Chapter 1: "Double Black, all this shit"
Summary:
With Yokohama in shambles and the Port Mafia on the rampage, Dazai decides to flee. He asks Chuuya to come with him.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
One. Two. Three. Four.
He lost count and started again.
Twelve, fourteen… No, that’s wrong. He’d lost count again.
Chuuya started over again and again, ignoring the commotion in the warehouse as if the horde of armed men in a circle around him didn’t exist, paying no mind to the tall man clad in black standing in front of him, as he kneeled in front of Dazai, trying to count bullet holes in his chest.
“Chuuya-kun,” Mori finally said, plastering the sweetest of smiles across his face, “do you realise your mistake now?”
Chuuya raised his head and stared through his boss. Ex-boss. Fifteen. That’s how many he’d counted until he lost count again. That’s how old they were when they first met. You grow young again, Dazai’s voice singing the song echoed in his head. It took Chuuya a minute to focus his blurry vision on Mori’s face. Why couldn’t he see properly? Why were his eyes burning? He squeezed Dazai’s hand, but he didn’t react. Why won’t you squeeze back? Chuuya thought and looked down on Dazai’s motionless face, absentmindedly erasing a thin trickle of blood flowing out of his mouth with his thumb. You’ll need to shave when we get out of here, Chuuya thought when his thumb went across prickly stubble. He blinked, feeling something hot running down his face, as he remained motionless, slumped on his knees in front of the body lying in front of him. The pool of dark blood kept growing under Dazai, dark wings of an angel of death slowly spreading wider and wider with each passing second.
Mori nodded at someone behind Chuuya, and the next moment, two pairs of strong arms stood him upright. With the energy he didn’t know he had, Chuuya yanked the goons off, sending them flying to the wall in a red flash of For the Tainted Sorrow.
“Fighting back, Chuuya-kun?” Mori crooned, tilting his head and pouting. “Haven't this situation,” he nodded at Dazai’s body on the floor, his glassy eyes staring at the ceiling, their amber warmth that felt like home for Chuuya, gone, “ taught you that you should never try to go against the Port Mafia?”
Chuuya’s vision started clearing. His legs were shaky, but he still stood tall, realisation coming to him in devastating waves with every breath he took.
Dazai was dead.
They failed to escape.
They never intended to go against the Port Mafia. All they wanted was to start anew, opening a new page, ripping out the blood-stained ones and leaving them behind for good. Chuuya tried to take a deep breath to tell Mori exactly that, but he let out a sob instead, his shoulders jerking up and down in a frantic motion. Mori laughed, his cold metallic cackling resonating around the walls of the warehouse.
“How heartbreaking,” he said, taking a step forward and kicking Dazai’s shoulder. His limp, lifeless neck moved on impact, and his head rolled to the side. “So sad, I could cry!” He laughed and kicked Dazai again, the sharp cracking of breaking ribs making Chuuya see white.
“O grantors of dark disgrace,” he whispered, his voice shaky, as he stared at Dazai’s lifeless body lying in the puddle of his own blood, “you need not wake me again.”
He had just lost everything.
He could at least go out with a bang.
He could at least take the root of his misery with him.
He felt his body slowly lift in the air. The last thing he saw before his mind succumbed to Arahabaki completely was Mori’s terrified gaze as he was desperately screaming something to his men, not realising that it was too late, that not even the most powerful man in Yokohama could win against the ancient god unleashed from the confines of Chuuya’s body. His limbs started moving on their own accord, releasing gravitons left and right, and then—
—there was nothing.
Three weeks ago
Dazai had always hated his birthday.
No matter how many years had passed since he first thought about it, his stance remained the same — nothing in this world could ever make this life worth living. There was no point in celebrating yet another excruciatingly tedious full circle around the Sun he spent wasting oxygen wishing he had never been born. Dazai remembered this day exactly one year ago, when he walked into the Agency office and was greeted by beaming Atsushi and Kenji yelling “Happy birthday!” at the top of their lungs and handing him a gift bag. That was basically it, because every single one of his coworkers — ex-coworkers, Dazai corrected himself sorrowfully — knew how much exactly he despised that day, so they didn’t try to attract more attention to it. Dazai appreciated it. He also appreciated the subtle gestures of recognition that day, such as Ranpo generously giving him exactly one candy from his stash, Kyoka bringing him lunch, and Kunikida turning a blind eye to Dazai’s signature slacking off for once. It was as if his coworkers — ex-coworkers — friends — were telling him We are glad you’ve stuck around. He swallowed and rolled the window down, his other hand firmly gripping the steering wheel as he drove through the dark streets of Yokohama. He winced at the pungent smell of smoke and floored the gas pedal, speeding through yet another red light. He didn’t care much about getting a ticket. After all, it wasn’t even his car. After all, who would even issue him a ticket at a time like this?
Yokohama was in shambles.
It all started when Fukuzawa died under mysterious circumstances, his broken body found under the windows of Mori’s office on the very day when the Port Mafia’s leader was on a business trip to Tokyo, his hands clean of any possible allegations. With the president dead, the Armed Detective Agency was no more, despite Kunikida’s enormous effort to keep it together, taking over the role of the president with his usual diligence and vigour. That was the job Fukuzawa had been preparing him for for years; however, no one, including Kunikida himself, ever expected the shift in power to happen so soon. The organisation started falling apart brick by brick, starting with Ranpo disappearing without a trace upon learning of his mentor’s demise, his glasses and uneaten sweets left scattered all over his desk, followed by Yosano leaving a note saying “I will bring him back”, just to never be seen again. The enormous shock from the loss, coupled with no more aid from All Men Are Equal, made Atsushi’s ability get out of control despite the great progress he’d made during his time in the Agency. Kunikida and Kyouka combined efforts, desperately trying to contain his power with the Lone Poet and the Demon Snow until Atsushi disappeared without a trace as well.
With the Agency out of the picture, the Port Mafia went on the rampage in order to make Yokohama their domain, with grandiose plans to slowly but surely spread their influence to the entire country. News reports about shootouts, kidnappings and terrorist attacks became the new normal, something the remaining residents of the city would discuss while drinking their morning coffee. The malignant tumour that was the Mafia was slowly spreading further, with even the most oblivious citizens realising that sooner or later, there would be no escape from the desperate situation Japan had found itself in. The Mafia fought some gangs and worked with others. It bribed, blackmailed and bent the law. At some point, the situation developed into a full-blown war between the Mafia and the local government. It lasted only a few days; however, the damage it caused was comparable to the notorious Dragon Head Conflict.
The turning point in it happened when the state troops destroyed four of the Mafia headquarters’ skyscrapers; almost immediately, it had to wave the white flag when Mori planned and executed a terrorist attack on the metro during rush hour, with hundreds dead and thousands injured. That final blow that the city was still recovering from made the local government stop trying to fight back, finally succumbing to the Port Mafia, making the organisation the de facto ruler of the city, with Mori sitting on the throne and pulling the strings.
Dazai turned the steering wheel, brakes screeching as he turned the corner and continued down a wide avenue that still had some working street lights on. He was almost at his destination. It was just at the end of the avenue. He just needed another couple of minu-
BANG
Dazai swore and floored the pedal again, his heart almost leaping out of his chest at the gnarly symphony of gunshots and automatic rounds mixed with inhuman yelling, still quite far away ahead of him, yet completely unavoidable. “Shit, not now! Not now!” he screamed at the top of his lungs, knuckles white, clutching the steering wheel, his heart pounding in his throat, the long stretch of the road with nowhere else to turn feeling like a runway straight to hell. He saw a helicopter approach from where one of the Port Mafia skyscrapers still stood tall and glanced at the speedometer. It had maxed out, the arrow jumping at 200 km/h in the same rhythm as Dazai’s heart.
His eye caught a burst of gunfire coming from the helicopter, immediately followed by the deafening sound of automatic rounds aimed at the armed group on the street, the cacophony getting louder and louder the closer Dazai’s car approached it. The noises got even more unbearable when he wheezed right past the commotion, until everything stopped abruptly, the sound of the helicopter getting quieter and quieter the farther away it flew. Dazai breathed out. He wasn’t hit. He survived. Dazai glanced in the rear-view mirror — the residential building next to which the carnage had happened caught fire, flames licking the walls, horrified tenants running out of it, stopping in their tracks and screaming at the sight of mangled dead bodies on the pavement, probably resembling minced meat more than human beings after the helicopter attack.
He gritted his teeth and took his eyes off the mirror, focusing on the remaining stretch of the road in front of him instead. There was no point in coming back and helping the people still trapped in the burning building. Dazai would be as good as dead had he done so.
Every man for himself, he thought, and Oda’s face flashed before his eyes. He blinked, trying to get rid of the image, guilt in his heart twisting and tearing it apart.
Dazai parked the car on the pavement in front of the posh high-rise and rushed inside, not even bothering to shut the car door. The elevator dinged on the 41st floor, and Dazai hurried to the oak door with a certain name on the dainty golden plaque. He took a deep breath and rang the doorbell.
“Harassing me on your birthday?” Chuuya spat out with disgust, leaning against the door frame. “What a lovely present you came up with for yourself, eh, shitty Dazai?” Chuuya didn’t look good. Seemed like these few weeks of what had basically been a civil war had worn him out. He had dark circles under his eyes and small wounds on his chin where he'd cut himself shaving, still missing patches of dark copper stray hairs here and there.
Dazai tried to fake a smile. “You remember? How sweet of you,” he chirped, but it came out strained.
“Unfortunately so,” Chuuya responded, turning his back to Dazai and walking inside the apartment, leaving the door open. “Every year, I make a wish that you don’t make it to your next one.” He picked up a book lying on his armchair and sat down, putting his legs on the coffee table.
Dazai walked in and closed the door behind him. He is still bitter, Dazai thought, following Chuuya into the living room and shifting on the carpet awkwardly, like a schoolboy in front of the headteacher’s office, about to confess to breaking the window in the school cafeteria. He did not like this feeling one bit. He tried to plaster a smile across his face, but it came out more like a scowl instead. Another smile looked more like a gruesome grimace. He hung his head and sighed. Honestly, he had no energy to keep up his cheerful look. He dropped his façade and got straight to the point.
“I’m leaving Yokohama.”
Chuuya cast a quick glance at Dazai and focused his attention on the book again, indifference painting every edge and line on his face. “Ha! How typical of you. Wouldn’t be the first time this happens.”
Dazai took a deep breath. It didn’t take his exceptional prediction skills to know Chuuya was going to say exactly that. He looked at his shoes. Clumps of dirt flaking off his soles were staining Chuuya’s antique Persian carpet, one of his most prized possessions. Absentmindedly, Dazai crushed one of the particularly large clumps with his foot, smearing black on milky beige. Chibi was, after all, such a philistine, and it was weirdly out of character for him not to kick Dazai out the very moment he’d decided to walk into his apartment without taking his shoes off.
“There is no way you are fine with what’s happening in Yokohama, Chuuya.”
“It’s all alright for me,” Chuuya said, not taking his eyes off the book this time. “After all, the Port Mafia is winning.” His face didn’t reveal any of his emotions, but it didn’t escape Dazai’s attention that Chuuya’d been stuck on the same page for a while now.
“Really? I heard you’ve been calling in sick quite often lately.”
“I am sick.” Chuuya looked up from the book and gave Dazai a cold stare. He raised his fist to his mouth and coughed theatrically. “I am a responsible citizen, after all,” he said, drilling Dazai with his heavy gaze. “I don’t go to work when I'm not well.”
Silence fell upon them. Dazai was the first to break it.
“Come with me.”
Chuuya shut the book and slammed it on the coffee table, swiftly taking his legs off it and leaning forward in his seat, staring at Dazai with unblinking eyes. Something was missing from Chuuya’s usually fiery, passionate gaze. The azure oceans of his eyes got murky, as if the water got tainted with debris from a shipwreck.
“Are you shitting me?” he finally said.
“No. Chuuya, I’m serious. Come with me.”
Come with me. Dazai’s voice echoed in Chuuya’s head, amplified a hundredfold. Come with me. Seven years ago, when Dazai defected, abandoning everything and everyone overnight, Chuuya spent countless lonely evenings pondering over one question, downing glass after glass — why did he run without me? Chuuya scowled, feeling rage rise in every single cell of his body. Come with me. The words Chuuya would kill to hear back then, now made him want to smash Dazai’s face flat, making him regret he even considered suggesting that Chuuya betray the Mafia and join the traitorous bastard in his escapade. Chuuya had to muster all his strength not to rip the mackerel to shreds right here and now. He took a deep breath.
“Are you seriously suggesting I leave everything behind? Everything I’ve earned with my hard work?”
“There are more important things in life than your carpets or your collection of wine,” Dazai said quietly.
Chuuya scoffed. “Really? Are you implying that you’re more important than my wine?”
Dazai swallowed and breathed out. “Maybe,” he said, barely audible. This whole exchange started looking ridiculous, unrealistic, as if Dazai was watching himself from afar, pointlessly talking to the person he was once inseparable from.
“You’re not,” Chuuya snapped. “I couldn’t care less if you live or die, if you run or stay. You lost the right to my sympathy years ago. I’m not doing you any favours ever again.”
Dazai’s ears rang, and he realised he couldn’t feel his legs anymore as he felt air leaving his lungs. He stared at Chuuya, feeling him slip through his fingers once again, except this time it felt final. “Please,” he said, “please, let me make this right this time. I should have asked you to run away with me back then.” His voice cracked. “I can’t lose you again, Chuuya.”
Chuuya stared at Dazai with nothing but contempt, not granting him an answer. He was the most selfless person Dazai knew, and a few times he was lucky enough to experience it firsthand. This time, however, when Dazai looked in Chuuya’s eyes, he was greeted only by the dead, unforgiving coldness.
He’s made up his mind, hasn’t he? Dazai thought, desperately trying to see at least a minuscule sliver of compassion in Chuuya’s eyes.
He has.
I’m leaving alone.
In a fit of desperation, Dazai fell to his knees.
“Please, come with me,” he begged, crawling forward and grabbing Chuuya’s hand. “Chuuya, please!”
He hissed and yanked his hand out of Dazai’s grip, wiping it on his sweatpants, the look of disgust on his face making Dazai’s heart sink.
“Don’t you touch me, bastard,” Chuuya growled, clenching his fists.
Dazai felt his eyes starting to burn as the world spun around him. His whole life had already crumbled, and there was just one last wall standing strong, and now even it was falling apart, about to tip over, reduced to nothing but a rubble of broken brick and old mortar.
“Tell me no. Tell me you won’t run with me,” Dazai pleaded. “Tell me no, and I will leave.”
Chuuya said nothing, burrowing his gaze into Dazai’s eyes. Suddenly, he looked ten years older, his youthful cheeky facial expression gone, erased by the destruction and violence around. “I mean it,” Dazai added almost inaudibly.
Telling Dazai “no” was supposed to be the easiest thing for Chuuya to do. He had done it countless times, only budging to the mackerel’s sneaky ways when it was absolutely necessary. He felt this simple word form on his tongue, the familiar combination of sounds that would rid him of Dazai’s presence forever, fulfilling his almost-life-long dream of never seeing the bandage waster ever again.
He opened his mouth, but no sound came out, his own voice betraying him.
The voice of reason in his head screamed loud and clear: no. No, Dazai. Go away. Get out of my life. I never want to see you again. No, no, no.
Chuuya knew he needed to tell Dazai to leave him alone.
He knew that a simple “no” would set him free from Dazai’s omnipresent toxicity.
He couldn’t bring himself to do it.
Chuuya thought of the world where Dazai was no longer in his life, of the world that should feel wonderful and free. The world where the main source of grey hairs on Chuuya’s head was nowhere to be found, erased from his life for good. Then why, when he imagined his new Dazai-less life, did it look like all the colours in it faded to dull grayscale?
Chuuya stared at Dazai, still kneeling in front of him, as the stress of the past few weeks came rushing at him like a tsunami, breaking the carefully constructed façade Chuuya had been trying to maintain in the new situation he'd found himself in.
It was killing him.
Destroying his city and reading all the news reports describing the atrocities he had committed was killing him. The unthinkable crimes that had been happening with his silent approval were killing him. He couldn’t bring himself to say “no” to Mori-san’s orders, and neither could he bear looking at the mangled bodies of civilians falling victim to the turf wars Chuuya was responsible for. Whenever he came back home from yet another bloodbath, he would spend hours in the shower, desperately trying to wash off everything that had happened during the day, but no matter how hard he scrubbed, the stench of blood of the innocent seemed to have seeped into every pore of his skin.
He couldn’t leave the Mafia.
He couldn’t stay in it, either.
Dazai stared at him with pleading eyes, not saying a word, his hand still extended toward Chuuya, trying to bridge the gap that was growing between them with each passing second. Mackerel. Bandage waster. Demon Prodigy. He’d been in Chuuya’s shoes and he broke out of the endless circle of violence, and while nothing could ever erase the crimes Dazai had committed in the past, he was at least in that goddamn world of light that Chuuya never had the chance to become a part of, the opportunity mercilessly ripped out of his hands, disappearing with the last breath detective Murase took. Chuuya thought of what the Mafia would do had he decided to run, and the consequent manhunt that would surely be announced the moment Mori-san realised Chuuya had fled. No doubt, they would do anything to bring Chuuya back, or, more likely, execute him on the spot for daring to defect at the time so crucial for the organisation. Chuuya’s heart sank as he thought of everyone he would be leaving behind. Kouyou. Aku. Tachihara. Dozens of other people so dear to him, the people who had become Chuuya’s found family and accepted him as one of their own.
Maybe Dazai was just a little bit braver than Chuuya. Maybe he was just a little bit better than Chuuya. He shut his eyes and opened his mouth, ready to say no. I’m not going with you. Go away.
He sighed and opened his eyes.
Dazai’s pleading stare made Chuuya swallow his words. There was not a hint of hollowness in them that Dazai used to have in his time in the Mafia. The raw emotion in his eyes took Chuuya aback, and no matter how desperate the look in Dazai’s eyes was, it was something real, something genuine, something heartfelt.
Chuuya’s heart skipped a beat.
“Okay,” he said with defeat, taking a moment to process what he'd just agreed to. He looked at Dazai’s outstretched hand, which used to be covered in the blood of thousands, just like Chuuya’s. Nothing on his pale skin gave away anything about Dazai’s violent past. Maybe I could erase my sins, too, Chuuya thought, moving his gaze to Dazai’s dumbfounded face, his mouth slightly open in disbelief. “Okay. Let’s run,” he said with more confidence and stood up.
Dazai did not move. He kept staring at Chuuya with wide eyes, as if not fully grasping what Chuuya had just said. “Seriously?” he whispered, his shoulders slumping and arms falling limp along his torso.
“Give me your phone,” Chuuya said, and when Dazai didn’t react, he reached into his pocket and fished it out. Glowing red, Chuuya smashed Dazai’s phone against the floor, reducing it to a bunch of useless broken microchips squashed by enormous gravity. Chuuya took his phone off charge and did the same to it. “Hope you have cash on you, shitty mackerel,” Chuuya said and went to his bedroom. Dazai heard the sound of the sliding door of his walk-in closet open as he followed Chuuya with his eyes, still not moving and not quite registering that Chuuya had just agreed to escape Yokohama with him. No matter how much he wanted him to, he didn’t dare keep his hopes up. The feeling of crippling loneliness was so deeply ingrained in him, it was only natural that his road to freedom would also be as lonely as everything else in his life. Chuuya came back to the living room with a thick wad of cash in one hand and a handgun in the other. “The fuck are you still on the floor for?” he asked in annoyance, prodding Dazai with his foot.
Dazai stood up. “Yeah,” he croaked. “I do have cash.” He blinked and looked at the gun in Chuuya’s hand. “Do you, by any chance, have another one for me?”
Chuuya clicked his tongue. “You bet!” He went to the walk-in closet again and came back with an identical gun and an extra box of ammo. “Gimme 5 minutes,” Chuuya said, walking into his bathroom and rummaging through cabinets.
Dazai plopped onto the couch and hung his head, putting his elbows on his knees and burying his face in his hands.
None of this felt real. It couldn’t possibly have been.
It didn’t feel real when Chuuya walked up to him with a backpack on his back and smacked him on the shoulder, urging him to stand up.
It didn’t feel real when they went down in the elevator, crushed by the sinking feeling of leaving the old life behind with each passing floor.
It didn’t feel real when they got into the car, Dazai’s things in it untouched, the door still wide open.
It didn’t feel real when Dazai started the car and they drove through poorly-lit streets toward the edge of the city, up north. None of them said a word, the steady hum of the engine acting as an ambient soundtrack accompanying them on their journey god-knew-where. Chuuya didn’t bother asking where the hell they were going — Dazai probably had an elaborate escape plan. After all, he wasn’t the Port Mafia’s top strategist for nothing back in the day.
“It’s selfish,” Chuuya said quietly after they approached Kawasaki, almost halfway to Tokyo. He was watching the lights of the capital in the distance, still shining bright, light reflecting in his dull irises, the halo of light pollution illuminating the sky above the concrete jungle of high-rises.
“Can we just put our own happiness first for once?” Dazai responded, never taking his eyes off the road.
“Our happiness?” Chuuya asked bitterly. When Dazai said nothing, he sighed and continued. “Aren’t you breaking the promise you gave Oda? Protecting the weak and all this bullshit?”
Dazai’s face contorted as he thought of his friend, whose memory he was tarnishing at this very moment when he’d decided to cowardly escape instead of staying in Yokohama and fighting for it. “I am,” he finally said. “I know. But I need to think about myself.”
“Yup, this does sound selfish as fuck,” Chuuya said, leaning back in the seat. “Running away with your tail between your legs,” he mumbled, turning his head away from Dazai and watching the stretch of the road behind them disappear through the rear-view mirror.
Chuuya wasn’t sure when exactly he fell asleep — probably the moment they got on the toll road and Dazai hit the gas. He wasn’t sure how long he slept for, either. He shot his eyes open when the car suddenly stopped. He rubbed his eyes and saw a straight stretch of the road in front of them, the car’s emergency lights reflecting in the road sign a few meters away. It was dark in the car, and Chuuya’s stomach growled from hunger. He would really love to eat something right now.
“Why did we stop?” Chuuya asked, yawning.
Dazai removed his hands from the steering wheel; however, he was still staring at it, neck stiff as if he was physically unable to turn to Chuuya and look at him. “Isohara train station is east, at two o’clock, about 1.5 kilometres from here. You can’t miss it.” He swallowed and looked into the driver’s window.
“Train station? Why?” Chuuya asked, still bleary from his nap, feeling like he was missing something in the conversation.
“In case you’ve changed your mind,” he said emotionlessly.
“I didn’t,” Chuuya grumbled, getting annoyed with Dazai yet again. “I’m coming with you. Double Black, all this shit,” he said, trying to crack a smile.
Dazai finally looked at him with a hint of fondness — or was it sadness? — in his eyes. “Yeah,” he said. “Double Black.”
With that, Dazai floored it, and they sped into the night.
Notes:
Thank you for reading! My twitter: https://twitter.com/daot_noen
Next chapter:
The star that doesn’t show the way
Their first night on the run takes an unexpected turn. They head for one of Dazai’s safehouses and lay low in Koriyama.
Chapter 2: The star that doesn’t show the way
Summary:
Their first night on the run takes an unexpected turn. They head for one of Dazai’s safehouses and lay low in Koriyama.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
The straight stretch of the highway and cars whooshing past them kept lulling Chuuya to sleep as they drove through the endless night. His eyelids were growing heavy, and he felt himself succumbing to sleep when the car suddenly swerved, making Chuuya smash the side of his head against the passenger window.
The fender scraped along the crash barrier with a shrill metallic noise, drawing out a bright burst of sparks and making Chuuya jolt in his seat and grab the steering wheel, frantically turning the car back into its lane. Dazai gasped and tensed in the driver’s seat, clutching the steering wheel with shaky hands.
“You fucker!” Chuuya yelled, glaring at Dazai. “Are you trying to get us killed?”
Dazai said nothing, staring at the road with bleary eyes, hands on the steering wheel still trembling. “Sorry,” he finally croaked and yawned, taking one unsteady hand off the steering wheel and covering his mouth.
“We need to sleep,” Chuuya said, tilting his head and looking up at the starry sky. “It must be around midnight already."
Dazai shook his head. “We need to drive,” he said, glancing at Chuuya. “There’s no time to waste.”
“Listen here, mackerel,” Chuuya snapped. “I guess if you actually crash into the barrier, we won’t have to worry about the Port Mafia hunting us down or anything else, for that matter. Is this what you’re trying to do, hah?”
Dazai stayed silent. He desperately tried to keep his eyes open, but these past couple of weeks had worn him out like nothing ever had before, and his eyelids kept stubbornly falling closed no matter how hard he tried to stay awake. Back in the day, while he was still in the Port Mafia, he could go on without proper sleep for days, if not weeks. The older he got, the more difficult a chore it became.
“I know you have the map of Japan memorised,” Chuuya continued, not satisfied with the lack of response. “Is there anything nearby? A village? A shopping mall? We just need a parking lot, really, and we will be all set to sleep.”
Dazai chuckled and shook his head in what was, perhaps, a bit of amusement. Chuuya did know him pretty well, and he was, in the end, the perfect candidate to accompany him in this grand escape. He was right — Dazai did have the map memorised, all the cities, rivers, villages, highways, exits and whatnot falling into place in his brain, as if there was a built-in GPS-navigator in his head. “There is a temple nearby, in Naraha,” Dazai finally said after some consideration. “Maybe 20 minutes away from here. I’ll take the next exit. We’ll park there.”
Chuuya hummed in response, also trying his best to keep his eyes open. He mustered the last of his energy and focused on the road, watching the streetlights whoosh past, glancing at Dazai every now and then to make sure he didn’t fall asleep again, and if he did, to take the wheel from his useless, crabby claws. He reached out to the car radio and turned it on, the sudden loud sound of commercials making Dazai jump in his seat. Chuuya chuckled and leaned against the passenger door. Despite their predicament, it was, in a way, therapeutic to look at the endless stretch of the road to the lively music playing on the radio, lazily following the lights going past them with his tired eyes.
“We’re here,” Dazai said, shaking Chuuya’s shoulder. Shit. He seemed to have fallen asleep, after all. Well, considering they weren’t wrapped around a street light pole, Dazai managed to get to their destination successfully.
“Thanks for not killing us.” Chuuya yawned and opened the car door, stepping out and taking a deep breath, smiling in contentment. He had always thought the night air in the countryside hit differently — fresh, crisp, rejuvenating even. It was like drinking ice-cold water from an underground spring on a scorching summer day. He stretched and kicked his legs, that started getting stiff after hours of sitting in a small car. The unmistakable salty scent of the ocean reached his nostrils, and his smile automatically widened. He might have been going away from home, never to be back again, but the distinctive smell of seaweed mixed with salt had always grounded him and made him feel the unbreakable connection to his roots.
Dazai came out of the car, too, and walked around it, standing next to Chuuya and looking around.
“Wanna pray, mackerel?” Chuuya asked, gesturing at the temple in the distance.
“No. I don’t believe in gods.”
Chuuya clicked his tongue and took off his jacket. “I’ll sleep in the back,” he said, opening the rear door and climbing onto the back seat, burrowing himself under the jacket as an improvised blanket. He lay on his side and put his hands under his cheek, finally closing his tired eyes. There was certainly not enough space to be anywhere near comfortable, but it was one of the times when he was happy he was small enough to be able to curl up in the back seat. Of course, he would never say it out loud. He wondered if Dazai would manage to sleep at all, with his lanky legs getting in the way and all. Although it wasn’t really Chuuya’s problem, was it?
Dazai paced around the car, glancing worriedly at the dark outline of the temple and Chuuya’s dark form lying in the backseat. Chuuya had always had this ridiculous talent to be able to fall asleep basically anywhere, and this time was no exception, judging by the steady rise and fall of the dark Chuuya-shaped lump sprawled in the backseat.
Dazai looked at the temple again and squinted his eyes. What if somebody’s hiding in it? He thought, trying to make anything out in the dark windows. What if the Mafia knows where we went? More and more scenarios started flooding his head, each of them gnarlier and messier than another, and he clenched his teeth, feeling the world swirl around him. An owl suddenly hooted somewhere in the distance, and Dazai jumped. His heart raced, and he groaned in frustration, stomping his foot. He was getting paranoid. This was not good. Being paranoid meant losing focus. Losing focus meant becoming an even easier prey for the Port Mafia.
He was exhausted. This whole thing was draining, getting worse with each day ever since the unrest in Yokohama started — or, probably, from the moment Fukuzawa’s body was discovered — sucking out more and more of his remaining energy. The life he had been thoroughly building in Yokohama for so many years collapsed like a house of cards in front of his eyes, cards slipping out from his fingers as he desperately tried to catch them. Perhaps, he should have given up and got caught in the crossfire in one of the gang wars. Or maybe he should have taken a stroll in front of the Port Mafia headquarters, just to be captured and promptly executed. Instead, there he was, on the run with his unfortunate ex-partner, who didn’t even want to be involved in it. Where did this ridiculous will to live even come from? Dying would have been way easier — for him and everyone around.
He started getting cold. Dazai shivered and got in the car, glancing at the fuel gauge, starting the engine and turning up the heat, having decided he could spend some of the gas on warming up the cold car. He sat in the passenger seat and turned to Chuuya, looking at the petite mafioso (or should he now say “ex-mafioso”?) peacefully snoring, huddled under his jacket, seemingly unfazed by the cold. Sorry, Chuuya, he thought to himself. Guilt tightened around his chest like a boa constrictor. Was there really any need to drag him into it? Dazai could have just run away alone, just like he had before. He knew it was a dangerous escapade, a venture so ridiculous and impossible that even his strategy genius couldn’t quite predict the outcome. Yet, he couldn’t fathom doing it alone, and he couldn’t resist that little selfish urge to bring Chuuya along. I guess if you actually crash into the barrier, we won’t have to worry about the Port Mafia hunting us down, Chuuya’s voice echoed in his head. Worry. He took a deep breath, trying to control his mind starting to spiral down in panic again. That was Dazai’s main concern as well — he knew like no one else that Mafia’s influence was omnipresent, but seeing the fearless and powerful Chuuya Nakahara worried, scared, even — about the same thing made him feel like they had lost before the fight even started.
Dazai turned away from Chuuya and tried to get somewhat comfortable in the tiny car seat. There was no point trying to lie across the two front seats — it was absolutely impossible with his long, lanky stature. He put his legs underneath him and leaned forward against the dashboard, folding his arms on it and putting his head on top of them. He closed his eyes and tried to free his mind from uneasy thoughts, and finally fall asleep. No matter how hard he tried, though, sleep didn’t come to him, making him stuck in that agonising state where one desperately needs sleep, yet is unable to get any. It felt like hours had passed when, plagued with heavy thoughts and thinking of all the ways this whole thing could go wrong, he eventually fell into an uneasy slumber.
***
Dazai sat bolt upright as he woke up, gasping for air. One of his legs fell asleep, and his back muscles were killing him, but it was nothing compared to the primal, overwhelming panic that took over him.
“Chuuya,” Dazai breathed out, turning to the back seat and reaching out to shake his shoulder. “Chuuya!”
He slowly opened his eyes, frowning at such an unceremonious way of waking him up. “The… The fuck do you want, Dazai?” Chuuya yawned. “I’ve just fallen asleep, you moron, come on, you gotta have some decency.”
“We need to get rid of the car,” Dazai said, opening the door and getting out of the car, nearly falling when he stood on the leg that had fallen asleep. Stumbling, he awkwardly walked around the car and took his duffel bag out of the trunk. He then forcefully yanked the back door open. “Come on, Chuuya!”
Unwillingly, Chuuya climbed out of the car, his back making a popping noise as he stretched. He looked at Dazai. He was sweating and panting, hair stuck to his forehead, uncharacteristic primordial horror in his eyes.
“What’s up?”
“They know,” Dazai breathed out. “They know about this car. We need to get rid of it.”
Chuuya stared at Dazai. “Fuck,” he finally said. “Couldn’t you have stolen a different one before we fucked off?”
Dazai just opened and closed his mouth, unsure of what to say, words stuck in his throat as he tried to find any justification for such a mishap. There was none. The truth is, he should have. He’d lost his grip. Dazai shifted from one foot to another and shrugged his shoulders as Chuuya stared at him with disbelief. He’d never seen Dazai like that. He never thought he ever would. The Dazai he knew would have never made such a rookie mistake. The Dazai he knew always planned everything ahead, calculating his moves with great precision and seeing any possible outcome ahead. Now, Dazai’s usual composure was lost, and he looked like a cornered animal. Perhaps, he was. Perhaps, they both were just prey waiting to be slaughtered, chewed and spat out. If this were the case, Chuuya needed to take the situation into his own hands. That suicidal bastard might have given up, trembling like a rabbit in front of a fox, but Chuuya was not going to lose so easily.
“Let’s head to the ocean,” Chuuya said with confidence. “We’ll sink this shitty clunker in the sea and we’ll be clean.”
Dazai just nodded, still looking like a lost puppy. Chuuya walked around the car and climbed into the driver’s seat. “I’ll drive, mackerel,” he sighed in exasperation. “Put your fucking bag back and just relax.” Dazai nodded and threw his bag on the back seat, silently climbing into the passenger seat, and not saying a word as Chuuya started the engine and headed toward the ocean. He’d always liked the sensation of speed — there was nothing more liberating than hitting the gas on his motorcycle and going nowhere in particular, just enjoying the moment. In moments like this, he was the wind—fast, invincible and free. The car Dazai had obviously stolen from some drift racer was just perfect for that. He floored it and sped down the straight stretch of the country road, feeling just a little disheartened when, only a few minutes later, he saw the vast expanse of the dark ocean in front of them.
The car ground to a halt the moment they got off the road and onto the sandy beach. However cool the low car looked, and no matter how fast it could get, it was absolutely useless on terrain like that. Chuuya clicked his tongue and shut the engine off, making a mental note to drive more often in their great escape. He turned to Dazai, who was still staring out of the windscreen with a lost expression on his face.
“Let’s get out,” Chuuya said, punching Dazai’s shoulder lightly. He nodded and obediently got out, not saying a word, taking both their bags out of the car and dropping them on the sandy beach. He slapped the hood of the car and finally spoke.
“I think there was probably a gang fight,” he said quietly. “I don’t really know. I’ve arrived when it was already over. I don’t remember much.”
Chuuya leaned against the car and folded his arms across his chest, looking at Dazai. He nodded, prompting him to continue.
“The owner was still in it,” Dazai said. “Well, kind of. Guess he tried to get out and got shot.” Suddenly, he giggled and covered his mouth with his hand. “Guess I was lucky his brains got all over the pavement and not the interior of the car.”
“Dazai.”
He let out another delirious giggle and finally looked Chuuya in the eye. “Chuuya, if only I had shown up just a bit earlier, I could have been rotting with those poor racer fuckers. Why couldn’t I come earlier and just get shot?”
“Dazai, stop it.”
He ran his hand through his hair and looked up, watching an odd seagull flying in the night sky. “I could have been dead. No more problems. No more running away.” He followed the bird with his eyes. “I would have been truly free, Chuuya.” The seagull flew away, and Dazai lost it as it disappeared into the distance.
A sudden hand on his shoulder startled him, and his eyes darted down to meet Chuuya’s.
“Dazai.”
“What?”
“You’re fucking here now. Can we focus on the problem at hand? We have a car to get rid of. If you want to die that much, I can shove you into the trunk and fuck you into the ocean with it.”
Dazai blinked, contemplating Chuuya’s generous offer. At last, he sighed and pouted, stepping back and shaking Chuuya’s hand off his shoulder. “Empty promises as always, chibi!” he exclaimed dramatically. “You’ll never do it. I know you way too well.”
“Whatever,” Chuuya said, rolling his eyes and walking around the car. The mackerel might have been right about that. So what if he was?
Chuuya took a deep breath and focused on activating For the Tainted Sorrow. He gripped the car from the bottom, and it got surrounded by a red glow, Chuuya’s Ability reducing its weight to nothing. Effortlessly, he lifted the car and swung it back, as if he were trying to throw a ball in a beach volleyball game, and not send a multi-ton drift car flying into the ocean. Dazai’s breath caught as he was watching Chuuya gracefully throw it, just like every time Chuuya used his Ability. From the very first time he saw Chuuya wield his enormous power so effortlessly, with such great precision, he couldn’t help but get mesmerised by the sheer grace of it. The red flash of the car disappeared in the distance, plopping into the water about a hundred meters from the shore, scaring off the seagulls sleeping on the beach with a loud splash. Slowly, it started getting submerged in the salty waters of the Pacific Ocean as Dazai felt his awe being replaced by hopelessness again.
“That will do,” Chuuya grumbled and turned to Dazai. “What now?” he asked, furrowing his brow at Dazai’s lost facial expression.
“I don’t know,” Dazai breathed out.
Chuuya stared at Dazai, feeling a cold, sticky sensation crawling down his spine. Dazai always used to know what to do. Chuuya thought getting rid of the car would surely make the mackerel feel more at ease, magically bringing his logical, scheming self back. Seeing the strategy genius Dazai Osamu completely at a loss made Chuuya feel like he was standing on the edge of a cliff, trying to resist the turbulent winds trying to push him off into the raging sea and failing, getting closer and closer to the edge with each violent gust. He was so used to trusting Dazai’s plans that hearing the simple, feeble “I don’t know” knocked the ground from under his feet. Could it be that he, in fact, did not have any plan this time?
“Do you really not have any fucking clue of where we could go? You sure seemed pretty confident when you showed up at my place and announced you’re leaving Yokohama.”
Dazai looked through Chuuya and then turned his head to look into the distance, staring at the endless dark water, focusing on air bubbles from the sinking car disturbing the calm surface of the Pacific Ocean.
“Oi, shitty Dazai,” Chuuya grumbled and kicked Dazai’s calf. “Wake the fuck up.”
The kick partially brought Dazai back to his senses, and he looked at Chuuya, his inquisitive brown eyes looking at him with a more familiar expression this time — probably if Chuuya looked in his eyes for a bit longer, he would have been able to find glimpses of Dazai’s trademark scheming. However, Chuuya had no intention to look Dazai in the eye for longer than absolutely necessary.
“We’re going to Aomori. That’s where my family's house is. As far as I know, it’s been abandoned for quite a while, but we could stay there for a bit.”
“And then what? It’s really cute that you got all nostalgic and shit, but I’m not staying in your fucking shack waiting for the Mafia to get us.”
Dazai opened his mouth to relay his plans to Chuuya, but no words left his mouth. He had spent countless sleepless nights before he showed up at Chuuya’s doorstep, perfecting his plan, coming up with escape routes and whatnot. However, the moment it got set in motion, the ideas and steps that used to be laid out clearly in his mind got scattered all over the place, the sinking feeling of hopelessness overriding all common sense. He shut his eyes and focused, trying to get his thoughts back together. He could feel Chuuya staring at him expectantly, slowly getting more and more annoyed with Dazai’s silence.
“You know, bandage freak,” Chuuya said, “you might be a strategy genius, but I’m not an idiot, either. If you have no fucking plan, I’ll come up with one.”
“I do have a plan,” Dazai said, opening his eyes. “Give me a minute.” He took a deep breath. It was only now that he fully realised what exactly he was going to do, and he had trouble bringing himself to say it out loud. It was as if he never said it out loud, he would never have to do it. It was as if he never said it out loud, the destruction and danger around them would not be real.
“We need to flee the country,” he wheezed out. “We’ll take one of the cargo ships leaving Aomori. Doesn’t matter where we go, really.”
Chuuya froze. His brain understood that there was no life for them in Japan anymore — not while the Port Mafia was still running rampant, weaving their deadly cobweb everywhere their thin crooked arms could reach. His heart, however, refused to admit that he would be leaving his home forever, throwing his old life away against his will and trying to build a new one at a place that would never truly become his.
He didn’t want to think about it.
He couldn’t think about it.
He took a deep breath. Well, he could try solving these problems as they occurred.
“Alright, whatever,” he said, inhaling the salty breeze from the ocean. His heart fell when he thought he would be losing this forever. “Aomori it is, then.” Chuuya looked into the distance where the car had already disappeared under water, the still surface undisturbed by air bubbles anymore. He continued. “So, let me wrap it up — we don’t have a car anymore. We will be sitting ducks if we take a train, never mind a plane. Are you suggesting that we walk all the way to the other end of the country?” He raised his eyes to the night sky, the darkness of the countryside so different from the constant light pollution in Yokohama that he was so used to. Stars peppered the endless sky, and Chuuya searched it with his eyes, looking for the bright dot of Polaris. Finally, he found it and furrowed his brow, mouthing something to himself. “It’s fucking 4 in the morning,” Chuuya snarled and glanced at Polaris again. “Or something like that,” he added, quieter this time. “So, shitty Dazai, what are we doing right now?”
“I don’t know," Dazai said again, growing desperation in his eyes sending Chuuya down another spiral of steadily growing panic. “Let’s lay low in Koriyama for a couple of days first, just to shake off any possible tail,” he said quietly, hesitating just a little bit. “I have a safe house there. We should be fine, unless…”
“Unless what?”
“Unless the Mafia has already found out about it,” he said, swallowing a lump in his throat.
“If they have, I’ll deal with them,” Chuuya said and, to end the discussion, slowly ascended into the air, hovering over the beach.
“What are you doing?”
Chuuya paused and looked down at Dazai with an unreadable expression on his face. “I’ll find a new car and bring it back to you. Don’t move,” he said and swiftly flew away, not letting Dazai say a single word.
Dazai watched the red flash disappear in the distance, and his stomach turned. He slowly picked up their bags from the sand, turned and walked toward the road running along the beach, ignoring sand getting in his shoes. With the ocean rumbling quietly behind him — living up to its name at this very moment — and an abandoned hut destroyed by wind and salt in front of him, right where he was heading, he felt small and helpless in the world that he just couldn’t make his home, no matter how hard he tried. He dropped the bags on the asphalt and sat on the ledge just under the dilapidated building, listening to the quiet rustling of tarpaulin hanging from the roof. He looked up at Polaris, the bright star that had been showing travellers the way since the beginning of time, yet Dazai had never felt this lost. He stared at the distant star twinkling faintly hundreds of light-years away, mesmerised by its glow, until everything around him seemed to disappear — the rustling of tarp, the singing of crickets, the soft murmur of the ocean, until there was nothing else in the world but him and the North Star.
“What do I do?” Dazai whispered under his breath, the cold light of Polaris reflecting in his irises. “What do I do?”
His quiet plea remained unanswered. The vast ocean of stars looking down at him made him feel even smaller — perhaps, if they could talk, they would just laugh at his desperate question. The stars were there long enough to marvel at the prehistoric fish crawling out of the ocean, they saw the rise and fall of civilisations and lit the workers as they built the pyramids thousands of years ago — what do they care about Dazai and his problems so minuscule on a planetary scale? His eyes got dry, but he stubbornly refused to blink, as if believing that if he stared at Polaris long enough, it would finally show him the way, guiding him in the right direction.
Dazai jumped when the world came back in a rush with the roaring of a car getting closer and closer, the sound disturbing the peacefulness of the night. He looked at the old, blue, beat-up Nissan that stopped in front of him — the total opposite of Chuuya’s expensive taste. Chuuya got out, and Dazai finally stood up, approaching the old automobile and peeking into the back window. There were all kinds of junk scattered around the back seat — some gardening instruments, a baby booster seat, books, a bottle of water and some other random pieces of equipment.
“This is so Mafia of you, Chuuya,” Dazai said, the amusement from Chuuya’s car choice making him want to taunt him just a little bit, just like in the old days. “Stealing some poor villager’s car!”
Chuuya shot Dazai an angry look. He opened his mouth to say something, but decided against it, turning away and mumbling something instead, busying himself putting his and Dazai’s bags in the trunk, hanging his head low.
“What?”
“I said,” Chuuya finally turned to him, blush obvious on his cheeks even in the dim dawn light, frowning and straightening his shoulders, trying to hold his chin up high, “I’ve left some money for the owner.”
Dazai’s eyebrows shot up. “Money?”
“Are you fucking deaf?” Chuuya snapped, slamming the trunk shut and double-checking if it stayed in place. “Yes. I put cash under a fucking rock. Now shut up. It’s your fault I had to steal this piece of shit.”
Dazai opened his mouth and looked at the car again, then at Chuuya. Truth be told, that was pretty in character for the petite mafioso — after all, similarly to Oda, who refused to kill, Chuuya always tried to reduce the collateral damage his work caused to the best of his ability. Regularly, local charities received generous donations from an anonymous donor whenever the Mafia missions went particularly rough — it was only natural that Chuuya wasted some of their limited funds to reduce the damage to the unfortunate random person involved in their escapade. “Huh,” he finally blurted out. “Of course you did.”
Chuuya scoffed and climbed into the car, adjusting the driver’s seat and buckling up. “Get in, you moron,” he snarled and started the engine.
Only when Dazai got in, wrinkling his nose at the stale, musty smell of an old car, did he feel the full extent of the crushing fatigue torturing him. Chuuya looked at him and clicked his tongue. The soft morning light illuminated Dazai’s features and, coupled with desperate confusion in his eyes, made him look so very young, like a boy lost in a toy store, desperately running along the shelves and looking for his parents.
“Oi, mackerel,” Chuuya said, feeling something akin to compassion toward Dazai. “Sleep a bit. I know how to get to Koriyama, but once we’re there, I’ll need your ass to wake up and give me directions to your piece of shit of a safe house.”
“Sure,” Dazai mumbled and leaned his head against the cold window. His eyelids grew heavy as he listened to Chuuya tapping his finger on the steering wheel, lulling him to sleep like a lullaby.
***
The moment they set foot in the safehouse, Chuuya wrinkled his nose. It was an unremarkable 6-storey building — similar ones were scattered all around the city, and it was in an ideal location for a safehouse where one wanted to lay low — not too central and not too reclusive, in other words, perfect for getting lost among hundreds of other dwellers of the building and thousands of residents of the city. Despite the obvious upsides of the apartment’s location, it still smelled like mould and dust, and spider webs here and there made it painfully obvious that the apartment had not been used for years. Many of the Mafia safehouses smelled just like this, and Chuuya winced at the eerie similarity — it seemed like it wasn’t that easy to let go of his past completely, and he wondered how many little things would remind him of everything he’d done. Chuuya slid off his shoes and walked toward the dusty futon, removing the cobweb from the corner in one swift move of his hand. He wiped it on his trousers and lay down on top of the futon, not bothering to climb under the covers.
“I’m getting the futon because you suddenly had this urge to destroy the car and disturb my sleep,” he snapped in annoyance and turned to the wall.
Fair enough, Dazai thought, sprawling his coat on the floor. He took some shirts out of the duffel bag and folded them into an improvised pillow. This makeshift bed was still a million times better than the cramped car he had tried to sleep in just a few hours ago. He glanced at the blushing orange sky out of the window before closing his eyes, listening to the sounds of the city waking up. They’d been on the run for less than 12 hours, and yet it had already felt like an eternity. With a heavy heart, he closed his eyes, shifted a bit to get more comfortable and tried to let go of the events of the day.
They were not going to die.
They were going to escape.
This little delusion felt nice.
Notes:
Hope you liked it! Let me know what you think in the comments :)
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Coming up: Chapter 3 - Reminiscence
Chuuya and Dazai try to relax and plan their next move, while their past keeps catching up with them. Dazai’s odd behaviour is making Chuuya have second thoughts about his decision.
Chapter 3: Reminiscence
Summary:
Chuuya and Dazai try to relax and plan their next move, while their past keeps catching up with them. Dazai’s odd behaviour is making Chuuya have second thoughts about his decision.
Notes:
Hi everyone, I'm back with a new chapter! Hope you like it :)
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Chuuya rubbed his eyes and yawned, stretching his arms and arching his back like a sleepy cat. He slowly opened his eyes, frowning at the discomfort — his back was terribly sore as if he’d been sleeping on the hard floor rather than-
Fuck.
Chuuya sat up and looked down at the old, yellowed futon that had lost its usual fluffiness after years of neglect.
Right.
He wasn’t home anymore.
The events of the previous day came rushing back at him as if he were fast-forwarding a movie. Pictures rapidly flashed before his eyes, bloodcurdling realisation setting in as blurry scenes changed one another.
Waking up and quickly texting Mori-san that he was still sick, feeling a pang of guilt in his chest for feeding his boss such a blatant, half-baked lie, resenting himself for not being there when the organisation needed him.
Checking the news, feeling his heart sink and stomach churn as civilian casualty reports kept rolling in, turning the TV off after it got too much and burying his face in his hands, fists tightly clutching his hair.
Smoking one after another on his rooftop terrace, suddenly feeling utterly disgusted at his tasteful, ridiculously expensive outdoor furniture that he spent ages picking. Back then, he took a great deal of pride in how he arranged his living space, but now all these material possessions seemed like nothing but a bunch of useless crap to him. Even the view of the Yokohama bay that used to mesmerise him now made him feel absolutely nothing.
Wasting time in futile attempts to read a book, trying to focus on the text, his mind stubbornly bringing him back to the events of the previous weeks, taunting him with graphic, vivid images of violence and destruction.
What do I do? Chuuya thought, staring at the letters jumping on the page in front of his eyes, the simple question branding his brain with its blazing urgency. What do I do?
That was when the doorbell rang.
That was when the mackerel showed up at his place like the hurricane he was, turning his life upside down, dragging Chuuya along on their dangerous escapade.
“Shit,” Chuuya muttered under his breath and fell back on the futon. He glanced at the clock on the wall. He wasn’t quite sure if the time on it was correct — it showed 6 in the evening. Chuuya looked out of the window, where the golden rays of the setting sun illuminated narrow streets and bade Koriyama farewell for the night with a soft golden glow. High time for breakfast, I guess, Chuuya thought sullenly and yawned. He glanced at Dazai sprawled on top of his tan coat like a starfish on a sandy beach. He was finally asleep, and Chuuya quietly stood up, trying his best not to interrupt his fishy ex-partner’s sleep. After all, Chuuya really wanted to have some quiet time for himself.
Quietly, he tiptoed to the kitchenette and stopped in front of the counter. Every single horizontal surface was covered with a thick layer of dust, the abundance of cobwebs and dust bunnies in the corners adding finishing touches to this gloomy still life. It was the complete opposite of what Chuuya was used to — the kitchen in his place was always pristine, ready for any ambitious cooking endeavour Chuuya was going to attempt. Chuuya shook his head and opened drawers one after another, trying to find a piece of cloth to clean up. Finally, he found a new microfibre cloth in the bottom one and got to work. Methodically, thoroughly, he wiped the dust and removed cobwebs, making the little kitchenette resemble an actual kitchen rather than an old abandoned tomb. He wiped his brow with his sleeve and nodded in contentment at the result of his work — somehow, being in a somewhat neat kitchen made him feel more at ease. The rest of the apartment was still in dire need of cleaning, but Chuuya could do it later. Now it was time for a shower — he desperately needed it to erase the frantic reminders of the previous day and relax his sore muscles. He took clean clothes out of his bag and looked at Dazai — the mackerel still didn’t move an inch.
Luckily, this place had running water. Not only that, it was also hot. There was even a shower gel bottle in the shower, with barely anything in it, but Chuuya watered it down and managed to have a somewhat decent shower. If you asked him, it was a pretty good streak of good luck considering the circumstances. Of course, he had to wipe his body with a spare t-shirt for the lack of any towels in the bathroom, but still, getting changed into fresh clothes, brushing his teeth, and shaving made Chuuya feel less like a scruffy rat and more like a human being.
As if he still had the privilege to call himself human.
He stared at his reflection in the mirror, thinking that his evening would get way better after a nice cup of coffee and a cigarette. He quietly crept to the clothes rack, took a pack of cigarettes out of his jacket pocket and glanced around.
He internally swore and put the pack back.
There was no balcony in this tiny, shitty flat. No matter how annoying Dazai was, Chuuya had no intention of bothering him with cigarette smoke filling the entire place. Chuuya himself wouldn’t be too thrilled about it.
He sighed and tiptoed into the kitchenette again. Chuuya checked the cupboards one after another, looking for any kind of coffee, or, ideally, some food as well, and - bingo - he found a half-empty jar of instant coffee. He checked the expiry date — it went off several years ago, the date of manufacture roughly matching Dazai’s defection from the Port Mafia. Next to it was an open pack of crackers. Guess that will do, he thought, taking a cup out of the cupboard and putting two spoonfuls of coffee into it. He then rinsed the small kettle sitting on the counter, filled it with water and flicked it on. He glanced at Dazai to see if he had woken up from the sound of water slowly coming to a boil, but he didn’t budge. Chuuya slowly levitated toward him to see if he was even alive, and the slow rise and fall of his chest confirmed that he, in fact, was just sleeping. The last time Dazai was wiped out like this was after the Dragon Head conflict — hell, even Chuuya himself took ages to recover from that insanity back then.
The kettle turned off with a quiet click, and Chuuya filled the cup with water. Hot coffee burned his tongue, and its taste was, as expected from cheap, instant, expired coffee that had been open for years, absolutely abhorrent. He took a cracker out of the pack and bit it. It was as stale as he imagined it would be, but he didn’t really have much choice, did he? He came up to the window, holding the cup against his chest and watched the city go about its daily life. He took another sip and winced. This was certainly far from what he was used to. Before everything went to shit, his days used to start with a workout on his penthouse's terrace as he watched the sun shyly rise from below the horizon, the vast expanse of the Yokohama bay a treat for his sleepy eyes. And there he was now — waking up in the evening and eating some inedible crap just to fill his stomach.
Deep in thought, Chuuya was watching pedestrians walking down the street, making their way home from work. Every single one of them had their own life, so intricate and meaningful. Each of them had their own passions. Connections. Dreams. He clutched the cup tight, thinking of how many innocent lives just like these he’d taken in Yokohama when he obediently followed the Mafia’s orders like a faithful dog, telling himself that the means justified the action.
“Ouch.”
Chuuya snapped out of his thoughts and turned to Dazai, who was now slowly trying to sit up, resembling a mummy rising from its tomb. He rubbed his back and looked at Chuuya.
“This bed is quite shit, to be honest,” he murmured, patting the floor. “What time is it?”
“Seven.”
Dazai glanced out of the window. “In the evening, I assume.”
“Well spotted, Sherlock.”
“Chuuya is always so sarcastic,” Dazai whined and stood up, bending backwards and cracking his back. He awkwardly waddled to the kitchenette and yawned, his jaw clicking and making him groan.
“Oh,” he said, blinking sheepishly, nodding at Chuuya’s cup in his hands. “There’s coffee?”
“It’s shit.”
“It’s something.” Dazai cracked his back again and clicked the kettle on. In silence, he made himself a cup of coffee, took a cracker out of the bag and stood next to Chuuya, staring out of the window. He bit a cracker and grimaced.
“Fucking disgusting,” he whispered, and Chuuya smiled at the uncharacteristic curse. Not too many things in this world could make Dazai swear — he normally expressed his frustration in different, perhaps less healthy ways. The mackerel preferred to make other people around him curse instead, winding them up the way only he knew how to. Really, Chuuya could probably count the number of times he heard him swear on the fingers of one hand. Dazai raised the cup to his mouth to wash down the dry cracker, and nearly spat the coffee out when it hit his taste buds. “This is even worse! Where did you even find it?”
“It’s your apartment,” Chuuya reminded him absentmindedly and reached out to the pack of crackers, but changed his mind halfway. His body was not a dumpster, and he was not going to consume any more of this disgusting shit. “You think the Mafia is onto us already?” he said, trying to change the topic from horrible food to something more lighthearted.
“Probably.”
Chuuya nodded. He was never good with small talk.
“What are we doing next?” he asked after a pause.
Dazai sighed. “I don't-”
“Don’t fucking “I don’t know' me.”
“Well, chibi,” Dazai said with exasperation, “I need some time. I woke up twenty minutes ago, as you might have noticed with your tiny slug eyes.”
Chuuya sent Dazai a steely glare, benevolently deciding against punching him in the liver this time. At least it was a good sign that Dazai was back with his half-assed insults. That probably meant he was on his way to becoming normal again. Right?
“We’re going to Aomori, like I told you. I don’t know how we’ll get there yet.” Absentmindedly, Dazai started bouncing his leg. “I can’t drink it,” he mumbled and poured the remaining coffee down the sink. “I’ll come up with something, Chuuya,” he said quietly. “I will.”
Chuuya looked at Dazai leaning on the sink with his back to him, head hung low. “No,” Chuuya finally said. “We will.”
Suddenly, the light flickered, and both of them turned sharply to look at the ceiling light flashing and clicking, as if possessed by a mischievous ghost.
“Uh. Umm. Not sure when the wiring got checked last,” Dazai said, scratching the back of his head.
As if having proved his point, the light went off, leaving them in the dark.
“Oh, for f-”
The light went back on before Chuuya could finish.
“Can't believe you own such a shithole!” he snapped in annoyance. “If I die in a house fire because of you, I’ll fucking haunt you for the rest of your life.” Dazai chuckled, and Chuuya cracked a small smile. “Reminds me of something,” Chuuya said and looked around the dusty apartment. “This place is not quite as shit, though.” He turned to Dazai and leaned against the kitchen counter. “You know what I’m talking about?”
Dazai nodded. “Yeah.” He looked down and absentmindedly cradled his arm, rubbing circles on the shoulder just above the elbow. “That mission was a disaster.”
***
That godforsaken mission to Kagoshima started well — by then, they were already quite used to working together, having earned their notorious name and glory in the criminal world. Most of their tactics had already been invented by then, and the mission to take down a former yakuza boss in hiding was a piece of cake. As always, they finished the job without a single flaw; however, everything rapidly spiralled down when Dazai got hit by a bullet sent his way by one of the dying yakuza members as the last “fuck you” to the infamous Double Black duo.
Chuuya had just snapped the neck of the vengeful right hand of the yakuza boss when he heard a gunshot followed by a deafening, inhuman scream.
Lightning-quick, Chuuya turned and sent a rock the yakuza’s way, crushing his head under its enormous weight, and as the man fell limp on the ground, something moved in the corner of Chuuya’s eye.
“Shit!” he yelled out and rushed toward Dazai, who was clutching his elbow and slowly leaning forward as if in slow motion, his screaming rapidly dying down. There was no way he was seriously hit — it was just his arm, for god’s sake — so why on earth was he falling? The next moment, Dazai collapsed, hitting the floor with a loud thud.
“Dazai!”
There was no answer. Chuuya rushed to him, kneeled and turned Dazai over, quickly checking his pulse and breathing. He felt a small rush of relief when he saw that Dazai was just passed out, although his forehead was now bleeding as well where he’d just hit the ground. The bullet pierced his arm just above the elbow, and, by the looks of it, it wasn’t too deep inside. This is nothing, he thought, why the fuck have you fainted, you weak bastard? He ripped off a strip of fabric from his shirt and tied it tightly above the wound, quickly recalling the coordinates of the safe house assigned to them in the mission debriefing. Back in that meeting, Chuuya wasn’t paying much attention to it: after all, they barely ever needed safe houses in any of their previous missions, but right now, he was happy he dutifully memorised the coordinates. He picked up the walkie-talkie and pressed the button.
“Dazai got shot,” he reported to the coordination team. “He’s alive, but unconscious. I’m bringing him to the safe house. You have the coordinates.” He took a closer look at the gun wound. “I’ll administer first aid while we wait for the extraction team to pick us up. Send a medic. Over.”
“Roger that. Satsuma safe house. The extraction team will be there shortly to pick you up. We are sending a medic. Over.”
Chuuya picked Dazai up, and he whimpered, but didn’t open his eyes, limply lying in his arms like a rag doll. Regretting he couldn’t use gravity manipulation on the bastard, Chuuya loaded him in the car they arrived in. After a short ride to the countryside, he parked in front of…
A dilapidated shack.
The building was in dire need of repair. Flaking walls still stood, and the roof seemed to be intact, but half of the windows were missing, overgrown weeds all around the house blocking the entrance, prickly leaves of thistle guarding the mouldy wooden door.
Chuuya swore and kicked the door open with his knee. He carried Dazai in, making sure he didn’t hit his empty head against the doorframe, and hit the light switch.
No light came on.
Swiftly crossing the room, only lit up by the setting sun streaming through the dusty windowpane, he put Dazai on the floor and rushed to the bathroom to get the first aid kit, lighting the way with the torch on his phone. He opened the tap to wash his hands before extracting the bullet.
No water came out.
“Fuck!” Chuuya yelled, frantically turning the tap handle in futile attempts to start the water. “Shit!” He gritted his teeth and knelt in front of the under-sink cabinet where the Port Mafia always kept their first-aid kits.
A spider quickly scattered away when Chuuya opened the door, and his blood froze. He stared at the empty space under the sink, feeling waves of panic rush over him. He opened every single cabinet in the bathroom and ran around the small house checking everywhere else — in the kitchen cupboards and the broken-down wardrobe, the only piece of furniture in the house.
There was absolutely nothing, except for a small half-eaten bag of crackers in one of the cupboards.
It was the first time Chuuya ever felt hopeless in the Port Mafia mission. He was always confident in himself and his abilities — after all, his fighting skills and inhuman resilience kept him alive for so many years. This, however, was something he couldn’t control, no matter how hard he tried.
Hands shaking, he took the walkie-talkie out of his pocket and pressed the button.
“There’s fucking nothing here! How am I supposed to give this bastard any treatment?!” he screamed into the receiver and glanced at Dazai sprawled on the floor, watching his chest rise and fall slowly. Breathe, you fucker. Just breathe.
Chuuya heard the person on the other end of the call type something and click the mouse. “Are you sure you’ve looked everywhere? This safe house is listed as fully equipped.”
“Fully equipped, my ass! This place is fucking abandoned! Are you shitting me?! Mori-san will destroy you and your fuc…”
“Nakahara-san, please wait for the extraction team. They are on their way. Over.” The call disconnected before Chuuya could respond. He screamed and swung his arm to throw the walkie-talkie at the wall, but something stopped him. He took a deep breath and put it in his pocket instead. He couldn’t risk losing communication with the base when that fishy bastard’s life was at stake.
Quietly, he moved Dazai’s limp body to the side of the room. Chuuya sat with his back against the wall and put Dazai’s head on his lap to give the mackerel at least somewhat of a comfortable position. Besides, this would have helped Chuuya notice straight away if the idiot decided to stop breathing all of a sudden.
It seemed like hours had passed since they arrived at that so-called safe house. Chuuya was losing his fight against sleep, slowly dozing off, when Dazai moved with a small whimper.
“Dazai!”
He moaned again and tried to turn over, crying out sharply and clutching the wound when his arm rubbed against the hard floor.
“Fuck, Dazai, I can’t take the bullet out. There are no supplies. We are getting picked up from here soon. You hear me? It’s just your arm, you’ll be fine. You got shot. It’s ok. It’s nothing. You’ll be as good as new soon. Alright?” Chuuya didn’t even realise he was rambling, panic making him babble, talking to Dazai just to make sure he doesn’t lose consciousness again.
“I hate pain.” Dazai’s weak voice made Chuuya stop his frantic tirade. At least he started talking again.
“They’ll give you painkillers. Just wait a bit longer, would ya? The extraction team is coming for us. Can you stay awake?”
Dazai let out a long whimper and rolled into a ball.
“Mom.”
Chuuya froze.
“Mom,” Dazai stubbornly continued, his voice barely audible. “Are we leaving soon?”
Fuck, Chuuya thought, please, no. There’s no way he’s seeing shit now. Tentatively, he touched Dazai’s damp forehead.
Suddenly, it made a lot of sense why his cheek felt so hot against Chuuya’s lap and why his body was shaking as Chuuya desperately tried to stay awake and keep an eye on him.
“Fuck!” he couldn’t help but swear out loud, making Dazai jerk. Helplessness rushed over him again. If only he could take out the bullet. If only he could disinfect the wound on time. If only he could help Dazai instead of letting him down. His eyes burned as he remembered how he failed to save the Flags. Now, he was losing Dazai, too, as if everyone close to him was destined to be taken away.
He tried to carefully move Dazai’s head from his lap and stand up. He desperately needed to go outside. He needed to breathe some fresh air. He needed to pace around and do something, instead of watching his partner slowly die.
“Don’t leave me,” Dazai whimpered, and his voice cracked.
Chuuya froze and opened his mouth, his hands still holding Dazai’s sweltering head.
“I won’t,” he finally said. “I’m here.”
Chuuya felt a rush of relief when he heard the rotors of a helicopter a few hours later. In the following weeks, he basically moved to the Port Mafia infirmary while Dazai was kept there. Just like Chuuya had assumed, the bastard was unfortunate enough to get his gunshot wound infected. Chuuya had never seen Dazai like that. Sure, he had always resembled a dead fish; however, the way he looked in the hospital bed, wires and monitors surrounding him, empty eyes staring into the ceiling, cheeks sunken — it was something new that scared even Chuuya.
A few days after Dazai got discharged from the infirmary, Mori called both of them to his office.
“We have found out what happened with the safe house,” the boss said, helping Dazai sit. He walked around his mahogany desk and sat down, sliding some papers across it for the boys to see.
“In brief, it was one of the Port Mafia members responsible for maintaining safe houses in Kagoshima prefecture. Apparently, he figured that no one would notice if, instead of maintaining a small safe house in the countryside, he just siphons off the funds for himself.”
Dazai nodded. “I see,” he finally said.
“As a result, we nearly lost our top strategist,” Mori continued.
Chuuya glanced at Dazai. He wasn’t moving, unblinking, staring through the papers, not bothering to read what was in them.
“He will be executed.”
Dazai nodded again.
“You will do it, Dazai-kun,” Mori said, sliding a gun across the table.
Dazai raised his eyes at Mori, his chin still pointing downward. “I… I can’t,” he croaked and looked down again.
Silence fell upon the office. Mori was drilling Dazai with a steely gaze, while Dazai kept absentmindedly fiddling with his hands, as if nothing around him existed or mattered.
“I’ll do it,” Chuuya blurted out. Mori raised an eyebrow. “After all, I was affected, too,” he clarified. “It could have been me getting shot. I’ll do it. If you allow me, Mori-san,” he added with a small bow.
Mori turned his gaze to Dazai, still lost in his own world. “Well,” he said, “if Dazai-kun insists that he can’t… I guess you can do it, Chuuya-kun.” Without further words, he stood up and walked toward the door. The boys stood up and followed him, Chuuya grabbing the gun from the desk.
After walking down the narrow prison corridor, Mori stopped in front of an unremarkable steel door and turned to the boys. “His name is…”
“He doesn’t deserve to be called by his name anymore,” Chuuya said coldly. Mori smirked.
“Let’s go, Dazai-kun,” he said, putting his hand on Dazai’s shoulder. “Unless you’ve changed your mind about it.”
“I didn’t,” he said quietly, staring at the gun in Chuuya’s hand. Dazai slowly raised his head and looked at Chuuya with a silent question in his eyes.
Truth be told, Chuuya hated executions. It was messy, unpleasant, and it lacked the thrill Chuuya always enjoyed in a battle. It was one thing to kill his opponent in a fair fight, feeling adrenaline rushing through his veins, and it was the complete opposite to be shooting a bound prisoner who had no chance to fight back.
“Later, motherfucker!” Chuuya chirped with a smirk before he had the chance to let his doubts overcome him and entered the prison cell.
All his hesitation evaporated the moment the corrupt bastard stood up from his bed.
“Look! Listen to me! I’m innocent! I just…”
Bang.
The man fell to the floor, screaming and clutching his arm. Chuuya took a step closer, not granting the fucker a single word. Arahabaki in the back of his mind begged to be unleashed, rage bubbling in his blood, screaming at him — crush him to death. Destroy him. Now.
It would have been so easy to kill him with gravity manipulation.
That wasn’t the way he was going to do it, though.
The man was crying now, rolling into a ball, the closer Chuuya approached him.
Bang.
Another bullet pierced the man’s flesh right next to the bleeding bullet hole, and Chuuya’s ears rang at the screaming echoing in the small room. Unblinking, he shot at his arm again. And again. And again, until the man’s arm resembled an unrecognisable mix of torn muscle and ripped tendons.
“They sent a kid to kill me,” the man whimpered, tears streaming down his cheeks, his voice hoarse from desperate cries. “A fucking kid. Is this Mori’s way to humiliate me before I die?”
“Shut up,” Chuuya finally spoke. His boss’ name coming out of the mouth of this traitorous leech made his blood boil. “You,” he gritted through his teeth, lifting his foot and slowly lowering his heel on the man’s wrecked arm, gradually increasing the gravitational pull of his body on it. “You, fucking slug. Pathetic, spineless, selfish bastard.” Chuuya heard the bone crack, the wailing of the man a delight for his ears, and he felt himself crack a smile, his feral grin getting wider the more frantically the man tried to set himself free. The floor of the prison cell cracked at the enormous force Chuuya was exerting on it, but the stubborn man was still fighting back.
“This is ridiculous!” the man yelled. “There are people in the Port Mafia who have done worse things! No one ever died because of a little embezzlement!”
Chuuya’s mad grin disappeared from his face in a flash. His hand burned, as if he could still feel Dazai’s hot forehead under his palm as he was thrashing on the floor, delirious, his heart rate skyrocketing, as Chuuya prayed to all the gods for the extraction team to come faster, to take Dazai away, to save his fucking life.
“Please!” the man pleaded, wriggling and trying to set himself free, losing against gravity like every single one of those unfortunate enough to cross Chuuya’s path. His voice cracked. “I won’t do it again!”
The mafioso’s hoarse voice, his face red and wet from tears, and the genuine horror in his swollen eyes made Chuuya hesitate. Don’t leave me, Dazai’s pleading whisper rang through his head again as he lay on Chuuya’s lap, and blind rage overtook him again. Fucking right, Chuuya thought, using the force of his Ability to the maximum, squashing the man’s arm, shattering the bone to bits. You won’t.
The man’s screams suddenly stopped, and Chuuya snapped back to reality. His ears still rang from the inhuman howling, and slowly, he took his foot off the man’s crushed arm, wiping the sole of his shoe on the bastard’s shirt. He grimaced and hoped he would be able to wash off the blood from his sneakers. Normally, his methods were cleaner than this. Chuuya kneeled and put his ear to the man’s chest — he was still breathing, merely having passed out from pain.
Good.
Just as planned.
Too bad the fucker won’t be alive for much longer to develop an infection.
Chuuya sat on the bed.
He could wait for him to regain his consciousness for as much as he needed — after all, the cat always plays with its mouse before killing it.
Walking down the corridor, away from the prison cells, Dazai heard the crack of a gunshot and involuntarily jerked, phantom pain in his arm going through his entire body. Mori’s hand gripped his shoulder in response.
“You know, Dazai-kun,” he said, “I would really like you to get back on track as soon as possible. You know, here, in the Port Mafia, it’s eat or be eaten. I can’t tolerate weakness for too long.”
Another gunshot fired in the distance, and Dazai, still with Mori’s hand on his shoulder, swallowed but didn't move a muscle.
***
The wailing of the mafioso still rang in Chuuya’s ears. It joined the choir of desperate screams of random pedestrians who were unfortunate enough to walk past the car he blew up a few weeks ago. That was when he was told to get rid of a rival gang's boss, and he took the job without question, despite something inside him dying when he pressed that button. When he walked past the newsstand with the headlines the next day, he averted his gaze. The scent of flowers from the improvised memorial to the victims made him feel like he was going to be sick, and it felt like the sickly sweet aroma of the flowers lingered in his nostrils to this day.
“I’m gonna throw up,” Chuuya mumbled. He glanced at the pack of crackers and grimaced. “We need to buy proper food.”
Dazai turned his head to Chuuya in an instant. “No.”
“What do you mean, no?”
“We can’t come out of the house.”
“The fuck are you talking about?”
“It’s unsafe.”
Chuuya opened his mouth, staring at Dazai. “Well, you’ve just said we were definitely going to your shack in Aomori, no?”
“Yes, later. We are laying low for the time being. We can’t take unnecessary risks.”
“How is getting food an unnecessary risk?”
“Chuuya,” Dazai said, grabbing the bridge of his nose. “You can’t jeopardise our plan just because of your whims.”
“Whims?” Chuuya put the cup on the counter with a loud bang. “I’m not gonna eat your shitty crackers for days. We need food.”
“You’re being unreasonable.”
“No, you’re being unreasonable.”
“The Mafia spoiled you, Chuuya. You don’t have to eat mussels every day, you know?”
“This is not about mussels! We need to eat, how don’t you understand?”
Dazai looked at Chuuya with a steely glare, his eyebrows twitching. “Well, to be honest,” he slowly said, “I have no clue how you still have any appetite after what you and your beloved Port Mafia have done to Yokohama.”
Chuuya froze, his brain trying to process what exactly Dazai had just said to him. Without thinking, he growled and grabbed the front of Dazai’s shirt, wishing nothing more than to smash his face flat with his fist, beating him to a pulp, making him choke on his own blood and regret what he had just said. This fucking mackerel, fucking traitor — he begged Chuuya to run away with him on his knees, and now he was nothing but a useless piece of trembling shit, good for absolutely fucking nothing, daring to open his shitty mouth to spew nonsense at him.
“Say it again, you bastard,” Chuuya hissed, “I fucking dare you to say it again.” He squeezed his fists tighter and pushed Dazai forward until his back was pressed against the wall. “What? Cat got your tongue?”
Primal fear in Dazai’s eyes, his trembling legs and rapid heartbeat resembling a cornered rabbit’s, only fuelled Chuuya’s anger, scorching fire of resentment burning him up. He swung his fist, anticipating the beautiful sound of the bastard’s nose breaking.
“You shouldn’t have come with me,” Dazai whispered, his face white as a sheet, staring wide-eyed at Chuuya, as if not noticing the fist ready to smash his face.
Chuuya threw Dazai on the floor, and he instinctively covered himself with his arms. Coward, Chuuya thought, his fist trembling, anger in him rising with every breath he took. Pathetic coward. Stand up for yourself for once.
“Fucking right,” Chuuya snapped, punching the wall instead, seething at the pathetic bastard on the floor in front of him and feeling his hatred burn brighter as he looked at the lanky mackerel desperately trying to look smaller. “I shouldn’t have.”
He swiftly crossed the room and slammed the door behind him, not granting Dazai as much as a glance.
Fresh air grounded Chuuya a bit; his burning rage cooled down by the chilly night air, sobering him up more and more with every deep breath he took. What the fuck am I doing? he thought. I'm not insane to try and run away from the Port Mafia. He looked up at the lit-up windows of the flat where he had left Dazai. The bastard was probably shitting himself in fear right now, gnawing on the stale crackers in the corner — probably the same way he did back when he fucked off for the first time.
Chuuya sat on the curb and automatically reached into his pocket for a cigarette pack. He cursed loudly when he found nothing, scaring a stray pigeon off, the bird agitatedly flying away and losing a feather. It’s in my fucking jacket, he remembered. I’m not coming back up. Chuuya stared at the streetlight and tried to focus. Maybe the Port Mafia hadn’t yet noticed he was gone. Perhaps, if Chuuya came back now, he could have his old life back — with good food, spacious showers and comfortable clothes. Perhaps, even if the Mafia already knew he tried to flee, he could still avoid being executed if he ratted Dazai out. After all, all this bullshit Dazai said was true. It was Chuuya who destroyed Yokohama. There was no point for him to try and remedy himself or run away from everything he had done.
His hands itched to steal a car and drive back to Yokohama. His brain kept telling him to come back to his old life he had been building for so long.
Slowly, he wandered down the street, turning into small alleyways and coming out on side streets, walking across parks and squares, getting lost in the concrete jungle, until he reached a small parking lot in the back of a supermarket already closed for the day. He came up to a car parked in the far corner.
It’s futile.
He squeezed his eyes shut and reached out to the car door handle.
There’s no escaping the Mafia.
He activated his Ability, breaking the car lock with a quiet crack.
I can’t do it, Dazai.
Notes:
That's it for now, let me know what you think in the comments! Personally, I love the teen!skk flashback, the concept of Chuuya going feral when Dazai is hurt is just *chef's kiss*
Coming up next is Chapter 4: Soothe me
A few quiet days in Koriyama help Chuuya and Dazai warm up to each other and come to their senses. With clear heads, they head west and take a ferry to Awashima.
Say hi on twitter! https://twitter.com/daot_noen
Chapter 4: Soothe me
Summary:
A few quiet days in Koriyama help Chuuya and Dazai warm up to each other and come to their senses. With clear heads, they head west and take a ferry to Awashima.
Notes:
It’s funny how I thought this chapter was going to be short (because originally it was going to be a part of Chapter 3 with not too much plot happening), and it ended up being the longest one so far, haha. Enjoy reading! <3
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Dazai's eyes were fixed on the brass handle of the front door, the sharp sound of it shutting behind Chuuya still ringing in his ears. Barely blinking, praying to see the door handle turn, straining his ears hoping to hear familiar footsteps, he ignored the dull pain in his back from when Chuuya had thrown him on the floor in his fit of rage. He didn’t know how long he’d been sitting like this for — his perception of time seemed to have been distorted by the daunting realisation dawning over him and choking him in its tight grapple.
Chuuya was gone.
Dazai had driven him away.
The enormous relief he felt just over a day ago when Chuuya agreed to escape with him vanished without a trace, replaced by paralysing hopelessness tainting the blood in his veins, his heart pumping his bloodstream with sticky black tar. Every single feeble dream of their escape that he dared to dream was shattered in the blink of an eye. Cautious hopes to make amends to Chuuya in some way were crushed with the enormous weight of the words he had said to him. With each passing second without Chuuya by his side, Dazai felt the previously unbreakable string of their bond getting thinner and thinner, about to break at any moment.
And it was all his fault.
The creaking sound of the door opening snapped Dazai out of his trance. He rushed toward it, nearly tipping over the kitchen stool he’d been sitting motionlessly on for god knew how long. Chuuya came in without saying a word, holding rustling plastic bags in his hands, two more hanging from each of his elbows. He slid off his shoes and marched to the kitchen counter, putting the bags on top of it and busying himself taking out the groceries.
Dazai didn’t dare get any closer to him.
“I thought you weren’t coming back,” he whispered, his voice coming out weak and trembling. Chuuya’s shoulders tensed, and he turned away.
The moment Chuuya touched the car door handle and broke the lock, the same hesitation that had paralysed him on numerous occasions before, overcame him again. With sweaty palms and heart frantically beating in his throat, he tried to make himself pull the handle, start the engine and go away, away, away.
His hands itched to get into that car and drive back to Yokohama.
His brain kept telling him to take his old life back.
His heart reminded him loud and clear: you promised you won’t leave him.
Slowly, Chuuya let go of the door handle and took a step back, sharply breathing out and squeezing his eyes shut.
Maybe Dazai was right when he called him a slug — spineless and fucking weak, no better than that corrupt Port Mafia bastard Chuuya executed back then. Was he really much better than that man, ready to run back to the life of unnecessary violence, following the orders of a madman like an obedient dog just to be well-fed and have a comfortable cushion to sleep on? Were his moral principles he used to take pride in, really not worth anything when shit got real and he had to make a choice? Was he really willing to use the lives of civilians as a bargaining chip to pay for his comfortable lifestyle?
Chuuya sighed and turned to Dazai, finally meeting his eyes.
There’s no way back for me. I will never forgive myself. I promised I’ll stay with you.
He couldn’t say any of it out loud.
“All my shit is here,” he finally grumbled, straightening his back and putting his fists on his hips. “Of course I came fucking back.”
Dazai’s jaw relaxed, and his eyes softened; however, the desperate glint in his irises stayed as he tentatively approached the counter and started unloading the groceries from one of the bags.
“No mussels,” Chuuya said, busying himself taking out vegetables and meat from another bag. Busy putting a small pack of noodles in the drawer, he nearly jumped when Dazai touched his elbow and gently squeezed it.
“Chuuya,” Dazai said, not looking him in the eye. “I shouldn’t have said that.” He focused on a small cluster of freckles on Chuuya’s forearm instead, trying to muster the courage to meet his eyes. He couldn’t bring himself to do it, too horrified to even think about what he could see in them.
“Well,” Chuuya scoffed, stepping toward the fridge. He shook Dazai’s hand off and placed chicken thighs on the shelf. “I do love mussels, so you were right.” He slammed the fridge door shut with abandon, as if it were to blame for all Chuuya’s misfortunes. A magnet fell off it with a quiet clunk, and Chuuya darted back to the grocery bags, kicking the magnet under the counter and dodging Dazai’s hand that was trying to reach his elbow again.
“That's not what I’m talking about.”
You were right about that, too, Chuuya thought bitterly, shoving the empty plastic bag in one of the kitchen drawers. He slammed it shut and loudly swore when his pinky got jammed between the drawer and the cupboard, sharp pain adding to his already pent-up frustration. He felt a sudden urge to punch something or someone, but his fist still hurt from slamming the wall. He should have hit Dazai instead — it would have surely been less painful. Besides, maybe Dazai’s pathetic mug would not have been annoying him that much had his nose been all crooked and swollen.
“I’ll cook.” Chuuya snarled instead, rubbing his pinky and wincing, opting to ignore Dazai’s clarification. He gave Dazai a side-eye and pursed his lips. “Shut up and go be annoying someplace else, would ya?”
Dazai hesitated. He didn’t move an inch and loudly swallowed, the uncharacteristic pleading look in his eyes making Chuuya’s stomach churn. He ran his hand through his hair and huffed with annoyance. “Or make yourself useful, I guess,” he muttered. “Clean this piece of shit of a flat, for instance.”
“Yeah. Alright. Yeah, I’ll do that.”
Without further ado, Dazai approached a tiny closet next to the front door and took a broom out of it, looking over the small flat, trying to decide where to start. He opened the windows to change the stale air first and got to work, thoroughly cleaning out cobwebs and dust from every corner. He’d already let Chuuya down enough, and they were barely one day into their escapade. Unable to provide him with a coherent plan, making stupid mistakes like an absolute moron, telling Chuuya all these vile things out of pure spite — Dazai desperately needed to make amends to him in some way, even if it was something as small and insignificant as tidying up.
The next half hour went by in silence, accompanied by the sizzling of chicken and vegetables in the pan, the rustling of the broom against the floor, and Chuuya’s quiet humming as he cooked. The moment Dazai put the broom back into the closet and put away the pieces of cloth he used to wipe the dust, Chuuya had finished putting the plates with fried rice on the table, its smell making Dazai’s mouth water. He didn’t realise how hungry he had been — apart from these stale crackers, the last meal he had was back in Yokohama. Perhaps Chuuya’s insistence on getting groceries wasn’t that unreasonable, after all.
Each of them engulfed in their own thoughts, they had their late dinner, not granting each other as much as a glance. Chuuya was absentmindedly stroking a strand of his hair that fell out of the bun he quickly made before starting to cook, and Dazai was staring at his now-empty plate. He had always appreciated how they could spend time with each other in comfortable silence; however, whatever was happening between them right now was the opposite of comfortable. The tension between them was a tightly stretched metal wire near its breaking point, about to snap any moment. Strain and apprehension hung in the air, almost crackling with electricity, sending an unsettling tingling sensation down Dazai’s spine. He finally looked at Chuuya — he was in a completely different world, the distant look in his eyes unreadable and desolate, his mouth slightly curved in distaste, his hand fiddling with the strand of hair shaking ever so slightly.
Dazai opened his mouth, but no words came out. What could he possibly say to make it better? Was a mere “sorry” able to suffice? Best-case scenario, Chuuya will ignore him. Worse — Dazai will find himself on the floor again, wriggling in pain and bracing himself for another punch. The dull ache in his back reminded Dazai of itself again, and he winced. His being on the receiving side of Chuuya’s fury was not something that happened too often — it was mostly a thing of the past, when their verbal fights, fuelled by raging hormones and teenage bravado, turned into physical ones. Although Dazai thought to himself, anything is better than this silence. He remembered their reunion after his four-year-long absence, the stale smell of the Port Mafia dungeon and the cold metallic jingling of the rusty chains still fresh in his memory. Back then, he had willingly let Chuuya batter him, the mixture of hurt and resentment in his partner’s eyes breaking through Dazai’s defence walls and completely disarming him.
If getting beaten up by Chuuya again meant making one step closer to forgiveness, so be it.
“Didn’t know you were a part-time chef, Chuuya,” Dazai finally chirped, breaking the silence, his teasing tone strained ever so slightly. “Didn’t really expect such thoughtfulness from a chibi brute like you.”
“Oh, don’t you worry, shitty Dazai,” Chuuya came back at him without missing a beat. “I spat in your plate.” The corners of his eyes lifted slightly as he leaned back in his chair and folded his arms across his chest. A tiny lopsided grin broke out on his face, a glint of mischief replacing the disturbing icy coldness of his expression.
For a moment, Dazai forgot how to breathe, trying to see if he was imagining the familiar jest in Chuuya’s eyes slowly replacing uncanny contempt. A giggle escaped Dazai’s mouth, and the longer he looked at Chuuya, desperately trying to look stern, the harder it was for Dazai not to burst out laughing. Finally, Dazai dropped his head on the dining table, the avalanche of laughter breaking out of him, his shoulders shaking as he wheezed in frenzy. Tears pooled in the corners of his eyes, and all of a sudden, this little comment felt like it was the funniest thing Dazai had ever heard from anyone.
“Oi, mackerel!” Chuuya snarled, trying his best to sound harsh, a traitorous giggle still escaping his mouth. “What’s so fucking funny?”
Dazai's shoulders were still shaking as he whimpered in amusement, unable to catch a breath and respond. Relief washed over him as Chuuya’s façade finally cracked, and he joined in, his brash laughter resonating against the walls of the apartment, filling the whole place the way only Chuuya’s laughter could. Dazai raised his head and looked at Chuuya through the tears welling up in his eyes, relishing the way he was leaning back in his chair and laughing without a care in the world, his bun undone completely now.
Dazai wiped a tear that finally escaped his eye and hiccuped.
Good.
The cold Koriyama safe house just got a few degrees warmer.
***
The following few days Dazai and Chuuya spent in the tiny apartment, however uneventful and boring, were a breath of fresh air for both of them. Perhaps boring was exactly what they needed, considering the circumstances. They agreed not to leave the house unless it was absolutely necessary, only once daring to come out at night and walk along the Abukuma river, and even then, Chuuya had to hide his distinctive red hair under a hood.
“I look like a teenage delinquent.”
“Well, you were a teenage delinquent. Sometimes I think you still ar-”
“Shut up or I will kick you into the river, you bastard.”
“Awwww, Chuuya is so generous to finally put me out of this mise- Ah! Ouch! Arrrrgh, let me go, you slug!”
In no time, they were back to exchanging jibes and insults, almost back to their usual routine; however, the slight strain and cautiousness in their relationship persistently reminded them that they were not in the same place they used to be. Something was missing from their comfortable banter, as if they were robbed of something crucial with the way their lives had changed. Being away from Yokohama and bathing in radio silence, ignoring news reports, helped them disconnect from the mayhem the city was in. Still, it wasn’t quite the “out of sight, out of mind" situation. No matter how hard they tried to put their worries aside, nothing could possibly soothe the persistent homesickness, and nothing could fill the bleeding Yokohama-shaped wound in their hearts. Occasionally, Dazai would catch Chuuya staring out of the window and watching people outside, rubbing his hands as if there was something on them that he was desperately trying to scrub off. At moments like this, Chuuya wasn’t there. With that eerily distant look in his eyes, he was in another world, and Dazai couldn’t help but wonder what went through his head. Dazai could probably guess what was bothering Chuuya if he tried. His reaction to Dazai’s comment about him and the Port Mafia destroying Yokohama was pretty telling, after all. With his exceptional investigation skills, he could have easily found out what exactly Chuuya had done that was tormenting him so much.
It didn’t mean he was going to do it.
He wanted to let Chuuya keep his secrets from Dazai, had he chosen to have any.
Moreover…
Dazai didn’t want to know.
At the very least, they managed to fix their sleeping schedule they completely ruined when they fled Yokohama. The night Chuuya nearly left, as a gesture of goodwill after they made up, he suggested that they take turns using the old lumpy futon while the other one slept on Dazai’s trench coat, thrown on the floor. He regretted it the very moment he lay down on it, the complete and utter lack of any cushioning making his bones ache in protest.
“When was the last time you washed your smelly coat?”
“Sometime this year. What, you don’t like it? I’d say sleeping on a coat is pretty fitting for a dog like y…”
“Finish this sentence, and I will kick you out and take the futon back.”
“We had an agreement, Chuuya! It’s so in character of you to break promi… Ouch! Ahhh! Okay! Okay! Let me go! Okay! You’re not a dog! Let me sleep on the futon!”
Maybe their relationship was slowly getting less strained, after all.
One night, Dazai snuck out and came back with an old laptop. When Chuuya asked him where the hell he got it from, Dazai smiled mysteriously, put a finger to his mouth and winked. Chuuya rolled his eyes and came back to the decade-old cell phone catalogue he found in one of the drawers and was currently studying for lack of better entertainment. Of course, Dazai had to be all cryptic even in a situation like this — it was nothing new, really.
Another night, Dazai came back with a bunch of maps that he dumped in the corner on top of the laptop he had never opened ever since he brought it home. Dazai reached into his pocket and pulled an old-fashioned handheld console out of it. He plopped on the futon and turned the console on, humming along to the sound of 8-bit music coming out of the speakers.
“The fuck are you doing?”
Dazai looked at Chuuya with puzzlement. “It’s my turn to use the futon, Chuuya.”
“That’s not what I mean.” Chuuya looked at the pile in the corner. “You gonna use these or what?”
Dazai clicked his tongue and turned his eyes back to the console. “I can’t just start researching on a whim like this, Chuuya. This is not how my brain works.”
“Oh, it still works? Good to hear.”
“Of course it does.”
“I started doubting it.”
“How rude of you.”
“Then how about you fucking prove otherwise?”
“Stop yapping and make me some stir-fry.”
“What?! I’m not your maid!”
“Well, I wish you were. You would have been more useful. Ouch! Ahhh! You feral dog, stop kick-”
The next morning, Chuuya woke up to the ancient laptop’s fan loudly whirring and Dazai tapping his foot on the wooden floor, deep in thought, glancing at the screen and making notes on the map with a marker covered in bite marks. Chuuya winced at the back pain — he hadn’t been able to get used to sleeping on the old flat futon, nor on Dazai’s smelly coat — and sat up. If I don’t get out of here soon, I will go on a murder spree, he thought to himself sullenly and sneezed. Chuuya glared at the thin layer of dust already covering the windowsill and stood up, wishing nothing more than to burn the godforsaken safe house to a crisp. He stood up and stretched, looking over Dazai’s messy hair and his agitated appearance, pausing at his eyes shining with the familiar, somewhat insane glint.
Frankly, it was a fucking amazing sign. Maybe they were getting out of Koriyama soon, after all. Chuuya was almost on the verge of coming up with the next step by himself — he wasn’t one of the most successful Port Mafia executives for nothing. He was a damn good strategist, too; however, Dazai was undoubtedly the best by a mile.
Seemed like he wouldn’t need to do it, though. Chuuya had seen Dazai in such a state millions of times, and it only meant one thing: the gears in his stupid, sharp brain were moving at an incredible speed. Chuuya rubbed his eyes and yawned.
“Did you sleep at all?”
“Aha. Maybe. No. Yes. I don’t remember,” Dazai mumbled absentmindedly, black marker still flying over the map. He picked up the cup of coffee with a shaky hand and took a sip, cursing quietly when coffee splashed on the front of his crumpled t-shirt.
Chuuya walked around the kitchen table and looked at the laptop screen over Dazai’s shoulder. There was a website with a ferry timetable open, and the map of the Niigata prefecture was on the table in front of him.
“This,” Dazai pointed at a small island off the western coast, “is where we’re going.”
Chuuya squinted his eyes and read the name of the island. “Awashima.”
“Ever heard of it?”
“A nice place for birdwatching.”
Dazai raised an eyebrow and looked at Chuuya with curiosity in his swollen, bloodshot eyes. “Didn’t know you were into birdwatching.”
“It’s common knowledge, you uncultured swine,” Chuuya grumbled and slapped the back of Dazai’s head. “Anyway, why Awashima?”
“Koriyama is way too close to Yokohama. We need to lie low somewhere more remote for a bit longer. Make them think we’ve left the country already.” Dazai swallowed, glancing at Chuuya’s facial expression, trying to read his silence. Chuuya said nothing, peering at the map. “Besides, Awashima is… Well… Kind of halfway to Aomori,” Dazai added in a high-pitched voice.
Chuuya slapped Dazai on the shoulder and went to fill the kettle. “Cool,” he finally said, clicking it on. “Awashima it is, then. An island getaway. I'd better get swimming trunks.”
“I’ll just go skinny-dipping. It will be easier for sharks to eat me then,” Dazai said, putting the marker on the table and standing up. “I cooked.” He stretched with a loud yawn, and his back popped.
Chuuya looked at the small plastic bento container sitting on the kitchen counter, one sushi roll already missing from it.
“It’s a bento box from a konbini.”
“Well, I bought it for you. It’s almost the same as cooking.”
“It’s half-eaten.”
“I had one sushi roll, chibi. Don’t be so greedy.”
Chuuya groaned in exasperation. Really, knowing Dazai, he probably considered it to be a chivalrous gesture of extreme generosity. Besides, it was something — Chuuya would give him that. If 8 years ago somebody told him that Dazai would show any kind of thoughtfulness aimed toward him, Chuuya would have laughed in their face. Whatever their relationship had evolved into was a definite move forward, not quite resembling a normal human relationship, but still somewhat of an improvement.
“I’ll shower,” Dazai said with a yawn and slowly walked off, shuffling his feet and scratching his shoulder. Chuuya made himself some coffee, grabbed the bento box and sat down at the table, pushing the maps and the laptop aside. He looked out of the window, his appetite suddenly vanishing. Koriyama was starting to wake up, and so were the dark rainclouds hovering over the city. A few drops hit the windowpane, slowly turning into steady rain, making a loud drumming noise against the glass, the sound of the shower running in the apartment accompanying the sound of the one outside. Chuuya watched the drops streaking down the window, and despite the early hour, suddenly he felt like he had been awake for hours. His sleep didn’t revitalise him one bit, and he was tired.
Tired of running. Tired of hiding. Tired of thinking about the consequences of his actions. Tired of himself. This little game of hide-and-seek was draining him. Caught between two perils, there was nothing he wanted more than just to run, disappear from the radar, never to be seen again, and at the same time, he wanted to postpone leaving Japan and his old life behind for as long as he could. He couldn’t help but feel a rush of relief when Dazai said they were going to do a little detour before fleeing for good. He sure hoped his face didn’t show any signs of alleviation — the last thing Chuuya wanted was Dazai figuring out he was scared.
While Chuuya was staring at the raindrops on the windowpane, Dazai was standing motionlessly under the shower head as if trying to clear his head with hot water pouring on him like a monsoon. Why Awashima? Chuuya’s question kept replaying in his head.
It made perfect sense. Why Awashima?
Because we need to lay low for a bit longer. Because it’s halfway to Aomori, Dazai said confidently, but he was absolutely positive that Chuuya could read between the lines. He was positive Chuuya guessed he was meaning to say, because I’m a coward. Because I’m not sure. Because I don’t want to leave Japan.
Because Dazai was still stalling.
The gears in his brain were back in motion, and he could see the perfectly clear picture of their escape in his mind. Fake their deaths (not without the assistance of one of Dazai’s loyal acquaintances, a mortician who would do anything for a hefty sum of money). Forget about Aomori — sentimentality had never done him any good. Get a new car. Head to Nagoya as soon as possible and sneak on one of the container ships heading to the Philippines. Get new IDs and stay there for good, or, alternatively, start their new lives from scratch anywhere they please, in any spot of the world where they could hope to hide from the Port Mafia’s hands.
Easy.
Logical.
Perfect.
Dazai couldn’t do it.
He squeezed his eyes shut and turned the water tap handle, making the water colder, hoping that that would help him come to his senses.
Such a selfish decision it was.
Was Chuuya asking that question out of curiosity, or was he onto him? What would Chuuya do if he found out Dazai was as scared as he used to be, successfully feigning confidence the whole time, his sharp mind running on overdrive, only fuelled by fear and anxiety? Would that bring them back to where they started, with panic and loathing tainting their relationship?
Would Chuuya leave, this time for real?
What’s done is done, Dazai thought sullenly. What happens, happens. Can’t do anything about it now. He quickly smeared himself with shower gel and rinsed it off. When he came out of the shower, he wiped the bathroom mirror with a t-shirt and looked at himself. The tired man with dark circles under his eyes who was looking back at him was not the same Dazai Osamu that he used to see in the mirror just a few months ago. Sure, he had the same eye colour as that Dazai. Same nose. Same chipped tooth. Same hair, maybe just a bit longer. Same scars peppering his body, old and new, deep and shallow. Same height. Same stature.
Somehow, he felt like a completely different person, a shell of the one he used to be, no matter how much he resented it when people described themselves with cliches like this.
There were numerous times in his life when he felt completely broken. His family tragedy. The inherent crippling loneliness of being the unapproachable Demon Prodigy in the Mafia. Losing every single friend and acquaintance that ever mattered to him.
As it turned out, every single time, life always had something up its bottomless sleeve to break him more, and this time, he felt like he was about to give up, finally letting himself be crushed to dust. He took a roll of bandages from the shelf and started wrapping his body in thick gauze, desperately trying to shield himself from the world, performing the little ritual that had always helped him clear his head at least temporarily, this time no exception.
Finally, Dazai came out of the bathroom, ruffling his hair with a towel. “We’ll leave today,” he said, tossing the towel aside, his damp hair making him look like a drenched dog. He closed his eyes and shook his head to shake off the remaining moisture, making Chuuya smile inadvertently when Dazai’s canine resemblance became even stronger.
“Well, technically tomorrow,” Dazai clarified. "If we leave at night, we’ll be in Iwafune just in time for the first ferry to Awashima.”
Chuuya looked at Dazai closing the laptop and putting the maps in a neat pile. He sounded confident. Chuuya wasn’t sure how long this confidence would last.
Dazai slapped his forehead and took one of the maps out of the pile. “Oh yeah. Here’s what we’re gonna do,” Dazai said quietly, sitting at the kitchen table and opening the map again. He mustered some courage to look at Chuuya and circled a point on the map. “We’ll abandon the car in a parking lot right here. It's a home improvement store, so no one’ll question us leaving the car there in the morning. I’ve disabled the CCTV cameras in the area, so we won’t be traced to it.”
“Then what?”
“The store is just two kilometres away from the ferry terminal in Iwafune. Won’t take us longer than thirty minutes to walk to it; we can also take a shortcut through the forest. Doubt too many people will see us.”
Chuuya hummed with approval, his eyes carefully studying the map and remembering the exits they’ll need to take, taking note of the settlements and analysing the potential of being discovered had they decided to go through a densely populated area. Dazai's plan sounded good. Feasible. Logical. Chuuya looked at Dazai and pursed his lips. “Well done, mackerel,” he grumbled. “Good to see your stupid head is starting to get useful again.”
“I appreciate you too, chibi,” Dazai said and rolled his eyes. “Let’s get ready.”
***
When night descended over Koriyama, Dazai and Chuuya found themselves standing in front of an unremarkable white Toyota. Dazai finished fiddling with the lock and opened the door.
Chuuya pushed Dazai out of the way before the mackerel had the chance to occupy the driver’s seat and fall asleep at the wheel again. Chuuya climbed in, pretending not to hear Dazai sniggering as he adjusted the seat and buckled up. “Is this our new thing?” he asked, shooting Dazai an angry look. “Grand theft auto?”
“Seems to be. Double Back resorts to petty crime. What a gossip for the Port Mafia! Mori would piss himself laughing.”
The name of his bo— ex-boss made Chuuya’s stomach flip. Mori-san’s face appeared in front of Chuuya, his cold metallic voice booming in his head, his instructions and orders coming together to a deafening cacophony in his head. He turned the ignition key and grabbed the steering wheel, the car’s engine softly purring like a cheetah about to start running. Speed had never failed to clear Chuuya’s head, and he was going to make the most of it. The car wasn’t particularly new, and it was far from that drifting car they sank in the ocean a few days ago, but still, it was something.
Dazai looked at Chuuya’s determined face and whistled. He reached out to the safety belt and buckled up.
“Let’s go, Chuuya,” he said, flicking the radio on and turning the volume up.
***
The sun had already risen when they made it to the mostly deserted home improvement store parking lot. A couple of cars were already parked there, seemingly belonging to the inhabitants of the nearby houses. The store was still closed, but they could see its employees running around inside and preparing it for opening.
“It was a shit car, to be honest,” Chuuya said, coming out of the Toyota and slapping the hood.
“It got us where we need to be. What’s wrong with it?”
“Too slow.”
Dazai stopped in his tracks. The past few hours he spent being an unfortunate passenger with Chuuya channelling his inner Formula 1 driver seemed like they were going to be his last. The moment they got on the highway, Chuuya floored it and sped down the road, barely reducing the speed even when turning the corners. Chuuya was delighted, his cackling resonating in Dazai’s ears as he was holding onto the handle above the car door for dear life, praying for this suicidal attraction to end as soon as possible. Flattening himself against the barrier seemed like a very painful way to die, and that was the last thing Dazai wanted.
Dazai stared at Chuuya, desperately trying to see any indication that he was joking. “Are you serious?” he finally bleated.
Chuuya shrugged his shoulders. “My motorbike at home is way faster.”
“Remind me to never ride a motorbike with you, then,” Dazai blurted out and stretched, wincing when a cramp in his calf sent a sharp jolt of pain through his leg.
“Aha,” Chuuya said, putting the hood on and shoving his hands into his pockets. “Let’s get the fuck out of here.”
The forest road lined with pine needles took them to the tiny ferry terminal on the edge of the vast, blue sea sparkling under the morning light. It was unexpectedly busy considering the early hour. A tourist bus was parked in front of the building, flocks of tourists here and there chatting to each other, studying the contents of the vending machine, peering into their phones or taking pictures of the sea through the window.
“They’re giving me a headache,” Chuuya whispered to Dazai when they finally bought the tickets after waiting in the queue consisting of a few exceptionally lethargic tourists. “Let’s wait outside.”
The boarding was about to start any minute. The ship was already at the walkway, shining majestically under the sun, dazzlingly bright with its white hull. Its crew could be seen hurrying on the deck and preparing to greet the passengers, every single one of them wearing off-white uniforms to match the colour of the ferry.
“Good thing the ship will be full of tourists. We’ll blend in,” Dazai said to Chuuya and nudged his shoulder. “We just have to look obnoxious enough.”
“Oh, then you’ll blend in just fine,” Chuuya said with a sweet smile. A whiff of sea breeze ruffled his hair, and his breath caught. Fuck, I’ll miss this, he thought bitterly. He had never been in Iwafune before — not in Niigata prefecture either, however, everything here felt comfortingly familiar. The screams of seagulls. The cashier smiling at him. Fishermen's boats here and there. Even the cracks in the concrete suddenly gave him some kind of nostalgia about something he hadn’t lost yet. Chuuya had travelled the world, and he knew damn well that the same sun shone on everyone else in the world, that everyone saw the same stars and breathed the same air, but nevertheless, the way the sun shone on his face here, at home, felt completely different.
The voice over the PA system announced the start of the boarding, and Dazai grabbed Chuuya’s shirt and hurried to the walkway, tugging him along. “Upper deck, now. Before the tourists come,” he said with a mad glint in his eyes.
Chuuya scoffed, being yanked out of his thoughts so unceremoniously, but followed him without any complaint. He wasn’t going to lose out on a nice observation spot because of some tourists.
The moment they found a nice spot in front of the bannister, the ferry blew its horn and set off, slowly leaving Iwafune behind and venturing into the sparkling sea. Seagulls swarmed in the sky above it, the lively flock following the ferry like a white bridal veil. Dazai leaned forward on the bannister and looked into the distance where a faint outline of the island peeked out over the horizon, a tiny patch of land carrying more meaning than anything else in the world. Who knows? It could become their safe haven, at least for some time. Chuuya followed suit, his eyes resting as he peered into the vast blue expanse of the sea. Fresh breeze ruffled their hair and brought the smell of seaweed to their noses, the scent more appealing than any fancy perfume could ever be.
“The Mafia must have realised by now that we’ve escaped, but I doubt they’ll try to look for us here,” Dazai said, never taking his eyes off the island in the distance.
Chuuya nodded. Escaped? “Escaped” implies that we’ve gotten away, and I doubt we have, he thought. Escape. This simple world sounded like music to Chuuya’s ears, and despite his grim outlook on the whole escapade, running away with his tail between his legs had never seemed so promising. We probably won’t. We can still try, I guess.
“Do you think going there is a good idea?”
Chuuya looked at Dazai. He didn’t look anywhere near as lost as he was just a few days before, but the shadow of uncertainty in his voice remained. “Yeah.” Chuuya lightly nudged Dazai’s elbow with his. “When have your strategies ever been wrong?”
Dazai ripped his gaze off the blue outline of Awashima and looked at Chuuya. He cracked a small smile and nodded, that unfamiliar soft expression in his eyes he saw on their last night in Yokohama coming back for a split second.
“Yeah.” Dazai looked at the horizon again, his elbow finding Chuuya’s, rough gauze touching soft, freckled skin. “You’re right.” Even through the bandages, Dazai could feel Chuuya’s body heat, his presence grounding him, soothing the very core of his restless soul. Chuuya didn’t pull his arm away, and the longer they stood in silence and the further the ferry was getting away from the mainland, the less and less dire the situation seemed to him. All his previous doubts and insecurities were slowly getting pushed to the back of his mind, the picture of their escape getting clearer, as if Chuuya’s ability was clearing out the fog in Dazai’s head. They breathed in the salty air and listened to the steady hum of the ferry’s motor as the ship moved forward effortlessly, slicing the water surface with its bow. Waves splashed against the hull, and seagulls sharply cried out over them, the ambient sea sounds blocking out the voices of other passengers, surrounding them and coming together to form the ultimate maritime symphony for just the two listeners. Something was trying to escape Dazai’s chest, something that felt like a long-forgotten sensation of freedom bursting out of him. Dazai quickly glanced at Chuuya — his eyes looked even brighter now, their unique cerulean shade complemented by the foaming azure ocean and the bright blue sky. Mesmerised, Chuuya was looking into the distance, paying no mind to anything else in the world, an absentminded smile lighting up his features, a small, yet genuine smile making the sun look like a dim lightbulb in comparison. Dazai’s heart squeezed, and he scooted closer, rubbing his arm against Chuuya's. He raised his eyes and met Dazai’s, the small smile rapidly turning into a joyful grin.
If his eyes were the sea, I would gladly become a shipwreck in them, Dazai thought, captivated by the sparkling blue. He slowly looked down at Chuuya’s slightly parted lips, and he felt a sudden urge to see if they were as soft as they looked. Chuuya blinked and licked his lips, as if having read Dazai’s mind and made a tentative move forward-
“Well, well, well,” a raspy voice came from behind them, shattering the fragile carefree bubble they had inadvertently found themselves in. “Just look at that.”
Chuuya and Dazai turned as if in slow motion, and their hearts almost stopped as they stared wide-eyed at the man looking at them with a feral smirk.
“Look. At. That.”
Notes:
This chapter took a me while to write, but I’m so happy to finally start getting to the point where they start realising their feelings! The next two chapters will take place on Awashima, one of them (hopefully) being pure fluff with futon-sharing, beach walks and speedboat rides. Gotta make them kiss A LOT before they inevitably meet their untimely demise, you know.
Let me know what you think in the comments, as usual, and I’ll see you soon! xoxo
Next chapter: Hope
Chuuya and Dazai make it to Awashima where some realisations happen.Follow me on twitter for writing updates and general ramblings: https://twitter.com/daot_noen
Chapter 5: Hope
Summary:
Chuuya and Dazai make it to Awashima where some realisations happen.
Notes:
Hi everyone! So, shortly after posting the previous chapter I fell into a deep writing slump so it took me a while to update this story. This chapter was so hard to write at first and I hated every single bit of it, but then as I developed it, it grew on me and now I think it’s my favourite one so far, hahah :D
It’s more lighthearted compared to the previous chapters and even kind of fluffy, and I absolutely LOVED writing skk sharing sweet moments together.
And yeah, a disclaimer that probably isn’t even needed, but still: the stargazing scene is not very accurate because you can’t see Cancer constellation from Awashima at that time of the year, but it was important for me to include it so I just went with it ^^’’ (jeez, why am I even worried about it, it’s literally a story about imaginary dudes with magic powers, scientific accuracy is NOT important here lmaoo)
Anyway, yeah. Enjoy! <3
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
The man hiccuped and staggered from side to side, the smell of alcohol oozing from him making Chuuya’s and Dazai’s eyes burn.
“Look at that!” the man cried out again. “Why did you dye your hair like this?” He reached out to Chuuya and took a strand of his hair in his fingers. He hiccuped again and squinted his eyes, leaning closer and carefully studying the ginger strand shimmering with gold under the gleaming early morning sun.
The proximity of the walking distillery made Chuuya snap out of the initial shock. He grabbed the man’s wrist, making him yelp in surprise and yank his head up.
“Oi, old man,” Chuuya growled, “go be annoying somewhere else.”
The man gaped at him like a fish washed ashore and tried to focus his bleary eyes on Chuuya’s face. Slowly, he moved his gaze to the hand holding his wrist and took a step back. He hiccuped again, and Chuuya let go of him.
“Youths!” the man barked and shook his finger. He swayed again and grabbed onto the handrail to keep his balance, awkwardly holding onto his hat with the other hand. “No respect for your elders!” A lost-looking woman in the crowd of tourists looked their way and rushed toward them, her face getting more and more flushed the closer she approached them. She linked her elbow with the man’s and started tugging him away. “Stop embarrassing yourself,” she hissed to him and glanced at Chuuya apologetically, mouthing a feeble “sorry.”
“Thug!” the drunkard spat out over his shoulder as the woman was dragging him away. “Assaulting an old man!” His bravado seemed to have come back to him now that he was out of Chuuya’s reach. The litany of curses he was showering them with kept slowly getting quieter and quieter the further he was dragged away, leaving them in baffled silence at last.
The idyllic atmosphere of the picturesque ferry ride vanished in an instant as the sounds of the world around them came back with a rush.
The cries of seagulls that sounded like an intricate symphony just a few minutes ago screamed like blaring alarms now, and the dark blue shade of the sea was comforting no more, holding evil sea monsters in its bottomless depths instead, ready to leap out and swallow the whole ferry in one hungry gulp.
“Shit,” Chuuya breathed out, turning to Dazai and clutching the handrail until his knuckles went white, his legs feeling like a rag doll’s filled with cotton wool and hastily sewn together. “This fucker scared the shit out of me,” he mumbled and held on tighter, hoping that Dazai wouldn’t notice he could barely stand.
However, Dazai himself barely looked any better than Chuuya. He stood as pale as a sheet, hands fidgeting with the hem of his shirt, and his eyes were fixed on where the back of the drunk walking away was.
All of a sudden, he was brought down from his high with a sobering reminder — they could not afford to put their guard down even for a brief moment. This was just a false alarm, just an old fool that drank his brain away long ago, but who was to say that the next encounter with another person wouldn’t be with somebody sent for them by the Port Mafia? Fool, he thought, clenching his fists, ignoring sharp pain when his fingernails dug into his skin. Reckless moron. Don’t even think of doing that again.
“Dazai.”
“Aha. Yeah. This clown.” Dazai shook his head and looked at Chuuya, tentatively raising his arm, but taking a step to the side instead. He leaned on the bannister and sighed, averting his gaze.
The rest of the ferry ride went by in silence. Chuuya desperately wanted to smoke, his heart still beating like a cornered rabbit’s. When they disembarked and started following the crowd of tourists in what they assumed was the direction of the village, Chuuya lit a cigarette, paying no mind to other passers-by looking at him with disapproval. They were probably being hunted down by the Port Mafia right now, and smoking a cigarette in a prohibited area surely wasn’t going to make matters any worse.
The port area didn’t have much around it apart from a gigantic parking lot and a couple of utilitarian-looking buildings. In the background, as if to compensate for the nondescript look of the area, mighty hills covered by lush trees of various shades of green were looking over the island, as if guarding it with their ancient, quiet power.
By the time they approached Awashimaura, the seashore village consisting of a few dozen two-storey buildings, Dazai finally found the nerve to look at Chuuya and crack a timid smile. Chuuya smiled in response. Interestingly enough, the quiet atmosphere of the island started making them feel more at ease despite their predicament. Sure, there were probably people sent their way to kill them, but at this particular moment, they had a more pressing issue — to find accommodation for the following few days.
Nothing too complicated in the possession of fake IDs and a thick wad of cash, even in high season.
***
The very moment Dazai opened the sliding door and revealed an ascetic, minimalistic room of the guesthouse they picked, he froze for a brief second. It looked painfully familiar, as if Kunikida was going to start banging on his door any seco-
No, he wasn’t going to go there.
“Welcome home!” Dazai chirped cheerfully and stepped on the tatami floor. Chuuya gave him an unreadable look and rolled his eyes, following him in. Immediately, he strode to the closet and opened the door.
“Thank fuck,” he sighed in relief when he saw two fluffy futons in it. He rolled one of them on the floor and hastily threw white bed linen on it. With a satisfied groan, he lay down and smiled in contentment. The white stripe of sunlight on the floor was shining directly on him, making him look like a ginger cat enjoying the summer warmth, particularly with the way he was blissfully stretching his sore muscles. Dazai smiled and sat on the tatami floor, leaning his back against the wall.
“Chuuya Kashimura, huh?” he asked, making Chuuya jerk and open his eyes.
“Yeah,” he said quietly after a beat of silence.
Dazai chuckled. “Chuuya. Conspiracy my ass.”
No matter how much Chuuya was loath to admit it, Dazai was right. When it came to fake documents, the best strategy was to pick a random, unremarkable name that wasn’t bound to attract any unnecessary attention. Using a real name was basically a death sentence. He had been changing identities for years with ease, but now…
Dropping Nakahara was easy. Nakahara, frankly, meant absolutely nothing to him. If anything, it was, in a way, liberating, cutting him off from his government experiment past and leaving that fucking lab behind for good. Chuuya, on the other hand… It was as if he could hear the sound of his name softly spoken by his mother as she was rocking him in her arms, lulling him to sleep back when the only life he knew was at home, being the centre of his parents’ world, even though he couldn’t remember any of it anymore. Chuuya was the boy who crawled out of the slums and built his life brick by brick. Chuuya was a fighter. A protector. A person he fought tooth and nail to become.
Chuuya was coming with him to his new life. This was as clear as day.
He hesitated and loudly exhaled. “I don’t know. I know it’s just a fake ID, but… Yeah, it doesn’t really mean anything, I know. It’s just… I didn’t have the nerve to get rid of it, even if it’s just on a piece of shitty plastic.”
Dazai watched a stubborn crease between Chuuya’s eyebrows appear again. He couldn’t quite share the sentiment. It wasn’t the first time he had to don a different name, and if they were to survive this ridiculous run, it probably wasn’t going to be his last. Tsushima Shuuji was long dead, despite his rotting corpse still tainting Dazai’s very core. If Dazai Osamu was destined to be discarded and abandoned, too, so be it.
“It might be the only real thing I have left,” Chuuya said so quietly, Dazai nearly missed it.
Something pricked in Dazai’s chest. “Yeah,” he said. “Sure.” He looked out of the window, watching clouds roll by. Birds were singing outside, accompanied by the quiet roaring of the sea just outside the guesthouse. From his spot on the floor, he could only see the sky, but oddly enough, this was comforting enough. Dazai was never really into travelling, but the sounds coming from the outside were calling him, and with each passing second, the urge to go and explore the peaceful, quaint village got stronger. It’s not safe, a stubborn voice in his head said. Don’t push your luck.
“Let's go out,” Dazai blurted out, surprising even himself.
Chuuya opened one eye and yawned. “Nah, I’ll pass.”
Dazai raised an eyebrow. “Thought you hated being confined.”
“Leave me alone.”
“Who are you, and where’s the real Chuuya?”
Instead of an answer, Chuuya flipped Dazai off and rolled over onto his side, turning away from him and putting a pillow over his head.
“Chuuya.”
No answer.
“Chuuya.”
“Chuuya, if you’re-”
Steady, deep breaths coming from underneath the fluffy pillow made Dazai stop mid-sentence. He froze in place, watching Chuuya’s shoulders slowly rise and fall. No way, Dazai thought, tentatively making a step forward. He squatted next to Chuuya and lifted the pillow, looking at his face underneath it.
He was fast asleep.
“Ridiculous,” Dazai mumbled, reaching out and poking Chuuya’s cheek. He didn’t budge. How on earth did he manage to fall asleep so fast?
Chuuya mumbled something in his sleep and rolled onto his back, spreading his arms and throwing the pillow to the side.
The sight of the feared Port Mafia executive — ex-Port Mafia executive — lying on his back and softly snoring with his mouth open was something Dazai had never expected to see. In a way, he regretted they got rid of their phones — Dazai would have loved to immortalise this hilarious sight forever, getting another card up his sleeve to blackmail Chuuya.
“Silly slug,” Dazai whispered and picked up Chuuya’s pillow from the corner where he’d thrown it. He brushed the dust off it and kneeled next to the futon, carefully lifting Chuuya’s head and pushing the pillow underneath it. “Your head is too heavy, chibi,” he said, fixing the pillow and smiling at how Chuuya instantly rolled onto his side and propped his cheek with his hand. “Too many thoughts in it. You gotta let it go sometimes.”
Chuuya groaned but didn’t wake up.
“Sleeping in your outside clothes…” Dazai continued, walking to the closet and getting a blanket out of it. “So rude.” He put the blanket over Chuuya and knelt next to him again.
“It’s not even 3 o’clock,” Dazai mused, studying Chuuya’s face. “But I guess bedtime for tiny people like you arrives earlier.” Dazai himself could barely hear the last few words he whispered, for his thoughts had drifted away to a completely different realm. His eyes were fixed on Chuuya’s peaceful face, cleansed from the pent-up frustration and pain by the tender embrace of Morpheus. Tranquil slumber softened his face and brought whatever was haunting him to a halt. Chuuya’s chest slowly rose and fell as his slightly agape mouth let out puffs of air at a steady pace. His hand resting under his cheek was squishing it, making Chuuya look a little bit like an oversized hamster, and Dazai couldn’t help but crack a smile at the similarity. His hand twitched as he resisted a sudden urge to reach out and touch it, his fingertips hungry to get to know the feeling of his skin. Instead, he breathed out and moved his gaze from Chuuya’s pale eyelashes to his lips, from his lips to the cluster of faint freckles scattered over his cheeks and nose, then to his lips once more, mapping Chuuya’s peaceful face and committing it to his memory while he had the chance. Chuuya mumbled softly in his sleep again. He looked peaceful. Content. He looked-
Dazai blinked and breathed out. He hadn’t even realised he’d been holding his breath this whole time. His heart squeezed as a new, unfamiliar emotion sent him onto cloud nine for a split second as he stared at Chuuya lying in front of him.
“Okay,” Dazai whispered, standing up and taking a book from the shelf. “Rest, Chuuya.”
***
It’s hot.
Everything is on fire, blazing heat is wrapping him into a sweltering cocoon, flames engulf him whole, scorching his body and melting his skin. The screaming of demons dragging him into the pits of hell is getting louder. They grab him and lacerate his arms with their sharp claws. He tries to scream, but smoke fills his lungs, and the only thing he manages to let out is a weak whimper. A sob. A mewl. A cry for help so weak, he’s not sure even he can hear it. No one’s coming for help. No one ever had, and no one ever will. The screaming of hell creatures gets unbearable, and Chuuya curls into a ball, covering his ears in a futile attempt to shut the demons up, to make them stop, but it just keeps getting louder, bursting his eardrums and popping his eyes.
Gasping for air, Chuuya abruptly sat up. The demonic screaming stopped, and his surroundings were eerily quiet, and it took him a few moments to recollect himself and remember where he was. The faint roaring of waves in the distance. The springy feeling of tatami flooring underneath him. Dazai staring at him wide-ey-
“Chuuya, what’s-”
He pushed his hair back from his sweaty forehead and hurried to the bathroom, opening the tap and splashing his face with cold water. He rubbed his face, fully expecting to feel burnt skin underneath his fingers, but ridiculously enough, instead of burst blisters, his fingers met soft skin despite his whole body still feeling like it was on fire.
Chuuya raised his head and looked in the mirror. Dazai was looming in the doorway, his book forgotten on the floor in the room. Chuuya met his eyes.
“Ch-”
“I’ll be right back,” he said, pushing past Dazai and striding to the door.
“Where are you going?”
“Just need some fresh air. It’s ok. It’s nothing.”
“Chuuya, I’m-”
“Don’t fucking tell me it’s unsafe.”
“That’s not what I was going to say!” Dazai snapped, and Chuuya stopped in his tracks in the doorframe, his unusually loud voice feeling like a slap on the cheek.
“I’ll go with you. That’s all.”
“Oh.” Chuuya felt his face flush. Maybe the notoriety of his short fuse wasn’t that unfounded. “Yeah. Fine. Whatever.”
Chuuya sat down on the guesthouse’s porch, crushing fatigue overwhelming him. It was already dark, the street lit up by the yellowish light of a streetlight by the road, and Chuuya wondered how long he’d slept for. Dazai plopped next to him and offered him a cigarette and a lighter.
“I’ll pass,” Chuuya mumbled, bringing his knees to his chest. He was positive that if he tried to smoke now, he was going to throw up. He embraced his knees with his arms and held tight. Chuuya always hated how small he looked like this, but he desperately needed to ground himself in some way. Besides, he couldn’t let Dazai see that his limbs were shaking.
He’d never had nightmares before.
Hell, he was convinced he was incapable of dreaming, and it took him years to come to terms with it. All his life, it was the stumbling block on his long journey of trying and failing to view himself as a human. He shuddered, remembering the feeling of his skin bursting open in the scorching inferno. It felt too fucking real. He’d gladly go back to not seeing any dreams if all of them were going to be like this.
Dazai put the cigarette between his teeth and flipped open the lighter. “Do you mind?”
“Go ahead,” Chuuya mumbled, making a mental note to buy more. Dazai puffed out a cloud of smoke, and Chuuya looked at the tip of the cigarette glowing in his long fingers. “Haven’t seen you smoke in ages.”
“It’s been a while.” Dazai brought the cigarette to his mouth and took another drag. “Life was a bit easier. Didn’t need to.” He exhaled smoke and licked his lips, the bitter taste in his mouth making him want to wash it down with something strong. He flicked the ash and looked at Chuuya. “What’s up?”
“What do you mean?” Chuuya asked defiantly, ripping his gaze off Dazai’s slender bandaged wrist.
“I was reading a book and got interrupted by your chihuahua whimpering. What’s up?”
“I told you it’s nothing, Dazai. Don’t fucking act like you never have nightmares.”
“Not really.”
Chuuya scoffed and looked away.
Dazai looked at the cigarette in his hand and cracked a sombre smile. “I kind of live in one, so…”
What do you know about living in a nightmare? Chuuya thought, his eyes involuntarily following Dazai taking another drag and stopping on his lips, lazily wrapped around the cigarette, unusually puffy, unusually lush.
He wanted to get angry at Dazai so badly. He desperately wanted an outlet to channel his anger and frustration. He wanted to scream, snarl, and snap at him until the vile things torturing him finally let him go.
No. He needed to take it out on Dazai like he used to and make the shitty mackerel feel at least an ounce of Chuuya’s pain.
For some reason, he couldn’t bring himself to do it.
You have no clue what it’s like, Chuuya thought, a bitter feeling of jealousy choking him. You’ve been in the world of light for too long. Desperate screaming from the nightmare rang in his ears again, and he squeezed his eyes shut. He abruptly stood up, making Dazai flinch.
“Okay, see you upstairs!” Chuuya said loudly, trying to drown out the loud ringing in his ears. Dazai caught him by the sleeve and looked up at him.
“No. Stay for a bit.”
Chuuya opened his mouth to spew out a snarky comment, but his eyes met Dazai’s before he could utter a word.
Just like that night when Dazai begged Chuuya to join him, his eyes looked into his with this foreign, heartfelt expression.
He couldn’t say “no” to these eyes.
Chuuya loudly exhaled and sat down. “It’s really quiet here,” he said after a pause.
Dazai crushed his cigarette against the metal handrail and flicked it into the grate on the road. Chuuya clicked his tongue and shook his head.
“Yeah. Weird, isn’t it?”
“Not what I’m used to.”
“Look up. Insane how many stars we can see here,” Dazai said, pointing at the sky.
It was peppered with stars. Constellations, big and small, were scattered over the night sky, and new ones kept appearing the more their eyes got adjusted to the dark. The sea of water a few meters in front of them was mirrored by the vast sea of stars above, myriads of them looking down at them. Automatically, Dazai found Polaris again. It wasn’t going to give him any answers, but he wasn’t going to ask this time.
Maybe he could figure everything out on his own.
Chuuya’s eyes were glued to the Moon, a sinking feeling in his stomach sucking everything inside him in like quicksand. He remembered how much he loved spending quiet summer nights on his terrace, drinking wine and thinking about nothing in particular, just him and the Moon in the sky, feeling at peace and at home, in the place where he was always meant to be.
Now the place where he felt at home was his no more, and a sharp pang went through his chest again.
“This is not Yokohama,” Chuuya blurted out. Dazai looked at him quizzically.
Chuuya coughed. “Light pollution,” he clarified. “Can't see shit there.”
Dazai’s heart fell at the barely noticeable hint of sorrow in Chuuya’s voice, and his arm twitched as he resisted an urge to wrap it around his shoulder. This would have probably resulted in Chuuya sending him flying into the sea before he knew it. Instead, he lightly bumped Chuuya’s shoulder with his.
For a while, they sat in silence, taking in the endless celestial splendour above them. Dazai scooted a tad closer to Chuuya, just enough for their shoulders to brush against each other, this small point of contact reminding him he was still on the ground despite his mind being hundreds of light-years away. They didn’t really need to talk. Understanding each other without needing words had always been something they appreciated.
“I’d kill for some canned crab right now,” Dazai mumbled after a long period of silence.
Chuuya’s head snapped around. “What?”
“Crab.”
“Where the fuck did this come from?”
“The constellation, of course. Look.” Dazai pointed at the bright dot of Venus and moved his hand. “Here.”
Chuuya squinted his eyes, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t see what the fuck Dazai was talking about.
“It’s very faint,” Dazai said softly, as if too cautious not to scare the constellation away. “Look closely. There are a few stars that kind of look like crab’s pincers.”
Chuuya was straining his eyes to make anything out in the sky full of stars, but it got very difficult as he started to get very aware of Dazai’s body heat; his shoulder pressed against Chuuya’s as he was pointing at the constellation. Chuuya blinked and tried to focus on the sky. Crab. You’re such an idiot, he thought, slowly moving his gaze to Dazai’s face.
“See it?” Dazai beamed at him, making Chuuya’s heart squeeze. It was ridiculous how a mere thought of canned crab made his ex-partner’s day in seconds. He looked into his eyes, glinting in the moonlight, and he caught himself being pulled in by their magnetic shine.
An owl hooted in the distance, and Chuuya snapped out of it.
“No. I give up,” he said and got up. “I’ll sleep, mackerel. Make sure to find Pisces and say goodnight to your kind.”
Dazai cracked up, his loud giggle disturbing the quiet night. “Good night, fishies!” he shouted out into the sky and followed Chuuya inside.
If he saw the tips of Chuuya’s ears blushing ever so slightly, he didn’t say anything.
***
“We can explore the island today,” Dazai suggested after they finished their breakfast the following morning. He poured himself more tea and took a sip, savouring the rich aroma bursting on his tongue. The landlady brought them a new teapot and smiled, and Dazai made a mental note to chat with her when they had time. Judging by their short interactions with her, she looked like a lovely woman, that kind of old lady who treated everyone around her like her grandchildren, with inexhaustible kindness, no matter their age, looks or nationality.
“Huh. Interesting,” Chuuya said, picking up a stray grain of rice from his plate and putting it into his mouth.
“Interesting?”
“I expected you to throw another tantrum.”
“Tantrum?”
“Some bullshit about not being safe.”
“Well, it is unsafe. But you’re right - we can’t just be stuck here like we were in Koriyama.”
Chuuya took a sip of his tea as an idea came into his head. “Let’s go hiking. With a tent and shit,” he suggested, watching Dazai nearly spit out his tea.
“Say it again, chibi?”
“You heard me, bastard. Fucking camping.”
“Imagine the Port Mafia goons murdering us in a tent. Embarrassing.”
“Way better than on a smelly futon in a guesthouse. Besides, the poor landlady will be beyond traumatised when she sees our mangled bodies.”
“The futons are not smelly.”
“That’s not the point.”
“Where the hell are we going to find a tent?”
“We’re in a guesthouse. They rent shit out.”
Dazai clicked his tongue and put his head on the table with a loud thud. If there was something he hated most, it was definitely walking for hours under the scorching sun while being eaten alive by mosquitoes.
Frankly, he started regretting that he offered it in the first place.
“Renting shit out! Why are you so smart, Chuuya?” he moaned. “No wonder you were such a good exec-”
Chilly realisation went over Dazai’s head like a bucket of ice-cold water, and he straightened up.
“Shit, I-”
“It’s okay, Dazai.”
“I-”
“I was an executive. Can’t erase that from my biography.”
“I didn’t mean anything by th-”
“I know, Dazai. I know.” The unsettling blank expression appeared in Chuuya’s eyes again, and Dazai’s heart fell. “I’ll tidy up.”
Helplessly, Dazai watched Chuuya stand up and collect the dishes from the table. He couldn’t help but notice that Chuuya’s usually broad shoulders were now slumped ever so slightly, his boisterous mood gone, deflated like a popped balloon.
Fucking idiot, Dazai thought, feeling a lump in his throat choking him. Think before you speak for once.
“I’ll go get ready,” Chuuya said, taking a quick glance at Dazai and walking upstairs. Dazai nodded and stood up.
Suddenly, a hike started feeling like the least of his problems.
***
“Will this hike ever end?” Dazai wheezed, wiping sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand. He stopped in his tracks and doubled over, hands on his knees, groaning in frustration. His water bottle slipped out of his backpack’s side pocket as he bent, hitting a rock with a loud clank and rolling into the grass. Dazai followed it with his eyes and let out a tragic wail.
“We’ve been out for ten minutes tops, mackerel,” Chuuya said offhandedly, not bothering to stop.
“That’s ten minutes too many.”
“Thought you wanted to explore the island?”
“Yes. By that, I meant sitting on some terrace and drinking sake. Maybe dip our toes in the sea. Not this.”
Chuuya just rolled his eyes and quickened his pace, ignoring Dazai’s whining behind him. The winding path made another turn, and Chuuya stopped in his tracks at the view stretching out before him.
As Chuuya tried to wrap his mind around the splendour he was looking at, he thought that it could have easily been a picture postcard definition of “breathtaking”. They were in a small clearing, and from this point they could see the entire island in front of them. To their right, they could see the Awashimaura village, and to the left, there was another one, just a few houses huddled together, probably just for fishermen to spend the night after a long work day. No mainland was in sight, and it felt as if the sea around them was endless. Chuuya took a deep breath, enjoying the clean air, so different from the urban jungle of Yokohama. His last few weeks there, in the midst of the civil war, turned the concrete jungle of the megalopolis that always felt like home to him into a hostile, dark forest. Chuuya, so small and insignificant, was wandering in it, looking for the way out, knowing damn well he won’t.
Here, looking at the vast sea, he dared to think — what if… What if he could, actually, find his way again?
Dazai caught up with Chuuya and leaned all his useless body weight on his shoulder, theatrically panting into his ear. Chuuya gave him a side-eye but didn’t move.
“You know, chibi,” Dazai said after catching his breath, “I’m surprised you like this.”
“How is it surprising?”
“You’re too spoiled.”
“Spoiled?!”
“You appreciate comfort too much, Chuuya. I can’t picture you sleeping in a tent or shitting in bushes.”
“Please don’t picture me shitting in bushes.”
Dazai straightened out and let go of Chuuya’s shoulder. “This is a disaster!” He threw his hands in the air and turned to Chuuya, the pained look on his face making Chuuya’s lips inadvertently curve into a small smile. He hated to admit it, but Dazai’s theatrics were, at times, really fucking hilarious.
“Chuuya!”
He just raised an eyebrow and folded his arms across his chest, his smile getting wider and wider the more ridiculous Dazai’s pout got. He tilted his head to the side and nodded. Dazai saw it as a prompt to continue.
“I can’t breathe, Chuuya.”
“You can’t breathe? Then why won’t you shut up to save some air?”
“Chuuyaaaa!”
Chuuya’s breath hitched. There was something about the way his name rolled off Dazai’s tongue, and no ridiculous exaggeration could conceal it. There was something profound, something natural about it — as if his name was something Dazai was always meant to say.
As if Chuuya’s name belonged to Dazai, and Dazai only.
“It’s too clean,” Dazai continued, not satisfied with Chuuya’s silence. “The air is too clean, Chuuya!” He plopped onto his ass into the tall grass and grabbed his throat. “Too fresh! Quick, Chuuya! I need to smell some exhaust gases! Now! Or some machine oil! Just one glass, Chuuya! I’m a city man! I need pollution!”
Chuuya’s shoulders started shaking as an avalanche of laughter started slowly breaking through, tearing down the Dazai-proof wall Chuuya carefully built ages ago to show the bandage waster that his theatrics absolutely did not work on him. With tears pooling in the corners of his eyes, Chuuya knelt in front of Dazai.
“Where the fuck…” he wheezed, finding it really hard to produce any coherent thoughts right now, “where the fuck am I going to find this shit for you now?”
“Then leave me here, Chuuya. Let me go. Bring some to my grave.” He closed his eyes and stuck his tongue out, falling onto his back and crossing his hands on his chest.
This was the last straw. Chuuya finally cracked up, scaring off a bird from the nearby tree. “You’re an idiot, Dazai,” he mumbled through his laugh, hiccuping and trying to catch his breath.
Dazai’s eyes shot open. Idiot. He heard this word coming out of Chuuya’s mouth so many times in hundreds of different contexts. Fucking up a mission. Sabotaging a game in the arcade. Shaving half of Chuuya’s left eyebrow while he was asleep. Buying a flat screen TV for his shipping container and complaining it didn’t fit. Idiot had always been such a natural word coming out of Chuuya’s mouth.
This time, Dazai sensed something different about it. He tried hard to pick up the familiar notes of hostility and disdain, but no matter how hard he tried, he could only hear… fondness?
“Mhm,” Dazai croaked, unable to take his eyes off Chuuya’s beaming face. Immediately, his eyes went to his nose, where a new cluster of freckles had just appeared, summoned by the strong afternoon sun. Chuuya was so close to him. Too close, perhaps, and Dazai’s mind drifted to the ferry again, when Chuuya was the only thing that existed for him in this world.
Tentatively, Chuuya moved forward, pushing Dazai’s hair off his forehead and tucking it behind his ear, hand audaciously moving down to his neck, the gentle touch of Chuuya’s fingers making Dazai freeze. Slowly, he was leaning closer, and Dazai closed his eyes, feeling Chuuya’s body looming over his, when…
“Oh fuck!” Chuuya swore and straightened out. “A lizard!”
Dazai looked down at his chest and jerked, making a small lizard sitting on his shirt try to scatter away.
“Wait, little bro,” Chuuya said, promptly catching it and putting it on the back of his hand. “Look at you. So beautiful.” He raised his eyes to meet Dazai’s before they darted to the animal motionlessly sitting on his hand again. “Isn’t it, Dazai?”
Dazai blinked, still not fully registering what had just transpired. Awkwardly, he sat down, staring at the lizard sitting on Chuuya’s hand. It was nothing special, to be honest. Besides, now Dazai kind of held a personal grudge against this particular little scaly fucker. Chuuya, however, seemed to have forgotten how to breathe. Tentatively, he raised his finger and touched the lizard’s back, gently moving his finger along it, barely breathing as if too afraid to hurt it.
The genuine awe and wonder in Chuuya’s eyes made Dazai’s breath hitch.
“Yeah,” Dazai whispered. “Beautiful.”
“Go. You have your lizard business to do.” Chuuya lowered his hand, and the lizard scattered away into the tall grass, disappearing in the cluster of rocks nearby. Chuuya awkwardly scratched the back of his head and stood up, helping Dazai up, carefully studying his shoes rather than meeting his eyes.
“Ok, let’s go,” he mumbled, kicking a small rock. “I’ll carry both our backpacks.”
“Chuuya, I’m not a damsel in distress. I can carry my own bag.”
“I’d rather carry two backpacks than hear one more complaint from you.”
“Bold of you to assume I’ll ever stop complaining.”
Chuuya laughed again and finally looked at Dazai. “True. I can still try, right?” He winked at him and set off, a backpack hanging from each of his shoulders.
Dazai wasn’t joking when he said that nothing could ever stop him from whining like a capricious little bitch.
He complained about the water in the sea being too cold.
He complained about being too hot in the sun.
He complained about the spot Chuuya picked to set up the tent.
He complained about the noodles Chuuya made on the camping stove.
He complained about his tea being too strong.
When Chuuya made him a new cup, he made a sad face and said that it was way too weak now.
Too windy. Too quiet. Too dusty. Too much pollen. Too little entertainment. Chuuya’s too angry. Chuuya’s too boring. Chuuya’s too keen on watching birds. Chuuya’s too short. Chuuya’s too this. Chuuya’s too that.
By the time twilight fell over the camping site and Chuuya unrolled their sleeping bags, carefully laying them inside the tent, he was seriously contemplating zipping Dazai inside one of them and chucking him into the sea. Perhaps, if he threw hard enough, he could deliver Dazai straight across the border into some other country, where he would be somebody else’s problem. Maybe if he felt benevolent enough, he would even let Dazai choose which direction to throw him. Or maybe he would strangle him instead to save other people the trouble of dealing with the bandage waster.
By the time Chuuya wriggled into his sleeping bag and closed his eyes, Dazai had finally shut up. The only sound disturbing the peaceful silence was the chorus of cicadas singing their intricate lullaby to the two men in the tent.
“Chuuya.”
He snapped his eyes open, feeling his blood boil. “What?”
“Thank you.”
Chuuya froze. Being confined in a sleeping bag, he had very limited mobility, but he tried to turn his head and try to make out Dazai’s face in the dark.
“No problem, mackerel,” he finally said. “Sleep. Hope your dreams are shit.”
Dazai quietly chuckled. “Same to you… Chuuya.”
***
When Chuuya woke up, the tent was empty. Dazai’s sleeping bag was wide open, and the entrance to the tent was unzipped as well. A pang of panic pricked Chuuya’s chest, but then he saw Dazai standing outside on the edge of the cliff, leaning on the bannister with a cup of tea and watching the sun shyly rise from below the horizon. Sighing in relief, Chuuya wriggled out of the sleeping bag (he was glad Dazai didn’t see the utter lack of elegance — he would have never let him live this down) and climbed out of the tent, stretching and breathing fresh morning air. Everything that happened before — the night he tried and failed to sleep in the car on that parking lot, Koriyama, even the ferry — seemed like it was aeons ago, something that happened back in his previous life.
He walked up to Dazai and leaned on the wooden bannister next to him. He picked up the second cup, already waiting for him and took a sip.
Pale orange light was shining on the island, the sun obscured by the thin gauze of fog slowly slithering across the sea and wrapping the hills in a ghostly thin veil. Below them, under the cliff, the sea was crashing against the rocks, relentlessly working despite the early hour, knowing no fatigue. The grass was dressed in dainty dew glinting under the morning sun, prettier than any diamond. The fog was a curtain, and it seemed like any minute now it was going to open. Dazai was peering into the distance, suddenly realising that somewhere over there, behind the sea, a new life might be waiting for him. Them.
Dazai looked at Chuuya, and it startled him that he was already intently looking at him. Dazai opened his mouth to say something, and Chuuya’s eyes immediately darted to his lips. Don’t do it, Dazai thought, staring at Chuuya’s invitingly agape lips.
The fog over the sea started clearing, and so did the doubts in Dazai’s head.
Why the hell not? he thought. Why are we wasting time?
Looking into Chuuya’s eyes, raw, unguarded, untainted by pretend resentment and superficial grudges, was like coming home. Not to his shipping container. Not to his lovable, but bare dorm.
Casting his doubts aside, he leaned down and met Chuuya’s lips halfway, feeling butterflies in his stomach burst out of him.
No.
Kissing Chuuya was like coming home. Coming to the place he never really had and never really hoped to obtain. The feeling was new, and Dazai struggled with what label he should put on it, yet every single doubt left Dazai’s brain, the feeling so natural as if they were always meant to do this.
Chuuya is home.
How did I not realise this before? The answer has always been so simple.
Chuuya pulled away and held Dazai’s cheek, rubbing circles on it with his thumb. “My breath is smelly,” he blurted out. Very smooth, Chuuya, he thought in frustration. Well fucking done.
Dazai raised an eyebrow. “It’s not. And even if it was… Why would that matter?”
“You just like trash… Rat.” Chuuya mumbled and stood on his tiptoes, burying his face in the crook of Dazai’s neck. Dazai laughed and wrapped his arms around Chuuya’s waist, holding him tight and wishing nothing more than to get lost in his warm presence forever. Chuuya’s hands ran along his back, squeezing him tight in response, and Dazai finally realised what that feeling was that took root in his chest, coming to full bloom when their lips touched as they stood on the cliff.
Hope.
Notes:
Thank you for reading, let me know which part you liked most! Personally, I loved the hiking scene with Dazai being a drama queen. Also, A COCKBLOCKING LIZARD <3
Coming up next - Chapter 6: Safe haven.
The newfound bliss makes its way into Chuuya's and Dazai’s life. However, soon enough they have to set off again.Follow me on twitter for writing updates, skk ramblings and a questionable sense of humour: https://twitter.com/daot_noen
Chapter 6: Safe haven
Summary:
The newfound bliss makes its way into Chuuya’s and Dazai’s lives. However, soon enough, they have to set off again.
Notes:
Hey guys.
I can not believe that after more than 2 years, I’m finally updating this bad boy. There were many reasons why I struggled writing it, but here I am. It turns out that if I sit down and write, some writing ACTUALLY gets done. Whoa. Who’d have thought?
Also, I have some good news for those who like this fic: see the end note for it ;)
Anyway, here are 10k words of skk briefly enjoying life until they don’t anymore, have fun!P.S.: How many times am I going to compare Chuuya to the Sun? Yes.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
One. Two. Three. Four.
Drop after drop, warm summer rain started drumming on the windowpane, its timid sound gradually becoming more confident, and when it turned into a torrential downpour, Dazai slowly cracked his eyes open.
Two days ago, he could not have fathomed he would find himself with his futon pushed against Chuuya’s, within arm’s reach from one of the most dangerous people he knew peacefully snoring across from him, with his guard down, bare and open like never before.
The harsh wind was wheezing past the windows and getting in through tiny cracks in the wooden window frame, but despite that, Dazai was the warmest he had ever been. Could it have been any other way, though, with Chuuya sharing a duvet with him, his body radiating inexhaustible warmth a measly couple of centimetres away from him?
Still, it was not enough. His body and mind craved to touch, to feel, to hold the embodiment of the sun, the scorchingly hot star tamed just for him and made to share the enveloping warmth rather than incinerate whoever dared get too close to it. Timidly, he scooted closer and put a hand on Chuuya’s waist.
The next thing Dazai knew, he was clutching his jaw, searing pain momentarily disorienting him as he let out an embarrassingly miserable whimper.
“Fuck!” In a flash, Chuuya sat up and hovered over Dazai, who was pathetically writhing on the mattress. He ripped Dazai’s hand off his jaw and carefully examined the red spot, which was sure to become a nasty bruise soon. “Shit! I'm so sorry!”
Dazai breathed out and wiped the tears that pooled in the corners of his eyes from the force of the impact. Carefully, he rolled his tongue over his teeth, assessing the damage. Luckily, all were intact. It would have been a pain in the ass to find a decent dentist on a tiny island in the middle of nowhere.
“You know,” Dazai grumbled, rubbing his reddened chin, “you’re a very violent Snow White.” It was definitely not a morning cuddle he expected, and still, he could not help but crack a smile at Chuuya’s horrified, sleepy blinking.
Chuuya groaned. He covered his face with the blanket and collapsed back onto the pillow. His wrist ached from the awkward angle of the blow, and he flexed his hand, the sharp pain making the scorching shame in his mind a little bit more bearable. How many more times would he hurt people? How many more times would he cause unnecessary violence, reminding himself how utterly pathetic the attempts to run away from his true self were?
Chuuya took a deep breath. He could feel Dazai looking at him, burning up under the stare of bright brown eyes, but he did not dare utter a single word.
“Sorry, Dazai,” he finally croaked. “I’m not used to it.”
“It’s okay.” Dazai lifted on his elbow and carefully pulled the blanket down, revealing Chuuya's face, its tomato-red colour equally endearing and amusing. Slowly, he examined his features, taking in everything he could not see over the long years of the childish rivalry. How could he be so blind to it? The freckles. The light ginger eyelashes. The colour of his eyes as clear as the sea. “To be honest… Me neither.”
Chuuya released a sigh he had been holding for ages and pulled Dazai down onto the pillow next to him until their noses were almost touching. “Uh. So…” Chuuya swallowed and blinked. “Shall we try again?”
“We shall.”
Dazai did not move. With a strange expression on his face, he stared at Chuuya like a fish out of water, his arms suddenly feeling heavy as lead. He swallowed and cleared his throat, unusually bashful. The sun was right here, lying in front of him and lighting up the whole room despite the downpour outside, and all he had to do was reach out and touch, and yet, when the blue eyes were looking at him like this, he could not find the nerve to do so, as if too afraid to ruin the perfection sprawled beside him.
“I’m not gonna punch you again,” Chuuya mumbled. A rosy blush on his cheeks blossomed more and travelled to his ears.
Dazai chuckled and touched his chin again. “You know, no hard feelings, chibi!” he yelped, mentally cringing at how high-pitched his voice came out. “I can rock any scar or bruise. I’ll just look badass. You wish you’d look as coo…”
Chuuya rolled his eyes and yanked Dazai close by the waist, making the air leave his lungs. No matter the stinging shame choking him when he saw the red spot on Dazai’s chin, Chuuya was certainly not in the mood to listen to his bullshit. “Sure. Whatever,” he mumbled, tucking Dazai’s head under his chin. “Stay here,” he said, burying his hand in Dazai’s messy hair and inhaling his scent. “I don’t want to see your stupid mug.”
Dazai smiled and finally granted his morning wish. His hand got braver and found Chuuya’s waist, and slowly, he wrapped his arm around his back, the confidence coming back to him when he felt Chuuya relax into his embrace. Chuuya’s t-shirt smelled so unmistakably of him — it was the smell that Dazai would happily get used to if the fates allowed. The fast heartbeat right under his ear complemented the drumming of the raindrops on the window pane, the sound singing a soothing lullaby, and Dazai had to force his eyes open to stay awake — the last thing he wanted was to fall asleep instead of taking in Chuuya’s warmth and being here, in the moment he craved so deeply. Tentatively, he tangled his legs with Chuuya’s. His feet were awkwardly sticking out from underneath the duvet, but he did not mind this minor inconvenience. He could definitely live with that, when his payment for slightly cold feet was steadily breathing in his arms.
“What are you thinking about?” Dazai mumbled in the last attempt to fight sleep. He felt like butter melting on a piece of toast. Not the most romantic analogy — but boy was he hungry. His eyelids got heavier and heavier, and he jerked when Chuuya finally spoke.
“Nothing,” he said casually. “You?”
“My feet are too cold.”
Chuuya looked at the lanky feet sticking from under the duvet, toes curling and uncurling as Dazai tried to illustrate his complaint. “Hmph. That’s what you get for being too tall.”
“You like it.”
“So what? That’s not the point.”
“What is the point, then?”
Chuuya took a deep breath. Dazai’s body warmth was distracting. Hell, everything was distracting — from the way his hand held his back, to the beating of Dazai’s heart and the way his legs rubbed against Chuuya’s, and he found it really fucking hard to concentrate. Also, he was not going to answer this stupid-ass question. Dazai could find another idiot to play with.
The fucker, much to Chuuya’s annoyance, did not get the hint. “What is the point, Chuuya?” Dazai repeated, rubbing circles on Chuuya’s back, which, along with an almost primal way he purred his name, did not help one bit.
Nope. He was not going to say anything.
Dissatisfied with the lack of response, Dazai, as the stubborn motherfucker he was, wriggled his way upward like an oversized worm until their eyes were on the same level.
Chuuya sighed. “The point is…” that you are an idiot, he finished in his head, but no matter how hard he tried, his brain and mouth refused to cooperate, as if the speech centres in Chuuya’s brain had been obliterated by the intense shine of the brown eyes staring at him.
This is what makes me love you, the stupid, mocking phrase resurfaced from the depths of Chuuya’s memory from aeons ago. Now, Dazai’s eyes were shining with the same mischievous glint as they did back then, and, just like then, his face was so close to Chuuya’s that he could feel the wind from the flutter of his eyelashes.
Some things truly never changed — but Chuuya knew for a fact that something in him sure did.
“…this,” Chuuya whispered and leaned in. He could feel Dazai’s smug smile under his lips, but any irritation with it was gone even before it appeared.
Maybe Dazai was annoyingly full of himself. Maybe he would always stay a manipulative menace.
Maybe that was exactly what Chuuya wanted.
The rain outside turned into a thunderstorm as they slowly kissed, savouring every gentle touch of lips on lips. The roaring thunder sounded like a toy drum in comparison to their rapidly beating hearts; the zapping of lightning in the sky mimicked the electric touch of their hands, the force of nature pathetically weak compared to the electricity they felt in each other’s embrace. Once, the violence of clenched fists and sharp nails was the only force their hands knew. Now, they discovered another purpose — much more powerful than any blow could be, helping Chuuya and Dazai learn each other in this brand new way through the little shifts and sighs they made in response to gentle caresses and tender touches of fingertips.
“Chuuya,” Dazai breathed out, pulling away. His hazy eyes darted to Chuuya’s lips, so invitingly puffy, that he had to fight himself not to lean in again, the civil war, the run, the island all going to hell.
“What?”
“I’m hungry.”
Chuuya blinked. The rain stopped, and the clouds started to dissolve, but the fog in his brain was not so quick to go away; the phantom touch of Dazai’s lips on his still lingering, magnetic.
“Hah?”
“I said,” Dazai panted, caressing the small of Chuuya’s back under his shirt, “I’m hungry.”
“You’re hungry.”
“I’m hungry.”
Finally, Chuuya was able to form a coherent thought. “Aren’t I the best meal you’ve ever had?” he theatrically asked, stroking his thumb on Dazai’s lower lip.
“God, Chuuya,” Dazai chuckled, covering Chuuya’s hand with his, “you sound awfully like a guy I know. Can’t remember his name, though. Think it starts with “Da” and ends with “zai”, but I’m not sure.”
“Bet this guy is very annoying.”
“No, actually, he is incredibly handsome.”
“Two things can be true at the same time, you know.”
Dazai’s eyes lit up again, and he grabbed Chuuya’s face, squishing his cheeks. “So you think I’m handsome!”
Truth be told, Chuuya was not a fan of being fondled like this. It felt way too condescending, as if he were a Pomeranian puppy on the lap of an old lady. Besides, with his thorough skincare routine, he would not even touch his own face, let alone let somebody else grab it with their crabby claws. On the other hand… The last time he had any kind of proper pampering was back in Yokohama, the morning before Dazai, like a whirlwind, entered his life and carried him away. It was also pretty much an apocalypse. The skincare routine was kind of at the bottom of his list of priorities.
Chuuya sighed and gently took Dazai’s hands off his face. “I think you look like shit,” he said and kissed him on the nose before standing up and opening the window, leaving the indignant worm to wriggle on the floor all he wanted.
Crisp air entered the room, and Chuuya took a deep breath. The smell of ozone and wet soil, along with the salty scent of the sea, was making his head spin. The tree branches, previously dancing along with the storm, were now calm like diligent schoolkids, as if the frenzy never happened, water dripping from the leaves as evidence that the elements were raging here just a few minutes ago. Chuuya jolted when long arms wrapped around his frame from behind, but he immediately relaxed into Dazai’s embrace, the contrast between the cold air and the warm body nearly making him purr in content.
“It’s just me, chibi,” Dazai mumbled. He bent down and put his chin on Chuuya’s shoulder where it met the neck. His back whined in protest, but it just felt so right to nuzzle into Chuuya like this that he chose to ignore this minor inconvenience. “Hold your fists to yourself.”
Absentmindedly, Chuuya raised his hand and ruffled Dazai’s already dishevelled hair.
A bird chirped in the distance. Another one picked up, singing in response, and soon enough, the pair’s singing filled the air, mismatched and yet surprisingly harmonious.
“It’s pretty,” Dazai mumbled into the crook of Chuuya’s neck. The hand caressing him felt like a blessing despite his sore back. Funny how Chuuya had always been supposed to be his dog, but there he was, with tables turned, enjoying the rub like an overgrown Labrador. “I like it.”
“Uguisu,” Chuuya said without missing a beat. “Usually hard to see. They hide pretty well.”
“That’s something to learn from them, I guess.”
The bird’s song was shrill and repetitive — and yet, oddly comforting, a melodic balm calming their nerves as they stood without saying a word to each other.
“Anyway,” Dazai finally said, letting go of Chuuya and straightening his back, wincing when it cracked. He came closer to the window and looked down. “Didn’t know you were into birds.”
“How am I into birds?”
“I had no clue which bird it was. A bird is a bird. I can tell an ostrich from a chicken, and that’s about it, and here you were, reciting an encyclopedia article about this little bastard. Uguisu? It’s a freaking bird.”
“Nonsense!” Chuuya scoffed and nudged Dazai’s ankle with his foot. “Everybody knows it. It’s common knowledge.”
“Not that common, if you ask me.”
“Ain’t my problem you are so uneducated.”
“Ain't my problem you're a bird nerd.”
“You learn it at school, for fuck’s sake.”
“You never went to school, Chuuya.”
“Oh, fuck off, you suicide maniac. Get away from the window before I chuck you all the way onto the mountain. Bet you’d love another hike.”
Dazai gulped at the memory of the excruciating ascent. “Chuuya looks cute when he’s angry,” he cheerfully chirped, singing in unison with the bird’s song.
“I’ll show you what I look like when I'm angry!” Chuuya roared. He shut the window, muting the beautiful song of the uguisu. “Thought you were hungry. Let’s go down and have something.”
“Finally, a sound thought.” Dazai gave Chuuya a mischievous look.
“Go ahead, shitty Dazai. I need to take a leak.”
Dazai clicked his tongue and put on his slippers. “Chuuya, you will kill all the romance like this. I do not need to know about your bodily-”
“One more word and I’ll piss on you,” Chuuya snarled, and Dazai disappeared behind the sliding door with a cackle. When Chuuya could not hear the footsteps anymore, he collapsed on the futon and covered his face with his hands. His wrist was still in pain, and the futon was still warm from their shared body heat, the linens all dishevelled after they had been waiting out the rain in each other’s arms.
Absentmindedly, Chuuya pulled the pillow closer to his face. It smelled of Dazai, the scent so intoxicatingly inviting, so unapologetically his, it made his head spin. He put it on his face and released a muffled cry into the fabric.
He did not deserve this.
The warmth, the kisses, the affection he was showered with — all this was not supposed to be happening to him. If karma existed, he should have been burning alive, not basking in Dazai’s comforting warmth. How many people will never hear birds sing because of him? How many kisses will never be shared with loved ones? How many futons will never be unrolled? How many fresh flowers will lie solemnly, commemorating the dead, rather than being enjoyed in a loving, happy, complete home?
Chuuya's face contorted under the soft cotton, and he pressed the pillow harder against his face.
After that time, he could smell the omnipresent scent of the sea of flowers everywhere.
It was in his bedroom, in the Port Mafia cabs, in his office, in the gym, in Mori-san’s office as he was shaking his hand, thanking him for the job well done. Even in the black-and-white photograph on the front page of the morning paper, he was still blinded by the intense colours of the flowers, suffocated by their smell, burned by the silent stares of the hundreds of photographs lining the wall.
Now, it was in the guest house on Awashima, too — in the place where he fruitlessly tried to escape his sins.
“Fuck,” Chuuya whispered and tossed the pillow to the side. With eyes wide open, he stared at the ceiling. White and empty, it was nevertheless swarming with the images he never wanted to see again.
Dry, solemn newspaper articles. Breaking news interrupting entertainment programmes on TV. Candles on sidewalks. Memorials, big and small. Anxious faces of citizens of Yokohama, walking down the blood-stained streets with their backs hunched.
Hundreds of horrors, all united by one thing — their cause.
Chuuya squeezed his eyes shut.
On his lips, he could still feel the soft touch of Dazai’s.
He did not deserve this, and yet, he could not get enough of it.
The dichotomy was eating him alive.
Slowly, Chuuya got up and made it to the door. He took one last look at the window, where somewhere in the bushes, the birds were hiding from his sight. He opened the sliding door — in the rustling whisper of the door against the floor, he could hear Mori’s voice, content, purring, telling Chuuya how proud he was of the job he did. Any decent Port Mafia member would kill to hear such praise from the boss. Chuuya closed the door behind him and clenched his fists, taking a deep breath and staring at the staircase, where, downstairs… life was happening.
Ordinary, everyday life that the people in the guesthouse tried to live despite the uncertainty and tragedy that was happening. The life that he robbed so many out of.
He had no right to be among them.
A wave of nausea made Chuuya hold onto the wall for support. What was he thinking? How could he have such a hard time deciding to leave? How could he think he was betraying the Mafia when the only thing he was betraying was Yokohama, the longer he stayed in the organisation? Was that fear of the unknown really stopping him from leaving when it still was not too late?
Chuuya ran downstairs, the rumble of his feet against the wooden stairs doing a very shitty job of muffling his persistent, choking thoughts.
Funny how he still had any appetite after what he did to Yokohama.
***
When Dazai made it downstairs, he was greeted by Hanako-san, one of the guest house’s owners.
“Good morning!” she smiled and bowed, and Dazai immediately returned the gesture. “Will your friend be joining today?”
“Yes. He is just a bit late. Overslept. You know what people are like.”
“Make yourself comfortable, please. I will bring you breakfast for two so that when your friend wakes up, it is all nice and ready.”
“Thank you so much.” Dazai bowed again and sat on the floor in front of the chabudai table. He looked around.
The guesthouse was a bit old-fashioned, with worn furniture, obviously renovated decades ago, and still, he could see just how much love went into maintaining this tidy little place. So many details screamed love — from mismatched pictures on the wall, obviously collected by the owners throughout the years, to carefully mended noren in front of the entrance, and to craquelure on aged, yet well taken care of, pottery. In addition to the homely, pleasant atmosphere, the place was not too crowded, either, which was a big upside. A young woman was finishing her breakfast in the corner of the room, and he saw a couple of foreign tourists studying the map hanging in the reception area.
It was quiet. Nice. Peaceful.
Still, Dazai’s mind was far from peace.
Chuuya was not okay. In the years of working together, Dazai had managed to learn a good deal about him. No dishonesty from the chibi could go past him. What was eating him alive, his anguish obvious whenever Chuuya allowed himself to let his eyes wander somewhere far away? What could possibly have been-
“Enjoy your meal,” Hanako-san said, carefully arranging bowls of miso soup, fish, rice, vegetables and natto on the table. “We caught the fish just this morning.”
“Thank you.” Dazai bowed again, and his stomach rumbled. The breakfast arrangement on the table looked and smelled divine, but still, his mind darted back to Chuuya. What was taking him so long? His mind rapidly spiralled down to show him all the possible scenarios, one more twisted than the other, and he felt his heart race in his chest faster with each new image. What was he going to see when he went back to their room to check on him? Would he see the window open, curtains swaying in the wind, with Chuuya long gone, or would he see a worse-
“This looks delicious.”
Dazai released a breath when he heard the familiar voice. His heart did not slow down, but the cadence of its uneasy beat changed, soothed by the sight of the man with adorably dishevelled fiery hair finally walking into the dining room.
Chuuya’s usual brash intonation was toned down in the old lady’s presence, and Dazai instantly recognised the imprint of Kouyou’s signature teaching style. He also got to experience her etiquette lessons back in the day, but of course, not to the same extent as Chuuya. He was never that feral.
“This whole place is wonderful,” Chuuya smiled. “I have never seen a softer futon.”
Dazai tried to hide his grin behind a cup of tea. Chuuya was not particularly honest — although, after sleeping on the flat-ass futon in the Koriyama safehouse, anything felt like luxurious bedding in comparison. It was endearing, in a way, to watch him talk to old people and children. He could not fathom Chuuya showing his usual attitude to these two categories of people.
“Oh, thank you,” the lady smiled, covering her mouth with her hand. “Are you, boys, here on holiday?”
“Yes,” Chuuya responded and sat down next to Dazai. “We came here from-”
Something stopped him. His throat tightened, and no matter how hard he tried, he could not make a sound, as if he had lost the right to say the name of his beloved city that he betrayed — and kept betraying at this very moment. He looked at his hands and, absentmindedly, pulled on a hangnail. Ungloved, his hands looked eerily foreign — as if they were always meant to be covered with black.
“Yokohama,” Dazai finished the sentence and gently nudged Chuuya’s knee with his.
“Our son lives in Yokohama,” Hanako-san’s husband, Haru-san, added, appearing out of nowhere and starting to tidy up after the girl. “He is an accountant in a big computer company.”
Chuuya stiffened. His stomach churned, and he held onto the edge of the table.
“News travels slowly here,” Hanako-san sighed and poured tea into two small cups for them. “We didn’t know what was happening. Had we known, we wouldn’t have allowed Satoshi to go.”
“Is he…” Chuuya cleared his throat and gulped the tea, emptying the cup in one go. “Your only son?”
“He is our youngest. We have two older children, twins. They help us run this place. But Satoshi had always been a very,” she took a few seconds to think of a better word, “independent soul. Top of his class. Very ambitious. Simply did not want to fish and change bed linens here in our little Awashimaura.”
Bile rose in Chuuya’s throat as white noise in his ears blocked out the woman’s voice. A big computer company, the old man said. So, Satoshi is involved in IT, Chuuya thought frantically. They must have good security protocols in place to protect their employees at a time like this. A big corporation would certainly go an extra mile to make sure its workers feel safe working for it in the midst of the civil war. Right?
“I apologise for my wife,” Haru-san smiled and pecked her on the cheek. She yelped and smacked her husband’s shoulder with the cloth. The offence Hanako-san took at such an audacious display of affection was lightened by her youthful giggle, an old, respectable lady momentarily becoming a blushing schoolgirl next to the love of her life. “We shall not speak of bad things,” the old man continued. “Satoshi is a responsible boy. He knows what he is doing.”
“He is a very smart young man. Our pride.” Hanako-san wiped an invisible speck of dust from the table and bowed again. “Enjoy your meal, gentlemen,” she said. “Let us know if you need anything else.”
With that, the elderly hosts left. Haru-san busied himself looking through papers at the reception area, and Hanako-san went upstairs, armed with a broom and a scoop.
“A holiday,” Chuuya mused, eyeing a tamagoyaki roll. His hand twitched to take it, and he stopped himself. “Why did I say it? Didn’t know we were 9-5 workers.”
“Yeah. Wasn’t really a good idea telling her the truth, you know?”
We’re actually escaping Yokohama because it’s very dangerous and your son needs to get out, too! That did not sound like a good way to end the conversation (and, probably, the rest of their stay). His mind darted to the guns in their bags. How many mafiosi did Hanako-san and Haru-san unknowingly host at their quaint guesthouse? As they had this conversation with them, as they lovingly put the food on their table, could they have guessed what kind of people they were actually hosting?
Chuuya nodded. The plethora of food on the table was insanely inviting; the tamagoyaki roll was quite literally begging him to eat it, and still, the mere thought of eating something made him want to throw up. Dazai obviously did not have the same problem. Like a madman, he was stuffing his face with food. Tentatively, Chuuya took a bowl of miso soup before Dazai had the chance to inhale it as well. It smelled divine, and he carefully brought a spoonful to his mouth. When he was sure it was not going to come straight out and destroy the cosy dining area, he took another sip.
“So, Chuuya,” Dazai said and wiped his mouth with a napkin. “Shall we go out?”
“Oh, so you do fancy another hike, then?”
“God, no,” Dazai winced. “Getting shitfaced on the beach is more what I was talking about.”
That they did plenty back in the day. Trying to outdrink each other was one of their go-to pastimes when they were annoying teenagers and could find nothing better to do. It led to quite a few bad decisions, a couple of scars and an aversion to a certain type of liquor. Hell, even to this day, Chuuya could not even think of that fucking herbal abomination without gagging.
Chuuya shrugged his shoulders. He finished the soup in one gulp and slapped Dazai’s hand that was about to take the last tamagoyaki roll. He sent it into his mouth and closed his eyes from the explosion of flavours on his tongue. Hell, he was, after all, fucking starving.
“Don’t really feel like doing anything, to be honest.” Chuuya opened his eyes and looked at the almost-empty table. He took a lonely piece of cucumber that somehow survived Dazai’s rampage.
“You gotta relax sometimes.” Dazai himself was not sure how convincing he sounded — or rather, whether he believed his words himself.
Relaxing. To be fair, Chuuya found it hard to wrap his mind around this concept right now. The guest house’s owners’ voices still rang in his head. What was Satoshi doing right now? Did he feel safe? Was he regretting his decision to move away from the quaint island now that he ended up in the middle of this turmoil? Hell, was Satoshi even still alive? What if, at this very moment, something abominable was brewing or already happening in the city, the dreadful things he put in motion with his own hands, unstoppable?
Dazai nudged Chuuya’s side. “Stop thinking about it, Chuuya,” he whispered.
“You don’t know what I’m thinking about.”
“Your face quite literally has subtitles on it at this point. You can’t do anything. This isn’t your fault.”
Sure, Chuuya thought bitterly. Not mine at all. If you’d only known.
“You ate all the food, you greedy bastard,” he hissed, directing his frustration at Dazai instead. Doing so was always a good idea — except now, it did not bring any relief to his agitated mind.
“What can I say? Early bird catches the worm.”
“Thought you hated birds.”
“I can make up for it, perhaps?” Dazai smiled and put a hand on Chuuya’s knee. “How about we get some fruit from the market? Will make the beach walk a bit more fun, don’t you think?”
“Let me guess — am I going to be the one paying for this shit?”
“You are offending me, Chuuya! I would never-”
Chuuya rolled his eyes. He yanked the bowl of rice out of Dazai’s hands and finished it, paying no mind to his whinging.
Alright. He would be gracious enough to entertain Dazai’s whims today.
***
With a box of grapes and a bottle of wine in tow, Chuuya and Dazai slowly walked along the zigzagging beach away from the village. The pebbled ground turned to sand, then into jagged rocks, then back to sand again, terrains changing as fast as the capricious weather on this little island. The temperature was getting hotter, to the extent that the ground soaked by the earlier thunderstorm looked almost dry now. Clear water coves greeted the pair here and there, and lone pines looked at them from steep cliffs. To their right, sprawled the sea, methodically splashing against the beach and setting the rhythm of their walk.
Perfectly built into the raw nature of the area, lacking the usual audacity of man-made structures, was a shrine. The torii must have been painted red ages ago; bravely, year after year, the gate was withstanding the ever-changing weather of the island. Over time, winds and rains gradually desaturated the wood until the elements were happy with the pastel shade of pink they created. The rocks, identical to the ones scattered all over the beach, were carefully arranged to make a little staircase and the pedestal for the shrine. It was pretty small and unassuming — for some, that is. To others, this humble grey wood building would hold more power than any palace — but not to Dazai.
“Wanna pray, mackerel?” Chuuya asked, catching Dazai looking at the old shrine.
“No.” He ripped his eyes off it and increased his pace, eager to leave it behind. “I don’t believe in gods.”
“Hmph.”
Having this conversation last felt so long ago that Dazai even had trouble remembering if it was before or after their first pit stop in Koriyama. Deep in thought, trying to restore the sequence of the first few chaotic days on the run, and enthralled by the crunching sound pebbles made under his feet, Dazai did not notice at first that Chuuya was not by his side anymore. He turned — and his heart fell when he saw Chuuya standing in front of the torii. Even from a distance, he could see the already familiar scrunch of his brows, and he knew that if he looked into his eyes right now, he would be greeted by that eerie, empty look that took over Chuuya at the moments when he thought Dazai was not looking. He saw him make a tentative step forward — but instead of going through the gate and up the stairs to the shrine, he turned on his heel and hurried to catch up with Dazai.
Please, Dazai thought, eyes fixed on the shrine that Chuuya did not grace with a last look, his determined steps getting louder the closer he got to Dazai. Please save Chuuya. Please save him. This is all I ask for.
A seagull dove into the sea with a shrill scream, and Dazai winced.
Or at least… at least let me die before him.
A whiff of wind woke up the colourful shide on the torii, and even from a distance, Dazai could hear its melodic whispering.
“This fucking seagull,” Chuuya grumbled and took Dazai’s hand.
“Yeah,” Dazai said quietly, still hearing the gentle rustling of paper on the temple’s gate, “these damn birds.” He squeezed the bigger hand back and swallowed a lump in his throat. He could not fathom life without this man anymore — and if they were to perish in their escape attempt, as selfish as it was, he knew he could not see Chuuya die.
With only an occasional distant sound of a stray car rarely passing by on the nearby road, disturbing the rawness of the local nature with the alien sound of its motor, Chuuya and Dazai walked in silence. At a secluded part of the beach, when they could not see Awashimaura behind them anymore, they finally sat down. A long shadow of a cluster of pines was casting over them, the perfect protection from the scorching sun.
The quiet rumbling of waves was toning down the turmoil in Chuuya’s head, as it always did, and he hummed in content, taking in the sound of the gently roaring tide caressing the beach. A speedboat roared past, and the previously tender waves snapped, splashing against the shore and soaking Chuuya’s shoes in cold salty water.
Dazai laughed. Surely, the bastard pulled his lanky legs away at just the right moment, sporting dry shoes and mocking Chuuya’s misery.
“Still thinking a beach walk was a good idea?” He hoped his glare was intimidating enough. Judging by Dazai’s smile and how confidently he wrapped his arm around his shoulder, it was not.
Well.
He could live with that.
Chuuya leaned in and closed his eyes. Dazai’s arm got braver, and he pulled him closer. Nuzzling into Chuuya’s temple, Dazai pressed his lips against his cheekbone, leaving a trail of kisses down his cheek, hungry to mark every inch of his sun-kissed skin with a tender peck.
“I think it was a fantastic idea,” Dazai murmured, his stomach fluttering as he felt a smile growing on Chuuya’s cheek despite his feigned anger, “I am dry and warm and…”
Chuuya snapped his head and growled, but before he managed to tell Dazai everything he thought about his fucking ideas, he caught his gaze and continued. “And the view is beautiful.”
Chuuya’s heart skipped a beat at the low, velvety voice. His stomach flipped as he opened and closed his mouth.
“Hah…” he finally let out. Well fucking done, Chuuya, he mentally scolded himself. Very eloquent.
“You look cute when you’re flustered,” Dazai dropped another bomb. “I’d have never thought to see you like this, honestly. Especially this morning, you know?”
Was this the legendary Dazai Osamu charm he had heard so much about? Was this what left dozens of women heartbroken and seeking vengeance? And, most importantly, how the hell was he falling into the same trap as these poor fuckers?
“I’m not flustered,” he croaked.
Dazai laughed. This laugh was not something Chuuya was used to — at least not like this. Mad cackling when teenage Dazai shot up his enemies? That he heard plenty. Mocking sniggering when he played a stupid prank on Chuuya? Too many times. Something heartfelt, sincere like this? The master manipulator Dazai Osamu was not even capable of such things. At least that was what Chuuya thought.
Until recently.
I will punch him next time for sure, Chuuya thought in defeat and leaned on Dazai’s shoulder. He closed his eyes and focused on the gentle hissing of waves in front of him. Dazai’s thumb was circling patterns on his shoulder, almost writing out words in a language only the two of them could understand, and Chuuya scooted closer. It was the most peaceful… no, not even that. The most stable he dared to be at that moment. He had lost any hope of ever feeling at peace. Hell, he was not even sure if this word was still in his vocabulary.
“Can you skip rocks?” Dazai asked out of nowhere.
Chuuya lazily opened one eye and gave Dazai a puzzled look.
“I manipulate gravity. Of course, I can skip rocks.” He chuckled. “What kind of random question is that? You sound like a teenager on a first date.” Wish we did it as teenagers instead of wasting time, he thought. Way better than drinking and doing reckless shit. He quietly swore and winced. He was nauseous now. Fucking herbal concoction.
Dazai squeezed Chuuya’s shoulder and pulled him closer. “What did you say? Date? So, does it mean this is officially our first date, chibi?”
It did not escape Dazai’s attention that Chuuya’s cheeks flushed ever so slightly.
“Well,” he grumbled toughly, “we have food, and we are, I guess, in a romantic place.” He stared at Dazai with his eyebrows furrowed, and the puppy eyes of his ex-partner did a surprisingly good job of trying to erase the gruff look from Chuuya’s face. He was not going to allow this, of course.
“So?” Dazai chirped.
“What?”
“Is this a date or not?”
“I’ve just answered you.”
“It’s a yes or no question.”
“It’s not.”
“It is.”
Chuuya gritted his teeth. It had always been embarrassingly easy for Dazai to get on his nerves, and today, it seemed, it was no exception, no matter how intimately their day might have started.
“Chuuya!” Dazai sang again. The name came out of his mouth with such ease and even… tenderness that Chuuya felt his face getting bright red, the same feeling overwhelming him as on that godforsaken hike the day before. “Chuuya, tell me!”
Such a dramatic bastard.
He was not going to say anything, though. He was already kind enough to tolerate Dazai’s scheming.
“Chuuya!”
Fuck.
“Yah.” Chuuya wheezed like a balloon slowly releasing air — and the last of his pride, it seemed.
“What?”
“You heard me!”
“No, I didn’t,” Dazai said innocently.
The staring contest was pissing Chuuya off, especially with the way he could feel himself rapidly losing to the look in Dazai’s puppy eyes. Furrowing his eyebrows to the best of his ability, Chuuya stared at Dazai as sternly as he could, and then, just when Chuuya thought he might emerge the victor in this fight… The bastard pouted.
“Yes!” Chuuya finally snapped, punching the beach in frustration, a small firework of sand happily jumping out from under his fist. “It’s a date! Now shut up and eat your fucking grapes!”
“Only if you feed me,” Dazai said and opened his mouth.
“I'm not feeding you.”
Dazai pouted again and poked Chuuya’s shoulder — luckily, he was immune to it now.
“I will shove the whole box in your throat, and we’ll see how you like it.”
“What kind of date is it if there are no romantic gestures?”
“Okay, it’s not a date, then.”
Dazai clutched his chest and covered his mouth with his hand. “You’re breaking my heart, chibi.”
“Sucks to be you.” Chuuya threw a grape in the air and caught it with his mouth.
Dazai signed. He got up to his feet and outstretched his hand.
“Come on, Chuuya. Let’s have a bet. Whoever wins…”
“I ain’t betting with a fraud like you.”
“This is libel. I have never cheated once in my whole li…”
Chuuya cackled and stood up, thoroughly ignoring Dazai’s chivalrous gesture.
“Okay, then.” He brushed sand off his pants and poked Dazai’s chest. “Prepare to be fucking decimated, shitty Dazai. I will keep score.”
“There is just one rule, okay?” Dazai said mischievously. “No Abilities allowed.”
Chuuya clicked his tongue. Whatever. He did not need gravity manipulation to win against his clumsy nuisance of a partner.
Naturally, by the time the third round started, Chuuya was actively regretting that he had ever agreed to this stupid competition.
“This is unfair!” Chuuya snarled when his rock only flipped on the surface of the water twice. “Whenever it’s my turn, fucking waves appear!”
“Right, Chuuya. Blame the sea and not your pathetic rock-skipping skills.”
With a smug smile, Dazai sent a rock flying across the water, and they watched it go with a series of satisfying — to Dazai, of course — plops, bouncing against the water six times before the rock went under.
“You’re fucking cheating, shitty Dazai,” Chuuya barked and slapped Dazai’s shoulder.
“How can I cheat in this?”
“No idea. You’ll find a way, you sneaky rat. You are very capable.”
“Why, thank you. Although chibi, the only person who tried to cheat today was you.”
Chuuya clicked his tongue and paced around, frantically looking for the perfectly flat stone to fling. Dazai was, for once, telling the truth. He might have tried to sneakily use gravity manipulation to help him win in the first round. Dazai might have noticed it. As a punishment, Chuuya had to hold Dazai’s hand whenever it was his turn — and hell, that must have been the reason why Chuuya’s performance was so poor.
Chuuya threw a very promising rock and groaned when it bounced a measly four times and sank.
“Oh, wow. Three times! Well done, Chuuya.”
“It was four.”
“I only counted three.”
“Maybe you need to go back to kindergarten, then. Learn to fucking count.”
“Three bounces!” Dazai exclaimed, ignoring Chuuya’s comment. “This is your personal best for today. Shall we celebrate?”
“One more word and I will send you flying.”
“Really? With your… Hm… Questionable rock skipping skill, I might as well walk into the water myself. Would be more reliable.”
Before Chuuya had the chance to explode at the blatant disrespect, Dazai grabbed his waist and held him close.
“Such a perfectionist,” he murmured against Chuuya’s ear. “Relax. It’s just a game.”
Years ago, he could not have fathomed agreeing with Dazai. Back then, competition was sacred. It fuelled their turbulent relationship from the very start — from that day in Suribachi city when he kicked Dazai’s ass. Back then, he would have flipped if Dazai, or anybody else, really, told him that it was “just a game”. The stubbornness in him raised its fiery head again.
“You…” he growled.
“Chuuya,” Dazai repeated firmly, “relax.” His hand caressed his back, and that was when Chuuya realised how stiff his body was.
He exhaled — he did not realise he was holding his breath either — and leaned into Dazai’s touch, as much as he hated — or did he? — to admit defeat. His chin found the crook of Dazai’s neck and nestled there.
“This game is rigged,” he mumbled. He could feel Dazai’s jugular pumping blood, so steady, so determined, so alive. He remembered saying it before, years ago, at that arcade, back in his past life. Could he have imagined that the boy he was screaming at would become his partner in running away from the very organisation he was about to join? Would he have thought that the sullen teenager clad in black would radiate such warmth and make him feel so right, making him temporarily forget everything he did as he was basking in the embrace of the annoyingly lanky arms?
“Whatever makes you happy, Chuuya,” Dazai said. “But you know…” he pecked Chuuya’s nose and looked into his eyes, “you need to learn to lose gracefully.”
Dazai yelped when Chuuya stomped on his foot with the determination of a “sore loser” — Dazai’s words, not his. This was as graceful as Chuuya was going to get. Dazai took no offence, though, evident by the way he grabbed Chuuya’s hand and led him away, the pair’s lively walk like a waltz in the vast ballroom of the beach to the music of seagulls’ cries.
The day on the beach passed by in the blink of an eye. Both the box of grapes and the bottle of wine were empty, contrary to their hearts that felt the fullest they had been in a while. Before they knew it, the sky blushed in all sorts of pinks and oranges, signalling the end of the day. Slowly, it started getting chillier, and Chuuya rubbed his shoulder peppered with goosebumps.
“We gotta go,” he said. He should have brought a hoodie.
In the distance, a boat’s horn tooted, as if agreeing with him. Dazai’s eyes were glued to the colourful sky where the giant sun was already halfway behind the horizon, rapidly disappearing to bless the other side of the world with its shine, restlessly working, not allowing itself to have even a minute of rest. Chuuya pulled Dazai’s hand, but he stood motionless.
“Wait,” he whispered and squeezed Chuuya’s hand. “Just a few more minutes.”
Dazai’s eyes were watering, but stubbornly, he refused to blink, too anxious to miss the last moments of the fading day. The more the sun sank below the horizon, the more rapidly it disappeared, as if too afraid to be late for its next shift. Finally, it turned into a thin slice of light, and the next moment, just like that, it was gone. A subtle glow remained where the fiery star was just a few moments ago, and, mesmerised, Dazai was staring at it like it was a long-lost treasure. The spilt paint of pastel colours covered the canvas of the evening sky, with blotches of clouds here and there, and slowly but surely, it was spreading across it. Some parts of the sky were still dull, empty — just like Dazai used to be, but soon, inevitably, even the darkest parts of the sky were going to be painted subtle splashes of pinks and oranges.
Dazai felt Chuuya pull on his hand and slowly turned to look at him. Just like this morning, his breath caught and his eyes watered from the dazzling sight in front of him. Chuuya’s hair, messy from the sea breeze, was the most striking shade of orange as if the Sun changed its mind and decided to stay here, for him, instead of disappearing for the day. The looming night made his eyes deep grey, on par with the darkening sea in front of them. The usual feisty, boyish look in his eyes was back, and Dazai hungrily drank the expression he adored so much before it inevitably changed again.
The Sun, as Dazai thought, was never alone. At any given moment, there were always people basking in its warmth, covering their eyes from its bold and brave rays, greeting it in the early morning with yawns and stretches, or saying goodbye to it as it set, and a daring thought took root in his brain as he stared at the man in front of him.
He will never have to be alone anymore, either.
“Yeah,” Dazai mumbled and squeezed Chuuya’s hand. He intertwined their fingers and pulled, smiling at how eagerly Chuuya squeezed back. “Let’s go.”
The pastel paint glowing in the evening sky accompanied them the whole way back to the village.
***
The following days passed by quickly, and, most importantly, pretty uneventfully — a real treat in their current situation. Trips to local eateries, hot springs, hell, even staying too long in their room, with no extra eyes to distract them from each other — all felt like an entire life that they were lucky to experience in such a short period of time. There was no big drama coming from the mainland, judging by the sparse news articles in the local paper, mostly flooded with advertisements — from local farmers, lodging offers, airport transfers and whatnot.
When they went down to the common area one day, something felt off.
The atmosphere in the guest house was changed. The usual elderly couple was nowhere to be found, and instead of them, a young man and a woman were tending to the guests, their faces identical in features and worry.
A shrill sound of the phone ringing made the man apologise to the guest he was serving breakfast to and hurry to the reception desk to pick it up.
“Where is he?” he croaked, almost screamed, into the receiver. “I apologise.” He hummed and nodded, frantically scribbling something on a sticky note. “No. I’m his brother. Parents can’t come. Yes. Yes. No. Okay, I will. Thank you.”
He hung up and rushed to his sister, who was anxiously polishing an empty table. “Seirei hospital,” he told her and squeezed her shoulder. “They say he is stable. I’m catching the next ferry. Will you be alright here without me?”
“Yeah,” the woman whispered. She looked at Chuuya and turned away, tugging her brother away by the sleeve.
His heart dropped. In her eyes, he saw the kind of anguish he had always been dreading to see in people’s eyes, and his ears rang with the metallic laughter of the man from his nightmares.
Don’t go, Chuuya’s mind screamed as he watched the twins anxiously whisper something to each other behind the reception desk. He could not hear a thing anymore, but it was dead obvious what the topic of their conversation was. Don’t fucking go. He got dizzy; awkwardly, he reached into his pocket for the phone, only to find nothing in it.
Right. They got rid of their phones ages ago.
What happened in Yokohama? Was there another terror attack? Unable to say a single word, Chuuya nearly jumped when he felt Dazai's hand touch his.
“Chuuya,” Dazai said, pale as a sheet.
“We have to leave,” he mumbled in response.
Just like that, the cosy guest house and the peaceful island became safe no more. The atmosphere was charged to an insane extent, and Chuuya’s mind was flooded with millions of questions with no answer — how on Earth could they be so fucking stupid? How could they even dare to think this place was safe? How dare they relax, like some clueless idiots? What the hell were they even thinking?
“We go back to the mainland,” Chuuya continued. He ripped his gaze off the siblings and stared into Dazai’s eyes. “Right fucking now, Dazai. Now.”
In a stupor, Dazai looked at the twins who were still frantically talking about something. The brother showed his phone to the sister, and she covered her mouth with her hand, eyes widening as she read something on the phone screen. With all his might, Dazai tried to make something, anything, out of the conversation, and his stomach sank as he watched the expression on the woman's face change into a grimace the more she read. He started losing sensation in his legs, and was only brought back to reality when Chuuya nudged him.
“We have to leave.” He was ready to repeat it as many times as needed to finally make Dazai understand. “We will not be able to escape this island if shit gets real.”
“Well,” Dazai whispered. You will, he said loud and clear in his mind. If he really thought about it, Chuuya was perfectly safe. With his ability, escaping the Mafia’s wrath was child’s play. Crippling anxiety aside, the thought sort of made him feel… at peace?
The phantom rustling of the shide swaying in the wind whispered sweet nonsense into Dazai’s ear, and he felt his face mellow.
Chuuya elbowed him in the ribs. “Stop thinking that,” he hissed. “I am not doing it.”
“You don’t know what I’m thinking.”
“I fucking do.”
“How?”
“I know you reasonably well. I’m not abandoning your ass.”
It would be fair, though, Dazai thought. In front of his eyes was Chuuya’s burning car, the last goodbye he left for his Mafia partner all these years ago, just before he disappeared. It would only be fair of Chuuya to repay him with the same thing.
Too bad Chuuya was too selfless.
The look in Chuuya’s eyes was dead serious as he looked into Dazai’s. “I’m not leaving without you. If we go down, we go down together.”
Selfless and stubborn.
This was the Chuuya he was indelibly drawn to. This was the Chuuya he selfishly wanted to keep for himself for the rest of his life, no matter how much more sensible it was to let him go.
Dazai forced a smile. “Okay, chibi. We won’t go down, though. Double Black, all this shit, yeah? Or what was that thing you said?” He gulped. Saying this was pure bravado, and he knew Chuuya could see right through it. He would only hope that he would be gracious enough not to call him out for it.
“We are going to escape,” Chuuya whispered. “Together.”
“Let’s get our stuff,” Dazai said, squeezing Chuuya's hand in response. At this point, “escape” sounded like such an overly ambitious word, and he wondered if Chuuya felt the same. He collected his thoughts scattered around in his head and continued. “Catch the next ferry to the mainland. We have no time to waste. We have to leave Japan… as soon as possible.”
Rapidly, in his usual fashion, Dazai was thinking through their escape plan — or rather, rethinking. No matter how many different ways to get to the Aomori city port he thought of, one thing was dead obvious: they had no logical reason to go to his childhood home. Spending even a minute there was a luxury, a whim he could not justify logically.
It made no sense.
Frankly, it was jeopardising their whole escape plan, dramatically lowering their already slim chances to get away from their predicament. In an attempt to comfort himself, he rubbed his forearm, and instead of the familiar rough sensation of bandages, his fingers met skin. Right. He had run out of his last bandage roll just a few days ago. Back then, it felt liberating in a way, feeling the breeze and Chuuya’s first shy, and then more bold touches on his now-bare skin. Now, it just made him feel naked, unprotected, like that time when he lost the first, and for the longest time, the only person who ever stayed by his side, no matter what.
Dazai swallowed.
I will see you soon, Mom, he thought.
It was senseless. Stupid. Unreasonable.
He was still going to go to the Tsushima family house, no matter how hard he worked to detach himself from this name and his past. He had to pay his mother the last respect before he left everything behind for good.
Dazai swallowed and looked at Chuuya. Lightly, he squeezed his arm. “We pop in to my old place first. Alright?”
Chuuya nodded, without really registering what Dazai said. Leave Japan — the two lead-heavy words were still ringing in his head like bells in a memorial service. The smell of flowers, with the bottom layers rotting already, momentarily overtook him. Must have seeped from their small room down, onto the ground floor, already occupying the salty air of Awashima — and probably the whole world, too.
Without saying a word, Chuuya went up, and Dazai followed.
***
What now? Chuuya thought as he looked at the faint outline of the mainland in front of them. Strong wind was making his eyes water and twisting his hair into knots. Their bags, with their belongings haphazardly shoved inside with very little regard to space efficiency, were on the deck of the boat under their feet. The shore was approaching rapidly, and yet, it did not feel any closer. In fact, it felt like they were getting further and further from their goal. The ferry’s motor was humming loudly, but that was not enough to silence the anxiety tormenting them. Chuuya closed his eyes and concentrated on the steady rhythm of the boat gently rolling on the waves. To him, the gentle rocking of sea waves always felt like it was his mother cradling him in her arms, the place where he once felt safe, but now, he could only feel the nausea. How could he get so goddamn careless? How dare he treat this Awashima situation like a fucking honeymoon rather than the escape it was? And what was Dazai thinking, either? And, most importantly…
Was there even any point in trying to escape?
Rapidly, like film being rewound, Chuuya thought of everything they had done from the moment Dazai showed up at his place to now.
They were not acting right.
For such a grand escapade, they had to be cold-headed, pragmatic — and all the erratic decisions they made had only set them further away from their goal. Somewhere on the opposite coast of Japan, their first getaway car was rusting away at the bottom of the ocean. The Chuuya who chucked it away and went to find a new one felt like a different person from the one standing on the deck of the ferry. Watching the shore in the distance, Chuuya, frankly, could not wrap his mind around it — how could he have so much will to fight for a chance for a new life back then? And, most importantly, how did he think he deserved to have this get-out-of-jail-free card?
Deep in thought, Chuuya nearly jumped when Dazai wrapped his arm around his shoulder and held him close.
“It’s okay, Chuu,” he whispered into the top of the ginger head. “We’ll handle it. We are in this together. Yeah?”
Chuu. No one had ever referred to him like this. He was not sure if he liked it. Chuuya looked up. A sad smile on Dazai’s face did not quite reach his eyes. On his chin, a bruise blossomed, just like Chuuya predicted it would. He reached out and touched it, and Dazai, like the idiot he was, leaned in, paying no mind to how much pain the fingers brushing against his skin brought to everyone around him.
Chuuya ripped his eyes off the purple mark and looked down, where the hull of the ship was ripping through the dark grey water. The repetitive motion of the waves and their monotonous swishing were hypnotising him, and the longer he stared, the more he felt that any moment now, they would snap up and swallow him whole, making the sea his eternal grave.
Maybe it was not that bad of an option.
“Yeah,” Chuuya echoed. “We are.”
Yokohama
Mori was slowly walking in circles, heels clicking on the tiled floor, the sharp sounds resonating like gunshots against the walls of the cellar.
“I gotta say,” he announced, each one of his words loud and clear, as if he was running an Executive meeting and not talking to two prisoners chained to the wall in a damp cellar, “I have not been having the best of luck lately.”
His audience stayed silent. Two pairs of eyes were carefully following his every move, unblinking, focused.
“First, the most loyal dog of the Port Mafia ran off the leash, more loyal to this traitor than to me,” he said thoughtfully, not granting the young men as much as a glance, studying the low ceiling instead as he moved. “Then my second most loyal dog had the guts to go against me, too.”
Steel-grey eyes blinked.
Mori finally looked at them and smiled, baring his teeth in a sadistic smile. His eyes met the grey eyes, and for the longest time, he did not utter a single word. Finally, he spoke.
“Shall we kill them, Akutagawa-kun?”
“No!”
Mori’s eyes glinted with unreserved malice, and he swung his leg, delivering a kick to the other young man’s face. With a sharp cracking noise, he was thrown against the wall, a gush of blood coming out of his nose and painting the grimy floor red.
“Wereriger!”
Chains rattled as Akutagawa tried to lunge toward Atsushi, straining against his confines.
“I don’t remember talking to you, Agency rat,” Mori hissed, kneeling in front of Atsushi. Curled on the ground, he was clutching his bleeding nose, the eyes that used to be so bright, now bleak with overwhelming fear. “Shall I start with you, then?”
Slowly, Mori took a knife out of his front shirt pocket. Small and compact, it might not have looked threatening at all — to those who did not know that even a toothpick could become a hell of a weapon in the hand of the former doctor. Paying no mind to Atsushi’s frantic panting, Mori lovingly looked at the shining blade. Pristine — for now — and perfectly sharp, he turned it just to see Akutagawa’s eyes in the reflection.
“How sad that you won’t be able to help your little cub, Akutagawa-kun.”
Chaines rattled again, dancing like snakes on the gorgon’s head, the ability-blocking metal keeping Rashomon at bay.
“And as for you, Atusuhi-kun,” Mori murmured, bringing the knife closer to the writhing boy on the floor, “you were so eager to see your, hm,” as if he was looking for a word, “ah! Mentor. Weren’t you? You know, some dreams do come true.”
He nodded to the man standing at the cellar entrance, and wordlessly, he kneeled next to Atsushi, locking his arms behind his back and holding him up.
Mori lowered the knife, and the room filled with the deafening cacophony — inhuman screaming of two voices, the frenzied rattling of two sets of chains, until one of them abruptly stopped, replaced by the sound of the knife ripping the flesh and quietly scratching against the bone, with the heavy breathing of the man holding the limp body ruining the knife’s methodical rhythm.
Mori held the result of his work up and looked it over. It was not his neatest work — but it would definitely do the job. He smirked at the completely bloodless face of the man helping him and nodded. He let go, and with a thud, Atsushi fell on the dirty floor. The assistant hurried to assume his usual position by the door, stumbling as he rushed to move away.
With blood splatters all over his face and shirt, Mori turned to Akutagawa, baring his teeth in a blood-stained smile. “You wanted to find them so bad, and look at you… You’ll help bring them back”.
Akutagawa said nothing. With eyes wide open, he was staring at the gruesome scene in front of Mori, trying and failing to see at least a hint of movement on the body of the boy on the floor.
“So… Shall we continue, Akutagawa-kun?”
Notes:
Thank you for reading! Well, it’s been a hot minute since I updated, right? I want all of you to know (those who are still around + new readers) that this piece is NOT abandoned. In fact, the whole fic is done, and I will be posting the remaining chapters regularly.
Please let me know what you think. I love reading your thoughts about this baby, and as any fic writer, I THRIVE when I read comments and see that my writing resonates with you.
My twitter is @daot_noen, come say hi! <3 I babble about skk (rarely) and write threads (sporadically), so if you like my writing, there’s something you might like ^^ It’s usually more light-hearted than this fic lol.
Chapter 7 is going up on 6th December: In the end, I’m just a man.
After an unexpected confrontation, Chuuya and Dazai have to make a change of plans.Have a little snippet, too!
“Chuuya.”
Slowly, he turned to Dazai. He looked like a shaken mess — his chest was heaving, a vein frantically bulging on his temple, his unusually bare wrists marked with red lines, droplets of blood peppering his skin where the scratches were too deep. Dazai anxiously looked at the exit from the tunnel behind them. Any minute now, another driver could see them and stop, a kind Samaritan just trying to help, and that was the last thing they needed.
“Chuuya, what the hell was this?”
He blinked.
Right. What was this?
Chapter 7: In the end, I’m just a man
Summary:
After an unexpected confrontation, Chuuya and Dazai have to make a change of plans.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
It is hot.
Everything is on fire.
Blazing heat envelops him in a fiery cocoon, flames consuming him whole, scorching his body and melting his skin. The screaming of demons dragging him into the pits of hell gets louder. They grab him and hold on firmly, their sharp claws dangerously dipping into his skin. He tries to scream — and immediately, smoke fills his lungs and, fuelled by the sharp sensation, scream he does. The disturbing noise reverberates through his throat, and, ignited by sparks dancing in the air heavy with sulphur, fire leaves his throat. The screaming of hell creatures persists; they cheer, their cacophonous choir fills the air, and Chuuya stands tall, carried effortlessly by his devoted suite of demons. He looks at his hands. Red and scaly, they look alien, unfamiliar, and yet, he knows like no one else that they belong to him.
The creatures bring Chuuya to his destination — a tall throne made of flesh and bones, and he sits down in an unexpectedly regal way. The disgusting scurrying creatures carry something in their crooked hands, and Chuuya takes a moment to figure out what this shiny thing is.
It is a crown.
With the already familiar discordant cheering, the creatures bring it to Chuuya and proudly put it on his head. Blinking in confusion, Chuuya looks at the crowd in front of him. The demons’ eyes lock on him, and suddenly, everything goes silent. As if hypnotised, Chuuya takes a slow look at the peop- creatures in front of him. Some faces look eerily familiar. Some look at him with adoration. Some with awe. Some with disgust. Some faces are blurry, and he tries to understand why, and he thinks he knows the reason — but no matter how hard he tries, he can not point it out exactly. The answer is elusive. It slips from between his fingers… Or maybe Chuuya is willing to let it slip away.
“Hey,” Dazai nudged Chuuya’s shoulder, ripping him out of his trance. “You alright?”
Chuuya looked at his hands. Red scales were gone (or were they ever there?), the usual black gloves back on, snug on his palms like second skin. He ran his shaky hand through his hair and let out a sigh of relief when his fingers did not stumble upon the demonic crown. Dazai’s side profile as he drove the car was as clear as ever. Bright midday sun illuminated his sunken cheeks and circles under his eyes, as well as a short, unkempt stubble.
Everything was fine. Normal. Just as usual.
“Mm?” Dazai raised his eyebrows and reached out for Chuuya’s hand. Gently, he squeezed it, and, like it was his second nature already, Chuuya squeezed back. He would never have thought it would be so easy to hold Dazai’s hand, to feel and savour the light touch of warm fingers. Everything was so goddamn easy — and now, he had trouble remembering why on earth he had such a tough time being around him when they were younger. It was so easy to be enraptured with him in the way he never thought would be possible. So easy to enjoy this new level of trust that he never wanted to lose. It was all so easy — and at the same time, so difficult to accept as rightfully his.
“You gotta shave,” Chuuya mumbled.
“Sweet as usual, aren’t you?” Dazai let go of his hand and rubbed his chin, slightly wincing when his fingers ran across the bruise. “Just admit that you can’t handle how manly I am.”
Chuuya did not even have it in him to roll his eyes. The comment did nothing to relieve the tension, and, judging by Dazai’s furrowed brow, he knew that pretty damn well, too.
Chuuya reached for the car radio, and Dazai slapped his hand away without looking.
“No.” Another car whooshed past them, and Dazai swallowed. “Just don’t, Chuuya. Ignorance is bliss.”
“Fucker,” Chuuya muttered under his breath and crossed his arms on his chest.
Dazai felt some sort of relief when Chuuya decided not to fight him. Frankly, he had no energy to deal with his chibi trying to get his way, and he was grateful (albeit slightly concerned) that Chuuya did not show off his explosive personality right now. It got darker in the car as on his left, the sun, along with the sea view, was blocked by a truck. In a way, it was not too bad, Dazai thought, tapping his fingers on the steering wheel. Conveniently enough, the truck cabin was shielding him from the sun, and he appreciated not needing to squint. Steadily, the truck was travelling at the same speed as they were, occasionally slowing down or pulling ahead. Dazai ripped his eyes off the road and looked at the side of the truck, and immediately, a wave of cold rushed over him.
On the door of the truck cabin, right in front of his side window, with an intricate font, “Tsuwano-trans” was written, along with a little mascot next to it, so unlikely for a trucking company: a ballet dancer.
The strange mascot was exactly the reason why it stuck so well in Dazai’s memory when he first saw this very vehicle pulling away from a truck stop they passed a few hours ago. He took a deep breath — it did jack shit to calm his rapidly beating heart — and tried to concentrate on the road again. It was a highway, for god’s sake. That was what tended to happen on roads: different vehicles would be there.
Duh.
He was just being paranoid.
It was fine.
Dazai’s eyes, nevertheless, kept darting to the truck. With his stomach swirling, he tried to see into the driver’s cabin, bending his neck at an awkward angle, but no matter how hard he tried, all he could see were the tassels on the curtains of the truck’s passenger seat window swinging back and forth as the vehicle sped forward. Tsuwano. The name rang a bell, and Dazai tried to remember where he might have heard it before. The little chibi ballerina, with her plump arms in the air, looked at him mischievously, with heart-shaped sparks in her blue eyes and her blond hair down.
Shit. Shit, shit, shit.
He could hear the capricious voice of the girl demanding sweets from that bastard — Rintarou, as she called him, banging her fork on the table. Dazai hit the gas, and, as their car overtook the truck, he rolled the side window down. He stuck his head out, trying his best to simultaneously watch the road and see who the hell was in the driver's seat.
He saw nothing. The low sedan was way too small to make anything out in the truck’s windshield, so high up — and he lost the last bits of hope to see a face, a shadow, anything… and then the truck levelled with their car again.
Barely able to tear his eyes off Eli- the chibi ballerina, Dazai looked at the road ahead of him. He could still feel the wide-open eyes of the dancing girl watching his every move, and with his peripheral vision, he could almost see her grin getting wider. The truck was steadily going by their side, and Dazai felt the vibrations from its engine as if they were getting louder, piercing his head with its persistent roar. He ground his teeth and gave the dancer one last look — and with his knuckles white, feeling how wet the steering wheel under his hands was, he floored it, leaving the godforsaken ballerina behind, the shrill sound of their getaway engine car whirring as if trying to compete with the truck’s.
The suddenly increased speed of the car pressed Dazai into the back of his seat. Any second now, he was ready to hear the familiar brash voice scolding him for reckless driving. No angry tirade came, and Dazai looked at Chuuya.
With eyes half-closed, Chuuya was watching the road, as if he had never noticed anything out of the ordinary. He shifted in his seat and tried to get more comfortable, to no avail. The cavalcade of lamp posts whooshing past them looked like a line of soldiers giving them their last respects — or rather, executioners watching them go to their guillotine. Wires between the posts were glinting in the sun like cobwebs, the giant spider that created them watching them somewhere from afar with its countless eyes. This looked way too familiar. It felt like their first night on the run — back when they were on step one, with dozens of “whats” and “hows”, with only a vague idea of what was going to happen next, and here they were, stuck in the same indecisive spot again.
Maybe, in a way, Dazai was right.
Did he really want to know what was happening in Yokohama? Probably not. At the same time, it felt like he had the moral obligation to know.
Moral. What a big word coming from him, out of all people.
To the hum of the motor, Dazai started telling him something, but his voice faded to nothingness when Chuuya saw what was ahead of them. Like a monster from ancient myths, it was opening its toothless mouth, black and bottomless, ready to swallow them whole.
“No,” he breathed out. With his peripheral vision, he saw Dazai giving him a puzzled look: it was the last thing his brain registered before the car entered the narrow tunnel, swallowed by the dark.
Just like that, the road, the car and the hum of the motor were gone.
Instead, all Chuuya could hear was his shoes making a steady beat as he walked on the neatly laid sleepers, the sound of his heels sharply resonating against the walls of the tunnel. In front of him, as far as he could see, were rails, glinting lightly under the dim yellowish light from the lamps on the wall.
Methodically, with the typical precision so inherent to him, Chuuya was scanning the surroundings, taking mental note of everything the boss told him to examine. Cameras. Branches of the tunnel going left and right at random intervals. Blind spots of CCTV cameras. Weak spots just where the rail segments split to go to different tunnels. “Everything noteworthy,” Mori-san told him with an undecipherable smile.
Just doing his job, cold-headed and professional, thoroughly completing the task that the boss assigned to him as one of the most trustworthy members of the Port Mafia.
Chuuya kneeled to take a closer look at one of many switches lying perfectly parallel to the tracks. As he stared at the metal, his stomach churned. He was never the one to question his boss’ orders. He would not have grown to become an Executive if he did — he had seen enough unfortunate bastards who met their bitter end questioning Mori-san’s orders.
But now, the only thing that was beating around in his mind like a bird trying to set itself free was — why?
Why did Mori-san send him to examine the Blue metro line, the busiest in Yokohama?
Why did he not explain anything to Chuuya, knowing damn well he would not ask it himself?
Why did Chuuya have to stop himself from thinking deeper about the reasons, as if too afraid that he already knew the answer?
A flash of light momentarily blinded him, and, covering his eyes with his hand, he looked up. The lamps on the walls of the tunnel started frantically flashing, as if they were whooshing past him at a rapid speed, their flickering race piercing Chuuya’s head with a crippling headache. In an attempt to escape the persistent blinking light, he closed his eyes.
And when he opened them—
“No! Please, no!”
He was back in the stolen car, but the blinding lights kept dancing around him in a frenzy, like the creatures from his vision before, and Chuuya let out a sob as the circle around him got tighter.
No, no, no. It was too much. It was too much to handle, with everything happening at once, agitating his nerves like a live wire. Flashes. Whooshes. Infernal screams tearing through the car that seemed to get even smaller, tighter with every breath he took. Claws grabbing the skin, the screaming getting louder and hurting his eardrums, high-pitched screeching, rapid rattling, forcefully throwing him to the left, to the right, and again and again, as if the car was nothing but a toy in someone’s giant hand. Claws holding on tighter, in a futile attempt to stop the shaking. Then, a sudden flash of light made him cover his eyes, and then—
It all stopped.
Chuuya’s chest collided with the dashboard as his head gracelessly hit the windshield, his hands outstretched too late to stop him from the impact. Through the ringing pain in his head, he could still hear the screams from hell, and, trying to escape the persistent noise, he doubled up and covered his ears.
“No,” he whispered, knowing damn well he did not deserve to escape this. “Please.” The rails were sprawling in front of him as far as he could see, perfectly straight… No, in a complete disarray, bent at bizarre angles, covered with soot and blood. His chest heaved, hot tears burning his cheeks, as the creatures kept saying his name, chanting it with reckless abandon, praising their new overlord proudly taking the throne.
Something soft came through the chanting. First, it was barely heard; persistently, it kept getting clearer, until finally, he could hear the familiar, velvety…
“Chuuya!”
He held his breath, hands still clutching his ears as his body tried to shrink even more. Something touched his back, and he recoiled — no, wait, it was someone. The sensation that he only learned recently. The grounding, soothing feeling of a warm hand stroking his back made him release his breath. Another stroke — and Chuuya let go of his ears. A stroke — and his back relaxed. A stroke — he managed to take another deep breath as if his chest set itself free from barbed wire ripping it open. And finally, when Dazai wordlessly ran his fingers through Chuuya’s hair, he could finally sit back up.
The windshield was cracked, and the car was stopped at an awkward angle, dangerously close to the barri—
Oh, shit.
It was crashed into the barrier. Now he could see the dent in the bumper and the plastic from broken headlights scattered on the road, the blinking of hazard lights reflecting in the little puddle on the road.
“Chuuya.”
Slowly, he turned to Dazai. He looked like a shaken mess — his chest was heaving, a vein frantically bulging on his temple, his unusually bare wrists marked with red lines, droplets of blood peppering his skin where the scratches were too deep. Dazai anxiously looked at the exit from the tunnel behind them. Any minute now, another driver could see them and stop, a kind Samaritan just trying to help, and that was the last thing they needed.
“Chuuya, what the hell was this?”
He blinked.
Right. What was this? Chuuya looked to their left, where the sea showed off its veiled waves, gracefully hitting the rocks on the shore. To their right, a sheer cliff loomed over them, looking at the sea like a lover never to be reunited with. Everything was fine. Normal. Just perfect. He turned back, wincing when his abused ribcage whined in protest, and peered into the back window.
The gaping mouth—
A quiet “no” left Chuuya’s mouth. He was walking down the tunnel again, trying to get through the pile of twisted metal baptised in the gleaming dew of broken glass and—
Dazai swore and turned the ignition on. With a swift move of the steering wheel, the car backed up into the lane and sped away, leaving the broken bits behind. As if hypnotised, Chuuya stared at the tunnel getting smaller and smaller in the back window — until it disappeared behind a bend.
When Dazai parked the car on the side of the road, for a few long moments, everything was silent. Wordlessly, Chuuya stared at the foliage in front of him, the branches of a young cedar tree swaying carelessly in the wind as if nothing had happened. A bird chirped and flew away from the branch, unhappy with the wind daring to disturb its peace.
With his brow furrowed, Dazai was looking at Chuuya. His partner, the other half of Double Black, had never looked this lost. Shit, screw looking lost — he would never have thought that The Chuuya Nakahara would act this erratically, like a cornered animal trying to escape from the trap, with Corruption looking tame in comparison to what he had just witnessed.
It all happened the moment the car entered the tunnel.
Dazai did not even register what happened at first. All of a sudden, Chuuya, with a desperate look in his eyes, grabbed onto his wrists, trying to get his hands off the steering wheel with reckless abandon, chanting a frenzied “no” at the top of his lungs.
A few seconds later, Dazai managed to regain control of the car, and the next moment, they were out of the tunnel — immediately crashing into the barrier when Chuuya lunged at him again. The damage was not too extensive — pretty much, they only lost a headlight, and the bumper had a messy dent in it. Nothing a getaway car they were going to get rid of anyway could not handle; yet, the events that led to it made Dazai feel like he was punched in the gut.
Through the rear-view mirror, Dazai saw the dancing girl truck appear from behind a bend. As it got closer, the already familiar hopelessness overcame him as he stared at its cabin with the incognito driver hidden behind the glare from the sun. Fuck. Everything was going wrong — he kept failing the simplest tasks, and Chuuya was in this strange state that now seemed to have been getting even worse than before.
With a whoosh, the truck went past.
Dazai released a breath. Despite the truck disappearing from their sight, the crippling hopelessness stubbornly stayed, fuelled by Chuuya’s heavy silence.
Dazai's voice rang as he spoke. Absentmindedly, his hand was touching the non-existent bandages, fingers irritating the scratch marks on bare skin instead. “I think you kind of owe me an explanation.” He grit his teeth and nudged Chuuya’s foot with his, possibly a little harder than necessary.
“I just…” Chuuya took a deep breath. Dazai was looking at him expectantly, his brown eyes analysing every move of his facial muscles. Chuuya knew like no one else that there was no use trying to deceive Dazai. There was no lie these brown eyes could not see through. Their usual inquisitive look was complemented by fondness that coloured his irises with warm amber hints, that shone through no matter how stern Dazai might have sounded. It was the fondness Chuuya had only started discovering recently, and, hell, as egoistic as it was, he was not yet ready to risk losing this newfound affection. Even the former Demon Prodigy had his boundaries — and Chuuya knew he had long stepped beyond every single one of them.
“Nothing,” he croaked in defeat. His throat tightened, and he looked down. “Just felt unwell.”
“Unwell? So unwell, you tried to smear us against the wall of this tunnel like jam on toast? I was supposed to be the suicidal one, Chuuya.”
“Cut it out, Dazai. Can’t deal with you clowning around right now. Be reasonable for once.”
Chuuya knew that he was acting out for the sake of acting out right now. Dazai was right — he was in no position to try and find excuses for this. The only way to explain himself was to tell him the truth… and it was not an option. Looking into Dazai’s eyes, he saw that he really started to grind his gears — but there was no going back.
Irritation in Dazai’s voice could barely be concealed when he finally spoke after what felt like centuries. “Do you think you are in a position to tell me that I am unreasonable? Have you seen yourself?”
“You are supposed to be a strategy genius, Dazai. What kind of strategy is this shit? First, the island, and now, we are going to your old place to look at your mommy’s trinkets?” The words Chuuya did not mean, yet could not stop saying, were coming out of his mouth like an avalanche, burying everything under their enormous weight, leaving irreparable broken rubble behind. His throat tightened as he stubbornly stared at Dazai.
Once again, his own actions were working against him.
How typical.
Dazai closed his eyes and clenched his fists. Mommy. The snark in Chuuya’s voice when he said this word riled Dazai up in a way he did not know was possible. He had heard enough disrespect toward her from his father when she was alive, back when he was too young to stand up for her. Back when his tiny fists and weak voice did nothing against the wrath of the old man. She had found her peace long ago, when death, as gruesome as it sounds, set her free from the anguish she had to endure.
No one could hurt her anymore.
He was not going to allow anyone to disturb his mother’s memory by talking about her like this.
“Yes,” Dazai grumbled through clenched teeth as the primal kind of anger he had not felt in so long rose inside him, the faint spark of annoyance he felt for Chuuya just a few minutes ago turning into an unstoppable fire. “We are.” He knew he had no chance of winning against Chuuya in a fight, and yet, there was nothing he wanted more right now than giving him a nice black eye, even if it was going to be the last thing he did in his life.
“Are we trying to escape this mess or have a trip down memory lane?”
“I said,” Dazai growled, trying and failing to stay calm, “we are going there first. You agreed to this. A bit stupid of you to change your mind now, no?”
“Well, if I’m such an idiot, maybe you should do this whole 'escape' thing alone.”
The moment Chuuya said it, when his lead-heavy fingers made the air quotes, he saw how Dazai’s face changed — and the words that he intended to sting Dazai with, hit Chuuya himself with a triple force instead. Stubbornly, despite the burning in his eyes and chest, he stared at Dazai, his heart sinking as he watched how the void, so disturbingly familiar to him from his teenage years, plastered over Dazai’s eyes again. The warm amber spark was no more, and even the mere idea that something like this could be born in this cold, dead look seemed like a delusion.
Maybe you should go alone.
Suddenly, Dazai was in his dorm again, the day he decided to leave Yokohama for good. Wordlessly, he was staring at his bag, packed for one. One set of toiletries. One book. One map.
Everything for one.
Unlike that time in his past life.
He was lonely for a good chunk of his life. Over the years, this loneliness kind of grew on him, like moss on an old grave, natural and, oddly, morbidly right. No one stuck around for long.
It was an axiom. He is Dazai Osamu, he is the one and only, he is a prodigy, he is meant to be alone.
But goddamn, he did not want to be alone any longer.
Words, as angry as wasps with their nest disturbed, swarmed in Dazai’s head, each of them ready to sting until the victim could not fight back any longer. You can stay here if you want it so badly. I will be just fine by myself. I know what you really are. I don’t need someone like you in my new life.
Dazai knew, like no one else, that some things, once said, could never be taken back.
Said in the heat of the moment, stubbornly, bitterly, meant to solely hurt rather than truly meaning it — none of it mattered once the damage was done. God, he did it so many times he lost count, and every time he could see the weight of his words in the eyes of those he hurt, never able to be erased. There was a time when he did not care about it one bit. The pain he caused had once been simply collateral damage, something that was not, frankly, his problem.
He tried to be a better person now.
Hell, maybe his mother would be proud to see him right now.
He took a deep breath and looked into Chuuya’s eyes. It was hard — he could still hear his spiteful words slashing like a knife, and still, fighting his own fury, Dazai kept on looking.
Maybe the real maturity was choosing the words you needed to say, rather than the ones you wanted to.
Dazai unclenched his jaw and took a deep breath. With the defiant look in his eyes, Chuuya was ready to snap back, to have a deadly shootout of hatred with no survivors, but little did he know that Dazai was willing to wave a white flag despite everything.
“I am staying by your side, Chuuya,” he said, the overwhelming anger falling victim to the truth, to the right thing that he foolishly thought was impossible to say. In fact, saying it was surprisingly easy — way easier than all the verbal bullets he was ready to shoot. “No matter what. I said it before. I mean it.”
Completely disarmed, with his weapons and armour falling to the dirty floor of the stolen car with graceless clanging, Chuuya blinked. He felt Dazai’s hands taking his, and he stared at them, dumbfounded. Dazai leaned closer. The warm amber hint was not quite back to his eyes yet, but neither was the signature Demon Prodigy emptiness. “Chuuya, the only way this is going to work is if you’re gonna be honest with me.”
This was supposed to be the easiest thing.
Honesty was something they never had any problem with. From day one, their relationship was nothing but honesty: raw, and sometimes — hell, all the time — brutal.
Chuuya opened his mouth, but no words could leave it, no matter how much he tried. His chest tightened, just like the time when he woke up and heard the news of—
“No. I can’t, Dazai. Forget it.” He stared at his hands and relaxed them, ready for Dazai to let go as well, savouring the last moments he would feel his comforting warmth. “You can leave me here if you want.”
You don’t want to know, a voice at the back of Dazai’s head said for the millionth time, annoying, buzzing where he could not quite reach, like an elusive itch on his back. Or maybe you know already. Don’t you?
He squeezed Chuuya’s hands again instead of succumbing to these heavy thoughts — and his heart fell when the sullen man in front of him did not squeeze back, his hands limp and indifferent.
“No,” Dazai finally said. “We go together. Doub-”
“Yeah, yeah. Double Black, all this shit.” Chuuya squirmed in his seat and crossed his arms on his chest. A shudder went through his body, and he looked away. “I remember,” he muttered. “Let’s drive. That family shack of yours better be worth wasting time on it. Where exactly in Aomori is it? Is it in the city at least?”
“Not too far. Goshogawara. A half-hour drive tops. Won’t be that much of a detour.”
“Right. Whatever.” Chuuya rubbed his forehead. He winced when he felt a bump on his forehead and buckled up. “Hit it, Dazai.”
None of them said a word until they finally reached the dilapidated house that smelled like mould and neglect.
***
Chuuya’s body reacted before his mind did — and, to the deafening rattling of gunshots ripping his eardrums, he pushed Dazai out of the way and onto the floor, activating Tainted to surround himself with the protective force field before the first bullets reached his body.
Fuck.
An ambush.
In hindsight, he should have seen it coming, no?
Dazai’s fucking sentimental ass.
With his peripheral vision, Chuuya saw someone lunging at him from his left side, and the next moment, with a lazy swing of his arm, the sound of a back breaking against the wall momentarily muted the commotion. To the cacophony of blinding flashes and deafening gunshots, Chuuya steadily moved forward, creating his own rhythm despite the distractions around him. Like a conductor in front of an orchestra, he expertly moved his hands, repelling the wheezing bullets as if they were no more than fruit flies.
Mori should have known it would take more than this to take him out.
Never breaking his stride, Chuuya glanced back at Dazai, who was now crouching behind a shoe rack, his bag open next to him, taking the safety off the gun. He seemed alright. Definitely shaken, but, well… Intact. He could not see any blood on his body or on the floor, and that was what mattered right now. Besides, Chuuya would have hated him to die by someone else’s hand. He would rather do it himself at this point. Satisfied with the view of his nuisance of a partner unharmed, smirking as he saw Dazai aim and take the first shot, Chuuya redirected his attention to the attackers. The goons were swarming the place, appearing from upstairs, emerging from the kitchen and shooting at him from outside the windows, the number of men ridiculously large for such an average-sized family home.
That was not his first rodeo, though.
With precise, well-calculated swings of his legs, breaking the men’s bones was as easy as ever. The thrill of a fight, so familiar to him, with every possible move, strike, and dodge rehearsed to the letter over the years in the Mafia, buzzed through his veins. With each shot of Dazai’s gun behind him as he protected Chuuya’s very few blind spots, and with each dull thud of a body hitting the floor, his grin grew wider.
Double Black was back — and there was no defeating them.
The world around Chuuya disappeared as he fought. Occasional flashes of Upon the Tainted Sorrow, groans of the Mafia goons, gunshots, punches, snaps of broken necks — the sounds, so repetitive, yet far from boring, flew around him. They filled the room with the music of the fight until the noise finally subsided, gone along with the faint scream of the last man collapsing onto the messy floor.
Breathing heavily, Chuuya wiped the sweat off his forehead with his sleeve. With his heart beating like crazy, he looked back. Dazai was already out of his makeshift pillbox, and with a grimace on his face, he was looking around, his frown getting deeper as he looked at the floor, doors and walls peppered with blood, bullet holes, dents and cracks.
As Chuuya slowly came to his senses, the more intensely the reality rushed back to him. Slowly, he turned to look at the destroyed living room in front of him again. The adrenaline from the fight was rapidly running out, making him painfully aware of everything. The pain in his still clenched fists. Dazai’s panting behind him. The metallic smell of blood mixed with gunpowder. A mess on the floor, a disturbing combination of blood and bodies.
Everything was back. Everything was real, no matter how much Chuuya prayed that it was not.
He froze, and the whole world disappeared as he stared at a lifeless, broken arm outstretched at an unnatural angle. The person’s wrist had a watch on, its glass broken and scattered on the floor, the bent second hand still moving, even though its owner’s time had just run out. Slowly, Chuuya’s eyes travelled along the bodies of those whose lives he had taken just a few moments ago. In unnatural, disturbing poses, the dead Port Mafia men were littering the floor of the Dazai family's living room. Some lay with their faces down. Some had perpetual shock stuck on their faces like a mask. Some were not seen at all, buried under other bodies, destined to be anonymous in their graceless deaths.
Chuuya collapsed on his knees and took the hand of the man lying limply in front of him. His neck was swollen and darkened, the back of his head stained bright red. The aggressive colour, so out of place on the man’s blond hair, made Chuuya’s eyes burn. Judging by the youthful puffiness of the man’s cheeks, he must not have been older than 20, his adult life just starting, only to be immediately cut short. A sob left Chuuya’s chest as he squeezed the man’s hand, still warm, a disturbing contrast between this last evidence of life and the immobility of the now dead body. He could feel a ring on his finger. Someone was waiting for him at home, probably a girl as young as he was, full of dreams, hopes and life plans, and little did she know that someone — Nakahara Chuuya — just took her husband's life.
Along with many others.
He just could not stop, could he?
“Chuuya.”
Dazai’s voice from behind his back had never felt this far. Chuuya squeezed his eyes shut, expecting his cheeks to start burning as he held onto the hand even tighter.
His whole body jerked when Dazai kicked the man’s body, turning it over. The hand got ripped out of Chuuya’s hold, and the ring flew off the limp finger, making a metallic noise as it rolled across the wooden floor.
“What the fuck-”
“Looking for ammo. We need more.”
The sound that left Chuuya’s throat was neither a sob nor a growl. In his eyes, a mixture of emotions flashed, highlighted by the unshed tears, and Dazai, with his hand already mid-air to take the box that fell out of the man’s pocket, stalled.
It had been a while since he had last seen Chuuya in a fight. It was the one with Lovecraft, back in the previous life, back when the Agency was still around, back when the Port Mafia’s boss had not shown his true colours, back when everything, in hindsight, was so goddamn easy. The spectacle that he observed — and helped carry out, of course — looked so familiar. The Chuuya effortlessly fighting the Mafia men just now was the same Chuuya he had fought alongside so many times; it was the quick, calculating person who understood his commands and tactics at a glance.
It felt like Chuuya was back in his element.
It was obviously not the case.
Fuck.
Quietly, Dazai picked up the box of bullets and put it in his pocket. His throat tightened as he walked to the next person, Chuuya’s sullen presence pushing him down and not letting him breathe.
It was all his fault.
How could he not predict that here, out of all places, would be an ambush? How could he be stupid enough to put his personal sentiments above their shared escape? He glanced at the bookshelf in the corner. The bottom shelf was splattered with blood, a goon’s foot pushing against the old wood, but other than that, it was miraculously intact, all the ‘trinkets’ on it seemingly where he had seen them last.
Finally, Dazai spoke.
“They were attacking us. We had no choice.” He knew that even though it was true, it was an utterly stupid thing to say right now. He knew that to Chuuya, it made no difference, and still, he felt like saying something was better than keeping silent like a coward. Chuuya had severed his ties with the Mafia the moment they sped away in that getaway racing car — but now, as Dazai thought about it, it was ridiculous to assume that Chuuya would be fine with killing random, uninvolved members of the organisation he used to consider family.
The memory of the first getaway car stung Dazai. It was the first thing in their escape plan that he fucked up — he just did whatever, without thinking anything through, with panic making his calculating brain shut off. Here he was again — making another mistake that, this time, had much more grave consequences. Maybe he did not treat the situation seriously enough. Maybe he was in denial of how dire their situation was. Maybe- Hell, surely, he was losing his fucking grip, making a chain of stupid decisions, one worse than the other. Really, they should have left the country the day he picked Chuuya up. Rip it off like a band-aid, their old life discarded like old junk that no one would ever be able to repair.
With a quiet growl, Chuuya ground his teeth. He remained by the dead man’s side. Still staring at the motionless body, he was numbly picking at the hems of his gloves. The smell of blood was overwhelming — adding to the sweet scent of rotting flowers following him, it made Chuuya’s stomach spasm. Red glinted on the black leather gloves, and hastily, Chuuya ripped them off his shaking hands. The pale, dry skin underneath was clean — but to him, it felt like thick blood seeped through the leather, staining his hands bright red.
Staining, so that everyone could see who Chuuya really was.
Nothing but a mindless killing machine.
The shattered glass of the wristwatch of one of the Mafia members glinted as a ray of sun, momentarily unobscured by clouds, peeked into the room, attracting Chuuya’s attention. The rubble of warped metal, broken glass and bent rails flashed before his eyes again. The dark tunnel squeezed around him, and the creatures’ voices cackled in the distance as they hurried to bring the crown to put on his head.
Maybe he should proudly own it, like the true pinnacle of his Mafia career.
He swallowed and looked at Dazai. He was still moving the bodies, and Chuuya held his breath whenever a new lifeless face was revealed. What would he do if he saw the familiar face of a subordinate or an acquaintance, or worse, a friend?
“Do you think they’ve managed to relay anything to Mori?” Dazai asked, trying to break the disturbing silence. Mori. The bastard surely did not set the ambush here for Dazai’s sake, even though it hurt seeing his home, which he once used to cherish, in such a ravaged state. The more he looked at Chuuya’s hunched back, the more obvious it was that the commotion that was bound to happen here was designed for Chuuya — to try and break him, tripping him on his path to light that he was so desperately trying to join.
Chuuya did not say anything. Instead, his shoulders weakly rose and fell, the movement so subtle that it escaped Dazai’s attention. Quietly, he picked up one more box — that was supposed to be enough — and put it in his pocket already stuffed with ammo. He eyed the empty sake bottles scattered around the floor between the bloodied bodies. Mori should have chosen someone more reliable rather than a bunch of alcoholics. Or was it his twisted way to execute the unwanted Mafia members while messing with Chuuya’s mind, killing two birds with one stone as the calculating bastard he was? He shrugged his shoulders and walked between the bodies. One by one, he moved, pushed and turned them over with his foot until he saw a cracked walkie-talkie underneath one of them.
“Well,” he continued, crushing it with his heel, “I think this answers it.” He sighed and ran his hand through his hair. Shit. Shit, shit, shit.
Any minute now, he expected Chuuya to blow up at him, cursing him for this stupid, illogical detour that got them involved in this fight. None of this would have happened if they had gone straight to Aomori City. Chuuya’s hands would not have been stained with blood yet again, and his mind would not have been fucked up by doing something that he swore not to do ever again.
Oh, how he wanted to hear the familiar raspy scream, just like all these times when he messed up before, but the silence hit Dazai more than any scream would. Slowly, Dazai came up to Chuuya, still sitting by the body, and squeezed his shoulder.
The sensation of Dazai’s hand made Chuuya recoil. Its light, tender gentleness felt alien — something that was not supposed to be reserved for a monster like him.
One last time, Chuuya reached out and touched the dead man’s hand. It was still warm, just like the hand squeezing his shoulder, but that was not going to last much longer. Soon, this person and the rest of the Port Mafia members who found their last rest here would slowly go cold until nature finally claimed them back. He choked back tears and stood up.
Perhaps he could have activated Corruption and ended it all right then and there. Too bad Dazai would be stupid enough to rip him out of it.
“We have to go.” Dazai was unsure of whether he said it out loud. Absentmindedly, wincing whenever he stood on the fingers of the dead, he came up to the bookshelf. Desaturated by a thick layer of dust, were books, picture frames and whatnot in a harmonious disarray, untouched in years, destined to be left alone for an eternity more. He reached out for one of the pictures, and his hand froze mid-air, his brain refusing to destroy the patina of dust gracing the old photo.
Yes, they should have left straight away.
Yes, he was too sentimental.
Yet, he would never be able to forgive himself for not bidding his mother this last farewell.
Chuuya’s voice startled him when he spoke for the first time in a while. “She looks just like you.”
Dazai nodded. That he heard plenty of. It was hard not to notice the resemblance between them, even when he was a cherubic baby, facial features hidden behind chubby cheeks and toothless smiles. That, as he realised later on, choking on cheap whiskey on the outskirts of Yokohama, his new home, was one more reason for the old man to despise him.
Tired brown eyes looked into the eyes of the woman in the photograph — Tane Tsushima. Mom. The light in her eyes was long gone, but immortalised in the picture. Their family photographer did an amazing job portraying not only her appearance, but also the light she carried within. The face and the warmth of his mother had always been in the back of his mind, unable to be forgotten — but no matter how hard Dazai tried, he could not recognise himself in the boy standing next to her. With a perfectly straight posture, dressed to the nines at such a young age, Tsushima Shuuji was staring intently into the camera with the look that had long left Dazai’s surface. The seriousness that was now sunken deep into his soul, hiding from the sight inside him, was on the very surface of the little boy holding onto his mother’s hand with very obvious stubbornness, as if unwilling to ever let go. Next to the mother and the son was a jagged edge, one-third of the photograph hastily ripped off. A striking contrast to the polished, put-together picture, this part, surprisingly enough, did not look out of place. On the contrary, the edge looked perfect, with the missing piece of photo paper long rotted in the ground, akin to the person depicted in it.
“Let’s go.”
Unceremoniously, a voice fast-forwarded him back to the present. He was not a little boy holding his mother’s hand anymore, and it took a moment for Dazai to register who he was, and what the voi- Chuuya said.
“Yeah. Sorry. Just one minute, okay?” Dazai blinked back tears and withdrew his hand, unwilling to destroy the microcosm of the shelf stuck in time. Still looking into his mother’s eyes, he took Chuuya’s hand and pulled him close, just like the boy in the photo, holding onto the other’s hand tightly.
Here I am, Mom, Dazai thought bitterly, stroking Chuuya's palm with his thumb. On the run again.
His mother used to be his safe haven, trying her best to protect him from the cruelties of the world. Back then, he could not return her the favour. Maybe this time, he could at least save the person he was escaping with.
The woman in the picture looked back at him. Despite her royal posture and a polished, sophisticated look, she radiated a very down-to-earth, comforting aura, so goddamn familiar to Dazai, the memory of which never faded even throughout many years. What would she say seeing her son doing the very same thing that became her demise? Would she try to stop him, or would she think he was doing the right thing? Her melodic voice faintly sounded in his head, and, his voice cracking ever so slightly, Dazai started to sing quietly, the tender female voice harmonising with his in his head, like two birds singing in unison.
In Tsugaru, in winter pure white, in spring green, in summer black, in autumn brocade - how vivid and splendid is the seasonal changing of kimono.
(At age fifteen, climbing deep into the mountains to cut trees, hungry, and night closes in - I'd like my parents to see what I'm going through.
If you pray three times at the pine tree of the Temple of the 500 Bodhisattvas in Hyakuzawa, you grow young again.
I'd like to pray at that pine tree.)
“Wish I could grow young again,” Chuuya echoed.
Growing young. Starting anew. All his wrongdoings erased, all the pain undone. All the consequences of his actions gone, with everything and everyone back to life, back into shape from the unrecognisable rubble he made. That would have been truly a gift from the gods. If there was a temple where he could have asked for it, Chuuya would have travelled anywhere just for a slight chance to have it.
Pray three times, or three thousand, as many times as it takes to make it right.
Too bad Chuuya knew it was a gift he did not deserve. Too bad he knew he would not dare to even walk through the gate of that wish-granting temple, even if it existed.
“Yeah.” Dazai swallowed. “Me too.”
Chuuya looked at Dazai and squeezed his hand. “Would you have done anything differently if you could?”
Dazai closed his eyes. A tear rolled down his cheek, leaving a shiny streak, lingering on his chin before falling to the dusty floor, more and more dark drops joining the first as he stood there with his eyes squeezed shut. “So many things,” Dazai croaked. “I’ve lost count.”
A bitter feeling pricked Chuuya.
If Dazai lost count… Then, he had no chance of even trying to count his own. How long would it take for Chuuya to redeem himself? How many years, decades, centuries? Was it even humanly possible?
He closed his eyes. What were his friends in the Port Mafia doing right now? Were Black Lizard still carrying out the operations Mori was ordering them to do? Was Akutagawa using Rashomon in the turf wars, the shadow demon mindlessly doing everything to gain more power for the Port Mafia? Or were they, akin to Chuuya, despising themselves for the atrocities they were committing? Or worse — embracing them?
“This is our chance,” Chuuya croaked. “To start anew.” The words came to him with great difficulty, as if he knew that what he was saying was wrong, a lie, another sin into his collection.
“To start anew. With Chuuya.” Dazai was talking to him, but his eyes were fixed on the dusty photograph, as if he was drinking in the image of his mother before he had to leave her for good.
“What would Sakunosuke say?”
These were not the words Chuuya was supposed to be saying. The fight in the car was fresh in his mind, replaying like a stuck record that he could not stop, no matter how hard he tried. Now, so many pieces fell into place, with Dazai’s reaction to his words making so much sense now.
Mommy’s trinkets.
Vile. He was just too vile a person.
Chuuya could not bring himself to apologise — and his throat tightened as he stared at yet another person added to the endless list of lives he tainted with his actions.
For what felt like centuries, Chuuya could only hear branches brushing against the window whenever wind gusts disturbed the pear tree’s rest.
Dazai ripped his gaze off his mother’s picture and looked at Chuuya. Slowly, he moved his lips, as if trying to taste the words, to pick and try their flavours until he found the right one, but no sound came out.
“In the end, I’m just a man,” he finally said, his voice small and quiet, as if he were a child admitting to a mischief. Each word rolling off his tongue tasted like poison, and he winced at the acid burning him. “I know it’s selfish.” Dazai wiped his face with his sleeve and pulled Chuuya closer until his face rested against Dazai's collarbone. “But I’ve lost everything in this world apart from you.” His voice cracked, and Chuuya felt Dazai’s chest heaving as he stood in his embrace. “I let you go once, and I can’t let it happen again.”
Dazai’s grip on Chuuya’s body got stronger, and slowly, Chuuya raised his arms to hold him, too. The silence in the house was barely interrupted by rare sobs and timid coughs, as if Dazai were a kid hiding, scared to be heard or found. Sporadically, his chest rattled against Chuuya’s face, and when that happened, Chuuya could feel Dazai’s long arms holding onto him tighter.
In front of Chuuya’s eyes was the smiling face of Tane Tsushima, the doe-eyed woman her son was mourning, and no matter how he tried to block these thoughts, his mind kept darting to his own parents. Only having seen them from afar in the past decade, it was still goddamn easy to tell that, just like Dazai, Chuuya took after his mother. A family of doctors, they thought they lost their child when he was a little boy. That just like so many little boys do, he got a bit too reckless playing in the sea, and just like that, with a riptide so much stronger than a 7-year-old boy could fight, he was carried away, disappearing without a trace in the deadly depths of the sea that did not forgive any mistakes. He knew his parents never forgave themselves for taking their eyes off their son for these fateful few minutes — but, as he figured, choking on the metallic scent of blood in his nostrils, this was way better than them seeing what their son grew up to be.
Maybe his father, whose job was to save people, would have strangled him with his own hands, had he known that Chuuya chose the strikingly opposing path in his life. Maybe a dead child was better than a child like him. Maybe Chuuya would gladly accept this death as the one he rightfully earned.
Chuuya nuzzled into Dazai’s chest and squeezed his eyes shut. There was no more appropriate moment to cry than right now — and still, Chuuya could not force a single teardrop out. Come on, he told himself. Dazai let out another feeble sob, and Chuuya grit his teeth. Come on, cry. Cry.
Nothing.
Maybe his soul got so stale already. Maybe that was the very reason why he did what he did. Crying was such a human thing. Funny how he went full circle — thinking he was an artificial lab creation, then finally coming to terms with his humanity, and now… Now he started to realise that maybe he was never one to begin with.
Eventually, Dazai’s sobs subsided. Slowly, he pulled away from Chuuya. With his face red, brown hair stuck to his wet forehead, he resembled a hiding child even more now. Chuuya cupped his cheek and pecked his salty, puffy lips. His calves whined in protest when he lifted on his toes to reach Dazai as a gruesome memory of the fight.
“Ready?” Chuuya whispered against the parted lips, ignoring the muscle pain.
Dazai nodded. It was high time to let the past go.
In the end… He was just a man.
Navigating between the bodies, trying to avoid puddles of blood, they carefully started making their way to the door. When Dazai stepped out in the fresh air, he could not help but take one last look at his home. He had long learned that being sentimental had never done him any good, and today was yet another proof of it.
Still, leaving his childhood home felt like the final severance of the last tie he had to the past Dazai Osamu, to the boy who deemed this place his whole universe. He looked at the little bench by the porch where he watched the sunset with his father, when he still believed the man truly loved him. Just like that relationship, the old wood was mouldy and cracked, and, unable to look at it anymore, Dazai peered into the rooms he could see from out the open door.
The kotatsu in the dining room remembered it all, a silent witness to the rise and fall of his family. Laugher. Tears. Embraces. Fights. Family dinners, that slowly, as years went past, got quieter and quieter, to the point of being disturbing. Now, the table was rotten from neglect, littered with empty bottles left by those sent to kill him.
Somewhere on the second floor, he knew, was the doorframe where he could probably still find faint pencil marks, writing the annals of how he grew. The memory of how excited he got seeing the lines go higher and higher still lingered somewhere at the back of his mind, elusive and fleeting.
This home was the life of Tsushima Shuuji — and soon, nature will reclaim the building completely. The rooms he used to roam would forever be stained with the dark brown of dried blood of strangers. His mother’s eyes in the photos will watch him leave the house, closing the door behind him for good. Was this really how she thought her son would leave his nest back when she held him in her arms as he was taking his first breath?
He closed his eyes. Under his ear, he could feel his mother’s lap, as he was curled on the floor of that shabby fisherman’s shack many years ago.
“Some evil you just can’t fight,” she said, hands gently massaging his scalp, fingers slowly unknotting his tangled hair. He nodded and pulled his legs to his chest. The place was cold and damp — but there was canned crab in his belly and his mother by his side, and he knew it was all going to be okay. Somewhere across the sea, a new life was waiting for the single mother and her teenage son — just regular people looking for a better place to live. Yes, poorer than what they were used to. Yes, way less comfortable. Yes, even at that young age, he was well aware that they both were going to work hard to earn their place under the sun. And still, all these prospects seemed like child’s play compared to what they went through in the Tsushima household.
“What do you want to have?”
Tane untangled another knot on Dazai’s head. “You gotta have a haircut when we get out of here,” she noted absentmindedly. After a long silence, she continued. “A rose garden. A small one will do.”
“I will build you the most beautiful greenhouse for your roses,” he mumbled, desperately trying to fight sleep.
Tane smiled. “Thank you, Shuuji,” she said and stroked his cheek. “I am so lucky to have a son like you.”
“No,” he said, rapidly falling into the embrace of Morpheus as his mother’s hand caressed his face, “not Shuuji. Osamu.”
“Right,” she laughed. “Osamu.”
That was the last time he heard her voice speak so softly.
Dazai started when the already familiar, bigger hand squeezed his.
“Let’s go”, Chuuya said, casting one last look through the open door, his stomach flipping at the sight of the mayhem on the floor. “I have a safe house in Aomori City. Reasonably close to the port. If we can't get the fuck out today, we will stay there for the night.”
“Eager to fight again, chibi?”
Chuuya sighed. Trying to make up for showing emotion by donning this fake clown personality was so typically Dazai, and Chuuya knew he would have a hard time getting used to it in their new status. “I’m 99% sure the Mafia has no clue about it. Relax.”
“What about that pesky 1% though?”
“I’ll deal with it. And you can bravely hide behind a shoe rack as you did just now. I don’t remember having one, though, so good luck with that.”
“How rude, Chuuya. I was shooting these bastards, too.”
Chuuya hummed. Bastards. These goons were sent to their death. He bet that they had no idea their opponent would be the infamous Nakahara Chuuya. Had that been the case, they would not have been drinking their heads off. Hell, they probably thought they were sent there for surveillance, no more than that. Poor fuckers. He rubbed his hands, feeling the ghost sensation of the ring of the dead man’s hand.
What if Dazai was right? What if in his safehouse in Aomori, in one of his best-kept secrets, an ambush from the Port Mafia had already been waiting for them? What if this time, it was not going to be some small fry, but somebody who would actually be able to fight back? Or Mori himself? Or, worse, somebody whom he will not be able to hurt, like Akutagawa?
Chuuya swallowed. His shoe soles were probably stained with blood right now, and he desperately itched to wipe his feet clean. The bodies in the living room, piled in disgusting, eerily immobile lumps, were still in the back of his mind. In his life, he had seen so much death, he was supposed to be used to it by now. Just over an hour ago, these people were alive. In the heat of the moment, as he fought the goons off, Chuuya, frankly, did not think that he was ending lives with every swing of his leg and every punch of his fist.
Was he strong enough to endure this guilt once again?
Dazai broke the silence. “Why Aomori?”
“When you were gone, I remembered you yapping about this part of the country. Guess I felt sentimental.”
“Aww. You’ve had a crush on me all along?”
Absentmindedly, Chuuya looked at the dark graphite dot in his hand, Dazai’s flirtatious remark completely missed. It was weird to see it. The absence of the gloves felt wrong. He was too bare. Too seen.
“Chuuya, stop it.” Dazai gently squeezed his hand, covering the dark dot with his palm. “You are human.”
His first instinct was to yank it away. His body did not respond — as if he had long lost control over it. “I don’t feel human,” Chuuya whispered instead. Once more, his eyes burned, but no tears came out despite his shutting his eyes as if he tried to squeeze the tears out. “Not anymore.”
Dazai opened his mouth. How many times had he asked Chuuya to tell him what had been killing him inside this whole time? How many times did he get a cold, “nothing” as the answer? How many times was he going to ask again, and again, and again?
“Chuuya,” he wheezed. “What did you do?”
Looking through Dazai, all Chuuya could see was the light glint of the train tracks. He stared at Dazai’s shirt. A brown splotch from when he spilt his coffee a lifetime ago stuck out on the crumpled white fabric like a sore thumb. Staining the shirt right in the middle of his chest, it looked like a bloodstain — gruesome, sinister and… final.
God, there must have been so much blood.
“Chuuya.”
The already familiar, blank expression fell on Chuuya’s face again. “Nothing,” he said, and Dazai could swear he heard the metal gate shut in Chuuya’s mind. Looking at all the new wrinkles on his face, Dazai was almost trying to read the lines like a palm reader, the persistent voice at the back of his mind almost screaming at him: ‘You know it already.’
“Okay. Sorry.” With a heavy heart, Dazai stepped out. The porch creaked under his foot, the old wood planks singing their swan song to him — the young heir, the prodigy, the son, the man who was never to return. He breathed in and held the door handle — when something caught his eye.
In the mailbox, hastily shoved into the narrow opening, was something. A paper corner was sticking out, white with a wave-shaped ornament along the edge.
They spent too much time in the Port Mafia not to recognise their signature envelopes.
“Fuck,” Dazai breathed, feeling the ground spin under his feet.
Without thinking, Chuuya yanked the envelope out of the mailbox, realising too late that it might have had explosives in it.
Nothing followed.
For what felt like centuries, Chuuya and Dazai stared at the oh-so-familiar handwriting of the man who had once given them everything — and was trying to take everything from them now.
From your (former) boss, the envelope said. Under the writing, covering the bottom of the envelope with an uneven splotchy pattern, as a signature of a sort, was brown dried blood and ichor. Over it, some numbers were scribbled.
They looked at each other, and, after a slight nod from Dazai, Chuuya ripped the envelope open.
They did not realise what it was at first. Pungent, discoloured something fell out, landing right into the overgrown grass framing the dilapidated porch of the old family house.
Both men fell on their knees. Splinters from the dried-out planks hungrily bit into their skin as their nails scratched the old wood. Anxiously, they peered into the grass.
Dazai was the first to reach out.
When his fingers, rummaging through the grass, finally touched the thing and felt its slimy, disturbingly soft surface, coupled with the overly sweet rotting smell, he gagged, but still, he picked it up.
It was changed beyond recognition. The unforgiving flow of time started hungrily devouring it the moment it was severed from the bloodstream, but still, Dazai would have recognised it anywhere.
What used to be his protégé’s eye stared at Dazai from his open palm. The now dull, but still painfully familiar purple-yellow iris looked at Dazai’s face. The eyeball, not covered by eyelids anymore, with pieces of the paper envelope stuck to it instead, was frozen in a state of perpetual wide-eyed shock.
An ant ran across the shrunken, yellowing eyeball, its legs sticking to the slimy surface, and Dazai dropped Atsushi’s eye back into the grass. Retching sounds filled the still quietness of the Goshogawara outskirts, Dazai’s already empty stomach releasing its scarce contents onto the porch.
Out of the tall grass, Akutagawa’s grey eyes looked into the Aomori prefecture sky with the indifference Chuuya had seen so often in the younger man’s eyes. Like no one else, he knew that there was more to Aku than this ostentatious coldness. He knew that these eyes could show excitement, passion, even amusement — but now, hazy and immobile, they were stuck in this horrifying, dead shape.
And yet again, it was his fault.
“What do we do?” Dazai breathed out. He wiped his mouth and gagged again, his stomach shrinking. Nothing came out, and he winced at the pungent smell of bile covering the porch. His head was spinning, and he tried not to look into the grass, but despite that, he could still feel Atsushi’s eyes drilling him with a silent remorse, steel grey ones next to them sharing the sentiment. Was it all his fault? What if… what if he had never tried to flee, if he had never asked Chuuya to escape, the boys would have still been alive?
“They might still be alive,” Chuuya croaked, as if he could read Dazai’s mind. The slimy, shrunken eyes in the tall grass did not look like they belonged to people. It was more like a cheap prank from a Halloween store, with how motionless and overly brutal it looked, the kind of stuff that tries a bit too hard to disgust you. The colours, certainly, looked familiar, albeit a little bit too hazy. Could they, really, belong to Akutagawa, to the man he felt responsible for, hell, started becoming friends with? Was the wereriger really deserving of the same fate? He hesitated and finally spoke.
“I have to go back.”
Dazai stared at Chuuya. He looked so lost, and at the same time, so determined. There was nothing Dazai wanted more than to escape, leave Yokohama and its horrors behind, and finally fulfil his mother’s wish. To embrace life, the thing he foolishly did not appreciate for so many years. To have this goddamn rose garden. To have a life where he could concentrate on his own happiness.
Having it all without Chuuya was not an option.
Chuuya was stubborn. Stubborn and, in his usual fashion, he wanted to make things right, and Dazai knew that now, there was no way he would leave without at least attempting to help the boys, even if the chance of still seeing them alive was pretty much non-existent. Dazai knew that Chuuya would fight even for that minuscule chance.
Atsushi looked up to him so much — what would he say if he saw Dazai trying to run away?
“No,” Dazai said, “you won’t go alone.” Words came to him with a strain. He had to force each of them to come out of his mouth, his brain disagreeing with his stupid tongue. They are dead, he told himself. They are dead. We need to leave Japan now. It is too late to help Atsushi and Akutagawa. It is a death trap.
“Then, we…” Chuuya stalled. Saying it felt wrong. We. Just a few days ago, this short word acquired a new meaning for him… them, filling him with a previously unknown excitement, tenderness, vulnerability — and now, it felt like a better choice was getting rid of it, having barely gotten used to it.
In Dazai’s eyes, he saw it all. Just a few weeks ago, he was on his knees, begging Chuuya to come with him, desperately trying to escape and rid himself of this horror. Why was he dragging him back into the mayhem he fought so hard to escape from? What right did he have to share this nightmare with him?
Desperately, Chuuya shook his head. No. No, no, no, Dazai could not go with him — he would rather knock this idiot out right now, anything to stop him from joi-
“Chuuya.” Dazai cupped his cheek and stroked his jaw, thumb gently caressing his lower lip. Automatically, Chuuya leaned into the touch and closed his eyes. The tender gentleness of Dazai’s hand felt like it was a miracle — a miracle that only happened to him by some mistake of divine beings, a mishap that accidentally gave him, a person undeserving of love, this. He felt a soft peck on his lips, followed by a barely audible whisper that made Chuuya’s heart sink. “If we go, we go together.”
Fool. Dazai was such a goddamn fool.
“We… We go back,” Chuuya licked his lips and stared at Dazai. “To Yokohama.”
They are dead, Dazai reminded himself once again, and his stomach churned. There is no point.
Still… That was the right thing to do.
In his mind, he was back in his dorm a few weeks ago. In a way, he was celebrating his birthday by thinking about his rebirth, his new life. Exactly twelve years ago, his mother told him that they were leaving. That attempt failed; it ended up a disaster of a horrible scale, turning Shuu- Dazai’s life upside down, but back then, on the way to Chuuya’s penthouse, Dazai still dared to think that this time it was going to be different.
Now, he felt like such a fool for even having that hope.
Chuuya pulled his arm.
“To Yokohama,” Dazai echoed and closed the mossy door behind them.
Notes:
Oh wow, this chapter was the longest so far. I hope you enjoyed reading it! The story is almost over, with just one more chapter to go, so just a little bit more misery for the boys until it all ends! Let me know what you think <3
The translation of Tsugaru yamauta (the lullaby Dazai was singing to Chuuya) is from here: http://www.komuso.com/pieces/pieces.pl?piece=4321&lang=39
The last chapter is going up on 13th December!
Here’s a little snippet:
“Dazai.” Chuuya wanted to take a step forward, but his body did not cooperate. “I’m sorry.”
Any second now, Chuuya expected Dazai to… To do what exactly? Explode with an angry tirade, cursing him, telling him that he should be sorry toward thousands of his victims, not him? Hit him? Turn and leave, probably the best course of action Dazai could take right now?
“Dazai,” Chuuya pleaded. He felt as if his words were hitting a brick wall, falling on the ground and joining the evidence of his sins scattered around the overgrown concrete. His blank face, his silence, his rigid posture — all of that was too uncharacteristic of Dazai Osamu. It was not the man he had gotten so used to in the past few weeks. It was not the man he had grown to love with all his remaining heart and soul. He met Dazai nine years ago; rediscovered him just recently; and now... it seemed like he had lost him forever.
My twitter is @daot_noen, come say hi! <3
Chapter 8: Requiem
Summary:
Chuuya and Dazai return to Yokohama, where it all ends.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
The last couple of hours had been a blur.
As they sped down countless byways, away from the dilapidated family house, city streets turning into gravel country roads, and finally, into a highway, Dazai had not uttered a single word. With his foot on the gas and his hands on the steering wheel, he occasionally lifted his arm to wipe his face with his sleeve, a rare sniff disturbing the silence in the car.
He never looked back.
Chuuya gave him his privacy. He was not sure if privacy was what Dazai needed. Maybe he needed a hand squeezing his thigh, or a reassuring word, or at least a knowing look from somebody who understood.
Chuuya was not sure.
He did not have enough courage to think about it, let alone talk, and with each cautious glance he stole at Dazai, the hole in his chest grew.
His tears were quiet. Heavy.
And… never-ending.
It was a cry of a defeated man.
“We need to fuel up,” Chuuya first spoke some two hours into their journey. Sleep deprivation, coupled with everything they had encountered, agitated his brain — and this whole time, despite the monotonous hum of the engine trying and failing to lull him to sleep, Chuuya was sitting straight, staring at the road slithering in front of them. Dazai seemed to have shared the same restless state of mind. Not a single yawn escaped his mouth. Dark circles under his eyes were the only thing giving away his growing fatigue, dried tracks of tears on his face adding to the look of utter helplessness. After a few moments, as if his brain was catching up with what Chuuya had just said, Dazai nodded and switched to a different lane. A quarter an hour later, they were at a gas station.
“I’ll do it,” Chuuya said and got out of the car. At the pump next to them, a family was waiting for the father to fill up the tank. Two twin girls, with ice creams in their hands, watched the numbers on the pump change, mesmerised by the rapid blinking of the changing LED screen. He cracked his back and got down to business. As Chuuya was filling up the tank, Dazai was awkwardly fiddling with his hands, looking around as a hundred expressions flashed through his face.
“I’m gonna go wash up,” Dazai finally said and went inside, leaving Chuuya to deal with the car. If he were not an idiot, as Chuuya thought, watching him disappear in the little shop, he would not be back. He would climb out of the window, sneak out through the back door, steal the identity of the gas station worker and live under this new disguise — anything not to go back.
Frankly, Chuuya would have easily forgiven him this little self-indulgent escape.
In a way, it stung when Chuuya heard his voice behind him. Its familiar cadence was hard to get enough of. Every time Dazai spoke, Chuuya felt the warm embrace of his timbre, be it playful, serious, flirty or one of the thousands of ways Dazai could be, thousands more yet left to discover. He never wanted to lose it, keep him selfishly to himself, but at the same time… It hurt hearing it, knowing that Dazai, too, was going to his death.
It was supposed to be just Chuuya driving this old clunker to meet Mori. Alone.
Without Dazai.
He had made up his mind a long time ago — that was why he appeared in the penthouse that fateful night, taking Chuuya with him as he left Yokohama for good. Bringing Dazai straight back into the clutches of the man he tried to escape felt like a betrayal.
Perhaps it was.
It did not matter how much Dazai tried to act as if it were his own choice.
“Done?” Dazai’s face looked somewhat fresher. Brown hair stuck to his wet forehead, water dripping off the strands messing up his shirt. Still, he, frankly, looked like shit, and Chuuya knew for a fact that he was not much better, either. In his hand was an energy drink, and he cracked it open, chugging half of it in one go. Chuuya nodded and fed the bills to the machine as Dazai got back into the car and adjusted the back of the driver’s seat. He did not take caffeine well at all, but Chuuya could not really count how many hours they went without sleep, and he guessed that Dazai being a bit jittery would be the least of their problems.
“Where are we going exactly?” Chuuya asked as he finished paying. They were now going to last all the way to Yokohama without refuelling. Pretty lucky — if their journey could be described as such at all.
Dazai was quiet. Carefully looking over the family that was now getting into their car, he pulled away from their pump. As soon as they got back onto the road, Dazai floored it. His eyes kept darting to the side mirror, and when he saw that the family’s car was going the opposite way from them, his shoulders relaxed.
Still, no answer followed.
“Dazai. Where are we going?”
He sighed. There was nothing he wanted more than to go the opposite way from their destination. As far as possible from that godforsaken place. Even though the hastily scribbled coordinates were hard to read on the blood-stained envelope, he knew exactly where Mori was cordially inviting them. He finished the drink and put the crumpled can into the cup holder. Chuuya was looking at him expectantly, patiently waiting for the answer. Dazai never wanted to lose this fiery stare, this raspy voice, and there was nothing he craved more than to take the next exit and scream loud and clear — we are going away. We are leaving. I am not taking us there. It’s a trap.
His mouth betrayed him. He could not force himself to squeeze any of these words out, knowing that if he dared to do so… He would surely lose Chuuya forever.
“It’s at the outskirts of Yokohama,” Dazai sighed instead. He swallowed and looked at Chuuya. “A warehouse. I held my first interrogation there. Back when he just found me.”
Before that time, he had never killed before. When he saw Mori take the old man’s life, as he watched him take his last breath, tainted with the gurgling of blood in his throat, he thought he would never be able to do the unthinkable.
As it turned out, in that warehouse, just a few weeks later, killing was way easier than he thought.
“I assume you never had any field practice, Dazai-kun,” Mori said, handing the hastily written notes to his assistant. The man bowed and left. “But I am impressed. A bit sloppy, but still… not too many people can boast such effective interrogation skills.”
Dazai nodded. The man tied to the chair in front of him was slumped, arms twisted unnaturally as he kept heavily breathing.
“I would even say you are a prodigy.”
Dazai nodded again. He was not sure what he was supposed to do now. He felt uncomfortable. The abandoned warehouse was too big, almost comical, to house only the boy, the man and the bound prisoner.
“It’s high time you learn what we do to traitors,” he continued. The prisoner snapped his head at him. His lips trembled as Mori took a scalpel out of his front pocket and sliced the ropes holding him. He kicked the chair from underneath him, and the man fell to the ground.
“So, first…”
That was when Dazai learned it by heart. He was a prodigy, after all.
Make the traitor bite the curb.
Shoot their back — once, twice, thrice.
A subtle signature of mafia, a secret that everybody pretends not to know.
When the man’s jaw broke under Dazai’s foot, he winced at the crack and the blood-curdling scream, its desperate high pitch eerily similar to the last one of his mother.
At the first gunshot, he gasped when the gun recoiled in his hand. With eyes wide open, he watched the pool of blood spreading underneath him, as red as roses.
The second, when the prisoner was not moving anymore, his throat tightened as if spiky stems were wrapping around it, slithering across the bandaged skin and getting stuck in the tightly wrapped gauze around his neck.
At the third, the last — completely unnecessary, really just a waste of bullets solely for showing off — his face fell into a bored, expressionless mask that he knew he would be wearing for as long as he kept succumbing to the dark. The pool of blood underneath the man kept growing. Mesmerised, Dazai watched it, and the embrace of the black coat, too big on his scrawny shoulders, suddenly felt like it was giving him the comfort he had not felt for a long time. The dark was embracing him as its own… and he did not mind it.
Dazai had learnt a lot since then. His journey to light started with the blood of his best friend on his hands, its vivid colour a slap on his cheek, waking him up from his slumber. The black coat burned the same night — and, contrary to the sharpness of Oda’s blood, which stench he could still feel, imbued in his skin, the flames went up from the barrel in an oddly calming, peaceful hue of red.
One of the truths he learned — one of the most recent ones, actually — is that the sweet embrace of the dark could not compare with the embrace of a loved one. Darkness also meant loneliness — and hell, Dazai did not want to be alone anymore.
He did not want to lose anyone anymore.
“Chuuya, it’s a trap.”
He was not sure if he said it out loud. He overtook a car going way too annoyingly slowly in the fast lane and glanced at Chuuya, who was sitting, as all these excruciating hours before, with the same tense look on his face.
With each passing second, to the revving sound of the car engine straining to keep up with the expectations placed on it, they were moving further away from the abandoned family house in Goshogawara, leaving it behind hills, rivers, and valleys. Despite the distance growing bigger, Chuuya could still feel the glazed-over stare of two pairs of eyes on his back. His stomach flipped. Unable to look at the idyllic, painfully familiar landscape sprawling in front of him, he burrowed his face in his hands.
I know, he thought. I know it’s a trap. I’m so sorry. Perhaps, it always had been. Maybe it was set the very night when Dazai came for him and took him away. Maybe, even before that.
Chuuya sighed into his palms. The picture outside, which was way too peaceful for his agitated brain, stopped bothering him. The rest of his senses, though, seemed to have heightened. The rapid whooshes of a high-speed train as they stopped at the rail crossing, waiting for it to carry its countless passengers to their destination. The changed sound of the car tyres as they crossed a bridge. The smell of horse manure as they went through a village. Dazai hitting the brakes and impatiently scoffing as he beeped at something — probably a stray farm animal waddling across the road.
All these bits and bobs of ordinary life were all around them. Life was still happening, and Chuuya squeezed his eyes shut tighter.
This simple truth was a heavy weight on his shoulders. Life never stopped — until it did. As Chuuya had learned recently, despite the inexhaustible energy of life, it was way too damn easy to end it. Wrong place, wrong time, wrong people playing their important games, paying no mind to the collateral damage that happened as they moved their chess pieces. How many did he dutifully help Mori place at the right square, watching him get closer to the king on the other side of the board? How many did he move? Chuuya had lost count.
“Amazing job.” Mori’s voice was everywhere — in the rustling of tyres against the asphalt, in the squeaking of the wipers on the windshield, in the whisper of the wind getting into the car through the rolled-down window. The newspaper was open on his desk, and Chuuya stared at his boss’ face, not daring to let his eyes wander to the article. “You will be the next to be promoted. Mark my words.”
Chuuya’s eyes darted to the newspaper. Upside down, from that distance, he could not see much, but the sickening headline stood out to him, bold and bright on the thin paper.
“Not going to say anything?”
“Thank you,” Chuuya croaked. The world was spinning, and he desperately needed to hold onto something to stand upright.
No.
He needed to get out of here.
Now.
The dark burgundy curtains, tightly drawn to keep the sun out, seemed to be seeping their bold colour onto the floor, slowly painting the whole room red. Never taking his eyes off Chuuya, Mori stood up and walked around the desk, hiding the newspaper behind his back.
“Make the right choices,” he murmured and squeezed Chuuya’s shoulder. It felt like he was being branded, and even though weeks had passed since then, Chuuya could still feel the burning mark slowly spreading all over his body, soon to consume him entirely.
It seemed like he was making the right choice for once. Slowly, the distance between him and Yokohama was getting smaller. Soon, they would get to their destination — where they would… What?
Make it right, his brain helpfully filled in.
But what was right? Chuuya did not know at this point. Would they, despite all the odds being against them, be able to defeat Mori and his cohort in their usual Double Black fashion? Would they set Yokohama free? Would they, miraculously, be able to help Aku and Atsushi, who somehow survived the horror they endured? Or was it too late already, with two more people added to the list of those who perished because of Chuuya? Would they be greeted by eyeless bodies, a racket of gunshots, and Mori’s cold laughter? Were they going to their deaths?
“Why?” Chuuya whispered. He could feel his voice breaking, but he continued, unable to stop the words coming out of his mouth. He felt so small — like a kid being unfairly treated, the word why thundering in his brain, his face frustratingly dry. “Why is this all happening? Is there some kind of a curse?”
Dazai kept silent. The car stopped, then started again with a strained rumble — he must have let a pedestrian cross the road. Maybe Dazai missed it, Chuuya’s voice muffled by desperation and the tight grip of shaking palms on his face.
He felt a warm hand on his. Gently, Dazai took Chuuya’s hands off his face and intertwined their fingers. He wondered if Dazai could feel the slight tremble in it just as Chuuya could feel his. His other hand was gripping the steering wheel, his jaw strained, and his eyebrows furrowed as he looked ahead. The sternness of his face was diametrically opposite to the tenderness with which he was squeezing Chuuya’s hand. Finally, Dazai took a quick glance at Chuuya — or rather, through him — and spoke.
“There’s no such thing as curses, Chuuya.” He was speaking so quietly that Chuuya had to lean closer. “Power corrupts. It’s as simple as that.” In Dazai’s head, his words, once again, flowed in unison with a melodic female voice, repeating the same ugly truth he first heard almost a decade ago. You were so right, Dazai thought. A lump in his throat grew, and he circled his thumb on Chuuya’s palm, finding a morsel of comfort in the sensation of warm skin underneath. Too bad I was too stupid to understand.
It was as simple as that. He did not have to think much of examples — besides Mori, he had the still-bleeding memory of his own father falling for the unlimited power, perpetually drunk on domination. It did not happen overnight — slowly, he was succumbing to the temptations his position was feeding him from all possible angles. His father was not the first. Mori was not the last. Politicians, CEOs, police, you name it — no one was immune to the unlimited power rotting their very core. There was no such thing as curses — but if they existed, that would have definitely been one of them.
It was already dark when they finally made it to their destination.
Even from a distance, it was obvious that the warehouse had seen better days. With a sagging roof and rusty walls, it seemed a miracle it was still standing. A faint light was pouring out of the ajar door. Old, cracked concrete slabs paved the area in front of the building, weeds growing out of the seams between them as an often overlooked monument to the resilience of life. All over it was junk, a bunch of papers haphazardly thrown all over the concrete. Chuuya got out of the car — and immediately froze.
From the papers, his own face was looking at him.
In fact… dozens of faces, the newspapers scattered around all branded with Chuuya’s photograph and the same headline, screaming, taunting, exposing the secret he never wanted out.
YOKOHAMA METRO ATTACK: THE CULPRIT IDENTIFIED.
The driver’s door slammed shut, and through the ringing in his ears, Chuuya could feel Dazai’s footsteps as he walked around the car. Any second now, he would see it, and Chuuya would be found out — and he could not have it.
“No,” he whispered and fell on his knees, scrambling to grab the newspapers chaotically scattered as far as he could see. Behind him, he could hear Dazai’s steps get closer, only to stop abruptly a moment later. With his heart trying to escape his constricted chest, Chuuya was desperately crawling around, hard concrete hurting his knees and scraping the heels of his hands with its rough grains. He grabbed yet another newspaper and crumbled it into a ball, unable to look at the redheaded man staring at him from the photograph, trying to hide him, erase him, to make him stop looking. He raised his head, and a defeated scowl painted his face when he saw that all his efforts were in vain. His fingers ached, the skin was grazed and seeping with blood, nails broken with black dirt under them, and there were still dozens of newspapers, dozens of Chuuyas with his face calm, with a cold, calculating look in his eyes.
A perfect mafioso, proud of his top achievement.
With a sob, Chuuya reached for another one. His fingers barely grazed against the thin paper, too weak to do anything to it but leave a faint wrinkle on the photograph and distort the contented face of the Port Mafia executive.
The silence behind him was deafening. Not a word, not a shuffle of feet, nothing came from behind him.
Slowly, Chuuya turned.
Dazai was staring at the paper at his feet, one of many that escaped Chuuya’s fumbling hands. Slowly, Chuuya stood up and took a step toward him, stumbling awkwardly on his legs made of lead.
He could lie. Babble about how it was all Mori’s elaborate ploy to frame him, talk bullshit until Dazai believed him — or at least pretended to, if he felt gracious enough.
“I’m so sorry,” Chuuya breathed out.
Dazai said nothing. Silently, he picked up the newspaper, and Chuuya held his breath. With his brows furrowed, Dazai was studying the face of the man on the front page. What was Dazai seeing there? Was he trying to find any resemblance between the executive in the photograph and the pathetic, heavily breathing slug who was crawling on the dirty concrete a moment ago?
Instead of opening the newspaper, Dazai dropped it back on the ground. With the grace inappropriate for such a dismal thing, it floated through the air and slowly flipped. Chuuya from the portrait faced the ground, hiding himself in shame between crumbling rocks and persistent weeds.
“Dazai.” Chuuya wanted to take a step forward, but his body did not cooperate. “I’m sorry.”
Any second now, Chuuya expected Dazai to… To do what exactly? Explode with an angry tirade, cursing him, telling him that he should be sorry toward thousands of his victims, not him? Hit him? Turn and leave, probably the best course of action Dazai could take right now?
“Dazai,” Chuuya pleaded. He felt as if his words were hitting a brick wall, falling on the ground and joining the evidence of his sins scattered around the overgrown concrete. His blank face, his silence, his rigid posture — all of that was too uncharacteristic of Dazai Osamu. It was not the man he had gotten so used to in the past few weeks. It was not the man he had grown to love with all his remaining heart and soul. He met Dazai nine years ago; rediscovered him just recently; and now... it seemed like he had lost him forever.
On the other hand…
Maybe losing Dazai was the last act of love Chuuya could do toward him.
“Please, go,” Chuuya forced out. “Leave me here.”
Dazai did not move. Neither did he look at Chuuya, his eyes still fixed on the newspaper. The last page, as if nothing had happened, featured a crossword and a horoscope — but Chuuya knew that even through this simulacrum of normalcy, seeped the full colour photo of him on the front page.
“Please, Dazai. Start anew. Without me.”
Chuuya did not know what he expected. He wasn’t sure if he even had any right to hear Dazai’s voice ever again.
Barely visible in the eerie dusk, Dazai shook his head. He signed and, after what felt like centuries, looked at Chuuya.
The intense stare of the brown eyes made him take a step back. He stumbled on a rock, regaining his footing at the last moment.
Dazai finally spoke. His words, along with the still-undecipherable look in his eyes, were shooting bullets straight into Chuuya’s chest, each of them ripping his soul apart with their intensity — no, with their absurdity.
“I am not leaving you.”
Slowly, Chuuya took another step back. His eyes never left Dazai’s. Wide-open and dark, the warm amber was discoloured by the spilt paint of the looming night.
No.
No, no, no.
Idiot. This absolute fucking idiot.
“Go now,” Chuuya whispered again. “Please. Leave me.” He choked on his words, forcing them out, unsure if they came out at all. “I don’t want you here.”
Instead, Dazai took another step forward. It resembled a strange dance, Chuuya responding with a step back to each step forward Dazai made, until with one long stride, he grabbed Chuuya’s elbow and pulled him close. The crumpled newspaper Chuuya did not realise he was holding fell out of his hand.
“I said… I am not leaving you.”
Chuuya gasped as if he had been slapped, and his body tensed when Dazai enveloped him in a crushing embrace. In the distance, Dazai could see the warehouse door with a faint yellowish light glowing inside. It was inviting them with the fake hospitality of a Venus flytrap luring its victim into its hungry mouth, but Dazai was not ready. He was not ready to let go, he was not ready to face Mori, he was not ready to-
Chuuya grabbed his back. Holding onto him with clenched fists, with the desperation of a man on his death row, Chuuya buried his face into Dazai’s chest. Dazai’s ribs whined, but despite that, he was taking in Chuuya’s tight embrace with every cell of his body.
Chuuya’s back shook, and Dazai carefully stroked it. Through the ringing in his ears, he could barely hear the desperate sobs of the man in his arms.
Dazai's brain blocked off most of the memories from that time. Some fragmented recollections were sporadically scattered over hidden nooks in his brain, but those few days were the ones that stuck in his memory. It felt as if Yokohama was going up in flames when the government, despite the scepticism from pretty much the entire city, made the insane decision to confront the Mafia. As the four skyscrapers went down with a deafening roar, the whole world seemed to rumble, a man-made earthquake shaking Yokohama to her core.
It got eerily quiet after that.
A small part of Dazai dared to hope that maybe, just maybe, this carnage would mark the end of the Port Mafia’s occupation of the city. That, when the dust finally settles, and the debris gets cleared from deserted streets, everything would magically turn back to normal. That he would wake up one day, and his life would be back to his slacking off at work, to Fukuzawa alive and well, turning a blind eye to his antics, to the bareness of his dorm feeling peaceful rather than oppressive.
As it turned out, a few days later, it could get quieter.
The convenience store by his building had become a regular destination for Dazai to grab breakfast — roughly once every two days, except when he woke up too late to consider eating at all. The electronic chime was the only thing that greeted him. The cashier stood at her spot, staring at nothing in particular, her name badge upside down. No music played — and the rare customers were silent, too. The beeping of the self-checkout tills was the only thing breaking the silence, and, adding to the disturbance with his swift steps, Dazai headed to the fridges to get an onigiri.
The morning paper by the till caught his attention — and all of a sudden, it became crystal clear why the atmosphere in the store was so heavy.
June 1st 20xx
HUNDREDS DEAD, THOUSANDS INJURED IN THE YOKOHAMA METRO BOMBINGS.
Underneath was a photograph. It seemed to be a memorial to the victims — spontaneous, with heaps of flowers and hundreds of pictures lining the sidewalk. In the background, the cracked sign with the station name hung across the entrance. Its edges were charred, and it looked like a makeshift barrier blocking the way into what must have been a raging inferno a few hours prior.
Dazai swallowed. With the vagueness of the headline's wording, the front page was screaming that the death toll was to rise.
He stayed hungry that day. The city was still. Even seagulls seemed to have bowed their heads in respect, keeping their cries down in a long moment of silence.
Maybe Dazai was taking one step back to the darkness when he had, once again, chosen Chuuya. He had been choosing Chuuya this whole time — despite the voice of reason in his head telling him that deep down, he knew all along.
And, truth be told, if he were faced with the chance to change everything, he would do the same thing again in a heartbeat.
He chose Chuuya — and that surely meant that he chose the dark.
He chose Chuuya, and it felt goddamn right.
Dazai held him tighter. Another desperate cry shook the man in his embrace, ridiculously small with his shoulders hunched in defeat. He burrowed his face into the top of the ginger head. He was not sure if Chuuya could feel the subtle kisses through his frantic shaking.
Maybe Dazai did not give a shit about light, dark and everything in between anymore. Now that everything went up in flames, he craved to do what he wanted rather than what was right — just like that night on his birthday when he fled the now-hostile city with his partner by his side. Back then, he did what he wanted to do — and intended to keep doing so now.
And he wanted Chuuya.
Chuuya was his rose garden — irresistible with thorns guarding their stems, strikingly beautiful, impossible to look away or let go once the gorgeous bouquet was in his possession, no matter the blood drawing from his hands when the prickly thorns bit him hungrily. He craved that hunger. Craved that endless, sometimes dangerous, passion that he had the luck to tame and call his own.
Even if it meant taking a step — or two, or more, who the hell counted — back to the darkness, he would not leave Chuuya. Not when he had finally tasted the true flavours of his inexhaustible love and devotion.
“Chuuya.” Slowly, Dazai pulled away, almost having to fight against his tight embrace. His face shone in the dim light, and there was nothing he wanted more than to kiss his tears away, along with the pain that came with it. He knew he could not do much about the pain.
Apart from sharing it with him.
“Chuuya, please.” Dazai ripped his eyes off Chuuya’s face to glance at the faint light in the distance. “It’s a trap. Please.”
“I know.” Through barely parted lips, it could barely be heard. Still, the sound ripped Dazai’s eardrums to shreds — along with his heart.
Chuuya smiled. It did not reach his eyes. Frankly, it looked out of place on his shiny, puffy face with defeat painting its features. “But I have to.”
No. No, you don’t. You’re trying to kill yourself at Mori’s hand. It will not bring all these people back. Run away with me, like you promised you would. Fucking be with me. Make up for all the time we lost. Have a little rose garden with me, goddamn it.
Dazai knew that saying this would only add to the pain — his and Chuuya’s.
And he could not burden Chuuya with any more of it.
Instead, he nodded and took Chuuya’s hand.
A few steps away from the door, they stopped. It almost felt like the place was empty, if it wasn’t for the feeling of looming danger emanating from the enormous building. There was no noise — apart from the chorus of cicadas singing their requiem for the two men. No shadow moved inside, no whisper disturbed the anxious buzzing piercing the night air.
“Did you know?” Chuuya blurted out. He did not have the guts to look at Dazai; his eyes focused on the string of yellow light pouring out of the open door. Weird how this place still had electricity.
“I… I had a hunch.” Dazai was not sure what Chuuya was asking — his little question embodied it all. His crimes? Their end? Dazai stole a glance at Chuuya. His expression was blank, and, along with the moon's subtle illumination, it made his skin look almost grey, as if he were long dead. Dazai raised his hand and cupped Chuuya’s face — contrary to the pale look, he felt warm.
It felt like ages had passed before Chuuya finally looked into Dazai’s eyes. He smiled. It was not the toothy one that brought out the dimples that Dazai adored kissing. Not the smug one that appeared whenever he managed to one-up Dazai in something.
It was a smile that Dazai knew really well. It was the one that he had never seen on Chuuya’s face. It used to greet Dazai himself in the mirror whenever he was counting down to the day when he would take his own life.
Chuuya was defeated before he even set foot inside.
He spoke. That tone of voice was also eerily familiar — a cheerful, confident cadence, trying to hide the final decision from those who did not know, and sending chills down the spine of those who did.
“So… We’ll kill Mori, let the boys go and escape. The plan is on, yeah? Double Black…” Chuuya nodded at Dazai as a silent prompt, but no answer came.
The cicadas went quiet.
Saying something was the last thing Dazai wanted. He knew there was no changing Chuuya’s decision, and so, he opted for the way to express himself in the way he had only recently learned.
Their lips clashed — even though Dazai was terrified to see if the feeling of Chuuya's lips on his would be as cold and detached as the look in his eyes. A hand cupped his cheek, gently caressing the spot where the bruise was, and Dazai choked back his tears.
How does it feel — knowing it would be your last kiss?
He never wanted to know it. Never wanted to taste the bitter tears saying goodbye, I love you, and I hope I will see you there. Perhaps, in another universe, another Dazai was kissing another Chuuya at the same moment. Perhaps that other kiss was not tainted with the bitter realisation of the end. Perhaps, there, in another world, neither he nor Chuuya were forced to live with the burdens they could not forgive themselves for.
Where everything happened just right.
Unlike here.
They must have shared hundreds of kisses by now. Secretive pecks on the lips at breakfast while the guesthouse’s owners were not looking. Gentle kisses on knuckles. Timid kisses. The kisses that explored, worshipped and confessed. So different, yet with one thing in common — the unadulterated, pure happiness that came along with them.
Happiness was a curious thing. It could be found in the rubble, among the chaos at a place where, at first glance, there was no hope — and Dazai could definitely say… That he was lucky enough to find it, even if for a fleeting moment.
Dazai’s fingers dug deep into Chuuya's back as he shook under his touch like a leaf. Fighting against himself, he pulled away and squeezed Chuuya’s hand. There was nothing he craved more than to lean in again, to steal another feeling of the lips that fit so perfectly with his. Just once more — a pathetic attempt to make up for the time they never got to have.
Barely noticeable in the dusk, Chuuya nodded. Together, they pushed on the rusty metal door, and it flew open.
The last remaining bits of hope they had been clutching at shattered the moment they took a step inside — or rather, rotted, akin to the two bodies tied to a pillar, lifeless and limp despite the tightly wound rope digging into them. Flies were busily roaming them, crawling on the peeling skin and across the gaping reddish-brown wounds where their eyes used to be, streaks of dried blood painting their greyed cheeks. On Akutagawa’s chest was a note, his usually neat handwriting all over the place.
‘Thank you, Chuuya-san.’
“Admiring your creation?”
Mori’s voice was languid, shining with the confidence of the man who had just won. His eyes were focused on one person only, hungrily studying the real flesh and bone of Nakahara Chuuya — the weapon, the executive, the traitor. Behind him, in a semi-circle, stood dozens and dozens of men. Some — most of them — had automatic rifles pointed at them, some were bare-handed, the deadliness of their abilities obvious in the absence of any weapons. “To be frank, I started doubting you’d show up.” He glanced at Dazai, looking him up and down and smirking. “Oh!” Mori covered his mouth with his hand, pretending to be shocked. “Dazai-kun, you’re here, too! I was hoping for this, frankly. Wanted to give you a couple of driving tips. I thought reckless driving was a thing of the past. Seems like you never outgrew it.”
The Port Mafia boss was certainly enjoying his monologue, his one-man show in the world’s oddest theatre. Mori’s voice rang with the triumph of a victor, his attitude only fuelled by the fact that the people he was performing for neither moved nor said a word.
The lack of reaction from his audience did not offend him, and so, he continued.
“I gotta say,” Mori slowly walked toward them, a shark that smelled blood, “it was quite fun. It was like watching some lousy dating TV show. Beach dates? Really? Was the wine at least good?”
Dazai blinked. The dancing girl from the truck’s logo giggled again- no, this time, it was Elise. She nodded and clutched at Mori’s coat, bulging her big eyes at them. Beach? Wine? What was he on about?
Mori slapped Dazai’s shoulder, and with a yelp, Elise disappeared.
The sensation made Dazai rip his eyes off the dead bodies. These two people impacted his life in so many ways — making him worse, and better, and inadvertently teaching him so many things about himself, and now… they were nothing but a bunch of rotting meat. He desperately tried to remember his last conversation with Atsushi a few days before he disappeared. They were at the Agency office. Fukuzawa was just going out, summoned to the Port Mafia headquarters to sign some documents. An ordinary day — the one that ended up changing everything. He couldn’t remember what they talked about. It felt like too much of bizarre a concept that the dead boy on the floor of the warehouse could say anything.
For some reason, Mori was not saying a word, and Dazai squinted his eyes, trying to read the man’s lips. His former boss was unarmed. It would be so easy to destroy him — with Chuuya’s Ability, with a snap of Dazai’s hands, with the quick, effective work of Double Black. Screw the smug suite around Mori, with their weapons, Abilities and whatever shit they have in stock — they had fought worse.
Mori touched Chuuya’s shoulder. Automatically, Dazai took a step, trying to stand between Chuuya and the man — only to be blocked by Mori’s arm, his former boss not even bothering to look at him. Chuuya did not move. Neither did he try to shake the cold hand off his shoulder, and, more frustratingly, he did not attempt to do something to the root of his misery. No goons would be able to help Mori — Chuuya would always be faster, even if snapping his ex-boss’ neck would be the last thing he did.
“Remember who gave you the life you have.”
A shudder went through Chuuya’s body. Had.
He did not have this life anymore.
And neither did he want to.
Mori squeezed Chuuya’s shoulder and let go. Lazily, he went back to his horde. Having his back to Double Black was pretty stupid for the Mafia boss — except, he knew they would not harm him.
“I have always been a good boss, don’t you think?” He turned and looked at Chuuya, licking his lips. He did not seem to care to wait for the answer. “I am offering you a deal. And at this point… I don’t think you would be able to refuse.”
Dazai grabbed Chuuya’s sleeve. “Don’t listen to him,” he hissed. “He’s messing with you. He had always been, from day one.”
“What is it?” Chuuya’s voice was quiet — and at the same time, more determined than Dazai had heard in a while, and this simple fact made Dazai want to scream, yell, throw a tantrum like a little kid, helpless in his frustration.
“I will let Dazai-kun go…” Mori smirked at how Chuuya instantly straightened his back, all his senses heightened, alert like never before. “If you come back now.”
“Chuuya, no.” Dazai grabbed Chuuya’s face and forcefully made him look into his eyes, paying no mind to Mori’s cooing and Elise’s excited clapping. She must have reappeared just now. “He’s lying. Don’t even think of it.”
Chuuya closed his eyes. Dazai’s face was so close to his that he could feel how warm he was. God, Dazai was always so warm — and he leaned in, pressing a kiss on his lips. His lips buzzed for a million more. A couple of chuckles sounded in the background, getting lost in the ringing in Chuuya's ears.
“I’m sorry.” Chuuya gently took Dazai’s hands off his face, deliberately slowly, savouring the last moments he would feel their overwhelming warmth, and took a step toward Mori.
Another one.
Then another.
Step by step, he went closer.
He was not an idiot.
It was his chance to rid the world — and Dazai’s life — of his presence, and that was the last gift he hoped Dazai would be grateful to accept.
“Good boy.” Mori wrapped his arm around Chuuya’s shoulder. The Port Mafia boss, the ex-executive and the armed men were now standing opposing Dazai, making him look ridiculously small and bare against the crowd, as if he were a lost fourteen-year-old again, getting the taste of the dark for the first time.
“Now, Dazai-kun…” Mori’s beaming smile could have probably lit up the whole warehouse, had the old yellow lamps decided to give up. “You know what we do to traitors.”
Dazai sharply exhaled. He could see how Chuuya’s body stiffened — and yet, nothing changed the determination in the beloved blue eyes.
“Satoshi,” Mori called out, “give him the gun.”
A man with an oddly familiar face stepped out. Slowly, he approached Dazai and put the gun in his hand, firmly closing his hand around the grip.
Mori grabbed Chuuya’s neck and forcefully pushed him. Gracelessly, he landed on the floor, sharp pain going through his wrist as his whole body weight crushed it against the hard concrete.
So… This is how it ends, Chuuya thought, raising his eyes to look at Dazai, his head spinning.
Although… Dying by Dazai’s hand?
That would be an honour.
Dazai was still staring at the gun, as if he had never seen the thing in his hands before.
Finally, he looked at Chuuya. The warm amber met the desperate blue.
Bang.
Bang.
Bang.
Chuuya stiffened at the violent noise; his face contorted in agony as searing pain went through his entire body. Burning, incinerating, it occupied its every cell, overtaking the deafening rattle of bullets and muting the desperate, almost inhuman, scream. Wide-eyed, he watched Dazai’s face change.
Bang.
Bang.
Hundreds of gunshots, deafening, never-ending, each of them ripping Chuuya’s whole world apart.
The deadly firework of gunshots never stopped. Flashing around him, they were hitting the same target, painting Dazai’s body red, so bright that it made Chuuya want to close his eyes.
He could not look away.
Chuuya had seen death. It had been following him close, starting from the moment he was captured and put in the laboratory, and he thought he knew everything about it by now — but no.
There was one more thing that he realised about death just now.
It was… strangely anticlimactic.
There was no slow motion. No sorrowful looks of a lover saying goodbye forever. No lips uttering a quiet “I love you”, with the words fading as the last breath leaves the collapsing body.
The world did not stop, no sound, smell, or sensation disappeared — none of this pretentious bullshit movie directors like to sprinkle their shitty movies with.
There was just a rattle of gunshots, followed by a thud of a body falling onto the ground.
And that was it.
Death was a busy lady — she came, claimed, and cleared out with no time to waste, hurrying to the next unfortunate victim of hers. She never looked back at the mess she was leaving behind, preferring others to witness her gruesome creations instead — her sick way of showing her humbleness.
The fire stopped the moment Chuuya started crawling. His eyes burning, he did not dare to blink, as if doing it would erase the still-alive image of Dazai standing and looking at him, so lost and almost… betrayed, the moment before the bullets hit him. It was as if blinking and seeing the same still, gruesome image on the floor once his eyes opened again would be another proof that it was… the end.
With his throat sore, Chuuya finally made it to the body. The man lying on the floor in front of him was not Dazai. It could not possibly have been — with the skull cracked from the fall, chest mutilated by dozens of bullets, eerily still, it was the striking opposite of what Chuuya had so easily gotten used to. Dazai was the epitome of life. In his eyes, Chuuya could see universes; when he lay on his broad chest as it rose and fell with the most calming flow, he felt as if the tender waves of the sea were rocking him in their embrace; in his heartbeat, he could hear stories, promises and confessions, and he could not wait to hear more of these.
The body — carcass — on the floor of the warehouse was not the same person. It simply was not. Chuuya blinked. Something wet and sticky touched his knee, soaking the fabric, and Chuuya absentmindedly rubbed it, shuddering at the revolting sensation. It was warm, oddly familiar, but it was not the warmth he craved.
The ringing in Chuuya’s ears amplified. It erased the noisy commotion around him, the cold floor, the patchy ceiling through which stars peeked at what was happening below. For them, it was just another human life cut short — nothing they had not seen in their millions of years of existence. For them, it did not matter if it was a life of 20, 50 or 90 years; all these options were equally laughable for centennial creatures like them.
His lips moved on their own accord. Words poured out of his mouth, never stopping until the avalanche ripped through him — and he sobbed, eyes roaming over his love’s mutilated chest, darting from one jagged wound to another. His bare hands got sticky, warm, and so disturbingly bright that Chuuya had to squeeze his eyes shut from the sheer aggression of their colour.
A male voice startled Chuuya, and his eyes flew open. Dazai had just said something — he heard his name, he was talking, he was here — no. The motionless body did not change. He raised his hand to wipe it against his jeans — it stumbled across a still warm hand, and, out of this new habit, he intertwined his bloody fingers with Dazai’s.
He peered at his face. The mouth with a trickle of blood coming out of the corner uttered no word, no breath, nothing, and absentmindedly, muttering something to himself, Chuuya attempted to wipe the blood off, only smearing it more over the prickly stubble. The male voice calling out his name still rang in his mind, and sheepishly, he turned his head searching for the source of the sound. Somebody grabbed him — and with a red flash, he threw the hands off him.
The man spoke again, but Chuuya’s mind was far from it, a mere background noise in his head. The talking, the armed men, the warehouse — none of it existed as he was replaying their short time together, the image of the love of his life in his memories tainted by dozens of bullet holes ruining the perfect, foolish dream they dared to have.
He heard a crack. The sudden noise startled him; his face contorted in rage, but at the same time, the sharp sound made everything so… clear.
The man kept talking, but his words did not quite reach Chuuya’s ears.
He smiled.
Right.
The string of words had never felt as easy to utter as it did now.
Previously, it implied pain and destruction, with salvation coming from a touch of someone whose warmth was no more. Dazai would not realise it now that No Longer Human left his body along with the last breath he took — but, in fact, his absence would save Chuuya one last time.
When Chuuya’s feet detach from the ground, the confines of gravity no longer pulling his body down, his chest bubbles. A manic, inhuman laugh quickly turns to a deafening scream as his arms rapidly swing, gracing the warehouse with fiery flashes of light.
He does not need to fight it anymore. Arahabaki’s roar fills his head, rips through his throat, and, rather than trying with all his might to block it, like he used to, Chuuya welcomes it.
He finally can.
The singularity roars, rages, runs through his head, filling his blood vessels and evaporating his blood. His bones crack as the energy that had never been allowed to run free before explores his body, the human flesh pathetically weak to host the unleashed power.
He sees Yokohama in the distance. Millions of its lights shine like they always did. The city lives its life, despite all its countless tragedies, and he knows it will stand strong. Yokohama always wins — and now it will be better off when Chuuya, one of the reasons for its sorrows, goes.
He will not be able to hurt anyone anymore.
A smile breaks through the scream, painting it a joyful hue barely noticeable in his animalistic screech.
An explosion shakes the warehouse building as a graviton meets the floor, where a moment ago, the Port Mafia boss stood — only a pathetic wet splotch and a crater left to remind the world of the lost power. More and more explosions follow; they get the mafiosi trying to scatter away, lining the floor with squished, charred bodies.
Through the roaring in his head — does he still get to call it his? — and the fire in his bloodshot eyes, Chuuya sees the rubble underneath him. The ground is nothing but an inferno of mangled corpses, concrete turned to dust, and reinforcements of pillars bent like paper straws. The holey ceiling has collapsed, too, covering some bodies like a shroud; it gives them the last ounce of decency in their graceless deaths.
There is a single body that is seemingly unharmed, an oddity in the rubble Arahabaki created in its frenzy. It looks almost like the man in the beige trench coat just chose a very unusual place to rest — among craters, broken walls and body parts, strangely protected in his cradle by something… or someone, who had only managed to do so when it was too late.
The man looks at peace.
Chuuya’s smile tastes like salt. He lets go.
He is only human — and so, he breaks.
His neck cracks. The ripping of his tendons and his vertebrae crushing into dust must feel excruciating — but what is left of Chuuya in the furious creature screaming into the night sky feels nothing but… Peace. The body flying through the air is his no more. Nakahara Chuuya is gone — the shell of him contorts in a danse macabre as the stars intently watch him deliver this last performance. A graviton lands in the forest. It scares some birds away and burns the trunk of a young cedar tree. Another one, weaker, hits the collapsed ceiling. The ground shakes — and the hand of the man in the beige trenchcoat falls off his chest onto the ground, as if he is just trying to get more comfortable, still asleep despite the cacophony of Arahabaki’s howling, cawing of agitated crows and the sharp snapping of bones. Chuuya’s movements get less precise. The body convulses in the red glow, resembling a broken puppet rather than the man who was thought to be indestructible. Another graviton appears on the bloodied palm, but before it takes shape, its light goes out.
A parasite can not live without its host — and the host was only human. The strongest people still consist of flesh and bone, a laughable composition for a raging singularity. What used to be Chuuya’s ribcage opens with a series of cracks as each rib turns inside out — and, as boiling blood shoots out of his ripped heart, Arahabaki ceases to exist.
The body fell onto the ground. Its twisted, ripped figure looked very fitting for the massacre site, if it was not for the fact that it landed next to the man in the trenchcoat — not a single speck of dust on his pale face, his bullet-riddled chest soaked with blood, and still, looking eerily tidy in comparison to the mutilated carcass next to him.
In the distance, the city lights of Yokohama twinkled in the faint smog, almost invisible in the late hour. The skyline looked empty — a single Port Mafia tower, first robbed of its tall suite, and now of its king, was not the scene-stealer no more, reluctantly giving the title back to Minato Mirai and its Ferris wheel, which, even through the smog, was shining in all colours of the rainbow. In the sky, the Moon timidly peeked from behind the dark clouds, finally finding the nerve to push them aside and shine its melancholy light over the smoking rubble. Its silver veil covered the blood-soaked ground, the bent machine guns, and finally — the faces of the two men lying snug to each other — one, peaceful, with the chest the colour of roses, and another one — bloodied, perpetually destined to stay in an agonised scream.
For the longest time, it was quiet. The last walkie-talkie, still sporadically coming back to life with a worried voice of a man on the other side of the line, got crushed by the last remaining pillar of the warehouse, which collapsed when two birds tried to land on it. Immediately, they flew off, their wings fluttering in the dust clouding the area, but despite the cracking noise the broken concrete made in an attempt to scare them away, they remained on the massacre site, their intricate dance weaving invisible patterns in the night sky.
The smaller one started first. The high-pitched, almost desperate singing flowed across the rubble, and moments later, the bigger bird joined, its trill complementing its counterpart’s most harmoniously.
The gentle moon intently watched the two birds. Even the ever-rushing clouds seemed to pause and stare at them flying freely and chasing each other in their joyous carefreeness.
Together, they sang. The gruesome scene underneath their wings was still. A striking contrast to the lively dance in the night sky, it, nevertheless, did not ruin the perfect harmony. Slowly, the birds were fluttering toward the forest, leaving the destroyed warehouse and the distant Yokohama lights behind — and the Moon only dared to veil herself with her lace again when the pair’s joy could not be heard from the thicket anymore.
If you pray three times at the pine tree of the Temple of the 500 Bodhisattvas in Hyakuzawa, you grow young again.
I'd like to pray at that pine tree.
The end
Notes:
Wow! After more than TWO years, this fic is finally done. The ending (well, its outline) had been there since the very start — I wrote it at the same time as the beginning, and it was very satisfying to reach it finally. Now that I am done, I have even more respect for multichapter fic writers — this is by no means easy, and I respect you guys so much.
Thank you to everyone who stuck around and supported me; it means the world.My twitter is @daot_noen, come say hi! :)
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