in the past year, yet in that moment, he couldn’t be kind, he couldn’t be understanding. It had taken him so long to trust someone in the way that he had trusted Dazai. He had trusted him to have his back at work, to help him with his problems outside of it, he had trusted that he would be there for him and his son whenever they needed him. 

“That's kinda harsh,” Kouyou stepped in. “It's not like the guy asked to be crushed by a ladder truck.”

Chuuya’s eyes didn’t leave Dazai. “No, but he filed a stupid lawsuit and now I can't even talk to you because of it. You know how much Isamu misses you? How could you? You're not around.”

Isamu was still asking for Dazai almost every day. Chuuya felt terrifyingly similar to those first few weeks after Erica had left them when Isamu was five and the little boy wouldn’t stop asking for his mother no matter what excuse Chuuya gave him. Chuuya didn’t want to tell his kid that another person he loved wasn’t coming back. He didn’t want to tell himself that either. 

“I... I didn't realize that. Maybe I can come and visit Isamu. You know the lawsuit doesn't prevent that.” 

Dazai sounded remorseful, but Chuuya was nowhere near done being angry at him. Was it that easy for Dazai to abandon them?

“No, it prevents me from reaching out to you. I couldn't even call you to bail me out of jail,” Chuuya blurted out and then immediately regretted it. He wasn’t sure he could escape the interrogation later, but he hurriedly added, “If that was something that happened.”

“Why can’t you see my side of this?” Dazai insisted.

Chuuya took a step closer to him, unable to resist the pull of his presence no matter the circumstances. “'Cause that's all you see!” he yelled at him. He wanted to get even closer to him, he wanted to touch him, to feel the comforting warmth of his skin again. 

There was a loud crash outside the grocery store before Chuuya could do anything stupid that he could never come back from.

Once the team was back at the station, Chuuya went straight to the gym. Lexi followed him in after a few minutes and silently started working out next to him. Chuuya knew that she was just looking out for him, yet for some reason he couldn’t help but feel irritated by her presence. He kicked the punching bag hard enough that the stand holding it up shook violently. Lexi grabbed it with both hands to stabilize it before it could fall down.

“How’s the situation with the bad-knee guy?” She asked instead of addressing Chuuya’s current mood. “Do you need to lawyer up?”

“He dropped the charges,” Chuuya replied before going back to kicking the punching bag, this time slightly less aggressively.

Lexi didn’t seem to expect that answer. “Really? Just like that?”

“You make it sound like you're disappointed.”

“Just surprised. Pleasantly.”

“Apparently, that wasn't the guy's first illegal fight. And they weighed that against my service record, so…”

“Captain America wins a Get Out of Jail Free card?” Lexi joked.

Chuuya rolled his eyes and didn’t humor her. “And anyway, that jackass' knee surgery was three years ago.”

“Dazai seemed ready to give up on the lawsuit too,” Lexi said then.

Chuuya kicked the punching bag hard enough again that Lexi, who had been waiting on stand-by, barely managed to save it this time.

“I don’t care what he does.”

“Right,” Lexi said sarcastically. She didn’t seem bothered by Chuuya’s glare. “Not speaking to him has clearly not affected your mood.”

“It only affects my mood because his stupidity makes me angry.”

“Are you sure anger is all you’re feeling?”

“Why is this turning into a therapy session?” Chuuya turned around and walked to the treadmill. Maybe running a little would help.

“Just a thought,” Lexi replied. She took Chuuya’s place on the punching bag and didn’t bother him with any more comments.

Her question, though, followed Chuuya home. It followed him to his grandma’s place where he took Isamu for dinner and then at the fight club when once again he couldn’t fall asleep in an empty house.

It was still haunting him when he got the call from Fukuzawa that Dazai had refused the settlement money the city had offered him and had chosen to be reinstated back to the 118. Chuuya didn’t go to the team outing their captain planned for Dazai’s return to the station, nor did he reply to Dazai’s texts or calls. Instead, he went to the fight club again.

He thought about the first evening after the tsunami when he had gone to Dazai’s apartment and found him cuddled up with Isamu on the couch. He thought about his son excitedly telling him about their outing and about the night he had spent sleeping on the same bed as Dazai. He thought about their conversation about the three of them going to the zoo together next time and about how it was possible that that would never happen.

On Dazai’s first shift back to work, Chuuya arrived late to the station. Isamu had woken up from a nightmare for the first time in a while in the middle of the night so Chuuya had barely gotten any sleep. His son had been moody in the morning and had taken a bit too long to get ready to leave but he had still insisted he didn’t want to miss school. Chuuya had gotten stuck in traffic on the way to the station after dropping him off and his car radio had broken down in the middle of the trip, leaving him alone with his thoughts.

The moment he walked in, rushing to go get changed into his uniform, Dazai blocked his path.

“Whoa, are you okay?”he asked him and went to grab Chuuya’s arm to inspect his bruised elbow. Chuuya shook his arm away from his grip and stepped aside.

“Just roughhousing with my kid.” 

He knew that it was a weak excuse that Dazai was never going to believe, but why would he care about what Dazai thought anyway?

“Were you playing with hammers?” Dazai’s tone was joking. 

It would have been easy for Chuuya to fall into the trap and start bickering with him like they used to. Instead he started walking towards the locker room again and only threw back a monotone, “Nothing you need to be concerned with.” 

Fukuzawa called them for a morning briefing the second Chuuya was out of the locker room. They had all gathered around him, awaiting their instructions for the day, when the alarm bell went off.

Their captain turned to Dazai to say, “Dazai, you’re man behind today.” He gestured to the rest of them to follow him into the vehicles.

“What? I’m not going with you guys?” Dazai asked as he ran behind them.

“My house, my rules, remember? You stay put,” Fukuzawa told him before he closed the door of the engine behind him.

Chuuya wasn’t sure what kind of conversation Dazai and Fukuzawa had had when it was decided that the former would come back to the station, but he could tell from their captain’s attitude that he wasn’t ready to simply accept Dazai back into his position just like that either. Chuuya tried to stop himself from glancing at Dazai every time he ran into him during that first shift, afraid of what expression he would find on his face.

He was well aware of how much Dazai had wanted to return to this job and how much pain and recovery he had to go through to even get a chance to take the recertification test. Fate had seemed to be against him for months on end, and Chuuya had truly felt bad for his friend every time he was refused his job back. 

But even all that wasn’t a good enough excuse for the lawsuit and everything that happened because of it. Chuuya wasn’t going to forgive him just like that.

The halloween shift was as busy as it had been the previous year. Chuuya found himself wishing it would end already so he could get home and actually get a few hours of relaxation. Even when hours passed without a single call during shifts lately, it was hard for Chuuya to truly rest when Dazai could be constantly lurking around asking for him to talk.

When the team got back to the station a little after noon they found Dazai right where they had left him, giving candy away to a row of little kids.

“Oh, my gosh. Is he trying to get more candy out of you?” The mom of one of the kids dressed as a prisoner asked him.

“No, no, he's fine. In fact, here, why don't you take a smoke detector. Keep him safe until his parole hearing.” Dazai smiled that brilliant charming smile of his and the woman happily accepted the smoke detector he handed to her.

Chuuya tried to walk past him, refusing to stare at his smile for a second longer, when Dazai asked, “Oh, Chuuya, you wanna give me a hand with all this?”

“Nah, you got this,” Chuuya replied without looking back. “You're 100%. The lawsuit proved that, right?” 

If Dazai had a complaint about him being petty, he didn’t voice it.

Out on another call, the topic of Dazai inevitably came up again. Chuuya didn’t even try to hide that he was eavesdropping on the conversation his captain was having with Kunikida.

“You think I'm being too hard on him?” Fukuzawa asked.

“I think Dazai makes everything hard on Dazai. But I can see he’s trying,” Kunikida replied.

“It just still seems like he doesn't get it. Like this is all a game to him.”

“Captain, the city offered him a huge settlement. He could be jumping out of planes or swimming somewhere with sharks if he were looking for a game. But he made his choice. He chose this job.”

“So I should let him do it.”

“Or let him go somewhere else that will.”

For some reason, Chuuya hadn’t even thought of that possibility. During all the months Dazai had been gone and his return was uncertain Chuuya had never considered that Dazai could go back to firefighting but not return to the 118. The thought of that filled him with something other than anger for once.

Dazai ambushed him as walking out of the locker room after his shower that night. Chuuya went to step aside once Dazai blocked his path but Dazai, for the first time since Chuuya’s first few shifts at the station, used his height to his advantage to block Chuuya’s path.

“So that's how it's gonna be now. You're just gonna keep on ghosting me. 'Cause Halloween is over, just so you know.”

Chuuya looked up to him, careful not to betray any unnecessary emotion on his face. “I don't know what you want from me, Dazai. Forgive, forget, make you feel better about what you did?”

“I just want you to talk to me,” Dazai replied with a crack in his voice. “Even if it's just to say that you're still mad.”

“I'm not mad, I'm…” Chuuya searched for the words he had been avoiding to even think about. “When you decided to sue the department, to make Captain the bad guy, did you ever stop for a minute to think what that could do to us ?”

“Look, I just needed my job back. I missed... I missed being here. Being part of the team. I never meant for anyone to get hurt.”

“Lotta ‘I’s in there. Your actions, your choices, they impact the rest of us. That's what it means to be a part of a team.”

“You're right,” Dazai agreed surprisingly easily. “I didn't think about what could happen. I was mad at Fukuzawa for not letting me back. I was mad at you guys for moving on without me. I was mad that there was nothing I could do about it. And I just... I just wanted to…”

“Punch someone?” 

“Yeah, a little,” Dazai chuckled. “But I get it. And I really am sorry. Whatever it takes for you to forgive me—”

“I forgive you.” The words slipped out of Chuuya’s mouth a bit too easily. He had tried to stay mad at Dazai, but as days passed it had felt more like an excuse to justify the constant anger he felt than anything else. “Also what it means to be part of a team. This... just don't do it again.”

Dazai nodded enthusiastically and then stepped forward to hug him. Chuuya couldn’t stop the flinch when Dazai’s arm touched his bruised side though thankfully Dazai didn’t bring it up, keeping the hug regretfully short.

There was so much to talk about, so much to catch each other up on. Chuuya went to gesture to Dazai to follow him to the loft so they could get started on that when Fukuzawa walked down the stairs and headed their way.

“Listen, Dazai,” their captain addressed Dazai. “I’ve been thinking. Why don't you go home?” 

“Home?” Dazai asked, confused. “I still have a couple hours left on my shift.” 

“I don't wanna overtax you your first week back.”

“I stood behind a table and got bullied by children all day.”

“So you earned a few hours off. Good work today.”

Chuuya could finally let himself feel bad when he saw the sad expression on Dazai’s face. He wanted to comfort him, to tell him that their captain would come around too, but Dazai just told him to talk tomorrow and walked into the locker room. Chuuya thought about following him in so they could at least talk while Dazai was changing but then the alarm bell went off and he had no choice but to run to join the rest of the team to leave.

In the early morning, Fukuzawa got a call. Chuuya, standing next to him in the kitchen, curiously listened in to the exchange the man had on the phone, gathering enough information from context cues to ask, “Is someone in the hospital?”

Fukuzawa turned to him with a worried look on his face and replied, “It’s Dazai.”

“Dazai?” Chuuya whispered the name. “What- what happened to him this time?” He managed to ask louder.

“I’m not sure,” Fukuzawa replied, his eyes stuck on the screen of his phone that had already gone dark. “They just told me that he got injured.” 

Chuuya felt like there was more to the story but he didn’t waste time pressing Fukuzawa for more information. He just turned around to leave and go find out for himself.

“Where are you going?” Fukuzawa asked as he followed behind him. “You don’t even know which hospital he’s at.”

“Then tell me,” Chuuya demanded, more rudely than he had ever addressed his captain.

Fukazawa didn’t reprimand him, though. He told Chuuya the name of the hospital and then led them both to his car to drive them there. 

The drive felt long and tense. Chuuya couldn’t help the anger he felt towards his captain in that moment, no matter how unreasonable he knew it was. Chuuya had just stopped giving Dazai the cold shoulder, he couldn’t really be mad that Fukuzawa held on for a few hours more. But then again, why had he made Dazai leave before their shift was over? Hadn’t he said that he accepted him back into their station and didn’t transfer him out to be able to keep an eye on him? Why had he let him leave?

Chuuya kept his mouth shut. It was better to be quiet than say anything more than he would regret. He could decide whether or not Fukuzawa actually deserved his anger after he made sure Dazai was okay.

Once they arrived at the hospital, both of them particularly ran to the reception desk.

“Excuse me, I'm looking for a patient brought in not long ago. Osamu Dazai?” Fukuzawa asked the woman behind the desk.

“Captain?” a familiar voice called just then. Chuuya and Fukuzawa turned around to see Dazai walking on his own two feet towards them.

Chuuya was in front of him checking him for injuries within seconds. Dazai let him be for a few moments before he gently shook him off.

“I’m fine,” he claimed even as Chuuya’s eyes stayed focused on his bandaged arm.

“The hospital said you were injured, that you cut yourself,” Fukuzawa chimed in. 

His voice came from right behind them. Chuuya hadn’t heard him approach and abruptly moved aside to let their captain look at Dazai too, a little embarrassed by how fast he had jumped on Dazai.

The man in question scoffed and told them, “Yeah, I just got some shallow cuts from the broken windshield glass. I told the paramedics I was on blood thinners and they sealed the wounds.”

“But they brought you here, to the ER?” Fukuzawa asked.

“They just thought I should get checked up. I just finished giving the police my statement.”

“Statement?” Chuuya questioned. “What happened?” 

What did you get yourself into in the few hours we were apart?

“It was crazy, this lady hit this guy with her car two days ago. She must have hit her head pretty bad, 'cause they found a brain bleed. Probably why she was so confused. She kept driving around with the guy stuck on her windshield and everyone thought it was a Halloween decoration. I spotted them when I was on my way to my apartment and thought it was weird so I stopped the lady to check on it.”

The situation sounded unbelievable, yet it was the exact kind of thing Dazai would find himself dealing with on a casual Friday.

“What happened to the guy on the windshield?” Fukuzawa asked.

“He’s in surgery. The doctors say he's got a fair chance.”

“It's because you jumped in there and saved him. It probably didn't even occur to you to worry about yourself.”

“Yeah, I know, I know.” Dazai shook his head dejectedly at Fukuzawa’s words. “I didn’t think, I just rushed in like I always do. I guess it’s like the uniform is my costume. When I put it on I’m brave and I’m strong, I make a difference. Feels like without it I’m no different from who I’ve always been.”

Chuuya really didn’t like the implication of Dazai’s words and he was ready to tell him all about it, but their captain beat him to it.

“Dazai, you saved two lives without the uniform. It's not a costume, it's who you are.”

Dazai looked at Fukuzawa in surprise. Chuuya had spent a few too many terrible moments in hospitals in the past year, yet this time he was able to witness the light that had gone out in Dazai’s eyes ever since his accident appear again. 

“Does this mean that you're ready to let me back for real?” Dazai asked their captain, unable to hide the hope from his voice.

“It doesn't matter if I'm ready. You are. It's time for me to get out of your way.”

Hearing the words he must have longed to hear for so long, Dazai smiled brightly. When he turned to look at Chuuya his smile seemed to get even bigger, as if he was extra happy that Chuuya was there to share this moment with him.

“Hey, are you two hungry?” Dazai asked then. “Maybe I could buy you breakfast. We can catch up.”

Chuuya felt bad about turning down the offer, especially because of how much he wanted to spend some time with Dazai after weeks of silence between them, but Corrine had a doctor’s appointment she couldn’t miss this morning so Chuuya had to rush back to his house to get Isamu ready for school.

Dazai looked a little disappointed when he told him, but of course he didn’t try to hold him back. Either way, Chuuya thought that Fukuzawa and Dazai needed to have a talk just the two of them to clear things out. Chuuya really wished that their next shift together could finally feel normal.

The night found Chuuya in the makeshift ring of yet another fighting club. This place had been an upgrade from the parking lot Lexi had first taken him too. Although less people knew about it, the money they betted was much better. Chuuya had been able to buy a new car using the money from his rewards, something that he had been struggling to do with just his salary. 

The fight organizer signalled to Chuuya and his opponent to prepare themselves. Once the whistle sounded, Chuuya didn’t hesitate to make the first move. 

The only rule of these fights was ‘tap out or knock out’. Chuuya was always disappointed when his opponents tapped out instead of fighting until the end, but that didn’t mean he didn’t follow the rule, he understood the need for it after all. 

The guy he was fighting against that night was only a little bigger than him and at first he was enough of a challenge that Chuuya found himself having fun. He blocked most of Chuuya’s punches and kicks and made him work for a hit to land. They must have been going at it for several minutes already when Chuuya landed a punch to the side of his head. The guy stumbled momentarily but he continued fighting, so Chuuya didn’t hesitate to aim another punch, this time at his nose.

Strangely, this punch landed too. Chuuya felt something breaking under his fist but, caught up in the momentum, he went in for a kick to the face to finish the job. The guy collapsed on the ground from the force of it and Chuuya turned around to raise a winning first to the air. His arm was only halfway up when, amongst the screams and claps from the crowd, he heard a disturbing gurgling sound coming from the ground.

Chuuya’s first responder instinct kicked in instantly. He kneeled on the ground next to the guy to inspect him.

“Hey, hey, hey. Can you hear me?” he asked, desperate for an answer.

It was even more disturbing when the gurgling stopped.

“What the hell's going on?” The fight organizer yelled at him.

“He's not breathing!” Chuuya yelled back. “Call 9-1-1!”

“Are you crazy? I'm not calling anyone,” the man refused. “He'll be fine!”

“His airway's blocked,” Chuuya argued. He knew there was no time to waste. As carefully as he could he turned the guy on his side and put a finger inside his mouth, searching for anything that could have blocked his airway. It didn’t take long to fish out the culprit. 

“What the hell's that?” The fight organizer asked.

“Part of his nose,” Chuuya replied, staring at the piece of flesh in his hand. “That I knocked into his cranial cavity when I broke it before it fell down his throat. He's gonna start leaking spinal fluid.”

“Holy crap. Is he dead?” A man’s voice asked. Chuuya turned to see a guy behind the fence that made up the ring holding up his phone as if he was filming the scene. Chuuya quickly got up and grabbed the phone out of his hands, despite the man’s loud protests.

Several voices yelled at him to not do it as Chuuya made the necessary 9-1-1 call. People immediately started running left and right, in a hurry to escape before the LAFD and the cops made it to the scene. Chuuya turned back to his opponent who had started gaining consciousness again and helped him sit up before he himself disappeared in the darkness.

He couldn’t get himself to leave entirely, though. He lurked in a dark corner of the place until the firefighters started filling in. He had meant to go then, but then a familiar pair of eyes made eye contact with him. It was just his luck that Lexi’s station would respond to this call when Lexi had only been assigned back at the 136 for a few shifts by then. 

Chuuya knew that Lexi had spotted him, yet she didn’t call his name or bring attention to him. Instead, she turned to lead her team to the guy Chuuya had knocked out.

The two paramedics of the team quickly made his way towards the guy to start inspecting him. “I’m gonna hook him to the LifePack, you check his rhythm,” said the first one. 

“Airway's clear,” the second one said. “It could be a cranial intrusion.”

“Let's check for spinal fluid.”

“No sign of neck injury, but his pulse is a little low.”

Chuuya saw the moment Lexi spotted the piece of the guy’s nose Chuuya had left behind for them to find. She quickly picked it up to show it to their captain.

“That's part of his nose. Someone cleared it and sat him upright.”

Chuuya felt her gaze on him one more time and hoped the rest of her team wouldn’t turn to look at what she was staring at.

“Looks like somebody knew what they were doing,” her captain replied. 

Chuuya didn’t stay to hear more. Since the guy was getting the help he needed, he turned around to leave. Lexi stopped him with a strong grip on his shoulder before he had walked far.

“So are you the one who saved him or the one who almost killed him?” she demanded to know.

“Both,” Chuuya replied honestly.

“What the hell, Chuuya?”

“Can we talk about this later? I need to go before—”

The police sirens sounded just then.

“The police show up?” Lexi scoffed. 

Chuuya was ready to plead with her to let him go. Strangely, instead of arguing with him more, Lexi started taking her turnout coat off.

“What are you doing?” Chuuya asked her, confused.

“Saving myself the trouble of having to bail you out of jail again.” She handed the turnout coat to him. “Put this on until the cops leave.”

Chuuya tried to be as inconspicuous as possible until the police had cleared the scene and thankfully no one gave him trouble. Lexi found him when the last police car had left and Chuuya handed her turnout coat back to her.

“Thanks,” he cleared his throat. “Let me know what hospital you guys drop him off at. I'll... I'll make sure he's okay.”

“You knocked his nose into his brain. He ain't okay.” 

“Look, I did my best to help him. I'm the one who called 9-1-1.”

Lexi seemed to get more and more mad at every word that left his mouth. “How long have you been fighting here?” she asked him.

“A promoter saw me at the parking lot fights a few weeks ago, and offered me a shot. Pays pretty good.”

“That's not why you're doing this,” Lexi pointed out. “Fighting was supposed to be a healthy outlet, not an obsession.”

“It's not,” Chuuya tried to argue. “Just got out of hand tonight.”

“I bet,” Lexi scoffed once more. “Tell me, that hit to the nose, was that a lucky shot? Or had he dropped his hands?”

The thing is, Chuuya couldn’t really remember. In the midst of all the adrenaline of an intense fight it was hard to pay attention to those things.

“Tap out or knock out. Those are the rules. He didn't tap out,” he attempted to explain himself anyway.

“He was so punch drunk, he couldn't even lift his hands to protect himself. You think he should've had the presence of mind to tap out?” Lexi didn’t let him justify his actions. “Chuuya, you need to talk to someone.”

That phrase brought the anger back to Chuuya’s  chest. “You know what? Just save the lecture.”

Lexi clearly wanted to argue more, to push him more, but her captain called her back to their engine so they could leave before she had the chance.

“We're not done talking about this,” she informed Chuuya as she turned to walk to where her team was waiting for her.

Lexi didn’t try to talk to him before his next shift. Chuuya arrived at the station just on time and headed straight for the locker room. His captain’s voice from up the loft stopped him before he could open the door.

“Nakahara, up here, now.”

“I was gonna go change,” Chuuya replied to him, confused about what had Fukuzawa suddenly using his last name.

“No, we talk first,” the captain insisted.

Chuuya’s confusion was cleared up when he turned around and saw Lexi standing beside the staircase. 

“What are you doing here?” he asked her, hostility clear in his voice.

“Just talk to your captain,” Lexi replied.

“Did you tell him? You sold me out, huh? I thought we were friends.”

“What's the name of my cat?” she asked him all of a sudden. “I know about your kid and your dead wife and your arrest record and the guy you almost killed. So tell me, what's the name of my cat?”

Chuuya blinked. He couldn’t remember the answer to the question. Lexi had always seemed willing to pry into his personal business but Chuuya could admit he hadn’t tried to get to know her as much. His life had been too much of a whirlwind in the past months, if he could use that as an excuse.

“I have no freakin' idea,” he replied honestly.

“Exactly. It's a one-way street with you, Nakahara. We're not friends.”

Lexi turned around and left without waiting for a response. Chuuya didn’t know if he even had an argument to make. It was probably true that he had been a terrible friend to her, but he didn’t think that it justified ratting him out like this.

“Look, Captain, I don't know what Davis told you—” he tried to tell Fukuzawa as soon as he was in his office with the door closed behind him.

“Captain Cooper called me yesterday,” his captain interrupted him to say. “He recognized you from the tsunami. He wanted to give me a heads up about a potential problem in my house. But Lexi... She was here when I pulled in this morning. She wanted to make sure I had a full picture and that I wasn't too hard on you.”

The last sentence instantly made Chuuya feel even worse than he was already feeling.

“Guess I owe her an apology,” he muttered. Though, he didn't know if his friendship with Lexi was salvageable when he had never genuinely tried to invest in it. The truth was, Lexi had just been conveniently there when Dazai hadn't been.

“Take a seat,” Fukuzawa told him.

Chuuya sat down across from and stared at his lap, ashamed to look his captain in the eyes.

“Chuuya, what's going on? This isn't like you.”

Was it really not? Chuuya almost asked. His parents had always told him he had anger issues, even when Chuuya had felt he was justified in his anger towards them. He could never start an argument with them without getting at least one passive aggressive comment about his attitude. Perhaps this angry version of him was who he truly was.

“It's nothing. It's... I'm fine,” he told Fukuzawa, afraid of seeing more concern on his face. “Just needed a place to let off some steam. Things got a little out of—”

“Control? That's what this is about, right? You're the guy who always keeps it together, no matter what life throws at you. You shake it off, keep moving forward.”

“Lots of people have it worse,” Chuuya argued, instinctively. 

“Chuuya, I just want to make sure you don't think you have to lose everything... before you can allow yourself to feel anything.”

“No,” Chuuya shook his head. “Isamu needs me to be in control. I'm the only parent he's got left, and I can't let him down again.”

“When did you let him down before?”

Chuuya laughed. The sound came out loud and sad. “God, when did I not let him down? I wasn't there when he was a baby. I stayed away too long, and it broke his mother. Erica ran away, I... and I couldn't stop her. I couldn't bring her back home. So I brought him here. And let her back into his life. That's what Isamu wanted. But I knew better. She already left once, broke his heart. You know, I was so afraid she was gonna do it again. And then she did.”

“She died, Chuuya.”

“Yeah, after she told me she wanted a divorce,” Chuuya admitted for the first time aloud. He hadn’t had the chance to tell anyone about it before Erica had died and after she did it had felt too trivial to mention. “It should be the last thing I care about considering she died, yet I’m still mad at her about it. How stupid is that?” Chuuya laughed again. The sound came out sounding too much like a sob. “I'm angry at a dead person and at myself because I forgave her... for everything, and... and it wasn't enough. I wasn't enough.”

Chuuya’s marriage had been doomed to fail from the start. He had handled everything wrong and had driven a woman who loved him away. Even when things seemed to be going well when Erica came back to his life, he must have still been doing something wrong, even if this time he had no idea what it was. If he had been better, Erica wouldn’t have chosen to walk away from him for a second time.

“Chuuya, you really need to talk to a professional about this,” Fukuzawa said the words Chuuya feared. If he was sent to a therapist, that only made how broken he was even more clear. “And this time it’s mandatory, not a suggestion.”

The name of the therapist Chuuya was sent to was Frank. He was a middle aged man in a wheelchair that looked at Chuuya with a thoughtful expression throughout their entire session.

Chuuya knew that, since these sessions were mandatory, Frank wasn’t going to give him the okay to stop them before he judged that he was stable enough, so tried his best to open up, no matter how hard he was finding it.

It wasn’t until their second meeting that Chuuya actually told him his biggest concern.

“It's not normal, right?” He asked him. “I have these moments that are good. We save someone from dying, my kid does something awesome. It's moments where I should be happy or proud or both. I know that. Just don't feel it.”

“There's no one right way to deal with trauma. All the first responders I counsel process it differently.”

“But I don’t feel like there should be anything left for me to process,” Chuuya argued. “Yes, my wife died, but that was months ago. Even our son is doing better, why would it still be affecting me that much?”

“She was someone you knew and loved since you were a teenager, and the mother of your child. I think it makes perfect sense that you’re still mourning her. Therapy can help you find ways to deal with your loss in a healthier way.”

“I don’t think therapy can help me,” Chuuya spat out.

“It’s not going to help you if you don’t let it,” Frank told him. “It’s not enough to just come sit in this chair, you need to put some effort into it.”

“Well, I don’t wanna be sitting in this chair wasting precious time. I’d rather be at home with my kid, enjoying the one good thing I have going on.”

“But you still came back for a second session.”

“I was ordered here by my boss.” Chuuya hesitated before continuing. “I know I need help to process this. I don't want my kid to be like me. I mean, Isamu is always this happy, open kid, ready to share every thought in his head. But he was in pain. And he felt like he had to hide that from me, pretend he was okay.” His eyes welled up with tears that he had trouble letting himself shed. “I don't want that for him.”

I don’t want him to grow up to be broken like me.

“I almost killed a guy with my bare hands. Even if I don’t think therapy can help me, I should at least try, right?”

Frank nodded at him encouragingly. Chuuya still wasn’t sold on him, but he owned his son to make some effort. He had to get better if he wanted Isamu to have the chance to grow up into a well adjusted person.

Dazai was waiting for him at his apartment where he had been watching Isamu. Chuuya felt way more tired than he should have after he had spent an hour just sitting in a chair talking, yet the sight of Dazai preparing dinner for the three of them instantly made him feel just a little better. After greeting his son who was happily watching one of his cartoons on Dazai’s couch, he made his way to the kitchen.

“How was therapy with Frank?” Dazai asked.

“Good,” Chuuya replied. He wasn’t sure if he needed to elaborate more, but he added, “Though I'm not really sure he and I are... clicking.”

“Well, you could always switch to a different one if he’s not the right fit for you.”

Chuuya was ready to ask since when Dazai was an expert in therapy, but then he remembered that his friend had to go through multiple mandatory therapy sessions after his series of injuries too. He had mentioned the names of at least three different therapists over the course of this past half a year alone.

“We’ll see,” Chuuya responded. He hoped that Frank could be the right fit for him because the thought of having to share so much of himself with another stranger again sounded appalling. 

Chuuya didn’t know what kind of expression his face was making to make Dazai say his next words.

“Look, I’m sorry I wasn’t there, Chuuya. You and Isamu needed me, and had my head so far up my own behind with that stupid lawsuit—”

“We're way past that, Dazai,” Chuuya tried to stop him. He had had enough emotional conversations for the day. 

“I'm not,” Dazai immediately argued. “I should have been there. Maybe I could have... talked some sense into you.”

Chuuya snorted at that. “You talk sense into me? That'd've been interesting.” 

“I could have told you not to buy that car.”

“Yeah, you'd have talked me into buying something more expensive.”

“Yeah, fair point,” Dazai agreed.

“Look, things got a little out of hand for both of us. Don't beat yourself up about it.”

Chuuya meant it. After he and Dazai had made up and he was able to think about it more calmly, he was able to identify the ways he had fucked up too. It wasn’t just Dazai. 

“Why, 'cause you'd rather do it?” Dazai asked then, with a stupid smirk on his face.

“Excuse me?” Chuuya raised an eyebrow.

“Come on, Chuuya. If you're not gonna be honest with Frank, at least be honest with me.”

“Who said I wasn't being honest with Frank?”

“You said you two weren't clicking.”

“Maybe I'm just not a therapy kind of guy.”

“Right, right, you prefer to work it out in the ring.” Dazai gave the air a few punches to deliver his point in an even more ridiculous way. 

“There was no ring, Dazai. There was a fence,” Chuuya chuckled.

“Come on,” Dazai insisted. “You don't think while you were going through your phase, just maybe, you were throwing your punches at the wrong guy?”

“Seriously? You're gonna make it about you? Again?”

“Look, I'm just saying, you were pretty pissed. Now I thought for sure that day in the grocery store you were gonna take a swing at me.” 

Despite his words, Dazai was grinning excitedly at him. Chuuya opened the bottle of beer he had been offered and took a long sip before responding. 

“Not that you didn't deserve it, but I wouldn't do that. You're on blood thinners.” 

Dazai took a step towards him, his right hand holding his belt. Chuuya’s eyes involuntarily flew towards the lower area of his body just as Dazai said, “Well, I'd still take you.”

“You think so?” Chuuya asked. His eyes returned to Dazai’s face, dangerously close to him. He raised the beer to take another sip, his throat suddenly feeling way too dry.

“I know,” Dazai reassured him. “You wanna go for the title?”

Chuuya’s mind went blank at those words. He kept the mouth of the beer bottle pressed to his lips, unsure why he was suddenly feeling so overwhelmed.

Isamu’s shout of, “Are we going to play?” broke the moment.

Dazai took a long step back, knocking his back against the counter. Chuuya watched him in confusion before Isamu yelled again for them to hurry and join him. Isamu’s promised video game session with both of them couldn’t be delayed any longer so the two of them awkwardly made their way to the couch and sat one on each side of the boy.

Any tension and weirdness was quickly forgotten once they started playing. Laughter and loud teasing quickly filled the apartment and Chuuya forgot all about the weird moment in the kitchen. He couldn’t help but think that moments like these were better than therapy.

Chapter Text

“Did you put sunscreen behind your ears?” Chuuya asked as he packed the snacks and drinks the two of them had prepared for their long awaited trip to the L.A. zoo. 

Dazai squinted his eyes in confusion. “Why would I put sunscreen behind my ears?”

“Are your ears immune to sunburn?” Chuuya insisted.

Dazai handed him one more water bottle and told him, teasingly, “Chuuya, I think you’re forgetting who is the eight year old in this house.”

Chuuya scoffed. “I’ve already put sunscreen behind Isamu’s ears.” He reached for the sunscreen that was still on the kitchen table. “Now, come on, turn around so I can put this on you.”

“It’s November,” Dazai tried one more time. He wasn’t sure why the thought of letting Chuuya put sunscreen on him suddenly felt so intimidating, but he felt the need to avoid it, if possible.

“Is the sun on vacation in November? It’s pretty sunny today.”

“I’m pretty sure I saw some clouds on my way here.”

Chuuya sighed. “Why are you being more difficult than the eight year old?” He pulled Dazai’s arm to guide him to sit on one of the chairs at the kitchen table and then went to stand behind him. “Isamu never complains when I put sunscreen on him.”

Dazai really wanted to point out that it wasn’t quite the same, yet he couldn’t think of a way to word that without making the situation weird. It shouldn't have been weird. No, it wasn’t weird. Your best friend putting sunscreen behind your ears wasn’t an intimate experience or anything like that. Dazai was just desperately single, that was it. Any kind of physical contact felt intimate to him at this point.

He heard Chuuya uncap the sunscreen bottle and forced his eyes to stay focused on the spot on the wall that he knew Isamu had once drawn with a marker on and Chuuya had done a bad job of cleaning. 

Chuuya’s sunscreen-covered fingers gently touched the back of his right ear. Dazai forced his mind to think about the tree Isamu had attempted to draw on that wall instead of focusing on how thoroughly Chuuya was spreading the sunscreen on his ear shell. Chuuya had already moved to his other ear when Dazai suddenly realized that he could have saved himself from suffering through this experience if he had just put the sunscreen on on his own. Why did he forget that was an option?

“Shouldn’t you put sunscreen on your head now that you’re almost bald?” In his desperation to break out of this tension-filled moment he had created all alone in his head, Dazai blurted out the first thing that came to his mind.

“Our hair is literally the same length,” Chuuya snapped back, his words most likely accompanied by an eye roll. He pinched Dazai’s left ear once before he finally stepped back and away from Dazai.

Dazai stayed sitting on that chair until Isamu walked into the room with his backpack already on his back. 

“Are we leaving yet?” The boy asked.

“Yes, we’re ready,” Chuuya replied for both of them. 

Dazai stood up from the chair as casually as he could and went to check that Isamu had packed his bag properly. Isamu turned around and Dazai leaned down to open the zipper of the backpack and take a look inside.

“Isamu is ready too,” he announced after he did a quick inspection.

“Great, I'll get the bags and lock, can you help Isamu?”

Dazai nodded and gestured to the boy to start walking towards the front door. Dazai grabbed his car keys that he had left lying right beside Chuuya's at the entrance and followed Isamu to the car. Isamu handed him his crunches first to put inside the car and then his backpack. Once those were safely stored on one of the back seats, Dazai gently lifted the boy inside and watched him as he put his seatbelt on. 

Chuuya arrived with their bags just as Dazai was closing Isamu's door.

“Good to go?” he asked him.

“Yup,” Dazai nodded and walked around the car to get to the driver's seat. 

“I'm choosing the music today,” Chuuya informed them once they were all sitting inside the car. 

Dazai and Isamu groaned at the same time.

“Hey!” Chuuya complained. “I have great music taste, you two just don't appreciate real music.”

“Ugh, Isamu, your dad wants to play us music from when he was born twenty million years ago, what are we going to do?”

Isamu giggled as Chuuya refuted his statement, as usual.

“I'm less than two months older than you. And eighties music is better than anything produced nowadays.”

“You just want to reminisce about the decade you were born,” Dazai kept poking fun at him.

“Yeah, dad,” Isamu chimed in.

“I should have left you both at home and gone to the zoo alone.” Chuuya shook his head. “Maybe we should sacrifice Dazai to feed the tigers.”

Isamu laughed loudly as Dazai started coming up with ridiculous arguments about how Chuuya would be a better sacrifice, making Isamu go breathless from laughing. Dazai and Chuuya tried to keep up the arguing, but within a few minutes they were both laughing too, causing Dazai to miss his turn. 

Even with the slight delay, the three of them made it to the L.A. zoo in a great mood. Isamu took it upon himself to show his dad around, so Dazai followed them around and offered his animal wisdom every time Isamu asked him a question. When the boy got tired of walking but didn’t want to stop to eat lunch just yet, Chuuya and Dazai took turns carrying him.

Dazai felt better than he had felt in months, maybe years. He was finally back doing the job he loved, his sister was happy and living in the same city as him, he was surrounded by good friends and he got to spend weekends like this, with Chuuya and Isamu.

He didn’t care about his sore back from carrying a growing eight year old child around or about the sunburn he got on his nose despite the fact that it was November. He didn’t even mind that Chuuya made him drive them back to his house too even though Dazai normally did his best to be the one sitting on the passenger seat.

All of it was worth it for the evening that followed where the three of them sat close on the couch to rewatch How to train your dragon 3 and eat the leftover snacks from their trip. Isamu fell asleep clinging to Dazai’s arm only minutes after the movie ended and Chuuya didn’t protest when Dazai asked if he could be the one who carried him to his bed. Dazai lingered in Isamu’s room for a moment too long, watching as the boy slept soundly. His guilt awakened at the sight, thinking about all those nights Chuuya must have had to stay awake on his own taking care of his terrified son after he woke up from his nightmares. He hated that he hadn’t been there, he hated that he hadn’t even known about them, he hated that Chuuya hadn’t felt like he could tell him. 

Chuuya was still sitting on the couch when Dazai returned to the living room. 

“I have a good bottle of wine that we can open,” the man informed him right away.

“What’s the occasion?” Dazai asked. He knew that Chuuya appreciated good wine more than your regular person, but he rarely bought things for himself. He treasured the few bottles of fancy wine he had —most of them gifted—, so Dazai was a bit surprised that he was willing to sacrifice one of them for no particular reason. 

“No occasion,” Chuuya replied, nonchalantly. 

Dazai didn’t follow him to the kitchen when Chuuya got up to bring the bottle of wine and two glasses. He watched him curiously as he poured a generous amount of wine in each of the glasses and then raised his own for a toast. Dazai waited for the words that should have followed such a gesture, yet Chuuya simply clinked his glass against Dazai’s and then took a long sip of the wine. Dazai brought the glass to his mouth slowly, a bit distracted by the sight of Chuuya looking so relaxed in front of him again.

Not much time had passed when the fancy bottle of wine was left empty and forgotten on the coffee table. The conversation had been flowing between them, mostly about meaningless things that got both of them giggling and leaning towards each other. 

Dazai started recounting a story about the time he had spent in Virginia Beach working as a mixologist when, inevitably, Ango’s name slipped out. Dazai hadn’t meant to mention that name or even the year he had spent working in that bar, but the wine made him momentarily forget why it was a subject he always avoided.

“Ango?” Chuuya questioned. “Is he that lawyer? Ango Sakaguchi?”

Perhaps Dazai could have lied and claimed it was someone else. Chuuya would have called him out on it, but maybe he wouldn’t have insisted on knowing the truth. The answer, too, slipped out of Dazai’s mouth.

“Yes, that’s him.”

“So you do know him,” Chuuya pointed out. “I knew it.”

“I knew him once, yes,” Dazai replied, not bothering to ask how Chuuya had figured that out.

“You two were friends?”

That question was harder to answer. They had been friends. Dazai had considered him his friend and he knew Ango had felt the same, at least for a while. Yet, after how things had ended between them, Dazai hesitated to give a confirmative answer. Would a real friend act in that way? Dazai struggled to imagine Chuuya, even at their worst, being so cruel.

“I guess so,” he replied after a moment. “At least I thought we were.”

“Oh? Did you two have a falling out?”

That was the understatement of the century. Their friendship had crushed and burned and left marks on Dazai’s soul that would never heal.

“Yeah,” Dazai nodded. 

He wasn’t sure if he was ready to tell this story to anyone, not after keeping it to himself for years and years, yet the gentle look in Chuuya’s eyes as he asked him what had happened made the words that Dazai had thought he would never share come out.

“I told you I travelled around picking odd jobs after running away from home, right?”

Chuuya nodded. “Yeah, I’ve heard the gist of it.”

The first part of the story was easy enough. “Well, one of my first stops was Virginia Beach. I was nineteen still and living in my car. I found a job in a bar as a mixologist. Believe it or not I had a certificate from some seminars I attended instead of going to class when I was supposed to be at university.”

Chuuya laughed at that. “I can picture you drinking secretly during those seminars.”

“Well, a chef has to try their food.” Dazai smiled at him. 

It had been a form of rebellion back then to use his tuition money to attend those seminars that his parents would have never approved of, but Dazai had ended up enjoying them. In another world where things hadn’t ended up the way they did, Dazai could have seen himself staying in that job.

“I became friends with two other guys working there. One of them was Ango, and the other… his name was Oda,” Dazai continued. Chuuya seemed to sense the change in his mood and refrained from making any other teasing remarks. “Ango was still an intern back then so he picked up a few shifts every week to help pay his student loans. Oda was the guardian of his three younger siblings ever since their parents had died when he was nineteen so he had two jobs. One of them was a bartender and the other was in construction.”

Dazai could remember Oda arriving in the clothes that had been working all day at his day job and quickly changing in the bathroom with almost no complaint about his obvious exhaustion. 

“It was clear that he was having a hard time financially, yet when he figured out that I was sleeping in my car he offered me his couch to sleep in even though I was just a brat who had run away from home.”

It had taken a while for Dazai to accept the offer, since he hadn’t actually minded sleeping in his car, but after a lot of pestering and the arrival of winter, he had given in.

“Oda was… he was a very kind and generous man. He offered me his home and warm meals and he was the friend I really needed at the time. He had already known Ango for a while before I came into the picture so since I got close with Oda I became friends with Ango too.”

Dazai had found Ango a bit too pretentious at first, but since he was always around when Dazai was hanging out with Oda, he had gotten used to him and had even ended up liking him. It was obvious to him that Ango had thought himself above the job he was forced to do for some extra cash, but Dazai had tried not to hold that flaw over his head. They were all young back then afterall. 

“A bit over a year after I started working in the bar, Ango suddenly disappeared and Oda started acting weird,” Dazai went on. “I didn't know what was going on, but I could tell the two things were related to each other.”

He had tried to dig into things, but Oda had been suspiciously silent every time Dazai asked him anything about it and Dazai hadn't really known who else to ask to get more information.

“Then one night, I returned to Oda’s house after working a shift without him only to find it engulfed in flames.”

Chuuya gasped at those words and Dazai felt him move a little closer to him on the couch..

“The firefighters had already carried out the bodies of his siblings. All three of them were pronounced dead at the scene.”

That was the first encounter Dazai had had with the smell of burnt flesh. Every time he ran into it his mind went back to that day and those tiny bodies that had been burned beyond recognition. 

“I… I wanted to go in and look for him. Obviously, they didn’t let me. Sometimes I think—”

That they should have let go inside. That I wouldn’t have to carry this pain everywhere with me if they had just let me go inside.

Dazai couldn’t look Chuuya in the eyes and tell him this. On his good days, he didn’t believe this anymore. On his bad days, he thought of Chuuya and Isamu and every other person he would have never met if he had disappeared in that fire too.

“They carried out Oda alive,” Dazai continued after a moment, when he could find his voice again. “He had inhaled a lot of smoke and he had severe burns all over his body, but he was still alive. He made it to the hospital alive. He lived for… almost a full day.”

The hours Dazai had spent in that hospital waiting room had been agonising. The doctors had tried to prepare him about the high possibility that his friend wasn’t going to make it, but Dazai hadn’t really believed it. Oda always seemed so strong and self assured. Even though he was struggling, he had kept talking about the future and everything he wanted to do. He had told Dazai about the book he was planning to write and about how he was planning to chase every publisher in the country around for as long as he needed to get it published.

Reality only sank in when one of the nurses let him inside Oda’s room in the ICU even though he wasn’t family and it was way too late to be visiting hours. When Dazai had closed the door behind him he had known he had been let inside to say goodbye.

“I… I was there in the room during his last moments. He was lucid for a few minutes. He talked to me, he asked me if his siblings had made it out alive. I told him yes. I knew... I knew he wasn’t going to find out in this life anyway.” One of Chuuya’s hands found his own, and he held it tightly. Dazai tried to focus on the sensation and find the strength to continue. 

“He told me that I should stop living every day waiting to die. That I should… that I should find some purpose, find something to focus on that will make me want to live. That’s why— that’s why I kept traveling around after. I was desperate to find the thing he was talking about. I was desperate to keep my promise to him that I would listen to his advice. I traveled all around the world and ended up here.” 

Here, with you and Isamu. Here, with my sister living a twenty minute drive away and a job that gives me purpose. Here, with friends that love me and are willing to forgive me for messing up. 

Chuuya squeezed his hand tighter, and Dazai let himself stare at their intertwined hands for a moment too long. Those last few minutes he had shared with Oda were painful to remember, but it was a memory he wasn’t willing to forget. What happened after though, Dazai wished he had never known.

“Ango had the nerve to show up at his funeral. He wore a far more expensive suit than the ones I had always seen him in, which I found odd. He shouldn’t have been able to afford it, I knew that. I followed him after the funeral and confronted him about it.”

At first, Ango had tried to play dumb. He told Dazai that it was his good suit that he kept for special occasions, that the reason he had disappeared was because he had been busy at work. He claimed that he had no clue about why Oda had been acting weird and how the fire had started.

“It took a while, but I got him to admit the truth. Apparently the bar that we had been working at was involved in a big illegal dealing scandal that the law firm Ango worked at had been investigating. Ango had been sent to work there to gather evidence. Oda had been involved in the dealings, he must have struggled more financially than he had let on.”

Dazai had never realized what was going on. He was sure though, that that was mostly because Oda must have tried to protect him from it. So many moments in hindsight pointed to that.

“When Ango gathered enough evidence, he went to Oda and told him about what he had been doing. Ango told me that he had bargained a plea deal for him, that Oda was only going to get a light sentence for his involvement if he gave them information about the higher-ups of the business. Ango gave him two weeks to make his decision. The day Oda’s house burnt to the ground was the day Oda had planned to meet with Ango.”

“Did those higher-ups…?” Chuuya tried to ask.

“Yes,” Dazai confirmed. “Oda was going to give them in, so they killed him before he could. They didn’t care about who else would die with him in that fire, or that Oda had been a mere pawn in their plan who had no one to protect him.”

They killed him before Oda could write the book he had wanted to write, before he got to live the quiet life in the countryside he sometimes talked to Dazai about during long shifts. He never got to see his beloved siblings grow up and achieve their dreams, he never got to witness Dazai finding his purpose. 

“Do you know what Ango told me when I blamed him for betraying our trust and for failing to protect Oda?” Dazai asked, his voice trembling. “He told me that he was just doing his job. That what happened was an unfortunate accident that was beyond his control. That since Oda had been doing illegal business, he should have been aware of the risk. He said all that after more than a year of pretending to be his friend!”

Chuuya kept holding his hand as Dazai’s entire body shook with the anger that took over again. On some days he could believe Ango’s claims that he had ended up caring for both of them even when he wasn’t meant to. But on others, all he could remember was the pure rage he had felt that morning after the funeral when Ango had called Oda’s death an unfortunate accident.

“I don’t know how I thought I could trust him again,” Dazai admitted at last. Even though he had told himself he was just taking advantage of the opportunity of having a free lawyer, a part of him had wished that Ango was genuinely trying to help him.

“You two have a complicated history, but you were once good friends. You wanted to believe that he had regretted what he did and was going to help you,” Chuuya replied.

Dazai nodded, slowly, but still went ahead to point out, “That was still very stupid of me.”

“A little stupid, sure,” Chuuya agreed. “But I can understand it. I’m sorry I— I should have checked up on you more.”

“Chuuya, you already had a lot going on, I wasn’t expecting you to.”

“Still, I should have had. I needed it too, you know?”

“You did?” Dazai asked, confused.

“Yes,” was Chuuya’s only reply at first. He was still holding Dazai’s hand. His thumb had started drawing circles on his palm. After a long moment, he continued, “I was struggling too, but I didn’t reach out to you. If I had, we could have both helped each other instead of struggling alone.”

“That would have been nice,” Dazai admitted. He would never blame Chuuya for not being there as much as he needed him considering all that Chuuya had been going through, but he could acknowledge that things would have probably been better if his best friend had been around more.

“Well, we can promise each other to do that from now on.”

Dazai smiled at those words and held up his free hand, extending his pinky. 

“Pinky promise?” He asked Chuuya, making him laugh.

“Sure,” Chuuya agreed, linking their pinkies. “Pinky promise. We’re never going to struggle without each other again.”

The urge to pull Chuuya in his arms for a hug was strong, but Dazai hesitated to do it. He wasn’t sure if he was allowed to ask for more that night.

“For what it’s worth,” Chuuya spoke again then. “You know I don’t believe in fate or stuff like that, but… I do believe that you ending up here was not a coincidence.”

By here, Chuuya could have meant L.A. He could have meant at the 118 working as a firefighter. But something in his expression made Dazai believe that he meant here, in his house, in his family. 

“Well, it definitely worked in my favor either way,” Chuuya added with a lighter tone when Dazai couldn’t find the words to reply.

“How so?” he asked.

“Free babysitting.”

Dazai couldn't keep back a chuckle. “You're really lucky to have me.”

“I am, ” Chuuya admitted easily. 

Dazai wanted to protest, even if it had been his own statement that Chuuya had agreed with, but this night, he chose not to. Instead, he finally gave in and let go of Chuuya’s hand to wrap his arms around his waist instead.

Although Chuuya seemed momentarily surprised by the gesture, after only a moment he scooted in closer and wrapped his arms around Dazai too.

“Feeling emotional?” he asked Dazai. His voice was soft, and he made no attempt to let Dazai go.

“A little,” Dazai replied, quietly. “This is why I don’t drink fancy wine.”

“So now it’s my wine’s fault,” Chuuya chuckled.

“This would have never happened if we were drinking cheap beer.” 

“Maybe I should bring out the fancy wine more often then.”

“Oh, God, no. My reputation will be ruined.”

“What kind of reputation do you think you have? We all know you’re secretly emotional.”

“I’m not,” Dazai protested weakly. “This is just a moment of weakness.” Perhaps his words could have sounded more believable if he wasn’t currently cuddling Chuuya to his chest. 

“Whatever helps you sleep at night,” Chuuya murmured back. “Speaking of, you’re not allowed to drive back to your apartment tonight.

Dazai couldn’t find it in himself to disagree with that demand. He let Chuuya lend him clothes that were too small for him and after changing into them in the bathroom he returned to the living room, only to find it empty.

He walked back to Chuuya’s room and asked, “Blanket?” 

“What for?” Chuuya asked, seeming confused.

“For the couch? Do you expect me to sleep without a blanket in November?”

Chuuya rolled his eyes. “Are you really going to try to sleep on the couch? We both know your giraffe legs won’t fit.”

“Why are you insulting my legs again? Just admit you want to get me in your bed,” Dazai said with a smirk, even if he felt strangely anxious at the thought.

The blush on Chuuya’s face was visible even with just one lamp on. He rolled his eyes and said, “Stop making this weird and come sleep. Even if we don’t work tomorrow I still have to get up to take Isamu to school.”

“Alright, alright,” Dazai agreed, not wanting to test his fate any longer. 

Dazai was cruelly awakened from his peaceful sleep by the sound of an alarm. He groaned loudly and hugged the pillow closer to his chest. Then the pillow, which was unnaturally warm and smelled a little too much like Chuuya, groaned too. Dazai, still half asleep and not fully aware of what was going on, squeezed him again.

“Why are you groping me at 7 A.M.?” Chuuya asked, and Dazai finally woke up enough to realize he was not only spooning Chuuya from behind but also full on groping his chest. He pulled his arms away and scooted back on the bed far enough that he almost fell down.

“Sorry, I guess I must have gotten cold during the night and you’re basically a human furnace,” he tried to excuse himself.

Chuuya didn’t look too bothered by their morning predicament. Once he was released from Dazai’s clutches he simply got up and walked to the closet to pick out his clothes for the day.

“You didn’t get too warm?” he asked.

“I’m sure I wouldn’t have kept clinging to you if I was too warm?” Dazai replied, confused. He had always run cold, so, honestly, Chuuya’s warmth had been appreciated.

“Well, glad I could help,” Chuuya chuckled. “You can go back to sleep. Isamu will be too excited if he realizes you’re still here and we will be late for school.”

“Okay,” Dazai agreed, even though he wasn’t sure he could go back to school after that kind of awakening.

“Oh, by the way, wait.” Chuuya seemed to remember something all of a sudden. He walked out of the room and then returned holding a pair of keys. “This is for you,” he said as he handed them to Dazai.

“What for?” Dazai asked dumbly. 

“For the house,” Chuuya replied like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “I already have one for your apartment, you should have one for here too.”

“Oh.” Dazai stared down at the keys on his still open palm. There was a Dory keychain accompanying them.

“Isamu picked that,” Chuuya informed him, noticing his gaze. “Now, I gotta go wake him up before we’re actually running late.

“Okay, give him a kiss good morning for me,” Dazai said without thinking about it too much. 

Before he could consider whether or not that was a bit out of line to say, Chuuya replied, “I will,” and got out of the room, closing the door behind him.

November passed quickly and uneventfully. Before Dazai realized it, it was mid December. Although Los Angeles wasn’t exactly known for being cold, Dazai was still feeling the chill when he woke up. He had started to consider the possibility that there was something wrong with the heating in his building.

Driving by Chuuya’s house before going to the station was out of his way, but since Dazai had promised Isamu that he would stop by to drive him to school since he had to miss their weekly ‘Samu day the previous week, Dazai dressed as warmly as he could and headed for the Nakahara house.

He let himself in with the keys Chuuya had given him, the Dory keychain dangling as he pushed the key in. It still felt a little weird to be able to do this, but Dazai wasn’t going to complain about this privilege. He followed the sound of Isamu’s sleepy voice into the kitchen.

There, he found the kid half-heartedly eating his cereal while complaining about having to go to school even though it was almost Christmas and Chuuya in front of the sink, washing dishes by hand (because he was still refusing to get a dishwasher).

“Osamu!” Isamu shouted, jumping on his chair in a brief moment of energy before collapsing back to the table. 

“Isamu!” Dazai returned the greeting with the same energy. He then turned to Chuuya, ready to greet him too, but his eyes jumped to the man’s uncovered calves. 

His first thought was, of course, these legs were carved by the gods , but his second one that he actually voiced was, “It’s December.”

“I’m aware.” Chuuya wiped his hands with the Winx towel Dazai had bought him as a joke and turned to find him still staring at his legs.

“Why are you wearing shorts then?” 

“Daddy is weird,” Isamu chimed in, mouth full of cereal.

“Don’t speak with your mouth full,” Chuuya reprimanded absentmindedly. “And it’s really not that cold.”

Dazai looked down at the four different layers he was wearing that he had no intention to get rid of until they reached the firehouse and he was forced to change into his uniform. “Daddy is very weird,” he had to agree with Isamu.

Chuuya threw the Winx towel at him which Dazai caught before it could hit him in the face. “Go bring Isamu’s bag from his room if you’re here to be helpful.”

Dazai agreed with an exaggerated salute and headed to Isamu’s room to do exactly that. When he was back, Isamu had finished eating his breakfast and was slowly getting up from the chair.

“It’s almost Christmas,” he repeated, but neither of them entertained him. 

Dazai carried his bag to the car and held the door open while Chuuya helped the boy in. 

Once they dropped off Isamu, the current most important topic came up again.

“Have you told him that you’re working on Christmas day yet?” Dazai asked. 

One quick look at Chuuya’s guilty face let him know the answer before Chuuya had the chance to confirm it.

“I’m still avoiding it.”

“Won’t it be better to give him time to get over it?”

“Probably,” Chuuya sighed. “But I don’t want to upset him, especially this time of the year.”

Chuuya didn’t have to elaborate. Last Christmas day had been special for Isamu; it was the day he got reunited with his mother. 

Dazai wasn’t sure what to say to help. The topic of Erica was still something that he didn’t dare broach unless explicitly invited to with both the Nakahara boys.

“Maybe it won’t be that bad,” he decided to say eventually. 

Chuuya called him a few days later a little after midnight.

“It was that bad,” he announced as soon as Dazai picked up.

“What was?” Dazai, who had been half asleep before the call came in, asked.

“I told Isamu that I have to work on Christmas,” Chuuya sighed. “He went straight to his room and wouldn’t speak to me for hours. I managed to get him to come out for dinner but the only thing he asked was if he can spend Christmas with you instead.”

“Ah,” Dazai muttered. Of course, he was working too.

“What are we going to do?” Chuuya wondered. His voice was sad and dejected. Dazai wished he was there with him instead of miles away. 

“He’s gonna spend the day at your aunt’s house with your grandma too, right? He’ll have a good time there.”

“I know he will, but… I don’t want him to stop liking Christmas.”

“He won’t,” Dazai reassured him, an idea already forming in his head.

Both Isamu and Chuuya deserved to spend Christmas together as a family. If Dazai could make that happen, he would.

Recruiting the help of Fukuchi was a little weird, but since he was the only person Dazai could trust to keep a secret, he didn’t hesitate much to reach out and ask him for help in organizing a surprise Christmas dinner at the station. Fukuchi seemed surprisingly excited about the idea, so things moved smoothly with the both of them making plans. 

On Christmas day, a little before dinner time, the team returned back to the station after a call. Dazai lingered behind as the rest of his team looked at Fukuchi waiting for them on the bottom of the stairs in surprise.

“Genichiro, what are you doing here?” Fukuzawa was the one to ask him.

“We came to save you. Someone said you were ordering takeout for Christmas dinner.” 

“I did vote for turkey,” Fukuzawa laughed.

“You said we ?” Kunikida asked, looking around suspiciously. 

The moment the thought crossed everyone’s mind, they rushed to the stairs to get to the loft. Dazai was the last to follow but he heard the surprised yells of names and wishes for a Merry Christmas clear as day.

He lingered on the last step, staring at the sight of Chuuya excitedly hugging his son. Isamu was laughing and clinging to his father’s arms. He would have stayed there just watching those two if his sister didn’t call his name, urging him to join her and Kouyou.

Dazai walked up to them and gladly accepted Akiko’s warm hug.

“You planned this, didn’t you?” she asked him, squeezing him close to her chest despite their difference in height.

Dazai half-heartedly tried to escape her tight grip while Kouyou laughed at the scene.

Akiko only let him go once Isamu started calling his name. Free from the clutches of his sister, Dazai happily bent down to pick Isamu up and spin him around.

“Merry Christmas, Osamu!” the boy exclaimed, giggling close to his ear.

“Merry Christmas, Isamu,” Dazai replied, giving him one more spin before returning him to the ground.

“I can't believe you managed to keep this a secret.” Chuuya shook his head.

“Believe me, it was hard,” Dazai admitted. Getting everyone’s family to cooperate without revealing the secret had been challenging, but everyone had been willing to try their best for this surprise.

Dazai waited for Chuuya to make a teasing remark, or perhaps to offer a heartfelt but quick thanks before returning his attention back to his son. Instead, Chuuya boldly walked into his personal space and gave Dazai a long hug.

“Thank you for doing this for us,” Chuuya whispered against his chest. 

Dazai, surprised by the gesture, kept his mouth shut, though his arms automatically returned the hug. The moment Chuuya moved to let go and take a step back, Dazai leaned down slightly, as if he was expecting something else to follow this exchange.

Of course, nothing of that sort followed. Chuuya gave his arm one last pat and crouched down to look at the present Isamu was currently opening. After an awkward second or two where Dazai tried to get his mind out of the gutter, he leaned down to be able to look at the unwrapping of the presents too.

Isamu smiled brightly at every present he had received, and both Dazai and Chuuya happily watched him pile them up next to him. When he reached Dazai’s present and shouted the loudest at the reveal of it, Dazai couldn’t be blamed for the proud smile that didn’t leave his face for the rest of the day.

The new year started promisingly. 

First, the screws in Dazai’s injured leg were taken out. Dazai knew they didn’t weigh much, but he felt lighter after he got rid of them anyway. Then, only a few weeks later, the decision for Dazai to officially be taken off blood thinners was made.

In early March, Dazai showed up to what he hoped was his last doctor appointment with a careful hopefulness in his chest.

“So how is it looking?” He asked the doctor who was still looking at his last x-rays. 

“Bone has fused nicely where the screws were, and there's minimal scar tissue,” the doctor replied, smiling at him.

“I feel good, doctor,” Dazai revealed. “I mean, the other day I was standing on top of a moving fire truck and I didn’t even feel a twinge.”

“I'm gonna pretend that I did not hear that part.” The doctor shook his head. “I'm not interested in operating on your other leg.”

“So what about the clots?” Dazai addressed his biggest concern.

“Scans are clear. No sign of clots since we took you off of the blood thinners. I think those screws were the source of your problem.”

Dazai sighed in relief at the news. “So that’s it then? They’re gone and I don’t need to come back here anymore?”

“As long as you don't get crushed by another fire truck,” the doctor teased. He had been around Dazai enough in the past year to know he could take a joke.

“Whoa, come on. Too soon,” Dazai chuckled.

The doctor extended his hand for a handshake and said, “Mr. Dazai, it is my pleasure to give you a clean bill of health. So go get dressed and get out of here.”

“Well, thank you for everything.” Dazai shook his hand. “No offense, but I hope I never see you again.”

“Likewise,” the doctor replied, and they both laughed.

Dazai went straight to the parking lot, where Chuuya was waiting for him inside his car.

“So?” he asked.

“Clean bill of health!” Dazai announced, jumping onto the passenger seat.

Chuuya looked at him with a bright smile and said, “Finally, things are looking up.”

Dazai couldn’t know how long this blissful period would last, but he was trying to not expect the day that the universe would come after him again.