Work Text:
As long as two people can keep running in circles from one another in a parlor large as life itself, elbowing their way through the racket of the place, suffocating from all the smoke that’s rotted their lungs over the years, always, always, always turning around to see if the other’s still following, if it is still there – this sharpness of a silhouette, a broken camera lens that can only ever focus on one person, a record stuck on repeat, an incarnation of your past and everything wondrous and ugly about it, as long as they can keep avoiding each other, no itinerary is ever infinite, and sooner or later, they find out that their court is no bigger than a platter. A big hand playing with two palm-sized dolls. God, whoever they are, laughing as they keep throwing them at each other, no matter how stubbornly they try to run in the opposite directions.
Kunikida and Yosano’s wedding shakes both organisations like a snowstorm in the middle of June. Higuchi can’t stop complaining about the season and date they’ve chosen, that it’s not round, not symbolic, and it’s way too humid and gloomy in September to have a proper celebration outside, en plein air, but she’s forgetting that in a port city like theirs, it can be humid and gloomy regardless of the season. Everything seems to be set in stone; not a day earlier, not a day later. The whole month preceding the wedding, they spend in preparations. Even Mori, usually sceptical and cautious about passing by his former employees in close proximity, takes an active part, watching with a careful eye as Elise hands everyone their invitations. Chuuya puts his hands on the thick, sandy paper, his fingertips running over the letters, the names carved in gold, each thick with its own story.
The story everyone starts talking about the second the news of the engagement resurfaces, so many variables, so many episodes in the story to be filled, how did these two even get together, with how different their personalities are? That’s what they want to know about, and that’s also what Chuuya has little to no interest in. He thinks of what to wear, what kind of a wedding gift to buy, and what time would be appropriate for him to leave, since he doesn’t plan to stay and celebrate the whole night; nothing is worth so much of his time. He doesn’t attend the bachelor party either, even though he is – by some comical occurrence – invited, finding a believable excuse not to show his face in a place where he’s less welcome than they pretend he is. After all, there is talk. There are rumours, and he can live with them. Something he can’t live with is the need to assess how many of those rumours are true.
He expects the wedding itself to be worse, a long and insufferable humiliation ritual, but he manages to have a nice time in the end. In the chapel, bright and high-ceilinged, his spot forms the longest diagonal towards someone he desires to cross paths with the least. Damn, they were planning these sitting arrangements, after all. Still, they stumble upon one another with their gazes alone once, during the vows, listening to a sequence of synonyms to infinite and forever, while being so temporary it’s almost laughable. To hide that pathetic despair in his eyes, Dazai forces out a mocking smirk; Chuuya shoots him a glare as he takes a deep breath. They haven’t seen each other for such a long time.
Outside, while they are gathering to go to the celebration venue, a huge restaurant and inn booked until the next morning, Kunikida is matchmaking and forcing them to mingle. They happen to appear in the same space for some pathetic minutes, standing diagonally to one another, again, but this time in close proximity, close enough for Chuuya to study every crease on Dazai’s poorly ironed shirt. He’s always had this rush about him, even if he never wanted to admit it. Like life itself is after him – funny enough for someone who strives to end it with his own hands. Chuuya has never tried to hide how full of it he was – to the brink, to the point of suffocation; but he’s also never allowed himself to overstep the boundary of telling Dazai what to do. He wouldn’t know how to live once Dazai was gone; this much was true; there were no tools in his arsenal to make it stop or at least delay the inevitable. Dazai was Dazai, and he lived his life exactly as he wanted to; not leaving a strong and lasting trace in anyone’s periphery – or, to some extent, not strong and lasting enough for him to be missed, ached for, cried for. He wouldn’t care if there was no one to bring flowers to his memorial plate. This was his way of getting by. For a long time, Chuuya scarcely felt like anything more than the lint on the sleeves of Dazai’s coat.
They had only kissed once. Dazai was staying at Chuuya’s new place overnight, his first – but not the last – award for being Mori’s loyal errand boy, and he kept swallowing those jewels even as he choked on them, and they scratched his throat. Everything in that apartment was new, some things – utterly untouched. There was still protective film on the microwave’s door, the fridge’s handles, the island counter, and even some of the windows. It was raining heavily outside. Chuuya was standing by the balcony’s door, holding a lit cigarette in his fingers. There was no extra set of bedsheets, and Dazai had to sleep on the couch, covering himself with his coat and using a cushion instead of a proper pillow.
“What are you thinking about?” He asked from his spot, voice quiet and pensive, his dry throat betraying him a little. He had a fresh eye patch and two-day stubble on his face, but his skin and hair were clean, and the most distinguishing feature about him that night was a thin trace of strong alcohol radiating off his clothes, the side of his neck, his breath. Chuuya didn’t know what to do with that question mark lying, almost in a fetal position, on his sofa, both hands folded under his cheek, his dark eyes staring, unblinking, at the back of Chuuya’s neck.
Chuuya ashened out his unfinished cigarette, rubbed his hands a little, cracking his knuckles, and walked over to him, sitting down next to his rising chest. Dazai sat up, then, pulling his legs closer to himself and hugging his knees, folding himself in two under Chuuya’s glare. “Where to order a custom coffin for your height.”
“How romantic,” Dazai smiled a little. “I’m not that tall, anyway. Not yet. And I’ll be cremated, not buried.”
“They still put you in a coffin before cremating you.”
“What a waste,” this time, he was scoffing in unconcealed mockery. “Can’t take the trash out, so they burn the house with it-”
“Don’t die on me.”
Chuuya breathed out the words like a sneeze, like they were tingling the back of his throat, and he couldn’t wait to get rid of them. Only after they were already thrown did he realise how heavily they landed into the pool of tense silence between them; splashes everywhere; Dazai’s face, contorted with shock bordering on horror, his coal-dark eyes, looking into Chuuya’s like he wanted to bite a piece off him. Chuuya swallowed. He didn’t care how hard it was. He wanted to say it again. “Don’t… don’t die on me.”
Dazai’s expression melted into a smile as he tilted his head to the side. “When did you start to care?”
Chuuya’s palms began to sweat. He put them together, chaining his fingers. “Burying anyone is expensive. Let alone you. You haven’t got a dime to your name. The Mafia has enough trouble without your ugly corpse rotting away somewhere in a ditch.”
“I wouldn’t mind if you just left it there, you know. Let a tree grow out of me or something. Though it’d probably be ugly and crooked. With poisoned fruit, too, if it ever bore some-”
“For the love of god,” Chuuya shook his head. “Don’t make me hate you more.”
He was about to get up, leave for the bedroom, and finally rest those several pathetic hours before he had to go to work again, but Dazai didn’t let him, catching his wrist and locking it in a steel grip of his hand, pulling him back down. “No one has talked to me about my funeral before,” he said. “I doubt anyone has ever even thought about it, not even myself.”
Chuuya frowned. “You don’t deserve to be left in a ditch,” though I keep saying you do.
“You don’t deserve to mourn someone whose entire existence is a failure.”
That was another thing about him. He didn’t know how much his words could hurt the other person before saying them. He didn’t think about it for a second after they had already been pronounced. And he needed much more care than he believed he did, but he also stubbornly pushed away anyone who was willing to provide it. Resistance and evasiveness were the two habitual devils on his shoulders; he laughed everything off, but especially the most serious things. He was compelling and addictive in his feigned light-heartedness. Chuuya had always wished he would care more. Just a little bit more.
“I should go to sleep,” he decided, then, once again, dreaming of nothing else but finally dropping the subject of Dazai’s death.
Dazai didn’t let him. He shifted closer to him on the sofa, drawing in a deep breath and holding it, as his hand was moving up along Chuuya’s arm before finally halting at his tense shoulder, squeezing it softly back into limpness, forcing him to relax. “Thank you,” he whispered, and he meant it. Chuuya knew he did.
He thought he was about to cry, and he could swear he felt the corners of his eyes melt into tears when Dazai leaned in, the closest they’d ever been to each other, and brushed his hot, dry lips against Chuuya’s. Chuuya’s own lips trembled as he opened his mouth. “What are you…”
Dazai didn’t let him speak. He kissed him again, firmer this time, testing the mined ground that was Chuuya’s face at that moment, and it felt like he wanted to tell him something the entire time but didn’t know how, so he used his body instead, the parts of it that were still in his control. Dazai was a box of sharp tools. Every time Chuuya tried to crack him open, he nicked his hands with all his pointy ends, but he kept stubbornly, foolishly forcing his way inside.
Somewhere amidst their kiss, when Dazai’s hands tightened on Chuuya’s waist, pulling him closer, as close as he possibly could, Chuuya felt a lonely tear scatter down his face. They were on a running track. There were obstacles to jump over. Dazai was always ahead. He kicked the bars away, and they hit Chuuya’s knees until they bled and bruised. Chuuya’s dignity and sense of self-preservation were trying to drag him away by his shoulders. He kept following. He kept following, taking charge of their kiss like it was a kingdom to conquer, pushing Dazai back onto his makeshift pillow, sturdy and hard, unsuited for proper sleep. Everything about his life was like that. He thrived in discomfort. Chuuya wanted to take the broken pieces into his hands and build him a better sanctuary, like a dollhouse. He hated to think in terms of death, forcing Dazai’s eyes closed.
In the present moment, they are both grimacing from the blinding sunlight, brushing over their clean, shaven faces. Older and wiser. Chuuya doesn’t feel older and wiser by a day, but he is. He almost doesn’t sense the same weird tugging in his chest whenever he catches sight of Dazai nearby, walking over to anyone he feels like talking to, mingling, laughing, and moving his hands in the air, look how happy he is, he’s grown taller indeed, his shoulders have broadened even more, and there’s something in him that plays a good part at making him appear healed, but if anyone in the world knows better, it’s Chuuya.
“I’m grateful we all managed to forget about our differences for today and just have a great time,” Kunikida announces, in his impeccable suit, the ring already shining on his fourth finger, and then something else, but Chuuya barely listens, his gaze narrowing at Dazai, haunting him, haunting him, haunting him, hunting him down.
He accepts the challenge, staring back at him with no emotion, trying to appear wiser than he is, trying to create an impression of someone who’s stepped over it all, removed every obstacle, healed, moved on. Chuuya admires him for trying. So much time has passed since then, and he can hardly remember when Dazai’s name or the sound of his voice still invoked in him something other than annoyance. But annoyance is a feeling. He’d rather feel nothing at all.
Dazai drowns what he feels in different ways.
In alcohol.
There is a little slip in what he does, a window into his soul that remains uncovered, unpatched, and the whole room can see, but only a few of them can understand, and those who do exchange worried glances from across the room. Yosano, Atsushi, Kunikida, even Akutagawa, and in this entire chain reaction, Chuuya is the only one who breaks the cycle, looking down at his plate, pretending he’s outside the joke everyone understands but him.
Dazai is getting drunk. Shamelessly, like there is no tomorrow. Glass after glass, reaching for the bottle from across the table to pour himself some more, and no one seems to be brave enough to stop him, hold his wrist in the air, tell him that’s enough. Everyone is having fun; no one cares how much alcohol is being poured into anyone else’s body. Except Chuuya does. He keeps throwing occasional glances at Dazai from across the room whenever they walk around, mingling and talking to other people, getting coaxed to dance a bit, even if neither of them knows how. Chuuya is talking to some of the Agency’s clerks, but his mind’s not really in it, his eyes running frantically around, ah, there he is, the loudest in the room, making jokes and laughing at them himself, unprompted, dancing with every single victim that gets into his blurred vicinity, and he does try hard to create an impression of having more fun than everyone else, the most fun he’s ever had, stripping off his jacket and rolling up the sleeves of his shirt, the heart of the party.
Amidst this frenzy, this loud crowd, Chuuya is looking for an oasis of silence. He spends a bunch of smoke breaks alone, outside the venue, not exactly willing to talk to anyone, sucking on the filter of his cigarette, and watching the September sun slowly set. The racket from the inside doesn’t reach his mind. He doesn’t let it. But he does know that, if he tried, if he really listened in, he would distinguish the sound of Dazai’s voice in that joint cacophony, cut his particular, recognisable, rare laughter out like one cuts the seeds out of a bell pepper, and he would locate his exact position by those sensory signs alone.
Once they’re all seated at their tables, eating and talking, Chuuya starts feeling uneasy, but he can’t explain why. They hear the clank of someone’s butter knife against the glass, and the racket dies out, with all eyes turned to Dazai.
“And now I want to express my endless gratitude to our dearest bride and groom,” he raises his glass as he stands up, shaky on his feet to an extent that shows in his body language, the way he needs to use his right hand to support his stance, leaning against the table, filled with half-empty plates, empty glasses, and wrinkled napkins. “For gathering us all here. Where else could we have found each other like that, isn’t it right?”
His eyes, his slow but witty, sober and drunk, his mischievous, spying eyes make a little spin around the room, sliding over their heads like a halo, before finally stopping at Chuuya and lingering for a second longer than could be considered polite, making him holier than he feels, singling him out, and everyone seems to notice, and a quiet muttering splashes over the crowded room like champagne, and Chuuya’s cheeks are burning in shame, although he’s not letting it show. He wants to drill a hole in the ground and drop ten stories down, fall to his death, just so he doesn’t have to withstand this humiliation again.
“Even though some of us are less happy to see each other,” Dazai continues, not breaking off his glare, “It’s soothing to know that we all can find a common denominator once in a while. Take the fuse out… and all,” he must have noticed the way Chuuya’s hand is squeezing his glass, to the point it starts shaking a little and threatening to crack in two, because he swallows audibly and looks back at the newlyweds. “Anyway. Spread the love!”
Chuuya finds out that he was holding his breath the entire time Dazai was talking.
During this draining race in what feels like a never-ending night, he keeps catching sight of Dazai in different, the least expected places, with running from him eventually turning into running after him, or so Chuuya feels. He spots him outside, surrounded by the Agency’s folks, gesturing actively with his hand, holding a lit cigarette, as he goes on about the latest mission he nailed with Kunikida. He’s active, expressive, almost hysterical, and Chuuya knows that something is wrong, but he can’t put his finger on it. Dazai had lost his bow tie somewhere, god knows how long ago, and the unbuttoned collar of his shirt has now bared his neck to the world. Chuuya watches the apple of his throat rise and drop as he speaks, yelps in surprise, or bursts out in laughter. Chuuya watches him build himself back up from the puzzle pieces of his previous life. He sees the bandages, then, a bit lower than where he usually wraps them around himself, but still undoubtedly there. Some people don’t change. But Chuuya never wanted to change Dazai. He just wanted to have him there, even if not to himself.
He’s in the bathroom, gold-coated taps, marble, and darkwood, alone, washing his hands in the basin, smelling the flowers in the vase next to the soaps and lotions, when he hears the door behind him crack open. Dazai walks in, no less taken aback by the sight of him, and for some time, Chuuya stands there frozen, his hands still under the water, and he can’t look away from Dazai’s face in the mirror, from everything healed and fixed now inside him, and it wasn’t even Chuuya who did all of the healing and fixing, good job, Dazai’s own hands.
“What are you doing here?” Chuuya asks, finally breaking eye contact and turning off the tap before reaching for a hand towel. He tries to appear disinterested and less frantic than he feels.
“Wine,” Dazai just says, pointing at a scarlet stain, which seems to be growing bigger from staring at it alone, spreading over the white fabric of his shirt, right on his stomach, closer to the hem. “I knocked the glass over and spilled it on myself by accident,” he walks over to the basin, forcing himself into Chuuya’s space but doing so gently, with caution. “I need to wash it off.”
Chuuya does nothing for some time, just watching him tinker with the fabric, trying to rub the stain off, but he’s doing everything wrong, and his hands are shaking for whatever reason, and Chuuya gets pissed way too easily. “Let me,” he sighs, taking a step closer and with it – the matter in his own hands. Dazai lets him.
He keeps staring down stupidly, watching Chuuya’s every move, how he changes the temperature of the water, it needs to be colder, how he rubs some soap into the stain, spreading it with his thumbs, wrinkling the fabric even more than it already is, but with the mechanical, learned work of his fingers, it works, and the winebath on Dazai’s shirt starts fading away, despite not disappearing entirely. “You’ll need to do the proper laundry back home,” he says, not looking up as he frowns from the effort, ignoring his own reddened fingers.
He doesn’t need to look to know that Dazai is smiling now. “I missed you a lot.”
The only thing that outs Chuuya’s reaction is his next exhale, getting stuck in his throat for a second like a hiccup, before falling off his trembling lips, much heavier now than it felt in his chest.
Dazai keeps staring at him, his shoulders relaxed, his guard down. “Will you say something?” Chuuya’s hands keep working on the stain insistently, though nothing else is coming off anymore. “Are you trying to rub a hole into my shirt?”
“Add a drop of bleach into the detergent,” Chuuya goes on. “You should have some left from…”
From your Mafia days.
“Why wouldn’t you look at me?”
“Dammit,” Chuuya drops his attempts, letting go of the hem of Dazai’s shirt and turning the tap off. He holds the marble edges of the sink with both hands, wet and limp from effort, as he keeps staring down for some time, collecting his breath, flattening it out, ironing it like he would iron Dazai’s shirts if they still meant anything to each other. A box of sharp tools. Nothing has really changed since that time. Except there’s now a nice coating and a velvety bow at the top. A ticking bomb disguised as a birthday present. Chuuya doesn’t know which cords to cut. His hands are tied. “Your new life treats you well indeed.”
“You don’t mean it.”
Of course I don’t.
“You’ve got more daring.”
“You’ve got farther.”
A quiet, hysterical giggle breaks out of Chuuya’s chest. He regrets it immediately. He wishes he could have contained it. He wishes he weren’t so easy to bare all of his weakest parts when it came to Dazai. “Of course I’m farther now,” he shakes his head. “Wasn’t it what you wanted?” All that is left in him is poison. Chuuya doesn’t even feel bad anymore. At a certain point, his relief got poisoned with envy, mixing together into something that is now dripping from the ceilings of a temple he’s built inside himself, all of the humility he’s collected from the bits of broken bones.
Dazai draws in a little shaking breath before speaking again. “I can only talk to you now if I’m wasted. My tongue won’t turn otherwise.”
Something in this makes Chuuya burst. He looks up, letting go of the sink, his only anchor in the present moment, the snow inside him coming off the hills, making him suffocate.
“You’re a fraud,” he whispers, teeth clenched. “You’re… stupid, you’re… illegible, incomprehensible, and annoying, and you are… childish, and whimsical, and you think the whole world owes you something… and, and, and…” Words are bouncing off him like ping-pong balls, he wishes he could contain himself, his little jumps of sounds, the skips in his syllables, his hyperventilating, his hands, thrown in the air, a question mark and an exclamation point, and then he claps them together in desperation, forming an interrobang, and it all accelerates, accelerates, accelerates, until Dazai flicks the light switch, and his mind short circuits.
Dazai is kissing him on the lips.
Right there, in the middle of the empty bathroom, their bodies an overturned can of bright orange paint on a cloud-white canvas; he’s holding Chuuya’s face with both hands, his damned clean hands smelling of jasmine soap, and he’s folding the upper part of his body to meet Chuuya’s mouth halfway, his head squeezed into his shoulders, his wisdom creased right in the middle, his reverence rendering him four years younger, four years dumber, an eternity more reckless.
Maybe Chuuya melts into it because it feels like Dazai is giving with no care in the world if he’ll ever receive anything back. Maybe because it feels like an apology for disappearing, for that crack-covered desert in their DMs over the course of four years, like a remark he forgot to make when it was still relevant, oh, by the way, thrown carelessly over his shoulder, I want you too. Maybe because Chuuya’s mind shuts off the moment Dazai pins him against the marble of the sink, its burning cold branding the skin on his back through the thin fabric of his shirt, and the hottest thing between their bodies is Dazai’s tongue in his mouth.
He breaks off first. He lets Chuuya breathe, his thumbs caressing his cheeks. But the moment Chuuya opens his mouth wide enough to speak again, to pick up where he left off, to jump back onto that train of nonsense, bitterness mixed with disgust, Dazai dives in again, deeper than before, muffling the pathetic sound battling to escape his throat, and Chuuya just succumbs to it, his weak hands floating in the air next to Dazai’s forearms, his fingers brushing against his elbows, his body knowing what he wants better and faster than his mind does. All of this is going to hell. All of this has been in hell for a while, and Chuuya can only pray for an island of calm, serenity, confidence, and what an irony it is – the island happens to be the shores of Dazai’s palms.
“Are you mad at me?” He asks, pressing his forehead against Chuuya’s forehead, breathing heavily into his parted, wet lips, holding his face in his hands.
Chuuya sees no reason to lie. “The most I’ve ever been,” but he leans forward first, the second he’s steady enough to account for what he does, and kisses him once more, and Dazai takes it as his biggest triumph, his coveted I’m forgiven, his repentance, his lucky lottery ticket.
It renders him braver. He even allows his hands to travel down the sides of Chuuya’s body, squeeze a bit more firmly over his ribcage, his waist, his hips, the body he once learned by heart like a poem he hated; he could find every freckle in the dark; he could kiss the pain away before Chuuya even knew where it hurt.
It makes Chuuya remember something. Something absolutely unnecessary to be thinking about in the present moment, both insufficient and redundant, but he does anyway. He remembers something that made him realise he was in love with Dazai for the first time. It was after a mission to which Dazai had gone alone, claiming he wouldn’t need any backup, you can play around with your gems, slug, I’m fine, and fine he was. He reported to the headquarters earlier than Chuuya had predicted he would, making him lose half of his monthly paycheck in bets. He didn’t even take any soldiers; he was cold-blooded, calculated, and impeccable with a gun. Everyone but Chuuya was a bit terrified of him.
Chuuya had been commanded to meet him outside the mission site, an abandoned hospital or a laboratory, he didn’t really know, and it didn’t really matter; he was standing outside, leaning against the side of the Mafia’s car, enjoying his cigarette in the gentle moonlight of the night. By the time he got to the filter, almost burning his fingers, he heard scurrying at the door; the crackling of the glass, ground into dust under someone’s shoes. He tensed up for a second but relaxed just as fast when he saw Dazai stepping out of the building, walking over the tall, unmowed grass, his gait relaxed and careless, if only a bit exhausted. He was covered in blood as if someone had dipped him in a can of red paint. Even the bandages on his face were blood-soaked, but Chuuya knew it wasn’t his, which is why he saw no reason to worry.
Dazai’s hands were blood-scarlet, too, but in his palms, he was holding something like a treasure, terrified to make a move too sudden, let out a breath too loud. He shushed Chuuya from a distance when he tried to call for him, threatening him with his gaze alone, be quieter, will you. By the time he made it to the car, Chuuya could see what was going on clearly. In his blood-soaked hands, Dazai was holding a kitten – ridiculously petite, not bigger than his palm; it was multicolored, black with dips of golden and white, a true wonder of god’s inventiveness, and it was shuddering from the cold but not shying away from Dazai’s hands.
Oh, god, Chuuya sighed, flicking his cigarette away, where did you even find it. Dazai shot him another glare before getting into the backseat, his free hand caressing the kitten’s head gently. He was entirely out of touch with reality; he had no care in the world that he had just severed a bunch of heads, shot through a bunch of chests. It’s a girl, he said, I think. Chuuya cast him a glance through the rear-view mirror; something was melting slowly and steadily within his ribcage, something he was too careless to name. He watched Dazai put the kitten against his chest gently, wrapping her in his coat, shielding her from the cruel world; all while his hands bore the browning red of the Mafia’s enemies’ blood.
As adamant as he was to admit it, Dazai had always been a bit more gentle and merciful than he let show. And Chuuya had always wondered if he was the only one to notice, to see that part of him, to be trusted with keeping it sealed. But the kitten became the precedent. They named her Glory. They later wondered why. I think that’s because glory is something you want all your deeds to lead to, in the aftermath, Dazai once suggested in his drunken nonsense, as they were getting wasted together at their favorite bar after a mission.
Chuuya hated the endings of things the most. He hated something he couldn’t take into his own hands and change, reroute, prevent it from happening. Dazai’s parting was one of those things. It was selfish beyond comprehension. What about Glory, Chuuya wanted to ask, still seeing her walk around the Mafia’s headquarters every now and then, or sleep curled on the back of the velvety sofa in Mori’s office, but he knew what Dazai would reply, Glory would want to see me pursue better things.
Chuuya stood there, in the open entrance door of the Mafia’s building, watching the downpour, realising he had forgotten his umbrella in his office, and not having it in him to go all the way back up. It was late, he’d worked overtime, and there was nothing he wanted more than to just get back home, take a long, warm bath, drink a glass of wine, and fall asleep. He plotted how he’d race to his car, parked some pathetic two hundred meters away, letting his hair and his clothes soak in the rain. He wondered – for a moment, not more – if Dazai was happy where he was; if pursuing better things was truly something he wanted. He couldn’t make peace with it, no matter how hard he tried. Every time he closed his eyes, he pictured Dazai’s blood-soaked hands, holding barely month-old Glory, pressing her against his chest, and regretted not turning around, bending over the seat, right there and then, to kiss him on the lips.
None of that matters anymore. All of it is in the past.
He breaks the kiss first, turning his head to the side and hiding his eyes. His hands tighten on Dazai’s forearms for half a heartbeat before letting go. Dazai interprets the signal perfectly. He steps away, drawing that former line between them, creating some adequate distance, something he’s always been shamelessly good at. Chuuya wants to say more, to let out all of this anger once and for all and forget about it, to keep living like he doesn’t still wake up sometimes in the middle of the night because he dreamed about Dazai’s unattended grave. One time, Glory was sleeping, curled up right next to it, but that’s about it; even after his death, he would remain a hotel without a single booked room, because the whole town believes he’s haunted. Chuuya knows for sure he is, and he’s made peace with it.
“Go finish your wine,” he commands, stepping away and losing the warmth of Dazai’s embrace, too much of his newfound kindness and mercy to handle. And, when Dazai’s already at the door, “Don’t drink yourself to death.”
Don’t die on me.
Once again, the words are heavier when spoken.
When the celebration dies out closer to dawn, they are split into two camps: those who drank themselves into oblivion and those who haven’t had a drop of alcohol the entire night. The sober ones volunteer to drive the drunk ones home. Chuuya plans to escape quietly, alone, not because he’s insensitive like that, but because he feels like he might snap should he have literally anyone else with him in the car, but that’s when someone’s hand lands on his shoulder, gentle and warm. Yosano. Chuuya’s gaze brushes against her long white dress first.
“I hate to be the one asking, but,” and she breaks off just like that, pointing somewhere behind her back, where Dazai is sitting on the grass, alone, sipping on the remaining wine from a bottle, too out of it by now to still be playing jester with others. “Only you know how to take care of him.”
Chuuya swallows, not knowing how to say no, and nods.
The rest of the time is a humiliation ritual of its own. He helps Dazai get up, holding him by the waist the entire time he’s dragging him along to his car, parked nearby, all that daunting height and weight of him, the weight of four years, and more; the weight of almost ten years, if he knows any better. Dazai tries to cooperate as much as he can, but he blacks out almost immediately after Chuuya stuffs him into the backseat, fastens his seatbelt for him, and slams the door shut, his breath heavier than before from the effort. He says quick goodbyes to everyone else, congratulates the newlyweds once again, and gets behind the wheel, immediately reaching for a cigarette. His only hope, his only prayer, is that Dazai won’t wake up for the rest of the ride.
But God has always been deaf to what Chuuya asked of them.
The road is long. He predicts that, by the time they’re both home, it will be fully light outside. Right now, though, the morning sun is still frail, seeping like milk through the crowns of trees, goldening as the city tilts towards October. The highway is nearly empty, and, even though the signs are saying he’s allowed to, and it would be faster to get back home this way, Chuuya doesn’t speed up. He keeps throwing glances at Dazai through the rear-view mirror, stumbling over his peacefully sleeping face, and the thought that poisons everything sweet and soft in it is that he can probably only sleep like that if he’s properly wasted.
Dazai shudders awake on the third red light, when they’re back in the city, surrounded by honking cars, the mouth of Yokohama’s morning traffic swallowing them whole, all their teeth and other bones. He stirs and sits up in his seat, his hands flattening his ruined shirt. Chuuya feels his glare on the back of his neck. “I’m still drunk.”
“I know.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine. Weddings are for getting drunk.”
“I mean,” Dazai clears his voice, looking back down at his hands. “I’m sorry I kissed you.” Oddly, Chuuya can’t tell if he is. Dazai sniffs. “You were right. I do think that the world owes me something.”
Chuuya swallows, not looking away from the road. “What?”
“A funeral.”
Chuuya swerves onto the roadside so suddenly that both of them bounce off their seats like two dead bees in a jar. He halts the car but doesn’t take his hands off the wheel. “Here’s what we’re going to do,” he says, breathing in, full-chested, until the air burns him. “I will take you home and see to it that you go straight to bed. You won’t do anything funny, you won’t mention your funeral, even as a joke, you will just sleep. Once you feel better, you will drop me a text, and I’ll come over. We’ll talk about this. When you’re sober.”
“I still can’t believe you care-”
“Dazai,” Chuuya shuts his eyes as he breathes in. “Say yes.”
“Yes. Okay. I understand.”
“Good,” Chuuya nods and starts the car again. His hands are shaking violently on the wheel. “Fuck.”
He committed Dazai’s new address to memory some time ago. Dazai claims he is able to walk on his own, and Chuuya drops his attempts to hold him by the arm, but he still turns around every two steps on the staircase, every two mistakes he makes, to see that Dazai is alright, that he is still following. When they are at the door, Chuuya casts him a glance.
Dazai is a bit unsteady, disoriented, swaying back and forth on his feet, and a lost smile is forming on his sleepy face. “What..?”
“Your keys.”
“Oh,” he laughs soundlessly as he reaches for the back pocket of his pants. It’s a wonder how he hasn’t lost all of these things overnight. His keys, his phone, his wallet.
As much as he wants to, Chuuya doesn’t have time to study every little patch of Dazai’s new apartment. The only thing he can say for sure is that it is a huge upgrade from living in a shipping container by the port. He watches Dazai bend down to take off his shoes, one hand propped against the wall for support; he watches him wash his hands in the bathroom and splash some cold water onto his face, wetting the ends of his greasy, messed-up hair. He watches like a warden, his arms folded on his chest, his temple leaning against the doorway.
“You’re like Cerberus,” Dazai jokes, looking at him in the mirror, a stupid, nervous smile forming on his face, and Chuuya can see the tiny droplets of water trembling on his eyelashes. He doesn’t wipe his face dry. “All of your heads are turned away from me, all of your eyes are closed, but you’re still staring right into me.. somehow.”
Chuuya says nothing, pushing him towards the bedroom with his presence alone, not touching, following right behind, and almost stepping on the legs of his stupidly long pants. Dazai sits down on the bed, both arms propped by his sides, and watches Chuuya pull down the blinds; some of them are broken, not blocking the entirety of the sunlight, blinding patches of it dancing over Dazai’s body, his face, the pale pink stain on his shirt.
“I read something in a book the other day,” he says, biting his lips.
“You did?” Chuuya hums, not looking at him as he scurries around the bedroom, collecting the empty alcohol bottles scattered everywhere: beer, wine, sake, even that cheap apple cider they loved to drink in the parking lot when they were eighteen. He’s not letting it get to his head. He will be wiser than that – Dazai is a grown boy – but his hands are still shaking.
“Yes. One Buddhist monk said that some souls sacrifice themselves willingly even before the body itself is born,” Dazai sniffs, looking down at his feet on the floor, his funny mismatched socks. “I think it’s a wise thing to keep telling yourself if you’re learning to live with… injustice… and… and pain. I was wondering if… if my soul had also been compromised before it was even mine.”
Chuuya drops the empty wine bottle he just picked up and crouches on the floor in front of him, putting both of his hands on Dazai’s knees. “It’s impossible,” he says, with as much determination as he can muster, even though his voice is trembling, and the corners of his eyes are wet with tears.
Dazai is biting the inside of his cheek as he looks back at him, sneakily, as if afraid. “Why not?”
Chuuya could tell him it all. He could start from the very beginning. He could put the words together like Jenga blocks only to ruin the tower with his next hiccup; he could mention the nightmares, the grave he keeps seeing whenever he closes his eyes, Dazai’s death haunting his every waking moment even when he’s still alive; he could tell him how much he would be missed by everyone who cares about him, and there are more of them than he could ever imagine. He could grab him by the shoulders and shake him awake, because Yosano was right, only he knows how to take care of him, but there are things at which he’s as helpless as everyone else, acts he can only spectate but never participate in.
“You’re a mess,” he breathes out, at last. “You’ve been for a long time,” as much as it takes him right now, he forces himself not to look away from Dazai’s face. Something is telling him it’s important, keeping their gazes chained. “And I know that it’s selfish, but I still despise you for leaving. I can’t help myself. If I knew how, I would. But your soul,” his index finger points at Dazai’s solar plexus, brushing over the button on his shirt. “Your stupid, wretched, rotten soul…” His eyes close by themselves as he swallows, but the knot in his throat won't go away. He licks his dry, trembling lips. “Is not compromised. Not as long as there’s someone who needs it. Now, go to sleep. We’re sticking to the plan, remember?”
Dazai nods, a bit slowed down, his gaze glued to Chuuya’s face. “Why are you crying?”
Chuuya sniffs, thinking up the lamest lie he can. “You reek of liquor, and it irritates my eyes.”
He stands back up, finally letting go of Dazai’s knees. He finishes cleaning up the empty bottles, putting them all into a rubbish bag to throw away outside; he spends some time in the kitchen, dealing with the dirty dishes and moldy food in Dazai’s fridge. He checks on him one more time before leaving – only to find him wide awake, under the covers, staring at the ceiling. Dazai notices him almost immediately. “I thought you’d left.”
Chuuya sighs, walking over to him and sitting down on the side of the bed. “Your apartment’s a shithole,” he doesn’t mean it to sound like an accusation. “I’ve cleaned up a bit.”
“Thanks.”
If there was anything else, literally anything that he could do to help him feel better, he would. But the only thing he can do is be there and pretend that it’s enough.
“Stay with me for a bit,” Dazai says, moving closer to the edge of the bed, even though there’s already enough room for Chuuya to lie down next to him. “If you’re not in a rush.”
“I’m in my street clothes.”
“Don’t care.”
Chuuya does as told. Sinking gently into the mattress, he turns to the side, watching Dazai’s face up close; his barely parted lips; the movement of his rising chest. He prefers this to seeing his grave every time he falls asleep. “I did the right thing,” Dazai whispers, with bated breath. “I couldn’t live like that anymore. All that blood, all that… pain. Even if most of them deserved it.”
Chuuya is careful not to breathe out too loudly. “I understand.”
Dazai only smirks. “Do you, now?” What he probably wants to say is, you’re still there.
But two can play this game.
“Do you ever regret making me join the Mafia?”
A barely traceable shudder of Dazai’s throat; his hand, squeezing the side of the blanket for a split second before letting go. “No. You belong.”
Chuuya smiles. “See. Some of us belong. Among the blood and pain.”
“I wish you didn’t.”
“I wish you’d never left,” he parries immediately. “But, once again, some of us are better off where they choose to be.”
He spends some time like this, just lying down next to Dazai in bed, waiting for him to close his eyes and fall asleep. When he finally does, Chuuya gets up and, as quietly as he can, heads to the door. One step out, and Dazai calls for him again. He’s always been a light sleeper. “I forgot the card.”
Chuuya frowns, casting him a look over his shoulder. “What card?”
“For Yosano and Kunikida,” he explains, now lying on his side, both hands folded under his cheek. “It’s a silly card, for the gift money. I made it myself because all the convenience store ones were ugly. I wanted to give them something special,” he sniffs. “It’s in the drawer over there,” he points at his writing desk without looking at it, his eyes still on the ceiling. “Could you pass it on if you stop by the Agency? I think I’ll take a week off work. I don’t feel well.”
There are many things Chuuya wants to say. As much as he wouldn’t wish to wind up at the Armed Detective Agency without a justifiable degree of urgency, he nods, “Of course.”
He opens the first drawer, taking out the card and casting it a quick, disinterested look, but it catches his eye. Dazai has drawn both Yosano and Kunikida, standing in the middle of what must be the Agency’s main office, with their heads comically large and unrealistic, and their wrists tied together with a red string, which unravels and snakes in the air, forming bows and knots. The string is not drawn but glued to the thick card paper. “I cut a piece off my bandages and dipped it in DIY store paint,” Dazai explains, the sound of his voice making Chuuya start. It feels like he’s trying to appear cooler than he thinks he is. “I was on a budget.”
Chuuya smirks, flicking the card in the air like the wings of a little bird as he looks at him over his shoulder. “You’re creative, you can have that one.” Something bitter and sharp nicks the underside of his thoughts, then, and he grimaces, breaking off eye contact. “You give others much more than you think you do. Maybe, you’re not a toolbox, but a box of beads, and each one is a different shape and color, even if they do look alike at a distance, but there can never be two identical ones,” he keeps staring at the card in his weakened, slightly trembling hands. “To me, you’re that cardboard box one uses for stuff when moving out. I keep taking things out, dusting them off, bringing them to the light, looking at each scab, each crack, and each dent, trying to figure out how you’re still holding together after so many…” He draws in a shaken breath. “Attempts. Sometimes you’re an old music box, falling open and playing your melody when others least expect you to. Sometimes you’re a matchbox. I strike one, and it sets aflame the rest,” he sniffs, his thumbs rubbing the sandy paper of the card tenderly. “I don’t know what you are, Dazai. Maybe I don’t need to. Maybe you’ll never show me. I’m okay with that. I think I am,” he hides away the card, at last, finding out that it’s compact enough to fit in the inner pocket of his jacket. It’s six in the morning. It’s getting louder outside. Everyone is rushing to work. Chuuya is not rushing anywhere. “It’s enough that you’re here. Even if I’ll never fully crack you open.”
He looks up, at last, his throat even drier than before, his face burning and numb at the same time, and takes a long, deep breath.
Dazai is fast asleep, covered with the blanket all the way up to his chin. His breathing is slow, calm, and his face is undisturbed. He’s not dreaming of graves. He’s not dreaming of funerals. Chuuya knows he isn’t. In the end, in this never-ending race, each one of them will keep trying to overtake the other. And every time they collide, face-to-face, will teach them nothing. You’ve got farther, as Dazai put it earlier in the bathroom, and it’s probably true. Chuuya distanced himself. He did it on purpose. He kicked himself in the chest; he pushed himself all the way into another dimension. He drew the line. He tore the map in two. He didn’t want the world where Dazai was still somewhere – but never next to him. He got farther. He did.
He’s in Dazai’s room, by Dazai’s bed, watching him sleep, his fingers ruffling his hair.
He couldn’t be happier to see him alive.