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They were never meant for “happily ever after,” he and Chuuya.
People like them, always walking in the shadows right before sunrise or right after sunset, can only ever hope for “good enough.”
Sometimes Dazai would find himself thinking about it without a purpose, thinking of all the what if’s that can never be real. A world where he and Chuuya never joined the mafia, or maybe never even met. Where they are regular civilians, working regular jobs and living regular lives. He wonders what it would be like, thoughts born out of pure curiosity.
It’s only a theory, of course.
An idea.
Something that may be true, but also something unreachable.
Dazai tends to let that thought sway him away from whatever he’s supposed to be doing at the most un fitting of times, so it doesn't come to him as a surprise when it’s the last thing crossing his mind when black void closes all around him. The fight with Fyodor, with the Hunting Dogs and the governments, Japanese and many other—
It went almost according to his plan.
Save for The Book emerging too soon, causing one too many disturbances in their world, ripping their universe into shreds and dragging every single one of them away with a different piece of it.
It’s nothing that can’t be undone, Dazai is sure of it.
Still, finding himself in a Yokohama that looks so close to his own, but isn’t it, with no one else who would know what Dazai does — it’s bothersome.
A waste of time, truly.
(And what bad luck, if only he knew it.)
Not only is this predicament as far from ideal as it could possibly get, Dazai has also been lied to. Unlike all the sci–fi movies and novels always promise there to be, there is no magical flow of information into his brain. Not about this world and its rules, not even about who he is in it, or whether it’s a world where Dazai Osamu has never existed.
Nothing at all.
So, he learns. Quickly.
Weirdly enough, his phone works just fine. Not only that, but it also connects to Wi–Fi from the nearby cafe and from there, it’s only a matter of a few quick searches. It’s a bit tricky to narrow down what to search for but the Demon Prodigy’s plans always work out in the end, that’s a given in any world, Dazai makes it so.
As it turns out, it’s a more peaceful universe than his own.
There are no Abilities here, no worldwide threats other than human conflicts as they have been for thousands of years. It will probably make it more difficult to go back to his universe, because he doubts there’s anyone who would believe his story, but at least it’s safer like this for everyone else.
A similarity: Odasaku is dead.
Even if Dazai expected it to be the case, he still feels a faint sting of disappointment as he reads through an old article about a car crash that killed the man.
Another thing: Dazai isn’t in the mafia.
Apparently, he never has been.
He has a… weird background. His other self went to a semi–decent high school in more rural parts of Yokohama, then he got into one of the top universities and was on the way to graduate with top scores and an honours degree. Well, he did get it, but it doesn’t seem important anymore, because he isn’t using any of it.
Instead, Dazai Osamu of this world is a classical musician.
A violinist.
A Demon Prodigy even in this universe, even if in a strikingly different field.
He’s famous in Japan, has been for quite some years, and is slowly making his presence known on a worldwide stage. He lives alone — thank god; should Dazai need a shelter, he won’t have to play house with anyone — and his manager is…
Fyodor?
Dazai has to pause there for a second.
He can understand the Akutagawa siblings being his personal bodyguards and Atsushi running his official fanpage, but Dostoyevsky as his manager out of all people? And to make it worse, they seem to get along well?
Weird, to say the least.
But then again, the possibilities are endless, so Dazai doesn’t dwell on it for long.
If there’s another thing that doesn’t add up, it’s Chuuya — there is nothing about him. At least nothing of particular interest, nothing important.
Obviously, he and Dazai went to the same high school, the records don’t lie and the detective didn’t really need them to know the two of them would have crossed paths, in this world or in any other. According to a more in depth search — the information network seems to work very similarly to how it does in Dazai’s world — Chuuya still lives in Yokohama. He didn’t go to university, he must have started working right after graduating, and now he works as…
A waiter?
At a… not so good restaurant?
That’s it.
All his socials are set to private and when Dazai checks his own — guessing his passwords takes two tries, who would have thought? — he and Chuuya are not friends on any of them. There’s also no mention of any “friend” in any articles about Dazai, let alone a “partner”.
Huh, Dazai finds himself thinking.
Now, maybe it’s not the most reasonable thing to do, maybe it’s even reckless to be following the urge born of curiosity, but Dazai does need to find his way back somehow and if there’s anyone here who would be willing to believe what he says—
It’s Chuuya.
No doubt there.
Being a classical musician, as opposed to an idol, has its advantages. As long as Dazai wears casual clothes, a facemask and fake glasses, no one recognises him as he walks down the streets of this Yokohama.
Fortunately, the restaurant Chuuya works at isn’t far from the spot Dazai found himself sent to in this world. It’s less than an hour on foot away and now it’s only a matter of luck, of whether Chuuya is working today or not—
When Dazai sees a familiar share of ginger hair through the window glass, he feels relieved.
As he steps inside, going over several scenarios of what he is going to say to this version of his partner, their eyes meet. It’s accidental and quick, and Dazai is still wearing his face mask, but he knows Chuuya recognises him, too. He can see it in his eyes.
But…
Dazai’s relief is quickly forgotten, when a feeling that’s like a cold shower washes over him, drenching him with dread to the bone.
It wasn’t a scowl that he got from Chuuya before the redhead turned away from him.
It was much closer to grimace.
To disgust.
It wasn’t simple annoyance, or even anger, or—
But surely it couldn’t have been that … right?
Maybe Dazai is just still disoriented from the whole universe swap thing and he’s seeing things that aren’t there. Maybe this version of him and this Chuuya are in the middle of another fight, just like Dazai is with his partner so often.
Be it as it may, however, it’s not like he has any other option other than do what he came here for — so, he takes the next step forward, and the next.
The restaurant is almost empty and the only other worker than Chuuya, a girl in her mid twenties, smiles at him politely as Dazai makes his way to the counter, where the redhead is inputting something in the till. Even as the brunet gets closer, Chuuya doesn’t do anything to acknowledge his presence.
Eventually, Dazai stops in front of him, silent.
Waiting.
He can see it, the moment when Chuuya’s expression hardens. He’s seen it before many times over the years but never to this extent, and when the man looks up at him—
“Welcome,” he says, sickeningly polite and without a single drop of what makes Chuuya who he is. Without that bite. “Would you like a table for one, or are you expecting company?”
Dazai knows a fake smile when he sees one. He knows a smile that isn’t meant to soothe, but to cut. Chuuya’s smile isn’t hesitant as it shoots towards him. It’s not a blade pressed to Dazai’s throat—
It’s a bullet.
Fired at the target, at Dazai, no questions asked.
It’s too far from anything the brunet has ever known, or could have expected. He’s too stunned to speak for a good minute — out of all the options he came up with, this wasn’t one of them — and when he finally does, it’s…
“Chuuya…?”
The redhead’s brow doesn’t twitch the way it's supposed to. He doesn’t snort like he’s had enough of “Dazai’s bullshit” and he doesn’t roll his eyes. Chuuya’s face remains a polite mask of a waiter. Of someone who doesn’t care.
Yet, his hands are balled into fists on the sides of the till, and they’re trembling.
“That’s my name,” he says, still smiling. “Shall I give you a minute to look through our menu, Sir?”
…Sir?
It’s not the alarm bells yet, but something seems wrong.
“Chuuya, it’s… me?”
The other waiter looks at them curiously as she places a tray with empty glasses on the counter. “A friend of yours, Chuuya–san?”
It’s Dazai’s chance, but—
“ No. ”
It’s quick.
It’s short.
It stings.
Not that they have ever called each other “friends” where Dazai is from. It’s always either partners, or insults and nicknames that are meant to get under their skin. There is no in–between, not while the other is still within hearing range.
But there’s a difference between not speaking of something that doesn’t need to be said, because they both can feel the truth, and that.
“Okay…?” The girl trails off. “If you two need a minute, I can look after the floor. It’s not busy right now.”
“That’s not—”
“Thank you,” Dazai cuts in before Chuuya can finish his sentence. “I won’t steal him for long, I promise~” It’s not what he hoped for but he’s already here, he can’t just leave.
The girl blushes slightly, chucking into her hand as she waves them both away already.
The hardened expression of politeness on Chuuya’s face cracks around the edges as they walk away and get out through the back door. Under those cracks, however, Dazai doesn’t recognise any of the feelings Chuuya is supposed to have for him. There is nothing in there that the brunet would recognise, good or bad.
It’s too dark.
Too… cold.
Chuuya’s anger and even his trust–veiled hatred — it’s always been searing hot. It has always been a flame, from the first day they met and throughout the years, together or apart. This is different.
This… isn’t him.
“Chu—”
When the redhead finally turns to look up at him, Dazai is met with a glare that doesn’t hold a single ray of light in it. Chuuya’s voice comes out like a hiss.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing here?!”
Like another bullet.
One to his head and now one to his heart.
“I…”
But unlike the him of this universe, Dazai is an ex–mafioso whether he likes it or not. He knows how to play his cards even before he knows their values, and how to play them to win.
Hesitation pushed away, Dazai pulls his face mask down under his chin and offers Chuuya his most innocent smile. “Can’t I visit an old friend?”
They were in the same high school
They must have history.
But judging from the way Chuuya looks at him, it’s not the good kind. It never has been, even in Dazai’s universe, but never like this.
“Are you here to mock me?” Chuuya asks him, his every word colder than the last one. “Is that what this is? Have you not had enough? ”
Ah.
Dazai must be missing some extremely crucial piece of information.
“I’m… not here to mock you, Chuuya.”
It’s strange to be speaking so politely but something tells Dazai a tease would have been a bad move. He doesn’t even need to try to make it sound believable, because he genuinely isn’t here for that. He doesn’t even know why the redhead would think that, or rather, he doesn’t know what makes him say it like that.
But it’s Chuuya, he should be able to tell Dazai is telling the truth—
“Like hell you aren’t.”
—or not.
Running a hand through his hair, Chuuya inhales deeply and lets out a curse under his breath. “Listen, Dazai,” he seethes, “I don’t give a flying fuck about you, or about anything that you want to rub in my face.”
…rub in his face?
“So don’t bother. Don’t disturb me at work. Leave me alone. ”
Then, without giving the brunet half a chance to say anything back, Chuuya walks past him and—
SLAM!
With the restaurant’s backdoor slamming loudly and the sound echoing down the alleyway, Dazai is left more confused than he was when he first came here, blinking blandly as he stares at the brick wall in front of him without actually seeing it. He doesn’t know what it was that his other self did but it must have been, well, bad.
To say the least.
But he won’t know what it was until he asks — asks Chuuya, preferably. He wasn’t ready for whatever this was, but he’ll be more prepared now. All Dazai needs is a minute of Chuuya listening to what he has to say… hopefully.
A somewhat decent plan forming in his head — not really, but it’s the best he’s got — Dazai turns around slowly and tries to reach for the handle, when a car stops at the end of the alley. The restaurant’s back door isn't that far from the street. The car’s driver window rolls down, revealing a face that, somehow, isn’t even a surprise.
“Dazai?”
Of course, it would be Fyodor.
Who else?
“What are you doing here? Wait, what are you wearing? ”
Dazai takes his hand away from the handle as naturally as he can and waves at the other man instead. “Hi there…” Judging by what he knows about his universe, it would be… “...Fyodor~”
The name leaves a sour taste in his mouth but Dazai knows better than to let it show.
“Don’t just ‘hi’ me,” the man huffs, stepping out of the car. “You were supposed to wait for me after the rehearsal, now I’ll be late for my plans.” He crosses his arms over his chest. “And where did you get those clothes?”
Says Fyodor out of all people, wearing a suit.
“Ah,” Dazai chirps, “I went on a little shopping spree~?”
Sigh. “Will you ever stop trying to disturb my plans?”
Probably not, even if Dazai has no idea what Fyodor is talking about.
“Come on,” the man says, opening the car’s back door for him before sliding back inside on the driver’s seat. “I was going to just do my thing but since I found you, I’ll drop you off before I go on my date.”
A date.
Somehow, Dazai feels a wave of relief hitting him again.
He doesn’t like the idea of leaving Chuuya like this, of leaving their situation like this, whatever it may be, but on the other hand… Dazai doesn’t even know where his home is supposed to be, or how he’d get inside. As his manager, Fyodor must have a key, or know who would have a spare.
Every step he takes towards the car feels like taking ten steps away from Chuuya, a hundred.
When the doors close, it feels final—
“So?” Fyodor says as they pull away from the alleyway. “Why come here of all places?”
It’s a strange feeling. Unlike in Dazai’s universe, this Fyodor doesn’t seem like a mastermind planning his demise. He doesn’t sound particularly interested in Dazai’s answer, either, it’s more like making small talk.
It’s unlikely — right? — but maybe he also knows what in the world happened in his and Chuuya’s past. It would have been too unnatural to ask about it directly but the art of directing conversation to the right track has always been Dazai’s forte.
“I felt like visiting a friend,” the detective says slowly, pretending to look out the window, when in fact he’s looking at Fyodor’s reflection in the front mirror from the corner of his eyes. Examining his reactions.
He sees it, a sparkle of amusement in his eyes.
“You have friends?”
Under any circumstances, Dazai wouldn’t think much of it, it wouldn’t sting, but after meeting Chuuya…
It kind of does.
Pushing that thought away, Dazai scoffs. “Shouldn’t you be looking where you’re going, instead of texting?”
“I need to let the siblings know to stop looking for you.” Ah. That. “How did you even escape them?”
Magic.
Kind of.
“I know a trick or two~”
Fyodor shakes his head, the corner of his lips curling. “That I don’t doubt.”
“And I was visiting Chuuya.”
It turns out that Fyodor doesn’t even bother to hide his reactions all that much in this universe. His eyebrows climb so high, they disappear completely behind black bangs, and he meets Dazai’s gaze through their reflection.
“Nakahara Chuuya?”
It’s not quite disbelief.
Not quite mockery.
It’s both but also neither, and he sounds amused.
“And they call me heartless,” Fyodor muses. “Do tell me, did he spit in your face? I would love to see it, actually.”
The longer this goes on, the more irritated Dazai gets, especially after getting that reaction out of Fyodor. Is this how everyone else feels in his world? How it feels not to know something that’s supposed to be obvious?
Because it’s annoying.
“...he didn’t.”
“A shame, but figures.” With one arm propped on the window, Fyodor turns away from the main street, only one hand on the wheel. “I doubt he’s stupid enough to risk it.”
It takes all of Dazai’s self–control not to frown, or glare at him for it.
“Chuuya isn’t stupid.”
“Certainly not how he used to be.” What is that supposed to mean? “That’s a new one coming from you, though.”
What is that supposed to mean?
A new one?
It can’t be right. Dazai may joke about it at any given chance and to anyone with him at the time, but he would never actually call Chuuya stupid, not to the point of Fyodor believing him. This man may not be the mastermind and the terrorist Dazai knows, but the brunet doubts he’s stupid enough to take jokes for the truth.
And they are nothing more than jokes.
Banter.
…right?
“I don’t mind if you want to pick on him for fun,” Fyodor says, pulling into an underground driveway of a tall apartment complex. “Just don’t let the press find out. I don’t want them to start digging.”
That sounds “bad” alright, but they’re out of time.
When Dazai doesn’t move to get out even when the car stops, Fyodor arches a brow at him in the reflection. A question and a not so subtle nudge to let him leave for his date already.
“Ah.” Dazai puts on his most apologetic smile, batting his latest at his manager. “I think I left my key at the… rehearsal.”
Sigh. “You love giving Akutagawa extra work, don’t you?” He reaches into the inside pocket of his suit and takes out a black card with silver patterns decorating it. “Remember we’re also paying them both extra for it.”
“Thank you~” Dazai chirps, taking the card and already stepping out of the car. The less time he spends with Fyodor, any version of him, the better he’ll feel.
Luckily, there’s a room number on the card and a list of room numbers on each floor inside the elevator. Dazai’s apartment isn’t on the top floor — how very not novel–like, truly — but it is one of the higher ones. When the detective steps inside…
For a second, he starts doubting if his other self truly has no ties to the mafia.
This apartment reeks of money.
If it wasn’t for the bare walls and scarce furniture, as well as several bottles of whiskey in the wide bar and dozens of canned crab on the kitchen shelves, Dazai wouldn’t have believed it really is where he lives. Maybe he chose it for security, or maybe Fyodor made him move in here to keep his image.
It doesn’t matter.
Now, it’s time for more research.
There must be something useful to Dazai here, something that holds answers, he just has to find it. It takes more time than than the brunet would have wanted it to, but eventually, he finds it—
A box.
A simple, cardboard box in the very back of a cluttered storage room. It’s typed shut and covered with dust and spider webs all around. At least Dazai’s dislike of cleaning stayed the same across the worlds, he assumes.
But also — Dazai isn’t one to hoard stuff, so if there’s anything that looks too old and out of place in an otherwise empty apartment, it must be here for a reason.
What he finds inside is… not a surprise.
But also, it is.
There are photos. Lots of them.
Of him. Of Chuuya. Of them both together.
There’s a notebook of “his grievances with Chibikko,” a keychain that looks painfully similar to the one Chuuya won for him during one of their arcade games when they were fifteen, back in Dazai’s universe. A button from a school uniform, some concert tickets.
So… he was right.
They do have history, and by the looks of it, it’s not all that bad.
If Dazai may say so himself, it looks like this version of them had it… better than he and his Chuuya. Easier, for sure. With no mafia and no Abilities getting in their way and pulling them apart, it seems like they had a chance at an actual happy ending in this universe.
But if so, what went wrong?
Why?
As Dazai takes more stuff out of the box, he finds a matchbox from Lupin and…
An old phone.
It’s a long shot but it’s his best chance yet. There’s also a charger for it and the first few minutes that Dazai has to wait for the phone to get those few percent of battery back up to actually turn on, are awfully long. He forces his body still but on the inside, he’s getting restless.
Once he’s in, he checks everything.
The gallery: more photos of him and Chuuya, but only up until what looks like high school graduation, and nothing more.
The notes app: is that a grocery list? Is Dazai doing groceries in this universe?
Finally, the messages—
Again, something doesn’t add up.
Obviously, when you delete a text message, it disappears from the conversation and it looks like it was never there. Technically, Dazai shouldn’t be able to tell for sure if the message he sees at the bottom — a text from Chuuya, dating over five years back — is the last one received, or if the rest was deleted.
Technically being the key word, because Dazai knows better.
It looks like a text sent before high school exams, and from the photos he knows for sure that he and Chuuya were still at least on speaking terms back then.
Why delete the rest?
Why keep the phone?
Desperate for answers, Dazai spends the next two hours going through everything, reading every text sent throughout the years. Most of it is the same bickering as he knows from his world, some of it is school information, some is gossip and inside jokes he doesn’t understand.
There isn’t much of what he’d consider useful, except for…
In this universe, Chuuya plays instruments.
Dazai can’t tell if it’s because of his family — do they both have families in this world? — or if it’s just a hobby, but he does play and it feels like it’s something important to him. Or something that was important, anyway.
From this other–Dazai’s replies, on the other hand, it feels like he’s never been interested in music. He’s knowledgeable but only because it’s something Chuuya is passionate about, and he did well in music classes at school because that’s just how he is, but there’s no love there—
Yet, Dazai is the musician and Chuuya is a waiter.
It’s such an obvious set up for a conflict, it feels too easy.
But then, before the detective can think of how to tackle this dilemma and where to go from here, a sound reaches Dazai’s ears: the door’s lock clicking, and steps following it.
It can't be Fyodor, Dazai took his key. It could be the Akutagawa siblings — one of them, at least, because there’s only one pair of footsteps — or maybe another member of Dazai’s team that has a key for whatever reason?
In any case, it’s inconvenient.
Leaving the phone on the floor, the burnet stands up and slowly walks toward the slightly ajar door to the storage. There’s light coming from the outside as he reaches for the knob, putting on his best smile—
Before he can push it open, the door opens, revealing a man standing on the other side.
But not just any man, no.
It’s—
“I thought I’d find you here~”
It’s him.
It’s Dazai.
The same eyes and the same hair, even if a little bit longer and better styled. The same bandages peeking out from under the deep blue dress shirt and…
Almost the same smirk.
Just as all–knowing, but more… numb.
Dazai’s eyes narrow ever so slightly as he looks at his other self’s face, though his smile doesn’t waver. “You aren’t surprised.”
It’s not a question, but a mere statement. For someone who shouldn’t even know what Abilities are, this version of him seems awfully nonchalant about finding his double in his apartment.
“Neither are you,” the other–Dazai muses.
That doesn’t erase the suspicion from the detective, though, or the scepticism. It only works to deepen it.
Letting go of the knob, other–Dazai slides his hands into the pockets of his black slacks, his head tilting to the side to look past the brunet’s shoulder. “Going through someone else’s stuff without asking? How rude~”
Dazai’s lips twitch into a smirk mirroring his other self’s, a smirk much closer to the one he used to wear as the Demon Prodigy, rather than the one he shows as a detective.
“Something tells me you deserve it,” he says, his voice poison sweet.
Hm. “That so?”
Maybe. Maybe not.
But the undeniable fact that something is off remains, and so does the question—
“What did you do to him?”
Straightening up, other–Dazai’s brows climb higher, his shoulders shaking slightly on a laugh he doesn’t bother to cover up. “Really?” he drawls. “You find yourself in another universe, face to face with someone who is you, and instead of asking me why I’m not freaking out, or if I know how to send you back — you’re asking about him? ”
It’s meant to mock him, it’s meant to point out how absurd Dazai’s concern is, how misplaced. Yet, all the brunet can notice in this man’s voice is… the dullness of it.
The words that are meant to cut aren’t sharp enough, like a knife that hasn’t been polished in a long, long time.
“You shouldn’t be surprised,” Dazai says without losing a beat.
Not about that.
“Perhaps, but I wish you’d humour me~”
“I wish you’d answer my question.”
But they both know it—
The musician shrugs and turns on his heel. “I guess wishes are overrated, aren’t they?” He sighs, walking away from Dazai without a care and without a proper answer. Of course.
At first, the detective doesn’t follow after him and only remains in place, until the man disappears behind the corner, clearly without any intention of coming back. He’s humming a melody like it’s just another day for him, like he doesn’t care what Dazai does.
High on his guard, the detective steps out of the storage and follows the hummed melody. He finds his other self in the living room, standing by the bar area with a bottle of whiskey in one hand and two glasses in the other.
“Anyway,” he says, placing it all on the dining table, “let’s talk about sending you back~” He pours honey–gold liquid into the two glasses, taking one and pushing the other over the table separating them, watching it slide all the way to Dazai’s side. “I can’t have you running around with my face like that.”
He brings his glass to his lips but when Dazai doesn’t do the same, when he doesn’t even reach for the offered drink, hands still in the pockets of his coat, the musician arches a brow.
“Do I not drink in your world?”
He doesn’t drink anything that could be poisoned , at least not when it’s not a part of the plan, or Dazai’s own choice. But if this version of him isn’t from the mafia, and it’s from the same bottle…
“I do,” Dazai says matter–of–factly, his fingers sliding over the rim as he sits down on the chair at the end of the table.
His other self sits down across from him, pleased. “Thought so~”
But then, he doesn’t say anything else. Not about Chuuya, not about himself, not about anything that Dazai wants to hear. He’s only sitting there and sipping on his whiskey, and he’s staring into Dazai’s eyes.
A challenge.
An invitation.
You know how this goes.
“Fine,” Dazai sighs, hiding his impatience behind half a smirk and his own glass. “Why aren’t you surprised?”
“Ah, I’m so glad you asked~” Placing his drink down, other–Dazai leans forward on both arms, chin propped on the heel of one palm, his legs crossed under the table. “You see, I went to this antiques fair once and—”
“You came across The Books and touched it,” Dazai finishes for him, seemingly bored.
There are only a handful of reasons as to why anyone could be this nonchalant about meeting another version of themselves. The most obvious one is that they already knew about their existence, and it’s the best guess.
The Book is like the unknown. Dazai can never fully grasp all the different ways that it works in, but he knows better than to be surprised by any of it.
Judging by the mocking pout, he’s right.
“I don’t seem fun in your world,” his other self mumbles, like a child that had his toy taken away.
“Don’t worry,” Dazai drawls, his grin wide and sharp, venom in his eyes as he raises his glass for a pretence of a toast, “in the ‘being a bastard’ competition you’re winning~”
Or so a certain someone would say.
The corner of the musician’s lips twitch.“I doubt this is how we speak.”
They don’t.
Chuuya does, and he would be right about it.
“Abilities aren’t supposed to exist here,” Dazai says instead. If this man wants him to go through all the other questions before they can get to the point he’s actually interested in, so be it.
“They don’t,” comes a shrugged away answer. “I don’t even know what you mean by ‘Abilities’. I just…”
The pause can be natural.
Still, Dazai notices it there.
“...saw stuff.”
Talking to himself isn’t as easy as Dazai would have liked it to be. He knows what he’s capable of, how he can make his voice colourless whenever he wishes to, and how he can paint it any emotion that suits the situation best.
Out of all the puppets, Dazai himself is his best and most dangerous one.
So — which is it now?
Which strategy is his other self using?
Which one would Dazai have used if… if he knew why he had to do it?
“And you knew I was here.”
“Ah, yes, that.” A chuckle. “It’s not exactly normal to be minding your business in the changing room and then suddenly find yourself on the outskirts of Yokohama, is it? I figured it meant that… an incident happened.”
Was the fabric of this universe trying to keep them away from each other? Or was it a side effect of another version of him appearing? A glitch of sorts?
It’s interesting to know that two versions of him can exist at once in a universe that’s supposed to hold only one of them. It seems like it would have broken some of the most basic rules that make up the world—
Then again, The Book isn’t an open question.
Dozens upon dozens of them.
“A highly inconvenient one, may I add,” other–Dazai points out, swirling the liquid in his glass before taking a sip. “So let's send you back quickly, shall we~?”
In due time.
For now—
“What did you do to Chuuya?”
This world’s Dazai wants him to let go of the matter but he should know better than anyone else — it won’t work. When it comes to mind tricks, two can play at this game.
Humming to himself, the musician leans back on his chair. “You seem awfully fixated on that one, hm?”
You seem awfully fixated on me not asking about him.
“Are you two close?”
Under any other circumstances, in any other situation, Dazai would have hesitated. Maybe he would have ignored the question, maybe he would have lied, or brushed it off as unimportant. But here, when he’s talking to him—
“We are.”
He says the truth.
Banter or insults, nicknames or annoyed groans, enemies or rivals — to say that they aren’t close just because of such simple matters, would be foolish.
And his honesty doesn’t go without a reward.
For the first time during this conversation, Dazai gets a reaction that seems out of place. It’s only for a fraction of a second, but—
Other–Dazai tenses up.
His eyes darken.
Not the cold type of darkness, though. The hollow one.
But then, his nonchalance fills all the gaps again, covering his expression and voice with indifference.
“Well, we aren’t,” he says. “So I’d appreciate it if you stopped projecting onto me already.”
It’s a nice try. It would have been somewhat convincing if not for the fact that Dazai already knows the truth:
“You were.”
In the photos he saw, in the messages.
He’s not one to admit defeat, even to himself, but… In those memories, this Dazai and this Chuuya seemed closer than he and his partner are, or ever have been. In ways that he and his Chuuya don’t know.
In this world, they were allowed that closeness.
The one that Abilities and the mafia take away in another one.
Other–Dazai shrugs. “People change when they grow up.”
Maybe so, but not like that. “It didn’t seem like that to me,” the detective hums over the rim of his glass. “He seemed pissed off, not changed.” And that’s putting it kindly.
Again, it’s there for less than a heartbeat—
Other–Dazai's fingers freeze over his glass, his jaw clenching before it relaxes again. “So you did go to see him, huh? And wearing my face, no less.”
“I did.”
A part of him wishes he hadn’t.
“Chuuya seemed…”
At the sole memory of it, Dazai’s chest tightens and his stomach twists. Not even because of how he felt when he heard Chuuya speak to him like that, but because…
What made his partner into this?
Into a version of him Dazai doesn’t recognise.
“…excited to see us.”
Other–Dazai wets his lips, his smirk joyless. “I’m sure he did.”
He drinks the rest of his whiskey before standing up, his expression morphing into a carefree one. A face of someone playing a game they pretend to enjoy, racing to the end where they can finally throw it away. One of his hands slides back into his pocket as he walks around the table and to where Dazai is sitting.
“In any case, I actually do know where that Book is.”
He may be another Dazai, he may look and even be built like one. The bandages around his neck and wrists speak of a story that’s too familiar. They speak of too quiet nights and too dark days, of too many voices and too empty breaths.
But even with all of that, this man isn’t him.
He’s a musician, not an ex–mafia executive.
He cannot and will not win against one.
“So we don’t we get going—”
Before his other self can reach him, Dazai is already standing up and stepping around him. His movements are perfectly timed, grabbing the man’s wrist just as he’s about to take that out of his pocket:
A small tranquilliser.
It falls to the floor at the same time as Dazai pushed his other self down on the table with a hand pressed between his shoulder blades, one arm held high and the other flat on the surface above his hand. He didn’t even put up a fight, because he never saw it coming — he never stood a chance.
All this Dazai can do was groan in discomfort, half of his face pressed to the table as he looks back to see…
Eyes devoid of light.
A face of someone who may be patient, but not forever.
Other–Dazai doesn’t seem afraid. Surprised, yes, maybe even annoyed, but there’s no fear in his eyes. He doesn’t put up a pretence of a struggle. They stare at each other in silence, until…
Other–Dazai’s expression turns the same as the one Dazai is wearing: emotionless.
“I hate pain, you know?”
Kicking the tranquiliser away, Dazai offers the man a smile. Not a smirk, not a grin — but a smile shrouded in shadows. Kindness of a devil, of a Demon Prodigy.
“Then you better start answering politely~”
Another pause.
Another battle of stares.
And then—
Sigh. “You mind letting me go?” The musician says it like it’s a chore. “My arms are my trade, I can’t have you injuring them.”
As if he hasn’t just tried twisting the other man’s arm off, Dazai puts his hands up in mock surrender and takes a step back, all while the devilish smile never leaves his face.
“Of course~”
It earns him a huff from the other him as the man massages his shoulder. “Is it really that difficult to believe we don’t get along anymore?” The musician asks, walking back to the other end of the table to pour himself another glass. “Chuuya hates us, it shouldn't be surprising.”
If Dazai hadn’t gone to see the redhead, he would have never questioned it. In his world, he talks the same way every time the executive is mentioned, it’s simply what they do. Who they are.
Why would other universes be any different?
That being said—
“Chuuya isn’t capable of hating. Anyone.”
Not truly hating.
He never hated the Sheep, even when they stabbed him in the back with a poisoned knife. He forgave Verlaine despite what had happened to the Flags. He spared the life of a person that took away everything from him when he was a child.
Even with Dazai, it has never been true hatred.
Chuuya may have wanted it to be it, he may still wish he could do it at times — but that’s not who he is. He’s the person who forgives, no matter what.
Sometimes, it’s his greatest flaw.
Other–Dazai doesn’t sit back down anymore. He only takes his glass, with more whiskey than before, and looks into the detective’s eyes.
“Maybe you just haven’t tried hard enough.”
When he hears it, Dazai can’t help the small frown that climbs to his face as he watches the other man walk away and head for the wide couch by the floor–to–ceiling windows. He doesn’t know what time he got here, but the sky outside is already painted with a scarlet hue of a falling sunset.
“I stole something from him,” other–Dazai says as he slumps on the couch, “and never gave it back.”
Cautious, the brunet steps towards him. “What was it?” he asks, stopping on the other side of the small coffee table and staring down at his other self.
“His future. His dreams.” A shrug. “All of it.”
It’s an answer Dazai expected to receive. It’s the easy one, the one that fits a story with this kind of set up perfectly. However—
“It wouldn’t have been enough.”
In his world, Chuuya had much more taken away and he never succumbed to hatred. He’s gone through Hell on earth and he’s gone through it more than just once — yet, never once has he given up. Not on himself and not on anyone else.
Why would this world be any different?
“Take it all away from him, he still wouldn’t hate you.”
He’ll hate himself. He’ll blame himself.
But he won’t turn into that.
Other–Dazai hums over the rim of his glass. “Are we so sure of that~?”
“Yes.”
There’s no hesitation in Dazai’s answer, and it must have caught his other self off–guard. The musician narrows his eyes slightly, carefully examining Dazai’s expression before…
“Interesting,” he mutters.
Then, he takes a generous sip, and when he places his glass on the armrest—
“How about trust?”
This time, it’s Dazai who’s caught off guard.
“...what?”
“What if we stole his trust?” The man repeats, head tilted to the side and a wicked grin blooming on his lips. Like he feeds on every second that there’s something he knows but Dazai doesn’t.
The detective’s hands ball into fists in his pockets but his face remains a perfect mask. “Chuuya trusts us.”
With his life — even if he doesn’t have a reason to risk it in this world.
“He does,” other–Dazai says. “He did.”
What is that supposed to—?
“But your Chuuya never paid the price for it, did he?”
Dazai’s eyes narrow.
Yes, he—
“Not when it’s us. ”
—a few years back, this universe—
[From: Chuuya, 12:02PM]
>> FUCK
>> Someone stole my violin
>> And my backpack
>> Are you still home? Are you close by?
[Missed 1 call(s) from: Chuuya]
>> Dazai?
>> Everything okay?
[Missed 1 call(s) from: Chuuya]
>>If I don’t get a cab I won’t make it!
>> I’ll pay you back
>> Please
[Missed 1 call(s) from: Chuuya]
>> Pick up!!!
[Missed 3 call(s) from: Chuuya]
>> Oi
>> Where are you?
>> Are you okay?
>> I can run to the station
[Missed 5 call(s) from: Chuuya]
>> Where the fuck are you???
[Missed 11 call(s) from: Chuuya]
[From: Chuuya, 1:57PM]
>> What’s wrong?
>> Are you hurt?
>> Osamu?
[Missed 1 call(s) from: Chuuya]
[From: Chuuya, 2:45PM]
>> FUCK
[From: Chuuya, 6:24PM]
>> [link to a video]
>> What the fuck???
>> I’m coming over
When the doorbell rings much later in the evening, Dazai doesn’t move from the chair. He isn’t just going to pretend not to be home, he’ll wait until Chuuya starts banging on the door. Until his patience snaps and the stage is set.
Ding dong!
Not yet.
Ding dong! Ding dong!
Not yet.
THUD! THUD!
“Oi, Dazai Open up!”
There it is.
His neighbours will complain about the commotion but Dazai knows how to deal with it and he’ll do it later. What’s more important right now is…
“DAZ—!”
When the door swings open, Chuuya’s voice is cut off. He’s breathing heavily and his face is red, hair sticking to his forehead and neck. He must have run all the way here from the spot they agreed to meet at —and never did — and it’s a long way.
A way he usually travels by train.
But he’d need his wallet for it, wouldn't he?
The skin around his eyes is swollen and red — has he been crying?
(Alone.)
For how long?
Dazai arches a brow at him, indifferent. “You’re disturbing my neighbours.”
It’s clear how his tone takes Chuuya by surprise but the redhead shakes himself out of it quickly enough. He steps inside, standing next to Dazai as he takes out his phone and shover the screen in his face—
“What the fuck is this ?!”
It’s amazing how quickly everything is uploaded on the internet these days. The audition — or a competition, to be exact, though it depends who you ask — was only today, and yet, the video of the winner’s performance is already up on the official website.
A video of Dazai.
(When it should have been Chuuya.)
Playing violin.
(An instrument Chuuya loves, and which Dazai never cared for.)
Dazai spares the video a single second before he arches a brow at the other boy. “Do you want me to read the title for you?”
“ No, ” Chuuya hisses. “I want you to explain! This—”
His voice crack for a moment, his breathing growing erratic again, but Dazai remains unmoving, his arms flat at his sides.
“This is my composition.”
Yes, it is.
It’s the composition Chuuya worked on by himself for years, polished every note until it was perfect.
It’s the composition that he gave up his university life for, choosing to spend the tuition money on a violin course instead, because if he wanted to compete with professionals, he had to get better. He had to get a better violin, and take care of it.
It’s the composition that was supposed to grant him a future he had always dreamt of—
But it didn’t.
It won’t.
Instead, it gave it to someone else.
Someone who has only picked up playing violin two years back. Someone who, deep down, cursed the fact that he never needed much to reach the top. To get better than anyone.
Someone who had never told Chuuya he learnt how to play, or that he’d be at that competition.
“I know,” Dazai says. He sounds bored. “But it was for me to begin with, wasn’t it?”
Chuuya may have denied it all he wanted whenever the brunet would listen to him play and practice, but Dazai always knew—
It was a ballad.
A love song.
It’s a composition that changed over the years since they met, growing into something more with each passing day. Into something too pure to speak about, too intimate. An emotion impossible to put into words, but that which fights to break free of the chains of one’s chest.
A confession.
Blue eyes widen as they search Dazai’s face, disbelief painted all over Chuuya’s expression when he doesn’t see what he’s searching for. “...why?” he asks. “You… You knew what this meant to me.”
Yes.
It meant everything to Chuuya.
The International Natsume Violinist Competition is an occasion one of a kind. An occasion that’s hosted in a different country each year, and never twice in a row in the same decade. Today was the first time in over 15 years that it’s hosted in Japan again, and—
Whoever wins it, leaves the stage as the next rising star of the classical music world.
They’re given everything. Opportunities and invitations to play at national orchestras. Money for developing their skills. Studios to record their pieces.
Dazai has watched Chuuya dream about this for years. He has helped him with his practice, encouraged him whenever the redhead was feeling down.
He encouraged Chuuya to give it his everything.
And now, he took it.
“So?” Dazai tilts his head, his expression emotionless. “It was a chance for an easier life, so I took it.”
Even now.
Even despite the proof of what he’s done—
Chuuya still seems to refuse to believe it. He’s still looking for an explanation to it, for something that would make sense, that would make it feel maybe not right, but better. He’s looking for a sign that it’s a misunderstanding.
That his only friend and partner didn’t do it.
But as he’s searching for it — on Dazai’s face and body, in the dark apartment around them — Chuuya’s eyes finally fall to what is lying on the floor next to Dazai’s shoes:
A violin case and a backpack.
Not Dazai’s.
“Osamu,” Chuuya whispers, his voice weak, as if he’s about to pass out. As if he can barely breathe. “Why do you have this?”
Dazai follows his gaze, waiting just enough for realisation to sink in. “Ah, right,” he then sighs. “You can take it back now.”
It’s Chuuya’s, after all.
“Why,” the redhead says again, his teeth gritting as whatever last bits of hope fade shatter in his voice, “do you have this…?!”
The brunet shrugs. “Fyodor dropped it off.”
Not because Fyodor was the one that took it, but because Fyodor was the one to hire the man who did. An acquaintance of his, or so the devil said. But it was Dazai who made Chuuya promise to meet with him far from the site, blaming it on traffic. It was Dazai who told Fyodor about it, and about the time.
Because he knows that Chuuya always arrives early and that he likes to put his things on the ground before he plays, so that his shoulders wouldn't hurt too much.
And that’s all it takes.
A single moment of distraction.
“Fyo…?”
Finally, Chuuya snaps. He fists Dazai’s shirt under the collar and pushes him back against the wall, looking up at the brunet with fury in his eyes.
“You planned this with Dostoevsky?!”
Dazai doesn’t fight it, he lets Chuuya manhandle him all he wants. “Would it make you feel better if it was only me?”
Thud!
When Dazai’s back hits the wall again, the brunet grimaces. It doesn’t actually hurt but it’s not comfortable, either, and it gives his neighbours even more to complain about later.
“Do you think this is a joke?!” Chuuya hisses. “You—I’ll tell them! I’ll fucking tell them that you stole it and then—”
“And then what, Chuuya?” Dazai cuts it, unbothered. “What exactly will you tell them, hm? That you wrote the piece yourself?”
“YES, you piece of sh—!”
“And how will you prove it? Will you show them the first notes for it?”
Even through the blinding rage that shakes his body from head to toe, Chuuya seems to realise it. His eyes widen so far, they could fall out any second—
“The notes that are written in my handwriting?”
Back then, it wasn’t on purpose.
Not yet.
Chuuya loved to play and Dazai loved to listen to him. At the time, the brunet didn’t play anything that wasn’t required at school, but he did have a good ear and… Even when the piece was still in the making, he’d sit with Chuuya.
He’d listen to him play, and it was Dazai who would write down what the redhead’s fingers danced on the strings. He’d make mistakes sometimes, sure, and Chuuya would tell him to correct it while still playing note after note and smiling with satisfaction at having something to be better at.
His pen but not his music.
However, its author or not — the original script was written down by him.
And Dazai has it. He took it from Chuuya’s apartment when the redhead wasn’t looking, knowing he has a better, typed up version of it now.
“Everyone knows you’ve always been competitive with me,” Dazai continues, the last nail to Chuuya’s coffin. “Do you know what they’ll say if you try it?”
That a boy with a heated temper and from a poor family could never write this.
That he’s jealous.
That he’s a liar.
“For what it’s worth…” Prying Chuuya’s hands away from himself, Dazai brushes off his clothes and walks back inside his apartment without looking back. “I’m grateful to you. I’ll have an easy life and I didn’t even have to work hard for it.”
That day, the door to Dazai’s apartment slammed louder than ever.
And it never saw the redheaded boy again.
Neither did Dazai.
(Not in person.)
—present time—
There are a hundred thoughts racing in Dazai’s head, battling each other as the answers fall into place, but the most important one of them is:
“He wasn’t meant to hate us,” Dazai whispers, his body frozen with realisation. “He didn’t have to.”
When he meets his other self’s gaze, the emptiness of it… He hates it.
He understands it—
“You forced him to hate us.”
—and he also doesn’t.
“... why? ”
The last rays of the day catch on other–Dazai’s hair, but they don’t reach his eyes, or his face. His expression is like a stone mask, an empty smile engraved into it.
It’s not the devil that sits on the couch in front of Dazai, not the Demon Prodigy.
It’s not a malicious person, not even after the brunet has learnt what he’s done—
It’s a shell of a person.
His voice, a tired echo.
(A choked cry.)
“Because it’s the only way for Chuuya to be happy.”
With those as the words that wrap around Dazai’s heart like poison ivy, the musician drinks down the rest of his whiskey in one go. Even if it’s not the most important detail in all of this, Dazai can’t help but notice:
It hasn’t even been an hour, and he has already drunk two generous glasses of whiskey.
Dazai can hold his liquor and he likes drinking, but he doesn’t do it like this. Not alcohol this strong and this fast, and especially not when he’s with an opponent that could take advantage of his state.
Like himself, right now.
Yet, the musician does exactly that.
Like he needs it to keep going.
“You were right, you know?” other–Dazai drawls, putting an empty glass down on the coffee table before slumping back against the couch with a content sigh. “I did find that Book and touched it, and then I saw stuff—”
He laughs.
Not dark. Not maniacal.
Humourless. Empty.
(Like a man who’s given up.)
“I saw you, and him, over and over again. In every version of the truth, he…”
It looks like he chokes on the words before they leave him, but he covers it up with another sigh, meeting Dazai’s gaze.
There’s a faint note of envy in that gaze.
A note of jealousy.
And pity.
But for who it is exactly, that Dazai cannot tell.
“He loves you,” his other self continues, and it sounds like saying that pains him more than anything else ever could. “Even if he despises that love, he still cares . But for all the worlds I’ve seen, not once have I seen him happy. Do you know why?”
Dazai swallows, his expression hardened as he listens without uttering a word.
“Because we don’t let him.”
It’s not true — why can’t he force those words out, then?
“You love him in every world, too,” other–Dazai goes on, “and you want the best for him even when it’s in a cruel or twisted way, but it never works out.”
It can.
It is.
They aren’t there yet in Dazai’s words, but… but they’re as good as they could possibly be, and it’s enough—
“We make him miserable, in one way or another. We, or the lack of us.”
At those words, Dazai’s eyes widen as well, and his other self seems to see it as his triumph, because when he stands up and tries to cover up the small wobble… The smile Dazai sees is the one that he’s seen in the mirror before.
But not for many years now.
“Except for here,” the man says. “Here, Chuuya can finally be happy.”
Hate is his salvation.
Dazai swallows, refusing to look away even now. “He didn’t seem happy when I saw him.”
“That’s because you, a man he hates, went to see him. But he is . That restaurant isn’t great but it pays well, and he likes the people he works with., and he plays live in bars in the evenings.”
…of course, he’d know it.
Even when the redhead doesn’t want anything to do with him, this Dazai can’t not look his way in the roundabout ways he’s allowed, can he? Just like he couldn't throw away their photos.
“Chuuya loves music.”
This world’s Chuuya, at least.
As for Dazai’s Chuuya… he doesn’t actually know.
“He’s happy there,” the musician mutters, grabbing his glass and walking back to the table. “Hating us is the only way he can be truly happy. It’s falling in love with you that was stupid of him.”
Dazai watches him with a frown, choosing not to believe it. “Chuuya isn’t stupid.”
But when his other self looks back at him over his shoulder, there’s a truth to it that not even Dazai can fight against:
“He trusts a liar in nearly every life he lives. What else is it, if not foolishness?”
( Nearly…? )
Met with no answer, other–Dazai pours himself another glass without looking back. “I hid The Book quite far from here,” he says, already walking away, a small sway to his steps. “Make yourself comfortable on my couch — or don’t, your choice — we’ll go tomorrow.”
However, before he can hide behind the confinement of his bedroom, one last thought escapes Dazai’s throat.
A double edged sword.
“You’re miserable.”
The musician halts. Then…
“And you’re not?”
He doesn’t wait for a response. The doors shut with a deaf thud, and then, it’s only Dazai and the dark sky stretching over Yokohama with a fading scarlet–orange hue.
That, and there is also silence.
Lingering without an answer.
***
This world’s Dazai has never known the harshness of the mafia and it shows. Not only does he get drunk with another him and leave without taking away Dazai’s key card, but he also didn’t seem fit to take away his laptop from the coffee table.
Once again, guessing the password is easy.
So is finding out which bars Chuuya plays at.
Getting there on foot takes a bit but as long as Dazai makes it before closing time, it’s fine — and he does.
The bar is a decent size, with dim lights and a nice atmosphere. There are enough people for the brunet not to stand out as he makes himself comfortable on the last stool at the long bar but it’s not crowded, and on the small stage in faraway the corner—
There’s Chuuya.
Not with a violin, but with a guitar.
Smiling.
It’s a smile Dazai doesn’t recall ever seeing. A carefree, unburdened, honest one. Not relief after a successful mission. Not a victorious smirk.
A smile that… feels natural.
That feels like it belongs there, in the dim light of a night that doesn’t feel so cold, or so dark.
It never works out.
Dazai refused to believe it, he still does.
He’s happy there.
He can see it, but—
How does one give up on the only thing that has always been constant, no matter what? Together or apart?
His other self told him: in every universe, Chuuya loves him.
It should be enough, shouldn't it?
If Dazai can be selfish and claim his love in every other life, he should be able to let him go in one in return. Let Chuuya live his life the way he wants to, the way he deserves to, even if it’s not how it was supposed to go.
Chuuya deserved better than what he got, but even if everything he had worked for was taken away from him—
He can still be happy.
Here, like this.
The misery he saw on other–Dazai’s face, the pain and suffering that defines him in this universe — it’s a burden that doesn’t need to be shared. Not with Chuuya.
For once it could be only Dazai.
From beginning and until the end, or even past it.
That’s only fair, isn’t it?
But if so, why won’t he move? Why won’t Dazai walk away from the shadow and leave this Chuuya be? Why is he still here, listening to a voice so familiar and, yet, so different? To the music he’s never known before but that vibrates through his body and to his very core?
Why is he watching the redhead for an hour, then another one?
Why is he watching him smile and laugh with strangers, let a man buy him a drink?
And then…
Then, Dazai understands why he never left: because something inside of him knew this wasn’t right, that this couldn’t be right.
He knows it when he sees the redhead hesitate, and then move away from the man he seemed to get along with so well. When he sees him apologise and gather his things before walking out of the bar and disappearing into the night.
Dazai doesn’t understand true happiness — he doesn’t think he does, doesn't think he can — but he knows what it’s supposed to look like, and…
By the time he makes it back to other–Dazai’s apartment, it’s well past midnight.
He doesn’t care about the hour when he walks straight to the bedroom’s door, finding it locked. He doesn’t hesitate and only rolls his eyes at the futile attempt as he picks the lock, switching the lights on when he’s inside.
As expected, his other self is still awake.
He’s in bed, yes, under the duvet and reeking of alcohol, more bottles of it scattered around the floor, some empty and some not — but he’s not asleep.
“You’re being too loud,” the musician slurs, eyes unfocused and uncaring. “I told you we’d go tomorrow—”
When Dazai grabs the duvet and yanks it off of the man without a word, exposing wrinkled clothes and loosened bandages to chill air, the musician looks unimpressed. He looks down at himself, then up at Dazai, and he scoffs.
“Not only no fun at all but also pushy? I pity your Chuuya.”
The venom in his words is diluted by alcohol, his bite dulled and sloppy.
Dazai doesn’t give it a single thought before—
“He’s not happy.”
“Yeah,” the other man snorts. “I bet he isn’t.”
“No. Your Chuuya isn’t happy.”
Happiness doesn’t look like a man who’s so hurt, he refuses to let anyone else inside again. It doesn’t look like a man who longs for closeness, but is afraid of it. It doesn’t look like a hurt animal that doesn’t even put up a fight anymore, that doesn’t want to get better.
Happiness doesn’t look like loneliness.
And that’s what Dazai saw in the redhead.
While he may never know true happiness, Dazai knows loneliness more than well. It’s the one emotion he’ll always recognise, even behind an honest smile.
When his words sink into his other self’s mind, his eyes turn duller. “He’s not my…” A pause. “Not my anything.” Then, he turns on his side, face pressed to the pillow and his back exposed to the detective. “I don’t care about your late night walks, just leave me out of it.”
Too late, Dazai thinks, stepping even closer to the bed and—
He grabs the man by the shoulder, forcing him to turn back again and pinning him down to the mattress with one hand. Other–Dazai looks disoriented at first, his mind foggy from intoxication — but then, he arches a brow, his lips curling into an amused smirk.
“Ooh, scary,” he mocks him. “Are we mafia in your world? Oh, wait, no.” His shoulders shake on a small laugh, teeth peeking from behind his grin. “Let me guess, a cop ? You look like one~”
Dazai holds his gaze, unwavering. “If you don’t talk to him—”
“What,” other–Dazai cuts in, “ you will?” With each word his amusement only grows. “And what then? Will you abandon your own world and your own Chuuya, just to stay here with m—”
His grin falters, but then it’s back in place.
“...with this one?”
That’s impossible and they both know it. Even if he wanted to, even if a world where there are no Abilities and no mafia in his past, is tempting him with a gentle embrace of what could have been—
There’s another redhead, in another universe.
Another partner.
Another life.
Dazai doesn’t belong here, and he has people who are waiting for him to get back.
“If you’re not going to see it through, don’t bother.” Even when he’s being stared down by the Demon Prodigy and pinned to the bed by the shoulder, the musician relaxes. “He won’t believe you.”
He doesn’t put up a fight, because he thinks he’s won. Because he thinks he’s right—
Maybe he is.
But being right rarely ever means victory, if you can’t use it well.
“You called Chuuya foolish,” Dazai says as he leans back, his voice colourless, “but aren’t you even worse?” He doesn’t need to put emotions into his voice, not his honest ones. “You took away everything from him and you made him hate you, and yet—”
It’s better if he doesn’t, because—
“You can’t stop loving him.”
—because brutal, unadulterated truth is worse than any emotional outburst.
It stings deeper, and you can’t hide from it.
You can’t write it off so easily.
“You regret it.”
That’s why his other self acted like he didn’t care anymore when he faced Chuuya back then, and that’s why Dazai is doing it now.
It wouldn’t have worked on a more collected version of him, because any other Dazai would have seen through the ploy, but the musician is balancing on drunkenness. He’s struggling to keep his mask up, and so…
His grin fades, replaced by an empty glare.
“We don’t do ‘regret’,” he says. “Ever.”
“Is that so?” Now that Dazai has shattered his act, it’s his time to grin. “Then why did you put Odasaku’s matchbox away?”
The symbol of a better life.
Of a life he would be proud of.
Of trying his best, even if it doesn’t always work out.
The symbol of “it’s worth it” — locked away, where it wouldn’t see the man this Dazai has become, or what he’s done. Where it wouldn’t see him be ashamed of this life.
Other–Dazai swallows dry. “That’s…”
“Why did you keep the photos? The phone?”
Their memories.
“Why not throw it all away?”
And with them, Chuuya.
“If you didn’t regret it, you would have burnt it.”
Just like Dazai did.
Just like an old, black coat once burnt to ash behind his back, never to be mourned — the photos would have met the same fate, but they didn’t.
Just like him, the detective kept his old phone even in the Agency, because Chuuya would call him when he’s drunk. Not to answer it, not unless it’s Hirotsu, but… to hear it ring.
To know it’s there.
Just the same, this Dazai held onto everything they once were.
Alcohol–unfocused eyes widen, the man’s lips pressing into a thin line, but then… “You want to win that badly?” The musician’s voice is ice cold as he pushes himself up, sitting up on the bed. “Sure, why not.”
By the second, his expression grows into that of a madman.
“You’re the guest here and I’m a host, after all~”
Someone who doesn’t have anything else to lose, or that doesn’t care about it.
“ I love Chuuya, ” he drawls, a mockery of the highest craft.
Words rusted all over.
“He’s the greatest and we’re the worst. There.” He tilts his in a sneering bow. “Happy~?”
Then, the curtain on his act falls and his expression darkens and his voice becomes an echo of itself. A sound out of tune.
“Now, get out.”
He doesn’t lie back down.
He stares into Dazai’s face, waiting for the man to leave, and…
It’s pitiful, but Dazai doesn’t say anything. Instead, he walks away from the bed — but not to the door. No, he walks to the closet and grabs the first thing he sees, throwing it at the other man’s chest as he comes back to tower over him.
“Get dressed.”
The musician looks at the clothes in his hand, then back at the other man. “Why do I get a feeling we aren’t going for The Book?”
Because they aren’t.
“You’re going to see Chuuya, and you will talk to him.”
Other–Dazai’s expression doesn’t even flinch. “No.”
“Yes.”
“ No. ”
In less than a second, Dazai reaches behind himself and—
He points the barrel of his gun directly at his other self’s forehead.
“ Yes. ”
With no mafia days tainting his past, no training to prepare him for it, it’s genuines surprise that flashes on the musician’s face, though he doesn’t look scared even now.
“...where did you get that?”
“I came here with it.” The corner of Dazai’s lips twitches into a lopsided smirk. “It comes with being a detective.”
Not always, but they were in the middle of a big conflict.
“Get dressed,” he repeats.
However, other–Dazai only scoffs at him. “Did you really think it would work? Threatening a man like us?”
“You won’t let yourself die.”
“No? I think we’re pretty fond of that idea—”
“We aren’t,” Dazai cuts in. “ I am.” And those simple words are like a sentence, a guillotine that has already fallen down.
The other man flinches, because he knows the truth. He knows what Dazai has been suspecting, because he’s just like him. It’s precisely because they are one and the same that it didn’t make any sense.
“How long do you think it will take before he hears the news?”
It didn’t make any sense for this Dazai to continue with this career he never wanted. It didn’t make any sense for him to care about his image, or about his arms and his “trade”.
Unless—
With a demon’s smile and eyes without a single sparkle of light, Dazai presses the barrel to the musician’s skin.
“How long do you think it will take for him to forget his hate, and mourn you?”
Unless, it was never for himself, but for Chuuya.
Because to keep the redhead truly happy, he couldn't let him forget about his hate. He couldn’t let him remember the good times, or worse — blame himself for not being there.
And he would have.
Take everything away from him and make him hate you, but at the end of the day — he’ll hate himself even more for you. That’s why this Dazai is still alive despite wishing not to, despite being too miserable to even hide it properly anymore.
Had it not been the way it is. Had Chuuya not been tricked into hating him, but had it been the world that had it in store for him from the beginning — maybe then, it would have been different.
Maybe in a world where there is no love between them, never has been, Dazai’s death wouldn’t mean anything to him. But here, after playing out his role so perfectly, the musician…
He knows.
He knows it’s true — and that Dazai will pull the trigger.
Silence stretches between them, only their breathing echoing between empty walls, when…
“You don’t know where he lives,” other–Dazai whispers, his voice weak, barely hanging on.
A heartbeat.
Then—
“But you do.”
He has to, because not one of him would know how to stay away. In any universe.
That’s why no matter how hard he tried to fight it while he still could, against a version of himself that has seen so much more — eventually, the musician slaps the gun away and averts his gaze.
He gets dressed in silence.
Then, they both leave.
As they walk — because apparently this Dazai has never deemed it necessary to own a car — the detective takes out his phone and flips it open, going to the notes app.
“Where is The Book?”
The other man scoffs. “Oh, you’re interested in it now?”
“I need to know the location in case you won’t be able to take me there anymore.”
A hum. “You want him to beat me up that badly?”
Maybe.
“I don’t think he’ll have to,” Dazai says instead. “You’re doing a decent job at it yourself.”
There’s no need for fake pleasantries anymore, they both know what the other is thinking and they both know no deceit will work here. They have already played all the cards they had, they know each other’s hands.
What they’re capable of.
For a while after Dazai gets all the information he’ll need, they walk in silence. There are barely any cars passing them at this hour, a drunkard or two stumbling down the street on the other side of the road.
It stretches and stretches until other–Dazai turns around the corner for the last time—
To a small apartment complex.
Nothing bad, maybe it’s even better than the Agency’s dorm, but it’s nothing great, either. They get inside without any problems, the lights flicker on as they walk down the hallways.
It’s late — or early, depending on how you look at it — and they’re standing by a door Dazai has never seen before. The musician in front of it and the detective on the side.
His other self swallows dry. “He hates us.”
“He does.”
“It won’t work.”
But when he looks at Dazai leaning on the wall next to the door, in his eyes he sees only two words: do it.
And so…
Knock! Knock!
…no answer.
Knock! Knock!
…no answer again.
He looks at Dazai again, getting a raised brow in lieu of an answer.
Knock! Knock!
Sigh. “I told you—”
Then, there are footsteps coming from the inside, and the musician freezes. They come closer, until they stop right on the other side, but… Nothing. The light on the hallway is switched on, so Chuuya must be able to see who it is — and he isn’t doing anything about it.
That knowledge, the sole realisation of being seen—
The musician freezes, his lips pressed tightly together, but when he sees Dazai’s face from the corner of his eyes… Gathering all his strength and forcing his body not to tremble, other–Dazai raises his hand one more time.
Knock! Knock!
No answer.
Out of the view, Dazai is forcing his heartbeat to stay calm, but he can feel the anxiety of his double. He looks like a figure made out of glass, ready to shatter at any smallest touch. Dazai isn’t sure if he’s even breathing anymore, when…
Click!
Despite being the one to force them to come here, Dazai can’t help the surprise that fills him at the sound of a turning lock.
Even after the last echo of it has already faded, the door stays shut for an agonisingly long minute. When it finally begins to creak open, Dazai can’t see the man pushing it. It’s only the hand on the knob and a naked arm, and a voice—
“Go away.”
A voice so cold, it sends shivers down his spine.
Other–Dazai is frozen in place. He isn’t blinking, let alone moving, or saying anything.
What face is he seeing? Is it the same one Dazai saw, a face devoid of any emotion to warm up the ice shackles? Something worse?
How long has it been since he last saw Chuuya?
The musician’s lips part, then close again. “Chuuya…”
“I said go away, ” the redhead hisses. “You’re disturbing my neighbours.”
“I…” Dazai’s gaze on his double’s face hardens, an invisible knife pressed to his throat. “I can’t.”
“You ca—”
As his voice falls into a disbelieving scoff, Dazai can imagine Chuuya’s face right now. He can imagine him looking around and shaking his head, thinking that this is a dream. A nightmare, perhaps.
“You’re impossible,” the redhead says, already pulling the door close. “I’m not gonna deal with this.”
But before it can shut, Dazai’s hand stops it. His fingers slip between the edge and the doorframe, forcing the door open with ease of an ex–mafioso, riding the perfect timing before his bones would have shattered, and—
“Hello~”
When he peeks inside, a smile plastered on his face and voice dripping with mischief, Chuuya’s eyes grow so wide, the man startles awake at once.
So does the man behind Dazai, quickly sobering up.
“What the fuck?!”
Ah, Dazai thinks, finally a proper response.
Chuuya stumbles back, looking between Dazai and… well, Dazai . His hands fly to everything he bumps into as the two men follow inside after him, like a startled animal trying to escape but unable to look away from the one chasing after it.
Not that anyone can blame him.
“Who are—?!”
“Now, now~” Dazai muses, waving at him playfully. “We don’t want to wake your neighbours up, do we~?”
“Wha—?!”
When Chuuya’s legs hit the edge of his dining table, one of his hands flies back for support, while his other arm is outstretched in front of him, keeping everyone else at a safe distance. And hatred or not—
He looks at the only Dazai he knows for answers.
“Who is this?!”
However, before he can get any answer, the brunet leans to the side, his head perfectly on the line of Chuuya’s sight.
“Me?” He chirps. “I’m Dazai~”
Chuuya’s thoughts are racing so fast and chaotic, Dazai can see it on his face, and finally it’s not just a cold wasteland, but waves of a stirred ocean.
“I don’t know what sick joke you’re trying to play here,” the redhead seethes, his eyes never settling on either of them but snapping between the two men, “but I won’t be falling for it.”
“It’s not a joke, though? I’m Dazai~” A chuckle. “Ah, but not this Dazai.” The detective waves a dismissing hand at the other man, as if he doesn't care about him being here. “A different one~”
All in all, Chuuya is holding himself together better than Dazai expected him to. On the outside, at least. His chest is heaving and his breathing looks erratic. His hand is trembling ever so slightly and it looks like he doesn't know what to say next.
He’s angry, but more importantly, he’s confused.
Disoriented.
Startled.
Everything at once.
He looks at other–Dazai again, eyes narrowed. “You have one minute to explain this!”
Unsurprisingly, the musician hesitates for a second too long to find his voice. Dazai is already leaning into the space between them again, happily answering Chuuya’s question himself.
“I’m from another world~”
And as expected…
“That’s it,” Chuuya says. “I’m calling the police—”
He would have.
He absolutely would have — if Dazai hadn’t stopped him, a hand wrapped around the redhead’s wrist.
“Oi—!”
And he pulls it towards himself, covering Chuuya’s hand with his own as he presses it to his chest — right over his heart.
“Chuuya,” he says, a soft murmur instead of a tease. “It’s me.”
Dazai doesn’t dare think this Chuuya would know every patter of his heartbeat the way his partner does, but… It doesn’t matter if they were close only for a day, a week, or a year. It doesn’t matter how long they’ve been apart, or if they’ve never met this version of themselves.
It’s always been Chuuya who could see through the masks and deceit, through fake smiles and shrugged off comments.
He’ll know honesty, too.
He has to.
(He has always been meant to.)
The redhead is speechless and taking deep breaths. His eyes dart from his hand on Dazai’s chest, to the brunet’s face and the other man. Back and forth. One of them to the other, until—
“I’ve gone mad, haven’t I?” he whispers.
It sounds more like he’s asking himself and not either of the other two men, but Dazai offers him a smile nevertheless. “Not yet,” he says, rubbing Chuuya’s hand to soothe his nerves the best he can. “But now that you’ve calmed down, it’s time to talk.”
Talk, and pray for the best.
Cautious as ever, Chuuya frowns and takes his hand away, holding it to his chest. “...about what?”
About everything.
“Ah, you see…” Dazai’s voice lightens up again, not quite to the same level of playfulness as before, but close to it. “I’m not only more handsome than that other me over there, but I’m also much more clever~”
His other self doesn’t react to the jab, not even now.
“ That me is very stupid. Sooo very stupid, it’s actually amazing.”
“You talk too much,” Chuuya cuts in, visibly barely hanging on to his patience. He’s still Chuuya after all, no matter the past, or the world.
“And because he’s stupid,” Dazai continues, carefully levelling his voice into a comforting tone, “he thought hurting you would make you happy somehow.”
Silence.
Not a word from Chuuya. Not from his double.
Until…
“ ...excuse me? ”
“I know, right?” Sigh. “He’s just like a certain Slug I know.”
Recognition flashes on Chuuya’s face, but Dazai doesn’t let it distract him from the conversation. If he’s going to do it, he needs to do it fast while Chuuya is still focused on him.
“Y—”
“He knew I existed,” Dazai says, shrugging. “Me and all other us, and he told himself you could never be happy while he’s around, so…”
We hurt you.
“He pushed you away. Permanently.”
More permanently than even death could.
“All for your own good~” Satisfied with himself, Dazai lets out a content giggle, then claps his hands in front of him. “You know, you’re doing great at not punching him. He has such a punchable face~”
Chuuya ignores him, or maybe he didn’t even hear the last part. He shoots other–Dazai a glare that even his mafia–self would be proud of. “Is that true?”
“Of course, it is~”
When he realises that Dazai won’t be answering his questions — because he can’t, doesn't want to, or because the detective doesn’t let him — his eyes snap back to the only brunet that seems overly eager for a chat.
There’s barely any surprise left in the azure orbs.
There’s disbelief and fury, all so very much cold but… with a single flame simmering underneath the ice.
Or so Dazai hopes.
“And why would he do that, huh?” the redhead spits.
Dazai smiles. “Because, Chuuya…”
It’s a very good question.
“He’s stupid.”
When Dazai asked him that, all he got was a lie, a joke.
Denial at best.
But the truth is…
When Dazai steps closer, despite being on his guard, Chuuya can’t predict what he’s going to do. Not after so long. Not with this Dazai.
Not this body in front of him.
Not this hand sliding to his cheek.
Not this face so close—
“Oi, what the fuck do you think you’re doing?!”
Of course, he would never let Dazai kiss him. The brunet should be grateful he only got a slap and not a punch to the face, but despite the reddened cheek and the sting of it—
With his head snapped to the side, he can see it.
A huff slips from him.
“I thought so.”
Other–Dazai is standing closer now, like he has tried to stop him but moved too late, and… It’s not just a cracked mask, not anymore. The look on his face is pure misery, and he’s on the verge of tears.
Seeing Chuuya for the first time in years couldn’t get him to move.
Hearing everything Dazai said couldn’t get him to move.
Chuuya’s own questions couldn't do it—
But seeing another him trying to kiss the redhead could. Seeing a version of himself trying to steal what doesn’t even belong to him, what he’s pushed away himself — he couldn't watch it.
He can’t stand it.
Because underneath all the jokes and solitude and suffering—
Dazai does love him still.
The detective doesn’t need to look back at Chuuya’s face to know the redhead is looking at it, too. It’s not a guarantee that everything will be okay, there’s no telling if it’ll be enough, however…
He saw it on this Dazai’s phone.
A text sent at 3AM: “I can’t sleep.”
And a reply not even ten minutes later: “On my way.”
It’s been years since then. The boys who sent those messages are different men now, painfully different. Shattered versions of their youth. Almost unrecognisable.
But if it was there once, it could be there again.
It’s not for Dazai to choose, though.
Not this time.
“That’s all I came here to say,” he hums, stepping away. “I’ll leave you two now.” Before he leaves, he whispers one last thing and…
“Oi,” Chuuya calls after him, “where are you going?!”
But Dazai that he is, he doesn't look back and only waves a hand at them over his shoulder.
“Back to my partner~”
***
Dazai hasn’t realised it yet, but a single tear has escaped from his eyes. There’s no air in his lungs, his throat is tight, though not as much as his chest. The silence is deafening. His body feels cold and frail, the control that has been keeping him together slipping from between his fingers.
And yet…
“Are you going to say something, or not?”
When he hears it, it’s like a cold shower. His vision focuses again, and he finally see it:
Chuuya.
Looking at him. Seeing him.
It’s not affectionate in the slightest, not even kind, or indifferent. It is a hardened glare. Hateful, even, but… He isn’t throwing Dazai out anymore, and that’s already more than the brunet thought he’d ever get.
His throat is dry but Dazai forces out a croaked voice: “...it’s true.”
“Which part?”
A deep breath in.
A deep breath out.
It’s suffocating.
“All of it.”
Chuuya looks like he’s fighting himself to stay still, biting his lip the same way he always does when he’s angry as he shakes his head. “And you’re telling me this years after, why? ”
Is the air hot like fire?
Or is it too cold to breathe?
I never meant to come here.
“...you wouldn’t have believed me if I told you.”
It doesn’t change the fact that… Maybe Chuuya would have laughed in his face, maybe he wouldn't have. Maybe he would have believed him. Maybe he would have thought of it as another lie. Maybe he would have hated him all the same—
But they’ll never know.
Because Dazai never tried.
Chuuya closes his eyes and inhales deeply. “...fuck.”
Ah, how long has it been since Dazai heard it?
Oh, how he has missed it.
“ Fuck! ”
The redhead runs a hand through his hair, walking away from the table and creating more distance between the two of them again. Curses slip from him under his breath, and he can’t seem to decide on what to do, until—
Standing with his back facing Dazai, Chuuya grits his teeth.
One last deep breath before…
“You didn’t apologise.”
Dazai blinks, another tear falling down his cheek. “...huh?”
“You—” Chuuya’s hands ball into fists as he turns around, his nostrils flaring. “You did all of that shit, and now you—or him—” UGH. “Whatever!”
His voice is too loud, they both know it, and so — Chuuya takes a deep breath to calm himself again. He runs a hand down his face, hiding it from Dazai’s view as his other arm wraps around his middle. He pinches the bridge of his nose, eyes squeezed tightly.
“But you haven’t apologised yet,” he forces out, and it sounds like it takes everything in him not to snap. “Not once. ”
That’s when it hits Dazai — he really didn’t.
Not back then, when he never even would have thought he’d get a chance to do it, and not today, when it’s the one thing he came here for. Not when the other him was still here and… not now, when it’s only the two of them.
It feels like his heart has stopped, like every last drop of blood has been drained from his veins and body, leaving behind only…
“I’m sorry.”
A whisper.
A plea.
Dazai’s body moves before he can stop it, drawn to Chuuya despite knowing it’s wrong, despite knowing that he doesn’t have the right to. Yet, when his arms wrap around the redhead’s frame, he doesn’t push Dazai away.
He wants to, the brunet can feel it.
The urge is there, in the way Chuuya doesn’t even flinch and only stays in the same position even now. He never relaxes, his body tense.
“I’m sorry.”
All those years, everything he’s done until now — it comes crashing down on him, and it hurts. It hurts in a way it never did before, with the pain Dazai would always push away.
He can’t do it anymore.
“Chuuya, I’m so sorry.”
Silence answers him.
Then…
“An apology can’t solve this.”
It’s ice again.
“I know. I—”
When Chuuya tries to push away, Dazai doesn’t let him. It’s desperate and it’s selfish and Chuuya has every right to tell him to go to hell—
But just this once, Dazai will fight for what he wants to fight for, not what he feels is the right thing to do. What he thinks is the better option.
Maybe it’s pity.
Maybe it’s because he’s confused.
Whichever it is, Chuuya lets him. He never returns the hug but he doesn’t resist it, his shoulders frozen still.
“I can tell them the truth,” Dazai whispers, “I will. I can get you into—”
“I don’t want your pity. Yours, or anyone else’s.”
Of course, he wouldn’t.
It’s years too late to undo what has been done. It’s years too late for the truth to matter to anyone. Dazai could get Chuuya into any concert and any orchestra he desires—
But it would be like trying to buy back something more precious than money, or gold.
And Chuuya would never want it.
He won’t ever accept it.
Unless…
“The competition.”
Chuuya flinches at his words and Dazai holds onto the last sober thought in his head like it’s his lifeline — maybe it is. It has to be.
“It’s somewhere in Europe this year, I–” His arms tighten around the redhead, like he could take him there like this, right now. “I’ll pay for your plane tickets, and for the hotel.”
He could pay for him to win, but it wouldn’t be the same.
“You can win it on your own.”
If only he had made it to the site on time all those years ago, their lives could have been so much different. Even with Dazai as his rival, even with his confession stolen — Chuuya still would have won back then.
They call Dazai a genius, a prodigy, and they aren’t wrong. The brunet can play anything, any note he sees even for the first time and any sound he hears, however briefly.
But his fingertips weave static notes.
It’s Chuuya who threads life and music together. It’s Chuuya who was born to bring out the best and the impossible of something that has been done over and over again, by generations of musicians that play what they see, not what they feel.
Chuuya doesn’t need to be a genius.
He doesn't need his future given back to him on a silver plate, a deed impossible.
He can take it back himself.
“Dazai—”
He tries to push him away again, but the brunet refuses to let go. He’ll fight until he can’t anymore, but he won’t give up until then.
“ Please. ”
Chuuya halts, or at least he doesn’t struggle anymore. He’s trembling, holding himself back as his arms travel down to hang at his sides.
“Dazai,” he says again, so slowly to keep his voice down, “I don’t know how to… not be angry with you.”
Of course.
“I’m sorry.”
A full minute passes before Chuuya’s hands come up to pry Dazai’s arms away and this time, it works.
However…
“You reek of booze.”
His voice is different.
Not as cold, though not gentle.
It’s… warmer than before. Not kind. Not friendly.
It’s hostile — but it’s in a way that feels familiar, even if it’s only one note echoing in it.
“...I know,” Dazai whispers, averting his gaze.
Another minute of silence, and then—
Sigh. “You can take the couch.”
Dazai blinks, lightheaded. “...I can stay?”
“I won’t be responsible for sending a drunkard back in the middle of the night,” Chuuya groans, scratching the back of his neck as he makes his way to the other room. “Don’t throw up on my carpet.”
Then, he’s gone.
The doors behind him shut.
Dazai stands in the middle of the room for a long while, unsure of whether he can believe it. Whether he should, whether he’s allowed to—
But just as he sits down on the old couch, needing to feel something solid under him lest he passes out from too many emotions rocking his body, the doors open again.
“Take this,” Chuuya says, voice flat, as he throws a blanket on the couch next to Dazai and turns on his heel again.
“Chuu—”
“ Don’t. ”
Dazai falls silent at once, watching the redhead’s fisted hand in the air, how it slowly moves to the man’s face and presses to his forehead.
“Just….” He’s fighting with himself again, holding himself back. “Just… stay there. ”
Stay.
Dazai can do that.
“I need to think. I need time.”
Of course.
And yet, before he disappears again…
“...Chuuya?”
The redhead stops but doesn’t look back — but Dazai doesn’t need him to. He won’t ask Chuuya to look at him, or to forgive him. He won’t ask for anything at all.
“ Thank you. ”
With it — the doors close again.
But the blanket remains.
—Yokohama—
Even when similar air of his own Yokohama fills Dazai’s lungs, the brunet isn’t sure how exactly he got back. He found The Book where his double told him it would be, and the next thing he remembers is… Being home. Just like that. It creates more questions than it gives him answers, but at the end of the day, Dazai is grateful to be back, no matter the logistics of it.
He’s not the first one to get back but also not the last one. There are still a few people missing, but one of them isn’t—
Chuuya.
His Chuuya.
When Dazai sees him walking out of the Agency, relief fills his chest and lightens his mood immediately. His lips stretch into a smirk as they always do and he skips to his partner, light on his feet and one hand reaching out to poke Chuuya’s cheek.
“Ah, there is my Hatrack—”
Only for it to be slapped away.
Harder than should be the case.
For a brief second that the redhead looks at him, there’s rage in his eyes, seething brightly and hot, and…
No, Dazai thinks, his heart dropping. This isn’t right. Not here.
Unlike any other time, however, Chuuya doesn’t lash out at him and instead… “I have work to do,” he mutters, walking away without another glance.
There are no doors slamming in Dazai’s face, but it feels like it nonetheless, right before the others pull him inside the office, where too much work is waiting for each and every one of them. Work that has to be done, sooner rather than later.
It’s only later that same day that Dazai finds himself in front of Chuuya’s apartment.
He’s looking at the door he knows so well and, yet, he hesitates, just like his other self did. He has no idea what kind of world Chuuya went to, or what he saw there, but it’s probably better not to get on his nerves any more than another Dazai must have done already.
The brunet’s hand travel higher but before his knuckles meet the door—
Dazai stops.
He told his other self to do it before, to knock, but… this isn’t them.
And so, instead of knocking, he picks the lock just like he always does, and he finds Chuuya inside, sitting on a stool at the kitchen island, and drinking.
But it's not wine—
It’s whiskey.
The executive isn’t saying anything when Dazai steps inside. He only looks up at the brunet from over his glass, arms propped on the counter and his hair a mess.
“For once,” Dazai sighs, “I think Chuuya has a good idea going.” He walks past the redhead as if it’s his own house, right to the small bar, and he pours a glass for himself as well. If his hand trembles, no one has to notice.
“So you’ve had it interesting as well, huh?” Chuuya scoffs, watching him walk back and sit on a stool across from him.
You have no idea.
And maybe it’s better if he never finds out.
“So?” Dazai says instead before taking a sip of his very much needed. “What did I do this time?”
Chuuya arches a brow at the sudden question. “Since when do you actually acknowledge you’re the one getting on everyone’s nerves?”
“Let’s just say my trip was… eye–opening.”
May it never happen again.
Looking down at his glass, Chuuya nods slowly, thinking it over. He doesn’t ask about what Dazai means, doesn’t even tease him for it, rubbing the “victory” in his face like he would have any other day, and instead—
“Nothing,” Chuuya says.
A hum. “Doesn’t look like ‘nothing’ to me.” It earns him a sceptical look.
“You trying to talk is weirding the fuck out of me.”
Dazai can’t even blame him. This isn’t like them at all, but what else can he do, after seeing all of that ? A version of them that had so much, and lost it all?
In the back of his mind, he wonders how his other self is doing right now. Did it work out, or was it already too late? Is there still a chance, or did he rewrite the universe into the one where Chuuya will always hate him?
He’ll never know for sure.
Maybe that, too, is for the better.
“Chuuya drinking whiskey instead of his bland wine is more disgusting~” Dazai teases instead in his usual voice.
“You have awful taste,” Chuuya scoffs back at him. “This tastes like shit.”
“And yet, you keep drinking it~”
“Yeah, because it’s still better than watching myself being captured by the fucking government, probably to be their lab rat. Again. ”
Oh.
Dazai doesn’t let it show on his face but… Chuuya’s words, the implication of them — it stings.
It always does, doesn't it?
“And I…?”
“Not there,” the redhead answers briefly. “Not anymore.”
Which means—
“I saw that too.”
He trusts a liar in nearly every life he lives.
Even if he despises that love.
… oh.
He knows what it means because he knows Chuuya, and he can only imagine what it must have been like for him, however — Dazai doesn’t even have the strength to hold his glass up anymore.
One world is enough. Two was too much.
And now there’s more?
“I’m s—”
“Don’t,” Chuuya cuts him off.
When Dazai looks up, expecting to see what he’s seen too much of in the last twenty hours in the blue orbs. He expects animosity, fury, hate.
It’s not there.
Chuuya’s eyes aren’t gentle, but they’re not ice cold.
“It wasn’t you,” the executive says, “and it wasn’t me. Nothing to apologise for.”
Dazai wants to feel relieved by it, he really does, but… “You’re still angry, though.” That’s why he slapped his hand away before, isn’t it?
“I’m not angry, Dazai, I’m exhausted. ”
…yeah.
“And so are you.”
A grim smile climbs to Dazai’s lips. “Ah, is it that obvious?”
“It is.”
“Chuuya knows me so well, hm~?”
“ I do. ”
He says it with such ease, and it’s only now that Dazai realises it — while in that other world, he almost believed it wasn’t the case. That it can never be the case.
That he’s too good of a liar.
But now, with his Chuuya and after having seen all of that, all of what could happen even to them… Dazai’s throat is tight, his mask on the verge of slipping from his grasp, no matter how desperately he holds onto that nonchalant smile.
“Can… Can I steal your couch for tonight?” he asks, his voice not much above a whisper.
Silence.
Chuuya looks at him, then down at his glass, and then…
“No,” he says, firm and short. “But… I can make some space on my bed.”
( With me. )
“If you want it.”
It doesn't matter what he wants, not today. Because—
“I…” A shuddering breath escapes Dazai’s chest, and there’s ringing in his ears all of a sudden. “I may… need it.”
It’s so hard.
A nods. “Yeah.”
It was too much.
Dazai swallows around a lump in his throat. He feels like he’s about to pass out and he can't stop the shaking of his hands anymore. “Can we go now?”
Neither of them has finished their drink yet, but even so—
“...yeah.”
They leave it for another time.
Another day.
Because it’s not the alcohol they need—
It’s themselves.
—in another universe—
[August 2018]
“The XXXIV International Natsume Violinist Competition held in Paris, France, has concluded with the first prize awarded to the oldest participant to date, Nakahara Chuuya, who…”
[March 2019]
“During his latest interview, a world class violinist, Dazai Osamu, announces his retirement from the music stage. He claims to…”
[April 2021]
“During the charity concert held at the Kanagawa Philharmonic Orchestra, two of the former first prize winners of the International Natsume Competition, Dazai Osamu, who has not appeared on stage in two years after annoying his retirement, and Nakahara Chuuya, who has come back from his world tour last month, perform a duet in which…”
[July 2023]
“Relationship confirmed during an interview with…”
***
You’re miserable.
And you’re not?
“I am,” Dazai once whispered, only for himself to hear one last time, “but he makes it better.”
( He makes it worth it. )