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Nakahara Chuuya should have learned by now to never expect permanence.
No one, not even his own human nature, stopped him from growing attached to the Flags. The entire concept of the Flags was an everlasting, permanent support group. At first, permanence slipped over him like a blanket, soft and inviting.
He remembers that permanence was shattered for him the minute Lippman’s corpse came rolling out of the back of Verlaine’s truck.
It felt like someone had reached into his body and pulled the very concept of permanence out of him, leaving him floating aimlessly without anyone to anchor him. He felt like he couldn’t really even feel anything anymore without that anchor.
And despite his own good, Chuuya wanted to feel again more than anything. So, he found himself yet again seeking that anchor in Dazai Osamu, of all people. He found that conversations about what he and Dazai would do ‘in a few years’ slowly crept back into his vernacular.
He pushed back against that feeling, knowing Dazai was literally the symbol of impermanence, but soon enough Chuuya felt grounded again. Just like he pictured a future with the Flags, he pictured a future with Dazai in it.
He felt that same anchor be ripped out of him the day Dazai stopped showing up to the Port Mafia building.
Unlike the sudden pain he felt when he saw Lippman, this time it was a slow tear. He called Dazai numerous times, to no answer, and felt a tear. He showed up to his apartment (and let himself in) to find no one home and felt a tear.
The next day, Mori had announced that Dazai Osamu was dead. Chuuya felt aimless and emotionless once again.
When he questioned Mori about it, Mori simply said he’s always been suicidal, we all knew this was going to happen one day. Like Chuuya was stupid for ever having put faith in someone so fickle.
In the four years Dazai had been dead, Chuuya had been floating through his days. He felt detached from his body - not like he was watching his life from the outside - but like he had no part in his actions.
When Mori told him (and a select few high-ranking Port Mafia officials) Dazai had actually been alive for those four years, and they had captured him, Chuuya felt absolutely nothing.
“That can’t be the real Dazai,” he had told Akutagawa after the meeting. His subordinate just raised an eyebrow. “I’ll go in and talk to him once you’re done. Figure out what ability user is doing this.”
That is how he ended up in front of what he believed to be an ability user’s fake Dazai, in a Port Mafia dungeon, telling the bandaged man to fight him.
As he threw punches, he assessed fake Dazai's skills. That was the first part of his plan.
“Your martial arts skills are weak. Below average for the Port Mafia,” Chuuya started provoking him. He cracked his knuckles in boredom.
He can’t even throw a solid punch, Chuuya thought. He can’t be the real Dazai.
He then implemented the second part of his plan and brought up Dazai’s neutralizing ability as an attempt to provoke it out of him while Dazai was injured from his punches.
What he didn’t expect was for Dazai to gaze up at him, completely unwounded. He met his eyes and saw the eyes of a ghost. He shivered involuntarily. He hadn’t seen those eyes in four years.
“We’ve known each other a long time,” Dazai started. Chuuya didn’t break eye contact with him. “I’m totally familiar with your moves, pacing, and habits. I wouldn’t have been a proper partner otherwise, right?”
Chuuya felt a pang in his heart but glared at him, still unconvinced. He tried to see through the man, to see if his heart was still beating as it was four years ago before he walked away from the Port Mafia and took Chuuya’s sense of self with him.
He decided to abandon all plans in favor of lunging forward and throwing more punches at him. Real or fake, he thought Dazai deserved them. He poured every emotion he hadn’t felt in the last four years into his punches.
This isn’t real, he thought. Dazai would have put a stop to this three punches ago.
He looked into his eyes desperately again to catch any glimpse of the man he once knew and was met with nothing.
He pointed a knife to his throat. This has to be a fake, and he won’t allow himself to be manipulated anymore.
“Why’d you let yourself get caught?” Chuuya said, pointing the silver blade to his throat.
Fake Dazai’s silence greeted him, as helpful as he was when he was dead.
“Fine. I’ll have fun torturing you,” Chuuya stated, pushing the blade further towards his throat.
I’ll kill this fake. Thwart whatever stupid plot he has using Dazai’s body.
“The main reason… is Atsushi,” Dazai said in a quiet tone that didn’t sound like him at all. Chuuya longed for the banter, longed to feel something when he talked to someone again.
So once Dazai was done explaining, Chuuya just continued to talk, hoping to find some semblance of that feeling he once had in life. He studied Dazai’s face as he spoke, looking for a glimmer of that fickle, stupid man.
When Chuuya was done talking, Dazai simply laughed, a breathy laugh like one he used to. Chuuya was shocked for a brief moment, and felt Dazai’s laugh squeeze his heart, but he steeled his face so Dazai couldn’t see.
“What’s so funny?” Chuuya scowled at fake Dazai.
“There’s gonna be a meeting tomorrow between the top 5 Port Mafia executives,” Dazai stated. Chuuya looked at him in shock.
Impossible, Chuuya thought. He’s fake. There’s no way he could know this.
“If there was, there’s no way I wouldn’t have been notified,” Chuuya brushed it off.
Dazai continued to ramble on about his predictions, and god, it sounded so much like the real Dazai that Chuuya almost hoped.
“My predictions are always right… right Chuuya?” Dazai ended his rant.
Chuuya stared at the man in disbelief as he continued to talk, and Chuuya felt the hand he had wrapped around Dazai’s throat tighten.
He could feel Dazai’s pulse in the palm of his hand, and part of his brain thought he was just choking him to feel his heart beat.
“Well, if you’re going to kill me, do it,” Dazai said blatantly, looking bored.
Chuuya felt the knife sink like dead weight in his hand because he’ll be damned if he admitted bantering with Dazai restored some of the emotion in his body. How could he kill him when he could finally hear his heartbeat again?
“Come oonnnn, Chuuyaaaa,” Dazai dragged on, lolling his head to the side. And then Chuuya saw it - that familiar teasing glint in his eyes that he was looking for.
The red-haired man decided to run a little experiment at that moment. A last-ditch resort to prove that this Dazai was just a really good imposter.
He activated a very small amount of his ability, hand still wrapped around Dazai’s pulse point. As his hypothesis was disproven, he felt Dazai’s nullification wash over him.
The hand Chuuya used to hold Dazai’s neck started to tremble, the latter man still crooning come onnnn .
Chuuya tightened his grip on the knife, his knuckles turning white.
He was fucking alive the whole time.
Chuuya drove the knife into the wall next to Dazai’s head and pivoted on his heel so Dazai couldn't see the tears of anger that threatened to fall.
Chuuya registered that he was feeling such potent anger again, and a smile graced his lips.
“I told you I was here to harass you, and somehow you ended up harassing me,” Chuuya said lightly, facing the ground instead of Dazai.
“It’s a reunion long in the making, I had to have some sort of surprise,” Chuuya heard Dazai’s cocky smile in his voice as he spoke.
The familiar routine brought a different kind of tears to his eyes.
“I’ll kill you one day, I swear.” Chuuya said but couldn’t bring the malice to enter his voice again.
He turned to face Dazai, and he could see a look of perplexity flash on the taller man’s face quickly, then steel back to his normal cocky attitude.
Dazai continued to tease the shorter man with that terrible attitude of his, but Chuuya couldn’t bring himself to actually hate the man at that moment.
He felt pieces of his anchor slowly start to form again in his chest and felt more alive than he had in years.
So, he yielded to Dazai’s stupid requests and lost in their stupid games for the millionth time in his life.
He was just happy to be playing their games once again.