Chuuya Nakahara never understood how someone could be so damn irritating and yet so hard to live without. Dazai Osamu was everywhere—sitting beside him in class, stretched across his couch during late-night study sessions that turned into sleepovers, and leaning far too close during their endless, ridiculous arguments. Sixteen was supposed to be about freedom, about finding yourself, about growing up—but for Chuuya, it was about learning to share every corner of his world with the boy who refused to leave it.

His family adored Dazai, the charming bastard. His mother called him polite, his siblings laughed at his jokes, and even his father—stern and sharp with rules—welcomed Dazai like he belonged there. It wasn’t fair. When Chuuya went over to Dazai’s house, he was tolerated at best. Still, they let him stay, let him climb through that window when it got too late to head home, and let him share Dazai’s space because, truth be told, Chuuya had been around so long he might as well have been furniture.

They bickered about everything—what music to play, who got the last soda, whose turn it was to take notes in class. To anyone else, it might have looked exhausting, but it was their language, a rhythm they both fell into without thinking. Beneath it all, though, was something neither of them dared put into words. A glance held a second too long, the way Dazai’s smirk softened when Chuuya wasn’t looking, the way Chuuya’s voice dropped when he muttered Dazai’s name.

They both liked each other. Everyone could see it. Everyone except them. Instead, they danced around it, filling the silence with other names and other faces—dates that ended too quickly, crushes that felt hollow. Each time, jealousy burned sharp and hot, though they’d never admit it.

To Chuuya, life with Dazai was frustrating, complicated, and utterly inescapable. But it was also home. Even if he’d never say it out loud, even if his chest tightened every time Dazai’s hand brushed his by accident, Chuuya knew one thing for certain: wherever Dazai was, he’d follow—bickering all the way.