Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Kunikida is the one to open the brown envelope.

There are several of such envelopes; requested documents, mission details, information about suspects, and the only thing he vaguely notes that's strange about this particular envelope is that it is unmarked with any details of the sender or the contents. Even so, it is unexpected what it turns out to be.

In the moment he slides the contents out, he almost doesn't process what exactly he is looking at.

When it does register, he drops the pile of pictures as if his hands have been burnt and staggers away several steps, nearly tripping. He feels as if all the breath and blood in his body has left him, cold all over.

"What the hell?" Kunikida whispers. 

Everyone in the office has paused what they are doing to look up at him, the entire room stilled at his extreme reaction. 

Kunikida is wide-eyed, his brows furrowed tightly. He feels lightheaded and sick. He glances over at the empty desk, where Dazai should be, but he is instead outside somewhere slacking off.

"Kunikida-san," Atsushi asks, bemused, "What is it?"

Somewhere in the duration he has stood frozen and pale, several of the members have come over out of curiosity to catch sight of the scattered pictures everywhere.

Haruno startles violently, her hand snapping up to clamp over her mouth, wide-eyed and backing away quickly. "Oh God," she says, as if she is about to be sick.

Yosano's eyes, as soon as they land on the pictures and register what it's showing, dart away just as quickly, her eyes ablaze with rage, closing slowly. Her fingers tighten around the back of a chair.

Ranpo has the quick thinking to stop Kenji, Atsushi and Kyouka from joining them but is too late to get Junichirou. "Junichirou, get back here!"

"That's disgusting," Tanizaki says, his face furrowed and eyes wide with horror, "Who would..."

"What's disgusting?"

Everyone freezes. No one even heard the click of the door.

Dazai is suddenly there. He walks so silently no one even realized he has come in at all.

It's too late by the time Kunikida regains his senses enough to connect back to reality and realize that these pictures should not have been on display and seen by everyone in the agency.

Everyone, it seems, is still at a loss for words. Dazai notices everyone's faces, and his sly smile turns to bemusement.

Everyone is looking at him. They are afraid of moving, almost, as if doing so would make Dazai see the pictures. Maybe if none of them moved, he would never see them.

That's only desperately absurd, wishful thinking, however. Someone with a mind as quick as Dazai's — nothing passes by him.

When they notice him realizing how everyone is looking at him, they all avert their gazes, unable to meet his eyes.

Dazai laughs, "Seriously, what happened? Why is everyone being so strange?"

It happens then, and it's too late to fix it. When his gaze drifts down, he freezes. His face goes drained of color.

In the pictures, it is clear; a teenage brown-haired boy with a bandaged eye, his face flushed and twisted with pain and struck with a terror that is similar to one now taking place on his older counterpart's expression.

In the picture, it is clear; he is naked and someone's large hand is tight around his bruised throat.

There are other pictures inside the envelope that are not only of Dazai's face.

Slowly, Dazai bends down and picks one of them up in a shaking hand.

Kunikida has never seen him like this.

"I don't understand..." Atsushi is saying, but he stays with Ranpo, Kyouka and Kenji where he is, "What are those pictures? What's going on?"

Dazai is terrifyingly held together and calm and collected, his eyes half-lidded and hollow, when he gathers them up from the floor and straightens, when he moves towards the desk and sets them by tapping them against the top, and then carefully puts them back in the envelope.

The silence that follows after is deafening and unbearably long as Dazai stands there with his back to the room, his head bowed, his eyes hidden by his hair.

"I'm going to kill him," he whispers, so quietly it took Kunikida several seconds to make it out.

In one swift motion, he turns with the envelope in hand and storms out of the office.

***

Dazai walks down the corridors to Mori's office with a calm and cold demeanor. The alliance has made the men at the gates allow him in after calling Mori to seek his permission and checking him over for weapons.

Not to mention; they all still fear him, when they see he is in a mood. They all still fear touching him too long or too much, after the incident that spread like wildfire when he was sixteen; when a man had tried to touch him and got his fingers blown off. 

From then on, no one ever tried to touch him again.

Mori was a bit too lax allowing him into his office. His eyes are knowing, a small, amused smirk on his lips. As soon as the doors have been shut behind him, the guards ordered to leave them alone, Dazai had him by the hair, shoving him against his chair hard with a knife to his throat.

"Why?" 

His eyes are hollow and without emotion, just like his voice. He has lost all his feelings again, it seems, the little he has regained while in the calmer, kinder environment of the ADA.

It feels as if he has lost everything, all over again.

"Tell me, Dazai-kun," Mori says, calm and unfazed even under the thin edge of Dazai's knife, smiling with half-lidded eyes, "Where will you go now?"

Where will he go now?

Right. So this is his play.

Mori wants him to come back. 

He thought the only way was to take away the one place he has (the only place that has ever felt a little beautiful).

"They have seen how disgusting you are now, Dazai-kun," Mori continues, "Do you believe they would ever like to see you again after this? Every time they look at you now, they will remember those pictures."

That's disgusting… who would… Tanizaki's voice threads through his mind.

Dazai can see the emotional manipulation for what it is.

He can also see that he is not so wrong.

The pictures were explicit.

They were disgusting.

And Dazai is not sure if any of them would want to see him again after that, if they would ever see him the same way.

"You liked it, didn't you? That was quite clear in the pictures." Mori smirks. "it felt good. Even the way it hurt felt good, because it made you feel something. Isn't that right, Dazai-kun?"

There it is, the first flare of heat in his chest.

"I couldn't control it," Dazai grits out.

"Keep telling yourself that."

"I was a child!"

He instantly regrets how his voice came out strained, desperate. He couldn't feel in the void that was his chest, and yet somehow his body kept betraying him.

"Enough with the victim complex," Mori drawls, "You know it just as well as I do; it was a bargaining chip for you, wasn't it? You did it of your own accord, so that I would do favors for you. You give me something, and I give you something back."

"You threatened Odasaku, you would have done it to Chuuya if I didn't—you'd say all these things about him in front of me..."

"I don't recall having said any such thing."

"You never said it, not explicitly, but you always implied..." 

Mori's brows twitch into a furrow, puzzled. He makes it look so real. "All I can recall is discussing justified punishment for your friend's failings, and the next thing I know, you are offering yourself to me... I admit I did perhaps find Chuuya-kun beautiful, if those are the conversations you're referring to, and so I expressed it to you often, but then you seemed to get jealous when I did. When have I ever threatened him to 'coerce' you into sex, as you seem to be alluding? And what makes you think I can, a boy of his power?"

You can.

You can do anything.

Chuuya has the ability, but Mori's mind is so sibilant and dangerous that it almost doesn't matter. Chuuya has his loyalty to exploit, to his loved ones and the organization and even Mori himself. Chuuya has his desperate need to belong and please those he cares about. Chuuya can crush a man without lifting a finger but he also has so much humanness and emotion that makes him easy to manipulate. Dazai knows; the amount of times he has had Chuuya bend to his own will.

It's true, also, that the way Mori used to word things made it sound like just that; casual conversations or a leader perfectly in his right, speaking of the most horrible possible punishments. Anyone else would have believed those words, but Dazai's mind being what it is, he has always been able to read between the lines, infer the unspoken accurately. 

Still, Mori is... different.

It's not always perfectly easy for even Dazai to read him. The things he says have multiple meanings. His expressions are ambiguous. Someone of his power and status is capable of a wide range of deeds hidden behind the curtains, and Dazai is not good with understanding the situation if he doesn't have sufficient information.

Why can't he think? Where is his famed silver tongue now, when he needs it most?

"When you wanted to get out of trouble for a failed mission, Dazai-kun, what did you do? When you wanted me to let Chuuya-kun have those extra days off to recover? You got down on your knees for me even without my asking. If you tell your precious friends that, what would they think?"

For once, Dazai doesn't know.

He doesn't know.

The distress races through his increasing breaths; the furrow between his brows and wide eyes. He feels hot all over, and as if something is bearing down on him with the weight of a tsunami. His ears are ringing, drowned out by the memories in his mind, the sensations, as if it is happening right now.

Dazai did let him do it. There were times he did it himself to get a favor. Does it matter then? All those days he didn't really want it and it left him sick? 

With everything Mori said, it was confusing and hard to see clearly all over again. The agency's adamant and unbudging stance on how it is never the victim's fault made him believe that too, but now he is thinking that maybe his case is actually different and it was mostly his fault. He's pretty sure the kids they were talking about never curried favors in exchange for sex like he did, that they were entirely innocent.

You liked it, didn't you? That was clear in the pictures.

It felt good. Even the way it hurt felt good, because it made you feel something.

Isn't that right, Dazai-kun?

Did they all see it too?

The truth is that Mori did make it feel good, even if every fibre in Dazai's being resisted and didn't want it to.

He can't stop remembering them all; their unfathomable faces as they were staring at him, the pictures scattered on the floor.

"You can't relegate all the blame to me just because you're ashamed of yourself, Dazai-kun," Mori tells him, in a deceptively soft explanation, "You are not unaccountable in what happened between us. If the agency made you think that with their morals and ideals, then let me make it clear for you; the pictures I chose were deliberate. They show things exactly as they were, show you as you are. I didn't abuse you. I never did anything you didn't enjoy yourself."

"There's a difference between wanting it and being forced to enjoy it." The way Mori looks at him makes him feel small and ridiculous all over again, just like when he was young. Mori thought his argument was weak, and even knowing the mindgames Mori was capable of, he was still somehow the only person that made him feel that way.

Stupid.

He can't think straight. His head always feels strangely foggy and blank whenever he is around Mori.

If he could just think straight, he would be better able to...

"You sound far too desperate to convince yourself of your purity and victimhood..." Mori smiles, "which we all know is a laughable notion in every respect. I suppose it must be the influence of that old friend of yours..." He feigns an attempt to recall. "I can't remember his name..."

The mention of Odasaku, that Mori has done what he did to him and pretends to not even deem him worthy enough to remember his name, is the last push. The sudden avalanche of turmoil and rage in his body is still as if he is experiencing it from a distance, but somehow it overtakes all his senses anyway. Even if he can't feel it, something in his body is, and he doesn't know what to do with it all, how to make it stop. His brain is going haywire on the images that keep clambering over each other, no matter how hard he tries to push them away. 

Dazai makes a choked sound through his grinded teeth and hurls back the knife, coming down on Mori with all the force in his body.

There's a gloved hand wrapping around his wrist and shoving him away, until he stumbles several steps back and trips and falls, shaky.

"What the hell are you doing?" Chuuya is wide-eyed, darting between Dazai and Mori.

And it's clear; how Chuuya's body is shielding Mori from Dazai.

It's clear who he chooses.

The commotion has the mafia grunts running in. Upon taking a quick survey of the situation, their guns are instantly in their hands, pointing it at Dazai.

Mori smirks at him from behind Chuuya, relaxed in his chair.

I see. 

He calculated it all. That's why he was so relaxed with having Dazai alone in the room with him. 

Mori's head tilts, glancing at Chuuya, continuing the conversation they were having before nonverbally.

I wonder what Chuuya-kun would think about it?

What if I showed him the pictures too?

"Lower your guns," Chuuya orders the mafia grunts, stepping in front of Dazai's fallen form now.

The men glance at Mori. Mori says nothing.

"I don't believe…" one of the grunts begins to say.

"Lower your guns, I said! No one shoots him!" Chuuya bellows, so loud they all obey immediately in terror.

"Chuuya-kun," Mori pipes up then, "Such concern over a member of another organization, despite seeing the situation at hand... it is making your loyalty seem rather questionable."

"It's not concern over him, Boss. I'm just worried about the alliance, that's all. If the agency sees him shot or in a body bag… it's not worth jeopardizing the peace of the city because of him. I'll deal with him, give him a good beatdown if I have to. I'm sure they'll understand that much."

"Very well," Mori says, smiling in his hollow, pleasant way, "You do know better than anyone how to do that."

Chuuya nods. "Permission to leave?"

"Dismissed."

Dazai is still in the same position; palms flat on the floor behind him, one knee folded up loosely towards his chest, his head bent low. Chuuya grabs Dazai by the collar and hauls him up to his feet forcibly, dragging him out.

Chapter Text

As soon as they're out, the sense of the grunts' wary eyes on them fall away in the deserted outdoors of the mafia headquarters, and Dazai rips himself away from Chuuya's firm grasp on his elbow. Immediately, he slips his hands in his pockets and turns to leave.

"What the fuck is wrong with you, you idiot!" Chuuya hisses, fists clenched at his sides, "They could have killed you! I should kill you by the laws of the mafia, you're damn fucking lucky Boss was good enough to refuse!"

Dazai ignores him and keeps walking.

"Are you listening to me?!" Chuuya is now jogging to catch up with him, fumbling to grab at his bicep, "Damn it, you could have fucked up the alliance if Boss wasn't as lenient as he was on ya — " 

Dazai whirls on him, shoving him away, "WELL THEN GO!"

His voice is loud, edged raw and scratchy from the force of his roar.

Chuuya is so shocked that he staggers back, his hand frozen around nothing.

Dazai's chest is heaving, and he is so full of turmoil and anger it leaves him feeling off-kilter and jarred and confused, and yet he can't stop. He feels strangely like an exposed nerve, stinging just from the brush of air.

"You worship the ground that sick bastard walks on so much, then fucking go!" Dazai bellows as he throws his arm out in the general direction of the office. "I don't know why the fuck you're here right now when you should be there kissing his ass!"

Chuuya is stunned and wide-eyed at his uncharacteristically crass language and lack of composure.

He is aware that he sounds absurd and unreasonable. He is aware that something is wrong in his body, that he feels too hot and flushed and his heart which should be dead in his chest is jittery and pounding fast and hard, and that his voice sounds all strained and raw and wrong. He is aware that there is not enough air reaching his lungs.

He is aware that he is being irrational with the way he is feeling, as if Chuuya has betrayed him in some way. It's stupid and it makes no sense because why should Chuuya care about any of it? Chuuya doesn't owe him something because of something Dazai chose to do himself, because he thought he was saving Chuuya.

Why should he not choose the leader of his own organization over a shitty ex-partner from the opposite organization that abandoned him in the same hellhole he dragged him into and said his goodbyes by blowing up his car?

Chuuya didn't even know, and that's a good thing.

And it's not like Dazai didn't ask for it anyway.

You can't relegate all the blame to me just because you are ashamed of yourself.

"Forget it," Dazai croaks as he turns around and heads for the exit. His breathing feels all weird and faint, making him lightheaded. He is so confused about why he is acting like this when he has never, not once, lost control of himself like this. He doesn't know how his body is reacting so much when on the inside he is just empty as always. He has a headache and maybe a blank kind of panic fraying at the edges of his mind and something intangible is bearing down on him like a tide but somehow he doesn't feel anything.

He doesn't feel real.

He feels as if he is in a dream, or not even there at all.

Before he can take more than two staggering steps away, there are gloved hands on his face, roughly pulling him back to a pretty face, bright blue eyes, red brows furrowed deeply.

"What happened?"

Dazai is bordering on hyperventilation, sweaty and hot and cold, unable to stop trembling. His head is held between Chuuya's gloved hands. 

He hurt me he ruined me he  took everything from me I can't

I can't ever go back

I thought I had found a home and now I can't ever go back—

The words never come. His voice never comes to his tongue. His throat is swelled up and choked with gasping breaths.

He needs to leave. He just needs to leave, maybe if he just gets away from here he could get some air—

"I need to—" Dazai manages to get out, and tries to turn away again from Chuuya's hands and leave, but Chuuya grabs his elbows and stops him. He glances around and over his shoulder, and drags him over to somewhere. Dazai is too weak from the lack of air and too busy trying to figure out how to get his head straight to try fighting him.

They make it somewhere hidden away, to the back of a building.

"No one's gonna see us here. It's okay, it's alright mackerel, come here." 

Somehow they end up sitting together against the brick wall with Dazai's head and shoulders laid sideways across Chuuya's lap, his arms against his own chest he does begin to cry. All he can keep whispering thickly of is the desperation that is consuming every fiber of his being.

I want to die, I want to die, I want to die...

Sometimes that is his only comfort; that he can die, that there is this ultimate escape out of it all.

But now there's also this; being wrapped up in Chuuya's loose grasp across his torso in a way that makes him feel safe from the world. He can smell fancy and subtle cologne and feel Chuuya's gloved fingers brushing through his hair. It's strange. It's so strange. He can't remember the last time he has cried, only ever remembers feeling dead, a rotten and festering feeling.

Chuuya doesn't say anything. He just runs his fingers across his hair, over and over and over.

He does it until, somewhere along the way, Dazai begins to calm down; until his breathing grows steady again.

It's nice to be held like this.

It's nice to feel so warm and safe.

He doesn't need protection, but it's nice to feel protected anyway. It was nice, once, to fantasize about Odasaku or Chuuya keeping him safe; some bizarre and childish solace that he always knew was just wishful thinking.

It wasn't something he began to imagine on purpose. He just saw Chuuya beat an enemy into a pulp once for trying to grope Dazai (could be just Dazai imagining things again though — Chuuya did keep saying it was just because he found the guy annoying) and somehow the idea got applied to Mori.

He saw Odasaku protect him from old, leering men in bars like that too, even though Dazai was perfectly capable of pulling his own gun on people like that, and even though Dazai knew it was his fault; that he was the one provoking them by acting so seductively. Sometimes he did it on purpose just because he liked feeling cared for by Odasaku, how he'd pull Dazai behind him. Sometimes he did it just so he could take them home and kill them after.

Sometimes he imagined their faces as Mori's.

Dazai used to say to Odasaku, I'm the one provoking them, you know. That's why they're acting like that towards me.

Odasaku would say to him in return, you are sixteen years old, Dazai. A child. No matter how you act towards them, it's their responsibility to not take advantage of you.

It's not a thought process that made sense to Dazai. What did age have anything to do with it? What did it even mean that he was sixteen years old?

What was being sixteen years old supposed to mean?

What did it mean to be a child? He was not a child at all.

He was nothing like an ordinary boy, and therefore it did not apply to him.

(He tried to push the childish images away for how embarrassing they were but in the end could not stop thinking about being saved. He knew even then that no one ever would, but still could not stop finding an escape and comfort in them.)

He never really managed to talk about it with Odasaku (but maybe he had known, somehow, sometimes it seemed like he did understand more than he let on), and Dazai has always been well-aware about how Chuuya feels about Mori and how he feels about Dazai.

There's a big difference between an enemy and the leader one looked up to. Chuuya is too loyal to Mori, and has barely ever liked Dazai enough anyway to ever want to choose him over his boss.

But it's weird then, isn't it, if Chuuya didn't like him much? It's weird how Chuuya is holding him now.

Eventually Dazai untangles himself and sits back, and Chuuya instantly backs away too. For a second, Dazai feels the irrational lurch in his chest; the same shrivelling feeling he used to get lying in Mori's bed.

He realizes, then, that Chuuya is trying to hide his own face. He is inconspicuously dabbing the heel of his glove to his eye, under his hat and hair hiding them.

"Chuuya?"

"Shut the fuck up," Chuuya blurts out instantly, trying to sound pissed and failing. 

Dazai actually does, for once, simply because he is genuinely speechless and at a loss.

Chuuya is...

Is he really...

Chuuya presses his heels to his eyes and grits his teeth, then abruptly smacks at Dazai's chest. "Stupid insufferable idiot bastard! Look what you did!"

Maybe Chuuya is expecting Dazai to make fun of him. That is, after all, how the script of their dynamic plays out.

But Dazai feels no such inclinations in that moment. He laughs, thickly, strangely endeared. He has found in himself a fondness for witnessing such displays of humanity; for the kindness and empathy in others that he can never seem to reach for himself.

Chuuya Nakahara, who Dazai was so certain ten minutes ago that he would never care held him through the first time he has ever broken since before he could remember. It's even stranger that Dazai does not find himself as embarrassed as he should be, and maybe that is in part because of Odasaku, and mostly because of this, as if the playing field of vulnerability has evened out. Neither of them can hold it against each other now.

"Don't laugh at me when you were doing the same a minute ago, you hypocritical piece of shit!"

"You're amazing, Chuuya."

"Fuck off."

"I mean it."

Chuuya freezes, blinking.

They lapse into silence after that, and now it is kind of uncomfortable, Chuuya's eyes traversing uncertainly. Dazai's remain steady on him, however, drinking him in for the very last time.

"I've never seen you like this," Chuuya says, hesitantly, after a while, "and I don't know what the fuck happened that could have hurt you this bad, but I'm guessing me not knowin' is the only reason Mori's not dead yet."

The words leave him bewildered once again; that Chuuya has said he would kill Mori, his boss that he so looks up to, if he discovers he has hurt Dazai.

Dazai can predict all events in a strategic or intellectual context.

Things like these; emotional things... that is what he seems to find the most difficult to foresee.

Maybe that is why Chuuya has always been so surprising.

Fiery, beautiful Chuuya; the most human thing he has ever seen.

Dazai leans in close. Chuuya blinks and rocks back slightly from the sudden proximity, not in shock, just gentle surprise.

"You always were the one," Dazai whispers, a breath against Chuuya's mouth. He is smiling a little, and for once it reaches his heart; his heart which has somehow opened up tender and wide in this moment.

Chuuya's eyes rove over Dazai's face.

"The one what?"

"The one who made it better."

Dazai's eyes remain on him, and so does his small smile. Chuuya's brows twitch, and before he can ask the question he undoubtedly has on his mind, Dazai crosses the little distance between them and kisses Chuuya softly on the corner of his mouth. Chuuya can punch him for it if he wants to. He can tell Dazai he will never feel the same for him. It does not matter anymore.

Chuuya doesn't do any of it, when Dazai lets go of the lingering kiss and stands to his feet. Chuuya seems dazed, frozen where he is.

Dazai has made it a few feet away, and does not really expect Chuuya's voice to suddenly yell, "Oi, Dazai!"

He does not really expect to turn around and stagger back with arms suddenly curled tight around his neck, and Chuuya is on him, kissing him so long it snatches all the air out of him. Chuuya briefly breaks the kiss to stare up at him, chest heaving for air. Dazai regains his senses and takes Chuuya's face and kisses him again.

He almost can't believe that this is happening.

After, Dazai breaks the kiss and rests his forehead down to Chuuya's. Chuuya is standing on his toes and it makes Dazai smile a little to himself.

"Swear to me," Chuuya says, his voice rough and a little strained from the kiss, as if through a dry throat.

Dazai frowns, not quite understanding.

"Swear to me I'll see you when I get off work," Chuuya grasps his collar, tugging at him, swallowing.

One minute, Dazai was whispering pleas for his death. The next, he kissed Chuuya.

So he knows. He figured it out.

"At least make it to this night," Chuuya pleads. "Please. I waited too fucking long for this just to find you dead the same night..."

Dazai knows this game. Chuuya has asked this of him more times than he can count.

Shitty bastard, you better be alive for the game tonight.

Oi, you better not be dead tomorrow night. I wanna beat you at karaoke!

It worked.

It worked just because it was Chuuya asking him to, and because it was easier to think of surviving just until the night than it was to think of surviving the rest of his life. There were days he would want to die more than anything, but then he would remember that he promised to beat Chuuya at some game or the other, and he would drag himself to the arcade or bar because Dazai never breaks his promises. 

(And because it was Chuuya. Just because it was Chuuya.)

Dazai stares at Chuuya's desperate face.

Chuuya's desperation spills over into gloved hands pulling Dazai down again, frantic kisses all over his mouth.

And yes, Dazai wants this.

He wants to know what this will turn out to be. Even if it won't last, he wants to stay and see what becomes of this.

How can he ever say no anyway, to a face so beautiful?

"I swear, " Dazai says, bringing his bandaged hands up to brush the sides of Chuuya's curls back soothingly, "I swear you'll see me alive tonight."

"Okay," Chuuya says, temple to his, and tugs his collar again, "Good."

***

Dazai makes a stop at Odasaku's grave.

"Do you think I've done enough?" Dazai asks, leaning his head back against the stone, "I think I've done my best to make you proud, Odasaku. Maybe it's not enough to make up for everything I have done... but I did my best." He pauses, and smiles slightly, sadly, "I can picture what you will say."

That was the comforting and beautiful unconditionality of Odasaku's friendship, even if Dazai may not have deserved it. Odasaku had seen him as he was, but still with kind eyes; the eyes of a friend. He cared for him no matter how terrible Dazai was, and it was never about compensating for his past.

It was about a way for you to save yourself.

Dazai thought he would end it today. He was sure he would. But he made a promise to Chuuya.

Dazai keeps his promises. Even if there is a selfish part of him that wants to break it, from how heavy the weight of his life has become, how grey and bleak; he keeps thinking of Chuuya's desperate face, the way he kissed him all over his mouth, and it's enough to keep him here until the night.

"I have nowhere to go now," he tells Odasaku. His voice comes out stranger and weaker than he expected. He tries to laugh, playing it off, even though there is no one really watching. "Ah...I don't think the agency would want me back after what they saw. Even if they did keep me for my ability and mind, I think it would be hard for them to have to see me every day and remember."

What would Odasaku say?

You are sixteen years old, Dazai. A child. No one should ever hurt you like that.

"If you knew," Dazai says, "You would be kind about it, wouldn't you, Odasaku? You would be kinder to me than I deserve, just like always."

When Chuuya stops wanting him and tells him to fuck off out of his life — when Mori decides to ruin this for him, the only thing keeping him here now, because Dazai refuses to join the mafia — Dazai will leave for good then. 

Until then... he can try and do one last good thing, and that is to end Fyodor Dostoyevsky.

The problem is that he can't really do that alone.

He does need the agency's help for that.

It wasn't the people he cared about anyway, Dazai thinks to himself. His life at the agency felt a little more beautiful than anything else in his life besides Chuuya and Odasaku, but... he doesn't really care what they all think of him. He wasn't that attached to any of them or anything. So what if they won't be able to stand the sight of him?

So what if things won't be like they used to be?

So what if he can't bother Kunikida anymore, or if Naomi and Tanizaki won't ever invite him out for evening tea, or he won't have movie nights and drinks with Yosano and Ranpo? So what if Atsushi will never look at him again as if he hung the moon and stars, or respect him as his mentor, if he has the misfortune of learning this about Dazai? So what if they will all want him gone the entire time? So what if he can so vividly imagine them talking about him behind his back right now?

So what?

It doesn't hurt him.

It's all just work anyway.

Chapter Text

The office is empty when Dazai arrives. It's not close to any meal time so he's not sure why no one is here (possibly a mission that required all hands on deck?) but it only makes his task easier.

It's also a mess; broken vases and pencil holders, flung items here and there. Someone seems to have raged and thrown several things around.

Though it could be anyone considering the drastic circumstances, the best person Dazai can think of who would express such anger so blatantly is Kunikida.

It's the first time Dazai finds himself hoping not to be found by him, at least not until he has cooled down. He is not sure what Kunikida would do to him if he saw him right now.

He catches sight of his things left behind on the desk, including his phone. He grabs it and pockets it.

If the President agrees to his negotiation, which Dazai predicts is around 75% chance if Dazai plays it right (which he knows he will), he will not need to move any of his things from his desk just yet.

Fukuzawa might not know what has occurred this morning unless one of the members have tattled on him. It's better if Dazai himself explains the situation to him before anyone else does, twists the narrative to his own will, but he is certain he can work with it if someone has already told the President.

He knocks on the door. A muffled, come in, sounds out from the office. Dazai pushes the door open and enters.

Fukuzawa's face is unreadable when he sees Dazai. He stands up from his chair.

It's enough for Dazai to know.

There are two possibilities; either someone has complained about him, or Mori has sent him the same envelope separately if he wants to make sure it won't be missed by the person in whose hands his job lies. That is absolutely something Mori would do.

No matter, Dazai thinks to himself. He can work with this too.

"Dazai," Fukuzawa says, not so much a greeting as it is an utterance of surprise. Surprising indeed, Dazai supposes, that he has the audacity to show his face here again.

"President," Dazai greets with a nod.

He has made up his mind that he will tolerate whatever comes for however long this lasts; pity or hostility.

"I'd like to speak with you regarding the situation that occurred this morning, if someone hasn't already mentioned it to you yet. I would humbly request that you let me finish what I say before you share your decision, since there is a lot to tell."

Dazai comes over to sit in the seat across from him, perfectly concealing his hesitation and uncertainty. He is half-expecting the President to refuse him the seat, hence he didn't do the polite thing and ask for permission.

There is something strange about the way Fukuzawa is eying Dazai, something that's a bit unsettling.

Is he already suspicious?

Does he know Dazai is going to try to keep his place in the agency, but has already made up his mind that he is not willing to relent to such an attempt?

"There was an envelope in the mail today. In the envelope, there were pictures of—"

His voice cracks and breaks off, abruptly, as if the thread of his voice has been cut at the end.

And there it all goes.

Dazai stares at Fukuzawa's face. He is rather good at concealing his thoughts behind his expression, has always been somewhat unreadable even to Dazai (made even more so by the fact that he speaks only when necessary). It makes sense, since he was trained under the same hand that trained Mori.

There were times that Fukuzawa did not hide his thoughts and emotions, however.

And for some reason, Dazai can't stop thinking about the almost fatherly expression he used to wear whenever he addressed him or anyone else in the agency.

He never noticed how much he…

He never realized how painful it would be to not see it there anymore, for him.

"Pictures of..." Dazai trails off yet again.

One of the curses of living in the light is that it is a bit harder to do something as heinous as what he initially planned to do.

It is hard to lie to the face of a man whose opinion of him does matter, and who was kinder to him than Mori ever was.

Dazai had thought he would lie and paint himself as a victim at Mori's mercy, but his throat is suddenly so tight he can't breathe. It hurts to do so, suddenly.

They were pictures of Mori forcing himself on me —

It's hard to get the lie out.

It's hard, looking at Fukuzawa's face.

Dazai thought he would spend his entire life here, that he could. It wouldn't have been a long life but it would have been longer than he had thought it would be when he was a child.

The people here accepted him even though they knew his past association with the mafia. Maybe that was only because they didn't know the true extent of his crimes and that was why it was easy to accept him and not care where he came from, but it had still been wonderful.

Now they know something real from his past. They can see the dirt in his soul.

Dazai had sometimes thought that they were the closest thing he had to a…

His eyes lower down to a spot on the desk. His hands are on the arms of his chair. He didn't even realize how tense he has become.

"...pictures of me having sex with the Port Mafia boss." 

The words come nearly a whisper, strained. Dazai does not look at him to see his reaction. 

"The pictures were..." He blinks, rapid and hard, trying to find the words. It's that fog in his head again, whenever he is around Mori. Everything is far away and nothing is real and he is not a person. He does not even exist. "They were disgusting… vulgar, and inappropriate."

He forces himself to be composed, clenching and unclenching his fists as he sits back, trying to look relaxed.

Why was it so hard now?

"Dazai…" Fukuzawa says, but Dazai needs to get it all out before he slips away or loses his composure again, loses control of the situation.

"I will evacuate the dorms, if I make other members feel uncomfortable. I assume you are considering firing me, but… simply put, and due to a lack of better words… you need me." He tries to smile, but it can't seem to reach his hollow eyes. "I am the only one that can deal with Fyodor Dostoyevsky, with my mind and ability, but it's true. I do also need the agency's help in that. When it's over, you have my word that I will leave of my own accord, and you will never have to see me again after that."

They both know what he really means. Dazai does not think Fukuzawa cares, or anyone really, except for Chuuya now.

"Until then, I will take the responsibility of looking over all packages and envelopes sent to the agency, in order to make sure something like this never happens again."

As much as he frames it as selflessly sparing others, he knows it is mostly a self-interested endeavor to spare himself the humiliation of being seen like that. Dazai is certain Mori has many more pictures he will keep sending until they tire of him and tell him to get out.

Fukuzawa is silent. He seems to have been waiting for Dazai to stop talking, as requested.

"Is that a good deal, President? I rather think it is. I think we can put aside scandals in favor of keeping the city safe."

That is a subtle cue for Fukuzawa to share his decision.

For a time even after, Fukuzawa doesn't say anything. Dazai wishes he could stare him right in the eyes, but this is the first time he finds himself unable to. He stares at a spot on the desk and waits. It's possibly the least he could do.

The chair screeches slightly when Fukuzawa stands to his feet, and Dazai does not look up but that screech of a chair is familiar. It is slightly different, a bit quieter, but nonetheless familiar, and there the memories come.

The steps that round around the desk towards him.

The looming of a tall body over him.

This sickly feeling in his chest, knowing what is about to happen.

But no—

Dazai blinks, hard and fast. He is not—

In his mind, he is already calculating the probability of what is going to happen next. Fukuzawa has no such inclinations that Mori does (not Mori, not Mori, not Mori, he is not in his office, he is not...) so the most vulgar conclusion entering his mind, its images clambering over his desperate attempts to push them out, is highly unlikely. He tries to flick the nauseating images out of his head.

They have seen how disgusting you are now, Dazai-kun.

Do you think they would ever like to see you again after this?

Chances are a bit higher that Fukuzawa is about to backhand him across the face. Mori used to do that, or bash his face against a wall whenever Dazai pissed him off too much—

(Not Mori, not Mori, not Mori...)

No... no, that may be too unnecessarily violent for someone like Fukuzawa. But well... the circumstances are drastically changed, and people have a tendency to stray from their general temperament in such cases.

(Not Mori, not Mori, not Mori...)

The chances are high that Dazai is about to be told to get out and never come back. His decision to deviate from his original plan — of relegating all fault to Mori and selling a story of being victimized — was not intelligent. To tell the truth was to run the risk of all of this falling apart like a house of cards.

Fukuzawa lowers himself, no longer the looming body of a figure in power and authority over him, and instead kneels before Dazai's feet, as if he is a child.

He is no longer terrifying like this.

This is no longer anything like Mori's office.

Dazai's head turns to meet blinking eyes with Fukuzawa's, brows furrowed in astonishment. Something has melted away from his shoulders, the nauseating malaise up his spine and under his skin fading as he is left reeling and confused.

"I thought I had come away making peace with my regrets in the past," Fukuzawa says. His voice is calm and gentle, his eyes steady. They have always been steadying to look at for himself as well. "It turns out one still remains; I should not have walked away from my last battle with Mori without seeing him dead."

This...is his least predicted outcome.

"Not only did he hurt you," Fukuzawa says, "It seems he made you feel responsible for it too."

Dazai stares at him, and then laughs, head hanging between his shoulders. If Fukuzawa is bemused by this, nothing in his expression gives it away.

It's funny that he still seemed to have gotten the outcome he wanted.

Dazai is excellent at strategies, at intellectualizing outcomes in combative or practical situations. 

He seems to keep failing at understanding or predicting situations like these.

"I am not a victim, Fukuzawa-dono," Dazai says, when he lifts his head, with half-lidded eyes and a smile, "I often offered myself to him of my own will, so he would do favors for me or let me off the hook for my failings."

"As the adult and your boss, he was the one in power and control," Fukuzawa says. "The imbalance between you two was undeniable."

"I was the one in power," Dazai says, coldly, sitting back against the chair, "I was the one controlling him."

He may be filthy and disgusting, but at least he held the reigns. At least it was his own choosing. 

When he used to think of it like that, it felt good. Even if he hated how it felt, even if he went home and threw up in the toilet or on the street if he couldn't make it, and scrubbed himself raw and washed himself five times simply because it was gross to have anything of Mori on him, at least he still had this leverage and tool of control.  

"You were a child," Fukuzawa tells him, "No matter what, it was his responsibility not to take advantage of you."

I'm the one provoking them, you know. That's why they're acting like that towards me.

You are sixteen years old, Dazai. A child. No matter how you act towards them, it's their responsibility to not take advantage of you.

Odasaku was once the only person he would have accepted such words from. If anyone else would have called him a child...

Now there are two people he respects deeply, having said this to him.

Two people he respects against Mori's words, who is notorious for his aptitude in warping the minds of anyone he speaks to.

Dazai did learn from the best.

There is this metacognitive space of awareness, watching him and his life from a distance, that makes him understand that he is not quite seeing things clearly, even if he doesn't always fully know in what ways.

(But he does not know what he will do if he has to realize and accept...)

"His punishments were the worst..." Dazai finds himself murmuring, his eyes afar, "They would go on for days and days and days, and I am not very good with pain, you see..."

(Who was truly in control?)

"Once, I offered my body to him, in exchange that he would let me go. I knew the way he looked at me by then, but I made it clear I wasn't interested..."

(Was it Dazai, who sold his body to spare himself pain and suffering, who received what could barely be called 'favors' in exchange at the whims of a man so high in power nearly no one could touch him?)

The missing pieces, that were so greyed out and pushed to the edges of his consciousness so he barely remembered, are beginning to reshape with clarity in his mind.

"I don't even remember the exact point when it all became too much. I wanted the suffering to stop so much that by that point I was willing to give anything... and if I could cut it short in exchange for an hour or two of him having his way with me..."

(Or was it Mori, who has always known...

Dazai knew it then too, that Mori knew what he was doing, that it was all deliberate. He planted the seed in Dazai's mind, subliminally put it forward by showing his interest through the way he looked at him and stroked his neck and waist, this is the one thing you can use to stop me, and pushed him so hard to his limits that Dazai did... he did anything to make it stop.)

"At some point, whenever I could see the pain coming, I started offering before it even started."

"He made you choose between terrible things," Fukuzawa says, "And you chose what you felt would hurt less, or for a lesser time if nothing else."

He has never quite thought it in such words, but...

"I suppose."

Then, after a certain point, Mori began to see it as a blanket consent. After a certain point, the pattern became fixed, and there were many times Mori didn't care to play such mindgames before he took whatever he wanted.

Dazai was a child that was desperate for some semblance of control, who could not bear the feeling of being so helpless and without agency. Control was what he sought in every situation with his intelligence. 

He had thought if he could start using his body to manipulate Mori for his own advantage, it would give him the power.

He sees it now.

He always has, in fact.

He just wanted to pretend.

And Mori let him.

"He started withholding things from me that made no sense, that I knew, as a rational leader that valued cold-hard facts and strategy, he wouldn't have otherwise. He would refuse to give my partner enough days for recovery, after he got hurt..."

After he used Corruption, Mori would complain about how the processes slowed without Chuuya's contribution and presence. The members of Double Black were some of the strongest pillars of the organization, and there was a lot that they handled where the executives and highers could not. But it served no purpose to force Chuuya back to work while he was not fully up to par and could not perform to his usual capabilities, while he was in so much pain he could barely move. How many times did he point that out to Mori, and Mori did not care, until Dazai smiled sweetly at him and said, I see you're in a bad mood, Mori-san... what if I make you feel very good?

"He would consider punishments for my friend's failures in front of me, and it never sounded quite like a threat but I could tell it was, because it was so intent and calculated... he would express interest in my partner too, call him pretty and say all these things about what he wanted to do to him, and the only way I could stop him was..."

Why are you looking at that ugly slug when you should be looking at me?

"It wasn't always...bad...I guess in the beginning I even liked certain aspects of such attention. I was a lonely teen, you see. When I was young, he was the only one that seemed to like having me around, and the person who came the closest to understanding me... so sometimes, the fact that he wanted me was almost as comforting as it was repulsive..."

It was only when he got Odasaku and Ango in his life at sixteen, when he saw how much better company he was shockingly capable of keeping (even if that was once every few weeks), that the conflicted and confusing feelings that came with being wanted and praised by Mori but hating the price he had to pay for it went away, and all that was left were the sickly feelings. His anger could never come out at Mori, however. It dried up as soon as he was in the same room as him, and he went numb and blank.

All his anger came out at the old, leering men in bars that he took home. He straddled their laps in bed and kissed them as he pressed his gun to their temples, and then killed them in cold blood with a hollow impersonation of a seductive smirk.

He was reliving something, he now thinks. He was trying to create a different outcome, to truly reconstruct the sense of control he kept having to tell himself he did have, whenever he was in Mori's office; his bed.

Dazai blinks, and suddenly he is back in Fukuzawa's office. The president is still kneeling at his feet, at a safe distance.

The exhaustion is setting in, bearing down on him until he felt as if he never wanted to move an inch. He talked about it all just because it doesn't matter anymore. They can hate him or pity him or feel however they want.

All he wants to do now is go to Chuuya's apartment and maybe lie beside him if Chuuya will let him, just lie beside him even if he can't fall asleep. Maybe they will watch a movie together. Maybe Chuuya will kiss him softly and he will feel warm and safe in his arms again. Maybe Chuuya will let him listen to his heartbeat if he asked.

He wants to spend whatever time he has left with Chuuya before he loses him too, and he wants to stop Fyodor.

After that, he will end it all.

That is all he wants from his worthless life now.

"That's my side of the story then. You may make of it what you will," Dazai says, not carelessly or impolitely, although it is hard to let any emotion bleed into his voice when it has all drained out of him and left him numb and afar, "Please tell me your decision when you are ready."

Dazai stands and heads for the exit, thinks he should likely leave before...

(Before he breaks again, maybe)

"There is no decision to make," Fukuzasa says when he is at the door, and his voice is so soft, and Dazai always thought he was above getting affected by such things but it is getting steadily getting harder not to lose composure (and no, maybe he has never quite been above such things — why had he been so fascinated by Odasaku, and why has he been in love with Chuuya for seven years, and what makes him care so much for Atsushi?), "You are one of us. No one will forsake you for what has been done to you."

Dazai smiles. It is brittle on his face, but he is well-practiced enough that he knows it will hold. He thinks of the rageful mess surrounding his partner's desk. "I'm afraid you can't speak for everyone, Fukuzawa-dono."

"Tell me, why do you think the office is empty right now?"

The question is intent.

Dazai should understand, but he doesn't.

"They are all out there," Fukuzawa says, "looking for you."

Dazai's breath stills in his chest.

Oh.

"You left your phone at the office, so no one could reach you. I have ordered that first priority be that you are found and that no one should go after the mafia boss yet — "

Dazai's brows jump. He blinks. Go after the mafia boss? Yet?

Fukuzawa notices his surprise. "It is a violation of the alliance for Mori to spread such horrible images of one of our members in an attempt to humiliate, though I don't believe this humiliation is yours to bear. It's his. We do need a foolproof plan, however. I briefly feared Doppo and Yosano would not have been able to stop themselves from how livid they seemed, but Ranpo is sure they won't do anything."

Dazai doesn't cry, but there is this feeling in his throat, swelling up against the back. His heart tumbles in his chest, full with many things he can never even begin to name. His emotions are there, even if they are so muted they feel like a shout into the void. But they are there. Odasaku made him realize that, and Chuuya's very existence reminds him he is capable of feeling.

And the agency... the agency has been better for him. He has never felt more than he did around them, even if it was not to the extents of vividity that normal people did. Being around good people and away from the darkness that killed his soul helped him regain something he never knew he lacked. He has found a partnership with Kunikida, although different from what he had with Chuuya, but wonderful nonetheless. He has found a dear mentee in Atsushi, someone he wished to take care of and guide. Movie nights and drinks he looked forward to with Yosano and Ranpo. Grocery shopping with Kenji and Kyouka. Cooking with the Tanizaki siblings and making Atsushi, Kyouka or Kenji taste test. Mornings in the cafe with all of them together, and sometimes dinner somewhere a bit nicer on the days they get their salary.

He doesn't have to leave now. It is only when this sinks in that he realizes; he has never really been ready to.

Chapter Text

Fukuzawa calls the members of the agency to inform them that Dazai has been found. He tells Dazai to return to the dorms to take the rest of the day off, and if required, he can take more, and that if he needs anyone for anything, including himself, that they are all just a call or a room away.

Dazai stays long enough to overhear his conversation with Atsushi who expressed wanting to see him, but Fukuzawa told him to let Dazai be for the day and to pass the message on to the others.

Somehow, Fukuzawa is insightful and intuitive enough to understand exactly what every member would need in a given situation. Lying on his futon in the dorms, Dazai stares up at the ceiling and wonders what Odasaku would think of that, that he has such a cool boss.

Dazai can imagine Chuuya would be a bit jealous but mostly happy for him, because Chuuya has that kind of heart.

His phone buzzes with a text.

Dazai turns the screen on and checks. As if his thoughts of Chuuya have been heard, the message lighting up his screen is from his precious little hatrack.

Slug: oi u better be alive fucker

Slug: that is not gonna be the first and last kiss we ever had 

Dazai smiles.

I'm alive. I don't break promises ya know

The reply comes seconds later.

Slug: good

Slug: how are u feeling

Mackerel: I'm doing better

Mackerel: It's been a weird day but it took an okay turn

Slug: u ever gonna tell me wth happened

Mackerel: Maybe not today

The reply comes a few minutes later.

Slug: alright i wont push

Slug: i never thought id say this but u better be at my apartment as soon as ur done w work

They text back and forth through the rest of the hours. Chuuya disappears for long periods in between because of work so Dazai sends him memes in the meantime, just because he gets that Chuuya needs to know he is there, until work hours are over. Dazai puts his coat on and leaves his dorm a half an hour before everyone is supposed to come back.

It's still kind of nervewracking... thinking about seeing them again after that. 

Would they always see those pictures in their minds' eye now whenever they look at him?

***

Chuuya is already there on his couch with a glass of wine by the time Dazai breaks in. He must have left early today.

"Is the chibi enthusiastic to see me?" Dazai says with a little smile, leaning down close teasingly. Chuuya rolls his eyes, but he is sort of fussing over him, helping him take his coat off and grabbing his wrist and dragging him over to the couches.

Dazai can't remember why he thought Chuuya never cared about him, when this felt so familiar, even if it had been much more restrained and closed off and disguised under a hundred things, and this was more blatant. Chuuya used to notice the days he was worse, and keep a close eye on him, and force him to watch movies with him so he would stay at his apartment or make him swear in his gruff way to be alive for the arcade or karaoke game the next day, and he used to text him throughout the day under various excuses like asking him about missions or sending him childishly funny or stupid things but, now in hindsight, was just his way of making sure Dazai was okay and there, perhaps to comfort himself too.

He used to take care of him in whatever ways a repressed teenage boy could of another repressed teenage boy.

Now Chuuya is far less repressed, more open with his emotions, it seemed. He has matured and seems more comfortable and settled within himself.

He has grown more and more beautiful over the years, too.

Dazai thought he would need to ask for something lowkey, but it seemed Chuuya had just that planned, just like old times. He throws his own oversized pyjamas in his face and lets Dazai pick the movie and drapes the softest blanket he has over his shoulders.

"Did I scare Chuuya that much?" Dazai asks, once they're settled, half-curious and half-amused. He is lying with his head in Chuuya's lap, and Chuuya is brushing his fingers through his hair. It's lovely. His nails scratch lightly against his scalp and it sends shivers down his spine.

"That better be the last damn time I see your ugly face look like that," is all Chuuya says.

Half-way through the movie, Dazai sits up, hair tousled and in Chuuya's most oversized clothes smelling of him. He holds Chuuya's cheek and leans in and kisses him softly the way he dreamed all day. Chuuya's arms curl around the nape of his neck, around his broader shoulders, and he is smaller but the way he holds him is as gentle as being cradled.

"Can we just do this, Chuuya?" Dazai whispers against his lips, hands on Chuuya's ribs. He likes this, can't quite stomach anything more after everything that's been swirling in his head all day. Not with someone that matters so much. Not with someone he wants to do it right with, and not on a day where his thoughts are so full of things he doesn't want to think about.

"Sure," Chuuya murmurs back, easily, pulling at a lock of hair at Dazai's temple and tucking it behind his ear, "Yeah. Anything you want."

Dazai moves back into the small space between their faces, pulls him closer and kisses him harder.

***

Dazai couldn't sleep that night, as he expected. But it's fine. Even if his head is a mess right now, listening to Chuuya's heartbeat and feeling the sink and swell of his heated and sleeping body, the sound of his breathing warming his hair made it easier to bear.

Sometimes he just liked to stare at his face while he slept, as if the absolute, carefree peace of his dreamless slumber can seep into himself. It is soothing, even if Chuuya is a ridiculously messy and heavy sleeper, limbs spread out and drooling with his mouth agape.

Dazai laughs a little at him, shifts his head closer on the pillow and kisses his face.

Maybe this can last. He wants it to last, even if he is too painfully, vividly aware of the fleeting nature of all things, of people and relationships and life —

But Chuuya is still here, seven years later.

And the saddest and most beautiful thing about him is that he never leaves. He never leaves unless someone leaves him first.

"Never again," Dazai whispers into his cheek, fingers curling around Chuuya's loose fist on his own abdomen, "I swear, I won't be the one to leave you this time."

Some day Dazai will have to tell him about it all; about him and Mori, if Mori doesn't get to him first and twists the story around against Dazai. Maybe Chuuya will be on his side, maybe he won't. He's learned he is not the best at predicting other people's emotional reactions unless it's fairly clearcut.

"If either of us goes now, it'll have to be you."

***

The next morning, Dazai shows up at the agency with some strange blank restlessness and agitation under his skin, a curdling in his gut. It takes him too long to identify it as anxiety. He is getting a bit better at that — figuring out what he is feeling.

He doesn't really know what to expect when he opens the door, but it is not hearing Kenji shout, "Dazai-san!" as he jumps to his feet and rounds his desk to run towards him, and the next thing he knows, he is being tackled into a hug by several small people. He is so startled his hands are frozen in the air, blinking down at the three heads; silver, black and blond.

"Dazai-san! We were so worried yesterday," Atsushi tells him as they all step back. He is looking up at him with wide eyes. "I still don't know what happened but whatever it is, Dazai-san, it will be okay, because we are all on your side. We'll help you!"

"We brought you crepes," Kyouka says in her quiet, soft voice, holding up a paperbag to him, "They always make me feel better."

"We must have scoured the entire Yokohama yesterday looking for you," Kenji says, as he bounces on his toes, hands behind his back.

"Ah," Dazai says, ruffling Kenji's hair and patting Atsushi and Kyouka's head, "I'm sorry I worried you all. Thank you for looking for me."

That's the easy part.

It's all the others still sitting at their desks in his peripheral vision, their eyes boring into him, the ones who'd seen; Kunikida, Yosano, Ranpo who must have deduced it instantly even without having seen them. Junichirou, who is just as old as Atsushi, far too young to have been exposed...

Dazai wishes he had finished the job before Chuuya stopped him.

He wishes he had stabbed Mori in the heart and torn it right out of his chest.

It's hard to look up at them, so he spends a little too much time talking with the young ones, smiling a little. He shares the crepes with them all.

They wait patiently for him. Yosano's chair is rolled up to his desk, and she seems to be helping Kunikida finish up some of Dazai's paperwork. Junichirou sets a coffee and paperbag next to Dazai's computer, and seems like he doesn't really know what to say or do beyond this silent gesture. Naomi, who was not there during the occurrence, seems bemused by the strange energy in the office and everyone's behaviors. 

Uncomfortably, he takes his chair between Yosano and Kunikida. He thinks he should make a joke, feigning exaggerated joy and appreciation, Kunikida-kuuun, how kind of you to be doing all my work for me! Oh, there's also some of this too if you really want to help...

But he can't stop seeing himself through their gaze, those pictures in their minds' eye. He can feel Yosano's eyes on him as he tries to organize his paperwork. 

They have seen how disgusting you are now, Dazai-kun.

Everytime they look at you now, they will remember those pictures.

There's a hand, then, draping over his loosely curled fingers. Dazai stills, not looking at her.

Yosano leans in and whispers, "His head will be ours to take."

Dazai does lift his head then, staring at her for a while.

"You..."

"Yeah," Yosano says, with a sad, wry little quirk at her mouth, "Me too."

Dazai knows he is bad with physical affection and expressing empathy, but somehow in that moment he finds it in himself to turn his hand over and take hers into it. Maybe it's enough, the way she squeezes it. She doesn't let go.

"I was eleven," Yosano says, just between them, as if in a confession.

"Fourteen." His voice is just as quiet, "It didn't stop until I left."

The abrupt screech of a chair falling onto its back startles them both, and when they both turn to look, Kunikida's chair is empty and he is stalking towards the door, the intention of violence in every fiber of his being. 

Neither of them knew he could hear them.

"He's been talking about killing Mori since yesterday," Yosano says as she hurriedly pushes herself to her feet and makes to run after him.

Dazai stops her with an elbow. "I'll go after him." He turns in his chair and stands to his feet, making a fast pace for the door.

He catches up to Kunikida and grabs him by the shoulder, halting him.

"It's no use," Dazai says, turning him around, "You are only walking to your death, Kunikida-kun."

"Anyone that touches children in such vile ways deserves to die!"

"I understand you're angry," Dazai says, "but like Yosano said, his head will be ours to take, and we will need a plan when we do go after him." He smiles gently at Kunikida, "Until then, I think keeping the alliance between our organizations for as long as possible is in the best interests of the city." He has spoken to Fukuzawa about this too, and Fukuzawa respects his wishes, since he believed the wrong was done to Dazai and it is his choice how he wants it to be handled. The agency will always be behind him regardless and they will fight alongside him should he ever change his mind.

It's only now that Dazai is believing those words.

For all of his loathing for Mori, it is undeniable that Mori is a great leader, and maintains a strong order in the mafia. Dazai's tendency towards logic restrains him from killing him, as tempting as that is, because it is not worth restarting the chaos in the city that came with the conflict between the ADA and Port Mafia.

He also thinks of Chuuya.

He does not want Chuuya to turn against him and hate him for killing his leader, and especially not now, when he is just getting to be with him in ways he has fantasized of since he was fifteen, but could never admit to himself or move out of his protective circle of solitude enough to act on it.

He wants to keep Chuuya for as long as he can now.

Most of all, Dazai wants Mori's death to be at his own hand and Yosano's, with the agency behind him, but only when the time is right.

Kunikida clenches his jaw. His eyes seem wrecked in some way, underneath all the restrained rage. 

He grabs at Dazai's collar and hauls him in against him, holding him tightly by his shoulders. They rock a little together from the force with which Kunikida collides against him, and Dazai puts a tentative hand between his partner's shoulderblades. He's kind of getting used to it at this point.

"What will you do if he tries again?" Kunikida asks in a low voice, chin to his shoulder.

"Burn them."

"I'll make you lighters from my notebook."

Dazai smiles.

Chapter Text

After their first time, they lie together with Dazai's face buried into Chuuya's chest and his shoulders curved around Chuuya's waist, arms tight around his lower back. Chuuya's fingers are stroking through Dazai's hair. His forearm is resting on Dazai's bare bandaged back.

"I didn't know it could be so good," Dazai murmurs without thinking, a little awed, into the brush of his lips over Chuuya's sternum, pressing a kiss to the centre. He feels loose and liquid, so relaxed that his mouth just ran with the flow of his thoughts without inhibition.

It occurs to him in the silence that follows that the statement is strange. Chuuya's hand has stilled in his hair. Dazai notices but does not point it out.

"I ain't buying that that was your first time. You used to come back with love marks all the time."

Dazai has too much practice with keeping his body relaxed, even with the curdling in his chest and the tension trying to rise in his body. He keeps his cheek against Chuuya's heartbeat, humming noncommitally. "I didn't say it was my first time."

"Then what did ya mean?"

"I meant exactly what I said."

"You did look nervous," Chuuya points out, "That was kinda weird to see. I've never seen you nervous about anythin'."

"No one I've been with has ever mattered like Chuuya."

The next few minutes are spent with Chuuya's fingers running through his hair, and Dazai closing his eyes. He might actually fall asleep tonight, lying like this with Chuuya, tingling warmth through the nerves under his skin.

"Oi, Osamu," Chuuya says. He gets riveted and chatty after sex, it seems, and Dazai is the opposite; on the verge of sweet slumber.

Dazai still lifts himself on Chuuya's torso with a wrist, made alert by the hesitance in his chibi's voice.

"You ain't gonna leave me by morning, are you?" There is a tremor of an emotion across Chuuya's face, though he tries to hide it.

Dazai remembers leaving Chuuya in the field after Corruption. His heart sinks.

His lack of empathy and the way Chuuya never expresses when something has hurt him, except through anger and irritation, makes him forget. He had thought of it merely as a joke, callous as it was, but it had simply been aligned by the workings of their dynamic. It never occurred to him that it could leave lasting imprints on Chuuya's perception of him until now, that it could hurt him, even that leaving without a goodbye and with an explosion of his car would hurt him.

His own conviction that no one could or should care about him, not even Chuuya, made him reflect this distance back to others; even Odasaku and Ango at times bore the brunt of this cold and thoughtless side of him. He had thought to himself back then, it's not as if Chuuya would care if he didn't say goodbye or tell him he was leaving, because why would he?

And so why should Dazai bother?

The thing about it though, he understands now, is that he only ended up hurting someone that did care by telling himself he didn't. He understands now that there is no way Chuuya didn't care, because that is not in his nature. Chuuya cares too much about everyone in his life, and about him, far more than Dazai deserved. For some reason, that never changed, and no amount of telling himself that Chuuya didn't changed it. It just hurt Chuuya when Dazai protected himself by not caring either.

"Right," Chuuya says. There is something tight in his voice. He clears his throat, and tries to untangle himself, "Well, don't wait around til I'm asleep then — "

"I won't," Dazai tells him. "I won't leave Chuuya again."

"You said you'd take me to the extraction last time too." 

Apparently, Chuuya did hear that.

How do I believe you when you say that, after everything? is the unspoken question in Chuuya's eyes. It's a good one.

"I got an idea," Dazai says with a cheeky little grin, and sits up, tugging at Chuuya's arms.

He lies down on the bed first before pulling at Chuuya again, cuing for him to lie on top of him, so that his entire body is draped over his torso, trapping Dazai underneath.

"There," Dazai says, satisfied, "Now if I try to leave, Chuuya will know and he can kick my ass back into staying."

Chuuya stares at him, mildly bewildered, before he breaks into a sudden laugh.

"You got that right, bastard. If you try to leave me again, I'll kick your ass even harder than I did in the dungeons." Chuuya rests his cheek to Dazai's collarbone.

It's not suffocating or terrifying to have this body on top of him, somehow. Chuuya feels warm and safe. 

He feels just right.

There is still one nagging question, however. It feels like the time to ask, since they are here having such a candid conversation already.

"Chuuya?"

"Hm?"

"Why did you forgive me so easily? For leaving?"

Chuuya is silent for a while.

"I'm not sayin' it didn't hurt, not that you had to leave but that you didn't say a word to me, and I was pissed for a long time but..." His fingers are playing idly with the edge of his bandages. He is the only one in the world Dazai would ever let near them with his hands. He has already seen and touched them enough times that Dazai is habituated to him. Maybe it's as if his body just recognizes him, and that's why it's easy with him. "Well, eventually I got it... why you had to leave. I heard about your friend. I looked for you for months, so I had to dig pretty deep to find out."

His voice has taken on a strange depth, a carefulness, as if he is trying to lead it to somewhere.

"I still don't know the full story, just that we got the Business Permit in exchange for Mimic's death, and that Oda Sakunosuke died in that battle." He pauses. "I'm not sure about this, but I guess I've been wondering if maybe that's why you hate Mori so much, because he might have something to do with that, I don't know... maybe this even had to do with that day you were—"

Dazai knows he was the one who asked the question and he is being an asshole, but the first mention of Mori and that day makes him shut down instantly and he ends up feigning having fallen asleep. He feels Chuuya shift on top of his chest and against his loose grasp, probably raising his head to look at Dazai. He stays quiet for several seconds, before lightly returning to his previous position, resting his head against Dazai's heart.

Maybe if he loved Chuuya less, if he was less afraid of losing him or being seen differently by him, it would have been easy to talk about it.

***

"Dazai-san?" Atsushi says tentatively, when they are the only ones in the room.

"Yes, young one?"

"Was it the Port Mafia boss that hurt you?"

Dazai freezes.

"I know I shouldn't pry so I am not asking anyone else, and you don't have to tell me if you don't want to or anything! It's just — well, Kunikida-san looked so angry, and I overheard him talking about killing the mafia boss and it seemed like it was because he hurt you. Again, you don't have to tell me anything, Dazai-san!" Atsushi holds his hands out, waving in placation. "But..."

His voice trails off.

His sunset eyes have darkened. 

"But if he hurt you... then I want to hurt him too."

Sweet, empathetic Atsushi with his own horrible past, who will do anything for the ones he cares about.

Dazai ruffles his hair gently. "Thank you, but there is no need for that, Atsushi-kun."

"I think I can understand, if you tell me... but I don't know. Maybe it's different."

I hope you never do.

If someone ever hurts his mentee like that...

It may be one of the few things that would throw him right back into killing.

"It's not for you to worry about." Dazai gives him his cutesiest smile, "But! If you are really eager to help me and make my life easier, here is my last month's paperwork - " He reaches for the pile, picks it up and plops it down on Atsushi's desk.

Atsushi sighs.

Still, he does help.

***

The pictures don't come again. Mori's ploy was unsuccessful and so he does not repeat it. Dazai knows how his mind works. As tempted as he is to torment Dazai, it is not worth the cost of the alliance.

The first attempt was a calculated risk to have Dazai lose everything; his job, his friends, his residence, until he has only place to come back to. Though Dazai couldn't see it clearly at the time, Mori must have been aware that it could either turn the agency on him without impacting the alliance or it could backfire on Mori itself and break the organizations apart.

Mori is well aware of the irrationality and cognitive dissonance present in human society. There are certainly people who find anything absolvable until something of a sexual nature comes into play, then it becomes particularly despicable and scandalous. So often, it is pinned on the one who is in a lesser position of power. So often, people lose respect for those who cannot fight back, and cast no glance of judgement at the perpetrator. Dazai, too, thought the agency would be the same in regards to him. This was what Mori wanted to use.

Although it did not turn out to be the case with the agency, it was still calculated, Dazai was sure. Mori knew Dazai is more likely to prioritize the alliance over his need for vengeance as a result of Dazai's own tendency towards logic.

Maybe he even knew Dazai valued Chuuya too much to do anything to Mori, and that he would never speak of it to Chuuya out of his own avoidance of vulnerability or shame, just as he hadn't over the seven years they've known each other.

Dazai does not predict Chuuya finding out.

He definitely does not predict that it would be exposed via some tech-savvy ability user trying to cause a rift between the organizations, hacking into camera footage from the depths of Port Mafia records and digging out the scene in Mori's office the day those pictures were sent; Dazai's attempt to kill Mori. 

There's another footage that should have been unrecoverable, from when Dazai was fifteen and in Mori's office alone with him; one of the most violent of his memories playing out in front of him, and mentally retreats somewhere he cannot be reached for hours after, in the same far away space he used to go into into when it had all been happening right then.

Just like that, he would not remember how the last many hours had passed. One minute, it would be morning, and in a blink, he would suddenly return to nightfall outside his window.

It is sent to everyone in the agency, though they did not play the second footage out of respect.

The thumbnail is still enough to ignite rage in all of them, as was certainly intended and planned by the perpetrator, and this time, Dazai knew nothing he said would be able to stop them from beginning the formulation of their plan of marching down to the mafia for an attack.

It no longer makes as much of a difference anyway, because Dazai knows the alliance has already been broken from the Port Mafia's side.

It is sent to all the executives of the Port Mafia, so they would all see Dazai's attempt on their boss' life. (The low ranking grunts had witnessed the aftermath of the attempt, but they are all under a blanket oath to keep all they see and hear confidential.)

It is sent to Chuuya.

This has Fyodor's fingerprints all over it. He wants the two organizations to go to war again, to destroy each other, but it is not the main plan.

He is likely planning something else far bigger behind the curtains. In the meantime, he just wants to torment Dazai, and use this as distraction.

Dazai spends the hours after pacing back and forth in Chuuya's bedroom, waiting for Chuuya to come back home.

He doesn't know whose words Chuuya will believe in that footage, whose side he will take, who he will choose. Mori has likely moulded the story in his own favor at this point to drop Dazai to the lowest in Chuuya's eyes (he is trying to be better, and he wants Chuuya to see it too, but now this...). Chuuya is too valuable of a piece on his chessboard.

He has to explain his side of things to Chuuya, at least, without lies or manipulation, as honestly as he can. There is a war brewing between their organizations, and things will be more complicated than ever.

Eventually, he grows tired and sits down on the bed. He feels something crawl up his spine, his leg jittery and jumpy.

He laughs shakily, seeing his hands tremble in front of him. "How weird."

He doesn't feel anything.

Why does his body do all these weird things when he doesn't feel anything?

It's your body telling you something you don't know, Odasaku once said to him, when he showed up at his door one night after hours with Mori and asked him this, sat beside him on the bed with his hand light on Dazai's head as he curled up in a ball and shook — was all shaky and jumpy just like this, but was empty on the inside. Tell me what happened. (Dazai never could).

He is anxious, he realizes. Everything feels far away and his chest is a vacuum, but his thoughts are racing, flitting rapidly between several things, getting stuck and hyperfocused. He is trying to figure out how to fix this, how to make Chuuya not lose all respect for him (how to not lose Chuuya), how to deal with Fyodor and Mori and how to make everyone and everything stop —

He is rather tired of all the secrets of his past, that he wants to forget, being spilled out for everyone to know against his will.

The door bangs open and slams shut so hard it rattles the floor under Dazai's feet. The next thing he knows, there is absolute, unnerving silence.

Then, a raw, enraged yell, followed by shattering of glass and bangs of upending furniture. It goes on and on and on, and Dazai, not knowing what to do, just sits there unmoving.

Suddenly, it all stops, and then there are just heaving gasps echoing from the other room, that seem to border on sobs.

Half an hour passes like that, both of them in different rooms in the silence of the house, but for the occasional shuddering breath from the living room — half an hour of Dazai contemplating whether he should just leave through the window and let Chuuya be alone, or whether he should stay the way he promised Chuuya, and brave through whatever happens next because he owes it to Chuuya.

It is a half an hour later that Chuuya appears in the doorway. It is clear he did not expect Dazai to be here, the way he is taken aback.

Dazai straightens where he is sitting, hands tightening around the sheets, and all he manages to get out is a quiet, "Chuuya..."

Chuuya is then heading across the room right for him, and Dazai is not really sure what will happen when he reaches him.

Chuuya is then catching him by the head with his arms, standing between his knees and holding Dazai to his chest and pressing his mouth to the top of his head. Dazai is tall enough even while sitting, compared to him, that he can reach Chuuya's heartbeat.

It's after a while of being pressed against Chuuya's heaving, erratic chest that Dazai lifts his bandaged arms slowly, and wraps them around his small waist, first firm, then tightening into something almost desperate. Chuuya gloved hand touches the back of Dazai's head, slips into his hair and pulls him closer.

"You're shaking," Dazai says softly, "Come here." He tugs Chuuya down onto his lap by his waist without letting him go, so he can hold him better against him like this. Chuuya's cheek is against the side of his hair, and his arm is around his neck and cradling Dazai's head to his shoulder.

Neither of them really know who is comforting who at this point.

"I'm sorry..." Chuuya manages hoarsely, "I didn't know. It was happening right under my nose and I didn't know."

"I didn't want you to."

"I respected him so much...I talked about all that shit in front of you..."

"I didn't want you to know, Chuuya. I never held it against you." Dazai turns his head, so he can press his nose to Chuuya's cheek, "You know me."

Dazai was good at hiding a lot of things.

"Why didn't you tell me? I would have killed him right then and there for you..."

"Even back then?" Dazai asks, bewildered.

"You were my partner," Chuuya says, and his voice breaks, and the word is reverent and sacred between them, like a prayer, "I've loved you since we were kids."

It takes Dazai some time to take it in; how that feels, his heart settling gently in his chest cavity. He holds Chuuya tighter.

"You... you let him hurt you, for me... Dazai, you never had to protect me, damn it! I would have fucking killed him for what he was doing to you without even lifting a finger — "

"You don't know him like I do. He would have found a way to make you fold, give in, because the most dangerous thing about him are his words, his mind and position, Chuuya. He would have manipulated you using your loyalty, threatened someone you love." Dazai intakes a small breath through his nose. "And even if I tried to tell you, I wouldn't have even known where to begin. It was far more messed up and confusing than you think."

"Then tell me now, if you're up for it."

So Dazai does. He tells him everything he told Fukuzawa, and maybe a little more, and this may be the last time he ever wants to talk about this ever, but he doesn't want anything to be hidden between him and Chuuya if he can help it, and now that he knows Chuuya is on his side.

"Sick fucking bastard..." Chuuya grinds out, his shaking fists clenching around Dazai's coat, before he shifts his face to bury it into Dazai's hair in some attempt to calm himself. His entire body is hard and tense as stone from the controlled rage in his muscles, trembling.

Dazai catches sight of Chuuya's dark, bruised knuckles and frowns. He takes it in his hand and pulls it closer to take a look. They look no longer than a day old.

"What's this? Who did the brutish slug beat up now?"

"Some of the executives were talking shit," Chuuya says, "A lot of fucked up shit. I lost control."

Ah.

Dazai can imagine the things they were saying, what they were calling him... how they would be laughing at him.

Chuuya's warmth helps him ground himself and keep composure.

"He's dead," Chuuya says, then, and Dazai freezes. 

"What?"

"I hope Hell is real just so he is rotting in the deepest pits of it," Chuuya says in a low voice.

Dazai pulls Chuuya back to look at him. "Did you..."

"I went to confront him... my ability acted up and I think I blacked out... the next thing I knew, I was coming back and he was... I don't even know what the hell's going on there right now, but everyone knows I killed him. After I beat the shit out of those executives and with what they saw in the footage, me defending you and not killing you like I should... all I know is after me, Ane-san is the next in line..."

There are all these confusing emotions that Dazai can't even begin to understand, at the thought of Mori being dead. There is relief, maybe, and a strange kind of tightness and pain that he thinks would take him many nights of untangling and analyzing to work out, and worry for what will happen between the organizations now.

If Kouyou decides to maintain the alliance and somehow manages to keep order in the mafia... then he can handle things from the agency's end, but nothing is fully certain as of now. With the state of things, it seems like a 50/50 chance, and even either of those chances diverge into many more outcomes.

The mafia will be highly unstable regardless, with Mori's death, Chuuya's betrayal, and Dazai's violation of the alliance becoming publicized; that Mori may have overlooked for his own self-interested purposes but that no one else will.

What a terrible day. No wonder Chuuya broke the way he did in the living room. It seems as if he has lost almost everything in the span of a day; had his faith and trust jarred so horribly in a leader he looked up ro so much, found out his partner was hurt by that leader, then killed him and lost his home of seven years, seen as a traitor by the organization he dedicated so much of his blood, sweat and tears to.

"Got room for another in that agency of yours?" Chuuya asks. He sounds very tired now, lying with his head against Dazai's. "And if not, I'm guessin' you can make it for me anyway."

"Of course." Dazai smiles. He rests his chin to Chuuya's shoulder, looking up at him. "Anything for Chuuya... although you'll have to lay low for a few years before you can have your record wiped like I had to, you know, but leave that to me. I'll get it all sorted."

Chuuya slides his head off to look down at him, and his brows are furrowed and his eyes are red-rimmed in a way that made him look awful and torn apart, a remnant from the devastation reflecting in his living room, no doubt. It's not pity, Dazai can tell. It's just Chuuya feeling the hurt of someone he cares about as if it were his own.

Overly empathetic, gruffly kind Chuuya, who somehow found it in his heart to feel even Verlaine's pain, and Rimbaud's, and who forgave Dazai too easily for being one more person to leave him.

Dazai can hear himself in his head again, the sound of his younger self's pain in the video footage. He doesn't feel anything for that boy; he is too numb most of the time and it had all just started to feel like his life after a time, but it may be the first time he ever thought it was worse than it feels to think of it. Chuuya doesn't look like that just over anything.

Chuuya takes his face in his hands and tilts it up so he can kiss him softly. When he lets go, he presses his nose tenderly to Dazai's hairline.

It's okay, for now. Just for now. It's all okay. Maybe if Chuuya keeps holding him like this when he needs it, warm and safe, and kisses him every now and then, and if Dazai can keep trying to make it to when he can come home to Chuuya every night (somehow, in these years Chuuya will have to lay low - he'll figure it out), it will all be bearable. Maybe if he has all his friends still on his side, who would go to war for him, it will all be bearable.

Dazai turns his face into Chuuya's chest.

It will be okay.