Work Text:
“Ryuunosuke! Stop messing around!”
“I’m not messing around. I’m cleaning. Have you never done that before?”
“I am a functional adult, you know.”
“I beg to differ. You sleep in a tiger onesie. Anyway, look at this.”
“What? A book?”
“An old journal.”
“You’re going to read someone’s diary?!”
“Well, if the previous owners didn’t want their diary to be read, they should’ve taken it before they moved out. I’m going to read it.”
“What happened to cleaning?”
“I’m taking a break.”
“Wait, I wanna read it too.”
“Ha.”
17 May 2024
Today, I met a man who is believed to be the smartest person in all of Yokohama. I beg to differ, as within our first meeting, he tripped over his shoelaces and then admitted that he did not know how to tie them.
I am going to live with this man.
“Are you still looking for a place to stay, Chuuya?”
Nakahara Chuuya glances up from his coffee and groans. “Everywhere is so expensive. I looked at two places today alone and one of them was unaffordable even if I shared!”
Ozaki Kouyou lowers her teacup and raises her eyebrows. “You’re open to a roommate?”
Chuuya shrugs. “I wasn’t before, but at the rate I’m going, I’ll never find a place to live if I want to stay alone.”
“You know I don’t mind sharing my flat with you, Chuuya.”
“As generous as your offer is, I can’t accept.” Chuuya wrinkles his nose. “Your girlfriend gets agitated whenever I’m around because it means she can’t freely stick her —”
“Do not finish that sentence, young man, I am begging you.”
Chuuya grins. “Anyway, I don’t want to impose on you. I’ll start looking at ads for flatmates. Maybe I’ll find a nice place and hopefully a good roommate. I could do with a friend, I think.”
Kouyou hums. “Well, you’re still welcome to stay until you find a place.”
“Thanks.” Chuuya gives her a warm smile before he sighs loudly and drops his head into his hands. “God, there was such a nice place over in Chinatown. I would’ve killed to get it.”
“Chinatown? There’s a place in Chinatown?”
“Yeah, some cafe owner is renting out parts of the space above his shop. But I can’t afford it alone.”
“Thirty-six?”
Chuuya nods, then tilts his head. “How’d you know?”
Kouyou grins. “I know someone who’d love to split the rent with you.”
“Yeah?”
“Meet me here,” Kouyou says, drawing Chuuya’s serviette towards her and quickly scribbling an address down, “tomorrow at three. I’ll introduce you to your first potential flatmate.”
“Okay,” Chuuya says, glancing at the address.
“Absolutely not,” Chuuya hisses to Kouyou, having dragged her aside. “That is not a potential flatmate. That is a potential societal hazard.”
Kouyou rolls her eyes. “You’re being dramatic. At least give him a chance. Maybe go out for coffee? Lunch? Get to know each other a bit before you decide, hm?”
Chuuya swears he feels his eye twitch when he gives in and lets Kouyou lead him back to the stranger.
The stranger, whose name is Dazai Osamu and who has the face of a man who knows his worth and isn’t afraid to use it to exploit the people around him. The hair on the back of Chuuya’s neck is already up like a wary cat.
“I’d say it’s a pleasure to meet you,” Dazai drawls, “but it appears that the feeling is not mutual. How have I offended you, short-stack?”
His tone is pleasant. His voice is lilting. His expression is polite. But the words out of his mouth are fucking rude.
Chuuya gapes at him. He looks at Kouyou. She gives him a stern look, so he faces Dazai again. “Listen here, fish-face, I don’t like being insulted.”
Dazai, the bastard, looks amused at the finger being pointed at his chin. He bats Chuuya’s hand down gently. “I believe you. But you called me fish-face, so I’d say we’re even. Don’t be a pot, Chibi.”
“A . . . pot?”
“You know, pot, kettle, whatever.”
Chuuya’s left eye twitches again. He thinks maybe it’s a medical issue. He’ll have to see if it happens when Dazai isn’t in the vicinity.
“Well,” Kouyou chirps, “I’ll let you two get acquainted! Goodbye!”
And she’s gone before Chuuya can beg her to stay.
“So,” Dazai says cheerfully, “what do you do?”
“I’m a writer.”
“Oh, so you’re unemployed?”
“Why, you little — shut up.” Chuuya huffs. “What do you do?”
“I’m a detective on call,” Dazai says proudly, as if that makes any sense.
Now, Chuuya could ask Dazai what he means but Chuuya has a sneaking suspicion that any answer he receives will make even less sense, so he leaves it be.
Or, he tries to, at least.
“So, basically, you’re unemployed?”
The corner of Dazai’s lips twitch upward, but he doesn’t give Chuuya the satisfaction of seeing his amusement. Bastard.
“You’re cheeky,” Dazai states plainly. “I like that. Cheeky Chibi.”
“My name is Chuuya, asshole.”
“I like Chibi better.”
“You — nevermind. Maybe I don’t need that place after all.”
Dazai clutches at imaginary pearls and gives Chuuya a scandalized look, his eyes wide and his mouth in a perfect ‘o’ and with a horrified gasp to top it all off. “That is the cruelest thing anyone’s ever said to me!”
Chuuya scoffs. “I seriously doubt it. Anyway, nice meeting you, I think, but I gotta get back to apartment hunting after lunch, so . . . see you around, maybe.”
Chuuya gives Dazai a half-hearted attempt at a polite wave, then promptly turns around to leave. He’ll have to start looking at cheaper options, because a roommate is now definitely out of the question. If Kouyou’s top recommendation is this guy, he doesn’t think he can trust Kouyou to find him a nice roommate, and knowing himself, he’ll probably end up rooming with a serial killer because they were polite and pleasant if he tried to find one without her help.
He gets a good few steps towards the entrance of the park Kouyou brought him to when he realises there is an extra shadow beside his own. He stops and turns to his left.
“Why are you following me?”
“You said we’re getting lunch first, then you’re leaving to look for apartments.”
“I didn’t say we were getting lunch. I said I was getting lunch.”
Dazai pouts. “You’re gonna drag me all the way out here and not feed me? Wow, Chibi, you didn’t strike me as harsh when we first met.”
Chuuya doesn’t have the energy to deal with Dazai, so he just sighs and continues walking. He gets another few steps before he hears a scuffle, a yelp, and then a thud. When he glances back, Dazai is face-down on the ground.
“What. . .”
“I tripped over my shoelaces,” Dazai mumbles into the grass.
“Why . . . why didn’t you tie them, then?”
“Don’t know how.”
Chuuya’s eye twitches again.
Dazai is annoying. This much, Chuuya has already decided. He’s annoying, and a little bit full of himself, and kind of a klutz, and a little bit not all there and there’s probably a whole library’s worth of problems with him that Chuuya isn’t even aware of, but. . .
“Crab,” Dazai chirps quietly to himself when his order is placed in front of him, beaming at the bowl of miso soup like a delighted little kid and mere inches away from clapping his hands like one, too.
. . . but he’s also kind of endearing.
“If you can’t even buy yourself lunch,” Chuuya says, “how were you expecting to split rent?”
“I’d figure it out,” Dazai said with a dismissive shrug, clearly more interested in his soup.
“Hm.”
Well, if Dazai is more interested in eating, then Chuuya will take that small blessing and try to enjoy his food peacefully. He does get to do so. In fact, Dazai barely says two words to him in the time it takes him to eat.
Despite arguing that he wouldn’t buy lunch for Dazai, Chuuya pays for their food when they’re done and bids Dazai goodbye. He figures if Dazai’s survived this long, he must be able to make his way around and that means Chuuya can rest easy and leave without worry.
He stops at a newspaper stand and buys one, standing right there and opening it to the advertisement section in the hopes of finding a place he can go and look at. He might as well start his search now.
“Oh, that one looks nice.”
Chuuya jumps, nearly dropping the newspaper, and whirls around to face Dazai. “Jesus! What is wrong with you?!”
“A lot,” Dazai says dismissively. He points to an ad in the paper. “I feel like you’re more this type, though.”
“And how would you know what I like?” Chuuya sneers.
Dazai gives him a blank expression, as if disappointed in the question. “You don’t want to be stashed into a cramped apartment block with walls so thin you can hear it if your neighbour stubs their toe on the bed frame. You want a nice place with decent walls so if you close your door, you can have peace and quiet. But you also need windows that face south for maximum natural light in the daytime and that one there is the only apartment in the paper that has south-facing windows. Plus, as a bonus, they’re south-west, so you’ll get a nice sunset view come evening time.”
Chuuya squints at Dazai.
“What?”
“How the fuck did you know that?”
Dazai gives him another blank look. “I looked at the paper this morning. I’m also apartment hunting.”
“Not about the ad, jackass.”
“You’re a writer, aren’t you?”
“So?”
“Don’t you need peace and quiet?”
Chuuya rolls his eyes. “That’s a lucky guess.”
“Maybe,” Dazai says with a shrug, sticking his hands into the pockets of his coat. “Anyway, that one I pointed to has abstract paintings for decor. The others all have nature paintings or weird animal stuff.”
“Wh- I like nature paintings!”
“Yeah, right.”
“I do! They’re pretty and calming!”
Dazai flicks Chuuya’s forehead, grinning at the scowl he receives. “Abstract inspires your writing more than defined art.”
“Oh, whatever. Don’t you have things to do? I fed you, now go away.”
Chuuya tries to leave, but Dazai follows.
“What do you want now?”
“You fed me. Now you have to take care of me.”
“Oh, that is such bullshit!”
“Is not.”
“Is too!”
They continue bickering all down the street. Chuuya’s not even sure where he’s headed, but he’s mildly afraid that if he stops walking, he’ll start whacking Dazai with the newspaper and he really doesn’t need passerbys staring at him.
They round a corner and come face to face with Kouyou, who has two shopping bags in her hand. Chuuya can’t believe she saddled him with Dazai and went shopping. She knows he enjoys shopping with her.
“You two look like you’re getting along nicely,” she says with a small smile.
“We are!” Dazai chirps.
“We are not,” Chuuya snaps. “I’m not living with him. I’ll end up killing him.”
“Promise?” Dazai asks, looking at Chuuya like he was offered a pot of gold.
Chuuya turns to Kouyou. “I’m not living with him.”
Kouyou sighs dramatically. “There goes your favourite apartment, then. What a shame. I guess you’re staying at my place for a while longer?”
Chuuya nods. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay. I’m going on a month-long trip with Aki for our anniversary anyway, so you’ll have some of that peace and quiet you’re always looking for.”
At that, Chuuya gets a smug grin from Dazai that he pointedly ignores.
“If you’re not going to be there,” Dazai starts, and Chuuya swears he feels a shift in the universe’s alignment that makes his entire body tense up like it knows the apocalypse is coming, “could I stay over for a bit as well? If Chibi’s not going to split rent with me, I need to do some apartment hunting as well.”
“My name is Chuuya.”
“Sure!” Kouyou says. “You can use my keys when I leave. For now, you can use the spare. Chuuya will let you in. I have things I still need to buy. See you two for dinner?”
“Yes, ma’am!” Dazai says with a sunshine-bright smile.
Chuuya feels like collapsing on the ground and letting everyone trample over him. If he doesn’t find an apartment soon, this is about to be the worst month of his life.
“Be nice to him,” Kouyou had warned before she left, as if Chuuya needed telling. As if Chuuya were raised by no one and had zero manners. As if Chuuya didn’t know how to be polite. As if Dazai wasn’t the one encroaching on Chuuya’s space.
As if Dazai didn’t immediately cause a mess.
On the third day of Kouyou’s vacation, Chuuya comes back from a grocery run to find the apartment in complete disarray. There are pages strewn over the coffee table. Kouyou’s couch throws are on the floor. Seven different used glasses are sitting in various spots — some still with a little bit of a drink in them. There is a cat on the table.
“What did you do?” Chuuya cries hysterically.
Dazai’s head pops up from the other side of Kouyou’s dining table and he gives Chuuya a manic grin.
Chuuya already wants to turn around and flee the apartment.
“There was a murder!” Dazai shouts gleefully.
Chuuya’s left eye twitches. “Why do you sound so happy about that? What’s it to you, anyway?”
Dazai snatches a paper from the dining table and waves it at Chuuya. “It was a gruesome murder!”
“I . . . still don’t know why that has anything to do with you.”
“I’m going to solve the case. Care to tag along and watch?”
Right . . . Dazai thinks he’s some kind of detective. Chuuya wonders which newspaper Dazai heard about this murder from. He hopes it wasn’t a gossip column.
Then again, Chuuya doesn’t have anything better to do at the moment. “Sure.”
And that is how Chuuya goes from an uneventful, ordinary day of doing nothing, to gagging on the smell of blood in a crime scene.
Should he even be allowed in here?
“Dazai,” a tired voice complains, “who let you in?”
Dazai looks away from the outline on the floor and tilts his head at the newcomer — someone Chuuya can only assume is incredibly exasperated by Dazai. “I just walked in.”
“He broke in,” Chuuya informs the stranger.
“Tattler!” Dazai cries, giving Chuuya a positively affronted look. He faces the other man. “Ango, can I have pictures?”
“Who is this?” Ango asks instead, gesturing at Chuuya.
“My roomie!”
Chuuya gives Dazai a dry laugh. “No, we are temporarily sharing a mutual friend’s apartment while she is out of town. I just met him.”
Ango nods and holds his hand out to Chuuya. “I used to be his keeper. Good luck with the job.”
Chuuya pauses in the middle of shaking Ango’s hand. “I’m not his keeper!”
“Yes, you are. You followed him to a crime scene and broke in with him.”
“I’m making sure he doesn’t touch anything!”
Ango raises his eyebrows at Chuuya.
“I am not his keeper,” Chuuya argues, almost childishly.
“Hey!” Dazai shouts. “I’m standing right here! Chuuya, you are so cruel to me. What did I ever do to you?”
Chuuya thinks back to the apartment mess and shudders. “A lot.”
Dazai rolls his eyes. “Whatever. Ango. Pictures?”
“The things I do for you,” Ango says with a sigh, but he pulls out a small envelope from the inner pocket of his jacket and hands it over.
Chuuya watches this exchange with growing curiosity. Is Ango even allowed to just hand out case photos like that? More importantly, what’s with Dazai’s interest in this case? Who just hears about something like this and then decides to stick their nose into it?
Dazai hums as he looks through the photos. “What’s your wager this time?”
“Dazai,” Ango says tiredly, “this is not a game.”
“Indulge me.”
“Fine.” Ango sounds like this is an old song and dance that he’s grown tired of, but plays along for Dazai’s sake. “Four weeks.”
Dazai doesn’t look up, still fixated on the photographs. “Half.”
“Bullshit. This case has already been ongoing for a week — officially, at least.”
Actually, Chuuya thinks as he zoned out of their little argument, what is Dazai’s job anyway? Because this just feels like Dazai decided to pop in and annoy a friend of his.
But then again, the mess back at Kouyou’s apartment sort of implies that Dazai had been trying to make heads or tails of something — this murder case?
But then again, on-call detectives surely aren’t a real thing . . . right?
“Well, let’s ask Chibi what he thinks!”
Chuuya shoots Dazai a glare. “My name is Chuuya, asshole.”
“Whatever. So, what do you think?”
“About what?”
Dazai looks absolutely horrified by the question. “Were you not listening?!”
“Honestly? I wasn’t at all.”
Dazai huffs. “Don’t you agree that I can solve this case in two weeks?”
“Dude, I just met you a week ago. I don’t know shit about your capabilities.”
Dazai stares open-mouthed, as if that’s not a response he even considered. Ango, on the other hand, blinks once at Chuuya before he bursts into a short cackle.
“You are horrible! I’m going home!”
Chuuya watches Dazai stalk off. He glances at Ango for a moment before gesturing in Dazai’s direction. “I better go make sure he doesn’t make an even bigger mess at home.”
Ango nods. “Take care of him, will you? He likes you.”
Chuuya doesn’t quite believe Ango, but he nods anyway. Dazai’s staying with him for the rest of this month. He might as well look out for the guy.
“Eat,” Chuuya demands, placing a plate down in front of Dazai.
“Not hungry.”
“Don’t care. You haven’t eaten all day. Eat.”
“I’m busy, shortstack.”
“I don’t care. You can go back to your mess after you eat. Or you can eat while you pretend you’re a detective. Doesn’t matter to me either way.”
Dazai finally looks up from the photos he’d received earlier. “Why do you care?”
“Am I not allowed to?” Chuuya asks, raising his eyebrows.
“Oh.” Dazai says nothing for a bit, then he sets his photos aside and draws the plate closer to him.
Chuuya leaves him to it, but he does come by a few minutes later to check up on Dazai, only to find him still sitting on the floor, slowly and quietly eating like he’s never tasted food before.
Huh. Odd.
Chuuya wakes up with such a start that he falls off the bed. The culprit is the one and only Dazai, who is standing in the bedroom, shaking a thick black page with two fold lines and shouting something that Chuuya can’t yet decipher in his groggy state.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?!”
Dazai doesn’t seem perturbed as he continues to shake the page and give Chuuya a giddy grin.
Chuuya shoots him a dirty glare and picks himself up off the floor. “What do you want? You’ll get breakfast when I make it.”
They have a sort of routine, now halfway through the month. Chuuya cooks for them and Dazai . . . is Dazai. He always wakes Chuuya up at odd hours to ask weird questions. It’s a little annoying, but Dazai only ever looks lively when Chuuya entertains him and something about the way Dazai usually looks so somber and morose makes Chuuya want to entertain Dazai.
“Has Chuuya ever been to a fancy dinner?”
“What? Why would I go to fancy dinners when I can cook comfortably at home?” Chuuya scowls at Dazai. “Did you wake me up just to ask me another weird question? I thought we talked about this.”
Dazai rolls his eyes before folding whatever is on that page that excited him in the first place and practically launching himself at Chuuya so he can try to bonk Chuuya on the head with it.
“Fucking — GET OFF!!”
Chuuya elbows Dazai — not too hard, but hard enough to shove him off. Dazai lands on the floor, whining about Chuuya being an asshole. Kouyou’s downstairs neighbour hits their ceiling with a broom as a warning to shut up before they call the landlord. That’s happened twice, already.
“Why are you asking anyway?” Chuuya eventually asks, now sitting up properly and trying to neaten his mess of hair.
Dazai unfolds the cardboard and shows it to Chuuya. “I want you to take me.”
Chuuya eyes him warily before taking the page and scanning it. Gold decorates the black page that feels more like rich parchment, and an elegant font spells out an invitation to a charity gala event. There are details like the date and time, the location, the dress code, and more. But something tells Chuuya that this isn’t everything. Dazai has something up his sleeve.
He looks at Dazai and turns the page so that the invitation faces Dazai. “Where did you get this?”
Dazai turns his nose up. “None of your business.”
“Dazai.”
“Fine, I stole it off a lady at a restaurant.”
“Dazai!”
“She won’t miss it! She was talking about how she doesn’t want to go!”
“You can’t steal someone’s invitation and then try to use it!”
Dazai folds his arms. “No one would even know. We’d be in disguise.”
“Why are you so interested in going, anyway? You hate rich people food. You hate crowds. You hate social events. What is there at this thing that you want, hm?”
Dazai’s eyes twinkle like Chuuya’s morning coffee in the dawn sunlight. “I want to catch a serial killer!”
Chuuya stares at Dazai, the latter’s words having halted Chuuya’s staring at Dazai’s eyes, with a blank expression. Then he leans over to hand Dazai the invitation before calmly laying back down and slowly pulling his covers up over his head.
“Chuuya!” Dazai whines.
Chuuya resolutely ignores him. Maybe, if he pretends hard enough, he can go straight back to sleep.
Look, there’s a lot that Chuuya doesn’t understand. The concept of the Mobius Strip, for example. Another example is Dazai Osamu. But today’s Thing Of The Day that Chuuya doesn’t understand is why he’s being laughed at when he did exactly as instructed.
He can’t even appreciate the effort Dazai put into his appearance when Dazai is so busy cackling at Chuuya.
Chuuya huffs.
Dazai squeals. “That is the stupidest mustache I have ever seen in my life!”
Chuuya pouts. He thought it was a good idea to disguise his features well. “You said we had to be in disguise.”
“Well, yeah, but I meant put on a little makeup. Change your facial structure with it. Get a wig. Coloured contact lenses. Paint a scar with makeup. Hide your freckles. I could go on for hours.”
Freckles? Dazai noticed and didn’t say anything? He didn’t poke fun at Chuuya? He didn’t act weird about it?
Chuuya watches Dazai finally come down from his humour-induced high and turn to the mirror to resume tying his bow tie. How long ago had Dazai noticed?
“I saw them when we met,” Dazai says, and Chuuya realises that he’s being watched in the mirror.
Chuuya scowls at Dazai. What is he, a mind reader?
“I got distracted trying to count them and you seemed irritated. Don’t know if you even noticed that it bothered you that I was staring. I figured I’d just never point them out.”
What the fuck is this guy??
“Anyway! If you insist on that silly little sticker on your face, I must insist you leave your hat behind. I will not be made to look like a geezer’s escort.”
Chuuya’s mouth falls open. Sometimes, he really wants to headbutt Dazai so hard that his teeth fall out.
“Anyway,” Dazai says again, “ready to go?”
“Fuck you,” Chuuya says, and he decides he’s keeping the moustache out of sheer spite.
Dazai knows how to dance. Chuuya doesn’t have the faintest clue where he learnt and doesn’t have any desire to ask. He just thinks it’s unfair that Dazai gets to lead.
(Not to mention, he’s still a little pissed that Dazai managed to bait him into joining with just a few cleverly worded petty insults. It’s laughable.)
((Plus, Dazai looks good. Not ideal.))
“I’m tired,” Chuuya announces, even though he isn’t really.
“No, you’re not,” Dazai says, again with that unnerving ability to just know things.
“Well, I want to stop dancing.”
Dazai gives him a half grin. “Oh, come on. You can lie better than that.”
Chuuya scowls at him. Fucker. “I thought you said you wanted to catch a serial killer. You said you were gonna show off and get me to believe you actually managed to solve a police case. Why are we wasting time like this?”
“We’re not wasting time. Haven’t you noticed the way everyone is staring at me in seething jealousy because I get to dance with you?”
No, Chuuya hadn’t noticed at all, but he’s not about to confess that to Dazai, who already looks so smug. “Yeah, so?”
“And haven’t you noticed that one man in the corner who isn’t watching?”
Also no. “What about him?”
“He’s not here for the charity gala. He’s not a guest and he’s not a reporter. He has no interest in what the attendees are up to. This is a cover for him. That’s our guy.”
“You seem awfully sure of yourself.”
Dazai gives Chuuya an almost dizzying spin. “Because I’m right.”
“Yeah, okay.”
“I’m always right.”
It’s a difficult statement to argue with when every single assumption Dazai has ever made since Chuuya met him has been accurate.
The charity gala’s theme is supposed to be regal or something. Some kind of reminiscence of high-class balls of old. Thus, the chandeliers have not been turned on and the hall is instead lit by candlelight. The orange flames dance over Dazai, highlighting his hair an almost angelic walnut colour. The flickering of the candles makes it seem like Dazai’s eyes glitter, though that could just be the thrill of solving this case.
Dazai is very pretty like this, Chuuya thinks. A dangerous thought, because it could lead to thinking that Dazai is pretty in other environments, doing other things. Mundane things, even.
Like when Chuuya wakes up in the morning and finds Dazai asleep in the living room surrounded by the case file, and the dawn light makes his hair shine and his skin sparkle so gently.
Or when Chuuya manages to convince Dazai to eat dinner late at night and Kouyou’s warm overhead lights cast the gentlest kisses of orange on his serene face.
When did Chuuya even start looking at Dazai like that?
“Time to go!” Dazai chirps suddenly, tugging Chuuya out of the rhythm and his own mind.
“Where?” Chuuya asks even as he’s being led to the stairs, trying hard to stomp all over the thoughts that he finds he doesn’t quite mind being dragged along by Dazai’s whims.
For all the trouble it took to find clothes for this gala, he’s been having a nice time even with Dazai glued to his side.
“We’ve been spotted.”
“Are we chasing your guy, then?”
Dazai glances back at Chuuya, then further behind him. “Nope!”
He looks a little too cheerful. Chuuya thinks it would be wise to just follow after Dazai. He glances back. The man from earlier is in hot pursuit, and under the flickering candlelight, Chuuya catches the shine of metal that he thinks would be too naive of him to hope is simply a belt buckle, or a button.
“Why are we being chased?” Chuuya asks frantically, now less inclined to follow and more eager to drag Dazai as far away and as fast as possible.
“Because I’m Dazai Osamu, duh!”
“What the fuck does that even mean?!”
Dazai pauses on a landing and looks both ways before choosing a direction and sprinting. “You seriously haven’t heard of me before?”
“Should I have?!!”
“Yes!”
“Well, I haven’t!”
Dazai opens a door and shoves Chuuya through it before shutting the door and leaning against it. He locks the door. “Oh, I know. I just wanted to hear you admit it.”
Chuuya feels like opening the door and leaving Dazai to deal with an armed serial killer alone. He decides to drop it. “What now? We’re sort of trapped, aren’t we?”
“Only sort of,” Dazai states, striding across the room as if he has all the time in the world. He draws a set of heavy curtains open and gestures to a balcony. “This is our escape route.”
“I’m not jumping off a balcony,” Chuuya states flatly.
“Would you like to become the latest victim instead?” Dazai raises his eyebrows like the cheeky bastard he is.
It doesn’t help that the setting sun behind Dazai makes him look like the perfect picture of innocence, complete with a golden halo. And maybe if Chuuya wasn’t distracted by the fact that they’re being chased, he’d be too enthralled by the view to argue.
“Relax, there’s another building. It was built after the manor became public property and they started constructing behind the manor. It isn’t a big jump.”
“Easy for you to say. I’ve never jumped off a balcony before.”
“It’ll be an adventure, then.”
The sound of footsteps is what makes Chuuya move. He crosses the room and opens the glass doors himself, keenly aware of Dazai watching him walk up to the edge to look for this other building.
Objectively speaking, it really isn’t a big jump. But they’re really high up and jumping that distance means he’s going to be following Dazai across rooftops, chased by a serial killer. What if he misses? What if they can’t make the next jump? What if they can’t run fast enough?
“I’d tell you to take the time you need,” Dazai says, “but we really should get going.”
“One second,” Chuuya says and he quickly shoots Ango a text and a live location pin. It’s all he can do to hope Ango gets to them before they run out of rooftops. “Okay.”
It’s fine. He can do this. He’s bullied Dazai into showering before, which really felt like an impossible task. He can totally clear the jump. It’ll be fine.
Dazai moves first, dashing across the balcony and leaping off the edge. For a moment, it looks like he’s flying. The dark coat he chose to wear for this evening balloons around him and flutters in the wind as Dazai begins his descent. Chuuya watches Dazai land on the rooftop and roll to kill his momentum before he stands and faces Chuuya, waiting.
Chuuya takes several deep breaths as he backs up to the balcony doors. He hears the room’s door get kicked down as he breaks into a sprint. Following Dazai’s footsteps, he takes the leap himself.
He’s going to fall short.
He squeezes his eyes shut and says a little prayer that he won’t wake up in hell and then something grabs his coat and yanks. He loses his neat arc and crashes into a warm body whose arms wrap securely around him.
Dazai’s voice is simultaneously cheeky and relieved when he speaks softly. “Have a little faith in me, Chuuya. I wouldn’t let you fall to your death.”
“You’re fucking insane,” Chuuya says automatically. “I cannot believe you made me do that.”
Dazai laughs. “As nice as this is, we really must get a move on.”
Chuuya peels away and glances back, watching someone back away from the balcony. Shit.
“Come on, then.”
Chuuya grabs Dazai’s coat and starts to run. He lets go when he’s sure Dazai is following.
An adventure, indeed.
If Chuuya could forget about their pursuer, he’d find this whole thing sort of fun. There’s something exhilarating about the moment when he reaches the peak of his jump. Something brand new and exciting about that split second of feeling absolutely weightless and suspended in midair before gravity takes hold of him and he’s dragged down to the next rooftop.
Beside him, Dazai smiles like it’s the first time he’s happy.
Sometimes Dazai takes a small sprint to make the jump first. Just to throw Chuuya a smug grin that makes it feel like there’s a competition that Dazai is winning. Chuuya doesn’t like to lose, so he starts doing the same.
They put a good distance between themselves at their pursuer, enough that when Ango gets there, he’ll be able to catch the target.
He hears a distinct click the moment his feet leave the edge of the rooftop. He thinks he’ll have to get up as fast as possible and pull Dazai to his feet once the guy gets shot. It doesn’t happen the way he expects.
The bullet lodges itself in Chuuya’s own shoulder and he stumbles, nearly falling short but just barely managing to tumble on the rooftop.
Dazai jumps before he reaches the edge. Chuuya watches in slowly dawning horror as he realises that Dazai won’t clear the jump.
“Dazai!”
He scrambles to the edge and reaches out. His fingertips graze Dazai’s.
And he misses.
Like a shattered glass that finally crumbles, Chuuya watches Dazai crash into the side of the building, holding on to the edge. Damn the serial killer, Chuuya thinks. He’d rather get shot again than let Dazai fall.
“Here,” Chuuya says, holding out his good arm.
Dazai scoffs. “Common sense says you should run.”
“Yeah, well, common sense doesn’t really have any room to exist with you around.”
Dazai looks at him for a moment before he takes Chuuya’s hand.
It’s tough. Chuuya strains as hard as he can, but it’s all he can do to just stop Dazai from slipping and turning into street art. He holds out his other hand.
Dazai eyes Chuuya’s shoulder warily. “You’ll fall too.”
“I was asked to take care of you. If you go down, I won’t let it be my fault.”
The sun dips towards the horizon steadily. Chuuya grabs Dazai’s arm with both hands. Dazai steps on the top of a window frame and holds the edge of the rooftop tight with his free hand. The criminal stops at the edge of the rooftop Chuuya and Dazai had just jumped from. He raises his gun, probably aiming for Chuuya — it’s two birds with one stone. If he shoots Dazai, Chuuya will retaliate. If he shoots Chuuya, both of them will fall.
He fires, but his aim is thrown off when Ango collides with him. Chuuya huffs and gives one final, determined tug. Dazai puts real effort into climbing up.
Dazai collapses on top of Chuuya, who curses and complains about his wound.
“You two okay?” Ango calls.
Chuuya groans and curses again.
“We’re fine,” Dazai calls, then grumbles, “took you long enough.”
Chuuya feels like all the energy has zapped out of him. An adrenaline crash, his mind supplies. The danger has passed. It’s time to rest.
“You surprised me,” Dazai says after a moment.
“Have a little faith in me, Dazai,” Chuuya teases. “I wouldn’t let you fall to your death.”
Chuuya rests. Surprisingly, Dazai manages to tend to him. Kouyou returns from her trip.
“I leave you two alone for one month and you go and do this?!”
Chuuya glances at the newspaper she throws down on the table. “Oh,” he says monotonously, “they arrested him.”
“With my invaluable help,” Dazai says cheekily from the kitchen.
Chuuya shoots him a glare as he returns to the dining table.
Dazai casts a quiet, somber glance at Chuuya’s sling before plastering that old self-satisfied grin on his face. “With Chibi’s invaluable help, as well.”
Chuuya sighs. Just when he thought he was getting Dazai to use his actual name.
“I cannot deal with the two of you,” Kouyou says. “I hope you both find apartments within a week.”
Dazai places a coffee in front of Chuuya and shrugs. “An apartment listing just went up. It’s a very nice, two-bedroom place, but the rent is bafflingly low.”
“Oh, I wonder why,” Chuuya says sarcastically.
“I bet Chibi and I could easily split the rent and still get a really good apartment.”
Kouyou narrows her eyes at Dazai. “Y’know what, I’m not gonna ask.”
She shakes her head slowly and decides to head to her room and try to sleep her travel weariness away.
Chuuya looks at Dazai. “What if there’s a ghost there?”
“We’ll just have to exorcise it, then. We can do that, I think. We seem to make a pretty good team.”
“Right. If I ever get shot again, I will bash your face into the nearest wall.”
Dazai looks absolutely delighted at the prospect of there even being a next time. “So, when shall we move in?”
“As soon as possible. Something tells me we’re about to get grounded like children if we stay here any longer.”
“Ah! You’re learning how to deduce things!”
“Shut up, dickhead.”
Dazai smiles, amused.
(He’s really pretty when he smiles for real, Chuuya thinks.)
“He’s different when he’s with you,” Kouyou says quietly when she thinks Dazai has gone to bed.
Chuuya knows better, but he doesn’t say anything. “Is he?”
“Mm. He looks happy. I think you make him happy.”
“I’ve known him a month,” Chuuya states flatly.
Kouyou rolls her eyes. “There’s no specific time frame on forming a lifelong bond.”
“I would throw him off a balcony if I wasn’t afraid Ango would arrest me.”
Kouyou smiles softly at Chuuya. “He’s good for you, too. You have a little more life in you. More spirit. He makes you a little more alive.”
“I think that’s called an adrenaline rush.”
She laughs. “I hope you take care of each other.”
Chuuya thinks about the night he spent a little delirious in pain medication and quietly watching Dazai tend to his wound, with silent focus and determination. He thinks about the way Dazai made breakfast for him and brought it to him instead of making him go to the table. He thinks about the feel of Dazai’s hand when he checked for a fever. He thinks about the way Dazai stayed up for over twenty-four hours just to be sure he was okay. He thinks about the fact that when Dazai was binding his shoulder, he really, really just wanted to kiss Dazai. He thinks about the way Dazai almost let him before deciding that high on pain meds wasn’t the best time.
Dazai hadn’t said no. He’d just said not then.
“A lifelong bond, huh?” he eventually says.
Somehow, it doesn’t seem as devastating as finding out he’d be sharing Kouyou’s apartment with Dazai for a month had been.
Two days later, Dazai and Chuuya move into their new apartment. Their landlord, Fukuzawa, tells them he’s pleased to meet them and looks forward to their lease. Their next door neighbours on both sides, a Kunikida on one side and a Higuchi on the other, look like they just felt someone walk over their graves when they meet Dazai and Chuuya.
Something tells Chuuya that Dazai is about to make their lives all so much more difficult. It’ll be fun, though, he thinks. An adventure, maybe.
19 June 2024
Today is Dazai’s birthday. I am going to surprise him. At least, I will attempt to do so. He is easily one of the smartest men alive, so it will be quite the task. Then again, he still can’t tie his own shoelaces, so the jury’s out on that one.
But perhaps taking him on a proper date for once ought to surprise the shit out of him.
“Aww, they had a happily ever after!”
“Ew, stop cooing over people you don’t know.”
“You’re being rude, Ryuunosuke.”
“Me? You just read someone’s diary.”
“Wh- you read it too!”
“Whatever. When’s the rest of our stuff getting here?”
“Around five today, I think. Should we meet the neighbours while we wait?”
“If we must.”
“Don’t complain. Friends are good.”
“Ugh.”
“I wonder if they’ll like us more than the previous owners.”
“You on your own are far worse than both of them combined, dear.”
“Rude!”
“But true.”
Needless to say, Kunikida Doppo and Higuchi Ichiyou feel an intense sense of deja vu and both consider moving out of the apartment block the moment they meet the new tenants in 221B.