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Dazai Osamu is a man of many, many things. Some of his co-workers would argue about who Dazai is, but it is indisputable that he is the Mastermind. His mind runs a mile per second, and he can think of all variants of the same plan, choosing which one has the highest success rate.
He is logical, rational, and emotionless when he must be, calculating every single step he must take in order to defeat his enemies. That is his strongest asset. He may be unsure if he’s a good human, or even if he’s human at all, but he’s sure about how to move his chess pieces.
That’s why he can’t grasp the idea that his plan didn’t work out. Every single step and miscalculation was considered, and every insignificant factor was meticulously planned. Even Fukuzawa said his plan was foolproof.
So, what the fuck is Nakahara Chuuya doing here?
Dazai thought about every detail as a way to keep Chuuya as far as possible from this hell for a place. Dazai would rather swallow his pride and admit he was wrong than deal with this circus right now.
Now he must deal with an injured Chuuya, their enemies surrounding them, and his brain rambling because seeing Chuuya injured apparently throws him off.
It was a rather simple plan.
Following the aftermath of Fyodor and the Decay of Angels, peace was restored worldwide, and now the Agency and the Port Mafia have, to tell the truth, a weird alliance. Dazai’s job consisted in going to a secluded place in Russia and look after the mess Fyodor left behind.
He had to infiltrate one of Fyodor’s bases as a prisoner, collect all important information, dismantle the base, blow the place off, and happily, he could’ve gone home to see a new chapter of his favorite series. He accomplished three of these things, just seconds before Chuuya came storming.
Yet again, it doesn’t matter the tons of plans Dazai elaborates on and how much he weighs their success, Chuuya will always break them and make them dust, just because it’s Chuuya, the one who knows Dazai the best.
How funny.
“We are doomed and it’s totally your fault!” Dazai screams louder than the bullet rain happening outside.
“Just shut up and think how we can get the hell out of here!” Chuuya screams back, holding the right side of his torso.
It was a miscalculation, an error.
The bullet was going directly to Dazai’s chest and Chuuya just reacted blindly, pushing his partner and in consequence deactivating Tainted Sorrow, taking the bullet.
But Dazai has a plan, he always has one.
“You need to use Corruption,” Dazai says, barely whispering and with a serious expression. “It’s the only way.”
“I’m injured. If I activate Corruption, there's a high percent chance that is going to be my last —” Chuuya says back to Dazai, but after seeing how serious the other's face looks, he decides to go quiet, waiting for Dazai’s response.
“I know”. It’s the only answer Chuuya gets, so he nods and looks at Dazai in a silent plea.
And because it’s Dazai, he knows exactly what Chuuya wanted to say.
Don’t let me die, I trust you.
“I swear to god Dazai, if we die here, I’m going to drag you from hell and kill you again” Chuuya mutters while taking his gloves off.
The next thing Dazai hears are the lines that keep haunting him in his dreams, shaping into his most feared nightmares: Oh, Grantors of Dark Disgrace, Do Not Wake Me Again.
And just like that, it happens.
Chuuya is now Arahabaki, surrounded by red light. He rises from the ground and uses his power. Is brutal the way Arahabaki seems to consume Chuuya, how is Chuuya but not Chuuya at the same time.
Dazai remembers the first time he saw Arahabaki taking control of Chuuya’s body, one fateful night at 16 years old. If it’s brutal seeing Arahabaki after years of getting used to it, the first time was utterly terrifying. Dazai wasn’t sure how far Arahabaki could go at that moment in their lives, and after telling Chuuya what could happen if he decided to wake Arahabaki by his own will, he was still surprised to see the calamity God waking up. It was like seeing a dream from an outsider’s perspective, without being able to do anything. Being with Chuuya is always like that.
If Chuuya is a natural force, then Arahabaki is the force that consumes everything, leaving no trace of life behind.
Even so, Dazai is still impressed when he realizes that apparently, Arahabaki seems to know that Chuuya is injured, so his attacks, and the madness that lies within them, are more measured, more calculated.
It looks like Chuuya is capable of controlling Arahabaki, even in the most twisted way possible. Dazai can just be bewildered. Years after falling apart and coming back together, Chuuya still finds different ways to make him question everything he knows.
That’s the excitement of being around Chuuya, Dazai thinks.
In the same way it started, it’s the same way it ends. When Dazai doesn’t hear anything but maniacal laughs he runs to Chuuya, hoping that Arahabki doesn’t kill him in the process. It's the same way that when they were sixteen, eighteen, and twenty-two. Dazai approaches Chuuya and using No Longer Human, he nullifies Corruption.
“Rest Chuuya, I’ve got you” It’s the last thing that Chuuya hears before he faints.
Dazai can properly say that they’re fucked up.
He let those Russian bastards capture him on purpose because he needed every single piece of information he could get his hands on. He gave instructions to Atsushi and Akutagawa about how they would’ve proceeded in case something backfired.
The time in Meursault four years ago was rightfully awful, and Fyodor was an impertinent little piece of shit, but at least he was some sort of entertaining company. These Russians were terribly unfunny.
But then again, his mind goes back to Chuuya.
And as much as Dazai hates to admit it, he needed Mori’s help. It was objectively impossible to execute this plan alone, and even the Agency’s resources were short for this task. The original plan was that the Black Lizard would help him to infiltrate the base, notoriously enough to get caught in the moment, and extract him after exactly one month.
He didn’t even consider Chuuya for the task. He went to speak with Mori, making a clear statement that Chuuya couldn’t get involved in his mission. It doesn’t matter if they’re partners again, Dazai wanted Chuuya as far as possible from this. So it was an unpleasant surprise seeing him breaking walls and screaming his name loud enough to make some people deaf. What a bad dog, he can’t even obey a simple order. From Mori.
Because you didn’t want to put him in danger, his traitor mind says to him.
So, in retrospect, it’s fairly easy to Dazai to understand what went wrong to end in the position they’re in right now. Dazai walks walking across the forest while having Chuuya on his back, searching for a safe house Dazai knows for sure exists somewhere (trust Mori to have safe houses in practically every single damn place).
Dazai swears that if Corruption didn’t kill Chuuya, he is going to kill him and call it even.
After a long walk in the merciless cold of the Russian forest, Dazai starts to see what looks like a typical safe house from the mafia. With his last breath, he accelerates the pace and arrives panting. He deposits Chuuya on the couch and goes back to close the door, searching for some kind of heating in the house.
He’s tired, surprised, and dirty. The worst possible combination for a man like him.
He checks on everything, being sure the windows are locked, and looking outside just to assure himself no one followed them. Afterward, he starts to search for the aid kit around, which he finds in the bathroom, and goes straight back to help Chuuya.
The injuries are not as bad as they seemed, and —god bless his years with the Mafia and the Agency— he extracts the bullet from Chuuya’s torso, cleans his injuries from the fall, and searches for appropriate clothes for both of them, which is hoping for a miracle, honestly. No wonder he is surprised when he spots a little box in the bedroom, containing appropriate clothes for the weather.
What in the actual hell is going on? It’s the only thing Dazai is capable of thinking. He cringes too. God, he’s starting to pick Chuuya’s vocabulary.
Dazai is utterly and ultimately done. Done.
When he finishes cleaning and changing Chuuya’s clothes, he looks directly at Chuuya’s chest, seeing it rising and falling to the rhythm of his breath.
The only thing that gives Dazai a break from his insanity is checking Chuuya’s pulse every five minutes. Just seeing him breathing, feeling that his partner is alive with the touch of his fingers. Now he just needs to wait for Chuuya to come back to him, like he always does.
Dazai just sits and waits, looking through the window and focusing on the sound of Chuuya’s deep inhales. In the precarious silence, he can only think about what Chuuya is doing here, straight up eliding an order from Mori, someone whom Chuuya holds in high reward.
He just sits and waits, because, for the first time in his twenty-six years of living in this world, he doesn’t know what to think, or which conclusion to come to.
Of course, he could claim that in the same way Chuuya knows him better than everyone else, it applies the other way around too; after all, they’ve been partners for eleven years. Just someone like Nakahara Chuuya would stick that long with someone like Dazai Osamu.
Some people would say they’re like magnets, always finding ways to reach each other, and Dazai can agree that at some point, something about them felt inevitable, like they were meant to be. That’s how the universe works. Chuuya and Dazai. Dazai and Chuuya.
Whatever their souls are made of, Chuuya and Dazai’s souls are made of the same substance.
The silence gives Dazai room to think a lot, and with the thinking comes to its regrets, and it gives space for his background thoughts to finally reach the surface level, practically screaming at Dazai. And he can’t keep playing cat and mouse with his mind, not for too long.
Thinking about Chuuya always gives him a warm feeling in the pit of his stomach, at the same time he just wants to combust on the spot.
Although Chuuya and Dazai came to amicable terms after cleaning the Agency’s name and coming up with this sort of strange alliance between the Agency and the Port Mafia, there is still a huge number of things left unsaid. Four years had passed after coming back as Double Black, and they’re still tiptoeing the fact that Dazai betrayed the Mafia. That Dazai left Chuuya behind. Even though for Dazai, leaving the mafia didn’t equally mean leaving Chuuya.
But no amount of regret or apologies will patch up how Dazai left Chuuya hanging on eight years ago, Dazai knows that. He knows that already, and with this knowledge comes something way much worse in Dazai’s measures. He already fell in love with Chuuya, a long time ago enough when the lines between hate and love were blurred.
One day, he just woke up on a normal Tuesday, got on his way to work, and halfway through he realized that he wanted to buy that ridiculously expensive wine for Chuuya just to see him smile one more time. Rather pathetic, he can admit.
But it’s easier to say than do, and even though Dazai had a lot of time to process his feelings, it led him to the inevitable conclusion that he would never act on those feelings, he knows better than let them get in his way of having Chuuya back in his life again.
Because it has been four years since Dazai and Chuuya returned as Double Black, but Dazai can still see the wariness in Chuuya’s eyes when he meets him after a long day at work, he still goes tense every time Dazai leaves without notice for a long time. Dazai knows damn well that although Chuuya would trust him unconditionally in the heat of the moment, Chuuya stills has walls around him, walls specifically made so that Dazai doesn’t try to go through them. He even tried, he tried so hard.
When Oda told him to go to the good side, he just took the advice and ran as fast as he could, not even thinking twice about Chuuya, he knew it was useless. Dazai knows deep into his core that Chuuya wouldn’t have followed him. The grass is green, the sun is warm, and Chuuya wouldn’t have followed Dazai, that’s how universal truths work.
But sometimes, just sometimes, in the dark of the night, or even in the gentle murmur of the leaves, he thinks about their what-ifs.
What if Chuuya had followed him? What if Dazai had stayed in the mafia? What if they were completely different people? then, would Dazai have to courage to confess his feelings? Would he be quiet about the consuming ache in the center of his chest for the rest of his life? What if, what if, what if, and all of them are senseless.
Sometimes it feels like he and Chuuya are perpendicular lines, destined to touch just once, at the right angle, and then spend the rest of their lives running away from each other.
Dazai doesn’t know what to do with the consuming feeling inside him, he doesn’t know what do to with the love he has for Chuuya. Because even if he thinks that he, essentially, doesn’t know how to love, he will, he can try to do it, just for Chuuya.
Dazai can admit he is rather good with words, he has a talent for manipulating people, but when it comes the time to speak his truth and speak about his feelings, he’s suddenly a toddler.
He knows that the only way that Chuuya could believe him is through actions, and he knows the only person capable of seeing the ulterior motive in everything he does, it’s Chuuya. Dazai will spend the rest of his life showing Chuuya how much he genuinely adores him. Because Dazai knows how full of life Chuuya is, he got to see it first-hand, and he can sheepishly admit that even on his worse days, Chuuya’s vitality was the only thing that kept him afloat.
Back to the point, and after all his mental rambling, Dazai can’t find a logical reason for Chuuya to come to his rescue, to put his life in danger just to take care of Dazai. Sure, that is how it has been working for the past eleven years, but Dazai can sense there’s something more to it. He could just attribute the stubbornness to know about Dazai to Chuuya’s nature, but he finds it rather weird how managed to know about his mission, because Mori can be a man of many things, but Mori understands how little it would help Chuuya knowing Dazai’s whereabouts.
It just doesn’t make sense in Dazai’s mind, and the only way he can even starts making it make sense it's attributing it to something more, something he doesn’t want his treacherous heart to hope for. The thought of Chuuya caring for him just for the sake of it is forbidden ground.
Dazai stays for a while like that, just thinking. He knows Chuuya will wake up in an uncomfortable position on the couch, but he can’t manage to move his partner to the bed, so he stays sitting on the floor with Chuuya resting on the couch.
And Dazai sees the sun setting behind the trees, hearing Chuuya’s soft breathing and feeling his pulse between his fingers.
Chuuya wakes up almost at dawn, feeling widespread pain throughout his body and Dazai’s hand gripping his wrist. So maybe he died after all.
He takes a moment to dissect his surroundings and let his brain clear the fog of his memories. Russia. Fyodor’s old base. Bullet rain. Dazai. It just seems that everything irrevocably circles back to Dazai. Chuuya finds it quite annoying if he allows himself to be honest about this whole matter.
Stupid, reckless Dazai; Chuuya sometimes wonders what could’ve been if they didn’t cross paths that one fateful day when they were both fifteen. But he decides to brush it under the carpet and just stares at his partner while he sleeps.
Chuuya always found it peaceful seeing Dazai sleeping, because for once, the other man doesn’t look like he weights the world on his shoulders, he looks rather calm, just breathing and with his eyes closed, and even when the nightmares kick Dazai in the night, Chuuya can always see a bit of clearness in his eyes before they cloud over again.
Chuuya likes seeing Dazai sleeping for the sole thing that he looks less like Atlas and more like he’s a modern resemble of Odysseus.
Thanks to knowing that bastard of a man for eleven years, he came to the inevitable conclusion that wherever Dazai strays, Chuuya will follow him. The grass is green, the sun is warm, and Chuuya will inevitably come back to Dazai. That’s how universal truths work.
The fact that they’re back together after four years of silence following Dazai leaving the Mafia it’s a fairly really good explanation of how their dynamic work.
Two magnets searching each other until the end of the world. But albeit he had more than enough time to digest this thought, he isn’t going to lie and say that it was easy for him.
Because with Dazai betraying the mafia, that also means Dazai betrayed Chuuya. And even years after these sequences of events took place in their lives, the visceral feeling of betrayal stills gets caught in his throat. Chuuya knows Dazai knows it too.
He can feel how Dazai restrains himself from doing certain things around Chuuya, how the joke dies on his lips when he catches Chuuya zoning out with a sour look on his face.
Chuuya has always trusted Dazai blindly on the battlefield, but it took time and things left unsaid to be able to trust him again in mundane things, and above everything else, trusting that he isn’t going to leave him behind again. Chuuya managed to make peace with Dazai leaving the Mafia years ago, but that doesn’t necessarily imply that he wasn’t angry about it.
Considering that it is Dazai’s fault that Chuuya is in the Mafia in the first place.
But Chuuya gets it, of course he does. Even if Dazai keeps making suicidal jokes (because bad habits die hard) Chuuya knows that they lack heat, that at the end of the day, Dazai doesn’t mean it.
Leaving the Mafia was one of the best decisions Dazai ever made. And if he had stayed there, he would’ve died a long time ago. And Chuuya prefers an annoying Dazai asking if he can eat crab for breakfast that one that is not even with him. Thank you very much.
And by reconciling the thought that he prefers a living Dazai, it implies feelings there. In the beginning, Chuuya just attributed it to the fact that he considers Dazai an important person in his life, against his better judgment too. But after the years had passed and they grew close together, Chuuya realized and accepted that his feelings for Dazai are a little bit more than platonic, to say at least. And the worst part is that he can trace them back since they were sixteen.
Maybe that’s one of the reasons Dazai’s betrayal hurts deep in his bones, because in that treacherous and vicious cycle in which they became involved, his heart was in line too.
But Chuuya doesn’t think about the what-ifs of their relationship, Dazai covers the overthinking part for both of them. He doesn't even dare to think about what might have been in case Dazai had asked Chuuya to go with him. And the honest truth is that, as it happens, he doesn’t know what he would’ve answered if he had asked him.
Some days he thinks he might have said yes, other days he thinks he would’ve said no, but most of the time he actively ignores the thought. It’s useless to keep moping about something that happened years ago. It hurt, sure, but he knows better than everyone to not look back.
Circling back to his annoying feelings for his annoying partner, it's clear that Chuuya and stubbornness are synonyms at this point in life. So, he is just going to swallow his feelings and ignore them as much as possible, even if it kills him in the process. No one said that he’s the best one regarding emotional management.
Sometimes, looking at Dazai feels a little bit like looking directly into the sun. You can do it only for a few seconds before everything starts to burn and feel like you’re going blind.
But most of the time, being with Dazai feels like looking at the moon. Just a lonely satellite surrounded by the shiny sky. He who shines in just a dim light, bright enough to walk in the dark, but dim enough to leave a feeling of gloom in the stomach.
At moments like this, when the world seems stills and it’s the quietest quiet that surrounds them, Chuuya can take a moment to appreciate Dazai entirely like the man he is. His flaws, his mistakes, but his passion and his sentimentality too.
For Chuuya is clear that this universe doesn’t deserve Dazai, in the most paradoxical way possible. A boy who was too scared of the world and void of human feelings, but the same boy who would run to the bright side just because someone dear to him told him to. The same boy still called Chuuya his partner even after a stop for four years. And even if Dazai is struggling less with his feelings of humanity, there is still a fear lingering around him.
Sometimes Chuuya wishes Dazai would understand that the fact that he doubts his humanity is irrefutable proof of how human he is. In the same way Dazai believed in Chuuya’s humanity back when they were sixteen, Chuuya will believe in Dazai’s humanity too.
It happens that the universe is an absolute piece of shit and seems to hate Chuuya for no particular reason, so of course, the moment he begins to be soft around Dazai as a person, is the same moment Dazai abruptly wakes up.
They stare at each other for minutes, hours, eons even. Dazai keeps his hand around Chuuya’s wrist and Chuuya makes his best effort to suppress the necessity to touch Dazai somewhere. The other man just looks Chuuya in the eyes, as if Chuuya is some kind of puzzle he doesn’t know how to solve.
And as a matter of course, because Dazai is just an obnoxious moron who doesn’t understand that he isn’t allowed to disrupt Chuuya’s mental rambling about him, he opens his mouth.
Why?
It’s the only thing that Dazai dares to say, and somehow it changes everything.
“Why what Dazai? You have to be more specific about it” It’s the only response Chuuya is capable of giving to Dazai, ignoring his partner's stare and trying to get up from the couch.
Two can play the fool if they’re smart enough.
“Why did you come here when I asked Mori to not let you know that I was on this type of mission?” Dazai answers, and he waits for Chuuya’s response, but when it’s still just silence between them, he keeps talking. “It’s dangerous being here Chuuya, even with the Decay of Angels gone, you shouldn’t be here— you— you know it”
Being separated for four years really made their dynamic slightly different. To Chuuya, Dazai isn’t anymore the eighteen-year-old kid who wanted to die; and to Dazai, Chuuya isn’t anymore the short-tempered guy who needed some sort of constant validation. They grew separately from each other, and they can understand each other quite better now, but there’s just enough amount of time and unsaid things between them to create an abysm, where they are constantly screaming for understanding.
They both aren’t going to acknowledge it in front of the other, but it’s the elephant in the room. And somehow deep in their bodies, where the flesh meets the bone, it just hurts.
And because Chuuya doesn’t mind stopping this endless running back in circles for more than a decade now, he takes a moment to give an answer that Dazai can (and has to) accept. He’s a tired man, give him a break.
“Because I couldn’t stand you being alone here in this shitty country”. A pause, and Chuuya proceeds. “And after all, I've been your partner for a long time.”
A beat and the two of them remain in silence. Dazai is looking directly at Chuuya, still not understanding what everything is about. And because Chuuya can’t stand Dazai looking at him like that, he moves from the couch and tries to get a glass of water.
Dazai doesn’t try to stop him, but he stands too and follows Chuuya from close, as if Chuuya is something so fragile that it may break, and being completely honest, it may happen.
They both sit at the table, Chuuya with a glass in his hand and Dazai with his arms crossed and, in his expression, it seems like he’s evaluating and recalculating the whole situation.
Maybe that’s the natural course of the universe, Chuuya and Dazai sitting, facing each other while both look at the sunrise in complete quietness. After a few seconds, Dazai decides he can’t take the silence anymore.
“But how did you know where I was?” Dazai says, still looking through the window, but the furrow in his eyebrows is quite obvious. “I don’t think Mori is that sort of an idiot to break an agreement with me”.
“Mori didn’t tell me where you were” Chuuya answers in a fragile moment of honesty, and he can see how Dazai’s eyes widen in surprise.
“And what exactly do you mean by that?” And finally, Dazai moves his head and is looking at Chuuya. He doesn’t know if it was better if Dazai kept looking through the window, because he’s piercing Chuuya with his eyes.
“Let's just say that I skipped a few steps and looked directly into Mori’s files” Chuuya responds somewhat defensively. He doesn’t like the feeling that is forming in his stomach, the uneasiness of being discovered doing something you aren’t allowed to do.
“Why on earth would you do that? Are you mental?” Dazai reacts, looking straightforwardly appalled at Chuuya. Okay, he gets it, but why Dazai has to be so dramatic? It’s not the first time Chuuya sneaks around to look up for something maybe he shouldn’t look.
“You left without saying anything” again. It’s the word that comes unsaid. Doesn’t matter, Dazai picks up the hesitation in Chuuya’s voice. “You disappeared without a trace on a random Tuesday and I just— I thought— I just wanted to know that you were okay”.
“But snooping around Mori’s files? There was a reason why I didn’t tell you where I was going” Dazai looks downright disrupted as if the foundations of what he believes to be true are falling apart just because Chuuya went to his rescue. As if Chuuya hasn’t done this exact same shit for almost half of their life.
“Quit up with your shit because you and me, we both know that I would come to rescue you, I don’t understand why you are asking me that in the first place” Chuuya responds, but it’s clear he doesn’t have a logical explanation to come and rescue Dazai, it is somewhat an instinct at this point. “You don’t have any sense of self-preservation”.
A pause, then
“I’m sorry,” Dazai says.
Well, that throws off Chuuya a little bit, because somewhat and without even realizing it, Chuuya doesn’t know on which ground they’re standing right now. Both feel the change in the air and suddenly, they both realize their words hold more weight than intended. They’re walking in a dangerous and unexplored land, and the thing is, neither of them now if they’re walking it together or against each other.
Maybe Chuuya really died, and he is in his own personal hell. Or maybe, the abysm separating them finally created a bridge between their two lonely souls, not screaming, but begging for understating.
“Why are you saying that you’re sorry? Finally gone mad?” Chuuya says, holding Dazai’s gaze, who is clearly struggling with what to say or how to react.
“For not telling you I was leaving for a mission” Dazai’s voice is steady while he keeps talking, looking directly into Chuuya’s eyes. “I know it’s not what you deserved, but— I had my reasons”.
“Enlighten me then, fucking asshole” Chuuya hisses back.
“Because it was so fucking dangerous Chuuya!” Dazai exclaims a little bit worked up. “Yokohama is a playground compared to this place”.
“That doesn’t mean shit!” Chuuya doesn’t notice that he’s screaming. “I am a fucking Mafia executive, I can control the gravity for fuck’s sake, that’s a lame excuse!”
“I know Chuuya, I know!” Dazai says, and at this point, they’re screaming at each other. “You wouldn’t get it, just leave it!”.
“You’re being a fucking asshole” Chuuya replies, his tone dropping. “Stop being so obnoxious about the whole matter”. And honestly, Chuuya can sense how Dazai wants to say something more but doesn’t dare to say it.
There is a fragile silence between them, this time Chuuya is looking through the window while Dazai stares at him.
“I’m not the same person who I was at fifteen, or eighteen.” It’s Dazai who decides to break the silence. Chuuya moves his head, so he stares back at Dazai, who is looking at him with some new clarity in his eyes.
Like he is trying to voice something he’s not fully capable of.
“I know that, trust me” Chuuya replies.
God, he knows, he truly knows it. And it terrifies him.
How many nights he stayed awake thinking that maybe they weren’t compatible anymore. That the little thread and the fragile understanding between them finally expired. Because Chuuya saw him change, how his voice became a little deeper, his posture more relaxed, his smile more genuine and his words wiser.
He finally took courage and looked Dazai right into his eyes, just to see him with a tiny smile on his face. There isn’t any facade anymore. It is just Dazai, Dazai Osamu. Not the Mastermind, or the Demon Prodigy, not even an agent from the Armed Detective Agency, it is just 26-year-old Dazai. Not even his Dazai.
“I am really sorry” Dazai says again, but Chuuya is frowning.
“Why are you saying sorry again?” Chuuya replies to Dazai, a little bit on the edge. “You said it yourself, just drop it”.
“It’s just— we became partners again a few years ago, and after all these years I wasn’t even capable of saying sorry for leaving you.” And the earnestness in Dazai’s voice is palpable in a way that freezes Chuuya.
“All you had to do was tell me that you were leaving” Chuuya finally says. “I never asked for something more”.
“I guess you were right there, but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it” Dazai responds after meditating on his answer.
“There is no point discussing this, you left, I felt betrayed, end of the story”.
“Could you please just stop being stubborn?” Dazai snaps, and Chuuya stays still. “You and I know that if we keep playing this touch-and-go with whatever is happening between us, it will get worse”.
Maybe it wasn’t the best choice of words because it upset Chuuya so much. And maybe that’s what both needed it.
Trust them to communicate when the bridge between their abysses is on fire.
“You want to fucking talk? let’s talk then” Chuuya replies, dropping his tone with some resentment in his voice. “You put a bomb on my car the day you left but you weren’t capable of even telling me you were leaving; I didn’t know shit about you for four years Dazai! I thought you were dead for four fucking years!”
“What did you expect?! I’m a traitor to the Mafia! the moment Mori knew I tried to contact you; you would’ve had your mouth on the asphalt!” Dazai yells, not noticing when he raised his voice. “The Port Mafia it's your family, not mine. I couldn’t ask you to come with me”.
“I was your family too, fucking damn it!” Chuuya screams back. “And even if I say it, you left me behind, you betrayed me!”.
“You were the only reason I stayed so long there. I betrayed the mafia, but I didn’t betray you, could you please understand that?” The bite in Dazai’s tone is gone, and the only thing left is a plea in his eyes.
“Are you just saying nonsense now?”. Chuuya is looking at Dazai, injecting as much venom as he can. “Stop talking bullshit”.
“The Mafia didn’t mean as much as you mean to me stupid hatrack” and it’s clear how Dazai is trying his best to be honest with him, but Chuuya isn’t going to acknowledge it. “It doesn’t matter how many times I say sorry, but why do you think I still called you my partner even in those four years separated?”
“Why? Because you had brain damage?” Chuuya replies with a frown on his face. He hates when Dazai starts being cryptic out of nowhere.
“You will never be just someone from the Mafia to me Chuuya,” Dazai says while passing his hand through his hair, trying to find the right words to say. “You mean more to me than the Mafia ever did, I never saw it like leaving you. Even if we are on different sides, we are still double black”.
“What assures me that even if you changed our relationship stayed the same? Dazai, you know better than everyone that we are not the same double black that we were years ago”. Chuuya refutes him.
“That’s the fucking point Chuuya!” Dazai replies, with what seems a tone of desperation in his voice. “Because we are not the same as we were years ago. But I can assure you one thing: my feelings never changed for you even after all these years!”.
And to be honest, being calm, self-composed, and finally overcoming his demons is a really good thing for Dazai. Being a better person and helping people on the good side, Odasaku would be proud of him. But letting his stupid feelings slip in the heat of an argument? That’s the stupidest thing he's ever done.
But he is talking to Chuuya, his Chuuya. The one who can pick up his moods better than everyone else and can surprise him even when he plans everything. And he is still terrified of losing him, the only thing that remains constant in his life. He is a friend with loss and regret, and knows very well how life can take the things he loves the most.
Because yes, lying was easy at the start. Pretending that he didn’t have feeling things for his partner was easy, and pretending that he didn’t care about the other guy was easy at the beginning, but now the consuming ache in his chest is so big that he can barely breathe.
It is funny, how the two of them are perfect for each other in the most twisted and mysterious way.
“What?” It’s the only thing Chuuya can say, and after the argument starts losing its heat, he starts to feel dizzy, remembering his injury and sitting down again. “I’m tired Dazai, of these wicked games”.
And Dazai can perfectly catch what Chuuya means.
Don’t lie to me.
"I think I'm in love with you Chuuya” Dazai responds, dropping his tone to a calmer one, and facing the sunrise at its highest point. “I just wanted to waste my time standing on the sidewalk, I just wanted to keep you a little longer”.
Chuuya doesn’t respond, and Dazai doesn’t know how to act. Dazai is looking at the sunrise happening outside, but Chuuya looks at his partner out of the corner of his eye.
“If you want the truth, there is it. That’s the reason I didn’t tell you about this mission because it doesn’t matter how many times I go through a plan, if it involves you, suddenly I’m the stupidest person in the world. I didn’t tell you not because I don’t trust you, or that I wanted you far away, but because I was so scared of losing you. And I did it, in the end. You’re injured and probably planning how to smother me with the pillow the moment I let my guard down”.
“Saying ‘I love you’ would be a pitiful excuse of an argument to explain what I feel for you. The biggest the feeling, the shorter the words, I guess. Love is a concept that doesn’t even grasp my feelings, but you are my partner Chuuya, nothing will ever change that”.
Both of them fall into a delicate silence, and after a pause, Chuuya stands up and goes to the back of the safe house, leaving Dazai alone. After what seemed like hours, Chuuya comes back and looks at Dazai with the most determined look he has ever had on his face.
“Let’s just leave, let’s begin again somewhere new,” Chuuya says.
“Huh?” It’s the only answer Dazai can give.
“They know how to find us if they need us. Besides, don’t you think is time to have a little break?” Chuuya explains. “And… you’ll always be my partner, no matter where we are”.
‘I think I’m in love with you too’ is the sentence that is left unsaid, but it doesn’t matter, Dazai can understand it without even saying it. That’s how everything between them works.
Dazai doesn’t say anything, but Chuuya knows he accepts it.
Sometimes, leaving things unsaid works the best for them, not because they’re scared of them, but more like they know the other knows it too. There’s no need for Chuuya to say it out loud, not when Dazai’s eyes flick with the morning light with some kind of new recognition, not when Dazai lets out a muffled laugh, not when he finally understands that Chuuya feels the same way.
Later that night, Chuuya is laying his head on top of Dazai’s chest while Dazai plays with his fingers, and he takes the courage to ask one of the fundamental yet ground-breaking questions in the new addition of his partnership. Barely a whisper, just a timid thought slipping from Dazai’s lips, but Chuuya hears it.
“Can I kiss you?”
And their first kiss isn’t an explosion of fireworks or the feeling of a whole zoo in their stomachs, but it is more of a reminder that they are here, in each other's arms. It is sweet, and tender, just like they are made for each other. Like two natural forces finally coming together. It’s just them, surrounded by all their sweet nothings.
And you can say Dazai Osamu is a man of many many things, but the one universal truth everyone can agree upon is that he just wants to stay in Chuuya’s light for a while, even if it means the rest of their lives.
And Nakahara Chuuya is a man of many many things, but his universal truth is that he can (and will) go to hell and back just to see Dazai’s face again, and he would totally let Dazai stay in his light for a while.
The grass is green, the sun is warm, and Chuuya and Dazai are the doth where the ray ends. That’s how universal truths work.
“You got it now, don’t you Osamu?” Chuuya speaks softly to Dazai.