It is curious, but the cathedrals of melancholy are not necessarily demolished
if one can replace the vulgar "What a messy business it is to be fallen for" by the more literary
"What uneasiness lies in being loved."
- Osamu Dazai

Ten Years Ago

"I'm going to kill you some day, you… you… overgrown jackass!"

Round cheeks and auburn hair, blue eyes too wide to be intimidating even narrowed as they are in adolescent rage, at twelve years old and still clinging to the baby fat of youth Chuuya Nakahara is far too adorable to be intimidating. Maybe the blood splattered across his clothes and the way the ground is trembling around him should be off-putting, but honestly Dazai is pretty sure that just enhances the effect.

Dazai swipes the back of his hand across his bruised and split lip, smearing blood across the clean white bandages that wrap around his fist, and then ignores the sting and grins wider down at his half-pint little compatriot as he pushes off of the wall he'd been leaning against.

"Maybe you will someday. But you'd have to beat me first, chibi. A little sucker punch like that doesn't count. And a bare fist, too, against me. You know better."

He taps his fingertip to Chuuya's nose just to irritate him, and for the amusement of watching his friend's billowing jacket suddenly deflate again, flapping down to smack the back of his ankles, nearly dragging on the ground without his power to fluff it out around him. Chuuya's like a small kitten ruffling its fur up to seem larger. Honestly, adorable.

Stepping daintily over the first of the bodies in their wake, Dazai hums to himself as he turns over the next one with the toe of his shoe, tutting at what Chuuya made of the enforcers sent after them, the shattered bones and disfigured forms-signs of small fists swung with unnatural force and gravity crushing them in upon themselves. "Messy."

"Five guys and you didn't even lift a finger, Dazai, so stop complaining." Chuuya is going to be petulant for at least another hour over that, but really it was the best strategy. When these guys started tailing them a block away from HQ, it only made sense to play the panicked children and let themselves get backed into a corner. Dazai standing 'protectively' in front the smaller boy focused their attention on him, and by the time Chuuya launched himself off of Dazai's shoulders in a bizarre parody of leapfrog, heavy fists and feet flying, Dazai figured he could handle the muscle on his own.

While it's true he disappeared a few minutes to let Chuuya deal with a small handful of thugs, it's not entirely accurate to say he was totally idle. After all, it's the first time someone's sent an ability user after them. When he was the first to run, of course Dazai had to tail him. It was exciting!

He'd tried to compel Dazai to sleep. Not the most impressive ability, but proof that they were supposed to be taken alive as leverage against the Port Mafia executives raising them. His unconscious body is crumpled in the back of the black van parked at the mouth of the alley. Mori may have a use for him, weak ability or not, and if nothing else he knows how his guardian loves prying information out of people.

Dazai takes a shuddering breath as he stares down at the crumpled face and sightless eyes of the body at his feet, fixing his blank smile back on as he spins on his heel to watch Chuuya drop an emptied wallet on a corpse, tucking a wad of cash into the pocket of his coat. "The Boss is going to want to see this."

Chuuya raises too-large blue eyes back to stare at him, lips twisting faintly, and for this moment both boys are far older than their years. Even at twelve years old this is far from the first scene of carnage either of them have been on, or the first time Chuuya's had blood on his hands. They had squeamishness trained out of them. But this slaughter is nothing compared to what the Boss will demand in retaliation for the attempt on them.

"Does he need to? We dealt with it." Chuuya's tone is soft, the hushed voice of a young child, but the sentiment is deceptively dangerous. They could just make this all disappear. Let Chuuya chivvy the corpses into the van, and then Dazai could get behind the wheel and dump it in the bay and return back as if nothing happened.

But the aftermath, when Mori finds out… somehow Mori always finds out.

Dazai watches Chuuya as he slowly pulls his cell phone out of his pocket in answer, and Chuuya's shoulders tense under his oversized coat, chin rising stubbornly as he braces himself visibly and nods curtly, turning back to shaking down the corpses without further protest. They'll both pretend he hadn't made any reference, no matter how veiled, to the Boss's declining sanity. They can leave it for the Executives to decide.

At twelve years old, they're already foot soldiers in a war they have no say in. Worse, they are living weapons, objects to be deployed wherever the mafia sees fit, coveted by other organizations, useful only if they go where bid and act when their trigger is pulled. They are objects, and when Mori strides into the alleyway minutes later, seeming to melt out of the evening darkness around him, he stares at Dazai as if he's a possession. His thumb presses against the cut on Dazai's lip as his smirk curls and his eyebrow raises questioningly, Dazai stares blankly back at his guardian with all of the expression and animation of a toy, the teasing and smiles he had for Chuuya long gone.

"It's good that you called me." Is there a weight to his words? Does he know that Chuuya considered not calling? Dazai tries not to let the worry show as Mori turns away from him to survey the scene and the petite redhead standing still blood splattered among his kills, watching the change in Dazai thoughtfully before swinging his eyes to Mori. "And you, Chuuya. It's been two years since your guardian has really let me see you. Dazai has been growing like a weed, most of the way to a teenager already, but you…"

Chuuya's eyes narrow into dangerous slits as Mori approaches him, and Dazai shakes his head slightly in warning as he widens his own eyes to capture Chuuya's attention. Chuuya catches the signal and freezes, hand twitching at his side at the effort it takes to go as still as prey. It's harder for the small redhead—it's not in his nature to be still, or quiet, or docile, and he abhors a victim. It was his violent response to predators that revealed his ability to the Port Mafia to begin with. He doesn't understand what Dazai is warning him about now. Dazai hopes he never does.

"You still look so young." Mori's fingertip swipes down the curve of Chuuya's cheek, hooking under his chin to tip his head back and look at him, and Dazai only lets his breath out in relief when a feminine voice answers the doctor before Chuuya can spit out the words trapped behind his teeth.

"You know how I believe an innocent face is a precious disguise and weapon." Kouyou Ozaki seems to float into the alleyway, the carnage around them no concern for her even as the scarlet hem of her kimono slides silken through pools of blood. Chuuya takes the opportunity to take a step back away from Mori's touch, into the shadow of his guardian as she folds delicate hands over his shoulders, watching her fellow Executive placidly. "Our boys did well for themselves again, it seems. Is this all of them?"

"There's an ability user in the back of the van, unconscious but still breathing." Dazai answers her, but his eyes are on Mori alone. "He was here to subdue us and bring us back. Abduction, not a hit."

"Interesting. So word has gotten out, but not well enough to keep them from underestimating you both." Mori chuckles, and glances at the bodies, eyes lingering on the emptied wallets near each. Chuuya meets his gaze defiantly, unapologetic for the theft, and Mori smiles indulgently at him. It's the look he gives Elise, the one he used to fix on Dazai, and it's unsettling to see it aimed at his friend. Dazai moves, pulling that stare back to himself instead, picking his way across the corpses to the discarded dagger he saw while taunting Chuuya.

He kneels to hook back the bloodied sleeve covering a meaty wrist, showing the elaborate design that begins at the cuff and doubtless covers his entire body beneath the clothes, the hand-poked irezumi tattoos of Yakuza, and then scoops up the dagger and holds it out hilt-first to Mori as evidence, the sharp blade fraying the soiled bandages of his hand. "Yakuza. Yamabishi symbol on the hilt, so Yamaguchi-gumi syndicate. Their expansion plans must have reached Yokohoma."

Mori is an information broker first and foremost, and for the past years he'd drilled into Dazai how knowledge is power. Perhaps he's not getting the formal education of other twelve year olds, but Dazai reads and observes as if his life depends on it. Because in truth, it does.

Foot soldiers live short, violent lives. Dazai doesn't fear death, but he'd rather embrace it on his own terms, and in a less painful manner than being gutted like a fish on a knife like this, left to bleed out in a back alley as a message to others, anonymous and disposable. He doesn't want that fate for Chuuya, either.

Mori glances at the dagger in disinterest without touching it, nodding slightly at the offered information, and Dazai can see him calculating. Thinking. Planning. When the eyes of the two executives meet over their young charges, Dazai knows they're no longer of interest. "It seems we have… negotiations… to see to. Thank you, boys. We'll have a cleanup crew come to take care of this, and to bring back the ability user."

Kouyou's voice is soft, and her fingers squeeze Chuuya's shoulders, pressing deep into the coat draped over him, a silent communication or command that Dazai can't help but notice and wonder at. "You've done well, little brother. Take Dazai back home and you can both clean up there."

Dazai notes the affectionate nickname with a cool detachment, and meets his friend's eyes when Chuuya plucks his hat back off of the asphalt and plunks it on his head as he strides past bodies towards him. "Come here." He's not ready for Chuuya to grab his forearms and march him backwards onto a scrap of the rusted sheet metal littering the alley, torn off of the walls by Chuuya's ability. Dazai can't quite hide the grimace at being grabbed, and that gives the smaller boy pause, eyes widening for a moment as they flick down to the bandages poking out from beneath his sleeves. He shifts his grip to Dazai's elbows without needing to be asked, a frown creasing his small face, and then meets Dazai's eyes. "Hands in your pockets. Don't touch my skin or I'll drop you."

"I know how my ability works, Chibi," Dazai drawls, smirking to throw off Chuuya's concern, but he can feel the weight of eyes on them, the regard of their elders and the need to be two things at once, two masks in conflict, is twisting him about. He knows what Mori wants him to become, and he knows he's closer every day to it. The nightmares stopped months ago, now, and he feels somehow less in their absence. But he also knows what Chuuya expects to see—his friend is a spitfire, and demands the same in return, but these days Dazai feels hollowed out, a shell for everyone else's expectations. He'll get better at being whatever he needs to be. "Are you sure you can use yours on me at all?"

"I'm not using it on you, idiot." Chuuya closes his eyes in concentration, and the next moment they're soaring, up, away from the carnage, coats snapping around them in the cold air of the atmosphere, the sheet metal a solid ground beneath Dazai's feet.

If he took a step forward, would he plummet to the ground far below? Would Chuuya be able to support him? Would his power drag them both down together? It would be a strange tragedy, two boys, bodies tangled together, dead long before they hit the ground. The idea is strangely intriguing, a fascination that will last far longer than Dazai realizes now… but not like this. He won't make that decision for both of them. Chuuya's grip tightens on his arms, as if he can read the thoughts in Dazai's eyes, and what seems like moments later they're on a balcony, Chuuya slumping as his small body gives in finally to the exhaustion of the fight and flight at last, and that last six inches of space end in a sharp drop as gravity takes hold of them again, the sheet metal clanging against concrete and sending Chuuya stumbling as Dazai grabs and braces him.

Chuuya needs to be stronger. Needs more endurance. He needs to grow up a little more, become harder, stronger, so he's not seen as prey by men like those thugs. By monsters like Mori. They'll work on that together, so they can both survive this life. It's a strange embrace, Dazai wrapped protectively around his friend as if he hadn't left him to slaughter five men for them just an hour before, Chuuya slumped into him as if he hadn't just punched Dazai in the face himself, and Dazai has to taunt to break the moment because he doesn't know what else to do.

Pushing Chuuya back by the shoulders, Dazai flashes a grin, flashbulb bright and candy sweet, and then shoves Chuuya towards the door, sending him stumbling over his cheap shoes and untied laces. "I'm hungry. Make me food. If you can even reach the stove, that is."

Chuuya blinks blue eyes at him, exhausted and strangely trusting even as he sneers at Dazai in return, falling back into their jabs. "You're like a black pit with legs. Make your own food."

They bicker like that for the next two hours as Chuuya patches up his bruised and split knuckles and then grudgingly putting together a lunch for them, Dazai lounging in Chuuya's space as if he owns it, rifling through his things, pocketing some of the expensive chocolates his friend favors just because he can. It's a comfortable dwelling, if formal and obviously to the executive's tastes. Kouyou is caring for Chuuya as if he's family, in her own murderous way, and that's… it's good. One of them should have that. But he can't help but be jealous too.

Fed, exhaustion catching up with him, Dazai lets himself be bullied into sitting down on Chuuya's futon and blinks as Chuuya drops down to the floor beside him, the first aide kit at his side and a determined look in his eyes as he makes his demands, shooting a pointed look at the stained coverings on Dazai's arms as he holds a coiled roll of bandages. "Show me."

After a moment of hesitation, Dazai takes the bandage from Chuuya's hand and tucks it into the first aid kit again, smirks, and shakes his head as he unfolds and rises to his feet. "I should head back to the headquarters. Mori will be waiting, and I want to know what the Boss plans."

No... Chuuya is not a child, not really, not any more than Dazai is. Only a few months separate them in age, no matter how quickly Dazai is growing. Baby-faced chibi or not, Chuuya is not innocent, not naïve: even with the difference in approach of their two guardians they're both being raised as efficient and ruthless killers.

But Chuuya isn't hollow yet. There's enough spirit to him that he may never be. So Dazai's not ready to become one the nightmares that helps break him.

Dazai sails out of the door, ignoring his friend's frustration. In a few minutes, Chuuya will doubtless notice the missing chocolates, and the wickedly curved knife Dazai left in their place in payment.

Chuuya will need it, some day.

Eight Years Ago

The sharp point of the blade embeds itself into the wall only an inch away from Dazai's face, quivering there buried deep, red-wrapped hilt still vibrating with the force of a throw augmented by Chuuya's ability and only avoided at the last second.

"A little on edge?"

The quip falls flat as Chuuya rises from his defensive crouch, pulling his hand away from the floor where he was prepared to rip the apartment around them apart to defend himself. In return, Dazai finishes slipping through the jimmied-open window, the hand not hidden by a cast and sling loose and open, deceptively giving the idea of being unarmed. They both know better. Facing each other across the room, all angular lines and sharp edges, the two teens are both blood splattered and ragged, and the room is lit with fire from the explosion that tore away the front of the building, sending the balcony crashing as rubble to the street below.

Dazai and Chuuya are fourteen years old, and have been training beside each other since that first thwarted ambush. Chaos is unfolding all around them as the criminal world tears itself apart. And for all Dazai knows, they may be on opposite sides of a war.

"Is it true?" Dazai can't quite guess at Chuuya's tone, but he doesn't have to wonder at his meaning at least.

"I witnessed it myself." Dazai's grin lights up again for his friend, false and brilliant, but it never reaches his empty eyes. He could be forced to kill Chuuya right here. Right now. And he knows without questioning it that right now, right here, he could kill Chuuya. "The Boss is dead. Long live the Boss. What side is she on?" What side is Chuuya on?

Chuuya spits a curse and stalks across the room, ripping his knife out of the wall and dragging Dazai away from the windows with a grip on his elbow. Dazai doesn't resist—he knows how Chuuya moves, how Chuuya fights, and this is Chuuya being protective, not an attack. "She hated the Boss, you idiot."

Yes. Dazai knew that. He was trained to observe, after all, and beyond that knowing about the motivations of the executives is going to keep him alive one day. But Kouyou also is wary of Mori, and knows what he is. Conspiring against the boss together did not mean she consented to Dazai's mentor replacing him. Already two of the other executives have stepped up to challenge Mori. Their blood is on Dazai's hands, dried to rust on the bandages dangling loosely from his arms.

"I just got the call. The Golden Demon just tore into the HQ. She's probably cutting through the Boss's loyalists. But..." Another explosion rips through the walls of the apartment, too near them to be coincidence, and Chuuya wrenches Dazai around by the arm, drops his grip and hefts a piece of concrete in his hands like it's nothing, rearing back and catapulting it at a bank of black vans with a roar of fury. "These assholes just showed up when I went to grab my coat."

Well, if they're not with Dazai, and they're not with Chuuya, then whoever's interest they're acting in… they are on the wrong side. Dazai taps Chuuya's shoulder and flashes him a grin, all teeth and bite, as he glances out of the torn wreckage of the building just long enough to get all the lay of the land that he needs. "Crimson dragonfly?"

Four years of friendship. Two years of partnership. Long enough for Chuuya to grow into his hat if not his coat, for him to slim down if not shoot up, long enough that the feral grin Chuuya flashes him as they fall into sync is endearingly familiar. They're only alive because they've spent the time to hone their abilities in tandem, and work out shorthand for tactics. "Rain of echoes works better for the surprise."

"Dragonfly for the elevation. Chibi, you know my plans are better."

Chuuya flexes his grip around the knife the way someone else would tap their fingers as they thought, before slapping it hilt-first into Dazai's hand in consent, and he jabs a finger into his chest. "Fine. But stop calling me chibi, you shit."

And then Chuuya flings himself into the open air, yanking his coat around him against the gunfire and increasing its density into a shield as he crashes to the sidewalk below, crushing concrete to a crater around him.

His hat doesn't even twitch in its rakish cant on his head. Imagine having that much power at your fingertips, and always using a fraction of it to keep your hair in place. Dazai's laugh is ripped from him at the ridiculousness of his friend, searing in how it seems to shake away the cold around and within him. The sound is lost in the rain of gunfire on the street, and Dazai takes off across the apartment to ride the fire escape down, tucking the knife against the cast for later and sorting with his uninjured hand through the endless pockets of his coat to grab the right detonators. He knows exactly how this is going to go, and where he needs to be.

They'll meet again at the middle, over the bodies.

Dazai and Chuuya are only fourteen years old. By the end of a long night of brutal infighting, they will be known within the organization as the new Boss's feral dogs.

Six Years Ago

Chuuya jerks awake silently, trained well enough to not give himself away with a sound as his eyes snap open in the darkness, hidden behind the curve of his arm, hand carefully sliding to the knife under his pillow. The knife that's supposed to be under his pillow, at least.

Dazai flicks another fingernail clipping at his partner's ear, carefully trimming back another, the blade glinting in the moonlight and then lamplight as Chuuya suddenly relaxes enough to swing his feet to the floor as he sits up and glowers, resentful of the incandescent bulb.

The auburn bird's nest of sleep tangled hair atop his head actually makes Dazai wish he'd snapped a picture for posterity and future blackmail. "I'm surprised you don't wear the stupid hat to bed." Dazai observes mildly, grin spreading, and he gestures at Chuuya's hair with the knife. "I could fix that for you. You keep this blade very sharp."

"I don't know why you're here, and I don't care." Chuuya snatches at the blade, and Dazai dances back holding it out of reach, arms too long for Chuuya to get it without actually getting out of his bed and climbing the taller boy. "I'm sleeping. Go away."

"You're not sleeping. We have a mission. How do you feel about destroying an entire base with me. Tonight."

At sixteen years old, both of them are too much the soldier for the promise of a mission not to clear the cobwebs away immediately, and the sharp blue eyes that fix on Dazai are cunning, maybe even more bloodthirsty than Dazai himself. Chuuya kept his spirit, cultivated his anger, and trusts Dazai enough to wordlessly accept that there's a solid battle plan when he's woken up without warning.

More than that, he trusts Dazai enough to unleash himself. That is something they are going to need tonight. From the way Chuuya rakes a hand back through his hair (making it worse, Dazai notices), he knows what he's being asked for. "Give me fifteen minutes."

Chuuya rolls out of bed and pads across his quarters in his boxers, and Dazai watches in his wake, the blade unmoving in his hands now, his eyes focused on lean muscle and fair skin as Chuuya disappears into the bathroom. At sixteen, Chuuya is arguably the best martial artist within the organization, and it shows ('arguably' because he's never beaten Dazai, but Dazai has been careful with his reputation and 'best martial artist' is not the title he's going for). At sixteen going on seventeen, though, Dazai has also become irritatingly aware that his best and only friend, who he once thought of as adorable, is already transitioning into something more like beautiful.

Chuuya's head pops out of the bathroom, a Colgate froth on his lips and toothbrush sticking out of his mouth, hair still ridiculous and an unbuttoned white shirt flapping around him absurdly, and he jabs a finger at the kitchenette. "Make me coffee."

It comes out more like mame muh kohee and thankfully the spell is broken. Chuuya is just Chuuya, and that means he's an irritable argumentative bossy overcompensating pint-sized idiot.

Dazai doesn't even pretend to try making Chuuya coffee. He's still complaining about that by the time they're nearing the drop site, shooting sullen looks at Dazai, hat firmly in place, hair whipping around him in the wind, shirt sleeves rolled up under his tailored black vest and coat abandoned, not a parachute to be seen as they stand in the open hatch waiting for word that they're situated over the base.

"This would be a hell of a lot easier if I were awake right now."

Dazai meets his glare with a meaningless grin, eyes squinted against the bitingly cold air, bandages and coattails lashing around him like tiny whips that sting the skin of his exposed cheeks as he grips the handle beside him, his coat like billowing black wings.

"If you fall asleep, it might make my job easier."

"You couldn't do this job without me." Chuuya scoffs, but he's flexing his fingers like he wants his knife in his hand right now. A knife that's currently tucked into the small of Dazai's back. Chuuya won't need it for this.

"And you can't do anything without me." Dazai counters, mocking and tart, but Chuuya doesn't take the bait. Their earbuds crackle with sound, the start of a countdown, and Chuuya's hand reaches out to snare Dazai's arm.

"Stop me. Before I…" Before the corruption of his ability consumes him. This is not something they've experimented with enough, but Mori is a firm believer in pushing the limits. They finally began to feel out the edges of Chuuya's capabilities only weeks ago, and the sickening crawl of tainted blood across his skin, the way his pupils constricted to pinpricks, the rush of fury through his body like a drug… Chuuya would never let on that it scares him. But Dazai is an observer. Chuuya doesn't have to say it.

Giving him comfort right now is only going to get the two of them killed, and ruin the mission. The thought slithers cold through Dazai's mind, tactical, analytical, impersonal, and his grin is sharp enough to cut. "I'm not stopping you until we complete the mission. How soon that is depends on you. So do the job."

Chuuya's eyes cut towards Dazai, wide and wounded before narrowing to a furious stare. It's not Dazai's fault that Chuuya's held hostage in this by his ability. This is why he's here. Mori gave the orders, and they're going to carry it out. He meets Chuuya's glare, eyes unwavering, mind clear of anything but tactics and practicalities, body waiting to act on orders, and Chuuya hisses a cursed invective then digs his fingers deeper in the meat of his bicep.

"Dead eyed mackerel bastard," Chuuya mutters, but Dazai doesn't bother trying to figure out what that means as the countdown ends and Chuuya flings them both into the abyss, and they're flying.

No. Better, they're falling, wind tearing at their skin, frost stinging their eyes, and Dazai is so addicted to this. Terminal velocity, great height, he wouldn't even need to worry about the sudden stop he'd be gone long before then. There's a jerk in his motion and Dazai lets himself fantasize for a moment that it's the end, but he knows it's the ripcord of his parachute as Chuuya spits insults at him, letting him go only afterwards, drawing his body in tight as a diver as he matches his descent to Dazai's.

"Don't you dare fucking think about dying on me right now, shithead."

As Dazai sails down to the roof of the base, watching his best friend, his only friend, his partner and his assassin, punch through concrete like it's tissue paper, tearing the void out of himself and into the world, a living, breathing black hole of a man, he knows that they're the stuff of legends already.

Chuuya's blade is sharp in Dazai's hand, and their gang never stood a chance. Eventually they try opening up on him with a machine gun, and honestly people should learn better-their weapons become his weapons, every time. It does slow things down a little, though, cause him to recalculate. By the time he raids their boss's quarters, grabbing the information Mori truly wanted, Chuuya is cackling his glee, eyes mad, nose, ears and tearducts dripping blood down his face in a horrific mask as corruption races across his skin, as he slams his fists together and punches through metal and rends flesh and slings black holes like bombs that consume everything they touch.

He rounds on Dazai, fist raised and no recognition in his eyes at all, and suddenly Dazai understands everything.

In that moment, Dazai is nothing. He knows he's dead inside. He knows what Chuuya saw in his eyes. He knows that he could stand here in this moment, let Chuuya kill him, and Chuuya would die at his side ripped apart by his own abilities. Would it be murder suicide? Double homicide? It's not double suicide. Chuuya has no choice right now because this is not Chuuya, so that doesn't count at all.

But there's the certain knowledge that slots into place in that moment, feet skidding as he's thrown back by the shockwave of one of Chuuya's graviton explosions as it takes out the foundation where he just stood. Chuuya never looks at him as if he's nothing. Of everyone in the world, there is only one person who might follow Dazai into death willingly.

But that needs to be his choice.

They dance, death and destruction, chaos and madness, as Dazai gets closer, drawn by the pull of gravity, the pull of Chuuya. His very first kiss tastes like their mixed blood and Chuuya's tears, like desperation and panic, painful and terrible as they mash together, as Chuuya slumps into him, panting with exhaustion as Dazai's power courses through him, shoving the corruption away, shutting his ability down into the back of his mind again, leaving him exhausted and broken and free of his own madness. He clings to the lapel of Dazai's jacket, dragging him down as he sways and crumples into the wreckage as silence falls around them. Dazai's second ever kiss ends with him being weakly punched across the jaw as they sprawl on broken concrete blocks.

"You waited too long. It was killing me."

He probably means his power. Dazai's grin says he chooses to take it another way, as he hoists Chuuya back to his feet. "Eager, aren't you."

"I'm going to murder you someday." The threat is old, familiar, comforting. Dazai shrugs, Chuuya half tucked under his coat as he braces him so they can pick their way over the carnage to the extraction point, objective complete.

"Probably. But not today."

They are sixteen years old. By the end of the night, they're known throughout the criminal underworld as Double Black, an assassination team that took out an entire base, and entire gang, in a single night. By the end of the week, Dazai becomes the youngest executive in Port Mafia history, and Chuuya is his right hand.

Dazai dreams of death and Chuuya dreams of murder. Together, they're unstoppable. They're invincible.

Five Years Ago

Chuuya's habit of sucker punching him in the jaw is really becoming annoying. His habit of saving Dazai is even worse.

"You stupid fucking idiot." Chuuya's habit of spitting profanity at him is just Chuuya, so he can't really complain. That's like bemoaning that his hair is red, or that his nose sunburns and peels, or that he has short stubby legs like a corgi. Along with the constant profanity, those are just things inherent to Chuuya being Chuuya.

"I'm nothing like a fucking corgi, you dramatic, emo sack of shit."

Dazai may have said part of that out loud. He's never really had an off switch when it came to annoying his partner anyway, and a fresh concussion makes it even worse.

His ribs hurt, his arm hurts, and his ears are ringing, and there is a searing pain in his side and his eye is swollen shut and caked with blood. He's fairly certain Dazai rocketing into him like a cannonball, slamming into him mid-air in a fall, had something to with part of that. It's a shame. He enjoys the falling. His dreams are full of careening through the air, arms clasped around Chuuya as they fall from the top of the Headquarters building, lips pressed together, powers canceled out by their kiss—it would be the perfect way to die.

But now they're firmly on land and tragically still alive and apparently in a very gaudy hotel room, and everything hurts.

"That happens when you stand too close to a cliff and set off an explosive, you moron." Both of them know the explosive shouldn't have been enough to blast Dazai off of the cliff. That he'd have thought ten steps ahead and known beforehand that the detonation would catch him as well. Chuuya knows it, and Dazai can hear that knowledge in his voice, the fury and the worry of it, but his petite enforcer still carefully settles him into the hotel bed even as he's giving him a verbal lashing.

"You charged this room to my account didn't you." Dazai is staring dazedly at a hideous lamp as he interrupts the rant and mournfully poses the question, a misshapen lump of a thing with a twisted asymmetrical base that cuts between striped orange glass and polka-dotted teal glass, the shade slapped on top as if to try and hide the atrocity of it. It's horrible to look at, so it's probably custom and that probably means this hideous room is expensive and he is bleeding out on this tacky bedspread. Of course Chuuya charged it to him.

"I'm charging everything from the bar to you, too." Chuuya snipes as he drops a duffle bag onto the mattress beside Dazai, yanking out a first aid kit and scowling down at his supposed superior. In this moment they are twelve years old again, Chuuya armed with bandages and demanding, but this time far meaner and far more bossy. And far more free with Dazai's wardrobe.

"Hey." Dazai swats weakly at Chuuya's hands as he strips off his coat and jacket efficiently, and Chuuya stops draping the fabric over the headboard to glare at him, snarling his response. Worry makes Chuuya angrier. Usually it's amusing, but there's something off about it today.

"I know about the scars, Dazai. I know you think I'm an idiot, but I'm not fucking blind and I know you mummify yourself with these damn bandages. And I've been there every time you've been shot, stabbed, or blown up, since we were ten, so I know you did it to yourself because you're so fucking stuck on this idea of killing yourself. I know Mori stitches you up every time too because no healing Ability can touch you. But the Boss isn't here and I am, and you're going to shut the fuck up and let me make sure you're not bleeding to death just because of your stupid fucking fascination with killing yourself on my watch."

Dazai stares up at Chuuya for a long moment, letting the words process, and does the only thing he can to deflect.

He grins, broadly and brightly.

"Maybe I just don't want you to get any ideas."

Chuuya's roar of frustration is truly impressive from such a small frame. The neighboring room pounds on the wall, and they're lucky Dazai grabs Chuuya's wrist before he can punch all the way through the drywall in return. The gesture snaps Chuuya's focused attention back to Dazai's face, and if looks could kill Dazai would be a crater (looks can kill, but that's not Chuuya's ability. Craters are though, but Dazai's confident now that Chuuya won't even if he could right now. More's the pity.).

"You're too easy to rile up, Chibi." Dazai chides, voice still a lilting sing-song, though he has to break it off to wheeze in a pained breath. Oh, he doesn't like this method, and is going to strike it off of the list now. Too painful. "You could always just…"

"I'm not letting you die." Chuuya wrenches his wrist away from Dazai, face twisted in fury still as he digs deeper into the duffle bag. "I don't care what it takes."

And isn't that just the root of the problem. Dazai would be elated by the two of them dying together and leaving the rest of the world at peace. Chuuya would burn the entire world to the ground and leave the two of them the last men standing in it, if he had to. Dazai dreams of death and Chuuya dreams of murder, and so they will never be on the same page.

Oh, but Chuuya kisses him like he matters. Like he can keep him there forever just with force of will and the press of his lips and the sharp bite of his teeth into Dazai's bruised lips and the weight of his body pressing Dazai's battered form to the bed, knees pinning his wrists down.

Dazai knows a distraction when one is knotting its fingers into his hair and tugging his head to a better angle, knows a ploy when it's restraining him and licking into his mouth and hissing curses against his lips. He can't even pretend to be surprised when Chuuya jabs a needle into his neck, just below the curve of his jaw and above the line of bandages, because of course Chuuya brought knock-out drugs. He probably carries them to every mission.

Dazai wakes hours later tucked under clean sheets and propped carefully with pillows, the soiled comforter tossed to the corner of the room. His hand flies first to his neck then to his wrist, where he finds untouched bandages coiled around himself, still concealing everything from sight. A twisted piece of shrapnel floats in pink-tinged water in the ice bucket on the nightstand, bandages circle his head ruffling his hair and obstructing one eye, and when he peels away the corner of the new square of soft dressing among the tight brace of bandages around his bruised ribs, Dazai sees neat stitches marching down skin stained orange by iodine. Funny. Mori claims to be a doctor, but Chuuya has a steadier hand and more care. By putting Dazai under before he started yanking and cutting and stitching, he can definitely even claim better bedside manner, even with him glaring from across the room with bloodshot eyes.

Chuuya has crashed now, the adrenaline from the mission and Dazai's injury finally wearing out and leaving him with the exhaustion that always follows extensive use of his ability. But even hours later he's not asleep, gun resting on the table at his left side and knife at his right, a glass of amber whiskey in his hand. The sickly yellow light of the hideous lamp pools around him in the gloom, painting touseled auburn hair into licks of fire while leaving pale skin sallow and his eyes fathomless. True to his word, Chuuya has raided the bar, and small bottles of alcohol litter the carpet at the foot of the chair he's curled up in.

"You can relax and stop checking. I didn't uncover anything I didn't have to. Your stupid... not-secret is still safe."

No, it's not a secret. They're not children any more, and Chuuya has known him long enough to understand the way he didn't at twelve years old. Chuuya can guess about the brutal lines of crisscrossing scars that decorate from elbow to wrist on both arms. He can guess that beneath the collar of bandages that he adopted at fourteen is a mottled and torn ring of scarred rope marks and a single straight cut. Maybe he wouldn't even be surprised by the puckered puncture wound that Dazai has kept covered since he was sixteen. But that doesn't mean he needs to see it. Sometimes Dazai sees them like he did the tattoos that marked the skin of the Yakuza who came after them; his own self-inflicted form of irezumi decorating his skin, telling the story of his illustrious career in the Port Mafia one suicide attempt at a time. They're not a point of pride, the way the gang tattoos are though. Dazai hates them. He hides them from himself, as much as he hides them from anyone else. They're signs of his failures.

"It's never going to be enough, is it?" Chuuya's an angry man but a melancholy drunk, and he stares Dazai down with heavy eyes. "The promotion. The praise. That kid who follows you around. The bar and your friends there. The women you try and pick up…." Me. I'll never be enough. Chuuya doesn't say it, but Dazai can hear it clearly as Chuuya tears his gaze away and stares into his glass, then empties it into his gullet as if he can't taste it, as if it's water.

"You know, I was there too. All the shit that you're so hung up on." No, he wasn't, though. Not all of it. He didn't grow up next to Q, responsible for keeping his powers at bay. He never saw Elise, or the true nature or Mori's ability. Mori never…

But Dazai is still twelve years old and standing between Chuuya and that monster. He's not at risk any more, not that kind of risk, but he doesn't need to know. Chuuya is loyal to a fault and has a hair trigger temper. Dazai won't risk that.

"Hell, I have the larger kill count. Always will, you lazy jackass. Am I supposed to just…" Chuuya is alcohol-loose and careless as he drops the glass on the table, resting his hand instead on his gun.

"No." Dazai is fascinated by this, though he knows he should be horrified. "Not a gun. The only way to be sure then is a head shot, and it's too…"

"Messy." Chuuya finishes for Dazai, with a knowing smirk. "Vain bastard."

"Says the boy with the ridiculous hat."

Chuuya hums, watching Dazai as if he's a puzzle to figure out, bracing his elbow against the arm of the chair and his head in his hand as he stares. "Seppuku?"

"Tried it. Gut wounds hurt terribly." Mori doesn't 'waste' sedatives or anesthetics on Dazai. He either passes out from the pain, or he suffers it.

"You want to die, but you don't want it to hurt." Chuuya's voice is flat with disbelief, and Dazai answers by widening his unbandaged eye, hand pressed to his heart.

"I'm not a masochist, Chibi."

"Yeah, well I might be." It's muttered, and Dazai's sure he wasn't supposed to hear it. Chuuya probably never would have said it sober. He understands, though, because Dazai is observant and Chuuya has never been hard to figure out. The one thing that can truly destroy Chuuya is the one thing he cannot let go of.

There's a reason the Mafia prefers orphans, that they encourage their members to sever ties, that they raise the children in their ranks as soldiers and killers. They're not supposed to get attached.

Chuuya was fascinated by Dazai at ten. Became protective of him at twelve. Adored him at fourteen. Fell in love with him at sixteen.

It is Chuuya's eighteenth birthday, passed in a pretentious hotel room full of empty liquor bottles and bloodied bedding and scattered weapons, and he has been gifted with the bitter understanding that abiding, unconditional love is no cure for anything.

"Go to sleep, you suicidal pain in my ass." Chuuya dismisses him bitterly, reaching for another bottle and cracking the plastic ring around it.

Dazai opens his mouth to speak, and Chuuya's flat stare is expectant, wounded, and unflinching. At twelve he could barely hold back from snapping at an apex predator, but now he can sit there waiting for Dazai to twist the knife because it is Dazai. He'd take a bullet for him, and has, but he won't protect himself from the monster Dazai knows that he is.

Chuuya's not a masochist. He's broken, just as thoroughly as Dazai.

For once in his life, Dazai closes his mouth again wordlessly, and Chuuya nods as if he expected no less. There's no comfort coming for him.

"Go the fuck to sleep. I'm making you walk on your own out of here tomorrow."

The only way to keep Chuuya safe is to keep Chuuya away from him. It is also the only way his death will not be considered Chuuya's failing.

They are eighteen. They are partners in every sense of the word, and know each other better than anyone else in the world could.

Within a week of this conversation, Dazai plays the fool and flashes grins and lazy idle flips of his hand as he strolls alongside Kouyou and her Golden Demon, and her look is painfully knowing and gratingly pitying as he suggests it would be in her own best interest for her to ask for her pupil to rejoin her side.

Chuuya knows what this is, though he's too proud to say it. He doesn't look at Dazai when he leaves, the straight-backed emotionless soldier they were raised to become, but his fists are clenched at his sides and his mouth set at a bitter, angry slant.

They were never really together. So Dazai never really breaks up with him. Chuuya was his partner, and now he is not.

Within a month, Akutagawa goes from idolizing from a distance to becoming Dazai's constant shadow in the field. Dazai's criticism is cutting, constant, mocking, and Akutagawa takes it with a seething determination instead of a smack in return.

Within two months, Chuuya and Dazai are bitter rivals who only see one another when the Executives gather, trading barbed words and threats. Chuuya was fine with being in Dazai's shadow as long as he was standing beside him to cast it. Now, though, he is quick to take down anyone to imply Dazai was the true talent of Double Black.

Away from Dazai's side, he cannot unleash the true extent of his ability, but he flourishes anyway with newfound ambition and pure spite.

Chuuya still says he'll be the one to kill Dazai someday. The meaning has changed. The answer has not. Maybe he will be. Chuuya will kill anyone who tries to take that honor from him.

Chuuya loves deeply and hates bitterly, and is fully capable of both at the same time. Though he'll never admit it, Dazai broke his heart. If anyone is allowed to carve Dazai's out after that, it's him.

Dazai knows for a fact there are worse ways to go.

I don't know if that's right or wrong
but such a feeling persists anyway
and sometimes irritates me
provoking outrageous desires

once I believed
love poems were foolish
yet now I do nothing
but dream about love
- Chuuya Nakahara