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Dazai has always thought that Chuuya had so much potential. With the powers of a god at his disposal and wit sharp enough to cut as well as any knife, Chuuya could be unstoppable. He had always given Dazai a run for his money, when they had been young, whether it was a particularly vicious spat or a scuffle even more so. His resourcefulness was another virtue. With no preferred weapon, Chuuya was always quick to work with whatever resource he could find on-site. The first time Chuuya enhanced stray bullets he found on the ground with his ability and used them as projectiles, Dazai was —though he’ll never admit it — impressed. It took incredible control and precision to change the weight of fast-flying bullets to maximize both how far it will travel through the air and how hard it will hit.
And nevermind Chuuya’s everlasting loyalty, a quality Mori surely appreciates, Dazai muses. Chuuya is -- (Was, some dark place in Dazai’s mind corrects) -- loyal to a fault. He was brash, and often ran head-first into any situation in a way that would have gotten him killed long ago had he not been so strong. Coupled with Dazai’s cunning and indifference, they made for a deadly duo. The underground of Yokohama had never seen anything like them. The Port Mafia was at its peak when Dazai and Chuuya were strong, and while Dazai is not nearly arrogant enough to believe it was because of them, he cannot help but think that perhaps they had a hand in its previously high status. Soon there was no longer just Dazai, or just Chuuya. They were together, as one. Fighting under one name: Sokouku. Dazai wonders when their fates became so closely intertwined. Dwelling on the thought nearly makes him nauseous with a feeling he couldn’t quite name.
Chuuya’s downfall, however, will be his humanity. There is no room for light benevolence in the darkest depths of the mafia. Back then, Chuuya didn't understand -- the source of their many past arguments, on the rare occasion Dazai was kind enough to warn his partner-- that the mafia was not like the Sheep. They did not look out for each other past the requirement. The most compassion and camaraderie Chuuya would ever see in his time with the mafia would never exceed what little familiarity they had formed with each other; a synchronization born of necessity and outside meddling by Mori more than anything else. Despite that, Chuuya still coddles the younger recruits. It's a habit left over from his days with the Sheep that needs to be forgotten. Even though Chuuya had not risen through the ranks of the mafia as far or as fast as Dazai had, he was still in a position of authority to the newer members, and was expected to train them in the ways of the mafia, a job he could not accurately do if he insisted on treating them to secret sweets and childish stories, showing them mercy at any given moment instead of letting them feel the pain of their own failures.
Where Dazai was a cruel, cold vice that constricted around the livelihood of those he trained, Chuuya was a kinder, gentler teacher. Dazai thinks Chuuya and Odasaku would have gotten along. The scene is almost painful to imagine.
But perhaps the most ironic of all, Dazai muses, are the abilities that curse each of them respectively. Dazai’s gift, if one could call it such, is destructive. Not in the physical sense, as Chuuya’s can more often than not be, but in a more psychological sense. As Ability users grow and become accustomed to their powers, they very quickly become reliant on the feeling of it hovering at the back of their minds. To abruptly cut that off would be, Dazai imagines, like cutting off a person’s tongue, leaving them helpless and without an ability they think they need so desperately. There is a sick sense of satisfaction Dazai used to get from watching a person writhe at the sensation of his long, slender fingers -- weapons at his constant disposal -- brushing ever-so-gently across the barest expanse of skin. To watch as they flinched away in vain, desperate for their ability back. No Longer Human. That is the name Mori had assigned to his ability. A name that stood for all the pain he will cause others, and for what he will one day lose, himself.
Chuuya’s ability had much more potential to be deadly. For the Tainted Sorrow was a force to be reckoned with, but the ability had a much more sinister counterpart. Corruption, as it had been named, was a corrosive force that only came forth when Chuuya let Arahabaki take over completely. For a short few minutes, Dazai gets to watch as any and all of Chuuya's foolish reservations fall away. He gets to watch as a sun explodes, and see what Chuuya, at his fullest potential, would look like. The sight has always been a mesmerising one. Dazai thinks he’s incredibly lucky to get to see it happen. The strangest part of it all, however, is Chuuya's inability to control Arahabaki. He is entirely reliant on Dazai to return his humanity to him whenever he reaches for the god’s power. For a single, miniscule moment, Dazai’s touch is not a weapon, but salvation. When he uses his ability on Chuuya to put an end to Corruption, he does not just brush his fingers over his skin in the barest imitation of touch, but rather lets his hand rest fully on his cheek, thumb just barely under his eye. He thinks he ought to preserve the fleeting moments where No Longer Human does not bring harm.
The juxtaposition of their partnership had never been lost on Dazai, either, in fact he found the contrast grew more stark as the years progressed. Dazai grew crueler on his path to become the next head of the Port Mafia on Mori’s orders, whereas Chuuya only grew more compassionate. He also grew less obvious in his kindness, as he’d now seen how ruthlessly the mafia exterminated vulnerability.
And then Odasaku died, succeeding in a feat Dazai never seemed to be able to accomplish. Chuuya, in all his foolish glory, tried to comfort Dazai in his own crass, rough-around-the-edges way. But the Port Mafia knows no comfort, and so Dazai left. It was clear now -- and how silly it was that Death, with its keys that clinked like chimes, and its scythe that glinted as murderously as Dazai’s knives, was his wake-up call-- that the mafia was not the place where Dazai would find a purpose. He thinks Mori has known that since the beginning. That maybe that is why Dazai was so good at what he did. His apathy, as Mori had reminded him many a time, was both what would allow him to rise to the top, and what would be his greatest barrier.
When he fled, Dazai left no loose strings behind. His room was scrubbed clean of any and all of his sparse belongings, not even fingerprints remained. The only trace of his existence was a bomb planted on Chuuya’s car. The car had been blown to pieces mere hours after he’d gone. He hopes Chuuya can find it in his heart to forgive him, but another larger part of him laughs at the shocked and outraged face Chuuya will make at the sight of his blown up car.
Despite his apathy, and despite the general air of disregard he often held himself with, adjusting from mafia to civilian life was a strange change for Dazai. The stark contrast of being an Executive (not just an executive; the youngest Executive in the port mafia’s history) to being a nobody was a particularly difficult adjustment to make.
Civilians were so boring. In the two years he spent off the face of the earth, there was no one to rile up. No one to command or torment. No one to provoke or be provoked by. He feared his intellect and wit would rot away into sticky brain-mush by the time he was able to start working for the Armed Detective Agency.
Soon though his existence was forgotten by those who mattered, and Dazai became a fresh face in the office of the Armed Detective Agency. Dressed in a pale beige coat which’s sleeves hugged his arms firmly with the pressure of the last wishes of a dying man, he presented himself in his most, well, presentable fashion.
And it is there he is introduced to Doppo Kunikida, his new partner. It’s interesting how different, yet ever-so-similar the meaning of that word is in the mafia and in the agency. Dazai smiles brightly and shakes Kunikida’s hand over-eagerly, yapping on and on about how wonderful it was to have someone so adept at his job to show him the ropes of the agency. Dazai notes how the pleased smile on the other man’s face slowly fades into one of irritation the longer he talks, and distantly he thinks that this has the potential to be fun.
And it is. Fun, he means. Perhaps the most fun he’s had in years. Dazai quickly was able to find the right buttons to push, the pressure points that drew out the reactions he wanted from Kunikida. Dazai would speak a mile a minuet, in a voice pitched high and nasally, and Kunikida would get so agitated that the veins on his forehead threatened to burst. Dazai would laugh at him, and Kunikida would shake him up a bit. It was fun. It was familiar.
Almost too familiar. Some nights he’d close his eyes to a dream that started with red and ended in beige. A dream of old and new, of friends long left behind and strangers now no longer strange. Some nights Dazai would close his eyes to an aching, painstakingly beating heart, and yearn.
The one thing Dazai hadn't managed to leave behind was his certain longing for death. The first time he showed up to work with bruises spilling above the bandages around his neck (just under his ears, too far up to cover, but mostly hidden by his hair), and miniscule drops of blood bleeding through the bandages around his forearm (he had carelessly rolled the sleeves of his coat up to escape the summer heat) he had frightened his partner. It does not take much to deduce the causes of such injuries, and for a man sitting in a room of the country’s best detectives, he really ought to have been more careful.
When Kunikida addressed him with such concern in his eyes, and a gentleness in his voice Dazai had not known the man was capable of, it was all Dazai could do not to laugh at the absurdity of it all. Such kindness was commonplace in the agency, but he had never stopped to consider that it was a kindness extended to himself, as well.
Soon, though, his antics too became commonplace around the agency, and that softness he was at first addressed with reverted back to the usual irritation. Good, Dazai thought. He could not bear to listen to Kunikida sounding like that. Some dark corner of his mind --which sounded an awful lot like Mori-- whispered distinctly that he did not deserve it. He pointedly ignored it.
He also chose to ignore how his attempts on his life have become more… detached. No longer was his own demise an immediate goal, but rather it was a vague cloud that hung over his horizon, just as any human regarded their own death as a final destination, but not one they were in any rush to get to. He would still try, eating strange hallucinogenic plants and getting himself stuck in the strangest of places, but his more recent attempts lacked heart or any true commitment.
Taking Atsushi Nakajima, an orphaned skill user causing trouble in the area, under his wing was the final nail in Dazai’s only-ever-imaginary coffin, binding him to the Armed Detective Agency indefinitely. Not being immediately laughed at and sacked at the mere idea of recruiting their current target of sorts by the president or his coworkers (friends, family) was a pleasant shock, dulled by warm smiles and half-hearted threats that sounded more like concern for his well-being. Dazai was no longer a loose thread in the agency, waiting to be cut off. He was now responsible for someone, just as Kunikida was responsible for him, as the president was for Ranpo, and Tanizaki was for his sister, as Yosano was for Kenji.
The first night after trying to show Atsushi the ropes, Dazai falls asleep to memories of a kind man who never seemed to know when to draw the line when it came to caring for those that needed to be cared for. He resolves himself to try to live up to the promises he’s made, vowing that this time, things would be different.
Dazai gifts his new trainee an old belt of his, shiny from disuse and embellished with a small silver tiger at its buckle. He treats Atsushi to lunch the next day, too. Tea on rice, his favourite.
Dazai finds that he can be accepting of kindness. That, after so many years in the ADA, what was once such a foreign concept was now a pill easy to swallow. He doesn't flinch anymore.
The night had been unkind again. Or maybe it was his mind that was unkind, not the night, because the night was an inevitable thing, one that stayed the same and allowed him the mercy of being predictable; unlike his treacherous, traitorous mind, which delighted in conjuring up new fantasies with which to torment him with, terrible in their horror and in their gore.
Nevertheless, something had been unkind, and the almost-betrayed feeling that arose in Dazai should not, and would not, have existed had he not grown so foolishly accustomed to the ever-soft glow of the ADA without him noticing.
He goes to work late. What else is new? Kunikida’s glare asks sarcastically. But, perhaps Dazai’s emotions had bled through the bandages that extended beyond his sleeves. Perhaps the dark circles underneath his eyes and the weariness in his posture spoke too loudly the truth. Perhaps the way he beelined for the couch at the office instead of at least pretending to work first was strange. Perhaps he should take a closer look into why it was so easy to fall asleep on said couch, to the sounds of the people who have wormed their way into his affection, after he wakes up. Whatever.
When he does eventually wake up, his eyes do not immediately open. His senses come back to him in pieces. Taking stock of his body, he notices that he is warm. Upon further inspection he realises that there is a thin, soft blanket thrown over him, and the usually bustling agency has been quieted, people speaking in whispered tones and steps taken lightly. Finally, he opens his eyes and stirs, slowly moving to sit upright, and only then did he realise just how relaxed he had been in that moment.
“I’d say something about sleeping beauty waking up, but quite frankly your hair is a mess,” Kunikida remarks dryly. Dazai looks up to find him, moving his hands away from his eyes where they had been trying --rather unsuccessfully-- to rub away the drowsiness.
“Come fix it then,” Dazai mutters back, petulant and a little bit spiteful, but not quite serious.
“Fine,” Kunikida says decisively, much to Dazai’s surprise, and soon enough Kunikida is sitting on the couch with Dazai, now moved to the floor, at his feet. Somehow, Kunikida had acquired a hairbrush along the way, which he was now raking through, or rather, attempting to rake through Dazai’s hair. His hands are gentle. He brushes Dazai’s hair in measured movements, starting at the ends and working his way up, detangling as he went. Dazai had hardly bothered to maintain his hair on his own and apparently Kunikida has taken matters into his own hands.
There were some knots too big for the comb to break through that Kunikida detangled with his fingers, particularly at the nape of his neck. Kunikida’s blunt fingernails scratch ghostly at the skin. The near-touch almost made him shiver, his shoulders tensing up minisculely in an attempt to suppress it. This was perhaps the gentlest anyone had ever touched him before.
The world and the people in it, Dazai knows, are not kind. It never will be. But, with the members of the ADA, he thinks that there can be more than just one exception to that fact.
Sometimes, Dazai wishes he had not been there when Odasaku died. Sometimes, he let himself wonder what would have become of him had he not been there in Odasaku’s final moments to hear the harsh reality straight from the dying man’s lips. Would he have left the mafia anyway? Or would he have stayed, risen up the ranks, succeeded Mori and become the next head of the Port Mafia as he was supposed to, heart hardened to any gentleness left in the world?
He hates himself for the thought, though. He gave the man so little in life, when they were friends. Had paid back so little of the kindness Odasaku had shown him in his life that the least he could do was hold him in his final moments. And he could not even do that correctly, because it seemed that Odasaku was the one comforting Dazai, as if he wasn't the one bleeding out in those final moments.
Dazai had been too late to save Odasaku’s life. He was there soon enough to watch as the bullet fired into his chest, to watch as the one man he had ever looked up to fell limp to the ground. He shouted out Odasaku’s name as he rushed to be by his side, his voice so foreignly and frighteningly human that Dazai did not recognize it as his own.
Odasaku was never physical with him. They were not the type of friends that exchanged amicable pats on the back, nor did they lean on each other when they sat close by. But in that room, large yet infinitely empty, Odasaku puts his hand by Dazai’s cheek, his calloused fingers fisting in his hair, pulling close, commanding him to listen.
Dazai had always said, had always thought, that he’d never had a reason to live. He hadn't realised how much of a liar he had been until he watched the light in Odasaku’s eyes fade away. He’d never been one to cry, but utterly alone with the setting, dying sun and left to face the full brunt of the emotions of an abandoned heart, bowed over odasaku’s quickly cooling body, he almost wished the tears would come.
When the President asked Dazai to accompany him to meet Mori, Dazai didn't know what to feel. He had never imagined that what had been his most closely guarded secret at the agency could ever be discussed so openly. Of course, the request was logical. Dazai was perhaps the most intimately related to the mafia out of all the ADA members, and in order for this mission to go well, having the knowledge needed to play their cards right was essential.
He sat on the stone ledge that surrounded the garden where the meeting between the two organisations was supposed to happen. Awaiting Mori, Dazai couldn't help but be swept away by memories of his earliest days in the port mafia, as the strange, creepy newbie that the old boss’s doctor had taken a peculiar liking-to.
Soon, though, the sound of approaching footsteps drew his attention away from his reverie, and internally he steeled himself for this interaction.
“Welcome, Boss,” Dazai drawls, lazy and nearly bored. The voice is easy to fall back into. That feeling of authority and apathetic superiority that used to be so normal back then rushed back to him, and foolishly did he think he stood a chance against Mori Ougai. The cast around his arm felt restricting, the cloth that bound it to his neck familiar in its unyieldingness.
“Dazai,” Mori calls, his tone sickeningly familiar, “It’s been years. Surely you remember the coat I gave you?”
“Of course,” it was Port Mafia tradition to gift your new hire something of yours, “I had it burned.”
Dazai remembers the night vividly. He remembers the expensive smell of burning fabric and the gentle but strong thrum of the flames as they devoured the last of his ties with the mafia. The crackle of the fire and the sound of his own hysterical, relieved laughter..
Dazai takes pride in the flash of disgust on Mori’s face at his words. It almost feels like winning.
The rest of the meeting goes as expected. Which is to say, it was a bust. As Mori is turning away to leave, he stops for a moment and extends an offer to Dazai, one meaning to welcome him back into the folds of the mafia.
Go to hell, Dazai wants to say. He can’t decide if he wants to scream the words in a rage or speak them in a contrary, sickly sweet voice crafted to annoy Mori.
Instead, he refuses the offer firmly. They both knew he wouldn't have taken it up anyway.
Chuuya thinks he’s getting soft. The worst part about it is that he can’t even deny it. Running into the man on his operation to retrieve Q was not entirely a surprise. Nonetheless, Dazai still found himself holding back a smile when Chuuya had shown up, flying and crash-landing a boulder and making an entrance as extravagantly and ridiculously grand as Dazai knew him to be.
Falling back into a rhythm with Chuuya should not have been so easy. Dazai should not have been so ready to fight back-to-back with Chuuya like they used to. They were no longer fifteen. They don’t fight as a team anymore. Dazai had a new partner to fight with now. He had left the mafia years ago and had never intended to look back.
They fight a formidable foe. A… not person, Dazai wasn't sure who they were fighting was entirely human, with an ability resistant to Dazai’s own. Soon though it becomes apparent that the best way to end this fight was to unleash Arahabaki, or as Dazai preferred to call it, Corruption.
When Chuuya takes off his gloves, Dazai feels his heart beat a little faster. What a treat it is to be able to see this again. To witness the power of a god run rampant, to witness Chuuya’s foolish regard for morality be corrupted by raw power, to witness the downfall of an entire organisation in a single night.
And when Lovecraft is finally defeated -- all too soon, really--, and it’s time to bring Chuuya back, Dazai reaches for his wrist. He doesn't reach for his face as he used to. Dazai feels like he should maintain at least a little of distance he was struggling to keep. Chuuya’s skin feels so cool in his palm. Dazai speaks gently as his ability puts an end to Arahabaki’s brief control, and feelings he had long forgotten resurface suddenly. Oh, how he had missed this; moments when his ability was salvation, and not starvation.
He carries Chuuya back to the extraction point, and folds his coat and places his gloves above it neatly, mostly for old time’s sake. Dazai truly has gone soft, hasn't he? Both his colleagues at the ADA and his former colleagues at the Port Mafia would have a field day with this information. Dazai sighs resignedly at the fact.
The thought doesn't bother him as much as he thought it would.
Dazai doesn't remember what had set him off, back then. They were arguing -- when were they not?-- but the usual mocking, banter-like tone Dazai and Chuuya’s young voices usually carried had suddenly turned sour, sharp, into something far more serious. Far more deadly.
They had just completed a mission, if Dazai recalled correctly, that ended with the use of Corruption. The fight had not gone on for very long at all -- in fact, Chuuya had only used corruption for a mere few minuets. It wasn't enough time to warrant an extraction vehicle, and the pair were made to walk back to headquarters.
Dazai had complained about how slowly Chuuya was limping, probably harping on about how he should probably leave Chuuya behind to fend for himself. In his conceitedness, he hadn't noticed the growing tension winding up between Chuuya's shoulders. Hadn't noticed the clench in his jaw or the loosely curled fists by his sides. He had only heard the growing irritation in his partner’s voice, and had felt a sort of vindictive glee in knowing that he was the one to coax such a reaction from the other boy.
He remembers smiling, then, a sharp, wild smile that stretched wide across his face.
…Only for it to be wiped clean off as a fist made contact with his jaw. His hand came up to rub at where he had been hit, his gleeful mood souring quickly. It was not a particularly strong blow, Chuuya hadn’t even manipulated the gravity behind the punch as he was still feeling the repercussions of using Corruption earlier. Perhaps it was because of this that Dazai had not immediately retaliated physically.
Nevertheless, the cold sneer and witty insult Dazai shoots back is enough to enrage Chuuya once more (but did that really mean anything? He was always so angry regardless). The previously mostly one-way complaining had now evolved into a proper argument. They had jumped from topic to topic, hurling insult after insult at each other until Chuuya backed Dazai into a corner. Dazai doesn't know how it happened, it just did. Suddenly, Dazai’s nerves were alight, the hairs on the back of his neck stood up on end, and white-hot panic flowed like lava through his veins as he wracked his brain for a way out, any way out.
“How would you know?” Dazai spits harshly, a knee-jerk reaction, hardly sparing a thought to the words coming out of his mouth, “You’re barely even human.”
Chuuya stills. His face, previously expressive and angry, goes blank. Dazai smirks, feeling like he’s won. Chuuya turns around roughly and walks ahead of Dazai faster than he had been walking before. Dazai notices a faint trail of blood following the boy.
“Screw you,” he said in a low voice, briskly shoving past Dazai and not even bothering to look back, his voice unlike anything Dazai had ever heard before.
Perhaps Dazai had not won as much as he thought he did.
Kunikida runs his fingers through Dazai’s wet hair. Dazai sits on the edge of Kunikida's bathtub, and Kunikida stands on the large garbage bag spread out on the floor behind him. He combs through the last of the remaining tangles and knots in Dazai’s hair, mindful not to tug harshly. Slowly, he brings a pair of scissors to the ends of the hair, the knuckle of his index finger brushing the cool skin of Dazai’s nape, and cuts off a centimeter or so. In precise, measured movements, Kunikida gets to work trimming Dazai’s hair. For a time, the only sounds around are the snipping of the scissors and their own slow breathing.
Dazai doesn't know when he became so comfortable as to allow Kunikida, or any person at all, to bring a sharp object that close to an area as vital as his neck. Nevertheless, the longer Kunikida worked, the more relaxed Dazai began to feel. His shoulders slumped forward and his eyelids began to feel heavy. His head would droop down every so often, and Kunikida would press a large, steady hand to the middle of Dazai’s back, urging him to sit straight again.
“I’m almost done, Dazai,” he said, breaking the comfortable silence. The summer had come rolling in, and as the days progressed with Dazai huffing and complaining of the heat and disturbing the office, Kunikida had offered to cut it for him.
True to his word, Kunikida had finished cutting Dazai’s hair soon after. Combing through his hair one last time to get out any stray strands, he scratched at Dazai’s scalp, dull fingernails scraping at the base of Dazai’s head. Feeling like his limbs had truly become lead, Dazai feared he'd never get up again.
“Dazai?” Kunikida asked when Dazai had yet to rise. Dazai mumbles something in response, the words incoherent. Kunikida sighs, resigning himself to carrying Dazai to bed.
He lifts Dazai’s arm and places it across his shoulders, his other hand wrapping around Dazai’s waist. Hoisting him up from his perch on the side of the bathtub, Kunikida navigates them to his bedroom, where his futon is neatly done. Crouching down, he slowly lowers Dazai onto the mattress and covers him with a light blanket he had previously stowed away in the room’s closet. Just as he begins to stand back up again and leave, a hand darts out from under the covers and grabs Kunikida's wrist. Dazai’s fingers are cool against Kunikida’s skin.
“What..?” he begins to wonder aloud, before he realises. “Oh, alright,” he concedes, “I suppose I have a few more minuets to spare.”
Dazai sits perched on the rooftop of a tall, abandoned office building near the port district. The night is windy, and the roads silent. In this absurd hour of the night, there is no one around. He stares at the ground below him, taking note of how far away it is. A fall from a height such as this was sure to kill even the most resilient soldier.
The thought of jumping crosses his mind, for a moment. His fingers loosen on the edge of the building. He kicks his feet idly, as though sitting on a children’s swing. His mind is strangely clear. Another gust of wind blows through, penetrating through layers of clothes and skin and flesh and bone, chilling his very marrow.
He can almost feel the weightlessness of freefall, the wind roaring in his ears as he would descend and the rapid sound of his coat’s fabric whipping in the air. He wonders if it would feel like the drop of a rollercoaster, if it would be exciting. Or, perhaps it would be calming, that as he fell closer to the ground his eyes would flutter shut and his heart would weigh him down with the feeling of content acceptance.
Dazai sighs and swings his legs back over the rooftop’s edge, standing up and making his way back to the stairs. It wasn’t time to find out just yet, he supposed.
There are days now, Dazai has found, that are bathed in light and love. Days where air is easier to breathe and his chest shakes with laughter that comes more freely. Days where the chains of guilt and other emotions he doesn’t quite know how to name that wrap around him and drag him down fall away, and Dazai could almost forget that they were there at all.
Life with the members of the Armed Detective Agency passes in a warm haze of such days, and Dazai has become comfortable. It’s a sort of peace he hadn’t ever expected to experience in his life, not while under Mori’s cruel command, and certainly not after Odasaku’s death. But, as he has come to find, it’s a sort of peace that is attainable. Tangible.
Atsushi smiles over his desk, a rosy blush spreading over his face. Ranpo savours a sickly saccharine lollipop. Kunikida’s pen scratches diligently across lines of official documents. Kenji and Kyoka share a dessert they hide under their table.
Yes, Dazai thinks, this is definitely where he was meant to be, right at this time and place, to appreciate this moment and breathe.
Yosano’s cold hands work quickly and efficiently to unwind the bandages that curl around the skin of Dazai’s arm. The usually white fabric is now stained with splotches of blood, some fresh and some now brown and crackly, sticking the wounds to the bandages. Despite the doctor’s best efforts to be careful, the scabs are torn open again as the bandages are removed, the bleeding fresh and sluggish once more.
Dazai and a few others from the ADA had run into some trouble on an earlier mission, resulting in a few minor injuries. It was nothing new, but Yosano had insisted on treating their wounds herself. He pays her no mind as she works, his gaze distant and unfocused. His head throbs and even what little light illuminates the room glares in his eyes. He may be concussed. She tuts disapprovingly as more of the damages become apparent, hissing sympathetically at the deeper gashes and more colorful bruises.
The soft clinking of glass fills the dim and silent room, the rest of the agency having been treated and sent home earlier. Yosano tries to treat Dazai as quickly as possible. The doctor is skilled, and isn’t blind to the almost methodical-looking and old wounds she sees dispersed among the uncoordinated injuries incurred during the fight. From the corner of his eye, he can see her frown. Dazai is almost surprised when he feels her disinfect and apply ointment to those wounds, as well. Mori would have left them to become infected. He needed to learn the consequences of his actions.
The bandages wind up past where the hem of his rolled-up sleeve starts, but Dazai is under no illusions that this will escape Yosano’s notice. He knows she sees the way Dazai shrugs and shifts his right shoulder --however imperceptible his discomfort may be to the untrained eye-- and knows there are injuries further up his arms and possibly his torso, too.
She reaches up to the collar of the beige trench coat Dazai wears and moves to shift it lower. He jerks away, his head whipping up to face her where before he had been staring off to the side listlessly. His eyes are stretched wide, but he can’t seem to force them into his usual and casual half-lidded gaze. Despite this, his vision is swarmed by static creeping in at the edges, obstructing the med bay of the ADA and making him lose track of where he is. Mori shifts in front of him.
“Relax,” Yosano said, her quiet voice cutting through the fog. “I need to check for any more injuries.”
Dazai sucks in a breath. After a moment, the clench in his jaw loosens, and he nods slightly. Yosano makes quick work of removing the coat, leaving it on the examination table next to him, within his reach. His eyes follow her every action. She moves on then to undo the buttons of his vest, starting at the top one and moving down. She undoes his tie, loosening it from its chokehold around his neck, and ice slips down Dazai’s spine. He wishes she would move slower, or even stop altogether, but he says nothing. The words seem to die on his tongue and dissipate like dust. She opens the buttons on his striped button up shirt, and his breathing shallows. He tenses as she removes each layer of clothing, feeling as though she were peeling away layers of his skin. The scent of ointments and antiseptic and latex flood his senses and make him forget himself for a moment. He almost expects the cold and sharp touch of a scalpel where Yosano’s cool yet soft fingers graze his shoulder, examining the bruising.
She takes a moment to simply observe before touching him again. He knows his body is not a pretty sight. There almost seems to be more scar than skin, thin silvery lines that rope around his body. He couldn't tell anymore where one scar ended and another began, only that some were inflicted entirely intentionally and others merely collateral damage. He feels exposed in a way that has nearly nothing to do with the many layers of clothing he has shed.
When she does finally reach out to close the space between them, her touch is almost maddeningly light. The latex gloves don’t drag on his skin and pull at his hair. Goosebumps rise in the wake of her hands, covering the expanse of his exposed skin. She wipes the cuts and scratches with alcohol swabs, the sharp sting a stark and contrasting sensation. He screws his eyes shut, and he can almost hear Mori's falsely disapproving voice, the way he used to snap his gloves. Dazai’s heart pounds in his chest.
She finishes up her examination soon after, wrapping up his now treated wounds with fresh bandages. She doesn’t wind the fabric as tight as Dazai anticipated. He doubts the corners of the fabric will leave angry red indents in his skin, nor will it block the circulation of his blood. He doesn’t know what is worse; that he’d come to miss the pain, or that for a brief moment he had expected Yosano to inflict it on him.
Yosano rolls the first aid cart away from the examination bed where Dazai was being treated, disposing of the used gauze and alcohol swabs and replenishing the used up supplies. Dazai lays back on the cot, his legs dangling off the end like a puppet with its strings cut. He shivers against the cold paper lining that covers the leather-like surface, his fingers twisting and tightening over the fabric of his coat. He feels tired and feverish, drained of his energy and wrung out like cloth.
Distantly he registers that Yosano is humming softly. He can’t remember when she started, but he doesn’t want her to stop. Nobody had ever hummed before.
On his more adventurous nights, Dazai takes to rooftop hopping. It was initially a skill he learned to spite Chuuya, though he was eternally annoyed at the advantage Chuuya’s anti-gravity ability allowed him in this particular endeavor. Branching impossible distances from rooftop to rooftop, landing gracefully from [impossible] heights, running along surfaces nearly perpendicular to the ground… it was all too easy with Chuuya’s gift and Dazai had been green with envy.
So he learned to do it himself, anti-gravity god-gifted powers be damned.
He had been, at first, ridiculously clumsy. Upon reflection, he can’t remember if the many bruises and scraps he had accumulated over that period were truly innocent accidents, or a blatant disregard for his own wellbeing.
Nevertheless he had soon gained enough competency in the activity that he could keep up with Chuuya on most days. They would race around the city, dipping through low-hanging bars, scaling streetlamps and climbing walls, Chuuya always in the lead. In those moments, he moved with a grace Dazai had not observed from him in any other circumstance. Chuuya never moved elegantly. He was always jagged movements and rough poise (much to the dismay of Kouyou, who tried to teach him better).
But Dazai’s enjoyment from this game came from that moment when he would catch up to Chuuya, extend his arm with more effort than he cared to admit, and nullified Chuuya’s ability. He would laugh gleefully at the other boy when he would trip, watch with much amusement as Chuuya tried to reach for his ability to save himself from falling, only to be unable to do anything with No Longer Human holding Chuuya’s ability away from him.
Good times indeed.
When he goes out to hop precariously between the sky scrapers and high rises of yokohama after leaving the port mafia, it’s mostly out of nostalgia. He’s unbelievably rusty, but he can’t deny the rush of adrenaline that races through him when he slips isn’t addicting. At least, it was… He can’t help but feel nauseous at the sight of the city, so small from this height, when he looks down now.
Maybe Dazai has outgrown this hobby. He climbs down the latest building he has scaled, for once careful not to lose his grip on his hand and foot holds.
As things in Dazai’s life tend to do, it all circles back to Chuuya.
It’s a strange realisation to have, so early in the morning and staring at himself in the bathroom mirror, but the thought appears in his mind suddenly, demanding to be heard. Much like the man himself, dazai thought amusedly. He raises an eyebrow to himself, watching as his reflection shifts to match his own unimpressed expression.
There had always been something about Chuuya that made him an interesting specimen to examine. Dazai supposes it was simply how different Chuuya was. Different to their surroundings, foreign to the beliefs of the port mafia, alien to the life that dazai had known. To put it crudely, Chuuya stuck out like a sore thumb. Could anyone fault dazai for his curiosity?
And put in such close proximity for so much of their lives he supposes the abundance of knowledge he had come to possess about Chuuya was another inevitability. Sure, he was a little shit in the ways he would go about collecting this knowledge -- dazai smirks a little to himself as memories of the stunts he used to pull to draw various reactions from Chuuya flash through his mind -- but it was knowledge collected all the same. Information that for so long he hadn’t realised he was actively looking for.
Dazai moved to turn on the faucet, first turning it to its coldest setting and letting it run before turning it back to the hottest it would go. A strange realisation to have, he thought. Why is that the word he used to describe it? He puts his hand under the running water, feeling the temperature. It is not yet hot enough. When he thinks back on his days with the agency, the mundane exchanges with his coworkers who have grown on him like mold, the tough battles and quiet aftermaths, he comes to the stark realisation that his guide in those moments was Chuuya. Chuuya, and how he used to treat new recruits, Chuuya and how he used to ask after dazai in his own crass way. Chuuya, and his seemingly endless supply of humanity.
Oh.
He cups his hands under the running water and splashes his face, the temperature far too hot. His face is now red in the mirror.
So maybe his time spent with and observing Chuuya had impacted him more than he initially expected. In a way, he is aware that an individual’s experiences and relationships can impact their own self, and in a more conscious way he understands he has done this before when he internalized the lessons odasaku had imparted upon him. But to think that Chuuya of all people…
A very juvenile part of himself rejects the notion wholeheartedly. But the evidence is damning. In his keen observation of Chuuya, a pastime that originated from a desire to criticize and ridicule, he had become what he initially sought to mock.
It turned out that the joke was on Dazai. He laughs, then. An abrupt thing that has him shutting off the faucet and leaning over the sink, breathless.
His reflection is looking back at him when he finally opens his eyes, tears of mirth and maybe something else leaking from the corners. He wipes them away resolutely. He straightens back up and continues his morning routine, almost ready to head out to the agency and start his day.
“Good morning, everyone!” Dazai announces as he walks through the office doors that morning. “The sun is shining and there is not a cloud in the sky. Isn’t a day like this too beautiful to be spent indoors?”
“What’s got you in such a happy mood, Dazai?” Atsushi asked. He has the most adorable, slightly confused smile on his face. Dazai pats Atsushi’s cheek affectionately.
“I can’t help it!” Dazai replies, a little obnoxious and entirely sincere. “It’s simply human nature.”