Chapter Text
It might not be Corruption that kills him.
Dazai wasn’t scared at all when their target, lit up with a ferocious purple light, barrelled straight into Chuuya and sent them both crashing through the thin ice above the pond. He wasn’t concerned when Chuuya stayed under minute after minute, even after the bubbles stopped rising to the water’s surface. He wasn’t particularly afraid when Chuuya dragged himself out and onto the snow, alone, hacking up a lungful of water.
He even watched with amusement as Chuuya willed the water soaking him, heavy with the Tainted Sorrow, to seep back into the ground. They grinned at each other when Chuuya got back onto his feet as if someone didn’t just try to drown him, like it was some sort of game.
But then his speech started to slur and he stopped responding to Dazai’s taunts. Dazai braced an arm around his back to when he started to sway, but he didn’t seem to notice.
Panic constricted Dazai’s throat, but the noose was tight around Chuuya’s neck.
They found themselves huddled together in an abandoned shed, dirty and rusty from neglect, but safe from the biting wind. Dazai’s always fantasized about peeling Chuuya’s clothes off layer by layer, pulling his bare body flush against his own naked skin, but the desperation he was touching Chuuya with was anything but lustful.
There was nothing erotic about Chuuya, hazy-eyed and trembling, breaths shallow and cold as death against Dazai’s chest. But at least the movement let Dazai know he wasn’t clinging onto a corpse.
“Hey Chuuya, maybe you should have worn one of those fuzzy hats instead of that old thing,” Dazai teased. He held his breath in the seconds it took for Chuuya to answer.
“Tch…wouldn’t’ve made a difference…”. Chuuya’s voice was softer than Dazai had ever heard it, weaker than Corruption had ever made it, and the sound made him pull his jacket even closer around them. It wasn’t enough, he knew. His shirt and jacket weren’t large enough to cover them both completely. The cold crept in through the gaps and through weave of the fabric itself, and the best Dazai could do was wrap his body around Chuuya’s as tightly as he could, splaying his fingers to cover more area and letting their legs tangle together.
He could feel itch of the wound in his arm scabbing over. In that moment, he was acutely aware of his own blood flowing, carrying life through his body and by extension carrying life to Chuuya. The wind howled and the crooked walls of the shed rattled loudly. Until the Port Mafia comes to fetch them, the only thing he could do for Chuuya was live.