Archive of Our Own

Chuuya didn’t miss missions.

He missed meetings, sometimes—stormed out of them, more accurately, once Mori started talking like he was ordering furniture instead of people. He missed sleep, constantly, like it was an optional tax, despite the fact that he spent a ridiculous amount of time throttling Dazai over his own lack of sleep.

But he didn’t miss missions.

So when the time window closed and the team of mafiosi stopped looking at the clock like it might apologize, the absence started to feel less like insolence and more like a hole someone had cut into the day.

Dazai sat on a stack of damp crates in a warehouse that smelled like old seawater and cheap oil, swinging his legs like a child, and watched his new chew toy Akutagawa go rigid with something silent like panic.

“It’s fine, Akutagawa-kun,” Dazai said, too cheerfully. He picked at a loose thread in his cuff. “Maybe the hatrack finally took my advice and died.”

Akutagawa’s eyes twitched. “If Nakahara-san is—”

“He’s not.” Dazai tilted his head, smiling with the lazy confidence of a boy who liked being believed. He didn’t, actually, know that. He just liked the shape it made in other people’s faces when they relaxed because he’d decided they were allowed to.

The squad Dazai—and Chuuya now—had been put in charge of were whispering a few meters away, too frightened to look like they were whispering. One of them glanced at Dazai like he might be punished for existing in the wrong radius.

Dazai stood. His joints felt fine. His heart did whatever it did. If he concentrated, he could tell himself he was irritated—Chuuya’s tardiness was a nuisance, and nuisances were a familiar kind of company.

That was the story that made the most sense.

“Tell Mori-san I’ll handle it,” Dazai said.

Akutagawa blinked. “Handle what?”

Dazai patted him on the head, because it made him flinch and because, in the absence of better hobbies, Dazai liked making the world react.

“Keeping our precious little trump card from becoming an embarrassing corpse before I do,” he said lightly, and walked out before anyone could interpret him.

Outside, Yokohama was dark and gray in that way that made even the neon feel tired. Wind came off the harbor with cold hands. Dazai tucked his own hands in his coat pockets and headed toward Chuuya’s apartment without telling anyone where he was going.

He didn’t have to.

If anyone asked, he’d say he was going to drag his loyal dog back by the collar. He’d say it like a joke. It would land like a joke. No one would notice that he hadn’t actually laughed.

Chuuya’s building sat in a part of the city that couldn’t pretend it wasn’t Port Mafia territory if it tried. Glass, wide balconies, a stairwell that always smelled faintly of the sea air and the harbor, even moreso from up in the penthouse.

Dazai took the stairs two at a time, ignoring the elevator entirely, because impatience was an easier emotion to carry than… whatever else had started pressing its thumb against the inside of his ribs. By the third floor he could hear it: a bassy, repetitive thump behind one door, like a neighbor’s music but wrong in its steadiness. Not music. Not movement, either.

A fan.

Chuuya hated fans. He said they dried out his throat. He said they made his head hurt. He said they were an insult to gravity.

Dazai stopped in front of the door and listened.

Nothing else. No TV. No radio. No footsteps. The air in the hallway felt stale, as if it hadn’t been disturbed all day. Under it, faint and metallic, was the smell of old blood—Port Mafia apartments collected it like dust, nothing to get poetic about—and something sweeter, heavier. Stale sweat.

Dazai’s hand hovered, because he was performing the idea of hesitation. The truth was simpler: he didn’t like the moment right before you knocked, the moment where you admitted you wanted something from someone on the other side.

He knocked anyway. Two sharp raps, like a complaint.

Silence.

He knocked again, louder, and leaned his shoulder against the door because it was rude and because he liked imagining Chuuya on the other side grinding his teeth.

“Chuuuyaaaa~” Dazai sang, stretching the vowels until they were obnoxious. “My loyal dog missed our playdate.”

Nothing.

Dazai’s grin stayed on. He reached into his pocket, not for a lockpick—Chuuya wasn’t careless like that when it came to him—but for the spare key he wasn’t supposed to have. He’d acquired it the way he acquired most things: by wanting it and being insufferable until the universe got tired.

The key slid in. The lock turned. Dazai opened the door just enough to peek in.

The apartment was dim, curtains half-drawn. The fan sat on the floor by the couch, pointed at nothing like a sulking animal. The air inside was warmer than the hallway, thick with that trapped, humid heat that clung to skin. Chuuya lay on the couch on his back, one forearm over his eyes, the other hanging off the edge like he’d dropped it there. His hat was on the floor, not even hung up, which was the first thing that made Dazai’s stomach feel briefly hollow. Chuuya didn’t leave his hat on the floor. Chuuya treated the hat like it was a crown or a crutch or a promise. That was why Dazai liked to mess with it.

He didn’t look dead. He looked… inconveniently alive.

Dazai stepped inside and shut the door behind him with a soft click, because the quiet in the room asked for it and something traitorous and foreign in him couldn’t say no. His shoes barely made sound on the rug.

Chuuya didn’t move. The fan thumped. The world kept being the world. Dazai watched the slow rise and fall of Chuuya’s chest and tried to name what that did inside him.

Annoyance. There. He could do that. Annoyance was easy.

“You know,” Dazai said conversationally, “if Chuuya wanted to get out of a mission, he could’ve just told me he was going to be useless today. I would’ve brought him a nice ribbon to tie around his wrists and everything.”

Chuuya’s breathing changed—subtle, the way a dog’s ears flick. His mouth tightened. He didn’t lift his arm from his eyes.

Dazai took a few more steps, slow enough to make it obvious he was choosing slowness, and stood by the couch. Close enough now that he could see the rawness at the corners of Chuuya’s mouth, the faint cracked line on his lower lip. Close enough to see the shadows under his eyes even though they were covered.

He looked like he’d been punched by sleep itself and lost.

Dazai kept smiling because the alternative felt like standing in a room without clothing.

“Did my loyal dog miss me?” Dazai asked. He leaned forward, too close, so his voice brushed the space above Chuuya’s face. “I missed him. I thought we were bonded for life.”

A faint sound came out of Chuuya’s throat. Not a laugh. Not a groan. More like a swallowed, exhausted refusal.

“Get out,” Chuuya said, voice muffled by his own arm.

Dazai clasped his hands behind his back and rocked on his heels, like he was being politely scolded by a teacher. “Aw,” he said. “The slug is still talking. That means he’s fine.”

Chuuya didn’t answer. His fingers flexed against his forehead. The skin of his wrist looked damp.

Without his permission, Dazai’s gaze snagged on small details: the way Chuuya’s shirt had twisted, exposing a strip of skin at his waist; the way his hair was flattened on one side and wild on the other like he’d been rubbing his head against the couch cushion; the way his throat moved when he swallowed, as if swallowing hurt.

Dazai could read bodies. He could read rooms. He could read the smallest shift in a person and translate it into leverage. He just didn’t know what to do with what he was seeing if he wasn’t trying to win.

“Chuuya didn’t show up,” Dazai said, letting his voice drop into something closer to ordinary. Ordinary was a costume too, but a different one. “Mori-san’s going to be annoyed.”

Chuuya’s arm stayed over his eyes. “Let him.”

That, by itself, would’ve been normal. Chuuya said that sort of thing all the time about Mori, like he didn’t care about consequences. But there was no heat in it. No bite. It was just… flat. Like the words had been dragged out of him by a gravity that was against him.

Dazai tilted his head. The fan’s thump filled the silence between them.

“The slug is sick,” Dazai said, almost accusing. As if Chuuya had done it on purpose to inconvenience him.

Chuuya’s mouth twitched. “No.”

“Liar.”

“Shut up.”

Dazai leaned down further, peering under Chuuya’s forearm like he was trying to look at something interesting in a museum case. Chuuya’s eyelashes were damp. Not crying—just that wetness you got when you hadn’t slept and your body couldn’t decide what fluids belonged where.

Those eyes opened a slit. One blue, the other brown, unfocused, then sharpening with irritation the moment they settled on Dazai’s face.

For a second, Dazai felt something small and stupid in his chest: relief, maybe, that Chuuya was still capable of looking at him like he wanted to kill him.

“Gross,” Chuuya muttered. “Why are you here.”

Dazai beamed. “Because I’m a devoted partner.”

Chuuya’s eyes narrowed. “We’re not—”

“We’re not,” Dazai agreed immediately, which made Chuuya pause, thrown off for half a beat. Dazai took that half-beat and stuffed it in his pocket like a stolen coin. “But Chuuya is also not supposed to skip missions. It messes up the whole ecosystem. People start assuming the hatrack is dead, and then I get depressed about missing out on a chance to commit double-suicide.”

Chuuya stared at him for a long moment, like he was trying to decide whether he had the energy to sit up and strangle him. Dazai could see him doing the math in real time and hating the answer.

Shutting his eyes again, Chuuya let his head sink deeper into the couch cushion. “Go bother someone else, shitty Dazai.”

Dazai straightened, and his smile tightened at the edges. He wanted to say something that would make Chuuya snap properly. He wanted to say something sharp enough to drag him upright, because anger looked better on Chuuya than this… drained emptiness. It was wrong, like seeing a knife left out in the rain. Like seeing himself in a mirror.

So Dazai reached for the easiest tool he had.

“Wow,” he said, bright and sing-song. “Chibi is being so dramatic. Did the scary nightmares get him?”

Chuuya’s body went very still. The fan thumped. The room felt, suddenly, smaller.

Dazai blinked once. He hadn’t expected that to land. He’d meant it as a jab, a childish poke. But Chuuya’s stillness had a different quality now—tight, braced, like the muscles under his skin had gone rigid.

Dazai’s mouth kept moving out of habit. “Did my loyal dog dream about me? Because that would be—”

“Stop.” Chuuya’s voice came out low, rougher than before.

A pause. Dazai watched the way Chuuya’s fingers curled into the fabric of his own sleeve over his eyes, knuckles whitening.

His brain supplied possibilities: hangover, withdrawal, a fight that went badly, a solo mission that left him rattled. A nightmare shouldn’t have been high on the list. Chuuya didn’t scare easily. Chuuya was the thing people had nightmares about.

And yet.

Dazai’s smile didn’t know what to do. It hovered, uncertain, like a mask slipping a millimeter.

He cleared his throat like that might reset him. “Chuuya missed a mission,” he said, again, because repeating the obvious felt safer than touching whatever nerve he’d just bumped.

Chuuya let out a slow breath, and Dazai heard it catch. Air that couldn’t find a clean way out.

“Yeah,” Chuuya said, still not looking at him. “I know.”

There was something about the way he said it that made Dazai’s stomach do a small, cold flip. Not because Chuuya sounded guilty. Because he sounded like he didn’t care if the world punished him.

That was Dazai’s territory.

Dazai shifted his weight, suddenly too aware of his own limbs, his own presence in someone else’s room. He glanced around like he might find instructions in the furniture. Empty bottle on the counter. A glass that had been knocked over and left. The curtains half-drawn because full daylight would’ve been too much.

He looked back at Chuuya.

Chuuya’s eyelids fluttered under his arm. His breathing wasn’t steady. His jaw was clenched so tight it made a small tendon stand out near his ear.

Dazai opened his mouth to say something—something normal, something mean, something that would keep him in his own shape—and what came out instead was stupid.

“Did Chuuya… eat today?”

Chuuya’s arm shifted slightly, just enough that Dazai saw one eye crack open. The look Chuuya gave him wasn’t anger. It was bafflement, edged with exhaustion, like Dazai had started speaking a language Chuuya didn’t recognize.

“What,” Chuuya said, flat.

Dazai felt heat creep up the back of his neck. He laughed once, too high, and immediately regretted it.

“I mean,” he said quickly, turning it into a sneer he could hide behind, “if the Chibi is going to be useless, he could at least be a functional useless. Like a pet rock. Pet rocks don’t need food.”

Chuuya’s eye narrowed. “You’re not funny.”

“I’m funny.”

“No.” Chuuya’s voice sharpened, just a little. “You’re loud.”

Dazai’s grin twitched, then steadied itself back into place. He leaned over the couch again, because if he stayed close enough he could pretend closeness was just harassment.

“I can leave,” Dazai said lightly. “If the slug is going to be boring. But then I’ll have to tell Mori-san my partner in crime is dying.”

Chuuya’s fingers tightened again over his eyes. For a moment, Dazai thought Chuuya was going to tell him to go to hell in a way that would make the room feel normal.

Instead, Chuuya said, quietly, “Do whatever you want.”

It landed wrong.

Dazai straightened, and for a second his body forgot how to perform. He stared at Chuuya’s covered face and felt something inside him shift, like a piece of furniture moved in a dark room.

Do whatever you want.

That was what people said to Dazai when they gave up trying to understand him, or save his life. When they stopped caring because they realized caring was futile. When he’d successfully made himself into something impossible to hold, and infuriating to try.

He didn’t like hearing it from Chuuya.

He didn’t know why he didn’t like it. He only knew the sensation: a thin, sharp ache behind his ribs, immediately followed by the reflexive urge to laugh it off. So he did.

“Chuuya is so dramatic,” Dazai said, too bright. “He’s like a dying swan. Should I play violin music for him?”

In one sudden motion Chuuya’s arm dropped from his eyes. His face was flushed, but not with anger. His eyes were bloodshot, ringed with darkness. The look he gave Dazai wasn’t the usual fire—it was something rawer, like irritation that had been stretched too thin over something else.

“Shut the fuck up,” Chuuya said, and his voice cracked on the last word.

Dazai’s mouth shut.

It wasn’t the profanity. Chuuya swore all the time. It was the crack, the exposed edge of something Chuuya hadn’t meant to show.

Dazai blinked. He felt, absurdly, like he’d walked into a room and tripped over a wire he hadn’t seen. Chuuya stared at him, breathing hard, as if Dazai’s presence itself was making the air heavier. Then Chuuya looked away, jaw working, and rubbed his face with his hand like he was trying to wipe himself clean.

Suddenly unsure where to put his hands, Dazai stood there.

He could keep pushing. He could make Chuuya explode properly. He could turn this back into their usual shape—two boys baring teeth at each other until the world looked simple again. But the crack in Chuuya’s voice lingered in the air, and Dazai couldn’t find the part of himself that enjoyed it.

He hovered at the edge of the couch like a ghost that didn’t know how to haunt.

“Chuuya,” Dazai said, softer than he meant to.

The gaze he wanted evaded his own. Chuuya dragged a hand through his hair and exhaled, long and shaky. “Don’t,” he muttered. “Just—don’t do that.”

Dazai’s throat felt tight in a way that didn’t match the situation. His smile was gone now, absent, like he’d forgotten to put it back on.

“What,” Dazai said, and hated how pathetic it sounded. “Do what.”

Chuuya’s shoulders rose and fell. He stared at the ceiling as if it might offer an escape hatch.

“Whatever this is,” Chuuya said, voice low. “The… poking. The jokes. The—” He stopped, like the word he wanted was stuck somewhere painful. “You being here. It doesn’t fucking help.”

Dazai went still.

He was used to Chuuya snapping. He was used to being called a moron, a bastard, a suicidal brat, a demon, a parasite. Those words hit the surface and skidded off like stones on water.

But you being here—it doesn’t fucking help was not an insult. It was an accusation. And for a second, Dazai had no idea what expression he was wearing, because he hadn’t chosen one.

Finally Chuuya looked at him, and his eyes sharpened on Dazai’s face—on whatever blank, startled thing had replaced the grin.

The anger faltered. Chuuya’s expression shifted into something like tired disbelief.

“…Jesus Christ,” he muttered, and the edge went out of his voice. “Dazai. Can’t you just be less of a goddamn nuisance for once?”

Dazai’s chest felt hollow, like the words had scooped something out of him that had already been missing.

He stared at Chuuya.

He could feel his own face doing something—something stripped-down and wrong. Lost puppy, maybe. Stupid, young, and suddenly very obvious. It must have been worse than Dazai thought, because Chuuya’s mouth tightened, and then he looked away again, as if seeing it had exhausted him further.

Dazai stood there, in Chuuya’s dim apartment, with the fan thumping at his feet, and realized that for one of the first times in his life, he didn’t know what to do next. He had come here because Chuuya hadn’t shown up. That was the official reason. That was the excuse. But now he was here, and Chuuya was looking at him like he’d expected empathy, like empathy was a thing Dazai might be capable of, and Dazai couldn’t even find the right words to be annoying in the correct direction.

The emptiness in Dazai’s chest yawned its ugly mouth open wider. He swallowed, because swallowing was something a human body did when it needed to pretend it had a throat.

“Okay,” Dazai said, voice carefully flat. “Then tell me what would.”

Chuuya’s gaze flicked back to him—quick, startled—like he hadn’t expected Dazai to ask. The silence that followed felt like a cliff.

That, by itself, felt worse than being yelled at.

Dazai stood there with his hands loose at his sides, suddenly hyperaware of the fact that he was standing, looming, existing at full volume in a room that felt like it needed quiet. Like it needed him to disappear, the way the whole world did. He resisted the urge to sit on the arm of the couch just to have somewhere to put himself. Sitting felt presumptuous. Leaving felt like failure. So he hovered. He was very good at hovering.

For a long moment, Chuuya stared at the ceiling, jaw tight. The fan kept thumping. Outside, somewhere, a car honked—short, irritated, then gone. Life continued doing its thing without either of them.

“I don’t know,” Chuuya said finally.

The words were blunt, but not defensive. If anything, they sounded… resigned. Like he’d already tried asking himself and come up empty.

Dazai’s chest did that hollow thing again.

“Oh,” he said.

He waited for something else to follow. A correction. A shove. A don’t look at me like that. Nothing came.

Chuuya dragged a hand down his face and let it fall onto his chest. His eyes stayed open now, unfocused, fixed on a crack in the ceiling like it might eventually say something useful.

“I just—” Chuuya started, then stopped. He swallowed. “I don’t need you to fix it.”

Dazai nodded immediately, too quickly, because that part at least he understood. Fixing was overrated. Fixing was a lie people told themselves so they could feel productive.

Fixing was not something he would ever be capable of.

“Good,” Dazai said. “I’m terrible at that.”

Chuuya’s mouth twitched, not quite a smile. The tiniest release of tension rippled through his shoulders, like he’d been bracing for an argument that hadn’t happened.

Dazai watched it closely. He catalogued it. Filed it away as data.

“I just…” Chuuya exhaled slowly. “I don’t need you making it louder, Dazai.”

Dazai blinked. “Louder?”

Chuuya glanced at him, then away again, as if the act of explaining itself was exhausting.

“You do this thing,” Chuuya said. “Where you keep poking and poking and it’s like—” He gestured vaguely with his hand, fingers curling, then dropping. “Like you’re trying to shake something loose.”

Dazai’s first instinct was to argue. To say that’s because it works. To say the slug always reacts. To say Chuuya is more interesting when he’s mad.

Instead, he stayed quiet. Because Chuuya wasn’t accusing him. He was describing him.

“And right now,” Chuuya continued, voice rough but steady, “everything in my head is already… loud. I didn’t sleep. I keep thinking I hear shit that’s not there.” His jaw tightened. “So when you come in like that, it just—”

“It doesn’t help,” Dazai finished, echoing the words like he was testing how they felt in his mouth.

Chuuya’s shoulders slumped a fraction. “Yeah.”

The silence that followed wasn’t hostile, which was new. It was heavy, awkward, unstructured. Dazai didn’t know how to stand inside it without fidgeting. He rocked back on his heels, then stilled himself again. His hands twitched, wanting to do something—to touch, to prod, to rearrange the situation into a shape he recognized. But Chuuya had said louder was bad. And Dazai, for once, was trying to believe him.

“So,” Dazai said carefully, “quieter.”

Chuuya’s brow furrowed. He turned his head just enough to look at Dazai again, eyes searching his face like he was trying to figure out whether this was a trick.

“Yeah,” Chuuya said. “Something like that.”

Again, Dazai nodded. Slower this time.

Quieter.

Okay.

That was… a word. Not an instruction, exactly, but closer than nothing.

Dazai glanced around the room, as if the answer might be sitting on a shelf. The fan immediately stood out as the loudest thing present. It thumped, steady and relentless, vibrating faintly through the floor.

“Chuuya hates that thing,” Dazai said.

Chuuya’s eyes flicked toward the fan, then away. “It’s hot with all the windows closed.”

“That doesn’t mean Chuuya likes it.”

Chuuya huffed a weak, humorless breath. “You gonna give me a lecture about coping mechanisms now?”

Crouching, Dazai unplugged the fan before Chuuya could stop him. The sudden silence felt enormous.

Chuuya sucked in a sharp breath, reflexive, then froze. For a split second Dazai worried he’d miscalculated—worried he’d taken away something Chuuya needed, not something he tolerated.

But then Chuuya exhaled. Long. Slow.

“Oh,” Chuuya murmured, almost to himself.

Dazai stayed crouched, holding the fan’s plug in his hand like evidence of a crime. His heart kicked against his ribs in a way that felt embarrassingly hopeful.

“Is that… worse?” Dazai asked.

Chuuya shook his head slightly. “No. It’s… better.”

Dazai nodded, because nodding felt like the right response to success. He set the fan aside gently, like it might complain if mishandled—really, it was because Chuuya would have.

He didn’t stand back up right away. He stayed crouched near the couch, close enough now that he could feel the warmth coming off Chuuya’s body. It was excessive, feverish—not sick-sick, maybe, but wrung-out. Overheated in a way that wasn’t just physical.

Folding his arms over his knees, Dazai looked at the floor, because looking directly at Chuuya felt like staring at something fragile.

“Nightmares?” Dazai asked, quieter than before.

Chuuya went still again—but not the rigid, defensive stillness from earlier. This one felt… wary. Considering.

“…Yeah,” Chuuya admitted after a beat.

Dazai’s fingers tightened against his sleeves. He resisted the urge to joke about it. Resisted the urge to ask what they were about, because that felt like stepping too far into Chuuya’s head without permission, even when that felt like the only thing he knew how to do. Instead, he said the first thing that came to him that wasn’t sharp.

“Those suck.”

It sounded stupid and childish even as the words left his mouth, but, well—Dazai rarely said anything sincere, and anything sincere he did say was bound to sound stupid and childish.

Chuuya let out a breath that might’ve been a laugh if it had more air in it. “Uh-huh. They do.”

Another pause.

Dazai shifted his weight, then rocked to his feet to push open the balcony door and let the cold air in, then sat down on the floor properly, back against the couch. It was a small thing, but it changed the geometry of the room—put them closer to the same level. Less looming. Less intrusive.

Chuuya noticed. Dazai could tell by the way his eyes flicked toward the balcony, downward, tracking the movement, then lingered on him. Neither of them said anything about it.

“I kept waking up,” Chuuya muttered eventually. “Every time I closed my eyes it was just… the same shit. Over and over.”

Dazai stared at the floorboards. He imagined it easily—Chuuya jolting awake, heart racing, gravity pulling him back into his body too hard. The kind of exhaustion that didn’t go away no matter how long you lay still.

Dazai knew that exhaustion intimately. It lived in him like a second skeleton.

“Did you try not sleeping?” Dazai offered weakly.

Chuuya snorted despite himself, then immediately winced, pressing his fingers to his temple. “Yeah, I did.”

“Ah,” Dazai said. “Double-edged sword.”

Chuuya glanced at him again, and this time there was something faintly incredulous in his expression. “Are you actually trying to help right now?”

Dazai hesitated.

That question felt dangerous. Like if he answered it honestly, something would collapse.

“I think so,” he said instead.

Chuuya studied him, eyes sharp despite the fatigue. Dazai could almost feel the weight of that scrutiny—Chuuya was good at reading people too, when he bothered. Better at reading Dazai than Dazai would have liked.

“Well,” Chuuya said slowly, “you’re bad at it.”

Dazai sulked. “I know.”

He meant it. He knew. He had always known.

The room settled again, quieter now without the fan, without Dazai’s constant needling. The silence wasn’t comfortable, but it wasn’t hostile either. It was… tentative. Like something waiting to see if it was allowed to exist. Dazai leaned his head back against the couch cushion, staring at the underside of Chuuya’s arm where it draped along the edge. The skin there was flushed. Warm. Real.

He didn’t reach for it. He didn’t know if reaching would help or make it worse.

Worse, probably.

Instead, he said, “Chuuya doesn’t have to go on the next mission tonight.”

Chuuya scoffed. “Yeah, I do.”

Dazai shook his head slightly. “No. He doesn’t. I already ordered Akutagawa-kun to tell Mori-san I’d handle it.”

Chuuya frowned. “You what?”

Shrugging, Dazai kept his eyes on the ceiling. “I’m good at getting what I want.”

“That’s not—” Chuuya stopped. The edge of his voice came sawed-off despite himself. “You didn’t have to do that, y’know.”

Dazai’s chest tightened in a way he didn’t like.

“I know,” he said.

That was the problem.

They sat there like that for a while—Chuuya stretched out on the couch, Dazai on the floor, neither touching, both acutely aware of the space between them. Gusts of cold sea breeze blew through the room, visibly soothing the flush on Chuuya’s skin. Dazai’s brain kept offering him things to do: crack a crude joke, poke Chuuya’s ankle, complain about the decor in the apartment. He ignored all of them. For once, he stayed still.

Eventually, Chuuya shifted, restless, then stilled again with a frustrated huff. “You don’t have to stay, shitty Dazai.”

Dazai didn’t answer right away. He stared at the ceiling until the words lined up in his head into something that wouldn’t sound like a confession.

“I don’t know where else to go,” he said.

It was true, but not in the way it sounded.

Chuuya looked at him then—really looked. His expression softened, something careful and unreadable passing over his face.

“…Fine, then. You can stay,” he muttered, rolling his eyes.

Quiet didn’t fix anything.

Dazai had known that, abstractly. Quiet just removed the distractions that kept his brain from chewing on itself. He sat there on the floor with his head tipped back against the couch, staring at the underside of Chuuya’s arm, the seam of the couch cushion, the faint shadows on the ceiling that looked vaguely like blood cells if he squinted. The room breathed around him—slow, uneven, human.

And in the absence of noise, Dazai’s thoughts got louder.

You’re doing this wrong.

You always do this wrong.

You’re only here because you didn’t die last night.

He swallowed and forced himself to keep still.

Restless, Chuuya shifted on the couch again. His knee bent, foot brushing the edge of the cushion, close enough that Dazai could feel the movement through the fabric. Not touching. Almost. His attention snapped to it anyway, traitorous.

Dazai tried to parse Chuuya’s body language like a problem set. The lack of anger. The lack of insults. The way Chuuya hadn’t told him to leave again. The way he had said you can stay without it sounding like a favor or a challenge or a reluctant laying down of arms.

He’s tolerating you, Dazai thought. That’s good. Tolerating is neutral. Neutral is safe.

But then Chuuya’s fingers twitched, brushing the couch cushion in a vague, searching way, and Dazai’s brain immediately supplied a different narrative.

He wants something.

The thought made his chest tighten with something sharp and foolish.

Dazai hated wanting. Wanting implied a future where the wanting might not be met. A future Dazai didn’t want and was certain he’d never see. Wanting made him visible in ways that were inconvenient.

But he wanted anyway.

He shifted, then froze, because the movement felt too loud. He forced himself to breathe evenly, to stay where he was. He could feel the heat radiating off Chuuya now, soaking into his own coat through the thin fabric of the couch.

Chuuya let out a quiet sound—more a huff than a sigh—and rolled onto his stomach, cheek pressed into the couch. His hand slid down, fingers curling loosely over the edge.

Dazai stared at those fingers like they were a riddle.

That means something, his brain insisted.

Or it means nothing, another part of him argued. Stop making things up.

He had no idea which part to believe.

He glanced up at Chuuya’s face. Chuuya’s eyes were half-lidded now, unfocused, lashes casting shadows against his skin. He looked… young. Younger than usual. Stripped of the usual jagged sharpness that made him feel dangerous and untouchable.

Dazai felt an ache bloom low and slow in his chest.

Don’t, he told himself, uselessly.

He pushed himself up onto one elbow, then stopped, acutely aware that he was moving closer without permission. Chuuya didn’t react. Didn’t flinch. Didn’t snap at him.

That felt like permission, or at least the absence of refusal.

So Dazai made a decision.

It was a bad decision. He knew that even as he did it.

“Hey,” he said quietly.

Chuuya’s eyes cracked open. “What.”

Dazai hesitated. The words he’d prepared dissolved under scrutiny.

Say something normal, he told himself. Humans say normal things.

“Chuuya is… sweating,” Dazai said.

Chuuya stared at him. “…Okay?”

Dazai winced internally.

“I mean,” he went on, “the slug is obviously overheating still. Which is inefficient. He should—” He gestured vaguely at himself. “Take something off—me. I mean—um.”

Immediately, Dazai felt the flush rising high on his cheekbones. The words hadn’t come out in the way he had meant them to. They didn’t even make sense, the way he had ordered them.

Chuuya’s brow furrowed. “Dazai. What the hell are you saying. Why?”

Dazai’s mouth opened, then closed again. He hadn’t thought that far.

Because you look uncomfortable. Because I don’t know how to help. Because if I can solve a physical problem maybe the rest will go away. Because I keep wanting to touch you and I don’t know where that impulse is coming from.

None of those felt safe to say.

“So Chuuya will stop being miserable,” Dazai said instead, defaulting to insult as camouflage.

Chuuya snorted. “You’re one to talk.”

Dazai glanced down at himself, then back up. “I’m always miserable. It’s different.”

With a huff, Chuuya shifted again, pushing himself upright on one elbow. The movement made Dazai’s breath hitch despite himself.

Chuuya squinted at him, assessing. “Are you… offering me your coat?”

Dazai blinked. “…Yes?”

It came out like a question because it was.

Chuuya stared at the coat draped around Dazai’s shoulders—too big for him, worn soft with use. Then he looked back at Dazai’s face.

“You’re wearing it,” Chuuya said slowly.

Dazai nodded. “Correct.”

“And I’m hot.”

“Yes.”

“So why would I want your coat.”

Dazai’s brain blue-screened.

He stared at Chuuya, processing. He’d imagined the gesture differently—Chuuya shivering, maybe, leaning into the warmth like it was obvious. He hadn’t considered the part where Chuuya had sensory awareness of his own bodily needs, all things which Dazai himself did not possess.

“Oh,” Dazai said. “Right.”

Chuuya’s mouth twitched, confused more than amused. “What are you trying to do.”

Heat creeping up his neck, Dazai looked away. He shrugged one shoulder in a way that was meant to look careless and failed.

“I… thought it might… help,” he said, unhelpfully.

Chuuya watched him for a long moment. Then something in his expression softened, curiosity edging out irritation. “…You’re really bad at this,” he said again, less steel this time, more flint.

Dazai nodded. “I know.”

Silence settled again, but it felt different now—charged, awkward, full of unspoken misfires. Chuuya shifted closer to the edge of the couch without seeming to realize he was doing it; his knee bumped Dazai’s shoulder lightly, and Dazai froze.

He waited for Chuuya to pull away. He didn’t.

Dazai’s heart started doing something inconvenient. He tilted his head just enough to look at Chuuya from below. The proximity made his chest feel tight. He was suddenly aware of how close they were—how easily he could lean forward and touch Chuuya’s knee, how easily that could go wrong, and then go wrong again.

Don’t, he told himself for the second time.

Chuuya noticed his stillness. “Hey, brat. You okay?”

The question caught Dazai completely off guard.

It shouldn’t have. It was a simple thing. But Chuuya didn’t usually ask him that—not without a knife hidden in the words.

Dazai opened his mouth and almost said no. Almost said I don’t know. Almost said I don’t understand what I’m supposed to be doing when someone looks like that.

Instead, he said, “Chuuya didn’t answer my question.”

Chuuya frowned. “You didn’t ask one.”

“I did.” Dazai gestured vaguely. “Earlier.”

Chuuya thought for a second, then grimaced. “About what would help.”

“Yeah.”

Rubbing his face, Chuuya sighed. “I told you. Quieter. Not… whatever you usually do.”

Dazai nodded, then frowned. He gestured around the room. “This is quiet.”

Chuuya looked around too, as if seeing it for the first time. The dim light. The still air. Dazai on the floor at his feet, inexplicably earnest, too much like a loyal dog.

“…Yeah,” Chuuya admitted. “It is.”

Dazai’s chest warmed at the confirmation, fragile and stupid.

“So I’m helping,” he said.

Chuuya snorted, which did something funny to Dazai’s insides. “Don’t push it.”

Dazai smiled faintly, then let it fade. He leaned his head back against the couch again, eyes on the ceiling. The emptiness crept back in, slow and familiar.

He wondered, not for the first time, why he was like this—why he could plan assassinations and manipulate adults three times his age, but couldn’t figure out how to sit next to someone his own age, someone he hated, without overthinking it into oblivion.

You’re pretending to be human, the emptiness whispered. And you’re bad at it.

Chuuya shifted again, then suddenly reached down—hesitant, awkward—and tugged at the edge of Dazai’s sleeve.

Startled, Dazai’s head snapped up.

Chuuya looked almost embarrassed. “Your coat,” he muttered. “It’s… heavy.”

Dazai blinked, then carefully shrugged out of it and handed it up. His fingers brushed Chuuya’s for half a second—accidental, electric.

Chuuya draped the coat over himself without putting his arms through, just letting it settle over his shoulders like a blanket. He let out a small, surprised sound.

“…Huh,” Chuuya said. “Well. That’s not bad.”

Dazai stared.

That hadn’t been what he meant. That hadn’t been the plan at all.

“Oh,” Dazai said faintly.

Chuuya glanced at him, then paused, really looking this time—at Dazai’s expression, stripped bare by surprise. For a second, Chuuya’s eyes widened slightly. Then he laughed. Soft, short, disbelieving.

“…You weren’t doing that on purpose,” Chuuya said.

Dazai swallowed. “No.”

Chuuya shook his head, a fond, baffled sound in his throat. “You’re unbelievable.” He settled back against the couch, coat still draped around him, eyes closing again. His breathing eased, just a fraction.

Coatless and stunned, Dazai sat there, heart hammering. He didn’t understand what had just happened. He only knew that Chuuya looked more comfortable, and that somehow—despite all his wrong assumptions and misfires—Dazai had helped anyway.

That scared him more than getting it wrong ever had.

Dazai sat very still.

He’d given up his coat, which meant he’d given up the excuse of warmth as a reason to stay close. Now he was just… there. On the floor. Looking up at Chuuya like some kind of idiot.

Chuuya lay back against the couch with Dazai’s coat draped over his shoulders, eyes closed, jaw finally unclenched. His breathing had evened out—not steady, exactly, but less jagged. Less like he was bracing for something. Dazai watched the rise and fall of his chest and felt something uncomfortably soft bloom behind his ribs.

He’s not mad anymore, Dazai thought. You did that.

The thought didn’t bring satisfaction. It brought a sudden, dizzy panic, like he’d stepped onto a bridge without checking whether it was real.

Chuuya cracked one eye open. “Oi. Dazai. Why are you staring at me like that.”

Dazai flinched. “I’m not.”

“You are.”

Immediately Dazai looked away, cheeks warming. “I was… monitoring.”

Chuuya snorted. “Creepy.”

Dazai accepted that. It was accurate.

The quiet stretched again, but this time it didn’t feel like it was going to swallow him whole. Dazai let his head fall back against the couch cushion again, eyes half-lidded, the ceiling blurring. He could feel the emptiness prowling at the edges of his thoughts, restless now that the distraction of crisis had passed.

Now what, it whispered.

Dazai didn’t know.

Chuuya shifted under the coat, tugging it higher around his shoulders. The fabric smelled faintly like smoke and gunpowder and something else Dazai couldn’t name without feeling stupid.

“…Chuuya can keep it until he’s not… hot. Or cold. Or—or whatever he is,” Dazai said suddenly, half-tripping over the words.

Chuuya blinked. “What.”

“The coat,” Dazai clarified, too fast. “I don’t need it right now.”

Chuuya stared at him. “You’re gonna freeze eventually.”

“I don’t get cold,” Dazai lied.

Chuuya rolled his eyes. “You eat, like, once a damn month. You absolutely do.”

Dazai shrugged, then hesitated, the emptiness pushing words out of him before he could stop them.

“I’m used to it.”

The sentence dropped into the room and just… sat there.

Chuuya didn’t immediately snap back. He watched Dazai for a second, something thoughtful creasing his brow. “…You don’t have to be,” he said.

Dazai’s heart stuttered. He turned his head just enough to look at Chuuya. “What does that mean?”

Again Chuuya shifted, the coat slipping slightly. He adjusted it, then seemed to realize what he was doing and stopped, fingers curling awkwardly into the fabric. “I mean,” Chuuya said, voice rough, “you don’t have to be used to it. Being cold. Or whatever.”

Dazai’s mouth opened, reflexively ready with a joke. None came. He stared at Chuuya like he was speaking nonsense.

“That’s… how it works,” Dazai said carefully. “You get used to things.”

Chuuya frowned. “That doesn’t mean you should.”

Dazai felt something pull tight inside him, like a string drawn too far. He looked away again, because holding Chuuya’s gaze felt dangerous.

“That’s very noble of my loyal dog,” Dazai said lightly. “But impractical.”

Chuuya’s mouth twisted. “You’re deflecting.”

Dazai blinked. “…Am I?”

“Yes.”

The certainty in Chuuya’s voice caught him off guard. Dazai laughed, short and brittle. “Wow. Look at Chuuya. All perceptive.”

Chuuya didn’t rise to the bait. He watched Dazai with an expression that was… less irked than usual. Less razor-sharp around the edges. “You’re not as annoying when you’re not doing that loud thing,” Chuuya said.

Dazai’s chest did a small, painful flip. “That’s a low bar,” he said.

Chuuya shrugged. “Still.”

The room settled once more, and Dazai felt the urge to fill the silence claw at him, but he resisted. He focused on the mundane details instead—the faint hum of the building, the distant sound of the elevator, the way the coat bunched around Chuuya’s shoulders.

Absently, Chuuya reached up and tugged the coat collar closer to his throat. The movement was unconscious, seeking warmth, comfort.

Dazai’s fingers twitched.

Don’t, he told himself, for what felt like the hundredth time.

Chuuya noticed the movement anyway.

“…You can… sit up here, you know,” Chuuya said, but even he didn’t sound sure of it as the words left his mouth.

For not the first time and likely not the last, Dazai froze, caught off guard. “What.”

Vaguely, Chuuya gestured at the couch. “If the floor’s uncomfortable. Not that you’re not used to your, uh… shipping container.”

Dazai stared at the couch like it had personally betrayed him. “That’s… okay,” he said, entirely out of his element. “I’m fine.”

Chuuya squinted at him. “You look like a kicked puppy, y’know.”

Automatically, Dazai bristled. “I do not.”

“You do.”

Dazai opened his mouth to argue, then stopped. The emptiness surged, thick and cold. “I just don’t want to… do it wrong,” he admitted quietly, then hated himself for admitting anything at all.

Chuuya blinked. The admission hung between them, fragile and exposed. Dazai’s throat felt tight, like he’d said something irreversible.

“…Do what wrong,” Chuuya asked.

Hesitating, Dazai gestured helplessly between them. “This. Being a person. Not being… useless.”

Chuuya stared at him for a long moment. Then he let out a slow breath.

“Dazai,” Chuuya said, not sharply, not teasingly. Just his name. “You’re not useless.”

Dazai laughed, reflexive and empty. “That’s objectively false.”

Chuuya scowled. “No, it’s not.”

“Yes, it is.”

Shifting, Chuuya propped himself up on one elbow again despite his exhaustion. He looked more alert now, irritation sparking—not the explosive kind, but the stubborn, grounded kind.

“You came over,” Chuuya said. “You got the fan turned off. You stayed quiet. You gave me your coat.”

Dazai shrugged. “Those are… things.”

“Those are—goddamnit, I can’t believe I’m saying this—those are helpful things,” Chuuya insisted.

Dazai stared at him, genuinely confused. “I didn’t even know what I was doing.”

Chuuya snorted. “Yeah. That tracks.”

Despite himself, Dazai’s mouth twitched, and Chuuya’s expression softened again. He leaned back, eyes closing.

“…You don’t have to know what you’re doing all the time,” Chuuya said. “You don’t have to be good at everything.”

Dazai swallowed. “I do,” he said, very quietly. “If I’m not good at something, there’s no point.”

Chuuya’s eyes opened again, sharp despite the fatigue. “That’s bullshit.”

Dazai flinched.

Chuuya reached down then, awkward and hesitant, and tapped Dazai’s shoulder with two fingers. It was barely a touch. More a punctuation mark than a gesture. “Being less of a nuisance is enough,” Chuuya said. “You’re doing that.”

Heart hammering, Dazai stared at the place where Chuuya’s fingers had touched him. He didn’t know how to respond to that. There wasn’t a script for it. So he did the only thing he could think to do.

“…Okay,” he said.

Chuuya huffed. “Wow. Look at you. Agreeing.”

Dazai managed a weak smile. “Don’t get used to it, slug.”

Softly, Chuuya snorted, then let his eyes drift shut again. The coat settled more firmly around his shoulders as his breathing slowed. Dazai sat there, close enough that he could feel the slight warmth coming off him, not feverish and restless anymore but soothed, and let the quiet stretch without trying to kill it.

He still felt empty. He still felt wrong, like a puzzle piece jammed into the wrong box. But for the moment, he was here. And Chuuya hadn’t pushed him away.

Dazai decided—recklessly, stupidly—to count that as a win.

Before Dazai even realized it was happening, Chuuya drifted. There was no dramatic shift, no clear line between awake and asleep—just the slow loosening of his body, the way his fingers uncurled from the edge of the couch, the way his breathing fell into a deeper rhythm. His brow smoothed, the tension that had lived there all evening finally easing. Dazai noticed because he always noticed when people stopped bracing.

Usually so he could know when to strike.

This time, he stayed very still, like the smallest movement might wake the feral thing beside him. The room had gone fully quiet now, the kind of quiet that pressed against his ears. His coat rose and fell with Chuuya’s chest, soft and familiar in a way that made Dazai’s stomach twist.

Don’t overthink it, he told himself.

He overthought it anyway.

If you leave now, it’ll be cleaner.

If you stay, you’ll find some way to ruin it.

You always ruin it.

Dazai shifted his weight slightly, adjusting how he sat against the couch. The movement made a faint sound—fabric brushing fabric. Dazai froze as Chuuya stirred, a soft sound in his throat. His hand slid down the cushion in a sleepy, uncoordinated motion until it bumped into Dazai’s shoulder.

Dazai’s breath caught.

For a second, Chuuya’s fingers flexed there, as if confused by the texture. Then, without waking, his hand settled—heavy and warm—against Dazai’s shoulder, thumb hooked lightly into the seam of his shirt like it had found an anchor by accident.

Dazai didn’t dare to move. His heart slammed against his ribs, loud enough that he was convinced it would wake Chuuya. He stared straight ahead, spine rigid, every instinct screaming at him to pull away before this turned into something he couldn’t pretend he didn’t want.

With an exhale, Chuuya murmured something unintelligible, the sound rough but not distressed. His grip tightened just a fraction, possessive without meaning to be, and Dazai swallowed.

He doesn’t know what he’s doing, Dazai reminded himself, and then, immediately, Neither do you.

Carefully, slowly—like disarming a bomb—Dazai lifted his hand and placed it over Chuuya’s wrist. Not holding. Just there. A weight acknowledging another weight.

Chuuya didn’t wake.

The contact grounded something in Dazai that had been floating loose all day. It didn’t fix. Didn’t heal. It just… momentarily contained.

Dazai let his head tip back against the couch again and stared at the ceiling. He still didn’t know how to be human. He still felt like he was wearing the wrong skin, playing a role he’d never rehearsed properly. But right now, Chuuya’s hand was warm on his shoulder, his coat was draped around Chuuya like proof of something unspoken, and the world had narrowed to a shape Dazai could sit inside without breaking.

He didn’t smile.

He didn’t frown.

He just stayed still.