Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The weather was beautiful, a warm breeze spilled through the grass around Dazai’s resting form, tickling his cheeks and shifting his hair. It was a lovely day for a picnic, and he’d brought all the right supplies— an intricately woven wicker basket Kunikida had gifted him a few years ago on his birthday, a spread of fresh artisan cheeses over spiced crackers and, of course, a bottle of Silver Oak vintage. He propped himself up on one arm and took a long sip directly from the bottle. 

“I still don’t understand why you drink this stuff,” Dazai said, the shadow of a familiar whine in his voice. He wrinkled his nose and pursed his lips as the sour bite of the wine settled in the back of his throat, before pouring the rest of the bottle out over the dirt beside him, watching it sink and disappear almost instantly under the summer sun. “Chuuya is very thirsty today, I see.” 

He set the empty bottle on the grass next to him, paying it no mind as it fell over onto its side and reclining back with his arms crossed beneath his head. He looked up at the sky, practically cloudless and objectively pleasant, then turned on his side to etch the carvings on the tombstone even further into his memory.

There wasn’t a body beneath the grave—Corruption had swallowed up what was left of Chuuya’s body right after it took his life. Or at least, that was what Dazai had been told, because he hadn’t been there.

They buried an empty casket. The mafia and others Dazai had interrogated following the wake said as much and many other entirely unhelpful things. Chuuya’s body was ‘with the gods of the world now,’ he had been ‘elevated’ into something more than human at the moment of his death— but Chuuya had always lived as a god, in Dazai’s mind, and Dazai knew him best. 

And yet, Chuuya managed to die just like any other human, if maybe a bit more theatrically. Dazai wondered if he was pleased, to have been unmade by the limits of his own humanity, to have finally done something Dazai hadn’t planned for. 

He closed his eyes, letting the wind wash over his face like spring water. “I’m sorry Chuuya, I don’t think I can go in today, either,” Dazai sighed, blowing the air out of his mouth and angling it towards his bangs. “It’s so lovely outside, you know, I’d like to stay and rest with you a little longer.” He sighed internally over the protests he could hear Chuuya making in his mind. “Go to work, shitty Dazai, be useful.” “Come back after.” “That stupid fucking agency will collapse without you.” 

Wrong.

Dazai had learned, sometime in the last eight months, that the agency didn’t really need him as much as he originally assumed. Kunikida barely even called to ask him to come to work anymore, and Yosano had taken to simply dropping off packages of groceries at his door every few weeks. They hardly asked him to do much of anything. 

He wasn’t needed.

But, he had been loved— which was honestly a great deal more than a creature like himself would ever deserve, and so he’d melted into it like a lost child. The danger in that was he no longer had the strength to live without it. Being cared for so wholly had left him newly unvarnished against the thousand aches and slices the harsh world pressed into his skin and shoulders. 

Perhaps, if those he’d lost known each other– Odasaku and Chuuya– neither of them would have died. If Dazai had introduced them, he was certain they’d have gotten along quite well. But, of course, he hadn’t— because he’d been afraid. Afraid that, given time, they’d discover they enjoyed each other’s company far more than his, and Dazai would be left again with nothing.

And so he was.

Friendless. Loveless. Utterly unecessary. 

He reached for the wine bottle again, briefly forgetting he’d given the rest to Chuuya, before packing it back into the picnic basket along with the untouched food. He gathered himself up from the grass, slowly brushing the broken blades from his overcoat and tilting his head to the sky. “Chuuya, I think it’s time for me to come join you.” Dazai twisted his torso left and right, rolling his arms and hearing the aches and cracks of his body protesting the stretch. “It’s been long enough.” 

A sudden, harsh screech from about fifty meters to Dazai’s left broke his thoughts apart, turning his attention to the edge of the memorial grounds, where Atsushi was running along the treeline, furiously checking what looked like a small pocket watch and shouting. 

“I’m late… late! I can’t be late today, I can’t!” Dazai hadn’t seen the boy in two weeks. He looked terrible. 

Dazai stumbled towards him, empty shell swiftly filling up with guilt and obligation. He hit the forest only a few minutes after Atsushi had disappeared into the trees. He called out awkwardly, creeping forward into the semidarkness, blinking as his eyes adjusted to from the brightness of the unfiltered sun. “Atsushi-kun?”

Dazai couldn’t see where Atsushi had gone off to. It was getting hard to see anything in front of him, rather unnaturally so, which sang a hundred dark possibilities in his overactive mind. He slowed his pursuit.

Well, he meant to slow his pursuit. What actually happened was that Dazai took two gentle steps forward before tripping face first into a giant sinkhole, knocking his head on the edge of the soil, and passing out directly.

 *  *  *       

He woke up an undetermined amount of time later to a man who looked startlingly like Ranpo frowning down at him. He lifted his head and shoulders up, resting heavily on the backs of his elbows and waiting for the sting in his bones to subside. This was the first time his body had ached more than his soul in months.

“Who are you?” Ranpo asked, poking harshly at the side of Dazai’s cheek with a stick. He was standing on what looked like a university lecturer’s podium littered with cartoonish stickers of what appeared to be several different kinds of mushrooms, and an incredibly long flower stem hung out from the side of his mouth.

“Ranpo-san?” Dazai asked. It didn’t make sense for Ranpo to be here, he should be at the agency. It was possible that he’d been assigned fieldwork with Atsushi today, but Dazai immediately dismissed that probability as quite low, given the circumstance.

“That’s my name, idiot. Who are you?” Ranpo slapped his cheek with the stick in time with the emphasis on his words. A small thorn broke off and nestled itself into the skin over Dazai’s cheekbone— he raised his hand to his face to pull it out, blinking. 

There shouldn’t be pain, if this were a dream… but then, Dazai’s dreams were always full of pain, especially of late. 

“Dazai,” he answered cautiously, dragging himself off the ground and taking quick stock of his surroundings. Dark forest, heavy underbrush, strange foliage. Escape routes technically available in all directions; however, there was no clear way to tell if an escape into any one direction would not present with some other danger.

“No.” Ranpo made to smack him with what Dazai was coming to realize was the stem of a rosebush again before he ducked out of range. 

“Excuse me?”

“I said no, that name is already taken.” Ranpo shook his head, opening a large book and placing it atop the ridiculous podium in front of him.

“That’s my name, though, Dazai Osamu.” Dazai leaned forward over the book, which looked like an incredibly long school roster. 

“And it’s still taken! Try again before I get bored and kick you out of my forest.” Ranpo pointed to a spot near the middle of the page, where the name Dazai Osamu was stricken through with red ink and a few other notations that made Dazai’s breath shudder in his chest.

Dazai Osamu— Unavailable. Custodian; Nakahara Chuuya.

Dazai took a moment to bottle the wild desperation that swelled up inside his soul. “So, if I give you a different name now, would I be able to see the person who has mine?” He held his breath, looking directly at this peculiar forest-dwelling Ranpo, noticing for the first time that he appeared to have vertical slits for pupils. Cat's eyes.

“Sure,” Ranpo responded.

“Should I make one up, then?” Dazai raised one eyebrow sardonically, expecting some form of backlash for being so directly dishonest. 

“If you’d like.” Ranpo uncapped his pen.

“Tsushima Shuuji.” As soon as the words left Dazai’s mouth Ranpo scribbled them into the large book on his podium and a very strange, slippery feeling passed through Dazai’s chest. 

“There, that wasn’t so hard, was it?” Ranpo asked, and Dazai stared straight ahead, past his shoulders and into the trees, where it looked like something strange had just moved. “Alright, now that the name debacle has been settled, where’s your fare?”

“What?” Dazai blinked again.

“Your fare, Tsushima Shuuji. The price one pays to enter Wonderland.” Ranpo had closed the book now and was stepping off the podium, losing about thirty centimeters of height in the process.

“Wonderland?” Dazai repeated the word uselessly. 

“You’re quite slow. Yes, Wonderland, the country you are entering right now.”

Huh.

Ranpo turned his attention towards a giant sequoia tree to his left, which seemed itself to tremble in the face of him. “Atsushi! Come out from behind there, give me double your usual fee, and then take this clueless beanpole to the Hatter’s house.”  

After a few moments, a very put-upon looking Atsushi stepped out from behind the tree, and Dazai immediately noticed something he hadn’t back at the memorial grounds— Atsushi had large, white, fluffy bunny ears shooting out from the top of either side of his head.

“Ranpo-san, I don’t really have the time to—” 

“Get him out of my sight and where he needs to be going to immediately, before I void your inter-universal travel pass!” Ranpo cut him off with a statement that had the gears in Dazai’s head turning at full speed and Atsushi fumbling in his pockets and muttering to himself about undue responsibility always being forced onto his shoulders— which was pretty par for the course for Atsushi's role in any universe, Dazai had to admit. 

Thus, having calmed down considerably now that he’d decided to believe this was either genuinely an alternate universe, or just a very intense delusion— Dazai followed the strange, floppy-eared Atsushi as he sped through the forest and out into an incredibly fantastical looking garden. 

The garden spanned about two hundred meters, lined neatly with trees bearing some indigo-colored fruit Dazai could not identify, with several winding cobblestone paths that lead up to an enormous, chaotically designed mansion. 

There were clusters of flowers spread all across the field, gathered like social circles— iris, buttercup, orchids, yarrow. Several of the clusters seemed to giggle as he walked by, and Dazai was mostly certain a few of the red snapdragons had actually bitten at his clothes when he brushed past them.

“Stay on the stones, Dazai-san, the flowers here are absolutely uncivilized,” Atsushi commented.

“Right,” he answered, feeling a little curious— and a little out of place— but determined that after all the wildness of what he’d just experienced in the forest with the odd, incredibly argumentative Ranpo, he was rather prepared for any additional strangeness. Of course, following the manner life in general had been going for Dazai lately, he was entirely incorrect.

There came a sudden crash and a shout from above, the splintering sound of glass breaking, and Dazai looked up just in time to see a giant, ornately upholstered sofa sail swiftly over his head and crash into the garden. Atsushi shuddered beside him. Several flowers screamed.

“I wholeheartedly hate this place,” Atsushi muttered under his breath.

Dazai watched as a tall woman with grey hair and matching fox ears burst from the frontmost-facing door of the mansion. “I can’t work like this anymore, you insufferable mad hatter!”

The door swung open again and a sharp, playfully wild laugh Dazai had heard at his right hand a thousand times as a teenager spilled out from the threshold. 

“I make garments now, actually.”

 *  *  *    

Dazai woke up on his back in a strange place for the second time that day, uncertain about how he’d wound up in this situation again and choosing to ignore the most likely possibility. He could hear Chuuya’s booming voice above him.

“This one’s fucking gorgeous, Usagi-kun! So good of you to bring him to me, he’ll make a fine replacement. What’s your name, pretty thing?” Chuuya asked, hair sliding from his shoulders in waves as he leaned down to hover over Dazai’s face. A few buttons and bits of thread fell into the grass around them. 

He was wearing green.

“Chuuya?” Dazai could hardly believe his eyes, which he felt was mostly sensible because it wasn’t as though they’d never lied to him before. His fingers clenched at his sides, aching to run through that unkempt, firey hair. 

“Yes, yes. Lovely to meet you, how do you do, etcetera. And you?” Chuuya held out his hand, and some observational piece of Dazai’s mind behind the shaking, screaming need to reach back noticed there were several misshapen, peculiar-looking rings that wound around the joints of each of his fingers.

“What?” he asked.

“Your name, darling, I can’t draw up a contract without a fucking name.” Chuuya pulled his hand away and crossed his arms over his chest.

“Dazai.” 

The flowers stopped giggling. Chuuya stopped breathing. Dazai remembered his fake name.

“Did you fucking hear that?” Chuuya turned aside to call out to Atsushi, tone grown suddenly violent. 

“Hatter-san, I really have to go…” Atsushi bowed slightly, backing himself awkwardly off the property at a speed that could hardly be considered polite.

“He says his name’s Dazai!” Chuuya threw his head back and laughed, a large, pine-colored hat sliding off his body and into the grass. “But that’s impossible! No one has that name anymore. I own it.”

“Well, about that—” Dazai attempted to interrupt, but Chuuya pressed his palm over Dazai’s mouth so quickly and firmly it might have been called a slap, if Dazai knew how to parse the difference between those sort of things.

“Be quiet!” Chuuya growled and Dazai’s jaw snapped itself shut beneath his palm. 

“Dazai-san! I’m late for a meeting, but will you please tell Akutagawa I’ll be back on Sunday to take him to the seaside?” Atsushi shouted, somehow already at the very edge of the property and looking like he was itching to leave as fast as he was able.

“Sure,” Dazai answered, having processed exactly none of what Atsushi had requested at all. He turned back to Chuuya, watching the anger rise inside him and spill over into fits of dark laughter and clenched fists.

His profile was striking, utterly lovely, and Dazai had somehow forgotten how divine the shape of Chuuya’s jawline was since he’d seen it last. He looked entirely, magnificently wild; eyes wide, hair spilling past his shoulders as he cackled into the open sky. 

It was acutely terrible to behold, and Dazai found immediately that he couldn’t stop looking, so he did what he always did when Chuuya laughed like that— he reached out, brushing his fingers deftly under Chuuya’s sleeve and against his naked wrist, holding on until the laughter stopped. 

“What the fuck are you doing?” Chuuya stared up at him sharply. His pulse rippled, warm and erratic beneath his skin before Dazai drew back his hand. He hadn’t seen that slant of anger on Chuuya’s features in years.

It felt like choking.

“Chuuya—” There came a sudden, overwhelming clamor of bells. He looked over Chuuya’s shoulder and towards the strange outdoor dining hall table behind him, where several wind-up style clocks had gone off all at once. 

“Shit. It’s time!” Chuuya clapped his hands together and ran towards the table like a madman, uncapping various pots and pans, turning a few alarms off carefully and shattering others violently to pieces with a swift fist. He looked back at Dazai, no trace of the previous moment’s anger, waving at him in welcome. “Come sit down, sweetheart, you’re late for tea!” 

Dazai definitely wasn’t late for tea with Chuuya, because he’d never once scheduled tea with Chuuya, or with anyone—  but Chuuya was somehow here, laughing and breathing and telling Dazai to come sit and so he decided there was nothing else to do but listen.

He took a seat at the edge of the table, watching as Chuuya fluttered around the space, muttering nonsensically to himself. He poured several cups of tea and set three of them down in front of Dazai, frowning at each in turn before his expression finally lit up and he pushed a violet cup with a crack down the middle forwards, nodding encouragingly. 

Dazai reached out to grab the handle and Chuuya suddenly smacked his hand away. “Wait! It’s not right!” 

“Uh,” He drew back, inspecting the beginnings of the large welt already forming on the back of his palm. There was a rush of air against his face.

“What are you thinking, would you like to be my model, darling? I’ll put you in all the best,” Chuuya asked, suddenly hovering right beside him. His expression was wild again, over-wide eyes and crooked half smile distorting his attractive features, and yet Dazai found him nothing less than painfully beautiful. 

“I am thinking that this is a very strange dream,” he replied, staring into Chuuya’s eyes as they filled with a dark, mad delight.

“Oh, definitely.”

Chapter Text

The tea was better than Dazai expected from such a haphazard method of preparation. It was an herbal blend— citrus, ginger, and a few other things his palate couldn’t identify with certainty. 

“More sugar, sweetheart?” Chuuya leaned forward over the table, hand outstretched, two sugar cubes nestled neatly among the rings on his fingers.

“No, thank you,” Dazai replied, finding the urge to be formal hard to repress. Chuuya smiled and dropped the sugar cubes into his own teacup.

“Pretty and polite.” Chuuya hummed to himself, nodding vaguely. “You know, that’s very attractive in a gentleman.” He reached out again to tuck a lock of Dazai’s hair behind his right ear. Their eyes met, and Chuuya’s uneven smile sent his diaphragm into his stomach.

Another alarm clock rang, a spiraling tune that had Chuuya’s hand out of Dazai’s hair and fluttering over the ridiculous machine instead. He stood up abruptly, spilling the remains of his tea across the table, and Dazai watched the dark liquid pool along the grooves of the wood absently. 

“Up!” Chuuya shouted, breaking through the cloud over Dazai’s thoughts and gesturing wildly for him to leave his seat. “To the left, my dear, to the left.”

Dazai stared up at the man before him. He looked so remarkably like Chuuya it was painful and yet, Dazai found he could hardly look away. Their expressions were comparable, to an extent— the voice, a direct hit. This was Chuuya, Dazai concluded, but also, it wasn’t. 

“Come now, movement is good for the mind.” Chuuya laughed, expression wild and open to the sky before he dipped forward and pulled roughly at the skirt around the table’s edge. “Ryuu, you too— come out!” 

Ryuu?

A tired groan came from underneath the table, perpendicular to where Dazai was sitting. “Ryuu, seriously, I will not have you under the fucking table while we have a guest for tea!” Chuuya reached further under the cloth, disappearing partially before the entire extended dining table shot into the air so quickly the edge nearly cracked Dazai’s jaw as he hurried to lean back. 

The dandelions in the grass behind them gasped and cried, shivering in the shifted sunlight.

“Let me sleep, Chuuya-san.”

Looking down, Dazai could see the familiar, lanky shape of Akutagawa huddled sleepily in the grass— surrounded by several colorful throw pillows. He turned in Dazai’s direction, rubbing his eyes as Dazai’s wandered over the large, grey mouse ears poking out from his hair.

Chuuya stood beneath the table now— a single hand effortlessly holding the six meter long dining table in the air above them, smirking daringly like Dazai had seen him do a hundred times after winning a game of strip poker. “Good morning Ryuunosuke, darling, won’t you join us for tea?” 

Dazai stood up from his chair while Akutagawa groaned irritably before reluctantly dragging himself upright and into a space at Dazai’s right. At Chuuya’s direction, they both moved three chairs over and sat once again, Chuuya scrambling to reset the table on that end and serve them both tea and cakes.

“Uh, hello.” Dazai turned briefly to acknowledge Akutagawa, mentally adding him to the list of his acquaintances that this strange alternate universe contained dopplegangers of. 

“Hi.” Akutagawa blinked sleepily in his direction before setting his head down atop a plate of fresh, violet-colored macaroons. He didn’t seem to recognize Dazai in any meaningful way— and neither had the rabbit-eared Atsushi. This Chuuya did seem to have a reaction to the mention of Dazai’s name, however, which must be significant.

He looked across the table at the oddly, frighteningly, alluringly unhinged Chuuya again, overwhelmed and entirely unsure of the best course of action he might take to turn this situation into something a bit more emotionally manageable. Some of the wildness in Chuuya’s expression softened when their eyes met.

“Don’t worry, dear. He’s always like that.” Chuuya set a small, ice-blue sugar cookie onto Dazai’s plate, smiling beatifically when he picked it up and took a bite. 

It was soft and sweet, and the icing hadn’t yet hardened. “Fantastic,” Chuuya hummed, reaching into his coat pocket to pull out a scroll, opening the seal and letting the paper unroll itself halfway across the party table. “Here’s your contract of employment— work as my garment model and sales assistant, and you can have free room and board in my home, along with a generous salary of thirty-six hundred notes per week.” He handed Dazai what appeared to be a calligraphy pen. “You sign at the bottom.”

Dazai scanned over the document, which seemed to contain a large amount of legal jargon. It would take some time to look through. “I’ll need time to read this over.”

“Read it over!” Chuuya repeated dramatically, rolling his eyes. “How fucking boring. Just sign it, pretty thing, let’s have fun!” He tapped the pen in Dazai’s hands.

It felt suddenly dangerous.

“Well—” Another alarm clock went off, interrupting Dazai’s attempt to defend the importance of reading contracts of employment before signing them to his apparent potential employer. Chuuya smashed the machine to pieces with the palm of his hand, still smiling in Dazai’s direction. 

“Time’s up, I guess,” Chuuya sighed, rolling up the contract and handing it to Dazai before dusting his coat and walking towards the house. He turned back to face Dazai briefly and said, “Read it if you must and then come inside; I’d like to show you my coats.”

                                                                                                    * * * 

After spending somewhere between ten and twenty seconds attempting to read the contract, Dazai stuffed it hastily inside his coat pocket and sped after Chuuya towards the house, or, mansion.

Peculiar-looking piece of architecture.

It was incredibly large and strangely colored— navy, pale yellow, and white. There were multiple spires stretching upwards from various levels of the structure. Most of the windows were circular or domed, but Dazai noticed several which were shaped like stars. Looking at the house too long sent an unnatural chill up Dazai’s spine— it felt almost as though the house was looking back.

He followed Chuuya inside, crossing the threshold with a shudder as Chuuya shouted, “I’m home,” to no one in particular, unlocking a door to the left that led to a large open-plan work room with a vaulted ceiling and multi-colored stars decorating the walls.

There were about seven designer mannequins standing at various points in the space, several of which had coats— or the early makings of such— pinned around their chests. Chuuya spun in place at the opposite end of the room, sighing contentedly before shedding his hat and overcoat and laying them gently on a small sofa. 

“I’m so glad you’ve come, I’ve been in desperate need of a live model for my winter collection,” Chuuya said.

“It’s August tenth,” Dazai replied, but Chuuya only shook his head, frowning.

“In the world of fashion, we look ahead.” He rolled up the sleeves of his shirt and stepped towards Dazai, fussing absently with the edges of his coat. “It gets cold here rather quickly, and winters have been longer and harsher than they were before the war. This thin one will never work.”

“The war?” Dazai asked, wondering what sort of history this strange place had. Chuuya looked up at him intently, narrowing his eyes.

“Are you a foreigner?”

“Yes,” Dazai replied, because it was the most believable and least dishonest answer he could give. 

“Well, you speak beautiful Japanese.” Chuuya laughed, more good natured than he had done so far. “All right, take off this tan fucking monstrosity and let’s see what we’re working with.” Chuuya tapped him along the forearm, shifting his brow line suggestively.

“Ah,” Dazai hesitated, taking a moment to breathe. Chuuya was touching him. Standing right in front of him.

“Don’t be shy, darling— I promise you look lovely.” Chuuya ran his fingers over Dazai’s chest and his heart flipped. 

“No, it’s just—” He coughed against the jump in his throat. It’s just I never thought I’d see you again. Touch you, be touched by you. 

“Ah,” Chuuya nodded sagely. “You love your coat. I can respect a man who loves what he wears, however fucking ridiculous...” he trailed off, inspecting the fabric. “Though, you would look much better in blue or white,” he continued, turning around to grab a deep navy overcoat from one of the mannequins and Dazai’s mind stumbled again. Blue or white. Chuuya had said that a thousand times, in Yokohama. He was always trying to dress him in blue or white. “Don’t worry, doll, I’ll put it on the sofa and you can have it back as soon as we’re done, okay?”

“Okay.” Dazai nodded, letting Chuuya shrug him out of his overcoat and into a new one, and it was instantly a hundred memories of his Chuuya doing just the same. His knees wavered.

“Wonderful, deep breaths dear…” Chuuya stepped back, surveying Dazai with a hand massaging at the underside of his chin. “Hm, something isn’t right— it’s very wrong actually. This can’t be in my workspace.” He tore three buttons off the coat, frowning, before throwing them straight through the far side wall like bullets and stalking out of the room.

Dazai stood alone in the empty space for about thirty seconds before he finally shattered, fell to his knees, and cried.

 * * * 

Sometime later, he decided enough was enough, composed himself, gathered his belongings, and left the workroom. He took a right down the hall, calling Chuuya’s name lightly as he went. 

The house was unsettling without the distraction of Chuuya’s presence or a minor mental collapse, and Dazai noticed the way the walls seemed to bend and stretch— with a quiet, childlike laugh hovering at the edge of his senses. 

The first door Dazai opened revealed a quaint, warm looking kitchen with the walls painted a bright orange. Dazai moved forward and tried another door, which held a small, pink room with tatami flooring and a simple futon. He moved through the house with greater confidence, walking up a gold spiral staircase and finding multiple rooms of various taste and sensibility. 

There was a grand, western-style bedroom decorated completely in shades of neon, a bathroom constructed entirely of black granite, a giant storeroom stocked with reams of fabric— but there were also stranger spaces. There was an indigo-colored room filled with clocks of different sizes, none of which told the same time, upon inspection. Another door opened onto a room full of pastel colored pillows where, after entering briefly, Dazai noticed Akutagawa sleeping soundly in the corner, ears twitching. 

At the end of the hall Dazai came upon an imposing, cherry-stained mahogany door. He attempted to turn the handle, but it was locked, which struck Dazai as slightly odd because none of the others had been. Briefly, he considered taking the pick out of his coat pocket and opening the door himself.

“Chuuya?” Dazai called out, knocking on the door once before he heard that strange, childlike laugh again. Without warning, the floor disappeared from underneath him, and he fell about four meters downwards before landing unceremoniously on his ass in the center of a large balcony.

“Hello, darling. Is my house playing with you?” 

Chuuya was leaning over the railing, a long, curved pipe in his hand and a cloud of violet smoke pooling from his lips. He hadn’t redressed himself with the coat or hat he had been wearing earlier, and Dazai’s eyes raked helplessly over his exposed figure in a white button-down oxford with rolled-up sleeves. He seemed calmer. 

Dazai rubbed at the ache along his side and slowly rose to his feet. “Does it typically play with guests?” He asked, sliding up next to Chuuya like a moth to flame. 

“Yeah,” Chuuya pulled from the pipe as Dazai watched, blowing bright rings into the darkening sky. The pipe was intricate, wood and metal lacing together in a mesmerizing pattern. “Would you like to try?” Chuuya held the piece out to him, expression serene. 

Dazai wrinkled his nose. “I prefer cigarettes, Chi— Chuuya.” 

“What’s that?” Chuuya asked, and Dazai dug into his breast pocket, flipping the cigarette tin open and sliding one into his mouth directly out of habit. 

He didn’t have a lighter.

“Can I use your light?” he asked, taking the cigarette out of his mouth and dangling it over the bowl of Chuuya’s pipe. Chuuya nodded and flipped the lid, looking at him curiously.

Dazai took the light and let the nicotine slowly calm his nerves as they smoked against the sunset, the routine comforting and familiar even as he watched strange twin moons shimmer above the horizon. “Where am I supposed to sleep?” he asked.

“Would you like to sleep with me?” Chuuya grinned up at him, cocky and a little lopsided in a way that was so near to what Dazai remembered, apart from the darkening wildness in his eyes. Dazai stepped back from the balcony. 

This was not his Chuuya.

“Oh, I can keep my hands to myself, if you like.” Chuuya turned around to face him, the shadow in his expression replaced with desperation. “Just stay with me.” 

Dazai felt the walls of his chest constrict, he braced one hand against the balcony railing and the other in his coat pocket. “Is there anywhere else?” he begged.

Chuuya’s expression shuttered briefly, before becoming overly exaggerated like it had been earlier. “Of course.” He turned, opening the sliding door to leave the balcony and Dazai followed, shame setting into his stomach. They walked through a lavish, western-style bedroom decorated in deep reds and golds before coming back out into another one of the long hallways Dazai had previously explored. Chuuya stomped down the hall, cracking a few floorboards as he led Dazai up another flight of stairs and into a smaller bedroom that was still just as lavish as the first. He turned back to face Dazai, “Haven’t had to use a guest room in years but— here you are.” He laughed, and Dazai hated himself entirely. “Sleep linens are in the closet, they should fit… damn, you are tall— born to model, darling.” Another wild, painful laugh as Chuuya retreated down the hall. “Enjoy.”

“Chuuya—” Dazai reached out for the back of his shirt, snatching his hand away when Chuuya unexpectedly turned on a dime at his call. 

“Yes?” 

The universe hung between them as he stared into Chuuya’s wide, untamed eyes.

“Thank you.”

***

The pajamas were pastel blue, with a pattern of golden stars embroidered into the fabric. The fit was a little short, but incredibly soft and comfortable in a way Dazai hadn’t felt in a long time and couldn’t entirely explain. He pulled another pair out of the closet and tried to find a tag to note the material, but there were no typical garment markers on either the shirt or the pants, so he settled himself into the indigo-colored bedding, tossing several excess pillows to the floor and falling asleep instantly.

He had only slept an hour or so when a knock and a laugh sent him stumbling uncoordinatedly towards the door, but when Dazai opened it, there was no one in the hall. 

“Chuuya?” He called hoarsely, but the hallway only shimmered silently in the darkness. He stared a while longer and then shut the door.

The laughter and knocking returned instantly. 

What the fuck.

Dazai opened the door again— no one was behind it. He walked into the hallway, following the faint sound of laughter into the darkness until he turned a corner and came upon a large living room. Akutagawa was seated behind an extravagant grand piano, wearing the same pajama set Dazai had on. He moved to enter the room and ask Akutagawa if he knew anything about the strange knocking and laughter, but held back when he saw Chuuya stumble into the space from the opposite side and throw himself onto a sofa, guilt shivering in Dazai’s stomach again. 

“Ryuu, will you play something calming for me? I can’t sleep.” Chuuya's voice was soft, but carried well across the room all the same. Dazai dipped back partially behind the entryway, eavesdropping. 

“Did you take your medicine?” Akutagawa asked. He seemed more awake now than he had earlier, perhaps he mainly slept during the day— Dazai certainly wasn’t one to judge an off-center sleep schedule.

“I can’t remember.” Chuuya draped his forearm over his eyes.

“I’ll check the bottle.” Akutagawa shifted, moved halfway to stand before Chuuya interrupted him, voice soft.

“No, please— play a little.”

“Okay, Chuuya-san.” Akutagawa turned back to the piano, slipping into what Dazai recognized as Debussy’s Rêverie, and there was nothing but music between them for a few minutes.

“He didn’t want me, ya know. Isn’t that hilarious? Practically ran off the balcony!” Chuuya gestured with his hands as he spoke.

“Why did you hire him, then?”

“He looks just like…” Chuuya ran a hand through his hair, tone growing agitated. “I know he can’t help how he looks, it’s just— and the name. That fucking asshole Ranpo is playing games with me, sending him here with that face and that fucking name.”

Akutagawa hummed softly, still playing. 

“I’ll tell him not to sign the contract tomorrow. Clearly he can’t stand to be around— hah,” Chuuya laughed darkly, “Ah—” His face twisted suddenly with pain, fists clenching at his sides, his body curling into itself, shuddering. 

Akutagawa left the piano to kneel in front of the sofa. “Chuuya-san, did you take your medicine?”

Dazai backed up, drowning in shame. His mind spun, and a cruel voice whispered against the shell of his ear. 

“Your fault, now leave.”

He turned away from the scene, bracing himself against the wall as he slunk his way back to the lavish guest room, crawled into the bed, pulled the comforter around him tightly and closed his eyes.

There came a loud crack of thunder, and then the ceiling began to rain.

Chapter Text

The cold concrete floor of the jail cell dug into Chuuya’s cheek, the chains that bound his wrists far too heavy for him to lift after having no food the past few days. A novel sensation for his young mind.

Sunlight streamed in from the small window at the top of the brick wall, signaling the start of a new day he might just be lucky enough to live through. His entire right side was sore, the back of his shirt was soaked through with sweat from the blazing heat of the night before. Birds chirped outside, singing their cheerful tunes, while inside the town jail Chuuya sat rotting for a crime not entirely his own.

Coercion, or something like that.

There were footsteps coming into the cell area, and Chuuya gathered just enough strength to lift his head and see a pair of familiar ugly boots leading to a familiar ugly uniform. The white queen’s idea of an intimidating, professional aesthetic was honestly bland and boring as hell. Chuuya often fantasized about living in a world with more color. More passion. Style.

An old man scowled down at him, disgust apparent in the twist of his features.  The local sheriff. 

“Seems like your dirt-faced friends abandoned you,” he said, reaching for the ring of keys on the wall. “Not a peep out of that lot for the last four days about wanting you back. Guess you can assume you’re on your own now, kid. Don’t join any more street gangs if you know what's good for you.” He laughed, hearty and entirely at Chuuya’s expense, but Chuuya’s mouth was too dry to respond, so he said nothing.

The sheriff scoffed and unlocked the cell door. “Nobody wanted to bother with charging you either, and this is about how long we can hold your ass with no real crime to your name, so get up and get out.” He looked almost disappointed, gesturing vaguely towards the door. Chuuya swallowed the last bit of saliva in his mouth.

“...can’t.”

“You say something?”

“I can’t,” Chuuya repeated, louder this time. “I can’t get up.” To prove his point, he moved his shaky, unstable left arm until his hand was flat on the ground, then pushed himself up—or tried to, because his arm gave out and he went crashing back down, smacking his face against the concrete. He held in the cry of pain. Being overly vocal about vulnerability never served a street orphan well.

“So much for that alleged freak strength,” the sheriff muttered to himself, stepping into the cell. He bent over and grabbed Chuuya by the back of his shirt, hauling him to his feet. “There. You’re up. Now get.”

His knees threatened to buckle but he managed to stay upright, somehow. “The chains,” he said, lifting his arms a small amount before letting them fall back down. “Please.”

Manners were an unfortunate expression of his current desperation.

The sheriff put a hand on his back and pushed him forward, out of the cell, nearly toppling him over. “I think it’s in this town’s best interest if you just keep those on. Maybe the extra weight will keep you from destroying entire businesses.” The sheriff laughed again and Chuuya frowned, leaning against the stone corridor wall for support as he began to shift and drag himself towards the jailhouse exit. 

He’d break the chains off eventually.

***

The sun nearly blinded him when he stumbled outside, the heat of it like a slap to his already tender skin. The dirt road beneath his feet burning. He didn’t have the energy to curse, so he just kept moving, head down, chains dragging behind him.

He took a side alley. Then another. Then ducked behind the crumbling old bakery that always smelled like ash and nothing sweet. He kept going, body on autopilot, until the town gave way to dust and scrub grass, and the squat outline of the Sheep’s hideout appeared in the distance. A half-collapsed church no one had bothered to tear down, filled with cracks, and starving kids.

When he reached the back door, it creaked open before he could even knock.

“'Bout damn time,” said a girl with bright-white fox ears and a chipped front tooth—Yuan.

Another kid, taller and older, stepped in to help him over the threshold. Ram horns swam across his vision. Shirase. “Knew you’d make it back.”

They sat him down on an old pew and started fussing—untying the chains with improvised picks and stolen screwdrivers, rubbing his arms to bring the blood back. He didn’t say a word until someone finally asked:

“You mad?”

Chuuya blinked slowly. His head felt like it had been split in half. “No.”

Another voice, smaller, piped up from the shadows near the altar: “You had to be the one, y’know. You’re the strongest.”

He looked over, vision blurring until it sharpened on a kid no older than seven, missing a shoe and with scabs all over his knees.

“You can take a hit. More than any of us,” Yuan jumped in. “We all voted. You could last the longest in jail. You could get back.”

That made something in Chuuya’s chest tighten. He wanted to be angry. Wanted to tell them how badly it hurt. But instead he just leaned back against the rotten wood and closed his eyes.

“I get it.” Because he did. He remembered waking up a year ago, with blood on his lips and bruises he couldn’t explain. Empty. Alone. No memories—just hunger, and pain, and the creeping, burning sensation of being watched.

Then Sheep found him. Taught him how to steal food, how to eat it, how to pick locks and run fast. They hadn’t asked for anything but his strength in return.

So he gave it.

“I’ll break the chains,” he muttered, more to himself than anyone.

“We’re already doing it,” Yuam said, sticking her tongue out as she twisted one of the shackles open.

He let out a short laugh, hoarse. “Next time, someone else gets arrested.”

There was a beat of silence. Then someone muttered, “Next time it’s Yuan!”

“Hey!” she shouted. “I’d die in two hours!”

Everyone laughed.

Chuuya didn’t. But he did smile, for a moment.

Chapter Text

Dazai walked into the kitchen he’d found on his first exploration of Chuuya’s home the next morning, soaked and exhausted. Chuuya was sitting at the table with a cup of tea, wearing the same hat and coat as yesterday and looking far more healthy than he had the previous night. 

Was there something wrong with him? Was he ill?

“You’re supposed to undress before showering.” Chuuya offered him a vague smile.

“I didn’t shower, because there was no bathroom. All the doors in the hall opened up to brick walls, and it rained on me all night,” Dazai admitted, and Chuuya immediately directed his attention towards the kitchen ceiling.

“YUMENO—” Chuuya roared, stomping his foot against the floor and cracking several tiles under the table. “Yumeno, he’s a fucking guest!!”

The ceiling turned from pale yellow to dull grey, and Dazai looked from there, to Chuuya’s indignant expression, to Akutagawa, who had fallen asleep over a plate of waffles— and Dazai still couldn’t even fathom how his former subordinate fit into this incredibly strange living arrangement. 

“Don't worry about Ryuu, he’s just taken his cough medicine and it always hits him like this,” Chuuya explained, pulling his focus back from glaring the ceiling into submission.

Dazai thought for a moment about making excuses, about running away to start some anonymous, solitary life in a town somewhere far from there. He thought about returning to Yokohama, where he’d planned to throw himself into the river for the third time that week.

Why not?

Dazai took a seat across from Chuuya and poured himself a healthy cup of tea, pulling the now slightly soggy contract from his coat pocket and tossing it in front of Chuuya’s placemat. 

“I signed it.” He hadn’t read it either, hadn’t really been able to, with all the rain. 

Chuuya lit up like Tokyo Tower on Lunar New Year, grabbing the scroll from the table and tracing his fingers over the ink of Dazai’s signature. “You have to sign it with your true name, dear, not whatever nonsense Ranpo sold you at customs,” he said, staring intently at Dazai from across the table.

“That is my real name.” 

“Excuse me?” 

“My name,” Dazai explained, “is Dazai Osamu, just like your name is Nakahara Chuu—” 

Chuuya cut him off with a fist to the table. “How the fuck do you know that name?”

“Chuuya?” 

“The other one. Nakahara.” Chuuya frowned at him harshly, leaning over the table, that glittering madness having returned to his eyes. Dazai was beginning to find it vaguely thrilling— wondering what this Chuuya might do, where all his buttons were, etcetera. 

“I knew someone,” Dazai confessed, folding his hands over the cup of tea before him. “Someone with your face.” ‘Your name’ went unspoken. He listened as Chuuya’s breath caught. 

“You knew me?” Chuuya asked, eyes grown wide, wondering. He made a fist and paced his chin over it, hat tipping dangerously towards slipping off his head. 

“In another place.” Dazai reached out to catch the brim and hold it steady.

“In your home country?” Chuuya asked, tone now light and curious, accepting the idea of a far-away doppelgänger more easily than Dazai was accepting the one staring right at him.

“Yes.”

“Well, what was I like?” 

“Eh…” Dazai thought about it. About all the things Chuuya was in Yokohama, and all the things that were already so different here, and yet somehow strangely the same. “Strong.”

“I’m strong,” Chuuya growled, reaching out to catch both of Dazai’s wrists with one hand, pinning them to the table to make a show of it, eyes aflame once again. 

He was fantastically volatile. 

“You are,” Dazai said.

“Oh,” Chuuya nodded, seemingly placated. He let go of Dazai’s wrists and patted them in a vaguely apologetic manner. “Sorry.”

“How long have you lived here?” Dazai asked, not to be outdone on information gathering, as a point of pride.

“I was born here. Drink your tea.” Chuuya tapped the edge of the teacup in Dazai’s hand until he took a sip. It tasted like hot liquor.

“In this house?” 

“Nearby.” 

A lie, but Dazai let it pass in favor of other things. “So, you had a childhood?” Dazai found the idea of Chuuya as a child in a place like this incredibly unsettling for some reason. Chuuya brought his own teacup to his lips, downing the drink like a shot even though a single sip had practically scalded the roof of Dazai’s mouth.

“I can’t fucking remember.” Chuuya laughed, choking on it— or his tea— for a moment. “For the best anyway; the things I do I don’t like.” His expression split open, offering Dazai a lopsided grin. “It was a fucking gift, taking the hatter job after the war, even though I knew it’d make me madder than I already was.” Chuuya took a long, somber sort of look at the empty cup of tea in front of him, reaching over to pour another round for himself with a trembling hand, spilling a bit on the table before returning the pot and downing the second cup even faster than the first. “Isn’t that funny?” Chuuya laughed again, a terrible song.

Dazai finished his tea quietly, wrestling violently with the urge to take Chuuya’s hand in his. 

 * * *

After discussing Dazai’s duties and expectations as an official employee for over an hour, Akutagawa woke up from his nap to inform them that there apparently wasn’t any food left in the house, so Chuuya volunteered to take Dazai to the market in town, so that he might go there himself at a later time making supply runs for Chuuya’s apparently booming clothing business.

They set off past the garden and onto a small path through the woods, but just as they reached the edge of the trail Chuuya stopped and whistled loudly. A few moments later, a large, pure white horse appeared from between the trees, pressing its face roughly against Chuuya’s chest until he fisted a hand in it’s hair, stood back and leapt up the side of the horse’s bare back.

“Take my hand, sweetheart.” Chuuya leered down at him, one hand still in the massive horse’s mane, the other outstretched rather formally in Dazai’s direction.

“No.” Dazai may have decided to go along with the strangeness of life in this world for now, but this was far too much. 

“She isn’t going to hurt you, she’s very well trained,” Chuuya argued, pouting down at him dramatically and letting the horse’s flank. “Her name is Queen.”

“I don't like modes of transportation with their own thoughts, thank you— too unpredictable,” he replied, taking a half-step back. “I’ll walk.” 

“A lot of bullshit coming out of that damn mouth of yours, darling.” Chuuya bent at the waist very quickly, grabbing Dazai’s shirtfront and lifting him bodily onto the horse like he weighed no more than a feather. “Don’t shout, I’ve got you,” Chuuya said, and then laughed wildly, which was hardly comforting. Dazai clung to him like a kite anyway, and they took off. 

How had Chuuya lifted him so easily?

He decided to focus on the mystery of Chuuya’s physical strength rather than the feel of his warm, muscled abdomen under Dazai’s fingers. He thought back to the way Chuuya had lifted the table so effortlessly the previous afternoon, and the floorboards that bent and cracked under his feet. Was this Chuuya able to use some form of Tainted Sorrow on Dazai himself? 

“Are we there yet?” he asked, growing more uncomfortable sitting on top of a living creature as time went on. 

“Just a few more days ride.” 

“A few more—” Dazai practically screamed his reply until he was cut off by a fit of giggles he could feel ripple through Chuuya’s lungs beneath his fingertips. “You’re pranking me,” he said, mind wandering helplessly over the many treasured pranks himself and Chuuya had gotten up to in their years together as Double Black; Chuuya had loved to prank back and forth with him. One time, he'd even blown up one of Dazai’s safe houses. Dazai remembered the reveal fondly— He’d nearly died. 

They hadn’t had the freedom to play like that anymore as adults. Dazai missed it.

“Sure am,” Chuuya answered, “Anyway, here we are.” He gestured forward as they broke out of the forest and onto what appeared to be a quaint town road. Chuuya led the horse in front of a large pink building decorated with the words “General.” 

The building was almost too garishly pink to look at. Dazai wondered what the design world of Wonderland valued if this was considered normal; then again, even Chuuya’s home had been odd from an architectural standpoint— everything else about it notwithstanding. 

Chuuya stopped the horse and jumped off, landing neatly on his feet like Dazai had seen a thousand times before from varying heights in vastly different situations. He adjusted his hat before holding a hand out for Dazai. “Come now, we can’t go anywhere if you don’t get down.”

Dazai wanted more than anything to reach out and grab Chuuya’s hand and never let go, that maybe doing so would make everything change— this would all have been a dream, a test, the better part of the last year a trick— but the sweat collecting on his palms told him that deep down, he knew the truth. 

He shook his head. “It’s fine,” he said, thankful his voice didn’t waver. “I can get down myself.” How hard could it be?

The answer, it seemed, was incredibly. After a solid minute and a half of trying to graciously slide down from the side of the horse and back to the sweet safety of solid ground, Chuuya seemingly got tired of watching Dazai struggle and grabbed him by the coat, pulling him down as Dazai squawked and cried.

“I offered help!” Chuuya said, waving a hand dismissively as he turned on his heel and headed toward the front door. “Nobody trusts the experienced horse rider, no, why ever would we do that? He’s a mad one, that hatter, can’t be trusted with anything.” Chuuya didn’t seem very mad about it, though, so Dazai didn’t press the issue and followed him into the store.

Disappointingly, it was just as pink on the inside as it was on the outside. However, aside from the tacky aesthetics, it seemed no different than any of the grocery stores or konbini Dazai had frequented throughout his life, if a little more old-fashioned. 

The sound of the little bell atop the doorframe had barely registered in Dazai’s ears before Chuuya made a beeline straight for the checkout counter.

“Martha, darling, you look as lovely as ever,” Chuuya sang, laying on a level of charm Dazai had never been privy to seeing in Chuuya’s body language. “How have sales been since last I saw this very fine shop of yours?”

The woman, Martha, rolled her eyes, a small smile on her face. “What did you break this time?”

Chuuya gasped, hand rising theatrically to his chest. “How dare you. I just got here!” He laughed. “Plenty of time for that later.”

They shared a laugh and Dazai suddenly felt more out of place than he had since he arrived in this strange land. Everything was similar but also so overwhelmingly different. Everyone here had history together he didn’t know about, relationships he would never be cognizant of, and it felt othering on a new scale. He scratched at his arm, the usually-comforting feeling of his bandages on his skin suddenly itchy and unbearable.

Chuuya must have noticed something, because he stopped chatting with Martha and came over carrying a shopping basket. “Lost in your thoughts, dear?” he asked.

“Just getting acclimated,” Dazai replied. Not a complete lie, but nowhere close to the truth. He thought about the people this Chuuya knew and loved that he might never meet, and the ones he would.

He felt sick.

“Don't think too much, it’ll only make things worse!” Chuuya said loudly. “Chop chop, I want to make it back before tea.”

Whatever system Dazai assumed Chuuya might have for shopping efficiency was quickly proven nonexistent. There was absolutely no rhyme or reason as to the path he dragged Dazai around through the store, going from dairy to produce to bread and then back to dairy, flitting between sections like a hummingbird that couldn’t decide which flower it wanted. He would pick up an item, contemplate it, then put it back before repeating the same process several times over and eventually choosing the first one, handing them all to Dazai and barely giving him time to put it in the basket before whisking him off to another area.

By the time Chuuya was done, Dazai wanted to lay down on the floor of the store and never stand up again.

Martha finished ringing them up and bagged their items, wishing Chuuya a good evening with the hopes to see him sooner rather than later. “Of course, darling. And look! I didn’t even break anything this time—” Chuuya replied as he opened the door to exit, tearing it completely off its hinges and taking it several steps with them out into the street.

Dazai stared at him meaningfully.

“Whoops.”

 * * *  

After an absolutely terrifying “escape speed” ride back to Chuuya’s great haunted mansion in the forest, Dazai threw himself from the horse, which rode off cheerily into the pasture behind the garden as Dazai collapsed into the field of daisies, too exhausted and overstimulated to care when they hissed and cried at him to lay somewhere else.

Chuuya, surprisingly, lay down beside him. “Dazai,” Chuuya spoke his name softly, like a song. “Let me take your hand?”

“All right,” he replied, because he was lonely and because it was inevitable. Chuuya was always inevitable. 

Chuuya’s warm fingers laced against his and Dazai’s breath caught in his chest— it had been so long.

“Your hands are so large, it’s not what I remember.” Chuuya stared at him from among the whispering daisies. His hands were heavily scarred, fingertips roughly calloused from what Dazai assumed must be needlework. Dazai wanted the story behind every mark on Chuuya’s skin immediately.

“What do you remember?” he asked, sliding his thumb along Chuuya’s palm softly and blinking back the tide that rose behind his eyes. 

Chuuya’s expression became shielded once again. “Today is Wednesday.” 

“It said Friday on the schedule behind Martha’s desk,” Dazai corrected.

“Fuck.”

Dazai laughed, and then took a deep breath, looking directly into wild, sorrowful blue eyes. He squeezed Chuuya’s hand lightly. “Why do you own the name Dazai Osamu?” 

Chuuya stared at him for a long time, something important that Dazai couldn’t read swirling behind his expression, before he sat up and walked off towards the house, leaving Dazai’s hand and heart to wither alone in the cool summer breeze. 

That went well.

Dazai took a moment to gather his thoughts before dragging himself up the hill and into the house. He found Chuuya hunched over in the entryway, groaning, hat discarded on the floor.

“Chuuya,” Dazai said, soft and concerned as he hovered beside him. “What’s wrong?” Dazai scanned over his body, noting the tremble of his fingers and lips.

“Ryuunosuke!” Chuuya shouted, clutching the chair like a lifeline as his knees began to shake along with his arms. “Fuck.”

Akutagawa appeared behind them suddenly, stepping in to help Chuuya quickly out of his coat and lay him down atop the coffee table. Chuuya seemed to be getting worse by the second, body shaking harder as he groaned and cursed.

“What’s wrong with him?” Dazai asked, finding himself half-terrified to hear the answer. Akutagawa gave him a brief, stoic look before turning his full attention towards shoving a pastel blue shortcake down Chuuya’s throat. He was gasping and choking on the table, delicate fingers clenching and trembling, spine twisting and locking in painful contortions.

Dazai might have said he looked possessed, if he didn’t already know quite intimately what possession looked like on Chuuya. 

“Physically,” Dazai clarified, hand hovering over Chuuya’s thighs until Akutagawa gave him a slight nod and Dazai pressed his full weight down over Chuuya’s lower body to control the spasms. He was still so strong.

“He has Erethism.” Akutagawa wiped the crumbs off of Chuuya’s face with a tea towel, one hand curled under his head, and Dazai was struck by a powerful, irrational desire to strike Akutagawa down as he once had. 

Guilt grew inside Dazai like rot— it should be him holding Chuuya’s head and hair. It should have been him, holding Chuuya at the end of it, like he had done with Odasaku. Like he hadn’t been able to for Chuuya, despite everything Chuuya had done for him.

Akutagawa was still speaking. 

“In the first years after the war, there were no regulations or protections for workers against mercury poisoning. Chuuya-san uses different raw materials now in processing... but he needs a few more years for the muscular symptoms to fully regress.” Akutagawa coughed briefly into his sleeve. 

“Who are you?” Chuuya’s voice was raw as he looked wildly around the room.

“A friend,” Akutagawa answered calmly, maneuvering him by the shoulders into a sitting position as Dazai drew his hands back from his thighs. Chuuya tossed his head and spat onto the floor, shaking his arms out at his sides, laughing darkly to himself.

“All my friends are dead.”

***

Chuuya stumbled off into some far-away corner of the mansion after that, Dazai hurrying himself into another attempting to follow. His steps were heavy and unstable, which in a sensible building would make one easier to track, but door after door slammed abruptly in Dazai’s face until at one point he swore the staircase itself split in two trying to tear him off Chuuya’s trail. 

After about an hour more of what Dazai knew to be an utterly fruitless search he finally gave up, stepping out onto the balcony of a large seemingly abandoned bedroom he had passed through around seventeen times. He looked down below to the gardens, gazing at the wildflowers. Gardens were beautiful, probably more so if you hadn’t just watched your now revived former dead lover lose his mind to a seizure in a foreign fantasyland. 

If he jumped now, the flowers would surely be crushed. Was it considered murder to kill a flower? Perhaps only the ones that could talk.

He reached for the cigarette tin in his waistcoat pocket absently, placing one in his mouth before remembering he didn’t have a lighter. Somehow, the action was vaguely soothing in and of itself. 

It grew dark.

He set off in search of Chuuya again, mainly to reassure himself that he was still real— broken beyond measure, clearly, but otherwise tangible and breathing and Dazai would take whatever god forsaken scraps he could get. Always had. 

His footsteps were uncomfortably loud on the wooden floor. Candleholders set into the walls cast flickering shadows across the wallpaper, making his shadow appear grotesque. The monster within; revealed. He paused briefly in front of a painting of a game of croquette. It looked so real, he wondered if it might swallow him whole if he touched it—but he was looking for Chuuya. He couldn't afford to be this distracted, this lost.

“Please,” he whispered to no one in particular. “I won’t interfere, I just want to see him.” He passed the painting, striding down the corridor until he came upon a large mahogany door frame. The handle opened under his touch and a long, winding spiral staircase met him on the other side, the sound of music emanating from deep within. 

He took the stairs a bit too roughly at first, tripping and sliding down several on his ass before catching onto the banister to stop himself. He peered over the railing— a birdseye view of the room he had spied Akutagawa playing piano in the previous night. This tune was different, though, and tonight it was Chuuya’s fingers that flew across the keys.

Dazai wanted to run down and talk with him, but the music was so hauntingly beautiful he felt almost rooted to the floor. And yet, as the notes of Chopin's Winter Wind crashed and tumbled over each other, Dazai could see Chuuya's slender, muscled shoulders shake with something more than just music— anger, or agony. It was bewitching, and frankly a little terrifying to see Chuuya so wrecked. What kind of life had he lived here?

The chords grew louder and more dissonant until a single, sudden, sour note and Chuuya screamed, so hard that Dazai almost fell over the railing. There was an incredibly, graphically inventive string of cursing that followed, and then Chuuya simply ran off down the hall and out of Dazai’s sight, slamming the ballroom door resoundingly behind him. 

Dazai laughed softly to himself. “Chuuya truly never fails to make living… interesting.”

                                                                                                       * * * 

It was entirely impossible to sleep after that performance, not to mention it had taken Dazai nearly two hours to find the way back to the room Chuuya had shown him the previous night. There was another set of patterned pajamas already laid out at the corner of the bed— this time the fabric was black and the pattern was deep green vines, twisting endlessly around themselves. 

The ground was still wet in places from the revenge downpour, small pools settling in the areas where the floor dipped with age, and as Dazai leaned down to examine one he noticed something even more curious; the pool of water held two koi fish. It wasn’t a trick, he could feel their scales brush against his fingers when he pressed them experimentally against the floor, and yet the puddle was no more than a few centimeters deep.

Wonderland.

He sighed, dressed himself in the strange yet soft pajamas and laid atop the bedcovers, listening to the sound of water swirling for several hours more as his eyes grew hot and swollen with the unmet desire to sleep. He thought about Chuuya; about his petit form bent over a large piano, his wild eyes and unnatural laughter, his strength, his fingertips brushing against Dazai’s in the grass, convulsing in the foyer like an epileptic, screaming—

He stopped thinking. 

Dawn had already crept along the horizon when Dazai heard footsteps echoing from down the corridor. He was out of bed in an instant, throwing up the latch and opening the door of his room to find Chuuya’s raised fist hovering directly over his chest. 

They stared at each other for a few moments, lost in the enormity of the unspoken.

“I was about to knock.” Chuuya gave Dazai a brief once over, his brows drawing together. He was wearing a different outfit than he had been earlier, a red, fleece robe and matching lounge pants. His eyes were bloodshot and his chest was bare. “You should be asleep,” Chuuya stepped over the entryway and into the room, eyes darting from the unruffled bedding to Dazai himself, still dressed in the ivy-patterned pajamas. “Have you been awake all this time?” His gaze was too intense to bear, so Dazai looked for the Koi beneath the floorboards again, only to find the puddles had all dried up in the night.

“If I should be asleep, why would you knock?” He asked, but Chuuya ignored the question in favor of rummaging through the wardrobe. He cursed a few times, head disappearing behind a set of fur-lined coats before he pulled out a long, silver tray. 

“You should’ve told me you were having trouble— I have medicine, there’s no need to suffer.” 

Chuuya’s ‘medicine’ evidently looked like some amalgamation of an essential oils collection and a ceremonial tea set. Dazai shook his head “I’m not sure that—”

“It’s good quality, I promise. Second to none in all of Wonderland.” Chuuya dipped forward in an exaggerated bow, causing one of the vials to slip off the tray and shatter against the floor. “Whoops.” He kicked the glass under the bed frame and ushered Dazai to sit atop the covers once again. “Now, tell me a bit about what's going on with you today.” 

“Where do you get all these things?”

“Oh dear, I was in the war, I get everything delivered to me, for my service to the queen.” Chuuya laughed softly to himself while he set the tray over the edge of Dazai’s bed, opening multiple vials and producing what looked like a cup of hot tea, somehow. “I’ve got something for every fucking hole that cursed campaign drilled into my head.” He laughed again, and Dazai watched the waves in his hair shake with it. “Have some though, it will do you more good than me.” 

Dazai thought of the myriad things wrong with him that couldn't possibly be solved by medicinal tea. “Sure.” 

“Wonderful.” Chuuya’s eyes lit up and he clapped his hands together before flexing them excitedly in the air. Those strange, curling rings were still on his fingers, which Dazai now recognized as splints. “Tell me more,” Chuuya continued with his interrogation. “Why can’t you sleep? Discomfort?” He grabbed a small, lavender vial from the far left of the tray. “Anxiety?”

“My mind is… active.” Dazai searched for the words. He didn’t want to lie. Chuuya seemed to understand regardless— and it hurt how familiar that was— he poured a thimble sized cup of a mint green liquid into the teacup, nodding vigorously.

“And your body? Heavy or restless?” There was glitter in Chuuyas hair, specks of it were falling around him and into the tea.

“Heavy.”

“And your eyes? Do they sting or droop?” Chuuya’s face was suddenly inches from Dazai’s own. “Sting. Now, stick out your tongue a moment... oh fuck no wonder.” He added another vial to the teacup, and Dazai watched as the liquid inside turned a deep maroon color. “Here you are.” 

Dazai took the drink from off the tray and had a few cautious sips while Chuuya shook his head encouragingly. “Uh, thank you.”

The smile those words brought to Chuuya’s face was wide and dangerous. “You’re welcome. If this works, I can make it again for you tomorrow.” He packed up the vials and carried the tray back to the wardrobe, packing things up in the same disorganized, impatient manner he had taken them out in. “Just tell me because I won’t… remember.” Chuuya’s tone soured and he began to walk himself towards the door.

“So, you were a soldier?” Dazai grasped desperately at conversation. 

“And you’re a bit too inquisitive for polite society.” Chuuya gave him an irritated sort of glare.

“Tell me more.” Dazai asked, taking another sip of tea as a show of good faith. There was so much about this Chuuya he didn’t know— so much to collect. Decades of life in an entirely different world from the one they’d known together.

Chuuya squinted at Dazai’s teacup. “I fought for the red queen— Kouyou, to overthrow the king after he killed her lover.” The room around them began to darken as Dazai’s vision blurred, but Chuuya was still speaking. “A whole fucking war over love. I used to think it was ridiculous, but now—” Chuuya’s voice broke into a gasp, and Dazai sank helplessly to sleep as Chuuya’s dark laughter grew and grew.

                                                                                                   * * *

They were sitting at the lakeside, Dazai’s head lay in Chuuya’s lap, soft hands swirling against his scalp pleasantly. The grass was cool beneath his back and they were close enough to the lake that Dazai could reach and dip his fingers into the water. 

Dazai closed his eyes, beginning to hum a few bars of his favorite song until Chuuya tugged sharply on a lock of his hair. 

“Quit with that, fuck, this is a date not a tragedy.” Chuuya frowned down at him before turning aside to reach into the picnic basket they had brought. European-style lunch. Wine, cheeses, bread and jam. Chuuya pressed a cube of cheddar against Dazai’s lips until he took a bite.

“But a lover’s suicide is very romantic.” He complained, pursing his lips at the taste of the cheese. Too sharp. Chuuya had terrible taste sometimes.

“I’m not participating, and if you try to die before me again I’m going to fucking punch you.” Chuuya growled, tearing at the delicate, expensive baguette he’d brought with his hands and teeth as Dazai watched, helplessly enamored by every small thing, lately. 

“And if Chibi dies before me?” Dazai asked, consumed again with the strange fear that came to him some nights, when memories of another love and another loss sang achingly in his mind. 

Chuuya’s expression sobered, despite all the wine he’d drank. He spoke gently, “We’ll meet again, sometime.”

Dazai’s heart skipped painfully in his chest. He coughed, sitting up from Chuuya’s lap to slide both hands around the sides of his face. “How frighteningly uncertain. I propose a delayed lover’s suicide instead~!” He said, before leaning forward to catch Chuuya’s lips in a kiss before he could argue.

The kiss felt soft as water and tasted as bitter as wine. Chuuya’s fingers found his hair again and Dazai sighed. 

Suddenly, the taste of blood came into Dazai’s mouth. He drew back. There was blood on Chuuya’s lips. 

The world shifted. 

The sky darkened, the ground became hard and unforgiving. Chuuya’s body was covered with the marks of Corruption. Dazai grabbed him as his body wavered. “Chuuya,” He called, shaking at his shoulders to rouse him, but Chuuya had gone pale and quiet, his head lolling sideways. He was bleeding from almost every orifice. Thick, dark blood.

Old blood.

Dazai rubbed his shirt sleeve under Chuuya’s eyes to clean him off. “Chuuya!” He shouted. Chuuya’s eyes did not open. They wouldn’t open. No matter what he did or said.

He woke up screaming, stopping only when someone slapped him full across the face.

“You’re incredibly noisy, ya know.” Chuuya’s hand was pressed firmly over Dazai’s mouth. 

“Chuuya,” He choked, blood and darkness from the dream still clinging to the insides of his mind. Chuuya shushed him, pulling his hand back from Dazai’s lips to smack him again.

“It’s very… distressing to hear you cry like that. I don’t like it.” Chuuya chided, expression wrinkled with distaste. It wasn’t really Chuuya, though, Dazai reminded himself. Not the Chuuya in Dazai’s memory, not his Chuuya.

“I didn’t cry.” Dazai wiped at his face, to be sure.

Chuuya hovered over him like a panther, head tilted vaguely to one side. “Of course you didn’t, I suppose this Dazai doesn’t cry. Who said you did?” His expression was curious, eyes wide and glistening under the afternoon sunlight that spilled through the curtains. 

“You.” Dazai answered blankly, and Chuuya laughed with good feeling, all traces of irritation gone. 

“How silly of me.” 

Chapter Text

The next time Dazai woke it was to an empty room and the inability to recall having fallen asleep a second time. He dressed himself in the clothes that were once again laid out for him at the corner of the bed, a set of ink colored pants and a forest green sweater. He left directly and somehow managed to wander back to the same room he’d taken breakfast in the previous day.

Akutagawa was also present, having passed out on top of a plate of miniature sandwiches. Chuuya, however, was tucked into the cushions that lined the windowsill beyond the breakfast table, shirtless and cursing over a pair of scissors. 

He looked better than he had before, if only by a few degrees.

“What are you making?” Dazai asked, sliding carefully onto the sill beside Chuuya. The window pane was cold at his back, but Chuuya’s skin was warm where it brushed briefly against his shoulders.

It had been so long since he'd felt the warmth of a human being. 

“Fucking nothing.” Chuuya sighed, running a hand through his hair, and Dazai’s focus narrowed onto the sweat building along his temple. “Can’t hold the scissors steady.” He explained, and Dazai could see the active tremor in his wrists and fingers. 

“Allow me, then.”

Chuuya clutched the scissors closer to his chest, eyes narrow. “Why?”

Dazai straightened in his seat. “A model is meant to assist the head designer, no? I believe helping out with ‘any tasks deemed necessary by the employing party’ was a clause in our contract.” 

“Hmm,” Chuuya tilted his head sideways to observe Dazai more intently, his wild eyes trailing from left to right, bottom to top, and then three times diagonally. “Something is different with you today.” 

He handed Dazai the scissors.

“What did you want to make?” Dazai asked.

“Wanted to cut stars in the curtains.” Chuuya reached upwards and tugged at the satin drapes behind them, which were littered with holes in various shapes and sizes— stars, triangles, crescent moons.

“You already did. See?” Dazai stuck two of his fingers through a five-pointed star, wiggling them into a miniature, cheeky, wave. Chuuya glared at him, shaking his head as though he’d just said something incredibly stupid. 

“Differently-shaped ones.”

“Of course.” Dazai stared into the blue of his eyes, wondering how he might arrange to drown in them. He remembered himself. “Are you in pain?” 

Chuuya sighed, lucidity and vague suspicion sliding back over his expression so swiftly Dazai wondered how much of his madness was for show. Or perhaps, for escapism. “Not really, just tight.”

“Do you have any tea for that?”

Chuuya laughed softly, “I might.”

Dazai placed the fabric scissors atop the window sill, reaching his hands across the space between them. A silent question hung in the air before Chuuya offered a slight nod and Dazai pulled one of his hands forward— digging his thumb into the softness at the base of Chuuya’s palm in a circular motion until he sighed and let his head drop down over his chest. “Keep doing that,” Chuuya’s voice was raw, husky, and laced with a warning Dazai didn’t care to explore. “And I'll keep you here forever.” 

Trapped forever, in this strange world— this peculiar paradise where Chuuya’s skin was warm beneath his fingers again.

Would it be such a curse?

***

He was startled out of his thoughts by what sounded like trumpets. The sound grew closer.

Curiously, he leaned forward and peered through the holes in the curtains and saw a large, garishly decorated horse-drawn carriage approaching the front garden, its forward momentum halted as the wheels became tangled up in a patch of tomato vines that had somehow picked themselves up and attempted to crawl across the stone path. 

Two footmen, dressed in bright red uniforms with gold tassels, hopped off the carriage and began hacking hastily at the plant with their instruments. The tomato vine, being already in quite a difficult position, seemed to take offense to this and Dazai watched a bit of stem lash out to smack the leftmost footmen across the face. This carried on for several minutes until the vine fully untangled itself from the hansom and hurried on its way across the garden. The carriage approached the front door.

A large, ugly man with the same color outfit as the footman in what appeared to be a higher quality fabric stepped down from within the carriage box. Trumpets again.

“Chuuya,” he turned back to the cushioned window seat, where Chuuya had fallen asleep a few hours ago. “I think you have, uh, visitors.” 

He shifted slowly, lashes fluttering and face looking a bit swollen. “Is it time for tea?” There came a knock at the entryway. Chuuyas hands dug blindly around the cushions, his eyes still half-lidded. “Who is it? Where is my hat?” 

“You're not wearing a shirt,” Dazai reminded gently, “and well, it looks like some sort of—”

“SIR NAKAHARA CHUUYA, OF EAST WONDERLAND.” 

Chuuya shot up like a firecracker. “Not this again!” He gripped Dazai by the lapels, desperate, whispering “I’m not at home.” before running out of the room and slamming the door resoundingly behind him.

Curiouser and curiouser. 

The knocking began anew, this time louder and more urgent, the messenger's voice more booming than before. “SIR CHUUYA, THE CROWN IMPLORES AN AUDIENCE.”

Dazai sighed, picking himself off the window seat and headed down the hall towards the foyer. He could see the doorframe itself shuddering with the force of a few overly aggressive knocks. He opened the door and stepped out into the garden, leading the strange man a bit away from the entrance to give Chuuya’s questionably sentient home a break from the assault. “Hello, I'm terribly sorry but Chuuya is not at home.” 

The words had no sooner left his mouth than a rumble was heard above, followed by the familiar shatter of glass and a large, mahogany dining table crashing onto the path in front of them. A falling piece of glass sliced briefly across Dazai’s cheek, the blood that it drew wet against his skin.

“Fuck you!” Chuuya’s voice shouted down from the now twice broken window.

The messenger— seemingly unperturbed by the use of a banquet size dining table as a projectile— merely stood up straighter and began reading off a scroll held between his hands. He looked perhaps even a bit relieved to have located his intended audience. 

“My Dearest Chuuya,”

A chair sailed through the air and landed on the carriage, denting it’s roof and causing the two attending footmen to step several meters backwards to the tree-line. A few daisies to Dazai’s right laughed. 

“It has been long enough—“

A dropped chandelier shattered a few centimeters behind the messenger, who had closed his eyes and seemed to be reciting from memory. 

“This tantrum has well over run its course, you must return to court immediately. There is no use in continuing to blame—“

The front door burst open, and Chuuya stepped outside. He was dressed in the same sharp green suit and top hat Dazai had seen him in on the first day. 

“Oi, Philip!” Chuuya stomped against the ground, cracking the thick stone slab of the path beneath him clean in two. “Let’s save each other some time, okay?”

He walked forward, shorter and far slimmer than the man he approached but somehow the weight of his aura seemed to stretch out for miles. The messenger, Philip, shuddered visibly. 

Chuuya was Chuuya, in any universe it seemed. 

“Option one; you pack up and get the hell off my property.” He pressed a gloved finger to Philip's chest. 

“Sir, I really must protest—”

“Interruptions are impolite!” Chuuya admonished, plugging his ears up with his index fingers before continuing stoutly, “Option two; I knock your asses all the way into the next town over.” A pause, “What d’ya say?”

Philip sighed, rolling up his scroll and stepping back. “I will relay your affections to her majesty.” He motioned to the footmen in the trees, who went about preparing to set off again.

But Dazai only had eyes for Chuuya.

Chuuya, who seemed to have forgotten that he was even present, for all that he simply turned around and marched through the garden off towards the outdoor tea table.

Dazai observed the perfect straightness of Chuuya’s back, the regal posture he held at the head of the table, and found himself wondering not for the first time, what sort of life had Chuuya lived in this place? 

Akutagawa came into the garden suddenly from the side door, carrying a mint green tray laden with tea. The clocks on the table all went off just as he set the tray down, and he busied himself silencing them before offering Chuuya a small bow and hurrying back inside the house. It seemed that Chuuya meant to take his tea alone today. 

Dazai watched him sip and stir his cup, elegant and unaccompanied, for some time. The tea table was only a few meters away, yet it felt like more. When the sun crested just behind the roof of the mansion, Chuuya heaved a great, shuddering sigh, took off his hat and leaned forward, resting his face in his hands. He looked so unhappy.

Dazai let him be, and returned indoors. He told the staircase he'd like to be taken to his bedroom directly, and the next door he opened contained the large bed and wardrobe that he’d grown familiar with over the last days. The puddle of koi fish had even returned, and when Dazai checked the adjoining door it opened to a beautiful ensuite complete with a soaking tub and formal shower. He wondered how long he could remain in the house’s good graces.

He relieved himself of his shoes and entered the washroom, dipping his head to the sink to splash water onto his face. It had been… some time since he’d showered, but as he reached out to grasp a clean towel to wipe across his forehead, he noticed something odd. The reflection in the mirror was not his own. 

Not the large brown rabbit ears affixed to the top of his head, not the nondescript military uniform, not the foriegn, childlike innocence portrayed in too-familiar brown eyes—that had been stolen from him arguably before he even knew it existed, and perhaps that was a comfort. It is impossible to miss something you’ve never had.

The strange boy in the reflection— himself, somehow, hard as it was to believe that any world out there could be so kind as to allow the naïveté of youth to creep into his features—looked to be about 17 or 18, teetering on the cusp between child and adult. His eyes blinked in time with Dazai, staring back at him curiously, almost sentient. He made no movements that were not Dazai’s own. A perfect mirror. Or perhaps, a mirror that displays oneself, perfectly. 

Young, unbroken. Alive, in more senses of the word that Dazai could ever hope to experience. Dazai had never liked looking at himself in the mirror to begin with, but he found it harder than ever to meet the eyes of his reflection here.

So he bathed, despite lacking any true desire to do so, but because it had been too long and his scalp was beginning to itch. The water was warm and stayed that way, allowing him the slowness he required for such a task. The cut on his cheek reopened in the steam, but bled very little before sealing up again. He sighed, it might have been interesting if it had bled more. 

There was a fresh cup of tea waiting for him on the nightstand when he stepped back into the bedroom, and another set of warm pajamas folded besides. Dazai changed in silence, nested himself beneath the comforter, and downed the cup in one go. In moments, he knew nothing but darkness and the lingering sorrow of forgotten dreams. 

***                                                                                                

When Dazai awoke it was to the sound of songbirds and a swelling sense of dread in his chest.

Naked.

His bandages were off and he felt naked. He’d been so tired he had forgotten to put them back on after washing. A problem easily solved, however, when he went to the washroom, he found it completely bare of the items he had cast off and left in a pile last night. Nausea settled in his gut. 

He tried to address the room. “Hello,” he coughed, awkward with the sound of his voice in an empty space. “I would like my clothes back.” Unfortunately, but rather predictably, nothing happened. 

There was a new outfit laid out at the corner of his bed and he dressed quickly, without much care for what was front or back, before hurrying into the hall. “Chuuya,” He called, tracing his fingers along the molding along the walls— a tangible, grounding sort of sensation. “Chuuya,” He opened door after door as the feeling of wrongness grew. The clock room he’d seen before, a white room, a room full of plants. He paused to catch his breath. “I need help.” 

The next door opened into a grand atrium. Chuuya was lying on the floor, staring up at a ceiling covered in stars. He stood up as Dazai entered. “Chuuya, I need—”

“Help.” Chuuya was on him like a panther— quick, fluid. “Yes, I heard you,” He tilted his head to the side as he spoke, and Dazai watched as one hand shot up to keep hold of his tipping hat. “But what is it that you need, darling?”

Dazai stepped back, averting his eyes. “It’s a bit strange, but—”

Chuuya laughed, loud and brief. “Please, don’t hide your strangeness from me, of all people.” He took off his tophat and unbuttoned his overcoat, setting them aside in one of the many chairs. “What is it?”

Dazai looked back into ocean blue eyes. “Do you have any bandages?”

“Bandages?” Chuuya repeated, blinking.

“Yes.”

“Are you wounded?” The gaze that was fixed to Dazai’s own fled, examining the rest of his figure.

“A little.” Dazai pointed to the cut on his face and Chuuya’s expression shifted into shrewdness.

“Well we can’t have that, sweetheart.” He produced a roll of bandage, alcohol wipes, fabric scissors and dressing tape from somewhere within his overcoat pockets. Dazai stared at the collection in vague shock, but managed to take a seat when Chuuya motioned him to do so. He couldn't help the slight flinch when a layer of cut gauze brushed against his cheek. 

“There there, don’t fuss.” Chuuya chided, tapping the uncut side of his face lightly with two fingers.

“Do you always carry medical supplies in your coat?” Dazai asked, for lack of anything more intelligent to say.

“I only carry them when I’m going to need them,” Chuuya sounded like this was the most obvious answer a man could give. “Clearly you do not.” He tapped at Dazai’s wrists expectantly. “Sleeves up, darling, let me do the rest.” 

Dazai stared down at their nearly joined hands. How had he—

“I’ve been dressing you for days, pretty thing, did you honestly think I don’t know what you keep underneath?” Chuuya was smiling down at him conspiratorially, and the way the right half of his mouth quirked up slightly higher than the left was so veritably Chuuya that Dazai nearly sobbed and rolled up his sleeves obediently, watching as Chuuya deftly put him back together in much the same way that he always had.  

The quality of the work was premier, Chuuya’s rough fingers against his skin taking some of the lonely ache from within his chest and letting it spill out across the floor. Dazai tipped his head forward, weak. “I missed you.”

Chuuya’s breathing stilled briefly, before he let it out in a chiding ‘tsk’ sound even as he helped draw Dazai gently out of his shirt to wrap up the center of his chest. “Not me, darling.” His hands were so warm. “You know, I’ve seen a few men do this— in the war,” Chuuya was careful not to let any adhesive touch the skin. “calms the nerves, if they’re to be believed.”

It sounded like a question.

“It does, a bit.” Dazai sighed, closing his eyes and lifting his head back to look at the ceiling full of stars, galaxies and shimmering celestial dust. 

“Oh?” Chuuya sounded intrigued, the ghost of mad laughter crawling back into his tone, though it remained soft. “I'll have to try it sometime, then.” 

Dazai thought about the stars, about the universe, about a version of himself in the mirror that wasn’t dead behind the eyes, about how Chuuya had gotten to be so broken. “This is all an illusion, isn't it, it's not real.”

“What is?” Chuuya sounded a bit sad, his fingers stilled over Dazai’s back.

“The stars, the ceiling,” he replied, and Chuuya laughed that unfiltered, discordant laugh he'd given on the first day; tilted cocksure smile still the same as the one in Dazai’s memory, but his eyes held a trembling intensity that was difficult to behold.

“Yes, it's an illusion, but does that make it any less real?” He patted his hands against the completed bandage at Dazai’s back. “Come on now, let me fit you for my new collection.” 

Chapter Text

“Fuck.”

Chuuya groaned, forcing himself under the far too slowly warming stream of water from the shower head, his body braced against the wall with both hands. There was blood all over the tile, pouring off of him in rivers and the room spun as he struggled to remain conscious long enough to clean up.

This time, it had been rough.

The door to the washroom creaked open and Chuuya heard soft footsteps approach the row of shower stalls, pausing in front of the one he currently occupied.

He knew it was Dazai, because there was literally no one else that wanted to be within a hundred feet of him for the next few hours— but he also stupidly prayed that it would be someone else. Conversation with Dazai had been hard, lately. Stress and fatigue stealing the best of both of them.

“Hey,”

Chuuya could see Dazai’s regulation boots under the gap in the stall curtain. He was almost never out of uniform. Awkward ass.

“That’s a lot of blood.” Dazai’s tone was gentle to point of being matter-of-fact, though Chuuya knew him well enough to spot the worry in his shifting, squeaky heels.

“Most of it isn’t mine.” He shoved his hair under the water, rubbing rough hands through it to clear out the worst of the blood, sweat, and mud.

“Let me see you then.”

“Usagi—” Chuuya’s breath caught as Dazai rapidly drew the curtain to look at him in bloody, naked, barely fucking held together glory.

“You know, I’m not very fond of that nickname.” Dazai smiled cheekily, but his giant ears were pressed down very clearly in irritation.

“Says the asshole obsessed with my height.” Chuuya sighed and finished rinsing off, stumbling safely out of the shower with the help of an offered arm from Dazai. He took a moment to hide his face behind a bath towel. “So, what’s on your beautiful mind?”

A pause.

“I think you should tell princess Kouyou you don’t want to take the enhancers anymore.”

Dazai spoke with such little grace sometimes that Chuuya wondered what the fuck he was doing in tactical command.

“Why the hell would I do that?” He tossed the ruined towel to the floor. “Enhancers are the only reason we’re gaining any fucking ground; you know this.”

Dazai helped him carefully into a sleep jumpsuit, tutting as he doubtlessly catalogued every single new scrape or bruise on his body. Chuuya took a moment to hand wring the last bits of moisture from his hair.

To be honest, he was glad to have been exempted from the regulation cut— there was something so grounding about having to clean and care for his own hair through all of this mess.

“I’ve been reading some of the trial studies,” Dazai began, voice confident and precocious in that way that let Chuuya know he’d probably read every single fucking case study ever published on the topic. “there are a host of potential psychiatric side effects to think about, perhaps Kouyou will reconsider due to your re—”

“Oh shut up,” Chuuya cut him off, “Enhancers are going out to every goddamn soldier with a gift, I just happen to respond to them the strongest.” He sat down on the bench in front of his washroom locker, exhausted.

“But you aren’t a soldier to them anymore, Chuuya,” Dazai tilted at the waist to look him straight in the eyes, expression somber as the grave. “You’re a gun.” Chuuya turned away, hands balling up at his sides, and how many hours had it been since he’d first taken the pills? Dazai could be so reckless. “I’ve seen you out there, Chibi, you can barely tell the difference between red soldiers and white.”

“That doesn’t even matter, command just needs to point me in the right direction and I’ll—”

“Shoot?” Dazai’s superior expression set his nerves on fire.

“Fuck you.”

“I’m only saying it because—”

“You care, I know,” Chuuya ran his fingers through his hair as another wave of dizziness rolled through him, he had to get back into bed before he passed out. “I just want all this shit to be over, Usagi.

Honestly,” he sighed. “If taking experimental pills makes it end faster, so be it.” he looked up into Dazai’s wide, enchanting eyes. “Don’t you want to be done?”

“I do.” 

Silence stretched between them, the weight of the nation settling over shoulders too young to be made to carry it.  

“When the war is over, we’ll buy a house, you and me.” Chuuya watched Dazai’s ears slowly perk up. “A gigantic fucking house— away from all this.” He cupped a hand to the side of Dazai’s face, thumbing the slight fuzz at the edge of his jaw. “It’ll be just us, hmm?” 

Dazai gave him a rare, small smile. “I’d like that.”

They had all the time in the world. 

Chapter Text

The fitting was swift and Chuuya was adamant that he show Dazai a bit more around town after, claiming they should proceed outdoors for ‘inspiration,’ which Dazai took as the plainly dubious excuse it was.

They wandered through the house, Dazai tripping over boxes and baubles as Chuuya hustled them through a few rooms Dazai hadn’t seen before and out into the back garden; a far more vast, wild arrangement than the one on the other side of the house. There were trees— deep greens nestled within patches of colorful flowers, and a series of maze-like hedges that created an almost haunting vibe. Chuuya stopped every few meters to kneel down and whisper something to a daisy or bloodroot that sent the whole section of flowers into a fit of whispered gossip and giggles, while large tree roots curled and twisted beneath Dazai’s feet whenever he stepped on them wrong. 

“How do you manage all this?” Dazai asked, grasping at a leaf which promptly curled itself away from his touch.

“Hmm?” Chuuya looked up at him from amidst a pack of tiger lilies, stunning if a little unbalanced. 

“The garden,” He continued. “All this land… how do you deal with it?” It wasn’t like Dazai had seen anyone on these grounds except himself and Akutagawa, who absolutely did not look the part of a groundskeeper. 

“Oh,” Chuuya stood up, the left side of his mouth pulling up at the corner. “This was all here before I came along… I’ve only just convinced the damn place to let me stay.” He laughed, and the discordant sound of it set the roots twisting beneath them again until the laughter stopped. He smoothed his jacket of pine needles and winked conspiratorially in Dazai’s direction, “Sorry.”

Chuuya led him down a soil and sparsely laid cobblestone path, lifted a few willow branches and just like that they were out of the garden and on the grassy shores of what looked to be a very large lake. 

“Are you impressed?” Chuuya smiled, brighter and less mad than before.

Dazai lifted his fingers to his lips, realising they hung open. “Why did you bring me here?” He ventured, as Chuuya unrolled an impossibly large blanket from his breast pocket and laid it down atop the grass. There was a wicker basket of assorted pastries lying a few feet away. 

“Sit down,” Chuuya tugged at the sleeve of Dazai’s coat. “Eat. Then I will answer your silly fucking questions.” 

Dazai sat. He let Chuuya pass him small sandwiches and cakes, playing along while Chuuya drank glass after glass of wine from a seemingly endless bottle, his cheeks darkening with flush.

“Do you like the bredéle?” It tasted sweet— a bit too sweet for Dazai’s more savory inclined palate if he was being honest, but Chuuya didn’t wait for a response, shaking his head and handing over a plate of pastel colored nerikiri. “Try this, is it better?” 

He took the biscuit and nodded, holding his breath as Chuuya shed his jacket and began unbuttoning his dress shirt, revealing skin far more tanned and scarred than what Dazai had grown used to. Chuuya caught him staring and his head tilted slightly to the side, a curious expression working its way through his features. Dazai averted his eyes until he felt the attention shift. 

Chuuya was beautiful, as ever he should be, and yet— the amount of obvious damage his body had taken was arresting. There were scars scattered across his chest and back, some of them Dazai was hesitant to classify, others were unmistakable. Knife, and bullet wounds. 

“What happened to you?” He asked, meeting Chuuya’s gaze.

“Oh, but that is the question I want to ask you.” Chuuya’s eyes were wide and held a singular focus for a moment, then he took another breath to speak. “It's quite hot, isn't it?” He was sweating, skin glistening faintly in the sunlight. 

Dazai could only nod, speechless while Chuuya rather unceremoniously stripped himself completely bare before running off and diving into the lake. 

He jumped up and rushed to the edge of the grass, a certain anxiety building within him the longer he waited for Chuuya to resurface. He looked across the lake and along the shoreline, scanned to see if anything helpful might lie in the immediate vicinity, but his eyes came only across a quiet couple about two hundred meters to the left— a man with deer antlers, and a woman whose skin seemed to sparkle unnaturally in the light.

Chuuya’s form broke the surface with a great booming laugh. “Fuck, that’s refreshing.” The laughter continued as he waded his way slowly back to Dazai. Dazai, who had to sit down with the sudden relief that he hadn’t lost this divine second chance to some horrific alcohol-induced drowning accident.

Chuuya approached him, still chuckling softly on and off. He was gorgeous. He was wet. He was still nude and he was entirely, irrevocably mad and Dazai was willing and able to admit that he was in way over his head. Chuuya shook his hair out like a dog. “Are you staring at my dick?” 

“What?” 

“You heard what I said.” Chuuya laughed again, pulling his shirt off the blanket and using it to dry his body and hair. He shrugged back into his pants and overcoat, but cast the shirt off to dry against the warm grass. “Don't worry, they all do.” 

“I wasn’t.” Dazai argued but without much emphasis, exhaustion had caught up with him and he lay down over the blanket. It was surprisingly soft. He closed his eyes.

“Sure.” 

*** 

“Get up, I need to go to town.” 

Dazai woke to Chuuya hovering a few centimeters above his face. His eyes had lost some of the sheen that came with wine-drunkeness, and Dazai wondered how long he’d been asleep.

“You wanna come?” Chuuya continued, and his voice sounded strangely natural. More like the Chuuya he remembered. Dazai wondered about the reason behind this oscillation in voice and tone. 

Why should Chuuya even need two voices? 

“Hah?” Chuuya hovered over his face again and Dazai blinked, tapping Chuuya back before raising himself up off the picnic blanket.

“Yea, I’ll come.” Dazai wanted to see more of this place, to learn about its culture and history. The more he learned about Wonderland, the more he would be able to discover about Chuuya.

“Perfect. Just— let me get my hat.”

Chuuya sprinted back towards the house and spent the better part of an hour opening cabinets and doors looking specifically for his green hat. Eventually he sent Dazai back out, before appearing proudly in the garden wearing a purple hat a moment later. 

They walked up to the main shopping district, after Dazai vetoed Chuuya’s initial whistle for his horse. “She’s really quite gentle.” Chuuya had complained, but Dazai carried on walking forward until Chuuya groaned and joined him. 

This time they skipped the general store, which Dazai noticed was still missing a front door, and proceeded further down the line of shops towards a bright green storefront labeled ‘Loom.’ 

It was a fabric store, and Chuuya spent some time chatting with the shopkeeper and cutting strips of various material while Dazai wandered through the shop. There were denims, lace, silk, cotton and other rolls stacked along the aisles. He stopped in front of a navy ream that shone marginally against the light, and when he reached out to touch it the material was pleasantly smooth. 

“Ah, the messaline.” Chuuya was behind him, a gigantic pile of fabric slung over his shoulder. “Excellent taste,” His lips quirked up at the side. “If you want, I can make you something from this.”

The entry bells rang as the door opened, interrupting his thoughts. Dazai turned and saw a tall, well dressed woman in traditional western attire take a few steps inside before her gaze zeroed in on Chuuya, cutting strips of blue fabric off the roll in the middle of the aisle.

“Oh, not again.” The woman groaned dramatically. “Will someone come get this freak out of the shop?” Her voice rose in pitch as her eyes darted around the premises, searching for the owner. “Miss Kimura, you have to stop coddling him! We can’t all be expected to just sit back and watch a dangerous lunatic run about the town doing whatever he likes.”

Dazai advanced in her direction, but Chuuya was quicker, arriving beside him with a stack of fabric at least a meter high resting on his shoulder. “Don’t worry, darling. I’m leaving.” He turned to Dazai and smiled wide, “The door, if you would,” and Dazai regrettably found there wasn't really anything else he could do but listen.

They walked back to Chuuya’s house in silence, the mood utterly spoiled. There were no more smiles, no laughter, and no little pauses to chat with the flowers. As soon as they arrived on the main grounds Chuuya set off towards the outdoor tea table, his back ramrod straight despite the weight of all the fabric he still carried. He took a pot from the center of the table spread, poured himself a cup, and drank it like a shot. 

Crack.

Chuuya threw the cup so far that it shattered against the mansion wall, over fifty meters away. The fabric fell in a heap onto the grass.

Crack.

He took a dinner plate and sent it flying. “Fuck!”

Crack.

Bang.

Chuuya threw plate after plate to shatter against his own house, and when there were no more plates to throw he took up a chair. 

“Chuuya?” Dazai stepped between the chair and the mansion’s battered brick framing.

“What?” Chuuya’s eyes were glossy, wild. His breathing was loud and husky with exertion.

“Are you…” Dazai struggled for a more subtle approach, gave up. “Are you okay?”

Chuuya dropped the chair and laughed. “You’re serious?” 

“I’m not exactly,” he paused to collect himself before carrying on. “I’m not good at this sort of conversation.” 

“Of course, you never are!” Chuuya slumped into the chair he’d been keen to throw against the house a moment earlier. “I’m fine! Just a dangerous lunatic, roaming about the grounds as I please, didn't you hear?” He laughed a cruel laugh, but the barbs of it seemed aimed upon himself. “Loose cannon, local nutcase, lonely mad hatter!” Chuuya brought his fist down atop the table, and a large crack split across its surface. Dark laughter poured from him like blood. “You’d better head out— before you get caught up in my collateral damage,” The noise Chuuya was making became difficult to listen to. His sides shook violently, broken groans and giggles rolling through his frame in waves. “If you even fucking exist!” 

Dazai was not a man well-versed in words of affection, having experienced them so rarely himself, but he had learned enough about the comfort of soft touch to replicate it admirably. He took hold of Chuuya’s wrist, sliding his thumb gently over the palm of his hand. “Please,” he kept his voice low and gentle. “That’s enough.” 

Chuuya’s gaze settled over him like a storm, and Dazai was nearly pulled into its depth. He looked truly miserable. Dazai wondered if the life Chuuya held onto in this place was worth the pain it so clearly caused him.

“Sorry,” Chuuya smiled ruefully. “I shouldn’t be…  behaving like this infront of you. Believe me it wasn’t my intention when I first—“ Chuuya cut himself off, rubbing at his temple with the hand not entangled with Dazai’s. “Forgive me.” Chuuya sighed, tugging lightly at his arm until Dazai tilted his head to stare back into clearer, tired blue eyes.

“Of course.” Dazai lifted his hand to stroke the side of Chuuya’s face, but stopped before he could complete the motion. 

“So easy?” Chuuya’s tone was cautious. He looked up with an uncertain expression, like he expected to be chastised.

“For Chuuya, always.” Dazai tucked a lock of hair behind Chuuya’s ear instead and bent to lift his hat up from the ground, picking off blades of grass with his fingers. Chuuya’s expression turned sheepish, and he waved Dazai to sit beside him at the half-ruined table.

He poured them both a cup of periwinkle-colored tea with shaking hands. “Go ahead, ask me your questions,” a bit of liquid spilled across the table, but Chuuya smoothed it away deftly with the sleeve of his jacket. “I'll be honest as long as I'm able.”  

Dazai took a breath, and after a moment a quick sip of tea. It tasted like lavender. “How old are you?”

“Ha,” The energetic bite had returned to Chuuya’s voice. “Thirty.” 

Dazai blinked. It had been his twenty-seventh birthday a few months before he fell. “You’re older than me.”

“Really? How strange.” 

They were still holding hands. Dazai thought about all the ways the Chuuya before him was the same as the one he’d known in Yokohama, and all the ways they were entirely different. He decided to be bold.

“Did your Dazai look like me?” He asked, though the answer didn’t really matter.

Chuuya shook his head vigorously. “No,” he wavered. “Well… maybe yes. I can’t remember.” Dazai considered his next question, only Chuuya wasn’t quite finished with the last; his eyes had fallen shut. “His voice was like yours, but softer.” 

Softer.

Chuuya leaned to the side, pressing himself into Dazai’s space. “Honestly I don't remember much, only…” Chuuya’s mouth hovered nearer to his own. Dazai drew back, stiff.

The pain in Chuuya’s quivering expression was clear, and yet Dazai could hardly bear his own. How he ached to kiss Chuuya even if only one final time— the way he had begged every God known to man for the opportunity. But Dazai feared the way his soul would scream if this Chuuya’s lips tasted any differently from the last. How he also knew he would only crumble further if they didn’t.

“Well,” Chuuya was looking at him again, expression crooked with the same, soft sort-of grin that had mesmerized Dazai for years. “If I can’t kiss the fair gentleman’s lips,” a sly, hopeful glint shimmered within those deep blue eyes. “May I kiss his hand?”

His mind held no doubt this time.

“Yes.” 

Chuuya tugged Dazai’s right hand towards his lips reverently, tilting his head briefly to kiss the knuckles like the prince of some forgotten fairytale. “I’m sorry,” his voice was breathy, and he held Dazai’s fingers the way one might cradle a baby bird.

Dazai closed his eyes into the sensation of Chuuya’s lips; like snowflakes landing on his skin in winter. “Who are you apologizing to?” 

“I’m not sure.” Chuuya’s brow furrowed as he skimmed his lips across the back of Dazai’s hand. It felt nice.

“That’s fine.” Dazai watched the muscles of Chuuya’s face twitch and shift, some private matter resolving itself beneath the surface. He pulled back, giving Dazai’s hand a quick pat in parting. 

“Don’t get your hopes up, sweetheart, you’ll only be disappointed.”

***

After whatever moment they’d forged fell to pieces around them at the broken tea table Chuuya wandered off to the stables, presumably to coo at his horse. Dazai left him to it, the need for a hot shower and a deep rest clawing at his bones. 

It only took a little bit of whining to persuade the house to offer him a modern Japanese washroom— minus any reflective surfaces, and the room certainly delivered. The tile was cool, the water warm and almost soft. It was truly, exactly what he needed. 

When he’d finished drying himself off and re-entered the bedroom, Dazai noticed a set of traditional sleepwear laid out upon the bed. It had been a long time since Dazai had last worn jinbei, and the memory of a hot springs vacation with Chuuya came tenderly to his mind for a moment.

It did hurt, the way even Dazai’s happiest memories no longer held the comfort they’d once offered him in dark moments. He laid down to rest, but when the blanket of sleep finally settled over him it seemed only the beginning of the night’s woe.
                                                                                             

***

Chuuya and he were drinking wine at the Hanami festival. He looked stunning, dressed in a traditional yukata with an intricate pattern— deep red embroidered koi against a sea of navy blue silk.

Dazai couldn’t look away.

“You know, life doesn't have to be as horrible as you make it seem,” Chuuya punctuated his words with a grip at the breast of Dazai’s robe. “It can be nice.” 

The kiss they shared that night had been the first of many.

***

Dazai awoke to hot tears streaked uncomfortably across his face. He fought against the urge to sob. Grief, however, had him in its grip— and this was a battle Dazai had already lost a thousand times. His throat closed up, choking him off and he squeezed his eyes shut tightly against the feeling.

“Oh,” Chuuya’s voice appeared at his bedside and Dazai startled, but rough hands spread across Dazai’s face before he could turn to look. “Keep those eyes shut, dear, I don’t think it will be very helpful for you to see me right now.” 

The room was dark, the sun must have set while he’d been sleeping, and there seemed little difference between the darkness of the night and that behind his eyelids. Dazai wondered for a moment how long Chuuya had sat there, watching over him while his eyes adjusted around the dimming light.

“Hush your thoughts,” Chuuya’s hand was warm over his brow, and after a moment there came another, along with a soft bit of cloth to dry the tears on Dazai’s face. Memories of similar aching moments of tenderness bloomed in his mind and he sobbed anew. “Shit, it’s got you bad, hasn’t it…” Chuuya whispered in the darkness. “I didn't realize how alike we still are.” He laughed quietly, a helpless sort of sound, before petting the side of Dazai’s face with another warm cloth. “Remind me, did your… Chuuya ever sing?” 

Dazai swallowed several times before attempting a reply. This was the first time Chuuya had so directly acknowledged their shared grief. “No.”

“Then I will, hmm?” The cloth fell away from his face but Chuuya’s hands returned, trembling where they rested at the edge of his jaw. “It might soothe your condition without opening any old wounds.”

And so Chuuya sang, and he sang quite beautifully, because of course he did.

The melody began without words, only a low, lilting hum into which Chuuya poured a rich tenor voice. When the words came they seemed pulled from another world— it wasn’t any language Dazai had ever heard or studied before.

The tempo was slow and soothing, but also full of heat, and Dazai wondered if his Chuuya had enjoyed singing and, if so, if it was something he might have shown to Dazai, had they been granted just a little more time.

Chapter Text

Dazai woke up alone, but the curtains were already drawn and the room was bright. Upon rising to dress he noticed a small addition to the table at his bedside— a large, glass bowl of water.

He took a moment to admire the object, poking a finger inside mainly just to see what would happen, and was pleased to fond his Koi companion emerge from somewhere beyond the hidden, nonsensical depth of the glass. 

“Would you like a name, little one?” Dazai wiggled his fingers around in the water, brushing against the smooth skin of the Koi fish while it swam in small, elegant circles. “I’ll think of one soon,” he whispered, petting the fish once more with something approaching a smile on his face before turning to the foot of the bed where another outfit was laid out for him. He slid on a pair of deep mauve pants and a cream colored dress shirt, but found himself wanting for another layer. Helpfully, he remembered a sweater he had seen the night Chuuya made him tea in bed, grabbed it from the wardrobe at the other side of the room and threw it on over everything else. 

A quick wash of his face later and Dazai stepped out of the bedroom, taking a left and wandering down the hall towards the sun-filled room where he usually found Chuuya or Akutagawa having breakfast in the mornings.

At least, he thought it was to the left. The hall no longer seemed familiar, nor did Dazai come across any specific door he recognized. He called out for Chuuya, and then towards the ceiling in general. “Hello, uh, I think I might be lost, again…”

No discernible response from the house arrived.

Dazai came to a corner and took a turn down a new hallway with forest green walls, everything still looking rather foriegn until he noticed the large, mahogany door frame from his very first night. It was locked, of course. “Oh, come on—” Dazai complained, banging at the doorframe and watching the word ‘No’ appear as if written in chalk over the wood. He sighed dramatically, slumping downward into a squat against the wall. “Can I please go to breakfast?”

The floor opened up beneath him suddenly and Dazai fell unceremoniously onto the kitchen table. Chuuya wasn’t in the room, but Dazai could hear his voice not far away. He was shouting. 

He slid off the table, rubbing a bit at his tailbone. The noise seemed to come from the windows, and as he approached the far side of the room he could see Chuuya, riding his ridiculous horse across the fields at the side of the house, whooping and shouting random obscenities for no particularly observable reason. He wore no hat, and had left his hair untied to fall about his shoulders in loose waves. 

He looked almost happy; wild and full of life.

“Tell Chuuya-san he needs to come back inside, will you?” Akutagawa’s slim figure slid beside Dazai’s at the window, coughing lightly into his sleeve.

“Why?” Dazai didn’t see the point in cutting off what was clearly an enjoyable pastime.

Akutagawa turned to face him, eyes dark and expression grave. “It's going to rain,” he pressed Dazai off towards a sliding glass door. “Get him quickly, it’s about to start.” 

Dazai stumbled out the door, irritated at having been chosen to interrupt Chuuya’s good mood. Chuuya, who slowed his horse as Dazai drew near.

“Have you finally decided to join me?” The grin Chuuya fixed him with was light, and full of mischief. It sparked old memories inside his mind.

Dazai crossed his arms. “Of course not. Chuuya is stupid to suggest such things.”

“Stupid?” Dazai tilted his gaze up to see where Chuuya had arched his expression in surprise, and for a moment Dazai wondered if this wild, more volatile version of Chuuya would flare up over the slight. “The only stupid I see is a man who can’t appreciate a beautiful fucking horse.”

Dazai rolled his eyes, and Chuuya laughed, dismounting smoothly to walk beside him as he led the horse. They set off towards the stable together pleasantly enough, but Chuuya kept shooting an irritated sort of look in Dazai’s direction.

“Why are you glaring at me?”

Chuuya shifted dramatically and crossed his arms in front of his chest, mirroring Dazai’s pose. “You’re not wearing what I laid out for you. You know, it’s horrifically bad luck to refuse the hospitality of one’s host.” He sounded like he was reading lines from an old nursery rhyme.

“I am wearing it, I just added a sweater,” Dazai complained, waving his hands in the air. “And you’re my employer now, not my—” 

Strong hands fisted into the chest of Dazai’s sweater abruptly, pulling his face downwards to meet Chuuya’s glare. “Why?”

“Uh, because I signed the contract.” Dazai was close enough to count the freckles layered across Chuuya’s cheeks, to watch the warped reflection of the world around them shift and coalesce in his eyes. 

“Not that, keep up! Why did you add a sweater?” Chuuya asked the question like he’d never heard of anyone throwing an extra layer onto an outfit before in his life. 

“Because… I was cold?” They made it to the stable, and Chuuya set about de-outfitting his horse, brushing and cooing at her all the while.

“Well, it looks terrible.”

“Akutagawa told me we should hurry,” Chuuya stepped out of the stall, blowing one last kiss to his horse before joining Dazai at the stable door.

“Why?”

“He said it’s going to rain.” The skies darkened above them almost poetically as Dazai finished speaking, rain falling to the ground in a sudden wave. Chuuya sucked in a breath and stepped back deeper into the stable, plugging his ears up with his fingers before he turned to Dazai with a level of petulance in his expression that Dazai hadn’t seen since they were fifteen.

“This is absolutely because you fucking blew off my outfit today.”

Dazai knew there would be no point to argue further so he reached out a hand, “I’m sorry then. Shall we?”

Chuuya’s expression soured further. “I’d rather not.” He shifted on his feet, shuffling a bit of straw under his shoes, and Dazai remembered the strange gravity in Akutagawa’s voice when he warned of rain.

He decided not to press Chuuya any further, especially when he looked so uncomfortable. He peered out into the garden instead, watching droplets fall onto a small, glass tea table only a few meters away, cups filling up and overflowing. It was soothing, in a way, and Dazai found himself so lost in the sight of it that the softness of Chuuya’s voice and the press of a shoulder at his side surprised him. 

“Being in the rain makes me…” Chuuya sighed, and the tone of it was one Dazai could recognize. He was frustrated with himself. “Sometimes I forget where I am.”

Ah.

Dazai reached out hesitantly, brushing the backs of his fingers with Chuuya’s. Letting them linger there. “Then we’ll wait until it stops.” 

***

Two and a half hours later amidst the distant, muffled hum of approaching thunder Dazai realised that this was not going to play out like a typical end-of-the-summer shower. Akutagawa must have come to the same conclusion separately because Dazai saw him approaching the stables at the crest of the hill a moment later, wearing what looked like a purple raincoat. As he drew closer the coat grew, unfurling above him like a violet carpet. 

“Really I don’t think this is necessary, Ryuu,” Chuuya complained, throwing up his hands — agitated, and perhaps a little embarrassed. Eventually, he stepped out from beneath the stable roof though, settling safely under the dome Akutagawa’s ability provided. “You should consider your health.”

“Let’s just get inside, then we can discuss my health.” Akutagawa’s expression remained stoic, but he gave a light cough and a quick nod to Dazai before walking off into the garden. 

“Just pretend you’re a celebrity,” Dazai ventured, extending an arm out for Chuuya to take hold of, lest he trip and careen somehow into the very experience they sought to prevent. Chuuya looked up at him with confusion, or some other feeling Dazai couldn’t quite decipher, but took his arm and walked along.

It was almost spiritual, to walk in stride with Chuuya again like this.

“What’s that?”

“Hmm?” Dazai turned to see the frustrated set of Chuuya’s brows while they walked.

“Celebrity.” He pronounced the word like it was foriegn, and Dazai supposed it was. He ran quickly through the bits of information he’d gathered about Wonderland thus far.

“Ah… It’s like royalty.”

Chuuya grimaced, turning away to look out into the garden, towards the trees. Another conversational misstep. Dazai opened his mouth to change the topic but a sudden flash of light and a violent trembling of the earth beneath their feet rendered him breathless. There was a sound like a landslide, and the very air around them seemed to stiffen as Chuuya’s grip tightened painfully around his arm and then released. Dazai’s ears rang.

Lightning strike.

For a moment all of Dazai’s thoughts held themselves suspended in shock, only realizing belatedly the reality of what had occurred. The noise had been a lightning strike— direct to ground.

It must have struck somewhere in the garden itself, and though Dazai was curious he knew it wasn't exactly the time to investigate further. He took a breath to get his bearings and looked around him— Akutagawa was focused on regrowing the cloak-umbrella that had shrunken quite a bit above them. Chuuya was on his knees in the grass, head between his hands, groaning.

“Chuuya—” Dazai bent forward and grabbed him about the waist instinctively, throwing a small arm over his shoulders despite the litany of curses it provoked. Akutagawa was at Chuuya’s left in an instant, mirroring Dazai’s actions. 

Lightning struck again, this time from further off, and they rushed the rest of the way to the mansion’s back entrance, carrying Chuuya bodily across the threshold and setting him down on the nearest sewing stool they drew past. 

“Shut the door.” The urgency in Akutagawa’s voice saw Dazai spin back to close the door and lock it without second thought, muffling the sound of the storm outside. His right arm felt hot, and suddenly very sore.

Akutagawa stripped the jacket smoothly off Chuuya’s back, moving immediately onto his boots, but when he tugged at the soiled knees of Chuuya’s riding pants, Chuuya roughly shoved him aside. “I can handle my pants being a bit wet, fuck’s sake.”

He stumbled off into the kitchen, and Dazai looked on silently while Akutagawa undressed himself of the sopping wet violet overcoat, mute but radiating some shade of sadness Dazai couldn’t specify.

Soft grunts and a disgusting, wet sound carried into the awkward silence of the hall. Chuuya was throwing up into the sink.

“Thank you.” 

Akutagawa turned to face him slowly. “What?”

“Thank you,” Dazai repeated, soft. “For coming to get us. I’m sorry I couldn’t bring him in in time,” he rubbed cautiously at his arm, and Akutagawa’s eyes tracked the motion.

“Are you injured?”

Dazai sighed, pushing up the sleeve of his sweater and untucking the edge of bandage from his wrist, exposing a heavily bruised, swollen forearm. 

“Maybe.”

***

The clinic was small, and rather unassuming in comparison with the rest of the shops in the area. The siding was painted a simple, deep gray, and the entry room had only a few empty chairs for waiting patients.

“Are you here to see the doctor?” A soft voice drew Dazai to the counter and towards a young woman with long, dark hair and steel gray eyes. 

Gin Akutagawa.

“Sir?” Gin spoke again and Dazai realised he hadn’t replied to her original question.

“Ah, yes.”

“Alright, give me your name, and a bit about what brought you here today.” Gin drew a notepad and what looked like a calligraphy pen from beneath her desk. 

“Dazai. I might have broken my arm.” Dazai gestured vaguely with his hand. 

“Excuse me?” Gin’s expression was a professionally subdued take on incredulity. 

“I said I think I broke my arm.” Dazai shrugged.

“I heard you.” Gin sighed, adjusting her medical mask. “You realize this is a family practice, not a hospital.” 

Dazai recognized the same dismissive tone he’d been hearing from her brother the past few days. It was getting old.

“The sign outside mentions urgent care.”

“Urgent, not emergent.” She stressed, jotting a few notes onto the pad nonetheless. 

“I’ve never held much stock in semantics, honestly,” he paused for effect, winking clownishly. “Oh and— Ryuunosuke said I should tell you he sent me here.”

Gin blinked and directed Dazai to take a seat in the waiting area, but no sooner had Dazai’s backside touched the chair than his name was called by a very familiar voice.

“Dazai Osamu, come with me to exam room two, let's see what we can do for you here.” 

***

A bit less than an hour later Dazai had his arm in a sling and splint, a follow up appointment in three days time, and a refreshing yet somewhat disorientating take on the kind of man Mori might have been if he’d never found Mafia.

Curiouser and curiouser.

He left the clinic promptly, prepared to shield his arm beneath his coat from the rain until he stepped outside and found the storm had passed. The darkness and clouding that had followed him into town had cleared. The light of late afternoon spilled across the sky once more as Dazai hurried back to the forest path, so focused on where he was going it took him over ten minutes to realize he was being followed. He spun around on his heels to face the young woman.

“I have been told that I’m quite handsome on the eyes, but there's no need to follow me home, Gin.”

“I'm not following you home.” Gin continued forward along the path, walking rather alarmingly confidently past Dazai. He jogged to catch up with her.

“Well you see, this path leads to the place where I live, so really—” They broke out from beneath the treeline and into the front garden. Gin turned to address him again.

“I know you live here, it’s all been incredibly chaotic since you arrived.” Gin fumbled in her coat to pull out a set of bronze keys, sliding one perfectly into the entryway door. 

“So I’m the reason this place is chaotic— wait,” Dazai cut himself off. “You live here?” He rubbed his hands over his face in disbelief. How many nights had he been staying in this house? How could he not notice that not one but two Akutagawa siblings held residence here?

Gin merely rolled her eyes at Dazai’s internal conflict, stepping into the house and turning to close— and lock — the door in front of his face. Truly, this universe grew more disagreeable to Dazai by the hour.

He knocked at the door fruitlessly for several minutes until he heard a muffled ‘Back door is open, and tell Chuuya to come in with you,’ from somewhere within. 

So Dazai walked cautiously through the bramble of moving tree roots and still dripping-wet shrubbery into the back garden, where he found Chuuya laying rather despondently in a patch of soggy, tall grass. “Come inside, it’s getting dark, and you’re going to get sick.” He extended his uninjured hand, but Chuuya only frowned and sucked his teeth.

“I’m sleeping here.” 

“You’re going to catch a cold.” 

“I’m going to be fine, thank you.” Chuuya’s voice rose and his fingers twitched, pulling bits of grass up around him at the roots.

“You’re being ridiculous.” Honestly, this was beginning to feel like an argument with a toddler, but as soon as the thought rose in his mind a shock of grief bloomed alongside. Chuuya had always compared Dazai’s stubborn nature to the behavior of a child in much the same way. His mood soured.

“I fucking broke you,” Chuuya sounded pained, and Dazai put his own aside for another moment.

“You broke my arm, Chuuya… the rest I did all by myself.”

“You’re not taking this seriously.” Chuuya draped his right forearm over his eyes and groaned.

“You understand how hypocritical that sounds, coming from you,” Dazai settled down into the grass beside him. It was muddy, and cold.

“Fuck off,” Chuuya spat harshly, slamming his fists against the ground at his sides, creating miniature sinkholes in the damp earth. His tone turned desperate, “Please.”

Dazai knew he wouldn't win if he didn’t play the game, and so he sighed, “That isn’t a very gentlemanly thing to say to your employee now, is it?” 

“Neither is—” Chuuya paused, sat up to stare down at Dazai the better. His gaze rested over the cast on Dazai’s wrist, expression raw. “Does it hurt?”

“Not really.” Dazai smiled genially, but Chuuya’s frown only deepened. He reached out to touch Dazai’s fingers where they peeked out from the sling, warm and brief. 

“Did they at least give you something for the pain?”

“Yes but,” Dazai answered, watching Chuuya pluck a few soggy blades of grass from the ground with trembling hands. “I won’t take them.”

Chuuya’s eyes met his, concerned. “Why?”

“I find it hard to stop.” He turned away, looking down the grassy hill and towards the stable. The wind picked up, and Dazai found himself wondering if Chuuya’s horse would be cold, come winter. 

“Oh.” Chuuya breathed the word like a sigh, heavy and long. “So you—”

“It's late, Chuuya,” Dazai stood up abruptly, shaking grass and dirt from his clothes. He extended a hand. “My clothes are dirty, and we missed teatime.” 

***

Later, Akutagawa brought dinner into the music room, where Chuuya had holed up to ‘digest’ after having about seven cups of tea and twice as many biscuits, before ultimately having a shower and summarily passing out atop the grand piano bench. 

Dazai had, inevitably, followed him there and was present when the younger man arrived.

“Do you work here?” He asked as Akutagawa set down a tray of tea and tri-color sandwiches. 

“No.” He coughed briefly into a handkerchief before carrying on with laying out the porcelain. Dazai wondered if helping them out in the storm earlier would worsen whatever seemingly chronic illness this version of him had.

“Then why do you always serve tea?”

Akutagawa turned to face him coolly, and it was with a level of indifference Dazai had never been party to back in Yokohama. “Chuuya-san is my friend. He has given me and my sister a place to stay and companionship for many years,” His eyes narrowed, “I'm glad to make him tea, or dinner from time to time.” 

Akutagwa’s footsteps fell loudly against the silence of the room as he left, and Dazai stared sullenly, feeling guilty and more than a little out of place not for the first time that day.

Chuuya shifted atop the bench, brows knitting together as he woke from his nap. He opened his eyes and Dazai’s breath paused— he’d never recover from how expressive this version of Chuuya was, and how often that expression was a shade of pain. 

Dazai brushed a lock of hair behind Chuuya’s ear. “I think Akutagawa hates me.” 

“Which one?” 

“Both of them.” 

Chuuya laughed and sat up, swiping a sandwich from the tray and placing it in Dazai’s hands before grabbing one for himself. “Don’t worry dear, they’re like that with practically everyone. Very private family.” 

“They seem to like you just fine.” 

Chuuya shrugged, finishing his sandwich and moving on to a cup of tea. “We’ve known each other a long time.” Chuuya focused on his tea, and another sandwich besides for some time before he turned his attention back to Dazai, staring at him with that wild-eyed, intense expression he was growing almost familiar with by now. “Are you upset?”

Dazai leaned back, “Why do you ask?”

Chuuya pressed further into his space. “It’s incredibly hard to read you without ears, you know.” 

“Ears?” Dazai found himself rather thrown for a loop, raising a hand to the side of his head.

“Yes, ears.” Chuuya nodded like a schoolteacher. “Yours are missing.” 

“I have ears.” Dazai protested, finding the entire conversation absurd until he recalled the face of the boy in his bathroom mirror. Innocent eyes and large, chocolate-brown rabbit ears.

“Remains to be seen,” Chuuya muttered under his breath, shaking his head. “For all I know you’re as earless as a fish.”

Silence hung between them for a time, and Dazai worried over the question that burned inside his mind.

“So how did I die?” The words left his lips almost unconsciously. 

“You ask too many questions, mackerel. No fucking manners.” Chuuya’s tone was sharp but his hands were warm where they found the collar of Dazai’s shirt, unbuttoning the top buttons and adjusting the strap of his sling to sit less tightly at his shoulder. 

“I’ve answered yours. I’m just being fair.” Dazai dipped himself further into Chuuya’s quasi-embrace, watching the wildness ebb and flow in his eyes. 

“You dodged mine, sweetheart, but fine. I owe you as much.” Chuuya winked and lifted his hands off of Dazai’s shoulders. He took a long breath, pulling the palm of Dazai’s unbroken hand to his lips and kissing it lightly. His voice began as a whisper, “A creature came and stole you from my bed in the middle of the night.” He laughed, squeezing Dazai’s fingers. “No, that’s not it— you laughed so hard you forgot how to breathe! You tripped and fell into seventeen different pieces, a giant eagle swooped you off to a far-away land, you were shot in the back—” Chuuya’s voice rose in pitch and intensity as he let go of Dazai’s hand to swipe at the air, senseless. “I stabbed you, crushed your windpipe with my fingers. I killed you. You died. You died. You–”  Chuuya’s voice fell into a wheezing cough, and Dazai could see that his mind was no longer in the present. 

“That’s enough, Chuuya, I’m sorry.” He rose himself off the bench, listening to Chuuya’s ragged breathing as he tried to fight off the current episode. Dazai scanned over the tea tray and found several vials of what looked like the same medicinal oils they had used the other night. 

One of them was labeled CALM, and Dazai took the liberty of adding a few drops to a fresh cup of tea, presenting it to Chuuya like a peace offering while he stared at the floor. “I’m sorry about my manners.” It was strange for Dazai to need forgiveness so frequently, an uncomfortable desperation he’d like to carve out of his chest if possible.

“It’s fine. My fault, really.” Chuuya replied breathlessly, taking the cup from Dazai and raising it to his lips. A long silence. “You got shot.”

Dazai looked up, surprised at Chuuya’s decision to continue the conversation, but Chuuya simply offered an apologetic shrug.

“We both did... only they took me from you, dragged me off your body and carried me away.” He reached for Dazai’s good hand again, tugging lightly until his body followed, helplessly sliding back into Chuuya’s orbit, in every reality. Every dream. “You looked so lonely, lying there you know? I was trying to tell you—”

“Tell me what?” Dazai asked, but Chuuya’s breath stuttered unevenly again, his right hand shook with the weight of the cup of tea he still held. Dazai suggested they both find a space to lay down. To calm down.

But Chuuya didn’t calm down very easily— although laying with his head against Dazai’s lap on the piano bench seemed to soothe the worst of his tremors. He tossed his head from side to side, small bouts of helpless, bitter laughter escaping him at intervals.

Dazai brushed careful fingers through the tangles in his hair. “Shush,”

“I’m trying, actually.” Chuuya looked up at him sheepishly, though he did not hold Dazai’s gaze long, his eyes darting off in several directions about the room.

“You should rest. Me too, is what Mori-san said.” Dazai wanted his tone to be gentle, but having no idea exactly how to do such a thing settled somewhere around a half-whisper in graceless attempt.

“Will you sleep here tonight?” Chuuya asked, and the accompaniment ‘With me,’ sang unspoken between his words.

“Yeah,” Dazai answered, and Chuuya’s vague, shy smile was worth its weight in gold.

He sat up unexpectedly, flitting about the room to open a wardrobe and roll out a futon; it seemed every room in this house could act as a bedroom if the need arose.

“Tell me a story,” Chuuya asked while he unfurled a series of quilts atop the newly laid mattress. “about us, from your country.” 

Dazai smirked at his energy and consistently unpredictable reactions. “Have you heard of Double Black?”

“No,” Chuuya waved Dazai excitedly towards the futon, tossing a bunch of bright colored pillows from about the room beside it, maneuvering and fluffing at them until he finally lay down to rest.

Dazai joined him. “Wonderful.”

***

An hour later Dazai had finished telling about the Dragon’s Head conflict, and how Double Black defeated Shibusawa the first time. 

“So you took away my super strength with touch?” Chuuya tossed his head to the side to stare into Dazai’s eyes. The scenario wasn’t unlike pillow talk.

“Not your strength actually, just… everything else.” Dazai struggled to find the right words to describe all that For the Tainted Sorrow had been.

“Hmm,” Chuuya raised a hand towards the ceiling, twirling his fingers in a pattern not unlike Dazai had seen him use in a gunfight. “And what did I do?”

“Mainly, you passed out.”

“Did you stay with me?” Chuuya asked, eyes closing as a small, dream-like smile rippled across his expression. Dazai thought back to all the times Chuuya had fallen asleep at his feet, in his arms, across his lap, against his chest.

“Most of the time,” he answered, accepting the slight crack in his voice when it came as an inevitable consequence of being.

Chuuya sighed, stretching his arms above his head. “That’s quite romantic.” Something sad whispered behind his words, and Dazai reached out with his good arm to take hold of his hand.

“Chuuya—”

“I’m not that man,” Chuuya gave Dazai’s fingers a squeeze. “Not the one you know, not the same… not sane.” He sounded forlorn. 

“You're someone I’d like to learn more about.” Dazai shifted closer to Chuuya, earnest. “I’m not the same either, look at me. Earless.”

 “Well, I suppose you do have ears.” Chuuya laughed, brushing his fingers against the side of Dazai’s head. Soft. His expression opened in a childlike manner, raw and rare. “There they are.” Dazai twitched his ears back and forth, ticklish under the touch. “Ha! They still move!” In the moonlight, he could see the way Chuuya’s eyes shone with unshed tears.

There was nothing to be said, and so they lay still for a time, staring up at the ceiling in silent solidarity until the light grew dimmer and Dazai finally drifted off to sleep.

***

He woke unexpectedly in the night, the indomitable press of existential dread and a renewed throb of pain in his broken arm drawing him away from his dreams. Chuuya was with him still, not exactly on the futon but strewn haphazardly over the assortment of technicolor pillows he’d organized beside it earlier. Dazai listened to his quiet snores, the rhythmic breaths mixing with the tatting drum of rain falling down against the roof outside. Shimmering Koi fish swam in comforting patterns along the ceiling. 

He took a stretch of quilt and tossed it lightly over Chuuya’s uncovered stomach, letting the sounds around him coalesce into a strange, wordless melody— enough to lull him back to sleep.  

When he rose again, it was to a patch of early morning light on his skin and Chuuya’s fingers raking softly through his hair. He was awake. And talking, although Dazai realized quickly the conversation was not meant for him to hear.

Chuuya’s tone was gentle. 

“It'll be just like I said, Usagi-chan. We’ll buy our own place— away from the rest of the world. You’re going to love it. I swear.” Chuuya’s fingers curled against his scalp, and Dazai half-opened his eyes. He didn’t want to be found awake and yet, couldn’t resist the urge to look. 

He shouldn’t have.

Chuuya was crying. Fully— it was not very beautiful. Tears filled his eyes and spilled unevenly down his face. Bits of his hair were wet with it, his nose dripping.

Dazai closed his eyes again, uncertainty rendering him demure. Chuuya continued to stroke his hair, muttering nonsense and wiping his face against his sleeve. Somehow, the measured strokes against his hair and the familiar cadence of Chuuya’s voice pulled him to sleep once more. 

He dreamt of Koi fish, swimming against the current in a sea of endless, silver tears.

Chapter Text

The throne room was stupidly large, and Chuuya’s knees ached as they were dragged carelessly across the cold stone floor by a set of common goons he could obliterate in a heartbeat.

If you ever get taken in, don’t make a scene, Chuuya. Try to stay alive.

Shirase’s words came back to him and he stayed his hands, hanging his head down as the attendant began to read off a list of crimes in a detached tone. “Disturber of the piece. Thief. Significant damage to public property. Organized crime.”

“Now wait a minute, picking pockets isn’t fucking organized—“ Chuuya’s jaw hit the floor harshly, with one of the guard’s fists locked around the back of his neck.

“The accused will be silent during the proceedings,” the attendant admonished, while Chuuya choked on the floor until the pressure at his throat was relieved. He sighed and tried to center his focus, preparing to fight for his life whenever this sham of a trial concluded.

A soft, yet commanding voice arose from in front of him. “And how does the accused plead?”

The room fell silent. Chuuya’s spine shivered as he felt all eyes shift towards him.

Guilty…

was the first thought that came to his mind. And maybe a brief opportunity to spit on the floor before he made a run for it. The attendant broke the spell. “Your Majesty, off with his head?”

He readied himself to pull against the chains as the edge of a blade kissed his nape, lining up.

“Wait.”

…Wait?

“Look at me again, lad.”

Chuuya lifted his head, and the Red Queen rose from her throne as chaos and rampant gasps of ‘your Majesty’ erupted across the floor. The Queen motioned for her senior advisor, an old man, and they approached together. Chuuya figured he could probably take them, but the Queen spoke again and interrupted his thoughts.

“Hirotsu-san, don’t you think the lad looks just like Tokutaro, when he was young?” They were right in-front of him, and Chuuya knew that now was his chance. The Queen smiled. She was beautiful. “He certainly looks to be about the right age.”

“Hmm, it’s difficult to say, your Majesty. He’s covered in filth.”

“Then he shall have a bath. Won’t you, lad?” A palm graced his cheek. It was warm, and strange. “What is your name?”

“Chuuya.”

The Queen frowned. “That won’t do. Your parents would’ve changed it, you know— to protect your identity.” Chuuya wasn’t sure how to respond. The Queen’s nails slid against the edge of his jaw. “I want the mar to his face corrected. He is to be presented to the throne dressed and fully cared for before sunset. I do believe our ⋌₪₰∤৲৳ has been returned to us!”

The crowd erupted into cheers, and the Queen stood back to scan the room, “You there! Take him to the dressing chamber,” she gestured down a long corridor. “He is is to be afforded every comfort our hospitality can provide.”

A small boy with dark hair and pale skin approached from the left, unfastening the chains around his wrists. They clattered to the floor.

“Follow me.”

Chuuya stumbled in the direction the Queen had pointed, unconsciously rubbing at his cheek while the stoic-faced errand boy ushered him curtly into a room at the edge of the hall.

The floor was cool, smoother than anything Chuuya’s bare feet had ever touched. He looked around, finding himself overwhelmed by the exorbitantly rich colors, wondering how expensive it must have been to dye all the walls like that.

The boy pulled a string to start the water running into a small basin. Certainly only one person would be able to fit at a time, or perhaps it was meant for children…

“Your bath, ⋌₪₰∤৲৳-san.”

“My name is Chuuya,” He spat on the floor and watched the other boy blink, unbothered. Elitist ass. A significant look from said elitist roused him to unbutton his shirt and strip down to enter the bath. The water was neither too hot nor too cold. It was, in fact, so nice that he might fucking cry.

That is, until the errand boy approached him with a brush covered in bubbling foam, grabbing his arm and scraping it against his skin like knives. He screamed and shoved the boy away, wincing when it seemed he overdid it. The pale boy flew off his feet and sailed into the next room, landing on his ass.

It was sort-of funny.

“Strength?” The boy picked himself off the floor and approached Chuuya again— but something had shifted. He blinked and dark eyes suddenly hovered above his own, gaze raw and menacing. “That’s an easy gift to hide,” a strange, creeping tentacle of cloth rose from behind the boy’s neck and twisted itself quickly around Chuuya’s arms, locking them against his back. He couldn’t move. “and you will hide it, if you know what’s best for you.”

“Who the fuck are you?” Chuuya asked, because it had become clear, now, that this boy was not some average royal aid. Those were not the eyes of someone who had grown up in relative luxury. They were the same eyes Chuuya had—  the ones you got growing up on the streets.

The boy grinned, feral, bearing his teeth. “My name is Ryuunosuke, and you are having a bath, Chuuya.”

Chapter Text

Dazai awoke to the sound of music. A soft, jazzy tune he didn’t immediately recognize. Cheerfulness had returned to Chuuya’s face, and warm threads of sunlight brightened his skin and hair as he dipped his head over the keys.

He sat up and began rolling the futon, Chuuya voiced a simple greeting but continued to play. It took a moment to remember which places in the walls opened up into the practical storage compartments Dazai had seen Chuuya pull their bedding out of last night, and rather longer to reposition the various pillows Chuuya had gathered from about the space. Every time Dazai thought he’d gotten the placement just right Chuuya would shout ‘No!’ or ‘Absolutely not!’ from the piano, to the point where he was certain Chuuya no longer wanted the pillows back the way they had been last night, but in some new arrangement he was having Dazai create live. 

“Shit.”

The music stopped.

Chuuya’s hands stilled over the keys— his face wrinkled with pain, and Dazai moved without thinking, approaching the bench and grabbing the hand closest to him and prodding it firmly along the median nerve until he was interrupted.

“The right one, please,” Chuuya pivoted slightly in his seat, extending the other hand, eyes downcast. “If you’re going to do something, at least do it right!” A brief, sardonic sort of laugh escaped him before it was muffled by Chuuya’s own palm, his expression further strained by shame.

“It’s fine,” Dazai spoke ahead of any unnecessary apologies. Neither of them had ever been that type, anyway. “Does it hurt?” Chuuya looked solemn, but the hand over his mouth remained and no answer was spoken. Dazai sighed. “You know, where I come from, I learned to communicate without words.” He tapped a bit of Morse code against Chuuya’s palm, but there was no spark of understanding in his eyes, only intrigue. 

The hand fell from Chuuya’s mouth, moving delicately over the piano once again, tapping a simple melody. “Music is communication without words.” 

Dazai smiled, earnest as he could manage, seating himself beside Chuuya on the bench. “Will you show me?” 

Chuuya’s gaze pulled away from Dazai and back to his hands, the melody slowed, yet became somehow more intriguing. He played for a long time without accompaniment but gradually, almost naturally, he began to sing;

Je te laisserai des mots
En-dessous de ta porte
En-dessous de les murs qui chantent
Tout près de la place où tes pieds passent
Caché dans les trous de temps d'hiver
Et quand tu es seule pendant un instant

Ramasse-moi 
Quand tu voudras

Embrasse-moi
Quand tu voudras

Touche-moi
Quand tu voudras

It was beautiful. Hauntingly so, and a strange feeling tickled inside Dazai’s throat. He noticed almost off-handedly that Chuuya’s voice held a very slight but persistent rasp, a detail that became more apparent in his singing. 

“Did you damage your vocal cords?” 

The melody stuttered and Chuuya turned to look at him curiously. “Hah?”

He took a breath, feeling ridiculous for having interrupted such a profound moment but nonetheless committed to the intrusion, “Uh, have you ever damaged your vocal cords, or overused them?”

Chuuya’s expression soured, his hands retreating from the instrument and into the pockets of his overcoat. “Do I sound that fucking bad?” 

“No.” Dazai spoke swiftly, emphatically. “You just…” he stopped, “You just sound a little different.”

“Hmm,” Chuuya pulled the cover to the keyboard down and leaned against the newly exposed woodwork, curiously edging his way into Dazai’s space. “So am I very different from him?”

“I…” Dazai paused, thrown by the shift and uncertain how to proceed. Landmines littered the field. “I’m not sure I know you enough to answer that sort of question.” 

Chuuya blinked at him, undeterred, “Hypothesize.” 

Dazai coughed. “You’re a little too polite?” 

Chuuya graced him with a wink and a laugh, musical and bright. “Would you prefer I insult you more?”

“I’m not sure how I would handle that.” 

Chuuya laughed again, ruffling Dazai’s hair before excusing himself to meet with a client. “I’ll have Ryuu bring you something to eat.” 

Dazai nodded, mute. He sat at the piano bench for a while longer, staring at the backs of his own hands until Akutagawa arrived with a tray of what looked like it might have been bacon at one point in its life— now far too blackened to recognize with any degree of certainty. He picked one up off the tray, only to find it cold, and reminiscent of charcoal in texture. 

“He loves you, you know,” Akutagawa spoke plainly, but his gaze was so piercing Dazai felt viscerally the way he’d been judged and found wanting. “If you care.” 

This version of Akutagawa seemed to harbor the same inclination towards ferocious loyalty, only, in this place Dazai himself had never earned it. All that uncanny, wild devotion belonged to Chuuya. 

A more suitable mentor. 

“I hardly know him.” 

“Is that so?” Akutagawa’s expression shifted, and he spoke only briefly before turning around and walking further off along the corridor.  “Then you should learn— or leave. He’s suffered enough.”

***

Dazai left the room feeling sick, his injured arm throbbing painfully. He remembered the follow-up Mori had recommended after the placement of his cast. Dark thoughts crawled back into his mind like spiders. 

Death,

gentle and easy— images and dramatizations swirled beneath the surface of his thoughts as he scrambled towards the privacy of his borrowed bedroom until an iridescent flash of color drew his attention left, towards one of the paintings hung along the corridor. 

A koi fish.

He brought his uninjured hand up to stroke the canvas, and found himself not entirely surprised when his fingertips sunk into cool, flowing water. 

“You're a sweet one, aren't you?” He stroked the glimmering scales of the koi. Soft, but not overly so. Beautiful, but not blinding. “I did promise you a name, how about I call you Sugar?”

The scales rippled against his palm.

“It was very kind of you to come,” he cooed. “Thank you.” 

Sugar brushed against his fingers twice more before swimming out of frame, and Dazai straightened himself up. Chuuya had a client, and Akutagawa clearly wanted him dead and buried. 

He would go to the doctor.

The walk was brisk, the summer air damp against his skin. He followed the same convoluted, winding path Chuuya had carried him through on horseback the first time, aiming to kill time. The forest was wild, and Dazai counted himself lucky only a few tree roots tugged at his ankle.

He came out into the town center, making his way past the general store, chocolatier, pharmacist, and what looked to be a second hand bookshop before arriving at the clinic. Gin greeted him with a professionally bright smile, ever at odds with her brother in affect, though never at heart.

He sat until his name was called.

There was a photo of a young girl on Mori’s office desk, where Dazai had been led by an attractive nurse to wait for his appointment to begin. She resembled Elise, only she looked to be more of a younger teen in age rather than a child. He moved to take a closer look, but the door clicked and Mori entered to catch him snooping.

“Ah, you’ve found the picture of my niece,” the doctor clasped his hands together and his voice took on a higher timbre, “isn’t she adorable?”

“Of course.” Dazai answered, shifting backwards in his seat before being directed to hold out his encased arm.

Mori sighed, and a softer expression than he’d seen those features form fell into place as he tapped against Dazai’s cast in various places. “She saved my life. Got me home from the front, you know? How is your pain?”

“Unbearable, at times.” Dazai looked up, intrigued by this new detail. He’d been granted only limited trivia of a war in conversation with Chuuya, and suspected this town to be a sort of living aftermath. “The war Chuuya fought in?”

Mori’s brows drew together. “Heavens, that boy.” He shook his head in some sort of defeat. “I had thought he was a diamond, the papers at the time spun quite a fantastic tale...” He sighed. “But he cracked.”

“Diamonds don’t crack.” Dazai replied automatically.

Mori’s gaze sharpened from across the table. “I’m aware.”

“But they can shatter, under extreme pressure.”

“Noted.” 

Mori wrapped up the appointment by prescribing a cream for him to rub along the skin that met the edge of his cast to prevent irritation and another follow up in three days' time to remove it. 

Dazai slid out the door and past Gin without making eye contact, his hurry broken upon the realization that he would need to wile away a bit of time before the prescription could be fulfilled. Mori’s words about the papers spun in his mind, and he entered the bookshop.

An elderly man stood behind a counter full of dust and stacks of paper so tall they nearly obscured his visage entirely. Dazai waved to catch his attention.

“Hello, would you happen to have any material on the war?”

***

He returned to the mansion to find Chuuya laying on a stretch of carpet in the workroom, or one of his workrooms— there were either several of them, or there was one that simply looked slightly different every time Dazai entered. Today, the walls were sky-blue and the carpet made of a peculiar magenta wool. It felt nice against the skin of Dazai’s feet, as he’d been directed to leave his shoes at the entryway. 

“I’m on a break right now.” Chuuya gestured towards the sewing desk a few meters away and an errant needle and thread he’d been holding, the spool rolling from his fingers and tumbling past Dazai and into the hall. 

Blue.

Dazai looked back at the machine, noticing the material he’d selected at the fabric store in town the other day, the one Chuuya had promised to fashion him a coat with.

“I’ll finish this up tomorrow, how about that?” Chuuya’s lips curled into a lazy smile as he pushed himself from the floor and into a seated position, though a slight tightness tugged at the corners of his eyes.

“That’s fine. It’s not cold yet.” Dazai reached his good hand out to help pull him up. 

“A waif like you is always cold.”

“Says the waifier-waif in two layers of wool,” he tugged at the lapels of Chuuya’s maroon suit jacket, staring helplessly into the blue of his eyes.

“I‘m not fucking waifier, you’re just abnormally long,” he peered into the pagage Dazai still held around his arm. “What’s in the bag?” 

“Prescriptions, and books.”

“Poetry?” Chuuya’s eyes shone with excitement.

“History,” Dazai walked over to the sewing desk and set the bag down, removing its contents; titles Dazai had carefully selected from among the veritable armada of war-based literature in the bookstore. 

A Land Unmade; Stories from the Great War

Gifted; How Wonderland’s Heroes Rose up in Troubled Times

I Hope This Reaches You; One Man’s Memoir in Search of a Friend. 

Chuuya skimmed the collection irritably, his nose shriveling like a pickled vegetable. “You shouldn’t read this garbage.”

“I want to.”

“Well, don’t.” Chuuya slammed his palm against the table violently and the reaction hung between them— over-harsh and unpredicted. 

Chuuya’s back had stiffened, his left hand fisted tightly in the messaline cloth strewn over the table surface, still connected on one end to the sewing machine. There was a furious wildness in his eyes and the strength of his grip; crawling along the edge of another episode, somehow. 

Dazai kept his voice low and level, relaxing his expression and aiming to de-escalate, “Chibi,”

“Don’t say that to me.” Chuuya spat into his face, “You have no right, talking like that.”

Oh.

Dazai honestly hadn’t realized the old nickname had slipped out in his hustle to calm the storm. Chibi.

Chuuya spun on his heels and stormed out of the room, and the lonely ache returned to Dazai’s chest almost like a comfort.

Almost. 

He stumbled from the room, forgetting his shoes for a moment before he slipped them on to follow after Chuuya like a helpless animal. It helped that he wore such bright clothes, but when they came upon a spiral staircase he seemed to disappear entirely, and Dazai found no trail to follow. 

“Don’t hide him away again, I can fix this.” He pleaded with the house, a few errant floorboards creaking in protest beneath his feet. “Please.”

Dazai descended the stairs and came upon a mossy-green door with a copper handle, which opened up into a vast library with tall, arched walls full of books. 

He stepped quietly along the expanse, brushing past shelves of what looked to be mostly fashion design volumes, poetry collections, fantasy novels, and even a section on what seemed like metaphysical theory. 

Chuuya was there, his small frame tucked neatly into the corner of the space, where a low padded bench had been carved into a nook beneath a set of stairs. Various shelves full of baubles, yarn, and knitting manuals filled the shallow cubby.  A reading nook, or perhaps one for knitting.

His shoulders were hunched, and as Dazai drew near he pulled his knees up to rest against his chest, head tilting downwards as an unkempt curtain of hair shielded his expression from Dazai’s gaze.

The sobs were, however, audible.

Dazai lowered himself gently into the space, pulling his legs up to mirror Chuuya’s pose and facing him directly. “Mind if I join you?”

Chuuya snorted, some bitter amusement passing through him alongside whatever sorrow. “Do as you like, I just,” he paused, lifting his head to show Dazai a brief, wobbly expression. “I just need a few minutes, yea?” 

Dazai paused, unsure how he might begin to bridge the gap an unshared history wedged between them. Truthfully, when he told Akutagwa he hardly knew Chuuya it wasn’t petty deflection. The man who sat before Dazai was Chuuya, in body, and it seemed likely that he also was in spirit. But not in mind. Not in habit. Not in…

Well, 

there was no reward to be gained from inaction. The Chuuya of this world may be an accomplished soldier and a devoted horseman, but it seemed Dazai would have to take the reins on their reintroduction. 

He closed his eyes, imagining the times when memory had overwhelmed him in the past. The grace people like Chuuya, Odasaku, and the members of the Armed Detective Agency had given him; what words to choose. “Do you want to talk about it, or would you rather just enjoy my company?”

Chuuya’s eyes darted towards him again. “Now who’s being formal?” The shadow of a smile crept along the side of his face. 

“I’m being earnest.”

“Hm,” Chuuya frowned, but shuffled himself more towards Dazai on the bench. “If I talk… what would I say?”

“Anything.” Dazai reached forward, haltingly taking Chuuya’s hand in his own. “You don’t have to talk about whatever this is but,” a breath, “I do want to learn more about you. Who you are. How life led you here.”

Chuuya’s bitter laughter returned, yet he crossed his legs and scooted closer. A good sign. “I’m sorry I overreacted, you did nothing wrong. Pick something and I’ll talk.”

Dazai thought a moment. Was there greater merit in knowing more about Chuuya’s past, or about his journey into madness? Was he even well and willing enough to discuss these topics?

“Where were you born?” 

Chuuya’s expression shuttered. “I told you already.”

“You said ‘nearby,’”

“And so it was.” He blinked unemotionally, and Dazai pulled himself backwards, tucking his hands back into his own jacket pocket. It wasn’t the right choice, pressing after Chuuya’s identity like this. He stood up, brushing aside a silver strand of cobweb that glimmered in the corner of his vision. 

“Wait.” A hand tugged at his jacket, and Dazai turned around to see Chuuya wearing a vaguely chagrined expression he’d seen before. “I’m a fuckin’ idiot, and you’re trying so hard. Sit down.”

Dazai sat down. Gingerly. Chuuya’s hand hovered above his lap before he seemed to think better of it and patted the cushion beside him several times awkwardly. 

“Sorry.”

“It’s fine.”

“The first,” Chuuya’s eyes fell shut as he drew a tired breath. He twisted the rings on his fingers idly for a moment. “The first memory I have is of myself, waking up at the bottom of an alleyway somewhere in Marmoreal,” he laughed, “or whatever it’s called, now that the Red Queen reigns.”

Dazai kept silent, filing the scraps of information away for further examination at a time when there wasn’t such a quiver in Chuuya’s voice.

“I fell,” Chuuya grabbed a ball of yarn from the shelving and began tossing and twirling it restlessly. “At least that’s what makes the most sense. Probably a few stories, fucked up my head bad enough to forget everything except my name,” he shrugged. “I was somewhere around eight years old. I just picked up from there.”

It was affecting, to hear that the Chuuya of this world had lost a chunk of his early life just as the one from Yokohama had. More so, because Dazai knew how deeply that loss had always aggrieved him. 

“Hm,” he reached out to pluck a silver button from its entanglement in Chuuya’s hair. There was a bit of royal blue thread running through the boutonniere. “This doesn't explain your overly proper way of speaking.” 

“Ha,” Chuuya shook his head back and forth, copper waves hypnotizing in their movement even as the typical glitter and mess scattered loose and fell to the floor. “I have a street mouth in me, and you’ve seen it, yea.” He ran his fingers through his hair, creating order from chaos. “But I had an educational… scholarship, of sorts. The Red Queen taught me propriety, among other things, before the war.” Blue eyes glanced furtively in Dazai’s direction, as though he expected to be chided. “I wanted to impress you.” 

Something flipped in Dazai’s stomach.

“I knew how to shoot a gun when I was seven, and I was quite the talk of the city slums as a child.” He winked playfully at Chuuya’s wide eyes, recalling a boy with silver hair and an overbearing personality. ‘Why don't you join up with us?’ The memory faded. “All the street kids wanted me in their gang.”

“Ha,” Chuuya tucked the yarn he'd been fidgeting with back into place among the rest, rising from the bench and motioning for Dazai to follow, eyes bright and full of wild energy again. “Ryuunosuke has a date this afternoon, let’s check on him.”

They approached a shuttered window, Chuuya drew the curtains and slid a trembling finger between the blinds, tugging the panel down slightly to widen the opening from which they could snoop. 

He recognized the front garden, where both of Dazai’s former mentee’s lay on what appeared to be a lavender, quilted picnic blanket beside a swath of dahlias. Akutagawa’s eyes were closed, his expression more placid than Dazai had seen before, his head resting in Atsushi’s lap as the latter plucked slices of fruit from a wicker basket and ate them one by one.

Chuuya sighed, drawing Dazai’s attention back inside the house. He looked suddenly very old. “He’s a good boy.” 

More memories bloomed in Dazai’s mind— the first; Akutagawa as the mafia’s dog, snarling, untamed. 

A good boy.

But there were other memories. A sickly child looking lost in a torn up shirt. Dazai’s coat sliding gently over thin, starved shoulders. A dark figure fainting in the wake of a few kind words.

“Yea, he is.” His fingertips brushed against the back of Chuuya’s wrist, but he did not take his eyes off the pair beneath them.

“It’s a lovely day, this weather will be good for him.”

Dazai recalled the sleepiness, cough medication, and the familiar pallor and frailty that Akutagawa carried even here in Wonderland. “How did he get sick?”

“There was a cough going through the barracks, and Ryuu’s always been a bit on the delicate side,” Chuuya’s hands returned to his side and he stepped back, frowning and producing a pair of scissors to snip a runaway thread off the curtain. “He never got over it like the rest of us.” Chuuya fumbled through the inner pockets of his overcoat and pulled out a handkerchief, which he began to use to slide dust from the blinds one by one.

“Probably chronic pulmonary inflammation caused by the infection and his weakened immune system,” Dazai mused, occupying himself recalling the most naturally available remedies for such illnesses they might be able to find in a place like he was coming to understand Wonderland was. “Do you have access to herbs like ginseng and astragalus?” 

He looked up to notice Chuuya staring at him softly, eyes glassy. “Ah, did I misspeak?”

“You are still you, aren’t you?” A strong hand gripped the side of Dazai’s shoulder, and they stared at each other a moment before Chuuya turned abruptly, stomping away from the windows and off towards the back of the room where a tall wooden door was set in the wall. “Come, show me that marksmanship you bragged about before.” 

***

“Okay,” Chuuya’s eyes blazed, his voice breathy. “Can you hit that oak branch?”

Dazai peered deeper into the woods that lay behind the house, searching for the tell-tale twist of a live oak. “The one about 800 meters away?”

Chuuya cupped a wobbly hand above his brow, nodding. “The very same.”

“Still so formal, chibi-hatter.” 

“Just fucking shoot it.”

Dazai shot the rifle. Lavender paint splattered against the bark of the oak tree. He turned back, where Chuuya was now cursing, whooping and hollering, hat thrown to the wind. “Fantastic!” Chuuya clapped his hands together just as the tophat fell lopsidedly back onto his head. “Wonderful, damn, what a talent!”

Dazai had never considered competence with a gun to be a talent before, but Chuuya kissed the back of his hand and asked him to try again on the windows of his house like he’d never seen something so amusing, and Dazai found himself shamelessly enjoying the warmth of the moment. 

Certainly, there would be a price for this, later. But that was later. This was now.

Warm fingers slid gently around his wrist. “Come with me to the lake, darling, I want to try something else,” he tugged and Dazai followed, gathering more paint pellets from an old storage shed beside the stable, and several silver bullets from an even older crate Chuuya uncovered within. 

The sun had barely set behind the tops of the rolling hills when Dazai found himself standing blindfolded at the back of the mansion, shooting tea saucers Chuuya threw across the lake at breakneck speeds. The mess of their mischief littered the back garden, untamed laughter split the skies and Dazai felt fifteen again. Or, as close to it as he might get, with all the weight his battered heart still carried. 

They moved on to teacups, and when Dazai lowered his blindfold to query as to what exactly they were meant to use for teatime tomorrow, Chuuya simply waved him off. Apparently, after destroying most of the porcelain himself in a fit the previous day, he had sent for a new set to be delivered. Which left them with ‘excess’ to dispose of. 

A voice called from within a shattered window up above. Gin. “Chuuya-san! Come inside for dinner, it’s late.” 

“Can I bring my guest?” Chuuya shouted back,  grinning conspiratorially towards Dazai. 

“He lives here already!”

“Right, right. Well, invite him next time too, will ya?” Chuuya laughed again, grabbing Dazai’s hand and leading him up the grassy expanse towards the back of the house, only he kept tightening his grip and turning back to stare every few paces— like he thought to check Dazai hadn’t miraculously scrambled off somehow.

Dinner was lovely, chirashi with sliced ginger and a sweet broth Dazai couldn't place. Chuuya spent the entire time excitedly regaling the siblings and Atsushi of Dazai’s skills with a gun, and Akutagawa glared daggers at him from across the table whenever he could manage it without being caught. 

It was somewhat flattering.

The conversation eventually settled and Dazai excused himself from the table to draw up a hot bath in his now vaguely more reliable ensuite bedroom.

When he exited the bath a fresh set of pajamas awaited him as usual, this time with an extra sweater and a small note attached. The pajamas were white silk and the pattern featured miniature red spools of thread, scattered throughout the fabric.

He opened the note, and couldn't help whatever expression graced his features at the words.

For chilly fucking waifs. — Chuuya

***

Translations:

The song Chuuya sings is called “Je te laisserai des mots” by Patrick Watson. There are a few variations. This particular translation reads:

I will leave you notes 
under your door.
Below the singing walls,
Close to where your feet pass.
Hidden in the holes of winter,
And when you're alone for a moment,

pick me up,
when you want

kiss me,
when you want

touch me,
when you want.

Chapter Text

There was a sound outside like a rocket, and Dazai glanced up from his book to see a shower in technicolor raining down from the sky over what he presumed to be the downtown area through the window. 

Fireworks. 

He found himself captivated by the spectacle, the book momentarily forgotten as he pressed his face closer to the glass, the better to look past his own reflection.

Boom.

The crackle reverberated through the air, momentarily interrupting the display before even larger streams of light bloomed against the night air. Dazai's attention shifted from the fireworks to the sudden noise at the door.

It swung open, torn half off its hinges. Chuuya stood in the frame, breath heavy. Dazai's chest constricted. Concern was not alien to him and yet… Chuuya in this place warranted more of it than Dazai was accustomed to experiencing.

“Are you okay?” 

“No.” Chuuya shook his head, bluntly forthcoming as ever. 

The fireworks had doubtlessly triggered something in him, and he stood unsteady in the doorframe, struggling to find his bearings. Dazai thought for a moment. He would need support, perhaps a bit of grounding to help him navigate whatever experience this was to him.

“Your house has quite a lovely view," Dazai said.

A flicker of uncertainty crossed Chuuya's face. "My house?" 

Dazai nodded, "Yea," 

“Huh,” Chuuya muttered under his breath, "I have a house?" His voice had grown soft, and he stepped closer to join Dazai at the window sill. Their eyes met.

"Yes."

Chuuya's agitation did not abate, his fingers trembling and attention darting about the room. The continuing fireworks show only seemed to intensify the distress. Dazai searched for the right words but came up empty, a predictable failure and yet no less devastating.

"How can you be sure?" 

"Trust me.” Dazai wondered if this Chuuya had developed anything near the level of trust he had shared with Chuuya as Double Black. As partners. Wondered if he would ever again share that sort of bond with another human being.

"Okay," Chuuya seemed to hesitate for a moment before continuing. He wiped his hands briefly across his brow. "The rain on my face then, is that real?”

Dazai shook his head. "No, it’s just fireworks.”

Chuuya heaved another sigh and slowly relaxed his shoulders. “Right, well,” he paused, settling himself on the windowsill so that his head lay just beside Dazai’s legs, his wandering eyes closed. “Tell me about them.”

“Ah, they're quite beautiful," Dazai answered, “The colors are… strange, but bright. Lilac, lime, and gold,” a hint of his own natural interest became apparent in his voice. “The patterns aren't what you might expect. Creatures, mushrooms, pastries, playing cards…”

“What else would you expect with fireworks?” Chuuya asked, genuine curiosity in the renewed vigor of his speech.

“Ah,” Dazai closed his eyes briefly, trying to picture the last time he’d witnessed a fireworks show in Yokohama. Invariably, the memory of last New Year came to him. His first holiday after Chuuya had passed. 

“Hah?”

“I can’t remember really. These are better. Ours don’t dance, and they disappear as quickly as the happiness they claim to provide.” Happiness. A fickle emotion. Fleeting, of course… but was it worth it to have held onto something, even for a little while?

“Are you okay?”

“Not usually, no.”

Chuuya's gaze snapped back to Dazai, his eyes wide, searching. 

“Sorry, that was out of place, wasn’t it?” And it had been, however unconsciously Dazai had let the words slip out. Only he’d started to feel at ease, as though he was talking to a man he’d known far longer, one who would take his maudlin statements in stride.

Chuuya's lips curled into a fragile smile, "Don’t sweat it. It was kind of… poetic."

Poetic. Chuuya had mentioned an interest in poetry when he’d first returned with books the other day.

An interest he shared with his counterpart. 

The noise of the fireworks continued outside, but the anxious air that had hung about the room faded. Chuuya began to whistle, the same tune he’d played on the piano the previous day, and Dazai found himself nodding slowly off to sleep.

***

He woke alone and rose quickly, massaging out a sharp pain in his neck from hours spent with his head lolling against the upright angle. He washed up and changed into a new outfit that had been laid out; a deep emerald sweater with loose, chocolate-colored summer slacks.

Dazai made his way through the halls and to the breakfast table he was coming to know quite well, although it never seemed to appear in the same area as it had the day before. It began to rain— slow at first, small puddles gathering along the garden and droplets sliding quietly across the windows. 

He heard the crackle of oil hit the frying pan, followed by Gin's voice as she hummed a tune over the stove. Nothing Dazai recognized but he had the sense it was a sort of common strip of song in this place. Akutagawa slept with his head flat against the table, his light breathing almost imperceptible… meanwhile Chuuya's snores could be heard from the sofa in the next room.

Dazai felt strange, almost like he was a character in some fairy tale— but he wasn't certain it was real. He had always been an outsider, had never belonged in society as the wretched creature he was behind the mask… yet here, in this small kitchen in this giant, wild house full of mad people he barely knew, he felt all of the sudden as though he was part of something.

A plate and placemat appeared before him just as Gin slid a few fried eggs and rice on top. "Beautiful day, isn't it?" she spoke, gesturing to the rain outside.

He agreed, but a question formed in his mind. “Don’t you all ah, dislike this sort of weather here?” Dazai had always enjoyed the rain, the way it washed the dirt and grime of the city and made everything feel alive. But Chuuya did not like rain.

Well, this Chuuya.

Gin didn’t reply, and Dazai’s attention wandered about the kitchen, taking in the small details that made it feel so… strange. 

The glittering stars that twinkled tirelessly across the ceiling above. The rows of painted tile, decorated with farm animals that moved and chattered if your hand brushed against their visage. The forest-green cabinets and violet tabletop. The smell of eggs and cooking oil, the sound of Gin waking her brother gently and helping him to eat… the odd warmth of the room despite the chill the rain must have brought to the air outside and the glares Akutagawa sent him between bites of breakfast. 

Dazai had never lived in such a… home-like place— the shipping container was always cold and the dorm he’d landed with the Agency had a leaking ceiling. Not that the elements mean much to a tenant after a few bottles of sake. 

His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of Chuuya's voice coming from the next room. He was muttering in his sleep, his words muffled by the pillow. Gin sighed. "He talks in his sleep a lot. It's usually nonsense but occasionally hilarious."

Dazai hummed in response and took a few bites of rice. Too oily for his taste, but he wasn’t about to step on Gin’s apparent good graces. He looked behind them towards Chuuya, who was slumped over on the couch, snoring. He knew that Chuuya had likely been awake all night. That his worn-out body needed rest, and that he likely wouldn't be able to find it lying face down on the couch.

He finished the rice and took a few good faith bites of egg, something he could hardly stomach most of the time, before placing his dishes in the sink and walking to the sofa.

Chuuya was shirtless, and Dazai took another moment to gawk at the sheer number of scars across his back. Most were faded, but a few bullet wounds had healed very poorly, raised patches of skin affecting a violent topography over his petite frame. It seemed like he had been shot several times through the back— twice within the ribcage and once just below, the exact locations causing Dazai to wonder over his survival, given the limited, unmodern sort of medical care Wonderland offered. He’d have to ask, although something told him it would not be an answer Chuuya offered freely.

"Chuuya," he spoke softly, giving him a shake. No response. "Chibi, wake up."

Chuuya groaned and shifted, but didn't open his eyes. “Said we’d be fine… Ane-san,”

And that did make Dazai’s eyes widen, part of him itching to interrogate this half-aware Chuuya for details, but he also knew that was not the appropriate way to go about things.

At least, not with the Akutagawa's staring him down like wolves. 

"Come on, slug," Dazai said, standing and pulling Chuuya bodily up with him. Chuuya woke, blinked and mumbled something unintelligible, stumbling alongside as Dazai led them up a winding staircase and through a hall full of painted mermaids and starfish that seemed to undulate unsettlingly as they walked past.

"Let’s hope this works," Dazai called to the ceiling, kicking open a lilac-colored door that led blissfully into a small, functional bedroom. "Ta-da."

Chuuya wandered inside and immediately collapsed onto the bed, his pants and boots still on.

"Ah," Dazai sighed, kneeling down beside the bed and starting to unlace the boots. Chuuya groaned and tried to kick him away, but eventually gave up and let Dazai quickly undress and cover him with a blanket. 

"Thanks."

Dazai turned to leave.

"Wait," Chuuya’s voice was muffled by the pillows his face was pressed between. "Stay." A hand curled around his wrist, warm.

“It's eleven in the morning.”

“Yea, and?”

“I have to get my cast taken off.” 

“Oh,” The hand disappeared. 

"Goodnight, Hat-rack.” He gave the bedcovers a vague pat.

“Hat-rack?" 

“You wear hats, don’t you?”

***

He washed up and set out for town, as his cast removal was pre-scheduled for twelve noon. Miraculously, it took less than half an hour to navigate the towering trees and winding paths of Chuuya’s ever-shifting garden this time. 

The rain had cleared and the sun shone gently through the branches, casting dappled shadows on the path as he made his way towards the small clinic downtown. Admittedly he was rather relieved to be getting the cast removed, as the skin beneath it had begun to itch and crawl.

As he stepped into the clinic, the far too familiar scent of antiseptic greeted him. The waiting room was empty, again, save for a few well-worn magazines scattered on the entry table. A face he did not recognize sat behind the reception desk and checked him in. He supposed Gin must have the day off. 

He took a seat, mind wandering through the pages of the book he’d been reading before the storm last night. A historical overview of Wonderland’s great war. It was dry, pages had been torn out, and none of the questions Dazai actually had were being answered. Tonight, he’d take a look at the memoir. 

Abruptly Mori emerged from his office, a placid smile on his face that put Dazai on edge even if he had no reason to do so. “Good to see you again, Dazai-kun," Mori greeted him, his voice carrying a hint of amusement. "Ready to bid farewell to your cast, I presume?"

He nodded, and Mori led him into a small examination room. With considerable precision, he used a small scalpel and saw tool to cut through the cast, freeing Dazai's arm from its shell. As the cast fell away, Dazai flexed his fingers, reacclimating to the sensation. Mori inspected the healed bone, nodding and taking down a few notes.

"Now that the cast is off, you'll still need to take care of the break," Mori explained. "Keep it still and clean, and apply the prescribed ointment twice a day. Use the sling to provide support for the next…." He paused, touching at Dazai’s arm again briefly. “Three to five days, depending on how you feel.” Dazai listened quietly, and once the sling was securely fastened, whispered a brief thanks before slipping out the door. The doctor had done no wrong, but truthfully he hoped he wouldn’t have need of any medical attention for a while. 

He took to the streets with a particular destination in mind - the firetruck-red candy shop on the corner of the block. Everything in this town was so over-saturated it was like they had something to prove. He pushed open the door and the scent of boiled sugar and confectionery hit him instantly. 

Gross.

Dazai had never been overly fond of sugar. The walls were adorned with shelves lined with jars of tecnicolor candies and chocolates, while oddly shaped glass display cases showcased an array of pastries and cakes.

His eyes wandered as he perused the selection. There were macarons in every shade of the rainbow, delicate cream puffs dusted with powdered sugar, and intricately decorated realistic cupcakes that looked to be in the shape of the faces of the townspeople themselves. Finally, his gaze settled on a slice of familiar, red velvet cake, adorned with a swirl of cream cheese frosting.

Some delicacies transcend time and space, apparently. 

Chuuya loved extravagant desserts, and there was a time when they would indulge in such treats together. Dazai couldn't help the memories that flooded his mind. With a sense of nostalgia, he requested a slice of red velvet cake, carefully placing it in a small box to carry it back home.

As he made his way, the anticipation grew. Did Chuuya like sweets in this place? Did he like cake? Did he perhaps favor a different flavor than Dazai knew him to in Yokohama? The possibilities, he realised alarmingly, were endless. When he arrived, the air was thick with a tension complimentary to his own. He stepped inside, wary.

"Dazai," Gin called out, relief evident in her voice as she hurried towards him. "It’s good you’re back, Chuuya’s gone mad,” she paused, “again and refuses to put clothes on." Gin shoved a bundle of fabric into his hands, before turning quickly on her heels and storming off down the hall. “You fix this, I have errands to run!”

Dazai glanced around, looking and listening for any signs of the mad hatter for whom he’d just bought a large slice of cake. There was humming, coming from an open archway a few doors down. 

He followed the sound into one of the workrooms, eyes widening over the confirmation of Chuuya’s entirely naked figure, knees bouncing cheerfully behind the sewing machine. He sighed, a mix of exasperation and something insidiously fond. 

“Here, put some pants on,” Dazai held out the pair of slacks Gin had given him like an offering, but Chuuya only scoffed, a gleam in his eyes as he crossed his arms.

“Do not show me clothes, I've sworn off them from now on.”

“You make clothes for a living.”

Chuuya shrugged, a sour expression overtaking his features. “Ah, but I don't have to wear them… Other people do.”

Dazai couldn't help but shake his head, a small chuckle escaping his lips as he shifted tactics, producing the small package he'd picked up earlier from behind his back. 

"What's in the box?" Chuuya asked. 

“Hmm, I brought red velvet cake to share. I hear it pairs well with tea.”

Chuuya's eyes lit up like Tokyo tower, and a childlike smile split across his face. Dazai laughed, continuing the game. “However,” he paused for effect. “I only eat with politely dressed gentlemen.”

“Oh!” Chuuya shot up from his seat, and Dazai quickly lifted his gaze to the ceiling. “Why didn't you say so before?” He bowed dramatically, a cocksure wink accompanying the gesture, and Dazai wasn’t looking but he found it all incredibly, madly ridiculous and yet somehow endearing all the same. 

He held the box out towards Chuuya, whose eyes wrinkled with delight as he lifted the lid, revealing the slice of red velvet cake. 

"You really got this for me?" 

Something shifted in Dazai’s chest and the room itself seemed to glimmer. He nodded, speechless. The soft glow of sunlight filtered through a row of sheer, golden curtains, casting a rather tame ambiance over the space compared to the wild technicolor of most areas in the home. Chuuya slid into the slacks, and Dazais gaze lingered on the way his disheveled appearance somehow only added to his ever-captivating charm, the brightness of life in his eyes. Some things never changed. 

Chuuya motioned him towards a widened sill by the window, and they sat down to share the slice of cake, senselessly arguing over who deserved the first and last bites, and it was almost like meeting with a very old friend. 

***

He spent the majority of the rest of the day wandering the gardens with Chuuya, watching him care for his horse and clean up the grounds from the mess of plates and cutlery they had created during the impromptu target practice session. He asked the house to take him to the library early in the evening, intent on reading as much about Wonderland’s great war as he could, given that Chuuya had torn out or otherwise scribbled over just about every sixth page for mentioning something he didn’t approve of prior to returning the items.

He grabbed a thin, eggshell colored book out from among the rest and opened it to the first page, a small dedication;

My boy, I hope you're well.

~

The air was thick with the stench of death and smoke, the sound of gunfire and agonizing cries echoed through the trenches. I was stuck in that hellish place for weeks with my comrades, a battalion called the Flags.

We were pinned down, unable to move forward against the enemy, and had more recently been caught up in a relentless barrage of lightning strikes from an enemy gifted.

"I don't think we can take this much longer," Lippman’s sweet voice rose above the cacophony. His good looks marred by fear and filth.

"We gotta keep it up," I replied, determined to keep my voice firm. "We can't let them get us like this."

A burst of energy crackled through the air, and I had a only moment’s thought to consider my impending death by blazing lightning— but the end never came.

I looked up to see a shield of billowing cloth forming around us, the same scarlet color of our soldiers uniform. It must have somehow deflected the lightning. Then, I saw the figures behind the shield. Two men, soldiers. One was tall, with dark hair and a fierce expression, I had never seen him before. The second figure turned slightly to slap the first neatly along the shoulder, and I recognized him instantly. It was the Cr— 

A large section of text beneath that passage had been blackened, along with a ridiculous note that read “FALSE!” underlined several times.

Dazai sighed.

Chapter Text

Chuuya scanned the battlefield, pushing himself forward through mud and grime, searching for signs of an enemy gifted soldier, Kouyou’s voice ringing in his head. 

Chuuya, my dear, you have been allowed at the front lines for a singular reason. Do not waste such an opportunity.

The sky rippled, heralding a sudden storm. The atmosphere around them grew thick with ozone, and rain the color of ink dropped down in thick sheets. The men around him screamed in agony as the droplets touched their skin, searing like flame.

Target all but forgotten, he bent down to reach for the closest victim, aiming to pull a scrawny, wailing boy with cat ears off his feet. The boy collapsed into a seizure before their hands met, and Chuuya nearly slipped and fell over himself with the shock of it. Something firm gripped him about the waist. 

“Chuuya-san, stay close to me!” Akutagawa tugged him upright, keeping him beneath the fortified umbrella of his gift, a barrier against the onslaught.

“What the hell about them!?” Chuuya wrestled out of Akutagawa’s grasp, but wasn’t stupid enough to try to leave the cover Rashoumon provided again. 

The air was rank with the revolting stench of burning flesh, and the soldiers' cries of pain echoed through the battlefield. By now, most soldiers had been outfitted with tightly woven liquid-repellant cloaks, but there were those unfortunate enough to be unprepared or otherwise unprotected from the rain— they writhed in agony, bodies weakening, spirits failing. Some succumbed quickly, their cries slipping away in fits of vomit and tears. Others, Chuuya knew, would suffer for days, or weeks in the medical tent. Few who’d been exposed to more than just a few drops would live.

What was the honorable reason for all this suffering?

There was a trembling crack as the radio connection came to life, and Dazai's cool voice cut over the chaos, “Attention. Ibuse Masuji on the field, ability; Black Rain.”

“Where the fuck were you? I could’ve told ya that my damn self.” Soil sucked at Chuuya’s boots as he trudged through the thickening, now-black mud. Akutagwa extended the dome of his gift as far as he could, and Chuuya knelt briefly beside each injured soldier, using his gloves to wipe heaps of toxic sludge from their uniforms.

“I see his highness is in quite the mood today.” 

“Quit fucking talking like you understand shit about what it’s like out here,” Chuuya shook himself, peeling the gloves off his hands and tossing them, ruined, to the ground, and pulled the spare pair he always kept out of his breast pocket. The man beside him breathed his last. He sobbed, torn open.

Dazai’s wavering breath was audible through the speaker. 

“I’m sorry.”

It wasn’t difficult to picture Dazai’s expression in his mind; wide eyes, drooping chocolate ears pressed down against his skull. Sorrow was never very far from his face. Chuuya dried his tears with the back of his shirtfront and stood up.

Dazai may be a boy genius, but he was still a boy, same as Chuuya— and one who’d never had the responsibility thrown at him during his early youth that had molded Chuuya into someone capable of handling this nightmare.

He sighed.

“It’s fine, Usagi. What’s the plan?”

There was a bout of interference on the communication line, and Dazai gave what sounded like a shout, before he continued, “Very simple. Proceed due north-north-west. Akutagawa-kun is your shield… and that of as many of those around you he can cover. You are the needle. Once Ibuse is blanketed from the rain by our shield, take him out.” 

Chuuya listened intently, unbroken. He knew what must be done. Akutagawa stood resolute at his side, somber as ever, their long-time friendship a beacon of hope amidst the howling despair. They pressed forward.

Chapter Text

Dazai found himself in the front garden, wandering about the grumbling early-morning flowers and bits of furniture that seem to have collected there. A few pieces he recognized. The upholstered sofa from the first day he had arrived… a large, mahogany dining table from the afternoon Chuuya had rather violently received a royal message next to a broken chandelier from the same afternoon. But there were other items as well, strewn about the bushes and fields— half an iron bench seat, a mostly intact rocking chair, and several large reams of fabric among them. 

A peculiar cemetery of sorts.

“What are you doing?” 

Chuuya’s voice came upon him from behind, and Dazai hadn’t even registered his presence in the garden. He turned around to find him laying in a patch of daffodils, wearing a mustard colored sweatsuit that played an exact match for the flower petals. 

“There's a lot of furniture out here,” he commented.

“Oh,” Chuuya sat up, looking around the garden quizzically, as though for the first time. “I’ll get rid of it— don’t worry, sweetheart.”

It wasn’t necessarily Dazai’s place to care what Chuuya did with his money and his belongings, but after looking around at the unique quality of everything that had fallen here, the thought of it all just being thrown away made him strangely sad. It seemed such a waste. 

“Can any of it be repaired?” He asked.

Chuuya tilted his head to the side, staring at Dazai silently for a moment, lost in thought. “I suppose it can.”

***

The rest of the afternoon and well into the evening was spent on repairs and renovations, Dazai’s words seeming to have struck a match against Chuuya’s willpower. He ran about the mansion and its grounds with feeling, hauling tables and chairs back into their respective spaces inside the home, followed by any tools and extra raw materials that might be needed to patch things up. 

Dazai watched him for a few hours until Akutagawa came by with tea and rice balls, glare dark as ever. It isn't like he was staring or anything, really. He snatched a salmon filled ball and escorted himself upstairs for a shower. 

The little ensuite beside his bedroom looked different today, smelling vaguely of the sea, but the shower was warm. Despite this, a gnawing sense of unease slithered across his frame along with the water, and settled itself somewhere deep within his bones. 

Perhaps it was simple anxiety, but Dazai couldn’t imagine why. He watched the water swirl along the grooves in the wooden floor slats, only realising belatedly he'd forgotten to use any soap when he wondered at the lack of suds. Had that been the cause of his distress? 

No, the incongruence of such a deep feeling for such a minor mistake was ridiculous. But terror gripped him again in the chest, a brief pulse of warning. For a man whose predictions always came true, it didn't bode well.

His fingers shook as he turned off the tap, drying his hair and body with a warm towel that had appeared folded beside the sink. He thanked the house for its kindness and dressed in the clothes he'd had on before, hoping the familiarity might ease his mind. He stepped outside in search of a drink, but all the doors in his corridor were locked.

So much for being in favor with the house. He kept walking even as the floor sloped upwards into a sort of spiralized slide, the end of which led out to a large white oak doorway. Another conservatory. Full of hanging glass lamps and potted plants. Chuuya sat at an open windowsill, smoking. He had changed and was wearing dark pants and a deep violet cloak against the night’s cold. He tapped his fingers against the sill.

“Come, sit.”

Dazai entered the room, ignoring the errant whispers of “Good heavens!” And “Guests at this hour—” from a few plants as he settled himself at Chuuya’s side. They sat in silence for the better part of an hour, Chuuya alternating between taking long drags off his pipe and emptying his pockets of used spools of thread, which he threw like skipping stones into the garden below. He turned to speak. 

“Someone small will use them as a home.”

Dazai had no fucking idea what Chuuya meant, but he nodded as though he did. Chuuya saw through it anyway. “I mean it. Would you like to try being small?” He drew a coral colored vial from his breast pocket, holding it out for Dazai to inspect. There was a handwritten tag attached that simply read; Drink Me. Chuuya continued, sage-like, “It’s quite an experience.”

“No, thank you.”

“Suit yourself.” He looked Dazai up and down, and the creeping thing inside his bones rose up again and screamed at him to look away. To hide, lest Chuuya somehow discover all that was wrong inside of him. “Would you like to try something else?” Chuuya gestured to a small tea table, and accompanying tray.

“Medicine, or just tea?”

“Whatever you like,” Chuuya smiled at him crookedly, drawing back to fiddle with the porcelain. “Though, you do look a bit unwell, to be fair.” 

The thing inside him cowered. 

“Can I take your hand?”

Dazai nodded in answer, and Chuuya’s warm, trembling fingers cupped themselves around his own.

“You're not… truly sick are you. It's just your mind?”

He nodded again, and Chuuya relaxed and made a relieved sort of sound, humming a stretch of some foreign tune and patting the palms of Dazai’s hand delicately.

“I don’t mean to dismiss your injury,” Chuuya’s voice was firm, “It's just, we're all mad here and so, that sort of thing isn't as,” he stumbled, running a hand through his hair, “what I mean to say is—” 

“It's okay, Chuuya.” Dazai squeezed the hand still connected to his, and Chuuya looked back at him sheepishly, losing the battle with his streetwise accent.

“I feel like shit, though.”

“So do I,” he sighed, and Chuuya leaned towards him, conspiratory.

“You’re cracked, yes. But not broken.” Chuuya laughed lightly, reaching to brush his thumb across Dazai’s crown and along the side of his jaw in a way that made him ache for how familiar it was. “Not like me, anyway.” He took a teacup from the tray and poured several medicinal vials into it, frowning and shaking his head as the color shifted until he finally handed the cup to Dazai. The tea was a deep, forest green. He drank it.

Dazai smiled as best he could, feeling the warmth of Chuuya's hand against his own as his mind finally began to quiet. He closed his eyes, falling into a deep sleep.

***

He woke up still in the conservatory, having somehow been spread across a sofa with Chuuya’s cloak tucked over his torso. Chuuya, who was hovering half a meter above his head, staring down at him with wild curiosity. 

“You need a haircut.”

Dazai blinked. Blinked again. “A haircut?” 

“That’s what I said, don’t look stupid.” Chuuya tutted and shook his head, his own unruly waves dislodging a slight shower of glitter and a single, silver button. “Damn, I was looking for that.”

It was maddening, the way that Chuuya managed to be so unkempt in this place and yet only appear all the more attractive and ethereal for it. He stooped to grab the button before it spun beneath the table and Dazai carefully edged away from the sofa and towards the door, aiming to make an exit while he was distracted.

The door was locked. Of course, and Chuuya was smirking at him lopsidedly, twirling a long and rather frightening looking pair of scissors in his right hand. 

“I’m sure this is against labor laws.” He drew his hands up in front of his chest.

“Oh don’t be so shy,” Chuuya stilled his hands and softened his features, pleading. “Your hair is below your chin.”

Dazai paused.

“What?”

“I told you, it’s really quite out of hand. Just let me fix it, hah?” Chuuya’s hands were on his shoulders in a flash, pushing him back towards the center of the room and onto a stool chair. There was a mirror, suddenly, held aloft in his hands. A small, pocket-sized thing Chuuya had likely produced from his suit jacket along with every other random desired object he seemed to unerringly have on hand.

Dazai looked in the mirror briefly— an amateur mistake.

His visage was still that of the youth he’d seen before, the one who was himself and yet also not himself. However, this time, beneath the large, lopping rabbit ears Dazai could mark the startling length of the boy's hair. In fact, if he thought too long about it, it seemed to Dazai that the boy in the mirror now resembled a young Mori more than—

“Dammit,” Chuuya pulled the mirror out of view, sliding it back into his overcoat, slipping more fully into the accent he seemed committed to smothering. “No reason to be upset. I told ya, I can fix it.”

“Do I look upset?” Dazai wondered aloud, touching his face, the edges of his hair, which had apparently grown some three months in length.

How long had he been here?

“Honestly, you always look upset,” Chuuya shrugged, and then laughed— something bitter and broken off, before biting his upper lip. “Maybe that’s not the right word, but,” he trailed off, looking forlorn again.

“Chuuya,” Dazai spoke and Chuuya’s face was in front of his before he’d finished, expression a mix of apprehension and excitement.

“A haircut might help,” he offered up his best boyish grin, and was rewarded with Chuuya’s own trademark, lopsided smile. Chuuya turned and reached for the door, unlocking it and swinging it open, allowing Dazai an escape route if he so desired. But he made no move to exit, There was something in Chuuya's aura, and it tugged at his core like an invisible string.

He spoke softly, "I trust you."

Chuuya's eyes widened, his shoulders stiffening and pupils dilating and Dazai was about to believe he’d gone and triggered another of Chuuya’s strange attacks when he spoke, 

"You trust me?" Chuuya repeated, voice barely above a whisper.

“Yes,” Dazai answered honestly, a small smile playing at his lips, and he watched as Chuuya's breath caught in his throat, his eyes shimmering. He reached out, fingers brushing against Dazai's, as if to confirm the moment was real. 

With a newfound sense of intimacy, Dazai allowed Chuuya to guide him back to the stool. He watched as Chuuya retrieved the scissors, his hands steady, and as the first strands of overgrown hair fell to the ground, Dazai felt a weight being lifted, some of the tension and dread from the previous day fell away. When Chuuya finally put down the scissors, their eyes met in the mirror, and Dazai saw a reflection of their shared pain, the way it had torn both of their spirits. 

Was it wrong to know someone so well in sadness and so little in anything else?

"Thank you.”

Chuuya's smile was wide and wild, his gaze alight. "My pleasure.”

***

He spent most of the rest of the day among the pages of the history books he’d gathered, leaving the scribbled on memoir to the side for now, he took a chance with “Wartime Confundities; Unraveling the Secrets of the Untold,” locking himself away in his room so as not to be interrupted. It read:

During the height of the Great War, an era marred by devastation and unmeasurable loss, a sinister chapter in history unfolded. 

Desperate to gain an advantage over the white army, our military sought unconventional methods to turn the tides-— teenage soldiers, born with extraordinary abilities.

These gifted individuals were singled out for their power. Diverting from the ethical constraints of warfare, they became subjects in top-secret programs where their abilities were rigorously explored and enhanced. Through ingenious and perhaps morally questionable means, their vast potential was awakened, transforming them into weapons of immense power.

Both scientific and ancient methods were employed to unlock  and enhance their latent abilities. They were subjected to—

Dazai sighed. The next few pages were, predictably, torn out, but as the day had worn on hunger gnawed at his stomach, so he decided to step out in search of something to eat. Making his way to the dining table was no longer a mystery, and Dazai discovered a colorful spread of fruit and warm porridge awaiting him before he’d even fully entered the space. However, as he finished the meal, a muffled sound reached his ears— whispered voices. 

Intrigued, Dazai followed the faint noise through an almost endless labyrinth of corridors and winding staircases. Antique candle flame delivered a warm, flickering glow, painting the area in a haunting light. The walls were adorned with shimmering paper patterns, intricately woven in hues of midnight blue and emerald, dancing and shifting as he passed, piquing his curiosity further.

Delicate tendrils of ivy were painted across the moldings, yet their leaves trembled as though real when Dazai’s fingers brushed past. Paintings featured moonlit roses, blooming and withering in an eternal cycle, their petals falling softly to the ground whereupon they sunk straight through the carpet. The walls themselves seemed to breathe, and Dazai's footsteps echoed with each step.

Finally, he arrived at a curved archway, beyond which sat the Akutagawa siblings at a small, circular table— bathed in the glow of light that filtered through a large, stained glass window. The table was draped in delicate lace, and of course, more candles. Gin’s hair was untied, falling around her shoulders, as she held before her a set of tarot cards with an air of authority. Her brother, meanwhile, exuded an aura of unpleasant intensity.

Just as doomed to his brooding nature as Dazai was, it seemed.

Gin’s eyes fixed on the tarot cards before her, as she asked for guidance regarding her brother's health. Dazai stood in the shadows, content to observe, but as he leaned forward a floorboard cracked audibly. The sudden noise shattered the silence, and both of the Akutagawas turned their heads, their gazes abruptly meeting Dazai's.

Gin's face twisted into a wry smile and she beckoned him closer, "Join us, guest."

Her brother, however, scowled, his expression plainly unhappy with Dazai's intrusion. "What are you doing here, eavesdropping on our privacy?" he said, tone sharp.

Dazai stepped forward, raising his hands in a placating gesture. "Apologies, Akutagawa-kun. It was the house that led me here."

Gin's eyes danced with curiosity as she shuffled the cards, "In that case, would you like me to read your Tarot?"

With a nod, Dazai approached, taking a seat beside them at the table. Gin spread the cards before her, slender fingers moving with practiced grace. Gold and green leaves decorated the backs of the cards, shimmering as she shuffled the deck. Dazai, no stranger to the ritual of the tarot, extended his hand, fingers hovering over the table. His touch was gentle, yet purposeful, as he selected the first card— the Hanged Man. Of course. A knowing smile graced his lips as he studied the card, his eyes betraying a sense of familiarity.

"The Hanged Man,” Dazai said, a smile in his voice, “my loyal companion.” He sighed, having drawn this card first every time since the first time he’d ever drawn Tarot with Yosano. The card, and its concept forever glued to the forefront of his mind. 

Gin nodded, acknowledging the connection he had with the card. But the path of divination continued, and he stretched out his hand once more, fingertips brushing against a second card— the Cage. A shadow of concern fell over Dazai's features, his eyes narrowing slightly.

"The Cage," Gin spoke, "A symbol of confinement… or limitation." Her gaze flickered between the card and Dazai, sensing his unease. The atmosphere in the room grew heavy, and a sense of foreboding settled over the room.

Preparing to draw the third card, Dazai felt a sudden surge of the same anxiety that had gripped him the previous day, rushing over him like the tide. For several moments he sat, immobilized by fear.

"Apologies," he managed, "Something’s come up," With hurried steps, he left the room, a sense of urgency propelling him forward and down the hall. But Gin's gaze fell upon the last card he touched, and her breath caught in her throat. She turned the card, her eyes widening. Ryuunosuke leaned forward, contemplating the now-complete set of three cards. 

"Oh."

***

Dazai knew his own mind well, and thus he also knew the ways it was often rather relentless. For whatever reason, his cowardice had returned, and a choking sense of wrongness whispered in his bones. 

Was Chuuya in trouble?

He searched the halls, footsteps echoing against the floorboards, heart fluttering in his chest as his mind conjured up various scenes of misfortune. "Chuuya," he called, "Where are you?"

The accompanying silence only fueled his worry. His thoughts spiraled into near-nonsense. The last time Dazai had called to Chuuya in the hallway, he had appeared almost immediately. Most times Dazai thinks of Chuuya in this place he appears. Did something happen? Was he injured, or maybe having another seizure somewhere?

His footsteps quickened, eyes darting in every direction as he maneuvered through the labyrinthian hallways. Each corner turned revealed only emptiness, intensifying the helplessness of the situation. 

Suddenly, a voice echoed from a nearby room, drawing Dazai's attention. Relief washed over him as he recognized the familiar tones of Chuuya's voice. Hurrying toward the sound, his senses heightened in anticipation, yet when he reached the open doorway, the sight that greeted him was nothing he could have ever predicted.

As Dazai peered into the room, he was immediately struck by the overwhelming presence of photographs and paintings hanging along the walls. Hundreds of picture frames and canvas strips in various sizes lined every inch of the space, all featuring the same person— the young soldier,  whose face Dazai wore. 

A memorial. 

Each image seemed to hold a unique perspective on the subject, and the sheer breadth of the collection was hauntingly impressive.  

One particular photograph stood out to Dazai. It depicted the soldier in his uniform, a set of noteworthy-appearing medallions sewn across his breast. The black-and-white image emphasized the boy’s features, highlighting a proud, determined look in his eyes. A look Dazai was certain had and would never adorn his own. 

Below, a mid-size painting captured a more tender moment. The young soldier and Chuuya posing together in uniform, their hands intertwined. In a far corner of the room, a small portrait captured the boy’s soft, loping ears and gentle smile.

Dazai felt sick, black dread and petty self-hatred churning in his stomach. The longer he looked the worse he felt. The more inhuman.

As he stumbled further into the room, his eyes fell on Chuuya, standing near one of the portraits, seemingly engaged in conversation. He wore a loose, cream colored blouse and spoke softly, as if the young man in the painting could hear his every word, and Dazai couldn't help but feel like an intruder on a private moment once again— an unwelcome guest in this realm of memory and longing. But Dazai had felt unwelcome all his life, and so he watched Chuuya's tender gestures and listened to his words. 

Chuuya talked about everything.

He talked about the weather. He talked about his horse. He talked about recent garment sales. He talked about the Akutagawas. He talked about breaking Dazai’s arm. 

The room grew heavy with melancholy, and Dazai knew his presence would only further spoil the air, and yet he stood, frozen. Unable to act on his desire to step forward and comfort Chuuya, but also unable to simply walk away in the face of all these images of a boy so clearly a hundred times more a man than he could ever hope to be.

“I miss you, Usagi.”

Those words broke the spell.

Dazai left the room in a panic, hurrying down the hall and breathing a single word in desperation to the soul that governed the mansion.

“Outside,” A sliding glass door appeared at the end of the corridor and he rushed onto the balcony, gasping. It was too much.

He looked down into the garden below, flowers glowing over-bright in the early evening shade. He hated this place, should never have stayed here so long, only the desperate emptiness in his chest had ached him so terribly he’d ignored the writing on the wall. This Chuuya did not love him, and it was time to stop imagining he might. How could he?

A sob shook through Dazai’s chest without warning, and he gripped the railing as his spine shuddered, bowing his head. He needed to get out of this place. His Chuuya must be so lonely, with no wine or visitor for so long, and how had Dazai just left him there...

The door behind him slid open. 

“Dazai,” Chuuya’s voice hit him like music, deep and tinged with sorrow, the way it always was in this place. And Dazai loved him, even if it hurt. Even if he could never be that boy in the pictures. Even if the grace of a soft smile would never reach his own eyes.

“Hey,” Chuuya spoke again, hands sliding delicately around the bannister beside his own, and Dazai could feel the heat of him even against the wind.

“I’m sorry.” 

“You wish I was him.” Dazai tucked his head down further into the crook of his own elbow over the railing, swallowing a second sob he felt rising inside his throat. 

“I wish a lot of things, and I’m sure you do too.” Chuuya’s arms gripped the railing tight enough to bend it’s metal, but his voice sounded like cotton. 

“Then,” Dazai twisted to face the sky, feeling uncomfortably boxed in. He moved to walk off the balcony entirely, but Chuuya grabbed his wrist.

“Don’t leave— not yet,” Chuuya pulled at him until they stood face to face, taking a long breath before looking directly into his eyes. “I’m glad you’re here. I’m glad you are here.” He paused, breathing, “I know I don’t... act like it most of the time and I know I'm not fucking right in my head and I’ve been caught up in something that I should have buried a long-ass time ago but I just fucking can’t.” Chuuya’s gaze was unflinching, expression somber yet resolute as he continued. “But this life I’ve been living with you these past few months has been more right than I’ve felt in years,” he paused, running a hand through his hair in a gesture that was becoming familiar. “You know I haven’t fixed a damn thing in this house since I built it? Ryuu’s never asked me to. Gin doesn’t care. I just order more shit to fill this gaping, bleeding, ugly hole inside me.” His hands began to shake.

“Chuuya,” Dazai interrupted, but Chuuya carried forward regardless.

“Shut up. Ya know I never pressed my clothes before you got here? Never thought about my designs like anyone would ever actually wear them. Walked around the house bare-ass naked for all it never fucking mattered,” his voice broke alongside something in Dazai’s chest, but he kept going, voice softer and more shy than before. “I haven’t washed my hair so much since I thought you might touch it. You. You’re the person I want to get to know. I’m sorry I keep slipping away. It’s a terrible fucking habit.” Chuuya released his grip on Dazai’s wrist, stepping back. “Shit, I held you too hard.”

Dazai looked at him closely— the way his jaw twitched, the way his eyes shone. The way he looked ready to fight something. “You didn’t.”

Chuuya stepped forward again, hands rising up to cup softly around the sides of Dazai’s face— such warm hands. Dazai closed his eyes as Chuuya pulled him gently forwards, giving him space to say no. He never would. 

Their lips met and it was like rain, returning to the ocean.

Chuuya’s breath was warm, his lips chapped but not entirely rough, his kiss far more timid than Dazai remembered, and yet he found the difference did not spoil the scene, only endeared him further.

“You know, I like you like this.” Dazai whispered into the space between their lips, watching Chuuya’s iris swirl in that maddening way.

“Like what?”

“Talking like a street kid,” he grinned and Chuuya threw back his head to laugh, wild and off key.

“Well I like you like this,” Chuuya gripped the edges of Dazai’s cardigan and pulled him back down to continue where they’d left off, kissing long and languid as the sun set below the trees behind them— trading loneliness back and forth between their bodies for long moments, frozen in time.

Chapter Text

The kiss ended with an exhale, slow and shuddering. Chuuya lingered still, forehead pressed lightly to Dazai’s, breath warm and damp against his lips. It smelled like tea.

Dazai felt himself sway. Chuuya’s hands were still curled in his cardigan, but he had loosened his grip as though uncertain— strong, callused fingertips brushed absently against the fabric. The fading sunlight pooled against their skin, beams of it stretching long and golden across the worn wood of the balcony. Somewhere in the distance, a bird cried out.

He almost wished he could stay in this moment. But he learned long ago that these sort of delicate, wishful things never lasted.

It had been a mistake.

Not in the sense that Dazai regretted it, but in the sense that it had happened too fast, too soon, without the weight of reason to hold it steady. It had been desperate, a frantic, gasping thing between grief and longing, and now, in the aftermath, it hung between them, unmoored.

Chuuya had kissed him like a man starved, like he was afraid Dazai would vanish if he let go. And Dazai—Dazai had kissed him back. Now, in the dim glow of the sunset beyond Chuuya’s grand, peculiar mansion, he wasn’t sure how to move on.

Chuuya was the first to step back. His fingers dragged down the edges of Dazai’s cardigan before falling away entirely. He exhaled, turning to face the trees, untamed curls catching the last bits of light, burning copper. He ran a hand through his hair, “We should—” He paused, cutting himself off, shaking his head. “No, I should—”

Dazai swallowed. “So,” he mused. “What happens now?”

Chuuya’s jaw tightened, just barely. His hands flexed at his sides. Then, with a resigned expression, he shook his head. “Fuck if I know,” he admitted, voice hoarse.

Dazai let out a breath of laughter, but there was no real humor in it. He turned toward the railing, leaning forward until his arms draped over the edge. 

Chuuya didn’t move to touch him again. He just stood there, staring down at his hands like they weren’t his own. “I think—” He paused, pressing his lips together before trying again. “I think I need to clear my head.”

“Yeah,” Dazai replied, “me too.”

The silence stretched between them like a thread pulled too tight. Then, with a short nod, Chuuya turned and walked back inside.

Dazai stayed on the balcony, watching as the last sliver of sun slipped behind the trees, leaving him in the quiet hush of twilight. His fingers curled over the railing. His chest ached.

Because love didn’t disappear just because someone was gone. Because grief wasn’t something that could be buried neatly beneath time. Because if he had loved once, maybe—just maybe—he could love again. Not tonight. Maybe not even soon. But someday.

He closed his eyes and listened to the wind, letting the loneliness settle back into his bones. He pressed his fingers to his lips.

They were still warm.

***

The days that followed carried a weightless sort of uncertainty, a fragile balance between past and present, longing and restraint, sense and nonsense. In the end, it was Chuuya who finally broke the spell of stagnation. Dazai could never have such courage.

“If we’re going to be getting to know each other,” he said one morning, leaning against the breakfast table, threads in his hair, arms crossed over his chest, “then you’d better see Wonderland properly.”

Dazai, still subdued with sleepiness and making an idle game of stacking sugar cubes into precarious towers, blinked at him. “I thought I already had. I’ve seen town, haven’t I?”

Chuuya huffed. “You haven’t seen anything.”

And so, they went.

The first place Chuuya took him was a shoemaker’s shop—but of course, not the kind Dazai was expecting or the kind that made any sort of sense.

The building itself twisted impossibly, arching like a dancer’s spine. Inside, the scent of leather and varnish filled the air, familiar enough, but the rest of the shop was anything but. Boots and slippers hovered precariously in midair, laces threading themselves through eyelets, soles stitching into place. The shoemaker—a woman with silver eyes and more than two but probably less than ten hands—looked up from a half-finished boot and beckoned them forward with a knowing smile.

“Shoes hold stories,” she told Dazai, gesturing for him to step forward. “And a good pair remembers the roads you’ve walked.”

Before he could protest, she knelt before him, her fingers—too many fingers—brushing over the worn leather of his usual shoes. Threads unraveled, the leather softened, and within seconds, they were not the same at all. The scuffed edges had been smoothed, the fit adjusted, as if the shoes themselves were brand new.

Dazai glanced down, flexing his foot. They felt lighter, walked quieter, and yet they fit as if he’d been wearing them his whole life. When he turned, he found Chuuya standing before a mirror, his own boots adjusting at the heel, the laces tightening with uncanny ease.

Chuuya caught him staring and smirked. “Better than those ratty things you came here with, hah?”

Dazai, for once, had no defense.

Later that evening, they found themselves in a hall in the mansion where the air itself seemed to hum with an unseen melody. A grand piano stood at the center, and Dazai suddenly recognized it as the room where he had observed Chuuya’s playing from above, all those many nights ago.

Chuuya sat himself at the keys, fingers grazing the surface. “I used to know a song,” he murmured, and when he played, the room responded in kind, wallpaper shifting, chandeliers swaying in time with the music. Dazai leaned against the piano’s side, watching, listening. 

The following day, Chuuya took him to a gallery room— where paintings were meant to be entered rather than gazed upon. With a single touch, they walked into a watercolor garden, where the sky bled into the horizon and every movement left gentle ripples in the air.

They drank tea beneath an ink-drawn cherry tree, and when Chuuya refilled Dazai’s cup, the color of the tea swirled like wet ink.

Dazai let the warmth envelope his hands and watched as the world around them moved like a living canvas.

“Do you ever wonder,” he mused, “if we’re just brushstrokes on someone else’s page?”

Chuuya rolled his eyes. “You’re insufferable,” he said, but there was a drawing together of his brows and a change in his expression that felt significant. He looked sad.

But not all of Chuuya’s haunts were made of whimsy.

One afternoon, he led Dazai deep into the heart of the forest. The path they followed was quiet, leading to a clearing where a series of five stone markers stood, threatened but meticulously protected from being overtaken by ivy.

He understood before Chuuya said a word.

“They were soldiers… friends,” Chuuya said, kneeling before one of the graves, tracing the name etched into the stone. “We fought together.”

Dazai stood beside him, silent. 

Chuuya exhaled, “They would’ve liked you,” he said.

He did not ask if they had also known him—the other him. Instead, he knelt beside Chuuya, quiet, watching as fresh flowers were laid and the old removed, waited there in stillness until the last threads of sunlight filtered through the trees.

They returned home that night in easy silence, exhaustion settling in their limbs. It was— familiar. Wonderland, with all its strangeness, felt a little less distant now.

Dazai, lying awake in his room, traced the edges of his pajama top— miniature kittens chasing yarn, this time— and thought, for the first time, that maybe he was meant to be here.

Maybe he was allowed to stay.

***

The invitation came after dinner, when the water taps in the bathroom attached to his room refused to work. A while later, Chuuya appeared in his doorway, eyes alight.

“We’ve got an onsen in-house, ya know.” He said, the words quiet but laden with something stronger. “You look like you could use it.”

Dazai paused, glancing up from the unfinished history book he’d been combing through for the past hour since his plans to bathe had been spoiled. “I suppose.”

Chuuya’s gaze brightened, and with a laugh and a small clap, he led their way through the halls.

***

The bathhouse was tucked behind the main structure of the mansion, framed by weeping willows and laid stone. It was a simple thing, built into the hillside so the steam rose directly from the earth, with wooden walls and delicate, fragrant steam swirling in the air. 

The water, when Dazai slipped into it, was warm enough to ease the tension that had hardened in his shoulders. But as he settled in, Chuuya’s presence beside him sent a shiver up his spine.

Chuuya had his back to him, his eyes closed as he leaned against the edge of the stone, water lapping gently around his waist. Dazai couldn’t help but notice how the soft curls of steam swirled around him, clinging to his hair and shoulders.

The scars on his body were not the type to be hidden—they were old, cruel marks that spoke of battles, of suffering neither of them had deserved. The edges of some cuts were raised, still angry, the skin had never healed properly.

“Chuuya.” Dazai’s tone was soft, probing. “What are you really doing here, in this… place?”

There was a long pause before Chuuya sighed, exhaling into the stillness. “Surviving.”

Dazai’s chest ached. He had no answer to that.

Chuuya shifted slightly in the water, “I’ve always been fighting,” Chuuya said, his voice strange and tight. “Since the day I was born. Some of it, I don’t remember, some of it, I wish I didn't.” 

He reached forward, fingertips grazing the edge of Chuuya’s back. “Tell me,” Dazai whispered, tracing the jagged edge of a scar near his shoulder, “how did you survive?”

Chuuya’s eyes flickered to his, guarded and a bit wild, but not unkind. “I’m not sure that I did.”

Dazai’s hand lingered on Chuuya’s skin, and he didn’t pull away. 

“Did he love you?” Chuuya’s voice was so soft that Dazai almost didn’t catch it. “The other me,” 

Dazai stared into the water, his fingers moving absently over the surface. The question made his chest tighten.

“He said he did,” Dazai replied.

Chuuya shifted closer, his hand resting lightly over Dazai’s. “You didn’t believe him?”

Dazai looked up, startled by the tenderness in Chuuya’s voice. “What?”

“I asked if he loved you, you told me he said. Do you think he’d lie?” Chuuya pressed, his eyes darker now, but his smile remained gentle. 

“No.” Dazai was clear on that, if nothing else.

There was a long pause. Chuuya’s fingers brushed against his wrist. “Then hush with your little cracks. He did.” 

“How do you know?” Dazai asked.

“Because you’re very lovable.” Chuuya spoke so plainly, like the information was a  standard truth of the world, and Dazai didn’t reply, because there wasn’t anything in any universe he could imagine saying. 

The night stilled, the only sounds a soft hiss of steam rising from the hot bath and the faint rustling of the willows. Dazai sat with his legs crossed on the smooth stone, Chuuya beside him, a comfortable silence settling between them. It felt like something had shifted. They had, it seemed, reached a place where the weight of their history could be acknowledged without the need for endless explanations.

Chuuya was staring at the water, his expression unreadable, distant even, as if lost in some faraway thought. Dazai watched him until he spoke again. 

“Would you…” Chuuya trailed off, not looking at Dazai directly. “…like to go somewhere with me?”

***

It was a two-night journey to get to the river Chuuya wanted him to see, even though he had said it was ‘just across the forest,’ and Akutagawa hadn’t packed them supplies for anything more than half a day. Chuuya laughed at him when he complained.

“What supplies do we need, darling? There’s food in the forest.”

So they lived like wild things.

“You know, during the war I used to hunt deer in the lands we marched through...” Chuuya snuck his fingers under Dazai’s overcoat with a sly smile, poking at the fabric of his sweater. Dazai closed his eyes, wondering if the river was simply a fantasy feature of Chuuya’s seemingly come-and-go type madness— if they might just journey like this forever. 

Perhaps it didn’t matter.

“Will Chuuya catch one tonight, then?” He asked, reaching to brush at the shoulders of Chuuya’s own coat, bits of leaves and thorns falling to the forest floor.

“I don’t think so.”

“Why?” Dazai opened his eyes and looked up at that vaguely apologetic, self-deprecating expression that had come to sit on Chuuya’s face more and more frequently in recent weeks. “To be honest,” Chuuya laughed softly, a sad sort of song. “I don’t want to look at anymore fucking dead things.”

“That’s fine.”

Dazai was realizing that maybe he didn’t, either.

A slow, misting rain had begun to fall by the time they reached the river. It wasn’t the same as the streams Dazai had seen before—the ones that cut through Wonderland like veins of silver. This one was dark and still, like dyed glass. The air smelled of damp earth and something older, something forgotten.

Chuuya stood at the edge, pulling his emerald coat tighter around himself. His hat dripping, curls sticking to his forehead. Dazai watched the way his shoulders tensed, how he hesitated before stepping forward, as if the water itself might reject his presence.

Dazai could sense, like everything else about Wonderland, that this was no ordinary river. “So, what is this place?”

Chuuya didn’t answer right away. Instead, he crouched, dragging his fingers through the water. The surface didn’t ripple— it shifted like ink.

“It’s called the River of Memory.”

Then, it showed them.

A vision in ink rose from the depths—soft at first, just a shimmer of movement. Two figures, blurred by distance, standing in a dim-lit alley. One leaned heavily against the other, a deep wound blooming red against his coat. The other—Chuuya—was speaking, his mouth moving fast, sharp with panic.

Dazai’s throat tightened. He knew this scene. He had lived it.

He saw himself smirk, despite the pain. He saw Chuuya curse, saw the way his hands trembled even as he pretended they didn’t.

And then the vision changed. The figures in the river flickered like doused candlelight, shifting with the current. The alley faded, replaced by the dim glow of a room lined with bookshelves and heavy curtains drawn against the cold. A bed—their bed, in Chuuya’s apartment—came into view, sheets tangled from another restless night.

Dazai couldn’t breathe.

Chuuya sat at the edge of that bed, shoulders hunched, fingers curled into the fabric of his slacks. His head was bowed, expression hidden, but Dazai knew, knew the weight in those muscles, the exhaustion in that posture. The way grief hollowed a person from the inside out.

And then he saw himself again, standing in the doorway. Not this self. Not the self who had been flung into Wonderland, who stood beside Chuuya in the rain. No, this was the version of himself who belonged to the past.

The one who had loved.

Dazai reached out on instinct, but the ink of the river did not part for his fingers, and the vision continued.

“Chuuya,” his past self murmured, leaning towards him in the darkness, offering a gentle hand across his shoulders.

Chuuya didn’t move. Didn’t answer. Bore the pain of his tortured life in silent protest as he always had. A long-fingered hand reached down, hesitant, before resting against Chuuya’s cheek. Wiping at the wetness pooling at the corner of his eyes.

That was when Chuuya broke.

His hands shot up, grabbing at Dazai’s wrists. “You can’t—” He swallowed hard, voice cracking. “You can’t just fucking—”

“I’m here,” Dazai had whispered. 

The memory shifted again. Faster, now, like time itself was unraveling. Moments, seconds, flashing past—a quiet morning of laughter, Chuuya pressing a kiss against his jaw, a fight in the rain, the scent of gunpowder in the air, a promise made in low voices, fingertips brushing, a hand gripping his coat—

Then blood. Corruption. Chuuya, screaming.

Being too late.

His own face, pale, twisted in pain and regret.

The river went still.

And then, like ink washing from a page, the images dissolved, leaving only the slender silhouette of a man standing in the water.

Dazai’s breath hitched.

It was him.

His Chuuya. 

“…Dazai,”

The memory smiled. It was a small thing— tired, but real. “I figured things might end up like this for us, eventually.”

Dazai swallowed. “I’m so sorry.”

“I know.” The shade of Chuuya’s form stepped closer, stopping just at the edge of the riverbank. “You don’t have to say it.”

Dazai clenched his fists, fingers aching with the need to reach out, to hold on. “I’m—” He cut himself off, forcing his voice steady. “I’m still grieving.”

“I know.” The reflection’s gaze softened. Dazai let out a shaky breath. Chuuya smiled, but there was something unbearably sad in it. “And somehow, you’re trying to find a reason to live though, ain’t ya?”

Dazai said nothing.

The memory sighed. “Listen to me, Osamu.” Dazai gasped to hear his own name spoken like that again. “You can’t bring me back. And I don't blame you for the way things ended. But that doesn’t mean ya can’t find something real, now.”

Dazai shook his head. “He’s not—”

“He’s not me,” his reflection finished for him. “And you’re not his,” A pause. “But you’re still you. And he’s still him.” The weight of Chuuya’s words nearly brought him to his knees.

Then, before he could respond, the reflection began to fade, ink bleeding back into the water. “Wait—” Dazai cried, “When can I see you again?”

Chuuya laughed gently, a confident smile spreading across his face, “In the gardens of your own memory, Dazai— in the world of dreams. That is where you and I will meet, always.”

And then there was nothing left. Only the river, dark and quiet, as if it had never spoken at all. Dazai exhaled, long and slow. Then he turned.

Chuuya was standing beside him, fists clenched, his jaw tight, his expression unreadable. And in the river—where Chuuya’s image had stood just moments ago—another shape was forming.

This time, it wasn’t his past that rose to meet them. It was Chuuya’s.

And the man standing in the water, watching them with sharp eyes half-swallowed by sadness— was Dazai.

Not him, of course, but the Dazai who belonged to this world. The youthful, unbroken-looking one.

Chuuya’s breath hitched. His fingers twitched at his sides, as if resisting the instinct to reach forward.

The memory chuckled, shaking his head, large bunny ears flopping loosely along with the motion. “You look terrible,” he said, voice so effortlessly familiar that it made something inside Dazai tighten.

Chuuya let out a breathless laugh— stunned, maybe a little bitter. “Yeah?” His voice was hoarse. “Well, you are dead, so forgive me if I haven’t had the time to keep up fucking appearances.”

The memory hummed. “Still dramatic, I see.”

Chuuya swallowed hard. His mouth opened, closed, like he wanted to say something but didn’t know how. And then the memory—Dazai—sighed, tilting his head. “Chuuya.”

Chuuya stiffened.

“You need to let me go.”

Chuuya’s throat bobbed. He didn’t speak, but his hands curled into fists, nails pressing hard into his palms.

“You’re still alive,” the memory continued. “I’m not.”

Chuuya’s eyes flickered to the Dazai beside him, just for a second. The memory’s gaze softened. “That doesn’t mean you can’t move forward.”

Chuuya let out a slow, shaky breath. Then, finally, he gave a short nod. Barely there, but enough. The memory smiled. And then, like all the ones before it, he dissolved—fading into the river’s ink, leaving nothing behind.

Silence stretched between them.

Dazai looked over at Chuuya, watching the way his shoulders rose and fell with slow, measured breaths. His face was unreadable. But his hands—trembling at his sides—revealed the truth.

Dazai looked back at the river. Somehow, he felt lighter.

***

The walk back from the river was quiet.

The rain had stopped, leaving the trees glistening in the moonlight, their leaves weeping. Chuuya walked ahead, his coat pulled tight around himself, pace steady but not hurried. Dazai followed, hands in his pockets, gaze drifting between the uneven path before him and the back of Chuuya’s head, damp hair curling to meet the brim of his hat.

He was thinking. About the river. About the memories. About the way Chuuya’s hands had trembled, the way they still did, even now.

By the time they reached the mansion, the warm glow of lamp-light was already visible through the windows, and the scent of something rich—roasted meat, perhaps, or thickly spiced vegetables—swept into the night air.

Inside, the Akutagawa siblings were already seated at the long dining table, speaking in quiet voices. Gin looked up when they entered. Akutagawa, on the other hand, stiffened as soon as he caught sight of Dazai.

“Late,” he muttered, though whether it was meant as an insult or merely an observation, Dazai couldn’t tell.

Chuuya ignored him, stripping off his coat and tossing it over the back of his chair before sitting down. “It’s been a long day,” he said simply.

Dazai took his seat across from him, eyeing the spread before him. Roasted duck, and root vegetables stewed in red wine. A small dish of preserved plums, likely brought out for Chuuya’s sake. Because of course Gin must have seen when they would return.

It was… nice.

For a while, they ate in near silence, the only sound the occasional clink of silverware against porcelain.

Then, Chuuya stood, pushing his chair back. “I’ll be in the stables,” he said, rolling his shoulders. “Night riding is good for the bones.”

Gin gave a small nod, and Akutagawa simply returned to his food. Dazai hesitated. He wasn’t sure if he should follow. But Chuuya was already gone, disappearing through the side entrance, a still-wet coat draped over his shoulders once more.

So, he stayed, finished eating at his own pace, sipping at the wine Gin poured for him and letting warmth settle in his chest. But the longer he sat at the table, the more he felt it—a pull. The house was calling him somewhere. 

So he went.

Through dimly lit halls, past the grand staircase, past paintings that watched without eyes. The air was heavy, the shadows stretching long. And then he was there.

The old mahogany door. He’d seen it before. He reached out and touched the handle— a sharp breath— felt the cool press of brass against his palm.

This time, the door opened.

Inside, a small study was steeped in shadow. There was a fireplace, though it was not lit, and as his eyes adjusted, more detail emerged.

Dark green walls. Furniture in deep red wood. A desk, neat but lived-in, covered in papers—notes, sketches, swatches of fabric pinned together with delicate silver needles. Designs. Plans for Chuuya’s winter collection.

Dazai stepped forward. Something told him to keep going. Past the desk, past the high-backed chair, past the shelves lined with books that had no sensible titles. His fingers brushed the desk drawer.

Locked.

But that was never an issue for him, he hardly had to think about it at all. A thin wire, a flick of his wrist. A click. The drawer slid open.

Inside, sitting alone, untouched by the dust that had settled elsewhere—

A book.

It was ordinary, in a way. Plain leather binding. No title. No embellishments. Yet it hummed centimeters beneath his fingers, thrumming with something deeper than ink and paper. Dazai felt it the moment he laid eyes on it, the pull in his chest, the sharp tug of curiosity, of recognition. He knew what it was.

He hesitated only a moment, before reaching to pick it up—

A voice broke through the silence.

“Don’t!”

Dazai turned sharply. Chuuya stood at the doorframe, his face pale, his eyes wild with an urgency Dazai had never seen before. His body was tense, coiled, like he was waiting for something to happen. The air around him seemed to pulse, his breath shallow.

“Chuuya—” Dazai started, but Chuuya’s gaze hardened, and he crossed the room in two quick strides, yanking Dazai’s hand away from the book.

“You can’t touch this,” Chuuya said, his voice sharp and ragged, like he was holding something back. “Touching this will ruin you.”

Dazai stood there, stunned for a moment. 

“I know what it does,” Dazai replied, his tone calm despite the strange, magnetic pull of the book. There was a quiet certainty in his voice that startled even him. He hadn’t been prepared to feel that way, but the truth was undeniable. He reached for the book again, but Chuuya grabbed his wrist, holding it firmly.

“No,” Chuuya said, his voice strained, a whisper of desperation behind the words. “You don’t understand. You can’t understand.”

Dazai was silent for a long moment, staring at Chuuya, trying to understand what was happening, what this meant, but Chuuya’s grip was unyielding, his eyes burning with something fierce as he slammed the desk drawer shut and locked it once more.

“Why do you have it?” Dazai asked, tense, but he stepped back from the table, drawing himself out of Chuuya’s grasp.

“I wanted to bring you back, but when I—” Chuuya ran a trembling hand through his hair, breathing hard. “When I held it I knew you in a hundred lifetimes. In all of them, you were unhappy. Damaged. Beyond repair.” Chuuya’s eyes flickered, and for a moment, the hardness in his gaze faltered. But he quickly steadied himself, his shoulders tensing again as if he were bracing for something. “You took your life! Dreamed of it— my love was no balm.”

Dazai’s heart skipped a beat at the words. He opened his mouth, but Chuuya kept going, breath quickening as his voice rose with the weight of confession.

“This place. This universe,” He laughed, “was the only life where you were truly happy— a concept which, for you, must be unfathomable but I promise it was true,” he cut himself off, expression stained with regret. “You were happy. We were— but I fucked it up. Your one chance, apparently, and I didn’t protect you. You died unwillingly here. And it was my fault.”

Dazai stood motionless, the weight of Chuuya’s words suffocating him for a moment. “So all this… the way we got together. You wrote it…” he asked, voice horse.

“No, no!” Chuuya replied frantically, “Please, dont misunderstand.” He ran another shaking hand through his hair, “I chose you, yes. I looked into the universe and I saw you—alone, broken. You were meant to die alone. Kill yourself in grief that very afternoon— I couldn’t stand it. It wasn’t right. So I wrote,” he paused, breathing hard, “I wrote for you to join me here, I thought I might convince you to live again. But it was only that, Dazai. Only that. And it was years ago that I wrote it. Three years ago… I didn't think it was real, anymore.” 

Dazai’s throat felt tight, “You changed reality, changed the universe to bring me here.”

“Yes!” Chuuya snapped, voice cracking. “But I didn’t believe it would. I didn’t believe it could. And when it did, I thought maybe I was fixing things. I thought I could protect you here. Help you through your grief and you with my madness.” He faltered again, “But I didn’t write about the way we…how we… got to know each other.”

“Chuuya,” Dazai whispered, lost. “I—”

“Please,” Chuuya begged, his voice sharp as he backed away. His expression somber. “Please understand.”

Dazai stood frozen, and yet as he stared at Chuuya, he knew one thing, one undeniable truth.

Whatever had happened, whatever the book had done, Chuuya had acted out of love. Out of a fierce desire to preserve life. These things had always been precious to Chuuya, in any reality. 

But learning he had been stripped of his autonomy— even for a moment— left its mark. “Chuuya,” he started again, this time softer, “I need to go home.” 

Chapter Text

The clothes smelled like they itched. Every twist and seam soaked in crimson and gold fabric dye, the whole set screaming rich, pissy and royal. Chuuya hadn’t even seen this much pressed velvet since Shirase dared him to rob up a noble’s laundry cart a few years back. 

What a day.

He put the damn clothes on anyway, catching his reflection in the mirror halfway through buttoning down the vest and almost jumping at the sight. He looked… clean. Hair slicked back, waves tame for the moment. Queen Kouyou’s handmaid had given him a small pin— a twisted, red rose, to clip at the base of his ponytail.

He looked like them.

And he hated it.

“Much better,” the Queen appraised him in her chambers, gaze shifting absently between his presentation and the gardens beside her window. She was, admittedly, radiant in the late light—the sun’s rays soaking her gown in warm tones, her crown almost modest in appearance if Chuuya didn’t already know things like that could cost thousands of yen and years of slave labor. All for a circlet of red iron and a few golden gemstones. “Come sit, nephew.”

Chuuya paused. The reality of his situation was hitting a bit harder than he thought it would. Survival was a never ending game, yes, especially in a place as tough as Wonderland, but the weight of lying about who he knew in his heart he was, felt too heavy to live under.

“Ya know I’m not that guy’s kid, right?”

“No one can know that for certain,” she admitted. “But I know blood, and I know faces. And I know that you have his.”

He sat, mostly because he hadn’t eaten in four days and the cakes at her table looked delicious. “Still not your nephew.” He knew it in his soul. Despite what they all said about him apparently being the spitting image of Wonderland’s lost heir, the one who’d ran off after an ill-approved love affair with a common woman— Queen Kouyou’s elder brother.

“Would calling you ‘little brother’ be an easier pill to swallow, perhaps?” 

“Your court’s gunna want some proof,” he muttered, shoving food in his mouth like he was meant for tonight’s guillotine. Perhaps he was. “And I’ve got no parents, a fucked up memory, and a history of nothing but trouble.”

“You also have hair that could burn a cathedral,” the Queen replied dryly, pouring bright, lavender-colored tea into a painted cup, “and eyes like the ocean. That’s a start.” She slid the cup towards him across the table. “This kingdom needs a true heir, to calm the uprisings. We’ll build the rest.”

***

And so came the lessons in “proper” etiquette.

The fork is placed to the left, Chuuya. Don’t slouch so. You must say “your Grace,” and not “oi, you over there.” That isn’t wine, it’s hibiscus cordial. For the love of all the cards, sit still.

Kouyou oversaw it all like a viper, clothed in silk yet still full of venom, correcting him with a soft tone that somehow always sheltered a blade underneath. 

He stumbled through tea ceremonies and family trees, high speech and piano lessons and court titles, fumbling over which gesture meant gratitude and which meant you’d just insulted someone’s dead great aunt.

Ryuunosuke hovered around every corner. Silent. Watchful. Occasionally offering absurdly awkward, deadpan commentary when Chuuya tripped over a lesson.

“It’s ‘scion,’ not ‘scioné,’” he corrected once. “You’re not from the circus.”

“Do you wanna do this shit?” Chuuya snapped.

Ryuunosuke simply shrugged. “No, thank you. I am concerned with my own personal hell.”

Profoundly weird guy.

Sometimes, though, he helped. Always without saying much. 

There was a day—after a particularly catastrophic attempt at horseback riding, where Chuuya was bucked into the thorniest rosebush in the country— he found a handkerchief tucked under his pillow. Folded neatly, with some poshly herbal-smelling ointment and a single word, stitched into the fabric: Balance.

He never asked, but the next day, he did not fall.

***

One night, he noticed a cut under the other boy’s jawline. Barely visible, but there—crusting along the edge of his neck where the collar of his uniform sat too stiff.

“You get in a fight?” He asked, after he’d been dismissed from all Kouyou’s shitty drills for the day. For what reason should he learn war tactics anyway, if he planned to just fucking resolve it all peacefully when he took charge. 

Ryuunosuke didn’t look up from preparing Chuuya’s bed for the evening— a task so unnecessary but as yet Chuuya had been entirely unable to convince him to stop.

“I get in fights all the time. I’m a soldier.”

“Yea yea, and a bodyguard and a butler and a maid,” Chuuya rattled off. “I mean you look like you took a hit,” he pressed himself into Ryuu’s space, drawing his collar back. “Thats a pretty lethal spot.”

Silence.

Then, finally, “Training was difficult.”

“Bullshit.”

A sigh. Ryuunosuke folded down the bedcovers and gestured for Chuuya to sit. “They wanted to test the limits of my ability’s defensive capabilities,” he said flatly. “How fast I could react.”

Chuuya stared. “And you let them?”

Ryuunosuke’s lips thinned. “They let me live, provide me with herbs to ease my breathing. I will be useful, that is the arrangement.”

“That’s not fair.”

“It’s kinder than the streets.”

Chuuya looked away, jaw clenching even as he tucked himself in layers of the softest silk. 

“Never let them know.”

Chuuya blinked. “Know what?”

“About your ability.”

He swallowed, throat suddenly dry. “You don’t even know what it is.”

“I don’t have to. I saw it in the bath, day one. It’s stronger than mine.”

Chuuya scoffed. “You looking for me to cut you up or somethin’? We could ride out past the palace grounds, do some real training.”

“You don’t understand this place,” Ryuunosuke’s tone was grave. “You think if they call you family, that makes you safe. Gives you power. But blood doesn’t matter here. And the powerful are all made mad fools by the end.”

“I’m not that easy to break.”

“You will.” There was no malice in his voice, just certainty. As if he’d seen it happen a hundred times before.

“They’ll dress you up,” Ryuunosuke went on. “Feed you. Make you forget you ever had to fight for yourself. Then one day, when it’s convenient, they’ll turn you into a weapon. Or a warning.”

“And you’re which, exactly?”

“Weapon,” Ryuunosuke said, without hesitation. “I made my peace with it. You still have time to choose.”

Chuuya looked at him for a long moment. Then leaned forward, drawing his knees up to his chest. Covered in loneliness and luxury. 

“I didn’t ask for this,” he mumbled.

“You didn’t.”

“I just wanted to get something to eat.”

Ryuunosuke’s expression didn’t change, but something behind his eyes shifted.

“Me too,” he said.

A gust of wind curled through the bedside window, carrying with it the smell of ash from the chimneys below. Chuuya pulled the covers tighter around himself— animal instinct to survive and hold firm to what scraps he could find humming along his subconscious. Ryuu didn’t move.

“What happened to you?”

For a while, he thought the boy would never answer.

“I was seven. My sister, six. There was a food line near the DMZ. A fight broke out, and people panicked. The crowd swelled, and we were… separated.”

Chuuya listened, rapt.

“A dozen died in the crowd crush, and I used my ability for the first time. I looked everywhere. She wasn’t among the dead,” he trailed off, eyes bright with feeling. “The guards told me the palace would help me find her, could offer me the resources to search the whole country. I just had to prove I was worth the effort, first.”

His chest tightened. “And if you never do?”

Ryuunosuke’s voice was firm. “Then I die trying.”

***

And so he ate. And he trained. And he read and he wrote and he spoke and he danced and he laughed and he sang and when the time to be his country’s weapon came, he walked right into it, eyes wide open.

The first thing Kouyou did was pour him tea.

Not speak. Not smile. Not teach. Just slid a hot cup across the lacquered table with a tilt of her wrist so artful it felt like apology.

They were alone in her study, the lamps dimmed, curtains drawn against the cold and the smoke. Outside, the war carried on—distant noise, muffled like thunder heard underwater.

“You called, Ane-san.” Chuuya said.

He hadn’t touched the tea. Didn’t trust it.

Kouyou sat across from him in full court dress, her face bare. No rouge, no powder. Just the pale, hard mask of a woman who had lost more than sleep.

“I read your essay,” she said. “It’s certainly an interesting perspective, and I cannot argue it isn’t tactically sound.” She didn’t say if she personally agreed to any of his points. Didn’t need to.

“I showed my advisors, they were quite impressed.”

“I didn’t do it to impress anyone.”

“Of course not, dear boy.” She smiled faintly, “You did it because you are stubborn, and one of your teachers told you you’d never write a ‘legitimate tactical report,’ and so you rode out behind enemy lines, gathered information from starving locals, and came up with a child’s solution to a man’s problem.”

Chuuya looked away. There was a pause—then the rattling sound of her setting her cup down.

“I have a proposal,” she said.

That got his attention.

“There’s a squadron stationed at the eastern front. Specialized, well coordinated, made up of young veterans. They’ve been holding back enemy movement for months, but recently lost ground to an unforeseen development.”

“You want to send me to help?”

Kouyou met his eyes. “No, I want you to command.”

Chuuya stared. 

Kouyou stared back.

“That’s insane.”

“You’ve been trained.”

“I’ve been, paraded around what’s left of the country like a god-damn doll.” He laughed, then, shrill and wild. 

“You’ve seen war.”

“Running from it isn’t the same as leading it.”

Kouyou stood, crossing slowly towards the window, drawing the curtains. Chuuya could see flames in the distance, beyond her silhouette.

“I thought,” she said quietly, “that sending Akutagawa might be enough. He volunteered, of course. Dutiful boy.”

“Wait—he’s there?”

“He left this morning.”

Chuuya’s breath hitched.

“He’s fourteen.”

Kouyou’s nails tapped against the sill. “So was my brother, when he fought his first battle.”

And there it was again: that bleeding edge of grief she never spoke of. “I’m tired, Chuuya,” she said. “Of this court. Of the silly games. The whispers. The blood we scrub from our hands.”

She turned back to him suddenly, gaze sharp.

“You want to fix this country so badly? Then fight for it.”

Chuuya said nothing for a moment. His tea long since gone cold. Outside, the noise that was not thunder shook the city. It was getting too close for comfort.

“I’ll go.”

***

The camp smelled like metal and piss. Not blood— that would come later. 

Banners waved over the entrance: dark red with the crest of hearts.

He was escorted through the mud toward the central barracks by a new recruit. Young, but older than Chuuya. Most soldiers were, unless they had an ability. The recruit called out names to him as they went—but he knew he wouldn’t remember them all so soon. Just shapes and faces, trudging through the snow.

“All right, this is it.” The boy saluted and left. 

A fire burned in a barrel near the center of the yard, illuminating six peculiar-looking figures gathered around it. All turned when he approached.

The smallest was the first to speak. “You’re shorter than I thought you’d be.”

Another chuckled, but the tone of his voice and the twinkle in his eyes was gentle. “Bet he hits hard, though, Al. Look at those fancy gloves.”

A tall man with a scar across his face said nothing, only regarded him closely before nodding once.

Another laid back, reclining on a stack of crates, and offered Chuuya a lazy wave. “Name’s Pianoman, hope you don’t snore.”

And resolute and still as ever beside the fire— Ryuunosuke. He looked up, eyes narrowing. 

“Your Grace.” he said, voice dry. 

Chuuya blinked. “Don’t fuckin’ call me that, Ryuu.”

“Woah, shortie prince has got a mouth.” The smallest one jumped up, offering his hand. “I’m Albatross, good to meet ya.”

Chuuya scanned their faces, feeling green and out of place. These men had clearly seen real battle, not just played at it with markers spread over a game board. “Uh, so you’re my squad then?”

“Yea, we’re your problem now,” Albatross grinned.

“And mine,” a man in a medical uniform with the name badge ‘Doc’ added, quiet.

Chuuya looked out towards the treeline, where smoke rose like a second horizon, hardening his resolve.

This wasn’t court. There were no fancy chandeliers. No polished stone floors. Just dirt, cold, and the ever-darkening sky.

But here, at least—it didn’t feel like a game.

It felt real.