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Dazai gawks at the white wooden tray resting on the comforter next to him.
“I don’t understand.” He says it as if his mind flickered.
Buffering, trying to pinpoint why his breakfast is settled on Chuuya’s empty spot on their queen-sized bed.
With a click of his tongue, the executive leans against the door of the walk-in-closet, staring right back at the detective. He waits.
It shouldn’t be hard to register the presence of a croissant, jam, tea and orange juice (and a single sunflower for decoration, because extra always becomes Chuuya) but he also knows that Dazai needs some time to deal with kindness.
Now, to fully appreciate the extent of the executive’s efforts, one should know that Nakahara Chuuya – mind you, a very busy man – has been up since early morning on his day off in months.
First, he grabbed some croissants from his favorite French bakery, then he went to the florist to get fresh, beautiful sunflowers. He even passed by a nice little traditional shop on the way back to grab some manjū and castella for later, just to be extra thoughtful.
Once home, the executive took a shower, enjoyed his daily Yoga session in blissful silence (try getting in touch with your inner chakras with a bastard chirping about the Shrimp position), and assembled breakfast for the man sleeping peacefully in the master bedroom.
Nice vintage white wooden tray, check.
Flower, orange juice, and a breakfast Dazai would actually eat and not nibble on; check.
His whole undivided effort and affection; of-fucking-course double check.
The whole nine yards, put together carefully enough to make the housewife groups on Pinterest cry. And Chuuya was fucking pleased with himself, he was.
He didn’t expect Dazai to look so... bewildered.
The detective’s amber eyes jump from the tray to the executive, hesitating.
“What?” Chuuya prompts, as the stretched silence starts to poke at his nerves. His hands, propped on his hips, twitch oh so slightly when Dazai looks up again like a rabbit caught in the headlights.
“Is it poisoned?”
…Oh.
Chuuya rolls his eyes so hard he worries he’s going to have a headache from it.
“It’s not poisoned, you jackass. Just fucking say thank you and enjoy.”
“Y’know, if Chibi secretly harbored ill feelings for what I’ve done to him and wanted to get rid of me, breakfast in bed in your apartment would be a very smart way to do it.”
There is no doubt in that sentence, no trust in what Chuuya would or would not do. No trace of an obvious joke.
And Chuuya knows he should be offended, but that only means that Dazai is mentally shuffling every possible explanation for such an out-of-character gesture, probably failing to even fathom the only real reason.
Maybe it’s because the Mackerel doesn’t want to believe that Chuuya forgave him, no strings attached. Maybe it’s chronic insecurity built-up by years of trauma. Maybe it’s just a twisted form of hurting himself, and Dazai is good at hurting himself.
Chuuya doesn’t know; what he knows, though, is that he won’t be stopped by his partner’s attempts to jeopardize his own happiness.
The executive groans.
“That is the most stupid thing I’ve ever heard. I don’t want to deal with your shitty corpse first thing on a Sunday,” saying that, Chuuya tilts his chin towards the bathroom. “Eat up. I’ll start preparing the bathtub.”
“I’m not hungry,” he tries and wow, Chuuya can almost believe him. Almost.
(Here’s where years of living side-by-side with Dazai’s unhealthy eating habits come into play, and the Mackerel may fool his colleagues and his obnoxious new partner, but not Chuuya.)
“Eat what you can, at least,” the redhead offers, gently. “Do it for me?”
“...Fine.”
Dazai pouts, grabbing the fork somehow reverently as if the cutlery could animate and stab him in the eye. Which would be fun, Chuuya admits. The mental image of his shitty partner wrestling with a fork makes him chuckle to himself.
“Oh no, my dog has gone mad,” the detective mutters under his breath, but still loud enough for Chuuya to hear him.
It’s dramatic, annoying, and so very Dazai-esque that Chuuya doesn’t even feel pissed about it, somehow content enough with the mix of slight annoyance and blind happiness of having his old partner back in his life.
“Shut up.”
It lacks bite, dripping fondness instead.
It’s the last thing Chuuya says before disappearing into the bathroom to take care of the bathtub.
Because, if you ask Dazai Osamu, Self-Care Weekend exists to torture him.
To Chuuya, however, it exists because his partner was never taught how to love himself, and someone had to do something about it— and, yeah, maybe he doesn’t entirely hate the perspective of showering the Mackerel with shameless affection.
- - -
When Dazai finally peeks from the bathroom door, Chuuya is kneeling next to the tub, wrist-deep in pink water and rose petals to check the temperature.
The rush of the running water fills the space between them like a lullaby. The detective’s footsteps are quiet, as sheepish is the smile blooming on his lips, but Chuuya has learned to sense his partner even in the deepest silence.
Dazai’s early twenties have been kind to the detective, kinder than his teenage years ever were.
He has put on some weight and muscle while working with the Agency, his long limbs a little less willowy and his cheeks a little less empty. The supple, soft skin still sports a spider web of moonlight-white scars, but at least it isn’t but a thin, translucid protection over the bones and muscles anymore.
To their delight, Dazai getting healthier and thicker meant a whole new world of possibilities.
The detective frame growing more robust also meant that he came to look more towering over Chuuya’s smaller frame.
Their (definitely over) 21 cm difference seemed to amplify, and Chuuya never felt quite so tiny in his lover’s arms. If Chuuya used to joke that spooning with the Mackerel felt like cuddling with a lamplight – and he loved it, let’s be clear –, now the redhead feels a toned, solid chest when he lays against his lover at night.
(If that does make his heart burst with happiness, that’s not for Dazai to know. )
It’s still a rather new view, though, and Chuuya can’t but suck in a sharp breath as he looks at Dazai, free of the bandages, naked as if he finally feels at home in the skin that he owns. As if he’s getting acquainted with his scars, little by little.
Instead of entering the bathroom, Dazai stops on the threshold. His nose twists and Chuuya is no genius, yet it takes him but one second for him to realize what the detective is staring at.
“You were serious, Chibikko.”
Still on his knees, the executive scoffs. “Yeah, of course I was serious.”
He lifts the hand out of the water, wiping it clean from the bubbles with a firm flick of his wrist.
He takes a moment before answering, though.
Sometimes, Dazai is more similar to Akutagawa than they’d both like to admit, with their aversion to sunlight, baths and all things happy. And Chuuya knows that Dazai is more the quick-shower-avoid-all-mirrors kind of guy, but isn’t it a lover’s job to change this?
“You don’t like your bath?” Chuuya prompts, trying to nudge an answer out of his partner. Dazai shrugs.
“It’s— pink.”
“Well, glad to see you’re not color blind, Mackerel. Your Agency’s doctor must be pleased.”
Dazai downright ignores him, staring daggers at the water.
“And those are rose petals.”
Chuuya’s eyebrows jolt upward. He side-eyes the little pink petals navigating in the bathtub. “Yeah, it’s a bath bomb?”
The executive low-key wishes that Dazai wouldn’t look so amused by the word, a merciless, hooded kind of smirk cutting his face from ear to ear.
“Oh, yes. How could I forget? Chibi really is a high-maintenance, pigeon-toed princess.”
“Uh, no, fuck you? I’m just not a sad, cheap bastard like you.”
“Chuuya— In case you haven’t noticed, I don’t need a bubble bath with rose petals. You don’t need to seduce me.” Dazai flashes him a softer smile. “That ship has kind of sailed.”
“Are you complaining, Mackerel? And you call me spoiled.”
Dazai sticks out his tongue, finally padding into the room and carefully closing the door behind him.
The detective leans against the white tile of the wall, waiting for Chuuya’s signal that the bath is ready.
He doesn’t reply at all, letting the executive have the last word for once, but Chuuya will admit that he doesn’t mind how the silence stretches between them, amplified by the running water. It’s relaxed, intimate. With that door, Dazai locked out the whole world.
All Chuuya can feel is Dazai’s gaze burning invisible patterns over his naked body, mapping every inch of skin as he waits for the executive to be satisfied. Plumes of Vanilla and Bourbon-scented steam fill up the room, and it’s cozy but not suffocating.
It doesn’t take long, but Chuuya pretends not to see that Dazai flinches when he finally calls him, brought back to the present by his voice.
(He often wonders what a man like Dazai Osamu thinks about — every time, he’s not sure he wants to know.)
“Oi, jackass,” he says, jerking his head towards the bathtub. “Jump in. The water’s ready.”
“Chibi should be the madam of a Hot Springs resort, with such a delicate manner of speaking. Ane-san would be so proud.”
“Dazai—” As his voice trails off, low and serious, Chuuya can see Dazai’s eyebrows jump up.
“Hm?”
“Can you try to not make me want to drown you for five goddamn minutes?”
Following orders never was, admittedly, Dazai’s strongest skill.
This is especially true if self-care is involved in any way. The detective may be a genius but, God, does he despise taking care of himself, failing to see how that would benefit everyone.
Still, this time Dazai shrugs and complies, a smug glint in his eye as if he’s winning at a game only he knows they’re playing.
The detective enters first, sitting down without a single complaint or whimper, settling with his back against the wall of the bathtub with his knees peeking from the surface.
When Chuuya dips his toes in the water, goosebumps crawl up his spine. His mouth twists. But it’s a second, and his body adapts to the warmth easily enough after the first moment of surprise.
Then, the redhead dutifully nestles between Dazai’s spread legs, his back against the man’s chest, careful not to splash water and petals and bubbles on the floor as he moves (spoiler: he failed).
Dazai’s arms close around the redhead’s arms firmly, like a flower at night. His thighs press around Chuuya’s hips, locking him into an embrace— and Chuuya lets him, cuddling into the hug, letting out a sigh when he feels Dazai’s tugging him closer against his body.
Not many people can make the executive feel small and survive to tell the tale, but Dazai is different.
With him, Chuuya’s slender, almost delicate frame and short height aren’t taunting or embarrassing; it’s just the right size to fit into the detective’s grasp.
The executive leans against Dazai’s collarbone, going quiet. Humming to himself, Dazai plays with the longer strand of Chuuya’s hair.
The curls of sunset-red hair have gotten longer with time, twisting gracefully at the edge of Chuuya’s jaw like tongues of fire. His haircut probably looks wild and a downright mess, but he can’t cut it because the detective can’t seem capable to leave it alone – running his fingers through the strands, burying his hands and face in it, tugging it away from Chuuya’s face, curling the locks around his fingertips.
It’s his very personal setting sun and Dazai loves it, loves how the orange turns into gold when the sunlight hits the executive’s frame.
He loves how it complements the blue of Chuuya’s eyes, loves how this red is a gentler, warmer shade than the Corruption marks. It’s a better red, a familiar one.
The minutes go by like this, and it might as well be an eternity because Chuuya dissolves under his lover’s touch, melting into the caresses and the fragrance filling his brain as the warm water rocks him almost asleep.
When the executive talks, his voice is slightly raspy. Dazai is nuzzling against his cheek, but he stills at the question.
“Do you still think it’s stupid?”
“Hm, not really,” Dazai murmurs, burying his nose in the soft mass of Chuuya’s hair.
His hand brushes Chuuya’s chest, then palms the defined abs with a happy sound, moving the water as it travels down. Every inch of skin is caressed by the movement of the water. Chuuya can feel where Dazai is going before the detective reaches for it. “I will admit, Chibi was right. This is not so bad.”
The executive inhales a sharp intake of breath when Dazai’s fingers wrap around his cock, breathing in the flowery scent of the bath bomb and the hot steam. It burns his throat and fills up his lungs, but the gasp gets stuck.
The detective’s thumb moves down his shaft, pressing just enough along the foreskin. The dragged, impossibly teasing movement creates a current, and Chuuya quivers under the whirling water.
“Da— ah.” Chuuya gasps around Dazai’s name, his whole body stiffening before liquefying and relaxing under his partner’s touch.
“It can be quite fun, now that I think about it.”
Shuddering under Dazai’s lazy, mellow strokes, Chuuya lies against the detective’s broad chest. His eyelashes flutter shut for a moment, and his spine arches to feel Dazai’s hardening dick pressed against his ass.
“Ne, Chuuya—"
“What.”
It sounds halfway between a sigh and a moan, the syllables rounded off by the pleasure knotting his stomach and exploding in his chest – the feeling is an echo by the time it reaches the executive’s brain, like waves finally washing ashore, barely there as a new jolt of lust is already rushing on.
Another, and another, and another, until Chuuya is trapped and submerged and hardly breathing without moaning.
Right now, though, he can still process Dazai’s words. He can feel his partner smirking into the proposal.
“I have a bet.”
Chuuya doesn’t like Dazai’s bets, as they don’t differ much from a deal with the devil. Come what may, he never wins.
Still, a part of the executive is enslaved to his ministrations, to the way Dazai’s breath ghosts over his ear shell with every murmur, to his husky voice leading him down an intoxicating path of lust. His brain short circuits. He’d say yes to anything, lulled by the fragrance and the water and the want slowly souring in his guts.
Chuuya shivers at the dragged pumps over his dick, part reveling in and part loathing the teasingly lethargic touch, as Dazai’s warm puffs of breath brush against the side of his face.
“Shoot,” he groans, jerking his hips up to thrust into Dazai’s hand more vigorously.
He can guess already what the detective is going to say, but he still quivers when he hears the words.
“Whoever cums last picks what we do next.”
Chuuya doesn’t have to think about it, his gluttony for competition blending with the need to touch raw skin. The redhead’s hand darts down, clawing at Dazai’s wrist, prompting it to move, but the man just snickers and proceeds with his long, slow, torturing caresses.
The gentle strokes are edging him, who’s never been patient at all.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” Dazai murmurs into his ear, voice like a velvet caress over Chuuya’s tensed nerves.
The sudden enthusiastic stoke over his dick steals a hiss out of the redhead. He mechanically stretches one leg, his foot hitting the end of the bathtub, his toes curling as Dazai’s hips grind against his ass.
Yes, Chuuya already knows it’ll end with water everywhere and a bath bomb wasted. They will lie limp and satisfied against each other, breathing raggedly, lightheaded and strengthless and positively risking to faint because of the steam.
And you know what? He doesn’t care.
- - -
In hindsight, Chuuya must have been crazy to think of wasting his imported, out-of-the-market Chanel clay mask on Dazai.
(He didn’t really think he’d win, a willing slave of Dazai’s touches as he is, but the Mackerel should have known that stamina is Chuuya’s strong suit.)
Anyway, Chuuya worked hard to win his right to decide the next activity, thank you very much, and he’s not going to keep ignoring the elephant in the room.
They both know that Dazai is constantly worrying about something or someone, just as they both know that his night-time routine consists of gargling with saké and going to bed still in his work clothes.
That might not show horribly on his face yet, but the first signs of stressed skin are all there.
The Mackerel isn’t exactly glowing, and Chuuya is a firm believer in the ‘better safe than sorry’ way of life.
So, after his house, his heart and his ass, Chuuya is ready to share with his boyfriend his very expensive, very impossible to find Chanel clay mask. A little jewel, one that he totally didn’t achieve by good old mafia-style coercion while doing business in Paris.
Sadly, the idea of Dazai laying still under the redhead’s gentle touch is pure science-fiction.
Dazai wouldn’t stay still in his grave, let alone sitting on the toilet with Chuuya bent over him and smearing a clay mask on his face. It took a punch and a string of unrepeatable curses for the detective to be somehow calm. Nothing excessively adult, he's not naïve enough to ask someone like Dazai to behave decently, just enough to let Chuuya work.
On the upside, though, the situation gives the executive a chance to drink in his former partner’s frame— every little detail, every sign of the time.
The skin, so smooth, colored by a thin layer of white.
The perfect bridge of the nose, with that tiny bump that shows where Dazai broke his nose once. It wasn’t even a mission or a suicide attempt, just Chuuya kicking him during a fight— how much blood they spilled, that time. How it did freak Chuuya out. How stupid and young they were.
The eyebrows, the quivering lids and the forehead, furrowed, the fine lines smoothed when gentle touches brush over the skin.
Every little detail of a face that's burned in Chuuya’s mind and heart.
And, all the while, Dazai is shamelessly looking at him, big eyes staring. It makes Chuuya’s heart race in his chest, and it echoes in his skull as he flushes under that unwavering gaze —
“Stop looking at me like that,” Chuuya whispers, in an attempt to stay concentrated on his task. “You couldn’t cheat your way out of this, hm? Must be fucking disappointing.”
The smile Dazai gives him is composed. He’d drop his head a little, too, if it wasn’t for Chuuya manhandling his face. “I must admit, it is. When did the chibikko get so good at keeping up with me?”
“Hah?!”
“When did Chuuya stop sobbing and letting me work him up until he’s overstimulated and crying for me to keep going, deeper despite his ass being so deliciously reddened, moaning around my fingers for my co—”
“Don’t talk,” Chuuya cuts him off, voice stern despite the flush spreading on his cheeks. His body is boiling, but the cool clay keeps him grounded. Funny how desperate he is to ignore those words or he’ll end up in Dazai’s lap in a blink, getting fucked into oblivion again. “If you move too much, the clay will break.”
Dazai’s face falls, and he pouts. “Thank you, I hate it.”
Chuuya swallows down a snort.
“Oi, you have no right to hate it. It’s Chanel, it costs more than your shitty monthly salary.”
Chuuya dutifully ignores Dazai parroting him, running his fingertips over the chiseled lines of the detective’s cheekbones and jaw. Delicate features that Chuuya has felt under his hands a thousand times— but that he never touched quite so admiringly, paying attention to every little detail.
Now, he notices how Dazai seems to stop breathing when the redhead touches his cheek, covering it in white clay mask. He sees how every gentle touch makes his ex-partner wince.
Chuuya’s fingers sway over the skin, featherlight.
The drying mask makes Dazai purse his mouth as he attempts to retract, but the redhead keeps him firmly pinned down while tilting his chin up.
“Easy here.”
“This thing stinks.”
“It doesn’t. Don’t be a big baby.”
“But Chu-uuuya…”
The executive snickers in lieu of an answer, admiring for a moment his work so far.
Dazai’s right cheekbone and part of his forehead are still clear and, still, the strangest view of all is to have his partner quite so vulnerable under his fingertips.
“I’m almost done,” he says.
“Lies,” Dazai mumbles, his lower lip protruding even further out as he stares at Chuuya right dead in the eye.
And he’s so lucky that the executive can’t kiss him right now (well, he could, but it’s not like he’s going to ruin his masterpiece), because there is something magical in a dangerous man with such an innocent face.
It makes Chuuya’s breath catch in his throat and his heart sinks and he misses a beat every time, falling a little harder for the man in front of him.
“You’re such a sore loser, Osamu.”
“And you’re short,” Dazai says, boyishly.
Chuuya sighs, with that thought still in the back of his mind as he scoops a little amount of product to finish Dazai’s face.
“You noticed? You really are a detective, huh,” he says, trying his best to sound more exhausted by the banter than he actually is. “Christ-- to be someone so smart, you sure can act like an idiot.”
Dazai hums in appreciation. “I do my best.”
“You sure fucking do.”
- - -
“It wasn’t so bad, was it?”
“It was horrible,” Dazai hums, a weak murmur carried away under the movie’s soundtrack. He’s clearly trying to push Chuuya’s buttons by being a jerk, but the executive is too satisfied with himself to take the piss.
The Mackerel’s face is clean but, God, did Chuuya regret ever thinking of a face mask when he had to run after the Mackerel through the whole penthouse with a wet cloth.
Even if that problem is sorted now (and he’ll need therapy for a year), Chuuya still decided he didn’t have enough strength to force upon his boyfriend anything too complicated, so he went for the very basics and opted for Netflix and Chill.
More accurately, Disney and Chill and a cozy blanket and a very much needed glass of Bordeaux, because Dazai and face masks are a whole new level of destructive for Chuuya’s nerves.
“Don’t lie to my face. You liked it.”
Dazai groans, but doesn’t insist.
He has always been vocal with the thing he doesn’t like — a big, spoiled, bratty overgrown Mackerel — but it’s in his silence that Chuuya has learned to grasp the good things. Appreciation, affection, love.
It all lives in the tender, intimate silence that settles between them like dust, in their identical, pensive smiles, in Dazai’s arms that circle Chuuya a little tighter.
If anyone had told the executive that he was going to spend a winter Sunday nestled on the couch under a fluffy blanket, trapped in the soft embrace Dazai’s oversized angora cardigan (Chuuya’s present for their first anniversary, because he’s the one with taste in the relationship), he would have laughed it off.
The laughter would have corroded his lungs like poison, too, because Dazai was gone and lost forever, Dazai had left him behind—
But he came back.
He came back, healthier and more stable on his own two legs, the ghost of the wounded kid he used to be fading fast and leaving space to a gentler, happier man. He’s not healed, but he’s better. And in this embrace, as Mulan unrolls in front of their eyes on Chuuya’s 85’’ led screen, the executive has stumbled upon a piece of himself he thought lost forever.
“Chuuya—”
“Oh gosh, what now?”
Dazai squirms and wiggles on the couch, eyes locked to the screen even if he squeezes the smaller redhead in his arms.
“You’re not paying attention.”
With a soft smile dancing on his lips, Chuuya shakes his head.
“I’ve seen this movie about a thousand times with Elise,” he replies, not bothering to hide the soft edge in his voice. “Then she moved to Frozen. Seriously, I can’t believe you’ve never seen Mulan—”
I can’t believe we never watched this movie together before.
But it’s ok, they have time. All the time in the world. They can pick the pieces of their relationship up right where they left and start anew.
They can watch all the new movies and re-watch the old ones, they can have sappy dinner dates, they can call off work because there is no point in getting up when they have each other, snuggling in their bed.
They can have days like this any time they want to.
A whimper snaps the thread of Chuuya’s thoughts. It takes him a second to realize that the sound comes from Dazai, who leaned towards the TV and totally engrossed in the movie, still firmly holding Chuuya in his arms. “Oh, is she really cutting her hair?”
“Why are you surprised? Don’t act like you didn’t predict the plot from the first minute.”
“I wasn’t sure,” the detective admits. It leaves Chuuya blinking in surprise, trying to turn as much as he can to glance at his boyfriend.
“Why?”
“That’s historically inaccurate.”
“It’s a kid’s movie, shitty Dazai,” Chuuya growls, planting a sharp elbow in between Dazai’s ribs. It’s not strong enough to hurt him really, the collision softened by the fluffy fabric of Dazai’s cardigan, but the detective still has the nerve to complain and gasp in play-pretend pain.
When Dazai talks again, his chin is resting on Chuuya’s head and, on the screen, the movie is almost finished. The redhead can feel the pout in his partner’s voice. “Chibi?”
“Hm?”
“I’d protect Chuuya if some brute emperor asked him to march into battle.”
Chuuya’s heart stops — he hasn’t witnessed Dazai being so childish but serious in a while, now.
It’s the kind of voice that Dazai uses when he talks from the heart, the voice that is not filtered by masks, not shrouded in lies. It’s there, and it’s honest, and it fools Chuuya into thinking that understanding Dazai might not necessarily be tricky all the time. But he doesn’t have the time to reply, because the detective’s smirk stretches.
“Even if, looking at Chuuya’s hair, one might think he cut it off with a sword.”
“What—!”
“It’s a lucky thing I really like your hair, though.”
Despite himself, Chuuya’s nerves cool down at the comment. His lips curl in a smile. He adjusts in the embrace and suddenly, for a long moment burnt in eternity, he has the impression that time never passed and that they are still the kids in love they once were.
(Being adults in love has its perks, though: like having their own home, their own spaces and their own routine, a maybe—just maybe, a silly little something called future.)
“If I were to go into battle, dickhead, you’d come with me and we’d beat the enemies’ asses as we’ve always done.”
“… Right. We’d do that,” Dazai agrees, brushing the redhead’s temple with his lips before sinking his nose in the soft, tousled mass of Chuuya’s hair. Partner. It lingers there, a ghost word.
Even if silent, the implication of the comment doesn’t go unnoticed to the executive– how Dazai would protect him, because they are family and partners and lovers and so many other things they can’t vocalize yet. He’s not sure if the admission is a result of the day or if they are slowly reverting back to that perfectly synchronized rhythm, but does it even matter?
Chuuya just sighs, content, leaning against Dazai.
The detective doesn’t clarify and he doesn’t ask, hoping that the way he curls in Dazai’s hug can speak for the feelings that are hammering in his chest.
Sometimes they are like a hurricane, like dancing in a storm, and sometimes they feel like the deadly quiet before a storm. Lately, though, being with Dazai turned into a gentle summer rain — a reassuring feeling that has grown on them, stitching their souls together as teens and shaping them as adults.
Something they know, and cherish. Something that doesn’t need words to just exist.
And this odd calm, this reassuring novelty that tastes so familiar, this dancing around their feeling in a dim-lit room, only barely brushing them until they will be ready— Chuuya would pick it over any bottle of Petrus, over any artwork, over anything at all. Anytime. For the rest of his days.