Chuuya even surprised himself when he'd offered Dazai to share his room.
Spending the night with that irritating asshole?
What had he been thinking?
In all honesty, there was no way he could've had any thoughts running through his head when he'd made that decision, because why would he ever want to be stuck with Dazai for such an aggravatingly long amount of time?
Once, Dazai got back from helping Atsushi bring Akutagawa into their now shared room, Chuuya almost groaned at the annoyingly smug look on his face.
He wasn't going to get any peace tonight, was he?
Allowing Dazai to help him stand, the two made their way into what once had been Chuuya's room. Then, albeit begrudgingly, Chuuya let Dazai help him lay down on the bed.
He hated how defenseless his newfound lack of self-sufficiency made him feel. While Chuuya knew he was sure to bounce back within a few days, given the power that Arahabaki gave him, he hated the days that he struggled like this one.
He didn't like being backed into corners and yet, it was something that had plagued him his whole life since he was a kid. Still, it wasn't like there was much that he could actually do about it. It was just the cards that life had handed him.
Recognizing that fact seemed to make it all ten times worse.
The bed dipped down beside him and Chuuya was entirely unsurprised to see Dazai joining him on the mattress. That bastard would never sleep on the floor.
A part of Chuuya contemplated shoving Dazai off the bed and forcing him to sleep on the ground. However, Chuuya knew that even trying to pull a stunt like that would be fruitless in the end. Dazai was like a cockroach. He always came back no matter the circumstances, so it just wasn't worth it.
Plus, as much as Chuuya hated to admit it, after everything that Dazai had done for him, the least he deserved was a bed.
Closing his eyes, Chuuya willed himself to fall asleep.
Except found that he couldn't, as the ghost-like sensation of someone staring at him kept him from the pull of unconsciousness.
"Dazai," Chuuya gritted out between his teeth, "go to fucking sleep."
"But I'm not tired! Besides, with how loud you snore, it's not like I'll be getting much sleep anyways."
"Hey, fuck you! I don't snore," Chuuya protested, his eyes finally opening to glare into Dazai's. "If anything, you do. You used to snore all the time when we were kids and had to share rooms on missions. Do you know how irritating that was? I barely got any sleep because of it."
"Neither did I," Dazai confessed. A cruel look crossed his face, making Chuuya do a double-take.
"Wait a damn second. Did you do that on purpose? Goddamn it, Dazai!"
"I was imitating you! I wanted you to know how it felt!"
"God, I hate you."
"I doubt you could ever hate me, as much as I hate you," Dazai grumbled back.
As much as Dazai endlessly made Chuuya want to strangle him, it was nice, to be able to fall back into their routine of playful jabs. Especially after everything that they had been through within the past couple of weeks.
Although Chuuya would safeguard this secret with his life, their banter was one thing that Chuuya truly loved about Dazai.
"It was your own fault anyways since I was imitating you," Dazai continued. "So it's not like you can be mad at me. I mean, if you just stopped snoring then I wouldn't have to imitate you."
"Dazai!" Chuuya yelled, ignoring the fact that there were now two others in the safe house. "I. Don't. Fucking. Snore."
At first, Dazai didn't say anything in return. Instead, he just reached over and opened a drawer in a cabinet that sat next to the bed. From it, he retrieved a phone that looked a little bit worn.
Hitting the power button, Dazai turned it on and then proceeded to make his way through the camera roll until suddenly he stopped on a video with a very familiar background.
The Battle against Lovecraft.
Looking proud of himself, Dazai hit the play button and adjusted the screen so that both he and Chuuya could watch.
Chuuya inwardly cringed as the camera zoomed in on him laying in a clearing, the snores that Dazai had described now echoing throughout their shared room.
"You know what, fuck you! Filming people while they're sleeping is creepy as hell. You do know that right?" Chuuya tore the phone away from Dazai's tight grip, who let out a protest at the sudden action.
Quickly depositing the video in the trash folder, Chuuya passed the phone back to Dazai, who didn't seem as disappointed as he should be. Granted, Chuuya wasn't entirely surprised. Knowing that bastard, he probably had multiple backups on multiple other devices.
"You know you can retrieve videos from the trash folder, right?"
"Shut the fuck up, Dazai."
Atsushi couldn't sleep.
Instead, he just sat there, his hand tightly gripping Ryuunosuke's. Silent tears streaked down his cheeks, in the dead of night.
The battle against Fukuchi played on repeat within his mind.
"What you did was so stupid, you know?" Atsushi's gaze turned to stare at Akutagawa's limp form.
Unsurprisingly, there was no response.
A sad laugh rang throughout the room.
"Back then… before this, if you heard me call you stupid, you probably would've tried to tear off my right leg again with Rashomon... or maybe not. I guess you were getting better. I was really proud of you, you know?"
Atsushi sighed.
"I miss talking to you. Not like this though. Like this, I feel like I'm talking to a ghost. I mean, you're right there, Ryuunosuke, I'm holding your hand, and yet, somehow you're still gone. I want you back. No. I need you back."
Atsushi drummed the fingers of his other hand against his knee, in an attempt to ground himself.
"Still, even with what we had. I still don't understand why you did what you did, Ryuunosuke. Why did you save me from Fukuchi? You told me 'You fool. Hurry up and go.' What does that even mean? Why didn't you run? Why did you leave me? Why did I leave you?"
Atsushi bit his lip, stress weighing down his body.
"Still, whether or not I'll ever learn the meaning of your last words, they make me wonder if we ever could've been something more. Because well… I think that we could have. Ryuunosuke, I think I loved you. No, that's wrong... I know I loved you. But now you're gone and I can never tell you that. God, I'm so stupid! Look at me making a confession like that to someone who's no longer even here! It's pathetic. Then again, you never confessed to me either while you were still living, so I guess that makes you pathetic too."
Silence.
"Where the hell am I even going with this?"
Atsushi lifted a hand, running it through his hair.
His fingers pulled at the roots until his scalp began to hurt.
"I'm going to bring you back. I won't rest until I do, because even though you irritated me to no end, we both cared at the end of the day. I know we did. I just wish that you'd left the Port Mafia. You would've done great at the Armed Detective Agency. Imagine, you'd even get to work with Dazai. He probably would've just taken advantage of you though and made you do all of his paperwork. You probably wouldn't have complained though. You would've done all the paperwork in the world for Dazai's approval, because did I forget to mention you're an idiot?"
Again, he was met with no response.
"I hate not hearing your voice," Atsushi confessed, dropping the hand gripping his hair back into his lap. "I hate that you're not telling me how pathetic I am. I hate that you're not giving me shit for things that don't even matter. I hate that I miss you so goddamn much!"
A sob escaped Atsushi's mouth.
"I miss you. I miss you so much and I hate that there's nothing that I can do that would bring you back. Right here. Right now."
A finger twitched in his hand, almost as if Ryuunosuke were finally responding to his words.
"Ryuunosuke?"
Atsushi let go of Ryuunosuke's hand and stood, observing his friend, who still appeared to be unconscious.
"Huh, weird." His brow furrowed and he moved to sit back down.
However, just before he could, cloudy gray eyes snapped open, startling Atsushi, who stumbled back a couple of steps.
A sharp tendril of Rashomon broke through the bindings, before tearing right through Atsushi's exposed stomach.
He let out a cry of pain as fear lit up in his eyes. Desperately, Atsushi blinked his eyes, praying that he'd just fallen asleep and this all was a nightmare. This couldn't be happening.
Not now. Not yet!
He'd thought that he'd at least have a day to figure things out, but now his assumption was quite literally gutting him alive.
Scarlet-colored blood dripped down Atsushi's chin and he felt like he was going to be sick. He didn't want to fight Ryuunosuke. Not after everything he'd done to save him.
What if he had to kill him?
"Ryuunosuke, stop. It's me!"
His pleas fell on deaf ears, as Ryuunosuke only proceeded to tear off his leg, leaving Atsushi doubled-over in pain on the floor.
He had been stupid. So stupid.
Against Atsushi's will, their planned battle that they had planned during a time that now felt like so long ago, had come early.
