Work Text:
When the speed kicks in
I go to the store for nothing
And walk right by
The house where you lived with Snow White
The silence of the Yokohama shipping yard was drowning Chuuya.
That's what he half expected to be happening to Dazai, once his disappearance had been reported. That he had once again, thrown himself into a river and was trying to swim with the fishes, like the mackerel he was. But once the local bodies of water and most of Yokohama had been searched, it was clear that Dazai had deserted the Mafia or died since no one else knew where was.
And Chuuya didn’t know what to feel,
So he did what he normally did and went to look for Dazai himself.
But after finding his office and shipping crate empty of what little Dazai personal items he had, the truth was obvious. Dazai was gone and didn’t tell Chuuya anything.
I wonder if she ever thought
The storybook tiles on the roof were too much
But from the window, it's not a bad show
If your favorite thing's Dianetics or stucco
Chuuya never understood why Dazai didn’t have an apartment, or never moved in with him. Shipping containers weren’t comfortable but Dazai always claimed that normal apartments were “Too much” and Chuuya’s apartment had “awful decorations and stucco walls” but that all seemed like excuses.
Executives weren’t living paycheck to paycheck and Dazai should have had plenty of money, it's just no one seemed to know where it went. It definitely wasn’t going towards food, as his diet was primarily canned crab, alcohol and anything that seemed to be poisonous in large quantities. Or rent, because Chuuya wasn’t even sure if Dazai had paid for that shipping container.
Just another mystery that seemed to be lost along with the man who surrounded himself with them.
Did Chuuya ever really know him?
The drugstores are open all night
The only real reason I moved to the east side
I love a good place to hide in plain sight
“Hiding in plain sight”, that's what Dazai called it,
“No one expects to find the ‘Demon Prodigy’ in a shipping container right next to the docks.” Aside from it being a good place to collect intel, Chuuya always wished that he could have understood why Dazai chose his living quarters.
Maybe then he could have known his partner just past the masks that he wore for the world.
They were partners. They were more than that. They were unstoppable.
Then Dazai left. Just like the Sheep, just like the Flags and just like Murase.
And Chuuya was left alone in the suffocating silence of the shipping yard.
The sea spray hid his tears well.
After all, It’s hard to grieve someone who might not be gone, leaving no closure to be found.
What if I told you
I feel like I know you?
But we never met
Chuuya could still remember the day that they met.
In the outskirts of Sheep territory, while kicking Dazai’s face in with his platform shoes. That was back when he had friends, before he was seen as a traitor and knew exactly who he was, Chuuya: King of the Sheep. He had seen so many sides of him that day, the cocky Demon Prodigy, the tired Executive, the manic with a gun and the carefree teenager with one hell of an attitude.
Chuuya felt like he met Dazai four times that day, yet did he ever really know him?
And here, everyone knows you're the way to my heart
Hear so many stories of you at the bar
Most times, alone, and some, looking your worst
But never not sweet to the trust funds and punishers
There was one pub that was close to the Shipping yard, Bar Lupin. Dazai never shut up about the place so Chuuya decided to see what else he never knew and should have known about his partner.
The bar itself was nice, just a little empty but what caught Chuuya’s eye was a certain photo on the wall. The picture was of Dazai, Ango from the Logistics Department and another man with red hair that Chuuya didn’t recognize.
Everyone who wanted to find Dazai knew the first place to look was Bar Lupin, so it makes sense that this photo would be on the walls, but that look in Dazai’s eye was one of care and of platonic love.
Chuuya couldn’t believe it. The man with the red hair and Ango were his friends and he learned about them through a photo on a wall.
How well did they know Dazai? And what else was he hiding?
Man, I wish that I could say the same
I swear I'm not angry, that's just my face
A copycat killer with a chemical cut
Either I'm careless or I wanna get caught
Who I'm not
Chuuya wasn’t always angry, but while sitting in his apartment with a glass of ‘89 Pétrus he could feel the frustration burning within him.
How long had he spent being pushed along by that stupid Mackerel only for Dazai to disappear without a word? That man had changed his life then left him to deal with the consequences of being an Executive in the Port Mafia with the knowledge that he wasn’t human.
And then he left.
Chuuya put down his wine glass and sighed, Dazai was a mystery and he wasn’t going to feel any better drinking himself into a stupor, so if his possibly dead partner wasn’t going to leave him with anything to mourn, then Chuuya would do it in the only way he knew how.
Arson.
It was a tradition in the Sheep, when a member died you would burn one of their possessions as a way of reconciling with the death and moving on, and this seemed like the best time to follow that ritual.
So Chuuya grabbed one of Dazai’s many rolls of bandages and a lighter as he walked onto his balcony.
The cool night wind whips at Chuuya’s face as he ignites the lighter and drops it beside the pile of cheap bandages on the floor of his balcony. The light from the slowly growing flames lit up his face as the last physical remains of Osamu Dazai, the man he knew and loved, turned to ash and floated away in the cold night air.
Gauze and fabric slowly burning under the night sky.
What if I told you
I feel like I know you?
But we never met
Chuuya stamped out the coals as he stepped back inside. Although he wasn’t in the mood to get blackout drunk, he would not allow the ‘89 Pétrus to go to waste.
It's for the best
It was another average day, full of responding to emails, dealing with subordinates and looking for the weretiger. Although Aukugawa was incharge of that particular manhunt, and Chuuya didn’t really care about that bounty, it never hurt to keep an extra eye open.
And that's when he saw the man in the tan jacket, with bandages covering his arms, walking towards a bridge.
Brown Hair, Tall, with that same stupid grin and a face that never seemed to match his feelings.
Dazai was alive.
And all Chuuya could do was stare, while Dazai skipped onto a bridge and attempted to throw himself off it, but this time he wasn’t alone.
There was a blond man who was chasing after him, tall, stern and with his hair in a ponytail. The blond man grabbed his arm and didn’t let go.
Chuuya stared as the blond man pulled Dazai back from the bridge and away from the river
Just like what Chuuya wanted to do, just like what Chuuya should have done. To stop that idiot from throwing his life away with alcohol, canned crab and that stupid fucking shipping container.
It looks like he was finally saved.
And Chuuya didn’t know how to feel.
He was never good at these things.
I can't open my mouth and forget how to talk
'Cause even if I could
Wouldn't know where to start
Wouldn't know when to stop
Chuuya took the rest of the day off. He wasn’t needed for anything important and the emails would be there when he got back.
The Shipping Yard seemed to be frozen in time. All of the paint peeling shipping containers are in the same place, with the same rusted fence surrounding the concrete platform overlooking the bay.
Dazai’s old shipping container was still there, just as empty and abandoned as the day Chuuya and the Port Mafia scoured Yokohama looking for any trace of the man that seemed to be dead.
But he wasn’t.
And just like that night, the proof was staring Chuuya down. Although it was different this time, showing that Dazai wasn’t dead in a ditch and was instead alive, and living in Yokohama. He seemed happy and carefree, as if he didn’t know and didn’t care that he had left behind a life full of people and things that can’t just be thrown away.
Was his mafia persona just another mystery? Another mask to throw away when he got bored?
Because consequences followed Chuuya wherever he went, all Dazai had to do was blow up a car and get away from his past as if it meant nothing. As if the partnership they shared was nothing, as if Chuuya was nothing.
Because Dazai was always fine.
But Chuuya wasn’t.
And there were thousands of things that Chuuya wanted to tell him. About how he missed him, cried for him and almost held a funeral. About how you can’t just walk away like that and people care about him. About how he could have sent a letter or a sign that he was okay because Chuuya needed someone to tell him that one of the only people who he cared about was still alive, because Dazai knew this about him and still left.
And Chuuya didn’t know how to feel about it.