Chapter Text
“Oi, Dazai,” Chuuya grunted at him where he lay on the couch, humming his suicide song. “Why do you hide your tails and ears all the time?”
Dazai gave him a deadpan stare. “I would have thought that was obvious, even for your chibi brain.” Chuuya flushed red and threw a pillow at him. Dazai caught it. “How do you think people would respond to seeing a grown man walking around with ears and nine moving tails?”
Chuuya rolled his eyes. “I'm not talking about that, I mean now that we've been alone in hiding for three months.”
Dazai wiggled his eyebrows. “Why, do you like them?”
Chuuya snorted, sitting on Dazai's legs on the couch. Dazai yelped, pulling them away and glaring at Chuuya. Chuuya ignored him. “If you don’t wanna tell me, fine. But stop making stupid jokes just to avoid it, mackerel. I thought we agreed to communicate more.”
Dazai fell quiet. Chuuya sighed, picking up a book from the table and leaning back.
A few minutes later, Dazai shifted so that he was curled against the opposite end of the couch. “I'm,” he started haltingly, and Chuuya looked up, surprised. “–used to people, uh, judging me… you know, calling me not human for them. I guess, I just learned that… if I didn’t want to be treated like an animal, then I shouldn’t look like one.”
Chuuya stared at him, shock written over his face.
Dazai grunted, moving to stand up. “Chibi shouldn’t gawk; he’ll catch flies.”
“No, wait, wait,” Chuuya said quickly, putting his book down and leaning forward. “I'm listening, I just— I was surprised. I didn’t expect you to answer.”
Dazai nodded stiffly, still looking like he wanted to escape.
Chuuya hesitated, then said, “That time you were fucking walking around like a zombie—”
“Thanks,” Dazai said sarcastically.
“Piss off, you looked like a corpse,” Chuuya huffed. “Your ears then were kinda cute. Dunno if they were your real ones.”
Dazai blinked. “What?”
Chuuya looked away; Dazai could see the red tinge coloring the tips of his ears. “They weren’t as ugly as I expected, I guess.”
Dazai didn’t know what to say to that. He was so used to his features being eyesores, reasons that he was lesser, reasons that he deserved to be controlled.
Animals need orders.
But… “Chuuya… likes them?” he tried quietly.
“Yeah. All pure white and shit.”
Dazai huffed a laugh. Chuuya turned to glare at him, but stopped. “You have your ears out.”
“Way to point out the obvious; hatrack,” Dazai snipped, his ears turning backwards slightly. “Has your hat finally finished off what little brains you had?”
“They’re nice,” Chuuya said, ignoring Dazai—such a rude thing to do, Dazai thought.
“They're not,” he denied, flattening them against his head.
“They are,” Chuuya retorted. “White and fluffy. Like clouds.”
Dazai felt his cheeks heat. “What are you now, a poet?”
Maybe for you, Chuuya thought. Hesitantly, he asked, “Can… I see your tails?”
Dazai didn’t respond immediately. Chuuya waited. Then, all of a sudden, there were nine snow white tails behind Dazai.
“Oh,” Chuuya whispered, leaning forward. “They're gorgeous.” He looked up to see Dazai flushed. He was clearly very self-conscious about his tails. Chuuya filed away the information for later.
“They're not, really,” Dazai muttered.
Chuuya shook his head.
“Are…” Dazai started, then stopped, looking conflicted. “Are you… not, uh, going to touch… them?”
Chuuya startled. “I mean, do you want me to?” he asked carefully.
Dazai shrugged, not meeting his eyes.
“Well I'm not gonna touch ‘em if you don’t want me to, Dazai.”
Dazai curled his tails around himself; it was much easier to read the mackerel when his tails were out. It was one of the many reasons he liked to keep them hidden. “No one ever seemed to care about that.”
“Well, they were pieces of shit, then, huh?” Chuuya said definitively. Dazai looked up at him; Chuuya wished he could strangle whoever made Dazai look so confused about such basic fucking decency.
“Yeah, I guess they were,” he agreed. He hesitated. “Chuuya… can touch my ears. If he wants.”
Chuuya paused. To be honest, he really did want to. “You don’t have to, you know that?”
Dazai nodded.
Chuuya leaned forward slowly, in case Dazai changed his mind. He reached out, brushing the tip of Dazai's right ear with his fingers. Dazai shivered, and Chuuya pulled his hand away. But Dazai growled slightly and bumped his head forward. Chuuya laughed softly, slowly petting the tip of his ear again.
When Dazai didn’t pull away, he moved on, stroking the fur down and scratching at the base of Dazai's ears. He was surprised when he heard a low rumbling coming from Dazai's chest.
“Are you purring?” he laughed. Dazai stopped immediately, switching to a defensive growl. But he didn’t pull away, so Chuuya continued to rub at the base of his ears, his other hand coming up to pet the other. “They're soft,” he said reverently.
Dazai's growl-purr stuttered before racking up slightly as Chuuya increased the pressure of his rubbing.
After a couple minutes, though, Dazai's purrs were getting quieter, eventually dying out. Chuuya didn’t think too much of it until Dazai winced when he touched the inner base of his ear again. Chuuya instantly froze. “Do you want me to stop?” he asked gently.
Dazai hesitated. Chuuya could see the battle in his eyes, and hated when they turned less vibrant. “No, it’s good,” he said robotically.
Chuuya pulled his hands away. Dazai looked at him, surprised. “Don’t fucking pull that with me, shitty Dazai.”
Dazai looked too stunned to speak. Chuuya stood up, stretching. That was enough emotional vulnerability for tonight, he decided.
“What do you want to eat?” he called over his shoulder, moving to the attached kitchen.
“Crab,” Dazai responded, a little softer than usual, as though his voice were caught in his throat.
“Of course you would want that, you stupid fish,” Chuuya grumbled. “We had crab last night, I'm making oyakodon.”
“Why did Chuuya even ask if he wasn’t gonna listen to the answer.”
“Shut it, or I won't make any for you.”
“You wouldn’t!” Dazai gasped. Chuuya smiled to himself; the mackerel sounded normal again.