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It's camellias. Obviously it's fucking camellias.
Chuuya isn't the one to cry about unrequited love, not the one to imagine impossible scenarios in his mind. He swears, mostly, only to cough up flowers mixed with blood moments after, and then swear some more. It's easier this way, he thinks, ignoring inconveniences such as feelings or the constant itching of his heart, pain growing in his lungs. Nothing to worry about. Nothing at all.
Sometimes he gets drunk. On a good day, he wakes up on some roof, a faint memory of staring at the moon, putting up pieces of a poem in his head; eyes warm as the early autumn air, smile charming like the dance of falling leaves, tragedy hidden between the empty branches and days of rain. On a bad day, his hand is clutching onto his phone, an unsent message or two, or ten.
I fucking hate you.
It could have been worse though, Nakahara thinks. He's a busy man; he's a busy man especially now, mission after mission, closer and closer to death without someone there to watch his back. It's better like this, he keeps telling himself, easier when he doesn't have to be careful anymore, when there's nobody to slow him down with their own, personal uselessness and delicacy, with being way too prone to bullets. The difficulty is a test, the one of loyalty, the one to check just how much he can withstand, to see if he won't run.
He mustn't run.
He doesn't want to anyway, the idea of switching to the "good side", the mere belief that there even is a difference, that it's going to change anything in the long run, is simply ridiculous to him. How selfish, truly. Not that he didn't know that Dazai could be selfish. He didn't suspect him to be so naive, though, sometimes wonders what a person like Oda must have told him to have changed his mind. Who would have thought that wise words of a dead man could cause so much trouble.
It's easier this way, though. On a good day, the coughing almost stops, a few petals from his mouth, his lungs only an itch. Not seeing someone means not thinking about them after all, right? That's why he's not happy at all when they finally catch him.
That's why he goes there anyway.
Seeing Dazai, a pitiful caricature of a human, almost makes him laughs. Chuuya tilts his head, his eyes absorbing such a familiar view, slighting across the annoying face, stopping for a moment on the lips, a flash of a memory causing a faint smile. It would take him a second to kill him now; not caring about the consequences or the plans that the boss must have for his former subordinate. They wouldn't do much to Chuuya anyway; wouldn't have a reason to.
He slaps him instead, a smirk on his face as Dazai blinks a few times, clearly confused. There's something almost warm in his eyes, something that feels like a kick to the stomach. In a way, he almost seems happy and it's not that Nakahara hasn't expected him to be suddenly more pleased with himself, pretending that all the dark parts are now behind. But Dazai doesn't seem to care in the slightest about the position he's in, about the danger or about what he had left behind.
Whom he had left behind.
"God. You'd think that once you left I wouldn't have to see your face ever again. Why must you suck even at disappearing? It honestly makes me want to kill you even more," Chuuya sighs and with a flash of the light his knife is against Dazai's throat. The man doesn't even flinch.
"Go on then, Chuuya. There's not even cameras in here, who's stopping you?" he says like he knew everything, like he had him figured out. It's annoying that it makes Chuuya's lungs hurt, makes the blood stop in his veins for a split of a second.
It takes a blink of an eye to cut the chains; a little portion of his power and he can cut through the metal like it were butter. He smiles, turning around to exit.
"You better run fast, mackerel. Others won't be so nice. Akutagawa's still pretty pissed at you."
It's easier this way and if he runs as soon as he disappears from Dazai's sight, there's nothing more to it, the flowers falling from his mouth. It's a disease and he wants it gone, camellias stuck in his throat causing him to cough even more, blood and petals mixed with mud on the ground. Whoever said that love was beautiful knows nothing about it, he thinks and finally takes a deep breath, and then one more, and another.
Just breathe, he thinks to himself. Just breathe.
He doesn't expect it to get worse. Yet there he is, mission after mission almost choking on stupid petals, flowers growing from any cuts he endorses. Kouyou doesn't ask. She never asks; not about things like that and Chuuya couldn't be more grateful. She just looks sometimes, a warning in her eyes; don't do anything stupid, don't even think about confessing, don't even think about dying. But in the end there are things not to be spoken about; one of many rules of the mafia.
On bad days he wonders if the armed agency also has rules like that. Don't see, don't tell, don't think. Follow orders and fight for the only people you can call family because once you're useless, they will be family no more. Maybe it's better, he thinks, all better for Dazai to be far away from this. He was always like that; stupid heart and stupid head, always looking for ideals, always waiting for something more; a neverending existential crisis. Chuuya? Chuuya is fine with simple orders and a simple life; getting drunk on wine way older than him and ignoring flowers growing in his lungs. It doesn't matter anyway. He won't live long enough for this to matter, not in that profession.
Honestly, he's not even surprised that it takes the end of the world for them to meet again. There's something ironic in all of this; in the little house they have to retrieve Q from, in how familiar Dazai's jokes are, in how much he wants to punch him. In the fact that at some point he almost chokes, camellias falling from his mouth and his ex-partner for once is nice enough not to comment on that. Chuuya doesn't believe that he wouldn't have noticed.
They fight, obviously, like they haven't fought in ages, their synchronization still there. Chuuya can read the other man's movements before they even start, knows every plan inside out, knows all the possible options. So when Lovecraft doesn't fall, he's fully aware of what's about to happen. For once, he even knows more than Dazai.
The final state of his power; pure rage and madness. Pure emotion that he cannot control, that doesn't care for his rational mind and general tendencies to ignore feelings different that annoyance. Chuuya's not stupid, he knows what's coming. But it's either that or their city falls forever and even though he's not the one to make big, meaningful sacrifices, he doesn't have much choice with that one.
"Yo mackerel" he says and Dazai must hear something in his voice, because when he turns to face Chuuya, his eyes are suddenly full of worry. "Just---" Nakahara starts, wondering what his last words should be only to snicker in the middle. "Never mind. Just remember that I've always hated you."
With that he transforms, marks upon marks on his body, a laughter coming out of his mouth. He's more aware than usual this time, the world a blur but the pain inside more real that it's used to be. Must have gotten out of form, he thinks, must have forgotten how it is to be only rage for a moment. God, he's missed that.
It takes him minutes to reduce the foe to a useless puddle of water.
He can see the flowers in the corner of his eyes, flourishing from where the marks left him bleeding, blooming from his veins, trying to get into his throat, blocking the air in his lungs. When he sees Dazai, there's almost fear in the man's eyes, something so out of character that makes Chuuya wants to laugh, burst into a crazy giggle. He coughs instead, petals falling out of his mouth. Yet he smiles and manages to bump Dazai's chest with his fist, the world blurry before his eyes as he starves for breath.
"I won."