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When Chuuya was informed he’d been selected for an incredibly important and exceptionally top-secret night mission, the last thing he expected was that he’d be wandering a corn maze after hours to look for a little girl’s lost accessory.
“Damn boss making me waste my night looking for stupid things. How does Elise even have earrings? Where do they go when she disappears?” Chuuya readjusts his hat for the tenth time tonight, scowling at the corn stalks swaying towards him and threatening to knock it from his head. He narrows his eyes and turns his attention back to the dirt path beneath him, his phone flashlight on as he scans each pebble and speck for a possible little hoop earring that, apparently , fell off Elise when Mori brought her here earlier today.
At least there’s no one else around to bother his search, though he would have appreciated a bit more help. It’s not an insignificant maze— one of the most popular ones in the area, known for its hundreds of dead ends and notorious twists and turns. It’d take an average person upwards of an hour to make their way out. Chuuya, of course, intends to fly out of here once he retrieves the lost object; like hell he’s gonna waste any more time trying to find his way back out of this mess.
He takes another turn, wanders into a dead end, checks the area, and then turns around. That’s his eighth dead end in the last ten minutes. He grits his teeth and continues on—
Right into someone’s back.
“Shit!” Chuuya startles back, head snapping up from his search. He’s greeted by a lanky figure with a straw hat pinned to its head, shiny buttons on loose overalls catching the moonlight. “Since when did they start putting scarecrows so low to the ground?”
“You’re one to talk about low to the ground.”
… No.
Fuck no.
“I’m hallucinating. I would literally rather be losing my fucking mind than be standing here in front of you right now,” Chuuya says, wide eyes bugging at Dazai— a Dazai who’s raided that poor farmer kid’s closet, apparently. Chuuya blinks. Blinks again. Rubs his eyes. Pokes Dazai’s chest for good measure and giggles hysterically to himself. “Hallucinating.”
“Yeah, that would explain why you’ve walked into the same dead end eight times,” Dazai says, grabbing Chuuya’s wrist and removing his hand from his chest. He doesn’t let go, though, simply letting their hands hang in the air between them. He raises an eyebrow, unimpressed, and gestures towards the path Chuuya had just come from. “That’s, like, the most obvious decoy, you know. The way to the exit is never actually facing the exit.”
“You made that up.” Chuuya snatches his hand back. He resists the urge to look back and check if he actually had been walking in circles this whole time. “And I’m not lost, asshole. I’m here on a mission from the boss. What’s your excuse? Hoping some crows peck out those dead fish eyes of yours?”
“If you must know, I’m staking out the area so I can beat the other Agency members at our team bonding event tomorrow. The first one through the maze gets a free meal paid for by the President,” Dazai says with far too much pride for someone who’s just admitted to cheating. “If I mark the right paths just so, they’ll never know the difference!”
“Uh-huh,” Chuuya says, choosing to completely ignore the fact that the Agency hosts things like team-building field trips. “And you decided to debut your Halloween costume early because…”
“Because stealing one of the worker uniforms was the only way they’d let me stay here after dark.” Dazai pouts, folding his arms across his chest. “If I had known a certain Chibi was breaking in, anyway, I would have tagged along.”
“I would have kicked your ass to the morgue if you had tried,” Chuuya says. He places a hand on his hip and glances around, sighing at Dazai. If he really has been going in circles like Dazai said, it’s unlikely he’ll have any luck at finishing his job tonight. The thought of spending a second longer here, head bent down to examine the floor, taking random turns and hoping for the best, almost makes him want to cry.
It’s so that I can hurry up and go home. It’s not like I’m asking for a favor or some shit. Besides, he probably already knows why I’m here.
“Look, it’s late and this mission is the stupidest thing I’ve done since first looking at your face,” Chuuya says, ignoring Dazai’s exaggerated sound of distress. “Elise lost an earring earlier today. Have you, maybe, seen it? You know, while you were doing all your maze investigating?”
Chuuya already expected Dazai’s reaction. It doesn’t make his sudden burst of laughter any less irritating.
“Mori sent you to look for an earring?” He asks through his giggles. “And you’ve been here how long because of it?”
“Too long,” Chuuya huffs. “I take it you don’t know where it is, then?”
“Sorry, Chibi, but I don’t keep an eye on little girls’ things,” Dazai says as he recovers from his laughing fit. Chuuya rolls his eyes, no less frustrated than before.
The maze is so fucking big, he thinks. Wasn’t he telling himself that having some help would have been nice?
It’s not a good thought. It’s a terrible thought, in fact. But if it’s all he has…
Dazai’s standing before him, that stupid smirk still on his face. He looks like he already knows what Chuuya intends to say.
“Hey, Dazai,” Chuuya says anyway. “Remember that time we were sixteen?”
“Maybe,” Dazai says, tipping his head to the side in thought.
Chuuya’s jaw twitches in annoyance. “You had some kid hide my best pair of gloves in the center of a corn maze and said that the first of us to find it could demand whatever they wanted from the other.”
“And Chuuya had to wear little dog ears at the next Port Mafia meeting.” Dazai has the audacity to say it fondly. “I still have the pictures, if that’s what you’re—”
“I will strangle you with your own overalls,” Chuuya says. “But, anyway, I’m just saying— if you’re up for a rematch, a little girl’s earrings would be a tougher challenge. Not to mention a great way to really prove your so-called intellect.”
“Oh?” Dazai asks, raising an eyebrow and playing as though he wouldn’t have seen this coming the second Chuuya spoke to him tonight. “A tougher challenge means a greater reward, though. Are you really up for that?”
Dazai sticks out his hand. It was Chuuya’s suggestion, but Dazai’s the one with the dare in his eyes.
Chuuya shakes his hand. “You’re on.”
<><><> <><><> <><><>
Dazai swears he must have been walking for hours. Chuuya turned in a different direction almost immediately after hearing Dazai’s bet about the gloves, and Dazai’s starting to feel impatient— which means Chuuya must be twice as frustrated.
Dazai wishes he could be there to see it. That fragile explosion of fury on his face, the gleam of a challenge in his eyes. Dazai feels emotion best by projecting it through Chuuya. When Chuuya’s angry, he’s angry; when Chuuya’s happy, he’s happy. They’ve rolled into one, a blend of fire and ice.
Rustling from the right. Dazai pauses, ear turned towards the sound.
“I spy a lost puppy ready to give up,” he calls out.
He’s answered with more rustling before a familiar fiery-tempered chibi emerges from the corn— within the stalks, very much not on the path. Chuuya glowers, though the effect’s dampened by the amount of straw and leaves sticking to his hair and clothes. Dazai grins and reaches out; he intends to pluck a leaf from his hair, but he’s distracted by the contrast in vibrance. People speak of autumn leaves as though they’re something divine— broken shards of stained glass windows— but, within Chuuya’s red and orange, it’s only a dead piece of plant.
“You know, you’re supposed to stay on the marked trails,” Dazai says, dropping his hand. “Did you get lost?”
Chuuya exhales deeply, face red— bare hands scrunched into fists at his side. Carefully, Dazai waves a hand in front of his face, snapping a few times until Chuuya blinks and swats his hand away.
Dazai catches him mid-swing, their palms pressed together. There’s dirt under Chuuya’s nails. Without the gloves, his hands look so much like Dazai’s— a bit bigger, but with the same slender fingers and the same calluses from handling guns.
Dazai drags his gaze along Chuuya’s hand to his wrist— his arm, his shoulder and neck. He still wants to pluck the plants from his clothing and hair, but something stills his hand. Something about this quiet moment, this brittle silence, pulls him deeper into the fluttering sensation in his chest— so sudden, so rapid, that it’s almost like a bird’s beating against his ribs.
Enough is enough. Chuuya’s skin against his own, the two of them in a simple corner with no one else around— it’s all too much.
Dropping Chuuya’s hand, Dazai turns away.
“I think we have two hours until the place closes. I’m gonna go left and keep looking for the gloves,” Dazai says. “I won’t call it cheating if you choose to copy me, promise.”
“Did it have to be the gloves, you asshole?” Chuuya says just as Dazai takes his first step. “Ane-sane just got me those.”
Dazai would feel guilty if Chuuya actually sounded upset. Instead, it’s less like he’s angry about losing the gloves, and more like something else is bothering him.
“You should have taken better care of them, then. Besides, if they’re so important, you should have no problem finding them.” Dazai shoves his hands in his pocket— and maybe that’s it. The loss of protection and the sudden vulnerability that comes with untouched skin revealed against its will. What does Chuuya fear people seeing when he doesn’t have them on? What does he fear Dazai seeing?
“Your hands are cold as hell, by the way,” Chuuya says. “It’ll take me ages to wipe your nasty touch off of me.”
Ah. Is it really so simple as that? Chuuya’s afraid of a little handholding?
Dazai supposes he can’t judge. His own palm feels chilly without the warmth of Chuuya’s against it.
“And yours are hot and stinky like dog’s breath,” Dazai says, grinning.
“I’m not a dog!”
“You’re a yapping puppy,” Dazai tosses over his shoulder. “A puppy who’s going to lose this race, and owe me a day of barking for making me retrieve your gloves for you.”
“I’m gonna dress you like a scarecrow and hang you in the fields,” Chuuya fires back. He punctuates his statement with a sudden retreat, stomping footsteps echoing in the other direction.
Dazai laughs to himself and continues his path to the center of the maze.
<><><> <><><> <><><>
It’s only twenty minutes before Chuuya runs into Dazai again. They’re in the center of the maze, the paths winding into a spiral and spitting back out again. Chuuya on one end, Dazai on the other. Neither of them have Elise’s earring.
“Are you copying me this time? And what happened to your hat?” Chuuya crosses his arms, having arrived in this spot exactly four minutes before Dazai. There’s a teasing in his voice that wasn’t there earlier, the frustration of his search eased by the thrill of running through the maze, listening for Dazai and laughing to himself when he hears the bastard pass without being seen. Like kids playing a game of tag or a child tucked away during a game of hide and seek, Chuuya had collected the joy in his chest, waiting for the right moment to jump out and say “I got you!”
“Last time I tried wearing a hat, you tossed it into the street and snapped at me for trying to steal your style,” Dazai says— as if Chuuya hadn’t done that because Dazai’s stupid hat hid his stupid hair and it’s so much harder to pull and ruffle. It’s something Chuuya still stands by; even now, there’s something fond about the messy waves of Dazai’s hair, the flyaway strands and the bangs curling near the corners of his eyes. Dazai tosses his head to the side, though he does so with a smile. “And are you sure I wasn’t here the entire time, hiding and waiting for you to show up? Besides, it’s not like either of us found the earring, so neither of us won.”
“Shame, isn’t it? I had a pretty good prize I was gonna collect.” Chuuya approaches Dazai with steady steps. The two of them meet in the center of the area, right where the spiraling paths connect. There’s something like an ocean wave slamming against the inside of Chuuya’s heart, and he can’t blame it on the physical exertion of running through the maze for however long.
Dazai smiles. Chuuya doesn’t quite know what it means, but that doesn’t stop him from hoping.
“You don’t seem too torn up about it, considering how desperate you were to find it and be gone,” Dazai says. “Don’t tell me you’ve suddenly learned how to control your temper?”
“Around you? Never.” Chuuya pauses, glancing around. “The last time we were in a place like this, I almost let Corruption blow the place, remember?”
“How could I forget?” Dazai asks. “All that ruckus for a silly pair of gloves. I would have bought you new ones if they actually got lost, you know.”
“Yeah,” Chuuya says. At his side, he flexes his hands without thought. “It wasn’t really about the gloves, though. Thought a genius like you would have known that.”
Dazai pauses before answering, a breeze playing with his bangs. “I did.”
“Yeah?” Chuuya takes another step forward. “Then you know it wasn’t about the earring tonight, either.”
Because, yeah, Chuuya needed help and he needed to fulfill Mori’s mission and he needed to go home and sleep because tomorrow he’ll need to be at work.
But he also wanted to play around with Dazai one more time. He wanted to run and laugh and remember what it was like to be fifteensixteenseventeeneight— and feeling like this was all they would ever do. He wanted Dazai to frustrate him and anger him and then put it all together with a perfectly timed sentence he’ll pretend he hasn’t practiced in his head. He wanted a bit of normalcy— and the way Dazai looks at him makes him wonder if Dazai wanted that, too.
In the center of a maze, Dazai takes Chuuya’s hand. He touches the skin beneath the glove without taking it off, a single fingertip brushing inside.
“Yeah,” he says. “I know.”
Chuuya smiles, breathes out something that’s half a laugh. Of course, Dazai knows. He always knows.
For this one moment, Chuuya holds his breath and lets Dazai hold his hand, waiting for the moment the two of them begin to run again.