Chapter Text
When Chuuya had let Dazai back into his life, it took a while for him to not only notice but accept that Dazai really had changed somewhat over the years.
Oddly enough, despite what Chuuya had first assumed Dazai's attempts to become a better person actually seemed to be genuine.
Sure, he was still a very flawed human being, and he was certainly still capable of the cruelty and manipulation Mori had taught him how to wield, but Chuuya doubted he would destroy people's lives out of sheer boredom anymore. Not that Chuuya himself was innocent in that regard, of course, and did their reasons really matter when the end result was the same? Chuuya was a mafioso, there wasn't much moral high ground to be had there.
Anyway, it had been interesting to see Dazai interact with the other members of the Armed Detective Agency.
The brunette actually seemed to be trying to open up to people these days, which Chuuya knew took a lot of courage on Dazai's part considering the other's well-earned fear and wariness that as soon as he let people in something would happen to ruin everything.
(Because he had finally gotten the explanation he had craved for so long, had been told the reasons Dazai had left both him and the Port Mafia behind. Chuuya had been on an extended mission abroad when the whole Mimic incident happened, hadn't been there for Dazai when the other needed him most, and it wasn't easy to keep resenting Dazai for leaving when it was so obviously good for him--)
Dazai's new openness showed in his interactions with Atsushi, the brunette trying his best to be a better mentor for the kid than he had been to Akutagawa, even if he had no idea what he was doing and thought of himself as the worst role model anyone could have.
It showed in the way he occasionally brought in a bag of candy and shared it with the bratty detective, the two of them sitting side by side in the type of companionship shared by someone who understood, muttering to each other as they gossiped about the people that passed by.
Or in his interactions with Yosano Akiko, the Agency's doctor. Due to his experience with Mori, Dazai was a very paranoid person when it came to anyone in the medical profession, and it was for good reason. Chuuya imagined that if Dazai hadn't been unconscious due to the blood loss when he was found after Fyodor's sniper shot him the brunette would have refused to go to the hospital, and not for suicidal reasons like most would assume. The fact that Dazai had allowed himself to trust the bloodthirsty doctor to treat his injuries despite the mental association with Mori spoke volumes.
But despite all of this, there was on thing Chuuya had noticed when observing Dazai's interactions with others, and now that he thought about it, it was something that had also been true back when the other man was still in the Port Mafia.
Aside from a few rare exceptions, no one ever really touched Dazai, and he seemed had always seemed hesitant to initiate touch himself with people who weren't hostile for various reasons, No Longer Human being one of them.
Chuuya had been the sole exception to this back when they were teenagers, even Odasaku's affection having been shown in other ways, but Dazai had put a stop to it when they were seventeen after a sniper had gotten a hit on Chuuya, who couldn't stop the bullet as he usually would because his gravity manipulation was being nullified by Dazai's touch.
Personally the redhead thought his chances of stopping the bullet were low anyway, since he would have had to know it was coming to use his Ability, but Dazai had seen it as him putting his partner in danger.
The expression on Dazai's face as Chuuya almost bled out in his arms had haunted the redhead far more than the assassination attempt had, because it had driven home what he already knew: despite the whispers going around Dazai did have the emotional capacity to truly care about people, he was just more selective than most.
And Chuuya had the dubious honor of being the focus of that care.
Unfortunately the incident had made Dazai distance himself, not only in a physical sense but emotional because he hadn't known how to deal with the emotions that had surfaced when he thought Chuuya was dying, even worse than the first time the redhead had used Corruption because this time the brunette blamed himself for what had happened.
But now that they were trying to rekindle their relationship, and hopefully make it a far healthier one than what had been between them before, they could work on it.
Because humans weren't meant to be starved of touch, no matter how insistent Dazai was that he didn't qualify as such, and the lack of contact was probably only worsening Dazai's mental health.