Chapter Text
I could say I never dare To think about you in that way, but I would be lyin'
16y/o
Dazai and Chuuya walked through the school halls, while Akutagawa and Atsushi trailed behind them in step. Akutagawa’s gaze lingered on the pair in front of him. Dazai and Chuuya, Chuuya and Dazai. An inseparable duo everyone knew without question.
For once, he really looked.
He noticed the way Dazai looked at Chuuya, like there was something running deeper beneath his usual ease. Chuuya moved through the hallway as if it belonged to him: head held high, confident strides striking the floor with certainty. He looked taller somehow, more imposing in that effortless way of his, though that had always been his reputation, a firecracker who lit up every room he entered.
Beside him, Dazai seemed almost softer by comparison. He walked with an easy, careless rhythm, shoulders loose, expression light, nonchalant in the way he always was when Chuuya was near. And yet, for all that ease, his attention never drifted. He was still watching Chuuya. Always watching him.
He would crouch slightly when he wanted to hear Chuuya better, subtle enough that it didn’t seem intentional. He’d make sure Chuuya hadn’t left anything behind, because he always did. He’d gently steer him through crowded halls, guiding him just enough so he wouldn’t bump into people while he talked, all while listening as if Chuuya’s words were the most important thing being said.
Where Chuuya went, Dazai followed. And just as naturally, where Dazai appeared, Chuuya came crashing in after him.
Akutagawa didn’t really know how or when they had met. Dazai and Chuuya told people they had always known each other, that they had simply been born close enough to eventually find one another and stay that way ever since.
From a distance, it looked like an effortless friendship. Something steady, almost like brotherhood. But when you looked closer, there were things hiding in the spaces between their glances. something unspoken beneath the surface of every look, every pause, every half-finished thought.
Akutagawa didn’t understand love very well.
He loved his sister. He assumed he had loved his parents, in the way a child is supposed to. But romantic love was something else entirely. something undefined, something he couldn’t quite name or grasp.
And yet, in the short time he had known Dazai and Chuuya, he had started to wonder.
Maybe love was simply this: staying. Choosing someone over and over again without needing to say it out loud. Being there through everything, even when nothing made sense and everything was too loud or too sharp to endure alone.
But he also knew, instinctively, that there was more to it than that.
He looked to his side at Atsushi.
Really looked at him.
He didn’t like him, not exactly. Not in any simple way. But Akutagawa found himself thinking that Atsushi must understand something about love, even if only a fragment of it. Something Akutagawa was still missing, still trying to piece together from the edges of other people’s lives.
“Jinko.”
“Omg, you have to stop calling me that. What?” Atsushi turned to him, brows raised.
“Do you know what love is?”
Atsushi blinked, visibly caught off guard. “Hmm- that’s a deep question for 8 in the morning.”
Akutagawa didn’t respond. He just stared, waiting. There was something almost urgent in it, an itch for understanding he couldn’t ignore. They had stopped walking entirely now, standing in the middle of the hallway as students flowed around them.
“So?” Akutagawa pressed again.
Atsushi glanced away, thinking. He didn’t really know what to say. He had never thought about it in any serious way before, not like that. He never had anybody interested in him and he didn’t think he had been interested in anybody in the past.
“Well… I don’t really know,” he admitted. Then, after a pause, “We could ask Dazai and Chuuya about relationships?”
As if on cue, a little further down the hall, Dazai and Chuuya slowed and turned around, noticing the sudden absence of their two followers.
“Are y’all coming?” Chuuya called.
Both Akutagawa and Atsushi stared at them instead, as if the answer to something important was standing right there.
“Chuuya-san,” Atsushi began, unusually serious, “what is it like being in love?”
“Love?” Chuuya repeated, confused.
Akutagawa stepped in, blunt as ever. “We assumed you might be the more educated person on the subject since you’re with Dazai-san.”
Chuuya nearly choked. “Me and Dazai?! Ew- no, we’re not together. What makes you think that?”
The words landed sharply.
For a fraction of a second, Dazai’s smile faltered.
It was subtle, easy to miss if you weren’t looking for it. But Akutagawa was looking. Always looking. The corners of Dazai’s mouth eased down just slightly, his expression tightening in a way that didn’t match the lightness he usually wore so effortlessly. Something behind his eyes went distant, guarded again, like a door quietly closing.
And just like that, he was different.
Not the Dazai who leaned too close to hear Chuuya better. Not the one who watched him like he was something obvious and unavoidable.
Just… Dazai.
Akutagawa’s gaze flicked to Atsushi. Atsushi noticed it too. Neither of them said anything, but the realization hung between them anyway.
They had been wrong.
“It’s true we’re not together. I mean look at him, he’s too small for me” Dazai responded quickly and smoothly
“Oh shut up I’m perfect just the way I am” Chuuya huffed, flipping him off without hesitation. “Whatever. I don’t really know what love is anyway. I guess you have to grow up to understand that stuff, right?”
Silence followed, brief, but heavy in a way none of them acknowledged.
Dazai smiled again, light and effortless. But it didn’t reach the part of him Akutagawa had just seen.
Because Dazai did know what love was.
He had known for a long time.
It didn’t require growing up.
It just required looking at the right person and realizing they had always been there.
He didn’t need to grow up, because love had always been right there beside him. He only had to look down at the person who had always been next to him to feel everything people usually tried to put into words. He knew.
“I want someone who really understands me and who’s strong, I guess,” Chuuya added after a beat. “Doesn’t really matter who it is, as long as we care about each other.”
But for Dazai, it mattered. It had always mattered. There had only ever been one person, for years now, even if it was never said out loud.
“And you, Dazai-san?” Atsushi asked, almost too innocently.
Dazai didn’t look at any of them. His gaze stayed fixed somewhere far down the hallway, like the end of it held something easier to focus on.
“I just want somebody who’ll love me back, I guess.”
His voice was light. Careless, even. But it didn’t feel careless.
It sounded honest in a way that made it sharper.
Chuuya glanced up at him, caught off guard by the sudden softness in his tone, like something had cracked open for half a second. He didn’t seem to realize what the others were seeing, the weight behind it, the meaning folded into something that looked simple on the surface.
But Akutagawa saw it.
Atsushi too.
They understood it without it being explained. The hidden message beneath those words.
I just want Chuuya to love me back.
Oh.
Akutagawa thought, quiet and still.
Love could hurt too.