(too tired to bother with minding the character limit on tags apologies in advance)
they are SO FASCINATING bc of that back and forth between them
chuuya introduced himself to dazai suddenly and VIOLENTLY--he kicked dazai through a wall, purposefully crushed his hand, kicked him in the face once or twice...and dazai's responses were to calmly tell chuuya to go ahead and kill him, and then to tell chuuya he should drink more milk 'cause he's too short, and THEN to say he's going to place a curse on chuuya to permanently stunt his growth. like...there is a bit of a different level of reaction here. XD
BUT ALSO!! chuuya's big thing is loyalty and taking responsibility for his strength, and look at what dazai does--he notices that the sheep take advantage of chuuya feeling like he's obliged to protect them and they kind of just do whatever they want, even against chuuya's warnings about caution. he sees the sheep as a group that is going to self-destruct, and he exploits that at the earliest opportunity by creating a scenario where they doubt the loyalty chuuya's always given them. dazai intentionally poisoned the sheep's perception of chuuya's loyalty in order to hasten the implosion and be sure he was on the spot to offer chuuya a new place to belong when the sheep turned on him. (and chuuya THRIVED in the mafia! [eventually!!!!! he gets there! this isn't a full analysis I'm ignoring storm bringer for the time being] but the fact that he could trace the sheep's betrayal DIRECTLY to dazai is. not helpful!)
so, like, even setting aside the issues we get into as they go--chuuya seeming so very human to dazai yet rejecting his own humanity but still being so against the idea of suicide, and dazai seeming to chuuya like he's rejecting his own obvious humanity and being unwilling to fight for his own life--we can see how there would be resentment here. BUT BUT BUT!!!
they are such important firsts for each other!! they are equals, they give as good as they get, neither is willing to lose to the other. and they're the same age! they don't have to hold back around each other, and it lets them be the kids they never got to be! in Fifteen, dazai acts like a little world-weary adult a lot of the time, only dropping that when he really gets into it with chuuya. and chuuya's got someone to work with who he doesn't feel the need to shield, someone he doesn't have to be the voice of reason around, someone he doesn't need to hold back against. so we end up with dazai pulling chuuya's pigtails, and chuuya giving him that attention he craves, and bc both of them have been thru horrible shit nothing the other does truly registers as fully unforgivable bc their thresholds for what's normal are just absolutely fucked to hell and back. if they'd been raised in kinder circumstances, I think they could have seen that they could be friends, but the concept is so foreign to them that I truly don't think it registers. even by the time storm bringer rolls around, when the flags outright say they're chuuya's friends, he's shocked speechless for a moment. and dazai ofc is not that straightforward. I've always felt that he was so confused over what he wanted from chuuya, that he decided upon 'dog' rather than friend bc he simply didn't have the emotional understanding to process what he wanted out of the relationship.
anyways, but like...yes. chuuya reacts violently to dazai, and dazai does push his buttons and manipulate him. but dazai also looks at him with such undeniable tenderness right after corruption, and it's only in those times that he looks at chuuya like that, only when nobody--not even chuuya himself--can see that expression. there's no one to put on an act for, so why would it be anything but genuine? and chuuya honestly cares about dazai's safety--the moment he knew where he'd gotten off to during the dragon's head conflict, chuuya was chasing after him. he activated corruption in dead apple on PURE FAITH that dazai was alive to bring him back. the obvious concern in his voice when he shouts dazai's name after lovecraft sends dazai flying lives rent free in my head. they give each other hell, sure, but christ, look at what they grew up in spite of. neither of them pushes further than the other can take. chuuya admonishes dazai when his callousness over human life goes too far, and dazai--for all his insults and manipulations--NEVER questions chuuya's humanity. it's a line he doesn't cross.
they are FASCINATING. their chemistry is FASCINATING. like, yes. it absolutely is fun to play around sometimes and write them as more toxic than they really are. but to me, from canon, the sense I get is that they see an equal in each other, someone who can stand next to them and keep up, someone they don't have to coddle or make themselves lesser for, someone they don't have to restrain themselves with. and when the chips are down, they can count on each other. they balance each other incredibly well, and their relationship is deep and multi-faceted.
