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The knock comes at half past two in the morning. Chuuya considers ignoring it. Whoever is standing outside his apartment will live, unfortunately. The knock comes again, softer this time. It's slow, like whoever was on the otherside forgot why they were knocking in the first place. With a groan, Chuuya shoves himself upright. His head is pleasantly heavy from the wine he'd opened after getting home. The walk across the apartment feels longer than it should. The knock comes once more before he reaches the door. Three taps. Then silence.
"Jesus fucking Christ," Chuuya mutters.
For a moment, he geniunely thinks he's imagining him. The hallway light flickers overhead, washing everything in sickly yellow. Dazai stands in the middle of it, his hands shoved into his pockets and rainwater dripping from the ends of his hair. He doesn't look up. What throws Chuuya off is the fact that he's not already speaking. Normally he would've launched into some obnoxious comment before the door even finished opening. He would have made fun of his pajamas. Commented on how long it took him to answer. Something.
Instead he just stands there like a sleep paralysis demon, water gathering at his feet.
"Dazai."
No response. He repeats himself once more, earning a blink. It's slow, like he just remembered who he is.
"Chuuya?" The words arrive late. He frowns.
"You look like shit."
"That's rude." His voice is quiet. That funny feeling in his chest tightens a bit more. Then the smell reaches him. Rain. Cigarettes. Alcohol. Christ. The hallway smells like somebody drowned a bar. For several seconds, neither of them says anything.
"…Are you drunk?" He asks intelligently like an intelligent person.
Dazai tilts his head, considers this for a moment. "I think so."
"You think so??" Chuuya repeats, unimpressed.
"I'm having trouble counting." Dazai says simply, as though that made any sense.
Chuuya's brows furrow. "You can count sober."
"I can count sober very well." Dazai agrees.
"That's not what I asked."
Dazai hums thoughtfully, and the sound is so absurdly normal that Chuuya almost relaxes. Almost. Then Dazai sways, just slightly. One careless shift of weight. Chuuya only notices because that isn't something Dazai does. He isn't supposed to sway. Dazai throws himself off buildings recreationally and somehow lands exactly where he intended. Gravity usually seems more like a suggestion than a law when it comes to him. Watching nearly lose an argument with basic balance feels unnatural.
"How much did you drink??" He sputtered.
"No idea."
"You don't know?"
"…that is what I just said."
"You usually know,"
"I usually do." The answer comes without argument, without any attempt to annoy him. Immediately, Chuuya is on guard. The hallway suddenly feels too small, too quiet. Rain rattles faintly against a distant window somewhere in the building. Dazai's coat is soaked through, water darkens the fabric. One sleeve hangs crookedly around his wrist. His tie is gone. Chuuya has never seen him without a tie before. He always has one. Always. For some reason, that bothers him too. Everything about this bothers him.
"What are you doing here?"
Dazai looks past him into the apartment. Not at him. Past him. At the kitchen. The couch. The dim light over the counter. Something flickers across his face so quickly that Chuuya can't identify it; then it's gone.
"I wanted to visit." Dazai says.
"At three in the morning."
"Technically, it's two fifty three. I checked."
Chuuya stares at him; Dazai stares back. Rainwater drips from his bangs onto the floor. Eventually Chuuya exhales through his nose. Every instinct tells him to slam the door. Every instinct tells him something is wrong. Unfortunately, years of knowing Dazai has taught him that those instincts are often the same thing.
He clicks his tongue and steps aside. "Get in before you drown in the hallway."
Something resembeling surprise crosses Dazai's face. It's small. Chuuya notices. Once Dazai steps inside, Chuuya locks the door behind him and immediately regrets it.
The apartment is warm. Not particularily so, but it's warmer than the hall. Warm enough that the rainwater immediately starts melting into the hardwood. Warm enough that Chuuya suddenly becomes aware of the fact he came here instead of literally anywhere else. Dazai stops moving the moment he steps inside. For a second, Chuuya thinks he's waiting for something. A joke, maybe. An insult. Permission to continue existing. Instead, he just stands there while water drips steadily from the hem of his coat onto the hardwood. Chuuya stares at the growing puddle. Dazai stares at absolutely nothing.
"Take your shoes off."
No response.
"You're getting water everywhere."
A blink. Then Dazai glances down as if discovering his shoes for the first time.
"Oh."
"Oh?" He repeats back.
"I forgot."
"You forgot you were wearing shoes??"
"Maybe."
Chuuya pinches the bridge of his nose. The headache arrives instantly. Not because of the wine. From Dazai. Always from Dazai. Five minutes later and he's already reconsidering every decision that led to this moment.
Eventually Dazai bends down. The process takes longer than it should. Long enough that Chuuya notices him bracing one hand against the wall. Long enough that Chuuya notices the faint tremor in his fingers. Long enough that something unpleasant twists in his chest. The shoes come off, the coat follows. Dazai drapes it over the back of a chair without looking, water immediately begins soaking into it. Chuuya decides he hates that chair anyways.
"Sit."
Dazai sits. The apartment is contains nothing except for the sounds of the city and the steady dripping of rainwater from Dazai's hair. It feels wrong. Dazai should be talking. The silence keeps waiting for him to fill it. He never does. Against his will, Chuuya finds himself watching him. His head is tipped back against the cushion. His eyes are half-lidded, with deep bruises beneath them. He looks awful. Not normal Dazai awful, either. Not "I haven't slept in three days because i got distracted by paperwork and attempted suicide simultaneously." awful. It looks like somebody scraped all the life out of him and forgot to put anything back.
"I'm getting a towel." Chuuya says.
"Hm." Dazai hums in response.
"Hm?" He parrots.
"You said towel."
"Yes."
"That's nice."
"…"
"Thank you, Chuuya."
The words are so unexpectedly sincere that Chuuya nearly turns back around. "Dazai" and "sincere" had never one been used in the same sentence.
"…what the hell is wrong with you?"
Dazai closes his eyes. The question hangs unexpectedly heavy in the air. Rain taps against the windows lightly. A car passes somewhere below. Eventually Dazai says, "A lot of things." The answer is so quiet Chuuya almost misses it. Then Dazai laughs, a single breath of sound. Chuuya hates it. The towel hits him directly in the face.
"Ow."
"Good."
Something resembeling a smile appears, tiny and crooked, and it's gone almost immediately. Chuuya still sees it. He always does. The sight produces a strange rush of relief. Relief immediately followed by annoyance. There he is.
He heads for the kitchen before he can think about why the smile mattered. The wine bottle still sits on the counter. Half empty. A second glass rests beside it. He stares at both for a moment, then grabs the bottle. When he returns, Dazai is looking around the apartment carefully. His gaze moves from the bookshelf to the lamp by the window. The lamp to the kitchen counter. The counter to the framed photograph sitting besides the telavision. Slow, like he's searching for something.
"What are you doing?" Chuuya inquired.
Dazai blinks. The question seems to startle him. "What?"
"You keep staring at my things."
"I do??"
"Yes."
"Hm."
That isn't an answer, he notes. Chuuya hands him a glass. No comment, or poison joke, or suspicion. He just takes it, rather gratefully. Something cold slides through Chuuya's chest. Because that should not bother him. The abscence of a joke should not bother him. The abscence of a joke should not feel like finding a missing star in the dark.
Dazai studies the wine. The apartment light catches briefly against the rim of the glass. He just watches it.
Then he says, "You've had that lamp forever."
Chuuya looks towards the window at the ugly lamp. The one he'd bought three apartments ago because it was cheap.
"What?"
"The lamp."
"Wht about it?"
"Nothing."
Dazai takes a drink, his gaze remains fixed on the lamp.
"Just noticing," He adds.
The answer settles strangely in his stomach. Dazai isn't looking at the lamp. Not really. He's looking at it the way people look at places they haven't seen in a long time. Or places they're about to leave. For some reason he can't explain, the thought makes him suddenly, irrationally angry. The anger fades almost as quickly as it arrives, mostly because Chuuya has no idea what he's mad about. It's a fucking lamp. An ugly one, too. The same one Dazai has mocked repeatedly over the years. The fact that he's staring at it now like it's a priceless work of art should not bother him as much as it does. Yet here they are.
Dazai takes a sip; Chuuya follows. None of them speak, and the silence isn't comfortable. The wine glass turns slowly between Dazai's fingers. Round and round. Round and round. The motion continues long enough that Chuuya begins watching it.
"…stop being weird." Chuuya said.
"I'm always weird."
"Not like this," he mutters. The words leave his mouth before he can stop them, and he immediately regrets them. The glass stops turning, and Dazai looks at him—not past him—at him. The look lasts barely a second. Then he smiles, small and tired around the edges.
"Maybe." The smile vanishes; just like that. Like it had never been there. Something feels off, like a painting hanging slightly askew. Every time he looks away, he notices it again. Dazai sets his glass down, and misses the coffes table; the base strikes wood with a sharp click. Wine sloshes over the rim.
"Careful" He hisses.
"Sorry."
Another apology. Chuuya scowls.
"…stop that."
"What?"
"Apologizing."
The confusion on his face looks genuine, which for some reason, is even worse.
"I don't apologize often." He says.
Chuuya corrects him, "You literally never apologize."
"I apologized last year." Dazai recalls.
"That was sarcasm." Chuuya said.
"Oh."
A pause.
"Then maybe never." Dazai added.
The answer should be funny. It isn't. The wine sits heavier in his stomach. Outside, a car splashes through water somewhere below. The sound fades. Dazai's gaze follows it towards the window. Stays there. Stays there. Stays there.
Until Chuuya says, "What happened?"
No answer. Dazai doesn't look away from his glass. He repeats himself, still nothing. Chuuya leans forwards.
"Dazai." The name feels unusually loud. Finally, Dazai exhales softly, almost lost beneath the rain.
"Someone died."
Chuuya stares. Thats it? Not exactly a rare occurence in their line of work.
Chuuya blinks, processing. "What?"
Dazai keeps staring at the window, his reflection looks strange in the glass; blurry and distorted by rainwater.
"Someone died." He repeats, the words sounding exactly the same as the first time. No more or less emotion. Because yeah, people die all the time. The mafia is built on corpses. Neither of them lose sleep over it. So why the hell is he here? Why is he drunk? Why is he looking at Chuuya's apartment like hes trying to memorize it? The questions pile up faster than the answers.
"Who?"
He doesn't respond.
"Someone from work?"
Nothing.
"Osamu." A muscle jumps briefly in his jaw. The silence stretches. Ten seconds. Twenty. Chuuya starts wondering if hes going to answer at all.
Then softly, "A friend."
The words sound strange coming from his mouth. Not an ally or subordinate or colleague. Friend. Chuuya has known Dazai for years. The word still sounds foreign. The glass in Dazai’s hand trembles. He's still looking outside the window.
"I didn't know you had friends." The joke leaves automatically, a poor attempt at restoring normalcy. To put the conversation back onto familiar rails. Usually Dazai would fire something right back. An insult, a threat. Anything.
This time, he laughs. He lowers his head and says, "Yeah," so quietly that Chuuya almost doesn't hear it. "I did."
Chuuya doesn't know what to say. For a while, neither speaks. The rain takes over the apartment then, rattling softly down the windows and sliding down the glass in uneven trails, smearing the city into something blurry and indistinct. Dazai watches all of it. Or maybe none of it. Chuuya can't tell. The problem with Dazai had always been that looking at him and understanding him are two completely different things.
Chuuya isn't sure he understands him tonight either. The wine glass sits on the wooden table now; forgotten. That alone feels impossible. Dazai forgets paperwork with alarming frequency, sure. He never forgets what his hands are doing. Still, the glass rests where he left it. Ignored.
The apartment is warm enough that Chuuya had his sleeves rolled up. The radiator hisses quietly from the corner. Somewhere in the kitchen, a pipe knocks quietly once against the wall. Dazai flinches, at least, that's what his eyes are telling him. But that can't be right. Dazai doesn't flinch. Not at loud noises. Not at gunfire. Certainly not at plumbing. Chuuya once watched him stand in the middle of a fight with a bullet lodged into his shoulder somewhere , completely exclusively about the paperwork it was going to create. For a second Chuuya can almost hear him—the whining and dramatics and endless stream of bullshit. The apartment is quiet enough that the memory unexpectedly hurts. Which is stupid; missing Dazai of all people while he's sitting three feet away should qualify as some kind of medical condition.
"What was his name?" the question leaves his mouth before he can decide whether or not he wants to ask it.
"…Odasaku." He says carefully, like something fragile. Like something that might break if handled incorrectly. Chuuya rolls it around in his head. The same sounds vaguely familiar—maybe he'd heard of it in passing. A hallway conversation. Something.
"Odasaku," he repeats, testing it.
Dazai nods, his gaze never leaving the window. For a while that's all there is. The name, the rain, and the city. Then Dazai laughs softly. The sound doesn't belong in the room.
"He would've hated this."
Chuuya frowns, "Hated what?"
The laugh fades quickly. "Me." The answer comes quietly as though he hadn't intended to say it outloud.
"Seeing me like this, I mean." he adds. "He would've pretended not to notice." The faint ghost of a smile lingers in his expression.
"He was good at that." The corner of his mouth twitches. "He'd just ask if I'd eaten."
A soft breath escapes him. "Have you eaten, Dazai?" The imitation is terrible. The fondness isn't. "When was the last time you slept, Dazai?" The smile fades, like the memory is moving further away as he watches. The apartment feels very quiet.
"He just…" he trails off. "He cared." Chuuya doesn't know what to do with that. Dazai says it like its remarkable. Like someone caring is the most extraordinary thing in the world. The thought leaves an uncomfortable weight in his chest.
Then Dazai says, very quietly, "I quit," The words arrive so casually that he doesn't understand them, not immediately. His brain accepts the sound before it accepts the meaning. The sentence hangs there; waiting. Dazai doesn't look up. "I quit." He repeats, more to himself than anything.
Chuuya honestly thinks hes talking about something else at first. A mission. A report. One of the many countless responsibilities Dazai has spent his life avoiding. The alternative is ridiculous. The alternative doesn't fit inside reality.
"You quit what?" The question comes out sharper than intended.
"The mafia," Dazai clarifies like it means nothing. The sort of silence that comes afterwards is a akin to the one after a gunshot.
Dazai waits as if he just hadn't said the most insane thing Chuuya's ever heard. For a moment, he wonders if this is some elaborate joke. A particularly unfunny one. He waits for the punchline. The grin. The inevitable gotcha. It never comes.
"You can't quit."
Dazai closes his eyes tiredly. "I know۔"
"No," Chuuya says, sitting forward. The coffee table digs into his knees. "You don't."
"You can't just…leave." The sentence sounds stupid the second it leaves him mouth. Because its obvious. Nobody leaves. People die. People disappear. People get promoted. People get buried. Nobody leaves. The port mafia isn't a job, it sinks its teeth into people and never lets go.
"Your whole life is here." Chuuya continues.
I'm here.
Dazai doesn't speak for a moment, and that might've been the most unsettling part. "Maybe I don't want it to be," he says finally.
Chuuya scoffs. "And go where? You don't have anywhere else." The words come out harsher than he intends for them to.
Dazai considers this for a few seconds. "The side that saves people," he says after a moment of contemplation. The words come out slow, like they were being tasted on his tongue before being let out.
"What, so you're some hero now?" Chuuya asks scathingly. "You know your past will follow you. Nobody just leaves." Nobody's able to.
"I know," Dazai says again. "But I'm going to find a w ay."
"That's stupid. You can't go." Chuuya despises the desperation that leaks into his voice. Dazai doesn't answer immediately. Rain slides down the winodw in crooked little trails. The sky beyond is beginning to lighten. Chuuya suddenly hates that too. Hates the approaching dawn. Hates the idea of morning ariving and finding Dazai gone.
"What exactly is your plan?" he asks. Demands. "No seriously. What is your plan? You walk out the front door and then what? You think the boss is just going to let you leave?"
"Probably not"
"Probably not??" Chuuya echoes. "Why are you talking like this is decided?"
"I've made my decision," Dazai said with finality, like he was making the decision in that moment.
"It's a stupid, suicidal decision."
"Do you know who you're talking to??"
Chuuya wants to hit him to knock the sense back into him. "Then wait."
Dazai looks up. "What?"
"A week. A month. Hell, a year." Chuuya gestures vauely. "Think about it first"
"Chuuya."
"Dazai." The name comes out roughly, and he glances back, the first traces of dawn catching against the side of his face. Chuuya's chest feels painfully tight. He doesn't know how to say any of this. He doesn't know how to explain that the apartment already feels emptier than it did yesterday. That he's been angrier for hours because being angry is easier than admiting he's scared. That the idea of him disappearing into the city before sunrise makes something inside of him ache. So instead he says the only thing he can.
"Stay." The word is small and pathetic. Too honest.
"I can't," he starts automatically, like he's been repeating it to himself all night.
Before Dazai can continue, before he can explain, before he can say I can't stay in the mafia or I can't go back or I can't do it anymore, Chuuya interrupts,
"Not the mafia." The words leave before he can lose his nerve. Dazai falls silent, looking genuinely confused. His pulse pounds in his ears. He forces himself to continue anyways. "Here." The word is barely above a whisper. The couch. The empty wine battle. The ugly lamp by the window.
Him.