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The rain drummed against the windows of Dazai's apartment with an insistent rhythm that matched the restless beating of his heart. He sat curled on his worn leather couch, a book forgotten in his lap as he stared absently at the storm outside. The weather seemed fitting for his mood—dark, turbulent, unpredictable.
His phone buzzed against the coffee table, cutting through the white noise of the rain. The caller ID made him pause: Hirotsu. The old man rarely called him directly, especially not at this hour.
"Hirotsu," he answered, his voice carrying that familiar sing-song lilt that masked everything beneath.
"Dazai." His voice was unusually grave, lacking its typical measured composure. "I'm calling with... difficult news."
Something cold settled in his stomach, but he kept his tone light. "Oh my, how ominous. Did someone finally realize that Mori's taste in subordinates is questionable?"
"It's about Chuuya."
The book slipped from his fingers, hitting the floor with a dull thud that seemed to echo in the sudden silence of his mind.
"He was on a mission in the harbor district," Hirotsu continued, his words careful and deliberate. "There was an explosion. The building collapsed completely. We... we haven't been able to locate him. Given the extent of the destruction and the time that's passed..."
The phone felt impossibly heavy in his hand. "I see."
"I thought you should know. Despite everything, you two were—"
"Partners," he finished quietly. "Yes. We were."
After Hirotsu hung up, Dazai sat in the growing darkness of his apartment, the phone still pressed to his ear as if he could somehow call back the words, rewind the conversation, make it unsaid. The rain continued its relentless assault on the windows, but he no longer heard it.
His fingers moved without conscious thought, scrolling through his contacts until he found his name: Chibi. He pressed call before he could stop himself.
Ring. Ring. Ring.
"The number you have dialed is currently unavailable—"
He hung up and immediately tried again.
Ring. Ring. Ring.
"The number you have dialed—"
Again.
And again.
And again.
Each unanswered ring felt like a small death, a confirmation of what he refused to accept. His hands began to shake—barely perceptible tremors that he couldn't quite control. This was wrong. This was all wrong. Chuuya was supposed to answer. He always answered, even if it was just to yell at him for calling at an inconvenient time.
After the fifteenth call, Dazai couldn't sit still anymore. The walls of his apartment felt like they were closing in on him, suffocating him with their silence. He grabbed his coat and bolted for the door, not bothering to lock it behind him.
The rain had turned vicious again, soaking through his clothes within minutes, but he barely noticed. His feet carried him through the empty streets of Yokohama without conscious direction. He found himself at the harbor district, staring at the smoking ruins of what had once been a warehouse. Police tape fluttered in the wind like broken promises.
"Excuse me," he called to one of the officers still on scene. "The explosion—was anyone found inside?"
The officer looked him up and down, taking in his civilian clothes and bedraggled appearance. "Are you family?"
"Partner," Dazai said, and the word tasted like ash in his mouth.
"I'm sorry. We're still searching, but given the intensity of the fire..." The man's expression was sympathetic but final. "I'm afraid it doesn't look good."
Dazai nodded numbly and walked away.
He spent the next several hours wandering the city like a ghost. He checked every bar Chuuya frequented, every safehouse he knew about, every place they'd ever met. Each empty location felt like another nail in a coffin he wasn't ready to acknowledge.
He tried calling again. And again. And again.
By the time he stumbled back to his apartment, it was well past midnight. His clothes were soaked through, his hair plastered to his skull, and he looked nothing like the composed, enigmatic figure he usually presented to the world. He looked like what he was—a man who had spent hours searching for someone who was never coming home.
The exhaustion hit him all at once as soon as he closed his door. He barely made it to his bedroom before collapsing face-first onto his bed, not bothering to change out of his wet clothes. Sleep claimed him immediately, but it was filled with dreams of explosions and unanswered phones and gravity that would never bend to anyone's will again.
The sound of his door opening woke him. Dazai's eyes snapped open, immediately alert despite the grogginess that came from sleeping in wet clothes. His hand instinctively moved toward the gun he kept in his nightstand drawer, but he froze when he heard a familiar voice drifting from his living room.
"Dazai? Where the hell are you? Don't tell me you're still sleeping at this hour."
He sat up so fast the room spun around him. That voice—impossible, but unmistakable. He stumbled out of his bedroom on unsteady legs, his heart hammering against his ribs.
There he was—Chuuya Nakahara, very much alive, leaning against his kitchen counter with that insufferable smirk he knew so well. His clothes were dusty and torn, his hat was missing, and there was a scrape along his left cheek, but he was undeniably, impossibly real.
"Well, well. You look like hell, Dazai," Chuuya said, his grin widening as he took in Dazai's disheveled appearance. “Surprised?" he asked, pushing himself off the doorframe and walking into his apartment like he belonged there. "I have to admit, this might be my best work yet. The look on your face right now is priceless.”
Dazai stared at him, his mind struggling to process what he was seeing. "You're..."
"Alive? Yeah, obviously." Chuuya looked immensely pleased with himself. "Did you really think some cheap explosive could take out Chuuya Nakahara? Please."
"But Hirotsu said—"
"Hirotsu said exactly what I told him to say." Chuuya's grin became positively predatory. "Come on, Dazai. You should have seen this coming. How many times have you faked your own death for various schemes? I figured it was time I returned the favor."
The words hit him like physical blows. A prank. This had all been a prank.
"The building collapse was real enough," he continued, seemingly oblivious to the way he'd gone completely still. "But I was never in it. I've been holed up in a safe house for the past day, waiting for the right moment to make my grand reappearance. I wanted to see how long it would take before you—"
"Before I what?" The words came out as barely more than a whisper.
"Before you admitted you'd actually miss me if I was gone." His expression was triumphant, like he'd just won some grand prize. "I mean, you did try calling me, right? Hirotsu said you might—"
"Thirty-four times."
The smugness faltered slightly. "What?”
"I called you thirty-four times." Dazai's voice was eerily calm, flat in a way that should have been a warning. "I sat in this apartment for eighteen hours thinking you were dead, calling a phone that would never be answered again."
Something in his tone must have finally penetrated his self-satisfaction, because his grin disappeared entirely. "Dazai, I—"
"Do you know what I thought about?" He walked towards him slowly, his movements deliberate and controlled. "I thought about the last conversation we had. Do you remember what it was about, Chuuya?"
He opened his mouth, then closed it again, uncertainty flickering across his features.
"Neither do I," Dazai said. "I spent hours trying to remember, and I couldn't. The last thing I said to you, and it's just... gone. Do you know what that feels like?"
"Look, I didn't think—"
"No. You didn't." He was walking toward him now, and something about his approach made him lean back in his chair.
"You didn't think about what it would mean for me to lose you. You didn't think about how it would feel to know that our partnership ended not with some grand battle or dramatic betrayal, but with me forgetting whatever stupid thing we were arguing about."
Dazai stopped directly in front of him, close enough that he could see the dust still clinging to his clothes, close enough to confirm that he was real and whole and breathing.
"You didn't think," he repeated, "about what it would mean for me to live in a world without Chuuya Nakahara in it."
For a moment, they stared at each other in complete silence. Chuuya looked like he was beginning to understand that his prank had consequences he hadn't anticipated.
"Dazai," he said carefully, "it was just supposed to be funny. I wanted to get back at you for all the times you've pulled this kind of shit on me."
"Funny." He tested the word like it was foreign. "You thought it would be funny."
"I mean... yeah?" But his voice had lost all conviction.
Something inside his chest cracked.
The slap cracked across Chuuya's cheek with enough force to snap his head to the side. The sound echoed through the apartment like a gunshot, followed by absolute silence.
Chuuya slowly turned back to face him, one hand pressed to his reddening cheek, his eyes wide with shock. "What the fuck—"
But before he could finish the sentence, Dazai's composure shattered completely.
The sob that escaped his throat was raw and broken, seeming to surprise him as much as it did Chuuya. He pressed his hands to his mouth, trying to hold it back, but it was too late. The careful control he'd maintained for hours, the mask he wore so naturally it had become a second skin, all of it crumbled at once.
He was crying. Actually crying—not the pretty, manipulative tears he sometimes used as a tool, but ugly, desperate sobs that shook his entire body. Tears streamed down his face faster than he could wipe them away, and each breath felt like it was being torn from his lungs.
"Jesus, Dazai—" Chuuya's smugness evaporated instantly, replaced by something that looked like horror. "I didn't—what—"
"I thought you were dead," Dazai gasped between sobs, his voice cracking on every word. "I thought you were dead and I spent all night looking for you. I went to the ruins, I checked every place I could think of, I called you thirty-four times—"
His legs gave out, and he sank to his knees on the hardwood floor of his living room. The sobs were coming harder now, each one feeling like it might tear him apart. He couldn't remember the last time he'd cried like this—maybe he never had. The intensity of it was terrifying, like all the grief and fear he'd spent years carefully containing had finally found a crack in his defenses and was pouring out all at once.
"Fuck," Chuuya breathed, dropping to his knees beside him without hesitation. "Fuck, I didn't—Dazai, I'm sorry. I'm so fucking sorry."
"I walked through the rain for hours," Dazai continued, his words barely coherent through his tears. "I kept thinking maybe you'd gotten out, maybe you were hurt somewhere and couldn't call for help. I checked every hospital, every—" His voice broke completely. "I thought I'd never see you again."
Chuuya's hands hovered uncertainly in the air around him, clearly wanting to comfort but unsure if he was allowed to touch. In all the years they'd known each other, through all their fights and temporary truces and reluctant partnerships, he'd never seen Dazai like this. Even when he'd left the Port Mafia, even during their most vicious arguments, he'd never let him see him break.
"I didn't think you'd care this much," Chuuya said, his voice small and horrified. "I thought you'd be annoyed, maybe angry, but I didn't think—I never thought you'd—"
Dazai looked up at him then, and the expression on his face nearly stopped Chuuya's heart. His eyes were red and swollen, his carefully styled hair was a mess from sleeping in wet clothes, and there was something in his gaze that looked like devastation.
"How could you think I wouldn't care?" he whispered. "How could you think that losing you wouldn't destroy me?"
And there it was—the truth he'd never spoken aloud, the admission he'd kept locked away even from himself. Chuuya mattered. Despite everything, despite their history and their opposing loyalties and the way they drove each other to distraction, he mattered more than almost anything else in his world.
"Dazai." Chuuya's voice was thick with an emotion he couldn't quite identify. "Can I—is it okay if I—"
Dazai nodded, not trusting himself to speak, and finally, finally, Chuuya reached for him.
His arms came around him carefully at first, as if he might shatter at his touch. But when Dazai collapsed against him, his face pressed into Chuuya's shoulder, his embrace tightened. He held him while he cried himself empty, one hand stroking his damp hair and the other rubbing slow circles on his back.
"I'm here," he murmured against Dazai's temple. "I'm right here. I'm not going anywhere."
They stayed like that for a long time—long enough for Dazai's sobs to quiet into shaky breaths, long enough for the sun to climb higher in the sky and send patterns of light dancing across his living room floor. When Dazai finally pulled back to look at him, Chuuya's shirt was damp with his tears and his own eyes looked suspiciously bright.
"I'm sorry," Chuuya said again, his hand still curved around the back of Dazai's neck. "I'm so fucking sorry. I never wanted to hurt you like this."
Dazai wiped his face with the backs of his hands, trying to compose himself. "You couldn't have known. I didn't even know."
"Know what?"
"That you—" He took a shaky breath. "That you're the closest thing to home I have left."
The words hung between them, heavy with years of unspoken truths and careful distance. Chuuya stared at him like he'd just revealed some fundamental secret about the universe.
"Dazai..."
"I know it's inconvenient," Dazai said, attempting something like his usual flippant tone and failing completely. "Caring about your former partner who's now technically your enemy. Very poor form on my part."
"Shut up." Chuuya's voice was rough. "Just... shut up for a second."
He cupped Dazai's face in his gloved hands, forcing him to meet his eyes. "You're not my enemy. You were never my enemy, even when I wanted you to be. Even when it would have been easier."
"Then what am I?"
Chuuya was quiet for a long moment, his thumbs brushing away the last of Dazai's tears. "You're Dazai," he said finally. "You're my partner. You're the person who knows exactly how to push every button I have and the only one I trust to watch my back in a real fight. You're the most infuriating, brilliant, self-destructive person I've ever met, and I—"
He stopped, seeming to realize what he'd been about to say.
"You what?" Dazai asked softly.
"I can't imagine a world without you in it either."
The admission settled between them like something fragile and precious. Dazai felt his chest tighten with an emotion he couldn't quite name—relief, maybe, or recognition. The acknowledgment that whatever existed between them had survived their separation, had grown into something too important to dismiss or ignore.
"C'mon," Chuuya said gently, his voice softer than Dazai had heard it in years. "Let's get you cleaned up."
It was only then that Dazai became aware of his physical state—his clothes were still damp and clinging uncomfortably to his skin, his bandages had absorbed the rainwater and felt heavy and restrictive around his arms and torso. He'd been sitting in wet clothes for hours, and now that the adrenaline was wearing off, he could feel the exhaustion seeping into his bones.
"I don't think—" He started to stand and immediately swayed, his legs threatening to give out beneath him. The combination of shock, emotional exhaustion, and spending a night wandering through the rain had taken more of a toll than he'd realized.
Chuuya was there instantly, his arm sliding around Dazai's waist to steady him. "Easy. I've got you."
The guilt in Chuuya's voice was unmistakable. This was his fault—all of it. Dazai's breakdown, his night of frantic searching, the way he could barely stand upright now. All because of a stupid prank that had seemed so clever at the time.
"When's the last time you ate?" Chuuya asked, though he already suspected the answer based on how fragile Dazai felt against his side.
"I... yesterday morning, maybe?" Dazai's voice was hoarse from crying, and he seemed to be having trouble focusing on the question. "Before Hirotsu called."
Chuuya cursed under his breath. Of course. When Dazai was upset or stressed, eating was always the last thing to go. And if he'd spent the entire night searching for him in the rain...
"Alright, new plan," Chuuya said, adjusting his grip to better support Dazai's weight. "First, we're getting you out of these wet clothes and into a hot bath. Then fresh bandages, something warm to eat, and bed."
"Chuuya, you don't have to—"
"Yes, I do." The firmness in his voice left no room for argument. "This is my mess. I'm going to fix it."
He guided Dazai toward the bathroom, noting the slight tremor in his hands and the way his breathing seemed a little too shallow. The wet bandages were probably restricting his chest, and Chuuya could see goosebumps rising on the exposed skin of his neck and face.
"Can you manage getting undressed, or do you need help?" Chuuya asked as he started running the bath, testing the temperature with his hand.
"I can manage," Dazai said, though his fingers were shaking slightly as he began unwrapping his bandages.
Chuuya pretended not to notice the way Dazai had to brace himself against the bathroom counter, or how long it took him to peel away the waterlogged fabric. The guilt was eating him alive—seeing Dazai like this, vulnerable and shaking and barely able to stand, all because he'd thought it would be funny to fake his own death.
"The water's ready," he said quietly. "Take as long as you need. I'll find you some dry clothes."
He left Dazai to soak in the hot water and went to rifle through the dresser, looking for the softest clothes he could find. Everything seemed too rough, too restrictive for someone who looked like they might shatter at the slightest touch. Finally, he settled on an oversized sweater and loose cotton pants—clothes that would be comfortable and warm without clinging.
He also grabbed fresh bandages from the medical kit he knew Dazai kept in the bedroom, the soft cotton ones rather than the rougher material he usually used. Every detail mattered now. Every small comfort he could provide felt like a tiny step toward making amends for what he'd put him through.
When he knocked softly on the bathroom door twenty minutes later, he could hear Dazai's teeth chattering slightly.
"I've got clothes for you," he called. "And I'm making tea."
"Thank you," came the quiet reply, and Chuuya's heart clenched at how small Dazai's voice sounded.
By the time Dazai emerged from the bathroom, wrapped in the oversized sweater that made him look impossibly young, Chuuya had managed to throw together a simple meal—nothing too heavy, just rice porridge and tea, something that would be easy on an empty stomach.
Dazai's hair was still damp, curling slightly at the ends, and his skin had a worrying pallor that Chuuya didn't like. He was moving carefully, like everything hurt, and when he sat down at the kitchen table, he pulled the sweater tighter around himself.
"You're getting sick," Chuuya observed, noting the slight flush in Dazai's cheeks that suggested the beginning of a fever.
"Probably," Dazai admitted quietly. "Spent too long in the rain."
"Fuck." Chuuya ran a hand through his hair, the guilt intensifying. "I'm sorry. I'm so fucking sorry, Dazai."
"You keep saying that."
"Because it's true. This is all my fault."
Dazai looked up at him, and despite everything—the exhaustion, the lingering emotional rawness, the way he was clearly fighting off illness—there was something almost gentle in his expression.
"Eat with me?" he asked softly. "I don't... I don't want to be alone right now."
Chuuya's throat tightened. "Of course."
So he sat across from Dazai at the small kitchen table, watching as he slowly spooned the porridge and sipped the tea. The silence between them was different now—not uncomfortable, but careful, like they were both afraid of breaking whatever fragile understanding they'd reached.
"So what now?" Dazai asked eventually.
Chuuya looked at him—really looked at him. Still pale, still shaky, but alive and here and real. "Now I take care of you until you're better. And then... I don't know. We figure it out as we go."
"That's very unlike you. Usually you have a plan."
"Usually I don't royally fuck up this badly."
Despite everything, Dazai's lips quirked upward slightly. "No, usually that's my specialty."
"Not anymore," Chuuya said firmly. "I'm officially taking over the 'catastrophic mistakes' department."
And for the first time since this whole nightmare began, Dazai actually laughed—quiet and a little hoarse, but genuine.
While they were eating in comfortable silence, a sharp knock echoed through the apartment. Chuuya glanced at Dazai, who had gone completely still, his spoon halfway to his mouth.
"I'll get it," Chuuya said, standing from the table.
He opened the door to find Ranpo and Yosano standing in the hallway, both looking unusually serious. Ranpo's arms were crossed, his usual cheerful demeanor replaced by something that looked distinctly irritated, while Yosano's expression was carefully controlled in a way that suggested she was holding back her temper.
"Where is he?" Yosano asked without preamble.
"He didn't show up to work this morning," Ranpo added, his green eyes sharp behind his glasses. "Didn't answer any calls or messages yesterday either. We've been trying to reach him since—"
"Since you decided to play dead," Yosano finished, her voice cutting. "Yes, we know. Hirotsu's not exactly discreet when he's feeling guilty about something."
Chuuya felt his stomach drop. "Look, I can explain—"
"Oh, you'll explain alright," Ranpo said, pushing past him into the apartment. "But first we need to see Dazai."
They found him still sitting at the kitchen table, looking impossibly small in the oversized sweater. His face had gone pale again when he heard their voices, and he was gripping his spoon a little too tightly.
"Dazai," Yosano said, her voice immediately softening as she took in his appearance—the damp hair, the exhausted posture, the way he seemed to be trying to make himself invisible.
"Yosano-sensei. Ranpo-san" His voice was quiet, almost hesitant. "Sorry about work. I know I should have called—"
"Don't you dare apologize," Yosano said firmly, crossing the room in quick strides. "You have nothing to apologize for."
She knelt beside his chair, her practiced medical eye taking in his pale complexion and the slight tremor in his hands. "May I?" she asked gently, raising her hand toward his forehead.
Dazai nodded, and when her cool palm pressed against his skin, something in him seemed to break all over again. His eyes fluttered closed and he leaned into the touch without seeming to realize he was doing it, a soft sound escaping his throat that was almost a whimper.
The room went deadly quiet.
Yosano's expression hardened as she felt the heat radiating from his skin, but her touch remained gentle. "You're burning up," she murmured. "And you're completely wrung out, aren't you?"
Dazai's only response was to lean further into her touch, like a cat seeking warmth. It was such an unguarded gesture, so unlike his usual controlled demeanor, that it spoke volumes about how thoroughly the past day had shattered his defenses.
"He spent all night in the rain looking for you," Yosano said to Chuuya without turning around, her voice deadly calm. "Didn't he?"
"I didn't know—" Chuuya started.
"Didn't know what?" Ranpo interrupted, his usual playful tone replaced by something cold. "That faking your death might upset someone who cares about you? That making him think he'd lost his partner might be traumatic? Really?"
"Ranpo-san," Dazai said weakly, finally opening his eyes. "It's fine—"
"No, it's not fine," Yosano said firmly, her hand still resting on his forehead. "This kind of prank is reckless and cruel, especially to someone with Dazai's history."
The weight of her words settled over the room like a heavy blanket. Everyone knew what she meant—Dazai's complicated relationship with death, his tendency toward self-destruction, the careful balance he maintained that kept him tethered to the world. A prank like this could have shattered that balance completely.
"I know," Chuuya said quietly. "I know, and I'm sorry. I fucked up. Badly."
"Sorry doesn't fix this," Ranpo said, gesturing toward Dazai, who was still unconsciously seeking comfort from Yosano's touch. "Look at him. When's the last time you've seen him like this?"
Never, Chuuya realized. In all their years as partners, through every fight and crisis and dangerous mission, he'd never seen Dazai so completely stripped of his usual composure. Even during his darkest moments in the Port Mafia, he'd maintained some level of control, some protective barrier between himself and the world.
"He called me seventeen times yesterday," Yosano continued, her voice gentling as she brushed Dazai's hair back from his fevered forehead. "Seventeen times, asking if I'd heard from you, if there was any news. His voice got more desperate with each call."
"And then he stopped calling entirely," Ranpo added. "Which should have been our first clue that something was seriously wrong. Dazai never stops trying to solve a problem unless he's given up completely."
Dazai made a soft sound of protest, but he didn't pull away from Yosano's comforting touch. If anything, he seemed to melt further into it, his rigid posture finally relaxing for the first time since Chuuya had arrived.
"We're taking you home with us," Yosano announced. "You need proper medical attention, and—"
"No." The word came from Chuuya, surprising everyone, including himself. "I mean... let me take care of him. Please. This is my fault, and I need to make it right."
Yosano and Ranpo exchanged a look, having one of their silent conversations that Dazai and Chuuya had never quite been able to decipher.
"You really hurt him," Yosano said finally, her hand still stroking Dazai's hair. "You understand that, right? This isn't just about a prank gone wrong. You made him believe he'd lost the most important person in his world."
"I know," Chuuya said, his voice rough with guilt. "And I'm going to spend however long it takes making sure he never doubts how much he matters again."
Ranpo studied him for a long moment, those sharp green eyes seeing far more than they should. "You mean that."
"I do."
"Good." Yosano finally pulled her hand back, and Dazai immediately seemed to curl in on himself without the comforting contact. "Because if you ever pull something like this again, I will personally ensure that you experience every single medical procedure known to mankind. Without anesthesia."
"Noted," Chuuya said weakly.
"We'll check on him tomorrow," Ranpo added, his tone making it clear this wasn't a request. "And Chuuya? Take care of our brother. He's more fragile than he pretends to be."
With that, they left as quickly as they'd arrived, leaving Chuuya and Dazai alone in the suddenly too-quiet apartment. Dazai was still sitting hunched in his chair, looking lost without Yosano's comforting presence.
"Come on," Chuuya said gently. "Let's get you back to bed. You're exhausted."
This time, Dazai didn't protest when Chuuya helped him to his feet, or when he had to lean heavily on him to make it to the bedroom. He was running on fumes now, and the brief visit from his ADA family had only highlighted how completely this whole ordeal had wrung him out.
"They're right, you know," Dazai said quietly as Chuuya helped him settle under the covers. "About me being more fragile than I pretend."
"I know," Chuuya replied, pulling the blankets up to Dazai's chin. "I should have known that before. I'm sorry."
"Stop apologizing," Dazai murmured, his eyes already drifting closed. "Just... stay? Until I fall asleep?"
Chuuya looked down at him—at the way Dazai's fingers were still trembling slightly, at the flush of fever across his pale cheeks, at how small he looked buried under the covers. The guilt was eating him alive, but more than that, he couldn't bear the thought of leaving Dazai alone right now.
"Let me just..." Chuuya trailed off, gesturing toward his own dusty, torn clothes. "I should change out of these."
Dazai's eyes opened slightly, a flicker of something that might have been panic crossing his features. "You're not leaving?"
"No," Chuuya said firmly. "I'm not going anywhere. I just need to get out of these clothes—they're filthy from the safehouse."
He moved quickly, grabbing a spare shirt and pants from Dazai's dresser—clothes he'd left here during their Port Mafia days and had never bothered to retrieve. It felt strange, putting on clothes in Dazai's bedroom after all these years, but also oddly natural, like slipping back into an old routine.
When he turned back to the bed, Dazai was watching him with heavy-lidded eyes, tracking his every movement as if to reassure himself that Chuuya was real and staying.
"Better?" Chuuya asked softly.
Dazai nodded, then shifted slightly under the covers. "Will you...?" He didn't finish the question, but his meaning was clear.
Chuuya didn't hesitate. He slipped under the covers beside Dazai, immediately feeling the heat radiating from his fevered skin. When he opened his arms, Dazai moved into them without a word, pressing his face against Chuuya's chest with something that sounded like a sigh of relief.
They lay there in the dim afternoon light filtering through the curtains, Dazai's head rising and falling with each of Chuuya's breaths. His ear was pressed directly over Chuuya's heart, and after a few moments, Chuuya realized what he was doing.
"Can you hear it?" Chuuya asked quietly, his hand coming up to stroke through Dazai's still-damp hair.
"Mmm." Dazai's response was barely audible, but Chuuya could feel him relax incrementally with each steady heartbeat. "Just making sure."
The simple honesty of it nearly broke Chuuya's heart. Here was Dazai—brilliant, calculating Dazai who could read people like books and manipulate any situation to his advantage—reduced to needing the most basic confirmation that his partner was alive. Listening to his heartbeat like a lifeline.
"I'm here," Chuuya murmured, tightening his arms around him. "I'm alive, and I'm here, and I'm not going anywhere."
"You scared me," Dazai whispered against his chest, so quietly Chuuya almost didn't hear it. "I've never been that scared before."
The guilt crashed over Chuuya in fresh waves. This was what his prank had accomplished—reducing the strongest person he knew to someone who needed to listen to his heartbeat to feel safe. Someone who was now burning with fever because he'd spent a night in the rain searching for a dead man.
"I know," he said, his voice thick with remorse. "I know, and I hate that I did that to you. I hate that I made you feel like that."
Dazai was quiet for a long moment, just listening to the steady thrum of Chuuya's heart beneath his ear. When he finally spoke, his words were slurred with exhaustion and fever.
"Don't do it again."
"Never," Chuuya promised. "I swear to you, never again."
"Good." Dazai's breathing was evening out, sleep finally beginning to claim him. "Because I don't think I could survive losing you twice."
Chuuya closed his eyes, feeling tears prick behind his lids. He held Dazai closer, one hand continuing to stroke his hair while the other traced gentle circles on his back through the soft sweater. Every few minutes, he felt Dazai shift slightly, as if reassuring himself that the heartbeat was still there, still steady, still real.
"Hey, Dazai?"
"Mmm?"
"For what it's worth," Chuuya said quietly, "I remember our last conversation."
Dazai pulled back to look at him. "You do?"
"You said my hat looked stupid. I said your bandages were pretentious. Then you hung up on me."
Despite everything, Dazai felt his lips twitch upward. "Your hat does look stupid."
"Your bandages are pretentious."
"I know."
"Good thing I like pretentious."
"Good thing I like stupid hats."
And at that Dazai smiled—really smiled, not one of his calculated expressions but something genuine and warm. It transformed his entire face, made him look younger, made him look like someone who remembered how to hope.
"Welcome home, Chibi," he said.
"Good to be back," Chuuya replied, and meant it more than he'd ever meant anything in his life.