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Chuuya knows that the closest to flying he’ll get is when he’s playing with the frisbee team. When he’s sprinting across the field, hand outstretched, head turned back just so in order to gauge when he needs to close his hand around the disc. This is a song he’s practised to perfection; this is a dance he loves. He waits half a second longer before jumping, snatching the frisbee out of the air before the opposing team can catch the throw. He turns immediately and sends it into the air again to the other corner of the field, where his own teammate is waiting.
Someone hoots louder than the rest of the crowd from the stands. With an annoyed scowl, Chuuya realises it’s Dazai, who’s skipped his own running co-curricular for the fifth week in a row to be here, more persistent than a parasite. Chuuya spares him a glance before turning his attention back to the game. Most things Dazai does don’t make sense, so it’s only going to be a waste of time and energy if he thinks too hard about it. The frisbee has found its way to the centre again, and Chuuya weaves through the valiantly defending players, lining himself up before darting into the path of the frisbee and catching it.
Chuuya fakes a leftward pass and flings it to the right of the field, where it’s caught just beyond the line marking the end zone. The timer beeps right after, and the stands erupt into raucous cheers. Chuuya’s picked up by his team members, who parade him around the field, sweaty hands grasping his own and patting his back.
They’ve won, and now they’re headed to regionals, and it’s thanks to him.
Chuuya thinks this is how life should go.
***
The hospital lights are too bright. That’s the first thing Chuuya sees when he wakes up, and he immediately closes his eyes again to shield them. The gymnasium’s lights, where he used to run laps to warm up, are bright, too, but never like this. The hospital’s lights are cold, callous, cruel. They hurt, and Chuuya hates that when he opens his eyes now, he sees these, and not those of the place he’s come to love most.
“Hey.” The familiar voice takes him out of his looping thoughts, and Chuuya turns over and blinks at the boy sitting in the armchair reserved for visitors. He looks completely out of place and yet somehow perfectly fits in with his school blazer draped over his shoulders and messy bandages peeking out from under his sleeves, his tie lopsided and loose. “You missed Kunikida snapping his tenth pen this week.”
“Because of you?” Chuuya tries to sit up, and finds that he’s too tired to. Giving in, he allows his head to sink further into the pillow instead. “I’m surprised he hasn’t quit yet.”
Dazai pouts. “I’m trying to, but he’s just so stubborn .”
Not as stubborn as you. Chuuya has been keeping count: Dazai visits every day he’s at the hospital, sitting by him from the moment school ends to the moment the nurses shoo him out after visiting hours are over. Dazai skips co-curricular and electives so he can annoy Chuuya instead. Dazai could’ve stopped coming once exam season started, but he took his notebooks along and lectured Chuuya on everything he’d missed, from English literature to the rules of electromagnetism. Chuuya took his exam in the hospital, and passed with flying colours, right next to Dazai. Dazai is still here, even when his other friends are long gone.
It’s been six months and four days since his heart failed while he was on the field, and ended his life as he knew it. Six months and four days since he last intercepted a frisbee while it was flying through the air. Six months and four days since he could go out and run just because he wanted to. Now doctors monitored his traitor of a heart carefully, painfully aware that one mistake will end in a one-way ticket to death’s door.
Low but not zero was what they told him when he asked about the chances of such a thing happening to him. Dazai had laughed about it at the start and said he was just unlucky, but now that Chuuya can’t go out at all, there’s no mirth in his voice whenever it’s brought up. Chuuya has the feeling that Dazai’s angry on his behalf, but they don’t talk about it.
“Chibi.” Dazai’s voice snaps him out of it, like it always does. “You’re sulking again.”
“Am not.” He really is. He should stop—should’ve gotten over it by now.
“Liar.” Dazai bends to take something out of his satchel, then tosses it onto the bed. It lands with a soft thump on the blanket covering Chuuya’s body, keeping him warm from the bitter cold of the air-conditioning in the ward. A stuffed toy in the shape of a slug, a hat with a grey band around it sewn to its head. “Found this at the store. I thought it looked like chibi, so I bought it.”
Chuuya stifles a laugh. The toy is clearly custom-made, but he says nothing. He picks it up and gives it a hard squeeze. To his surprise, a tinny, Dazai-sounding voice yelps, “Ah! The chibi got angry!”
“Dazai, did you put a voice recorder in this thing?!”
“Maybe.” His friend shrugs, the picture of innocence. “It was fifty percent off.”
“Thanks.” Chuuya tucks the slug under the blanket with him.
Dazai huffs. “It’s so you don’t get bored to death in here while I’m at school.”
“I am dying.”
A sharp gaze, an even colder voice. “Yeah, believe me, I know.”
***
Chuuya knows the next-closest to flying is climbing onto the railing of the jetty and letting the wind try to rip his favourite hat from his head, Dazai doubled over with laughter stealing ice cream from the seagulls somewhere behind him. They managed to catch the 5.20pm train out to the beach today, which meant that they’ve arrived just in time for the sun to set. The sky is coloured a raging vermillion, and everything is dusted in gold.
“You’re going to get arrested for climbing the railing next to the ‘no climbing’ sign,” Dazai says, finally giving up on the seagulls and walking over, leaning far out over the railing.
“You’re going to get arrested for trying to commit suicide here,” Chuuya answers, but he climbs down, because landing himself at the police station on the second-last day of school for the year seems like a really stupid idea, and Dazai has already tried to die here, so he won’t do it a second time.
“Hey, we’ll keep in touch after we graduate, right?” Dazai suddenly asks.
“What?”
“You’re going to play sports. I’m going to loaf around and maybe die. But we’ll keep in touch, right?”
“First of all, I’m not. Secondly, since when were you so sentimental about these things? We still have one more year before graduation.”
“Chibi shouldn’t make baseless assumptions.”
“I’m not! You literally lead girls on and give them my number so it’s me they cry to when you ghost them. How am I supposed to believe you want to stay in touch after we leave school?”
Dazai grabs Chuuya by the shoulders and shakes him uncharacteristically gently. “I mean it, Chuuya. How are we going to keep in touch?”
“By phone, dumbass.” Chuuya slips out of Dazai’s grip and cringes. “What’s up with you today?”
“I have a bad feeling about tomorrow.”
“Don’t jinx my last game of the year, jackass.”
“I have a great feeling about tomorrow.”
Chuuya snorts. But seeing Dazai in this light—a hint of concern in his eyes, a flash of worry in the set of his jaw—Chuuya wonders if he should really be alarmed.
***
“Oi, shitty mackerel.”
Dazai looks up from his homework, hair falling messily into his face. His eyes are half closed and his worksheets are sliding off his lap, which means he was trying to take a nap while pretending to be productive. “What?”
Chuuya takes a deep breath, as if that will cushion himself from the blow of his words. “The doctors said I only have three more months.” Chuuya winces—three months means ninety days means not enough time .
“They said four last week.”
“It’s not last week anymore.” It’s not something you can change is what he doesn’t say. Last night, he cried himself to sleep. This evening, when Dazai first entered the ward, he gave Dazai his usual half-hearted grin. Last week, he thought about ending it early. This afternoon, he realised he can’t lose the bet they have over who’s going to commit suicide first—made during simpler times, when there was no talk of hospitals and funeral arrangements. Last month, his birthday wish was to be able to play one last game of frisbee. This morning, he’d woken knowing that his condition had worsened past the point of no return, his heart failing just a little bit more with every day that passes.
Him still being alive is a miracle. He hates that it’s a miracle. He didn’t even get to attend the year’s closing ceremony, or play at regionals—at the competition he helped get his team to—and now this. Chuuya looks at Dazai, and Dazai looks at Chuuya, and for some reason, it feels like the end of the world.
“What are you, a child?” Chuuya’s never seen Dazai this angry. Chuuya’s never seen Dazai angry, except for when it comes to this. Dazai pretends ; he doesn’t feel . Or at least that’s what he wants others to think. Chuuya knows that he feels more than any one person ever should; that’s why they keep finding each other, over and over, staying by each other’s side, because no one else understands the pain of understanding too much. “Believing whatever other people tell you blindly?”
“Do you seriously think I want this?” Chuuya wants to yell, but he doesn’t have the strength to. He’s so, so tired. He’s been fighting to stay alive for over half a year and it’s worse than playing frisbee for five hours straight. Not even Dazai being here now can give him the energy to sit up—it’s been this way for the last few months. But he’s trying to put on a pleasant front, at the very least, so his family won’t worry. So Dazai won’t worry. Because he knows that he’s the last thing standing between Dazai and another rooftop edge. Without him, who’s going to save Dazai? “Do you seriously think that I’m happy about the fact that I’m about to die?”
“I don’t know, you certainly give off that impression.”
“Fuck you.” Chuuya turns over and pulls the blanket over his head. “Get out.”
The sound of a door shutting tells him that for the first time in his life, Dazai actually did something he was told to do.
***
Chuuya’s seventeenth birthday is spent in his bedroom—now a luxury and a respite from all the hospital visits—with Dazai watching him unwrap his gift with restrained enthusiasm. He quickly pulls the paper aside, revealing a nondescript cardboard box the length of his forearm. When he lifts the lid, he finds a model aeroplane nestled within bubble wrap. Chuuya immediately takes it out, attaching it to the accompanying stand before setting it on his study table before he can even process his own actions.
This is a gift from Dazai. But Dazai only ever annoys him, and steals his food, and copies his obviously wrong answers on their homework and submits them anyway. Dazai claims to never study but is first for every exam every time. Dazai refuses to help him with his own studies but will also make bets on the right answers for things they’ve been taught about. Dazai is incomprehensibly understandable. Dazai…isn’t as bad as he wants to believe.
“This is the plane you’ll fly next time.” Dazai says smugly from the floor of the bedroom.
“Huh?”
“You’ll be my personal pilot next time.” Dazai talks like this is supposed to be part of an ordinary conversation.
Chuuya throws an eraser at him, but it bounces harmlessly off his chest and skitters under the bed. “Shitty mackerel, fly there yourself.”
“But I can have my personal slug do it for me!” Dazai feels around for the eraser and sends it back. “He’s much smaller; he’ll fit in the cockpit. I’m too tall.”
“Why, you—” Suddenly forgetting that he’s under express orders not to exert himself, Chuuya launches himself off his chair and tackles Dazai to the floor, pummelling him with punches far too light for someone trained in martial arts. They scuffle for a bit, limbs getting bruised on the edges of Chuuya’s bed and the legs of his table, but that’s not what he notices. Dazai’s holding back, always keeping his back to the really sharp edges, as if afraid that one wayward hit will send him careening towards death. When they’re interrupted by Chuuya’s mother walking in with a plate of cut fruits in hand and a disapproving frown on her face, they sit up, chastised without a word having been spoken.
“I’m terminally ill, not made of glass,” Chuuya says the moment the door closes. “You don’t have to treat me like I’m going to break if you tap me too hard.”
“Liar.” Dazai drops a slice of apple in his mouth and chews noisily. “I know you’re only pretending to be fine, but you walk slower, and you don’t even try to hit me hard.”
“Since when did you care about unfair fights?”
A momentary flash of something that can only be rage in Dazai’s eyes. Then it’s over, and he goes back to lying on the floor.
“Race me tomorrow,” Chuuya says eventually, his own back to the wall. He watches Dazai stare at the ceiling blankly. When there’s no response, he nudges Dazai’s side with his foot. “Oi, did you hear me?”
“Don’t wanna.”
“You’re literally in the running club.”
“Only for the extra points.”
“You don’t need the extra points, useless genius. Besides, you can’t get them without attendance and participation.”
“I do go. And then I fake sick every time and help them do admin work.”
“There’s no admin work for running club.”
“Exactly. Chibi is so smart.”
“You’re unbelievable.”
“Unbelievably gorgeous? Yes, I think so too.”
“I can’t believe people actually fall in love with you.”
At that, Dazai sits up, a mischievous glint in his gaze. “But you are, aren’t you?”
“What?” Chuuya asks defensively, feeling embarrassment dust his cheeks red.
“In love with me.”
***
“Chibi, let’s go.” Dazai comes back not even half an hour later, a wheelchair in front of him.
“In case you forgot, I’m not supposed to leave the bed. I can’t , in fact, leave the bed.” Chuuya doesn’t know why he’s talking to Dazai, or why Dazai even returned in the first place. This isn’t the first fight they’ve had, but it certainly feels more real than the others. Like there’s a fissure in their relationship, and one wrong move will send cracks through the ground, leaving them on separate sides.
“I say you can, so you are.” Dazai approaches, parking the wheelchair right by the bed. “I’m going to carry you. Hold on.”
“Last I checked, you were skipping practice to—” Chuuya’s words are cut off when Dazai snakes an arm around his back, easily lifting him into the seat of the chair. “ What the fuck. ”
“Actually, I haven’t skipped practice in a while. That’s why I’m late some days now. And I won the last three meets I bothered to show up to, but it’s no fun when chibi isn’t there to tell me I won stupidly after going down three flights of stairs.” Dazai plucks the stuffed slug off the bed and drops it in Chuuya’s lap. “Here’s your emotional support slug.”
“What the fuck,” Chuuya repeats. And then, for good measure, he says it a third time. “When—how—what?”
Dazai shrugs and starts pushing Chuuya towards the door. “I predicted that you wouldn’t have much time left a while back, so I decided to put more plans in place. Hey, I heard there’s a summer festival happening right now. We should go.” Ignoring Chuuya’s protests, Dazai brings him to the first floor, out the front doors of the hospital, and takes off down the road, in the direction of festive banners and colourful balloons.
The summer festival isn’t massive by any means, but it is big enough that one can still get lost without paying attention. The pathways are narrow, and Dazai unapologetically uses the wheelchair (and by extension, Chuuya himself) as a battering ram, nonchalantly pushing through the crowd.
They buy dango and teriyaki chicken dripping barbeque sauce and share a box of cheesy fries. Chuuya watches as Dazai wrecks a shooting game, hitting bullseye on all four moving targets without batting an eye. The enormous stuffed bear he wins is shoved into Chuuya’s reluctant hands, and then Dazai spectates as he halfheartedly tosses rings over glass bottles. They debate over going on the ferris wheel, then see the criminally long queue and turn away. Chuuya wants to go on the bumper cars, but Dazai gives him a look and the fight is lost. As the time to release the fireworks approaches, Dazai pushes him away from the crowd and up the neighbouring hill.
“Where are you going? There’s nothing up there.”
“You’ll see,” Dazai says mysteriously. The wheelchair is given one final heave, and the setup comes into Chuuya’s view. A picnic mat has been laid over the grass at the end of the hiking trail, a basket of food keeping it weighed down. Below them, the lights of the festival stands are displayed in neat rows of tiny yellow bulbs interspersed with red and blue ones, and above them, Chuuya can just make out stars hiding within the folds of the night sky.
“When did you do all this?”
“This afternoon,” Dazai says smugly. “I told the coach it was for chibi and he let me off. Chibi’s really short, and he’s even shorter in a wheelchair, so I brought him to a higher place to watch the summer fireworks. Who knows when he’ll get such a good view again!”
Chuuya can’t even be mad. How did Dazai know that he’d always wanted to watch fireworks from a higher vantage point? He figures he’ll also never know, because despite everything, Dazai is still a mystery to him, with his too-fake smiles and too-bright laughter.
Dazai helps Chuuya onto the picnic mat and pushes the basket towards him. Upon opening it, Chuuya finds an array of junk food, along with two party hats.
“What are we celebrating?” Chuuya asks, holding the hats up. Dazai takes one and straps it onto Chuuya before he can react, so in retaliation, he reaches out and yanks hard on Dazai’s crooked tie so he can do the same. Dazai’s surprised face makes it all worthwhile, even if they’re now in a compromising position, their faces uncomfortably close.
“Your imminent death,” Dazai whispers, his eyes comically wide. Then he leans backwards, slipping out of Chuuya’s grip, and breaks out in laughter, interrupting the moment. “Did chibi actually believe that? Of course it’s going to suck without you, slug. Who else will I be able to annoy so easily?”
Chuuya can’t tell if he should be annoyed or pleased—is that even a compliment or another of Dazai’s thinly-veiled insults? “Yeah, yeah, whatever.” He digs around further in the basket and draws out a large bag of chips. Original flavour, how boring. He manages to open the bag and offers Dazai the first pick. “Seriously, shitty Dazai. Why all this?”
But Dazai just tilts his head and smiles, and Chuuya lets it slide, because it’s Dazai, who understands him like no one else can, with gold carding through his hair, and the promise of a lifetime together written in the strings of fate linking them.
Chuuya blinks. Dazai’s smile has frozen on his face, his hand still in the bag of chips. “What?”
“Chibi, you’re so in love with me it makes you look stupid.”
“Hah?””
In one swift move, the bag changes possession. Dazai shakes it gently, pointing to it with his other crumb-dusted hand for emphasis. “You never let anyone steal your chips.”
That’s because I know you steal them from my bag for lunch, idiot is what Chuuya doesn’t say. He growls and makes a lame swipe for the chips, but Dazai lifts it out of reach and he immediately gives up.
“I hate you. How could I ever love you?”
“Great, because I hate you too!”
Chuuya has a feeling they both know the other is lying.
***
Flying is jumping into the air to intercept the frisbee is racing across the field to catch the next pass is standing on the railing at the end of the jetty, the wind threatening to push him off. Flying is skipping the steps of the stand three at a time, because Dazai, that shitty mackerel, can actually run and bothered to run and wins first by a mile and now there’s a voice telling him that if he doesn’t congratulate that asshole today, he’ll never get the chance again.
“You win,” is all that comes out of Chuuya’s mouth even though he rehearsed his congratulatory speech in the one minute it took him to get from the top of the stands to the bottom, even though he knows he’s one misstep away from collapsing and getting sent back to the hospital if he just does a bit too much for his body to handle. Even though he wanted to say I’m proud of you or I knew you could do it, shitty Dazai .
“Uh. Yeah?” is all that Dazai gets to say before he’s mobbed by a crowd of screaming girls who weren’t even there to support him—Chuuya can see all of them hiding their banners with the names of other runners emblazoned on them.
Chuuya backs away, melting into the crowd of spectators milling about now that the race is over. The girls are offering flowers, chocolates, candies. All Chuuya can offer is a truce.
He wonders, just briefly, if it’s good enough.
***
Chuuya wants to think that he’s accepted his fate—or rather, he wants the people around him to think that way. But he knows Dazai knows that’s not true, and he also knows that Dazai always figures out when his family comes to visit, and makes himself scarce. As if him simply being there will prevent the curtains from being raised and the show from going on.
Maybe Chuuya’s now the better actor out of the two of them.
His mother wheels him around downstairs, and the rest of the family walks alongside them. But if Dazai hadn’t stolen the wheelchair the first time to take him to the summer festival, would they have done it in his stead? Chuuya’s left at the fake taxi stand—built so patients with dementia will sit and wait for a ride that never comes, until their nurses arrive to lead them back to their wards—while they go search for food to share, even though everyone knows the options at this hospital are limited. He leans back and looks forward, his gaze empty.
Chuuya has his phone in his hands before he knows it, turned on and unlocked to show his list of frequently-called numbers. Right at the top tempting him is Dazai’s, saved as Mackerel. His finger hovers over “call”, but it never makes contact with the glass screen.
He sits, and he waits. He stares at his phone, and shakes it awake every time the light dims. He sits, and he waits. The taxi will come eventually—is that what the patients think when they’re here, in this same spot? Is Dazai at the other end, staring at his own phone, waiting for him to call and complain about how bored he is? He sits, and he waits. He’s gotten used to waiting. Waiting for the intercept, for the scoring pass, for Dazai to cross the finish line first, for the wind to come and take him away, for the night sky to erupt with light. Surely someone will pass by, slow down, ask if he wants a ride.
Hey, we’ll keep in touch after we graduate, right?
By phone, dumbass.
Two months and one day.
***
Dazai doesn’t run again after that last track meet, just as Chuuya becomes too weak to show up at school unassisted. They continue their bickering, but they don’t get into any more fights. Chuuya places bets with Dazai in an effort to get him to train, but avoids the gymnasium and the fields himself. He used to be the gravity manipulator, the one able to launch himself in the air like no other player. Dazai used to think it was hilarious, and constantly made jokes about him also being the shortest member on the school team. Chuuya thinks it’s a pity Dazai doesn’t care for sports, because they’ve played together before. With Chuuya’s insane tricks and Dazai’s height, they have the potential to get past all opponents.
“Walk with me,” Dazai says one day after school, grabbing Chuuya’s wrist and dragging him in the opposite direction of the schoolmate assigned to see him home.
“Oi!” Chuuya wrests his hand away and scowls up at Dazai, but doesn’t try to turn back. “Whatever for?”
“A new ice cream place opened! We’re gonna go check it out!”
“I’m not paying.”
“But Chuuya!” Dazai clasps his hands together and leans over so Chuuya can see the sparkles in his eyes. “You’re always so generous and ki—”
“—Not. Paying.”
And so, after ensuring that his schoolmate won’t tattle to his mother, Chuuya follows Dazai down to the beach. His wallet loses five hundred yen , and his hands gain an ice cream cone each. Chuuya clambers up to the roof of the cafe despite the shop owner warning them not to, Dazai right behind him. The wind is strong but not wild, perfect for getting the loose strands of his hair out of his face while he carefully licks his ice cream.
“Well?” Dazai hasn’t touched his ice cream yet. His tone is expectant, but Chuuya isn’t a mind reader.
“Well what?”
“Does this feel like flying? I wanted to make chibi go on the bungee jump because then he’ll be tall for once, but chibi’s heart condition means he can’t go.”
Chuuya rolls his eyes. “No,” he says. What he doesn’t say: When I’m with you, I’m always flying.
***
“Chibi.”
“Mackerel.” Chuuya eyes the large bouquet of roses in Dazai’s hands. “Which poor girl used up her week’s allowance on you?”
“Actually,” Dazai begins, unceremoniously shoving the bouquet into Chuuya’s (disgustingly, if he does say so himself) frail arms, “ I bought these for you .”
“What the fuck.”
“I know, right! Surprise, I had money this whole time.”
“No, I always knew you had the money. I mean, why the fuck did you buy me a hundred roses?!”
“Why not?”
“You fucking shithead, this means total devotion! This means promising to be together for the next century!”
“Okay, and?”
“And—!” Chuuya stares, his mouth agape. “Shitty Dazai, you’re supposed to be saying goodbye to me, not confessing your love on my deathbed.”
“Nuh-uh. I’m making you realise that you love me . Give me the bouquet back.”
“So you are confessing to me.”
“What part of—” But before Dazai can finish, Chuuya grabs his tie (surprisingly done properly today) and yanks hard, shutting him up with a fleeting kiss. “No fair, I was supposed to do that to you after you handed the flowers back to me,” Dazai complains.
“I have the height advantage. Take your stupid flowers back. I can’t believe they let you bring that in. What if someone has allergies?”
“Then they’ll just have to suffer,” Dazai says flippantly. “These are for you, so everyone else will just have to deal.”
“Sentimentality doesn’t look good on you.”
Dazai shrugs. “I love you,” he says simply. Chuuya realises he hates it when Dazai drops his act and gets serious. It feels off , in the same way he knows instinctively when he’s caught the frisbee too early and won’t land well. Not right, not wrong, but definitely out of place. “I always did, to be honest.”
“And you’re only telling me this now.”
“I said you loved me! That’s basically the same thing!”
“How the fuck is that the same thing!”
“I love you.” Dazai folds his arms. “I mean it. Now are you gonna say it back, or what?” There’s a challenge in his eyes, one Chuuya’s intimately familiar with. He sees those eyes before, during and after every bet they’ve ever made, and he sees those eyes every time he breaks the news of a worse diagnosis, and he sees those eyes when his attention falters and drifts off the field towards the spectators’ stands. “That you’ve always loved me, too.”
“I’ve always loved you, you stupid asshole.” Chuuya scowls and shoves the bouquet back into Dazai’s hands. “Happy now?”
Dazai bursts into laughter. He carelessly drops the bouquet onto the visitor’s chair, then clambers onto Chuuya’s bed, ignoring his protests. “If you mean it, chibi, you sure don’t sound like it.”
“I wasn’t sure if I was good enough for you,” Chuuya mumbles, suddenly embarrassed. “You’re much better than me.”
“If we’re really talking about who’s good enough for who, then shouldn’t it be the other way round?”
“Nah. You got some terminally ill boy who can’t end life with a single thing accomplished. I think that’s worse than loving a suicidal maniac.”
“You’re wrong. You did accomplish something.”
“What, annoying you to death?”
“You saved me, you know. Over and over. From jetty railings and rooftop ledges. From other people and from myself. That’s good enough for me.”
“Raise your standards a little, shitty Dazai.”
“Nah. I like mine in the ground—then they’ll be as short as you.”
Chuuya tries to shove Dazai off, but only succeeds in nearly falling off the bed himself, had Dazai not caught him in time. They stay frozen in that position, two pairs of widened eyes staring at each other for a moment too long, then start laughing again.
“I wish I got to play one more game,” Chuuya says after the silence that falls.
“I wish I could watch you jump and intercept again,” Dazai adds. “It got voted the coolest part of any game in the yearbook. Did you know that there were some girls who went specifically to watch you do that?”
“I figured. I wanna watch fireworks on the hill again.”
“I want to eat ice cream on the roof again even though they told us not to.”
“Sunsets at the beach.”
“Fighting in your room.”
“You.”
“What?”
Chuuya grins. “You,” he repeats. “I’ll miss you.”
It’s ridiculous, really, how pretty Dazai looks even with his hair messed up and his clothes wrinkled. “I bet there’s an even hotter version of me in heaven,” he finally says, and Chuuya rolls his eyes.
“Nah. I only want this version of you.”
“Sap.”
“Hey, you’ll still live even after I’m gone, right?”
“Yeah.”
“‘Kay.” Chuuya reaches for the stuffed slug and holds it close to his chest. “Don’t piss Mori off. It’s not worth it.”
“Not even so you can watch him get mad from heaven?”
“Not even then.” Chuuya pauses. He has a feeling that if he looks hard enough, he’ll see the faintest hint of a tear in Dazai’s eye. “If we’ve always loved each other, shitty Dazai, then this isn’t goodbye.”
“Yep.”
“See you tomorrow?” Don’t forget me.
“See you tomorrow.” How could I ever?
***
Chuuya knows that there’s no such thing as a human capable of flight. But maybe, just maybe, the next best thing is this: him, and Dazai, and the foolish, naive hope that whatever comes next, there’ll be wings unfurling to catch them when they fall.