Chapter Text
It started with a question.
Maybe it started before. Maybe it started with a partnership. Maybe it started with a kick.
Who fucking knew, really? The fact of the matter was that things culminated or clicked or collapsed or exploded… all at that moment. That brief, almost innocent moment of intrigue disguising itself as curiosity and excitement masquerading as apathy.
Has Chibi ever been kissed?
A year of being at Dazai’s side like magnets with the same polarity being shoved together by a five year old’s clumsy little hands. It was hectic, he was insufferable, always giving just enough vulnerability to reel Chuuya in for a moment before he ruined it with some crude joke or cruel taunt or a suicidal comment that Chuuya never knew how to take. Always with that smile, like he was ten steps ahead, and knowing him, he was probably fifteen steps ahead.
But that moment? That moment when he asked almost seemed like an accident. Like once he asked the question aloud, he realized he hadn’t given himself permission to do so, hadn’t thought his ten, fifteen steps ahead.
Chuuya fixed him with a steady glare, head down as he stared past the brim of his hat.
“Yes,” he said simply.
Clearly, Dazai hadn’t expected an answer, much less in the affirmative.
His eye lit up, curious and teasing, and in that moment, Chuuya recalled that they were sixteen. He’d seen Dazai’s eye with its glazed over, lifeless expression, cold and empty and dull as he took a life without a second thought, as he made his calculations. He always seemed so much older in those moments, years away from Chuuya. But there, in that moment, they were just teenagers.
“That sounds like a lie,” he said haughtily. “Who would kiss a Chibi like you?”
Chuuya shrugged, gritting his teeth, but refusing to rise to the bait. “You spend a few years watching each other’s backs and feelings get mixed up,” he said flatly. “Nothing serious, just kid crushes.”
It was quiet for a moment before Dazai asked, “The boy from the Sheep?”
Chuuya scrunched his nose. “No. And it’s none of your damn business, asshole.”
“I’ve never kissed anyone.”
“That isn’t surprising.”
What was surprising was that Dazai didn’t give some juvenile comeback to that. Instead his gaze was far away. Before Chuuya could ask, Dazai took a breath and grinned, all child-like and mischievous. “What’s it like, anyway?”
“Hah?” Chuuya stepped back. “Why?”
“Chuuya is so stupid,” Dazai sighed. “Because I’ve never kissed anyone, so I don’t know.” He leaned back against the wall and gestured with his hand, as if to tell Chuuya, go on.
Chuuya couldn’t help the flush that quickly rose to his cheeks. It wasn’t all that memorable, really. His description would be underwhelming at best, pathetic at worst. It might have been better to have simply said he’d never been kissed.
He sighed and tugged at his collar a bit. “Dunno. Just. Lips on lips. Warm, I guess? It’s not a big deal.”
Dazai seemed to consider this, more so than anything else Chuuya had ever said to him. He mulled it over, turning away from Chuuya and staring at the floor with a passive expression. “Will you show me, then?”
“And why the hell would I do that?” Chuuya nearly shrieked, and he was only glad his voice didn’t crack in the panic.
Dazai’s eye flitted to him, bright and curious and… something else Chuuya didn’t know how to read. It was something he never saw in Dazai’s gaze. His smile remained, but Chuuya caught the way he’d started to tug at the edge of the bandages on his arm. “Because I’ll be distracted with curiosity and possibly put missions in jeopardy if my curiosity isn't sated. If it isn’t a big deal, then what does it matter? And who else am I supposed to ask? We’re partners, right? We know a lot about each other, even if we don’t want to. We’re supposed to trust each other.”
He was rambling. Not to cause a distraction or to mentally fuck with the opposition or to show off his intelligence. He was rambling because… he was nervous.
Making Dazai Osamu nervous shouldn’t have given Chuuya such an addictive, lightheaded feeling, but damn it did. He so rarely got the upperhand on the bastard.
He took a step forward and saw another flash of shock flicker across Dazai’s face. Either he really hadn’t thought this through, or Chuuya was not responding according to plan. “And what do you care what kisses feel like? Can’t imagine the knowledge would be much help during missions.”
Dazai wouldn’t meet his eyes. When he did, the child-like playfulness was gone, but he wasn’t empty either. There was something simmering in his gaze, something—
“Humans tend to crave those kinds of things. Intimacy, touch. Animals procreate and go along with nature, but… humans kiss. Just to kiss. Just to feel it. I wonder if I might understand something that keeps eluding me if I experience it.” He nodded, as if confirming what he said.
Chuuya sighed and arched an eyebrow. “It’s one thing to kiss someone for the hell of it. Another because you feel something for them.”
“Which was it for you?”
He took a breath. “She liked me. I didn’t like her.”
Dazai tilted his head, pensive. “Then how do you know it would be different otherwise?”
The question made him hesitate. He cleared his throat and shrugged. “It’s supposed to be. Everyone says so. Feelings make it different.”
Dazai nodded. “Okay. And be honest, do you think either of us will find something like that in this line of work? You know all the adults hire their lovers. And if we somehow did, would we bring them into this life? Would they survive it?”
“So your last resort… is asking me to kiss you?”
“No, Chibi,” Dazai said with a smile. “You’re my only plausible option.”
Unable to discern whether that was a compliment or an insult, Chuuya took a very deep breath and let it out slowly. “You’re insane.”
“We’re both part of the Port Mafia. Insanity is part of the job.”
Chuuya scoffed and shook his head, turning away.
“You can say no,” Dazai said, in a quiet voice that didn’t really fit him.
“I know that!” Chuuya spat out. He looked at Dazai. Resignation didn’t suit him, aggravating as he could be.
There was no denying that he was attractive. The fluffy chocolate brown hair messily framing his face, the smooth swoop of his jaw, his earthy eye color that seemed to dig right through Chuuya to the ugliest parts, the crooked smile. Fuck, maybe he was just tall and not attractive at all. Or maybe if he would just drop the cocky act and act like a normal human instead of making Chuuya’s life a living hell, Chuuya would have fallen for him a long time ago.
As it was, Dazai was very much an arrogant, cocky son of a bitch who loved tormenting Chuuya at every chance, and he was torturously beautiful in a way that made Chuuya think of alluring demons.
Chuuya hated him. But he also trusted him at his most vulnerable. He wanted to strangle him, but the idea of anyone else being at his side made Chuuya furious. They were partners, rivals, incompatible, inseparable.
“Stay still. If you move I’m kicking your ass,” Chuuya muttered.
Long lashes fluttered in surprise, and when Chuuya leaned closer to press his hand to Dazai’s right cheek, he watched in mild fascination as a rosy color flooded the skin beneath his palm.
His lips were dry. A bit coarse against his own, but warm and clinging to Chuuya’s in those small seconds between pressure and pulling away.
A small smile spread on Dazai’s lips. “Chu-uya,” he whispered, elongating the name playfully, “are you on your tiptoes?”
Heat rose to Chuuya’s face as he let his feet go flat on the ground once more, and he scowled before rearing his leg up and kicking Dazai against his side hard enough to knock him to the floor. “Get to work, you bastard!” he growled out, walking away from him.
His laugh echoed along the hallway, quiet and raspy, a bit pained but very amused. As he turned the corner, Chuuya realized the slight tickle he felt on his lips when he kissed Dazai had not gone away.
Everything unraveled wildly and messily from there.
Dazai went to Chuuya’s quarters in the middle of the night about a week later, shoving his phone over Chuuya’s paperwork.
“What the fuck is this?” Chuuya asked, too exhausted to put all the indignation he wanted into it.
On the screen, a couple was kissing, shoving tongues against each other and twisting their heads and overlapping in a strangely uncoordinated fashion.
“That is a kiss,” Dazai said. “You gave me a peck.”
Chuuya grimaced, shoving the phone back. “I gave you a kiss. That’s… animalistic.”
“Ha! Chibi has never been kissed; I knew it.”
“I have!”
“Not like this.” Dazai held his phone up. “This is the type of kiss that makes people write poems. This was the kind of kiss I wanted to know about.”
“Well, then you’re shit out of luck.”
“Chuuya.”
“No.”
“I won’t tease you.” The words were said so earnestly, that Chuuya hesitated and met his gaze. The bandage over his right eye was gone, making the expression in them feel more intense. Dazai stared back at him for a few seconds before looking down at the kissing couple, but he stared at it analytically, confounded. “It would be a first for us both. I’d have no room to tease. Aren’t you curious?”
He hadn’t been. Not until Dazai presented the opportunity. He felt warm all over. He had work to do. And he was responding to a video of a couple like… like… like a sixteen year old boy.
It felt strange, imagining himself with Dazai in that situation, but his partner’s words from before echoed in his head. When would they get to try this if not with each other? When he turned eighteen and was shoved into a hotel room with a paid lady, fumbling over himself to prove he was grown? When he was in his twenties and covered in red, never able to wash off the lives he’d taken by then? Never because he wouldn’t want to get attached to anyone in this life he'd chosen?
Even if the mafia life wasn’t dangerous, even if having someone to care for wasn’t a glaring sign of weakness, Chuuya knew damn well that people didn’t stick around. He didn’t think he’d ever trust anyone enough to be vulnerable like the movies and the poems talked about.
But Dazai was in the same boat as him. They were a pair. They had to have each other’s backs. Chuuya was the power to Dazai’s intelligence, and Dazai was the tether when Chuuya's impulsiveness risked getting the best of him. They needed each other, and because of it, they had to stay together. By force if not convenience.
He stood up and leaned against his desk, arms crossed as he looked at Dazai. “What’s all this for? What do you care?”
“Humanity fascinates me. I’m trying to understand it,” Dazai said simply, like he’d rehearsed it.
Chuuya believed it, but he also sensed it wasn’t the full truth. There was more to this curiosity, something else Dazai was after, and Chuuya wasn’t sure he was equipped to help him reach it in the first place. He also knew that Dazai was likely to talk him in circles rather than fess up whatever the hell his actual goal was.
“I initiated the kiss last time. It’s your turn,” Chuuya said flatly.
Dazai scoffed as he pulled himself off the wall, and Chuuya felt his stomach swoop nervously. “It was a peck,” Dazai muttered. He stood in front of Chuuya, looking down at him with furrowed brows. “Well, at least stop pouting, Chibi.”
“Fuck off,” Chuuya snarled.
Dazai rolled his eyes. Then he put a hand to Chuuuya’s cheek, like he’d done to Dazai before. He leaned down slowly, his breath ghosting lightly over Chuuya’s top lip.
His lips were softer this time. The tilt of his head slotted their lips together so that Dazai's cushioned Chuuya’s top lip. His lips parted slightly to press against Chuuya's more firmly, leaving Chuuya frozen and unsure. Dazai’s hand was stiff at his cheek.
Chuuya shuddered when he felt Dazai’s tongue swipe along his top lip, flinching back before long fingers cradled his head to keep him in place. He parted his own lips slightly, but there was still something stiff about the whole thing.
“Chibi needs to open his mouth more.”
“Shut up,” Chuuya hissed.
Instead of responding, Dazai’s hand moved to his chin, and gently coaxed his jaw loose until Chuuya's mouth was slightly agape. He felt his cheeks burn being stared at like some insect beneath a microscope, but before he could bite at Dazai’s hand, Dazai leaned back in, his tongue sliding into his mouth and leaving Chuuya’s eyes to widen in shock.
He'd never realized how utterly strange tongues were until another was in his mouth. Warm, wet, with a soft and foreign texture, ticklish as it slid along the roof of his mouth.
Before he lost himself in it, Dazai opened his mouth more, doing something with his mouth and tongue that had Chuuya’s lips covered in his saliva. He grimaced and pushed him back by the shoulders as he turned his head away.
“Too much tongue, you idiot,” Chuuya hissed. He wiped at his mouth as he glared at Dazai. “Ease up a bit, you're not supposed to eat my face.”
Dazai’s expression remained neutral, but a flush flooded his cheeks. Chuuya knew it would kill him to know he wasn't instantly good at something for once.
“You should do something too. It's like kissing a pillow with you.”
“How often do you kiss your pillow?” Chuuya asked, one eyebrow arched as he delighted in Dazai’s eye roll.
“What else do I change?” he asked.
Chuuya blinked, surprised. He was really hellbent on getting this right and Chuuya had the damned luck of being the experimental rat. He sighed, aware that he could still taste Dazai in his mouth, still smell him on his lip. It was the strangest thing, but not exactly horrible. It just wasn't what he'd heard of in songs and seen in plays and movies.
He cleared his throat and glanced at Dazai’s hands where they rested on either side of him against the desk.
“It feels nice when your hands are in my hair. Or holding my face,” he muttered. His eyes flitted to the bandages wrapped around Dazai’s neck, to the ones that went down his arms.
Despite their time working together and even relaxing at bathhouses, Dazai never took them off around Chuuya. He had no idea what was beneath them, and it hurt his stomach if he tried to think too hard about it. Dazai could be shameless and abrasive about a lot of things, but he never breathed a word about those bandages. Frankly it was surprising he’d shown up without the patch over his eye.
Chuuya cleared his throat. “Am I allowed to grab you? I don't want to ruin your bandages or something….”
Dazai pulled back slightly, and Chuuya shifted, wondering if that would be the end of Dazai's experimenting. Instead, he simply stretched out his arms and nodded slowly. “Just don't try to remove them.”
Well, duh. Chuuya wasn't an asshole.
He nodded and waited, but Dazai only stared back at him for a moment before cocking his head. “It's Chibi's turn.”
“My turn?”
“To initiate,” Dazai said slowly, enunciating as if speaking to a child. Chuuya resisted the urge to kick him.
He glared as Dazai stood still, waiting, no longer leaning into his space. Slowly, Chuuya lifted his hand and traced his fingers along the edge of the bandage that covered his neck. He noticed Dazai's jaw clench, and his eyes flickered up to meet his gaze. He held it as his fingers moved to the skin beneath his jawline, tracing the slope until the tension went away. Then Chuuya let his fingers comb through the shaggy hair that fell in waves at the nape of his neck, cradling his head and using his hold to tug Dazai down and closer.
Dazai had never been so pliant. So easy to maneuver. There was no resistance as their lips met again in a peck, as Dazai had called it. This time, Chuuya parted his lips first, tentatively licking into Dazai's mouth. He tilted his head, slotting himself against him better, but still slow about his movements.
He was thinking too much. About how much to open or close his mouth, about whether he was moving his tongue correctly, wondering if he'd leave Dazai covered in saliva, or if maybe his breath smelled because he hadn't brushed his teeth yet that night. Though, Dazai wouldn't have hesitated to point out if his breath smelled, and what would Dazai know about the right way to do this anyway?
“Chibi gets distracted so easily,” Dazai muttered against Chuuya's mouth. Then he tugged Chuuya closer with his hands on either side of his face, large and firm and insistent.
Chuuya's mouth fell open in a gasp at the same time that Dazai's tongue licked into his mouth, before sucking at his bottom lip and he let out a content little sigh against his will.
Kissing was so strange, but that little pressure was nice. Being held like this was nice.
Dazai pulled away, using his fingers to brush Chuuya’s hair away from his face. “Your hair keeps getting in my mouth,” he said flatly, making Chuuya's cheeks burn.
“You satisfied yet?” he grumbled.
“That bad, Chibi?”
Chuuya bit his tongue and struggled to keep himself from closing his eyes at the feeling of Dazai's hands in his hair, the gentle scratching along his scalp.
“I don't know how to do this.”
Dazai hummed. “Practice makes perfect, I suppose. I'll have to do some research.”
“Hah?” Chuuya half-gasped as he jerked his head to look at Dazai. “The hell does that mean? You know, I'm not your damn lab rat, asshole!”
Dazai only smiled, easy-going and unfazed as he stepped back. “Get some sleep, Chuuya. You'll never grow otherwise.”
Chuuya had half a mind to throw something at him, but before he could settle on what, Dazai had slipped out of his room with a happy little wave.
It didn't change things. They walked past each other in the halls and sat in meetings and argued and went on missions and everything was the same. Except Chuuya now knew what Dazai's mouth tasted like at two in the morning.
Dazai occasionally lingered at Chuuya’s door, but he never asked for another kiss. Chuuya was certain that he'd gotten over it or pushed the idea out of his head after another two weeks.
Then one day while they ate lunch together, Dazai suddenly mused, “Where would be a good place to meet people my age who won't get attached?”
“What?”
“I suppose Mori-san could pull strings to let us into the bars and clubs the adults all go to, but—”
“What the hell are you on about?”
“I'm trying to figure out this kissing thing.”
Chuuya's stomach tightened. He chewed his food and swallowed, keeping his gaze down. “Still?”
Dazai nodded and nudged his food around his plate. “I suppose I can try the arcade….”
Chuuya grit his teeth. It wasn't like he particularly cared who Dazai did his dumb experiments with, but he detested the feeling of being replaced, of not having been good enough. He was figuring it out too, for fuck's sake.
“Good luck with that.” Chuuya stood and threw his trash away before going about the rest of his day. If he was colder toward Dazai, if he avoided him, it was only because he had more important things to do than play his dumb games.
Dazai allowed it for two days before he cornered Chuuya while he ran some errands for the Port Mafia.
“Now what good are we as a duo with you avoiding me like some scorned maiden?” Dazai asked.
“Fuck you.”
Dazai arched an eyebrow. “Ah, is that what you want to experiment?”
Chuuya felt his entire face flare, and while he knew Dazai was purposefully trying to poke his buttons, he couldn't help but hit him with one of the shopping bags in his arms, hoping that his ability worked long enough before nullification that the weight of it still hit Dazai.
“In your dreams, you bastard,” He growled out.
Dazai hummed. “Once, I think, yes, though I’d call it a nightmare, not a dream.”
Chuuya froze. “What.”
As Chuuya tried to wrap his head around Dazai’s comments, Dazai sighed and leaned against a store window. “Let me get to the point. Why is Chibi ignoring me?”
“Wouldn’t want to get in the way of you finding a new little lab rat,” Chuuya muttered before shouldering past Dazai to continue past the shops.
With his long legs, it didn’t take much for Dazai to tail him, half a step behind as he trailed along. “Is that jealousy I sense?”
Oddly, the question wasn’t amused or cocky. It sounded genuine, almost confused.
Chuuya rolled his eyes and turned on his heel, making Dazai stumble to stop before toppling into him. “No. I’m not jealous that you’d rather slobber over some stranger. I’m angry that you seemed to find it so easy to toss me aside when I couldn’t live up to whatever weird expectation you had when we were both figuring it out.”
As Dazai’s eye caught the sun, making it glint as he regarded Chuuya like he was solving a puzzle. He shook his head. “I’m not tossing you aside,” he said simply. “You didn’t seem willing to keep experimenting, as you put it. And clearly, it’s not easy seeing as I haven’t been able to find someone.”
It was somewhat a reassurance, but it was said so plainly, that Chuuya still felt like a last resort which was a massive hit to his pride. “What exactly is your goal, Dazai? What are you looking for? Have you considered that maybe you need to actually have feelings for the person you do these things with in order to be satisfied?”
“Not everyone kisses or touches or fucks because they feel something.”
His brash manner of speaking had Chuuya stumbling over his words a bit. “No, not everyone does, but whatever you seem to be reaching for seems like you need to.”
“I didn’t mind figuring it out with you. I’d just like to be able to do things well,” Dazai said. “If I wasn’t satisfied, it was because of my own lack of skill.”
The unsaid meaning behind that had Chuuya’s eyes widening slightly, his lips parting with surprise. But that look was back on Dazai’s face. The empty one that made him feel far away and unreachable. Like nothing fazed him, like he wasn’t fully there.
Chuuya took a breath. “Tell me why you want to bother with this stuff. Yeah, for experience, but what’s it matter if you said yourself we’ll probably never have anything stable with someone in the Port Mafia? To be like the high schoolers our age? I mean, what’s the point?”
It was quiet for a long time, aside from the crowds of people walking around them. No one bothered to bat an eye at them. Finally, Dazai sighed. “Because it’s human.”
Before Chuuya could process or respond, Dazai turned away and shrugged one shoulder. “I’m going to the arcade tomorrow. It can’t be that hard to charm someone. Will Chibi stop ignoring me?”
Instead of responding, Chuuya grit his teeth and turned away as well to start his trek back.
The conversation played on a loop in his head. He could hardly pay attention to the briefing Mori gave him or make sense of the file for an upcoming mission or crunch the numbers for his subordinates’ pay. He couldn’t afford to be this distracted, not if he wanted to prove he had what it took to become an executive.
Maybe this time it was planned. Dazai always knew how to get under his skin, how to piss him off and fuck up his whole day. And he knew how to lure him into that stupid game of wits and pride. He’d managed to give recognition and praise and sandwich them between teasing and backhanded compliments.
It was human.
Chuuya knew Dazai had some strange relationship with existence, oscillating between wanting to die and suddenly wanting to survive, to live. Throwing himself into dangerous situations and then somehow managing to swindle his way out of them and come out on top. Unable to find the point of living but still searching frantically for it.
Is that what this whole thing was? A tether to something mundane and normal and human for someone who felt so detached from life?
Chuuya didn’t have much of an existence to go off of. Nine years’ worth of memories now. He was far from normal, far from understanding his own purpose. He didn’t have a childhood to recall, and while his time with the Sheep felt like something close to a teenage existence, he knew it was far from it.
Other sixteen year olds were dating and worrying about exams and trying out for school sports teams and going home to parents who hovered. Chuuya was a jewel smuggler for the most feared group of Yokohama. He was in charge of people. He ran things. He executed missions. He held the power of gravity within himself, something that reached levels of mass destruction. A god resided inside of him.
He’d learned to handle guns and knives, how to take a life, how to save one, how to cover up his tracks, how to lead a group of people and command their respect, how to protect and adapt….
It was a silly thing. Stupid and mundane and… human.
Scowling, Chuuya pulled himself out of bed and left his room.
He wasn’t really surprised to find Dazai outside of his own room, a door over and across the hall.
Wordlessly, Dazai looked away from Chuuya and went into his room, leaving the door slightly open. Chuuya followed.
Inside Dazai’s room, they stood silently, facing each other, eyes locked in some sort of silent dare. But Chuuya knew this was his match to start; he’d been the one to come find him, the one to pad quietly into his room. If anything Dazai was actually making it easier on him, though it was likely because he was playing directly into his hands.
“I’m not here to convince you not to go to the arcade,” Chuuya said.
Dazai cocked his head, his lips turning up at one corner to give Chuuya a soft smirk. “Oh? Then?”
“You don’t need to be convinced.” At that, Dazai narrowed his brows slightly, allowing his expression to fall flat. “If you really wanted to go, you wouldn’t have told me. You would have just gone and done what you wanted and come back and left me none the wiser. Maybe you’d make a comment just to let me know how much better some stranger was at helping you out. But you didn’t do any of that. Because you want it to be me.”
“Chibi speaks a big game for such a small person,” Dazai muttered offhandedly.
“You know damn well that I’m one of the only people who really knows you. Because I have to. Because we’re partners and we need to be able to basically read each other’s minds. Maybe it takes me until after I fall to your ridiculously complicated games, but I figure it out.” Chuuya crossed his arms. “Am I wrong?”
“Of course you are; it might be—”
“Okay then, good night.” Chuuya pushed off the wall and started for the door.
“What?” Dazai asked, wide-eyed and confused.
Chuuya looked over his shoulder. “If I’m wrong, then I’m not going to stop you from doing whatever you want. Being replaceable might be a hit to my pride, but it’d be a bigger hit if I stooped to trying to convince you to use me for your experiment.” He shrugged. “Good luck at the arcade.”
He took three steps and put his hand on the door.
“Chuuya.”
He stopped, turning to tilt his head questioningly.
Dazai looked agitated. Annoyed and flushed. He glared at Chuuya as he spoke, fingers tugging at the edge of the bandages around his hand. “You’re not replaceable. And I don’t want to go to the arcade.”
Chuuya arched an eyebrow, waiting, expectant. When Dazai didn’t say anything more, Chuuya said, “Come on now. You love to run your mouth. That’s all you have to say?”
Jaw clenched, Dazai looked away, rolling his eyes. “It’s not some science experiment,” he said. “I’m trying to understand…. I want to know….” He sighed and shook his head. “Like you said; we’re partners. You’re the only one who could get me close to what I’m trying to reach. If you’re willing.”
Chuuya stayed quiet for a moment, so very unused to Dazai being so solemn and genuine. Whatever this was, it mattered a lot to him. He was almost desperate to grasp whatever concept he’d attributed to human intimacy. “I’ll help,” he said finally. “But it can’t interfere with work. And Mori-san—”
“Can’t know,” Dazai finished.
Chuuya nodded. There were no feelings attached to this tentative discovery, but anything that could pose a distraction, anything that even suggested some form of weakness could not be known to the others. Mori had no problem shoving the two of them together because they were powerful, compatible, and they couldn’t go long without insulting each other. Mori knew the two would always go head to head, but he also knew they’d put animosity aside to get a job done efficiently.
If he felt either of them were compromised, who knew what would happen? Neither of them were so dense as to think that someone happening upon them wouldn’t find what they were doing as a sign of something else. And maybe it was, but it wasn’t… that. There was attraction there, of course. What they were doing couldn’t bank solely on begrudging trust. But an acknowledgement of attractiveness was one thing, and feelings were another. And the low bar of trust and respect Chuuya had for Dazai was purely professional. He’d trust him to have his back in a fight, but he wouldn’t trust him not to trip him in the hallway.
If they’d grown up normally, maybe things would be different. Maybe things would be blurrier. But they were clear cut to Chuuya, and surely clear cut for Dazai too. It was just an aspect of existence they wanted to know because they wouldn’t otherwise. Because they were young and so much had already been taken from them. Because Chuuya wanted to live as much as he could, he deserved it, and because Dazai wanted to be human, wanted to know he was capable of it.
“It’s been a long day. I’ll see you tomorrow,” Chuuya said, chest heavy with the weight of this new layer of their dynamic.
“What, no goodnight kiss?” Dazai asked, giving him a lazy smile.
Chuuya thought for a moment then grinned, wide and feral. “It’s my turn to initiate. So wait until I feel like it, asshole.”
“Chuuya is so mean,” Dazai said dramatically, collapsing against his bed.
With an amused roll of his eyes, Chuuya left the room and returned to his own.