Archive of Our Own ^beta

< Kill them— >

Chuuya keeps his face calm and his smile frozen as the voice inside him bubbles over with repeated nonsense about just surrendering his body just for one moment so that the power inside of him can express its well-deserved rage against the customers clamoring to buy him for a night. It’s been like this for as long as he can remember: a strange, gravelly voice that nobody else can hear looping inside his head. He doesn’t speak even when he’s spoken to; he lets them think that it’s because his mind is too empty to learn even just halting Japanese language. It’s not like he has to learn a lot to understand what they want – it’s always: ‘come here, pet’, ‘beautiful enough to pass as a lady’, ‘obey me’, ‘useless bitch’ – limited vocabulary and even more limited compassion for human beings.

< But you’re not human, are you— >

Chuuya ignores that haughty sneer, envisions a pile of writhing snakes oiled with black mud, taunting him. He’s not afraid of snakes; last week, when a small, striped snake managed to escape from one of the customers’ illegal cages, he was the one who ended squishing its head under his ceramic heels. Owner gave him a scolding that lasted for an hour, though the harsh words turned into sickeningly sweet honey when the snake’s owner had expressed his desire to buy the beautiful doll that’s apparently hiding a feisty fire inside. The fee he earned was just-about evenly matched with the cleaning costs for his heels and the house’s carpet, plus the replacement fee to capture another one of the endangered snake.

< You can’t keep me hidden for so long— >

Chuuya knows it. There are days when he has to sleep for more than four hours and whenever he wakes up, his hands are already halfway into an assembly of a homemade bomb. Some days, his hands are already choking himself when he wakes up; some exceptionally terrible days, his hands are already stabbing shallow points against his skin and he has to wear long-sleeved outfits in order to partway hide the aftermath. He has a limited supply of concealers and fine robes are hard to come by, after all.

< You’ll lose control, one day— >

Chuuya knows it and dreads it. He’ll become known as a monster and he has to be locked up in eternal darkness. He’ll become known as something that quite human, despite his looks being praised for being better than a Renaissance painting. One day, he’ll be passed from one owner to another. One day, he’ll be sold because he’s a monster, instead of being a novel, pathetic creature who doesn’t have the hold of another human being’s heart tattooed upon his body.

< You’re not human like them, so of course no one will love you— >

Chuuya knows it.

*****

Unlike the stories that Chuuya sneaks to read whenever he has free time – when there are no chores assigned to him aside from keeping himself pristinely beautiful, when there are no illogical mutterings from the being locked inside his psyche – extraordinary events don’t happen on extraordinary days.

It starts off fairly ordinary: he’s woken up not by the blare of his alarm but by the coiling in his stomach because the god inside of him hungers for destruction every three days or so. He’s not due to help with preparations for tonight’s reception; his only orders for the day is to doll himself up and wear something blue as always to bring out the color of his eyes. He doesn’t say anything about how nobody looks at him and buys him for his eyes. He avoids looking at the mirror until the very end, because each time he sees his face he sees the tar-like snakes slithering all over his skin forming the words ‘destroy’ and ‘rage’ in successions. He avoids looking at his wrists even more, because all he sees is his pale skin untouched by sunlight, devoid of any words that signifies the bond between him and his nonexistent soulmate.

It starts off fairly ordinary, so he’s mildly surprised when the doors don’t open to more patrons once the clock hits eleven. Instead, the entire house is decked extravagantly to welcome a couple of stone-faced men in somber funeral-black. He doesn’t twitch in his place, feet already used to standing for six hours straight in six-inch heels, even as he realizes that these men are here for an inspection. They’re attempting to look at too many places at once for it to feel sufficiently like a legitimate task; they’re masking their interest too much and he wonders how much they will have to pay in order to keep these Mafioso out of their hair for the next few months. He wonders how many meals the workers have to skip, how many more customers they have to serve in order to make up for tonight’s loss.

He remains standing even as one child distinguishes himself from the rest by immediately singling him out and going straight for him.

“It’s him,” the child says with a too-mature voice and a too-confident smirk, like he’s never been wrong in his life.

“Is that so, Dazai-kun,” the leader of the group says mildly, slicked-back hair and a distasteful smile on his face, like he’s used to always seeing the future and the humans of this world acting accordingly.

Owner sounds too thrilled despite the fact that she’s essentially giving up one of their core moneymakers. “So you’d like to take this child?”

“He’s the one I’m looking for.”

“You’re looking for a whore for your coming-of-age ceremony?” Chuuya ends up spitting out despite himself, the nagging of the god inside of him getting out of hand. The only consolation is that he says it in French, so it’s not like anyone would think of it. He’ll just be shrugged off as the strange doll who talks to himself at random moments.

Extraordinary events don’t happen on extraordinary days.

The child named ‘Dazai’ replies in refined French soaked with too much certainty and cockiness that shouldn’t be present on someone with too much bandage wrapped all over his frail body, wrapped over one eye, wrapped over both wrists, wrapped over a slim neck:

“I’m looking for someone with eyes like yours.”

*****

“You’ll train under me starting today.”

< Kill her— >

Chuuya’s demon doesn’t manifest as an aural projection like the doll-like lady’s, but the destruction from the clash of their powers is enough to create a barrier between them and the rest of the Port Mafia members watching him lose himself.

< These people just want to use MY power— >

Chuuya knows the power doesn’t belong to him, not entirely at least.

He knows but hearing it stated out loud is just—

< You can’t stop me— >

“Rest, Chuuya,” the bandaged bastard says with a tone of finality, fingers wrapping over his glove-covered wrist.

The god inside of him quiets down.

There’s clarity ringing hollowly inside of him. For the first time in years, he doesn’t hear the writhing of something terrible inside of him. He holds on to that feeling. He wishes he never has to let go.

“So Chuuya wants to hold hands with me?”

It’s a pity that the Ability to regain his humanity, even for short bursts, is attached to someone like Dazai Osamu.

*****

He gets kidnapped ten times.

Actually, it happens a lot more than that, but he can’t be bothered to count anymore.

It always gets foiled when the god inside of him becomes too impatient, too offended that humans think they can just mess around with him and the vessel he’s currently locked inside.

Chuuya thinks whether it’s worth it to let them know that extracting the power of the god is impossible.

There’s only one way to do it, a move perfected by his mother who had abandoned him through all means possible.

Just as his heart stops beating from the overload of the god’s corruption, he feels whisper-soft touch against his skin, ‘No Longer Human’ whispered against his ear.

Dazai asks with a flat tone: “Is this Chuuya’s way of saying that he wants me to touch him?”

Chuuya passes out before he can sneer a reply.

*****

He spends so much time as follows:

• Mixing power with grace in dancing exercises as Kouyou-anesan simultaneously scolds him for not paying enough attention to every single one of his limbs and having an atrocious free hand as well as fussing over him whenever he comes back to his lodging escorted by the demon of the guerilla squad;

• Learning different languages as he interacts with different people – the language of power as he makes people around him kneel not because of fear but because of respect; the language of seduction as he makes himself untouchable despite being in yet another courtesan’s house; the language of cursing Dazai to hell and back for grabbing his hand this way and that whenever the god inside of him rattles out complaints about being locked inside a crappy vessel;

• Touching things without the fear that they’d disintegrate into nothingness;

He spends a few months feeling as normal as one possibly can when there’s a cruel voice that seethes within him every seven days or so, when there’s an even crueler world surrounding him all days of the week.

Extraordinary events don’t happen on extraordinary days.

He’s so caught up about his day-to-day activities as Kouyou-anesan’s protégé that he doesn’t manage out a reply when he hears Elise ask him pointedly:

“So it’s true that you don’t have a soulmate because you’re not human?”

*****

“I can't even guess myself what it must be like to live the life of a human being.”

He can’t quite remember the book that he’s read that line from, but it feels right, resonating inside of him like a choir of tortured bluebirds.

*****

“I hear you now have a soulmate tattoo?”

It’s not even an hour since Chuuya accidentally-on-purpose showed the new recruits his left wrist. It’s a secret between him and Kouyou-anesan, the tattoo artist sworn to eternal silence after he has permanently inked a phrase that Chuuya thought about for a day.

“You’re such a fucking gossip.”

“Mm, but I thought you were a… hm, bestseller, because of how uniquely unloved you were?”

Trust Dazai to not mince words. Chuuya doesn’t wince though at the harsh delivery. It’s true – his previous owners didn’t know about the god inside of him, didn’t know about his Ability, didn’t know that he has been abandoned by his mother after giving birth to him and passing the god locked inside of her to him. They know of him because of his looks and the fact that people without soulmate tattoos are very rare – just one in every billion – and to their depraved customers, it apparently translates to someone so inhumanly disgusting that he’d allow them to do inhumanly disgusting things to his body.

“I’ve been covering it with a concealer,” he says blandly with a hint of irritation. He’s heard of rumors about Dazai, that he’s the demon of the guerilla squad, that he’s smarter than all of the heads of the Port Mafia combined.

It doesn’t matter if he doesn’t believe him.

Chuuya doesn’t care.

“And you decide to show it off now, because…?”

Chuuya’s flicker of irritation is echoed by the god inside of him. To be honest, he doesn’t really care, though there’s something annoying about how Dazai checks up on him every few days. The Port Mafia has sent him to be taken care of by Kouyou-anesan though he harbors no delusions about them just fattening him up for the inevitable time that they attempt to extract his power from him. He knows it and it’s annoying that they’re trying to play it off like some fucked-up charity work.

He’s not interested in meeting anyone—no, that’s a lie.

He knows it’s impossible for him, at this point.

“I’m curious if I’ll meet them.”

Dazai’s smile is razor-sharp. “Well, maybe if Chuuya’s nice enough, I can help him look for them!”

“And what do you want in exchange,” Chuuya asks in English, just because he can.

“Mm, it depends on how difficult the search is~~~♫” Dazai’s singsong in French is atrocious. His face remains impassive though, like he’s so bored of his life. Chuuya wonders if this guy has attempted to kill himself before and failed, for him to look like that. He knows the feeling—his powers have been killing him and stopping just barely above his limit for his entire life.

Chuuya shrugs once they reach his assigned quarters. Kouyou-anesan isn’t around to frown disapprovingly at Mori-san’s protégé escorting him home. Ever since Dazai has been assigned to be his bodyguard of sorts, the kidnapping attempts have mellowed down, so that’s one thing that’s not completely bad about the situation.

He figures that the line on his wrist is just enough to keep people off his back – people who leer about him not being qualified as a human being because he doesn’t have anyone shackled to love him no matter what. It doesn’t matter if Dazai or everyone else sees it.

So he inches his elbow-length gloves down, until his wrist is visible.

Soulmate tattoos are words, lines, phrases meant to signify between two human beings bound as soulmates. It can be their first line to another, it can be a word that summarizes their relationship, a quote that binds their interests together. It could be in any language – but the lines would be the same in both soulmates’ wrists.

Chuuya’s manufactured line is morbid enough to disqualify a chunk of the population as his soulmate.

On his wrist lies a small line: “I can't even guess myself what it must be like to live the life of a human being.”

Extraordinary events don’t happen on extraordinary days.

Upon the sight of the depressing line on his wrist, Dazai Osamu – demon of the guerilla squad, terrifying Port Mafia member with the power to shut down Abilities, rumored to be the next Port Mafia Boss – smiles.

Chuuya’s heart stops and doesn’t resume beating until the god inside of him seethes and claws out of him, prompting Dazai to hold his hand.

Kouyou-anesan isn’t there when Dazai tells him that he’s going to request for the two of them to become mission partners.

*****

He spends the next few years of his time as follows:

Moving to an apartment that’s way too large for someone like him with nary a possession to his name. It has a huge kitchen, an even bigger bedroom and probably the biggest living room area in the entire city. He spends his first night on a lumpy futon underneath the window overlooking Yokohama Bay, the windows left open to let in the salty breeze that’s not just because he’s cried himself to sleep from dreams and thoughts of losing control.

He spends the following day with a cold and a disapproving Dazai who sits cross-legged beside him, their knees brushing despite Chuuya’s abhorrence at spending any sort of time touching anyone for more than five seconds. There’s a tablet in front of them, where Dazai swipes on page after page of a home design catalog, ordering furniture and décor and scheduling appointments left and right for the redecoration.

He spends the night on his neighboring apartment, because the smell of fresh paint hurts his nose and he doesn’t trust himself not to burn down his newly-outfitted kitchen, so it makes more sense to inflict such possibilities on a kitchen that doesn’t belong to him.

Once the redecorations are done, he’s dismayed to find out that there’s now a connecting door from his new bedroom to Dazai’s.

“That makes things convenient,” is all Dazai says on the matter.

< You’re stupid— > is all the god of corruption snarls as he doesn’t bother putting a will-just-be-picked lock on the door.

 

Mastering different weapons coupled with hand-to-hand combat skill. Dazai’s not perfect – even with his loathsome Ability that requires him to touch his enemy before he can subdue them, even with his overreaching knowledge able to orchestrate a confrontation and its results days before it actually happens – and Chuuya understands his role in being the muscle, the power, behind their partnership. He’s supposed to be strong, stronger than anyone, strongest amongst Yokohama. While his god cannot be tamed by the current technologies available, he can instead be honed to a walking weapon.

“You’re taking too long to recover,” Dazai tells him coldly as he dry-heaves against the bloodstained floor after one solid kick to his solar plexus.

“Shut the fuck up,” he returns as he vows to become stronger than this jackass so he can kick him in the balls.

Learning different languages as they get assigned to different countries for what Dazai calls to be their ‘world domination’. His French becomes good enough to write a lengthy letter a French official in order to allow them special entry to Louvre. His Spanish becomes passable enough to distract security guards long enough for Dazai to slip into Sagrada Familia and recover one of the records left underneath one of the crypts. His English becomes conversational enough that he can hold a cursing match with Dazai regarding his many inadequacies in decency. He masters Morse Code so he can tap a tango of heavy poking against Dazai’s wrist as they listen to the passive-aggressive scolding about the destruction they’ve caused to one of the Port Mafia warehouses when they ended up fighting each other after the mission targets ended up being too unimpressive.

“Go to hell and die,” he says in half-Russian and half-Italian, when Dazai waltzes into his bedroom at three-in-the-fucking-morning, because Dazai can’t defeat the final boss in his video game for the week.

“I’ve been trying,” Dazai says cheerfully in Chinese, flopping to his bed. “Now help me defeat this so I can sleep.”

Chuuya ends up spending thirty minutes yelling combos to Dazai’s ear as the other wrestles his character to victory. Dazai ends up spending the night in Chuuya’s very big and very soft bed because he’s too much of a fucking lazyass bastard to crawl back to his own room less than ten meters away. Chuuya ends up waking up to Dazai snoring against his head, annoyingly not taking advantage of the big space and annoyingly crowding into Chuuya’s instead. Dazai ends up having to hold Chuuya’s hand all throughout breakfast because the god inside of him isn’t feeling charitable today.

Allowing another person into his personal bubble often, for periods of time that becomes longer and longer.

He’s lived his life being touched in very unpleasant ways: courtesan apprentices smoothing silk over his frame; potential buyers raking their hands all over his body as they examine the goods they’re about to buy; new owners placing palms over his head in an attempt to keep him leashed like an animal; enemies hoping to pull the power away from him right through his internal organs.

Dazai’s touch is neither too warm nor too cold. It’s gentle, most of the time, unless their lives are in impending danger, the desperation and urgency almost palpable during those scenarios, which is curious against the backdrop of his knowledge about Dazai’s suicide attempts.

“Because you’re so tiny so you’ll get lost,” is what Dazai tells him during a mission that takes them running after their targets in a goddamn goose chase across a very crowded festival.

“Because your Ability is going haywire,” is what Dazai disapprovingly says when he ends up blowing their cover in Belgium as his Corruption erupts out of nowhere.

“Because I don’t need you suddenly blowing up beside me,” is what Dazai mutters just before they perform an unpracticed synchronized combination as they alternate between covering each other’s backs and destroying Port Mafia’s enemies in measured attacks.

“Because,” is what Dazai mumbles into the silence as they make their way under the shadows of the night taking abandoned backalleys, the god inside Chuuya quieter than usual, their hands linked tightly in a hold that’s not going to be easy to break when they get attacked.

Controlling the god inside of him in ways that he hasn’t allowed himself to dream of.

“We’ll allow your true power to come out,” Dazai tells him with a heavy seriousness in his eyes that he almost chokes on. “But only if the situation really calls for it.”

Chuuya doesn’t dare breathe as the god inside of him tries to claw out of him, blood running down his nose and leaking out of his ears.

“So think of the most chuuni line you can, Chuuya. We’ll make that the activation key.”

He hiccups, tasting copper heavy on his tongue. He thinks about arguing – he’s doesn’t have a goddamn chuunibyou, goddamn it – but there’s too little air in his lungs.

“Don’t use your soulmate line: I can't even guess myself what it must be like to live the life of a human being.”

“Why not,” he says faintly, struck stupid by the fact that it’s been years since he has shown the line to Dazai and the other still remembers.

Dazai’s going to lie. Chuuya can feel it before the other even replies with a: “It’s not chuuni enough.”

Well if that’s the case…

“O, Grantors of dark disgrace, do not wake me again.”

Dazai laughs and it doesn’t sound as scary as everyone else says it is.

“What are you, a second-grader?”

Chuuya makes sure to land his kick against the other’s cheek for that remark.

 

Tasting wine for the very first time as a newly-promoted Executive shows up in his bedroom doorway, smile razor-sharp and eyes dull.

Forgetting that he’s someone with an abomination living inside of him—no, that’s not quite right. What he forgets, even for just a moment, is that he’s someone who doesn’t deserve any sort of affection whatsoever.

Elise asks him to accompany her in trying out a medley of cake flavors, despite the fact that she doesn’t even let Mori-san try a spoonful of her desserts.

Q asks him to provide stories about the different countries he’s been to, despite the fact that he’s half of the partnership that had sealed him in the first place.

Motojirou asks him to help out with dubious scientific experiments in the glory of lemon spindles, despite the fact that all he’s capable of doing is throwing lemon bombs at the other’s face.

Gin asks him to help her reach for one of the books she can’t reach, despite the fact that he can’t reach it either.

Hirotsu-san asks him to drink tea together, despite the fact that he’s lost as to how to handle the tea cups and the sparkling china.

Tachihara asks him to help him train, despite the fact that he always unintentionally beats the other into a pulp.

Akutagawa asks him to help him pick out scarves and coats for the upcoming winter, despite the fact that his mission partner is someone who antagonizes him as much as he mentors him.

Kouyou-anesan asks him about silk and satin and velvet and cashmere, despite the fact that his childhood has been spent simply wearing those robes without a say on the matter.

Dazai doesn’t ask him anything.

Dazai just gives and gives and gives and Chuuya forgets.

Getting used to the sight of his ceiling as he recovers from each injury. He prefers to look at the ceiling despite the boring patterns, because he’s not sure he can handle the nauseating lurching deep inside him when he looks at his bed instead, where Dazai’s gripping his hand as the other sleeps by his bedside.

*****

“Let’s celebrate, Chuuya~~~♪”

The youngest Executive tells him from his doorway, a bottle of wine already uncorked.

Extraordinary events don’t happen on extraordinary days.

Dazai’s suit is rumpled and Chuuya attempts to rub at his eyes, but it doesn’t manage to remove the strange sight.

“And what, pray tell, are we celebrating?”

“I got rejected for the very first time!”

“You get rejected many times,” Chuuya corrects the idiot who’s somehow forgotten the many instances of ladies refusing his double suicide invitations.

“Mm, she told me that I’m a depressing asshole!”

“You are,” Chuuya tells him firmly. There’s a reason he’s listed as M A C K E R E L in his phone, after all. “And stop grinning like that, it’s creepy.”

Dazai raises the wine bottle to his lips. Chuuya gasps in shock – not because the heathen dared to drink straight from the bottle, but because this is the first time that he’s seen Dazai’s bare wrist. He’s too far away for Chuuya to be able to read the words inscribed there – ungodly hour aside.

“And yet here I am, bringing Chuuya vintage wine.”

Chuuya doesn’t drink with others because he’s not sure what kind of destruction his god will bring when his inhibitions are down. He does drink with Dazai though. “Give that to me.”

Dazai all but shoves the bottle against his lips.

He doesn’t think about such things as indirect kisses when he drinks from the bottle directly too, too sleep-lazy to roll out of his bed and retrieve wine glasses. Given the glint in Dazai’s eyes, it’s possible that said wine glasses will just end up being smashed.

“Did you like it?” Dazai asks with a strange voice. “Hey, Chuuya, did you like it?”

“Of course I did,” Chuuya says—or tries to, at least.

His reply is muffled by Dazai’s own mouth, crushed against his unceremoniously, the wine inside Dazai’s mouth hotter and headier than the one he drank just seconds prior. Dazai’s transferring the wine to his mouth via their kiss, but some of the liquid spills out, the wine dripping down to his chin.

“Stop wasting wine,” he manages to gasp out when Dazai changes angles, one hand heavy on his waist and another pressing the bottle awkwardly against his neck. “You idiot, stop—”

“Is the wine all you care about, Chuuya~~~?”

Chuuya glares, though he figures it can’t get his point across, not when it’s too dark and not when Dazai’s being an ass. “It’s not like I care about you.”

“Of course you do,” Dazai chides him with a nip to his bottom lip, droplets of his blood mixing in their next bruising kiss. “I’m your soulmate, after all.”

It spirals out of control.

He doesn’t quite manage to even think about it, but he’s kicking Dazai away from him one moment, and the next thing he sees is Dazai across the room and nearly flattened against the door.

The wine bottle spills dark-red liquid over his comforter.

“It can’t be.”

Because the tattoo in his hands is a fake. A mere illusion at normalcy. A line chosen with great care so that its presence would be enough to deter people from feeling pity over his loneliness, to stop people from becoming too curious about his lack of humanity. A quote that separates him from normal people.

It can’t be something that matches someone else.

Dazai laughs, giddy and slightly deranged, as he steps back from the doorway. His shoulders are hunched, shaking from his laughter. His eyes are wide and fever-bright.

“I look forward to spending forever with you, Chuuya.”

(the end of their beginning)