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“Chuuya,” Dazai let his voice ring out. It echoed briefly from the silent walls of Chuuya's office, of which he had infiltrated (lock-picked) about half an hour prior. Chuuya had begrudgingly let him stay on two conditions: if he kept to himself and stayed quiet as he worked. Chuuya did not look up from his paperwork, but he tilted his head in a way to show he was listening regardless. “How much do you remember after you use corruption?”
Chuuya snorted, scribbling over something with his pen. “You know this, jackass,” he muttered, barely looking up to see Dazai half upside-down hanging precariously down the side of the lavish sofa he had once won him in an overpriced auction. Chuuya was not aware at the time that the money Dazai was using was taken from an unknowing Mori, otherwise he definitely would not have accepted it. Especially after the heavy warning that they (mostly Dazai) received afterwards from Mori himself. The image of Dazai faking his most remorseful expression up at Mori was so engrained in Chuuya's mind, he'd decided to keep it in the corner of his office as a funny memory. “As soon as it’s activated, it’s all blank until I wake up in the morning.”
“Mhm,” Dazai said, swinging back and forth to let the ends of his hair brush against the floor. “Allegedly.”
Dazai watched him clench his fist tighter around the pen.
“Why would I lie?”
“I dunno. Maybe there’s things that happen that you ought to remember.”
Chuuya frowned, now completely distracted from whatever he was up to. “Yeah? Like what?”
“Oh, Chuuya,” Dazai squirmed, “this sofa is so uncomfortable. Can you get a new one?”
Their eyes met briefly, although Dazai’s were still upside-down. Chuuya’s familiar annoyance sunk into Dazai’s skin ineffectively.
It didn’t take long for Chuuya to brush it off and get back to work, chewing furiously on the inside of his lip as the scrawl of his pen was the only sound in the room. Dazai simply watched him, wordlessly. He was usually good at figuring people out, but Chuuya would always remain a delightfully agonising mystery to him.
A small part of him never wanted Chuuya to remember. It was the selfish side.
An even smaller part of him longed for Chuuya to remember and acknowledge, corruption or not.
-
Those minutes were always so magical. The way he could fly against the moon and all those stars, brighter than any of them combined. The pile of destruction he’d leave in his wake, and the billows of smoke and ash he could cast in an instant. He painted the air like a firework that could never go out - a flower that could withstand the harshest of winters. He was beautiful. Completely and utterly beautiful.
Dazai’s favourite thing was to watch Chuuya using his corruption, but he would never admit that to another breathing soul. Dazai had many secrets, many of them he planned to take to the grave. But perhaps, the one that scared him the most, was how weak his heart ached with adoration when he couldn't quite muster the courage to look away from the redhead in the sky.
There had been few nights in which he had the luxury to watch him freely. Corruption was always a last resort, so he had to savour the time with his tongue. It tasted sweet. He could never quite tear his eyes away from Chuuya, no matter how many times he saw it happen. Today was no exception, of course.
Dazai’s almost laughed as everything was destroyed around him within seconds - all except for a hauntingly perfect circle surrounding his body, keeping him safe.
It was done as quickly as it began.
“Chuuya,” his voice rasped, hoarse from the involuntary gaping awe. Chuuya’s corrupted form flinched at the noise, and he turned mid air to face Dazai. “That’s enough now.”
Like every other time, Dazai’s cold fingertips made contact with Chuuya’s warmer, violent skin. Perhaps this was Dazai’s favourite part, more than watching. Not that Dazai would ever admit that, even to himself.
“Rest,” he cooed, cupping Chuuya’s cheek as he floated still. The angry runes twitched at the touch, fading back just as gently as Dazai's palm rested, into the scars that had recently made a more permanent home within Chuuya skin.
His eyes did the thing they always do. They come back. They focused narrowly, but softened as soon as they made the realisation that Dazai was there beside him.
Less beautifully, Dazai’s hand on Chuuya as he’d not yet made a solid connection with the ground meant that he had crashed down into Dazai’s lanky body. He'd pressed them both tightly against a wall of rubbles. The commotion stirred their ruined environment, a thick layer of dust circling the pair, blocking their peripherals with nothing but the other.
“Asshole,” Chuuya mumbled out, his head bleeding, and his clothes badly ripped. “You did that on purpose.”
His voice was thick, as if he hadn't spoken a word in a decade. Corruption was almost like a coma, Chuuya always had difficulty with the simplest things afterwards, and Dazai was smitten with the joy of teasing him for it.
Dazai giggled, pushing himself as best he could so his back was as against what was left of the wall as it could be, and pulled Chuuya closer towards him. He gently hovered over the bleeding on Chuuya’s head to clean it up. Chuuya grimaced but said nothing further about it, letting him.
Their bodies were inseparably close, Chuuya’s head coming up to just Dazai’s chest, and slotting almost perfectly between the rest of them.
“My eyes hurt,” Chuuya mumbled, giving up his dignity and resting his head down on Dazai. “And… my scars. They burn slightly.”
“Burn?” Dazai repeated with a concerned urgency, immediately defocused from the light blood on his forehead to look him directly. “That’s new. Are you okay?”
Chuuya squirmed apprehensively, nudging down further into Dazai’s body to muffle his next words. “You make it feel better.”
Dazai stayed silent, looking down at him. He blinked.
“As in…” Chuuya started, evidently with enough consciousness left in him that he felt the need to explain himself. “They don’t burn when I touch you. It might be your ability, but…” he trailed off, hiding his face completely with Dazai’s chest and his arm.
“But what, Chuuya?” Dazai asked, genuinely curious before noticing Chuuya’s embarrassment. “But what, Chuuya?” he repeated, his tone much heavier on the teasing.
Chuuya flailed out a blind arm, hitting Dazai’s shoulder limply.
“It’s okay,” Dazai said, whispering into Chuuya’s hair. “You can sleep instead.”
“On you?” Chuuya asked reluctantly, his voice heavily muffled.
“On me,” Dazai repeated, nodding. He was being too nice. “I guess. These clothes are already muddied with the amount of awful mess you’ve made…”
“As if you don’t love the mess,” Chuuya muttered, rolling his eyes. Dazai blinked again. He wondered what it was about him that gave that away to Chuuya without him realising he’d shown it.
Dazai’s hand silently snaked around the back of Chuuya’s neck, and he began to play with the longer strands of his hair that Chuuya had decided to grow out. (Awful idea, objectively, in Dazai’s opinion). Unfortunately, Chuuya was the only person he knew who could pull off something like this and still manage to look good, so he had refrained from saying anything too horrible about it.
Chuuya tilted his head and shuffled an arm so he could sit still and watch Dazai’s face as he fought to stay awake. They kept making eye contact, but it felt different from normal and neither of them knew why.
“Your lip is bleeding,” Chuuya frowned, his movements very lethargic. He tried to reach up, to wipe it away, but Dazai caught his wrist halfway there.
Dazai raised an eyebrow but Chuuya frowned harder. “Let me, asshole.”
Dazai did not remove himself from around Chuuya’s hand, but he did let it move again. Chuuya clasped his long fingers around the side of Dazai’s face, letting his thumb trace slowly over Dazai’s lip.
If his lip was bleeding, Dazai hadn’t noticed. He still stared at Chuuya, ignoring everything else he was feeling in that moment, and the way his heart pounded under his shirt at the tickle of contact.
“Shit,” Chuuya murmured, finally closing his eyes and shuffling his final movements into Dazai’s body.
His hand got suddenly heavier within the clutch of his own, but Dazai held it up and still, echoing the trail that Chuuya’s fingers had just discovered. There was not a singular emotion that Dazai had the capability of naming that was what he felt inside of his chest as he looked down at Chuuya Nakahara.
Oh dear.
His free hand, with nothing to do, defaulted back into Chuuya’s hair.
Chuuya was always moderately clingy, but in this state of exhaustion it was a challenge to get him to stay away. Which was entirely Chuuya’s fault, Dazai had nothing to do with it. Obviously.
He waited, as still as he could, for the organised mafia pickup due to arrive. He didn't even flinch when the buzz of the mobile in his pocket alerted him they were on the way.
It did, as always, show up exactly as planned, appearing from seemingly nowhere from the thick layer of fog that has settled. Dazai had to pry Chuuya’s body away from his, as his numbed legs stood up shakily and heaved the weight of both him and Chuuya's unconscious slump to the car. One of Mori’s nameless men was standing by the back door, opened, so Dazai could ease Chuuya into the back seat furthest away from the door and shuffle in next to him.
He gave the man a silent nod as the door shut behind him.
He’d always sit next to the door he’d entered from as Mori’s men watched, but as the vehicle started moving, he’d slide over the seats and rest as close as he could next to Chuuya. The journeys were always so hauntingly quiet compared to the chaos they were in prior, it was nicer to not be alone.
Chuuya would naturally be leant against the other car door, his body loose and doll-like. Dazai enjoyed it when there was a sharp bend in the journey, and Chuuya's head would roll to the other side, his body weight shifting to fall more into Dazai. It didn't happen every time, but the warmth in his skin was so unlike his corrupted form, the exhilaration of feeling it against his own for just a brief moment was a high he chased like no other.
And despite Chuuya being in the seat next to the window, which he was perfectly capable of leaning against, he still sometimes managed to slump the other direction and rest his head against Dazai’s shoulder regardless.
It was always a quiet relief of Dazai’s when these cars were longer than most, and there was a dark screen that separated them from the driver as a limousine would. He always allowed Chuuya to rest against him if that's how the journey unfolded. Sometimes, if his body fell right, he would even trace the bones in Chuuya’s hand over and over with his fingertips.
Dazai didn’t know the time when the driver pulled up towards Chuuya’s apartment, but the moon hung in the sky, and there was an early morning chill that hung in the dew in the air. The rest of the world was more than silent.
Dazai nudged Chuuya’s arm just enough to stir him awake.
They’d done this before. They knew Chuuya could walk fine, but needed the support of Dazai’s arm wrapped around his body to actually get anywhere.
Dazai nodded a silent thank you to the driver as they left, and walked up to the apartment, slowly. Chuuya hissed as he took every other step, perhaps from an injury Dazai couldn’t see. He didn’t comment, but made a mental note to check it over before putting him to sleep.
Dazai unlocked the door (from stealing a copy of the key a few years back, Chuuya gave up changing the lock after the 12th time it happened), and as they got inside, they went straight towards Chuuya’s bedroom.
He liked it in there. It was so full of... Chuuya. Numerous long coats hung in the wardrobe, the door slightly ajar, and a grand collection of hats stood proudly on display across the shelves. There were candles too - smoky and warm. Dazai liked to snidely comment on a vague "wet dog" smell that clung to everything in there to rise a reaction from the boy, never revealing to Chuuya he actually liked the smell. It was almost sweet, apple and cinnamon, with subtle clean hums of Chuuya's cologne. Nothing like wet dog.
Dazai helped him sit down on the side of the sheets, gently taking off his shoes and the outer layers of his outfit. Chuuya didn’t utter a word, groggy and lethargic blinks following Dazai's hands.
He lay down against the pillow, and stared up at Dazai.
“Sleep well, Chuuya,” Dazai said quietly. There was a softness in his tone that Chuuya didn't hear often.
He turned to leave, but there was a squeak behind him: "Stay?”
Dazai turned back around in surprise, and locked eyes with Chuuya.
“Please?”
He ignored the thud in his chest. Chuuya was watching him so vulnerably that it was almost impossible to decline.
A horrible few lingering seconds hung in the air before a mumbled: “Okay.”
“Okay?” Chuuya repeated, his expression relaxing. Dazai had never ‘stayed’ before after corruption.
“Okay,” Dazai repeated, gently. He took off his dark coat, and tie, and folded them in a corner of the room. He walked over and sat on the edge of the sheets, the top of his thigh cool against Chuuya's upper arm. Dazai could tell from the unfiltered curve on his lips, he was about to pass out again.
“Thank you,” Chuuya mumbled, closing his eyes. “Come here.”
With the last bit of his strength, he pushed the blankets off of himself so that there was space for Dazai. "You make me feel human again."
Dazai flinched. Chuuya was so unaffected by the words that had just left his mouth, Dazai couldn't tell if he knew what he just said or not. Was that dazed, exhausted ramble? Or did he mean it? As if Chuuya was in any sort of state to be questioned, it left the words hanging in the air for an uncomfortable second as Dazai swallowed back his hesitation, and climbed in next to Chuuya.
Almost instantaneously, Chuuya had wrapped himself around Dazai, and pushed his head into the safety of Dazai’s neck.
Dazai involuntarily smiled, letting his hand that was trapped beneath Chuuya's side rest on the edge of his back. He was grateful the room was dark. He let his fingers circle in spots over Chuuya’s shirt, intended to be in a comforting manner. His shirt was a thin material, light in nature too. Underneath all their heavy coats and ties, the soft cotton of the fabric was styled to ensure they wouldn't overheat. When he was wearing nothing but this shirt on his top half, it left little for the imagination. Dazai's calloused fingertips danced carefully around the other corruption scars that littered his skin that he could never usually see, closing his eyes to picture what it might look like. Would they stretch across his back, as one big scar? Perhaps lots of little ones, similar to constellations in a faraway galaxy. Or a mixture of both? Did they match the ones on his brittle hands? Settle down in the same pale colour as the one striking down his cheek? Did the bigger scars on his body cut a deeper red than his arms in his corrupted form? So many questions, so little answers.
His fingers traced further.
Chuuya was always so pretty after corruption, too. His hair was messy, his scars stuck out against his skin more than usual, and his eyes were so defenceless that it was almost like when they locked with Dazai’s, he could see perfectly into his soul. No games or tricks, or the usual taunting facade, just Chuuya. Only Chuuya.
He was so irrevocably human it made Dazai feel ill.
He was so comfortable to hold. Dazai wasn’t a person who enjoyed physical touch - but the way Chuuya’s features fitted so well with his own made him second guess all of that.
The finger tracing had morphed into a repetitive, slow thumb rub.
He squinted into the dark. His free hand ran across, up Chuuya’s side, and down his arm to find his hand which was still slightly too warm from corruption. He clasped it into his own, so his cold fingers slotted between Chuuya’s.
Dazai let out a soft exhale into Chuuya’s hair, pulling him closer into his embrace.
He froze, as he felt a tender smile curl up against his neck.
“You’re still awake?” A hot flush burned his forehead.
“Mmm,” Chuuya barely let out. “Only just.”
“Go to sleep.”
“No.” He paused, his breathing slowing. “I want to enjoy this. Just a moment longer.”
“Enjoy what?”
Dazai’s heart skipped as Chuuya smiled further, not answering. He needed to stop that from ever happening again. Maybe he’d finally get round to teaching himself how to control it. Logistically, it was his only option left.
“Go to sleep,” he said again, his tone fonder than before, and the embarrassment trickling out the back of his neck. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Chuuya’s thumb brushed across Dazai’s hand. It was evident as Dazai tilted his head down to watch, that the fumes of Chuuya's consciousness were being fuelled by the movement. Dazai desperately tried to take a picture of the moment in his mind, the image distorted by the lack of light. The pale glow of the moon was pouring in through the gaps in the blinds of the window. Perhaps if he wished hard enough, the moment would never pass, and the pair could bathe in the moonlight for as long as they liked, intertwined.
“Hmm."
He let go of Dazai’s hand, and placed his instead on the side of Dazai’s cheek, running his fingers tenderly through the shorter strands of his hair. Not once did he lift his head, nor open his eyes, but he could guess where Dazai was perfectly, as he moved with an ease that outshone his exhaustion.
“You were playing with my hair earlier, right? Before I passed out?”
Dazai stayed still, listening curiously.
“I liked it.”
Dazai nodded ever so slightly. “I like this.”
Moments passed. Dazai didn't dare move an inch. Chuuya was clingy after corruption, but never to this extent. And he wouldn't miss it for the world.
“Can I tell you something?”
Dazai said nothing, but it was clear what his answer was.
“Arahabaki, inside me, it’s so disorientating when he’s there.” He paused, shivering. “He sees this world as an angry red flame. I can’t see when he’s inside me. I can’t hear. It’s terrifying. I have to sit back and watch myself destroy everything.”
Dazai kept quiet.
“But you. Every time he senses you, he sees again. He knows it’s you. He doesn’t hurt you.”
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t know,” Chuuya sighed. “You’re different from everything else. But it's all such a blur.”
Dazai blinked. "Chuuya…” his voice cracked unintentionally. His hand was tracing over the scars again, from a more comforting approach rather than curious.
“It’s just so scary,” Chuuya mumbled, burying his head further into Dazai's neck. His hair tickled, but Dazai didn't care. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologise,” Dazai said, trailing his hand towards Chuuya’s shoulder. Chuuya sniffled, as Dazai softly repeated: “Don’t.”
Chuuya seemed very lethargic once more. His blinks were slow, and his breathing slower still. Both his hands climbed up to hug around Dazai’s arm on his shoulder.
“Please,” he barely uttered, “just hold me.”
Dazai complied almost immediately, tucking himself around Chuuya’s body, allowing him to rest comfortably. His fingers reached into the back of the fiery red locks, and his head rest against the top of Chuuya's.
“Sleep,” he said, finally, planting a delicate kiss against Chuuya’s forehead without thinking. Just a flash, a brief connection of his cracked lips brushing against the boy's calmed skin. He flushed a horrible ache of embarrassment after he realised what he'd done, but Chuuya's mellow breathes didn't react.
He did not hear another word leave Chuuya’s mouth.
-
"Like I've told you," Chuuya sighed hastily, his patience thin. "It's nothing. It's always nothing. If you keep distracting me with frivolous bullshit you have to leave."
A stare of daggers quickly followed to Dazai on the sofa, to which Dazai frowned. "But what's it like? Actually? To forget so much?"
Chuuya's upper lip twitched. Mornings after corruption were always more of a struggle than others. His head would hurt, similar to an ordinary headache, and one that dissipated with the suitable painkiller. But there was a dull stinging, right at the back. It went away on its own as the day progressed, so he’d grown accustomed to it, but there was something so precise and painful about it that he'd never experienced before.
The mornings would hurt, too, generally. He'd reach out sometimes, weakly, clawing blindly in front of him as he lay on his side - to be met with nothing beside him. It would catch him off guard, more often than not in the mist of a dream where he was warm and safe. That's when the headache would usually set in.
Nothing?
His mind was hazy.
Nothing.
Of course, nothing.
His mind was always hazy.
It was always nothing.
Why wouldn’t it be nothing?
He twitched again from the mere recollection. "I couldn't describe it to you," Chuuya mumbled. He'd stopped writing, but the pen was clutched tightly in his fingers. "You wouldn't get it."
Dazai simply stared, Chuuya's upside down grimace from his angle there to be dismissive, but only coming across as uncomfortable. Dazai couldn't quite read him properly. Maybe he'd never get a proper answer. Maybe it was just a moment to be forgotten as Chuuya had.
"Okay," Dazai said. He spoke so deadpan, hiding any emotion he may or may not have clung into his chest. "I probably wouldn't get it."
And the day passed like any other.