Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Say something.”

“What am I supposed to say?” Leaning back, Chuuya carelessly tosses the folder onto the desk. It lands with a harsh slap. “You went ahead and joined the damn enemy. Congratulations. Good job.”

The way Dazai raises his brow oozes with an unmistakable sense of cynicism. It’s provoking, and it is goddamn infuriating. “You need an inside man. I gave you one.”

“I never said that I want you to be that inside man,” Chuuya snaps back. “And you know that.”

“We also both know that I’m the best choice. They can’t hurt me. You don’t have to sacrifice anyone else. It’s optimal.”

“That’s not the point!”

“What is the point?”

Chuuya jumps to his feet, slamming his fists down on the desk. “It’s you, making this choice by yourself. Again.” He has to pause to inhale through his nose. Dazai’s face doesn’t twitch, denying him a single inch. “You should have told me.”

“The window was small. I saw an opportunity and I took it because I knew that you would be reasonable and see that it’s a good thing once I explain it to you — which I did right after.”

“Don’t do that. Don’t act like I’m being unreasonable just ‘cause you can’t admit that you’re wrong.”

“Am I logically the best choice?”

“That’s not —“

“Am I logically the best choice or not?”

“Yes. Yes, you are. That doesn’t fucking change anything!”

“It does! It changes everything because you’re not angry that I joined them —“ Dazai scrunches up his face, then releases it as though he is dealing with a fucking toddler who is too irrational to follow his logic. “You’re a good boss, Chuuya; you would have sent me yourself. You’re angry because you’re so upset. Because you hate making this choice and I get it, I do.” Dazai steps closer. Lowers his hand on top of Chuuya’s without breaking the searing eye contact. “So you don’t have to. I’m making it for you, and all you have to do is let me.”

This fucking bastard…

His audacity is so brazen that Chuuya can’t help but laugh, the red in his veins turning to black when he snatches his arm from Dazai and kicks his whole desk, with all its contents, away from him. It only passes through Dazai but it does wipe that smug confidence off his stupid face, if only for a fleeting moment.

“You’re right,” he shouts, spreading his arms. “I am angry that sending your bitch ass anywhere still gets me so fucking worked up. Do you know why? Because you’re dead, Dazai. You’re a dead man that is nothing but a ghost and as much as you love to pretend that it doesn’t fucking affect you that you can’t taste or smell anything and that it makes you feel even less human than before, I know a liar when I fucking see one.” He is close enough now to stab a finger into Dazai’s ghostly chest. “I’m fucking angry because the last time you made that kind of choice for me, you jumped off this damn building.” His lips spiral into a sardonic sneer. “Forgive me for being upset.”

It always comes down to one of these two things: the fact that Dazai roped Chuuya into being the boss only to sit back and watch the spectacle unfold, and the fact that Dazai died. Usually, it’s a combination of both.

This time, it’s that Dazai went ahead to join Takasekai, the organization that has been causing the Port Mafia a lot of grief lately without telling Chuuya first.

Dazai looks back at him for several breaths that vibrate with restless irritation before he ever so softly grasps Chuuya’s rigid fist. “I can’t die twice. It’s not the same.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I’m a ghost. What could possibly happen to me?”

“Takasekai is in possession of technology that we’ve never even seen before. You don’t know what they can and can’t do. Don’t you think they know about people like you when we’ve been dealing with ghosts and conscious abilities for over two years now?”

“I’m clever,” Dazai says like he really needs the damn reminder.

“I’m aware of that,” Chuuya mutters, pulling his fingers away, pulling himself away. “You think you’re so damn smart that you’re invincible when you’re not.”

Worse even, Dazai knows that he isn’t invincible but sometimes he pretends that he doesn’t just to feel the thrill of being at risk. Of being human.

Chuuya scrubs a hand over his face. Pushes out a sigh. But the tension sits too deep in his bones to be expelled so easily. “I don’t want to suffocate you,” he admits.

He has been needy. Dazai has been back for more than two years now and Chuuya still wakes up in the middle of the night, convinced that that time has been nothing but a drug-induced delusion. Sure, Dazai reassures him that he understands, every single time, but even he doesn’t have the patience of a saint. He must be as sick of Chuuya as Chuuya is sick of himself.

But he stops caring about dignity and pride the moment Dazai’s actual safety is in question.

“You’re not,” Dazai’s faster to tell him as though the assumption is offensive. “You’re not suffocating me.”

“Really?” Chuuya spins back to him with a scoff. “‘cause you seem awfully eager to go undercover for several weeks or months. That’s a long fucking time, Dazai.”

“I will be here every night. Or day. Whenever I can. I’m not doing this to get away from you; I’m doing this…“

Chuuya shakes his head. “Doing this for what?”

“You have to deal with those people because I made you the boss. The least I can do is help you get rid of them.”

“I didn’t ask you to.”

“I know.”

“So don’t do it.” Except that Chuuya’s voice takes on a helpless edge of frustration because he knows — god, he knows that there isn’t anything that would satisfy him completely. No matter what choice Dazai makes, whether he goes against Chuuya’s orders or listens to them, Chuuya always ends up feeling like an incompetent child with a pacifier.

It’s this place. The Port Mafia. The choices it demands them to make. They can try as hard as they can to bend the rules to their will and make it more tolerable, but you can’t turn night into dusk when it’s not time yet. It’s impossible. Running a criminal syndicate and being a functioning human being are two things that cannot exist at the same time.

These days, Chuuya’s mood only ever comes in extremes; either he is on top of the world, filled with an ecstasy that not even the drug can rival, or he is at the bottom of the barrel, letting Dazai drag him around like a feral dog that’s too starved to bark anymore. This is no different. Either he is crawling into Dazai’s skin because he can’t stomach the love that he has for him, or his hands are around Dazai’s throat, shaking him until his anger evaporates into a sickening numbness that settles over the whole world.

Dazai can listen to him or not, it won’t change a thing because the only thing that could is an unyielding rod in the past.

“Come here,” Dazai says then and opens his arms in invitation, but Chuuya takes a step back instead. He is too wound up to accept anything tender right now. He needs Dazai to reach inside his chest and claw his heart out. He needs to scream. He needs a release, not this shit.

Perhaps that is exactly why Dazai ignores his low noise of protest and drags him against his chest anyway. Chuuya can squirm and push and fight; give that corrosive energy an outlet.

“Get away from me.” Dazai’s clutch around him tightens in response. “You piece of shit, I said —“ Chuuya shoves him away, hard, making him stumble, but only a little, not enough. “I said get away from me. God. I hate you.”

“You don’t,” Dazai says, eyes bright with provocation.

“I do,” Chuuya retorts and pushes him again. Harder.

“You love me.”

“I can do both.”

“You love me too much. That’s your problem.” Dazai summons the most gloating grin in his repertoire onto his face. “You don’t hate me. Not one bit.”

“Because you know me so much better than I know myself, yeah?”

“Yes.”

Chuuya grits his teeth as he takes one more step toward the bastard. He has to lift his face to glare at him and that makes it so much more aggravating, especially when Dazai’s amusement only swells with each heated beat of silence. “You don’t.”

“I do. I see all of you, even the parts that you don’t want to admit to yourself.”

Chuuya takes one more shuddering breath, then he reaches back with his fist and aims for Dazai’s marbled smirk, hoping to shatter it. Let him see this coming.

To his utter dismay, Dazai does see it coming, side-stepping him like it’s a dance and he is merely following their choreography. But the thing about partnerships is that it’s a two-man job; Chuuya knows him just as intimately.

Dazai can only evade his strikes for so long. The moment Chuuya predicts another feint from him, he grabs the momentum with fangs and claws and sends Dazai flying across the room with a kick to his stomach before throwing himself at him, too. Chuuya’s fingers curl in the collar of his shirt, tight as rope. His anger begs for release. And Dazai smiles up at him like he is the one who won.

“I hate you,” Chuuya hisses, only for his expression to crack a second later. “Hate me back.”

Dazai’s hand is bruisingly kind when it grasps his fist. “Will that make you feel better?”

“Yes.” Chuuya’s mouth twists around the truth. It will only feel good for a thrilling heartbeat before he remembers that it would be another appeasement, that Dazai would hate him because Chuuya asked him to. Just like he is still here because of Chuuya. All Dazai does is nurse Chuuya’s wounds and it fulfills him as much as it breaks him. “No. I don’t know what can make me feel better.”

Dazai makes a soft sound of understanding as he threads his fingers through Chuuya’s hair before twisting them into a merciless fist and yanking him down into a kiss.

His mouth on him is hard and demanding, denying him any chance of oxygen until Chuuya’s thoughts spin in circles in his head and finally, finally the tension starts to bleed into heady compliance. Somehow, they end up on their feet, bodies still intertwined. Their surroundings move but all Chuuya feels, all he hears and smells and tastes, is Dazai.

Then there are arms sliding around his waist, picking him up and they’re so patient that Chuuya bites Dazai’s lip, drawing blood, denying his kindness. Maybe they know each other so well that Chuuya anticipates Dazai retaliating by pushing him down on the coffee table because he makes the two of them heavier even before the fall. Heavy enough to shatter the glass when his body comes down on it.

Chuuya gasps against Dazai’s mouth as a hundred tiny shards of sharp glass pierce his skin. He doesn’t allow Dazai to pull him out of the carnage. Doesn’t allow him to pull away at all even, not until Chuuya’s coming around him, matching sensations of burning pain and release pulsing through him in waves.

***

“I love you,” Dazai says later in the bathroom, picking the fragments out of his body as Chuuya sits naked on the edge of the bathtub, “but sometimes I wonder if that’s enough.”

Chuuya exhales a worn-out sigh. “What else is there?”

“Ownership.”

“Fuck you. Calling me your dog has gotten old a long time ago.”

Dazai’s silence stings more than the glass eating its way through his flesh. Every nerve ending in Chuuya’s body strains against this accusation. He is his own fucking person. He doesn’t need anybody to contain himself. Except that Dazai died and Chuuya practically ran to follow him. Except it’s not that easy either. Dazai died after leaving him this empire of blood to run, after forcing him to love him, and worst of all, after forcing Chuuya to need him like a pair of lungs first.

So he can’t deny it. Not without lying. And he is so sick of lying.

“You love controlling everything else,” he says, the words coming out as a confused laugh.

“Not you.”

“Why not?”

“I’m used to it. It’s a hard habit to unlearn. That doesn’t make me love doing it, especially to you.”

No matter what Dazai does, no matter what he says, it will never hold the perfect solution to the problem that possesses Chuuya. As long as they are here, they will have this fight over and over in a thousand different variations.

The thought is draining, weighing him down until he has to lean his forehead against Dazai’s torso. It’s so still. Somewhere on the floor, he hears the relentless buzzing of his phone. “I’m tired.”

On the few rare occasions, he confessed to this in the past, Dazai’s answer was always, “So let’s leave.”

Chuuya never accepted that offer. The opposite. He got angry and that led to another fight and eventually, Dazai learned that it was not the right thing to say, even if it is the reasonable thing to suggest. The Port Mafia is not a place for very reasonable people, though.

Instead, Dazai runs his fingers through his hair and cups the back of his neck. “Six more months.”

“How much punishment is enough?” Dazai asked him the first time Chuuya refused to leave this job he hates so feverishly, and back then, Chuuya didn’t have an answer, he only had the desperate need to give back everything he had taken.

Over time, he realized that he had known the answer to this question all along.

Three years.

Now only six months.

That’s the price for the blood on his hands from the Sheep, from the civilians that died when he annihilated the Bishop’s Staff, and for every other Port Mafia member that he will inevitably send to their death in the future.

Three years in hell with Dazai by his side and then…

Then he can figure out what to do with the remnants of his soul.

“I love you, too,” Chuuya tells him as Dazai’s thumb strokes up and down over his pulse point. “It’s enough.”

Dazai’s finger stills. “Not always.”

And he is right. Sometimes love feels too generous when all he needs is to be contained. But at the end of the day, even having this tired argument is a privilege, so —

“It’s enough even when it isn’t.”

Eventually, once he’s wrapped up in bandages and back in his office, Chuuya has no more excuses to ignore the persistent buzzing of his phone. The hundred different variations of SOS make him scowl. “Hey, can you turn on the TV?”

Dazai’s brows furrow ever so slightly but he grabs the remote without asking any further questions.

The screen shows an aerial view of sand dunes that are hauntingly familiar.

“— in Tottori, where the city is in a state of alarm and disbelief as a mysterious rift has appeared out of nowhere. What you see behind me has left experts struggling for answers, wondering whether this is yet another terrorist attack or the result of an experiment gone wrong.”

Chuuya blinks as the footage cuts to a man in a lab coat, gesticulating wildly while speaking. “This is unlike anything we’ve ever seen before. The rift’s energy signatures a disruption in the fabric of reality itself. We fear this isn’t merely a simple anomaly. It’s showing signs of exponential growth, which could lead to catastrophic consequences such as disruptions in space, time, and the very laws of nature.”

The reporter from before comes back on the screen. “Local authorities have been quick to establish evacuation protocols as the rift’s surroundings grow increasingly unstable. Reports of unexplained phenomena are flooding in, from sudden temperature changes to bizarre fluctuations in gravity. It’s a race against —“

“What the hell,” Chuuya mutters.

“That’s not hell. That’s the Book.”

His gaze snaps to Dazai.

Dazai meets his eyes with an unnervingly calm demeanor, almost as if he had been waiting for this to happen. “It started in the Tottori sand dunes. With the way things have been going this was bound to happen eventually.”

Dostoevsky is dead and as far as they are aware, he never publicized his knowledge regarding the Book. Technically, that only leaves the two of them, but the reality is never as simple as that. The group they have been dealing with lately, Takasekai, has been after the Book, too. So have others. It’s not impossible that others out there may be aware of the truth behind it.

“So this is what happens when too many people find out?” Transfixed, Chuuya stares at the TV screen. A numbness slowly eats its way down the length of his spine; a numbness that doesn’t come from broken glass.

Dazai touches his waist. Then his face, coaxing him back into his body of flesh and bones until Chuuya blinks and looks back at him. Dazai’s eyes are narrowed. He can tell. He can always tell.

“What are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking that it’s some kind of fucked up singularity,” Chuuya says slowly, “right?”

The gears in Dazai’s mind turn. Chuuya sees the second he follows his train of thought. Frankly, he is surprised Dazai didn’t think of it sooner — maybe because he didn’t want to think of it sooner.

Chuuya takes a breath. Then he lets it out. “I’m thinking that only a singularity can stop another one.”

“Corruption,” Dazai guesses a moment later. “You want to close the rift with the help of a black hole.”

A nod.

Chuuya waits for his reaction, the refusal, the anger — anything, really, but Dazai’s expression remains terribly still. Somehow, that’s worse.

“Good thing we have several doses of the drug left, hm?”

Taking the drug that gives him control over corruption — the ones the laboratory forced into him, and the ones that Verlaine used to depend on back in the day — isn’t something he ever wished to do again. What he wants and what he needs to do are two different things, though. It only took a few months of leading the Port Mafia before Chuuya ordered Dazai to unearth the location of the drug — anyone who knew how to make it — and bring it to him. Just in case Chuuya would ever need it again. A safety precaution.

Well, that day has come.

“Yeah, good thing,” Chuuya says, too aware of what the prospect of taking the drug again entails to feel any relief over it. According to Dazai, he barely made it through the withdrawal last time. He is not sure whether he will manage that again. That is if he even survives going against a damn rift in the universe. The odds are stacked against him.

Yet what other choice is there?

Accept defeat? Sit back and let the world implode without even trying to do anything? That’s not an option.

Rationally, Chuuya knows he’s doing the right thing, but seeing Dazai accept his decision in stoic silence — he can’t help but feel like that day has come back to haunt them. Dazai died to avoid this. He jumped off a 33-story building to stop the universe from crumbling in on itself. And here they are again, trapped in a vicious cycle of repeating the same mistakes over and over.

Chuuya turns away to summon his people into the office. Keeping Dazai from all of the Flags was an almost possible feat, so eventually, one by one, they learned of his secret, which is why Dazai stays glued to the back of the couch, arms crossed and filling the room with negative energy, even as people begin to trickle in.

“What the hell happened here?” Albatross asks, surveying the shattered coffee table and the ruins of his desk.

“I believe this is what they call a lover’s spat,” Lippmann murmurs under his breath despite the grim expression on his face.

“Nothing happened. Just… a minor disagreement. Whatever.” He doesn’t pay much attention to either of them as he waits for Piano Man to join the discussion. He is the only other person who is as intimately familiar with the web of power that spans across the Port Mafia as Chuuya and Dazai, maybe even more so after leading the intelligence department for so long.

It came as a surprise to Chuuya, though it shouldn’t have, to hear that Piano Man was interested in the position that will open up once his three years expire. It makes sense. Piano Man rose through the ranks quickly but not too quickly to suspect any foul play. He has friends in high places, Chuuya being one of them. He has an entire network of spies and valuable connections. He possesses secrets that are more expensive than red diamonds. And unlike Kouyou, he doesn’t mind coming out of the shadows to lead.

Well, it makes sense now. Chuuya was skeptical at first, worried that Piano Man was only doing it for him or that Dazai had secretly encouraged him to take the job — wouldn’t be the first time, after all. The more he observed Piano Man work, the clearer the picture became though.

Once the six months are up, he will make a fine boss, Chuuya thinks as Piano Man lays out the situation, which is as, if not even more, dire as the TV report. Whatever that drift is, it’s expanding rapidly. Experts believe that they have a day, at best, before the size of that thing causes irreversible damage to —

To, well, everything.

Chuuya listens, nods when it’s necessary, thanks Piano Man for his work, and then he takes a breath and raises his ass off his desk to lay out his solution instead. They get access to the location from the authorities, Chuuya takes the drugs, and Chuuya closes that thing with the help of a black hole. Short and simple.

The silence in the office once he is finished isn’t very inspiring. But Chuuya expected that.

“Are you sure about this?” Piano Man asks, arms crossed tightly over his chest.

Chuuya’s gaze slides to the side where Dazai is leaning against the couch. He expects Dazai to deny him and blinks when Dazai meets his eyes and nods, the bob of his head so small yet tremendously meaningful.

“I’m sure.”

***

It takes only three hours to arrange a flight, come to an agreement with various government agencies, and say his goodbyes. Then Chuuya is sitting on a PM jet en route to Tottori, trying to work out whether Dazai’s unbroken silence is a punishment, a coping mechanism, or something else. He stood by Chuuya earlier. It wasn’t even a question of whether he would come along now. But he did all of it quietly, so fucking quietly, and Chuuya’s endurance only lasts for so long.

“You’ve been quiet.”

The look that Dazai slides his way makes every muscle in his body tense in alert.

“You don’t like it. Say it,” Chuuya demands. If Dazai has the gall to disagree with the plan after what he put Chuuya through, he should have the guts to admit it.

“I don’t like it,” Dazai says but his tone isn’t hard or even accusatory. Just muted. “Happy?”

Chuuya’s anger evaporates, leaving him numb and deflated instead. “No. No, I’m not happy, but you know why I’m doing it, right? I have to.”

“You think you have to.”

“I don’t just think. This isn’t something that scientists can fix because it’s not science. It’s the Book and it’s fucked up logic. I have to do it. It’s the only way.”

Dazai lets him speak, he listens, yet the understanding that Chuuya sees in his eyes doesn’t translate into his words. “Verlaine could have been another way.”

“No. That’s not —“ Chuuya shakes his head, feeling the veins under his skin twitch in agitation. “Verlaine already gave too much. He retired.”

Dazai’s logic rarely is wrong but it is now. Asking someone to give up the life that they built for a shot at saving this wretched world is so unreasonable that it doesn’t count as a choice.

“In six months, you’d have retired, too,” Dazai tells him and his mouth twists into a wounded smile that splits him down in the middle. “Six months, Chuuya. That’s all you have left. And I know that you think that you have to do it. I also know that even if we had a thousand different options, you’d still do it because that’s what you do. You feel like you need to make this colossal self-sacrifice so you can finally forgive yourself for the things you’ve done. I understand. I do. And I hate you for it as much as I love you for it, so yes, I’ve been quiet.” He parts his lips, then closes them helplessly again as though Dazai Osamu, the man with the silver tongue, has truly run out of things to utter. “I don’t know what to say.”

Chuuya’s vision flickers. He swallows, his throat paper-dry, before meeting Dazai’s eyes again except this time he isn’t giving him an order but begging him for absolution. “You always know what to say.”

He needs to hear that he is doing the right thing, that it will be okay, that this is just another day in their lives and not the end because if it is the end, Chuuya would prefer to die knowing that someone had faith in him than knowing that the one person who matters most resented him in their final moments.

Something in Dazai shifts. Not the muted resignation — no, that is as glaring as ever, even when he lifts his hands to Chuuya’s face — but one last declaration of priorities. “I believe in you. You’re the strongest person I know — and I don’t mean just physically. If anyone can fight a tear in the universe and come back a victor, it’s you.” Dazai nods without releasing his gaze, so slowly and thoroughly it’s as though he intends to sear his speech into his bones. “I believe in you, Nakahara Chuuya.”

Chuuya mirrors him, bobs his head, and forces himself to breathe. It’s what he asked Dazai to do. It’s what he needs. He holds out right up until the moment Dazai presses his lips to his and then it hits him. What Dazai was looking for so desperately the day Dostoevsky summoned him to the roof. What Chuuya denied him. It doesn’t matter who was right and who was wrong. That was never the point. It’s this —

This final gesture of comfort and reassurance.

The realization rattles him, makes him grasp at Dazai and bury his salt-slick face in his shoulder. “I’m sorry if I — the vineyard —“

“Don’t be,” Dazai cuts in mercifully, smoothing his thumbs down his cheeks, wet with salt. “We’ve had time, you and I, and it wasn’t always perfect but it was enough, right? That’s what you said?”

Chuuya gives him a thousand tiny nods because, yes, yes, even misery can feel like hysterical joy when he shares it with Dazai.

“Five minutes, boss,” the pilot’s voice announces over the speakers.

Chuuya glances up, then back at Dazai. They’re approaching the site of the rift in Tottori and there won’t be a landing. Not for Chuuya. It’s time.

He rises to his feet, straightens his spine, and watches Dazai open the exit door of the plane in a daze. Not even the cold rush that sweeps through the cabin and sends his hair cascading behind him is enough to drag him out of the muted trance he has fallen into. Not until Dazai cups his cheek and makes him look at him.

“If this is where you die, I’m ready to die with you,” Dazai shouts at him over the noise, “but I don’t believe that it is. Our story will not end in a place like this. You and I are destined to have an epilogue, some sort of peaceful conclusion. Not this. That’s not a very satisfying finale!”

They’re standing at the edge of the world and Dazai is still going on about books and fate. It’s so absurd that Chuuya laughs, the sound instantly carried away by the wind. It feels right. He wouldn’t have it any other way. “I’m ready.”

He doesn’t glance down even though he knows what it is that Dazai takes out of his pocket. An injection. A goodbye. A confession. This day is filled with reminders of their past mistakes. But despite the similarities, the differences are louder.

This time, the kiss they share isn’t tainted by hurt and anger. This time, Chuuya anticipates the sting of the needle even if it doesn’t lessen the sickening twist of his stomach as the drug overruns his system. But most importantly, unlike Chuuya back then, Dazai believes in him.

He sees it in Dazai’s eyes, his devotion and faith in him crystal-clear, just like everything else all of a sudden. The heat of corruption pumps through his blood, igniting him piece by boiling piece. He knows what to do and how to do it. Knows that he is strong enough. Knows that nothing will stop him.

Then Chuuya backs away and takes the plunge.

***

In a certain graveyard in Yokohama, an abundance of crimson-red roses with thorns surround two certain gravestones.

One says, O. DAZAI and the other C. NAKAHARA.

Two names.

Two legacies.

Two graves.

The service is beautiful. A fascinating number of Port Mafia people are in attendance, paying their respect and giving Chuuya their last wishes. A priest chants sutras. People leave expensive bouquets of flowers, then huddle by huddle, they vanish until only a distinct set of faces remain.

Yuan glances up from the grave when Dazai comes out of the shadows, watching him kneel down to add a single lily of the valley to the rest. “So, what now?”

What now? A good question that is hard to answer.

“Life, I guess.”

“Life, he says,” Albatross parrots and claps him on the back as he sidles up to them. “Weren’t you the one going on and on about some kind of farm in the countryside?”

Dazai wrinkles his nose. “A vineyard, not a farm.”

“Sounds the same to me, cowboy.”

“It isn’t, darling,” Lippmann chimes in, glancing at Albatross like an exasperated teacher looks at their students before he catches Dazai’s eye. “Have you looked at the estates that I sent you? You’ll have to give me an answer soon if you want to get your hands on anything this season.”

There is a pile of papers withering away in the office with options for vineyards and lands. The reminder makes Dazai wince on the inside and rub the back of his head on the outside. Starting a life in a vineyard is much more romantic in theory, he can tell you that. The reality is a lot more tiresome.

“I need to talk to Chuuya first or he’ll kill me.”

“Speaking of, how is he?” Piano Man, the new Port Mafia boss, asks.

Dazai’s gaze flickers to the side where his empty coffin lies, then back to the group of people. “He’s sleeping it off.”

Shirase frowns. “He hasn’t woken up at all yet?”

No one answers.

“He will,” Dazai says with a sigh when the silence grows too unbearable. Chuuya will wake up. He always does.

***

Tucked away in a private room, in a private clinic on the edge of the city, Nakahara Chuuya sleeps.

Dazai sits by the side of his bed and watches the steady fall and rise of his chest.

Using corruption to close the rift didn’t kill him but it must have taken an inhuman amount of strength. Dazai found him passed out afterward. Chuuya didn’t die. He could have though. And as Dazai waited for Doc’s team to arrive, the perfect plan to make it out of the Port Mafia started to unravel in his mind. It was half a year too soon but what did that matter? They wouldn’t get another opportunity like this again.

So Dazai stole the Port Mafia boss, spirited him away somewhere safe and private, informed the Flags and Chuuya’s closest friends of the scheme, got their approval, and then watched it unfold. The news spread like wildfire. The funeral arrangements were made just as urgently. A new boss was appointed. An old one was buried. All in the span of four days.

And Chuuya’s still sleeping.

Dazai can’t blame him. His body, his mind, everything inside of him must be tired beyond reason. He deserves all the rest he can get. Dazai understands, and he believes. He knows that this isn’t the end yet but only the beginning.

Even as he takes Chuuya’s limp hand, cradles it against his face and doubts crawl up the length of his spine like spiders, he continues to believe.

Chuuya will wake up.

***

“Hey, dude. Hope you’re alright in there… wherever you are. I just wanted to say that I’m… I’m s— you know what? Fuck that. I’m not gonna apologize to you for anything. You enjoy your princess nap and we’ll talk once you wake up, alright? Alright. See ya soon, you cockroach.”

***

“Good morning, dear. I’m dropping by to let you know that if you don’t wake up soon, your ghost partner will end up purchasing the most dreadfully unsuitable property imaginable. You won’t like it all and that will compel me to embark on the pursuit once more — something I would rather avoid. So please be so kind as to return to the land of the living. Many thanks.”

***

“The Port Mafia’s doing fine. We took care of Takasekai thanks to the intel that you ordered a while ago. Thanks to you. I think we should drink to that sometime, you and I.”

***

“The pets are doing alright. Yuan and I have been looking after them ‘cause Dazai’s… well, Dazai’s here, waiting for you to come back, and that doesn’t leave him much time to take care of the pets. It’s concerning, to be honest. I’m concerned. I’ve got no idea what ghosts need to do to keep themselves alive but Dazai’s not getting enough of it. Alright, sorry, for all the bad news. That’s probably not very nice to hear when you can’t do anything about it, eh? I’m fine, tho’. Yuan’s… fine. She obviously misses you, and she left the Port Mafia now that you’re… y’know. So it’s rough, but we’re hanging in there. You hang in there too, buddy. I miss your stupid face.”

***

“You know, I actually started to believe that was it. That we had already gone through all the bad shit that someone could possibly go through — stupid, yeah, I know, but it just doesn’t seem fair. It’s not fair that you’re lying here in this bed while the world continues to turn — a world that is still turning only because of you. It’s not fair, and I just —

I refuse to accept that for you, so you wake up, Chuuya. Wake up. Just wake up. If not for yourself, do it for your fucking boyfriend before he vanishes out of existence because you weren’t there to keep him here. Wake up.”

***

It happens on a gloomy, gray afternoon. Dazai’s stretching Chuuya’s legs to keep his muscles at least somewhat active when a flash of movement catches his attention.

A tiny twitch in Chuuya’s fingers.

Dazai goes stock-still but keeps his expectations on a tight leash. He has seen Chuuya jerk a few times without anything changing. Doc says it’s normal.

Then Chuuya’s eyelids flutter, though, and Dazai knows it’s not just an insignificant shudder. It’s everything. It’s Chuuya waking up.

Gently letting go of his shin, Dazai moves to his side, running a careful hand through that bright hair. “It’s alright, sweetheart. You can come back now. Just follow the sound of my voice, yeah??”

Chuuya’s eyes slip open and shut several times before they flicker to Dazai, taking him in. He moves his mouth but only a soft rasp comes out. After another couple of attempts, he manages a weak, “Hey.”

“Hello,” Dazai whispers back, squeezing his hand between his fingers, a thousand urgent confessions rising to the surface. “There you are. You have no idea how happy I am to see you.”

Chuuya’s lips form a faint smile, and it’s so beautiful, so powerful that Dazai’s mind short-circuits. “You should marry me.”

Chuuya blinks, dazed. Dazai can’t tell whether he is still too disorientated to process the words, or whether the words are disorienting. Dazai can’t tell what he would prefer either. It’s a stupid thing to say to someone who has just come out of a coma. There is a right time and place for marriage proposals and this, unfortunately, was the opposite of that. But the questionable timing aside, Dazai means it with his entire dead heart. It might have been the most honest thing he has ever said.

“Um…” There is a long pause before Chuuya musters a small shake of his head. “What?” Then his gaze flickers past Dazai and his frown grows even more confused. “Where are we?”

“A private clinic,” Dazai tells him and finally, allows himself to take a seat on the chair, though he doesn’t let go of Chuuya’s hands. They are warm. “Do you remember what happened?”

Chuuya makes a noise of contemplation, squinting at something in the distance. Then he finds Dazai again. “The rift. I… I remember feeling like I was about to die, and suddenly there was nothing.”

Dazai nods. “You closed the thing. You saved us all.”

“Oh.” Chuuya lets that sink in for a few moments. “I didn’t die.”

“No, you didn’t.”

Furrowing his brows, Chuuya tries to sit up, fails, and only ends up scanning the room again. “How long was I out?”

At this, Dazai hesitates. Even as weak as he is right now, Chuuya doesn’t miss it, his eyes keenly pinning Dazai. “Dazai. How long?”

“Six weeks.”

“What?” A tremor runs through Chuuya’s clenched fingers. “Six — six weeks?”

“You closed a tear in the universe, Chuuya. Your body needed to recover.”

“But —“ Panicked, Chuuya turns to the side. He scrambles to lift his upper body and clenches his teeth when his muscles don’t cooperate with him. Dazai stands up to help him. “How’s that even possible? And what about — the Port Mafia —“

“About that,” he cuts in, steadying Chuuya with a hand on his back. “There’s something else you should know.”

It takes a lot of nerve to meet his bright, blue eyes as they stare at him, demanding answers.

“The Port Mafia thinks you’re dead.”

Silence.

“They buried you five weeks ago.”

Silence.

“I know you still had six months left, but I saw an opportunity and I took it.”

At last, Chuuya blinks and looks away from him, scrubbing a hand across his face. The air in the room prickles with tension. “I’m no longer the boss?”

“No.”

Dazai waits, each second more unbearable than the last until finally…

Chuuya’s whole body sags with a sigh that borders on relief.

It confuses Dazai as much as it astonishes him, the volatile mix of emotions coaxing him to sit down at the edge of the bed before he passes out as well. Alright, he is not sure whether that’s even possible as a ghost but he isn’t interested in finding out. “You’re not mad?”

“No,” Chuuya murmurs and lifts his head to him. His face contorts a little. “I mean, I should be. You took away my decision. Again.”

Dazai cracks a guilty smile.

“But I only had six months left anyway… it doesn’t make that much of a difference.” Releasing another heavy sigh, he lets himself slump against Dazai. “Besides, what else could you have done when I wasn’t waking up?”

“Well, technically, I, uh, made that decision on day one…”

Chuuya stiffens, but only for a moment. “You could have just kept that shit to yourself, asshole.”

“I don’t want to start our whole future on a lie, Chuuya. That’d be bad luck.”

Chuuya’s huff is quiet and forgiving. For a few moments, he only looks at Dazai and it feels like the end — not their end, just the end of the conversation and maybe the end of this chapter, too. Chuuya is awake. The Port Mafia is behind them. All is well.

Then Chuuya tilts his head to the side with an uncertain squint. “Did you tell me to… marry you earlier, or was that a weird dream I had?”

Dazai exhales something akin to a chuckle, scratching the back of his head. “Depends. Are you going to say yes if it was the former?”

“You never asked me a question.”

“Hm?”

“You told me to marry you. You didn’t ask me.”

Ah.

Twisting his body around, Dazai brings a hand to Chuuya’s cheek, cupping it softly but firmly as he looks into Chuuya’s eyes. “Chuuya, will you do me the honor of marrying me?”

There is a beat of silence. And another one. Neither Dazai’s grin, nor Chuuya’s dry, worn-out expression falters.

“Yeah,” Chuuya says, at last. “Okay.”

“Yeah?”

“What, you want me to say it twice?” Chuuya’s eyes flick to the ceiling in exasperation but his face leans into Dazai’s palm. “Yeah, I’ll marry you, dumbass. I don’t know how, considering we’re both officially dead but —“

His speech turns into a muffled sound of surprise and relief when Dazai kisses him. It’s short, Chuuya’s lips slow and out of practice as they move against Dazai’s, though it’s not any less sweet. No, it’s the sweetest thing in the world.

Chuuya’s breathing hard and clutching at his shoulder when they break apart. It will take his body a while to adjust. Doc told him as much.

“How are you feeling?” Dazai asks anyway as he slides his arms around Chuuya’s waist and pulls him close against his chest, smiling because, for once, Chuuya goes willingly.

“Tired as shit.”

“I can imagine.”

“Doesn’t make sense,” he grumbles. “I slept for five weeks. Why the hell am I still tired?”

“You were in a coma. Everyone who wakes up from a coma wakes up exhausted. I’ll call Doc and he’ll make sure that everything else is okay.”

Chuuya is awake but the wedding will have to wait a few more months. The tubes that have been feeding and hydrating him need to come out first, and his team of doctors needs to check his neurological and physical health — his memories seem to be intact for now, at least. He will probably have to do physical therapy, which, knowing Chuuya, will be a nightmare. It’s a long way to go and Dazai will savor every terrible minute of it.

“Five minutes,” Chuuya whispers. “Do that in five minutes.”

***

“You can still change your mind, you know. We can still run.”

Chuuya looks at Yuan’s reflection in the vanity mirror, barely able to stifle the grin that threatens to erupt at those words. He has heard them before on a day that now seems to have happened a lifetime ago when it has been what? Three years? Something like that. “I’d prefer not to get haunted by a ghost for the rest of my life.”

Gathering his hair into a high ponytail, Yuan rolls her eyes. "I'm just saying. You’re about to marry a real asshole. Are you sure about this? Absolutely cross-your-heart-and-hope-to-die kind of sure?"

“Never been more sure.” Chuuya crosses his arms to hide the heat that crawls up his neck, too damn bright against his white tux. His feelings for Dazai are hardly a secret anymore but that doesn’t make voicing them any easier — which is why he insisted to have a small, intimate ceremony just between the two of them, an officiant, and no one else. Of course, that plan quickly went out the window when Albatross got him drunk one night, and Chuuya inadvertently let their secret slip. It’s still a relatively intimate affair, including Yuan, Shirase, the Flags, and Gin; they don’t have that many friends. The champagne glasses Dazai has been sending him all day are greatly appreciated anyway.

“Fine, I guess coming back from the dead for somebody would do that to you,” Yuan says with a sigh. “But my offer still stands. Say the word and I’ll drive the get-away car.”

Chuuya meets her gaze and gives her a wordless nod of gratitude when Shirase waltzes into the room, wearing a black suit that looks ridiculous on him. “Did I hear the words get-away car?” Sidling up to them, he gives Chuuya’s back a few strong claps. “Already planning to make a run for it, huh? I knew you were rushing into this.”

“No one’s going anywhere, and I’m not rushing shit.”

Alright, maybe by normal standards marrying someone after only two and something years of officially being together is too fast, but their lives have never been exactly ordinary. Dazai’s a ghost, Chuuya carries a singularity with the power of a nuke inside of him, and they’re both legally dead on paper. Not waiting long enough to do this is probably the most normal thing they have ever done.

“Someone’s grumpy on his big day. Here —“ Shirase nudges another glass of champagne into Chuuya’s hand. “Dazai ordered me to give you this. Said it will keep you from losing your nerves.”

“Our little Groomzilla,” Yuan whispers, petting Chuuya’s head and making him glare even harder.

He is definitely not a Groomzilla. He just doesn’t like being sappy in public, damn it.

“It’s just a stupid wedding — that we already had before, by the way.” He still accepts Dazai’s gift, eagerly bringing it to his mouth and downing it in one go. “Dazai’s the one who will be losing his nerves. He’s the one scared of commitments, not me.”

That makes his two friends exchange a loaded glance.

“What?” Chuuya says and turns his head around to them when they refuse to elaborate. “What is it? Did he say something?”

Yuan snorts. “Oh, he’s been saying a lot of things. I don’t think I’ve ever heard so many words come out of his mouth.”

“Yeah, well, he talks a lot when he’s nervous,” Chuuya says with a frown.

So Dazai is nervous. Chuuya’s not sure how to feel about that, a part of him delighted because he has had to listen the bastard talk about how Chuuya would be the one to cry first for months, and another part mildly terrified because Dazai was the one to propose, so what the hell does he have to be nervous about?! Surely coming back from the dead was a greater vow than marrying someone. Besides, this is more symbolic than anything.

“Is he also a condescending little bitch when he’s nervous?” Yuan huffs, flicking her eyes toward the ceiling. “Because I’m sick of him telling me to do this and do that but no not like that, that’s all wrong, Chuuya doesn’t like it like that!”

Grimacing, Shirase nods as if to say that she has a point. “He scares me, to be honest.”

And they called Chuuya Groomzilla, ha! They’re not exaggerating, though. Dazai has been rather assertive when it comes to organizing this wedding and remodeling the house, but Chuuya figured it’s just his way of showing he cares.

“He made one of the cooks cry earlier,” Yuan adds. “Lippmann and I had to bribe him to make him stay and finish the desserts, at least.”

“He threatened to dissolve me in acid simply ‘cause I asked if he didn't think Nami should be here as well.”

“He almost had a fistfight with Albatross.”

“He —“

“I get it,” Chuuya snaps, exasperated. “What do you want me to do about it? Go talk to him if he pisses you off this much.”

“But he only listens to you,” Shirase says.

“And he says he’s doing it for you.”

Rubbing his forehead, Chuuya lets out a breath before looking at his friends in the mirror. “Is he still at it?”

“Why do you think I’m here?” Shirase asks. That earns him an elbow from Yuan. “What? Chuuya doesn’t really need me here. He gets all the pep talks from you.”

Yuan rolls her eyes before pointedly saying, “Dazai is still at it, yes.”

“The ceremony’s set to begin in, like, five minutes. What the hell is there left to complain about?”

“Apparently, every single thing.”

Chuuya lets out a sigh. Then he rises to his feet.

“Where are you going?” Yuan says. “It’s not time yet — you have another —“

“I’ll be back, don’t worry,” Chuuya mutters, brushing off her concern with a flip of his hand. He just needs to do something first.

The bedroom leads out into an intimate hallway and down a staircase that creaks with each step he takes. Passing the kitchen, still undergoing some final touches, he steps into the shiny ass oxford shoes Dazai bought him and heads outside. The vineyard sits in a tiny, amphitheater-shaped valley that faces north, saturated with fields of green leafy vines that separate their two-story house from the rest of the winery. An elderly couple with no kids sold the estate to them, so it’s mostly functioning, with some old equipment that will need replacing and other general changes aside. Chuuya wonders whether that will be Dazai and him someday, too. Old, still together, childless, and in need of one final new adventure: retirement. Technically, this is their retirement, just not from life but from the underworld. Then again, their future might look entirely different. Nothing is set in stone.

He hears Dazai before he sees him.

“— has to be exactly timed — and I mean by the millisecond — or else, it will simply sound all wrong, and you will have ruined the entire ceremony, and thus, the wedding. Do you want to be known as the person who ruined someone’s wedding?”

Dressed in a matching tux, he is talking to one of the three chefs they hired for today. Why he is lecturing her about anything other than food is a mystery to Chuuya. The young woman’s red-rimmed eyes notice him first, widening ever so slightly. He nods at her. “Hey, give us a moment please.” Then he turns to Dazai, whose head whips to him at the same time. “Care to tell me what you’re doing?”

“Me? What are you doing? We’re not supposed to see each other before the ceremony, Chuuya. It’s bad luck.”

“We’ve already had our fair share of bad luck. I think we’ll be fine.”

“But — this isn’t —“ Dazai sputters, blinking ten times a minute, looking so frazzled by this encounter that Chuuya takes pity on him, reaching out to take his hands into his.

“Are you alright?”

Dazai finally stops trying to produce words to breathe instead. It takes him a few more moments to meet Chuuya’s eyes. “Yes. Perfect. Are you?”

“Fine. Just heard you’ve been terrorizing people left and right. Figured I should check on you.”

“You would have seen me in five minutes anyway, stupid.”

“Yeah, at a damn ceremony in front of people.” Chuuya pokes him in the chest but his expression has softened. Dazai’s nervous, which is as cute as it is concerning. “Not like this.”

“Well, I’m alright. I’m just making sure that everything’s perfect, you know? Because it should be. It’s what we deserve. I’m making an effort.” The longer he looks at Dazai, the faster and more defensive his words become. “I care, Chuuya!”

“I can see that. You care a lot.”

“I do. We’re marrying. That’s important.”

“Yeah,” he agrees with a nod. “And you know I care too, right?”

Dazai raises his brows. “You’re here, so I assume you do, yes.”

“I care about marrying you,” Chuuya goes on, holding his gaze. “Not about the ceremony or how good the food is or any of that stuff. I’d marry you in a dump. Anywhere, really.”

“Just because you would, doesn’t mean you should.”

He sighs. That’s not the point and Dazai knows it. His petulant sigh says as much.

“Fine, I understand what you’re telling me. I do.”

“But?” Chuuya questions, hearing the unspoken interjection.

“But I want it to be perfect anyway.” Dazai weakly lifts one shoulder. “Our circumstances aren’t, so the least I can do is make sure this is.”

“Our circumstances are fine,” Chuuya says with an insulted frown. Sure, they’re not perfect but they are a hell lot better than they were half a year ago.

“You just said that we’ve already got all the bad luck in the world.”

“I didn’t mean it like that.”

“You didn’t even want this,” Dazai blurts out, and backs away, gesticulating wildly as his doubts rush out of him in rivers. “First, I made you the boss. Now I’m making you live here. What if you don’t want any of this? What if you want big cities and nightclubs and — and street racing? Or what if you want to go to university? There’s no university here, Chuuya. It’s just me and…” He shakes his head. “It’s just me here.”

“I don’t know what I want. That’s the point.” Chuuya catches his wide eyes and doesn’t let go. “I don’t know what the hell I want from this life but now I have the time to figure it out, and that’s enough, Dazai. Please get it into that thick head of yours. It’s enough.” Dazai tries to look away; tries to dismiss him but Chuuya doesn’t let him, staring at him hard enough to make his jaw muscles hurt. “I want to be here. I’m alright. You’re alright. We’re alright. It’s not perfect but it doesn’t have to be for it to be alright.”

Dazai’s silence is timid. Sheepish. He doesn’t want to stand down — and not because he’s as stubborn as Chuuya but because a part of him probably finds some fucked up kind of comfort in recycling the same worn-out arguments. Letting go is hard and unnerving, even if it’s something that has weighed you down for ages. Letting go is necessary, though.

When Dazai gives in, it’s with a sullen huff, his gaze sliding to the ground, to the side, anywhere except Chuuya. “That’s… a lot of alrights”

“Shut up,” Chuuya mutters and steps closer, knees bumping against Dazai’s before he snakes his arms around Dazai’s neck and waits for him to look at him. “Are you going to be fine?”

“I already am.” Dazai’s smile is lopsided and tinged with something sad but sincere, so Chuuya allows him to pull him closer by the waist and plant a kiss on his mouth. Allows their lips to linger, to seek more again and again even though kissing each other right before marrying each other probably breaks another hundred wedding traditions. It is right here at this moment that the thought crosses Chuuya’s mind.

“You know what?” he says after pulling away to grab Dazai’s hand. “Here.”

Dazai watches him with amused curiosity. “What are you doing?”

“Marrying you.”

It was supposed to be only the two of them from the start. Chuuya loves their friends, he does, and so does Dazai — albeit in his own way — but this marriage, this profession of love and devotion or whatever it is that people call it — was only ever meant to be theirs.

Dazai’s eyes narrow to squint at him. He never takes his hand away though.

Chuuya takes a deep breath and lifts his head to his soon-to-be-husband, his person, his partner before speaking. “I, Nakahara Chuuya, take you, Dazai Osamu, as my husband — or however the words go — and I promise to…” The tide of vows and confessions and feelings that wash over him makes him stutter to a pause. There is so much to say and Chuuya has never been the best at expressing himself. That’s Dazai’s field of expertise. All he can do is try. “I promise to give you a reason to stay.” Holding his gaze, Chuuya nods firmly. “Every day I will wake up and give you a reason to stay because there might be a life without you in it but it’s not the life I want. I want you. Always.”

There. It doesn’t encompass even a fraction of what Chuuya wishes he could tell him but it’s a start, and that’s what this is about, right? Marrying Dazai is one choice out of a million more to come. But it’s the choice to even have more.

Dazai’s throat bobs in the silence that follows, his brows furrowed into a tight frown of concentration. Chuuya is ready. It's only one choice, no more and no less significant than any of the others. Yet when Dazai opens his mouth, a shudder runs through his entire body, the realization that this is happening making the entire world tilt.

“I, Dazai Osamu, take you, Nakahara Chuuya, as my husband — ‘or however the words go’ as you so nicely put it —“ Chuuya exhales a snort, biting his lip to keep his expression composed — “and I promise to show you that life can be more than just impossible decisions and a tragic end. Even if it takes a hundred years, I will give all of them to make you see that. There is so much more than that out there for you. You are worth more than that.”

“So are you,” Chuuya tells him with an embarrassing sniff.

Dazai squeezes his hands. “Quiet. You’ve already had your turn.” Chuuya narrows his eyes but presses his lips shut. “And I want to be there, by your side, when you see it. I’m selfish enough to wish I was the reason for it, but so in love with you that I will survive if it’s something else that fulfills you. I just… I want to spend the rest of my long undead life trying to find it for you and with you.”

Chuuya swallows, the smile he forces out dangerously brittle, which would be mortifying if Dazai looked any better. He doesn’t. “Yeah. I — I want that too. You know I do.” He intends to say these words loudly and proudly, but instead, they come out in a slurred whisper.

It’s just one stupid decision, damn it. Why the hell does it feel like they are carving their initials into each other’s ribs?

“I guess,” Dazai’s fingers tighten around him, subconsciously dragging him closer, “we are married then.”

Chuuya breathes out a shaky laugh. They are married, and in the grand scheme of things, it changes nothing, but it feels like everything. It feels right, and it feels painful. Overwhelming and at the same time like relief.

He is still grinning when he tilts forward and meets Dazai in the middle. Their mouths collide with perhaps too much eagerness because it’s clumsy and uncoordinated until it isn’t. Chuuya’s on his tiptoes, cupping the back of his husband’s head while his other arm is curled around his neck, basking in the rush of dizzying joy that floods him; and each urgent press and retreat of their lips makes his chest shudder from — from — from everything, and then Chuuya’s back hits the wall of something solid, and he distantly wonders whether they should skip the entire wedding.

“There you — whaaaat in the world are you doing?” And that’s Albatross, Chuuya thinks as they break away from each other with heaving chests. He lets the back of his head rest against their house behind him. Neither of them turns around just yet though. “We’re waiting for you! We thought — I thought you had skipped the wedding and ran off!”

Dazai shares a private smile with him and uses his thumb to brush the corner of his mouth before shooting their friend a derisive look over his shoulder. “Oh, we’ve just had to finish some important business with each other.”

“Two minutes before your wedding?”

“That’s the thing,” Chuuya says, peeking out from under the arm that shields him from view. “We’re already married.”

Albatross, wearing a hot pink suit, slicked-back hair, and of course his sunglasses, waves him away, clearly impatient to get going. “I know that, but I wasn’t invited the first time, so it doesn’t count. Let’s go!”

“No, I mean we just married. Five seconds ago.”

“Indeed. Here.” Dazai holds out his hand, though to show off what exactly Chuuya doesn’t know. They didn’t exchange any rings. Yuan has them.

“What am I looking at? I don’t see anything,” Albatross murmurs, coming closer to inspect Dazai’s naked fingers. He jerks back when Dazai, the bastard, slaps him in the face. “Oi!”

Chuuya elbows Dazai, but he can’t quite help a snort from escaping. Clearing his throat, he forces himself to stay serious though. “We’re married, so we can just skip the ceremony and jump straight to getting drunk.” He glances at Dazai. “Right?”

“Sure,” Dazai says, sliding an arm around his waist.

Chuuya nods. “Now that that’s settled, let’s —“

“No!” Albatross cuts him off, wildly shaking his head. “No, you can’t do that!”

“We just did,” Chuuya says wryly.

“No, you have to get married! In front of us! Whatever you two did, it doesn’t count.”

Dazai’s body tenses against him, mirroring his own reaction. “You shut up.”

“Your birth won’t count if you don’t stop talking right now.”

Albatross turns his bewildered look to Dazai. “You were on everyone’s ass to make it perfect just an hour ago.”

“Nerves,” he replies with a dismissive shrug and flashes him a broad smirk full of disdain. As someone who has been on the receiving end of it, Chuuya can sympathize. It’s infuriating. Too bad it’s too entertaining to witness from an outsider's perspective. “I’m normal now.”

Albatross opens and closes his mouth a few times; then inhales deeply and puffs out his chest. “You’re getting married, or — or I’ll tell the Port Mafia that you’re still alive. That you both are! Hah, how would you like that?”

Chuuya’s head tilts to the side only to see that Dazai’s already looking at him. A wordless understanding passes through them before Dazai turns back to Albatross.

“Try it.”

“Sure, go ahead.”

“And while you’re in Yokohama, check up on those precious bikes of yours.” Dazai lets out a melodramatic sigh and automatically pulls Chuuya even closer to his side. “Would be a shame if anything happened to them.”

“Fine, I’m not telling anyone,” Albatross mutters, yet his determination doesn’t seem to falter. “You still have to do the ceremony. Come on, it’s not fair to you guys. You’ve gone through so much shit just to marry each other in some backyard?”

Frowning, Chuuya scans their surroundings. Not that it matters. “It’s a nice backyard. It doesn’t make any difference.”

“Wow, two of Japan’s deadliest people and they’re afraid to do a silly little marriage ceremony, huh?”

That makes him share another look with Dazai.

“No one’s scared here,” Chuuya says, raising his chin. Skipping something merely symbolic — and something that’s very uncomfortable — doesn’t make them cowards. Just makes them —

“We’re being smart.”

Yes. They’re smart.

Albatross arches his brows as though he doesn’t buy their excuses. It doesn’t make him right but it does make Chuuya bristle. He is not a fucking coward, damn it. Every day, he wakes up with a ruthless calamity sleeping inside of him. He spent almost three years ruling the belly of the beast that goes by the name of Port Mafia. His husband is Dazai fucking Osamu. They are not scared.

Huffing out an irritated breath, Chuuya grabs Dazai’s hand and pulls him along. “Fine. Let’s fucking do this.”

“Really?” Dazai sounds surprised but not against it.

“Easier to get it over with than explaining why we’re not doing it.”

“How romantic.” Dazai’s voice suddenly fills his ear, and Chuuya can tell that he’s smiling. It’s an infectious thing. “I love you so much.”

So they marry each other a second — or depending on how you look at it — a third time.

They stand in front of the simple wooden altar that forms the backdrop for the ceremony. They let Albatross, who insisted on officiating, welcome their guests with a speech that lasts an eternity. They let him talk. And talk. And talk. Until Dazai eventually kicks him in the shin to force him to hurry up. They exchange cups of sake and vows that are not as uncensored as the ones before, though not any less sincere. Albatross gives them their offerings. They slide two identical rings onto each other’s fingers, and then Albatross declares them as husband and husband, granting them permission to kiss.

The attention is mortifying but Dazai knows him too well, covering his face with his palm as their lips collide and the excited beat of his heart drowns out the whooping of their friends. Afterward, Chuuya still ducks his head, grateful that Dazai has no issue being as loud and obnoxious as possible, lifting their joined hands into the air with an exaggerated hoot of joy.

It’s embarrassing which makes it even more memorable. Chuuya doesn’t regret letting Albatross bully them into doing this — something that he makes sure to confess to him after several glasses of champagne. It earns him a wet smack of a kiss on his forehead. It’s disgusting. He loves it.

He loves a lot of things about that day, some of which he will forget once morning comes and the copious amount of liquor he consumes over the night robs him of precious memories, and others that will live in the back of his mind for the rest of his life. More than anything else though, he loves sharing almost every second of it with Dazai. His partner, and now, his husband.

***

Chuuya is drunk. In other words, he is not only loud but fiercely unapologetic about every thought that runs through his head. He also seems to be happy, though, and that stands out more than even his most daring comments.

"What on earth are you constantly scribbling about over there?"

Without looking up from his sheet of paper, Chuuya emits a soft huff under his breath and continues to frown at himself. “I told you a hundred times already. I’m working on my list.”

Lippmann, the person who dared to ask him the question, glances at Piano Man by his side with a bemused smile. Chuuya has, in fact, not told him a hundred times already. He did it twice and it was Albatross and Shirase who wanted to know.

Dazai takes a sip of his glass which contains a Polish spirit with enough alcohol content to kill a man. In his mouth, it tastes like watered-down sake. It’s not his favorite flavor, but it is a flavor, and it possesses the ability to give him a sensation that's as close as a ghost can come to feeling inebriation.

“Grocery list?” Lippmann jokes. “I see you’re already embracing the miracle of civilian life.”

“No, you’re —“ hiccup “— wrong.” Chuuya lifts his head to shake it vigorously, acting like the topic is a matter of life and death. “It’s my ‘out of the fucking Port Mafia’ list. Dazai —“ hiccup “— got to be a barista and spy and shit. Now it’s my turn.”

“What’s on it?”

“Things.”

“What things?”

“Let’s see.” Piano Man promptly reaches over the table to steal the list and ignores Chuuya’s offended noises of protest.

“Oi, give that back — that’s not —“

“Careful,” Dazai says and draws Chuuya back into his chair when he nearly knocks over two candles. “Let’s not burn down our home before it’s even ready.”

Chuuya leans his head against his shoulder and sniffs dramatically. “But my list. He stole it.”

“You should kill them,” Dazai sympathizes, sliding an arm around him and rubbing it reassuringly. “I’ll help you.”

Chuuya makes a muffled noise of agreement before dropping a kiss on his knuckles.

On the other side of the table, Piano Man’s brows shoot up not because he is listening in on them but because he scans the sheet of paper while Lippmann’s face lights up with surprise next to him, nodding involuntarily. “These are mostly different sex locations.”

“So?” Chuuya straightens his posture to lift his chin. “Maybe that’s all I wanna do from now. Have lots and lots of sex. What’s the problem with that?”

“Nothing wrong with that. I’m just surprised.” Bringing a glass of wine to his mouth, Piano Man shrugs.

“It’s a good list.” Lippmann winks at Chuuya. “I can strongly attest to number nine.”

“I don’t need to know that,” Chuuya mutters before flicking his fingers toward Piano Man. “And what do you mean surprised? The hell did you expect?”

“Nothing specific — well, I mean, you’ve essentially spent your whole life doing other people's bidding, right? First corruption, then taking care of the Sheep, joining the Mafia, and leading the Mafia. You must have had dreams while you were doing all that. Things that you wanted to do. I guess, I expected to see you doing that now that you can.”

“The boy just woke up from a six-week-long coma,” Doc chimes in and pauses to yawn, apparently having woken up from his nap. “Give him some time to sort out his life plans.”

“You should join me on the silver screen,” Lippmann tells Chuuya with a self-satisfied nod. “I could make a starlet out of you. Together, we would dominate the cinematic industry.”

“No way in hell.”

“You’re also forgetting the crucial detail that Chuuya is officially dead,” Dazai points out because, apparently, all the people here have drunk away their common sense.

Lippmann presses his lips shut, taken aback by the reminder. Then his eyes widen. “You had a twin the entire time. There.”

“Too risky,” Piano Man says, mirroring Chuuya’s glaring disapproval though more subtly.

It’s only been two months but already the dynamics of power have shifted. While Dazai has no doubt that Piano Man still cares about Chuuya, his priority now is the Port Mafia and that includes not endangering his title as the boss by allowing rumors about the previous boss to spread.

A shadow of surprise flickers across Lippmann’s face when he must draw the same conclusion. He takes it in stride, though. They have all been there in one way or another. That’s just the way this game works.

“Don’t wanna be a damn actor anyway.” Chuuya rocks his chair back and uses his ability to keep himself from toppling over even as his head lifts to the dark sky above them. “I want —“ His ambitious words trail off into a heavy sigh that sounds like frustration. “I don’t know what I want.”

Earlier, he reassured Dazai that it was fine not to have all the answers, and Dazai trusts his word. Chuuya wouldn’t lie to him to spare his feelings. Still, that doesn’t mean that his frustration isn’t real. It is. It simply isn’t damning.

As if thinking of the same thing, Chuuya tilts sideways to glance at Dazai; a small smile softens his expression. “But I’m excited to find out, yeah?” He lets the chair slump back to the ground before grabbing Dazai’s hands. “I mean, you have to find something new to do as well now, right? You’re no longer my spy. You’re just…you, and I’m just me, and we both have nothing but time.”

Dazai brings their intertwined fingers to his mouth and places a kiss on them without breaking eye contact. “We do.”

“I’ll drink to that,” someone says in the background. “Cheers.”

Releasing a shallow breath, Chuuya nods.

“Just some advice but you should probably avoid working together, or you’ll end up killing each other from getting on each other’s nerves,” Lippmann comments wryly, which successfully manages to capture their attention.

Chuuya snorts even as he leans into his side.

Dazai, on the other hand, makes a face. “Chuuya would never get enough of me.” He pats his cheek. “Right?”

“Wrong.”

“Chuuya!”

“What? It’s true. You’re best enjoyed in small doses.” He rises to his feet with a full-body sigh, swaying ever so slightly. “I gotta piss. Come with me.”

That earns him a chorus of teasing chuckles.

“Chuuya gets married and suddenly he can’t go to the bathroom by himself, hm?”

“Fuck off,” Chuuya mutters, flipping his friends off without looking back at them as he drags Dazai toward the house. “Maybe I just want to fuck him without you perverts watching us the entire time.”

“You know, that was a bold statement from someone who starts to panic whenever he doesn’t see me for more than a few hours,” Dazai says, keeping his voice down so only the two of them hear.

The second Chuuya’s fingers tense around his, he winces. Not because of the pain — though Chuuya’s grip is rather firm — but because the joke might be a bit too soon.

“Wait, I take that back,” he hurries to add; he has to poke Chuuya’s face several times to make him look at him. “I’m sorry.”

Blue eyes flash at him. “You should be, asshole.”

They’re not cold, though. Just annoyed, rolling away from him.

“Not fucking funny,” Chuuya mumbles and turns his head away, squeezing his hand in punishment. “If you weren’t already dead, I’d kill you for that. Or smack you.”

“You can still smack me.”

“Yeah, but you won’t feel a thing.”

“You just have to smack me really, really hard. Maybe use your ability for some extra help.”

“Don’t need that.”

They bypass the kitchen and Dazai snatches a bottle of water from the counter that he nudges against Chuuya’s chest until he takes the hint and obediently lifts it to his mouth, keeping eye contact with Dazai as he gulps half of it down in one go. Something so mundane shouldn’t look so suggestive but drunk Chuuya has a gift of achieving the opposite with pretty much anything, whether it’s brushing his teeth, eating leftover noodles, or staying hydrated.

“Stop looking at me like that or I’ll start thinking you’re in love with me.”

Chuuya scoffs against his hand that wipes at his wet lips. “We’re married, idiot.”

“Wait, really?” Dazai clutches his chest. “I had no idea!”

“You should really start working on your humor. It’s getting shittier and shittier with each day —“ Chuuya cuts himself off with a triumphant, “Hah, that should be on the to-do list!”

“I thought the list was for you,” Dazai says, following him into the bathroom.

“For me, for you, same damn thing — ah!” Chuuya blinks dazedly at him when Dazai pushes him against the door as soon as it’s closed, but his surprise is quick to transform into a slow and heady smile that fills his eyes. Dazai suspects it has something to do with the pecks that he plants all over his face. First his chin. Then the sharp angle of his jaw. His cheekbone. His right brow. The left one. The flushed tip of his nose.

“You know that —“ A breathless giggle escapes him as Dazai’s lips kiss one eyelid. “That I actually need to piss… right?”

Dazai snorts against the throbbing pulse on his neck. “To be honest, no. I assumed you wanted to have a quick romp.”

“Well, I wouldn’t mind that either, but…” Chuuya bites his lower lip when Dazai straightens up to look down at him, arching one brow while his hands casually rest on each side of Chuuya’s hips.

“But?”

“But I drank a lot over the past few hours. Like… a lot.”

Dazai’s lips twitch and twist into a teasing grin. “I’m aware of that, trust me. You’ve just never needed my assistance to go to the bathroom before.” He squints at him. “Is that a new married people thing?”

Chuuya absently toys with the collar of Dazai’s button-up as he rests against the door, and just… drinks him in as shamelessly as the champagne he has been sipping all night. The spotlight would be unnerving if it wasn’t for the drunken flush on his cheeks, sugar, and alcohol rendering him unusually tender. Dazai sees something deeper than mere tipsy affection, though. Chuuya seems weightless, lighter than he has been in years despite the nature of his ability.

Dazai has to grit his teeth against the overwhelming surge of feelings inside of him — something that is too big to put into human words and too delicate to keep inside himself. It makes his fingers shake when he lifts them to Chuuya’s face, tracing the shape of his smile.

Chuuya leans into the touch, oblivious to the pain that ripples through Dazai. “Maybe.” And then he grimaces. “Wait, no. I don’t need you in the damn bathroom with me every time I go. I just… I missed you.”

“You missed me?” Dazai echoes. “During our wedding?”

“Yeah. Missed being alone with you, Shitzai. ‘S different when others are there.”

“Ah, so you missed fondling me?”

Chuuya’s answer is to squeeze his ass.

It is a gesture that speaks louder than words, so Dazai leans forward and kisses him. Only a peck, his mouth closed. But that is never the end of it with Chuuya, who swiftly snakes his arms around Dazai’s neck and draws him into another one, still shockingly but savoring this time, lingering with each brush of lips. Dazai’s right hand slides into his hair, the other around his waist, rubbing the spot on his lower back that always makes him purr in bed, and smiling when Chuuya sighs against him. His body is usually solid as a mountain, all firm muscle and strength, but right now, he melts into Dazai.

Only one or two minutes pass before Chuuya suddenly pushes him away with a hand on his chest, turning his face to the side with a pained grimace. “Oh god, I think —“ He clamps a hand over his mouth, words coming out muffled. “Think I’m gonna be sick.”

“And here I was thinking you liked me.”

Chuuya’s gaze shifts to him — and that’s enough to know that he isn’t exaggerating. Dazai gestures toward the toilet. “C’mon, I’ll hold your hair.”

“This blows,” Chuuya whines even as he sinks to his knees and proceeds to let out the loudest burp Dazai has ever heard come out of him. It turns his pained grimace into a thoughtful frown as he glances up at him. “Wait, false alarm. I’m fine now.”

Dazai stares at him, not entirely convinced. “You sure?”

“Positive.” Chuuya hops to his feet and only stumbles a little, nodding confidently before unbuckling his pants. “Really. Just needed to let that out.”

After he finishes and washes his hands, they make their back to the backyard where the noises have grown louder since they left. Other than Gin, who had excused themselves a few hours into the celebrations because of something Agency-related in the morning, their guests are still here, though not necessarily in one place. Last Dazai heard Albatross announced paying a visit to the monsters. Now his voice greets the two of them as they emerge from the house.

“Aye, finally finished fucking?”

The loose circle that has formed on their veranda opens up for them. Chuuya flips Albatross off and wordlessly stretches out his other hand to ask for a cigarette.

“Where’ve you been?” Shirase mutters, handing him one. “I thought you’d skipped my goodbye party.”

Piano Man casts a mildly bewildered glance in his direction. “This is his wedding.”

“And my goodbye party.”

Chuuya takes a long drag, leaning into Dazai behind him, then lets it out along with a scoff. “I didn’t leave. You’re the one leaving Japan to…” He makes a vague gesture. “Drink tea and eat beans with toast for breakfast.”

Whether Dazai wanted to or not, he had to overhear a lot of life developments that Chuuya’s friends went through over the past years — sometimes not just from the source itself but from a dozen different ones as well, which is why having sex with co-workers should be prohibited. Apparently, Shirase has been feeling useless and neglected back in Yokohama — “I just feel like I’m not reaching my full potential, you know?” Dazai can’t possibly imagine why. So Shirase has decided to look for his calling elsewhere. Why he chose London of all places is a mystery to Dazai, though it is not interesting enough to bother solving.

“— moved as well, dude.”

“To the fucking countryside, not another continent.” Chuuya’s body tenses against him and relaxes again when Dazai slides his arms around his waist. He may not have much warmth to give, but Chuuya has enough of that on his own. Sometimes all he needs is to know that it’s real and not a drug-induced fever dream. “Besides, this is like a vacation — a really long one — until we figure out what to do or where to go next.”

Albatross' attention pivots to Dazai. “I thought this farm life thing was Dazai’s wet dream?”

“It’s not a farm, it’s a vineyard. Educate yourself. And it’s only a piece of land. An idea, really. It’s not the be-all and end-all of our future.” Dazai likes it here. Their house isn’t completely finished yet and still, it already feels like a home. The land that surrounds them looks like it was stolen out of an impressionist painting early in the morning and later when the sun begins to set. But his utopian fantasy has never been about a location. It has always been about carving out a slice of peace in a world that revolves around worthless wars and doing it with Chuuya by his side.

The vineyard isn’t the finish line. Dazai doesn’t even like wine all that much, especially now that it tastes like nothing.

The conversation splits into several smaller fractions; intimate murmurs fill the night, harmonizing with the hum of insects in the background.

Chuuya turns to Yuan, who has been sipping a glass of wine while chatting with Lippmann. “You’re coming back though, right? London isn’t forever?”

“I’ll help Shirase get settled and do some serious shopping; I’ll be back, though. Then we’ll see.” The shadow of a secretive smile dances across her face as she shrugs. “I have some options on the horizon.”

She has spent a few nights here, not only helping Chuuya get back on his feet but deliberating what to do with her future now that she is no longer tied to the Port Mafia. While there still is a place for Yuan there — Kouyou has grown quite fond of her over time, Dazai suspects that it’s not the same now that Chuuya is gone. Pretending that he is dead in front of all of her co-workers must not be too easy either. Dazai notices her exchanging a look with Lippmann. Hmm, now that’s someone to watch out for on the TV.

“I’ll still be here, Chuuya. Don’t you worry,” Albatross chimes in, clapping his own chest with a broad grin. “Maybe I should take a week or two off if you still need any help with the house?” He elbows Piano Man. “I deserve a holiday, eh?”

“Mmm.”

Chuuya pauses in Dazai’s arms. “You mean right now?”

“Sure, why not?”

“Because we don’t want you here,” Dazai replies in his place.

“Not now, at least,” Chuuya adds, the vibrations from his laugh making his body shake. “Give us two or three weeks.”

It’s Lippmann in the end who regards Albatross with a frown of concern. “Darling, it’s their honeymoon. Do you really want to be here while they’re fucking like rabbits?”

“I wouldn’t mind,” Albatross retorts, shrugging the argument away until he eventually lets out a sigh and rolls his eyes. “Relax. I don’t.”

“More like stray dogs,” Ice Man comments under his breath. The others continue to poke fun at Albatross, but Dazai glances at him in curiosity.

Noticing the attention, Ice Man only raises his brows. “Have you seen how many strays there are in Yokohama?”

Well, he has a point.

Chuuya sighs and nudges his cheek against Dazai’s arm. Dazai plants a kiss on the place where his collar used to sit, smiling against his skin when a shiver flits across his nape. Albatross says something wildly inappropriate. The sound of drunken laughter and carefree conversations carries on throughout the night, on and on and on until eventually those, too, get swallowed by the inevitability of time.

Time, a merciful tyrant. No matter how horrific or how wonderful a moment is, it will pass. That is the one and only thing that resembles a truth in this world. Everything passes. And it is as devastating as it is comforting, this knowledge that nothing ever lasts forever.

The celebrations pass. Some of their friends pass out in the sleek-black cars that take them back to Yokohama. And in the living room, Chuuya passes by Dazai, sinking to his knees in front of Kafka who has wandered down somewhere in the past hours to nap on the couch, surrounded by her entourage of family members. Jiji and the two stray cats that have joined the family somewhere along the way. Haku, misty-gray, painfully shy but purring the loudest, was brought home about a year ago by Chuuya after he proclaimed that they would have to wait to leave the Port Mafia to get any more pets. He saw the starved thing limping along a bridge and didn’t have the heart to drive past him. Obviously. And the newest addition, Sonic, a tabby that Dazai picked up during a spying and assassination mission. He had just killed her owner, so adopting her was the decent thing to do. Chuuya complained loudly for two hours before falling asleep with her on his chest. She is delightful but also a terror, climbing walls like a giant furry spider three times a day.

Kafka has only minimally grown since hatching, now the size of a Cocker Spaniel. She has, however, matured over the years, no longer bouncing off the walls and destroying every piece of furniture in sight during every minute of the day, only succumbing to the post-sleeping mania occasionally these days. Now she stretches her legs, mirroring the movements of the cats, and hops onto Chuuya’s shoulder, who laughs like it’s the first time.

“Awww, you miss us, sweetheart?” he coos, petting a spot under her jaw with the pad of his thumb before answering his own question with an enthusiastic nod. “I did. I missed you sooo much, my little gremlins.”

Kafka produces a guttural chirping noise, which sounds more disturbing than it is. It’s sweet. He suspects it’s her way of meowing.

Resting his arms on the back of the couch, Dazai watches them for a while until a furry tail hits his chin and he glances down at the black cat that stares demandingly up at him.

“Jealous that Kafka’s getting all the pets, huh?” She rubs her head against the hand he stretches out to her, getting her dose of attention come hell or high water. Dazai huffs to himself. “Don’t worry, Miss Kitty. I know that you’re the OG. I know.”

Chuuya snorts, but he is too busy playing with Kafka and the other two monsters that have been roused by the commotion, climbing all over him like he is their cat tree — like they don’t have a dozen toys scattered all over the house. That’s alright, Dazai thinks. This is alright.

He isn’t sure how much time passes as they sit in the gentle silence of the living room, entertaining their pets so they won’t disturb them later on — a naive thing to hope for. They all get fed at a specific time, and any changes to that routine are met with loud complaints. The night outside gradually grows less and less dark. Dazai only knows that his mind has grown tired, a rare and appreciated occurrence, just as Chuuya starts yawning with Kafka curled around his neck like a snake.

“C’mon, time for bed,” Dazai decides, rising off the floor and offering his husband a hand.

Gripping his fingers, Chuuya lets him haul him to his feet. Kafka flies off in the process. When they’re face to face with each other, Chuuya waggles his eyebrows. “You mean, time for sex.”

Dazai snorts. “If you stay awake long enough. You look like you’re about to nod off at any moment.”

“Am never —“ Another yawn cuts him off, and makes him glare at himself but also at Dazai. “Shut up. I’m never too tired for that.”

“Uh-uh.” Humming, Dazai slides his hands down to Chuuya’s hips. “What about a dance? Not too tired for that either?”

Chuuya’s mouth purses into a reluctant line but his eyes continue to shine. “You want to dance?”

“That’s part of a wedding, no? We haven’t done that yet.”

“Fine,” Chuuya murmurs, looping his arms around Dazai’s neck and resting his forehead against his shoulder. His entire body sags with the sigh that he heaves.

There is no music. Not even words. Just the steady beat of one heart beating for two people, and the occasional sound that their feet make on the floor.

“Remember the last time we danced like this?” Dazai asks.

Chuuya stiffens, clearly not a fan of the implication. He shakes his head before lifting his head to Dazai, eyes bloodshot from physical exhaustion but vigorous. Alive. He is alive. “It wasn’t like this.”

Dazai meets his ferocious stare with a pensive tilt of his head. “Wasn’t it?”

The banquet had been a good one before that, filled with people, laughter, and drunken inappropriate kisses. They were in love. They were alone and dancing. Each tiny aspect of that night is strikingly similar.

“That was an ending,” Chuuya says, looking at him. “This is a beginning.”

“Isn’t every beginning inherently an ending? Nothing can start without something else concluding first.”

Chuuya’s jaw ticks in silence as they continue to sway across the living room. After another moment or two, he exhales a tight breath, lifting one shoulder. “I guess.” Then his brows furrow, but when he looks at Dazai, the corner of his mouth tips up into a helpless half-grin, mirroring the strange sensation inside Dazai’s chest. A feeling of being entirely powerless against something so much grander and bigger than him and the paradox of relief and frustration. “So that’s what they call a happy ending, huh?”

“Well, I’m a ghost and you’re…” Dazai makes a face. “A drug addict who will probably not survive another dose of the only thing that grants him control over the singularity that lives within him. Not to mention that we both have quite a lot of baggage to unpack —“

“Alright, I get it,” Chuuya cuts in with a dry huff. “No such thing as a happy ending.”

Dazai makes a vague sound in his throat, a mixture of agreement and objection. “Perhaps not in the conventional sense, but…” He pauses to savor the finality of this pointless discussion, the amusement in Chuuya’s eyes, and this moment before it, too, passes. “It is happy and it is an ending.”

Chuuya offers him one more indulgent smile before he hugs Dazai closer, burying his face in the crook of his neck. “It’s enough. That’s what it is.”

THE END