Work Text:
In the three months since Dazai was officially announced traitor, Chuuya had finally decided to admit to himself that the other boy was likely dead. It had been his ultimate goal, after all.
Chuuya had searched through every corner of the city. He turned their secret spots inside out in hopes for the smallest sign that Dazai might have been there. All he’d gotten out of it was exhaustion and growing weight in his chest.
Some nights the sudden loneliness choked him out of his own apartment. The space was suddenly far too big for just him alone.
Even after concluding that Dazai’s ghost was probably laughing at him, Chuuya still spent his sleepless nights wandering the city. He’d tried taking on cases, but after a few close calls that resulted in unnecessary death, he refused to pick up a case if he felt like he was asleep on his feet, even if he couldn’t actually sleep.
A familiar figure passed through Chuuya’s peripheral vision, but when he turned his head to follow them they were gone. The quick movement made Chuuya’s exhausted head spin. With a heavy sigh, he tucked his hands into his pockets and dragged his feet down a familiar path.
The pale light of morning was just starting to seep into the sky when Chuuya settled down next to a familiar gravestone. The cold stone was fitting.
“How’d you think my brother would react if I decided to kill myself?” Chuuya sighed into the air.
The gravestone didn’t respond.
“How long would it take him to notice? He stopped stalking me a while back.” After a minute of silence, Chuuya continued, “Would he join us? I’m sure he only stuck around here to watch me.”
Chuuya had made that realization after his recovery from releasing Arahabaki the first time. After some prodding from Dazai, he’d visited Verlaine in his self-isolation and realized how disconnected his brother was from being alive.
It had taken even longer for Chuuya to accept the term brother, but it seemed to fit now more than ever.
He huffed out a pathetic attempt at a laugh. “Maybe losing partners is a family curse.”
Chuuya stood up and stood on the edge of the cliff. He stared down. The hole he had formed when escaping Shirase’s betrayal had been reclaimed by the foliage. The ground beneath was quite rough.
If he wanted, Chuuya could survive a jump.
He didn’t want to.
How ironic. What would the headlines be when his body was eventually found?
‘Nakahara Chuuya, Gravity Manipulator: Jumped Off a Cliff to His Death.’
Or would it be twisted as an assassination?
‘Port Mafia Executive Found Having Fallen to His Death! Perhaps a Sign That The Demon Prodigy is Still Around?’
It wouldn’t surprise Chuuya if people assumed his ability had been compromised.
Or perhaps his name would slowly disappear from everyone’s minds. He’d just be added to the list of notable ability users that are no longer alive. The massacre during the attack on Verlaine had shown Chuuya that no matter how powerful he was, all he left behind after death was a name that would eventually be forgotten.
“Oi, Dazai!” Chuuya shouted into the air. “Is your stupid ghost watching? Are you laughing at me?”
He would be, if he could see Chuuya now, seriously deciding if he wanted to fall to his death in the pale light of the early morning. He’d always proclaimed that there could only be one suicidal person in their partnership, but now that he was gone, he couldn’t complain if that label ended up stuck to Chuuya instead.
“Will I see you?” Chuuya asked quieter. He glanced back at Rimbaud’s grave. He didn’t even bother asking. If there was anything after death, Rimbaud wouldn’t be there.
Briefly, Chuuya thought of Kouyou and the Black Lizard. Surely they’d miss him, but that didn’t change the weight of loneliness that only grew heavier by the day.
The more worrying thought was possibly facing the Flags again. Would they be disappointed to see him again so soon? Would they call him to play billiards with them again? Or would they look at him with pity?
Would he even see them at all?
Or even Dazai?
If he killed himself only to wake up again completely alone. . .
It wouldn’t be much different.
Chuuya jumped off the edge of the cliff and hovered over the water for a moment. He floated upwards and caught sight of Yokohama as people began to wake up. There were a few lights on in the Mafia towers
He twisted around to float on his back and stare up at the stars. If he closed his eyes, he could imagine the Flags dragging him into their group again. It had been too long. He’d spent more years without them than he had with them. He didn’t want to spend any more time alone.
With that thought, Chuuya let himself drop. He tilted his head back to glance at Rimbaud’s grave. Maybe someone would put his grave there--
Dazai was there. He was bracing his arms on his knees as if he had sprinted across the city. He’d never had good stamina.
Chuuya caught his gaze before his view was cut off as he dropped past the cliff.
He really did look like a fish when his eyes were wide like that.
---
Dazai knew Chuuya liked to dance with the idea of suicide after he had disappeared. Something small and ugly curled in Dazai’s gut at the thought of Chuuya killing himself over something as pathetic as Dazai.
He’d watched Chuuya leave that night. He hesitated at the path that led to the Flags’ graves, but turned away. Those were bad nights, when Chuuya sat and cried into the dirt. They were worse when he’d sit silently. Dazai was sure he could stand right behind Chuuya and not be noticed on those nights, but he wasn’t brave enough to test that theory.
A few times Dazai had seen Chuuya go to Rimbaud’s grave. He let the boy have his privacy. Talking it out usually helped him sleep a bit more the following days. The first few times Dazai watched Chuuya float off that cliff edge, he panicked. But after a while of sitting in the sky, Chuuya would drift back to the ground and continue as if nothing was wrong.
Still, Dazai always watched Chuuya in the sky. Before he’d left, he was envious that the other boy could fly and there was no way for Dazai to be brought along. It was the only place Chuuya could go that Dazai wasn’t able to follow in some way.
When Chuuya broke his routine and leaned backwards, Dazai immediately knew that the worst was about to happen. Chuuya was going to let himself fall. From that height, hitting the water would kill him.
Dazai ran faster than he had in months. He was not about to watch the only other person he cared about kill himself too.
He barely made it to the gravestone when he caught Chuuya’s gaze as the boy fell past the edge of the cliff.
Despite his lungs not wanting to take in any air and the taste of blood coating the inside of Dazai’s mouth, he lunged to the edge of the cliff, bracing on his hands as he shouted over the edge.
“CHUUYA!”
In a second, he watched Chuuya’s body flinch and the barest tint of red before he was swallowed by the water.
In a split second, Dazai launched himself over the cliff and into the water. The water was freezing and rough, but his legs absorbed the impact. The soreness was barely a fleeting thought as he squinted into the darkness for any sign of Chuuya.
When he resurfaced, Dazai swam out to where the water was still rippling from Chuuya’s fall. He ducked under the surface and was finally able to make out a hazy shape.
He reached down and scrambled to grab Chuuya’s arms and drag them both to the surface. Nearly crushing the other boy’s wrist in his hand, Dazai could feel his pulse. He was alive.
There were watery trails of blood tricking down his skin.
With much trouble, Dazai managed to get them into the same little alcove Chuuya had taken refuge in all those years ago. It felt like an eternity since Dazai had perched on the nearby rock and got Chuuya into the mafia.
Now all he could think about with Chuuya’s cold, shivering body in his arms, was taking him away from the mafia.
The blood seemed to be coming from surface wounds along Chuuya’s back. Likely from not being able to soften the impact with the surface of the water quick enough. Dazai prodded at the other boy’s back and skull. Nothing seemed to be broken, but he’d very likely be bruised and sore for a while.
He shivered as a breeze passed through their shelter. They needed to get out of their wet clothes as soon as possible, but with the throbbing pain in Dazai’s legs, he definitely would not be carrying an unconscious Chuuya very far. He felt his legs and was relieved to find nothing was broken. Bruised for sure, and his right ankle felt like it might have been slightly sprained by hitting the water wrong.
It wasn’t anything Dazai couldn’t deal with. He’d deal with any amount of pain if it meant Chuuya was still breathing.
They sat there until the sky shifted from pale blue into pale yellow.
Chuuya groaned as he tensed against Dazai. Dazai was immediately on his knees next to Chuuya and rolled the boy onto his side so he could cough out any remaining water in his mouth and lungs.
After the coughing subsided, Chuuya pulled himself into a sitting position, wincing as he moved his bruised back.
“You’re really here,” he whispered.
Dazai wanted to snap back with something witty, but all he could do was stare at Chuuya. A sudden rush of anger took over. “What were you thinking, you stupid dog?!”
Chuuya grit his teeth. “What do you even fucking care?”
“You tried to kill yourself,” Dazai grumbled. He didn’t have a good response, because by all means, he shouldn’t have cared. He’d spent so long telling himself that he didn’t really care about Chuuya, but that was harder to believe when watching the other boy fall to his death.
Chuuya rolled his eyes as his energy left him. “It doesn’t fucking matter,” he muttered. The pain of sitting up seemed to get to him, so he let himself drop onto his side on the rocky ground again.
Dazai silently followed his lead and laid on his side as well, facing Chuuya. “You really do like poetry, don’t you?”
“Hm?”
“It’s kind of poetic,” Dazai hummed, “for the gravity manipulator to die by falling to his death.”
“I guess,” Chuuya hummed back. He let his eyes close and sighed. “I get why you were always so grumpy when I stopped you.”
Dazai grimaced. He’d always been particularly cruel to Chuuya whenever he had shown up to stop a serious attempt. He understood the disappointment that came with waking up again when he didn’t plan to.
“You can still be dead to the world,” Dazai suggested.
Chuuya opened one eye to glance at Dazai. A silent question.
“Disappear with me.”
Chuuya’s eye traced Dazai’s face and shoulders. It was something he did whenever he felt Dazai might be lying to him. He remained silent, so Dazai slowly set his hand, palm up, between them.
Chuuya closed his eyes and took Dazai’s hand in his own.