Chapter Text
A young man walks down the street, his head bowed slightly as he brushes through the trickle of foot traffic. His hands are in his pockets, safe from the autumn breeze blowing past. His mind is almost entirely blank, thoughts numb and distant as he walks for the simple sake of getting out of his small apartment.
A stronger gust blows past him and he lifts his head, squinting against the wind and turning to finally properly survey his surroundings. He knows this part of town, so he isn’t worried about where he is going, but he didn’t mean to space out so completely.
There’s an old antique store at his left. A small, hole-in-the-wall place that one could quickly skim over and never realize they missed anything. It’s old, and the paint is peeling off the front of the building, the thin curtains drawn over the front windows and an open sign hanging at the door. It looks almost abandoned if not for the flickers of light coming from inside.
He stares at the place he’s undoubtedly walked past so many times by now, never once noticing. He should probably be heading home by now, but he doesn’t want to. He wouldn’t be able to focus on schoolwork, anyway. So instead, he stares at the antique shop and debates fighting that strange tug in his gut, encouraging him to step forward and into the most likely dark shop.
He squints at it once before making up his mind and walking up the door, removing one hand from his pocket and hesitating for a brief moment before pulling open the door. A bell chimes from above the door as he steps in, the air stirring slightly as dust scatters through the dimly lit air.
The young man walks through the shop, glancing around at the shelves of books, new and old, the stands of hats and coats, and display cases of china and porcelain figurines. He looks at the assortment of random items, the tables of jewelry boxes-
He pauses, his eyes drawn to one in particular.
He steps closer, taking in the jewelry box. It's shabby and beaten up, the gold of the hinges and clasp tarnished and dirty. There are chips and scratches in the dark wood and it's missing one tiny leg, leaving it leaning awkwardly. There are patterns of engravings on the rim of the box’s cover, and a thin layer of dust on it.
The jewelry box is old and grimy and perfectly ordinary, and yet something in him is entranced by it. He picks it up, turning it about in his hands. He faintly hears something shuffling about inside it but he doesn’t open the box. There isn’t a need to, no curiosity to do so.
If asked about why he then carries the beat-up jewelry box to the counter and buys it then he simply won’t have a satisfactory answer. There isn’t an answer, no reason or purpose for why he has the impulse to buy such an odd and worn-out thing.
Despite that, he carries the box gently back to his single-bedroom apartment. He kicks his shoes off at the door and places them neatly back in the shoe rack, hanging his scarf and coat on the stand by the door before entering further. He walks through the small dining room and sets the box down on the coffee table in front of his couch before heading to his room.
He forgets about the box he bought on a whim until the next day, the exhaustion from the past few weeks enough to make him forget about it until he steps out of his room and spots it sitting on his coffee table. He eyes the box, sitting down on the couch in front of it and tapping the fingers of his left hand against his jeans.
After a few minutes of staring at the jewelry box, he reaches forward and unlocks it, flipping the lid back to reveal whatever loose jewelry was left inside before it was sold.
Except there’s no jewelry in it. The box contains no cushions for rings or a hollowed compartment for necklaces, no mirror on the inside cover, and no cheap felt lining the sides. The entire inside is hollowed out, polished wood in a condition drastically different from the outside of it. And instead of jewelry inside, there are letters.
Small, tightly bound piles of letters all carefully stacked and tied with twine into a box. Frayed edges poke out from some of the pages, and he recognizes the thinner texture of old newspapers buried farther down in the stacks. The pages are all yellowed and old, the ink on them slightly faded with time. Carefully, he pulls out the piles of letters and sets them on his coffee table.
Thirteen stacks of paper, each one tied together individually with twine. He looks at each of them in turn, uncertain about if these letters were ever meant to be left behind. Slowly, he picks up one of the stacks and holds it in his lap, pulling the twine loose and letting it fall to the ground. He unfolds the top page, running the pad of his thumb along the well-worn creases.
It’s a letter that has been read and reread and loved many times over. Creases are etched into the very paper, faint thumbprints indented in it from nervous hands that held it over and over and over again. It almost feels like an intrusion to read these. And yet something in the young man is telling him to, something in his gut is whispering to unfold the paper stacks and to read what they contain.
He’s not a very impulsive person, nothing like his older sister in the regard of thinking emotionally rather than rationally. His mother always praised his keen mind, so much like her own. But something about these letters- about this box - is itching at his curiosity. So he gives in to impulse and he unfolds the top note, letting the rest of the stack sit on the cushions beside him.
He reads the first lines of the letter and realizes without a doubt that this letter was written by a man who may not have made it home. He purses his lips at the realization but reads anyway.
I don’t know to whom this letter should be addressing.
I don’t have a home waiting for me, no family awaiting word from their son as he continues following this foolish ideal-driven revolution. No lover who may hold my words in her hands and breathe in the scent of this paper, clinging to the fact that if I wrote this, I must be alive somewhere. I have a dear friend at home, but he does not need my letters. And if I were to write any to him, it would not be a letter like this.
So there is only me and my pen and a small supply of paper in the flickering light of lanterns in whatever town or woodlands we’ve made camp in.
I don’t even know why I’m writing. My only guess is to satiate that strange, human desire to be heard. To be acknowledged and to be seen. No, I don’t think that’s it. To believe something like that would be to say that my life and my words bear any sort of meaning- which they don’t. There is nothing here for me, except for him.
----
Dazai sets down the pen in his hand, staring down at the senseless words he’s written. He’s wasting paper, paper that other revolutionaries are using to write home to families and lovers who need and miss them. Families and lovers who believe that blind delusion that they’re going to win this war, that their revolution won’t be crushed. And yet he can’t find it in himself to feel guilty for wasting this paper.
Even so, he puts his pen down and looks up from the wooden board he’s using as a desk. The lantern light flickers across it from where he has it sitting at his side, flashes of gold and pale yellow lighting up his scrawling script on the paper before him.
Before he joined the revolutionary effort, he came from a good family. A wealthy family. A family that made sure he was educated and would have been living well for the rest of his life if he’d stayed. But he hadn’t. He left to join a foolish dream of revolution from a cruel oppressor. The entire concept was idiotic, he knew that to be true and yet he woke up every morning in a camp with several hundred others like him anyway. He left his home and a family who never cared much about him to consider missing him.
Dazai sighs, setting the board and unfinished letter down on his left and turning off the lantern before getting to his feet. He has someone to see, someone he knows for a fact is still awake despite how late it is. He exits the tent, brushing aside the rough fabric and making sure the flap closes behind him so as to not disturb the sleeping revolutionaries inside.
He already knows where to look without searching, watching the stars above and the trees of the forest around him as he walks towards the clearing. He’d seen it earlier that week when they’d first made camp and knew instantly that a certain someone would wander there whenever his head got too loud.
Silly chibi .
Dazai listens to the quiet crunching of leaves and sticks beneath his feet as he gets farther and farther from the camp and closer and closer to the clearing with a boulder resting in the middle of it.
When the gap in the trees comes into view he merely sighs, not surprised in the least to see a man with red hair sitting atop the rock, head tilted as he looks up at the stars. Dazai approaches him quietly but not stealthily, not bothering to actually mask his presence.
When Dazai gets close enough he climbs on top of the boulder, sliding down its front edge to sit beside the other man. Chuuya doesn’t look at him, his blue eyes shining in the faint glistening of the stars as he seems to search them for an answer. For guidance, perhaps, on what to do.
“For someone who preaches so much about needing his soldiers well rested, you sure don’t sleep a lot, slug.” Dazai murmurs, tilting his head to glance at the redhead.
Chuuya blinks, slightly agape mouth closing as he purses his lips and glances at Dazai before his gaze drags down to his own boot-clad feet. “‘M fine. You should be asleep, though. Idiot.”
Dazai resists the urge to smile at the hypocrisy. Typical Chuuya. Selfless, irritating Chuuya. “We both know my chances of rest are as slim as yours.”
“Then I guess we’re both left staring at the stars, aren’t we?” Chuuya asks, less waiting for an answer and more just wanting to stare off into the silence of the night for a few moments longer.
There are vivid eyebags under Chuuya’s eyes, his skin slightly paler than usual and the hands he usually keeps gloved picked at around the nailbeds. His hair is greasy from not washing it in days due to a limited clean water supply he insists everyone else uses. He’s tired. Tired and stressed from all of this. Chuuya hasn’t told Dazai this, but he can feel it.
“You should come to bed, Chuuya.” Dazai whispers, bowing his head as he turns to focus his attention on the other man. “You need rest moreso than the rest of them. Surely you know that.”
They both know that Chuuya knows that. Just like they both know the only way Chuuya will lay down is if Dazai drags him to his tent. Just like they both know that the both of them will only be sleeping if they’re curled up in each other’s arms in the dark safety of Chuuya’s more private tent.
Dazai reaches out, gently tugging away one of Chuuya’s hands where it’s wrapped around his knees and threading his own fingers in between. Chuuya closes his eyes, letting his forehead thump against his knees. Dazai squeezes his hand once and Chuuya squeezes it back.
“I can’t, ‘Samu.” He says and it comes out not even loud enough to be considered a whisper. It’s a tired confession by an exhausted man leading a revolution he knows is doomed but still attempts to win anyway. Because if they don’t try to win this then who else will?
“More nightmares?”
Chuuya nods, still not opening his eyes or lifting his head. Dazai rubs the back of his hand with his thumb, studying his partner. He sees the faint tremble of his body, the one that Chuuya tries to be rid of by tensing his body and putting on that charismatic facade. Except it's only partially a facade and the tremors never entirely subside. They’re always there, covered beneath layers due to a blinded desire to be the arms his revolutionaries need to lift them up.
Chuuya was not the one to start this revolution. No, he was simply a teenage boy who ended up joining the effort only to be forced to lead when the others realized he had strength they could exploit. Because that’s what this, a revolution- more a rebellion than anything in Dazai’s opinion- of hundreds headed by a boy of now barely eighteen who had never wanted to lead and had never wanted to go to war. Who had only wanted to protect his people.
And yet despite never wanting this- never asking for this- Chuuya fights. He fights harder than anyone else in that damned camp a hundred meters away, fights harder for their freedom and to keep them alive. He is the charismatic commander who leads them into each battle, who sits with them around campfires and drinks with them, who buries their dead and mourns with them, who cheers and celebrates their victories with them.
He is a wildfire who blazes and burns and spreads life to everyone around him.
He is a liar who is a barely burning fuse.
He is an exhausted eighteen-year-old boy forced to be a man too soon and who never experienced being a child. Who mourns every man and woman who died individually, who knows every name and writes them in a small leather notebook, who salvages what of their belongings he can to send back to their families.
It makes Dazai want to scream, sometimes.
The fact that no one else sees how much Chuuya hurts . How much he bleeds and screams and cries but fights despite it all. How in the dark of nights such as these, he presses his forehead to his knees and grips Dazai’s hand like a lifeline. Like it is the only thing keeping him from sinking below the surface of the churning wave of grief and guilt he’s so wrongly placed onto himself.
“You can’t save everyone,” Dazai whispered into Chuuya’s hair the first time there were casualties, and Chuuya sat in his tent with Dazai’s arms wrapped around him. And he will repeat it over and over again every time Chuuya sinks over the deaths of those he’s so foolishly chosen to care for.
Chuuya never listens to him, not that it ever surprises him. Chuuya is emotional by nature. He’s caring by nature. And that is why he gives his fire to others, lets them use him for motivation and drain away his will to make it out of this war.
“Come on, let’s get you to bed.” Dazai says quietly, turning more to face Chuuya.
The redhead doesn’t respond for several minutes before he finally opens his tired eyes and raises his head. He nods, letting go of Dazai’s hand to slide off of the boulder and onto the forest floor. Dazai follows him back to the camp and to Chuuya’s tent, laying down on the mat and opening his arms for his partner. Chuuya silently slunk to him, curling up with his face buried in Dazai’s chest and his arms wrapped around him. Dazai curls his body around the redhead, arms wrapping around him securely and face pressed to ginger hair that he presses a soft kiss against.
One day they will rest, once this is over. Only time knows when that will be.
----
The letter was left unfinished and unsigned, with no clarification on who this “him” was. So the young man sets it aside and reads the following letter in the stack, this one with a proper address on it. In fact, most of the rest of the pile has people they are addressed to. Two distinctly different handwritings, one who wrote a dozen letters not addressed to anyone and left unsigned, and one who addressed an older brother named Paul and signed off with the name Chuuya .
I’m still not sure why I’m writing these.
Perhaps it’s because there’s nowhere else to put my thoughts, not when the others here don’t understand and when Chuuya won’t listen to me.
We fought again today after the raid on the empire’s storage. He won’t listen to me when I tell him how reckless it is that he is there too, that he shouldn’t be endangering himself by fighting on the front lines like a common soldier. He is the heart of this foolish revolution and if he dies so does it and so do I . He’s a fool, he can’t handle all of this and it will break him he’s pushing himself too hard with carrying this all on his back.
Part of me wishes we would hurry up and lose this damned war. If we fail then at least we can go into hiding and he won’t be able to slowly kill himself doing all of this.
Dear Paul,
Hey, I ran out of ink writing the last letter and it’s kind of hard to come by that stuff so sorry it took so long to reply. Has the empire made it to our hometown yet? I hope not, we’re so close now. Just a few more raids and this’ll be a proper fight. I won’t let them get to you guys, I’ll repay you for saving me I swear we’ll end this before they get the chance.
Dazai is as gloomy as ever. I know how much you hate him, but I swear he isn’t as bad as he seems. He’s just… odd. He’s like a stray cat, y’know? He’s strange and sometimes brings you a dead mouse but he never means any harm by it.
…
He means a lot to me, Paul. He looks at me and he doesn’t see what the other revolutionaries do. I dunno. I can’t describe it, and you know I’m not good at words. It’s like… how you feel for Arthur, I think. No, it’s not quite the same.
I just [a phrase crossed out over and over with a pen to the point of being unreadable]. When we get back, don’t try to stab him again, alright? He already tries to do it to himself, and I really don’t need to fight both of you to keep him from dying. It’s actually lights out so I have to cut this short if I want to get enough rest to have time to run to catch the courier crows in the morning.
Take care of yourself, though, and tell Arthur I said hi.
-Chuuya
The young man smiles slightly at that letter, running his thumb along the words. Like a stray cat, huh? He thinks to himself, shaking his head.
There are more and more letters, some from this unnamed person and some from Chuuya. The unidentified person doesn’t sign his letters until around halfway through the stack, and then it’s merely with D .
D writes the reality of the revolution, of how Chuuya is destroying himself more and more the longer this goes on. They talk of arguments caused by pent up stress and the opposite desires to bring an end to it all.
Chuuya writes letters home to his brother, reassuring him that he’ll be home soon and promising things will get better. His letters often end abruptly, some of them with the bottom section of the page torn off entirely.
He flips through each note, reading each one and imagining what it is these two men must’ve looked like. How they must’ve acted. What their laughs must’ve sounded like. He can picture them so clearly, despite having never met either, that he knows what they probably would have sounded and looked like.
There’s a photo in the pile, a tiny one in black and white print that had faded yellow with time. A photograph taken from a newspaper that he doesn’t find in the stack, depicting a group of people- soldiers- sitting in front of some trees. Most of them are smiling and laughing; a few are rolling their eyes or scowling. Towards the center is a young man with hair that fell down one shoulder, his smile wide and bright despite the faint smudges visible beneath his eyes. He’s leaning forward slightly but has one arm wrapped around a much taller man with darker hair. The taller man isn’t looking at the camera at all. He’s staring at the shorter one with a sad yet fond smile on his face.
The young man examines the photo closely, eyes the two figures standing so close together, one staring down at the other. He knows without a question who they are. D and Chuuya. D, presumably being the ‘Dazai’ that Chuuya writes home about.
Beneath the photo are more letters.
I don’t care about this war.
I don’t care about freedom or putting an end to any tyrannical rule. I don’t care about any of this. I’ll probably meet my own end before this is all over anyway.
But Chuuya-
He was shot.
He freezes, rereading the words and mouthing them as his stomach drops.
In a battle today, which Chuuya fought in again, because he’s an idiot and doesn’t listen to me, he was shot. Moreso grazed by a bullet but dammit it was too close. He’s too reckless, too eager to put his life on the line for this cause and die for it.
He calls me the suicidal one and yet he is the one who is so eager to die for a cause.
I can’t stand him. I hate him. I hate him I hate him I hate him I thought I lost him .
I can’t describe it. Not to myself and not to anyone, the way my stomach dropped when he went down. Fuck, I’ve never been so afraid. I saw him drop from across the town square and I thought it was the end. That the sun fell from the sky.
I rushed him back to camp, of course, and Yosano immediately treated him, but it was too close.
----
Chuuya’s head is turned away from Dazai, his shirt off and chest bandaged tighter than usual. The bleeding has mostly stopped from the grazed bullet wound on his side, yet the gauze is still stained red.
Yosano is across the tent treating other injured soldiers, leaving Dazai beside Chuuya’s cot.
He stares at Chuuya, pursing his lips in a combination of emotions. He knows Chuuya can sense the feelings stewing in him, knows Chuuya doesn’t want to hear it. And they both know that Chuuya will listen to it anyway because this argument has happened a dozen times already, and it will happen a dozen more.
“You could’ve died.” He says simply, coldly.
Chuuya doesn’t look at him, eyes fixed on a point Dazai can’t see. But he does see the way his fingers curl into fists against the ratty blanket tossed across his lap.
“But I didn’t.” He says it as if his dying isn’t the worst-case scenario. Chuuya says it as if his death would be just another, as if his death would be so easily forgotten amongst the sea of other ends to occur in this fruitless revolution.
He says it as if him dying wouldn’t mean that Dazai dies too.
Dazai hates him for it.
He longs for death; he dances with it, kisses its hand, and dips it down like a ballroom dancer. But for him to die because Chuuya has done so? That is unacceptable. Dazai was always destined to die a forgettable death, but not Chuuya. Never Chuuya. There is no cause on this planet worth Chuuya sacrificing his life, his personality, his fire .
“Chuuya.”
Chuuya turns to glare at him. “Fuck off , Dazai. I’m fine, and I should be back out there right now. Making sure that the takeover goes smoothly.” His gaze is clear and his eyes determined, set on helping everyone but himself .
“Shirase has it handled. He may be an idiot, but he’s mostly dependable. You got shot, so you need to rest just like all of the other injured peop-”
“I’m not useless, Dazai, I still have shit to do! There isn’t time for this, I’m going back out there.”
Chuuya throws the blanket off of himself, slowly getting to his feet and grimacing through the pain as he does. Dazai reaches for his wrist, but Chuuya rips it away. “Chuuya-”
“Stay here if you want, or come with me. I don’t care, Dazai. Do what you want; we both know you don’t give a fuck about any of this.” Chuuya glares, straightening up and pulling on his jacket that Dazai had folded and placed at the end of the cot.
“You already know the answer to that.” Dazai scowls, getting to his feet and rounding the cot to stand at its end. He doesn’t offer to help Chuuya pull on his jacket when he winces in pain, knows it would be nothing more than a mockery to acknowledge his struggle.
“I don’t even know why you stick around,” Chuuya mutters, brushing past Dazai entirely.
Dazai lets him leave the tent before following after, still glaring at his back. I stay for you, you agonizing hatrack .
----
Dear
Fuck I don’t know anymore. I don’t know if you’re getting any of these, Paul. I never hear any word about what’s happened to our home or if Arthur is still ill.
I got shot in yesterday’s battle, and several of my men did too. They could’ve died in the time I was being treated in Yosano’s tent. I didn’t even actually take the bullet; it just grazed me. I have too much shit to do to be forced to sit down like Dazai keeps telling me to.
I don’t even fucking know why he’s here. I don’t know why he stays why he never leaves me he’s so damn clingy. He doesn’t think I can do this. He won’t say it because the bastard would rather keel over and die than speak the truth, but I know he doesn’t.
I’m worried I can’t do this either I don’t know if I can do I’m gonna prove him wrong. I have to. We’ll make it through this, and I’ll come back home.
Oh, how I despise him.
Chuuya got sick from spending the day burying our fallen out in the rain. A reasonable commander would’ve retired to his tent to “mourn” and to figure out a new plan. It’s what I would’ve done. And yet the stupid slug spent the day burying the dead and paying respects to them like every other soldier.
Now I’m stuck taking care of him since he needs constant supervision, and Yosano is busy checking on injuries of the properly injured. He’s been resisting getting his wound checked, too. The hatrack is a fool to think anyone in this damned revolution would see him as less of a man if they saw his chest. He’s more of a man than most of the rest of them, breasts or not.
It’s been months on the move now. He still won’t consider the idea of just leaving. He tries to glare me to death every time I so much as think of bringing it up.
I don’t know how he does it.
Chuuya is an idiot and I love him I despise him. He never rests, never lets himself take a moment to breathe. I of all people shouldn’t be the one lecturing on self-care, but he’s ridiculous.
----
“You look like such a baby when you scowl like that, chibi.”
“ Hah?! ”
“The stupid slug can’t even take care of his own injuries, and now he’s pouting about it. Sad, really.” Dazai sighs dramatically, busying himself with soaking a clean washcloth so Chuuya can take off his bandages.
He almost considers it funny, how they both wear them. Chuuya wears them on his chest and Dazai all across his body; Chuuya tries to make himself more at home in his skin, Dazai because the scars beneath staved off his disconnect from his skin.
They both knew there was no reason for Dazai to resoak the washcloth Yosano had already set out for them, yet neither was going to acknowledge the reason he turned away.
“You- fuck off. I’d do it myself, but a certain bandaged bastard won’t let me do it myself.”
“If I trust you to clean your injury, then you won’t, dumbass.” Dazai spits back, squeezing out the extra water before turning back around to walk the short distance across the tent to sit down next to his partner.
“Oi, yes I will! I don’t need to be fuckin’ babied, Dazai.”
“I dunno, chibi. All I see here in this tent is a big baby who went and got himself shot .” Dazai holds up the washcloth with a cold smile.
Chuuya bristles. “I am not -”
“Shut up, slug, and let me do my job.” He cuts him off before he can finish, voice dropping as he wipes away the blood dried on Chuuya’s skin.
It isn’t often he actually gets to take care of Chuuya, not in comparison to how often Dazai ends up being the one needing to be patched up. Chuuya seems unused to it every time- unused to the fact that he isn’t the only one between them who can take care of the other if necessary.
Chuuya keeps his gaze fixed on the ground ahead of him, legs folded cross-legged and posture tense. His brows are furrowed, the longer side of his hair tied loosely in a floppy bun at the back of his head. He has scars across his arms and torso, not too many, but more than enough. This bullet grazing will undoubtedly create a new one. There are cuts on his shoulder and his left arm from a knife fight back home, a circled indent of skin from someone’s nails, an actual bullet wound on his right side that is long faded. Dazai knows each scar on Chuuya’s body by heart, just like Chuuya knows every one of Dazai’s own.
They’ve spent countless nights tracing each other’s skin, murmuring explanations for every one into the night. Chuuya pressing fluttering kisses to Dazai’s scars, taking in the texture of each indent and raised line of skin beneath his lips. Dazai tracing every one of Chuuya’s with his hands, letting the pads of his fingers memorize the texture of every one and his nails skim the uneven skin. He knows the location and story behind every one of Chuuya’s scars- the ones on his body and in his mind.
Dazai knows that part of Chuuya hates him for that, for seeing him so openly and so plainly. For seeing the parts of him that he hates so much and taking them in stride, for seeing him at his rawest and his most vulnerable and sitting with him as he slowly patches himself back together.
“I’m supposed to be the one who’s terrible at self-care, chibi,” Dazai says quietly once he’s finished, rewrapping the injury and staring coldly at Chuuya when he reaches to take the bandage roll and rewrap his chest himself.
Chuuya glares back at him, jaw clenched and hand hovering in midair. Then he sighs, letting his hand drop as he grumbles under his breath. Dazai huffs in triumph, rewrapping Chuuya’s chest not quite as tightly as the idiot had done before.
“It’s embarrassing how a suicidal maniac like you is the one taking care of me.” Chuuya says after, tugging his shirt back on as Dazai sets aside the now dirtied washcloth.
“I know, it’s so gross when Chuuya makes me be responsible .” Dazai laments, leaning back on his hands and letting his shoulder brush against Chuuya’s own. “Kunikida would cry if he heard you’d managed to do it.”
“ God, that poor tutor, he doesn’t get paid enough to deal with your shit, dumbass. The amount of times he looked ready to strangle you.” Chuuya chuckles, leaning back on one arm as well.
“He won’t have to deal with me again, at least.”
Chuuya stills at the admission, the gradual untensing of his posture undoing itself as he processes Dazai’s words. “Dazai, not this shit again.” He warns, glancing at the brunet.
Dazai tips his head back. “Not sure what you mean, Chuuya.”
“We both know what you’re saying. And it’s not happening.”
“I’m not saying anything.”
“Dazai, cut the shit.” Chuuya snaps, glaring at him now. Dazai doesn’t meet his gaze. He knows what he’s going to see in Chuuya’s eyes, he knows, and that’s why he won’t look. Because Dazai Osamu is a coward, and the determination to save him that he sees in Chuuya’s eyes scares him. “We’re both making it back. We’re gonna win this, and we’ll both make it back. End of story.”
“You’ll make it back.”
“Dazai, I’m warning you.”
“And I’m promising you. You will make it back. I can’t promise we’ll win this, but you will make it back alive. You’ll make it back home to your brother and, to your friends, and to Odasaku’s orphans that I know you go see on occasion. He’s told me about your visits. You’ll make it back.”
Chuuya grabs him by the collar, Dazai’s body twisting as he’s yanked down to be a breath away from Chuuya. “ Cut. The. Bullshit. ” Chuuya repeats. “We are both making it back alive. End of story. You’ll make it back and go drinking with Oda and Ango again, I’ll go back and see Arthur get better. We’ll make it back together.”
And now Dazai is forced to meet his eyes, forced to see that blinding determination in blue eyes he knows the depths of which are filled with exhaustion. His Chuuya wants to save him. He wants it so blindly, so desperately, it almost makes Dazai feel guilty. He may want to die, but not to abandon Chuuya, never to abandon Chuuya. And he sees it in those eyes, eyes that are desperate not to be left again, eyes belonging to a man who’s lost and lost and lost.
Who wants desperately not to lose again.
Dazai sees it, and that’s why he can’t look. He sees it, and that’s why he can’t look away. Because Dazai Osamu is a coward, and he is a fool, and he loves. Loves the boy yanking him down to his level by the collar, who leads a revolution for the sake of thousands and mourns every loss with his own two hands, who’s so selfless he makes Dazai want to be selfish for him .
“You hear me, Osamu? We’re both making it back.”
Loving Chuuya is like loving the sun.
It is as blinding as it is beautiful.
And Icarus was always destined to fall.
“Yeah, I hear you slug.”
----
Dear Paul,
Dazai suspects there’s traitors among our ranks. He overheard some of the soldiers a few nights ago, heard rumors, and has been keeping track of supplies. I don’t want to believe it, I won’t believe it. These people… they’re family. These are my people. They wouldn’t betray me or this cause. They wouldn’t betray everyone back home.
Dazai’s calculations are never wrong, but this time they have to be I need them to be . Is Arthur doing any better? Make sure you’re eating. You can’t take care of him if you’re not taking care of yourself, dipshit.
-Chuuya
There are traitors among the revolutionaries.
I’m not yet certain of how many, but I’m sure of it. I need to search harder, I need to figure it out sooner rather than later. That way, we can be rid of them. They’re going to target Chuuya. No way they aren’t with him being the head of this damned revolution.
I promised myself Chuuya he’d make it back home. He’s going to make it back home.
There are only two letters left in this stack. One of them is much longer than the other; the longer one is in Dazai’s handwriting and the shorter one is in Chuuya’s. The young man pauses, reading and rereading the address on the top one. He swallows once, glancing at the stack of letters he has already set aside. He looks down at the one in his hands again.
It’s a goodbye.
This letter was Dazai’s last, the pages worn and old. The ink is smudged, and there’s dirt-stained on it, faint off-colored drops scattered towards the end. There are darker stains on some of the edges, the creases in this one much deeper than any others. As if this letter was unfolded and refolded so many more times than the others.
Chuuya,
This already sounds wrong. I’ve been writing letters to myself for over a year, yet I’ve never written them to anyone else. There’s no reason to address a letter to myself, and I don’t know how to address one to you.
I’ve thought about it more often than I should. If you knew how often I’ve thought about this letter, then I know you’d hit me over the head or elbow me in the ribs. You’re just violent like that time- aggressive in your kindness.
So I don’t know if I should address to Chuuya? To Slug? To chibi? To the love of my life? God, no, not that last one. That is just pretentious. And before you scoff and say, “well you’re pretentious, shithead,” know that I’m not THAT pretentious. I do have some standards, and cheesy poetic phrases such as that are a line my dignity won’t allow me to cross, nor do I have the desire to.
I suppose this address would just be to Chuuya, then.
Dear Chuuya,
I’m sorry.
So much of me didn’t want to write this letter at all. Partially out of cowardice and partially out of my own warped version of kindness- although kindness and cowardice do go hand-in-hand. I didn’t want to write this because I knew what it would mean if you ever read it, just like you’d undoubtedly know what it meant the moment you saw it addressed to you.
It means I’m dead.
----
BANG.
The world stops.
Dazai’s shout is cut short, cut off by the gunshot as a bullet left the chamber. His eyes widen, and he’s vaguely aware of the Chuuya he’d shoved moments prior whirling in surprise.
Where was the bullet?
Who was shot?
Did it miss?
Dazai lets out an exhale, and felt the blinding pain.
He crumples to the ground, falling first to his knees and then forward. Chuuya shrieks something, grabbing him and hauling him back to his feet with one arm around his shoulder. He says something, but Dazai can’t hear it, the world is too loud, and his brain is still a few steps behind where the gunshot sounded.
He blinks slowly, ears ringing and feet dragging as he stumbles alongside Chuuya and away from enemy fire. It takes him a few moments to realize that he is the one who’s been shot. Gingerly, Dazai raises a hand, the pain searing and raw as he brushes his fingers against the bullet wound. He pulls his hand back to examine the crimson staining his fingers, feels it spreading throughout his tunic, and feels the bullet’s entry point tearing as Chuuya not-so-gracefully yanks him back to the camp.
Distantly, Dazai wants to smile. Chuuya is finally away from the battlefield. For once, he isn’t out there risking himself for soldiers who don’t deserve him.
----
I’d like to say I went out on my own terms, but we both know that’s not how it happened.
You would’ve never forgiven me if I sabotaged my own life like that. Which, to be fair, you would only add to the list of grievances you have against me. I have a list of my own, y’know. Fourteen volumes of grievances against you. See how much I hate you, Chuuya?
Such a selfish man you are.
You try so hard to protect everyone around you. You give and give and give, and you hope and beg and bleed for the idea that perhaps it may be enough to keep from losing them. You trade yourself to keep others close.
I’ve never understood that about you.
Really, there’s a lot I’ve never understood about you. I understood your thought processes and your moves and breathing patterns. I've memorized those and your favorite flower and your favorite book and how many freckles are on your face (it’s fifty-two freckles, by the way). I understand what makes you the way you are, but not the why. Your ‘why’ eludes me as much as I attempt to understand it.
But if you’re reading this, then it doesn’t matter in the end. Because I’m dead. And as selfish of a request as this may be, I hope it was in your arms.
----
“Dazai Dazai Dazai , c’mon. Stay with me, bastard.” Chuuya murmurs, setting Dazai down on the ground and frantically shrugging off his jacket. He peels away Dazai’s own, ignoring the shuddering groan Dazai lets out at the movement.
Dazai’s body feels heavy, his hand loosely pressed to the wound, less out of a desire to stop the bleeding and moreso out of a realization that that’s just something he should rationally do.
Chuuya shifts Dazai’s body so Dazai’s head rests in his lap, unbuttoning his shirt to expose the wound.
“Fuck” , he whispers, and Dazai blinks up at him. He looks down at his chest, moving his bloodied hand away to look at the wound. This wasn’t a bullet grazing like Chuuya’s had been.
“Tha’s not good…” he mumbles, squeezing his eyes shut for a moment against the pain.
His brain feels numb and his skin like it’s on fire. Dazai has never been shot before. He’s been stabbed and cut and starved and shivered against harsh cold, but he’s never been shot before. He doesn’t know if it’s supposed to hurt this bad, but common sense tells him most likely. Fuck , Dazai has never liked pain.
Chuuya crumples up his jacket sleeve and presses it to the wound, the pressure making Dazai groan as a wave of pain sears through his chest. Every breath hurts , every bit of contact against the bullet wound hurts .
“C’mon Dazai c’mon c’mon c’mon . What the fuck were you doing, you idiot ?” Chuuya seethes, and Dazai looks up at the boy hunched over him. His blue eyes are wide and panicked, his teeth clenched, and his brows furrowed.
“Keepin’ my st’pid slug safe.” Dazai breathes, attempting to grin at him. It falls short, the grin looking more like a grimace that makes Chuuya bite his lip in worry. “I told you, Chuuya, I don’ care ‘bout the rev’lution…”
“Shut up shut the fuck up, Osamu.” Chuuya says angrily. He glares at Dazai with an intensity he rarely looks at Dazai with. The kind that only shows its face when he’s genuinely pissed at Dazai, the kind of look that means a blowup is coming. “I told you, you bastard, I’m taking you home. You’re coming back, so shut the fuck up and focus on staying alive.”
Dazai gingerly raises a hand, blinking repeatedly at how heavy it feels. He raises his hand anyway, the one not covered in blood, and rests it on top of the bloodied one Chuuya has pressed to his wound.
“‘S alright. I promised you ya’d make it back. So you better.” He squeezes Chuuya’s hand.
Chuuya glares at him angrily, tears welling up in his waterlines as he clenches his teeth to keep his lip from wobbling. They both know a gunshot wound to the chest is lethal, especially without the proper medical care. They’re too far away from the camp to make it to Yosano, and even she can’t save a dead body.
Chuuya lifts his other hand, tangling it with Dazai’s bloodied one. “You’re a fucking coward , Osamu.” He whispers, voice breaking. “You’re a coward for taking the easy way out. You’re a bastard for leavi-” he cuts himself off and closes his eyes.
Dazai weakly squeezes the hand tangled with Chuuya’s, and he squeezes it back.
“I know.”
----
You’ll hate me for dying, I know you will.
To someone such as you, who lives for others, it is traitorous to take death as a way out. It is traitorous to waste your life on a pointless death. But see, Chuuya, that’s where you’re wrong.
My life may have been pointless, but my death will not be. Not if it means you breathe for even a moment longer. If it prolongs your life, then my death has a purpose, and if it does not, then I am a pathetic fool who couldn’t even save the man he loves.
Ah, that’s right.
I don’t know if I ever told you that fact.
You and I trade insults like stories, we kiss and hold one another in the night, but neither of us has ever dared say those words. I wonder if it was out of fear, or maybe we just never felt the need to.
Either way, I hope that if you’re reading this, then I’ve said it at least once. I hope you understand by now that every time I said ‘I hate you’ I meant ‘I love you’, and that every ‘I despise you’ translates to ‘I adore you’ even when your selflessness angers me. We’re good at unspoken things like that. At saying the words we don’t mean because it’s easier than admitting in a world like ours that we found comfort in one another.
Forgive me, Chuuya.
----
The air is silent between them, Chuuya’s head bowed as he hunches forward to press his forehead to Dazai’s. The position can’t be comfortable, and yet he does it anyway. Dazai isn’t sure he’s worth the discomfort.
“Ther’s somethin’ I have for you.” Dazai says after a little while, blinking a few times and breathing slowly through his open mouth. It’s harder to stay awake now, the pain still so present in his mind it’s like it’s trying to swallow him whole.
He waits for Chuuya to respond, and after a few moments of silence and Chuuya’s shuddering “yeah?” he continues. “A letter. Lots of ‘em, really. Under m’ pillow. The las’- it’s for you.”
“Tell me it instead.” He requests.
And Dazai wishes he could.
For Chuuya, he would do it if he could. But he can’t, he can’t hold thoughts in the front of his mind the way it is right now. He can’t remember the words he spent so long organizing and writing and drafting over and over again.
He regrets that, now. That he didn’t engrave the words he needed to say into his marrow, that he didn’t repeat them in his mind over and over again waiting for a chance to say them aloud. For the owner of his heart, he would recite them, if he could only remember the words.
“Tell me it instead, or let me carry you back to camp where we’ll read them together.” Chuuya’s voice is hoarse, his eyes shut as he puffs soft exhales against Dazai’s forehead.
Dazai smiles, and he knows it’s pained. “I won’ make it back, chibi.”
“Then I don’t want to hear or read your stupid letter. Not if it comes from a bastard like you.”
“Oh, Chuuya, you were alw'ys a bad liar.” He whispers.
He raises his hand from where it's resting atop Chuuya’s and his bloodstained jacket, slowly lifting the shaking appendage to cup Chuuya’s face. Chuuya’s eyebrows furrow further, his expression so pained , but he leans into it anyway.
“Slug,” Dazai begins, and he pretends he doesn’t notice the way Chuuya’s eyes open and his lip quivers, “when ‘m gone. Please read it. ‘S important you do.”
----
Forgive me, my love, for I have sinned.
I have committed an unforgivable act in leaving you.
I would apologize a thousand times over if it would be enough to earn your forgiveness, but it isn’t, and I don’t have enough space on this page to try properly.
So for the sake of saving paper, I’ll say it once, but know that this one translates to more apologies than there are stars in the sky.
I’m sorry.
For leaving you, for dying, for loving you.
Loving you was to sin, for the sun was never meant to be loved in the way I have loved you. You are pure, and you are hope. You are despair and joy, blinding confidence, and deep insecurity. You are everything human in this world.
I’m sorry for taking such a fragile heart in my hands and breaking it. I never meant to. I never meant to hold your heart to begin with; I didn’t know how to cup it without my hands shaking. So my hands shook, and you steadied them with your own.
I gave you mine in return, and you gave it a home in your chest, nestled between bruised ribs in a body you despised. My heart is a rotted thing. It does not beat for anyone except you. It does not even beat for me. It never beat for me, only for the day that my eyes would fall on you, and it would therein become yours.
If you don’t want this rotted, blackened thing after I’m gone, though, then I understand. Set it on fire in the woods, toss it out into the snow and let it rot, bury it in mounds of dirt to be consumed by worms. Do with it as you will; it’s yours. It’s always been yours.
I wish I could’ve given it to you in a better lifetime. In a world where I wasn’t so certain that I would die, just like I’m so certain that you’ll move on from this. I am selfish, Chuuya, I have told you this, and I have presented myself this way since the day we met in the alleys not far from my home, where you kicked me to the ground. I am selfish because I’ve waited for the day this revolution would crumble into nothing so that we could leave. I’ve waited for your efforts to fail because I wanted nothing more than to steal you away.
Hate me for that, too, if you wish. But I think you won’t because part of you knew that from the start.
----
“I hate you.” Chuuya whispers, and it only makes Dazai smile. He closes his eyes, basking in the warmth of Chuuya’s hand in his own and his soft breaths against his forehead.
“I know.”
“I hate you, and I don’t want to read your stupid letter you’re too much of a coward to give me yourself.”
“I know.”
“You’re a damned fool for taking that bullet Osamu, and you’re a damned fool for loving me .”
“That, you’re wron’ ‘bout.” He holds his hand to Chuuya’s cheek even as it shakes, the strain of holding it up when the rest of him feels like it’s sinking is exhausting. “I’d be a fool not to love you, Chuuya.”
Chuuya’s exhale stutters against Dazai’s forehead. Chuuya squeezes his eyes shut again.
“ I love you, Osamu.” He admits, the words barely breathed out. “I love you and- and I can’t stop it. I hate you because you’re leaving but I’ll still love you.”
A weight in Dazai’s chest lifts. His smile is a little more genuine now, a little less forced and forged in an attempt to comfort the lover he’s leaving behind. “Th’nk you.”
He feels a few droplets against his forehead and lets his hand drop from Chuuya’s face. “I love you…”
There it is, he said it.
Plain and clearly, he summoned the courage to say the words he didn’t think he could.
----
Don’t worry, my love, even if my calculations are wrong and you do hate me, I still won’t regret what I’ve done. I never will.
I never told you this, but ever since long before I met you, I had a recurring dream. Of a flash of red hair and an irritated voice. I used to get so angry at that dream. I didn’t understand what it meant until I met you. I spent this life dreaming of you, and I think I’ll spend the next one doing that too.
I hope I gave you my final confession on my deathbed. I hope you understand that locked in the three most important words I’ve ever said to you is a promise that I would’ve hung the stars in the sky for you. I hope you understand that when I at last said ‘I love you’ I did mean it.
Don’t mourn me too much after I’m gone. I know you will, but try not to. Instead spend that wasted energy living. You were always so good at that, better than I ever was.
Goodbye, Chuuya.
Perhaps I should’ve addressed this to the love of my life after all.
-Osamu
The young man pauses after he finishes that letter. It feels like a confession not meant to be read by anyone except its intended address.
There’s only one left now.
He knows the way this story ends, now. He guessed it from the beginning but now he’s certain that he knows. That this lifetime ended in tragedy. But to not read the ending would be to betray the lovers who lived it. So he turns to the final letter and reads it.
Dear Osamu,
In another lifetime, I would’ve taken you up on your offer to run away.
I’ll find you in that lifetime, however long it takes.
-Chuuya
He sits for a while after reading the last letter, sometimes flipping back through the stack or staring at the photograph, but mostly staring out at nothing.
They did it .
Eventually, he looks to the twelve other stacks of letters sitting on his coffee table, and then to the box they came from. He hesitates before putting this stack back into a pile. He pauses on the photograph one last time, contemplating for a moment before setting it aside. Then he ties together the letters and sets them back in the box.