Once More is probably the fic I'm most proud of writing, and the longest fic I've ever completed. It's Bungo Stray Dogs, pairing Soukoku, and the summary is "Chuuya's phone is filled with messages from a partner who seems to want to get back in touch."
I had this idea back in December, when I was new to the SKK fandom. I'd just made a twitter account for fandom, and was really excited to see what the other fans were doing on Twitter since they seemed more active there than on tumblr. I got into a conversation with a few people while on the bus to work and had this idea of Fyodor texting Chuuya pretending to be Dazai in order to manipulate him. One of the other writers liked the idea and wanted to write it, so we decided to both write a fic with this as the premise.
So originally, Once More was meant to be a short one-shot. After I got home and started writing, I realized it was probably going to be a short multi-chapter fic. 10,000 words at most. That didn't happen.
The first chapter is almost entirely text message format. I have a Thing™ for stories told in unconventional ways, and I'd read a few Haikyuu fics that used texts and skype to tell long stories really well. It's an interesting challenge to tell a story like that, but also it gets you inside the head of each character because you're pretending to be them texting. A majority of the fic was supposed to be in text format, but as the plot grew, that didn't happen either. Actually, chapter two already throws away the full text idea.
Everything until the 1 December texts in the first chapter is Dazai interacting with Chuuya. Everything after that is Fyodor pretending to be Dazai interacting with Chuuya. Fyodor accessed the phone records before, and saw how Dazai interacted with Chuuya enough to be able to mimic it. Still, he's more formal than Dazai because he's Fyodor. I feel like he would be.
The fic takes place after the whole Mori/Fukuzawa assassination attempt, which back in December hadn't been resolved at all. I had no idea Chuuya would be locked in a book for the entire time! But in a way that's better for how this fic turned out, since it means there's not much Chuuya did that I should have referenced.
Chapter two also starts where I really wanted to make the story into a character study. (Notice how I didn't know what I wanted with the fic at first.) At that point I'd only written like one fic for Soukoku, but I really liked the idea of exploring their characters and relationship to each other. They have an interesting dynamic, but aside from two scenes in the manga and anime we still don't know much about it. That's what makes it so fun to write.
Chapter two has this line from Chuuya's pov about Dazai: "He probably had
better things to do." This is probably a really important part of my characterization of Chuuya. He wants to stand on his own two feet. He feels resentment that he's had to depend on Dazai. And being Dazai's partner, he felt responsible that he couldn't keep Dazai around. He felt and still feels that he isn't good enough for Dazai's attention, and although it isn't the sort of thing that keeps him from getting on with life, it's still under the surface.
A few paragraphs later Chuuya thinks this: "But every day after Dazai left Chuuya’s mind kept going back to one thing: that Dazai left because Chuuya himself wasn’t a good enough partner." Even though before that, he goes through all the reasons Dazai probably left, all of them being just as valid as this one, this is the one that sticks in his mind. The next bit about it being nonsensical is also something I feel is important about Chuuya. He's self-aware. He knows that he can't control his emotions well enough and he knows that some of his thoughts concerning Dazai are irrational, and it's frustrating because he can't. And part of him doesn't want to be as detached as Dazai because he finds that kind of behavior...terrible isn't the right word, but it rubs him the wrong way. Chuuya doesn't think caring is a bad thing.
This: “I’m sick of your shit,'” Chuuya muttered, but he kept staring at the message' sums up how I see Chuuya pretty much. CONFLICTED FEELINGS™.
Then Chuuya starts thinking of the past, which is where my thoughts about Dazai start to come in. Dazai is really fascinating. He was absolutely horrible in the Mafia, and the only person we see behaving worse than him is Mori. In the Agency, he still retains some of his old questionable ways, but he also tries to be what a good person should be.
In the past, Dazai says '“As gross as you are, don’t become disgusting like me. It,” Dazai’s smile tensed, “doesn’t suit you.”' It's probably something that frustrates him and scares him, that Chuuya isn't as dark as the Mafia should make him. It probably made him frustrated with Chuuya (in a "why do things affect you so much?" kind of way.) But he also didn't want Chuuya to become like him. I imagine Mafia!Dazai experienced a lot of self loathing, whereas ADA!Dazai feels more at ease with himself (not completely at ease, but more at ease.)
In Fyodor's part of the chapter, Fyodor infers that Dazai can still feel things about and for other people (whereas Fyodor can't.) I've said this before, but I think Dazai can't do emotions. That doesn't mean he doesn't have them, but he's buried them for so long that a lot of the time he felt/feels nothing. Feeling nothing is unpleasant, but it's preferable to having emotions about people who will probably die or leave. That said, he still has emotions. He just can't process them, let alone deal with other peoples' emotions. He doesn't understand them, even if he's good at manipulating people. It makes Fyodor's job harder, but not impossible, since Fyodor is primarily manipulating Chuuya, who does actively feel his emotions.
That's why Fyodor decides to give Chuuya info on why Dazai left the Port Mafia. By giving Chuuya the honesty and closeness Dazai never gave him, Fyodor can gain Chuuya's trust and use that against him.
Chapter 3 is where the fic started developing an actual plot. Fyodor kidnaps Chuuya after luring him out. I kind of struggled with this part, because Dazai wouldn't offer Chuuya a place at the Agency, but Chuuya would be so thrown off by Dazai being open about why he left the Mafia that he'd want to find out what the offer was about. I don't think here that Chuuya is genuinely considering it, but that he wants a reason to see Dazai. Despite Dazai's absence, Chuuya is satisfied with his life in the Mafia and the work he's done.
Chapter 4 starts with an Agency meeting. I love them, but they're hard to write. I find group things hard to write in general, because I don't want to forget that anyone is there, but it's also hard because not all of them are necessarily important to the conversation.
At the end of this chapter, Chuuya is in Fyodor's hands, Mori thinks Chuuya is a traitor, and the Agency has to rescue him. Chuuya gets kidnapped a lot in this story, which someone commented on. They said they didn't like the way Chuuya was written because he got kidnapped twice over the course of the fic. I still struggle with whether or not I made the right decision, but I do think that I kept Chuuya strong despite his situation. Chuuya doesn't give Fyodor what he wants in this chapter, even though Fyodor tells him that he has nothing to lose. I find loyalty to be one of Chuuya's strongest driving forces, so it's used a lot in this fic.
Anyway, that's it for this post! Next post will start with chapter 5.
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