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When 20-year-old Nakahara Chuuya said he ‘had plans’, many members of the Port Mafia suspected a night full of clubbing, drugs, bar hopping, pretty women (or men) and alcohol.
They were right about the alcohol, but nothing else. Nakahara Chuuya’s evening plans consisted of getting shitfaced on expensive wine, watching some shitty Netflix show, and possibly crying (as much as he hated to admit it, he was an emotional drunk with a low tolerance) The ginger executive gently set the empty wine glass down on his coffee table before placing an infinitely more expensive bottle of Petrus wine next to it. Normally, he wouldn’t dare to waste such an expensive wine on what would appear to an outsider, a random Wednesday night, but what the hell, he was rich and didn’t give a shit.
Chuuya stretched his arms above his head and stretched, cracking his knuckles as he did so, his white t-shirt designated for sleep only rising slightly above the waistline of his ratty Hello Kitty pyjama pants. The pyjama pants, he hated to admit, were something of a ritual to Chuuya by now. Every year on this date for the past two years, he would forgo his normal pair of pyjamas, a beautifully crafted silk pyjama set in a deep, wine red that had been a splurge to him when he first joined the mafia, a little over 5 years ago, for the Hello Kitty ones.
(Chuuya was both pleased and annoyed that they still fit like a glove after all this time; had he seriously not grown at all in half a decade?)The Hello Kitty set, on the other hand, had been an impulse buy, a set meant to match the equally well-loved and ratty Spiderman set that Dazai had bought when the two were seventeen.
The ginger mafioso felt the familiar pang in his chest that he got whenever he thought about Dazai. Two years ago on this exact day, he had come home from a mission abroad to discover that his partner of two years had vanished into the night. There one day and gone the next.
No note, no call, no nothing.
And, when someone as suicidal as Dazai just disappears one day, it’s safe, yet sad, to assume what has happened to them. As cheesy as it was, Chuuya couldn’t help but miss that extra stuff with bandages, and apparently, neither could his muscle memory; he would occasionally buy groceries for two instead of one. Momentarily forgetting that he now had no one to share them with. Or instinctively call out whenever entering his apartment, missing the shouted “Welcome Home!” reply like it was a phantom limb, or even sleep on the couch some nights because he couldn’t bear the fact that his ridiculously sized bed was only occupied by one instead of two and hugging a pillow at night wasn’t the same as a certain lanky, bandaged octopus.
Chuuya walked back to his couch and flopped down onto it, briefly listening to the pitter-patter of the raindrops outside his window before reaching forward to pour himself a glass of his Petrus to complete the annual routine. Every year, on the anniversary of the day that Chuuya had gotten the soul-crushing news that his partner had disappeared into thin air, he would pour himself a glass of Petrus ‘89, the same wine he had drunk the day he had first gotten the news, and mockingly toast it to that damn mackerel no matter where that damn bastard was- hell or earth.
Just as the ginger executive brought the glass to his lips, a knock at his door broke him out of his daze. He set the wine glass down and furrowed his brow. Who the hell would come knocking on the door of a penthouse suite in the richest (and most dangerous) part of town at eleven p.m. on a Wednesday? Chuuya sighed. If it were hypothetically a scammer coming to inform him about his hypothetical car’s hypothetically extended warranty, would it be okay for him to hypothetically grind them into dust, and would he hypothetically go to jail for it?
(Obviously not, you idiot, he thought to himself, You’re in the mafia for god’s sake!)
Reluctantly, he stood up from his unfairly comfy coach and cracked his knuckles again, just in case (It definitely isn’t healthy to crack one’s knuckles so often), before making his way down the hallway and towards his front door, before gripping the sterling silver handle
Seriously, who even knocks at eleven p-?! Oh.
…Oh.
And there he was.
Alive.
Clearly two years older, and maybe just a little bit skinnier than he had been after living with Chuuya since they were sixteen. Had his hair gotten fluffier?- Chuuya wondered if he had changed his haircare routine, before internally slapping himself for wondering that- it seemed to have gotten longer, but he was also soaked with rain, so it was hard to tell.
Despite the changes after two whole years of no contact, there he was. Osamu Dazai.
Osamu fucking Dazai. Alive. Soaking wet. Not quite well, but what the hell was new? But most importantly, not. Dead.
Chuuya bit his tongue. He didn’t even know why. Was he holding something back? Tears? Insults? Bile? Vomit? Unspoken declarations of love? Two years worth of “where were you?!”s and “I miss you!”s, and “take me with you!”s? He really didn’t know.
Dazai was wearing a pair of cheap black tracksuit pants, a cheap black hoodie and had a face mask pulled under his chin. Clearly, he didn’t want anyone to draw notice to him. Dimly, Chuuya realised that Dazai was also wearing a pair of thin black glasses. Dazai licked his lips before speaking, as if he were afraid of saying something wrong, before his face split into a grin that stretched from ear to ear,
“Hey, Chuuya! Wanna get married?~”
Chuuya’s jaw dropped so low that he was pretty sure it managed to reach the Flags in their graves.
He blinked. Once. Twice. A third time, just for good measure. And maybe a fourth, but that was nobody’s business.
“What… the fuck, Dazai?!” The brunette in question’s smile faltered for a second,
“Is that a no…?”
“Dazai, you’ve been gone for two fucking years! I thought you died!” Dazai’s mouth turned upwards into a pout that Chuuya thought was absolutely adorable- but you didn’t hear that from him, dammit!
“So… you don’t wanna marry me?” In truth, it was the opposite and as much as Chuuya wanted to say “Yes, get out of here, you traitor!” He didn’t.
Port Mafia deserter or not, this was still Dazai they were talking about! Dazai, who bought Spiderman pyjamas to match Chuuya’s, Dazai, who gave him cheap wine from the nearest Family Mart on his eighteenth birthday, not long before the ginger had to leave for that damn overseas mission. Dazai, who for all of his cunningness, manipulation and overall Dazai-ness, still stayed by Chuuya’s side for three whole years. Dazai, whom he had shared a multitude of things with, from cheap convenience store booze, ratty pyjamas and cheap perfumes & colognes to drunken kisses, confessions barely remembered in the morning, blood, sweat and tears, and messily wrapped bandages through hazes of fog and sleep deprivation, memories all blurring into one big stretch of repetition.
Dazai, who was not dead.
Dazai, who had come back after two years of no contact.
Dazai, who wanted to marry him.
Chuuya’s hand tightened on the door handle. He sighed.
“No, just… come in, dumbass, it’s pouring out there.” Dazai’s face immediately brightened at Chuuya’s words, and he clapped his hands together as he stepped over the threshold.
“Yay~! The slug does love me after all!!”
“Hey, watch it! I may be letting you in, but that doesn’t mean I ain’t above beating your ass, ya hear me!”
Despite the obvious threat in Chuuya’s words, he was glad Dazai was back; he wasn’t denying that he had missed that mackerel’s overall Dazai-ness for the past two years.
And, if he was bright red from the tops of his ears to the tips of his feet, well, it truly was nobody’s business.
—-----------------------------------------------------
Two days later, the pair found themselves at the nearest courthouse they could find, heartfelt vows were exchanged, and matching onyx black rings shot through with crimson red and ice blue (respectively) were slipped onto eagerly awaiting fingers.
Finally, a sweet kiss was shared between the partners, full of all the things they couldn’t communicate in the two years spent apart
Who knew that a bottle of Petrus ‘89 could get Chuuya here?