Soukoku One-Shots

Chocolates and Citrus Tea

Present

The feeling was familiar—it had been familiar for years, now. It started with a thrumming under his skin, pulsing and jumping and making everything tingle. He couldn't see it, but he knew the red marks were beginning to appear, now. Then, his skin started throbbing with the weight of the power that seeped into his blood, fogging his vision with hazy red. His body felt foreign, like always, and familiar maniacal laughter echoed in his ears. Through small openings in the red fog that clouded his eyes, quick to come and quick to go, he caught sight of bloodstained skin and limbs twisted in all the wrong ways.

Not his limbs, he realized quietly and felt his heel slam into something hard—something he broke with a sickening crack.

But then the fog began seeping deeper into him, into his skull and under his skin as he felt himself spiraling. He knew his body was moving, he knew his people were dying, but he couldn't stop it—he was helpless as hot blood coated his hands and ran down his face.

Then came the pain. Hot, blinding agony that crashed over him like a wave, over and over until he was so close to drowning in it he could barely register the hazy red around him. His bones screamed, begging it to quiet, to go away, to stop killing him—

Everything went black.

Chuuya lurched forward, gasping for air as he blindly reached for something, anything around him. It wasn't pitch-black—the moonlight cast a silvery glow over everything—and his vision swam in and out of darkness as he tried to get a hold of his surroundings. Fabric clung to his skin, sticky with sweat, and he could feel his hair plastered to his forehead.

But there was a cool, pleasant absence of rage in his veins, and Arahabaki was quiet.

"Breathe, Chuuya. You're at home. No one is dead."

His chest rose and fell in an uneven rhythm, but he registered a large bed and gentle hands on his back, rubbing circles over his sweat-soaked shirt.

"You're in bed. Corruption is gone right now."

The voice. It was a voice Chuuya knew—he'd know it anywhere.

"Chuuya. Look at me."

He snapped his eyes away from the wall and found Dazai's, sharp and clear and tender, somehow. His features were set with grim determination and something like concern. It was a familiar sight, something he knew and knew how to navigate. Familiar.

"You're safe."

Chuuya wasn't sure when his breathing had started to even out, but his lungs didn't feel so empty now and he found the feelings of hot blood and rage slowly begin to crumble away.

Chuuya huffed a breathy, humorless chuckle and hung his head, silently cursing the god in him for causing another fitful night for him and Dazai both. He would never not hate this. "Didn't mean to wake you up."

"I know."

Chuuya sighed, pushing the hair out of his eyes. "Fuck," he muttered. Dazai kept one hand on his back, tracing gentle shapes across it as he said nothing. "Sorry."

"How many times do I have to tell you to stop saying that?"

That earned a weary half-laugh from Chuuya. "It's always true."

"It shouldn't be."

Chuuya looked up to find Dazai's features set with honest determination, and the sight was so familiar in such a different way than the red haze of Corruption that, somehow, the tension in his body seemed to dissipate like dew in the sun. Arahabaki was quiet.