Tonight's interview question: who fell first and who fell harder - skk edition (in general or in a specific AU you find interesting) 🎤
Oh yayayay I love this question!
Okay SO call me a basic bitch but. Huge fan of the “Dazai fell first” agenda. EXCEPT… he would have no freaking clue about it. Absolutely zero self awareness. It’s basically canon that he’s been weirdly obsessed with Chuuya (romantic or otherwise) since they first met. In Fifteen, he admits that he wants to stay alive a bit longer just because he finds Chuuya fascinating. And then, in Stormbringer, well…
Like come on man. You think about him ALL DAY and ALL NIGHT?? When youre SLEEPING?? There is no heterosexual explanation for this, I’m afraid…
I like to think that that obsession gradually morphed into a head-over-heels crush, ending with him falling totally in love around the end of Stormbringer to the beginning of Dragons Head. What with how fond he is in the Stormbringer epilogue, and then how he yaps about Chuuya to Oda in TDIPUD… and then how he acts during the dragons head part of dead apple…
-Even if he doesn’t realize it yet, he’s totally in love.
I think he tries to deny it for a long time, partly because it’s Chuuya, who he finds horribly annoying, tacky and cringe (bold words from someone who uses bandages as a fashion statement). Chuuya’s personality is the opposite of Dazai’s in many ways- he’s brash, loud, passionate and reckless, as opposed to Dazai who struggles to feel much of anything. Dazai is quite apathetic most of the time, and so I think he finds Chuuya’s attitude difficult to understand and generally pretty annoying. As someone with a similar personality to Dazai, I totally get it. However, this difference is also what canonically draws him to Chuuya: Chuuya is undeniably human. That’s part of why he likes pissing Chuuya off so much; his reactions, similar to Kunikida and Sigma, are fascinating to him. Dazai loves people like that. He also loves being yelled at by pretty men with long hair… you wanna share with the class, Dazai? Hm?
Side note: I think a lot of fic writers try to downplay this annoyance, or make it one sided on Chuuya’s part, in order to play up Dazai’s down-bad-ism. And don’t get me wrong, Dazai is down bad. But him being annoyed by Chuuya and also fascinated by him are kinda inseperable feelings tbh. Thats what makes their relationship so incredibly interesting! And it’s also what drives me insane about a LOT of writers’ characterization of Dazai, unfortunately.
Continuing on: I also think Dazai tries to deny his feelings and push Chuuya away because of his whole “anything I would never want to lose will be lost” thing. He doesn’t want to acknowledge he likes Chuuya because he doesnt want to lose him. And then of course I think he would take his leaving the mafia, and therefore leaving Chuuya, as further proof of this. That’s probably the main reason he doesn’t tell Chuuya he’s leaving, or contact him for four years… an idiot. An absolute idiot.
He’s absolutely still just as down-bad for Chuuya in the current manga (I mean. We’ve all seen Dead Apple.) But, their relationship was pretty damaged by him leaving the mafia, and Dazai definitely sees Chuuya as a part of his past self, so it’ll take a lot for them to truly reconcile. Still, he’s… not over him. At all.
Now, as for Chuuya… I’m not sure if “fell harder” is exactly correct, but I think “fell faster” is appropriate. Chuuya certainly didnt like Dazai in Fifteen, or even Stormbringer really. Not romantically, at least. He sees Dazai as a begrudging frenemy, and is definitely almost as obsessed in a weird “I hate this guy with all my guts but also think about him way too often” kinda way.
(Theyre both such idiots goodness gracious…)
But.. he doesn’t truly hate Dazai because of Dazai, himself. Sure, he finds him annoying as hell (who wouldnt??), but he doesn’t truly hate Dazai as a person. Rather, I think he hates that Dazai is the epitome of all his biggest insecurities: Dazai doesn’t act like a human, and that bothers Chuuya a lot. As someone who struggles with his own concept of humanity, it must be quite disturbing to meet a guy who feels like some sort of distorted reflection of himself, lacking in any aspect of human emotion. Just like Dazai can’t understand Chuuya’s level of emotion, Chuuya can’t understand Dazai’s apathy- it scares him.
I think that, shortly after Stormbringer, Chuuya’s feelings for Dazai do definitely start to change into something more. Why else would he be so incredibly pissed off in these panels in the dragons head conflict, if he hadnt started to genuinely care about Dazai, and think that maybe he could be more human than he lets on?
Of course, in the end once he realizes Dazai’s plan, he’s more pissed off that Dazai put himself in danger without explaining the plan to him than anything. So, I do think he does see Dazai as a friend at this point- perhaps a bit more.
We don’t get anything else of Chuuya from here until canon (largely because Chuuya wasnt yet a fully established character when Asagiri wrote Dark Age), but my personal headcanon is that he falls for Dazai around 17, when they start working together as double black. Their interactions in canon show that clearly, they liked eachother in a very-non-platonic way at some point prior to Dazai’s defection. That’s why it hurt so bad to have Dazai leave- beyond Chuuya’s general issues with losing friends to begin with. Theres a reason they act like bitter exes when they reunite (though they do still act quite fond of eachother, at the same time).
I also definitely don’t think Chuuya is over Dazai, at all. He may be moreso than Dazai is, because he still has his family in the mafia and is pretty content in himself at 22, but Dazai is the one person he lost who came back. And as much as he hates to admit it, he definitely knows he likes the asshole. Chuuya is loyal to a fault, and still cares about Dazai quite a bit. We can see this in his reaction to Dazai getting hurt fighting love craft, and his actions in both dead apple and mersault. Also, he canonically calls Dazai’s old phone while he’s drunk …
(Ntm that Dazai kept the phone hm…)
Like it or not, these two are indelibly fated or whatever. Its hard to say what their future will bring, but… yeah. Its a complicated relationship, but theyre insufferable about eachother. That’s my take on their feelings for eachother, anyways!
I mean. Look at these two idiots…
This was a LONG response for such a simple question I’m so sorry…
TL;DR - Dazai fell first, Chuuya fell faster, both fell equally as hard. Theyre both just as insane about eachother and that will never change I fear!
Tysm for the ask! I love yapping about these two idiots. I despise them.
