I’ll crown your inner child with laurel

Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at http://archiveofourown.org/works/42676104.

Rating: Mature
Archive Warning: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings
Apply
Category: M/M
Fandom: 文豪ストレイドッグス | Bungou Stray Dogs
Relationship: Dazai Osamu/Nakahara Chuuya (Bungou Stray Dogs), Dazai Osamu &
Nakahara Chuuya (Bungou Stray Dogs), Edogawa Ranpo/Edgar Allan
Poe (Bungou Stray Dogs), Edogawa Ranpo & Edgar Allan Poe
(Bungou Stray Dogs)
Character: Nakajima Atsushi (Bungou Stray Dogs), Akutagawa Ryuunosuke
(Bungou Stray Dogs), Paul Verlaine (Bungou Stray Dogs), Fukuzawa
Yukichi (Bungou Stray Dogs), Yosano Akiko (Bungou Stray Dogs),
Sakaguchi Ango (Bungou Stray Dogs), Kunikida Doppo (Bungou Stray
Dogs), Dazai Osamu (Bungou Stray Dogs), Nakahara Chuuya (Bungou
Stray Dogs)
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - No Powers, Cooking, culinary arts, Contests,
Rivalry, Enemies to Lovers, Childhood Trauma, adulthood trauma as
well, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Explicit Language, Intimacy, Non-
Explicit Sex, Dorms, Character Study, Slow Burn, Sensory Deprivation,
all bsd characters are actually involved here it'd just be too long to
enumerate, Minor Original Character(s), Drinking, Past Alcohol
Abuse/Alcoholism, Smoking, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Mutual
Pining
Language: English
Stats: Published: 2022-10-27 Completed: 2023-05-21 Words: 197,090
Chapters: 26/26

I’ll crown your inner child with laurel

by acuteguwu

Summary

“I didn’t get my education in the best culinary school of France for some mediocre
apprentice to tell me how to cook my dishes.”
“Just shut it, Chuuya, and salt your goddamn béchamel.”

(AU in which Dazai and Chuuya are both competing in the famous culinary contest, but it's
more about childhood traumas and attempts to fix them with adult lovestories.)
 Béchamel
Chapter Summary

Chuuya has met people like him before, his seniors in France, and all of them eyed
him from head to toe with the same arrogance. Maybe, just maybe, he is wrong, but
it’s the very first impression he gets of Dazai. A thick-skinned aristocrat with a perfect
posture, long pale palms, disheveled dark hair, and piercing eyes. Nothing more,
nothing less.

Chapter Notes

can you call your fic a study like artists do with arts?.. if so, this is my practice piece
where I'll be learning how to describe physical processes in writing, and you'll be the
exclusive witnesses of my downfall (haha just kidding, unless...)

several remarks before we dive in:

1) I'm not sure about the exact number of chapters yet as I'm not really an outline-
person, but the thing won't be too long. Also, the fic is inspired by a famous culinary
show called "Masterchef", it's Ukrainian version if to be more precise. Of course, I
added some authentic parts to my descriptions, but you can still consider it a
masterchef au
2) This is a culinary fic, so it will revolve around food and its preparation 99% of the
time. If you're not comfortable with food descriptions, this is your content warning
3) I'm quite mid at cooking myself, and even though I'm doing a lot of research while
writing this I want to apologize in advance if something is not accurate or clear
enough. If you see any faults, please let me know in the comments so I can fix them
4) The same thing about national dishes: I'm doing research on every single dish I
mention here, but if you see that I'm wrong with any of them, I beg you to let me
know. I don't want to offend you by ascribing your national dish to another country, I
would NEVER do such a thing on purpose.
5) homoerotic tension in the kitchen! hooray!!!

and please let me know in the comments if you like this, I'm waiting for your
reactions!!

See the end of the chapter for more notes

A true nightmare in Nakahara Chuuya’s life starts when he sees that he’s been teamed up with
Dazai Osamu.

He notices him right away, an arrogant yet suspiciously calm guy who looks down at everyone
else. Not because of his height, as he is obviously tall and built like a swimmer, but rather because
of this overconfident look in his eye. As if he knows right away that he’s better than them all. A
better cook, a better chef, much more resilient and proficient in everything they will do in this
place. Chuuya has met people like him before, his seniors in France, and all of them eyed him from
head to toe with the same arrogance. Maybe, just maybe, he is wrong, but it’s the very first
impression he gets of Dazai. A thick-skinned aristocrat with a perfect posture, long pale palms,
disheveled dark hair, and piercing eyes. Nothing more, nothing less.

“I wouldn’t want to be his rival,” Ranpo, an easy-going and friendly guy standing next to him,
whispers as Chuuya is eyeing Dazai carefully until their gazes meet. “Seems frightening enough.”

Nothing changes in his look, the same cold confidence with a bit of evaluation like he is grading all
the other contestants and giving them ranks in his head. What did he even cook to end up here? A
mille-feuille? He looks like all pastry guys do, silent and observant, yet double-edged. Chuuya
looks away first, concentrating on what the judges have to say. It is the first day, so the task
shouldn’t be very difficult. The weakest links usually drop out first and they do it on the easiest
contests.

Fukuzawa, the chief judge, eyes all of them for a minute or so, and Chuuya already feels some of
the people standing next to them start to tremble. Weaklings. Chuuya is already a chef himself, he
was taught by the most brilliant cooking minds in France and then worked in the best Parisian
restaurant for several years. Paul Verlaine himself told that Chuuya was the most promising
student he’d ever had. One weak point he might have is that he’s not used to working in a team. If
he is in a team, he prefers to be its leader and just do all the work himself without any interference.

So when Fukuzawa announces that their first challenge involves teamwork, Chuuya closes his eyes
for a moment and sighs. He should have predicted this. Teamwork usually brings to light the
strongest and weakest points of every contestant. After they work in teams, they’ll see who is a
better butcher and who is a better poissonier, who is a top pastry chef and who works the best with
sauces and soups. It may be a bit of a challenge, but he got this. He just hopes that he will end up
with the shyest people here, the ones who are too afraid to speak their minds and stand up for
themselves. Even if he’s not a leader, they will most certainly listen to him and do as he says. After
all, he’s made a name for himself. There isn’t a single person in this place who wouldn’t have
heard about his achievements. Even Fukuzawa was surprised when he came to the preliminary
audition.

People were whispering when they first saw Chuuya at the cooking camp. The kitchen, which is
inside the most spacious building of their camp, is equipped with everything they may need for
comfortable cooking. The storage and the fridges, swollen with all groceries one can imagine in
enormous amounts, the stoves, ovens, other minor kitchen devices… everything is at their disposal
without any limits. Their only task here is to survive. The kitchen is basically the hotbed of
everything they will have to do, and they will spend their time here, in this airy and brightly lit hall
with separated workplaces for each possible team or contestant, every single weekday for almost
six months.

The teams are made up at random, through the toss-up, which already disappoints the people who
hoped to stick together with their friends they managed to make the previous night in their dorms.
Chuuya hasn’t talked to anyone much except for Ranpo, who ended up being his roommate. He’s
quite nice and easy to read, there are no hidden intentions in his actions and words. Chuuya thinks
that he’s okay. He can work with that.

Chuuya ends up in a red team. As he’s tying the apron strings behind his back and tightening the
ponytail on his head, he eyes other contestants who are yet to pull their colored cards from the
mysterious wooden box. Quite soon he’s not alone in his team anymore: Margaret Mitchell,
Mushitaro Oguri, and Tetchou Suehiro all pull red cards. Chuuya shakes hands with all of them and
smiles politely, but his gaze slides back to the judges as soon as he sees Dazai approaching them.
He sighs and dips his hand into the box, slowly pulling a card. As he takes his red apron from
Yosano, another judge, and nods politely at her, Chuuya already knows that he sets himself up for
a catastrophe. He heard about the dishes others were cooking for the audition, so he’s already
pretty aware of the skills of everyone else on his team. Dazai is the only one who’s still a closed
book to him. And as for now, they haven’t got a single pastry chef on their team. What if they need
to make desserts?

“Hey,” Dazai approaches them with a bright smile and shakes their hands one by one. As he
stretches his hand to him, Chuuya squeezes it quickly and without much enthusiasm, and looks
away again.

After all other teams are made, Fukuzawa speaks once more.

“We have already picked the team leaders from the ones who impressed us the most during the
audition. The red team’s chef is,’’ Chuuya closes his eyes, ready to hear his name. It’s obvious that
he was the best. There’s no other option. “Dazai Osamu.”

Everything stops. Chuuya opens his eyes and freezes in place, confused. Everyone else applauds,
patting Dazai on the back as he smiles and nods, mouthing “Thank you” to the judges. Chuuya
doesn’t say a word until Fukuzawa finishes announcing three other leaders: their competitors today
are Edgar Allan Poe, Kunikida Doppo, and Nathaniel Hawthorne.

“Your task for this contest will be,” everyone holds their breath. “To prepare a complete menu of
four national dishes: a starter, the first course, the main course, and a dessert. We will leave you
now so that each team picks a country for itself. You’ll have two hours in total, and the countdown
starts… now. We wish you good luck.”

As soon as the judges go into their negotiation room, the animated talk starts. All teams are
crowding near their workplaces, whispering and arguing about which country to choose. The
answer is simple in Chuuya’s head. He turns to face other team members and speaks calmly.

“We’ll take France.”

Everyone else nods to agree, probably too nervous to think about other options. Dazai, however,
frowns at him.

“What is your reasoning?”

It is exactly the moment Chuuya realizes this won't play out well.

“And what is yours?” He smirks. “You haven’t even given other options yet.”

“Well, that’s because you thought you could decide for the entire team,” Dazai sighs. “But sure, I
can understand why you’re rooting for France. However, I would like to hear other suggestions as
well.”

“We don’t have time for other suggestions,” Chuuya cuts him off. “The blue team is already in
storage, picking the products. I don’t know what countries they’ve chosen, but France is our best
option. I can make French dishes with my eyes closed.”

“France is predictable,” Dazai scoffs. “What are you going to cook? Filet mignon?”

Verlaine once said that there was no other cook in the world who could make filet mignon as good
as Chuuya. So he takes it as a personal offense.
“And what do you suggest? Linguine Carbonara?” He distracts himself for a moment to tighten the
strings of his apron. The thing is definitely too long for his height. Then he eyes other team
members once more. “Margaret, you will work on our starter, I suggest olive oil toasts with baked
camembert and make sure that the bread is crusty enough. Tetchou will assist you and bake the
cheese while you’re working on the dough. Oguri and Dazai will make dessert, it must be classic
but not boring, something like Pears Belle Helene. And I will make the first and main dishes. I’m
thinking about cream mushroom soup with béchamel and,” his gaze is focused on Dazai now, “a
filet mignon.”

Dazai mouths something like “Are you fucking serious” to himself, shaking his head. The others in
the meantime agree, nodding enthusiastically at everything Chuuya says. He knows he can be
convincing, making people want to follow him. He had been trained for that for years.

“Why are you giving orders?” Dazai frowns at him. “I’m the leader here.”

Chuuya frowns at him back as he’s already headed to the storage, his step firm and confident.

“Then be the leader!”

As predicted, it goes on like a nightmare. While Chuuya is preparing everything for his soup and
cutting the meat at the same time, he also has to control what everyone else is doing. Margaret
seems to be the most confident among them, and even she has to remake the dough several times
because her hands are trembling terribly. Oguri is constantly peeping at the clock counting the
minutes away, and Chuuya has to keep him in the present moment, reminding him to look after his
chocolate sauce. Chuuya doesn’t have to look at the clock as he has a perfect sense of time. It’s
almost like it’s ticking inside his stomach. Dazai, in his turn, tries to take advantage of his silence
every time Chuuya is too concentrated to talk, so he commands everyone with absolutely irrelevant
things.

“Oguri knows how to melt chocolate without your help, leave him alone and peel your goddamn
pears,” Chuuya cuts him off without looking up as he bends over the stove, counting the seconds
down before adding two tablespoons of flour into the melted butter for his béchamel sauce. It was
the recipe Verlaine taught him himself. There is a thin line between a brief moment and a second
that goes by in a blink of an eye, most often being left unnoticed. But it is there. And Chuuya
knows how to catch it.

When Dazai has nothing else to do, he approaches Chuuya and stands next to him, hands behind
his back. Chuuya has never been irritated by someone else’s presence in the kitchen before. He’s
used to working in the messiest circumstances one can imagine. And yet, even Dazai’s breathing
pisses him off right now.

“Don’t you have to constantly stir the sauce to prevent the milk from curdling?” He asks, curious.
Chuuya ignores him. “And what about your filet mignon? You were supposed to heat the
grapeseed oil like ten minutes ago.”

Chuuya sighs, squeezing the knife firmer in his hand.

“Do not. Distract me.”

“Okay, okay,” Dazai raises both of his hands, giving up. “Just thought you might need a piece of
advice.”

“Not from you,” Chuuya whispers more to himself, and Dazai goes back to his pears. He really
couldn’t have been more annoying. Doing the bare minimum himself but trying to boss over
everyone else, what a self-esteem.

Margaret asks Dazai’s advice rather out of politeness but then she comes to Chuuya anyway,
giving him a small slice of bread to try.

“Bake for another three minutes, it’s too gummy,” he instructs, not looking away from his soup,
constantly stirring it and adding chopped onions to it. Margaret nods and sits down on her heels
near the oven again. Then comes Tetchou, hovering above his camembert with a bottle of dry vin
blanc and a small bowl of thyme. Chuuya glances at him for a second and frowns. “It must be
already in the oven.”

“But Dazai said…”

“I don’t care what Dazai said,” Chuuya shakes his head. “Bake it already, for god’s sake, and
hurry up.”

“Margaret hasn’t taken the bread out of the oven yet,” he frowns.

“Then talk about it with Margaret,” Chuuya cuts him off again in a cold voice and Tetchou obeys
with a sigh. “God, why are you all so sluggish?”

When he’s finally ready to serve his soup, there are ten minutes left on the clock. He goes to the
storage to pick a plate and when he comes back in less than a minute he sees Dazai hovering above
the stove, adding something to his pot and stirring it with a spoon.

“What are you doing?” Chuuya closes the distance between them in five fierce steps, taking the
spoon from his hand. Dazai lets go easily and looks at him with the same unshaken cool in his
eyes.

“It wasn’t salty enough.”

Chuuya takes a deep breath and counts to ten in his head.

“I added the exact amount of salt I always do. It was just fine. And now it’s probably oversalted.”

“It was tasteless,” Dazai objects. “And your béchamel is like clay. I added some more milk to it.”

Chuuya thinks he can lose his mind at any given moment.

“You did what now?” He asks, hoping that he misheard him. In the meantime, they have three
minutes left to finish serving their dishes, and the only thing that keeps him from shouting is the
fact that the judges are already back in the kitchen, ready to announce the end of the contest.

“It tastes much better now,” Dazai takes another spoon and dips it into the pot, stretching it for
Chuuya to try. Chuuya squeezes the counter with his free hand, fighting the urge to push his hand
away. “Have a taste if you don’t believe me.”

“I don’t want. To taste. The shit you’ve made out of my soup,” Chuuya answers in a low voice,
breathing out in between the words. “Now go away. And don’t ever come near my dishes again.”

Dazai sighs and drops the spoon on the counter, the soup splashing all over its surface. Then he
returns to his dessert, helping Oguri with decorating. Chuuya breathes out and bends over the stove,
thinking how bad it can possibly be. He doesn’t want to try and face this humiliation. He knows
that pride doesn’t do good to any chef, but he just can’t force himself to. So he serves his soup
almost with his eyes closed, finishing at the exact moment Fukuzawa counts the last second down.
The first team to present their menu is blue. Edgar comes forward to present the dishes they picked
out from the traditional English and Scottish cuisine one by one: the Yorkshire Pudding, the
Scotch Broth, the Lancashire Hot Pot, and the Raspberry Trifle. Overall, they get praised, except
for the moment when Yosano notices that the meat in their Hot Pot is a bit overcooked.

The yellow team presents a classic Italian menu: white bean crostini with anchovy and lemon salsa,
Ribollita, four cheese Ravioli, and a caramel Panna Cotta. Thank god they didn’t go for something
predictable like Pasta Carbonara, Chuuya says to himself, and right after that Fukuzawa gives the
same remark out loud. They get criticized by Sakaguchi Ango, the third jury member, for such a
common mistake as making their Panna Cotta too jelly. But after all, they get their pass, and
Ranpo, who’s in the yellow apron as well, flashes Chuuya a triumphant smile.

There’s only one team left before them, and Chuuya starts getting nervous. Normally, he wouldn’t
have even batted an eye, but given the fact that one particular moron has ruined his cream soup and
put the fate of the entire team at stake, he just can’t calm down. The green team, led by Nathaniel
Hawthorne, has prepared a menu of Norwegian food: crispbread with brown cheese, a fiskesuppe,
a smoked salmon steak, and waffles.

“Your starter turned out quite well,” Fukuzawa sighs, hiding his hands behind his back. “But I
can’t say the exact same thing about your other dishes. Norwegian cuisine is among the hardest to
work with, especially for people with little to no experience,” everyone’s faces darken, and Chuuya
is listening to everything Fukuzawa has to say with his arms crossed on his chest, trying to keep his
cool. “I can’t let you go up to the balcony yet, so you will be waiting here.”

The balcony is hovering above them like an unapproachable temple, its rails glistening in the
bright light. It is a raised platform above the main kitchen, which looks like the one you may see in
a theatre, except there are no seats. It’s the place everyone who managed to impress the judges
ends up. Once you’re on the balcony, you’re safe for the day. You have nothing to worry about, as
the shameful black apron goes to someone else. Chuuya didn’t look up there until now. As he does,
he catches several glances at himself. The blue and yellow teams, already relaxed and enjoying
their winning positions, are all whispering between themselves, looking down at the remaining
contestants like ancient kings at the gladiator tournament.

Finally, it’s their turn to present. Chuuya wants to speak on behalf of the entire team, but Dazai
goes ahead once again, taking a step forward. Chuuya doesn’t look at him as he speaks, firm and
confident, describing the dishes one by one.

“So, France?” Yosano, who is the first to get a taste, takes a bite of the olive oil bread with
camembert. She’s chewing quietly for almost ten seconds, her gaze unreadable. Chuuya has no
idea how one can ruin a goddamn bread with baked cheese, and even if such people exist they
don’t belong in this kitchen. Finally, Yosano swallows and glimpses at them with a soft smile.
“Can’t find any faults. The bread is crusty enough, and the cheese is baked just perfectly. It’s soft
but not too gummy. Good job.”

Margaret and Tetchou exchange happy looks, and Dazai just nods, whispering a short “Thank
you.” Next, to Chuuya’s surprise, comes the dessert. Sakaguchi Ango, the greatest pastry chef in
Japan, takes a small bite of their Pears Belle Helene, eyeing all of them with his usual unbothered
look. He’s probably the judge feared the most. It’s due to his threatening appearance; the look in
his eyes is always the same, dry and critical to everything and everyone he passes by. Chuuya
glances at Dazai, noticing that his face hasn’t changed even a bit. Oguri looks calm too, but
Chuuya can feel his nervousness grow stronger with every breath Ango lets out, putting the dessert
spoon away.
“Well,” he finally says. “French pastry is hard to ruin.”

Chuuya closes his eyes and holds his breath. If Dazai couldn’t even deal with the goddamn
chocolate-coated pears, he swears to god he would do everything he can to grant this moron the
darkest apron in the world.

“And you didn’t. Congratulations, I quite enjoyed your dessert,” Ango finishes, making them all
sigh in relief.

Except for Chuuya. He hides his hands behind his back and focuses all his attention on Fukuzawa,
watching as he takes the spoon to his hand and dips it into the soup, just stirring it for some time to
get a better look at its texture. When he finally tastes it, there’s no single thought left in Chuuya’s
head. Everything is just white noise.

“Who cooked this soup?” Fukuzawa asks, his voice completely calm.

“I did,” Chuuya swallows before speaking. He feels Dazai glaring at him but he doesn’t look back.

“There’s no need to dance around this, probably everyone here knows that you’re the best when it
comes to French cuisine,” Fukuzawa shrugs and puts the spoon away, now taking the plate with
the filet mignon on it and giving it a closer look. He puts it back and takes a knife, cutting the meat
in half. It looks medium, exactly as Chuuya planned it to. At least he didn’t mess up this part. “But
I actually thought that you would surprise us all today and pick something more challenging, just
to demonstrate the flipside of your talent.”

Fukuzawa pauses to get a taste of the meat, chewing it slowly and looking at the plate with an
unimpressed look in his eye. Chuuya thinks that it’s over for him now. He picked the thing he was
the most confident in and didn’t even manage to cook the easiest dishes right? Verlaine would
probably spit on his apron for that. He looks down and squeezes his eyes shut, barely able to stand
the humiliation.

Surprisingly, Fukuzawa moves his gaze to Dazai.

“As a leader, were you satisfied with Chuuya’s decision?”

Just wonderful. Now, this prick gets a perfect chance to whine about Chuuya not even letting
anyone say a word after he picked a country for the whole team. About him spoiling their entire
menu because of his boundless arrogance. Come on, Dazai, fire off. Spit it out.

“Yes,” Dazai replies in a confident tone, making Chuuya look at him wide-eyed. “I completely
trusted Chuuya with this one. He knew what to do and I’m sure he didn’t let us down.”

He swallows and looks back at Chuuya, their gazes meet for a moment, and in his eyes, Chuuya
can read something that feels like an apology. Disgusting. Disgusting and humiliating.

“Very well,” Fukuzawa nods and claps his hands. “At least I’m not worried about you two being
on the same team anymore,” this makes Chuuya frown. Were there any grounds for such worry?
Who is he, Dazai, anyway? If he’s some sort of a recognized cook, then it’s strange that Chuuya
has never heard anything about him before. “As for your menu, I’m more than satisfied. It’s
classic, and it’s well-prepared. Nothing special, but it’s just good enough for me to let you pass. Go
to the balcony, please.”

They take their red aprons off and put on the usual white ones, going upstairs. Chuuya doesn’t look
at Dazai even though their shoulders brush a couple of times. Margaret, Tetchou and Oguri hug and
Chuuya lets Ranpo pat himself on the back as soon as he finds him on the balcony, in its bright
triumphant lights.

“You did great,” Ranpo looks at him with a wide smile.

Chuuya forces himself to smile back.

The green team loses, and, as their leader, Nathaniel chooses to put on a black apron himself. Now
he’s going to take part in the traditional black aprons contest which is held at the end of every
week. As a result of this contest, the weakest contestant has to leave the kitchen. There will be a
total of five black aprons by the end of the week, and heaven forbid Chuuya from ending up
among them.

The same evening in the dorms, Chuuya sits on his bed, reading a book on the best Eastern
European recipes. Nobody knows what contest comes tomorrow, so he needs to be prepared for
everything that the future may hold for him. He’s in his sleepwear, his hair put back in a tight
ponytail. He holds a pencil in his hand, making occasional annotations in the book and putting
neon stickers on the most important pages. Everyone else is enjoying their free time in the big
shared room, laughing loudly and probably playing some useless card games or simply watching
TV. Chuuya hasn’t had dinner yet, nor he is hungry enough to go downstairs and cook something
for himself in the shared kitchen. Another purpose of his reading is to forget the humiliation he
went through earlier today. The very first day, and Fukuzawa is already disappointed in him. Well,
that’s a start, Nakahara.

He fights the urge to call Verlaine and vent about everything he’s feeling right now because it’s
just unbearable. But he can’t bring himself to. Although Verlaine has always treated him as his
younger brother, being ready to listen to anything he had to say, Chuuya is not his student
anymore. He’s a grown man with impressive experience behind his shoulders. He won’t call him
and cry like a child. And if he calls first, Chuuya will say that he feels great and there’s nothing to
worry about. Because it’s what a mature person would do.

Ranpo storms into the room, distracting him from his thoughts.

“Dude, why are you hiding in here?” He frowns. “You should come downstairs, we’re picking two
losers who will make dinner today. It’ll be cheating if you don’t participate.”

“Are there any volunteers?” Chuuya asks, closing his book and putting it away.

“Not really,” Ranpo shrugs. “Everyone is too overwhelmed after the first contest.”

“Okay, then,” Chuuya sighs and gets up, not having it in himself to make excuses. What’s the
probability of him being chosen among all of them anyway? “Let’s go.”

Downstairs, it’s crowded. Everyone is seated either on the sofas or on the floor, drinking beer and
soda and talking, so no one really notices them as they come in. Chuuya is instantly uncomfortable,
hiding both of his hands in the front pocket of his hoodie. He never liked parties, preferring to
spend his rare free time studying, sleeping, or listening to music all by himself without any
distractions. Probably for this same reason he hasn’t got many friends. Verlaine was his teacher,
not a friend. And some other people he met in France were mostly his colleagues, and his ex-
boyfriend is a quite famous local culinary critic in Paris. Chuuya knows how to communicate and
make people like him but he just doesn’t need company most of the time.

“Okay, then,” Tachihara, who’s probably the loudest among all of them, gets on one of the sofas,
holding a box in his hands. Chuuya gets unpleasant flashbacks to today’s contest and frowns. “I
 will take out the two names now, so give me a good drumroll!” Everyone starts to cheer out loud,
drumming the floor with their hands and feet. “Happy Hunger Games! And may the odds be ever
in your favor!”

Chuuya leans against the wall near the entrance so that he can get out of there first when Tachihara
doesn’t say his name. Suddenly, he feels someone’s piercing gaze focused on him. He’s scanning
the room just to find Dazai sitting in the armchair in the farthest corner of it, a pile of books placed
on his lap. He looks right at Chuuya for a minute or so, and Chuuya takes his dare, not breaking
eye contact. The lights in the room are dim, but he still manages to tell apart every glint of emotion
on Dazai’s face. Still, it’s hard to understand whether he’s being hostile or he just looks at
everyone like this.

They both shudder when they hear Tachihara shouting Dazai’s name.

Everyone starts to applaud and cheer for him, and Dazai gets up from his armchair, placing the
books on the coffee table. With a calm smile, he walks to the center of the room, letting Tachihara
pat his head before he dips his hand into the box for the second name card.

“And the second victim is,” Chuuya already makes a step back into the hall, confident enough that
he’s going to skip today’s dinner. There’s no way he will eat anything cooked by this moron ever
in his life. Tachihara pulls out the card and holds a dramatic silence before reading the second
name. “Nakahara Chuuya!”

Of-fucking-course.

Everyone turns to look at him, practically pinning him to his place with their gazes. There’s a
moment of awkwardness before they start shouting again, encouraging him to step forward. Ranpo
suddenly appears next to him, squeezing his shoulder with a cheerful smile. Okay, sure. Chuuya is
not some sort of a coward. He can manage this. A dinner for twenty people made hand in hand
with a prick he can’t stand? A goddamn piece of cake.

He approaches them with a calm look on his face, standing next to Dazai, who doesn’t even let out
his usual smirk. Tachihara jumps down to the floor and puts the box with names away.

“Everyone else can go on enjoying themselves!” He announces with a wide smile, and someone
instantly turns on some sort of second-rate club music.

In the very heart of this crowded mess, people dancing, talking, screaming and laughing, Chuuya
and Dazai slowly exchange glances, still standing shoulder to shoulder.

“I guess we’re bound together for the night,” Dazai tries to shout over the loud beats.

And the real teamwork is only yet to begin.

Chapter End Notes

you can find me on twitter: @ acuteguwu

 Trout Skin
Chapter Notes

I'm definitely having fun with this one

in the next chapter, we'll dive deeper into chuuya's past, see another team contest and
an unexpected jealous side of dazai :)
please leave comments if you read this, your words always motivate me to go on!!

See the end of the chapter for more notes

When Chuuya first arrives in Paris, everything is a haze. People are speaking a language he barely
knows, and everyone is always in a rush. Very soon, Chuuya becomes like them himself, as there
is just no other way. When you live like this, in the hustle of the big city, you always have to run.
Sometimes he is so tired of running that it makes him sick.

On the first day of classes, he’s checking himself in the mirror, flattening his uniform with
trembling hands. He still has a long way ahead of him before he can wear an apron, hours and
hours of lectures and theoretical disciplines. Notes on the biographies of the most famous chefs in
the history of culinary arts, murmuring coming from the last rows of desks in the lecture rooms.
When Chuuya finishes his third notebook in a week in the middle of the History class, he starts
making notes on his own wrists, and when he’s back in the dorms, he sits on his room’s floor,
carefully re-writing them on the pieces of paper. His hair is short and messy, he still hasn’t made
up his mind about whether he wants to keep it or cut it short every time it almost reaches his
shoulders. His roommate, Shirase, is a quiet guy who never talks to anyone except him. Chuuya is
not really talkative himself unless it comes to culinary discussions. Then, they can sit or lay on the
floor together for hours deep into the night, improvising with the well-known recipes out loud,
playing chess without a chess board.

“What would you add to the béchamel instead of nutmeg?” He whispers as he lay down, staring at
the ceiling, his hands under his head like a pillow.

Shirase hums before answering.

“Asafoetida?”

Chuuya grimaces.

“Too gummy. May not even dissolve. Besides, smelly as shit.”

During their first class with Paul Verlaine, the main chef of the entire academy, Chuuya wishes he
could stare at someone without a need to blink. Verlaine is fast, sharp-minded, he’s moving across
the lecture room like he’s dancing the waltz, putting down the recipes on the chalkboard as Math
teachers do with formulas and equations. Chuuya’s hand is already burning from the speed with
which he’s trying to catch up with him and think along with making his own notes. They’re
studying Physics, Chemistry, temperatures and aggregate states, but now it's much more
sophisticated than it was back in school. Everything is important for cooking, they even have their
regular art classes, learning to build compositions for their future dish presentations.

Chuuya is nobody for Verlaine, another frightened and doe-eyed after-schooler who looks at him
with sheer admiration from the crowd of the same helpless kids. And yet, as Chuuya watches
Verlaine walk across the room, occasionally fixing his long blonde braid, he decides that he will
never cut his own hair again.

“It’s a fucking béchamel,” Shirase, standing next to him, smirks right after they hear their task for
the first practical class with Verlaine. “Only a dumbass would spoil it.”

“I need you to surprise me,” Verlaine cuts them off in a firm, musical tone, and Chuuya’s blood
goes cold in his veins. “Add something I would never expect to taste in this sauce. The original
version is so simple that even a first-grader can make it with his eyes closed.”

As they stand in front of their workplaces, Chuuya is eyeing the cooking pots, small plates, and
cutlery glistening in the electric light before him. He bites his lip. He cooked his first béchamel
sauce when he was fourteen, and it tasted like wet cement. After that, he has practiced the recipe so
many times that there’s no way he can mess it up. But Verlaine doesn’t want them to cook the
original. He wants them to conjure a miracle.

“What will you add?” Shirase whispers right into his ear.

“I don’t know,” Chuuya is not lying, feeling his own heart somewhere in his stomach. For the first
time ever, there are no ideas in his head at all. He’s so used to the classic recipe that deviating from
it right now, even though the teacher has precisely asked for it, seems like one of the biggest
betrayals he’s capable of.

“No talking!” Verlaine raises his tone as he starts walking across the room, eyeing them all with
his usual piercing gaze. “You can start now. You have fifteen minutes.”

While they’re working, he occasionally checks the watch on his left wrist, notifying them about the
time they have left. Every time Chuuya hears his voice, not looking up from his stove, everything
in his body turns upside down. But it’s nothing compared to the feeling he experiences when
Verlaine approaches him from behind, watching his every move for some time without saying a
word. Chuuya thinks he can faint at best. It’s not even an exam, just a threshold class to reveal their
skills and creative thinking, what is he so worried about?

“Interesting,” Verlaine hums at last and proceeds to the next student.

The dirty pots and gravy boats are piling and piling on Chuuya’s counters with every failed
attempt. Probably he’s already spent more ingredients than the entire team combined. Finally,
when there’s almost no time left, he tries the last variant he’s had hidden in one of the deepest
corners of his consciousness. It’s risky, but it’s the only way. If all other extra ingredients made his
béchamel taste like shit, this one can barely make it much worse.

When it’s time to present their sauces, Chuuya stands the last in line. He doesn’t want the entire
class to face his humiliation. The gravy boat he holds is shaking along with his hand, and he
almost risks spilling it all on the floor.

“Chill, dude,” Shirase tells him, looking down at his sauce. “What’s with the color?”

Chuuya swallows, not following his gaze.

“It’s a perfect ivory,” he whispers back, startling in place every time Verlaine grimaces at another
béchamel. From the ten sauces he’s already tasted, he still hasn’t chosen a single good one, and it
drives Chuuya insane. What is he even hoping for?

“It’s yellow, isn’t it?”

Chuuya still doesn’t look down.

“It may seem so because of the artificial lights.”

“Talking!” Verlaine warns them one more time, and then Chuuya swallows his tongue.

Three sauces out of fifteen get a satisfactory mark from Verlaine before it’s Shirase’s turn. He
looks calm and confident, and Chuuya wishes he could also keep himself like that in front of the
teacher. But he knows he’ll be no more than a shivering fawn.

“I taste cheese,” Verlaine remarks out loud, looking carefully at the sauce’s texture in Shirase’s
gravy boat. “How did you manage to achieve such smoothness with it?”

Shirase coughs quietly before answering.

“I melted cheese separately before adding it to the sauce.”

Chuuya stares at both of them in disbelief. A fucking cheese in béchamel? It won’t stand the
smallest chance, he’s sure about this. What was Shirase even thinking about?

“Very well,” Verlaine finally sighs, putting the sauce away. It makes Shirase smile, and Chuuya
gasps, dumbstruck. “As for now, your variation is my favorite. Take your seat, please.”

Offended as never before, Chuuya proceeds to his table, not feeling his own legs. He puts his gravy
boat in front of Verlaine and hides his hands behind his back as if it could change the fact that
these exact hands managed to spoil the easiest sauce recipe ever known to humanity. He watches in
silent trembling as Verlaine picks a clean spoon and tries the texture of his béchamel, stirring it in
slow and careful movements. When he finally gets a taste, Chuuya holds his breath and closes his
eyes so he doesn’t even glance at the teacher. Thank god Verlaine didn’t ask anything about the
color, because when Chuuya looks at it now, even from the distance, it’s surely not perfect ivory.

An eternity passes before Verlaine finally sighs and puts the spoon away.

“If I had told you that your entire fate in the academy depended on this single sauce,” he says,
making some of the other students freeze in their spots, stopping their whispering. “Would you still
have given me it to try?”

Not knowing what else to say, Chuuya simply nods even though his entire body is telling him not
to.

At this, Verlaine smiles softly.

“Okay, then.”

“We’ve got twenty mouths to feed, including ourselves,” Dazai hums, opening the fridge and
eyeing its contents.

“Nineteen,” Chuuya hums, searching the cupboards for bowls, pots, and cutting boards. He feels
Dazai looking at him inquiringly. “I won’t be eating your shit.”

When they’re not in the contest, instead brushing their elbows and shoulders here, in the small
dorm kitchen designed for their personal needs, early breakfasts and late dinners, Dazai is different.
He seems not in the mood to start fights, so he sighs without a word instead.

“I’m not finished with my book and I want to have an early night before tomorrow’s contest, so
let’s just make a pot of soup and some kind of pasta,” he instructs, remaking his ponytail and
rolling up the sleeves of his hoodie. He shoves Dazai out of the way, studying the fridge for some
time before taking out a vegetable crate. Right after, he crouches in front of the freezer, taking three
whole chickens one by one. Dazai is still standing still, looking at him without a single emotion on
his face. “What you staring at? Find a defrosting tray.”

“I don’t think they’ve got this in here,” Dazai hums, walking around the kitchen and studying all
available supplies. The room is so small it takes him no more than five wide steps to walk to the
last cupboard and back. “But we can use a microwave.”

“Then do it,” Chuuya sighs, busy with washing and peeling the vegetables.

“As you say, chef.”

Chuuya is not really in the mood for talking, especially in a situation like this, so he hopes to work
quickly and without any distractions. Dazai, in his turn, has other plans. While he’s struggling with
a microwave oven, stuffing the chickens in there one by one, he occasionally comments on some of
Chuuya’s actions out loud, turning to glance at him over his shoulder.

“Can you just be quiet and do your thing?” Chuuya snaps in the end, waiting for the water to start
boiling. He found the biggest pot he could in this damned place, but he still doubts that the soup
will be enough to feed them all. Everyone in this place is so goddamn lazy; the process would have
gone so much faster if someone had volunteered to help. “If you’re so smart, you could at least cut
off some parts of the chicken in-between phases of defrosting.”

Surprisingly, Dazai listens to his advice, although with the implication that he was going to do so
without Chuuya asking him to. At some point, however, when all ingredients of their soup are
already on the stove, he suddenly hums, scratching his chin.

“What if someone doesn’t eat meat?” He asks.

Lately, Chuuya’s been in the habit of going to sleep much earlier than when he was in France, so at
this point of the night, he’s usually long asleep. Just because everyone else was too busy partying
to think about having dinner on time, he’s now doomed to be stuck in this kitchen with probably
the most annoying guy he could ever meet in his professional field.

“Then they can just take the meat out and eat the broth itself,” he sighs, hoping that the subject is
dropped.

“No, you don’t understand,” Dazai insists. “I have a vegetarian friend who can’t eat meat broth in
any form. She gets sick and can even end up in a hospital,” Chuuya wants to contradict, but he’s
obviously not finished. “We need to cook another dish that will be both vegetarian and
nourishing.”

In his head, Chuuya assesses that a dish like this would take at least additional two hours.

“We can just make pasta without meat?” he suggests instead.

But Dazai shakes his head.

“It’s completely unreasonable,” he says. “Vegetarians are a minority here, and if that’s the case,
others just won’t be full after just a soup and a pasta without any meat.”

Studying and then working in France has taught Chuuya to think fast in stressful situations. There
were times when he needed to remake a completely spoiled complex dish in a span of thirty
minutes if he didn’t want to tarnish his own career. Now, however, he doesn’t have the time nor
the willingness to come up with something creative. He almost wants to back out of this, to make
his soup and his pasta and just go to bed right after, leaving Dazai alone with his goddamn
vegetarian shit, but at the very last moment, he remembers something Verlaine taught him once.
Never leave your dishes to fate’s mercy, he said. No matter if you’re cooking the greatest piece of
culinary excellence in your life for the pickiest critic to taste or just boiling meatballs in some
second-rate diner.

After all, he sighs in surrender.

“Okay,” he says, straightening in place and going back to the fridge. “What can we substitute meat
with?”

The countless nights of guessing games with Shirase back in the academy’s dorm suddenly pop up
in his head. What would you add to the béchamel instead of nutmeg?

Dazai is staring at him dumbstruck.

“You’re asking me?”

Chuuya slowly turns to look at him, still holding onto the fridge door.

“What’s so strange about this?”

Approaching him in three short steps, Dazai is now standing right next to him, staring at the fridge
shelves, thinking. Chuuya follows his gaze – he hates the fact that he needs to lift his head for this
– and breathes heavily, waiting for him to respond. Dazai, however, doesn’t.

“We can make classic lasagna with cheese and béchamel,” he finally says. “And just enough layers
for everyone who doesn’t eat meat. If I remember correctly, there are six vegetarians among us.”

“Oh, so you did ask them,” Chuuya whispers mostly to himself. Just before that, he was thinking
why couldn’t they just go back to the living room and count the number of vegetarians there.

“Of course,” Dazai frowns, taking out several packs of cheese. “I’ve already made friends with
almost everyone. Connections are key, you know.”

To this, Chuuya says nothing, fighting the urge to just roll his eyes. And so, they agree on lasagna.
While Dazai is making dough, he checks on his soup and takes some of the ingredients for the
pasta sauce and béchamel out of the fridge. Obviously, they won’t be making pasta from scratch,
just boiling all packs of some questionable noodles they can find instead. Chuuya is used to
working with second-rate products. Nothing is trash, another thing Verlaine taught him long, long
ago. Everything can make a good dish.

“So,” Dazai breaks the silence once again, his hands white from flour. “Have you made any friends
yet?”

The first person who comes into Chuuya’s mind is Ranpo. They’re not really friends, though, but
they have to be friendly if they are to share the room for almost half a year or at least until one of
them is kicked out of the competition. Besides, having allies in a contest like this is crucial, and
even with his inability to make strong long-time connections with people Chuuya understands that.

“No,” he swallows, not looking away from the pot with noodles on the stove. “This is not my
priority.”
“What if you have to be a team leader and nobody likes you?”

“I’ll find my way.”

“What if your fate in the contest depends on another person?”

“I don’t need anyone to win.”

“What if you have no other choice?”

Chuuya sighs, dropping the spoon which he used to stir the noodles on the counter.

“What if you just shut the fuck up and do your job?”

Dazai says nothing more, returning to his lasagna and asking Chuuya’s help with small processes
from time to time. When he tastes his béchamel with a teaspoon, Chuuya can’t fool himself into
thinking that he’s not tracking every single emotion on his face, trying to guess whether he really
likes it or not. It’s not that Dazai’s validation means anything to him. He’s just… insecure after the
first contest, that’s all.

“It’s good,” Dazai nods, and Chuuya feels like some small bag of stones pulling his heart to his feet
is finally cut off, letting it go. He’s almost gone through the same stages of humiliation he
experienced back when Verlaine was tasting his sauce on the very first practical class in the
academy.

Pulling himself together, Chuuya just rolls his eyes at that.

“Thanks, Mr. Hindsight.”

When they’re already wrapping up the first and the main dishes, Chuuya feels like he can drop
dead from exhaustion at any given moment. He takes the plates from the cupboards, piling them on
the kitchen table, and sits down for a second, hiding his face in his hands which smell of meat and
various condiments. He takes a deep sigh. Dazai is still perfecting his lasagna, occasionally
checking the texture and tasting it with a fork.

“Do we need a dessert?” He suddenly hums, and Chuuya thinks he may have misheard him.

Instead of arguing, he jumps on his feet, goes to one of the cupboards where he saw chocolate
while looking for plates earlier, and takes out exactly nineteen bars, dropping them on the counter.

“Dessert, my ass,” he points at the chocolate before returning to his spot.

By the time they’re ready with dinner, half of the people from the living room have already gone to
sleep, probably fed up with beer and chips. The rest turn out to like their dishes a lot, and Dazai’s
vegetarian lasagna gets special praise at which Chuuya only rolls his eyes. He breaks his own
promise not to taste anything of what they’ve prepared, eating a small bowl of soup with a slice of
bread. Ranpo, who sits next to him on the couch, can’t stop ranting about how tasty their pasta
bolognese is. Chuuya only frowns at it, thinking that if he’d really wanted to he could have cooked
something far more elaborate than that.

He finishes eating first, wishes everyone a good night, and walks out of the room, Dazai’s gaze
following him all the way along. When Chuuya’s already walking upstairs, he thinks he can hear
someone’s rushed steps behind his back, so he starts going faster. He doesn’t really want to
encounter anyone in such a tired state of mind. In his room, he takes a quick shower, reads another
ten pages of his book, and blacks out when he has only four hours of sleep left.
The next day, they have another team contest ahead of them. They’ll keep working in teams almost
every time, except for the black aprons contests, until there are ten of them left. This time, it’s
Yosano who announces the rules. Chuuya is obviously sleep-deprived and thus far more easily
irritated. Dazai is at the other end of the line, so they don’t really get the chance to exchange looks
or even greet each other in brief, dry words. Eyeing the line, Chuuya also notices that some of the
contestants are in an even worse physical state than him, obviously still hungover after the night of
binge drinking. This makes Chuuya glad that he wasn’t seduced by that one can of beer Ranpo
offered to him last night.

The teams are made at random before the exact conditions of the contest are announced. A rotten
fate, Chuuya ends up on the same team as Dazai once again, but this time Ranpo is also with them,
which certainly keeps Chuuya more at ease. If something unpredictable happens, and the contest
involves really strict and well-coordinated teamwork (“What if your fate in the contest depends on
another person?”) , he at least can count on Ranpo, for some reason being sure that he will listen
to his every word. It’s a big kitchen chef’s habit. If Chuuya doesn’t boss over anyone, he gets lost.

“This time, your teams won’t have leaders,” Yosano says with a light smile on her face. Everyone
starts to murmur, wondering what today’s rules can be. “Instead, you are going to do your work
one by one. Right behind you, you can see the usual workplaces at which you will be making three
dishes: the appetizer, the main dish, and the dessert. Each one of you will be approaching the
counters and working on one of the cooking processes. You will have five minutes before passing
your position to another contestant. We highly recommend that you agree on the dishes you are
going to cook and the distribution of processes beforehand. While one of you is doing their part of
the work, everyone else can stand right here, in the judges’ place, and make remarks. Whether you
listen to the others’ advice or not is up to you.”

At this point in Yosano’s speech, everyone is in completely different moods. Some of the people
who managed to team up with all of their friends are cheering quietly, with bright smiles on their
faces. Chuuya, however, is not relieved at all. On the one hand, it’s good that he’s going to have a
certain span of time all by himself, working without anyone’s interference. Besides, he’s used to
being watched while cooking, he held numerous masterclasses for his restaurant’s guests back in
Paris. On the other hand, if someone spoils a part of the dish he’s been working on, Chuuya is
going to set himself on fire. This particular someone isn’t looking at him now, being concentrated
solely on Yosano, even though Chuuya is standing right next to him.

“This is also a shouting contest,” Ranpo jokes from behind his back. “Are you good at shouting,
Chuuya-san?”

Chuuya frowns.

“Don’t call me like that.”

“You will have a total of two hours for this contest,” Yosano finally announces, and everyone
sighs in relief. This is quite a long time for at least not messing up completely. “You may start
now. Good luck.”

As soon as they stand in their circle, agreeing on what dishes to make, Chuuya doesn’t look at
Dazai on purpose, instead focusing his attention on Nathaniel, who is voicing his ideas first. It may
be a burden that they’ve got the only black apron on their team, but Nathaniel is a professional who
got this stigma only because he didn’t want anyone else from his team to bear responsibility. He’s a
decent man, too. And, above all, he seems to be easy to work with. They all explain their ideas one
by one, including Chuuya, who agrees with Nathaniel’s idea of cooking trout as the main dish.
After him goes Ranpo, who’s got some decent ideas about what their appetizer may be, and they
finally decide to make some Sicilian Arancini, stuffed with peas, dried prosciutto, and a
combination of five kinds of cheese.

The last one to talk is Dazai, and at this point, nobody has mentioned the dessert ideas yet. Chuuya
tenses in place when their gazes cross for a second, but Dazai looks away first, taking a deep
confident sigh.

“If we are to stick to the Italian cuisine, I suggest that we make tiramisu not to spoil the whole
picture.”

Chuuya frowns at it, surprised that almost everyone else is nodding in agreement.

“Wait a minute,” he says when it feels like everything is already agreed upon, and this time he’s
the one slowing the process down. “What are we, a cheap pastry shop?”

Dazai is now staring at him, this time with no intention of looking away first.

“We won’t agree,” he simply says. “Let’s ask what our pastry chef thinks.”

Tanizaki, one of the youngest contestants who’s already made his name as a prominent local pastry
chef in Japan, hums when all gazes are turned to him.

“Well, tiramisu is classic and hard to spoil,” he says. “Given that we all are going to make different
processes, some of us may not agree with each other. So it’s better to pick something easier
because if we aim at making a sophisticated dessert we may end up with nothing just because we
didn’t manage to perfect all the stages of it.”

“Wise men are wise indeed,” Dazai sighs and claps his hands, not a glimpse of triumph in his eyes
though.

Chuuya doesn’t have it in himself to argue further so he just succumbs to the circumstances and
hopes that they can still surprise the judges with the quality of their dishes even though they didn’t
come up with something more original. They spend another five minutes distributing the stages of
cooking between them, and Chuuya along with Nathaniel takes responsibility for cleaning the fish
and separating the bones from the flesh. Besides, he is to work on their Arancini fillings with
Ranpo, and, if he still has time, on the tiramisu cream with Tanizaki. Dazai gets to work on baking
the fish and making dough for Arancini. Tachihara and Gin Akutagawa will be helping him with
dough, as well as working on assembling the tiramisu layers.

They decide to start with fish, as this is the dish that will take the longest to be prepared properly,
and so Chuuya and Nathaniel are the first to approach their workplace. Nathaniel says that his
vision is letting him down more often these days, so Chuuya is taking the bones out himself,
occasionally giving the fish to him to check. Five minutes is surely not enough time to perfect this
process, so Chuuya assesses that they will need another round for this. Cleaning and peeling the
ingredients have always been his least favorite parts of the cooking process, for Chuuya is too
impatient to get to the stove and the oven.

“Clean an additional fish if we mess up the first one, just in case,” Dazai advises him from where
he stands in the judges’ spot, his gaze seems to be following every move of Chuuya’s fingers.

Chuuya doesn’t even look up, so Nathaniel nods instead and starts to meticulously wash another
trout. Soon their five minutes are gone as if they didn’t even have them in the first place, and
another pair of contestants take their turn. While Dazai’s making the dough, instructing Tachihara
and Gin on what they have to do, Chuuya smirks, purposefully looking away and trying to peep at
what the other team, standing right behind their workplace, is doing. Soon it’s his turn again, and
this time Ranpo also approaches the counter, starting to prepare the filling ingredients while
Chuuya and Nathaniel are still struggling with the fish.

Halfway into the contest, Chuuya still hasn’t given a single remark on Dazai’s actions. There are
moments when he desperately wants to, because if you saw what this bastard is doing with their
fucking tiramisu you would be offended too, but he keeps silent, thinking that if they lose in this
contest he’ll at least have someone to blame on behalf of the entire team. If this prick ends up in the
black apron it would be my greatest triumph, he says to himself. His little revenge for the spoiled
béchamel sauce from yesterday.

The judges walk into the kitchen from time to time, reminding them about the time. Forty minutes
left, and it’s time to put the fish into the oven. Lucy Montgomery, who’s partly responsible for the
sauces, is finishing her blue cheese sauce, and Nathaniel is done mixing the seasoning. Dazai
approaches the counter alone, and his five minutes start to count down. Chuuya doesn’t follow his
actions much, talking to Ranpo about their Arancini instead. He thinks that it’s almost impossible
to ruin anything at this point. Until he peeps at their workplace and notices that Dazai is putting
their trout on the… salt crust.

“Hey!” He takes a step from his spot but Ranpo grabs him by the shoulder, silently reminding him
that if one of the judges spots him leaving his place, he may be excluded from the contest. “What
the hell are you doing?” He keeps shouting from his spot.

Dazai doesn’t look up at him.

“Preparing the fish for baking,” he says in the calmest tone possible.

“You can’t bake the trout in salt, its skin is too tender for that!” Chuuya hears his own voice
tremble but he’s not sure whether it’s from nervousness or anger, or both.

“Who said that we couldn’t?” Dazai asks again and starts to season the fish with salt. Chuuya feels
like he may faint at this point.

“The fucking common sense!” He turns to the rest of the team. “Y’all just let him spoil our main
dish? What’s wrong with you?”

Surprisingly, it’s Tanizaki who takes his side.

“He’s right, Dazai,” he says. “There’s no point in cooking the trout like this, you’ll mess up the
entire texture and taste. Besides, we haven’t even preheated the oven to the required 205°C yet.”

“Even a goddamn pastry chef knows more about cooking fish than you!” Chuuya blurts out, not
thinking that his words may actually offend Tanizaki. He turns to him then and sighs. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Tanizaki looks back at him with a reassuring smile. “I get what you mean.”

But Dazai is not even listening to them, already putting the trout into the oven.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Chuuya mutters to himself and then raises his voice again. “Are you really
willing to put the fate of the entire team at stake just to defend your miserable self-worth?”

Tachihara, who’s approaching the workplace after Dazai, doesn’t even go near the oven, and that
almost makes Chuuya tear his hair out. By the time his turn comes, it may be too late to save the
poor trout and make something decent out of it.
“Tachihara!” He shouts at him instead, completely ignoring Dazai who’s now standing right next
to him. “Take the fish out of the goddamn oven!”

Tachihara glances at him for a mere second and shakes his head, occupying himself with the
savoiardi for their tiramisu instead and dipping them into the coffee mixture.

“I won’t,” he says. “Fukuzawa-san said yesterday that Dazai was one of the strongest contestants,
so I believe him more than you, sorry.”

What if your fate in the contest depends on another person?

“I’m literary the fucking chef here!” Chuuya says louder than he planned to rather out of despair,
making several contestants from the other team turn to him and frown. Arrogance is not the
answer, Verlaine always told him. If you can’t make people listen to you, find another way. He
sighs and tries to steady his voice. “Tachihara, I’m begging you. Please.”

Dazai, standing next to him, hums, and even this quiet sound is enough to make Chuuya tremble
with the need to punch him right in the face. After Tachihara, come Lucy and Higuchi, both too
busy with their sauces to even listen to Chuuya when he tries to warn them once more. Chuuya just
can’t believe that on a team with ten people involved he’s the only one who still hasn’t lost his
common sense. There are still four people before he can even approach the counter, and with the
200°C they’ve already preheated the oven to it may be too late to even try saving their fish by
now.

For the first time in god knows how long, Chuuya feels like he may cry at any given moment. He
doesn’t even know why something insignificant like the baked trout is bothering him this much, it
won’t be the end of the world even if their team loses. He squeezes his eyes shut and opens them
again, turning to face Dazai. He instantly looks back at him, his gaze completely unbothered.

“What did Fukuzawa even find in you?” Chuuya almost mutters under his breath. “You’re a
complete fucking disgrace to the craft.”

Dazai lets out a short smile before shrugging in response.

“What did Paul Verlaine find in you?”

This goddamn son of a bitch, Chuuya thinks and turns away from him, feeling like the entire
bucket of icy water has been just poured all over him. If you can’t make people listen to you, find
another way. Test your limits, throw the cap over the mill.

While Mark Twain finishes arranging their Arancini on the plate, Chuuya takes a deep breath and
turns to the entire team, avoiding Dazai’s concentrated gaze on himself.

“I want you to trust me with this one,” he says, his voice trembling. Everyone else keeps quiet.
“Take the trout out of the oven right now, and I promise I’ll put on the black apron myself if we
lose in this contest.”

Even Dazai’s expression has changed now, and he’s looking at Chuuya with complete frustration
on his face. Chuuya stares him in the eye, breathing deeply. All of them have probably figured out
that Chuuya would rather drop dead on the heated stove than wear a black apron at least once in
the contest. Needless to say, the very first week of it. However, he’s willing to do so now. He
wants to prove his point so much that even risking his own position doesn’t scare him anymore.

“Mark,” Dazai calls when Twain still has around thirty seconds on his personal clock. “Take the
trout out of the oven.”
 Mark listens to him without any objections. It’s devastating how Dazai ends up being a leader even
in a contest that doesn’t involve leaders in the first place. When Chuuya takes a deep breath once
more and walks to the counter, he checks the fish and takes a small bite. He breathes out once he
realizes that there’s still time to remake the fish in a proper way. It has become a bit dry, but this
can be easily fixed with some additional marinating. If Chuuya had stalled for at least a minute
more, they would’ve been completely fucked by now.

Finally, the judges come back to the kitchen, counting down the last seconds of the contest for
them. Their team is the first to present dishes, so they let Ranpo and Mark explain to Yosano the
techniques they applied while cooking their Arancini. Chuuya and Dazai are standing next to each
other right behind them, Chuuya’s gaze concentrated on the fish they put on the counter in front of
Fukuzawa.

“Are you really going to put the black apron on in case we lose?” Dazai asks him in a whisper, the
intentions in his voice unclear.

“Don’t even doubt me,” Chuuya responds dryly without looking at him.

Verlaine’s voice is now back like a tune in his head.

If I had told you that your entire fate in the academy depended on this single sauce, would you still
have given me it to try?

Hell-fucking-yes.

Chapter End Notes

you can find me on twitter: @ acuteguwu

 Black Caviar / White Chocolate
Chapter Notes

see what your comments are doing to me. this mf be WRITING!!!

please leave more of your reactions, I'm begging you, they are SO helpful

(don't want to spoil anything about this one or the next chapter, so please just read it
yourself and leave your thoughts in the comments section!)

See the end of the chapter for more notes

Paris greets Chuuya with another sleepless night. After today’s practical class, he spends the entire
evening in the dorm’s kitchen, practicing his béchamel over and over again. He adds different
ingredients, then mixes, stirs, and pauses to make notes in his pocket notebook. The entire hall is
now filled with an unimaginable mix of smells, and Chuuya is so used to it that he doesn’t even
feel the difference when one of the students walks in to open the window. People are walking in
and out, someone makes themself a late-night snack, and someone just wants to grab a glass of
water. But everyone without exception is staring at him, at his oversized t-shirt stained with milk
and butter, at his hands working with the meticulousness of a professional pianist, even at the way
he’s waltzing around the small room, holding various packs of flour and cartons of milk in his
embrace. Chuuya doesn’t get tired even for a second, pouring another pot of the failed sauce into
the sink and remaking it over and over again. He doesn’t spare the products, he’s used almost all
his monthly scholarship money in the grocery store right after classes. While he’s working, the
scene with Verlaine tasting his béchamel is constantly replayed in his memories. He said that he
liked it, Chuuya thinks. He said that asafoetida was a risky ingredient to add, but Chuuya’s
stubbornness played out in his favor. So now that he knows he can add basically everything to this
simple sauce, he’s experimenting over and over again, mixing textures and tastes to come up with
something that has never been done before.

It’s past three in the morning when Shirase walks into the kitchen.

“I see the teacher’s praise does you good,” he whistles, opening the fridge to grab a can of soda.
“You remember we have a lecture in the morning, right?” He takes his phone out of his pocket and
checks the time. “Exactly in five hours.”

“What?” Chuuya blows the strand of hair out of his face and looks up at him.

“Lecture. History of the culinary arts,” Shirase repeats slowly, eyeing the ingredients on the
counter in front of him.

“I won’t come,” Chuuya shakes his head and puts another pot of butter on the stove. “I can read the
lecture myself later.”

Shirase is silent for some time, drinking his soda in small sips.

“You know the whole… education thing is not only about impressing Verlaine, right?”

For Chuuya, it is. He will never forget the look on Verlaine’s face the second Chuuya nodded in
response to his provocative question. The smile appeared in his eyes first, then it touched his entire
face, and he just shrugged, putting the spoon away. He asked Chuuya to come to his office after
classes, and Chuuya’s knees were trembling as he walked. He expected everything. Another praise
or unexpected scolding, he prepared himself for both. However, Verlaine just asked him some
general things about his past, his school life, and the ways in which he learned how to cook before
the academy. Chuuya was answering with his posture straight, looking the teacher right in the eye
even though his voice was shaking. Verlaine thanked him then and, without asking anything else,
said that he was going to pay particular attention to Chuuya’s work in the future.

Chuuya knows that every year, Verlaine picks a student who manages to impress him with their
skills during the first practical class, and organizes an additional schedule of individual lessons for
them. Everyone else is also aware of this, and that is why every first practical class usually turns
into a war zone. Now that Chuuya has real potential to become the chosen one, he needs to work
even harder. He also has to be careful, though, as some other students, jealous of his success, may
start putting spokes in his wheels.

Apart from extracurricular cooking, Chuuya also takes additional hours of French so he can
understand everything Verlaine says to them without a dictionary. Like every other foreign student,
he gets printed copies of every lecture both in Japanese and English, but if he wants to stay and
build his career here, in France, he needs to become proficient in the language. Chuuya works so
hard that he forgets about everything else. While other students are enjoying their weekends and
holidays, visiting their families or simply hanging out in bars, he stays in the dorm’s kitchen for
nights on end, perfecting his recipes so that he can get praised by Verlaine once again. Sometimes,
Shirase stays with him in the dorms, helping with small processes like cutting or peeling, and he
always watches everything Chuuya does in sheer awe. He says he can learn something from him,
and at this, Chuuya starts to shine even more. If even his peers look at him as if he’s someone
superior to them, a sort of authority, this means that his efforts won’t fall by the wayside.

With Verlaine, it works too. Every assignment they get in their practical classes, no matter how
difficult, Chuuya finishes in the most proficient way he’s capable of. Once, Verlaine even uses his
dish as an example to other students, and some of them are rolling their eyes at this. Chuuya gets
too shy to smile but then he notices Shirase’s admirable look on himself, and he almost wants to
cry out of happiness. Another weekend, Shirase forces him to walk out of the dorms once and go
somewhere to celebrate. They go to one of the local bars, order some cocktails and sit outside,
watching the lively Parisian streets around them. Shirase takes a pack of cigarettes out of his
pocket.

“Can I try too?” Chuuya asks, curiously.

Shirase frowns at first but then nods, handing the pack to him. Chuuya coughs at the first puff,
making Shirase laugh, but he quickly gets used to it, enjoying the soothing feeling that smoking is
giving to him. After countless days and nights of working to exhaustion, he needed it like nothing
else. The very first cigarette in eighteen years of his life.

“So,” Shirase starts after they cheer for Chuuya’s other small success and take the first sips of their
cocktails. Sugary, but not too sweet, the taste is just perfect for Chuuya. “What about girls?”

Not sure what he’s talking about, Chuuya frowns.

“What about them?”

Shirase laughs.

“Are you dating anyone?” He makes himself clear. Oh, Chuuya thinks. So all the cliches are right,
then. Guys gather to drink together only to discuss girls. Or the cars. Or their businesses. But both
of them are still too young for the latter, and only a couple of students in their group own a car
(their parents’ car, if to be more precise), so girls are the only topic left.

Not sure how to answer, Chuuya shakes his head.

“I don’t have time for romance,” he says. “I’m too busy.”

“Busy with pleasing Paul Verlaine, I see,” Shirase hums, taking another sip of his cocktail. “But do
you, by chance, like anyone?”

Chuuya’s first impulse is to lie. Say something like, of course, I do, I’m actually planning to ask
three girls out already. But for some reason Shirase always reads him like an open book, so
Chuuya knows that he will probably sound ridiculous. To be completely honest, Chuuya isn’t sure
he even likes girls. He tried to date one when he was in high school, but the whole thing turned out
extremely awkward. He was always wrong about everything, couldn’t give a proper emotional
response, couldn’t even cheer for her or support her when she needed it the most. Seventeen,
eighteen, or even twenty sometimes is too early of an age to figure out one’s sexuality anyway.
Chuuya hasn’t ever liked men either. The most true-to-life thing to say would be, he never had time
for exploring the whole… romance thing. He never fell in love, and he doesn’t think it will change
in the near future anyway. He’s still too young and too packed up with other things. He has to think
about his career and his success as a future chef. He has big plans and he won’t let something small
and passing like love interfere.

“Chuuya?” Shirase’s voice brings him back to reality. “What are you thinking about?”

“Nothing,” he lies. “I don’t like anyone. What about you?”

Shirase frowns for a second but stops interrogating him at last.

“I may like someone,” he shrugs, lighting another cigarette. “But I’m not sure how they feel about
me. We haven’t… talked about it, actually.”

“What’s stopping you?”

“Well, this person is hard to understand,” Shirase looks away as he’s saying this. “Probably not
ready for a relationship yet or something like this.”

Chuuya shrugs, too.

“You can’t force anyone to like you back.”

Shirase is silent for some time before answering in a puzzled tone.

“Sure.”

Chuuya’s addiction to being liked by the teacher soon turns into a river overflowing its banks.
Every time Verlaine praises someone else apart from him, he tightens his grip on the counter,
tracking the happy smile on the person’s face, fighting the urge to mock it. A warm spot is easy to
get used to and even easier to lose. Chuuya forgets about it, carelessly. One time, they work with
desserts during the whole class, and Verlaine remarks on the texture of his panna cotta, saying that
it’s not airy enough. But he praises five other students, without amending at all. It’s over now,
Chuuya thinks as he’s walking through the crowded hall, not seeing anything or anyone in front of
himself. I fell into his disgrace.

“Chuuya!” Shirase catches up with him and grabs him by the shoulder. “I tasted your panna cotta
after you left it on the counter, and I really don’t know why he was so critical about it. The texture
is just right!”

At first, Chuuya almost shouts at him. Leave me alone, he wants to beg. It wasn’t right enough, it
wasn’t even barely good, I failed again, failed to impress him once more, I’m not the best among
you, I’m just average, mediocre, and I’ll never rise in his eyes again.

“Thank you, Shirase,” he sighs instead, forcing himself to smile. “Your cheesecake looked good,
too. Pity that I didn’t get to taste it.”

At this, Shirase’s smile grows even wider.

“You want me to grab something to drink later? We can watch a movie in the room, it’s Friday
anyway.”

Chuuya wants to brush him off in the politest manner possible, as he’s already planning to spend
the entire weekend watching all panna cotta tutorials he can find on YouTube, but he gives in and
nods after all. A little distraction never hurts anyone. And so the same evening, they sit on
Shirase’s bed in their room, holding two cans of beer and picking a movie to watch. Chuuya is not
a big fan of cinematography anyway, so he lets Shirase pick, and they end up watching the latest
Bond movie. Halfway into it, Chuuya finds himself distracted, staring at the wall and replaying the
scene with Verlaine tasting his panna cotta in his head time and time again. Then he also
remembers the cooking process itself, thinking about what may have gone wrong. Not even beer
helps him relax. Shirase notices how tense he is and pauses the movie, putting their empty cans on
the floor next to the bed.

“Hey,” he calls, sliding his fingers down Chuuya’s shoulder lightly. “What’s wrong?”

Chuuya shakes his head and sighs.

“Nothing. It’s just…”

“The teacher, right?” Shirase sighs, too. There’s something pitiful in his dark eyes. “What can we
do to make you stop remembering that goddamn dessert at least for the night?”

“It’s not goddamn, Shirase,” Chuuya says in a calm tone, hiding his face in his hands. “I was sure
it was good. And I happened to be wrong. As soon as he cut it in two halves, and I saw the look in
his eyes… I understood everything. I felt like going down the drain with shame.”

“Chuuya,” Shirase touches his hand slightly, making him look up.

Right after that, something happens. Chuuya feels Shirase’s lips on his, and they are kissing,
slowly, carefully, barely touching each other. His first impulse is to pull away, but then his tense
shoulders are starting to relax, with Shirase easing him into their kiss, touching his waist, his
fingers sliding under the fabric of his shirt. They keep making out for five minutes or so before
Chuuya pulls away first, biting his lips. Your panna cotta looks like rubber, what’s with the
texture?

“Sorry,” he says, taking a deep breath and quickly recovering from his brief shock. “I can’t.”

It’s his first time rejecting anyone so he’s scared of what the reaction may be, but Shirase just
sighs, letting him go right away.

“I understand,” he says. “Success first, love later.”

Love never, probably, Chuuya wants to correct him but doesn’t.

With the number of times Chuuya looked and felt humiliated in Verlaine’s eyes before, he thinks
that he can’t get scared of anyone’s reaction by now. Fukuzawa Yukichi is the most known chef in
entire Japan, but Japan hasn’t ever been Chuuya’s dream country to build his career in. He barely
knows how the industry works here, he’s spent more than half of his life working in Europe. He’s
not used to being quiet, polite and open to criticism whenever someone – even someone as
influential and respected as Fukuzawa – decides to comment on his dishes. He always has to retort,
to start an argument in order to defend his pride. This time, however, he keeps silent. He can’t stop
thinking about what’s at stake right now. In the meantime, Fukuzawa takes a small bite of their
trout, chewing it carefully with an unreadable look on his face. Their Arancini played out just
perfectly and received high praise from Yosano right before that. After Fukuzawa’s verdict,
Sakaguchi Ango will be tasting their tiramisu.

“I heard you arguing about something while we were waiting for you to finish cooking,”
Fukuzawa says, putting the fork away and eyeing the team. “What was that?”

Chuuya takes a deep breath and looks at him.

“The trout,” he simply says, not meaning to mention the names. He might, but he doesn’t want to
be an outcast. Not yet. “I was saying that it wasn’t supposed to be cooked in the salt coating.”

“But you cooked it in salt anyway, didn’t you?”

Chuuya squeezes his eyes shut.

“It happened so,” he swallows. “We took it out at the last minute before it was too late. But I
suppose the texture is spoiled anyway.”

Fukuzawa sighs deeply and shrugs.

“Who was responsible for baking the fish?”

“It was me,” Dazai says, and his voice sounds much steadier than Chuuya’s. “I know that the trout
isn’t meant to be cooked in salt, well, in indoor circumstances. We can use salt crust if we cook it
over an open flame though.”

At this, Chuuya turns to look at him, speechless. So he’s not a complete dumbass, as it turns out.
Then what was it all about?

“Why did you decide to cook it this way in the oven, then?” Fukuzawa asks instead of him.

Dazai grants him a wide smile.

“I was curious.”

If not for the entire room full of people, Chuuya would have punched him really, really badly.
Even though Dazai seems to be in a much better physical state, it wouldn’t have stopped him. For
the first time since he was studying in the academy, Chuuya wants to start a fight. A merciless,
bloody fight without any conditions. He wants to put Dazai butt-naked in the fridge, seal it and
drown it in the deepest ocean. He couldn’t ever think that there was a person in this world more
self-centered than him. Chuuya can be arrogant, he admits, but he would never put the entire team
at stake for the sake of his own curiosity. What was he even thinking about?
“You know how they say, curiosity killed the cat,” Fukuzawa laughs quietly. “What if your trout
was too dry?”

“But it wasn’t,” Dazai notices, the grin still on his face.

“It wasn’t,” Fukuzawa confirms and nods, more to himself than to them. “Who saved it, in the
aftermath?”

“Chuuya,” Dazai nods at him, not smiling anymore. “The chef himself descended like the godsend
from heaven, bestowing us with his wisdom.”

“Shut your fucking mouth,” Chuuya mutters to him, forcing himself to smile.

“Very well,” Fukuzawa says nothing more and gives the turn to speak to Ango.

Did he really like their trout? What was with his reaction? Waiting like this, in complete mystery,
makes Chuuya even more nervous than before. He tries to concentrate his attention on Ango
instead, who looks perfect as always, in his dark gray suit with the shirt’s collar unbuttoned. He
brings their tiramisu closer to his face first, eying the form and the texture carefully and looking a
bit over his glasses. Finally, he gives it a taste, but the expression on his face remains unchanged.
Is he even capable of any human emotions?

“I have no objections,” he says in the aftermath.

Of course, you don’t, Chuuya almost rolls his eyes. Ango’s expressions have already been made
into numerous jokes among the contestants. Sakaguchi can look frightening at first, but the truth is,
he never criticizes much. Legend has it, you have to be a complete sad sack to ever disappoint him
with your dessert. His skeptical image is no more than an act, and Chuuya almost finds it adorable.
At least with him, he doesn’t need to bother with the right texture in case he ever has to cook that
damned panna cotta.

And so, they return to their workplace. While the judges taste the dishes from the other team,
Chuuya’s not listening. He forces himself to, but he just can’t stop trying to figure out Dazai’s
intentions towards the trout. He doesn’t want to ask him directly either. An experiment, really?
What if he failed, and Chuuya had to wear a black apron just because of Dazai’s childish
playfulness and completely unserious attitude toward his job? And what about Fukuzawa’s
reaction anyway? He seemed to be playing along even though he should have been furious about
such unprofessional behavior. It looks like even at contests like this there’s always a place for
teachers’ pets. While they’re waiting, Dazai is murmuring about something with Ranpo and Mark,
but Chuuya doesn’t respond even when they try to drag him into the conversation. He bites the
skin on his fingers when the judges call them to announce the verdict.

Everything after this is blurry. Their team wins the contest, but Chuuya doesn’t feel relieved, still
too occupied with thinking about the fucking baked trout, even though he’s now saved from
wearing a shameful black apron he swore to put on. The other team conducts voting, disputing
about the person who should wear a black apron on behalf of all of them. Finally, the bitter fate
befalls Edgar Allan Poe who, if to believe others’ testimony, has completely burnt their duck filet
with orange sauce.

After the contest, some of them gather outside the kitchen to smoke. Chuuya lights his cigarette,
watching as Dazai walks towards the dorm, still arguing about something with Mark. The other
people smoking next to him are Tachihara, Gin, Nathaniel, and Kunikida. They are discussing the
contest, silently giving Chuuya a chance to cut in between their pauses, but Chuuya just keeps
smoking quietly without really following the topic.
He knows that he has a sleepless night ahead of him.

Another team contest follows the next day, and Chuuya is still fixing his hair, wet from the
morning shower, while they’re waiting for the judges to walk in. Dazai has done something with
his hair too, combing it on one side, and now he looks both like a fashion model and a middle
schooler. Higuchi, who stands next to him, compliments his hairstyle, saying that he looks even
more handsome than usual, and Dazai’s face enlightens with a smile at that. Chuuya snorts,
immediately looking away.

Today it’s Ango’s turn to announce the rules.

“I hope all of you got a good sleep last night because the next contest is going to be rather
challenging,” while some of the others go visibly tense at it, Chuuya only prays that he won’t end
up on the same team as Dazai again. He doesn’t know how much patience towards this prick he
has left in himself. “But first, we will make up the teams and assign the leaders ourselves.”

Chuuya gets named first and walks toward Ango to get his red apron for today. After this, he’s
only concentrated on one single thought: please, not Dazai. He’s sure Dazai is thinking something
like please, not me, too. And fate is merciful towards them both today. Dazai ends up on the blue
team, with Kunikida Doppo as its leader. Ranpo is on their team as well, which leaves Chuuya all
alone with the strangers he’s never worked with before, except for his brief encounters with
Tanizaki, Mark, Gin, and Tetchou. Surprisingly, their leader today is Louisa Alcott, a young girl
who’s far better at following orders than making them, as Chuuya already noticed. Probably it
won’t be too hard for him to take the lead.

“The following contest will involve not only cooking but service as well,” Ango resumes his
speech. “After you cook a complete menu of at least five dishes, you’ll have to walk into a small
restaurant, which has been already prepared in the other half of the pavilion, and serve your dishes
to ten random guests. These will be extremely reputable and well-educated people from different
spheres, so impressing them will pose a real challenge for you. Apart from quietly hiding in the
kitchen, you’ll have to create a picture of a hospitable restaurant with a brilliant reputation. We
advise that you agree not only on your menu but on the people who are going to represent you in
front of the guests as well. The waiters, to put it clearly.”

Some people already start to whisper behind his back, deciding which dishes they will cook, but
Chuuya’s gut is telling him that there’s something else to the rules.

“But that’s not all,” everyone suddenly turns silent. “There’s a requirement to each one of your
dishes: you have to combine two completely opposite ingredients in them,” the whispering
resumes, much more heated this time. “The ingredients are up to you, but the recipe must be
unexpected, maybe even bizarre. The people you’re going to feed are true gourmets who have
visited dozens of haute cuisine restaurants all over the world. They will be extremely hard to
please. Don’t forget about it even for a second as you’re working.”

Even though he’s not an assigned leader, Chuuya already starts to construct a menu, sorting out the
ideas and ingredients in his head. With his phenomenal memory, he doesn’t need a notebook to put
everything down, although he keeps it in his pocket just in case.

“You will have three hours for your work,” Ango says at last. “Please, start.”

The judges leave, and Chuuya takes a deep breath before turning to the team. Though Louisa holds
a notebook in her hands, she hasn’t written a single line in it yet. Eyeing the people he has to work
with, Chuuya almost regrets that everyone who looks at least a bit skilled is on the other team
today. Here, nobody wants to talk first, so Chuuya grabs his perfect opportunity to take the lead.

“Has anyone of you heard about Heston Blumenthal?” He asks, not hoping for much.

Surprisingly, one of the quietest guys, Akutagawa Ryunosuke, nods in response.

“The British chef who combined black caviar and white chocolate,” he says. “Meat and fruit, ice
cream, eggs and bacon, and other… questionable stuff.”

“Exactly,” Chuuya nods and eyes the whole team once more. “Blumenthal is going to be our main
inspiration for today. The main dish is on me, I’m planning to make a rib-eye steak with blueberry
sauce and blue cheese. This is not the most bizarre combination I can think of, but the harmony of
salty, sweet, and sour tastes will be enough to make it a masterpiece, moderately original. I could
use a hand, though.”

He hides his hands behind his back, waiting for someone to volunteer. While everyone is
exchanging nervous gazes, he remembers some skills the others got that could be of use. Tanizaki
is calm and obedient most of the time, but he’s a pastry chef so it’d be better if he fully
concentrated on their dessert. Tetchou works well with condiments and small processes, everything
Chuuya can handle himself with his eyes closed. He needs someone quiet and fast, who can assist
him with watching the steak while he’s working on the sauce.

“Mark?” He catches Twain’s attention, and he nods in response, though without much enthusiasm.
Chuuya is not a favorite, he knows that. But at least he can be convincing, and that’s already
something to work with. “The others can make pairs or smaller teams and decide on four or five
other dishes. We still need an amuse-bouche, better two, a soup, and a dessert.”

“Chuuya?” Louisa calls, her voice unsure. “What’s an amuse-bouche?”

“Sort of an appetizer, but served without the guests ordering it directly,” he answers, already
headed towards one of the workplaces, Mark walking in step with him. “I’ll listen to your ideas in
five minutes, start working!”

During the heated discussion about their menu, Chuuya sneaks into the storage room, picking all
the ingredients he’ll need for his steaks. A classic rib-eye usually takes a bit more than an hour, but
given that his sauce is a bit complicated, Chuuya may be occupied with the main dish for the entire
three hours. He commands Mark to start preheating the oven to the needed 180°C and makes all
the required calculations in his head while he’s taking the meat out of the fridge and then starts
picking berries, mushrooms, canola oil, sugar, dry red wine, thyme, and other ingredients from the
wooden crates.

“Hey, carrot head,” he hears a familiar voice behind his back. “What are you making?”

“What the fuck did you just call me?” He forgets the entire steak recipe for a second, watching as
Dazai picks a melon from the crate next to his.

“Carrot head,” he answers in an unbothered tone, not even looking at him. “Let me guess, your first
thought was Blumenthal too?”

Chuuya frowns, returning to his ingredients.

“It’s none of your business,” he says dryly. “I thought you were going to take the lead on your team
but you happened to be their errand boy instead. How sweet.”

“Kunikida assigned me to work on our soup,” Dazai replies in a calm tone, completely ignoring his
taunt. “He’s very collected and determined, pleasant to work with.”

If he’s trying to provoke Chuuya or hurt his pride, that won’t work. Chuuya can be collected and
determined, too, he is like that when he’s working. It was a harsh lesson to learn, but he managed
to turn his emotions off as soon as he got his hands on the workplace. So he takes a deep breath
and turns to Dazai with a calm smile on his face.

“Good luck, then,” he says and returns to the kitchen, not waiting for a response.

As soon as he’s back, Louisa approaches him with her notebook, giving it to him to take a look.
Chuuya drops all the ingredients on the counter and frowns, eyeing the ideas written down in neat
handwriting. Most of them are trash, but he manages to sort out several decent ones, adding one of
his own. In the end, they decide on making a coconut milk soup with octopus, a lime and basil pie
as their dessert, and a pesto panna cotta as an amuse-bouche. Gin, Higuchi, and Kenji will be
working on their soup; Tanizaki, Louisa and Tetchou will make the dessert. Finally, Akutagawa
and Kajii have volunteered to cook their panna cotta, though not without Chuuya’s assistance. So
many years have gone by, but Chuuya’s heart still skips a beat each time he hears the name, panna
cotta.

Your panna cotta looks like rubber, what’s with the texture?

But he has to overcome this fear. He’s thirty in a couple of years, he’s got a brilliant cooking career
behind him, and something insignificant like this classic Italian dessert cooked regularly in almost
every household shouldn’t bother him at all. He also understands that, if he’s a self-proclaimed
leader of their team, he’ll have to take responsibility in case any of their dishes turn out to be a
complete failure.

While working on his steak, Chuuya glances at the blue team from time to time. In between the
processes, Dazai manages to keep his small talk with Hugichi who has volunteered to help him
with the soup. They’re joking around and laughing while peeling and cutting the vegetables.
Higuchi is obviously into him, and it’s not only about his wits and a very questionable sense of
humor. Dazai just looks like the type of guy girls easily fall in love with, crying over him in their
bedrooms and writing him love letters, full of admiration and excessive flattery. Dazai’s name in
the middle of a crayon red heart on the wrinkled paper, Dazai’s name heard in the whispering
going around the high school or college halls, Dazai this, Dazai that… Chuuya rolls his eyes. He’d
rather boil himself alive than fall for someone like him. Not that he has a formed and very
distinctive taste in guys, he’s fallen for complete opposites before, but there’s just no one among
other contestants who would be even a bit close to his type.

Mark Twain turns out to be a quite comfortable guy to work with. He’s not interfering, not trying to
teach Chuuya something he already knows. There is some decent advice from him from time to
time, but it’s always something Chuuya has already planned and predicted in his head.

“I’m jealous of you, dude,” Mark sighs when Chuuya gives him a small bite of his steak to try.
“I’m not sure that even our judges can beat you at that.”

Chuuya would lie if he said he’s not flattered.

When the main dish is done, Chuuya still has fifteen minutes to taste each one of the other
positions. Tanizaki makes a perfect pie, sticking to the correct ratio of all ingredients, and the taste
of basil turns out not extremely distinctive, polishing the sour lime aftertaste. The risotto for their
soup is still too raw, so it has to be cooked for another seven minutes. The pesto panna cotta as
their amuse-bouche turns out unexpectedly great, and even the texture is airy enough. It keeps the
exact form they need without being too watery. It’s a pinprick to Chuuya’s ego, but he forces a
satisfied smile anyway.

Ten minutes before the end of the cooking process, they have to decide on the waiters. The judges
command them to pick two waiters from each team, saying that these must be someone
representative and with an experience in guest service. Disputes aside, Louisa looks at Chuuya
with doe eyes, and it’s unanimously decided that he will go. He chooses Mark to help him, and
after all of their dishes are done and waiting to be served, they are ready to meet the guests.
Chuuya takes a notebook and a pen out of his apron’s pocket just for show and fakes the most
polite smile he’s capable of. He’s a master at that. He used to fake smiles a lot back in France,
greeting the people he couldn’t stand who, unfortunately, were devoted visitors to his restaurant.

They walk into the pavilion, where everyone is already seated, making small talk and laughing
with each other. While the judges introduce their today’s guests to them, Chuuya looks at the blue
team’s waiters, seeing that they’ve picked Higuchi and – of course – Dazai for this noble mission.
Dazai meets his gaze and smiles, his notebook and a pen already in his hands. Chuuya turns away
first and just hopes they won’t encounter each other a lot. Being a waiter is also about entertaining,
so they’ll need to be convincing and make the guests try as many of their dishes as they can. In the
aftermath, the team who gets the most votes wins. Chuuya has to lie and make these people think
he likes them even though he sees them for the first (and, he hopes, for the last) time in his life.

In the beginning, everything goes smoothly. Chuuya is greeting some of the guests, presenting the
dishes they made and making notes on the orders. Luckily, no one recognizes him here, so he
doesn’t need to pretend that he’s happy to meet his so-called fans. Their appetizer and the main
dish make a true sensation, and Chuuya even has to return to the kitchen to help Louisa with
serving additional steaks. When he comes back, he sees that the blue team has managed to switch
at least half of the guests’ attention to their menu. Eyeing the tables, Chuuya notices that some of
the people are enjoying their questionable soup, throwing out compliments about how tasty it is.

“Hey,” he grabs Mark by the sleeve, whispering into his ear. “I wasn’t here for barely five
minutes, and you already lost half of our guests?”

“Sorry,” Mark sighs at that. “They seem to like Dazai too much.”

Of course, it’s fucking Dazai again.

“Okay, let me handle this,” Chuuya coughs quietly and straightens his posture, headed to where
Dazai is standing next to one of the tables, laughing about something with a guest, a red-haired
woman with classy clothes and a beautifully aged face. Once he walks to them, the talking stops,
and all gazes are suddenly turned to him. “Hey, Dazai, I thought you couldn’t stand gingers.”

The woman opens her mouth and immediately closes it again without saying a word. Dazai, in the
meantime, meets his eyes and takes a deep sigh, smiling casually.

“What?” Chuuya goes on without letting him answer. “Wasn’t it you who called me a carrot head
earlier in the storage?”

Instead of saying anything to him, Dazai turns back to the woman and nods.

“If you’ll excuse me,” he smiles politely, hiding his eyes. “Your dessert will be here in a minute.”

Right after that, he takes his leave, and Chuuya has to fight back a triumphant smirk.

“Have you tried the read team’s dessert, by any chance?” He asks the woman who’s still trying to
keep her cool. “Our pastry chef has made a perfect lime and basil pie, I guarantee that you will be
absolutely obsessed with it!”

Sticking to his perfect tactic, Chuuya manages to lure most of the guests back. While he’s waltzing
around the tables, giving out the dishes and listening to the numerous compliments, he feels
someone’s piercing gaze on himself and turns around to identify where it’s coming from. He
quickly notices one of the guests, a man in his thirties with ash blonde hair. He’s waving at Chuuya
with a soft smile, and Chuuya walks towards him after serving another piece of their pie to the
woman he talked to before.

“Is there anything else you want?” He asks, ready to write down another order. The victory is
basically in their hands by now.

“Yes, dear,” the man eyes his table for a moment before returning him the look. “Another piece of
the pie would be lovely.”

“Sure,” Chuuya smiles widely at that, too enthusiastic about their approaching win to even notice
the pet name. “Will be here in a minute.”

He’s already headed to the kitchen to delight Tanizaki by telling him that his dessert has made a
complete stunner, but then the man calls for him once again. Chuuya turns back to him, keeping
his fake grin on.

“Yes?”

“I’m a bit lonely here, to be honest,” the man shrugs. “Some of the other guests are seated in pairs,
but I’m all by myself. Would your pretty face mind keeping me company?”

No fucking way.

Chuuya fights the urge to spit right in his face and forces an apologetic smile.

“I’m afraid I can’t,” he says. “I still have other guests to serve.”

The man only nods at it and sighs.

“Well, I understand that. Will be waiting for my dessert, dear.”

Once Chuuya is back in the kitchen, the humiliation he’s just witnessed is probably written all over
his face. He even wants to ask Mark to bring the dessert to the man instead of him, but Twain is
currently doing a great job entertaining another table, and he’s already managed to make them
order two additional portions of their soup and steak. Chuuya can’t risk the entire team’s fate for
the sake of his own comfort. While he’s waiting for the pie, Tanizaki notices his stiffness.

“Anything’s wrong?” He asks in a concerned tone, putting another piece on a plate.

“No, nothing,” Chuuya lies. “Just tired a bit, that’s all.”

They still have half an hour to finish serving their dishes, so he has to keep his emotions in check.
He comes back to the restaurant and smiles once more (he’s sure that his face will hurt from these
fake smiles by the end of the day), approaching the man who’s currently checking something on
his phone. Once he notices Chuuya he hides the phone back in his pocket and lets out a wide grin.

“Waiting for you is just unbearable for me, you know?” He says while Chuuya puts the plate on
the table in front of him. However, he’s not taking a fork in his hand just yet. “I see that the other
guests are just fine in your colleagues’ company. So, by any chance, can you stay a bit longer with
me now?”

Chuuya is eyeing the room, biting his lips, until he’s met by Dazai’s wondering gaze. The guest
(still unnamed, by the way) is patiently waiting for his response. Chuuya knows this type of man
very well, he encountered pricks like this numerous times back in Paris. If he rejects him, even in
the most courteous manner possible, he surely won’t accept it. He’ll keep terrorizing Chuuya until
he finally gives in. Come on, you can’t sacrifice a valuable vote just because you can’t stand
twenty minutes of cheap flirting from another thick wallet who thinks he can pull every handsome
guy he meets.

Just twenty minutes, Chuuya, and you won’t see this asshole ever again.

“Sure,” he sighs and stuffs the notebook he just took out back into his pocket. “Just let me settle
one small thing in the kitchen, and I’ll be right back.”

“Take your time, sweetheart.”

Chuuya walks back into the kitchen and tries to think about anything he can occupy himself with
until the end of the contest. To his regret, the red team is already done with serving all the dishes,
and some of them have even managed to clean their workplaces by now. The judges are keeping
eye on them, so Chuuya won’t be able to just quietly sit through the remaining time somewhere in
the storage. He almost wants to cry in despair.

“Hey,” someone calls, and Chuuya turns his head to see Dazai approaching him. “Is something
wrong with that guy? He’s bothering you?”

“What do you care?” Chuuya rolls his eyes, a bit confused by his stiff reaction. “Go amuse your
guests, the proclaimed clown of the day.”

“Chuuya,” Dazai completely ignores the insult, his tone stern. “I don’t want you to start a fight
with a guest in the middle of the contest.”

“I thought this would work in your favor,” Chuuya smirks. “Besides, I’m not going to start a fight.
I’m not some sort of a caveman.”

He lets out a heavy breath and looks at Dazai once again before pulling himself together and finally
going back to the restaurant. The man catches his presence almost immediately, and Chuuya has no
other option than to walk right to his table.

“Please, take a seat,” the man gestures at the chair in front of him, and Chuuya smiles, sitting down
awkwardly. Mark notices this from across the room and grants him a confused glance. “Well, tell
me, sweetheart, what is your name?”

“I,” Chuuya says but stops right away, hesitating. “I’m afraid I can’t reveal such things to you. The
rules of the contest state that we have to keep our identities anonymous for now. To avoid…
cheating with the votes, you know.”

The man laughs quietly, eyeing the half-empty plates on the table.

“I’m afraid this, I’m afraid that,” he sighs, after all. “You keep telling me this thing over and over
again. Am I really so frightening to you?”

No, Chuuya wants to say. You’re not frightening at all, you’re just fucking disgusting.

“I’m a bit nervous,” he lies, trying to keep a look of sheer innocence. Maybe the man will find him
 boring soon and finally leave him alone. “This is the first contest that involves interacting with
actual guests.”

And right after this, comes something that Chuuya couldn’t predict in any of the possible
circumstances. The man leans closer to him and reaches to put one of his hands on his thigh. The
gesture is electrifying, and not in the pleasant sense at all, and Chuuya almost flinches away from
it.

“You don’t need to worry, sweetheart,” the man whispers to him with a reassuring smile. “Each
one of your meals was amazing. Though I still haven’t tried the main dish.”

Getting that he’s hinting at him, Chuuya has to gather the remnants of his patience not to retort
with something really, really offensive and punch him right in the face after that. Gross, so fucking
gross.

He opens his mouth to reply but he doesn’t get to, as something completely unexpected follows his
silence. Suddenly, he notices Dazai approaching their table from the man’s back, holding a bowl of
something hot in his right hand. Before Chuuya can even protest, Dazai is already pouring the soup
all over the man’s well-tailored and obviously expensive suit. The hot transparent liquid is quickly
spreading all over the fabric, along with the chopped pieces of some unidentified vegetables.

Dazai doesn’t even look at Chuuya and just coughs quietly before putting on the guiltiest act he’s
capable of.

“Oh, god!” He exclaims. “I’m so, so sorry!”

Chuuya can only stare at him, open-mouthed.

The prick is not sorry at all.

Chapter End Notes

you can find me on twitter: @ acuteguwu

 Croquembouche
Chapter Notes

I swear I hate this dessert with my entire soul, given that I'm hopeless at pastry it was
SO difficult to figure out
anyway I hope it won't be too cringy to read
once again, thank you so much for your comments!

next chapter will include: more flashbacks to chuuya's past and quite an intense
contest!

See the end of the chapter for more notes

Waiting for the final verdict has never seemed this long.

Even though it’s only the first week of the contest, Chuuya already feels like he’s lived a million
lives. Both teams stand in line like middle schoolers, and the silence around them is deafening.
Fukuzawa is eyeing them all carefully and without a single emotion before he stops at Dazai who
isn’t even trying to hide his gaze. Just before that, while the guests were announcing their votes to
the judges, Mark, Tetchou, and Kajii talked the living soul out of Chuuya.

“How did this even happen?” Twain watched every single change in his expression. “Did you ask
Dazai to do that?”

“It can play out in our favor,” Kajii whispered. “Just tell the judges that the entire idea was
Dazai’s, and their team is fucked.”

“He set the trap for the entire team with his own hands,” Tetchou picked up. “Humiliating a guest
in such a way, even unintentionally, is unforgivable.”

Chuuya hid his face in his hands and sighed. Did he want to teach Dazai a lesson? Yeah, probably
more than anything. But not in that way, not when his only purpose was… what? Protecting
Chuuya? Even the thought of this sounded ridiculous in his head.

“Chuuya?” Louisa’s careful voice drugged him out of his thoughts. “Are you going to blame
him?”

“I don’t know,” he looked away, biting his lips. “That asshole was… touching me, it was so
fucking gross. If not for Dazai, I would have done something much, much worse to him. I would
have hit him, I swear.”

“Hey,” someone’s hand landed on his shoulder. It was Tanizaki. “The thing he did to you was
terrible, it’s true. But don’t you want to win now? Wouldn’t it bring you… relief?” Chuuya wanted
to win, he always wanted to win, to keep winning, he desired it more than anything. But he wanted
to be praised for his skills, not for his lies. “If you tell Fukuzawa that you didn’t have anything to
do with that, he won’t punish Dazai. We all know, though we have no idea why, that he cherishes
him a lot, maybe even more than it would be considered fair.”

Chuuya let out a heavy breath. Tanizaki was telling the truth. What was the worst that could
happen to Dazai? A black apron? He would have gotten out of it in a heartbeat. And Chuuya’s
team would have won. But sacrificing ten people for the sake of one? For the sake of the person
Chuuya wanted to get rid of more than anything else in the world?

So now, as they wait for Fukuzawa’s final word, Chuuya knows that his turn to speak will come
very soon. He swallows and finds Dazai in the line, but he doesn’t look back. They still haven’t got
the chance to talk, and it’s the most difficult thing. Probably if Chuuya heard this from Dazai
himself, heard that he could blame him and he would be okay with that, Chuuya would lie. Lying
is no rocket science, you have to lie a lot if you want to achieve something, especially in a craft as
unjust and cruel as cooking.

“Today, all of you have demonstrated your exceptional culinary skills,” Fukuzawa finally starts.
“Along with my colleagues, I have tasted each one of your dishes as well, and, though we have
several minor remarks towards some of them, our today’s verdict is not entirely about cooking,” he
sighs. “It’s about human decency.”

Chuuya closes his eyes, taking a deep breath. When he opens them again, Fukuzawa is looking
directly at him.

“For the reason well-known, we won’t announce the results of the guest voting,” he continues.
“Instead of this, we want to settle the… inconvenience that happened in the restaurant earlier.
Dazai, Chuuya, please, take a step forward.”

Like this, with the entire room staring at them both, it feels even more humiliating than Chuuya
thought it would. Like they’re nothing more than the two schoolkids getting scolded by their
headmaster. Before taking a step forward, Chuuya eyes his entire team once more, noticing that
some of the people are staring back at him, almost begging him to make the right choice.

“Dazai, we want to hear your version of what happened first.”

This time, Chuuya doesn’t look at him, staring down instead.

“Well, I’ve already apologized to the guest, but I guess it wasn’t enough,” he sighs, the intention in
his voice unclear. “He was behaving… rather inappropriately, and I decided to put him in his
place.”

Before he can even think of what to say, Chuuya leaps.

“I asked him for that,” he says, and the room goes silent.

He looks up, met by Fukuzawa’s frown.

“Excuse me?”

Chuuya catches Dazai’s confused gaze on himself but immediately turns away again.

“I asked Dazai to do this,” he swallows. “My colleagues can confirm it. We were talking in the
kitchen, and I told Dazai about the guest who was bothering me. I… I asked him to do something
about it. That’s all. The blame is entirely on me.”

He can’t really tell for how long the silence goes on before Fukuzawa finally sighs.

“Dazai, is he telling the truth?”

Chuuya looks him in the eye, silently begging him not to make a fool out of him now. What’s done
is done. He sacrificed the ten for the sake of one. Luckily, Dazai reads his expression perfectly and
nods, though without much enthusiasm. When the judges take their leave to discuss what to do
next, Dazai walks straight to him and catches him by the sleeve, dragging him into the storage
room. Everyone’s wondering gazes are following them until the door is closed behind their backs.

“What do you think you’re doing?” He hisses, almost pressing Chuuya against one of the fridges.

“Returning a favor,” he whispers back, pulling his hand away. “If nobody taught you to think
before doing something, you have to face the consequences,” he says, not breaking eye contact.
“You should thank me for saving your ass, by the way.”

“It was me who saved your ass,” Dazai shakes his head and looks away. “Couldn’t you just play
along, for god's sake?”

“I didn’t ask for your help,” Chuuya frowns. “I could handle him myself,” that’s a lie. He wouldn’t
have dared to. “Next time, just don’t go near me. Don’t talk to me. Don’t try to help. Just mind
your own fucking business.”

With this, he shoves him out of the way and returns to the kitchen, where nobody on his team looks
eager to talk, averting their eyes. Probably, he will have to apologize and explain his decision to
them after this unbearably long day finally ends. But at the same time, what is it here to explain?
He did the thing a decent man would do.

“Even though everything is settled now, we can’t let such a grave insubordination go unnoticed,”
Fukuzawa says as soon as the judges return to the kitchen. In his right hand, he holds a black
apron, and Chuuya already reaches behind his back to untie his own. He gets this punishment
today, and it automatically means that his team has lost. Simple as that. However, Fukuzawa
doesn’t even look at him this time. “Dazai, please, take your apron off.”

The quiet but tense whispering scatters the room. Dazai only nods and walks straight to Fukuzawa,
taking his black apron from his hand.

“I hope this will teach you a good lesson,” Chuuya has never heard Fukuzawa speak to anyone,
especially to Dazai, in such a cold voice. “No matter how harsh the situation gets, no matter who’s
asking you to do it, you must never, and I put an emphasis on this, never cause any inconvenience
to your guest.”

“I apologize, chef,” Dazai says quietly, avoiding his gaze. “This will never happen again.”

Yosano and Ango are both looking at him without saying a word.

“I hope so,” Fukuzawa sighs. “Please, go back to your teammates.”

The same evening in the dorms, Chuuya isn’t even sure if everyone is avoiding him or if it’s he
who’s avoiding them. Not liking him has always been easier than… that one opposite thing. The
only person who still talks to him is Ranpo, sitting on his bed, a book in his lap, and watching
Chuuya from across the room with something that looks like pity in his eyes.

“Please, don’t look at me like that,” Chuuya sighs, getting ready to sleep. “I will settle this, sooner
or later. Everyone was ignoring me during the dinner, and Dazai didn’t even show up, but hey,” he
forces himself to smile, fixing his bedsheets. “I got this.”

“You should go talk to him,” Ranpo suggests in a quiet voice. “If the two of you keep bickering
like that after every contest, Fukuzawa will show no mercy next time, and everything will be over
faster than you get to realize.”

Deep into the night, when Ranpo is long asleep, Chuuya just keeps staring at the ceiling, not able
to close his eyes even for a second. He checks the time. It’s already past two. With a sigh, he slides
out of the bed and puts his hoodie on, walking into the hall. There’s nobody there, and he’s met
with almost complete silence, except for some occasional rustling coming from several rooms.
Probably someone is still reading or watching culinary documentaries, getting ready for
tomorrow’s contest.

Chuuya doesn’t know why but he remembers Dazai’s and Kunikida’s room without even the need
to check. He’s walking down the hall almost unconsciously, careful not to wake anyone up. He
doesn’t know what he’s going to say. Apologies won’t work, and he doesn’t think he’s got
anything to apologize for in the first place. Probably he’ll just ask Dazai to leave him alone once
more, this time a bit less rudely. For some reason, he feels that Dazai is not sleeping anyway, so it’s
his perfect chance to settle everything once and for all.

When he’s approaching the corner that leads to Dazai’s room, he hears the door open and stops,
pressing his back to the wall.

“Just don’t worry this much,” someone’s saying, and in this soft voice, Chuuya recognizes
Higuchi. “It’s not worth it anyway. You did everything right, and I’m proud of you.”

“I know,” the smile in Dazai’s whisper is clear. “Thank you for coming this late. I appreciate that.”

Next comes the mix of the quiet rustling of clothes and sighs, and Chuuya realizes that they’re
probably hugging now. He squeezes his eyes shut and walks back to his room before Higuchi can
see him there. It’d be too hard to explain. After he closes the door behind his back, he takes the
hoodie off and gets to his bed, covering himself with bedsheets almost entirely. What are they,
teenagers? He doesn’t need to explain himself to Dazai, nor to anyone else. Everyone is completely
okay without his interference, as it has always been. And Chuuya can do this alone. He knows he
can.

He doesn’t need friends.

Chuuya turns off the alarm, takes a quick shower and gets ready for today’s contest, passing by the
kitchen on purpose without even grabbing breakfast. He doesn’t want to encounter anyone today,
though he exchanged a couple of words with Ranpo who was shaving in front of the mirror just
when Chuuya entered the bathroom.

As soon as everyone has gathered in the kitchen, the judges walk in, wishing them a good morning
and a fruitful day as they usually do. There are still twenty of them, and the first black apron
contest is going to be held tomorrow, so it doesn’t come as a surprise to anyone that today they’re
going to compete in teams again.

“For this contest, we’ve assigned the team leaders ourselves,” Fukuzawa takes a deep breath,
eyeing them all for a moment. “These will be Atsushi, Tanizaki, Higuchi, Tetchou, and…
Chuuya,” he sighs in relief hearing his name. Finally, he can boss over someone without disguise.
“Please take your aprons.”

After each team leader picks their team’s color, another rule follows.

“Now,” it's Yosano’s turn to speak. “Each one of you will choose three people they will work with
today.” Some of the contestants whistle at this. Chuuya swallows, carefully tying the apron behind
his back. “However, as soon as you pick one person, they will pick another one next. Then, the
third person will pick the last member of your team. In this way, everyone will get an opportunity
to choose someone they’re curious to work with.”

At this, Chuuya only smirks. The hierarchy of this contest is built in a rather twisted way. There are
friends, it’s true, but most of them are just waiting for the right moment to lock their teeth in each
other’s throats. And now Chuuya’s plan to avoid getting on the same team with Dazai again is
completely ruined. Even if he picks someone who can’t stand the prick as well (although literally
everyone here worships him), there’s no guarantee that this person won’t hog Dazai as soon as
there’s the smallest chance. Besides, he doesn’t really want to get on the same team with Mark,
Tetchou or Kajii, as they’re probably still mad at him for what he did yesterday. Though Chuuya
doesn’t entirely understand why, as their team was still considered a winner in the aftermath.

“Chuuya, please make your choice,” Yosano nods to him.

He sighs, eyeing his options carefully, noticing that Dazai tries to avoid his gaze. He, who always
looks determined and up for a challenge, now is hiding like frightened prey. How adorable.

“Ranpo,” Chuuya says, already reaching to give him one of the aprons.

Ranpo walks to him and squeezes his shoulder, smiling. Please, don’t fuck it up, Chuuya almost
begs him with his eyes.

“Edgar!” Edogawa exclaims almost immediately. Chuuya has no idea when these two became
friends, but he’s relieved now as Edgar certainly won’t pick someone as pretentious and loud as
Dazai. He’s too scared of bossy guys like him.

“I’ll pick Nathaniel,” he says quietly, reaching to tie his apron, and with that, their team is
complete. Chuuya nods to himself, more than satisfied. Calm, determined, and, above all, obedient
people. He can work with that.

Next comes Atsushi’s turn. Chuuya is still wondering how someone like Nakajima could be
assigned to lead the entire team. During the previous contest, all he could do is running from his
workplace to Dazai and back, asking for his advice about every minor process. And now, as
expected, he picks Dazai, who, in his turn, gives another apron to Kunikida. The last member of
their team is Lucy Montgomery who, rumor has it, can be quite good at pastry. In his free time in
the dorm, Chuuya sometimes likes to conduct a small research on other contestants’ biographies,
surfing through social media or the restaurants’ web pages. Before participating in the contest,
Lucy used to make desserts for a small but reputable local bakery in Tokyo. Kunikida was an army
cook during his military service and worked as a sous-chef in a small seafood restaurant here, in
Yokohama, after his discharge. Atsushi finished culinary school and won some sort of a prestigious
state award for the innovations he brought into Japanese cuisine at such a young age. The only
person who remained a complete mystery to Chuuya was Dazai. No social media accounts, no
newspaper headlines, no blog posts, nothing. It seemed like his name was erased from history once
and for all at some point in time.

While the other three leaders are still deciding on their team members, Chuuya notices that Ango
Sakaguchi has disappeared somewhere from the kitchen without saying a word. In a minute or so,
he comes back, now wearing a chef’s jacket. Well, that’s interesting, Chuuya thinks, watching
Ango fixing his glasses and approaching his workplace, the one facing them all.

“In the next three hours, you’ll be not only cooking but learning,” he says, already turning the
stove on. “Please, take your workplaces.”
Fukuzawa and Yosano both wish them good luck and leave. A masterclass from the pastry chef
himself, now this should be fun. Chuuya’s team takes the first row of counters, starting to watch
each one of Ango’s moves without a word. So, nobody will tell them what they are going to cook.
They have to guess the dish themselves.

Ango walks to the storage room and returns in less than a minute, holding a carton of milk, a pack
of sugar, and a bowl filled with eggs. Some of the other ingredients are already placed on one of
his counters.

“Can you think of a dessert that requires so many eggs?” Ranpo whispers almost into his ear, and
Chuuya flinches, not expecting him to stand this close. “And three hours of time?”

He shakes his head, not looking away. In the meantime, the other teams are already infesting the
storage and supply rooms, picking the exact same products Ango did. Obviously, they want to win
time, but from Chuuya’s perspective, it’s foolish to jump into the process without figuring out the
dish first. It’s not an experimental lab here, they’re doing a serious job.

“Could it be Red Velvet?” Nathaniel suggests, carefully writing something down in his notebook.
“Or Pavlova?”

“No,” Chuuya says without looking at him. “He didn’t pick vegetable oil needed for Red Velvet.
And Pavlova requires egg whites, not yolks.”

He watches Ango separating yolks from whites in fast, mastered movements. He does it to nearly
twenty eggs in less than five minutes and then starts beating the yolks with a mixer. In the
meantime, the milk, vanilla bean pod and seeds are already boiling on the stove. Ango brings the
heat down but doesn’t turn it off completely, letting the mixture steep. Chuuya doesn’t notice how
his own fingers start drumming on the counter’s surface. He does it every time he can’t figure
something out in an instant. Why is he so stupid? All others are already cooking, and only his team
is still waiting for commands.

“Maybe I’ll at least start boiling the milk with vanilla, then?” Ranpo finally sighs.

“Okay,” Chuuya brushes him off, biting his lips. Edogawa and Nathaniel go to the storage room
together, and the only person left by his side now is Edgar who still hasn’t said a single word.
Chuuya glances at him for a second. “You got any idea?”

“Judging from what he’s doing now…” Edgar answers in an unsure tone, avoiding his gaze. “I
think he might be mixing the custard.”

“There’s a goddamn ton of desserts with custard,” Chuuya sighs and turns away to keep watching
Ango.

However, Edgar is not done.

“Yes, but you can’t say the same thing about twenty egg yolks.”

And at this, the puzzle in his head is complete. Vanilla, custard, a whole bowl filled with eggs…
damn, this is so easy Chuuya feels ashamed he didn’t figure it out much, much earlier. He
straightens in place and reaches to tighten his ponytail.

“Edgar, turn the stove on,” he commands, already headed towards the storage. “I’ll be right back.”

He finds Ranpo and Nathaniel in one of the corners, cutting into their heated conversation about
what their today’s task may be.
“He’s making a goddamn croquembouche,” he whispers, watching carefully for anyone who might
be eavesdropping around them. “It’s quite a bit of work, so stop your chit-chat and go mix the
custard.”

Ranpo and Nathaniel exchange confused looks but nod, picking two bowls of eggs before walking
back to the kitchen. Chuuya sighs and eyes the room, trying to dig for the recipe in the farthest
corners of his memory. It’s been a long time since he cooked this goddamn tower of vanilla puffs
generously drizzled with caramel. He’s never been a fan of croquembouche, especially after that
one time he cooked it for some rich guests’ wedding banquet in his restaurant. The most
challenging part is keeping all puffs in place and not letting the construction fall apart.

While he’s searching the fridge, picking the remains of milk and butter, he hears someone walk in
and out but doesn’t pay much attention to them. He closes the fridge door and turns away, headed
to the crate with flour. One croquembouche, if it’s tall enough, may require at least half of the
ingredients they got stored in here, and they need to make five (six, given that Ango’s dish counts
as well). Chuuya sighs, silently scolding himself once more, this time for not picking up the
products earlier.

“Carrot head,” some meeting spots never really change. “Hope that assembling a dessert taller than
yourself won’t hurt your ego much.”

Chuuya doesn’t even glance at Dazai, who’s also come for a pack of flour, and takes a deep
breath.

“Va te faire foutre,” he says quietly, and it’s a turn to the usual irritated tone he always talks to
Dazai in.

“Jumping right into insults, you really haven’t got any manners, have you?” He hums.

Look who’s remembered manners.

“Did you even get what I just said?” Chuuya rolls his eyes.

“I know French, Chuuya,” Dazai sighs in response, his fingertips sliding over the packs of flour
probably in search of the cornstarch. “I’m not the dumbass you think I am.”

“You just enjoy messing with me, don’t you?” Chuuya sighs and pushes his hand away, taking out
the last but one pack of cornstarch from the farthest crate and handing it to Dazai. “Don’t thank
me.”

“Didn’t mean to.”

When Chuuya’s back in the kitchen, everyone’s already working on their custard, and Ango seems
to have put the first pan of puffs into the stove. We should work faster, Chuuya thinks and starts
assigning tasks. Nathaniel and Edgar will keep working on their custard, Ranpo will boil the
caramel, and Chuuya will take on the most difficult part of the dessert, the puffs. He boils a
mixture of water, butter, salt, and sugar in a pot, adds flour and starts stirring in quick movements,
making sure that all the liquid is being absorbed. Then, he grabs a stand mixer and continues
stirring the dough, adding one egg at a time. With his clean hand, he reaches to preheat the oven to
220˚C.

“Looks terrifying,” Ranpo notices as he watches him filling a piping bag with dough.

“Feels the same,” Chuuya sighs and turns to Edgar who’s already covering their custard with
plastic wrap. “Can you help Ranpo with the caramel now? But don’t hurry, it will take much less
time than the puffs.”

“Sure,” he nods.

The hardest part is yet to come, but Chuuya’s not thinking about it as he puts their first pan of puffs
into the oven. Now he has to bake them for fifteen minutes before lowering the heat down to
190˚C and then baking for fifteen minutes more. While he’s waiting, he has some time to control
other processes. He remakes his ponytail and checks on their custard first. Then, he turns away and
eyes the other teams, noticing that some of them are already assembling their puff towers. Probably
their eagerness to catch up with Ango’s pace will overtake the effort they put into their dishes in
the end. And this is exactly what happens: less than five minutes left, and some of the puff towers
are already starting to collapse. The teams are desperately trying to keep the puffs together with
additional caramel or by assembling the entire dessert from scratch, but it doesn’t change much.
Chuuya’s team is slow but determined, and when they put the last puff shell at the top of their
croquembouche, there’s only one team whose dessert is standing still. Chuuya turns his head and
finds Dazai who looks at him back right away while washing the remains of caramel off his
hands.

Dazai smiles at him for a second, but Chuuya doesn’t smile back.

“I’m glad that all of you have guessed the dessert correctly,” Ango says and gestures at his own
croquembouche, probably the highest one today, assembled in a perfect shape. Chuuya bites his
lip. Compared to the other variants, their team’s croquembouche looks the most similar to Ango’s
but it’s still not perfect. Not tall enough, and their vanilla puffs seem smaller than required in the
original recipe. “After me and my colleagues taste your desserts and announce our verdicts, you
can as well stay and taste mine.”

Even when Fukuzawa and Yosano are back in the room, Chuuya’s gaze is still focused on Ango.
Truth be told, he never appreciated his cooking skills much. He came across the pictures of his
most famous desserts on Instagram once or twice but he wasn’t impressed. Now, however, he is.
They were making the same dessert in a team of four people, and now they are ready to drop dead
from exhaustion at any given moment. The processes weren’t hard, but there were too many of
them, and Chuuya, as a leader, had to keep an eye on everything at once. Ango, in his turn,
managed to do the same thing perfectly all by himself, and this deserves respect.

Two teams out of five have failed the dessert completely. Tetchou’s team messed up the baking
process, and their puffs turned out raw and gummy. Higuchi’s team had assembled only half of
their tower when the time was over, and most of their puffs, for some reason, lacked filling. Then
comes Atsushi’s team, and Ango praises the form of their puffs before tasting them. Fukuzawa and
Yosano also take a bite, and then they all exchange unreadable looks.

“Thank you,” Fukuzawa says in his usual reserved manner and then walks straight to the last,
Chuuya’s team.

Chuuya takes a deep breath and eyes their croquembouche once more. Ranpo reaches to squeeze
his wrist softly and grants him a reassuring smile. For a second, Chuuya doesn’t know how to
react, so he stands still. A possibility of a friendship is like the brightest sun. It burns.

Ango asks him how they were making the puffs, and Chuuya explains the process step by step, not
looking him in the eye. When he’s finished, Ango just nods and takes one of the puffs from the
base of their tower, giving it a bite. Fukuzawa and Yosano follow him without saying a word.
Please, don’t just say “Thank you” and leave, I won’t stand a second of this cliffhanger, Chuuya is
begging in his head.
However, that’s exactly what they’re doing.

While the judges take their time to discuss their desserts and decide on the best and the worst
teams, they have ten minutes to smoke. Chuuya walks outside, headed to their smoking spot, and
takes a pack of cigarettes and a lighter out of his apron’s pocket. Some other people follow him
outside, including Ranpo, Nathaniel, Tachihara, Gin, Kajii, and Dazai.

The autumn wind is chilly and refreshing, it makes Chuuya realize that he actually broke a sweat
while assembling their dessert, and now he’s noticeably cold. Ranpo, who’s holding an unlit
cigarette in his mouth, looks at him with a frown.

“Should’ve brought our jackets,” he says.

Chuuya doesn’t respond, looking away and eyeing their camp, quiet and deserted at this time of the
day. The others start muttering, mainly discussing the contest and making their predictions about
today’s winners, but Chuuya’s not following. He only finds himself listening when he catches
Dazai’s name.

“Since when do you smoke?” Tachihara asks him with a smirk.

“I’ve always smoked,” Dazai says, his voice dry. He seems to be someplace else.

“Higuchi told me she didn’t like the guys who smoked,” at this, Tachihara and Gin exchange
unreadable glances and almost start to giggle like little kids.

Dazai eyes them both coldly and frowns.

“And what exactly she has to do with it?”

“Dunno,” Tachihara shrugs, reaching for one of the ashtrays, placed on the windowsill near them.
“You two seem very close lately.”

“We’re not on the matchmaking show, Tachihara,” it’s probably the first time Chuuya’s heard
Dazai talk to anyone in such a harsh manner. “So just do your job instead of spreading the rumors,
or the next black apron will go to you.”

At this, he puts his cigarette out and hides his hands in his pockets, walking back to the pavilion
without looking back at them. Chuuya’s gaze follows him until he closes the door behind his back.
Well, at least Dazai still has some decency left in him. And even if he and Higuchi actually have
something going on, he probably won’t let it influence his work.

“Chuuya?” Ranpo calls, dragging him out of his thoughts. “Let’s go inside. It’s kinda cold.”

Yeah, Chuuya thinks. It is.

The results of the contest are not unexpected even in the slightest. The praise for the two best
desserts goes to Chuuya’s and Atsushi’s teams, and the eight of them are saved from the black
aprons at least until Monday. Tanizaki’s team has also performed well, although it seems strange
that their puffs came out a bit raw. Probably Tanizaki took on the custard and caramel, assigning
the hardest part of the job to the others, and that, from Chuuya’s perspective, wasn’t his wisest
move. The best pastry chef in the contest avoiding the main part of the dessert he should be
capable of making even in his sleep? Sounds hilarious at least.

In the end, the leaders of the two worst teams, Higuchi and Tetchou, decide to put on black aprons
themselves. And tomorrow is Friday, which means that Chuuya is going to have his deserved rest.
 Probably even a good night’s sleep, if he doesn’t bury himself in the books and cooking tutorials
until dawn again. Tomorrow is Friday, which also means a great show because Dazai will be
fighting for his life in the contest as well. Tomorrow is Friday, which, in the end, means that
Chuuya will get a chance to get rid of Dazai and his limitless ego once and for all.

Chapter End Notes

*"va te faire foutre" is an equivalent of "go f*ck yourself" in french :)

you can find me on twitter: @ acuteguwu

 Baked Alaska
Chapter Notes

TW: this chapter includes slight mentions of physical violence. I would’ve suggested
you skip that part but since it’s crucial for the plot I can’t, sorry
another TW: dazai possibly acting straight
+ descriptions of binge drinking

dazai's backstory will come a bit later than chuuya's, so don't worry about him being
too mysterious, I have this settled
thank you for the comments as usual!! they keep me motivated to write!

See the end of the chapter for more notes

Getting a black apron on the very first week of the contest is the highest shame Chuuya can think
of. However, Dazai is wearing it like armor. That’s what Chuuya can’t understand: he’s not
completely hopeless at cooking and seems to have some strong ambitions, so why is he so careless
about the current threat of losing everything? As soon as Chuuya walks out of his room Thursday
evening, either to grab a snack or just walk around a bit, he sees Dazai everywhere: one time, he’s
in the kitchen, picking from a handful of strawberries and eating them one by one, joking about
something with Higuchi and Mark; next time, he’s outside, smoking alone, and Chuuya notices
him when he passes by one of the hall windows. Closer to midnight, he’s in the living room,
playing chess with Ranpo, and Edgar watching them.

“Hey, carrot head, why don’t you join us?” He nods at him, noticing him standing at the entrance.
“The game’s only getting tenser.”

“What are you doing?” Chuuya asks, only looking at him. He stopped chewing at the slice of
cheese he’d found in the fridge earlier.

“Can’t you see?” Dazai hums and gestures at the board placed on the coffee table. “Destroying
your best pal in a chess round.”

“Hey!” Ranpo exclaims, his outrage more artificial than not.

Chuuya still doesn’t take even a step inside.

“I meant,” he frowns. “Why aren’t you preparing for tomorrow? You’ve got a whole black apron to
get rid of, and yet you’re here, playing chess instead of getting your shit together.”

Dazai takes a deep sigh and looks up at him.

“I have nothing to prepare for, carrot head, not when I don’t even know the rules of the contest
yet,” he says. “Besides, chess is the best brain exercise, and I suppose I’ll need my brain
tomorrow.”

At this, Chuuya only hisses and, without looking at them a second more, goes back to his room.
There, he eats the remaining cheese and gets on his bed, taking a book he had been reading before
he got hungry. He’s not at risk, he has nothing to be afraid of at least until Monday, and yet he’s
here, reading and re-reading the recipes over and over again, placing neon stickers as bookmarks
and putting down the notes on the most elaborate cooking techniques in his pocket notebook. And
he’s better than Dazai, noticeably so, he’s probably better than most other contestants, but still, he
can’t go to sleep peacefully without learning at least several new things before. At the same time,
Dazai, who’s at risk of being kicked out of the contest for good, is doing everything but what he’s
supposed to do. He’s flirting with Higuchi, entertaining Twain, playing chess with Ranpo, getting
on Chuuya’s nerves. Is he really this self-confident?

Chuuya is already half-asleep when Ranpo walks into the room and searches the closet for his
towel. Perhaps the chess round took more than expected, with Dazai winning over and over again,
forcing Ranpo to start again just to get even. Chuuya wonders how spending half of the night
playing chess as a brain exercise will help Dazai deal with the upcoming contest.

When he closes his eyes, listening to the sound of the water coming from the shower, he sees
Verlaine’s face when he first told Chuuya that he was disappointed in him.

This evening, for the first time ever in his life, Chuuya gets drunk. Shit-faced is the better word. It
started with a bottle of champagne Shirase sneaked into the dorms to celebrate their first passed
exam during midterms. The History of culinary arts was no rocket science, and, with a proper
amount of reading, Chuuya managed to pass it in a heartbeat. Shirase scored an excellent mark as
well, so they agreed to drink something in the evening to celebrate. Chuuya thought he’d have one
glass and then go to sleep, because the most important exam, practical cooking with Verlaine, was
only yet to come. However, after they had drunk half of the bottle, someone knocked on the door.
It was Albatross, Shirase’s good friend since the first day of their studies, and he asked whether
they had a bottle opener. Chuuya, who’d previously opened their bottle of champagne using only
his keys, laughed into his palm.

“We don’t,” said Shirase, almost theatrically, making him laugh even louder. “But we do have
something to drink.”

Albatross sneaked in with a mischievous smile on his face.

“I’m interested.”

Later, some other students from their floor and two floors above joined them, bringing even more
booze and three boxes of cold pizza that tasted like rubber. They started to mix different kinds of
alcohol together, drinking them as a dare and playing drinking games Chuuya hadn’t even known
existed. Someone turned shitty rap music on. And now it’s deep into the night, and Chuuya finds
himself sitting on the floor in the middle of the room, two unidentified faces kissing right in front
of him. The last thing he remembers, someone suggested playing spin the bottle.

“Chuuya!” He hears Yuan, a pink-haired girl, laughing. “It’s your turn!”

Chuuya bites his bottom lip, still bitter from the last shot of tequila he drank, and spins the bottle
on the floor in a lazy, uncoordinated movement. Just in five seconds, it finally stops, and Chuuya
looks up to see Shirase’s hesitating face. Albatross and some other guys start cheering,
encouraging them to “show the masterclass in passionate kissing of two homies.” Shirase giggles
at that but still waits for Chuuya to lean to him first. As it turns out, Chuuya takes the dare quite
easily when he’s hammered, so in the next moment, they’re already kissing, and this time, it’s
much messier than it was when Shirase kissed him first. Chuuya’s still bad at this, he obviously
needs more practice, but judging from the approving cheering around them, everyone else is too
drunk to notice anyway.
When they finally break the kiss, he still feels Shirase’s gaze on himself even when his friend is
already spinning the bottle for the next round. Holding onto someone’s shoulder, Chuuya stands
up, his legs shaking, and walks out of the room. The corridor seems to be narrower than he
remembers, its walls squeezing his head to the point it almost explodes. Slowly, he walks towards
one of the shared bathrooms and closes the door behind his back. It takes a lot of effort to take
even a step towards the sink, but he manages and washes his face with cold water. Once he can see
clearly, he looks up and almost flinches from his own face in the mirror. He doesn’t look bad, not
really, he’s just… drunk. So drunk that it’s written all over him.

In a minute or so, someone knocks at the door.

“Chuuya?” It’s Shirase. “Is everything okay?”

“Yeah,” he shouts back, instantly coughing from how dry his throat feels. “Give me a minute.”

“Okay,” Shirase says, his voice concerned. “I’ll be showing everyone off, we still need to have
some sleep before the exam.”

At this, Chuuya startles. The exam. He reaches for his phone and takes it out of his pocket,
checking the time. It’s almost five in the morning, and their practical cooking exam with Verlaine
is in less than four hours.

“Shit,” he whispers, his voice shaking. “Shit, shit, shit.”

He hides the phone back, washes his face once more and quickly rinses his mouth. He probably
should brush his teeth to get rid of this terrible aftertaste of the cheap alcohol, but he just can’t
force himself to. When he’s finally back in the room, it’s only Shirase left in there, and Chuuya
notices the mess they made on the floor. He needs to step over the empty bottles just to reach his
bed. When he’s finally there, burying himself under the blanket without even getting undressed, he
notices that Shirase is not sleeping yet. He’s reading something on his phone, his gaze as
concentrated as it can possibly be at this level of alcohol intoxication.

“What are you doing?” Chuuya asks.

“Revising the recipe,” Shirase says without looking at him.

“What recipe?”

“Verlaine emailed everyone their individual recipes for the exam more than a week ago,” Shirase
glances at him. “We’ll have to cook precisely the dish he assigned.”

At this, Chuuya wants to cry out loud. He opened the recipe as soon as he got it, but he hasn’t
reread it properly since. What was he thinking about? He sits on the bed, takes his phone once
more and opens the email, his hands shaking.

“What did you get?” Shirase asks, curious.

Chuuya remembers it clearly now. Baked Alaska.

“Not the worst one that could’ve been,” Shirase hums. “I’ve got garlic oysters.”

Chuuya isn’t quite listening to the last part, rereading the recipe in front of him over and over
again, but the lines just keep blurring in front of him. He’s not the best nor the worst at pastry. And
yet, Baked Alaska requires a lot of annoying processes, the most elaborate for Chuuya being
making his own ice cream. Every time he tried to, it turned out inedible. In several hours, he’ll
need to take this challenge once more, but now in front of the person he respects the most in his
craft. It’s not his term mark he’s worried about. It’s his image in Verlaine’s eyes. Chuuya doesn’t
have a right to spoil it, not in any of the possible scenarios.

When it already dawns, and Shirase is deeply asleep, Chuuya sneaks into the bathroom twice in a
row and throws up. No matter what he does, he just can’t sober up this quickly. After washing his
mouth, he stares at himself in the mirror and takes a deep breath before slapping himself so hard
that the skin on his right cheek reddens. He can forget about sleep now. Just half an hour and
everyone will be waking up, scattering the showers and getting ready for their three-hour exam, the
most difficult and responsible one in these midterms.

“Sober up, you piece of shit,” he hisses at himself, squeezing his eyes shut.

When he opens them again, it’s suddenly too bright. And he’s standing in front of his workplace in
the spacious exam room, filled with sunlight. Everyone else is also here, and Verlaine is currently
walking from side to side in front of them, reciting the exam rules. Chuuya can’t force himself to
listen, he’s almost falling asleep as he stands. When their time starts to count down and the other
students are rushing to grab all needed appliances from the shelves, he doesn’t even take a step,
grabbing onto the counter and squeezing its cold surface until his knuckles start to hurt.

“Chuuya?” He looks up and sees Verlaine standing right in front of him, his face concerned. “Are
you alright? Everyone else is already working.”

“Yes, chef,” he manages to answer in a shaky voice, avoiding his gaze. “I just… I just need some
air. Can I go outside for a minute, please?” He’s almost begging, making some of the other
students glance at him.

Verlaine just eyes him for some time without saying a word.

“In any other circumstances, I would’ve allowed that,” he finally sighs. “But given that you reek of
alcohol, I’m afraid I’ll have to refuse. You reap what you sow, Chuuya. Now start working,
please.”

“Merde,” Chuuya mutters under his breath but it seems loud enough for Verlaine to catch.

“Excuse me?” He asks with a frown, his voice even harsher this time.

“Nothing,” Chuuya shakes his head and forces himself to look up. “I understood, chef.”

When he reaches for his phone to open the recipe, Verlaine stops him in a short, but firm gesture of
his hand. As if Chuuya is just an annoying fly he’s trying to brush off himself.

“But I didn’t understand you,” he says, and the sudden change in his tone makes everyone else stop
what they were doing. “You are dismissed now. Please, leave the room.”

Chuuya feels like he has swallowed his own heart.

“Chef, but I…”

Verlaine gestures at him once more.

“You heard me,” he nods at the door. “I won’t allow such disrespect from any of my students. And
you, Chuuya… I had high hopes for your future in this place, but you ruined them. I’m
disappointed in you. Now get out of here and don’t force me to make you.”
Every word he says is like another turn of the knife in-between Chuuya’s ribs. Turning to eye the
room, he notices that everyone is staring at him now. He catches Shirase’s pitying gaze and
immediately turns away, gritting his teeth. How come from the whole crowd of drunkards he
happened to be the only one getting caught, and caught by Verlaine? He swallows, straightens in
place and, without saying a word, storms out of the room. He wouldn’t have stomached another
look at Verlaine’s disgusted face.

Once he’s in the corridor, empty at this time of the day, he presses his forehead to one of the walls
and squeezes his eyes shut, fighting the urge to scream out loud. One mistake, one goddamn
mistake, and now everything is ruined for him. There’s no way back this time. Once he’s back in
the dorms, he’ll pack his shit and take the nearest flight to Japan. Home, when he’ll have to go
through another disappointed look, this time coming from his mother. His mother, who scraped
their last dimes to send him here, will storm out of the room and cry her eyes out once she hears
how badly he fucked everything up. You’re taking someone’s place here, Nakahara, he says to
himself. Someone who’s probably much more skilled and, above it, more responsible than you.
How dare you? How are you going to live in this skin for the rest of your life?

“Chuuya?” He opens his eyes and turns to see Shirase. He’s standing next to the closed door, his
apron already stained with some kind of sauce he’s probably used for his garlic oysters. He’ll deal
with his task perfectly, and Verlaine will use his dish as an example to the other students, he’ll
praise him in the way he could’ve praised Chuuya, he’ll be proud of him in the way fathers are
proud of their sons, and the limelight that should’ve been Chuuya’s will be his forever. “I’m sorry.”

Chuuya wipes the tears off his cheeks and shakes his head, taking a step back.

“No, you’re not,” he hisses. “You got hammered yesterday, you got me hammered, and now you’re
there and I’m here, and the place that should have been mine is yours,” he says without even
taking a breath. “You’re not sorry, Shirase. You’re relieved, you’re celebrating inside.”

Shirase swallows and shakes his head, looking away.

“You are wrong,” he says. “And I wasn’t pouring the booze into you. You could have refused.”

“You know I could not!” Chuuya exclaims out loud, not thinking that everyone in the exam room,
including Verlaine, can probably hear him. “You knew how much the teacher’s approval meant to
me, I wasn’t able to sleep for nights on end, thinking of the ways in which I could impress him,
prove to him that I was worthy of his grace. And when I was ruining this chance with my own
hands, you could’ve stopped me. But you didn’t. And I hate you for this. I will hate you for this for
as long as I live.”

Shirase is quiet for over a minute, just looking at him with something unreadable in his eyes.

“I’ve been wondering,” he finally sighs. “What made you think that you were worthy of this and I
wasn’t, that everyone else wasn’t? Why are you so sure that you’re better than any of us?”

Chuuya gasps, his lips trembling. He won’t cry like a kid right now, he just doesn’t have the right
to.

Now go pour this bullshit you’ve made down the sink and don’t ever come near our fridge again.

You keep wasting the family’s money on your shitty cooking experiments, don’t you have anything
else to do?

You’re making me say it twice, are you deaf? Are you a fucking idiot?
“Because I am,” he hisses, this time quieter, and nods at the exam room. “Now go cook your
fucking oysters, and don’t forget to kiss Verlaine’s ass in the meantime.”

Shirase says something else, but Chuuya isn’t listening to him anymore, almost running away.
Away, away, away, as far as he can from this humiliation.

Maybe if I hit your knuckles with the fridge door enough times that you can’t even hold a knife
anymore, then you’ll finally drop this cooking bullshit for good.

“How do you feel?” Higuchi asks, fixing the collar of Dazai’s shirt. They’re standing in the middle
of the corridor, and Chuuya, who’s just got out of his room, bumps right into them. A highly
undesirable scenario, if you ask him.

“How do winners usually feel?” Dazai hums and then grants Higuchi a wide smile, not even
noticing Chuuya standing in just several steps, waiting for them to let him pass. They’re both
holding their black aprons: Higuchi’s is hanging from her forearm, and Dazai’s is thrown over his
right shoulder. They really have no shame because of this awful, embarrassing stigma.

“They look like a married couple,” Chuuya startles in place, hearing Ranpo’s voice too close. As
usual, he didn’t even notice him walk out of the room. “Disgusting, right?”

“Yeah,” he sighs and starts walking, determined to just pass them by without even granting a look.

“Hey, carrot head!” Makes him stop, squeezing his eyes shut in irritation. “What about a good
morning?”

Chuuya slowly turns at them, looking at Higuchi first. She doesn’t touch Dazai’s collar anymore,
busy tying her black apron behind her back. Then, Chuuya glances at Dazai, and in his gaze
nothing is clear. He doesn’t look tired, or scared. He’s just… the same as usual. As if he has this
magical ability to look into the future and see what’s awaiting him clearly; as if he knows that he
will get out of this. Chuuya never could, as much as he tried to cover it with his feigned self-
reverence, wait for something that would decide his entire faith with such ease.

“You look like you’re having a good morning indeed,” he says in a calm tone and then just nods,
walking away. Ranpo briefly throws something like “Good luck” at them and follows him, almost
running just to catch up.

When they’re outside, they take out their cigarette packs, still having five minutes or so for a
smoke break. Chuuya zips up his jacket and shudders from the rush of cold wind. He’s deep in his
thoughts when he notices someone walking towards them. It’s Edgar, already in his black apron,
hiding his hands in the pockets of his oversized pants.

Poor thing, Chuuya thinks. When they worked together on their croquembouche, Edgar made an
impression of a clever and quite creative cook, although not very talkative. Chuuya doesn’t know
much about him, only some brief facts he heard from Ranpo when he was ranting about the friends
he’d already managed to make. Edgar is a pastry chef in disguise. That is why he’s comparatively
worse at everything that doesn’t concern desserts. He’s already worked in several reputable
bakeries, both in USA and Japan. He had a promising future, full of beneficial opportunities and
offers from the best local chefs, so the reason for his sudden wilting is still unclear. Ranpo
suggested that Edgar couldn’t stand the fact that he found himself at a loss each time he had to
cook something other than pastry. Chuuya liked this variant best. He still does. Challenging
yourself and stepping out of your own safe space is a decent reason for being here. And even
though Chuuya doesn’t really see Edgar, or anyone here, as his competition, he looks forward to
anything he can possibly bring to the craft.

Edgar hugs Ranpo and nods at Chuuya, letting out a brief smile.

“You smoke?” Chuuya hums, not sure how to start a conversation, but Edgar shakes his head and
glances at Ranpo instead.

“Our pastry boy is nervous,” Ranpo smiles, looking back at him. “You’re not trembling from the
cold, are you?”

“What if it’s not a dessert?” Edgar sighs, his eyes following the gestures of Ranpo’s hand each time
he brings the cigarette to his mouth. “I may fail again, and this time will be the last.”

“Even if you don’t get a pastry, I’ll help you. Nobody can silence the balcony!” Ranpo has a
wonderful way of cheering people up without much effort. Now, even Chuuya feels it and turns
away to hide a possible glimpse of a smile on his lips. Secretly, deep down in his heart, he wishes
that someone could hype him up in the same way. Caringly, softly, without asking anything in
return. Or maybe he just wants to be adored? Idolized? Worshipped?

“Relationship is not about worshipping, Chuuya.”

“But it is.”

He shakes his head and puts his cigarette out, taking one last look at Ranpo and Edgar before
heading to the pavilion. The memories from his past life have been popping up in his head more
often lately. He doesn’t like the feeling of them. They are stubborn and nasty, they’re like the
small gaps in his culinary excellence and wit, preventing him from doing his absolute best.

Today, the atmosphere in the kitchen is different. Even though Chuuya is standing on the balcony,
without having anything to worry about, he can still feel the tension in the air just below him.
Leaning on the rails, he eyes each one of today’s contestants. Ranpo, who’s standing right next to
him, is still telling him some funny story from one of his previous jobs at the restaurant’s
takeaway, but he’s not really following. Nathaniel is talking about something with Tetchou,
glancing at the judges’ room from time to time. Edgar keeps aloof, studying the pattern of small
scars (old burns and knife cuts) on both of his palms. Dazai and Higuchi are standing next to each
other, their shoulders almost brushing, as if someone’s glued them together.

“Good morning, everyone,” Fukuzawa greets them as he walks into the kitchen.

“Good morning, chef,” they all say like one, voices sleepy and unenthusiastic.

Yosano and Ango follow, both holding small black envelopes in their hands. Recipes, are
Chuuya’s first thought. Probably they’ll have to cook according to the individual recipes, with
several possible authentic variations. That’s a classic type of task in contests like this, it helps
reveal culinary intelligence and the ability to deviate from predefined rules.

“Today, one of you will have to go,” Fukuzawa says, making some of them look even tenser than
before. Dazai, however, is still calm, he’s almost smiling as he eyes the envelopes with their
today’s tasks. “The first black apron contest will reveal this person to us.”

“As you’ve probably already guessed, these envelopes contain the cards with your today’s tasks,”
follows Ango, opening his envelope and taking out half of the cards. Yosano does exactly the same
with her half. Then they both place the cards on the table in front of them, silently suggesting that
the contestants can pick the tasks for themselves randomly. “This half,” Ango points at the cards.
“Contains pastries. And this one,” he points at the other side of the table. “Savory dishes. You will
have to combine the ingredients from both a dessert and a main course into your own authentic
dish.” At this, silent muttering scatters the balcony. Chuuya doesn’t say a word even when Ranpo
whistles at the task. “Are there any questions?”

It’s Tetchou who raises his hand.

“Yes?”

“Can we drop some of the ingredients while cooking?” Chuuya glances at him. Tetchou is quite
brave and straightforward, although when they were working together on their very first task, he
seemed more comfortable obeying the orders than giving them. Chuuya knows only some brief,
dry facts about him. A graduate of some prestigious cooking college, he comes from money and
can easily buy himself a career without needing to go through all the stages of preparing for it.
Chuuya has never respected people like him much, so secretly he wishes that Tetchou was kicked
out today. He’s probably useless when working alone anyway.

“Sure,” Ango responds. “But you’ll have to keep one of the main ingredients of your savory dish.
You get two hours to work. Start picking your cards, please.”

Nathaniel goes first. Then follows Edgar, and Ranpo instantly shouts, asking what he’s got, his
fingers drumming onto the rails impatiently.

“Strawberry panna cotta,” Edgar reads the first card, and his face enlightens for a moment. But the
expression fades away to being frightened when he gets to look at the second one. “And baked
salmon.”

“Ouch,” Ranpo grimaces for a second. “But no need to worry, pal, we’ll get you out of this!”

Edgar glances up quickly, a soft smile touches his lips. Ranpo smiles back but flinches as soon as
Chuuya drags him by the sleeve.

“What is it?”

“Can you ask what Dazai got?” Chuuya almost whispers, avoiding his friend’s questioning gaze.

“Why can’t you?” He wonders but sighs anyway, turning back to spot Dazai. “Hey, Dazai! What
are yours?”

He frowns for a second but looks up, already shoving his cards into the pocket of his apron.

“Mushroom risotto and Baked Alaska,” he shouts back and, without waiting for Ranpo’s reaction,
slides into the storage room. Everyone else, already having gotten their tasks, follows him.

Ranpo turns to look at Chuuya, who’s frozen in place, his hands not even gripping the rails
anymore.

“Never heard of the last one,” Edogawa frowns. “Have you cooked it?”

Chuuya swallows and nods, his mind far away.

“Once and a half.”

“What happened the second time?” Ranpo asks, noticeably curious.

“Don’t wanna talk about it,” Chuuya brushes him off, concentrating on what’s happening in the
kitchen.
As usual, Higuchi takes the workplace next to Dazai’s (it’s starting to get annoying), in case she
needs help or a piece of advice. Dazai, however, doesn’t seem talkative today, instead eyeing the
ingredients and appliances he’s piled on the counter in front of him. Chuuya has never seen him
make notes before, but this time he takes a notebook and a pen out of his pocket and starts
scribbling something down meticulously, looking like an artist quickly sketching his latest idea
before it vanishes from his head. Probably he’s trying to picture what Baked Alaska looks like,
Chuuya thinks and smirks to himself. He won’t help the bastard today. He swore with his dignity
he wouldn’t. He’s not really in habit of helping other people with cooking anyway, especially when
these people are his competitors. Each one of them fights for their own pride in this contest.

Chuuya betrays this principle very soon, though. Edgar seems to be having a hard time deciding
how he can possibly mix gelatin and baked salmon in one dish, so Ranpo volunteers to storm him
with ideas, and occasionally turns to Chuuya for advice.

“Salmon and strawberries are actually a good match,” he hums, though without much enthusiasm.
“He can make strawberry jelly as a garnish, add a couple of mint leaves and use dried strawberries
to sprinkle it over the salmon. If he does everything right, there will be a perfect balance of spicy
fish and a sour aftertaste.”

When he finishes, Ranpo is still staring at him for some time, dumbstruck.

“Dude,” he finally breathes out. “Has anyone told you that you’re a goddamn genius?”

“Long time ago,” Chuuya admits and continues to follow Edgar’s actions as Ranpo is reciting the
idea to him. He’s still not approving of the fact that Edgar is now basically a puppet, using
someone else’s mind instead of his own. But occupying himself with taking control over Edgar’s
possible messing up seems like a decent substitution for watching Dazai, so Chuuya goes for it.
Although he can’t help but glance at Dazai’s workplace from time to time, messy as usual, as if
he’s some sort of a mad scientist working on his brand new experiment, and they’re only fifteen
minutes into the contest.

It’s unclear what Dazai is doing right now, as he’s sneaking into the storage room and back every
five minutes, bringing new ingredients in addition to the ones he already has at work. Come on
now, it’s a fucking risotto, Chuuya almost rolls his eyes. But perhaps Dazai has decided to go the
other way? If Chuuya were in his place, he’d probably dry the mushrooms with sugar and make
them firm and gummy like candied fruit. Then he’d just do a classic Baked Alaska but use dried
mushrooms in the cake base. It’s rather risky and the ingredients probably wouldn’t work together
as well as Chuuya pictures it in his head, but he just sees no better way of mixing a risotto with this
ridiculous cake that is, from his perspective, quite a disgrace to pastry in the first place.

Halfway into the contest, Yosano walks into the kitchen, alone. The judges have this habit of
occasionally walking in to interview the contestants on what they’re planning to make or already
making. Chuuya always fights the urge to roll his eyes at that, as lately, he’s found himself
annoyed every time someone tries to distract him while he’s cooking. Side-effects of working with
Dazai, if you ask him. Yosano, in the meantime, approaches Nathaniel’s desk. He’s got cinnamon
rolls and a roast duck, and Chuuya has no idea how he’s supposed to get out of this. Next comes
Edgar, and he’s briefly reciting his recipe to Yosano, avoiding her gaze. Yosano points at the
complexity of his idea, and it’s unclear where she’s going with this until she hums, probably
already expecting Edgar to mess up. Chuuya rolls his eyes at that.

Tetchou is quite sure about what he’s doing, ranting about how he’s going to combine a shepherd’s
pie with a hazelnut trifle until Yosano stops him with a polite smile, wishing him good luck. She
doesn’t get to talk to Higuchi, as she’s disappeared into the storage room again, and when Chuuya
glances at Dazai’s workplace, he notices that he’s also not in the kitchen anymore. Chuuya almost
feels personally offended by that. The bastard has got less than an hour to finish yet the most
complex task he’s ever got, and he decides to do… what, exactly? Make out with his girlfriend
next to the vegetable crates?

“Gross,” Chuuya grimaces, not aware that he said it out loud.

“It doesn’t look that bad tho,” Ranpo frowns, still concentrated on the strawberry jelly Edgar’s
struggling with.

“Dazai and Higuchi,” Chuuya explains with a sigh. “What are they, teenagers?”

When Yosano already turns away to leave the kitchen, Dazai storms back, holding a bar of butter in
his hand. Higuchi follows him, carrying a small bowl of blueberries and a carton of milk. Oh, so
they did have time to pick the products in-between snuggling with each other like high schoolers.

“I’m not even surprised at this point,” Ranpo smirks. “Every girl here is head over heels into
Dazai. Higuchi is probably just the lucky one.”

“And how do you know?” The answer is clear to Chuuya, Ranpo is a runner-up here when it
comes to rumors. The first place is taken by Tachihara and Gin, who are always so close they seem
to have a shared mind or something.

“Just overheard a couple of conversations in the dorm’s kitchen, that’s it.”

Chuuya desperately wants to distract himself from picturing how adult, mature women, some of
them with impressive experience in their craft, are stuffing the kitchen like teenagers just to rant
about a guy who’s too self-loving to even notice their admiring glances. The chance comes quite
soon, as he overhears Dazai explaining his plan to Yosano in all colors.

“And so, I’m going to make a sweet risotto with a raspberry sorbet and chocolate wafer crumbs,”
he finishes and claps his hands, intending to keep working.

“What a dumbass,” Chuuya whispers to himself and closes his eyes. His dish-to-be sounds like
something even farm pigs wouldn’t eat. What he’s even thinking, making bullshit like this on the
most prestigious cooking contest in the country?

Chuuya glances at the clock, noticing that they still have a little more than an hour to go. Maybe at
some point, Dazai will realize that his idea is shitty and decide to go for something else. And some
god or goddess above has probably heard Chuuya’s inner begging, as very soon Dazai’s processes
start to mess up, and everything is going not at all in the way he’s planned. He burns the risotto
twice in a row, throwing the entire pan into the sink. He’s a stubborn piece of shit, though, so he
tries again, probably not even aware of the time he has left.

At this point, Chuuya’s almost tearing out his own hair.

“Hey,” he pulls Ranpo by the sleeve once again, even though Edogawa is now occupied with
controlling Edgar’s baking the salmon. “Can you tell Dazai to stop embarrassing himself and cook
something decent for once?”

Ranpo turns at him, this time even more confused than the previous one.

“I thought we were praying for him to mess this up and finally leave,” his “we” sounds almost
adorable to Chuuya’s ears. “He’s messing up right now, so enjoy the show.”
“Shit,” Chuuya sighs and lets go of him.

He keeps in place for less than a minute more and then finds himself marching to the end of the
line, exactly to the unoccupied spot on the balcony above Dazai. Some of the others are turning at
him with confused looks but don’t say anything. Chuuya will keep silent, too. He’s just come here
to get a better look at Dazai fucking up his place in the contest, that’s it. Margaret and Louisa,
standing next to him, are discussing Higuchi’s dish, but he doesn’t pay much attention to their
whispering, instead looking at the bastard messing up his third pan of risotto. Watching someone
kick a newborn baby with their feet would probably hurt Chuuya less than this.

Suddenly, Dazai stops in front of the stove, shoving his hands in his pockets, thinking something
over. Finally, a moment of enlightenment, Chuuya thinks. In the next second, Dazai does another
thing completely beyond his comprehension. He grabs a half-empty bottle of white wine he
previously used for the rice and takes a big sip, probably hoping that the alcohol will help him
clear his head. While he’s drinking, his eyes are studying the room before stopping at the clock
that now shows that exactly an hour of the contest has passed. If he still wants to make a decent
dish, he has to get his shit together and start working. An hour is nothing for haute cuisine. Even
the simplest dessert, if cooked properly, doesn’t take this little. At some point, he finally finishes
the remains of the bottle and moves to throw it into the trash can under one of the counters. Then
there’s no other risotto anymore, god bless.

Dazai approaches the second pile of ingredients he barely touched and eyes them, scratching his
neck. Chuuya follows his gaze, and in his head, a clear pattern appears. Take the mushrooms, dice
them as smoothly as you can, put them into a dryer machine, then start to work on the dough for
the ice cream cake. Come on, I know you’re thinking about the same thing I am, Chuuya is shaking
him by the shoulders in his mind. But the bastard doesn’t even look at the mushrooms, setting the
bowl aside and taking another pack of rice instead. Not this shit again, Chuuya grips the rails and
fights the urge to cry out loud.

When Dazai puts another pan on the stove and starts to melt the butter in it, there’s just so much
Chuuya can bear. He takes a deep breath and almost hangs himself from the balcony as he shouts.

“Drop the fucking risotto already, it won’t do!”

The entire balcony grows silent, now staring at him. His words pierce Dazai like an arrow and he
freezes in his spot, slowly looking up, bewildered. Probably he thinks that he’s misheard him,
confused his voice with someone else’s, but as soon as their gazes meet, he knows he’s not
mistaken. Chuuya brushes off his own embarrassment, he’ll deal with it later.

“Dice the mushrooms and sugar them, then dry them and use instead of candied fruit in your cake,”
he continues to instruct, but Dazai still hasn’t moved anywhere. “Then just make a goddamn Baked
Alaska the way it’s usually done. And move your ass already, what you staring at?”

Dazai frowns at first but then lets out a hesitating smile.

“I’m afraid this won’t work, carrot head,” makes Chuuya want to spit on him right away. “But
thanks for the advice, I appreciate you caring about me!”

“Fourth burnt risotto in a row won’t work either!” he’s not giving up, even though he’s already
irritated to the point his face burns. “Do as I say, or you’ll end up presenting an empty plate, for
god’s sake!”

Dazai is not smiling anymore, considering something without saying a word.

 “Okay,” he sighs, after all, and grabs a cutting board and a knife. “But if I mess up, you’ll owe me
a drink after I’m out of this place.”

Chuuya doesn’t want to acknowledge that slight turn in his own stomach at his last words.

Chapter End Notes

you can find me on twitter: @ acuteguwu

 Ammonia
Chapter Notes

long ass chapter ahead!!

chuuya's flashbacks are not quite close to an end, we still have to get to the details of
his work as a chef, but the next chapter will reveal a bit more about dazai as well,
hope you're excited for that
here's also a time skip, these will be more frequent furtherly, bc I'm not going to bore
the hell out of you by constant descriptions of cooking without any relationships'
progress (although there's still a lot of cooking ahead along with homoerotic contests)

I have electricity in my flat for like 2-3 hours in a day (fuck this war) and I decide to
spend them on writing instead of doing my job!! I'm a failure but it's fun

thank you for your comments and please leave more of them if you feel like it!! I'm
feedback-deprived

See the end of the chapter for more notes

When Chuuya thinks it can’t get any worse, eventually, it gets worse.

Back in the dorms, he eyes the room slowly, stopping at his half-packed stuff on the floor and
resisting the urge to kick it with his foot angrily. This whole day feels like infinity, and it’s only
something close to ten in the morning. He needs to check his phone and look for the nearest flights
to Japan. He despises the fact that he needs to do this, he despises himself for being the exact
reason why he needs to be doing something like that. He let his outrage and anger spill out on
Shirase, on his room door and on his pillow, now lying wrinkled on the floor, as soon as he got
back to the dorms, but in the end, it was only himself who he blamed for everything that happened.

Now he sits down on the bed, taking his phone out, and checks the airplane schedule. Running a
hand through his hair, he resists the urge to just cry out loud. Clearly, he’s not supposed to be in
here right now. He must be back in the exam room, cooking that damn nuisance called dessert and
getting occasional praise from Verlaine for the small processes he gets perfected with the usual
ease in his posture. He must get the highest mark and ignore all the frowning looks he’ll eventually
get from his classmates. He must be a skillful and proud cook as he’s always been, not this tiny
piece of crashed dreams and ambitions he feels like right now.

Nonetheless, he purchases the nearest ticket home, checks the flight info and assesses the time he
has left until departure. He still has more than eight hours to just dillydally around, running his
little daily errands, maybe taking a walk in the park next to the campus, sneaking into the library to
get some new cookbooks, talking to his seniors about the recipes they’ve been working on,
arranging a study group to prepare for the next theoretical exam… shit.

Chuuya won’t probably realize that it’s all over now until he’s back in his small Yokohama
apartment, hugging his mother tightly and already predicting the devastating look of
disappointment in her eyes as soon as he tells her the news. So instead of doing everything he’d do
if he weren’t a failure, Chuuya decides to just take a final nap in the room that soon won’t be his
anymore and sets an alarm for five hours from now. He’ll still need some time to take a shower,
change into something less formal than his student uniform, settle all the paperwork needed from
him in the academy’s administration, and probably if he’s bold enough, bid his farewells to the
people he’s going to miss the most, although there are not so many of them left now.

All his plans are broken when suddenly, he wakes up in less than three hours from a loud and
insistent phone call. Chuuya rubs his eyes as he reaches for the phone on his nightstand, promising
to tell anyone who’s disturbed his sleep just to go fuck themselves, but all his irritation is cut
abruptly as soon as he sees Verlaine’s name on display. Even though the whole group had his
number saved on the very first class in case of some urgencies or exam retakes, Chuuya has never
heard about Verlaine actually calling his students first.

Not sure what to expect, Chuuya clears his throat, feeling the dread overflowing in him, and
accepts the call.

“Chef?” He addresses first, already hating how drained and broken his own voice sounds. “I’m
sorry I didn’t pick up earlier. I was,” he doesn’t want to say sleeping, afraid that Verlaine might
consider this as another display of his indifference towards everything that’s happened to him
today (although it’s clearly just a way to run from his persistent thoughts of how he hasn’t lived up
to someone else’s expectations again), so he chooses to lie. “I was running through my learning
materials, sorting out the books I should return to the library, and my phone was put on silent the
entire time.”

He doesn’t sound too persuasive though. Verlaine is silent for some time before he lets out a long,
heavy sigh, contrary to Chuuya’s holding his breath the entire time.

“Come to my office, Chuuya,” he finally says, cutting off the courtesies. These five words make
Chuuya’s heart clench for a long second. “I need to talk to you about something.”

Not sure how to react to his proposal (definitive and cold as it is, it still doesn’t sound like an order
to him), he quickly gets hold of himself and just nods, forgetting that Verlaine can’t even see him
right now.

“Of course, chef,” he says, trying to sound as calm as he can. “I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

Verlaine hangs up first, leaving him alone in complete silence that feels so deafening he wants to
jump on the bed and scream.

Chuuya doesn’t remember the walk towards the academy building much. It is slightly chilly, and
the yellow trees lined along the pavers are rustling in the light, lazy wind. The students mostly
walk in the opposite direction now, talking and laughing, discussing midterms, facing Chuuya but
not looking directly at him. For a second he hopes that he can spot Shirase somewhere in the crowd
and maybe even apologize to him for being too explosive earlier today, but he quickly shoves the
thought away. Clearly, it doesn’t matter anymore. Why would he need to make amends with the
person he’s not going to meet again anyway?

Right in front of Verlaine’s door, wide and snow-white, he clears his throat and clenches his fists
for a second in an attempt to steady himself. He doesn’t know why he’s doing that, as the time
spent in Verlaine’s office will certainly be destructive to him regardless of what he’s going to hear.

“Come in,” he hears a muffled voice right after he knocks.

Inside, it’s bright and airy as it’s probably always been. Chuuya has only been in this room once
before, but it affects him in the same way as back then. The atmosphere soothes him somehow, the
look at Verlaine’s classy furniture made from light wood, the still-life paintings on his walls, the
neverending piles of papers on his desk. Cooking is not only about getting your hands dirty while
messing with the ingredients for sauces or soups, nor is teaching others how to cook. These are two
complex processes consisting of endless steps, most of them invisible to the beholders’ eyes.
Chuuya himself wouldn’t stand a second of rotting in the office, sorting out the papers and
checking the messy handwritings of the students tasked with developing their own authentic
recipes and culinary tactics. He also wouldn’t belong in restaurant administration or management.
When Chuuya says he wants to cook, he only means that. Spending eternity in the kitchen,
surrounded by pots and pans and blenders and stoves seems like a lifetime he wants to himself
more than anything else.

“Please, take a seat,” Verlaine gestures at the armchair facing his desk, still not looking up from
the document he’s currently reading.

Chuuya inches his way to the seat, and then they’re both silent for quite a long time before
Verlaine finally puts the document away and puts his pale hands on the desk, locking his fingers.
When Chuuya finally dares to look into his eyes, there’s nothing even remotely clear there.
Certainly, the chef is still disappointed in him, but there’s a slight shift to the furious expression
Chuuya was given back in the exam room. Now Verlaine is looking at him as if he’s pitying him,
and, truth be told, it feels much worse than being drowned in his deception.

“How are you feeling?” Chuuya was certainly ready to hear anything but that from him.

“I’m,” he starts but stumbles right away, looking for the right word. “I’m devastated, chef.”

“Clearly you are,” Verlaine nods as if he’s almost content with his response. “But besides that, is
there something in you that you would like to voice out?”

There are a lot of things, a myriad, actually. Chuuya wants to say that he’s sorry, he’s a thousand
times sorry, he’s disappointed in himself even more than Verlaine is, he loathes himself for not
having enough willpower to pursue the thing he wants the most, he wants to crash his own skull, to
rip off his own hands, to replace his mind with a mind of a person who has more potential to
become a great chef, even though until recently he’d been thinking that nobody had a bigger
potential for it than himself. But are these the things Verlaine actually wants to hear? Chuuya
doubts it as he looks down and sighs.

“I want to cook,” he says as if it’s the simplest truth in the world. “I want to spend the time I have
left nowhere else but in the kitchen. Although I’m probably too young to make such loud
statements, it’s the only thing I’m ever sure about. No matter where I go or what I do, who I talk to,
eventually, I’m back in there, doing the thing that brings me more joy than I knew existed.”

He looks up for a second, but Verlaine is still quiet, watching him with the same unreadable look in
his eyes.

“And I know that I can still go back home or anywhere else,” he goes on then. “Try to start from
scratch and pursue my career elsewhere, it was actually a backup plan when I was still too worried
that I won’t be able to withstand the responsibility of studying in a place like this. But all of this
went up in smoke the second I attended your first lecture. You made me believe that I was actually
capable of doing something worth acknowledging by the people. That I could bring them pure joy
in such a simple form they don’t even usually give a second thought to, food. And I crushed this
confidence with my own hands by making such a silly, bypassing mistake,” he sighs, burying his
face in his hands for a second, resisting the urge to cry. “I don’t know what to do, chef. I know that
you want me gone for good. But the mere thought of leaving this place makes me wonder if I even
have something else worth living for.”

The silence that follows is even more unbearable than the previous one. Now there’s one more
thing Chuuya loathes himself for, his inability to hold his emotions in front of the person he
respects the most, unwrapping the most vulnerable part of himself others rarely get to see. But
Verlaine’s response makes something drop in his chest.

“Who said that I wanted you gone?” He wonders, the expression on his face almost amused.

Chuuya looks up, not believing his own ears.

“But I thought… I thought I disappointed you.”

“You did,” Verlaine nods, shifting his gaze to one of the walls. “Your disgusting and completely
irresponsible antic surely wasn’t something I could expect from one the most promising students of
mine,” the last words make Chuuya flinch for a second, although he’s not sure if it's from relief or
fear. “Still, I tend not to put a cross on ambitious and talented people who happen to let me down
once, especially not on the ones I truly believe in,” if his previous reaction was a mix of shock and
confusion, now Chuuya almost wants to cry in solace. Is he really going to get a second chance? “I
will accept your exam retake in two days,” Verlaine sighs, looking back at him, this time more
welcoming than before. “But on one condition. You will give up alcohol or any other form of
entertainment that can affect your practical skills. Instead, I want to see the full dedication to your
studies,” when Chuuya almost wants to leap from his seat and start screaming in happiness,
Verlaine adds one more thing, his voice stone cold. “You’re not as brilliant as you think of
yourself, Chuuya, not yet. But you clearly are something. With enough hard work, you have a
chance to become the next loud name in our craft.”

He eyes his whole posture, but this time Chuuya doesn’t feel like he can break apart under his gaze
at any possible moment. In fact, it’s almost as relieving as the words he just said.

“Have I made myself clear?” Verlaine asks in the end before dismissing him.

“Yes, chef,” Chuuya nods and stands up from his seat. He hesitates for a second before adding.
“Thank you. I know it’s not enough of a gratitude I can express, but thank you.”

“You can go now and prepare for your retake,” Verlaine says at last. “Friday, 8 a.m., the room is
the same.”

Chuuya almost grimaces at picturing the place he felt the most humiliated ever in but nods,
fighting the urge to jump as he walks towards the door.

“And Chuuya,” Verlaine calls when he already steps outside. Chuuya turns his head to see
probably the most serious look he’s ever witnessed on him. “Don’t make me regret this.”

He won’t.

Verlaine emails him a new recipe the same evening, when Chuuya is still busy unpacking his stuff
and taking out the cookbooks he purchased with his scholarship, deciding which ones of them will
be helpful in his preparation. Shirase gets home deep past midnight, he has a day off tomorrow in
order to prepare for their Restaurant Management exam. Chuuya is sitting on his bed, buried in the
books and notes, listening to classical music in his earphones. It has always been oddly soothing for
him. When he senses someone else’s presence in the room, he looks up, and their gazes meet for a
second. Shirase looks drained but not unhappy, and he’s clearly a bit drunk. Chuuya keeps himself
from making a face at that, the memory of his misfire still fresh in his head. Shirase doesn’t look
too surprised to see him here studying though, probably he just doesn’t care enough to ask.

They don’t talk much, exchanging a couple of dry words before Shirase goes to bed and quickly
falls asleep. Chuuya knows that he’ll need to apologize to him at some point, but it’s clearly not his
main priority right now.

The next three days pass almost in a haze. Chuuya is so sleep-deprived he can faint at any given
moment, but he masters his retake skillfully, getting only some minor remarks about the dish’s
texture from Verlaine. The Restaurant Management exam seems too boring and stuffed with
useless information in comparison to practical cooking, but Chuuya manages to get a satisfactory
mark either way and now his first midterms are finally over.

During the break, he’s not doing much more than sleeping half of the time, taking his usual
morning runs in the park, and learning the shit out of the library books that are now piled on his
desk like another Eiffel Tower. He and Shirase make amends eventually and even go out to drink
one evening, even though Chuuya only takes a lemonade, ignoring his roommate’s questioning
look. They’re now farther from friends than they were before, there’s a hint of coldness in their
day-to-day conversations, but it doesn’t bother Chuuya much as long as they are not fighting all the
time. Shirase’s feelings for him seem to have faded a bit over time, although Chuuya never made
himself quite clear on not feeling the same. Shirase has even found himself a boyfriend, a cheerful
and easy-going guy from Albatross’s neverending gang. Sometimes Chuuya thinks it over and
wonders whether he’ll ever be able to fall for someone romantically. It’s probably a bit odd
question to ask oneself at eighteen, but when his peers have already experienced a bunch of tough
heartbreaks, Chuuya has never even fallen truly in love with another person. He doubts now he
even wants to, as judging from Shirase’s occasional pitiful attempts to discuss their first kiss (the
second one doesn’t really count) that he brushed off, Chuuya assumes that being in love makes the
most intelligent and skillful people look miserable and wretched.

He misses someone he could talk to about cooking though. Shirase has clearly been more distant
from him about the topic since Chuuya declared that he was the best cook in the academy right
into his face. Probably he thinks that Chuuya doesn’t take the others’ opinions on the craft
seriously anyway, but it’s not true. He’s actually much more vulnerable when it comes to cooking
than he allows himself to display. Either way, he misses the countless sleepless nights they have
spent lying on the floor in their room, talking about the most elaborate recipes in the world as if
they were just laundry lists of groceries. He’s glad that Shirase is still talking to him and spending
some of his free time with him, taking him out to the city to just roam around and grasp other
people’s lifestyles. If that’s the level of friendship he deserves after everything he said, let that be.

The second half of the term starts for Chuuya both hastily and lazily. Even though the others are
mostly anticipating the holiday season now, not putting much thought into another round of
draining exams awaiting them, Chuuya doesn’t think about it much. During the entire break he
had, there wasn’t a single day when Verlaine’s last words left his head. Don’t make me regret this.
Now that Chuuya’s aware of what can happen to students who make Paul Verlaine regret his
choices, he’s more indulged in his studies than ever before. He fills up three times more notebooks
with his notes on a single subject, anticipating the start of their practical cooking classes with his
heart trembling. If he wanted to be worthy of something before, it falls short in comparison to what
he wants now. He wants Verlaine to admire him. He wants to excel. He will do anything it takes to
become the most brilliant student who’s ever entered these walls.

In the very first practical class, his hopes almost entirely go to waste. Chuuya would lie to himself
if he said that he didn’t expect Verlaine to single him out a bit, praising him just a little bit more
than the others. He was a naive fool for hoping so. Verlaine doesn’t spare him a second look
passing by his workplace, his posture straight and reserved as usual. Chuuya bites his lip but keeps
kneading the dough, both of his thin wrists are red and numb from the effort. Their today’s task is
to master basic pastry, and Verlaine personally insisted that they were prohibited from using
automatic appliances.
It goes on relatively plainly though and Chuuya’s ready to put his now-formed bread buns in the
oven but he excuses himself to sneak into the small room where all their kitchen appliances are
stored, making up a lie about forgetting to take an additional whisk for the egg yolks. Verlaine
frowns for a second but lets him go with a nod. Right before Chuuya closes the door behind
himself, he notices that Verlaine takes out his phone and answers the sudden call, clearly not
satisfied with anyone interrupting him during the class.

In fact, he just needed an excuse to go to the bathroom and take his regular medication. Seasonal
allergies have had no mercy on him for as long as he can recall, but they’ve turned more severe
during the past months, now balancing on the brink with being chronic, as Chuuya doesn’t see any
other explanation for him constantly having his nose stuffed up during the fucking winter. He
swallows down two small pills without water and grimaces at the bitter aftertaste. When he’s back
in the classroom, he finishes his buns in the time they have left for their last class today. Chuuya is
slightly disappointed with practical cooking always coming last on their schedule. Not only that he
has to go through the entire day waiting impatiently for his favorite subject, but he’s also quite
drained after hours of lectures to get hold of himself and cook with his usual reverence. However,
his tiredness always vanishes completely the second he gets to see Verlaine. Though the man
hasn’t gotten any kinder to him since that devastating occurrence last fall, Chuuya now feels even
more attached to him than before. He isn’t quite sure what’s the reason for that except for his
immense respect for Verlaine as his teacher, but he once gets his hands on the Psychology book he
accidentally confuses with a cooking manual due to the comic similarity of their covers in the
library. He wants to put it back right away but the title catches his attention somehow, so he sits
down at one of the free desks, opening the book to the middle.

Inching Your Way Through Childhood Trauma, An Expanded Guide For Adults

Chuuya scowls. What a ridiculous name for a book. However, he forces himself to read a couple of
excerpts, a strong feeling of something he already experienced is nauseatic in his stomach. He
never was on quite good terms with his father. Screw that, saying that Chuuya will hate that fucker
for as long as he lives would be an understatement. The countless days of beatings, both his and his
mother’s, his own knuckles bruised and broken, his notebooks with handwritten recipes torn apart
in their trash can… these are not even half of the reasons Chuuya will never forgive him, even
though he’s been dead for over two years now. The memory of his father’s funeral is still fresh in
his head. Chuuya hadn’t even shed a tear, in fact, he would have screamed from rooftops in relief if
he weren’t too drained to. The thing that surprised him though was seeing his mother cry. He’d
been thinking that the only person who hated his father more than himself was her, but apparently,
he turned out to be wrong. And this is another reason why Chuuya will never be able to grasp the
concept of love. The people who we trust our hearts with often tend to shatter them in the cruelest
ways possible, but we still come back to them expecting them to glue the shards.

He still doesn’t know how to deal with the thought of his attachment to Verlaine possibly being
him seeking a decent father figure he never had, but he decides to put it off for some time.

The dish assessment goes much calmer now than it was in their very first class, and Chuuya leans
his back against the counter, waiting for his turn to present the buns. They didn’t work on fillings
today, instead concentrating on perfecting the dough. Apparently, it’s a way more difficult task
than it may seem. Almost half of the already presented pastry doesn’t get Verlaine’s pass, and the
students sigh in disappointment. Chuuya is not really bothered about his own dish though. He’s
sure he did a great job.

“What’s that smell?” asks the guy standing next to him, the American exchange student named
Ricky, his face holding a visible frown.
“What smell?” Chuuya’s now frowning too, turning to eye his messy workplace. Goddamn useless
nose medicine, he’s got too used to it he now probably needs to consult his doctor and replace the
pills again.

“Smells of ammonia,” Ricky explains, his frown even deeper now. “Don’t you sense?”

Chuuya wants to shake his head but he doesn’t get to as Verlaine now approaches his plate. He
scowls slightly the second he takes one of the buns, breaking it into two parts to get a better look at
the texture. He doesn’t taste the bread as he did all the previous times, and this makes a knot of
worry tie in Chuuya’s stomach. He tries to swallow it down, watching for any change in Verlaine’s
expression almost without blinking. He can’t fuck it up now. He doesn’t have the right to.

“How much baking powder did you add to your dough?” Verlaine asks, finally looking at him.

Chuuya swallows once again, trying to sound calm as he replies.

“Exactly as stated in the recipe.”

“I don’t think so,” Verlaine sighs, putting his bun back on the plate without even giving it a bite. It
feels like Chuuya’s chest has been cut open. “I don’t exactly doubt your sense of smell, but it
comes rather surprising to me that you weren’t able to catch the evident overuse of baking powder
in your dough.”

Some of the students let out quiet laughs at that, and Chuuya wants to sink into the ground with
shame. But above shame comes another feeling, the intensifying dread Chuuya’s not sure he’s even
capable of masking anymore. Please don’t say you’re disappointed in me again, he begs silently as
he stands, I won’t live through this once more.

“I’m sorry, Chuuya, but I can’t accept this bread,” Verlaine says at last and quickly writes
something down in his notebook. “Please, pay more attention to the processes in our next class.”

Though Verlaine doesn’t seem to be too displeased, if a bit confused, Chuuya still can’t hold his
fury back in the dorms. Clearly, someone messed with his dough while he was in the bathroom.
That’s what the teacher’s pets usually get, isn’t it? Some people are so miserable, Chuuya swears
to god, they can’t even accept that someone else can be better than them at their craft.

“Why can’t you?” Shirase asks, his voice calm, when Chuuya blurts out his thoughts to him. He’s
sitting on his bed, playing some stupid game on his phone, not even looking up.

“What do you mean?” Chuuya turns to look at him in bewilderment. He thought they’d dropped
the subject a long time ago. Chuuya even managed to mutter a weak apology to him one evening
for being an arrogant piece of shit, and Shirase accepted it with almost unconvincing ease.

“One spoiled dough is not the end of your brilliant culinary career, Chuuya,” Shirase sighs,
stretching the last words a bit longer as if he’s mocking him. “And if I were you, I’d learn to accept
a failure easier. Quite a handy skill, you know.”

Chuuya almost wants to punch him in the face.

“I can accept a failure,” he spits out. “And it wasn’t even one, just some dickhead messing with my
dough as a form of revenge,” he wishes this thought could make him drop the subject for good, but
his anger is still all over the place. “I’d rather you didn’t pick on this scab, Shirase. You know how
hard I’m trying to right that mistake in front of Verlaine, I’m basically stripping out of my own
skin.”
“You actually aren’t,” for the first time in the entire conversation Shirase looks him right in the
eye, his annoying game’s music still playing silently in the background. “Probably you were
blaming yourself and trying to fix what you’d done in the first week after you were accepted back,
but you quickly turned your usual I’m the best mode back on. Now you’re just skimming around as
if nothing happened, expecting Verlaine to adore you just because you exist, while everyone else is
basically breaking themselves apart to get just a tiny ounce of the faith he has in you. And you
don’t even appreciate it enough.”

He sounds almost angry when he breathes out the last words, and Chuuya has never heard Shirase
being angry before. He feels like someone has burnt his face with a scorching pan.

“Are you fucking serious, Shirase?” is the only thing he manages to whisper back.

“I knew people never really changed,” Shirase sighs, putting his phone away. “But you are the
glaring example of a person who also never learns from their mistakes.”

There are numerous thoughts rushing through Chuuya’s head right now, and none of them are
coherent enough to voice out. He feels times more furious than before, embarrassed, confused,
and… exposed. The only thing he hates more than people doubting him is people making him look
vulnerable. So instead of just shutting up and storming out of the room as he usually does at the
end of every fight, he says something he hasn’t really meant to say.

“Maybe it was you, after all,” his gaze is stone cold.

“What?” Shirase’s even colder.

“It was you who fucked up my dough,” Chuuya goes on, completely ignoring the alarm in his head
telling him he’s stepping on thin ice and there’s no way back once he’s there. “You, a hurt little
child, still angry with me for that day you went after me. A pathetic and talentless boy who didn’t
know better than just setting me up in front of Verlaine to defend his miserable self-worth,” the
look in Shirase’s eyes stiffens with every word he says. “I see it clearly now. You envy me so
much it prevents your thick little brain from thinking straight.”

Shirase opens his mouth to say something but in the end, he doesn’t, instead just standing up from
his bed. For a second Chuuya thinks he’s going to slap him, but this never happens. Shirase just
takes his backpack from the floor and walks to the door to grab his winter coat.

“I’ll crash elsewhere for a couple of days,” his quiet and calm voice makes it ten times harder for
Chuuya to withstand than if he were actually shouting and throwing insults at him. “Good night,
Chuuya.”

He gives him one last look before quietly closing the door behind his back, and for a moment,
Chuuya wants to throw something at it. He almost does, grabbing the nearest glass water bottle
from his desk, but stops, just dropping it on the floor instead. It lands with a thud, not breaking,
although Chuuya wishes it did.

He can’t stand the silence he finds himself in.

Chuuya starts to grow rather disapproving of the noise he constantly ends up in when he’s in the
dorm packed with people he’s not really glad to see elsewhere outside of the contest’s kitchen. It’s
late November, and even though some of the contestants he started his competition with are long
gone now, the place still feels unbearably full and clamorous. Tetchou was the first to be sent
away, his trifle turned out a complete disaster, and Chuuya can’t fight his slight gloat every time he
remembers the thing. He still thinks Tetchou is a decent cook, though, if a little unfit for a serious
place like this. Next went Margaret Mitchell; it still comes as a surprise that a usually calm and
collected woman like herself had entirely broken down at the task that involved cooking in
complete darkness. Oguri failed exactly the week after her, having displayed his complete
incompetence at molecular cuisine. The person whose absence Chuuya deplores the most is
Nathaniel, although the man himself declared that he was too much of a geezer to keep hanging out
among youngsters like them anyway. Chuuya’d known he would miss him. Nathaniel was the only
person apart from Ranpo who felt rather close to a friend to him, despite their considerable age gap.
Nathaniel never expected him to go with his head up all the time, somehow reading the moments
when Chuuya was at his worst perfectly. There are days when Chuuya wants to talk to him so
much that he almost dials his number (one of the few he felt like asking for on the first week of the
contest), but he quickly brushes the sentiment off, reminding himself that there’s still a long battle
to fight ahead. He can’t allow himself to get too soft.

It doesn’t quite come as a surprise that Dazai is still here, alive and well, now even more full of
confidence than before. Chuuya knew he would last longer than most of them, he was the one
secretly wishing for that after all (something he still can’t admit fully even to himself). This feeling
comes not from some sort of a personal attachment to him though, Dazai’s just the only person a
bit close to challenging him here, not letting him back down and lose his alert, and Chuuya has
always loved a good challenge. Dazai’s Baked Alaska filled with dried mushrooms was rather a
discovery for the judges, though they didn’t seem too impressed by it in a good way. They’d only
praised Dazai for his creativity (something Chuuya rolled his eyes at) and warned him about
crossing the line between creativity and nonsense (something Chuuya rolled his eyes at the second
time). Dazai actually thanked him after the contest, and it was probably their first conversation that
didn’t result in a fight.

Chuuya still isn’t sure what he thinks of him as a person though. During the month that’s passed,
he hasn’t gotten even an inch closer to knowing him better. He thoroughly searched every source
he could get his hands on, he even tried to carefully bring up the question about Dazai’s past
during some occasional late-night conversations he had with the others in the kitchen or at their
smoking spot, he did basically everything but ask Dazai directly. He won’t give the prick even the
slightest hint at Chuuya being interested in his life as a cook.

Today is November 30th, and for some comic occurrence, Mark Twain and Lucy Montgomery
happened to share a birthday. As soon as it got to Tachihara and Gin, the main ringleaders of every
party they’ve had by now, they decided that they were craving a proper celebration. Chuuya tried
to convince them that it wasn’t quite rational, throwing a party right before the start of the new
working week, but of course, nobody really cared about his opinion on this. The only reason he
came to their living room, having forced himself to put on something more decent instead of his
wrinkled sleepwear and let his hair loose rather than making a bun or a ponytail, was Ranpo. The
poor thing has recently confessed to Chuuya that he was starting to fall in love with Edgar, and
Chuuya didn’t find it in himself to break it to him that Edgar had begun looking head over heels
into him much, much earlier. Let the lovebirds stew in guesswork for some time, it’s too amusing
to watch.

When Chuuya makes it to the living room at half past midnight, he finds Tachihara and Gin
standing at one of their coffee tables, singing along and slow-dancing to some trashy melancholic
song from the speakers. The others cheer at them, waving their beer bottles and clapping their
hands. To his own displeasure, Chuuya quickly locates Dazai and Higuchi sitting on the sofa in the
farthest corner of the room, discussing something and gesturing at each other enthusiastically.
Chuuya frowns and fixes the collar of his loose black shirt, unbuttoning it a bit so he can breathe
better. This place really is a steam room.
“Looking gorgeous as usual!” Ranpo grants him a wide grin the moment Chuuya crashes onto the
floor next to him. He’s been finishing probably the third (as Chuuya can guess) piece of Mark’s
and Lucy’s birthday cake, his lips and cheeks stained with whipped cream like the child’s.

“Fuck off,” Chuuya rolls his eyes and reaches for the fork in his hand to take a bite himself. The
cake tastes very bypassing, probably just the cheapest one they managed to find in the nearest
grocery store. Chuuya grimaces at the oversugared taste but swallows anyway. “Where did you
find this bullshit?”

“Junichiro Tanizaki himself has put his little perfectionist heart into the masterpiece,” Ranpo
declares proudly with the most genuine smile of his. “Tastes godly, right?”

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Chuuya’s frown drops, now replaced with disbelief.

“Yeah, because I am,” Ranpo shrugs and switches to his usual entertained look. Chuuya rolls his
eyes again and punches his shoulder lightly. “Tachihara sneaked away to get it from some local
bakery at the last moment. Had to take a twenty-minute cab ride, so now he thinks of himself as a
hero. Mark and Lucy enjoyed it, though. Or they’re just too polite to offend him.”

“Where’s Edgar?” Chuuya asks casually, changing the subject. He notices Ranpo stiffing slightly.

“In his room, probably,” he shrugs again and turns away to eye the room. “Said that parties
weren’t really his thing.”

“Why don’t you go after him, then?”

“Why would I?” Ranpo looks at him again, clearly frowning now.

“Because,” Chuuya sighs as he straightens his shoulders and raises his head a bit, trying to identify
the song that’s now playing. He mostly does it because he really can’t find much comfort in being
someone’s undeclared matchmaker. He has been a third party in resolving a lot of conflicts and
innuendos in his life, mostly when he was still a chef and frequently needed to reconcile his
subordinates who didn’t get along well, but shoving his head into others’ personal lives isn’t a
thing he enjoys even slightly. He’s too inexperienced in this entire… love thing to be throwing
advice like an expert. Probably sounds a bit pitiful from a man almost in his thirties. “It’s clear as
day that you want to be with him far more than here.”

Unexpectedly, Ranpo backfires, a hint of mischief now shown on his face.

“And who do you want to be with right now?”

“What do you mean?” Chuuya frowns at him, not really liking the direction this conversation leads
in.

“Come on, pal,” it’s Ranpo who’s rolling his eyes now. “You’re probably the only one here who
still hasn’t made out with anyone.”

“We’re not on the fucking matchmaking show,” Chuuya blurts out, surprised that his words are the
exact ones Dazai had said once when Tachihara and Gin were trying to interrogate him on his (still
ongoing, by the way) affair with Higuchi. Then he steadies himself, trying to get into the unserious
flow of their talk, reminding himself not to sound like a complete geezer. “Even if I wanted to
make out with one of you losers, where do you think I could do that? In my own damn bed,
throwing a show for you, pervert?”

Ranpo laughs at that, genuinely, and he seems to look more relaxed now, which Chuuya thinks is a
good sign.

“You know how to pull guys, man,” Chuuya is a bit surprised that Ranpo is aware of his sexuality,
but he reminds himself that being quite a public person in a field like theirs makes it hard to keep
his personal life as private as he wants it to be. Back when he was in his last relationship, it was
quite distressing for him to find out that publicity wanted to know about the famous chefs’ love
affairs no less than the ones of musicians or actors. “I saw that hottie you dated back when you still
worked in France. If he’s as handsome as he comes out in the pictures online, you really did get a
lucky ticket.”

Chuuya grimaces a bit at the mention of his ex-boyfriend, given how unpleasantly and loudly they
broke up. Chuuya almost resorted back to alcohol after that, backing away at the very last moment.
They haven’t talked in years, and he’s not even sure if Raphaël is still alive given how he’d always
managed to exhaust himself with work even more than he did, but honestly, Chuuya wouldn’t
mourn the dickhead much anyway. The wounds of their last fights still feel fresh in his
consciousness from time to time.

“I can’t stand your fucking self-satisfied voice, do you even hear yourself as you speak?”

“Honestly, go fuck your goddamn restaurant if you love it so much.”

“Get out of my apartment, you’re making me sick.”

“Why aren’t you drinking?” Ranpo changes the subject suddenly, somehow feeling that he’s
stepped on dangerous ground.

This one is far more dangerous though, but he’s not aware of that, and this isn’t his fault anyway.

“Not feeling like it,” Chuuya lies easily, years of practice under his belt. Tired of just sitting on the
cold floor, he gets up, intending to distance himself from the noise for some time. He already starts
getting a headache, and the birthdays are nowhere to be seen anyway. It’s just a party with
Tachihara and Gin as its main characters, as per usual. “I’ll go smoke and then pour us some
lemonade in the kitchen, alright?”

Ranpo just nods, letting him go and reaching for another piece of that disgusting cake instead.

Outside, it’s colder than Chuuya expected. He takes a short walk around, relieved to finally be
alone with his thoughts again, although they’re not at their best at the moment. He’s watching the
clear starlit sky far above his head and wonders what Verlaine would think if he saw how far he’s
already gotten. Last year was a nightmare for Chuuya, he’s not sure he’ll be able to bring it up in a
conversation with someone ever in his life. Verlaine was the only person who truly helped him get
through that pile of inexhaustible shit. If not for him, Chuuya would’ve been buried six feet under
for a long time now.

He finally reaches for a pack of cigarettes in his pocket when someone’s quiet steps make him look
up.

“Won’t your tiny body freeze to death in such light clothes, carrot head?” Dazai approaches him
from behind and stands right next to him, shoving his hands in the pockets of his unbuttoned coat.

“What do you want?” Chuuya frowns at him, hoping that his displeasure is clear in his voice.

“Noticed you leaving the room without even greeting anyone,” Dazai shrugs, his tone surprisingly
serious. “Looked rather rude.”
 “Why in the world would I need to greet the people I come across every fucking day?” Chuuya
rolls his eyes, resuming his attempts to take out a cigarette with trembling hands. Shit, he is cold,
actually. “Do you have a lighter?” He asks, a bit annoyed that he’s left his own in the room.

“Sure,” Dazai hums casually and reaches into his pocket.

He takes out a cigarette himself, holding it with his teeth as he searches both of the coat pockets for
a lighter. He does everything annoyingly slowly as if he actually gets pleasure in making Chuuya
wait longer than he’s used to, an unlit cigarette hanging from his trembling lips. Chuuya just rolls
his eyes at that and looks away, not sparing the prick the pleasure of watching his discomfort.
Finally, he hears the click of a lighter and glances at Dazai lighting his own cigarette. Right after
that, he reaches to light Chuuya’s instead of just handing the lighter to him as a normal fucking
person would do. Chuuya totally fails to hide the second of stupefaction he goes through as Dazai
takes a step closer to him, but his numbness seems to go unnoticed.

After the first puffs of their cigarettes, Dazai takes a deep breath and glances at him for a moment.

“Mind if we take a walk?”

Chapter End Notes

you can find me on twitter: @acuteguwu

 Apotropos
Chapter Notes

skk's dynamic starts to progress step by step and we're here for it
next chapter will include: THAT contest and a bunch of personal revelations

thank you for being here and making my heart clench happily at every single
comment of yours
please keep doing that

See the end of the chapter for more notes

Spending hours and days in classrooms and lecture rooms happens to be more soothing than ever
now that Chuuya is entirely on his own. Shirase has moved from their room not long after their
very last fight, taking a free bed two floors above, after the guy who lived there had been expelled
for constant academic infractions. It’s funny how two people still living in the same building and
attending the same classes almost every day can come across each other this rarely. Chuuya almost
forgets Shirase’s face. Forgets how his voice sounds when he laughs. Forgets that they’d ever been
friends in the first place.

Now he’s officially more alone than he’s ever been in his life. More alone than he’s ever
confessed to himself he felt. A single good thing about it is probably the fact that the other bed in
his room is never taken by anyone else. He can do basically anything he wants, throwing his stuff
around and forgetting dozens of dirty tea mugs and coffee cups on his desk and on the floor, not
anticipating Shirase being a grumpy snob about it anymore. It’s freedom, despite not overflowing
the thin walls of his dorm room, but Chuuya has always thought he craved freedom more than
anything else in his life. He doesn’t feel free now, though. As much as he hates this simple fact for
being true, he feels lonely.

“Is it possible to replace a folding tool with a whisk for the madeleines dough?” He asks, lying on
his room floor, his hair still wet after the late-night shower, his fingers interlocked on his stomach,
his breathing too loud for the place.

He takes a deep sigh and squeezes his eyes shut for a second before opening them again.

“No, unless your hands are made of steel,” he answers himself, trying to picture how Shirase’s
quiet, sheer laugh would sound right now. “The ingredients are too heavy to be mixed with a
whisk, the texture won’t come out airy enough.”

With another sigh, he turns to his side, now facing the wall and using his hands as a pillow.

“What about adding fennel to a savory brioche?”

Yuan comes over to see him another day. Even though they’re not even a bit close as they could’ve
been as acquaintances, it feels nice knowing that someone here still cares about him as a person.
They eat takeaway noodles from a cheap Chinese diner around the corner which Chuuya frequents
when he’s too exhausted to cook something himself. The possibility of bumping into someone he
doesn’t really feel like seeing is another reason why he isn’t going to poke his nose into the dorm’s
kitchen ever again.
“So, you really don’t talk to Shirase anymore?” Yuan starts casually but there’s a hint of caution
running through her voice.

“No,” Chuuya says dryly, chewing on his noodles.

“Like, ever?” She sounds a bit bitter now, and Chuuya just wonders what she has to do with
everything that happened only between him and Shirase and hasn’t even crossed the walls of this
very room. Yuan sighs, schooling her expression into something that looks like disappointment. “I
think he did the right thing, after all. But you clearly weren’t appreciative of his choice as much as
I believed you’d be.”

Chuuya barely makes himself swallow down, putting his carton box aside.

“What the hell are you talking about?” He asks, slowly, his voice giving out his wariness
betrayingly.

“Well, the thing with Verlaine accepting you for a retake,” Yuan’s stopped eating too, watching
him with a clear frown all over her face. “It was Shirase’s doing all along.”

Oh, god, Chuuya thinks to himself. How couldn’t he figure it out himself? Verlaine has never been
the one to toss around second chances to people who’ve betrayed his faith in them. Even though
Chuuya’s antic clearly wasn’t the peak of the terrible, he hadn’t done anything to even deserve the
chef’s approval before shattering it into pieces and stomping on it with his own feet. He hadn’t
been in a position to be careless. And even with all the kind words Verlaine said to him back in his
office, Chuuya had set his hopes rather high. Clearly, he wouldn’t have gotten that without
someone else’s intervention. He was (and probably still is) too mediocre for this anyway. But the
thought that it was Shirase who asked for him makes something clench in his chest. Two
completely parallel thoughts and feelings are now rushing through him. The first one is, if he’s
really so incapable of defending the position he believes he deserves himself, why should he stay
here and keep trying so hard? And the second is (far, far bitterer), he’ll never be able to make up
for it to Shirase, he won’t probably even glance at him and he’s got a full right to.

“Chuuya?” Yuan’s soft voice drags him out of this miserable moment of self-sabotage. “Did you
really not know about it?”

“No,” he forces himself to mutter back, not looking at her. “I was so into believing that he hated
me that I didn’t even give it a second thought.”

“Well,” Yuan takes a deep breath. “That’s… shitty,” Chuuya snorts. Ah, for the lack of a better
word, it is indeed. “But you can still try and make amends with him, can’t you? I’m sure he’ll
understand.”

“I basically called him pathetic and talentless right into his face,” Chuuya doesn’t resist the urge to
smirk, but it’s not even merely close to being cheerful. “Were I him, I’d probably just spit myself in
the face. If anything, I deserve it more than anyone now.”

Yuan is silent for a long minute, her gaze focused somewhere on the floor.

“I don’t know whether someone told you this before,” she clears her throat. “But you are very, very
hard on yourself sometimes.”

Now you’re just skimming around as if nothing happened, expecting Verlaine to adore you just
because you exist, while everyone else is basically breaking themselves apart to get just a tiny
ounce of the faith he has in you. And you don’t even appreciate it enough.
“Apparently not hard enough,” he shrugs. “If I weren’t taking everything I have for granted, I’d
have gone much, much further by now.”

“That’s a tendency of taking anything good for granted circulating among people who’d never
been noticed enough in the past,” says Yuan, her voice quiet but unexpectedly serious. Chuuya
suddenly feels like she’s at least ten years older than him, although they’re still the same age. “And
you’re not the one to blame for that. Just… try to stop fucking up at some point in your life before
you lose everything you have got, alright?”

“Try to stop fucking up,” Chuuya repeats her words slowly, letting them linger on his lips for some
time with a weak smile. “Now it feels like Shirase talked you into having this conversation with
me.”

“You know he really didn’t,” Yuan frowns at him again. “And by the way, he’s still mad as fuck at
you, although his pride is preventing him from making it too obvious.”

“That’s the Shirase I know,” Chuuya’s smile is far more genuine now, although this terrible
afterfeeling of his other mistake hasn’t evaporated completely. But if Shirase’s mad at him, it
means that he at least still cares about him, right? Chuuya sighs and sits more comfortably on the
bed, leaning his back against the wall and hugging his knees. “Can I ask you something?”

“Only if that’s not Shirase-related,” Yuan rolls her eyes, although she doesn’t sound as annoyed as
she’s trying to. “I won’t stand another second of your whining.”

Chuuya would’ve laughed at that if he weren’t trying to word what he was going to say with such
caution. The rope he’s walking on is too thin and shaky under his feet, he doesn’t want to stumble
and fall.

“Have you ever been in love?” He finally snaps, afraid of the long silence that follows.

“Oh, please,” Yuan sighs almost dramatically. “If you’ve just realized that you might like him
back, this definitely won’t work. The asshole is happier than ever with that boy toy he pulled.”

“No, no, that’s not it,” Chuuya is quick to reassure her, although he won’t hide he’s a bit curious
about what may stand behind the boy toy thing. “It’s just… It feels like everyone my age suddenly
went mad. Everywhere I go, they’re holding hands, kissing, doing all this… sugary stuff I’m
fucking sick of,” he sighs, trying to ignore the genuine laugh Yuan lets out at that. “And I’m just
trying to understand what the fuck is wrong with me. I can’t recall the last time I looked at someone
experiencing anything apart from purely professional interest, probably it never happened,” he
finally dares to look at her, her expression neutral as she listens to his rant. “Am I weird if I only
want to excel at my thing?”

Yuan looks away for a moment and sighs, thinking something over.

“Okay, first of all, there’s nothing wrong with you, Chuuya,” she answers at last. “You’re only
eighteen, so am I, and believe me, there’s a bunch of people our age who haven’t ever gone
through a single romantic experience in their life. And they’re totally okay with that, so I clearly
can’t get why you worry about it so much,” she moves a bit closer to him so their shoulders brush
together. Chuuya almost smiles at that, finding the gesture somewhat soothing. “If you want to
become the best fucking chef in the world, then get your ass up and do it. Such dedication to one’s
craft is a much rarer trait to find in a person our age,” she shrugs and takes another second before
speaking again. “And you will fall in love, Chuuya. One day, you will. There must be a freak
somewhere in this world who will be able to stand your whiny ass.”
At this, Chuuya can’t help laughing out loud. He hasn’t just laughed with someone for a long time
now, and it feels like a form of treatment he truly needed. The constant rush of thoughts in his head
is finally quieter now, and he takes a moment to just hang onto the feeling for as long as he can,
such ease tends to be very bypassing.

“Now I probably should go get some sleep,” Yuan sighs and gets up from the bed. She makes her
way to the door, turning to look at him once more, the familiarity of the feeling almost too crushing
for Chuuya to withstand, but he keeps looking at her back anyway. “Thanks for the dinner.
Although I’ve made a side note not to poke my nose into the shithole you’ve got it from ever in my
life.”

Chuuya can’t hold back another smile. Turns out Yuan is even more of a snob when it comes to
food than him, though Chuuya had never thought it possible.

“Good night,” he simply says, watching her close the door behind her back lightly.

He probably needs to sleep too now. He still has a whole goddamn feud to resolve tomorrow.

Chuuya doesn’t know why exactly he accepts Dazai’s proposal, but after such a long time of being
stuck in their camp and revising the recipes he’s known by heart since he was eighteen going just
anywhere sounds like a dream. It’s not that they’re prisoners here, everyone gets a lot of time to get
out to the city and just roam around: Tanizaki usually brings Ranpo and Edgar with him to explore
local pastries and keeping a strict rank of them, constantly arguing about which one serves the best
Sachertorte; Atsushi and Lucy are raiding the bookshops for all the new cookbooks they still
haven’t got their hands on; Louisa and Mark take regular walks in the park, always bringing the
bread leftovers from another contest to feed the ducks in the pond, and Tachihara and Gin are
desperately trying to drag Akutagawa into their little league to inspect all local flea markets. It
came rather as a surprise when Chuuya found out that Gin and Ryunosuke were siblings, they’d
never acted too nice around each other for it to be evident, despite their mere outer resemblance.

Still, Chuuya has never been quite on good terms with being a part of friend groups, let alone
creating them. It seems like everyone in this place has got someone to hang out with. Twain is too
respectful of Louisa’s discreteness to let a third party disrupt a little world they’ve created for the
two of them, Tachihara and Gin are too obsessed with each other to even notice somebody else
most of the time, Dazai still has Higuchi who he’s probably been taking out on dates, given how
they’re constantly absent from the dorm in the evenings; even Ranpo has Edgar to spend all of his
free time with now. And what’s that leaves Chuuya with? It’s almost like he’s a lonely and
pathetic eighteen-year-old boy again, although he’s never admitted that his insecurities about being
unable to make friends haven’t vanished after all these years.

He tells Dazai that he has to grab his coat from the room first.

“No problem,” he says as he lights another cigarette after his previous one has died. “I’ll wait for
you here.”

Luckily, Chuuya doesn’t bump into anyone back in the dorm, although he’s slightly concerned
about Ranpo not chasing after him all over the place. Probably he’s taken his advice to go spend
some time with Edgar after all, and Chuuya thinks of it as the best-case scenario. When he returns,
putting his coat on as he walks, they just escape the camp like two getaways, not headed anywhere
in particular. The deserted pavement that leads the way from the suburbs to the city is hilly from
time to time, and they pass by occasional small diners and gas stations beaming glaringly with
colored signs. At first, Chuuya can’t hide the fact that he’s curious about what is that Dazai wants
to talk to him about, but eventually, it happens that there’s no predefined topic and they have to
make it up on the go. Or they can just keep walking in silence, for some weird reason Chuuya
doesn’t find it even slightly uncomfortable. He just wonders why Dazai didn’t ask Higuchi to go
with him instead, apparently, she’d make a far better listener, given how close the two seem.

“I used to just wander around all by myself a lot when I was younger,” Dazai says suddenly,
almost making Chuuya flinch at the unexpected sound of his voice. “Back then there was no better
place to be than my own head,” he hides his hands in his pockets with a sigh, his steps slow but
determined. “However, your head tends to get more and more stuffed with rather disturbing things
as you grow older, so eventually I had to escape that habit of mine,” he glances at Chuuya for a
second, probably expecting to find some sort of understanding in his look, but Chuuya keeps his
expression neutral, struggling to catch up with his wide steps as he listens. “Clearing my head by
replacing my thoughts with the ones of others also didn’t help much,” Dazai resumes then. “And so
I tried to pick on something that could help me release them.”

“And that’s why you’re here?” Chuuya mutters, trying to also pick up the flow of his thoughts. It
happens to be easier than he imagined.

“That’s why I’m where?” Dazai raises his eyebrows for a second.

“In culinary,” Chuuya explains, letting out a bit of an irritated sigh.

“Ah, no, not exactly,” Dazai smiles as if it wasn’t even an option. “I have never wanted to do that
anyway.”

This almost makes Chuuya stumble upon his own feet.

“Then what the hell are you doing in this contest?” He scowls, not trying to hide his disapproval
this time. It’s hardly can be put together in his head that an (apparently) experienced chef
(especially the one he’s talking to) can have no intentions of winning. Since Chuuya even started to
try himself in the craft, breaking through any minor possibility to demonstrate his skills in front of
the people who could’ve assessed them soberly, he has grabbed every opportunity to show up.
Starting from small gigs on local teenage contests when he was still in school (he’d actually won a
couple of them, being sent to the short-term minor practices and masterclasses overseas) and
publishing his authentic recipes on various cooking websites ( “Haute cuisine for housewives” was
one of his most-hated sections), and ending with applying here, he had a single thought in mind, I
want to become famous. Last year shattered his ambitions into small pieces, but now he's back on
track, more determined than ever. “Clearly you’ve made yourself a reputation of a pretty face who
doesn’t even need to work hard to get anything he wants,” Chuuya’s not even trying not to sound
annoyed this time. “But we are doing a serious job in this place. If you’ve come here just for your
shitty experiments, this won’t work.” What was he even thinking last Wednesday, putting gelatin
instead of agar into the mango spheres?

As the street takes another smooth turn and now they’re walking past small local industrial
buildings that smell of petrol and rubber, Dazai sighs.

“I’ll be honest with you, carrot head,” he says. “I don’t like you. I don’t have the slightest idea of
what happened to you in the past that made you reject the silver platter you had practically shoved
in your face, but I’ve never been in the habit of singling people out, even those who've actually
achieved something praiseworthy. Sentimental as it may sound, I think everyone should be equal
regardless of their background. So I rather can’t be quite fond of a person who’s practically
screaming into his coworkers’ faces that he’s superior to them.”

There are millions of possible responses and attitudes to his words rushing through Chuuya’s mind
at once, but he decides on the most self-protective one he can think of.
“And why exactly should I care how you feel about me?” He puts on a frown.

“You shouldn’t,” Dazai shrugs, not even looking at him this time. “But I’m not here because of my
personal interests, I just want everyone to feel equally capable of doing something worthwhile in
their lives. I can’t let another person give up and quit just because they didn’t achieve something as
great as you did. Doing it together and helping each other, isn’t it what our craft is about, after all?”

Now Chuuya is even more confused than he was before. It’s clear that Dazai actually has a
purpose for being here, but it’s so different from Chuuya’s that he struggles not to frown in
response. If a month ago someone told him that his and Dazai’s approaches to cooking were alike,
Chuuya would’ve probably punched this person in the face. But now, with more than ten joint
contests and challenges behind them, he can’t deny that most of the time they’re actually thinking
the same. Needless to say how furious this thought makes Chuuya, he’s felt like shattering dishes
in the kitchen more often in this past month than he had in his entire career, sometimes working
side by side with even more narcissistic pricks than Dazai.

“So you’re Mother Teresa resurrected, I see,” he sighs at last. “No wonder why Fukuzawa loves
you so much.”

“Bet you’re dying to know how I happened to know Yukichi in person,” Dazai smiles, picking on
his last words without giving a second thought to the first.

“No, I am not,” Chuuya contradicts rather hastily, not being capable of hiding that he’s grown
more alert to what Dazai has to say.

“He was my legal guardian,” Dazai says so easily as if he’s just reciting a good old joke. Chuuya
can’t help but stare at him this time, bewildered. “It was a long time ago, though. Eventually, I’d
come to a realization that I didn’t really want to have someone like him as my… father, and so I
broke the thing myself when I came of age. Don’t get me wrong, Fukuzawa is a good man, I
wouldn’t have been who I am now without his help. But he’s really bad at pretending to be
someone he’s not cut out for being.”

Chuuya needs to swallow the dryness in his throat before putting on one of his casual indifferent
acts.

“And why exactly are you telling me this, of all people?” It isn’t that he doesn’t appreciate it
though, he just can’t grasp Dazai’s true intentions. With all the emptiness Chuuya has bumped
across over and over again while naively trying to Google his name for the umpteenth time, with
staring at Dazai every single day from across the kitchen and being faced back by a blank-covered
book, with all the sleepless nights he spent past months trying to stomach the fact that the only
person actually capable of beating him at cooking (he still can’t believe he started to succumb to
this simple truth at last) is the one Chuuya doesn’t know a single true thing about, except maybe
for his name, with all the effort he’s put in trying to know him at least a bit better he’s now
dumbstruck at the fact that the only thing he had to do was ask. And he didn’t even ask in the first
place. Dazai had just told him something this personal himself.

“Because you wanted to know,” Dazai grants him a short smile, and it’s devastating how he knows
he’s right.

“Is this even allowed by the rules of the contest?” Chuuya changes the topic first, frowning again.
“Isn’t Fukuzawa supposed to be biased towards your participation?”

“He might be,” Dazai shrugs. “But they still accepted me when I applied, even though I’m sure
Akiko and Sakaguchi were well aware of the entire thing and didn’t approve of it much.”
“So,” Chuuya resumes after they just walk for some time in complete silence. “You two don’t
speak anymore outside of the… contest-related stuff?”

“Nah,” Dazai grimaces at that slightly but then schools his expression into the more serious one.
“Though I’m sure he still cares about me a lot. I would be more surprised if he weren’t, that
grumpy geezer had practically raised me.”

Now that Chuuya has even more food for thought than before, he doesn’t notice how far they’ve
actually walked from the camp. Neither of them is familiar with the area, being used to driving to
the camp and forth, but Dazai looks so confident just crossing the empty roads and looking at the
sky more than at their surroundings, that Chuuya just falls in step with him, trying to convince
himself that they won’t get lost. When he looks at the time, noticing that it’s already past two in the
morning, an unpleasant memory from the past forces him to stop abruptly.

“Is something wrong?” Dazai turns to look at him.

“We should come back,” Chuuya says, as a matter of fact, nodding at the road they took to get so
far behind his back. “The next contest starts today at ten.”

Dazai just nods in response.

“Sure,” he says without making a step towards him. “You go, I’ll stay to roam around for some
time, try to re-adopt old habits and stuff.”

Chuuya is sure that his frown is written all over his face.

“Why would you do this in a place like this?” He asks. “We’re in a suburbian shithole without a
soul around. What if someone tries to rob you?”

“There’s nothing to steal from me anyway,” Dazai smiles and turns out both of his coat pockets in
proof. “And even if they try, you don’t wanna know what will happen.”

Chuuya fights the urge to roll his eyes at this.

“Okay, whatever, just get into some street brawl and die,” he says and turns to go away.

He stops when Dazai calls his name, not offended by his words at all.

“Can you tell Higuchi not to worry about me when you’re back?”

“You wish,” he scoffs. “I’m not talking to your girlfriend for you, asshole.”

Dazai doesn’t regret telling Chuuya a bit about his past. If anything, he needed to break it in front
of a person who could understand his intentions back then. Chuuya himself has never been
discretive about his family in the media, apart from the past year when he disappeared so suddenly
that everyone actually believed he was dead. When he came back, so unexpectedly and here, in
Japan, of all places, Dazai couldn’t fight back his own surprise. Seeing him there, the day of the
audition, in a room packed with people, noticing his fiery hair and detached stance, Dazai grew
even more curious than before. He’d known Chuuya’s public image well enough not to expect him
to waste his time on such mediocrity. For people like Louisa or Twain, this contest was an
opportunity to get back on track in the craft they loved more than anything else. For Dazai, it was
rather a gospel. But what was in it for someone like Chuuya? Having a fulfilled dream, Paul
Verlaine himself mentoring him since the first year of academy studies, a prestigious job in one of
the culinary capitals of the world, he’d traded all of this to go back home and start from scratch.
He’s anything but stupid, he knows that this won’t work out even if he wins. His name will
probably re-appear in the media for some time, he’ll get a bunch of interviews with people eager to
know more about who he’s sleeping with rather than his culinary career, and then he’ll just rot in
some local restaurant, even if he decides to open his own one, till the rest of his life. The picture is
almost pathetic in his head.

Nonetheless, deep in his consciousness, Dazai’s glad that from all places he could’ve gone to,
Chuuya chose this. There’s something encouraging in competing against him, seeing the shiny
gold crown on his head tilt a bit with every critical remark he gets from the judges, with every time
he relaxes a little and has to watch someone else surpass him. If Chuuya thinks he’s got nothing left
to learn, he’s wrong. But his glaring self-confidence forces Dazai to work even harder so that his
dishes always have something that Chuuya’s lack.

The weekend after the first black apron contest, Fukuzawa asks to meet him in the pavilion. He’s a
bit surprised by the sudden invitation but he goes anyway, sitting down on one of the couches in
the judges’ breakroom, watching Fukuzawa stirring the tea in his mug with a spoon. It’s a bit weird
seeing him like this, as his superlative, his gaze still calm and assessing on Dazai even when he’s
not taking part in a contest.

“How are you doing, Dazai?” Fukuzawa finally breaks the silence. “I hope that yesterday had
something to teach you.”

It was rather foolish of him to try and perfect that goddamn sweet risotto, given that mixing
pastries and savory dishes together has always been his Achilles’ heel. If not for Chuuya’s advice,
he probably wouldn’t be talking to Fukuzawa right now.

“I’m fine, chef,” he’s not lying. “I’ll try not to make another pumpkin soup.”

Fukuzawa lets out a reserved smile at the reminder of their old local joke. Back when Dazai was
being homeschooled and learned to master haute cuisine recipes at home, he accidentally
overheated the honey for a pumpkin soup, almost turning it into caramel. Since then, pumpkin
soup has become a name for every single failed dish of his. Dazai won’t lie, the memory still
brings out rather warm memories of the days he had before dropping cooking for good.

“I’m glad you decided to come back after all,” Fukuzawa sighs, looking down at his tea. “That
office clerk position wasn’t for you anyway.”

Dazai still doesn’t think of his previous job as a mistake, although he’s not going to say it out loud.
He believes that cooking is a lot like bicycle riding. Or kissing. Even if you drop it for a long time
and don’t recall that such a thing exists even for once in the meantime, your body remembers
everything as soon as you get your hands back on the workplace. Fukuzawa, however, has always
treated culinary like language learning of sorts. If you don’t practice all the time, eventually, you
have to start from scratch, he said back when he still was a primary witness of Dazai’s neverending
pumpkin soups.

“I don’t regret taking a break,” he hums, remembering that Fukuzawa’s still not aware of his true
intentions. If he was, he’d probably be personally offended. “Now I have even more ideas than
before.”

At this, Fukuzawa only nods and suddenly changes the topic.

“What do you think about your competitors?” Now he sounds more like a father, and this almost
makes Dazai scowl. “Have you made friends with anyone?”
“I’m twenty-seven, chef, not fifteen,” he smirks. “I don’t need other people to achieve something in
life anymore.”

Fukuzawa hums in response.

“There’s no expiration date on this,” he remarks. “And I wouldn’t want you to become everyone’s
rival and a local outcast just because you might be surpassing some of the other contestants in
skills.”

“Not so professional coming from you,” Dazai scoffs, crossing his arms in front of himself.

“I’m not saying this as a judge now, Dazai,” Fukuzawa looks back at him, but there’s no warmth in
his eyes or in his voice. He sounds rather matter-of-factly.

Evidently, some of our past connections are never erased from our lives even if we break them
intentionally.

“If you want to do me a favor,” Dazai sighs and stands up, not really willing to waste his time on
pointless sentiments from a person who decided to start caring about him ten years after it’d ceased
to be relevant. “Treat me like every other person here. And promise to kick me out as soon as you
know it’s time.”

Fukuzawa is silent for so long that Dazai almost forgets it, already opening the door to get out
when he finally answers.

“Don’t let your selflessness become a weakness,” he says. “If you promise this, I’ll promise the
thing you ask me for.”

Dazai doesn’t hold back a smirk. Apparently, even the person he’s known for the longest in his life
is not aware of his true persona whatsoever. He doesn’t say another word and just walks out of the
room, making sure to slam the door close a bit louder than when he came in.

Dazai’s last conversation with Fukuzawa backfires almost a month after.

It’s another Monday, and they stand in the kitchen, waiting for the contest rules to be announced.
There’s a weird wooden box standing on one of the counters, and Dazai already has a bad feeling
about this. Higuchi is clinging to him as usual, and it’s not annoying even in the slightest, he
actually enjoys her company more than anyone else’s. She’s very smart and Dazai genuinely has
no idea how her head hasn’t exploded yet from the number of ideas it’s generating on a regular
basis. He never gets tired of talking to her, but with the amount of time they spend together
discussing the recipes they now have at work or the latest innovations of the world Michelin
restaurants, it’s not at all surprising that everyone else thinks they’re actually dating. Dazai doesn’t
deny it publicly, instead just silently hoping that Higuchi doesn’t think of it as something it isn’t.
Chuuya is here, too, chatting about something with Ranpo, although he was a bit late again,
probably taking more time for a morning shower, given that his hair’s still visibly damp.

“How are you feeling today, sixteen best cooks in Japan?” Yosano greets them with a reserved
smile when the judges finally show up in the kitchen. Dazai scowls a bit at unnecessary courtesies
but nods to her anyway as soon as her gaze lands on him. Yosano quickly looks away though, and
it makes Dazai remember that she actually hasn’t announced the rules even once in the past two
weeks. If Fukuzawa has assigned her for this today, then the task is probably something he really
doesn’t want to voice himself. Dazai hums, crossing his arms. “Today is your first pair
competition, and we’ve tried hard to make it as challenging and obstructive for you as possible.”
 Someone actually laughs at this, but the laughter comes out rather nervous. Dazai doesn’t react,
only frowning a bit.

“The pairs are already set up,” picks up Ango, taking an envelope from the inner pocket of his
blazer. “We decided to pair up the contestants whose cooking approaches contradicted each other
the most.”

“Chef?” Dazai almost flinches when he hears Chuuya’s voice. He’s never asked the judges any
questions before. “Could you explain what were the criteria for your choice?”

“That’s a good question, Chuuya,” surprisingly, Fukuzawa cuts in. “We made up the pairs based on
our observations during the past month solely. So you can be sure that nobody will end up helping
each other much,” at this joke, nobody laughs anymore. Dazai can guess that most of them secretly
hoped to be paired up with someone who wouldn’t put spokes in their wheels during the contest.
However, friendship is not a priority when it comes to winning in a place like this. If anything, it’s
more of a hindrance. “Before we announce the rules, please take a look at that wooden box behind
you. Dazai,” there are only so many flinches he can take today hearing his name called out of the
blue. “Would you do us a favor and check what’s inside first?”

“Sure thing, chef,” Dazai nods casually and walks to the counter, curious gazes following him all
the way long. When he opens the box, he doesn’t know how to react at first. Inside, there are eight
satin ribbons, a bit longer than the ones they had to use for that blindfolded black apron contest two
weeks ago. Dazai was an observer then but even he had fun, along with a fair share of anxiety
towards Kunikida’s participation. Now that’s interesting, he thinks, having no idea what the judges
could possibly get in mind for today.

“What are your guesses?” He hears Fukuzawa’s light voice behind his back.

“You are going to tie each pair together?” Dazai smirks, voicing the very first thought that comes
into his head at this. He turns back to others, seeing surprise, anticipation, and even sheer
disapproval on their faces. The most entertaining expression is Chuuya’s though, he looks like
someone has poured an entire bucket of icy water on him. Dazai looks at him and doesn’t fight
another smirk. It’s clear as day that they are going to be in this together. There’s no other outright
and sheer rivalry in this contest except for theirs. Everyone else always turns stiffer as soon as
there’s a tiny possibility of their paths crossing. Having been on the same team not once, they
ended up almost on the brink of ruining the contest for everyone else every single time.

“Exactly,” Fukuzawa nods, confirming his guess and everyone else’s fears. “Your hands will be
tied together by your wrists the entire time.”

“But that’s not all,” Yosano adds then as if it could’ve been this simple in the first place. “Each
pair will be cooking two completely opposite dishes, with different ingredients and processes. Your
task is not only to perfect your own dish but also to cooperate along the way and help another
person not to fail. This goes vice versa. If we see anyone bickering or spoiling the other’s dish on
purpose, this pair will be banned from the contest.”

Dazai takes one of the ribbons out of the box, running his fingertips over the soft fabric.

“So,” Fukuzawa breaks the tense silence in the room. “Let’s take a look at today’s pairs, shall we?”

Chapter End Notes

you can find me on twitter: @ acuteguwu
 Mackerel
Chapter Notes

I have NO idea how these fancy expensive ovens actually work (I'm still mid af at
pastry)
but enjoy ig? thank you for the comments!

See the end of the chapter for more notes

Chuuya looks at where their wrists are tied together tightly with a soft ribbon and holds back a
frown.

Even though he woke up in a quite calm mood today, now it’s completely ruined. While they’re
waiting for the judges to help other pairs tie their hands together, Dazai is constantly moving his
left arm, fixing the collar of his shirt or scratching his neck, dragging Chuuya’s right hand along.
He doesn’t know the exact length of the ribbon, but it doesn’t matter as soon as it’s not long
enough to give him enough personal space. He feels almost humiliated like this, shuddering every
time the back of their hands are brushing against each other accidentally, Dazai’s warm skin to his
cold.

“Can you please just stop tugging my hand every fucking minute?” He snaps, looking up to meet
Dazai’s clearly entertained gaze.

“It’s not my fault your hand’s a bit lower than mine,” he hums, hinting at their height difference,
and Chuuya tries with all his might not to just gnaw through the ribbon with his own teeth.

Yes, this is gonna be a long goddamn day.

Chuuya tries to distract himself from the thought that he’ll have to put up with being tied to Dazai
for the next two hours and looks around to find Ranpo. Their gazes meet almost instantly, and he
has to hold back laughter when he finds out that his friend was paired up with Akutagawa
Ryunosuke. He stands next to Ranpo like some sort of a robot, his gaze blank and emotionless, the
hand that’s not tied with Ranpo’s hidden in his pocket. Ranpo glances at Dazai and then returns his
clearly sympathetic look back at Chuuya, mouthing something in his support but Chuuya has
always rather sucked at lip-reading. He eyes the room once more, and some particularly hilarious-
looking pairs catch his attention: Kunikida and Kenji, Tachihara and Tanizaki, Lucy and Gin…
yeah, the judges have clearly put enough thought into making this as messy as possible. It will be a
miracle if they walk out of this kitchen without actual human casualties today.

“Let’s take the front workplace,” Chuuya sighs and already walks to the chosen spot when Dazai
drags him back so suddenly that he almost stumbles upon his own feet. “What the fuck?”

“I feel more comfortable working in the back row,” Dazai hums. “I know you’re used to being in
the spotlight, carrot head, but it’s actually much less distracting.”

Chuuya takes a deep breath before he can even start fighting him this time, reminding himself
what’s at stake. Dazai can keep trying to piss him off all he wants, but Chuuya will calm down and
try to compromise, whatever it takes. He’s not going to be put to shame again, not like this. He will
prove to the judges and everyone else that it’s been Dazai himself who caused all the
inconvenience this entire time.

“Fine,” he sighs and gestures at the workplaces, this time not taking a step until Dazai agrees.
“We’ll go for the middle one.”

“It’s unwise, we’ll basically be surrounded by- Ouch!” Dazai tries to contradict again but Chuuya
cuts him off abruptly and uses all his strength to drag him to the chosen workplace. When they
stop in front of the counters, Chuuya notices two signed cards, his and Dazai’s names penned in
black ink and neat handwriting. “That’s what happens when you let your dog get off the leash.”

“Shut up and tell me what you got,” Chuuya frowns, already reading his own dish name off the
card. Lemon and lavender tart. At least he won’t have to tinker with too meticulous and draining
processes like pulling the fish from the bone or mixing the custard.

Dazai takes his own card and smiles almost cheerfully as he reads the name. Chuuya tries to tiptoe
and at least peep at it, but Dazai hides the card in his pocket before he even gets a chance to
glance.

“It’s fish,” he finally replies, not looking back at Chuuya’s clearly disgusted face. “Baked mackerel
fillets.”

When the judges already leave for their breakroom and all other pairs take the remaining
workplaces, their time starts to count down. Chuuya has got a clear algorithm in his head, he knows
everything he needs to do ingredient by ingredient, process by process. It’s no use for him to waste
time writing everything down and planning in advance when he can just start working right away
and perfect his dessert as he usually does. He starts walking towards the storage room, determined
to grab everything he needs before there’s nothing left (some contestants tend to be anxious about
running out of ingredients all the time), but he’s stopped once again, this time caught by the wrist.
Dazai doesn’t let go of him even when Chuuya turns to flash him the most menacing gaze of his.

“What now?”

“We need to agree on our tactic,” Dazai says, releasing his arm and reaching for the notebook in
his pocket. “We’ll both have to use the oven at some point, and I don’t want to get my face
smashed because of this.”

“I’m not going to smash your face for such nonsense,” Chuuya sighs but stands still anyway,
watching as Dazai starts scribbling his own recipe by heart, occasionally crossing out some of the
lines and rewriting them again. Then he splits the page into two sections and puts down Chuuya’s
recipe as well, drawing some arrows back and forth and encircling the steps that may align or take
approximately the same amount of time. He’s doing it so fast that Chuuya even forgets to comment
on how awful his handwriting actually is (although it’s actually not, he just doesn’t have any other
fault to find in mind). Instead, he just frowns. “When did you see what I’m cooking?”

“It’s not so hard looking over your shoulder, carrot head,” Dazai hums and finishes the last line
before moving the notebook on the counter for him to see. Chuuya takes it into his free hand and
studies both of the recipes carefully, moving between the sections and comparing the processes that
they can complete without disturbing each other. He hates to admit that Dazai’s plan may actually
work much better than the improvisation he was opting for. Dazai takes a step closer to him and
points at one of the sections underlined boldly. “The only possible inconvenience is that you’ll
have to preheat the oven to 200°C, and my dish requires only 180°C. But given that the tart
actually takes much more time, I think I could bake the fish first and then just heat it up a bit for
you.”
Chuuya raises his eyebrow, handing the notebook back to him.

“There’s no way I’m gonna wait for your sluggish ass to finish first, given how much you like to
fuck up the simplest processes,” he says, well aware that he sets himself up for another possible
fight. The others are already back from the storage room, sorting out the ingredients on the
counters and picking the ones they’ll need for the first steps. Clearly, not all of them are content
with the current state of events, Chuuya can clearly see the slight irritation written all over
Tanizaki’s face while he’s waiting for Tachihara to finish chopping the onions and let him move to
the sink, but he’s too polite to voice his annoyance out. Most of them, however, are doing
everything in step, and Chuuya’s surprised to see Akutagawa actually waiting while Ranpo
struggles with whisking the egg yolks in a bowl.

He anticipates Dazai to snap back at him, but he only sighs in response.

“Okay, you go first then,” he gives in, intending to go pick the ingredients. “I’ll plan on my garnish
in the meantime.”

Now it’s Chuuya who doesn’t let him go.

“Why are you so obedient all of a sudden?” He frowns, taking a step back so that Dazai couldn’t
move without him. The ribbon between them stretches for the umpteenth time, and Chuuya has no
idea how come it hasn’t been torn yet. “You shouldn’t trust your opponents so recklessly,
especially me.”

“I know,” says Dazai, and a mischievous smile touches his lips for a second. “But sometimes it’s
wiser to lose one battle to win the war.”

“Congratulations on learning another quote they put on inspirational pictures online,” Chuuya rolls
his eyes and glances at the clock. Their time is slowly counting down. “Now stop the bragging,
mackerel, and move your ass. We have two dishes to finish.”

Dazai just nods at the storage room, ignoring the nickname completely.

“Let’s do this.”

Standing in front of someone else’s door, hand numb, Chuuya takes a deep breath before knocking.
He knows that this is probably a terrible idea, showing up at Shirase’s door early in the morning
when there’s still more than half an hour before classes, but he just hopes to get this over with as
quickly as possible. What is he going to say? Apologies are clearly not enough, they won’t
compensate for all those caustic remarks he’s thrown at the person who clearly didn’t and still
doesn’t deserve them. Chuuya is harsh, he knows that. He’s hurt enough to be rude, to be
overprotective each time someone crosses the borders of his self-defense. He never wanted to be
like this. But now he’s here and he has to cope with all his past selves, long dead and buried, but
somehow still telling him that to apologize would be the right choice.

Chuuya almost breathes out in relief when Shirase opens the door, a damp towel thrown over his
shoulders, his hair still wet after the shower. He doesn’t tell Chuuya to get out, he doesn’t even
frown seeing him, he just stands there and waits, his breathing calm.

“Hello,” Chuuya swallows, trying not to avoid his eyes. “Can I talk to you?”

Shirase looks at him for a mere second and sighs, letting him in.

“Be quick,” he warns, dropping the towel onto one of the chairs and picking a hairbrush from the
desk. “I still want to grab breakfast before classes.”

Chuuya nods and sits down on the bed, noticing that his hands are trembling slightly. He eyes the
room for a minute; it’s not much different from his, from theirs, only brighter a bit because there’s
more sunlight reaching this wing of the dorm building. Shirase is almost drowning in this light as
he stands in front of him, leaning against his working desk. Chuuya looks out the window and
grimaces in the same instant, looking away from the sun. They always closed the curtains back
when they lived together, constantly getting mocked by Albatross for being so pale.

“Chuuya,” Shirase calls him by name, but his voice holds no enmity, only a hint of impatience.
“What did you want to tell me?”

Chuuya suddenly remembers his words from the last time they ever talked to each other, the ones
about people who never changed. If Shirase is so sure about something like this, then he probably
has some experience with giving people second chances. And so Chuuya thinks, what if he doesn’t
deserve his? What if coming here was another huge mistake in the first place? He almost wants to
stand up and storm out of the room but he keeps himself in place, squeezing his own knees with his
hands as he sits. No risk, no reward, he reminds himself. Always risking everything he had, isn’t it
how he got this far in life being only eighteen?

“I know it was you who asked Verlaine to accept my retake,” he finally breathes out. “And I also
know that it’s not a decent excuse, but I hadn’t known that back when I… snapped at you. And,”
he stops for a second, looking down and taking another breath. “And I’m sorry. I didn’t want to
offend you. I didn’t want you to… leave.”

Shirase looks at him for a long moment and sighs, stepping back from the desk. He approaches the
bed and takes the pile of clothes from his pillow, Chuuya’s gaze following his every movement.
Then he walks to the closet and opens it, starting to sort the clothes on the shelves. All this time, he
thinks of what to say. Or maybe he doesn’t think at all, instead fighting the urge to just see Chuuya
out right now.

“There was a reason why I didn’t tell you that I talked to Verlaine,” Shirase finally sighs again, still
not looking away from the closet shelves. “I wasn’t seeking your gratitude. I didn’t want this to be
the sole motivation for you to finally get your head out of your ass,” the past Chuuya would
probably be offended by the statement, but now he only nods at that, feeling the usual uneasiness in
his stomach that comes every time he needs to accept that he was wrong about something.

Shirase finishes with the clothes and turns to look at him.

“If that’s all you wanted to say, you may go. I accept your apology.”

For some reason, Chuuya doesn’t feel as relieved as he thought he would. He doesn’t stand up,
instead looking Shirase in the eye and thinking over what’s unspoken he has left in him. Accepting
his own mistakes has always been harder than anything else. As a hurt child, deprived of the only
thing that brought him peace since his early years, Chuuya’s been overprotective about everything
that concerned cooking since he first stepped into the halls of the academy. Every time he gets
criticized or laughed at for a dish he’s made or his approach to cooking, he pictures his late father
standing right in front of him. He remembers the words he used to say to his mother every time
Chuuya didn’t live up to his expectations for the umpteenth time. How different life could’ve been
if you had given birth to a child who wasn’t a failure? This was never a question, in fact.

Chuuya’s mother was appreciative of his interests and skills, she always tried to sneak some of the
cookbooks and notebooks with recipes hidden by his father back into Chuuya’s room, watching
him with a relieved smile as he shoved them under his pillow. She always hugged him and kissed
his forehead before bed. You’re not a failure, Chuuya, she whispered into his hair, you’re the only
one I’ve got. And so the insecurities sown in him by his father have always been overlayed by his
sheer fear to disappoint his mother, the only person who still believed in him after all these years of
burnt pans and piles of dirty plates with spoiled dishes.

Chuuya read, he read a lot. Reading was his only escape path from the horrors he was faced with
regularly that he was too young to embrace. His mother always scraped the last money to buy him
new cookbooks, and Chuuya appreciated it too much to tell her that most recipes written in them
had been already anchored in his mind. He wasn’t quite sure where he got the knowledge from,
though. Probably it was for those rare but blessed evenings when his father was late from work and
he had some spare time to spend in front of the TV in their living room. He searched for culinary
shows then, grasping every single word and scribbling the recipes in a notebook so he could try
them out himself later. Chuuya had cooked his first haute-cuisine dish when he was barely eleven.
He locked himself in the bathroom then, eating it all until there wasn’t a single crumb left, even
though it tasted awful. It seemed a minor sacrifice back then. Everything was better than getting
yelled at and beaten up by his father for another pack of wasted semolina he used to substitute for
more expensive groats they didn’t have money for at the time. Chuuya ate the whole dish, then he
vomited, and then he went to try and make another one, hot tears streaming down his face. He’d
rather have dropped dead than gave that up. Nothing could take cooking away from him, not even
that monster disguised as his father.

After his father had died, Chuuya didn’t approach the kitchen for almost three months. The feeling
that everything he craved was finally laying in front of him, reachable and open, did something
strange to his brain, to his perception of culinary as a whole. It was a healthy response back then
but it didn’t seem so at the time. Chuuya happened to be even more scared of cooking than when
he was at risk of getting scolded for that. Freedom had funny ways of bounding people. It bounds
him still.

Hearing Shirase’s accusations of him not appreciating his craft enough was always a nail to his
coffin, as, clearly, Chuuya appreciated it more than anything in his life. He just had his own ways
of expressing that.

“There’s something else,” he sighs, bitter memories from childhood and past regrets piling inside
him one by one. “I know that you probably think I’m too mediocre to think so highly of myself
when it comes to cooking. Verlaine told me this too. But I had a fair share of humiliation in my life
to become this protective of what I’m doing. And I’m sorry, Shirase. You’re the only witness of
how miserable I am underneath all my… arrogance, call it as you want,” it takes much more effort
to look him in the eye right now but Chuuya still does, being faced back with a calm, patient,
understanding expression. “But I love cooking more than anything in my life. If you think I love
myself too much, then I love cooking even more than that. And sometimes this devotion blinds
me, it really does. I hurt people I need, I hurt you. But I,” he takes a deep breath and bites his lip;
he wants to cry but he can’t, he never could. “I have nothing else left except for this.”

“Chuuya,” Shirase sighs and shakes his head, approaching the bed to sit next to him. It’s hard,
looking him in the eye like this; in his head, Chuuya swears that he won’t let himself be this
vulnerable in front of anyone ever again. “Do you think I would’ve asked Verlaine to give you a
second chance if I hadn’t thought you worthy of it?” Chuuya shakes his head, slowly. “You’ve got
this temper of yours, this ridiculous self-protectiveness of a hurt child that prevents you from
accepting that you can also be wrong sometimes,” Chuuya grimaces at that but only because
Shirase is telling the truth. “But I’m glad that you found it in yourself to talk to me instead of
playing that avoidance game that took a bit too long,” Shirase sighs and reaches out his hand to pat
Chuuya’s shoulder. It’s almost laughable how unserious this gesture feels right now, given
everything they’ve been talking about. “Can you promise me something? I guess I deserve that
now.”

“Sure,” Chuuya nods. “What is it?”

“Think before you leap,” Shirase shrugs. Try to stop fucking up, rings like a tune in Chuuya’s head.
“With this passion that you have for cooking, I can tell for sure that you’ll never lose it. But losing
people, losing friends is far easier, regardless of how much you love them.”

“I didn’t want to lose you,” Chuuya shakes his head.

“And you didn’t,” Shirase looks back at him with a hint of a smile on his lips. “But you’re still a
fucking self-centered asshole. Just for the record.”

He laughs then, and Chuuya laughs too, and the relief he’s feeling now is worth millions of worries
and what-ifs he had before.

“Are you going to move back in with me?” He asks, hoping that a glint of desperate anticipation is
not so clear in his voice.

Shirase shrugs once again.

“Only if you promise to stop leaving those dirty mugs all around the place.”

“What were you doing in that spare year you took?” Dazai’s voice sounds casual but it makes
Chuuya stop and freeze in place, his hand holding a kitchen machine with a dough hook suddenly
goes numb.

He stares at the bowl in front of himself, his dough with lemon zest and lavender almost ready, and
doesn’t know what to say. Instead, he removes the dough from the bowl and flattens it on a
wooden board; after that, he reaches for the roll of clear film and tears off a part of it, making sure
to slightly push Dazai’s left hand, currently occupied with fish seasoning. After he covers the
dough with a layer of film, it has to chill for at least half an hour.

“Let’s go,” he commands, not waiting for Dazai to finish with his process.

“Where to?” He asks, glancing at him from under the short flocks of hair covering his forehead.
His previous question being completely ignored doesn’t seem to bother him much.

“Fridge.”

Dazai sighs but follows him obediently, leaving his fish on the counter. While they’re in the
storage room, Chuuya decides to pick another pack of sugar for the tart’s filling, even though he’s
sure he already has more than enough at his workplace. He just likes the idea of Dazai following
him around like a puppet, his long arms hanging along his body, his face showing no sign of
irritation, even in the slightest. When Chuuya stops in front of one of the crates, starting to sort
through the packs of sugar left, he feels Dazai’s gaze on himself, although he still doesn’t say a
thing.

“Stop breathing into my ear,” Chuuya frowns as he keeps reading from one of the sugar packs,
pretending to search for something. “And take a step back, that fish is stinky as shit.”

“Not everyone gets the privilege of cooking haute cuisine desserts, carrot head,” Dazai hums,
ignoring his request. “Haven’t you ever cooked something much stinkier than some mackerel?”
“I did,” Chuuya grimaces at that, finally picking a pack of sugar he needs from the crate. “That’s
why I’m not really pleased by the memory.”

Probably his least favorite ingredient to cook is, even after all the years he’s dealt with it, oysters.
Back when he worked in Paris, thick wallets that attended his restaurant for their business lunches
or birthday banquets ordered oysters more frequently than any other dish. Chuuya has cooked
oysters in all existent and non-existent forms, he’s served them so many times he lost count at
some point, but still, even the mere smell of them makes his insides twist. Probably it’s not really
the dish itself but the memories attached to it that he doesn’t really feel like resorting to.

When they’re back in the kitchen, Chuuya occupies himself with the filling, glancing at the clock
and estimating their remaining time. Dazai’s already put his fish fillets on a baking tray and now
he’s struggling with the garnish, although struggling is probably not the best word for what he’s
doing. He completes every step quickly and smoothly, not reacting even when Chuuya
occasionally rushes to the sink or back to take his dough out of the fridge, dragging the ribbon
along and forcing Dazai to step back from the counter he’s working on. They cook disgustingly in
step, Chuuya almost wants to ruin it with some antic of his, but he doesn’t want to be the first to
throw a fit. While he’s preheating the oven, he hears occasional arguments and swearing coming
from other workplaces, but none of them seem harsh enough to get a warning from the judges.
Chuuya tenses up a bit when Ango walks in, intending to take a look at the contestants who got to
work with pastry. He approaches their workplace and takes in Chuuya’s filling for the tart, stirring
it slowly with a spoon and frowning. Dazai, who’s currently slicing and chopping the vegetables
for his garnish, glances at him occasionally with an unreadable look on his face.

“Whisk it a little bit more,” advises Ango, putting the spoon away. “The texture must be lighter.”

When he walks past, Chuuya rolls his eyes, reaching for a kitchen machine to replace the hook with
a whisk once more. In the meantime, they’ve got a bit more than forty minutes left.

“He’s an asshole,” says Dazai, this time pulling Chuuya’s hand with him as he walks to another
counter to grab a tray with condiments. “But he’s right, though. You’ve finished with the whisking
a bit earlier than required. The filling may turn out gummy after baking.”

“That’s because I was saving time for your stinky mackerels, dickhead,” Chuuya snaps, dragging
his left hand back on purpose, almost making Dazai drop the tray and scatter half of the
condiments on the floor. He intends to grab the kitchen machine and perfect the filling, but Dazai
backfires, tugging at the ribbon once again, this time almost making Chuuya turn the entire bowl
with the filling over. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

“You’ve spent more than half of our time on your tart, now it’s my turn to bake,” Dazai hums and
reaches to turn the oven’s dial, decreasing the temperature, even though the oven hasn’t even
preheated to the 200°C required for Chuuya’s tart yet.

“If not for Ango with his stupid remarks I’d be already baking it,” Chuuya snaps back and returns
the dial back to its previous position.

“Since when do you listen to any remarks on your godly dishes?” Dazai smirks and opens the
oven’s door, preventing the heat from reaching higher than 180°C.

“Take your fucking hands away from the damn oven, mackerel,” Chuuya hisses and slams the door
shut, leaning against the counter and covering the oven with his body completely. He grips the
workplace behind himself with all his might, breathing heavily when Dazai appears right in front of
him, his piercing gaze almost pinning him down in place. “I won’t let you spoil my tart with your
stinky fish.”
Dazai sighs and glances at the clock, Chuuya’s gaze pinned somewhere on his neck. He’s not
going to move even if it costs him his decency. He will cook this goddamn tart and he will do it
perfectly, whatever it takes. He knows that it’s selfish, and, truth be told, he’s really taken much
more time than he planned just to annoy Dazai. Back when they started, he was sure that Dazai
would go through any possible obstacle in a heartbeat. But at some point, Chuuya became too
playful with that, and now it feels dangerous, given this cold and unreadable look Dazai grants him
when their eyes meet again.

“You’re leaving me no choice, carrot head,” he says and does something Chuuya couldn’t predict a
mere second ago. He starts twisting the ribbon, winding it up his arm and shortening it rapidly until
Chuuya’s hand is dragged dangerously close to his own. Chuuya tries to pull back but Dazai seems
to have dropped the jokes this time, and his grip when he finally grabs Chuuya’s wrist is almost
painfully firm. One more leap and Dazai tugs him closer, encircling his waist with his free hand,
leaving no escape route. This happens so fast that Chuuya doesn’t get to react when he’s already in
Dazai’s embrace, his triumphant smirk and a whisper reaching his ear. “Gotcha.”

“I’m going to fucking kill you,” Chuuya grabs his shoulder with his free hand and tries to free
himself, but Dazai only squeezes him harder and reaches for the tray with his fillets, intending to
put it into the oven. Chuuya doesn’t react to the numerous concerned gazes directed at them,
because the whole picture clearly looks more than confusing on the part of the other contestants.
Instead, he takes a deep breath, ready to just start screaming and punching Dazai with his feet until
he lets him go, but then he hears the door of the judges’ breakroom open and freezes in place,
squeezing his eyes shut. Shit. Goddamn, fucking shit.

When Chuuya thinks it can’t possibly get any worse, he hears Fukuzawa’s concerned voice behind
his back.

“What’s with the noise?” The voice approaches them as the chef walks past all other workplaces to
reach theirs.

Chuuya locates Ranpo, who still looks right at him, clearly bemused, and tries to signal for him to
do something to distract Dazai. But Ranpo only shrugs and raises his own hand that’s still tied to
Akutagawa’s, granting him an apologetic look. So, it’s only Chuuya against the whole world, then.

“All’s well, chef,” Dazai replies in a calm tone, probably smiling that most innocent smile of his
that always makes Chuuya want to punch him right into his self-satisfied face. “Chuuya’s just
suddenly felt like hugging his working partner, and I was so touched by this gesture that I couldn’t
refuse.”

Chuuya stomps at his feet with all his effort, but this only makes Dazai flinch slightly, still not
letting him go. It’s evident that Fukuzawa doesn’t believe a single word of his but he takes his
leave anyway, and Chuuya sighs in relief as soon as he hears the door close again. They’re like
little bugs under the microscope in this contest, and it’s anything but helpful.

“Are you going to keep holding me until your fucking fish is ready?” Chuuya sighs, trying to put
no irritation into his voice this time, but he clearly fails.

“Yes,” Dazai replies calmly, his hand searching for something among the mess they’ve made on
the counters. “If I let you go now, you’ll burn my mackerels down. And probably the entire kitchen
as well.”

Chuuya smirks at that and closes his eyes for a second, taking a deep breath.

“How much time we have left?” He asks again, quieter.

“Thirty minutes.”

Although it’s much harder to concentrate like that, still in the embrace of the person he despises
more than he’s ever thought he could, Chuuya still can think clearly enough to understand that
thirty minutes won’t be enough to bake both of their dishes as it’s required in the recipes. He’s lost,
he has to admit that. Dazai’s antics have played out in his favor once again, and Chuuya won’t try
and fight him right now; presenting an incomplete dish seems the lesser of two evils now that he
can be excluded for any minor scandal. When he accepts his fate and puts his free hand to rest on
Dazai’s shoulder, still ready to shove him away at the smallest opportunity, he suddenly hears
Dazai turning on the kitchen machine.

“What in the world are you doing this time?” He sighs, looking at Kunikida and Kenji already
arranging their dishes on the plates but not really following their actions.

“Finishing your tart,” Dazai replies as if it’s the most evident thing in the world. “Now that you’re
done trying to trample my feet and crush my bones, I can actually make something decent out of
it.”

“Just drop it already and mind your own dish,” Chuuya scowls, squeezing his shoulder tighter on
purpose, trying to make his grip as painful as possible. There’ll probably be bruises the next
morning. “You’re not even a pastry chef.”

“You aren’t one either,” Dazai hums, proceeding with arranging his tart in the tart tin after he’s
done mixing the filling. From what Chuuya can hear and detect from the noises he’s making and
the movements of his body, Dazai’s making the tart in the most disjointed algorithm possible. It’s
supposed to be done step-by-step, but he’s just completing all the processes simultaneously instead.
It’s going to be a nightmare, Chuuya thinks to himself. He will be the luckiest man in the world if
his dessert turns out at least merely edible.

He hears Dazai open the oven, a strong smell of fish quickly spreading all over the place.

“Don’t you dare put my dessert right next to your stinky bullshit,” he warns, his voice slightly
louder this time.

But Dazai only smirks at this and does the exact thing Chuuya’s just told him not to do. It’s still
hard to grasp how he manages to complete so many processes at the same time while his left hand
is still holding Chuuya’s firmly, not letting him make even a step back. As much as Chuuya hates
to admit this, Dazai clearly is skilled. He’s like a goddamn conjurer, arranging everything in the
right way and completing not one but two rather complicated dishes while having only one
working hand. Even when he occasionally lets go of Chuuya’s waist to help himself with
something, eventually, the hand returns, squeezing him a little bit firmer each time.

“I’m going to turn your miserable life into a nightmare,” Chuuya hisses at him as he hears the
oven’s door close once again, officially marking a point of no return for him and his poor lavender
tart. It’s not only a black apron for him this time, it’s the humiliation he’s going to be subjected to
every time he crosses gazes with anyone in this kitchen. Chuuya, who’s despised helpless puppets
for as long as he can remember, is now turned into one himself. And it initially began with him not
wanting to start a fight.

“Looking forward to that,” Dazai smirks as he places two plates on the counter, ready to serve the
dishes once they’re done.

According to Chuuya’s estimations, they’ve got a little less than fifteen minutes before the judges
will step back into the kitchen, marking the finish line of today’s contest. When Dazai has nothing
 else to occupy himself with, Chuuya feels him loosen the grip on his waist, finally giving him
some breathing room. Chuuya takes a step back right away, unwinding the ribbon connecting them
and looking Dazai in the eye. He’s met with a calm, unwavering gaze, and it only makes everything
worse.

“Why would you do this to me?” Chuuya spits out quietly, making sure that no one else can hear
them.

“Desperate times call for desperate measures,” Dazai shrugs casually in response. Another
goddamn inspirational quote alert. “Just for the record, I was giving you more than enough
chances to free yourself. But you were too blinded by your own hatred to even notice.”

Chuuya doesn’t have it in himself to fight him, not anymore. When the judges are finally back and
Fukuzawa announces that their time is out, Chuuya reaches for the kitchen scissors in the knife
holder and cuts the ribbon tying their wrists in two. Dazai doesn’t even flinch, just glancing at him
for a second with a slight smirk.

Chuuya will make the bastard pay for today as soon as he gets the chance.

Chapter End Notes

you can find me on twitter: @acuteguwu

 The 4th Wall
Chapter Notes

seek inspiration in little things, they say

just for the record, doing anything in complete darkness is NOT fun at all, but you
have to get used to this haha
/end of my usual warzone report/

in the meantime, this little thing has reached 100 KUDOS??

I can't even express how grateful I am for this, thank you SO MUCH, I mean it
every reaction of yours motivate me to write even more <3

See the end of the chapter for more notes

Chuuya has no idea how in the world neither he nor Dazai gets a black apron for the last contest.
Ango comments on the slight rawness of his tart, though, but it’s nothing too critical; and, as if
someone has cast a spell of luck on him, some of the other participants managed to fuck up their
dishes much worse than Chuuya did. And he wasn’t even the one who was cooking it in the first
place. Fukuzawa didn’t comment on Dazai helping him even though he clearly noticed that, his
eyes moving between them during the verdicts with an unreadable look. Chuuya sighed and took
his apron off as soon as the nightmare was over. He felt drained. He didn’t watch as Dazai was
taking his leave to join the others for a smoke break, he didn’t want to smoke either. The only thing
he truly craved was to just sleep through the rest of the week, pretending to be terminally ill in his
bed and without even waking up to go grab something to eat.

“Are you okay?” Ranpo approached him from behind, a thin smell of the herbs he used for his dish
still in midair between them. Chuuya was glad that his friend could make it once again. Neither he
nor Ranpo got a single black apron yet. Chuuya’d be glad to keep it at that.

“I’m fine, just tired,” he lied, not looking his friend in the eye.

Now, as he spends the evening in the dorm, looking through another cookbook in his lap, he
notices that Ranpo is reading something on his phone, his expression getting more and more
amused with every scroll down.

“Dude, I just can’t fucking believe it,” he rarely swears, though when he does, it means that
something truly landmark is happening.

“What is it?” Chuuya frowns, not really interested, but puts a bookmark in between the pages and
closes his book anyway.

“People online are going insane over Dazai’s performance earlier today,” Ranpo doesn’t look up
from the screen. “Not even a day has passed, but his fan base is already breaking all the records.”

“Wait a minute,” Chuuya cuts in, fighting the urge to storm to him and look over his shoulder at
whatever he’s reading. “You’re telling me mackerel has a fan base?”

Ranpo glances at him for the first time, his look clearly bemused.
“Are you shitting me?” he asks. “Dazai’s name is all over the news. People are calling him a
cooking prodigy now.”

Chuuya takes pains to sort through the numerous thoughts rushing in his head. He tried to ignore
the cameras, he really did. Even though they were always there, appearing as soon as they stepped
into the kitchen, documenting their every word and every move around the workplaces and storage
rooms, Chuuya always acted as if he wasn’t really noticing them. Being filmed becomes less
burdensome as soon as you pretend that the cameras aren’t even there. Besides, pretentious as it
may sound, Chuuya is used to the spotlight. He’s been in it since a very young age, having given
his first television interview ever when he won that local culinary award for the best haute cuisine
dish among schoolchildren and was sent for practice in Slovenia later. It was rather a challenge for
him to master basic European dishes in less than two weeks, and he still struggles with them
whenever the task pops up. However, cooking itself has never been much of a threat to him. But
being at the heart of attention was, countless eyes of prominent chefs and culinary critics watching
him as if he was a bug floundering in a puddle. He’d taken numerous lessons with Verlaine on how
to cope with the rapidly growing attention to his persona. Still, now he’s rather at ease, being in a
country where few people know who he is.

However, being in this contest, filmed during every single contest for the episodes that are later
aired on TV and several online platforms, he doesn’t feel as secure anymore. More than a month of
the contest has passed, and Chuuya still hasn’t talked himself into watching a single episode. It’s a
little bit weird that they are being aired while they’re not even done filming, but he hasn’t ever
questioned this much. And while the others gather in the living room every Friday evening to
watch another episode, drinking and laughing at themselves on the TV screen, Chuuya is the only
one who’s never there. He doesn’t look through the media anymore either, doesn’t Google his own
name. He’s a bit afraid of what he may see there. People discussing him on culinary forums, in
endless Twitter threads, his haters shitting on him and his fans protecting his name with all they
have. It’s just too much to bear. Chuuya has always wanted to be famous, it’s true. But he’d rather
his dishes represented him, not his twisted persona that is probably, above everything else, very
unpleasant for the public perception. Chuuya finds it hard to act polite and respectful for too long,
he always snaps at people when they even barely cross his personal boundaries. He doesn’t want to
use that fake media smile he mastered back when Verlaine was still mentoring him. And he’ll
rather keep hiding in the rear, exhausting himself in the kitchen to present a better dish every single
time than waste countless hours on interviews with the people he despises, with the people who are
always asking him about his childhood or love life, barely mentioning a single cooking-related
topic throughout the entire thing.

But he supposes that’s different when it comes to Dazai. Until what Ranpo has just told him,
Chuuya struggled to imagine that a person this private and discreet could have a strong – with all
the hatred he held against the word – fan base, with people discussing every single dish of his,
sparing a moment to speculate about what he’s like in real life, is he as cheerful and easygoing
behind the closed doors, what was he doing before he joined the contest, does he have a girlfriend,
whatever.

“What are they saying?” Chuuya tries to sound uninterested but he clearly fails as Ranpo grants
him an all-knowing smirk and moves on the bed, giving him enough room to sit next to him.

“They are impressed by how he managed to cook two relatively good dishes simultaneously using
only one hand. Also,” Ranpo hesitates for a second as if he’s unsure how to formulate what he’s
going to say. “They’re discussing you.”

“Me?” Chuuya frowns, glancing at the phone in his hand and trying to read the headline of another
online magazine article.
“You and Dazai,” Ranpo nods, carefully. He knows what topics are sensitive enough to be dropped
in his presence; however, he goes on. “People think you two have kinda strong chemistry or
whatever.”

“That’s bullshit,” Chuuya snaps before he can let this thought linger for a bit longer. “I hate the
fucker, and it’s clearly reciprocal.”

Ranpo shrugs, switching between the pages and opening another article screaming Dazai and
Chuuya’s names all over the lines.

“People love a good scandal,” he says. “And you’re presenting it to them on a silver platter,
probably not really aware of it most of the time. Look,” Ranpo moves closer to him and opens his
Twitter feed, showing him a bunch of hysterical fan tweets with mostly similar content. “They’ve
even adopted the nicknames you gave to each other, now calling you mackerel and a carrot head.”

Chuuya doesn’t hold back a laugh this time but it comes out rather hysterical, making Ranpo
glance at him with a concerned look as he presses his hand to his mouth, trying to calm down. As if
the sequence of horrors he’s been going through wasn’t enough. Now he has to deal with thousands
of strangers who are delusional enough to think that something decent may come out of their
unwanted partnership. And they’re not even friends. Chuuya has more chemistry with a fucking
freezer in the kitchen than he’s ever had with Dazai.

“Are you going to do something with it?” Ranpo asks quietly as soon as he stops laughing.

“What is there to do?” Chuuya shrugs. “I’ll probably just try to avoid the dickhead until the public
interest dies out itself.”

“You know it won’t work,” Ranpo sighs, switching to Google his own name instead. Several
articles about his recent partnership with Ryunosuke pop up but they haven’t gotten even half of
the attention the ones about Dazai and Chuuya have. Ranpo smiles, scrolling down the page.
“They’ve been praising my pastry skills lately. Saying I’ve gotten much more confident since I
first stepped here.”

“I’m glad,” Chuuya’s not lying, although his voice comes out rather indifferent. He still has to
process everything he’s just heard and seen. “You deserve this.”

The dorm is one of the places where they’re not being filmed constantly, although the cameramen
tried to sneak in a couple of times, saying that the viewers were interested in their private life
outside the kitchen as well, but Kunikida didn’t let them step past the front door even once, and
everyone else is extremely thankful for that. The viewers clearly don't want to see their sleep-
deprived faces and Tachihara and Gin throwing another antic every other weekend as much as they
think they do. So the dorm is the only area in which Chuuya can talk about work-related stuff with
Dazai without it being perceived as something it isn’t. Another morning, they’re standing outside
the pavilion, smoking and waiting for the first pair from yesterday’s contest to finish their private
interviews. The small interviews usually cut in between the sequences of them cooking, to
diversify the show for the audience and sneak in some of the contestants’ personal attitudes to
whatever they’re doing.

“You know what they’re going to ask us about, right?” Dazai breaks the silence, smirking at him
slightly. “Try not to swear too much while talking about me, carrot head, they’ll censor it anyway.”

“Don’t take too much credit for yourself, mackerel,” Chuuya rolls his eyes. “I have my own
personality and story to tell apart from being pinned to your stinky ass throughout that damned
contest.”
However, once he’s in the chair in the interview room, with the camera facing him and the stylist
fixing the locks of his hair in the final seconds, he already knows that Dazai is right. The public
doesn’t want to hear about his goddamn lavender tart. They want to get more details on how he
ended up being embraced by his main rival in the contest the entire time.

“Was it planned in advance?” The interviewer asks, a cheerful and anticipating smile on her face.

“I could never plan a tactic as stupid as this,” Chuuya frowns, hoping that it’s written all over him
how he hates being here and answering these stupid mackerel-related questions. “Why would I
voluntarily agree to give up access to my workplace in the contest that expects me to cook?”

“But you weren’t protesting much either,” notices the interviewer, scribbling something in the
notebook in her lap.

“I actually was,” Chuuya raises his eyebrow, ignoring the camera zooming in on his face
annoyingly. “But the rules stated that I couldn’t resort to violence in any regard.”

The woman actually laughs at that, looking back at him. Chuuya forces himself to smile until the
next question almost kicks the air out of his lungs.

“Would you actually punch Dazai publicly if you were allowed to?”

Chuuya takes a deep breath. The question is clearly provocative, and there’s no correct response.
Whatever he says, people online will distort it in such a way that they’ll get even more reasons to
speculate about their nonexistent chemistry. God, he hates it here. It’s like he’s walking on a
minefield, one wrong step and he’s done with for good. The awkward tension in the room and the
whole filming crew waiting for his response make him remember why he hates doing public
appearances so much. His every look, gaze and sigh are going to be discussed, taken apart second
by second, expression by expression. He has no right to say anything that will discredit him in any
way possible. That’s what Verlaine taught him a long time ago, back when he was barely twenty.
Tell people only the things they want to hear, nothing more, nothing less.

And with this thought, he sighs audibly, putting on a fake smirk.

“Do you even doubt it at this point? Sure as hell I would.”

Exactly in a week, when he wakes up from the short evening nap he took after another draining
contest (a team challenge in which they were supposed to demonstrate their knowledge of the scope
of Indian cuisine and apply rare herbs to widen the range of tastes, nothing particularly worth
mentioning), Ranpo is staring at him like he’s just seen a ghost. He’s chewing on the chocolate
muffin Tanizaki’s probably baked for their today’s dessert, his left hand, holding the phone, is
frozen mid-air.

“What happened?” Chuuya asks him as he lifts himself from the pillow and reaches for his own
phone on the nightstand to check the time.

Ranpo swallows roughly.

“I don’t even know where to start.”

The kitchen is half full when Chuuya storms into it with his sleepwear still on and his hair
disheveled from the sleep, locates Dazai, who’s currently holding a wine glass in his right hand and
laughing about something with Kajii, and practically drags him out by the sleeve. Chuuya doesn’t
care what others think of them, basically pinning Dazai against the wall in the back of the corridor,
met with his confused frown. Chuuya hates the fact that he still has to look up to even see his face,
their height difference hadn’t bothered him this much until recently.

“What did you tell them?” He demands, fighting the urge to take the wine glass from Dazai’s hand
and shatter it against the floor. “The whole media is going insane, saying some bullshit about our
unequal cooking skills and me being the most devoted fan of your culinary mastery or whatever.”

Dazai eyes him slowly from head to toe, a mischievous smirk slowly appearing on his lips. Chuuya
wants to crack his fucking skull open.

“Why don’t you watch my interview and find it out yourself?” He blinks innocently, taking another
sip of his wine.

“Drop the bullshit, mackerel, I wouldn’t look at your face a second more than I’m forced to even at
a gunpoint,” Chuuya grabs him by the wrist, making his hand holding a glass stop halfway before
he can keep drinking. The alcohol itself does not trigger him as much as it did before, it’s rather
about this glaring self-satisfaction Dazai is currently drinking it with. As if he’s celebrating
Chuuya’s defeat, the triumph written all over his face.

“I just said that I appreciated your blind faith in me and the trust with which you let me complete
both of our dishes in the contest,” Dazai says then, and from the tone of his voice, it’s unclear
whether he’s lying or not. “People are glad to see that we’re finally getting along. It heats up their
anticipation towards our future partnership.”

Chuuya takes a step back from him and scratches the bridge of his nose, thinking. He clearly
expected the whole mackerel and carrot head alliance thing to get out of hand, but he couldn’t
actually predict that Dazai would play along and feel completely at ease about it. Turns out he’s
even more of a shameless liar than Chuuya thought him to be. He’s clearly doing it for attention
solely. He seems to have constructed a clear tactic in his head, but Chuuya can’t see through it no
matter how hard he’s trying to. But it’s evident that Dazai hasn’t been throwing all of his latest
antics just because he was bored. He’s basically entertaining the audience by making Chuuya face
much more hardships than he normally would if he worked alone. God, why does fate loathe him
so much? When Chuuya first noticed the tall dickhead in a packed-up room before the audition he
couldn’t even think of how disastrous their acquaintance would end up being.

He takes a deep sigh, looking at Dazai once again. There’s no smirk on his lips this time. Instead,
he’s studying Chuuya’s face carefully as if trying to guess what he’s thinking about. He doesn’t
drink anymore either, crossing his arms on his chest instead, his right hand still holding a half-
empty glass.

“Listen to me, asshole,” Chuuya lowers his tone, not breaking eye contact this time. “I’m anything
but stupid. And I’ll see through whatever it is your scheming as soon as you barely try to use me
for your self-promotional campaign. If you’re so mid at cooking that you need to hide behind other
people’s backs, then you better concentrate on your skills rather than think of how to show off in
the press next time.”

He doesn’t wait for his response and starts walking towards the stairs, but Dazai’s voice makes
him stop halfway.

“In case you forgot, I still saved your ass when I finished that tart.”

Chuuya doesn’t bother to keep his fury at bay.

“And it turned out to be a piece of inedible shit!” He snaps back and storms away before Dazai can
say anything else.
When Chuuya’s back in the room, he probably looks enraged enough for Ranpo to leave him alone
without asking any questions. In fact, he just wants to bury his face in his pillow and scream until
he blacks out, but instead, he grabs his laptop from the desk and turns it on, intending to watch
whatever it was that Dazai said in that damn interview. He needs to fuel the fury that will help him
carry out his revenge plan.

It’s midsummer, and Chuuya, unlike other students, is not having his deserved rest. Instead, he’s in
the practice room for the third time this week, scrolling through his phone and waiting for Verlaine
who’s usually never late. However, it’s already five minutes past the time they agreed on, and
Chuuya starts to worry. As soon as he jumps off the counter to go and see what may be taking the
chef so long, the door flies open, and Verlaine walks in, holding a pile of books in his hands.
Chuuya sighs audibly. He’s already worn out by the constant theoretic classes as if he hasn’t got
enough of them with other professors.

“How’d you sleep?” Verlaine asks, not looking at him. He sets the pile on one of the counters and
reaches to fix the locks of his blonde hair which probably fell onto his face while he was rushing
here. As much as he values his own time, he also values the one of others.

“Quite well, chef, thank you,” Chuuya snaps easily, scratching his temple and walking closer to
the pile of books, studying the titles one by one.

Verlaine grants him a frown.

“Don’t lie to me,” he warns, and it’s devastating how he’s always reading him like an open book.
“Have you been drinking lately?”

The mere thought of this makes Chuuya grimace, shivering.

“No,” he says, still feeling Verlaine’s piercing gaze on himself. “Not even an ounce.”

“Good,” the chef nods at this and appears next to him, taking one of the books Chuuya’s been
looking through briefly. “Let’s get started, then.”

It’s true that Chuuya doesn’t get much sleep even during the summer holidays. Deep into the
night, when Shirase is long asleep, he turns on the lamp on his nightstand, and its pale light flows
onto the pages of another recipe book he’s been reading lately. Chuuya drinks too much coffee
even though it’s not helping him stay awake anymore so he’s doing it rather out of habit. He
doesn’t go hang out with Shirase or Albatross and his gang even when the letters are already
blurring in front of his eyes, and he realizes that he needs to get sidetracked for a while. But instead
of walking out to the city, meeting new people and living just like all of his peers live, he prefers to
stay in his room, sleep during the day and start studying again in the evening. He’s grateful to his
friends for understanding the responsibility he’s shouldering now. When Verlaine finally offered to
start giving him private lessons, Chuuya could swear he was ready to faint from happiness. He’d
been waiting for that for so long, he’d gone through so many failures that Verlaine’s offer didn’t
even feel like a predictable outcome. It felt more like an undeserved reward that he grabbed with
all his might anyway.

So now that he’s here, and Paul Verlaine himself teaches him things that aren’t written in any
cooking manual in the world, Chuuya feels like there are flowers growing and blooming from the
palms of his hands each time he cooks something new for the first time, trying not to glance at the
written recipe, keeping it in its memory instead; each time he finishes the process he hasn’t worked
with before flawlessly; each time he presents a complex dish that gets little to no remarks; each
time Verlaine grants him a content smile and says that he did a great job.
It lasts for over two months, and Chuuya doesn’t want to let it go and return back to his studying
routine no matter how much he loves it. He doesn’t feel tired at all, each success fuels up his desire
to cook more and more, and sometimes, even after Verlaine dismisses him and practically orders
him to go get some rest, Chuuya stays in the practice room anyway, trying to apply one more tactic
he didn’t think about while he was making a dish. There’s something valuable he learns from his
cooking sessions with Verlaine, among other things, more technical and indisputable. Perfecting a
skill takes an immense amount of time, sometimes it lasts for eternity, but in the end, every second
you pass remaking something over and over again and compensating for your previous faults
makes you feel proud of the path you’re on, the path you’ve already gone through this far. Time
passes, and Chuuya’s self-confidence partly rids of that terrible, embarrassing vulnerability that had
been blocking his true feelings from everyone else’s eyes like a shield. He starts to accept his
mistakes much easier, simply trying again instead of being a brat about the dish he’s failed.
Verlaine can’t stand him throwing tantrums, and Chuuya can totally understand why. If you want
to achieve something in your craft, if you want to surpass the people that have long anchored in it,
the only way is to jump over yourself and your skills over and over again.

One day in late August, when Chuuya is already gathering all the ingredients for their today’s
practice class, Verlaine suddenly changes his mind.

“Take your apron off,” he says, his voice calm and relaxed, holding no hostility whatsoever. “Let’s
go for a walk.”

Chuuya is confused by the suggestion but he can’t find it in himself to refuse, so they walk out of
the academy building, the campus is deserted and quiet during the holidays, and head towards the
destination still unknown to him. Chuuya has never just hung out with a person much older than
him like this, a person who he respects more than anyone he’s ever known. He gets nervous and
doesn’t know how to react, hiding his hands in his pockets and just falling in step with Verlaine,
who’s eyeing the streets they’re walking past, rows of quiet local cafes and antique Parisian
bookshops. The air is warm but it feels fresh, and Chuuya inhales it deeply, enjoying the sunlight
for the first time in a long while.

“Have you decided what to do with your hair?” Verlaine asks suddenly, his gaze finally stopping
on him.

“I want to grow it long,” Chuuya replies quietly, looking down. He’s a bit afraid of the reaction he
may get. “Just like yours.”

Verlaine laughs at it, gently, and it’s probably only the second or the third time Chuuya’s ever
heard him laugh. They cross the street, heading to the wooden benches lined along the banks of
the Seine.

“I’m flattered, Chuuya,” Verlaine sighs. “But you are to find your own identity instead of copying
someone else’s, remember this.”

“I’m sorry,” Chuuya looks down again. His hand reaches out to his hair that’s already long enough
for separate locks to fall on his forehead annoyingly, making him take them away in a rushed,
abrupt gesture every time.

“Don’t be,” Verlaine brushes him off as they sit down on one of the benches, taking deep breaths
of air. A minute or so passes in complete silence, they’re watching the people passing by, listening
to music or reading as they walk, arguing with someone over the phones, the couples holding
hands, teenagers walking their dogs. Verlaine looks over at a small stall with ice cream and snacks
nearby and stands up. “I’ll go get us something to drink.”
Chuuya smiles at that, granting him a short glance.

“Thank you.”

Verlaine comes back soon with two cups of fresh cold lemonade, and they sit in silence again but it
feels much less burdensome this time. Chuuya knows he can just be himself for a little while, with
all his inner tiredness and a dumpster of past and present insecurities facing the sun. He wants this
ease to linger, to last for a while now that he doesn’t have to think about the minefield he’s on
every time Verlaine’s overseeing him cooking something, every lesson feels like the toughest
exam. But he doesn’t get to, and it’s a classic string of events.

“I don’t usually tell my students this,” Verlaine sighs, cutting into the silence between them, and it
makes Chuuya notice that the chef has been staring at him for a while now. “But you remind me of
someone I used to know.”

It’s more of a truth than not that Chuuya hates hearing things like these. People in his life have
been always comparing him to someone else, singling out only those parts of him they wanted to
see. Nobody has ever truly wanted Chuuya as a whole. When he was at his worst, smashing things,
banging the walls with his fists, crying himself to sleep, they always walked out, closing the doors,
like he was an animal in the cage, suddenly went mad, needed time to calm down, all by himself,
too dangerous to approach. And when someone picked on his good sides, it was only to compare
him to someone else they had known before. People never really treated him like his own
personality, the thoughts and actions that were only his and nobody else’s. The last thing Chuuya
wants is for Verlaine to do the exact same thing. It would be too cruel now when he’s finally in the
warming limelight of his grace and trust.

“You’re smiling,” he notices, not really content himself but desperately trying to hide it behind
indifference. “You must have cherished that person a lot.”

“I did,” Verlaine nods, staring thoughtfully at the peaceful river flowing in front of them.

“What happened to them?” Chuuya bites his tongue as soon as the words slip out, he didn’t mean
to scab on something that might’ve been personal enough to hide.

But Verlaine is not bothered by this, taking a deep sigh and looking down at the drink in his hands.
Chuuya’s gaze follows his.

“You have guessed that already, haven’t you?” Verlaine’s smirk comes out rather bitter. “They
left,” Chuuya nods silently, biting his lip. The revelation is not brand-new to him. Everyone leaves,
eventually. That’s what life’s about. “The person who was better than anyone else I’d ever known
at our craft just gave it up when the chance was already on the tip of their fingers.”

Something in Chuuya’s chest clenches at this. Does this mean that, somewhere in this world,
there’s still a person who he will never be able to surpass in Verlaine’s eyes?

“Why would they do that?” He asks quietly, his throat dry.

“I don’t know,” Verlaine shrugs, but deep inside, Chuuya knows what he really wants to say. I
wasn’t ever worth an explanation. “I just hope they regret this choice at every given moment. I
hope the opportunity they gave up still haunts them in their sleep,” Verlaine looks up at him, his
gaze focused and cold. “Am I a bad person for this?”

It’s not a rhetorical question, but Chuuya doesn’t know what to say anyway. He’s never measured
people by labeling them as good or bad. Mostly, people are just the arrays of their own past
choices. It was a rather tough lesson for him to learn.

“If you despise this person so much, then why do I remind you of them?” He asks instead,
sounding a bit disappointed against his own will.

“I don’t despise them,” Verlaine grimaces at his words. “Probably I just can’t put up with the
thought that someone this brilliant can give up everything they have, this mysterious, complex,
unfathomable god’s gift, even after all the time that has passed,” he takes a sip of his lemonade,
eyeing the Seine once more before returning his gaze to Chuuya again. “It’s just… you’re the
closest person I’ve met to match their skills. And your dedication to what you’re doing, this
blinding love that makes you wake up every morning and try over and over again is something that
person also had in them long, long ago. Probably it’s not there anymore. But I can’t even describe
to you the genuine glee I feel mentoring someone this passionate, this reckless. That’s what made
me become a teacher in the first place.”

Chuuya is too dumbstruck to even think of how to respond. He’s just been praised by Paul
Verlaine, and it was the truest, most overwhelming, enlightening praise he’s ever received from
him. But there’s bitterness to it that he cannot explain. Even if he’s Verlaine’s main inspiration and
hope right now, the thought that he isn’t the first at this – once again – makes him want to smash
his own head against the pavement. He’d been preparing himself for that, he really had. Verlaine
has a lot of experience in culinary, he’s seen hundreds, if not thousands of people who were better
than Chuuya, who were worse than Chuuya, who were nothing compared to Chuuya. It’s natural
that he has his favorites, the cooks whose further growth he’s looking forward to. But the
immanent sadness in his voice when he talks about one particular person is like nothing Chuuya
has ever heard before. As if Verlaine is a father whose kid has disappointed him, made all his
efforts go down the drain, leaving a wound impossible to be healed deep in his heart.

“I’m not going to quit,” Chuuya finally says, firmly, squeezing the empty cup in his hands.
“Cooking is my home. I don’t have another.”

Verlaine grants him a short smile, the first one in the entire conversation that isn’t soaked in pain
and the inherent sense of betrayal.

“I’m glad to hear this,” he says. “You have a brilliant future, Chuuya. There are a lot of great
things ahead of you. Don’t let them just pass by without even granting them a look.”

Right before the beginning of his second year in the academy, he flies home to see his mother.
They are making dinner in their small stuffed kitchen, the simplest dishes taste better than any
haute cuisine chef-d’œuvres when they’re made at home. Chuuya walks outside a lot, just
breathing in and out, remembering the sweet and fresh air of his hometown, hiding his cigarettes
from his mother like a teenager. Later, when they’re eating, Chuuya is finally subjected to the
neverending questioning about how his studies are going and what new there is to tell. He says
everything as it was, as it is, though skipping the parts he doesn’t really want to talk about. Him
getting shamelessly drunk and failing the most important exam of his life, him grabbing his second
chance and still struggling to live up to Verlaine’s expectations. Instead, he talks about Verlaine
himself, his milder attitude towards Chuuya lately, his mercifulness, his trust Chuuya doesn’t have
the right to betray. He fears one question he anticipates being asked deep down in his
consciousness.

“Is there something else I need to know?” His mother looks at him curiously, a soft but shy smile
lingering on her lips.

Chuuya looks down at his plate, his throat suddenly dry.

“Dear,” his mother calls him again, but he still doesn’t look up. “I’m just wondering if you had a
chance to meet someone.”

And there it is. The topic that’s still haunting Chuuya wherever he goes, whosoever he speaks to.
Love, love is everywhere. Everything around him is about falling in and out of love, meeting
people and letting them go, getting one’s heart broken and fixing it once more and once again after
that. What if even his mother thinks him incomplete and strange if he hasn’t got anyone to fall for
yet? Chuuya had tried, though he didn’t have much time, but he even downloaded that one stupid
dating app Yuan recommended to him once just for laugh, only to delete it after barely a week. He
won’t hide the fact that he does want to be in love, he wants to experience this feeling everyone is
so obsessed with at least once and forget it for good.

“No,” he says, trying to sound as casual as possible. “I really don’t have time for this.”

“I understand,” his mother nods and a smile on her face changes into something that looks like
worry. “I just hope you’re not feeling lonely, that’s it.”

Chuuya doesn’t really think he needs romance for that. He doesn’t feel lonely when he speaks to
Shirase, or Yuan, or even Verlaine, who’s been even more talkative recently, since that
conversation they had, sitting by the Seine. Chuuya is still disturbed by the fact that his teacher is
probably comparing every single dish of his to the ones cooked by his previous student, a person
who’s still kept a secret but who doesn’t get off Chuuya’s mind every time he cooks anyway. He
tried asking Shirase and Yuan about the students Verlaine had before, and he heard a bunch of
unfamiliar names that hadn’t made it even remotely clear. It didn’t come as a surprise though,
given what Verlaine said about his favourite student leaving his sight and dropping cooking for
good. Probably no one is even aware of the sole existence of such a person. This is another obstacle
Chuuya has to overcome if he wants to get better than he is now, he must accept the fact that there
was once someone better than him and that people like these are going to come and go regardless
of the heights he himself reaches. He’s not a god. He can’t peel the human parts off himself even if
he does something other people are incapable of.

After dinner, Chuuya doesn’t go to sleep despite his flight back in the early morning, instead
helping his mother sort some of his father’s old stuff they still haven’t thrown away after the
funeral. As he’s sorting through the dusty carton boxes, looking at old photographs and notebooks,
he hears his mother cry quietly as she sits down on their old shabby couch. Chuuya has to hug her
until she calms down, staring absentmindedly at the blank wall in front of himself and not
loosening his embrace even for an instant. If that’s the aftermath of love, he doesn’t want it. And if
the person he’s going to fall for really exists somewhere, trampling the ground of the block he lives
in or another continent, may their paths never ever cross.

The next day, Chuuya stands in the kitchen and doesn’t know what to expect. He smoked two
cigarettes in a row before, standing alone in the snow-covered street, mid-December making him
want to pass out from fatigue ten times more than before. He just needs to put up with this until
spring comes, then take his final award and get out of this damned city for as far as he can. Maybe
even come back to Europe, settle somewhere southern in a quiet suburban town, serving local
exotic dishes in a small restaurant near the seaside. What a life he could have, away from the
spotlight and the people recognizing his face, speaking his native language in the streets. All by
himself, renting out a small but comfy apartment, wide full-wall windows facing every crimson
sunset, evening by evening.

But now he’s here, back in the blinding lights of the kitchen, waiting to hear the rules of another
contest. Dazai is not even looking at him today, keeping aloof and reading something on his phone
screen as they wait. Chuuya smirks and turns back to the breakroom door the moment it flings
open, letting the judges in. Ango walks in first, holding a wooden box in his hands. There’s no way
they’re going to be tied together again, right? Chuuya won’t live through this disaster once more.

“Good morning,” Ango greets them all as Fukuzawa and Yosano follow him into the kitchen. He’s
eyeing the contestants carefully, his gaze not lingering on anyone in particular even for a second.
He nods at the box in his hands then. “Before we announce the rules, I’m going to pull out eight
random name cards. The contestants whose names I’ll announce will have to choose their partners
for today’s contest. Although we had a lot of fun watching you fight during the previous pair
competition, it’d be better if we weren’t to blame for any possible discords this time.”

He smirks as he reaches to pull the first card, Chuuya’s gaze following every movement of his
hand. Fukuzawa and Yosano are observing him as well, not saying a word, and their silence only
fuels the noticeably tense atmosphere in the room. It’s been louder in the dorms recently, with even
the closest of friends throwing tantrums over any minor disagreement. Chuuya had rather expected
that. As they’re inching their way towards the golden ten of the contest, everyone starts to care
more about their own ass rather than being cooperative and helpful to others. And given that
nobody had left after the last black apron contest, this only added to the overall distress.

In the meantime, Ango pulls out the fifth card, and Chuuya’s name hasn't been announced yet. He
silently hopes that he will get the privilege of picking a partner for himself today rather than being
picked by someone else as some sort of a leftover. Almost everyone is too frightened by his
confidence and skill level to even try and work in step with him, so he probably won’t be chosen
until he’s the only option left. Besides, other contestants are probably expecting him to pick Ranpo
in case he gets the chance. However, this is going to be different this time, as Chuuya has planned
his comeback to a certain stinky bastard in all detail.

“Chuuya Nakahara,” Ango reads the name from the card, looking up at him with his usual
reserved expression.

Chuuya sighs in relief and nods, ignoring a bunch of disturbed gazes directed at him. Lady Luck is
certainly on his side today, though he wishes she appeared a bit earlier. After him, Ango also
names Edgar, Mark, and Tachihara. Their picks are so evident it’s not even intriguing at this point.
As soon as it’s Chuuya’s turn to announce his chosen partner, he doesn’t hesitate even for an
instant before voicing out Dazai’s name, his tone calm and determined. The quiet muttering that
was scattering the room is cut off abruptly, and the most amusing expression Chuuya gets to look
at is Fukuzawa’s. Something flashes in his usually calm eyes, both surprised and not surprised at
all. He quickly hides it though, turning to glance at Dazai who’s approaching Chuuya silently,
stopping by his side, not even the slightest hint of irritation on his face.

Chuuya takes a deep breath as the muttering resumes, trying to ignore Dazai standing right next to
him, their shoulders almost brushing as he moves. There’s something he decided for himself
almost immediately after their last fight in the dorm. No matter what the next pair contest held for
them, they were to do it together again, and Chuuya wasn’t going to back down, instead using the
aces he’d gotten up his sleeve all at once. If Dazai thinks him incapable of being in control, he will
prove otherwise. If Dazai thinks he can keep getting on his nerves without being punished for it, he
will know better after whatever happens today.

And Chuuya thinks that his plan is perfect. He thinks that nothing can possibly go wrong now.
Two people, two dishes, the more resilient and collected one survives, wins, getting the pleasure of
observing this week’s black apron contest from the balcony, the all-encompassing view, steady
hands, mind set at ease. And he finds himself being a fool once again as Ango announces the
rules.
“Unlike in the previous pair contest, in this one, you’re going to cooperate,” he says as he puts the
box with the name cards aside. “We expect to see one dish from each pair, as elaborate as you can
think of, the storage and appliances rooms at your disposal the whole time,” Chuuya holds his
breath as he hears Dazai’s slight smirk. They both think that the task can’t possibly be this simple,
and they’re right. “Great chefs must be able to do their job perfectly regardless of the
circumstances they find themselves in. That is why we are imposing certain restrictions on you
today.”

He glances at Yosano then, who takes a step forward to eye them all with a hint of a smile.

“In the next two hours that you’ll take to complete your dishes, all lights in this kitchen will be
going off unexpectedly. There is no strict pattern nor a specific schedule for that, the lights are set
to go off whenever you least expect them to. Your main task is to keep your cool and go on
working regardless of the restriction. The contestants who manage to present a complete and
flawless dish on time will be saved from the black aprons for today,” Yosano keeps a short pause
to take a breath. “Is everything clear?”

Chuuya’s own breath gets stuck in his throat. This is much worse than anything he could’ve
expected. Let alone that his plan to take revenge on Dazai has failed miserably given that both of
them are going to be responsible if anything goes wrong with their dish, he also has to face one of
his worst blood-curdling fears.

When the judges leave them to work and the time starts counting down, the lights still on, Chuuya
takes a minute to steady the slight tremble of his own hands, not looking at Dazai who’s already
walking towards the storage room. Eventually, he stops, turning to glance at him.

“Is something wrong?” He asks, his voice completely indifferent, if a bit confused.

“No, nothing,” Chuuya lies and tries to pull himself together, following him and passing by,
quickly sliding into the storage room. He gets a bit irritated when people are encircling him,
everyone is trying to grab as many ingredients as possible, shoving each other out of the way,
shouting and screaming.

This is slowly turning into a battlefield, and Chuuya knew it would eventually come to this but he
has to step away for a second, almost hiding in one of the corners, next to the shelves filled with
herbs, and wait for the others to finally leave. There are not even ten of them left yet, and they’re
already fighting for every pack of sugar or a carton of milk as if today’s the day of the final
challenge. Chuuya can understand their motives, though. If the lights go off at any given moment,
it’s better to grab all the needed ingredients and devices while you can still see them. Yet, he can’t
find it in himself to take even a step forward, all his confidence has suddenly vanished as if it was
never there in the first place. He hides his hands in his pockets in an attempt to mask the slight
shivering going through his entire body and watches as Dazai steps into the storage room, too,
almost instantly being pushed away by Kajii who probably can’t even see him over the kitchen
machine he’s carrying towards his workplace. Dazai takes a deep sigh, eyeing the room and
quickly locating Chuuya, granting him a frown. He’s tall and broad enough not to be knocked
down, but his irritation towards other contestants is still written all over him. He waits for
everyone else to leave and finally walks up to Chuuya, still waiting for an explanation.

The moment Chuuya opens his mouth to say something, the lights go off for the first time, and he
can’t see anything in front of himself but still feels Dazai standing close, barely a step between
them. His breath catches in his throat and he breathes out with a shiver.

“Chuuya,” calls Dazai, softly, and his quiet voice somehow overlays the sequence of panicked
exclamations and occasional curses scattering the kitchen. “Are you scared of the dark?”
Chapter End Notes

you can find me on twitter: @acuteguwu

 Kiss with a Fist
Chapter Notes

chuuya: leave me alone, I ate glass

the GREATEST chapter, a true game-changer. here's what you need to know:
1. I nearly died last night but they WON'T get me until I finish this fic, I'm too
whipped about it
2. rimlaine are stepping into the crime scene and they are beautiful
3. Fêtes Galantes is a reference to the eponymous poem collection by Paul Verlaine
4. Kiss with a Fist is a reference to the song by Florence and the Machine
5. chuuya's obsession with dazai is getting really serious here, get ready for this
6. please keep leaving comments if you're reading this, I'm dying to know your
thoughts

and enjoy! hehe

See the end of the chapter for more notes

Chuuya doesn’t really remember when he started to be so frightened by the dark. He used to think
that all those times when his father had locked him up in the basement of their old house had
tempered him, making him resilient enough to withstand any possible threat. Someone once said
that it’s not the dark itself people are so afraid of, it’s what they may come across in it. The only
thing Chuuya had been ever uncomfortable with was the need to face his own thoughts the moment
he found himself in complete darkness. There wasn’t anything else to do anyway, so he used to just
sit there, on the cold floor, for hours until his mother came from the grocery store to rescue him.
The next time he got his father angry with another dish he made it all started over again, but
Chuuya never got used to it anyway, every other time just felt like the first one.

Even more than he is scared now, Chuuya is ashamed. Back in France, he managed to work in all
possible circumstances one could imagine. Rush hours, lazy and lenient hours, two clients, two
hundred clients, it never really mattered. What mattered was his sheer dedication to what he was
doing, his ability to hold a knife firmly in his hand even if the rest of his body was trembling in
fear. Now, however, he can’t do the same thing. Something has shifted in him, changed, making
him much more vulnerable than he was when he graduated from the academy, when he got his first
and only job as a chef, even more vulnerable than when he was eighteen. Chuuya might know the
reason himself, though he doesn’t want to succumb to it.

“I’m… not scared,” he manages to mutter, his mind already shifting from one thought to another,
trying to picture the exact placements of all shelves and fridges in the storage room. The blackout
may last for at least ten minutes to make it as uncomfortable as possible for them, and Chuuya is
clearly not in the winning position with such a state of events. “Let’s go grab everything we need.”

“Chuuya, wait,” Dazai’s hand stops him, grabbing his arm as soon as he barely takes a step. “We
still haven’t decided what to cook.”

“Yeah… right,” he swallows and closes his eyes, trying not to react to the obvious mess that is now
happening just across the thin wall that separates the kitchen from the storage room. Chuuya won’t
lie, he’s glad that he’s not alone in this. For the first time in his life he thanks the heavens above
for not letting him cook all by himself. Even though the bastard Dazai has to be his partner, let that
be. A kiss with a fist is better than none. “What are your ideas?”

If Chuuya could see Dazai’s expression right now, he’d probably be faced with sheer stupefaction.
Some part of him is glad he can’t.

“The judges clearly emphasized that the dish shouldn’t be something ordinary,” Dazai finally
replies, his hand letting go of Chuuya. “However, given that you’re now trembling like a wet dog,
it’d be better to think of a fail-safe and cook something we are both used to. I suggest lasagna.”

So many emotions are rushing through Chuuya right now, he doesn’t know which one to stop
himself at.

“As if a cooking prodigy like yourself couldn’t make an haute cuisine masterpiece in complete
darkness and with both of your hands tied up behind your back, why would you need me for this?”
Chuuya retorts, rolling his eyes. “We won’t cook a fucking lasagna, mackerel.”

The subject dropped, he starts walking towards the shelves using his poor body memory,
functioning solely on his fury towards Dazai. However, almost instantly, he trips over an empty
crate someone has probably dropped on the floor in the rush after taking out all the products from
it. If not for Dazai’s hand grabbing him by the sleeve just at the right moment, Chuuya would’ve
most certainly fallen and bruised himself quite badly. He freezes in his spot and takes a deep breath
before tossing the crate aside with his foot. He hears Dazai laughing at him, audibly enough, but
even if he tried to punch him in the face for this right now, he would most certainly miss the
target.

“Still not a fucking lasagna?” asks Dazai, an amused smile clear in his voice.

And it seems like Chuuya has no other choice. Dazai is – as per usual – disgustingly, annoyingly
right. Even if Chuuya opts for something elaborate, his growing panic every time the lights go off
will surely prevent him from completing every process without flaws. If that’s the restriction he
gets today, then it will be better to cook something simpler but do it perfectly. Probably they won’t
end up the best but at least they won’t get black aprons for this.

“Alright,” he gives in with a sigh. “Then you make the dough for the sheets, and I’ll work on our
béchamel.”

“Suddenly brave enough to command, huh?” Dazai smirks but lets go of his sleeve, and Chuuya
feels him walk past, headed towards the fridges. “I could use a hand, you know.”

“How am I supposed to help you when I can’t even see shit?” Chuuya still doesn’t follow him,
afraid of stumbling upon another theoretical empty crate (or something worse) on the floor.

However, the moment he says it, the lights go back on and for a moment, he needs to blink several
times just to concentrate his gaze on Dazai. He’s busy picking ingredients from one of the fridges,
and the sudden switch seems not to be bothering him at all. Now that he has a little time to pull
himself together, Chuuya remembers his true purpose here. He is a goddamn chef. He must cook.
If he doesn’t because of one minor inconvenience, what does it make him? What is he even worth?

Cooking starts relatively fine. Dazai occupies himself with their dough, and Chuuya tries not to be
a snob about it at first. The mere sight of the way he’s moving is irritating, there is a playful touch
to every gesture of his, an attitude that Chuuya could never withstand in other cooks. He grows
even more annoyed when he sees Atsushi approach their workplace, clearly seeking advice from
Dazai. They’re discussing the sauce he’s currently working on, Dazai manages to grab a spoon and
give it a taste while still kneading the dough with his free hand. Chuuya rolls his eyes at this, he’s
clearly not in the habit of helping everyone else while still having his own dish to think of. Dazai,
however, thinks otherwise. He’s overconfident to an unreasonable extent, he probably thinks that
the times of his misery are over, and he’s wrong for that. Chuuya is going to make his fall very,
very painful, even if he has to fall with him.

The lights go off for the second time the moment Chuuya starts to preheat the oven and puts the
saucepan with his béchamel on the stove. He curses, squeezing the handle firmer with his
trembling hand. Now he’s both frightened and nervous. If he can’t even see the current texture of
the sauce, how’s he supposed to cook it to the right one?

“You know,” Dazai suddenly appears next to him, his voice almost making Chuuya jump in
surprise. “If you start panicking each time the lights go off, you can hold my hand. I’ll navigate
us.”

The mere idea makes Chuuya nauseous. He’s not a little kid who got lost in the mall, he doesn’t
need guidance.

“I didn’t know mackerels could see in the dark,” he smirks, trying to hide the audible shake in his
voice. “Touch me, and I’ll cut your fingers off one by one on that same board you were using to
knead the dough.”

“Got it,” Dazai hums. “So, are you going to salt your sauce?”

Chuuya grits his teeth.

“If you haven’t noticed,” he almost hisses. “It’s fucking dark.”

“That doesn’t answer my question,” now it’s clear that he’s mocking him. Chuuya should’ve
predicted such an outcome. Of course, if Dazai has a chance to get on his nerves, he won’t miss it.

But deep down in his mind Chuuya keeps questioning another thing, that is: how can he be so
cruel? It was Chuuya’s misfire, letting him see this vulnerable, disgusting, absolutely out-of-image
part of himself. Repeating the same mistake he once made in front of Shirase, his old and long-
forgotten friend. Chuuya remembers how he swore he wouldn’t ever let himself be this fragile
again, and today, he’s already broken the promise twice. So then, that’s all it takes to ruin this card
house, these paper-thin walls he’s built around himself? Five minutes in complete darkness, all
alone with his main rival in a room packed up with people? Pathetic.

“I’ll salt it as soon as they turn the lights back on,” he explains, slowly steadying his voice.

But Dazai won’t leave him alone.

“Then you’ll have to remake it. Can’t you just salt it right now?”

“You know I fucking can’t!” Chuuya snaps at him, his voice coming out a bit louder without him
meaning it to. If Atsushi’s still standing somewhere near their workplace, patiently waiting for the
godsend Dazai to give him at least an ounce of attention, he’s probably winced at how hostile
Chuuya sounded. But he doesn’t care. He’s too worked up to think of how others may perceive him
right now. Everyone else is aware that he’s a walking bag of explosives by now anyway. “Just
leave me alone, please.”

“Then move your ass out of the way and let me salt it,” Dazai suggests, his tone surprisingly
collected. “We don’t have time to remake a thousand béchamels just because you get hysterical
every time the lights go off.”
How many times have Chuuya’s fists itched from the urge to punch him in the face? He’s long lost
count.

“The sauce is on me,” he insists, keeping his voice as calm as possible. “I’ll remake it as many
times as I need to, go work on the sheets instead of hovering above me like I’m some sort of a
preschooler.”

“Sometimes you really act like one,” Dazai hums at this.

Before Chuuya can actually grab him by the neck and drown his self-satisfied face in the very
sauce they keep bickering about, Atsushi, who’s still standing next to them (or perhaps he walked
away some time ago and now returned to check on the noise), cuts in.

“Yeah,” he sighs heavily, making Chuuya look in his direction even though he still can barely
discern his silhouette. “I see now why they’re calling you the disastrous partners.”

The mere word makes Chuuya cringe.

“We’re not fucking partners,” he retorts, squeezing the pan’s handle firmer in his hand. “We can’t
even agree on the simplest things.”

“That’s because you’re too stubborn to cooperate,” Dazai cuts in and tries to grab a saucepan from
his hand, but Chuuya pushes him away with his elbow. He doesn’t care how many bruises
mackerel gets after every pair contest with him, that’s still not enough anyway. If Chuuya could,
he’d beat up the fucker senseless. “Are you going to add salt or not?”

“I didn’t get my education in the best culinary school of France for some mediocre apprentice to
tell me how to cook my dishes,” he hisses back. Although he knows his first attempt to make a
sauce is long ruined anyway, the urge to prove his point is stronger than anything else.

Dazai sighs, not trying to fight him anymore.

“Just shut it, Chuuya, and salt your goddamn béchamel.”

The first thing he sees when the lights go on again is that his sauce has thickened to the point it’s
clearly not edible. He walks up to the sink with his saucepan, completely ignoring Dazai’s all-
knowing smirk, and then goes to the appliance room to grab another pan. He’s estimated that he’s
got around fifteen minutes to remake their béchamel, and it’s clearly more than enough for him. He
won’t give Dazai even a tiny ounce of pleasure in watching him fail, not today, not ever. He comes
back and starts over, step by step, his eyes still adjusting to the brightness of the room after several
minutes of complete darkness. As expected, the restriction does him no good. His movements and
thoughts grow to be more rushed, disjointed. He’s both nervous about the next possible blackout
and annoyed at Dazai’s unsolicited advice.

“I’ve been thinking,” Dazai breaks the silence between them again, busy flouring the kitchen
towels he’ll use to let the lasagna sheets air-dry. “And decided that we need to add a creative touch
to it.”

“Your creativity has never done you any good,” mutters Chuuya, slowly stirring the sauce.

“You heard about crepe cakes, right?” asks Dazai, completely ignoring his taunt. “What if we use
some decorations to make our lasagna look like a dessert?”

Chuuya grimaces at the thought. He hates going off the beaten path, and Dazai should be well
aware of it by now. Every idea he suggests Chuuya’s going to decline without even thinking it
over. They’re too unmatched when it comes to their individual perceptions of cooking. Chuuya
sticks to tradition, and Dazai tends to experiment with everything he gets his hands on. And the
way it forces him to risk it all sometimes is nothing but annoying. Chuuya doesn’t perceive him as
a hero or a mastermind. He thinks he’s nothing more than an upstart, a nouveau riche with a self-
esteem that could reach the stars. People like him never stay in culinary for long. It’s only a matter
of time before he puts a spoke in his own wheels.

“Do not distract me with your shitty brainstorm, mackerel,” he brushes him off. “If I remember it
correctly, we agreed on making something simple but flawless.”

“We did,” Dazai nods, walking up to the sink to wash the flour off his hands. “But if we still have
time to make something remarkable out of it, why don’t we try?”

“We don’t have time,” Chuuya glances at the clock. “I mean, we could’ve gotten some more of it
if you weren’t so indulged in consulting the helpless instead of doing your own job.”

“Just because you don't have a heart doesn't mean I don't either, carrot head,” Dazai comments
casually but something in his tone makes Chuuya stiffen. Dazai sighs. “I don’t care what you think
of it, I’ll cut a part of our lasagna off and arrange it as a crepe cake. You’ll see that it’s not a bad
idea at all.”

“Do anything you want but just fuck off,” Chuuya snaps, getting a taste of his sauce before
removing it from the stove. He’s not really happy about the whole thing, but they’re cooperating,
so he has to ask Dazai’s opinion on it as well. He gestures at him with his fingers without looking
up. “Try it.”

Dazai seems a bit surprised that he’s asking for something like this but approaches him anyway,
taking one of the clean spoons from the counter. Chuuya’s trying not to watch his face while he’s
tasting the sauce, instead stirring it a bit in the pan to check on the texture once again. Dazai is
silent for almost a minute before he finally speaks up.

“The taste is okay,” he hums, glancing at the rest of the sauce in the pan, breaking into Chuuya’s
personal space just enough for it to become irritating. As if he wasn’t on edge before this. “But the
texture is too gummy, again. Better remake it while we still have time.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Chuuya drops his own spoon on the counter.

“We’re opting for perfection,” Dazai shrugs, still not stepping away. “We have to conform.”

“You know well that one more blackout and I won’t be able to even hold a spoon in my hand,”
Chuuya hisses at him, making sure that no one else can hear him. “If you’re forcing me to remake
our sauce only to teach me a lesson, do it without cheating.”

“I’m forcing you to remake our sauce because I want our sauce to be good,” Dazai hums, clearly
not impressed by his sudden display of vulnerability. Or he’s pretending not to be. “And I told you,
you can hold my hand if you’re that scared, there’s nothing weird about this.”

“There’s no fucking way I’d rely on you even if I was on the brink of death,” Chuuya spits out, and
the moment he does, the room goes completely dark, again.

He doesn’t realize what he’s really doing when he’s grabbing Dazai’s arm by the sole memory,
shaking, sliding down the sleeve to find his hand and interlock their fingers, squeezing tight until
his knuckles start to burn. It’s only a mere second, a flash before Chuuya’s trying to steady his own
breath, feeling Dazai’s hand squeezing his own in response, much softer, as if he’s scared to break
him. They’re standing like this, silent, in a heart of the storm, while everyone else is rushing and
panicking, trying not to let their processes collapse. It doesn’t make any difference even when
Chuuya opens his eyes, realizing that he was keeping them shut the entire time. He still can’t see a
single thing in front of himself, and Dazai’s steady breath and the warmth of his skin are his only
beacons. Chuuya will regret this, he knows he will. But his reflexes are the only thing he still
hasn’t learnt to control. When he forces himself to move again, he loosens his grip a bit but still
doesn’t let go; his fingers release Dazai’s and slide up, feeling the rough fabric on his wrist that he
hasn’t noticed there before.

“Are these… bandages?” He asks with a frown, his voice still shaking audibly.

“Yeah,” he can’t see Dazai’s face but it’s clear that he grimaces at the question.

“Why would you need them?” Chuuya is not really interested, if only a bit, but right now he’s
asking only to distract himself with something and kill the rest of the time until the lights go on
again.

“Can we… talk about it in other circumstances?” Dazai sighs and catches his hand softly,
intertwining their fingers once more and not letting Chuuya explore the bandages on his skin
further. Chuuya wants to pull his hand away but deep down he admits that the gesture actually
soothes him, even his breath steadying much faster than when he was trying to go through this
alone. Maybe it is the thing he lacked during all those lockdowns in his old basement after all.
Someone’s bare presence by his side was always just enough to calm him down. But right now
Dazai has to make it worse with another self-satisfied smirk. “That’s clearly too much for a person
who threatened to cut my fingers off if I dare to touch him.”

“You better pray they won’t turn the lights on this time,” Chuuya hisses at this. “As soon as I can
see you again, you’re a dead man.”

“Fascinating how you’re still mad at me even when I’m the one keeping you sane,” Dazai breathes
out and starts walking away, dragging Chuuya along. “Our time’s still counting down, carrot head,
so we better not waste it on cheap talk.”

“Right,” Chuuya agrees with a heavy sigh, trying to understand what he’s doing right now using all
of the senses he still can control. It seems like he’s already started to arrange the sheets on a baking
tray, spreading the layers of sauces and chopped spinach evenly. Chuuya frowns. “Don’t you need
both of your hands for this?”

“You’re extremely sharp today, carrot head,” Dazai smirks but doesn’t let go of his hand. “Feel
like holding my arm for a moment while I’m finishing this?”

“We’re not on a fucking prom,” Chuuya spits out and releases his hand, practically brushing Dazai
off himself like a fly. “Move your stinky ass faster, we don’t have time to dance around.”

He pretends to be irritated just because he doesn’t want to face the fact that he actually feels much
more on edge without Dazai’s hand anchoring him in place. Even when the lights go on again and
they’re finishing all the processes, arranging their lasagna on a plate, Chuuya keeps hiding his
embarrassed gaze. He just hopes they won’t have to talk about what’s just happened ever again.
Dazai seems to read his intentions perfectly and – to Chuuya’s surprise – has enough decency not
to mock him for being insecure. Instead, he concentrates on their presentation fully, sneaking into
the storage room the last minutes before the end of the contest and grabbing a bowl of fresh
cranberries. He seems to be too obsessed with the whole “make it look like a crepe cake” idea, so
Chuuya doesn’t really protest this time, silently watching him cut a perfect circular shape out of
their lasagna, drizzling the remains of béchamel over it and using cranberries as decorations. After
he’s finished, he glances up at Chuuya with sheer, almost childish delight in his eyes.

“It’s a real cake!” He exclaims, happily, with a wide grin on his face.

“It’s a real piece of shit,” Chuuya rolls his eyes, crossing his arms on his chest.

His grumbling doesn’t ruin Dazai’s mood even a bit, and he keeps grinning all the time even during
the verdicts. Chuuya glances over at Ranpo, meeting his supporting gaze. His friend seems to be
even more nervous than he is, but it’s nothing compared to Edgar who’s visibly shaking next to
him. It’s hard to assess their dish from the distance, but it’s clearly not a dessert, so his worrying
makes perfect sense. Edgar goes completely pale the moment Fukuzawa approaches their
workplace, holding a fork in his hand.

“We just have to hope that someone’s managed to make a dish even shittier than ours,” Chuuya
mutters, returning his gaze to Dazai. “Although I doubt it possible.”

“Can you stop being a snob about this just for a moment?” Dazai sighs, leaning against one of the
counters with both of his hands. “If you don’t believe in us, I will.”

Testing Chuuya’s patience is a lot like poking the dough with a needle. At some point, the texture
ends up being torn apart. The answer is no, he can’t stop being a snob about this. Because his great
plan to avenge Dazai has been ruined, because Dazai’s ended up being a fucking cooking prodigy
once again, because his shitty experimenting has played out in his favor once more as if he could
actually see it coming, because it leaves Chuuya with nothing, nothing to prove, nothing to make of
himself. Because he turned out to be nothing more than a puppet in Dazai’s hands again. Because
Dazai’s genius overshone his own for the umpteenth time.

When Fukuzawa tastes their lasagna, Chuuya is looking away the entire time. They talk about
something with Dazai but he’s not really following until he hears his own name.

“Chuuya,” Fukuzawa raises an eyebrow at him. “You seem to be someplace else, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing, chef,” he lies. “It’s just been a really draining contest.”

“By falling to new lows we’re reaching new heights,” Fukuzawa recites, and Chuuya now gets
where Dazai’s obsession with questionable motivational quotes comes from. “So tell me, Chuuya,
are you satisfied with working by Dazai’s side today?”

He knows this cheap trick well. It’s for the cameras solely. Now he has to put on a charming smile
and nod, lying in all colors that for him, it was the most exciting partnership in the entire contest so
far. He can’t do this. He’s capable of lying about everything except his own feelings. And even his
true feelings are too complicated right now to start figuring them out.

“It was okay,” he says moderately, ignoring the cameraman approaching their workplace. “We
agreed on our processes in advance, and it helped us to finish everything on time.”

Fukuzawa is looking at them for some time, his gaze shifting between him and Dazai. He’s
probably trying to figure out what are the true intentions Chuuya’s hiding behind his words. The
truth is, there are none. He just wants to get this over with as quickly as possible, smoke a cigarette,
go back to the dorm and sleep until the next morning. However, the interrogation is not over just
yet.

“Did you support Dazai’s idea to present your lasagna in a form of a crepe cake?” Fukuzawa asks
him, putting his fork aside. There’s a hint of provocation in his eyes and his tone, and it clearly is
strange, because Fukuzawa isn’t known to be a big fan of scandals.
Chuuya rolls his eyes at this.

“It was the first and only decent thought that appeared in his dumb head during the entire contest,”
he says, clearly showing that he’s not going to play along.

He’s had enough of this. The thought that Fukuzawa is still putting up with Dazai’s endless antics
just because they were a family once is making him sick. It’s not how things are done in their craft.
Everyone must be able to stand up for themself without someone else’s interference. Does it make
Chuuya any worse if he hasn’t got anyone to protect him? And how does it really feel, knowing
that there’s someone who will always be by your side? Is it rewarding? Does it burn as friendship
does?

“I’m not satisfied with your attitude towards this,” Fukuzawa frowns, his tone harsh. “Dazai has
come up with a brilliant presentation of a simple dish, saving both of you from black aprons, you
could’ve at least been grateful for that.”

If the voice in Chuuya telling him to step back when he needs to is still there, then it’s suspiciously
silent right now. Because Chuuya can’t find it in himself to shut up when he’s already started
telling the truth. He smirks, crossing his hands on his chest again. He probably shouldn’t do this so
often. It shows how truly vulnerable he is, at times.

“I’m sorry I’m a burden to the deity,” he scoffs, looking Fukuzawa straight in the eye, accepting
the challenge he’s not aware he’s already lost. He feels Dazai go tense next to him, watching
Chuuya ruin this for them both, not taking his armor off but resigning. “If you think I deserve a
black apron, then give it to me. Don’t go easy on me, chef, it’s not your style.”

Someone in the back rows whistles, and quiet muttering scatters the room. Even the filming crew
stiffens next to them but Fukuzawa remains collected, reserved, only a glint of something that
looks like disappointment flashing in his eyes. Chuuya realizes that he’s not thinking before
leaping, blindly protecting his own pride. It’s not Dazai’s fault that he was so helpless today he
couldn’t even make the simplest sauce on the first try. It’s no one’s fault but his own, and if
someone deserves to be put at risk of being kicked out, it’s him.

“Very well,” Fukuzawa sighs and gestures at Ango who’s just approached their workplace after
checking on Tachihara and Gin’s dish. “Sakaguchi, do us a favor and bring two black aprons,” his
gaze slides back to Dazai who seems to have predicted this outcome. His face is blank,
emotionless, he accepts his fate as soldiers do. But Chuuya, however, doesn’t. He grows worried,
almost frightened, ready to leap, but Fukuzawa cuts him off with a calm gesture of his hand, not
letting him speak. “You heard the rules well, didn’t you? If someone deserves a black apron, their
partner does as well. If you couldn’t work hard enough today, the responsibility is not only yours
but Dazai’s to bear.”

You reap what you sow, Chuuya.

He swallows, heavily, taking his black apron from Ango’s hand. Dazai does the same. They’re
taking their own aprons off and start tying the black ones behind their backs, their gestures in step.
Once they’re done, Dazai turns to glance at him, but Chuuya looks away, pinned to the floor under
his shaky legs. Now it’s done. The crown on his head didn’t only tilt, it fell, covered with cracks.
Once Fukuzawa and Ango step aside to walk to another pair of contestants, Chuuya starts from his
place and walks away in rushed steps, not turning away even when Dazai’s loud voice calls him
from behind.

“Chuuya, wait!”
He slams the pavilion’s door shut and stops abruptly, eyeing himself. His apron is like a stain of
black ink on the canvas of the snow-covered street. He takes it off quickly and wrinkles it in his
fist, walking like this all the way to the dorms.

“Did you find this place for me?” Chuuya asks, his voice soaked in awe.

He’s eyeing the airy bedroom of the flat Verlaine has taken him to, a five-story building in one of
the quietest neighbourhoods of Paris, wide white walls, high ceilings, thin windows facing the
narrow sunlit streets with merchants and mailmen, antique furniture covered in dust. It’s clear that
the place has been deserted for a long time. Probably Verlaine had been saving it for someone else,
someone who couldn’t make it here, and the mere thought makes Chuuya flinch. However, it’s his
now, after all the years of cutting his hands to slivers with knives, bending over the counters and
stoves, breaking countless kitchen machines, passing exam after exam, season after season, time
after time. He’s a graduate. He’s twenty-two, he’s gnawed this place for himself.

“I’m just helping you settle somewhere temporarily, Chuuya,” Verlaine brushes him off and walks
to one of the windows, opening the curtains and checking the view. “You are going to pay your
rent yourself as honest men do.”

Chuuya raises an eyebrow at him.

“But I don’t have a job.”

“That’s also temporary,” says Verlaine, still not looking at him. “I have arranged a job interview
for you, that’s the privilege my best students get and you should not waste it.”

Chuuya needs to fight a content grin every time Verlaine calls him his best student. The moments
are rare but there, and Chuuya keeps every single one of them close to his heart. He took his
mother to France to watch his graduation ceremony, he saw her eyes watering even from the
distance when the dean was handing him his diploma, a smile worth thousands of knife cuts on his
hands gleaming on her face. They went to celebrate then, only two of them. His mother didn’t
speak French and Chuuya was an interpreter for her the entire evening, bearing pride in every
sentence he managed to word without mistakes. They drank champagne and ate oysters, his mother
watched him smoke a cigarette for the first time, disapproval merged with pride. If anything, she
was proud of the person he’d grown up to be. She was proud of him for being able to overcome
everything he went through. And she knew well that he wasn’t going back home. His home would
soon be Fêtes Galantes.

Its wide halls filled with classy furniture glisten in the sunlight the first time Chuuya steps inside.
The restaurant is still closed this early in the morning, but some of the waiters are already filling
the place, waltzing around, wiping the tables and replacing yesterday’s flowers in the vases with
fresh bouquets. Their uniforms are black and white, accented by golden name badges above their
chest pockets, something Chuuya could only see in movies. Even when he was still a student and
they used to frequent local diners with Shirase and Yuan, they couldn’t afford even a glass of wine
in a place like this. But now he is to work here. Even if Verlaine gave him the entire world Chuuya
wouldn’t be so happy.

“Let’s go,” Verlaine commands and gestures to one of the farther rooms. That’s probably where
the kitchen is. “I’ll make you meet the chef.”

Chuuya has heard about the man, Arthur Rimbaud. Being barely forty, he’s already won several
international culinary awards and worked in Michelin restaurants worldwide. Working under his
wing is something a fledgling cook can only dream of. And Chuuya’s trembling once they’re
stepping into the kitchen, finally realizing one simple and obvious thing. Verlaine is not his mentor
anymore. Next study year, he’ll have another class, another favorite student, and Chuuya is all by
himself now. He can’t even start to word how much he will miss everything they’ve been through.
Four years have passed, vanished as if they were never there. It’s time for another person to watch
over him, and this person is now looking at Chuuya perceptively, eyeing him from head to toe,
smirking a bit at the way his hair has already grown to reach his shoulders, and now he has to use
little metal clips to keep some of the bangs from falling onto his face. Rimbaud is wearing his
chef’s jacket, snow white and perfectly fit, his hands are crossed on his chest, his long black hair in
a ponytail. Chuuya likes it at first sight. Maybe once his own hair is long enough he should start
wearing it like this sometimes, too.

Verlaine approaches him first, and they exchange classic French greetings, two rushed touches of
their cheeks and smiles, their fingers intertwining once their hands touch, a wave meeting its shore.
There’s something utterly intimate in such a simple gesture, and Chuuya has to look away for a
moment, not really sure whether he should introduce himself first or wait for Rimbaud to ask him
to do this.

“So,” Arthur says to Chuuya as he lets go of Verlaine’s hand. “Here comes my ex-husband’s most
devoted follower.”

Chuuya almost chokes on the breath he tried to take. He shifts his gaze from Rimbaud to Verlaine
and back slowly, instantly trying to imagine how these two looked like when they were younger,
two students like himself, where did they meet? In the academy? Later? It’s completely natural that
Verlaine has never told him anything about his personal life, they’re not close enough for things
like these, and they probably will never be anyway. Still, it comes as a shock that Verlaine
managed to hide the fact that he was married from his students, although it’s probably written
somewhere on his Wikipedia page, and Chuuya was just too indulged in exploring his culinary
achievements to pay attention to that one particular section.

“It’s my honor to meet you,” Chuuya nods and reaches to shake his hand. “I’ve heard a lot about
you, you’re a true culinary legend.”

“Hope you weren’t gossiping much about me with Paul,” Arthur grimaces but instantly smiles,
eyeing him once more with a warm, welcoming gaze. “Looking forward to working with you,
Chuuya, you seem like a promising young man.”

Later, they go for lunch with Verlaine, taking a seat on one of the Parisian terraces, two cups of
dark coffee in porcelain mugs and an ashtray on the glass table. Verlaine lights a cigarette, and
Chuuya is a bit stupefied as he’s never seen him smoke before. He doubts if he should, too, but
thinks better of it and takes a sip of his coffee instead.

“So,” Verlaine breaks the silence, moving the ashtray closer to himself. “What do you think of
Arthur?”

Chuuya’s first thought is to ask how come the two of them happened to have been married before,
but he probably shouldn’t dive into something this private right away. He’s afraid of the reaction he
may get in response. If Verlaine thinks he deserves to hear this story, he will tell it himself. Until
then, Chuuya is left with nothing but guesswork.

“I still can’t believe a person like him is going to be my chef,” he says instead, trying to keep his
true amazement at bay. “I will do my best not to let him down. And you.”

To his surprise, Verlaine laughs at his words quietly.

“I’m glad to see your enthusiasm about this,” he says. “But, as much as I don’t want to disappoint
you, Rimbaud is not going to be your chef. He decided to step back from the position not so long
ago, and now we’re looking for someone to replace him with.”

“Why?” Chuuya frowns at this. “He’s basically built Fêtes Galantes with his own hands.
Everything great about this restaurant is his and your doing. Why would he voluntarily abandon
everything he’s achieved by such hard work?”

Verlaine shrugs at this, glancing over at the waitress who’s approaching their table with a tray.
Chuuya hasn’t noticed how hungry he was the entire time.

“He’s human too, Chuuya, he can have his own plans for the future,” Verlaine says as he nods to
the waitress who’s putting their plates on the table, a polite smile on his lips. “But it’s not about
him anyway. There are currently several candidates aiming at his position. Arthur and I are going
to interview each one of them individually, and I would like you to give it a try as well.”

If Chuuya was confused before, now he’s completely speechless.

“You want me to apply for this position?” He asks, not even touching his own lunch. “But I… I
don’t have any experience in such a serious job.”

“I know you don’t,” Verlaine nods, pouring several drops of olive oil into his salad bowl. He’s
never fully satisfied with the dishes he’s served in any of the local places. “And since I’ve already
studied some of the other applicants’ resumes, I can say that your chances are rather few compared
to theirs. But it doesn’t mean you should give up right away.”

That’s exactly how it sounds, Chuuya thinks to himself, looking down with a bitter smile. Of
course, he can’t have everything at once. He should be grateful for the things that have already
been given to him, something that any other cook his age couldn’t even dream of. His ambitions
are high but, as with anything else in the world, they have their limits as well. He could never be
able to repay Verlaine for this even if the chef assigned him to peel carrots in a storage room of
Fêtes Galantes. Nobody has ever become a chef at twenty-two. Chuuya surely won’t be an
exception to this rule.

“Think about this,” Verlaine advises him at last. “The interview is next Monday at nine. You have
to come up with an original dish and cook under our supervision, text me everything you’ll need
two days before the date so I make sure we’ve got the ingredients stored.”

When Chuuya is back in his new flat, he’s in doubt. Doubts are haunting him like ghosts whenever
he moves from his bedroom to his kitchen and back, whenever he goes to the balcony for a smoke.
An original dish, elaborate enough to be worthy of the reputation Paul Verlaine and Arthur
Rimbaud have built for Fêtes Galantes. Even if he tries, can he really do this? The last time he
cooked something of his own, not following someone else’s recipe, was in middle school. In the
academy, he was too packed up fixing errors noticed by Verlaine and other teachers to try and cook
something authentic, remember how it felt like. Now when he has a perfect chance to demonstrate
his skills, he doesn’t know where to start. He unpacks the bag with the cookbooks he bought back
when he was still studying. He piles them all on the floor, makes himself a mug of tea, and starts
reading. He doesn’t take breaks and, deep into the night, he finds himself studying the pastry
section of one of the cooking manuals written by Arthur Rimbaud. He’s picky when it comes to
desserts, it’s almost impossible to impress him, and a person who decides to make pastry under his
supervision is either too brave or too stupid. But Chuuya’s neither. Does he have anything to lose?
He doubts it.

He takes another sip of his tea, opens his sketchbook, and starts drawing the outline of the dessert
he’d like to present for his very first job interview. He imagines a classic sponge cake, either
chocolate or strawberry, with roast peaches as decorations, drizzled with white wine, a little scoop
of salted caramel ice cream next to it on a plate. Chuuya smiles. He pictures it in all detail, and the
mere thought of a mixture of tastes he can achieve with this makes his mouth water. However,
that’s still not enough. Making a good dessert is predictable and boring. He has to make a true fête
galante out of it. And he thinks he knows how.

The day of the interview, his hands are shaking. He greets other applicants, collected and confident
men and women, all of them French, none of them as nervous as he is. There are people a bit older
than him and people twice his age. Chuuya feels like a little mole, too insignificant to be noticed.
His jacket is a bit loose on his small body, and he has to roll up his sleeves so that they won’t
bother him while he’s cooking. He takes one of the counters, having piled up all the ingredients in
advance, and greets Verlaine and Rimbaud with a polite smile and a nod once they step into the
kitchen. For some reason, Chuuya’s taken the front workplace, and now he regrets his choice.
Arthur’s indulged gaze is like a burn on his entire body. Verlaine’s, although, is like a ray of hope.
He grants him an approving nod and a reserved smile that makes him feel a little less shaky.

The cooking itself, Chuuya doesn’t remember much. Even though all of them are competitors
today, they work surprisingly in step, without interfering or bickering. He bakes his sponge cake,
having decided on the chocolate one as the strawberry taste wouldn’t have worked well with the
wine-drizzled peaches. Verlaine approaches his workplace from time to time, instantly taking him
back to the times of the academy, making him smile. The most difficult part of his presentation is
yet to come, and Chuuya fears it as much as he anticipates it. He opts at making a perfectly-shaped
sugar dome and placing it over the dessert, covering an entire plate. The person tasting it will have
to break the dome with a spoon first in order to get to the main part. If Chuuya does everything
right, the outcome should be impressive enough for him to stand at least the smallest chance.

He’s worked with isomalt only once before. They had a practical class on the molecular kitchen
and all the other extraordinary stuff attached to it. That time, all his attempts turned out to be
completely disastrous. However, he doesn’t intend to step back this time. He has a perfect picture
of how his dessert should look, and he is going to achieve the desired outcome whatever it takes.
There is sheer surprise written all over Verlaine’s face the moment he sees Chuuya bring a pack of
isomalt to his workplace, even though Chuuya warned him that he was going to work with it
beforehand. His hands keep trembling as he’s putting on the gloves, remembering to work both for
a result and entertainment. When he becomes a chef and starts arranging his own masterclasses, his
guests will be watching his every move like the pickiest critics. He has to start getting ready for
this right now.

He ruins three spheres in a row but keeps working, getting more nervous with every passing
minute. His hands are trembling too badly and there’s no way he can steady them now that
Rimbaud announces that they have five minutes left to finish presenting their dishes. Luckily,
Chuuya has preheated several portions of isomalt beforehand, in case he fails on the first attempt.
He’s slowly inflating the sphere with a sugar pump, rotating it in his left hand. When it’s done, he
double-checks the shape, takes a gas burner to heat it on one side, and thus gets a dome to cover
his dessert with. By the time he’s done and their two assigned hours are over, his forehead is
sweaty and his hands are numb. He walks to the sink and washes his face, his heart skipping a beat
the moment he understands he’s going to be the first to be, well, interviewed.

Rimbaud and Verlaine have arranged a small guest spot for themselves, a table and two chairs, a
vase with fresh flowers, and two glasses of wine in front of them. As he was cooking, Chuuya
glanced at the two of them from time to time, trying to eavesdrop on their small talk, catching the
glints of soft smiles on their faces. They looked like two people who cherished each other
immensely, who were deep, madly in love once a long, long time ago. Chuuya couldn’t help but
wonder when had it all vanished, where to? Even more than by the thought of two people ending
up marrying each other, he was bothered by their divorcing and still staying friends. If he ever gets
married to someone and breaks up with them in the aftermath, he can’t even imagine a scenario in
which he volunteers to see this hypothetical someone outside the legal meetings and signing
divorce papers.

He approaches the table with a plate in his trembling hands, the very first verdict in his life
announced outside the academy’s walls. Rimbaud is eyeing his dish carefully, rotating it slowly
with one hand. Verlaine’s gaze is fixed on Chuuya the entire time as if he wants to ask him
something, but Chuuya doesn’t look back. He’s focused on watching Rimbaud’s every movement,
the way he takes a spoon and breaks the sphere carefully, separate pieces falling inside like
shattered glass. Chuuya flinches, biting his lower lip. There goes his first misfire. Isomalt is edible
but not digestible, and there’s no point in using it in a dish like this, it’s too… experimental, and
Chuuya hates experiments. One of the classic culinary rules states that you should only decorate
your dish with things that can be eaten, and eaten safely. Chuuya was too fixated on making his
dessert remarkable to actually remember this. And the moment the pieces of isomalt are falling
onto his sponge cake and an ice cream scoop, completely ruining the whole picture, he knows that
he’s over with. Some other applicants hum at this, watching over his shoulder, and they’re not
exactly mocking him, but they are close, and Chuuya feels like melting away from shame.

Rimbaud gets a small bite of his sponge and passes the dish to Verlaine. They’re just eating it in
silence for some time, cutting the wine-drizzled roasted peaches and checking on their texture.
Watching the two of them is somewhat adorable. As if Chuuya’s just a passer-by interrupting
someone else’s date. At the same time, he can’t help but marvel at the way Rimbaud and Verlaine
seem to be this comfortable together, not only doing everything in step as work partners but also
taking sheer pleasure in spending time chatting, smiling, and laughing at each other’s jokes. This is
probably the clearest, the most perfect display of true love Chuuya’s been ever faced with. And for
a moment, he thinks, if I ever fall for someone, I want it to be like this. He wants to have what
Rimbaud and Verlaine have.

When they’re done tasting his dish, Verlaine puts his spoon aside and interlocks his fingers on the
table, looking almost like a strict parent. It doesn’t really suit him, and Chuuya smiles at the
gesture.

“Your cake was delicious, Chuuya,” makes a small flock of spring birds fly somewhere in his
stomach. “However, apart from the… impressive presentation, we haven’t noticed anything
authentic about it. Millions of chefs have cooked sponge cakes before you, millions will cook them
after you. What was your original touch to it?”

Chuuya wants to speak up but bites his tongue at last. Right. An original touch. That’s what he’s
always lacked. His ability to create something authentic seems to have vanished along with the
death of his father, as he hasn’t been able to come up with something of his own ever since. The
truth is, he doesn’t have an answer, except for, I still have to work a lot, and I apologize for
disappointing you today. But he would rather die than admit this out loud. Not even in front of
Verlaine and Rimbaud.

“Thank you, Chuuya,” Arthur gestures back at his workplace, taking his silence as an answer.
“Please wait until we call for you again.”

Chuuya knows they won’t. He takes the plate with the remnants of his dessert and walks back to
the counter, carefully avoiding everyone else’s gazes. Verlaine’s worried eyes follow him all the
way long, but this time Chuuya doesn’t look back either. He needs to occupy himself with
something so he doesn’t start howling like a wounded animal while the chefs he revers the most in
his life are praising somebody else, so he takes the plate with his ruined isomalt spheres and starts
breaking them into small pieces one by one, putting them in his mouth and chewing slowly,
carefully, grimacing at the oversugared taste. His body won’t digest it. That’s exactly what it
deserves.

“Do you want to talk about this?” Ranpo’s concerned voice breaks the silence the moment Chuuya
opens his eyes and lifts himself from the bed, still sleepy and red-faced from the tears he cried
before.

“No,” he cuts him off and turns to face the wall, escaping the pitying look on his friend’s face and
the black apron hanging from the closet’s handle, watching him like Cerberus. “Leave me alone,”
he mutters, burying his face in the pillow.

Soon he falls asleep again. He doesn’t know how much time passes like this but when he opens his
eyes, Ranpo is still in the room, scribbling something in his notebook and listening to the music in
his earbuds. He takes them out the moment he notices that Chuuya’s awake and tries again.

“Still don’t want to talk about this?”

It’s deep into the night, the dorm seems quiet, and Chuuya gives in. He moves closer to the wall
and gestures at the empty spot on his bed. Ranpo reads his unspoken invitation perfectly and stands
up from his own bed, walking right to him and lying down, facing the ceiling. They just lie in
silence like this for some time, Chuuya feels the warmth coming from Ranpo’s body, and it helps
him keep his emotions at bay somehow. He still can’t believe this entire day is not one of his
prolonged nightmares. How could he be so stupid? He’s not only risked it all himself but also put
Dazai’s fate at stake. As much as Chuuya loathes his mere existence, Dazai clearly doesn’t deserve
to be punished like this.

“I should apologize to him, shouldn’t I?” He smirks, and the sudden sound of his voice makes
Ranpo flinch.

“If you think it’s the right thing to do,” he shrugs in response. “Can I ask you something?”

Chuuya winces at the question, he thinks he knows where it’s leading to.

“Sure,” he says, at last, his eyes still fixed on the ceiling above them.

“Why do you hate Dazai so much?”

It’s anything but what he’s been preparing himself for. At the same time, it’s exactly the question
Chuuya’d known Ranpo would ask.

“I don’t,” he rubs his eyes with his fists and sighs heavily. “I don’t hate him. I know it looks like a
competition, but isn’t competition the exact thing we’re all here for?”

Ranpo frowns at this.

“I mean, yeah, probably,” he hums. “But most of us, as much as we can’t stand some of the other
contestants, are always ready to cooperate whenever our final result depends on it. I used to think
that you were so explosive around Dazai because you wanted him to ruin his dishes and end up
being kicked out, which is reasonable given that he’s a serious threat,” Chuuya almost laughs at
this. Here it goes, a perfect description of one certain stinky mackerel. “But after today’s contest,
I’m not sure anymore. You were so stubborn in your willingness to mess with Dazai that even your
own dish depending on him didn’t stop you,” Ranpo sighs. “I can’t understand your intentions,
 Chuuya. Dazai is a real piece of work, that’s true. But throughout the entire contest so far, he’s
been helping you with and without you asking for it. If you haven’t noticed, he’s been kinder to
you than anyone else here. Why would you repay him like that?”

Ranpo is extremely insightful when Chuuya least expects him to be. He tries to dig deeper, to find
the truth and crack it open like a sugar sphere keeping the dessert inside, but the truth is, in fact, on
the very surface.

“Because he’s better than me,” the confession Chuuya had been dancing around for too long. He
hides his face in his hands and lets out a heavy breath. “At everything. He can come up with the
silliest idea ever known to humankind and work it out perfectly. He can bake trout in the salt. He
can combine black caviar with white chocolate and make it better than Blumenthal. He can
assemble a croquembouche steadier than the goddamn Eiffel Tower. He can make a fucking Baked
Alaska look and taste godly. He can cook two elaborate dishes at once using only one hand. He can
turn lasagna into a crepe cake. And the worst part is that he can get away with all of this.”

The silence that comes after his words is the most deafening one Chuuya’s ever been faced with.
Ranpo is not looking at him, and he’s thankful for that. He feels… embarrassed, at least. It’s
almost like he’s just confessed his true feelings about Dazai without – thank god – Dazai hearing it
himself. He will never know. If he also believes that Chuuya hates him, let that be. In any
circumstances, Dazai shouldn’t find out how weak and miserable he makes him feel.

“Dude,” Ranpo sighs heavily after the long minutes of silence between them. “Now I don’t think
that even avoiding him can help you overcome this.”

Chuuya lifts himself up, sitting down on the bed and trying to flatten his messy hair with his
hands.

“I’ll go apologize to him,” he decides, although the mere thought makes him sick. “And if he
doesn’t even listen to me, that’ll be for the better.”

Ranpo only hums at this.

“Then you better hope so.”

Chapter End Notes

you can find me on twitter: @acuteguwu

 Knife Lessons
Chapter Notes

tw: mentions of self-harm

well hello there! I'm still alive, if anyone's been wondering. we're moving closer to the
very heart of this story, and dazai's flashbacks are yet to start very, very soon, hope
you're as impatient about them as I am. the next chapter will include: the black apron
contest and a small joint vacation for skk (let's be honest, they deserve that).
thank you for all the kudos and comments! I'll reply to each one of them as soon as I
have time and a stable internet connection
love ya!

The darkness absorbs Chuuya like a living creature. It has hands, long, a lot of them, and they are
everywhere. And he’s scared, noticeably so, he’s probably trembling all over. It’s a mixture of two
completely opposite things: his main phobia, keeping him on a leash, and cooking, the thing he
feels the most comfortable, free and safe doing. Even if you’re in the most secure place in the
world, as long as your hands are tied, you’re trapped. But for Chuuya, there’s something else here.
Someone else.

“Now take a pack of flour,” constructs the voice behind his back, slow, deep, and focused. Chuuya
leaps with his hand stretched in front of him and almost runs into a knife holder – blades up, guard
down – with his open palm. He mutters a curse. “Slowly.”

“Why are you talking like a fucking ASMR blogger?” Chuuya retorts, feeling the pack of flour
with both of his hands at last. “You’re pissing me off.”

Dazai hums, thoughtfully, behind his back.

“Should I start shouting?”

Once again, his voice, his warmth, his mere presence is a beacon. Chuuya holds onto it, carefully,
walking on a bridge above the abyss. One wrong move, and he’s done with. Dazai is the only
anchor keeping him from falling shamefully. Chuuya opens the pack of flour and takes a spoon
he’s placed on a counter before. He needs a bit less than two tablespoons. But while his eyes are
hidden behind the soft fabric of his own scarf, soaked in the smells of cigarettes and winter wind,
and he can’t see a damn thing in front of himself, how can he measure it? By weighing the spoon in
his hand? By touch?

“Need help, carrot head?”

Chuuya grits his teeth. Apparently, he has no other choice.

“Yes,” the word is like a handful of tacks in his mouth. “But don’t do it instead of me.”

A brief moment passes before Dazai appears right next to him, Chuuya hears his steady breath
close, and for some reason, his hand holding the spoon starts shaking slightly. Dazai’s warm hand
encircles his own, stopping it from trembling, another beacon, another anchor.
“Didn’t mean to,” he hums and guides his hand, the spoon drowning in white dust and appearing
again, the paddle on a river’s surface. Dazai takes a step back, dragging Chuuya along. There’s no
point in making cooking this intimate, but this was Chuuya who came up with the idea in the first
place; he has no right to complain. They add the flour to the pan, their hands still firmly chained
together. Dazai’s free hand pushes his back forward slowly. “And once again.”

An hour ago

Chuuya finds Dazai deep into the night, sitting on the windowsill on the dorm’s upper floor,
hanging like a comma off an unfinished sentence, all by himself, the paperback in his hands, a
pastry cookbook, Chuuya recognizes even from the distance.

“I’ve been looking everywhere for you,” he says quietly but firmly, dragging Dazai out of his
reading. He doesn’t even startle, just looking up at him as if he had been expecting him to come
find him. Chuuya stops, hands hidden in the front pocket of his hoodie, hesitating to get onto the
windowsill next to him. “What are you doing?”

“Getting ready for Friday,” Dazai says with a short sigh and closes his book, using his index finger
as a bookmark between its pages. Actually preparing himself for the black apron contest is surely
out of character for him, but Chuuya can’t force himself to think about this, not now, when the
apologies in his head are forming a flood. Dazai is eyeing him silently for some time. “Why aren’t
you sleeping?”

“I’ve slept almost through the entire day,” Chuuya grimaces at the memory, his body still an
overboiled batter. He takes a deep breath and finally gets on the windowsill, it’s wide but not wide
enough, and his left knee slightly brushes over Dazai’s right leg, covered by the thin fabric of his
sleepwear. “I wanted to talk to you.”

Dazai leans with his shoulder against the window, his face blank but his gaze so deep it almost
makes Chuuya forget the language he’s spoken his entire life. He looks both like a stranger and a
person so familiar and known you forget to greet him when you bump into each other in the
corridor. Chuuya holds gently onto the remnants of his disdain, the one covering him entirely like a
shield, keeping the parts of him that have recently started to see the light in Dazai hidden, even
from himself. Chuuya knows he’s different, but he’s always thought that different meant hostile.
Now, however, different means new. And he wants to know, genuinely, what keeps driving Dazai
forward every single day, what makes him get on his feet and start over, over and over again.
Chuuya sees cooking as the continuation of self, the one that helps him talk even if he’s out of
words. It makes him seen and understood. It doesn’t force him to pretend to be someone he isn’t. It
frees him. But so does Dazai’s presence.

And instead of I’m sorry I was being a dick, Chuuya says another thing.

“There’s something I want to do,” he breathes out, keeping his gaze focused on Dazai’s unbothered
face. “I may need your help.”

“Is this something stupid?” Dazai raises an eyebrow, a glint of mischief now in his voice.

Chuuya closes his eyes for a moment.

“If I say it is, will it influence your willingness to help me?”

Dazai considers it for some time, chewing on his bottom lip slowly, but then shakes his head.
“Not really.”

There’s some glint of a confession implied, hidden in these two simple words, but Chuuya is too
nervous to notice it right now. He jumps off the windowsill, heading towards the stairs.

“Then let’s go.”

Dazai follows him without protesting, and they keep walking like this through the dimly lit hall,
going down the stairs and through the hall once more until they stop in front of Chuuya’s door. He
turns his head to spot Dazai standing right in front of him, leaning against the opposite wall.

“Wait here,” he commands.

“Will do.”

Inside, Chuuya briefly glances at Ranpo who’s already asleep in his bed, and digs his hand into the
sleeve of his winter coat, taking out the scarf stuffed inside. He considers his decision for a
moment but then thinks there’s no way back now, he doesn’t want to make a coward out of himself
in front of Dazai, again. So he takes a deep breath and steps out of the room, Dazai’s questioning
gaze pinning him down in place right away.

“Let’s go,” Chuuya says dryly and walks them towards the kitchen.

Last week, Atsushi and Lucy volunteered to go to the grocery store, dragging Akutagawa, who was
protesting till the end, along. Everybody had chipped in for them to buy only necessities, but, as
expected, they came back with four thick bags stuffed with everything they could see in sight. They
even brought a pineapple which was quickly devoured by Tachihara and Gin last Saturday, when
they were sitting in the living room deep into the night and watching their usual weekend sitcom,
laughing so shamelessly loud the whole dorm couldn’t sleep until Kunikida came down to scold
them. As Chuuya assessed last night when he was grabbing a quick snack before bed, the
ingredients in the dorm’s kitchen were just enough for him to try and make another lasagna, this
time all by himself. Just to prove the point, to himself, again. But then he also thought about
another thing: if he just tries to make it without any restrictions, this won’t be fair. And that’s how
he got caught in this endless race with Dazai in his head one more time. Dazai was able to cook
their lasagna perfectly, making it look elaborate and creative enough by presenting it as a dessert,
and throughout the entire process, he was not only calm and collected during blackouts, keeping on
doing his job flawlessly, but also made sure that Chuuya’s panic was relatively at bay. He’s a deity,
a mastermind, Chuuya means it, and the confession adds more nails to his coffin. He wants to feel
capable of something like this, too. Not for everyone else, not for the sake of winning the contest,
but for himself solely.

Once they step into the kitchen, Chuuya turns the lights on and gathers the needed ingredients on
the counters. Dazai is watching him, waiting, not saying a word. Then Chuuya takes the scarf that
has been hanging from his shoulder the entire time and offers it to Dazai. He’s met back by the
sheer expression of amusement merged with disbelief. However, as usual, he gets Chuuya’s
intentions without him having to explain them directly. He turns away, offering his back to Dazai,
tying his messy hair in a low ponytail. He feels somewhat vulnerable like this, naked though fully
dressed.

“You know,” Dazai starts saying in a mischievous tone as if his voice can somehow distract
Chuuya from what is about to happen. At the same time, his hands reach to cover half of his face
with a scarf, folded in three, the layer thick enough for Chuuya not to be able to even peep through.
He’s holding his breath the entire time. “That’s the kind of thing people usually do in bedrooms.”
“Fuck off,” Chuuya steps back from him as soon as he’s done tying the scarf on the back of his
head, tight but not enough to hurt him. For an instant, he feels like a blind kitten, hopelessly
grabbing the cold counter’s surface with both of his hands, the darkness devouring him whole even
though he knows there’s still light – and there’s still Dazai – just where the soft fabric covering his
eyes ends. “You know I’m not very positive about this.”

“Then why are you doing this?” Dazai wonders, his voice sincere.

“Because,” Chuuya grits his teeth. “I’m trying to apologize, dickhead.”

“By forcing yourself to suffer?” Dazai smirks, and by the slight grind of the chair legs against the
wooden floor, Chuuya understands that he sits down at their small dining table. “Alright, go on.”

Chuuya hates the mockery but ignores it, for he’s already embarrassed himself enough to step back
now. His first attempts at making the dough end up being complete failures time after time. He
almost shatters a glass bowl, drops the rolling pin on the floor, squeezes the egg in his hand hard
enough that it breaks, shells piercing his palm like small bullets. Still, he doesn’t ask for Dazai’s
assistance until he’s completely helpless, not knowing how to properly measure the amount of
flour he needs to put into his béchamel. And that’s how he ends up completely devastated, the
Dazai’s hand still holding his, an unspoken promise hanging in the air between them. Chuuya is
tired. He gives up, untying the scarf and dropping it on one of the counters, moving to finish the
sauce how he remembers to do it best. Dazai doesn’t let go of his arm and keeps watching him
instead, waiting for his visible irritation to pass by. Chuuya is not angry with him. If anything, he
despises himself. Everything had been going just fine until their hands touched, until Dazai proved
once more that Chuuya was helpless without him, and Chuuya let himself be helped, be guided, be
weak.

“I just can’t get it,” Dazai says, suddenly, his tone windless. “Why are you making yourself so hard
to be understood?”

Chuuya glances at him for a moment.

“Don’t you understand me?” He voices the very first thought that appears in his head at this.

“I do,” Dazai hums. “I, too, have been running from who I am throughout my entire life.”

Chuuya stills in place, looking up slowly until he meets his eyes. Dazai is still hovering above him
like a shadow, his hand a continuation of Chuuya’s, and there’s a playful glimpse in his expression,
the one that’s always present whenever he talks to Chuuya. As if he wants to drag the truth out of
him and break through his thin layer of arrogance, hiding the unhealed wounds from his past.
Instead of saying something to his confession, Chuuya frees his hand from Dazai’s grip softly,
passing by him to check on the sauce that’s already thickened on the stove. He stirs it in silence for
some time before turning the stove off. Dazai leans with his back against the counter, holding it
with both of his hands, his eyes following Chuuya’s every movement. Like this, in his sleepwear,
with his after-shower hair and visibly tired eyes, he looks easier to see through, tender. He looks
the most human Chuuya has ever seen him be. He sighs deeply, putting the spoon aside.

“What were you doing before you applied for the contest?” He finds the guts to ask.

A glint of surprise flashes in Dazai’s eyes but his voice is calm when he answers.

“I was an office clerk,” the picture just doesn’t sit right in Chuuya’s head. “Ran errands for my
boss, organized meetings and scrutinized the contracts before signing,” he shrugs. “Arranged the
piles of papers on the tables. Drank tons of coffee. Flirted with the boss’s personal assistant,” he
fights back a smirk. “Sometimes with his wife.”

Chuuya rolls his eyes.

“You’re a heartthrob, I get it,” he wants to cover Dazai’s mouth with his palm just to brush this
self-indulged grin off his face. But he promised himself not to be an ass. He really did. “Apart from
arranging unnecessary paperwork and draining your balls dry with mistresses, were you, by any
chance, doing anything meaningful?”

Dazai raises an eyebrow at him.

“I’m curious about your definition of meaningful, carrot head,” he smirks. “Did you mean to ask
whether I was cooking something?”

Chuuya nods and grits his teeth for a second, not ready to be subjected to the fact that he’s been
seen through once again. Because Dazai is the one asking the right questions and Chuuya is the
one who can’t answer them in a proper way. That’s how it’s always been. No matter if they’re
bickering in the kitchen, during the smoke break outside, or in the dorm’s walls. It is always the
same damn thing: Dazai gets under his skin only to help Chuuya free himself from it.

“I didn’t,” Dazai says himself without waiting for his nod. “And Fukuzawa, the old crap, happened
to be very disapproving of it once he reached out to ask how I’d been doing. He said that I was
wasting my talent,” Dazai smirks. “This is the exact thing I had already heard from another person
whose opinion mattered to me, perhaps to an unreasonable extent.”

Chuuya finds himself really listening for once, not occupied by his own intrusive thoughts, not
occupied by anything else but Dazai’s voice running over his consciousness like a sea wave,
polishing the sharp edges of his mind, never coming down. He moves from the counters, the
lasagna suddenly insignificant and forgotten, and sits down at one of the dining chairs instead.
Dazai’s eyes follow him as he continues speaking.

“I dedicated my adolescence to cooking and then spent my entire youth running from it,” his gaze
is fixed on Chuuya now but it’s not intense, not forcing the answer out of him; it just sits naturally
on his skin, familiar, like the wind. He looks back at him without a single impulse to turn away.
“And then I ran into you, carrot head.”

Chuuya frowns.

“And what do you mean by that?”

“You actually motivate me to keep the hard work, as I really hate to envision myself falling to the
lows you’re floundering in.”

For a second, Chuuya just stares at him, open-mouthed. He will never be able to grasp this
annoying ability of his, the skill of making each insult escaping his mouth sound like praise.

“Ah, fuck off,” he hisses and stands up to leave the kitchen, but Dazai catches him by the sleeve of
his hoodie at last. Chuuya returns him an unimpressed look. “What?”

Dazai looks back at him, his face full of amusement.

“Just kidding,” he explains himself – or he tries to – and moves his hand to encircle Chuuya’s arm
entirely, his grip firm but painless near his wrist. “Remember I promised to tell you why I need
bandages?”
The sudden change of the subject is confusing at most, Chuuya’s not getting so easily irritated by it
anymore. Perhaps he’s already used to Dazai’s somewhat abnormal tendencies to jump abruptly
from one topic to another, his mind flapping like a caged mockingbird.

“Dying to know,” he snaps without much enthusiasm. He fights hard not to let it be shown, though.

“I’m scared of hurting myself,” Dazai says, easily, and lets go of his arm only to roll his own
sleeves up, the bandages still there. They are covering his lower arms almost entirely, snow-white
brush strokes, Chuuya still remembers the roughness of the fabric when he first touched it during
the last contest. Dazai’s confession finds him confused, late with a proper reaction to something
this personal. “Back in the orphanage, I used to hide the cuts on my wrists this way. It was
considered a weakness, showing that you’re hurt.”

Then it’s nothing different from life itself, Chuuya thinks. He processes Dazai’s words for some
time and sighs, waiting for him to go on.

“Later, when I started cooking, I grew scared of cutting myself unintentionally,” and he does. “You
must know, knife lessons are rather tough to learn.”

He smiles, although there’s nothing joyful on his face. But yes, Chuuya knows what he’s talking
about perfectly, probably like nobody else. His own knife lessons took place back at his first home,
his hands still trembling in fear of possible punishment from his father. The first time he was
cutting the vegetables, he was cutting himself more. And then, seated on the cold floor in the
bathroom, he was putting little patches of old fabric all over his fingers and wrists, for the torn-
away pieces of the old shirts and his mother’s nightgowns were the substitutions for pharmacy
plasters back then.

“Am I weird?” Dazai suggests, looking him dead in the eye.

“No,” Chuuya answers so fast it feels almost embarrassing. “I mean, you sure as hell are, but not
for this,” he takes a deep breath. “Why did you start wearing them again?”

Dazai shrugs, covering his arms with his sleeves again.

“It returns sometimes,” he explains in a quiet voice. “The fear. You should know it better than
anyone else.”

“Yeah,” Chuuya mutters, staring absentmindedly at where the fabric of his sleeves ends, almost
midway through his palm, always warm, never enough. “I do.”

Love is a feeling that frees, Chuuya doesn’t remember where he read the line. Perhaps it’s worn
out just enough to be put in every psychological article headline. For him, it’s quite the opposite.
For as long as he can remember, love has been nothing but a restriction for him.

Sometimes, when he stares at himself in the mirror, brushing his wet hair after showering, he’s
fifteen again, and everyone around him is in love. The girls in his class are shoving love letters into
the boys’ backpacks or under their textbooks when they’re not looking. He meets his first future
girlfriend not long after he comes back home from Europe, his hands still trembling from the
constant impulses to grab a whisk, a knife, a blender. She’s pretty and kind, though nameless in his
memory. They meet after classes and he walks her home, holding her backpack for her, listening to
her constant rants about the show she’s watching, the book she’s reading, the play she’s been
writing for the school drama club. And it feels nice, just listening to someone talk to him, feeling
someone care about his opinions and reactions. She kisses him on the cheek and flushes, quickly
hiding in the sunlit emptiness of her house’s entrance. In two weeks or so, he kisses her on the lips,
trembling with his entire body and squeezing his eyes shut as if he’s waiting for a death sentence.
In a month or so, she confesses her love for him, and he laughs it off nervously. Then it ends,
abruptly, as everything does, and then there’s a void. Chuuya’s eighteen, Paris is large and
overwhelming, but even here, no matter where he goes, everything is about love, being in love or
falling out of it, painfully, ending up black and blue. His best friend in the academy, the one and
only, falls in love with him, and even after all these years that have passed, Chuuya still can’t
understand why. He’s always thought the capability of being loved suggested that you have
something to offer in return. But when he’s eighteen, he’s not stepping out of the shell he’s created
for himself since high school. He’s not trying to be attractive or likable, not intentionally. When
he’s not in his apron or chef’s jacket, he always covers his head with a hood, drowning his hands in
the pockets, hiding endless knife cuts. Rumor has it, every time you hold a new knife, the knife
lessons begin again. Chuuya’s have never ended.

He’s twenty-five, and he has been a chef in Fêtes Galantes for almost a year now. Long story
short: he was actually peeling carrots in the storage room. He ended up doing so after his first and
only failed job interview, the ethereal feeling of isomalt still like pieces of shattered glass in his
throat. However, it was even more than anything he could hope for. Just waking up every day and
going to work, being greeted by waiters and other cooks, smiling at the guests, he felt – for the first
time ever – needed by someone. His new chef was Charles Baudelaire, a man in his mid-thirties
who managed to impress Rimbaud with his dish to the point he almost started crying praising him.
Baudelaire was kind but fair. He never spent much time overseeing Chuuya, as there was nothing
to oversee in the processes that didn’t involve cooking. Once when he tried to talk about his
position at the time with Verlaine, Paul kindly explained to him that the dishes presented on the
menu of Fêtes Galantes were still far beyond his skills. Chuuya didn’t quite agree with that. He’d
seen the menu, more than once, and there wasn’t a single position that he couldn’t cook even with
his eyes closed. Still, Baudelaire was a wise man, a wise chef, if a bit old-fashioned in his views.

Once they had a banquet that turned out a complete mess once the guests got too drunk and started
to demand all of their dishes served at the same time, instantly, right now or you’ll lose even that
one pitiful Michelin star you’ve got, I swear by my father’s name. Baudelaire sighed heavily,
covering his face with his palm. Too much alcohol turn people into primates, he said. And then he
spotted Chuuya, who was just walking out of the storage room, holding a crate of freshly peeled
vegetables for another salad.

“Nakahara,” he called, and Chuuya almost tripped over his own legs in surprise. “We’re short of
helping hands, go assist Adele with the sauces.”

“Yes, chef,” Chuuya nodded with a bright smile appearing on his lips, the vegetable crate now long
forgotten on one of the empty counters.

Assisting with the sauces stretched, and he had to make several positions all by himself when there
was no one unoccupied with other processes to watch him, to make him stop. Baudelaire had
actually scolded him for that after the hellish banquet was finally over, even though his dishes
turned out stunning and highly praised by the guests. After that, the chef started to trust him more,
loading him with more serious work time after time. Chuuya used to return home completely
drained but happy, happy as he’d never been before, he texted Shirase and Yuan, he even called his
mother. I’m cooking, mom, I’m finally doing it as I always wanted the most, for people, for real
guests.

Soon after he turned twenty-four, mid-May, the sunlight melting the streets into glistening tin,
Baudelaire assigned him to be his sous-chef. Chuuya knew well what it meant, for him, for Fêtes
Galantes. In case Baudelaire ever stepped from his position, Chuuya was the next in line. Rimbaud
had never picked a sous-chef for himself, for he was too indecisive (Chuuya had actually laughed
about such a silly reason with Verlaine when they were gossipping a bit about their past life
together with Arthur during one of the joint breakfasts), and that was why he had to make a show
out of looking for a decent substitution. After all, that was exactly what happened. Baudelaire got
married to his long-time mistress Jeanne Duval, who seemed to have done something to his heart,
his feelings that had always been stone-cold. She enchanted him. He was ready to move to the
south with her and take a job offer in one of the local marine restaurants, completely forgetting the
brilliant career he had been building for himself in Fêtes Galantes. When Chuuya first heard about
the exact reason for his leaving, he couldn't help but laugh. He’d been laughing for a long time,
just standing in the middle of the kitchen, always loud and busy regardless of the hour, and thinking
the same thing he’d thought about since his adolescence, middle school, first girlfriend, first kiss,
first heartbreak. It wasn’t alcohol that turned people into primal creatures, if anything it was love.

He still thinks so, entering the kitchen early in the morning, an hour before the restaurant’s
opening, casually tying his head in a ponytail. He greets the waiters, greets his cooks, walks to his
office (a fucking personal office, can you imagine?) and sits down to work a bit on his first
masterclass. Baudelaire never threw the shows for the guests, which was an oversight of sorts.
Eating the chef’s special in a Michelin restaurant and not even knowing the face of its chef, not
knowing his voice and the way his hands are moving when he cooks is a direct offense to the
guest. When Chuuya first voiced to Verlaine that he was going to organize a masterclass, he was
greeted with nothing but support. Verlaine knew how nervous he was about the whole idea, but
being a chef meant constantly stepping out of your comfort zone, and so Chuuya did. For nights on
end, Verlaine came to visit him in his apartment, and they sat on the floor, drinking wine and
discussing the possible dishes he could cook and the techniques he could apply to impress the
guests, tossing the trashiest ideas aside.

If not for Verlaine’s help, Chuuya wouldn’t be standing here right now, in the very heart of the
restaurant’s hall, drowning in the applause and praising exclamations. He bows, noticing that even
the waiters have put their work aside for a moment, taking their time to wash him over with
limelight, bright approving smiles on their faces, their palms reddened from clapping. Chuuya
can’t lie, he fucking loves it. It was worth every breakdown he went through while planning out the
entire thing.

And now when he’s already intending to come back to the kitchen and continue his usual work
process, he notices him. Suddenly, like a flash of bright sunlight out of the impenetrable darkness,
he’s sitting at one of the farthest tables, a young blonde woman across him. Both of their gazes are
still fixed on Chuuya, but, unlike her, he’s not clapping. He keeps both of his hands in his lap,
leaning against his chair, his posture completely relaxed. If not for his fixated eyes, the look so
piercing it makes Chuuya shiver, he would never spot his interest in him. It’s like being undressed
and then having the layers of your skin peeled off your body one by one. It’s frightening, at least,
and Chuuya almost stumbles multiple times on his way back to the kitchen. There, all the other
cooks are praising him too, clapping and patting his back, but the picture blurs out, turning into a
void. Chuuya slams the door of his office shut, leaning against it and taking a moment to steady his
breath, his heart threatening to break his ribs. He’s never been looked at this way, neither by
women nor men. The stranger’s appearance is still clear in his head even when he closes his eyes
and tries to concentrate on anything work-related just to distract himself.

He’s older, probably in his early or mid-thirties, but there’s a thing Chuuya learns when he’s close
to hitting twenty-five: the older you get yourself, the more other people’s ages tend to blur,
meaning less and less with every passing year. He’s tall, which is noticeable even when he’s
sitting, he wears a beige suit with his blazer unbuttoned and no tie. He has glasses, but not the ugly
kind, they actually make him look more frightening and attractive at the same time. His dark hair is
a bit curly, and his facial features are somewhat aristocratic, making him stand out even in the
room full of other fairly beautiful and remarkable people. Chuuya is no one compared to him. This
must be some sort of a joke.

He’s never felt pretty and never tried to make himself prettier than he actually was. People rarely
praised him for his appearance, concentrating mostly on his skills and dedication to the craft.
However, once Chuuya notices that the still unnamed stranger starts to frequent Fêtes Galantes on
a regular basis, dining here every weekday evening, most of the time all by himself, he suddenly
wants to be pretty more than anything else. He wants to catch that soul-piercing gaze of his on
himself at least once again, knocking all the air out of his lungs, making his poor and underloved
heart skip a beat. And so he wakes up an hour earlier every morning, taking his time to do his hair
differently from the way he’s used to wearing it, making his ponytail wavy with a curler, using a
silk ribbon instead of the usual worn-out and stretched scrunchie. He even considers wearing light
makeup but thinks better of it, instead getting more thorough with his usual skin-care routine. It’s
rather hard to dress prettily when he has to wear his chef’s jacket all the time, and the stranger
never stays until the restaurant’s closing so he could spot Chuuya’s casual outfit anyway.

His efforts pay back after a week of tearing himself apart with doubts. The stranger orders a chef’s
special, and Chuuya makes it with an almost unreasonable thoroughness, spending the time he
could use for making at least five other dishes. When the waitress walks in to take the dish,
Chuuya stops her in a gentle voice.

“That’s the chef’s special, after all,” he explains, trying not to sound suspicious. “I have to serve it
myself.”

And so he does, fixing his hair for the umpteenth time and putting on the most polite and cheerful
smile he’s capable of when he approaches the table with a plate.

“Here’s your rib-eye steak with smoked aubergine purée,” he presents as he puts the plate on the
table carefully. His entire body is trembling when he looks up, met with a fixed and emotionless
gaze. “Have a pleasant dinner.”

“Thank you,” the stranger says dryly after a short pause and then does something Chuuya could
never predict.

He takes a knife and a fork and starts disassembling his dish, the one he’s spent so much time
making to perfection, ingredient by ingredient, cutting the steak into smaller halves and almost
bending over the table as he’s checking the preparedness and texture of the meat. He doesn’t look
up even once, as if Chuuya’s not even there, pinned down in place and feeling more humiliated
than he ever was in front of Verlaine back in the academy. The stranger keeps abusing his poor rib-
eye for a minute or so, each cut of the meat is a cut on Chuuya’s skin, until he finally shoves the
plate away on the table in a smooth, reserved movement of his hand and looks up, not a single
sparkle in his eyes, as if he’s seeing Chuuya for the first time in his life.

“I would like you to remake it.”

Chuuya opens his mouth and instantly closes it again, as a fish washed ashore.

“Excuse me?” He finally manages to breathe out.

“I said,” the stranger repeats, his tone still collected and reserved. “I would like another steak. This
one is raw.”

“But,” Chuuya frowns, his breath so shaky it makes him feel even more embarrassed than before.
It’s worse than standing butt-naked in the middle of a crowded street. It’s worse than anything he’s
been subjected to before because it’s real. It’s not one of his academy dishes that he could keep
remaking over and over again until it was perfect. That’s not a teacher’s task that he completes for
a mark. That’s not an exam. There’s no room for the possibility of being wrong. “I cooked it just
right.”

Never argue with your guest is a rule he’s still yet to learn.

The stranger sighs, looking down for a moment and intertwining his fingers on the table in front of
himself.

“That’s exactly why I was uncertain about their decision to assign someone this young and
inexperienced as their chef,” he mutters quietly but enough for Chuuya to hear. Then, he flashes
him a reserved smile and sighs, starting to stand up from his seat, now towering above Chuuya
almost like a mountain, even though he’s in fact thin as a needle this close. “Nevermind. I’ll go
dine in another place. Have a good evening.”

It’s when they’re smoking outside with Adele two days later that Chuuya finds out that the
stranger’s name is Raphaël, father Italian, mother French, and he’s a culinary critic writing his own
column for one of the most respected local magazines. He’s thirty-five, which makes him a decade
older than Chuuya. But nothing about him matters as much as the mere fact that he was the first
person ever who made Chuuya feel this humiliated. Even constant remarks from Verlaine back in
the academy now seem nothing compared to it. After Raphaël left, Chuuya spent at least an hour in
his office, studying the steak on the plate in front of himself piece by piece, fiber by fiber. He even
tasted it, noticing, to his complete distress, that the meat was cooked just fine.

Raphaël is Parisian, meaning he’s always a bit under the weather. That’s what they’re laughing
about with Adele who happens to be one of the devoted readers of his regular column. He’s left a
lot of chefs jobless before you, she says, studying Chuuya’s reaction carefully. He scoffs, putting
out his cigarette. Let alone a person this young managed to have worked in several Michelin
restaurants across Europe, he also decided to step back in his early thirties, trying himself in
culinary critics. Chuuya had always believed that it took being a complete snob to become a good
critic, and Raphaël managed to prove his theory just right.

“He won’t get to me,” he shakes his head, biting his lip and looking into the distance. “He might
try, but he won’t.”

Adele grants him an almost admiring look.

“What are you going to do?”

“What I do best,” Chuuya smirks. “Cook. And leave him speechless.”

 Trivia
Chapter Notes

CHUUYA DID WHAT

(I meant to say so many things in these notes, but they all vanished once I finally got
here)
well, chuuya finally gets his first 'oh' moment, and, if you let me spoil a bit, it's
definitely not the last one
about those cabbage ribs... I actually saw them in the exact show some time ago and
had been intending to add them to this fic for a long time as, tbh, they really look
AMAZING (not sure about the taste tho but dazai is a genius so he shouldn't mess this
up)

THE vacation actually comes in the next chapter and, after that, the events will start to
unwind a bit faster!!

thank you for all your kudos and comments and I'm wishing you all a peaceful new
year's celebration as I will most certainly not get mine

see you in 2023!! sending all my love

(tw for the chapter: slight mentions of physical wounds and bleeding)

The thing Chuuya eventually learns is that Raphaël doesn’t stop being a critic even when he’s not
at work. That is why for the first few weeks, he’s scared of cooking anything in his presence, even
when they decide to dine together, with Chuuya coming over to his place, his usual hoodie
changed into a shirt with an unbuttoned collar, as dressing prettily for someone else is a habit he’s
developed lately, in the fast-brewing storm of his very first serious relationship.

“Why don’t we order something instead?” He asks, keeping his voice casual, studying the contents
of the fridge in Raphaël’s kitchen.

“You should know I’m a fan of home-cooked meals,” he answers, words coming from the living
room just around the corner, two walls and a slim corridor, making Chuuya’s knees tremble.

He should know. Yes, when you’re dating someone or intending to, the knowledge of their casual
habits and preferences stigmatizes itself into your memory, yet only temporarily, rather by design.
The only reason Raphaël hadn’t had home-cooked food before is that there was nobody to make it
for him. But now there’s Chuuya. The chef who’s gained his admiration through sweat and tears,
after countless sleepless nights, rejections, dismissions, disassembled rib-eyes. Chuuya, who,
skillful as he is, finds himself scared to even grab a knife in the kitchen of a man he’ll soon be
sharing a bed with. Chuuya his favorite cook. Chuuya his aspiration for a better future of the
culinary craft. Chuuya his boyfriend.

Ridiculous as it sounds still, he is. And Chuuya had never thought it’d be like this. This… simple?
Raphaël praises him for his stubbornness, not rejecting the dish he’s made for the first time since
they met. Asking him to have a drink together after work. It’s no surprise that it starts as everything
in Chuuya’s life does, with his wanting to prove himself worthy of something. It’s rather
distressing, though, how, less than in a month, it leads to him standing alone in the kitchen, stuffed
with expensive furniture and cooking appliances that, back in his childhood and early adolescence,
he had no idea even existed. It’s distressing how falling for someone does the exact thing Chuuya
had feared back when everyone around him was with someone else, it makes his hands tied. Love
is a feeling that frees, but now it’s trapping him.

When Raphaël is eating his dinner, sitting just across the table, a light wooden boundary between
them, it’s scarier than their first kiss was. Chuuya feels naked in front of him, not even touching the
fork himself, just watching Raphaël’s face, beautiful as it always is but concentrated, assessing.
The thought doesn’t reach Chuuya yet, that being involved with someone doesn’t usually equal
finding oneself under constant study.

“Thank you,” Raphaël says, at last, a soft smile touches his lips. “You’re gorgeous.”

Chuuya trips over it, how he says you’re, meaning him, his flesh and bone, somebody seeing him
as a whole for the first time, not a continuation of the food he’s made. He smiles, too, finally
letting himself breathe out. In these walls, he thinks, I can take my armor off. I can be fragile,
reckless, be foolish. There’s no dark corner from which he could anticipate, his whole body in
shakes, a predator jumping at him at last, devouring him alive.

Later on, Raphaël will grow used to saying that every time Chuuya perfects a flawless dish, it
makes him want him a little more. Cooking, in this way, turns into a form of seduction: with every
condiment he adds to the pot he strips off a piece of clothing, ending up fully undressed as Raphaël
drags him into the bedroom, his hands studying his body as if he’s trying to evaluate whether he,
too, might be somewhat undercooked. It’s about time Chuuya realizes that being wanted by
someone, physically, must not grow from one’s ability to make oneself wanted. But now that
Raphaël says his impeccable cooking makes him more desirable, Chuuya believes it does.

When they’re making love for the first time, they have to stop halfway because Chuuya’s nose
starts to bleed. It hadn’t been like this for a long time, since his childhood in his father’s house,
when bleeding was nothing more than an aftermath of trembling anticipation of being broken,
ruined, skin to the bone on the basement’s damp floor. He excuses himself, sliding off the bed,
hiding in the bathroom. He doesn’t wash the blood away right yet, just staring at himself in the
mirror for a while, a stream of blood from his left nostril painting his lips scarlet. If Raphaël isn’t
doing anything wrong to him, why is bleeding? And why does it give him the exact feeling of his
darkest days, back to being a boy again, so drained from the constant beatings his whole body felt
like hot melted butter? Chuuya turns the water on and washes the blood off his face, rinses his
mouth, getting rid of the taste of blood on his lips, puts on a smile and returns to the bedroom,
where Raphaël is waiting for him patiently, the book in his hands, his lap covered by his white
blanket, stained with small drops of blood, like a flower field.

“Are you alright?” He asks, concerned.

“Yeah,” Chuuya coughs the dryness in his throat away, getting onto the bed next to him again,
reaching for a kiss as if everything that had happened before was no more than another fever dream
of his. When they break apart, he breathes out a quiet laugh. “It happens when I’m scared.”

“Are you scared of me?” Raphaël frowns for a moment.

“No,” Chuuya shakes his head too fast, although he’ll think later than if he’d been honest, he’d
have said, of course, I’m not.

When they’re done, Raphaël sleeping peacefully behind his back, Chuuya slides off the bed and
puts one of his home shirts on, heading to the kitchen. It’s far past midnight but he doesn’t feel like
sleeping yet, instead turning the lights on and grabbing a cutting board and a knife. What if, if he
doesn’t cook anything decent by morning, Raphaël won’t find him as desirable as before when he
wakes up?

“I heard that you are dating someone,” Verlaine says to him during one of their lunches, when
they’re waiting for Rimbaud, who’s still caught in traffic somewhere, to join them. He’s watching
for any possible change in his face carefully as if he thinks that the subject might be unpleasant for
Chuuya.

“Yeah,” he says casually, not really willing to delve into the topic with his former mentor, teacher,
a person who he’s always seen as more of a god than an actual mortal being. “A guy.”

“A man,” Verlaine corrects him in a pinpointing tone. “Chuuya, you know what happens to the
boys who fall in love with someone far older than them, don’t you?”

At first, Chuuya wants to protest, wants to say that ten years is not that far older, but then he thinks
better of it. It’s true that he’s got what he’d always wanted. He’s in a relationship, and it’s
something, he used to believe, every person in the world should go through at least once. He has
everything, he’s being cared for in a way he’s never been before. And yet, sometimes, when he
finds himself awake in the middle of the night, staring at the ceiling just above the bed, listening to
the breathing of the man sleeping next to him, the only thought occurring in his head is, is that all?
He’s succeeded as a chef, people love his dishes and visit his restaurant for days on end just to
taste them over and over again, each time like the first, he now has love, and the person he was at
eighteen seems so far away that Chuuya’s not even sure that once was him, a kid with a hood
covering his entire head as if it could keep his thoughts hidden from everyone else. He’s not a
failure and he’s not alone. Both problems solved.

“What do you know about him?” Chuuya asks not because he wants to accuse Verlaine of his
excessive curiosity; he’s genuinely interested. Who is that person he shares a bed with, night after
night?

“I’ve never met him in person,” Paul sighs, stirring the sugar in his teacup. “And, of course, I can’t
judge and I don’t want to make you doubt him. But just,” he pauses for a moment. “Don’t let him
take the advantage of your… naivety.”

“I’m not naive,” Chuuya almost snaps at him but steadies himself right away, Verlaine is not the
person to show his emotions in front of, not like that. “But… Raphaël likes me. And he makes me
feel cared for. I’m not in some sort of a toxic relationship if you worry about that. And even if I
was, I could get out in a heartbeat. I know myself. You know me.”

“Ah, Chuuya,” Verlaine takes a deep breath, tapping his fingertips against the table. “Love does
dangerous things to young people. I, too, was in love once with an older man, long before I met
Arthur,” he looks down for a second, thinking something over. “It was all fun and games until I
came home earlier one night and saw him in a bed with another person.”

Verlaine’s words keep hunting him even in the evening when he takes a cab to Raphaël’s place,
sitting in silence and staring at the streets they’re passing by the entire ride. Raphaël meets him in
the doorway, embracing him and kissing so deep Chuuya almost stumbles. They always kiss like
that after days of not seeing each other due to their packed-up schedules, so it’s nothing inherently
new. However, Chuuya is far more nervous this time for an obvious reason and he keeps watching
every change in Raphaël’s expression once they settle on the sofa in his living room, sipping wine
and mostly discussing work. Chuuya probably shouldn’t drink, he can slip out of his own control if
he does, and his boyfriend is still not aware of the exact reason why he’s so afraid of any existing
forms of alcohol, so Chuuya tries to mask his uneasiness with a casual look, the wine sweet and
sour on his lips.

“Is something bothering you?” Raphaël asks suddenly, noticing that he’s not really listening to his
rant about the restaurant he visited this morning for another written review. “You seem far away.”

“Everything’s fine,” Chuuya forces a smile, another sip of his wine making him braver than
before. He puts his half-empty glass on the coffee table and moves closer on the sofa, finding
Raphaël’s free hand and intertwining their fingers. “Let’s go to the bedroom. I missed you.”

He knows Raphaël has places to be, he always does. Restaurant openings, secular parties, dinners
with famous businessmen and their wives. He’s meeting hundreds of new people each week, his
job requires him to, and most of those people are insanely attractive, not only in terms of looks but
their personalities – they always have stories to tell, smiles to grant. Chuuya knows it all, he sees it
on Instagram regularly even though he doesn’t post anything himself, having decided on keeping
his private life… well, private. This is also the reason he refuses to keep Raphaël company every
time he invites him to another party on his schedule. He knows that he will be introduced as a date,
perhaps as a boyfriend, and if so, he’s going to be under constant study. He doesn’t want to be
hunted. But knowing Raphaël’s cheerful and outgoing personality, even though it doesn’t look like
it when he’s at work, he sure does make a lot of acquaintances. Chuuya’s not jealous but he’s just
wondering how many of those acquaintances secretly wish to drag his boyfriend into their beds.
Even that girl he was with the night Chuuya saw him for the first time. Although she’s just one of
his colleagues, she’s gorgeous, and Chuuya could never compare to her even if he was a girl.

What is he even good at, at this point? He cooks godly, Raphaël has praised him for that thousands
of times, but a skill like this is surely not enough for being a good partner. Chuuya’s not talkative
either, he can’t imagine himself being in the heart of attention anywhere except for his work. He
doesn’t know how to charm people and make them like him, perhaps even fall for him, and so he
practices the skill with the only person that he knows won’t reject him. He throws away most of
his wardrobe and spends almost half of his monthly salary on new clothes, something more elegant
and mature, not those neverending loose hoodies he used to wear all the time back when he was a
student. He buys several new shirts, always unbuttoning their collars for his neck and collarbones
to show before he knocks on the same door he ends up in front of almost every night. He
experiments with his hair, wearing it in high curly ponytails and buns, letting several bangs frame
his face. He even purchases an expensive watch and several gold bracelets, although the feeling of
the accessories on his wrists keeps irritating him all the time for a week or so. He practices
charming smiles and elegant posture, not letting himself draw his head into his shoulders every
time he enters a room full of people.

Eventually, he also grows more uninhibited as a lover. The things he does in the bedroom
sometimes, an eighteen-year-old Chuuya would’ve burnt to ashes from shame had he heard about
them. He likes this new self he’s built for himself, though, attractive and bold, making people look
back at him almost every time he passes by them in the streets. He’s young and has nothing to be
afraid of, he’s also witty and inherently smart, capable of keeping any conversation going. His
boyfriend looks at him like he wants to devour him alive every time Chuuya undresses in front of
him, letting his hair fall on his shoulders, always throwing a little show before heading to the
bathroom. God, he loves being wanted. He could never think that it was the exact feeling he’d
been craving ever since everyone except for him suddenly started falling in love. He’s not sure he
loves Raphaël, though, not yet; perhaps he just needs more time to feel something even remotely
close to it. That’s why one time, when they’re lying in bed together late at night and Raphaël
whispers an almost inaudible I love you, lips pressed to his temple, Chuuya’s I love you too gets
stuck somewhere in his chest.
He promises himself once, that he’s only going to say this when he’s sure he’s not lying.

Verlaine’s words are fluttering like caged birds in his head.

Ah, Chuuya. Love does dangerous things to young people.

Chuuya has a bad feeling about this. Sure, there’s a reason: his first black apron, the one he thought
he’d never get. What makes it much worse is the fact that he didn’t get it for his poor cooking
skills and unimpressive performance in the kitchen, he got it because he wasn’t cooking at all. His
failed sauce didn’t count as long as he had to remake it several times. It was a complete failure, a
disaster, and Chuuya is to face the consequences. He doesn’t talk to Dazai in the morning, doesn’t
even spare him a greeting or a good luck wish. Instead, he concentrates only on himself and his
own success. He knows he can do this and no restrictions can prevent him from making something
spectacular this time. Even Dazai, whatever he comes up with today, even his annoyingly sharp
senses and collected attitude when everything threatens to go to waste won’t mess with him, won’t
stop him. He thinks so, tightening the ponytail on his head, until he hears today’s rules. He feels a
gaze on himself, coming from the balcony, probably it’s Ranpo, standing somewhere in the middle
and squeezing Edgar’s hand to calm himself down. Chuuya doesn’t know how to feel about the
fact that someone will actually miss him if he gets kicked out of this place. Nobody, except for
Ranpo, will. And Dazai will probably even throw a celebration party in the dorm afterwards.

The main rule is something Chuuya could never predict. Today, they’ll have a total of three hours
for cooking, which is far more than the average amount of time they usually get. However, this
time is going to be shortened by ten minutes with each ingredient they pick for their dish, even if
it’s a small condiment. Meaning, the more products you pick, the less time you get for cooking.

“That’s completely irrational,” Chuuya hears Kajii, who’s taken the workplace in front of him,
muttering. “I can make a meringue with thyme and berries, call it a day and still have more than
two hours left.”

Chuuya gets what he’s talking about. It’s completely logical that complicated dishes require more
time. Still, they usually go with far wider ingredient lists. That is to say, if someone opts for
making an haute cuisine meal, they won’t have enough time to complete it anyway. And vice
versa, if they pick a dish with minimum ingredients, they will have enough time left to just dilly-
dally around, but their result won’t be elaborate enough to match their professional skills and, in
the aftermath, pass the contest. The question that appears in Chuuya’s head by itself is, what would
Dazai do? However, the situation is more real than ever right now, and he actually has to ask, what
will Dazai do? He fights the urge to turn and look at him, spot the casual confidence on his face
that somehow manages to make Chuuya believe in himself more, too. He doesn’t know when
exactly it started nor he has any willingness to dig for it.

“Now, you’ll have five minutes to decide on your dishes and pick the ingredients from the storage
room,” says Fukuzawa, switching his attention back to himself. “After that, Yosano will estimate
the time period for everyone in an individual order.”

As soon as five minutes start to count down, Chuuya doesn’t rush to the storage room just yet. He
hears someone calling him by the name from the balcony, trying to catch his attention and
probably give a piece of advice, but it will be better if Chuuya focuses fully on himself right now.
If he asks for no one’s help but his own. He leans against the counter with both of his hands and
looks down, closing his eyes and taking a deep sigh. Okay. Okay.

It can’t be soup. Most haute cuisine soups require a great lot of ingredients even for their base, let
alone the preparation plus cooking time most often exceed an hour or even two. He can’t make a
dessert either. He’s not confident enough in his pastry skills to risk it all, not in a contest like this.
An appetizer, even the most elaborate one he can think of, surely won’t be enough to impress the
judges. He has to make the main dish. Exquisite and remarkable but with a moderate number of
required products. The base must be meat, as picking the right meat and cooking it to perfection
makes it halfway to success. The rest is trivia. With this thought, he heads to the storage room, not
letting himself be interrupted by anyone’s presence, even Dazai’s. He hears him tiptoeing around,
humming some annoying song as he hovers above vegetable crates, but doesn’t spare him even a
second look, concentrated on finding the duck in the fridge stuffed with various types of meat. The
duck, baked at a relatively high temperature, won’t take more than twenty-five minutes to be ready.
In the meantime, he’ll occupy himself with making polenta for his garnish. With all condiments
added to the count, it leaves him with nearly thirty minutes. Risky but enough, although Chuuya
doesn’t have a right to misfire. If he messes up on the first try, there will be no room for remaking
anything. He’s trying not to think about it, although his heartbeat speeds up a bit while Yosano is
counting the products on his counter.

“Thirty minutes,” she announces and looks up at him, her expression a bit hesitant.

“Okay,” Chuuya nods, hiding his hands behind his back.

“Are you sure you don’t want to put aside some of the ingredients?” She asks, clicking her pen but
not writing anything in a notebook yet.

Chuuya swallows, heavily, but shakes his head.

“I don’t.”

“Good luck, then,” Yosano puts down his name and the estimated time and then proceeds to the
last counter, Dazai’s.

Chuuya succumbs to his weakness for once, to turn his head and take a look, but what he sees once
he does is nothing he could at least merely prepare himself for. Dazai looks relaxed, his hair still a
bit messy from the sleep, but the confident smile on his lips is the same Chuuya’s seen a thousand
times. He looks like his feelings, as per usual, are completely opposite to Chuuya’s, to everyone
else’s. He looks like he’s already won, and for the first time ever, it doesn’t irritate Chuuya,
doesn’t make him roll his eyes. On the contrary, it sets him at ease, he almost sighs in relief until
he sees the products stacked on Dazai’s counter. One whole cabbage, a pear, a horseradish, and a
bowl of small purple flowers, the ones they usually use to decorate steaks or desserts. There is also
a tray with various condiments, but Chuuya can’t identify them from the distance. His shock
merges with Yosano’s the moment they both look up at Dazai again. What in the world is he
making? The set of products he’s picked is so surrealistic Chuuya can’t even combine them in his
head, can’t wrap his thoughts around them. However, Dazai doesn’t step back and nods confidently
after Yosano announces his time to him, asking if he’s sure not once but twice. But Chuuya knows
it better than anyone else. The bastard is sure. He almost regrets avoiding Dazai back in the storage
room, he would’ve asked what he was opting for. And now he doesn’t even have time for
guesswork. He needs to start right now if he wants to keep his place in the contest.

And so he begins working, completely losing himself in the process. Ranpo will probably be mad
at him for not even revealing his plans, but Chuuya will deal with this later. As for now, he needs
to cook his duck in a shallow pan until it turns golden, season it and put it into the stove as quickly
as possible. After that, the process will go smoother. Working in the restaurant during rush hours
taught him not to perceive time too recklessly. Time is a lot of things but it’s never merciful.
Knowing this, Chuuya doesn’t find himself surprised when his thirty minutes count down like ten,
and he barely manages to finish the decoration before Yosano calls his name. The others, surprised
by him finishing first, turn to look at him in disbelief. Louisa, who’s stirring something carefully in
the saucepan, Kajii, who’s conjuring up his dessert, even Kenji has stopped whatever he was doing
to glare at him wide-eyed. The only look Chuuya doesn’t feel on himself throughout the entire
time, while the judges are tasting his dish, is Dazai’s. He hears him tinkering at something, the
slight rustle of his clothes, the way his steps sound when he moves from one counter to another,
Chuuya can tell all these sounds apart even in the room filled with voices, exclamations, and
swears. But Dazai seems to have accepted the rules of this little game Chuuya never explained to
him. They’re not going to help each other today. Nor they are going to intervene. Everyone fights
for themselves.

“You’ll hear your verdict as soon as everyone else finishes their dishes,” Fukuzawa says, at last,
putting his fork aside, his voice steady as always. “Thank you, Chuuya.”

He nods and, without having anything else to occupy himself with, starts to disassemble the
remains of his duck and double-check it even though he knows it will most certainly add to his
growing anxiety. But there’s no way back now. He is grateful to himself for at least one thing: he
managed to keep himself collected enough to complete all the required processes on time, without
the need to remake anything. When his duck looks more like a scattering of ingredient pieces, not
even resembling a wholesome dish, he puts the plate aside and goes to wash his hands. While he’s
wiping them, he glances at the clock. Still, more than two hours left and no tasks. Waiting in
obscurity and suspense has always been more troublesome and challenging than anything else. In
two hours, Chuuya is going to know if he deserves to stay here, to keep working hard and
perfecting his skills with every single contest and dish he makes. Until then, he’s balancing on a
thin rope. The rope is connecting him to this airy pavilion, filled with bright lights, Ranpo, his
friend, cheering for him from the balcony, and – this is the most twisted part – his main rival, the
most skillful and promising cook he’s ever met in his career, even having worked with a plethora
of magnificent chefs.

He decides to go for a smoke break and passes by Dazai’s workplace, not even granting him a
look, almost as if he’s in a rush even though he still has an eternity ahead. Outside, two cigarettes
in a row are dying in his trembling fingers as he’s taking in a peaceful winter street, catching
himself on a thought that he actually wants to go for a walk after the contest is over. Whether he
stays or leaves, he wants to walk out of this place and find some breathing room elsewhere at least
for a while. Smoking sets him at ease a bit and he just stays outside for some time, leaning with his
back against the pavilion’s outer wall and hiding his cold hands in his pockets.

He admits it more to the deserted street than to himself.

He doesn’t want Dazai to leave.

“What are you making?” He asks him once he’s back in the kitchen, and Dazai almost jumps in
surprise at the sound of his voice. Chuuya stops next to him and studies the workplace carefully,
still trembling a bit from the cold he was faced with outside. “Looks like a complete mess.”

“Got nothing else to do, carrot head?” Dazai smirks, but his voice is kind. It has always been like
this whenever he spoke to Chuuya, and Chuuya was just too ignorant to notice. Dazai doesn’t look
up from the workplace and keeps organizing his dish on a plate, something that looks like ribs, but
Chuuya certainly doesn’t remember him taking any kind of meat from the storage room. Then what
the hell is this? “I’ve made vegetarian ribs,” he explains, somehow feeling Chuuya’s confusion
without even looking at his face. “From cabbage leaves and stalks.”

Chuuya can only let out a heavy breath, completely speechless for some time, his gaze pinned on
the plate Dazai keeps hovering above, bending down so low it’s impossible to even spot the
expression on his face. Chuuya shakes his head.

“Wow, that’s,” genius, actually. “Completely fucking stupid.”

Vegetarian ribs? From a goddamn cabbage? The cost price of such a dish won’t even exceed a
euro. And it’s certainly not an haute cuisine dish, not even close to it. Dazai had been chasing time
so recklessly that, in the end, he came up with… this? Chuuya won’t lie to himself, as much as this
usual expression of Dazai’s creativity pinpricks his ego, the dish looks fascinating. The ribs are the
most real ones he’s seen so far, they look more like ribs than the actual ribs made from goddamn
meat, good lord. He’s so flabbergasted he doesn’t even notice how the silence between them
prolongs, getting almost awkward. A part of him wants to grab Dazai’s hands and keep them in
place, not letting him go on with something this clever and foolish at the same time. Another one
wants to kiss each of his knuckles.

“Are you,” he takes another breath, watching his movements carefully. “Are you sure?”

Dazai grants him a glance, looking up through the bangs of his disheveled hair falling onto his
forehead, and grins in utter happiness.

“What’s the point of cooking if you don’t have fun?”

Oh. Oh. That’s it. Chuuya sees it now. Until this moment, or better, until September, when they
talked for the first time, Chuuya had been brainwashing himself into thinking that cooking was
nothing but hard work. Nothing but knife cuts, bruises, and arrays of small disappointments from
day to day. He used to think that he had to exhaust himself, to suffer if he wanted to cook well,
cook better than anyone else. But now, the thought enlightens him like a ray of sunshine. The only
reason Dazai is still here, the only reason he keeps exceeding Chuuya’s skills, jumping above his
own head over and over again, is that he’s doing it because he enjoys it. He can take a single
cabbage and turn it into a masterpiece. Even if he stores a plethora of sophisticated recipes and
classic culinary techniques in his head, he doesn’t need to use them as long as he can come up with
literally anything genius himself. And Chuuya will never be able to surpass him at that. The
realization breaks his heart somehow, and he’s never been truly heartbroken before. However, this
is not the main bleeding he should care about right now.

“Shit,” Dazai hisses, dragging him back to reality, and that’s when Chuuya sees it.

Probably he was too concentrated on cutting the right shape out of his second cabbage leaf that he
didn’t notice how he cut himself, not deep, but enough for the cut to bleed, just where the bandages
end on his left wrist. Chuuya holds his breath, and for a moment, everything in his head is a haze.
He remembers what Dazai told him the last time they spoke. He is scared of cutting himself. And if
this fear is as strong as Chuuya’s fear of the dark, then Dazai is damned.

“Are you okay?” Chuuya doesn’t even think twice before he grabs Dazai by the wrist, the knife
dropping on the floor with a thud. He takes a closer look at the cut, feeling Dazai’s hand slightly
tremble in his own, and it’s like a slap on the face. “We need to clean the wound.”

Dazai laughs at this but doesn’t pull his hand away.

“Don’t treat me like we’re on a battlefield,” he sighs. Although, in some sense, they are on a
battlefield. “It’s okay. I’m okay.”

“But you’re trembling,” Chuuya snaps and immediately bites his tongue. He didn’t mean to sound
so worried.
Dazai seems surprised by his reaction as well, something unclear flashes in his eyes for a moment
but he quickly hides it, laughing quietly and freeing his hand from Chuuya’s grip.

“I just forgot this feeling,” he sighs and walks to the sink, carefully washing the blood off his wrist.
Chuuya looks away, and something like fear starts growing rapidly in his stomach, almost making
him nauseous. Dazai wipes his hand with a paper towel and throws it into a trash bin, coming back
to finish his second cabbage rib. “Like you had forgotten about the dark before that time,” he keeps
talking as if it’s Chuuya who needs soothing right now. “When we’re not facing our fears for a long
time, they start meaning less and less. But when they eventually return, though,” he pauses for a
moment, just staring blankly at the clean knife in his hand. “They scare the shit out of us even
worse than ever before.”

Chuuya turns around for a moment, he even glances at the balcony, met with a myriad of different
gazes, from slightly confused to completely stupefied, and looks at Dazai again.

“Why aren’t you acting like that, then?”

Dazai bites his lip.

“Because I can control my fears,” he explains a bit quieter than before, wrapping the cabbage leaf
around the bone he’s made from a thicker part of the vegetable, and putting the rib on the plate
next to the first one.

“You mean that I can’t control mine?” Chuuya finds himself growing annoyed. Dazai seems to
have outsmarted him even at this, even if it was unintentional. Chuuya was sure that his fear of
hurting himself was so strong that it could become an actual pitfall on Dazai’s way to success, to
him staying here. However, he turned out to be wrong, again, and he only embarrassed himself
once more when he let himself show that he actually cared.

“That’s not what I said,” Dazai frowns for a second and takes a step back, rotating his plate with
one hand and looking over the dish carefully. Chuuya keeps silent, trying to steady his breath.
“What do you think?”

“I don’t know,” he’s saying the truth. “Count on your luck, as you always do.”

“To make any kind of a vegetable look like meat, most chefs usually spend up to a day,” Dazai
sighs and starts putting his garnish on the plate, carefully decorating it with flowers. “Sometimes it
needs to be dried, or marinated, or both.”

“Sometimes it doesn’t look right even after a two-day wait and needs to be remade from scratch,”
says Fukuzawa, five minutes later, cutting the ribs in two and checking the preparedness of the
cabbage leaves. Chuuya turns to look at Dazai’s workplace once and immediately returns his gaze
to his own, disassembled and already dry duck on the plate perfectly depicting his state of mind.
His back almost shudders every time he hears Fukuzawa sigh, audibly. The judges won’t show
mercy today, it’s completely rational. It’s all or nothing. Please, don’t fuck it up, Chuuya is
begging not himself but Dazai. How am I going to get better if you leave? “But you managed to
make such a complex dish in little less than two hours.”

Chuuya eyes the room. He looks at Louisa, Kajii, Kenji, their dishes, their black aprons, their
nervous smiles and trembling hands. He looks at himself, at his own apron stained with butter he
was using for his garnish. He knows that it probably makes him a bad person, wishing for
someone else to fail just because he doesn’t want to fail himself. Nobody here has ever done
anything wrong to him, and still, he secretly hopes that Louisa oversalted her soup, or that Kenji
undercooked his steak, or that Kajii overdried his crust. He hopes that he hid everything right or, at
least, well enough to stay here, and he wishes for the same for Dazai.

“It was risky,” notices Yosano after taking a bite herself. “And a bit irresponsible, if you ask me.”

“I agree,” Ango cuts in, and it’s clearly a provocation, the one that makes Chuuya grit his teeth
even though he’s not the one being interrogated right now. “I was hoping that you valued your
place in this contest enough to stay away from the risks, especially when your participation is at
stake.”

Chuuya clenches his fists. It’s not about it. Dazai risked, that’s true, but he’s risking all the time.
He’s doing it not because he’s irresponsible, or because he doesn’t value his place, he simply
refuses to conform. He would never do something predictable, something expected by everyone
else, it’s not his style, after all. Even Chuuya gets it now, but not the people Dazai’s fate depends
on.

“My colleagues are right,” says Fukuzawa, at last, and it’s like a final turn of the knife in Chuuya’s
chest. He turns his head only to be immediately met by Dazai’s piercing gaze. He’s not looking at
the judges, or at his dish, or at the room encircling them, his entire self is somehow concentrated
on Chuuya, the hold of his look so firm it’s almost bone-crushing. “Making such a demanding dish
in a span of two hours was both impressive and completely irrational, even disrespectful, in some
way. Dazai, have you got anything else to say for yourself?”

He doesn’t break their eye contact and just keeps staring at Chuuya, and Chuuya knows this kind
of look perfectly. It’s a sort of a farewell, probably too bookish and dramatic for two grown-ups
who just do their job, the thing they’re both the best at even if they’re not always right. They are
not here for each other but only for themselves, they are competitors, rivals, and with each day
shortening the time they have left until the final verdict, the winner announcement, they must grow
less and less merciful towards each other, they are not supposed to help. The ones who always help
others never win, and Chuuya doesn’t want to be a building block or a ladder on someone else’s
way to success, he is not here to be stomped at. Yet, when he looks at Dazai now, something far
stronger than his own will to succeed is crashing his every bone.

“Do not back down,” he’s mouthing, voicelessly, hoping that Dazai will catch the message.

And he does. A soft smile touches his lips before he looks back at Fukuzawa.

“No,” he says. “I’m fully satisfied with the dish I made.”

Fukuzawa says nothing else and after a while, when it’s time to hear the final verdicts, they all
stand in line like schoolkids waiting for their detention to be over. It will be over for only four or,
perhaps, even three of them since nobody left the last time. Dazai is standing right next to Chuuya,
his posture relaxed, although there is uneasiness in his eyes, the one others rarely get to see.
Chuuya looks up at his face and then reaches for his wrist, grabbing it slowly but firmly and taking
a closer look at the cut from earlier. He slides his fingertips over it, almost without touching, and
feels Dazai’s hand relaxing in his own. When he looks up again, not showing any emotion, their
eyes meet. Dazai opens his mouth to say something but he doesn’t get to, as the next moment,
Chuuya gets almost knocked down by someone hugging him from behind with a crushing force.
He shudders and turns his head to see Ranpo, his gaze demanding and worried.

“You scared the shit out of me,” Ranpo hisses as he keeps embracing him, not loosening his grip.
Chuuya doesn’t know what to do with his own hands. He’s not used to hugging. “Why weren’t you
listening to my advice? I thought you gave up at first.”

Chuuya shifts his eyes to Dazai who’s smiling now, hiding both of his hands behind his back and
not saying a word.

“I would never give up,” Chuuya tries to smile himself and gently pulls Ranpo away. “I just knew
your obsession with shouting random things from the balcony would most certainly distract me.”

“Asshole,” Ranpo rolls his eyes and turns to look at Dazai. “How did you come up with those
cabbage ribs? They looked amazing. Wish I could’ve tried them.”

“Thank you, Ranpo,” Dazai grants him another smile. “In fact, I’d been thinking about making
something extraordinary for a while. Chuuya gave me a starting point for this one.”

His gaze is not returned, but Chuuya glances at him anyway and freezes, dumbstruck. When
exactly did this happen? After their lasagna cake? After that conversation they had in the dorm’s
kitchen afterwards? He doesn’t remember talking Dazai into anything, nor he’s aware of being his
inspiration. Ranpo’s eyes shift between the both of them until the silence becomes too awkward to
endure, and then they’re all saved by the judges walking back into the kitchen. Ranpo squeezes his
shoulders for the last time and wishes him good luck before stepping back and returning to others.

Chuuya doesn’t look at Dazai a second more, instead focusing his attention solely on the judges.
They all look so serious it’s almost funny, although no one seems dissatisfied or angry with them.
Chuuya holds his breath nevertheless. He overheard some of the remarks on other dishes. Kenji
managed to make an elaborate sauce perfectly, but his steak raised some criticism. Louisa’s soup
turned out to be too bland but not oversalted as Chuuya secretly hoped it to be. Kajii totally failed
with the presentation of his cake, or pie, or whatever, decorating it like a cheap and passing piece
of pastry from the questionable bakery somewhere around the corner. He decided to completely
ignore the advice Tanizaki had been trying to give him from the balcony the entire time. Dazai got
criticized for his creativity, which is something that had never happened before. And, finally,
Chuuya. He picked the beaten path, having decided to present the dish he was comfortable with,
the one he’d cooked a myriad of times back at Fêtes Galantes. Duck is quite easy to spoil, making
it either too greasy or too dry. However, he’d never made such a mistake, even back at the
academy. Now he doubts his decision, listening to Fukuzawa comment on each dish one more
time. What if he already failed when he decided to stay in his safety zone? What if his main task
was to step out of it once and for all? What if, had he opted for an experiment, he could’ve
overshone Dazai this time? These what-ifs are tormenting him, and even Dazai’s steady breath
right next to him doesn’t help him calm down. Chuuya thinks he may faint the moment he hears
his own name.

“Chuuya,” the fact that Yosano says it makes the verdict somewhat easier to endure. Her voice is
soft and she is always smiling slightly, even if she is to announce bad news. “Your duck was
spectacular, we have all agreed on that. However, we expected to see more from an established
chef like yourself.”

Chuuya nods and looks down, his heart beating in his temples.

“The fact that you sacrificed a lot of time in exchange for the ingredients for such a simple dish
didn’t make it much better,” Yosano goes on, and with each word escaping her lips, Chuuya thinks
it’s time for him to reach behind his back and start untying his apron. “Participating in this contest
is not about making the dishes you’re comfortable with. It’s about outdoing yourself and your
skills, every single time.”

He bites his lip and doesn’t even feel his hands start moving, trembling as he finds the apron laces,
tied tightly around his waist. He only barely touches them when someone’s warm hand catches his
firmly by the wrist, stopping it midway. Chuuya glances up in surprise but Dazai doesn’t even look
at him, blankly staring ahead. As if he knew that he would do something like this as soon as there
was the smallest possibility of him failing.

“But,” Yosano exchanges gazes with Fukuzawa and Ango before letting out a sigh. “You still
completed the main task perfectly, and it was about making a good dish,” she shrugs slightly.
“Which is… we’re all here for.”

“I couldn’t have worded it better,” Fukuzawa cuts in and, with a warm but still reserved smile,
hands one of the white aprons to Chuuya. For a long moment, Chuuya’s just staring at it,
speechless. A minute or so ago, he was sure that he was going to spend today’s evening at home,
all by himself in his deserted walls, probably drinking until he blacked out. “Please, take your
black apron off. It doesn’t suit you.”

Chuuya frees his hand from Dazai’s grip and walks to the judges, feeling his own knees tremble
slightly as if he’s eighteen at the academy, again. He looks up as he’s tying the white apron behind
his back, meeting Fukuzawa’s focused gaze.

“I will try better next time,” he says and lets himself smile for a moment. He’s earned this smile.
“Thank you.”

“Creativity,” Fukuzawa almost whispers for only two of them to hear. “Creativity is key if you
want to survive. Not only in the kitchen but anywhere in this world,” he glances behind Chuuya’s
back for a mere second and goes on, even quieter than before. “My advice, try spending more time
around Dazai. You two have got a rather positive influence on each other.”

Chuuya is staring at him for some time, not knowing what to say. Even a blind man could notice
Fukuzawa’s overprotectiveness when it comes to Dazai, which is completely reasonable, given that
they were family once a long, long time ago. But what does it have to do with Chuuya? So far, he’s
felt nothing but an overflowing irritation each time it came to Dazai. And Dazai, even though he
never shows it, probably loathes his mere presence as well. At least it’s something Chuuya wants
to believe because it would make things far easier for him. Still, what kind of influence is
Fukuzawa talking about?

He returns to his spot without saying a word and immediately grants Dazai a long stare, faced with
his approving nod and a short smile. There’s more to it, more to what he’s got to say, Chuuya’s
feeling it in his guts, but they don’t get to talk, not now, when the decisive moment is yet to come.
Suddenly, Chuuya wishes Ranpo would hug him right now. He needs this physical reassurance,
someone’s bare presence that could prevent him from losing his mind.

“Dazai,” Fukuzawa says, at last, granting Dazai a reserved nod.

“Chef,” he nods back, a smile slowly appearing on his lips. What a bastard. Isn’t he worried, at
least in the slightest?

“Cabbage leaves resembling meat ribs,” the chef sighs, interlocking his fingers in front of himself.
“A vegetarian dish with a cost price not exceeding two hundred yen.”

Dazai laughs quietly at this.

“That’s mine,” he says.

“I could’ve guessed that even if I hadn’t known it was,” Fukuzawa returns him a short smile.
“After thinking it over for some time, I decided that your today’s dish was one of the best I’ve
tasted in this contest so far. And I’m glad to give your white apron back to you.”

Chuuya’s heart almost drops to his feet and he doesn’t quite remember the rest. He doesn’t
remember who gets kicked out, whether it’s one or two of them, he doesn’t hear Louisa cry rather
in relief or distress, he doesn’t feel the strength of Ranpo’s embrace the moment he tries to crush
his bones for the second time today. It’s only when the cameras are off and the judges have left
that he regains his consciousness. The pavilion has gotten much less crowded by now, except for
Ranpo and Edgar who are still discussing each one of today’s dishes, Kenji getting on the nerves of
Kunikida who’s scrutinizing the remains of Dazai’s cabbage ribs on the counter and scribbling
something in his notebook, and Dazai himself, granting warm smiles to Higuchi who’s hovering
around him, trying to drown him in compliments.

Chuuya takes a deep breath and reaches for the pack of cigarettes and a lighter in his pants pocket.
Then, he walks straight to Dazai and, completely ignoring Higuchi’s presence, nods at the entrance
door.

“Let’s go for a smoke,” he says dryly and heads towards the door, not waiting for the response.

There’s no one outside by the time they get there, standing next to one of the windows, in their
usual smoking spot. Chuuya feels Dazai’s piercing gaze on himself the entire time while he’s
lighting his cigarette but he doesn’t look back, hiding one of his hands in his pocket. He knows he
wants to say something. But Dazai has already heard his share of congratulations, Chuuya’s
probably won’t even stand out. Still, he doesn’t feel that praising him right now will be the right
thing to do. There’s much more to whatever has been happening between them recently, since that
confession Chuuya made for only Ranpo to hear, that he didn’t, in fact, and still doesn’t hate Dazai.
For a moment, he wishes he could escape his own pride. But his pride has long settled in most
rooms his body and mind consist of.

“Are you mad at me?” Dazai breaks the silence, his voice careful.

Chuuya scoffs.

“For what, exactly?”

“Dunno,” he shrugs, taking a puff of his cigarette. “Winning. Staying.”

There are a plethora of things Chuuya could be mad at him for, but still being here is not one of
them. He might be mad at himself, though, but only for not having tried his best. He got scolded,
again, like a student, like a child, and this did no good to his ego. And Dazai ended up drowning in
praise, even after all that torment he had gone through before. He’d known he would make it,
somehow he always does.

“I’m not mad at you,” Chuuya says, at last. “Although if I could, I would choke you to death for
making me worry like that.”

Dazai laughs at this, the way he always does.

“I think,” Chuuya sighs and goes on, feeling his breath shake and not from the cold. The words are
heavy and sharp in his throat, he’s always hated this feeling he gets every time he needs to confess.
“As much as I can’t stand your guts, I think you’re making me a better person… or something,” he
carefully glances up, met by Dazai’s complete stupefaction. “If it makes any sense.”

“Yeah,” Dazai swallows, after all. “It kinda does.”

Chuuya breathes heavily when he drops his cigarette, putting it out with his foot, and then just
stares right at him for some time, his heart beating so fast in his chest he thinks he can hear it. He’s
not really thinking the moment he leaps forward, encircling Dazai’s waist with both of his hands
and pressing his ear to where his heart is, listening to it beating slowly, steadily, a glaring
contradiction to his own. He feels the most embarrassed he’s ever been in his life but at the same
time, the embrace substitutes for all the words he could’ve said just right.

“Thank you,” he whispers so quietly he’s not even sure it’s audible and squeezes his eyes shut.

He shudders when Dazai’s free hand touches his back, grabbing and wrinkling the fabric of his
sweater. Smoking with their coats off is not one of the healthiest habits they could’ve adopted here.
Still, Chuuya is getting warm, slowly, as he feels the slight shake of Dazai’s chest the moment he
laughs, cigarette smoke escaping his lips.

“We survived,” he hides the whisper in the crown of Chuuya’s head.

Chuuya squeezes him firmer in his arms.

“We did.”

The same night in the dorms, while Ranpo is completing his usual thirty-minute shower ritual,
Chuuya’s lying in his bed, staring blankly at the ceiling. There’s an open cookbook placed on his
stomach but he can’t bring himself to keep reading it, his thoughts are all over the place. It’s
snowing outside and the sight, when he looks at it through the window, is breathtaking. Chuuya
secretly wishes he was anywhere but here, in these walls. He wants to escape, like a child, he wants
to just lie down in the snow, counting the stars in the sky until daylight. He craves ignorance, if
only temporary, forgetting who he is and what he’s here for.

He takes a deep sigh and flinches the moment he hears someone knock on the door. It could be
Kunikida inviting them to the late dinner, or Edgar seeking another piece of advice from Ranpo, or
Tachihara trying to lure more allies for his upcoming Christmas prank on Gin. Out of all the
people, it’s Dazai, and Chuuya almost shudders in shame the moment he opens the door and meets
his gaze. He’s still embarrassed after their hug earlier today but the worst part is, he’s not sure if he
would’ve thought better of it even if he’d suddenly gotten back in time.

“What do you want?” He asks, raising his eyebrows.

Dazai, who’s already in his winter coat and with a stuffed backpack hanging from his right
shoulder, grants him a mischievous smile.

“To get out of here for the weekend,” he says. “You’re in?”
 Good Luck
Chapter Notes

I had no idea I'd cry describing dazai's past, but here I am

please don't be like me

I know that some of you probably can't wait for them to SMOOCH (me too, me too)
but that's a slow burn, remember? they've barely stopped trying to kill each other so
we'll have to wait just a little more and I promise it'll be insanely good

for now, thank you so much for being here, I'll go reply to your comments now!!
ah, and happy 2023, hope it'll bring you nothing but happiness

“Where are we going?” Chuuya freezes in the middle of the road as soon as they escape the camp,
the cold winter wind embracing him from all sides. He puts a hood over his head, hiding the curly
bangs of his hair, and buttons his coat while holding a bag stuffed with clothes and all necessities
on his right shoulder. It’s like they’re two hell-raisers making a getaway. Secretly, Chuuya likes it.
Even more secretly, he wishes that Dazai would like it too because people have truly enjoyed his
company rather rarely. “Do you have a plan?”

“I, in fact, do,” Dazai, who has already walked several steps ahead, turns to look at him with
mischievous eyes, an unlit cigarette hanging from his lips. “I knew that you’d agree to go with me
so I booked us a hotel room in advance.”

Chuuya shortens the distance between them and takes a cigarette out of his mouth, putting it into
his own instead and searching his pockets for a lighter. His hands are trembling slightly. He hoped
the gesture would look more like a mockery but it turned out unexpectedly intimate, and now Dazai
is staring at him, almost scandalized.

“You’ve just robbed me, carrot head,” he finally breathes out, his eyes following Chuuya’s every
gesture as he lights the cigarette.

“I would likely do it twice,” Chuuya can’t bear the eye contact so he looks away first, eyeing the
deserted street in front of them. Plenty of opportunities, a myriad, actually. They could book a
flight and go to another continent right now if they wanted. “So, a hotel room? Not two rooms, but
one?”

Dazai shrugs and starts walking again, determined and fast, and Chuuya has to fall in step with
him, still smoking on the way.

“How are we going to actually spend time together if we’re not even in the same room?” Dazai
smirks, putting the left strap of his backpack on his shoulder and hiding his hands in the coat
pockets.

“I’ve already spent more time with you than with any of the people I know well and actually care
about,” Chuuya frowns, remembering his days in Paris back when all his time was occupied with
cooking under Verlaine’s supervision, going to the local bars with Shirase, gossipping with Yuan;
later – working in the restaurant on days on end, having regular lunches and smoke breaks with
Adele and other cooks who came and went when they couldn’t withstand the workload. Even
though he was bad at expressing this, he cared about all those people so much. He still texts and
calls some of them from time to time, although their friendship and trust had grown rather cold due
to the events Chuuya’d prefer not to think about. He has a completely different life now, here, in
Japan, his true home where everything always starts from the very beginning. Isn’t that a tautology,
though? To start from the beginning. Chuuya’s new start was rather marked by the end of
something that was once very significant for him. And now he has nothing but this contest, Ranpo,
some other people he would be glad to call friends, and, of course, Dazai, walking in step with him
right now through the silent winter street in the city suburbs. Chuuya takes another puff of his
cigarette and frowns, looking over the empty road. “Why even build a hotel in such a shithole?”

“It’s not a very good hotel, I must warn you,” Dazai laughs quietly. “I know that a culinary prince
like yourself is probably used to comfort and wealth, but you have to forget about it for just until
Monday.”

The hotel actually turns out not so terrible, although it looks more like an old-school and shabby
motel, the one you can frequently see in movies. The three-story building is quite small and
unremarkable, and even though Chuuya actually is used to living in fancier places, he doesn’t have
a single second thought about this, simply following Dazai all the way to the reception, where a
short Japanese girl with her black hair in a bun greets them both with a polite smile. Back when
Chuuya had occasional business trips, the best hotels all over the world were booked for him in
advance and he didn’t have to occupy himself with looking for a place to stay or choosing a room.
This time, given that their vacation happens to be rather spontaneous, he blindly trusts Dazai,
although not being aware of it from the very beginning.

It’s amusing how the hotel actually has an elevator, though quite old and screeching, and they
almost crash inside like two bees into the jar, instantly leaning with their shoulders against the
opposite walls. Dazai presses the button and Chuuya watches the narrow hall in front of them for a
second before the doors slide close. He closes his eyes and sighs. God, he wasn’t even aware that
he was so exhausted. Cooking involves a lot of hard work, both physical and mental, but it had
never brought him so much stress before he applied for the contest. At Fêtes Galantes, even during
the most rushed and tiring hours, he always perceived work as his own harbor, the one he’d firmly
anchored in, he didn’t have to run anywhere, he was in his place, he was home. His subordinates
had always wondered how he could function for so many hours without any rest, but Chuuya had
never given it a second thought even once. He believed that by doing what he loved the most in his
life, he couldn’t possibly grow tired of anything. Now he thinks better of it. Like this, fighting for
his life and future every single day, he sometimes feels that he hates cooking more than he’s
actually capable of hating things. But every next morning, when he wakes up and walks into the
kitchen again, seeing all those products and appliances, the endless possibilities he has lying in
front of him, just within a one-step reach, these thoughts vanish without a trace. He could never be
tired of cooking. Of suspense, yes, of waiting for the verdicts, certainly, of competition, sure thing,
but never of the process itself.

Chuuya has to come back into reality the moment Dazai stops in front of the door, opening it with a
key and letting it fly open, a small but comfy room bathing in the pale moonlight from the
window. Chuuya glances at Dazai for a moment but walks inside without a word, taking a look
around. There is a desk with a small TV on it, a pile of some fashion magazines and paperbacks,
and a wooden box stuffed with various snacks and a printed welcome card. Chuuya glances at it,
not so impressed, and drops his bag on one of the single beds right next to the window. Dazai goes
to check on the bathroom but Chuuya doesn’t find it in himself to follow him, instead taking his
coat and shoes off and almost throwing himself on the bed without even changing his clothes.

“We’re not sleeping, carrot head,” Dazai warns him the moment he comes back and turns the lights
on.

Chuuya grimaces at the blinding light and covers his face with his palms.

“What do you mean we’re not?” He frowns. “I know mackerels can probably keep swimming even
with their eyes closed, but today’s contest has drained me, and I’m most certainly going to sleep
now.”

Dazai sighs and puts his backpack on his own bed, the one closer to the entrance door, and starts
taking his stuff out. Chuuya glances at him for a second but turns away as soon as he sees that he’s
reaching to take his sweater off. He stares at the ceiling for some time, silently, asking himself,
what am I even doing here, with him? Out of all the people, him? Not so long ago, Chuuya couldn’t
stand Dazai’s presence even in the work circumstances, let alone talking something not work-
related in the dorms afterwards. Almost every conversation they’ve had by now ended with them
fighting, and Chuuya isn’t sure if the situation has grown any steadier since their recent hug. That
hug didn’t mean anything. Chuuya did it just because he didn’t know how to express his gratitude
in a better way, he knew that words weren’t enough, they never were. Dazai has helped so many
people in this contest solely, they must’ve drowned him in their reverence enough for it to stop
being important and noticed by him. Chuuya wanted to do something that would make his own
gratitude worth remembering. Here I am, the most arrogant and self-centered cook you’ll ever
meet, breaking my stone-thick boundaries to touch you and to make sure the touch lingers, staying
on your clothes and maybe even on your skin for some time so that every time you see me, you are
reminded of how weak I can actually get when I feel someone care about me.

“If you go to sleep now, you will miss all the fun,” Dazai smirks after some time, and when
Chuuya turns to look at him again he notices that he’s already changed into a loose hoodie and
sweatpants, now sitting cross-legged on the bed and looking for something on his phone.

Chuuya can’t hide the fact that he’s intrigued, although he quickly schools his own expression into
the indifferent one, sitting down and leaning against the headboard.

“I would love to skip whatever that is you planned for a night of peaceful sleep,” he frowns when
Dazai is quiet for too long, fully concentrated on reading something from the phone screen.

“Okay,” he waves at him dismissively, not even looking up. “Sleep, carrot head. You’ve deserved
your rest.”

If he wants him to change his mind after that, Chuuya most certainly won’t. He’s not some sort of a
naive kid who can let himself be manipulated so easily. He scoffs and jumps from the bed, opening
his bag and searching for his sleepwear. After that, he walks to the bathroom without saying a
word and slams the door shut a bit louder than he usually does. Fun, huh, he thinks as he’s washing
his hair, staring absentmindedly at the tiles on the opposite wall. Dazai could’ve invited anyone
here if he wanted to have fun instead of taking a rest in the way he was supposed to after a week
stuffed with draining and nerve-wracking challenges. Dazai is on good terms with each one of the
contestants, he has a roommate who worships his cooking approaches and tactics even though he’s
too prideful to admit that. God, he even has a girlfriend. What will she think if she finds out that he
escaped the camp for the weekend to spend his time with his main rival, alone in the hotel room?

Chuuya actually takes his time in the shower, hoping that by the time he’s done, Dazai has already
gone away to run his questionable errands on his own. However, as soon as Chuuya walks back
into the room, his loose white t-shirt sticking to his still damp body, Dazai’s still where he left him,
sitting on the bed, now holding a book instead of the phone. He glances up at Chuuya, their gazes
interlock.
“Have you changed your mind?” He asks, watching as Chuuya takes a towel off his head, his wet
hair falling messily on his shoulders. “I just wanted to go buy some groceries, that’s all.”

“You hungry?” Chuuya frowns as he steps back into the bathroom for a moment, looking for a hair
dryer. “Why don’t we just ask for a takeaway or a room service? I doubt that I want to cook on my
day off.”

“Who said that we were going to cook?” Dazai smirks and puts his book aside. “I know that you’re
too much of a snob for this, but just shopping for groceries can be extremely entertaining.”

He must’ve known that Chuuya would take it as a dare, and that’s how, almost an hour after, they
find themselves standing at the entrance door of one of the nearest grocery stores, small,
unremarkable, and relatively uncrowded. Chuuya has a bad feeling about this even though he’s
always rather loved walking through the endless labyrinths of products, checking their contents,
picking the freshest fruit and vegetables using some hacks he’d adopted in his Agriculture and
Food Technology classes back in the academy. But now it feels different because he’s not alone,
and he knows well that Dazai’s attitude to food is rather playful, so there’s no way he can be too
serious about the whole grocery shopping thing. As it usually happens whenever it comes to Dazai
and his routine, Chuuya is right. Dazai takes one of the trolleys and almost jumps on it as he carries
it to the nearest row of shelves, stuffed with various condiments and sauces bottles. Chuuya almost
wants to pretend that he’s not with him when he follows him with a deep sigh.

“What do you want to buy?” He asks, not really interested, his eyes sliding over the bottles, packs,
and cartons stored on the shelves.

“Dunno,” Dazai shrugs, not looking back at him. “For now, I’m just studying my options.”

“Are we going to spend an eternity here?” Chuuya frowns, hoping that Dazai can feel his glare on
his own back in his bones. “I’m still dying from exhaustion, mackerel.”

“I want ice cream!” Dazai exclaims suddenly, completely ignoring his whining. He immediately
takes a turn around the nearest corner and carries the trolley to the row of fridges in the farthest
corner of the relatively small store. Chuuya walks right to him, glancing at two buckets in his
hands. “Strawberry or chocolate?”

“Neither,” Chuuya scowls. He still has a rather love-hate relationship with all kinds of ice cream.

“Vanilla it is,” Dazai nods, more to himself than to him, and reaches for the third bucket in the
fridge. He closes the glass door then and turns to look over at Chuuya with a familiar hint of
mischief in his eyes. “You know, I’ve just gotten a spectacular idea.”

“Can’t wait for you to enlighten me,” Chuuya rolls his eyes and crosses his arms on his chest.

“If we both refuse to approach any kind of cooking appliances for the weekend just to take some
rest from work, then we also have to ban any culinary talk,” Dazai hums as he puts the ice cream
into the trolley and keeps carrying it towards another row of shelves. Chuuya falls in step with him,
waiting for him to elaborate. “But if we just agree not to discuss cooking-related stuff, that won’t
be fun.”

“And what do you suggest?” Chuuya raises an eyebrow at him, although the idea itself already
sounds questionable. He can’t possibly live through a single day in his life without mentioning
cooking in any form. If anything, he has never even tried. The thing has rooted so deeply in him
that he doesn’t even know who he is without it. And Dazai seems to be giving him a perfect
opportunity to find this out.

“We’ll come up with a punishment for every single mention of cooking in our talks,” Dazai bites
off a smile, he must know that his words make Chuuya feel almost scandalized. He’s had enough
punishments this week alone, he won’t bear any more. “What about truth or dare? We play every
time someone talks cooking.”

“You’re just a child,” Chuuya lets out a heavy breath. “A hilariously tall child.”

“Come on, it’s going to be fun,” Dazai frowns at him, ignoring the height remark. “You wanted a
distraction from culinary, didn’t you?”

The only reason Chuuya succumbs to his antic is that he’s still a sucker for a good challenge. The
thing he couldn’t predict (or, rather, admit) is that he is the first one to lose, not even five minutes
after their agreement passed. It happens when they eventually return to the shelves stuffed with
herbs, and Chuuya glances over at the small packs of dried thyme, he’s never liked its overuse in
haute cuisine dishes.

“It can be easily substituted with a reasonable amount of coriander for a milder taste,” he’s
reasoning this out loud without a second thought, scratching his neck. “I always used to say this to
my cooks back in the restaurant.”

“Chuuya,” Dazai appears behind his back, looking at him with a triumphant smile. “Truth or
dare?”

Fuck.

“Truth,” he sighs, knowing that nothing could possibly prepare him for this kind of humiliation.

“Okay,” Dazai hums for a moment, thinking something over. “What do you think is my strongest
point as a chef?”

That’s easy. The difficult part, though, is that Chuuya would rather slit his throat open than admit
that he actually likes something about Dazai’s cooking approach out loud. However, he signed up
for this with his own hands (or better, with his own mouth), and there’s no way back now.

“Your courage,” he breathes out, his gaze still locked on the packs of thyme, though his mind is far
away. “You always stick to your primary plan even if you doubt whether you can achieve the
expected result. Let’s omit the fact that your complete disrespect towards classics makes me want
to break your neck sometimes.”

“You can’t possibly praise me without instant complaining, can you?” Dazai smirks, but there’s a
soft note in his voice that wasn’t there before.

“I answered your question, didn’t I?” Chuuya frowns and walks past him without looking up.

The most distressing thing is that Dazai actually has much more self-control than Chuuya could
expect. He doesn’t mention a single cooking-related topic even when Chuuya tries to provoke him
into this. His every attempt backfires almost instantly and he has to answer a bunch of other stupid
questions, mostly about the contest and the dishes he was making back in the academy. By the
time they return to the hotel, Chuuya doesn’t feel his own legs. Catching up with Dazai and his
untamed energy was rather challenging. They both sit down on Dazai’s bed, wide enough to fit
them both, and start to unpack the stuff they’ve bought: mostly snacks that don’t require any
preparation, chips, endless chocolate bars, four cans of soda, and several packs of some
questionable jellies. Chuuya hasn’t eaten junk like this since he was a teenager, so he can’t hide the
fact that he’s rather missed it. It’s when he opens a can of soda and takes the first sip that he
remembers something important.

“You actually owe me an answer.”

“Do I now?” Dazai stares at him in surprise, chewing on a jelly worm generously coated in sugar.

“Yup,” Chuuya nods. “When we were standing at the checkout counter, you said some stupid shit
about Kunikida’s spoiled ravioli last week and laughed at it yourself.”

“Okay,” Dazai stops chewing and gives in, not intending to argue. “Ask me, then. I pick truth.”

“Everyone always picks the truth,” Chuuya rolls his eyes but sighs, eyeing the room quietly for
some time. There are so many things he wants to ask. Who is he, Dazai, really? What is it that he’s
hiding behind his neverending jokes and mockery? How in the world, with all the talent he has, he
ended up in the contest when he could’ve been already working in a world-famous Michelin
restaurant? But out of all the important questions, Chuuya picks the one that’s the silliest but, at
the same time, burns him from the inside the most. Looking Dazai in the eye feels devastating but
he does it anyway, taking a deep breath. “Why are you so kind to me?”

Dazai frowns.

“What do you mean? I’m kind to everyone. That’s how I was raised.”

“Not,” Chuuya sighs, rubbing his right eye with his palm. “Not like this. I can’t stand you, I’ve
never could since I first met you, and you know it. Back in autumn, I used to wake up every
morning hoping that it’d be the day you finally fail for good and I never see your face again. I’m
rude to you, more than to anyone else, and when I say that I want to choke you to death sometimes
I really mean it, because you piss me off, mackerel, you can’t even imagine how much,” he
actually wants to say another thing, it being you’re under my skin so deep I don’t even know how to
get you out of there. But he knows well there’s another meaning to this phrase that actually makes
it a double-edged sword, and he’s not sure if he’s ready to be faced with the blade to his chest right
now. He takes another sip of the soda, hoping that it’ll steady him at least a bit. “But even during
our fights, you’ve always ended up helping me. Saving me when I wasn’t even worth saving. You
had so many chances to have me kicked out but you didn’t use a single one of them. Why?” He
glances up at Dazai once more and the gaze he’s met by almost makes him stutter. “Is this all a
part of your plan? You need me to win?”

When he finishes, Dazai is silent for some time, reaching for his own can of soda and opening it.
He takes a sip and drums his fingers against the can, looking down and breathing loudly.

“I don’t have any plan, carrot head,” he finally speaks up. “I’m just doing what I’m sure about,
protecting my own beliefs. And I believe that everyone is worth saving,” he glances back at him,
almost assessing. “Even if they can’t bring themselves to ask for it.”

Chuuya isn’t sure whether it’s his look or his words that are leaving burn marks on his skin.

“But you’re right about one thing, though,” Dazai goes on, his voice softer this time. “I do need
you to win. And you need me. Without each other, what could we do? Could we make something
as great as that one Baked Alaska with the literal mushrooms in it? Or a lavender tart soaked in the
smell of fish? Or a lasagna cake?”

Chuuya bites his lip. His heart is so heavy in his chest he’s afraid it might’ve already stopped and
he’s just letting his last breaths right now. How can he be so cruel? Chuuya is doing everything
he’s capable of to just keep hating him because it’s the easier thing. He clearly doesn’t want to give
in to the fact that there may be something else under all that hatred he’s piled up in himself, layer
by layer. And still, even if he says that he hates Dazai, he knows that deep inside, the hatred is
mixed with an immense trust, the one he thought he could never develop towards another living
creature, not after all the betrayal he’d been through. And if in the very next contest, they’ll have to
cook standing on a rope above the bottomless abyss, Chuuya will pick Dazai to hold his hand until
the end.

He tries to pull himself together and changes the subject before he gets too weak.

“You’ve just gotten yourself three other questions,” he notices out loud, instantly making Dazai
laugh.

“You caught me,” he shrugs. “Tell me what you’ve got.”

Chuuya puts his can of soda aside and lies down on the bed, crossing his hands on his chest. He
doesn’t look at Dazai but hears him drop the bag with the remains of their snacks on the floor. Just
in a second, he’s lying down next to him, and they’re not close enough for it to feel inappropriate,
but Chuuya holds his breath for a moment anyway. When it was Ranpo, it felt different, because
they are friends. He’s not sure he can call Dazai his friend, not yet, at least. The warmth of his
body, even though mere and too distant, is soothing, it always is, and Chuuya almost melts into it,
succumbing to sleep, even though he still has a question to ask.

“What are you going to do if you win?” he breathes out, although the thought of someone else
winning is still unbearable for his ego. But he knows his own limits and weak points and he’s well
aware that there are some inherently talented cooks among other contestants. Even though he still
can’t compare any of them to himself, he has to admit that he needs to be careful and not let his
pride prevail too soon. This is another important thing Dazai has taught him. Do not let your guard
down even when you think that you’ve already won.

Dazai hums at the question, staring at the ceiling.

“I’ll marry someone and then spoil them to a ridiculous extent,” for a moment, he sounds so serious
Chuuya almost thinks that he’s telling the truth. But Dazai laughs it off quietly, and Chuuya has to
pretend he didn’t just hear him saying them, not her. “I haven’t thought of it yet, carrot head. One
hundred and thirty million yen is an insane amount of money.” Oh, he’s actually converted it in his
head. “But one thing I know for sure, I want to continue my education in the culinary field. And
then probably open a restaurant,” he glances over at Chuuya as if assessing his reaction. “I mean,
why not?”

“Why didn’t you get your culinary education when you were younger?” that makes two, although
if Chuuya had been more thoughtful about this, he would’ve probably asked another thing.

“I almost did once,” Dazai hums. “And there was another attempt when I grew a bit older. But I
didn’t have enough achievements in culinary to apply for a scholarship, and paying for the studies
in a respected academy was clearly something a kid from the orphanage couldn’t afford.”

Chuuya takes a deep sigh before asking the third, and final, question.

“How did you end up in the orphanage?”

The long and deafening silence that follows almost makes him regret asking.

“I don’t remember,” however, Dazai’s voice when he finally speaks is calm. “My parents
abandoned me right after I was born, nobody in the orphanage could give me the reason. I’ve lived
so many years without even knowing why they didn’t want me.”

Something in Chuuya’s chest clenches at this, almost too painfully for him to bear. He’s never
heard someone sound so hurt and so okay about something like this at the same time. They’re the
same age, meaning that Dazai has spent almost thirty years of his life… alone. He had Fukuzawa,
yes, he had friends, probably girlfriends or boyfriends, or both, but that’s not enough. Chuuya is an
orphan now, too, but at least he’s spent most part of his life knowing that he had his relatives, his
blood and flesh remembering him, thinking about him, probably even caring about him even
though they hadn’t always chosen the right ways to express it. He still wants to believe that his
father actually loved him but was just too hurt himself to show it. And his mother’s words when
they spoke for the last time, over the phone, were good luck, Chuuya. He believes that good luck is
another form of I love you, spoken much more frequently because it’s somehow easier to let out.

Good luck, Chuuya.

Good luck, Dazai.

Chuuya looks up at him, their gazes pinned on each other.

Good luck, good luck, good luck, his heart is drumming against his temples.

“I’m sorry this happened to you,” he says instead, not sure if it’s even enough. “Nobody deserves
to be left like this.”

“I wonder, sometimes,” Dazai swallows, looking back at the ceiling. “How different my life could
be if I grew up in a full family, with mother and father. Is it too much to ask for? How come
somebody is not worth being loved even before they are born?”

“You are worth being loved,” Chuuya snaps before he can think better of it. Dazai’s eyes widen
for a moment but he doesn’t look at him. “Fukuzawa loves you, even though he’s not always fair to
you. Higuchi loves you, you just never notice the way her eyes shine every time she looks at you
when you talk. Atsushi loves you, you’re always the one and only he goes to for every little piece
of advice. Kunikida loves you, he’ll just rather die than express it somehow. I, ” that’s when
Chuuya stops, abruptly, the words stuck in his throat. Dazai glances at him, carefully, only making
it worse. He coughs quietly. “I respect you and your skills, and I meant it when I said that you were
making me a better person. You still are, without even noticing.”

Dazai is silent again, but this time, the silence is much more comfortable, easier to bear somehow.
Chuuya lets himself relax for a moment and thinks that the torment is finally over, although there’s
still something burning, furiously, in his chest and stomach.

“Chuuya,” Dazai breaks the silence almost in a whisper. “You’ve just mentioned at least five
people related to cooking. Does it mean that you now owe me five answers?”

Chuuya swallows and forces himself to smile. He knows it’s not how it works but gives in
anyway.

“Then I’ll take five dares.”

Dazai smiles, too, and takes a deep sigh, looking at the ceiling once more.

“Okay, then,” he breathes out. “Dare one. Give me your hand,” Chuuya obeys without objecting,
reaching to him with his right hand until it almost touches his own. “Dare two. Palm up,” he turns
it over so that his knuckles brush against the comforter. The next moment, Dazai reaches to cover
it with his own, and, even though they’d already held hands once, in completely different
circumstances, it surely didn’t feel this intimate. Dazai’s fingers slide between his own,
intertwining them, and then squeezing gently. “Dare three,” he sighs after a moment. “Tell me the
first thing that’s just come to your mind.”

I like touching you.

“Your hand is sticky after those jellies, and it’s gross,” Chuuya lets out with a frown instead.

“Alright,” Dazai laughs even though he must know he’s lying. “Dare four. Take your hand away if
it feels so gross to you,” Chuuya doesn’t, instead squeezing his fingers firmer.

Then Dazai finally turns to face him, and he does the same thing, the distance between them so
insignificant it’s almost ridiculous. But nobody laughs. They just stare at each other like this, in
complete silence, and Chuuya’s glad they didn’t turn the lights off, only making them dimmer
using the switch. He likes watching every single change in Dazai’s expression like this, with his
face dangerously close, but at the same time, he wishes he could just look away. He can’t.

“What’s dare five?” He lets out an almost inaudible whisper, his eyes sliding down at Dazai’s lips
which are slowly forming a smile.

“Promise me,” he says, quietly, instantly turning serious and a bit nervous, even though the hint of
a smile is still heard in his voice. “That we won’t fight anymore.”

“Isn’t that a sort of thing both sides have to promise to each other?” Chuuya knows what he means.
In fact, most of the time, he was the only reason their fights even started in the first place. He
couldn’t bear the fact that Dazai always outsmarted him so easily, bringing his weakest and most
vulnerable parts to the light with little to no effort. He had to fight him because he was protecting
his pride. And now Dazai is taking his armor off, piece by piece, and it feels more intimate than if
he was undressing him. Good luck, Chuuya.

“You’re the last person I want to be on bad terms with,” Dazai sighs. “And I can promise not to
fight you anymore if you do the exact same thing.”

Chuuya sighs and gently pulls his own hand away, covering his face with both of his palms.

“Why are you always doing this to me?”

“What?”

“Making me naked.”

He looks at him once more, seeing that Dazai is smiling again, almost triumphantly. And then he
just knows that there’s no other way. Next time, when Chuuya wants to fight him, he’ll keep silent
instead. He’ll behave. He’s going to bear this as adults do.

“Alright,” he finally gives in, staring him in the eye and holding his breath for a moment. “I
promise.”

Good luck, Chuuya.

Good luck, Dazai.

“Mori won’t be so happy about this,” Elise says as she’s gently pressing a piece of cotton soaked in
antiseptic to his bleeding bottom lip. Dazai hisses from a spark of pain. “What did you tell them
this time?”

“Nothing,” he says. “Punching bags do not get to talk, remember?”

He’s barely thirteen, and his early adolescence has been nothing but a disaster lately. Most of the
time, he has nothing to occupy himself with, meaning that he has to hide in his room just to escape
a usual punishment session for something he’s never done. Older guys, teenagers, are actually
pretty scary. Dazai doesn’t know how to deal with them so he prefers to avoid them for as long as
he can; the only problem is, the orphanage building is relatively small, and there’s not much room
for reliable hiding spots. That is why his every attempt to walk out of his room, either to grab a
snack or to go for a walk, ends with him being trapped somewhere in the corner, laughed at,
punched, bruised all over.

“They’ll get their punishment, right?” Elise asks in a worried tone, taking the cotton away and
sitting down on the bed, now looking down at Dazai, who’s hugging his knees on the cold floor,
still shaking.

“I don’t know,” he says, staring absentmindedly at the gray wall of his room. “People should go to
prison for something like this. But I’m sure Mori won’t let them. He’s too obsessed with the whole
not spoiling our reputation thing.”

Mori is an annoying piece of crap, if he’s being fair. Along with other teachers, he’s mostly raising
bullies and murderers, justifying their actions by saying, they’re just teenagers, it’s a messed up
age, what did you expect? Dazai has no idea how come he’s not messed up himself, perhaps
thirteen is a bit too early to judge. He has friends in the orphanage, enough of them, actually, but
when it comes to being beaten up, nobody’s suddenly by his side, everyone vanishes. Not even
Odasaku is there, but Dazai finds his own ways to justify it. Soon eighteen, Oda is to think of his
future and what he’s going to do when he’s finally out of this very pit of hell. Other kids have
something important to occupy themselves with so that they become untouchable. And in the end,
Dazai is the only one to fight back. He can’t do the gardening as Elise and Kyouka do, he’s bad
with scissors, and all existent plants seem to start dying as soon as he barely touches their leaves.
He’s not among the best at studying, or else he would’ve long gotten himself a mentor teacher
overseeing him and burdening him with additional tasks all the time. He tried cleaning the
bathrooms once – ended up having his head dipped into the toilet. There’s no other stuff to do
except for being in his room for most of the day and pretending to be dead.

Dazai doesn’t like it when Oda smokes because all the older kids do so, and he ends up soaked in
the smell of cheap cigarettes after every fight. He finds Oda outside one day after lunch, sitting on
the stone steps near the back door. No other soul around. He sits next to him, hugging his knees,
his head on top of them, and grimacing at the smoldering cigarette.

“Today’s soup was shit,” Oda complains to fill up the silence. “That film of fat over it, you saw
dat? Gross.”

Dazai smirks slightly, watching the quiet and deserted garden lie in front of them. Very soon, past
three or four, Elise will drag Kyouka outside to water the young cherry trees they planted last
spring.

“Yeah, it was,” he agrees. “But it’s better than nothing anyway.”

“That new blind kid, Jouno he is,” Oda shakes his head, studying the cigarette between his fingers.
“I bet even he could make better soup.”
“I don’t envy him,” says Dazai, glancing at him for a second. “Though they probably won’t touch
him in any way except for their stupid laughs.”

Oda shrugs at this, thinking something over.

“He’s already signed up to help in the kitchen,” makes Dazai stare at him wide-eyed. “Nothing too
serious, just wiping the counters and handing empty pots,” Odasaku puts his cigarette out and turns
to look back at him. “Maybe you should try, too.”

The mere thought sounds like a big joke in Dazai’s head. There’s no way he’ll go anywhere near
the kitchen in this lifetime. He has tasted the dishes some of the older kids are making in the
orphanage, and they are pretty edible given that you hold your breath the entire time. He has no
idea how hard it can be, cooking three times a day for three floors filled with picky toddlers and
even pickier teenagers, some of them throwing their plates and bowls at the walls and shattering
them with a scream, not a single lunch without scandal. And what does he, Dazai, have to do with
cooking, anyway? He’s never even held a knife in his hand.

“I’m out of here soon, Mori has found a job for me,” Oda breaks the prolonged silence between
them, sounding a bit bitter. “They’re providing all new employees with temporary accommodation
until they can pay their own rent,” he explains, looking away. “Not sure what kind of job that is
yet, but all are better than rotting here,” he smirks. “I want to make sure you’ll be alright when I
leave.”

Dazai laughs at this, almost inaudibly. How can he possibly be alright when the only person he
fully trusts will soon abandon him like everyone else always does? Even if he finds something to
occupy himself with until he’s of age, nothing will ever replace Odasaku. He doesn’t even want to
wonder whether such a thing exists.

“If that helps you,” he gives in with a sigh, straightening his back. “I’ll try.”

He actually has to go through the torment of talking with Mori before this, but in the end, he gets
his approval with a long, surprised stare attached. Elise is both confused and relieved when he tells
her the news, trying his new apron in front of the mirror in his room. She comes over sometimes,
sneaking into the boys’ floor after her usual evening gardening session, still smelling of soil and
cheap fertilizers.

“If I don’t cook, I’ll be pinned to the hospital bed for nearly a week after the next fight,” he says,
assessing his new outfit in the reflection, the glass scattered with old scratches and cracks. He
smirks, locking gazes with Elise sitting on the bed behind his back, her eyes full of usual worry,
she always worries for everyone except for herself. “That is, if I don’t cook, sooner or later, I’ll
die.”

Life has cruel ways of dragging people out of places they hate being in just to throw them to even
less bearable ones. That’s something Dazai realizes once he steps into the small and stuffed kitchen
for the first time and immediately gets knocked down by someone’s slim but unexpectedly strong
figure, and they both end up on the floor, soaked in the chemical smell of sanitizers, the clang of
the metal pans against it echoing in Dazai’s head. He’s used to lying down like this, blinded by the
ceiling lights, waiting for another punch of someone’s heavy boot to land right on his ribs or
stomach.

“Dammit,” the person next to him hisses, rubbing his bruised head and slowly lifting himself from
the floor. Dazai glances at him and recognizes Jouno; his eyes, always squeezed shut as if the
eyelids were once stitched together, look even creepier this close. “Who the fuck are you? Not a
familiar smell. Got lost?”
There are so many emotions rushing through Dazai’s bruised body, he doesn’t even know which
one to stop at.

“Hi,” is the only thing he manages to say in response, his voice embarrassingly squeaky. He’s still
just a kid, after all. “Thanks for not beating the shit out of me.”
 Seven Circles of Hell
Chapter Notes

the scene in the pantry had been haunting me for too long so I couldn't help but write it
see, the boys are keeping their promise

next chapter will include: another contest (cooking, I missed that!!), another black
apron (not saying whose tho), and more ranpoe content (they r my scrunklies)

if you want to follow me on twitter and chat there, I'll be happy to!!
find me: @acuteguwu
and thank you for your comments, I appreciate each one of them, as always

People will eat anything if it looks pretty enough.

That’s one thing Dazai comes up with by the end of his second week in the kitchen, standing in
front of the open fridge, looking for something to decorate the portions of his cream soup with.
Another thing is: cooking is pretty easy as soon as you stop thinking. And it’s hilarious of sorts
because sometimes he can zone out so much during the process that, by the time all courses are
finished, he’s cut or burnt or both himself several times without even noticing. He’s the only one
who completely stops watching the time as soon as he gets his hands on the workplace, the only
thought in his head, like a mantra, being I have to make them like it, I have to survive.

“Aren’t you done yet?” Haruno, who’s already finished working on the main dish, walks to him,
glancing over his shoulder at the mess he’s created on the counter. Pots, bowls, plates, cutting
boards, dirty knives and spoons, stains of flour and butter, the orphanage clearly doesn’t have
enough money to renew the kitchen storage after every meal. “Drop it already, nobody will
appreciate your pains here.”

“I can’t,” Dazai brushes her off without even looking, stirring his soup with one hand and wiping
the clean bowl dry with another. “Just give me ten more minutes. Tell Hirotsu I’ve got this.”

Hirotsu, their chef, is a man who’s worked in the orphanage for the last ten years. He’s the one
who overlooks the children who intend to try themselves at cooking, always giving first, second,
umpteenth chances. He’s the one who used to sneak in little treats for Dazai after every dinner
when he was barely six. He’s the one who stared at him, open-eyed, when he entered the kitchen
two weeks ago, a polite nod and a nervous smile. Hirotsu glanced over at him, from head to toe,
and smirked.

“Your apron is backwards,” he noticed, pointing at him. “The seams are all outside.”

“Fuck,” Dazai muttered and started untying the laces behind his back.

“And mind your language if you want to stay in my kitchen.”

There’s really no right age to begin things in a place like this. Some toddlers start swearing as soon
as they barely know how to talk. Teenagers already drop drinking and smoking by the age of
sixteen. Dazai’s even heard about one girl getting pregnant at seventeen after she’d frequented the
boys’ floor a couple of times, late at night, to see her date. God knows where she’s now and
whether she’s kept the child. Due to the lack of proper sex education, a lot of orphans actually end
up like this, much more than it’s possible to keep count. Luckily, Dazai has never been the one to
cause too much trouble. Used to hiding from the very same trouble, he buried himself in the books
he could find in the orphanage’s basement. None of them covered cooking, though, but some of
them were about gardening, agriculture, and various types of herbs people cultivated with their
own hands, in rural areas. That’s how he managed to adapt to his new circumstances pretty
quickly.

Since they can’t afford costly products, like tons of meat or even sea fish (though it’s more than
accessible here, in the port city), Dazai has to come up with something using mostly vegetables and
the same herbs he’s read about in those dusty books over and over again. Sometimes, on his
breaks, he sits somewhere in the garden, a notebook in his lap, and writes down the recipes that
come to his mind as he watches Elise tinkering with another small, leafy bush. They grow mint,
basil, even thyme. Dazai stains his pants with wet dirt as he kneels in front of the plans, examining
them closer, smelling the leaves and feeling their texture with his fingers, skin already too rough
for a teenage boy.

“Do you think one can make a perfect dish using only herbs?” He says, more to himself, but Elise
overhears his muttering anyway.

“I’m as far from the culinary as we are from the Moon,” she scoffs, taking out the garden scissors
from the big pocket of her work apron.

Dazai smiles, lightly, green stems sliding between his fingers, tickling.

“But we still can see the Moon, can’t we?”

The third thing that he learns: it is possible to make a decent dish containing only herbs. The
unfortunate fourth: other kids call it bullshit and shatter their plates against the floor during lunch.
Dazai gets his scolding. Standing in front of Hirotsu in his small stuffed office, hiding his gaze, he
secretly smiles in triumph as the chef gets a taste of his salad, and his eyes widen for a long
moment. He needs to cough the surprise away, quickly schooling his expression into a serious,
strict one. Dazai fights back a wider smile, biting his lip and glancing at him from under his messy
dark bangs.

“No more initiative,” is the only thing Hirotsu says to him in the end. “This is your last warning.”

He thinks sometimes, if he’s destined to rot to death in this place, either way, he’d better be dead
from something he loves doing. He doesn’t really acknowledge when the time comes that he
slowly starts realizing he was actually born to cook things, boil, fry and stew, mix and season,
taste, throw into the trash bin, and start over. If there is, in fact, a reason why he was brought to life
once, that’s the one. And even though his options are quite limited in the orphanage kitchen, he
doesn’t leave it even after his last dish for the day is finally finished and served, sometimes he
stays until late at night, mixing everything he can get his hands on, experimenting and throwing his
failed attempts either to the sink or the bin. He knows Mori will eventually come up with a
punishment for him once he finds out how many products Dazai actually wastes on a daily basis.
But nothing matters to him as soon as he opens the fridge or takes the knife and a cutting board out
or sneaks into the garden to pick some mint and basil leaves, coming back with a handful, his
palms smelling of spring and rain. Sometimes he finds himself sprawled on the floor, under the
ceiling lights, his apron stained with all colors one can imagine like a canvas, his forehead sweaty,
his hair disheveled, he’s thirteen, or fourteen, or seventeen, or whatever, and for the first time in his
life, he feels alive. He could never think he would be able to love something this much.
Cooking becomes his everything right after Oda leaves. Dazai can’t bring himself to cry, only
hugging him tight until the bone crush, dragging the endless promises to write letters out of him.
Dazai couldn’t be more thankful to Oda for being the one to open the kitchen doors for him. That’s
where he hides now, for days on end, pissing Haruno off with his endless experiments, getting on
Jouno’s nerves, carefully avoiding Hirotsu’s lecturing. One day, assigned to clean the kitchen after
dinner, he’s tinkering in the stuffed storage room where they’re hiding some cheap appliances and
old rusty pots, when he finds something that catches his eye, almost making him drop the piece of
damp cloth he’s been using to wipe the shelves. A cookbook. The wrinkled paper cover says,
Cooking Basics for Beginners. Dazai has no idea who it belongs to but decides that it’s his now,
carefully hiding it under his apron later, as he inches his way through the deserted hall towards his
room. All of his roommates are already asleep, so he turns on a small flashlight as he buries
himself under the blanket and opens the book to the first page. He doesn’t even notice when it’s
already light outside and he’s spent the entire night reading, not even an ounce of sleep. In the later
months, he rereads the book nearly twenty times, it now being permanently stamped into his
memory. For the lack of other cooking manuals in the orphanage, he makes this one his own
gospel without even knowing who the hell its author is. Much later, with already enough cooking
experience behind his shoulders, he’ll eventually come to the realization that the book was not
among the best ones but it won’t make it any worse for him. When you’re this young, all’s good
that’s your first. Dazai will remain stuck to this principle even in his late twenties.

Something that he grows to like almost as much as cooking is grocery shopping. Hirotsu rarely
assigns someone from his cooks to run such an errand, instead preferring to pick up groceries
himself. Nonetheless, he drags Dazai along once or twice a month, saying that it’d be useful for
him to see how the world works. Dazai almost wants to retort that nothing teaches life better than
being stuck in the orphanage but thinks better of it. During one of these sorties, Hirotsu gets
dragged into a heated conversation with his old college buddy they accidentally run across in the
grocery store, and Dazai sees it as a perfect chance to get lost and roam all by himself for some
time. That’s how he ends up in the row of condiments, studying the shelf filled with herbs and
scribbling the notes in his pocket notebook, his fast handwriting almost panicking. With the
adrenaline rush, the diversity of choice, the things he could make with all these herbs, he’s almost
losing his mind. Suddenly, he feels someone’s presence right behind his back, an unfamiliar gaze
fixated on the open notebook and his trembling hands. He’s been making small doodles, picturing
how the dishes he could never make in this lifetime would look like in the reality. Dazai slowly
turns his head and sees a stranger, a man probably Mori’s age or a bit older, light hair, cold eyes,
an even colder expression. In his right hand, he’s holding a cart already filled with various
products, most of them expensive and fancy, the ones Dazai has only seen in the cookbook he’s
now hiding under his mattress like a murder weapon.

“Could you, please, move a bit?” The man asks, his voice coming out much softer than Dazai had
expected it to sound. “I need some dried coriander.”

Instead of actually taking a step back, Dazai turns away and grabs a pack of dried coriander from
the shelf, studying it for some time before handing it to the man, met with a suspicious frown.

“What do you need coriander for?” He can’t help but ask.

The man continues to assess him for some time as if doubting if he should give an answer or just
turn back and go away. In the end, he gives in.

“Chicken Hara Masala,” he says with a sigh, putting the pack of coriander into his cart. “Do you
know what that is?”

“Doesn’t it require fresh coriander leaves?” Dazai snaps, completely skipping the question, making
the man stare at him with a flash of surprise in his eyes. “Finely chopped along with tender stems.”

It takes some time before the stranger brings himself to answer.

“It does,” he says, voice almost amused. “But I prefer to mix it with the dried ones to make the
flavor more acute.”

Dazai hums, thinking over his strategy. That actually sounds wise, however…

“If I were you,” he suggests, raising an eyebrow at him. “I would try caraway instead. It’s a bit
more peppery, and if you use, for instance, honeysuckle in the garnish, the caraway will
complement its sweet and tangy taste just right.”

The man glances at him, then at his cart, then at him again. His gaze now is even more confused
than it was before, amusement mixed with shock, and it tickles Dazai’s ego a bit, to have
impressed someone looking much older and experienced with his knowledge like this.

“Go on,” he says, putting his cart onto the floor, ignoring the people passing by them and glancing
at Dazai who can’t hold back a triumphant grin, flipping the pages of his notebook to the very
beginning and finding his first notes on alternative recipes with herbs. “Are you writing this all by
yourself? How old are you?”

“Thirteen,” Dazai snaps without looking up, biting his lip and trying to read his own messy
handwriting, “Yes, I’m just putting down the ideas that seem interesting to me. Take a look,” he
shoves the notebook to the man’s hands, waiting patiently while he’s reading the lines with a
suspicious frown all over his face. Dazai’s bouncing on his feet, impatient. “What about mixing
the mint with honey? Like they do it in tea, but with soup or a dessert. Though I once tried this in
the orphanage and got scolded by Hirotsu,” he’s fast to correct himself. “My chef.”

“The honey may get dangerous if you overheat it in soup,” the man notices, looking up from the
pages. “You live in the orphanage?”

“That’s why I made cold soup,” Dazai can’t fight a self-satisfied grin and sighs at the second
question. “Yeah, the ugly building just down the street, almost on the outskirts.”

“I see,” the man hums, handing the notebook back to him. He takes his cart from the floor then
and sighs, eyeing Dazai one last time. “I need to go. Good luck with your cooking, kid.”

“Thank you,” Dazai smiles and nods politely at him, following the man’s tall figure for some time
until he hides around the nearest corner.

That actually felt… great. And not scary at all. For the first time ever, he had a chance to exchange
his thoughts on cooking with another living creature who wasn’t Elise, Haruno, Jouno, or even
Hirotsu. The man seemed surprised by his knowledge, and Dazai would lie if he said that he
doesn’t feel flattered. Maybe he actually has some potential to become a great cook, after all?

“First dish?” Dazai glances at him from his own bed, hands behind the back of his head.

“Ah, I remember that. Pasta bolognese,” Chuuya smiles despite the bittersweet aftertaste the
memory brings. “When I was around ten. Tasted like shit,” he lets himself laugh a bit, and Dazai
laughs, too, and something in this sound brings warmth to his chest. “What’s yours?”

Dazai hums for some time, trying to remember.

“A salad of only herbs and a bit of olive oil,” he says. “We had a garden back in the orphanage,
and I used to roam around for hours on end, thinking about all possible combinations of herbs I
could come up with.”

Chuuya actually likes the fact that they’ve shifted from playing that stupid truth-or-dare game to
simply asking each other things they want to know without any rules or restrictions. He also knows
that they’re dancing around the most important stuff too much, incapable of facing the bitterness it
may bring. Despite this, just talking to Dazai without constant bickering feels… relieving in a
completely new way. Chuuya discovers that there’s actually much more to his personality than just
his immense self-reverence mixed with the need to be helpful to everyone else. Dazai can be funny,
and serious, and hurt, and it’s actually much easier to hurt him than one can imagine.

“My turn now,” he sighs, turning to his side on his own bed to face him. “Your biggest regret in
life?”

“That I dropped cooking once,” Dazai says as if looking at him through the glass. “When I was a
teenager.”

“What happened then?” Chuuya can’t hide that he’s curious even though this subject feels like the
ground Dazai doesn’t really want to step on.

“It’s my question now, carrot head,” the way he avoids the need to elaborate only proves Chuuya’s
theory. Dazai thinks something over, his gaze traveling the room, before he finally asks. “Your
first love?”

Chuuya closes his eyes with a sigh for a moment. He knew that eventually, their conversation will
overflow the banks of culinary talk, but he surely wasn’t ready for Dazai snapping at him with
something like this. First love, first love, first love… Has he even had one?

“My ex-boyfriend,” he chooses to lie. “We broke up after a year or so.”

“What happened?” It’s not like Dazai is asking out of politeness or because he wants to fill the
silence with something. When Chuuya looks at him, he looks curious, even a bit concerned, and
his past relationship is the last thing Chuuya would like to discuss with anyone from his new life,
let alone Dazai.

“He didn’t like the fact that I spent more time at work than with him,” it’s the first time that he
actually forms the exact reason in his head, and it sounds so ridiculous even to him that Chuuya
almost laughs out loud. In fact, there was so much more to it than the incompatibility of their
schedules. Raphaël was annoying and self-loving, even more self-loving than Chuuya, and
eventually, he came to the realization that he didn’t need a relationship in which he couldn’t even
be open about the only thing he loved. With time, Raphaël had grown to be more irritated with him
talking about cooking every night they spent together, and at first, Chuuya didn’t understand that
every time his boyfriend was the one to initiate sex, it was only to make him keep his mouth shut.

“Wasn’t he a cook, too?” Dazai raises an eyebrow.

“He was a critic,” Chuuya corrects him, shrugging. “They are all insufferable assholes.”

At this, Dazai says nothing and just keeps staring at the ceiling for some time. Maybe he wants to
elaborate, to ask something else, but Chuuya’d rather he didn’t. He doesn’t feel like immersing into
his past any deeper.

“What about you?” he rather forces the question just to occupy silence. “Who was your first love?”
Dazai laughs quietly.

“I haven’t had any,” he says almost too easily after a short pause.

“You’re twenty-seven, right?” Chuuya frowns.

“Thanks for reminding me that I’m slowly hitting thirty,” Dazai sighs and lifts himself from the
bed a bit, sitting against the headboard and reaching for a pack of jellies resting on the nightstand.
They still stick to the strategy of not eating any healthy food, and Chuuya’s stomach is slowly
turning into a burning dumpster.

“I mean… what about Higuchi?”

“I hate to break it to you as you seem deeply concerned with my personal life,” Dazai grins,
opening the pack of jelly bears and taking a handful into his mouth at once, chewing slowly before
continuing. He’s really like a child sometimes. “But Higuchi is not my girlfriend.”

Chuuya lifts himself from the bed, leaning against it with his elbows, and frowns at him.

“How come? You two are like, inseparable.”

“People can be friends, Chuuya,” Dazai smirks. “Although something makes me think that
friendship is a rather foreign concept to you.”

It would be offensive if he wasn’t actually right.

“I have Ranpo,” Chuuya’s silent for a long time before he goes on. The next words make his throat
dry somehow. “I have you. You are my friend, right?”

“You have threatened to murder me at least twenty times so far,” Dazai laughs, finally glancing at
him. He’s not actually wrong. With all of this said and done, Chuuya is not sure he would’ve been
acting differently had he known what Dazai was like from the very beginning. Despite his
personality, the real one, not the one cut out for the cameras, despite his unimaginable cooking
skills, his fucking charms that Chuuya is genuinely sick of, they are still… competitors. Chuuya
won’t let his guard down and let him win the contest just because he might’ve started to like him.
Any type of attachment is a weakness for him, still, and he can’t let himself be weak, not here, not
like this. Eighteen has passed, he’s almost twenty-eight now. Dazai is considering something,
eyeing him from a distance that now seems even farther. He narrows his eyes slightly. “You still
see me as your rival, isn’t that so?”

“I mean,” Chuuya sighs, escaping his gaze. “Don’t you?”

Dazai leaves his question unanswered, instead standing up from the bed and walking to the
bathroom. When he returns after his late shower, Chuuya pretends to be asleep, facing the window.
The thought occurs in his head, that they’ve actually spent more time together than they’d initially
agreed upon. They will come back to the camp tomorrow, early morning, trying to sneak in as
stealthy as possible. Chuuya doesn’t want to be interrogated, not about this.

However, their great escape plan collapses as soon as Chuuya steps into the room the next
morning, immediately being pinned to place by Ranpo’s bewildered look. He sighs and walks to
his bed, dropping the bag with his stuff and taking his coat off. The entire time, Ranpo’s gaze
continues to pierce through his back. Chuuya can’t stand this, he turns his head and answers the
look.

“What?”
“Where have you been?” His friend doesn’t stand up, only moves to run his hand through his hair,
still messy from the sleep.

“Out,” Chuuya says quietly and returns to unpacking his bag.

“Care to explain?” The frown is clear in his voice. “When I came back from the shower on Friday,
you weren’t here. I called you, like, a thousand times,” Chuuya can’t fight back a mischievous
smile. He’d actually set his phone on airplane mode as soon as they escaped the camp, not really
giving it a second thought. “Then I bumped into Kunikida in the kitchen, and he said that Dazai
had disappeared as well.”

“Do some brainwork, then,” Chuuya lets out a long breath, sorting the shirts he needs to wash later
on his bed. “You’re good at this.”

Sometimes, Ranpo’s brainwork really exceeds its limits.

“Oh my god,” when Chuuya looks at him again, he’s hiding his face in his hands, sighing deeply.
“You two slept together.”

At first, he feels scandalized but then decides to go along with the theory, for Ranpo’s reaction is
too amusing to watch.

“You can say so, yeah,” he nods, trying to maintain the most serious expression possible, folding
the pair of underwear in front of him. “What? Did you miss me?”

“You scared the shit out of me,” Ranpo accuses him in a dry tone, looking up again. “I mean… I
kinda knew where it was going, but still.”

It’s Chuuya’s turn to frown at him.

“What are you talking about?” He freezes in his spot.

“This you and Dazai thing,” Ranpo speaks carefully but keeps looking at him without averting his
eyes. “I’m not dumb, Chuuya. I see how you’re staring at him.”

Chuuya lets go of the clothes he was holding and puts them on the bed, sitting down slowly, his
body numb, and this whole conversation feels dangerous. He doesn’t like where it’s going. It’s not
like he was ready to face his real thoughts and feelings any time soon.

“How am I staring at him?” He asks, slowly, trying to warn Ranpo that it’s dangerous ground
they’re both standing on. However, his friend doesn’t notice the signs or tries to ignore them.
Later, Chuuya will be thankful to him for that.

“In the contests,” Ranpo suggests. “When he’s making something, and you’re trying to be mad at
him for his dish choice or the way he’s decided to cook it. You sound and behave angry but your
face says otherwise,” he tries to smile, softly, almost in pity, and Chuuya feels naked, again, but
not in a pleasant sense at all. Ranpo sighs and gets on the bed with his legs, moving closer to the
wall and hugging his knees. He looks away for a moment, thinking. “You know, one evening,
when I still was trying to pretend that I didn’t feel anything towards Edgar, Tachihara and Gin
dragged me to the living room to watch the latest episode of the show with them. It was the one in
which we were making croquembouche,” Chuuya wants to smile at the memory but his face
betrays him, and he ends up frowning even deeper. “At some point, I just dropped following the
events and started watching my own face. I noticed how my expression changed every time I
looked at Edgar or talked to him. It was something I couldn’t fake, even in front of all those
cameras. I’d never seen myself look so vulnerable as I seemed then,” he smiles again. “But it was a
good vulnerability. It was making me want to… I dunno, let go? To fall, knowing that I would be
caught anyway.”

Is there really such a thing as good vulnerability? During his entire life, Chuuya’s been convinced
that being vulnerable meant nothing else but being constantly hunted. If a good vulnerability really
does exist, the concept is completely foreign to him. He swore he would never show his fragile
side to anyone. He’s already betrayed this promise – and himself – a dozen times, and each one of
them was with and because of Dazai. Did it feel good? Chuuya doesn’t know.

And maybe, just maybe, to find out, he needs to put it to the test.

Time flies frighteningly fast. Since Louisa and Kajii left, everyone’s been even stiffer than usual.
Every black apron contest feels like a death sentence, and, even though Chuuya doesn’t get another
one himself, once he has to help Ranpo, observing his every move from the balcony. It’s harder for
him than he thought it’d be, caring for someone and not wanting them to leave him. Chuuya also
learns physical affection, though harshly and with numerous emotional breakdowns attached. He’s
hugging Ranpo, disturbingly long even for himself, after he wins, after he stays. Once he grabs
Dazai’s hand when he almost slips and falls on an icy road from the dorm to the kitchen. They
laugh it off, but Chuuya lets his grip last a bit longer on Dazai’s arm, assessing his reaction. To his
surprise, Dazai doesn’t even flinch, and they keep walking like this, holding onto each other and
not feeling even slightly uncomfortable about it. Chuuya rather likes it. He’d been playing an
outcast for long enough for his feelings to start dying off.

It’s February 4th, Gin’s birthday, and Tachihara decides that they need to throw a surprise party.
With only ten of them left in the contest by now, it’s rather hard to spread the errands between all
of them fairly. Higuchi ends up dragging Gin out to town and keeping her occupied while the rest
of them are preparing the dorm. There’s no dubious self-initiative when it comes to the birthday
cake, and Tanizaki volunteers to make it himself, with Edgar as a helping hand. Ranpo and Atsushi
are in the living room, cleaning and decorating the walls with the celebratory posters Tachihara has
made himself, scattering the paper with their local jokes and lame drawings of them with Gin in all
imaginable circumstances. Here’s them assembling a croquembouche together, here’s them
chanting a song during the Christmas dinner, wasted and with drunk smiles all over their faces,
here’s them mocking Ango’s serious expressions after another contest, here’s them dragging
everybody into a snowball fight outside… At first, Chuuya thought the idea was ridiculously
childish for people in their mid-twenties. Now as he’s looking at the posters on the walls, holding a
glass of apple juice in his hand, he can’t fight a smile appearing on his lips. Friendship, what a
wonderful beast that is to him, mysterious though briefly explored.

“He’s the next Da Vinci, right?” Dazai suddenly appears behind his back, almost making Chuuya
jump in surprise. He’s a bit disheveled, just from the shower, dressed in a white shirt with its collar
unbuttoned, and he smells good as he usually does. Chuuya’s breath catches for a moment.

“Yeah,” he forces a smirk, taking another sip of his juice. “As if.”

Later, when they’re all seated in a circle in the middle of the living room, shushed music playing
from the speakers, Gin almost sheds a tear for the fifth time today, hugging Tachihara tightly and
running her hand through his hair, making it messy. I love you, pal, she says, a bit wasted already,
and they all laugh. Ah, fuck off, Tachihara replies with an embarrassed smile, and they all laugh
even louder. Chuuya is sitting between Ranpo and Tanizaki, and he’s the only one who doesn’t
drink alcohol. They’ve started from Truth or Dare (a memory Chuuya’d rather not bring up right
now), and Atsushi, having picked dare, is currently trying to do fifty push-ups on the floor while
Tanizaki is filming the entire thing on his phone, cheering him up.
In the deafening mess of everyone’s cheers and sheer laughing, Chuuya finds himself distracted,
locking his gaze on Dazai. They’re playing their own little game with Higuchi, telling each other
jokes and draining tequila shots one by one. Chuuya grimaces, he’s never liked tequila, but Dazai
seems to be completely unaffected by his own binge drinking; if anything, his laugh is getting a bit
louder and more unrestrained with each gulp he makes. His hair is still a bit messy, but in a good,
attractive way, and his eyes shine each time he looks at Higuchi or takes another deep breath
before laughing at one of her jokes. At some point, his laugh becomes the only thing Chuuya can
hear. He keeps drinking his juice in small sips, staring at Dazai shamelessly, not even scared of
being caught, and he’s not ever drunk, so what is going on with him? Something burns in his chest
and then in his entire body, almost making him take his sweater off, leaving himself in a wrinkled
oversized t-shirt underneath. Probably it’s the warmth of the room, the mix of laughs, someone
else’s breaths, soaked in alcohol and cigarettes, the music, the ease he feels in his bones for the first
time in a long while. But now, as he watches Dazai who’s not even looking back at him, not even
acknowledging his presence, he can’t fight the slow and crushing realization that he’s actually…
handsome. Not like those magazine-cover guys or the typical heartbreaker-type boys, though
Chuuya had long perceived him as one. Dazai is attractive, to a stupid extent, and Chuuya is a fool
for admitting it right now after he’d long sworn to himself that he would never fall for someone
like him.

“I need to take a breath,” he decides, not loud, expecting that nobody will hear him in the mixture
of voices and laughs anyway. He turns out to be wrong, as Tachihara’s firm and a bit playful tone
pins him back to his place on the floor.

“Nobody’s going anywhere!” He announces, gesturing at Gin. “Our princess has gotten a
spectacular idea.”

Gin pinches his shoulder slightly and frowns for a moment before letting out a wide grin. Her next
words will probably be written on Chuuya’s gravestone.

“I suggest we play Seven Minutes in Heaven,” she says, eyeing the circle. “You all know the rules,
right?”

“No way,” Kunikida is the first to protest. “How old are we?”

“Come on, snob,” Tachihara whines, reaching to shake his knee slightly until he’s brushed off.
Kunikida’s kinda right. The last time Chuuya played such teenager games was back in the
academy and, even though he doesn’t usually feel like he’s grown any more mature since then (at
least his constant anxiety and self-defense are in place most of the time), Seven Minutes in Heaven
is certainly not a game he could imagine himself playing at almost thirty. On the other hand, since
the contest started, Chuuya has already done plenty of things he never imagined himself capable
of. “Gin’s wish is our command today.”

“How are we gonna split up the pairs?” Asks Ranpo, who’s clearly amused by the whole idea.
Chuuya pushes his leg slightly, trying to shut him up.

“Actually,” Gin’s grin slowly turns into a mischievous smirk. “I’ve already decided on the pairs
myself. It's my birthday and so it's my right to decide for today, right?” Tachihara seems to be the
only one supportive of such a state of events, cheering her up with an enthusiastic nod. “Though the
people who last for the entire seven minutes will get the right to pick their next partners. How does
it sound?”

The responses are a mixture of fantastic and terrible. Chuuya almost rolls his eyes when he hears
his own name, followed, to his surprise, by Tanizaki’s. Accompanied by everyone’s cheering, they
escape the room, leading to a small pantry at the end of the corridor. The place is so stuffed and
dusty that it looks more like a closet, but Chuuya takes out a relieved breath anyway, finally having
escaped the noises. These are seven minutes in heaven indeed. Tanizaki leans against the opposite
wall, crossing his arms on his chest with a smile.

“Why did she pick us to go, out of all the people?” He wonders out loud, making Chuuya laugh.

“Dunno,” he shrugs, studying the shelves filled with various bottles of household chemicals.
Nothing that could catch his attention anyway. He turns to glance at Tanizaki then, holding back
another laughter. “We’re not supposed to be making out right now, are we?”

“Well, they probably expect us to,” Tanizaki hums with such a serious expression on his face that
in just a second, they both burst out in laughter together.

After their seven minutes have passed, Chuuya picks Ranpo to go with him next. He feels
comfortable talking to him, regardless of the circumstances, and they spend their time making
hilarious jokes about the recent funny occasions that occurred during the contest. When Chuuya
returns to the living room for the second time, he’s in lifted spirits. Though not for long, as he spots
Dazai standing up and reaching to help Higuchi to her feet as gentlemen do. She gets drunk much
easier so she almost stumbles upon her own feet as she stands up, but Dazai catches her by the
waist right in time, and then they both start laughing like little kids. When their time in the pantry
starts to count down, these are the longest seven minutes in Chuuya’s life. Seven heavens and
seven hells. A month of Sundays, as one may say. He doesn’t really listen to the heated
conversation in the room, reaching to grab a glass from Ranpo’s hand, for his own has vanished
somewhere in a mysterious way. He takes a big gulp and almost spits everything out the moment
he realizes that he’s drinking not juice but champagne.

“You alright?” Ranpo glances at his clearly devastated face, concerned.

“Yeah,” Chuuya lies, having forced himself to swallow. Perhaps, he needed that.

He doesn’t drink anymore and just counts down the seconds in his head, staring at the mess
they’ve made of both empty and still half-full bottles on the floor. When Dazai finally shows up,
Higuchi following him in much steadier steps than before, he quickly locates Chuuya and grants
him a smirk.

“Let’s go,” Chuuya can swear he hears someone whistle quietly behind his back.

“Why me?” He asks, not ashamed of anyone, and the room suddenly goes silent except for some
shitty pop song still playing in the background.

“Because I want you to,” Dazai says as if it’s the most evident truth in the world.

Chuuya doesn’t know why but he follows. They escape the room, not looking at each other, the
same worry slowly returning, piercing Chuuya’s whole body. He’s finally getting what he’s been
opting for, but it’s a double-edged sword. He’s not as annoyed as he would be if there still was an
unspoken war between them. On the other hand, he feels even worse. He knows well how to act
around Dazai when he’s mad at him but he still has no clear idea how to look at him and speak to
him when the feeling isn’t there. In the end, he just hopes to get this over with as fast as possible.
The gulp of champagne, as insignificant as it was compared to the amounts he used to drink once,
makes him dizzy anyway. Once the doors of the pantry close behind them, and they find
themselves in the pale light of a small room, he starts to build up his own defense, brick by brick.
Leaning against one of the walls, he looks down, counting the seconds in his head. Only seven
minutes, only seven circles of hell. He can do this. He’s been through more.
He gives up after less than a minute, his gaze slowly traveling up. Dazai is standing right in front of
him, his right shoulder leaning against the shelf, his hands hidden in the pockets of his trousers. If
Chuuya counted the steps between them right now, there would probably be less than two. One
minute passed, six more left. Okay. He looks at Dazai’s face, relaxed and unbothered, the
expression a bit too sober for a person who’s drunk this much. His lips are a bit reddened, probably
from the constant biting, or Chuuya just wants to think so, but another annoying question pops up
in his head by itself.

Did you kiss her? Was it something you wanted?

“I thought you might’ve needed a break,” Dazai finally breaks the silence, and Chuuya almost
shudders, realizing that up until now, he’d been staring at him too intensely, probably looking
indeed stupefied. “Not a party person, are you?”

“I’d rather be sleeping through this entire thing,” Chuuya admits. “Didn’t want to upset Tachihara.
He’s trying a bit too hard.”

Dazai laughs at it, genuinely, closing his eyes, and Chuuya hates every damn second of this. He
has a right to just walk out of the room right now, run away like a small, embarrassed child, going
back to his room and hiding there up until morning. Why can’t he? Why does every second spent
with Dazai, alone, seem to be pinning him to place even harder than before?

“When is your birthday?” Dazai asks, a glint of a smile still clear in his voice and on his face.

“April 29,” Chuuya says without much enthusiasm. He’s always hated the date and everything
attached to it. “Why?”

Five minutes left.

“I know the contest will be already over by that time,” Dazai shrugs, looking away for a second.
He looks honest, and it’s too simple to get scared of him when he’s like this. Being honest, he
always says things that make Chuuya despise him less. “But I will make sure to come up with
something as annoying for you, somehow.”

And there it is. Chuuya lets out a long, audible breath, stepping forward – one, two – and finds
himself standing right in front of him, facing his bare neck. Their height difference is still as
embarrassing as it could be but now it’s rather playing out in his favor. When Chuuya’s hands fly
up to touch Dazai’s shoulders, sliding to his back and wrinkling the fabric of his shirt there, he
closes his eyes and buries his face in Dazai’s neck, feeling the almost burning warmth of his skin.
He breathes out again, trembling, trying to hide even deeper, the embarrassment devouring him
from the inside but he would rather die than step back. He opens his mouth slightly to say
something for himself but the words just won’t come out, so he leaves it as it is, frozen in place, his
knuckles burning from the force with which he’s gripping Dazai’s shirt, breathing him in until
there’s no other smell in the room but his.

Four minutes left.

He feels Dazai straightening in place and silently begs him not to stop this all right now when
Chuuya still hasn’t come up with proper words to defend himself. But it’s not what he’s doing.
Chuuya shivers when he feels Dazai’s hands on his own waist, and it doesn’t feel like that time
when they hugged in the street. He’s squeezing him much firmer, although gentle enough not to
break, and Chuuya swears he’s more breakable than ever right now.

“Hey,” Dazai says to him almost in a whisper. “I couldn’t predict that my words would move you
this much, carrot head. Just don’t start sobbing, okay?”

“It’s not,” Chuuya clenches his fists for the last time before letting go of his shirt, now sliding his
hands a bit lower and encircling him entirely just above the waist. “It’s not about it. Just… shut up,
for once in your life.”

“Okay,” and he does, instead embracing him firmer. Then he lowers his head a bit so that his cheek
brushes against Chuuya’s hair. Chuuya closes his eyes again, not thinking of anything in particular,
letting himself be held and weak for a brief moment until the next lifetime.

He won’t lie, these seven seconds in hell feel better than he could predict. Maybe it was that
goddamn gulp of champagne he made after a long time of avoiding any alcohol like a plague.
Maybe it was Dazai’s laugh, his eyes, his smell, maybe it was the words and glances they’d
exchanged in the span of the past few weeks since their weekend together. They’d promised not to
fight anymore and both kept the promise. If they weren’t working together during the contests,
they also weren’t interfering; if anything, they even helped each other as soon as the smallest
chance occurred. Dazai cheered for Chuuya every time he presented another flawless dish. Chuuya
trembled in worry and fear, standing right next to him when he was too close to getting a black
apron for another bizarre experiment of his. Then, after all the troubles were over for the night,
they smoked together, discussing work in all detail, sometimes shifting to something more
personal, like the past, present and future, or spitting out their local jokes, making everyone around
them stare at them both in bewilderment, taking in that little world they’d created only for
themselves. Chuuya liked those talks. For the first time in his life, he had something utterly his,
something, apart from cooking, that belonged to him entirely.

But it was a good vulnerability.

To fall, knowing that I would be caught anyway.

And now he’s here. And now is now. And Chuuya doesn’t care how many minutes have already
passed. Probably more than seven, even more than ten. He would gladly just stand like this for
another eternity. He takes another deep breath and lifts his head from Dazai’s shoulder, looking up
and meeting his eyes, calm and thoughtful, focused only on him with the reverence that makes
Chuuya shiver one more time.

“If you tell someone about this,” he warns him in a whisper. “I’m going to kill you.”

The thing he really wants to say, to ask, is,

If I fall, will you be the one to catch me?

“And there he is,” Dazai sighs, a smile returning to his face. He’s eyeing Chuuya’s expression for
some time as if trying to find something in it. Something more than his silent reproach, addressed
to no one in particular. He just always needs to find a guilty one so that he can escape facing his
own feelings for a bit longer. “Feels good having a secret, doesn’t it?”

Chuuya takes a deep breath and leans forward again, his forehead bumping against Dazai’s bare
collarbone.

It does.

“Should we get out of here?” He mutters into his skin.

“If you want to,” Dazai shrugs.

“Do you?”

Ten minutes passed, though neither of them is aware.

“No,” he says as if it’s the evident answer, and Chuuya feels the grip of his hands on his own waist
grow firmer.

Or perhaps it was that talk they had the morning they were to return back to the dorm after their
weekend in the hotel.

Chuuya is sitting on the bed, fully dressed, even his coat already on, and watching as Dazai gathers
the remains of his clothes, scattered chaotically across his half of the room. Something Chuuya
learns about him against his own will: Dazai loves creating a mess on purpose, knowing how much
it irritates people around him. Although with this neverending flow of ideas constantly rushing
through his head, this particular habit is nothing out of the ordinary.

“Are you ready?” Dazai glances at him, finally zipping his own backpack.

It’s seven in the morning, a bit more than three hours before today’s contest, and god knows what
it holds for them. Chuuya doesn’t answer, just eyeing him for some time, his gaze closing the
distance between them somehow, even though he doesn’t make a move from his spot. Dazai gets
him without words and smiles, walking up to his bed and sitting down next to him. They’re
probably funny to watch right now, but luckily, nobody watches.

“I’ve got a strange feeling,” Dazai says in a quiet voice, making Chuuya look at him. “That I may
be kicked out this week.”

“What are you talking about?” Chuuya frowns. He never thought he would be missing his usual
self-confidence like this.

“I’m out of ideas,” Dazai shrugs casually, not looking back at him. “I’ve spent too many nights
trying to come up with something lately, but nothing new appears. It seems like I’m just remaking
the same dish in different variations over and over again.”

“Dazai,” not mackerel this time but just like this. Chuuya’s trying to be as honest and open with
him as possible. “Why do you cook?”

Dazai glances at him briefly, clearly not ready for this kind of question.

“Because I’m good at it?” He says though a glint of doubt is heard in his voice.

Chuuya smiles, shaking his head.

“And how do you know?” He asks. “A bunch of other cooks told you so?”

“Because I’ve got something new to bring to this craft?” He suggests again, even less sure this
time.

“Dazai,” Chuuya looks right into his eyes this time, placing one hand on his forearm. “Why. Do.
You. Cook?”

“Because I can’t help it!” Dazai snaps a bit too fast, the words almost falling out of his mouth as if
he’s scared to pronounce them.

Chuuya nods, content.

“There it is,” he says, hearing himself in his voice so distinctly it almost hurts. “You would’ve been
dead by now if you hadn’t kept going. So would I.”

The look he’s granted right after that is something Chuuya can’t bring himself to explain. Nobody,
let alone Dazai, has ever looked at him like that. The slight flash in his eyes, slow and gradual, the
shift of millions of hues at once, full of emotions and completely empty at the same time. Dazai
looks down at Chuuya’s hand still resting on his forearm and keeps silent for a long while.

“Do you,” he takes a deep breath, letting it out with a slight shiver. “Do you think I’m still worth
something even though I haven’t achieved anything great so far?”

You’re eighteen, Chuuya.

You’re twenty, Chuuya.

You’re twenty-five, Chuuya.

Everything is ahead. Just keep going.

“Yes,” he says, and he’s never meant it more. Dazai glances back at him instantly, waiting. But
that’s it. Chuuya doesn’t know how to elaborate, how to form a coherent sentence out of
everything he’s been feeling towards him lately. But one thing he can say for sure. “Remember you
told me once, that you were also running from your true self your entire life?” Dazai nods. “That’s
the answer. The same as with running from ourselves, we can’t run from something we love no
matter how hard we try. Cooking. Do you love it?”

Dazai lets himself smile weakly and closes his eyes before nodding.

“I do,” he whispers.

Chuuya nods back.

“Good,” he says, finally letting his hand slide from his arm and rest on the bed instead.

Good luck?
 Sour Grapes
Chapter Notes

everyone meet my favorite ukrainian man (okay, just one of them)

hell, I AM ukrainian and still I have no idea how to cook OUR national dishes
anyway

this chapter was by far the toughest one to write, probably because it marks the final
part of the whole fic
a warning for LOTS of time skips (it'll be like this sometimes)

it's getting harder where I am now and I just hope I'll still be alive by the time I finish
this fic because god, I love it so much
thank you for all your kind words

p.s.: the slow burn has almost burnt out ;)

If you asked Chuuya right now how he ended up lying on the floor in someone else’s apartment,
with his shirt half-unbuttoned, his hair greasy, his eyes reddened from tears, and a frying pan in his
embrace, he probably wouldn’t be able to answer. It just happens like this sometimes. People get
heartbroken and end up in the strangest places they could ever find themselves in. So does Chuuya,
a twenty-six-year-old man, a boy sprawled on the floor next to the bed, looking at the ceiling in
almost complete darkness, not being able to close his eyes even for a second. He thinks he may
start crying again if he does.

“Oh my god,” he says in a whisper, still half-drunk, listening to the steady breaths of two people
lying in bed, asleep. “That asshole actually broke my heart.”

A striking realization, almost six hours earlier, as he stands on the empty pavement, next to the tall
building he’s just escaped, nothing but a clean frying pan in his hands: you can still get heartbroken
even if you weren’t in love. Well, at least he’s saved his favorite pan he used to cook his ex-
boyfriend's breakfasts in. Chuuya looks up at the sky, seeing it threatening to rain down. With a
sigh, he takes a phone out of his pocket and dials the number of the first person that comes to his
mind. Not mother, not Verlaine, not even Adele who’s been his closest friend and a sous-chef for
the past months.

“Shirase?” He calls as he hears his steady breath over the phone. “Get dressed and text Yuan. I
want to get drunk.”

That’s how, an hour later, he finds himself at the bar in one of the gay clubs Shirase frequents but
has never succeeded at dragging Chuuya along before. Three drinks on the wooden counter, a
generous tip for the bartender, and the same old frying pan. A picture’s almost comical. While
Shirase and Yuan are dancing, laughing so loud they can be easily heard even over the music,
Chuuya can’t force himself to stand up, and his knees seem to be stuffed with cotton. He knows he
shouldn’t drink, he has work tomorrow, he has places to be, and probably this entire thing is just a
repetition of a mistake he’s already made once. But he’s a goddamn adult now, he can do whatever
he wants without the threat of Verlaine constantly standing over him. And so he does. He orders
another shot and empties it in one gulp before finally standing up, his legs shaky, and walking to
the bathroom. He needs to return right away because he can’t let his favorite pan be stolen by some
nameless shit-faced asshole. In the bathroom, he places the pan on the counter near the sink and
just stares at himself in the mirror for some time. Just a bit earlier today, the guy he thought he
would last much longer with dumped him, almost shoving him out of his place, spitting curses and
insults into his back. Chuuya didn’t retort, couldn’t find words for it. He just stood there for some
time, looking at the door with a familiar number, remembering it for good.

And now he’s here and he looks gorgeous, as gorgeous as a completely devastated human being
can be. He’s eighteen again, no smile on his face, only a constant frown, never erased even by the
happiest moments. He thinks he can let himself be eighteen for the night. He unbuttons the collar
of his white shirt and lets his hair loose. He washes the tears off his face, not remembering the
moment he started to cry. Then he puts on the happiest face he’s capable of. And finally, he’s
ready for anything the future holds, but as soon as he takes a step towards the exit, someone
practically bumps into him. Another guy, not much taller than he (and Chuuya’s recently found out
that he actually prefers tall guys) but attractive enough for a one-night stand.

“Hey,” he says, stupefied for a moment, his lips forming a smile.

“Hey,” Chuuya lets out, French gathering like melted caramel in his throat.

That’s quite of a show, making out with a stranger in a gay club’s bathroom, constantly keeping an
eye on the frying pan he’s now placed atop the toilet lid. What is it even doing here? Nothing but a
bitter reminder of dozens of scrambled eggs, vegetables, and grilled cheeses he cooked on it for a
person who will never call him again. What an asshole, Chuuya thinks, almost enraged, as the guy
slides down his bare neck with a trail of kisses, he makes me hate the only thing I thought I’d never
hate. The guy is saying some stupid drunken shit as they do in movies, something about how pretty
he is, and Chuuya thinks he might be sick. Unlike in movies, this doesn’t really help in reality, or
maybe he’s just not drunk enough.

When the makeout session is over, he walks out of the bathroom, almost slamming the door shut
behind his back, hugging the pan firmly with both of his hands. Yuan locates him almost instantly
and drags him away with a worried frown.

“Don’t tell me you just fucked some guy in a goddamn public bathroom,” she says, not looking
away from his eyes, her tone frighteningly strict as if Chuuya might actually get scolded like a
teenager if he did. He wonders, though, what in his entire look may give his actions away.
Probably the slowly darkening hickey on his neck.

“I didn’t,” he says, and it’s true. As Yuan lets out a relieved breath, Chuuya studies her for a
moment without saying a word. Her dyed pink hair is in a bun with several bangs framing her face;
she’s got a shimmering lip gloss, slightly pink, and bold eyeliner. Has she ever been heartbroken?
Or people usually don’t tend to break the ones who look pretty enough to avoid it? Chuuya chews
his bottom lip, still tasting of alcohol and sticky from kissing, and looks down at the pan in his
hands. “Yuan?” She answers with a questioning gaze, and he looks up at her again. “Remember
what you told me then, at the dorms?”

“What, exactly?” Yuan frowns at him. “You know, I always say tons of stupid shit.”

“About the person,” Chuuya explains, dead serious this time, if a bit uncertain. “The freak who’s
going to love me at some point walking somewhere in this world,” Yuan lets out a sigh and nods,
quietly. “Where do you think he is now?” There’s a glimpse of hope in his voice that sounds so
pathetic that, were he sober, he’d most certainly punched himself.

“Okay, cry baby,” Yuan grabs him by the sleeve and drags him closer, encircling his arm with her
own and walking him away from the bathrooms, right to the dance floor. Then she starts
enumerating. “I suppose he’s in his room, reading some abstruse cooking manual, putting down
pencil notes right over the lines, correcting the ones that seem untrue to him. He’s doing it with the
most serious expression a person can put on, frowning with his whole grumpy face, as nerdy as
you, as annoying as you, as genius as you,” she glances at Chuuya, and a kind smile slowly appears
on her face. “How does it sound?”

Professional Cooking, 6th edition

Dazai narrows his eyes at the recipe, envisioning the outcome in his head and trying to guess which
elements could be easily substituted with other, easier, probably cheaper ones. He’s in his flat, his
always lonely and always bachelor flat in Yokohama, a glass of whiskey and an ashtray on his
coffee table, a sharp pencil between his clenched teeth, several stains of graphite on his hands and
wrists. He’s ignoring all work calls and emails because it’s Friday evening, he has a whole
weekend ahead and he intends to spend it remembering something he loves or, perhaps, loved once.
He still avoids actual cooking like a plague, instead burying himself in cookbooks, overly
criticizing the others’ recipes but never coming up with something of his own. He’s tired of
girlfriends, mistresses, one-night stands, work, bills, cleaning his entire flat every Saturday. On top
of it, he’s most tired of not doing something he craves. Still, when he stands up from his couch and
goes to the kitchen, a half-full glass of whiskey in his left hand, he does nothing, just standing
above the stove and glancing blankly at the empty pan he bought just last week. Before that, there
were only restaurant meals or takeaways for him. He hadn’t cooked since college, a goddamn
business major he only managed to obtain because Fukuzawa was getting on his nerves with
constant calls and reminders. He’d sworn he wouldn’t cook until it brings him the same joy it did
when he was still a lame cook at the orphanage. Now he’s twenty-six, and every evening he’s
standing here, staring at this damned empty pan like it’s a missile landed right in the heart of his
home, and he can do nothing to throw it away or let it finally tear him to pieces.

This time, however, whether it’s whiskey or his own bone-deep tiredness, he gives it a shot. He
puts the glass aside and rolls up the sleeves of his shirt, leaning with both of his hands against the
counter and closing his eyes for a second. Scrambled eggs that is. He ends up making nearly
twenty of them, emptying the cartons he’s stored in the fridge one by one. Some of them he eats
and some of them he throws away, washing the pan until his palms start to burn and then starting
over again.

Soon after, Friday becomes the official day of scrambled eggs. Saturday’s the day of croque
madame, Sunday’s the day of pancakes, Monday’s the day of breakfast casserole, and so it goes,
and so it goes. Dazai justifies his newly obtained habit of cooking for himself by claiming it as a
form of self-care but deep inside, he knows better. Alone in his kitchen he sits, early in the
morning, chewing on the pancakes, having woken up at six a.m. despite the weekend. Smiling at
the sudden thought, he takes a sip of his dark coffee.

Maybe I’m not that bad of a lover, he thinks. Maybe I’m not that bad of a cook.

If there’s a date in the calendar that Chuuya despises more than his own birthday, it's Valentine's
Day; but luckily, it passes as almost any other day they’ve had at the dorm, that is, without any
extracurricular activities.

As far as he’s concerned, there are no established couples among the remaining contestants,
except, of course, Ranpo and Edgar, though they prefer to keep their relationship secret, and
Chuuya has to pretend he’s asleep when he hears Ranpo sneaking out of his bed and then out of the
room almost every night. Once, he brings up the topic himself as if scared that Chuuya might do it
first. Edgar is just lonely all by himself in his room now, he says, nervous eyes, a nervous smile.
Chuuya grants him a long look without saying a word. Edgar might feel lonely, that’s true; up until
recently, Gin and Tachihara were the ones entertaining his entire floor, always throwing various
antics in the middle of the night and not letting anyone get enough sleep. Now they left, and what a
leave that was. Tachihara got scolded personally by Ango for the lame dessert that he’d
desperately tried to copy from some picture found online without even knowing the exact recipe.
Gin got a week-long nervous breakdown after he left the contest, even though he secretly stayed in
the camp for a couple of days longer than he was supposed to, justifying this act by telling that
there was too much shit for him to pack. Chuuya knew it was not how it worked. Everybody knew.
Love, as wretched and disgusting as it felt sometimes, pushed people to great deeds they didn’t
know themselves capable of. And probably Gin did spoil her molecular dish exactly a week after
on purpose, just to be kicked out next and leave with Tachihara to keep on irritating everyone else
somewhere else. Probably not everyone was, is here to win. Probably there’s something more to
cooking than an algorithm of actions Chuuya can perform even in his sleep. Probably he still has to
find this out.

One day in late February, Ranpo and Edgar are sitting on the couch in the living room, pretending
that they hadn’t been hugging as soon as everyone else walks in. Chuuya grants them both a short
smile, sitting down on the floor next to the coffee table stuffed with dirty mugs, leftovers of their
yesterday’s cake, and open cookbooks. Soon after, they all gather in their circle, one constant that
never changes: there are also Kunikida, Tanizaki, and Dazai who sits down right next to Chuuya,
probably without even giving it a second thought. Now it’s Ranpo’s turn to smile at them both
mischievously, and Chuuya has to roll his eyes at him given that over a week ago, he clearly
explained to his friend that there was nothing between them. There still isn’t, and Chuuya’s rather
okay with that. Dazai doesn’t touch him apart from when it’s needed during the work process, he
also doesn’t talk to him about anything more than cooking or daily stuff. Chuuya tries to read him
sometimes, he really does, but the blankness in his eyes remains unchanged most of the time.
Maybe Chuuya just made everything up. Maybe the situation looks double-edged only for him, and
for Dazai it’s all the same. They’re not fighting, and that’s just enough. Not fighting as a new,
secret, and very intimate form of platonic love they’ve slowly built up for themselves. Deep down,
Chuuya wishes he got a reason to touch him, hold hands or hug him again. But he’s not doing
anything while Dazai isn’t showing that he wants it too, and Chuuya is just too frightened to ask.

“I have a surprise for you all,” Tanizaki announces once they’re all gathered, his words loud and
pronounced, and in the next moment, the door flies open with a very distinct bang against the wall.

“Howdy, losers?” Tachihara appears in the doorway, a smile all over his face, so bright it’s almost
laughable. He’s dressed differently now, not in his usual black oversized t-shirt and baggy jeans,
he’s in a goddamn suit with a tie around his neck, and the only thing that betrays the outfit, hinting
that it’s Tachi standing in front of them, is the ridiculously big sunglasses on his head. Chuuya
can’t hide his own grin. He had no idea he actually missed the dork this much.

“You could not start our spectacular entrance with an insult, for god’s sake,” Gin appears right
behind his back, shoving him out of the way almost brutally and granting everyone a wide smile of
hers. “So, have you missed us?”

Ranpo is the first one to jump to his feet, almost knocking them both down with a bone-crushing
hug. Chuuya can’t overlook the fact that Gin looks differently, too, her long black hair is not in a
usual bun anymore, instead laying over her shoulders, and she’s wearing a goddamn dress. Knee-
long, milky white, revealing her slim figure and disturbingly pale skin. Along with Tachihara, they
don’t look like reckless teenagers anymore, and something about this almost makes Chuuya feel
sad about the time passing so quickly, so mercilessly, even though there’s been barely a month
after both of them left.

“Don’t tell me you two managed to get married while we’re all fighting for our lives in that
damned kitchen,” is the first thing Ranpo says when he finally lets them out of his embrace.

“You didn’t just say that,” Tachihara pretends to be scandalized, raising his palm right in front of
his face and demonstrating the absence of a ring.

Gin smiles and gently pushes Ranpo’s shoulder.

“We are friends,” she says, though having exchanged brief unreadable looks with Tachihara. Then
her smile grows wider. “You don’t have to be married to someone to spend a lifetime with them,
because you know what?” She grabs Tachihara’s arm and drags him closer to mess with his hair
with her free hand. “This fucker is doomed with me,” and then they all burst into laughter.

It’s nice just sitting on the floor like this, all together like teenagers, careless and carefree, with the
time frozen around them, embracing them gently. Gin and Tachihara reveal some of their freshly
polished plans for the nearest future, something about opening their own diner with the money
they’ve both scraped from their previous jobs. It will be small and thematic, Gin says, holding a
glass bottle of apple cider in her hand. An underground place for dorks just like us, Tachihara cuts
in, gesturing energetically and almost spilling out his own beer. When you’re all out of this
shithole, we’re inviting you and the others, the dinner’s on us, Gin announces with great
enthusiasm, raising her bottle in confirmation.

“We didn’t agree on that!” Tachihara snaps at her, almost scandalized, making her laugh even
louder. Gin covers her mouth with her palm and shakes her head without saying a word, watching
as her friend almost instantly turns red from astonishment. “We’ll go insolvent if we try to feed so
many mouths at once!” Finally recovering from her laughter, Gin pushes his shoulder, almost
knocking him down on the floor. “Ah, this stupid love language of yours,” Tachihara sighs in
distress. “Good deeds and all this stupid shit.”

“What’s yours?” Ranpo speaks up, clearly entertained by the whole picture. “Love language.”

Tachihara takes another sip of his beer and scratches his chin for a moment, thinking.

“Probably gifts,” he hums after all. “But of a stupid kind. Once I stole a whole crate of oranges
from our kitchen and gave it to Gin, knowing well that she’s allergic to them, so I ended up
devouring them all myself.”

“That was you,” Dazai glances at him with an artificial outrage all over his face and then shrugs
with a glimpse of a sly smile. “Explains why Tanizaki had to use tangerines for his dessert the next
day.” Before Tanizaki gets to cut in with a remark of his own, Dazai lets out a long breath and leans
back with his hands against the floor; his elbow brushes against Chuuya’s arm in a way that almost
makes him shiver. “You know what? I read somewhere once, that we actually have to love other
people according to their love language but not our own. It’s the only right way to make our
actions mean something to them.”

Chuuya knows Ranpo is up to something the moment their gazes brush against each other.

“Chuuya,” his friend says, trying to hold back a smile. Shut up, shut up, shut up, please, I’m
begging you. “And what about you?”

“What about me?” He frowns back at him, his throat suddenly dry.

“Your love language,” Ranpo suggests, and that’s a final nail to his coffin.
Chuuya coughs quietly, trying not to look at anyone in particular although he fails once his gaze
slides over Dazai. He’s not looking back, instead focused on one spot somewhere on the floor, and
he seems to be deep in his thoughts. Maybe if Chuuya says it quietly enough, he won’t even hear?

“Physical touch,” he breathes out, collecting himself, his chin up, even his shoulders straight,
trying not to sound like an embarrassed teenager. He can’t help but glance at Dazai once more,
briefly, but there’s nothing different to his expression, it only seems to be more puzzled this time.
With another breath, he tries to shift the focus onto something else, turning his eyes back to
Tachihara. “So, have you two already decided on the name for your diner?”

Verlaine doesn’t call often. If anything, he does it once a month or so, just to make sure that
Chuuya’s alright. He can send him texts sometimes but he’s a lame texter, like many people of his
age are. However, the next morning, on his way to the pavilion, Chuuya almost stumbles in
surprise when the phone starts buzzing in his pocket. He hesitates for a moment, blankly staring at
Verlaine’s name on the screen. Since he last went to Paris, their friendship (however bold it was to
call it so) has grown rather distant and much less significant. The main reason was all these months
of not talking and, perhaps, the reality Chuuya was subjected to when he walked into the kitchen of
Fêtes Galantes, once his second (or the third) home, a little less than a year ago.

“Who is that?” His second shudder happens when Dazai appears right behind his back, hands in his
pockets, a writer’s coat, and a scarf wrapped around his neck.

Chuuya bites his lip, still staring at the ongoing call, his mind far away. The others probably have
already gathered in the kitchen, ready for today’s competition, and it’s really not the right time to
bother with phone calls that can wait, he knows it. But something makes him accept the call, after
all, pressing the phone to his ear, still ignoring Dazai’s ghostly presence right next to him. If he’s
eavesdropping, Chuuya lets him.

“Good morning,” he hesitates for a moment before adding. “Chef.”

Who is his true chef right now? Verlaine? Rimbaud? Fukuzawa? Himself?

“Good morning, Chuuya,” Paul’s voice is calm and steady over the phone, interrupted by the puffs
of smoke. “I just wanted to check on you. How are you doing?”

“I’m still in the contest if you’re worried about that,” Chuuya sighs, eyeing the frozen winterish
picture lying in front of him, their pavilion like a sacred temple. So many sins, even more sermons.
He knows that Verlaine has been following the events of the contest, sometimes he called after the
most draining tasks, carefully guiding Chuuya on what he could’ve done differently. Chuuya never
thanked him for that. “How is your restaurant?”

Verlaine can probably hear the hint of a taunt in his voice but decides not to fall for it.

“The chef’s menu has been finally renewed recently,” he says. Chuuya almost nods to himself, a
smile bittersweet. Of course, of course, it was. “But we decided to leave your duck.”

“What an honor,” he spits out, looking down at the snow-covered pavement. “Bet nobody orders it
now, knowing that it’s not the hysterical ginger who’s cooking.”

“You’re wrong,” Verlaine lets out a long, heavy breath, and keeps silent for some time. Chuuya
doesn’t know why he stays on the phone, listening to his silence that speaks louder than any words
could. He glances back at Dazai who’s staring at him, unbothered, not caring about them being
obviously late for the contest. It’s when Chuuya almost hangs up that Verlaine finally speaks
again. “Everyone’s here rooting for you, Chuuya. Your friends.”

At this, he almost laughs, hysterically. Friends? What friends is he talking about? The people who
abandoned him when he needed them the most, the ones who never called, not once, when he was
rotting in the cage of his family’s old house, emptying the wine bottles on the floor, mourning the
name of his mother? The people who’d sworn they were nothing without him and then went on as
if he was never there? Those were his friends? If not for Verlaine, Chuuya'd long have been six feet
under, no matter how worn out that story is, and even he has done and said a plethora of things
Chuuya will never forgive him for. Another thing he learns, perhaps too late in life, almost by the
age of thirty: most people never really care even if they say they do, and Chuuya’s still a fool for
always expecting otherwise.

“Tell Shirase and his team of inept assholes to go fuck themselves,” he spits out as quietly as he can
and takes a deep breath. “Let them wait for me to lose. But I’ll win, upon the name of my late
mother I swear, I will.”

“Chuuya,” is the last thing he hears before hanging up, turning back to look at Dazai. Something is
different in his eyes now, some sort of an awakening that was never there before. Chuuya snaps at
him, a bit irritated. “What?”

“That was Paul Verlaine, right?” He asks, carefully, not taking his hands out of his pockets. The
blow of freezing wind is messing with his hair slightly.

“That was none of your business,” it’s a bit too late when Chuuya realizes he sounded rude,
something’s already cracked in Dazai’s look. He takes another breath. “I’m sorry.”

They don’t elaborate on this further, even already standing in the kitchen, having apologized for
being late. Fukuzawa is eyeing them both with a frown but doesn’t say a thing, instead hiding his
hands behind his back. He always gets a bit more serious once he does so. Yosano and Ango are
also unusually stiff, which makes Chuuya remember that today marks the start of the last week
before the array of final contests that will define the ones who deserve the title of the best cook,
the three candidates.

He glances at the people standing in line with him and realizes that the only person he couldn’t
predict would be still here by now is Edgar. Not that he’s a lame cook or not determined enough,
quite the opposite; Chuuya sees him as a strong opponent, and in terms of pastries they certainly
can’t compete. Edgar has always been and will always be better, even Tanizaki is left speechless
after giving each one of his desserts a try. However, there is no winner in him, Chuuya just can’t
sense this no matter how hard he tries. What about the others? Ranpo can possibly make it to the
top three just because he’s frantic when it comes to cooking and sees no stop signs. Tanizaki is
open-hearted and kind, but the same words might be easily written on his tombstone. Kunikida is
resilient and collected, almost as experienced in their craft as Chuuya, he always cooks in silence
and doesn’t let anything or anyone else disturb him. Dazai? Dazai is a marvel. With all the nights
Chuuya spent trying to look just a bit deeper under his skin, he never succeeded. The things that
are happening in his mind the moment he gets his hands on the workplace are out of the ordinary,
far, far beyond this planet or even the universe. He’s the kind of person who even loses in his own,
unmatching, beautiful way. He cuts himself into slivers with knives but goes on, his hands never
tremble, never hesitate. He’s the person Chuuya imagines first when he thinks of a winner. Only
then he imagines himself.

“A winner,” Fukuzawa starts speaking as if he’s traced the exact track of Chuuya’s thoughts. “This
kitchen we’re standing in has seen enough of them. Since ever our contest expanded globally,
offering the richest prize that ever existed in the industry, skilled cooks from all parts of the globe
have been gathering here, in Yokohama, to compete for it and obtain the title of the best chef not
only in Japan but worldwide,” he keeps a prolonged pause, cutting it with a deep breath. “Today,
some of them will come back and test your skills along with us.”

Chuuya raises his eyebrows and hums. The previous winners? He briefly went through the last
seasons of the contest while he was still preparing for the primary audition. He’s quite lame at
remembering names but he has to admit that some of them have imprinted themselves into his
memory at last. And these people are going to be here today, assessing his skills?

“Now that’s interesting,” Dazai mutters, glancing over at him. “No idea who they’ve decided to
invite. Hope not that pretentious prick, Gogol.”

“You just hate it when people are funnier than you,” Kunikida, who’s standing by Chuuya’s right,
mocks Dazai in a quiet voice, his gaze still focused on the judges.

Luck gives Dazai a burning slap on the cheek after all, when the first person who walks into the
kitchen out of the judges' breakroom is no one else but Gogol himself, commonly known as Kolya,
the Ukrainian chef who won the contest two or three years ago, Chuuya didn’t care to remember.
He’s actually taller in person, his smile is blinding, and his white hair is still messy even though
the stylists have taken their sweet time to make him look as presentable as possible. That wasn’t
quite necessary if you ask Chuuya. Gogol manages to look spellbinding and make everyone focus
only on him the moment he enters the room. From what Chuuya’s seen on social media, he never
dresses officially, and his chef’s jacket is always on, somehow stained with various sauces even
before he actually starts cooking. Gogol grins at them all widely and moves to shake hands with
the judges.

“Haven’t seen you for ages,” he says, taking his time to nod politely at Fukuzawa and waiting for
him to say something back as a child waits for praise from a strict parent. His courtesy doesn’t last
for long when he makes a spin in his spot and walks closer to the line of contestants, eyeing the
kitchen with a deep breath. “Yeah, this place surely missed some skilled hands. But luckily I’m
here again!” Right, Gogol is surely out of the ordinary.

The other cooks invited for today’s contest are John Steinbeck and Agatha Christie. John is one of
the first winners, of American origin, he settled in Tokyo after his win and opened a restaurant
along with his best friend at the time, Howard Lovecraft. They were competing together till the
final contest but in the end, John was the one who took advantage and impressed the judges the
most. Agatha, the winner of the previous season, is by far the wisest woman Chuuya’s ever read
about in their field. Even her look is freezingly cold as she lifts her eyes, always the perfect stance,
perfect clothes, perfect hair, perfect makeup. And when she cooks that’s quite a show. Chuuya
even went through a bunch of her masterclass videos and inched his way through her debut book
on culinary arts. Long story short, Agatha takes the classic and makes it exciting even for those
who have never heard about something common, such as the five mother sauces of French cuisine.

“Please, make up the pair with a person standing next to you,” says Ango after all of them have
said their greetings. Chuuya almost sighs in relief. The very last team contest, then. He’s not
against working with Dazai once again. If anything, he craves it more than he’s brave to admit.
“Each team of two will cook under the supervision of one of the chefs. Consequently, they will
announce the dishes you’re going to make today.”

Chuuya notices the slight tremble in Edgar’s figure the moment Agatha approaches him and
Ranpo, eyeing them both with a usual assessing glance. John Steinbeck, almost as short as Chuuya
even though five years older than him, walks straight to Kunikida and Tanizaki, greeting them
politely with rushed handshakes. Which leaves Dazai and Chuuya with the Ukrainian madman.
“Now that’s a picture,” Gogol prolongs the sentence as he crosses his arms on his chest, eyeing
them both with a long unreadable stare. “Who’s the older one of you two?”

God, Chuuya already starts to hate this.

“We’re the same age,” he mutters dryly. “And don’t you dare mock my height,” he doesn’t really
care whether he should respect Gogol or not, no matter how charismatic and talented he appears to
be. Chuuya doesn’t have idols nor that he needs them. His only role model since not so long ago
has been himself.

“Right,” Dazai cuts in with a smirk. “That’s my job.”

“Ah,” Gogol lets out a dramatic sign, staring dreamily somewhere at the ceiling. “When I was
watching that episode with the tied-hands contest, you two painfully reminded me of my own days
in this kitchen,” he scratches his chin as he looks at them again, an irritated frown slowly
appearing on his face. “That bastard Dostoevsky was doing everything he could to mess with me.
He even made it to the final contest with me. And where is he now?” Gogol claps his hands.
“Rotting in his second-rate diner somewhere in Moscow. Should we pity him?” Gogol stares at
them expectantly, but Chuuya is so taken aback he doesn’t even know how to respond. There’s too
much information to process. Tired of waiting, Gogol sighs again. “No, we shouldn’t!” He flicks
the bangs of his hair out of his forehead and walks to one of the workplaces. “Let’s get down to
business, lovebirds.”

“What the fuck did he just call us?” Chuuya hisses at Dazai, scandalized, but he only smirks, as
usual, in response.

“I mean, he did watch the show,” he just shrugs at him and follows Gogol along.

Each pair is given three hours to prepare a menu of three national dishes: soup, the main course,
and a dessert. By Agatha’s decision, Ranpo and Edgar are going to make dishes of Irish cuisine: a
seafood chowder, an Irish stew, and a chocolate Guinness cake. John Steinbeck, being of German
origin, assigns Kunikida and Tanizaki with three national meals: Bavarian bread soup, beef
rouladen, and a Schwarzwälder kirschtorte. Chuuya knows almost each one of these dishes like the
palm of his hand and can easily make them even with his eyes closed. However, when it comes to
their own task, he’s at a loss. He’s never got a chance to work with Ukrainian cuisine, having only
inched through the classic recipes briefly.

“Borscht?” He glances at Dazai with a confused frown, ignoring Gogol who’s currently writing
down the processes for them, drawing small doodles next to almost every line. “Have you cooked
borscht before?”

“A variant,” Dazai hums. “It was one of my original ways to make kids at the orphanage eat
beetroot.”

As soon as Gogol gets the instructions done he passes the notebook for them to take a look.
Chuuya narrows his eyes as he tries to decipher his messy Japanese handwriting, Dazai hovering
above his shoulder and reading along.

“Varenyky,” he reads aloud and looks up at Dazai again. “These are like ravioli, right?”

“Rather like dumplings, the variety,” Gogol answers instead. “But with the thicker dough and
much more filling. They can be both savory and sweet but we’ll go for the meat ones.”

“And,” Chuuya sighs, already knowing that it will be much harder than he expected. Every new
cuisine is both a mystery and a threat, but he’s up for a challenge like never before. “Syrnyk?” His
eyes slide lower for an explanation. “A Ukrainian cheesecake?” This time he looks at Gogol.

“Right, but with a different kind of cheese,” he nods and claps his hands triumphantly. “Can’t wait
to taste your variations, I used to eat these dishes all the time back at my parents’ home.”

He’s too enthusiastic for a person who must know that both of them have never cooked something
like this before. Still, he looks too excited for Chuuya to break this for him. When they move on to
the preparations, roaming around the storage room and picking the ingredients, Gogol is not with
them. He’s prohibited from helping on any practical stage, he can only approach them to give their
dishes a taste and comment on them from time to time. Apart from these moments, their fate is only
on their own shoulders. Chuuya grows nervous as he’s picking the vegetables from the crates, too
deep in his thought to acknowledge Dazai next to him until their shoulders collide. Chuuya almost
snaps at him angrily, rather out of habit, but keeps his mouth shut right in time.

“Are you still mad at Gogol for calling us lovebirds?” He suggests, helping him pick the beetroot
from one of the crates.

“I mean,” Chuuya shrugs, trying not to give this a second thought. “With half of the show’s
audience believing that we’ve actually got something going on I probably shouldn’t be, but.”

Dazai holds back a smile, biting his lip, and shrugs it off.

“What?” Chuuya glances at him.

“Nothing,” he says, putting the onions he’s picked into a bowl.

Deep down, Chuuya knows it’s much more than nothing.

There were three stages of humiliation faced by each team.

The first one — Irish Stew.

Agatha is the only judge who keeps hovering above her subordinates, taking in their every word
and movement. She doesn’t say anything that could’ve actually helped them or given them a hint,
instead granting frowns and humming along the way. At some point, Edgar gets so nervous his
hands start to shake. Noticing that, Ranpo takes the knife out of his fingers and grabs him by the
wrist, dragging towards the storage room. We forgot the carrots, he answers to Agatha’s
questioning gaze.

But as soon as the door closes behind their backs, he cups Edgar’s face with his hands and looks
him right in the eye.

“What’s wrong?” He asks, tone as soft as possible.

“She’s a monster,” Edgar replies in a whisper as if someone can actually hear them here.

“She’s a genius,” Ranpo corrects him. “And she wants us to win, that’s why she shows no mercy.
Haven’t you worked with strict chefs before?”

“I have,” he sighs, looking away for a moment. “And it ended horribly every time.”

Ranpo takes a deep breath, letting go of his face and grabbing his hands instead, leaving a short
kiss on his knuckles. One of the myriad reasons he fell in love with Edgar was because he was an
immaculate cook. However, his skills seem to vanish without a trace as soon as there’s even a bit
of pressure involved. Ranpo doesn’t know how to break it to him that the pressure will only
increase with every contest from now on. There are only six of them left, the contest is closer than
ever to its final stage, and at this point, there must be no excuses, no mercy, no friends, no lovers.
They’ve already broken the last two rules. As harsh as it is, they can’t let themselves break the first
ones.

“If we fuck this up,” he says, lowering his own voice to a whisper rather subconsciously. “One of
us will end up in a black apron,” Ranpo is not scared of it himself, he’s managed black aprons
enough times by now. However, when it comes to Edgar, he’s not sure. If the next black apron
contest involves no desserts, that’ll be a challenge for him and probably the very last one. Ranpo
decides to say it as it is, even if it’s a slap on his cheek. “And if they make you cook something
other than pastry, you’re doomed.”

Edgar swallows, returning him a look. He’s quiet for a long time that they don’t actually have, just
studying Ranpo’s face before – god, Agatha is probably arranging a murder plan by now – leaning
in for a quick but deep kiss. When he pulls away, a smile appears on his face. Sometimes, Ranpo’s
demotivating speeches turn out to be extremely helpful.

“You promise to manage our stew while I’m making that chocolate cake?”

Ranpo grants him another kiss before whispering into his lips with a smirk.

“I’m gonna kill it.”

The second one — Schwarzwälder kirschtorte.

Tanizaki has never heard Kunikida swear before. In fact, he’s probably the most well-mannered
man that has ever entered this kitchen. However, when they’re struggling with their German
dessert together, accidentally shoving and pushing each other’s arms in the process, Kunikida
suddenly puts down the whisk and runs a clean hand through his hair.

“Shit,” he whispers, not hinting at anything in particular. “I should really stay away from the
pastry.”

Tanizaki goes on whisking instead of him.

“You weren’t doing anything wrong,” he says, as carefully as he can. “And you never had trouble
with desserts before.”

He means it when he says it. From what he managed to observe and take a mental note of,
Kunikida is equally good at preparing all kinds of meals they’ve been tasked with so far. But even
though his distress remains a closed book for Tanizaki, he somehow feels a part of it himself. The
thing is, their kitchen has been far emptier recently. Apart from the lack of loud voices, laughs, and
bickering, this also signifies the finish line already being in their view. When they’re less than a
week from knowing the top five, even the most skillful cooks lose their wit as if it was never there.
Today, one person from each losing team gets a black apron. Tomorrow, another black apron will
go to someone else. And on Friday, six of them will enter the kitchen but only five will make it
back to the dorm and stay for the night. Kunikida looks lost. He’s staring at the bottom of the bowl
as if there’s his death sentence written all over its surface, and Tanizaki just keeps whisking the egg
whites because it’s the only thing he knows how to do. He doesn’t know how to win or to lose,
only move forward – with blindness and loyalty.

“Did you know that,” he sighs, not looking up. “John had been on the verge of being knocked out
almost fifteen times – more than anyone among his competitors – before he grabbed his title?”

Kunikida grants him a deep frown before turning to look at Steinbeck who’s now actively
disputing something with Gogol. Tanizaki follows his gaze, reaching for the packs of flour and
baking powder.

“At some point, he was sure that he needed to stay away from everything that concerned cooking,”
he goes on, remembering the individual interviews with previous participants he’s been watching
in the dorms lately. “But then his molecular grape spheres blew up,” Tanizaki hums as he adds
cornstarch and cocoa powder to the egg yolks and then reaches for a kitchen machine. “You just
have to come up with your own grape spheres somehow.”

Tanizaki knows Kunikida’s main weakness even though he’s never let it show. He’s good at
copying, adapting and adopting, he can see someone else’s dish once and remake it with little to no
flaws, god, he even keeps a notebook in which he writes down all of Dazai’s authentic recipes like
an obsessed schoolboy. Still, when it comes to making something of his own, Kunikida is stuck.
Tanizaki doesn’t want him to lose because of this.

“Grape spheres, huh?” Kunikida hums, still staring absentmindedly at John and reaching to stop
Tanizaki’s hand, grabbing him by the wrist. Tanizaki freezes, dumbstruck. “Let me do this, kid.”

You’re not much older, Tanizaki wants to snap at him but thinks better of it, letting go of the whisk
and staring at Kunikida in awe. Yeah, now he’s definitely got this.

Apparently, the third and the worst one — Borscht.

“Isn’t it too red?” Chuuya frowns, glancing at the pot on the stove for the umpteenth time. “Or not
red enough?”

Dazai, who’s currently occupied with forming their dumplings on a tray, his hands covered in flour
up to the wrists, sighs and wipes the sweat off his forehead with the back of his palm.

“How do I know?” He follows his stare, assessing the beetroot soup they’ve been struggling with
for the last two hours while Gogol is too busy gossiping with John – and they weren’t even
participating in the same season. “Ask Kolya if you’re not sure.”

“There’s no way I’ll be talking to that asshole,” Chuuya rolls his eyes and grabs a spoon to stir their
borscht for the second time in the past five minutes. He clearly wants to let out another irritated
remark but the expression on his face changes the moment he looks up at Dazai. He chuckles,
covering his mouth with his palm.

“What?” Dazai frowns.

“You’ve got flour on your face,” he explains, almost out of breath, and when Dazai reaches to wipe
it off – what a fool he can be sometimes – Chuuya laughs out loud. “Out of all your ideas, this one
was surely the wisest.”
Dazai only rolls his eyes and grabs a handful of flour from the pack, throwing it right at him.
Chuuya takes a deep breath, completely taken aback, and reaches for the flour, backfiring.
However, Dazai manages to dodge, and the flour dissolves in the air behind him, floating for some
time before falling slowly on the floor. Dazai can’t help but laugh at how scandalized Chuuya
looks right now, for which he gets a painful kick that lands right on his shoulder, now laughing
even harder. Chuuya himself can’t hold back a smile, no matter how annoyed he’s trying to make
it. They can’t allow themselves to fool around for too long, although Dazai notices how some of
the cameramen have moved closer to film their little fight, and good lord, those delusional people
on Twitter will most certainly like it. Chuuya probably understands that too, so he steps back,
quickly covering his smile with a usual unbothered expression. He won’t let them see more than he
wants to, and Dazai would be a shameless liar if he said that he didn’t adore him for that.

Every laughter has its stopping point. Theirs arrives during the verdicts. Gogol is the first to taste
each one of the dishes, and he’s not a strict judge – at least he doesn’t come off as one. He moves
from plate to plate, grabbing clean forks and spoons and putting the dirty ones away, muttering
something – probably in Ukrainian – to himself. Dazai notices, though on the periphery, how
nervous Chuuya appears, drumming his fingers against one of the counters, his expression is stiffer
than ever. If he wasn’t so on edge himself he’d probably try to calm him down.

“Who was cutting vegetables for the soup?” Gogol finally asks, looking up at them, this time as
serious as he is capable of looking, and it’s actually frightening even for Dazai.

“Me,” he says, a schoolboy on the verge of another detention. Chuuya trusted him with cutting this
time. Hell, he trusted himself. But ever since his last cut, things have become tougher, and cutting
– much, much harder to manage. During the process, Dazai was so scared of hurting himself again
that he didn’t even notice that something could be wrong with the form. And now it backfires.
Why didn’t he ask Chuuya to help?

He knows why. Back in the hotel, with only two of them together, Dazai finally realized two
important things. First: Chuuya still saw him as his main rival. Second: it hurt more than Dazai
could’ve predicted because he’d long started seeing him as more. And what does it leave him with?
What is he worth if he, having made it to the top six best cooks in Japan, can’t even cut goddamn
vegetables for beetroot soup without someone else’s assistance, let alone Chuuya’s?

“Well,” Gogol sighs, looking down at the bowl with their borscht once again. “You better not lie
about this once Fukuzawa-san asks.”

As in every contest he’s lost by now, Dazai thinks that verdicts are the cruelest part, but this time,
it actually comes later. Probably his misfire with vegetables and some minor remarks about their
dumplings wouldn’t have been enough for them to lose if two other teams hadn’t prepared their
dishes almost flawlessly. Since Gogol was tasting their dishes, Chuuya hasn’t said a word, his gaze
blank and emotionless, and every time one of the judges compliments their competitors’ dishes, he
shudders as if he was stabbed in the chest.

“Hey,” Dazai reaches to grab his hand but Chuuya takes it away, brushing him off. “It’s not
because we’re worse than them, you know?”

Chuuya clicks his tongue.

“Leave your motivational speeches for another time, mackerel.”

However, Dazai goes on.

“I’ll take it,” the black apron, he means.

“The hell you will,” Chuuya hisses, still not looking at him, and Dazai sets himself up for a death
sentence once he grabs him by the shoulder, making him turn his head.

“What about your sense of justice?” He snaps a bit ruder than he intended to; the stretch of
Fukuzawa’s arm once he hands the first black apron to Tanizaki doesn’t go unnoticed, but he tries
to ignore the view. “I fucked up and I’m accepting my punishment.”

Chuuya looks him right in the eye, breathing heavily, and something makes Dazai think that if he
could punch him in the face right now, in front of everyone, he most certainly would. However, he
doesn’t do or say anything, instead just shrugging Dazai’s hand off his shoulder and taking a step
forward once Fukuzawa walks up to them to give their dishes a taste. As much as Dazai hates to
admit it, Gogol was right. Fukuzawa studies the diced vegetables in the bowl without even trying
them first and frowns.

“Chuuya,” surprisingly, he doesn’t even grant Dazai a look. “What do you think of your
teammate’s cutting skills?” Ah, so he did hear Gogol’s remark.

“Mine are no better,” Chuuya says in a steady voice, hiding his hands behind his back, and it
almost makes Dazai smile. No, even more than that. Screw this contest, screw these cameras and
these people. If only he wasn’t such a coward he would grab his face with both of his hands and
kiss him right now.

Fukuzawa doesn’t comment on his statement, instead moving to taste their other dishes and setting
on the exact same remarks they’ve already heard from Gogol.

“The vegetables are cut terribly, and they’re most certainly undercooked. If you’d made such
rookie mistakes at the beginning of the contest, I would’ve probably let it pass,” he says, putting
his last spoon away and studying the black apron in his free hand for some time before looking up
at them both. “But you’re not rookies, and we’re more than halfway through.” He stretches his
arm, and the verdict is final, its dark fabric is just on the palm of his hand. The only remaining
question is who will be the first to grab it.

“I’ll go,” they say at the same time, and their outstretched hands collide, merely touching the
apron.

And then Dazai does another terrible thing. He breaks the promise, using all his force to shove
Chuuya out of the way and grab the black apron as if they’re nothing more than two kids fighting
for the last slice of cake, and Fukuzawa – the inept parent he’s always been to Dazai – is simply
watching them, aghast. As soon as he puts the apron on he starts tying it behind his back in rushed,
almost convulsed movements, escaping everyone else’s gazes. He can’t look at anyone, let alone
Chuuya, who keeps silent the entire time, and god knows what he’s thinking.

Perhaps Dazai is a god.

“I’m glad you’ve made the right choice,” Fukuzawa sighs, after all, and Dazai has never been this
furious at him before. “Don’t worry. It’s not because you’re worse than them,” he adds, almost in a
whisper, now staring directly at Dazai, repeating his exact words from earlier.

But perhaps I am, is the only thought in his head when he’s watching the previous winners bid
their farewells and walk out of the kitchen. It’s only when the cameras are finally off and the studio
lights are out that he dares to look at Chuuya. But the moment he does, Chuuya doesn’t even grant
him a glance, turning away and storming out of the kitchen as he always does when he’s pissed.
There’s only one thing that Dazai is sorry about.
I shouldn’t have pushed you so hard.
 Hotels and Temples
Chapter Summary

Three egg yolks, unsalted butter, fresh lemon juice, salt, whipped cream, you’re
beautiful.

Chapter Notes

if there are any Italian people out there, I'm sorry

I'm trying as hard as I can to learn your BEAUTIFUL language but my current level is
like, A0? anyway, if there are any mistakes, please let me know

woah, what a chapter

I don't want to spoil anything so please just read and enjoy

Chuuya hates funerals. Probably no one is supposed to like them anyway. The one he attends
probably cannot be called a funeral at all, as there are no grieving visitors, flowers, or even a
ceremony. Chuuya signs papers for the direct cremation because it is something he knows his
mother wanted, and smokes three cigarettes in a row while sitting on a bench outside the funeral
parlor building. There is another whim, solely for himself: no place on a graveyard, no memorial,
no place to come cry to – god knows how Chuuya hates crying – but a fine powder incorporated
into a diamond ring. Maybe, if he has a daughter or a son someday, he’ll give it over to them as
only heritage.

It’s strange how the Japanese can call any mortuary a hotel; unlike a mortuary, a hotel is a place
you can leave yourself.

Two days ago, he was still in Paris. He got a call from the hospital, the doctor dryly notifying him
that his mother was put on life support after being beaten almost to death by a man whose name
Chuuya heard for the first time in his life. He hated that the first and only person who appeared in
his head was his own father. It was something Chuuya had always been afraid of when he was still
a child; that one day, after the first punch, would come another one, and another one, and another
one after that, and then the punches wouldn’t stop until his mother lets out her last breath. Chuuya
always wanted it to be him instead, curled on the kitchen floor, coughing his insides out, and it was
him soon after in case he found it in himself to interfere. But this time, it was different. His mother
had never told him that she was seeing another man, that she was living with him in their family
home. Chuuya had no idea about this and after a call from the hospital, he realized why.

“Chuuya, please!” His mother catches him by the sleeve once, when he’s trying to storm out of the
room, find his father smoking outside and ask him what she’s done this time to be worthy of fresh
bruises on her face and arms and bleeding lips. She hugs him from behind, firmly as if trying to
break, and drags him back, hiding her face, red from the blood and wet from the tears, in the collar
of his shirt. “Don’t pity me,” she whispers, begging, while he’s still shivering from the anger
filling up his whole thirteen-year-old body. “I was being rude to him. I deserved that.”
She always used to say that, making herself the only one to be blamed. But Chuuya never believed
her. And now when she’s not by his side anymore, he’s at home, staring at the only picture of them
together hanging on the kitchen wall (his favorite place in the world now slowly becomes the most
hated one), and he asks, addressing no one in particular.

How can you be blamed for always falling for the wrong people?

“What do you mean, he’s escaped?” The day after the so-called funeral, Chuuya is standing in the
local police department; drained and sleep deprived, he feels like he can drop dead from fatigue at
any given second but at the same time, the slowly rising rage in his entire body keeps him awake as
it usually does.

Ayatsuji, the man believed to be one of the most talented detectives in Yokohama, is smoking a
cigarette and going through the papers on his table, not even lifting his gaze.

“It’s nothing out of the ordinary,” he answers in a dry tone, and it sounds so indifferent that Chuuya
almost wants to throw something heavy at him just to get at least an ounce of his attention. “If I
were him, I would be running away, too.”

But of course, of course, it’s nothing more than another job task for him. Another case to solve.
He’s already seen thousands of similar and even worst murders, if he was worrying about every
single one of them he would’ve long lost his mind. Chuuya’s feelings are still numb as if
someone’s put him on medication of sorts. He can’t grasp the thought that when he comes home
today’s evening, his mother won’t be there anymore. She will never be from now on, for some
walking piece of shit decided that he could take her life and get away with it.

Chuuya walks closer to Ayatsuji’s desk, leaning with both of his hands against it, and only then the
detective finally answers his gaze. His eyes are blank and cold and so is his voice when he speaks.

“Don’t worry,” he flips the page of his notebook, scattered with messy handwriting. “He won’t
escape me. Nobody ever has.”

With the money Chuuya is paying him to find the asshole and put him on a fucking life sentence,
Ayatsuji would better be right.

The next days go on like a prolonged nightmare. Chuuya should be used to dealing with grief but
he’s never mourned someone this much before. He’s not crying, not breaking the dishes or
throwing his mother’s stuff away; instead, he goes to the nearest grocery store and buys himself a
bottle of wine, the first one in the last two or three years. He gets home by midnight, doesn’t
change from the dark loose hoodie he’s been wearing the entire day and drops himself on the floor
in the living room, leaning against the wall. It’s so fucking quiet.

Half of the bottle and five cigarettes later, he unlocks his phone and goes through the last messages
his mother sent him when she was still alive. Probably everyone’s doing that at some point. Her
texts mostly consist of good luck wishes, pictures of the clear sky above the seashore and cherry
trees in bloom. Chuuya’s are short and dry, for he was always too busy or too drained to reply in
long sentences. Sometimes there’s a picture. The croquembouche he cooked for a wedding banquet
last spring. The Christmas dinner they served together with Adele. His chef’s specials. A blurred
selfie with their Michelin Star sign in the background. I’m so proud of you, Chuuya. Good luck,
Chuuya. I love you, Chuuya. Will you call me later?

He never did.

After the first bottle, he lifts himself from the floor, puts on his jacket, and goes to buy another one.
He escapes mirrors, glass doors and all other types of reflective surfaces. He knows he’s a mess
right now, pale, drained, and completely emotionless. The second bottle soon turns into the third
one. It’s past two in the morning when he turns the airplane mode off. Ten missed calls from
Verlaine, three from Rimbaud, two from Shirase, two from Yuan, and one from Adele. Chuuya
doesn’t bother to call any of them back, returning home to sit on the floor again, till the first
sunlight, smoking cigarettes one by one and studying the opposite wall with hazed eyes until his
whole body goes completely numb. Then he tries to cry but can’t bring himself to. Even the wine
doesn’t help. First his father, then Raphaël, and now his mother. Everyone he once loved and
cherished, no matter how miserable they made him feel sometimes, has left him in various ways,
has hurt him in various ways, always wishing him good luck without saying it to his face.

The only call Chuuya knows he won’t ignore when it comes is the one from Ayatsuji, but his
phone remains silent for the next three days. The empty wine bottles and cigarette stubs on the
floor keep multiplying but he doesn’t care to throw them away.

In French cuisine, the mother sauces, also known as grandes sauces, are the five sauces that serve
as a base for all other, petites sauces, which are now widely used for classical dishes all over the
world. The most common classification of the mother sauces includes béchamel, velouté,
espagnole, hollandaise, and red sauce also called tomato.

Béchamel

Alternatives: mornay, soubise, nantua

Used for: lasagna al forno, cannelloni, pastitsio

Since ever the number of contestants was reduced to ten, Chuuya’s been using nighttime for
practice. He hadn’t known he needed practice before. But now, with every contest being tougher
than the previous one, even he starts to worry about his position. The nights spent in the dorm’s
kitchen, all alone in electrical lights in the middle of the night, give him this painful, itching
reminder of his days back at the academy. He was making and remaking dishes for days and nights
on end first to impress Verlaine, then to gain his mercy. And now he has to gain the one of
Fukuzawa and, perhaps, his own. That is why he rolls up his sleeves, makes his usual rushed
ponytail, and takes out all the ingredients and appliances he’ll need for today’s dish. He decided to
start with basics, again, for he hasn’t practiced them in a long time. He likes being here, really,
when everyone’s sleeping and nobody’s around, just roaming around the stuffed kitchen, alone
with his thoughts and the one thing that he’s always truly loved and never doubted.

But apparently, not all hiding spots are as good as he thinks them to be.

“Here you are, carrot head,” Dazai appears in the doorway, tall and ghostly but with a wide grin on
his face. “I’ve been looking for you for…” He glances at his phone. “Twenty seconds.” When
Chuuya grants him a long dry look, he shrugs it off. “You always go cooking when you’re pissed
so it wasn’t even a guess.”

Chuuya twists the knife in his hand and sighs, looking down at the cutting board again.

“How do you know?”

He feels Dazai walking up to him and looking over his shoulder. His presence sends shivers down
Chuuya’s back but he’s unsure whether it’s out of anticipation or annoyance. He secretly wishes
Dazai would hug him right now, covering him entirely with his stupidly long and warm body. At
the same time, he swears he’d stab him if he tried.

“You told me yourself, remember?” He asks almost in a whisper. “In Truth or Dare.”

Chuuya bites his tongue. Right. There were a bunch of stupid little facts about himself that he'd
rather not reveal ever in his life. Still, when it comes to Dazai, his secrecy has always been rather
fragile. He puts the knife away and turns to look Dazai in the face, noticing too late that he ends up
being pressed against the counter, with no escape route whatsoever. Does he want to escape? Yeah.
Probably more than he ever did.

“What are you making?” Dazai asks with the most innocent expression of his.

“Classics,” Chuuya clicks his tongue, hoping that the annoyance is clear in his voice and that it’ll
make Dazai grab whatever he wanted here and just finally leave him alone. “It calms me down.”

Instead of doing what he expects, Dazai hums, bouncing on his feet and hiding his hands behind
his back as if thinking over another mischief of his. And then he says something Chuuya couldn’t
have predicted in any circumstances.

“Will you teach me?”

“Teach you what?” He frowns, grabbing the counter behind his lower back and squeezing it firmer
in his fingers. He knows what, some part of him had always anticipated hearing these words from
Dazai sooner or later. Chuuya would lie if he said that it doesn’t caress his ego. The person he’s
always wanted to prove himself to now wants to be his student? Spectacular.

“Classic recipes,” Dazai bites his lip. “You told me once that I was hopeless at them.”

“And how do I know?” Chuuya rolls his eyes. “Probably I said that because I was mad at you.”

Dazai doesn’t answer, instead moving to take another cutting board and a knife, standing next to
him at the workplace and granting him a patient look. Chuuya looks down and sighs.

“I haven’t agreed,” he says but grabs a tomato from the bowl he placed on the counter earlier,
starting to chop it in fast, skillful movements. Dazai – the audacity of his – does the same. Chuuya
doesn’t find it in himself to stop him, so they just fall in step, preheating the oven, mixing the meat
and tomato sauces in a skillet, and stirring the mixture with spoons. Chuuya glares at the wooden
spoon in Dazai’s hand and frowns. “I’m already stirring it, why would you stir it too?”

“How do I learn, then?” Dazai grants him an answering frown. He’s insufferable.

“Do you even know what we’re making?” Chuuya drops his own spoon on the counter and looks
up at him.

“Sure,” he hums, moving to make a ricotta mixture in another bowl. “We’re making lasagna.”

“It’s lasagna al forno,” Chuuya corrects him with no other purpose than being an ass.

“Ouch, stiamo parlando Italiano qui, I see,” Dazai smirks, walking up to the fridge and taking out
a pack of parmesan. Shit, Chuuya must’ve forgotten about it. “Non preoccuparti, oggi non voglio
fare come con la torta.”
He speaks Italian. Let alone Chuuya’s stupefaction the moment he found out that Dazai was
equally good at both English and French, now the bastard has the guts to speak Italian to him. And,
as far as Chuuya knows, he’s never even worked overseas. Where does all the knowledge come
from, then?

“Da dove viene il genio di Dazai?” He rolls his eyes, walking closer to him and watching as he
stirs the mixture in a bowl, like a mentor overseeing his only student. He decides to succumb to the
rules of this unspoken game, after all. If Dazai wants him to be his teacher, he will be his teacher. If
Dazai wants him to remember the basics of Italian after not speaking it for more than two years (he
sometimes used it with his permanent guests of Italian origin back at the restaurant, and even with
Raphaël when he wanted to practice), he will do it as well. “Hai aggiunto il basilico?”

Velouté

Alternatives: normande, venetian, allemande

Used for: meat stew, seafood pasta, seared scallops

Tuesday is the day of pasta, and Chuuya’s hiding spot is now the hiding spot for the two of them.
Dazai seems to have much more energy than he does, even though they had to go through a
draining contest earlier today, which ended with Edgar getting a black apron for himself and a
devastating rage – towards the judges, of course, – from Ranpo.

“Are you scared?” Chuuya asks, avoiding looking directly at him, as Dazai heats the chicken stock
for their velouté sauce on the stove. He feels like he needs to explain himself. “Of Friday.” Friday
is the last day before two final weeks. There will be five of them left, and the judges will show no
mercy. No excuses, no flaws, even the smallest ones, they are professionals and they’ll need to live
up to the name.

More than anything he wishes that Dazai would say no.

“Yes,” he doesn’t nod, doesn’t even bite his lip as he usually does when he hates to admit
something, nothing. He just stirs the stock one more time and starts adding four tablespoons of
butter and then flour to the saute pan. “That’s exactly why I asked you to help me. I’m afraid
they’ll make us cook classics.”

“But you’re good at classics,” Chuuya crosses his arms on his chest, and it’s something he’s said at
least ten times in a span of the last two days but Dazai still won’t believe it. Chuuya’s never seen
him so insecure before. He wants to wipe this expression off his face so much but he has no clue
how.

“Well, in theory,” Dazai lets himself smile for a moment. “Theory won’t help me fight for my life.”

Later, when they’re done with the pasta, they’re sitting at the dining table, facing each other,
finally giving their dish a taste. Well, it’s mostly Dazai’s dish, Chuuya was only watching his
processes and correcting him if something wasn’t right. He needs to admit that Dazai is fairly good
at putting theory into practice. Chuuya drinks soda while Dazai pours himself some white wine
they managed to find hidden in one of the cupboards. Probably it was Tachihara who bought it
once to celebrate another meaningless national-day-of-some-shit with Gin, Akutagawa, and Kajii.
“I think I undercooked the shrimp,” Dazai frowns, chewing slowly and grimacing at the taste. He
takes a spoon then and dips it into the gravy boat with the remains of his chicken velouté. “And the
sauce is not salty enough,” he drops the spoon on the table and takes a gulp of his wine, running
his free hand through his hair with a heavy sigh. Then he looks up at Chuuya, for the first time
ever being almost furious at him. “Stop showing mercy on me, will you? It tastes like shit.”

“I didn’t even say a thing,” Chuuya stops chewing, taken aback.

“No, when I’m cooking,” Dazai leans against his chair, assessing the plate in front of himself with
a disgusted face. Chuuya thinks he’s overreacting but he won’t say it out loud. “Every time I want
you to be fair, you aren’t. Every time I want you to shout at me, you don’t.”

“I am fair to you,” Chuuya starts losing patience, dropping his own fork on the table and crossing
his arms on his chest. “If I say I don’t have remarks then maybe I really don’t. Why would I lie to
you?”

“I don’t know,” Dazai shakes his head. “Maybe you still want me to fail.”

This time, Chuuya takes it as an offense. He doesn’t know how to word it in another way nor how
to make himself heard. After all the days they’ve spent together, cooking, arguing and reconciling,
fighting and hugging, holding hands, playing Truth or Dare, talking secrets and weaknesses, after
all of this, Dazai still thinks that Chuuya wants him gone?

“Fuck it,” he jumps on his feet, almost knocking down the chair, and moves to take out another
saute pan and put it on the stove. He turns to glance at Dazai then, waiting. “What are you looking
at? Remake it.”

Dazai’s eyes widen but he still doesn’t stand up.

“Right now?”

“No, tomorrow at ten,” Chuuya snaps at him. And if Dazai wants him to be harsh, he will be harsh.
“Yes, right now. Move your ass, mackerel.”

After another sip of his wine, Dazai finally stands up and moves to take fresh ingredients from the
fridge ( thank god Kunikida ran some errands last week, and now they have enough products to
remake their dishes as many times as they need to). Without objecting, he starts heating another
chicken stock, cuts the butter and re-opens the pack of flour. This time, when he takes the spoon to
stir the mixture in the pan, Chuuya stops him abruptly midway.

“No,” he fights the urge to grab his wrist and show him. “Gentler.”

Dazai looks up at him, clearly surprised by the harsh note in his voice but not in a bad way. A
smile almost touches his lips, his eyes a bit drunk but not in a bad way either.

“How gentle do you want me to be?” He asks, his hand frozen, and there’s a flip side to his words
Chuuya tries with all his might to ignore. It’s not how they’re going to play this game anyway.

“Enough to prevent the flour from lumping,” he says in a purely instructional tone. “And watch the
time. If you overheat the roux, you’ll have to remake it again.”

“As you say, sensei,” Dazai mocks him and sets a timer on his phone with his free hand. He’s
silent for some time until he suddenly turns serious again, glancing at Chuuya for a brief moment.
“You’re mad at me,” he decides. “For taking the black apron.”
Chuuya takes a deep breath. He felt that this conversation would hunt him down, eventually.

“I’m not mad at you for taking it,” he says, trying to sound as indifferent as possible. “Rather for
doing it in the way you did,” but his voice betrays him. “You broke our promise.”

“I know,” Dazai nods after taking a small sip of his sauce with a clean spoon and assessing the
taste. “And I’m not proud of myself for it. But it would be worse if you were in my place anyway.”

These words feel like a heavy punch right to Chuuya’s chest.

“You think I can’t be worried about you the way you’re worried about me?”

“I didn’t say that,” Dazai shakes his head, carefully escaping his enraged gaze. Chuuya’s rage is
cold and slow like the first snowfall. He can’t let it be too sharp when it comes to Dazai anyway.
“But you want to win, and I also want you to win. That’s why I did what I did.”

If it’s a confession, Chuuya will let it linger for now. He’ll think about what to do with it later.

Espagnole

Alternatives: demi-glace, charcutière, burgundy

Used for: beef tenderloin, codfish stew, Spanish ratatouille

Wednesday is the day of theory. Chuuya is too worn out after their six-hour contest earlier (three
hours for filming preparations, and another three for the cooking itself) for applying theories to
practice. And that is how Dazai ends up sitting at the kitchen table, putting down the notes in his
notebook like a schoolboy, Chuuya hovering above him and explaining the differences between
demi-glace, charcutière, and burgundy sauces. They’re interrupted by Kunikida who walks into the
kitchen sleepily, rubbing his eyes under his glasses and yawning. He freezes in his spot as soon as
he notices them.

“What are you two doing here?” He glances at the watch on his left wrist. “It’s almost three in the
morning.”

“Studying,” Dazai answers enthusiastically, straightening his shoulders and twisting a pen in his
fingers. “Did you know that carrot head was an impeccable teacher?” Chuuya almost walks closer
to push his leg under the table but thinks better of it, instead looking at Kunikida with an apologetic
smile.

“Chuuya is teaching you how to cook?” He frowns as he’s pouring himself a glass of water from
the carafe. There’s an implicature in his voice, a ghostly one, for he would actually die to have
Dazai teaching him something, even though he’s got much more experience in practical culinary.
When he understands that he probably sounded offensive, Kunikida excuses himself with a quiet
cough. “Good luck, then,” he walks out of the kitchen with the full glass in his hand.

“And what was that about?” Chuuya frowns as he drops himself on the empty chair across the
table. “Chuuya is teaching you how to cook?” He mocks Kunikida’s dumbstruck expression and
then looks up at Dazai, noticing to his own distress that the bastard is flattered. “Are you a god or
something?”
Dazai wipes a smirk off his face and coughs, clicking the pen and flipping the page of his
notebook. Chuuya zeroes in on one of the doodles he’s made and thinks that he’s probably just
seeing things. There is no way.

“Well, I’m not a god,” Dazai finally says, his tone decisive. “Nobody is. But it doesn’t prevent
other people from worshiping.”

“Did you draw me?” Chuuya asks, completely ignoring his words, his gaze still locked on the
notebook.

“No, I didn’t,” Dazai is quick to deny but his nervous expression betrays him.

“Show me,” Chuuya stands up and moves right to him, trying to grab the notebook and take a look,
but Dazai presses it firmly to the table with both of his hands. “I saw it, you won’t escape.”

“You’re probably just sleepy,” Dazai hums, trying to close the notebook but Chuuya uses the
moment to catch one of his hands by the wrist. “Stop it, carrot head, why would I draw your ugly
face?” He tries to smirk but ends up looking even more helpless than before. “I know it by heart
anyway.”

“Would it kill you to just show me the page?” Chuuya snaps, trying to drag the notebook from his
grip but Dazai presses even firmer. He knows my face by heart, he knows my face by heart, he
knows my face by heart, he knows my face by heart, he knows, he knows, he knows. “Come on,
where’s your self-confidence at?”

“Where’s your sense of other people’s boundaries?” Dazai backfires, glancing up at him again, this
time without the intention of looking away first.

“Look who’s talking,” Chuuya smirks and tries to flip the page forcefully but ends up wrinkling it
in his grip and almost tearing it out. He has to stop abruptly when he feels Dazai grab the collar of
his t-shirt with his free hand and drag him closer until their faces are one breath away. Chuuya
swallows. “Boundaries, huh?”

“I will show you my drawing,” Dazai whispers, looking him in the eye. Chuuya’s next breath
catches in his throat. “But there’s something I want in return.”

Hollandaise

Alternatives: bearnaise, maltaise, mousseline

Used for: steamed asparagus, smoked salmon, French toasts

It’s Thursday, the last day before the black apron contest, and this time, they’re not in the kitchen.
They’re in Chuuya’s room, with Ranpo gone to Edgar’s as usual, and Dazai is now sitting at the
desk, sipping his iced coffee and flipping through the notes he made yesterday. He tries to pretend
that he’s not interested, that it wasn’t him who asked for this, and Chuuya is thankful for that as
much as he’s angry. With himself, mostly. He could’ve kept living without looking at that stupid
doodle. His curiosity would’ve been painfully hard to bear but he could. But now he has to stand
here, in the middle of his room, his face to the wall and his back to Dazai and tugging at the hem
of his loose white t-shirt, hesitantly.
Show me your scars.

Chuuya is a man of his word.

How do you know that I have scars?

But now his words backfire.

You smile like someone who does.

“If you don’t want to do this, don’t,” the sudden sound of Dazai’s voice makes him shudder. “I’m
not a person who’s supposed to see you like this, anyway.”

You’re exactly this person, Chuuya wants to say but bites his tongue at the very last moment.

“What’s the difference between bearnaise and maltaise?” He asks, just to distract him, and starts
taking his shirt off.

“Bearnaise is made with herbs,” he hears the pages flip as Dazai plays along. “And maltaise is a
blood orange variety of hollandaise.”

“What are the main ingredients of mousseline?” Chuuya goes on, shivering as he wrinkles the shirt
in his fist and throws it on the bed, fighting the urge to hug himself with both of his hands and hide.
He thinks his shivering may be easily detected from the goosebumps down his bare back.

“Three egg yolks, unsalted butter, fresh lemon juice, salt, whipped cream, you’re beautiful.”

Chuuya shudders.

“What did you say?” He turns to him. Dazai is leaning against the chair, his notebook now closed
and forgotten on the desk.

“I said that you’re beautiful,” he declares as if it’s just another insignificant ingredient, and Chuuya
wants to scream. Dazai’s gaze doesn’t slide down though, still being locked on his face. And this is
when it strikes him. People who also have scars can see the ones of others even without looking
directly. “Where did you get them?”

“Home,” Chuuya takes a deep breath, assessing his own bare arms, chest, and stomach. He tells
everything without hesitation. “My father was… an asshole.”

“Yeah, that’s one way to put it,” Dazai sighs.

“And stop throwing compliments just because you think that I might be insecure,” Chuuya returns
him a frown. “I know they’re ugly but I’m used to them.”

“Are you now?” Dazai raises his eyebrows at him but doesn’t go on, keeping himself from
stepping on dangerous ground. Chuuya wouldn’t mind if he did. “Want to look at mine?”

“No,” Chuuya shakes his head. “That’s exceeding the promise,” it’s not the main reason though.
He’s just scared of what he may see there, under the layers of bandages covering his arms and
wrists. Instead, he walks up to him and takes a notebook from the desk, opening it to the page with
his own face on it. He believes he’s gained the right now.

While he’s studying the doodle, a very rushed one but undoubtedly good, he feels Dazai staring at
him, his gaze slowly sliding lower, from his face to his bare neck and chest, and Chuuya is trying
desperately to just keep breathing steadily and not letting it show how burning it feels. They’ve
both taken their armors off, and it was a fair exchange. Chuuya has shown him the exact map of
old cuts and wounds covering his entire body in routes, twisted and crooked, the ones leading
nowhere. Dazai has shown him his only weakness in return.

“Thank you,” Chuuya feels like he’s had to say it. He hands the notebook back to him and moves
to the bed to put his shirt back on, Dazai’s gaze following him all along. “You’re good at this,” he
adds when he’s facing the wall again because it makes it somehow easier to talk. “Drawing, I
mean.”

Dazai is silent for some time before letting out a quiet sigh.

“And you’re good at pretending you’re not hurt.”

Red Sauce

Alternatives: creole, provençal, marinara

Used for: pasta with ricotta cheese, pan-seared cod, mozzarella chicken

Friday is a mess. They don’t stay up for long during the night because they need to wake up early
and have a clear head, especially Dazai. Chuuya has a day full of rest ahead of him, he’s
miraculously escaped a black apron fate for himself even though he was on the verge of it at least
twice. They’re practicing the last mother sauce until two in the morning and also revise some of
the classical recipes along the way: Chuuya is asking questions like they’re having a tough exam,
and Dazai is answering them all flawlessly, without even a stutter, while stirring the sauce in the
pan. Then, when they’re done, all dishes washed and put aside, he wipes his hands dry with a paper
towel and looks up at Chuuya.

“Am I ready?” He asks.

“I don’t know, are you?” Chuuya shrugs and tries to smile but he can’t. The situation suddenly
turns more frightening than he expected it to be. “What does tomato sauce consist of?

“Dunno, tomatoes?” Unlike him, Dazai has it in himself to laugh, and Chuuya’s glad. They wish
each other goodnight and go to their rooms, setting up the alarms for five hours from now: they’ll
still need some extra time to shower, shave, have breakfast, smoke, etc.

Dazai is the one who has a decisive contest in less than eight hours, and it’s Chuuya who can’t
sleep the entire night, just staring at the ceiling, wide awake in silent prayer.

Dazai is the one who’s going to fight for his place in the contest today, and it’s Chuuya who’s
scared to death.

Dazai is the one who should be afraid, and it’s Chuuya who’s shivering like a wet dog.

The next morning, after showering and brushing his teeth, he doesn’t go to grab breakfast with
Ranpo, instead walking to Dazai’s floor and knocking at his door.

“Yes?” Chuuya walks in, instantly taken aback by the sight of him, shirtless, with his hair still wet
after the morning shower. Kunikida is nowhere to be seen – probably, he’s eating with others.
Dazai is standing in front of his closet, probably picking a shirt to wear, but he freezes in place as
soon as their gazes meet. “Good morning.”

“Good morning,” Chuuya says with a dry throat and glances at the black apron laid on his bed. The
undeserved one. The one that shouldn’t have been here in the first place. And he knows that it’s a
stupid question to ask but he does it anyway. “Are you ready?”

There’s this particular smile Dazai grants him every time he doesn’t want to lie but he has to.

“Readier than ever,” he turns to face him, and Chuuya has to keep his own gaze from sliding lower
than where his Adam’s apple is. “I’m sorry you didn’t get enough sleep because of me.”

“That’s okay,” Chuuya brushes him off without thinking about his words much. He wouldn’t have
helped him if he hadn’t wanted to in the first place. “Do you remember everything I taught you?”

“Yes,” this time, his smile is genuine, though extremely short. “You know, even if they kick me
out, I hope that you’ll be the one to win.”

“Don’t say this, you’re not going anywhere,” Chuuya cuts him off, shaking his head. He’s fighting
the urge to storm to him and just shake him by the shoulders, repeating these words over and over
again. The only thing that stops him is the fear of touching Dazai’s bare skin. He thinks something
might break in him if he does. “You remember everything, you’re equally good at classics and
innovation, you’re an extremely skilled cook, you’re a mastermind, and I’m proud of you.”

Three egg yolks, unsalted butter, fresh lemon juice, salt, whipped cream, you’re beautiful.

“Chuuya,” Dazai lets out a mischievous smirk but the fondness in his eyes betrays him. “You
didn’t just say you were proud of me, did you?”

“That was exactly what I said,” Chuuya takes a deep breath as he walks right to him, stopping
within just one step and looking up to find his eyes. He lowers his voice almost to a whisper.
“You’ve got this, mackerel.”

Whether they need to cook lasagna al forno or a fucking Baked Alaska again, whether it is for
three hours or just one, whether they have their eyes covered or their hands tied, whether Fukuzawa
is in a good mood or in a bad one, whether Dazai cooks the best dish or the worst one, or a very
mediocre one, he’s got this. Chuuya has never been this sure about anything in his life.

He doesn’t really know what pushes him forward but it’s too late to think it over now when he’s
already reaching to grab Dazai by his bare neck and press their lips together for a brief moment, his
eyes squeezed shut like teenager’s. He pulls away almost as quickly, letting out a shivering breath
but still holding onto him, not stepping back. Dazai’s eyes are wide and he’s out of breath as he
glances at him, completely dumbstruck.

“I’m sorry,” Chuuya whispers into his mouth. He’s not sure what he’s sorry for.

“No,” Dazai swallows and shakes his head. “It’s alright.”

He lets go of the closet door he was holding onto the entire time and takes another step closer, and
then another one, making Chuuya back away to the wall. Just midway, Dazai grabs his face with
both of his hands and kisses him again, and this time it is a real kiss, the one that makes Chuuya
stumble and grab both of his shoulders so he won’t fall. Dazai kisses him desperately, mindlessly,
making him breathe in deeply through the nose and squeeze his eyes shut the moment his back
meets the wall and his hands go numb all the way to his fingertips. Chuuya opens his mouth and
kisses him back, embracing him firmer and pressing his fingertips into the soft skin of his bare
shoulders, probably leaving scratch marks. He feels Dazai’s hands move down to rest on his neck,
and the warmth of his skin makes Chuuya shiver somehow. He’s never kissed anyone like this.
He’s never been kissed like this. Every touch of Dazai’s lips, every movement of his fingers on his
neck melts something in Chuuya’s body, his blood boiling in his veins, his heart pounding
helplessly in his chest. Good Lord, okay, okay.

“Okay,” he barely whispers the moment they break the kiss to take a moment to breathe. Dazai is a
terrible liar. Chuuya might be good-looking but it’s nothing compared to how handsome he himself
is, especially right now, with his hair damp and disheveled, his lips reddened from kissing, his eyes
leaving burn marks on Chuuya’s face. If not for the stupid contest, stupid competition, stupid black
apron he would just stay here, like this, pressed to the wall, kissing him and kissing him back for
eternity. “We should go.”

“Yeah,” Dazai blinks twice as if being finally wide awake but he doesn’t let him go just yet, his
knuckles sliding over Chuuya’s neck, down to his collarbone, making his breath catch in his throat.
“Can I kiss you once more? You know,” he shrugs, fighting back a breathless smile. “For
confidence.”

When people leave you, they don’t just vanish, not always, at least. And when it’s you who leave
someone, they usually stay right there where you left them. At fourteen, Dazai is too young and
naive to be aware of this. He’s in Fukuzawa’s apartment, making his third pumpkin soup in a week,
hissing and swearing quietly, hovering above the stove. He has no idea what he did to deserve the
man’s mercy apart from explaining to him some of his original recipes back then, in the middle of
a local grocery store, surrounded by herbs and condiments. But just in a week, Fukuzawa Yukichi
– that was the man’s name – showed up in the orphanage, and Dazai was called to meet with Mori
in his office.

“Dazai,” Mori placed his hands on the table, assessing his whole figure with his usual unbothered
gaze but Dazai didn’t care to notice it as he was too dumbstruck after seeing the man from the
grocery store for the second time; right in his orphanage, his home, out of all the places in the
world. “Tell me, how did you happen to know my old friend?”

After that, Fukuzawa visited the orphanage at least thrice, mostly during lunchtime. Dazai always
tried a bit harder to impress him, hovering above his corner table and bouncing on his feet,
impatient. Fukuzawa happened to be a respected and relatively famous chef, and the only reason
Dazai hadn’t recognized him on their first meeting was that he couldn’t have known. Fukuzawa
tried his meals like they did in culinary schools, his face emotionless and focused, and then – it was
Dazai’s favorite part every time – he started to bombard him with questions about the ingredients
and techniques he’d used for every dish. Impressing him had soon become Dazai’s only purpose in
life, and he got obsessed with that mission so fast that he didn’t even notice when things ended up
the way they did.

Fukuzawa still allowed him to go visit his friends in the orphanage, talk to Jouno and Haruno and
even help Elise with gardening. All the other days, he had his own room in Fukuzawa’s two-story
house not far from the orphanage’s block, his own bed, his own writing desk, and as many
cookbooks as he wanted to read. Fukuzawa was a divorced man and had an adult daughter whom
he still occasionally spoke to whenever she came back to Yokohama after another business trip.
Truth be told, being adopted had never been Dazai’s dream, and probably the only reason Mori
allowed this in the first place was that he had known and trusted Fukuzawa since their school years
together. Dazai was completely alright tinkering in the orphanage’s kitchen for days on end,
coming up with new unimaginable variations of ingredients and techniques. However, if being
adopted meant that he could get more possibilities to cook without any limitations, then yes, he
wanted it more than anything else in the world.
This is what brings him here, to Fukuzawa’s kitchen, every evening when Dazai is waiting for him
to come back from work with another pile of cooking manuals and two bags stuffed with fresh
groceries. Many months pass like that, in a complete haze, in the smell of sauces and soups, in
sheer happiness Dazai feels in his every bone each time Fukuzawa appears in the doorway, asking
him what he’s been struggling with today.

One evening, however, is different from the others. It’s Saturday, the only day of the week on
which Dazai can forget about his school, homework, and other errands, instead spending his time
cooking without any other distractions. Fukuzawa vanishes somewhere after lunchtime, not saying
a word when Dazai is inching through the pages of another brand-new cookbook bought just two
days ago. Fukuzawa comes back in two hours, finding Dazai in the kitchen, conjuring up another
sauce he’s come up with on the base of a French velouté, and he’s not alone. There is another man
with him, far younger but probably still in his thirties, and he’s European or at least he looks so.
Dazai thinks he might have seen him somewhere before but he can’t bring himself to remember.

“Dazai, could you please take a break for a moment and meet our guest,” Fukuzawa says,
exchanging quick unreadable gazes with the stranger. “My good friend from France happened to be
on a business trip in Japan, and I wouldn’t have forgiven myself if I hadn’t introduced him to you.”

“Sure,” is the only thing Dazai manages to let out, wrinkling the front pocket of his apron in his
hands, stained with flour and butter.

This is how he meets Paul Verlaine for the first time. Tinkering in the kitchen for the fourth hour in
a row without any break, looking like a madman while combining various ingredients and creating
unimaginable mixtures, experimenting with tastes before he finally gets the one that doesn’t make
him want to throw up with the mere smell, instead of doing what all other, normal teenagers do.
Playing video games. Learning how to drink and smoke. Wreaking havoc. Bruising his knees.
Falling in love.

“Nice to meet you, Dazai,” Verlaine lets out a reserved smile, talking in broken Japanese, when
Dazai, having washed his hands hastily, reaches for a handshake. “What are you making today?”

He takes a second to eye the room, letting out a confused smile.

“What am I not making?”

 Not Dead, Just Gone
Chapter Notes

chuuya's being a bit silly here but we love him anyway right

the drama is only ahead so click your seatbelts and get ready
I forget about this sometimes but I really love this fic and I cherish the time I spend
reading all those recipes and watching cooking tutorials online (I almost burnt my
kitchen down a couple of times in the process tho)

thank you for all your precious kudos and comments

love, ana

Cooking for Chuuya has always worked as an excuse to escape routine, though it was also his
routine of sorts. Now when his daily life seems a bit more miserable than usual, with binge
drinking and smoking and switching between pointless talk shows or sitcoms on TV, he looks over
his shoulder sometimes, at the broad doorway that separates the living room from the kitchen, and
his whole body aches from the familiar need to fulfill the habit he’s had since he first learned how
to hold a knife. Come to think of it, while cooking most of the time brought him comfort when he
was a child, this comfort was nullified the moment he saw the consequences that the only person
who loved him had to bear. Every time his mother borrowed some money for him to buy food
when he was away for another practical week (even though the rest was paid for by the people
who organized the thing), she left less for herself and, consequently, for his father, who always
asked how she could be so thickheaded when it came to their family expenses. And while Chuuya
was mixing custard or making lemon meringue under the piercing gazes of his seniors somewhere
in Europe, his mother faced the consequences of a better life she tried desperately to provide for
him. There were beatings, he knew that. Every time he returned home (sometimes, when there was
a night flight, he had to roam for several hours around the airport before his father went to work
and his mother could escape and meet him), he saw the bruises on her face, neck, arms, and he
knew that there were even more under the layers of her baggy clothes. They never talked about it,
for none of the words could take the wounds back, but when Chuuya casually asked where his
favorite tea mug was, his mother said, with a guilty look, that it was broken.

Everything miserable and painful in his life has always stemmed from his desire to cook. It’s
because of cooking that he was beaten up and then healed, because of cooking he first peeled
carrots and then became the chef of one of the most prestigious restaurants in France, because of
cooking he fell in love and ended up heartbroken, and everything always eventually returned to one
single thing, to the starting point.

Chuuya has a blurry idea of what his mother’s last wish on the deathbed could’ve been. It was for
him to continue doing what he loved the most despite everything, for she had torn enough pieces
off herself to let him do so. And Chuuya knows that the only thing that can get him back on track
is returning to his work. In Paris, nothing changes in his condition much. He has to go through
several cautionary tales from Verlaine and Rimbaud and distressing talks with Adele. He has to lie
that he’s okay just to come back to his apartment in the evening and open another bottle of wine.
At first, he makes sure that he’s never drunk when it’s time to work. At the restaurant, he is always
freshly showered and shaved, with his hair combed into a perfect high ponytail so that not a single
lock can fall on his face while he’s working. He’s hungover a couple of times, though, but he’s
good at masking that, closing the door of his office quietly behind his back and swallowing
painkillers dry until his head finally stops its attempts to explode.

There’s this thing with alcohol addiction, the need to drink usually comes in waves. And
sometimes these waves are so severe that one can’t see their own shore anymore. This is what
happens one morning when Chuuya wakes up before his usual workday and stumbles, his face
meeting the floor, the moment he springs to his feet. There’s still too much alcohol in him and
there’s no way he could’ve sobered up in just five hours of sleep he took.

“Fuck,” his hands are shaking as he lifts himself from the floor and he needs to hold onto his bed to
stand up. With great effort he makes it to the bathroom when he spends almost half an hour in the
shower, having forgotten to even glance at the clock. He still doesn’t when he neglects his
breakfast, just emptying a glass of water instead, and walks out of his apartment in his yesterday’s
clothes.

At work, everything’s already in full swing. They have an important banquet today, for another
respected French entrepreneur with a thick wallet decided to book the entire restaurant for his only
daughter’s birthday party. When Chuuya walks into the kitchen, scratching his temple and
grimacing at his still half-damp hair, he’s almost knocked down by one of the cooks who’s rushing
past him with a fruit crate in his hands. Everything is too much and too loud, he feels like his skull
can crack open at the sound alone.

“Jesus,” he squeezes his eyes shut, still not moving from his spot. “Can y’all shut the fuck up?”

“You’re late,” Adele appears in front of him, her hands at her sides, a dangerous demanding look
on her face. Chuuya takes pains to focus on her face while the realization is slowly washing his
sunken mind ashore. “Care to explain?”

“I overslept,” he looks away, pretending to eye the kitchen instead. It’s already a mess, and they’re
not even an hour into the working day.

“You’re drunk,” Adele says matter-of-factly, still waiting for an explanation. “Verlaine will come
to control the processes today, our client is his good friend, and exactly on this date you decided to
hammer your brains with booze.”

“Hey,” Chuuya hisses, returning her a disapproving gaze. “I’m still your chef and I can have you
fired if you keep talking to me like this.”

“You won’t fire me,” Adele rolls her eyes and reties the apron behind her back before turning to
one of the workplaces and grabbing the knife. “If you do nobody will make your goddamn chef’s
specials.”

“I will,” he takes his leather jacket off as he rushes past her and storms into his office to put his
own apron on.

Chef’s specials. He’s made them enough times to know how to do this even in his worst state.
After all, these are his authentic dishes, and nobody in the entire world can complete them even
merely as good as himself. In his office, he empties another glass of water and combs his hair
before walking out and finally getting down to work. He needs to withstand worried glances at
himself when he drops the knife several times and reaches for the clean ones until there are none of
them left. Chuuya knows that he must work faster, they don’t have an eternity on their hands, but
his entire body keeps shaking, and every loud sound around irritates him to the extent when he
needs to rush outside for a smoke to calm down. Three hours after, he still hasn’t completed even
half of the ordered portions. Adele approaches him a couple of times, asking if he needs any help,
but he brushes her off, perhaps too rudely, for he’s still too mad at her for the interrogation she
subjected him to earlier in the morning.

Chuuya knows he’s doomed the moment he sees Verlaine enter the kitchen. In a perfect suit, with
his white hair loose on his shoulders and a bright smile on his face, he’s talking to someone over
the phone, probably their today’s client, and reassuring him, telling him that the banquet will be
ready just on time. His smile fades the moment his eyes land on Chuuya, and for some time, he’s
just watching him struggle with another pork filet on a cutting board, hissing curses and almost
chopping his own fingers off three times.

“I’ll update you later,” he says before hanging up and walking right to him. Chuuya grants him a
short glance and a reserved nod that can be deciphered as good morning. Verlaine, however,
completely ignores it, instead studying the mess he’s created on the counter: several pork filets on
another board are cut in a sloppy and amateurish way, certainly not the one that’s expected from a
Michelin restaurant. “Chuuya, what are you doing?”

“My chef’s special,” he answers in the most unbothered tone he’s capable of. “For the banquet.”

One of the positions on the chef’s menu is baked pork tenderloin stuffed with fruit filling, mostly
consisting of apricots, apples, and bananas, wrapped in bacon rashers and drizzled with ginger wine
sauce. This balanced mixture of sweet and savory tastes is served perfectly both as a hot and cold
dish.

“I know we have a banquet today,” Verlaine crosses his arms on his chest, still not looking away
from the cutting board on which Chuuya’s struggling with another filet. “I asked what are you
doing, Chuuya. The pork must be already in the oven.”

“I need more time to trim off the sinew,” he clenches his teeth, squeezing the knife firmer in his
hand. He’s trying not to breathe. He knows where this talk is leading to. Usually, if Chuuya’s in his
calm and steady state of mind, working with meat and cutting all the excess fat off it doesn’t take
more than five minutes.

Instead of arguing with him, Verlaine reaches to take the board with filets in his hand and studies
each one of them closer, his look emotionless and dry. It’s almost like they’re in the academy again
but Chuuya’s not his student anymore, he’s not eighteen, he can’t let Verlaine scold him like a
child in front of his subordinates. But Verlaine does something that’s even worse. He walks to the
nearest trash bin and, while keeping his gaze locked on Chuuya’s face, throws the meat into it,
dropping the empty board into the closest sink with a loud bang. Chuuya shudders, squeezing his
eyes shut, and relaxes his hand, dropping the knife on the counter. At this moment, the entire
kitchen goes quiet, and only the sound of countless frying pans sizzling is cutting into the silence.
Chuuya feels everyone staring at him and he wants to burn alive or dissolve in the air from shame.
However, shame is not the feeling that prevails in him. It’s anger.

“Why would you do that?” He asks, looking up at Verlaine and trying with all his effort to keep his
tone calm. “They were okay.” He knows they weren’t, he made too many excess cuts on the meat
itself because his hands were trembling.

“After all the years you’ve known me,” Paul hides his hands behind his back and walks closer to
him again, eyeing his entire figure. “Do you still think that I can accept okay from the chef I
entrusted my restaurant with?” It’s a rhetorical question and so Chuuya doesn’t answer, instead
looking down again and worrying at his bottom lip. “Adele will work on the chef’s specials today.
Adele!” He calls, and she appears in front of him in the next instant, glancing at Chuuya briefly
and wiping her hands off on her apron. Verlaine rubs his forehead, deciding on something with a
sigh before he returns his look to Chuuya. “And you,” he says. “Go home and take some rest. I’m
giving you a day off.”

“But,” Chuuya snaps but Verlaine cuts him off with a decisive gesture of his hand.

“It’s not up for a discussion,” he warns. “If I say that you go, you do as you’re told.”

When he turns away to go check on other processes, Chuuya grabs the counter with both of his
hands and squeezes it so firmly that his knuckles start to burn. Something pushes him forward and
he lets go, following Verlaine along to make sure he can hear him.

“I’m not your student anymore!” He says a bit louder than he intended to, and everyone goes silent
for the second time. Verlaine freezes in his spot and tilts his head a bit but still doesn’t turn to look
at him. Chuuya takes a deep shaking breath. “Why can’t you just trust me for once? Why do you
always need to look for a substitute in case I fail?”

Someone drops the empty Dutch oven behind his back, and it slams against the floor with a loud
clang. Chuuya grimaces and glances over his shoulder at a doe-eyed apprentice who’s crouching,
taking the pot from the floor with trembling hands. Verlaine remains silent the entire time before
finally taking a deep breath and turning to look at him.

“Must you remind me of how many times I decided to trust you and you betrayed my trust with
another antic of yours,” he says in a steady tone but every word stabs Chuuya in the chest. “I’m not
stupid, Chuuya, I noticed that you’ve been drinking more lately. And I know that you have your
reasons but every grief must come to a stop eventually, or else it may turn into madness.”

Chuuya clenches his teeth, fighting the urge to hold onto the nearest workplace and steady himself
so that his knees stop shaking so embarrassingly.

“You don’t know shit about my grief,” he spits out, looking Verlaine in the eye, convincing
himself that he’s not afraid of what he may see there. “Maybe I’m not the perfect student you’ve
always craved to have but I’ve been working my ass off to prove that I deserve a place in this
restaurant. But is that it? Is it everything it takes you to replace me? One fucking dish for a stupid
banquet with the people who bought your ass to dance around them?”

This fight is nothing like the ones they had before. Chuuya barely finishes talking when he feels a
painful, burning slap on his face, and the moment he opens his eyes again, looking to the side, he
struggles to even take a breath. Verlaine is standing right in front of him, his hand still mid-air, and
his usual dry expression is now distorted with disgust. Chuuya knows it’s over now, and the quiet
hoarse laugh escapes his throat before he returns him a look, covering his reddened cheek with his
palm.

“Probably I shouldn’t have picked you in the first place,” says Verlaine and he sounds not mad at
him but upset, which is a thousand times worse. His gaze slides over his own hand, and then he
eyes the kitchen, still frozen in shock and disbelief, and gestures at everyone to return to their work.
Chuuya is still staring at him, numb, feeling like he may be sick at any moment. Paul only sighs.
“Go home, Chuuya, and come back tomorrow. We’ll talk once you’re sober.”

When Chuuya takes his place on the balcony, leaning against the railing and waiting for Ranpo
and Kunikida to follow him up, he thinks it may be written all over him. He’s trying desperately to
avoid looking at one particular person standing downstairs, laughing with Tanizaki and throwing
occasional gazes at the balcony. Chuuya looks everywhere. At the cameramen, at the ceiling, at
the wooden floor under his feet, but he still thinks that nothing can help him escape this strange
feeling, this almost childish excitement that is now spilling within him, eventually concentrating
like a flash of sudden warmth in his stomach. He kissed Dazai. And then Dazai kissed him. And
then they kissed twice more and they probably wouldn’t have stopped if Kunikida hadn’t started to
knock on the door demandingly, asking what was taking Dazai so long. His face once Chuuya
opened the door and greeted him with a stupid smile all over his face was something worth
perpetuating on a canvas.

But now he has other matters to worry about and it’s really not the time to replay the same scene in
his head over and over again. Still, their gazes brush against each other once, and Dazai looks at
him carefully at first as if evaluating his mood but when Chuuya grants him a rushed smile he
smiles back, letting out a relieved breath. Chuuya keeps staring at him like the fool he is even
when Dazai already looks away, returning to his animated discussion with Tanizaki.

Today’s rules are odd at least. There are no physical restrictions, limitations on ingredients or
appliances, and even the time is on their side, for three hours is more than enough to complete even
the most elaborate dish. Fukuzawa is eyeing the three of them with his usual assessing gaze before
nodding at Yosano to start talking. She’s in a good mood today, she almost always is but Chuuya
notices a hint of worry in her tone when she speaks anyway. Yosano is very discreet and incredibly
easy to read at the same time. Taught in the best culinary schools in Europe and Asia, she’s gained
more experience by the age of thirty than some chefs do in their entire careers. She had her own
share of rejection letters, sometimes harsh enough to put her entire career to end, Chuuya read
about it in her first memoir not long after the contest started, and needless to say that he was
impressed by her sheer love towards culinary and the willpower to keep going even when her hope
started to die out.

“Today, we will let you cook whatever you want,” she says, evaluating their reactions. Chuuya
catches a glimpse of disbelief on Dazai’s face, and he thinks he knows what’s on his mind right
now. It can’t be this simple. “Yes, you heard me right. You will pick and make any dish you like,
let it be an amuse-bouche, soup, the main dish, or a dessert. There are no conditions or limitations
whatsoever.”

“In three hours,” Ango picks up, wiping his glasses with a piece of cloth. “We will come back to
assess each of your dishes and decide on the best one.”

“Chef,” Chuuya shifts his frown to Edgar once he raises his hand like a schoolboy to talk. “Does
this mean that only one of us will stay in the contest today?”

“Exactly,” Ango nods as he puts his glasses back on and gestures at the workplaces behind their
backs. “Please, start working.”

Dazai walks to the last row of counters, slow and content, hiding his hands behind his back. His
body language, the one Chuuya for some reason has learned to a stupid extent perfectly, shows no
signs of worry. Perhaps he’s already decided on the meal as he’s taking out the notebook to write
down some notes, leaning with his elbows against the counter. He doesn’t spare Chuuya a second
of cheap talk even though he must know that Chuuya’s dying to know what he’s planning to make.
Instead, he finishes his scribbling in a minute or so and heads to the storage room. Chuuya’s
common sense tells him that if everything is allowed today, then Dazai has most certainly settled
on making another experimental dish. He’s good at this, better than any of them, and it would be
stupid of him to risk his warm spot for the sake of impressing the judges, not when it costs him his
place in the contest.

“You taught Dazai classics, right?” Chuuya feels Ranpo lean closer to him, talking in half-murmur.
“Kunikida told me.”
“Yeah, a part of it,” he nods, not willing to elaborate on this.

“You think he will make it today?” Ranpo hums, leaning with his hands against the railing and
placing his head on his interlocked fingers. “Classics.”

“It would be too risky,” Chuuya frowns. “He hasn’t practiced enough.”

Except this is exactly what he’s doing. The range of ingredients Dazai has brought from the storage
room is enough for Chuuya to make several guesses at once but not a single one of them involves
something out of the ordinary. He doesn’t ask anything yet, instead leaning against the railing
himself and copying Ranpo’s pose, biting his bottom lip. He knows that Dazai is capable of
making something outstanding even with the simplest products but something’s telling him that
today’s not the case. Beef chuck, bacon, various vegetables, cognac, dry red Cote du Rhone, a pack
of flour, a bar of butter, mushrooms, and thyme… everything’s hinting at beef stew but what kind?

“Dazai?” He finally calls, his voice making Dazai hum in response, glancing up at him. “What are
you making?”

“Oh, this?” He points at the large Dutch oven in which he’s already heating the olive oil as if there
might be any other options. “It’s beef bourguignon.”

“No shit,” Chuuya hears Ranpo whistle before he even gets to react.

“Are you sure?” He then asks again, his voice cracking slightly. “It requires applewood smoked
bacon, you don’t have four hours to prepare it.”

Dazai only shrugs in response, adding the bacon rashers to the pot.

“I’ll make my own variety,” of course, he will. He’s always coming up with something
extraordinary once there’s not enough time to stick to the original recipe. “Don’t worry, carrot
head.”

If only it was so easy. In the next three hours, every remark or piece of advice thrown at Dazai
from the balcony is soaked with worry. Chuuya finds himself skillful at schooling his tone into a
neutral one even if his heart is pounding dangerously in distress. Every time there is a risk that
Dasai may overcook something or spoil it in another way, he grips the railing firmer with his
hands, his thoughts rushing in his head at light speed. It’s almost like there are both of them
competing there, downstairs, and Dazai is fighting not only for himself but for Chuuya, too; as if at
some point in time, they ceased to exist without each other. It scares Chuuya as much as excites
him.

On his right, another merciless fight is happening. Ranpo is overseeing Edgar’s dish, a complicated
layered dessert he’s tinkering over, sneaking into the storage room and back every five minutes.
Ranpo is certainly not the one who can advise something decent when it comes to pastry but he
tries anyway, flipping through his old recipes in the pocket notebook and aiming at the new flavors
Edgar can add to diversify the taste. Kunikida, in his turn, is helping Tanizaki who’s risking it all,
cooking the main dish instead of a dessert.

Chuuya can’t help Dazai much even if he thinks he can. Perhaps he’s already helped enough, for
Dazai is so confident with all his moves that Chuuya can’t help but watch him in awe. The way
he’s dancing around the workplace, grabbing the knives and forks and cutting boards and baking
trays, the way he ignites cognac in the pan with a match to burn off the alcohol, smiling like a kid
while staring at the fire, every process of his is flawless even if he doesn’t always get everything
right. Chuuya is fascinated by him and his willingness to succeed, it is something he himself
always lacked even though he’s been stubborn enough to keep going even in the toughest times.
Something else occurs in his head, eventually. He’s not the one who must teach Dazai how to
cook, regardless of how much pride he takes in it. If anything, Chuuya would die to get himself at
least an ounce of knowledge that Dazai possesses, for his knowledge is rare like a sacred treasure,
it can’t be found in any cookbook in the world. It’s something utterly his, something that stems
from the furthest depths of his mind, something he was destined to come up with eventually,
probably as early as on the day of his birth. It’s a marvel, how exactly the lack of knowledge
creates more knowledge, how ignorance, in the end, leads to enlightenment if one is determined
enough to dig for it.

When the judges are tasting Dazai’s dish, Chuuya finds that his own palms are sweaty, he never
thought he could worry about someone this much. Ranpo, however, completely ignores the gross
dampness of his skin the moment he grabs his hand, intertwining their fingers and squeezing so
hard Chuuya thinks his knuckles may break.

“It’s okay,” he whispers, more to himself than to him, tracing Ranpo’s gaze and finding it locked
on Edgar, who’s trembling above his cake like a caged animal.

The truth is, Chuuya doesn’t want any of them to leave. His utter need to keep Dazai around
requires no explanation but he’s also developed another sort of fondness for both Edgar and
Tanizaki. Edgar is Ranpo’s boyfriend, and Chuuya can’t help but cherish the people who mean this
much to his friend, especially when they are this soft and kind-hearted. And Tanizaki is his pal, his
buddy, they shared more local jokes and laughs together than Chuuya did with anyone else here.
Besides, both of them are marvelous cooks, skilled and with bright futures, and letting any of them
go will be a significant loss for the contest, let alone the culinary craft. But it’s not their
professional field Chuuya’s worried about right now. He realizes that his own anxiety is rooted in a
much deeper and personal part of him. He needs Dazai here not only because he’s a cooking
prodigy and he deserves this place more than anyone else, he needs him because if he leaves now
Chuuya doesn’t know whether he’ll find it in himself to go on without him. Perhaps it’s not a big
deal and he’s just being sentimental. Perhaps nothing will change if Dazai leaves. After all, there’s
nothing connecting them apart from a bunch of shared secrets and a plethora of rushed kisses.
They’d kissed much more than they did this morning. Chuuya felt like he was kissed mindless
every time Dazai as much as granted him a smile.

“Why did you pick this dish?” Yosano asks him, putting her fork away and still chewing the
remains carefully, thinking over the taste. There is a hint of contentment in her tone, the one she
always uses when someone pleasantly surprises her.

“It occurred to me that I never had a chance to acquaint you with my skills in classic culinary
before,” Dazai says in his professional tone, emotionless but with a glimpse of a smile on his face
anyway. “If I want to become a chef I have to cook everything, isn’t that so?”

“Something is telling me that you already know how to cook everything, Dazai,” Yosano grants
him a polite smile and exchanges brief glances with Ango and Fukuzawa. “Perhaps even more than
is known to our field of work.”

Dazai laughs at this, quietly, and Chuuya feels a part of burdensome anxiety falling off his
shoulders. This is a good sign, right?

“I won’t lie, I’m surprised with your dish choice,” Ango cuts in, reaching to rotate the plate in front
of himself and study the diced meat with stewed vegetables presented in a usual flawless way.
“Why not dessert? I rarely spot you making them.”

“I got two extremely skilled pastry chefs as my competition today,” Dazai hums in response. “I
mean, I love the risk but not this crushing kind.”

At this, even Ango lets out a brief smile, and watching him smile is an occurrence so rare that
Chuuya almost thinks he’s seeing things. While Ango is tasting the beef, slowly and without any
comment, Dazai takes a second to look up, locating Chuuya and granting him a nod. I’ve got this.

“Good job,” he’s mouthing voicelessly, not realizing that he’s now squeezing Ranpo’s hand even
harder.

Fukuzawa’s reaction is the one that’s anticipated and feared the most. He doesn’t ask Dazai
anything, instead just moving to disassemble his dish and take a bite without words, nodding to
himself as he puts the fork aside. Probably he’s already heard enough from what Dazai said to
Yosano.

“Very well,” is the only thing he lets out and thinks something over for a brief moment. “Picking
classics was very unexpected of you, I must say. Should I ask you whether someone else had to do
anything with it?”

Chuuya grits his teeth, taking a hint. But Dazai dances out of it effortlessly as he always does.

“Of course,” he says, fighting back a smile. “I learned your manual on classic culinary techniques
by heart before deciding on challenging myself, chef.”

“You’re a shameless liar,” Chuuya accuses him once they step into his room; he takes his jacket
off, then his apron, throwing it on the nearest chair. “Did Fukuzawa even write a cooking
manual?”

“At least five of them, as I’m aware,” Dazai nods, doing the same and granting him a smile as he
strips out of his coat. “You really think I would’ve confessed that my greatest rival was teaching
me how to cook?”

“He would’ve loved that, though,” Chuuya hums as he drops himself on the bed with a tired sigh;
he feels drained and he wasn’t even cooking today. He glances at Ranpo’s bed in front of him,
carefully made, with a pile of books placed atop the pillow, and a glimpse of anguish flashes in
between his rushed thoughts. Dazai follows his gaze as he sits down next to him, not saying a
word. “I’m so fucking upset it had to be like this.”

Ranpo’s in Edgar’s room, helping him pack his stuff. Once the judges announced that Dazai was
the only one to pass the contest, Ranpo stormed out of the kitchen like a flash of light, Chuuya
couldn’t even grab him by the sleeve. He found him in their smoke spot later but Ranpo refused to
talk, just staring blankly at the camp instead, how the winterish landscape was slowly washing
away from its pavements. He was upset and he needed time alone, or perhaps with the person he
loved. Chuuya couldn’t judge him for that. He would’ve been an asshole if he said something like
“hey, don’t worry this much, he’s not dead, just gone” and so he kept silent, passing by him, with
Dazai quietly strolling by his side. The main reason Chuuya can’t blame Ranpo for his outburst is
that he knows he would’ve reacted the same if it had been Dazai to leave. Perhaps he would’ve
done something even worse like shattering the dishes or cursing Fukuzawa’s name right in front of
the cameras, with this temper of his. But luckily, he doesn’t have to. He’s here, he’s safe, and Dazai
is with him.

“So, four,” Dazai cuts into the silence between them with a thoughtful sigh. “Your best friend, my
best friend, you and me. Who would’ve thought, huh?”
“They compensated for one of the weeks when nobody left,” Chuuya suggests. He doesn’t care
much, not anymore. The algorithms of the show itself broke after the very first month as nobody
expected the contest’s line-up to have so many spectacular cooks. As for the best four, Chuuya
could’ve expected to see almost everyone here, really. In the end, he’s just glad that the people he
cares about the most are still here, competing – no, not against him, – by his side. He sighs,
locking his gaze on the opposite wall. “Just two weeks and it’s over.”

“Time flies,” Dazai hums, looking at him over his shoulder.

“Where are you going?” Chuuya asks, biting his lip.

“You mean if I win?”

“No,” he shakes his head slightly. “In any case. Where are you going when the contest ends?”

“Home,” Dazai says, decisively, not even taking a moment to think. Chuuya looks at him, their
gazes cross, and Dazai shrugs casually. “I miss my stupid flat.”

This is enough of an answer, Chuuya thinks. If anything, all of them need to go home and have
some time alone, take a rest from the cameras flashing and the neverending competition. The only
thing that bothers him, though, is that Chuuya’s not sure whether he still has a home of his own. He
would rather slit his own throat open than come back to his parents’ house, even though he’s been
renting it out to a bunch of students who needed cheap accommodation since he was accepted to
the contest. If those kids have burnt the building to ashes by now Chuuya won’t really mind. He’s
planning on moving someplace else anyway.

“Chuuya?” Dazai calls him in a soft tone, dragging him out of his thoughts. “Do you want to
talk?”

“About what?” He leaps before the realization gives him a painful slap across the face. Right. They
probably should talk. Normal grown-ups usually talk it out after they kiss, even if the kiss itself
was nothing out of the blue. Chuuya adjusts himself on the bed, moving closer to the wall and
leaning against it. “Sure. Let’s talk.”

“You already guessed that I decided to make a classic dish not because I wanted to impress the
judges, right?” Dazai asks, carefully, frozen in his position. “It’s you I wanted to impress the
most.”

“Right,” the understanding is coming in waves, washing Chuuya over and down until he struggles
to breathe. He tries to smile casually but his voice sounds almost helpless when he talks again.
“Well, even though I didn’t have a chance to try it, I’m sure it was flawless.”

“Nothing’s flawless,” Dazai clicks his tongue with a sigh, leaning back with his hands against the
bed. “But if I ever get a chance to make a dish exclusively for you I’ll try much, much harder than
I did today.”

“You’re saying that cooking for me is more important than cooking for your future?” Chuuya
suggests, side-eyeing him.

“Probably,” Dazai shrugs, and there’s a playful tone in his voice when he lifts his head a bit and
turns to meet his eyes. “Have I earned a kiss?”

Chuuya shudders, swallowing the dryness in his throat, and nods, still not moving from his spot.
It’s Dazai who moves instead, now sitting close to him and reaching forward to gently grab his
hand by the wrist and stop it in place. Chuuya didn’t realize he was scratching the side of his neck
the entire time, he always needs to pick on something on his skin when he’s worried, regardless of
where this worry stems from. Dazai’s gesture calms him down for a brief moment until Chuuya
feels that his hand is dragging him forward, closer and closer, and finally, they’re sitting face to
face on the bed, with both of Chuuya’s hands thrown over Dazai’s shoulders. It’s nothing like their
first kiss, it’s slower now, more considerate and thoughtful. Chuuya’s breath catches in his chest
when he sees how Dazai’s gaze slides carefully to his lips while his hands are finding their way to
Chuuya’s waist, grabbing him gently and squeezing the fabric of his shirt. The first time, Dazai
didn’t smile before kissing him, perhaps he was too nervous for that, which is odd at least. Chuuya
has heard enough stories and rumors about his love life, if anything this is one of the spheres which
Dazai intends to take the most of. And even Chuuya’s own experience, consisting mostly of drunk
makeout sessions with strangers and that one serious relationship he’d better not remind himself of
ever in his life, falls flat in comparison with what Dazai’s been through. And still, he’s smiling
now, nervously enough for Chuuya to believe that he, too, fears and anticipates everything that’s
already happened and is only going to happen between them.

Chuuya closes his eyes right before Dazai’s soft smile touches his lips, once, twice, moving
carefully until he finally gives in, parting his lips for him with a trembling sigh. His hands move to
cup his neck, skin to skin, and Dazai eventually deepens the kiss, encircling him with both of his
hands and squeezing firmer. He’s leaning forward until Chuuya can’t help but lie down, his back
meeting the bedsheets. Dazai keeps kissing him slowly but eagerly, in a way that drives him more
insane with every passing second. He’s adjusting himself so that he can sit on Chuuya’s thighs,
using one hand to lean against the bed, another one sliding under the fabric of Chuuya’s shirt,
moving up to rest on his ribs.

When they break a kiss to breathe, Chuuya knows that he’s shivering all over. He’s not even
ashamed of it anymore when he grabs Dazai’s neck once more and drags him down for another
kiss before he can even protest.

“Listen,” Dazai mutters into his lips with a breathless laugh. “I know that you’re mindlessly into
me but if you keep doing that without a warning I might suffocate.”

“I’m not into you,” Chuuya leaps quietly, his voice so helpless he doesn’t even believe himself. In
his defense, he adds, “it was you who asked me for a kiss first.”

“And I will gladly do it again,” Dazai hums, his fingers sliding over his ribs once more and then
slowly moving down his stomach, finally resting on his hip bone and making Chuuya shudder
once again. Their eyes meet, and Dazai looks dead serious this time, not even a glimpse of a smile
on his lips when he lets out a heavy breath. “Can I?”

Chuuya nods, and when they’re kissing again he finds himself unbuttoning the collar of Dazai’s
shirt, his fingers diving in insistently to touch his bare neck and brush over his collarbone. Dazai
hums approvingly into his lips and starting from this point, Chuuya sees no red lights. He just
wants to feel more of his skin, as much as he can lay his hands on and he doesn’t know what to do
with this blind need. Because Dazai is attractive and smart and kind and considerate and he always
brings Chuuya the comfort he’s needed desperately his entire life, making him feel safe and cared
for even when getting on his nerves at the same time. And Chuuya is a shameless liar because
Dazai is right, he is always damn right, and Chuuya is into him, terribly so, without any stop signs,
he’s desperate for his glances, words, smiles, touches, kisses, for everything he’s ever willing to
give. And Chuuya wants him, embarrassingly so as if his goddamn puberty has hit him once again
by the time he’s almost thirty. Chuuya has never been this open for someone and ready to display
his need for physical affection, regardless of how terribly he craved it sometimes. But it’s different
somehow now, with Dazai, because his craving for intimacy is merged with another, much
stronger feeling, the one he’s not yet ready to distinguish or admit.
It’s when Chuuya’s done unbuttoning his shirt and Dazai’s already stripping off it with a quiet
laugh that they both hear the door crack open. Chuuya’s eyes widen and his first instinct is to push
Dazai off himself, sitting straight as fast as he can and flattening his messy hair with both of his
trembling hands. He watches as Ranpo steps into the room, slowly looking up from the phone in
his hands, his look lifeless and drained. He eyes both of them with an unreadable expression while
Dazai is struggling to button his shirt, still slightly out of breath.

“Easy, sweethearts,” Ranpo sighs as he makes his way towards the opposite bed, just throwing
himself on it and taking the earbuds out of his hoodie’s pocket. “Keep going, I’ll just turn to the
wall and pretend I’m somewhere else.”

“Ranpo,” Chuuya says with a softness in his voice he didn’t know himself capable of. “Where’s
Edgar?”

“In the kitchen,” Ranpo almost whispers, already turning away from them and scrolling through
something on his phone. “He and Tanizaki decided to treat us to a cake one last time.”

“Sounds great,” Chuuya says, biting his lip. He looks over at Dazai and they exchange long
glances before he sighs, standing up and taking a hair tie out of his pocket. He combs his hair and
walks to the door to put his jacket on. Dazai follows him even though they didn’t agree on that; he
just gets everything without words. “We’ll leave you alone.”

At this, Ranpo only shrugs slightly, not saying anything in response, and just in a moment, they
slide out of the room.

Chuuya could never think that replacing him would be so easy. He’s in his office the next morning,
standing in front of his desk instead of sitting in his chair, and it’s Verlaine who’s in it now, leaning
with his elbows against the wooden surface and hiding half of his face behind his hands. Chuuya
doesn’t like the shame and guilt he feels; even more, he doesn’t like the fact that he still believes he
did nothing wrong.

“You need a break,” Verlaine finally suggests, leaning back against the chair. “Maybe go
somewhere for a month or so, find another chef to collaborate with and throw a bunch of
masterclasses, perhaps write a book-”

“You’re firing me,” Chuuya realizes out loud, words slipping out of his mouth without him exactly
meaning them to.

“No, I’m not firing you,” Paul is quick to deny, his gaze narrowing on him dangerously. “I’m
letting you go and do something else, temporarily.”

“There’s nothing else I want to do and you know that,” Chuuya raises his tone involuntarily,
feeling something boil slowly in his stomach. It can’t be. This restaurant, this position, it’s
everything he has. He has no right to lose it now, not for such a dull mistake.

“The entire kitchen and probably even half of the restaurant heard you insult me yesterday,”
Verlaine lets out a heavy breath, tilting his head to the sight. “It wasn’t the first time you threw
something like this. Shouting, arguing, shattering dishes, spilling hot soup all over your colleague’s
clothes for one single mistake, shall I go on?” Every word slaps Chuuya right across the face but he
keeps his posture straight, fighting not to break apart under Verlaine’s piercing gaze. “Is this how
the chef of a respected Michelin restaurant should behave at work?”

“But I’m a good chef,” Chuuya objects even though his voice is shaking. “I haven’t got a single
complaint from a guest yet. No one else can cook my dishes but me.”

“I beg to differ,” Verlaine sighs, shaking his head. “Let’s face it Chuuya, you’ve always been
trouble, ever since our first practical exam in the academy.”

The memory tastes bitter and Chuuya cringes from it, looking down and nodding silently, though
not because he agrees. Rather, he accepts.

“So that’s it, huh?” He smirks. “You hired an irresponsible alcoholic with a sharp tongue and a
bunch of unresolved childhood issues and now you have to deal with the consequences. Dealing
involves throwing me away like a trash bag.”

“Once again, Chuuya, I’m not throwing you away,” Verlaine cuts every word apart as if butchering
a piece of meat. “And you’re still a skilled chef. This is not canceled out by your… disturbing
background.”

“Fuck you,” Chuuya spits out as he unties the apron behind his back hastily and throws it on the
floor, stomping on it with his foot. He rushes to the door then, opening it wide enough for the
entire kitchen to hear his next words. “We’ll see how fast you can replace me.”

He storms out without waiting for an answer and slams the door shut, seeing how everyone is
staring at him now with a mixture of various expressions on their faces. Someone’s alarmed,
someone’s confused, and it’s only Adele who looks like she’s on the verge of tears, wiping her
hands slowly with a kitchen towel. The hour is rushed so the doors leading to the restaurant hall
can’t even close before they fly open again and another breathless waiter storms in with a tray in
their hands. There’s peaceful piano music slipping inside, mixed with the sound of sizzling and
tableware clatter. Chuuya feels sick of the sounds alone.

“What are you staring at?” He asks, grabbing an open wine bottle from the nearest counter – the
one somebody’s probably been using for their beef bourguignon – and takes a gulp, hoping
foolishly that the alcohol will help him clear his mind. He then rushes to the restaurant door
instead of the back one, the bottle still in his hand, saluting everyone goodbye on his way.
“Congratulations, y’all just got rid of a tiny inconvenience who always picked on your inept asses.”

“Chuuya, wait,” just a step until he reaches the door, Adele grabs him by the shoulder, her steel
grip enough to make him stop, squeezing his eyes shut. Secretly, Chuuya hopes that she will ask
him to stay. That everyone else will. But this never happens. “Please, use the back door.”

A drop and a thud. Oh, it’s just his heart.

“It would be better if our guests didn’t see you like this.”
 Ranpo
Chapter Notes

alive and well. ha!

my brain just won't let me write these days, that's why this chapter took a whole ass
month to be finished
I hope someone is still reading this and if you do, thank you from the bottom of my
heart, the most interesting part is only ahead
could you spare some comments for the sake of my (not so) brilliant comeback?

The kitchen of Fêtes Galantes has never been so busy before. Chuuya notices that even from his
table, one of the farthest ones but with a perfect view of the kitchen door that flies open over and
over again, waiters and waitresses rush back and forth like little birds. Chuuya is sipping wine,
leaning against the chair and waiting for his order. Duck with asparagus, figs, pea shoots and
polenta, a chef’s special. He’s tried it enough times to grow sick of it by now, mostly when he was
cooking it himself. But now there is another person working on his main dish, the person he knows
too well to even question why Verlaine picked him in the first place. After Chuuya quit, Adele was
next in line to become the chef but she declined the offer, not quite explaining her motives to
anyone. She was meant to remain in her position as a sous-chef but the new chef brought his own
people along. Probably it was his main condition to retake the position left beside so recklessly, by
Chuuya. It’s a miracle that Adele wasn’t fired even though she made a couple of scenes at work
following his resignation. He couldn’t have been more grateful for that but what’s the point now,
anyway? He’s by another side of the tennis court now and the odds are not in his favor.

The person placing the plate on the table in front of him is the same outgoing and charming guy
Chuuya’s known since he first entered the academy walls. Silver-haired, with kind eyes and an
even kinder heart, he’s grown a bit taller and broadened slightly but his look remained the same.
Calm and thoughtful, always concentrated on you even when you’re not the one speaking.

“Chuuya?” He says, a hint of surprise flashing in his voice. “What are you doing here?”

“Shirase,” he nods in acknowledgment, not hiding a smile. He’s not rushing to take a closer look at
the duck, not yet. Instead, his gaze is locked on the small embroidered patch right over the chest
pocket of his chef’s jacket. Chef, says the golden thread over the fabric. “Glad to see you fulfilling
your dream.”

At first, he seems at a loss, and Chuuya takes a fair share of enjoyment in watching his
stupefaction. At some point, it looks like Shirase is a bit scared of him, which he doesn’t see as a
bad thing. Even though he prefers to think that he left himself, everybody knows the truth, and the
truth is that he was kicked out, shamelessly, despite the fact that Verlaine’s final words were
sugarcoated in lies. And now the person who was once his best friend is his substitution in the
position he used to crave more than anything in life.

“I hope you will have a pleasant evening,” Shirase nods politely, hiding his hands behind his back.
“I have to get back to work.”

“You knew it was me who ordered, didn’t you?” Chuuya smirks, not letting him go just yet,
tapping his fingers against the table. “The waitress told you. That is why you decided to bring out
my order yourself. To make sure.”

“Chuuya, listen,” Shirase sighs, eyeing the restaurant for an instant and returning his gaze back to
him. “I know we had… disagreements in the past but that doesn’t mean-”

“How does it feel?” Chuuya cuts in, taking a sip of his wine. “Wearing my jacket, making the
chef’s special I came up with first, ordering my cooks. The warm spot is easy to get used to, isn’t
it?”

Shirase takes a deep breath, biting his lip.

“I’m not the one you should be mad at,” he says at last.

“Oh, really?” Chuuya laughs and puts his glass aside, leaning closer to the table and taking a look
at the plate in front of himself. He grabs a fork and a knife and disassembles the duck in several
quick movements, just like Raphaël did when Chuuya cooked for him for the first time. “Let’s
see… not all fat is scored off the meat, I can see it even with the naked eye, the polenta is
undercooked, and the figs are dry, you should’ve drizzled it with olive oil but you most certainly
forgot about it because you’ve always been a lame cook.” He drops the fork and the knife on the
table and leans back, crossing his arms on his chest. “Should I go on?”

It’s hard to believe that the person standing in front of him now, nodding at his every word with a
smirk, was his closest friend once. That it was he who lay with Chuuya on the dorm room’s floor
for nights on end, speculating about recipes and alternatives, laughing out loud at the most
ridiculous combinations. They’re both older now and complete strangers. Chuuya isn’t even sure
he remembers his face right.

“No,” Shirase finally says, looking at him dryly. “No, you shouldn’t.”

“What’s with bringing your team along?” Chuuya continues anyway. He’s too eager to find out all
the details about his brand-new replacement, it’s almost like he enjoys getting his heart broken
over and over again. “Was it an obligatory condition in your employment contract?”

“I invited people I was comfortable working with, that’s it,” Shirase crosses his arms on his chest.
“Unlike you, I spent my time after the academy pulling some strings instead of, let me remember
how you’d put it,” he hums. “Kissing Verlaine’s ass.”

Chuuya takes a deep breath, taken aback. The audacity of his.

“Well, I guess it’s your job now,” he quickly collects himself, reaching for his wine glass and
taking a sip. “Don’t get too engaged or he’ll throw you away, too.”

“Don’t turn into a complete drunkard,” Shirase backfires, nodding at the glass in his hand. “Would
be upsetting to find out that you drank yourself to death in some shithole,” he gives him one last
smirk before turning to walk away. “Such a waste of talent.”

At the table, everyone’s mostly quiet. The only one who’s trying to make some small talk is
Tanizaki but he’s careful enough not to ruin the mood. Secretly, Dazai wishes that he would do
this, he can’t stand the awkward silence they’re all in, chewing on the cake and exchanging short
comments about its immaculate taste. The awkwardness stems mostly from Ranpo’s attitude
towards all of this and Dazai would lie if he said that he doesn’t get his feelings. He does.

At some point in their lame conversation, Ranpo excuses himself to go for a smoke and looks
surprised when Dazai follows him outside, without the coat, for it’s already warm enough to
withstand some time embraced by the spring wind without trembling all over afterwards. Dazai
asks him for a cigarette because he didn’t care to bring his own pack, it lies forgotten somewhere
in his coat pocket. Ranpo hands him the cigarette and a lighter and then they’re both quiet for some
time, leaning against the dorm building and looking at the sky. Dazai almost startles when Ranpo
breaks the silence first.

“He’s so talented,” he says, looking down and tapping off the ash. “He’s so fucking talented and
it’s so fucking unfair. It should’ve been me instead.”

It should’ve been you, that’s what Dazai deciphers from his words. But he can’t be mad at him, not
for this. After all, Ranpo doesn’t exactly mourn Edgar’s leaving as his boyfriend, as the person he
loves, it’s much deeper than that. He wanted a better future for him, he still does, even if he doesn’t
see Edgar as a winner he will most certainly miss him once he’s not on his side in the final weeks.
Ranpo’s reverence for him is worth admiring, and Dazai can understand it, probably more than
anyone.

What started as his competition with Chuuya has long grown into something more, into them
working side by side, not against each other. Dazai can’t see anyone except him as a winner.
Probably the same thing stands fair for Ranpo and Edgar. When we love someone, when we
cherish them, it is natural to wish for the best for them, to want them to succeed more than
anything else. And Ranpo’s reaction, after all, is nothing out of the ordinary. The moment he
walked into the room earlier today, Dazai could see it written all over him. He was too engaged in
whatever they had with Chuuya, the little secret shared only between the two of them, and even
though he knew that it wouldn’t grow into something more than just them kissing until they
couldn’t even speak, the sudden change in mood took him aback anyway. Ranpo looked so broken
that Dazai felt sorry for him, no matter how relieved he was that he stayed, that they both did.

“Losing the contest doesn’t mean that he won’t have other chances to pursue the career he wants,
you know,” he says quietly. “I’m sure that Edgar’s gained enough popularity on TV and he’s now
one of the public’s favorites. He will be bombarded with job offers, you’ll see.”

“We both know who’s the main favorite here,” Ranpo smirks, studying the cigarette in his fingers.
He then takes a deep breath and looks up at Dazai again. “It’s like you’d walked into this place
already a winner.”

Dazai can’t help but laugh at this, though weakly and without taking much joy in it. If only people
could stop assuming that everything comes easy to him and that he knows what he’s doing. Most of
the time, he really doesn’t. There was a giant gap between him at sixteen, bright shining eyes and
an unwavering desire to learn and do more, and him at twenty-six, uncovering and unfolding
almost everything he was once good at from the basics.

But when he was still fourteen, everything – as it usually did – started from a test.

“Pears,” Verlaine taps his fingers against the table, not looking away from Dazai even for a second,
his gaze concentrated only on him. Dazai glances at Fukuzawa from time to time, taking in his
unwavering posture, leaning against their kitchen counters, hands crossed on his chest. Dazai is
seated, right in front of Verlaine, and they were supposed to have small talk. They don’t. What
started as a non-binding conversation about the roots of his cooking skill now turned into an
interrogation. Verlaine aims at exposing his every weak point so effortlessly, almost like peeling
off an apple’s skin, and every glance of his gives Dazai chills even though he’d rather drop dead
than admit it out loud.

“Blue cheese,” he says, not a hint of a shiver in his voice.

Verlaine raises an eyebrow at him.

“Strawberries.”

“Tomatoes,” Dazai backfires. “Works well with fish and some types of seafood.”

“Oranges,” Verlaine tilts his head to the side. Feels like he’s now taking this whole thing as a
challenge more for himself than for Dazai.

“Spruce,” he leaps without hesitation. “Great combination for a mousse or a syrup.”

At this, Verlaine lets out a smile that somehow makes him look much younger. Dazai doesn’t know
whether he should smile back so he does nothing, instead keeping his expression unbothered and
breathing steadily. He doesn’t think that he’s said something out of the ordinary, really. Any other
cook would come up with the exact same combinations as he did, right?

“Fascinant,” Verlaine takes a breath, interlocking his fingers on the dining table. “I have no
words. Among all the people I asked before, you’re the only one who told me the things I had
never heard from them. Can I ask you something?”

Dazai glances at Fukuzawa briefly as if to get his permission but he only nods, calmly, in
response.

“Yes.”

“Where did you learn all of these?”

He stills, looking down, hiding his eyes almost in shame. When a person like Paul Verlaine asks
something like this, you ought to have an answer. I read it in a book I didn’t care to remember the
title of. I had come up with some of these combinations myself long before I even found out they
were a thing. I once had to spend my last pocket money allocated by the orphanage to buy a plastic
box of fresh strawberries from the grocery store, I didn’t know they were cheaper to get from street
vendors back then. Elise had been growing mint in the garden only for me to use before she was
ordered to cut it off because of the infestation of stray cats. None of these answers seem
prestigious enough, it’s anything but what Verlaine expects to hear from him. And so Dazai goes
for an even dumber response.

“It just feels right,” he says, shrugging and biting his lip. “To combine incompatible things.”

At fifteen, another test follows.

While Fukuzawa’s sous-chef is shouldering his workload at the restaurant alone, he takes a two-
week-long leave, heading to France and bringing Dazai along. Paris is just as busy and crowded as
he’d always imagined. They come at perfect timing: Verlaine is just about to interview some
fledgling cooks for his new restaurant’s kitchen staff, and Dazai gets the honor to oversee their
cooking along with the chef.

“Notice how she’s cutting the onions,” Verlaine whispers to him, pointing at one of the candidates,
a dark-haired young woman with a stone-cold expression on her face though a frighteningly sharp
look in her eyes. “You almost can’t see the blade movements, yet the rings are as thin as the pieces
of paper.”

“But she may have trouble with chopping,” Dazai suggests, lowering his voice. “The process is
much faster and requires more concentration.”
“That’s what you’re thinking now,” Paul hums, but the surprise in his voice doesn’t go unnoticed.
“You still have a lot to learn.”

Fukuzawa is renting a two-room apartment in one of the quieter parts of the city, and Dazai takes
pains not to get lost every time he’s roaming around all by himself. The streets are always busy
regardless of the time of the day, but he ignores the faceless crowds for the sake of bakery displays
and wall-wide windows of fancy restaurants. Some of them have menu stands outside, just next to
their heavy glass doors, and Dazai always approaches them like a spy, his fingertips brushing over
the lines ghostly, while he’s trying to distinguish and remember the names of dishes and
ingredients. Soupe l’oignon, croque-monsieur, pâtes salés, fricassée de chatrou, fruits de mer,
mille-feuille…

“Should I put an article before every word?” He hums to himself, bending lower and scratching his
chin. “La soupe?”

“Nouns can be either feminine or masculine,” Verlaine instructs him later as they’re drinking fresh
lemonade on one of the Parisian terraces. He takes out a pen from his chest pocket and grabs a
clean white tissue from the holder. Click. Dazai moves his chair closer to him to see what he’s
writing down. “The indefinite articles for different genders are un and une. The definite ones are le
and la. If we’re talking about indefinite plurals, des will do. And for definite plurals it’s-”

“Les?” Dazai asks, studying his neat handwriting on the piece of cloth.

Even without looking up at him, he feels Verlaine smiling.

“You study fast.”

“Not my first time,” Dazai hums, remembering how he used to hit the books in his English classes,
knowing pretty well that if he wanted to become a prominent cook he had to expand his scope of
knowledge in as many spheres as possible. Surprisingly, he found himself quite prone to language
learning.

Just in a week, he’s already greeting Verlaine purely in French and can even keep a conversation
on basic topics without stuttering or rummaging for a correct word in his memory. Their meetings
mostly consist of revising local restaurants and spotting possible competitors to Fêtes Galantes
which is about to open in just several months. Every breakfast and lunch they spend together, but
dinners Verlaine always saves for his personal purposes. Dazai doesn’t try to ask him about it,
although truth be told, he’s curious to find out who he’s spending his evenings with. Does he have
a girlfriend? A wife? Dazai doubts it because Verlaine probably wouldn’t be spending so much
time tinkering in his future restaurant for nights on end if he had someone waiting for him at home.
Dating was never a sensitive subject back in the orphanage but Dazai had neither time nor
willingness to at least put his eye on someone. Perhaps thirteen was still too early for this sort of
affair anyway.

“What can you say about this?” Verlaine moves a plate with his order closer to him, letting him
take a brief look. Dazai must voice his concerns, if there are any, without giving it a try.

He puts his fingers on the edge of the plate, rotating it slowly and studying a meat steak placed just
in the middle of it. Is it supposed to be rosé?

“Overcooked,” he decides, leaning back and crossing his hands on his chest. “Even the extra fat
they used to cover this didn’t help much. I think it’s dry.”

Verlaine hums and grabs a fork and a knife from the table, cutting the steak in half and revealing
its middle. When the color of the meat proves Dazai’s words right, they both exchange triumphant
glances.

“Unbelievable,” Paul lets out a heavy sigh, putting the cutlery aside and taking a sip of his white
wine. “Could you really tell just by looking at it?”

“I mean,” Dazai frowns, grabbing a glass of his apple juice from the table. “Couldn’t you?”

The puzzle pieces start to slowly fall in line when Verlaine makes him meet Arthur Rimbaud. Tall,
thin and excessively pale but in a mesmerizing, aristocratic way, he reaches to shake his hand
gently, his black hair loose on his shoulders. Unlike Paul, he doesn’t speak Japanese at all, and
they have to communicate in a messy blend of English and French, which Dazai doesn’t really
mind as long as he catches him using familiar words and phrases.

“So you’re telling me that this young man in front of us is a cooking prodigy?” Arthur asks once
while the three of them are having lunch in Montmartre. When Paul nods in response, leafing
through the menu in his hands and choosing a dessert, Rimbaud turns to glance at Dazai. “Quel âge
as-tu?”

“Quinze,” says Dazai, carefully assessing his reaction.

“A bit old for starting out with a culinary career,” he jokes, hiding his quiet laugh behind the glass
of water. “Well, I won my very first local cooking competition when I was barely twelve.”

“And now you’re a sous-chef in one of the most prestigious Parisian restaurants,” Verlaine hums
and finally puts the menu aside, switching his attention to Dazai. There is a familiar mockery in his
voice, revealing that he doesn’t believe the aforementioned restaurant to be prestigious at all. “I’m
still struggling to talk him into joining my future team at Fêtes Galantes. I intend to make him a
chef and he’s hesitating anyway, can you imagine?”

“Oh, dear, I’m fed up with your promises,” Arthur sighs even though there is no irritation or
disappointment in his voice. “Open the restaurant first, and then we’ll see.”

“What is required for opening a restaurant?” Dazai wonders out loud, shifting his gaze between the
two of them.

“Money.”

“An entrepreneurial mindset,” Verlaine frowns, side-eying Rimbaud as soon as he hears his
response. “Well, money as well, but I wouldn’t point it out as a primary requirement.”

“Please,” Arthur smirks into his glass. “If it wasn’t for the fortune you’ve made with your teaching
job and regular cooking masterclasses, we wouldn’t be talking about this whole thing right now.”

“To understand how to run a restaurant,” Dazai braves a suggestion. “Don’t you need to at least try
working at one?”

“The little guy has a point,” Rimbaud hums.

“I’m almost as tall as you,” Dazai doesn’t hold back a comment mostly because it is true; he’s been
growing at an alarming pace lately, most of his old clothes don’t fit anymore as he’s gaining more
weight and getting noticeably broad-shouldered. Of course, he still has a long way ahead before his
voice finally breaks and he becomes similar to those high-school boys in terms of physical
appearance but he’s already a glaring difference from the way he looked even a year ago.
“I had worked in a restaurant,” Verlaine protests, reaching to pull a pack of cigarettes and a lighter
out of his inner pocket. Rimbaud doesn’t hold back a snort. “Albeit just for two weeks before I got
bored, but still, it’s my experience, right?” His gaze travels between the two of them. “Right?”

Paul Verlaine has every right not to work in a restaurant for a single day in his life and still be one
of the most influential figures in the French culinary circle. Though Dazai has certain doubts about
his true work experience, he looks like a person who hides a lot, at least from him, for now. As he
learns from Fukuzawa, Verlaine’s entire bloodline were cooks or people working in closely related
spheres. Many of their authentic recipes and culinary manuals are considered classics, followed and
studied in all detail by generations of cooks to this day. Dazai must be glad that he’s the chosen
one, a close-passing meteorite that gets to know Paul Verlaine not only as a chef but as a person.
As long as it doesn’t concern cooking, though, they have no differences or grounds to quarrel over.
Verlaine is cheerful, kind, and frank. But as soon as Dazai gets to peel this layer off him, watching
how adamant he turns once he starts teaching people things, here’s where the struggle begins.

All his lectures and practical classes are closed for non-students, but Dazai gains a unique chance
to attend some of them, mostly hiding in the back rows and quietly making notes. Verlaine says a
lot of things he would argue about but doesn’t have the heart to. Instead, he writes all his
objections down, expecting a fitting moment to voice them aloud. When Paul asks him when he’s
going to cook something himself, Dazai is aback. His hands have been itching to touch the kitchen
appliances for quite a while but he still succumbed to being a silent observer.

“Should I?” He asks as they’re elbowing their way through one of the crowded academy halls.
Though it’s only Dazai who needs to eblow, because all of the students instantly give way to Paul
Verlaine as soon as they spot him, backing to the walls and exchanging amazed whispers. He’s a
star here. Dazai can see why.

“Of course, why not?” Verlaine hums, leafing through the notebook in his hands and closing it
when they finally stop in front of the auditorium. “I would actually want you to give a masterclass
to my students.”

Dazai freezes in his spot, not entering the room even when Verlaine holds the door for him.

Him?

“Me?” He asks, suddenly feeling like hiding in a shell somewhere and screaming out loud from
happiness at the same time. “But-”

“But what?” Verlaine asks with a slight frown. He doesn’t like when other people disagree with
him, it’s something Dazai has already learned; but most of the time, he just can’t help it. When
anything in his words or decisions feels wrong, he won’t let it slide. Sometimes it feels like the
only two people in the world who have the guts to disagree with Paul Verlaine are Rimbaud and
Dazai. But while Rimbaud usually does it in a cocky, confident manner, Dazai always thinks twice
before firing off. This time, however, he’s too aback to do so. “I know you think you’re too young
for this.”

“Young?” Dazai’s own frown deepens as he finally takes a step into the auditorium, letting the
door close slowly behind his back. In just half an hour, Verlaine will be lecturing a group of
freshmen here, and Dazai, as per usual, is invited to listen. A privilege that is, for some strange
reason, allowed only to him. “Your students are… adults, and I am still a schoolboy. I’ll make a
fool out of myself dare I teach them something.”

“You have more to teach them than you think,” Verlaine sighs as he approaches his table, sorting
through a pile of books probably gathered there by his personal assistant, a shy girl named
Meredith who was once an exchange student here. Dazai leans his back against the front row of
desks, crossing his arms on his chest. “And believe me, being eighteen doesn’t make you an adult.
Even twenty doesn’t.”

“Then what does?”

Verlaine lets out a brief smile and raises his hand, tapping his index finger against his temple.

“This,” he says. “And you, my dear, have more wits than most young people your age, as bitter as
it may sound.”

Dazai doesn’t always agree with everything Verlaine says. He thinks that he has a right to have his
own opinion, even if it contradicts the beliefs of the person he should look up to. When he talks
about it with Fukuzawa, he advises him not to listen to Verlaine blindly but filter it. Because Paul
may be arrogant and most of the time he is, and his approach to cooking is not something
Fukuzawa would want Dazai to adopt.

“He’s a big fan of classics,” he says, not looking up from the newspaper in his hands, even though
he mentioned previously that he had a hard time understanding French after so many years without
practice.

“What’s wrong with classics?” wonders Dazai, sitting across from him at their dining table and
sipping his tea.

“Nothing,” Fukuzawa answers in a dry tone. “You’re just not cut out for it.”

Dazai keeps thinking about his words for the next two days as he’s getting ready for the
masterclass, even though still being frightened to death by the mere thought of it. Verlaine is a fan
of classics, hell, he teaches other people classics, and Dazai can’t even make the simplest basic
sauce without peeping into the cookbook before every step. He’s not used to things being this
simple, but there’s this thing with the simplicity that makes it even worse for him. If something is
simple then it must be done perfectly. And perfection is a foreign concept to Dazai, regardless of
how genius he may appear to be.

“I can’t do this,” he sighs audibly, dropping his head onto the table and burying his face in the
book. Fukuzawa only hums at this, leaning against one of the kitchen counters and stirring his
coffee with a small spoon. Dazai lifts his head, looking at him desperately through the bangs of his
hair. “Let’s just cut my hands off so I’ll have a valid reason not to do this.”

“You can always back down,” Fukuzawa shrugs, taking a sip. “But-”

“It will disappoint Verlaine,” they both finish at the same time, and at this point, Dazai feels like
screaming out loud. “And you don’t want to disappoint Verlaine,” Fukuzawa mutters, more to
himself than to him, hiding his heavy sigh in his mug.

“What if I prepare a perfect class for those people, telling them everything I’ve learned while
struggling alone in the orphanage’s kitchen,” Dazai runs both of his hands through his hair. “But in
the end, one of them asks me something like what’s the difference between béchamel and mornay
and laughs to my face when I don’t tell them the answer?”

Fukuzawa walks to the table and puts his mug on it, sitting down on the chair and facing Dazai.

“I won’t say anything about your cooking skills or knowledge, I’m more than sure you’ve got
enough of both,” he tilts his head to the side. “But I’ve been friends with Paul Verlaine for quite a
long time to know that just being a good cook is not enough to catch his eye. You need to have this
brilliance in yourself, the unique kind, that is granted to one in a million,” he leans back in his
chair. “Do you understand what I am talking about?”

Dazai places his head atop his hands that are resting on the open book, glancing up at him. Here he
is, still a little boy, despite how mature he tries to appear, knowing too little to impress someone as
great as Paul Verlaine. And yet he does. He has no idea how but he does.

“I think that Paul saw something in you,” Fukuzawa goes on when he doesn’t say anything. “He’s
known for having teacher’s pets, of course, he always picks favorites, that’s the kind of a man he
is. But you,” he shakes his head slightly. “You are different, Dazai, and, apparently, very dear to
him. Would be foolish of you to lose his trust now.”

Foolish of me, Dazai thinks to himself later as he bends over the kitchen table deep into the night,
Fukuzawa long asleep in his room. The lines in the countless cookbooks are blurring before his
eyes and the mix of smelly condiments in the air makes it hard to breathe. He opens the windows
wide and then starts walking back and forth across the room, thinking that he probably needs an
hour or two of sleep. But he would be a liar if he said that Fukuzawa’s words didn’t pull some
string deep inside him. Would be foolish of him to lose Verlaine’s trust. But what if keeping his
trust means shattering his own? Does Dazai trust himself? Can he, after everything he’s been
through?

He closes the last book on the table, placing the entire pile aside, and puts his apron back on,
starting from the very beginning. So what if he doesn’t know the difference between béchamel and
mornay? So what if he’ll become no one if he refuses to conform?

Foolish of you.

Cooking once helped Dazai save his own life. And now it’s digging his grave.

Foolish of me.

But he doesn’t know about this yet.

Dazai is still finishing his cigarette when he spots Chuuya walking out of the building, his jacket
on and his hair combed into a loose ponytail though it wasn’t before. He quickly locates him and
walks closer, hiding his hands in the pockets of his jeans.

“Hey,” he says, his smile unsure. He looks on edge, probably because he spotted Ranpo when he
was coming back inside. “Don’t tell me you’ve just had a beef with my best friend.”

“Who do you think I am?” Dazai smirks, putting his cigarette out and hiding his hand as well. It’s
been getting colder or he’s just stood outside without his coat on for too long. “Nobody’s still
willing to speak in there?”

“Actually, they are,” Chuuya hums as he comes closer to lean against the wall next to him.
“Kunikida turned out to be extremely skillful at breaking the ice. He asked some elaborate shit
about the cake preparation and dragged both Tanizaki and Edgar into a heated discussion. I hope
Ranpo will join them, eventually.”

Dazai only smiles at that and for some time, they keep silent as the camp grows lazy and sleepy
around them, the windows of the dorm building like lit candles behind their backs. He feels that
Chuuya wants to say something, somehow, but doesn’t know where to start.

“I’ve had this vision lately,” he finally breaks the silence, breathing out slowly. “Of you cooking in
the final round, with a usual mess at your workplace because you will apparently never stop
wasting food,” Chuuya rolls his eyes with a glimpse of a smile, glancing at him, but turns serious
again right after. “But I’m not there, competing against you,” he sighs, looking down as if
accepting something that is unalterably bound to happen. “I’m at the balcony, cheering for you.”

“Chuuya,” Dazai starts with caution but gets cut off.

“No,” he shakes his head. “Don’t say anything, please. It’s just fear. It will pass.”

Something in the way he says it makes Dazai look at him, closely, focusing on his face as if for
this brief moment, it’s the only important thing in the world.

There are many things he cherishes about Chuuya. There are fewer ones that he despised once. If to
talk about something earthling, human, Dazai likes his looks; he likes how the forelocks of his
auburn hair get into his eyes when he’s concentrated on something, and how he blows them away,
not letting even a moment slip away; he likes his eyes, bright, courageous and thoughtful, the way
he always looks up at him, either to scold him or reach closer for reason whatever; he likes his
voice, how stern it turns sometimes when he commands someone, how he’s suddenly ten years
older and wiser without changing at all at the same time; he likes how he can almost fall dead at
his own workplace but keep perfecting the dish until there isn’t a single flaw left; he likes his
determination, his sense of aim that’s always there. Dazai doesn’t like his fear, however earthly it
makes him appear. He wants to grab his shoulders, look into his face, and repeat time after time, if
even you are afraid, what does it make me, where do I hide?

“You won’t be standing on that balcony,” Dazai finally says, shaking his head. “You will cook,
with me, by my side, okay?” Chuuya says nothing. “Okay?”

He just stares in front of himself for some time before letting out a weak, bitter smile.

“I will crush you,” he almost whispers the words out. The cold determination with which he says it
somehow makes Dazai admire him more. But then Chuuya turns to look at him, no trace of bravery
in his eyes, and his face falls. “Promise you will crush me, too.”

Dazai stops his rush of thoughts. How is he going to win? How is he going to win against the
person whose willingness to give out anything for the title makes him want to drop the knife? But
then, he takes a deep sigh. No. No matter what he feels for Chuuya, no matter how afraid he
actually is of the mere possibility of them confronting each other for the final challenge, no matter
what he promised once, to Fukuzawa, Verlaine, Rimbaud, himself, he won’t risk it all. And he
won’t regret this choice if he wins. He will celebrate the victory.

“I will,” he says as he reaches to grab Chuuya’s hand, almost as a reflex. I will crush you. You will
crush me. We will crush each other. And only one of us will grab the crown. Dazai’s thumb
brushes over his knuckles before he breathes out. “I need to tell you something.”

Chuuya glances at their hands and looks up with a slight frown.

“What is it?”

It just feels right.

To combine incompatible things.

“Just,” he stumbles upon his own intentions as he backs away. A liar, a shameless liar, and a
fucking coward, again. All those years of being at odds with the thing he loved the most in the
world didn’t teach him anything at all. “I’m glad that I met you.”
In his head, he adds, after all the time that I’d been wondering how it would feel like.

Later, deep into the night, Dazai is lying in his bed sleepless, staring blankly at the screenshot of an
old article from the French culinary magazine he took almost three years ago. Chuuya Nakahara,
25, from Paul Verlaine’s favorite student to the youngest chef in the history of Fêtes Galantes in
Paris. Chuuya’s beautiful face in the picture; he’s young, ambitious, and devoid of worry.

Am I your replacement?

Or are you mine?

Hold still. Keep breathing. And even if you feel like you’re weaker than them, don’t let it show.
Ranpo ties his apron behind his back and takes a deep breath one last time before stepping into the
kitchen. The first day, the first circle of hell to come through. It feels easier somehow, with that
guy Chuuya by his side, but he still seems too discreet of a person to ever let anyone come too
close to him. Ranpo usually doesn’t take much pain making friends, but with him, it’s different.
Even though most of the time Ranpo has to pretend that he isn’t scared to death as soon as Chuuya
so much as glances at him, he still holds his smile in place; he wants to befriend him and keeps
acting on that.

Befriending Chuuya turns out to be a journey full of extreme turns and unfortunate events. Even
when he lets Ranpo help him with something he still keeps his distance, and with time, Ranpo
realizes that it’s better not to intervene when Chuuya has another breakdown of his, not to dig
deeper no matter how desperate Ranpo is to help sometimes. Next to Chuuya, it’s easier to do
simple, mundane things. Like the time they lie in the snow outside together, making snow angels
with their arms and legs and laughing, even though it takes Chuuya much more time to laugh, to
admit that he likes what they are doing, being careless like little kids with an unexistent tomorrow.
They talk culinary, business, the past (a lot of it), relationships, even some stupid celebrity gossip
once or twice. Then, Ranpo realizes that Chuuya is also kind of a celebrity himself. Though in
narrow circles, though for some reason he’s fighting with all his might to erase his past completely,
he is. And Ranpo, a law academy exile and the main disappointment of the family, couldn’t
compare to him in any possible regard.

And now that they are closer to the final contest than ever before, it feels rather ridiculous to think
that, among all the skilled cooks that could’ve been in his place, Ranpo is still here, and Nakahara
Chuuya himself is one of his opponents. Along with Dazai Osamu, a figure still too mysterious for
Ranpo to form any sort of a steady impression of, and Kunikida Doppo, the one he’s shaking hands
with right now before walking to one of the workplaces, his heart skipping a beat with every step
he takes. He may appear fearless, he may appear too reckless to be afraid in the first place, but the
truth is, he’s none of these things.

This week, they have been wearing themselves out in draining contests, most of which were crueler
than ever before, for one sole purpose, defining the best three. There were no black aprons
anymore. Instead, each one of them was scoring points at the end of every competition, and today,
Friday, the two of them with the lowest points are to encounter each other for the one last battle.
Ranpo failed three timed contests when he was too absentminded to do everything much faster than
he usually would, and Kunikida fucked up each one of the desserts he’d been assigned with during
the week.

“Good luck,” it’s all Yosano says in a dry, serious tone, right after Ango finishes announcing the
rules.

Ranpo holds back a smirk. He will definitely need all his luck for this one.
Yesterday, when he was the last one to leave the kitchen, a quiet but determined voice called him
by name when he was already reaching for the door handle. Ranpo turned his head and saw
Fukuzawa leaning against the judges’ table, his hands crossed on his chest. Now, with cameras
turned off and no studio light, he looked somewhat different. Even his posture changed, his
shoulders fell, and suddenly, he came off as an utterly exhausted man.

“Yes, chef?” Ranpo walked closer, stopping in front of him and wrinkling his apron in his hand.

“I can see that something has been bothering you since we announced the final results of the
week,” Fukuzawa fired off right away without exchanging courtesies. Ranpo was not used to
talking to him outside the contest. He didn’t know how to react at first. “Is it because you will be
competing against Kunikida tomorrow?”

“Yes,” he said, and it was partly a lie. The thing that bothered him more than that was the fact that
Edgar wouldn’t be there to cheer for him. “He’s a skilled cook and a very strong opponent, I’m
afraid I can’t compare to him.”

Fukuzawa let out a brief smile, looking away and nodding to himself.

“I’ve heard these words already,” he said. “So, so many times that I lost count. Young people like
you, ambitious and brave, tend to downplay themselves so that if they fail, it won’t hurt as much as
they expect it to.”

“I’m not downplaying myself,” Ranpo denied, though weakly, afraid to look him in the eye for
more than a second. “It’s just… I know Kunikida’s skills and I know mine. His experience and
knowledge exceed mine in times.”

Fukuzawa was silent for some time, thinking something over before he sighed.

“Have you, by any chance, heard anything about the man called Paul Verlaine?” Ranpo nodded. Of
course, he had. Paul Verlaine is someone Chuuya never wanted to talk about. “I met him at a
culinary competition in France a long, long time ago. By that time, he’d already won several
prestigious awards as one of the most skilled chefs in Europe, and he wasn’t even eighteen yet.
And I… I was just a boy,” Fukuzawa shrugged, and a bitter smile touched his lips. “A boy without
a name, and nobody was actually interested in me. All the attention in the room was on the main
star, and I wasn’t worth even his fingernail.”

“Did you win?” Ranpo cut in.

“I did,” Fukuzawa nodded and his smile grew wider. “But don’t ask me how. I still don’t know,
even after all these years, because Paul was a menace in the kitchen. He still is, I’m sure, although
we haven’t met in person in a long time.”

“Then why are you telling me this?” Ranpo frowned, feeling even more helpless than before. “Isn’t
it supposed to be a cautionary tale?”

“It is,” Fukuzawa glanced at him but his gaze quickly slid to the apron he was still holding in his
hand, lifelessly and ready to just drop it at any moment. “The thing I want to say is, being no one
doesn’t make you less worthy of something great.”

“Some people become more successful than others exactly because they are better than them, isn’t
that so?” Ranpo suddenly remembered that time when he was standing in his parents’ house, in the
kitchen, scattering the right words in his head even though none of them seemed so back then. They
kicked me out. He took a breath. But it’s okay. Another one. I never wanted to be a lawyer anyway.
“They become more successful because they love what they are doing,” Fukuzawa shook his head.
“And also because competition means nothing to them. Do you want to know what Verlaine said to
me right after the contest was over?” Ranpo nodded again. “He stretched his hand to me, and when
I shook it, he said, thank you. It was my honor to work with someone as skilled as myself.”

Hold still. Keep breathing. In less than three hours, everything will be over. Ranpo takes a deep
breath as he’s staring at the fridge shelves in the storage room, his time counting down second by
second. He shudders when Kunikida appears right next to him, almost two heads taller, fixing the
glasses on the bridge of his nose with the tip of his middle finger.

“Do you know what you’re going to cook?” He asks in a casual tone, not looking at him.

And then Ranpo lets out a smile.

Good luck rotting in the kitchen of some mediocre diner for the rest of your life, then, his father
almost knocked the chair over as he jumped on his feet, granting him a long gaze, full of
disappointment and rage, before storming out through the open door behind Ranpo’s back, making
him squeeze his eyes shut.

“Yes,” he says. “Yes, I think I do. But I might need your help.”
 What Happened in Paris
Chapter Notes

the longest chapter so far, enjoy!!

and please, share your thoughts in the comments, dying to see your guesses about the
winner!!

you can follow me on twitter: @acuteguwu

love you all, ana

Question: Who was your biggest influence as a chef?

“I think it was my father,” Kunikida interlocks his fingers in his lap, smiling lightly despite the
bitterness the memory brings. “He used to say that the love of cooking was in our blood. It’s a great
pity that I could wholly understand what he meant only after his death.”

“My first boss, Ryuurou Hirotsu,” Dazai doesn’t think that he’s lying, not completely, at least. He
takes a deep breath before going on, well aware of all the piercing gazes on himself. Out of the
three finalists, he is the one whose persona remains completely mysterious. That is why the press
is desperate to dig at least a bit deeper into his past in all possible and impossible ways. “Along
with my first books and manuals on professional cooking, he gave me the most valuable advice in
this craft. Actually, I believe that he gave me my very first insight into culinary, to say the least.”

“There is a person I still cherish with all my heart, despite how little time we actually spent
cooking hand in hand and making culinary talk,” Chuuya bites his tongue, lowering his gaze.
Verlaine is going to be furious. “It’s Arthur Rimbaud, one of the former chefs of Fêtes Galantes.
This name needs no introduction, I suppose,” some of the reporters laugh at this, making their
notes, and Chuuya feels a spike of spiteful triumph. He glances at Dazai who’s sitting on his right,
but he doesn’t look back, blankly staring at the room instead.

Question: For you, personally, what was the most remarkable contest in the entire show?

“I loved that time when we were making croquembouche,” Kunikida recalls, instantly making
everyone else laugh. “But, jokes aside, watching Sakaguchi Ango cook was something else. I
mean, I’d known he was an unrivaled pastry chef, but getting the honor of watching him in action
was the thing I’m extremely thankful for.”

“My first black apron contest,” Dazai fires off without much thinking, noticing Chuuya’s surprised
gaze on himself, even though he quickly hides it. “Spoiling three risottos in a row was spectacular.
I mean, can I even be called a chef after such a humiliation?”

Chuuya waits until everyone stops laughing and takes a deep breath, endless memories running
through his head. When the attention finally switches to him, he smiles.

“Our last paired contest,” he says, knowing that he needs to elaborate. This, however, doesn’t mean
that he has to lie. “Cooking under Gogol’s supervision was great fun, and I was glad that I could
expand my scope of knowledge by working with Ukrainian cuisine for the first time ever. Even if it
didn’t go as plainly as I hoped it would,” he waits for the reporters to finish making their notes and
catches the moment to glance at Dazai. Their gazes cross, and this time, neither of them is smiling.
There is something Chuuya left out, though, and they both know what it was. That contest was the
first time he realized clearly that he was in love with Dazai.

Chuuya averts his eyes first, forcing a reserved smile.

Question: Could you predict that exactly these two people would be your competitors in the
show’s final round?

“I mean, I could picture almost anyone here, except for myself,” Kunikida eyes them both for a
second with an unchanging expression, fixing his glasses. “I don’t think I’m the strongest
contestant, and every other person deserved a chance to win. But I’m here, and it means
something. Actually, it means a lot to me.”

“I could imagine Chuuya making it to the final round,” Dazai says easily as, in fact, he wasn’t
thinking about his answer at all. He knows that the press loves hearing them talk about each other,
and today, he feels generous enough to present this rare opportunity to them on a silver platter. “If
you really think of it, his skills are on a completely different level.”

“Oh, drop it,” Chuuya rolls his eyes but he doesn’t sound irritated at all, if a bit uncomfortable.

“No, let me elaborate,” insists Dazai. “While also fighting for his own place in the contest, Chuuya
managed to always help everyone else when they needed it. He taught me so much, in fact, and
I’m sure that a lot of other former contestants can say the same thing.”

“What exactly did Chuuya teach you?” Asks one of the reporters, ready to put down everything he
will say.

“To substitute vanilla with almond extract,” he smiles, recalling numerous times that Chuuya had
sworn he wouldn't help him with anything while they were competing and still ended up advising
him with his processes, no matter how pissed he looked while doing it. “To add dried herbs while
still cooking and fresh herbs after the dish is finished. Caramelize white chocolate in the oven. Use
coarse salt wisely while cooking. Should I continue?”

“No, please, it’s enough,” it’s Chuuya who says it, even though Dazai spots him smiling for a brief
second. “Next question,” he gestures dismissively without answering himself.

Question: What was the funniest moment on set?

“When Tanizaki spilled his custard all over the floor before it could thicken, and Kenji slipped on
it and fell,” Kunikida says, trying with all his might to keep himself from smiling a bit because he
already knows that both Tanizaki and Kenji will be after his ass once they watch the press
conference. “It was when we were cooking with the lights off.”

“When Gin beat Tachihara up with a kitchen spatula,” says Dazai and hears Chuuya next to him
chuckle. “Though I’m afraid they cut it from the show. Anyway, I hope there’ll be a special
episode with bloopers or something like this because it was hilarious.”

“For me, it was when Dazai got scolded for drinking on set,” Chuuya finally says, and it looks like
he’s fighting for his life with how much he’s trying not to laugh. Even though he’s basically
discrediting Dazai right now, it feels relieving to see this rare genuine smile on his face. “I
understand that your very first black apron contest is a very stressful experience indeed, but
downing half a bottle of wine with three cameras set on your face from different angles was
absolutely unnecessary.”

Dazai has to reach to him and push his shoulder for this, even though everyone in the room,
reporters included, is laughing.

After the press conference with the three best cooks in Japan is over, they still have some time to
take pictures in their chef jackets, giving out fake smiles and nods and concealing how drained
they all actually feel. For the past few days, they’ve been preparing for the final competition that
will decide everything and completely alter the course of the winner’s career. Chuuya’s been
hitting the books like never before. Kunikida fell asleep on the kitchen table three nights in a row,
with his glasses slid somewhere onto his forehead, and he actually scared Dazai to death once
when he went downstairs to grab a glass of water. And if you ask Dazai what he’s been up to, the
answer is extremely simple. Resting. Sleeping from ten to sixteen hours on average, working out,
watching movies on his laptop in the dead of night, tucked in his bed. Basically, he’s been doing
everything that was as far from cooking as he could imagine. He needs to let his mind and hands
rest, forget about the main purpose for some time in order to fulfill his task flawlessly when the
decisive moment comes. It’s the same way it’s always been. Like learning poems by heart in high
school. Cramming in the evening, drumming the words into his head, then going for a long night's
sleep without recalling any of the lines, and waking up remembering the thing word by word, no
matter how long and abstruse it sometimes was.

Looking at the three of them there, in a brightly lit and spacious conference hall, all unbothered and
cheerful, with wide smiles on their faces, it was probably impossible to imagine the ordeal they’d
been going through at the time. The chain of previous events was chaotic and could hardly fall into
one single picture. There was Dazai burying his face into Kunikida’s shoulder in their smoking
spot, a cigarette burning his fingers, Kunikida’s hands embracing him firmly instead of all the
words he could say. There was Ranpo’s baggage placed on the ground next to the waiting car and
long hugs between the three of them, the longest one, of course, with Chuuya. There were laughs
and tears and words, so many words Dazai felt nauseous because of them, because he couldn’t say
anything in return, because he felt, for the first time in his life, like all his courage was slitting his
throat from the inside. There was spring. A beautiful, blooming spring, with flowery trees, sweet
smells filling the air, a lot of rain, and even more sunlight. There were knives and forks and
spatulas and pots and frying pans. There were condiments and seasonings. There were now chef’s
jackets instead of the simple white aprons they all had been wearing up to the final week. There
was a late-night video call with Tachihara and Gin who were on a long vacation somewhere in the
Alps, joking and fooling around as they always were. But, most importantly, there was a rejection.
A breakup without even dating first. A finish line in the middle of an empty highway.

When did it all begin?

Probably, it began shortly after Ranpo had lost his final competition against Kunikida. Dazai
doesn’t think he did it on purpose, though. To be frank, Ranpo made it so far into the contest only
because he was driven by his own sheer enthusiasm.

The thing is, Kunikida is a very skilled cook. Dazai knows a born chef when he sees one. Their
days in the room together are usually filled with the rustle of books or the sounds of cooking
tutorials on YouTube. Kunikida mostly marvels at European cooks, chefs of top-tier Michelin
restaurants in France, Italy, Switzerland, or someplace else, watching their old masterclasses with
Japanese subtitles and filling page after page in his notebook with almost frantic notes. Dazai
pretends that he’s studying, too, but in fact, he’s just reading manga on his phone. He’s not a big
fan of it, though, and most young people would probably say that he’s already too much of a geezer
for it, but when he needs a distraction from cooking, anything will do. At some point, he starts
listening to music in his earbuds to isolate himself from hearing the constant remarks coming from
Kunikida’s laptop. Flambez, nappez, mouillez, blanchissez…

Dazai covers his face with both of his hands.

Fermez-la!

“Hey,” Kunikida pauses his show and glances at him over the laptop placed in his lap. Dazai taps
on one of the earbuds, turning the music off, and nods back. “Are you busy?”

He considers lying but then thinks better of it.

“Not really. What is it?”

Kunikida is rarely the first one to initiate a conversation. He’s mostly reserved and overly grumpy,
concentrated on his work even when he has a deserved day off. Dazai knows that Chuuya studies a
lot, burying himself over and over again even in those cookbooks that he already knows by heart,
but with Kunikida, it’s different. Sometimes it feels like he’s running on gasoline because
whenever Dazai wakes up in the morning or enters the room after his evening walk, he’s not
sleeping. One could say that Kunikida is so well-versed in culinary because he reads about it a lot
and practices it all the time and that most of his skill is purely mechanical, but Dazai knows that
there’s something else to it. The four of them are still here because they have something others
didn’t. They have a feeling. Dazai has curiosity. Ranpo has enthusiasm. Chuuya has loyalty. But
Kunikida, he’s better, because he has love. And this is something Dazai often finds himself jealous
of.

“Do you think Chuuya will win?” Of all the questions he could’ve asked, this is the most
unexpected one.

Dazai frowns. “Why are you asking me?”

Kunikida puts his laptop aside on the bed. “Because I know you have something to say.”

He glances down, closing his eyes for a moment, but surprisingly, he doesn’t feel uncomfortable
talking about the subject Kunikida brought up. For some strange reason, he almost always reads
Dazai like an open book and can tell what he’s thinking about without any evident signals. Maybe
this is something people consider friendship and maybe it just comes naturally, no matter if you
open up to it or not. No one here, except Fukuzawa, knows a thing about Dazai’s past. Even
Chuuya doesn’t, which is, for now, the cruelest battle among the ones Dazai’s fighting. He told
him something, of course, he did, but it was mostly superficial and only because it was required by
the rules of whatever game they were playing. Chuuya doesn’t know about Verlaine, about
Verlaine and him, about him after Verlaine. He doesn’t know what happened in Paris. And Dazai
is not sure whether he should keep hiding it from him any longer. But for now. Will Chuuya win
and make the sore losers out of them all?

“I hope so,” he shrugs but then thinks for a moment and nods, this time, much more confident. “I’m
sure he will. There’s no other way.”

Kunukida looks almost offended by his words. “Why? I mean, doesn’t he already have everything
a person like him could ever dream of?”

Dazai smiles at this, the smile’s bitter. If only he knew.

“But you and me,” Kunikida goes on without waiting for him to answer. “And even this kid,
Ranpo, we’re all almost thirty and we still have nothing.” If only he knew. “Don’t get me wrong,
I’m not holding any grudges against Chuuya, in fact, I used to revel in all his old interviews when
the contest just started. But hasn’t he already got his acknowledgment?” If only he knew.

The phrase almost slips off Dazai’s tongue. But he says another thing instead.

“My friend,” he sighs as he reaches for an open can of soda he’d placed on his nightstand and
raises it like a glass of champagne before taking a sip. “Trying to get back something you’d lost
once can be as reckless as fighting for it for the first time,” he averts his eyes, now staring at his
own reflection in the window. If only he knew. If only they all did. “Believe me, I know.”

The morning before the decisive contest between Kunikida and Ranpo, Dazai wakes up half an
hour earlier than he usually does, and Kunikida is already nowhere to be seen – probably, he’s in
the kitchen, using his last hours for practice. Even though he doesn’t have to cook or compete
today, Dazai still feels unsettled. There’s one crucial thing he has to do before entering the final
round of the show. He gets out of bed, takes a shower, gets dressed and freezes near the door,
eyeing his room for a long minute as if he’s never going to come back here. In some sense, such a
scenario is not completely impossible. If Kunikida loses today, Dazai’s room will never be the
same one he’s so used to.

When he leaves, walking out and closing the door, someone’s already waiting for him in the hall,
sitting on the windowsill. Dazai almost shudders as he spots Chuuya, holding his breath
involuntarily. He’s not reading, not scrolling through something on his phone, not listening to
music, nothing. He just sits there, staring at their camp, deserted and soaked in the bright morning
sunlight, and breathes steadily, but his posture looks uneasy even to the naked eye. Dazai tries to
swallow his worry and forces a relaxed smile as he walks closer, noticing more and more details
about him with every single step. Chuuya’s hair is loose, slightly touching his shoulders, and still a
bit damp after the shower. He hides the curly locks behind his ears as he leans back, placing one
leg on the windowsill and hugging his knee. However, as soon as he spots Dazai, he takes a deep
breath and jumps to the floor, as if suddenly collecting himself. They didn’t agree on seeing each
other this morning. In fact, they almost never do, but then end up bumping into each other outside
and walking in step all the way to the pavilion anyway.

“Good morning,” Chuuya says, not looking away from his face. His eyes seem brighter than usual
today, more calm and relaxed as if he’s finally had enough sleep and now feels completely at ease.
“I want to talk to you about something.”

Dazai doesn’t hold back a smile.

“Good,” he nods and walks closer, now leaning his back against the windowsill next to him and
hiding his hands in his pockets. “Because I want to talk to you, too.” As much as this simple
statement turns him inside out. “But you go first.”

“It’s serious,” Chuuya warns him as he turns to face him, leaning with his shoulder against the wall
and crossing his arms on his chest.

“I’m not joking either,” Dazai takes a breath, not smiling this time. Something tells him that,
whatever it is Chuuya wants to tell him, it will be nothing compared to his own confession. After
all, he’s been carrying it in his head wherever he goes for the past few weeks. “What is it?”

“Remember I told you that I would crush you?” He nods. Chuuya doesn’t think even for a second.
“I meant it.”

Dazai swallows, his nails digging into the skin of his palms in his pockets. “I know.”

“Winning is my priority, alright?” Chuuya says it slowly, almost as if explaining himself to an

infant. Dazai keeps his expression unbothered, only studying his face over and over again, how the
sunlight falls on it in a curved line, bordering on his eyes, barely touching his lashes. “I want my
career back. I want my life back, and this is my only chance. So I need to concentrate and cook in
the final competition as if it’s the last time I’m ever doing it. And also,” the light changes suddenly
as one of the clouds covers the sun. “I don’t want to fall in love with you.” Makes Dazai blink.

“Is there any particular reason why not?” He looks him in the eye.

“I believe I already told you,” Chuuya’s gaze narrows on him but there’s nothing threatening in his
look. “I will win first. And then, we’ll talk.”

Dazai catches a breath. Wow. It’s… cruel, at least. He wasn’t expecting it to feel this way, even
though a part of him knew, somehow, what Chuuya was going to say. Like with any competition,
any battlefield, parting is only a matter of time. Companionship, friendship, and even love, all
suddenly turn fragile whenever someone’s dream is at stake. Even worse, it seems, is when you
both dream of the exact same thing. Getting back something that was once yours and, for some
comical occurrence, you two happened to share it. And also.

Chuuya lied to him.

He’s already in love.

“I see,” but Dazai is no better. He thinks it over for a second, rushing the idea back and forth in his
own head, and bites his lower lip with a short smile. Chuuya had had all the prerequisites not to
choose him over victory and yet, it felt rather like a stab in the chest when he didn’t. And Dazai is a
wise man so he should do the same thing. “I’ll give you space, then.”

“What is it that you wanted to tell me?” Chuuya sighs as if he didn’t even hear his last words.

“Ah, yes,” Dazai looks down for a second, still biting his lip, and then glances back at him. What
happened in Paris? He lets out a wide grin. “Wanted to ask your advice on my latest recipe, that’s
it.”

Must stay there.

Chuuya doesn’t think he did the wrong thing. He’d been gathering his courage for a long time
before he finally fired off, and it happened to be much easier than he predicted. But perhaps, if he’d
waited only a little bit longer, he would’ve run away like a scared child instead of telling the truth,
though there was only a part of it in his words. He wants to win, this is right. He wants to win more
than anything in this world. And when he finally grabs the money, he wants to give himself
something he’s never had before. Space. He will open his own restaurant, where everything will be
exactly as he sees it, and it will bear no similarity to Fêtes Galantes whatsoever. Verlaine might
have given him his first home, but now, Chuuya is going to build himself a sanctuary.

He lied about not wanting to fall in love with Dazai, though, and he knows that Dazai could tell. He
doesn’t care. When he thought he fell in love for the first time, with his ex-boyfriend, the idea of
loving someone felt shameful, it felt like something he should’ve been embarrassed by. This time,
with Dazai, it’s different, and exactly because Chuuya doesn’t need to question his feelings
anymore. It feels natural, to be in love with him. Here he is, spotting Chuuya in the corridor,
approaching him in his usual playful steps, pretending that he’s not bothered by anything, and
Chuuya is in love with him. Here he is, arguing about something with Kunikida while puffing
cigarette smoke right into his face and laughing it off right away, and Chuuya is in love with him.
Here he is, standing next to him on the balcony, only the two of them this time, elbow to elbow,
and Chuuya is in love with him. Here he is, instructing Kunikida on what to do with his sauté, and
Chuuya is in love with him. And there’s nothing wrong with that, except for the fact that some
kinds of love have to wait.

Fukuzawa’s face, when he’s tasting Ranpo’s dish, is indifferent. Ranpo glances up, perhaps
seeking some reassurance, and Chuuya grants him a long proud smile and a slight nod. God, he’s
never been worried about someone else like this in his entire life. His worry about Dazai was
completely different in the first place because he always knew that eventually, Dazai would find
his way out, even if he was thrown into a pit of hell. He can’t say the same thing about Ranpo.
He’s smart, enthusiastic, and kind-hearted, and he loves what he’s doing. But he doesn’t love it in
the same way all of them do. He’s not ready to die for it.

“You don’t think he’ll actually win this one, do you?” Chuuya feels Dazai’s piercing gaze on
himself.

“No,” Chuuya admits with an undertone, not looking back at him. “But I want him to believe that
he can.”

“Chuuya, Dazai,” comes the voice from downstairs. It’s Yosano, nodding at them with a soft smile.
“Please, come down and join us here.”

As soon as he gets closer to Ranpo, Chuuya uses a moment to walk up to him and squeeze his
wrist, feeling how terribly he’s trembling. “You’ve got this,” he whispers before letting go of him
and stepping back. Ranpo turns to glance at him, sheer disbelief written all over his face. Chuuya
realizes that it was probably the first time ever that he initiated their touch. But the thought doesn’t
get to linger, as all the cameras are now focused on them. Chuuya glances at the judges’ table,
seeing three white jackets laid out on it, perfectly folded sleeve to sleeve. No more aprons starting
from now on. In five minutes or so, this room will have three potential winners.

“One of you will leave this place without a chef’s jacket today,” says Ango, locking his fingers in
front of himself. “The other three, though, will become the official finalists.”

“Kunikida, Ranpo,” Fukuzawa steps in with a sigh. He looks like something is bothering him,
which, though unexpected from a cold-blooded man like himself, is completely justified. Apart
from deciding on a winner, this verdict is by no means the toughest one he’s announced so far.
“Both of your dishes were mesmerizing, I have to give credit to you for that. However, only one
was beyond our doubts.”

Chuuya takes a moment to glance at Kunikida, how his fingers are interlocked behind his back,
and how his left thumb is brushing over his right palm over and over again until his skin reddens.
“Ranpo,” Fukuzawa says, and Chuuya doesn’t even notice how he holds his breath. There’s also
something else. Dazai reaches to touch his hand and then squeezes it in his without even looking at
him. And it feels so easy because they held hands in this kitchen so many times before, for many
different purposes. And this one, today, is the same old one. I’m here, to say. You can count on me,
to reassure him, whatever comes. Chuuya squeezes it back. “It wasn’t yours.” Kunikida’s thumb
stops. Ranpo’s shoulders fall. “I’m sorry.”

Ranpo is silent for a moment that feels like an eternity. Chuuya’s gaze burns through the back of
his head, say something, say something, say something.

“Can I say something?” He finally speaks out, his voice more cheerful than Chuuya expected it to
be.

“Sure,” Fukuzawa nods. “Anything you want.”

Ranpo turns to look at Chuuya, and they exchange brief smiles. Then, he looks at the judges again,
eyeing each one of them carefully, and starts to untie his apron behind his back. When he takes it
off, his gaze lingers on it as he wrinkles the fabric in his fist.

A shrug. “I’m glad I didn’t become a lawyer.”

As soon as the cameras are off and they all storm outside, all in their brand-new chef’s jackets but
one, Ranpo almost knocks Kunikida down with a bear hug.

“Congratulations!” Dazai takes in the picture and can’t help but smile a little bit. He lets go of
Chuuya’s hand he didn’t notice himself holding the entire time and steps closer, giving Kunikida a
short pat on the shoulder.

“You earned this, bud,” he says as Kunikida almost turns red from all the praise. He’s never
learned to accept it. “Gonna fight against me and a carrot head now, huh?”

Ranpo finally releases Kunikida from his embrace and rushes past the two of them to hug Chuuya,
and from what Dazai can see, this is by far the strongest hug he’s ever given him. As Ranpo buries
his face in his neck, Chuuya freezes for a moment before taking a deep breath and finally hugging
him back, his fingers tremble as he interlocks them. Their gazes meet for a second, and Dazai
grants him an approving nod. Perhaps he is capable of making friends, after all.

When Ranpo goes back to the dorm and Chuuya volunteers to help him pack his stuff, Dazai looks
at Kunikida and nods at their smoking spot. They walk in silence and once they stop, he stretches
his arms out in front of himself, studying the long sleeves of his jacket. Could he ever predict he
would make it to this moment? Sure thing. He always remembered Fyodor Dostoevsky, John
Steinbeck, Howard Lovecraft, Agatha Christie, even that condescending prick Gogol, all in their
jackets, marking them the best cooks of their generation. Is he any worse? He doesn’t think so.
Paul Verlaine told him so himself, though a long, long time ago.

Now he remembers Chuuya. He remembers Chuuya and how he still has to roll up the sleeves of
his new jacket, even though the creators of the show managed to find a comically small size for
him. But he also remembers how Chuuya, being the shortest, the thinnest, the least broad-
shouldered of the three of them, still remains the strongest, the bravest. Why did Dazai fall for him,
long ago, from the mere glance, in the first place? Well, that’s a reason enough.

He lights his cigarette and eyes Kunikida for a moment before noticing that he’s also looking right
at him, something in his face unsettling.
“Are you scared?” He asks. “Of the final round.”

“A little,” Dazai admits, taking a drag. Something makes him say another thing. “I’m scared that I
might win.”

“I will be glad if you win,” Kunikida says as if just stating a simple fact, and he doesn’t know what
to do with these words. Certainly, there’s much more to this. Chuuya said it clearly. I will win first.
He was dead serious, exactly as he had promised. And then, we’ll talk. “Won’t you?”

But if Dazai wins, will the talk ever happen?

“I,” he starts but cuts himself off, unable to go on. Instead, he takes a step forward and in a
moment, he finds himself hugging Kunikida, embracing him firmly, as if trying to crush, with both
of his hands. Kunikida hugs him back, though hesitantly at first. He squeezes his eyes shut, and
while one of his hands slides down, holding the smoldering cigarette, the other one fists the fabric
of Kunikida’s jacket. I’m scared to win, I’m scared to win, I’m so fucking scared to win. But what
if I want to? “Sorry,” he breathes out as he lets go. “You’ve already got your share of hugs today.”

“It’s okay,” Kunikida swallows, now hiding both of his hands in his pockets. “Are you going to tell
me now? Why don’t you want to win?”

What happened in Paris?

Nothing out of the ordinary, really. In fact, something extremely predictable. Dazai failed. He
performed his masterclass skillfully and answered all the insidious questions of the students that
were mostly looking at him like he was nothing but a paid actor, invited to demonstrate to them
how one was not supposed to cook. However, to his utter self-satisfaction, Dazai noticed that most
of them were actually making notes as he was hovering above the workplace, and a couple of girls
and guys even walked closer to get a better view when he was caramelizing the pears for his
dessert. But Dazai failed. He did, not so long after.

Paul Verlaine has a kind heart. He really does, even though this kindness is not on the surface most
of the time. It is justified, primarily, by his immense ability to love things and to love people, to
believe in them and that something decent may eventually grow out of their attempts. Dazai knows
that he can be caring, considerate, and thoughtful, it’s something he learns shortly after Verlaine
admits to him that he’s in love with Rimbaud, as if it wasn’t obvious from the very beginning.
Dazai may still be a teenager but he knows a thing or two about how people usually act around
someone they’re influenced by, this is something you observe eventually when living in the
orphanage.

Dazai becomes the closest witness of Verlaine’s first attempts to confess his feelings to Rimbaud,
of his trembling hands under the table as they wait for Arthur to join them for lunch. People
sometimes turn extremely stupid when they’re in love. Even the wisest men fall. Dazai thinks it’s a
bit adorable when he leans back against his chair, sipping his lemonade and hiding his smile in the
glass every time Verlaine tries to throw a compliment at Rimbaud but stutters and goes quiet right
away. Something about this bright and almost childish feeling toward Arthur makes Paul appear
more down-to-earth, more human in Dazai’s eyes. However, not for long.

One day, after the classes in the academy end rather late, and Verlaine finishes working closer to
six in the evening, it’s still light outside, though long past the golden hour. Today is Dazai’s last
day in Paris before their flight back home, and he’s spending it walking around the campus all by
himself, jumping on the curbs and counting the seconds he can balance himself on one foot,
watching the tree branches rustle from the wind, listening to the birds sing. Surprisingly, nothing in
him itches for cooking. Perhaps, he’s too tired for it right now.

A text from Verlaine. Come to my office.

As usual: a pile of papers, an empty coffee cup, a laptop, a scattering of ink pens, all open and
mixed together on the table; a wide, airy room, with expensive furniture, devoid of any other smell
but the fresh wind from the window, open only a crack; Verlaine, walking back and forth, looking
for something on his endless bookshelves, his hair now combed in a ponytail, Rimbaud-style,
instead of his usual braid. Dazai knocks before entering and meets him with a questioning gaze as
he walks inside.

“Is this urgent?” He breaks the silence first. “I will have to go help Fukuzawa with packing, soon.”

Verlaine finally stops next to his table, leaning with both hands against it, and sighs, nodding at the
empty armchair. “Please, have a seat.”

Dazai has to succumb and once he does, Paul straightens his posture again and studies him for a
long minute without saying a word. When Dazai wants to remind him that he doesn’t have an
eternity on his hands, he finally fires off.

“I offered Fukuzawa a job,” his voice plain and emotionless. “Here, in Paris.”

So many thoughts rush through Dazai’s head at once. “Wait, what?”

“A good friend of mine owns a small but respectable restaurant here, and he’s been looking for a
new chef. This position is definitely much more valued and prestigious than whatever he’s doing
in Yokohama.”

“Fukuzawa loves his restaurant,” Dazai frowns, feeling almost personally attacked. “There’s no
way he would agree to this-”

“He said yes,” Verlaine cuts him off, and a corner of his mouth twitches in a feeble smile. Dazai
knows this smile. People smile like this when they think they’ve already won. However, Verlaine
hides it right after, wearing an unbothered expression again. “But he also told me another thing. He
said that I would have to ask for your permission, too.”

“What’s the point of this, anyway?” Dazai raises his voice, involuntarily. “Talking him into
moving here, dropping the job he loves, changing his entire life completely on your sole whim,
what’s in it for you?”

Verlaine takes a deep breath and sits down in his own chair, placing both of his hands on the table.

“You,” he says, quieter but more confident than before. ”I need you,” Dazai’s breath catches
somewhere in his chest. Right. That’s the scheme. How couldn’t he have guessed earlier? “You
will become my student and then, you will become my chef,” Paul leans back in his chair,
interlocking his fingers under his chin. “I can’t lose a brilliant cook when I meet one. And you,
Dazai, are truly one of a kind.”

Last week, while they were having lunch and Verlaine excused himself to answer a business call,
Dazai found himself caught under Rimbaud’s piercing gaze that made his blood run cold.

“What is it?” He asked, not able to withstand the silence.

Rimbaud finished chewing on his piece of a pie and swallowed, putting his fork aside.

“I believe you’re not aware of the exact thing Paul wants from you, are you?”

Dazai frowned, hesitating. “He wants me to become a chef.”

Rimbaud smirked it off. “No. He wants you to become his chef. Meaning, a replacement. A
puppet, doing all the job instead of him while he’s reaping the rewards. You see, you’re only
fifteen, and he’s already planning on dragging you into his scheme.”

“What if it’s the exact thing I want for myself, too? To follow someone else’s orders and live a
simple life, just enjoying something I love doing.” They both knew it wasn’t.

“You deserve the future you want for yourself, kid,” Rimbaud hummed, reaching for his tea mug
and taking a sip. “But prior to that, you deserve a childhood,” something in Dazai’s chest clenched
at this. “Paul is a strange human being, and as much as I love him, I don’t know him at all. He says
that he loves cooking but at the same time, he’s terrified by the mere thought of doing it with his
own hands. That’s why he settled on teaching and being an entrepreneur.”

There was too much to process and Dazai felt like his mind could melt away at any given moment.

“Do you know why he’s like this?”

Arthur shrugged. “I want to believe that he’s doing this for the exact reason he says he does,” a
sugar cube fell into his mug. “He’s had his share of a mind-boggling success in life and now he
wants others to go through the same thing.”

Dazai clenches his fists, studying Verlaine’s face carefully, but nothing changes in it.

“What if I refuse?” He asks, at last.

A glimpse of a smile flashes in his eyes. “I’ll let you go, then.”

What happened in Paris?

Dazai jumped to his feet, almost knocking the armchair over, and let his one last glance linger on
Verlaine, then on his office, taking it in whole. Then, he breathed out and turned away, storming
out. He desperately needed a breath, and as soon as he walked outside, he didn’t glance back,
although something in his head was telling him that Verlaine was standing there, in front of his
window, watching him hesitate with a smirk.

Did Dazai hesitate?

As soon as he got back to their flat and found Fukuzawa in his bedroom, hovering above their half-
packed baggage on the floor, he froze at the entrance, and their gazes met. Then, Dazai didn’t say a
word and just stormed to him, embracing him with all the force he was capable of. Fukuzawa
placed a hand on his shoulder.

“I’m so scared,” Dazai whispered, squeezing his eyes shut. “I want to stay, but I’m so, so scared.”

I’m so fucking scared to win.

“Hey,” Fukuzawa spoke in a soft voice, patting the top of his head and making him look up.
“You’re still a kid and you can’t make life-altering decisions like these. But,” he shrugged. “If you
want to stay here, we will come up with something. Though if you want to hear my opinion on
his,” Fukuzawa sighed, hesitating. “Genius as he is, following Paul Verlaine around like a dog for
the rest of your life is not the future I’d want you to have.”

You deserve the future you want for yourself.

Dazai let go of him and took a step back, dropping himself on the bed and hiding his face in his
hands. As brilliant as Verlaine told him he was, he was still just a kid. A teenager, actually, but it
didn’t change things much. Some people didn’t know what they wanted to do with their lives until
they were thirty-five. How could he have known this at fifteen?

But prior to that, you deserve a childhood.

Dazai glanced at the baggage on the floor. Then, at Fukuzawa, who was still looking at him,
waiting.

He smiled, at last. “I hope you didn’t forget to pack the souvenir t-shirt I bought for Odasaku.”

The last evening before the final contest, the dorm is crowded and lively.

Everyone is here, all twenty of them, and for the first time in a long while, this place doesn’t feel
so deserted and lonely. As in good old times, they gather in the living room, hugging, laughing, and
sharing everything that had happened to them in the past months. Tachihara and Gin can’t stop
showing the pictures they took during their three-week trip around Europe. Mark, Louisa, Lucy,
and Tecchou are learning how to roll cigarettes under Nathaniel’s strict supervision and seldom
grumpy remarks. Ranpo is trying to outwit Dazai in chess, Edgar and Higuchi by their sides,
holding their glasses and suggesting the moves. Tanizaki is telling Kunikida about the cakes he’s
now making in the pastry shop he got a job in. Margaret has changed her occupation and started to
write books, and she’s currently retelling Atsushi and Kenji the plot of her recent romance novel.
Oguri is desperately trying to explain to Kajii, who’s already half-gone on the booze, the difference
between the supplies in a molecular gastronomy kit. He took losing a molecular kitchen battle
rather personally and decided to continue his education in the sphere, now using every possible
moment to boast about his newly acquired skills. Akutagawa is nowhere to be seen.

Chuuya is sitting on the couch in the farthest corner of the room, drinking grape juice and leafing
through the paperback copy of one of Heston Blumenthal’s cooking manuals. He doesn’t know
what tomorrow holds for him yet, so he has to be prepared for any kind of challenge. Be it his
beloved classics or experimental cuisine that he despises with his whole heart. When the noise
becomes too much, he puts the book aside and, careful not to attract too much attention to himself,
slides out of the room, deciding to catch some air before sleep. Predictably, as soon as he makes it
to the entrance door, Dazai appears, as if from nowhere, and catches him by the sleeve.

“Hey,” he says with a half-drunk smile. Chuuya lets out a heavy sigh and turns to look at him, thus
making a fatal mistake, because he looks gorgeous. And god knows how Chuuya misses him.
“Mind if I join you?”

He nods, and then they just walk outside for some time, mostly talking about everyone else and not
touching that insidious and blurry “us” subject, still burning agonizingly in Chuuya’s chest. He
just listens to Dazai talk, listens to him laugh, walking in step with him, his hands in his pockets.
And no matter how much he missed Tachihara and Gin, or Nathaniel, or Tanizaki, or Mark, or
Ranpo (already), he missed Dazai more anyway, even though being able to see him every single
day.

Eventually, they come to their smoking spot, just leaning against the brick wall and watching the
evening slowly fall down, the first stars appearing in the cloudless sky. Only a day, Chuuya
promises himself. Only a day left, and everything will be over. Dazai, standing next to him, takes a
deep breath and laughs at something to himself.

“What is it?” Chuuya glances at him.

“We made it,” he just says, shrugging and looking at something in the sky. “We’re winners.”

As much as he despises the mere thought of it, Chuuya shakes his head. “Not yet.”

Dazai’s smile lingers. “For me, we are.”

“You know,” Chuuya sniffs quietly, kicking the small rock he spotted on the ground with the tip of
his shoe. “My whole life, even if I was reaching unimaginable heights, most people I cared for still
treated me like a loser.”

“You’ve gone a little bit too far with heights, carrot head,” Dazai jokes and laughs even when
Chuuya reaches to push him with his elbow.

“I like that,” Chuuya sighs, after all, admitting it more to himself than to Dazai. “While I’m a loser
for everyone else, I’m still a winner in your eyes.”

This time, Dazai doesn’t laugh. Though a hint of a smile lingers on his face, he just stares at him
for some time, not saying a word. Chuuya skillfully avoids his gaze, pretending to be too occupied
with kicking his rock.

“You have no idea,” Dazai finally breathes out. “How much I want to kiss you right now.”

Chuuya stills, the rock forgotten, and slowly looks up at him.

I will win first. And then, we’ll talk.

The truth is, he wants it, too. Probably more than he ever did.

“Okay, then,” he backs away, leaning against the wall. What if he’s already a winner, just for this
night? “What are you waiting for?”

Dazai takes a step closer, shortening the distance between them in an instant, and freezes right in
front of him. He doesn’t rush, doesn’t worry that someone may spot them here, he doesn’t care.
His hand flies up, and he touches the side of Chuuya’s neck first, his fingertips running over his
skin lightly, making him shiver; his other hand touches his hair, brushing one of the locks off his
forehead and hiding it behind his ear. Chuuya holds his breath. God, he is so beautiful.

Finally, Dazai leans closer, and when their lips touch, everything turns into a haze, one second
melting into another. They are kissing slowly, savoring it, and Chuuya’s hands are trembling when
he reaches to grab Dazai’s neck, almost frantically, digging his fingers into his warm skin. A short
pause to take a breath, and then, again. Over, and over, and over, and over again. They never kissed
for this long before. Chuuya feels like all his insides are turning upside down, and everything in his
body is begging for this to never end. Dazai bites his lower lip, tugging at it for a moment, and
smiles when his breath catches at it. Chuuya leans back to breathe and studies his face for a
moment, his beautiful and slightly flushed face, the face of the smartest person he’s ever known,
the wisest person he’s ever known, the kindest person he’s ever known, and he can’t help but
reach forward again, this time grabbing his face and kissing him first, so desperate and deep that he
thinks he can feel it in his bones. God knows, Chuuya wants to win. But right now, he wants to lose
more.

When they finally part, messy and out of breath, Chuuya looks down, unable to withstand Dazai’s
long and thoughtful gaze on himself a second more.

“I’ll go to sleep now,” he says, reaching to flatten his hair, mostly because he wants to keep his
hands occupied. “And you should, too. We have an important day tomorrow.”

“Good night, carrot head,” Dazai just says, granting him a short smile. “Thank you for your
company.”

Chuuya nods at this and when he’s already walking past, Dazai suddenly calls him by name,
making him turn his head.

He’s still leaning with his right shoulder against the wall, his hands now in his pockets.

“Good luck,” is all he says.

Chuuya’s heart drops to his feet, and he doesn’t breathe for a moment before forcing a short smile.

“Good luck.”

“Rise and shine, little star!” Chuuya groans as he opens his eyes, instantly grimacing at the bright
sunlight filling the room, and covers his face with both of his hands, turning away from Ranpo,
who’s already got dressed and now is hovering, impatiently, above his bed. “Hey, get your ass up,
the shooting starts in two hours.”

“Shoot me in the head instead,” Chuuya mutters as he buries his head in the pillow. “I dreamed of
custards and sautés the entire night.”

“Damn,” Ranpo hisses and sits down on the bed next to him. “You know, Dazai and Kunikida
have been awake for an hour now.” Chuuya instantly opens his eyes, not a trace of sleep left
anymore. “They’re having coffee in the kitchen.”

After having a shower and drying his hair, Chuuya takes his time to put his jacket on, rolling up
the sleeves in advance so they won’t get in the way while he’s working. While he’s tinkering
around the room, trying to remember what else he has to do, Ranpo is sitting on his bed the entire
time, playing some silly game on his phone. It brings up a rather unpleasant memory, the
academy’s dorm, a shared room, Shirase, once Chuuya’s best friend, avoiding looking at him
during another breakdown of his.

The most challenging thing, though, is to decide what to do with his hair, as he never entrusts the
show’s stylists with his appearance. Chuuya leaves it in a bun first but then thinks that he looks a
bit unprofessional, so he combs it in a usual ponytail instead, studying himself from different
angles in the mirror. No, that’s not it. Today is not the usual contest, it’s the final one, and
everybody is going to be there, observing them cook in that kitchen for the last time ever. Chuuya
needs to look even better than he usually does, and when a certain idea suddenly occurs to him, he
can’t help but smirk at the reflection, letting his hair fall loose. Instead of making a bun or a
ponytail, he takes out several strands on his left side and braids them, joining them to the rest of his
hair in the middle, using a little black ribbon, Verlaine-style. How do you like it, chef?

“What do you think?” He turns to give Ranpo a long waiting stare.

“Your fangirls will lose their shit,” he hums, looking up from his phone.

“Great,” Chuuya nods and gestures at the door. “Let’s go.”

In the pavilion, everyone is already gathered. The hair and makeup stylists are still tinkering
around with some of them, passing around brushes and puffs. Chuuya gives Ranpo a long final hug
before letting him join the rest of the former contestants on the balcony. He glances up for a
moment, noticing that some of them are waving at him and giving out approving nods, and Chuuya
smiles, even though the well-known anxiety starts to slowly boil in his stomach. When he walks to
Dazai and Kunikida, who seem to be in a heated conversation about something while standing in
their usual spot in front of the judges’ table, both of them go quiet at the sight of him.

“Good morning, Chuuya,” says Kunikida, nodding at him.

Chuuya nods back and, when his eyes slide to Dazai, his face suddenly bears a completely different
expression.

“Why are you staring at me like this?” He frowns, glancing down at his fit. “Is something wrong
with the way I look?”

It takes Dazai a second to process the question before he swallows, shaking his head. “No.”

However, he remains somewhat aloof for the rest of the time, and it makes Chuuya even more
anxious than before. He made sure to shut his feelings up for today and view Dazai solely as his
competition, even though his heart was protesting with all its might. It still does.

“Good morning, everyone,” says Fukuzawa, all the cameras now on his face.

“Good morning, chef,” all of them, even people on the balcony, say as one. Chuuya can’t help but
let out a little smile. Strange, perhaps, but he missed that.

“Today is a great day,” he goes on, now focused solely on the finalists. “One of you will walk out
of this place a winner,” Chuuya feels his hands start to tremble behind his back but when he
glances at Dazai, standing next to him, he’s completely indifferent, his face devoid of worry.
Chuuya isn’t sure whether he should feel relieved or terrified by this. “Besides, today’s the only
contest in which no rules will be applied. You have everything you need for comfortable and
effective work and three hours of time in total. This is your last chance to perform flawlessly and
demonstrate all the skills you’ve acquired through the contest.”

Chuuya sorts through the recipes in his head. In fact, he came up with the dishes he was going to
make almost a week ago, right after the press conference. He also made all the needed calculations
and estimated the average time required to perfect every position, presentation included. All he has
to do now is collect himself, get rid of any possible distractions, and keep track of time. He’s
already warned Ranpo that, no matter how much he values his advice, it will be of no use today.
Chuuya will be the only one to help himself, to stand for himself, he can and will do this.

“But before we start,” Fukuzawa goes on. “Someone’s here to cheer you up.”

Chuuya sighs. Around a week ago, the show’s staff asked them if they would like to invite their
families or friends to the final competition. I have no one to invite, he and Dazai answered at the
same time, exchanging short glances right away. Kunikida hesitated, though. After all, he said that
he’d try to make a call and ask his old friend from the military whether he’d like to come. Katai
Tayama, a black-haired man with a remarkably bad posture and a grumpy face, happens to look
exactly like a person Kunikida would befriend in the blink of an eye. He enters the pavilion
through the breakroom’s door, nodding politely and carefully averting his eyes from the camera.
Kunikida mentioned that he was extremely anxious most of the time and didn’t like to
communicate with the outer world much, so it comes rather as a surprise that he agreed to show up
in a place like this. He must be an incredibly loyal friend, above everything else. He approaches
Kunikida and shakes his hand, letting out a quick smile and wishing him good luck almost in a
whisper.

When Katai goes up to join others on the balcony and everyone is finally gathered, there’s nothing
to wait for anymore. Everything is settled, and the competition starts now. That’s it, Chuuya says
to himself, letting out a heavy breath. That’s his decisive moment.

However, Fukuzawa doesn’t think so. He exchanges quick unreadable glances with Yosano and
Ango, standing by his sides, and hides his hands behind his back.

“Chuuya,” he almost shudders, hearing his name in almost complete silence. Fukuzawa is now
staring right at him, and in his eyes, nothing is clear. Is he hesitating? Pissed, perhaps? God, what
did Chuuya do this time? “We’re aware that you didn’t want to invite anyone as your support
group, but one particular person kept insisting on coming here today, convincing us that you
wouldn’t mind a little surprise.”

As Fukuzawa says it, his tone is almost apologizing, and Chuuya knows why he’s doing that, he’s
read about multiple occurrences like this during the previous seasons of the contest. Everything is
for the fucking show. An element of surprise, huh?

“So, please,” Fukuzawa sighs as he gestures at the breakroom’s door. “Welcome our honorary
guest and my good old friend,” the person who enters the kitchen with a hint of a little reserved
smile on his face is the last one Chuuya wants to see now or ever. “Paul Verlaine.”

The very first thing Chuuya hears is Dazai gasping audibly next to him but he doesn’t get to
process this, as Verlaine already approaches him, perfectly dressed and with his hair in an
unchanging braid, and opens his arms for a hug. Chuuya doesn’t move an inch, frozen in place,
and lets Paul embrace him, carefully patting his back with both of his hands.

“I’m so glad to see you again,” Verlaine says as he lets him go, but his hands still linger on his
shoulders as he’s studying Chuuya from head to toe. From his voice, it’s unclear whether he’s
mocking him or not. So, a declaration of war, then? “I hope you’ll show everything you’re capable
of today,” his voice falls almost to a whisper before his next words. “Regardless of today’s result,
you will always be my best student, Chuuya, remember this.”

Chuuya glances at Dazai, hoping to find some sort of reassurance in his unbothered face, but Dazai
doesn’t even flinch, just staring in front of himself with blank eyes, both of his hands hidden
behind his back.

“Thank you,” Chuuya forces the words out as he looks back at Verlaine. They haven’t seen each
other for more than a year, but nothing changed in him much. The same face, the same tailor-made
clothes, the same posture. Chuuya wonders if Paul has noticed anything different in him but doesn’t
let this thought linger. “Chef.”

Verlaine steps back and takes a moment to glance over at the three of them. Once his eyes slide to
Dazai, he looks at him for a mere second longer than at everyone else, and Chuuya seems to be the
only one to notice. What’s even stranger, Dazai doesn’t look back, not even for an instant. Verlaine
sighs, at last, and lets out a brief smile.

“Good luck,” is the only thing he says before disappearing from Chuuya’s sight.
His heart is still somewhere in his throat when Fukuzawa takes a deep breath, gesturing at the three
workplaces placed in the middle of the kitchen.

“Now that we’re settled,” he says. “Please, start working.”

 The Island Counter
Chapter Notes

enemies to lovers? what about enemies AND lovers?

I accidentally made dazai too hot again and god I hate this, I have nothing to say for
myself

the next chapter is momentous but not the last one as I intend to keep irritating you
with my presence a bit longer
if you enjoy this fic, I'm always happy to see you in the comments!!
love, ana

“Why exactly do we call flying saucers saucers? Like, do they even bear any resemblance with
saucers?”

“Kajii, shut your mouth and don’t distract them.”

The balcony, as always, is full of life. Kunikida thinks it’s strange that he can keep concentrating
on things without getting distracted by the scattering of voices and whispers right above his head.
He has a plan, though a very blurry one, but he does. He had a hard time revising the processes
back at the dorm because he lacked most of the required products and didn’t have much time to go
out to the city and buy them. Now he’s acting blindly, relying on his own experience and
knowledge concerning the preparation of seafood. He has settled on scallops as the main ingredient
of both his main dish and soup. The dessert, however, is going to be a bit experimental, as he has
never worked with the crème brulée and its variations before.

Kunikida

Frothy porcini soup with scallops and vanilla oil

Seared scallops with curried apple and lemon oil

Crema Catalan with earl grey sponges

Is it foolish to cook something for the first time in your life while participating in a contest that will
define your future? Perhaps. Is he doing it because he wants to jump over his own head? Kunikida
doubts it. Rather, because even if he messes everything up, he most certainly won’t regret trying.
He’s not Dazai and his plans don’t always succeed like clockwork even if he comes up with a
recipe at the very last second. He’s not Chuuya, and even though his skills are on a decent level
(now it is proven, at least), they are still not enough to let him fully rely on himself and his own
instincts. So what is he left with? Experience and knowledge, raw memories and abstracts from the
cookbooks that will help him carry his ideas through.

It’s been more than an hour into the contest, his chicken broth for the soup has been on the stove
for a while and his Crema Catalan is already in the oven. He’s now moving to proceed with his
main dish and prepare the apples, sprinkled with the ground spices mix, for baking. The balcony
thought better than throwing advice every five minutes, and Kunikida is thankful for that because
today is the only contest in which no one’s opinion can be of real use. The occasional discussions
and jokes never cease, though, and from time to time, while he’s busy slicing the onions and fennel
or blending the bread crumbs with oils and herbs, he can catch separate voices, extracting them
from the conversations, and smile at the nostalgic memories they’re fast to bring. Here’s Kenji,
breaking down the inexhaustible culinary potential of beef to Atsushi. Here’s Ranpo, Edgar, and
Tanizaki, speculating about the possible dessert variations Chuuya is going to make. Here’s
Higuchi, wondering out loud what Dazai’s making, every five minutes or so. Here’s Kajii,
Tachihara, and Gin, placing their bets on a potential winner. Here’s Margaret, audibly worrying
about the time they have left.

Kunikida looks around.

Here’s Chuuya, disciplined as he always is, bending over his workplace and slicing the perfect
onion, tomato, and eggplant rings, not paying even an ounce of attention to anyone or anything
around himself. Here’s Dazai, and god knows what he’s up to this time. His workplace resembles
an ancient banquet, the likes of which you can probably spot in some old oil paintings, exhibited in
the best art galleries in Europe. Yet, there isn’t a single relatively ready dish yet, only neverending
bowls, plates, and trays with separate ingredients he’s tinkering with. There is a certain serenity in
the way he moves, gestures, and grimaces when something doesn’t go as planned. He never
panics, he doesn’t let out as much as a sigh, quietly pulling out another vegetable or fruit, and
preparing it for cooking from scratch. Chuuya is concentrated, too, but he’s almost never devoid of
emotion. This is a glaring difference between the two of them, the one that’s easily spotted even
with the naked eye. Kunikida often hears Chuuya click his tongue, in this irritated manner of his,
or breathe out curses as he’s dropping another dirty plate into the sink. Dazai, on the contrary,
remains a waveless sea. And god knows how Kunikida wants to be a waveless sea. Yet, there is the
dawn of the brewing storm inside of him, the one he’s skillfully trying to conceal.

The fact is, Kunikida isn’t sure he’s going to win. How can he? He’s competing against Chuuya
and Dazai, probably the two most famous contestants in the entire history of the show, the public’s
favorites, the invincible rivals, the monsters of culinary. Even with his brilliant tactic of cooking
what he’s good at but in a completely different light, Kunikida isn’t immune to possible surprises
from his competitors. While he’s working on the main dish, adding the scallops to the foaming
butter in a saucepan and seasoning them, his gaze is traveling chaotically over the workplace. Isn’t
it too simple? He still has enough time to start from scratch with a more complex dish, though it
would probably be risky given that he has no other ideas except for his initial strategy. He doesn’t
look at the neighboring workplaces this time but listens. Chuuya is rushing, his breath is loud and a
bit unsteady, there is sizzling on the stove, metal clacking, the sound of an oven door opening and
closing. Dazai, on the contrary, is walking slowly from counter to counter, grabbing a knife,
chopping something, then putting the knife aside; he takes time to taste every component of his
dishes before mixing them together, putting the pots and pans back on the stove. The time is slowly
counting down, and Kunikida gets more anxious every time he glances at the clock.

“Kunikida-san!” He suddenly hears a cheerful but a bit concerned voice from the balcony and
immediately looks up. There’s Kenji, leaning against the railing with both of his hands, his gaze
curious. “Are you using the same main ingredient for two dishes?”

Kunikida swallows, a familiar glimpse of uncertainty going through him. “Yes,” he says dryly.

“Isn’t that risky?”

It is.

He opens his mouth to answer but doesn’t get to say a word, as Tanizaki, standing next to Kenji,
tugs at his sleeve and leans closer to whisper something into his ear. Don’t distract him. Right
after, he glances back at Kunikida and, without saying anything, grants him an approving nod.
Kunikida lets out a distressed sigh and returns to his work. As he’s turning over the scallops in the
pan, he also reaches to open the oven and check on the apples. The last touch is to present a dish
and make lemon oil to drizzle it over with. Kenji’s words keep repeating in his head over and over
again like a tune. Isn’t that risky? However, once Kunikida realizes that his dish choices are too
simple for a contest as serious as this, it’s already too late.

His only hope now lies in the expectation of a possible failure from both of his rivals.

Dazai

Telling Higuchi the truth was a challenging feat. Dazai had known she was feeling something
toward him, probably thinking they were more than friends, perhaps she still is. Back in the
orphanage, nobody taught him that it was an ordeal of men like himself, the handsome ones, the
honest ones, with their hearts on their sleeves (though Dazai’s own is covered with a layer of tight
bandages), breaking someone else’s heart, at least once. Dazai had never wanted to break the one
of a girl. Other men, on the contrary, he believed deserving of it.

Despite all his concerns, Higuchi accepted the truth like the wise woman she is. She smiled,
looking him right in the eye, and nodded, almost in a noble way. I know, she said. Is it someone
else? Dazai shook his head, and it was only partly a lie. It’s not someone else, his lips were
trembling slightly, it’s just not you.

And now he almost sighs in relief every time he hears her voice coming from the balcony, almost
like sunlight above his head. Higuchi grabs the railing, watching him with her eyes wide open, and
asks, and asks, and asks. Dazai has nothing to tell her. He keeps slicing the onions, and kneading
the dough, and pouring the wine. The tactic is accurate in his head, step by step, process by
process. He remains calm and unbothered, keeping track of time and making all the needed
calculations in his head. He doesn’t spare a look at either Kunikida or Chuuya. Something tells him
that the both of them have this settled. They will all perform flawlessly, for one last time, and leave
the judges solving the most elaborate riddle of their lives.

There’s only one thing pushing him off track, though, time after time. Once he looks up at Higuchi,
either to grant her a smile or a short nod, his eyes involuntarily slide to the left, catching the sight
of a person he dreaded seeing once again more than everything in his life. Verlaine is standing
there, the last in line, both of his hands placed on the railing in his unchanged aristocratic way, a
perfect posture, cold thoughtful eyes, the face devoid of any emotion, almost like he’s not human
at all. Verlaine doesn’t answer a single look of his, it seems like he doesn’t even notice him.
Instead, he’s concentrated solely on Chuuya, watching his every move and step as in a haze,
sometimes not blinking at all. Is he relieved? Worried? Proud, perhaps? Dazai can’t know. Dazai
will never know.
It’s so stupid, almost comical, out of all the places in the world, seeing Paul Verlaine here, coming
to support and cheer for another person, a person who, it’s clear and settled now, has become
Dazai’s substitution in his eyes. Something aches slightly inside him, and it’s neither ego nor
jealousy. Rather, regret. But Dazai doesn’t regret leaving back then, though. He regrets never
trying to come back. What could’ve happened, had he tried to reach out, first? Had he just showed
up back in Paris, his apron tied tightly behind his back, his face decisive and sure? Could’ve
Verlaine rejected him? Renounced him? Did he ever give up on him? This is what’s bothering
Dazai the most while he’s opening a bottle of pinot noir, ready to add it to a sizzling pan he’s
roasting onions and garlic in. He glances at the clock while lowering the heat on the stove, the
bottle in his right hand. Then, once again, against his own will, his gaze shifts to the balcony,
crowded and lively. Verlaine looks like a stranded ship, no, more like a glacier, a blank patch in the
picture of various vivid hues, red jackets, blue shirts, glistening jewelry, multicolored voices, and
blinding smiles. Dazai keeps looking right at him, almost for a minute, forgetting even about the
cameras, which are probably now focusing on him from two or three angles at once. He knows that
his face is unbothered, and his eyes are empty, at least he’s trying to make them so, but deep
inside, a little boy in him is chanting, notice me, notice me, notice me.

And suddenly, something shifts. Verlaine blinks, once, twice, as if finally coming to his senses,
like a sculpture suddenly waking alive, and his piercing gaze slides to him. Though only for a
second, but Dazai sees so much in his eyes that the look feels like a punch right into his stomach.
His right hand loosens its grip against his will, and the bottle of pinot noir drops to the floor,
shattering into pieces and leaving a puddle of dark red on the light wooden surface. Dazai jumps
back, but his shoes and pants get stained anyway, though the stains are almost invisible on the
black fabric. The room goes quiet, and everyone turns to him. Everyone except Verlaine, who’s
now averting his eyes.

Coming to his senses, Dazai takes a deep breath and catches Chuuya staring right at him, a knife in
his hand and a deep frown all over his face.

“What happened?” He asks.

Dazai forces a playful smile. “I got distracted. Don’t mind me, carrot head.”

He can’t lose a second but he still has to wait until the staff cleans the floor and takes all the pieces
of glass away. One of the girls suggests that he goes to change his clothes, but Dazai refuses,
shaking his head decisively. The stained shoes and pants can wait. He’d keep going even if he was
badly injured. He sneaks into the storage room for another bottle of wine and starts from scratch,
this time not allowing himself to even glance up. He will cover the expenses for the wasted bottle
of an expensive pinot noir later, if they ask him to, anyway. While he’s pouring the wine into the
pan, stirring the mixture slowly with his left hand, he feels short gazes on himself from time to
time, undoubtedly coming from Chuuya. It almost makes Dazai smile, how Chuuya keeps
worrying about him even though he claimed to become completely heartless, if only for today.

Dazai

Something with onions, garlic, and red wine

?
Great joy is always followed along by great sorrow.

Dazai remembers it clearly now. Whenever he felt at the top of the world in his life, though the
occasions were extremely rare, the feeling was always backed by an inexplicable sadness. While
the prospect of staying in France and mastering his cooking skills until he could pursue a
prosperous career was enigmatic, almost electrifying, something kept him tethered to home
without losing its grip even for a moment. While the business school was hell and Dazai was never
sure why he was doing it in the first place, cooking remained the only thing that kept him sane.
And while seeing Chuuya for the first time ever, during his masterclass at Fêtes Galantes, sitting
in the farthest corner of the restaurant, was a revelation of sorts, it was also the thing that averted
Dazai from cooking for a long time. How could I ever be better than him? Could I? That’s what he
was asking himself, over and over again.

Chuuya could tell the difference between béchamel and mornay. He could keep the eyes of an
entire restaurant on himself by performing the simplest processes, which, in the long run, turned
into a flawless dish, completely worth its mind-boggling price. Apart from this, Chuuya was witty.
He could joke around and laugh while juggling the pans and pots and do it in such an effortless
manner that Dazai couldn’t help but stare at him, his heartbeat a chant in his temples. He was
handsome as well, almost in a heartbreaking way. Back then and there, looking at him, marveling
at his skills, gestures, and words, Dazai couldn’t think of another thing than a simple and yet
startling realization. Yes, Chuuya was his replacement.

But, good lord, what a feat that was.

Perhaps he was mistaken about him or too mesmerized by his professional skills and natural charm
to think clearly, but Chuuya was the exact person nobody had ever warned him about. The honest
man, the open book, and he could break everyone’s hearts, shattering them like plates and mugs all
over the place, girls’ and boys’, and they would only thank him for that and ask for more.

Little did he know, but that night, two men at once fell in love with Chuuya Nakahara. Perhaps,
there were more. But only one of them found it in himself to confess and, what an irony, he hadn’t
been the right one from the very beginning.

And when much later, they were playing truth or dare in a shabby hotel room, and Chuuya asked
him, almost with an undertone, who his first love was, Dazai lied. How could he ever admit that
his first love was within a two-step reach of him? Great joy is always followed along by great
sorrow. This is the only thing Dazai has ever been utterly sure of.

Everything happens in the storage room. Of course, of course, as some meeting spots never
change. Dazai walks in to pick up some flowers to decorate his dessert and puts them into a bowl.
As he’s doing this, completely lost in his thoughts, he doesn’t spot Chuuya walking in right away.
His steps are slow but determined, he’s waltzing around, humming some song almost inaudibly,
and it looks like he’s looking for something, but Dazai doesn’t find it in himself to offer help.
Instead, he tries with all his might to keep ignoring his presence until suddenly, they are shoulder
to shoulder, in front of the fridges.

Dazai is hugging the bowl with his left hand, his right is still gripping the fridge handle. His eyes
slowly slide to Chuuya, assessing how angry he can possibly be right now because he’s almost
always angry when he’s too concentrated on something, but when he finally catches sight of him,
his eyes are devoid of any emotion. He opens the fridge to check on his custard and then puts it
back in, closing the door. He moves to the fruit crates then, picking some fresh oranges and
lemons, probably for his dessert, and Dazai follows him like a ghost, the time completely
forgotten. He stops next to him, pretending to be too occupied with studying the grapes, melons,
and apples, and swallows when Chuuya lets out an irritated sign.

“Don’t you have anything else to do?” He asks, not looking up at him. How many times have they
bumped into each other here, in this same unchanging storage room, to fight or to reconcile just to
fight again, Dazai has long lost count. But one thing he suddenly can’t remember at all. Has
Chuuya always been this cold to him? “I’m kinda busy.”

“Sorry,” he looks away, swallowing again. It seems like he has too much to say and at the same
time, nothing at all. “I just wanted to ask, if-”

“I don’t need your help,” Chuuya cuts him off, bringing one of the oranges closer to his face and
studying its texture; probably, he needs the zest for something, and it has to look presentable.
“Please, leave me alone.”

“But,” Dazai starts but holds back, taking a deep sigh. He should be better than this. What is he
clinging to right now, like a boy? He doesn’t want to talk to you, leave him alone, go away.
“Okay.”

He takes a step to turn away but when he does, Chuuya’s voice pins him to place.

“It was you, wasn’t it?” Dazai almost drops the bowl to the floor, hugging it firmer at the very last
second. He doesn’t turn his head, just staring at the wall instead, his heartbeat scattered all over his
body. Chuuya takes an audible sigh. “Verlaine’s favorite. A culinary mastermind. You, before
me.”

Dazai doesn’t like the way it sounds. You, before me. “How did you know?” He asks, still not
looking back.

“I may be a lot of things but I’m not stupid,” from the way Chuuya’s voice is now piercing him
right from behind like the sharpest arrow, it seems that he’s forgotten the oranges and now is
standing right behind his back. That’s quite ironic, if you ask him, because almost his whole life,
Dazai has been standing behind his. Breathing into the back of his head, without him noticing.
“The complete obscurity of your past, apart from some disjointed episodes, torn off from the rest
of the story. The way I had always spotted some of his habits in the way you cooked, talked, or
even thought, but was too afraid to dig deeper and ask. His story about the mysterious student he
had before me, the one he wished never left culinary.”

“Chuuya-”

“No, let me finish,” he insists, cutting him off again, this time louder and sharper than before. “I
saw how he looked at you today, when he walked in,” there’s a hint of a bitter smirk in his voice.
“He never looked at me that way. And you didn’t even look back. How stupid of you it was.”

Taking a deep breath, Dazai finally turns to him, and nothing could prepare him for what he sees.
Chuuya looks devastated but in his own, mature and gracious way. His shoulders don’t fall, he
keeps his posture straight and his face high, but his eyes betray him. Dazai can swear he sees the
tears welling up in them, but Chuuya does nothing to conceal it, his hand doesn’t even fly up. He
just stands there, both of his arms at his sides, and looks at him like he’s ready to fire back.
Everything in his look is threatening, but when he says his next words, he suddenly sounds almost
broken.

“Why didn’t you tell me the truth?”

Hiding the most important things is also lying of sorts. No wonder Chuuya feels betrayed and
betrayed he looks. Dazai swallows, lowering his gaze and locking it on his chest pocket, suddenly
imagining a golden patch saying chef there. Then, he tries to picture how the same fit would’ve
looked on him, had he dedicated his life to Fêtes Galantes. He’d wanted to tell Chuuya the truth
about his past so many times, he’d tried so desperately but the words just wouldn’t come out, as if
some invisible brake stopped them over and over again. And on his final attempt, he didn’t say
them just because he chose himself instead. As much as he kept convincing himself that it was
solely for the sake of Chuuya’s sanity, in fact, it was the most selfish decision he’d ever made.

“I never wanted to go against you,” Dazai regrets these words almost instantly, how pathetic they
sound now coming from him. Because, in fact, there’s nothing he can or could ever do that
wouldn’t be against Chuuya. Being brilliant at what he does and loves doing means being against
Chuuya. Being Verlaine’s favorite means being against Chuuya. Winning the contest means being
against Chuuya. Even standing here right now and keeping quiet means being against him, because
no matter what Dazai says, it will only dig his grave a bit deeper than before. He braves another
lie. “And I also didn’t want you to turn your back on me.”

“Drop the bullshit,” Chuuya shakes his head with a slow sigh. He looks down for a moment, at his
own hands and arms, and rolled-up sleeves. His face, when he looks up again, is different. “I just
can’t get it. It seems,” he shrugs, almost carelessly. “That everything I have ever thought of as mine
wasn’t even mine in the first place,” he nods at Dazai. “It was yours, from the very beginning. The
academy, the extra classes, the Parisian flat, that goddamn restaurant… everything was meant and
designed for you, and all that time, I’d been nothing but a substitution, a compromise. My entire
life is yours.”

The words almost slip off Dazai’s tongue. He swears he can hear himself saying them.

Then maybe you are mine, too.

But he doesn’t.

Without waiting for him to answer, Chuuya takes a step closer, then another one, and another, and
when he finally stops right in front of him, Dazai doesn’t even get to blink as he feels his firm grip
on the collar of his own jacket. Chuuya’s eyes are absolutely lifeless and blank when he drags him
closer until they are face to face. Dazai holds his breath.

“If you win today,” Chuuya whispers into his lips, and the whisper is violent. It’s not a laurel
crown. It’s a dagger. “You won’t exist to me anymore.”

Then, he lets go, making sure to flatten the collar back into place with his palm.

A quick pat on the shoulder, and he’s already walking past. “Good luck.”

Dazai looks down into his bowl.

The flowers are slowly wilting there.

Dazai

Something with onions, garlic, and red wine

Something with flowers on top of it

?
Chuuya grabs onions and Dazai grabs onions. Chuuya grabs bay leaves and Dazai grabs them, too.
Their hands collide a couple of times, on accident, while they keep bumping into each other in the
storage room, over and over again, this time wordless like complete strangers. Chuuya doesn’t
even spare him a glance, lost in his thoughts and the rage slowly filling him and boiling inside, but
his gaze occasionally travels to his pale hand, grabbing a pack of bay leaves, the one Chuuya was
ready to take himself. He almost lets out an irritated sigh but keeps himself collected at the very
last moment. Dazai acts like he doesn’t even notice him now, and his face is completely blank.
Was he scared by his threat? Did it entertain him? Chuuya doesn’t care. The only thing he keeps
wondering, though, is what in the world Dazai is cooking. Not because he’s worried about his
possible failure, not this time. But if, as it’s been revealed now, their lives and fates are so closely
intertwined, could it be that they both decided to cook similar dishes for the final contest? Chuuya
grits his teeth, squeezing the pack of bay leaves firmer in his hand.

Bay laurel (Laurus nobilis, Lauraceae).

A laurel wreath, a round wreath made of connected branches and leaves of the bay laurel (Laurus
nobilis).

A laurel wreath, the crown worn by Apollo, the ultimate symbol of triumph.

Could they really think of the same thing?

Chuuya

Guinness French onion soup

Arleasian Eggplant Riste, a variation of ratatouille

Parisian Flan with lemon and orange zest

Dazai

Something with onions, garlic, and red wine

Something with flowers on top of it

Something with bay leaves

An hour ago

While ratatouille might be one of the most famous French dishes, it’s also quite difficult to perfect
on the first try, especially without much experience. Luckily, it’s not a big deal for Chuuya as he
has cooked several varieties by now, as well as the classic variant, so many times that he can’t even
bring himself to count. He wouldn’t lie, though, one of his intentions is showing off in front of
Verlaine. Chuuya had had the idea that Paul would inevitably watch the final episode of the contest
one way or another, but nothing could prepare him for seeing him here, in person. This made the
whole thing both more entertaining and challenging for him. Verlaine probably knows what he’s
making, it’s not a big deal to guess, especially with his expertise in the craft. At some point, while
he’s searing the onions in a skillet until they are golden brown, he wonders if Verlaine is going to
help him. Back at the academy, he used to walk around while supervising their cooking and
occasionally throw remarks. Stir it a bit longer, you don’t have to use yolks for this, only whites,
lower the heat, salt more, do not salt this much, more water, less water, terrible, perfect, not good,
remake it… Now he’s silent. Chuuya looks at him only once, noticing his collected stance and
focused gaze, and then returns to his work. His head is lowered most of the time, sometimes he’s
not even breathing as he needs to cut a perfect form out of something, or slice, or chop, or dice. His
hands work fast, his apron gets stained endlessly, and most of the time, he forgets to look at the
clock. There is the only thing that distracts him, over and over again. Or, better to say, a person.

That fucking bastard Dazai.

The sound of breaking glass fills the room to the edges, and Chuuya startles, almost dropping the
knife. He looks back at Dazai, noticing a puddle of dark liquid quickly spreading over the floor
under his feet, and something in him twitches.

“What happened?” He frowns, studying him from head to toe.

“I got distracted. Don’t mind me, carrot head.”

Chuuya squeezes the knife firmer in his hand and turns away, his gaze slowly traveling up. While
the staff rushes past his and Kunikida’s workplaces to deal with the broken glass on the floor, he
doesn’t hear the fuss. His eyes are locked on Verlaine. Instead of staring at Chuuya and watching
his every move as he did before, now, for the first time, he’s looking away. At some spot on the
wall or the ceiling, perhaps, past the cameras, past the people. As if someone has slapped him or
shown him something utterly disgusting. He swallows, his Adam’s apple moving slowly under the
pale skin of his neck, and Chuuya gasps, suddenly struggling to breathe. He looks at Dazai again,
but he’s already hiding in the storage room, and Chuuya catches only a glimpse of his back, the
snow-white fabric of his chef’s jacket. Then, up at Verlaine, once more, like watching a deity, a
god observing them from heavens above.

The fuss on the balcony doesn’t stop, filling the room with wondering whispers and neverending
muttering, but Chuuya doesn’t listen, doesn’t as much as look at anyone else. And when Verlaine
finally answers his gaze, Chuuya tilts his head a bit to the side, letting out a weak smirk.

“C’est lui?” He’s mouthing at him, nodding at the storage room.

The truth is, Dazai never loses his cool while cooking. He can be playful, yes, he can fool around
and almost dance while at it, especially when he feels exceptionally inspired. But apart from that
one time when he accidentally cut himself while making cabbage ribs, there wasn’t a single
accident, a single broken plate or bottle. At least, on Chuuya’s memory. And everything suddenly
falls in line. The mystery of Dazai’s past, the story he once heard from Verlaine, about his
previous student who had been the most skilled cook he’d ever come across, the complete
blankness on Dazai’s face once Verlaine stepped inside, his lack of cool and collectiveness, for the
first time in this kitchen.

And then Paul just shrugs back at him, not braving even a nod, adding the very last piece. Chuuya
breaks eye contact first and looks down, feeling his limbs suddenly go numb. He should’ve
guessed earlier. Hadn’t he been such a fool! The anger suddenly filling Chuuya’s whole body is so
severe, so intense that he almost forgets that his time is still counting down. But he can’t let
himself lose it, not here, not like this, with everyone watching him. He will think about this later,
after he wins.
When Dazai returns, another bottle of pinot noir in his hand, Chuuya grants him one more glance,
his eyes following him all the way to his workplace, but he doesn’t look back. Here he is, the most
skilled one of them all, a winner by design, a winner already, even though the final competition
isn’t over yet. The one who should’ve been in Chuuya’s place, in all the places he’d ever been,
Verlaine’s favorite, the chef of his restaurant, the cover star of all culinary magazines in Europe.
It’s Dazai who should’ve flashed smiles to cameras, fixing the collar of his jacket and answering
stupid questions about his family and love life. And Chuuya’s very first cooking masterclass
should’ve been Dazai’s instead.

But it’s mine, Chuuya keeps saying to himself as he’s chopping the onions, this time even faster
than before, almost violently, leaving scratches on the wooden surface of the board. Mine, mine,
mine. He glances at the clock, then at the balcony, then at the judges’ table. Fukuzawa, Yosano,
Ango, Verlaine. Everything is his because it was his fate. Everything is his and he will take it
back, no matter how much it will cost him.

When Chuuya talks to Dazai in the storage room, he doesn’t regret a word. And when he storms
out of it, a smirk on his lips, he feels even more determined than before. They have an hour left,
and all his processes are going plainly, without any flaws, just as he planned. But then again.

That fucking bastard Dazai.

“Dazai, lower the heat!” He hears Kunikida's command from his workplace. “You’re burning the
butter!”

Chuuya glances back, his hands peeling the tomatoes, and raises an eyebrow. Dazai is rushing back
and forth, hugging a bowl, holding a whisk, clenching his teeth on a pack of bay leaves, all the
while putting a baking tray into the oven and closing its door with his leg. His stove, in the
meantime, is where the action is. There are two sizzling pans, a pot, and a saucepan. The
ingredients on the counters are disjointed elements, barely falling into one single category. There
are olives, a half-empty bottle of wine, two bars of butter, a pack of flour, a bowl filled with fruits
and another one, with flowers. Perhaps this kitchen has never seen such a mess before.

“I know, I know, pal, thanks,” Dazai mouths back, not looking up, the pack of bay leaves still in
his teeth.

It’s hard to concentrate on his own processes now, when at any given second, Dazai can burn
another saucepan of butter, or knock over a pot, or drop something to the floor. If Chuuya really
cared, he would probably scold him for all of this. For not being responsible enough, collected
enough, focused enough, for messing up over and over again, for not being able to make even a
goddamn béchamel on the first try. What does he need béchamel for, anyway?

Fifteen minutes until the finish line, Chuuya is decorating a piece of his custard pie on the plate. A
perfectly cut triangle, lightly sprinkled with the remains of citrus zest and drizzled with caramel,
almost transparent yet golden. Chuuya holds his breath as he’s placing a sphere of spun sugar on
top of it and adding a final pinch of powdered sugar.

“Chuuya,” he hears a voice coming from the balcony and lifts his head, spotting Ranpo’s delighted
smile. “It’s beautiful.”

Among the three of them, Dazai is the only one who keeps tinkering with his dishes until the very
last moment. The judges walk into the kitchen five minutes before their time is up, ready to count
the seconds down. Every gaze is on Dazai now. He keeps rushing, juggling the kitchen tools and
appliances in his hands, tasting the sauces, putting the pots off the stove and then on it again, not
noticing anyone around himself and not glancing at the clock.

“Three minutes left,” Fukuzawa announces out loud, his voice just slightly concerned.

Dazai washes his hands and walks to the storage room in wide, determined steps, coming back with
three plates and a sauceboat.

“Two minutes left.”

Dazai wipes the counters with a paper towel and places the empty plates on them. Then, he starts
presenting his dishes, one by one, taking his sweet time with decorations and crouching in front of
the counter as he pours the sauce. Even at this point, Chuuya cannot decipher a single dish of his.
Everything looks so bizarre, like something that has never been done here before, but as soon as
Dazai finishes placing flowers on top of his dessert plate, Chuuya’s breath catches in his throat
against his own will, as if he can’t deny the fact that it looks beautiful. Strange, unfamiliar, even
scandalous, perhaps, but beautiful. Dazai’s style, his painfully familiar manner.

“One minute left.”

Dazai throws all of his dirty pots, pans, and saucers into the sink, takes away the appliances and
hides the kitchen machine under one of the counters. Then, he takes a loaf of freshly baked bread
from the baking tray and places it on a wooden board, but instead of slicing it with a knife, he
grabs a piece of cloth and just breaks it into even pieces with his hands, the crumbs scattering all
over the surface.

“Thirty seconds.”

Chuuya grits his teeth. Bastard, bastard, bastard.

“Ten seconds.”

What in the world are you doing?

With a final stroke, Dazai places three wine glasses on the counter, grabs the bottle with remains of
his pinot noir, and takes out the cork, filling all of them one by one right to the middle.

“Three seconds,” Fukuzawa sighs, this time with a hint of a smile in his voice.

The entire balcony freezes, the talking comes to a halt.

“Two.”

Dazai leans both of his hands against the counter and takes a deep breath. When he breathes out, he
runs a hand through his hair and grins, triumphantly, looking over at his plates.

“One. Please, step back from your workplaces.”

Catching his piercing gaze on himself, Dazai glances up at Chuuya and smirks as he grants him an
acknowledging nod, mouthing the familiar words.

“Good luck.”

Chuuya has never felt this defeated before.

 Laurus Nobilis
Chapter Summary

feels like we had matching wounds, but mine's still black and bruised and yours is
perfectly fine now

(or whatever the king conan said)

Chapter Notes

voilà!
apparently, when I get enough feedback, I write ten times faster
so THANK YOU for all the comments and please keep sharing your thoughts under
the chapters

what else can I say? could you predict such a course of events? what is going to
happen next?
we will find out soon

in the meantime, you can follow me on twitter: @acuteguwu

love, ana

It’s the middle of February, and the streets outside are cold and dry. It rarely snows in Paris, or
perhaps, it’d be better to say, the snow almost instantly melts, not leaving a trace. For now, it
hasn’t snowed for over two weeks, and as Verlaine looks out of the window, pressing his cheek
against the cold surface of his wine glass, he notices that the view is rather mournful. As there are
no patches of white on the roofs and terraces of the surrounding buildings, the evening appears
unbearably blank, devoid of any color except black with occasional pinholes of dim orange light
coming from his neighbors’ windows. Probably, it’s the saddest winter Paul has ever been
subjected to, even though it isn’t much different from the ones he went through before.

The picture on the TV screen in his living room is frozen, showing a close-up of two hands,
tinkering with presenting another dish. It is the only source of light in these walls right now. The
hands are young and pale, with long bony fingers, just slightly stained with the small brushstrokes
of sauce and powdered sugar dust. Perhaps, Verlaine would’ve remained sitting there, staring at
them absentmindedly while finishing his glass of wine, if someone hadn’t rung his doorbell.

As he opens the door, Rimbaud is standing at the entrance, covered in layers of clothes as he
usually is during cold months, slowly taking the gloves off his hands. Verlaine leans with his side
against the open door, looking at him in relief.

“I thought you wouldn’t come,” he says.

“Well, you asked me to,” Arthur frowns for a second and then, without an invitation, carefully
passes by him, entering the flat.
As he takes his shoes and his coat off, Verlaine closes the door and leans against it once again, this
time with his back, observing him without saying a word. Rimbaud doesn’t have to ask him the
directions towards the bathroom, or the kitchen, or whether it’s okay if he places his car keys on
the dresser. After all, this is the flat they used to share, quite a long time ago, when they were still
married. Verlaine never moved anywhere else and it would be foolish of him to think that Rimbaud
couldn’t recall every detail of the place perfectly even with his eyes closed.

Just a minute later, Verlaine is back in the living room again, the TV screen and the half-empty
bottle of wine on the coffee table are exactly where he left them. Arthur finishes washing his hands
and enters the room just a minute later, freezing in his spot as he notices the picture on the screen
Verlaine is fixated at.

“Is it..?” He doesn’t finish, taking a deep breath instead.

“Please,” Verlaine gestures at the empty spot on the sofa next to himself. “Take a seat. Do you
want some wine?”

Rimbaud obeys, approaching him in slow steps, and sighs as he sits down next to him, just barely
brushing their shoulders together.

“No, thank you,” he replies in a steady but quiet voice. “I still have to drive home.”

“A glass of wine never stopped you from driving before,” Verlaine smirks but doesn’t argue,
taking a sip from his own glass instead. When he swallows, he reaches for the remote control,
pressing the button that turns the recording on. Just a moment later, Chuuya’s face appears on the
screen. The camera is focused solely on him, zooming in and out on his every movement, but he
almost never glances up. Instead, he keeps perfecting the presentation until the very last second of
his time is up, and Fukuzawa Yukichi commands him to step back from his workplace. His neck
must hurt like hell by now. Verlaine lets out a bitter smile. “Just like I taught him.”

“Paul,” Rimbaud’s gaze shifts from the TV screen, stopping at his face. “Why would you do this to
yourself?”

It’s a good question. A flawless one, even. Why would he do that to himself? Watching the person
he basically raised in the culinary sphere proceeding further without him, without the need for him.
It’s been almost ten years since he first met Chuuya Nakahara, and through that time, so many
things went wrong. Chuuya should’ve been his best creation, a perfect project, devoid of any flaws
and of almost everything humane. Back when he caught Verlaine’s attention first, his mastery was
a storm that seemed impossible to tame. He would exhaust himself almost to death in the kitchen,
showing up in class sleepless, bruised under his eyes, his whole body trembling from the lack of
energy to perform even the simplest tasks. It seemed as if he was nothing but a robot, programmed
to cook and keep cooking over and over again, and there wasn’t a single person or a thing in the
world that could force him to stop. Verlaine had feared that once, Chuuya would just drop dead
over the counter or a stove like a madman, enchanted by his own creation. Taking him under his
wing was a dangerous feat and yet, Paul took the risk and had never regretted it since. Even though
he had sworn once – after one particular person pierced through his life like a flash of bright light
and disappeared just as effortlessly – that he wouldn’t try to train another cook individually ever
again.

The picture on the screen changes and the next face appearing there makes Verlaine squeeze the
glass firmer in his hand. Rimbaud, sitting next to him, leans against the sofa and hums as he
crosses his hands over his chest.

“He’s as handsome as I thought he would be,” he hums, mostly to himself, but his words make
Verlaine smirk anyway. Arthur lets out a long breath. “How could this even happen? I mean, what
was the possibility of their meeting? Did Fukuzawa Yukichi have something to do with it?”

“I don’t know,” Verlaine sighs as he reaches to fill his empty glass once again. Osamu Dazai is still
on the screen, observing the judges with a reserved and confident smile as he listens to their
remarks about his dish. It’s strange, at least, how he almost hasn’t changed. The last time Verlaine
ever saw him, he was fifteen. Now, he’s twenty-seven. However, his face is the same, and under
all his acquired features, sharpened by the best years of his life, accented by adulthood and an
elegant touch of maturity, Verlaine clearly deciphers the boy he talked to once, sitting on a Parisian
terrace, teaching him the basics of French. “I’ve read the news. Dazai is the public’s ultimate
favorite.”

“No wonder,” Rimbaud hums. “With his skills, every Michelin restaurant in the world is probably
on standby to terrorize him with job offers. And with his looks, every woman in the show’s
audience must be dying to meet him in person. Were I you, I wouldn’t be this bothered. It seems
like Dazai has everything he needs to succeed.”

Verlaine lets out a bitter laugh, hiding it as he takes a gulp of his wine.

“I’m a terrible human being, Arthur,” he says, at last, this time not looking at the TV screen but
rather through it, completely lost in his own thoughts. “I’m the most disgusting person this world
has ever faced.”

Rimbaud lets out a confused sigh. “Why?”

“Because I want Chuuya to lose.”

The words sink in the sudden silence of the room, slowly melting away like the Parisian snow.
Verlaine turns his head, looking at Rimbaud over his shoulder, and their gazes instantly meet. It’s
fascinating, how out of all the people in this world, Arthur has always been the only one to
understand him fully, without any explanations. When they first met, while they were dating, when
they got married, after they divorced, all this time. Whenever Verlaine felt like he could suffocate
from the sheer hatred he felt towards himself, Rimbaud was the only person he called. And he
always came to meet him, cutting any business off even if he was on another continent.

“Paul,” Arthur barely whispers, his voice much softer than before. “It’s not that you want Chuuya
to lose,” he says, taking a deep breath, his eyes traveling across his figure for a while as he’s
thinking something over, until finally returning to his face. “You just want Dazai to win.”

Verlaine feels as if someone has stabbed him right in the chest.

“Who is he?” He asks in a ghostly voice, leaning against the sofa next to Rimbaud and staring at
the screen again. “It’s been such a long time, and throughout all these years, I’ve never stopped
checking the news, culinary magazines, even those stupid yellow press websites. I looked for his
name everywhere, everywhere, Rimbaud, I was so desperate for him to pursue his dream,” he puts
the wine glass aside on the coffee table and runs a hand through his hair. “God, I even kept contact
with Yukichi all that time before the contest, asking him about Dazai over and over again. How
was he? Was he working in a restaurant? Or, perhaps, he’d written a culinary book? Did he have
any handwritten recipes, at least? Any raw scribbles, drafts, sketches, anything, anything, please,
Fukuzawa, just send me anything, please, I just want to look,” his hand stops on his face, covering
it fully, and he shudders in a lonely sob that escapes him against his will. “But there was nothing.
He finished that goddamn business school and went rotting in some prosperous company’s
headquarters. Not a single thing about cooking in his life, never again.”
“Paul-”

“And then I had this vision,” Verlaine goes on, this time louder, as he still hides his face in his
palm, breathing heavily against his own skin. “Of him marrying a decent woman, raising children
with her, keeping a family. And all the cooking that’s left in his life is making scrambled eggs in
the morning.”

“Paul,” Rimbaud tries again. “You can’t be accountable for other people’s decisions, even if they
are contrary to your own wishes.”

“And then there’s Chuuya,” Verlaine takes a deep sigh, ignoring his words. “In many regards, they
are the same. This was probably the main reason I picked him in a crowded room of freshmen in
the first place. He… amazed me. He did something that even Dazai couldn’t do. He never gave
up.”

“You think that Chuuya’s better?” Rimbaud hums, a hint of doubt in his voice.

“No,” Verlaine is quick to shake his head. “No, they can’t be compared. While they’re quite
similar in their skills and ambitions, each one of them has something the other utterly lacks. I don’t
think Dazai is ready to die for what he loves, not yet, even after all these years. But Chuuya… I
can almost see him stabbing his own chest with a kitchen knife in case he loses. As if this contest is
his only hope left in the whole world.”

“Then why do you want him to lose?”

The answer suddenly comes to Verlaine’s head, this time clearer than ever before. He straightens
his shoulders, glancing at the TV screen, then at Rimbaud, then at the screen again.

“Because… I need him here,” he whispers, holding his breath.

“Wasn’t it you who kicked him out in the first place?” Arthur frowns. “And now you want to lure
him back to the restaurant as if it never happened? I’m sure he still hasn’t forgiven you. He
probably never will. This is the kind of a person he is.”

Rimbaud is saying the truth. However, he misses out on one crucial thing. Verlaine doesn’t expect
forgiveness from Chuuya, he doesn’t think himself deserving of it anyway. But the contest is the
only thing keeping him sane now, keeping him home, making him feel safe doing what he loves.
Unlike Dazai, Chuuya is empowered by competition. He can’t stay and cook behind closed doors,
without anyone to taste his dishes and praise him for them. He loves being the center of attention,
he was born for the limelight. Once it’s taken away from him, Chuuya gets lost and doesn’t know
who he is anymore. And this is Verlaine’s only trump card. If Chuuya loses that contest, he will be
devastated, as he’s put everything he had at stake. Even more humiliating will be losing against the
person who was supposed to be in his place once. How will he endure this? How will he survive
being torn off the only thing keeping him alive?

“If he loses, he will need a reason to keep going,” Verlaine sighs, at last, glancing at Rimbaud
briefly. “And then, I will offer him everything I have. My restaurant, my crew, my guests,
everything he will be willing to take.”

“And what about Dazai?”

For the first time in a while, Paul lets out a weak smile.

“I’m sure that he will be perfectly fine without my help.”

No one dares as much as give Dazai a glance. He’s standing in front of his workplace, courageous
and devoid of worry, his hair falling on his forehead in messy bangs. He’s the last to be assessed
today so he has quite a lot of time to fool around. Except he doesn’t. Chuuya doesn’t look at him
more than once but when he does, he notices that Dazai is still leaning with both of his hands
against the counter, watching his dishes as if something may be written over them and biting his
bottom lip. Chuuya wonders what is going on in his head. Has he decided to declare a war on him?
This Dazai, the one who used to repeat, over and over again like an oath, that he would like to see
Chuuya win. Has he changed his mind?

“Very well,” Fukuzawa clears his throat as he takes the clean cutlery and approaches Kunikida’s
workplace. “Please, present your dishes.”

“I made frothy porcini soup with scallops and vanilla oil as entrée,” Kunikida starts to explain, his
voice just a bit shaky. “Vanilla accents the taste just slightly and softens the main ingredient.”

“I wouldn’t call it an entrée,” Kunikida hums after taking a small sip. “This dish is quite an
elaborate one and, besides, it’s nourishing. You have to get better at picking the right words.”

Kunikida laughs quietly. “Understood, chef.”

The judges taste all three courses one by one, each making their own remarks and asking questions.
Too many questions, they have never been exposed to such an interrogation before. It feels like the
judges want to know everything, every condiment that was used for seasoning, every process that
was involved. As Chuuya looks down at his own plates for the umpteenth time in the scope of the
past ten minutes, he recites the description of each one step by step.

“Why did you decide to use the same main ingredient for two dishes at once?” Asks Yosano,
slowly chewing on a piece of scallop from Kunikida’s plate. She’s somewhat different today, she
seems much harsher than ever before, and it’s no wonder why. Despite being the most soft-hearted
among the judges, she can easily sharpen herself into her serious and critical stance once it’s
needed.

“I used to work with seafood a lot before the contest,” Kunikida swallows, answering in a
relatively stable voice. “I consider it my strong point.”

“It’s wise,” Yosano hums as she puts the fork aside. “You decided to bet on your strengths,” she
presses her lips into a thin line and shrugs. “But we would like to see you cook something that used
to pose a challenge for you before and finally overcome the struggle.”

“I understand,” Kunikida says, quieter than before. Chuuya has no idea how he still keeps himself
collected. Were he in his place, he would be already dying from shame and fear. He can’t let his
work get a single critical remark, not today or ever again.

“Did you use whole eggs for the pudding?” Ango asks in a somewhat detached tone as he gives a
bite to his Crema Catalan. Kunikida nods. “Using whites wasn’t necessary, it’s not a meringue.
Your pudding turned out too firm while it should’ve been creamy and tender at the same time.
Though I have no remarks toward your sponges. They are perfect.”

“I understand,” Kunikida says once again, as if he’s suddenly forgotten all the other words, and
fixes his glasses with the tip of his index finger.

“Thank you, Kunikida,” Fukuzawa says and gives him an encouraging smile. “You will hear your
final verdict along with your colleagues.”
Chuuya smirks at the way he uses the word colleagues, not competitors. But the smirk gets wiped
off his face as soon as he realizes that he’s the next to go through the interrogation. He straightens
his shoulders and keeps his head high, giving the judges an acknowledging nod as they approach
his workplace.

“Chuuya,” Yosano is the first to greet him with a reserved smile on her face. “You’re perhaps our
main star, isn’t that so? Tell me,” she says as she grabs a spoon and moves the plate with his soup
closer to herself. “Do you know how large your fan base has grown by now?”

“I have some blurry idea,” Chuuya lets out a modest smile, trying not to sound rude; the truth is, he
hasn’t checked the social media feeds since the press conference. And even back then, everything
there was mostly the same. People obsessing over him, people hating on him, people defending
him, people comparing him to Dazai… it was impossible to bear and irritating to the bone, so
Chuuya almost tossed his phone aside. He might be in love with that fucker, but his own dignity
and pride will always come first. And his feelings for Dazai he perceives as nothing but a weakness
he can’t help but slowly let destroy himself. It has to come to a halt. It will, today, right here. “I’m
endlessly thankful to all the people who support me. Without their help, I would have never
reached these heights.”

Chuuya hears an audible smirk behind his back, without a doubt coming from Dazai. He grits his
teeth and forces a fake smile to appear on his face as he watches Yosano dipping the spoon into his
soup.

“As per usual, you settled on classics,” she says, giving it a try and watching Chuuya’s expression.
“Truth be told, probably everyone had expected at least a bit of a free fall from you.”

“Usually, I prefer knowing where I’m falling to,” Chuuya retorts in a polite manner, keeping his
hands behind his back. “You know, broken bones take a long time to heal,” it’s probably clear to
everyone who he’s hinting at, a person who never comes to stop with his vague and sometimes
quite risky experiments. Chuuya believes that there’s no place for experimenting in a contest like
this. Dazai may have gotten away with this before, but he most certainly won’t this time. This
competition will be the death of him.

“What I’m seeing here,” Fukuzawa lets out a long sigh as he slowly rotates the plate with his main
dish. “Ratatouille?”

“It’s an Arlesian eggplant riste,” Chuuya corrects him in a steady tone. “A provincial variety.”

Fukuzawa gives a bite to one of the eggplant pieces and chews slowly as if assessing every note of
its taste. It should slowly slide from a sharp and spicy to a soft and a little bit sweet aftertaste,
melting away effortlessly at last. From the expression that slowly arises on the chef's face, Chuuya
thinks he succeeded at this.

“I suppose there was a certain hidden motive in your picking such a rare variant of ratatouille,” he
says as Yosano reaches for the fork to try his main dish next. When Fukuzawa says his next
words, his tone is softer, a wily note is now added to it. “La légende de l'Arlésienne, n’est-ce
pas?”

Chuuya nearly gasps at his guess. “That’s right, chef,” he says, letting out a quiet laugh. “A person
or an event that we always expect to show up or happen but it never does.”

“And what is that you’re expecting now but it will never happen?” Fukuzawa asks, clearly
provocative, tilting his head a bit to the side.
Chuuya takes the dare, hiding his smile. “My loss, chef.”

Fukuzawa’s eyes go wide for such a brief moment that Chuuya’s probably the only one to notice it.
In the next moment, he just nods, proceeding to his dessert without saying a word more.

His Parisian flan doesn’t get remarks from any of the judges, and when they finally pass by his
workplace, thanking him for a spectacular performance at last, Chuuya is sure that the victory is
already in his hands, in the pockets of his chef’s jacket. He takes a deep breath, reaches to recomb
his hair, and then glances up. Ranpo gives him a thumbs up and Edgar, standing next to him, lets
out a reserved but clearly approving nod. Chuuya sighs again. That’s it. He’s past the most
terrifying part. Now, there’s the only thing left to wait for, and that’s hearing his name during the
winner announcement. Chuuya closes his eyes for a second, every sense in his body on alert. Mom,
do you see this? Are you watching me now? I’m doing what you’d always wanted me to do.
Accomplishing my goal.

There’s no reply. Or, perhaps, it comes as a name behind his back.

“Dazai,” Fukuzawa says in a reserved acknowledgment.

“Chef,” a self-satisfied smile is clear in his voice.

Chuuya notices that Kunikida has turned their way, now leaning against one of the counters with
his hands crossed on his chest, observing silently. Letting out a helpless sigh, Chuuya does the
same, catching sight of Dazai’s workplace, the judges, and Dazai himself, standing with a perfect
posture and a smile, his head high.

“What did you decide to surprise us with today?” Fukuzawa asks without haste and just looks over
the three plates placed on the counter, not reaching for cutlery yet. “Another sophisticated recipe?
Perhaps, something authentic?”

“You’re going to be bewildered, chef,” Dazai sighs. “But I decided to play safe this time and
simply cook some well-known national dishes.”

Chuuya frowns, crossing his hands over his chest. There’s something unsettling in the way he says
this. It can’t possibly be this simple. Someone like Dazai wouldn’t have dived into the decisive
contest without an ace up his sleeve.

“Well, if that’s so,” Fukuzawa hums, a bit taken aback himself. “Allow me to ask you, which
nation do these dishes belong to?”

“That’s the interesting part, chef,” Dazai smirks, tilting his head. “Did you know that Ancient
Greeks had only whole wheat bread as their breakfast? They dipped it in wine and ate it just as it
was. They also believed wine to have certain curative properties.”

Cut the bullshit, Chuuya wants to leap as he listens to him but keeps himself collected, not letting a
single emotion show on his face. This is Dazai, after all. He’s always been a sucker for a bit of a
show.

“And so I thought,” he goes on with a hum. “How can I combine ancient traditions and modern
Greek cuisine?” He reaches to move the wooden board with his bread closer to the judges. “And
this… is what I came up with. I want you to take a little leap back to the past and trace the national
Greek dishes on each step of their development to our day.” He smiles. “Let’s call it symposia but a
modern variety.”

The judges all exchange long glances, and Chuuya puts his hands down, gripping the edge of the
counter behind his back instead.

“Very well,” Fukuzawa hums, at last, and it’s unclear whether he likes what he’s seeing or not.
“Should we then start with the bread and dip it into wine?”

“Please,” Dazai gestures at the glasses. “Help yourself.”

While the three of them are tasting the bread, nobody lets out a word. Chuuya hears muffled
whispers coming from the balcony but doesn’t look up. Instead, his gaze is concentrated solely on
Dazai. There are cameramen rushing in front of him, getting closer to take in every element of the
scene, but Chuuya looks through them, not noticing anyone or anything else in his path. It feels
like suddenly, in this crowded room, there is only him and a menace to him. That is to say, he and
Dazai.

“It was quite bold of you to bake a whole wheat bread from scratch,” says Ango, dipping his piece
into his glass once again and giving it another bite. “Not so many people are fond of this variety.
And I expected it to taste rather sour combined with dry red wine,” he hums, thinking something
over for a long second. “However, it’s not sour at all. If anything, it’s even a bit sweet, and the
wine accents the taste just perfectly. Did you, by any chance, sweeten the dough before baking?”

Dazai grins. “I did.”

“And what is this?” Asks Yosano, moving the first plate closer to herself. “Caramelized red
onions?”

“Yes, chef,” he confirms with a brief nod. “I couldn’t think of another side dish as simple and
fitting as this one.”

When Fukuzawa moves on to the main course, Dazai suddenly stops him with a light gesture of his
hand.

“Dessert first, please.”

The judges exchange glances once again.

“Why is that?” Fukuzawa frowns slightly but reaches for the dessert anyway, a wide flat plate with
an entire Greek garden blooming on it. Even from a distance, it looks impressive, and Chuuya
almost wants to walk closer and take it all in.

“I know it usually comes in the end,” Dazai explains. “But as we’re reversing the time here, it
would be also wise to reverse the ordinary course of meals,” and this is the same person who said
earlier that his dishes weren’t elaborate. Chuuya scoffs. “Besides, my dessert is not as sweet as it
may appear at first glance. Ancient Greeks didn’t have much to roam with, so they used different
variations of fruit and herbs for their food each time. I decided to make fried fruit with bay leaf
sauce.”

“Why bay leaf?” Asks Fukuzawa, giving a bite to a piece of fig from the plate.

“Laurel wreath is a symbol of triumph,” for the first time since the beginning of the assessment,
Dazai gives Chuuya a brief glance. Unreadable and almost emotionless, it feels like a sudden
punch, making him struggle to take a breath. But then he looks back at Fukuzawa as fast.
“Consider it my little good luck manifesto.”

“You sure have put a lot of thought into your dishes,” Fukuzawa sighs, shaking his head slightly. “I
don’t even know what to say,” he takes a clean fork and finally moves on to the final dish, the
main course. “And this is…?”

“Traditional Greek moussaka,” Dazai presents in a steady voice. “A three-layered variation of

lasagna, topped with béchamel sauce. It’s one of the most widespread dishes eaten in Greece these
days.”

“So, a sudden throwback to the future?” Fukuzawa laughs quietly, his voice content. “Let’s try it.”

After he takes a bite and passes the plate to Yosano and Ango, they all taste the dish without a
word. Dazai keeps himself collected the entire time, watching their every gesture, listening to their
every sigh. Finally, when they’re done eating, Fukuzawa grants him a short nod.

“Thank you, Dazai,” he says. “You not only demonstrated your skills but gave us some great
entertainment, which is extremely valued in a culinary craft.”

When the judges pass by him to return to their place, Chuuya turns back immediately, not letting
himself stare at Dazai even a second more. When he looks at Kunikida, he appears dumbfounded
as if he’s already given up. Chuuya doesn’t know how he feels yet, he can’t catch himself on a
single coherent thought right now. The only word that is flickering with alarming red in the depths
of his consciousness is no. Dazai won’t win this. Only over Chuuya’s dead body. He might have
come up with creative dishes and prepared them flawlessly, but this trick won’t work once again.
Fukuzawa is wrong. Entertainment is for stupid losers who are not able to tell a scallop from crab
meat. The only thing that’s really valued in culinary is proficiency. It has always been and will
always be this way.

“We will take our leave to discuss the results now,” announces Fukuzawa as the judges approach
their breakroom. “You may be free to have your deserved rest.”

As soon as the cameras and the lights are off, Chuuya is the first one to storm out of the pavilion,
heading to the smoking spot and taking his cigarettes out of his pocket as he walks. As he lights the
cigarette with trembling hands and takes the first puff, he watches as others slowly walk outside,
engaged in heated conversations and worried exclamations. The first person to approach him is
Ranpo, Edgar following just beside him.

“Dude, you were spectacular!” Says Ranpo, giving him a pat on the shoulder. “Left everyone on
the balcony speechless. A true genius of culinary.”

“Thank you, Ranpo,” Chuuya forces a weak smile. He hadn’t realized how on edge he was the
entire time until he finally took a break.

“We are rooting for you,” Edgar picks up, his eyes not covered by his long curly bangs for the first
time in a while. He’s certainly handsome and a perfect match for Ranpo. His noble coyness
compliments his inexhaustible energy just right. “You did great.”

“Thank you, Edgar,” Chuuya says once more, taking another puff of his cigarette, and spots
Kunikida approaching them in wide steps.

He politely pushes through the small crowd of people separating them, Tachihara and Gin, as
always, the noisiest ones, boasting about the amount of money each of them placed on today’s
winner, and stops right in front of Chuuya.

“Good job,” he says, sincerely, and gives him an acknowledging nod. “It was my honor to compete
against someone as skilled as yourself.”

“The honor’s all mine, Kunikida,” Chuuya smiles at him. “I’m sure we all have equal chances of
winning today.”

“Right,” he hums, lost in his thoughts for a brief second. Ranpo and Edgar are still standing next to
him, not saying a word. Kunikida clears his throat and leans closer to Chuuya, lowering his voice
so no one else could hear him speak. “Dazai wants to talk to you. Alone.”

“Does he now?” Chuuya smirks, tapping the ash off his cigarette. “And where is he?”

At the round table, Fukuzawa is the only one who’s not seated. The three name cards are placed in
front of him, and he’s staring at them, his gaze shifting from one to another over and over again.
Ango is drinking water from a tall glass. Yosano has interlocked her fingers on the table and is
staring pensively into the distance. This room has never heard a silence such intense as this.

“So,” Fukuzawa clears his throat, fixing the collar of his formal shirt. “Let’s keep this in order and
start with Kunikida.”

“He’s clearly skillful,” says Ango, taking another sip of his water. “I can spot the traces of several
classic schools in his approach, even though, as I’m aware, he never completed his culinary
education. There’s the only thing that remains unsettling, though.”

“How he will perform without prior preparations,” Yosano steps in, scratching her chin
thoughtfully. “He may know a lot about classics but if you just put a random set of ingredients in
front of him, I doubt that he will find a way out of this and present a decent dish.”

“It’s not exactly a downside, though,” argues Fukuzawa, still hovering above them. “If you
remember, we haven’t seen Chuuya experimenting much either. The two of them always choose
the safest roads to achieve the desired result.”

“You can’t compare Kunikida and Chuuya,” Ango smirks. “I suppose you won’t argue with me if I
say that Chuuya is the only person here who can make any dish he’s told just on the spot. He’s like
a machine. It’s fascinating, I have never seen someone as gifted as him.”

“Chuuya is explosive, and it’s dangerous,” Yosano hums. “He doesn’t accept criticism, he always
puts himself above everyone else, he believes that he’s capable of practically everything when it
comes to cooking.”

“And how exactly is it a flaw?” Ango grants her a frown. “With his stance and self-perception,
there’s nothing impossible for him. He could make the entire culinary scene his subordinates if he
wanted to.”

“Power can lead to unpredictable consequences when it’s in the wrong hands,” sighs Fukuzawa,
leaning with both of his hands against the table, his gaze still locked on the name cards. “Chuuya is
a wonder, I can clearly see why Paul Verlaine has put so much into him.”

“I agree with you on that but I’m still not sure that he’s a fitting winner,” Yosano sighs, massaging
her forehead. “Do you remember John?” Steinbeck, he is. “He was also of this kind when he
participated in the contest. Frighteningly skillful, knowledgeable and determined. And he won,
despite the fact that he had held a record for the highest count of black aprons in the entire history
of the show. But he was playful with his work and often risked it all for the sake of his another
questionable antic.”

“There wasn’t a single fitting winner except him back then,” Ango raises an eyebrow, putting his
glass aside.
“Exactly,” Yosano nods, pointing back at him. “He didn’t have a counterpart, a proper opponent
that could bring all his weak points and insecurities to the light.”

“You’re hinting at Dazai,” sighs Fukuzawa, finally sitting down in front of them. “Well, obviously,
their inexhaustible rivalry revealed certain vulnerabilities of both of them. They had been misled by
each other so many times that in the end, it resulted in them making each other better cooks, in
some sense.”

“I agree,” Yosano nods. “If I could give the final prize to two people at once, it would be Nakahara
and Dazai.”

“Unfortunately, we can’t do that,” Fukuzawa lets out a bitter laugh. He takes one of the cards from
the table and stares at the name written on it for some time without saying a word. “Dazai is a
skilled chef as well. But it’s a great pity that, due to the huge gap in his experience and knowledge,
he’s now having a hard time keeping up with all the intricacies of our craft. He probably doesn’t
know even half of the professional cooking terms.”

“Has it ever prevented anyone from succeeding at their job?” Yosano scoffs. “Not every ballet
dancer knows French but still performs their dance flawlessly,” she leans closer, lowering her voice
as if she’s telling some sort of a secret. “Art is something that stems from the heart, not from the
brain. And cooking is definitely an art.”

Fukuzawa takes a deep breath, putting the card back on the table and leaning against the chair with
his arms crossed over his chest.

“Well,” he says, looking up at the two of them. “Who should we pick?”

Chuuya finds Dazai in the pavilion, in one of their dressing rooms. He’s sitting in a high chair,
staring at himself absentmindedly in the mirror, a mess of various makeup products and appliances
scattered on the table in front of him. Chuuya walks in, closing the door behind himself, and gives
him a glance. Their gazes cross in the mirror for a second before Dazai slowly turns to him. There
are two long racks with endless hangers of chef jackets, snow-white and not belonging to anyone.
And between them, there is a pathway separating the two of them, perhaps not more than five or
six steps. But Chuuya leans against the door, not trying to get any closer.

“So?” He breaks the silence first while Dazai just keeps staring at him as if he’s some sort of a
long-lost renaissance painting. “What did you want to talk about?”

Dazai bites his lip, lowering his gaze for a moment. When he looks up again, his face is different.
“What do you think about my dishes?”

Chuuya is taken aback. “You’re asking me because you want to gloat?”

“No,” he says in a calm voice. “I’m asking you because I want to know your opinion.”

“I haven’t even tried them,” Chuuya frowns, crossing his arms over his chest defensively. “How
can I say anything?”

At this, Dazai keeps quiet, nodding at some thought of his instead. Then, he rises to his feet, and,
even though he doesn’t take even a step closer, Chuuya’s entire body goes stiff for a moment.

“Something I had dreaded the most finally happened today,” Dazai sighs. “As they say, fear it and
you will find it,” he smirks. “We are rivals now, aren’t we?”
Chuuya returns him a smirk. “Hadn’t we been from the very beginning? First, Verlaine hated you,
then, he hated me for not being you, and now we’re here, hating each other.”

“I don’t hate you, Chuuya,” Dazai shakes his head. “If anything, I’m a bit sorry for you.”

At this, Chuuya feels as if someone has just punched him right in the face. He takes a gulp of air
and storms forward until he’s just a step away from Dazai, staring up at him with wide eyes.

“I don’t need your sympathy,” he hisses, grabbing the collar of his jacket. Dazai remains
unbothered, looking at him with utterly tired eyes. “I had promised to crush you and I did. Wait for
it, my name will be all over the headlines by tomorrow morning.”

With a long slow sigh, Dazai shakes his head. “Till the very last second, you’re still fighting to
win.”

“What else should I fight for?” Chuuya leaps, letting go of his collar in a harsh movement,
brushing him off. “Peace and friendship? That fucking ‘let’s all be together and help each other’
agenda of yours? I’m fed up with this bullshit,” he doesn’t even notice how he spits the words out,
rudely, without any restraint whatsoever. It feels like everything that has been boiling inside him
for months is finally ready to spill over the edge. “I was torn off from everything I cared for and I
came here to take back what’s mine. And I don’t give a flying fuck about others and their success.
The victory is mine, the title is mine, it’s my goddamn time to shine, can I finally fucking shine
without anyone trying to take it away from me and threatening to break my fingers with a fridge
door?”

He cuts himself off suddenly, feeling a burning wave of tears boiling all the way up to his face.
He’s trembling all over and his knees suddenly go weak. Oh, no. Oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no. He
won’t cry here, not like this, not in front of him. But it’s already too late. The first pathetic sob
escapes him, and he buries his face in his hands, shuddering violently all the way to his fingertips.
He feels Dazai’s light touch on his shoulder and before he can protest, he’s already in his embrace.
Dazai is hugging him like he never did before, pressing him to his own warm body with all the
force he’s capable of, running his fingers through his hair and pressing his lips to the crown of his
head. Chuuya gives in, burying his face in Dazai’s neck, messing his jacket up with tears. His
trembling hands slowly find their way up, now resting on his shoulder blades.

“You said I wouldn’t exist to you anymore if I win,” Dazai whispers after a long silence. “So,
please,” he lets out a long sigh. “Look at me, Chuuya, while you still can recognize me.”

Chuuya obeys, forcing himself to look up. Their gazes cross right away, and there's an inherent
kindness in Dazai’s eyes, bold and boundless. Very few people his age are still capable of kindness
like this.

“That’s better,” he smiles in relief. He thinks something over for a moment. “You know, even
though your inner child is scarred and bruised, I would still give him a laurel wreath.”

“I still don’t understand,” Chuuya whispers in a voice dry from crying. He knows he’s a mess right
now, his face red and wet from tears. Still, he isn’t ready to renounce a single word he said before.
“Why are you so kind to me?”

“One day,” Dazai laughs quietly, letting him go with a final pat on his back. “One day, you will.”

“Dazai-”

“Go, Chuuya,” he cuts him off, nodding at the door. “You need to wash your face,” the corners of
his mouth suddenly fly up in a smile. “You don’t want to receive your prize looking like this, do
you?”

Chuuya wipes the tears off his cheeks and finally, he walks to the door without saying a word. He
doesn’t have it in himself to smile back, no matter how grateful he feels. For the first time since he
last talked to his mother before she died – for someone’s acceptance.

Even though your inner child is scarred and bruised, I would still give him a laurel wreath.

He only manages to grab the door’s handle when Dazai’s voice calls him from behind.

“Chuuya,” he turns his head, instantly finding his eyes. Dazai looks different now, his hands
hidden behind his back, not a single trace of a smile left on his face. “I love you.”

I know.

You’ve already said it today.

Chuuya’s mouth falls open and he suddenly struggles to even take a breath. He doesn’t remember
the last time he heard these words toward himself. After a long second, he finally swallows and lets
out a sigh.

“Good luck, Dazai,” is the only thing he says before walking out of the room.

An hour later, everyone is gathered in the kitchen again, for one last time now. The entire balcony
is downstairs, standing in two lines right behind the finalists, the whispering scattered over the
crowd. Verlaine is also there, keeping aloof and watching the judges with an unwavering gaze as
they enter the room, accompanied by a round of applause. Chuuya is standing between Kunikida
and Dazai, staring blankly in front of himself. Nothing exists to him at this moment. Neither time
nor other people. He’s alone, he’s with himself and against himself. His fate is capped in this
kitchen, it’s hidden in a golden envelope that Fukuzawa now holds in his hands like a sacred
treasure.

“The three best cooks in Japan,” he begins once the cameras are all set. “The twenty best cooks in
Japan,” he gives the crowd an acknowledging nod. “You have all surprised us in various ways in
this kitchen since fall. Some surprises were pleasant, the others not much,” a wave of quiet laughs
scatters the room. “Either way, the winner is one, by design, as it was predefined by the rules. He’s
in here,” Fukuzawa lifts the envelope up, and one of the cameras zooms in on it. The kitchen fills
up with impatient chattering, but the finalists remain stiff and wordless. Fukuzawa sighs. “But
before I finally take the honor of announcing his name, my colleagues want to say a word.”

After a brief round of applause, Ango nods at them all and reaches to fix his glasses.

“Kunikida, Chuuya, Dazai,” he glances at each one of them. “I remember all of your failures and
mistakes in this kitchen and still consider you spectacular cooks. It’s no mistake that exactly the
three of you were chosen to compete for the final reward. You are true masterminds of your craft,
and I’m proud that I got to witness your professional growth and, perhaps, even teach you
something. I won’t be talking much as I know how eager you are to know the results, so I just want
to thank you all for your efforts. Be sure, they were appreciated both by us and the audience to
their fullest.”

“Thank you, chef,” they all say as one, and Ango lets out a reserved smile, gesturing at Yosano to
take the word.
“Ango-san has a way with words, doesn’t he?” She smiles. “As the most important thing has been
already said, I want to add just a tiny piece from myself.” She clears her throat and turns serious in
an instant. “This goes not only to the finalists, but to all of you, and I want you to mark what I’m
going to say,” she eyes the room. “Some of you will work in the restaurants and some of you will
open them. Some of you will cook dishes and some of you will compose critical reviews on them.
Some of you will write books and some of you will hit them, resuming your studies in the culinary
field. Whichever way you decide to choose at last, remember, you’re still a cook even if you’re not
cooking anything at all. This, like one of the greatest arts known to humanity, keeps living aside its
assigned body. And if you ever reject it, be sure, it will come back,” Yosano shrugs. “That’s our
bitter ordeal but it’s also what makes us ourselves.”

Chuuya bites his lip. Fascinating, how something that had kept beating him since he was eighteen
with its complexity was just formed into words in such an effortless and beautiful way. Akiko
Yosano is surely from another world. There’s no way such a young person as herself can be this
insightful and wise.

“Great words, Yosano, thank you,” Fukuzawa gives her an approving nod. “What a wonderful way
to draw a finish line,” with this said, he finally reaches to open the envelope, taking a small name
card out of it. He glances at the name as if he wasn’t the one who put it there in the first place and
takes a slow thoughtful breath. He hands the now empty envelope to Ango and glances up. “On
this card, the three of us wrote the name of a person who doesn’t belong in this contest,” Chuuya
frowns, not taking a hint right away, his arms frozen by his sides and the floor is like cotton under
his feet. Fukuzawa goes on. “This person doesn’t belong here because his place has long been on a
much, much higher scale. His proficiency, mastery, and inventiveness in the culinary craft have
amazed us to an unrivaled extent. This is the person all fledgling cooks should look up to.”

Chuuya holds his breath, ready to leap forward. There can’t be a mistake. An experienced and
proficient cook who has long lived past the bar of the show? It’s him. It’s something that has been
clear from the very beginning.

Mom, are you watching?

I’m ready to take the crown.

“Please, welcome with a round of the loudest applause, the ultimate winner of this year’s season,”
Fukuzawa takes a deep breath and finally turns the name card to them. “Dazai Osamu.”

Chuuya blinks, feeling the wave of goosebumps running through his entire body. The room bursts
with loud applause and approving exclamations, everyone rushes forward to drown Dazai in their
embrace, messing his clothes and hair, laughing and throwing congratulations. All the cameramen
walk closer, capturing the sight from different angles, while the air is quickly filling up with
golden confetti in the best traditions of TV shows. There are only two people who remain standing
in their spots, not taking even a step, not moving at all, as if they’re nothing else but sculptures of
ice. Nakahara Chuuya and Paul Verlaine. One of them is burning in devastating grief and the other
one is internally chanting in triumph.

After Dazai finally releases himself from Higuchi’s firm embrace, he flattens his disheveled hair
and walks up to shake hands with the judges and take the name card from Fukuzawa, his ticket to
the future he’s been dreaming of for so long. He says his thanks and turns to face other contestants
once again, his gaze doesn’t stop at anyone in particular and when it slides over Chuuya for a
moment, it’s almost like he’s looking through him. And suddenly, almost against himself, Chuuya
smiles. He just lets out a long breath, and the corners of his lips fly up. The time is still slowed
down around him as he’s watching Dazai’s triumph, taking in the way he holds the card in his
hand, how he looks down at it once more as if to make sure that there wasn’t a mistake.
Somewhere in the background, Tachihara and Gin are already planning an after-party for the
winner, listing the dishes they should all gather and cook together at the dorm out loud. And
Chuuya keeps smiling like the fool he is. Someone’s hand lands on his shoulder, squeezing it
firmer for a mere second. It’s Kunikida.

“Good job,” he says when Chuuya briefly glances at him. “We did everything we could.”

Chuuya smirks. Apparently, I did not.

He turns to him with a sigh, not intending to stand this a second more. “Want to go for a smoke?”

The same evening, Chuuya’s alone in his room, packing his stuff. Everyone’s downstairs,
celebrating the end of the contest in the living room. There’s a lot of food, alcohol, loud music, and
Dazai’s probably the center of everyone’s attention. No wonder Chuuya isn’t there. He didn’t want
to take part in this in the first place and even refused to help in the kitchen when Tachihara asked
him for it with doe eyes. Instead, he went for a long walk around the suburbs, enjoying the fresh
spring wind and the smell of blooming fruit trees in the air. When he came back to the dorm, he
decided that he wouldn’t wait for the morning to leave. The time has come. He doesn’t have any
business staying here for a second longer than he’s required. Ranpo will understand. Chuuya is
going to text him and explain everything later, either way.

The only obvious trouble is sneaking out of the dorm without anyone noticing him. Chuuya takes a
last glance over his room, now deserted and empty on the side that used to be his, and squeezes the
handle of his suitcase firmer in his hand. With a decisive sigh, he opens the door and walks out,
making sure not to let out even a sound. He picks one of the back doors to escape the building so
that he won’t have to pass by the living room, bursting with music, voices, and laughter. Once he’s
outside, he requests a cab ride to his house and decides that he has some time for a smoke. As he
lights his cigarette, he looks up at the clear and starlit sky. It’s deep into the evening but the
weather is still windless and warm. Chuuya leans against the wall, the cigarette smoldering in his
fingers, and hopes that he will get a chance to make a wish on a shooting star.

“…I really can’t understand why we’re doing this bullshit,” he suddenly hears the voice of
someone outside and involuntarily presses himself firmer against the wall as if trying to dissolve in
it and become invisible at least for a second. “Tachihara always comes up with the most stupid
dares in this game.”

Chuuya deciphers Higuchi’s voice. It’s not moving any closer, so she probably remains in one
place. However, there’s someone else with her.

“We have to scream our biggest secrets out loud, right?” Chuuya’s breath catches in his throat
along with the cigarette smoke when he hears Dazai. He sounds just a bit on edge as if he’s
nervous because of something, but apart from that, he’s pretty… okay? Chuuya cannot hear
anything that would hint at him being unhappy or upset. Right now, it hurts in a completely
different way, because he himself is in shreds. “Okay, then, you go first.”

“You mean, with you listening?” The frown is clear in Higuchi’s voice. “This won’t be fair. The
point is to say it without anyone around.”

“Alright, then,” Dazai agrees. “I’ll go grab my cigarettes from the room and in the meantime, you
can shout here all you want.”

There’s a sound of the door opening and closing, and just in a moment, Chuuya realizes that Dazai
has left. Higuchi is alone now – or at least she thinks so – and she takes a long, audible gasp of air.
Chuuya is just within several steps from her, behind the wall, keeping the cigarette in his left hand
so that the smoke won’t expose his being here. It feels a bit wrong, eavesdropping on someone
revealing their biggest secret just like this, even though it’s just a dare in the stupid drinking game.
Chuuya even thinks of covering his ears for a second but he doesn’t get to, as in the next second,
Higuchi is already voicing her confession. Even though it isn’t even barely a scream, she sounds
decisive and bold like never before.

“I think I’m in love with Gin Akutagawa!”

Chuuya’s eyes snap wide open. Well, that’s… quite unexpected. He’s never been fond of rumors so
he doesn’t really know what’s happening behind his back and outside his field of vision. Ranpo
mentioned to him once that there had been a fair share of love stories throughout the contest but
Chuuya was as interested in them as he was in aerodynamics or playing golf. Higuchi? Is in love
with Gin? Isn’t Gin head over heels for Tachihara?

The thought doesn’t get to linger as the dorm’s door flies open again, and Dazai steps outside.

“Are you done?” Higuchi hums, a bit hesitant. “Then, if you will, it’s my moment of solitude
now.”

When Higuchi goes back inside and there are only two of them left here now, Chuuya feels a flash
of uneasiness running through his body. He puts his cigarette out and takes a deep breath, making
sure not to let out a sound. His cab should be here by now, what’s taking the driver so long? He
certainly doesn’t want to be left here, listening to Dazai’s telling his biggest secret to the sky and
the stars. Chuuya takes his phone out of his pocket and checks the app. The estimated waiting time
left is around seven minutes. The roads leading to such a shithole of the city must be exceptionally
tangled.

Chuuya hears Dazai take a slow deep breath and suddenly gets alert. What is this? What else have
you been hiding from me? Leap.

“It wasn’t half a year ago that I met my first love,” says Dazai, loud enough, almost on the verge of
an exclamation, just within several steps from him. “In fact, I saw Chuuya for the first time almost
four years ago, during his masterclass at Fêtes Galantes,” he laughs quietly at his own words as if
admitting to their absurdity.

Chuuya’s breath catches in his chest. How?

So that intense and burning stare he was feeling on himself the entire time didn’t belong to
Raphaël?

It was Dazai?

Dazai was there?

He squeezes his eyes shut, forcing himself to take a deep breath, clinging to the wall behind his
back with both of his hands. The phone buzzes in his pocket, notifying him that his cab is almost
there. But Chuuya keeps standing like this for some time, counting his own breaths, trying to
process everything he’s just heard until someone’s sudden presence interrupts him.

“So,” he opens his eyes to see Dazai right in front of him. “How long have you been standing
here?”
 Race You to the Table
Chapter Notes

I quite literally hate this chapter.

Twenty minutes after the winner’s announcement, the fuss is still everywhere, and Chuuya
struggles to walk past the cameramen gathered all around him, filming individual interviews with
all the participants to include them in the final episode during post-production. He wants to get out
of here as fast as possible. He doesn’t feel like he belongs here but, even more than that, he doesn’t
want to lie to people anymore. No, he’s not happy for Dazai. Maybe, deep down, in the lowest
layers of his consciousness, he is, but right now he’s too disappointed in himself to even point this
feeling out. He didn’t even hug him. Everyone did but him. And god, Chuuya is sure this is going to
be the only thing discussed on the Internet after the episode is out. Luckily, there are still two more
weeks before that.

He sneaks into the corridor, looking for the back door out of the pavilion, when suddenly, he
notices that one of the dressing rooms is slightly ajar, a soft bleak light coming from there. Chuuya
almost passed by but he stops, at last, and peeps inside, holding his breath involuntarily. He almost
flinches when he notices the person sitting there, looking in the mirror just like Dazai did before
the contest. Their faces are completely different but at the same time, they are alike. Chuuya looks
in the mirror and sees a genius, again. But he’s not looking at himself.

“Hello, Chuuya,” says Verlaine, taking his hat off and pressing it to his chest with a polite nod.

“Chef,” he replies, dryly, taking a step in and closing the door behind his back. It’s almost
embarrassing, how after everything Paul Verlaine has done to him, he still can’t help but respect
the man. He doesn’t have the guts to just slam the door on him and walk away without saying a
word. “What are you doing here?”

Verlaine spins in his chair, slowly, now facing him. “Waiting for you, of course,” he smiles. “What
else would I be doing?”

“What do you need me for?” Chuuya frowns. “I had lost, you heard that. Save your congratulations
for yourself. Or, shall I say, for your favorite student?”

“Who are you mad at, Chuuya?” Paul scoffs, putting his hat back on. He wears it on rare
occasions. Either for weddings or funerals. Today’s the latter. “Me, Dazai, or yourself?”

“I’m not mad at anyone,” Chuuya raises his tone slightly. “Why do people assume that the only
emotion I can ever feel is anger?”

“Then tell me,” Verlaine leans closer, with his elbow pressed against his knee, and places his head
atop his hand. “Did you expect Dazai to win?”

Chuuya smirks. “What kind of question is that?”

“Yes or no?”

“Yeah,” he gives in, shaking his head ever so slightly and looking away. “Somehow, I had known
that from the very beginning. Still, I couldn’t help but hope. Hope that I would outplay him, at least
for one single time.”

“Do you want to know what’s his greatest advantage over you?” Verlaine hums. “He doesn’t care
about winning. You’re telling me he now has a million dollars on his hands? What is a fool like
him even going to do with this amount of money? He’s fooling around all the time, he hasn’t grown
any maturer since I last saw him. Money? Fame? These things will destroy a person like him. So
there’s no point in celebrating his victory anyway,” Verlaine shrugs. “His best days will pass by in
the blink of an eye.”

At this, Chuuya doesn’t know what to say. He takes a deep breath, feeling like someone just
punched him right in the stomach. Before hearing these words, he’d been sure that he would never
despise Paul Verlaine more. Apparently, he was wrong. How can he even say something like this
about the person he once cared for more than anyone else? Chuuya is not aware of the entire story
but he remembers their talk near the Seine clearly, he’s been seeing it in his dreams almost every
night ever since. He had never seen Paul Verlaine that reverent, never heard him talk about anyone
with such admiration. Where did it all go? When? And why can’t he be happy that Dazai’s finally
pursuing his dream?

“I thought you’d put everything you had into him,” Chuuya frowns. “But suddenly, you’re
switching sides. What for?”

“Oh, please,” Verlaine laughs, covering his eyes with his palm. “I’ve never been on Dazai’s side.
Let’s just say that he was my first and failed attempt.”

“Don’t,” Chuuya practically storms to him, stopping within just a step. “Don’t call him like that.”

For a brief instant, a glimpse of surprise flashes in Verlaine’s eyes, but he quickly covers it,
straightening his back so he can look down at him. Chuuya hates when people do this. It always
makes him feel less significant somehow.

“I see that you have developed a sort of attachment to him,” hums Verlaine. “That’s adorable. But
completely unnecessary,” he gestures at him dismissively. “As soon as you’re back in Paris, taking
over the chef’s position at Fêtes Galantes as you’ve always meant to, there will be no place for
Dazai either in your life, your mind, or your heart.”

If Chuuya felt irritated before, now he’s absolutely furious. What a fucking complacency. What
makes Verlaine think that he will give up everything and accept his offer on the first call? And the
worst thing is that it’s not even an offer. It seems that Verlaine got into his head somehow – like he
always did – and read all the thoughts that had been leaving him frustrated and sleepless for nights
on end. If I don’t win, what will I have left? If I’m not getting that money, what am I supposed to
do? Will I never open my own place, a restaurant in which everything will be by my rules and my
design?

“Face it, Chuuya,” Verlaine sighs, after his long silence. “This is your only ace left. If you reject
my offer, everyone will forget you or worse, remember you only as Dazai Osamu’s personal errand
boy, forever,” he frowns, looking at him with pity. “Is this what you want?”

Chuuya’s breathing hard, looking at him silently for almost a minute. He takes pains not to let his
fury show because this is exactly what Verlaine wants. He wants him to hate Dazai, to hate this
show and this entire country for doing him like this. But the only person Chuuya truly hates right
now is the one he sees in front of himself.

“You are right,” he sighs, and the corners of his lips slowly form a soft smile. “I have lost and I’m
a loser now. I have nothing left and definitely no chance of opening my own restaurant like I’ve
always wanted,” he shrugs, taking a step back. “Everyone will probably forget my name in less
than a year or so, and Dazai will get all the limelight to himself.”

He looks at Verlaine’s face, his expression calm and attentive, he seems to be listening to and
processing every word he says. Chuuya’s smile grows wider as he lowers his voice.

“But I’d rather be Dazai’s shadow,” he whispers, leaning just a bit closer to him. “Than your
fucking chef.”

Here’s this thing with parting. It never goes mildly. That’s something Chuuya has known from the
very beginning, right from that kiss Dazai gave him in his dorm room, backing him to the wall and
pressing against it, holding his face with both of his hands like his life depended on it. Chuuya was
watching his eyes, out of breath himself, and he already knew where it was going. Now he’s
looking at him again, in the somber evening in the deserted street, where the sky is high and clear
above them because there are fewer lights in this part of the city. Dazai smells slightly of alcohol
and other people’s perfumes, his hair is curly and a bit messy. Probably Gin made him a winner’s
crown out of the cardboard box and he’d been wearing it the entire time, sitting in the middle of the
room like the sun, like the star hotter than the sun itself, threatening to burn everyone around. But
now, he’s unexpectedly cold, in a completely different way. He’s breathing hard looking at Chuuya
as if he’s just run a marathon. He leans forward, leaning with his right hand against the wall next to
Chuuya’s head, and now there’s barely a step between them.

“I heard,” Chuuya informs him, taking a deep steady breath. “It doesn’t mean anything.”

“I knew you would,” Dazai nods, pressing his lips into a thin line. “And yes, it does. I’d been lying
to you for a long time.”

“What a power of observation,” Chuuya scoffs and reaches to grab his suitcase from the ground. “I
have to go,” he eyes his whole figure for a second and forces a smile. “Congratulations on your
victory.”

“Chuuya, wait,” Dazai grabs him by the sleeve the second he tries to walk away. Chuuya stops and
takes a deep breath but doesn’t turn to look at him back. “I don’t want you to go.”

At this, Chuuya almost starts laughing, hysterically, but keeps himself collected at the very last
moment. Dazai doesn’t want him to go. Now that’s nonsense. What else is he supposed to do? His
life is in shreds. His purpose is nonexistent now. He doesn’t have anything or anywhere to return to
anymore, except for his old house, where he’s destined to rot in a small stuffed kitchen for the rest
of his life, oversalting his goddamn béchamel every single time without a soul to scold him for
that. And Dazai has the whole world lying ahead of him. Certainly, there’s no place for losers in it.
And Chuuya most definitely is a loser.

“What do you want me to say?” He shrugs. “I’m glad that you won, I mean it,” he’s not lying even
though saying these words feels like swallowing razors. “It doesn’t change what I think of myself,
though. If anything, it only makes it worse. You have never been Verlaine’s student. I have. And
still, you won,” he grits his teeth. “That’s worse than embarrassing, actually. I would prefer to dig
myself a hole somewhere in the ground and stay there forever.”

“That’s what I was afraid of,” says Dazai, letting go of his sleeve as if being sure that he won’t just
run away. Chuuya doesn’t look at him but for some reason, he knows that he shrugs, his tone
slowly changing from panicked to a calmer one. “Not you hating me but you getting disappointed
in yourself, again.”
“Please,” Chuuya smirks and takes the phone out of his pocket, checking the app. His cab is
already there, waiting just past the gates of the camp, the free waiting time he has left is one minute
and twenty-two seconds. One minute and twenty-two seconds to say everything he couldn’t bring
himself to say in months. “Don’t act like you know everything, not now,” he tightens the grip on
his suitcase’s handle and looks to the right, though not at Dazai. “And let me go. Sorry that I can’t
share the happiest moment in your life with you.”

“Chuuya,” but he’s already walking away.

Determined, he almost marches, step by step on the pavement, looking only in front of himself with
his head high like they do in movies. A sudden rush of the wind gives him a burning slap on the
face and messes with his hair, the lone strands now getting into his eyes. He doesn’t brush them
away, he’ll do it later. Once he approaches the car, the driver gives him an acknowledging nod and
throws away his cigarette, reaching to open the boot so Chuuya can put his suitcase there. When he
opens the door to the backseat, he hesitates for a second, everything in his body begging him to
turn his head and give the camp one last look. He holds back, biting his lip, and gets into the car
almost in a rush. However, as soon as he reaches to slam the door shut, someone’s hand grabs it
and holds it open. Just in an instant, Dazai gets inside, pushing Chuuya back to the opposite
window and sitting down next to him, greeting the driver with a cheerful smile on his face.

“What are you doing?” Chuuya almost hisses at him when Dazai already slams the car’s door.

He doesn’t even look at him, gesturing to the driver instead. “Please, don’t mind us.”

“I won’t go anywhere with you,” Chuuya speaks up, this time louder, his voice trembling
traitorously at every syllable. He turns his head to the driver’s seat, grabbing it with his left hand
until his knuckles start to burn. “You don’t want bloodshed in your Audi.”

The driver looks completely flabbergasted at this point but extremely tired at the same time. He
lets out a long breath, dragging his palm down his face and finally starting the car.

“You’re the fifth couple arguing here today,” he says. “I just want to go home.”

“We’re not a fucking couple!” Chuuya almost shouts. “I’m your client and I’m telling you to stop
the goddamn car,” but they’re already driving away from the camp, gaining speed on the empty
highway.

“We’re a couple,” Dazai steps in, shrugging casually. “And I’ll leave you a good tip if you just let
us argue in peace.”

His point turns out to be convincing – as if it could’ve been the other way around – and the driver
doesn’t say a word more, concentrating on the road instead and turning on some loud rock song as
a soundtrack. Chuuya is struggling to even take a breath at this point and he turns to look at Dazai,
at his still disheveled hair and his shirt half unbuttoned (something he hadn’t noticed before), at the
smug smirk on his lips and the way he crosses his hands on his chest, leaning with his shoulder
against the window. He didn’t bring anything and Chuuya doubts that he even has his phone with
him; besides, he’s more than sure that Dazai has no idea where they’re going, in the middle of
nowhere, closer to midnight. And if Chuuya managed to push him out of the car right now, it
would take him a good challenge to find his way back to the camp. He’s both dressed and naked at
the same time. And Chuuya feels scandalized. Because why would he do something as stupid as
this? Just for them to look at each other in silence?

“You,” Chuuya breathes in, his gaze sliding down to his bare neck and then to his face again. “Are
the biggest piece of shit I have ever met.”
“At least, you’re talking to me,” Dazai sighs, not looking away from him even for a second.
“That’s a start.”

“I’m not fucking talking to you!” Chuuya snaps back at him and crosses his hands over his chest,
turning to the opposite window demonstratively; in the reflection, he sees Dazai’s lips forming
another smirk.

They’re sitting in silence for some time, with the music still playing loudly in the background, and
everything feels like a shitty reality show or a romance movie in which, according to all the classic
rules of the genre, they are supposed to be trying to kill each other first and then kissing mindlessly
all the way from the car to Chuuya’s porch. They certainly won’t be doing any of that.

“Chuuya,” Dazai breaks the silence after some time, letting out a loud sigh, his voice almost a
whisper. “I love you.”

Chuuya shakes his head almost violently, still staring blankly out of the window. “No.”

“I do,” he insists, not trying to reach him, not even leaning any closer. “I really, really do.”

“I don’t fucking want to hear this!” Chuuya snaps back, turning to him, and even the driver
flinches at the sudden raise of his voice. But Dazai remains unbothered, his eyes fixed on him.
“What do I do with your goddamn confession? Is it going to give my life back to me? Is it going to
heal my fucked up head?” Dazai wants to say something but he cuts him off, his voice trembling
even more with every next word. “You’re here, behaving like a fucking movie protagonist, trying
to drum into my head something I will never believe in. I don’t need your deeds, I don’t need your
affection, love never does any good to a person who’s not even worth a dime, god, why can’t you
understand this?”

“Loving you did me good,” says Dazai, in a much calmer voice than his own, but there’s now a
certain worry in his eyes that wasn’t there before. “It made me a winner.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Chuuya smirks and lets the smile linger on his lips because he thinks he might break
down and start crying otherwise. “And now you have a million fucking dollars on your hands
while I only have my shitty house with scratched walls and probably drunk and passed-out
youngsters all over the floor by the time I get there,” he shakes his head as he swallows, noticing
that they’ve already entered the city and are now approaching his block. In some sense, he missed
these streets, even though he doesn’t get a chance to think about it now. He sighs and tries to calm
himself down, looking at Dazai once again. “You can go wherever the fuck you want. What do you
need from me?”

“You are right,” he nods. “I can go wherever I want. That is why I’m going with you.”

Chuuya opens his mouth to say something but just bites his lip at last, leaning forward and running
both of his hands through his hair. He doesn’t know how much time passes like this but he opens
his eyes when the car stops and the driver gets out to bring his suitcase from the boot. Chuuya
gives Dazai a brief glance and gets out of the car without a word, closing the door with a loud
slam.

“I’m sorry for this,” he says to the driver who just passes by him, shaking his head dismissively –
no worries. “I’ll leave you a tip in the app.”

Dazai gets out at last, and the car drives away swiftly, leaving them both on the empty street,
already deserted and sleepy at this time of the day. It’s the way it’s always been, and the relative
calmness of his neighborhood was another reason why Chuuya didn’t want to move anywhere else.
He takes his suitcase in his hand but doesn’t take even a step forward, just staring at Dazai who’s
standing in front of him, his hands in his pockets, the merciless wind messing his hair and a loose
shirt.

“Are you satisfied?” Chuuya raises his eyebrows at him. “What are you going to do now? I’m not
letting you into my house. There isn’t enough room for you anyway.”

“I’m not asking you to let me in,” says Dazai. “I just want to talk to you.”

“I believe I already said everything I wanted,” Chuuya scoffs and rummages in his pocket for the
keys. When he finds them, he rushes past Dazai, heading to his yard. “Goodnight.”

He has never opened the door this fast. His heart is beating in his temples when he’s looking for
the right key (apparently, half a year is more than enough to forget even the most trivial and
mundane things) and when the door finally gives, he walks inside as quickly as possible and slams
it shut, pressing his back to its cold surface and dropping his suitcase to the floor. He covers his
face with both of his hands and tries to steady his breath. Shit, shit, shit.

“Hello?” He asks in a shaking voice, hoping that at least one of those kids he’s been renting the
house to is not asleep yet. It was his mistake, not to warn them in advance that he would be coming
back earlier.

It takes him a minute to finally step forward, turn the lights on, walk through the corridor and
check all the rooms. He finds a pile of some music magazines on the living room floor, along with
empty beer cans and an ashtray filled with cigarette stubs and someone’s dry chewing gum. He
knocks on the bedroom door twice but no one answers, so he peeps inside only to find it empty.
This room looks much tidier, though, with the bed made carefully and no traces of dust on any of
the surfaces. Another bedroom, his own, is empty as well. Chuuya takes a breath. Probably,
they’ve left somewhere for the night, and that’s most certainly not a card dealt in his favor. He
won’t stand a night in this place, alone, after such a long leave. He had hoped that he’d at least get
a chance to crash on the couch for the night and pass out to some shitty teenage music blaring out
of the speakers.

With a long sigh, he backs away into the corridor again and looks at the entrance door. Not a sign
of anyone being here except him. What are the chances that Dazai hasn’t left yet? No. Don’t even
think about this.

Chuuya holds his breath as he opens the door wide and something clenches in his chest when he
spots him standing there, still where he left him, counting the wrinkled cash bills in his hands,
probably estimating whether they’ll be enough to get a cab back to the camp or else he’ll have to
stop a bypassing car on the go. A fucking millionaire. What a joke.

“Hey,” Chuuya calls out and the moment he does, Dazai turns to him so quickly that he almost
drops all the bills to the ground. They just look at each other in silence for some time, not saying a
word. “Get inside,” Chuuya commands, nodding behind his back. “It’s fucking cold.”

The kitchen is dimly lit with a dirty yellow light when Chuuya’s standing over the sink, washing
the fourth mug in a row so that he can keep his hands occupied with something or else they’ll start
trembling again. Dazai is sitting at the table, twisting an empty salt shaker in his hands and not
saying a word. Chuuya doesn’t look at him, deliberately, biting his lips as he turns the water on and
off, placing each clean mug on a cloth towel to dry. He’s not used to this. He’s really fallen out of
the habit of doing mundane things without cameras hovering over his head. But in this place, dusty
and shabby, he can be himself again, if just for the night. Not Nakahara Chuuya, that short-
tempered redhead from Japan’s most popular culinary show, not a recognized chef with a French
educational background, not Paul Verlaine’s protégé, and, most importantly, not Dazai’s rival. But
just Chuuya. In his loose white t-shirt and pajama pants, with his hair in a high bun with two curly
strands falling onto his face, sleepy eyes and dry bitten lips. He’s exhausted. The only thing he
wants is to sleep for twenty hours straight without seeing the light of day and thinking about his
future.

When no mugs are left to wash, he switches to plates and cutlery, even though they appear clean, if
only a bit dusty. Chuuya wonders what those youngsters are even eating here. He spotted a pile of
empty pizza boxes near the dumpster as he approached the house. Oh, god, how he dreams of a
simple pizza after all those months of eating that haute cuisine crap.

When the silence in the room becomes unbearable, he takes a deep breath. “I can pay for your cab.”

Dazai places the salt shaker back on the table. “Do you want me to leave?”

Chuuya bites his lip, rubbing another plate harsher than before until his palms start to redden.
“No.”

“I can sleep outside,” he hums and he sounds serious, not like he’s joking around at all. “It’s cold
but not like, deadly cold, ya know? And your front yard looks pretty comfortable, with all that
grass and stuff.”

“Dazai,” Chuuya squeezes his eyes shut, just listening to the water run for some time. “I don’t want
you to leave and I don’t want you to sleep outside.”

“Then what do I do?”

He sighs and places the plate aside, taking another one right away, not breaking the algorithm. It’s
easier like this, pretending to be busy with something, not looking at him as they talk. Chuuya
really has a bunch of shit to think about. How he’s not the winner he’d wished he would become.
How everything is pretty real right now, more real than ever before, and all his potential has been
crushed brutally, and how he can’t even be happy for a person he loves because he wishes,
selfishly, that the thing that happened to Dazai would happen to him instead. How he betrayed his
mother. How he couldn’t live up to her expectations and dreams even after her death. How – as his
father put it once – he was born already a failure. How there’s nothing good waiting for him ahead
anymore. How there’s a literal millionaire sitting in his kitchen right now, and Chuuya will
supposedly have to spread the money he scraped from his salaries at the restaurant so that he can
get by until he finds a new job. How he already knows that there’ll be a string of interviews, one
after another, every culinary magazine and website wanting to know about his aspirations for the
future, how he’ll have to fake smiles and lie to the interviewers’ faces, again.

He won’t open a restaurant. He won’t make himself a shelter to hide in. He won’t build a
sanctuary, a temple to commemorate his life and his deeds, his burnt ducks and spoiled sauces.
Instead, he’s destined to rot in some bypassing diner for the rest of his life, with people
occasionally recognizing him and asking for a picture like he’s some sort of a circus animal, a
glaring embodiment of failure, an unsuccessful attempt, a laughingstock, a fool. His head feels so
bare without a crown on it. Dazai, however, is not wearing one either. He left it at the dorm to go
with Chuuya wherever he was headed, like the king who suddenly became a knight.

Then what does he do?

Chuuya takes another plate. “You can crash on the couch.”

Dazai sits silently for some time, piercing his back with his gaze until he finally stands up, and
Chuuya hears his steps further and further from himself, sinking into the dark corridor. The water’s
still on. His hands are still red from all the rubbing. And he still feels like he can start crying at any
given moment. He’s never felt so vulnerable before, ever. Scolding from that dickhead Verlaine in
front of the entire class was nothing. Scolding from Fukuzawa in front of the entire country was
nothing. Even losing – in front of his mother – was nothing. Chuuya just smiled back then. Now he
can’t even smile.

The steps approach him again; carefully, as if Dazai has just changed his mind. And then, just in a
spark of a second, Chuuya feels his arms gently wrapping around his waist, just under his elbows,
and Dazai suddenly covers him entirely, with his whole freakishly tall body, soft and warm, and,
even though he almost needs to bend his knees for that, he buries his face in Chuuya’s hair, taking
a deep breath. Chuuya struggles to do the same, slowly lowering his hands and putting the plate
he’s been washing into the sink, not turning the water off. This is the kitchen in which he got
beaten up for the first time in his life. The kitchen in which he made the first cut on his forefinger
while learning to slice and chop. The kitchen in which he always felt like the most unlovable little
boy in the world. There was never room for love in this little square of yellowish light that
predefined his future. Only suffering and failed attempts. How did Dazai put this? We’re winners?
Well, then.

“I wish I could share with you at least a little bit of the faith I have in you,” says Dazai, still
breathing him in. “I fell in love with you not for the way you looked or talked,” every word twists
the knife in Chuuya’s ribs. “But for the way you cooked, it was something I had never seen before.
For how skilled you were. For how pissed off you got when something wasn’t going as you
planned, how you shouted and threw plates and scolded me just because you wanted me to do
better and you knew that I could do better,” he lifts his head slowly, the tip of his nose still touches
Chuuya’s hair, sliding slowly to the skin behind his ear, making him shiver all the way to his
fingertips. “You’d seen a winner in me even before I became one. That’s something I could’ve
never got from anyone else.”

“Yeah, you won, I already know that,” Chuuya lets out a sarcastic remark in hope that it would
hide how nervous he feels. Dazai’s grip on his waist tightens, his fingers wrinkle the fabric of his
t-shirt, and he takes a deep sigh before pressing his lips to the back of his neck, gently at first,
burning his skin with his warm breath. Chuuya closes his eyes and lets out an inaudible but
shivering breath. “What are you doing?”

“Kissing you,” says Dazai in a casual whisper, pressing his lips to his skin once more, this time
right behind his ear. “I don’t know what to say for you to finally believe me. So I’m trying to do
this the other way around.”

Chuuya finally turns the water off and instantly regrets it because the silence he finds himself in is
unbearable.

“I won’t sleep with you,” he says, his voice still traitorously unsteady.

Dazai smiles. “I don’t want you to sleep with me,” Chuuya knows when he’s lying, and that’s
exactly the case. In fact, he’s lying, too. He actually considers the possibility. He’s been for quite a
long time. “I want you to talk to me.”

Chuuya grabs both of his hands and unclenches his fingers, freeing himself from the embrace. He
turns to face Dazai now, dangerously close, looking up at him, his gaze traveling from his eyes to
his lips. Fight or flight? And is there a third option? His hand flies up, grabbing Dazai’s shoulder,
and he lets it linger there for a second before moving further, touching his neck, pressing his
fingers firmer against his bare skin. And before Chuuya even tries to reach him, Dazai already
leans closer, pressing him against the counter, grabbing his face with both of his hands and finding
his lips for a kiss. Chuuya takes a deep breath, now encircling his neck and hugging him tightly,
not letting him step back. As if Dazai’s even trying to. They’re kissing deep, breathless, in this
soul-wrenching, mind-blurring way, with Chuuya grabbing onto Dazai helplessly, his hands
messing with his hair, fingers tangling in the strands, as he gets lifted onto the counter next to the
sink.

I won’t sleep with you. I don’t want you to sleep with me. These are the only words that keep
ringing over and over again in Chuuya’s head while, for the first time in a long while, he feels
drunk. The feeling has always evoked unpleasant memories, has always been associated with the
worst moments in his life but now. The hottest person he’s ever met is in his arms, and Chuuya’s
hugging him with his thighs, breaking the kiss only for a split second before reaching for another
one.

“You know,” he whispers, panting, into Dazai’s lips. “That fucking Greek dinner. Symposia,
right?” He laughs, breathlessly. “How did you even come up with that?” He doesn’t give him a
chance to reply, kissing him again, tightening his grip around his neck. When they break apart, the
smile is still on his lips. “You were fucking hot.”

“I thought you wanted to choke me with your bare hands,” Dazai smiles back. “That’s how mad
with me you looked.”

Chuuya has never asked him about this but something is telling him that Dazai knows how to treat
people right when he sleeps with them. It’s not an exaggeration that he often behaves like a
goddamn romance movie protagonist, all charming and flirty, making Chuuya’s knees weak at one
bare glance. That one time he kissed him in his dorm room? Mindlessly, like Chuuya was
everything he’d ever wanted. It made him lose his mind, lose control, if only for a short time. And
this is the most distressing thing because Chuuya is more than sure that he can’t do the same to
him. He might’ve been attractive once, putting on all those looks and throwing seducing smiles at
the asshole who didn’t even deserve them, didn’t deserve him. A long time has passed since then,
and probably, Chuuya should’ve raised his standards by now. But Dazai is royalty. Chuuya has no
idea how to make love with royalty.

“I bet you don’t even realize,” Dazai whispers into his neck, kissing it right away and suddenly
lifting him up from the counter, holding him firmly in his arms. “How beautiful you are.”

Chuuya closes his eyes as he almost chokes on his breath, melting from the mere words and
shivering all over. If anyone else said that to him – and they did, oh, god, they did – he would
probably just laugh to their face. Because it feels like nothing compared to hearing this from Dazai.
He says this like he means it, like nothing else matters to him in the whole world, like he doesn’t
care about his title, his crown, his prize, like he would sacrifice all of that just to get one night with
Chuuya if only he gave him a chance. Chuuya is more than sure that he’s never wanted anyone this
much in his entire life. He’s never even considered it possible. As Dazai steps back from the
counter, Chuuya is sure that he’s going to take him to the bedroom, and the thought is dreadful, but
in a completely new and unstudied way. He’s not afraid because he doesn’t want him to. He’s
afraid because he wants it too much.

But instead, Dazai stops next to the kitchen table, moving that goddamn salt shaker aside, and
Chuuya’s eyes snap wide open once Dazai lays him down, and suddenly, he’s pressed against the
wooden surface, with Dazai hanging right over him and covering everything else in his view.
There’s a hint of a smirk lingering on his lips but also, he’s nervous, almost as much as Chuuya is,
he can see it clearly in his eyes. And god, it’s maddening. As tempting as the thought appears,
Chuuya is not a goddamn movie star to be fucked on the dining table.

“You know,” says Dazai, straightening his back but not making a step from him. He’s leaning with
one hand against the table, right next to Chuuya’s head, while the other one finds his way to
Chuuya’s shirt, sliding under it and slowly traveling up to his ribs. All this time, he’s not breaking
eye contact even for a second. Chuuya just hopes that he can’t feel how madly his heart is
pounding in his chest right now. “I have to ask for permission before taking you to your bedroom.”

Chuuya almost feels like crying out loud. How come he hasn’t realized yet that he can do whatever
he wants and Chuuya will only kiss him deeper for that? But once he opens his mouth to answer,
his phone suddenly starts buzzing on one of the counters. He closes his eyes for a moment and
takes a deep breath, mourning the lost moment. Dazai frowns, taking his hand away from him, and
turns his head.

“It’s probably Ranpo,” says Chuuya, lifting himself up with a sigh and jumping back to the floor.
Once he grabs the phone, he’s surprised to see Kunikida’s name on the screen. “Hello?” He
answers, trying to make his voice as steady as possible.

“Sorry to bother you this late,” Kunikida sounds serious and a bit worried. Chuuya thinks he knows
where it’s going. “But do you, by any chance, know where Dazai is? He just went outside with
Higuchi and never returned. He left his phone and all his things at the dorm and we have no idea
where he can be.”

Chuuya frowns. “Why do you think he might be with me?”

A long silence.

Kunikida coughs, a bit uncomfortable. “Well, because you’re also not here. And you two have a
habit of running away together.”

Chuuya pinches the bridge of his nose, closing his eyes. Sounds logical enough. When he turns to
glance at Dazai, he’s making a cross with both of his hands, shaking his head. Chuuya’s frown
deepens at this. Doesn’t he want Kunikida to scold him for running away later or to find out that
he’s actually here?

“Listen,” he sighs, turning back to the wall. “I’m at home and, as far as I know, he went home, too.
We just took a cab together because it was cheaper.”

“Why would he go home without even taking his stuff with him?” Kunikida keeps interrogating
him and honestly, if only there was a way to punch people through the phone because this is
exactly how irritated Chuuya feels right now.

“I don’t know,” he snaps at him, a bit louder than before. “Ask him when you see him next time.”

“Do you know his address so I could drop his things off?”

“Jesus, Kunikida! Why would I know his address?” Chuuya feels like tugging at his own hair.
“I’m not his fucking boyfriend!”

Another long silence.

“Right,” Kunikida sounds aback when he finally replies, and Chuuya suddenly feels guilty for
snapping at him like this. Just a few minutes ago, he was feeling so excited and nervous that he
was ready to melt away from embarrassment. And a bit earlier than that, he broke down in the
fucking backseat because he wanted to believe that Dazai loved him but he couldn’t. Every new
emotion layered onto the previous one and now he just feels like a lump of fear and nerves that’s
ready to burst at any given moment. “Well then, tell him to get his ass back in the morning. And
good night, Chuuya.”

He hangs up without waiting for his answer and for some time, Chuuya is just staring blankly at
the phone screen, trying to process the conversation that just happened. When he forces himself to
turn to Dazai, he’s still standing in his spot, his hands by his sides, looking back at him almost
apologetically.

“Why the fuck does Kunikida act like your nosy older brother?” Chuuya snorts, putting his phone
aside. “And why is he convinced that you’re at my place?”

“He can be like that sometimes,” Dazai makes a face and keeps quiet for a moment before
answering his next question. “And I wonder if it comes as a shock to you but literally everybody
knows that… we have something going on.”

Chuuya can’t help but glare at him with his mouth slightly open. “What do you mean, everybody
knows?” He asks slowly. “Did you tell them?”

Dazai smirks. “People are not blind, Chuuya. I didn’t have to tell them anything,” he frowns,
nodding at his phone. “When was the last time you got on Twitter?”

“I don’t have Twitter,” Chuuya is quick to lie even though he knows he doesn’t sound convincing
at all.

“Well,” but Dazai seems to ignore this. “People are sure we’re dating but just don’t want to make it
public.”

“Dating, my ass,” Chuuya smirks, dragging his hand down the side of his face and glancing at his
phone again. He’s almost itching to check it right now, to search their names on goddamn Twitter
just to see, for the first time in several months, what people are saying about the two of them. But
he holds back, biting his lip with a sigh. “This is all my fault.”

“And what do you mean by that?” Dazai frowns, leaning with his back against the table and
crossing his hands over his chest. There are still traces of their making out all over him, and his
disheveled hair, wrinkled half-unbuttoned shirt, reddened lips are all small reminders that make
Chuuya’s breath catch in his chest as he looks at him. “These are quite natural consequences of
falling in love with your,” he rummages for the right word. “Colleague on the set.”

“I’m not in love with you,” says Chuuya, pointing at him with his forefinger.

A smile touches Dazai’s lips for a brief second. “Sure.”

“Listen,” he sighs, leaning against the counter. “This is exactly the reason why I’ve never wanted
to make any of my… affairs public. I mean, I love attention, that’s true, but any relationship is
ruined as soon as more people than needed find out about it. And we’re not,” he lowers his head,
talking quieter now. “We’re not even in one.”

Dazai is silent for a long moment as if processing something, but Chuuya can’t bring himself to
look up at him.

“I get it,” he finally says. “Let’s make this official, then.”

There’s one more thing Chuuya didn’t say, deliberately. Relationships have always been something
dreadful for him. And he’s sure that his background has something to do with it. Probably,
everything. He hasn’t even dated anyone since their breakup with Raphaël, and even what they had
was completely messed up. Chuuya doesn’t know how to trust people. Nobody has ever taught him
that. The only thing he knows about love is that it’s supposed to hurt. Love is broken ribs and a
bleeding nose. Love is a cold damp basement with no sunlight coming inside whatsoever. Love is
falling asleep drunk with a goddamn frying pan in his embrace. Love is crying himself to sleep
because the person he fell for is better than him, kinder than him, prettier than him, smarter than
him, more skilled than him, in all possible ways and regards. Love is never gentle or merciful. And
Chuuya has no grounds to believe that being with Dazai won’t mess him up even more.

But something makes him give in, slowly lifting his head.

“Alright,” he sighs. “What do you suggest?”

The next morning, as much as he hates the thought of it, Chuuya makes them both breakfast. He
had mercy on Dazai, after all, and didn’t allow him to sleep on the couch. Instead, they slept
together, in Chuuya’s bed, touching hands under the blanket until they fell asleep, and Chuuya
must admit, it felt better than anything he had ever experienced before. He still wonders, though, if
sex will ever feel good to him. But falling asleep next to the person he loves was enough to
convince him to try something more.

It was adorable, the way Dazai said it. Chuuya almost burns their scrambled eggs as he smiles at
the memory, daydreaming while Dazai’s taking a shower. He swallowed, a bit nervously, and lifted
his shoulders in a short, almost unnoticeable shrug. Then, a smile touched his lips. Let’s go on a
date, he said. Let’s make everyone see us together, let them take pictures and discuss them online, I
don’t really care, do you?

After breakfast, Dazai grabs him by the wrist next to the entrance door and drags him closer for a
kiss. Chuuya has to hold onto his neck to keep balance while kissing him back. It seems like he’ll
never grow tired of the feeling this brings. Like kissing Dazai is something he could do for
eternity.

“I should go,” Dazai whispers into his lips when they break apart. “Kunikida’s probably already
calling the police or summoning the devil to chase me.”

“Okay,” says Chuuya, stepping back and opening the door for him. “Friday night, right?”

“Right,” Dazai smiles, slowly backing outside. “Tell me you will think about this.”

Chuuya frowns ever so slightly. “I already promised you that I would.”

The week that passes after that feels like agony. He almost never leaves the house, except when he
needs to run some errands and buy groceries, but even then he puts a hood over his head, hiding his
face in it almost entirely as if he’s a goddamn celebrity. But he can’t do much about this bone-
shattering dread that someone, anyone will just approach him in the street or in a grocery store and
ask, with sparkling eyes, whether he won or not. Even the guy living in his flat with his –
supposedly – girlfriend is eyeing him carefully the first night they see each other after Chuuya
comes back. He says that they can take as much time as they need to find another place and move
and that he doesn’t mind them still staying in his parents’ bedroom. He would never stand sleeping
there himself anyway.

Living with strangers is weird, especially when they’re a couple. Sometimes, when they’re all in
the kitchen and Chuuya pretends to be occupied with making himself dinner (in fact, he’s just
microwaving yesterday’s instant noodles he bought in the nearest grocery store; they taste like shit
but Chuuya’d rather eat wet paper towels than cook something with his own hands right now), he
overhears their conversations at the table and glances over his shoulder from time to time. How
they’re watching something on the phone, commenting on the video and laughing, how his arm is
wrapped around her back, how he nuzzles her neck, whispering something to her and she giggles,
kicking him with her foot under the table. It reminds him of another scene he saw once. Verlaine
and Rimbaud, in the kitchen of Fêtes Galantes, supervising his very first job interview. People in
love, people in love, people in love, they are everywhere. Chuuya is turning twenty-eight just in a
month, and he still suffers from the same ordeal. Being loved means being seen. Being loved by
Dazai means being seen by him and the people who love him. Chuuya is not sure he can withstand
this.

The days pass by, and he’s mostly in his bed, watching Netflix and texting Ranpo from time to
time. They went on a short vacation to Tokyo with Edgar, and now Ranpo is constantly flooding
their chat with pictures. Chuuya doesn’t mind it, he replies to every blurry selfie with a smile on
his face. He also checks the social media accounts of some other former contestants even though
he never posts anything on his own. Tachihara and Gin are abroad again, this time somewhere in
Northern Spain. Margaret is promoting her new romance novel. Oguri is advertising his very first
masterclass on molecular culinary. Mark and Louisa are planning on opening a bakery together.
Tanizaki is spamming pictures of his cakes. Kenji is mainly posting memes. Atsushi has applied
for further culinary education somewhere in the States. And so on, and so on, and so on. Everyone
seems to have their life together and their future settled, and Chuuya is the only one to be stuck in
place.

Dazai texts him, too, although not very often, probably he understands that Chuuya needs some
time alone and away from him. He mostly sends him pictures of the dishes he’s practicing at
home, the cat he wants to adopt from the local shelter, and beautiful scarlet sunsets over the
seashore. Perhaps it’s natural that, with every day of them not seeing each other, Chuuya misses
him more. His bed suddenly feels so empty without Dazai next to him, as if they’ve been falling
asleep together every night for at least ten years. It’s not even the longing that makes Chuuya so
wretched, it’s the fact that he can’t do anything else or move anywhere until he finally gets it
settled between them. In one or another way.

Late on Thursday evening, just the night before the date Chuuya hasn’t agreed on yet, he unlocks
his phone and types Dazai around ten text messages, erasing each one of them and trying again
until he finally gets it right. What should he say? Send him a dry okay? Or find the guts to explain
the whirlwind of emotions he’s been going through for the past week? Eventually, he settles on
one simple:

Dazai?

The reply comes almost instantly.

Yes?

Chuuya bites his lip, just staring down at the screen for what feels like an eternity. If he agrees to
go on that date and Dazai asks him to be his boyfriend, what will he say? Or won’t he say anything
at all and just run away like a child?

The date still stands?

Read. Dazai is typing for some time before sending him a single bewildered emoji. The one with
its head exploding. Chuuya drags a hand down his face and sighs.

It does
He types another text and erases it right away.

Chuuya?

Relax

Something’s telling him that saying this to Dazai’s face right now would be much easier than just
sitting here, in his dimly lit bedroom, staring helplessly at the phone screen. But he’s relaxed. He’s
calm. A simple date never hurt anyone, right? Probably no one will even recognize them together.
No one will spread the pictures of them on Twitter, discussing their every expression in all detail.
They aren’t even this famous, right?

Finally, Chuuya presses send.

Alright

Read.

Alright what?

He sighs.

Text me the time and place

But I will leave if I start to feel uncomfortable

The only thing ringing in Chuuya’s head over and over again on Friday is I’m afraid. The couple
he’d rented the house to left yesterday, and he’s finally alone with his thoughts but it doesn’t help
much. Like this, without anyone sleeping in a room just behind the wall, his parents’ bedroom, his
house appears even more unbearable to be in. He’s standing in front of the bathroom mirror, curling
the front locks of his hair, and biting his lower lip until it’s almost bleeding. He doesn’t know what
he’s doing, really. His heart seems to have spread all over his body, now pounding even at his
fingertips. He gets dressed in his best outfit, polishes his shoes, leaves the collar of his shirt
unbuttoned and even puts on a small silver necklace, accenting his neck.

When he walks to the mirror again, he almost gasps at the sight of himself. Running his hand over
his bare collarbones, Chuuya lets out a trembling sigh. He wishes Dazai would see him right now.
Wishes he would just pin him against the wall and kiss him until he’s gone, mindless with it,
whispering how beautiful he is into his lips over and over again. Convincing him. Tell me you want
me, please. I want to hear this from you more than anything in the world.

Chuuya’s not aware he’s being late, and when he gets out of the cab in front of the building, it’s
already more than ten minutes past their agreed time. It appears that Dazai is a big fan of trivial and
sentimental things as for their very first date, he picks a restaurant. A very fancy one, that’s for
sure, in the heart of Yokohama, with high ceilings and wide windows, everything screaming
exuberance and wealth.

Chuuya walks toward it through the crowded street but instead of entering the restaurant right
away, he stops in front of one of its massive windows, looking through it at a large room, filled
with bright lights, waiters and waitresses waltzing around the tables, people sitting at these very
tables, talking, laughing, holding hands. Everything is so beautiful and alive and Chuuya just keeps
standing there, frozen in place, until he finally spots Dazai. He’s already seated at one of the tables,
dressed exceptionally well – good lord, he even put on a fucking suit, – and a part of his hair is
combed to one side, a bit messy but still gorgeous, just like during that one contest in which they
served their dishes to the guests and he poured an entire bowl of hot soup on the asshole who was
hitting on Chuuya. He can’t help but smile at the memory. It feels like everything happened
centuries ago.

The smile on his face fades as soon as he remembers what Verlaine told him, barely a week ago,
right after all his hopes for the future had been violently crushed by Dazai’s victory. Everyone will
forget you or worse, remember you only as Dazai Osamu’s personal errand boy, forever. What
will happen to Chuuya once he crosses the entrance of this restaurant, once he approaches Dazai’s
table and lets other people – even if no one there really knows who they are – see them together,
across from each other, talking, smiling, perhaps even holding hands? Will it perpetuate him,
forever? Will it make him nothing more than Dazai’s shadow like he fears it will?

Suddenly, someone approaches his table, slowly and nervously, from behind. A girl, perhaps in her
early twenties or even younger, with beautiful long hair, she’s holding her phone in her hand and
leans just a bit closer over Dazai’s table, saying something to him with a shy smile. He smiles
back, suddenly cheerful and lively. Chuuya frowns and takes his phone out of his pocket,
unlocking it to see two texts he forgot to respond to. Dazai’s telling him he’s already there. Dazai’s
asking what’s taking him so long and whether everything’s okay. He glances up again and sees the
same girl bending her knees to take a picture with him. But Dazai, like the gentleman he is, stands
up instead, gently taking the phone from her hand and helping her out. Someone else notices this
and, just in a minute, another girl walks up to him with her phone. And another one right after.
Then, there are three girls at once, all giggling and hiding their smiles in their palms, almost
trembling from joy when Dazai acknowledges them and grants them polite nods and soft laughs,
and his eyes look alive like never before. And they don’t even know he’s won the contest yet.

Chuuya hides his phone and bites his lip as he takes a deep breath. No. He can’t do this. He’s a
coward but he just can’t. What in the world made him think that he would take everything that was
ahead with pride? That he could withstand Dazai’s fans losing their minds over him in his
presence, that he could just smile at them and praise Dazai all along? Now Chuuya wonders what
those people on Twitter will say after the final episode. Probably that someone like Chuuya doesn’t
deserve to be with someone like Dazai. That he’s a loser and Dazai is a winner. That he’s too
emotional, explosive and rude, and that he’s not even pretty enough compared to him. What else?
Chuuya swallows the bitterness in his mouth and almost flinches as he spots Dazai turning around,
looking for someone as one of the girls keeps talking to him about something. His eyes are
wandering across the restaurant, with noticeable worry perpetuated in them.

Chuuya steps back, out of his sight, and hides behind one of the walls next to the restaurant’s
entrance.

I can’t do this.

I can’t, I can’t, I can’t.

I just want to go home.

The phone buzzes in his pocket. It’s Dazai. Chuuya skips the call and opens the app to request a
cab instead. The estimated time is only around two minutes. He closes his eyes and takes a deep
breath, counting the seconds down.

How fortunate that he’s not in the suburbs anymore.

 April 29th
Chapter Notes

a little bit of angst never hurt anyone (me. it hurt me)

fun fact: there have already been around six or seven endings for this fic in my head
but I've recently settled on one that appeals to me the most

popular questions:
are we going to get some smut, ana? of-fucking-course but please mind the tags
will chuuya get his shit together and do something with his life, ana? you'll be able to
tell upon reading this chapter, I hope
what the fuck, ana? I don't know

please, read, enjoy, and leave comments

I love y'all!

There are chapters of his life that Chuuya’s not ready to discuss with anyone, not even himself.

His childhood. The constant beating he was subjected to by his father’s hands, the constant
soothing he received from his mother later. How it was all an endless cycle, bruise after bruise, slap
after slap, and then it all got cut, and he found himself alone in a cold scary basement.

His weak points at cooking. He knows that he still sucks at desserts, noticeably so, and that he
doesn’t have enough motivation to educate himself and finally change it. He knows that he’s bad at
managing a restaurant and overseeing other cooks. Once someone is lagging behind or doing
something wrong, Chuuya’s only instinct is to grab a knife from their hand and do everything
himself, no matter how much work he already has on him.

His emotions. It’s quite evident, even for the naked eye, that he can’t really control them. Most of
the time, they overflow, be it anger, happiness (rarer), or affection (almost never). He’s got a
reputation for being a noisy one, unrestrained, still a teenager in his almost-thirties, and sometimes
it looks like puberty still has an ironclad hold on him. Chuuya knows, he knows it all. As much as
he didn’t want to see them, he read the articles online anyway. What awaits Chuuya Nakahara?
Does he still have a future in the industry? Can his short temper be an obstacle in serious
business? He can bet that Dazai could be someone to come up with the latter pun. Still, he hates it
when people he doesn’t know a thing about assume that they can make a detailed analysis of his
personality without even talking to him directly and then post whatever conclusions they come to
online.

His private life. Nakahara Chuuya’s ex-boyfriend, Raphaël Varini, and everything we know about
him so far. God, please, not this again. He gets just enough from looking at constant tweets
discussing his looks in all detail, girls, guys and non-binary persons thirsting about the way he
combed his hair for one particular contest or the brief relieved smile he let out when he was saved
from a black apron. But this is not the worst thing. The worst thing is yet to come.

“You’re not doing an interview?” Adam, the guy he rents a house with now, a British exchange
student writing his master’s thesis in biotechnology, frowns one morning when Chuuya walks into
the kitchen, having slept through each one of his eight alarms.
“No,” he sighs heavily and rubs his left eye as he pours himself a glass of water from the jug.
There’s this interview he was invited to over the phone a week ago, for some prestigious culinary
website based in Thailand, that he really doesn’t feel like doing. He got nearly twenty similar offers
only during the past month and rejected each one of them. “What’s the point of these interviews if
all they want to know is when I’m going to get married and whether I fucked Dazai?”

Adam takes a sip of his dark coffee and bends over his papers laid out on the table again. Seems
like he didn’t get even an ounce of sleep last night because Chuuya, a light sleeper indeed, didn’t
hear him showering or closing the door of his bedroom.

“As far as I remember, last time they wanted to know whether Dazai fucked you,” Adam finally
says, feigning indifference and clicking his tongue at a certain line in his research, instantly
crossing it out with a red fountain pen.

This is true. Chuuya tried to do one interview but right after he politely disregarded the provocative
question about his possible affair with Dazai Osamu (something that people are still very eager to
find out), the interviewer seemed to completely lose interest in the entire conversation. That was
how Chuuya understood that he would never do this kind of thing again.

“Adam?”

“Yes?” He lifts his head at him, blinking innocently.

“Shut up.”

There were several reasons for finding a flatmate. First and foremost, it was cheaper, and when
Chuuya feared he had so little money that he was going to borrow it from Ranpo at some point,
splitting the rent with someone else seemed like the best decision. Secondly, he couldn’t stand
living alone anymore, not in his old house, anyway. His nightmares became so frequent that he
almost got addicted to sedatives because of them. And reporters became the last straw. In the first
months after the end of the contest, people he didn’t know showed up at his door every single day,
trying to lure him out and ask the same questions time after time, the questions he couldn’t stand.
Every prerequisite layered onto the previous one, leading him to the choice he is sure he will never
regret.

Adam is alright. Really, he’s the best flatmate Chuuya could ever ask for. Quiet and tidy, with a
habit of cleaning the whole place up at least twice a week. He never throws tantrums over the
empty pizza boxes or dirty mugs Chuuya still leaves everywhere when he’s too exhausted to clean
up, he mostly sits in his room and works, sometimes for days and nights on end, without making
any noise. With time, Chuuya finds it necessary to take care of him in the way he knows best –
cooking for him. Every breakfast, lunch and dinner, without exceptions or breaking the schedule,
Chuuya makes for them both meticulously, perfecting the recipes he knows by heart and
sometimes even trying something new. When he knocks on Adam’s door and brings a plate in,
Adam looks up from his table, cluttered with papers and open books, and his eyes are so red from
the lack of sleep that Chuuya almost flinches in a slight fear for his life. Still, Adam thanks him for
whatever he cooked this time and takes a ten-minute break to eat the food and chat with him about
what he’s been up to recently. If these meals are the only way Adam can take some break from his
constant studying, this is the least Chuuya can do.

There’s another thing he learns from this: cooking for someone as a friend actually feels nice. He
doesn’t feel like he’s being constantly studied or judged and something’s telling him that even if he
just drizzled a bowl of fresh spinach leaves with olive oil Adam would still say that he’s an
exceptionally good cook.
Adam has decided to study biotechnology in Japan for quite obvious reasons. You know, science
and medicine are on a whole different level here, he said when Chuuya asked him about this on
their first encounter. Finding him wasn’t difficult either. After a couple of weeks of surfing through
bulletin boards online, Chuuya finally found a profile that irritated him a bit less than all the other
ones. Adam Frankenstein, 25, a quiet and polite Englishman, is looking for affordable rent in
Yokohama.

“You know it’s not a dating website, right?” Chuuya asked him on their first meeting when they
both managed to scrape some free time and catch up in one of the local coffee shops.

Adam laughed it off and they quickly found common ground. Just a week later, Chuuya came
across a nice listing that was also quite bearable in terms of money. And that’s how they set it off.
Chuuya’s old house is still waiting for a potential customer, and he doesn’t regret putting it up for
sale even an ounce. It wasn’t his home anyway, it had never been. It was just an old shabby
building with scratched walls and floors and that goddamn basement he still sees in his nightmares
every now and then. It was a sanctuary of his grossest memories, a battlefield in which all his
childhood dreams died like mayflies. But it isn’t anymore. And Chuuya secretly hopes that
whoever finally decides to buy it from him will demolish it and build something completely new.

When it comes to his own plans and arrangements, however, Chuuya is not so eager to talk. Adam
politely advises that he should find at least a part-time gig without waiting for the money from the
house sale (after all, some deals may take up to several years to be settled), but Chuuya doesn’t
really know what he wants to do with his life. He would rather die from poverty than work in a
restaurant again. Not until the restaurant is his own anyway. His experience with Paul Verlaine and
Fêtes Galantes had shown him clearly that he was not cut out for abiding by anyone else’s rules.
But apart from this, what else can he even do?

“Get every note of the rich caramel flavor with Morinaga Milk!” he glances down at the wrinkled
sheet of paper in his hand and sighs heavily. “I sound like shit.”

“Have you tried doing something to your ‘r’ sounds?” Wonders Adam, peeping inside through the
bathroom door open a crack, a chemistry textbook covering half of his face.

“I spent more than half of my life living in France,” Chuuya snaps, a bit irritated, looking at him in
the mirror. “Do you think I can help it?”

Another perk of living with Adam is the fact that he literally never watched a single episode of that
damned contest. Consequently, he knows very little about Chuuya himself and his background.
Although once he got curious enough to look up his name online and ended up asking him who the
hell Dazai Osamu was and why in the world did he win if Chuuya was obviously better.

“You can’t even imagine how I hate the whole idea,” Chuuya sighs, putting the sheet aside on the
washing machine and turning the tap water to wash his face. “Some people who competed against
me and were even younger than me have already opened their restaurants or started other
businesses in the field while I’m revising for a fucking milk commercial,” he smirks, bending over
the sink. “What am I even doing with my life?”

“You’d got enough of potentially lucrative offers but rejected each one of them, as I recall,” Adam
coughs, not exactly accusing him but rather stating a simple fact, leaning his right shoulder against
the doorframe.

“It’s because I don’t want to work for other people, Jesus Christ,” Chuuya throws at him over his
shoulder, still not looking up from the sink. “I’ve got enough of pleasing other people in my life, I
just want to feel like I can be in control of something at least once.”
“And so you resorted to face trading,” Adam raises an eyebrow.

“They say I’m pretty and charming enough to sell any kind of bullshit they’re manufacturing,”
Chuuya smirks, looking at himself in the mirror again. Although he’s to turn thirty in less than two
years, his features still look the same way they did when he was eighteen. Except for a certain
sharpness in his eyes, accented by his regular tiredness and grayish bruises in which it is
manifested, and the fact that he looks much more slender now than when he barely stepped out of
puberty, his cheekbones particularly acute when he grimaces or smiles. “Do you think I like doing
this, Adam?”

“No,” he replies without thinking. “But I also can’t understand why won’t you try doing something
else.”

This is a question Chuuya has a hard time finding the answer to. He ends up doing the damned
commercial anyway, and just in three weeks, it’s all over the TV channels and city billboards.
Chuuya, in a casual white tee, with his hair combed in a low ponytail lying on his right shoulder, a
bright effortless smile on his face, and a carton of caramel milk in his left hand. Morinaga Milk –
For Ever Brighter Smiles.

Chuuya ends up not leaving his house for two weeks straight, hiding in his bed and ordering
takeaways instead. He also ignores the avalanche of messages he gets from Ranpo, Tanizaki,
Mark, Tachihara, and even Nathaniel, all of them probably saying that he did good, or that he looks
gorgeous, or other stuff that should be flattering but only makes Chuuya want to blow his brains
out.

“I fucking hate it,” he complains to Adam once he walks in to check on him, immediately
stumbling over an empty noodle box on the floor. He picks it up with a sigh. “Why can’t the world
just leave me alone?”

Adam makes his way to the bed, sits down next to him, and remains silent for some time until
Chuuya finally lifts himself up, leaning against the wall and hugging his knees.

“How much did they pay you?” Adam looks at him over his shoulder. “For the commercial, I
mean.”

Chuuya chews on his bottom lip.

“Enough to last for another six months, I think,” he shrugs and immediately realizes how absurd he
sounds right now.

“Damn,” Adam turns away, thinking something over. “No offense, but if I had your looks,
confidence and popularity, I would be taking on these offers one after another.”

Chuuya understands the ultimate reason he’s doing this. Money. Adam, who’s just slightly younger
than him, is furthering his education and working as a waiter on weekends at the same time. He’s
scraping dime after dime, and his mood gradually depends on the total amount of tip he gets each
evening. He’s not famous, although, if you asked Chuuya, Adam is indeed handsome and he’s also
a marvelous talker, which is proven by the recordings of his previous academic paper defenses.
Still, he has no idea what it’s like to walk in Chuuya’s shoes and he can’t be blamed for this.
Chuuya rejects all those endless offers not because he’s too prideful to do a cheese or pasta
commercial once in a while, it’s not about it. He’s just always feared being famous for his looks
solely, and this is exactly the pit he’s now driving himself into. Familiar words from a familiar
person suddenly crawl into his head, stinging from the inside.
You don’t even realize how beautiful you are.

But what can he make out of his beauty? Some easy money? Old fucks with fat wallets trying to hit
on him from every corner once he as much as steps outside? He never wanted to be born like this.
He’d rather be average looking but with exceptional skills in the craft he cherishes the most. But
his fiery hair, deep brown eyes, slightly plump lips, and a scattering of barely visible freckles on
his cheeks and nose are betraying him time after time. Every public appearance he makes, he’s
always being praised for his looks first and foremost. A shy fangirl once spotting him in the
grocery store and gathering the courage to ask for a picture tells him that he’s handsome and that
she would like to have a boyfriend like him one day. It’s flattering, Chuuya can’t deny it. But he’s
never learned to reply to compliments apart from the ones that concern his cooking skills.

“That commercial is really something,” Adam breaks the silence in a careful voice. “You should
really take a look.”

And that’s how they end up sitting together under the blanket in Chuuya’s bed, watching the
commercial on Adam’s phone over and over again, mocking Chuuya’s expressions and laughing
their heads off.

“Get every note of the rich caramel flavor with Morinaga Milk,” Chuuya’s panting, struggling to
even take a breath, as the tears are gathering in the corners of his eyes. “I really do sound like a
fucking dying pigeon.”

“Shut up!” Adam elbows his shoulder but can’t help bursting into laughter himself. “Do pigeons
even make any sounds as they die?”

This is how Chuuya’s routine is going so far. The best period of his life since the end of the
contest, he may say, good-good days. Cooking for two, listening to Adam’s revisions of his thesis
defense speech and giving his comments on the parts he finds confusing, doing little commercial
gigs from time to time, taking pictures with random people in the malls or post offices, reading too
many books, and taking runs in the park early in the morning five times a week, his earbuds in his
ears and the rest of the world cut off from him. Everything is fairly normal, really, even quite
alright.

Except for one little thing.

The four chapters of his life he’s not ready to mention to anyone he ends up revealing to Ozaki
Kouyou.

Chuuya doesn’t want to face the reason why he looks exactly for a woman in his search for a
therapist. The reason is on the very surface, though, because almost every man he’s ever trusted
his mind and heart with ended up hurting him, be it his father, his father figure, his lover, or his
rival.

He is staring at the dark mahogany door for almost five minutes before finally raising his hand to
knock, his regrets multiplying with every brush of his knuckles against the wooden surface.

“Yes?”

Something in Kouyou’s appearance and the way she looks up at him from her papers laid out on
the table and immediately stands up for a greeting almost makes Chuuya believe that he will start
trusting her, eventually. This is exactly what happens after more than two weeks of regular
sessions, and his awkward silence during their very first meeting slowly melts into a succession of
words and confessions about everything that aches the most, often in a completely disjointed and
uneven way. But he talks. He keeps eye contact longer now, taking slow deep breaths, and even the
trembling of his hands placed on his knees is dying out day after day. Childhood, cooking,
emotions, private life, childhood. Everything circles back to his early years, eventually, and that’s
the most unbearable point of every session that he takes pains to withstand at first. Kouyou is
looking at him with an attentive, insightful gaze, not shifting it away even when she takes a
moment to think something over. She’s a wise woman indeed, probably ten years older than him or
so, and a good specialist, even though Chuuya hasn’t got much ground or experience for
comparison.

There’s one thing she says to him that stings particularly bad.

It’s when Chuuya reveals some of the most hidden and shameful details of his childhood, the
beatings and how severe they could turn sometimes, and the consequences he bore because of them
in the aftermath; when he says that he doesn’t know how to trust men anymore; that he doesn’t
know how to love them even if he wants to; that he’s felt undeserving of the things others take for
granted his whole life; that he regards every kindness toward himself like a possible threat; that he
fears everyone he loves will leave him at some point and that is why he chooses not to love at all.
It’s the very first time in the past seven sessions that Kouyou lowers her gaze, easing the light silk
scarf on her neck and taking a deep breath.

“Not every harm the others cause you must be taken personally and reflected onto yourself,
Chuuya,” he likes it when she calls him by name; it feels like talking to a good friend. Kouyou
reaches for a pen and puts something down with a quick effortless movement of her hand and then
looks him in the eye again, this time almost like squeezing his entire soul in her pale palm. “When
someone’s unable to give you something, it doesn’t automatically mean that you don’t deserve it.”

He takes a shivering breath. “What does it mean, then?”

“That you have to keep trying and look for a person who’s willing to give you the things you need,
with or without you asking,” a soft smile touches her rose-tinted lips. “Though, if I’m being
professional on this one, I must say that it’s much better when you ask,” she leans back in her chair.
“Have you ever tried asking, Chuuya?”

She is staring at him, patiently, but he just doesn’t know what to say. He’s desperately trying to
recall at least one time in his life when he wasn’t too dreaded to ask another person for something
he needed. Eventually, he realizes that he learned to be independent too early in life and that asking
others for help, or love, or affection he perceived as a weakness. If I can’t get something myself, it
means I don’t need it this much. And the only person who always gave him something he craved
without as much as a single word from him was-

“You should try it,” Kouyou sighs when she doesn’t get an answer. “You were deprived of many
simple good things just because people you cared for didn’t want to give them to you. But believe
me, there are so many people who do, and you are still yet to meet them. Next time you do, don’t
wait for them to leap first. Ask.”

It’s the middle of the spring, April 29th, and Chuuya turns exactly twenty-nine years old today. He
precisely warned Adam that he didn’t want any kind of a party whatsoever and that it would be just
enough to have a small dinner at home and watch some stupid comedy movie together in the living
room. And everything seems to be going pretty fine. Adam congratulates him in a couple of brief
words in the morning, giving him a new kitchen blender as a present, and then they don’t discuss
the peculiarities of the day until evening.
Chuuya tries to distract himself in various ways. The last birthday he spent miserable and without
anyone even merely close around. It was just after he broke everything they had with Dazai with
his own hands and decided that it would be better if their paths never crossed again. Dazai
accepted his plea (and it was quite exactly a plea) with a fair share of scepticism (though he never
showed it) but didn’t insist on another solution as he probably could see that Chuuya wasn’t in the
best place back then, he always could. In some sense, Chuuya broke his heart. In some sense, it
was a really foolish thing to do, refusing the only thing in his life that could keep him from
breaking apart. But he didn’t realize it then. The only thought in his head, intrusive and merciless,
was, if I stay with him, I will break us both. He needed to cure himself before ever looking for a
relationship again, even with the person who still accepted him with all his flaws, being aware of
every single one of them but not paying even an ounce of attention to them.

Still, birthdays are particularly devastating and difficult to bear. As Chuuya tinkers in the kitchen,
cooking some pasta for dinner and Adam is away to grab a bottle of wine from the grocery store,
the stinging memory returns.

He promised to throw a birthday party for me next time.

Chuuya squeezes his eyes shut, almost dropping the kitchen spatula he’s holding to the floor. He
still remembers that day clearly. A small and dimly lit pantry, only two of them, Dazai’s warm
breath against his temple, his hands on Chuuya’s waist, the soft floral smell of his skin, that
intimacy, that candor they shared for the long seven minutes in heaven. It was, without
exaggeration, the most affectionate moment he’d ever had with another person in his entire life.
And how Dazai smiled at him, softly but with his signature slyness, and promised that he would
find a way to come up with a birthday party for him. How it was better than all “I love you”s.

Chuuya lets out a heavy shivering breath. He must be missing the bastard much more than he can
bring himself to admit. But where is he, Dazai, anyway? Their direct messages have been dead ever
since Chuuya practically dumped him. There have been no new posts on any of his social media
accounts either. The only string Chuuya uses to check on how Dazai’s doing and whether he’s still
alive (with his pace of life and reckless attitude, anything can happen, really) is Kunikida. They
chat and even call occasionally, and Kunikida says that Dazai hasn’t been really talkative lately
and that, as far as he knows, he doesn’t take on any serious job and spends his time traveling
instead. He sounds unsure and even nervous every now and then as if he doesn’t really want to talk
about this, but knowing that Dazai is alright is just enough to bring Chuuya at least some relief.
Traveling is good. In some sense, Chuuya could even foresee his engaging in something like this.
Dazai has always had a wandering spirit and now his body is wandering, too. However, he can’t
help but feel concerned every time he recalls the news. If Dazai spends his award money on trips,
what about opening his own restaurant? What about pursuing his dream? Has he given up on it
once and for all?

Chuuya doesn’t get to think about this as he hears someone knock on the door, quite persistently.
It’s unusual because Adam has his keys. He stiffens, putting the spatula aside on the counter, and
lowers the heat on the stove before walking to the door.

“Who’s there?” He asks, grabbing the doorknob carefully. No answer. He swears to god, if another
nosy reporter has found his new address he will just call the cops at this point and let them do their
job. “Hello?” Chuuya sighs and turns the knob, glancing outside with a frown.

At first, it seems like there’s no one on his porch. However, as soon as he barely takes a step
forward, someone covers his eyes from behind, and a sneaky whisper reaches his ear.

“Get every note of the rich caramel flavor,” the owner of the familiar voice right behind him
seems to take pains not to laugh out loud.

Another one, coming from the left side, steps in. “With Morinaga Milk.”

“Morinaga Milk,” adds the third one, audibly giggling. “For Ever Brighter Smiles.”

And then, as the hands slide down from his face, now resting on his shoulders, Chuuya opens his
eyes and sees Tanizaki right in front of him, holding a big birthday cake. Atsushi is by his side,
with his arm placed on Tanizaki’s right shoulder. Mark, Louisa, Kunikida, Kenji, Gin, Higuchi,
Kajii, and even Akutagawa are there as well. And the person standing right behind him is
Tachihara, smiling triumphantly as Chuuya turns his head to look at him in disbelief.

“Surprise!” He announces, stepping back.

Chuuya lets out an embarrassed sigh, not knowing how to react at first. “Guys… what are you
doing here?”

“Well, something was telling us that our prince of béchamel would be unbearably alone on his last
birthday in his twenties,” says Tanizaki, granting him a wide grin. “That is why we decided to
come up with a surprise party.”

“Ranpo and Edgar are on their way,” notes Atsushi. “They got stuck in traffic or something like
that.”

“Guys,” Chuuya’s still breathing hard, abashed, his eyes traveling back and forth among all of
them. Nobody has ever thrown a birthday party for him before. “You shouldn’t have done this.”

“Drop it,” Gin rolls her eyes, coming closer to give him a brief warm hug. “It’s a tradition,
remember?”

“Well, then,” Chuuya finally braves an uncertain smile himself. “Come in.”

It feels strange, having so many people at his place at once, it's almost like they’ve never really left
the contest, although it’s been more than a year since they parted ways. When Adam returns from
his grocery run to all the fuss filling the living room, his eyes widen. Chuuya, as a polite host, has
to introduce everyone to him in all vivid detail.

“You forgot to mention that I make the best carbonara in the world,” Gin throws over her shoulder
while she’s cutting the cake, granting Adam an acknowledging smile.

“An Englishman,” hums Louisa, shaking his hand with a shy nod. “What took you here?”

“Oh, please, this is gonna be a long story,” Chuuya rolls his eyes, going back to the kitchen to
check on his pasta. Obviously, he has to cook more of it now in order to make at least small
portions for everyone to try.

Later, they all gather in the living room which gets so crowded that they’re almost walking on each
other’s feet and elbowing each other’s shoulders. Adam opens the wine and they all drink a toast to
Chuuya’s youth (which is slowly starting to slip away, as Tachihara puts it with an overdramatic
sigh, covering his eyes with the back of his hand). Though everything that’s happening still feels
like a bizarre episode from one of Chuuya’s fever dreams, he can’t deny the fact that it feels nice to
be surrounded by the people he knows and who, quite obviously, still care about him. He tries to
ask, time after time, who came up with the idea of throwing a surprise party for him, but nobody
can give him an exact answer. It starts to feel like they don’t want to talk about this at all, quickly
changing the subject or laughing it off.
And so Chuuya forgets it, letting himself just enjoy the company of others once in a while. He’s
seated between Adam and Ranpo, the only two people in the world he would trust with his life, and
everything feels exactly like it’s supposed to be. The traces of his past alcohol addiction have been
wearing off lately, leading to a relative relief, and, even though Chuuya dreads the possible
moment of his falling into this pit again, he allows himself to drink one glass of red wine and not a
sip more. It relaxes him, in many ways at once, his smiles become more frequent, his laughter –
more unrestrained. He leans his head against Ranpo’s shoulder, listening to Mark and Louisa brag
about the recent drastic increase in popularity and sales in their authentic bakery, Atsushi sharing
his progress in his English classes, Tanizaki boasting about his promotion at work. And even
though not all of them are here, even though the person Chuuya had been waiting for the most is
missing, it still feels like being around a family he’s never had before.

When he stands up and decides to clear his head, Kunikida volunteers to go with him for a smoke.
Others say that they will join them in a minute after Kenji finishes showing everyone the
compilation of the funniest moments from the contest he’d recently found on YouTube. As they
stand outside, a clear starlit sky high above their heads, Chuuya takes his first puff and leans
against the wall.

“Truth be told,” Kunikida breaks the silence, standing next to him and rummaging for his
cigarettes. “I’d feared you wouldn’t be very happy about this whole thing.”

“Why’s that?” Chuuya frowns, although, deep down, he knows the answer without him saying it.

“Well,” Kunikida’s voice becomes careful and alert as he takes out a cigarette from the pack. “Not
everyone’s here.”

Getting whom he’s hinting at, Chuuya just smirks. “And this is still a perfect party.”

“I didn’t mean to-”

“Really, Kunikida,” he cuts him off. “Everyone’s enjoying themselves, isn’t that so? I don’t need
the stinky mackerel to feel better. You don’t need him. No one here does.”

“Then you won’t like what I’m going to say next,” Kunikida frowns, looking away from him.

“I’m almost sure that I won’t give the slightest fuck,” Chuuya smiles, innocently, taking the
cigarette away from his lips.

“Well, then,” Kunikida takes a deep breath, still hiding his gaze. “It was his idea, you know? He
couldn’t show up himself so he called Tachihara and asked him to arrange a birthday party for you,
on his behalf.” He sighs. “And even though he precisely asked not to tell you about it, I felt like it
would be unfair to hide this from you.”

Chuuya almost drops his cigarette but squeezes it firmer in his fingers at the very last moment.

I know the contest will be already over by that time but I will make sure to come up with something
as annoying for you, somehow.

So this is how it is. Even though they obviously skipped the last year, Dazai still didn’t forget his
promise. He still kept it. He still continues to care about Chuuya even after he had rejected him and
all his deeds in the cruelest way possible. Dazai is truly a mastermind. It’s even ridiculous at this
point.

“And where is he, then?” Chuuya narrows his eyes, asking almost with an accusation, almost like
Kunikida has any kind of fault to take in this. He doesn’t really know the purpose of this question
because he’s pretty sure that if he saw Dazai in person on his doorstep right now he would just run
away from him like people do from their most terrible dreams. “Why couldn’t he come and
congratulate me in person?”

The sudden rush of sobriety hits him hard right in the chest, and Chuuya turns away, hiding his
face and possible tears welling up in the corners of his eyes.

Kunikida is silent for a long moment before finally breathing out.

“He didn’t tell me,” he says. “But it’s pretty obvious that he still thinks you don’t want to see him
ever again.”

And this is the nastiest lie Chuuya has ever told himself or other people around him.

Because he wants to see him.

He would trade the world to see him.

But where is he?

Europe? France, again? The Mediterranean? The States? Canada? The goddamn North Pole?

Dazai’s in Yokohama.

He’s lying on the couch in his flat, watching as the time on his table clock slowly counts down past
midnight, officially marking April 30th. He had a homemade pizza for dinner and drank half the
bottle of sparkling white wine, all by himself. He smoked two cigarettes in a row, watching the
moonlit sky and the night city from his balcony. Somewhere in-between those countless rows of
residential buildings, malls, show venues, and sports arenas, was happening a little magic that he
also put his hand to.

It’s actually fascinating, how of the two of them, Chuuya is the one who seems to be moving on,
with quite a progress. Get every note of the rich caramel flavor with Morinaga Milk. Each time
Dazai leaves the house, his face is on every billboard. Careless, smiling, and Dazai can almost tell
that this smile is among the few ones that Chuuya is not faking. For a goddamn milk commercial.
He’s beautiful, though, even more beautiful than before, and perhaps it’s just the distance between
them that makes Dazai think so. He’s also somewhat more mature, serious, he looks too distant in
the blurry fan pictures of him Dazai sometimes bumps into on Twitter. Probably if they met now,
he wouldn’t dare mock his height or anything else about him, even as a joke. He would be too
scared. It’s pretty ironic, how something that should’ve made Dazai think about him less, in the
end, turned into an ignition, a spark that sets everything inside him aflame every time he as much
as lays his eyes on a photograph of him online.

Interviews are madness. How does he feel about his victory? What are his plans for the future?
When can the public expect the opening of his restaurant? Dazai doesn’t dare say that he hasn’t
even thought of it yet. He throws the bills out like empty papers, one flight after another, jet lag,
scorching sun, waveless sea, another failed Tinder date, repeat. Is he wasting his potential?
Perhaps. Can he bring himself to care? Not really. Once, he realized that he didn’t see the point in
running his own business if the only person whose opinion he cared about wasn’t by his side
anymore. Kunikida said it was childish of him and he was right. But how can one explain that
another person has broken something inside of them if the shards are nowhere to be seen? Dazai is
putting on a hell of a show to conceal how exactly he feels about the future everyone is wishing for
him. And what if everything he’s ever been good for is making others feel better but not himself?
His heart is still fluttering like a small bird from the thought that he could make Chuuya at least a
little bit happier and less alone on the day he probably still hates the most in his life. His duty is
fulfilled and he has nothing to worry about anymore. A single plane ticket is resting, slowly
gathering dust, on his coffee table. Another prison break, another getaway. His phone quietly
buzzes with a new message notification. He takes it out of his pocket and unlocks the screen.

Kunikida: He’s alright. Never seen him smiling like that before, to be honest.

And Dazai smiles, too, putting the phone aside and closing his eyes.

There’s now one more choice in his life that he doesn’t regret.

A year ago

Dazai shows up at his door, hands by his sides, hair ruffled, eyes sleepless. Chuuya crumples the
paper towel he’s holding in his hands to throw it away once he’s back in the kitchen and takes a
deep breath. He’s afraid. He’s suddenly twelve, and he didn’t manage to clean the mess in the
kitchen before his father’s return, and now he hears the key turning in the lock and freezes in his
spot, a knife threatening to fall from his trembling fingers. He’s eighteen and he gets kicked out
from his first practical cooking exam, Paul Verlaine’s cold stare and an adamant gesture of his
gloved hand, it’s over for you now. He’s twenty-two and he’s breaking an isomalt sphere into tiny
pieces in the kitchen of Fêtes Galantes, chewing and swallowing it like shattered glass, his eyes
burning from tears. He’s twenty-seven and he’s holding his breath, waiting desperately for his
name to go off like fireworks in the brightly lit kitchen, out loud, in Fukuzawa’s prideful voice.
Nothing of what he wanted the most has ever happened to him. So why should Dazai happen to
him?

“Hello,” he says in a relatively normal voice and steps back to give way inside.

Dazai closes the door behind his back and just stands there for a moment, studying his entire figure
for something that feels like an eternity. Probably he’s trying to evaluate whether Chuuya hates
him now and if so, then to what extent, because Chuuya is doing the same.

“You could’ve just texted me,” he finally says, and it’s something that should’ve sounded like an
accusation, except it’s not. Dazai’s voice is calm and kind, the way it almost always is. Chuuya
shies away from this kindness, he’s more undeserving of it than ever now. “What happened?”

“Let’s just take a seat,” Chuuya turns away from his piercing gaze and rushes back to the kitchen,
almost stumbling upon his own feet. There, he throws away the towel and sits down at the table,
back pressed against the wall, and waits for Dazai to follow him. When he does, taking a seat just
across from him, Chuuya glances at him briefly and then looks in front of himself again, biting his
lips. He’s revised the words he wants to say at least a thousand times but his head is suddenly
completely empty. Not a single thing to say for himself. “I… got scared.”

He instantly squeezes his eyes shut, swallowing heavily, because he didn’t expect his own voice to
sound so pathetic. He wanted to settle this like an adult, but the only thing he knows now is to say
the first thing that comes to his mind.

“Okay,” Dazai sighs, placing both of his hands on the table. “Did you get scared of me?”

“No,” Chuuya is quick to shake his head. “I actually got to the restaurant but I couldn’t bring
myself to come in because,” he takes a deep breath. “Because I saw those girls crowding around
you and I… I just didn’t know what to do. Everything I could think of was, would it be like this
every time now?”

Dazai frowns, but even his frown is gentle, merciful. “What do you mean?”

“You’re a celebrity now, Dazai,” it’s the first time Chuuya brings himself to look up at him. “And
I’m just your rival who has lost to you, well, in the public’s eyes. Believe it or not, but it’s more
than harmful to my ego.”

Dazai keeps silent for a long minute, and Chuuya just hopes that he won’t start trying to make him
change his mind again. It doesn’t help. It will never help. Dazai can say whatever he wants to him,
shout at him, insult him in various ways, but broken promises and unmet expectations will always
be louder. However, the thing that Dazai says next is anything but what Chuuya prepared himself
for.

“Do I stand at least the slightest chance?” Chuuya knows what he means. Do I stand at least the
slightest chance with you? Perhaps it will never stop beating him, how, now having everything he
could ever wish for, Dazai still needs him. Chuuya could never expect something like this from
himself and he knows himself well. No matter if he loved Dazai for two minutes or for twenty
years. If he’d pursued the thing he wanted the most, love would’ve most certainly stopped having
any value to him.

Chuuya closes his eyes and takes another deep breath. He needs a second because he knows that
his next words are going to sound cruel at least.

“Not when I don’t even know what to do with my life, no.”

Dazai leans back in the chair, interlocking his fingers in his lap and looking thoughtfully in front of
himself.

“I see.”

Chuuya doesn’t really know how long they’re sitting in complete silence after this. At some point,
it feels like entire centuries are passing by them. Finally, Dazai stands up and freezes for a second,
granting him a long emotionless stare.

“Will you see me off?”

Chuuya wipes the single tear he didn’t even notice he shed off his cheek and rushes to his feet.
“Sure.”

At the door, he is still twenty-seven, and he can’t even bring himself to kiss Dazai goodbye; can’t
even let out this one stinging I love you, although he knows that, if he said it right now, he would –
for the first time ever – mean it.

“Text me, will you?” Dazai grabs the doorknob and turns to look at him, a smile lingering on his
lips. “If you ever change your mind, I mean.”

“I will,” Chuuya says without much thought. “Goodbye, Dazai.”

And, as the door already closes, he takes a deep breath and braves another thing, mostly to
himself.

“Good luck.”
 Close to Home
Chapter Notes

hello! I've just returned from Italy (nearly died from the amount of pasta I ate) and my
hands have been itching to write for a while
hope you will like this chapter as much as I do, soukoku's endgame is near ;)
love, ana

See the end of the chapter for more notes

Dazai turns twenty-nine in the sky above the Pacific Ocean. Above the Sea of Japan, to be more
precise, but it doesn’t make any difference whatsoever, as it doesn’t turn back time, and the flight
is long enough to contemplate many things about his life.

This summer has been cruel, at least. Back in winter, with snow-covered streets embracing him
from all sides, freezing his fingertips holding one cigarette after another, he used to stare into his
own future in his head and imagine Chuuya beside him. The picture appeared naturally, like a
missing piece of the puzzle, despite the vagueness that surrounded their relationship back then.
Now there’s nothing vague and everything is lucid, Chuuya made it clear that he didn’t want him,
at least for now. But what will it take for it to ever change? Perhaps Chuuya thinks that the
distance between them is going to help them both grow, in various ways, contemplate their feelings
for each other and understand, in all its clarity and sobriety, whether they really want this to go on.
But there’s nothing to contemplate here for Dazai. He already fucked up one thing he cherished a
lot in his life and he’s fighting for his dear life not to fuck up another one, as if there’s anything
depending on him left.

Summer without Chuuya is plain, stormless, but Dazai doesn’t enjoy it like he wishes he would.
Spending warm but windy days in Yokohama is becoming even more unbearable with each passing
week, so he books the earliest flight to the only other place in the world that feels at least a little bit
close to home. Paris meets him with open arms, crowded streets full of tourists, and wide sunlit
pavements. It was foolish of Dazai to expect that the place where he’d met Chuuya for the first
time wouldn’t scream his name from every speaker, exhibit his face on every billboard like the
greatest archeological discovery, sunburn the backs of Dazai’s palms with the curly strands of his
auburn hair. For him, Paris and Chuuya are synonymous, at least in the feeling he gets in
approaching both of them. And when Dazai is lying in bed in his hotel room, his arms stretched out
to the ceiling as his eyes travel across the bandages hiding his pale skin, he slowly realizes that
perhaps he misses Chuuya even more than cooking. Not cooking feels like being armless and
armorless but Dazai can’t bring himself to approach the kitchen; instead, he approaches
restaurants: too many of them, Dazai visits each one he lays his eyes on, rummaging through their
menus, ordering the most intriguing positions, taking notes in his pocket notebook as he eats,
flirting with waiters and waitresses and leaving them generous tips. He doesn’t really count the
money he spends on these journées and soirées and doesn’t check his bank account unless forced
to. He’s fully enjoying his solitude, watching people around but not talking to them, not being the
first to initiate any sort of contact.

The only time he reaches out to another person first is when he calls Rimbaud (the number is still
saved, unchanged, on his phone, even after all these years) and, smirking through his surprised
tone, asks for a meeting. Obviously, they go to a restaurant, the one Dazai hasn’t had time to assess
yet, and Arthur meets him at the entrance with open arms and a modest smile. Dazai finds himself
stupefied by the look of him, the feeling he gets reminds him of something he’s never experienced
before – meeting a member of the family with whom he had parted ways long ago. Rimbaud looks
much older now, which is no surprise, he’s in his late forties now, after all. He doesn’t braid his
hair like Verlaine does, nor he keeps it in a ponytail; instead, it’s pushed to the side, over his
shoulder, blueish black strands contrasting with the show-white of his dress shirt. Arthur smiles
warmly into Dazai’s temple as they hug, and Dazai finds himself squeezing his shoulders a bit
firmer than he would’ve dared when he was fifteen.

“I can’t believe what I’m seeing here,” Rimbaud is still smiling when he steps back, holding
Dazai’s forearms gently in his warm hands, glancing over at him. “Let me look at you,” Dazai
smiles, too, trying not to hide his eyes shyly. “Those TV cameras are definitely lying all the time. I
thought you were handsome when I first saw you on the screen but it’s nothing compared to
reality,” he clicks his tongue and shakes his head slowly. “You’re beaming like an angel, my boy.”

The name makes something drop in Dazai’s stomach because the last and only person who ever
called him that was Fukuzawa. But Rimbaud seems to cherish him, a lot, probably even more than
Verlaine ever did. After all, he was the person who always rooted for Dazai’s having his own life,
leading his own career, and not falling subject to someone else’s expectations and schemes.
Perhaps he didn’t want him to repeat his own mistake. Dazai can bet that Rimbaud still considers
leaving Fêtes Galantes and not working for Verlaine anymore the wisest decision of his life, albeit
the fact that they were lovers – even more than that, they were husbands. Dazai believes it takes
great courage to root oneself this deeply in the life of a person who can hurt you effortlessly at any
moment they decide. And besides, love and career should be separated, always. At least this is
what he thinks now, after working side-by-side with Chuuya cut off the last chance of them ever
being together.

“What are you doing in Paris?” Arthur asks once they’re seated outside, waiting for their appetizers
and drinks. “Perhaps thinking about opening a restaurant here?”

Dazai is taken aback by the question, even though he had known it would come up eventually.
Everyone expects him to start running his own business as soon as possible, it’s no surprise that
Rimbaud does, too, but doing this in Paris? The thought had never even popped up in his head
before being mentioned directly.

“No, just taking some rest,” he responds, carefully avoiding the subject.

“You should come by my new place sometime,” Rimbaud smiles, though a bit hesitantly, meaning
– probably – the place he’s now working at. “A small but cozy restaurant in a quiet neighborhood,
not as… extravagant as Fêtes Galantes, but the meals are no worse.”

“I have no doubts about that,” Dazai lets out the next question more like a joke to fill the possible
awkward silence (it’s been an insanely long time since their last meeting, after all) weighing ahead.
“Do you, by any chance, need working hands?”

Arthur’s gaze narrows on him with a discernible suspiciousness.

“You don’t want to work for me, Dazai,” he doesn’t make it a question. “Or for anyone else,” he
gets distracted by a waitress approaching the table with their drinks and, after flashing her a short
polite smile, schools his face into a serious one again, like a father scolding his child. “I saw you in
that contest. You should man places, not be trapped by them.”

Dazai fights the urge to light a cigarette and glances down, swallowing the sudden dryness in his
throat.
“You think?” He asks, his eyes focused on the napkin, folded in a neat triangle almost on the edge
of the table. “What about the experience?” He’s sure it’s clear that he’s hinting at the conversation
the three of them – he, Rimbaud, and Verlaine – had fourteen years ago on the sunlit Parisian
terrace, very similar to this one. What is required for opening a restaurant?

“Don’t you already have experience?” Arthur raises an eyebrow at him, taking a sip of his white
wine. “You won the most prestigious culinary contest in your country and gained thousands – if
not millions – admirers worldwide. I never had what you have now,” he tilts his head to the side,
letting out a glimpse of a sly smile. “Neither did Paul.”

Something in this comparison, in his hinting at Dazai’s now being better than Paul Verlaine
himself makes him smile, effortlessly, still not raising his gaze. Perhaps it doesn’t take this much
to pursue the thing he wants. Perhaps all he needs to do is stomach the idea that he’s already there,
he’s ready, he has a dream and enough money to make it come true, and all he has to do is start,
leap, not regret anything and not look back. But then comes another thing, a very glaring one in his
mind, a dark shadow thrown over all his plans, a crown of bright red hair, almond eyes, and an all-
knowing smile. Does Chuuya know that Dazai cannot do this without him? Does he have even the
vaguest idea about how much he really means to him? It’s like Dazai was bewitched, once, twice,
seeing his sheer beauty, his effortless waltzing in the job he loved, like he was always doing it for
the world to see, not for himself, which was admirable; Dazai could never do that, he was perfectly
alright cooking for his own pleasure, without anyone else to see or taste his dishes. What if this has
changed? What if he’s another person right now? What if he’s capable, really, without Chuuya or
Verlaine standing by his side?

“Can I ask you a… personal question?” Dazai hesitates, slowly looking up.

Rimbaud nods with a soft smile. “Whatever you want.”

“When did you realize that you loved Verlaine?” His gaze is now locked on his eyes, how a
thousand shades at once flash in them as Arthur contemplates something, finally rewarding him
with another smirk. “If it’s too much, I’m sorry.”

But then, Rimbaud leaps with something he couldn’t even merely predict to hear.

“When did you realize that you loved Chuuya?” Seeing his bewildered stare, Rimbaud coughs
quietly and straightens his posture, placing both of his hands on the table and moving closer to him,
as if ready to tell him a secret. “They are very alike, Paul and Chuuya, don’t you think so? Think
that the planet revolves around them, that there will be nothing left to reap here once they decide to
leave culinary. We’re nothing like that, are we? You were perfectly fine not cooking for so many
years but then you saw him.” He holds a short pause. “What changed, then?”

Dazai answers without thinking. “I wanted to be like him.”

Arthur claps his hands, leaning back. “That’s it. Secretly, maybe even shamefully, but you craved
what he had, his skill and his fame, dozens of eyes staring at him from every corner of the room,
reveling in his proficiency, feeling inspired by the way he cooked and talked. That’s what
happened when I first saw Paul, as well. I didn’t think of the kind of a person he was when he
wasn’t in the kitchen. I didn’t think of his flaws. All I wanted to do is kiss the powdered sugar off
his fingers.”

Dazai finds himself letting out a long, helpless breath. “You never seemed to-”

“To like him like that?” Rimbaud finished instead of him with a quiet laugh. “Well, I used to be
subtle about it, especially when I found out that he was a gambler of sorts, by nature. He didn’t
want me to be an easy catch. And I wanted him to win me, first.”

“You think,” Dazai is biting his cheek, his lips suddenly dry. “Chuuya wants the same from me?”

“I can’t say for sure, I don’t know him well enough,” Rimbaud shrugs, slowly rotating his half-
empty glass on the table. “But the question goes to you. Do you need him enough to fight for him?
And do you understand that this fight may still result in an even worse heartbreak because, you
know, nothing in the world is guaranteed? The people we love aren’t obliged to love us back. It’s
perfectly normal if they don’t.”

“But Chuuya loves me,” Dazai is not aware that he sounds more like he’s convincing himself. But
something deep inside is telling him that it’s true. Even after these years, and no matter how many
more years will have to pass, Chuuya still loves him. It’s something he can feel, very profoundly,
on every level, even if they don’t talk and don’t see each other at all. Chuuya’s love is like armor,
like a shield Dazai carries with himself home every night, but it’s not heavy, not at all. It’s
encouraging, it makes him bold, makes him want to think about himself, care for himself, and put
himself first. And perhaps this is how true love should feel. Dazai had never had it before he met
Chuuya so he treated it like a scary otherworldly beast but now he knows. Love is with him,
boundless, always, even when the source of this love is far away. It’s like using egg yolks to make
the top layer of pastry golden and glistening like the brightest sunlight. You put the yolks aside
when you don’t need them anymore but the cover stays. And when Dazai rubs his own wrist with
his rough fingers, his skin feels like the freshest bread. He knows. Chuuya kisses his dark bruises
and old scars away, even when they’re a continent apart. “He loves me.”

Rimbaud is looking at him for a long minute before smiling back. “Then, you know what to do.”

“And that’s,” Chuuya says, still holding his breath a bit, as he brushes the top edge of the dough
with egg white to seal it. “How you make a perfect cannoli shell.”

He looks up at the room, blowing a lonely strand of hair from his forehead, and assesses the tables
to notice if someone needs help. The wide room is filled with sunlight coming from every window,
which makes it quite hot, and he needs to sip water regularly to remain sane in the process. There’s
a photographer in the corner, taking pictures, approaching every participant subtly and without
interfering in the process. Most of the students are grannies, which is expected, given that they’re
in a nursing home, all in their multicolored knitted cardigans and sweaters, glasses, panting over
the tables as they’re concentrating on folding their dough. Chuuya takes some time to wait for the
possible questions about this step, moving the bowl with his filling closer on the counter. One of
the grannies approaches him, asking if she’s doing it right, and he needs to take the cannoli form
from her trembling wrinkled hands softly, helping her to wrap the dough around the sides.

“You should’ve greased it more,” he advises, giving the form back to her. “Do it with the next
one.”

“Thank you, sweetheart,” the granny smiles, beaming in gratitude, and slowly returns to her
workplace on wobbly legs.

Chuuya can’t help but smile himself, looking down and moving to the next process. When he
accepted the first request more than a month ago, he didn’t think he would find the whole thing
this heartwarming. Charity masterclasses for the elderly in nursing homes and children in
orphanages around Europe, not a dime going into his pocket (which he needed badly), why would
he agree to something like that? But Adam told him that he had to and Chuuya gave in. Now he
regrets that he hadn’t thought of holding events like these earlier. Helping people, unconditionally,
seeing their grateful faces and bright smiles every time they succeed at cooking a thing they
previously saw only in the pictures fills him with an indescribable glee; seeing the pictures of
himself in daily newspapers, surrounded by the crowd of grannies, or children of different ages,
traces of flour on his hands and cheeks, his chef jacket stained with fillings and sauces, makes him
feel needed, important to other people, all of this without asking anything in return. Perhaps he
wouldn’t have been even half this happy had he won those damned million dollars.

“Don’t forget to let your shells cool completely before you put the filling inside,” he goes on,
taking his own cannoli off the stove and checking them for readiness. “Cinnamon is a must-have
but I’d also advise using some walnuts or pistachios, for the diversity.”

Chuuya is lucky he still hasn’t forgotten Italian completely and he didn’t have to request an
interpreter for the class taking place in Firenze. Last week was tough, though, as he had to work in
Barcelona, and barely two or three people from the entire nursing home administration could speak
English. Right now, he still has some time before his night flight to roam around, taste local pasta
and make some pictures to send them to Adam later. Adam has applied for the post-graduate
course after defending his thesis flawlessly and now he’s doing alright, except for the fact that he’s
almost never at home, spending days and nights assisting professors, organizing laboratory
practices, and downing endless cups of dark coffee in the student library.

The next flight takes Chuuya right back to Paris, which he dreads. He needs to rent a hotel room
for two days, not the fanciest one he could’ve had but pretty neat, comfortable, and affordable in
terms of his budget. The orphanage is not far from the city center, and he reads a book throughout
his entire subway ride, trying to shush his own intrusive thoughts. He’s glancing at people over the
pages from time to time, taking in their looks, tired faces, listening to their English, Spanish, and
French that now sounds like a dagger rotating in his ears. Something just doesn’t sit right with him.
It’s like at any given moment, he may spot a familiar face in this endless crowd, people filling the
train like a can of tuna, shoving and elbowing each other, throwing endless apologies and
embarrassed smiles. He feels like someone is watching him here, and the feeling is too familiar at
this point to be even merely pleasant. He catches himself on the thought that he’s always felt like
this in Paris, ever since he used to flee it and come back each time for his work. Flights back to
Japan always filled him with inexplicable relief and a feeling of protection, like he was finally
escaping an overly intrusive and annoying spotlight.

Giving masterclasses in orphanages is a completely different thing. Chuuya doesn’t have to be only
a chef and a teacher, it takes great patience to calm the kids down, to make them listen to him, to
catch their interest and attention. And teenagers are even more insufferable than toddlers,
especially boys. Chuuya wonders if he also was like this at some point in his life when he was
much, much younger. Many of them are loud and rude, they’re throwing insults and cursing at each
other, not taking food seriously and playing with it like it’s nothing more than their toys. Chuuya
has to stop three food fights in the span of forty minutes, and other teachers don’t help him much,
probably feeling relieved that they can finally take a break from overseeing the kids while he’s
here, drinking their coffee and escaping the room for a smoke every fifteen minutes.

They’re baking cookies today, nothing particularly difficult, but the process feels more challenging
than any task he had during the contest or in the course of his career, given that the kids simply
won’t listen to him at all. They’re fighting and comparing their dough, laughing at the kids who
don’t get something on the first attempt, and Chuuya feels sorry for them and helpless at the same
time because he can’t stay here for infinity and protect them from bullying that sometimes turns
merciless. When he manages to attract the teenagers’ attention to himself, it gets even worse, but he
has to keep an effortless smile on his face and don’t fall victim to their provocative questions.

“How old are you?” Asks one of the boys after they already put their baking trays into the oven.
“Twenty-nine,” Chuuya replies without much enthusiasm, taking time to wash the remains of flour
and butter off his hands.

“Why aren’t you married yet?” Asks the girl standing the closest to him, her blue eyes wide and
wondering. “Are you divorced?”

Chuuya can’t help but smile at this a bit. These kids don’t really have any manners or a sense of
personal boundaries, do they? “Why would I be married?”

“You’re handsome,” the girl insists, leaning with both her elbows against the counter. “And old
enough to marry someone. Do you have a girlfriend?”

“Well, thank you,” Chuuya frowns, taken aback a little. He’s used to compliments thrown toward
his looks but up to this time, he’d mostly heard them from the men who wanted nothing more but
to sleep with him. And hearing this from a teenage girl is… weird, at least. He realizes that at this
age, adolescents mostly think about dating and having sex, albeit it’s still too early if you ask him,
but back at her age (and how old is she, by the way? sixteen? seventeen?), he was nothing like that.
“And no, I don’t have a girlfriend. It’s not my priority.”

“Do you like anyone, then?” The curious gaze is kept on him.

Chuuya contemplates whether he should discuss something like this with a girl he sees for the first
and the last time in his life, but teenagers somehow can always tell if you’re lying to them so he
decides not to. “Yes, I do.”

“Why don’t you confess your feelings?” The girl doesn’t leave him alone, and Chuuya is not aware
that some of her friends are now alert as well, listening to whatever he has to say.

“As I said,” he stills for a moment, the paper towel he’s using to wipe his hands dry is frozen
midair. The question stirs rather stinging memories, the face of a person he’d rather not picture
right now or whenever in the closest future. “It’s not my priority,” and before he can get tormented
by another round of interrogation, he catches the moment to switch the attention back to their
baking, raising his voice to fill the entire room. “Shall we check on our cookies now?”

Apart from the awkward moments like this, Chuuya can say that he likes his new job – even
though he’s not technically paid for it in any form – more than he’d ever thought he would. Taking
cheap flights, letting the jet lag wear off on his second cup of coffee at the airport, feeling the
curing laziness spilling inside his entire body under the Spanish sun, in the salty smell of Italian
air, in the pleasant quietness of less crowded Parisian neighborhoods; cooking not on only for the
show, like he used to, but actually doing something for other people, making them feel capable of
the simplest great things. Cooking is the lens through which Chuuya sees the world and talks to it,
his only reliable channel of communication, a magnifying glass that zooms in on other people,
opening them like books to him, helping him understand them, be kind to them, love them and let
them love him in return.

There’s a rather cruel part to it, too. After one of the classes held in Spain, he had this comical
occurrence when one of the teachers, quite an attractive man his age or just a bit older, asked him
out to have some drinks after work. Chuuya was exhausted, and everything he wanted was a fair
share of a good night's sleep, but except for that, he didn’t see a reason to refuse. He was young,
handsome, and single. Apart from the fact that his body and mind were being constantly tormented
by the absence of the person he wanted next to himself more than anything else, there was no other
feeling that prevented him from opening up to someone else, someone new, and so he agreed. The
date went nice, they talked about common things, a little bit of politics, celebrity gossip, and how
life in Japan was drastically different from the European kind. Eventually, Chuuya thought that he
could possibly agree on a second date, and even on the third one, and prolong the entire thing until
it would become a solid distraction from the past. However, once he hinted at his own tiredness
and wanting to go home, the guy offered him, without much shame or embarrassment, to go to his
place instead. Chuuya felt stupefied, if not scandalized. Why did everyone, everyone he met want
only one thing from him?

“It’s like they might die if they don’t get to fuck me one way or another,” Chuuya complains a
week later on the FaceTime call with Adam, drinking his morning cup of espresso and smoking a
cigarette on the balcony of his hotel room.

“Sex is overrated,” Adam sighs, reading another scientific paper parallel to their talk. His hair is
messy and his reading glasses are almost diagonal across his face, so sleep-deprived he looks. “It’s
for jobless people with no hobbies. I’m working day and night and I don’t even have time for a
simple date.”

Chuuya is aware of his good looks, of course, he’s used them many times to get whatever he
wanted from other people. However, one thing still remains a closed book to him. Every time he
looks at himself in the mirror before taking a shower, letting his bare collarbones, chest and
stomach fall under scrutiny, trying to look at himself from the side, he just doesn’t see the appeal.
It’s not like he’s trying to be attractive or seductive on purpose, he’s barely doing anything at all,
mostly looking down or staring at the recipes written in the Notes app on his phone as he walks
down the street. He never notices the glances thrown at him and never answers them either. He
used to make himself prettier on purpose, for his total dickhead of a boyfriend, being convinced
that his worth pretty much depended on how desirable he was. He undressed and threw seductive
smiles, he knew how to flirt up to the edge before there was nothing left but lust filling the air in
the room. He learned how to be a good lover, he was submissive and pliant when asked to, he
knew when to be loud and when to shut up, he turned himself into a blank canvas, ready for kisses
and bites from the man who’d never taught himself how to love him right. In his current life, a
swirl of routine and job offers, he doesn’t have much time to do all of that. Neither he has a person
he would like to appear desirable to. Still, it doesn’t stop the people he has no interest in from
wanting him – or, being more precise, wanting his body, his kisses and muffled screams.

During one of his online sessions with Kouyou, he braves bringing the topic up, practically saying
that he’s tired of people not wanting him as a whole, as a person, not seeing further than the body
he’s trapped in.

“Let’s turn this thing around a bit and make it about you, first and foremost,” Kouyou smiles
softly, staring back at him from his phone screen. “Is there a person you see or think about and feel
like you want them, in a physical way?”

“Yes,” Chuuya replies without hesitation, his mouth a bit dry. When Kouyou asks him who it is,
he stiffens. “Should I tell you the name?”

“No, of course, not,” she smiles reassuringly. “Unless you want to, but I’m clearly not the person to
intrude in your private life,” she hides her smile as fast, schooling her face into a usual calm
expression. “Just tell me about them, in most general terms. What is it in them that keeps you
attracted? Have you noticed it?”

“I,” Chuuya starts talking but shuts himself immediately. I don’t know. Is there really a thing that
defines the roots of a physical attraction to someone?

For him, it’s on the very surface. He needs to love the person, truly, unconditionally, to be ready to
get this intimate with them. This is how he realized that their diverse sex life with Raphaël was
nothing more than his own means of proving that he was worthy of love and affection. He wasn’t
having sex with him because he wanted him, physically, no matter how attractive he really was, it
was never about it. And most of the time, after they finished, Chuuya felt utterly devastated and
wanted to melt into the bedsheets from embarrassment. There was no happiness, or relief, or
butterflies in his stomach. He felt dirty and wanted to take a bath. That was all.

At the same time, there’s no room for comparison in his life yet, no other, better example he
could’ve used to prove himself wrong. He almost had sex with Dazai once, and it was everything, it
was like a dream he didn’t want to wake up from. The way he was touching him, kissing him,
saying him the most beautiful words, treating him like he was more than the whole world – this
was how Chuuya wanted it to feel, from the very beginning. And he never got that. Now he finds
himself even more cornered than before. What if he never rights his own mistakes? What if he
never kisses Dazai again, what if he never finds out what he looks like, falling asleep marked by
Chuuya’s kisses all over his body?

“Chuuya?” Kouyou gently distracts him from his thoughts. “Did anything appear to you?”

“Yes,” he says, a bit slower than before, biting his lip. He just doesn’t know where to start. “I think
it’s because he understands me. And he knows me better than anyone else.”

“Elaborate,” Kouyou leans closer to him over her table, even though they’re still kilometers apart,
and keeps her concentrated gaze on him.

“He’s smart and insightful, no matter whom it comes to, but with me, it’s different and much more
profound,” Chuuya’s not really forcing the words – they come out naturally, without much thought
whatsoever. “It feels like he had known me long before I even introduced myself,” for the first
time in the past ten minutes, he’s staring right back at her face on the screen. “It’s like he’s a
continuation of me, you know?”

“You’re talking about love, Chuuya,” Kouyou says after a long minute of silence. “You need love
to open up to another person, completely.”

“But he’s also very handsome,” Chuuya is fast to add as if these words can theoretically erase or
justify the ones he said before, as if they’re not just dry and quite evident facts. He loves Dazai, of
course, he’s attracted to him and his looks. “And I like his taste in clothes, and how his hair falls
on his face when he looks down, and how he laughs, and-”

“Chuuya,” Kouyou stops him in a gentle voice, and he finds himself almost on the edge of
suffocating, that’s how out of breath he’s been the whole time. “All of this is valid, of course, but
it’s not as important as the words you said first. This is at your discretion, whom to share a bed
with, but ask yourself, what is the purpose of it if this is not the person you want it to be.”

The call with Kouyou leaves him cured and devastated at the same time, as it usually does. He
feels confused at most but there’s more to it, he finds himself unexpectedly angry. An arrogant and
still unstable (Kouyou has taught him not to use the word unhealthy in any regard) part of him is
telling him that the bigger share of this is entirely Dazai’s fault. How do they say, if he wanted to
he would? What stopped him back then from not going away like Chuuya asked him to? Why
couldn’t he just stay, trap his trembling wrists in his own warm hands and kiss his worries and
insecurities away? Was it really that easy for him to leave? Just because it was something Chuuya
said he wanted?

Kouyou’s voice from one of their past sessions appears clearly in his head at this. As much as we
love to watch people in romance movies and read about love in novels, this is not how it works in
real life, not at all. In a healthy, mature form of a romantic relationship, words are needed even if
you can’t bring yourself to say them out loud. And when you eventually do, the feat of another
person is to listen to you and accept whatever it is that you want. Dazai left back then not because
he’d been waiting for the right moment to do so, he did so because he respected Chuuya’s feelings,
desires, and personal boundaries. No matter how grounding and magnifying his love might have
felt, his common sense prevailed, and Chuuya should be grateful for that, not curse his name every
waking moment and in his sleep.

Will he ever come back if Chuuya asks him to? Will he come back without his asking?

The afternoon after his Parisian class, Chuuya has just done stretching in his hotel room when his
phone buzzes on the nightstand, making him startle. The incoming call from one of the most
surprising figures in his life at this point, Arthur Rimbaud. How much time has passed since they
talked for the last time?

“A little bird told me that you’re staying in Paris these days,” Rimbaud says once he accepts the
call, an all-knowing smile is clear in his voice. “Would you mind coming to see your old friend?”

Hearing him talk effortlessly like that is reassuring in many ways, and Chuuya can’t help but let a
quiet laugh in response. Perhaps there are two good things about France to him, after all. Food and
Arthur Rimbaud.

Instead of a traditional lunch at the restaurant, they pick one of the local parks and grab a takeaway
coffee before taking a walk as the weather permits. Chuuya breathes in deeply, filling his body
with warm summerish air, and wrinkles his nose as the rays of sun fall onto his face whenever he
looks up through the tree crowns.

“I’ve been responsible for organizing most culinary events in the town lately, so when they asked
me to find a perfect candidate to hold a charity masterclass for orphans, you were my first
thought,” explains Rimbaud, after taking a sip of his coffee. There is a thin silk scarf hugging his
neck, the fabric layered over his classy shirt, and his hair lying loose behind his back. Chuuya
didn’t care to make himself too presentable and kept the messy ponytail he’d made for his
stretching session even after taking a shower. It’s no use anyway as everyone else, as attractive as
they might seem, completely fades next to Arthur’s compelling looks. “You are allowed to scold
me for that.”

“I won’t scold you,” Chuuya smirks, glancing up at him from his cup. “But I have a question,
though,” he thinks it over for a moment before firing off. “Why didn’t you invite Dazai? He’s
clearly way more into philanthropy than I am.”

Rimbaud hides his smile for this one, contemplating something for a long moment, and then his
voice comes almost as a whisper as if he’s sharing a big secret. “Dazai is in Paris, too, did you
know that?”

Oh. So that’s why he gets this strange feeling of being watched whenever he leaves his hotel room
here. Even if Dazai is not there physically, his presence is weighing over him like a halo. Will this
halo eventually fall on his neck and choke him until he suffocates?

“No, I didn’t,” Chuuya swallows his coffee, which suddenly tastes like dirt, and tries with all his
might not to sound as affected as he feels. “Why would I know that? We don’t talk.”

“I suspected that,” Arthur replies after studying his face carefully for a second. “Well, he has too
many projects weighing over his head right now, so I decided not to bother him with another one.
And I see your candidacy as the more fitting one, anyway.”

His last words pass completely by, as Chuuya focuses on what he just said about Dazai. Too many
projects? What kind of projects is he talking about? More than two years have passed since his
winning the contest, he might’ve already spent all his prize money on travels, dates, and various
kinds of useless stuff he’s always been into. Has he just decided to finally work on opening a
restaurant? What made him change his mind?

“I wonder,” Chuuya bites down a smirk. “What he’s so busy with.”

“Well,” Arthur sighs as they approach the bridge over the artificial pond in the park, leaning
against its metal railing warmed by the sun. “He used to be… uncertain about starting his own
business but it seems like I persuaded him to give it a shot.”

“Why would you do that?” Chuuya frowns, looking up at him.

It takes Rimbaud a long moment of thinking before answering. “I couldn’t watch him waste his
potential like that. I know that the topic is rather unpleasant to you, but Paul always feared Dazai’s
dropping culinary for good.”

The mention of Verlaine makes Chuuya slightly uncomfortable, even though he’s not as pissed at
him as he was two years ago. But the memory of how much Dazai once meant to him comes as
unexpectedly stinging. It should’ve been me, Chuuya thinks, and it was me. But it was never right.

“So you advised him to finally open a restaurant?” He asks, now watching the calm waters in the
sunlit pond in front of himself.

“You can say so, yes,” Rimbaud hums. “Now Dazai is a future entrepreneur, and you’re a big-
hearted volunteer, how does it sound?”

The first thought is, awful. It’s almost comical and fascinating in its own way, how Chuuya used to
live Dazai’s life instead of him and now he’s pursuing his dream, and how it’s working vice versa.
He has no chance to own something valuable to his name, not in the current timeline, at least. But
Dazai does, and in some hidden and vague sense, Chuuya is happy that he’s finally not wasting
that.

“You think I have a big heart?” He smirks into his coffee cup.

“Sure thing,” Arthur nods without hesitation. “I can only imagine how broken you felt after your
loss in the contest, but you didn’t let your grief prevail and concentrated on becoming a better
person instead. This is something all of us have always wanted for you. Me, Verlaine, Dazai, your
mother,” he’s careful at the last word but lets it out anyway, and Chuuya suddenly feels like crying.
He hasn’t cried in a long while. He wrinkles the now empty coffee cup in his hand and leans to the
side, almost like someone is pushing him from behind, hiding his sob in the soft fabric of
Rimbaud’s shirt. Almost instantly, he feels his warm hand on his shoulders, hugging him firmly
and pressing just slightly closer, as if being pushed too much, Chuuya might break into tiny pieces.
“What is it?” Arthur asks in a soft whisper.

Chuuya holds back another sob, gritting his teeth and squeezing his eyes shut. The tears burn.
“You are my family,” he whispers only for the two of them to hear. All of you, even that fucker
Verlaine whom I despise. “I’d never had a real family before you.”

Rimbaud is silent for a long while, letting him cry his emotions away, grabbing at the sleeve of his
shirt. Chuuya is not used to exposing himself like that so he tries to calm down as fast as possible,
leaning back and wiping his cheeks with the back of his trembling hand. When he eventually
returns Rimbaud a look, something in his face is unsettling. He’s looking right back at Chuuya,
breathing deeply, and for some reason, Chuuya already knows that he’s going to be hurt with
words, again.

“There’s something you need to know,” there it is. Arthur takes a deep breath, looking away for a
second. “I didn’t want to bring up this topic and ruin your mood like that, but it will be unfair to
you if I don’t.”

“What is it?” Asks Chuuya, his voice still slightly unsteady from tears. His first thought is, did
something happen to Dazai?

But in reality, the thing Rimbaud says next is much worse.

“After you had declined Verlaine’s offer to return to Fêtes Galantes, he did something terrible,” it
doesn’t come out as a surprise at first, Verlaine is capable of terrible things, after all. He
manipulates, blackmails, gaslights, he does all of that on a regular basis even to people he claims to
love and care for. Rimbaud takes a deep breath. “As far as I’m concerned, you’re not allowed to
work in any reputable European restaurant anymore.”

Chuuya feels like the air has been suddenly kicked out of his chest. “What… what does it mean?
He blacklisted me?”

“Not exactly,” Arthur shakes his head. “He doesn’t have enough authority to blacklist you
anywhere outside his restaurant chain, and luckily, Fêtes Galantes isn’t a part of the chain. He
could’ve threatened you with blacklisting if he was afraid that you might sue him and, eventually,
win the court case. But he knew that you wouldn’t do something like that.”

“Then what did he do?” Chuuya frowns, completely perplexed at this point.

“Well, you know Paul,” most of the time, he wishes he didn’t. “Word for word, a whisper here, a
whisper there, a bunch of secular parties with other restaurant owners, and a rumour of your being
a completely incapable and disobedient worker flew around like a flock.”

“And they just… believed him?” Chuuya looks up at him, struggling to breathe. “Just like that?”

“Oh, they did,” Rimbaud nods. “It’s our bitter ordeal of dealing with Paul Verlaine. Whether we
like it or not, his word has always been a command for everyone around him.”

Chuuya lets out a long breath, leaning both of his hands against the railing and bending down to
hide his face in his hands. He doesn’t want to cry, not anymore. He’s devastated, to say the least,
but on top of that, he feels unusually enraged. It’s not his usual anger, the one that comes
unpredictably and is quite difficult to control whenever it starts to brew. It’s a slow, sleady rage,
like the calm before the storm, and it’s filling his entire body like ocean waves, washing his hatred
ashore. He just can’t understand. Isn’t his suffering enough? Why would Paul hate him like that,
for what? For betrayal? But it was Chuuya who got betrayed, mercilessly, it had always been him.
Where does all the revenge come from? Hasn’t he already paid the price for being overly trusting
when he should’ve been alert instead?

“What do I do?” He asks himself more than Rimbaud.

“You can try to talk to him, make amends,” he suggests the solution anyway. “But I wouldn’t want
to see you do that. You’re not the person to grovel.”

“It’s my work, Arthur,” Chuuya says louder than before, looking up at him through the locks of
hair getting into his face. “It’s everything I have ever wanted to do. And he thinks that he can take
it away from me, just like that.”
“What about working in Japan?” Rimbaud braves another suggestion, though it’s evident from his
face and the tone of voice that he feels helpless and doesn’t know what to say to make it better for
him. “Verlaine has no influence there, and you’re already the public’s favorite. I’m sure you’ll get
a prestigious job there at your first demand.”

“I can take care of myself,” Chuuya leaps, a bit too rudely, but his mind is chanting another thing.
Dazai has everything and I have nothing, Dazai has everything and I have nothing, Dazai has
everything and I have nothing, Dazai is reaping the fruit and I keep rotting in the soil. “But
Verlaine humiliated me, in more ways than one, and I can’t just let him get away with that.”

“You must know that I will support you in any decision you make,” Rimbaud says carefully,
watching for any change in his face. “But please, do not kill my ex-husband.”

This isn’t what Chuuya’s planning to do. Paul Verlaine doesn’t deserve death anyway, it would’ve
been too much mercy on him.

The same evening, he finds himself standing at the entrance of Fêtes Galantes, for the first time in
four years. He’s changed into a more formal outfit, the suit that’s perfect for secular dinners and
negotiations, a plain white shirt with an unbuttoned collar, a black blazer hanging from his left
shoulder; his hair in a high ponytail, two lonely strands framing his face on both sides; he even
wore shoes instead of his usual sneakers. Now he’s standing in front of the door, taking it in for
some time, noticing how it has never really changed. The same cursive name sign hanging above
the door, beautiful golden letters and a little handwritten star next to it, Verlaine’s personal card.
As he takes a deep sigh and walks in, the restaurant greets him with its usual bright lights, a loud
chattering coming from the guests, and rushing waiters and waitresses filling the room. The
hostess, a new girl whose name Chuuya doesn’t know and doesn’t care to ask, wonders whether he
made a reservation.

“No,” he answers with the brightest smile he can flash right now. “Is there something you can do?
I’m not expecting any company.”

The girl seems not to recognize him, which is a good sign. Perhaps, this damned and rotten place
has finally forgotten him entirely once and for all.

“Of course,” she nods, blushing a bit under his intense stare, and reaches to check her list. “Oh,
you’re lucky, there is a free table for you. Let me lead the way.”

Once he’s seated, Chuuya orders himself a single glass of red wine as he’s not planning on staying
here for long anyway. He has a personal business here, a matter of some urgency that cannot be
delayed. He wonders who is the chef here now, as Verlaine tends to change them the same way he
does with his lovers. Nevertheless, Chuuya is savouring the wine slowly, studying the room for
some time, before he feels bold enough to raise to his feet and sneak invisibly through the tables
and past the busy waiters toward the kitchen. Luckily, his relatively small size allows him not to
get caught. In front of the door, he stills for a moment, taking a deep breath before walking in. As
usual, he finds himself thrown in the very pit of hell, the sound of sizzling, mixing, chopping, a
variety of incombinable smells filling the air. Everyone is rushing around, juggling pots, pans,
plates, spatulas, and knives. The picture feels so unusual that Chuuya almost forgets that it was
also his routine once. It takes the cooks a solid minute to notice him there, and once they do,
Chuuya is met with an amusing variety of reactions. One of them, however, is much more valuable
than all others.

“Chuuya?” He hears a familiar voice, full of disbelief, and before he can even glance at its owner,
he’s already trapped inside a bone-crushing hug. A fresh, a bit tangy smell of a floral perfume, the
strands of a deep dark hair tickling his neck and cheek. Yes, it’s Adele. She leans back, grabbing
him by the shoulders, and takes a long look at his face. “Oh my god, I can’t believe I’m seeing you.
What are you doing here?”

“Hi, Adele,” he smiles and gently hugs her back. “Just wanted to pay a visit to my old friends, isn’t
it allowed?”

“It is,” she frowns, a bit confused. “I just didn’t expect you to… to do it like that,” her gaze travels
lower, studying his figure, and then back to his face again. “Why didn’t you warn me? I’m
drowning in workload right now, I’m afraid we can’t even go for a smoke together.”

“It’s okay,” Chuuya shakes his head slightly and looks over her shoulder at the chef’s office. “Is
Shirase here?” The evident answer is, yes, of course, it’s his job, why wouldn’t he be here?

But suprisingly, Adele shakes her head. “No, Verlaine gave him a week off,” she leans closer to
whisper the next words right into his ear. “Rumour has it, our grumpy chef is getting ready for his
wedding.”

Chuuya feels his eyes snap wide against his will. “Shirase is getting married?” He asks louder than
he meant to.

“Keep quiet,” Adele shushes him. “No one except me and Verlaine knows yet. He’s going to make
an official announcement later.”

“And who’s an unfortunate groom?” Chuuya smirks, still a bit stupefied by the news.

“Shirase is extremely secretive when it comes to this, he thinks he’s a celebrity of sorts here,”
Adele rolls her eyes at that. “But I suspect that it’s the guy he’s been dating for the past four years.
They got together shortly after that,” she’s rummaging for the right word in her head for some time.
“Scandal with your leaving. He started to work here and everything in his life seemed to fall in line
with his career success. He’s even bought himself a villa somewhere in Brittany, can you imagine
that?”

Albeit in his memory, Shirase is still the guy without a single dime to his name he shared cheap
beers in the cooking academy’s dorm, Chuuya pretty much can imagine that. It’s almost shameful
to admit even to himself, but he would’ve probably done the same things, had he been in his place.

“I see,” he hums, returning Adele the look. “So his office is empty now?”

“Verlaine is using it for his personal business,” Adele shrugs, evidently, not really pleased with
such a state of events. “He thinks that it’s his responsibility to supervise the crew in Shirase’s
absence.”

Chuuya’s breath catches against his will. “He’s there now?” He nods at the closed door.

“Just left for dinner with some work partners,” Adele frowns. “Why?”

“Nothing,” Chuuya bites down a disappointed sigh and lowers his voice. “I need to grab something
from there, will you spare me a moment of solitude?”

Though confused, Adele nods in response. “As many moments as you need.”

Once the door closes behind his back, Chuuya lets out a long breath. The room has been
redecorated, probably in more ways than one, but something about it is still painfully familiar. The
walls still keep various awards the restaurant has gained throughout its existence, the plants on the
windowsill are the same that were there during Chuuya’s headship as a chef, and they’re evidently
being cared for; the colors of the walls, the floor and the ceiling are unchanged, meeting him with
calm shades of pale olive and light wood. As much as he still despises Shirase for their last
encounter, Chuuya is grateful that he’s kept a part of him in this place.

Unable to hold himself back, he walks to the closet and opens it, finding a sole hanger with the
chef’s uniform. Snow-white and perfectly ironed, with the unchanged golden tag above the chest
pocket, it looks inviting and accusing at the same time. Chuuya wrinkles the sleeve in his hand,
feeling its soft fabric with his thumb, and bites his lip. Obviously, it’s not the same uniform he used
to wear when he worked here, Shirase is broader even though not much taller, but it stirs the
nostalgia one way or another. When the familiar bitterness returns to his mouth and all his senses,
Chuuya closes the door and steps back as if he just touched something untouchable. He can’t let
himself linger here for too long, he doesn’t want to smell like this place and he doesn’t want this
place to bear the smell of him either. He walks to the desk now, taking in an unusual order on it, no
piles of documents, no dirty tea and coffee mugs (one of the thousands of habits he and Verlaine
shared), no open ink pens, wrinkled papers or bills. How should I do that? Chuuya bites his lip.
Should I just sit here and wait for Verlaine to come back, should I fire his hatred at him right away
once he opens the door?

No. Chuuya might be humiliating himself by coming here but he most certainly won’t humiliate
himself by staying. His flight is early in the morning, and he doesn’t have time.

He rummages through the desk drawers for some time, finally finding a clean sheet of paper and a
fountain pen. Then, he freezes. At some point, he wants to just let his emotion spill, pour down to
the page like the most merciless thunderstorm, but then he thinks better of it. He’s not that short-
tempered and explosive boy he used to be back at the academy anymore. He has to deal with this in
an adult way, and Verlaine is not the person to deserve his emotional rants anyway. His hand is
squeezing the pen firmer as he leans down to write the words in fast and sweeping strokes. After
he’s done, he rereads it once more and leaves the paper lying in the middle of the empty table, his
own resignment letter, an invitation to the celebration of his triumph.

“Rira bien qui rira le dernier.

— C.”

He turns the lights off and closes the door quietly behind himself once he steps outside.

Adele insists on his staying for longer and waiting for her to finish the shift so they can take a walk
together but Chuuya refuses with an almost bleeding heart, although promising her to come back as
soon as he finds free time. His morning flight should not be postponed or canceled, as he craves
getting back home as fast as possible a little bit too much. He needs room for thinking, a lot of it,
alone and in silence.

He pays for his wine in cash and takes a final glance at the restaurant before finally stepping
outside. There is a set of classy marble steps following the entrance (Verlaine has always been a fan
of excessive grandeur), and Chuuya is looking under his feet the whole time as he starts to walk
down, until someone’s tall figure right in front of the restaurant gets in the way, making him glance
up and lose all his breath at once.

The figure that has been bending over the restaurant’s menu stand slowly straightens, both of his
 hands hidden behind his back. He’s in a dark suit, similar to Chuuya’s, albeit his blazer is on,
making his shoulders appear even broader than in any other outfit. The warm summer wind is
messing with his hair, single strands getting into his face, and once their gazes finally meet,
Chuuya finds himself unable to look away anymore. He tries to take a deep breath but it feels like
he’s gulping, a poor fish washed ashore. The restaurant behind his back is loud and bursting with
life, but the crowded street in front of him is suddenly completely silent.

Why do I always love other people more than they love me?

The answer in his head comes in Kouyou’s kind and honeyed voice. Because you don’t need other
people to love.

Why is he the only one who loves me even though he isn’t sure that I love him back?

Kouyou closes her eyes for a moment and smiles. Because he doesn’t need your love to love you.

Chuuya feels the burning tears welling up in the corners of his eyes.

Seeing him, Dazai smiles. As if he knew they would meet here, as if he was planning it, as if
Chuuya’s being here is not surprising at all to him.

“Hello, Chuuya,” he says, gently but loud enough for him to hear, and Chuuya’s world is turned
upside down for the umpteenth time in the scope of the past twenty-four hours. “Did you come
here to beat the shit out of Paul Verlaine as well?”

Chapter End Notes

chuuya's letter to verlaine: he who laughs last, laughs best

 Chuuya the Knight
Chapter Notes

how much taylorswiftism do you want in laurels 25? yes

I'm writing and posting this chapter directly from Paris, which allows me to thank my
amazing friend (do I keep your name anonymous?) for letting me in her apartment to
use it as an inspiration for the one described here. I love you but I'm not sure I'll ever
get on that rooftop...

uhm anyway! the next chapter is the last one, and we're going to witness the power of
homoeroticism befalling the culinary craft for the final time. and the smut, of course,
because I'm not the type to back down.
I'm going to bless you for every comment you send
love, ana

See the end of the chapter for more notes

At times, it felt like Chuuya was cursing Dazai’s name and everything attached to it even as he
sleep-talked. It was partly out of love and partly out of envy. Dazai had everything he’d been
desperately trying to obtain all his life. And, as attractive and well-versed as he was, Chuuya still
couldn’t get to it as effortlessly. Now that he remembers his childhood, his first careful attempts to
take a glance at his mother whenever she was in the kitchen, preparing one of the three meals a
day, the picture dissolves in his memory, appearing in torn-off episodes. Here he’s grabbing a
ladder to reach the highest shelf in the cupboard because he was asked to hand over a bottle of rice
vinegar. Here he’s reading a prompt list on the back of the instant noodles, wondering what is there
so difficult that cannot be prepared by a human being from scratch. Here he’s making his first
pasta, barely ten, hands and cheeks dusted with flour, his mom laughing by his side, helping him,
and they’re fooling around while they still can, while the father is not home yet.

There’s this trick Chuuya was taught by his mother in the kitchen. She wasn’t much of a cook
herself but she knew a thing or two about making the simplest stuff like scrambled eggs in the
morning or pancakes when Chuuya craved something Western but was too drained out to tinker
around in the kitchen himself. She was way gentler when cooking, she never rushed or ran around
like Chuuya did, as if he was running (quite literally) out of time. It was slow dancing, in the soft,
merciful sunlight that was filling the room during the golden hour, and she often told stories
whenever she was making the dough for pancakes or putting on the kettle for their evening tea.
She could talk about the simplest, most down-to-earth things like she was reciting her favorite
poems, and Chuuya used to be seated at the yet empty table, his chin pressed against the heel of his
hand, and listen to everything she was saying carefully even when it didn’t make much sense most
of the time.

So, the trick, yes. The trick is with the eggs. Whenever you use the knife to crack an egg, you don’t
just hit it with the blade until it breaks open. Instead, you make a small crack on it and then press
the blade deeper slowly, making the crack spread evenly in one thin line across the shell. In this
way, you make sure that no shells get inside so that you won’t have to spoon them later. This is a
wise method indeed. Simple yet genius. The reason why Chuuya loves it so much and carries it
gently through the experience he amasses as a chef is that it can’t be found in any cookbook in the
world. Well, perhaps if there is a cookbook that talks about it, he hasn’t found it yet. Because
another human is the best teacher. Because whichever way he tries to put it, he’s still a
continuation of the person who brought him into the world. Perhaps the seed of his fate had been
put into the soil long before he was born. Perhaps his mother had started cracking eggs open with a
blade long before he taught himself to hold a knife without his hands trembling.

Do not hit the egg twice. Do not knock on it as you’d knock on the door of a person who won’t
answer. Let it immerse gently inside instead and watch the seam crawl through the shell in a
crooked line. Chuuya opens his eyes and looks at Dazai as he watches him, already cracked open,
already a sprain, a cut, and a bite. So lightly and effortlessly. And there is the only thing Chuuya
wants to ask him to do. Do not hit me twice. Do not knock on me, I’m already sprung open. Just
make sure there are no shells in this wound so you won’t have to spoon them after.

When he walks down the stairs, now standing right in front of Dazai, looking up at him like he’s
already used to, the silence between them is telling. It says everything Chuuya can’t bring himself
to say.

“Hello,” he replies, and it’s a simple word. He missed talking in simple words more than he
thought he would. He takes a single strand of hair from his face and tucks it behind his ear; Dazai’s
eyes follow this gesture with a sort of hungry intensity, and suddenly, Chuuya finds himself being
studied and hunted. Then he realizes. That’s how people look at you when they’ve missed you.
He’s not sure he’s ever experienced this feeling before. And when he speaks again, Dazai is
watching his lips move. Under this prolonged and pinning stare, he finds it harder to even take a
breath. “How have you been?”

“Enjoying my solitude, mostly,” Dazai clicks his tongue, both of his hands still hidden behind his
back. Chuuya kind of wonders whether he still wears his bandages, whether he needs them still. He
secretly hopes it’s the other way around now, but something is telling him that Dazai would wear
them even if he wasn’t cutting himself anymore, just out of habit. “You look taller.”

“Shut up,” Chuuya rolls his eyes and glances down at his shoes. “I wore heels.”

“I noticed,” Dazai hums, following his gaze, sliding down his figure with a long breath. “Hope you
did that to crush Verlaine’s skull with them.”

“What’s with all the hatred toward Verlaine, anyway?” Chuuya frowns. “It’s not in your nature.”

“Isn’t it, though?” Dazai smiles a bit and nods at the street behind his back. Without his asking,
Chuuya takes a step forward and Dazai follows him, walking a bit behind him at first but then
falling in step with him as soon as they take a turn to the busier boulevard.

They’re walking now, and it’s something that happens naturally, without their agreeing on it in
advance. Chuuya catches himself on the thought that they used to cook together in the same way
once. Even if they had their differences and couldn’t agree on a lot of things, most of it was often
forgotten at the snap of a finger as soon as the time started to count down. Nothing but the kitchen
existed around them. And in the middle of it, like two winners on a pedestal, stood they. Chuuya’s
hands were a continuation of Dazai’s. Dazai’s words were taken right from the tip of Chuuya’s
tongue. Salt it. Stir it. Add more of it. Add less. Crack it. Sugarcoat. Burn. Throw it away. They
didn’t have to use words to understand each other. A wisdom that is learned without extracting it
from a book. Like opening an egg slowly with the blade of a knife.

“I heard what he did,” makes Chuuya tear off the train of his thoughts and look up at Dazai,
wondering. “Rimbaud told me. I was so furious I could kill the man with my bare hands.”
Chuuya scoffs. “Hard for me to imagine you being furious.” Not with him, anyway, he adds in his
head.

“Well, I was,” Dazai nods, now hiding his hands in his pockets. “The same thing he almost did to
me once he’s now doing to you. Trying to erase you. But while I was only erased from his life, you
are being erased from the life of everyone around you, which is cruel.”

“Oh, please, don’t be so dramatic,” Chuuya rolls his eyes. “You’re making it sound like you’ve
already dug my grave.” I can take care of myself. “I can take care of myself.”

“I haven’t dug your grave,” Dazai smiles. “Haven’t even thought of it. But have you, though?”

“What do you mean?” And before he can reply, Chuuya realizes. Have you dug mine? “No,” he
shakes his head. “Though I would be pleased to have you dead for wasting your time like this.”

Dazai stops abruptly in the middle of the crowded Parisian street they’re walking on and just looks
at him for some time with an unreadable expression on his face. It still seems like he’s desperately
trying to decipher him, to see whether something has changed in him in these two years since they
talked for the last time, and lord, how Chuuya wants to tell him everything. Yes, I’ve changed. I’ve
changed exactly how you wanted me to. I’m helping people now. Look at me. I’m shining without
any gold on me.

“Yeah,” says Dazai with a hint of a smile in his voice. “I really, really missed you.”

Chuuya turns his head so his own smile, a bit bitter, is not visible. I missed you too.

Later, after they stop for takeaway drinks in one of the local bars, Chuuya sipping his through the
paper straw, Dazai clears his throat and shrugs.

“I haven’t been wasting my time, though,” he says. “I learned a lot of new things.”

“About..?”

“Cooking,” he explains. “And myself. I realized that I don’t want to be hiding in the back rows
anymore.”

Chuuya feels his breath catch at this just a little bit. “And what do you want to do, then?”

“Show off,” Dazai smiles, visibly pleased with himself. “Rimbaud made me change my mind and
I’m thankful to him for that. He said I now have everything I need to open a restaurant.”

Looking away, Chuuya finds himself side-tracked, the sounds suddenly coming to him as if his
ears are stuffed with soft cotton. “I’m glad,” he tries to mean it as he says it.

“And you?” It’s evident that Dazai doesn’t believe him but he’s not letting the words linger in the
air between them, and this is something Chuuya’s thankful for. “What are you doing these days?
Well, except trying to hunt down Paul Verlaine.”

“You’re going to be flabbergasted,” Chuuya smirks, looking back at him and noticing a sudden
glimpse of curiosity in his eyes. “And I’m surprised that Rimbaud didn’t tell you anything about
this, but I’m volunteering for charity projects around Europe. Arranging cooking masterclasses for
the elderly from nursing homes and children from orphanages.”

Chuuya tries not to make the last word particularly acute as he knows it might hurt, but it ends up
heavier than the rest anyway. It’s like looking for a proper introduction before getting down to the
most important part. You can recite anything you want for as long as you want, you can carpet the
path with flower petals like you’d season your food all you like, but the person you’re doing it for
will end up walking on spikes anyway. There’s this phrase Chuuya once heard or read somewhere,
he didn’t care to remember where. Walking on a minefield is the best way to learn how to dance.

“Is that so?” Dazai is smiling only with his eyes now. The curve of his mouth remains unchanged
even as he brings his own straw to his lips, taking a long sip of his drink, his gaze pinning Chuuya
to his place with a firm grip. “Chuuya the knight, then.”

“I knew you’d be an ass about that,” Chuuya sighs, looking away first.

“Not at all,” Dazai is quick to reassure him. “I was sure you’d come to this, at some point. You’ve
always had this in you, one way or another. You know, even when you scolded me for messing up,
you ended up helping me because it was what you knew best.”

“Really?” Chuuya glances up again, narrowing his eyes at him. Dazai nods. “So you’re not mad at
me for changing my mind?”

“Why would I be?” He frowns. “Even though your own success was your top priority, you’d never
told me directly that you didn’t want to help others.”

Perhaps it was because Chuuya never really thought about this, in a serious way. When you are
raised with a trauma like his own, you don’t really think about others, concentrated on saving
yourself instead. Later, when you become an adult, you realize that you’ve fallen into the habit of
this, and even when your body and mind are not constantly endangered anymore, you still keep
them behind bulletproof glass, careful as if not to let anyone as much as leave a trace of their warm
breath on its surface. Chuuya is sick of the way he’s doing it to himself, over and over again, and
he thinks that it should come to a halt. Expressing himself through guiding other people is a cure
rather unexpected. And besides, it makes him wonder, is this the primary reason Dazai wants to do
the same thing, too?

“I hope you’re proud of me now,” he means it more like a joke but gets met with an expectedly
serious gaze.

Dazai leans his shoulder against the lamppost, holding the glass with his drink in one hand but not
drinking it anymore. His eyes are dark, thoughtful. “Yes, I am.”

Even though it’s only been two years, not five, not ten, not even an eternity, something has
noticeably shifted in the way they behave around each other. Chuuya feels maturer now, bolder,
and the trauma that had been causing his explosiveness and overreacting has finally started to wear
off. At least, this is something he wants to believe in, with all the effort he’s putting into it. At the
same time, he has only a vague impression of what Dazai’s been doing during the time they didn’t
talk, which makes the change in him (or in Chuuya’s perception of him) even more acute. At
eighteen, Chuuya had his suspicions that he’d meet the man he would love much later in life or not
at all. Now, at almost thirty, he’s stupefied that he’s loved back. Too much for a person who used
to think of himself as unloveable.

The drinks finished, they stroll again. Chuuya is well aware that his time is counting down, and
that he needs at least six hours of sleep before the morning flight, or else he’s going to feel and
look dead on his feet. It’s a cruel joke of fate, again. His first meeting with Dazai in two years, and
he can’t even enjoy it like he wants to.

“I’ve decided to rent a flat for a short time,” says Dazai as they’re waiting to cross the road.
They’re just taking weird paths at this point, walking the city’s endless labyrinths back and forth,
and Chuuya doesn’t really remember when was the last time that he simply enjoyed Paris without
rushing anywhere or simply looking under his feet as he walked. Paris is beautiful indeed and, as
much as he hates to admit it, all the stereotypical movies and books and paintings and songs are
right. This is the city where he wants to fall in love and never, ever fall out of it again. “The view
from there is majestic,” Dazai is gesturing with his hands as he explains, pointing at somewhere in
the sky. “The sunrise, the sunset, the dusk, the dawn, I love them all,” he glances at him with a hint
of a smile, and Chuuya startles, finding himself staring, inappropriately shameless. “I would like to
take you there.”

This is obvious flirting. I would like to take you to my flat. Just like this, on the first date (Chuuya
has just realized that they’ve never had a real date before), like desperate to be left alone with each
other people do. Is Chuuya desperate to be alone with him? As much as he’s scared of this
happening, he would say.

“I,” he opens his mouth to reply but stutters, biting his lip, as Dazai’s look is already balancing on
disappointed. “I can’t.”

“Oh,” Dazai quickly schools his expression into a calm one and hides his eyes as the green light
flashes in front of them, and they walk again. “That’s alright. Maybe next time, then.”

“Sure,” Chuuya nods, but the real thing he wants to say is, I don’t know how many next times we
have left. Do people in their late twenties keep fucking everything up with love as much as
teenagers do? Do they also hesitate to take what’s offered to them whether it’s buried under tons of
cement or offered on a silver platter? “How long do you plan to stay in Paris?”

“I don’t know,” Dazai shrugs casually. “I have nothing keeping me in Yokohama, at least for
now.”

“That’s why you’ve been wandering around,” suggests Chuuya, perfectly aware that he’s giving
him a cue that he knows what’s going on in his life, even though in a disjointed picture. The next
question rather forces itself out of his mouth, which Chuuya hates. “Are you seeing anyone?”

“You mean like dating?” Asks Dazai, visibly confused.

“No, like the movies,” Chuuya rolls his eyes. “Of course, I mean dating.”

“Why?” Dazai glances back at him, a bit mischievous this time. “Is your little carrot head jealous?”

“Fuck off,” Chuuya doesn’t mean it in an offensive way but he still gets a bit pissed whenever
someone picks on his weaknesses. “I have no care in the world.”

“Really?” Dazai hums, clearly scheming something in his head.

They pass by several fancy restaurants and smaller diners, various names and flowery terraces
flashing before Chuuya’s eyes, people having their dinners, drinking wine, smoking, talking, and
laughing. Too concentrated on the place he hasn’t had time to stop by, Chuuya doesn’t notice
Dazai disappear somewhere suddenly, leaving him to turn around, confused. In just a second,
someone tugs him by the sleeve of his shirt, dragging him into the alley they’ve just passed by.
The alley turns out to be a long and relatively narrow passage between two buildings, paved and
creamy-white, though somber without any sunlight, not a single soul around. These are in
abundance in Paris, alleys between the four-story or five-story houses scarred by time and caressed
by the sun, the paint washing off their outer walls a little with every heavy rain, lonely plants
blinking at you from the windowsills, from the partly open lids of curtains and blinds. Bikes parked
everywhere. Ashtrays and lampposts. Apartment numbers and full names written next to them like
on gravestones.

Chuuya has had his suspicions about Dazai’s being a gentlemany type since he always acted like
the main character’s noble lover; he doesn’t consider himself to be the main character, yet Dazai
does, he always did. His breath catches a bit on its way from his chest to his throat when he stands
still, his back to the wall, not quite pinned against it but close. Dazai is right in front of him, not
drastically taller but tall enough for Chuuya to tilt his head back, pressing it against the wall, the
strands of his hair framing his face. They’re just staring at each other like this for some time, not
quite the prerequisite for a kiss, though Chuuya secretly wishes it was. His breathing is steadying
slowly with each passing second, and he must admit, he hasn’t felt this peaceful in a long time.

“I tried to,” Dazai finally says, letting him know that the subject is not dropped. “But not a single
one of them knew the difference between bearnaise and maltaise."

Chuuya hums, a bit theatrically. “Is that so?”

“Uh-huh,” Dazai nods. “And even if I’d tried to cook for them, they probably wouldn’t have
appreciated my efforts. And also,” he shrugs, glancing away. “They wouldn’t have noticed if I’d
been doing something wrong just to scold me for that and assert superiority.”

“Really?”

“One of them even asked me why I was wasting so much effort on cooking if I had no one to cook
for anyway,” he goes on. “And when I said that I didn’t mind cooking for myself solely, he called
me selfish.”

“What else?” Wonders Chuuya, pleased with his rant.

“What else?” Dazai looks him in the eye this time, serious, and his curiosity backfires. “None of
them were you, carrot head.”

Chuuya stares back at him, breathing deep, slow. There is a moment that is caught, stuck, caged
like a little bird between their starved bodies. Even though the time is not paused and it’s not like in
the romantic movies at all, Chuuya swears it isn’t, he experiences something, something very
sharp, suddenly piercing his poor bruised heart from every side that’s exposed. Dazai’s hand flies
up, and his long forefinger, a thin needle, pokes Chuuya’s chest pocket right where it hurts the
most.

“You,” he says, staring only there. “Did something to me.”

Chuuya takes a long, sharp, trembling breath. “I would likely do it twice, then.”

This is an obvious reminder of the moment when he took the cigarette out of his mouth and lit it in
his own, watching Dazai with an obvious challenge in his eyes, even though it didn’t seem so at the
time. The challenge was mostly for himself, not to avert his gaze shamefully, not to shy away,
which he did. Chuuya robbed him, Dazai said. If that’s really the case, the charges haven’t been
pressed still.

“But the question is,” Dazai says again, his gaze slowly traveling up to his face while his hand is
wrinkling the fabric covering his chest. “What can I do for you?” And before Chuuya braves an
answer, he speaks again. “Remember I told you I’d cook for you?”

“No, when?” He knows exactly when.

“My last black apron. I promised that I would try harder once I cook for you. I want to keep the
promise,” and then he tries again, his voice almost begging, which is unusual. “Come with me.
Please? Screw your flight.”

“Screw my flight, huh?” Chuuya smirks. He does it solely to cover the fact that he feels so
enamored he could cry. “Bold.”

The picture of Dazai cooking for him, only for him does wonders for his imagination. This is
something they could always have but never really had. Every time they cooked side-by-side, it
was for the sake of other people or their own futures. In this way, cooking has long become
something entirely professional, mechanical, more like a job than the thing they would enjoy, even
though Chuuya still enjoyed a fair share of it. He happened to forget the sheer intimacy of cooking
without anyone but one person watching, cooking imperfectly, making mistakes with no one to
judge you for them. Undercooking. Overcooking. Laughing out loud when something doesn’t work
well together. Just watching each other in the process, bewitched. Chuuya would trade everything
for this. Everything but his peace.

“I want to talk to you so much,” says Dazai again, testing the limits of his patience, trying to break
him apart; Chuuya would lie if he said that he wasn’t succeeding at this. He reaches down to grab
both of Chuuya’s hands, caging them in his own, soft and warm, holding them gently between their
bodies. “I want to make your breakfasts.”

Chuuya releases his thumb to caress the skin on his hand slowly, still watching his eyes, how
millions of different emotions are flashing in them one by one in the scope of an instant. And he
realizes something entirely new. While he might’ve changed and matured since they met for the
last time, Dazai hasn’t. If anything, he became younger in Chuuya’s eyes. More reckless and
honest, less afraid. More in the present moment than anywhere else.

“I want to make yours, too,” the words drop out of his mouth before he gets to think them over. But
when he does, he knows that there is nothing else he could’ve offered as an answer.

“You know what,” says Dazai as he steps back, this time grabbing him by the wrist, tightly but not
enough to hurt, and dragging him along through the passage. “I’m going to steal you,” he walks
confidently, leading him, and Chuuya lets himself be led, not yet faced with the consequences of
this decision. “Steal you and make you the best dinner in the world,” he flashes a smile, looking at
him over his shoulder. “How does it sound?”

“Dazai,” Chuuya calls him by his name for the first time in god knows how long. The word tastes
bitter on his tongue. He tries to resist even though he doesn’t want to. “I have less than ten hours
before my flight.”

He gets answered with a smug smirk. “You think I’m that slow at cooking?”

“Do you drink wine?” Dazai is careful to check, looking at him over his shoulder as he takes two
glasses from the cupboard. “Now, I mean.”

Chuuya doesn’t remember telling him the exact reason why he didn’t drink before but he nods,
leaning his shoulder against the doorframe. “I do. Red, please.”

His kitchen, like the rest of his rented apartment, is small but comfy and neat, just airy enough to
fit two people in without elbowing each other all the time. A kitchen for two, Chuuya thinks as he
smiles to himself, how romantic.

“Do you want me to help you or..?” He asks when Dazai hands him the glass, their fingers
brushing for a brief second that dies out as fast.

“No,” he smiles, rolling the sleeves of his shirt up to his elbows. “I’ve got this.”

Of course, you do, Chuuya smirks into his glass as he takes the first sip. It’s a good wine. Not the
best one he’s had in his life and evidently not the most expensive one but still good. Which makes
him wonder, how short on money Dazai has become throughout this time. Is he saving on purpose?
Even though the flat is nice, it’s not the most comfortable one he could afford and yet he settled on
it. It has quite a spacious bedroom, a bathroom, and a separate kitchen with a floor-to-ceiling
window and access to the roof. Perhaps it’s the type of flat that the students who work usually rent
instead of living with their parents or at the dorm. Then, at some point, the realization strikes him.
Of course, Dazai is saving. He must have spent a fair share of his prize money on traveling and
(now it’s confirmed) wining and dining people in, knowing his expertise and tastes, fairly good
restaurants. But now he wants to open his own. Courtesies aside, he needs to invest a lot, especially
if he’s planning on…

“Are you going to open your restaurant in Paris?” He wonders, trying not to watch too attentively as
Dazai is preparing a bowl, a pan, and a knife, already preheating the oven. For some magical
reason, Chuuya knows exactly what he’s making from the very first move of his body.

“Rimbaud asked me the same thing,” he smirks, not looking back at him and rummaging for
something in the cupboards instead. “I don’t have a really good history with this place to want to
anchor myself here like this, do I?”

“You tell me,” Chuuya sees his posture going stiff for a moment as his hand, reaching for the salt
shaker, freezes midway.

“Well,” he takes the hold of himself and sighs. “I swore I’d never be back again after I heard what
Verlaine had done to you, and yet, I am here. Who knows what my next step will be?”

“You’re bluffing,” Chuuya snorts, pretending not to contemplate his words in their entirety. After
what Verlaine had done to him? Verlaine fucked him up enough times for him to lose count.
Which one of the attempts he’s talking about now? “You’re not going to do something just because
everyone expects it from you. It’s not your style.”

“And you claim to know my style, carrot head?” Dazai smirks, laying the lasagna sheets down on
the cutting board in front of him.

“Well, yes,” Chuuya keeps it serious, not succumbing to his attempts to flirt just yet. “You’re
unpredictable and no one really knows what’s going on in your head until you reveal it precisely.
Knowing you, you might go to the Moon tomorrow if you feel like it.”

“Will you go with me, though?”

“What?” Chuuya startles.

“To the Moon,” he clarifies, keeping the tone of his voice ridiculously serious and reaching to stir
the tomato sauce on the stove. “If you feel like it.”

“Stop fucking with me,” Chuuya scoffs as he walks up to him, putting his glass aside on the
counter and rolling up his own sleeves. He feels like he could be of use so he prepares an
additional pan and checks out the temperature in the oven before baking. He doesn’t try to make
the infamous white sauce though, leaving the honor to Dazai instead. Dazai flashes him a grateful
gaze as Chuuya moves the pack of flour closer to him and takes a bar of butter from the small
fridge. With nothing much to do but watch, he watches. Leaning with his back against the counter
next to Dazai, he crosses his arms over his chest and just breathes steadily, letting himself soak in
the ease of it. They don’t get too many moments like this together so he tries to savor it properly
while it lasts. At some point, noticing how Dazai is making béchamel not in the way he’s always
made it but in a completely new one, greatly resembling his own (though there are not many
variations to the technique of such a simple and basic sauce), Chuuya stills, licking the aftertaste of
wine off his lips slowly. “I will.”

Knowing exactly what he’s talking about, Dazai smiles to himself, without flashing him as much
as a glance. There’s nothing difficult in the preparation of lasagna, this is one of the classic dishes
that they’ve both made enough times for the recipe to be forever imprinted into their memory.
Dazai has to put everything together. The sheets, the meat, two sauces, the cheese, layer by layer,
piece by piece, like a puzzle picture. When the pan – for the lack of a proper baking dish – is in the
oven, and Dazai washes his hands, wiping them dry with a towel, Chuuya turns to the window
before their gazes can meet. He feels Dazai take a step forward, closer to him but still keeping his
distance and not intruding into his personal space. He smells nice and very much like himself, a bit
of a fresh floral perfume merged with a scent of cooking herbs and spices.

“I want to have dinner there,” Chuuya nods at the rooftop, grabbing his wine glass from the
counter without as much as glancing at it. He reminds himself of time counting down but keeps
ignoring its hanging annoyingly over his somnolent head.

“On the roof?” Dazai finds it important to clarify, his voice a bit quieter now. And once Chuuya
nods, he speaks again, this time, with a smile. “That’s kinda the point.”

The rooftop appears to be not as slippery as Chuuya had expected it to be and definitely not as
dangerous as it seemed from behind the closed window. Like most Parisian roofs in four-story
buildings, this one is slightly angled and with no railing whatsoever; meaning, if you step too close
to the edge of it, you are likely to fall without anything to prevent this from happening. But Dazai
is careless and even a bit playful as he lowers himself on the cold surface of it, slightly melted by
the moonlight and the particularly vivid shine of the dying stars, and places both of their plates and
wine glasses next to him. Hesitating just for a second, Chuuya sits down and takes a sudden – even
for himself – deep breath, taking in the vista of the neighboring houses, their rooftops and
countless windows, bursting with light and life, right in front of himself.

“I wonder sometimes,” he says, taking his own plate and placing it on his lap. His finger points
slightly at one of the dimly lit windows in front of them, someone’s kitchen drowning in the pale
amber light, a lonely stranger hovering above the counters. “What if we had the honor of
perceiving cooking as normal people do.”

“What do you mean, normal?” Dazai frowns, the fork halfway up to his mouth.

“You know,” Chuuya shifts, leaning with his hand behind himself, his palm pressed against the
cold rooftop. “Humans need to cook and eat to survive, and most people don’t see it as something
more than this. What do you want for breakfast? Scrambled eggs. What do you want for lunch?
Noodles. What do you want for dinner? A steak will do. They cook, eat, forget, and repeat, time
after time. While I,” he draws in a deep breath. “Every time I lay my hands on the stove, I want to
make something that would outdo my previous dish. But this person,” he nods at the window again
and then shakes his head ever so slightly. “Looks so unbothered, doing this. Look, he’s even
dancing a bit. I wonder what he’s listening to, dipping his instant noodles into the boiling water.”

“Maybe he works in a Michelin restaurant,” Dazai hums, tracing his gaze for a mere second but
then returning his eyes back to his face. “Maybe he’s better than the both of us, you’ll never know.
And you can dance, too.”

“What?”

“You can dance too,” Dazai repeats patiently, with a soft smile appearing on the corners of his
mouth. “And sing, if you want. While you cook.”

“Why would I do that?” Chuuya answers with a frown and stops chewing on his lasagna bite.

Dazai’s smile deepens as he brings the glass to his lips. “Because it’s fun.”

“No, but what if I oversalt something, or burn something, or-”

“Chuuya,” his train of thoughts comes to a halt once Dazai stops it with such a simple word, his
name, that, in this peaceful evening silence, pierces him like a dagger. When he looks at him again,
there is no trace of a smile on Dazai’s face. He places his glass and plate aside and stands up
effortlessly, his hand reaching out to Chuuya, waiting for his response. A bit tipsy from the wine,
he stands up, not losing his grip on Dazai’s wrist even for a second. Once they’re stood, staring at
each other wordlessly, Dazai leads him back inside, and they dive into the kitchen through the
wide-open window like two burglars without disguise. “Look at this.”

And Chuuya does.

Dazai takes the pan with the remainings of his lasagna out of the oven and places it on the empty
counter. From the cupboard, he takes a clean flat plate and, using a spatula and a kitchen knife,
carefully puts the lasagna on it. Chuuya is watching him, hands crossed over his chest, and
remembers the very first time they cooked it together and how they got at each other’s throats at
any minor disagreement. As ridiculous and banal as it may sound, it’s their signature dish. One of
the hundreds of their signature dishes. Chuuya has no idea what Dazai is going to do with it, but
when he realizes, it’s already too late to prevent it from happening. Glancing at Chuuya over his
shoulder time after time, Dazai places a full salt shaker on the counter next to the plate, takes its
cap off, and, with a light and effortless movement of his finger, knocks the salt over onto the
lasagna.

Chuuya’s first physical response is to leap forward, grab the shaker and take it away, but Dazai
doesn’t let him, stopping his wrist midway and gently encircling it with his fingers. Chuuya holds
his breath for a second, watching as the salt covers the leftovers of their dinner layer by layer. He
can’t let himself be impressed by this. He’s a chef. He should save the dish, not spoil it. Chuuya
the knight.

“Technically,” he says. “I can still spoon it away,” like eggshells.

“That’s a fair point,” Dazai hums in agreement and reaches for something on the stove. “Well,
then.” It’s a small saucepan with his remaining béchamel sauce, already cold and too thick to be
added to anything. Still, Chuuya’s hands itch. He’s not a fan of throwing the food away while it’s
still edible. Dazai hides his hands behind his back as he leans against the stove, nodding at the
counter next to himself. “What are you waiting for?”

“You want me to spoil your béchamel?” Chuuya needs to make sure.

“I spoiled yours,” Dazai recalls, handing him the salt shaker. “I guess, you’ve waited for revenge
since then.”

Almost against himself, Chuuya starts laughing. It’s a genuine, youthful laugh, devoid of any
bitterness in it. He covers his eyes with his palm until he calms down and then looks at Dazai
again, grabbing the shaker from his hand, turning it over and letting the remains of the salt spill
into the saucepan. “Are you satisfied?”

“See,” says Dazai, stopping his hand and taking the shaker away to place it back on the counter.
“Next time we’re in the kitchen together, I’ll make you waltz.”

The possibility of a next time caresses Chuuya’s heart, stuck in his ribcage like a wounded bird. He
doesn’t say anything and returns to the rooftop instead, intending to finish his lasagna and drink the
remaining wine. The window they’d been looking at is dark now, the blinds half-down like an
eyelid. Dazai doesn’t join him right away, instead watching him from the kitchen, both of his hands
thrown over the railing in place of a windowsill. He’s silent, dreamy. And when Chuuya stops
looking at the stars to look at him, Dazai is still looking at the stars. The sight of him, relaxed,
dark-eyed, wind in his hair, almost forces the words out of Chuuya’s mouth.

“I’m glad,” he says, loud enough for Dazai to hear him. “That you won,” his gaze suddenly returns
to Chuuya, now fixed on him almost with disbelief. “You can do something that I never could,
before you.”

“Invent?”

A smile touches Chuuya’s lips before he can hold it back. “Have fun.”

Elbowing each other in the kitchen, they decide to leave the dishes for the morning at last. Chuuya
doesn’t intend to stay over for the night, he’s ready to request a cab, standing still in the doorway,
his phone in his hand. Then Dazai returns from the shower, all wet hair, softened skin, and a dark-
blue oversized t-shirt. As he’s drying his hair with a towel, he catches the sight of Chuuya in the
doorway, fully dressed except for his shoes, and lets out a breath.

“No,” he says, afraid that he might’ve already made up his mind. “Stay. I insist.”

“Seven hours,” Chuuya reminds, flashing the phone screen in front of his eyes in the dark of the
room. “And I still have to pack.”

“Whatever,” Dazai tosses the towel away, it lands on the lonely armchair next to his coffee table,
piled with books, and books, and books. “I’ll buy you another ticket.”

“You shouldn’t waste your money like this,” Chuuya clicks his tongue and steps back, making it to
the entrance door and putting his shoes on. “You should open a restaurant. Beat Verlaine’s ass.
Remember?” He puts an accent on every word, pausing in between the syllables as if explaining
something to a child.

Before his hand touches a doorknob, Dazai cages him in the doorframe, this time pressing him
deliberately against it and cupping his face with his palms. “I’ll send you my plan. As soon as I
come up with something,” he says. “The name, the place, the menu, I’ll send you everything, I
want to know what you think, alright?”

“Alright,” says Chuuya, encircling his wrist with his fingers and tightening his grip just a bit; his
voice drops almost to a whisper. “I’ll wait,” and he lets himself be kissed goodbye.

The first soft press of Dazai’s lips against his own, a shushed breath escaping Chuuya’s mouth and
dying in the air, in the nonexistent distance between them. Dazai’s hand moves to his nape, fingers
tangling in the hair as he pushes forward, deepening the kiss and letting Chuuya know exactly how
badly he missed him. The feeling is reciprocal. The fooling is not. Chuuya can’t lie anymore. It’s a
paradox: being the one lying about his identity the whole time, Dazai ended up more candid than
Chuuya could’ve ever been.

They haven’t kissed for more than two years. Chuuya is surprised to find out that the memory is
still clear in his mind, every single one of them since their frantic first kiss in Dazai’s room. But
when Dazai breaks it first, not leaning back but forward, kissing his neck and tickling it with the
strands of his damp hair, it’s new. Chuuya draws in a breath, then out, relaxing helplessly into the
touch, his hands grabbing Dazai’s bare shoulders just below the sleeves of his t-shirt. After another
kiss, he feels Dazai embrace him by the waist, his grip steady but firm, and nuzzle his face into his
neck with a long, deep sigh. Chuuya lets him. And in that short minute that passes, he remembers
and imagines everything. Dazai bending over the counters and stoves in the orphanage until his
spine cracks, Dazai experimenting, inventing, and risking, his hands hovering over the pots and
pans like those of a pianist, Dazai sweating up his way to the title, Dazai standing on the pedestal,
Dazai holding the prize in his firm grip, a bandaged hand covered in cuts and scars; Dazai the best
chef of their generation; Dazai the main pride of Paul Verlaine; Dazai the mastermind.

And another side. The one that Chuuya knows even better. Dazai the counterpart. Dazai the
partner. Dazai the friend. Dazai the lover (not quite yet, but). Dazai, who will make him oversalt as
many béchamels as it takes for Chuuya to believe that he’s human and has a right to make
mistakes.

“You should go,” Dazai finally says with another sigh and lets himself, not without struggle, look
up. “Or else you’ll stay until morning,” a smile flashes on his reddened lips. “And interfere with
my planning.”

“What planning?” Asks Chuuya, amused, even though the answer is already on the tip of his
tongue as if Dazai has just passed it over through the kiss.

Stepping back from him, Dazai just shrugs, eyeing the walls and the ceiling but not stopping his
gaze at anything in particular; familiar mischief touches his eyes and lips. “I got inspired.”

If Dazai is the king, then Chuuya’s the knight. Let that be. If Dazai needs Chuuya by his side
wherever he goes, he will be there. But only after that place gets a name. And as for now, Chuuya
is in Yokohama, drinking his matcha tea early in the morning, elbow leaned against the table, his
head in his hand, eyes pacing over the lines in a recent utility bill. He now wears glasses whenever
he reads or works with his laptop (he should’ve started doing so much earlier in life), and Adam
laughs at this, saying, as a joke, that Chuuya is copying his style.

When Chuuya is not occupying himself with household commitments, he’s looking for a job.
Adam, not without the help of Ranpo, Edgar, Tanizaki and others, has finally made him change his
mind and set his hubris aside at least for the sake of not starving to death. Apart from the options
that concern cooking directly, Chuuya tries himself at management, advertising, content writing
for online culinary media, and even acting. One job interview after another, constant bewildered
gazes, constant “Are you Nakahara Chuuya? That Nakahara Chuuya?”, constant “We don’t want
too many quarrels in our peaceful working environment,” constant “Thank you, we will call you
back.”

“Yeah,” Adam sighs, dropping himself on the couch next to him with a tired sigh once Chuuya
hangs up after another call. “You’ve made a name for yourself indeed.”

“I won’t give up,” Chuuya ignores his remark, hiding his face in his hands and massaging his
eyelids. It was the sixth call today and the sixth fruitless. “There must be something for me,
somewhere.”
 And a betraying voice in the depths of his mind whispers to him, you already know what’s for you
and where to look for it. Chuuya prefers to ignore it.

The next morning, as he eats his cereal at the kitchen table and scrolls through the to-do list in his
Notes app, a sudden phone call cuts his well-established routine in two. The number is unknown
and not saved but Chuuya stops chewing and answers anyway, as some sort of gut feeling whispers
to him that he should. He almost drops the spoon into his half-empty bowl when he hears the soft,
familiar voice through the speaker.

“Chuuya,” says Fukuzawa, and the way his name sounds coming from him instantly takes Chuuya
back to the brightly lit cooking pavilion, the lights are on, the cameras all set. “I hope I’m not
distracting you from anything important.”

“Not at all,” says Chuuya with a smile and hesitates for a moment before adding, “Chef.”

“Are you doing alright?” Fukuzawa’s question comes out genuine, honest as if he really wants to
know and is not just asking to exchange courtesies.

“Better than ever,” Dazai is achieving his goal, I’m steady on my way to achieving mine, and I
haven’t heard from Verlaine since I left him that note, perhaps he’s now hiding like a rat in his
hole, not bothering me whatsoever. Clearly, Chuuya means it when he says it. “Is there something
you want from me, chef?”

“I believe I do, yes,” answers Fukuzawa a bit reluctantly after a short pause. “I have a job offer for
you,” Chuuya holds his breath, staring blankly in front of himself, his shoulders tense with
anticipation and, partly, fear. “Will you listen to me?”

Chapter End Notes

you can follow me on twitter @acuteguwu

 The Greatest
Chapter Notes

HIIII

who would've thought... I started this in Paris and finished in Belgium, my ass be
traveling a lot these days
I hope you won't be disappointed in the ending (and in me) because honestly, I have no
idea what I'm doing
I'm planning on writing an extra chapter because a lot of people have been asking me
to tell more about skk's newly established routine... WE'LL SEE
as for now, I want to thank everyone for reading this brainstorm and I'm sorry if
something was wrong, unclear or poorly written, I'll get better at this someday, I'm
getting better now
I will reply to all your comments and talk to you here, on twitter, and everywhere you
let me
thank you so, so much
love, ana

The road which leads me to you is safe even when it runs into oceans.

Chuuya is scared of the word fatal. Chuuya is scared of the word final. Chuuya is scared of
endings. Sometimes, he wishes things never started in the first place if they had to end the way
they did. This can be easily applied to everything in his life, except, perhaps, this kitchen and the
great things he made here. The pavilion meets him with bright lights and a loud round of applause,
and two years ago, Chuuya couldn’t imagine something like this possible. He’s the winner, he’s
the chef, he’s the king, he’s the leader…

Wait, please, let him dream.

It all started two weeks ago.

“Adam!” Chuuya rushes to the entrance door once he hears it spring open and gets met by his
visibly drained stare. “He asked me to cook for the show!”

Adam places the bag with groceries on the floor against the wall and straightens his back, taking
off his glasses as if he can hear and understand people better without them. “Who asked you to do
what?”

“Fukuzawa Yukichi,” Chuuya can’t keep the excitement off his voice. It feels like the universe is
giving him a second chance to leap after everything he’s been through. “My former chef. From the
competition. C’mon, Adam, you’re future Nobel prize laureate, wise up.”

“Ah, yeah,” Adam raises both of his hands as if apologizing to him. “My bad. Need to fill the gaps
in your biography in my mind,” he gets punched for this, lightly on the right shoulder, and Chuuya
passes by him, getting onto the kitchen counter. Adam follows him inside and puts on the kettle.
“He asked you to cook for… what for, exactly?”

“They’re filming the new season of the competition, and I’m,” he’s trying hard not to grin; perhaps
this is something he couldn’t imagine himself being so excited for. “I’m the invited guest to
perform a cooking masterclass.”

When Fukuzawa called him and offered a job, Chuuya had several guesses about what it could be
but nothing could prepare him for what he was going to hear. Now, he gets to cook for the public,
perhaps even the bigger one than before, teach fledgling cooks something meaningful, and be paid
for this in the aftermath. Is it everything he could wish for? No. Is it closer than anything else to
the future he wants for himself? Yes.

The evening before filming, he arrives at the camp. He needs a night here to decide and map out
exactly what he’s going to cook. There are so many options that have been troubling him, a
whirlwind in his head, a book, what can I show these people? Is there anything particularly
important that I can teach them, something that no one else can?

Fukuzawa meets him at the camp with open arms and shoots an arrow right away. “Ango is
leaving the show, did you know that?”

Chuuya doesn’t find it in himself to admit that he hasn’t been following the news lately, too many
memories that are so true and so warm they bring an insurmountable ache to his heart. “Leaving?”

He must have heard something similar somewhere, from someone, before.

Arthur Rimbaud is leaving Fêtes Galantes, the headline of every culinary magazine in France the
spring Chuuya turned twenty-two.

“He wants to concentrate on his business and open several new pastry shops across the country,”
says Fukuzawa, leading him into the pavilion, which is dim and empty, as if haunted, at this time
of the day. “This season will be the last with him as a judge.”

“What about Yosano?” Chuuya secretly hopes that this woman will never leave; she was born to
judge, teach, and lead. “She can easily fill both positions at once, can’t she? She’s good at pastry.”

“This isn’t something you should think about anyway,” Fukuzawa brushes him off in his
unchanged polite manner, but something in his voice, face, and entire posture seems unsettling. But
trying to guess what’s on his mind is fruitless, has always been so.

Later, as Chuuya passes by the pavilion to go to the dorm, he notices a black car that hasn’t been
there before. He stops next to it for barely a second, drawing in a breath and fighting a feeling of
premonition he doesn’t really like. Staying at the dorm instead of booking a room for the night in
the hotel nearby was his deliberate decision, for he wanted to live through it all at least once again.
Kouyou has taught him that feeding oneself with past fantasies is not the healthiest thing a person
can do, and still, as he opens the door to the dorm, he can’t help but believe that this is life giving
him another chance.

“Make two cuts here and here,” comes a familiar voice from the kitchen, and Chuuya turns his
head to it, wide-eyed and alert. “Your result should resemble a butterfly.”

He puts his suitcase on the floor and follows the voice, finding himself in the kitchen, small but
crowded, people surrounding the dining table from all sides, trying to glance over each other’s
shoulders and taking quick notes in their notebooks. And in the heart of this all, him. Chuuya
smiles in disbelief as, still unnoticed by anyone, he leans against the doorframe. Fukuzawa
certainly has a way of moving the chess pieces on the board so the game would play out in his
favor; he has an ace or two (better two) up his sleeve.

“Use the sharpest knife you can find and be careful not to hurt yourself,” says Dazai, a white apron
on, as he bends over the table, tinkering with something on the cutting board. Chuuya doesn’t have
to look at it to know that it’s something phenomenal. A girl standing the closest to Dazai draws in a
breath, flabbergasted, and hands him a bowl with flowers once he gestures at her. Chuuya finds
himself so lost in the picture that for a brief moment, he doesn’t see or notice anything around him;
he fears as much as to breathe. It goes on like this for a minute or so before Dazai straightens up
and clicks his tongue, not turning around. “Are you going to keep staring without commenting on
anything, carrot head?”

Chuuya gasps as suddenly, all eyes in the room are looking at him. Shock, disbelief, relief,
appreciation, everything he’s ever wished to find in the faces of those noticing his presence in the
same setting at the same time. Getting a hold of himself, he walks inside as the participants of this
improvised cooking class give way, afraid of as much as poking him with their elbows.

He stops next to Dazai and looks up, met with his warm welcoming smile. “Hard to believe that
you might actually need my criticism, mackerel.”

It’s Nakahara Chuuya, he hears the whispering scatter the room but at this exact moment, nothing
exists to him. Only Dazai, his curly hair, deep kind eyes, effortless smile, and the apron, stained as
it was after each one of the first episodes of the show, back when they were still fearful and doe-
eyed; back when they weren’t the king and the knight. Back when they didn’t feel like the two
most important people in the room they were standing in.

On the cutting board in front of them, Chuuya sees their past. Dazai has been teaching the new
season’s contestants to cut and fold perfect cabbage ribs, the ones that have already saved his life in
the competition once. If Chuuya didn’t know him and his skills well and wanted to learn
something from him, he would’ve asked him to demonstrate the exact same thing. Dazai’s genius
is in simplicity. And simplicity, as Chuuya has already discovered, is the most difficult thing to
achieve.

“Wanna try something fun?” Dazai whispers as he leans closer to him, Chuuya’s gaze stuck dead
on his face. “Greet them.”

It was rather impolite of him, not to greet everyone once he entered the room. But Chuuya felt the
need to cling to Dazai’s image as if at any given moment, he would just vanish, dissolving into the
air. He didn’t care much about anyone else. Now he clears his throat and turns to other people in
the kitchen. “Good evening, everyone.”

Smiles appear on their young faces one by one. “Good evening, chef.”

Another breath gets stuck in his chest as Chuuya looks at them, bewildered, and then up at Dazai
again; he only smiles with a shrug in response. How many times Chuuya has heard this chef from
the room full of people, his subordinates, addressing him? But it was never like this. Back when he
was still working at the restaurant, he liked hearing it because it gave him a sense of superiority.
Now, though, he doesn’t want to be superior to anyone and he knows well that he will never be.
Which is why it makes him feel helpful and far more important to other people than he’s ever
been.

“Now that you’re done watching his highness show off,” He nods at Dazai. “I’d advise you to go
to bed earlier tonight because I’m not making it easy for you in tomorrow’s contest.” And once all
the yet strangers walk out and they stay alone in the kitchen, Dazai takes his apron off and glances
at him, holding back a smile. “What?”

“What?” He repeats, both hands leaning against the table behind his back. “Did you know that
Fukuzawa was going to do this?”

“Had no idea,” Chuuya shakes his head. “Is it your car outside?”

“Yes. Why?”

“Are you staying in Yokohama?” Deep down, he wants to ask another thing. “Are you opening a
restaurant in Yokohama?”

“Is it an interrogation?” Dazai smirks as he starts cleaning the table, putting the ingredients he
didn’t use back into the fridge, rinsing his knife, and loading the dishwasher.

“Yes,” Chuuya insists, following him across the room until there is no escape route. “Answer me.”

Dazai puts the knife back into the holder and sighs, turning to face him. “Why do you think I’m
here?”

Chuuya rolls his eyes. “Because you missed me,” he jokes.

“Valid,” Dazai points at him in all seriousness. “But no. I’m looking for a team of chefs.”

“And you decided to look for them here instead of simply arranging a job interview because..?”

This question needs no response. This is just so Dazai. He’s always been like this, ever since he
entered these premises for the first time. Chuuya still remembers what he told him during their first
walk together clearly. Sentimental as it may sound, I think everyone should be equal regardless of
their background. It wasn’t sentimental even in the slightest. Now that Chuuya thinks of it, it was
nothing but wise. Dazai will always give hope to those who need hope, love to those who need
love, and loyalty to those who expect betrayal. Only deeply-rooted loneliness could raise a person
like himself. Only intense sorrow could make a man so kind.

“Fukuzawa told me I could feel free to offer a job to anyone who seemed interested,” says Dazai,
his eyes fixed on Chuuya, not even a glimpse of a smile on his face; only slow, steady breathing.
“And I said that I wanted you.”

Chuuya blinks as something in his stomach drops. He had so many clues but couldn’t connect them
anyway. First, he thought that this would be a one-time job, arranging a masterclass for the
contestants, trading his face and his skills like he’s used to, getting his paycheck, done. Then, after
Fukuzawa mentioned Ango’s leaving his position as a judge, Chuuya got his suspicions that he
might be asked to fill this role instead of him on a regular basis, done. He’s not stupid by nature but
next to Dazai, he’s never smart enough.

“You,” he draws in a breath. “Planned this?”

Finally, a smile appears on Dazai’s lips as he tightens his grip on the counter behind his back.
“Maybe.”

His words are stuck to the back of Chuuya’s mind like duct tape. I said that I wanted you. Has he
ever heard someone say this about him before? Being useful, being needed was the sweetness he
tried once and couldn’t get enough of it since. It became the main target of all his attempts and his
ultimate destination.
“So, what is your answer?” Dazai is waiting and his gaze is careful on Chuuya’s face as if he’s
watching him from the perspective of every person that he’s ever known. What is he going to say?
Is he willing to give up his own dream for the sake of someone else’s? Or will it be sharing of a
dream as one might share a piece of pie?

If feeling needed means trading his own path, then no.

If it means, however, finding it and stepping on it with someone else, someone who is Dazai, then-

“I’ll give you my answer,” says Chuuya, looking him right in the eye. “But only after we get this
over with.”

The room is half-lit and smells like the wind outside coming through the open window when
Chuuya puts his suitcase on the bed, Dazai following him inside like his shadow. It’s been a long
time since they last were here, and nothing really changed. The walls are the same, the ceilings are
the same, they have taught generations of cooks and will teach generations more; when he couldn’t
fall asleep, Chuuya used to lie down and picture the dishes he would make on this clear canvas
painted with the night. In this way, he was reading his own future. He’s wondering now if Dazai
has ever done the same thing or if it was he, alone, who taught all the walls in the building how to
make great things.

“I brought books,” says Chuuya, taking them out of his suitcase and placing them on the bed.
Dazai picks up the top one and reads the title. “The two of us being here means that we’ll have to
cook for them together.”

“That is why you picked the thing we’re both bad at,” Dazai looks up at him with a smirk.

Pastry.

“That is why I picked the thing we’re both bad at,” confirms Chuuya, taking the book from his
hands and placing it on his lap as he sits down on the floor instead of his bed. “Let’s get started.”

The book is Fruits by Cédric Grolet, an entire manual on creative pastries and desserts that bear a
degree of likeness to the actual fruits that are used in their preparation. A lemon that looks like a
lemon is not, in fact, one; neither an orange nor an apricot. It takes a lot of skill and even more
courage to disguise something and make it pass for something else. Lying is only not what it seems
when you’re lying for the sake of art. Chuuya opens the book to the page he’s got a bookmark on
and feels the strange, calming stillness running through his body once Dazai gets down next to
him, looking at the recipe over his shoulder; it’s all in French, and while Chuuya certainly has no
difficulty understanding even the most specific culinary terms, Dazai – for the lack of practice –
might be having a hard time doing the same. He’s so concentrated on reading the lines that he
frowns, a small wrinkle appearing on his forehead, between his eyebrows. He doesn’t notice that
Chuuya now looks at him, his breath so close it can almost touch Dazai’s cheek.

“What’s enrobage?” Asks Dazai, not looking up from the pages. “Is it like a robe?”

“Almost,” nods Chuuya, eyes fixed on him, voice quiet. “It’s coating.”

“Do you really know everything about cooking in three languages?” Dazai is not mocking him –
he’s genuinely amazed when he looks up, their faces dangerously close.

For a brief second, Chuuya forgets to breathe. “Not everything,” he says almost in a whisper. “I
don’t know many things you do.”
“Like what?”

I don’t know how to be a genius.

“Well,” Chuuya looks for a roundabout way of putting this, glancing back at the book. “I still don't
know how to experiment.”

With a quiet laugh, Dazai catches his hand – their first direct touch in more than two weeks, god
knows Chuuya missed the warmth of it – and guides it through the page, stopping his index finger
at one of the lines. “It says that we have to leave the crème in the refrigerator for two hours. What
if the contestants don’t have two hours to cook? What if the judges give them only one and a
half?”

He looks up at him again, and Chuuya feels stupefied under his studying gaze, his eyes running
through the words of the recipe over and over again. It’s a test. If he was teaching Dazai before,
now Dazai is doing the same to him. It feels inexplicably intimate, sacred, a rush in his blood, and
suddenly, no trace of sobriety in his body. Think, think, think. Come up with something, conjure
something up, wise up, as you told Adam.

“We can try shock freezing?” He breathes out, unsure.

“Good,” nods Dazai, still not letting go of his hand. “But not quite. Shock freezing works well with
raw meat and fish, but it’s too radical for such soft textures as mascarpone cream. Besides, it still
takes more than two hours on average.”

“Right,” Chuuya bites his lip, scolding himself in his head. He’s rushing the ideas in his desperate
attempts to impress Dazai; he’s saying nonsense; he can think of something better, he knows he
can. “Can we not refrigerate the cream at all?”

“Not we,” Dazai smiles, and Chuuya knows. Everything that has ever happened to him, he had it
planned; tomorrow’s not an exception. “Let them figure this out on their own.”

The whole night, they keep working on the recipe, changing it, turning it upside down, adding and
excluding ingredients over and over again until the sunrise starts to brew on the horizon. The room
changes a million shades in an hour closer to dawn, from pitch black to light blue to grey to soft,
noble ivory; Chuuya falls asleep on Dazai’s shoulder, an open notebook on his stomach, cover up,
hiding the pages messed with his rushed handwriting.

When he wakes up, still on the floor and with a violent ache in his back, Dazai is not around, and
there’s a sound of tap water coming from the bathroom. Chuuya looks at the time and yawns,
catching himself on a feeling that this is the closest to a home he’s ever felt. Not in his family’s
house, or in the academy’s dorm, or in the academy itself, or in Fêtes Galantes, not even in the
place they’re now renting with Adam, but here. In the arena of his most merciless fights and
glorious losses; he accepts the final battle, the knife’s handle in his firm grip but the blade is
rotating slowly toward his chest. If the knight saves others, who will save the knight?

Both done with their morning routines and ready, they’re standing in the middle of the room, fixing
the collars of each other’s jackets. Dazai messes up his own anyway – for the sake of a joke – after
Chuuya’s had a hard time reaching the nape of his neck with his slightly trembling hands.

“You’re insufferable,” he says, eyes fixed on his face.

Dazai holds back a smile. “I missed the hater in you.”

And this is how it all reverses back to the start.

In this bright kitchen light, like nowhere else, Chuuya can see his future clearly. Is it strange that
his future is squeezed into one room, one group of people – though variable – and he keeps coming
back to it over and over again? No, as long as this room is not his father’s house or Fêtes Galantes.
If Chuuya had a choice, he would prefer to find his future here or nowhere at all.

As he looks up from the counter, hands gripping its surface firmly (he’s nervous; he had no idea he
would be), he thinks that they know. The same people he met in the dorm’s kitchen yesterday,
crashed into their routine as a vessel might crash into the iceberg, the same fresh faces. Everyone’s
here: aprons instead of hoodies, t-shirts, and sleepwear, still aprons and not chef’s jackets; hair
combed or tucked behind the ears. In his head, Chuuya starts counting. One, two, three, four,
five… fifteen. Fifteen people so scared of him that they might have stopped breathing. It’s a dead
end. Chuuya doesn’t know how to make people trust him. He’s always been liked and feared
equally. He hasn’t known a soul who would be liked and never feared.

“Hello, everyone!” Here he is. Fixing his microphone has taken more time than Chuuya had
expected. The room bursts with another round of applause as Dazai enters, flashing everyone – and
then Chuuya, alone, – a glance. He walks up to him and stops, shoulder to shoulder, right next to
their today’s workplace. For a moment, Chuuya cannot stop looking at him, too deep in his
thoughts to notice cameras around him. This seems surreal: Dazai looks absolutely the same as he
did back when they met for the first time. Young, ambitious, handsome. Chuuya almost envies him
even though Dazai had already won and he had already lost and everything had been decided a long
time ago. Dazai doesn’t answer his glance, taking out a knife instead. “I believe, our beloved
judges have already described today’s rules to you. Chuuya and I will be cooking a certain thing
for your entertainment,” a barely audible whisper scatters the room. “Those of you who can guess
what we’re making and prepare the dish as close to the original as possible will be spared from
black aprons.” He twists the knife in his hand and flashes everyone a smile, Chuuya’s slight frown
befalling him from the right side, stop flirting with them. “Shall we begin?”

The plan they’d come up with last night is pretty simple: apricots by Cèdric Grolet, his majesty,
little pieces of pastry, sunset-colored on the surface, buttered and soft inside as you cut each one in
two. They split the processes equally: while Dazai is roasting the fruits, Chuuya is occupied with
the most difficult part, the mascarpone-lavender cream. The given time for this contest is longer
than they had predicted: two hours in total plus fifteen minutes to assess every team, they can work
with that. And as they do, clattering of metal and voices filling the room, Chuuya almost doesn’t
look up from the counter, concentrated on his work like he’s never been before.

For some reason, cooking for someone else’s sake feels even more responsible than for his own.
When he gets distracted, though, studying the room, he notices the glances thrown at them by the
contestants, fired like bullets that Chuuya catches with his teeth. He knows that people are
speaking – especially those who are his subordinates for the day – he knows what they’re saying
behind their backs. Why didn’t Chuuya win instead of Dazai? It’s good that Dazai won, Nakahara
still has a lot to learn. I wouldn’t want Chuuya to be my chef, he’s too intimidating. Dazai is even
prettier in person. I had no idea Fukuzawa would choose these two to teach us today. What are
they doing these days, anyway? Nakahara is filming another milk commercial, I suppose? Why
won’t Dazai open his restaurant, what is he even doing? Be honest, do you think they fucked?

There is only one thing Chuuya wants to be known for and it’s not his intimidating persona or his
relationship with Dazai, whatever that actually is. He mixes lavender flowers with whipping cream
and then walks to the storage room to put the mixture into the freezer, every gaze in the room
except one directed at him. They’re risking, and he knows that. But it was his idea to reduce the
freezing time to the point where they’re balancing on a deadly thin rope – either the cream will be
too soft to hold its form or they lose the sacred time needed for the dish presentation.
As he closes the freezer and lingers there for a moment, letting himself breathe before returning to
the kitchen, Chuuya thinks, this must be how Dazai feels each time he’s doing it. Risking a perfect
recipe for the sake of an experiment, turning the entire culinary prophecy upside down and stirring
outrage in everyone who barely flashes his actions a look. He’s not simply cooking. He’s creating.
And this is how Chuuya feels now even though he’s not doing anything particularly dangerous.

When he comes back, Dazai looks up from the counter and winks at him, so briefly no one even
notices this except for Chuuya, and the sudden need to smile is tearing him apart from the inside.
He draws in a shuddering breath. He’s done nothing out of the ordinary, not at all. Still, a world or
two is going to be shaken today, in this room. Has no one guessed what they’re making by now and
are they acting on a sole instinct, gut feeling, intuition, fear?

“Grolet,” he hears the name coming from one of the workplaces and instantly turns his head to the
voice.

A young person, perhaps barely in their twenties, is whispering something to one of their
teammates, glancing frantically at the big clock hanging over the room like a cross. Their hair, half
purple, half blonde so light it’s almost white, is combed back. The sleeves of their shirt (or is it a
blazer? Chuuya can’t see) are long and wide enough to hide an armory of cooking knives but they
don’t seem to bother their owner even in the slightest.

“Who’s that?” He asks Dazai in a whisper, a slight touch to his shoulder to distract him from
working, and nods at the stranger.

“That’s Sigma,” he says, barely glancing up. “The youngest contestant this year but exceptionally
intelligent for their age. Gonna go far if you ask me.”

“How come you learned everything about everyone in the span of one night?” Chuuya scoffs,
helping him mix gelatine with the apricot juice.

“I told you already,” Dazai hums. “I know how to make friends.”

Friends is not the right word here. He looks for students, apprentices, workers, at last. When it
comes to cooks, Dazai appreciates their minds more than their hands. And this is what beats
Chuuya to this day: why does Dazai want him by his side so bad if all he could ever do is follow
instructions other people had written long before him?

There’s something he notices now that he has never truly forgotten: despite all the differences in
their cooking approaches, they still work like one, like a perfect mechanism. Which is fair: Chuuya
has taught Dazai something meaningful, he taught him classics, discipline, and patience. And if
there’s something that Dazai has taught him, Chuuya cannot quite position it now. But one thing he
knows for sure: if there are – there will be – pieces of Dazai in everything he’s doing in the kitchen
from now on and forever, Chuuya might as well let them destroy him.

“Can you mix apricot juice with lemon juice, gelatin, and honey in that pan?” Asks Dazai as he
crouches in front of the oven, checking on their apricots.

“Are you commanding me now?” Chuuya hums but does as he’s told.

It’s not difficult, working with Dazai, not at all. If anything, he feels like he’s exactly where he
needs to be, Dazai’s bravery bordering with foolishness somehow guarding them both against a
fatal mistake, and Chuuya is so, so scared of the word fatal. He knows that others notice it too, the
way he’s more at ease than ever now, even though he’s doing something completely unimaginable
for his past self. Combining techniques from several recipes at once? Deviating from the beaten
path, really? Nakahara Chuuya, what’s wrong with you? Are you that in love?

Ten minutes before the finish line, he takes the cream out of the freezer and comes back to the
workplace to check the texture. Dazai’s all smile as he looks up at him, the rest has been made
ready by his careful hands. Now it’s time to assemble every apricot and present it on the plate.
Chuuya turns his head to glance at the clock – a habit he’ll never grow out of – and checks the
time; everything is going exactly as they planned, together. He tries to remember how he felt when
he was cooking on the other side, like all these – still nameless to him – people do now. He was
afraid of failing, that’s for sure, but even more so he was afraid of failing to Dazai.

Now that the time is up and the judges are in the room, Chuuya looks at the plate with their
dessert, seconds before it’s dismantled by the fifteen pairs of curious hands, and takes a deep
breath; for the first time in a long while, he hasn’t tried to jump above his head. He likes what he
sees, likes what they came up with, together. As the contestants are lavishing them with
compliments, he glances at Dazai, his head lifted proudly and his hands hidden behind his back.

“Good job,” he hears, barely a whisper, and his mouth forms a smile against his will. He risked
and he succeeded. Now he has to do this one more time – but without Dazai by his side, guiding
him.

After they’ve finished cooking, there’s not much of a job to do but to assess the dishes of every
team. Assessment is the least responsible part of the entire contest, for it is done mostly by the
judges, with Chuuya and Dazai standing by their side and chiming in with additional comments.
Still, even though their opinions are not the ones that matter most, Chuuya can’t help but notice the
reverence with which another aspiring contestant watches as either he or Dazai comments on their
dish. It says something. Actually, it says a lot. While not everyone absorbed the hints they’d been
leaving throughout the entire process and failed the filling part of the recipe, some participants
came up with rather extraordinary approaches nevertheless. Sigma, for instance, added a creative
touch to their filling, mixing it with ice cream and freshly made salted caramel. However, they
have overroasted the apricots, which made some of them look bruised on one side. Dazai notices
and so does Ango, standing right next to him.

“Got too involved in the process?” He points with his fork at the bruised side and looks up through
his glasses.

“I’m sorry, chef,” is the only thing Sigma says, not hiding their gaze but trembling like a stray cat.
Chuuya almost wants to reach out and catch their wrist, telling that one spoiled apricot is not the
end of their career, but remains professional and looks down at the plate, aloof.

Here’s when Dazai steps in. “Come on now, if I’d apologized for every initiative I took in this
contest, my lexicon would’ve consisted of apologies,” he looks at Sigma now, smiling and
speaking carefully as if not to scare off a little bird. “Bruises make your apricots look softer, which
I like.”

At this, Sigma brightens in gratitude. “Thank you, chef.”

Even though they have a right to voice their opinions, the judges always have the last word.
Chuuya feels pity that he doesn’t have much influence on the final result of the contest and also
tries to imagine himself in Ango’s place. Even though he’s not the best at pastry, he knows a thing
or two about classic desserts and can learn more if he needs it. He would’ve been merciful to these
kids now, he thinks, less cruel. He’s been on both sides and knows what it feels like to be both a
hunter and a prey. Nothing ever goes smoothly for the person who fights to achieve their dream,
and defeats are taken whether you’re the judge or the one being judged.
He’s surprised to find out that almost no one has completed the task flawlessly. Sigma is among
the ones who succeeded, though, and the consideration on Dazai’s face as Fukuzawa announces
the results doesn’t go unnoticed by Chuuya. He’s not only an observer now but a critic, a future
restaurant owner, filtering through his mind the figures he’ll need by his side the most. Chuuya
adores him for that. He thinks that Dazai is nothing but kind even to those who seem hopeless. You
want a chance? Here it is, take it. You can fail but do not lie and do not disappoint. It’s hard to
disappoint a person like Dazai, for he’s the kind who keeps believing in others even when they
don’t believe in themselves.

After the contest is over and everyone has received what they deserved, the contestants thank them
one more time in a round of handshakes and even occasional hugs, and Chuuya can’t help but feel
being studied, profoundly and continuously. Today, they witnessed him cook for the first time in
real life, and on top of that, they witnessed him cook alongside Dazai, hand in hand, probably
expecting them to start fighting at any possible moment. Nakahara Chuuya is explosive and hard
to cooperate with, no wonder his colleagues have a hard time working by his side, he remembers
the line from an interview with a famous Japanese critic and thinks now, You can shove your
opinion, pal, I’m perfectly fine working with and for the people I know and understand.

While everyone is scattering the camp, smoking and talking and discussing the results, Chuuya
takes a second to find Ango and ask the question he has been meaning to ask since Fukuzawa
enlighted him with the news. Sakaguchi is surprised when he notices him, looking up from
whatever he’s been reading on his phone.

“Chef,” Chuuya greets him with a polite nod. Dazai is nowhere to be seen; the last time Chuuya
saw him he was involved in a heated conversation with Sigma and their teammates just next to
their unchanging smoke spot.

“Yes, Chuuya?” Ango fixes his glasses and blinks twice, focusing on him.

“If you allow me, I wanted to ask a question.”

“I think I already know what you want to ask me,” he smiles just for a second, and his smile
disappears before Chuuya can decipher it. “I decided to leave because it’s not a place where I
belong. I’m not too old, you know, and I have my own ambitions except for judging others and
helping them grow. Who am I to judge, anyway?”

This is the answer he expected. Still, he can’t help but feel a bit confused. “You’re a local pastry
legend, chef.”

Ango smirks. “That was a rhetorical question, Chuuya. Is there anything else I can help you with?”

He stiffens, thinking, roaming around his memory for questions that have never been responded to.
It feels like the end of a long quest in a game, the one when he gets to ask whatever that is he wants
to know before proceeding to the next level, the next struggle. And still, as Ango watches his face,
with an expression cool and unbothered as usual, Chuuya can’t dig for a single question except one
that doesn’t even matter that much anymore. Still, he asks.

“Why’d you pick Dazai as the winner?”

For a second, there is a flash of surprise on Ango’s face, so brief it’s almost unnoticeable. “Do you
want to know why we picked Dazai or why we picked Dazai over you?”

Chuuya is taken aback by the question because, truth be told, he doesn’t really know. He’s been
curious about the decision ever since it was announced, leaving him standing in the room full of
celebration and life, completely defeated and drained by his own defeat. While he used to analyze
the results in his mind over and over again, drawing up plans, maps, and chains of logical
assumptions, he never really came to a single answer. Dazai has many things that he lacks but none
of them are strong enough to lead him to the unprecedented victory. Perhaps, none but one.

“I see that you’re still having a hard time admitting that loss,” says Ango when he remains silent
for more than a minute.

“I’m a different person now, chef,” contradicts Chuuya. He doesn’t mean to be disrespectful or
rude but the tone of his voice changes anyway, now cooler than it was before. “I’ve become more
mature and open to criticism. And I know and understand my weak points very well, as well as
Dazai’s. It’s just that I haven’t been sure whether you perceive his professional side in the same
way as I do.”

“Well, in that case,” Ango breathes out, visibly surprised by his collected and confident speech.
“We weren’t sure how you’d use your victory, had we let you win. Dazai’s position, on the
contrary, was perfectly clear, and we could envision his actions even before we crowned him a
winner. He laid low and took his time to think everything over instead of using the sudden burst of
fame to his advantage. He wanted to make a clear, unbiased decision, and he didn’t let popularity
poison him.”

Chuuya can’t help but admit that he feels called out by his words, almost hurt. He wanted the truth
and he heard the truth but now he wishes he never asked for it in the first place. The most
devastating thing is to understand that Ango (and Yosano, and Fukuzawa) were probably right
when they picked Dazai and not him. Chuuya himself has no idea how he would’ve acted had he
won the contest. The one thing he knows for sure is that he would’ve opened his own restaurant
and done it much, much earlier than Dazai is planning to. And while the fame that befallen him
after the end of the contest hasn’t changed him much, he doesn’t know what would’ve happened if
he’d got both fame and money combined. Would he have wasted them, foolishly? Would he have
become even more insufferable than before?

“But just so you know,” Ango says at last, looking at him differently now, with a hint of curiosity
to his usually unwavering dark gaze. “I was the one rooting for you till the end.”

Chuuya can’t help but laugh quietly at this. “Thank you for believing in me, chef, though I lost
anyway.”

Ango shrugs it off in the most careless manner possible, but there’s something else hiding in the
depths of his cool. “We’ll see where it leads you, then.”

It leads him to known places.

Chuuya is on the Avenue de La Bourdonnais in mid-May, waiting for his takeaway coffee from a
charming dark-haired barista, and Paris is warm but windy. He has to roll the sleeves of his shirt
back down not to get cold. It’s a day off, and he rarely gets days off. Fêtes Galantes has been more
than lively lately, with tourists filling the place with a mixture of languages – English, German,
Italian, Spanish, Chinese, – Chuuya still can hear the echo of them as he closes his eyes.

He’s on a smoke break with Adele. She jokes about something and laughs in his face as she usually
does, her voice soft no matter how sharpened by every cigarette she’s smoked by now. The day is
sunny and windless. Adele is in her uniform, a white jacket stained with condiments and sauces
like a canvas. Chuuya still remembers the smell of smoke and her perfume merged together.
Chuuya is in Warsaw the evening after his fourth international cooking contest for teenagers. His
mentor is off to get some ice cream for him and the two girls his age that were both competing
against him. The dusk is weighing above the horizon, still orange, soon grey, then deep blue.
Chuuya looks at his forefinger, cut and wrapped in a bandage, and thinks that he should have
added more coriander to his soup to finish not the second but the first. He still tastes the bitterness
of the loss in his mouth, for everything that’s not a victory is a loss for him when he’s fifteen.

Every place he’s ever been defeated in, every place he’s ever been victorious in, all merge in the
pavilion he enters, the place deserted and lonely without all the cameras and staff rushing back and
forth. Chuuya thinks now that, no matter where he ended up, there’s always been a common
denominator to all these places, a nameless figure at the distance of an invisible string. Once he
lays his hands on the workplace for the last time, he hears the door open behind his back and turns
his head.

Dazai steps in, changed into his usual clothes, and slowly walks to him, looking around the room.
Seems like they’ve shared the same thought again and decided to bid farewell before leaving the
place for god knows how long. Chuuya watches Dazai approach, his hands gripping the counter
behind his back. He promised him an answer and he has one now: everything that had been leading
to this moment finally fell into a complete picture.

Rimbaud made me change my mind and I’m thankful to him for that.

I have a job offer for you, will you listen to me?

We’ll see where it leads you, then.

“I’ve been looking for you for,” Dazai glances at the nonexistent watch on his left wrist and looks
up again. “Twenty seconds?” He smiles, and Chuuya smiles too. “I knew you would be here.”

“Because I always go cooking whenever I’m pissed off?” He raises an eyebrow, not stepping back
from the counter.

Dazai looks down for a second, contemplating something, and then shakes his head. “No,” he says.
“Because no matter where you go and for how long, you always eventually return to the kitchen.”

Chuuya bites his smile away, hiding his eyes. Because no matter where I go and for how long, I
always return to you.

There are many earths between them, many universes in which they could’ve met each other
differently, talked to each other and fallen in love with each other in a million alternative ways, but
in the end, everything cascades to them ending up in this room. If Chuuya was simple, we
would’ve said I missed you. If he was asked to elaborate, he could’ve gone with I missed every
trace of myself I see in you. Because they are very alike. Is there truly any other pair of chefs that
could’ve collaborated better than they had?

“Do you want to cook something?” He asks, nodding at the storage room.

Dazai sees the mischief in his eyes and deciphers it perfectly, drawing in a breath with a grin
slowly appearing on his face. For a second, Chuuya’s gaze clings, sticks to him like duct tape. “I
wouldn’t say no.”

He needs the effort to look away and move from his spot, headed to the storage. He recalls all the
required utensils and ingredients, moving from shelf to shelf, crate to crate, fridge to fridge; it feels
easier now, less demanding, without other people’s gazes and cameras weighing above them. As if
they're in their own home, their own kitchen, cooking and knowing that whatever that is they’ll
make won’t be judged by anyone. Spoil, burn, oversalt, do it as many times as you want as long as
you’re having fun.

Dazai joins him right away, holding a bowl of fresh strawberries for him and watching patiently as
he picks sugar and pectin for the confiture. “Will you enlighten me on what we are making?”

“Page one hundred eighty-four,” says Chuuya, not glancing up at him. “Strawberry vacherin. I
want to try and stick to the recipe this time.”

“Is that so?” Dazai’s surprise isn’t feigned. “I thought you like experimenting now.”

Chuuya passes by him, unbothered. “I do.”

While he’s mixing the meringue and preheating the oven, Dazai is working on the confiture. At
some point he stops, perhaps finally remembering the exact page in the book Chuuya was talking
about, and an amused smile slowly appears on his face. “It won’t be ready today.”

Vacherin needs three hours of preparation and twenty-four hours of preliminary cooling of the
strawberry sorbet in the fridge before it’s edible. They aren’t planning to stay here until tomorrow,
neither of them. Chuuya smirks in response to Dazai’s realization, arranging his meringue on the
baking tray and placing it in the oven. “I decided to pay tribute to our pastry chef one last time
before his leave.”

Dazai smirks. “You’re saying it like Ango is on his deathbed.”

Chuuya shrugs it off. “I’m a good student, you know.”

While this kitchen is theirs, it feels like the entire world is theirs, too, and there’s nothing
impossible. Chuuya stretches his arms and takes a deep breath once he has a moment of break,
waiting for the meringues to bake. Dazai is still perfecting the confiture but he speaks anyway.
“Have you thought? About my offer.”

Chuuya hums, leaning his back against the counter right next to Dazai and crossing his arms over
his chest. “What are my options? If I say yes, I mean.”

Dazai glances at him in utter shock as if it’s hard for him to believe that he might actually agree; he
remains oblivious to the fact that his offer is among the easiest ones for Chuuya to agree to. All
this time, the only thing he’s had to do was ask. Chuuya could conquer the world if he asked. “You
will be the chef,” says Dazai, his gaze locked on him even though his hands are still working.
There’s something inexplicably attractive in the way he does this – whatever this is – time after
time. “There’s no other option.”

Chuuya raises his eyebrows. “Why don’t you want to be the chef in your own restaurant?”

Don’t you think you deserve that, after everything you’ve been through?

“I can live without cooking, Chuuya,” says Dazai with a hopeless smile, as if telling the simplest
truth in the world. “You can’t. I want to open a restaurant, that’s true. But there’s no one I would
like to see managing its kitchen but you,” he takes the confiture off the stove in a quick and
masterful gesture, instantly letting it cool. “If you agree, you’ll make me the happiest man in the
world.”

Chuuya finds himself holding his breath. That’s it. Involuntarily, oblivious to the power he
possesses over him, he’s practically made Dazai beg. Day and night, he’s been brainstorming
ideas, making up a proper strategy of luring Chuuya into the biggest project of his life, only to end
up asking him tête-à-tête and expecting his yes as one might expect an inevitable wreck when their
spaceship is already damaged. But Dazai’s not. If anything, they’re going straight to the Moon.

“What else?” Asks Chuuya in a muffled voice, watching as Dazai washes his hands and wipes
them dry before walking back to him.

He stops in barely a step. “I’ll give you complete freedom of managing the kitchen. Whatever that
is you want to change or add, you will do it at your own whim, without asking me beforehand.
You’ll have as much money as you need. We will be equal, Chuuya, you and I…”

Chuuya stops him, catching his chin with his fingertips and making Dazai look him in the eye.
“You’re not playing fair,” he says, his heart pounding in his temples. “You know well that there’s
only one answer I can give you.”

Dazai doesn’t smirk as he usually does in situations like this. Instead, he swallows slowly and takes
a step closer, catching Chuuya’s hand by the wrist and placing it on his own shoulder instead. He
does the same with another hand, and Chuuya lets him, not looking away from his eyes even for a
second. He’s afraid even of the sound of his own breath, he doesn’t want to scare the moment
away.

With one hand, Dazai reaches to turn off the oven. Then, he places his palm on Chuuya’s neck, his
fingertips leaving invisible marks on his skin. “Yes or no?” Is the only thing he asks, looking him
in the eye.

“Kiss me,” says Chuuya instead, not thinking about how absurd his plea might sound.

Although he considers it for a second, Dazai remains unbothered. “I’m serious, Chuuya.”

“I can’t think of serious things when you’re this close to me,” Chuuya breathes out and he’s not
lying. All his thinking processes are now slowed down, with entire episodes cut off in small
disjointed patches, and he’s not perceiving Dazai as his colleague, or rival, or – the most
surrealistic thing – his possible boss. He’s thinking of him as a man he’s been longing to touch for
an insufferably long time.

“In that case,” in one moment, everything stops, and Chuuya almost lets out a disappointed sigh;
Dazai’s hands are not on his body anymore, and he’s taking their meringue out of the oven,
checking it instead of looking at him. “I’ll kiss you,” a brief instant of excitement scatters
Chuuya’s body. “But I’ll do it the way I want. Where I want.”

“And where do you want it?” Asks Chuuya, slightly breathless.

Dazai puts the baking tray on the counter with a quiet clang and then turns to look at him, his gaze
collected and cool. “Home.”

Aren’t we home?

Home is the place you’re meant to leave, Chuuya realizes as they add the last strokes to their sorbet
and put it in the fridge to cool. He even finds a piece of paper and a pen to write a note to Ango, a
small compliment to the chef to thank him for all his noble deeds and unbiased criticism. There’s a
slight mess they leave on the counters as they go, for Dazai is too exhausted and Chuuya is too
excited to return the place to its pristine state. Recently, he’s been acting a bit irresponsible, like a
child, each time he ended up next to Dazai. And, truth be told, he wants to do many irresponsible
things when he’s next to him.
The feeling of déjà vu persists: they leave the dorm and take all their belongings but instead of
calling the cab, they get in Dazai’s car. Two thieves, both heroes and villains, and Chuuya draws in
a breath as he settles in a passenger seat, with Dazai starting the car by his side. Their job is done
and there’s nothing depending on them anymore except for one thing.

“Should I take you to your place?” Asks Dazai, keeping his gaze on the road as they’re getting
farther and farther from the camp.

“No,” Chuuya doesn’t think even for a second. Take me home. “I want to go to yours.”

His voice comes out surprisingly steady even though he’s burning to ashes inside. And then they
both know. Dazai takes turns on beaten paths, driving slowly, carefully, and not letting his
excitement show. He even talks from time to time, remembering their days in the show and some
particularly challenging and fun competitions. Chuuya listens to him, chimes in, laughs; he doesn’t
look away from the window, streets flashing in front of his eyes, his fingertips tugging at the
sleeve of his shirt. At some point, it feels like he’s anywhere but here. He can’t help but keep
thinking, what if he succumbs to it and agrees to Dazai’s offer? What if he works for him? Will
they really be equals, as Dazai promises? For Chuuya, secretly, has never truly seen himself as
someone who could compete with him. I’m better than you – cheap talk. I’m better than anyone
else – lies. He doesn’t want to tell lies anymore. He wants to be loved solely for the mess he is.

Dazai parks the car in front of the tall building, gets out and opens the door for Chuuya. As they
carry their suitcases in the elevator to the top floor, they’re silent. Step out, step forward, a turn of
the key in the door. Each room in Dazai’s flat gets lit in cascade, one by one, as Dazai proceeds
inside, and Chuuya finds himself in an exceptionally comfortable place. The narrow corridor leads
directly to an airy living room, hugged by the kitchen and the bedroom from opposite sides. The
apartment is smart, made in such a way that walking around and taking whatever you need won’t
take either much time or effort. Dazai notices his approval and smiles, taking the suitcase from his
hand and placing it on the floor.

“I’m sorry it’s a mess,” he says as Chuuya walks inside, picking a cookbook from his coffee table
and reading handwritten notes in it. “I didn’t think we would-”

“It’s alright,” Chuuya stops him, not looking away from the book. “Are you writing down
alternative recipes? Over already existing ones?”

“Yes,” says Dazai, suddenly a bit embarrassed, standing right behind his back. “I’m not insisting
that I know better or anything, but.”

“But you do,” Chuuya hums and turns the page. Reads again. “I like the way you think.”

“We can try and cook one of my recipes together,” suggests Dazai, glancing at the book over his
shoulder. He’s closer now, noticeably so, much closer than he was even a minute ago, and Chuuya
stiffens. “In the morning.”

He closes the book and places it back where it was, finally turning around to face Dazai. He
deliberately leaves himself no escape routes, only a couch and the same coffee table pressed to the
back of his legs behind. His breathing is deep, slow as he looks up, ready to be kissed in the way he
craves it the most. But even though Dazai’s gaze is stuck to his lips, this never happens.

“Do you need anything?” He asks instead, looking back into his eyes.

Chuuya considers it. “I could use a shower.”

Once the bathroom door closes behind his back, he finds himself in silence and solitude, not quite
knowing what to do at first. He needs to be confident and keep himself collected. It’s almost funny
how he’s trembling right now as he did back at twenty-five, except this time, it’s not from fear but
excitement. Alright, perhaps partly from fear; he fears not being good enough, soft enough, likable
enough, and what if Dazai has already changed his mind about him anyway? It’s not a contest
anymore, and he doesn’t have to prove himself to anyone. He only has to be himself, which is the
only thing he doesn’t need a recipe for.

Chuuya doesn’t count the time he spends in the bathroom but once he’s done drying his hair and
laying it carelessly over his shoulders, he gets dressed and lingers in front of the mirror, pinned in
place by his own reflection. Is there something else he needs to do to his skin, his eyes, his lips?
He rummages through his makeup bag but finds nothing that could be of use. He only applies some
lotion to soften his hands and his face, and, as he glances at himself again, he looks a bit lost with
his big confused eyes, framed by wet eyelashes, still glued together with water. He runs a hand
through his hair, touches his neck, and down, unbuttoning his shirt to the middle. His homewear
pants are soft and a bit loose on his hips as he stands up. It’s not like any of the previous times at
all. Chuuya doesn’t need to do anything extraordinary to appear wanted. He’s already made
wanted by the mere fact of being brought here.

Dazai is in the bedroom when he finds him, seated on his bed with a book in his hands. Chuuya
doesn’t have much time to appreciate the tidy, dimly lit room as their gazes are locked on each
other once he barely steps inside. Dazai stands up, placing the book aside, and schools his
expression into something soft and friendly. “Is everything alright?” Chuuya hums. “Are you fine
with sleeping together?”

He almost laughs at this. “Am I fine with sleeping together?”

“Well,” Dazai throws a towel over his shoulder and pauses for a second before passing by him and
disappearing into the bathroom. “It was you who didn’t want it in the first place, so I’m just
checking.”

Chuuya rolls his eyes as he pushes his shoulder slightly and lets out a relieved breath once Dazai
closes the bathroom door behind his back.

He thinks he has enough time to think everything over once more but in fact, he doesn’t. Dazai
showers faster than he did, either out of impatience or habit, and comes back in clean clothes and
with damp hair once Chuuya settles on the bed, picking up the book Dazai had been reading
before.

“I can’t believe you’re a fan of romance novels,” he smirks, turning the page.

“There are many things you don’t know about me,” Dazai hums and gets on the bed next to him.
“Feel like finding out?”

Chuuya holds his breath for a moment as he puts the book aside and turns to face him, a familiar
mischief with a hint of anticipation lingering in Dazai’s expression. He leans forward, ready to be
kissed, and this time, it finally happens. With a quiet rustle of bedsheets under him, Dazai moves
closer and cups his face with one hand, leaning forward; the first touch is soft but then it deepens,
in a slow, thoughtful way, and each second of this matters, striking a match with every press of
Dazai’s lips against his. Chuuya struggles to breathe, gripping at the fabric of his shirt, the soft and
warmed skin of his shoulders and forearms – he wanted it, god, he wanted it so much; he’s been
longing for it for eternity. Dazai leans back, assessing his reaction, and Chuuya is beside himself,
his entire face numb and on fire at the same time.
He doesn’t get to take hold of himself when Dazai topples him over, almost without any effort, and
goes on kissing him deeper, with an intensifying thirst in each move of his lips. Chuuya holds onto
his neck and then moves lower, diving under the fabric of his shirt, brushing over the skin of his
shoulders. There’s a familiar tickling in his entire body and a honeyed warmth in his stomach. He
doesn’t want this to end, not like this or ever again. When Dazai leans back for the second time,
Chuuya knows he’s ready. The words are careless, loose and sweet on the tip of his tongue.

“I love you,” he whispers, looking him in the eye, and Dazai draws in a shuddering breath. Chuuya
has never been this sure about anything. “I love you,” he says again, this time louder as if it needs
any audible confirmation.

“I love you too,” answers Dazai, and a soft smile touches the corner of his mouth. He lets out a
shivering breath, his voice becomes quieter, softer, but somehow more serious. “And you know
what?” He reaches to leave a kiss on the side of his neck, slow and burning. The kiss turns into a
stinging mark, the one that makes Chuuya’s stomach drop and his heart pound ferociously in his
temples. “I want you.”

I want you too.

This time, it’s Chuuya who reaches for a kiss first. And from that point, it’s hard to keep everything
that’s slowly shattering into pieces together, for both of them. Chuuya reaches for the hem of his
shirt, helping him undress as Dazai does the same to him, kissing every part of his body, every
patch of the softened and warmed skin he reveals. Chuuya’s heart is all over him at this point,
pulsating fiercely in his chest, stomach, and every bone. It’s not his first time being with a man but
it feels like one, particularly because it’s the very first time that feels right.

“Do you trust me?” Asks Dazai, his breath shallow and unsteady.

Chuuya nods. “Yes,” more than ever.

It’s also an answer to another question of his, the one they’ll discuss in the morning when their
heads are clear enough and their bodies are rested enough to consider serious matters. And as for
now, Chuuya lets Dazai touch him everywhere, lets him kiss him, taste him, take him, test his
patience in whichever ways he wants. And when Dazai finally lays his hands on him, his fingers
burning where Chuuya wants them the most, he looks up at him through the strands of his brown
hair and smiles.

“You’re beautiful,” he says, and there’s a frankness in his tone that cannot be denied.

“I’m not,” Chuuya breathes out as he bites his lip.

“You are,” Dazai’s eyes are fixed on his face and his face only; the want in him, the longing, all
fall into a perfect picture that is going to play on repeat in Chuuya’s head for a long time after that.
“Look at me when I say it.”

There is a slight note of shame flicking through Chuuya’s body, an embarrassment for being
broken apart and into this effortlessly as if he’s not a grown man with enough experience and cool
to keep himself collected while making love. But now he cannot find any traces of sobriety to hold
onto inside himself, and his body is trembling when Dazai leans closer again, kissing him deep and
slow, making Chuuya cling to every touch of his lips like it’s the very last one. His hand is still on
him, warm and wet, and Chuuya is counting seconds in his head just like he did while cooking
during the most difficult and responsible contests that were set to define his future. The very last
strokes, seasoning, presenting, decorating, done. Dazai kisses the skin behind his ear, slides down
to his neck, leaves a hickey, bites, his fingers squeeze Chuuya firmer, done. The proximity of him,
the closeness, his hot and shallow breath tickling Chuuya’s neck, how he curses slightly – Fuck –
rubbing against his own hand at the same time, all of it is too much, done.

“I’m looking at you,” whispers Chuuya, hugging him firmly with his hips and remembering every
single time they’ve ever been close as if it happened yesterday. The whisper leaves his mouth with
another breath. “Kiss me,” and Dazai does, but it’s not enough. “Again.”

He smirks against Chuuya’s lips. “You’re getting greedy,” his hand slows down for a second as he
draws in another breath, and it’s so slow it’s maddening, Chuuya needs so little right now that the
slightest move can break them apart. “Or have you always been like this?”

“What do you want me to say?” Chuuya almost hisses, trying to reach for another kiss, but Dazai
leans back and watches his flushed face with a triumphant smile.

“You know what,” he hums and slowly, his movements come to a halt. At this point, Chuuya is
ready to scream. “I could take my time with you.”

Chuuya props himself up and leans with his elbows against the bed, breathing heavily and looking
him in the eye. “Or you could not,” he hums and uses all his strength to push Dazai down on his
back and get on top of him, sitting down on his hips.

This position is as exciting as it is terrifying. Chuuya’s eyes go wide for a second as he realizes
what he just did and that he now has full control of the situation. Dazai seems to think about the
same thing as he lets out a smug quiet laugh, waiting for him to act. With another deep breath,
Chuuya takes the messy strands of hair off his face and tucks them behind his ears. He’s half-
naked but not cold and, as he leans down with one hand against the bed next to Dazai’s face, he
feels his first warm touch on the skin of his lower back and shivers. The shiver is so intense it
makes him gulp. When another realization strikes him, Chuuya gets mad with Dazai and the way
he deciphers him so effortlessly, his every weak spot suddenly appearing in the brightest spotlight.

Dazai’s grin is genuine and too self-satisfied this time. “So you have a sensitive back?” He
wonders, curiosity written all over his face. “Noted.”

“Shut up,” says Chuuya, getting his hands on him as a means of revenge.

It works, though not for long. He’s already on the edge, almost thrown over it, and the next brush
of his fingers across Dazai’s skin and his own does wonders to his body, his every sense sharpened
and alert. Through the veil hazing his mind right now, Chuuya can’t help but notice some
undeniable things. First, he really does act like a needy teenager when he’s next to Dazai, perhaps
he’s always been, and was it this evident during the show as well? Second, straddling your
partner’s hips is not the most comfortable position for jerking off – his legs are already numb even
though the feeling is dimmed by the need to orgasm, to get this over with, to arrive at that blissful
moment of complete nothingness and live through it in his every cell, vein and bone. Third, Dazai
is definitely doing this on purpose. His right hand finds Chuuya’s, cupping it and helping him
move faster, while another one remains still on his lower back, fingertips pressing deeper into his
warmed skin and scratching it from time to time, almost making him whine.

It is too much and not enough at the same time, and when these two protesting feelings layer onto
each other in Chuuya’s mind and body, he lets out a quiet moan, squeezing his eyes shut. At the
same time, Dazai’s grip on his hand grows tighter, guiding him even when he doesn’t feel his own
fingers anymore, and two more strokes are just enough for Chuuya to be broken apart. His whole
body stiffens and for a brief second, he squeezes Dazai firmer with his hips before relaxing again
and going completely still.
“Fuck,” he breathes out as his free hand that was helping him keep balance relaxes along with
every muscle in his body; he almost falls but Dazai catches him by the waist, rolling them over so
it’s now Chuuya who has to look up at his handsome face and disheveled hair.

“Are you okay?” He asks, half serious, half to mock him.

Chuuya’s entire vocabulary right now consists of curses and confessions.

“I love you,” he whispers in response, not even trying to steady his breath.

I love you.

I hope it never ends.

“You can leave your feedback essay right after I’m done,” Dazai jokes, and the exhausted, worn-
out smile that appears on his face right after that makes Chuuya draw in another shivering breath.

It’s only their first time and it’s not even too serious or too long but he already opts for the second
time, the third time, an infinite amount of times that will let him relive this exact moment over and
over again. He loves seeing Dazai like this, loves it more than he ever thought he would. This is
exactly how love and affection should feel, and Chuuya will never trade this feeling for anything
else in the world. Right now, lying down under him, feeling the solid weight of his body on top of
him, Chuuya can catch the exact moment the orgasm strikes him, and Dazai closes his eyes for a
long second, breathing in and out, every movement of his hand is a shiver in them both.

He doesn’t even get to say a word when Dazai leans closer again, cupping his head with his dry
hand and pulling him into another kiss, the deepest one yet, and Chuuya doesn’t even register how
they end up on the edge of the bed, almost falling off it, the bedsheets wrinkled and messy under
them. When they finally break apart, Chuuya catches Dazai’s lower lip and bites it, laughing
breathlessly at his reaction. Once he calms down, he lets his head fall back on the bed and waits for
Dazai to lie down next to him, staring at the ceiling, his eyesight hazed and all the colors in the
room suddenly brighter than they were before.

“Thank you,” he feels like saying this.

“I’m not sure you need to thank me for something we equally enjoyed, carrot head,” Dazai smirks,
turning his head to glance at him. “Besides, the night is young, and…”

“Yes,” Chuuya cuts him off, not looking back.

He can feel Dazai frown. “Yes what?”

Chuuya swallows the dryness in his throat and lets his chest rise and fall slowly as he takes a deep
breath. “My answer is yes,” he repeats more distinctly this time and finally turns to look him in the
eye. “Let’s work together,” he goes on. “And put an end to the reign of that fucker Verlaine.”

At first, it seems like Dazai doesn’t believe that he’s being serious. “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying that I agree,” Chuuya remains patient and doesn’t back away. “To the Moon,
remember?”

Dazai opens his mouth to say something else but then closes it without letting out as much as a
word. He takes a deep breath and leans closer, cupping Chuuya’s cheek and kissing him instead.
Holding against his shoulder, Chuuya kisses him back and relaxes into it, letting his lips part. He
wants to let him know that he’s being serious, that he’s never been this serious before, that he loves
him and trusts him so much that he believes in their success before they even started.

“Alright, then,” whispers Dazai as he leans back, his free hand already sliding down Chuuya’s bare
chest and stomach, making his heart race and pound in his temples. “But I certainly don’t want to
think about work right now.”

Chuuya bites back a weak smile. “Me neither.”

The next morning mostly consists of kissing. There are short pauses in which Chuuya is drying and
brushing his hair after a shower and Dazai is shaving in front of the bathroom mirror, or they move
to the kitchen to make breakfast and brew some coffee, or Chuuya gets distracted by a call from
Adam who’s wondering whether he’s alive and coming back home tonight.

Apart from these brief instants, it’s a game they both like playing too much. On the way from the
bathroom to the kitchen, Dazai randomly catches Chuuya by the wrist and pins him against the
nearest wall or closed door, pulling him into a deep, slow kiss that makes his knees weak in a
second. Or he lifts him effortlessly, knowing that Chuuya hates to admit that he likes it, and carries
him to the living room, where he kisses him on the couch. Or he corners him in the kitchen while
they’re waiting for the water to boil, and Chuuya already leans closer to him, encircling his neck
with both of his hands before Dazai gets to take the lead.

It’s a fun game, an extremely irresponsible game, the one that makes Chuuya forget that he’s an
adult and should behave accordingly. They accidentally let the milk for their coffee boil down
while kissing, make a teacup fall off the counter and break into pieces, and almost burn the stove
twice.

“Stop distracting me,” Dazai clicks his tongue as he steps away and tries to start making their
scrambled eggs for the third time in a row.

Chuuya can’t help but stare at his lips, bitten and reddened. “Aren't you distracting us both?”

He gets distracted, he admits, mostly when he’s looking at Dazai while they’re sitting across from
each other at the table. He tries to picture them together on the day of their restaurant’s opening,
their faces on the covers of every culinary magazine, cameras flashing, interview after interview,
every second being the happiest one in his life. It feels right. Everything does. Chuuya is thankful
to himself, to Dazai, to the contest, to Fukuzawa, Yosano, and Ango, to Rimbaud, and even to
Verlaine for making their paths cross. Everyone played their part and did it perfectly, leading
Chuuya exactly where he was always meant to be.

Some meeting spots never change, and, even though they’re not in the storage room anymore,
Chuuya picks everything he needs to make lasagna for breakfast. Dazai is at the table, working on
the restaurant’s plan on his laptop, planning and mapping everything out, writing frantically in the
notebook by his side. He only looks up when Chuuya curses under his breath, tinkering around the
kitchen.

“What is it?”

And for the first time ever after doing something like this, Chuuya starts laughing. He laughs
carelessly like a child, pressing the back of his palm to his mouth, and turning around to lean
against the counter. When he’s out of breath, their gazes finally cross, a confused one to a
triumphant one.

“I just oversalted the sauce,” explains Chuuya, still smiling and pointing at the saucepan on the
stove. “I spoiled this fucking béchamel.”

Dazai’s eyes widen as he leans back in his chair. “You mean… accidentally?”

Chuuya nods and he can’t help but laugh again. “Yeah.”

“Oh my god,” Dazai breathes out as the realization strikes him. He gets up from the chair and
closes the distance between them slowly, looking Chuuya in the eye. “Let me taste,” without
waiting, he grabs a clean spoon and dips it into the sauce, giving it a try. Several emotions flash in
his expression at once as he glances back at Chuuya, putting the spoon aside. “It’s fucking
disgusting.”

The way he makes it sound is nothing but triumphant.

Chuuya laughs again and shrugs. “Now I know everything.”

Now I really know everything.

The same day in the contest’s kitchen, the sleep-deprived and visibly worn-out participants walk
inside just to see a careless mess of unknown origin made in one of the workplaces. The pavilion is
still getting prepared for the shooting, with the staff rushing around, moving the counters and
rummaging in the storage room. Fukuzawa is here as well, waiting for Yosano and Ango to finish
their coffee and join everyone else for today’s competition. When he notices the messy workplace
with the evident traces of someone’s mischief, he only sighs. There’s nothing to guess, he already
knows.

Ango appears next to him, fixing his tie, and nods at the counters with a frown. “Did someone
forget to clean up? You want me to scold them?”

“No need,” Fukuzawa shakes his head and can’t help but let a smile appear on his face. He looks
up at the murmuring contestants and gestures at them, making the room go silent in an instant. “I
hope you will do us all a favor and not follow the example of this show’s most irresponsible duo.”

Out of all the people in the room, it’s Sigma who speaks. “But they are the greatest.”

Fukuzawa exchanges brief glances with Ango and sighs, accepting defeat.

“They are.”

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