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Dazai Osamu lays motionlessly on the floor, hard and cold tiles digging into his back, as he follows the ticking of the clock with his eyes.
That’s the most interesting thing as of now.
Not any of the books on his shelf, the cases discarded on the table, or the video games he sometimes indulges in. No, the most interesting thing is the clock — the time.
What an interesting concept is, time. It tickles on uncaring of what you might be going through. There’s something endearing, he guesses, in the way it just moves on: you may pray to whatever deity there is, beg for just a second more, to cry your pain out, tears falling down your cheeks like a mocking signal of time yet again advancing.
No, time has no pity.
Dazai kind of wishes it had.
“Stop moping around.”
His eyes travel upward to the figure standing right behind, feet almost touching his head.
Kunikida sighs. “At least lay down on the bed, you’ll be aching in the morning.”
Dazai tries to muster something to tell, but he just can’t bring himself to care enough. He’s a logical man at heart: why put in any work when there’s no reason?
Currently, there’s nothing that motivates him to even breathe. If it took any effort at all, he would have stopped long ago.
Kunikida sits next to him, legs crossed. “I know you guys were partners, I get it, but you can’t act like this, Dazai.”
‘You don’t get it,’ he wants to scream. He wants to, he thinks — he’s not sure how to differentiate what he wants anymore. He stays silent, hoping his wide-eyed stare will be enough for Kunikida.
It would’ve been, for him.
“Considering the… circumstances, I’d usually let you stay home, but the underground is in an uproar,” he explains, pushing his glasses up with two fingers, as he flips through his book.
It’s all a big joke. It must be all a big joke. It’s no circumstances. It must be a big prank they’re somehow all in — being outsmarted so badly hurts his pride, but he can get over it. He just has to go through some teasing on his part and then everything will be alright.
He would never leave Dazai, after all. They have plans. They’re supposed to go to dinner tomorrow, a fancy new Italian place he’s been dying to go to. Then, in a week, there’s a pretentious little wine convention Dazai agreed to just for teasing and, possibly, with the aid of some alcohol, blackmail materials. He just booked a vacation to Korea, in two weeks; Dazai already bought the ticket next to him, and he fears he must have realized — maybe that’s what he wanted all along.
Ah, he can’t wait to try some original bibimbap, a fresh glass of soju, and maybe some sightseeing. He already sees himself complaining about having to walk that long, ending up leeching off of him.
Yeah, it’s going to be a nice vacation indeed. Sure, it’s a bit short — just over three days — but they’ll make the best of it, they always d—
“The death of executive Nakahara Chuuya has messed up the delicate equilibrium of Yokohama. We need you to come in to sort this out.”
Right. Because it’s not a big joke they’re all in together, no matter how much Dazai likes to fool himself — he knows better. He himself has traced the contours of his body, dried blood trailing from his lips, cold hands against the once-warm ones he longed to hold.
He still does — long to. He wants to use them to warm his own up; he wants to count his fingers all over again; he wants to kiss the mole on his left pinkie; he wants to feel those hands in his hair; he wants to intertwine their hands and never let go, naked hand to naked hand until it feels weird to feel the cold air on the back of them.
He wants, he wants a lot. There’s a burning need in his very core, one that he’s never felt for anyone else before, and it never simmers down. Once, such a flame warmed him up. Now, though, it just feels like his insides are burning alive, consumed by a longing that will never know release.
When his motionlessly annoys Kunikida out, he taps his foot against the hardwood. “Look, I get he’s dead—“
Dazai makes a noise in the back of his throat, a pitiful sound that scratches his own ears. It would be embarrassing, seeing himself laying on his bed, hair messy and tangled, stinky — the odor of a closed house and too many days spent away from the shower — if he just… cared enough. If he could bring himself to feel anything but the grief eating his insides, then he may have felt embarrassed.
He doesn’t wanna hear it. He doesn’t want to think about Chuuya as dead. Chuuya is warm, he’s colors, he’s the very essence of being alive, all rosy cheeks and screams. He takes life and molds it in his very hands, the greatest God he’ll ever witness the power of.
Kunikida’s eyebrows furrow, a thoughtful look on his face as, Dazai can see, he slowly puts pieces together, about the misery of his partner being his demise.
“You won’t be coming in,” he states and it’s not a question — it’s something between an observation and a suggestion.
Dazai can already tell Kunikida is going to leave, he’s going to let him process his emotions on his own, foolishly convinced it’s just another slump he’s in.
Chuuya wouldn’t have left, his mind traitorously supplies: Chuuya would’ve stubbornly stayed, forced him to shower and eat something, grumbling about him being such a ‘big baby’, rough tones but endless fondness in his hands. He would’ve stayed because he knew Dazai, because he knew exactly what he felt and how to make him feel better like no one else could.
Dazai has always been doubtful about the existence of a God, but Chuuya made him think there must have been something there, something that, even with his never-ending cruelty, must have loved him a lot to put such a person in his life.
Because Chuuya was imperfectly perfect, because he was nothing short of human, with flaws and cruelty intrinsic in the very human nature, but God, he was just so perfect for Dazai, a missing piece he struggled all his life with.
He healed Dazai with every insignificant banter, with the way he’d specifically cook crab cakes, with how much sugar he’d pour into his own coffee, with his childish love for luxury, with his fond smiles hidden behind a smirk or a cough, with his fluttering eyelashes against his cheeks, with sultry eyes and groggy eyes alike, with the way he cupped his pouting cheeks and kissed the tip of his nose with a roll of eyes and an idly insult. He healed the very inner child that is within Dazai, a harmed and cold abandoned child.
“You’re burning,” Dazai would whisper in the dead of night, the only light being the moonlight pouring from Chuuya’s floor-to-ceiling windows.
“What do you mean?” he’d ask, falsely unimpressed as he hid his genuine curiosity, him being the only soul to ever be so shameless in his affection for Dazai.
He wouldn’t answer, he never did, and Chuuya wouldn’t press, falling asleep soon after.
‘This,’ Dazai wanted to scream, as he shuffled closer to him, trying to uselessly capture the fleeting but scorching flame. What a desperate man he was — is — yearning for a liveness that never belonged to him.
But that’s love, isn’t it? Stealing something from someone else and being stolen from in return.
“—Dazai?”
He blinks a few times as he’s brought back to a reality he doesn’t want to belong to. He doesn’t talk, or hum, or externally give any sign of being aware, but something in him must have given away, as Kunikida observes him carefully.
He needs to say something, he wants to, but this is not the reality he wants to talk about. He wants to tell Kunikida about how beautiful Chuuya is, not how he was.
Ultimately, he doesn’t say anything.
‘I’m so lost,’ he should say, ‘ I don’t know what to do.’
What is he supposed to do? What is his path after this?
How can he breathe when every breath feels like knives turning in his chest? How can he talk when his voice is stuck in his throat, burning like spines being swallowed whole? How can his heart keep beating when every beat feels stolen from someone else who deserves it more than his?
The truth, the undeniable truth, is that there’s nothing for him out there.
Out of these four beige walls, there’s nothing anymore. The few little things that he ever loved were ripped from him, more painful than a limb being torn awake.
He’s just tired: tired of blindly following a dream he’ll never reach, tired of reaching for something to call his.
Not even his own love is spared from the very inner despair that engulfs him like a shadow.
He’s a child born from darkness, his mother used to say. He was born during the night, too early for his own good, disrupting her vacation. He’s always been destined to be alone.
This is just the umpteenth proof that his fate is void — no love, no happiness, no anger. Just pure despair.
What reason is there to get up, now? What reason to do all those exhausting tasks that were once a way of waiting for something greater — for him? Dazai can’t stand to go through life with death as his only finish line. He can’t stand the thought of searching for a reason not to die all over again.
He’s never wanted to die, Dazai. He just never wanted to live either.
This must be the first time he actively wants to die.
No, that’s wrong, actually. Dazai doesn’t want to die, he just doesn’t want to live this life.
He wants to go back home. He wants to find comfort in his arms. He doesn’t think he’s asking for much, but he is, apparently: home, is a concept Dazai has known and owned, but not for long, not anymore.
Just let me go home, he begs to a God he doesn’t believe in. Please, I just want to go home.
He gets no answer. He never does.
He can make out the sound of his door closing and idly registers Kunikida must have left. If only he had the strength to reach the blades he keeps in the bathroom to shave, maybe he could get some relief. But not even that is enough to motivate him.
His head hurts, pounding painfully against his skull.
Dazai is not foolish — most of the time — or particularly hopeful, and he can’t say he’s never entertained the thought of Chuuya dying: corruption itself is a gamble of time, an ability that brings itself paired with death; being a mafia executive is also a target right on his back, a flashy “kill here” sign. So yes, the idea of him dying is something he had deemed realistic, although Chuuya’s strength is incomparable, settling his nerves and making him believe they could have a future. This conviction, though, is not absolute, so, though Dazai wouldn’t still have been ready, the idea had crossed his mind many times.
Every overseas mission comes with the underlying possibility that it may be the last, every task Chuuya seems skittish about, every messy and intricate politics of being a mafia executive being the reason for his possible impending death.
He just never expected it to happen like this. He expected Chuuya to die, if not of old age, with a bang, Lady Death gracefully gifting him a heroic death and, if kind enough, taking Dazai with her.
He wasn’t expecting it to happen on a random Wednesday. Because it’s not some big bad villain that ripped him away from him, no, it’s just a casualty. It’s the brakes of a car breaking down, it’s Chuuya being on the phone with the restaurant, too distracted to think about using his ability. It’s a second too early, it’s a mistake, it’s common.
It’s simply Chuuya being hit by a controlless car after stepping a second too early onto the street.
It’s life — the intricate but simple web of life.
Chuuya died on a sunny day. They were supposed to eat out, and go home, and make love, and wake up in the following morning by each other’s side, and every morning to follow, and every night, and—
Dazai saw a future, by Chuuya’s side. He doesn’t see it anymore. There’s only the relentless flow of time, slow, painful, and so daunting.
Because it feels impossible, but the world is still going on. It still moves, unrelenting rotation of the Earth, like the greatest part of it hasn’t been ripped from it. The day will still come, the hours will still pass, and the seconds will still tick. Kids will get ready to go to school, their parents will go to work, and they will live their life like nothing happened — because, to them, it hasn’t. Just because he’s not here anymore, it doesn’t mean the world will stop its own life.
Dazai’s one will. Dazai’s life has a before Chuuya, has a during Chuuya, but it will never have an after Chuuya — he refuses to think that, now, a time after Chuuya exists. It just doesn’t. He’s still in his heart, in his every blink, in his every painful breath, in every second that he spends waiting.
He almost sees him, in the corner of the room. A figure he can’t make out the contours of, a slippery shadow he’ll never embrace again.
‘Go away,’ he wants to scream.
‘Come closer,’ he also wants to scream.
His arm lifts just a bit, reaching towards it. It flops uselessly against the floor after a few seconds. How bothersome.
“You look miserable,” Ranpo’s voice reaches his ears, his eyes flickering up taking in the figure standing in front of the opened door. He should’ve gotten up to close it when he had the possibility, but, well…
He’s never heard him sound that serious. It must look really bad from the outside.
He steps closer to him, squatting down next to him, as he pokes his pale cheek. Dazai’s nose scrunches up in an automatic gesture. He hadn’t realized how bad it had gotten but this, the overwhelming pity and lack of physical distance, which would’ve once bothered him greatly, just feels… empty.
Ranpo doesn’t look surprised, an expression between collected and bored — nothing unusual except for the lack of mirth.
“You will need to move on, soon or later.”
How? Because as time passes, the feeling, the pure grief, just intensifies.
“I know, I know,” he says, a hand waving in front of his face in dismissal, “It’s hard, I know.”
He doesn’t doubt Ranpo knows, but it still feels reductive because if he really knew, he wouldn’t think Dazai could just get over it.
God, he never even told him he loved him. It hits Dazai like a slap, a stab in the middle of his chest, pain bleeding him dry. It’s the first time he feels his eyes actually watering because this is not despair, or sadness, or hunger void. No, this is something way worse.
Regrets.
Because he loved him, he loved him so much his heart didn’t belong to himself anymore. And he never told him, always telling himself there’s always tomorrow, too scared of the commitment it would’ve taken, of what it would’ve meant for him to say it, even when Chuuya did.
‘You’ll tell me when you’re ready,’ he used to whisper under the sheets, softness hidden between a veil of cockiness.
Chuuya died without knowing Dazai loved him back. Alone, on the cold street. What did he think, in his last seconds — in the few seconds a cruel Death granted him before taking him away hand in hand?
“Stop spacing out on me,” Ranpo says, relentlessly poking his cheek. He looks a bit out of focus as Dazai blinks, tears forming in the corner of his eyes.
“I brought you something,” he states, searching in the bag he brought with himself. Dazai follows his movements uninterested in what he might give him — unless it’s a gun, he doesn’t care. Unless it’s the sweet relief of death, of going home, he doesn’t care.
Ranpo takes out a velvet little box, luxuriously black fabric against the decadence of his apartment.
He’s already reaching for it, when Ranpo speaks up, a foot out of the house as he turns his body. “Say your goodbyes and move on, or you’ll drown.”
(Ranpo has been sure of everything since the moment he was born: conclusions came naturally to him, the truth and future alike unraveling in front of his eyes like an endless scroll of paper that was readable only by him.
For the first time, though, as he looks back to his friend lying on his back with the darkest and emptiest eyes he’s ever seen, he’s not sure if he’ll make it out alive or not.)
The door closes behind him, throwing the apartment into the darkness all over again, silence against the sound of the world moving.
‘Unfair’, he wants to scream. It’s unfair that people just get to move on. They should share his grief. The entire world should cry. They should all fall into despair, unable to walk, to eat, to drink, to do anything.
His hand idly reaches for the little box right next to him. If Ranpo brought it, it must have some importance, at least. He kind of wishes for it to be a dose of poison, although he’s invulnerable to most of them; if Ranpo wanted to, he would’ve found one to end his suffering.
He doesn’t manage to open it at first, his hand trembling and weak against a strong fastening, all speaking of money. He pries up against the floor, the box opening with a satisfying click.
His breath remains stuck in his throat as he turns it around.
It’s two matching and shiny black bands, two small, different stones embedded on the front — one blue and one red. There’s no clear indication of it, no note, no sweet name of some fancy shop on it, but…
Dazai knows.
He takes the one with the red gem — because Chuuya is was cheesy like that — and he lets it slip on his ring finger, fitting perfectly on it.
There’s an ugly sound coming from the apartment, a muffled something near him. Then, again…
Ah. He’s sobbing. He’s cruelly sobbing, gasps hurting his dry throat as small but scorching tears blur his vision, a comforting red point being his only focus.
If he fools himself hard enough, he can convince himself that’s Chuuya. He can convince himself he’s not weeping for what he’s lost, but he’s shedding tears of the purest and most innocent happiness he’ll ever know. He can convince himself what he hears isn’t the echo of his own sobs resonating in an empty apartment, but it’s his first, his greatest, his last love sharing his irrepressible happiness. He can pretend his world is still alive, his heart embraced, his home is still with him, but—
—it’s not.
Because the undeniable truth, the cold truth, the unforgiving truth is that Dazai stopped living the moment Chuuya Nakahara took his last breath.
He has no idea how many days have passed — he can idly register that hunger is part of the emptiness swallowing him whole from his stomach, thirstiness burning his throat albeit the gulps of water Kunikida forced down his throat some time ago, tiredness blurring his thoughts and his vision — but it doesn’t matter anymore.
Dazai stopped living on the 22nd of October. It may be November, it may be December, it may be the new year, or a new October, or a new decade, but he’s still there.
He’ll never move on from that day. He doesn’t think he knows how. He doesn’t think anyone knows how.
He falls asleep— No, he passes out a bit after, shining red gem resting against the unforgiving floor.
Sleep is a restless thing, one Dazai always hated, unable to rest even in the utmost concept of satisfaction — he envied Chuuya, for his ability to not dream.
He doesn’t, now, as familiar red hair comes into view, the breeze of a windy hill running through it. He’s sitting on the seemingly evergreen grass, leaning on his hands right behind his torso.
His expression is peaceful, though, ignoring his external frown.
“Ya done staring?”
His voice tickles his brain just right, pure honey dripping on his soul like the sweetest of remedies. He’s peeking at him from under his eyelashes, blue eyes staring up at him. He didn’t even realize how much he had missed that unnerving but comforting color until now.
“Chuuya…” his voice sounds broken, scratching against his throat but it doesn’t matter, nothing matters in front of him.
“Yeah?” he asks, an eyebrow cocking following his questioning tone.
“I missed you,” he whispers, a secret kept close to heart.
Chuuya seems surprised for a moment, mouth agape as his eyebrows shoot up. “I’m here, though.”
The lump in his throat eases a bit, warmth spreading from his chest all the way to his fingertips, feeling more alive than he has in days. “Yes, you are,” he says, a smile bending his lips.
“C’mon,” he starts, indicating the spot next to him with a flick of his head, “sit next to me.”
Dazai plops down, throwing him off balance as he sits way too near.
“Stop latching onto me,” he complains rolling his eyes, although the way he shuffles closer is the opposite of his words.
There’s a fondness in Dazai’s gaze that dies out as emptiness crawls up his stomach all over, fueled by silence.
“I’m sorry.”
Chuuya chuckles. “Never thought I’d see the day you’d say those words. What of the many endless things you should apologize for, are you sorry for this time?”
Dazai stays silent for a few seconds, eyes flickering to the blue sky. There’s no sun, he idly notes. “I never told you I loved you.”
He can feel the other stiffening up beside him, before relaxing again. “So?”
His answer throws him off balance a bit, as he looks over to Chuuya, confusion dripping from his tone. “I… So you deserved to know. I lo—“
“Lalalala~” he starts singing off-tune, an amused expression on his face.
“What?”
“I don’t wanna hear it,” he states stubbornly, giving him a shit-eating grin, so painfully him that Dazai’s heart stutters in his chest.
“But I need to say it,” Dazai says, eyebrows furrowing as Chuuya’s expression remains calm and open.
“I don’t care.”
“I…” he’s deeply confused, a foreign feeling that rarely, if not ever, belongs to him. “I don’t understand.”
He snorts, eyes looking over him with endless fondness although his tone takes a teasing tone. “You don’t need to say, you idiot.”
“I do, Chuuya,” he argues. “You died without knowing. You deserved better.”
He’s not sure what he’s referring to. If the fact that Chuuya didn’t know or… if he’s referring to the fact that Chuuya deserved better than him.
“You’re wrong,” he assures him, shaking his head. “I knew, obviously.”
There’s something turning in his chest, something akin to a scream scratching against it, begging to be let out.
“How could you?” It’s almost a whisper, a shy plea hidden behind a question.
“How dumb do you think I am?” he inquires, putting a hand on his hips dramatically. “Do I need to remind you that I’m the one who knows you the best?”
Fuck. Something equally as comforting as agonizing about it — about Chuuya just knowing. Because it’s so real it can almost fool him, but it’s the truth. Chuuya must have known because it doesn’t matter if Dazai never found the courage to say it, he loved him so much it must have shone through. Every time he prepared — or tried to — breakfast, every time he hugged him, every stupid gif, every silly joke, every date at the arcade, every caress, every kiss, every beat his heart only ever did for Chuuya and Chuuya only, he must’ve known.
His eyes hurt, as his vision starts to blur again and, God, he’s never cried this much.
“Osamu,” he calls him, and, oh, his name sounds so sweet, so right from his lips, and this may be the last time he ever hears it, “don’t cry.”
“What do I do, Chuuya?” he begs, eyes open and empty, hope fighting against an overwhelming despair, as his voice sounds so much like the one of a kid. “Please, I’m begging you to tell me. I don’t know what to do…”
He gasps for air, as a bitter truth falls from his lips. “I don’t know how to be me without you.”
“You do, don’t be stupid,” he disagrees, hand cradling through Dazai’s hair as he coaxes him toward him, although his words don’t really reach him, as he breathes in the familiar scent of home, but—
“I miss you,” he mutters against the white fabric of Chuuya’s button-down.
“I know.”
“I’ll never stop missing you.”
“I know.”
“I would’ve said yes, by the way.”
Chuuya smiles. “I know.”
Dazai’s hands grip the back of his shirt, scared he’s going to disappear into thin air. He mumbles softly, a plea to be heard, a promise to hear — too late.
“I love you.”
“…I know,” he reassures him, leaving a kiss on the crown of his head. “I love you too.”
He closes his eyes, just enjoying the feeling of being home. It’s the faint smell of gunpowder, of jasmine shampoo and citrus body wash. It’s the warmth of big hands on his body. It’s the familiar rhythm of a heartbeating, the most bewitching symphony he’s ever heard, his favorite melody. It’s the raspy voice lulling him to relaxation, the rolls of every letter, the vague trace of a past spent on the street in his accent.
But it’s not real, and Dazai knows that. Because this Chuuya may be the closest thing he’ll ever get to his Chuuya. His hair is a bit too blurred and indefinite, his smell misses the natural whiff of his scent, his voice too soft against his rough edges.
“But you’re not real,” he speaks out, voicing the thoughts in his head. “You’re not my Chuuya.”
His voice breaks, painful shards of reality stabbing his heart, like the one of a kid, of a child lost in the darkness, desperately searching for a hand to guide him, left alone in the stormy sea that is growing up. “My Chuuya is gone.”
And for that, Chuuya has no answer.
“I’m sorry,” he carefully says, slowly, his hands drawing circles onto his back, “but you have to move on, Osamu.”
A wet snort comes from Dazai, as a bitter amusement rips from his words. “How can you ask me that, Chuuya? I can’t do it.”
“You can,” he whispers, a reassurance softer than a caress, “because I know you best, remember?”
Dazai wants to argue, wants to scream that he can’t, that he’s destined to be empty until the day Death will regard him with their presence, but he’s tired and, for once, just for this once, he wants to believe Chuuya’s words. He wants to believe it’ll become easier, one day.
“Now rest, okay?” he appeals, slowly coaxing him to rest his head on his lap.
Dazai wants to stay like this for all eternity, unable to think, to suffer; he wants to feel his hands on his face until the end of time, until the stars burn bright and the world falls apart — for all eternity — but such familiarity has a downside, sleepiness tugging at his eyelids like a siren persuading him to dip his freezing toes into warm water.
Dazai has always been a weak man, as he takes a last look at Chuuya before his eyelids start to slowly close, a fall that feels like a death sentence on what they could have been.
The last words of a hoax paradise are murmured against his forehead, pouring softly from the ghost of a kiss.
“Goodnight, Osamu,” he says, a bittersweet smile pulling at his lips.
“Tomorrow’s a new day.”