in which the butterflies are making his stomach churn
After years of carefully crafting the very particular façade of a huge annoying asshole with nothing to complain about but his broke-ness or his luck with ladies, Dazai was finally unravelling. All that craft, broken by Chuuya, since the man loved to break just about anything Dazai came into possession - including himself.
He knew exactly why he acted this way, he’d always known, rationalized it over and over because really, in the grand scheme of things, it didn’t matter, he didn’t care. He didn’t care about anything, really; or at least he cared less about things than most people.
Dazai had always known that he - as much as he pretended it was gloating, he genuinely thought it humbly - had been born with great intellectual capacities : able to decipher, analyse, observe, pick apart everything and everyone that he came in contact with, even the horrors, all of them.
As a result, he’d also grown more and more disdainful, always taking everyone for absolute morons compared to him, even the few psychiatrists he’d tried seeing : yes, he knew his behavior was toxic, bad coping mechanisms, projection on others, laziness ; yes he knew that it all came from every horrible thing he’d experienced in the first twenty years of his life, that all the horrible thoughts that he had didn’t stem from things he could control, but that none of them were an excuse for his behavior either. He knew that he could make the choice to move on with it, grow around it, but he didn’t particularly care.
Even now, he always looked at the people closest to him with a strange detachment ; Atsushi, Chuuya, Kunikida, Ango : they always felt somehow so far from him, like they were from another place where things had to be taken care of, where people had something rattling under their flesh that made them move, where people got what they wanted and were surprised by it.
Ever the contrarian, Dazai never had what he wanted, and he knew it ; Odasaku understood that - his only friend, if he could ever have said that to his face - had understood how far away from anything Dazai was, how no matter what, he would never, ever, ever be satisfied. He’d told him to cut his bullshit, pull his head out of his ass and that even killing himself wouldn’t fulfill anything, no itch would be scratched, so he might as well try and be a decent fucking person.
Dazai had never liked how right Odasaku was about things, but he always said those right things with a slight detachment, not unlike Dazai’s. Like a random thought, rather than a rule to live by : if you don’t care about anything, might as well be good instead of destroying everything around you. You don’t need to burn the entire world just because you alone don’t like it.
To somebody else, these words probably would’ve felt very hurtful; luckily, Dazai didn’t care.
Only started caring more when he died, a thursday afternoon, a bus accident with the children of the daycare he’d volunteer to- a stupid fucking thursday afternoon, unsignificant as anything, and the world had kept turning.
And so had Dazai, clearly. Because Chuuya was still here (loyal as a dog, waiting for Dazai to throw him a bone), and just a few months later, he’d met Fukuzawa and his three children, and their friends, and Atsushi. And Dazai kind of cared for Atsushi- the way you cared for someone who looked like your previous dead best friend.
And Atsushi cared for him back, with much more freedom than Dazai let himself have.
And he was crazy strong; about everything that happened to him. Dazai had seen Atsushi’s scars -and Atsushi had seen Dazai’s. He had never said anything about himself, or asked about it- but Atsushi had openly talked about it.
And, stupidly, it felt like he’d opened Dazai’s eyes a little bit, about the things going around him, about himself, about other people, about their lives.
And everyone had a shit life, and on top of that, Dazai added his whining, like the self-centered asshole he was. The slightest bit of empathy he had in himself just thought that he must be so annoying for them, but it probably was manageable because they wanted to live. It was fine, taking care of Dazai; Chuuya did it.
Dazai hated admitting how much stronger than him Chuuya was, because he could feel things, and he didn’t even try to suppress it. Unlike Dazai, Chuuya was made of emotions, and he had to live with them every day, he had to live with emotions about all that had happened to him, ever - and it was probably much worse than not feeling a single thing about them.
Dazai had seen Chuuya yell, fight, scream, cry about all his friends, buried without names somewhere in the depth of the black sea in a stupid flight crash while they tried to visit Chuuya in France because he was meeting his stupid, pompous, rich, distant older brother who had suddenly decided to actually be a responsible relative while his little brother had been living in shelters on the outskirts of the city for more than a decade.
And Chuuya had never hit people who didn't deserve it, or been a profoundly incompetent friend to people around him, or verbally abused a child because of it- in fact, he had helped the kids Dazai had messed up. And he was nice, despite his bad temper : he was nice with people, and he laughed really loud and he helped old ladies cross the streets and he had always looked over Dazai, even when the latter assured, in his most asshole-ish tone, that he didn’t ask for help.
Dazai really was an asshole.
A very confused, disgusted asshole who was just realizing all that about Chuuya after their 8th drunk make out session since they were 15 and was trying to understand what to make of it without thinking it had something to do with these men, back then, when he was just a little kid who’d been told that this is just a normal way for babysitters to play with kids, Osamu.
In the midst of that, Chuuya had been there, at that party, Dazai’s boiling point of alcoholism and confused sexual identity and really Chuuya was safe, he would understand. Dazai knew he did understand, but he also knew how he felt.
And Dazai had used everything Chuuya was : emotions ; Dazai had used it against him only to have even more questions in the end. And he’d deeply hurt Chuuya.
He’d pushed it too far. Finally.
Had to admit Chuuya was patient.
He’d promised he’d do good, now.
Odasaku was dead, but Atsushi wasn’t, and that was good enough a reason to at least try.
For fairness- for Chuuya, even if Dazai knew that the latter’s judgement was clouded by his feelings. Dazai would dig very deep inside of himself, and try to work on his- all the ones he had buried, at least about Chuuya. Try and give it back tenfold - make it a competition, maybe, because in front of Chuuya, Dazai kind of wanted to live. Or rather, he was ashamed of wanting to die.
Atsushi came back from the counter, putting the receipt in his back pocket, where he would probably forget it again and put it in the wash and have bits of paper in the machine.
Dazai needed a plan.
“I heard you called Chuuya,” he asked, “how did you know to call him?
-What?
-That night- you’d only met him once. How did you know to call him?”
Atsushi frowned, pondering, his mouth into a straight line,
“He told me you guys knew each other for a while, and he seemed responsible; I guess I… I trusted him?”
Dazai nodded. “I hate to say it, Atsushi, but I’m gonna need help.”
Atsushi grinned.