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Chuuya kisses Dazai— once on the left wrist and once on the right where the bandages are wrapped tightly. He brings Dazai’s wrists down towards him, each individually all while maintaining eye contact. Chuuya tugs lightly at the bandages with his teeth, scraping– hard enough to be felt, but lightly enough that it’d all remain in tact. He’s not normally this affectionate, this forward and precise. Subtle nuances were never quite his style, but Dazai looks flushed. Embarrassed. His mouth is slightly parted and pink.
“You’re never like this,” Dazai says. “Trying to be cool doesn’t suit you.” The words are jumbled a bit, awkward in his mouth. The playful tilt of his voice is still there, however. He’s trying to get his bearings, Chuuya realizes, so for once— he doesn’t respond. The thing is– Chuuya hates Daiza.
He hates Dazai’s grin, his stupid, unnecessary remarks and his godawful fashion sense. He hates Daizai and how he has the nerve to crave a death by his own hands. He hates how Dazai is always two steps ahead of him, and how he only falls back on his own terms. But mostly, Chuuya hates Dazai because he’s the only one who can keep him in check.
Well, today— Chuuya’s making the terms. Because Dazai, Dazai who has no qualms about ditching Chuuya when he’s half dead in a field somewhere, Dazai who has never footed a bill ever in his life, Dazai who leaves his tab under Chuuya’s name at the bar, Dazai who falls asleep on him, who has the absolute fucking nerve to use him as an arm rest. Dazai who’d kiss briefly and quickly, with a ghost of a touch for a ghost of a man. Dazai who riles him up so much that Chuuya just winds up kissing him, scowling as a smile surges up Dazai’s face. Because—Dazai is his partner.
Was his partner.
Whatever.
There’s this thing where they managed to be locked, never quite free from each other— their presence in each other’s life is tied because Chuuya is Dazai’s past and Dazai continues to be Chuuya’s future. Neither makes any movement to walk away from each other, because what’s the point? Even if they do— they’ll always wind up back where they started.
Chuuya makes way to kiss Dazai’s throat, simply pressing his lips to the bandages, just once; just twice, by yanking the taller man down to his level— because that’s what partners do. And in the end of the day Chuuya will always bring Dazai down to his level because he’s here, he’s here, he’s here. (Is it an act of submission or a defiance, some ask— and it’s neither. It’s equal, it’s leveled. It’s a reminder that that neither is better than the other. It’s a demand to be acknowledged. It’s a demand to look me in the eyes again, and mean it dammit.)
“How’s that for nullification, asshole?” Chuuya states smugly, pulling away from Dazai.
“Not bad, partner.” Dazai laughs, wrapping his hand around Chuuya’s wrist, but before Chuuya’s triumphant yell could properly form, he adds. “But not even close.”
Chuuya triumphant yell turns into a war cry.
He can’t be too disappointed, not with the way Dazai is looking at him. Right in the eyes, like normal, but there’s that feeling of camaraderie back, that glimmer of rivalry too.
It may not be a victory, yet, but there are some things even sweeter than winning. This, Nakahara Chuuya thinks, is one of them.