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Chuuya was sixteen when he had been gifted his beloved motorcycle.
Though the events that led to it will always be tragic enough to keep Chuuya up at night, the motorcycle brought him great relief.
It was a welcome distraction;
when Dazai wasn't there to press his lips against Chuuya's, when they were too far apart to intertwine their fingers, when the night was too bittersweet a feeling, when bandages and gloves were meant to stay on, when harsh words that could never be taken back were exchanged...
Chuuya would go on a joyride to calm his mind.
Of course, Dazai was a much better distraction, not that he'd ever fully admit it.
Albatross's motorcycle had no connection to Dazai, allowing Chuuya's mind to ignore his partner if he wanted to,
to forget that there was ever a time when he wasn't apart of something greater than he could've ever been on his own.
When he had been gifted this bike, courtesy of his one year anniversary of being in the Port Mafia, Dazai had instantly claimed he would never ride it, no matter how much his dog begged.
'Can dogs even drive motorcycles? Can your tiny slug feet even reach the pedals? How horribly reckless!'
'I thought you wanted to die, shitty Dazai.'
'Not with you! Anything but that!
Except...
Dazai had such a terrible weak spot when it came to his dog,
and how could he ever say no when he knew just how much it meant to Chuuya?
So, despite his protests, he had ended up on the back of Chuuya's obnoxiously pink motorcycle.
"You better hold on tight, you mummified bastard. I'm not stopping if your ass falls off, you hear me?"
"Chuuya's so rude! What a bad dog, threatening to abandon his master like that!"
"Yeah, well, 'Chuuya's' the one driving this damn thing, so you might wanna watch your smartass mouth."
Dazai huffed and wrapped his arms around Chuuya's waist,
he swallowed the comment he had about how unsafe this was, they were in the mafia for god's sake!
Suddenly they were moving, much faster than any car Dazai had ever been in, and it was horrifying.
So horrifying, in fact, that Dazai let out a scream of terror and tightened his grip on Chuuya's waist, grabbing on like his life depended on it...
well, his life did depend on it.
Chuuya let out a loud chuckle, which in Dazai's opinion was an unfairly pleasant sound. "I'll make sure everyone knows that Dazai-fucking-Osamu, Demon Prodigy, brains of Soukoku, screamed like a little girl just from being on a damn motorcycle."
Dazai opened his mouth with all intent to snap back, but he let out a mortifying whimper instead. "Shut up, shut up, shut up! God, what about this calms you down!?" He leaned his forehead on Chuuya's back and closed his eyes tightly as he took a few deep breaths, getting high off of the intoxicating smell of gun-powder, metal, and high-end cologne. He would rather live forever than have a panic attack in front of Chuuya over something as insignificant as a bike.
"Your idea of 'calming down' is getting high, or drunk, or making out, or having sex, or trying to commit fucking suicide. Sometimes all five of those damn things. Is any of that better than riding on a vehicle?" When he put it that way it seemed all the more ridiculous...
"Yes, it is! You're more suicidal than I am, is this even legal!?"
"Who cares if it's legal? We've done far worse, dumbass."
Chuuya had a point, it was much more common for them to partake in something illegal than ever dare to be good, law-abiding citizens. They were rebels, nothing more than some tragic sixteen year olds who got involved with the wrong crowd.
But that didn't make riding at top speed on a vehicle responsible for hundreds of deaths a year any less horrifying!
Dazai knew he was focusing too much on the speed, that if he got out of his head it wouldn't be such an anxiety filled experience...
"...You okay back there, Osamu?"
Dazai's stomach flipped, his heart-rate going up.
Osamu, Osamu, Osamu...
Was it even fair for something as simple as syllables to sound so pretty?
Or maybe it was just the nausea.
"Fine." Dazai mumbled, though his tone clearly betrayed his claim.
Chuuya scoffed, clearly not buying Dazai's bullshit. "Liar. You're shaking like a damn leaf and your pulse is way the fuck off, not to mention you're making way too much of an effort to keep your breathing under control."
Ah.
"Such an observant dog!~" He made no move to deny what Chuuya had just said; he was too tuned to Dazai's body, to his mind, to his very soul.
Chuuya mumbled something along the lines of 'Shitty Mackerel, making dog jokes even when he's having a fucking panic attack...'
Dazai hadn't even noticed when Chuuya pulled over, nor did he make any effort to move from his position.
"Focus on me. Maybe if you weren't in your head so damn much we wouldn't even be here in the first place." You should've something, dumbass. Stop overthinking for once.
"Such a misbehaved dog! Being mean to me even in a moment of weakness!"
"Shut up and breathe, you waste of bandages."
Dazai knew the steps well,
how many times had one of them had panic or anxiety attacks in the middle of missions?
How many times has he heard those exact words before? How many times has he said them?
Focus on me.
Dazai obeyed without protests, he figured the quicker he could get this over with the better.
It wasn't a big deal, they had both been witness to much worse attacks.
It was hard to be shaken up when he had Chuuya to serve as his grounding constant.
The motorcycle went into drive again, and both pretended to notice the fact that Chuuya was going much slower now; at a more comfortable pace.
No further words were spoken into the quiet of the night, no more banter; the shadows softened their sharp edges, the moon providing them more comfort than the sun ever had.
And, well, if Dazai used his irrational fear as an excuse to press himself further against Dazai?
It was nobody's business but their's, yet another secret to lurk in the shadows of Yokohama.
Fin.