when life begins at a grave
Rating: G
Relationship(s): Past Odazai, DazAtsu
Tags: First Dates, Fluff and Angst
Summary:
A first date, but not a first love. Dazai says goodbye, and then hello.
Sometimes, it’s better to let go.
for @dazaimultishipweek2019 day 2!
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Dazai closes his eyes, breathing in the scent of sea brine and leans back against the coolness of a familiar gravestone. If he closes his eyes, he can almost imagine that someone else is there, sitting next to him in comfortable silence.
“Did you know this would happen?” he asks, quietly.
Did you know what I would find, over here, on the other side?
There’s no response.
His smile turns wry.
“You must’ve.”
In the end, even I couldn’t have won against you, he thinks to himself.
After all these years, even with all of his cunning, even in this tired and hackneyed world that feels like spinning in circles around and around and around again...people still find ways to surprise him. There is still yet wisdom that is out of his reach. Things that even he, with all of his wretched intellect, has yet to learn.
The joys of being alive, eh?
It is quiet here, except for the distant sound of waves breaking and seagulls.
“This is what you would’ve wanted, right?”
A familiar ache settles in his chest, a wound he continuously scratches open, a pain that he clings to if only to never forget.
He thinks fondly of rough stubble beneath his fingers, straw-like hair the color of burnt sienna, and large, calloused hands on his own. A breeze brushes by and shifts the shadows of the tree above him; a patch of sunlight settles on his shoulder. The warmth is like that of an old friend’s hand.
Go, it whispers. Go to him.
How selfless. How cruel. How cruelly selfless a thing it is, love.
He doesn’t deserve it.
He stands, one hand trailing along the edges of the gravestone.
That painful ache echoes inside the locked chambers of his chest, and he lingers, for just a second longer than he knows he should.
But it’s time.
Reluctantly, he turns to leave, and that same breeze pushes him along, at his back.
.
The warm light of the setting sun catches on Atsushi’s silvery hair. He’s smiling—gently, fondly. Not for the first time, nor for the last, Dazai thinks he has done nothing to earn such a thing, so freely given.
“Atsushi-kun,” he greets, and is surprised at the affection in his own voice.
“Dazai-san,” Atsushi greets back, and his glow intensifies, ever-bright.
When Dazai returns his smile, Atsushi looks away, flustered. Dazai wonders what he must’ve seen on his own face, to have gained such a lovely reaction. Boldly, he leans forward, and tucks a wayward piece of hair behind the shell of Atsushi’s ear, lingering for just a moment to feel the way it burns as he blushes beneath his touch.
Precious. Unbelievable.
Atsushi is like the morning dew collecting on the petals of a lily, but with all the strength of the tiger hidden within. His will to live burns like a star, whose light outlives even its own death.
So different from the quiet strength and contemplation he once found comfort in. Worlds apart from the bewildered indulgence that once humored him. And yet—they’re so similar in their silent, unwavering drive towards an ambition so mundane it hurts.
How strange it is, this remarkable living while striving for the ordinary.
But you aren’t him, a part of Dazai admits.
“D-Dazai-san,” Atsushi repeats, “why have you called me here?”
Dazai blinks.
“Well, isn’t it obvious?”
Atsushi tilts his head and furrows his eyebrows in confusion.
“I’ve called you here for our first date!”
“Ah, I see—wait, what?”
Atsushi splutters, hands coming up in some half-aborted motion as he looks around him wildly in panic.
“W-what? ” He repeats.
His delayed reaction is so colorful , so full of life, so uniquely Atsushi that Dazai can’t help but smile and let out a laugh.
You are so different, Dazai thinks. Even as laughter bubbles up his throat, his chest continues to ache. You are so different from him.
He hums, locking his fingers together and resting his chin upon them.
“It’s just as I said. You better mark the date down, Atsushi-kun. We’re on our first date.”
“Since when? You? Me? Wha—How did you—?”
Dazai doesn’t bother to hide his glee, kicking his feet beneath the table like a little kid.
“You’re so cute, Atsushi-kun.”
“Dazai-san!” He sounds scandalized, and at this point he’s so red he looks as though he’s a second away from passing out. “Please don’t play tricks on me…”
That vulnerability that Atsushi always carries with him, a beating heart sewn on his sleeve, makes itself known.
No one else Dazai has had the privilege of knowing has ever been quite as vulnerable, nor quite as resilient, as Atsushi is in moments like these.
Dazai makes sure his voice is soft and sincere. Gentle, in a way he didn’t know he had in him to be.
“This isn’t a trick, Atsushi-kun. What kind of senpai would I be, leading my cute little kouhai on like that?”
The way Atsushi's mouth parts in a soft ‘o’, the way his eyes glimmer with hope, the blush riding high on his cheeks—the way he immediately accepts his words, with an infinite well of trust—Dazai makes sure he memorizes it, brands it into his mind. He wants to preserve this moment forever, tuck it into his wallet. He wants to talk about it after they’ve gone on their twentieth, thirtieth date, reminding Atsushi of how flustered he’d been, how adorable. He wants to be able to bemoan the fact that Atsushi won’t remain this shy and sweet once the novelty of their relationship wears off. He wants their familiarity to grow, to bloom.
.
He wants to tell his best friend about it. They’d get on like wood and fire, he and Atsushi. They’d get on like whiskey and late nights. Like children and storybooks.
He stretches his arm across the table, palm up. Atsushi looks down at it, then back up at him, and then carefully slides his fingers across his, trying and failing to hold back a small smile.
He suspects that, given a little time, Atsushi will be the one leading their relationship, that once he gains confidence he’ll be the one demanding things and keeping him in line. Pushing him forward.
He finds that a part of him can’t wait.
(And yet, another part of him still holds back, wishes to stay in the past. Unwilling to let go.)
Atsushi startles like a frightened mouse as Dazai gets up and sidles into his side of the booth.
“W-What? What is it?” He shrinks away.
“Nothing,” Dazai says, pleasantly. “I just decided I wanted to sit next to you.”
He allows himself a moment to enjoy this, gently teasing Atsushi and watching the way he squawks with indignation at his theatrics.
“Ah! But Atsushi-kun!” Dazai fake-swoons, watching for Atsushi’s reaction out of the corner of his eye, “Could it be? That you feel a deep, burning passion for me, your beloved senpai? What would Kunikida-kun say?!”
Atsushi’s face, much to Dazai’s amusement, immediately morphs into an expression of exasperation. He also relaxes, the jitters flying away as they slip back into their usual banter.
“Excuse me?”
“It must have been so difficult for you! To have been so charmed by my dashing self, to pine day in and day out, to hope so dearly that your feelings would be returned…” He languishes dramatically upon cheap vinyl upholstery.
“Dazai-san...” Atsushi pinches his nose, “please shut up. The other patrons are looking.”
“Ah, but fear not!” Dazai yells, purposely raising his voice. “I am here to confess! Your hopes have been fulfilled, A-tsu-shi-kun! Your burning passion is all but matched by the flame that smolders within my very own breast!”
“You can take your confession elsewhere, Dazai-san, I don’t want it anymore.”
“Oh? ‘Anymore’, you say? Meaning you did want it at some point!”
Atsushi groans.
“Please don’t remind me of my past mistakes, Dazai-san.”
As the night goes on, he watches for the way Atsushi hesitates before carefully leaning his head upon Dazai’s shoulder, feels the way Atsushi’s hair tickles his neck when he leans closer to listen when Dazai lowers his voice to just above a whisper.
By the end of the day, Atsushi has relaxed, belly full of food and laughter.
I did that, Dazai marvels, when he catches sight of Atsushi’s delighted smile.
“Dazai-san…” Atsushi starts.
“Hmm?”
“Does this mean we’re…that we’re…”
“Boyfriends? Dating?”
Atsushi nods, suddenly looking very small.
“I’d like that, yes. If you would, too.” Dazai says.
He keeps his tone light, nonchalant. Hides his own uncertainty behind that same mask he’s always used—the one that might as well have been made of glass for all it hid from his first and only friend, if only because that friend had had a mask of his own.
Atsushi has no such mask. He doesn’t suspect a thing. He just...accepts the words, as they are.
It’s gotten late now. The moon rises above the metropolis, her glow muted by the city’s light pollution.
“Have you…done this before?”
Atsushi’s expression is open, easy to read. Uncertain, indecisive, afraid. Hopeful. Kind. Trusting.
And his question shatters through every layer of carefully constructed composure that Dazai had. He swallows, and struggles.
This power, this naked honesty, this bare earnestness with which Atsushi wields his unassuming curiosity, is a force that Dazai cannot reckon with. It’s something that none of his experiences could have prepared him for.
It’d do you some good to get used to honesty, the ghost says.
You’re right, Dazai thinks.
But acknowledging it doesn’t make it any easier.
“…There was someone else, once,” Dazai says, stuffing his hands in his pockets. “But, no. Between the Port Mafia and the agency, no. I’ve never been in a serious relationship before, though I’ve been on a few dates in the name of gathering intel or for a mission. You?”
Atsushi relaxes a bit, and thankfully, doesn’t ask.
“You already know the answer to that, Dazai-san.”
“Ah, but you see, I don’t. A cutie like you? Single his whole life? Preposterous!”
“Oh, stop.” He flushes again, but a pleased smile lights upon his lips. Besides that date with Kyouka, he’d never been in a relationship either.
So this will be new for both of them, then.
Dazai lets himself relax a little, ghost settling back in his bones.
See, that wasn’t so bad, was it, the voice whispers. You can trust him. You can open up to him, if you wanted to.
But it will hurt, he argues. It will hurt, because you never needed to ask any questions to know their answers, and it will hurt because you won’t be there.
There’s a pause, a comfortable lull in their conversation. They’re only a block or so away from the agency dormitories when Atsushi speaks up again.
“Can…can we hold hands?”
Dazai’s steps falter for a moment. He hadn’t expected Atsushi to be so brave as to ask, this first night.
“Of course.”
Their hands brush once, then pull away, as though they were both surprised at the feel of another’s skin, before coming back together, fingers linking messily. Atsushi’s smile glows in the moonlight. Dazai has to stop himself from gulping, barely catching himself before his feet could fumble beneath him. It takes him a second to remember to smile back, but when he does, he’s rewarded with another blush, and a returning clench of their hands.
They stop outside of Atsushi’s room, loathe to part.
“I’ll see you tomorrow, Dazai-san,” Atsushi says, at last.
“See you, Atsushi-kun.”
When Atsushi has disappeared back into his room, Dazai lets out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.
“Well, that went well enough, didn’t it?”
No one answers him, of course. After all, there’s no one there. No one and nothing but a gentle breeze, blowing back his hair with a gentle sigh.
And yet, he chuckles out loud anyway. Perhaps, just for his own benefit.
.
It’s so strange. After a lifetime of solitude…he doesn’t feel alone anymore. It still hurts—he suspects it will always hurt—but the ghost that had haunted him has finally been laid to rest. The voice in his head is quiet, and in the silence is something like sorrow. Something like sorrow, and acceptance.
It’s like the smile you wear as you wave goodbye to a friend. A very old, and dear friend.
“Thank you,” he whispers.
Thank you, Odasaku.
Thank you, and goodbye.
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