Admittedly, something I’ve liked in the past couple of chapters is that even with an occasional barb or complaint thrown in, there’s been a surprising lack of hostility between Dazai and Chuuya.
Like, we’ve had crumbs of this — of them caring for each other and looking after each other — before but it’s been so consistent in the last few chapters and it feels so very in our faces as well, front and center.
Like, Chuuya keeps trying to almost console and reassure Dazai or at least help him figure out what’s wrong. Dazai’s never been as open or expressive, this chapter especially with him practically thinking out loud, that I can recall. Dazai’s showing behaviors that I don’t remember seeing before but fromChuuya’s words they’re habits of his.
They’re not constantly shooting insults or attacking each other (whether with words or physical moves). They’re basically just chilling as the danger is supposedly past (until Dazai got his revelation).
And I think it’s because they’re presumably completely alone for once.
They’re not in the Mafia base. They’re not in enemy territory with unconscious looks and their retrieval target close enough to possibly hear or see them if they wake up. They’re not stuck in a place surrounded by a dangerous ability or where the location of their allies is unknown, but could come across them at any time.
This might be the first time in the main manga where we can get a glimpse of what they’re like simply with each other.
Chuuya just sitting there being peak idgafer is hilarious 😭 he's said im clocked OUT my job is DONE i'm not getting near that corpse if i don't have to
Dazai, struggling to pull out Fyodor's (fake) corpse: i could use some help
Chuuya, unmoving, watching him struggling: yeah i bet u could
something about Dazai being comfortable enough around Chuuya to be vulnerable and let him see his genuine reactions (especially his genuine shock) as he processes out loud is SO SO IMPORTANT TO ME
plus Chuuya not being shocked to see the genius at work tells us this isn’t the first time he’s seen Dazai actively figuring things out in real time…
the way Chuuya knows Dazai's nervous habits— noticing that Dazai is worried, and subtly checking on him. the way Dazai drops his facade in favor of putting all of his focus into the mental game at hand is such an obvious sign of trust & closeness for someone like Dazai, whose facade is his main form of defense
how they interact with each other in the downtimes when there’s nobody watching…
all i can think is, look how far they’ve come since they were 16 when Dazai couldn’t trust anyone with his plans. how even now, Dazai is always putting up his “all according to plan” front, even with the agency. how Chuuya is the one person we’ve seen him truly drop the mask around, and Chuuya doesn’t bat an eye. even their banter is ongoing, but subdued.
soukoku and their subtle displays of intimacy will be the death of me 💔
Remember that in this scene Dazai "lives on canned crab and whiskey" Osamu has a three gunshot wounds and a broken leg while Chuuya "the strongest ability user" Nakahara is just sitting there watching
And the funniest part is every single one of those injuries was inflicted by Chuuya and most of them weren't even part of the plan
I hope Fyodor is in Nikolai's body now and that he's forced to experience Nikolai's love for him in such a way that he can't escape because he's joined them irrevocably. I hope it does something deranged to his psyche to parasitically gorge himself on someone who had, with utter, grief-stricken sincerity, mourned him.
I hope Fyodor drowns in the horrifying waves of intimacy as he subsumes the only person who didn't need a lobotomy to adore him.
Chuuya wanting to put this whole Fyodor thing behind them is sooo funny like he's genuinely so over it 😭
every chapter since Chuuya's just been like "is he dead? he's dead. he's sooo dead" likeee he's so funny fr 😭 watch how in the next chapter he's just gonna be like. pause. he's NOT FUCKING DEAD??