Chapter Text
Oh?
Where am I?
Sand? It’s between my toes?
And I’m barefoot?
I’ve felt this feeling.
.
.
.
It’s that dream again. Isn’t it?
One last dream before my death, I assume?My shadow is younger,
And I see it being washed away by the yearning sea.
The bento box is clenched within my small fists.
I know its some crab.I see him once again.
That boy,
.
.
.
His silhouette is at the horizon.
So, why do I feel him so close to me?I’m waving my hand
"Shuji-"
Did I always know a name, to call him out with?
“I brought crab, again!” and no response.
"Shuji-"
Is this really just a dream...?His silhouette starts setting much like the sun behind it.
His silhouette starts setting?
His silhouette is—
I’m yelling,
I’m running.
My bare feet are drowning,
My friend is drowning.
His body is sinking,
My arm is sinking towards him.
His eyes are closing,
Slowly,
Slowly,
Slowly
.
.
.
“Where am I?” I mumble again, as I hear my head ring. Unable to open my eyelids, I still attempt to survey my punched view. I see a messy kitchen? Or perhaps... a living room? Everything in my view is far too overlapped, for me to make anything out. Despite the unreliable fog, I still see something annoyingly move within it.
As the groggy silhouette inches closer and closer, I sense its... no... his familiarity. As I render the anxious figure, his eyes are suddenly upon me, gazing with nothing but apprehensive warmth.
“Are you alright?! Does something hurt?! Why don’t you try sleeping more—” he says as he progressively grows out of breath. His kneeling trembles travel to me, through the edge of the couch; that we both share now.
“Dazai, calm down.”
I say with such a hoarse voice, that it makes me conscious of both myself and him in front of me. The fog from both, my view and my mind, instantly clears up. Where am I? What am I doing here? What happened last night—
Then, it flashes... the previous night flashes through my periphery. The events of the day slowly going through my head one by one.
The fight with Ane-san,
The meeting with Albatross,
The lunch with Atsushi-kun,
The fight with the cult preacher—
“What the fuck happened to that man?—”
I say as I sit up startling Dazai’s resting posture. The realization that I... that I had almost killed a man slowly starts to sink in. His blood, I see its remainder on my hand. Its dripping. There’s just so much of it, that its dripping. Dripping onto the floor. I can see no other colour around me but the colour of his blood.
“Shhhh....” I hear as flash of light covers my eyes. A hand has travelled across them to block the violent image, “Don’t look... just close your eyes”. As the darkness of his palms overcomes my vision, so does his warmth of them. Slowly engulfing me and redirecting me into posture I’ve never really experienced before. An embrace, of hearing someone’s heart, beat.
Its so distracting. But luckily for me, maybe that’s what I had desperately needed in that moment.
We stay in this posture, as if it were a ritual of emotional equilibrium. Using the others presence to calm ourselves down. I could feel my nerves calm down and my senses come back up.
In an instant, I became aware of everything; of his hunched profile protecting me; of his palms around my eyes; and of his arms stretched about me to embrace me. I should let go, so why do I not want to? Why do I yearn for this man’s warmth? Why do I? Why is it so familiar?
I attempt to redirect my gained senses onto something else.
“Dazai, did you forget something on the stove?—” I mumble into his chest as I smell burning in the distance.
“SHIT SHIT SHIT—”
He suddenly rips off the couch, quickly running into the kitchen, leaving me quite bamboozled. His lack of presence gives me some sense of neutrality, allowing me to finally survey my surroundings.
Dazai’s apartment is a small 1LDK apartment with two windows. Both of which are covered with black tarp, leading to a room devoid of any sunlight. Despite this, the room is still illuminated by the small glow coming from the tarp, whose strength indicates that, it’s still the early hours of the morning. Besides this, there isn’t much to observe and document. The place barely has any furniture, not even a bed... Only a small dresser and the couch I’m sitting on. The walls are also naked, having nothing but a poor paint job on them. It doesn’t seem like a space for living. Rather, a place left by the dead.
As I continue looking about, I hear his pathetic struggles coming from the kitchen. I rest myself upon its opening frame to see what all the cries are about. “Hey, stop scrapping the pot,” I say with judgement, “Just pour some water in it and let it rest for a while.” He does as I say (shockingly), without making any sarcastic remarks.
“I really wanted to welcome you with a meal, even if was just some simple rice,” he says with his usual smirk, “but look at how I messed that up too,” he continues by laughing.
“Stop trying to hide your real emotions”
He pretends to ignore my statement, but I feel the sorrow pour out as he turns the faucet off. His expressions cannot hide things as well as he thinks they can.
“Don’t you have a rice cooker or something? Don’t tell me, you cook rice in a pot everyday?” I say to change the subject hoping to lighten the mood.
“Uhhh...” he says with an awkward face, “I just eat food from the conbini.”
“What?—” I quickly open both his cabinet and fridge to see that the fucker truly does live off on nothing but convenience store food.
His kitchen is as empty as the rest of his apartment is. Looking at this horrendous turn of events, I take a quick glance at the clock,
“Is there a suupa near by?”
“Yea— why?”
“Get ready to leave.”
“Chuuya—”
“I don’t want to hear you fuckin’ whine or something, pick your shit up. We’re getting some real food”
“But I don’t know how to cook—”
“I’ll teach you.”
Dazai doesn’t put up much of a fight after I say that. I don’t know how, but I know that he is happy to hear that. But like I said, his expressions cannot hide things as well as he thinks they can.
We pack our wallets not that his is going to come in handy since I’ll be paying for the groceries anyway.
We reach the grocery right at its opening time. Good for me as it isn’t very crowded.
The door is opening.
Dazai is clearly a cheeky confident man yet he felt extremely out of his element in the grocery store. He wasn’t quite sure on what to buy or what to make. Thought his idiotic curiosity was entertaining to see as we walked through different aisles.
“Ya like curry?”
“Yeah!”
“Let’s get some vegetables then.”
I had planned on teaching him how to make some simple unassuming curry but as we bought the different ingredients, his excitement about all of this, told me that this meant to him more than what I had assumed. Just what about this was so fascinating to this man? Whatever it was, I wished to indulge it in a bit with him.
“What’s your favourite dish?” I say as I pick out some medium sized potatoes. Dazai is standing, surveying carrots however...
“Don’t have one?” He’s standing frozen still as if this question were a landmine.
“It’s okay if you don’t have an answer—”
“Crab... I really like crab.”
“Then, how about we buy us some crab.” I reply monotonously to not give away my own reaction to his expression. The fucker was smiling from ear to ear.
We come back to this apartment which is apparently within a complex given to him by the agency. He tells who lives where but honestly, I’m not too interested in any of it.
“ただいま!” We say in unison as we enter.
I gesture to take my hat off only to realize that I haven’t had it on, for a day and half now. The fucker starts chuckling.
“What’s so funny, bastard?!”
“You’re so easy to provoke, Chuuya!” He says laughing even harder. I’d banter back with the mackerel however, I truly am too tired to do all that.
Speaking of the hat however—
“Hey, have ya seen my phone?”
His laughter tones down and he speaks as if he can read my mind, “If its Ane-san you’re worried about, then we’ve let her know about your whereabouts.”
“That’s good to know, I’m still not ready to see her.”
Dazai must have sensed the mood tense up.
“Why don’t we start cooking! I’m so~ excited!”
Upon his statement, we move all our groceries to the kitchen. We wash our hands and start working up our newly brought ingredients.
Japanese curry in my opinion is perhaps the easiest dish to make.
First comes prepping your ingredients.
Peel and roughly chop the carrots and the potatoes. And dice the onion.
To my surprise, Dazai was very good with the knife. He cut the vegetables, and diced the onions very well. However, peeling definitely wasn’t really his thing. He hated every moment of it.
After prepping your ingredients, heat your pan with some oil in it.
Sauté your onions till they start to brown.
Dazai had the typical beginner’s nervousness where he got scared of letting the onions stay still in the pot for a while. He constantly wanted to stir fearing that the instant he stopped doing so, the onions would burn to a crisp.
After the onions have browned, add your chopped carrots and potatoes and stir.
This part was definitely his favourite. I think he really likes stirring.
Add water and remove scum as it comes up.
Also add your favourite curry cube at this step.
I wasn’t sure which company’s curry mix he’d enjoy so I just got him my personal favourite. However, I did encourage the bastard to buy some other brand if he doesn’t like the one I got him.
Let it cook until the potatoes and carrots are to your liking.
As I give him these instructions from afar, I busy myself with preparing the crab we got; a good quality Kasumi crab. I begin by cleaning its body, removing all the inedible parts and rip the legs off. I keep their shell on however, as I plan to cook them by boiling. I also took this opportunity of cooking crabs, to get Dazai some very much needed seasonings... such as salt.
As I finish prepping my crab, the pot rested next to Dazai’s curry has also started to reach its boil. I sprinkled... well, more like drizzle a good amount of salt and submerged the legs that will soon turn red. Both of us wait as the boiling water does the cooking for us.
“Are you enjoying yourself?” I say as we sit at the opposite end of the tiny dining table that had been cramped into an even tinier little kitchen.
His excitement fills the small space, “Yeah, of course.” Though, he doesn’t show it through his words.
The bubbling of the two pots is the only music we listen to as I make glances towards him, especially his bandaged arms. It’s been a while since we have been seeing each other so why haven’t his wounds healed, yet? As confusingly close as we may have gotten, I fear this is still not a question I can ask him.
“Why don’t you see if the vegetables have cooked through?”
We both get up to see our respective pots. After a bit of inspection, both of us conclude our cooking by switching the stove off in harmony.
Serve your curry with cooked rice and other side dishes.
Upon that cramped table lied some delicious looking curry, well boiled crabs and the pre-cooked rice from the suupa. Shockingly, despite the apartment being vacant in every other sense, he did have some very surprisingly cute cutlery lying around.
“Why do you and Ane-san have the same taste in cutlery.”
“Really?” sounding a bit amazed, “I just got them on clearance from a garage sale.”
“Didn’t expect you be a garage sale typa guy.”
“Well, I’m full of surprises~ Aren’t I?” He says with that smirk.
“Yeah yeah, let’s start eating.”
“いただきます!”
We start digging in. I take equal portions of that bland pre-cooked rice and Dazai’s first time cooking curry and its... DELICIOUS?! Dazai had cooked the potatoes to perfection but the carrot was a bit over cooked. Nonetheless, the overall flavour was amazing.
“This is really good,” I say to encourage the guy hoping my expression complements my words, “I hope it wasn’t too difficult to make.”
“Really?~ I’m so glad.” He seems pleased with both himself and my response, “and yeah... it wasn’t too bad to make.”
“Then try making it from time to time.”
“I will if you are around~” He’s smirking.
“What-ever”
We enjoy the rest of our food in silence.
From the looks of it, I fear he hadn’t eaten good food in at least a decade. Especially with the way, even tasting the crab had made him emotional. He had almost looked like that boy from my dreams, devouring the crab I made for him. That’s when the thought appeared again...
Are those dreams really just... dreams?
We both finish our food at a similar rate. His eating habits had been so oddly normal that I forgot he is an oddity. Unlike both Kyouka-chan and Atsushi-kun, Dazai seemed to have a more normal appetite. I’d ask him about it but, it would definitely be rude to question his appetite like that. Before I get to ask him about anything, he brings up a question;
“Do you think...” he hesitates as he puts the dishes in the sink, “Ehh, it’s not that important.”
“Say it... finish what you were going to say.” I affirm.
“Uhh...” he’s a bit nervous, “Do you think... you can cook for me... again?”
“Sure.” I say without missing a beat.
As annoying as our first encounter had been, and as annoying as the mackerel can be, there is something fascinating about him that I must figure out. I must know why this man is so... warm.
bring bring bring... an incoming call
“Hello?” Dazai picks it up
.
.
.
“Yeah, alright! I’ll be there.”
He looks at me as he closed his cell, “I’ll have to leave in a bit, but you’re free to stay... if you want to.”
Not that I mind his offer, “Where are you going?”
“The agency?”
“Can I come along?”
He hesitates at my statement.
“I know you guys have those hostages... both of them. Weren’t they after me? I deserve to know the truth,” he almost nods in agreement,
“Tell me... tell me, you won’t hide the truth from me either.”