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“What the hell, mackerel? You’re leaving?”
“That’s what I said.” Dazai pulled on his black coat with an ominous sense of finality. His masks were firmly in place, protecting him like a fortress and keeping intruders at bay.
Dazai had been acting off all evening, and of course Chuuya had noticed it as his partner—at worst, he’d assumed an oncoming depressive spell. Dazai never reacted well to prying, so Chuuya had offered small mercies that wouldn’t be shot down: canned crab, Dazai’s pick of movie, and gentler fighting that was less likely to bruise. But talking about it? Hilarious.
Until now, with Dazai’s words heavy in the air and ringing with a terrible authenticity.
“For how long?” Chuuya felt like he was choking.
“Indefinitely, slug. What, can’t hear from all the way down there?” Dazai’s usual jibe was flat and lifeless. His back was straight, yet Dazai gave off the impression of a leaf bracing itself against the wind. The fragility looked unnatural on him.
Chuuya went to put a hand on his shoulder, but Dazai flinched back, his face even blanker.
“Forget it. I shouldn’t’ve said anything to Chuuya.”
Chuuya swallowed, a storm of conflicting emotions within him alongside Arahabaki. “It’s good you told me, I think.”
Dazai shot him a look, his skepticism like sandpaper on Chuuya’s fraying nerves.
“Whatever, bastard. How can I get in touch with you?” Chuuya figured Dazai had some master plan to stay safe while pulling a dozen strings. He still didn’t know why Dazai would go into hiding, damn it, but he knew better than to expect that answer now.
“You misunderstand, petit mafia.” Dazai’s eyes narrowed. “We won’t be staying in touch.”
Chuuya waited a moment for the disclaimer, but it didn’t come.
“What the hell? Why’d you bother telling me if you were going to fuck off out of nowhere?”
“I don’t know.” Dazai closed his eyes with a sigh. When he re-opened them, his gaze had sharpened to an icy knife. “We’ve had our moments, but we still hate each other, ne?”
“Wh-what?”
“We’re coworkers. It’s been nice to warm your bed, sure, but Double Black can hardly stand each other otherwise, right? I don’t know why I even bothered coming today.”
Chuuya was struck speechless. “I guess I’ve hated you at times, fuck, but no, I—”
“Leave it, slug.” Dazai’s biting cold thawed into a nothingness that was somehow more terrible. “I don’t care at all. Trusting you with this was a mistake.” He turned away and opened the door in a graceful, efficient movement. “I’ll see myself out.”
Dazai slammed the door as he left.
Chuuya slid to the ground, back pressed against the cool wood, waiting out the shock. From a movie night to that? Surely Dazai was overreacting, considering the sweet way they’d kissed a short while ago, yet his proclamations felt…too vehement to take lightly.
One restless night later, Chuuya woke to a text about Dazai Osamu’s defection and an explosion that fucked up his morning commute.
He didn’t hear from Dazai again for four years.
God, he needed a drink.
“The opposite of love is not hate…it's indifference.” —Elie Wiesel (and similar attributed earlier)
Chuuya was having a bad day, and that stupid mackerel was unlikely to make it any better.
Since… whatever the hell that charade in the prison was supposed to be, he hadn’t heard from the fish. Dazai had re-emerged a couple of years earlier to join “the side of the light”, but of course he hadn’t seen fit to check in with his partner after coming out of hiding. Sure, it’d been a while, but Chuuya would’ve understood, y’know? But each month that passed without the cursed name marring his caller ID, Chuuya got a keener sense that Dazai’s parting jibes were the truth—rather than the embraces and glimmers of softness they’d shared after missions. The bandage-waster simply didn’t give a fuck. In other words, Chuuya felt shitty was so over it.
That led to now, when Chuuya’s phone was ringing.
Mackerel, showed the display, alongside a photo of a stupid traitor wearing a gleeful, fake-ass grin.
The device clattered to the ground.
Chuuya was pretty sure his chest was imploding, but he couldn’t ignore his phone after all this time…right? Like, he could, to be appropriately spiteful, but he was also really fucking curious what had warranted a phone call. Was Dazai gritting his teeth to get more intel for his tigerling, again, or could this actually be prompted by real human emotions relating to Chuuya? Finding out required him to press “Answer”. Ugh.
“My dog picked up!”
“What do you want.”
“Chuuya sounds upset.”
“No fucking kidding. Hello Dazai,” Chuuya briefly put on a lilt, “now, want to tell me why the hell you’re calling?”
“I’d rather not.”
“Hilarious. Well, nice talking to you—”
“Wait—I miss you, Chuuya.” There was a weirdly emotional edge to his voice.
“Hah?!” Their recent reunion had involved fists and verbal barbs—nothing like this.
“The sky was so beautiful and I couldn’t stop thinking of you. I miss you like a lung… like I always do.”
“What are you on right now?”
“No substances. There was a—” He coughed. “I shouldn’t have to—okay, fine, I had a run-in with an ability that compels me to tell the truth. Ugh. Anyway, that’s the situation.”
“And you called me?”
“Apparently,” huffed Dazai, sounding much more ruffled than normal. “I’ve been trying not to all evening. It was difficult and I failed. But here we are.”
“Do you…need help?”
“N—well, it’s better if you don’t come.” Dazai choked out. His voice relaxed into a drawl. “Don’t strain yourself; I know the chibi hates me. I don’t blame him. If I were in Chuuya’s place, I’d want to gouge out my eyeballs—” There was a commotion in the background. Chuuya thought he heard the weretiger’s voice, and then Atsushi took over the phone.
“Sorry, ahem, whatever he was saying, don’t worry about it! Bye!”
Click.
Chuuya stared dazedly at the phone, blinking.
His phone dinged with one text after another.
“Come if you want, chibi
“wish I could hear your cute yapping
“ugh sorry slug
“It’s hurting me not to tell you fffjjng”
“forget it
“pls
“it’ll pass eventually
“but I just want to
“fliflew”
“hi this is atsushi sorry for the bother! All the best for your evening Chuuya-san!”
Once again, Chuuya found himself staring at his phone in a haze of baffled adrenaline. While part of him didn’t want to take advantage of that ridiculous bandage-waster, Dazai was in some kind of distress that Chuuya could help with…maybe? And to be honest, he was also really damn curious.
He’d try his luck.
Chuuya vaguely regretted his choice as soon as he walked into the ADA dorm hallway.
“I told you, none of this matters and I want to die—”
“Dazai-san, please—”
“I don’t want you here right now, Atsushi, and I don’t think you can help anymore. That’s as kind as I can be about it right now, so stop testing me.”
“Could I at least—”
“Please just—”
Chuuya had hesitated by the door, but he couldn’t listen to this any longer. He overcompensated with a confident knock.
“Is that Chuuya? I—mmph” Dazai seemed to have slapped a hand over his own mouth.
Atsushi opened the door, looking sheepish.
“Oh, hello Chuuya-san! Sorry, Dazai-san is indisposed right now—it might be better to come some other time!”
“Let him in,” gasped Dazai, apparently giving up on stopping himself. “Please, fuck, it hurts not to talk to him. Silly slug.”
What? “Hi,” said Chuuya, accepting the invitation to walk in.
“Can I tell you some things and you’ll do your best to forget them and everything will be like normal tomorrow?” Desperation was a jarring look on Dazai. He ran a hand through his hair. Chuuya noticed his eyes were suspiciously red.
“Dazai-san, are you sure?”
“Please leave us,” said Dazai, and Atsushi reluctantly left the apartment.
Chuuya realized his ex-partner was still waiting for an answer. “Yeah, tell me what you need to.”
“I lied,” said Dazai. “when I said I didn’t care. I cared so much, but I still had to go, for Odasaku’s sake and my own, and it all hurt so damn much.” His voice broke.
Seeing this amount of emotion on his partner was genuinely worrying. “Dazai—”
“Just let me finish.” Dazai swallowed. He reached out a hand, and when Chuuya didn’t move away, he cupped his cheek with an uncharacteristic gentleness. No Longer Human was soothing and cool. “I know I’m cruel and hardly worth being called human—you deserve the title much more, chibi—but you were by far the best part of that hellhole. We were good partners. Even if my blood bleeds mafia black, that place was… I couldn’t stay there, but leaving Chuuya behind made me so fucking sad.” He breathed heavily, dropping his hand, as if the compulsion had given him some relief.
“Dazai,” breathed Chuuya, pulse hammering. “I– I missed you too. We were good partners.”
“I tried to make you hate me.” Dazai worried his lip. “At first because it was fun, and it made me feel alive—but at the end, I wanted you to despise and forget me. That way, it would be less painful for my dog to be left alone.”
“Your ‘dog.’” His eyes rolled half-heartedly. “You’re good at most things,” Chuuya admitted, “but you failed at making me hate you. Or… at least it’s more complicated. You’re not instantly forgiven for all the shitty parts, but…here I am. Still.”
They stared at each other a moment.
“Can I do something really fucking honest,” Dazai’s voice was soft, “even if you might hate it?”
“At this point, why not?”
Dazai moved closer, his face filling Chuuya’s frame of vision. Damn, that man was blessed with great facial structure—and then all Chuuya could see and think was Dazai, Dazai, as their lips slotted together.
It felt different this time. It wasn’t a fight or a power struggle—though he hadn’t minded that, veins singing with adrenaline—but this kiss felt like a gift or a promise. It felt weighty and yet gentle in some precious way. Chuuya wondered if he was in some parallel universe, using the thought capacity that remained beyond “his lips are warm” and “holy fucking shit, I think I might love him.” A minute or an eternity passed; it was impossible to tell.
He pulled back for a second—the other making a little sound of protest—but Chuuya couldn’t resist a quick peek at the mackerel’s face, flushed and undone. He ran his fingers through the glorious, dark, slightly greasy hair, cataloguing all those sensations he hadn’t experienced for four years.
“Osamu.” That earned him a small intake of breath. “You know how I feel about you, right?”
Dazai groaned, burying his face into Chuuya’s shoulder. “Chuu-uuya, asking right now is unfair.” He nuzzled closer, like a plant that had remembered it needed the sun. “I want to say yes, but I physically can’t.”
Chuuya pulled him into a closer embrace, hand still on Dazai’s head. “Try for me, bastard.”
“Only chibi can make that sound sweet,” Dazai whined for a moment. “Fine. I know you don’t fully hate me, as deserved as it might be, and that you obviously have sexual attraction for me—” he lifted his head, his mouth twisted into a soft smirk, “and Chuuya is obviously a romantic, though I’m not sure if those feelings apply to me, which bothers me a little—but you damn well know I wouldn’t be admitting ignorance if it weren’t for the ability.” His eyes trailed hungrily to Chuuya’s mouth. “Is this retribution for the last time or five that I tortured the chibi, messed with his wine, et cetera?”
“Maybe.” Chuuya returned the smirk, his thumb brushing across Dazai’s bottom lip. “But do you want me to put you out of your misery? Tell you, even without an ability forcing me?”
“Yes, I want to know what you feel about me.” Dazai paused with an internal struggle. “And I also want to make out with you and fuck and everything in between, but I’m being very patient.”
“Good boy.” Dazai flushed under the praise. Interesting. Chuuya held his face and pressed a kiss into each cheek. “Osamu, you drive me out of my mind. You’ve fucked me over so many times I stopped keeping track at seventeen…but not a day goes by that I don’t think of you or your stupid face. And you make me feel more alive. You always have.” Now he was blushing too. Great. “And yes, sometimes in a don’t-make-me-shoot-you way, but we also have fun, and we make an unstoppable team. Even with all the little everyday shit like games, or movies, or grabbing food. You make me feel goddamn human, rightfully or not, and I appreciate that more than I can say.”
Dazai’s eyes got progressively wider like he was ascending to shoujo-protagonist mode, if not shock, but Chuuya couldn’t make himself shut up.
“No-one knows me like you, mackerel, and I don’t want to ever lose you like that again. And that’s fucking selfish, I know, you can refuse, but part of me hopes that you’ll stay in my life this time and be mine. Officially. Let me know you, fully, even if it costs me every shred of my sanity.”
“Yes, chibi, yes.” Dazai met him in a sparkling, crushing kiss. “…And I love Chuuya, too.”
Chuuya had never been so glad to be wrong: Dazai had turned his shitty day into one that was truly bizarre, yet remarkable.
They had more talking to do, whether or not it would be during Dazai’s few hours of perfect honesty. However, first, they had an apartment to themselves and the rest of that to-do list. They would figure out this messy, fiery thing between them. From now on, they had time.