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Rolls of dirtied gauze landed on the floorboards with an anticlimactic thump. Nimble fingers unsheathed the bandages wrapped neatly around Dazai’s own arms robotically and with precision. The way his bony hands danced around the bandages delicately looked almost graceful in a carefully articulated design.
Chuuya stared incredulously with interest. With every bandage undone came another secret revealed before his wavering gaze. Every line and precise shape adorning Dazai’s pale skin was like peeling back a new layer behind his mask of indifference and humor.
Chuuya didn’t dare interrupt the painstakingly intimate moment of trust, instead opting to openly let his gaze rake over Dazai’s bare arm and neck while his hands were folded in his lap politely. His fingers twitched and longed to trace over the scars littering Dazai’s damaged being. A sadistic element of his brain suggested that he reach out and dig his nails into the scarred flesh just to see Dazai bleed like a normal human and writhe in pain.
But Dazai was no ordinary human; he was an enigma. A being so far disconnected from reality yet entwined with it. Something indicatable and incomprehensible. So distant and hopelessly out of reach for Chuuya, but blissfully removed from reality from his own point of view.
The faint humming emitting from Dazai filled the comfortably silent room. No words needed to be exchanged for an undeniable trust and understanding bound them together with firm inevitability. As Chuuya watched his partner unwrap another piece of gauze from his upper arm and hum that angelic tune, he couldn’t help his voice escaping him, “Why are you letting me do this?”
Dazai’s diligent movements stopped midway, leaving the gauze half wrapped around another healing wound that had taken shape in an “X”. His calculated gaze flitted between Chuuya’s expectant expression, and the convoluted jumble of bandages abandoned on the cold floorboards of his bedroom.
“Do what?” he inquired curiously; exhaustion evident in his vulnerable tone. Dazai being vulnerable required treading lightly. One wrong move and he’d retreat to his morbidly humorless demeanor combined with the weak attempt to control the situation with snappish teasing.
“You’re taking off your bandages and allowing me to see your scars,” Chuuya replied with straight-forward fortitude. Dazai blinked, a nearly inconspicuous smile filled with sincerity slowly gracing his chapped lips. Chuuya couldn’t help the matching expression adorning his own face. An aching sensation filled his chest with a pleasant thump.
“You’re right, I am doing that, aren’t I?” Chuuya didn’t bother entertain Dazai’s witty, sarcastic response with a reply. Instead, he languidly approached the boy occupying the opposite side of the mattress like he was a delicate being worthy of affection, but was that not what he was?
“Can I?” Chuuya questioned quietly. The proximity between them was bordering on the edge of intimacy, challenging it. Dazai nodded in affirmation, already sensing what Chuuya was insinuating.
Gentle fingers leisurely slipped under the first roll of gauze wrapped around Dazai’s other arm, still swathed in bandages. The feeling of cold skin beneath Chuuya’s own flaming temperature caused a violent shiver to rack Chuuya’s body. Dazai’s lips quirked upwards at the action.
Chuuya began deliberately and skillfully unwrapping the bandages on Dazai’s bony wrist, quelling his overwhelming desire to trace the deep, elongated slice down his flesh. “Jesus, Dazai,” he breathed out, not even noticing his breath had gone erratic in the minimal time he’d lost himself becoming enamored with Dazai’s imperfections.
“Don’t,” Dazai reprimanded firmly. “Please, don’t talk about it.” There was a tinge of pleading in his tone, and Chuuya found he resented that timid plead in this context. So, he nodded, taking Dazai’s other hand in his own and squeezing reassuringly.
“I won’t,” he promised genuinely, continuing his ambiguous ministrations. His soothing touch drew various shapes over a multitude of horizontal reddened lines, ranging from familiar objects stored in the back of his mind, and simple squares and hearts outlining the symbols of Dazai’s flaws. Human flaws. Human flesh.
A timid voice broke the infatuated stare Chuuya held on Dazai’s skinny wrist, eyes flitting upwards to meet dull, vulnerable eyes. “What do you think makes someone human?”
Chuuya blinked, dazed by the vague question he himself had pondered many times before. “Do you think it’s pain?” Dazai continued while disregarding the tightening iron-grip Chuuya had on his wrist. “Sorrow?” he inquired.
“Living,” Chuuya finished for him before the other could spiral into a mindless haze of doubt. Dazai blinked up at Chuuya inquisitively, urging him—pleading for him to continue. Chuuya relented, smiling fondly while the words rolled off his tongue like honey. “Living makes us human. Not surviving but absorbing life. Relishing in it.
“Death may seem like a virtue, but its simply creating the memory of a person. A person who lived and died, who was human and rejected that humanity at the expense of their life, even unintentionally. That’s why we mourn. To remember them as a human that lived a human life.”
Chuuya held his bated breath for a solid moment, letting the words melt into the world surrounding them, engulfing them in the truth of his words meant for reassurance. He prayed Dazai felt the same, that he was letting Chuuya’s truth mend his open wounds just as Chuuya had attempted to.
“How would you know?” Dazai exclaimed in accusation, quiet voice wavering with fear, completely exposed. “You’re not even human.”
But Chuuya did not let Dazai’s words deter him. Because neither boy knew what they, nor the other, was. Strangers to themselves, living through life as vessels of human beings, they were bound together by their lack of humanity and distrust of the world. Enigmas to each other while incomprehensible to the outside world which did not have the capability to solve their unanswered questions of worth and identity.
Words were filled with bitter lies and hidden truths. A human trait of reassurance that did not satisfy Dazai’s convoluted mind. Chuuya’s delicate smile dimmed. “I know,” Chuuya breathed languidly. He intertwined his fingers with Dazai’s own, intertwining the depths of their hollow hearts unfit for humanity. “But does it matter?” Dazai gazed at him inquisitively.
Chuuya stared off distantly at a pencil mark adorning the wooden headboard, eyes remorseful. “We’re observers,” he continued, “We don’t need to be human to understand humanity.” Dazai’s breath stilled, his expression intensified as he leaned closer to Chuuya’s warmth.
“Are you saying I’m not human?” Dazai snapped like a dog baring its teeth. His irritation seeped into Chuuya’s bones as he backpedaled.
“I’m saying you’re searching for answers you’ll never find,” Chuuya stated. “Letting yourself live as an enigma is just as human as identifying as one.” Dazai’s brows furrowed in doubt. Chuuya wanted to reach out and quell that desire to rid of Dazai’s discomforted expression, but he refrained, keeping one hand wrapped around Dazai’s wrist while the other embraced his delicate hand with caution.
“Living is hard,” Dazai whispered into the deep, oppressive silence. “You don’t understand.”
And Chuuya didn’t. He didn’t understand the notion that death was a release from the mortal confines of the world. Death was the end of a life he deemed worth living despite the suffering he faced. His resilience against a life that chose to punish him time and time again was unmatched by his counterpart, and he never understood why.
“Do you want me to understand?” Chuuya inquired. Dazai’s frown deepened, feeling completely stripped bare of his defenses and exposed to the world he resented.
“No,” he answered truthfully. A soft smile graced Chuuya’s lips as he absorbed the honesty poured into that singular word. The hand engulfing Dazai’s wrist slipped downwards to intertwine their fingers, so Chuuya had a stable hold on both shaking hands. He glanced down, adjusting their hands in a way that displayed their shared burden, that they were equally tortured by the confines of mortality and living. A sentiment that cried, “I love you”. An action that spoke, “Don’t leave”.
And with their hands entangled and breaths mingled, the two boys created a haven of familiarity in their open wounds.