Chapter Text
Late into the night, Chuuya still couldn’t sleep. Plagued with uncontrollable thoughts he tossed and turned until he gave up, sitting upright in bed and looking out at the dark room.
The dark had never really scared him before, not since he was a kid, a fear mostly learned from his twin, who had been much more sensitive than most kids, and always claimed that the shadows moved when he turned his gaze away.
After Hikaru died, it took Chuuya a few months to learn to sleep without a light on— not from fear but from the sudden lack of reason to sleep without it. He wasn’t scared of the dark, and his fearful brother who was didn't sleep in the same room as him at night anymore.
Dragging himself out of his bed, he searched his bag for his water bottle, slipping quietly out of the door and padding down the stairs, heading into the unfamiliar kitchen to rinse his bottle out and refill it.
The house felt heavy and uncomfortable to be in, his skin crawling as he stood in the dark kitchen.
He hated the feeling like he was being watched.
Turning back around, he stared into the shadows, and for the first time in a long time, wondered if he was scared of the dark.
Bottle in one hand, nothing in the other, he crept forward, and, as if subconsciously looking for a light source, holding out his open palm the flickering light of a dying fire lit his surroundings.
It burned in his chest the same way it burned in his hand, eating at the well of emotion he didn’t know what to do with. The shadows slipped away, and while they had never been malicious in the first place, he was soothed by their immediate distance.
Quickly, he made his way back up the stairs, entering the room again and closing the door with his hip so he wouldn’t have to let the fire die.
He sipped from his bottle before returning it to his bag, near the top so he could reach it easily again in the morning.
The light in his palm flickered, and he watched as the weak flame grew weaker still. He didn’t have anything to amplify it with. The last time he made fire, he had used melted wax. It didn’t escape him how insane the lack of reaction to simply willing fire into existence was, but he wasn’t sure how else to react rather than just make use of it and continue on.
When the light finally snuffed out, the darkness seemed to press in on him heavier than before.
He swallowed thickly, looking around the room from where he stood next to the bed, until his eyes landed on Dazai.
Dazai, who was asleep now, the blanket curled around him tightly but now allowing Chuuya to see his face, his closed eyes and dark hair sprawled on the arm of the chair.
As if testing a theory, Chuuya approached, sitting on the edge of the bed and simply looking at him. For once, he looked peaceful.
Chuuya held his hands in front of himself, and while looking at Dazai, he felt the way the tingling sensation of power leapt at him. Instead of feeling like he was working to drag a bucket up from an old well, it felt like the water was overflowing, coating his body in a refreshing coolness.
This time, the light was bright enough to completely eradicate any darkness from the room, a soft orange glow washing over the room and giving it a pleasant hue.
Chuuya looked down at the flame, oddly detached from himself as he watched it burn.
Love. He loved Dazai.
He didn’t think he did. He didn’t know what love felt like. It never felt like a hallmark movie, or a romcom, or a coming of age film. There were no movie moments or book plot lines or song lyrics plucked from a perfect frame of a music video.
He didn’t know what love felt like, how was it what he felt the strongest?
If he loved Dazai, what did he have to do now? Did he have to profess it and date him and find ways to keep them both content in a relationship?
He liked their friendship as it was.
He didn’t want to change it. He wasn’t uncomfortable with the thought of a relationship, and had considered it when Albatross had constantly teased him over his crush on the cute regular, but once he’d gotten to know Dazai he’d found he didn’t have the slightest romantic interest.
He loved Dazai. That was clear enough.
But in a way that he wanted to be Dazai’s best man, not his fiancé.
Or did he? How did he know? How could he ever know? What would happen if he didn’t know?
He must, if his source emotion was love. How else could he love someone?
Dazai shifted, stirring with the light in his face as it flickered and burned brighter as Chuuya thought, chasing his own feelings in circles in hopes of catching their tails and making them explain.
Quickly, Chuuya stood, backing away, but he noticed almost immediately how Dazai had stirred, but instead of waking in the light, instead seemed to relax, falling into a deeper sleep.
He hesitated, and after a moment he took a deep breath. Clearly the exhaustion was catching up.
He let the fire burn out, imagining he stepped away from the flooding well, the room going dark again for just a second before he turned the lamp on, trusting the warm light to substitute the fire.
And Dazai stayed asleep, seeming much more at ease than he had been when Chuuya first came back through.
Chuuya watched over him for a few more moments before tearing his gaze away, blinking at the bedsheets before quickly climbing back into them, hiding in the blankets like it would become a barrier between him and his feelings.
With no such luck, nausea settled in his stomach, trying to think of what everything meant. How would things be when he got back home? How would he have to change?
He only had his eyes closed for a few seconds before a sickening thought hit him.
His ex-boyfriend, the asshole. The one who threw a book at him. His first proper romantic relationship.
…Had Chuuya ever actually loved him?
Or had he thought he did, because he was told what love looked like, and blindly believed it?
He had been over it so quickly, mainly shocked by the fact that someone who had said they loved him was able to try and hurt him so easily.
…Had he ever loved anyone?
He couldn’t find an answer.
The troubling question pursued him into his dreams.
—-
Chuuya was shaken awake and dragged out of bed early, leaving while it was still dark outside. He only saw Mori once more, the back of his head as he tried to convince a young girl with blonde hair to eat a banana with her pancakes.
Mark had them in the air again only an hour after Chuuya had woken up, and the flight was much quicker this time, a little under four hours.
Dazai noticeably relaxed the further away they got, talking to Chuuya normally once more as they got closer to London, and if he noticed the way that Chuuya’s gaze lingered for too long, or often strayed to his bandages, he didn’t let it show.
Chuuya had two things on the forefront of his mind: the revelation regarding Dazai’s magic use, and his own inability to discern how he loved Dazai. Because he had to. He’d figured it out, that was his source. So why and how did Dazai amplify it? And if he loved Dazai, what did he do with that?
Chuuya wasn’t sure what they were going to do in London once they got there, but straight out of the airport Dazai was catching a bus and dragging them up to the North side, into a bar where he spoke to a lady behind the bar, working a kind of charm that made Chuuya roll his eyes in disgust.
She let them into the back, however, and Chuuya stopped short in the hall at the sight of a familiar face, one he hadn’t seen or heard from in years.
“Chuuya!” Shirase exclaimed with surprise, pushing past Dazai with little care for the stock boxes he pushed him into.
“Shirase,” Chuuya responded with surprise, unsure how to react at the sight of his childhood best friend approaching him, responding to the handshake like it was second nature.
“What are you doing here? You shoulda told me you were coming,” Shirase said, stepping back to look Chuuya up and now. “You look good man, you’re like… glowing or some shit. Don’t tell me you’re knocked up.”
Chuuya scowled as Shirase laughed, finding himself hilarious, and he responded with muted annoyance.
“Of course not, how thick are you? I’m here cause we’re looking for some guy.”
Shirase nodded, still stifling his laughter, before turning to Dazai.
“And who’s this guy?” he asked.
“My friend.”
Dazai looked at Shirase with a kind of expression Chuuya hadn’t seen before. It reminded him a little of the way Mackerel had glared at Albatross before. He couldn’t place what the emotion was, but he was sure it wasn’t a good one.
Shirase picked up on it quickly, regarding Dazai almost immediately with the same amount of distaste. They were locked in a stalemate for a moment, before Shirase looked back at Chuuya, disregarding Dazai entirely in favor of speaking to Chuuya.
“So, you’re not just here to visit,” Shirase said, looking just a little disappointed before brushing it aside. “Who are you looking for? If I don’t know them, I bet I know someone who does. I’ve made my connections.”
He felt a sense of relief wash over him as Shirase let the conversation move forward so quickly, and started explaining.
“A man named Fyodor. We heard he was last in London, but he might have moved on by now. We need to speak with him.”
He decided it was best that he left out most of the story, just enough to be able to get the information he needed out of Shirase. When Shirase had left, they hadn’t been on bad terms exactly, but they had fallen out badly the year before he left, and hadn’t spoken much since except to just check the other was still alive.
Shirase however, was visibly taken aback.
“Fyodor?” he asked, looking just a little troubled. “Are you sure? As in Dostoyevsky?”
Chuuya nodded.
“I don’t know man. He’s left London now, he has ‘friends’ up in the Scottish Highlands, around Inverness. A mate of mine knows one of his little lackeys, some bloke known as Sigma who runs a popular bar in the centre of Inverness.”
Chuuya was distracted from what Shirase was saying for a moment by how he was saying it. His accent had changed in the two years since he moved here, an English twang to his accent which made Japanese sound a little different, especially mixed with the new slang. It was a little strange, seeing someone he had known so well seem so different.
“Why the hell are you looking for him?”
Before Chuuya could find an answer, Dazai jumped in.
“He’s trying to eradicate all magic users. He’s put his plans into motion, and we believe he’s involved in the disappearance of one of the most influential magic wielders in Japan. We came here based on information provided by Mori Ougai, who last traced him here. I was told you would likely know where he went given your connections in the London sphere of magic.”
Shirase spent a moment shooting Dazai a dirty look as he listened, before speaking again.
“And why is Chuuya dragged into this?”
“Because he’s involved,” Dazai responded shortly. “He’s an adult, he can get into any messes he wants.”
“That man is dangerous. Are you sure you want to go looking for him?” Shirase directed at Chuuya. “You’d be much better just staying here. There are people trying to get him anyway.”
“I’m sure,” Chuuya responded firmly, not withholding his tone of frustration. He had always hated the babying, the sense of protectiveness people had always held over him when he didn’t need protecting. He didn’t appreciate it.
Shirase looked at him with an equal amount of frustration for a moment, before sharply sighing.
“Well, Sigma is in Inverness. You’ll have a hard time getting a train or a flight up there, you likely won’t catch one this short notice, and the ones for the next few days are likely to be cancelled, a storm is coming in up North.”
“We have a pilot.” Dazai glared at the back of Shirase’s head as he stubbornly didn’t turn back to look at Dazai as he spoke. “We’ll be able to fly later today.”
Shirase looked far from pleased, but after a long pause, relented.
“I’ll text you the address of the bar,” he said to Chuuya, still pointedly ignoring Dazai. “You’ll find Sigma there. They’re precious over their little business, but I’m sure they could be swayed into revealing Fyodor’s location if you go about it the right way.”
“Thanks,” Chuuya responded, and he took a step back, trying to hint he was going to leave.
It was nice seeing Shirase, but he wasn’t sure how long he wanted to linger for.
“...No problem man. Just stay safe, yeah?” Shirase looked genuinely worried, so Chuuya took a moment, taking a breath and nodding.
“Yeah, we will. It was good seeing you, glad you’re getting on well.”
Shirase nodded in response, and a moment later Dazai pushed past him, and he took Chuuya’s hand quite suddenly, dragging him out again, and not even a minute later they were back out on the streets of London.
As Dazai led them back in the direction of the bus stop, Chuuya noted he didn’t let go of his hand, holding it quite firmly.
“I didn’t like him,” Dazai said after a few moments, sounding surprisingly annoyed. Chuuya raised an eyebrow, unimpressed and unsurprised.
“I don’t think he liked you much either, to be honest,” he said dryly. “Sniding at him probably didn’t help.”
Dazai just grimaced, and they came to the bus stop, and he looked at the time until the next bus.
“30 minutes…” Dazai muttered. He frowned, and the hand holding the strap of his bag, which he had hardly let out of his sight since they left, Chuuya realised, tightened around the strap. Dazai seemed to think for a moment, before discarding the thought and sighing. “It’s too cold to be lingering outside for ages.”
Chuuya hummed in agreement. He had known the UK was cold, but he thought it was mainly the North of England and Scotland that was particularly so, not the South. It wasn’t cold the way Russia had been, where he felt like he needed to keep blinking to prevent his eyes from freezing, but the fact it was just cold enough for it to be biting when the wind blew was almost worse.
Luckily the street they were on was quite a busy one, and almost directly across the street from the bus stop there was a coffee shop that didn’t look much different from the one that they worked in back in Yokohama, and Chuuya took the initiative to drag Dazai this time, running across the busy London street to reach the little shop, entering the warmth of the interior.
“Go sit down, and I’ll go get us drinks,” Chuuya ordered, pointing Dazai to a table near the window.
Dazai pouted, but allowed himself to be ordered around, going to sit down and taking his jacket off as he did so.
Chuuya went to the counter, quickly buying them sandwiches and drinks, and he stepped back as he waited.
Dazai watched Chuuya for a few moments after he sat down, looking at him standing by the counter and fumbling with his money as he went to tip in cash before realising he was only carrying yen and needed pounds. The girl behind the till looked about their age, and she appeared to compliment his hair.
He forced himself to look away, finding his phone in his pocket and messaging Ranpo to update him on the new information. He didn’t like being literally dragged across the world on hearsay. First Russia, now England, next Scotland.
Slowly, things had been coming back to him. He had felt as the aching gap in his chest became more prominent, and now, since leaving Russia, less so. In a few hours it had become less painful, and at his fingertips he could feel the thrumming of the magic in the things around him.
Holding Chuuya’s hand had made him feel alive for a moment, the vibrancy of the magic flowing through Chuuya’s veins making him feel like he did when he first began learning magic safely. It cast him back to the first proper lessons with Natsume after he had been taken in, back to meeting Yosano, back to meeting Ranpo.
He missed how healthy magic made him feel.
Somewhere, smaller memories were resurfacing with the sensation returning. He remembered watching a movie, and he remembers Chuuya being with him. He remembers being stuck in his cat form, but sitting at a closed window in a warm kitchen and meowing back at the person leaning over to open it for him. He remembers falling asleep in warm arms.
Each one felt hard to grasp, like they were ghosts and when he reached for them they fizzled out between his fingers. But they were there and he swore they were real.
When he had unraveled his bandages, he had wondered how he had done his magic in the recent months he had forgotten. For the first time in a long time he had felt clean skin beneath his fingers.
Now, he traced his finger over the bandages, staring at them intently. Had there really been enough hope he’d found with Chuuya that he had been able to survive off of it for months without doing anything Mori had taught him?
He could believe that.
The thought was enough to make something in his chest a little lighter still.
He was always taken aback by how powerful hope was.
In front of him, a mug of hot chocolate and a ham and cheese toastie was placed, and he looked up at Chuuya, who sat down with a sigh and immediately began drinking his coffee despite the fact it was probably ridiculously hot still.
Chuuya didn’t say anything, so Dazai decided not to either, instead looking at what Chuuya had chosen for him. Correctly, as well. He wasn’t sure how to feel about that.
As he began to eat, Chuuya finally spoke.
“The flight to Inverness airport will take about an hour and a half, I called Mark while I was waiting,” Chuuya explained, sounding slightly exasperated. “I’m getting sick of flying. I don’t want to think about the carbon emissions. But he said he’ll be ready for us by the time we get to the airport, so we’ll be in Inverness this evening.”
“Sounds good, I messaged Ranpo to update him and he’ll probably tell me a little more about whatever’s going on over there too. Hopefully they’ll have found Natsume by now,” Dazai responded, carefully keeping the worry out of his tone.
Chuuya nodded, glancing out the window at the bus stop.
Dazai watched him for a moment, before kicking him under the table for his attention.
“What?” Chuuya asked snippily.
“Let’s watch a movie while we’re on the plane,” Dazai suggested with a grin.
Chuuya looked at him warily.
“And what do you suggest?”
Dazai hummed, considering the question long and hard.
“...Maybe… 101 Dalmations. We can pretend Fyodor is Cruella.”
Chuuya looked at Dazai for a moment like he was stupid, before scoffing a little, trying to hide his amusement by rolling his eyes.
“You’re so fucking dumb,” Chuuya muttered, and he didn’t see it while glancing out the window once more, but Dazai’s smile widened, and a little bit of warmth returned to his eyes.
“Chuuya’s dumber.”
Chuuya kicked Dazai hard under the table, and Dazai yelped, before they both laughed.
From the outside of the cafe, on the other side of the window, anyone would have thought the two had been friends for their entire lives, or were a couple on a date. Dazai and Chuuya remained oblivious as Dazai continued to list off ideas for movies they could watch.