au in which dazai is a university student and chuuya works at a music shop and occasionally performs live at some bars.
they meet during one of chuuya's gigs while dazai is hanging out with his friends; the brunet can't help but stare at chuuya's moves, the leather hugging his skin, his auburn curls bouncing freely on his shoulders as he sings. he is impressed by the energy radiating off his body and the raspy voice reverberating through the walls of the bar, and dazai osamu is rarely impressed. for someone who claims to be a self-taught guitarist, dazai surely finds him intriguing—and dazai osamu is rarely intrigued by another human being.
they start seeing each other and eventually get together; dazai is always supportive when it comes to chuuya's dream of pursuing a career in the music industry, even when chuuya doesn't believe in himself. he's not lying or pitying him—he's the first witness of the love and the passion chuuya puts into music, and each time it feels like falling in love with him all over again. after all, chuuya is the guy who brought the colours back into dazai's life.
at some point, chuuya joins a local band as their new guitarist. it's good at first—he gets to perform at bigger events in yokohama and hear people scream his name during his guitar solos. he will never admit it, but if it weren't for dazai accidentally spotting the band's poster near the university entrance, he'd still be performing alone at the store. nothing against that, but chuuya has always wanted to be part of a band and to finally be able to share music with a bunch of nerds like him feels like a dream come true.
but once the initial excitement wears off and he's able to see things more clearly, chuuya begins to notice a few discrepancies between himself and his band mates: he's been pouring his soul into this project, always showing up at practice and writing songs alone and contacting bar owners for live performances like the hardworking guy he is, whereas his mates treat the band as a hobby they turn to when they're bored. can he blame them, though? they're just university students who occasionally play together to decompress. if anything he's the one at fault—for being too passionate, too focused, too excited, too much.
no one's surprised when chuuya ends up dealing with the worst burnout of his life. well, dazai isn't; chuuya just acts like nothing's wrong and everything's right—until he's standing inside his favourite bar and the stage morphs into a prison surrounded by hungry sharks. no matter how much he tells himself to get his shit together and be grateful for this opportunity, his body won't move, a puppet in the hands of the worst of puppeteers—fear. he will never forget the worry in dazai's observant eyes, the way his toothed smile slowly fades into a frown, the 'why are you letting this happen?' written all over his face.
they don't talk about it on their way to dazai's apartment. they don't talk about it when chuuya drops his guitar on the floor with slightly more carelessness than he should. they don't talk about it when dazai asks chuuya to talk about it between wet kisses and hot touches that feel too dry and cold to be sincere.
eventually, chuuya leaves the band. eventually, he starts picking up more shifts at the music store until dazai's voice can be heard only through the voice notes on his phone. they still don't talk about it; not when they occasionally hang out separately in chuuya's bedroom, not when their bodies collide and sweet nothings that once meant everything are whispered into each other's skin, not when they spot each other at the music store's party and dazai is chatting with some guy chuuya has never seen before.
it hits chuuya all at once—the silence, the shame, the anger, the helplessness, the quiet realisation that everything is changing and he's just going with it like a mere spectator of a life that doesn't belong to him anymore.
eventually, dazai speaks up. he hopes it will be enough to shake chuuya, to get a reaction out of him—anything but this shell of what he used to be. eventually, he asks chuuya if he still loves him and the silence that follows tells him everything he needs to know—that the love between them withered a long time ago. has it ever blossomed at all? that's what dazai asks himself as he gets rid of the polaroid on his nightstand, holding onto the paper a little too firmly like that could prevent his boyfriend—his ex boyfriend—from slipping away. he wonders if the smile he's currently staring at was sincere or if it has been fake all along.
eventually, chuuya is lucky enough to visit dazai's apartment while he's at the university library. he steps inside quietly, like he doesn't want to be heard—not that ghosts make any sounds. he picks up his toothbrush from the bathroom, alongside his body wash and his shampoo—he's never felt brave enough to try dazai's 3-in-1 products. he pushes the door to dazai's room open and the choker around his neck suddenly turns into a rope; various memories pop up in his head as he takes more steps forward—the video games they played together, the chips they ate on the bed and the crumbs that followed, the kisses they exchanged while their hands roamed freely across their bodies, all the bandages that have been carefully unwrapped because dazai always trusted chuuya, no matter what.
he grabs some spare clothes and a couple pajamas from the wardrobe—his presence inside the brunet's apartment stops at that, like chuuya never allowed himself to put down roots in dazai's life. like he longed to be lost from the start.
he glances casually, instinctually at the nightstand where their polaroid is—was—where did it go?—and for the first time since they mutually agreed to part ways, his throat locks up and a choked sob escapes his lips and a single tear cuts his freckled cheek in half and he's crushed by all the would've been, could've been, should've been.
is there a way to tell your soulmate you didn't mean to lose them? that you thought you had found your path in life but the moment you lost it you also lost yourself? that you were so terrified of them finding out you're not the same person they fell in love with anymore that all you could do was run and run and run until you lost them too? that you don't want to force your presence into their life, that you understand if they want to leave, that they can let you go if they need?
can we go back to the day we met so i can make sure we don't?
eventually, chuuya leaves the apartment just like he entered it—quietly, silently, like a specter. like he was always meant to leave and he was never meant to stay.
