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Dazai was a cold, bleak thing during these days. He couldn't muster up the energy to do anything, (unless that thing was highly self-destructive, but even then, he got too tired to do that sometimes). He would sit in silence, normally wrapped up in a soft comfort blanket or two, and simply stare at his bland walls. All he wanted was to be left alone to rot in peace.
His bandages wouldn’t be changed for days on end, blood seeping through the white wrap, covering uncleaned wounds. He would likely get infections but couldn’t care to keep his wounds clean.
Mori, his father, would carefully open his door and place some kind of food on the floor for Dazai to eat. Usually, this food went uneaten. It was an unnecessary gesture. Mori and Dazai both could smell the rotting food from previous days of the doctor’s failed attempts at taking care of his son. Mori was putting in effort, but it seemed too little too late.
“I wish you would eat more, Osamu,” Mori would speak from the door. Dazai would not dignify him with a response if he happened to hear him over the swirling thoughts in his mind.
He rarely let Mori patch up his self-inflicted wounds if he found out about them. During his episodes, the doctor would simply set the necessary tools to do so inside Dazai’s room silently. He could rarely help any more than that.
They were both trying to mend their broken relationship, but episodes like this only set the distance further between the two. Mori could only roughly follow Dazai’s mental state with his knowledge of depressive episodes, but there wasn’t a clear understanding between the two.
Maybe Mori was desperate. Or maybe he was just a little fucking shit sent from hell to wreak havoc on his life, Dazai thought, as a certain ginger entered his room (without knocking, mind you).
“Ew, it smells like shit in here Mackerel, what-” Chuuya wrinkled his nose, but trailed off as he got a good look at Dazai buried beneath his blankets. “Oh…” he trailed off for a second, “you look like shit too.”
Dazai grimaced at his words, only sparing a small glance toward the intruder before burying his head back in the blankets. Chuuya’s bright hair hurt his eyes. “As observant as ever, Chuuya,” Dazai’s muffled voice spoke sarcastically.
Chuuya didn’t respond, and the pair sat in silence for a few minutes before Chuuya spoke again.
“Uh, are you okay Dazai?” He asked hesitantly, tilting his head.
The unexpectedness of the question almost made Dazai laugh. Was he okay? What about this situation made Chuuya think that Dazai was anything other than not okay?
“Okay, sorry. Stupid question,” Chuuya acknowledged Dazai’s silence.
After a few more stressful minutes of silence, Dazai finally broke it. “What are you doing here Slug?” he tiredly questioned. His voice didn’t hold the same annoying timbre it normally did, losing all of its meaning. Osamu Dazai was not the same person he always pretended to be while in the safe presence of his bed. He only seemed to be an empty shell of a person, slowly charging up, waiting until he had enough energy to put on his false pretense once again. But for now, his bed seemed to be swallowing him whole. Chuuya wasn’t sure if he would be able to ever get out again.
“Mori called.” He explained slowly, cautiously, knowing the other’s hesitance toward his own father. However, Chuuya had no choice but to tell the truth.
A pause. Dazai considered his next words. Had he really seemed so bad that his father had to pull out his trump card? It wasn’t fair to use Chuuya against him like this. He didn’t want Chuuya to see him in this state.
“What’d he say?” His small, empty voice spoke.
“Said you were sick,” Chuuya answered lamely.
A tiny snort left Dazai’s mouth. Leave it to Mori to never come out and say exactly what he meant. “Chuuya, the only sick thing here is my mind. You can leave,” Dazai more or less demanded. He wanted to wither away in peace.
But leave it to Chuuya to be just as stubborn as Dazai. “What? No fuckin’ way. I came all the way to see you. I’m not leaving now,” he paused, rubbing his shoulder, “and your sister tackled me when I came in. You owe me.”
“Elise tackled you?” Dazai actually laughed for the first time during their conversation. “I would too if I could. Good for her,” he snorted at Chuuya’s grumpy pout. “That means she likes you. Trust me, you don’t want to get on her bad side.”
Chuuya only responded with a grimace. If you got on Elise’s bad side, that meant you were also on Mori’s bad side. That was surely something that Chuuya didn’t want. “Yeah, sure. Now get up,” he approached Dazai’s curled-up figure and attempted to yank the blankets off of Dazai.
The other’s grip on the blankets tightened in protest. “Chuuya!” He shrieked. “Nooo!” He whined at the other, knowing fully well that he was going to be forced up.
“Poor baby,” Chuuya cooed at him. “You’re getting up,” Chuuya stated matter-of-factly. And because Dazai stood no chance against Chuuya in terms of strength, after a few more seconds of useless wrestling, Chuuya ripped the blankets off of the boy.
“Chuuya! So mean!” He whined as his body was revealed. He was only wearing plaid boxers and an old, stained, and oversized band shirt that slipped off of his shoulder. Chuuya’s face flushed a bit at the sight. The ginger took note of the scars spanning from Dazai’s visible thighs down to just above his knees. He knew what they were from and felt a bit sick at the thought. But the scars didn’t make the bastard any less attractive to Chuuya, and he needed to distract himself from that terrible fact.
“You need a shower,” the ginger stated, being reminded of that as he took a look at Dazai’s greasy, unkempt hair. Examining Dazai further, he noted the bloodied bandages wrapped around his wrist. “And change your bandages,” Chuuya commanded sternly. He knew of Dazai’s bad habit of reusing bandages and would wring his neck if he got an infection because of that.
Finally rolling out of bed and ungracefully landing on the floor with a thump, Dazai responded, “Yeah, yeah, okay mom.”
Yanking a random pair of pajama pants and a shirt from his dresser, Dazai made his way to the bathroom that was connected to his room. He was silently thankful that he didn’t have to leave his room in this condition.
“I’m not your damn mom!” Chuuya protested rudely, glaring at Dazai.
“Then quit acting like one!” The other responded, opening the bathroom door and walking inside.
Chuuya only answered with a sigh, likely unheard by Dazai.
—
While Dazai was away in the bathroom, Chuuya took it upon himself to clean up a bit. Mori had said that Dazai’s room got a bit messy when he was like this, but jesus. How’d it get this bad?
The room absolutely stank. The first thing Chuuya did was throw out all of the moldy food items that were lying around the room. Most of them had no bites at all taken out of them. Random pillows and items were scattered around the floor. Chuuya decided to return the pillows to the bed and gather the miscellaneous items in a small, slightly cleaner pile for Dazai to deal with later. Lastly, Chuuya opened up the window to hopefully air out the room and make the rotten smell go away.
That’s when he heard a voice coming from the bathroom. “Chuuya!” Dazai called out, masking his voice with a playful pretense, “There aren’t any bandages in here. Be a good mutt and grab me some.”
After quickly looking around the room, Chuuya located a roll of bandages and went to the bathroom door. “Here,” Chuuya knocked on the door.
Soon enough, a face poked out from the door, and a scarred arm shot out to snatch the bandages from Chuuya.
“At least say thank you, asshole,” Chuuya muttered to himself.
—
A few minutes later, a hesitant voice spoke from the bathroom again, “Chuuya?” Dazai’s tone seemed almost… nervous? It uneased Chuuya.
“Yeah?” He called back, approaching the bathroom door. “What is it?”
“Can you come here?” He asked softly from the other side of the door.
After a moment of hesitance, he answered, “...Sure, I’m coming in,” Chuuya warned.
The ginger’s eyes widened as he looked at the other’s uncovered figure. The boy had his plaid pajama pants on, but nothing else. His wrists were wrapped up thoroughly in bandages, but his upper arms were uncovered. Day old angry, red gashes laid upon his pale, thin arms. None of them looked infected, but some were well on their way.
“Um, do you mind helping?”
“Yeah, sure,” Chuuya agreed unsteadily. It wasn’t as if this was the first time seeing his best friend without his bandages, but it still made his heart race. He hadn’t helped the other bandage himself up before; he didn’t want to fuck up when Dazai had put his full trust in him. Even with all of his imperfections, Dazai couldn’t get any more beautiful. Chuuya kept that thought to himself.
“Tell me if it hurts, mkay?” Chuuya grabbed the antiseptic lying on the counter and carefully applied it to the dozens of cuts littering his upper arms. At first, Dazai flinched away, but no complaints were voiced. He didn’t seem to be too uncomfortable though, so Chuuya continued.
Dazai hadn’t really wanted to ask for help, but if he hadn’t asked Chuuya, Mori would’ve had to do it. That would be even worse. He’d only end up getting lectured and he’d disappoint Mori even more if that was even possible.
After he was done disinfecting the cuts, Chuuya moved on to bandaging. “Tell me if I’m doing this right. I’ve never wrapped up a human-mummy before, okay?” Chuuya joked, attempting to break the tense air.
Dazai snorted at Chuuya’s words and nodded. “I’m sure Chibi can figure it out. He’s a well-trained doggy after all,” the brunette smirked.
“Asshole,” Chuuya narrowed his eyes at the other and began wrapping.
Along the way, he got a few critiques from Dazai but overall did a decent job.
“There you go Chuuya! Your master taught you well!” Dazai smiled down at him.
“Whatever,” Chuuya rolled his eyes. “C’mon, let’s dry your hair. You look like a wet puppy.”
“What? But Chuuya’s the dog!” He protested, following Chuuya out of the bathroom.
When they reemerged from the bathroom, Dazai smelling better and looking cleaner, Chuuya couldn’t help but laugh at the sight. Dazai’s normally wild hair was even messier than usual, the wet strands bunched up and tangled.
“Here, let me help. You obviously don’t know how to take care of your hair by yourself,” Chuuya criticized with a chuckle.
Fetching a hairbrush and a towel, Chuuya sat down on Dazai’s bed, motioning for him to do the same.
After Dazai sat down in front of him, Chuuya began gently massaging the other boy’s head with the dry towel. Dazai’s hair was surprisingly soft and fluffy when it was well taken care of.
Brown locks slowly began to dry as Chuuya brushed and patted down his hair. They sat in a comfortable silence, Dazai occasionally twiddling with his thumbs, a nervous habit of his.
“What’s up asshole?” Chuuya questioned, knowing that Dazai wouldn’t say anything if he didn’t prod.
When he hesitated to answer, Chuuya spoke again, “C’mon, just spit it out.”
“It’s nothing,” Dazai pouted and Chuuya leveled him with a quirked eyebrow.
“Just… thanks I guess,” Dazai whispered, blush appearing on his face.
In turn, Chuuya blushed as well. Dazai never really said ‘thank you’ unless he really meant it. “Yeah, no problem, shithead.”
Before Chuuya knew what was happening, his face was taken in his partner’s soft palms, and their lips were pressed together.
It only lasted for about two seconds, but it felt like an eternity. His heart felt like it was beating out of his chest, his face was on fire, and he couldn’t breathe. Was he dying? Did Dazai kill him? No. Deep breaths. Chuuya most certainly felt alive.
When he finally looked back at Dazai, escaping from his own inner turmoil, the other boy was passed out in his heap of blankets, a soft flush on his face.
“Hey! C’mon! Get up, bastard. I know you’re not asleep!” Chuuya poked at one of his ribs.
Dazai’s lips quirked up tellingly, but he said nothing, simply playing dead.
“Ugh. I’m getting you back for this,” Chuuya declared angrily, flopping down next to Dazai, already beginning to cuddle up to the other. He was just as exhausted as Dazai was, and there was no way he was going to go home now. He had a stinky mackerel to take care of after all.
And if Chuuya heard a voice that sounded suspiciously like Dazai’s saying, “Goodnight, Chuuya, I love you,” well, that would be for him to internally scream about deep into the night.
(He said I love you too.)