#Dazai and Chuuya just casually talking like it's a regular Tuesday for them

[petitesmafia]

can you imagine anyone else listening in on skk planning their Meursault mission. just like

Dazai: i'm gonna try to drown you Chuuya: ok third person: ?? Chuuya: and then i'll shoot you in the forehead? Dazai: exactly third person: ????

[cyuya-nakahara]

A Typical Tuesday Night

read on AO3

He could remember it perfectly; fingers laced with his, bandages touching the base of his palm. Brown eyes staring into his, comforting him to the core of his being even though he never could fully read them. They were in bed, and he'd let his mouth talk a little more than he should have.

"I think I love you." "I think I love you too."

He could remember it perfectly; fingers laced with his, bandages touching the base of his palm. Brown eyes staring into his, comforting him to the core of his being even though he never could fully read them. They were in bed, and he'd let his mouth talk a little more than he should have.

"What do you mean—" "The same thing you meant, I imagine."

He'd swallowed hard then. It'd felt as if his whole heart was in his throat and weight of the atmosphere crushing down on him. But his partner's words had had a carefree lilt to them, and he'd had no idea how the brunet could speak so easy.

Chuuya sat at the small table that he kept in the corner of his room. An empty glass and a bottle of Port sat in front of him. He'd open it before long.

"Are you...sure?" He'd questioned. He had been caught at an impasse in his thought. He couldn't figure out if his partner was serious, if this was real or a trap, a trick to punish him for revealing such vulnerability. The way Dazai had looked at him had felt like the brunet was looking past his eyes and reading his thoughts. He had wondered how such a warm brown could feel cool, so welcoming but distant. He had tried to focus his mind on every detail that wasn't the words Dazai had spoken. He still remembered the feeling of the frayed cotton that had pressed on his right palm. Every moment from that night was etched in his mind.

Chuuya uncorked the Port.

Dazai had looked away and sat up on the bed. "I think so." He'd said. His words had had a different tone this time, and to him they had sounded like physics had finally acted on his partner and made the layers of his voice all settle on one plane. This time, his partner had sounded a little more real.

Chuuya's hands began to tremble slightly as he trickled a small portion of wine into the small glass. He grit his teeth and recorked the bottle.

"...Really?"

Dazai had nodded as the redhead had sat up and moved to sit beside him.

Chuuya couldn't bear to keep going through it as his mind took him through the steps of sliding his hand over Dazai's and turning his partner's head towards his own and pressing their foreheads to each other. Hand shaking, he brought the glass to his lips and sipped slowly before setting it back on the table.

He wished he could take it all back.

Another sip, then another, another glass, another sip. The sweetness twisted in his stomach.

He wished he could take it all back.

He wished he hadn't said that then. He wished that when they were sixteen and Dazai had proposed that they share a bed when they travel, that he had shot him down. He wished that whenever Dazai had reached for his hand that he had slapped him away instead of gently lacing his fingers with his partner's. He wished that when his partner had begged him to kill him one night that he had happily obliged. And he especially wished he didn't feel the way he did now, even though his partner had been gone for years.

He wished that this wasn't such a regular routine for him.

It as if he had had a bad day, or that someone had dragged up a memory he'd rather have forgotten. He just...wasn't over it after all these years. If a single day could go by where he didn't think of that man, he'd be happy. Only one day. But a day like that never came, and so he alternated between fighting his emotions away and drowning them in the drink of the night.

Everything was a reminder. Every last thing. From the bandages the infirmary wrapped around his burnt arm the last time he'd been hurt, to the stray he heard barking sometimes, to the glass shade over Mori's new lamp that glowed with exactly the same shade that Dazai's eyes had when he was truly excited and happy. His own ability was a reminder, and it wasn't unusual for him to be surprised when it wasn't nullified in the middle of him using it to assist with casual tasks. And of course, Dazai's absence was glaring every single time he reached a situation he had seemingly no way out of.

And that was without all of the casual praise Dazai's name still received in the mafia even now.

The alcohol sank in Chuuya's body and took root in his chest, spreading with a warmth that bloomed and weighed him down in a way gravity just couldn't. As the effect grew, he felt heavier and heavier, but at the same time, truly weightless. He set his glass down and leaned back in his chair. His face felt fuzzy and life felt warm.

Chuuya stood up and the drink at once flared in his chest and swirled in his head. He wavered slightly as he adjusted, and pushed his chair in before walking to his bed and unceremoniously flopping onto it.

"Do you miss me at all?" He murmured to an audience of nothing but silence and wallpaper. "Do you hurt the same way I do? Do you wonder in the night what I'm doing?"

He spoke his thoughts aloud as he thought them, his voice tired and defeated. But even with all he said, there was always more that he didn't.

"Do you think about when we met as kids?" He mumbled. Do you remember how we'd hold hands and eat the sweets you'd stolen?

"Do you miss having my ability behind you in battle?" Do you remember what a force we were together?

"Do you wish that I'd leave the mafia?" Do you wish that you'd taken me with you?

Chuuya ran his hands over his face and through his hair. He'd thought about leaving before, but only ever in hopes of getting back some semblance of what he'd had before. It was a futile thought in reality. Leave for someone that may really, truly hate him? Become a traitor to a dangerous organisation just to be with someone that may not even want him there? It was the plan of a fool. He did well in the mafia. The work was tough, sure, but he'd grown up with it. It was nothing he couldn't handle. The only thing he couldn't handle were the emotions he dealt with at night, and he dealt with those well enough. He wouldn't be going anywhere: he was right where he belonged, doing work that he was tailored perfectly for.

"Do you think we were meant to be partners?" He had asked one day. Dazai had just turned to look at him and nodded slowly.

"I do."

Chuuya turned over and tried to go to sleep.