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You cracked your back as you entered the apartment, stifling a yawn while you kicked off your shoes and tossed them onto the mat near the door. You hung your coat on the hook on the wall, next to Chuuya’s jacket.
Chuuya. Interesting. You remembered him complaining about the large pile of papers on his desk that had yet to be filled out. He was supposed to stay late to finish them. How odd.
You shrugged, and walked into the living room. A head of ginger hair stuck up over the top of the cushions on the couch, tilted down, as if looking at something. Chuuya perked up at the sound of your footsteps, and leaned his head back, blue and brown eyes meeting yours. He grinned and made his way over to you, saying, “Thought I heard the door open.”
“You’re home early,” you said, closing the distance and setting your hands on his waist. “Get through your paperwork early?”
Chuuya scoffed, rolling his eyes. “Not at all. I got three pages done before quitting and comin’ home. Don’t think I would’ve lasted much longer, anyways.” He pressed his lips to yours, and you gladly accepted, tugging at his waistband to pull him closer.
You broke apart, a small coil of heat in your stomach. You disregarded it. For the time being, of course.
“How was the mission?” Chuuya asked, pulling you towards the couch.
“It was fine,” you said. “A little firefight, but nothing I couldn’t handle. The guy was a pain in the ass to take out quietly, though. He almost got the neighbors involved. I couldn’t even get him outside to bite the curb. Disappointing, but not completely surprising.”
Chuuya nodded, and grimaced inwardly. He needed to talk to you about a… rather pressing issue, one he knew you would try your hardest to ignore and manipulate the conversation away from. Unfortunately, this wasn’t something Chuuya was going to allow you to wriggle yourself out of, no matter how hard you tried to deflect and escape.
“Doc handed me the results from your last iron test today,” Chuuya started, taking the folded papers out of his pocket. “I thought you were taking the iron supplements?”
You cocked your head, grin shifting into something more sinister. “You looked at my files?” A warning was thinly veiled beneath the cordial tone.
Chuuya thickened his resolve. All or nothing. “Yeah. I did. You were the one who agreed to make me privy to them, remember?”
You hummed noncommittedly. Your fingernails clicked against your arm in succession, like the ticking of a bomb. “Did I, now?”
“The numbers were low. Real low.”
“I don’t want to talk about this,” you said, beginning to walk towards the kitchen. You kept your tone light, deludedly so. Chuuya wanted no part in your avoidance.
“You never want to talk about this.” Chuuya followed you, unrelenting. “I’m serious, this isn’t healthy. The next time you end up in a hospital, you might leave in a damn body bag. What happened to the supplements?”
You froze for a second, a trace of fear flickering in your eyes before disappearing. You huffed, and continued into the kitchen. “Mori found the ones in my office. Dumped them in the trash. Told me not to bother with them again.”
You could see Mori’s face in your mind, hear him as if his words were pouring from your own mouth.
“How disappointing,” he’d said, tutting his tongue as he dropped the bottle of medication into the garbage. “And here I thought you were actually improving. I didn’t think you’d stoop so low as to rely on chemicals to do your job.”
How disappointing.
The second you’d walked out of the office, you sprinted to the nearest bathroom and heaved your stomach into a toilet. You’d given yourself two minutes to catch your breath, waiting for the dots to clear themselves from your vision, before you got back up and walked out like nothing happened.
As far as anyone else was concerned, nothing did.
“We can get new ones,” Chuuya said, already reaching for his phone to text Doc. “Iron tablets ain’t the hardest thing to smuggle, we–”
“No.” You had to physically restrain yourself from knocking the phone from Chuuya’s hand, grabbing your wrist. “Mori said no. It was an order. Even you can’t disobey him.”
Chuuya sighed. “I know.” He set his phone back in his pocket. “I’m sayin’ all this because I care about you, y’know. I’m not trying to boss you around or anything, I just want to help.”
“I don’t need your help,” you snapped, defensive.
“I never said you needed it, I just said I wanted to,” Chuuya corrected. He tried to keep his voice gentle, but this topic, the way you immediately began lashing out whenever he brought it up, ground on his already thin patience.
You rolled your eyes, turning your heel towards the door. “You don’t understand,” you muttered.
“That’s right, I don’t!” Chuuya yelled, raising his voice. He took your hands into his hand, pulling you away from the exit and forcing you to look at him. “I don’t understand! So make me. Tell me what it is I don’t know!”
You tugged, trying to free yourself, but Chuuya was too strong. “You’ll never understand.”
“I won’t if you don’t tell me,” Chuuya said. He grunted, and grabbed your wrists, pulling down the sleeves to reveal the scars underneath. Some were still red and healing. “You think I like seeing you carve yourself up into pieces? That I’m okay with it?”
“That’s not your decision to make,” you growled.
“That doesn’t mean I have to like it,” Chuuya shot back. “Every time I see you, it’s like you have a new scar.”
You huffed. “It’s my ability, you expect me to just not use it?”
“Yes!” Chuuya exclaimed. “That’s exactly what I mean! We’re in the Mafia, you don't need to cut yourself every time you need a weapon!”
“My ability is the only fucking thing that makes me useful!” you yelled, ripping your arms away from Chuuya’s hold. Your chest heaved with frustrated pants, eyes blinking back tears. “You couldn’t understand because you’re just so goddamn perfect in Mori’s eyes. His strongest ability user, his perfect little dog.”
“Don’t go there,” Chuuya growled.
“Why not?” You tilted your head, pupils glinting with an unreadable, dangerous emotion. “You can take on armies. You’re the most powerful Gifted in the eastern hemisphere. Even without that, you control one of the most lucrative businesses in the Port Mafia. But me?”
Your voice broke. “I am nothing without my ability. I don’t control commerce or covert ops units. Without my ability, I am worthless to Mori.”
“You have one of the highest kill counts in Mafia history,” Chuuya cut in. “That’s not nothing.”
“I’m not the only person with a gun and half-decent aim here.” You swallowed thickly. “If I die, there’s no consequence. Verlaine trains new recruits every day, and Kouyou sharpens them into weapons. But there’s only one Nakahara Chuuya. Only one gravity manipulator. You’re so goddamn unique that Mori would rather I sacrifice my life for you rather than the other way around.”
“Mori raised you, he wouldn’t be so willing to throw you away like that.”
“You can’t know that, you didn’t grow up with him,” you accused, shoving a finger in Chuuya’s face. “You weren’t experimented on by him, he didn’t force insomnia on you when you said you were tired. Your failures are met with grace and ‘A for effort’. Mine meant I didn’t eat for three days. Didn’t sleep until I succeeded. You learned how to control your ability through time and fixing mistakes, but I didn’t get to make mistakes. If I couldn’t control my ability, I was useless. Mori threatened to throw me back out on the streets at a moment’s notice if I ever disappointed him. You have no idea what that’s like.”
Chuuya sighed again. He toned his anger down, knowing it wouldn’t get him anywhere. If he growled, you bit back with venom. You were an assassin; you knew where to put a knife to make it hurt. And Chuuya wanted the both of you to leave this conversation bloodless.
“You’re right,” he said, tossing his hands up in defeat. “I don’t know him as well as you. I wasn’t raised by him.” And I’m glad I wasn’t. I don’t know what you’ve gone through, but I can see what it has done to you.
Chuuya slowly inched towards you, steps calculated to not spook you away like a cornered animal. “But I know you,” he continued. “I know that you haven’t gotten rid of the iron pills in our cabinet, because I saw them there this morning. They’re just as heavy as they were a week ago, but they’re still there.”
He was close now.
“You’re not just his dog,” he whispered, taking your hands into his and holding them gently. “You’re so much more than that.”
You were still, statuesque as Chuuya hesitantly wrapped his arms around you, pulling you close to his chest. A hand came to cradle the back of your head, enveloping you in Chuuya’s warm embrace.
You winced at a spark of pain. Almost imperceptibly. A gentle tightening of muscles, a little intake of breath. Most people wouldn’t have noticed. Even if they did, they probably would’ve brushed it off.
But Chuuya rarely brushed things off when it came to you.
He pulled away, taking his heat with him. You nearly teared up at the loss.
In his gaze, concern blended with anger in a mess of blue and brown. He searched your body for the source of your wincing, and sighed when he found it. He rolled up your sleeve when he found the splotch of darkly shaded fabric on the upper arm of your dress shirt.
The grip Chuuya had on your sleeve tightened when he saw the gash. The blood was mostly crusted around the incision, but a few drops still danced down your arm, leaving a gory trail behind them. It stung a little when the fabric of your shirt brushed over it.
Chuuya grit his teeth. “Ma vie–”
“Don’t ‘ma vie’ me, Nakahara,” you hissed, gaze snapping to the redhead. Your eyes were alight with emotions. Anger. Fear. And a thousand others Chuuya couldn’t decipher. “Let me go.”
And you were gone, storming out of the door of the apartment. Chuuya was left glaring at the crimson stain on his hand, grimacing when the door slammed behind you.
He sighed. I’m sorry.
❖❖❖
The cold of the autumn night wind bit at your face the second you burst through the door to the roof. It was sharp in your lungs, tasting of the gas from the factories at the bank of the river, bitter on your tongue.
You sulked over to the corner of the building, curling your knees to your chest as you sat.
You and Chuuya had wire fencing and barbed wire installed on the perimeter of the roof after Dazai first tried to throw himself off of it. Even so, Dazai still sometimes came up to the roof to escape. He never bothered to climb over the fence; he would’ve rather just gone into a different building with a non-fenced roof if he was trying to kill himself.
After following him up to the roof so many times to bring him back to the apartment for the night — he often fell asleep — it became a habit of yours as well. Not a common one, certainly. But on the hard nights or when Chuuya and Dazai were out on missions and you were left home alone, you came up to the roof and took a moment to breathe. To take a small break from your non-stop life, a break from your mind. For a moment, all you had to do was stare at the everglowing lights of Yokohama, listen to the melody of the honking horns, of the normal citizens of the city living their lives who were unaware of black blood of the underground organization that kept them from destruction.
Sometimes, when the bags under your eyes were deep enough, when the wine glass in your hand didn’t go unfilled, you let yourself feel jealous. Of their normalcy, their blissful ignorance, their unstained hands. Their ledgers didn’t gush red, their hearts weren’t black like yours. They didn’t rip themselves into shreds for a man who wouldn’t do the same for them.
You stared at the scars on your arms, studying the divots and raised lines. The history etched into your skin. Chuuya had kissed them, Dazai had bound and sutured them. You made them worse. Thin, half-invisible lines became gouges out of your skin, burns, fucking gunshot scars from bullets you’d shot yourself. All for your ability. Your goddamned ability.
You hated it. Hated cutting into yourself and bleeding and having to clean the dried blood day after day after day. Hated how it made citizens look at you while you walked in the street. Hated that Mori grinned at every new scar that accompanied a successful mission, and that his approval somehow made your suffering, your bleeding, worth a mere moment’s pride.
But what you hated more was that you couldn’t stop. Your ability made you who you were. It was the only thing that gave you meaning, that gave you purpose, that made you stand out as something other than a complete failure in Mori’s eyes. Without your ability, you were just another assassin, another grunt with a gun and semi-decent aim. Hated that it caused rifts between you and Chuuya and Dazai.
Chuuya.
You grimaced as you thought back to the fight. It was one of the biggest you’d had, certainly since Dazai joined the two of you. Little spats were common, but screaming matches were far less so. The cause was usually the same, though.
Your muscles tensed at the sound of the door opening, instinct more than a conscious decision. The pattern of footsteps on the cement was undeniable. Even so, you didn’t turn around.
“Thought you were smart enough to know when to leave someone alone,” you grumbled. “The hell are you up here for, anyways? Did Nakahara send you?”
Dazai scoffed, walking towards you. He all but ignored how you spat Chuuya’s name like it was poison. “Dogs don’t tell their owners what to do.”
You puffed a skeptical breath through your nose, but said nothing.
Something yanked on the collar of your shirt, forcing you in the ledge and onto the unforgivable cement.
You glared up at Dazai, who stood over you with a smirk as he dodged your kick to the back of his knee. “What in fuck’s name was that for?” you hissed, rubbing your lower back as you stood.
“Little dog stole my spot.” Dazai sat in the place you’d just been sitting, as if to illustrate his point.
You grumbled under your breath and sat down a few feet away, going back to staring at the city. The silence didn’t last long. Dazai slowly reached his finger over to poke your arm. You smacked him away, irritation growing. “Fuck off,” you muttered. “Don’t you have a mission report to write?”
“Finished it,” Dazai shrugged. He reached to prod your arm again.
You grit your teeth, grabbing his wrist. “The hell’s–”
The world titled as Dazai flipped you onto your back, knocking the air from your lungs with the force. He grinned smugly, leaning his face down, noses nearly touching. “You’re always so easy to pin,” he said. “So predictable. It’d be amusing if it wasn’t so pathetic.”
You could tell Dazai was trying to provoke you; he was picking at your insecurities, your weaknesses, places Dazai knew would make you bleed if he pressed them. He’d studied you for years. He knew how to trigger your anger, your wrath, your tears. But you’d known him just as long. No, the why behind his actions was never clear to you until he wanted them to be. But that didn’t mean you couldn’t wield a knife just as sharp as his silver tongue.
“I least I don’t sound like Mori,” you hissed. You reveled in the downturn of Dazai’s lips. A venomous grin spread itself on your face. “What? Don’t like the comparison?”
A deeper frown, a darker glint to Dazai’s visible eye. Good. Dazai didn’t get riled up often — only Chuuya seemed to be able to make him do that — he was too composed, too calculating for such a show of emotion. But he still felt it. His heart bled just like yours, even if he was just better at hiding the blood. The fangs of the wolf sank just as deep as the demon’s; you knew he hated being compared to Mori. Whether he found it a demeaning insult or simply hated when he and Mori were looked at as mirrors, you didn’t know. But it stung. That was all that mattered.
You shot your knee into Dazai’s groin, taking his split second of vulnerability to roll out from under him to stand.
“That was dirty!” he complained, fists clenched at his throbbing crotch as he forced himself to his feet again.
You huffed. As if anything you ever did was clean.
You launched your foot at his face.
Dazai was quick as ever.
He grabbed your ankle, twisting it and throwing you off balance. You caught yourself, but Dazai was already on you again. He hooked a leg around your knee, an arm encircling your throat, a hand threaded tightly into your hair to keep your head bent at a painful angle.
You tossed your head back, skull clipping his chin with a click of bone against bone. He grunted, grip loosening by a hair. Just enough for you to wriggle out.
You stood in front of him, fists clenched.
Dazai chuckled, wiping the drop of blood from his jaw.
For a moment, the two of you stood at a standstill, silent except for the blowing of the wind and the sound of the bustling city below.
You narrowed your eyes, waiting. Dazai almost never made the first move. He didn’t have to. He always had a plan, something to execute. Only when it called for him to go first did he even move a muscle.
That night was no exception.
So you started.
You summoned a blade and threw it at his face.
Dazai merely tilted his head, the knife flying past but nearby slicing his ear. He grinned, and took off his coat.
He matched you move for move. Punch for punch. Kick for kick. Dodged and parried, blocked and beat. Dazai had studied you, your fighting style, what side of your body you favored. He knew your habits like they were his own. Chuuya was only able to beat him in physical combat because of pure force.
You only won when you had a gun.
He slammed your face into the concrete again, the bits of gravel digging into your skin. “Give up yet?”
You growled in response, only to have your hair pulled again, Dazai’s bony knee digging into your spine.
“Yield.”
A command.
For once, you complied, and nodded. You swallowed back the grunt of frustration as you rolled onto your back.
“You’re sloppier than usual,” Dazai noted, climbing off you. He gave you a hand to get up, and you begrudgingly accepted. “Your emotions are getting in the way of fighting rationally.”
“It’s been a long day,” you muttered. It was a weak excuse and you knew it. You didn’t care.
Dazai’s hand dipped into the pocket of his trenchcoat, and pulled out a small suturing kit.
“Don’t need it. Put it away,” you said, crossing your arms and glaring at the curved needle and thread.
Dazai raised a skeptical eyebrow. “You’re a terrible liar, darling. Sit down.”
You sighed sharply through your nose, but followed the order. The exhaustion had not-so-slowly begun to encroach itself upon you. Your muscles ached, head pounding dully. You felt dead on your feet. Drained.
You sat on the ledge, nails digging into the flesh of your palm. Dazai took the place next to you, rolling up the sleeve of your dress shirt. You hated how he already knew where the cut was. Hated that you were that obvious during the fight.
Dazai pinched the lacerated skin between his fingers as he wiped the blood off. At the first prick of pain, you pressed your tongue to the roof of your mouth to stop yourself from clenching your jaw or biting the flesh of your cheek. The feeling of the passing of needle and thread through your skin was almost nauseating.
In the heat of a fight, it was different: adrenaline pumping through your veins, deafening gunshots coming from every direction, bullets ripping past your ears. A little cut on your forearm was nothing. Pain was nothing. But the stitches that came after were more painful than all of that combined.
When you turned ten, Mori even forced you to stitch your own wounds. You’d learned how to do it from watching Mori with his patients. Every day, at least one person came in with a gash or stab wound that Mori closed with his perfect sutures. Sometimes, he would even let you practice on the bodies of the people he couldn’t save, whose organizations didn’t want them. You supposed you couldn’t have had a better person to watch.
But the first time you had to do it on yourself, you almost couldn’t do it. After months of seeing gory medical scenes day after day, of seeing death with your own once-innocent eyes and nearly shaking the reaper’s hand yourself, you couldn’t do it. You had to bite on your shirt to muffle the sobs, forcing deep breaths to quell the nausea.
The only relief of that night was Mori’s nod of approval at the sutures. You went to bed with a full stomach for the first time in weeks as a reward.
Mori’s sutures were perfect: evenly spaced, just the right tightness. A medical paragon. But he didn’t care how much pain he caused his patient. He gave no anesthetics, no warning. Just cold, ruthless efficiency.
But Dazai was gentle, much more so than he ever gave himself credit for. His touch, icy though the pads of his fingers were, was kind in a way he almost never let himself be.
Dazai glanced up from the gash on your arm. Your eyes were wide in dissociation as they stared at the ground in front of you. You always did that when Dazai or Chuuya stitched you up; lost yourself in a memory instead of dealing with the present. Breaths spaced out and timed, blinks coming at even intervals. Silent. A defensive mechanism you’d come to pick up back at Mori’s underground office. Compartmentalization as a way to deal with the pain. The fear.
Dazai let out a breath through his nose, and hooked his arms under yours — careful not to rip the thread from your skin — pulling you into his lap. You curled into him instinctively, wrapping your arms around his thin waist. Your eyes closed as you rested your head in the crook of his neck. Dazai could feel your breath against his throat, warm and damp, still panting a little from the fight. He took note of how winded you seemed. How cold your skin was.
Even if Dazai hadn’t seen the emptied pill bottle in the trashcan of Mori’s office, just moments after you had left, he’d have known you’d stopped taking it. You were as pallid as ever, you still got dizzy when you stood too fast, or were too breathless after a short fight.
He knew it wasn’t your choice. When it came to Mori, you didn’t have a choice. Neither did Dazai, but at least he had more… leniency than you did. Dazai did what Dazai wanted and what Dazai thought was best went. And Mori trusted him enough to know when to let the teen do as he pleased.
But you? For a while, Dazai was almost certain you didn’t know the meaning of individual want. Of wanting something for yourself. Even that grubby little fox you used to carry around everywhere — and that Dazai stole a few times — wasn’t something you had out of selfish desire. It was Mori’s noose tied around your neck. If you had the fox, it meant survival. Mori’s pride, or at least him leaving you alone. If it was gone, you choked on Mori’s disappointment.
So when Mori found your stash of supplements — probably in the third drawer of your office desk, if Dazai was right (and he always was. He’d told you to get a better hiding place, but you were stubborn) — he dumped them, and ordered you not to take any more. You’d complied.
Dazai tied off the last stitch, and cut the thread with his teeth, stuffing the supplies into his pocket again. He set a hand on the back of your head, cradling you. His nails gently scratched your scalp. He pressed his lips
Coaxing you out of dissociation was quicker than letting it pass naturally. Yes, eventually your nervous system and brain would communicate that the pain was gone, and your mind would return to normal functioning. But Dazai found that helping you out, running his hand over your hair, was faster. And you always seemed a little more aware when he did it.
Slowly, your muscles lost their tension, like the tedious snapping of a taut rope. Your breaths became deeper, purposeful, instead of synchronous and mechanical.
Dazai smiled, though you couldn’t see it. “Finally decided to join me in conscious existing, hmm? Ready to go?”
You blinked, lashes fluttering a bit. You nestled closer to Dazai rather than responding.
“I can’t carry you all the way downstairs, little dog,” Dazai said. “You gotta walk.”
Your grip tightened around Dazai, almost possessively. “We could stay up here,” you murmured.
Dazai sighed. “Yeah, well I’m cold because you chose the windiest place in Yokohama to have a tantrum, and frankly, I don’t wanna deal with whatever fight you and the slug had earlier. So we’re gonna go back to the apartment and you’re going to fix it while I take a shower.”
You grumbled a protest, but nodded. Your exhaustion had started to make itself known, and fighting a losing battle against Dazai wasn’t something you wanted to put your energy towards. Especially after getting your ass handed to you on a silver platter less than twenty minutes prior.
You detached yourself from Dazai and stood. The blood rushed, and your head went light, vision going spotty. You grabbed onto Dazai to steady yourself, silently thanking him when he let you lean against him as he guided you through the roof door.
By the time you got back to the apartment, the dizziness had mostly dissipated, though a bit of shakiness lingered. Nothing you weren’t intimately familiar with, but annoying nonetheless.
Dazai opened the door and made a beeline for the bathroom, tossing a smug look over his shoulder.
You swallowed down a sigh, and forced yourself to face Chuuya.
The ginger boy was sitting on the couch, back to you as he struggled to light a cigarette with his old lighter that flickered more than caught.
You bit your lip as you silently walked over, and held out your own lighter. You didn’t look him in the eye.
An olive branch.
Chuuya glanced up at you, and sighed. He took the lighter.
An apology.
You sat down on the couch next to Chuuya. You let your head fall against his shoulder, forehead pressed to his jacket. The scent of his cologne was comforting. Familiar. Warm. You closed your eyes to settle against him as he leaned his cheek on the top of your head.
“You’re destroying yourself,” Chuuya said, “and I hate being powerless to stop it.” His voice was small. Vulnerable in a way you weren’t used to hearing from the redhead.
Your breath shook. “I know,” you whispered, closing your eyes.
“You need to take better care of yourself.”
Another breath. “I know.”
“Fuck what Mori said.” Chuuya pressed a kiss to the crown of your head. “You’re not just your ability. You’re smart and beautiful and you got the best aim with a throwing knife I’ve ever fuckin’ seen, ma vie. Neither me nor Dazai would be able to do our jobs without you doing yours. Mori should be more grateful.”
And so should I, you thought to yourself. “I’m sorry,” you murmured, “for the shit I said earlier. I…” You swallowed thickly. “I don’t have any excuses.”
“I said some shit, too,” Chuuya said. “It’s not realistic to ask you to stop using your ability, especially with the amount of infiltration missions you do. Even if you asked me to stop using mine, I don’t know that I could.” He leaned back to look you in the eye. “But there ain’t nothin’ wrong with bringing a few extra bullets in advance.”
You nodded, lowering your gaze as tears pricked at your eyes.
Chuuya was not a patient man. He flew off the handle with a well-directed tease, he had blatant sensitivities that were easy to poke and prod at. In the torture basements, he came hard and fast, and got close to beating Dazai’s record for confession time. He didn’t wait for things he wanted, he went out and got them. He held grudges, remembering them with stark detail.
But with you?
He couldn’t be more patient, more forgiving.
You didn’t deserve him, his patience, his kindness. Most of the time, you wondered why he was so gentle with someone like you. You felt guilty for questioning him, for doubting his sincerity. But you couldn’t help it. Spending the latter half of your childhood — if it could have even been called that — trained your mind to question motives, gestures.
With Mori, anything resembling affection or care was a result of you doing something correct. His satisfaction meant your comfortability for as long as you succeeded. When a mistake was inevitably made, everything that made life even a little better was ripped away from you without hesitation.
With Chuuya, you didn’t need to earn his love. It was given freely to you unequivocally and irrevocably. Tenderness became an everyday commodity rather than a luxury. For the longest time, that fact terrified you. Because what if it was taken away again? Because if you failed, then you didn’t deserve love in the first place.
Chuuya showed you that love was supposed to be unconditional. Not contingent on worthiness, like you’d believed for so long.
Chuuya cupped your head in his hands and tilted your face up to meet his warm gaze. In his pools of brown and blue, you saw just that: love.
Dazai — who seemed to have finished his shower — suddenly curled up against you from behind, his chin resting on the top of your head. His chest was warm against your back, sandwiching you between him and Chuuya. Drops of water from his still-damp hair landed on you, cold and wet. But you didn’t mind. Even if he did smell like the expensive soap you’d bought specifically for yourself and hidden so he wouldn’t use it. A fruitless attempt, it seemed. But it was of no consequence.
Chuuya huffed, glancing up. “There you are, you bastard. Took you long enough. Thought you would waste all the hot water in the building.”
Dazai simply hummed, wrapping his arms around you, as if trying to steal you from Chuuya. “I was waiting for the two of you to be done. It’s your fault you have the emotional range of an inkless pen, slug.”
“Why you little…” Chuuya grumbled, cutting himself off when you yawned. His gaze softened. “Tired, ma vie?”
You nodded, letting your eyes flutter shut as Dazai leaned you against him. The exhaustion was finally catching up to you, eyelids becoming heavier and heavier while the seconds dragged on.
Dazai chuckled, and pressed a gentle kiss to your temple. “I have you, little dog. We’ll be here when you wake up.”
You didn’t bother to fight the depths of sleep any longer.