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Chuuya knows that Dazai doesn't just dislike pain. Dazai doesn't even like to acknowledge it, except when playing the whiny brat, so Chuuya generally doesn't acknowledge Dazai's pain either.
Not when he cuts Dazai down off a rope when they're teenagers and holds him against his side on the couch until morning. Not when he washes out a dozen new cuts until the shower runs pink and bandages them like the expert on Dazai's pathetic taste in fashion that he is. (He pokes Dazai right on the pain points to get his attention over the course of the next few days and sometimes weeks.) Not even when Dazai does a spectacularly poor job of hiding his concern after Chuuya uses Corruption. It's not a game, but they play it to perfection.
Chuuya walks into his apartment when he's seventeen years old to find a body hanging from his ceiling just above the couch. It's short work to cut the rope with a sharp knife and to tuck Dazai's crumpled form under his arm, as if this is warm and close and affectionate. He listens to the sounds of Dazai's shallow breath and, eventually, Dazai's quietly disgruntled noises of disappointment that his eyelids still open and that breath still comes.
"Chuuya." Dazai's voice is flat and dull. He doesn't draw the name out like normal, when he's trying eagerly to annoy.
Chuuya lets Dazai's reassuringly warm weight lean heavily against him while he works on his phone, sends emails, and checks voicemail messages. A dead body would be cold. He doesn't acknowledge the pained rasp in his partner's voice or that Dazai has spoken at all.
Dazai rallies after a while, a faint shift of tension and muscle, then accusingly, "You came home an hour early."
"You broke in here just so I'd have to cut down your bloated corpse." He hung himself above Chuuya's couch, without any regard at all for how that would make Chuuya feel.
"You ruined a perfectly good suicide," Dazai says poutily, then sniffs. "Your apartment has the best beams."
Chuuya grinds his teeth but answers with forced calm. "And saved you ruining my perfectly good apartment." And couch. The dark leather hides bloodstains well enough when they're particularly stubborn, but if Dazai had succeeded, Chuuya doubts he'd ever be able to use either ever again.
They don't talk about that. They don't acknowledge it. Dazai doesn't even bother to answer. His voice has been rough and hoarse through all of this, and he finally pulls away from Chuuya just enough to gently explore the noose still around his neck, the burn lines over his throat. He unties the rope and gingerly rubs at what may end up new scars.
Chuuya gestures with the knife. "First aid kit's in the bathroom." He flips through another message on his phone.
Dazai sighs deeply, tiredly, stands up, hands going into his pockets, and slowly makes his way to the bathroom. He washes his wounds and ties fresh bandages around his neck.
They don't talk. About any of it.
Chuuya knows someone's been in his apartment. It's always the same someone, so he assumes Dazai. There's blood on his couch—bloody handprints, a bloody gun, and the stinking charred remains of a half-burnt black coat.
Shitty Dazai.
He calls Mori, gets tasked with Dazai's apartment, and calls the cleaners. There's always clean up to do when someone gets out of the Mafia, whether they succeed or fail. And right now, there's a perfectly good comfortable couch in Dazai's apartment with a few knife knicks but no blood or history of hangings above it. There's a video game collection that's almost frighteningly large. And other things. Things Chuuya knows the story of but doesn't intend to tell.
"No use wasting it," he says and claims the things he decides he wants. Dazai isn't here to protest.
Chuuya's almost resigned to the fact that Dazai isn't completely out of his life by the time he shows up at a Mafia warehouse to the unexpected gift of Dazai literally rolled out at his feet from where his subordinates had been keeping him crated up until Chuuya got there. It's unthinkable that this wasn't planned, but Chuuya's bewildered by whatever plan this could fit into.
“Why the fuck were you spying on this warehouse? We wouldn’t even have moved anything through it for at least a week.”
Dazai doesn't answer, not that Chuuya expected him to. He's clearly in pain, barely able to move, each breath far too loud against the floor. But Chuuya doesn't acknowledge it. He pokes and prods, mocks and laughs lightly while he waves off any help from his subordinates in hauling Dazai out of there.
Then he takes Dazai home to his own place and washes him thoroughly while his former partner stares at him with knowing eyes, soft shallow breaths, and an unwillingness to admit he's still weak as a kitten.
Chuuya's thumb finds a familiar line across Dazai's throat. He doesn't have any beams in this place good for hanging from.
Dazai's gaze bores intently into Chuuya's as he moves upward to the scar left from a knife graze at the back of Dazai's jaw. Chuuya left that one and he doesn't regret it. Shitty Dazai.
A hitch in those shallow breaths, almost a laugh, and the gentle curve upward of a sideways cunning smile. Chuuya wonders what Dazai's going to say.
"Have you found me someone for my double suicide yet?"
Chuuya scoffs, his thumb still tracing over that scar, unwilling to acknowledge it hurt. "Why bother? You just won't die, will you?"
Dazai leans his head back against the shower and closes his eyes. Chuuya's hand is still at his throat, and both of them know Chuuya could certainly kill Dazai if he really wanted to.
He sighs, still following scars, touching gently. It's not necessary for bathing, and Dazai shudders without saying a word. There are other things they don't like to acknowledge, Dazai might say, but Chuuya sets his mouth grimly, snatches his hand back, and reaches for the showerhead to rinse Dazai off.
Because this isn't another thing. This too, he thinks to himself, is just more pain.