Chuuya didn’t remember the exact moment everything flipped—when Dazai stopped being the one who picked up the pieces and started becoming one of them.

He just remembered the door opening. Dazai standing there, drenched and shaking, like he didn’t even know where he was. His lips were cracked, his clothes wrinkled, his knuckles red like he'd hit something or someone. He didn’t speak. Not a single word. Just stared at Chuuya like he didn’t expect to be let in.

And Chuuya had let him in anyway.

They were seventeen. Too young to be dealing with this, maybe, but too old to run from it. At least that’s what Chuuya told himself. Because what else was he supposed to do when the boy who used to carry him through every ugly fight, every explosion of rage, every broken part of his life—just showed up and collapsed without a sound?

Dazai didn’t talk about what happened. Chuuya didn’t push. He didn’t need the details, not when he could see the aftermath with his own eyes. The way Dazai flinched at sudden noises. How he curled in on himself like a kicked dog. How sometimes, he’d sit on the floor and rock back and forth, mouthing things Chuuya couldn’t hear, like he was stuck in a moment he couldn’t escape.

Chuuya hadn’t known what to do.

So he dragged him to a therapist.

He’d yelled. Begged. Threatened to call the police if Dazai didn’t go. Said things he didn’t mean and meant things he didn’t say. And eventually, Dazai went. Silent and stiff, like he was walking to the gallows.

And it worked. And it didn’t.

The therapist said trauma. Like that explained the nights Dazai would suddenly scream and writhe and cry so hard he couldn’t breathe. Like it made sense that he’d claw at his own arms and try to disappear into the wall. Like any of this could be boxed up and labeled, treated like a wound instead of a goddamn haunting.

Chuuya was the only one who could touch him. That was the worst part. Not even the therapist could reach for Dazai without him lashing out. But Chuuya—somehow, for some reason—could hold him when he was like that. Could pull him in and feel the tremors ease, the breath return.

It felt like being someone’s anchor and their prison all at once.

They weren’t friends anymore. Not really. And they sure as hell weren’t dating. Whatever they were—it was messier than that. Deeper, maybe. Twisted in a way Chuuya didn’t have the words for. They had always been tangled. Since they were kids, since Chuuya had been all fury and pain and Dazai had known how to laugh at it without belittling it. Dazai had always understood him. Maybe that’s why Chuuya couldn’t bring himself to walk away now.

But he was tired. God, he was so tired. Every day felt like stepping into a war zone with no idea where the bombs were buried. He’d always been the one who needed help—the one with the temper, the guilt, the fire burning too hot under his skin. Now he was the one holding someone else together, and it felt like balancing on cracked glass.

No one prepared him for this. For the way Dazai stared through walls. For the way his voice shook when it finally broke through, too late, too faint. For how small he looked curled up on Chuuya’s bed, like if Chuuya looked away too long, he might vanish.

He didn’t know what the hell he was doing.

But he stayed. Every night, every episode, every wordless hour. Because Dazai had done the same for him, once. Because somewhere in all this noise and silence and breaking apart, Chuuya still saw the boy who held him together with nothing but wit and reckless kindness.

And because leaving wasn’t even an option. Not when Dazai’s hands still reached for his in the dark.