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yeonyellow · 1 year

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Drunk confession

Fandom: Bungou Stray Dogs

Pairings: Dazai, Chuuya, Fyodor X Fem!Reader

Genre: Fluff

Format: Drabble

Warnings: Mentions of alcohol, Crying, Sobbing, Drunk problems

Word Count: 2K

A/n: Wanted to write one only for Dazai but I couldn't help myself and now here we are :)

↳Osamu Dazai

It's two in the morning and Dazai can't sleep as always, filling these hours of loneliness with reading his manual of suicide over and over, waiting for the rays of the sun to peek through the curtains and set another day of his tedious life. Dazai is at his dorm alone and he scarcely has any guests over; which is why the articulate knocks on the door catches him off guard. He glances at the clock and approaches the door as possibilities cloud his mind. What's going on? Did something happened? Maybe the guild has attacked again? Or that rat Dostoevsky has made a move to play his schemes on Yokohama's ability users? Or...

When he opens the door, he expects Kunikida, Atsushi or perhaps a member of an enemy organization ready to kidnap him or pull the trigger right in front of his face; but behind the door It's just you, cheeks red from what he assumes is the effect of alcohol he can smell from ten miles away.

He stares at you, with a curious turning into calming look on his face before asking you to what does he own the honor of meeting you at this fine hour, but the answer he receives isn't verbal; it's a sudden attack of affection coming from a embrace taking his waist imprison. An embrace that was supposed to be tight but you're too zoned out to keep yourself on your feet let alone hugging the shit out of him.

"Y/n...?"

"Shhhhhhhhh~"

His heart can't stop slamming itself to his chest and he's almost happy that he doesn't have to hide his flustered face because you probably won't remember anything in the morning; but you're still hanging in his arms, face all grumpy and eyes half-lidded while not giving in to the comforting warmth of his embrace lulling you to sleep.

"Yooou bas...tard... ugh!"

It's ok. He has heard that from many people before, but you can't be here only to insult him and leave, right?

"Y/n? What-"

"Shut up! You annoying peace of work!"

He's wrong. That is the reason you're here for.

...Partly.

"I'm here to... kick your ass! For all the trouble you've put me through!"

"Y/n stop shouting and calm down. What are you talking about?"

"You... You don't even know! You damned bastard! Stupid bandage wasting machine! You never let me get to work! I can't work with you! I'm... I'm quitting my job at the agency!"

Dazai doesn't get confused very often, so he's really impressed when he searches through his memories for any recall of him holding you back from your work, but he fails to find any.

"You still don't get it!?"

You want to punch, smash and kick the life out of him, but all you do is sinking into his chest more as you inhale his scent while whining with a whisper-liked tune.

"It's... I don't know either! It's just... Maybe your face! No... Not just that... I don't know... Maybe your hair too... Or the way you smirk when you mess with Kunikida... Or how you lie on the couch as you mumble with the song playing in your headphones... Or... Or how you... How you... It's everything! Everything you do distracts me! And not even at work! It's like you're everywhere but not... everywhere at the same time... I don't know again... maybe... maybe I like you or something... ah... my head... hurts..."

When you finally lose conscious and fall asleep in his arms, Dazai holds you close to himself, hands lightly caressing your hair as he smiles at your fucked up situation. He now has doubts if he wants you to forget, if he wants tonight to disappear in the shades of memories from women he had spent some nights with no strings attached; but whatever he wants, he can't help but to smile at your pretty face and glassy eyes and how you're so innocent yet such a loud-mouthed at the same time.

↳Chuuya Nakahara

Chuuya has never been one to hold back from making a drunk mess out of himself, but when he sees you taking shots relentlessly, he knows he's the one to drive tonight.

Your face is hot but not enough to evaporate the tears that can't prevent themselves from falling on your cheeks, and you're not-so-quiet sobbing is kind of catching other people's attention but somehow Chuuya doesn't care, he just presses you against his chest harder and while not wanting to ever see you be upset like this, he wishes you would drink with him alone more often.

"I...hiccup* Can't take it hiccup* anymore..."

"Oh c'mon, you've been through worse y/n. Plus, we didn't have great losses. Accidents happen"

"Right! Says the most powerful ability user!"

Your grumpy expression makes him smile harder. Although it's wrong to hug your comrade like this, he still tugs you closer and lightly rubs your right cheek with his thumb, chuckling at your confusion.

"Huh! N-Now you're laughing at me!? You- You- You're supposed to help me out, Chuuya! I- If you're going to make of fun of me just leave!"

"Like I'm leaving you here when you're a crying mess! Did you forget your position? You're an assassin working for the mafia! Anyone wants you dead! Being alone here when you're vulnerable is another one of your shitty ideas! Besides, I will never leave you y/n, you already know that"

He's right. He has never left you even once on your own before.

No matter how many times you mess up on mission, how many times you get into trouble facing your higher ups or what time it is, day and night, Chuuya always comes to help you out. He's always been there, to be a shoulder for you to lean on when you're suffering from the pain, or to cheer you up after a long mission by bringing you your favorite snacks. He has always been there with you, in sadness and happiness.

Chuuya gets worried when he catches you staring at his chest silently, but the feeling disappears when your hands land on his cheeks.

"You're right... You've never left me alone..."

Words fade from his mind as you look into his eyes and then slowly lean closer, body still wobbly but determined to do this. He never expected you to make a move. He did wanted you, even though he could never drop a hint and he thought that maybe it was for the best if nothing ever happens, but now that you're this close to him, he can't think of anything negative let alone the problems this dangerous relationship might drag along with itself. He closes his eyes as your lips meet, wrapping his arms around your waist while tasting the bitter liquid left on your mouth, totally unfazed by the looks he knows you're earning right now.

Chuuya can always fight, but he rarely gets to kiss his bestfriend; so he might as well enjoy himself while he's at it, and maybe this won't be the last time he gets this close to you.

Only if you remember what happened in the morning, which Chuuya is gladly ready to remind you in case you forget, by capturing your lips in another kiss.

↳Fyodor Dostoevsky

"I'm... cold..."

Fyodor doesn't hug his subordinates, nor does he pat them or let them sit on his lap, so... You could say you were somewhat special.

He sighs as he lightly pats you on the back, wrapping his cloak around you while thinking of scolding you as soon as you regain consciousness, never letting you lay a finger on alcohol. While he's kind of pissed because he never thought you could get this clingy since you're so shy and decent around him, but this feeling... This comfortable warmth that radiates from your body... It's nice. Nice enough to help him look over the fact that you were lying about being cold only to stick yourself to him more and whine nonsense he doesn't understand but lowkey tries to.

"You shouldn't drink this much at work, y/n. It will make us more trouble and we already have a handful of that"

Fyodor doesn't expect a response, or a proper one to say at least; and he didn't get one, if a small sob filled with regret coming from you doesn't count.

He glances at you from the corner of his eye to make sure that you're not crying, then looks back at the monitor again with his attention completely pointed at you. You're upset about something he's not aware of; he doesn't poke his nose in other people's private lives unless they're dangerous or his target of course, but for once in his life, he wishes he had paid attention to you more. Why? He knows, but it's so wrong and he doesn't want to push himself to say it out loud, happy that no one has ever asked him too.

You're one interesting little Myshka.

"I want to be of use for you"

Your voice is quiet, more like a mumble; but lucky for you, Fyodor has sharp ears.

"Hmm? What was that, dear?"

Your stare is pointed at the floor, but your mind is wandering around another place. Fyodor feels you wrapping your arms around him a little bit harder and a short pause before you speak up again, your voice a bit louder than before but would still count as mumbling.

"I... want to help you achieve your goals, sir. I don't want to be a burden to you. I want to be useful, even though the result might not really be something I would exactly like"

Fyodor knows everything. All the turns and twists of your little mind, all the intentions you have behind your little gestures, all the thoughts you smother behind your scrunched up face; but that doesn't mean he wouldn't like to hear you actually say it every now and then.

"Why? Why do you want to help me achieve something you're not looking forward to, Myshka?"

Myshka, a cute nickname Fyodor calls you with, which is kind of normal since you're a rat working under his watch; but you're the only one who gets to be called that. None of his other subordinates are called anything special. Just you. The tiny pathetic Myshka he likes more than his other subordinates. Why? No one knows, but no one really cares either.

Except for you.

I... I think that... I enjoy to see that you're relieved... And that you can... finally take a break...

Because you have nice goals and they make the world a better place...

Because... Because... I...

"Because I would like to see you smile, sir"

Fyodors coherent taps on the keyboard stops and you gain his attention again, only this time he doesn't try to hide his glance; he tilts his head and looks at you straightforwardly.

Of course you hide your face in the crook of his neck, and of course that makes his heart a tiny bit clench.

"Like... Not out of... I don't know... Mischief or anything... A relieved smile... A victorious one maybe?... Not one of those smiles you wear when you are bargaining with someone..."

"I understand what you mean, dear"

His voice is not enthusiastic but softer than before, with a hint of gentleness inside. It makes your figure looser on his lap, giving him access to do what he wants with you, as if he couldn't already.

And suddenly something unexpected happens. He plants a kiss on your shoulder, making you shiver and glue your chest to him harder than before.

"I too, would like to see you smile dear"

And I would like to have you by my side when that time comes.

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yeonyellow · 1 year

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ultra violet ; dazai osamu

how unlucky you must've been, to have met dazai osamu. you don't think you ever had a chance.

dazai osamu x gn reader fluff to angst, falling in love, spoilers for dazai's mafia era, reader is a pt. mafia exec. - 3.6k

you had always known dazai osamu was a black hole.

to look at him was to look at a chasm, so effortlessly deep and empty that you couldn't see the bottom. his darkness was all-consuming and his profound desolation seeped out of the cracks in his veil like the blacktop of a playground.

for some reason, he had let you in.

you had first seen him in a bar, although you'd already known who he was. his existence wasn't a secret, and it's not like the port mafia's gossip chain would've cared if it was.

you regarded him briefly, from across the bar. he was seated near the bartender, chatting amicably. you wondered how many people he has killed this week.

the bartender smiles and laughs along, but you can see that he holds his wine glass tight as he cleans it with a beige rag. you suppose that dazai's reputation doesn't only precede him in the mafia.

dazai wasn't drinking anything, you had noted. perhaps he was meeting someone, or perhaps he was just a lightweight.

you weren't surprised when dazai approached you, in your little corner of the bar, taking a seat next to you. you also weren't surprised that he didn't ask. manners are hard to come by.

he greets you with your name, but he's never spoken to you before.

"how has your night been?"

his voice was different than you'd expected.

"a little boring," you had replied.

"that sucks," he sympathized with no sympathy.

the two of you had spoken for a considerable amount of time about normal people's things. he did not acknowledge the existence of the black blood shared between the two of you, so neither did you.

he was funny, and bright, but an eerieness followed him. you could see the sticky black tar following his movements, you could see it in his lungs and his eyes like a poison fog. you could see him drowning in it. you didn't know how to help, so you didn't.

"you're not drinking," you said instead.

"i'm not."

"you're at a bar."

"i was waiting for someone."

"who?"

he pauses. and he smiles. "you."

you didn't react, because you knew that your reputation would precede you, too. dazai osamu, a black hole, a candidate to fill the empty place of the 5th port mafia executive, smiled at you, a white light, the 4th executive.

you grin back at him.

you are unfortunate, you think.

joining the port mafia was not something you had intended to happen. you had your whole life planned out, scripted down to the very last details.

you came from a respectable area of town. you went to school. you studied. you passed all your tests. and then your parents were shot dead by the government.

(they never told you why. something about protests and abuse of power, something about fate, something about god. you weren't sure if you believed it.

you think it all started to go downhill when you smoked your first cigarette as an act of teenaged rebellion, 'just because you could', because this couldn't have been god.)

so your plans crumbled, and you decided that the earth beneath your feet deserved to crumble too.

in the world, you decided, there was nothing more precious than time. if you'd have asked yourself this question before, you think younger you would've said humanity with big puppy eyes and hands clasped like it was a prayer.

but time built humanity, and humanity was the basis of good and evil, and everything else followed. time was not just the most important factor of life, but the inventor of it. because what is life without humans to define it?

and so when the port mafia happened upon you, a young child with no one and nowhere and nothing but time, the obvious choice was to take you in.

your ability was to reverse the passage of the clock, to rewind the world into oblivion, with a touch. it worked on things, and it worked on people. you know because you've tried it.

to steal another person's years, to kill them, essentially, was an ability you would never have wanted until you realized you had it. because by the time you had recognized your ability to kill, you were already wading in the black waters of the port mafia under ogai mori's tutelage.

just like dazai, you were bound to be an executive since joining. just like dazai, you were the youngest executive until he came along.

so you realized his void before you met him- you pieced together that it would be similar to the one that followed you.

in a way, you and him were already familiar. you didn't like to think about that, though. because he was, quite frankly, a pain in the ass.

at first, you didn't mind him too much. but a few factors led to this conclusion- one of them being the fact that he was always in your office.

"your chair is so much more comfortable than mine," he explained on one occasion, as he occupied your one and only office chair. you had stood in the doorway, arms crossed, trying to look unimpressed but failing when a ghost of a grin creased your face.

that was a leading reason, among other things. he had a tendency to put empty containers back into your snack stash after taking them without permission. he frequently put chuuya into a bad mood when you really needed cooperation. he especially had a penchant for getting himself in stupid and easily avoidable situations, and then asking you to get him out.

despite all his fatal flaws, his generally unlikable demeanor, his irritating nature, and his god-awful humor, you took quite a liking to your co-worker.

in fact, the annoying qualities meant shockingly very little to you. it was a miracle to everyone, you think even to dazai.

you think that in his time in the mafia, and probably even before, he had grown accustomed to hate. the black sticky tar of anger and abhorrence clung to the walls of mafia territory like surgical gloves, for the purpose of coming out clean when blood is spilled.

(the inky darkness seeped into the skin of the people who walked over it, building under their flesh like plaque and disease, festering and becoming so normal that it was hard to remember what people looked like when they weren't blighted.)

and you think that the lack of cruelty and resentment you held was a magnet for him. dazai was so full of something dark and bitter, and in need of something to wash his hands- a moth to flame, a magdalene connection.

(the tar was well-hidden under your thick skin. dazai was a good seeker but you were a better hider. your artificial light tricked him. you might feel guilty if you didn't crave the connection.)

you had always known that dazai osamu was a black hole, and for a while, it was perfect because you were too.

you weren't sure how it happened, but at some point, you realized dazai had become familiar to you. he didn't speak of his upbringing and you didn't ask, but you could see the way his childhood flickered across his facade when he felt a genuine feeling and you could sniff out the nostalgia in him before he crushed it under his shoes like a bug.

he tried to hide his past, but you were born to rewind it. you think he knows, and you think he stopped trying as hard to veil himself once he realized.

the two of you had, at some point, become familiar to each other. you began to expect him to be in your office on thursday and sunday afternoons, and you began to anticipate what food would be missing from your stash based on his tastes.

dazai, on his part, learned the music you liked. it would be streaming softly when you entered when he was there. thursdays and sundays became your favorite days.

more and more time was spent together. you'd not only work with each other but go out afterward, too. you met his friends, ango and oda. he met your dog, snorkel.

"snorkel?" dazai had snorted upon hearing your pet's name.

"snorkel," you confirmed.

"why would you name an animal that?" the two of you were walking to your apartment building. dazai had insisted on accompanying you, despite you being fully capable yourself- something about evil enemies and their nefarious plans to kill you- you'd just rolled your eyes and complied.

"i don't see any issues with my dog being named snorkel."

your apartment building's lobby was cozy and sweet. the doorman greeted you with a smile and a nod, eyes lingering on dazai for a moment. you smiled back.

"it's a little strange, you've got to admit."

"well, i heard it on a tv show once and liked how the word sounded. so i named my dog snorkel. is that enough explanation for you, dazai?"

he pushed the button to summon the elevator before pausing, tapping his chin like a kid's cartoon detective. "i suppose that will suffice, my love."

you often wondered if dazai realized that you liked him. you didn't expect to feel this way about him originally, you never willed yourself to fall for this voided human being- but it happened. you weren't sure how.

(that seemed to be a pattern with a lot of things involving him; uncertainty clouded your mind like smoke in a way it never had before.)

dazai was the smartest person you knew, so when he first started treating you less like a co-worker and more like his partner, you knew it was an intentional change. everything with him was purposeful, a strategy, a game of chess.

(it was a game you'd let him win.)

that same day, when he'd met your cat, you realized that the feelings he held for you were mutual. in the elevator, he confessed his fear of dogs to you.

at first, you hadn't believed him- you'd laughed and joked. a port mafia executive, bathed in blood and soul untethered, was scared of dogs. but then he looked at you, and you realized: dazai osamu was afraid of dogs, and you were in love with him.

you could see his hesitancy as he opened your apartment door for you, and how his body stiffened as a snorkel leaped out to greet you. and you could see his fear diminishing as you interacted with snorkel, rubbing his side.

you watched his fear disappear and you wanted to kiss him right there, in the doorway to your apartment building. so you did.

you can remember his hands and how they landed at your waist and back, and how he kissed you back after a brief hesitation like he'd expected this, predicted it. maybe you were just one of his variables, but you didn't really care during that moment.

you kissed dazai osamu because you were in love with him, and he kissed you back because he was in love with you. (dazai osamu was a good hider, but you were a better seeker. you knew and he did too.)

the vignette that clouded your vision, the blackness and the fraying at the edges of your mind faded when you were with dazai. something about the daunting voids that followed the both of you negated each other. a strange peace followed you both, unlike the calamity of separation.

you were stupid in love, and so was he. you felt like a teenager again, the way you should've been not long ago and the way you never got a chance to be.

a teenager with a full time job as a murderer, basically, is how you felt.

"love of my life, my favorite ever, the apple of my eye! where are you?"

you often heard dazai before you saw him. he was not quiet when he didn't need to be. across from you, you could see chuuya grimace. you smiled at him sympathetically, an apology in advance.

it was only a matter of a few seconds before dazai turned the corner to where you and chuuya were stood, discussing some political uprisings in the west. he let out an elated noise and flung his arms around your shoulder.

"my honey-nut cheerio! my shmoopie-kins!" you hated him sometimes, honestly.

"you are not funny, dazai," chuuya had scowled, speaking your mind for you.

"i'll have to agree with chuuya here."

you might as well have told dazai you'd shot his grandmother.

"how could you say that," he had wailed, sinking to the ground theatrically with his arms still around your neck, nearly pulling you down with him.

chuuya kicked him and he let go, whining and grumbling. "get up, idiot, we have to go soon."

chuuya had then stomped away, and you grabbed his hands and pulled your boyfriend up off the ground. "you are insufferable sometimes."

dazai smiled, still holding one of your hands, and bumped your shoulder as he pulled you to walk to follow chuuya. "only for you!"

this was to be one of the last times you would speak to him.

(you were so, so unfortunate, to have fallen for dazai osamu.)

after that day, you couldn't reach him. the agency was falling into flames and sakunosuke oda was dead and ango sakaguchi was a traitor and dazai osamu was gone.

you could do nothing but obey orders and pray he'd return.

the night of dazai's leaving was the last time you saw him.

you had entered your office and found him sitting on your chair, like he always did. he didn't look at you when you entered, and you didn't speak a word. you'd expected to find him here.

"sit with me," he said. you obliged, sitting on your cluttered desk. you lit a cigarette and the air smelt of smoke.

the two of you sat in silence for a few moments before you said something.

"you're leaving." you meant it as a question, but it came out as a statement because you already knew the answer. dazai was leaving.

he only nodded once, and finally looked at you. "i'm sorry."

you took another drag of your cigarette and met his eyes. you gave him a sad smile. "don't be."

more quiet followed your words as both of you became lost in thought. dazai was an abyss. you had known this since before you met him. you weren't sure what brought on his change of heart, what made him want to abstain from his roots and change his fundamental being, but you think it was bound to happen. a black hole does not have infinite mass. he would reach the bottom of his void eventually.

dazai stood, and he was close to eye level with you now. "i'll miss you, so much."

you put your cigarette out on an ashtray by your desk. you planted your hands on the sides of his face and brushed his bangs out of his eyes. you kissed him for the very last time.

"me too," you had said, "come back for me one day."

"i will," he swore, "i will."

you had always known that dazai osamu was a black hole, but black holes were not infinite. you wondered when you'd reach the end of yours.

your lover did not return for you.

you knew what escaping the mafia entailed, especially in dazai's prestigious position. he'd have to go underground before resurfacing, for at least a few years.

for those years, you waited patiently. you continued your work as you always had, you let the blood run down your hands like it always had. you had nothing else to do.

in more ways than one, you helped dazai leave. you negated his darkness, you emboldened his actions, and you all but hauled him out of the port mafia himself. it was a two-man job, to disappear. you couldn't leave without help.

in his absence, a bitterness festered. the rot beneath your skin grew tenfold, like a viral disease or plague. and still, you waited.

(the saying of 'absence making the heart grow fonder' was a load of bullshit.)

you waited for him to come back. you waited for the blood to stop dripping. you waited for the infection of resentment to cease its track in your soul.

you waited, and you waited, and you waited, and you waited.

and you don't know when, but eventually, you gave up.

dazai osamu was not coming back for you, was the revelation. he had no reason to. there was no obligation, nothing but a promise. and dazai has lied before. (he was just like you, so you know he has.)

it was almost funny, how easy it became to hate him once you lost hope. you hated him, his lies and his voice, and how he'd say your name and how he made you feel whole for the first time in a long time.

you hated how you were without him now. you hated him for leaving even though you wanted him to go.

(the bitterness, the black blood, the decay bubbled under your ribcage and dripped down your spine. your chasm consumed you, brewing like a storm and infecting everything you touched.)

so you think you were basically fully gone by the time dazai really did return.

he didn't return to you, but he had resurfaced as a member of a new armed detective agency. you'd almost laughed when you heard.

this is what he'd wanted. he wanted to be good, to be a hero. he wanted to save people now. (is he still just like you?)

you threw yourself into your work. it was all you had left, at this point, your job. you have up on the idea of clean hands, of red blood, of everything being okay again.

you were born to steal life. you were born to take away time from others. you were born to be a villain. there was not much else you could do.

you had always known dazai osamu was a black hole. you feel stupid for assuming that he realized you were one too.

(you wanted to be saved. not anymore.)

(you are all you have, now.)

chuuya is angry when he sees dazai for the first time in 6 years. dazai wasn't surprised. but the genuine fury, the red veil that submerged his former partner- that was new.

chuuya and dazai had never gotten along, but they've never hated each other. not until now, because with the way chuuya is looking at dazai, he can tell that he wants him dead.

their fight is brief and over before it could really start. they're both holding back, but neither of them can really say why. the anger subsides and the fighting draws to a close.

"i'll have you killed one day, i swear," chuuya had promised on his way up the stairs, leaving the basement where dazai was formerly chained.

"by the way," the taller man dismissed, waving him away with his hands. "you're the one who broke my chains and freed me. if i run away now, you'll be suspected of aiding my escape!"

chuuya's temper flared, venom and fury spiking behind his gaze. "you bastard."

"if you do as i say, i could make it look like someone from the agency came to rescue me."

the former colleagues stared at each other, a sea of unspoken words surging between them. chuuya hated this man, he hated him with his whole heart, for what he'd done to you. but he was stuck now.

"why should i believe you?"

"i don't lie in these kinds of negotiations," dazai replied breezily.

a beat of silence passed.

"you lie, though. you lied to them."

dazai doesn't react. his face is stone, and chuuya watches in real-time as the mask slides on.

dazai doesn't reply. chuuya moves on. "if it's about the weretiger, akutagawa's in charge of that operation. he should have records in the communications storage room on the second floor."

dazai straightens. "and where are they?"

chuuya's face hardens, eyes narrowing like razorblades. he hopes that dazai can feel his stare cutting into him the way he wants to so badly.

chuuya was your closest friend. he, firsthand, witnessed your destruction as you stayed up for a man who'd never return home. he would never forgive dazai. he couldn't.

"dead."

dazai doesn't move. the world stops spinning on its axis. chuuya continues.

"almost a year ago now. they were assassinated by an enemy organization."

the air is suddenly so cold.

"i like to think," chuuya said, his voice dangerously quiet, "that it's all your fault, dazai."

they stand still, staring at each other for a few more beats before a small, sad smile cracks on dazai's face.

chuuya might hate this man with everything he has but he can't help the pity bound with anger crawling through his stomach.

"second floor, you said?"

chuuya wants to punch him. he wants to hug him. instead, he just nods.

"okay. goodbye, chuuya."

he doesn't reply. dazai walks past him on the stairs, and chuuya feels it- an incapacitating darkness, the tendrils of despair following the man in the trenchcoat.

(the void was back.)

(perhaps it had never left.)

dazai osamu had always known he was a black hole. he thought of it as ravenous, as all-commanding and omniscient, devouring him and his life. when he met you, he felt free of the binding chasm for the first time. and now you were gone, and he felt chained once more.

(dazai osamu was a black hole. you saved him from himself at the price of your life.)

(dazai osamu was a black hole. he wishes it would consume him.)

author's note: this is highkey bad plz follow me i will post better stuff later wink wink

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yeonyellow · 1 year

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i mean.. name a straight bsd character challenge go

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yeonyellow · 1 year

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In This Moment, We Are Endless

Immortal!Dazai x Reincarnated!GN!Reader

notes & warnings: technically a no-ability au, reincarnation cycles, immortality, mentions of reader having undisclosed past trauma, mentions of death and suicide, specific mentions of past reader death (previous incarnations), dazai-typical cynical humour, reader sits on dazai's lap, mentions of food & knives

word count: 8.2k

summary: osamu dazai, cursed to live an endless cycle of losing and finding the love of his life, finds the closest iteration to the original you that he has ever known in the form of a kind-hearted agency detective.

it has been three months in the making, but it is here at long last! i have not edited this since binge-writing the final 3k words tonight, i simply needed to let it go into the void pfft hope y'all enjoy <3

Osamu Dazai has lost track of just how many times he’s found you.

You smile at him through new lips each time, but every single pair you’ve worn are torturously ingrained into the very depths of his memory. He can pick one out in the haunting dark of night and slip into them like an old home comfort, remembering the way that, despite it all, you always taste the same.

He has lived many lives, changed his name and lifestyle more times than he can count. But the passage of time is a foul, contemptible master, and it claims Dazai as its own every time he so foolishly begins to believe that he might just escape it.

In this specific stretch of infinite life, he has found temporary distraction in the Armed Detective Agency; following a handful of years of turmoil, it had been the place to give his life a sense of meaning again. And of course, as is the natural order of his unfortunate existence, it happened to be exactly where he ran into the current iteration of you.

You, who greets him with a smile whenever he walks into the office, no matter how late he may have turned up. You, who puts extra effort in making sure he stays safe on missions, making sure he’s keeping on top of his paperwork and even offering to do it for him on occasion. You, who brings an extra bento box once a week with the excuse that you made too much, but the shifting of your feet and lack of eye contact tells him all too well that it’s a lie.

He’s not the only person you’re so kind to, of course.

No, that courtesy is extended through the entire workforce. You’re always bringing in extra sweets for Ranpo, treating Atsushi and Kyouka to expensive days out when you’re all free, and offering to help Kunikida with any extraneous tasks if he’s been thrown off schedule. Dazai has even caught you at the end of a long day with a sleeping Kenji on your back as you carry him home, papers impossibly stacked in your arms so you can continue working through the night.

You are diligent and exceptional, persevering and ambitious. Everything that has always made you so unequivocally yourself. It is something he has admired every time he meets you, something that is always unchanging within your soul, like the sureness of the moon’s cycle in the sky.

As certain as the push and pull of the tide, your resilience never wavers. It had been one of the first things he had fallen in love with you for, and in every single incarnation since it has continued to be something he loves about you above all else.

And Dazai hopes in the quiet moments, when the world falls quiet and you are the only thing in his sights.

He hopes as he watches the way your face scrunches up when you concentrate on the file you’re writing in, or how you stretch back in your chair in celebration of completing a particularly strenuous task. As you enter a room and your eyes scan around, specifically searching him out to greet him for the day. As he smiles back and waves you over, proceeding to deliberately distract you for long enough that Kunikida has to come along and tell you both to get back to work.

He hopes that this time, just maybe, will be the time that you stick around for good.

There is a curious phenomenon that can occur when someone has been so intrinsically close to another for an extended period of time. The aura that exists between the individuals may shift suddenly, without warning. (Or perhaps more accurately, it is the perspective of those individuals that shifts; reveals to their frontal lobe the truth that the subconscious has held onto for years like an oyster hoarding its pearls).

When you had met Dazai, the very first time, this sensation eventually barraged his senses so aggressively that he thought he might just drown.

It had been a quiet, early morning, sneaking out to see one another far away from the small village where you had grown up together. Youthful, carefree innocence basking in the sunrise, bathing in the blissful tranquility of birdsong. You were reticent in the wake of serious conversation, but your actions spoke what your voice could not.

You had kissed him that morning, hands balled into tight fists as they held back the words that stilled themselves on your tongue. One step away from punching him, if he recalled correctly, after he had pulled away and teased you for your boldness. But you had allowed him reprieve as he kissed you in turn, whispered amorous secrets against your neck, all while glowing golden in the dawn.

Dazai recalls this memory as he is hastily bundled into the backseat of your car alongside an eager Atsushi and a quiet, ever-mild Kyouka. Dazai’s limbs are far too long to fit comfortably pressed up against the window in your barely-a-five-seater as he is; his knees are folded practically to his chest and his elbows are all but digging into his waist as, in a shocking turn of events, he tries to keep himself from taking up too much space.

Not that there is any opportunity to do so anyway. You enthusiastically dump bag after bag filled with travelling essentials atop him– because Dazai’s the older one; because Kyouka would drown under the sheer amount of stuff due to her tiny stature; and because it’s unfair to let poor Atsushi be bundled up with them, as he already has the short straw sitting in the middle seat.

But the sun creeping across the horizon has painted the streets with that nostalgic golden glow, gently conjuring forth those memories he had once thought that time had claimed from him. And you look at him with those same gentle eyes, with words that haven’t found their way to the surface. He wonders for a moment if they have even formed in your mind, let alone been allowed the chance to catch and hang on your lips, and decides that no amount of heavy baggage would be too much.

Besides, you are clearly so excited for this trip, and Dazai would much sooner spend the three-hour drive being slowly suffocated by everyone’s luggage for the chance to remain in your energetic company than have to sit quietly in the other car with Kunikida, Fukuzawa, and the others.

“You still alive back there, Dazai?” Ranpo teases, craning his neck back to catch a glimpse of the taller and much more uncomfortable man behind him.

Ranpo has your passenger seat and he seems to have so much legroom, as he stretches out like a lazy cat, indulgently popping a hard candy into his mouth.

“Unfortunately,” Dazai quips, shifting the weight of the bags atop him to try and be at least a little comfier.

“There might be a nice lake when we get out there,” you call over your shoulder. “I’m sure you could take a dip.”

“Don’t let Kunikida hear you encouraging him,“ Ranpo laughs, reaching to adjust the car radio, “he’ll have your head.”

Some obnoxious song comes blasting through the speakers, one that has Ranpo tapping his fingers against the armrest and even Atsushi subconsciously wiggling his foot along to.

Dazai takes this as his opportunity to zone out, to watch the blur of the narrow city streets shift and morph into broad trees and open countryside. Something about the greenery is unfamiliar to him now, having spent so many years amidst towering greys and browns.

It feels so much more devoid of life out here, away from the bustling humdrum of a rush-hour crowd. When you are packed in amongst so many others, it is easy to feel the beating heart of humanity, to throb alongside them and take your place in a singular, cohesive unit.

Of course, Dazai has always preferred to be alone in spite of it. But there is a particular comfort that comes with observing that thriving organism from within, holding up a magnifying glass to the ants that haul their grains of sand and build their society piece by piece.

Soon enough, however, your car starts to slow and you struggle to urge the little old thing to make it through the dirt roads that lead down to where you’ll be camping for the weekend.

“Make sure you grab everything when we get out,” you remind the others, sweet voice bringing Dazai to attention at last.

He subconsciously grabs on to the bags you placed upon him earlier, thumbing across the fabric of the bottommost one absentmindedly as he endeavours to haul them all in himself. Though he knows Atsushi will most likely offer to take some, and you can never allow someone else to do tasks you could do easily yourself, he pushes his way out of the car once you’ve parked it with them all piled high in his arms nonetheless.

“It’s not like you to be so helpful,” Ranpo comments, empty arms resting clasped behind his head as he comes up beside Dazai. He not-so-subtly nods his head back in the direction of you, who is animatedly talking away with Atsushi and Kyouka about all the things you can do this weekend. “Is there perhaps a reason?”

“And so what if there is?” Dazai simpers, shifting the weight of the luggage in his arms with a grunt.

“Hm, nothing, I suppose…” Ranpo grins, “just like to be right, is all.”

Ranpo walks off ahead, quickly finding Yosano- who has already walked off ahead with the rest of the members from the other car- and pestering her for snacks.

Atsushi falls into step at Dazai’s side soon after, offering to bolster the burden of some of the bags, and Dazai dumps the entire lot of them onto the poor boy as he heads off to explore the campsite.

He’s seen nicer places to camp before, but Dazai supposes this place isn’t so bad all things considered. There’s a river running parallel to the site, close enough to walk along the banks of an evening. A few bushes are clustered together, ripe berries hanging low and enticingly (perhaps some of them are even poisonous; he’ll have to flip through his handbook later and check).

What’s most convenient about the place, however, is that it seems like those from the Agency are the only people here, whether it was completely rented out for this trip or simply that nobody else is around. Knowing Fukuzawa, Dazai wouldn’t be surprised if he had managed to rent the place out. The man is always capable of pulling some impossible strings to make things go his way, even more impressively than Dazai himself is able to.

The group sets up in a small clearing amongst the trees, a fair distance from the cars but decently close to the river. There are an array of leaves scattered emerald, ochre and auburn across the ground, the telltale signs of autumn crunching underfoot. Everyone starts to half-heartedly kick them out of the way, trying hard not to make too much of a mess, as they set their tents down.

You’re incredibly adept at putting up the tents, consistently pulling the ropes taut with the perfect amount of tension, hammering the nails in as if you’ve done it a million times.

Dazai realises as he watches you that you haven’t actually spoken about your home life to him all that much. Briefly, he wonders if you have spent years doing things like this. Regular family vacations with a loving guardian showing you how to tie the ropes around the stakes, a clumsy memory of a younger self with chubby fingers and cheeks still not yet dextrous enough to manage it.

Parts of you are still a total mystery to Dazai, even after having known you in this life for around half a decade now. You had lived a whole life before him, after all.

(If he’s lucky, you’ll live a whole life after as well. With him or without—as long as you’re around for longer than the last time, he’ll take it.)

“Hey, Dazai!” your voice cuts through his train of thought, so crystal clear amongst the static that it’s as if you’re speaking inside his very mind. “Come over here and help me with Junichiro’s tent, will you? None of us can quite seem to get it to stay up.”

Kunikida is far too eager to hand out itineraries to everyone once the campsite is settled– which Dazai crumples up and discards in the nearby river the second nobody’s looking. Having a plan for a camping trip almost seemed like it was defeating the purpose– weren’t they out to take time away from work and plans and itineraries?

Well, Dazai supposes Kunikida never takes a break from work with that book of ideals of his. Perhaps at some point in their trip he can get away with stealing it for a few hours and force the man to try and relax for a while.

He catches your gaze across the campsite. You’re regarding him with a discerning frown, as if somehow you’ve managed to peer into his mind and unravel his thoughts like an errant ball of yarn, to lay them bare for your own personal perusal.

“You know,” he begins, crossing the grass to reach you, “you should take a photograph, then you won’t have to keep staring at me.” He stops just in front of you, bending to utter into your ear. “Not that I mind, of course.”

You roll your eyes, sigh, and step backwards. “You’re going to regret dumping that itinerary. I won’t be lending you mine to make up for it.”

Dazai waves his hand dismissively. “I can just steal Atsushi’s if I really need it. Besides, an itinerary for a vacation? Boring. I want to do something fun whilst we’re here.”

“Kunikida has had this trip planned out for us for months,” you argue, though your tone is anything but aggressive. “He’s put a lot of work into this; the least you could have done was read over it.”

“Kunikida needs to stop sucking the joy out of everything,” Dazai huffs. “Maybe then I wouldn’t have to.”

“You’re insufferable,” you say with a chuckle, moving to walk past him. “Just behave, please. For me?”

"What do I get out of it?" He steps closer again, smiling when, this time, you don't step back. "I don't do favours for free, you know."

You prod him hard in the chest, making him stumble backwards. By now, you're smiling just as much. "If you behave, I won't make your vacation a living nightmare."

"You drive a hard bargain," Dazai concedes. "But okay, I'll behave. For you."

He had planned to anyway, from the moment you had voiced your displeasure. But it is amusing to banter with you like this, especially when you can meet him mark for mark the way that you do. With ease, like you’ve planned your retort before he’s even released his words. As if you can read him like an open book, only you’re the author in control of the story unwinding on the pages.

“Good boy,” you hum, patting his shoulder as you move past him to find the others.

He watches you leave with reckless abandon, admiring the way that the afternoon sun silhouettes your figure and frames you in the holiest yellow-white glow.

With a moment to stretch out and prepare himself, awkwardly pushing up the sleeves of his jacket, he sidles across to the riverbank and peers over the edge, looking for the unfortunate piece of crumpled paper he wished he wasn’t currently considering retrieving. It hangs caught in a cluster of overhanging branches, rescued from an untimely soggy demise and he breathes a sigh of relief.

As he smooths it back out, folding it properly and tucking it away in a pocket, he takes another look at the calm waters in front of him. It’s likely incredibly cold this time of year, enough to force the breath from his lungs and make swimming near-impossible. Not to mention the fact that he was about to dive in fully-clothed.

But he’d have done it, he thinks. He’d have put his own life at risk for this ridiculous little scrap of paper because he knows it might just impress you. Or, if nothing else, make you smile. He’s a self-destructive man by nature, but it is so rare he finds another person worth being self-destructive for.

And this is how he knows without a shadow of a doubt that you are most certainly you, the same you he pines for endlessly and loves infinitely. The you that he will dive into countless rivers for, put his own neck on the line for the sake of.

Because, in the end, he'll do anything if it's for you.

The buzzing hum of conversation from the main area of the campsite reminds Dazai that the others had been talking about visiting a nearby onsen this afternoon, to kick off the relaxation of the getaway weekend you have all come along on.

Junichiro is fending off an over-excited Naomi as she tugs on his arm, practically trying to drag her poor brother along. Atsushi and Kyouka hang by the front of the group, walking with Kunikida and Kenji. Fukuzawa takes charge of the rear, watching over his beloved employees with a neutral smile. The rest bumble around one another, all clamouring over what they’ll be doing once they get there and what they can do once they get back.

You’ve stayed behind to set up for the night, arranging chairs for everyone in a circle with the fire pit already placed in the centre. Dazai considers joining the group for a moment, especially as Kunikida calls back to him to see if he is coming. But after one final glance towards you, seeing how stunning you look in the late afternoon light, he stays as well.

Overhead, the setting sun paints the horizon with rose and marigold, laying the first strokes in preparation for an addition of crimson and ochre, which will in turn be slowly wiped out by a wash of ivory-speckled obsidian.

There is something about the nature of a sunset that evokes a comforting familiarity to Dazai, as those last rays of sun slowly stretch their way across the campsite, pressing a final kiss across treetops before descending to slumber. He has watched countless suns crest and fall, moons and stars cycling like the push and pull of a tide.

They remind him of you, of the time he has spent with you over the millennia. You are his own personal ray of sunlight, illuminating the world so brightly that he could go blind. He supposes he would, willingly, if it were for you. Though no longer being able to gaze upon your face would be a terrible shame.

It is, as he observes you now, furrowed in concentration as you wander through the crunching leaves, hauling a small stack of plastic chairs with you. Fukuzawa had brought them with him from the Agency, hidden deep in a storage closet somewhere that Dazai wasn’t even sure he had ever found before. They are somewhat awkward to balance atop the uneven dirt ground, but you seem to be managing well enough.

“You could have gone with the others,” you say, folding out another chair and placing it down. “I’m sure you’d have a better time at the onsen.”

“But if I had done that, who would stay behind to do this?” he teases, taking the chair you’ve just set up and folding it back up again, returning it to its brethren.

You turn on your heel, the rage of hellfire itself blazing in your eyes as you stomp your foot down. It’s almost enough to make him flinch, would have too if he wasn’t so very used to the exact same behaviour from so many others. But because it’s you, it very nearly works.

“Dazai,” you huff, “either you help me, or you go away.”

“Okay, okay.” He raises his hands up to surrender. “You’re on edge right now– is everything okay?”

“I’m fine,” you deflect, grabbing the rest of the chairs and pushing them towards him. “It’s just a little stressful trying to focus on things when you’re right there distracting me.”

“You usually don’t mind,” Dazai teases, earning a second glare. His hands fall and he grabs onto the chairs instead, laying them out obediently around the campsite.

“I’m usually just trying to do paperwork, not setting up a campfire for a dozen people and cooking dinner in an hour and a half.”

“Why did you stay behind, anyway?” he asks. “Nobody minded setting up together when they were done.”

“They deserve to have a nice time and not have to come back to do more work,” you say. “I just wanted to do something nice for everyone. It’s not much, I know. But even small things like this can mean a lot.”

“They’ll appreciate it,” Dazai says. “Trust me, they will.”

You’re quiet after that, opening up another chair with a click that echoes through the silence. Your shoulders rise and fall with exaggeration as you take deep breaths to calm yourself, and Dazai finds he can do no more than watch you as you take all of that suddenly-unleashed emotion and bottle it all back up inside you as if it had never erupted in the first place.

It is not the first time he has witnessed this from you in the few short years you’ve known him. You tend to do this every so often, explode with all of the turmoil that builds itself up in the depths of your subconscious and immediately scoop the residual viscera back into place.

It is frightfully more concerning to observe when Dazai can relate to the feeling. If he was of saner mind himself, he might be worried watching the way you keep your emotions buried deep within. But the fact that he knows how it feels to have all of those thoughts pushing up against the very walls of your insides and threatening to break free at any given second, that he has felt that way himself in droves over the years, leaves him far more troubled than he’d like to be.

For all that Dazai loves you, he far more strongly loathes that he can see himself as he looks at you now, as you compose yourself and go about your task without a word.

And yet you, with the pretty smile that you throw him as if it is your way of offering an apology, seem to not be fazed by the process in the slightest. Like it’s something you’ve been doing your whole life.

Once again, Dazai is left wondering of the life you have led before the Agency, of the years that must have plagued you so torturously that it has left you in this self-destructive state of being. He wishes, as he always tends to whenever he meets a new version of you, that he had been able to know you sooner. Though his life is not free from danger and accidents, he could have at least been there for you.

However, he is here now. And that has to be enough.

Soon, you’ve organised all the chairs in a neat circle, job made quicker with Dazai’s assistance. You step back and observe your handiwork, ensuring they’re all evenly spaced, and finally turn to face him.

“Thank you,” you say at last.

“For what?”

“Not bullying me for being ‘too nice for my own good’, or anything like that. For dealing with me when I snapped at you just then. Thank you.”

“You really are too nice for your own good,” Dazai chuckles. “Sometimes you’re allowed to be just a little bit selfish and need your own space, you know.”

“I know,” you sigh. “It’s hard to say no to people sometimes, though.”

“You say it to me easily enough.”

“You’re… different.”

“How?”

“I’m comfortable around you- ” you shrug, moving across the campsite to grab the box that Kunikida had brought full of cooking supplies- “that’s all.”

Comfortable, you said. You’re comfortable around him. Despite the brilliant poker face he displays (if he does say so himself), he just can’t seem to stop the way your words tug at his heartstrings.

“Charmer,” he teases. “I bet you say that to all the boys.”

“Only the ones I like to annoy,” you retort, nudging his shoulder as you pass him by on your way to the fire pit, “and you’re my prime target.”

Dazai enjoys this side of you far more than how you display yourself to the others. You’re not ingenuine to them by any means, nor are you to him, but you are, as you have said so yourself, leagues more comfortable in his presence. You do not fret over the words you say to him, worrying that one wrong intonation could turn his mood sour.

Maybe that is in part to Dazai’s own influence, the time he has spent with you in the few years he has known you tempering you and allowing you the chance to settle in his company. Just maybe, it is the engrained notion of knowing him, as your past selves all have before, that placates you in his presence and allows you to relax.

Dazai supposes that, no matter what the reason, he can at least be glad that it is true.

“What are you making?” Dazai asks, leaning over your shoulder as you julienne carrots on the portable table that you set up near the fire pit. There’s already a pot on the grating you’d placed earlier, some noodles boiling steadily away.

“Yaki udon,” you reply. “I was going to make curry, but Kuni said he wanted to make that for breakfast for everyone.”

“Kuni?” Dazai repeats, a teasing lilt to his voice. He hopes it masks the insecurity that starts to creep up in the back of his mind. “Since when were you on nickname basis with Kunikida?”

“Huh?” You blink. “Oh, he doesn’t know I call him that.” A nervous laugh slips from you as you sweep the carrots to one side and grab a cabbage to repeat the cutting process. “I think he’d lecture me if he did.”

A putrid feeling bubbles up at the base of his throat, harshly lands in his stomach as he tries to swallow it down.

Dazai isn't unfamiliar with jealousy. Over hundreds of lifetimes, there are always a few where you haven't returned his feelings. Love isn't something you can force; sometimes he simply has to let you go and hope he'll find you again in some other life.

But it is this version of you that seems to hurt the most, the you who has managed to obliterate thousands of years of desensitisation to his own immortality from the forefront of his mind. After so long, he had stopped caring if he had to wait a little longer to be with you once more. And yet you, here and now before him, skilfully slicing away at some little vegetables, he is fearful to lose.

The last time he had met you was almost thirty years prior now, in a dingy little bar in the middle of Japan. You were a singer in that life, frequenting as many small joints that would take you, give you some spare coin to keep food in your stomach and a roof above your head.

But the nature of the world, of fate and whatever cruel joke they like to play on Dazai, had stripped you from him before he had even had the chance to get close to you. A bar fight gone wrong; you, grievously injured as a bystander in the process. You had passed on in the hospital from the blood loss. He hadn’t even had the chance to be there with you. It was only even from the bartender that had befriended you that he even learned what had happened in the first place.

Dazai had never lost you as quickly as that in the past. He had always managed at least a small handful of years with you. Losing you after just a couple of weeks, before he had even had the chance to really know you, had shaken him in a way he hadn’t even been sure was possible anymore. It had torn his soul out, hung it bare and let it bleed.

The only time that he had been affected as overwhelmingly as that was when you had passed the very first time. When he had been cursed with his immortality and you had been doomed to suffer endless reoccuring lives. A time so difficult that he still to this day tries to block it out of his memory.

Which is why he swore when he found you this time that he would protect you. Do more for you than he had before, get to know you sooner and remain in your life for longer.

He likes to think that, for the most part, he’s been successful so far.

“If you’re just going to lean over me like that, you might as well come and help me with this.” You stand and point towards the chair you had risen from. “Cut up the pork for me whilst I check on the udon.”

He slides into the chair, still warm from where you had been sitting previously, and picks up the knife, poking gingerly at the slab of meat before him. You're not dumb- you'll pick up on the fact that he's doing this on purpose- but that doesn't stop him from feigning incompetence in the hopes that you'll come closer to help him out.

“You’re useless,” you sigh. “Come on, shift. I’ll do it.”

But Dazai stubbornly doesn’t move from the chair, arms folded as he grins at you. You roll your eyes, uttering a threatless “it’s your fault if I squash you” before you plonk yourself down upon his legs.

His hands shift to your thighs to hold you in place and, though you gasp in surprise, you don't complain. You start to slice away at the meat, completely ignoring the situation you’ve fallen into.

Dazai can feel your steady breaths through the rise and fall of your shoulderblades against his chest and the urge to lean his head against your back to hear the beating of your heart is almost overwhelming. He could lose himself in a moment like this, in the calm ambience of the campsite around you and the repetitive chop-chop-chopping of your knife against the cutting board.

At last, you’re finished, and you go to stand to bring the meat towards the fire pit, but Dazai cannot find it in himself to let you go just yet. His fingers sink against your thighs just once, as if the motion will entice you to remain put so that he can keep you close to him like this for a moment longer.

“Dazai,” you urge gently, “I have to go cook this.”

“No you don’t,” he rebukes, “you could stay here.”

You pout, “but then the others won’t have a dinner to come back to.”

“Let them starve,” he chuckles, squeezing you one final time before he lets go of you entirely, bidding you freedom from his lap. His body feels unnaturally cold as you walk away, and he realises just how much he has missed the warmth of you beside him.

You aren’t long as you finish cooking dinner for the group, and soon enough you have two large bowls filled neatly with noodles and a mixture of veggies and meat respectively. You smooth some cling-film across the bowls to keep them protected from the pesky elements of nature and walk back to Dazai, who stands to meet you expectantly.

“You look disappointed,” Dazai taunts. “Did you want me to stay put so you could sit on my lap again?”

“Not a chance,” you retort, flicking his shoulder as you come close enough to stand before him. “You’re not that lucky.”

“You wouldn’t do something like that with someone else, would you?” Dazai asks to test the waters. The question slips out before he can reign it in, but he supposes it is better safe than sorry to ask you regardless. He’d hate nothing more than to find out your heart belonged to another in this life, after all.

“Like I said, I’m comfortable around you,” you repeat. “I like your company. I wouldn’t do something like that with anyone else, you’re right.”

Dazai’s hand falters above your shoulder, but you step closer and place your own on his forearm, encouraging him to take that plunge. His fingers feel like they’re shocked as they connect with you, like electricity has sparked its way through his veins.

You’re so near to him now, dipped in close so that your face is directly before him, as beautiful as ever with the final rays of sunlight disappearing behind you. But with you here, the sky has never been brighter.

He can feel your breath hitch as you gingerly brush the tip of your nose against his, lips a hair’s breadth away yet still miles apart.

“Listen, I-” Dazai begins, but you cut him off before he can continue.

“You don’t need to say anything. I know.”

The clamour of everyone returning from the onsen breaks you out of the moment and you stumble over what to do at first, until Junichiro is calling your name and waving over to you. Your gaze flitters between him and Dazai, and he can almost sense the turmoil in your mind as you decide what to do.

“I’m sorry,” you utter. “I have to.”

You pass one last glance back to Dazai, a shaky sigh, before you turn and run to see the others.

He watches you go with a wistful fist around his heart, holding him back for a beat before he finally clears his head and joins the rest of the group.

Night has already begun to fall now, the sun tucked away under the warm blanket of the horizon and in its place, the moon hangs framed by millions of stars. The Agency members have taken to the seats you set up for them, exchanging conversation amongst one another and taking turns to listen as someone weaves an intriguing story.

Dazai is sat opposite you in the circle, the seats either side of you stolen away by an oblivious Junichiro and a deliberately smug Ranpo. To Dazai’s side, Kunikida and Atsushi sit at the edges of their seats, focus directed at you as you begin to talk.

The hazy glow of the fire illuminates your cheeks, catches on the sparkle in your eye as you tell your story to the group. Most of the others are hanging on your every word, eagerly awaiting the next, but Dazai has lost himself in the melody of your voice.

It conjures forth a memory of a similar time, centuries ago now, where he had shared a small fire with you and listened to your enrapturing voice as you spoke to him.

“I think,” you had said, “that I have been destined to share this life with you.”

“What makes you think that?” Dazai had asked, though he had an answer of his own already in the forefront of his mind.

“You feel familiar to me. I have known you for so little time and yet you have been here forever.” You laughed, shaking your head as you continued, “surely you must think me insane for that, my apologies. We are still strangers, after all.”

How incredibly wrong you had been.

But it is never fair to share the burden of his boundless immortality with you, especially when you will never remember it. He had tried once, in some other lifetime, to explain how he had been with you countless times before, and you had not believed him. Laughed it off as romantic nothings and continued on. Now, it is easier not to try.

And even so- as your mouth moves on the other side of the campfire, as Dazai tries so very hard to listen to your words but cannot grasp more than the image of how your lips encircle every vowel and kiss every consonant- he finds himself wanting to.

Before long, you have finished. The mantle of storyteller has been passed to someone else and you lean back in your chair to listen to them, hands folded neatly in your lap.

When it is Dazai’s turn, you edge forwards intently, and for the shortest heartbeat of a moment he almost takes his chance to regale you with a story that pulls too close to the truth to be fiction. But he resists, instead entertaining the group with the tale of the time that he had caught Kunikida in the midst of a very embarrassing incident– and the nighttime entertainment is promptly cut short when the man in mention jumps from his chair and hurriedly attempts to silence Dazai for his transgressions.

He passes you as everyone retreats to their tents for the night. Just a brushing of shoulders as you go, deep in conversation with someone, but it sparks the memory of the moment he had shared with you earlier, before the others had come back from the onsen.

You had been so close to something happening, perhaps even to the final culmination of years of wistful looks and fleeting touches.

The look in your eyes plays on repeat inside his subconscious, as though you’ve settled down on a turntable and continue to spin around and around in the confines of his mind.

It is so plaguing that, as he lays in his own tent hours later, when everyone else has long since fallen asleep and the only sounds remaining are the lone calls of owls and rustling of leaves, he is still picturing it. Still picturing you, and how you had looked at him, how your lips had been so close to his own. So close he could practically taste you. He’s sure you’d taste the same way you always do, bittersweet in the most thrillingly addictive way.

And suddenly, the curiosity is too much. He sits upright, sure to duck just a tad under the low canopy of his tent, and clambers out to search for you. On quick glance across the campsite, not exactly easy to see with just the moon to guide him, he sees that you’ve left the opening flap on your tent unzipped. The interior is empty, lacking the distinct figure he had hoped would be easier to seek out.

You’re sat on the hood of your car when he finally finds you, knees bent and hands tucked around them. Why you had wandered out so far so late is a mystery, but you have your gaze fixated on the sky above. Overhead, the stars glisten and beckon Dazai home to you.

“Couldn’t sleep?” you ask in a hushed voice, as if, despite their distance from you both, you risk waking anyone up.

“I rarely do,” Dazai admits. He doesn’t wait to be invited to join you, clambering upon the sleek metal and grinning at you, who holds back a wince at the way the parked vehicle sways under the shifting weight. “It’s not like you to be up this late.”

“I was just thinking about things,” you confess. About what, he doesn’t get to find out, as you keep your gaze trained on the twinkling sky above. “The stars are pretty tonight. I like coming to places where the light pollution is less intense; it means I can enjoy these more.”

It’s hard to understand what exactly you find so comfortable about Dazai’s bony shoulder as he feels the weight of your head pressing down against it. Perhaps the slight padding around the seams of his jacket is enough to mimic a pillow for you (for which he laments that you’ve clearly never had a decent pillow in your life). But he notices that you do this every time you’re alone together like this- which hasn’t been frequent, sure, yet it’s happened enough to become a trend over the years.

Instead of saying something, maybe even teasing you like he so delights in, Dazai stays quiet. Leans against you in turn, feeling your warmth seep through from your head to his cheek and spread across the rest of his soul.

Something about you has always been able to placate him, to draw him out of his own mind (which has consistently been far too loud for far too many years) and bring him to a sense of tranquility.

So when you pull back to smile at him, sprinkled with moondust, he feels once again that strange encompassing phenomenon which has the power to shake the very earth that the two of you, atop your dinky little car, rest upon.

For the first time in millennia, he is overcome with a tight sensation in his chest, pulling away at the pulsating muscle that threatens to burst forth and escape his ribcage. You have, every time he’s found you, conjured forth the same love he felt for you that very first time. But here and now, you are the closest rendition of yourself since that very first incarnation way back when.

And in this moment, he is quite certain he has never loved you more.

He is well and truly lost within the expanse of everything that is you, all by the foot of the crow that dances around your smiling eyes. By the plush feeling of your body against his, raw and unbidden, comfortable in a way he has never asked for but has so desperately craved.

“Osamu,” you say quietly, voice barely above a whisper, “do you believe in fate?”

Fate. To some extent, Dazai feels he has no choice but to believe in it. After all, only some unexplainable force of nature could be a feasible reason for the way that he is able to find you- at least, some version of you- every time you are lost to him. Only some twisted menace from beyond the veil could be the reason he has been cursed to live an immortal life in the first place.

But it is he who finds you each time. He is the one that traverses an immeasurable stretch of life with the sole intention of running into you once more. He has fallen to misfortune countlessly; all the times he’s found you too late, or a tragedy parts you again all too soon. If it was truly fate keeping you together, then why would it ever separate you in the first place?

Perhaps Dazai is some harbinger of fate itself, such that his own destiny is to weave yours betwixt the threads of his. Perhaps this, truly, is his curse. This, his repentance for defying the fates in the first place– doomed instead to carry out their heinous bidding, never allowed to escape their whims.

When it feels like you’re about to shift to check on him, a clear discernment that you had been kept waiting for an answer for too long, he brings his hand around your side to keep you pressed against him. His fingers slip under the fabric of the jacket you’d wrapped around your shoulders, coming to a rest against your waist.

“I think that the existence of fate, of destiny, comes down to the individual. If you choose to believe in it, you get a scapegoat for everything that happens in your life- something to blame when things go wrong. If not- no harm, no foul. Fate exists, but only for those who choose to believe in it.”

“That’s an interesting answer,” you laugh. “I suppose I should have expected that from you.”

“You think I’m interesting?” he teases, squeezing you lightly. “I’m flattered.”

It earns another laugh from you as you lift your head to face him. The silvery rays of moonlight overhead trace the contours of your cheeks and bathe you in an ethereal glow, a beauty rivalling that of the very celestial body which shines upon you now. You’re otherworldly, paradisiacal. But most importantly you are so very real and human before him in this moment, fragile like the gossamer starlight veiling across your visage.

Far more fragile, Dazai reminds himself, than he ever seems to remember that you are. You are fleeting, finite; a phantom with the sole intention of beleaguering him as much as possible in the short amount of time he has with you.

(Short, at least, from his reference. You will have the privilege of a lifetime by his side, with any luck, until you’re gone once more and yet again he has to come to terms with the grief and loss that comes around with every single incarnation of you that rises to the earth. You’d think he would have been desensitised to it by now, like he has with so many other situations over the years. He had come so, so close to it before he had met you at the Agency five short years ago. But in the end he knows that he can’t, not when it comes to you.)

Your voice breaks through the silent reverie. “Don’t think I didn’t notice that you avoided my actual question, though. Do you believe in fate?”

Dazai reaches out with his other hand, allows himself to indulge in feeling the texture of your skin beneath his fingertips as he settles to gently cradle your cheek.

Oh, how he has craved to hold you close like this, to have your lips parted and ready to capture, to consume every ounce of you until all there is left to do is savour your lingering taste on the tip of his tongue. A thousand memories flicker in the farthest recesses of his subconscious, a multitude of backdrops all once framing a thousand different faces. But now they all highlight the you that is right here before him in this very position. You, with those very same eyes that you hold in every face you wear. Wide and wanting, those eyes that have haunted his every waking hour across endless passing years.

“I’m not sure,” he hums, nose brushing against yours as he tentatively draws you ever nearer. The thin line of his lips curves against the corner of your mouth. There is a magnet between you, there must be, with how his body feels pulled intrinsically closer to you with every passing second. “Can I check?”

He has seized your mouth before you can finish uttering out a breathless confirmation, unable to hold back a stifled whine as he appeases himself with the sensation of finally having you to himself. (If he asked, you’d tell him you were already all his. If you asked, you’d realise he has been yours for an eternity.)

You clutch onto the lapels of his jacket, fists balled tight into the fabric as you yank yourself closer, until you’re practically sat in his lap. His hands find your thighs, fingers sinking into tender clothed flesh.

Open mouths, lips grazing, breaths combining. Kissing you is akin to reaching the gates of heaven. He is reverential as you gasp above him, drawing air back into your lungs only for him to rise and greedily steal it all from you once more. You are more of a necessity than oxygen itself, more desperate and desired than the strongest liquor. If he could bottle you up or inject you directly into his veins, he’d try to.

The sky is unkind as grey clouds obscure the reflective beauty of the moon, brimming with rainwater that overflows and drizzles down onto the earth below. Droplets bounce off your car, settle and soak into hair and clothes as the downpour turns heavy.

You gasp as a raindrop plops unceremoniously between your brows, runs down your nose and tickles the end, making you scrunch your face up to try and get rid of it. Dazai laughs, reaches to kiss it away for you, lingering to press another to your lips.

“We should go back to our tents,” you say, gaze darting back to the campsite. “We’ll catch a cold otherwise.”

Dazai hums in contemplation, deliberately drawing out his answer longer as the rain seeps through you even more thoroughly. “We’re already soaked. Why not just enjoy this a little longer?”

Your cheeks are slick as he cups them once more and water drips from his hair when he leans in to kiss you, which causes you to giggle and squeal as he peppers more desirous butterfly kisses across your face.

By the time he’s back at your lips, you seem to have forgotten your aversion to the weather.

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