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For the past ten years, Dazai and Chuuya have been stuck together— however unwillingly— like glue. Though, even when they got the chance to go their own separate ways, neither of them let go.
Ten years ago, down to the date, the pair that would a year later be dubbed Soukoku sat in the sand on this beach together for the first time.
Their knees pressed together, no words exchanged between them as they watched the sun set. A moment of peace in the storm.
As Dazai watches Chuuya now, with his red hair moving in the warm evening breeze of summer, he thinks the exact same thought that he did a decade ago. The only difference is that he voices it aloud this time:
“Chuuya is beautiful.”
Back then, he couldn’t begin to comprehend why his chest felt so tight at the sight of his partner in the light of the setting sun, but now he knows.
It was the seed of a terrible disease being sown, a seedling that’d take root in less than a month.
“Just watch the sunset, Mackerel.” Chuuya’s tone is nothing if not fondly exasperated. He’s dealt with Dazai for a decade now, any person would have been conditioned to be fond of him by now.
Dazai sighs. “But then I’ll miss something even more beautiful.”
Inside Dazai’s chest is a garden, a lush and beautiful garden that has grown from that one seed that was sown in his heart on this beach exactly ten years ago.
How did something so vast and lovely grow in the desolate wasteland that is Dazai Osamu’s heart?
Well, people do say that love makes the impossible completely possible.
“Chuuya.”
Chuuya turns to look at him, and Dazai feels all the air left in his lungs leave him immediately.
His partner’s face is painted with the priceless gold of the setting sun, it reflects off his hair perfectly, and the golden light almost makes his eyes glow.
It feels like he’s falling in love all over again, impatient butterflies fluttering behind his ribcage. It’s truly a delightful feeling.
“I have a question to ask you.”
Chuuya’s face twists into a questioning frown. “I’m not going to drown myself with you, if that’s what you’re going to ask, the evening’s too nice for that.”
Dazai laughs. “No, that’s not it.”
Chuuya stares into his eyes with that special intensity of his that makes the hair on Dazai’s neck stand.
He loves the way it feels when Chuuya tries to see him, all of him. Every battered and bruised part, every dark inch and crevice of his heart and soul.
It’s a beautiful thing, being seen; being loved.
“I don’t want to ask you to die with me,” Dazai says slowly, carefully and silently letting his hand inch into his pocket. It feels as if the weight of the world is weighing it down.
“I want to ask you to live with me.”
“We already live together.”
A sigh. “Chuuya’s so slow.”
In the palm of the hand Dazai is hiding from Chuuya’s line of sight is a promise, a promise that Dazai could never bring himself to break.
“Chuuya’s been my dog for ten years now, isn’t it about time we take it to the next level?”
“If you say you’ll make me your bitch I’ll—”
Dazai cuts him off before he can begin talking such sweet nothings. “—I’d prefer the word husband, but if Chuuya prefers bitch… then who am I to judge.”
He puts the velvet box on Chuuya’s knee, saying nothing more; he doesn’t need to.
In the silence, it feels like time has stopped, like even the universe is waiting for the answer as eagerly as Dazai himself is.
The sound of the waves lapping at the shore and the wind brushing through both of their curls is the only sounds present on the beach as the forehead of the sun’s face touches the horizon.
Dazai just stares, seeing in real time as his partner’s mind pieces his words together.
Eventually— finally— Chuuya breaks the silence, and it’s with a laugh. A delicate and completely genuine thing.
It’s the kind of laugh that you wouldn’t expect to hear coming from the mouth of a man with his hands drenched in the blood of thousands.
A clear, lovely sound. Dazai wishes to pocket it forever.
“You fucking suck at proposing.” They both pretend not to notice the glassy look overtaking both of their eyes in that moment.
“How would Chuuya know? Has he been proposed to many times?”
Chuuya lets out a snort, then he carefully opens the box.
Inside it is a ring; a promise.
It’s a simple band made of cheap silver with a cheap, black, glassy stone as its eye. It may not look like much— or anything at all, really— but to Chuuya it’s the most dear thing he’s ever been given.
A promise made by Dazai’s own hands.
So this is why he’d been bandaging his fingers for the last few weeks.
Without another word, Chuuya takes the ring out of the box, takes his gloves off, and carefully slides it on his left hand’s ring finger.
It’s a perfect fit— of course it is. How could it be anything less than perfect when it’s made by the one person who knows Chuuya better than he knows himself?
Dazai takes Chuuya’s hands in his own, trying his best to not have them quiver.
“With this ring I’m making you, Nakahara Chuuya, my partner in anything and everything, a promise that I swear to never break as long as I live.”
Dazai presses the gentlest of kisses to the back of the freckled hand.
“I want to live with you, forever at least, in every universe possible at the absolute very least, if I can have a say in it…”
Dazai cups Chuuya’s face with his other hand.
“If you’ll have me, can I be yours forever?”
As soon as he finishes speaking, Dazai is tackled to the sand, a pair of strong arms wrapping around his neck and a pair of equally strong legs wrapping around his own.
There’s a wet droplets that hits Dazai’s cheeks, but they don’t belong to him or the sky.
Chuuya peppers Dazai’s face with kisses, all accompanied by the signature salty taste of tears.
“You’re a fucking idiot if you think I’ll say no,” he breathes when he’s finally done. “You’re mine forever, and I’m yours. In every fucking universe.”
Dazai feels tears of his own roll down his face, mixing with his fiancé’s before falling and hitting the sand.
“Forever and ever,” he says. It’s the easiest promise Dazai has made in his life.