Chapter Text
when r u gonna be here??????
Dazai watches the blue bubble float into their private messages and lets out a sigh. Apparently the other seventy one didn’t catch the attention of his lifelong best friend, because the only response he gets is a simple ‘delivered’ underneath his text.
Throwing himself backwards on his bed, he switches his phone off and fights the urge to scream as loudly as possible. It was the day before Chuuya’s birthday . The day before he gets his soulmark. The determining factor in the puzzle that was life.
It was tradition, in their society, for every person's eighteenth birthday, they would receive the initials of the name of their soulmate on their left wrist. And as they found themselves closer and closer, the name would slowly start to fill in. There would be a warm fuzzy sensation as the letters engraved themselves into their skin, being written in gold by fate itself.
Chuuya had promised him that they would spend the night together. The last final hours before he’d finally find out who his soulmate was, or at least be given the first clues. Dazai didn’t initially want to think of it as such, but it felt like this would be their last night together before Chuuya goes off and finds the one that fate has chosen for him. It felt like a goodbye.
After tonight, there would be no more Chuuya and Dazai, Dazai and Chuuya. It would be Chuuya and some faceless individual while Dazai would be left behind by the one person who ever really made him feel alive. He’s aware of the fact that tonight, he would lose Chuuya forever.
The cool breeze of April washes over his room, and the tears forming in his eyes dissipate before he can even think about it.
Ping!
Shooting up and unlocking his phone, Dazai checks the singular response he’s hoping is from Chuuya.
damn chill im omw rn
Smiling at the text, Dazai lets out a humourless chuckle. Oh how he wished this night would never come.
Tonight would be their last.
Dazai pushes himself off the comforter and tries to ignore the deafening silence of his bedroom as he grabs some clothes to change.
Chuuya arrives six minutes later, despite the fact that his house was quite literally next door. He’d always had a bad habit of taking his sweet time when going anywhere. Even when going out with friends, he’d leave the house twenty minutes late and somehow end up being five minutes early. And Dazai had always had the unfortunate displeasure of being dragged along.
He’d always been dragged along with Chuuya, hadn’t he?
“Shitty bastard, I’m not that fucking short, look at me!”
Grabbing the hand waving in front of his face, Dazai finally looks down at the redhead he completely forgot was there. “Oh! You’re so tiny I didn’t even see you there!”
“You-!”
Dazai smiles dryly, “Well if you want to stand out there like an idiot that’s on you, silly fairy, but I am going to go upstairs and rewatch a shitty dog movie or…something.”
Chuuya yelps, almost like a poodle. “My dog movies are not shitty!”
His eyebrows bunch together as one side of his nose scrunches up, and Dazai resists the urge to grab his face and count all the freckles on his face right then and there. “They absolutely are. Now come inside before some man mistakes you for a preschooler and tries to kidnap you.”
An offended gasp, “Will you stop with the height jokes?!”
“Ne-e-ver!” Dazai floats up the stairs and out of view, with which his cheerful expression immediately drops into one of pure exhaustion and misery. He might as well just kill himself now before Chuuya comes upstairs and sticks to him for the rest of the night, if he would even want to stick to someone like him. But alas, before he can think of the fastest suicide method, painless or not, Chuuya comes marching up behind him, chasing him into Dazai’s own room and tackling him onto the bed.
Two muscular arms wrap around him and Dazai can only take in the smell of Chuuya’s cologne. His mind goes blank and his vision feels fuzzy and the sound of the world is being drowned out by white noise. All he can see is orange and blue, illuminated by the soft glow of the sunlight coming in through the open window.
Chuuya’s freckled skin is bathed in the warm gleam and Dazai feels the air in his lungs stolen from him in real time. The way his lips are pulled up and his smile reaches his eyes makes Dazai want to cry. Chuuya is definitely the most gorgeous person he could ever imagine. He’s sure many others could agree.
And it wasn’t just the way Chuuya looked that had people drawn to him. Chuuya is a caring, compassionate and kind person. He’s selfless and he wears his heart on his sleeve, always putting other people before himself. The amount of times Dazai could recall having to drag Chuuya home or force him to sleep because of how much he was overworking himself for other people was beyond healthy let alone human.
But Chuuya was just that.
Human.
A loving, good-natured, selfless human.
Chuuya was nothing like Dazai in that way, and yet he’d always wanted Dazai around. He had always put up with him, ever since childhood. Their parents had met when Chuuya’s moved in next door fifteen years ago, but they’d only started talking in kindergarten after the boy found him being harassed by a couple other kids who said he “looked weird”. Chuuya, the feral bastard, beat up an eight year old a foot taller than him while simultaneously being stabbed with a greylead pencil.
And as if that wasn’t enough, he insisted Dazai be allowed to stay with him in the infirmary so he didn’t have to go back and see those “good-for-nothing-uglies”.
For the first time, someone had prioritised Dazai. And Chuuya went above and beyond by prioritising Dazai over himself.
When they were eleven, Chuuya demanded that his mom list Dazai’s father Mori as a secondary guardian contact for their school records, and then enlisted Mori into doing the same. That way, the other’s parents could legally sign the other out of school and take them home, so that neither of them would have to stay at school if the other went home early.
When they were thirteen, Dazai had caught a shitty cold, some branch of the flu. Chuuya, his sweet Chuuya, skipped school for a good four days just to take care of him and keep him company. Dazai called him annoying, and Chuuya insisted he was solely there to make sure Dazai had some element of endless and inescapable hell in his life, but Dazai can’t remember much hell. No, instead he remembered being wrapped in a blanket and soft hands stroking through his hair.
When they were fourteen, Dazai noticed the way his heart would speed up when Chuuya was around. He took note of the way his words got stuck in his throat and he suddenly cared a lot more about what Chuuya thought about him. The way he wanted to be by Chuuya’s side every second of the day, and the way he wanted to be closer to him whenever Chuuya would sleep over in Dazai’s bed, or when Dazai would sleep in Chuuya’s own.
At fifteen, Dazai realised he was in love with Chuuya. He realised that the aching in his chest for so long was what others would call love. These feelings had been festering for a long time, and had only grown stronger over the years. He wanted to trace his hands all over Chuuya’s freckled skin and hold onto him longer than necessary. He wanted to hold Chuuya’s hand. He wanted to wrap his arms around the other without Chuuya struggling or questioning what he was doing.
He wants Chuuya.
But to him, the love for his best friend was a parasite.
It tore him apart from the inside, ripping his heart out of his chest. Like a kick to the ribs but it hurt so much worse. The constant hole in his heart that he’d rather die than try to fill with anything but the love of his closest friend, the one person who had ever made him feel like a person before anyone else had even thought of trying.
He thought that being in love would be sweet and soft, like a pinkish orange sky and a domestic morning, making him feel warm all over. But this love was painful, it ached in the deepest parts of his soul where not even he could reach. He felt cold, and isolated. Wanting the one thing he could never have, someone so close yet so far out of reach. So much so that Dazai wants to just
cry
and
scream
every time he looks in Chuuya’s direction.
This is the closest thing he’ll get, although his selfish human heart shrivels at the thought of it. But if he could continue to have Chuuya in his life, and even let himself pretend that Chuuya loved him a smidge more than what was true, to let himself believe that Chuuya wanted him the way he wanted Chuuya, then he would take being left on the sidelines.
And now he was going to watch the person he loved more than anything be given away to some undeserving random who would never know how long Dazai had suffered in silence. They would never know how long Dazai had waited for Chuuya.
And perhaps Dazai would keep waiting.
He knows Chuuya isn’t selfish like he is, he knows Chuuya would never ask him to wait. But god, years down the line Chuuya will be happy with somebody else and Dazai still doesn’t think he’ll be ready to move on.
For all he knows, maybe he’ll never move on. Maybe he doesn’t want to move on. Because moving on would mean to let go of these feelings. To let go of Chuuya.
Maybe if he had never developed feelings for him in the first place, he would be happy for Chuuya. Happy that he would find the love he deserved.
But a part of Dazai didn’t want to be happy for him. He wanted to be the love Chuuya deserved. He wanted to be the love that Chuuya wanted. And the thought of wanting something impossible in a way that he’d give his last breath for is so overwhelming that-
“-samu? Osamu?”
That snaps Dazai out of a trance he didn’t even realise he was in, his eyes meet Chuuya’s concerned ones and Dazai can’t help but think he’s done something wrong.
Did he make a mistake?
Was Chuuya mad at him?
But it’s only until he feels the wetness on his cheeks that he realises why Chuuya looks so worried.
Had he seriously started crying while Chuuya was hugging him?
“You- Dazai, are you alright?”
Chuuya wipes the tears from under his eyes and Dazai wants to start crying again. The gentleness in his touch and the affection in his eyes makes Dazai want to die because the more he looks at Chuuya the more he lets himself dare to dream.
“I’m fine.” he sniffles as he says that, and if it already wasn’t convincing enough the sniffle made him look even more guilty.
Chuuya sighs, “Bullshit. You’re literally crying, what’s up?”
He can feel the patterns being drawn on his back by the other’s fingers and the only thing he can look at is Chuuya with his half lidded eyes and warm smile. “I-...” He couldn’t find the words to explain himself.
“Infact, you’ve been acting off all week. Are you okay, Dazai?”
He hated how caring Chuuya was, how he was always looking out for Dazai even when he was just being a little shit. Dazai almost felt guilty at how he couldn’t cough up any sort of response because god forbid he explain his train of thought and lose Chuuya sooner than what was expected. If these were the last moments he’d get with him, then he wouldn’t do anything to mess it up. And if it were in his power, he’d do anything to change it.
He doesn’t think he’ll ever tell Chuuya how he feels.
“I’m fine. Don’t worry about me.” And like that, the mask is up again. He won’t push Chuuya away, not tonight. But he won’t let him in and ruin things. For now it’ll be just them and nothing else.