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I.
Dazai Osamu is a selfish man.
He treads his path with carelessness, toeing the line between life and death with a grace of no other.
He gambles with his life as currency. Oftentimes, he loses his wagers with Lady Death. He thinks she loves to mess around with him, letting him want and leaving him disheartened. So selfless she is, cursing him with the gift of life, time and time again. Yet, his desires burn, for Lady Death to pull him into one final embrace.
Moonlight glimmers on the surface of water. The waves crawl onto the shore, as gently as ever. It extended a hand and offered the alluring attraction of death, drawing him in.
He steps forwards, and lets himself fall into the darkness.
II.
Dazai Osamu is a selfish man.
He steals yet another breath from the world, the scent of sand and sea mixing and mushing into his damp hair.
He doesn’t know how much time has passed. Maybe minutes? Hours?
As his senses started to come back, a faint yet familiar voice rings through his head. He couldn't dare to dream of such a saviour — or really, an antagonist — in his story, stealing away such an opportunity to finally waltz into Death’s hands.
Really, he wished for it to have been anyone else. Akutagawa, Kouyou, maybe even that wretched boss. Anyone would have sufficed, just not him .
Cracking open his eyes, he meets blue.
Blue eyes, eyes that were the sea and the sky, eyes that belonged to someone that wasn’t him.
(He pretends to not notice the worry in those eyes.)
“Bastard! What do you think you’re doing on Port Mafia property?!”
“Oh, so it really is Chuuya.” He coughs out a few rough breaths, voice raspy.
“What do you mean, “Oh, it’s Chuuya?!” Do you know how much trouble you would be in if you got caught hanging around here?” The man shook him by the shoulders, anger bubbling in his veins. “You’re insufferable. Go home.”
“But I’m so tired! I was just soaking in water a second ago. Does Chuuya have no sympathy?” He pouts exaggeratedly.
He practically barks through gritted teeth. “Sympathy my ass! You brought this onto yourself!”
“But my dog is supposed to be loyal and help me out, right? Why don’t you just take me home instead of fussing about it here? Or has that silly hat of yours eaten your left brain hemisphere?”
“Shut it and die!”
Their conversations these days were mostly like that. Bantering, shouting, throwing half-hearted, nonsensical jumbles of cuss words at each other until one of the two gives up. Spoilers: Chuuya does most of the time. This time was no exception.
But even after all that, Chuuya ends up driving him back anyway.
(He silently applauds the executive’s ability to put up with him.
…Obviously, he would never say this out loud. All praises should go to him , after all.)
III.
Dazai Osamu, the most selfish person Chuuya’s ever met, probably, is sitting on the ledge of his apartment’s bathtub.
He lets himself get pampered, lets his muscles relax as Chuuya comes back with fresh bandages and a new outfit change (he reckons it's one of the executive’s oversized pyjamas, yet it’s still too small for his very obviously taller figure).
Chuuya makes quick work of bandaging him up, muttering slurred strings of curses under his breath. Once finished, he steps away, turning to his wardrobe and gets himself something to sleep in.
“You could stay until you feel better. I’m too tired to drive you all the way back to your apartment.”
He might’ve hit the damn jackpot, words flowing through his ears like a sweet nectar. “Has Chuuya finally learnt sympathy? I must be dreaming!”
“Utter another word and I’ll shove you to the street.” Chuuya retorts as he kicks him out of the bathroom.
They’ve fallen back into their usual habit scarily fast after four years of separation. Dazai, one way or another, finds himself back in a familiar room, injured or not. He guesses it’s Life’s punishment for him, trapping him in his dog’s house after he pushed her away hundreds— no, maybe thousands of times already.
Fatigue settles in his bones. Stealing away most of Chuuya’s bed — like the selfish man he is — he succumbs to sleep, and lets himself drift.
He wakes up to soft lights cracking through blinds, with a steaming hot breakfast on the nightstand. The note under the bowl of miso soup said “Finish breakfast and fuck off.”
…Of course he doesn’t just fuck off.
He lounges in Chuuya’s apartment, ignores all calls from Kunikida (save for a sticker he sent through chat, which led to Kunikida exploding his inbox), eats the mafioso’s snacks, and treats himself to a little day off with the executive’s gaming consoles. He ransack’s his wine collection, thiefing a few bottles of (really, on the cheaper side) wine. He doesn’t drink them, obviously, he just wants to upset his dog a little more. A gift for his courtesy.
On his way out, Dazai is then met with a fuming slug, throwing at him all sorts of colourful insults.
It totally wasn’t a calculated move.
The night still ends with cicada chirpings streaming through the cracks of the window, with bandaged arms wrapped around slim waist.
(Dazai would trade everything he owned, even his life, just so he could live this moment every day.)
IV.
Dazai Osamu, as selfish as he may be, stands silent and unmoving in the river of time.
Time, a concept that he can never own, can never grasp, can never make his.
The stream seeped through the cracks of rocks, curving gently, never deviating from its original path. It crept through the darkness, simmered into him, filling him with emptiness, fullness, and everything in between. Cool water hits heated skin, sending shivers racking through his bones.
His legs felt like lead binding him to the cold, rough ground.
At this moment, Dazai Osamu desperately wanted to build a dam, clogging the flows of time and putting an end to his miserable existence. But he couldn’t move, couldn’t bring himself to move, staring blankly as the flow turns stronger, rumbling and crashing—
And then there was light.
A presence stepped into his endless flow, disrupting— no, decimating the calm of the water, setting fire to the cold and endless void, engulfing him in warmth, warmth, warmth.
His world was aflame, ablaze, burning fiercely as red glow surrounds. His ears, now snapped out of his daze, registered the crackling of fire; his eyes met true blue — melancholy, grief, and sparklings of hope — and suddenly, Death’s painful gifts to him don’t seem so bad anymore.
The flames sparked something in him; they never once seared his skin, but he craved for them to engrave the culprit’s name onto every inch of his body.
Nakahara Chuuya .
How terrible, letting a slug eat away at his gifted, “Demon Prodigy” brain like that.
(He knows deep down that it’s a fate that he’d accept in less than a heartbeat.)
V.
In the flows of time, Dazai Osamu is still just a selfish man.
Yet one thing never changes.
He yearns, yearns, yearns for the sight of a redhead, with ocean blue eyes, so real, so truthful and oh-so human under his grasp.
And whatever Dazai wants, he shall get.