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Chuuya doesn't believe in coincidences.
The comings and goings of something as superfluous as chance do not bother him, a subsection of fate working a tune for deaf ears, for in the face of the ultimate orchestrator and puppeteer to countless strings—well; even statistical improbabilities overcome any and all mathematical obstacles. Chuuya would know. He always knows, when it comes to Dazai.
It isn't a coincidence that Chuuya arrives in Yokohama on a spring warmed Wednesday, a crick in his neck and three double espressos pumping his heart into a well acquainted overdrive. It isn't arbitrary; it isn't the work of randomized actions what lead him to the dungeons, the glistening honey pot clear as a marble, too clear and much too perfect for it to be unpracticed. Unexpected. The soles of his shoes echo against the walls as he descends the stairs, one at a time; whistling a tune to settle frayed nerves, for even if Chuuya doesn't believe in coincidences, nothing pertaining to the realm of Dazai Osamu can ever be a good omen.
He'd watched him through the feed of the cameras first, up in the world of living creatures, arms folded against his chest to hide the sudden twitch of his gloved fingers, as if trying to reach for the ghost of the boy turned man buried in a sand kissed coat. The screens showed in carefully selected angles what couldn't be anything but practiced misery; Dazai breathed in and out with his stomach, arms cuffed and spread, head lolled into the shadows until his face became bathed in the deep and humid darkness of the dungeons. It was a show. An actor's award winning performance that Chuuya knew perhaps a little too well for his liking; he knew him the way one knows their fears—begrudgingly, almost passionately in the intimacy of befriending that which could hurt you. Four years is a long time. Four years is not nearly enough to forget.
As Dazai's shape materializes from within the twilight surrounding him, Chuuya adds yet another padlock the necklace of locks around his heart, each with a key and each key bearing the name of a memory from a life that no longer is, collecting dust and sorrow even when he tells himself he's done caring. That he never cared, that the pain and the sleepless nights were a drowning man's last stand and the drowning man is dead. Chuuya doesn't believe in coincidences; there is no doubt in his mind that even this has a purpose, a meaning beyond the fleeting satisfaction of watching Dazai struggle with his wrists bound, that every step he takes has been accounted for. He doesn't care, or so he tells himself. It is easier to bear the weight of deceit when the lies are uttered under the sacred influence of a bottle of wine to drown the noise. He's opened plenty of them since Dazai left.
He hasn't opened enough of them.
"You haven't changed a bit," he says brazenly, cocky, dripping with self sufficiency. Chuuya tilts his head but doesn't inch closer, eyes drawn quietly and surely, without a lighthouse to guide him, to Dazai's own. There's a splash of light where a glaring void used to lie, and even as he attempts to appear the same as he was this Dazai has been touched by a world Chuuya renounced. Cunning, conniving, a bastard scheming to get Chuuya to walk down those damned stairs and stand close enough that the stench of blood mixes with a new perfume, but he isn't Chuuya's, and he has changed in all the ways that matter. Chuuya clicks his tongue, resisting the urge to be the first to look away—lose the battle and hope the war can be won without him, someplace else where memories aren't stirred from their slumber, and tries again, "still the same fucker with nothing to contribute to society. Though getting caught on purpose by the Port Mafia is certainly a new one."
"Chuuya knows how I am. I live to entertain." Dazai shrugs, jostling the chains tied around his wrists. Chuuya searches his face for traces of the boy he knew, the boy he hated so profoundly the ache in his soul found a different name for it. Perhaps he shouldn't be here, for surely Dazai has cast his web in the dips and crevices of this damp hellhole, primed to catch him where he's weakest. Dazai laughs, a sound so alien it hurts, beautiful in its cadence yet heartbreaking in its source, lighter and sweeter and all the things Chuuya cannot pour into his own attempts at joy, and he balls his fists tight in the curve of his elbows, sure he'll end up breaking the leather of his gloves. It doesn't take the past long to catch up. Dazai's voice is a siren's song Chuuya recognizes from fever driven hallucinations. "I can't say the same for Chuuya. Have you ever considered a change of wardrobe?"
And they fight the way they used to fight. Teeth and nails. Barbed wire and minefields. Lunge, kick, duck, dancing around the grief turning Chuuya's bones brittle, and it's all he can do to keep his secrets buried. Dazai reads him the way he does his books on death and suicide; with enough respect to lash out with the same tricks of old and a thinly veiled disgust for all the way's they haven't changed over the years—a sort of hatred for every method tried that kept him alive regardless, just as Chuuya moves to the same rhythm that keeps him from hurting Dazai beyond repair. They fight the way they used to fight; like kids on the slums, running and running and running from the roles outlined for them, fighting for the sake of talking and talking only in code. Jargon. Half truths whispered while propped against the balcony's railing. They fight because it's easier, simpler, cleaner than talking when all Chuuya wants to do is hurt him irreparably, even when it goes against every instinct etched deep within him, against every rule carved in stone, broken only in theory, in the faraway place between his vocal cords and the winter cold reminder of Dazai's betrayal.
"Never show your face in front of me again, dipshit," Chuuya barks the order in a low growl, knuckles giving in against his palms, back turned to the gleeful Dazai he's leaving behind for good. It is what he tells himself, with every step he takes back to the surface; a lie candied into a sugary treat to be washed away and digested like a truth, a bitter pill hidden in a spoonful of peanut butter. Chuuya says it like he means it and means to say more, always so much more than sharpened jabs. He hesitates at the top of the stairs, shoulders squared, feeling out the unnatural stillness of Dazai's figure below; the calm that precedes the storm, only Chuuya chooses to walk away from the mess a second time. He did it once, he can do it again; pick apart the rubble after the battle in the ashen theater of war. It is the only way to keep a semblance of his sanity intact. "Now get outta here."
It isn't so much of a secret that the Port Mafia seeks to create ties to the Agency, as it comes in the shape of an early morning email Chuuya doesn't open until he's able to scurry out of the office for his lunch break. He read the file on the weretiger and flipped through the much smaller folders on every member known to participate in assignments; playing good detectives in Chuuya's sin riddled city, what a fucking joke, yet he doesn't laugh when Dazai's name is brought up in the next executive meeting. He'd recognize it just by the minute quirk to Ougai Mori's smile right before he utters the doomed syllables. He'd recognize it blind in the acrid taste of the air and the pop of lightning in the distance, for Dazai is but an omen of unprecedented catastrophe. Chuuya chases it; rather, chases the shadow of a man long gone in blurry images speeding through his mind, eyes calm as an ocean on a night blessed by the moon and feigning complete disinterest, though he doubts Koyou buys it. It seems Dazai has become his curse, no longer a petty nuisance to a rebellious teenager but rather a vine growing thorns around his organs; squeezing, drawing blood, feeding on the lies he tells himself in order to sleep at night.
Chuuya tosses around in the sheets, sweating despite the cool summer breeze slipping through the open windows. He's as alone as the day Dazai abandoned him, but the sting hadn't pierced quite this deep in a long time, poison and blood mixing together, and he's reminded of bygone days searching for Dazai's corpse in every stream, every strip of soil, each and every one yielding more questions than answers. The secret of Dazai's being alive and well and living his life as a new man somewhere Chuuya couldn't reach lasted only so long, and in the months that came after a sort of coldness came over him where he was usually warm, a hailstorm razing newly watered spring flowers. He's lived with the knowledge that his ex partner walked Yokohama without a care in the world; no messages, no letters, no fucking smoke signals in the distance. A sepulchral silence; thick like spoiled milk, uncanny yet disturbingly familiar.
t took acquainting himself with the loneliness it brought to cure the sores from his mouth, until Dazai's name became a set of scratched out kanji in an old notebook. He should've remained dead, the bastard, dead at least in the way the living can't commune with the departed. Chuuya wants him gone almost as bad as he wants a normal life—that is to say, he can't quite come to terms with the fact that he doesn't want him gone at all.
They're allies when they meet again, in the too quiet forest, a prelude to impending and destined doom, almost biblical in the way the revelation sneaks on him like a clawed caress. Three nights of complete darkness. Close your doors and windows, do not let anyone in, but Dazai's knock comes gently, and Chuuya would know him in a sea of devilishly identical copies. Playing partners four years after Dazai's defection is harder than being partners—or whatever it is they were, back then, when things were complicated but the pain was a welcome punishment. They fight the way they used to fight; in tandem, reading each other's moves without need for spoken word, crafting plans on the go under a moonless night. The wind carries the tune of Dazai's smile, sweeter than cherry wine, and it is Chuuya's cross to bear over his shoulders. The tilt of it, familiar, too familiar for someone that spent countless nights burning every remnant of Dazai's presence in his life; the extra toothbrush, the stolen t-shirts, the thrifted vinyls hidden in a box in a corner of the apartment Chuuya vacated as soon as his weeping heart allowed him.
They fight like they never forgot each other, never mourned, never blamed a higher power, never drank into oblivion, never bargained in hushed whispers. They fight until it isn't enough, until a single glance to Dazai's stupidly handsome face confirms a hunch Chuuya had been carrying since the moment they crossed paths again, in that filthy dungeon, where he should've left him to rot before Dazai could remember what it means to haunt him with a wordless command. Chuuya thought he'd find himself consumed by fear, after years of not engaging with the fiery, unpredictable nature of his ability, but instead his chest is warmed by pride. If he'd been lost before—which he'd never admit out loud—he's brought back from within the maze's clutches by a single, unspoken question: do you trust me still?
"Don't look at me like that," Chuuya groans. He rubs the bridge of his nose, swallowing more incriminating words stuck in the back of his throat. It is said that unquestionable loyalty comes with a steep price to pay when the balance lies so unevenly tipped to favor another, a price so insidious it should've snapped something akin to sense in Chuuya, tonight and in every night that came before. It is always the same with them, a question and no answer, no quip, no retort; it is undeniably, irrefutably a display of trust, always better shown than said, though it's not like Chuuya could ever find the words to remind Dazai of his true allegiance. Pathetic, truly, to discover himself exposed without permission. Bared. Everything has changed and nothing has changed at all, always the same dance no matter what tune the radio is playing; they always did have a knack for improvising, and it enrages Chuuya all the same. He grumbles, "You don't have to say it. Whatever."
Do I trust you still.
He doesn't ask Dazai if he, in turn, is able to pour the same level of trust in him again. If he ever did at all.
Chuuya had gotten used to this warped feeling of humanity. Blood, bright red, flowing through his veins. There's a time window between chanting the words that open the seal of Corruption in which everything becomes sharper, all around him. Sounds, colors, smells; in his periphery he finds Dazai crouching by a tree, mouth parted just so, eyes gleaming with something Chuuya cannot place. Then everything goes black as his mind, too, gives in to the singularity tearing into his body. He's mildly aware of his voice coming out in bursts and mindless screaming, blood, the dying murmur of the forest, blood, and Dazai's name. Over and over and over and over. Destruction fits like a marble on his palm, a microcosm on scarred flesh, and the God toys with it like children on a playground. In the dark, however, Chuuya sleeps. He doesn't fight the aching hunger slipping through old cracks in his bones, laying in the place where fear is a known lullaby; despite having gone years without calling on this power, he slips into it with surprising ease, and it terrifies him to realize, even in this remote place, that he'd missed it.
The enemy is crafty but gravity is inevitable.
Corruption takes over him the way the sea takes over the shore after nightfall. His body, malleable and breakable despite it all, is the harbinger of carnage on his enemies; eyes unseeing, voice hoarse from screaming heresy—and somewhere in between, Dazai's name. In this wretched state, Chuuya loses all concept of time. The all consuming, harrowing pain blends into a single point in his ribcage, where his heart beats an erratic tempo to follow his mismatched breaths. Nothing matters. Sometimes, he thinks he could allow himself to die at the hands of his cursed Arahabaki; cross the shallow waters and forget what it means to be human, but Dazai's hand is there in the aftermath, wrapped around Chuuya's thin wrist so delicately it brings lonely, hot tears to his eyes. The lighthouse to his shipwreck, and he melts as Dazai's ability washes over him, cold water on feverish skin, a lost sailor being welcomed back to land. The world around him reappears in disjointed images at first; broken trees, charred soil, a glimpse of Dazai's face in the starlit sky. It doesn't take long for the darkness to take over; a dizzy spell, knees buckling, then nothing.
Chuuya rarely remembers much about his immediate surroundings after Corruption is nullified. A gentle sleep tucks him back into unconsciousness, yet every time without fail Dazai's presence comes to him in sudden flashes. It must be a dream, he reasons, the only possible dream for a dreamless creature like him. He's laid on the grassy fields much too delicately, as if he were something precious, but Chuuya knows better. He curls into him, in the place were the grasp of sleep blurs with reality; a comfortable nothingness, even if Chuuya wishes those callused hands would hold him longer, tighter, more desperately than the thrill of the battle. Chuuya craves, a hunger greater than life, he craves and he wants the very same, stupid, human things he's wanted for longer than he cares to admit. His limbs, more lead than bone and muscles, weakened and shy, hold on to a foreign coat long enough to feel Dazai walk away, ghostly steps fading into the distance. Perhaps he's finally decided to leave for good, if Chuuya's lucky.
He wouldn't want this weight in his heart to grow roots.
Alas, luck is never on Chuuya's side. At least, as he realizes tangled in the mess of his sheets, luck is never there for him when it truly matters.
The thing about missing someone is that it arrives without notice, its ironclad grip taunting at first, until it spots the chinks in Chuuya's armor. First he missed Dazai as a dead man; dirt under his fingernails from days of pouring his rage in the soil, watering flowers for a makeshift grave that never bloomed, for his misplaced love had no dock to drop its anchor. Missing Dazai is a constant; his compass in a world much too confusing to navigate without his partner, and when the news of him being sighted in the brighter side of Yokohama something in Chuuya snaps, and he misses him still. He gets used to the ache like searching for a phantom limb. His job as an executive of the Port Mafia takes him all over the world, a cumbersome distraction, if it can be called that—Chuuya would be a lousy liar if he dared to pretend it was all forgotten; the boy that unwrapped his bandages to tie them around a gaping, bleeding wound in Chuuya's stomach, the boy that kissed him drunk during their first New Year's Eve in the Mafia, the boy he hated with his skin and his bones and his soul, always beating to the rhythm of Dazai's nonchalant laughter. The thing about missing someone living one miserable ride away from you is that the walls start to suffocate you, bit by bit, memory by memory, passing glance by passing glance.
Chuuya doesn't believe in coincidences.
Dazai's presence in his life is a spring-touched smile that arrives with the cruelty of wintertime on dying crops. He's everywhere, anytime, like a man that's learned to cheat the laws of physics. They cross paths in the most mundane of places; supermarkets, opposing sides of a busy street, a shopping district close to the periphery of the city. It is one thing to live with the knowledge that somewhere in the fuzzy distance Dazai was alive, another entirely to stand so close Chuuya could touch him and get away with it. The Dazai of the present is taller, handsome in the way a mausoleum is beautiful; timeless, a keeper of buried secrets. Yet, in him Chuuya sees himself reflected—every drop of desire, unwelcome as it is in the best of days, every puzzle piece to match his fears. Separated not by the few feet between them but by the years turned centuries and whispers turned into lies Chuuya can only wonder how they got here, how everything got so fucked up even reaching out to Dazai feels like sinning, even if Chuuya has never been a believer. Cat got his tongue, nerves frayed, brittle bones.
He catches Dazai looking at him from a spot under a tree; ever his daytime nightmare, cupping his hands to his mouth to speak, but no sound makes it past his lips. Chuuya, Chuuya, Chuuya.
Once to get his attention. Twice to entice him into taking a step forward, then another. Thrice to remind him there's a line drawn between them, smack in the middle of the Yokohama they used to share, and Chuuya is much too scared to step over the bright red boundary. They can meet and they can work together, so long Chuuya is able to keep pretending. He's had years to train himself in the art of choosing himself.
Still, that brand of selfishness doesn't come naturally to him, not after spending years of his life by Dazai's side.
It's—simpler to tell himself he doesn't need Dazai. War machines don't weep, and enemies are meant to stay enemies. Unwritten rules and shards in his heart, but it is easier. Chuuya stalks down the hallway, humming a tune, keys floating above his spread palm. It is one of those rare nights that see him home before dawn; a cool breeze tickling his nape, the city below illuminated in sparkling colors. Stopping right before his door, the first thing he notices is the faint glow underneath; odd, but perhaps Chuuya forgot to turn the genkan's light off before leaving this morning, and so he doesn't let the first caress of dread to get to him. It has been a long day—an even longer month in a year so full of bullshit Chuuya's considering cashing in his paid vacation days for the first time in… forever. He sighs, twisting the silver key and pushing the door open with his foot, already salivating at the thought of the bottle of wine he'd left in the counter, unopened, for the end of a grueling week. It is not until he's slipped out of his shoes that Chuuya realizes his apartment smells cloyingly sweet; something fruity and sugary, accompanied by the staccato of a mouth chewing. Red flashes in his periphery for a moment, his ability rising to the outermost layer of his skin, a light vibration, there and then gone. He should've known better.
"Dazai," he calls out, rooted in place by the entryway. Chuuya reaches for the pack of cigarettes in his pockets, a headache bleeding into his temples, but he thinks better of it. His heart beats a tune out of rhythm, the long forgotten notes of his longing blossoming on the surface like wilted flowers. Silence greets him and he doesn't move an inch; apprehensive of the devil's intentions, shoulders tense, a sour anticipation building at the back of his throat. He's much too exhausted for a confrontation—too tired to risk a blow to his sanity, spread like paper thin wire all around him, and that is the mess they make together. The mess Dazai makes of him, four years and a lifetime later. Chuuya scoffs. "You better jump out the fucking window before I catch you in my penthouse."
"Why doesn't Chuuya come say it to my face?" Dazai asks the question lazily, slowly, without hesitation, and Chuuya can almost see him in his mind; lounging on his couch with his feet propped against the coffee table like he owns the place. It doesn't take a bright mind to wonder if, perhaps, Chuuya had been waiting for an opportunity like this—his harsh words may tell a story but the illustrations on the tea stained pages speak of something else entirely that Chuuya doesn't dare bring to the surface. Feet planted side by side, knees bent just so, he isn't yet sure whether he's preparing himself for a fight or to quietly retreat, for in the years of deceit between them there are flowers, and Chuuya is yet to determine the nature of his feelings. Regret, most of all, a crown of thorns. The cushions creak when Dazai moves, maybe sitting where Chuuya won't have the heart to usher him away, like the pest he is. "Or are you too much of a pussy to come greet a friend?"
"Friend." Chuuya folds his coat over the hanger, pausing before leaving his hat on the hook by the closed door. His knuckles crack under the weight of his callused palms, a premonition, and he counts to three under his breath. It is not quite fear clouding his judgment, but tonight walking down his own apartment Chuuya doesn't feel brave; grappling doubts snaking around the steadier parts of himself, turning marble to dust and remorse. He laughs, he tries at least, mouth twisted in disgust as the sound that comes out of his mouth is closer to a mocking sneer, breathy and wrong and a couple of shades too spiteful. Chuuya doesn't waste time stomping his way to the living room, finding that every single light has been turned on to full capacity. It doesn't feel fair, that such resentment can lie side by side with a much warmer emotion, one he hasn't wanted to touch since he stood in front of Ougai Mori and made sure his loyalty to the Port Mafia was known; Chuuya breathes for the underbelly of Yokohama, and Dazai is a disruption to his nervous system and other, much complex aspects of himself. Dazai's a threat if he's ever known one, and Chuuya works with danger for a living. At last, Dazai's shape comes into view; tragically beautiful, the boy he mourned and the man he couldn't miss. "I think I missed the fucking memo."
Chuuya remembers all the nights they spent together back at his old place; watching movies in foreign languages, eating day old takeout, pushing each other's buttons. Secret passwords drawn on bare skin, chapstick kisses well into the night. Chuuya remembers, but he doesn't see any of it in the man that greets him with a playful smile; more a magic trick than reality, and he's sure a night like this was long coming. It wouldn't be difficult to kick Dazai out. He knows this. He knows it would take little force, though he fancies a bit of a struggle to put his ass in place. This is what he tells himself, what he tries to convey with eyes burning the way ancient cities did; ferociously, leaving nothing behind. It is easy to remember. It is easy to argue in the name of peace, but when push comes to shove, Chuuya can't do more than stare at his bastard of an ex partner eating chouquettes on his expensive faux leather couch, leaving behind a dusting of sugar all over the place. He hasn't changed in the slightest—no, Dazai's changed in all the ways that matter, the ones that made them similar, but this broken picture is the same, and Chuuya knows there was never a battle to be won in the first place. Exhaustion makes his bones ache. He tastes blood where he's bitten the inside of his cheeks, iron against his tongue. Dazai tilts his head.
"I really can't do this tonight. Or fucking ever," Chuuya sighs. He eyes the bottle of wine, mercifully untouched, and wastes no time in snatching it from the counter. The glasses are somewhere on the other side of the room, but Chuuya doesn't have the patience. Or the willingness. He takes a big swig out of the bottle, eyes closed, thinking, aware of Dazai watching his every move. A lifetime ago he would've felt powerful, holding Dazai's attention—fickle and self serving—for so long; tonight, however, a single glance is enough to send shivers down his spine, brown eyes wide and gleaming with the promise of mischief. They used to be children until they couldn't be anymore, torn by war and duty, but they used to do it together, as a team if not as something more. Something deeper, the kind of something that spirals into stolen kisses and midnight confessions. Meaningless, lost to time, and Chuuya flinches. "What the fuck do you want."
"How nice of Chuuya to ask!" Dazai claps his hands, swinging his legs back and forth like a kid. So much for forgetting what they used to be when it's staring at him right in the face; yes, tucked in the shadows beneath his eyes that is still his Dazai. He could be, Chuuya reasons, suddenly tipsy and warm all the way to his toes; they could be, though Chuuya isn't sure he's up for this challenge. Dazai watches him for a moment longer before springing forward, always landing on his feet; graceful in his ministrations, but Chuuya's been the fool out of the two long enough to spot trouble brewing. It's in the way Dazai slithers one step at a time, hands clasped behind his back, eyeing Chuuya without an ounce of shame with those eyes of his. Always the eyes telling ghost stories from bygone times. It makes him want to puke. Strangle him. Shake his shoulders until the truth spills out of Dazai: I left you, Chuuya. Spiderweb cracks travel from the epicenter of his palm and down the glass, nearly shattering the bottle to bits. As if sensing the hostility flowing out of Chuuya in dark tendrils, Dazai offers his hands in surrender. "I want to talk."
A high pitched noise in his ears whatever Dazai tries to say next. It doesn't matter. Chuuya knees give in, buckling under the pressure of that which hasn't been said, and he lies on the ground with his gloved hands covering his sensitive ears. How dare Dazai elicit such a reaction in him, four years later, four years of gaping absence—Chuuya wants to hate him for all the things done and all the things unsaid, the secrets and the twisted intimacy, the things they shared and the lies they told to keep a semblance of order. Fuck it all. He thinks it's Dazai reducing the distance between them to cinders, wobbly knees knocking into Chuuya's as he crouches closer to him, and Chuuya swats his hand away before he can touch him, and that fleeting brush burns him through the gloves. He turns his head, proud, bratty, seeking solace in places where there is none, and he craves.
"You want to—fuck you. Fuck you," Chuuya hisses, finally daring to brave a look at his ex everything; partner, friend, lover, world. It might be anger painted in the caramel of his eyes, but his blood is full of of a deep, pounding heartache. "I hate you. I fucking hate you. I've hated you since—" his mouth closes, lips pursed so hard his teeth sink into flesh, then he opens it again. Chuuya isn't at all sure that he wants to speak; it would be like breaking his most sacred principles, pure blasphemy to a church with no believers. He gasps, leaden air filling his lungs. "You are the worst thing that ever happened to me," he says but he doesn't believe it, not for a second, so he says it again, and again; reaching out to clutch the collar of Dazai's striped shirt. It smells like detergent with a hint of lemon, so unlike Chuuya's lavender soap and the Mafia's trademark stench of blood. He's changed, they've changed, and Chuuya doesn't know what to do with it. With the implications of Dazai being in his home, late at night, bare. "I hate you. I hate you, Osamu. I fucking—"
"I haven't heard you say that you want me to leave," Dazai murmurs. His face is a painting; alluring in its sorrowful brushstrokes, creating the sort of masterpiece that books are written about. The lies Chuuya knows all too well, better than the lines on the palms of his hands, yet he sees none of Dazai's usual brand of deceit in the twist of his mouth, the splash of pink on his cheekbones—his face, rounder than it used to be four years ago—on his miserable semblance. Chuuya doesn't believe in coincidences. That they're here, together, fighting the way they used to fight, must surely escape some preordained fate. Whatever they are, them, it is as inescapable as death itself. Sweet and sour. Bloodied knuckles. Smiles that are all thorns and broken greenhouses. They're sitting much too close; so close Chuuya can see new, sunkissed wrinkles in the corners of Dazai's eyes. His anchor and his lighthouse, Chuuya thinks. Dazai huffs, almost playful, unease crawling in the spaces between words. "Does Chuuya want me to leave?"
"You broke my heart, asshole," Chuuya barks, but it comes out like a whine. Feeble, a scream into the void—and the void stares back at him, blinking, lying in wait. He could never forget this side of Dazai, endearing in a way, though only if you manage to get close enough to see the cracks in the facade. It'd been one of Chuuya's privileges, to see him crumble, and now? What is left of them, in this world without coincidences? Chuuya's gaze travels back to the wooden panels of the floor, once pristine in the absence of life. Now that Dazai has stepped inside this sanctuary, it has become tainted. Delightfully so, and it hurts. Everything Dazai touches rots, or so it used to be, and relearning him has been one of the most painful things Chuuya's had the displeasure of experiencing, and yet he stays. Dazai's darkness is different now; softer around the edges, but still as welcoming as the day they met. A welcome sort of hell. Chuuya balls his fists and adds, "I am whole again, and—and you decide you want to come back? Seriously?"
"I—" Dazai bites his lip, holding his breath, the only indication of trouble stirring beneath the bandages. It's only natural that Chuuya would sway closer, frowning, searching for answers to a phantom question in the fleeting changes in Dazai's crumbling mask. Unwittingly, they fall prey to a waltz they've yet learn, and there's only so much room for all the songs they get tangled into. Ballads and bellicose hymns, though sometimes Chuuya isn't sure which is which, in this life they've chosen for themselves. He almost laughs, anguished and starved for that which has been lost to time, but he catches himself with his mouth slightly parted. Is there really any room for joy, in him, for them? Dazai huffs, hesitating. The more time they spend together the more Chuuya realizes he can still read him; the little quirk of his eyebrow, eyes narrowed just a little bit—too open for the likes of him, and a wave of fear washes over Chuuya, almost drowning the butterflies in his stomach. "It was a necessary evil." Dazai concludes. He offers his hand to help Chuuya back to his feet. Dizzy, he clutches Dazai's wrists like a lifeline. "I missed you, however. I missed you quite a lot."
Chuuya means to say something witty. A retort to challenge this day of revelations, but he's never been one to pray for blessings, and words fail him when it matters most. Instead, he watches wide eyed as Dazai guides his fists to his shoulders; a deer in the headlights, an imminent collision, two orbits meeting. Swallowing, Chuuya lets out a quivering breath—Dazai is warm, and he's reminded of the boy whose hands were always freezing, seeking Chuuya's own without asking for permission. So much has changed, so little in some ways, too; it enrages him as much as it confuses him, grieving still what used to be, a man that's more alive than Chuuya's been in months. The entire world pauses to witness their unfolding. Clocks stop ticking. Any evidence of life outside these walls quiets down to a murmur, waiting, perhaps hoping as much as Chuuya hopes with a broken heart that they could heal all those broken vases. He inches forward, eyes flitting between Dazai's eyes and the curve of his lips, batting his eyelashes, but it isn't a kiss he seeks. Not quite.
His dry lips brush against Dazai's, but Chuuya doesn't lean into him further. Breathing with his mouth open but unsure, he grabs a fistful of Dazai's waistcoat to keep him in place; bared not for his pleasure but for his own catharsis, carrying enough willingness in this half kiss to move mountains, carry the boulder uphill, and it isn't until Dazai's featherlight touch on his waist grounds his teetering body does Chuuya manage a quiet smile.
"You're terrible," Chuuya breathes against Dazai's pulse point, feeling it rabbit quick on his lips, dragging the tip of his nose down the curve of his neck. They've done worse things together. Sacrilegious. Yet nothing comes close to this moment; a reunion of sorts, despite the months they've spent in a lawless give and take, a city made battlefield, an apocalyptic downpour. He's not quite sure how he wants to proceed—everything with Dazai has always been easier in games and riddles, but time and grief have worn Chuuya down enough that even a mock fight sounds like a nightmare. A teasing, waxing moon smile lights up Dazai's features, always the steadier one out of the two; a smile with no teeth and enough meaning behind it that Chuuya could spend sleepless nights writing his own sacred texts on it. Them. Chuuya rolls his eyes, nose scrunched, wondering who'll be the first to wave the white flag in surrender. There is so much bad blood between them still, so much that's gone unsaid. Despite his being a creature of habit, Chuuya finds himself struggling with the idea of kicking Dazai out, not even for old time's sake. The fear and the anger, the heartache and all the things he couldn't say— "Fucking… bastard. I'm still mad at you."
Dazai threads their fingers together, tugging Chuuya back towards the couch. "Chuuya knows I'm always happy to fight with him," he teases, and he sounds so much like the boy Chuuya fell in love with that he can feel all the broken bits, all the cracks and all the mismatched pieces being filled with gold. Imperfect repairs are better than the bitter hollowness of old. He can't help but agree, really; if he's to pick his battles then he chooses Dazai, ever the contrarian, annoying in his antics, but always—always Chuuya's.
Silly. He wouldn't have it any other way.