Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Chuuya meets Dazai at a party celebrating Mori Ougai’s ascension as master of the city, a move which every vampire in attendance is very politely pretending didn’t require the murder of the previous master in cold blood. He’s only present because his absentee sire is off on a convenient holiday with Chuuya’s only other sibling, and if someone from their line didn’t go⁠—⁠after cavorting about hunting in Mori’s territory⁠—⁠it would be seen as an insult at minimum, and as a declaration of war if Mori were still feeling particularly bloodthirsty. Chuuya doesn’t like vampire parties.

This one has all the staples of the genre: an open bar, an opulent venue, a live band. It’s almost Bon and Friday the Thirteenth, so Mori must have picked the date on purpose, to have a laugh. FANG (the Federal Agency of Night Guardians) is here, the most obvious being their vampire director, Taneda Santouka, but several other humans and lesser vampires have that same government look to them. STAKE (the STrategic Agency to Kill Evil) hasn’t sent their president, which actually would be considered a declaration of war, given Fukuzawa’s relationship to Yokohama’s new master. But none of Mori’s older family is present. And Chuuya knows that Fukuzawa and Mori have been estranged for almost four years now, so it’s old news.

Instead, Fukuzawa has sent his human ward, a nineteen-year-old boy wearing a deerstalker hat and glasses. His vampire guardian is Naomi.

It’ll be 100 years in a little more than a decade, but looking at her for too long still makes Chuuya feel guilty, so he’s been purposefully affording Fukuzawa’s retinue far more latitude than he should. It’s why the kid manages to sneak up on him the way he does. One second Chuuya is tucked into a corner nursing a glass of AB positive, carefully avoiding eye contact with anyone else at the party, and the next a human teenager is scaring his undead heart almost to beating again.

“You’re not like the other ones,” he says.

Chuuya’s fangs snap down automatically in response to his surprise, the extra bone in his jaw shifting to allow it to open wide. He nearly cuts his own mouth open with his teeth, nearly draws the knife Mori’s security should have confiscated from him and therefore he shouldn’t have. He doesn’t actually do either of these two things, thankfully, but he still swears as if he had, surprised. The human snuck up on him; caught Chuuya unawares. “What the fuck?”

It’s impolite for even vampire society, but Verlaine isn’t here to cuff Chuuya on the back of the head.

The human boy takes in Chuuya’s fangs and unnaturally wide jaw and makes a drawn-out wince, pale skin managing to blanch even further despite the sickliness of his overall pallor. He’s an odd one⁠—⁠dressed in a nice enough white dress shirt with a tie and tailored black dress pants, but wearing an oversized black overcoat draped over his shoulders that ruins the whole effect. His hair is dark brown and fluffy. His eyes, of which Chuuya can only see one because his face is wrapped up with bandages, appear to be also brown.

“Ooh, those look like they’d be painful,” the boy says about Chuuya’s fangs. “I hate pain.”

Chuuya is speechless when faced with this much absurdity. All he manages to say is, “You’re just a kid?”

“Rude,” says the kid instantly. “I’m fourteen, you know.”

Fourteen. Fuck. Chuuya almost can’t remember being that young. “I’m eight⁠—⁠97 years old, you asshole,” he snaps.

The kid’s expression is incandescent.

“What?”

“You cursed!”

“Yeah, 97-year-olds are allowed to do that.”

“No, you cursed in front of me!” Once he’s finished speaking, the kid looks at Chuuya expectantly, like this has more than proven his point.

Chuuya raises an eyebrow.

“I’m a child.”

Chuuya can clearly see how admitting that much pains him.

“You’re not supposed to curse in front of children. M⁠—⁠people say.”

“People,” repeats Chuuya. The blood in his glass is getting cold, and if he leaves it for much longer, he runs the risk of having it congeal.

“People,” agrees the kid. “Important people.”

“Do those important people have names?” Chuuya decides to down the glass, making a face when it goes down with the usual poor aftertaste that drawn-blood always has. It does very little to soothe his craving. And now his lips feel sticky so he licks them with a small sigh.

“Dazai Osamu,” says the kid suddenly.

Chuuya doesn’t recognize the name.

“That’s my name,” the kid⁠—⁠Dazai Osamu⁠—⁠continues after giving Chuuya ample time to think. “You asked about important people, and I’m the most important, uh, person here.”

Chuuya wishes he had more blood to throw back. “I’m pretty sure Mori’s the most important person here.”

Dazai’s expression shifts with something Chuuya can’t quite classify, before he shakes his head. “Mori-sensei doesn’t count.”

Mori-sensei. An interesting address for sure, but not wrong; Yokohama’s new master vampire is a doctor of the night. He’s well published and somewhat world-renowned, even if the limits of their species mean that humans can only come see him for life-changing surgeries when it’s not the day. Chuuya might call the other vampire “sensei,” as well, were their sires not each other’s equal, leaving Mori and Chuuya as something else. Not quite their own set of equals⁠—⁠Mori was ten years Chuuya’s senior well before he was even turned⁠—⁠but unable to recognize each other as anything other than a threat.

But the kid has been watching Chuuya think about all that this whole time, so Chuuya tips his empty glass at him in acknowledgement. “Nakahara Chuuya,” he says.

“Chuuya,” says the kid. He rolls Chuuya’s given name around his mouth without any hint of propriety or shame.

“Yah, are we friends?” Chuuya says.

It’s a joke, but the kid’s eyes flash. “I don’t have friends,” he says.

Right as he speaks, the two of them are interrupted by the members of Mori’s family that are in attendance: Akutagawa Ryuunosuke comes dragging a petulant looking Yumeno Kyuusaku behind him by a hand, with Mori’s favorite, Elise-chan, following after them both.

The younger vampire children are positively unnerving, even though Chuuya has met them all before. He’s heard many stories from Kouyou that should humanize them, but they⁠—⁠Yumeno in particular⁠—⁠make even an undead like Chuuya feel uneasy. It doesn’t help that Yumeno’s too-wide eyes look so unsettling, or how Elise talks like someone much older than she (at least physically) is.

Akutagawa has always appeared to be the most normal of the three of them, so Chuuya is relieved when he is the one who speaks. “Dazai-sama, please do not run off⁠—⁠”

“I told you to stop calling me that,” snaps Dazai immediately, before the other can even finish his ask. “‘Dazai-sama.’ You make it sound like I’m older than you, Akutagawa Ryuunosuke-kun.”

Chuuya must be missing some sort of context, because Dazai’s words make Akutagawa flinch.

“My apologies⁠—⁠”

“Now you sound like my butler,” interjects Dazai. He groans. “You’re ruining the party. You should leave.” When Akutagawa makes no move to follow that suggestion, Dazai looks at him meanly. “What, are you stupid? Leave.”

Yumeno is the one who takes charge of the situation, reaching up to grab hold of Akutagawa’s hand again with the one not clutching an incredibly disturbing doll. The two of them disappear at a vampire’s speed. If it makes Dazai dizzy he doesn’t show it, nor does he seem affected by Elise muttering, “I told you so,” before disappearing after them with a vaguely floral smell. The three of them end up across the room beside Kouyou, who at least tries to look somewhat motherly because of the crowd.

Dazai seems sour and disgruntled, until he catches Chuuya looking. Then he just looks stubbornly his age. “What?”

“I can see why you have no friends.”

“Ugh. Q, the Dragon, and Elise-chan don’t count.”

Q, the Dragon, and Elise-chan all get to be called something like a nickname, but no, of course they’re not his friends.

Chuuya fights the urge to shake his head with amusement.

“How old are you Chuuya?” Dazai suddenly asks.

Chuuya regards him passively, stunned to silence by his pure audacity and lack of manners. He wonders if this was how he was, years ago when Verlaine first made him and he was going through his “rebellious phase.” Like all vampires, Chuuya’s memories from that time are hazy, by design. It only took him three years to remember himself, but the way his sire likes to go on about it, Chuuya imagines he must have been a terror. If it were anything like dealing with this human child, well. Perhaps Chuuya can afford Verlaine more sympathy when he and Rimbaud get back.

“97,” says Chuuya finally. “I just said. Did you not hear?”

Dazai waves him off. “No, no.” Chuuya realizes suddenly that there are bandages on his arms and neck as well. Prior to this moment they’d also been swallowed up by his stupid coat. “I don’t mean how old are you really. I mean, how old do you look?”

That’s an interesting way to put it. Chuuya figures it warrants some honesty. “Twenty-two,” he says. He died in late October, almost exactly six months away from turning twenty-three.

Dazai looks Chuuya up and down with his eyebrows wrinkled. “Are you sure?” he says.

Chuuya is not above killing, obviously. And he’s sure he could spin this murder as a terrible accident, and nobody would mind. Dazai’s probably some kid belonging to FANG. The suit makes Chuuya think that, at least. Age is something beyond him after a century, but people end up in this world young. It only takes one vampire making a mistake to end up the only living member of your family, and most vampires tend to avoid killing children.

Most likely Dazai is like Naomi’s Junichirou: a living descendant of someone who should have been dead long ago. His thick, dark hair and intriguing, mahogany-brown eyes would lend themselves to that fact; vampires are a lot like magpies when it comes to the sorts of shiny things (and people) that they like to collect. A child as beautiful to look at as Dazai⁠—⁠terrible personality aside⁠—⁠would be the sort of child that a vampire might waltz into their family home and take a liking to, on the off chance that in a couple of years they might be interested in the immortal life.

Dazai is still waiting for Chuuya to answer. “Yes, I’m sure. Dick.” Chuuya says the swear word after a careful pause, waiting to see Dazai’s eye light up with excitement as he does.

Dazai doesn’t disappoint, practically sparkling as he retorts, “Dog.”

Chuuya snorts. Not even. And he had enough of wolves to last a lifetime after his last visit to France, thanks.

A waiter appears and offers Chuuya another glass of AB positive, taking Chuuya’s empty one without pause. Chuuya does his best to smile at the man, but he still looks shaky as he leaves. He’s probably only working the party for the good old vampire blood money and not because he likes the company, and it’s a shame.

Fear is a strong feeling. The waiter’s anxiety lingers around Chuuya’s glass, tainting his first few sips. Unlike other vampires, Chuuya isn’t fond of the taste of nerves.

He drinks until it tastes only like aged AB positive and then sighs. Something tingles the back of Chuuya’s neck like someone’s watching him. When he turns, Dazai is pointedly looking away.

“Chuuya is small enough that he could be my friend.”

Chuuya gapes at him, eyes flicking around the room in case anyone else hears. “You wanna run that by me again?” He’ll punch the bastard. Gently, as to avoid doing real damage, but all the same. Chuuya stopped growing when he was sixteen, infuriatingly, and even drinking Verlaine’s blood⁠—⁠who remains somewhere around 182 centimeters, give or take; Chuuya hasn’t ever asked or measured and is not planning on asking or measuring any time soon⁠—⁠didn’t help him to that end.

Dazai enunciates. “I said Chibi⁠—⁠Chuuya is small. He should be my friend.”

Chuuya grabs him by the neck of his shirt and Dazai gasps. Chuuya hardly touched him, but there’s the unmistakable smell of blood.

“Are these because you’re hurt?” Chuuya asks rudely, plucking at the strips of bandage under his hand.

Dazai gasps again quickly, but also shakes his head. “No, it’s just a fashion statement.”

“A fashion statement.” Chuuya settles him back on his feet and releases him, unimpressed.

“Yes, something which Chuuya clearly knows nothing about,” says Dazai immediately, only the airy quality of his voice betraying that he was even affected by Chuuya grabbing him and lifting him with one arm. “Given the unbearable tackiness of his hat⁠—⁠”

“This is from my sire,” Chuuya tells Dazai with a growl. It also matches the style of the rest of Chuuya’s outfit, which he’d perfected after spending many years with Kouyou in Paris. “I realize you’re a human, but for vampires⁠—⁠”

“Yes, yes, you give all of your children important clothing or jewelry, I know.”

Chuuya gave Naomi a set of earrings she’s still wearing to this day. Hideo has a ring on his middle finger. Yasuko a gold pin for her hair.

Chuuya frowns at Dazai, but accepts the apology with a small amount of grace. “Right.” He’s not used to this; the back and forth, and the near-instant connection; letting someone get under his skin. Chuuya and Dazai lapse into brief silence.

“So will Chuuya not be my friend?” Dazai finally asks. It’s an awkward, near-contradictory question. Chuuya’s not sure which between yes and no he should say to actually mean no.

“I’m too old for you.”

Dazai’s expression could make grapes into wine.

“I’m twenty-two,” Chuuya continues with pointed emphasis. “That’s way older than fourteen.”

Dazai’s mouth makes a small “o.” “Oh,” he says. “I’ll be fifteen in June.”

That’s almost a whole year from now, about. Chuuya hides a grin. For a human, that probably would feel like a long way off, but for a vampire? It’s like a blink. It’s funny how Dazai talks about time that way⁠—⁠with a vampire’s nonchalance.

Chuuya takes another sip of AB positive.

Dazai stays silent for much longer this time, yet when he speaks, it’s still nonsense. “I suppose it makes sense that Chuuya wouldn’t want to be my friend,” he says. At Chuuya’s no doubt incredulous expression he continues, “I’m not very likable, you see.”

Chuuya doesn’t doubt that. But all teenagers aren’t likable. That’s kind of the whole point; they’re unlikable all together, and then by the time they turn into actually tolerable human adults, everyone has hopefully forgotten. And then they die.

But Dazai is talking without any attempt at garnering sympathy. He really believes the bullshit coming out of his mouth.

Chuuya downs his glass and feels grateful that vampires can’t get drunk on blood like humans can on alcohol. “Fuck it,” he says. “I’m your friend.”

Instead of being touched, Dazai glares at him with mistrust. “But you said⁠—⁠”

“Forget what I said, you dumb fuck!”

Dazai’s stupid mouth clicks shut, his ridiculous-looking, uncovered eye nearly bugging out of his head. “Is this how you talk to your friends?”

“Oh yeah, shithead,” says Chuuya instantly. “How else am I gonna show your shitty ass my love?”

Dazai’s expression is almost one of awe. “Are you drunk?” he whispers, then adds much louder so Chuuya can’t respond, “Love?” His voice cracks in the middle of the word.

Ha. Teenagers. Chuuya goes to squeeze out more blood from his glass, but there is none left. “You love your friends, yeah?” he says.

Dazai looks enraptured. “I wouldn’t know.”

“Well, you do,” says Chuuya. “I’m older than you and I’ve obviously got more experience with it than you have, so you gotta believe what I said.”

Dazai’s tone is almost disappointed, for some reason. “Yeah,” he mumbles.

“Oi, the fuck’s wrong with you, Mackerel?” Chuuya asks. The nickname just comes to him. Dazai has remarkably fish-like eyes. Eye.

Dazai gapes at him. When another waiter walks by with a tray of more blood in glasses and Chuuya tries to take a third one, Dazai grabs it and Chuuya’s empty second glass and sets them both down on the tray. This time the waiter is a pretty blonde vampire, and Dazai speaks to her. “Thank you. Higuchi-san. Please have them cut him off.”

Chuuya glares. “Excuse you.”

“We’re friends now,” says Dazai. “Right?”

It’s almost insulting how he keeps finding ways not to believe Chuuya. Chuuya has very little tolerance for that sort of depressive thinking. “Yes⁠—⁠”

“Well then, I’m just looking out for you. You’ve got to let me look out for you, because I’m your friend, Chuuya.” The way Dazai pronounces the three characters of Chuuya’s name is particularly sing-song at the end.

And that’s . . . fair.

Chuuya still grumbles at him with displeasure, before muttering, “Touche.”

Dazai grins.

They stand there quietly for a few more minutes, Chuuya at least contently luxuriating in what may in fact be blood drunkenness, Dazai doing⁠—⁠and thinking⁠—⁠who knows what. He sighs once, then twice. After the third time, Chuuya peels open his eyes. “What?”

“Your people skills leave much to be desired, Nakahara-san,” Dazai replies.

Chuuya just keeps staring at him, waiting.

“You’ll really be my friend?”

Chuuya may actually strangle him. “Not if you keep asking me⁠—⁠”

“No, I know. I’m not just saying. It’s just⁠—⁠no one else ever has.”

Chuuya squints at him. If he’s blood drunk, he’s not nearly blood drunk enough for whatever the fuck this is. “That’s sad, Mackerel,” he says. The fucker really reminds Chuuya of the fish.

“Mackerel,” mutters Dazai amazedly. “What can I do to prove to you that I’ve⁠—⁠” Dazai breaks off.

“Never had any friends?” says Chuuya dryly. “Keep talking. The picture is becoming clearer and clear the longer you do.”

Dazai glares at him again.

Chuuya rolls his eyes. “What’ll it take for you to believe me?” he asks, turning it back around. “I don’t like it when people think I’m a liar, you know.”

“There’s this tree. Near a graveyard. The view of the water is great.”

A sliver of unease tries to come over Chuuya at the mention of water, but he shakes it away. Chuuya’s not exactly familiar with Yokohama, but he’s sure he’s smart enough to figure it out. “Yeah?”

“We should meet there on the nineteenth of every month that you’re here,” says Dazai. “That’s my birthday,” he adds.

Chuuya stores that bit of social currency automatically because he’s the apex predator for the most social of all species, and then very slowly nods. “Okay.”

“Because the view is so nice,” continues Dazai. “And you can see the bay. And sometimes at sunset, it all looks so beautiful that I just want to commit suicide⁠—⁠oh. You said yes.”

Chuuya is going to need more than a few minutes to dissect all of that. He decides to start with the easiest thing to address. “Oi, what the fuck are you saying about killing yourself⁠—⁠”

“Yes, I do that. It’s my thing.”

It’s my thing. It’s my thing. Like suicidal ideation is some fun character trait, and not something that sets even Chuuya on edge. He may only have three fledglings of his own, but he’s walked them all through the desire to go out and rot slowly in the sun. To wind up staked.

“I have to go now,” says Dazai, looking around quickly. “But I’ll see you on Thursday, Chibi. Don’t be late.”

He walks off before Chuuya can finish parsing him, and when he hollers, “You fucker! Don’t call me Chibi⁠—⁠what time?” all Dazai does is laugh.

“Three!” he says, meaning in the morning, of course, since Chuuya’s as good as dead in his coffin at any other time.

“Fuckhead,” curses Chuuya. He’s still grumbling at himself when Kouyou materializes at his side.

She takes one whiff of him and blinks. “Are you blood drunk, Chuuya?”

Chuuya glares at her. “That’s not a thing!”

Kouyou merely nods.

It takes Chuuya a lot of trial and error to find the graveyard Dazai was talking about on Thursday, but even when he ends up being ten minutes late because of that, Chuuya doesn’t feel bad. Dazai doesn’t get there until almost quarter past four. He even tries to sneak in all surreptitious, but Chuuya’s been standing there tapping his foot for so long that every single one of his senses ping. He hears Dazai’s heartbeat and smells his blood before he sees him, and refuses to let the bastard break his word.

“Oi, you bandaged asshole, get your late ass over here. Do you even know how to tell the time?” Chuuya shouts.

Dazai’s shell-shocked face tromps into view.

“Hurry up! The sun’s rising!” Chuuya adds.

“Sunrise is at 5:04⁠—⁠”

“I know that!” Chuuya snaps.

Dazai comes to a halt in front of Chuuya, looking stunned.

Chuuya doesn’t have time for him. “Well?” he says. “I’ve proven that we’re friends. So what now?”

Dazai doesn’t breathe for long enough for it to be concerning, and then all of his muscles appear to unlock. He brandishes one of those little to go pouches you can get in a konbini if you’re a needy vampire, a vacuum sealed pack of AB positive for Chuuya to grab. In his other hand he holds some sort of portable gaming device.

“Now we see if you can beat my high score. If you lose, I get to call you my dog.”

Chuuya takes the blood without saying thank you. “Oh, you’re on.”

Dazai gets injured a lot.

The two of them quickly decide that meeting only once a month is boring⁠—⁠Chuuya because he’s not got much to do in Yokohama when he’s not out looking for dinner or being dead during sunrise, Dazai because who knows. They exchange numbers, Chuuya watching Dazai program his number into Chuuya’s phone with narrowed eyes; Dazai texting himself in the same breath and insisting that he’s put Chuuya into his contacts with a totally normal contact name, but that Chuuya can’t see it because it’ll ruin the surprise. More often than not Chuuya wakes up from death to find messages from Dazai, little observations from throughout his day and then a time.

Nights in the graveyard are spent with Chuuya drinking blood and smoking cigarettes that he refuses to let Dazai borrow, no matter how many times the asshole points out that he’s already getting the secondhand smoke. They play games and they talk shit and they exist in the liminal space of night in a graveyard; they’re really friends now, as much as you can be when one of you is immortal and the other is closer to dying every single day, as Dazai says. Dazai’s a self-proclaimed suicide fanatic; Chuuya’s an impossibility that won’t die no matter what. They shouldn’t get along, but they do.

Famously.

So Chuuya starts to notice more about Dazai than just his stupidly smart brain and his ridiculously annoying personality and the ever-present bandages covering his neck, wrists, and eye. Chuuya doesn’t care enough about them to ask why Dazai wears those, but there are other smaller things. At the start of their acquaintance, they all seemed mostly like the usual human teenager sort of injuries: scraped knees and bruised knuckles and a few nasty cuts from being an idiot who fails to properly open all the cans of crab that he (apparently) actually likes to eat. But as the summer turns into fall and the fall turns into winter and the winter once more becomes spring, Dazai starts to show up at their graveyard with several broken bones, a bruised cheek, gingerly-moved, cut up arms⁠—⁠that sort of thing.

He’s so nonchalant about his own mortality, and while he only occasionally tries to hide it (Chuuya is a vampire so he could sniff out the blood even without grabbing Dazai by one of his clearly injured arms far too tightly, but he was making a fucking point), mostly Dazai pretends it is normal to be wounded all the time. He almost convinces Chuuya that it is.

Until one day when it would have been Chuuya’s 98th birthday if he were human, everything changes instead.

It’s one of those white-gray days where the sky is made entirely of angry clouds which refuse to spit out rain, sleet, or snow⁠—⁠depressing for April. When Chuuya gasps alive with sundown and he doesn’t have a text from Dazai, he heads to the graveyard without waiting all the same. He does that sometimes. Walks through all the bones and slowly decaying bodies, listening to the rise and fall of water. He pretends it’s not exposure therapy. He spends time looking lazily at all the names. He makes up stories about some of them, stubs out cigarettes on headstones because he’s a fucking vampire and what the fuck does he care about shit like God. For the children he brings flowers.

For a while Chuuya holds his phone in his hand and thinks about texting Verlaine and Rimbaud. They don’t do birthdays anymore at this point. A person isn’t built to think up presents for this many parts of a century. And to Chuuya’s sire’s point, if they started the tradition when it was easy they’d be gifting each other until the end of time. Chuuya doesn’t even know why he keeps track of things like birthdays. Habit, maybe?

Dazai shows up pale and sickly when the moon has just finished rising, smelling sweetly of bloody wounds that Chuuya can tell adorn his thighs, at least, and not his wrists. His usual banter falls flat. All attempts to argue with Chuuya end too soon to be satisfying, because it feels too much like real cruelty to yell at someone who seems about seconds from passing out. Not five minutes into a conversation, Dazai does lose his train of thought, excusing himself apologetically and reaching into the cooler he brought with him this time.

For a second Chuuya almost thinks it's one of the blood juice boxes, but Dazai’s never brought one for Chuuya on ice before, so that’s odd. Then Dazai rips the packet open and begins drinking, and Chuuya knows that’s not the case.

It is blood; Chuuya would know that scent anywhere, of course. But it’s not human blood; it belongs to a vampire, the vampire, of all ones. Mori Ougai, master of the city. Dazai’s drinking his blood. The man who threw the party where Chuuya met Dazai that first time.

Dazai keeps drinking none the wiser, and Chuuya’s thoughts gallop away from him at breakneck speed. The crystalline perfection of a vampire’s memory means there is no way not to recall every single word Dazai has ever said. Chuuya remembers how Akutagawa and Yumeno and Elise-chan interrupted them. How Akutagawa called Dazai “Dazai-sama.” How Dazai laughed. He remembers how Dazai knew the waitress’s name was Higuchi. He looks at the too-big coat still hanging off Dazai’s shoulders with brand new eyes. Dazai knew how vampires give their children clothing or jewelry to celebrate the turn. He didn’t have to have that explained to him. The information was already in his mind.

Everything Kouyou has ever said about her sire comes back to Chuuya. All her grievances. Her fresh pain when she showed up in Paris years ago. Mori Ougai is no more cruel than other vampires, but he treats people as objects to barter with to win favors; the three others of his children were all turned sequentially in an attempt to win Kouyou’s favor, meant to stand in for the child she lost when she died from childbirth.

Chuuya doesn’t know what Mori could want with Dazai besides more of that. Undeath. To trap him in the body of a teenager for the end of all time. And there’s the injuries. All the injuries are different to Chuuya, now, colored worse with this information. Sometimes Dazai would talk about a nameless doctor in passing. With the broken arm, the second time, he said⁠—⁠he said⁠—⁠

“It healed wrong. Sensei had to break it again but it’s better now. Besides, I don’t need two arms to beat Chuuya. I could beat Chuuya with both of my arms in casts.”

Chuuya had been in the middle of swallowing down mouthfuls of blood, and then he’d been too busy defending his honor. By that time Dazai said so many things that would have been concerning to hear if Chuuya were his same age and not immortal; he’d already started dismissing them as jokes, or assuming he was just so out of touch with humanity that he’d forgotten how conversations with humans went.

Chuuya has never felt more idiotic in his long life.

Dazai has finished drinking Mori’s blood and already he looks much better, the weakness of active blood loss having immediately gone away. Whatever marks he put on himself have to be scars now; Chuuya can no longer smell Dazai’s blood in the air.

“Chuuya?”

“Who is the master of the city to you?”

Dazai’s single red-brown eye flashes as he understands. “Ah,” he says. That’s all he says: Ah. Chuuya wants to scream. “Chuuya needn’t worry. I’m not under any orders of exclusivity⁠—⁠”

“I’m not pissed because I want exclusive rights to your blood, idiot!”

Dazai’s eye widens briefly, but then he tilts his head to the side like some sort of guileless little dog. It’s stupid how often he adopts such a disposition, given Chuuya lost that bet eight months ago and Dazai has still not let it go.

“What are you upset about, then?”

Upset. As if Dazai being fourteen and tied to Yokohama’s master vampire is some minor infraction, a small thing.

“I’m worried about you, bastard,” Chuuya says.

Dazai looks honestly surprised. “Oh,” he says.

He’s so frustrating. Once he got over his initial idiocy he stopped second guessing the depth of Chuuya’s feelings and started annoyingly misrepresenting them as utter devotion bordering on depravity, but every so often his mask slips and Chuuya seems some of the honest surprise. The confusion why anyone would like him, why anyone would want to call him friend.

It makes Chuuya want to take hold of him and shake him, and if that makes him like a dog with their favorite chew toy, so be it.

“Then in that case Chuuya shouldn’t worry because I’m not in danger. Mori-sensei has only ever been kind,” Dazai says.

Kind.

The master of the city.

Kind.

When all of his vampire children barring Kouyou are underage children; when the only reason he now rules Yokohama is because he murdered another vampire in cold blood, something unheard of among their species, who are only notorious for killing humans and never one of their own.

But Chuuya is clearly not going to get through to Dazai. “Right. Yeah,” he says. His thoughts are going a mile a minute and he hopes Dazai is too distracted to notice that fact. Chuuya’s never been one for politics. That was always Rimbaud’s thing. Chuuya was just the spare⁠—⁠the baby Verlaine made in a moment of weakness while he and Rimbaud were estranged. Mori sees him as a threat because he’s Japanese and buying up property in Yokohama, but Chuuya never intended to use that fact.

Now he does.

Now he can.

He has Fukuzawa through Naomi, and Fukuzawa could keep someone like Dazai safe. That’s what STAKE does, after all. Kill all evil.

Dazai has finished his rambling and is looking at Chuuya accusingly because he hasn’t replied. Chuuya looks at him with exaggerated slowness and says, “Sorry, what was that? I’m very old.”

Dazai snorts and punches him as usual, settling onto the ground much more comfortably without his wounds. “I said there’s a new arcade opening up in Suribachi City,” he says. “It’s open twenty-four-seven. We should go.” Dazai pauses ever so slightly. “You know, for your birthday,” he adds.

Chuuya’s eyes suddenly feel hot. So he remembered. So what? Chuuya’s a fucking vampire. It’s unsightly to be so moved by such a small thing. More importantly, Chuuya has become familiar enough with Yokohama now that he recognizes the name of the place; it’s named after a suribachi because people go there to be ground into a fine powder by the night and all her children. It’s vampire territory more than anything else.

Prior to this conversation Chuuya wouldn’t have thought twice about Dazai suggesting it. Now it’s all he can do not to click out his fangs. He still nods, because that’s what Dazai expects of him. He’s still unfortunately thinking his earlier thoughts.

Dazai scowls. He collapses dramatically against one of the headstones, tossing his hair out of his one open eye. “If my dog isn’t going to pay attention to me, I’ll find a way to send him to obedience school⁠—⁠”

Chuuya shoves him automatically, annoyed. “Shut up.”

Dazai grins with all of his teeth. He’s not going to let this go. Chuuya will just have to plot later, when he’s actually alone.

“Alright, where’s this arcade?” Chuuya gets to his feet with an exaggerated groan.

Dazai stands up much more nimbly, cooler of Mori’s blood hooked around one bandaged arm. “Ooh, ooh, Chuuya should carry me⁠—⁠”

“Are you stupid? I know you can fucking walk.” The easiest way out when Dazai gets like this is just to start moving and distract him into doing what’s needed because it’s routine. So Chuuya starts walking, not even waiting for Dazai to follow behind.

“But I’m weak and injured.” A vampire’s glance to the side shows a Dazai who is bouncing along excitedly, looking the picture of healthy and strong. “So you should help me⁠—⁠”

“Fucker, you’re doped up on the master’s blood.”

There’s a pause where Dazai’s one eye goes sharp with something like expectation, but when Chuuya holds perfectly still and passes the test that way, his whole body seems to relax. “Not enough not to still be fragile⁠—⁠”

“Everything about you is fucking ‘fragile.’ You refuse to exercise at all.”

“Because I have Chuuya⁠—⁠”

“Lazy Mackerel⁠—⁠”

“Slug⁠—⁠”

It turns out to be easier than Chuuya expected to get Dazai away from Mori, after all. The moving pieces take all the time between Chuuya’s and Dazai’s birthdays, but once they’re in place the plan is essentially set in stone. All Chuuya has to promise is that he’ll leave Yokohama, that he’ll take his threat to Mori’s power base somewhere else as close as even Tokyo for all the other vampire cares. If Chuuya leaves Yokohama, Mori will never attempt to turn or harm Dazai Osamu; when Chuuya emerges from three hours of bargaining for that across a wooden table, he feels like he’s been fighting for hours hand to hand.

But it was just words. Chuuya didn’t even have to call Verlaine.

Chuuya won.

Dazai is free.

“You’ll have to tell him, of course⁠—⁠Dazai-kun,” Mori says carelessly, standing in the doorway about to head back to his office in the skyscraper that he has made into his home. “And notify Fukuzawa-dono, I assume.”

“He knows.” The first thing Chuuya did once Dazai finished beating him at arcade games on his birthday was pull on his thread to Naomi and have her arrange a meeting between the two of them somewhere more neutral than the Agency offices to explain.

He’d kept it brief, “There is someone I need kept safe far away from vampires. Can you help me, please?”

Fukuzawa hadn’t asked questions. He’d simply agreed.

If Mori feels anything about Chuuya already having his elder sibling’s blessing, it doesn’t show. “How excellent,” he says. “You can show yourself out, yes, Chuuya-kun? I’m afraid I have many other things to attend to.”

I’m a very busy man, with a very busy life, and this tiny little skirmish around a very boring human is nothing in the grand scheme of things.

Although the speck in Mori’s eye suggests he has noted that Chuuya values Dazai above other humans, even if he isn’t interested in using that fact. Yet.

Chuuya doesn’t give a shit. Verlaine is always telling him off incessantly for being too quick to love and too trusting; Kouyou always says he has too human of a heart to exist as a vampire. Chuuya doesn’t care; it’s his.

And Dazai’s life will be better without Mori. Why does it matter that it won’t have Chuuya in it as well? They’ve known each other for less than a year. That’s almost nothing at all.

When Chuuya tries to say it to Dazai like that, Dazai slaps Chuuya straight across the face.

“You had no right,” he says, newly fifteen years old and hateful, hands now curled into fists at his side. He’s bleeding again tonight. Chuuya would have thought that his birthday would be cause for celebration, but maybe in Dazai’s fucked up mind one more year on earth is one more year not dead. Maybe killing himself on the eve of his birthday is a ritual itself.

Chuuya doesn’t care.

Dazai’s not dead, and he’s safe from Mori.

“I’m just a stranger, Dazai,” he says carelessly. “You’ve known me for less than a year.”

Dazai lifts his chin stubbornly, a steel glint in his mostly red eye. It’s like the anger has made the brown disappear entirely, leaving something more the color of blood. His hands are clenched so tight that Chuuya can see them shaking. He smells so much like blood now that Chuuya probably needs to stop breathing quickly or he’ll be at risk of losing control.

“Chibi is my dog,” says Dazai. “I decide when you leave. Not you.”

Chuuya clenches his jaw against the urge to hit back. “Fukuzawa has all the necessary paperwork waiting for you at the Agency,” he says. At Dazai’s horrified look he adds, “It’s just for guardianship. No one expects you to join STAKE at fifteen, idiot. They don’t start them that young.”

Mori does, Dazai clearly thinks, but does not say.

Chuuya ignores him. Once he gets through this, he can hop on the first train and be away. “There’s a room for you in the building the Agency owns. I’ve been to see it. It’s . . . nice.”

“Chuuya lives out of shitty hotel rooms,” Dazai spits.

“I won’t change my number,” Chuuya says.

“I’ll change mine.”

Chuuya sighs. “Look, Mackerel⁠—⁠”

“Don’t call me that,” says Dazai, in a cheap parody of how he addressed Akutagawa when they first met. “We’re not friends.”

It hurts, hearing that. Chuuya wouldn’t have expected it to do so. He inhales, exhales, and nods his head. Ninety-eight years of existence has made him used to pain.

Chuuya decides not to say anything else. He just leaves. He gets almost all the way out of the graveyard before Dazai calls after him, pained and desperate enough that Chuuya stops and turns back.

“If you walk out that door, I’ll⁠—⁠I’ll kill myself for real next time,” he says.

It’s the worst lie he’s ever told in the short time he’s been in Chuuya’s life, and Chuuya laughs before he can help himself. Dazai’s nostrils flare when he sees Chuuya isn’t taking him seriously.

“I fucking hate you,” he adds.

Chuuya takes that hit as owed, letting the hurt settle deep into his bones. It feels how he imagines a stake to the heart would feel, peach tree wood pinning him into the ground as a final resting place.

Of course Dazai doesn’t mean it. Chuuya knows him well enough to believe that, at least. (Even though leaving him is like being staked.) Despite it only having been eleven months, Chuuya knows Dazai. He and Dazai had some sort of absurd, instant connection. Chuuya felt understood by him in a way he hadn’t thought possible once his entire family was dead and gone.

It was like they were one soul in two bodies, stretched awkwardly across time. Maybe in another universe they were born within only years of each other and grudging colleagues; maybe in another they were same-aged teenagers experiencing the same growing pains.

When Dazai says, “I fucking hate you,” Chuuya thinks, You don’t mean that.

It’s instantaneous.

He keeps the sentiment to himself.

“Well?” spits Dazai. He still hasn’t learned patience. He never could quite keep the stronger feelings out of his voice.

“As long as you stay alive, Shitty Dazai,” Chuuya says.

He leaves.

Dazai stays.