Chapter Text
What the fuck is wrong with my legs; here it is, the specific thought Chuuya wakes up to: there’s no light intruding by the window, or consciousness gently coming online… none of that crap. Nobody really wakes up to those things, we’re all brought back to life by our bodies and their tyranny.
Unsurprisingly, all of his joints ache: wide and clumsy, bearing an intolerably muscular physique.
Both of his arms are contorted, folded between his body and something; his fingers are awkwardly elongated and they’re gripping some dense fabric.
Obviously, his sofa is sumptuous, capable of accommodating multiple people, and yet, for once, it feels dramatically small.
Small?
Or is he just trapped against something? His hand, the one clutching something, gives a tentative squeeze and it’s met by something sturdy and almost bony, right beneath the fabric.
Is he holding onto one of the back pillows?
He wiggles his fingers, experimentally, and the digits manage to push past one layer, and then another… just to be met with yet another different texture: slightly rough and way too warm: bandages.
Eh?!
This is not the couch.
And he’s definitely not touching a pillow.
Nope, fuck, not a pillow. Chuuya’s exploratory mission is aborted; he throws his weight towards the far edge of the mattress, but he makes very little progress in his escape before something snares his nape.
Someone’s fingers are tangled with the copper hair at the base of his skull; the grip itself is almost frantic, coiled tight just to prevent him from leaving.
Osamu fucking Dazai is in his bed.
And to add insult to injury, the hold Chuuya’s ensnared in is not comforting, but the heel of the palm is seated oh-so-right that his spine almost curves into it. Almost, mind you.
Should he rip his own hair out? Tempting, but no, that ain’t gonna happen. What about shouting at the top of his lungs? Or kneeing the bastard in the groin, it should be at perfect height…
Of course, Chuuya does none of that, but he reaches back, leashed to the sleeping detective by his own hair. Carefully, he starts peeling those fingers away; some come loose easily, but one catches on a knot and Chuuya has to work free with his thumbnail.
When, finally, also the thumb is removed, the mafioso is breathing hard, but he’s doing so quietly and through his nose. His hold lingers on Dazai’s wrist, just for a second.
He’s letting go now, at this instant.
Instead he doesn’t drop it, he just shifts his grip down before pressing his palm flat against Dazai’s.
Time does its job well, at least on other people, doesn’t it? At fifteen, sixteen, seventeen even… their hands had been near-matches, Dazai’s fingers were longer but his palm was thinner, whilst Chuuya’s were shorter but broader. Nobody could take the win, it was a draw.
The draw is over now, and it cannot be denied when the proof is right in front of him: the bastard’s hand swallows his, overshooting Chuuya’s by an entire knuckle and the palm is unfortunately wider by a thumb’s width. His only advantage is lost.
Oh, these fingers can reach into places…
Fuck no! He drops it fast, letting it land onto the mattress. For good measure he shoves his own hand under his cheek, caging it to stop it from going back.
Chuuya’s going to kill him.
He’s going to fix the fucking curse himself, and then kill him.
The detective’s face is slack, his throat is deliciously vulnerable given the unfastened buttons. Perhaps a wiser man would exploit the moment, freeing both himself and the organisation from the most annoying thorn in their side.
Chuuya, clearly, has no wisdom to speak of: there’s still warmth lingering on his exposed skin, a reminder of safety clinging to him, impossible to shake off.
Maybe not today, motherfucker.
“Lazy piece of shit.”
This sharp insult trails behind the anger by several seconds, so it arrives wrong: his voice is too hoarse and soft, devoid of the violence he clearly intended. It’s all due to the fact that the words were shaped by a mouth that has yet to remember what talking is. It’s not like he’s trying not to wake Dazai up, don’t be stupid.
Chuuya is… strategising, throwing whispered insults at a sleeping man.
At his side, Dazai’s bony fingers twitch in his sleep: once, just once, reaching for a tiny shape that’s clearly not in his grasp anymore. How dare he be so–
No, Chuuya is categorically not finishing that thought.
A small mercy: they’re both atop the blanket, so he can make his escape without having to untangle himself from the sheets.
Gently, the fresh autumnal air bites his arse. Oh, true… he’s in the nude.
Maybe Chuuya should have figured it out earlier, he has already done this, the whole ‘dawn makes man’ or whatever the line was… but the fog of a humiliatingly good night of sleep takes its time to release one’s brain.
With no grace he manages to roll off the bed, but what matters is that he does so very quietly. He should wake him up, grab Dazai by the ankle and throw him out, change the code, and salt the threshold for good measure.
He simply pads towards the bathroom on the tips of his toes instead.
At the sink, he cups the cold water and holds his face in it for the span of a blink, just to bring himself back to this plane of existence and wash the drool away from the corner of his mouth. He watches the water drain with vacant eyes; a fine, and long copper hair pirouettes before vanishing.
A wardrobe sits in the hall, he pulls a pair of burgundy tracksuit bottoms out of the top drawer, and a black tank top from the second one. It’s just the bare minimum not to be buck-naked with a guest in the flat.
Striding through the living room, he’s greeted by the acrid smell of smoke mingling with the oily crab residue. Two shallow plates, one on the floor and another on the couch; the latter one holds a pair of chopsticks and one cigarette, stubbed out right in the centre. Disgusting.
Rage should be what he feels, and part of him is; he’d been furious last night too, yet somewhere, beneath the fur and the anger, there had been another thought. A thought, well, whatever passes as such when one’s skull is more snout than cranium. Albeit degraded and ephemeral back then, the thought resurfaces as a proper list of statements now, as he picks up the plates: Dazai still smokes; it’s a tough habit to break; he was more theatrical about it back then, using the cancer sticks as a prop to make himself look older; now it’s just a habit, careless, casual… worse.
In theory there is nothing appealing in such a thing, but it speaks of familiarity, of something Dazai couldn’t shed like he did with the black coat of his youth.
What pierces through the irritation, simmering underneath the veneer, is definitely dumber: Dazai, bringing the filter to his mouth and pulling, the ember igniting, the smoke leaving his parted lips…
Oh, Chuuya gets it.
The charm of a brooding tall man smoking, it’s a cheap cliché; hell, it’s a stereotype Chuuya himself falls under. Well, minus the tall part, but who the fuck would have the guts to point that out.
Regardless, his dick is clearly not getting the memo about the banality of it. Getting worked up over the memory of a cigarette, another fantastic new low for Nakahara Chuuya! Turns out, Dazai doesn’t even have to be awake to ruin his morning.
Dropping both plates in the sink is a mindless act, but he doesn’t rinse them given that doing so requires plucking the stubbed cigarette off the plate, and he’s not doing that. His focus shifts to the rice cooker; he dumps the grains inside, and it’s just around the third wash that his brain supplies the notion that… he’s making a rather excessive amount. More than his usual breakfast. It looks annoyingly like he’s making breakfast for two.
A couple of moments later, when the eggs hit the sizzling oil with an angry crackle, yet another thought sticks to his brain. In retrospect, maybe he should have contacted someone else, anyone else. It’s not like Dazai solved shit, after all. Worse, the detective’s great strategy had been: feed the cat, smoke a cigarette, pass out on someone else’s bed.
Clearly a man for the job.
But he had shown up, hadn’t he? Nobody forced the bastard to come, it’d been his choice. Ignoring Chuuya’s texts would have been wise, maybe, and no consequences would have come his way, except the delight of, once again, disappointing the mafioso. Maybe Dazai could have even regarded that as a positive, a way like any other to torture him… and yet he didn’t.
It shouldn’t matter, because nothing got effectively solved. Nevertheless, there’s warmth crawling up his skin, unrelated to the cooking: it's the bizarre relief of being listened to by someone who had no reason to do so.
“Useless waste of space,” he muses with an uncharacteristically tender voice, through the curve of a smile. Chuuya doesn’t catch himself, he doesn’t stop it: there are no witnesses, no need for any artifice. Sure, he’s not as disingenuous in the act of living as the bastard is, but control has always been a necessity: the restraint necessary not to fly people out of windows, even when they deserved it.
Plating the food well is unnecessary, but Chuuya still does it: rice and eggs happily cohabit on a round plate, without intruding on each other’s spaces, and the miso soup is carefully poured in a tiny bowl. Two of everything get placed on the side of the counter facing the tall stools, in the spot where the morning light is the kindest.
From the bedroom the rustle of fabric comes, accompanied by a groan; a hitch runs through the mafioso’s shoulders at the sound. Okay, the bastard’s awake, no biggie, he ain’t meant to do bugger all about that.
Dazai appears in the doorway, dragging himself like a lively corpse. He has shed his waistcoat at some point, and he’s currently leaning against the doorframe in just his shirt and trousers. Much could be said, much should be acknowledged, but what escapes the detective is only a groggy rasp: “Oh, you’re human again.”
“Groundbreakin’, I know. Try not to sound disappointed.” Chuuya aligns the second bowl, just a fraction to the left, centring it on the table, just to do something.
“So, my cat made me rice?” The nearby stool creaks under new weight as Dazai sits down. It’s not the wisest thing to say, but god if it’s the easiest.
“Don’t ya fuckin’ call me that!” A spatula clatters into the sink, louder than intended, haphazardly thrown. “And I made rice, for myself.”
“Two bowls, for yourself.”
Chuuya’s mouth opens, but no believable explanation lies within his reach; heat crawls up his face and ears, involuntarily and most certainly visible. Still without saying a thing he strides closer, sitting down on the other stool. The ginger stays put just for a moment, an instant in which the sparkly morning light of a brand new day shines on them.
“A’ight, fuck, you showed up, didn’t do jack shit, but it helped, so now ya get grub. Choke on it,” Chuuya is staring at the bowls, refusing to look at him by mere force of will.
“Hm.” Of course the bandaged detective doesn’t have much more to say. If it were another deception, then it’s a perfect opportunity for mockery. It’s not deception though, it’s something true, and he has no strategy for it. So, Dazai’s fingers tip-tap on the table for a brief moment, before he comes up with: “Is there no coffee?”
“Shit.”
So, this deflection can be protracted; it’s a coward’s tactic, but Dazai reaches for the coffee machine regardless. He pats the counter uselessly, like an idiot. Where do people put coffee? Usually nearby, but Chuuya is vertically challenged so maybe not the upper cabinets, or maybe he uses his ability… fine. Defeated, Dazai gives him a look: just his eyes and one hand doing a little wave. It’s a question.
The answer is as mute as the query was, Chuuya finds himself pointing at the cabinet where the coffee pods reside. Here they are, back at it again, after four years, moronically communicating without making a sound.
It used to be reserved for moves on the battleground, when a sound could prove deadly. Now it’s being employed for making coffee.
The bastard needs mugs too. With a sigh of pretended frustration, the ginger is on his feet. A moment later something small pressed against Dazai’s front: Chuuya’s found a way to split past the tall man in front of the machine, squeezing himself nimbly between Dazai and the counter. Of all possible things he could do, this is it.
The cabinet opens, the mafioso’s fingertips find a mug, slide one to the edge and then another.
Dazai might have stopped breathing. No, his breath is definitely caught in his throat. Maybe that’s the problem, the problem they’ve always faced when in each other’s presence with a lack of a specific threat in front of them: thinking becomes a bit too onerous.
Better be idiots instead.
For a moment, frozen on the spot, Chuuya lingers, clutching the mugs to his chest, before slamming them both on the counter. His retreat is a pathetically fast one, and he’s back in front of the food, sitting down hard with his face burning.
One pod. Two pods. A fancy machine nobody sane would allow Dazai to operate: these are the things he should be focusing on, as his fingers shakily peel away the pods’ seals. Coffee, he wanted coffee, not to learn that the top of Chuuya’s head is level with his own chin.
He slides one pod in.
For a moment the other man seems so small; not weak, but…
Slide one mug in, press the button. Wait.
Small is an insufficient adjective, as tiny would be. Yet he mustn’t conjure anything more precise, no.
One done, another to go. Pod, button, waiting.
The detective doesn’t turn, he just stares at the coffee maker and keeps pressing the button with a trembling hand: Chuuya just fits right there, against his chest, under his chin. Dazai already knew that he would.
It is, after all, something any straight man would indulge in, after a brief mission shared and won against all odds: how the deepening of their size difference would impact their eventual yet improbable proximity. Wait, is it? Of course it isn’t, otherwise the tips of Dazai’s ears wouldn’t be pink.
At least, as he turns with two mugs in his hands, he’s greeted by the sight of a freckled tomato. He should comment on it, it’s a taunt served on a silver platter, but he doesn’t: Dazai simply sits down, without a sound.
Neither of them touches the food, not right away at least. Chuuya breaks the silence first, by stabbing a piece of egg and shoving it in his mouth, almost as if by keeping it busy he might avoid saying what he’s about to. “So, why’d you come?” Indeed, the egg hasn’t been effective.
Dazai tilts his head, he’s cradling the coffee mug with both hands; the steam curls upwards.
“Didn’t know ya did shit for free, and yet;” Chuuya continues, without looking up from his plate.
“Maybe I just wanted to see you suffer,” he finally answers, before bringing the mug to his lips and lazily blowing across the surface.
“Bull-fucking-shit.” He points at Dazai with his chopsticks; the task at hand, eating, is suddenly forgotten.
The detective shrugs, with only one shoulder. It’s a safe charade, but it’s a short-lived one: “You said please.” Finally he allows himself a sip of coffee. “I couldn’t help it.”
Somewhere, on the street below them, a horn shrieks.
“Why me?” This is something Dazai shouldn’t ask, but he does it anyway: it’s time for him to go on the offensive too, after all.
“Dunno.”
“I’m the last person you should trust,” he adds. It’s undeniable enough for Dazai to weaponise his own failings against someone else. Chuuya could have called anyone else, and yet he opted for the traitor, the one person in Yokohama whom…
“I didn’t trust shit, I was desperate,” the mafioso blurts out in response, before stuffing his face with rice and washing it down with caffeine.
“Isn’t it the same thing? With us?”
“Shut. Yer. Trap.”
It works! Surprisingly, they eat in silence: the coffee goes down in tiny sips. When all plates have been cleaned, Dazai, neither looking nor asking, reaches into his trouser pocket to pull out a cigarette packet. He’s tapping one out for himself when the mafioso’s hand intercepts it, plucking it straight from the pack. It’s a shitty brand, of a packet belonging to a shitty mackerel, but today he is in the mood for it.
Dazai watches the flame catch as it gets ignited. Then he starts laughing: the onset is but a giggle, but it builds and builds until his shoulders are shaking.
“The fuck?!” comes out in a plume of smoke.
“You had–” Dazai takes a bigger breath before resuming, trying to keep yet another laugh at bay. “For two nights, you had claws!” He wipes a tear from the corner of his eye, yet a smile sticks to his lips even then. “You didn’t even scratch me once! You’re so amenable as a cat.” Another pause, a shaky breath. “You’re so amenable as a cat, you should consider it. You must also hate me way less when you’re purring…” The plan isn’t to tease Chuuya about the curse, but it’s not not… there is no plan, not this early in the morning at least.
“I don’t hate you.”
It slips out between Chuuya’s teeth, escaping out of him in a rush. Before Dazai can say or ask anything else, the mafioso is already moving; he stands up, he furiously gathers all plates and mugs in reach and he bolts.
The sink is, surprisingly, the safest corner of the kitchen right now. The water runs, and the ginger doesn’t turn around, like one would after shattering something precious.
As if avoidance could simply rewind time and shelter someone from consequences.
Behind him, after some rushed steps, nothing. Nothing at all. Chuuya is left on his own, in the company of the plates. His jaw is clenched; he said it out loud, to the bastard’s face.
In the sink, his knuckles redden under the hot water as he scrubs at a plate he’s already washed once. If his hands are shaking, and they are, they might as well be shaking productively.
Those four words aren’t bad per se, no, the problem is that Dazai hasn’t been smug… so he wasn’t expecting them. So he must have believed, until now, that the contrary was true. A valid assumption, really, especially after Dazai’s deflection… and yet, that revelation has always been unspoken before that night. It’s Dazai’s problem if he’s stupid enough to not have paid attention to the unspoken.
Chuuya’s throat feels tight. He still fucked up, even if everything above was correct, he still said it. He turns off the tap, and after it drips once, the silence returns.
A soft whoosh from the living room. Oh, he knows what’s happening, yet Chuuya goes to investigate regardless, dishcloth clenched tight by his left hand.
He makes his way to the living room just to find the source, and here he is: Dazai is on the floor.
Shoulder to spine, to shoulder, to spine: he’s rolling in an endless slow tumble across the carpet, like an overgrown log caught in the Ōoka river.
One full rotation, then two, then three. Brown hair fans out and flattens at each rotation, and Dazai himself doesn’t acknowledge Chuuya’s stare. They both know what’s going on, even if the detective looks absolutely deranged.
“On my fucking carpet? Are you five?!”
“Five and a half, at least.” For a moment the rolling stops, Dazai lies on his back, one arm flung across his chest. He clearly needs to think, of course, but he’s not pondering the curse. Not even remotely. Back to tumbling he goes.
Chuuya watches this familiar view for a stupidly long time: a roll, a pause, when Dazai’s momentum dies, he gives himself a little push with either one foot or the other, and the incessant motion has started to unravel the bandages at his ankles. They trail behind him.
“Oi, Dazai.”
Nothing, just another repetition.
“Osamu.”
Oh, that works, stopping the detective from his little… well, whatever this is. Rolling onto his back again, he finally turns his gaze to the shorter man.
“Tonight, when it happens again…” Chuuya’s voice is almost unlike himself, thin and uncertain. His hands are toying with the dishcloth, folding it and unfolding it. “You’ll take care of the cat, right? Don’t let it become roadkill or somethin’.”
Quietness lingers for a moment too long, and the mafioso’s pulse jumps. He should have worded it more flippantly, why is he even relying on this piece of shit?! Fuck him! The dishcloth flies straight and it lands, warm and wet, squarely over Dazai’s face.
“Sure,” comes the reply, muffled by the fabric, and yet it arrives. “I’ll take care of you.”
Deliberation hasn’t forged the wording, it just is, it is a fact. A long exhale escapes Chuuya’s lips as he crouches, and the anger dissipates with it. Lifting the cloth he finds a grin waiting for him, wide, a bit shameless even.
What an idiot.
“Then, maybe, it’s gonna be alright.” That’s it, the conclusion Chuuya’s reached, with very little proof and almost no wisdom.
It’s true though, isn’t it? That shit-eating grin on Dazai’s face has always meant this: that things will be alright. Pain might come, it won’t be easy, but yeah, it’ll be alright.
In the sky, the sun is halfway to giving up as Dazai comes through the door of Chuuya’s flat, and he’s already talking. “I might have spent forty minutes at the pet shop, you wouldn’t guess the variety of cat toys available! Yet the variety of colours is not for the pets, it’s for the owners, because felines have a restricted colour-range…”
He finds Chuuya in the kitchen, back turned to the entrance with tense shoulders and not a single sound. It’s a warning sign Dazai immediately dismisses on the following premises: anyone would be pissed about turning into a cat in a quarter of an hour, and Chuuya even more than the general population, since being pissed off is his default state.
Instead, Dazai sets a couple of heavy plastic bags on the counter. “Behold!”
A feather wand, a comb, catnip, a small ceramic dish and… a collar, black leather. It dangles and jingles as elongated fingers pluck it out.
The mafioso’s free hand closes around it mid-swing, whilst the other lingers, clenched around something, at his side.
“There’s a bell,” Dazai adds, taking a cautionary step back. Purchasing the collar was a fit of impulse, much more than the rest of the, admittedly unnecessary, items. Being in a store, with some yen not belonging to him, and with the ghost of a fantasy behind his eyelids… that’s how his purchases came to be. The other bag housed a fillet of Ōma tuna, ready to be cut in tiny cat-sized bites.
Unnecessary, but hopeful. Hopeful of what? That the curse wouldn’t break? This is not making the best of the circumstances, but rather a selfish little desire of being on the receiving end of purring affection.
“Put that bell on me an’ they’re draggin’ the bay for you by Friday. They’ll find the bell up your arse.”
“Oh, come on, it’s not that different from your…”
“FRIDAY.” Per usual, anger is a wonderful source of courage, and with enough of it igniting his chest, Chuuya allows himself a deeper breath. He’s there, almost about to say something.
He doesn’t say anything, which is a second and much more damning sign.
Leather-clad fingers unravel, holding out the note for a split second, ready for the taking.
It’s warm when Dazai holds it, almost as if someone spent the whole afternoon strangling it. Only one line persists… no, it’s half a line: ‘Man again.’
Even the comma has vanished, with a dot in its stead.
‘[...] on one of two:
Spoken truth. A love that’s true.’
Even if the two conditions are currently absent, Dazai’s brain recalls them with minimal effort. ‘One of’ suggests that a proper truth would suffice, and tracing it back to today’s morning is all but difficult. A simple admission of not hating his guts.
Case closed?
Isn’t it a bit too easy? Nothing is ever that simple, but maybe it is, this once, just this once, no? Hilariously, a chime is the thing that contradicts this way of thinking: Chuuya’s other hand is still holding the collar: the black leather of his gloves creaks as he loops it through his grip, and the bell gives a thin, bright sound before he silences it with his thumb.
He releases it again, allowing it another strangled chime. He presses again.
Alert brown eyes watch the collar turn again, and again.
The question is which one, and the answer should be obvious. But Chuuya’s averting his gaze, maybe for the first time in forever he’s not barging through with the foolish confidence that always permeates each and every breath of his.
So he doesn’t know.
And if he doesn’t know…
The bell chimes more loudly.
Dazai’s brows furrow; he’s impossibly still, but this is stillness that’s not sprouting from calm. His breath is thin, and his eyes dart here now, there the next second, and back to Chuuya they go.
The point, as convoluted as it might seem, is that if the mafioso doesn’t know, it implies that he cannot rule it out. That is damning enough.
“Oi, the fuck are ya’ starin’ at.” The collar swings in the shorter man’s hand, his agitation sloshing over, albeit still caught between ‘I don’t hate you’ and whatever it actually meant.
“You don’t know which one it is, do you?” The smallest possible act of courage, from the one of them less inclined to valour.
No more chimes, nothing moves for a breath, like a photograph depicting a pivotal second. There’s gonna be a before this instant and an after, starkly parted by a single line: moments like this one define people, severing what was from what it will be.
“It doesn’t matter,” Chuuya growls, caving to a tactic unbecoming of him.
“That’s not an answer.”
“Who said I’m givin'ya one?!”
Impasses like this one are rare for them, and an escalation is neither clear nor advisable. Turning and heading out would be the most painless choice, but Dazai steps forward. It’s just a couple of slow steps, each one deliberate and aimed at…
The edge of the kitchen island digs into Chuuya’s lower back; he’s trapping himself by relying on flawed instinct. A misstep like this one would be one’s final choice; the realisation sinks in when Dazai’s bandaged palms, both of them, as mean as their owner, settle onto the marble. Long arms are caging his torso, without touching: a web of potential nullification.
“I could still hurl ya into the harbour from here,” Chuuya threatens, his voice low and surprisingly serious, the last growl of a wild dog about to gnaw at its bars.
“Yeah, I’m aware,” Dazai’s voice is obscenely calm.
“If you don’t back off at this fucking instant I’ll…” No, that’s not it, Chuuya’s not the type to talk this much before unleashing gravity on someone’s arse.
“What?”
“Fuck if I know! SOME DUMB SHIT!”
Dazai moves with a huff of laughter, lowering his head until his mouth is level with Chuuya’s ear, the tip of his nose brushing copper curls.
“Then do some dumb shit, I’m not judging,” the detective muses, voice as light as the chime had been moments ago.
The collar hits the floor; Dazai’s eyes drop to it, to the space between their bodies, before snapping back up. Leather gloves land on the counter after being jerkily tugged off.
Bare hands are part of a specific choreography, one the bandaged man has never been on the receiving end of. Until now. The thought drains blood away from his face, because, come on, that’s not a painless death.
Chuuya’s hands are on him, flat against his sternum, fingers splayed. One of them races up, surpassing Dazai’s collarbone, up towards his throat: it curls around the side of his neck.
The hold doesn’t tighten, Chuuya’s thumb traces small circles, back and forth right under his jaw.
“You’re not strangling me,” Dazai observes, faintly.
“M’workin’ on it,” Chuuya’s answer is a mumble, since he mashed his face into the taller man’s shoulder in the meantime. His other hand descends and hooks into Dazai’s belt, tugging him forwards until there’s no space left.
The bastard’s long arms don’t know what to do, they’re a bit useless, hanging there.
“Yer slow, shitty Dazai.”
“Eh?” Within the span of that query, with a rather noticeable delay, the not-so-great detective grapples with his surroundings well enough to just… hug him back.
They’re both very fucking bad at this, there’s no grace in this tangle, the angles are wrong and, from the outside, they’re just collapsing on each other with the aid of a kitchen counter.
But they’re doing it!
Dazai’s long fingers find Chuuya’s lower back, lying flat and still against a curve he’d eventually feel without any fabrics in the way.
Chuuya’s face tilts and burrows further until a scratch of stubble grazes his temple. It’s not surprising per se, laziness paired up with adulthood often produces it, and it clearly took the detective a couple of days of neglect to get there, but still… it’s a brand new discovery.
Four years change many things, don’t they? Or perhaps Chuuya’s just never got close enough before.
“The tuna,” Dazai says, eventually, after the warm hues of the sunset have already sneaked into the kitchen. “For dinner.”
“Uh uh.”
“Is it?”
The ginger lifts his head, his freckled cheeks blotchy, and the following query escapes a pout: “Is it what?”
“A date, maybe,” Dazai delicately shoots back.
Chuuya squints and glares at him from below, hunting down any spark of mockery. Everything could still be a trap; the wariness is still mutual. Regardless, there’s nothing to be found, just a fragile offering. “Get the fish, Dazai.”
“Is that a yes?!”
“It’s a ‘get the fuckin’ fish before I change my mind about all of this shit.”
It’s after they’ve detangled from that embrace and the rustle of hands digging into a plastic bag fills the silence, only then is a soft and almost inaudible answer voiced: “Yes.”
As the last sliver of sunlight retreats, Chuuya barely notices: he remains stubbornly human, and he’s too busy grating some fresh ginger to notice. Against all odds, the curse seems to be satisfied.
To his left, Dazai is rhythmically decimating some spring onion; the kitchen knife flashes in his grip, exuding lethality at every motion yet the outcome, when Chuuya scrapes it into a bowl, is anything but graceful: big chunks coexist with minced ones. “Congrats, idiot, you assassinated it successfully,” the mafioso scoffs, bumping the taller man aside with his hip, freeing the space just to pour some soy sauce into the bowl.
A half-hour later, the delicate smell of tuna tataki lingers in the air, a bottle of wine has been uncorked and they’re sitting shoulder to shoulder on the tall stools. The kitchen is a mess, and the quiet clatter of chopsticks is the only sound daring to taint the silence.
“Why ain’t ya runnin’ your mouth? S’what you do.” Chuuya mutters, nudging a piece of tuna through the sauce.
“Mm.” The wine swirls in Dazai’s glass, it’s a surprisingly elegant way of fidgeting. “You know I’m… I did… well, I know plenty of things.”
“How eloquent of the great Osamu Dazai.” The ginger props his chin on his fist; it’s satisfactory to witness Dazai stumbling on his own words.
“Shush, I’m attempting honesty.”
“Oh, this oughta be good.”
The best way to say it is, surprisingly, the simplest way. Regardless, simplicity takes guts, or wine, and whilst the latter is available its support is insufficient. A gulp precedes Dazai’s words: “I don’t exactly know what we’re doing here, but I should inform you that I’ve never been with a man, so…”
Of all things, this is not exactly relevant, nor the worst obstacle that would threaten two men who have never experienced romance longer than a bad hangover. This is their first chance to fail at something slowly; doing so explosively is not inevitable, for once. Only time will tell, and of all the things that ought to be tackled, this one, the most practical of them all, is the easiest.
Chuuya’s lips pluck tightly, swallowing a laugh that makes his shoulders shake anyway: he’s waited years to hear the bastard admit that he might not be the best at something! “Huh, ‘fraid you can’t deliver?!”
“Maybe…”
That single word is enough for the mafioso to slam the brakes, okay, it’s time to cut the taunting short, this conversation is genuine. Fuck, he’s not used to it, not with Dazai at least. “Not even the mafia could keep count of how many women you stuck your dick into,” he says, flatly, eyes fixed on the last piece of tuna. “You’d do just fine.”
A myriad of different reassurances would have been better, but that’s what lands between the two of them.
“Would I…” Dazai muses through a crooked smirk; one brow audaciously lifts atop half-lidded eyes which are recklessly fixated on Chuuya’s lips.
That specific tone, soaking in amusement, doesn’t evoke the usual annoyance… the taunt it contains is rather inviting, after all. Regardless, a flush climbs the ginger’s throat; this is what you get when you show the bastard mercy: it immediately gets weaponised. He’ll definitely do just fine.
Nimble chopsticks spear the final piece of tuna and shove it straight past Dazai’s lips, pressing the wood against his teeth until he relents.
Peak romance, really, a man force-feeding his partner some fish to prevent him from being hot on purpose.
“Stop doin’ that.”
Dazai chews slowly, and after swallowing his tongue darts towards the corner of his lip, catching a stray drop of soy sauce with deliberate laziness. “Doing what?”
The fucking nerve! Killing him right now would be justifiable self-defence, really. His hand moves to shove Dazai’s shoulder, but the gesture lands with uncharacteristic delicacy.
It’s alright, Chuuya’ll eventually figure out that yearning cannot be silenced with either violence or potential property damage.
Not today, not tomorrow, probably not even the day after, but eventually he will.
Real change happens in the margins of life itself, especially for men whose everyday life constantly welcomes the abnormal. Supernatural abilities are back to being the norm, without curses or magic getting in the way.
Whatever that creature was, and whatever was skinned to produce the note currently residing in one of Chuuya’s drawers, is inconsequential: no similar events have graced the city of Yokohama ever since.
We shall spare no more thoughts on the creature; the margins are way more interesting to look at.
Dazai sleeps over the next day. Then he sleeps over again. The days fold into weeks, and by the time frost dusts the last of the autumn leaves their story has morphed into something unrecognisable: a detective’s toothbrush is in Chuuya’s bathroom. It’s brand new, the onset of a decent habit most human beings perform with no effort, but it’s also a slow and insidious colonisation.
Nobody comments on it, because those items imply permanence, which is a notoriously frail concept when handled by bandaged hands.
Chuuya lets it happen, day by day: a charger plugged into a wall, next to his own; some clothes, abandoned on the floor one day and then, the next, they can be found inhabiting a free drawer, folded with care; a shitty lighter… it’s a lot of shit, we’re not listing the whole catalogue. Chuuya himself is doing his best not to focus on each and every item, for the sake of his sanity.
Sleep has stopped eluding them both, on most days at least, probably lured in by the combined charm of two men tangled in the most improbable positions, stealing each other’s warmth even when it’s all but necessary.
Many firsts happen, and even if neither of them is inexperienced, they’re mostly terrible. The first kiss has too many teeth and impatience, and their first time is a comfortingly clumsy mess: they knock over a designer lamp and Dazai loses the condom wrapper in the sheets, to be retrieved only a week later. In the aftermath both idiots display blossoming bruises, mostly teeth-shaped except for a single one, right in the small of Dazai’s back, where ankles crossed and tightened way more than necessary.
Daily practice smothers the clumsiness in the span of a week; they fuck like they’re trying to make up for lost time, yet it’s unclear if they’re compensating for four years of silence or for seven cumulative years of idiocy. Regardless of what it is, it makes them greedy, and also mean: pinning and being pinned, teeth and nails leaving semi-permanent ornaments on each other’s skin… customary violence channelled into the best of activities.
Except once, a night that Chuuya would recall with strange tenderness, with shaky bandaged hands and….
Well, that is a story for another time.
In the mornings, mostly, when Chuuya is still half-asleep and deliciously pliant, the bastard has developed an insufferable habit: he shifts closer, gently brushes away those long copper strands, and presses his lips on Chuuya’s nape. He doesn’t do much with it, it’s just a couple of pecks here and there, chasing this or that freckle.
It’d be the most romantic way to wake up, wouldn’t it? The kisses aren’t what makes it insufferable, they’re never enough to wake the mafioso up in the first place. No, unfortunately Chuuya surfaces from sleep, on most days, yanked to alertness by someone’s hand kneading his left arse cheek. Variations of ‘Get the fuck off’ and ‘You’re the worst’ are always met with a ‘Good morning to you too’.
At the beginning of December, Chuuya comes home late, just to find the bastard on the couch, with a comb, of all things. It’s the comb Dazai himself purchased, before knowing the curse broke: it’s nothing else but a small metal-toothed thing which is also, objectively, useless.
“Ya know that’s for cats, right?” Of all the ways Chuuya could ask about what is going on, this is one of the worst ones.
“Testing it,” Dazai mutters, with all the dignity he can muster whilst a comb is hanging on his forehead, holding for dear life onto a tangle.
“For what?! Whether it works on idiots?!”
That’s the entirety of the memory Chuuya can recall; an inconsequential and ridiculous instance of the mackerel being weird. It’ll eventually make sense, don’t you worry, dear reader.
Another blatant notable change, noticed by Port Mafia grunts and commanders alike, could be summarised as follows: plenty of curses have mysteriously vanished from Chuuya-san’s vocabulary.
No more “fuck me” hissed under his breath when anything went sideways, not because the ginger is turning into a well-adjusted human being, oh no. It’s just that last time he said it, after dropping an egg on the floor, what he got back was: “Yes please! Give me five minutes to finish this article. Or don’t.”
That and similar exchanges successfully made the following curses impossible to use: ‘fuck my life’, ‘bite me’, ‘oh, suck my dick’, ‘fuck me sideways’. The most unfortunate loss of them all is, most certainly, ‘kiss my ass.’
Nobody has figured out why, not yet.
It’s an unremarkable Tuesday morning in the middle of December when it happens, under a grey sky promising snow.
Chuuya almost doesn’t hear it.
Yokohama is a city that likes to scream during the day, producing a cacophony of engines, voices, and the occasional bark of an adorable shepherd on its daily walk. So, a small hiccup in that chorus should go unnoticed, it’s nothing.
Said nothing seems to come from an alley, right in between a ramen shop and a tobacco store, and his polished shoes stop right in the middle. Maybe he just imagined it, and even if… it doesn’t matter.
A meow comes his way. It’s such a timid sound, almost apologetic, a plea made whilst knowing this is inconvenient.
If he ignores it, then he won’t be late, and Kouyou's serene disappointment won’t be waiting for him at the headquarters. Yokohama has strays, like every big city in Japan does: they're everywhere and largely ignored. Maybe he’d stop if it were a dog; his soles resume their original trajectory, carrying him past the gap between the buildings without further acknowledgment.
Another meow, weaker, as if the source has given up already. Goddammit.
He backpedals with a turn sharp enough to scuff the toes of his polished shoes, and he’s walking backwards into the alley. It’s, indeed, a cat, wedged in the minuscule corner where the dumpster meets the wall. Neither skinny nor well-fed, but an in-between that suggests that living on the street is a recent development.
The cat is orange, for the most part at least; it stares back up with a single, utterly surprised, green eye. Nobody must have heard it, until today, no matter how much it struggled to make its timid meow louder and louder.
A gloved hand brushes against the side of the dumpster, and it glows red as it scrapes against the wall, widening the gap. The cat comes into view: besides the copper, it has white patches on its paws and chest, and a big candid splotch frames its pink nose.
“A’ight, you’re out, now I’m goin’ to work,” yet despite this announcement, Chuuya doesn’t take a single step.
A wiser creature would flatten against the wall, at least, but this one is idiotic enough, or maybe just naive enough, not to. The cat sneezes with a ridiculously high-pitched squeal, and a shiver follows soon after, running through its whole body.
As a matter of fact, Chuuya knows exactly what it feels like, and it sucks ass to endure the cold when you’re that size.
It starts vibrating like a tiny motor without a single touch, still staring up, before moving forwards. Not walking, that it is not, but its… weaving at every step: left, a sway, right, a sway. It’s quite difficult to explain, but when one sees it, they’ll immediately know that it’s not tied to weakness or malnutrition, but it’s something way dumber: it’s just purring loud enough that its sense of balance is as impaired as Chuuya’s is, after half a bottle of wine.
It stops right in front of Chuuya’s shoes, with its tail curled in a question mark completing a very implicit query: where are we going now?
“I’m not takin’ ya home, so you know,”
The cat purrs a bit louder, smashing its face on Chuuya’s ankle.
“I’m not!”
Of course he is not… he has a book about how to care for dogs! This thing here is not his responsibility!
“I got one bastard frequenting my home already, I don’t need another one!” Chuuya is augmenting his case very well, as if it were necessary, as if any amount of words would deter such a trusting creature. How can it still be so trusting? To a guy who is, objectively, an awful human being? How has its trust survived living on the streets for god knows how long?
Being gullible is what makes people get stabbed with rat poison, even by those they wish to protect.
The universe never rewards trust, eh? It crushes it, day by day, squeezing naivety out of every breathing thing, teaching them how to survive. Those who don’t learn end up being crushed, just like their hopes.
Maybe, today, the universe can go and fuck itself.
“C’mon, get here.” Chuuya crouches down with a sigh, scooping it up in a fluid motion. He is immediately treated to purring fur butting against his chin in a flurry of desperate gratitude.
By the evening the cat resides in an open shoebox on the kitchen counter: it… he has been washed, dried and patched up. He is watching the door through two half-lidded eyes, with the alert patience of a creature that has a theory about it: good things sometimes come through it, so he should pay attention.
Putting him on the counter is probably a hygienic mistake, but this is also where Dazai goes first when he comes to Chuuya’s, straight for the coffee machine, even if it’s 9 p.m. and consuming stimulants would be inadvisable for every normal human.
You see, it’s strategic, Chuuya wants to see the events unfold in a specific order, which is, incidentally, the order which requires the least input and explanation.
The door opens, and it takes the detective an embarrassing amount of time to discern what he’s looking at: this is not the curse, too much white fur and Chuuya is standing right there. “Why is there a cat in a shoebox?”
“Take a wild fucking guess, genius,” the ginger shoots back, rolling his eyes.
A couple of wide strides and Dazai crosses the room, coming face-to-face with the box and its temporary resident. He approaches it carefully, which is amusing to look at because the feline is all but spooked… it’s actually preening, lifting his chin and puffing his chest a little.
“Hi,” he muses in that voice, the specific one Dazai made months ago, with rain soaking through his coat: it’s a chime reserved for the restricted list of things he finds cute. It takes a single finger, curling under the cat’s chin, to ignite the purring.
Egged on by the prolonged contact, the cat stands up, a tiny king in his cardboard castle, and steps out, inching closer with a surprising lack of grace and pressing his whole body against the man’s torso.
“He trusts like a fool,” Dazai concludes, quietly, and that settles: these words implicitly announce Chuuya’s undeniable victory.
What victory?
His masterplan was a simple one, admittedly, concocted that same afternoon whilst he was gently cleaning the cat’s bad eye: a tiny orange cat, a mafioso in disguise, had been enough to stop Dazai once, so a trusting fool should do the trick too, no?
Permanence cannot be imposed, not to someone who’s running from himself… but such an incentive will work.
It may be wishful thinking, and Chuuya’s never been one for hope, but sometimes heaven is an orange cat.