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There had to be something wrong with Chuuya.
He knew it by the way he stared at his phone, a familiar contact pulled up on it, a profile picture that had been taken four years ago, a name that had been typed in the heat of an argument. Back then it had been volatile and childish, it was the only way he knew how to explain what was between them, how they were each other’s worst nightmare and greatest achievement wrapped in one terrible gift.
Dazai was like a goddamn drug and Chuuya couldn’t get enough of it. He hated it, despised the man for everything he was, that he had gained almost everything Chuuya had dreamed of, how he pulled him into the depths of hell and framed it as a favor.
He could have control over his ability now, but it came with a price that was no different than with the Sheep. Now his ability was a weapon for real crime instead of protection, now he’d devoted himself to an organization who not only used him as a weapon but viewed him as one too, and the only person who tried to change that narrative, in his own terrible ways, had defected and ditched.
Still, Dazai was the only thing that made him feel alive. It transcended his ability, was more than just Tainted and Corruption, as they matured it moved away from the singularity trapped inside of him and further into the genuine feeling of Dazai Osamu being in his orbit.
That was probably why he took the punishment Mori had handed him, torturing him in private like some threat to see if he knew anything about Dazai’s whereabouts.
His contact stared back at him, light illuminating his face as he contemplated. He’d called Dazai many times in the past two weeks, all efforts futile as the man never picked up, still Chuuya tried again. Dazai was like an infection, taking over Chuuya’s life, leaving him for dead with nothing but necrotic skin hanging from the wound.
Chuuya knew he wasn’t dead, he was out there somewhere, lurking in the shadows, getting away with this.
The dial tone rang and he heard the familiar full voicemail box. Chuuya threw his phone so hard across the room it embedded itself in the wall.
—
Chuuya wasn’t sure where he was going, but it was somewhere, anywhere away from the apartment that still reeked of his former partner, still had his socks on the floor and clothes in the closet.
The air was humid against his face but he couldn’t care. He was numb, a flame doused in water from the mere idea of his partner abandoning him. It shouldn’t have come as a surprise; Dazai was a scared animal on his best days, flighty and ready to run at any instance of vulnerability. Chuuya knew why he defected but it didn’t sting any less; Dazai made him feel like he’d actually stay.
It wasn’t the nights they spent side by side speaking truthfully, it wasn’t the times they’d patched each other up, wasn’t the protectiveness they held over each other. Chuuya knew, deep down, locked in his chest, in that organ science told him he had, that it was the amount of trust they had within each other.
Dazai wouldn’t let Chuuya fall, Chuuya wouldn’t let Dazai fall.
Either way, it was over now and Chuuya still needed to clear his mind so he didn’t level the city with the grief he carried. He let his shoes hit the ground in an unfamiliar pattern as he wasn’t walking in step with someone anymore.
His body carried itself through the streets of Yokohama as he slipped into a back alleyway to avoid being seen. There was another figure in the alley but Chuuya tried to pay no mind to them, his route mapped by something larger than himself; for once he would submit to the map the universe wanted him to follow.
Chuuya noticed all too late that he was walking in step with the person down the alley, their shoes hitting the ground with the same cadence. A cadence only one other person on earth knew, one that took four years of bloodshed and death and devotion to understand.
But it couldn’t be, there was no way he was fated to walk down the same alley as his former partner, the man he spent the last two weeks searching everywhere for. It had to be a trick of the universe, some sick and twisted joke that a God he didn’t believe in was playing on him.
Chuuya looked up and saw the back of a head he’d stared at one too many times.
The waves sat unkept now, his shoulders sunken a bit, but his shoes hit the ground with perfect rhythm. Even without seeing his face, Chuuya knew it was exactly who he had been looking for unconsciously when he left his apartment.
He raised his gun and pointed it straight at the back of Dazai’s head.
—
Dazai froze, the sound of a gun’s safety being clicked off was something embedded in him. He didn’t dare to turn around, he knew who was standing behind him. There could only be one person who could get this close, who knew where to look, who had been looking in the first place.
It had to be Chuuya, the only person he thought twice about when leaving the Mafia, the man who had the power to pull him into a death spiral he’d actually enjoy falling in. Dazai didn’t turn around, air swept through the alley and it was enough confirmation of the gravity of the situation.
“Chuuya,” He spoke, voice low and carefully neutral yet hesitant. He didn’t know which version of his partner- former partner he’d find when he turned around, if he turned around. Chuuya could be angry, volatile and destructive. Maybe he’d be a blank slate of nothingness, sent by Mori to kill on sight.
Dazai wasn’t sure he even wanted to find out.
“Dazai.” Chuuya responded, his voice full of determination and anger- Dazai was sure he’d spin to see treachery. He didn’t want to see Chuuya angry with him in his final moments, so he flexed his hands and stayed rooted in place.
The edge of the alleyway was an ironic thing to see in his final moments if, or when, Chuuya pulled the trigger. The first thing he remembered seeing in his life, when he gained the kind of consciousness where he could remember events in his life, it was a fall alleyway, sun poking through the buildings to leave a cascade of light down the middle of the concrete. Now, it was dark, illuminated by distant streetlights and covered in dark blue hues. Ironic.
“Where the fuck have you been?” Chuuya asked, voice lethal and dangerous.
Because that’s what Chuuya was- dangerous. No longer safe, no longer familiar, only dangerous, no matter how badly Dazai wanted him to remain his playful, easy to anger but safe partner, he couldn’t. Not with a life on the run; he could trust nobody.
“Around,” Dazai tried to hide the fact he felt like his heart had fallen out of his chest, his whole body enveloped in a feeling he’d rarely felt- fear.
“That’s not a good enough answer,” Chuuya bit, his voice unwavering.
Dazai heard the gloved finger that moved to the trigger, “Then what do you want to hear?”
“I wanna know why you up and left without sayin’ a word.” Chuuya practically growled, yet Dazai could hear the undertone of grief in his voice.
He knew Chuuya would be angry, explosive even after hearing the news. They had been close, closer than any other relationship Dazai had in the Mafia; partnership and friendship held the same weight to him and he’d lost one and destroyed the other. What he didn’t expect was the grief, an emotion he knew could practically define the man behind him, standing in his ultimate blindspot.
That was the funny part of the situation to Dazai, the fact Chuuya had a gun pointed to his back with a finger on the trigger. He’d pushed Chuuya so far that he was actually a threat to his life and Dazai hadn’t done anything to stop it; he couldn’t.
There was no explanation that could possibly mend the situation. He’d done terrible things to Chuuya, although they were Mori’s ideas and orders, he’d carried them out. He’d left Chuuya after a month long no-contact mission, without a word, only with a bomb under his car and no note.
Dazai wished he would just shoot him.
But grief played a part in Dazai’s life too and he’d just lost his only friend in a horrific way. Selfishly, Dazai wanted Chuuya to cover this all up, engulf him in whatever anger he had inside of him and then take him home. For once in his life, Dazai actually wanted to be comforted, he wanted a shoulder to lean on, to cry on, but he’d demolished that when he left Chuuya in the same hell he pulled him into.
“I can’t give you the answer you want.” Dazai said, voice thin like a rope pulled taut.
He heard Chuuya shift his weight, “Why’s that?”
“You want something well thought out,” Dazai spoke honestly, “You want an answer that is meaningful and- Chuuya, I can’t give you that.”
The sky started to drizzle, it felt like a consequence of sorts, a way to twist the knife further in his former partner’s chest. Chuuya was silent behind him, a stark contrast to his typical personality, the one Dazai knew all too well- but he knew this one too, unfortunately. Chuuya was quiet when he was upset, whether that be angry or sad, it didn’t matter. A quiet Chuuya was one he needed to fear because the repercussions could be deadly.
The silence got to him and Dazai slowly turned around against everything inside of him. He should’ve kept walking and let Chuuya shoot him through the back of his skull but he wanted- no, he needed to see Chuuya’s face before he was blown to bits. He needed the cynical satisfaction that came with it, the first time he felt alive was under that gaze, he needed to be under it when he met his end.
Chuuya’s eyes were dull, mismatched and wet, his face sharp and his clothes casual. He looked like nothing Dazai remembered but like everything he desperately wanted.
“Why’d you leave me here?”
The question punched a hole through Dazai’s chest, wrung his brain out like a washcloth and caused him to suck in a sharp breath. There was no hiding here, under Chuuya’s watchful eyes, ones that held so much anguish he thought he would be swallowed whole by it. Dazai’s feet itched with the urge to run but he stayed in place until his body was fully facing Chuuya.
Once again, there was no good answer he could give him. None that held a candle to the truth, which was that Chuuya was his only consideration when he defected from the Mafia. Of course Odasaku’s words pushed him out, told him to leave and he did, but Chuuya had the power to change his mind, had the power to hold him down and keep him in purgatory.
Yet the question didn’t come across how Dazai thought Chuuya would react. Chuuya was angry because Dazai left him in the Mafia, didn’t even give him the chance to explain himself, and fuck, Chuuya deserved that, after everything he’d pulled Dazai out of, Dazai should’ve given him the time of day.
“I couldn’t stay,” Was what came out of Dazai’s mouth, pathetic and short and nothing of what Chuuya deserved but the only thing Dazai could muster.
“That’s not what I asked,” Chuuya wouldn’t relent, his arm still outstretched, his finger still heavy on the trigger, his eyes still full of pure devastation.
Dazai would rather Chuuya be angry.
“I couldn’t, Chuuya,” Dazai felt pathetic for begging but he needed Chuuya to understand, “I couldn’t stay after what happened-”
“Don’t.” Chuuya cut him off coldly, eyes narrowing as he spoke, “I already know.”
“Then you understand,” Dazai reasoned with himself more than Chuuya with the sentence, “Mori was behind it, he’s always behind everything.”
“And what?” Chuuya’s voice was accusatory, “Didn’t think I was worth tellin’?”
Something in the sentence made Dazai’s heart thump hard in his chest, the undying fear that Mori was orchestrating this, that the anguish in Chuuya’s eyes wasn’t actually Dazai’s fault but Mori’s. That he’d sent him here to kill him and now Chuuya was grieving an outcome he knew he couldn’t change.
Dazai couldn’t help himself as he asked, “Did Mori put you up to this?”
“You wanna know what Mori did?” Chuuya looked wrecked, “He tossed me in the basement with the goddamn rats until I could prove my fuckin’ loyalty to him.”
It was a situation Dazai thought he protected Chuuya from, a final act of devotion, by placing that bomb in his car. He thought Mori would take that as enough proof that Chuuya didn’t aid Dazai in leaving, that Mori wasn’t losing both of his biggest weapons, that he could keep Chuuya-
That he could keep Chuuya.
The flaw in his logic was right there. Mori had seen parts of him even he didn’t see; there was no universe where Dazai would willingly let anyone else have Chuuya, own him, use him. Mori saw the bomb as a decoy rather than proof Chuuya didn’t help him.
“No,” Dazai shook his head at the revelation, “I set that bomb so he wouldn’t think you helped me.”
“Well it didn’t work.” Chuuya spit, the rain cascading down his face in a way Dazai could only see as tragically beautiful, something he thought quite often of Chuuya.
“I didn’t mean for it-” Dazai, for once in his life, was struggling to find the words to remedy this, “I didn’t intend for him to think you helped.”
“Your intentions don’t mean shit to him,” Chuuya sucked in a breath before doubling down, “Or me for that matter,” he blinked once, twice, “I couldn’t even get a goddamn heads up.”
“I couldn’t Chuuya, he would’ve tortured you,” Dazai’s voice was betraying him, he should be cold and calculating, he should be distant yet he was giving in to the feelings in his chest.
“He did anyway, what don’t you get about that?” Chuuya’s anger was back, “He strung me up down there like I committed treason because of you.”
Dazai didn’t respond.
“He made me pledge loyalty to him through days of the torture methods you created,” Chuuya was seething, the gun in his hand shaking as his voice wavered slightly, “To him, not to the Mafia.”
“Chuuya, I-” Dazai cut himself off, unable to think fast enough to come up with something to fix the mess he’d created. With an uncharacteristic breath, he broke eye contact with the only person he’d ever fully trusted and stared down at the pools of rain water that had begun to form by his shoes, “I didn’t mean for this to happen.”
“You didn’t?” Chuuya was exasperated, “You left me high and dry without a fuckin’ word and you tell me you didn’t mean for this to happen?”
Dazai, once again, couldn’t bring himself to respond.
“After everything-”
“I lost Odasaku!” Dazai was shaking as he lifted his head to look anywhere but Chuuya, “Mori played his hand as he always does and got him fucking killed!”
“Yeah?” Chuuya challenged, gun still outstretched, head cocking to the side, “I lost you.”
The words caused Dazai’s head to snap to Chuuya’s, their eyes locking with the admission heavy in the air. Rain fell down harder, soaking the both of them as they let the words truly sink in.
“I was chained up for days to pledge a loyalty I don’t fully have,” Chuuya spoke, his words laced with melancholy and fire, “I understand grief,” the words held a weight neither of them wanted to bare, “I don’t understand treating our partnership like it was only part of Mori’s fuckin’ plan.”
“It was a sacrifice I had to make to leave-”
“What about my fuckin’ sacrifices?”
Dazai couldn’t look away if he wanted to; he knew the things he’d asked Chuuya to do, whether he spoke them aloud or not. He knew, acutely, the amount of sacrifice that was woven into Chuuya’s life, how it made him into the perfect pawn for an organization like the Port Mafia. At fifteen, he didn’t care, he was following orders, but at eighteen, having lost his closest friend, he regretted ever feeding Chuuya to the hungry mouth of Mori.
Chuuya, the man standing in front of him, with a gun pointed directly at his forehead, deserved so much more than the life he’d been given.
The silence stretched, both of them letting the words settle over the fight. Dazai realized this was one of the handful of times they’d ever fought about something worth fighting about. Most of the time it was petulant, annoying things that they found annoying about each other but here, now, with the rain coming down around them, in a desolate alley on the outskirts of Yokohama, they were fighting over staying in each other’s lives.
The realization begged Dazai to ask the question he should’ve led with.
“What has your loyalty then, Chuuya?”
It didn’t come out cunning or sly like his questions usually did. Instead, it held some sort of desperation, hoping for an answer he didn’t want, yet it was obvious. The trust they held between them was unbreaking, even when Chuuya had been tortured with methods Dazai knew were downright awful, he’d sworn a loyalty that belonged to only one person.
“You.”
Everything came down tenfold as Dazai’s knees gave out from underneath him. The heaviness that had been circling him since he was a child came down like a ton of bricks, forcing his body downwards without any grace, pinning him to the wet concrete like he was nothing.
His hands hit the ground and his head hung between his shoulders, it was all too much. Dazai didn’t want Chuuya to be collateral damage to something he had no part in, Chuuya hadn’t done anything bad to him, Chuuya hadn’t hurt him- sure they traded punches and insults but Chuuya always had his blindside, patched him up and didn’t judge him for what he was. If anything, Chuuya reeled him back into his humanity, kicking a gun from his hands when he lost his mind, tossing a punch across his face when he treated Colonel’s death like an opportunity.
Dazai lost Odasaku and by his own hands, forced himself to lose Chuuya too.
The person who trusted him, the person he couldn’t break, the person who wouldn’t break him.
“I won’t-” Dazai heaved a breath, “Chuuya, I won’t go back.”
There was an unfamiliar wetness on his face, one that wasn’t because of the rain. Dazai’s eyes clouded over as the weight of his own existence held him down. He couldn’t bare it, everything was too much.
“I’m not asking you to.”
Dazai pulled his head up to search Chuuya’s eyes.
“You can’t come with me.” Dazai said, as if it was a rule in the game he’d created.
“I don’t want to.” Chuuya’s voice was steady as he slowly lowered his gun, letting it hang by his side, finger still on the trigger.
Dazai couldn’t wrap his head around it, “Then why coming looking for me?” his voice was desperate, “Why put on this whole show if you don’t want me back in the Mafia?”
“Because I don’t want to abandon our partnership.” Chuuya said, “I let the torture happen, I swore myself away because I knew you weren’t dead, and I know you have a plan.”
“What if the plan puts us on opposite sides of the field?” Dazai asked, not imagining how this could possibly work out. He had done everything in his power to make sure Chuuya wouldn’t come looking for him and the man had done it anyway.
“So what if it does?” Chuuya took a few steps forward and knelt down in front of him, one knee hitting the puddle Dazai had been staring at a moment ago.
Dazai continued scanning his face, “We could be forced to fight each other, Chuuya, you don’t want this.”
Dazai watched as Chuuya’s face morphed into one of regret, an expression so intense Dazai swore he could feel what drove Chuuya to make it in the first place.
“You don’t get to tell me what I want,” Chuuya breathed, the fight gone from his body, the anger replaced with something that scared Dazai.
Dazai whispered, “What do you want?”
“I want you to come home with me,” Chuuya said as he pocketed his gun, “I want you to tell me everything that happened.”
Dazai wanted to refute, of course he did. Every bone in his body wanted him to run, but the adrenaline had crashed in his system and most importantly, the beating organ in his chest was telling him something different, the same organ he ignored for the past four years, the thing that had become his biggest enemy.
“And I want you to stay.”
—
Five years later, Dazai signed his freedom away on a dotted line.
The defeat of the Decay of Angels came with a price, as everything did in their wretched world. Everything had gone according to plan and his trust in Chuuya hadn’t failed him, again. The Agency and Port Mafia worked in tandem, held a solid truce that looked like it was going to continue.
Of course it would, especially with Dazai back in the jaws of the hell he’d escaped from.
The cool concrete of Oda’s gravestone was a grounding feeling behind his neck, in the small space between his bandages and hair. He leaned against it as if it would prop him up, shield him from the cracks in his own composure when he’d found out the news- or when he’d deduced it.
Dazai knew he shouldn’t think too far into it, he was a soul drenched in the darkness, it didn’t matter how hard he’d try to run from it, the past was a very unforgiving ghost, something that wouldn’t die no matter how hard he tried to kill it. He’d wrapped hands around the throat of his demons and attempted to rid the world of them, but his efforts must’ve been futile in comparison to all the wrongs he’d committed.
“Thought I’d find you here,” A familiar voice came from behind him and Dazai didn’t need to turn around to know who it was.
A hand came down on his shoulder as Chuuya came to sit beside him.
It reminded Dazai of a terrible night, one where he was laid bare in front of Chuuya, a night where Dazai decided to give into Chuuya, where he gave everything he was to the man to do whatever he pleased with it, where Chuuya let him lay out all his wrongdoings and chose to stay anyway.
Despite or in spite of everything wrong with Dazai, he wasn’t sure.
“We’re gonna get you out of this,” Chuuya whispered, his voice laced with a protective tone in it. He’d said, with more or less words, that the light looked good on Dazai, that he was glad Dazai made it out of the Mafia and now it was going to be stripped from him.
“Mori always gets what he wants,” Dazai spoke, voice mechanical.
“Not always,” Chuuya breathed, “Not this time.”
Dazai let his head fall from Odasaku’s headstone and onto Chuuya’s steady shoulder, his partner’s warmth radiating off of him. Here, he was propped up by the two most important people in his life. The only two people who saw him as more than a weapon, the only two people who truly gave him a chance to prove he was more than a tool at Mori’s disposal.
He’d make it out of this.