Chapter Text
Dazai peeked out of his bedroom door. On the balcony, his mom was arguing with someone on her phone. It was nighttime, but thousands of artificial lights in this city easily overpowered the stars. The brunette boy closed his door carefully and grabbed his backpack from his study desk. He opened the lock on the windows and jumped down the emergency stairs below it. Soon his feet hit the street, and he started heading in a familiar direction.
Humming an unknown tune, the brunette walked without any bother. He took a shortcut through an empty alley with a confident attitude. It wasn’t that Naruhata district was safe. In fact, there had been an increase in the crime rate recently, and even some Heroes’ agencies had left for better-paying areas of Tokyo. That couldn’t stop Dazai from walking in the middle of the night to see his favorite ginger. Passing a convenience store, he grabbed two pudding cups and a small carton of strawberry milk.
“Um… Sorry, I know it isn’t my business, but should you be out here this late, kid?”
Dazai turned his head to the voice. The cashier who had just asked him was a young man with short black hair and a forgettable face. However, the boy was surprised that a stranger even bothered to show any concern about his well-being. He had lived in this world for over six years, and he noticed that people tended to leave any inconvenience for the so-called Heroes.
“I’m fine. My house is nearby.” It wasn’t.
He continued his journey to the backside of a building complex. His target was apartment number 8 on the fourth floor. Grabbing the rusty bar of the emergency staircase, Dazai pulled himself up and climbed on the old staircase. Finally, he stopped at a window and knocked in a familiar pattern. Three loud knocks and two small knocks. Dazai could pick the lock, but he wasn't in the mood for being hit by a heavy gravity object. After taking off his shoes, he opened the window and jumped into the room.
“You’re late,” Chuuya said without looking at him.
The redhead was lying on their stomach, reading a manga. They were wearing pajamas, hair tied up into a messy bun, and using a cartoon crab plushie as a pillow. The bedroom smelled like Wisteria flower, so they must have just come out of the shower.
Dazai pouted and waved the bag in his hand, “And I was being a nice person to bring my Slug some snacks. Guess it’s all mine now.”
Chuuya raised their head at him. “What did you get?”
Dazai took out the drink and threw the rest of the bag to Chuuya. Easily catching it, the redhead’s face lit up seeing the item in the bag.
“Puddings!”
On the other side of the room, Dazai put his backpack down and took out a change of clothes.
“Do you still have warm water?” He asked, walking to the bathroom that was attached to Chuuya’s room.
“The heater’s still on. Why didn’t you take a shower at home?”
“I need an excuse to use your fancy shampoo.”
“Don’t fucking spill it and fill it with water like last time. I would chuck the whole bottle down your throat.”
“How violent~.”
The brunette closed the bathroom door and left the new set of clothes on the sink. He went to Chuuya’s place often enough that he had his own toothbrush, towel, and a drawer with only his clothes in it. It wasn't that he hated his home or something, but why stay in his boring room when he could crash into Chuuya's place instead?
Turned off the shower head, he quickly dried himself and put the clothes on. Water was dripping down his white sweater. He put the towel around his neck and went back to the bedroom. Chuuya had finished their cup of pudding and was checking something on their phone.
“Can I copy your math homework?” Dazai grabbed the last pudding cup and sat on the bed.
“I know you can do it yourself. You lazy fish!”
Dazai put a spoonful of pudding in his mouth and pretended to think, “Um~ Nah.”
Chuuya kicked him, and the brunette fell out of the bed. “Chibi is so mean to me,” He whined.
“Stay still, Mackerel.” Chuuya took out a hair dryer from the drawer and proceeded to dry the brunette’s hair. Dazai finished the pudding after a minute but sat quietly and enjoyed the soft fingers through his hair.
The rest of the night was peaceful. They chatted, finished their homework, and played video games as they always did. In moments like this, they were nothing more than two normal junior high schoolers.
When it was time for bed, Chuuya rolled themselves into a burrito and commanded Dazai to turn off the light. Dazai complained, but did that and then jumped on the bed.
“Chibi, stop hoarding the blanket!” After a few seconds of struggling, the brunette successfully acquired half of his share and wrapped himself around Chuuya like an octopus.
*Tap, tap*
Chuuya was walking through an empty hallway. Their leather shoes hit the marble floor. Their shadow cut through the colorful lights from the beautiful stained glass window.
*Tap, tap*
In front of them was a black void, but they kept walking. Why were they walking again?
*Tap, tap*
They couldn’t seem to reach the end of the hallway, though. Chuuya felt like Achilles and the tortoise, being the mysterious destination.
*Tap*
Chuuya stopped. A huge wooden double door appeared at the end of the hallway.
They knew this door.
‘He’ knew this door.
Like a puppet on strings, the redhead mechanically put his hands on the heavy door and pushed.
The door revealed a big office. Its floor was the checkerboard pattern. In the middle of the room was a carpet and two velvet armchairs. There was a desk at the back of the room, but Chuuya couldn’t really see it from his position. The only light in this office was from the sunset through the full-glass wall. The desk was surrounded by bookshelves that were high enough to touch the ceiling, perfectly hiding the entire view of the desk in their shadows.
Chuuya couldn’t think. He continued to walk forward.
When he stepped on the red carpet, a wet sound caught his attention. Chuuya looked down and saw that the carpet had a large puddle of dark red liquid. That couldn’t stop him as the redhead kept going, leaving the red footprints with each step he took.
Passing through the red carpet, Chuuya turned his head to the left, where the full-glass wall was. Hitting his eyes was a breathtaking view of the ocean and the entire city next to it. The sunset colored the city with a variety of shades of orange and blew into it a soul.
The redhead felt a sense of longing and a deep grief seeing this view.
Finally, Chuuya reached the desk at the back.
There was someone in the chair behind the desk. Shadow hid the man’s features, but Chuuya could draw the man even when he closed his eyes. Messy dark brown hair, a big dark eye staring at your soul, his left eye covered with bandages, a black suit, and a long red scarf. Chuuya took a step closer to see the man more clearly.
“There you are. Where have you been, Chuuya?” The man asked.
Chuuya stood there, frozen at the spot. The man smiled at him sweetly. There was blood leaking down from his head. The red soaked through his hair, his white bandage, and slowly covered the pale skin. The ‘man’ that was sitting on the chair was nothing more than a disfigured corpse of Dazai Osamu.
Didn’t receive an answer from the redhead, the corpse tilted its head in confusion and stood up. However, the moment it stood up, the corpse collapsed. The disgusting sound of the body’s liquid and flesh falling snapped Chuuya out of his own terror. The redhead jumped over the desk and grabbed Dazai’s body, which was only a mess of bones and flesh at this point. Chuuya tried to hopelessly collect the rotting flesh as if that could bring Dazai back. Blood was everywhere.
And then everything in the room, including Chuuya, blended together into a puddle of red.
-
“Hah!” Chuuya woke up from the nightmare. Their heart was beating crazily. A drop of sweat rolled down their cheek, and their whole body was slightly shaking.
It took Chuuya a full minute to be aware of their situation. The bedroom was dark with just a hint of dawn shining through the curtain. A warm body lay next to them. Their limbs tangled with each other’s.
Chuuya stared quietly at the face next to them. Young, peaceful, and with no bandage covering his left eye. The redhead placed two fingers on Dazai’s neck and sighed in relief when they felt a pulse. However, this action woke up the sleeping person.
“Hum... Chuuya?” Dazai whispered, still only half awake.
“... Nothing. Go back to sleep.” The redhead tried not to let any emotion leak through their tone.
After making sure Dazai had fallen back to sleep, Chuuya carefully removed themselves from the bed and went to the bathroom.
*Click* The door closed, and Dazai slowly opened his eyes. The brunette raised his hand and touched the warm space on his neck.
Ayano was making her first cup of coffee of the day when she heard a knocking sound from the front door. There was only one person who would visit Nakahara’s household this early.
“Must be your friend, Chu-chu!” Leaving her kid with their unfinished bento boxes, Ayano walked to the door and greeted their guest. “Good Morning, Osamu! Right time as always!”
“Good Morning, Ayano-san!” Dazai waved his hand.
The brunette had changed into his school uniform, climbed out the window, and taken the stairs back to the fourth floor. Ayano didn’t know that Dazai basically spent more than half a week at Chuuya’s place. She was a nice person, but it would raise some concern if she knew he slept over nearly every night, so the best way was to sneak in and out. To the outsiders, Dazai was a good kid who walked his friend to school every day.
“Did you have breakfast? Come join us!” Ayano gestured to a chair at the dining table.
“If you don’t mind.” He said.
“Nonsense! You and Chu-chu have been friends forever. No need to be shy.”
“As if he knows what that word even means,” Chuuya spoke up from the kitchen. They had finished wrapping a bento box and handed it to their mom.
“There you go, Mom! I made grilled salmon for lunch.”
“Thank you, Chu-chu! But next time, let me do it.”
“It’s fine. I don’t mind.”
“Such a mature and responsible daughter that I have.” Ayano hugged her kid and left for work right after that.
Dazai marched to the kitchen like he owned the place and grabbed a piece of toast. Meanwhile, Chuuya continued to prepare their bento and slapped Dazai’s hand away when he tried to take a cherry tomato from the lunch box.
Both of them had started their first year of Junior High about a week ago. Their parents finally allowed them to walk themselves to school alone and gave them more freedom to hang out without a supervisor. For the purpose of not being babysat every time, during these years, Dazai and Chuuya had been acting as intelligent and responsible children in front of their new families. If their classmates and teachers had other things to say about that, they couldn’t prove it anyway.
Despite the change in their school's environment, Dazai couldn’t say there were any differences between elementary school and secondary school. More advanced lessons still didn’t bring enough challenge for him, their peers were boring and obnoxious as always, and there was also the same never-ending talk about Pro Heroes. However, one thing became more and more noticeable.
“Your Quirk is so cool!”
“I wish mine were like yours.”
“That’s such a boring Quirk!”
“Hey, guys! Look at my Quirk!”
“I heard someone from class 1-C is Quirkless.”
“His head looks so weird.”
“Hey! Does that guy look like a Villain to you?”
It wasn’t that these kinds of talks didn’t happen in his previous school, but as years passed, these kids became more and more judgmental about other peoples’ Quirks. It could simply be the effect of the over-glorified Pro Heroes system. These people grew up blindly worshipping so-called ultimate powers. Believing their Quirks were somewhat special. At some point in their life, they would realize they weren’t the one in a million and give up before even trying.
The world was an unfair place, and Dazai understood that. What he couldn’t understand was why people could be so narrow-minded, judging someone based on one thing that they couldn’t even control. Humankind didn’t come this far because of Quirks. In fact, Quirks were one of the main reasons why many science fields didn't have much progress in the last centuries, and they acted like Quirks were the only thing defining a person.
The teachers weren’t that much help. In contrast, most of them encouraged this unspoken ranking system by asking the kids to talk about their Quirks in their introductions. Not about your grades, hobbies, favorite book, or anything that made you, well, ‘You’. Some of them even showed clear favoritism for kids with potential Quirks. These kids got away with everything and all because the school wanted them to have clean records in case they managed to land in a Hero program, so that the school could brag about it.
Ability users, Quirks, Powers, or not. Dazai believed that every piece in chess has its value, with enough effort, even a mere pawn can become the Queen. Humans were capable of creating miracles. If not, that was guns for.
And speaking of the Queen.
“Chuuya~! Can I have a bite? Pretty please~!” Dazai blinked his eyes repeatedly at the ginger.
“...Fine! Only one bite.”
“Yay!” Dazai took a large bite from the salmon and, right after, successfully dodged the chopstick aimed at his head.
On their way walking back from their junior high, they were blocked by a small crowd. Someone was dancing and singing on a street light, and many people gathered under the sidewalk below to cheer them on. Moving closer to the crowd, the duo saw that the one performing on the lamp pole was a young girl with pink bubblegum hair.
“Hey! Everyone! Thanks for showing up today! Here is another song for you!” Bubblegum-haired shouted into a wireless microphone.
However, the song wasn’t what Chuuya paid attention to.
“What the fuck is she wearing?” The redhead made a frown.
The singing girl was wearing a black tight mini bodysuit with small black bat wings attached to her back, and knee-length black boots. Her face was covered only with a domino mask to protect her identity. The outfit was one of those kinds of cheap, sexy Halloween costumes that you can buy from any store in October. For some reason, many of the Pro Heroes’ outfits also leaned into this distasteful kind of fashion, so most of the time, you couldn’t even differentiate between them and the dressed-up weirdos. Therefore, there was a 50% chance that this girl was one of those creeps or an actual Pro Hero. Chuuya couldn’t tell.
Her voice was nice, but as in the karaoke level nice. However, the crowd kept cheering and taking photos of her. The crowd was mainly men in their late teens and twenties. They got pretty excited every time the pink-haired raised her legs. Her mini skirt barely covered anything.
“Hey! The cops' re on their way!” Someone yelled at the performer. The girl hurriedly ended her show and bounced away. Her Quirk must be some kind of flying or enhanced jumping kind.
“Huh?! Is this show illegal?” Chuuya asked out loud. The redhead was asking Dazai, but the guy who just pointed out the cops answered instead.
“You don’t know her?” The duo turned to the guy standing next to them and shook their heads.
The guy continued, “She’s a street idol named Pop Step. They don’t have permission to perform either using their Quirk.”
“Does she perform around here often?” Dazai asked, and the guy nodded. That would explain why they hadn’t seen her before. Their old school wasn’t in this direction, so they didn't have a reason to pass this area until recently.
“Ah! What am I doing? I’m about too late for work!” The guy yelled suddenly and put both his hands on the ground.
“Hah? What’re you-?” Chuuya was about to question his strange action, but the guy was sliding away. Literally, the guy was on four of his limbs and was sliding at the speed of a slow bicycle.
“... Does he look like a cockroach to you?” Dazai pointed at the guy.
“Honestly, I don’t fucking understand these Quirks,” Chuuya said.
Art note: Chuuya and Dazai in middle school (from 12 to 15 years old). The angle that I use make them look taller.