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Day 1 - Love | “May I?”
Neither man knew exactly how they had ended up like this.
One moment they were lounging around in Chuuya’s spacious living room, the next they were swaying off beat to some old love song.
Dazai vaguely recalled doing a dramatic bow, asking Chuuya if he could have this dance in a faux-posh voice, but everything after that was a bit of a blur. A nice blur, tinged with a faint radio crackle, but still a blur.
According to Chuuya, the music playing was part of some kind of special a local radio station was putting on for Valentine’s Day, where they would play a bunch of love songs that had been popular throughout the years uninterrupted by the host or any of the usual advertisements. Dazai was fairly certain the older man was being truthful; Chuuya didn’t strike him as the type to listen to a radio station that played sappy love songs on the regular.
He was brought out of his thoughts with a surprised yelp of a laugh as Chuuya lifted him off the floor by his waist, spinning him around before putting him down. He made it seem so effortless, even without his ability.
“What was that?!” Dazai laughed breathlessly, more caught off guard than he’d like to admit.
Chuuya merely shushed him, bringing him back into a loose imitation of a ballroom dance. They must’ve looked ridiculous, dancing around in mismatched pyjamas, but neither could bring themselves to care.
Dazai graciously decided to let Chuuya take the lead, unable to hold himself back from giggling as the shorter man spins him and dips him. They almost fell over each other after one particularly low dip.
(“Chuuya! Don’t drop me! Bad dog!”
“Shut up, shitty bastard! You’re the one who tried to twirl into a dip!”)
The radio must’ve gone through at least 30 different songs before the duo slowed to a near stop, now just barely swaying to and fro as the dulcet tones of some western singer carried gently through the room.
Chuuya softly hummed along to the music, not daring to speak as he allowed the taller man to rest his head on his shoulder. Ever so slowly, their swaying came to a stop. It felt like the rest of the world had faded away, only leaving the two of them in the wake of its departure, hearing little but their own breathing.
He softly nudged Dazai’s head up, moving him just enough that they were pressed forehead to forehead, close enough that their lips almost brushed.
After a couple moments of taking in the joyful atmosphere that had flooded his apartment, Chuuya pulled away to a slightly more respectful distance. He kept a firm hold on Dazai though, rubbing circles on the other mans hips with his thumbs.
Dazai gazed deep into Chuuya’s mismatched eyes, studying each little detail as if they were more awe inspiring than any constellation in the sky.
So engrossed was he in his partners beauty that he barely noticed when the other brought his hand up to caress his face.
“What’re you looking at, sweetheart?” Chuuya asked softly, a small, teasing grin making its way onto his face.
Dazai flushed a bright scarlet. He wasn’t used to attention like this, especially not sugary sweet petnames. No, that wasn’t how they normally did things. They threw barbs at each other and used insulting nicknames to rile the other up. They didn’t do… this…
Being caught off guard, he wasn’t able to rely on his usual defences. All he could really do was blurt out the first thing to come to mind.
“Chuuya’s pretty…”
He regretted the words the moment they left his mouth. Chuuya was probably joking around, and now he made it weird and—
“I love you.” Chuuya whispered, gazing at him with a look so unabashedly fond that Dazai had to fight the intrinsic urge to flee that he always got when people wanted to give him good things. Except… this wasn’t just people. This was Chuuya. The man who had seen him at his best and worst, and stuck by him all the same. Stuck by him even after he’d disappeared for four years with no explanation.
“Osamu. I love you.” He repeated, as if he was worried Dazai hadn’t heard him the first time.
He looked so vulnerable, so open with his emotions in a way Dazai had never seen from him. Worrying his lip between his teeth, as if he was attempting to push back the inherent fear of rejection that almost all humans felt.
Dazai was vaguely reminded of the time when he’d made a similar outburst at fifteen. He remembered how embarrassing it had been to accidentally blurt out an ill-thought-out confession when he was just trying to tease the shorter boy. He remembered scrambling for an excuse, only to be met with the contradicting feelings of relief and anguish at the swift rebuttal Chuuya had delivered. At the time he’d considered it a miracle that Chuuya had believed his distracted muttering about also feeling sickened by the idea; he had thought he’d sounded rather unconvincing, and had spent the coming days waiting for further ridicule that never came.
For a split-second he thought that maybe Chuuya had remembered that moment from their first meeting, and that this was some kind of prank that was seven years in the making.
It only took a single look at Chuuya’s face to erase all those worries from his mind.
He felt his throat close up.
He wanted to respond, tell the other man that he returned his feelings, but his body failed to cooperate. He ended up looking more like a gaping fish than a man who had just been told his crush-and-partner-of-the-past-seven-years loved him back.
Fortunately for Dazai, Chuuya just so happened to have several years of experience when it came to dealing with this particular fish. If it was anyone else, Dazai would’ve felt unnerved by how easily Chuuya seemed to read him. Even so, he couldn’t help but see it as another thing to love about him, especially when it lead them to where they were now.
“…May I?” Chuuya asked softly, eyes glancing at Dazai’s lips before darting back to meet his gaze.
It was all Dazai could do to nod eagerly, perhaps with a little more enthusiasm than needed, but Chuuya gave him a goofy smile before leaning in all the same.
In his not-so-small secret stash of romance novels, Dazai had often read of kisses described with metaphors like fireworks or sparks. He’d always scoffed at the wording, finding it preposterous that a physical action could feel anything like those two things. Technically he was right. In that moment, Chuuya’s hand cupping his cheek as their lips softly brushed against each other, he didn’t feel any fireworks, sparks, or explosions. No, instead he felt like he was on cloud nine. A burst of energy and joy coursing through his veins like he’d never really felt before. Embarrassingly enough, the first (and only) comparison he drew was the giggly, carefree way he felt when he was just on the right side of tipsy on the rare occasion that Chuuya would share a bottle of wine from his collection with him, and even that paled in comparison to this.
When pulling away, it took Dazai a couple seconds to remember to open his eyes. He almost wanted to keep them closed. He was hit with the sudden fear that if he opened his eyes, this would all just be a dream, and it would fade right from his grasp.
Instinctively, he gripped Chuuya a little tighter, as if that would stop him from disappearing.
He barely held back a sigh of relief when he opened his eyes and everything was still there. The unfairly comfortable couch; the soft and expensive curtains; the ceramic cups resting on fancy mats atop a glass coffee table; the faint glint of silverware, sitting just out of sight; and Chuuya, gazing up at him like he was the most precious thing he’d ever seen. Dazai could feel a blush spreading across his face once more, powerless to stop it.
He couldn’t prevent a small, bashful smile from worming its way onto his face as he realised that this felt right. That, if given the chance, he would gladly stay in this moment for the rest of his life.
His next words came out quieter than a whisper, but he knew Chuuya would hear them and understand his sincerity all the same.
“I love you too, Chuuya.”