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on chuuya's final errand for the week, which was on a friday, it rained very hard. chuuya liked it when it rained hard. it sounded like white noise everywhere, which was like silence but not empty. a sort of bleak but filling feeling in his chest that would stop it from its miserable aching. the redhead stood pensive atop the yokohama landmark tower, looking down. when the black panging in his chest was at its worst and when the heady wines and the bitter tonics ceased at clogging up the pain, chuuya felt a tedious numbness in his psyche, as if dead to the world. when he moved, he moved unconsciously, with heavy limbs, like a dream when it's dreamer dies. the boy felt a pain so persistent deep inside him, so often, he was tempted to twist the gloves that had hitherto subdued his feral urges, off his hands and indulge in the rapture of burning the black panging out, or screaming until his head would ache, until the pain in his throat would trounce the pain in his chest. only last night had chuuya woke up most unpleasantly in the middle of the night, thinking he had heard some anguished wail of someone crying; thinking he, himself, was weeping, he felt his face but it was dry as his pillow.
"the trouble about jumping is that if you don't pick the right number of storeys, you might still be alive when you hit the bottom.”
chuuya's brows furrowed at the voice that drawled behind him. the redhead began to turn, his grey eyes narrowing upon latching onto the darker brow hues that met subsequently. if i’m going to kill myself, nakahara thought, i should go to paris and jump off the eiffel tower, because i've always wanted to go there. i’d surely be dead jumping off it's sublime lattices. you know, in fact, if i get the concorde, i could be dead three hours earlier, which would be perfect. or wait a minute-- with the time change, i could be alive for seven hours in yokohama, but dead three hours in paris. i could get things done, and i could also be dead. "dazai." the redhead snarled each letter of his name with as much animosity as he could muster, as he always did, even if he needn't. the brunet sighed pretentiously and gazed over chuuya's shoulder at the jagged skyline of yokohama, a few chestnut tinted curls flitting from the sides of his head to fall over his eyes.
"chuuya," dazai started, as the redhead stepped back from the edge of the building to light a cigarette. upon seeing the boy move away, dazai slackened somewhat, blemishes of relief ebbed in the innermost of his eyes, even if the brunet masked them skilfully. "you need to eat something." chuuya chuckled within a cough, took a drag on his cigarette, and expelled the waning gauze of smoke at dazai. "since when do you care what i have for dinner?" the redhead asked.
"since i see you hanging out on rooftops with barely any extra fat on you." the brunet replied brusquely.
"i don't see how that's much different from you, dazai."
the pair stood in coarse layers of silence.
chuuya stood watching the sea, seemingly lost in the rhythmic percussion of the waves against the shoreline. his grey eyes were steady to the horizon, face aglow with a sort of bittersweet tinge. his lips bore the semblance of a sad grimace, just enough to show that he was pensively reminiscing his thoughts, whatever they have may been. dazai moved closer. not too close so as to interrupt the redhead's reverie, but enough so that the both of them were mindful of the other's presence. he stayed quiet, allowing chuuya to stay lost in the moment for a while longer.
dazai's own eyes drifted to the horizon, the sky was a melancholy pink and the sharp prongs of bare trees had ripped a hole in the clouds. through the wound the colors of winter bled and burnt the brunet's mind.
"chuuya. there's this sublime little epigram picked up when reading through an english work once: 'melancholy is the happiness of being sad.'" he recited, resorting to gabby little gestures with his sculpted fingers. the redhead ran his free hand through his windblown hair, in an exasperated gesture. "victor hugo."
"damn!" dazai echoed, nonplussed.
"i didn't tag you as a literature nut." chuuya exhaled, a wisp of smoke curling from his nostrils in a manner subtly indicative of irritation.
"am i just a dumb ginger to you?" he scowled, rolling his shoulders back.
dazai's eyes lifted into curves, like they were little shards of onyx. "of course not! you're my chuuya!" he replied, and the redhead couldn't bother to decipher the insidious satire in his comment.
by now, the previously orange hues of the sky had sunk into a puce-like magenta. the mosquitoes were out and goose bumps erected themselves through the thin linen of dazai's arms. "are you going to stand here all night?" the brunet asked, rubbing himself pitifully in attempt to keep himself warm. the redhead turned curtly, crushing his cigarette under his foot. "i was just leaving."
"without eating? do you mean to say that you've declined my gracious offer for a friendly outing?" dazai scowled.
chuuya shouldered on his greatcoat and dipped his black-hat deeper into his hair, without saying a word.
dazai thought for a moment as the redhead began walking towards the finial with his hands in his pockets.
you madman, thought dazai, even you wouldn't do that. oh, but of course he would. the brunet's eyes closed into their little shards of onyx once more, as he outstretched his arms and bound towards the back of the unsuspecting redhead.
"chuuya!" the boy turned, trying to think of a snide remark to give the irritating brunet, but by the time his grey eyes waned open, the only thing he saw was dazai's chest crushing gently against his own.
the world rushed by in a blur. it went by fast, yet slow, almost suspended. chuuya felt his bones move in a way they shouldn't, jangled, almost. for a full half-minute he went downward at a speed that constricted his throat so that he could hardly draw breath. with his perception of time still distorted, chuuya suddenly remembered the lunatic dazai that had leapt upon unsuspecting him. for a few moments, everything slowed down until there the redhead could finally focus. the wind whistled like white noise past his ears, like a stream. chuuya snapped open his eyes to meet those familiar chestnut ones that he had acquiescently grown so gracious to. the redhead blinked nonplussed, for a second. dazai looked like living reverie: the mere sight of the brunet sparked an indelible almost infinite range of fantasy, from erotic to Gothic, from vulgar to divine. he seemed not at all his bright, sly self but rather a hazy and ineffably tender apparition, all slender wrists, wine-red cheeks, and disordered hair, the dazai who resided, the true one, dim and lovely, in the gloomy boudoir of chuuya's deepest and most strangest of dreams. the brunet's skin was ever reddening with each scream of wind, his eyes crumpling lightly at the corners as they brimmed with tears of pressure. he was beautiful.
chuuya didn't know what exactly to do, so he did what he thought best. he grabbed the brunet's waist, which was easy enough: it was narrow and slender, about as easy as wrapping one's arm around a tube. then the redhead proceeded to whittle the wind around his shoes into something of a gentle gauze which tenderly cosseted both him and dazai, like a blanket of bitterly cold air. after what felt like minutes on end, the pair touched ground.
chuuya cracked open his eyes. dazai stood stupefied in place where him and chuuya had landed only seconds ago. the brunet was breathing hard, and deep circles of red burned high on his bright cheeks; in all the redhead's life, he had never seen anyone so maddeningly beautiful as dazai was at that moment. chuuya stood blinking stupidly at him, the blood pounding in his veins, and his carefully rehearsed plans for a screaming scolding gone with the wind, when unexpectedly dazai flew up and threw his skinny arms around the redhead. his hoarse breath was loud in chuuya's ear, causing the small hairs on them to stutter upwards in teenage vigor. the brunet's cheek was like ice when he put it against chuuya's a moment later. the redhead absently took ahold of dazai's hand, feeling the quick pulse of the brunet's slender wrist beneath his thumbs.
"goddamit!" was the only thing chuuya could say. the brunet still seemed to be in shock, but his face was returning to it normal, pallid hue. "god! that sure was exhilarating," dazai remarked, "let's do that again sometime, chuuya." the redhead hoarsely croaked. "again? you fucking suicidal lunatic." dazai simply convulsed with laughter. it was a strange sound, something chuuya felt like he hadn’t heard in months. the brunet's laughter was a shiny thing, like raw mint and cigarettes flung high in the air. it momentarily stunned the redhead. "my, chuuya," dazai said, between pants of air, "you need to stop staring at me like that," he placed a thin finger over his lips darkly, "people'll think we're in love or something." chuuya felt a pang of both irritation and teenage viridity. he felt the corners of his lips twitch upwards in something akin to a smile. a genuine, pure, smile.
dazai managed an echo of the redhead's smile, and chuuya cringed at the thing. "what's that on your face?"
the smiles on both the brunet and chuuya's, vanished. "what?"
"nevermind," chuuya said, laughing. "it's gone.”
dazai glanced to the skies, but soon the dark lashes of his eyes fluttered closed, as if merely remaining open was too exhausting a task.
"you still want to eat? i know a place."
walking into the little eatery, dazai took in a sharp breath halted. glass fronted counters that cased miscellaneous sweetmeats and drinks, panels reminiscent of cottage houses, stretching fifteen feet to a worn-out frescoed and plaster-medallioned ceiling. the back of the room had a marble fireplace, big as a sepulcher, and a globed gasolier--dripping with prisms and strings of crystal beading--sparkling in the dimness of the evening. there was a grammar-phone too; though the chopin was slurred and fluid, cackling every now and then, the notes melting sleepily into one another. a breeze stirred the heavy, moth-eaten velvet curtains, ruffling dazai's windblown hair. had something as sublime as this been right around the corner for all this time? if only dazai had explored his own streets more, he could have witnessed this piece de resistance sooner. of course hat rack knew a flashy place like this, gosh, he probably owned it.
“you know, shitty dazai, i've been coming here since i was a kid-"
"-which you refer to as 'back when you were happy'-"
"-right, they have the best shortcake."
"shortcake?"
dazai halted to examine a small confection that sat quite lonely, on display behind one of the counters. it seemed to be a twist on the childhood indulgence of s'mores, combining a graham cake with chocolate ganache, fluffy marshmallows and buttercream. its swiss meringue frosting exterior seemed to be toasted and decorated with chocolate curls for extra appeal. "you want it?" the redhead asked, as he stepped back to examine the delicacy as dazai was doing.
"you'd buy that for me, ch~uuya?" the brunet asked, his eyes glossy with idolatry, like a teenage schoolgirl.
"its nothing personal... shitty dazai... just because i'm feeling gracious, and i want you out of my sight soon..." the redhead managed, as he knocked on the glass and quite simply shattered the casing outwards, before proceeding to extract the strange confection and place it in the cups of dazai's palm.
the brunet seemed amused, "look who became punk!" he cried in pain. chuuya felt his forehead pang in vexation.
"are you going to pay for that?" dazai asked as he picked a fork off from one of the cutlery containers on a passing table and stabbing it into the centre of his sugary clump.
"i'm sure the owners'll make an exception." the redhead replied.
giving the clump of saccharine an experimental bite, dazai was most surprised to find how easily the spongy layer gave way to his teeth and nearly gasped when his taste-buds sang choruses under the palatable flavour it was assaulted under as something the brunet assumed was blackberry curd, oozed into his mouth. it was unlike anything dazai had ever tasted before.
chuuya watched the boy's eyes dart from place to place with each savor of the sweetness, the small plumpness of muscle under his eyes when he smiled, the color of wine. he looked blissful.
"before i commit double suicide--" dazai stated, between mouthfuls, "i will feast on whatever this is, before placing a gun to my head and painting the wall with my brains.”
oh, nevermind, chuuya scowled to himself.
"arem't myou goimg to eamt?" the brunet was barely audible over his own noisy deglutition. the redhead sighed. "i'm not hungry."
dazai didn't seem to take chuuya's satedness for an answer, as he pulled himself up and hauled over the boy's side and leant down, beside the redhead's shoulder,
"why don't i cook something up, hat rack?"
"i'd like to see you try, shithead."
"only if you come home with me."
"don't say it like that."
the pair stepped fully into the house. the air inside was cool on chuuya's skin, it felt as if dazai was hardly ever home, it didn't reek of his familiar minty, cherub scent, much to the redhead's displeasure. dazai turned, expecting the front door to close on its own. but it stayed open, as it was supposed to. the brunet shook his head theatrically, before closing the thing. dazai then stretched out against the wall and kissed it. "im so glad to see you, too," he whispered, and pressed his cheek against the smooth surface. for some odd reason, it almost felt like the house hugged him back.
"shithead, it's a house," chuuya said from behind him. dazai scowled, whispering something like, "don't listen to the strange man with the ugly hat" to the wall.
the house looked akin to an old english-styled cottage. it was tiny, reminding chuuya of a dollhouse. which, oddly, suited dazai perfectly. any bigger and the place would have echoed deafeningly. dazai had cleverly filled the walls with various pieces of miscellaneous artwork, so as to give off a quite sad impression that the house was full, when in fact, it was quite empty.
"take a seat, hat rack." dazai called, as he threw his greatcoat over the peg of a cloth hanger and loosened his shirt.
chuuya scowled and fell quite theatrically unto a fabric chair that sat quite randomly to the left of a spacious living room. the redhead leant back, folding his feet over each other atop the dining table, like a schoolboy. knowing dazai, the brunet was more likely to make a new recipe for e. coli than actual food. this may as well be my last supper, chuuya thought to himself.
the kitchen smelt like cumin, ajwain and cardamom, strange, since chuuya hadn't thought dazai was a cooking nut. for such an empty and gray apartment, the room was warm and bittersweet, in a soft, melancholy way. a single window stood high and wide in the living room, overlooking the detective agency building on the opposite of dazai's apartment block, but the city looked bleak and sad at night. drops of condensation covered the top of the glass, chuuya couldn't help but trace his finger over the droplets, like a child on a car ride. though the apartment didn't smell like particularly anything, chuuya could discern a light sweetness in the air, as if the place were haunted by the ghosts of long-dead cookies.
time slipped by in a silk nightgown and slippers, dancing around chuuya's head for what seemed like hours.
"ch~uuya-kun!" dazai's chirruping voice skewered the redhead's reverie. he had only now realized what that strange scent that had been hovering like a gauze around his nose, was. the brunet trundled out with a horribly bright yellow apron and platter of something oddly scented.
“here-- you're snailness.” dazai theatrically offered his creation with a grin and a deep bow.
chuuya had grown stiff and all his nerves were tense from not moving. he inched upwards to look down at the browned bits of ... cookies?
“looks great,” the redhead croaked.
“it's a date." dazai said, darkly.
"it's a cookie."
"it's a cookie date.”
chuuya sighed, moving his arms and pulling his right leg over his left.
"what kind are they?" the redhead inquired, cautiously sniffing one of the cookies.
"cinnamon-brownie with a twist," dazai said. "i added honeysuckle,"
"and also woodbine, sweet musk-roses and eglantine," he added, taking a couple for himself.
“i think I'm nostalgic for a time i never experienced.” chuuya steepled his fingers and studied the uneven little circles.
they indeed smelled fresh, green, saccharine, and mildly citrusy, as dazai had said. the redhead leaned in to pick out one of them when dazai snatched his wrist and held it aside, a cookie still hanging out the side of his lips.
a wicked grin slipped over the brunet's face. he leant forward and whispered, "i just wouldn't offer you any cookies."
chuuya grimaced, leaning back and folding his arms, trying to ignore the close proximity of dazai and his' faces, hoping his face wasn't reddening. "i'm starting to think 'cookies' is a code word for something else."
"oh, hat rack, maybe it is." dazai lifted his hand to tug on chuuya's choker, taking a confident lean forward, forcing chuuya to back deeper into the head of the sofa.
"just think about it. if cookie was a code word, whatever it symbolizes, it's been in your mouth. or it's going to.” chuuya scowled. his face mottled red and his face heated up.
“cookie?” dazai absently offered, as if he hadn't said anything.
code word or not, there was no way chuuya's ravenous stomach could refuse that. he grunted in response.
dazai's lips tipped to one side and he leaned towards the redhead, his mouth inches from chuuya's. almost teasingly. “come and get it, hat rack.”
come and get…? the brunt placed half the cookie between his thin, reddened lips.
chuuya's mouth twitched. heat soon swept over his cheeks. the redhead could feel the narrow eyes of dazai landing quite blatantly on his lips. the brunet arched his brows, daring chuuya. mortified, he wanted to tear off his gloves and let arahabaki consume him into oblivion right then and there. what did dazai think chuuya was going to do? simply the cookie out of his mouth like something straight out of an r-rated version of lady and the tramp? hell, chuuya couldn't dismiss the urge to do just that, and he wasn’t too sure what that said about him. dazai leant away, reaching up and eating the cookie. there was a gleam in his eyes, as if he’d just learnt something, but also something akin to dejection. “time’s up, snail.”
relieved was the least chuuya felt. any second longer and the redhead would have to explain why he had grown hard down there. that would be worse than any kind of torture. especially with one as skilled in the art of torment as dazai osamu. chuuya still seemed hesitant about taking a cookie, but dazai groaned, dipping his head animatedly. "take one already!" he placed a still-warm lump in the redhead's palms.
“what about milk?" chuuya asked. "everyone knows that when you eat cookies, you need milk. its unreasonable and unlawful."
"unlawful? that's thick, coming from the executive of the port mafia," dazai scoffed,
"but in all truth, you do have a fair point, i just didn't go though the trouble: once again, you've proven to be much different to my previous pigeonholes. we're all going to want milk with cookies." the brunet agreed. "why should I care about my blood pressure?" with that, the boy leapt up once more to trek to the kitchen.
“milk and cookies for your highness?" dazai reappeared from the kitchen with a little wire holder containing a two small milk cartons with single bright pink striped paper straws.
he set them down atop the small table. "are all the things in your house pink or yellow?"
"why yes, should they be blue?"
chuuya sighed, looking down at the melancholy little chunk of sugar and flour.
"w-eee-lll? try it: warm milk and cookies are the best." dazai stated.
chuuya peeled off the thin gauze of the milk cartoon, slightly humiliated as he saw dazai curiously watching him, hand under chin, like a toddler.
the redhead indulged in a pleasant melding of the two delicacies. dazai didn't stop inquiring about chuuya's thoughts on his baking. in all truth, the cookies were one of the best chuuya had ever tasted. the sea salt set off the sweetness of the heady chocolate, and the tangerine zest woke up all the flavors. the honeysuckle was subtle but definitely noticeable, and the milk tenderly enbosomed it all in a mother-like clasp.
"its..." dazai listened avidly, "...really good." chuuya mumbled, filling his mouth with milk so as to not answer any further.
the brunet's eyes filled with stars, quite comically.
"ch~uuya!"
the pair sat in a strange silence. it wasn't uncomfortable. it was oddly enjoyable.
"where's the bathroom?" chuuya suddenly asked, feeling his stomach turn.
dazai looked up.
"oh? just down the hall to the left."
chuuya grunted in response, hauling himself up tiredly and traipsing down the narrow corridor.
he gently pried the door open, making sure to lock up behind him. chuuya pulled the light string but nothing happened.
"chuuya. the light doesn't work. i broke it while trying to find a sturdy place to tie a noose."
the redhead scowled.
chuuya stood for a while, looking at everything in the compact little space, the towels hanging from the hooks, the single toothbrush resting atop the sink, the toothpaste, the razors, the shower curtain with banana prints; but it felt like the room was tainted in some subtle but sad essence of dereality. it was like no one had been in there for years.
the bath towels were white like the bathtub and chuuya's wrists were white like the towels. the boy stepped over to the cabinet and gently opened them.
sure enough, a few dozen cases of pills sat in wait at dazai's shifting beck and call. chuuya didn't know what they were or where dazai had got them. the redhead liked to think they were wonder drugs.
“they slow your brain down," dazai said. chuuya jerked to the left, "how did you get-?" the door, sure enough, was ajar. chuuya felt his skin blanch upon seeing the darkened face of the brunet in the little light of the streets outside. he was clutching an orange bottle of pills. "they iron out all the wrinkles... maybe all the bad stuff happens in the wrinkles, but all the good stuff does, too..." dazai seemed to be talking more to himself than to chuuya. "they break your brain like a sledgehammer, so it takes all your orders. i need a break that can break away, you know? i need to think. If i can't think, who am i?” dazai's hand started trembling. “it's like the commercial," the brunet's voice cracked, "once ya pop you can't stop." he looked around, distressed. "once ya pop you can't stop." he repeated.
"who am i?" his voice as quavering now, his throat bobbing jerkily. he sounded close to tears. "can't stop." he dropped the pills, the hundreds of orange-tinted pastilles scattering across the floor like mice. "hey... dazai?" chuuya frowned, turned to face the brunet fully, his brows laced with concern. dazai's breathing became more feral, more shallow. in the few moments, the brunet remembered. he remembered why he took them. the pills. anything to stop them. the panic attacks.
dazai was moving about the room as if there was a bat inside him. knocking loose from its perch and flapping in the hollow corridors of his skull, erratically. the boy was pacing back and forth, like his brain was demanding the energetic expenditure of an athlete but wouldn't tell his limbs what to do. "oi, dazai!" chuuya grabbed the brunet by his shoulders, which only made dazai roughly shove him away, making the redhead slam back-first into the curve of the sink. the absence of light didn't help. chuuya could only see the wild glint in dazai's eyes, and when told to sit, the brunet teetered on the edge of the bathtub, rocking to and fro, his fingers strumming against the cold surface of the tub before he exploded into motion again. suddenly dazai was talking. talking as if he didn't have enough time to say what he needed to. he kept rubbing his face with his palms, scratching at the curves of his nails till they whittled flat. "dazai! hey! look at me!" chuuya's words went unheard. dazai's sentences were crowded together and he missed words. “slick pimps, b-bribing civic kingpins, distill gin in stills- internal... internal reality succumbs to psychosis.” he intoned, like poetry. dazai's sentences were fragmented and his thoughts seem to jump from one thing to another. chuuya yanked at his own hair, wracking his head for thoughts. any sliver of information that could help. all the redhead's words were bouncing off dazai like hail, and now the brunet was right in front of him: his fingers white-knuckled and clasping chuuya's overcoat desperately. the redhead shut his eyes, drowning out all the noise until all he heard was white. like when it rained on the yokohoma landmark tower. "tell me what you need." nakahara said, his voice sobersided. dazai seemed to slacken, releasing his grip on the boy's vest and stepping back. "i need... need. i need-- mmm," he tapped the sides of his head as if searching for the answer as he hummed. "touch. touch. warmth. count to ten." he recited repeatedly. "touch? touch. count to ten?" chuuya tried to echo with understanding nods, as he held the brunet gently by the shoulders, sitting him down, against the bathtub and clasping the boy's gaunt hands. "count with me, dazai. one-" "...one," the pair jerkily began their descent of numbers, repeating a few when dazai tripped up on words, but eventually reaching ten. "see? see, dazai? you did it. you did it with me." chuuya lifted the brunet's head so their eyes met. "i'm proud of you. you did great." dazai seemed to quiver, as if holding back, but then wrapped his arms around the redhead's waist, sinking down and burying his face in the boy's leg. it felt like drowning into a pool of warm whiskey. chuuya was nonplussed, taken aback, before he, too, melted into dazai's embrace, gently leaving a trail of pecks across the frays of his chestnut hair, and they hugged like hugging was breathing and they'd been holding their breath for a long, long time.
“i've forgotten what this felt like.” chuuya jerked back, looking down at dazai. his eyes were glazed, and he had his hand under his chin, which rested atop the redhead's thigh.
“not a lot of huggers in the detective agency?”
“none like this—holy shit. you wouldn't mind if i-? i’m just going to kind of slump into you now. so if you’re averse to that, say before i’m swamping your helpless body.”
dazai writhed for a bit, before settling comfortably where he faced chuuya's waist, and his legs curled in a fetal manner, on the bathroom floor.
“i don’t mind if you swamp.” chuuya said, after a while.
“are you sure? because i think you're a fumbling virgin at this, hat rack.”
“huh? how can you say that? i'm doing fine."
dazai's thin fingers dug into chuuya's back. he was still trembling, whether it was still from reeling or from the cold, the redhead wasn't sure. but he he;d chuuya as though he were the only solid thing in the world.
" i'm sorry. i had no idea... that you were living with that." chuuya tilted his head back and rested it on the surface of the bathtub, running a hand through the brunet's unkempt hair.
“i don't know where to go. i don't know what comes now. do i keep staying on those pills? do i-"
"don't worry," chuuya said. "we'll figure something out."
dazai blinked, feeling his chest ebb with something foreign to his nerves. he liked that word. we. it sounded warm, like milk and cookies.