pairings: oda x dazai // chuuya x dazai (both are platonic and not the focus of the one-shot)

dark era centric

rare crosspost from my ao3 because it's down now and i want to advertise myself :,,) my username there is sayomiya!!

At sixteen, he's caught up in darkness no child his age should have to see, and he doesn't think that it's an unusual thing.

Death eats away at his soul with every step he takes, leaving behind trails of invisible smoke and tell-tale burns at his heart that no one every seem to notice. He's never been one to wear his heart on his sleeve, after all, and he doesn't plan on starting.

And he doesn't mind; doesn't notice at all, because Dazai Osamu is just a shell. An ugly monster that belongs in the very depths of hell, left alone in the sea of black around him to rot until he becomes what the Mafia wants.

Under the curve of his lips and the jokes that croak their way out of his mouth, he is a broken machine that has never known the light.

β

"Snap out of it, asshole."

Brown eyes dark as the night around him meet startling blue; it's a colour that he's really not used to seeing, when he has only learnt to dull the colours around him and turn them the blacks and red of the Port Mafia.

Chuuya scowls at him like always, one step in front of him as always and shooting him a glare that cuts through the bandage over his eye (and he doesn't quite know why he wears it, he supposes that it's a futile attempt from trying to see too much) and his heart curls.

Between tense words and muttered insults lie, in fragmented bits and pieces that have been thrown around the floor, a conversation that he's grateful for.

The brat of a partner he has isn't a friend. But he isn't an enemy either, and so he allows the arguments to continue in a twisted form of tradition.

It's a shred of normalcy he clings on to with scarred hands, because he's so starved and so desperate even though he's powerful and feared and had exceeded everything that Mori had built him for. He's an executive, yes, at a position where he could kill someone with a single word, but he doesn't enjoy that lacklustre feeling that churns in his stomach.

Dazai is still a child under the layers of bandages that he thinks will wrap all the misshaped pieces up into something acceptable, but he's still a monster that has only known death.

They go about their business with an eerie level of trust; the quantity of it ridiculous enough to stun their enemies into confusion, and he can't help but let a humourless smirk when he allows Chuuya to jump off his shoulder and tear into another idiotic opponent into pieces with Corruption.

His partner's gravity manipulation has always been a good ability—there's a reason why he's partnered with Mori's very own pet, but one look at it steals away whatever breath he has left and makes him choke on nothingness.

For The Tainted Sorrow is a revered power that's coveted by many, but somehow No Longer Human doesn't manage to counter the gravity around his ankles.

Of course, they finish in silence, save for Chuuya's crazed screams that ring in his ears far longer after they're done and his healing touch saves the shorter man.

When they stumble back into the Port Mafia with a snoring Chuuya on his shoulders, he's greeted with a glimpse of Mori's manipulative face before he slides past him with a blank stare and continues on to the apartment they share.

Because he's not a complete asshole, he takes a moment to drop him on the bed.

Dazai doesn't take a second glance at the man. He's too busy glaring at the window like the night has done something wrong to him—and perhaps it has, because every second he looks at it the darkness sneers back at him.

He sleeps in short intervals, in a restless quiet that leaves shadows to claw at him even though he's from the Port Mafia and he's supposed to be the one commanding the darkness—and something in his blood is blacker than all of Double Black combined.

β

He was a fool to trust.

Dazai is by no means stupid, nor is he reckless, but if he has to choose the thing he regretted the most, it is meeting Oda Sakunosuke.

If he was the darkness, then Oda was the closest to light that he seen in the brutal ways of the Mafia; a peculiar man who did little more than amuse him at first with his policy about not killing, but something about the routine late-night conversations they have with Ango has settled into something far too comfortable for him to ever believe.

And he shouldn't have believed in this sort of light, because there's always darkness where it shines.

Ango has gone back to the government. Mori tells him that it's okay, that he doesn't need to miss him (and he suspects the man doesn't think he ever misses anything.) And Oda is gone, breaking his heart and leaving him to pick up the pieces with bleeding hands.

"Nothing in this world can fill that lonely hole you have," the redhead had told him with regret in his closing eyes. "You will wander the darkness for eternity."

It's not as if Dazai doesn't know that. He knows it better than most, but he still tries anyway, with half-hearted suicide attempts in the hope that he can lose the struggle someday.

The man had told him to become a good person, but Dazai doesn't know what "good" means. He's only walked a long, long path of death and carnage, so much so that he's more than knee-deep in this mess, and he's not sure if he can take a step in the other direction now.

He'd asked that—he'd asked that instead of doing something more logical, like calling for backup or someone from the Mafia's hospital, and the man tells him with a sincere expression that he is his friend.

It almost scares him more than the blood on his hands that isn't his own. A friend is too much for Dazai to have.

He doesn't look back at the bandage that Oda holds in his limp hand; the very bandage that he'd wrapped over his eye, and nausea rises in his stomach as he exits the building like he's never heard of an Oda Sakunosuke before.

When he learns of Mori's plans, he expects himself to be livid. To at least punch the man that raised him.

But he simply goes about the conversation like they're having tea, with mumbled words that are thick and dull and hoarse from tears the night before, and the expression on the boss' face doesn't change one bit. It's still ugly and sly and sinister.

He doesn't do anything for that day. All he knows is that he's sitting by the window again, letting the acute rays of sunlight stab at his eyes as if it's a form of punishment.

Chuuya's unable to do anything much without the help of No Longer Human. Without Corruption, he wouldn't have been a member of the Mafia's prestigious duo.

So he settles for being locked in their apartment and spends the first two hours of the day scowling at Dazai and shooting rubber bands into the back of his head. He would retaliate, of course, but he's not in the mood and all he wants to do is die.

Death is not something the Port Mafia takes lightly, but it's also something that he can't seem to have.

Nevertheless, he's surprised when the attacks cease and an hour later, he's jolted from his daydreams by a rough tap to the shoulder. Chuuya's glaring at him in a contempt that isn't as vile as he makes it to be.

"Eat something, you suicidal maniac," he mutters, half-shoving a plate into his face. "Mori told me to get something for you. The Port Mafia's prodigy is useless if he doesn't have the will to keep fighting, so unless you want to get killed, eat."

It's ironic. He's never had the will to fight, but he does it anyways in a way that's too professional for his standards, and he always wins. Dazai's never once asked for a victory.

He tries to look up, but not having the bandages on is unsettling and all he can make out of Chuuya's narrowed gaze is Oda even though the two of them have nothing in common. Chuuya is his asshole of a partner whom he has an interesting relationship with. Oda is a friend.

Yet, he cares about the shorter man. He's sure that the redhead does too.

So he eats. Stabs the chopsticks into his rice and swallows slowly, as if the grains are poisoned. (He'd like that, wouldn't he? Saves him the trouble of finding yet another uninhibited lake for him to jump into)

"Oi," Chuuya grumbles, low enough for him to tighten his grip on his cutlery. "You've been acting strange. I've heard the rumours going around the Mafia—I'd be damned if Mori hasn't heard about them. Are you really going to leave?"

He doesn't know. All Dazai knows is that leaving is what Oda wants him to do, but he doesn't know how to leave. The light is a disconcerting concept that whirls around his head and confuses him. He doesn't know how a monster is supposed to see the light.

Dazai blinks once at the question before answering. "I haven't decided."

The name Oda Sakunosuke has been long forgotten by the Port Mafia, wiped clean into a blank slate that even the redhead himself would have been proud of, but it still lingers on the tip of his tongue at every sentence he speaks.

It burns at his flesh like smoke.

β

When he makes the decision, it's dark out.

The night jeers at him with every step he takes, as if telling him to regret what he's doing. Telling him to regret the letter lying on Mori's desk and the bottle of alcohol that he's placed on the desk in his and Chuuya's cramped apartment.

But he still manages to do it without a single goodbye—and he sets fire to Chuuya's car just for the hell of it on the way out. Figures the asshole deserves it. He can't quite gaze at the object go up in flames with a look of pleasure, though.

Beneath everything that he claims he's doing, he's still Dazai Osamu. Youngest Port Mafia Executive in history. Someone who's rumoured to be as ruthless and selfish as the Devil himself.

"I really wanted to read that book of yours," he tells the gravestone at his feet with a bitter smile.

The gravestone doesn't reply, and he walks away without a word. It's just like how he'd left Oda's body there without a second glance, because he's a coward despite the front he puts up and he yearns for someone to notice it.

There isn't light, but the darkness isn't as heavy without the cloak of the Port Mafia dragging him down. It's a sort of mixture between the two that smells of Oda, kind and genuine and dangerous, and he doesn't dislike it.

His blood is still Port Mafia black, though.

He doesn't forget that.