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It’s not a shocker to anyone to state that Dazai Osamu is mentally unwell. I mean he makes suicide jokes 24/7, has bandages on every exposed limb and has more empty saké bottles in his dorm than a college students frat party. But there are some days where Dazai is more unwell than others. The days it feels like even lifting a limb is like running a marathon.
Now back in the mafia he couldn’t have those days. When these days arrived all he knew to do was to suck it up. The world won’t give you a break.
But he’s not in the mafia anymore. He's the agency and he knows he can have these days but it doesn’t stop him from hating it. Doesn’t stop him from hating the emptiness. Hating the coldness that feels like it goes all the way through his bones.
Dazai Osamu despises being useless, being vulnerable.
So when he wakes up this morning and stares at his ceiling. He can tell that today, today is going to be awful.
He gets up slowly and he just doesn’t want to do more. He feels like if he does anything else he might just die unfortunately he has things to do.
He gets up and uses the restroom as he washes his hands in the sink he looks in the mirror.
“God I look horrible.” he mumbles to himself. His hair is sticking out in every direction, his eye bags make him look like he's been awake for days,
-which honestly isn’t too far off- he runs a finger along his jawline. To feel the bone hardly covered up by fatty tissues. As he looks at himself he realizes he doesn’t want the world to see him at all.
If they saw him now he’d lost all credibility with the ladies. At least, that's what he tells himself.
He opens his fridge but there’s nothing in here that doesn’t take some amount of effort to make. All he has is alcohol and he doesn’t even feel like it’ll be worth it.
He closes the fridge again with a sigh and resigns to laying on his quite frankly disgusting futon. He lays there and stares at the ceiling.
Silence does many things to one's mind, it brings out all the horrible awful things. He wonders to himself.
‘If I die I wonder how long it would take for the agency to find my body?’ He thinks. He assumes it might be a few days since he has a habit of skipping work. If his phone wasn’t dead he’s sure he’d get about 30 calls from kunikida.
He raises his hand up and looks at his palms. These hands have directly and indirectly caused the death of hundreds. He wonders how people can even shake these wretched hands. How they can’t feel the blood oozing from each crease and pore.
How anyone could kiss the same mouth that hateful, abusive words have fallen from. How they see him as silver tongued but never add devil.
Who could possibly love a body that is more hollow than cheap bread. A body so frigid he stands to put out fires but being within miles. A body so scarred that the bumps and ridges add up to numbers higher than people he has ruined.
He just lays there. He feels too tired to even sleep. What an awful oxymoron. He lays there for minutes and hours. It doesn’t matter, it all blends together. As the swirl of thoughts keeps twisting and turning in his head. Each thought more depraved than the last.
He feels like he’s going to die here.
He wants to die here.
He wants to die.
He wants to die he wants to die he wants to die he wants to die he wants to die he wants to die he wants to die he wants to-
The door opens. He doesn’t care if it's an attacker or not. An assassin would just be doing him a favor at this point.
He hears footsteps approaching before he hears an all too familiar voice.
“Hey Dazai! You in here?”
It's his partner, in both senses of the word. It’s also someone who he’s both happy and upset to hear. He knows Chuuya can help and after he's always thankful but during? He doesn’t want help. He wants to mope in his own feelings, but Chuuya would never let him waste away like this.
Chuuya enters the room and looks down at him. “Can you speak for me hm?” He doesn’t reply, he just turns his head away. He hears Chuuya sigh before getting to his knees to be level with his futon.
“That’s alright, I think I get what’s happening.” Hearing Chuuya’s understanding words almost makes him feel sick.
“Here’s the game plan, we’re gonna sit up and then we’re gonna get up and get in my car.” Chuuya pauses for a moment to make sure everything’s being heard. “Then I’m gonna drive us to my place where you’re gonna have at least a few bites of food, and if we’re up for it a shower okay?” The ‘okay’ is mostly done as a courtesy. The plan is happening either way.
Chuuya uses one hand to go under Dazais back and the other to grab his shoulder.
“Alright up we go.” Chuuya with a small contribution from Dazai helps him to sit up.
Chuuya lets him get used to the angle for a minute before speaking again. “You ready to stand up?”
He just nods. Chuuya stands and grabs both his arms to hoist him up. Chuuya’s raw strength and Dazai’s poor Physique make this quite an easy endeavor.
Chuuya and him slowly leave the dorms and enter Chuuya’s car. He puts on some music to hopefully drown out a few of the thoughts in his partner’s head. Other than that though the drive is silent.
They eventually park in front of the building. Chuuya leads Dazai out of the car, through the lobby and to the elevator. Dazai gets seated on the couch while Chuuya prepares something light in the kitchen.
Dazai has a moment to think again. He wonders why he is so readily invited to people's homes, it feels akin to letting the boogie man sleep under your bed.
In his existence he has never found a reason why he should be desirable. Why someone like Chuuya choose him. Sometimes he feels like he just settled for the closet option. Chuuya the one person in this world who makes him forget how to breathe. He wonders if Chuuya has ever felt the same.
He doubts he has, what qualities does he have that would make anyone awestruck? He’s a liar and thief and a murder and-
Ow, Chuuya flicked him in the forehead.
“Turn off that big brain of yours for a little bit.”
He’s holding a small bowl of heated up canned crab.
He takes the crab with a sigh. He eats it sluggishly if only to appease his partner.
He manages most of it before settling it on the coffee table. Chuuya is seated directly to his left side with the remote in his hand.
“We’re gonna watch something now okay?” Chuuya’s already flipping through channels before Dazai can even process an answer.
As Dazai here's the sound of some nondescript movie playing he finds his mind wandering.
He feels like a raindrop. He comes from complex processes of science and marvel but as spec he is nothing. He will fall and splatter and be nothing again. Chuuya is the curved leaf that catches him. Keeps him cradled and undisturbed. When he falls he is deposited whole onto the earth till the cycle begins again.
Chuuya may wither and cycle on his own and even if he is not always there in the winter. But Dazai knows that for most of the year he will be caught and maybe even loved.