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“You have an addiction to those, you know that?”
Chuuya walked up behind the bench Dazai was sitting on. Dazai didn’t look surprised to see Chuuya at all, or if he was, he didn’t show it on his face. His face was void of emotion, actually. Dazai was pretty damn good at hiding whatever he was feeling. That’s why no one knew he was going to attempt another suicide until it was too late.
“What a way to start a convo, Chuuya,” Dazai says and looks behind himself. He watches Chuuya climb up onto the bench—instead of sitting on the actual seat, Chuuya decides to sit atop the back of the bench. “If I’m not mistaken, I’ve seen you smoke your fair share of cigarettes aswell.”
“I smoke occasionally. Everytime I see you it seems you have one of those fuckin’ things,” Chuuya swings his legs over the bench, moving careful as to not kick Dazai though he would never admit it. The bench was almost directly under a streetlight, though it wasn’t very bright. Just bright enough for it to show off Chuuya’s multicolored eyes.
Dazai thought he looked very pretty.
Chuuya blinks at him—unimpressed for sure, and Dazai realizes he must’ve been staring. “You look lame,” he said, and looked away. ”Did you go up there just so that you could feel taller than me?”
It’s Chuuya's turn to look away. “No, asshole, I only wanted to be up here. Is that a crime now!?”
“We both know that you wouldn’t care if it was.”
Chuuya grumbled something under his breath before speaking louder. “If you’re gonna be a dick then I’m just gonna leave.”
“Do what you want, I don’t care,” Dazai said, dryly. As bland as he could force himself too.
It was a lie. Dazai really didn’t mind Chuuya’s company. He’d make Dazai’s mind go quiet, even if it was just for a little bit. He looked at Chuuya then looked at his eyes. They looked so pretty, shining under the light. Dazai blinks and looks away, afraid that Chuuya is going to realize again.
Then after a few moments Dazai gets bored of looking at the ground so he turns his eyes back to Chuuya and stares at him.
Chuuya stared right back.
There's a silence that follows.
Not exactly awkward. Not comfortable either, though.
Just silence.
Dazai would be the one to break it.
“You got a light?” He said and blinked and looked away, attempting to hide his face. Dazai didn’t blush a lot—because what was there to blush about in his life?—and now that he was, it was embarrassing.
Dazai didn’t know why he felt like this. Really, he and Chuuya had gone through far more ‘embarrassing’ moments than this. And Dazai never felt this way then, so why was he feeling this way now?
Dazai is reminded of the time Mori forced the two to go to a fancy event and Chuuya wore a very form fitting suit. Dazai would never admit how warm he felt the whole night, or the fact he kept stealing glances not so sneakily at Chuuya, or the fact that he thought Chuuya looked incredibly hot.
And so what, maybe he drank a little bit of alcohol and maybe he and Chuuya made out in the bathroom—and maybe, just maybe did he want that to happen again but that doesn’t matter. Dazai’s face heats up and he tries to think of the most unattractive thing he could. Doesn’t work. He sighs to himself and gives up.
He is snapped out of his…thoughts…when Chuuya speaks again. “Yeah. Why, did you not bring one?”
Dazai looks and blinks at him. “What?” He said stupidly. He realized Chuuya meant a lighter too late, because Chuuya is already talking again.
“A lighter, dumbass. What else would I be talkin’ about? Idiot,” Chuuya says and digs around in his jeans pocket and tosses a black lighter at Dazai. “Catch.”
Dazai looked up and fumbled to catch it, nearly dropping the lighter. His mind was elsewhere, leaving him distracted and warm and unfocused.
Chuuya thought it was strange Dazai didn’t catch it cleanly.
“You want one?” Dazai says and breathes out all the air in his lungs. He takes a big gulp of air in an attempt to clear his mind. It semi-works. Good enough.
“...Yeah, pass them here. Today was a long day.” Chuuya says and reaches his hand out. Dazai takes the box out of his sweatpants pocket and gives it to Chuuya. His fingers brush against Chuuya’s palm and he feels so warm. Dazai wants to bite into Chuuya, his neck or collarbones or heart, take his warmth, because he’s so cold.
Dazai is so cold and he doesn’t want to be cold anymore.
Chuuya would fix him.
Dazai wants Chuuya to fix him.
He takes his hand away right after the box drops into Chuuya’s palms, worried that he might say something stupid if his hand lingers any longer.
Dazai takes his own cigarette, the one that’s in between his middle and pointer finger, and lights it. He watches the fire from the lighter illuminate in his hand, giving the ugly, pale skin a warm glow. Dazai stares at his hands, they’re rough and bloody and beaten up.
Chuuya also watches the fire from the lighter. He can tell what Dazai is thinking about. Chuuya doesn’t think Dazai’s skin is ugly, even though he knew that's what Dazai believed. Dazai had admitted it once. It was when Dazai was so high Chuuya thought he was going to overdose.
Dazai had said, ”Chuuya, I hate the way my skin looks. It’s so ugly with the scars. It never feels right on my body. I want to tear it all off. Would Chuuya do that for me?”
There were a lot of things Chuuya would do if Dazai asked. “No,” Chuuya had said and hugged Dazai just a tad bit closer, “I won’t do that— I can't do that, Dazai. Your skin looks pretty. There's nothing wrong with it.”
“You’re the only one who thinks that,” Dazai replied after a moment and closed his eyes. Chuuya dug his nails into his palms, hard enough to break the skin and leave marks. He hugged tighter onto Dazai. Dazai’s skin was so cold and Chuuya wanted to make it warm. Chuuya wanted to keep Dazai warm forever and ever so that he’d never try to do this again.
Chuuya would’ve stayed like this forever, hugging Dazai in his arms, keeping him warm, if it meant Dazai would never try to kill himself again. If it meant Dazai would never succeed at killing himself.
Chuuya wanted a lot of things. Chuuya rested his chin on Dazai’s shoulder and closed his eyes. He wondered if Dazai would remember this in the morning.
He wondered if Dazai would be alive in the morning.
The thought had kept Chuuya awake all night.
Chuuya watches Dazai inhale the smoke. Chuuya watches Dazai exhale the smoke and that's when he realizes that, to Dazai, it looks as if Chuuya had been staring at him. Chuuya hadn’t been staring, he’d been deep in thought, but does like looking at Dazai so he doesn’t mind if Dazai thinks that was what he was doing.
Dazai drops the lighter on the bench and Chuuya bends down to grab it. He lights his own cigarette.
“...Why are you smoking at the park anyways, shitty Dazai? There’s a playground right there, don’t you think you should smoke somewhere little kids don’t play?” Chuuya said and inhaled his own puff of gray smoke.
“I wasn’t smoking until you got here,” Dazai replied. “You’re a bad influence, Slug.”
“Is that so? You’re the one who asked me for a light,” Chuuya said and poked Dazai’s arm. Dazai flinched and that's when Chuuya realized Dazai had fresh, tight bandages wrapped around his arm. Dazai doesn’t say anything so neither does Chuuya.
They move on.
Dazai turns his head above himself to look at Chuuya. “Oi, Chibi.” Dazai has a grin on his face. He takes another hit of his cigarette.
“Who are you calling Chibi—”
Dazai blows the smoke directly into Chuuya’s face.
Chuuya coughs and jerks his whole body away, almost falling off the bench in the process. Dazai watches and laughs at him. “Gah—! Osamu! Almost fell, dickhead!” Chuuya shrieked, his feet thumping against the bench loudly as he tried to get his balance back.
“Ah—”
Osamu.
Osamu.
That made Dazai feel all sorts of things.
He liked his name in Chuuya's mouth. Dazai liked how it sounded in Chuuya’s voice. Actually, he just liked Chuuya’s voice in general. He could listen to Chuuya talk for hours and hours and not complain.
Suddenly Chuuya was too close and everything was so warm and Dazai couldn't focus at all.
Dazai can feel the heatness on his face.
Chuuya blinks at him and opens his mouth. He closes it, thinking of what he could possibly say. He stabs the butt of his cigarette into the bench before one of them gets burned. Why was Dazai so flustered all of a sudden!? Did he get sick? It was really cold out, and Dazai wasn’t wearing a sweater— “Uh…? You alright, Dazai? You’re really red,” Chuuya decided to say.
“I— Uh.”
Dazai was almost never at a loss for words. He always knew what to say, and to Chuuya, it seemed he always had some sort of snarky response waiting to be said. “Are you like…sick, or something?” Chuuya looks at Dazai and doesn’t know if touching is okay, but he reaches his hand out and presses against Dazai’s forehead nevertheless. Dazai nearly drops his cigarette.
This did not help.
“No, I’m fine—,” Dazai squeaks, his voice cracking. He coughs, embarrassed, and looks away. Chuuya removes his hand. He slides down the bench, sitting right next to Dazai. He lights another cigarette and takes a puff. “I just, uh…it’s really hot out tonight, I guess.”
It was not ‘really hot out.’
“Mm, you sure? ‘S that why you’re not wearing a sweater? Because it's just so hot out here tonight?” Chuuya teased, testing his luck. Dazai flushed and weakly smacked Chuuya’s shoulder.
“Yes! Do you think I’m lying? I would never lie!”
“Sure you wouldn’t,” Chuuya says and takes another hit. Dazai’s already looking at him when Chuuya decides it’s his turn to blow smoke in someone's face.
Dazai doesn’t move out of the way, only closing his eyes. His own cigarette is faintly smoking, held very weakly in between Dazai’s fingers. It's about to fall. Chuuya wonders how long it’ll take Dazai for him to realize. He can realize Dazai’s mind is elsewhere at the moment.
“Hey. Dazai,” Chuuya calls out.
Dazai blinks and looks at Chuuya. “Y’know what a ‘shotgun’ is?”
“Like the gun? Don’t be silly, Chuuya—”
“No it’s— can I just show you, since you don't know what it is?”
Dazai knew a lot of things. Things people of his age probably shouldn’t know about. So, how could he not know what this so-called ’shotgun’ was!? “Uh. Yeah, go on.” He watches Chuuya take a puff of his cigarette. Dazai is a tad confused when Chuuya doesn’t blow it back out.
Dazai was not expecting Chuuya to get so close to his face and gently blow the smoke he just inhaled onto Dazai’s lips. Dazai instinctively blew in, wondering why Chuuya would ever do this, or want to do this. Was there a reason or—
Chuuya presses his lips to Dazai’s and blows the rest of the cigarette smoke into Dazai’s mouth. Dazai coughs and sputters and jerks away. The kiss is short but gentle and maybe Dazai wants another one. “Ghhk—!?”
His face flushes red as he stares at Chuuya. “What was that!?”
“A shotgun kiss.” Chuuya replied, faint blush tainting his cheeks. No where as near the amount covering Dazai’s cheeks, though. Dazai stares at him. “What, don’t look at me like that. You said I could.”
“I didn’t know you would kiss me!”
“Mm, we’ve kissed before. Why is that such a surprise, Osamu?” Chuuya said and grinned.
Okay, he knew what he was doing to Dazai! There’s no way he didn’t. “I…I—”
“You, you?” Chuuya mimics, teasing, and looks at Dazai.
Chuuya is so close to Dazai. His knee is pressed against Dazai’s thigh and it doesn’t look like he’s going to move anytime soon. Dazai is so hot and he can feel Chuuya’s breath on his skin and he feels like he's going to explode.
Dazai's cigarette drops out of his fingers. He doesn’t notice. “Chuuya’s being mean to me!” He whined and looked away. He blinked and then looked back at Chuuya.
Dazai’s arms twitch like he doesn’t know what to do with them. “I’m not being mean to you. How was I being mean, Osamu?”
Dazai flushed again. “That's how! You keep—you keep calling me that! You know what you’re doing! Stupid slug!!”
“Oh, what am I doing, Osamu?” Chuuya says, bats his eyelashes. Pretends to be innocent. He leans a little closer.
“I—! You’re doing that! I don’t know why—”
“Mm, I dunno. I haven’t been doing anything…,” Chuuya says, slowly, like Dazai is a stupid dog that doesn’t know how to talk. That should be how it works! Chuuya is the stupid dog, not Dazai!!
“Stop it! What are you trying to do!?” Dazai flushed, embarrassed, confused, and oh so warm all over. He stares at Chuuya. He wasn’t making all this up in his head, was he?
“Trying to convince you to let me kiss you again, maybe…” Chuuya said, quite bluntly if you asked Dazai.
“I—I mean—, if you want too, like really want too, I don’t know why you would though—” Dazai is shut up with a kiss, this one without the smoke. Dazai thought that only happened in movies! What is this? Was he dreaming?
The kiss was slow, Dazai would've describe it as romantic, but Dazai didn’t know what they were. He refrained from using the word romantic seriously because of that. Chuuya’s lips were soft, unlike Dazai’s—stained with dried blood and chapped.
Dazai’s eyes were closed and he didn’t ever want Chuuya to pull away.
And maybe, Dazai thought, with Chuuya he could be warm and not have to suffer in the coldness alone.
