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By the time Dazai realized he was looking for Chuuya, he had already walked half the damn city.
It started as boredom—that lazy, restless kind that crawled under his skin when there wasn’t a mission, a scheme, or a decent way to almost die. He’d finished the paperwork Mori threw at him (he’d tossed them onto someone else). He’d checked in on a couple of underlings just to watch them flinch. He’d even gone down to the docks to look at the water for a bit and thought, absently, about how cold it would be if he let himself fall in with his hands tied.
And then, somehow, his feet had turned uphill instead of down.
There wasn’t really a reason to go toward the overlook. The ledge was technically still Port Mafia territory—high enough that you could see the cranes and ships as thin silhouettes against the harbor, far enough from the city that the air tasted less like exhaust and more like salt and grass. Kids from the lower ranks snuck up here sometimes to smoke or drink or pretend they weren’t all going to die before twenty-five. It was only when Dazai caught the smell on the wind—a lazy curl of something bitter, sweet, and unmistakably burnt—that he realized where he’d wandered.
He stopped at the edge of the path, hand tucked in his pocket, and stared at the long slope of grass rolling up toward the sky. The sun was low, melting into late afternoon, painting everything in that ugly golden color that made the world look like it was pretending to be softer than it was.
There they were. Three of them, sprawled where the hill flattened out near the edge: Chuuya, sitting up with his knees pulled close and elbows hooked over them like he owned the place; Albatross, lying on his back with his arms folded behind his head; and Iceman, leaning on one hand, legs stretched out, expression as unreadable as usual.
The smoke curled from the joint between Chuuya’s fingers, thin and grey against the sky. Dazai frowned before he could stop himself.
He told himself it was because Chuuya looked ridiculous—hair loose and bright, laugh loud and sharp, shoulders shaking at something Albatross had said. His hat lay tossed beside him in the grass. The stupid idiot didn’t even have it on. He told himself it was because Chuuya was slacking off on Mafia time. Because Chuuya wasn’t where he was supposed to be, doing what he was supposed to do, which was obviously being ready at all times for whatever Dazai felt like putting him through.
It had nothing to do with the way Dazai had been walking around all afternoon thinking, Huh, it’s boring without the hatrack around, and then, Maybe I’ll go find him, like that was some sort of normal impulse.
Whatever.
Dazai walked up the hill like he belonged there more than any of them.
Chuuya noticed him first. His head snapped around, mismatched eyes narrowing, mouth already twisting like he could smell trouble before it arrived.
“Oh, for— What the hell do you want?” Chuuya demanded, voice roughened with smoke and laughter.
Albatross tilted his head to look over at Dazai, lips quirking in a lazy half-smile. Iceman didn’t move much at all, just flicked his eyes up and took a slow drag from the joint Chuuya passed him.
With a shrug, Dazai dropped down onto the grass without asking. He made sure to sit just a little too close to Chuuya, so that their shoulders almost brushed when Chuuya breathed.
“I was bored,” Dazai said, letting his tone go flat and bored too. “And then I remembered a certain slug exists. Tragic, isn’t it?”
Chuuya snorted. “You must have been really desperate.”
“Don’t flatter yourself,” Dazai replied, though he could feel the faint warmth of Chuuya’s body radiating through the air between them. “I just needed someone to make fun of.”
He tried not to look at the joint when Chuuya brought it back to his lips. Tried not to track the way Chuuya inhaled, cheeks hollowing slightly, throat working as he swallowed down the smoke like it was nothing. The smell was heavier now that he was in the middle of it, clinging to Chuuya’s shirt, his hair, the grass under their hands. Thick, skunky, tinged with something almost sweet. It curled in Dazai’s nose and throat, stirred up something sour in his stomach.
“Didn’t know this was a party,” Dazai added, with what he hoped was an air of disinterest. “I wasn’t invited, slug. I’m hurt.”
“You’d just ruin the vibe,” Chuuya said, flicking ash into the grass. His eyes had that lazy brightness they got when he was enjoying himself, pupils blown a little larger than usual. “And you’re not invited.”
“Well, I’m here now,” Dazai said, stretching his legs out like he meant to stay. He propped himself up on his elbows, ignoring the way the ground felt slightly too soft, like it might tilt. “So either kick me out or shut up about it.”
Albatross laughed quietly. “He’s got a point, Chuuya.”
“Don’t start,” Chuuya muttered, but his mouth twitched. He passed the joint to Albatross and glanced back at Dazai, eyes narrowing slightly. “You look weird.”
Dazai blinked. “That’s rude.”
“Weirder than usual,” Chuuya clarified.
There was a squinting sort of focus in his gaze that made Dazai feel exposed, like Chuuya was trying to see past the usual nonsense and hit the place underneath. Dazai looked away before that could happen, out over the cranes and ships where everything was far and safe and small.
“I’m just offended a slimy little slug has a whole secret life as a delinquent and didn’t invite me,” he said lightly. “What’s this, cheating on the Mafia with drugs?”
“It’s just weed,” Chuuya said, making a face. “Calm down.”
“It’s not exactly regulation,” Dazai said, letting his voice go playfully prim, even as something inside him tightened. “What if our dear Boss finds out?”
Exhaling a slow stream of smoke, Albatross smiled up at the sky. “He’d have to care first.”
Iceman huffed a quiet laugh.
Chuuya glanced between them and then back at Dazai, lips curling around the filter again. “Since when do you care about rules?” he muttered around it.
Since never, Dazai almost said. Except this wasn’t about rules, and he knew it. The words tangled somewhere behind his teeth. He watched Chuuya inhale again, the faint tremor of his fingers, the way the smoke slipped out through his nose as he resumed talking.
“If you’re gonna lurk, you might as well take a hit,” Chuuya said, passing the joint along. “Or did you come up here just to nag me?”
Dazai forced a laugh. “I don’t need drugs to make my life miserable, thanks. I’ve got you.”
Albatross and Iceman shared a look over Chuuya’s head. It was fleeting, but Dazai caught it anyway: that subtle, amused flicker that older people got when they thought they’d figured something out about you.
He ignored it.
“So that’s a no?” Chuuya said, eyebrows going up. “Thought you didn’t scare easy, Dazai.”
He said it casually, teasing; but there was a sharp little edge under the words that dug right into Dazai’s ribs.
“I don’t scare easy,” Dazai said, too fast.
Three pairs of eyes landed on him at once.
“Uh-huh,” Chuuya said, slow and skeptical. “Then what’s the problem? Weed’s not gonna kill you.”
Dazai’s fingers twitched against the grass. For a second, he wasn’t looking at Chuuya at all; he was looking at a bottle of pills in his hand, cheap label half-ripped, shaking too hard to count. At a white ceiling blurring overhead as something cold slid into his vein. At Mori’s face above him, clinical and curious and fond all at once.
“It’s stupid,” he said, backing away from that, because there was no way he was letting it show on his face. “And it stinks.”
Chuuya snorted, unimpressed. “You stink.”
“Excellent comeback,” Dazai said. “Very mature.”
“Seriously, what’s your problem?” Chuuya pressed, irritation starting to bleed through. “You drink. I’ve seen you drink. You swallow whatever pills the Boss throws at you like candy. But one little joint and suddenly you’re acting like a grandma.”
Dazai’s smile froze.
“Chuuya,” Albatross said lightly, pushing himself up onto his elbows. “Maybe chill.”
“What? I’m just saying,” Chuuya said, flaring. He turned back to Dazai, annoyance lighting his cheeks. “You’re the one acting like I’m about to shoot up heroin in front of a kindergarten. It’s weed. You already do every other drug under the sun.”
The words hit harder than they should have. Maybe because they were true. Maybe because they weren’t, not in the way Chuuya thought. For a heartbeat, Dazai couldn’t hear the wind or the waves. Just the pounding in his own ears.
Every other drug.
Like it was a hobby. Like it was something he did for fun.
“Chuuya doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” Dazai said, voice flattening.
Chuuya’s brows drew together. “Excuse me?”
“Hey,” Iceman cut in, tone soft but firm. “He just means—”
“I know what he meant,” Dazai said, a little too sharp. “And if Chuuya is going to talk about things he doesn’t understand, at least get the phrasing right.”
Chuuya bristled, the tips of his ears going red. “Oh, I’m sorry, did I offend the great Black Wraith of the Port Mafia? Maybe if you didn’t show up high out of your damn mind half the time—”
“Chuuya,” Albatross said again, more warning this time.
Dazai shot up in a quick, abrupt movement and faced Chuuya fully. The motion brought him closer without meaning to; he could see the faint smudge of ash on Chuuya’s fingers, the way the smoke had gotten caught in his hair.
“You want me to take it?” Dazai said. “Fine.”
Chuuya blinked. “What?”
“I’ll smoke,” Dazai said, words coming out in a rush before he could stop them. His heart skipped oddly, like he’d stepped off an invisible curb. “But not with an audience.”
Albatross and Iceman both stared at him.
Chuuya stared too, joint halfway to his lips.
“What is that supposed to mean?” Chuuya demanded. “They’re my friends, you asshole. I’m not kicking them out because you decided to show up and make everything weird.”
“I’m not making anything weird,” Dazai protested, which was of course a lie. “I just don’t feel like being dissected while I cough my lungs up, that’s all.”
“Dissected?” Chuuya scoffed. “You’re being dramatic.”
“You’re both being dramatic,” Iceman said under his breath.
There was a little beat of silence. The kind that felt like someone had pressed pause on the whole hillside. Then Albatross pushed himself fully upright and stretched, vertebrae cracking audibly.
“Well,” he said, easy, “unfortunately, some of us actually do have things to do. Right, Iceman?”
Iceman gave him a sidelong look, then nodded, getting smoothly to his feet. “Yeah. Boss wanted that report by tonight.”
Chuuya frowned. “You guys can stay, y’know. Don’t leave just ’cause—”
“We really do have to go,” Albatross said, dusting grass from his pants. He slanted a look between Chuuya and Dazai, amusement obvious even through the lazy drawl. “But hey—come out with us later, Chuuya. We’ll be at the docks after midnight.”
“Text you the spot,” Iceman added.
Chuuya hesitated. Dazai could see the little tug of temptation there; the part of him that liked older company, liked being taken seriously, liked being treated like he wasn’t just someone’s attack dog.
“Yeah, okay,” Chuuya said finally. “Maybe.”
Albatross clapped him on the shoulder as he passed. “Don’t let the brat kill your buzz.”
“Try not to kill each other,” Iceman said mildly.
Dazai shot them both his most innocent smile. It only made Albatross’ grin broaden.
Then they were gone, heading down the hill toward the path, their murmured conversation fading into the breeze. The smell of smoke lingered behind them, hanging heavy.
Silence dropped in their wake, thick and oddly intimate. Chuuya turned on Dazai at once.
“What the hell was that?” he snapped. “You scared them off, dumbass.”
“I did no such thing,” Dazai said, though his chest felt tight. “They left of their own free will. I’m very charming; people love to give me space.”
Chuuya’s eyes flashed. “You were being a freak! Coming up here, acting all—” He waved his hand vaguely. “Judgy and weird and then throwing a tantrum about an audience. What the hell’s your problem, really?”
“I said already,” Dazai said, voice light. “I don’t like being watched.”
“You’re a goddamn mafia executive,” Chuuya said flatly. “You’re watched all the time.”
It was true. In meetings, in missions, under Mori’s gaze. In hospital rooms with bright lights and needles lined up on stainless steel trays.
A flicker of white ceiling again. The taste of something bitter dissolving under his tongue. The way his vision had narrowed, edges going dark, as he lay on the mattress and waited to either stop feeling or stop existing, and instead woke up to an IV drip and Mori’s bored voice dictating notes.
Dazai swallowed, mouth suddenly dry.
“Not like that,” he said.
“Like what, then?” Chuuya demanded. He shifted closer without seeming to realize it, the joint burning low between his fingers. “You’re making no sense, shitty Dazai.”
Dazai stared at the ground between them. The grass was flattened where the others had been sitting, blades bent and broken. His fingertips absently shredded one, nails digging into the damp dirt underneath.
“It’s different,” he muttered. “Being… high. On purpose.”
Chuuya snorted. “That’s the whole point.”
“You don’t get it,” Dazai said, before he could stop himself.
“Then explain it to me,” Chuuya shot back. “Since I’m apparently so stupid.”
He said it with that usual combative little lift to his chin, expecting a fight. Expecting Dazai to dodge or mock or turn it into something else. Dazai could feel the script they usually ran hovering there—the familiar rhythm of insult, retort, escalation. All he had to do was grab it.
He didn’t.
For some reason, with the smoke still thick in his nose and the sun too bright and the memory of Chuuya laughing with other people lingering in his chest like a bruise, the words came out wrong.
“When I take stuff,” Dazai said, slow, “it’s not to feel good.”
Chuuya’s mouth clicked shut.
The breeze picked up, tugging at their hair, breaking up the smoke. Far below, a ship’s horn sounded, low and mournful.
“What?” Chuuya asked.
Dazai wrapped his arms loosely around his knees, mirroring the way Chuuya was sitting without thinking about it. In some other universe, maybe it would have meant something.
“Chuuya said I do every drug under the sun,” Dazai said, wrestling the urge to turn it into a joke. “But the only times I’ve done anything like what Chuuya is doing—” He nodded toward the smoldering paper between Chuuya’s fingers. “—I wasn’t trying to get high,” he finished. “I was trying not to be anything.”
Chuuya stared at him.
“I’ve seen you,” he said, after a beat. “You come back messed up. Eyes dilated, pupils like pinpricks. You stumble into meetings. You—”
“I know,” Dazai said. He could feel his shoulders trying to hunch; he deliberately kept them loose. “And every time it’s an accident or an experiment.”
Chuuya’s brow furrowed. “An experiment—”
“Mori-san likes data,” Dazai said lightly. Too lightly. He could hear it himself. “‘How does your ability interact with X substance, Dazai-kun?’ ‘How long until your heart rate returns to baseline?’ ‘Is this dosage enough to make you hallucinate or will it just make you nauseous?’” He mimicked Mori’s clinical cadence, each question falling like the clink of instruments on a tray.
Chuuya’s fingers tightened on the joint. “He… makes you?” Chuuya said, something ugly flickering across his face. “You let him?”
“It’s not like I get a say,” Dazai said, even though sometimes he did, technically. It didn’t change the way his legs went numb when the needle went in. It didn’t change the way his muscles locked up when the drip started, like some part of him remembered drowning on land.
“And the other times?” Chuuya pushed. “You said… accident?”
Dazai felt his gaze drift, unfocused, to the horizon. The sky was smeared with orange now, edges of clouds burning.
“Those were supposed to be permanent,” he said.
For a long moment, the only sounds were the wind and the far-off city and the faint, persistent crackle of the joint burning down.
“When I—” Dazai started, then stopped, trying to find words that didn’t sound pathetic. “When I took them, it wasn’t like I was chasing some fun feeling. I didn’t want to see colors or laugh at something or feel my body any more than I already did. I wanted it to just… stop.” He pressed his thumb into a patch of dirt until his nail hurt. “It didn’t,” he added, like that was the punchline. “Obviously.”
Chuuya was very quiet. He stared at Dazai for so long that Dazai had to fight the urge to fidget, to smirk, to say something deliberately offensive to break it. The air between them felt too heavy, too full.
“So when Chuuya sees me like that,” Dazai went on, because at this point he might as well push through, “high out of my skull or whatever word he wants to use—it’s not because I was having fun in some alley somewhere. It’s… I don’t…” He swallowed. “I don’t like it.”
The last three words felt like pulling teeth.
Chuuya looked down at the joint in his hand, then back at Dazai. Some of the fight had gone out of his posture, shoulders loosening, jaw unclenching. He looked… younger, suddenly. More like sixteen than a tiny, terrifying weapon in a hat.
“Why didn’t you say that,” he muttered, “instead of coming up here and acting like an asshole.”
Dazai made a face. “Since when does the slug listen when I say anything?”
Despite himself, Chuuya’s mouth twitched. “Maybe if you weren’t always being a creep about it.”
Dazai exhaled, a thin, faintly shaky breath. The unease in his chest hadn’t gone away, exactly, but it had shifted, sharp edges dulled by the way Chuuya was looking at him now—less like a rival and more like someone who had accidentally been handed something fragile and wasn’t sure where to put it.
Chuuya glanced down at the half-finished joint again, then back up. A stubborn little furrow appeared between his brows.
“So you’re scared,” he said, matter-of-fact.
Dazai’s hackles went up at once. “I didn’t say that.”
“You did,” Chuuya insisted. “You said you don’t like it. You freaked out at the idea of doing it where people could see you. You—look, I’m not judging,” he added quickly, as Dazai opened his mouth. “I’m just… trying to figure out what’s going on in that messed-up head of yours.”
He said it with the same bluntness he used on missions, when he needed to understand the layout of a battlefield. Like this was just another tactical problem to solve. Somehow, that made it easier to breathe.
Dazai made a face at the grass. “It’s not fear,” he said. “It’s… anticipatory nausea.”
Chuuya snorted. “That’s still fear, idiot.”
Dazai grumbled something under his breath about semantics.
There was another pause. The wind shifted, sending a fresh, thin ribbon of smoke past Dazai’s face. He wrinkled his nose, but it wasn’t as suffocating now. Not with Chuuya watching him like that.
“Okay,” Chuuya said abruptly, as if he’d come to some internal decision. “Then do it with me.”
Dazai’s glanced over weakly. “What.”
Chuuya rolled his eyes. “Smoke with me,” he said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. He waggled the joint slightly. “Here. Now. Just us. No experiments, no suicide attempts, no Mori, no audience. Just… this. We’re off-duty. It’s stupid, but it’s—” He gestured vaguely at the view. “It’s not that serious.”
Dazai stared at him. “That is the dumbest solution I’ve ever heard,” he said.
“What, you’d rather keep thinking about being drugged in a hospital?” Chuuya retorted. “Look, you already came up here and made a scene. You might as well… replace it. With something else.”
Replace it.
Like you could overwrite that kind of thing.
“The slug just wants to see me cough,” Dazai accused, pouting a little already.
“Obviously,” Chuuya said, deadpan. “But also—” He hesitated, then shrugged, eyes sliding away for a second. “I dunno. Maybe it’ll be… different. If you’re choosing it. With someone who isn’t… him.”
The pronoun hung there between them, heavy. Dazai’s chest gave an uncomfortable little squeeze.
He could say no. It would be easy. All he had to do was lean back, throw up his hands, make a joke about Chuuya trying to corrupt his pure body and stalk off in mock offense.
He could also say yes. Which was stupid, obviously, and reckless, and exactly the kind of decision he made all the time.
“No peer pressure, huh?” he muttered.
Chuuya huffed. “You’re the one who said you’d do it, brat.”
“I said I’d do it if they weren’t here,” Dazai corrected. “I didn’t say I’d do it at all.”
“Then what the hell was the point of kicking them out?”
“I didn’t kick them out,” Dazai protested, affronted. “They escaped willingly. Like sensible people.”
Chuuya glared. “Dazai.”
He said his name in that way that meant he wasn’t going to drop it. Dazai had heard that tone on battlefields, in conference rooms, in alleyways where they were bleeding side by side. It never failed to get under his skin.
“Chibi is so annoying,” Dazai muttered.
“Takes one to know one,” Chuuya shot back.
They glared at each other for a long moment, neither willing to look away.
Dazai’s heartbeat felt too loud in his ears. He could feel every inch of space between them, every place their bodies weren’t touching. Chuuya’s eyes were too bright, too close, blue and hazel like something that might burn if you stared at it too long.
“Fine,” Dazai snapped.
Chuuya blinked. “Fine?”
“I’ll do it,” Dazai said, throwing his hands up. “Once. Just to shut Chuuya up. And if he ever tries to make me do it again, I’m throwing him off this hill.”
Chuuya’s mouth curled in a slow, satisfied grin. “You’d miss me too much.”
Dazai refused to dignify that with an answer.
Instead, he reached out—more carefully than he wanted to—and plucked the joint from Chuuya’s fingers. His hand betrayed him; it trembled, just slightly. He hoped Chuuya didn’t notice. Bringing it toward his mouth, he hesitated, the filter hovering just shy of his lips. The smell hit him full-force now, bitter and resinous, tapping into some old animal part of his brain that remembered swallowing things it shouldn’t. His throat tightened.
“Relax,” Chuuya said, softer than before. “You’re acting like it’s poison.”
“It is,” Dazai pointed out, voice thinner than he liked.
“Not that kind,” Chuuya said. “You don’t have to inhale much. Just try it. If you hate it, you never have to do it again, okay?”
The ‘okay’ hung there, an unexpected little lifeline.
Dazai took a breath that felt too shallow, and nodded once. He put the joint to his lips and pulled in cautiously.
The smoke hit the back of his throat like sandpaper. He coughed immediately, spluttering, eyes watering as his lungs protested.
Chuuya laughed. “You’re supposed to breathe, not die, dumbass.”
Dazai glared at him between coughs. His chest burned. The taste coated his tongue, acrid and strange, like burnt leaves, made his eyes sting. For a second, panic flared—sharp and white, the way it did when things were going wrong in his bloodstream and he couldn’t get a grip on his own body.
Chuuya noticed it. Of course he did.
“Hey,” Chuuya said, suddenly closer. Dazai hadn’t seen him move, but now he was right there, knees pressed to Dazai’s, one hand hovering near his wrist like he was thinking about grabbing it and then thought better. “Look at me.”
Dazai did, because he was stupid. Because he always did, when Chuuya said it like that.
One eye blue, one hazel, very clear despite the weed, steady on his. A little crease between the brows. Smoke curling past his lips, slow and thin.
“Breathe out,” Chuuya said. “Idiot. You’re holding it like you’re trying to choke.”
Dazai let the breath go in a rush, coughing again, this time more out of sheer indignation than anything else.
“This is dumb,” he croaked.
“Yeah, it is,” Chuuya agreed. “One more.”
“The slug just wants to watch me suffer.”
“Obviously,” Chuuya said. But his gaze had softened, just a fraction. “C’mon.”
Dazai took another drag, a little less disastrous this time. The burn was still there, but underneath it something else lurked—an odd, slow warmth starting at the back of his throat and spreading outward, loosening the knot between his shoulders by a tiny margin. It was… not good, exactly. But it wasn’t the jagged, vertigo-inducing drop he associated with most substances, either. More like the faint buzz that came after a few sips of cheap liquor, stretched thin and smeared across his nerves.
He exhaled, this time without choking. The smoke puffed out in a clumsy cloud.
“See?” Chuuya said smugly. “Not so hard.”
Dazai scowled. “I hate the ugly slug.”
“Liar,” Chuuya said, effortlessly.
Dazai’s heart did that stupid stutter again.
Chuuya held out a hand. “Give it back. You’re wasting it.”
Dazai handed the joint over, fingers brushing Chuuya’s for a second longer than they needed to. His skin was warm, calloused in familiar places from punching things and handling weapons. Dazai watched, a little dazed, as Chuuya brought it to his mouth and inhaled, easy and practiced. The movement was smooth, thoughtless, like breathing or fighting.
Something twisted low in Dazai’s chest. He told himself it was the weed. Or the resentment. It definitely wasn’t the way Chuuya’s throat worked when he swallowed, or how his lashes dipped over his eyes.
Chuuya exhaled a long, slow stream of smoke, then glanced back at Dazai with a speculative look. “You’re still too tense,” he said.
“I’m not,” Dazai lied. His muscles felt like they were buzzing, every nerve tuned to the exact distance between their bodies.
Chuuya considered him for a second more. Then he said, “Okay,” like he had made a new plan. “Lean in.”
Dazai narrowed his eyes. “Why?”
“Just do it,” Chuuya said impatiently. “Unless you’re chicken.”
“I am not a chicken,” Dazai snapped, bristling.
“Then prove it.”
Every instinct screamed trap. Then again, most of Dazai’s favorite things in life were traps. It would be hypocritical to back out now.
Grudgingly, Dazai shifted forward until there was barely a hand’s width between their faces. He could see the faint freckles along Chuuya’s nose now, the way the smoke had stained his lips a little darker. His own breath came quicker than he wanted.
“This better not involve Chuuya doing something creepy,” Dazai warned.
“Shut up,” Chuuya said.
He took one last pull from the joint, then, before Dazai could process the movement, reached up and flicked it away into the grass, grinding it out under his heel.
“Hey,” Dazai protested. “Wasteful—”
“Look at me,” Chuuya said again, and there was something in his voice this time that shut Dazai up instantly.
He looked.
For a heartbeat, nothing happened. Just Chuuya, close enough that Dazai could count the shades of pigment in his eyes. The wind lifting a lock of auburn hair. The faint rise and fall of Chuuya’s chest.
Then Chuuya leaned in that last inch. The world shrank to the warmth of his breath.
He didn’t quite kiss him. Their mouths didn’t meet, not really. Chuuya angled his face so that his lips hovered just to the side of Dazai’s, close enough that Dazai could feel the shape of them, the heat. Then Chuuya exhaled, slow and deliberate, right into Dazai’s parted mouth. The smoke slid over Dazai’s tongue, down his throat, warmer now, laced with the taste of Chuuya’s breath—salt and something faintly sweet, like stolen candy.
Dazai’s brain blanked.
For a second, he forgot to do anything at all. Forgot to breathe in, or out. Forgot that he was supposed to be scared, or angry, or anything but stunned. His heart slammed against his ribs, hard enough to hurt.
Then his lungs demanded oxygen and he jerked back, coughing again, face flushing hot.
“What the hell—” he wheezed. “Yuck!”
Chuuya sat back on his heels, smugness written all over his face. There was a faint pink on his cheeks too, but he looked maddeningly composed compared to Dazai’s flustered mess.
“What?” Chuuya said innocently. “You said you didn’t like doing it alone. So I helped.”
“That’s not helping, that’s assault,” Dazai sputtered, wiping at his mouth like that would erase the ghost of warmth there.
“Oh, shut up,” Chuuya said, rolling his eyes. “If I wanted to assault you, you’d know.”
Dazai tried very hard not to think about that.
He also tried very hard not to notice the way his own body was reacting—heart racing, fingers tingling, a strange lightness sliding into his limbs. The high was starting to creep in now, loosening the knot in his chest whether he wanted it to or not. Face hot, he swallowed, throat still tingling where the smoke had passed. He hoped to every indifferent god out there that it wasn’t obvious.
“The slug ridiculous,” he muttered, more to himself than anything.
Chuuya smirked. “You’re the one turning red over a little secondhand smoke.”
“I am not—”
“You so are,” Chuuya said. “Look at you. All…melty.”
Dazai bristled. “I am not melty.”
Making a thoughtful little noise, Chuuya’s eyes raked over him in a way that made Dazai’s skin prickle.
“Actually,” Chuuya mused, “this might be the first time you’ve shut up for more than ten seconds. Maybe I should’ve been doing this from the start.”
Dazai made an offended sound. “I am perfectly quiet when I want to be.”
“Sure,” Chuuya said dryly. “When you’re unconscious.”
Dazai opened his mouth with some retort about how Chuuya snored like a chainsaw, then forgot it halfway through as a wave of hazy warmth washed over him. The edges of the world softened, and the grass felt very present under his palms, each blade distinct and oddly fascinating.
He blinked slowly.
Chuuya’s smirk widened.
“There it is,” he said. “You high yet, genius?”
“Shut up,” Dazai muttered, but it came out with less bite than usual. “This is Chuuya’s fault.”
“Obviously,” Chuuya said, entirely too pleased. He shifted, moving to sit shoulder to shoulder with Dazai instead of in front of him. Their arms brushed, and Dazai’s nerves lit up at the point of contact, awareness sparking there and then spreading in a faint, buzzing line up to his neck.
He should move. That would be the sane thing to do.
He didn’t.
Instead, Dazai let himself lean back on his hands, head tipping up to look at the sky. It had gone full orange now, streaked with pink, clouds like smears of paint. The cranes below looked like toys. The city hummed soft and distant. Chuuya leaned back too, mirroring him; their shoulders stayed pressed together, a steady line of warmth at his side.
“You okay?” Chuuya asked, after a moment. The question was casual, tossed out like an afterthought, but there was that same searching note underneath.
Dazai considered lying.
“Maybe,” he said instead.
Chuuya huffed. “That’s the best I’m getting, huh?”
“For now,” Dazai said. He could feel the buzz curling around the darker places in his chest, blurring the edges. It didn’t fix anything. But it made the weight a little more distant. Like looking at his own misery through fogged glass.
It was… strange.
“The slug better appreciate this,” Dazai added, because he couldn’t help himself. “I don’t do recreational terror management for anyone.”
Chuuya snorted. “You don’t do anything for anyone.”
It was said offhand, but the words snagged in Dazai’s mind, catching on something soft he didn’t want to look at. He let his head loll sideways, just enough to see Chuuya’s profile. The slope of his nose. The stubborn set of his mouth. The way the breeze played with his hair.
“Chuuya is still an annoying midget,” Dazai said, because the alternative was saying something much, much worse.
Chuuya smirked without looking at him. “Yeah,” he said. “And you’re still a coward.”
“Excuse me?”
“About some things,” Chuuya amended. His shoulder pressed a little harder into Dazai’s, like a nudge. “But… less now, maybe.”
The buzzing in Dazai’s veins shifted, tangled up with something fierce and fond and terrifying all at once. He looked away, back at the sky, because it was easier than looking at Chuuya and all the things that might be written on his face.
“Don’t get used to it,” he said quietly.
Beside him, Chuuya hummed, noncommittal. He didn’t move away.
They sat like that as the sun slid lower, the city lights flickering on one by one below them, smoke long since dissipated into the wind. Dazai’s head felt light, his limbs loose, his chest weirdly unclenched. He could feel the echo of panic still, like a shadow at the edge of his awareness. But it didn’t own the whole sky anymore. Not with Chuuya pressed against his side, solid and warm and annoyingly present.
He laced his fingers into the grass so he wouldn’t do something stupid, like reach for Chuuya’s hand.
This was fine. This was ridiculous and terrifying and stupid, and fine.
“Hey, Dazai?” Chuuya said eventually, voice a little rougher around the edges.
“Mm?”
“You’re not allowed to let the Boss pump you with shit and then go curl up to die like some stupid cat.” Chuuya muttered. “You come find me when it’s over. Got it?”
Dazai huffed out something that might’ve been a laugh. “What, volunteering to watch me drool on myself before Mori-san can?” he said, letting the usual mockery coat the words, even as a tiny, traitorous part of him warmed at the thought of not being alone while he waited to come down.
“Idiot,” Chuuya said. “It’s not about him. Just do what I told you.”
The idea of dragging himself, drugged and miserable, to Chuuya’s door and being told off to his face instead of disappearing into a cold metal box was ridiculous enough that Dazai smiled, small and unguarded, before he could stop himself.
The weed, he decided hazily, was absolutely terrible.
But sitting here on a hill with a stupid stoner and an even stupider crush, lungs still tingling with shared smoke and the taste of someone else’s breath—
That part wasn’t so bad.