Work Text:
Chuuya smokes. It’s not a habit he’s proud of, and he knows he should kick it one day.
Just not today.
He smears his fifth cigarette butt across his ashtray and pulls another out of his pack. He stops for a moment, feels the smooth paper against his fingertips, and sighs. He places it between his lips. He reaches for his lighter in the pocket of his hoodie, even though he knows he shouldn’t, and flicks his lighter once, twice.
“Fuck,” he murmurs around his cigarette. “You’ve gotta be kidding me.” He tries his lighter a few more times before tossing it out over the ledge of his balcony.
Chuuya digs the heels of his palms into his eyes and groans. Maybe this is better – walking down to the convenience store at the corner of his street will stop him from thinking for ten minutes, at least.
Once he reaches the street, Chuuya realizes how quiet it is. The wind at the height of his balcony on the sixteenth floor had been droning, not quite deafening but so constant that he had forgotten the stillness of the nighttime.
He’s the only one out walking, save for a couple he sees duck into a nearby apartment. Cars rush past every minute or so. He wonders what a sight he is, right now – dressed in his sweats, hair mussed from the wind, looking pale and tired. He runs a hand through his hair to quantify just how disgusting he probably looks and his fingers catch in knots almost immediately, and his hair feels greasy, unwashed. Chuuya makes a face at himself and ties it up into a haphazard bun.
The clerk at the store is reading a magazine when Chuuya walks in, and only glances up when Chuuya tosses a random lighter onto the counter. The clerk raises an eyebrow at him. “Damn, Nakahara-san, you look like shit.”
“Don’t remind me.” Chuuya grumbles as the clerk rings him up.
“Any reason?” The man hands Chuuya his lighter, and Chuuya takes the cigarette from earlier out of his hoodie pocket and lights it.
Chuuya eyes the clerk tiredly and takes a long drag. He’s known the guy a while – he’s been working at the convenience store ever since Chuuya moved into his apartment down the street. And it’s not like Chuuya visits the little store often – it’s been a real shitty day if he’s buying, since all he ever gets from the place is cheap wine and cigarettes and now, lighters. “Work’s shit.” Chuuya lies.
“Ah, man,” the clerk offers a self-deprecating sort of grin, “at least you don’t work at a crappy little place like this, no?”
Chuuya shrugs, lets his eyes wander around the place. “Might as well.” Chuuya pauses, shakes his head. Sometimes he figures working at a place like this would be a billion times better than the Mafia. “Anyway, thanks, man. See you around.”
“Have a good night! Stay safe out there.”
Chuuya throws a smile over his shoulder at the clerk.
“I thought you’d be here, around now.”
Chuuya doesn’t startle. It’s not that he was expecting it, but rather he’s too tired to care. A rogue assassin could’ve sprang out and tried to strange him and Chuuya doubts any emotion would’ve read on his face.
Dazai steps out of the shadows, hands in his pockets. He looks awfully smug for someone who should be doing a lot of ass-kissing, about now.
Chuuya grits his teeth. “Why are you here.”
Dazai grins. “Well, I figured I put you in the mood to smoke about a pack a day. I thought you’d be along to pick up another pack by now.”
Chuuya takes a long drag and then drops his cigarette to the ground, smothers it with his foot. “You’re wrong.”
“Oh?”
“My lighter ran out of fluid,” Chuuya says, sticking another cigarette between his lips and lighting it, “had to get a new one.”
Dazai doesn’t even falter. If anything, he looks happier. But Chuuya knows better than to think Dazai is happy about something like this. “Ah, well, you win some, you lose some, hm?”
Chuuya holds his cigarette between two fingers, taps it to his side. “Just… get out of my way, Dazai. I want to go home.”
Now Dazai falters. His grin falls. He makes a move towards Chuuya, but then seemingly thinks better of it and stays where he is. “Chuuya. I want to talk to you.”
Chuuya sidesteps him and starts towards home. “Yeah? Well you had plenty of chances. So fuck off.”
Dazai catches up with him in a matter of a few strides. It pisses Chuuya off enough for him to increase Dazai’s gravity tenfold, effectively planting him to the ground.
“Chuuya,” Dazai whines, “come on.”
Chuuya snarls and whips around, levitates himself just enough to be eye level with Dazai. He catches Dazai’s eyes fall to his cigarette and then, almost guiltily, come back to meet his eyes. Of course, Chuuya thinks, of course he would find this shitty habit of mine to be attractive. “You just want me to argue with you, don’t you?”
Dazai perks up. “It’s what we do best.”
“No, Dazai. ‘We’ don’t do anything anymore, remember?”
“We killed Lovecraft together.”
Chuuya’s lip curls with distaste. He hates that. He hates that Dazai left him there. He hates that he trusted Dazai enough to think that he wouldn’t leave him there. He hates that they could work together again like a well-oiled machine after four years of separation. Chuuya turns his head away abruptly. “Just go home, Dazai.”
Chuuya releases Dazai from the hold of his ability and lets himself drop back to the ground.
“I can’t go home, Chuuya.”
Chuuya’s heart seizes up. Dazai sounds so soft and tired and sad and—
Chuuya growls and punches Dazai so hard in the stomach that the taller man stumbles back, coughing. “What the hell do you want me to say? That I love you now? That I want you? That your little not-apology last week turned around four years of my shitty life?”
“I’m sorry, Chuuya.”
Chuuya stills. Dazai says it so softly that he almost misses it. “You’re what?”
“I’m sorry.”
Chuuya shakes his head. “Why are you doing this now? After four years of ignoring me… now this? All this?”
“Well, if you hadn’t come around during that truth serum nonsense I probably would’ve never spoken to you again, but, well. You did.”
Chuuya stomps his unfinished cigarette into the ground. “Don’t pin this on me.” He murmurs.
“I’m not trying to. Not all of it, anyway.”
Chuuya glares at Dazai, but the other man just smiles.
“Dazai…” Chuuya sighs, “I can’t do this just yet. I need more time. This… it’s a lot,”
Dazai’s body seems to soften. “Okay.”
“I can’t forgive you so quickly, even though…” Chuuya admits the rest in a rush, “even though I want to. I want to believe you, but…”
“You don’t believe me? You don’t believe that I love you?”
Chuuya flinches when Dazai says it again. “How can you say it so easily? We’re supposed to hate each other.”
“’Supposed to’?”
Chuuya sighs harshly. “Yes, Dazai. It’s been a week. I’ve been thinking. I don’t hate you.”
A pause. “I can say it so easily because I’ve already said it. You already know.”
“I know that I know, I just…”
“Do you want me to explain it to you?”
Chuuya bristles before he realizes Dazai is being completely serious. “No. Not now.”
The ‘now’ is evidently all Dazai needed to be happy, tonight – he smiles gently. “Okay. That’s fine.” The other man moves to walk away. Chuuya relaxes, a little surprised, almost, at how mature Dazai seems to be acting. Chuuya guesses that Dazai has no other choice.
“Oh, and Chuuya,” Dazai says. He reaches into his pocket. “You should probably take these.”
Chuuya accepts the little box. Nicotine patches. He rolls his eyes. “It’s your fault I’m smoking, you know. But thanks.”
“I know,” a strange, whimsical little smile passes over Dazai’s face. “Goodnight, Chuuya.”
“’Night.”
Chuuya watches Dazai leave, his figure only visible intermittently as he passes under streetlights until he finally fades into the shadows.