Clandestine

Sixteen again

Surprisingly enough, Chuuya was the first to appear at the meeting place, the fountain.

They used to meet here after school, the group sometimes had to part ways after school but would later reconvene to go to karoke or to the park. They all avoided the arcade though, all of them were fully aware that they'd end up spending hours wasting away, if they let Chuuya and Dazai get their hands in a game to settle whatever score they'd given themselves for that day.

Chuuya smiled to himself at the thought and sat down on the edge of the stone fountain. He decided to pull out another cigarette as he waited.

It wasn't too long after he did so that he felt another presence over to his left. He didn't need to look though already understanding who it was.

"Didn't expect you to be the early one, hatwrack," Dazai spoke as he sat down next to Chuuya, who took another drag of his cigarette.

He turned to look at Dazai and let out an amused huff. "Where is everyone?" He asked.

Dazai laughed to himself "Kunikida and I were on our way here together, but Ranpo got lost..." Dazai snickered to himself "again," he finished with an almost embarrassing attempt at not laughing even more.

Chuuya snorted, tapping his cigarette to get the excess ash off, "We're in Uni and we've lived here our entire lives and he still doesn't know this god damn city," Chuuya chuckled and then took another drag of his cigarette, turning to blow it out away from Dazai's face "how come Yosano didn't go with him?"

"She was at one of her weekly doctor sleepovers."

Chuuya raised an eyebrow "a whatta muffucking?" He asked, Dazai giggling a little.

"She meets up with her doctor friends and do a bunch of studying and work. Apparently, she works better in a group than by herself."

"Hmm," Chuuya extinguished his cigarette "fair enough." He then felt Dazai's burning and very calculating gaze on him "What?" Chuuya questioned, looking at Dazai with a careful expression.

"You going to tell me what's wrong?" Dazai asked, his tone suddenly morphing from lighthearted and amused to stern yet tender.

Chuuya looked away, feeling the need to grab onto his wrist, where Shirase had done. He knew that by doing so he'd make it painfully obvious to Dazai what went wrong again, but he felt too ashamed to say it. It felt like he was being an idiot and both he and Dazai knew that he was. "I thought I was hiding it well," Chuuya mumbled sheepishly, still not looking in his direction.

Out of the blue, a tender hand wrapped around his wrist, Chuuya couldn't help but melt into the tender warmth of Dazai's fingers. When Chuuya turned to look up at Dazai, he felt his breath halt, their faces mere inches away, summer wind blew in between them gently, as if Mother Nature was telling Chuuya to move closer, he didn't listen.

Despite the less than friendly distance neither backed away, " You did hide it well," Dazai whispered while gently tightening his hold on Chuuya's wrist while his thumb caressed his wrist bone "but I wouldn't be a proper best friend if I couldn't tell what was wrong."

Chuuya took a deep breath and leaned his head onto Dazai's shoulder "Shirase..." Chuuya paused huffing a little as he turned his head in the opposite direction of Dazai's neck, gazing longingly at the water getting unflatteringly spit out of the geyser. His eyebrows furrowed and his lip trembled but Chuuya refused to cave in and allow himself to cry "he didn't like what I was wearing so he told me to change, like, demand I change. I didn't and he said that if I don't he'll burn all my clothes-"

"Did he hit you?" Dazai cut off , rushing to cup Chuuya

"No... he just grabbed my wrist tightly harshly again."