Begging.

“He’s already dead, Dazai.”

“No. Please.”

He looks so stricken, she can’t say no. He looks terrified, sobbing, and Yosano can’t say no. She reaches for a man she’d barely consider ally, let alone friend, and with her Ability takes hold of anything left in that bleeding broken body. Thou Shalt Not Die!

The eyes don’t open. Life doesn’t enter again into corrupted limbs. But there’s a gasp, a breath; she can feel the will and soul she’s pulling back from wherever it fled, then he’s there, startling and translucent but present.

Chuuya’s ghost stares, horrified. “What did you do?!”

---

Denial.

It’s not the same.

Dazai doesn’t say it, just cheerfully sings off-key as he brings in food and wine that Chuuya can barely eat or drink. There was no lack of these things in his life. He does not hunger for them in death.

It’s not the same. Dazai talks to him but he’s too eager to please, never disgusted at having to share space with his old partner, never spends enough time disparaging Chuuya’s taste, and there’s nothing to distract Chuuya from all the wrongness.

“You should have let me go, shitty bastard,” Chuuya says.

Dazai pours the wine.

---

Anger.

There are things a ghost can do. If only Chuuya was here because of everything he’d felt before Corruption finally killed him at last, then maybe this would even be the answer that would free him.

He’s angry when he slams Dazai against the bed. It feels as physical as if it were hot in his belly and tense through his limbs.

He kisses Dazai like he means to smother him, grips him like he means to strangle him, presses his hands right into Dazai’s chest—so Dazai gasps aloud—to taint his partner with himself, like trails of corruption.

---

Acceptance.

It’s a tug of war of two equally strong wills. Except that Dazai’s never cared what Chuuya wants and Chuuya’s managed to stay loyal to a man that had him stabbed in the back when they were still children.

Let me go. Accept that you were too late.

By seconds. Dazai had been only seconds too late to save Oda.

Stay here. Accept that you don’t have to go.

“Dazai.”

“Chuuya.” Dazai touches softly, as if Chuuya’s skittish, as if he’ll disappear if Dazai breathes wrong. “Stay.”

It isn’t the same. But Chuuya sighs and slowly reaches to touch back.

0