Chapter Text
Loyalty is seen as a good thing, more often than not.
Loyal people were the ones you surrounded yourself with, the ones who don't leave your side no matter what.
So why didn't that happen for Chuuya?
First it was the Sheep.
He promised all his loyalty to them and stuck to it. He was stabbed in the back, literally and figuratively, yet he made his life hell by joining the mafia to keep them safe.
That was the first time he was too loyal.
If he had simply left the Sheep behind earlier, then he would have never been in the mafia. Or if he simply didn't care, he could leave the mafia and allow Mori to murder Shirase, Yuan, and everyone else he had loved once upon a time.
Chuuya was loyal, and that was his downfall.
He should have learned his lesson, really.
That one mistake of staying true to his word and never allowing the Sheep to fall into harms way led him to a life of suffering and pain.
Yet he did it.
Again and again.
Really, he never should have. Dazai Osamu is an arrogant, annoying, cruel bastard who should have only been a nuisance.
Dazai Osamu was someone who never cared about Chuuya. He learned that the hard way.
Dazai often joked about Chuuya being his little dog, following him around and giving into his every command (albeit begrudgingly). Even gifting him a choker as a "collar" on his 16th birthday.
Chuuya wore it every single day.
Without fail.
They really had connected, in those 3 years together in the Port Mafia. Two kids lost in a world of never ending bloodshed.
What he had with Dazai was not what he had with the Sheep. It was better. Which was why he was so sure he could lend Dazai his loyalty.
Because Dazai was his partner. It was an equal balance. Dazai was the brains, Chuuya was the brawns. The Sheep relied on Chuuya for everything, he was entrusted as a leader and he failed to notice the weight chipping away at his body until it was finally lifted when he was stabbed in the back and abandoned by those he called his family.
But Dazai...
Dazai wasn't like that.
He was brutally honest, and unafraid to critique the boy who everyone saw as not a human, but a monster. The boy who had never been looked at with any expression other than fear.
It was so, so nice.
Dazai did not fear Chuuya, nor did he rely on him.
It was equal.
Chuuya and Dazai became a duo, "Soukoku", Double Black. Two diamonds that could only be polished by the other.
Dazai understood Chuuya, and he never left him despite knowing everything.
(Well, until he did.)
Dazai was there when Chuuya crumbled.
The first time Chuuya truly broke down in front of someone, it was Dazai.
And be never turned away.
He didn't look at Chuuya with disgust.
He didn't tease him as he suffered.
He sat there, and held him in his arms as he sobbed.
Because Chuuya was tired, damn it.
He couldn't live like this forever, could he? Was that was he doomed to?
His life, robbed of him and replaced with him being used as nothing but a disposable tool by a greasy haired creep?
He always wanted what everyone else had.
A mother, a father, a family who loved him. He wanted to learn, to live for himself, to be free. To be happy. Was that truly too much to ask for? Was he that unworthy?
Alas, Chuuya Nakahara never got what he wanted in life.
Chuuya had never been chosen by anyone before. He was merely the most convenient option available to someone therefore he was used as a last resort.
Until Dazai.
Because Dazai was his partner. And they took care of each other, as despite their differences, their arguments, they were each others world.
And then, there was Oda.
Odasaku, as Dazai called him.
Dazai had been there for Chuuy when he was crumbling and breaking and burning. And Chuuya was there to mend his wounds, one by one, and give him the reassurance that it was okay.
But the one night Chuuya needed him most, Dazai was not there. Waiting at the other's apartment, which had somehow become "their" apartment.
Dazai had gone out with his new friends. They were older and wiser, and...
Better.
When Dazai was presented with the other two, why would he pick the short redhead that would inevitably be awaiting Dazai when he got home anyway?
That night Chuuya had lost more of his subordinates. Had to report to their loved ones personally about the loss.
He had failed.
And when he had no bandaged freak to turn to, he looked at a kitchen knife instead.
But Dazai would not listen to him if he started to do the very thing Chuuya had told him not to do.
So he simply used to to scratch his thighs until they where only a little stained. (A punishment to himself for not being good enough. Because he never was)
Easy to clean and heal.
They would leave scars that Dazai would never learn of.
Chuuya had to accept he was no longer his best friends "best friend."
Perhaps, he wondered, that in order to be a first choice one must be worthy.
Perhaps only humans were worthy. He was incapable of connecting enough with someone due to his lack of emotions. Ones that weren't in his 2,383 lines of program.
That was okay. Dazai deserved someone better any way. Somebody that could understand everything humans were meant to have. Not him.
He was accepting that, slowly. But Dazai was still in his life, at the very least. He could learn to be pleased by that. After all, Chuuya was still unique. He couldn't be entirely replaced for Dazai, and he found comfort in that fact.
And then Dazai left without bothering to even leave a single word to Chuuya.
...Chuuya wasn't worth as much as he thought he was to Dazai.
That night he cracked open a bottle of his finest wine, to drown his sorrows. Followed by drowning his legs in a similarly colored liquid, less fearful of being caught by Dazai. After all, he wasn't going to see him anymore.
Which is also why Chuuya felt so much more alone when he cried again.
Sure, he had only brought himself to sob a few times around Dazai.
But now he felt the need to hide it. The betrayal was too much, if Dazai ever saw him cry again he would be deemed even weaker and less worthy and Dazai wouldn't even look at him ever again.
4 years pass, and he doesn't heal. He learns instead to teach his body to lie, to not tear up at every little thing that reminds him of his ex-partner, like the bandages on his legs.
He simply wasn't good enough to be Dazai's first choice.
Or the Sheep's.
And he wasn't even good enough to protect his own subordinates, who had trusted him with their lives.
Pathetic, really.
4 years pass until Chuuya sees Dazai once more, where he let's out all his "anger."
Hes not angry. He's hurt. But he can't let Dazai know he was hurt so easily.
He shows Dazai that he can do better than before without him by his side. Shows him that he wasn't needed in the first place and it was the brunette that was useless, not him.
And Dazai, mastermind of seeing through others, believes it. Believes its his anger and resentment and not Chuuyas desperate craving to be wanted.
Or perhaps Dazai simply didn't care enough to look closely.
That night Chuuya holed himself away, ensuring no one, especially the obnoxiously tall asshole, sees him weep until his body aches that night.
Then, the Port Mafia and Armed Detective Agency learn to become allies, and Chuuya has to live with the ache in his heart that grows more and more painful than usual.
The mackerel he loves oh so much smiles at him and speaks.
"Chuuya!" he drawls out, saying the "u" sound longer than needed. "meet my work partner!"
Chuuya meets Kunikida.
Kunikida, Dazai's partner. Someone who syncs perfectly with Dazai during missions, and has learned to work with the bastard and keep him around. Making him want to stay.
And Chuuya was replaced. That comfort he had in his false belief he had a special place in Dazais heart is gone in an instant.
Chuuya politely smiles as he shakes the blonde's hand, appearing well put together as he chants in his head over and over:
Don't cry.
Don't cry.
Don't cry.
Not here. Not now. Not in front of Dazai.
Chuuya left soon after due to urgent mafia buissness.
After that, Chuuya is not the same. With the only life line he believed shattered in his hands, he broke.
He finally did it. Dazai Osamu finally managed to break Nakahara Chuuya.
A husk of what once was a fiery bright young man.
Slowly, he loses himself.
And no one notices. Because he wasn't their first choice, he wasn't anyone's priority, not even once.
Dazai is focused on Kunikida.
Mori couldn't care less.
The Sheep have left him.
Koyou, who was his sister, who truly loved him, was all too focused on the 14 year old black haired girl she adored all too much.
The Flags, where he thought he might belong, are now left with nothing remaining but six cold slabs of concrete cemented in the ground.
Chuuya was not good enough for any of them. Not strong enough to protect the ones who loved him, not human enough to be noticed by those he loved.
So, he slowly went silent.
Arahabaki spoke to him as he withered away a broken man's soul, commenting on how no one even bothered to notice be rarely talked anymore.
Not. One. Soul.
He spends his days doing mindless work, before coming home and sobbing to himself. Drowning in alcohol and blood.
He's tired.
So tired.
His loyalty was his downfall.
Why couldn't he just let them go, when they clearly didn't care enough?
He tried.
And he did.
He decided that, if they didn't want him, if he was simply that useless, he would leave all of them.
So he said goodbye to them all.
Maybe forever.