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It’s late.
The sky is a desolate, midnight blue. It’s silent, save for the occasional chirp of a bird flying by. A pale full moon hangs high above the city, the only source of light in the otherwise barren sky.
It’s a time filled with mystery and uncertainty, one with a lingering feeling of fear that Dazai is all too familiar with overcoming. Normally, he’d be out there doing business in the shadows and whatnot, but that’s all in the past.
Right now, he sits on Chuuya’s bed in his junk-covered apartment, swinging his feet absentmindedly while he waits for Chuuya to get out of the shower.
He’s never been here before—well, been here with permission before. He’s not above admitting that he’s broken into this apartment quite a few times. For what reasons? He won’t tell.
Still, during those few times he’s been here, he’s never taken the time to look. He’s noticed the basics, of course, like which side of the bed Chuuya sleeps on, that he organises wine by date, that he hangs his coat on the most far end right of his hanger and his hat on the left…
Now that Dazai’s here without the tension of getting caught looming over his head, he can observe more closely.
The sheets are freshly washed. The three books sitting on his nightstand are stacked by their thickness. The random rock that is sitting on Chuuya’s desk, the dog figurine next to it. A messily written happy birthday message is stuck on his wall, next to a blurry polaroid of a glass of wine. A pair of sunglasses on his shelf that Dazai knows is not Chuuya’s, for he doesn’t like shielding his eyes. A pink hair tie and his gloves are both thrown haphazardly on the hardwood floor. A gold necklace on the table, even though Chuuya prefers silver jewellery.
It’s a home that’s cluttered and messy, but ultimately lived in. Dazai’s own apartment can’t say the same. Where Chuuya has trinkets upon photographs upon books on his shelves, Dazai’s own lay bare. Where the closet is occupied and well-organised, Dazai’s is barely half-filled.
It reminds him, once again, that Chuuya’s home is warm and filled with memories. That despite the man living in it, it feels welcoming. There’s a flavour to this place, big but cosy, authentic. You couldn’t fake the feeling of a person’s home.
Is Dazai jealous? Hardly. He’s glad that at least one of them is human.
He hears the sound of running water come to a halt and knows that Chuuya will be out soon. Quickly, to make himself seem occupied or something, Dazai swipes the first book off Chuuya’s nightstand and cracks it open, flipping to a page.
It’s a poetry book, he realises, once he notices the stanzas and almost empty pages. He’s always known that Chuuya liked poetry. Used to tease him for it, asking if he was going to be the next big poet in Yokohama, even though he’s too short to actually rise the ranks. Chuuya would kick him almost immediately after, insisting that it was just a minor hobby, although the furious blush on his cheeks said otherwise.
His eyes skim the pages, not truly reading nor processing, but instead listening for the sounds of Chuuya walking out of the bathroom. He hears the door close and muffled footsteps get closer until a poof of auburn hair comes into view.
Dazai opens his mouth to joke about the poetry book (old habits die hard), but the words die in his throat once he sees what Chuuya’s wearing.
It’s an oversized, forest green hoodie that says can’t touch this in white, block letters. It’s tacky as shit. It’s Dazai’s hoodie.
Ranpo had gotten it for him as a joke gift for Christmas last year, but it became the only hoodie Dazai would wear. It was a play on his ability, which he found hilarious despite the self-loathing, so of course he wears it often.
He just didn’t expect to see Chuuya in it.
“Oi, is that my book?”
His voice snaps him out of the shock. Dazai gives a quiet hum, tilting his head to the side. He chooses to ignore Chuuya’s question. “Is that my hoodie?”
“No,” Chuuya answers. There’s no point in lying, but he does it anyway. “I found it in the dumpster outside. Is that where you live, by any chance?”
“Haha,” he deadpans, his heart kicking up at the familiar banter. He places the book back on the nightstand, purposefully sliding it below the other two books just to see if it’ll make Chuuya’s eye twitch.
It does. Dazai’s delighted.
There’s glory in getting a rise out of Chuuya. Dazai can’t really explain why. But the thrill that runs through his veins, the lightness in his chest, it’s a high that never dies. It felt great when he was fifteen, it feels great now even when he’s twenty two.
Maybe it’s the way Chuuya reacts, always so predictable. Maybe it’s the way he fires back without hesitation, because they’re partners, they’re equals, and if it’s one person who can keep up with Dazai, it’ll always be Chuuya.
He doesn’t think about what that implies. Their relationship doesn’t have a label. Other than being the renowned Double Black—which in itself already feels like there’s a deeper meaning to it—they’ve never talked about what they were.
Maybe it’s not a word that mere mortals could come up with to describe it. The way they know each other like the back of their hands, every scar and memory, the way no one else will understand. The layers of their relationship, built upon trust and betrayal and trust despite, and what that means for them.
Is it forgiveness for Chuuya to let Dazai into his apartment, when they’re so different now?
They still click the same, though. It’s like years apart didn’t even make a scratch in their bond.
Dazai knows everything there is to know about Chuuya, he’s sure. He’s also aware that that’s not normal. He’s mentioned that he’s familiar with Chuuya’s breathing pattern once, and Kunikida had given him a look, full of judgement and maybe slight horror.
So he’s aware that it’s abnormal, but the little compartment in his brain titled Chuuya is indestructible. He can set fire to his memories and let the heat suffocate him, and he’d still be able to make out Chuuya’s silhouette from the smoke that rises.
There’s not a word in the mortal dictionary that could describe them, Dazai thinks. They’re above the heaven skies and below the deepest pits of hell. They transcend the realm that they know. They’re partners, and that word holds so much weight that it’s gravity. Demanding. Powerful. Stubborn.
Chuuya crawls into bed next to him, hair still damp from the shower. He smells like strawberries.
“Is that a new shampoo?”
Chuuya looks at him from the corner of his eye, then huffs. “Freak. Yeah, it is.”
“It’s a different smell.”
“I always use strawberry scented stuff.”
“Yeah, but it’s different. That’s why I asked.”
“That’s why I called you a freak,” Chuuya replies with a grin.
They fall silent, and Dazai fails to pretend that he isn’t watching the boy next to him intensely, calculating his every move. Even the slightest stutter of his breath will be caught. The tiniest twitch of his fingers. Chuuya takes a breath and Dazai knows he’s going to speak—
“You can stay the night, you know. It’s late.”
—and that was not what Dazai had predicted.
He’s so astonished by his error that it takes him a second to actually process what Chuuya says. When he does, he blinks owlishly. “For what?”
“Don’t act like that wasn’t your plan. You came over in sweatpants. And I know you showered. Your hair’s all fluffy.”
Ignoring the spike in his heart rate (it’s something he can control, why’s it matter to him?), Dazai gives a sly smile. “Aww. Does Chuuya want me to stay?”
“I will kick you out.”
“I didn’t say no!” He sighs. “But your couch is a pain to sleep on. It’s too short. My legs don’t fit.”
Chuuya rolls his eyes. “On the bed, fucker. I’m offering you to sleep over here.”
Dazai grins wider, just to be annoying. “Do you want me to cuddle you too?”
Chuuya scoffs, though the reddening of his face is a dead giveaway of how affected he feels. “Ass. You’re the one all weird about touching people. Take your stupid bandages off, by the way. They’re stinky.”
“You wound me!” he complains, but reaches for the wraps on his arms with no hesitation.
It’s another thing about them now that’s different from the past. Dazai at age fifteen would’ve never dreamed of taking his bandages off in front of anyone. He knows they don’t mean much, but… It’s a sign of vulnerability to him. He doesn’t feel protected without them. It’s ridiculous because they’re just some fabric, but they’re almost a part of him. Stripping the bandages away in front of someone is like stripping a piece of his soul to lay bare.
And yet he does it. He doesn’t look too deeply into it, instead unravelling the bandages quietly. When he pulls off his sleep shirt to get the ones around his neck and chest, Chuuya reaches out.
“I’ll get that,” he mumbles, and Dazai complies.
Chuuya unwinds the bandages around his body. Dazai sits as still as a board, not a muscle moving. The bandages on his arms have already been removed, revealing scars that he’s all too familiar with. Chuuya doesn’t glance once at them.
The last of the bandages fall to the ground. If Chuuya’s touch on his skin lingers, neither of them mention it.
Dazai puts his sleep shirt back on. He could, but he doesn’t bother rolling down his sleeves. It’s too hot, anyway.
He turns to face Chuuya, eyes catching on the way he drowns in the green hoodie, looking so… vulnerable. Not weak, obviously, and Dazai is well aware that Chuuya can kick him into next Monday if he so desires.
But he looks small. Almost…
“Chuuya is cute,” he mumbles. The room is quiet enough that Chuuya hears it easily. His head whips up and he stares at Dazai with a wrinkle of his nose.
“Ew. Keep that shit to yourself,” he snaps.
“Oh, his words aren’t as cute.”
Chuuya punches him in the shoulder. “Shut up.”
They crawl under the blankets and Chuuya uses his ability to make a pen float towards the light switch and hit it. The pen drops to the floor soon after and the room goes dark.
Barely, Dazai can still make out the silhouette of Chuuya lying beside him. The other man mumbles something that sounds suspiciously like a goodnight, then turns with his back facing Dazai.
Dazai keeps quiet. The bedroom is eerily silent now.
It makes him uncomfortable. Silence is nothing but room to think, and Dazai doesn’t want to think right now. His brain runs at lightning speed almost all the time, and in the quiet of the night, his thoughts only amplify. He turns his attention to the only sound he can hear—Chuuya’s breathing.
In. Out. In. Out.
Dazai listens as his breathing evens out and the time between each breath grows longer. He can tell the moment Chuuya truly falls asleep—breathing pattern and all—and is left to wonder what he should focus on next.
…Why did he even agree to stay?
The hours pass by. Dazai’s always been an insomniac. Rather than go to bed at a normal time, he usually drinks until he passes out or tires himself out on his phone.
But he can’t do that now. He left his phone at his apartment before he came here. And Chuuya’s asleep. What if Dazai wakes him up?
He moves to sit up a bit and rests his head against the headboard. Chuuya has shifted every now and then, now sleeping on his stomach instead of his side. Dazai can see his face from here, relaxed and soft, illuminated only by the moonlight coming in through the window. Chuuya shifts a bit closer to him and his arm lifts—
Dazai freezes.
He stares, wide-eyed and panicked, at the arm that’s now casually slung around his waist. The touch is gentle and clearly harmless, but Dazai’s head still rings alarm bells in this unfamiliar situation.
He did not see this one coming.
Slowly, he puts his own hand on Chuuya’s and tries to lift it, hoping to put it back. Unfortunately, Chuuya’s stubborn even in his sleep. He frowns and grips onto Dazai tighter, fingers digging into his skin.
Dazai sucks in a breath.
The touch burns despite the layer of cloth between. Dazai is wide awake now. He breathes shallowly and tries to conceptualise the sudden rush in his veins, the pounding of his heart and the whirling of his mind.
It’s like a system malfunctioning. He can’t fathom what’s happening.
Though his thoughts are running wild, he’s drawing up a blank. There’s everything yet nothing in his head right now.
It’s a feeling, he realises, though unsure if that’s the right word for it. Dazai’s aware that he doesn’t have a good grasp on emotions. He’s felt empty for as long as he can remember.
Most of the time, he reacts to situations based on logic. His smiles, frowns, pouts, complaints… They run automatically. The emotions he shows aren’t necessarily felt, they’re just displayed. They’re voluntary.
This, though. Such a situation is an outlier. He’s not controlling nor understanding the rising beat of his heart. He wasn’t even aware that his heart could beat this hard, that he could feel it drumming erratically against his chest without placing a hand above it. His cheeks are burning and he’s distantly aware of how hot everything feels.
Maybe his brain was fried from the heat. That would make the most sense.
Chuuya shifts again, now pressing his forehead into Dazai’s hip, hugging him as if he were a bolster or a soft toy. Dazai is trapped. His heart beats faster, if even possible, and his body is rigid.
As if it was the hardest task alive, Dazai painstakingly lowers his gaze so he can look at the man clinging onto him like a koala bear. His eyes catch onto Chuuya’s hair first, the auburn strands always standing out on his little body. He’s then reminded that Chuuya’s wearing his hoodie—drowning in it, more like, and he lets out a shaky breath.
“What are you doing to me?” he dares to whisper. It sounds like it echoes in the undisturbed night and it feels like he shattered something just by using his voice.
But Chuuya remains asleep. And Dazai stays stressed out.
More out of curiosity than anything, he places a hand on Chuuya’s head. Chuuya’s hair is soft and well-maintained, despite its odd cut. He dares to run his hand through it, grounding himself on the feeling that this is real and not some ability user playing a sick trick on him.
Dazai doesn’t usually touch people. It’s mostly due to his ability. It can be incredibly helpful in certain cases, but when it comes to his friends and people he cares about, he keeps his distance.
There’s always the risk of him taking away something from them. Because his touch leaves his friends defenceless. Tanizaki wouldn’t be able to hide, Kenji wouldn’t be able to withstand heavy hits, Atsushi wouldn’t be able to heal himself, Kyouka would lose her weapon and so on. It’s times like those where Dazai’s gift feels more like a curse, so he slinks into isolation.
He’s asked Atsushi what it feels like to have Dazai nullify him. Atsushi had said that it felt like a cold bucket of water being splashed at you. A chilling shock. He didn’t say it, but Dazai can read between the lines. Unpleasant.
To have Chuuya grabbing onto him, practically cuddling, as if Dazai was the warmest person alive… It’s impossible to comprehend. It shouldn’t be enjoyable to touch him — it’s objectively not plausible—yet Chuuya, in his most vulnerable state, is glued to him anyway. Like Dazai’s touch isn’t a curse. Like it’s welcomed.
His lips quiver.
For the first time in forever, Dazai closes his eyes and lets the emotions wash over him.
He drowns in it, suffocating from the intensity of the waves. His lungs fill and his chest tightens and Dazai’s fingers tremble from where they remain in Chuuya’s hair.
It’s an involuntary feeling. Dazai thinks that something so genuine does not suit his person. He’s aware that he’s made up of lies stacked upon lies upon lies. The façade he regularly puts on is so convincing that even he forgets it isn’t real. And he’s still searching, day and night, desperately, for a reason he could use to convince himself to want to live. To look at the world the way his friends see it, and to see the beauty in staying. He doesn’t actively seek death—ironic, but his aversion to pain and natural self-preservation instincts stop him—but he doesn’t seek living either.
He’s wondered before—why his friends bother to live, especially with the nature of their job.
Kunikida has his life planned out, down to the little details. Dazai thinks it’d be a waste if Kunikida doesn’t follow through. But with how responsible and strong-willed he is, he doubts he’ll have a problem.
Ranpo lives because of the president. The detective is always carefree, but Dazai thinks that Ranpo shines extra bright when Fukuzawa is around. It’s sweet.
Yosano probably knows life and death better than any of them combined. Dazai doesn’t know the full details, but he knows she treasures life immensely. One would think, with the nature of her ability, that she’d be more careless, but it’s the opposite. She’s most aware of how fleeting life is, and that makes her cherish it more. Dazai admires her for that.
Tanizaki and Naomi, they live for each other. Dazai knows that Tanizaki is fiercely protective of his sister. They’d give their lives for each other. Tanizaki would burn the world. Dazai can only dream of what that feels like.
Kenji stays because he naturally sees the beauty in living. Maybe it’s due to the environment he was raised in that causes him to find everything fascinating. But every time after a mission, Kenji will come back and tell him about a new ‘city thing’ he’s learned and how exciting it is. It’s mundane and Dazai can’t see why he cares, and maybe he’s jealous of it too—how easy beauty comes to someone like Kenji.
Atsushi lives to move on from his past. Dazai notices Atsushi’s aversion to nails or the candies Ranpo buys or loud voices, and he’s watched Atsushi struggle to fathom owning something. But he’s healing and moving on and discovering life as something good. Dazai’s proud of him.
And Kyouka, who lives on to see the light. They’re a little similar, him and her, but unlike her, Dazai doesn’t see the appeal of tasting the light even after suffocating in the dark. But she treasures something Dazai can’t find and her smile grows bigger with every crepe she eats, and Dazai is glad that a girl her age was saved from becoming someone like him.
What about himself?
Chuuya wriggles a little under the blanket. He presses into Dazai’s open hand and mumbles something incoherent. It sounds a lot like Dazai’s name.
Dazai sucks in a stuttering breath and wonders if this could be considered one of the beauties of life.
He thinks about them again, as Double Black, as twin flames, as two sides of the same coin. As partners with unwavering trust despite their devastating history. As Chuuya and Dazai.
It’s objective, Dazai wants to reason. They’re just them. It’s nothing special.
It doesn’t sound very convincing in his head when he has Chuuya basically cuddling onto his lap.
He’s hit with an urge to live in this moment forever. He knows it’s unrealistic, but in this bubble, it feels like time has stopped and nothing will try to hurt them. In this bubble, they’re just Chuuya and Dazai, and it means something greater than what the divine universe could perceive.
Maybe this is one of life’s beauties, considering how it leaves Dazai struggling to comprehend.
“You mean something to me,” he murmurs. The room is deathly quiet. His hand leaves Chuuya’s hair and dares to stroke his cheek tenderly, just once.
“You make me feel like…” He trails off. He still can’t complete that sentence.
Maybe one day he’ll figure it out. What this emotion is, what the shaky breaths and tight throat and tugs in his chest mean. Maybe he’ll live on long enough to understand what the weight of their partnership signifies. And maybe, when he understands it, he’ll want to continue living on too.
He closes his eyes. He’s going to wake up with a hell of an ache in his neck in a few hours.
He laces his fingers with Chuuya’s, resting on his waist together. And with a final, deep breath, Dazai manages to fall fast asleep.