Work Text:
Free radicals are weird things, and that was coming from a science student. They didn't seem all that interesting at first, yet when it appears on your syllabus to study for a major exaAm that determines your future you tend to find yourself having to be forced to feign interest. Even worse, when you sit down and crack open your textbook to study for the said exam the week before, and you find your mental state crumbling over an exam topic, that seems to cause even more of an inconvenience.
Chuuya was having a breakdown over one topic among dozens that he had to study for his biochemistry exam, and not for the reason a normal person would.
A free radical can be defined as any molecular species capable of independent existence that contains an unpaired electron in an atomic orbital.
The tapping of his fountain pen played as an ambient background to the straying of his mind as he tried his best to pay attention to the textbook. His notebook, a simple one that was sewn together and bound with a red cover, lay open beside him, the empty pages appearing a stark white next to the other book that was filled to the brim with words upon words.
Brows furrowing in irritation, he glanced over to his left, where his laptop was open on the other side of the notebook. That too had a bunch of words glaring at him on the screen, the bright light serving as a lamp in the dark of his room in the apartment. The lights weren't on outside either, and he couldn't be bothered to walk over and turn them on. He hated the dark, but he couldn't bring himself to move, he at least needed to start this topic for the day and just be done with it.
The presence of an unpaired electron results in certain common properties shared by most radicals. Many radicals are unstable and highly reactive.
Chuuya held back a bitter chuckle as he moved to write the information in his notebook, the first note for the topic he had made for the 30 minutes he'd been sitting there.
Unstable and highly reactive? Sounds familiar.
If you were to ask him why he was insane enough to choose a major like biochemistry, paired with a second major in physics, he wouldn't know what to tell you. He liked numbers and science, that was it mostly. Chuuya liked things that made sense, stuff that he didn't have to interpret from a subjective viewpoint where there were various meanings to one variable. Sure he liked poetry, he took that for his compulsory English elective, but that was his partner's speciality, not his. For sciences, all Chuuya had to do was analyse the problem, conduct calculations and he'll get the answer.
On a deeper level, he did it to find out if he was human.
Which sounds stupid, like, how could you think you're not human? You're breathing, aren't you? There's blood in your veins, isn't there? Exactly! Human!
Chuuya disagreed, everything about him seemed like an abomination, a freak of nature. Sure he technically possessed all the criteria to categorise him as one, but he knew. He knew there was something wrong with him, he just didn't know what.
He didn't know who his parents were, he didn't know why his body would feel limitless sometimes and extremely weak right after to the point where he'd be exhausted for days. His hair made him feel unnatural, albeit less so since he met other people like Tanizaki and Tachihara in his first year.
The worst part was his eyes. Those two-toned orbs in each socket didn't match the other, one a deep auburn and the other a stark blue. They were hideous, and it didn't make him look natural.
Clenching his jaw, he pushed his thoughts aside while gripping tighter to his pen.
Free radicals are missing an electron from their outer shell. That makes them unstable. To rectify this, they steal an electron from the molecules of nearby cells such as skin and blood. That causes damage to surrounding cells.
There must be something seriously wrong with him if he was genuinely finding relations between himself and a molecule that results in oxidative stress.
He had always been unstable, and he had never known how to fix himself. Ever since he had been saved from an illegal experiment facility when he was younger he'd been causing problems for everyone around him. He was like the stupid free radical that stole electrons from others, except instead of electrons, it was bad luck wherever he went.
It was his fault that his high school friends had died because they'd all been there to celebrate him before they got caught in the crossfire of the incident in the clubs. His brother, who is just as if not more unstable than him had partially caused it, yet Chuuya couldn't find it in himself to blame him. It was his fault it happened anyway. His two best friends had ditched him, right before graduation. He didn't quite understand why Adam adopted him and chose to help him get into this school, especially when Adam's little sister was half his age and already had a bachelor's degree, but he was extremely thankful nonetheless.
All Chuuya did was cause problems, that's who he was. A problem child, or a monster, the most fitting word being abomination. There was something wrong with him, and he didn't even know what it was to fix it.
Absentmindedly tugging on his uneven hair, another unnatural thing about him, he glared at the textbook as if it was its fault he was thinking these things instead of studying. If he glared hard enough, it would give him a response that he'd be looking for.
If free radicals overwhelm the body's ability to regulate them, a condition known as oxidative stress ensues. Free radicals thus adversely alter lipids, proteins, and DNA and trigger several human diseases.
He didn't like the textbook's response. He calmly closed the book before calmly throwing it against the opposite wall, and pushing his head into his hands.
He vaguely heard the object hit the wall with a heavy thud before another sound followed, which he attributed to it falling to the ground. He probably ripped the front page, that book wasn't even his, he had borrowed it from Kaiji in the year above him. Another piece of evidence is that all he did was cause damage. Whatever, he'll deal with it later.
His heart hammered in his chest, and he wasn't even sure why. Curse his stupid non-human heart and his non-human anxiety attacks.
Maybe it had something to do with the overwhelming thoughts of how he's never going to be a normal human being that doesn't cause issues for people, and that there's something wrong with him that he couldn't fix. Or the obligatory imgonnafailimgonnafailimgonnafail that was at the very top of his mind. Or maybe it was the fact that the lights were off even though he was the one who didn't turn them on in the first place.
Then the lights turned on, and he couldn't help but let out a hiss at the immediate change in environment. His shoulders tensed, trying to remember if he had remembered to lock the front door, but his flooded mind drew a blank. Whatever, if it was a robber, they had to get it over with. Maybe take his textbook and kidnap him for good measure so he'd have an excuse for an extension, though he was 90% sure Dr. Mori would fail him on the spot regardless.
"I wasn't aware the dog was switched out with a cat when I left."
Chuuya preferred to take his chances with the burglar.
Peeking up through his hair, blinking the light out of his eyes, Chuuya watched Dazai step through the door of his room. He'd just come back from a late class, he guessed by his outfit. Shrugging off his jacket and throwing it on the bed, which Chuuya grimaced in disgust at, Dazai's eyes caught the sight of the book on the floor and bent over to pick it up. Looking at the battered cover and back at his partner through the lenses of his wire-rimmed glasses, he raised an eyebrow quizzically.
Chuuya raised his head and glanced away, his heart still racing in his chest while he struggled to breathe.
"I'm studying."
"Right, in the dark with your textbook on the floor" Opening the book and rifling through the pages, dazai made his way over and leaned over his shoulder to look at his computer screen. When he was this close, he could smell the scent of dried leaves and new bandages from less than an inch away. He took a slow breath, the muscle in his chest fighting to regain a steady rhythm.
"Free radicals?"
"Yeah."
Dazai glanced at the notes in his book beside him. "You didn't write that much of anything."
He didn't say it condescendingly like he usually did, or insinuate that Chuuya was stupid. Dazai stated it as if it was a fact, and it was, he didn't write anything. And knowing him and his stupid literature-psychology double major he probably knew why too.
"I didn't.”
Dazai hummed, before standing upright and flipping through the textbook that was still in his hands. The edge of the cover was a bit ripped, and he felt even worse. Kaiji had lent him something of his and he still damaged it, there was something wrong with him.
If Dazai cared about the rip he didn't show it, his fingers absentmindedly fiddling with the area as he flipped the pages. Stopping on a chapter, no doubt the same chapter that was the reason for Chuuya throwing the book, he stood there in silence for a bit. It was nothing new, sometimes he didn't feel like talking and Chuuya didn't push him, other times it was like this where he'd be thinking about something and wouldn't speak.
Turning back to his laptop, Chuuya played around with his open tabs. He contemplates opening his email and messaging Professor Mori to request an extension, or maybe to drop out altogether, physics wasn't that bad. Though he highly doubted the doctor would let him do either of those things. Or maybe he should message Kaiji one time and tell him about the book and offer to pay him back as if he could even afford it anyway.
"You didn't have any notes about antioxidants."
"What?" chuuya shifted his attention behind him, watching as Dazai placed his attention on a certain part of the book. Leaning forward again, he placed the book between them, running his finger through the text, yet Chuuya was looking at him. Those symmetrical deep brown eyes, and his dark brown hair. Nothing seemed out of place from anyone else, unlike Chuuya who seemed to stand out like a sore thumb. Everything about him, if it were described by someone else, would probably scream "boring" or "generic".
Chuuya knew how much they both longed to be known by those words, to be known as generic. It meant that they weren't out of place and that there was nothing wrong with them. Dazai had his issues with his humanity, where he searched for answers in books and minds rather than science like chaya. That ability to interpret, that extraordinary mind, was more human than any scientific answer Chuuya could even dream to come up with for himself.
"Right here," Dazai pointed it out, his finger resting on a passage. "Read this text."
Following his finger, Chuuya read the passage.
An antioxidant is a molecule stable enough to donate an electron to a rampaging free radical and neutralize it, thus reducing its capacity to damage. These antioxidants delay or inhibit cellular damage mainly through their free radical scavenging property. These low-molecular-weight antioxidants can safely interact with free radicals and terminate the chain reaction before vital molecules are damaged.
Antioxidants are also unstable and looking for a partner. Like free radicals, antioxidants have an uneven number of electrons. Unlike free radicals, though, antioxidants don't commonly steal from otherwise stable molecules to keep themselves in check.
But antioxidants do balance an unpaired electron from a free radical. This evens both molecules.
It didn't take a genius to figure out what Dazai was saying. He was the antioxidants.
Yeah, Chuuya was reckless and unstable, maybe there was something wrong with him. Dazai doesn't believe that, he never did, but he knew it was harder for Chuuya to accept that fact. So instead of trying to force his view onto him, he gave him something else. If he was unstable, dazai was too, but Dazai would always be there to neutralise his instability and vice versa. They were in it together. It was a bit easier to breathe now.
"I hate this topic."
Dazai snorted, "I can tell, the topic is easy, you'll be fine."
"Says you, I'm going to fail Mori's final."
"I had him last year and passed, I can help you study if you want."
"Later, if I stay here any longer Kaiji's not getting his book back in one piece." Chuuya groaned, closing his notebook and laptop. "Do you have tape?"
"Medical tape, I'll tape it after dinner. The rip wasn't that bad, anything can be fixed."
Anything can be fixed.
"Okay," Chuuya stood, stacking his stuff in a neat pile before following Dazai out of his room.
"Can we get crab?"
" No. ”