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“Please, let him be soft.
I know you made him
with gunmetal bones
and wolf’s teeth.
I know you made him to be
a warrior
a soldier
a hero.”
*
Dazai was efficient.
Not in the way most people were efficient, of course. Chuuya was young, but he had been the sword and shield of an organization before — a bunch of orphans who eventually betrayed him, but who he dared to call family for a while — and he knew what efficiency was in people: The hit rate that it overcomes mistakes, the number of successes being reasonably high compared to the failures, a greater confidence in completing a plan, the margins for failure being smaller.
Being efficient, when you are a simple human, is just an average that tends to the positive: Flat failure is still a possibility, the probability of it occurring is only lower.
With Dazai, however, it was not like that.
Dazai was efficient the way a sharp knife is efficient: cold, dispassionate, conclusive and ready to hurt.
Dazai was efficient in the way only weapons can be. You don't expect a gun to choke on its own bullet, so you don't expect Dazai to fail in a mission assigned to him, either.
And maybe that is the why everyone in the mob was terrified of the skinny boy covered in bandages, because there was something disconcerting about someone who seemed to have been made disconnected from the rest of the world, there was a bizarre feeling about a person who could break bones and tear teeth without blinking, or manipulating an entire room with half a word and never flinching when in pain.
It was understandable that people feared such brutal machine-like efficiency in such a young face.
But Chuuya had spent a lot of time on the streets, collecting half-starved children with empty eyes, cruelty dripping from their fingers. Shirahase had once brought in a five-year-old girl who had survived the worst of winter by eating a kitten she had grown up with.
Adults could play as much as they liked, but there was still nothing more terrible in the world than children growing up in violence and chaos.
Dazai had that same slanted look Chuuya had often seen in boys who start killing very early with empty hands and in little girls who learn to sell themselves before growing up their bodies: The look of children who have stayed too long at night, without never see the dawn, a strange sense of survival instilled within the bones.
Dazai was not, per se, efficient. He just had a body too fragile for the night and a mind too dangerous to be contained in that head, sharp enough to cut through everyone around him, especially its owner.
How old he was when he learned he was a weapon?
Chuuya didn't know, but he understood that you can only extend your hand into emptiness, hoping that someone will grab it, for a limited time before your palm becomes a clenched fist.
Cruel situations make cruel people, but it wasn't Dazai's fault that he turned a blade before becoming a human.
Not when everyone was so eager to wield it.
*
“But even gunmetal can warp
and even wolf’s teeth can dull
and I do not want to see him break
the way old and worn and overused things do.
I do not want to see him go up in flames
the way all heroes end up martyrs.”
At seventeen, Dazai was like a porcelain doll.
Pale, beautiful and fragile.
The young man had grown as tall as he was thin, the delicate bones often protruding or stretching, the scarred skin and often open sores. A young teenager who was always bleeding inside and out.
Chuuya knew that Dazai had joined the mob with a few things already broken inside his head, but there was a limit to how much a mind could take while wallowing in misery and God, Dazai was always buried up to his neck in that dirty miasma.
Whereas Chuuya, ever so desperate for any sense of normality he might have, clung to mundane things like comfort, wine, and people he could call friends, not thinking about the stickiness of blood, the brutality of the craft or childhoods that died in childbirth, Dazai ran to the other side.
Dazai reveled in violence, if it were possible for someone like him to feel any pleasure, in guns, in torn nails and split lips, searching that dirt for any spark of meaning, humanity, motive. Dazai snuggled in pain like a newborn nestled in its mother's bosom, thirsty either to give or to receive it.
Eyes growing hollower with each day that ended and began, and Chuuya had lost count of how many blades he had ripped out of those hands, shoving his fingers down the boy's throat, digging for pills and dopants, or tearing cords from the sensitive musculature of that shattered neck. .
Dazai was breaking down.
And Chuuya felt that there was only him to watch, pushing in the things that leaked from his seams, he who had always had an eternal weakness for broken and tired things. And every time Dazai climbed into his sheets, wrists open, asking to be patched, Chuuya just felt that longer, less time, the other boy would end up going somewhere he would be unable to follow.
(Sometimes Chuuya wanted to hug that empty shell and never let go, slide his fingers through the scars, mourn the version of Dazai he never knew, heal that injured boy until his clenched fist turned into an outstretched palm again.)
(Chuuya, however, was just a kid still growing up. He kissed those cracked lips, he loved that broken body, he talked like one would talk to a lover, and watched Dazai drink kerosene and swallow matches, setting himself on fire little by little and destroying everything along the way: Including himself).
Mori didn't care, not really, not when a maniacal and broken Dazai, a controllable Dazai, was infinitely preferable to a complete and still whole one.
Then, suddenly, one day, Dazai stopped.
One day, like any other, Dazai looked at the trail of dead things around him and paused in his walk for a brief moment.
One day, with a strange light in his eyes, Dazai sat beside him with a lit cigarette dangling from his lips and talked about a certain Odasaku, a small insignificant man so low on the food chain, a common soldier who had caught his attention.
"A mobster who doesn't kill"
There was a pent-up admiration in his voice and Chuuya somehow understood the appeal that someone like that would have for Dazai. The boy had blood down to his shoulders ever since he was a child and there was an enticing aroma to things that shouldn't be where they are, Odasaku was a rare item as unexpected to find as live fire in the damp subterranean.
Dazai was delighted and Chuuya sighed in relief.
There was, of course, an ugly jealousy in his bones, but he'd never entertained the presumption that he was able to stop the self-destructive walk Dazai had set himself. He was also a syrup of blood and decay and screams.
So Chuuya just hoped to last, so that there was enough time – this little thing so scarce – for Dazai to mend the pieces of himself, heal a little, maybe. The mob was cruel and people need to cling to what they have, any spark can be a cozy fire if you spend enough time in the cold.
And when Odasaku died, it came as no surprise to Chuuya that Dazai left.
(He was even happy the way we are happy when animals escape from abattoirs or children survive car accidents. The basic logic that if you look for something you must do it with the aid of light and it was nice to imagine that, somewhere , Dazai was not spontaneously combusting, opening up inside out.)
However, it still hurt.
(Because Chuuya could wish the best in the world for Dazai, but it still hurt that Chuuya had offered the best in himself and it still wasn't enough. It hurt that the only thing Dazai needed was precisely what Chuuya could not give).
*
“I know that you will tell me
that the world needs him.
The world needs his heart
and his faith
and his courage
and his strength
and his bones and his teeth and his blood and his voice and his–
The world needs anything he will give them. “
The night was starry, cold and Dazai had changed.
There was an added height that irritated Chuuya, but his eyes looked softer and his smile was slightly more honest. There was still a shadow to his steps, a heaviness in his soul, and if he had fully healed there wouldn't be so many fresh bandages wrapped around his body: This was a Dazai he knew to the marrow of his bones, but who had survived.
Chuuya had no idea how the man knew he would be there that night, leaning right against that bridge, but he wasn't even surprised when he emerged from the shadows, humming. It was just expected when it came to Dazai and his eccentricities.
The beige coat matched him the way the black overcoat never did: It complimented the brown of his hair, softened the chocolate in his eyes, and it was so disconcerting to see both of his eyes at the same time. Chuuya felt his heart clench with something that could have been longing.
He wanted to feel anger, bitterness or hatred at being abandoned, but how could he feel anything other than bittersweet affection for the person Dazai seemed to have become? The light suited him, after all.
The man was still fighting himself, he was still struggling and kicking and screaming, but he was more alive than Chuuya had seen him in years.
("I wish so much I had been your home")
Chuuya considered the Detective Agency.
He didn't know them intimately and had only seen them a sparse handful of times. The redhead hoped they were being kind to Dazai.
Dazai had obviously changed, but there would always be edges to him that would be more knife than person, mangled to the point where minimal human decency seemed like a lot at times. Dazai who had risen from his pain just to keep a promise would accept being pushed into fragments, breaking through limit after limit because that's how he'd been raised to behave and bad habits were tricky little things to break.
Dazai, which was the height of human selfishness, could give, give, give until there was nothing left of him,
Chuuya considered the Agency and hoped for them to see the boy barefoot, whimpering and bleeding from the cracks where the others looked and saw only arrows and blades.
Dazai didn't deserve to be held hostage to a promise until he ran out and died.
Shouldn't there be spring after winter?
"That's good for you?" Why was there more to ask a distant friend, a distant love, a survivor, or a child who extraordinarily grew up in something other than a grave?
Dazai leaned against the bridge wall and Chuuya noticed how the detective's first instinct was not to look down.
"I'm right where I need to be" Dazai smiled playfully "And you chibikko?"
"I've always been where I needed to be, mackerel"
Dazai nodded in agreement.
Silence for a while.
"Would you like to be with me then?"
Dazai's voice was soft and Chuuya could see a hand outstretched, fingers trembling, but sensitive palm exposed, begging to be grabbed.
The thing was, Chuuya understood the relationship of trust to the cold of abandon, but he always, always, always had a soft spot for Dazai. Always throwing caution to the wind, always taking that leap of faith, always putting logic aside and trusting ...
"Yes."
*
“Damn the world,
and damn you too.
Damn anyone that ever asked anything of him,
damn anyone that ever took anything from him,
damn anyone that ever prayed to his name.
You know that he will give them everything
until there is nothing left of him
but the imprint of dust
where his feet once trod.
You know that he will bear the world like Atlas
until his shoulders collapse
and his knees buckle
and he is crushed by all he used to carry.”
Long enough and he had adapted to Dazai again: All the things that remained the same – and there were many – and the ones that had changed little by little, the smooth adjustment of a train wreck slowly getting back on track.
Long enough and he knew the man's shifting hours and every detective's first name and how Dazai had found room in himself to belong somewhere that at least cared not to rip his skin off and expose the bones underneath.
Dazai's surrogate partner was moody, irritable, but cared for him with that tentative concern that made the blonde call him almost every night to ask if Dazai had made it home safely.
The doctor who always made him suspicious, the hospital horror of Dazai having passed to the redhead at some point in their life, was surprisingly patient and it was with some surprise that Chuuya found that the woman had somehow convinced the brunette to use mild antidepressants, even if he came back and missed the doses.
The smart-ass detective was Dazai's lost soul mate, and most of the time, Chuuya was unable to understand the lines of reasoning the two of them bounced from subject to subject like ADHD-drugged climbers.
The children had done the Dazai some good too, that glowing adoration and unmistakable affection being as last as Fukuzawa's serious, compassionate calm.
The ADA wasn't picky like the mob had been for Dazai. It was a little place with access to the sun, really.
But still...
Yet Dazai was an extraordinary person, so above average that it seemed impossible to even exist and that – and he – was tempting.
It was tempting to pressure Dazai, it was tempting to push until you reached a goal, Chuuya had already been on the other side of those partnerships and knew how using that brilliance could be seductive when Dazai never raised his voice to stop someone from abusing it.
(And it wasn't out of sacrificial altruism, it wasn't even the passive acceptance that others would overcome their barriers, it was that man didn't even acknowledge that these barriers existed.
Dazai had never learned to draw lines, not for him or anyone else.)
And that's why Chuuya was angry.
The ADA had been working a case for nearly two weeks now, and Dazai was consuming himself on it as he rarely did, restless minds, sleepless nights and unhealthy meals. It was after midnight and the man still hadn't arrived home.
It was one of their deals: Dazai should be home before dawn, except in special cases where Chuuya was notified in advance.
The night was bad for the detective. Tiredness pooled in his muscles and dips on frozen sides were too delicious for the exhausted mind to fight.
So Chuuya looked at his watch one last time, grabbed his hat, and left the house to fetch his pet mackerel in person.
*
The ADA had a single light on in the entire building, and when Chuuya entered the building and climbed the stairs, the Agency door opened without resistance, unlocked.
The room was a mess of scattered papers, reports, and spreadsheets, the physical result of an organization that was working full steam ahead to complete a mission and didn't seem to be having much success.
And sitting on the floor, in the midst of the mess, were the two gems of the Armed Detectives Agency: Ranpo and Dazai.
There were also numerous tiny puzzle pieces among them along with colorful clipboards, photos, and markers.
Ranpo was eating snacks, poking a half-finished corner of the puzzle and looking genuinely irritated, his features scrunched up in displeasure.
Dazai on the other hand looked like he'd been run over: His fluffy hair stuck out at odd angles, his clothes were rumpled, and the bandages were stained with something Chuuya prayed was coffee. There was a feverish gleam in his brown eyes that reminded him of a redhead from the mob days when there was a big mission in mind and Mori managed to convince Dazai to try some stimulant.
The ex-mobster had his nose in a file and was on the verge of a nervous breakdown from sheer mental exhaustion, his fingers trembling where they held the briefcase, and Chuuya held back the protective wave of anger: the jealous instinct to shove the man on a bunch of sheets and never let anyone ask anything to him again.
Ranpo seemed to notice her presence before Dazai and that alone was worrisome.
“Mr. Fancy Hat, hello!” The man yawned, poking Dazai in the ribs. "I think your shift is over, Dazai."
Dazai looked up from his papers and looked confused by his presence there.
"Chibi?" Dazai closed the document, narrowing his eyes. "What are you doing here?"
"It's almost one in the morning"
Chuuya watched, not the least bit surprised, the man's eyes slowly wandering from him to the wall clock in the room, going to Ranpo who nodded and only then returned to Chuuya.
"Oh"
" Oh indeed" Chuuya huffed, rolling his eyes with arms crossed. "Pick up your things, let's go back home."
Dazai pouted childishly.
“But Chuuya~! I've not finished yet!" The man gestured in the general direction of the mess "And Ranpo-san and I just opened our new puzzle!"
"I wasn't asking if you wanted to go, Fucking Dazai" Chuuya put his hands on his hips, ready to double that stubbornness "I was telling you , we're both going home now."
Dazai looked ready to start a tantrum that would be the envy of any six-year-old, but Ranpo cut him off with a big yawn, stretching himself for a long time.
“I'm going home too, Dazai, before Poe-kun gets more worried than he must be already.” Ranpo rubbed an eye slightly reddened from lack of sleep. “We're not going anywhere with this anyway, we can try again tomorrow, in the afternoon."
The two geniuses stared at each other and whatever telepathic argument they had, Ranpo seemed to have won when Dazai got up off the floor, his knees creaking in a way that made Chuuya wonder how long he had been motionless in that position, and walked out to the back of the room obediently.
Ranpo glared at him and Chuuya glared back in disgust.
"Dazai is the smartest employee you have, you shouldn't let him wear himself out to death."
Ranpo rolled his eyes, as if he were the stupid one in the situation.
“It may not seem like it, but we were forcing him to take regular breaks.” Ranpo shrugged. “He was ready to go home hours ago, he's just too stubborn to leave. More stubborn than myself, I didn't think it was possible.”
A part of the anger Chuuya didn't even know was brewing was gone.
So it was less a "Dazai-being-exploited-consensually" and more a "Dazai-being-stupid-as-usual" and, although the result was almost the same, the fact that there was no validation of that behavior should be positive or something.
Chuuya could handle it. He would make sure Dazai took a nice, long, hot shower, change those dirty bandages and dress him in those soft sweatshirts the man secretly adored. Chuuya might even cook something with the dreadful canned crab buried deep in his pantry if it would make the brunette put something warm in his stomach.
Dazai wasn't very fond of tea, but chamomile and lavender always worked wonders for his anxiety and after a few sips, he would always start to nod off. With luck, the redhead could get him to bed without waking him up and putting him to sleep for a few hours.
And if Dazai only needed to get back to work in the afternoon then-
Ranpo smiled, green eyes bright as if he was watching the funniest thing in the world unfold.
"You know if you ask, he'll say yes, don't you?" Ranpo squinted his eyes, his smile even wider. "He's just waiting for you to ask, actually."
Chuuya didn't ask what the detective was talking about, just said a polite goodbye when Dazai returned with his beige coat draped loosely over his arm and letting out a series of grumpy whimpers about how his chibi was an annoying boss.
Solemnly, Chuuya also ignored Dazai's complaints about the speed with which he drove his motorcycle home.
In fact, the redhead only allowed himself to brood over thoughts when he was wrapping Dazai in his blankets, the man with sleepy eyes blinking almost shut behind his brown curls. Sweet lavender-flavored breath, body feeling like home, and Chuuya thought of the red velvet box in the back of his closet. He thought of a pair of gold rings, the setting dotted with tiny polished diamonds with an onyx stone in the middle, because they would always be Double Black, always Soukoku.
He thought of a request. He thought of an answer.
*
“Dear God,
you have already made an Atlas.
You have already made an Achilles and an Icarus and a Hercules.
You have already made so many heroes,
and you can make another again.
You can have your pick of heroes.”
Most of their fights were always like this, starting with nothing and ending with nothing as well. They could fight over anything, but almost always the disagreements ended with a laugh, kiss, or particularly affectionate look that made the other person forget why the hell they were fighting in the first place.
That said, sometimes the arguments escalated from potency, because as much as they loved each other, there would still be huge distances between the two with enough room for dark things to rot untouched. There was still the silence of many unspoken phrases, there were still small betrayals, tiny manipulations, there were still two imperfect human beings trying to touch each other's hearts with hands that were sometimes unprepared.
Chuuya and Dazai loved each other, but love didn't always mean peace and the absence of nightmares. Things still bled from the unsewn corners of their relationship, no matter how long they'd been together.
Chuuya couldn't tell who started the fight or even why, but at some point they had started yelling at each other and the last thing the redhead could do was turn his back on an angry Dazai and walk out of their apartment, with the door slamming behind him. He walked out of the building fuming with rage before the two had a chance to say things they would regret even more later.
And now he was sitting on a bench in the middle of the small park in front of the condo with torrential rain pouring down on his head, not bothering to use his ability to keep himself dry because he was willing to feel so miserable for outside and inside.
And look he's almost there on that task. Drenched to the bone in a dimly lit park and rethinking all the actions in his life that had led him there was the height of misery.
Chuuya sighed, pulling his legs against his chest, trying to save some of the heat in his body.
He wasn't even angry anymore, the feeling having been squeezed out of him as the damp coldness seeped into his skin.
It was just that the two of them had so much unresolved inside and maybe they always would, maybe the process of getting so close to each other that it hurt was inevitable.
And here was the problem: The two were always unavoidable and proof of that was that Chuuya was there and Dazai was there and even though they worked in opposing organizations, they had found their way to each other.
Chuuya recalled when Dazai left the mob and he refused to have any other partners and what they called a distorted and misdirected loyalty, he always saw for what it was, simple selfishness.
Like a spoiled child stamping his feet in a grocery store: "If I can't have this one, then I don't want any other!"
Chuuya smiled, just a small curl to his lips and watched Dazai, wet hair and clothes, walk towards him and sit beside him.
After the storm, there is always calm, so there was silence. Just the noise of the rain, the occasional shiver and sneeze, a few frogs croaking in some corner, and yellow streetlamp flickering faintly.
Chuuya looked at Dazai and Dazai looked at him.
The man's hair was lank against his face, cheeks flushed from the cold, and lips cracked from being bitten frequently. The bandages were wet and decidedly disgusting against his skin.
He looked beautiful.
"We should get married"
Dazai looked confused for a moment before smiling softly and nodding.
"We should."
*
“So please, I beg you–
he is all that I have,
and you have so many heroes
and the world has so many more.
Let him be soft,
and let him be mine.”
They were married in the spring, because spring marriages bring good luck, and luck had always been a devious lover for both of them. To venture into the waters of superstition about clear paths, clear roads and flourishing new beginnings would do no harm.
It was a small, half-lidded celebration with short planning, discreet, and quiet enough for both Mori and Fukuzawa not to attend and therefore to pretend it never happened and that, even with the shaky alliance, their two top employees weren't switching rings under sakuras.
Yosano, as the maid, wanted to dress Dazai in a black suit, and even though Dazai at first agreed to a good bespoke piece and black as coal, Chuuya stamped his feet and firmly denied: Dazai wouldn't wear black, not at their wedding.
Black reeked of mob, dark days stained with blood, black reminded him of manic crises that Dazai and Chuuya were too young to handle. Black was for the Demon Prodigy, the heir to the organization, the broken child Mori had dismantled.
No, Dazai walked across a rose petal rug at dusk wearing a pure white suit resplendent with gilt detailing and cufflinks, like an angel straight from the heavenly gates.
Let the man wear white without guilt for a moment, let him indulge in the ingenuity of a childhood and adolescence that has been denied him. Let Dazai wear a suit as white as snow, smooth and innocent as the first sip of clear water.
Let he be beautiful, untouchable, smooth, pure and childlike for at least a day, for at least a few hours.
Let the two of them remember that day in a brigth, uncomplicated light where people loved each other, get together and were inevitably happy forever.
Chuuya also insisted on a bouquet of lilies and Dazai couldn't help but take the opportunity to toss it over his shoulder and dare to look surprised when the flower arrangement fell into Akutagawa's lap.
Chuuya had never seen Atsushi pale so quickly and Dazai laugh so loudly before.
It was so sweet to see him look so happy and comfortable with himself, and even though not every day was going to be a cool afternoon of cherry blossoms and gentle smiles that tasted of forever, there was a warmth in the promise that these calm days would always be on the horizon, easy to see.
(Chuuya hadn't been close to Odasaku, but he wanted to imagine that if the man were alive, he would want to take Dazai down the aisle with his arms wrapped around each other and toast a cup to their happiness.)
(Chuuya hadn't been close to Odasaku, but he wanted to imagine that wherever the man was, he was proud of how far Dazai had come and of all the people who would strive to keep him right where he was: in the sunlight.)
“Chibikko? What are you thinking?" Dazai nudged him, his eyes crinkled by the smile on his lips. The thin glass of a glass of champagne between his fingers. "It's rude to think of anyone other than your husband, especially when you've just married him."
Dazai's eyes sparkled like the ring resting on his finger, and Chuuya smiled, the warm, overwhelming feeling that God , he loved, he loved Dazai Osamu with everything he had.
(“I would set the world on fire for you, you know?”)
("I'd kill anyone to keep it like this, like a happy photograph, perfect, complete, whole, like I want it to never, ever, end and-)
“Lucky for me I'm just thinking about him.” He clinked the glasses together and Dazai blushed, laughing out loud.
It was like having half your soul sewn together after so long apart.
It was...
It was perfect.
-“Please let him be happy.”
-JP