Chapter Text
Osamu Dazai sat down on a bar stool, and waving at the waitress, who was already familiar with his attics, ordered a martini. She brought it to him with a sharp smile, reminding Dazai he hadn't yet paid his bar tab. Oh, well...maybe next time. Or perhaps she'll let it slide if he got her some tickets to one of their concerts?
But before he can bribe his way into the waitress's heart and perhaps get rid of his massive bar tab, the door opens and a young man in his twenties enters, holding in one hand a half-finished ramune bottle. He looks at Dazai, eyes squinted in a strange kind of concentration, only to then unceremoniously plop down on one of the bar stools. Neither of them has the time to start speaking before the door is swung open once again, and through it pour one after the other the members of the Armed Agency.
“Dazai-san! I thought we had agreed to meet up for rehearsal.” Atsushi calls out, a childish pout etched upon his face.
“My bad, Atsushi-kun. Heh, I was kinda busy last night and so happened to oversleep this morning.”
“Huh!? Have you gone somewhere?” Yosano looks flabbergasted at the possibility of Dazai leaving the house for once. When they weren’t touring, or rehearsing the man could usually be found in three places: a river, his apartment, or on the top of a very high building. Or anywhere really that could become his next suicide attempt spot.
“Yup. I spent the evening at the arena.”
“Didn’t The Mafia have a concert there or something?” Kunikida asks, while checking all the e-mails on his phone, no doubt offers for a gig or PR matters.
Yosano turns to glare at him, and well, Dazai can’t blame her. He’d be untrusty of a former rival band member too. But she isn’t right to judge who he goes out with. Or his love life for that matter.
“Yeah, they did.” He supposes the concert wasn’t so bad, Chuuya always looked good in leather, though he’d never recognize that to the smug slug. He was already way too proud for his own good. Better grow a few more inches before daring to say The Mafia was on the same level as his band.
“So, you went to see your partner, Dazai-san?” Kenji asks all smiles and excitement. Sometimes Dazai forgets just how young his band members are. Kenji especially, the boy thrumming with barely restrained energy.
For a moment after Kenji poses the question it’s quiet and Dazai can feel all of their eyes on him. He ponders whether to actually respond when the bar door swings open for the third time that morning. In the door, cigarette between his lips, and a familiar beige coat on his shoulders, stands Nakahara Chuuya. He looks over the Armed Agency and then takes the last few steps between him and Dazai.
“You forgot your cloak at mine, mackerel.” He says it so nonchalantly, as if rivals sleep over at each other’s house all the time. He says it in a way that makes Dazai wonder if he had truly left last night, purple hickeys all over Chuuya’s neck. Or if it was just a dream, their kiss on the rooftop, with the glow of the city beneath them. But one glance at Chuuya reassures the brunette that he hadn’t dreamt. Even with his shirt’s high collar and his choker on, he can still see purplish-red marks on the other’s skin, and his hair is a tad bit more ruffled than usual. Smiling softly, Dazai accepts the coat from him, draping it across his shoulders. He is aware of the way his bandmates continue to look at him with incredulity, but as he clutches at Chuuya’s hand, Dazai realises he doesn’t care right now.
“Thanks, Chu.” It’s soft, and so uncharacteristically him, but Dazai doesn’t mind being soft if it’s Chuuya. He doesn’t mind either when the ginger tugs him down in a kiss, Chuuya’s face as red as his hair.
“Nakahara-san is dating Dazai-san?!?”
Atsushi’s surprised voice takes him out of his thoughts, and he vaguely registers that his young apprentice seems happy for them if anything. Yosano though, looks as if she wants to kill him, and Rampo probably knew already given on how he keeps munching unaffected on his sweets.
“Yeah, this mackerel right here came to see me last night, didn’t he tell you?”
“He didn’t, but no surprise, it’s Dazai after all.”
“Hey, what’s that supposed to mean?!”
“Nothing, it’s just…I could see it happening, Dazai-san. I’m happy for you, really now.” Atsushi is truly an angel. He didn’t even go over the part where Chuuya was their rival and a possible threat to their band and instead thought only about how his mentor was happy and that it’s what matters the most. Akutagawa should truly learn a thing or two from him.
For his part, Chuuya also looks relieved that the Armed Agency hasn’t kicked him out of there yet, and he doesn’t make any comment when bandaged hands encircle his waist. Dazai buries his face in his hair, fiddling with one of the ginger strands that had gotten out from his ponytail.
“Thanks, Atsushi-kun.” He smiles at the boy, feeling more at peace now that at least one person said Chuuya was more than welcomed there.
After their brief exchange, Fukuzawa also offered Chuuya to stay a bit more, when he saw the rockstar standing and getting ready to leave. The president was a good man for looking past old grudges if it meant his band members were happy. Yosano for once seemed a bit reluctant over angry, as she continued her talk with Rampo. She wasn’t keen on being friends with a rival band member, but she silently accepted his and Dazai’s relationship. This was in itself a small victory.
As all of his bandmates went back to what they were doing, Dazai brought his boyfriend- they were boyfriends now, weren’t they? -closer whispering in his ear:
“I have never thought that they would become my home, and yet they’re starting to feel like one. Say, isn’t it all so strange, Chu?”
“Not really, ‘Samu. I’m glad they kept you alive all of these years, or else my annoying mackerel wouldn’t have been able to annoy me anymore.”
“Nah, I would have annoyed you from the grave even.”
“Shut the fuck up, bastard.”
They argue well into the day, after Dazai finishes rehearsals with Atsushi, after they go shopping for new clothes (they were moving in together, it had been weird living alone anyway), and after Mori sees them holding hands when The Mafia’s concert finishes later that night. And if he sees, he pretends not to, and Chuuya pretends not to care about his boss’ opinion either. And life goes on. They argue and they get back together and somewhere in his heart, Dazai feels like nothing has ever truly changed.
They’re still the same wild teens they were at sixteen, the same confused not quite yet lovers at eighteen, somehow at twenty-two it all feels just the same. Chuuya is still his partner, in more ways than just one, Dazai’s lifeline, the best part of him. Chuuya still feels like forever, all-encompassed in one vibrant person, one tiny little annoying slug. And Dazai never wants this to change.