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The snow along the riverbank was an ugly, grey sludge, gritty and unpleasant to look at it. By mid-morning, the snow had been trampled by mudtracks and polluted with litter and ash, so that moseying along it was more a depressing sort of event than a peaceful walk. The sun, high and bright in the sky, was consistently the culprit. The soft, glittering snow had barely any time to settle along the banks before the creeping, early-morning heat would lay itself like a sluggish blanket over Yokohama and render the once-pristine snow to depressing sludge.
It was never quite cold enough in Yokohama for the magic to last, even in the winter.
Today, the drifts were piled high, untouched, so blindingly white they looked akin to Heaven’s Pearly Gates. The temperature had dropped so low overnight and stayed there that nothing had the chance to melt or turn to that disgusting, vile sludge that was so-hated. The winter air was so cold it nearly stole the breath, made little puffed clouds of vapor with each exhale passed through lips.
Chuuya was shivering slightly, even beneath the layers he wore—though he would never admit to something as pathetic as being cold. Unlike his shitty parter, he knew how to plan ahead for things. But it was so damn frigid today that even with a scarf, a hat, and gloves, the chill made its way into his bones and found a home there.
Dazai, for his part, was acting fine. Acting was the word to pay attention to. Chuuya had been watching him from the corner of his eye with a scowl for the better part of the past ten minutes, ever since they’d bundled up to take this stupid trek down the riverbank. He had only agreed to it in the first place because the suicidal brat was threatening to drown himself in it—“Such a pure, lovely day for a river drowning, don’t you think, slug?”—and Chuuya had flatly suggested a scenic walk instead.
True to a suicide fanatic’s heart (if Dazai had one of those at all), Dazai had been less than enthusiastic about the wrench in his plans. But after Chuuya threatened him with paperwork, he relented in that long-suffering way of his that made Chuuya want to throttle him.
At least it meant no suicide attempts today. Still, Chuuya made sure to walk on the side closest to the river, keeping a wall between Dazai and his dream. It was almost cruel to keep him from it like that, but really, it was too damn cold for Chuuya to fish some lanky goddamn mackerel out of an icy river today.
So, barrier.
Dazai noticed what Chuuya was doing—of course—and grumbled about it, like he grumbled about everything that didn’t go his way. Like he grumbled about every single time someone refused to indulge his suicidal whims. Always so damn twisted up about the fact that he wasn’t given express, enthusiastic permission to permanently disfigure and murk humself.
Still, Dazai would have been complaining a hell of a lot more if it weren’t for how damn cold he was. He hadn’t said anything, no, hadn’t even given any obvious physical tells away—but Chuuya knew the brat far more intimately than he liked to admit, and he knew the bastard was cold. The signs were subtle and few in number: slow blinks, hands tucked wrong, shoulders hunched just a little higher up than they normally were, even on the coldest of days.
The thing about Dazai, Chuuya had learned over the years, was that he rarely felt anything—not just emotionally, but physically, too. Temperature, pain, the blunt force of the world—Dazai was as numb to it as he was to everything else. It was like his body just didn’t register the sensations the way bodies did for everyone else. So in the rare moments where Chuuya could see the toll the physical effects of the world took on him, he had to wonder if Dazai even noticed it himself.
Before they’d left Chuuya’s apartment, Dazai had folded his scrawny limbs into the windowsill overlooking the foggy harbor, biting his fingernails with his head likely somewhere far away—one of the millions of bad habits Chuuya had at long last given up on trying to police, if only because it was better than the other habits in rotation. Besides, prying Dazai’s fingers from his mouth while he was trying to self-soothe in that way was bad luck; it made this wounded little look appear on Dazai’s face, a small crease between the brows—almost childish in its innocence—and the first time it happened, Chuuya had felt such a pang of guilt in his chest that he’d swore never to do it again.
It was a hell of a lot better than watching Dazai take a razor to his skin.
And it was almost endearing.
Almost.
Through the cracked-open window, the icy sea breeze had drafted through the apartment as Chuuya dressed and Dazai stared. What he stared at hardly mattered. It was off in the distance, unreachable, something Chuuya would never really grasp himself because perhaps even Dazai couldn’t.
But Chuuya knew where his thoughts were today. That was enough.
He stole another little glance in Dazai’s direction as they walked side-by-side along the snowy riverbank, at the flushed tips of his ears, the way he held his coat tighter around him as though that could block the windchill on dejected effort alone.
“I told you to wear something warm,” Chuuya muttered then, because his thoughts for the past few minutes had been a little too gooey and fond for his liking.
“I’ll have the slug know I’m dressed perfectly for the weather,” Dazai sniffed, deflecting with his usual insolent smugness. “Although, what a thoughtful, loyal dog I have, worrying about its owner’s comfort in a time like this. How sweet.”
It would have been the perfect opportunity for Chuuya to sweep the brat’s feet out from under him and let his face smack flat into the snow, but Dazai did the work of making himself pathetic all on his own. His own tells betrayed him as he spoke: a tiny hitch of breath, the red nose, pink cheeks, bright eyes. He was dragging, too, like the cold was slowing down his inner functions, making it harder to keep up the act that he never ran out of battery. And because it was so goddamn pathetic that he couldn’t even admit to something as human as being cold—Chuuya took mercy on him.
(Really, he was getting too damn soft on the brat.)
Without warning, he grabbed Dazai’s wrist in a tight hold to drag him along. “Christ, you’re freezing,” Chuuya muttered, the iciness of Dazai’s skin leeching through his own glove, rendering it useless.
Pouting, Dazai tried to turn it into a bit, or a battle, weakly tugging his hand away and flailing when Chuuya tightened his hold easily.
“Maybe I’m dying, that’s why my body’s functions are slowing down… How romantic.” Dazai batted his stupid, dark eyelashes, and Chuuya wanted to rip them out. “It could be romantic, Chuu, if you let it—”
It landed weak, because the bastard was genuinely cold, even if he was refusing to admit it.
Damnit, Chuuya thought. I’m the one who has to deal with this goddamn princess, don’t I? I’m the one who dragged the brat out here in the first place.
He was really, really regretting not just letting Dazai drown now.
With a resigned sigh, Chuuya dragged Dazai along a little harder and muttered, “C’mon, moron, walk faster. Stop being dramatic. You wanted in there, remember?” He gestured down, the slush-filled river below roaring icily back at them.
Dazai complied too obediently, half-stumbling over his own feet—which was how Chuuya knew he really felt like shit. Dazai only went along with things without complaint when he was truly too depleted to to do anything but let himself be dragged along by the current. And it made sense.
He’d been looking for the current to drag him away just this morning.
“My ears are cold,” Dazai said suddenly, small and miserably sincere.
Caught off guard by the out of character admission of truth, Chuuya only blinked at first.
“…Your ears,” he repeated.
Dazai doubled down, ridiculously serious, as though it was a dire medical emergency. “Yes, my ears! They’re cold!” He stomped his foot. Stomped it.
Chuuya took a deep, deep breath.
“Keep walking, moron,” he instructed, and dragged Dazai with a little more aggressive force than necessary. “Your fragile little ears will warm up if you quit lagging behind me like some useless toddler.”
Groaning, Dazai let Chuuya drag him. “But what if they fall off?”
Chuuya thought about it.
His gut instinct was to tell Dazai it had nothing to do with him, that losing his ears might teach the brat a damn lesson. But then he thought about how little Dazai listened to him already, even with two ears, even when it was critical, life-or-death information and Chuuya needed him to hear it—
Grumbling obscenities loud enough for Dazai to hear, Chuuya yanked his scarf off without ceremony and looped it around Dazai’s stupid bandaged neck with a little too much force. His fingers were warm—absurdly so, against the ice-cold chill of Dazai’s skin, as though Chuuya stored heat in his bones on purpose—and when they brushed the edge of Dazai’s jaw to tuck the scarf higher, Dazai went quiet. Not smug-quiet, like what came before he got ready to wind someone up. Quiet like his brain stalled. The lulling sort that meant his thoughts had gone hazy. Like his body noticed anything that looked like care before his mouth could turn it into a joke.
Chuuya didn’t look at the bastard’s face while he did it, because he knew exactly what he would see there:
That pathetically earnest face, surprised at the kindness that was not a kindness, buried deep in layers of fuzz like something small and vulnerable. Cheeks dusted red, lips bitten pink and raw, that lone dark pupil blown just a little too wide. Like Chuuya had done something stupid like hung the damn moon in the sky.
Chuuya would never do that.
“Don’t say shit,” he muttered, yanking on the ends of the scarf for good measure just to hear the choking sound Dazai made as it momentarily cut off his airway. It made something settle in Chuuya, too, just a little.
“There. Ears. Fixed,” he said, and shoved Dazai forward.
After recovering from his short coughing fit, Dazai said, with an honest-to-god sincerity that made Chuuya sick, “Thank you, Chuuya.”
“…I said to shut up.”
And to Chuuya’s genuine surprise, Dazai did. Chuuya sure as hell didn’t want to look over and find out why, so he kept his gaze down, glued to the snow crunching beneath their feet with each irritatingly in-sync step they took. It was quiet like that between them without interruption for longer than Chuuya was used to, probably because Dazai was considering how next he could piss Chuuya off.
And then it came:
Dazai, blinking at Chuuya over the wool, all wide-eyed and obnoxiously quiet—then the words breathed out, small and plaintive—“Still cold.”
Chuuya stopped so fast Dazai nearly stumbled into him and sent them both tumbling into the river. Honestly, Chuuya was starting to think that that would be the best outcome for them both.
“You’re kidding,” he said, jaw tight, staring like if he looked hard enough the complaint would evaporate. The scarf was doing its job; the tips of Dazai’s ears were tucked away, his chin buried, and yet he was now visibly and dramatically shivering like a stray cat in a puddle.
Dazai lifted his shoulders in a tiny shrug, miserably earnest. “My head,” he amended, as if that made it reasonable.
Chuuya’s jaw worked. “Fine. Fine—fuck.” He yanked his beanie off and jammed it down over Dazai’s stupid bandaged head with a hell of a lot more force than necessary. He didn’t bother pretending to be gentle. “Happy, mackerel?”
But when he looked at him—
Dazai was just… there, bundled up to his eyes, scarf swallowing his mouth, beanie sitting wrong over the bandages, hair sticking out in offended little tufts—like some idiot someone forgot on a bench in the snow.
Chuuya’s face did something like a flinch. An emotional allergic reaction.
“Don’t,” he snapped, like Dazai was doing it all on purpose. He had been, at first, but this look, this stupid, infuriatingly endearing look—
This was the shit Dazai never did on purpose. There were other looks like it, yeah. Manipulative ones, flirty ones, insufferable ones. But not this look.
Dazai blinked. “Don’t what?”
Helplessly, Chuuya’s eyes narrowed. His fist twitched like it wanted a cigarette and found Dazai’s stupid face instead.
He bonked him—quick, blunt, right on the forehead over the soft beanie. Not hard enough to make Dazai wail until Chuuya’s eardrums broke, but hard enough to be insulting.
Dazai recoiled like he’d been shot. “What was that for?” he demanded, voice thick and wobbly behind the scarf.
“For existing,” Chuuya said. “For being—ugh. Quit looking like that.”
“I don’t look like anything,” Dazai sulked, cheeks pink with old cold and fresh outrage. He tugged at the scarf like it had personally betrayed him, and not the owner of it. “Chibi is violent.”
“Oh, I’m violent,” Chuuya echoed, deadpan, and started walking again like he hadn’t just committed a hate crime against his pathetic boyfriend.
Dazai lagged half a step behind on purpose. Chuuya could feel the sulk radiating off him, dramatic as a stage curtain that would fall and break someone’s neck. Chuuya turned his head, ready to snap something else about ruining the mood—and Dazai’s face was suddenly there, and then he kissed him, soft and infuriating, right on the tip of Chuuya’s nose.
It was so quick it barely counted as a kiss. It counted anyway.
Chuuya froze, breath catching like the cold had finally found a real way in.
Dazai pulled back with the smallest, most offended little glare, as if Chuuya had started this. “Don’t hit me,” he said, muffled by the scarf.
Chuuya’s ears burned. “You’re a fucking nightmare.”
Eyes crinkling, Dazai’s smug comportment returned like a thaw. “And Chibi is warm.”
The words, in their unashamed frankness, made Chuuya short-circuit. He stayed locked in place for a beat, waiting for his brain to reboot. The kiss was nothing—stupid, barely-there, not even on the mouth—and yet it hit anyway, sharp and bright as a match.
“—You’re—unbelievable,” he managed to choke out, voice rough with pure irritation that didn’t fool either of them.
Dazai’s eyes went wide in that fake-innocent way again, like he hadn’t just done something criminally tender. “Me?”
The sound Chuuya made was somewhere between a scoff and a curse. He grabbed the scarf at Dazai’s chest and tugged him in by it. As if to say: mine. come here.
Dazai stumbled close, warmth blooming up his throat, and the smugness came back like it lived there. He tipped his head, scarf still swallowing his mouth. “See?” he said, pleased with himself. “All solved.”
“Don’t get cocky, little brat,” Chuuya muttered, but he didn’t let go right away. He held him there, reminding Dazai how easy it was to keep him like this.
When he finally relented and let the brat go, they started walking again—Dazai bundled to the eyes in Chuuya’s scarf and beanie, looking ridiculous and cozy and unbearably, infuriatingly pleased; Chuuya bare-eared and fuming, hands jammed in his pockets.
He complained the entire way back.
He also—obviously—never asked for his shit back.