ODA Theres Barely Any Content Of Him 🙏

prediction before 118 drops (I JUST WANT RANPO BACK)

ᡣ𐭩 YOUNG GOD

FEATURING: dazai osamu

SUMMARY: after an agonizing two weeks, dazai finally returns to you and a much needed conversation takes place. {wordcount: 11.6k; fem!reader, sfw, romance}

AUTHOR'S NOTES: WOW I CAN'T BELIEVE WE'RE AT INSTALLMENT 5 ALREADY!!! this is so bittersweet i'm literally about to cry, i hope you guys have enjoyed badlands and i hope y'all join me for unreal unearth next week!! i got to add one of my favorite quotes in this chapter hehe you guys get extra points if you spot it. reblogs definitely appreciated!! i’ll reblog with the taglist as soon as it decides to show on the dash & in the tags!

WARNINGS: explicit mentions of past suicide attempts + past self harm & scars

SEE: BADLANDS SERIES MASTERLIST READ: UNREAL UNEARTH SIDE B (coming april 5th!)

Dazai is exhausted. His ears ring and his bones ache, his feet are unsteady beneath him and his body pleads for him to rest. Around him, the other members of the Agency are ecstatic, he thinks he’s gotten more hugs in the past hour than he’s gotten in his entire life. A part of him feels warm—he feels like he belongs, and his place in the Agency has always been one that he’s questioned. On bad nights, he used to think that the last place he truly belonged was on one of those three bar stools all those years ago, that being a member of the Agency—more than just in name, actually being a member—was nothing but an unattainable dream, because how could he possibly belong amongst people who are so unfailingly good that it makes his tainted heart stick out like a sore thumb? 

But now, Atsushi cries in relief at the sight of him and Yosano wraps him in a hug so tight that his already brittle bones threaten to snap; Kunikida’s throat spasms as he squeezes Dazai’s shoulder and Kenji and Kyouka throw themselves into his arms. Naomi and Haruno cling to his hands, while Tanizaki tears up in front of him with balled fists as he tells him that he’s missed him. Ranpo shoots him a wild grin and a salute and Fukuzawa pats the top of his head telling Dazai that he’s proud of him, and Dazai thinks he might cry because he feels like he’s finally found a home. 

An incomplete home, but a home nonetheless. 

Because even as he recounts his side of the story, watching hazily as Kunikida writes it all down, his mind is barely connected to his own body. His body feels prickly and his mind is muddled with fatigue, his brain throbs so painfully that he thinks he might actually be dying. He’s overwhelmed and anxious—the strain that the constant games of misdirection and manipulations with Dostoevsky has placed on him is finally becoming too much for him to handle. He’s on the verge of collapse and he needs to be somewhere he feels safe before that happens, and there’s only one place—one person—that fits that criteria.

You. 

He doesn’t even register what’s happening as Kunikida, Yosano and Atsushi help Dazai out of the office and into the back of Kunikida’s car. Atsushi sits with him in the back seat as Kunikida and Yosano take the front—they’re driving him somewhere, but Dazai isn’t even entirely sure where, and his tongue feels too heavy in his mouth for him to even ask. Atsushi is talking to him, he might even be telling Dazai where they’re going but the words sound like a distant hum and as he tries to read the boy’s lips, it all just seems blurry and unfocused. 

He doesn’t even know if you’re okay. 

Queen captured.

The words ring in his head over and over again as they have since the moment Dostoevsky uttered them aloud, but he doesn’t know what Dostoevsky’s capture of you entailed. He doesn’t know if you were killed. You could have been killed. If Dostoevsky had a lover, a weakness that Dazai could target, then they would have been the first person that Dazai aimed to take out to throw the Russian off of his game, and he would show no mercy. You could be dead, for all he knows; no one in the Agency had mentioned whether or not they knew if you were okay, or if they had, Dazai hadn’t heard it. 

You could be dead. 

Dazai’s vision spins again, his stomach lurches as Kunikida takes a turn too wide—he can’t keep himself grounded no matter how hard he tries. He wants to tell Kunikida that he needs to see you, he needs to get to your apartment complex and make sure you’re there, and if you’re not, he needs to talk to your neighbors and make sure you’re at least okay. Until he does that, he can’t rest, no matter how much his body begs him to give in. 

He loves you. He’s sure of it now. He knew it before he left you two weeks ago. He thinks he might have known it all the way back then on the night you rescued him at the shore, when you woke up in the middle of the night and sat with him on the couch after making him hot chocolate. He thinks he fell in love with the bright smile that lifted to your lips when he took a sip of the drink you made him and you realized he enjoyed it—no one has ever looked so happy to see him happy with something before, no one has ever cared enough about him for that.

He is so completely and irrevocably in love with you that Dazai doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to live in a world without you. The thought alone makes his skin crawl and his chest cave in. Before he met you, he had long accepted that he was destined to be alone, that he wasn’t a human but instead a thing caught between monster and man—he had accepted that he was incapable of loving, and even more so, that he was incapable of being loved. 

You had changed his perspective on everything, you had changed it so absolutely that Dazai doesn’t think there’s any going back to how he once viewed the world, how he once viewed himself. He’s started looking forward to sunrises, if it means he could watch them with you. He’s found himself looking around Yokohama and seeing places to take you rather than scouting out places for possible attempts. God, he’s even saving his money—Dazai Osamu has never saved money in his life because he hoped that each day would hopefully be his last. He’s blow it on alcohol and food and stupid trinkets that he didn’t need, but now, he’s caught himself putting aside some of his paychecks so he can save up for a nicer apartment that the two of you can live in together.

Dazai thinks that he can’t breathe, his throat feels swollen and he brings one of his hands up to tug at the collar of the white sweatshirt he’s wearing, tugging at it as if it’s the reason that he can’t breathe properly.

Dazai can’t go back to a world without you. He can’t.

Next to him, Atsushi is reaching out to him, as if trying to get him to calm down and Dazai doesn’t even want to know what the expression on his face might be right now. Everything is crumbling and tunneling around him—Atsushi, Kunikida, and Yosano are all dissolving, the car doors are fading away, the buildings and the streets and all of the scenery is just disappearing. 

Shit, he thinks, trying to figure out how the hell to ground himself. Shit, shit-

The car comes to such an abrupt stop that Dazai would have gone flying into the seat in front of him were it not for Atsushi throwing an arm across his chest to stop it from happening, the brakes screeching loudly and the car skidding. Yosano is pointing wildly, shouting something and Kunikida is shouting something back, something along the lines of her nearly causing him to get into an accident, but Dazai can only follow to where Yosano is pointing too, gaze dragging across the woman’s arm in the direction of the beach to the left of the car.

He wonders if he’s hallucinating. 

His fingers are shaking violently as he reaches out to push open the car door, squirming out of Atsushi’s protective hold. He flings himself out of the car desperately, nearly crashing hard onto the concrete—the fresh air is almost dizzying as he inhales it, pushing himself to his feet as quickly as possible. His broken leg screams in protest, but Dazai ignores it, vision blurring for the sparest moment before it focuses in on the figure standing on the beach in a familiar long, tan coat. 

His lips part to call your name but no words leave them—he’s not sure if it’s because he’s still half out of it or if it’s because he’s scared that if he calls your name and you don’t respond, it’ll confirm it’s just a hallucination. 

But he doesn’t have to say your name, whether it’s just by chance or if you heard the brakes of the car screeching, you turn in his direction. 

You’re wearing his coat; it’s too long on you—the tan edges are dragging against the sand and whipping around you as the wind picks up. But you’re wearing his coat and you’re beautiful; your expression shifts into one of recognition and then shock as soon as you see Dazai in the near distance, the sun is starting to set over the horizon and the soft orange glow casts an unearthly glow over you, and Dazai thinks everything about this is entirely unreal. He thinks that you might be some sort of angel, or some other type of divine being, and he thinks that he doesn’t even deserve to look at you, much less consider you his.

As he makes his way toward you, he can’t even put together all of his thoughts in a coherent manner. You’re alive is the first thought that rings through his head, the relief is almost debilitating. All of the days he spent with his heart in his throat, unsure of whether or not his decision had gotten you killed, have finally come to an end. The next thought that runs through his head is god, because he’s imagined this moment dozens of times since he first had to leave you. He’s imagined running to you, scooping you into his arms and swinging you around, holding you close and refusing to let go because Dazai doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to let go of you again.

Except that’s entirely how it doesn’t go.

Dazai barely makes it to you before his legs are giving out on him, as much as he tries to ignore the pain, it evidently becomes too much for his body to handle. He’s collapsing into you the moment he makes it to you. His head is still throbbing, his leg is screaming, his body is aching, but your hands are instinctively grabbing him to break his fall, his knees crashing against the sand, and Dazai just can’t bring himself to care about the agony. He doesn’t care that his body is coming apart at its seams, he doesn’t even notice as you lower yourself down into the sand with him.

“Osamu.” His name leaves your lips in a breathy whisper, one that’s riddled with disbelief and longing—something else too, but Dazai can’t decipher it in his muddled state. “You’re here.”

He tries to say your name, but he’s pretty sure it comes out garbled and unintelligible. Distantly, he can feel his fingers twisting into the fabric of his jacket, trying to clutch onto you as best as he can in spite of the numbness that still threatens to consume him. Then, your grip on him shifts from the instinctual grab into your arms wrapping around his waist, one hand splayed across his back and the other sliding up to cradle his head to your chest as you hold him close, and Dazai thinks all is right in the world again. He doesn’t want to move, he doesn’t want to think, he doesn’t want to do anything but just let himself melt into you.

The feeling of your touch for the first time in weeks is enough to chase away the creeping numbness and anxiety, and everything still hurts but all of it dulls in comparison to being in your arms again. Dazai’s breath is shaky, he teeters over the edge of collapse now that he’s finally with you, his weary brain betraying him as it uses the comfort of your arms as an excuse to finally surrender. His vision swims—he’s not sure if it’s from relieved tears or exhaustion, maybe both—his nose is flooded with the scent of you, the scent of home.

“You’re here,” you whisper again as if you can’t believe it; Dazai can’t even blame you because a part of him still fears that if he lets go of you, you’ll disappear, a cruel trick on him played by his treacherous mind. You pull away from him and Dazai’s fingers instinctively cling to you harder, trying to get you to stay in place, but his body is far too weak for it to be effective. 

You lean back and bring your hands up to cup Dazai’s cheeks and it takes all of his willpower to not just let himself fall limp. Your expression twists a bit, he’s not sure what you see—nothing good, definitely. Yosano splinted his leg and cleaned up the wounds on his face, but his ability canceling hers prevents him from getting the wounds healed quickly, so his face is bruised and swollen, cuts litter his skin from when the elevator had crashed to the bottom floor. 

He thinks he must look disgusting, he doesn’t even know how you can bear to look at him. But he supposes that’s not a new thought to cross his mind, he’s never understood how you can look at him the way you do.

“What happened to you?” you breathe out, and Dazai’s lashes flutter as your thumb ghosts over his cheekbone, eyes searching his for an answer to your question. Dazai doesn’t know how to respond, so he doesn’t, leaning into your touch. “God, Osamu, you look like you’re about to drop dead.”

“Are you calling me ugly?” 

Even in his objectively terrible state, Dazai is able to croak out the five words, although he’s sure the playful lilt is lost in his fatigue. You stare at him for a moment, as if you didn’t hear him properly, but then your expression shifts into one of disbelief and your hand flies to your mouth to smother the laugh that he’s missed so desperately the past two weeks.

“Can you walk?” you ask after a moment, hand lingering on his cheek before dropping down to his forearm, squeezing gently. 

Dazai winces at your words, shaking his head—he barely even made it to you, he’s not going to make it all the way to your apartment complex.

You let out a puff of air caught between a laugh and a sigh. “Guess we’re doing this again,” you say, a teasing cadence dancing in your tone. Dazai’s brows furrow a bit in confusion, but then you’re grabbing his arm and trying to heave him to his feet. “At least you won’t be pretending to be unconscious this time.” 

Dazai struggles to help you as you do your best to get him onto your back; a nostalgic feeling sweeps through him as he remembers the first time the two of you met, waking up after a failed suicide attempt to find you cursing and complaining as you try to haul him back to your apartment. He wonders if you knew what you know now back then, if you would have still stopped to help him—but that leads him to a line of questioning that he doesn’t want to approach yet. 

Do you know where he’s been? 

Do you know his past? 

Do you know everything he’s done?

He pushes the thoughts away. 

As if the gods above remember the event and want the two of you to reenact it as close to the original as possible, he feels a few drops of rain splatter against his face.

“You’ve gotta be kidding me.” He hears you complain as you finally get him settled on your back. “Keep your gangly legs to yourself this time, I don’t need them knocking into me this time.”

“... I was purposely trying to trip you, you know?” Dazai admits, voice hoarse and weak and the smile curling to the edges of his lips is lazy but it’s real for the first time in what feels like forever. “I thought it would be funny.”

You gasp loudly. “I knew it! You’re such an asshole.”

Dazai laughs, letting his head fall into the crook of your neck—he wants to bask in the light feeling that’s replacing the emptiness in his chest, but a part of him can’t help but feel like this is only the eye of the storm. 

Back in the car, Kunikida looks a bit worried as you struggle to get Dazai onto your back. 

“Should we go help her?” he asks quietly, glancing over at Yosano.

But Yosano doesn’t respond to him. She has an uncharacteristically soft expression on her face as she watches you laugh loudly at something Dazai says. He finally looks somewhat coherent again now that he’s with you, still in pain but that detached, disconnected look in his eyes that had been terrifying Atsushi is gone. 

“No.” Atsushi is the one to respond to Kunikida, smiling lightly as he finally drags his gaze away as he watches a genuine smile twitch to the corners of Dazai’s lips as you nearly trip and fall under his weight. “Let’s head back to the office.”

Dazai has been sleeping for hours.

You let out a soft puff of air as you idly comb your fingers through his hair, eyes tracing his face. His right eye is completely swollen, his lip is split, you can see bruises littering his neck that disappear beneath the bandages he wears, his leg is broken and splinted. Despite all of that, he still somehow looks at ease as he rests in your lap.

You’re not as at ease.

Well, a part of you is, against all of your common sense. Having Dazai back in your arms is far more comforting than it should be, with the conversation that needs to be had looming over you. The sight of him sleeping peacefully in your lap, the feel of his heart thrumming beneath your hand, the sound of his steady breathing, it’s all enough to alleviate your body and mind of the stress and anxiety that has been crippling you for the past two weeks.

He’s alive. He’s okay. He came back to you. 

You find consolation in the thoughts—in the few days you were detained by the Hunting Dogs, all you could do was think about Dazai. Your mind raced with worst case scenarios and crippling fears. In spite of all of the allegations placed against him, you still love him—you’d known it well before he left and the relief you felt seeing him again before was enough to confirm it.

You think it’s dangerous, and maybe a bit stupid; a part of you knows that you should run for the hills, the crimes that Jouno Saigiku listed out are nothing to scoff at, and even putting aside morality, his former position as an executive of the Port Mafia should be more than enough to have you fleeing, if only because that puts you in danger too. No one gets to the position that he supposedly obtained without gaining masses of enemies and no one leaves it alive without doubling said enemies. 

But you’re not running for the hills—not because of his crimes, and not because of the risk of being with him—and that scares you a bit. You’re having trouble reconciling the Dazai you know with the one you’ve been told exists. Even when you recall all of the times you woke up to find him staring out your window with an unsettlingly detached expression, eyes too still and too black to be normal, as if they absorbed all sound and light around him; when you recall all of the man’s strange idiosyncrasies that just don’t line up with the front he puts up; when you recall that night in Kyoto where he refused to divulge what his previous job was, you just can’t. 

The logic fits, your brain can see it and piece it together, your heart just won’t accept it.

Your knuckles graze the side of his face, a conflicted expression crossing over your own. 

You don’t know what to do.

A part of you doesn’t want him to wake up, because you know that when he does, you’ll be forced to have the talk that you’ve been dreadfully anticipating since you learned about his crimes and imprisonment. You don’t know what you expect from the conversation, you don’t know how to approach it, you don’t know what you want to know nor why you want to know it, you don’t even know if you should continue with your relationship with him and you don’t even know why that’s still a question in your mind because obviously you shouldn’t continue a relationship with him. 

Your brain feels like it might implode.

You take a step back.

As you always do when you’re faced with conflict and feel yourself getting overwhelmed, you try to take a more logical approach. First, you make yourself a chart: pros and cons, always a favorite of yours, centering around Dazai and your relationship with him. Then, you make a list: everything else you need to know to properly weigh into each of the pros and cons.

Pros: 

Dazai makes you happy. (An important pro, you think, maybe it’ll outweigh all of the rest.)

Cons: 

138 counts of conspiracy to murder.

You pause. 

Distantly, you wonder what your life has come to—making a pro/con chart with one of the cons being 138 counts of conspiracy to murder. You press your hand against your mouth, staring ahead as you reconsider every action you’ve taken to lead to this moment. Promptly, you decide to scrap the pro/con chart and move right on to the list of things you need to know. 

What do you need to know?

First off, you need confirmation over whether or not the allegations are true—if they’re not, then you’re spiraling for nothing and you can move on happily in your relationship with Dazai.

If they are?

You swallow thickly. You need context—you’re not sure what type of context would justify those crimes, you don’t think there’s any justification for them, honestly, but there must be a reason as to why you cannot reconcile the Dazai that you know with the one you’ve been told exists. You like to believe that you’re good at reading people—although you’re definitely questioning it now—so there must be some context that you’re missing as to how the “alleged Dazai” became the “known Dazai.” 

And maybe—just maybe—if you can understand that, then maybe you can still move on in your relationship with him. Because even if his crimes aren’t justifiable, people can change and it would be beyond you to scorn someone trying to do their best to become a better person. It’s not like you’re some squeaky clean, paragon of virtue anyway: your university and grad school is mostly being paid off by your brother’s blood money from the underground rings, and yeah, it doesn’t really compare to being a former executive to the most dangerous gang in Yokohama but it definitely narrows your room to judge. 

You glance back down at Dazai.

Your eyes meet wide, tired brown ones that immediately shut as soon as he catches you looking at him, as if pretending to still be asleep.

“Dazai Osamu, we are not playing this game again.”

Dazai reopens his eyes with a sheepish smile but he doesn’t say anything for a moment. Slowly, his expression shifts, the corners of his lips furling downward as a mixture of realization and resignation pools in his eyes. 

“You know.”

The two words are so unassuming yet so damning, your heart lurches and your stomach churns. Dazai isn’t looking at you anymore, he’s staring up at the ceiling, waiting for you to speak.

Is that confirmation? Just like that?

“I don’t know anything until you tell me,” you decide to say, your voice a bit tighter than you intended for it to be.

Dazai’s eyes draw back to you, studying you carefully. He looks conflicted—over what, you’re not sure. You think if he tries to blow this off rather than explaining it to you, you might lose your mind. You’re giving him a chance to explain on his own terms and if he doesn’t take it-

You reach out instinctively as Dazai starts to push himself off of your lap into a sitting position, fingers brushing his back worriedly. 

“You shouldn’t be moving around,” you tell him quietly.

He only shakes his head, finally speaking, his voice so quiet that it’s barely audible. “Let me take you somewhere.”

S. ODA

The four letters engraved into the headstone before you have been weathered by time, you can see lichen creeping across the slate and stone flaking at the edges—enough for you to put together that whoever has been put to rest here has probably been gone for a few years. Questions itch at the tip of your tongue but you bite them, waiting for Dazai to say something instead so that he can lead the conversation.

He has yet to say a word. From the moment that he slid into the passenger seat of your car, the only words that he’s spoken have been directions to the cemetery. The conflicted expression that had been etched onto his face has finally disappeared, smoothing out into an eerily blank one that you can hardly stand to look at because you know only dark thoughts must be racing through his head. 

You wrap your arms around your waist as another chilly wind whips around the two of you, grateful that you’d thrown a jacket on before leaving your apartment. Dazai is only dressed in his trench coat, too thin for the cold but he refused to wear anything else. You’re not sure why, but you have caught him burying his nose into the collar and inhaling, memorizing your scent as if it’s about to disappear. 

“I officially joined the Port Mafia when I was fifteen,” Dazai finally says. You raise your eyebrows a bit, wondering just how much autonomy a fifteen year old has to willingly choose to join the Mafia, but you don’t voice your thoughts, waiting for him to continue. “I met Nakahara Chuuya, a current executive of the Mafia, that same year and we earned the moniker Double Black for being the most lethal pair in Yokohama’s underground. At sixteen, I was put in charge of the boss’s personal covert ops unit and I was promoted to executive for all of my accomplishments, youngest underboss in the Mafia’s history. I’d eliminated countless rival organizations, opened numerous new distribution channels for all of their illegal trades, and had a hand in planning nearly all of the major operations both within and outside of Yokohama.”

His voice is void of any emotion, a cold monotone as he speaks the words like a bland recitation of a prewritten speech; his eyes are too empty and far too still as he stares ahead at the grave in front of the two of you. It’s unnerving; somehow, you think you like it even less than the actual matter of what he’s saying.

“Until I was eighteen, I continued to be the driving force behind the Mafia’s rapid growth and ironclad control over Yokohama; while I was an executive, no foreign organization dared to try to usurp control over any of our territory. They’d give up their territory if they knew I was the one heading the expansion operations, because they were scared of me and because they knew it was a lost cause trying to defend against me. Whatever you heard about me, it’s all true and probably way worse than you could ever imagine.”

The silence between the two of you following his words is damning—the wind is too loud and the distant sounds of cars honking and brakes screeching is jarring. You can hear your heart thudding in your ears, you can feel your gut twisting, your fingers tremble from where they’re stuffed in your pockets. Dazai is a statue next to you, his eyes haven’t budged, his limbs are stiff. If you didn’t know any better, you’d think him a corpse

Your lips part to speak but no words leave then. You take a moment before trying again. “How did you end up with the Mafia?” you ask, your voice is much weaker than you intended for it to be. 

Because that’s what you need to focus on—the context, that’s what you’d decided before he woke up and that’s what you’ll stick to, not what he’s done, but first how he ended up there and then why he left. You can’t imagine a fifteen year old willingly choosing to join the Mafia, so you think there must be more to the story. 

For the first time since the two of you arrived at the grave, Dazai moves—it’s subtle, a twitch of his fingers and a tug at the corner of his lips but it’s gone in an instant, you almost miss it. 

“I tried to kill myself when I was fourteen.” Bile rises to your throat almost as soon as his words process, you finally turn to look up at him but his expression hasn’t shifted at all. “The doctor tending to me ended up becoming the new leader of the Port Mafia. I was kept around as an insurance policy, and partly by my own volition, but I joined willingly at fifteen after turning him down several times.”

“Why?”

“I… thought something would happen. For so long, I just… couldn’t feel anything, and I didn’t see the point in living because of it. I thought that maybe the more extreme emotions—violence, death, desire—all of the things that are found in abundance in the Mafia… I thought that if I could be around people who display all of these things so plainly, that I would be able to see and understand what makes humankind human. I thought that maybe it would help me feel more human, and find some sort of reason to keep living.”

You exhale, eyes sliding shut for a second. You feel nauseous—hands lighty trembling as you desperately try to digest the large pill he gave you as quickly as you can because you still have more questions but god, what type of fourteen, fifteen year old feels so empty inside that he turns to the Mafia to try to feel something?

“You were a kid, Osamu. You’re not some incarnate of evil for ending up where you did, you were failed by all of the adults in your life,” you finally say quietly; you’re the one staring ahead now, and you can feel his eyes on you but you don’t dare to turn to look at him because you know that it’ll make you crack and you need to continue. Clearly something else happened when he was eighteen that led to him leaving the Mafia but what? Your gaze trails back to the grave in front of you, a sinking feeling in your chest. You take a deep, steady breath before asking your next question: “What changed at eighteen?”

“I didn’t leave the Port Mafia because I had some great epiphany as to the immorality of my actions,” Dazai snaps. His voice is tight and borderline antagonistic, emotion finally seeping into the monotone, as if he’s trying to convince you that he is what you claim he’s not. “I-”

He cuts himself off abruptly, his voice cracks, you lift your gaze to his face and your throat spasms when you notice the black pits have been replaced with the warm brown you’re used to, a vast array of emotions swimming within them, too many for you to pinpoint a single one.

“He was my friend,” Dazai finally says softly. “My only one, maybe. When he died, he told me that if both sides are the same to me—evil and justice—that I should become a good person, I should save people. So, do you understand? Nothing about me has changed since back then, and the only reason I’m on the side of the ‘good’ is because someone else asked it of me, not for any altruistic reason. I’m still the same now as I was then.”

“... I don’t think that’s quite true,” you tell him after a few seconds of silence, and you can feel him look at you and you can practically hear the bitter ‘what do you know?’ that he’s about to let out, so you force yourself to continue before he can. “I think that if someone had told me all of this a few weeks ago, I would’ve laughed in their face. I never once-”

Dazai scoffs. “So, you don’t understand,” he says, voice reverting back to that empty tone you hate, but his body is tense and he’s looking anywhere but you. “I’m good at putting up fronts, wearing masks depending on who I’m around; it’s how I learned to blend in with people. The man you know doesn’t exist. I’m a fraud, my blood runs black; when I’m pushed into a corner, I invariably fall back into old habits. I’ll never leave the dark and I don’t belong-”

“I think you’re wrong,” you interrupt him, recalling Yosano’s words from two weeks ago—he’ll never believe it himself. “I don’t think you’ll ever see yourself from an objective standpoint. I don’t think you want to believe that you’ve changed for the better, but I think you have. I’m not stupid, Osamu, and I’ve never been one to fall for people’s acts, no matter how good they might be. I’ve known something was up with you since that first night when I woke up and found you staring out the window, and still, I have never once doubted that you were a good man.”

“I killed people to get out of Meursault, I was willing to torture people to get information when the Guild showed up in Yokohama and then again when the Decay of the Angel arrived, I’ll manipulate anyone and everyone around me to see my plans through, I…”

Dazai is still listing off all of the reasons why he’s still a bad person, and maybe you should be listening but you can hear the way his voice is becoming increasingly more tinged with desperation, as if he’s intent on convincing you to change your viewpoint on him. You wonder if he thinks you’ll run, and then, you wonder if he’s trying to make you run—each sentence he speaks becomes more descriptive than the last. 

He’ll find himself sorely disappointed, because you’ve already decided that you won’t run. You’re still not convinced that this is the smartest decision on your part; Dazai is dangerous and being with him is dangerous, not because of him himself, but because of the threats that still linger from his past, but you suppose love always drives people to do stupid things in its name anyway. Even now, as he lists off all of these terrible things, you can’t imagine your life without him—you think a life without him will be dull and gray, and you’ll always look back to the time you spent with him as the happiest you ever were, regretting the decision you made here. 

You’re not the type of person to live a life full of regrets. 

And whether he sees it or not, you think he has changed. You’re not the only one—Yosano, Atsushi, all of the members of the Agency see him in a similar light as you, but he’s so blinded by his past that he refuses to see himself in the present. Even the things he says now, all of it was done in the name of protecting the people he cares about, and that’s not something you’re going to condemn him for. 

“I think he’d be proud of you.” You cut off his tangent with seven quiet words and Dazai goes utterly still and utterly silent next to you. “I didn’t know him, of course, but I think he’d be proud of the man you’ve become, Osamu. Change doesn’t happen overnight, you were surrounded by the dark for so long, and from such a young age, that it might take decades to remove its influence over you, but you’re trying and you’re saving people. I wish you could see yourself the same way I see you. I think he would be proud.”

You wonder if you pushed too far, sparing a glance his way. His brows are furrowed so intensely that you can’t hope to try to imagine what might be going through his mind, brown eyes flooding with emotion as he looks down at his friend’s grave.

“I’m not someone that was born to be with people,” he finally croaks out. “Romantically or platonically. I’m not right in the head. Manipulative, constantly trying to kill myself, prone to jealousy, pettiness and casual cruelty. There are so many people trying to kill me that I stashed guns in your apartment when you weren’t home just in case they came after me while I’m there—I don’t care if they get me, but they might go after me when I’m with you, or even go after you to get to me. Sometimes, I regret leaving the Mafia because I feel like it’s the only place I actually belonged because it’s the only place where I was actually good at what I do.”

You don’t speak, instead letting him list off everything that he thinks is wrong with him, laying out bare all of the things that he tried so hard to hide from you over the past few months. He can’t look at you, eyes trained ahead and you can see the way his fists are clenched in the pockets of his trench coats. He lowers his face into his collar again, burying his nose in the fabric before continuing. 

“During really bad slumps, I can barely get out of bed even though I can’t sleep; sometimes I won’t eat for days unless someone notices and forces me to and if they do, I usually get nasty with them; and I’ll do just about anything to die. Atsushi-kun has had to fish me from more rivers than I can count, Kunikida-kun has had to drag me to the hospital after trying to overdose on pills or drink various types of poisons, Yosano-sensei has spent days watching over me because she didn’t trust me not to try again once one of them saved me.”

His voice has mostly returned to that cold monotone, but there’s a hint of emotion clinging to the edges that he just can’t wipe away, something caught between desperation and pleading. Your throat feels tight and swollen and you think that your heart might be shattering a bit with how he’s so set on pushing you away and convincing you that he’s simply too horrid to be loved. 

“I can’t cook. I don’t clean. I hardly shower. I’m more often drunk than I am sober. I can barely go a week without trying to kill myself at least once. I suck at saving money because I figure I’m going to die soon anyway, so I don’t see the point in it. I have an awful lifestyle and more unhealthy habits than I can count. I've tried to change it but I always fail. I don’t know how to comfort people and when I’m confronted with conflict by people I care about, I’ll avoid them until I can act like nothing's wrong. I’ll be more of a bother than anything else, really.”

“I still want you,” you finally say quietly, watching as a distressed expression sweeps over his face.

“You really don’t,” he protests weakly. You wonder if he’s trying to convince himself of it, or you—maybe both.

“I do. I’ll take care of you.”

“It’s rotten work,” he breathes out, a last ditch attempt to persuade you away. 

“Not to me,” you tell him firmly. “Not if it’s you.”

“I don’t deserve this.” Dazai shakes his head, voice so quiet that you can barely hear him. “I don’t understand—everything I told you and you’re still… I don’t deserve it. I don’t deserve you.”

“I disagree, but regardless, that’s hardly relevant,” you say absently, finally reaching out to loop your arm in his, resting your head against his bicep. “Do you want this? Do you want me?” 

“Yes.” His voice is so hoarse and so low, as if he can barely bring himself to say the words out loud.

“Then it’s yours. I’m yours.”

Dazai’s jaw is clenched so tight that you’re worried he’s going to damage his teeth, he brings his hand to his eyes as if to cover the upper half of his face. You squeeze his arm a bit, comforting, eyes sliding shut.

“Everything I touch withers and turns to ashes,” Dazai rasps. “Anything I never want to lose is always lost. I’m scared that by being with you, I’m also killing you.”

“I’ll take that risk, if it means I can be with you,” you tell him, watching as he shakes his head, still refusing to look at you.

“You’re so damn stubborn,” he exhales quietly.

“You love me for it,” you tease lightly.

“I do,” he admits, and your eyes shoot open a bit at his words. You glance up at him, but he’s looking ahead, expression downcast. “And I’m sorry about that.”

“Are you apologizing for loving me?” you ask, a bit incredulously.

“Yeah. I am.”

“Osamu…”

Your voice is soft, you’re not sure what you want to say but you falter when Dazai suddenly looks down at you. His eyes are so exhausted, he looks like he hasn’t had any rest in years—his shoulders sag and his arms hang limply at his sides. You think that maybe you shouldn’t have agreed to all of this when he’s still recovering, but you also think that the fatigue is not just physical.

 “I’m so tired,” Dazai suddenly whispers, resting his forehead on the top of your head. His voice cracks a bit over the word, you slip your arms around his waist, letting him lean into you.

“Then let’s go home, yeah?”

“... Yeah, let’s go home.”

When you get back to your apartment, it’s still dark but you know dawn will break soon; as Dazai stumbles over to your bed, you make your way to the window. You close the curtains so that Dazai will be able to sleep easily even after the sun rises, and then move over to your nightstand to turn on the dim lamp so you can at least see a little bit. 

Dazai drops his coat onto your desk chair before he takes a seat on the edge of your bed, feet planted on the floor as he stares ahead at the wall. He looks lost, conflicted; you don’t know what to say to draw him out of it, so you decide not to say anything. Instead, you make your way over to him and take a seat next to him—your thigh brushes his, arms ghosting each other’s, and Dazai immediately leans over to rest his head on your shoulder, eyes sliding shut.

You lift your hand to cradle the back of his head, fingers idly carding through his dark locks. You feel him let out a shaky breath, the air hot against your skin, and you turn your head to the side, pressing your lips to the top of his hair, lingering for a moment before resting your head against his.

“Lay down and get some sleep,” you tell him softly. “I’ll stay with you.”

Dazai exhales, but he doesn’t budge from where he’s leaning heavily against you. “... I need to take off my bandages,” he finally says quietly. “They’re drenched in sweat and blood, haven’t had a chance to change them since I left… I don’t want to get in bed with them on.”

You pause and then ask, “Do you want me to go grab the new roll I bought? I can step out.”

“I don’t have the energy to put them back on,” he finally murmurs, and then a bit more hesitantly, he adds: “Can you help me take them off?” 

You think your heart is in your throat. In the months you’ve been with Dazai, the only glimpse you’ve gotten of his body beneath the bandages was that day he showed up at your doorstep bleeding out and you had no choice but to cut through some of them to patch up the wound, and even then, you only saw the sparest bits of his body, only what was necessary to stop the bleeding. He’s been so careful to keep it hidden from you and now…

“Yeah,” you breathe out. “Of course, I can.”

You shift a bit so that you can kneel behind him on the bed, fingers curling around the hem of his white long sleeved shirt. You tap his arm gently, a silent ask for him to raise his arms, and when he does, you slide the thick cloth off of his body, leaving him in his pants and the bandages that cover every inch of visible skin besides his face and hands.

He was right, they do look disgusting—most of them are yellowed and frayed at the edges, as if they’d been drenched with water and dried several times over. There’s blood staining the bandages on his side and a black tarry substance clinging to the bandages wrapped around his waist. You lean forward and press your lips against his shoulder, over the somewhat clean bandages that are covering the skin there, and you can hear Dazai let out a sharp, shaky breath in front of you.

“Ready?” you whisper, fingers grazing the clip fastened to the bandages on his neck, holding them in place. 

He only nods, so you press another soft kiss to him, this time to the crook of this neck, and unfasten the clips to unwind the bandages from around his neck. To your credit, your fingers don’t falter when a rugged, discolored scar is revealed, looped around his neck; it’s mostly faded, but it’s still rough beneath the pads of your fingers. Your eyes linger though, there’s no question as to what caused the scar and your mind instinctively draws back to all of the offhand comments and jokes that Dazai has ever made about ceiling beams and nooses and your throat feels a bit tight.

You dip your head down to press your lips against the nape of his neck, right over where the rough skin crosses. You can hear his breath hitch, you can feel the way he shivers, but you don’t say anything as you continue to unwind the bandages around his chest and torso. You’ve seen most of the scars that litter his back from when you’d had to patch up his bullet wound, but it’s different seeing them without the fear of him bleeding out fogging your brain. 

They look much harsher against his pale skin now—the worst is still that deep, jagged one that runs from his shoulder to the corner of his hip, but you can’t help but notice that there are more that you hadn’t noticed that day. Most of them are various types of cuts and slashes, some deeper than others, and healed bullet wounds, your gaze is particularly drawn to the most recent one on his upper back. It’s fresh compared to all of the others, still red and easily agitated—your fingers brush over it for a moment before you lean in to press another kiss to his shoulder blade, right over where the worst of the scars begins. 

You shift from behind him to sit at his side, dropping the bandages that had been covering his chest, torso and neck haphazardly onto your bedroom floor before reaching out for his right arm.

Dazai withdraws immediately.

His expression is guarded, you think that his eyes seem a bit glassy but you can’t tell with the dim lighting. You don’t say anything, and you don’t reach out again; after a few moments of him studying you, his shoulders slump and Dazai moves his arm so that it’s back in your lap. Your eyes trace his face one last time, making sure he’s okay, before you lift your fingers to start unwrapping the bandages, starting at his bicep. 

The skin of his bicep is mostly clear—there’s one light scar cutting through its side, as if a bullet had grazed him. When you move down to his forearm, Dazai is stiff and you can see the discomfort on his face, but he doesn’t pull away, so you continue. 

And you falter, because as you loosen the bandages to remove them, you catch sight of the deep scars lining his wrist and forearm. The skin is uneven and discolored, there’s hardly an inch of visible skin on his lower arm that’s not covered by the vertical scars. He’s staring at you, dark eyes heavy and inspecting your every reaction—he’s looking for something, and you don’t know what, but you just decide to do the same thing you’ve done every other time you finished taking off a set of bandages and lean down to press your lips against his pulse point, moving over to do the same to his other wrist after unwrapping the bandages there too.

Your gaze flickers down to his legs, where you can see the bandages on his ankles peeking out from the white pants he’s wearing, a bit too short for his long legs. You pat his thigh gently and say, “C’mon, let’s get you out of these ugly things.”

Dazai shifts up just enough for you to help him slide the loose plants off so you can toss them off to the side, leaving him in his briefs and the bandages wrapped around his thighs and calves. You move to kneel in front of him, instantly getting to unwinding them, starting at his ankle. 

“Do you remember what you told me back then?” Dazai asks quietly, looking down at his lap instead of you. “The day we met?” 

“I told you a lot of things that day,” you say lightly as you glance up at him, careful as you unwrap the bandages around his calves. You kiss his knee. “You’ll have to be more specific.”

“You said you’d change the trajectory of my life,” he murmurs, twisting his fingers absently. 

Vaguely, you remember the words, smiling a bit in amusement. 

“About the hot chocolate?” you question, laying a kiss to his other knee before shifting up to unwrap the bandages on his thighs; you make sure not to let the pain show on your face when you notice that his inner thighs are as littered with scars as his wrists and forearms, all of them dangerously close to his femoral artery. 

“Yeah.” He lets out a puff of air akin to a laugh, but when you glance up at him, you see there’s very little amusement on his face. In fact, he looks more wistful than anything else. “You really did, you know? Not with the hot chocolate, obviously, but just… you. You did.”

You sit back on your heels as you look up at Dazai, taking his hand into yours before lifting it to your lips, kissing his knuckles softly. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” he agrees quietly. When he continues, his voice is hoarse, bordering on a plea, “Don’t ever go somewhere I can’t follow.”

“Somewhere without you?” you ask, a teasing lilt to your voice as you kiss the palm of his hand before letting go so you can move to unwrap the bandages from his other leg. “Sounds dreadful, I would never.”

He lets out a noise as if he doesn’t entirely believe you, as if it’s some inevitable fate that the two of you will face. So when you finish unwinding the bandages and push them off to the side with the rest of them, you lean up on your knees to cup his cheek, pulling him down a bit to you so you can press your lips to the corner of his. 

“You’re stuck with me.”

“I think it’s the other way around,” he croaks out, and the wry laugh he lets out falls flat. 

You squeeze his hand again before you rise to your feet, and when you do, Dazai’s throat spasms as you stand in front of him, looking down at him. He’s stripped bare in front of you now—physically, emotionally, and he looks at you with an expression that lets you know that you have the power to utterly ruin him. He’s trusted you with his heart, handed it over to you on a platter after having guarded it so desperately and carefully for so long, and you can see the vulnerability in his dark eyes as he watches you restlessly, waiting to see what you’ll do with it. 

You lean forward again, pressing your lips against his forehead softly and then to his own, a chaste, innocent kiss that lasts no longer than half a second. 

“I love you,” you tell him quietly. 

Humans cannot live without a heart, so if he’s to give you his, it’s only fair that you give him your own—though realistically, yours has already been his for a long time. Your heart beats in his chest now, and his in yours, and you wonder if he understands the gravity of what that means but you think he does, if the way his expression crumbles has anything to say about it. His hands fly to your waist, dragging you down onto his lap. His fingers bite a bit too deeply into your skin for it to be comfortable, but you only wrap your arms around his shoulders and let him bury his face into the crook of your neck. 

“I think I might’ve been born just so I could meet you,” Dazai admits, words thick and throaty, muffled against your neck.

You smile lightly, toying with the hair at the nape of his neck, turning your head to the side to kiss his temple. “I feel the same,” you whisper, because there’s no way anything but destiny led you to Dazai Osamu on that beach—one way or another, you were fated to be with him. 

Dazai pulls his face from where he’s had it tucked in your neck to press his lips to yours; he kisses you desperately, hands rising to cup your cheeks. In one swift motion, he has you pinned down on the bed, hips and chest flush to yours, hand slipping behind your head to tilt your head so he can deepen the kiss, and you’re reeling at his sudden switch up, struggling to keep up with him. His tongue traces the inside of your lip, deceptively gentle compared to the way he has body pressed against yours.

Your hands fly to his waist, sliding over his bare skin, over all of the rough ridges of his scars and his body shudders against yours violently, unused to the feeling of someone touching him without his bandages as a barrier. He pulls back, tugging at your bottom lip softly before moving just far enough away for your lips to be brushing, sharing the same sliver of air. You can feel his breath fanning across your lips, it smells of the peppermints you have littered across your desk and distantly, you can’t help but wonder when he managed to steal one, but the thought is only fleeting. It’s dizzying, hot, so intimate that you think your heart is about to fly out of your chest.

“I don’t think I’ll ever get used to this,” Dazai breathes out, dark eyes searching yours as he speaks.

“Me neither,” you agree, and then you smile, leaning up to steal another kiss from him, and then another, and then another. “Good thing we have the rest of our lives to try.”

Less than a week later, you stand in the chaos of the Armed Detective Agency as they argue over a new case—and by they, you mean Yosano and Kunikida with Dazai occasionally making antagonistic comments to try to make Kunikida blow a fuse. You don’t really know what you’re doing here, you suppose the Agency doesn’t really care and you have nothing better to do anyway —you lost your internship at the Ministry of Defense, obviously, with all of the chaos that went down and classes have yet to start up again, and Dazai begged and pleaded for you to come with him to work because he ‘can’t stand having to look at Kunikida-kun’s ugly mug all day,’ but you figure it’s only because he wants to sneak off to you whenever Kunikida is distracted.

Like now.

Dazai has flopped onto where you’re lounging on the couch as he watches Kunikida and Yosano go at it, head resting on your chest, giggling to himself as Kunikida’s face goes red and Yosano looks increasingly more entertained. You’re idly playing with his hair as you scroll through your phone, distantly listening to the argument that you’re pretty sure Dazai instigated just so he could slink away from his desk.

It’s only a matter of time before Kunikida notices Dazai’s scheme and drags him off of you, but it’s nearly the end of the day anyway and you and Dazai are going to the theme park in the Kanagawa prefecture once he can leave work, so you’re excited. You think you’re going to ask Atsushi, Kyouka and Kenji to come along with the two of you, even if Dazai pouts and scowls over it, because they’ve spent most of the day talking to you when Kunikida was forcing Dazai to actually do his work. 

“Ranpo will be here soon,” Yosano goads Kunikida. “We’ll see what he says.”

Kunikida’s eye twitches and he parts his lips to speak but before he can, the door to the Agency flies open and a familiar dark-haired man comes bounding in, snacking on a bag of sweets. Tanizaki follows behind him, looking exhausted if not a bit relieved to be back. 

“Tanizaki got us lost three times,” Ranpo complains, making his way through the reception area toward the interior. Tanizaki looks disgruntled, as if he doesn’t entirely agree with Ranpo’s statement but is beyond arguing about it. Ranpo pauses next to the couches where you and Dazai are lounging. “It’s you.”

Your eyebrows raise a bit when you notice the thinly veiled irritation in Ranpo’s voice. Dazai looks up, eyes a bit narrowed, and both Yosano and Kunikida pause from where they were about to bring their argument to Ranpo, sharing a look with one another. 

“Ranpo-san, don’t be ru-” Dazai starts to complain, although you can tell there’s a hint of tightness to his voice. 

“First, everyone in the Agency ignores me when I tell them not to take this case; then, I go out of the way to warn you about the Hunting Dogs and instead of listening to me, you throw yourself into the heart of Yokohama and make yourself easy pickings for them,” Ranpo rants. “I don’t even know why I try.”

Realization strikes fast, your face feels a bit hot. Dazai sits up from where he’s laying on you, looking between you and Ranpo, a bit confused. 

“... You were R,” you realize sheepishly, wondering how you hadn’t put it together sooner. 

Ranpo all but sneers. “Aren’t you supposed to be an honors student at Waseda? I swear, sometimes I think I’m the only person in my life with brain cells.” he says snidely, pointedly raising his chin and looking away from you as he adds: “I suppose your arrest wasn’t entirely a bad thing, though—made the police force more willing to open their eyes with their wives and family members going off the deep end about the Hunting Dogs. But still, after all the effort I went through to get that warning to you…”

He finishes with a loud scoff, but you’re more focused on the aghast expression on Dazai’s face as he looks at you, and you brace yourself for the conversation that’s about to come, wondering how the hell you’re going to get out of it.

“You got arrested?” Dazai blanches, eyes wide and face a bit pale.

You wince, laughing a bit sheepishly. “Yeah… ha, look at us, in jail at the same time! Couple goals, huh?” 

Dazai doesn’t look half as amused—a mix of disbelief, guilt and a hint of anger all visible on his face. You don’t know where the guilt is coming from, but you figure he must blame himself for it somehow, which you think is a bit ridiculous because it was your choice to let yourself get arrested when you had the chance to flee. You think that your trip to the amusement park is going to be tainted now, because you know that as soon as Dazai gets the chance, he’s going to bully you into an interrogation over what happened, so to salvage the night and spare yourself the headache, you finally make your move.

“Atsushi-kun, Kyouka-chan, Kenji-kun, Osamu and I are going to the amusement park later, you should join us!” 

The look Dazai gives you is nothing short of betrayal, but luckily, Atsushi, Kenji and Kyouka, who’ve all lit up at your words, excited, can see it from where they’re sitting. You smile sweetly up at Dazai, leaning up to steal a kiss; he is disgruntled, narrowing his eyes at you.

“Oh? The one in Kanagawa?” Yosano suddenly asks, interested. “We’ll come too.”

Dazai buries his face in your chest, letting out a muffled groan. Yosano tosses you a wink, seemingly having forgotten about her argument with Kunikida as she throws her arm around the man and gives him a sharp look.

“Won’t we, Kunikida?” she asks with a terrifying smile. Kunikida looks as if he’s going to protest but before he can, Yosano’s arm around him tightens. “Won’t we?”

“Fine,” Kunikida bites out, looking none too pleased. “I need to hurry and finish this report then, so let go.”

Ranpo points at you. “You’ll fund my cotton candy for the night as an apology for the unnecessary headache,” he declares and you let out a huff of laughter in agreement.

“Can Naomi and I come too?” Tanizaki asks, a bit hesitant as he glances at you and notices the way Dazai has slumped into your chest, defeated. “We’ve only been once when we were kids. It’d be fun to go back.”

“‘Course,” you agree easily. “Dazai and I are gonna head out now though, I have to run to the store before we go.”

Kunikida only waves you off—he probably doesn’t even register what you asked, too focused on getting his report done—so you push Dazai off of you and rise to your feet, stretching because your back has become a bit sore from lounging around all day. Dazai nearly topples onto his ass, shooting you an accusing look before standing up straight.

You hold your hand out to him, he takes it, looking a bit mollified. 

“See you in a bit,” you tell the Agency, and you get various different goodbyes as you leave the office.

As soon as the door shuts behind the two of you, Dazai is scowling at you. “You’re devious,” he claims. “Inviting them all to avoid a much needed conversation. Diabolical.”

“Learned from the best,” you coo, leaning into him and nudging his arm with your shoulder. He rolls his eyes, you grin. “Please, you and I both know you would spend the whole night trying to talk about it if we go alone and it would piss me off. We can talk about it when we get home.”

“And now.” The smile that Dazai gives you is all teeth, you grimace. “How did you get arrested?”

You just shrug. “They asked me for information, I refused to give it. I figured if they were going to come after me one way or another, it’s better that it happens in public—people don’t really take kindly to watching someone get arrested for associating with an organization that they’ve all associated with at some point or another because they’ll get scared that they’re next.”

Dazai looks at you, distinctly impressed. “You are devious.” He sounds proud, your cheeks heat up a bit, but then his expression drops again. “But still reckless. You could’ve been killed.”

“But I wasn’t.” You wave him off and then absently bid goodbye to the cafe owner and his wife as the two of you leave the cafe and make your way down the street to where you’d parked this morning. 

“But you could’ve been,” Dazai stresses the words, he’s a lot more tense than you expected, his jaw is tight. He catches the way you’re looking at him and shakes his head, letting out a puff of air. “I’m sorry.”

“For what?” you ask, brows furrowed.

“It’s my fault,” he tells you, and you immediately scoff, rolling your eyes. “It is, you don’t understand—I was with Dostoevsky in Meursault, I had to make a decision-”

“Shut up,” you tell him, irate. His mouth shuts instantly. “Stop acting like I have no autonomy. I knew what I was walking into, I chose to do it anyway. That’s the end of it, stop blaming yourself for every little thing that goes wrong, Osamu. You’re only human, you can’t control everything.”

You can tell that Dazai doesn’t believe you, but that’s an argument for another day. Luckily, Dazai doesn’t look too keen on pressing the subject anyway. Instead, conflict sweeps over his face as he studies you.

Finally, he asks quietly, “You never doubted the Agency?”

You let out a sharp laugh. “Are you kidding? There’s no way anyone’s going to convince me that the people in that office building are terrorists. That’s absurd, I figured there was something supernatural going on, just didn’t know what.”

Dazai looks at you, disbelief painted on his face. You’re not sure why until he lets out his own laugh, shaking his head. “The Decay of the Angel had a reality altering book,” he explains, eyeing you as the two of you continue down the sidewalk. “And you managed to somehow subvert the reality they created with it.”

You can’t tell if it’s a question or not, and for some reason, you feel distinctly seen as he looks down at you with an indecipherable expression. So you just shrug. “They shouldn’t have written such a ludicrous reality, then,” is all you say, a bit awkwardly.

Dazai only laughs again, slinging an arm around your shoulder. You lean your head into him, smiling softly. You bask in his presence, letting the warmth of the setting sun wash across your face as you share a few moments of silence. 

As the two of you reach the parking garage you’d parked in, Dazai suddenly stops, looking down at you. “Do you believe in fate?” he asks quietly, uncertainty in his eyes as he watches you for a response.

“Yeah,” you tell him. You’ve always believed in fate, and you believe in it a bit more after meeting Dazai, because somehow you know that you were always destined to meet him, that your fates have been intertwined since the moment the two of you were born. You simply cannot imagine a life without him, not in this world or any other. “String theory, multiverse, I think the world’s a lot bigger than just ours. Why?” 

You glance up at him curiously. “You do?” he asks a bit distantly, leaning down to ghost his lips against your forehead. Then a bit more hesitant, he continues, “If you think there’s more worlds like ours… do you think we’re together in all of them?” 

You snort, which is obviously not the reaction Dazai expects from the way he jolts, but before he can take offense to your reaction, you speak.

“Definitely,” you say so confidently that he almost looks taken aback. “I’ll find you in every universe, you can count on it.”

You think he looks beautiful right now as the sun finally sets over the horizon, the pale orange tints of the coming dusk making his skin glow, his eyes soft and fond, full of longing as he looks down at you. You’re struck with a distinct urge to kiss him, but he looks so divine in this moment that you can hardly bring yourself to move, spellbound as you admire him.

“Yeah,” he finally breathes out, “I will.”

i don’t even really have words guys 🥹 i’m literally about to weep i can’t believe it’s over

SOMETHING I WAIT FOR . . . dazai has a close call. he barely makes it to your apartment but you’re there just in time, in more ways than one.

ft. pm!dazai + f!reader, pm!reader, blood and injuries, mentions of drowning / suicidal ideation from dazai, a little suggestive in some parts, 3.6k w.c.

p.s.! ⊹ ࣪ ˖ if you catch the its okay to not be okay references, ily <3 !!

EVERYWHERE, EVERYTHING SERIES MASTERLIST

dazai hates pain.

if the idiot who shot him would’ve aimed just a little bit higher, it might've been a fatal wound. instead, all he did was graze his shoulder. it wasn’t enough to cause serious harm, but just enough to make him bleed in miseryー just his luck.

the man must’ve been dead by now, taken care of by one of his subordinates. he didn’t stay long enough to find out, slipping from the scene before anyone could try to force him into the mafia’s infirmary. he knows your apartment is close. 

he’s nearing the point of being injured where the pain fades and melts into pure exhaustion. he hates the way his blood feels against his hands, and he uses it to ground himself. it’s already soaked through his shirt, wet and warm as it seeps between his fingers and drips down his arm, absorbing into the bandages around his wrist. his already obscured vision is fading, white stars glistening from beneath the edge of his lashes, but he keeps his eyes trained ahead on your building. he swears you used to only have one apartment door, his vision doubling and growing hazy. 

just a few more steps. that’s all he needs to make it to you.

he huffs as his hand slips from your doorknob, sliding off the metal from his weak grip. he falls forward, blood smearing against the doorframe where his palm flattens as he tries to steady himself, pressing his forehead against your door with a quiet thump. you have to be home right now. right? please be home right now.

as soon as you open your door from the other side of your apartment, he collapses, landing against your chest. he curls against you, inhaling the scent of your skin with the desperation of a man who’d just been saved from drowning. 

“dazai?” you stumble backward, but he doesn’t weigh nearly enough to make you fall. you wrap your arms around his shoulders, and he grips your shirt in his hands, trying to press himself impossibly closer to you. he can feel the moment you realize he’s bleeding, your chest stalling mid-inhale. “oh my god, dazai.”

his jacket slips from his shoulders, falling to the floor limply as you carry him inside, kicking the door closed with your foot. his feet drag against your carpet as he tries to walk, but he’d rather use his waning strength to snuggle closer into your side than keep his balance. even with your body supporting his own, he plops unceremoniously onto your couch.  

“it’s okay,” he shivers when you start to unbutton his shirt, pulling back the bloody, frayed fabric stuck to his skin. he can’t tell if you’re talking to him or yourself. “you’re okay.”

his bangs are damp, yokohama’s humidity and his own sweat gluing them to his forehead. you push them back, stroking your thumb along the edge of his bandage over his cheek tenderly.

“are you hurt anywhere else?”

he tilts his head to press his face into your palm and smiles at you. you’re so pretty when you frown at him like this.

“i’ll be right back,” you squish his cheeks between your hands, making his lips pucker. “don’t try to move.”

he has to stop himself from reaching back out for you when you let him go. he squeezes the fabric of his trousers instead, watching you disappear past the couch’s limited view. he wants to pull you on top of him and beg you to ignore the blood leaking out of his body, to just wrap your arms around him and hold him until there’s nothing left between the two of you. it still wouldn’t be close enough; if he had the choice, he would shrink down and make a home inside your chest.

he tries his best to relax into the cushions beneath him. he’d much rather be in your bed than on your couch, but it was still yours, and that made it enough for him to want to sink into it until it absorbed him whole. your apartment was nothing like his hollow shipping container, the metal walls suffocating in the summer heat.

he could’ve dragged himself there instead. maybe he would’ve finally died from blood loss if he was lucky. that’s what he wants. really.

so then why did he drag himself here? because you felt safe?

dazai came to a realization a few days ago, one more painful than the wound in his shoulder, or the fact he has a mission with chuuya a few days from now. ever since it planted its dirty roots in his brain, he hasn’t been able to stop thinking about it. 

it grew deeper every time his chest tightened around you, or his heart fluttered at the sight of your smile, or his stomach churned in jealousy when someone else touched you. 

this, his mind taunted him, is what people say love feels like. worst of all, when he whined to odasaku and ango about how annoying you were, they didn’t stop talking about his “crush” for the rest of the night. 

his body protests as he sits up, vision swimming as the walls of your living room tilt. he tries to blink it away when he hears you sigh as you come back from down the hallway. he makes his one visible eye big and pouts his lips when he looks at you.

“dazai,” the medical supplies you always keep on hand are cradled in your arms as you walk back toward him. “i told you not to move.”

“you took too long,” he whines. “i’m dying, you know.”

“you wish.” you guide him back down gently, your hands leaving tingles beneath his skin in their wake. he watches you kneel beside him, organizing the little bottles and boxes on your coffee table. you press down on one of the white lids with the heel of your palm, twisting it and knocking it upside down. you hand him one of the pills that fall out, and he swallows it dry.

you open another one of your bottles, and the familiar, sterile smell could be nothing other than saline. it’s cold against his skin, but your touch is what makes him shiver and his hair raise. you squeeze his leg softly, running your fingers against his thigh. it ignites something warm in his stomach, but it fades to white pain when the liquid absorbs into his wound. he jolts, and you murmur an apology, squeezing his thigh a little tighter. you’re trying to distract him, and it works pathetically well.

when you get closer to clean the drying blood off his skin, he can’t help but let his eyes fall to your lips, slightly parted in concentration. you’re close enough for him to kiss, and against the ache of his shoulder, all he can think about is how you might taste.

he wonders how soft you’d feel if he traced the shape of your lips with his tongue. he imagines the sweet sting of you pulling his hair as he memorizes every inch of you he can, taking everything you give him and more. it’d be different from the other people he’s kissed, he knows it; using his mouth to get information out of theirs did nothingー if anything, he felt more numb when it was over. 

he can see a familiar box from the corner of his eye: it’s the brand of bandages he always uses, the only kind that doesn’t irritate his scarred, sensitive skin. he watches your fingers as they delicately pull the beginning of the roll, imagining the feeling of you wrapped around his bare body instead of the cotton he adorns himself with. 

you turn him on his side to wrap the bandages around his shoulder and under his arm. once the ends are tied, nice and snug around him, you sit back on your heels.

“can i have your hand?” 

he gives you both, trying to hide the way they tremble. you grab the one covered in blood tenderly as you begin to clean it off. 

“i guess you weren’t lucky enough to die this time,” you smile teasingly, but he knows it isn’t real. it doesn’t look right on your face, like a mask that’s too big. he can see the worry you try to hide, clouding your eyes like murky water. he hates it. “sorry.”

“i never get what i want,” he sighs. “i think i’m cursed. do you have something to cure that in one of those little bottles too?”

“i don’t know if you’ll ever die, even when you become an old man,” if, not when, he wants to correct, but holds his tongue. “you’re like a cockroach.”

“yeah?” he reaches up to poke your face with his bloody fingers as you try to hold him still. “you’re like a little kid.”

“you’re more like a kid than i am.”

“nuh uh.”

“yeah,” you giggle, catching his hand back in your own. you wipe down each of his fingers, gently scrubbing the spaces in between. “you are.”

when he speaks again, he’s surprised by how quiet his voice is. he almost hopes you don’t hear him. “how?”

“because,” your voice softens, holding his now clean hand. you trace over one of the lines on his palm with your thumb.  “you want to be loved.”

he feels like he can’t breathe as he realizes that for once, he doesn’t have the upper hand. all of his walls he’s so carefully built, it’s like they’re made of glass around you. the possibility that you see him more clearly than he sees you terrifies him. 

the painkillers are starting to kick in, drowsiness creeping up on him and making his eyelids heavy as he melts against the cushions despite his pounding heart. when was the last time he slept? he can’t remember.your fingers are gentle as they brush his bangs back. your touch makes his eyes fall completely closed before he feels something soft and warm presses against his forehead. he hears a whisper of his name, a quiet sweet dreams, and then he’s asleep.

it only really feels like he blinked. when he opens his eyes again, it’s dark. the light from your kitchen leaks through the hall, permeating the living room in a soft glow. he wiggles his toes, feeling the soft blanket you draped over his legs while he slept.

he gets up slowly, creeping off the couch and across your floor. he peeks past the kitchen doorway, grinning when he sees your back is facing him. you’re halfway bent over the counter with your chin resting in your hand, staring absently at the tea kettle on the stove, waiting for it to boil.

he keeps his steps quiet, walking on the tips of his toes. he sinks his teeth into his lip to bite back his smile as he leans closer, taking advantage of the fact you’re completely zoned out.

“boo.”

you flinch, hand closing around a butterknife on your counter, still smeared with jelly from a late-night snack. you turn sharply, pointing the dull blade in his direction. he grabs your wrist before it grazes him, smiling innocently.

“dazai,” he thinks his name sounds so pretty when you sigh it out like that. you drop the knife back onto your counter. “should you even be standing right now? go lay back down. i can bring you something to eat.”

the thought of you taking care of him like this ignites that warm feeling in his stomach again. an image of you as his personal nurse forms in his mind, and his insides flip at the thought. he wonders if being an executive would give him enough leniency to put you in a little white dress; surely there was one lying around somewhere at headquarters.

“what, did you hit your head too?” he whines when you poke his forehead, hard. “are you feeling better?”

he pouts at you, gaze drifting over your shoulder to a bottle of sake on the counter. it definitely wasn’t there the last time he was here.

“oh〜” he perks, holding the bottle up by its neck, eyes sparkling. “this is fancy! where did you get this from, hm? some secret date i don’t know about?”

“ane-san,” your eyes narrow as he flicks the stove off, breaking the seal on the bottle excitedly. “it was a gift from her after we finished that raid in osaka.”

he sniffs it, then takes a big sip straight from the bottle. it leaves a pleasant sting along the inside of his throat as he swallows.

he sits himself down on your kitchen tiles, pressing his back against the cabinets, cradling the sake in his arms. there’s something angelic about the way your kitchen light haloes around you as he looks up at you from the floor. 

he holds the bottle up, sloshing the liquid as he wiggles it back and forth. he pulls it out of your reach each time you try to grab it until you have no choice but to sit next to him, stretching across his lap to take it from him. you follow his lead and take a small sip from the mouth of the bottle, sighing as you sag backward. 

“what happened this time, anyway?” you tilt your head toward him lazily, gaze dipping down to his bandaged shoulder. 

“someone had bad aim,” he sighs, holding a finger up to his temple. “missed my head. unlucky, right?”

you take a bigger, longer sip.

“i don’t like when you get hurt, you know.”

he’s relieved your head is on his bandaged blindside; he doesn’t know if he wants to see the look on your face right now. he takes the bottle from you, taking a longer sip of his own.

“do you remember when we used to go to the beach?” he can hear the smile in your voice, and it makes his own rise on his cheeks. the two of you would always go after missions, bodies bruised and hair knotted. it was always early enough to watch the sunrise from the shore, eating a breakfast of shared instant ramen and candy stolen from the konbini down the street. 

he can only ignore the way the edge of the counter presses into the back of his head for so long, leaning his cheek against your hair and listening to you breathe. he can tell you’re getting tipsy when you start to cling to him, clumsily crawling into his lap. you insist on being the one to rebutton his shirt, swatting his hands away when he tries to do it himself. 

“can we go now?” the curl of your lip hits him like an arrow through his heart. “to the beach? please?”

you’re so close again, looking up at him so prettily through your lashes. your hands warm as they rest above his heart, like you could go right through him and steal it for yourself, and he knows he could never possibly say no. 

you pick his coat up off the floor before you leave, draping it over his shoulders. you tug it a little tighter around him, nodding to yourself in satisfaction before you grab his hand, intertwining your fingers and tugging him out the door.

the nighttime air is warm and sticky, but it gets cooler the closer you get to the shore. he keeps your smaller body close to his, guard raising as you approach the edge of port mafia territory. 

the sand sinks beneath his feet with every step, and he pulls his shoes off by the heel. the waves lap calmly, dancing back and forth with no audience to watch as they tease the shore. he breathes in deep, feeling his lungs expand, inviting the salt and sand inside.

you drop limply onto the ground, laying your head on his shoulder when he sits next to you. it’s quiet, only the distant sound of traffic and the soft splashing of water.

“i wish it could be like this all the time.” you sigh. there’s a determined glint in your sleepy eyes when you look up at him. “let’s run away.”

he smiles, tilting his head toward you until your noses are close enough to brush. “and just where would you take me?”

“i don’t know,” you mumble. “i don’t care as long as i’m with you.”

he always thought he was born with an empty cavity in place of where his heart should be, but around you, it felt so full he could explode. he thinks if he tried to say anything right now, something icky, like the pile of seaweed he can see rotting by the water, would come out of his mouth instead.

a particularly big wave draws your attention away from him, and he frowns when you look away. it only deepens when you stand up and leave him, walking towards the ocean. he watches as you stumble down the wet sand, squealing when the water splashes against your feet. you don’t stop walking until the water is deep enough to cover your shins.

he follows you to the water, hopping on each foot over the big rocks. he’s careful not to slip, crouching on the furthest one out to keep a closer eye on you. he keeps his weight on his ankles, spreading his knees and resting his arms between them. he feels drops of salt water hit his face as the waves crash against the sea stacks, gently blowing the fabric of his jacket. 

you turn back and smile at him, holding your hand out. the moon is large and eternal behind you, taking up nearly all the space in the sky and casting a pale blue glow over the dark water. it reflects onto you, illuminating your body in soft light, and he swears he’s never seen someone look so beautiful. you open and close your hand impatiently when he doesn’t move.

“what are you doing over there?” you tilt your head. “c’mere. it’s warm.”

he doesn’t bother to pull up his pants as he slips into the ocean, letting the waves move the fabric as they ebb and flow. he looks down at himself; he nearly blends in with the water, looking black in the night. he almost thinks he’ll dissolve into it like ink and wash away into the sea. 

you beam at him as the water laps at your knees. he wiggles his toes into the wet sand and waits to feel the unbridled joy that standing here seems to cause. all he feels is goop between his toes, and he sighs in disappointment. he wants to understand why something like this made you so happy. he wants to feel it too.

“isn’t it nice?” you smile up at him, and he wishes he could bottle it up and keep it for himself. that smile was just for him.

don’t.

he leans closer. he can’t help it; there’s alcohol still warm in his veins, and you’re magnetic.

don’t.

even closer, until he can feel your soft exhale against his face, eyes big. he always thought you were the prettiest up close.

you’ll lose her once you have her.

he freezes. he doesn’t have time to completely change his mind and forget this little slip-up ever happened before you close the gap, pressing your lips against his. you’re just as soft as he imagined, gentle even when you kiss him, like he was something worth handling with care.

you pull back all too soon, looking down at where his legs disappear beneath the water.

“sorry,” you mumble, and the watery way your voice comes out makes something ache deep inside of him. “i…i don’t know why i did that.”

oh.

he didn’t kiss you back.

he didn’t move, he didn’t even breathe. he almost wants to laugh; you really like him too. you, with your stupid smile, making his heart flutter and his stomach hurt when it’s directed toward him. you, letting him sleep in your bed when he breaks into your apartment, holding his blood-soaked hands and letting him get close, despite knowing what he was. you were so, so stupid. 

he cups your cheeks with trembling fingers, bringing you back to his mouth. this could be the biggest mistake of his life; the fact he wants you could be your death sentence, but he’s never wanted anything else so badly before in his entire, sad life. 

he thought it’d be weird to touch you like this, but it only feels right. when his hands hover over your waist, you press them into your skin, and he can’t help but think they fit perfectly there, like you were made to be held by him.

you wrap your arms around his neck, fingers brushing against his nape, and his knees nearly buckle. he thinks if they did, if he fell into the sand right now and washed out to sea, he’d be content, but you’d never let that happen. he wouldn't even be mad if you resuscitated him; nothing would be better than your lips breathing life back into him. he wonders how mad you’d be if he tried to pull that as an excuse to have another kiss.

he kisses your forehead, your nose, and then tilts your chin up to kiss you properly agai , swallowing the giggle you press against his lips. he doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to get enough of you now that he’s had a taste.

“is this really okay?” you’re looking up at him with eyes bigger than the moon, glittering just as bright.

“yeah,” he can’t tell if he’s talking to you or himself. “it’s okay.”

BSD MASTERLIST

taglist . . . @little-miss-chaoss @almond-t0fu @yaeeko @annoyingpainterprincess @callm3-tash1

@janbannan @snowsilver2000 @mochiii-sama @aureatchi @bakananya

@warcelia

Souheki having entire convos in their minds

can i throw the Akutagawa (make sure he lands on a pillow / a soft thing)

You THROW aku? You throw him like the football? Jail!! Jail for anonymous!! Jail for anonymous for one thousand years!!!

Oh Dazai, how can you be so criminally pretty when all you've done is tuck a strand of hair behind your ear.

ᡣ𐭩 TO SOMEONE FROM A WARM CLIMATE

FEATURING: beast dazai osamu

SUMMARY: you're with him. you're actually with him. everything all of the other dazais have got to experience, he now can too. in his exhilaration, he almost forgets about the threats lurking on the horizon. until you slap him in the face with it, that is. {wordcount: 18k; fem!reader; romance & tragedy}

AUTHOR'S NOTES: PART THREEEEEEE i had a particularly terrible day today guys hahahh literally everything that could go wrong went wrong </3 i'm very tired, but i hope you guys enjoy this installment. for all of u who read badlands, we have a very anticipated parallel scene in this one. + i added a little surprise pov at the end heheh

GENERAL WARNINGS: again, i'll just leave this warning on every chapter - dazai struggles a lot with disassociation/derealization & losing himself in the pages of the book. + we have a bit more of unhinged thought processes on dazai's end which becomes particularly apparent during one of these scenes. as always please let me know if i forgot any warnings

SEE: UNREAL UNEARTH SERIES MASTERLIST READ: BADLANDS SIDE A

You wake up from what might be the best sleep of your life to the sun peeking through the blinds of an unfamiliar bedroom. 

It takes a few moments for you to regain your bearings, yawning and stretching as you sit up in the bed, trying to figure out where you are. It’s fancy, fancier than anything you’ve ever come across before. The dark sheets are soft and silky against your skin, you swear that this must be what clouds feel like. The room itself is a bit odd—large but empty, there’s a dresser on the far wall and a nightstand next to the bed, but there are no trinkets or knick knacks that usually litter a person’s bedroom. It’s almost reminiscent of a hotel room, you think. 

Your gaze drifts over to the side, where a vast window looks over the city. You can hardly see the view through the blinds, but you can tell you’re high enough that only clouds can be seen below, no sign of the bustling city that you know rests beneath you. Your hazy mind starts to remember what happened last night: the club, the convenience store, your apartment, the leak. Dazai. 

Dazai.

Your face immediately feels hot, hand coming up to curl your fingers around your mouth as you realize whose room you’re in. Your eyes flicker around the room nervously even though you know he’s not in here with you. You wonder what time it is, you reach around for your phone to check but you must’ve dropped it somewhere in your exhaustion last night—hopefully somewhere in his apartment (can this even be considered an apartment? it’s huge!) Maybe he’s waiting for you out in the main room of his penthouse, you hope he is. You also hope that he got some sleep last night, you remember that he insisted for you to take the bed but you still feel bad that you usurped his room from him.

… Although it’s not much of a room. Big and fancy with a view that costs more than your life, yeah, but nothing that makes it his. Like a husk. A house, not a home. The bed doesn’t even smell like him—well, you can’t say you know for sure what he smells like besides the cologne he sported in your past few meetings with him, but you know it doesn’t smell like him because it doesn’t smell like anything. Only the faint smell of old detergent meets your nose, not a single other sign that someone has been living here.

You push the covers off of you and swing your feet over the side of the bed, stretching again as you kick your feet out with another yawn. You think this might be the first time in months that you haven’t woken up with an aching back or sore neck and you can’t help but cast a longing look back at Dazai’s bed, wishing you could steal it and drag it back to your apartment to replace your ruined bed.

You don’t bother changing as you drag your way out of his bedroom; you’re decent enough in a burgundy camisole and matching pair of shorts. Yes, you’d chosen your nicer pajamas because yes, you’d still been hoping maybe something would happen between the two of you. You hadn’t realized how hard the exhaustion was going to hit until too late. 

Maybe something can still happen, you giggle a bit to yourself as you open the door to his apartment and then stop yourself immediately, horrified at yourself. You wonder when you became like this. You swear you don’t usually go around desperate for sex like this, you feel like a bit embarrassed, honestly, that your train of thought keeps leading this way but you blame Dazai because he’s plain cruel for flirting with you as intimately as he does without even sparing you a kiss. It’s like he’s trying to drive you crazy. You’re becoming even more convinced that the man set some sort of spell over you. 

“Gooooood morning!” you sing, your voice still tinged with sleep as you exit the bedroom and catch sight of the object of your desires lounging back on the dark couch in the main room of his penthouse—penthouse, insanity—typing away at his phone with a frown. He’s dressed in the same outfit he was in last night, which is also the same outfit that he wore last week, and every other week before that—you wonder if he just didn’t change or if he has a dozen pairs of the same outfit. 

Dazai doesn’t respond, gaze cutting upward, a bit too wide to be casual. The expression on his face is entirely indecipherable, something caught between shock and an emotion you can’t quite place, but it’s softer, you think, maybe a bit sadder too. You brush it off, wondering if he forgot you were here, which would be embarrassing but also a bit ridiculous. So, you think that maybe you just look like a mess after waking up. You should have brushed your hair before coming out of the room, you don’t even know if you brought a brush with you last night. You can’t remember.

You plop yourself down onto the couch next to him. Laying the side of your head against the cushions and curling up a bit, you position your body to face him as you say, “Your… apartment is so nice.” There’s a longing lilt to your voice as you speak. “If you’re not careful, I might never leave.”

It’s a joke, of course, you don’t want to intrude, but you think your life would be one hundred times easier if you were living in a place like this rather than your small, shitty apartment. Plus, you get a view and you’re not talking about the city. Dazai looks gorgeous beneath the mid-morning light, you think. Well, he’s been gorgeous every time you’ve seen him but you think especially so now, with the way his smooth skin glows and his dark eyes look almost gold beneath the sun rays, but you notice the dark bag beneath his visible eye and guiltily, you wonder if he got any sleep last night. He’d long abandoned his phone, attention on you, and you feel warm beneath his gaze.

“I don’t think I’d mind that all too much,” he murmurs, eye curved up as smiles softly. 

You’re flustered, instantly, and your face feels hot as you avert your gaze to the coffee table in front of you. Your eyes focus on a familiar item sitting on it and you light up, reaching out for it. “My phone! You found it!”

You pull it toward you and unlock it, frowning when you realize that you must’ve left it open on your landlord’s contact information last night, trying to figure out what you should message him. You sigh as your tip your head back against the couch, realizing that you’re going to have to deal with all of this today. Fighting with your landlord about the leak, ordering a new mattress and a new laptop—god, you don’t even think you can afford that right now, you’re going to have to place a deposit down for your seat at school soon and then figure out tuition. 

“You dropped it outside the room,” Dazai notes, drawing your attention back to him as he nods at the phone. “How did you sleep?”

“Better than I have in years,” you sigh wistfully, letting your head fall to the side to look at him. “You have to tell me where you got your mattress. This is the first time I haven’t woken up with a shitty back in forever… especially considering I need a new one because my ceiling decided to drop gallons of water on my bed.”

“Gin-chan would know,” Dazai says, and you can’t help but notice how his gaze seems to track down a bit to your lips as you speak. You try not to smile a bit. You think you fail. You do shift a bit closer. Subtly. You think he notices if the way his tongue darts out to wet his lips says anything about it. His words hardly register until he says, “I have to leave in a bit for a meeting, she’ll come make sure you’re okay and see if you need anything.”

Irrationally, your heart drops with the illogical fear that maybe you’re reading into things because who is Gin-chan and why does she know what type of mattress Dazai has? Maybe it’s not irrational, because that’s odd, isn’t it? Who would know what type of mattress someone has besides like… a wife? But wouldn’t he have mentioned a wife or a girlfriend in the past few weeks? Of course, he would have… right? You didn’t notice a ring, but you don’t want to be obvious and look down to check now. There’s no way he’s the type to cheat anyway, so you assume you’re just missing something—unless they’re not on good terms with each other but haven’t divorced? But… Your thoughts begin to spiral, rapidly and terribly, because you are not a homewrecker, you swear, but you don’t think you’ve ever wanted someone more than Dazai Osamu. 

Dazai’s smile sharpens a bit, dark eye flashing playfully, as if he knows exactly what you’re thinking. He leans his head in a bit more, so close that you swear you can count every single individual eyelash, so close that your breath catches when the tip of his nose brushes yours. “Gin-chan is my secretary, I brought her off the streets when she was a child. She’s a sweet girl, I’m sure you’ll get along.”

Oh, you’re so cruel, Dazai Osamu. 

You hate that you instantly feel relieved. 

You hate even more that he definitely notices. 

He leans in a bit closer, your breath hitches, but just when you swear his lips are about to brush yours for the first time, he pulls back to sit up straight again. His cheeks are dusted red, welcome evidence that you’re not the only one who was flustered by his proximity. 

You clear your throat in a desperate attempt to regain some sense of control over yourself and then try to change the subject. “What type of meeting do you have?” you ask curiously, and then immediately amend the question, realizing this is your chance to question him about his job again, “What do you even do?”

Dazai hesitates, just like he did the last time you asked this question. You think he might try to avoid the question again but instead he says, “I took over my… father’s company a few years ago. I’ve been running it since.”

Your eyebrows shoot up a bit, impressed, although you notice how he seems a bit bitter at the mention of his father. “Really?” you ask, surprised. He can’t be much older than you. What was he eighteen, nineteen when he took over? “What type of company?”

“It’s a… sort of conglomerate. We have stakes in a bunch of different industries,” he tells you, dark hair falling in his eyes as he rests his head back against the couch. His eyes don’t leave you once, almost as if he’s drinking in the sight of you, you can’t control the way your heart races beneath his gaze. He reaches out, fingers brushing your skin in a way that makes goosebumps rise, and you can hardly breathe as he fixes the strap of your camisole, you hadn’t even realized it had slipped off your shoulder.

His fingers linger for a moment before he drops his hand back to his lap; you long for his touch again instantly.

“That sounds like a lot of work,” you say quietly, and suddenly Dazai looks a lot older and much more tired, gaze flickering down to his lap. 

“Yeah,” he murmurs. “It is.”

You’re not sure what to say for a moment, so instead, you decide to reach out and grab his hand, intertwining your fingers with his and squeezing gently. He doesn’t hold your hand back at first, staring at where your hands are connected with a conflicted, unreadable expression, but you don’t let it bother you, holding his hand just a bit tighter before saying: “Well, I’m sure you’re doing a good job.”

He lets out a puff of air, sighing, and then finally, his fingers tighten around yours. 

A bit too tight, but you don’t mind. 

He doesn’t look like he believes you, and you think that’s a bit sad but you’re not sure what else to say, or even if there’s anything else to say. Dazai’s gaze flickers back up to meet yours and you think that you might not be breathing again. You’re hyper aware of his touch, the way his fingers curl around yours, thumb absently rubbing soft circles on the back of your hand. He’s close—you hadn’t realized just how close the two of you had gotten as you spoke. You’re leaning forward and he’s leaning in, both of your heads resting against the back of the couch. 

You could kiss him, the thought rings through your head again. Your throat feels tight, the silence between you is comfortable but tense, as if he can sense the thoughts ricocheting through your head and is battling with his own. He shifts forward a bit more, gaze dropping down to your lips, and you brace yourself, tilting your face up a bit and then-

“Sir?” 

You draw back right away, embarrassed, eyes cutting across the room where a girl with long dark hair stands, cheeks flushed and gray eyes averted up to the ceiling. She’s young, no older than seventeen or eighteen, and dressed in a sleek black suit. Is this Gin?

“Gin-chan.” Dazai confirms your suspicions as he greets the girl easily. “Is something the matter?”

“Chuuya-san is in your office,” Gin says, careful to keep her voice formal despite the way her face is on fire. “The executives have been waiting in the conference room on the thirty-eighth floor for twenty minutes. He says if you don’t come out, he’ll come in here and drag you out.”

Dazai sighs dramatically, eyes sliding shut. “Chuuya always has the worst timing,” he complains, rising to his feet. “Gin-chan, tend to my lovely guest while I’m gone, would you?”

Gin finally turns her gaze on Dazai, a bit surprised. “You don’t want me coming with you, sir?” 

Dazai waves her off. “I’m giving you a more important job. I’ll make the slug take meeting notes. He’ll love that,” he says with an easy smile before looking down at you. “I’ll be back later tonight… wait for me?”

You stare up at him, breathless. You have to force yourself to nod. “Yeah,” you finally agree, voice wavering. “I’ll wait for you.”

The smile he gives you is brilliant, eye shining in a way that puts the night sky to shame.

You think you could stare at it forever. 

His fingers burn. 

Dazai can hardly pay attention to the meeting taking place around him as he stares down at his hand, the ghost of your touch still warming his skin. He feels giddy, his chest light and heart erratic in his chest. You’re upstairs. You’re in his room. You were in his bed this morning. You told him good morning. You came out and joined him on the couch while you were still in your night clothes. You almost kissed him. You almost kissed him. He almost kissed you. He would have, had Gin not showed up. 

God, it was like something out of one of his dreams, one of the vague memories that haunt him when he’s at his lowest. When he’d wake up with wet cheeks and a tight chest, throat thick with aching desire and longing for a life that he never thought he’d have. 

But he has it.

He has it. 

He has you.

“Where is Gin-chan?” Kouyou’s voice tears Dazai from his thoughts. Dazai turns his gaze onto the woman, careful to keep his expression void of any of the emotions coursing through his body. “She is supposed to be attached at your hip, no?”

Dazai tilts his head to the side. “Gin-chan is busy with more important matters,” Dazai says dismissively. 

Kouyou lets out a noise caught between a puff of amusement and shock, covering the lower half of her face with her fan as she watches Dazai with calculating eyes. Dazai wonders if she knows that you’re here, if Chuuya had mentioned anything to her already and this is just a test to see his reaction to her prodding.

“More important matters than the first meeting with all five of your executives in the same place in two years?” Kouyou presses, fanning her fan lightly as she tilts her head to the side. 

“Yes,” is all Dazai says in response, not leaving any more room for conversation on the topic. He sees Chuuya roll his eyes from the corner of his vision, knowing just what Gin is up to.

“What is this meeting about anyway?” Ace suddenly speaks up, looking irate from where he’s sitting at the round table, leg folded over his knee as he looks around the room disdainfully. “This is disturbing my casinos, I had integral meetings with shareholders this morning that I had to reschedule.”

“If your casinos are so easily disrupted, perhaps they’re not quite as valuable as you keep making them out to be.” Piano Man gives Ace a demure smile as he speaks, veiling the venom dripping from his words—the most recently promoted of the five executives has no mercy when it comes to taking digs at the self proclaimed Jewel King. 

Ace’s head snaps in Piano Man’s direction, lips turning down and eyes icy. Dazai wonders curiously if the man would snap something back with Chuuya sitting right next to him—that would be the end of that, Chuuya has always been viciously protective over his Flags. Dazai never liked Ace, knowing that the man is loyal only to himself, but he’s brought in masses of money and information to the Port Mafia. He considers whether or not he should step in, but decides to just watch idly, unsure of if he’s entertained or bored, folding his hands on the table and letting his head fall to the side lazily.

He wants to go back upstairs. Back to you. He’s tired of this already, every day it’s been something new the past few weeks—issues with the military police, issues with low ring organizations that seem to think they can play with the big leagues, issues internally. He wonders what you and Gin might be talking about, and then bitterly, he thinks it should be him sitting up there talking to you.

“This is about the Russians?” Verlaine drawls, looking severely unimpressed with the tension at the round table as he looks between Kouyou, Chuuya and Dazai. “I’ve heard from some of my birds that Nabakov’s men were spotted in the Sakae and Kanagawa wards. Interesting, no?”

Sakae and Kanagawa? 

Dazai suddenly is a lot more attentive to the conversation at hand, if only because your apartment is around those wards. He was already reluctant thinking of letting you go back there, knowing that it’s not the best area in the city, but now? The thought makes his stomach churn, blunt nails digging into the wood of the round tables. 

It’s not an option.

It’s not.

Kouyou raises a parchment between two fingers to show off to the rest of the executives before passing it over to Dazai, who stares at it distastefully for a moment before plucking it from her hand. He scans the words rapidly, lips twisting down into a deep frown the more he reads. 

“What is it?” Chuuya asks impatiently, fingers thrumming on the table as Dazai reads.

“A missive from the Pale Flame,” Kouyou tells him, voice smooth and curious, eyes not leaving Dazai once as she waits for his reaction to it. “Nabokov wishes to personally apologize for not coming to the meeting himself two months ago. He claims that he’s coming to Tokyo to handle an issue regarding one of his major narcotics suppliers in three weeks and wants to host us under the guise of a business event to make amends and prove his dedication to our continuing alliance.”

The war in the mainland is over, the realization hits him hard, like he’s been doused in freezing water and struck with a train all at once. His vision begins to tunnel, just a bit, but enough for him to know he has to pull himself back together before it gets worse, but it’s hard because the implications of that-

“That’s not suspicious at all,” Piano Man sighs whimsically. “Since when does Nabokov care for apologies and amends? The man’s pride goes beyond the heights of the moon.”

“War must be going that badly,” Ace scoffs, amused. “I suppose we chose right in declining their pleas for support.”

“I wouldn’t be too sure,” Piano Man says flippantly, side-eyeing Ace blatantly. 

Ace’s expression twists, but as soon as it does, it smooths out again, and a slow smirk is curling at the edges of his lips. He parts his lips to dole out a side comment and Dazai chooses to tune out the petty arguments, focusing on his own dilemma.

It can’t be a coincidence. Right when he finally starts accepting you into his life, the three way war plaguing the Russian underworld comes to an end and the threat that Dostoevsky poses to you becomes all the more present. Fate, the word haunts him, curses him, he wants to spit in its face but every passing day reminds him that the gods must be laughing down at him. 

Doubt begins to riddle his chest, festering and spreading—should he send you away? Pretend that the past few weeks never happened and send you off to one of your friend’s apartments? But what if someone already saw him with you? If the wrong person saw, and he sent you away, he’d be signing your death sentence himself. 

“What do you think?” Kouyou addresses him, drawing Dazai from his spiraling thoughts.

“The war between Tolstoy, Dostoevsky and Nabokov ended,” Dazai says, staring down at the table as his mind races. “The missive is a declaration of war.”

“Why would Nabokov declare war on us?” Ace asks doubtfully, leaning back in his chair. “For not giving him support?”

“Nabokov is a puppet.” Dazai’s tongue slides against the back of his teeth, trying to piece together what the best course of action to take would be. He’d been sure that the territory wars in Russia would last at least another two to three months. He’s sure that Dostoevsky is behind the missive, he doubts that Tolstoy would make a move into Yokohama, he’d prefer to move west, but he needs confirmation. But if it is Dostoevsky… Why has this timeline sped up so much? Dostoevsky isn’t supposed to officially make a move in Yokohama until after the Guild. The thought is cold and unnerving, he doesn’t like it. He’s been basing all of his plans around his knowledge of the other universes, so why is everything changing suddenly? He turns his attention to Ace and Verlaine, “Find out if Tolstoy or Dostoevsky came out on top.”

He has his suspicions, but he needs it confirmed before he makes any more plans. He has to be careful now, excruciatingly so. He can’t risk anything now that you’re with him and the threat of Dostoevsky has become exceedingly more imminent. However cautious and meticulous he’s been the past seven years, he needs to up it tenfold. He needs Dostoevsky six feet under. He needs Christie six feet under. 

And most importantly, he needs to keep you safe, locked in the ivory tower, ignorant to the looming threats until Dazai has properly handled them.

But to do that, he needs to convince you to stay. 

How is he supposed to do that without setting off alarm bells? 

“What of the business event that we’ve been invited to?” Piano Man asks, white hair falling into his face as he tilts his head to the side. “Do we attend or tell him to shove it?” 

“How eloquent,” Ace digs, but goes silent when Dazai gives him a icy look, no longer in the mood for their petty back and forth. 

“We attend,” Dazai answers, exhaling as he turns his attention to the side, looking out the bulletproof window giving a vast view of the city’s busiest ports. “If it’s under the guise of a business event, there will be plenty of legitimate corporations there to use as shields should things go wrong, but the Russians aren’t stupid enough for that regardless. They won’t spill blood on foreign land in view of people who live in the light, it’s the fastest way for them to get the Special Division or the Hunting Dogs sicced on them. This will be the easiest way to gather information… and to try to take out the mastermind.”

Chuuya does not look happy with Dazai’s declaration, likely already tallying all of the things that could go wrong. It’ll be the easiest way to get to Dostoevsky, yes, but it’ll also be the easiest way for them to get to Dazai. Dazai is not stupid and he knows he has to be especially vigilant now, but no progress will be made unless some gambles are made—Fyodor Dostoevsky is slimy and slippery in every universe, for Dazai to get his hands on the man, he’s going to have to take a few risks. Dazai just has to ensure said risks are minimal, because every risk he takes is a risk to you too. 

God, he feels sick, his head hurts so badly that he thinks he might die. If he was any other version of himself, he could drag himself to you and bury himself in your arms, a surefire way of making the pain disappear. But he’s not any other version of himself—he’s him, and he’s so bitter, because even when he has you, he doesn’t really have you, not in the way that he wants.

“Meeting dismissed,” Dazai says coldly, hardly sparing his executives another look. He’s ready to go back upstairs and be with you, even if he’s not ready to put that mask back on yet, terrified of scaring you away. “Get me the information I asked for.”

There’s a few spattered agreements and farewells. Verlaine, Ace and Piano Man all file out of the conference room. Kouyou and Chuuya stay behind. Dazai’s eyes slide shut, waiting for whatever the two have to say. 

“I hope you know what you’re doing,” Chuuya finally says, voice gruff and Dazai doesn’t have to look at him to know that his fingers are probably digging into his palms in frustration. “Things are about to get bad. Don’t let some girl distract you from what’s important.”

Dazai looks up at Chuuya now, slowly, gaze glacial. If Chuuya were anyone else, he would’ve backed down or apologized, but Chuuya is Chuuya, so he only raises his chin, jaw tightening when he realizes that he pissed off Dazai with that comment. 

You are what’s important, is what Dazai wants to say in your defense. He’s done all of this for you—you and Odasaku, but he bites the words back, resorting instead to turning his gaze to Kouyou, dismissing Chuuya without a word. Chuuya scoffs loudly and then he spins on his heel with a swish of his coat and storms out of the meeting room. 

Dazai tilts his head to the side, daring Kouyou to mention it. The woman only raises her eyebrows, a knowing expression painted on her face, as always. 

“One of my girls got their hands on a Russian suspected of being a member of the House of the Dead,” Kouyou says, fanning her face gently. “We’ve been unsuccessful so far in getting him to reveal any information. It could be useful in figuring out whether Tolstoy or Dostoevsky came out on top.”

Dazai exhales, because of course he can’t go right back to you, when has life ever been so easy for him? He pushes himself to his feet, body on automatic as he makes his way out of the meeting room and toward the elevator. 

It’s fine, he tells himself, he’ll be back to you soon.

He just has to make this fast, and Dazai is never as efficient as he is when he has you as motivation.

Dazai is careful to make sure that no blood stains his face or hands as he leans back against the wall of the elevator. Getting the information out of the rat hadn’t taken too long once he got there, but the following conversation with Kouyou took an eternity. He watches the floors tick upward from the twenty-second floor all the way up to the forty-sixth, back to his penthouse where you’re hopefully still waiting. An irrational fear claws at his chest, that you slipped away and left the building, descending back down into the city that’s quickly threatening to become an imminent warzone. He knows it’s illogical, Gin would have told him if you left so you must still be up there, but a part of him can’t bring himself to believe it.

“I’ll wait for you.”

Your face blends with another version of yourself as he lets his eyes slide shut. The image of his apartment shifting into an unfamiliar hotel room. The atmosphere is much more somber in the hotel room, Dazai feels anxiety swelling in his throat and hope bubbling in his chest no matter how hard he tries to push it away as those very same words ring through his head. In a desperate attempt to sideline the emotions he can’t seem to control, he leans in to press his lips against yours. His own breath catches as the memory floods through him—he can feel the pads of his fingers burning as he pushes you back against the bed, his heart racing as his body hovers above yours, his mind foggy and dizzy as he kisses you so deeply that he think he might die from lack of air to his lungs. His tongue brushes against your bottom lip, his body slides on top of yours, hips slotting between your thighs and then-

Ding. 

His eyes snap back open as he’s forced back to reality, the sharp trill of the elevator drawing him from the maze of the pages just as the doors slide open. He’s hardly able to settle down, sweaty palms wiping at his black jacket and tongue pressing to the roof of his mouth as he steps out of the elevator and into his penthouse, praying he doesn’t look half as frazzled as he feels.

It’s so bright, he thinks to himself, unused to having so much sunlight in his penthouse, usually keeping the windows blacked out just as he does in his office, but he figured you’d find that a bit odd so he made sure to fix it before you woke up in the morning. His gaze drags across the room, and he hates that his pulse spikes when he doesn’t immediately spot you, but it’s only a momentary spike when he realizes that you’re laying on the couch with Gin, some unfamiliar show playing in the background as you waves your arms around, talking rapidly. 

He doesn’t move for a moment, standing there, admiring you—the way your skin glows beneath the sun, the way you smile widely, eyes glittering as you speak. You’re so animated. So alive. Dazai just can’t get used to it. He wonders if this is what his life would be like every day, if you stayed around. Waking up to you in the morning, relaxing with you under the early sun before he goes off to deal with his work, coming home to you waiting for him on the couch. Realistically, he knows it’s not that simple—you have your own goals and dreams and Dazai swore that in this life, he’d make sure you’d achieve them, so you can’t just sit around his penthouse all day until he comes back… but maybe it’s a practical enough to hope for the next few weeks until Dostoevsky is handled. 

But first, he has to make sure you stay here and not try to go off with one of your friends, which will be a trial in itself. He’s not sure how to go about it yet, so he just needs to have faith that it’s not something you bring up right away. 

Gin catches sight of him first, rising to her feet instantly, hands locked behind her back. “Sir,” she greets, nodding her head down a bit in respect. 

You perk up at her words, leaning up to finally catch sight of him, peeking your head over the back of the couch and then raising your hand to wave at him. “Welcome back,” you say with a grin. “How was the meeting?”

Gin bids you a quiet goodbye before making her way out of Dazai’s place back into the office, leaving Dazai alone with you. 

“Agonizing,” he answers truthfully, voice a low drawl as the corner of his lips instinctively curls up at the sight of you. He doesn’t come any closer, leaning back against the wall as you prop yourself up on the back of the sofa to look at him, resting your cheek on your folded arms.

A smile spreads across your face at his words, amused, and he wonders distantly if you would be even half as amused if you knew what the meeting was about or what he had to do afterward. The thought nearly makes his own smile falter, throat spasming. No matter how easily you might’ve accepted him and his past in the other universes, he knows that it won’t be the same in this one because it’s not his past. Not for the first time, he’s viciously jealous of all of his other selves—not only because of their relationship with you, but because they hadn’t needed to go to the depths of hell that he has had to in the name of keeping you and Odasaku safe. 

It’s so hard. Lonely. The other Dazais always liked to insist that they were alone but they weren’t—not really. They always had so many people surrounding them even if they refused to accept it, meanwhile he-

He has nothing. Even now when you’re here, he knows that he’ll never be able to have you as intimately as the other Dazais did. He’ll never be able to open up to you like they did, rely on you like they did. He can’t because of the risk it would bring to the fragile stability of this world. He can’t because if you knew the truth, it would drive you away.

He’s so tired.

He’s not sure what you must see on his face, but your expression falls a bit as you look at him. You push yourself to your feet and he can’t help but notice that you’d changed out of your pajamas into a pair of leggings and a burgundy sweater. He also notices, a bit more dreadfully, that the duffle you’d brought last night is sitting outside his bedroom door, packed. 

“I messaged one of my friends,” you say, voice a bit awkward, a jolt of panic shoots through him, realizing that you are bringing this up right away and he hasn’t had time to figure out how to go about convincing you to stay. “She said I could stay with her until my apartment is fixed, so I won’t be bothering you much longer. Thanks for letting me stay the night.”

Dazai hardly refrains from sighing and letting his eyes slide shut in frustration.

He really can’t get a break. 

“I…” he trails off, unsure of what to say. He could tell you that it’s not a bother, but he doubts you would believe that, and how is he supposed to insist without coming across as shady? He has to try though. “It’s not a bother. You can stay here as long as you want.”

It won’t be enough, and he knows it from the way you immediately shake your head, sitting back on your heels to look at him head on. “I appreciate it, but I don’t want to intrude.”

His mind races as he tries to figure out what to say but it’s hard to think with dark talons pulling at his brain, images of you flashing before his eyes—limp in his arms as he tries to shake you awake (futile, your skin was already cold when he got back from work), unmoving on the floor of your apartment as he stands at the door (he’d only stepped outside for a moment), the fear in your eyes as you topple back over the side of the roof (he can’t get to you in time. he never can.)

“It’s no intrusion… Truthfully, it gets a bit lonely here on my own,” Dazai finally admits, his voice sounds faraway to his own ears as he struggles to ground himself from the foreign memories, he hopes it doesn’t come across that way to you. He can see your face shift a bit at his words, brows furrowing and lips turning downward—not pity, thankfully because he hates pity, but more so understanding. Hooked, he realizes and then deals what will hopefully be the final blow: “I really wouldn’t mind the company.”

Your lips part to say something but no words leave them. You stare at him for a moment, looking between your duffle and your phone and then back to him. He waits, breathless, because he doesn’t know what he’s going to do if you say no, if you insist on leaving. He can’t let you leave, not until the threats have been dealt with, he refuses to sign your execution warrant—he can live with you hating him, even if the thought makes him sick, he can’t live in a world without you.

Finally, you give him a smile.

“I mean, it would definitely be easier getting my work done here than in her cramped apartment, it’s hardly big enough for her and her boyfriend, much less me on top of that,” you say with a laugh, rubbing the back of your neck. “If you’re sure…”

Dazai has to physically restrain himself from letting out a sigh of relief. 

“I’m sure,” he murmurs. 

You light up and then look back at the television. “Well, I found a few movies I want to watch, if you’re up for it?” you ask with a hesitant smile. 

Dazai gives you a soft, matching smile. “I’d love to.”

Oh, god, how did you end up like this?

You can hardly breathe properly, legs tossed over Dazai’s lap, head resting on his shoulder, his arm curled around you. The movie is still playing in the background but you’re hardly following the plot anymore, too focused on the feeling of Dazai’s thumb rubbing idle circles over your hip. You don’t even know if he’s aware he’s doing it, but it has your entire attention—your heart is racing, you’re sure he must be able to feel it, he’s just being courteous in not mentioning it, and your body feels hot. Every now and then, his thumb dips a bit lower and you swear he must know what he’s doing but he’s barely sparing you a glance, engrossed with the movie playing on the disgustingly large television mounted on his wall. 

The movie that you had been excited to watch but now can’t even recall what the plot is. 

And it’s so odd. You don’t like cuddling. Or, you thought you didn’t like cuddling. Whenever your past partners tried to cuddle up next to you to watch a movie, or at night before bed, you’d grimace and try to subtly shift away, but now? You’re leaning into him, you find comfort in the arm draped around you and the fingers drawing absent patterns on your hip, you find warmth in the way your body is tucked against his. 

It’s absurd, you think, why is he so different from everyone else? 

Your friends think you’re crazy. When you texted one of them to ask for a place to stay until your apartment is fixed, and then abruptly said nevermind because Dazai offered to let you stay at his, you were hit with five calls in a row and a spam of texts ranging from: “wym ur staying with that random guy you met at a bar two months ago???” to “girl ur crazy, this is stranger danger 101. you were literally just complaining about how you know NOTHING about this man. i am NOT coming to ur funeral.”

The last one is a lie, Kei would come to your funeral and she’d cry like a baby while stuttering through the eulogy, but it’s no issue because there won’t be a funeral. Regardless, you still shut your phone off because the vibrations were getting irritating, but now, you kind of wished you still had your phone to peek at because you can’t focus on the movie and you need something to distract you from Dazai’s touch otherwise you’re bound to make a complete fool out of yourself. 

You spare a look up at him—just a quick glimpse, but it proves to be a fatal mistake. 

He’s already looking at you.

There’s a fond expression on his face, a warm look in his eye. When he realizes you’ve caught him, his lips tilt upward and he says, “You haven’t been watching the movie.”

A soft accusation. Teasing. It leaves you a bit flustered. You want to look away but you can’t bring yourself to. 

“Guilty,” you manage to get out, giving him a sheepish smile.

“I thought you wanted to watch it.” His voice is so soft and light that it makes goosebumps rise to your skin. He keeps his tone low so as to not disturb the atmosphere between the two of you, and it only serves to further the yearning you feel for him, eyes darting down to his lips as he speaks. His gaze sharpens a bit, pupil dilating when he notices where your eyes had tracked down to. Your mouth dries.

“I did,” you whisper, leaving the implication in the air that something far more interesting has caught your attention, breath catching as your eyes lift back to his, wishing that you could know what he’s thinking. You can see his mind racing, as if he’s fighting with himself about something and then-

And then he kisses you. 

He leans in just enough to brush his lips against yours, brief and hesitant, as if he’s just testing the waters. And it’s electrifying, you don’t think you’ve ever felt anything quite like it. Every other kiss you’ve had pales in comparison to the faintest brush of his lips to yours. His eye searches your face as soon as he pulls back, as if to make sure you’re okay with this; you can see the hint of something edging on desperation as his gaze flits back and forth between your eyes. He wants to know you’re okay with this, needs to know. 

You don’t waste a second as you lean forward, hand coming up to cup the side of his neck as you press your lips against his. You don’t have the same hesitancy that he does, heart thudding in your chest as your fingers intertwine with the curls at the nape of his neck, your body flush to his. His lips are chapped, but you don’t mind—it feels familiar somehow, almost comforting. You can feel the rough material of his bandages brushing your cheek but you only press closer. He tastes like fine whiskey and faintly of iron, a strange combination but you can’t get enough of it. 

He’s still hesitant, you can feel it in the slow way he kisses you. His fingers twitch from where they’re resting on his lap, as if he’s itching to reach out and touch you but doesn’t know if he should. Your hand slides up from his neck to the back of his head to pull him impossibly closer, tongue darting out to drag against his bottom lip, and that seems to be all of the push he needs. 

His hand comes to rest on your waist, fingers biting a bit too deeply into your skin but you don’t mind. One swift motion and he’s laying you back against the cushions, body sliding on top of yours, his other hand shifting upward, large palm cupping your cheeks as he tilts your head back to deepen the kiss. Your eyes flutter shut, you let out a soft, pleased sigh into his mouth when you feel his tongue tracing your inner lip. 

You think you could kiss him forever, you realize, heat pooling in your stomach and a fluttery feeling spreading through your chest. The hand on your waist slides down a bit to your thigh and your breath hitches when he parts them just enough for him to slot his hips between them, and god, you want him. 

You think your heart might fly out of your chest, and you don’t know why you’re so nervous. You have casual sex all the time to relieve stress but nothing about this feels casual, it feels so intimate; you let out a shaky breath as Dazai’s lips drag from yours to kiss the corner of your mouth, trailing down to your jaw, nipping at the spot behind your ear that always makes you shudder (god, how does he know your body so well already? it’s unfair, you might die), tongue tracing the underside of your jaw lightly, he kisses down your neck, teeth ghosting your pulse point and one of your legs instinctively hooks around his waist, dragging his body closer until you can feel him pressed up against you and-

A screech comes from the television. 

You jolt, he jolts, both of you startled, having forgotten that the movie was even playing in the background, too lost in the feeling of one another. Your chest rises and falls rapidly as you try to reorient yourself, leg slipping from his waist to rest back down on the couch.

The moment is ruined, naturally, all too hyper aware of the scene playing in the background and embarrassed by how quickly that had escalated. Dazai’s cheeks are dusted red as he shifts off of you back into a sitting position, and his lips are wet and swollen, and so very tempting.

You want to kiss him again, so you do. 

You sit up and cup his cheek to tilt his face in your direction, pressing your lips to his in a short and sweet kiss. You smile against his lips before pulling back and tucking yourself back into his side, gaze focusing back on the movie.

He lets out a puff of air that sounds distinctly close to a laugh before he wraps his arm back around you, warm and comforting, casual, as if it’s something he’s done a thousand times before, and you think Kei can suck it, because you’re starting to think that the ‘random stranger at the bar’ might become the best decision of your life.

A few days later, you’re stretching on a yoga mat looking out down upon the vast city below, Akutagawa Gin is sat pretty on a barstool next to where you’re stretching, one leg crossed over her knee, rapidly tapping at her phone as she finishes up some emails for Dazai, who’s god knows where dealing with whatever business Dazai Osamu deals with. 

“It’s a bit weird that they’re taking so long to fix my apartment, isn’t it?” you ask absently, grimacing as you shift into a pose that pulls at all of the wrong muscles. “Usually it doesn’t take more than a day or two.”

You still don’t really know what Dazai’s company is, you were only able to find vague scraps online about the Mori Corporation: a massive, affluent conglomerate that formed seven years ago. Apparently, it has a hand in just about every industry from technology to shipping, so you suppose it makes sense that Dazai is hardly ever around, but you’re finding yourself increasingly bored. There’s only so much time you can spend in the same apartment, no matter how big or fancy it may be. The days have been incredibly repetitive with Dazai leaving for his work meetings, you relaxing and getting some of your work done, talking to Gin, and then Dazai coming back late at night.

“You’re probably not the only apartment that had a leak,” Gin says, astute as always. “Your landlord might just be getting to the others first, and if they’re half as bad as yours was, it’ll probably take a bit.”

You scowl. “It would be just like him to leave me for last,” you say, half to yourself as you sit back on your heels, looking over at Gin. “I swear this man has had something out for me since I moved in. Did I tell you about the time he took three weeks to get back to me about a work order I put in for my sink? Three weeks. I had to wash all of my dishes at my neighbor’s place. How embarrassing is that?” 

Gin looks amused, gray eyes lifting from her phone to look down at you from where she’s sitting. “Multiple times, in fact.”

“Well, I’m going to tell you again,” you say matter-of-factly before launching into a tirade that you can recite word for word in your sleep from how often you’ve vented about it to people over the past two years. In your defense, it was absolutely ridiculous, it never should’ve taken that long, but you digress. 

You like Gin, you decide as she listens intently to the same rant she’s heard at least three times over the past week, nodding along and adding supportive commentary when necessary. Well, you decided you liked her the first time you met her, but you’re just reaffirming it now. For as formal and professional she is, she always gets a certain gleam in her eye when she talks to you, and you can actually see her for the eighteen year old she is, rather than just as the secretary of the boss of one of the biggest corporations in Japan. 

You think she likes you too, you muse as you finish off your rant and go back to laying like a starfish on the yoga mat, not in the mood to do any more stretching. She always lights up a bit whenever Dazai tells her to spend the day with you instead of following him around. You’re not sure why he does it, you figure he’s probably making things harder on himself by not having her around, but you’re not going to complain because you think you’d go crazy with no one to talk to.

But even if she does like you, she’s still not very forward with information about Dazai and the Mori Corporation. She tends to change the topic whenever you bring it up, or sometimes she just gives you that look, the one that tells you that she isn’t going to say anything about it. You think it’s a bit weird that they’re so secretive about it, but you suppose she just doesn’t want to speak on behalf of Dazai when you ask about him, and the whole secrecy about the business probably has to do with trade secrets or something

Although you don’t really think you’re asking questions that could even scarcely tap into trade secrets, but you think that maybe they’re just paranoid. Probably for good reason if the business is half as influential and lucrative as the few things you’ve found online claim it is, but still, knowing that doesn’t make you any less curious.

“Hey, Gin-chan.” You decide to get an early start on today’s attempt to whittle information out of the girl. When she looks at you questioningly, you turn your head to the side to look at her. “Is Dazai okay?”

Gin looks a bit startled by your question, but you only wait for an answer. You think he must be having trouble with something regarding his business because every day he comes back to his place later and more stressed, you can see it in his face when he walks in, the dullness in his eye and the way he can hardly cover it up before you catch sight of him. You don’t know why he’s so intent on hiding the exhaustion from you but you wish he wouldn’t. 

“Why do you ask?” Gin questions carefully, as if she doesn’t know how to answer the question which pretty much confirms that something is wrong. 

“I figure he must be having trouble with something in his company,” you say absently, watching Gin blink in surprise, another confirmation that you might be onto something. “He comes back to the penthouse later every day, and more tired. And even when he’s here, he spends most of the time on his phone unless he turns it off. You’ve been on your phone more often the past two days too, so I figure it’s connected.”

Gin hesitates and then she says, “We are… having difficulty with a rival company,” she finally says, and you sit up to look up at her again, leaning back on your hands. “They are trying to push us out of some key industries in Tokyo and Yokohama. Their… CEO is hosting an event in two weeks that we’re supposed to be attending, along with many of our subsidiaries. We’ve been trying to prepare for it while dealing with some other internal issues. He’s probably just… drained.”

This time, you hesitate, a lump forming in your throat as her words register because how fucked up is it that he’s so drained from work and then has to come back to his penthouse and entertain you? Guilt swells in your chest, you don’t even know where he’s been sleeping because he’s been so dead set on you taking the bed that he won’t even hear your arguments on it.

“Should I… go stay with my friend then?” you ask hesitantly, and when Gin gives you a half-alarmed, half-concerned look, you elaborate: “I just… feel bad, I guess. That he’s dealing with so much work and can’t even have a space to decompress when he finishes because I’m here.”

Gin says your name with so much humor that you’re almost insulted, but there’s a glitter in her eyes as she looks at you, so any complaint you have promptly dies. “Being with you is decompressing to him,” she says quietly, and though warmth spreads through you at the words, you’re still doubtful.

“I don’t know,” you say, unconvinced. “I see the way he tries to hide how exhausted he is whenever he sees me. He shouldn’t have to put in so much effort to mask himself in his home just because I’m here.”

Gin doesn’t respond for a moment, gaze flickering down to the floor, but when she speaks, her voice is soft.

“He’s always so lonely,” she says, more to herself than anything else, but then she raises her eyes to meet yours, “no matter how many people are around him, he’s always so cut off from everyone, refusing to let anyone get close… except when he’s with you. In all of the years that I’ve known him, I’ve only ever seen him happy when he’s with you.”

You stare at Gin, lips parted to respond but no words leave them. 

Instead, Gin continues, “He… had to step up at a very young age. He was sixteen when he found me in Suribachi and even back then he was just so… empty. I’ve never seen him actually acting his age except when he’s with you, or talking about you. So-”

Gin is interrupted abruptly by her phone ringing. She looks down and gives you an apologetic look before answering the call and wandering off to the other room, leaving you to your thoughts. Your throat still feels swollen, but with a far more pleasant emotion now. A small smile tugs at the edges of your lips, hand pressed to your chest as if you can physically slow the erratic pace of your heart. Your face feels warm and a giggle slips from your lips as you flop back down to the yoga mat, staring up at the ceiling.

Or, well, it’s not entirely pleasant. A heavier feeling settles on your chest as Gin’s words about what Dazai used to be like—still is like, whenever you’re not around—process through your head. It’s not like you didn’t have any sort of inkling about it, you’ve known that there’s more than meets the eye about Dazai Osamu since the first night you met him, and the past week you’ve spent with him only has made you more sure of it. His mind drifts off so often, eyes faraway and expression so vacant that sometimes it takes a few tries for you to get him to come back to you. 

You don’t mind, but it does make you sad to know that he’s been like this for as long as Gin has known him, and since the only time she’s ever seen him even partially happy is when he’s with you, you can’t help but wonder how many years he spent depressed and isolated. And you’re realizing, a bit scared, that you’re starting to care for Dazai a lot because the first thought that crosses your mind is that you wish you’d met him sooner so he didn’t have to spend all of this time alone. 

You sit up straight, alarmed by your own thoughts, because yes, you’re enamored by Dazai and you have been since you met him almost two months ago, but you didn’t think you were falling for him yet—not like that at least. It’s absurd, you still hardly know much about his personal life. You don’t know about his family besides for the fact he took over his father’s company, you don’t know anything about said company besides the scraps you found online but… but you remember the way he kisses you gently, and the way his expression always softens when his gaze falls on you, and the way whenever you speak, he’s always giving you his full attention no matter how inane the topic might be, willing to listen to you ramble on about all of the books you’ve read and gossip with you about your ex-coworkers and drama happening in your friend group and-

Oh.

Oh.

Yeah. You might be falling for him.

Your hand rises to your lips, mind racing and spiraling all at the same time and you realize that you really, really need fresh air. Promptly, you remember that you’d meant to ask Gin to order some groceries because Dazai’s kitchen is about as bare as his bedroom, and you’ve been craving some specific snacks anyway; you also wanted to have her order some actual food so you can make something to try to make Dazai eat more because you’ve noticed he doesn’t eat all too much and you don’t think that’s very healthy considering how much stress he’s under. You’re not the best at cooking, but you can make do and just pray that he likes it. 

A perfect excuse. You’ll run out and grab some groceries, maybe take a walk in the nearby park to clear your thoughts and come to terms with the realization you’d just come to, and then come back and do something nice for Dazai.

Decision made, you bound over to the door Gin disappeared into so you can let her know where you’re heading, but when you peek your head into Dazai’s office, you see Gin in deep conversation with someone over the phone, brows creased and frown on her lips as she stares down at some of the paperwork on Dazai’s desk. She looks distinctly frustrated and slightly distressed, so you decide not to bother her. Instead, you just close the door quietly and make your way over to the elevator, stepping inside when it finally reaches the top floor and pressing the button for the lobby.

You won’t be long anyway, you doubt she’ll even notice you’re gone.

The elevator dings as it reaches the first floor of the massive building and you adjust your purse over your shoulder as you step into the lobby—it’s massive and bustling with dozens of people. You haven’t been back down here since he brought you here a few days ago, and you’d been too exhausted to really be able to gather your bearings, plus it had been the middle of the night and not as many people had been around. 

You’re hardly able to peek around for half a minute before someone runs into you. 

You let out a quiet yelp, startled, blinking as your gaze focuses on the man who’d bumped into you. He’s a bit on the short side with fair skin and light freckles dotting his nose and cheeks, bi-colored eyes—one brown and the other blue—narrowed as he studies you. He’s pretty, you think. Not quite as pretty as Dazai, but definitely attractive. Or he would be, if he wasn’t staring at you with such an unpleasant expression. 

You half-think he’s about to demand that you apologize even though he’s the one who bumped into you, and you think if he does, you’re going to have serious problems with him, but instead, a vague recognition flashes through his eyes as he finally speaks. Although, you can’t help but notice he still is looking at you with distinct displeasure even after recognizing you.

“You’re the girl that’s been living up with the boss,” the man says, his voice is cool and guarded and you feel a bit uncomfortable under his stare. You’ve always been particularly good at reading people, and you can tell at first glance that he does not want you here. “Where are you going?”

You don’t know why it’s any of his business, but you say: “Out. I’ve been cooped up for almost a week. Plus, I don’t know how Dazai feeds himself, he has literally no food in his place.”

“Does he know you’re going out?” he asks, eyes narrowing onto you as he tilts his head to the side. 

You bristle, not liking his tone. “He’s not my keeper.”

“No, but he’s gone out of his way to give you a place to stay when he didn’t have to. The least you can do is let him know when you’re going in and out.” The man matches your sharp tone with his own and you wither a bit, because he’s right, even if he is being a bit of an ass about it.

“Gin-chan was busy,” you mutter. “I’ll text him.”

The man lets out a sigh of what can only be utter suffering, lifting his head to look up to the ceiling as if asking a higher deity ‘why me?’ You have no idea what’s going through his head, and you just want to slip out of the building and drink in some fresh air and sunlight, but the last thing you expect is for him to look back at you and ask:

“Want company?”

You blink, wondering if he’s fucking with you, but he only stares at you, expression flat as he waits for a response. 

“I-” You’re about to say no, you aren’t particularly looking for company, but then you realize that this might be a chance to try to gather some more information about Dazai. You quickly amend to a: “Yeah, sure… What’s your name anyway?”

“Nakahara Chuuya,” he tells you, voice a bit brusque. “Just call me Chuuya.”

Dazai comes home to an empty penthouse.

For a moment, he doesn’t react. The unconscious smile that had begun to curve to his lips while taking the elevator back up to the top floor of the headquarters falls instantly as his dark gaze sweeps across the room that you’re usually lounging in with Gin only to find it eerily silent, void of the laughter he’d become desperately used to the past few days. 

He doesn’t let the panic hit right away, not even bothering to slide his coat off before making his way over to his bedroom, wondering if you’d decided to take a nap. He very much does feel a distinct spike in his heart rate when you’re not in there either. He stands there for a moment—Gin is still up here, she would have called down if she had to leave, so where are you?

Where are you?

Dazai suddenly feels sick to his stomach, a bit dizzy on his feet.

 Did you leave? 

Why did you leave? 

Did you go into his office? Find something implicating his position in the Port Mafia? 

Or did you just get sick of staying in the same place so many days in the row? Why wouldn’t you tell him if that were the case? 

Maybe you were just sick of him. 

His vision spins a bit, he presses his hand against the frame of his bedroom door to steady himself. Stop it, he tells himself, inhaling deeply once to try to get his head back on straight. But he can’t, he can feel numbness spreading through his chest viciously at the thought of you leaving. The void returns with a vengeance, consuming him entirely, and it’s only the thought of the chance of you being in danger out there alone that pushes him forward. He needs Gin to tell him what the fuck is going on. 

What does he do if you left on your own voilition? 

Dazai’s head is not sitting on his shoulders properly. It can’t be. Everything looks wrong, everything feels wrong. His hand drops down to his side, resorting back to the technique he had to use before he met you—he steadily taps your name against his thigh as he forces himself to walk across the room to his office, to where Gin must be, to get some answers. But even your name isn’t enough to keep him grounded. 

He’s holding you in his arms. You’re so cold. There’s blood everywhere. They’re telling him to let you go. He can’t. He never can. 

He’s reaching out to you, desperately trying to grab your hand before you topple over the side of the roof. He never makes it. 

He has to make a choice. A life for a life. He always chooses to save you. It doesn’t matter—they always kill you anyway. 

Nausea builds in his throat, he forces it back down, and when he opens the door to his office it’s a bit too aggressive. Gin’s head snaps up from where she was working at Dazai’s desk, flipping through papers with creased brows as she tries to put together the list of suspects. She stands up instantly at the sight of him, lips parting to greet him. He doesn’t let her.

“Where is she?” 

The words come out cold and cutting, a far cry from the awful emotions wreaking havoc on his chest and mind. To his absolute distress, Gin only looks confused at his words, lowering the phone and bidding goodbye to who he can only assume is Kouyou as she asks: 

“... What do you mean?” 

Fuck. Dazai takes a step back out of his office, back into the living room of his penthouse. His head feels all hazy, his vision starts spinning more. Fuck. You had to have left on your own. There’s no way anyone is getting all the way up to the top floor through all of the guards, and if they did, they wouldn’t leave Gin alive. Fuck. 

Where did you go?

There’s blood. Too much blood. Or is it water? He’s dragging you out of the water. And then his fingers are meeting air, the tips of his fingers just barely scraping yours before you plummet down, down, down. 

Why the fuck did no one say anything to him?

He can hear Gin talking, but her words go in one ear out the other. Dazai pulls out his phone, double, triple, quadruple checking to make sure he got no messages. None from you (his chest hurts). None from either of the Black Lizard captains. None from Atsushi. None from Kyouka. None from Chuuya. All people who should have feasibly noticed you leaving the headquarters. 

Dazai has never done well with emotions, negative or positive, but he thinks fear is the worst of all and he’s been plagued with it since the moment he’s come in contact with the Book. Fear of the future, fear of making a mistake, fear of fate. 

Fear is the mind-killer. The quote rings through his head over and over again, damning and true. It’s the one emotion that paralyzes him, puts him into a state that makes him incapable of making decisions. Fear of one thing turns into fear of another—it’s a ceaseless cycle, and a ruinous one. Fear of you leaving him turns into fear of you being vulnerable and then to fear of you being targeted and then to fear of you being dead, and already he can feel numbness spreading from his chest to his limbs. He thinks he feels Gin touch his arm but he can’t even turn his head to look. 

So he does the only thing he knows how to do: he channels it into something else. He funnels the fear into something more familiar, something more welcome. 

First, it turns into frustration—another emotion capable of incapacitation, but one that’s far more manageable. He jerks away from Gin, grip tightening on his phone as he paces back across the room. His thoughts begin to race, a red fog clouding his mind as he wonders why the fuck no one told him that you left, and if no one knows that you left, then Dazai is going to have to have serious fucking words with all of the security details posted throughout the building because that sort of laxness is not acceptable.

He doesn’t even know who he should message. Atsushi? The boy might close in on himself and shut down for failure and Dazai cannot afford to deal with that. Chuuya? Not an option, Chuuya would be the last person to go to about you seeing how often he actively expresses his distaste for your presence in the building, Dazai doesn’t want to give him more ammunition about you. Hirotsu? Might be the best option, the Black Lizards are quick and efficient, they’ll be able to track you down fast, but if he sends the Black Lizards he needs to figure out what he’s going to do.

What is he going to do?

God, he doesn’t know. The red starts to tint blue as a helpless feeling sweeps over him. He doesn’t know what to do. You left on your own, he doesn’t know why and he doesn’t know if you have any intentions on coming back. He doesn’t know what to do if you don’t plan on coming back. His whole reasoning behind the decision to indulge in you was centered on the fact that he could protect you in this lifetime, and he knew he wouldn’t be able to keep you in the ivory tower forever but he hoped he’d at least have a little longer to try to figure out a plan.

And the fact that you didn’t even tell him that you were leaving doesn’t bode well—again, the fleeting, anxiety-inducing thought of you stumbling upon something that you shouldn’t have crosses through his head but he pushes it away. Maybe you left because you were bored, because he wasn’t around and Gin was busy, he can try to fix that. He can fix that. Maybe he’ll even convince you to come back.

But if he can’t…

He has two options: 

He can put protection details on you, it would be an extension of Port Mafia resources that will face a lot of push back from his executives considering they’re approaching a gang war with the now united forces of Dostoevsky, Nabokov and Tolstoy, but he doesn’t give a fuck about what his executives think, you and Odasaku are the only things that matter in this universe so he’ll do whatever it takes to make sure you’re safe. But regardless of what his executives think, the main issue with this option is that your safety is not guaranteed. It’ll only take one slip up for your life to be forfeit and for everything that Dazai has built and sacrificed to be flushed down the drain. 

That leaves option two. Forcing you to stay in the tower. Locking you up until he can ensure that there are no more threats to you (there may always be threats to you). You’d hate him, surely, and is he capable of living in a universe where you hate him? He has to be, if it means your safety. But that isn’t the life that he wants for you. He wants you to live, achieve all of the dreams you were never able to in all of the other universes, you can’t do that if you’re locked up.

Dazai feels sick. Regret starts to churn his stomach. He never should have approached you. He never should have indulged. He never should have convinced himself that he could keep you safe because he can’t. It’s fate. Fate. Fate.

The word twists the cloud fogging his vision, the ugly color that formed of the mixed blues and reds turns darker, until an inky black is creeping into his vision. Fate, he hates the word, he hates the inevitability, he hates himself for dancing right along with the strings that have been placed on him by the cruel gods above, even when he knew what would happen if he did. The weight of the gun hidden in his jacket starts to weigh all the more heavily, his fingers twitch toward it, desperate to feel the familiar weight of it in his hand. And then-

And then the elevator dings. 

Dazai’s gaze cuts to the side, sharp and cold, and it’s only when the elevator doors slide open and your pretty laugh rings through the air that Dazai’s world is finally set straight again. The color returns, the numbness disappears, the void is pushed away for another day. His eyes land on you, and the bright smile painted on your lips as you bound back into his penthouse.

“You’re back early!” you say, delighted, and Dazai can only hope and pray that you can’t tell how badly he’s spiraled because you weren’t around. He thinks you can, of course you can, because your smile falters a bit but then it brightens again as you make your way over to him and-

Oh.

All of the tension in his body melts away as you make your way over to him with a skip in your step and lean up on your tiptoes to wrap your arms around his shoulders. Dazai lets out a breath, too sharp and too shaky for you to not notice with how close you are to his face, but he can hardly bring himself to care as he brings trembling hands to wrap around your waist. He basks in the feeling of your warmth and if any of the numbness had threatened to linger, it’s certainly gone now as he calms himself down by setting his heart in pace with yours as he feels it thump steadily against his chest.

“Where did you go?” His voice is hoarse, as much as he tries to make the question seem light.

“You have no food, Dazai,” you complain, and you don’t seem to care that he’s definitely hugging you for a bit too long, propping your chin on his chest to look up at him. “Plus, as fancy as your penthouse is, I can’t sit around in the same place for days. I wanted to go out on a walk. So I ran to the store to pick up some groceries. I thought I’d make it back before you, I wanted to try to make something for dinner. I saw a pasta recipe while I was scrolling through Instagram that I want to try out, although I should probably test it out on my own before feeding you any. It usually takes me a few tries to get a recipe down and the first few attempts are more akin to toxic waste than actual food…”

You ramble, probably because you can tell how out of it he is and it’s scary how easily you can see through him because he thinks it’s only a matter of time before you see through to what he really is. But for now, he lets his eyes slide shut as he loses himself in your voice, and he feels silly for thinking that you would leave without saying anything.

He knows you better than anyone else in the world. Anyone else in any world. Maybe even better than you yourself. He should have known better. You would never do that, no matter what you learn about him, no matter what he does. It’s not who you are—you’re always so stringent on communication, you can’t sleep until an argument is settled properly. It’s something he’s hated in other universes, because he’s flighty and can’t handle confrontation, but he thinks it’s something that he should rely on in this one, because he knows that no matter what you might learn, you’ll always sit down to give him the chance of a proper conversation rather than just ghosting him. 

He spiraled for nothing.

He’s not drawn back to the present until he hears:

“... and Chuuya is so cool, by the way. Why didn’t you introduce me to him sooner? He has an ability, I’ve never met an ability user before. I made him carry all of the groceries, and he did it like it was nothing. Gravity manipulation? Did you know in undergrad, I wanted to major in physics—I tried to actually, but had to drop 101 because apparently my brain is not cut out for the sciences. Or mathematics. It was kind of embarrassing actually, who has to drop out of a 101 class?” 

In your spiel, only one word—one name—matters. His eyes reopen, he makes sure to keep his body lax in your arms as you lean against him so you can’t feel his sudden shift in mood. His gaze is cold and cutting again, lifting from you to behind you, where he finally lays his eyes upon the person with you.

Chuuya stands there, dozens of grocery bags hanging off his arms, a faint red glow around each of them signaling that he’s using his ability. Dazai’s expression is lethal as he stares at his executive, but Chuuya’s lip only curls up in a half-snarl, as if daring Dazai to say anything, before he makes his way out of the elevator to bring the grocery bags into his kitchen. 

And Dazai can’t say anything, not this time, because he’s already figured out what happened: you must have tried to leave on your own when Gin was busy because you were bored, and Chuuya ran into you and tagged along so you wouldn’t be defenseless should someone target you to get to him, in spite of how he feels about you and your presence in the building. 

Dazai bites his tongue, for once, and instead focuses back down at you. His expression softens when he catches you looking up at him, curious, and he tucks a strand of hair behind your ear.

“You should have texted me,” he murmurs. “I would’ve told you I had a quick day today, we could’ve gone together.”

Your expression twists a bit in irritation. His eyebrows shoot up in surprise.

“I did text you,” you say, indignant, and Dazai’s brows furrow and you immediately draw back to pull out your phone. He misses your warmth instantly, but forces away the longing. Your lips part a bit as you look down at the screen, a sheepish expression on your face as you say: “... I thought I texted you, evidently, it did not go through.”

Dazai lets out a puff of air, half-amusement, half-disbelief, because of course it was a matter of miscommunication, and he thinks again that he should have known better. Logically, what he assumed was so unlikely that it shouldn’t have even crossed his mind, but evidently, you turning him into an illogical and emotional fool is something universal across all of the different worlds.

But he still remembers the one fleeting thought he had earlier—that you were bored, and probably lonely sitting up here all day, especially when Gin is busy dealing with Port Mafia matters. This is bound to happen again, and next time, he might not be lucky enough to have someone catch you slipping out of the building. 

So, he’ll have to do something about it himself, make sure you’re not bored enough to leave the building and unwittingly place yourself in danger, he decides, pleased. 

“Would you…” Dazai hesitates as he looks down at you, uncharacteristically nervous. You tilt your head to the side curiously. “Would you want to go on a date with me tomorrow?” 

A smile splits across your face. 

“Is that even a question?” 

Dazai’s woken up by someone shaking his shoulder. 

Realistically, he knows that no enemy is able to make it to the top level of the Port Mafia’s most well-protected tower—it’s impenetrable, if the masses of armed guards on the lower floors aren’t enough to keep out intruders, then the Black Lizards on the middle floors would be more than enough, and if even they aren’t, Atsushi and Chuuya are stationed on the higher floors, ready to jump into action at a moment’s notice. Still, he’s startled, unsure of who would be in his office waking him up at this time and caught off guard because he hadn’t even meant to fall asleep, so instinctively, he’s reaching for the gun hidden at his side, eyes a bit wild as he jolts up, trying to figure out what’s going on.

“Sorry.” He only settles down when he hears your voice coming from his side, apologetic and little over a whisper as to not alarm him anymore than he already is. Instantly, his fingers loosen around the grip of his gun, a lump in his throat when he realizes that he almost pulled a gun on you. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

Dazai shakes his head as soon as your words process, still trying to gather his bearings. He’s in his office, he must’ve fell asleep while looking over paperwork at his desk—plans for the upcoming event hosted by Nabokov, and a list of all of the possible informants that could be leaking information to Dostoevsky’s rats because one too many of the Port Mafia’s warehouse’s have been raided by the military police in the past few weeks for Dazai to be comfortable with, and he knows Dostoevsky is behind it because the man has been leaving little clues like it’s some sort of game to him. Dazai thinks that they should just kill all of the suspects and be done with it—if someone is even being suspected of having betrayed the Port Mafia, then they’re doing something severely wrong, but Kouyou advised him to go about this the right way. 

Subtly, so as to not draw your attention, he shifts to cover the papers and then gives you his full attention, curious as to what you’re doing up so early because the sun hasn’t even risen yet. He’s been trying to make sure that he wakes up before you so that you don’t come looking for him in here, knowing where this is the most likely place where you’d stumble upon something that incriminates him as a mafioso rather than a businessman. 

“You didn’t,” he lies through his teeth, voice a bit hoarse from sleep. “Is something wrong?”

You’re still dressed in your pajamas, but you have a fluffy rube wrapped around you and a soft smile on your face that makes Dazai’s chest swell. Your eyes are bright, gleaming with a type of excitement that has him tilting his head in curiosity, waiting to see what you have to say.

“Do you have access to the roof of the building?” you ask him, voice still hushed but tinged with more enthusiasm. When he nods, a smile splits across your face. “Can we go up there?”

Dazai doesn’t have the willpower to deny you anything, so there’s no hesitation as he says: “Of course.” But then as he rises to his feet, pulling on his long, black coat that he’d shrugged off at some point last night, he looks at you and asks, “Why?”

“I like watching sunrises,” you say, bounding over to the elevator and waiting for him to follow. He does, of course. He would follow you anywhere. Everywhere. He dreads the day you go somewhere he can’t follow. It’s inevitable—he doesn’t believe in the existence of heaven, but if there is one, you would go there, and he won’t. There’s too much blood on his hands, staining his skin no matter how much he scrubs it raw, and the blood that runs within him is black and corrupted, beyond any type of remedy. “I want to see one from the highest point in the city.”

Oh. Dazai’s heart leaps to his throat when he realizes what’s about to happen, pulling his access key from his pocket and swiping it against the pad to allow access to the roof. Some things differ across all of the universes: the way you meet him (although you’re always the one to find him), the way you die (he always finds you though), sometimes it takes a while for the two of you to progress past the friends stage, but it’s usually not too long. 

Everything varies except for one thing: the sunrises. In every universe, you have an obsession with them: you like watching them, seeing as many new ones as you possibly can. You explained to him once that it was because it helps you move forward, gives you hope, a reason to wake up each morning. The infatuation with them began after your brother’s death in the other universes when you couldn’t find any reason to keep going on your own so you sought one out in the sunrises—although this is something you only opened up to him about in one universe, in all of the others, you’ve hidden your past struggles with depression from him. He’s not sure why, maybe just because you don’t want to burden him with them. 

It would be just like you, trying to share the weight of all of his burdens but shouldering yours on your own.

He wonders if you’ll tell him in this one. He wonders what made that universe’s Dazai so special. He feels viciously jealous and for a moment, irrationally hates his other self, only finding solace in the fact that all of the other Dazais would probably feel just as scorned over the fact that only one of them got special treatment. 

He thinks you can sense the deterioration of his thoughts, because you reach out and lace your fingers with his as you lean against the back of the elevator, waiting to get to the top floor. His grip on your hand is a bit too tight, he thinks, but it keeps him grounded. You’re here. You’re with him. All of the other universes don’t matter. Only this one does. 

His lips part to speak, to fill the silence, but no words leave them. He thinks he’s spoken more these past two months with you than he has in his entire life. He never has any desire to speak unless he’s with you, and then he’ll find any reason to speak if it means he can hear your voice. 

“You don’t have to sleep in your office, you know?” you say abruptly, voice quiet. You’re not looking at him, he wonders if you’re embarrassed at whatever you’re about to say because you hesitate as you add, “I know I’ve pretty much commandeered your room but… I wouldn’t mind sharing a bed with you. This is your place, you should be comfortable too.”

Dazai thinks his face might be on fire, all of the air whooshing from his lungs at your words because of course, it’s something he’s thought of, dreamed of, but he never imagined you would just offer it up like that. He’s quiet for too long, evidently, because you seem to be more embarrassed. Just as he’s about to force something out, the elevator doors slide open and you’re rushing forward, yanking him along, as if to pretend you never said anything and Dazai can’t help the small smile that curves onto his lips.

“That would be nice,” he tells you quietly, he doesn’t know if you hear but he thinks you do because your grip on his hand tightens. 

The air is bitterly cold as high up as the two of you are, and the wind is wicked. He thinks that you’re definitely not dressed warm enough, a robe isn't nearly enough to shield from this type of cold, but you look unbothered, an exhilarated smile painted on your face as you drag him dangerously close to the edge of the roof, and Dazai can’t help the way his anxiety spikes—not for his sake, but for yours. His grip on your hand tightens a bit but you only plop down at the edge of the roof, tugging his arm gently as a way of beckoning him to sit with you.

He does. Of course, he does. 

His legs dangle off the side of the roof, thigh pressed against yours, and you keep your fingers laced with his, holding his hand on your lap. You stare ahead, eyes bright and excited as you wait for the sunrise. He stares at you, captivated. A part of him is still convinced this is all some twisted dream that his mind conjured to torture him—that he’s going to wake up slumped over on his desk to an empty apartment with only the faint memory of you to console himself with. 

Desperately, he wonders if there were any other universes like this, if this is just another spiral into the pages of the Book, just one more intense and more vivid than all of the rest. He knows there were universes where he stayed with the Port Mafia, universes where he became its boss—but he was older in those, in his mid or late twenties. No, this is his universe, it has to be, right? Right?

He doesn’t realize that his grip on your hand has tightened until you look over at him, and instantly, he loosens it, but you only tighten yours in response. Your eyes meet his and suddenly Dazai is breathless, unsure of what to say or do. You always look at him as if you’re looking into him, not at him, not like everyone else. It’s unnerving. He hates it. He loves it.

“Are you okay?” you ask him, knocking your shoulder into his. 

The smile on his face doesn’t necessarily meet his eyes, but the words he speaks are probably the most genuine that he’s ever uttered in his entire life. “When I’m with you? Always.”

Your expression softens, although he can’t help but notice that you don’t seem entirely placated by his response. He’s grateful that you don’t push though, because he doesn’t want to lie to you. You lean over though, resting your head on his bicep, and his breath hitches when you bring your free hand to your lap too, cradling his hand in both of yours. He forces himself to look ahead again, not wanting you to see the way his visible eye has suddenly become misty. 

You trace absent patterns on his skin as you wait for the sun to break over the horizon and Dazai is lost to his thoughts once more, heart suddenly clogging his throat as he realizes that yes, this is his universe and yes, you are here. With him. He doesn’t have to cling to the vague memories of your warm touch and sweet words, not when you’re sitting next to him and giving him them now. Why is he trying to drift off into the pages when he has you here? In a universe where Dazai was certain he’d never experience the tenderness your presence brought him, he should be savoring this. 

“Gin told me the other day that you guys are having trouble with a rival company,” you say quietly, and that draws him back to the present, brows furrowing as he wonders just how much Gin told you, mind racing as he tries to figure out where exactly this conversation is going. “That you guys are trying to prepare for an event they’re hosting in a week. I don’t want you to… worry about me or anything while you’re busy getting ready for all of that… Maybe that’s a bit presumptuous of me to assume but I just… I don’t know. I know you’ve been stressed about it, I don’t want to put more on you.”

Dazai lets out a quiet puff of air. “You see right through me, don’t you?” he murmurs, voice gentle and fond as his gaze drifts over you. “You don’t have to worry about that. You don’t put any stress on me.”

You look a bit flustered at his words, glancing down at your lap, at where his fingers are still laced with yours. You squeeze them tighter for a second and then look back out at the horizon. “... I’m glad,” you tell him softly. “I’ll keep out of your way the weekend of, though. I already talked to one of my friends, she’s going to let me stay with her for the weekend. Well. Assuming my apartment isn’t fixed by then. I still can’t believe it’s taking so long.”

The fondness is gone. Dazai’s world crashes and burns.

It’s only sheer willpower that prevents his sudden burst of anxiety from showing on his face. He turns his gaze out to the horizon now, staring ahead as he tries to figure out how to tell you no without sounding psychotic. 

His tongue presses to the roof of his mouth, the nails of his free hand scrape painfully against the rooftop as he desperately tries to fumble together a plan. You cannot leave the tower the night of the event. There’s already a high chance that Dostoevsky knows about you—Dazai knows there’s a spy in the Port Mafia and he doesn’t know if they’ve spotted you around the base. You’ve been leaving the headquarters more frequently during the day since that day with Chuuya; Dazai is never able to join you but he makes sure that Tachihara, Chuuya or Atsushi are with you on the chance that you’re targeted. 

If he’s being realistic, there’s no shot that Dostoevsky doesn’t know of you already, and if you’re out and about while the entire Port Mafia is readying for this event… No one would be left for him to station a protection detail on you, and it would be just like Dostoevsky to capitalize on that as he has in so many other universes, having you killed when no one is around to protect you.

God, is this it?

The words ring through his head. Cold. Damning. His bones feel as if they’d been thrown into a blast chiller and stuck back inside of his body. His stomach churns. Is this it? Is this how it’s going to happen?

He can’t let it happen. How does he prevent it?

How does he prevent it?

He thinks there’s only one way, but it leaves a sour taste in his mouth because it’s nearly as risky as letting you go off on your own, the only difference being that he would at least have some semblance of control over the situation. 

“Oh,” he finally forces out, the words sound distant and hoarse even to his own ears.

You look at him. Fatal. You can always read right through him, he has to make his decision quick.

“You sound… disappointed,” you say hesitantly.

He makes his decision, and he prays to any god that will listen that it doesn’t backfire.

“I was… going to ask you to be my date to the event, actually,” he says, careful to not look at you and give you even more of a window into his mind. He feels the way you straighten at his words. Hooked. He continues with, “... but if you already made plans with your friend…”

“Really?” you breathe out, your grip on his hand is tight, he can feel the way your fingers are trembling around his.

“Really,” he tells you softly, finally daring to look at you.

Your eyes are shining, the expression on your face so open and unguarded that Dazai almost feels bad for lying, but you don’t have to know the truth, that the only reason he’s inviting you with him is because he can’t have you going out and about alone. Not now. Not until Dostoevsky is dead.

But once Dostoevsky is dead, then what about all of the other threats? Agatha Christie? All of the enemies he’s made in this lifetime? When does it end?

He can’t think about that right now. He has to tackle the issue at hand first. 

You turn your head to look back out at the horizon, a smile edging at the corners of your lips. “I would love to be your date,” you say so quietly that Dazai almost doesn’t hear you. 

But he does, and he can’t hold back a relieved breath this time as he squeezes your hand.

A comfortable silence washes over the two of you as you wait for the sunrise, and Dazai doesn’t think he’s ever felt more at home. He’s still tired, undoubtedly; he hadn’t meant to fall asleep last night because he knew damn well that he’d only be more tired when he woke up, it would’ve been easier to just stay up the whole night. But now, he’s so at ease with you that he could almost fall back asleep—and that’s a feat in itself because Dazai hardly sleeps, and never feels comfortable enough to do so, he only ever sleeps when he's too exhausted to keep going. You’re so warm, so home, how could his eyes not start drooping shut?

“You know why they’re so great?” you suddenly ask, drawing him out of the drowsy state he was threatening to fall into. You’re still looking ahead, but he’s looking back down at you now.

 It’s close—the sun is about to rise, and he doesn’t care to see it himself, he cares to see you. He wants to see how the orange hues reflect in your eyes, the way your skin glows beneath the golden rays; he thinks it’s a holy experience, Dazai has felt the whirlwind of emotions that all of the other Dazais go through the first time they see you beneath the rising sun and he never thought he’d be able to feel it for himself.

“Because no two are ever the same?” His voice is soft and hesitant, and he’s not thinking as he speaks. He doesn’t even register what he said until you’re pulling your head off of his shoulder to look at him again, eyes wide, delighted.

“Yeah!” You toss him such a stunning smile that it almost physically dazes him. “You get it.”

He doesn’t have the heart to admit that he’s a fraud, closing in on himself a bit, but you don’t notice, head turning straight again. 

“They give me something to look forward to,” you say, a bit quieter again. Your gaze is distant as you look out into the sky, as if you’re seeing something that’s not actually there. “I want to see as many of them as I can.”

Dazai once tried to find the same comfort in sunrises that you did. It was when he first came up with his plan and he realized that he’d never get the chance to be with you, and he’d never get the chance to call Odasaku a friend. He came up here, actually, and watched the sunrise in this very spot. It was bitter and cold. It made him sick to his stomach. It made him feel emptier than he already was. And he realized that there was no beauty or appeal to them unless you were at his side. 

“We should…” 

You trail off as you turn to look at him again suddenly and Dazai’s lips part to warn you that you’re going to miss the best part—your favorite part, as you’ve told him (not him) over and over again. But the words die on his tongue as the sun breaks over the horizon and wow, he understands it. 

He understands it. God, he understands it. Everything he’s felt through the other Dazais pale in comparison to the sight before him and how it entirely devastates the thin thread of control he has on his emotions whenever he’s with you. Enamored. Captivated. His chest feels tight and his throat feels swollen and Dazai is in love. He is so completely and irrevocably in love that he doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to recover. 

Suddenly, he understands why so many of the other Dazais have come to terms with their feelings for you at this moment. 

The sunrise washes over you and Dazai thinks you’re utterly angelic. Your eyes reflect the myriad of colors sweeping over the horizon, your skin glows beneath the red and gold hues. You’re beautiful, unreally so. Too divine for someone like him to lay his tainted fingers upon. He’s suddenly hyper aware of how his shoulder is brushing yours and how your fingers are laced with his. He thinks he should pull away, spare you from his putrid touch, but he couldn’t even if he wanted to, and he doesn’t want to, because he’s so wholly selfish that he would rather condemn you to ruin than part from you. 

“We should watch them together,” you finally say, and your eyes don’t leave his and you’re missing the sunrise but you don’t seem to mind, searching his face desperately for an answer. 

It takes an embarrassingly long time for your words to process, but when they do, Dazai thinks there’s no way he’s going to be able to hide the sudden urge he feels to cry. 

“Yeah,” he says. His voice cracks, he can’t even bring himself to care. “Yeah, we should.”

Nakahara Chuuya is livid when he gets a notification to his phone about the roof suddenly being accessed, knowing damn well only one other person can get up there. The vibrations from his phone wake him up, and then the subsequent spike of panic that shoots through him when he realizes what the notification is and what the implications of it are is more than enough to have him throwing himself out of bed and sprinting up the stairs, realizing that the elevator will take far too long.

It takes him a total of two minutes to get up to the roof from the thirty-second floor, and by the time he gets there, he’s so full of rage that Chuuya feels like he might explode. The last time Dazai went up to the roof, he was six bottles deep and Chuuya was hardly able to grab him before he toppled over the edge, and Chuuya is not in the mood to deal with that this early in the morning.

Chuuya hadn’t thought this would be an issue now, not with you here because although Chuuya still doesn’t know quite who you are or how you’ve managed to get Dazai Osamu under your thumb, he knows that Dazai is not the Dazai that Chuuya knows whenever you’re around. And Chuuya doesn’t get it, you’re nice enough, pleasant to talk to and pleasant to look at, but he doesn’t think that there’s anything special about you. Not special enough to have Dazai so entirely enamored by you that he’s starting to put the Port Mafia second, at least.

Apparently not enamored enough to stop from getting shit-faced and suicidal, though.

Chuuya’s jaw tightens as he pushes open the door to the roof and-

And he freezes. 

The fury slowly starts to dissipate as he catches sight of where you’re sitting at the edge of the roof with Dazai as the sun finally starts to rise. He thinks he should leave, go back down and get a few more hours of sleep before he has to meet Kouyou and Hirotsu at ten to go over the protection details for the event Nabokov is hosting, but he can’t help the way he hesitates, watching how absolutely infatuated Dazai looks as the sun rays sweep over you. Less like the cold and cruel boss of the Port Mafia that Chuuya’s become used to over the past few years, and more like the kid he met at fifteen, the one who disappeared and turned into a shell of himself after a few months of Chuuya knowing him. 

Chuuya never understood why. The only time he ever got close was that night on the roof when he started breaking down after Chuuya stopped him from jumping, but even then Dazai refused to explain anything to him. It pissed him off, honestly, because they were supposed to be partners. Chuuya was supposed to have the asshole’s back, no matter how infuriating he may be, but something changed a few months before Dazai’s sixteenth birthday and whatever it was, it entirely killed off anything left of the Dazai that Chuuya knew. No matter how much he demanded to know what happened, Dazai blew him off—dismissive at first, then cruelly, until Chuuya finally had enough and let it be. 

If he wanted to go off and be a husk of himself, then so be it, far be it from Chuuya to stop him.

But now… 

Chuuya lets out a quiet huff, shaking his head, drawing his eyes from where Dazai is looking at you as if you’re the only thing in the world that matters, stars in his eyes and a soft smile on his lips, to look up at the sky. He supposes it doesn’t quite matter if he doesn’t understand what’s so special about you to make Dazai act like this, just the fact that you do is enough—and if it turns out this is all some scheme by one of the Port Mafia’s enemies to get close to Dazai, Chuuya will do what he has to do. He always does. 

He thinks he should still grab Dazai—if Chuuya remembers correctly, he has a meeting with Ace in twenty minutes, but he takes one last look at where you’re sitting with him and lets out another heavy sigh, shaking his head and deciding that he’ll just handle the meeting. He’s been meaning to have a word with the man about his business in eastern Russia anyway.

He closes the door quietly, heading back inside, all of the lingering resentment and anger washed away; he lets Dazai indulge, if only because he knows nothing good ever lasts in this line of work. It’s only a matter of time before his luck runs out.

Self-Aware! BSD. Bonus Memes IX

Warning: Last meme is a little bit, somewhat spoiler-y about Chapter 113. We still have no confirmation, if it's true or false.

When BSD Cast still were in their world.

[Y/N]'s, Chuuya's and Nikolai's dynamic in a nutshell.

Another SAGAU Crossover Meme

I wanted to make this joke ever since Chapter 113 was released.

Been bored so here's some bsd characters as textposts