Chapter Text
“Heads up, we’re going touring.”
Dazai shifted his head quick enough to avoid the impact of the plush Chuuya threw at him. It was on the floor, Chuuya picked it up. He decided a game of catch would be the perfect starter for Dazai’s day.
Routines changed and now they sleep and wake together, go on trips and tours together, the only drawback to their effervescent dynamic being that Chuuya has never met Dazai’s father. Not that any of them have the desire to go through such strenuous effort anyway, not when Dazai still hates the only remaining hard-to-impress parent he has.
Dazai took the stuff plush from where it landed beside him on the bed from where he sits. He digs his fingers into the wool, squeezing so tightly it relieves mindless stress he never knew he felt at the moment. “Local?” he murmurs, voice traced with a somnolent drawl, loud enough only as an audible whisper.
“Yea…again,” Chuuya sighed dejectedly.
Dazai picked up on Chuuya’s disappointment and offered an amiable smile. “Hoping for an out of city gig?” he says, resting his chin on his palm.
“I'll make it—the band will.”
Dazai smirks at the ambition. “Remember me as your first fan. I should get all VIP benefits before anyone else.”
Chuuya scoffed in response. Dazai watches as Chuuya sorts through the disarray of clothes on the floor, identifying which is whose and tossing t-shirts about, finally picking up on his favorite pants strewn on the floor amongst the mess of other red, black, and beige articles.
Dazai trailed his eyes across the room, seeing the all too-familiar clutter of a room he knew more than his own. Band posters on all four walls, hung by pieces of broken gray duct tape that look too obvious to disregard. The incongruence with the soft beige walls adds a detail that makes the room look authentic and lived in. Last night’s clothes are on the floor, some chunky silver jewelry glint in the faint sunlight seeping through cracks and careless gaps of slightly parted sheer muslin curtains.
“You can come with, but the band probably won't like that,” said Chuuya.
“Do they hate me?” Dazai responds, running a hand through his hair as he adjusts the placement of pillows behind him. He straightens the sheets after he’s done with his initial task. In his mind, he's sure to be hated.
Dazai eyes Chuuya’s reflection in the mirror, awaiting a response, the latter ruffling his hair to get that appropriate shaggy mess for a typical rockstar look. Dazai observes, yet his eyes dart across the room, a gesture of patience but unwavering anticipation.
“Nah, they don’t hate you,” Chuuya articulates once he’s satisfied with his hair. “They’re just…” he pauses, “eager to get me back on the bus.”
Dazai pauses his own response. He lets the silence linger for a bit while he looks at Chuuya’s reflection on the vanity from the bed.
Heavy.
Chuuya’s eyeliner is heavy.
“That bus stinks. Your guys don’t shower.”
“Oh come on, they're my guys.” Chuuya scoffed. He places a palette on the vanity desk, the audible clink resounds throughout the room, adopting the silence until the echo wanes. “At least, only I can call them my guys, Dazai.”
“I don’t doubt that,” Dazai replied with a shrug. He lets the silence hang for another second, carefully pondering a natural topic transition. “Can I stay here tonight?” Dazai stated, seemingly masking the statement as a question when truthfully, he deliberately illusions the phrase as so to offer pleasantries. It would be appropriate to call the statement a premonition, rather.
“Got nowhere else to go tonight?” Chuuya replies as he dusts off excess eyeshadow from a brush he so lightly taps on the table corner. The particles unseen, but the shine of glitter somewhat like miniscule stars, Dazai wonders.
“I’d rather die than go back.” Dazai flicked his sights to the ceiling, thinking back on if he’d be needed back home. He mentally concluded on answers such as no, I don't think so, and probably not.
It was already hard enough to think about, much less verbalize. He dribbles the words around his mouth before swallowing them whole. The repressed phrases choke in his throat for a second, it’s painful to maintain where it needs to leave. He persists and keeps them there.
He'd never admit the truth of his feelings to anyone, even when he's so desperate for that understanding, he muses he'd rather wallow alone than incredulously admit to needing company, leaving bits of his person vulnerable to insights that might prove his self perception flawed.
Home SHOULD mean family. Although for Dazai, a pathetic brother, individualistic father, and bratty sister are the only ever component of the disorder they call a family. His father, a man he claims to detest more than he can admit he’s able to hate. He thought back to the times he’s left to fend for himself when he was less than capable of doing so. At the same time, he muses the situation similar to what is currently happening to his 16 year old brother, one he left in his place to keep the shoes warm until he's ready to don the burden again. Ideally he wouldn't have to, if he's as selfish as he believes himself to be.
Ideally, as well, he should at least leave some semblance of protection for his brother, the one who inherited the misfortune of a son after he considered himself temporarily relieved of his duty.
The environment of that certain indifference molded Dazai’s psyche into a shape no one can comprehend, and he unable to describe. Once he thinks he’s got a solid understanding of what it is, it contorts into something else he feels compelled to fail to try to understand again.
He didn’t come from a house that values familial relationships. Not even obligatory vows of care. He ought the same for him too.
What even is the benefit of surrounding oneself with the company of others not bound by blood and heredity? The shameful answer to that may be selfish first, comprehensible second, and finally absurd.
It’s because being with Chuuya quelled that rampant anxiety to a miniscule presence with only a mere window to relapse. Not everything was thought perfectly okay, but okay enough to be comfortable with the constant unrest.
One less person at “home”. It ought to present a better situation, Dazai thought. They’d live better without a burden like me.
But as always, he’d lie to himself to excuse the ever growing guilt he’d been ignoring, enough to await the inevitable event of another incident that would surely bring him to a boiling point. What would therefore explode, he thought, might offer a conclusion that would make everyone else, including himself, happy.
Dazai shook his head to scatter the thoughts from his brain. He grounds himself in the ongoing sights of the present.
The present is Chuuya.
He ought to conclude the unnecessary digression if he wants to keep at the moment.
Red hair, some black highlights. Dark, heavy eyeshadow, thick eyeliner. A hat to disrupt the congruence of an off-white sleeveless top, a patchy cropped leather jacket, and baggy cargo pants with little too many chains and zippers attached.
That, in front of him, is the current moment.
“Come with,” Chuuya urged.
“But I thought the guys wouldn’t like that?”
“When did I ever give a fuck what they think?”
Dazai smirks, a feeling of unintended satisfaction floods his being, happy for the split second he’s being considered more than others. He got up from his comfortable position from the bed and donned his own plain in comparison clothes; a thick beige turtleneck sweater and navy boot cut jeans.
Chuuya observed Dazai closely. Keeping his head station while letting his eyes talk. Chuuya eyed the bandages wrapped around the other boy’s arms and neck.
Even throughout the night, Dazai neglected taking the bandages off, as if they’re basically second skin to him.
“Don’t you wanna change those?” Chuuya gestured at the wrapped gauze.
Dazai eyed the bandages. “They’re still good.”
Chuuya grimaced. “If you say so,” he said with a performance of annoyed arrogance. He could not bear the thought of Dazai’s self-neglect. Although somehow, he’s too frustrated to say or do anything about it, knowing Dazai never listens to anyone when the topic is “self-care.”
Chuuya urged the boy to hurry putting on his sneakers. He then practically dragged Dazai by the scruff of his turtleneck outside his room and shut the door behind.