#soukokus bizarre mating rituals

[its-no-biggie]

hi its 3am and im brainrotting again. can we talk about the first time we see dazai and chuuya interact? the scene where dazai gets caught by the mafia and chuuya comes to taunt him while hes chained to the wall? rewatching it after knowing their full history..... like. they started working together when they were children. fought side by side for YEARS. sure, they bickered the entire time, but chuuya explicitly put his life in dazais hands on multiple occasions. they claim to hate each other, but their actions speak otherwise. they were PARTNERS. the deadly duo. soukoku. THEN dazai disappears for like a year or two? (i forget the timeline but im pretty sure its around that.) [EDIT: four years. four years???? oh my god. cant believe i was so far off. dont post things at 3am lmao. ty @azapofinspiration] just fucking drops off the face of the earth. and chuuya claims he celebrated when dazai left- in fact, he probably did! but you know he missed him. you KNOW. he just wont admit it to himself

and now, after dazai has been missing for a substantial amount of time, hes back. playing for the enemy team. can you fucking IMAGINE this from chuuyas perspective????? god, id be FURIOUS. [well. id be feeling a lot of things. but anger is easier than unpacking all of that.] and he also knows that dazai is too smart to be captured by the mafia, so he goes to give him a piece of his mind, ask him what his fucking deal is, and finally be the one picking on HIM for once. let out some of the frustration [and definitely no other feelings] from his former partner betraying him, disappearing, and then showing up again a year later. and then what actually happens? dazai reads him like a fucking book, taunts him with the opportunity to kill him, blackmails him for information, and then reveals that he could have just left at any time but he SPECIFICALLY waited to fuck with chuuya. and then humiliates him on the way out! the absolute DISRESPECT.

and like. not only is this an EXCELLENT introduction to their relationship- it establishes that they know each other very well, they used to be partners but now theyre enemies, and that the hostility between them is very familiar- but it gets SO MUCH FUNNIER with the full context. like dazai doing All That is disrespectful enough, but this is after he: left the mafia without so much as a goodbye, BLEW UP CHUUYAS CAR, disappeared for FOUR YEARS, then silently reappeared as a member of an enemy organization? the absolute AUDACITY. no wonder chuuya threatened to kill him!

and then. and THEN. chuuya STILL uses corruption the next time they meet. WHAT.

and its because no matter how much bullshit chuuya puts up with, he KNOWS that dazai has his back when it really counts. even after ALL OF THAT, he still trusts dazai with his LIFE. ohhhhh my god i need to lie down. they make me ILL