Work Text:
You are allowed
to watch the sun swallow him whole and burn him up
By the time Dazai walks through the door, crumpled papers, pens and a half empty cup of coffee lay on Oda’s kitchen table, all scattered. Surprised, the redhead raises his eyes from the papers for the first time in what felt like hours.
“Free day?”
“Not really,” Dazai shrugs as he steps closer. “You know how it is. Work bores me nowadays.” He finally takes a look at the table. “Did I disturb you?”
Oda knows better than to ask for further explanations, gesturing towards the younger man to sit down beside him. “You never disturb me. It’s just that you don’t usually drop by so early.”
“Early? It’s already noon, Odasaku. I might be a busy man, but I can still tell the time,” he smirks.
“I see. Do you want me to make you some coffee, though?”
“Sure.” As Oda gets up, Dazai’s eyes fall on his friend’s messy handwriting, full of cuts. “My, my, what do we have here?”
The redhead grimaces as he puts the water on the stove, letting it boil. “It’s nothing. I had nothing better to do, so I decided to scribble a little bit. That’s all there is to it.”
“Hmm, I never knew you took an interest in writing.”
“It’s hardly an interest,” Oda says with his back still turned. There’s no telling what expression he wears on his face. “You will only waste your time with that.”
“It can’t be, it can’t be,” Dazai pouts and shakes his head. “If it’s your work, it must be magnificent.”
That’s Dazai for you. Always talking out of his ass.
Oda sighs and turns back. He grabs all the crumpled manuscripts and throws them into the trash, except for the one scribbled paper he was still writing on.
“Will you at least tell me what you were writing about?” Dazai smiles, his eyes glowing in excitement.
“Do you really wish to know?”
His bright smile growing wider is the only answer he needs.
Finally coming back to sit down at his left side, the redhead leans down to press a gentle kiss on the skin of Dazai’s unbandaged temple. He doesn’t pull back right away, but keeps resting his forehead against his side.
“About you. ”
The silence that follows is outright deafening.
As an aspiring novelist, Oda happens to have a number of inspirations in his life. In the middle of them all, there’s only one who never fails to leave him breathless — a man who thrives in the center of violence and death, yet buries so much gentleness and torment in his eyes. A man who endlessly seeks meaning. A man who’s always been so out of his league.
His muse.
“Huh?”
This is the only answer Dazai can let out. A sound of surprise, confusion and overwhelmness, all mixed together.
His smile dims.
Did he even hear that right?
“Does it bother you?” Oda asks in a quiet voice, backing away.
“No,” Dazai snaps all of a sudden, startling his friend. His breath comes out hitched. “I mean… Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why…” The executive shakes his head, turning to look Oda in the eyes. He points towards himself in disbelief. “Why about me?”
Something inside of Oda melts to the floor upon gazing at Dazai.
In truth, he’s not the type to show vulnerability so easily. He’s not the type to show it at all. The most he does is to mumble an “I’m tired” during a drunken haze, with his cheek pressed against the Lupin counter.
But he never quite manages to deceive him with his eyesight, too. One look is enough for Oda to understand it all, to feel all of his joy and pain as if they were his very own. The more he looks into his eyes, the more he feels fascinated with their depths, getting lost while counting the constellations to shine inside of them.
Constellations that all seem to blink out with every passing day, one by one. Leaving him an empty shell of a human being.
Oda is not experienced, nor deserving enough to write a novel. Not yet. But it’s never too early to practice his writing with something that inspires and fascinates him enough.
Even in the future, he will keep writing so beautifully about Dazai’s eyes.
“Dazai.”
“…Odasaku?”
“Your coffee.”
Dazai blinks.
The redhead gets up from the table to take the water that’s been boiling for too long on the stove, leaving Dazai to stare into thin air. Until Oda finally comes back to the table and hands him the cup, he doesn’t move a muscle.
He doesn’t take one single sip, either.
“Tell me, Odasaku,” the younger one reaches out to grab Oda’s hands, his eyes practically begging. “Were you serious about that?”
“I was,” he slowly nods.
“I see.” Dazai’s eyes fall down into his lap, staring at their intertwined fingers. “Will you let me read it?”
Oda gulps. “I can’t.” And then, he quickly adds: “Not yet.”
A scoff. “I just… Don’t understand. I don’t understand anything, Odasaku,” he whispers.
If they were in a different situation, Oda would stop and think about how astonishing it is to see Dazai like this. So trapped and conflicted, so fearful of the unknown. So unrecognisable to any outsider, but shambless before the man he was always too afraid to admit he loved.
In a way, Oda understands. He understands why his dear friend must feel this way.
“It can’t be anyone but you, Dazai.”
Dazai shakes his head and laughs bitterly, raising his head. “Do I really look like something pretty enough to write about to you?”
It’s exactly because he understands, that Oda opens his mouth and no words come out. Two hands holding onto each other don’t seem so far away, but they’re never enough to caress a heart with diamond walls shielding it.
Feelings and desires are pooling in the back of his throat, refusing to articulate in a decipherable way at the sight of his friend who so desperately needs him to breathe.
And yet, despite the odds, he can’t even begin to think about how much he also needs Dazai. How grateful he is, even now, that he didn’t close his door that day; that he met the one person he’s been looking for after years and years of loneliness, someone who listens to him like he’s really there.
It’s always been too scary for the both of them to admit that there might be something more to their relationship, other than just drinking together at the bar.
“You can be anything. You see… I once even thought about how we could be characters in a fairy tale,” he slowly says, as if confessing to a secret that’s been stored away all this time.
“Do you still think about it?”
In truth, Dazai shouldn’t sound so hopeful, so curious. It doesn’t suit him.
Oda almost smiles, but he doesn’t look him in the eyes again. He doesn’t dare.
He doesn’t let go of his hands either.
“Sometimes.”
to stain your fingers to the bone holding him together
“Man, that surely was a long day~ Let’s order some crab for dinner, shall we?” Dazai chants, stepping out of Oda’s bathroom and resting his head against the doorframe.
For a moment, no answer comes. His friend simply sits on the end of the bed, fingers tangled together and eyes on some unseen point on the carpet. He looks so deep in thought, he doesn’t seem to notice Dazai’s presence right away.
“Sure. Order what you want, I’ll pay.”
“Come now, you know there’s no need for that…”
The bandages on Dazai’s face are now gone, as is the black uniform he always wears. Instead, he’s now wearing a much more comfortable brown vest, one of his only pieces of spare clothing in a wardrobe he rarely touches. He sits down next to Oda with a sigh, one hand rising to rub his back when his gaze isn’t returned.
“You’re upset.” Dazai quietly states matter of factly. “You’re still thinking about today.”
Oda frowns and finally looks back at him. He doesn’t look mad. He doesn’t even look upset.
He just looks tired.
Dazai tries a smile. “It must be a tough job, right? But you’re not alone in this, Odasaku. Mimic might seem to be a bothersome bunch, but they’re no match to us. This will be over in no time.”
He’s not wrong.
Today wasn’t the first time he had to witness Dazai’s utter lack of self preservation and raw will to die, after all. Dazai’s expression while approaching the Mimic assassin, as shattered as broken glass and as sincere as that of a sobbing child, is still burnt onto his eyelids. Each time he looks into his eyes, he only sees that lifelong hurt, one that is always so out of his reach.
Back then, his first instinct was to punch him in the face. To knock some sense into him, to make him aware of his never ending recklessness — because his life is beyond precious, no matter what he might stupidly believe.
But that was never the right approach. Not for someone like Dazai.
And now, each time it occurs to him, it can only pain Oda more and more. Before that moment, he never tried to picture what it would be like to see Dazai go right before his eyes. Not even in his worst nightmares.
He sighs. “I will manage. You don’t have to worry about me.”
Dazai shakes his head in exasperation. “You forgot what I told you? Your cup is close to overflowing, Odasaku.” A pause. “If you need anyone to rely on, you know that—“
“I know, Dazai.”
…Of course. Oda is right.
This distance between them isn’t unfamiliar. Whenever one of them tries to take one step further, the other backs away in fear. It’s always been that way, even more so now.
Now, when it’s only the two of them left. Just like back then.
It’s probably much easier to play pretend when there are other people around, too.
Silently, Dazai wraps his arms around his friend’s shoulders. He’s almost surprised when his gesture is returned without a moment’s delay, with a neediness and affection that isn’t so usual to see from someone as collected as Oda. He feels the redhead’s face burying into his bandaged neck, just perfect for Dazai to stroke his curls gently.
“You’re such a pain sometimes, did you know that?” Dazai says with a smile playing on his lips.
“So are you,” Oda mumbles into his neck. “I’m sorry.”
“Why are you apologising?” He lightly chuckles as he pulls away to look him in the eyes. “You deserve a good rest tonight.”
Oda sighs, his usually stern expression betraying a hint of sadness for a brief moment. Even as he looks at him right now, he can’t stop seeing that damned expression in front of him. “Just don’t do that again.”
“That?” Dazai tilts his head.
“Don’t…” He sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose. “Don’t try to die like that in front of me again.”
Dazai raises his eyebrows in surprise. “Is that what made you upset?”
The lack of words and Oda’s furrowed eyebrows are enough of an answer.
“If that’s it… I’m sorry for worrying you,” he quietly starts. “I didn’t… I didn’t think it would—“
The trips over his tongue, not quite knowing what to say to him. He always jokes around about wanting to die, after all — even when they both know the truth behind it. Three years back, they talked about it together. It was when Oda convinced Dazai that life might be worth living.
The first and last time.
“You don’t have to apologise. Not to me,” Oda breathes out. “I only wish you were more… Considerate.”
“Considerate? What do you mean by that?”
“To stop trying to throw your life away all the time, like it’s nothing.”
Dazai’s eyes widen.
Oda’s voice must’ve been surprisingly harsh, because Dazai’s expression changes as he gets up from the bed. “…Who said it was anything? ”
He did a mistake.
“Dazai…”
“We talked about this before.”
The younger one’s gaze doesn’t betray any kind of emotion. It’s utterly empty. It’s not the kind of gentle and loving gaze he would always direct at his friend; right now, he looks at him just as he would look at a stranger, locking his own thoughts and feelings in a dark corner inside of him, with no chance to escape.
“We did.”
The executive leans back against the window frame, crossing his arms. “Then, next time, I will make sure you’re not around to save me.”
A painful jolt spreads through Oda’s chest as soon as he hears those words, yet not a single muscle of his visibly twitches. Ache and revolt fight for dominance inside his heart again as he tries to keep his tone down. “I’m on your side, Dazai.”
For a second, he almost falters. “If that’s the case, you don’t need to keep acting like all of this matters.”
In a way, Dazai must be aware of how much he’s hurting his friend with these words. But he’s not saying anything that isn’t the truth, is he? Ever since they met, they both accepted the idea that they might lose each other one day. They both accepted that the Mafia provided no safe or secure job.
They both accepted that Dazai was unrelentingly depressed, for nearly all of his nineteen years of living.
So they said, at least.
Kindness and empathy have always been Oda’s fatal traits. The last thing the younger man wishes is to drag the one who’s dearest to him down the same black hole he’s been drowning in for all of his life.
“Dazai…” He calls out again.
It matters, of course it matters.
Talk to me.
Don’t push me away again—
“Don’t look at me like that,” he ends up saying.
“How would you prefer I looked at you?”
Oda opens his mouth to answer, but no words decide to come out of his throat. He closes it again. Ten seconds pass. Thirty. A minute.
He wants to open his arms and welcome him inside. He wants to hold him close until the concept of time becomes inexistent. He wants to lie to him and tell him that they will be alright.
He won’t do anything.
They’ve always been too far away.
Dazai turns away, looking out at the glowing full moon. Trying to ignore the piercing ache in his heart and the coldness of his empty fingertips.
He doesn’t move, not even when the redhead finally gets up and goes into the kitchen to cook dinner for the both of them.
He has no right to step into Dazai’s pain and loneliness, after all.
to count the constellations in his eyes as they blink out
“Nothing in this world can fill the hole that is your loneliness. You will wander the darkness for eternity.”
Dazai’s glassy eyes widen.
“Be on the side that saves people.”
The set of words that would end up rewriting his fate. Yet, right now, he can’t even begin to think about his own future.
All Dazai knows is that his hands are full of blood, more than they’ve ever been. That blood is dripping and won’t stop pooling on the ballroom floor. Blood never startled him in the slightest, but now, he only wishes to close his eyes and pray that this is all just a terrible nightmare.
“…Okay. I will.”
He’s never been more certain of something before.
Including the inevitable outcome of this moment and his own inability to change its course.
Odasaku. There’s no one like you in the whole world.
“Dazai.”
You know that, right?
“Dazai.” A weak whisper of his name leaves Oda’s lips past the cigarette between his lips. “Get closer.”
You’re dying. And it’s all my fault.
Dazai lowers his face, their noses now inches apart. He gulps. Dimming eyes stare back into glassy ones. A bandaged hand makes its way to the back of Oda’s neck, fingers supporting his head and a thumb stroking his cheek so carefully, almost afraid not to shatter such an incredibly fragile being.
I’m sorry , Dazai wants to cry with all he has. I’m sorry. If only I wasn’t foolish, If only I didn’t invite you into the Mafia back then, you wouldn’t—
A barely audible sob creeps past the lips of the mafioso when Oda’s knuckles get closer to his face. They wipe away a burning tear hanging at the corner of his eye, shaking from the lack of remaining strength, but allowing it to fall down and wet his fingers. He then reaches out just a bit further, gently tucking a strand of hair behind Dazai’s ear.
So careful and gentle. A gentleness Dazai never believed he deserved.
I always lose the things I don’t want to lose the most. So why did I hope you’d be any different?
“Don’t cry anymore.” Oda whispers in the same lifeless voice, but somehow so full of soul. He’s begging. He’s gasping for air.
And he’s smiling sadly, so sadly that something in Dazai shatters and scars his insides and makes him bleed. His mouth opens, then closes. His lips are trembling.
If his voice wasn’t on the verge of breaking, he would also tell Dazai just how beautiful he is. Even right now, with tears in his eyes and the world crumbling on his face.
He’s always been nothing but beautiful to Oda.
“I’m sorry, Dazai…” The redhead whispers, and he sounds so sincere and full of pity, yet so far away. Beyond the border to the world of the living, too far and out of reach.
People live to save themselves. This is the one thing Oda finally realises on the verge of death. And yet, he never expected his deathbed to feel just like Dazai’s embrace.
At the very least, he avenged the kids. He has a cigarette between his lips. He finally understands the meaning of this life. And most of all, he’s dying in the arms of the only man who was a friend to him in the darkness he had to walk through for years, never leaving his side. The only man who, even now, is treating him with such rare gentleness, holding him in the bloody and loving arms of a Mafia demon.
The only man who could’ve been so much more to him, had they had more time.
He’s staring up into his eyes, two open wounds that are not letting the pitch, lifeless darkness out this time, but a much deeper and human hurt. A much deeper longing that’s not merely peeping out, but pouring in waves.
Such a shame he’s dying. He could’ve written many more poems about those eyes.
Even so, Oda can’t imagine a better way to go.
There’s only one thing missing.
“I could really go for some of that curry…”
When their lips meet for the first and last time, it’s just coldness against warmth. Cigarette smoke and tears. There are no butterflies. There is no life.
Good-bye kisses are not nearly as romantic as one might fantasize. They only hold a torrent of passing regrets and unspoken feelings.
So there he is. Dazai, left behind. Nose full of the smell of blood and saltiness on his tongue. And there’s funeral silence enveloping the ballroom. There’s nothing left to do.
Dazai, holding the limp body of the man who understood him like no one else, the man who saved him from death, letting out sobs into his bloody chest. The man who taught Dazai Osamu, the demonic prodigy of the Port Mafia, what love felt like for the first time, and how damned such an emotion truly is.
The man who wanted nothing but to stay alive, so he passed down his will to the man who seeked death for all of his life.
And before that, he finally reached the very depths of his lonely heart, too.
You are not allowed
to save him.