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“Pass the jam?”
Dazai’s voice is low, hidden under the buzz of their building’s old air conditioning, nesting between the folds of the morning sun. He’s soft, hair mussed, left pant leg bunched above his shin, eyes sticky with sleep.
Chuuya’s heart is soft.
He hums, slides over the jam— raspberry, never strawberry because it’s Dazai’s favourite and Chuuya loves him so damn much— and the knife across the table. It slows to a stop, a gentle thunk of glass hitting glass.
The chair slides back, wooden legs groaning. Dazai plops down into it with a huff, hiding a yawn behind one hand and reaching for a slice of toast from the stack in the center of the table.
“Morning, chibi.”
Chuuya can hear the grin in his voice, and he snorts, staring down at his own plate to hide the growing smile on his face.
“Morning, Dazai. Sleep well?” There’s another yawn, accompanied by the scrape of jam being spread against toast. His fork is loose in his grip as he prods at the final few bites of scrambled eggs on his plate.
Last night, Dazai had shuffled into his office, hands clasped behind his back, and stared at the floor sullenly. Chuuya had worried over what the other would say, mulling over the other’s potential question.
“Do we have toast?”
Chuuya had blinked at him through his laptop’s reflection. “Yeah, brought it after work the other day.” Blinked again. “Why?”
A shrug. Eyes sliding away. “I think I want toast in the morning. With jam. How you used to make it, before.” Then Dazai padded away in the same way he’d entered, socks sliding against the wood floor, phone unlocked in one hand and tapping away with the other.
Like Chuuya’s heart hadn’t immediately swollen so big it hurt to breathe.
He’d never asked for something like that before. So Chuuya had checked the bread twice before bed. Set the jam out on the table. Woken up early to make sure the toast would be warm by the time he’d heard Dazai’s body roll onto the floor from their bed in a disoriented ‘oof—’
Dazai doesn’t know any of this.
He just hums softly around a mouthful of toast, pleased.
Dammit, Chuuya’s so so proud of him. Loves him so much.
Chuuya knows Dazai cannot see himself in the way Chuuya sees him, has spent years— his entire life trying to prove him otherwise, so that he can see himself in the way Chuuya sees Dazai, but in this moment, it’s all the better for it.
He can’t see the way Chuuya is looking at him now.
Dazai is sitting at the table, elbows on wood worn smooth with age, toast balanced loosely in his fingers, jam spread too thick in the middle and too thin at the edges because he’s stopped paying attention to things like this. His hair is still crooked from sleep, mussed and sticking up on one side. One eye squints more than the other when the curtain shifts and light shines through.
He doesn’t notice the way the lamplight— never the big light because it was too sterile and cold— catches on each of his lashes, turning chocolate brown into warm honey. He doesn’t notice the way his cheeks are still pink, sleep-warm, a watercolour of his contentment.
If Dazai knew how beautiful he was, how much Chuuya adored him, he’d never hear the end of it.
So Chuuya keeps it to himself and asks again:
“Sleep well?”
“I did,” Dazai says easily. “You were warm.”
Like Chuuya being there is as expected— needed, wanted— as the sun rising. His heart feels too full, chest hurting.
Sometimes— more often now than when they were both young, twin flames in a world of gasoline— he dreams of a future with this man.
Dreams of wandering, grief-stricken, and numb across the damp Yokohama streets, hat clutched in both hands against his chest. Of floating, aimless among crowds of people until he pushes open the door to his apartment (the lock broken, because when does Dazai ever use the key Chuuya had given him?), and collapses into outstretched, waiting arms.
He remembers waking after these dreams, tears salty against his skin, laughing to himself in disbelief. Because the future used to feel like something dark, sharp. Something that would cut him if he tried to hold it for too long.
But,
Now it looks like this.
Jam on Dazai’s thumb. Sunlight in his hair. Crumbs on the table.
Ordinary.
Disgustingly, achingly ordinary.
Dazai finishes the last bite and leans back in his chair with a soft exhale, eyes drifting shut like he’s already halfway gone again. The knife slips from his fingers and clinks against the plate. He doesn’t bother moving it.
“Chuuya,” he says, voice gone loose with sleep.
“Yeah?”
A pause. Then, quieter, softer, “Come here.”
Chuuya is already standing before he realizes he’s moved.
The chair legs scrape softly against the floor as he rounds the table. Dazai tilts his head back to look at him, squinting up through messy bangs, and reaches out without even looking—hands finding Chuuya’s hips like they’ve memorized the shape of him. (He has.)
He pulls.
Eventually, they end up on their couch that’s too small for both of them to lie in comfortably, in a tangle of limbs, and Dazai’s feet hanging off one end. The rest of him is folded into the gaps of Chuuya’s sprawl; head tucked under Chuuya’s chin, one leg draped over his thigh, hand sliding under his shirt, settling warm against his stomach.
He sighs into Dazai’s hair, inhales the scent of jasmine— the shampoo he distinctly remembers telling Dazai not to touch— and presses his mouth against an unruly curl in an imitation of a kiss.
Chuuya wraps both arms around him and holds him there.
Dazai is heavy in his arms. Warm. Real. Full from the breakfast he asked for himself. Breathing slowly and even. Chuuya presses his cheek into Dazai’s hair and closes his eyes.
He can’t see the way Chuuya is looking at him like he’s something precious the world almost didn’t get to keep.
He can’t see the way Chuuya’s fingers move gently through his hair, slow and careful, like he’s tending to something delicate.
He can’t see the way Chuuya’s memorizing this moment, storing it away for the days Dazai forgets to be this soft with himself, forgets he’s able to be this soft.
“You’re warm,” Dazai murmurs again, already halfway to sleep.
Chuuya hums. “Yeah.”
Dazai nuzzles in deeper.
And Chuuya just holds him.