#if it isn't obvious....Dazai severed his own pinky to get rid of his thread. btw

[bnesszai]

I'm back to inflicting pain. skk Valentine's week day 5: soulmates. @bsdfanweek canon compliant. (in a longer fic, i would add post dark era scenes and have the ending be more ambiguous. but for this....it's just. pain)

*

Chuuya is seven years old when he wakes up.

He’s alone, cold, with no knowledge of what came before or what comes next. All he knows for sure is that tied around his pinky, is a bright red string. It’s thin as a strand of hair and seems to stretch on endlessly. It’s like a beacon, but he doesn’t know where to or why. He tries to take it off, but it only tightens. 

Frowning, Chuuya decides he has nothing better to do than try and follow it. 

*

At eight years old, Chuuya learns what a sandwich is. 

He’s teased for it, but he also learns so much more. He learns what it means to be around people, to want to protect, and how to be protected. He learns that he has strengths that scare those around him, even if they won’t admit it. 

“Oh, these?” Yuan says one day when Chuuya blurts out something about the red thread. “Most people can only see their own, but I can see them all.” She giggles, young and carefree despite it all. “Rumor says it leads you to your soulmate.” 

Chuuya leans forward. “Soulmate?”

“Yeah, I guess they’re, like,” she scrunches her eyebrows together. “They’re like someone who is destined to love you. No matter what.” 

“Wow,” Chuuya says. There is a heavy weight on his shoulders, ratty clothes on his back, and a sharp need to destroy seeped into his bones that he can’t place. But, he is also a child. “That’s amazing.”

*

Chuuya is twelve and covered in blood and bruises. 

He looks down at his pinky. Too good to be true, he thinks. 

*

Chuuya is fourteen when he is proven right. 

In the middle of the night, fire races across his ribcage. The flames weave in and out of the spaces between, finally encasing around his heart. Lurching up, Chuuya tries to catch his breath. The flames seem to smolder, just a bit, but then if feels like something is cutting his pinky clean from his knuckle. 

Chuuya looks down, sees a bloody stump where a string used to be, and throws up.

*

Chuuya is fifteen when realization hits him with the full force of his own gravity. 

Dazai Osamu, with his irritating words and lifeless smile, manipulates Chuuya into his life. Which is fine, he thinks. Two can play at this game, and now, at least, he seems to have some agency over his life. Now, he can learn what it means to be a leader without fear of someone stabbing him in the back, or without the fear of his power being used against him. Besides, there is no better way to learn how to kill someone than to be in forced proximity to them often.

Which leads to the discovery. Chuuya stares at Dazai’s hands, unsure how he never noticed before. Maybe it’s because the bandages always distracted him, or that Dazai wore his black coat like a cape that swallowed him whole, or maybe because Dazai’s hands usually are most visible when they’re holding a gun or otherwise carving suffering upon someone. 

But now, as Dazai lounges with a game in his hand, Chuuya can’t stop seeing it. 

Without looking up, Dazai says, “It’s impolite to stare, you know. Honestly, did no one ever teach you any manners?” 

Chuuya can’t even muster a retort. His eyes are glued to Dazai’s left pinky. Or, rather, lack thereof. 

In the resulting silence, Dazai lowers the console and looks at Chuuya. His expression is bored, one eye a swirling mass of darkness. “Oi, chibi, are you in there?” 

“Your hand,” Chuuya says before he can stop himself. 

“Hmm?” Dazai looks confused for the faintest moment before he looks down and lifts said hand. “Oh, this?” He wiggles what remains of the appendage. 

Chuuya’s throat is dry. It constricts as bile tries to work its way up. “What happened?”

“What, curious about me?” 

Finally, finally, Dazai’s teasing lilt pulls Chuuya from his trance. “Shut the hell up. I’m leaving.” 

Chuuya is halfway out the door when he hears, just barely, Coward. 

*

At sixteen, Chuuya gives up any hope of finding proof of his humanity.

Though, when Dazai thinks Chuuya doesn’t notice, he can see the flickering look of confirmation reflected there. He can hear, through the grapevine, that despite all the shit he says, Dazai believes in it. He can see a boy with a bleeding heart, held in his hands with no idea what to do with it, believing in something so fiercely, that it sparks something in Chuuya’s chest.

His phantom pinky aches. 

*

At eighteen, Chuuya is left behind again with no thread to guide his way.