The night after the Moby Dick falls, Yokohama's veins run slow. The city is drunk with relief, and sleeping off its trauma before the work of rebuilding resumes.
Nakahara Chuuya is drunk with wine instead. Judging by the calling card he's found, his night's trauma is only beginning. He seethes and kicks open the door to his apartment.
"Bastard," he hisses. "What the hell are you doing here?"
A pile of limbs and bandages stirs on his chaise-longue. It chirps, "Chuuya! How did you know I'd be here?"
"I can smell your pathetic desperation from a block away." The truth: every time he returns to his car, he checks for bombs. Whenever he finds one, he knows Dazai wants attention. "Now answer me, you waste of gauze — what the hell are you doing here?"
Sighing, Dazai sits up. "You want to talk to me."
"I do not." He may have drunk more than intended while celebrating with Mori and Kouyou — and may have eaten less than intended prior to that — but the fact that he's still standing is proof he isn't drunk enough to contact Dazai fucking Osamu.
He contemplates murder, but there is the matter of alliances. And Q. And whatever weird shit is going down with Akutagawa.
He also hates killing people in places that he's responsible for cleaning. So instead, he tugs off his shoes and flings them at Dazai's head.
Dazai ducks, scowling, and stands. "Ugh. You're the worst."
"Then leave! The door's right there. The window's even closer."
"Heartless! A ten-story fall is not a beautiful landing." He moves towards the kitchen. "I'm thirsty. Do you have any wine that isn't terrible?"
Chuuya kicks his door closed again, then follows.
Dazai goes unerringly for the cupboard with the glasses. Chuuya isn't surprised. This isn't the first time Dazai has broken into his apartment. It's just the first time he's stayed for Chuuya to find him.
Something is different about tonight. Dazai doesn't usually willingly spend an unnecessary moment with Chuuya. His presence here belies an agenda.
"I have plenty of wine that isn't terrible," Chuuya says. "But you're getting the terrible stuff."
He removes a half-empty bottle of cheap chardonnay from his Guests I hate/Alone with Netflix/I just want to smash things stock, and turns. Dazai holds a pair of wide, deep glasses. They're entirely the wrong shape for the chardonnay, but it's the size that matters. Chuuya empties the bottle into them.
Their fingers brush when Chuuya takes his glass, and he's grateful for his gloves.
He leaves his hat beside the bottle on the counter for safekeeping, then moves back to the living room. He takes the seat Dazai had just vacated, and feels pleased with the conquest until Dazai slumps at the other end of the couch and slams his feet on the coffee table.
"Take off your shoes," Chuuya snaps.
He's shocked when Dazai grumbles but obeys.
"Why are you here?" he says next, though he knows he will regret it.
"You want—"
"I heard that the first time."
"So feisty." Dazai tilts his head. "Don't you remember our glorious youth? You always wanted to talk to me after missions."
Chuuya remembers. If the mission went well, Dazai would knock on his door, or his window pane. Chuuya would ignore him until the knocking got too annoying, and that was the only reason he let him in. He'd pour wine or sake or whatever Dazai brought with him and then Dazai would sprawl over his futon and go over the mission in exhaustive detail.
If the mission went poorly, they sprawled on each other's hospital beds instead, after bones were set and bandages pinned in place.
Dazai had the most to say when it was Chuuya flat on his back, dizzy with painkillers, stitched up and splinted. He'd talk and talk as Chuuya faded in and out of consciousness. Every time, the next mission went more smoothly, and as the months and years piled up, Chuuya spent less and less time in hospitals.
It was Dazai who always wanted to talk. Chuuya just liked to listen.
Maybe that's why he hasn't kicked Dazai out tonight. Mori and Kouyou's sniping just isn't the same.
He looks out the window at his city, spread dark and glittering before him. Yokohama is stitched up and splinted. This won't be the last time she bleeds.
"Atsushi and Akutagawa worked well together today," Dazai says. "I'm going to encourage that."
Chuuya sips. The chardonnay is as terrible as he promised. "You can't want my help."
"Ugh. Please don't help. Just stay out of my way, so you don't fuck it up."
"You're only setting them up for disaster."
"Probably! They should work for as long as I need them to, though. Atsushi reminds me of you. Scrawny, hotheaded." Dazai smirks. "Very cute."
Chuuya splutters and gets chardonnay up his nose.
As he coughs, eyes burning, Dazai giggles. "What, you don't think you're as cute as Atsushi?"
"I'm ten times as — you bastard. Stop laughing."
Dazai raises his glass in a mocking toast, and is still giggling around his next sip.
The heat in Chuuya's cheeks must be the wine. It can't be the traces of Dazai's gaze, lingering hot along his lips, his neck. He drains the rest of his chardonnay, and sets the glass on the coffee table. "Will you decide when their partnership ends as well?"
Dazai tilts his head, eyes dark and considering.
Chuuya needs more wine. "That's not what I meant, you self-centered asshole. Not everything's about you."
Dazai drains his own glass and sets it next to Chuuya's. "The reason I left had nothing to do with you. I didn't think about you at all."
Chuuya twists, planting one hand and one knee on the couch to swing the other leg around to Dazai's neck. He blames the wine for the fact that Dazai catches it easily in his bandaged palm. Long fingers stroke over Chuuya's ankle.
Dazai leans closer. "If I had thought about you, I would have made the same choice, though."
Something in Dazai's expression halts the retort on Chuuya's lips, and he suddenly knows what Dazai will say next.
After every mission, Dazai sprawled in his bed and talked and schemed and strategized to keep Chuuya whole, and finally he'd strategized his way to this:
"You can't use Corruption without me," says Dazai.
But Chuuya says, "I can."
Dazai's fury is rare and beautiful. All dark, hard edges and arson-hot promises — it's so terribly bright that Chuuya almost believes it. Dazai lunges forward, and Chuuya is too dazzled to duck away. He falls back against the couch, shoulders pressed awkwardly against the arm, and Dazai crouches over him. His hands grip the couch arm on either side of Chuuya's face.
They touch only in specific places: Dazai's knee against his outer thigh. Dazai's other knee, against his inner thigh. Dazai's coat falling against his side. Dazai's arm, too close, brushing Chuuya's hair.
They barely touch, yet Chuuya is hot all over with his nearness, and his lungs are tight. Dazai's faintest touch is incapacitating, and Chuuya will never admit how much he likes that.
"But you won't," Dazai purrs.
Chuuya sighs, and looks away. "I won't." It's true. It has nothing to do with Dazai, but it's true.
Dazai shifts his weight, and on instinct, Chuuya seizes the wrist coming towards him. But all Dazai does is touch his cheek. Chuuya's eyes widen as cool fingertips move along his jaw, down his neck, to trace along his choker. His heart thuds.
This touch is not personal; it is political. Dazai is building an alliance.
"I'm not your pawn," he whispers.
Dazai's smile is blinding. "Would you rather be my queen?"
Chuuya's protest is muffled by Dazai's lips on his.
He bites, viciously, but Dazai only moans, the pervert, and hooks a finger under Chuuya's choker. Chuuya wonders how long Dazai's known he wanted this, and decides not to care. If this is an alliance, he'll fucking take it.
Eyes fluttering closed, he leans up into the kiss. Dazai's lips part for him, and he licks inside. Even the terrible chardonnay tastes better this way. His fingers catch on rough cotton. Each breath is hotter than the last, and his need has nothing to do with corruption after all.