Atsushi rocks back and forth for a minute, trying to process it all. “I’m really sorry, Dazai...Wanna go home now?” Dazai shakes his head.

“I’m too emotional to drive right now.” And Atsushi doesn’t have his permit, so...

“Wanna call an Uber?”

Atsushi isn’t very comforting.

When they get home, Dazai charged off to the garage, not talking to either of their fathers in his hurry. Mori looks at Atsushi with confusion.

“Chuuya-kun found his crush journal because Dazai thinks he’s pranking him and he got carried away.”

Fukuzawa lowers his newspaper.

Mori sighs, shaking his head. “A boy? I thought Dazai didn’t—“

Atsushi shrugs. “Me too, it’s came out of nowhere.” (He says, knowing that Dazai has been making jokes about Chuuya’s ass for years. The ass he obviously doesn’t care about, and obviously isn’t fixated on. Obviously)

Mori runs his fingers through his hair and sighs, grabbing his white coat to throw on over his scrubs. “You’ll have to tell me more about it tomorrow, I have surgery in an hour.” He leans down to give his husband a kiss, and Atsushi makes a grossed out face when they linger.

When Mori is out of the driveway, Dazai returns from the garage with the notebook tucked under his arm and a gasoline can. Fukuzawa doesn’t look terribly concerned. “What have you got there, lad?”

Dazai’s eyes are determined, his jaw is set. “Destroying evidence.”

Fukuzawa nods sagely. “You should use the lawn flamingos as kindling. They burn fast, you know.”

Their entire garage is full of the ugly things because of Mori’s feud with the HOA president, Arthur Rimbaud—but that’s a story for another time, and Fukuzawa wants them gone.

Is he willing to use his son’s personal crisis to get rid of them while avoiding his husband’s ire? Absolutely.

Dazai holds a bonfire in the backyard that night, full of notebooks and melted flamingos.

Mori comes back the next day and is INCENSED. “DAZAI!”

Fukuzawa puts a hand on his husband’s shoulder, eyes sage and knowing. “He’s going through something, love—give him some space.”

Atsushi feels like he’s the only normal person in this family.

Chuuya, in the meantime, is screaming into his pillow while Kouyou rubs his back. Paul and Arthur are downstairs, staring at each other with helpless confusion.

“Maybe he’s being bullied?” Paul offers. Arthur shakes his head. Their son didn’t get bullied—he ate bullies for lunch

They both look at Akutagawa, who is trying to do his homework—in peace, mind you. He looks up at them and shakes his head, exasperated.

“It’s some fucked up mating dance with the Dr. Ogai’s son, I don’t know.”

Arthur clenches his fist at the memories, the HOA meetings, the—

But that’s not the point right now, and their son is going through a crisis. Paul snorts, rubbing Arthur’s arm lovingly as he pours more coffee. “Darling, it’s always boy problems when it comes to Chuuya. He’ll be fine.”

Chuuya cries into his pillow. “I’m going to KILL MYSELF!”

Kouyou has listened to the whole story in great detail at this point, and she’s exhausted.

Amused, but exhausted.

“Chuuya,” she asks calmly, offering a damp cloth for his face—which is still burning. “I’m going to put out two scenarios—you tell me which one is more likely.”

“One,” Kouyou lifts one perfectly manicured finger. “Dazai has been flirting with you for months, bringing you snacks, and made an entire notebook—which takes considerable time and energy—of love letters, sonnets, and sketches, just to take captain of the debate team from you.”

Chuuya is flushed and irritated. “Ane-san, you don’t know what he’s LIKE, he’s the WORST PEROSN I’VE EVER MET—“

Kouyou shushes him. “Or, two, he has a crush on you and is too emotionally constipated to deal with it like an adult.”

Chuuya stares at her for a moment, blinking slowly and breathing hard.

Kouyou pats his head, trying very, very hard not to laugh. “And there’s one all important fact you haven’t considered, lad.”

Chuuya blinks.

“You’re both sixteen year old boys.”

Chuuya blinks at her, eyes getting bigger and bigger by the second. Kouyou expected something closer to elation, given how obsessed the two have been with one another since elementary school.

So the blind rage is a surprise.

“Why the fuck is HE LIKE THIS??!??!!”

There’s only one path forward after this: confronting the demon.

Which is how Dazai ends up pinned against the lockers the next day, bright blue eyes glaring up at him with the force of a nuclear warhead, with Chuuya’s hand around his throat.

He feels a little weak in the knees

“What the FUCK are you doing, asshole?!” Chuuya snarls, and Dazai’s mind is spinning around like a kaleidoscope, trying to think of a way to come out of this with CHUUYA looking like the idiot, and not him.

“What could chibi possibly mean? You’re so adorable when you look like—“

Chuuya has a hand clapped over Dazai’s mouth, but he’s already blushing like crazy. “WHY wouldn’t you just ASK ME OUT?!”

Dazai raises an eyebrow and mumbles against Chuuya’s hand, and when he lifts it, the taller boy coughs. “I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

“THE NOTEBOOK!” Chuuya screeches, the walls shaking. “I KNOW you like me you freak, just STOP IT!”

Dazai is squirming under the stranglehold, but Chuuya is a judo champion for a reason. “First of all, it doesn’t exist anymore, so you have no proof—“

“Why would I need—?!”

“SECOND OF ALL,” Dazai pushes up with his legs and rises to his full height, and suddenly Chuuya is almost dangling, trying to continue strangling him, “you assume I don’t have notebooks like that for all of my classmates.”

“Dazai,” Chuuya is in disbelief “Why the fuck would—?”

Atsushi called him insane. Fukuzawa ordered a therapist. Everyone thought it was nuts to stay up all night making love notebooks for everyone on the debate team.

But when Dazai holds up the pictures on his phone and Chuuya’s righteous anger deflates, it seems perfectly sane.

Chuuya lets him go, and Dazai is brimming with victorious pride.

But Chuuya smells a rat—and even if he can’t prove it, he knows Dazai is a fraud. So there’s only one way to prove it, and Oda, bless him, told him how from the beginning.

He’s going to make Dazai jealous.

Luckily for him, Chuuya still has Oda helping him get used to compliments and getting rides from school every day—so everyone already thinks their dating.

So during debate practice, while they’re watching Dazai go up against Higuchi, Chuuya sits in Oda’s lap.

Mr. Dazai-I-Don’t-Care-I-Have-Weird-Notebooks-for-Everyone-Osamu’s eyes are completely frozen on Chuuya whole Higuchi gives her response, and Oda is confused.

He doesn’t push the Chuuya off because he’s a little scared of the redhead, but he’s baffled.

Chuuya is smirking.

Chuuya is utterly pleased with himself as he leans back against him Oda, resting his head against his chest and cuddling up to him like he’s a fucking care bear or something, and Dazai is so livid—

“Dazai? Your response?”

Chuuya winks, and Dazai’s jaw is slack.

Dazai turns his head back and realizes he missed every single word that Higuchi said just now, and—

Chuuya’s eyes are dancing with victory as he mouths, ‘Got you.’

Dazai swallows hard. “Could you repeat that, Higuchi-san?”

“How much?”

“All of it.”

The thing is, after that they’re both messing each other up constantly. And as a result, they both start fucking up at competitions, over and over again. The team is irritated, their instructor is perplexed, and everyone thinks Dazai is trying to steal Oda’s boyfriend.

It all culminates in the last competition of the year, where Dazai is spinning out and furious because Chuuya is wearing Oda’s jacket, and Chuuya is a blushing, angry mess because Dazai told him how pretty his eyes were when they caught the light.

They’re both at their limits.

They’re in an empty classroom, arguing, yelling at the top of their lungs—because neither of them can even remember why they’re doing this anymore, and they’re both furious.

Chuuya shoves Dazai in the chefs so forcefully that he stumbles, and they both fall back onto a table.

Dazai flips them around as they fall so Chuuya’s on his back, with Dazai landing between his legs. They both glare at each other, breathing hard.

“You’re the worst person I have EVER met!” Chuuya hisses at him, hair splayed everywhere.

Dazai doesn’t know why he’s smiling.

The smile makes Chuuya angrier, especially when Dazai’s eyes look so soft like that. It makes him want to throw the brunette through a wall. Obviously. “What’s wrong with you?! Why couldn’t you just ASK to be captain like a normal person?! And why do you always have to—“

Neither of them are remotely expecting what comes next—because Dazai didn’t know that he was going to say it until the last possible moment, when the words are just falling out of his mouth.

“Wanna go to prom with me?”

Chuuya is staring at him with wide, distrustful eyes. “...are you fucking with me right now?!”

Dazai shakes his head, though given how his heart is throbbing and his hands are suddenly sweaty, he wishes he was. Seriously, what the fuck—?!

“Then YES, you STUPID FUCK—!”

Chuuya can’t talk after that, because then Dazai is kissing him. And as much as he hates the bastard for what he’s put him through in the past few months—

Kissing Dazai is really, really fucking good. It’s clumsy and a little sloppy, but after months of tension they don’t care.

Chuuya’s hands are in Dazai’s hair, their noses are bumping together, and he keeps mumbling, ‘beauriful,’ ‘perfect,’ and ‘mine,’ against Chuuya’s mouth.

By the time a janitor finds them and kicks them out, Chuuya is a complete and total wreck.

They lost the competition, by the way—and they both got kicked off of the debate team. Dazai says it’s a fair trade, and that Odasaku is more suited to being president anyway. Chuuya, to everyone’s surprise, agrees.

Chuuya’s boyfriend is an idiot. A psychopath. And he’s definitely still the worst person Chuuya had ever met.

But he’s worth more than all of the stupid trophies and titles in the world.

They’re walking home after the last day of their second year of highschool, and Dazai pulls Chuuya in to place an obnoxious, loud kiss against the side of his head. “You really are beautiful, you know.”

Chuuya is red, but it’s mild. “Shut up, Osamu.”

Dazai smiles so wide that it hurts, nuzzling into Chuuya’s hair. “Couldn’t if I tried, chibi.”

Maybe—if Chuuya has a thing for praise—

—Dazai might just have a thing for giving it to him.

//END