Chuuya Nakahara didn’t care about relationships—not in high school, not with people who dated like it was a sport, not when there were better things to do with his time. He had goals. Grades to keep up. Races to win. He liked routine, the sharp focus of a schedule, the burn in his legs after training, the clean rush of victory when he beat his personal record. He didn’t need the distraction of messy feelings or hallway makeouts or whispered promises that would mean nothing the second graduation rolled around.

So when people asked—“Why don’t you just date someone already?”, he’d scoff, tighten his ponytail, and mutter something about not wasting time.

That didn’t stop his friends from trying. Didn’t stop them from nudging him whenever Dazai was in the room, their eyes lighting up like it was a game. Like he was the joke. “Just try it. You two already act like a couple.” As if that was all it took. As if he and Dazai weren’t something infinitely more complicated than that.

They weren’t friends—not really. But they weren’t strangers either. They were rivals in everything that counted: grades, races, wit, ego. They were enemies on their worst days, locked in biting insults and cold stares that made other people uncomfortable. They were something electric in the quiet moments, in shared glances and things left unsaid. Something like tension, like familiarity. Like history.

No one really understood it. Hell, Chuuya didn’t understand it.

Dazai was annoying, smug, too clever for his own good, and yet the only one who ever challenged Chuuya in a way that didn’t make him feel small—but sharp. Noticed. Real. Dazai would say something that cut straight through the noise and land like a secret Chuuya didn’t know he’d been keeping.

“You’re wasting your time with people who don’t get you.” “You don’t need to prove yourself to idiots. Just win.” “Dating? That’s beneath you. You’re above all that, aren’t you?”

Chuuya remembered that last one like it was burned into his brain. Because that was the only time someone didn’t push him to be softer. Didn’t tell him to try love or open up or let someone in. Dazai just said what Chuuya didn’t know he needed to hear: That it was okay not to want it. That he was already enough.

And god, did he hate him for that. Because he liked him. Of course he did.

He liked the way Dazai always looked amused, like Chuuya’s presence alone was entertaining enough. He liked how Dazai’s attention never wavered—not in class, not during arguments, not even when Chuuya was yelling at him across the field for cheating during gym. He liked that Dazai never treated him like he was too much.

He liked him, and it pissed him off.

Because Dazai was also infuriating. Infuriating and unpredictable and so damn untouchable. He’d flirt one day, vanish the next. He’d compliment Chuuya’s essay just to roast his handwriting. He’d ask for help studying and then beat Chuuya’s score just to smirk about it later. They circled each other like a storm and the sea—never colliding, but always connected.

And maybe that’s why Chuuya didn’t want anything more.

Because if Dazai ever touched that part of him—really touched it, not just teased or skirted around it— Chuuya knew he wouldn’t come out the same.

So he studied. He trained. He pretended not to look when Dazai walked into a room. He told himself he didn’t care. And sometimes, on quiet nights, he even believed it.

But deep down, he knew— Whatever they were, he didn’t want to ruin it with something as small as dating.