Work Text:
“What are you doing?”
Today, Chuuya can’t read Dazai. There are some days where he feels like he knows Dazai better than anyone else, and some where he feels like he doesn’t know Dazai at all. This is one of those days where he feels like Dazai is a stranger.
“What does it look like I’m doing?” Dazai washes blood off his hands in the kitchen sink. Chuuya’s kitchen sink. That’s where Chuuya found him.
He knows that the blood isn’t Dazai’s. Ordinarily he’d be pissed off that Dazai was dirtying his sink--there are a few days’ worth of plates there waiting to be washed--but for now there’s a coldness about Dazai he doesn’t like and doesn’t understand.
“Messing up my kitchen,” Chuuya says, “but I meant what got you bloody in the first place.”
“Training,” Dazai says.
There is only one person Dazai trains.
“Is that really necessary?” Chuuya asks.
Dazai turns off the faucet and shakes the water from his hands before grabbing one of Chuuya’s dish towels. Chuuya watches him carefully. Dazai seems to delight in using Chuuya’s things for something they’re not meant to be used for, but Chuuya doesn’t care. He doesn’t really use the dish towel.
Once finished, Dazai fully faces Chuuya. “I never knew you to be soft.”
“I’m not,” Chuuya says. “I’m just wondering what the point is. If you injure him in training he can’t go into the field.”
Dazai raises an eyebrow.
“Fine--he will be injured in the field and missions are more likely to fail that way,” Chuuya says.
“Not if one has the drive to succeed at all costs,” Dazai says. His exposed eye glitters. “I know you do, which is why you’ve done it before. Pushing yourself is your favorite form of self-punishment for failure.”
“We’re not talking about me,” Chuuya says.
“Right. My student...he’s just as stupid as you are. But I can use that self-punishment.”
“And your favorite form of self-punishment is punishing others?” Chuuya asks.
Dazai’s lips twitch. “What am I being punished for?”
“For being the piece of shit that you are,” Chuuya says. “For not caring. For not feeling. For not being--”
“Not being what, Chuuya?” Dazai steps closer, right into Chuuya’s space, because he knows Chuuya will have to look up at him this way. “Say it.”
Chuuya remains silent.
“Human,” Dazai finishes for him. “We both know which of us is a monster in sheep’s clothing.”
Chuuya wants to throw him across the room. Instead he doesn’t look away from Dazai’s face. “We both do. And we both know it’s not just me.”
He takes a step back. The air between them feels more like a wall.
“I would spend more time keeping your men alive rather than questioning my choices, Chuuya,” Dazai says before heading for the door.
Chuuya doesn’t move as the door clicks shut.
Dazai and Akutagawa are his men, too.
*
Chuuya knows what Dazai does to Akutagawa, but he doesn’t know Akutagawa.
He’s talked to him once or twice, and each time he notices Akutagawa sizing him up. He knows what Akutagawa is thinking--why is this man Dazai’s partner? What can he offer Dazai that I can’t?
Chuuya doesn’t feel the need to prove anything to him, but the level of importance Akutagawa places on Dazai is disturbing, and he knows that part of it is Dazai’s fault.
When Chuuya first met Dazai, he found out quickly that Dazai could be needlessly violent, but he hadn’t wondered about what that would mean if Dazai found a person to take out that violence on. He couldn’t do it with Chuuya because Chuuya would have gutted him no matter how useful he was to the Mafia.
There are very few people Dazai could get away with physically hurting on a regular basis. A good chunk of people in the Mafia are physically stronger, and Chuuya wonders if Akutagawa is the same. The only difference is that Akutagawa owes Dazai his life.
It reminds Chuuya vaguely of how he feels obligated to Mori, but he pushes that aside.
Chuuya doesn't know what to do about the situation other than to let it happen. The Mafia isn’t a kind place. Dazai won’t listen to him. Chuuya is not a nice person and things like this shouldn’t bother him, and it wouldn’t bother him if Akutagawa was an enemy, but Akutagawa is not. Because he is Port Mafia, Chuuya feels a kinship with him and a responsibility for him.
He can admire Akutagawa’s drive while wanting him to redirect it to something that isn’t proving himself to Dazai.
*
Shortly after Dazai leaves the Mafia, Chuuya catches Akutagawa walking in the area around Dazai's apartment. More specifically, walking away from it.
The pain of betrayal is still fresh. Betrayal is one thing Chuuya can’t stand and he finds it hard to comprehend. He’s always been loyal. Part of him knows that the Mafia was killing Dazai, that no matter how many Dazai killed or hurt he would only end up one step closer to death himself, and a miserable death was not something Dazai wanted. That’s why, Chuuya suspects, he is still alive.
Chuuya went through Dazai’s apartment the day after he left. He was pissed off because Dazai destroyed his car, even more pissed off because Mori interrogated him, and vaguely insulted that Mori of all people would think that Chuuya could ever do anything that might hurt the Port Mafia.
Going to Dazai’s apartment was a chore that Chuuya felt he had to complete. He wanted answers, but he knew before he stepped in the door that there would be none. Anything important would have been taken by Dazai, even if his decision had been hasty. Dazai had never given anyone anything they could use against him, and that wouldn’t change just because he left.
Akutagawa doesn’t have anything with him. Chuuya falls into step beside him and it takes Akutagawa a second to realize he’s there--a second that could have been deadly if it were anyone but Chuuya. His head must really be somewhere else, Chuuya thinks, and he isn’t surprised.
Akutagawa attacks anyway, Rashomon rushing at Chuuya before being kicked away. Chuuya jumps back, his hands up. “Just me.”
Rashomon remains hovering behind Akutagawa. They don’t really know each other, so Chuuya understands why he doesn’t feel at ease.
“Why are you here?” Akutagawa asks.
“I live around here,” Chuuya says. He and Dazai lived in the same building. “Why are you here?”
Rashomon disappears. “I would rather be left alone.”
“Mourning Dazai, right?” Chuuya asks.
Akutagawa stiffens. “I don’t care about that traitor.”
“Is that why you were at his apartment?”
Akutagawa bares his teeth. “You weren’t a good enough partner to keep him here.”
“And you weren’t a good enough student to convince him to stay.”
They stare at each other, neither wanting to admit that those words hurt more than they should.
“Why are you here?” Chuuya asks, breaking the silence. “In the Mafia, I mean?”
Akutagawa turns away. “Don’t follow me.”
Chuuya watches him disappear around a corner. He wonders what will become of Akutagawa now. He’s strong, but Chuuya hopes he’s strong for the sake of more than one thing.
*
Chuuya is pissed off. Akutagawa rushing into a fight nearly killed some of his people, and he wants to hurt him even though the mission was a success. As it is, he shoves Akutagawa against a brick wall. Akutagawa’s head cracks against the hard surface, another injury to add to the ones gained in the fight. Chuuya can feel blood soaking into his clothes that isn’t his.
“I don’t care what you do to prove yourself to someone who doesn’t matter,” Chuuya hisses. “But don’t you dare drag anyone else down with you.”
“I don’t care.”
Chuuya feels a flash of anger, but in the moment before he punches Akutagawa (and he never punches anyone who is on his side that isn’t--wasn’t--Dazai) he realizes that Rashomon is nowhere to be seen. His fist collides with the wall instead, forming a small crater beside Akutagawa’s head.
“You want me to hurt you,” Chuuya says. “For what? Some kind of fucked up punishment because you can’t be bothered to punish yourself? Or is it because it feels worse when it’s coming from someone else?”
Akutagawa doesn’t say anything.
Chuuya drops him and steps back.
Akutagawa hacks up blood.
Despite what happened before, Chuuya feels the urge to help him. He doesn’t.
When Akutagawa looks up at Chuuya, he looks almost betrayed. “You’re too soft to be in the Mafia. A disgrace.”
Chuuya laughs. “You saw what I did to those men. I’m not Dazai. I don’t engage in needless violence towards my own. We in the Port Mafia protect each other. That’s how it should be.”
Chuuya knows that isn’t always how it is, but that is how he lives his life as an executive.
Akutagawa stares at him. “I don’t understand.”
“Then think about it,” Chuuya says. “You didn’t get to live just so someone else could break you.” He takes a step forward. “Why are you here?”
“What?”
“In the Mafia.”
“Because Dazai-san---”
“No,” Chuuya snaps. “Why did you accept his proposal to join the Mafia? I know he found you on the street, and you were dying, and you didn’t have much of a choice. But you did have a choice, even if it was a shitty one. So why are you here?” He thinks he knows, but he wants to know if Akutagawa is too far gone to say it. If Dazai fucked him up enough that his priorities completely changed.
Akutagawa’s rattling breaths are the only sound for a few moments, and then: “Gin.”
Chuuya nods. “Remember that.”
He hopes, on the walk back, that Akutagawa will.
*
Dazai comes back, Yokohama almost falls apart, and in the aftermath Chuuya finds himself on the roof of one of Yokohama’s many buildings. He likes to be in high places to think. It’s one of the few times he really prefers to be alone, sitting on the edge of the roof, his feet dangling over empty air.
He hears a cough behind him.
“Chuuya-san.”
Chuuya doesn’t turn around. Akutagawa comes to sit next to him.
“What do you think love is?”
Chuuya glances at him. Akutagawa’s expression is carefully blank. He wonders if this has to do with Dazai, or his new subordinate. He wonders if Dazai hurts Atsushi like he hurt Akutagawa.
“Why do you think I know?”
Akutagawa swallows. “You act like someone who knows how to love.”
Chuuya laughs. “Really?” He’s never thought of himself that way. He doesn’t know what love is. He doesn't think he’s ever been loved, not in the few ways he’s seen it. He thinks Dazai loved Odasaku as a friend, as some sort of sibling, he isn’t sure, but around Odasaku, Dazai was a different person. He wasn’t so violent and there was light in his eyes.
He looks different now, but only just. Chuuya suspects that Akutagawa is asking this question because of Dazai. Maybe what Akutagawa feels is love. He doesn’t think Dazai has any love to give the Port Mafia, if he’s managed to figure out what love is after all these years. The Port Mafia reminds him of his worst years, and brings out the worst in him.
Maybe love is violent, and maybe it’s not. Chuuya doesn’t know if the strong feelings he feels towards the people he cares about is love, but he would give his life to protect them. Akutagawa is one of those people. Is that love? If it is, which kind of love?
Chuuya knows that he wants it. He wants to experience love and he wants to give it, but the Port Mafia isn’t suited for that. Nothing about his life has ever been suited for that, and he wonders if he’s even capable sometimes because love is such a human feeling. He wonders if he just wants to feel love so he can feel more human, or if he wants it because he cares that much about the people in his life.
“I don’t know,” Chuuya says finally. “I don’t know what it is. Surely you do. Gin is your sister. That’s family love.”
“That is different. This hurts.”
“Then maybe you should let it go,” Chuuya says.
Akutagawa is quiet for a moment. “I’m tired of pain.” It’s quiet, like Akutagawa is ashamed to admit it.
Chuuya wishes he could do something to help. “I know.”