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Chuuya stumbles down the street, stomach twisting and turning in knots, making various gurgling noises from hunger. His head feels light, a slight haze settling inside from the weakening state of his body. In hopes of making his abdomen feel better, he rests a hand against his gut, putting a slight amount of pressure into it.
It doesn’t work and, instead, just pushes out another growl. He takes a staggered step, wishing to get somewhere before his quivering legs give out.
He had escaped from the laboratory only about 5 moons ago — at least that’s what he observed, he could’ve lost count during one of his many naps. With the passing years, funding for the Arahabaki project grew thinner causing a decrease in security which made the perfect opportunity for Chuuya to break out after he had gathered enough strength.
It wasn’t easy by any means. He was weak from being suspended in a tube, had no control of his ability, and most of the walls were reinforced to make it difficult to get in or out.
It’s a miracle he was able to leave in the first place even if he’s probably about to die on the streets now. But at least he’ll be able to see the sky when his heart stops beating. Maybe, if he gets lucky, he’ll pass away during the night, seeing the stars right before he meets his end.
Chuuya’s eyes snap open from the closed, half-asleep position they fell into. He, now leaning on a wall, breathing heavily because of his short walk, unable to have a high stamina due to his condition.
He has fought tirelessly to live, to try and make an existence outside of the lab in a world far away from what one could consider his “home”. He won't give up on the life he has just barely started because he’s stupid enough to think that a peaceful death would be nicer than his current condition.
With newfound determination, he formulates a plan. He knows that he’ll need to obtain money if he ever hopes to survive, but it seems almost impossible to get coins legally. Quickly, he comes to a decision, one he doesn’t really want to do, but it’s all he has.
Pushing himself off the wall, he tries to walk as steadily as he can to the first person he sees: a tall brunet with a beige trench coat. He’ll just do what he’s seen happen over and over again, ever since he was five. He’s going to steal the guy's money just like those men, the hat-bearing one and his partner with long black hair, had tried to take him away.
He squeezes his eyes shut and shakes his head, the action inducing a brief moment of vertigo, in an attempt to get those thoughts out of his mind. Those guys had failed in saving him, the government pulling him right back to the laboratory after an event he would rather never think about again, but he won’t follow in their footsteps. He’s going to get that guy's money, even if he has to use his ability, and then pave a way for himself.
Thankfully, his target is walking slow enough that Chuuya can catch up. Trying to be as stealthy as possible, he extends his hand into a pocket on the brunet’s coat as it flaps behind him.
It’s a slightly harder to pick-pocket while walking, but Chuuya is soon able to fully fit his palm down the length of the pocket, fingertips eventually touching something hard. He realizes now that he’s not actually sure what a wallet looks like or if that’s where people keep their cash. It’s entirely possible that most individuals hold their money somewhere else and put other things into their wallets. Besides, he’s not a quitter, not when this could extend his life expectancy for a few more days.
He slides a finger further down and hooks it underneath a little box, using the walls of the pocket to push it upwards. Luckily, no pedestrians are currently walking along the street they’re on, it would foil his whole plan if someone decided to intervene.
Just as it’s about to fall out of the coat and into the ginger’s palm waiting below, a hand seizes his wrist. Chuuya freezes. Cold fingers press into his pulse point as he feels the slight scratch of bandages against the top of his fist. He drops the object, losing it to the depths of the pocket, the hand around him tightening.
Suddenly, his mind is clear from Arahabaki. For the first time since he could remember, everything is calm, no raging “god”, no chronic headaches, no nothing.
It’s too silent, he quickly decides. He used to dream of this moment where he could be free of the singularity and subsequently be let go from the facility, but right now it’s just unnerving, especially when he discovers he can’t even use his ability.
He tries to pull away from whatever is holding him back, only to find his attempts fruitless. Looking up, he sees brown eyes fixated on him, something unreadable swirling through the irises.
“Let me go, you asshole!” Chuuya yells up at the brunet, scratching away at pale knuckles to try and get the other to unclutch his hand.
But all the bastard does is laugh at him, “Aww, is the little thief trying to escape now?”
Blessedly, despite his teasing words, the taller releases Chuuya, letting the other stumble a few steps away from him.
The ginger gasps at the onslaught of everything returning to its rightful state in his mind, Arahabaki immediately re-entering his head with a ear-splitting scream — albeit it’s not as loud as it could be, he knows from experience. He coughs into his elbow since his lungs aren’t quite accustomed to breathing in oxygen, they are better suited at inhaling whatever liquid he had when in the tube. He resolves to never touch the man in front of him ever again.
“Who are you calling little!” Chuuya says as soon as his coughing fit is over, voice hoarse, “I’ll fucking kill you!”
“Really? Because I’ve always wanted to die and you just offered so if you have a knife please hurry up and stab my neck.” Before the shorter can open his mouth and respond, the bandaged man continues on with his triad, “Just please try not to cause me too much pain. I’m not really fond of it, y’know? And I heard that if you—“
The ginger tunes out whatever else he says, not wanting to listen to this guy's speech when he’s talking like a total thanatophile. Couldn’t he have picked someone better to steal from? This man looks homeless, his hair is a greasy mess, and bandages are wrapped around his arms. Everything about him was a huge warning sign. Granted he also fits that description, but at least he doesn’t look like he’s doing it on purpose.
“—which brings me to my next topic, have you ever tried killing yourself in an oil barrel?”
“Shut up! Just give me whatever is in your pocket so we can both be on our way,” Chuuya says for the sole purpose of stopping the brunet from continuing on with his useless stories.
“Well, the pocket you were trying to steal from only contains my matchbox, so you’re a pretty stupid criminal.” Suddenly the brunet’s tone gets louder as he leans down to be eye-level with the shorter, “A dumb and a slow thief! Exactly like the traits of a slug!”
The ginger’s first thought is why does this guy randomly carry around a matchbox, his next is one wishing he could turn back time so he never has to talk to this guy again.
“Who the hell are you calling a slug, jackass! And I want your money, not your stupid matchbox!”
The brunet pulls out a leather square, which hopefully is a wallet, from the other pocket before unfolding it and looking inside.
“About that,” He eventually starts, turning the rectangle around to show its bare insides, “My wallet is completely empty, so I guess you’ll have to go steal from someone else.”
The man even had the audacity to look guilty about it.
“What the fuck?! Who carries around an empty wallet!”
“Me!” He looks sickeningly cheerful about that fact.
Chuuya takes a faltering step towards the brunet, teeth grinding together at the simple anger that this man has brought him. “What the hell’s wrong with—”
“Don’t fret,” the guy cuts him off, “I have another option, but first tell me what your name is?”
The ginger freezes. He can’t exactly remember what his name is as he was only ever called by his number back at the lab, but it might’ve started with a ‘C’ or maybe an ‘H’.
He takes an embarrassing long time to get even a sliver of a syllable, the bandaged man cutting in a few times to make fun of him. Eventually it clicks in his head, something that just feels right despite having no remembrance of anyone ever calling him that.
“It’s Chuuya…”
“Well then chibi—”
“No, it’s Chuuya!”
“—let’s head off to my workplace!” And with a cheeky smile thrown his way, “My co-worker has loads of cash that he’d just love to share.”
The ginger has high doubts about that, but somehow holds his tongue. It then dawns on him that he had never gotten the other man's name, “What are you called?”
“Huh?”
“What’s your name, dumbass?”
“Dazai,” The brunet looks stoically at him like some kind of idiot, “Dazai Osamu.”
Chuuya really thinks he’s going to regret this.
The walk to the bandaged man’s workplace hadn’t been long per say, but it has the ginger breathing so heavily, lungs on fire with each little inhale, that he thinks he might collapse if he takes one more step.
He coughs a few times, each one burning, before he speaks, “Why did we stop at a café?
Dazai hums, walking up to the doors and holding them open for Chuuya — he’s secretly grateful to the brunet for doing this, though it’s nothing he’s going to display.
Proceeding into the small store, he immediately goes to sit down in one of the booths, the taller man chuckling behind him.
“Hey, asshole, are you gonna answer my question or not?”
“I said I was stealing stuff from my co-worker, Slug, so why don’t you guess where we’re at?”
“Your work?” Chuuya looks up at him to see a shit-eating grin plastered on his face.
“Ding, ding, ding!” Dazai doesn’t stop walking, heading to a door on the other side of the room, “Maybe the little thief isn’t as stupid as I thought!”
The ginger ignores the insult, instead electing to ask Dazai a question, “Where are you going?”
“I actually work upstairs,” He points to the ceiling while saying this.
“And you didn't think to tell me?” He yells, quickly standing up and rushing over to the stairwell, “I wouldn’t have sat down if I knew!”
“It’s common knowledge, really.”
Chuuya pushes past the annoying man in front of him, moving to walk up the stairs, heavily leaning on the wall next to him. Apparently his work was actually on the fourth floor, which Dazai also forgot to mention, so that means he now has to climb up three flights of stairs. The brunet offers to carry him twice on their excursion, but he aggressively declines each time.
By the end of it, he wants to find a nice place to curl up and sleep until the persisting aches in his legs are gone. His cough had worsened considerably as well, making him really wish he had chosen someone else to steal from.
“Hm…Let’s get something for that cough,” Dazai says, looking at the ginger for a moment before running off in a random direction.
He watches as the brunet tries to open a, presumably, locked door, turning to pout at where the rest of the agency is working.
A lady's voice speaks up, heels clicking against the floorboards, “You know I can’t let you in there without supervision, Dazai.”
She’s wearing a white lab coat similar to the ones all of the scientists used to wear back at the lab. His breath shallows, weak coughs pushing past slightly parted lips. He can’t hear what they’re saying anymore, the blood in his ears rushing too loudly, but he can see the way Dazai points at Chuuya, the way they talk about him.
The bandaged man lied about taking him here to give him money, he wants to turn him in, he realizes with intense dread, they’re going to take him back to the lab.
He takes a few steps back, legs stumbling after one another to keep up. He feels heat flushing in and out his body as he tries to escape. He shouldn’t have blindly trusted Dazai so much as he did, shouldn't have followed him into an enclosed space that trapped him in.
His front foot hooks against his other ankle when he tries to move, causing him to fall onto his ass, shakily crawling away until his back hits a wall. Gasping for more air, he’s suddenly reminded of the lab, all the terrible things they did to him there, all the ways he was tortured.
The phantom pricks of various needles going into his skin make him feel like throwing up.
He can’t go through all that again. He’ll rot away eventually, become a shell of who’s he’s trying so hard to preserve.
He begins to roughly scratch at his shins, breathing in for more oxygen that can never fill his lungs. The pain brings him back ever so slightly, it’s something real, a constant in his misery.
He can’t go back to the lab.
Hands gently pull his fingers away from his legs which effectively discontinues the damage happening to his limbs. The palms holding his own rub soft circles into his knuckles, causing a sob to escape Chuuya’s lips.
He shortly recognizes it as the freeing touch of Dazai’s fingers when Arahabaki stops screaming at him. Everything’s quiet, serene.
Craving more of the contact, he pushes himself forward, latching onto the crouching man in front of him. His face is shoved into the crook of the brunet’s neck as the cool feeling of the taller’s touch washes over him.
His fingers squeeze tightly into Dazai’s trench coat, unkempt nails possibly stabbing into the other man’s back, but he isn’t in his right mind to care.
He continues to erratically breathe for a moment before a hand is brushing through tangled locks, effectively pushing most of his panic away as feels the most gentle touch he’s ever experienced. The fingers never leave his scalp nor stop the comforting touches, leaving Chuuya’s mind blank again. Except, this time, he wishes that the contact would never stop.
Eventually, his breathing turns to light sniffles and shaky exhales while he leans into the brunet’s touch ever so slightly. He occasionally coughs in the other’s shoulder, nuzzling closer into the crook of Dazai’s neck after each one.
A voice mumbles into his ear once Chuuya calms down, “I know what happened to you.”
The ginger’s eyes widened at the revelation. He knows even after the shorter’s futile efforts at hiding it. The comforting could have just been a decoy with his actual goal being to send Chuuya back to the lab.
His breathing begins to quicken in pace for the second time.
Before the panic can set in again, a calming voice disproves all of his thoughts, “You’re going to be fine, don’t worry. We can offer you protection from the government if you decide to join us.”
Despite all of his instincts telling him not to trust Dazai and his words, he can’t help but nod in the taller’s chest, beginning his new life outside of the laboratory like he has always dreamed of having.