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Chuuya Nakahara hates Dazai Osamu.
He has always told him that.
When they met for the first time in the slums of Suribachi City.
When he came home to the news of Dazai betraying the mafia.
When they met again in the underground dungeon of his organization.
When they were forced to be Double-Black again to defeat the forces of the Guild.
And even when he trusted him with his life and used corruption during the Shibusawa incident.
However, when the lifeless body of the man he loathes lies in front of him, he doesn't feel any ounce of hatred.
Instead, he is welcomed by the sensation of something similar to getting stabbed in the chest.
And it's strange.
Because Chuuya Nakahara was used to seeing corpses.
Being in the mafia means getting used to the sight of death. Whether it be your enemy, subordinate or even worse, your cherished friends.
Either they die in your hands or you see their corpse in front of you.
He has known this for a long time, ever since he was met at the sight of the dismembered bodies of his friends 6 years ago.
He has long adapted himself to it.
However, during this moment, all he can feel is his mind going blank, his ears ringing and his hands trembling with fear.
Dazai Osamu was a strong man.
Not in the physical aspects, but in his genius mind that never fails to come up with different strategies. The mind that every enemy of his feared.
A thing that Chuuya lacked.
Despite the man's suicidal tendencies, Chuuya never thought that he'd ever see the day of his death.
What went wrong?
He stares at his partner's corpse, his heart shattering even more as minutes pass.
Dazai Osamu looks peaceful.
He used many words to describe Dazai before but peaceful was never one of them.
Dazai has always smiled, laughed, and grinned-a mask that he displays to hide the depth of his emotions.
And even now, he's still smiling. The only difference is, the smile Chuuya sees right now is genuine.
He can't see traces of the demon prodigy who has lifeless eyes anymore.
The sight of the torture expert of the Port Mafia who took joy in terrorising others has dissapeared.
Right now, Dazai is peaceful, genuinely.
He doesn't know how long he has been standing there and staring at his partner when a voice echoes in the loud silence of the prison hallways.
"Do you understand it now?"
The voice is a familiar one. He has heard it before, the voice of a demon. A demon that caused multiple miseries to Yokohama.
He faced the source of the voice, Fyodor Dostoevsky wasn't there. The demon was in another room, speaking his commands through a microphone that connects to the silence of the hallway.
Chuuya has to kill him.
Chuuya will kill him.
"What have you done?"
He replies with a voice lacking of emotions, a voice filled with emptiness.
The demon didn't respond for a while. Instead, he chuckled for a few seconds.
"Shouldn't you be asking yourself that?"
Chuuya's blood boiled. His hands stopped trembling as his fists tighten.
And there, he felt it.
In his right hand, a gun rests. A gun whose bullets match the wounds of his partner, who lies lifeless in front of him.
His hands began to tremble again. The gun slipped from his palm, falling hardly to the cold ground, the echoes ringing in Chuuya's mind.
What has he done?
The rage towards Dostoevsky was placed at the back of his mind. He stares at his shaking hands, focusing on the sight of invisible blood that flows all the way to his partner's body.
What has he done?
He killed him.
He let himself be controlled.
"Do you understand it now?"
Fyodor asked the same question from before and Chuuya hates that he knows what the demon is talking about.
"All those bottled-up feelings, the feelings you ignored for years, you understand them now, don't you?" Dostoevsky asks again, both his cunning words and cunning tone crawling into Chuuya's skin.
He's right.
Chuuya understands it now, even if he wishes he didn't.
He looks at his partner's body again.
His mind goes back to the time they were 15, losing to Dazai's bet in the small arcade.
He knew that the latter won by manipulating the machine, and yet he still felt joy while losing, having spent his youth with a boy he knew for a short time.
Chuuya ignored the feeling of warmth in his chest, but he knew.
He recalls the time they fought Rimbaud. The moment he felt their souls align and reach out to each other.
The feeling of a faint spark as their hands meet, holding tight without the intention of letting go as they defeat the enemy in front of them.
Chuuya felt it, but he chose to ignore.
That same feeling occured again to him during one of the toughest days of his life. When Dazai carried him on his back so that he could say farewell to his deceased friends.
He dismissed the faint warm feeling towards the latter in his chest as him being thankful
But he knew what he was beginning to feel and as he usually does, he ignored.
He remembers receiving the news that Dazai left the mafia, Chuuya tricked himself into thinking that he feels rejoiced.
He opened a bottle of Petrus, drinking all night as he sent messages of wrath to the deemed "traitor", cursing him and calling him the many atrocious nicknames he had made for him during their many bickerings in the past.
He wasn't sure if he felt betrayed on the mafia's part or his own.
Dazai left while he was away, how selfish of him.
Later that night, he felt a faint ache in his heart, accompanied by the same usual feeling that he ignores.
He aimed to make it dissapear, still choosing to ignore it.
Then 4 years passed in a blink of an eye. He got used to the feeling of his partner's dissapearance.
Chuuya was confident that the feeling was long gone, along with the traces of their partnership.
Then Dazai appeared again.
Chuuya remembers approaching the dungeon that held his partner, ignoring the same feeling building up in his chest again.
There he saw, his wrath for 4 years, chained to the silent walls.
He remembers the smug emotion that he displayed, hiding the mixed feelings occuring inside him. He remembers them fighting, the feeling intensifying when Dazai mentioned that he can still predict his movements.
And when the "traitor" mentioned that he allowed himself to be captured to get information about the bounty under his new subordinate from the agency, Chuuya knows that he should feel more wrath and anger.
But instead, he felt a faint happiness.
Happiness for Dazai, as he rests now in the light.
The light that Detective Murase has once promised to him.
That's when he knew that the feeling never dissapeared.
Despite his efforts of ignoring it.
Then the Port Mafia came into an alliance with the Agency.
For one night, they became Double-Black again.
Chuuya held back all the feelings he has, tricking himself again into thinking that all he feels is wrath towards the other.
They were met with an usual opponent, an inhuman one.
They were left with no options but Dazai still made him choose.
The feeling arose in his chest again.
He drowned in years of something that he perceived as wrath, yet in that moment, he still chose to trust the man he directed that wrath at.
In the end, they won, as they usually do.
He still feels the sensation of his former partner's hand grabbing his tired arms.
"Rest, Chuuya" echoed in his mind.
The same feeling wandered through his heart.
When that night ended, he woke and saw that he was never brought back to base as promised, which usually would anger him, but when he felt the blood on his face gone and his coat folded with his hat placed above it, he can't help but to let out a chuckle.
The warmth in his chest returns, along with the feeling, the feeling that he ignored for years.
Chuuya realized that the feeling will never dissapear during the Shibusawa incident.
He was tasked of a difficult mission, one that can only be accomplished by using their always last resort, corruption.
Dazai was most likely dead.
Chuuya remembers convincing himself that he isn't.
Yet he still jumped and awakened the beast in him, having two goals in his mind.
Saving Yokohama and saving Dazai.
He recalls screaming that name in his corrupted state, A state wherein he shouldn't be in his right mind to think.
Even Chuuya's corrupted form recognizes him.
When he defeated the dragon and threw a punch to the body of his partner in front of him, he felt the beast leaving his veins.
Chuuya stared weakly at Dazai's perfect visage, sorrounded by the bandages floating beside him.
He felt the world stop as Dazai slowly reached out to cup his cheek.
"You used corruption, believing in me? How beautiful."
The feeling came to light once more. This time, it was lingering all over his body and not just his chest, like Dazai transferred it to him with his touch.
The last thing he remembers was the feeling still lingering as Dazai's hand rests on his head to protect him from the fog.
That moment, his last thought was realizing. Realizing that the feeling will never dissapear even if he chooses to ignore it and one day, he wont be able to ignore it anymore.
That day came.
Right now, as the lifeless body of his partner lay in front of him, he can't ignore it anymore.
All the feelings he built up in the past, All the moments when he dismissed what he felt, All the moments when he hid his emotions.
All the feelings come out as silent tears as he kneels down and holds Dazai's deceased body.
He understood now.
Those feelings, he knows what it is.
The last thing Chuuya felt was the beast inside him consuming him once again, and this time, he let it consume him whole.
With nothing to stop it.
The last thing he thought was he was too late to realize.
Chuuya Nakahara loved Dazai Osamu.
And he still loves him.
And he will never stop loving him.
He never got to tell him that.