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The door opens, with little more to announce a man’s entrance than the rustle of clothing, the smell of antiseptic, and soft footsteps that somehow seem rushed. He shuts the door with no more than the usual force, but it’s still hard enough to make the pictures on the wall tremble; he’s upset.
Oda wonders when his life became like this, that he can read exactly who it is and exactly how said someone is feeling without needing to look. “Dazai?”
No answer. That’s not new for days like this one, but it’s concerning. Oda bookmarks the page he’s been reading, and sets the book aside.
He’s learned from experience that Dazai wants- needs- space on his bad days, but that he wants someone near him all the same- whether it’s just sitting beside him or holding him doesn’t matter. He’s also learned that Dazai hates being surprised. So he combines those two lessons, combed from the two years or so that he’s known the executive, and walks towards the sofa.
Dazai’s there, like he always is every time he comes in; the only difference is that he’s curled up on it instead of draped over it. Curled up in a ball, back against the sofa, arms bent to cover his face until he looks closer to the teenager that he is instead of the Demon Prodigy everyone else sees. A position that shuts out any show of vulnerability; a position that screams it all the same.
Oda keeps his footsteps loud enough to be heard and sits down on a space appropriately far from Dazai- far enough to give him room, but close enough that he can reach over and rest a hand on the executive’s ankle.
That’s all it takes before Dazai uncoils. Oda has but a second to see a face wracked with terror before the teenager throws himself at him, and almost knocks him over with how hard he grabs onto Oda’s shirt and presses himself in. Oda’s arms find their way around the teenager out of habit, one curled around his lower back and the other around his shoulders. “Dazai, what’s wrong?”
”Don’t!” The sharpness in Dazai’s voice catches him off guard, even as it tapers off into unsteady whispers. “Don’t. Just... hold me. Please.”
Such a simple request feels like mountains on his shoulders as he pulls Dazai closer, fitting the teenager’s head right underneath his chin, and attempts to figure out what on earth could have rattled Dazai so much.
It is perhaps the most difficult thing he’s ever had to think of. The mafia does not breed children who are cowards, and Dazai is just as fearless as the rest of them- the only misfortune his enemies have is to be his enemies, after all. And Oda can count the times he’s seen Dazai genuinely afraid, or genuinely upset, on one hand, which makes it all the more confusing: how do you scare someone who’s seen how much humanity’s darkness has to offer without flinching? How far do you have to go to remind someone like Dazai that he is only a child in a world of monsters?
His line of thought comes to a halt as Dazai sags in his arms; once again, out of habit, he brushes hair out of his friend’s face and cradles his cheek, stroking his thumb across the cheekbone until Dazai raises his head and looks at him.
Whatever panic was there thirty seconds ago has all but faded, but the paleness of Dazai’s face is still there, as well as the tension that has him pressing his lips into a line and the wariness that has his eyes focusing and unfocusing at random intervals- lost in a breaking nightmare that Dazai, and only Dazai, is privy to.
It was instinct that had Oda wrapping his arms around Dazai, protecting him from whatever terror followed the younger home and giving him security in the only way he knows; it is that same instinct that makes Oda unwind his arms and stand, taking in Dazai’s bewildered expression as he walks to the CD player, pushes a button, and walks back to the sofa and stretches out his hand. “Odasaku?”
“Saaaay, Ango.” Dazai leans too close for the informant’s comfort, and Oda has to stifle a chuckle at seeing Ango almost fall off the stool as he avoids the executive’s too wide grin. “Have you been with a woman?”
”What?! How much have you drank, Dazai-kun?”
”Well? Have you?”
Warm guitar notes float through the air, befitting the orange sunlight that filters in through the blinds as Dazai looks from his hand to his face in confusion. “What are you doing?”
”A tried and true method of calming my kids down,” Oda answers with a straight face, hand starting to ache from how long he’s been holding it out.
“Even if I have,” Ango replies as he gets some of his senses back, pushing up his glasses with a force that has Dazai cracking up, “what’s it to you?”
”Haha- wait. Ehhh? You dated a woman? A woman willingly dated you?”
”Dazai,” Oda starts to say, but he’s half a second late. Ango’s face turns into a mix of a thundercloud and genuine confusion as the man splutters and clenches his glass. Dazai leans back, so far that Oda has to wonder if Dazai understand how close he is to falling into his lap, even if it’s just to avoid potential splatters of tomato juice. “What’s that supposed to mean?!”
That makes Dazai snort. “I’m not one of your kids, Odasaku.”
”No,” Oda agrees. His arm’s really sore now, so he drops it and squats until he’s in front of Dazai, close enough to hear the gears whirring in the executive’s brain as he tries to figure out where this is going. “But you’re my friend. I’d like to help you feel better, if you’ll let me.”
”And dancing’s going to make me feel better?”
”That’s up to you, Dazai.”
“I just meant, with how much time you spend in the library, I didn’t think you knew how to woo a woman! You could be a secret hermit for all I know.”
Ango stares at Dazai for a second longer incredulously. Oda opts to take another sip of his drink- well, as best as he can with Dazai practically lying on his lap- just as Ango turns to him. “Odasaku-san, do you agree with him?”
He thinks about it. “You certainly act like a hermit sometimes.”
Ango groans and facepalms; the bartender considerately pushes a glass of scotch towards him. “You two are so unhelpful!”
“We’re only telling it how it is, Ango.” By some miracle, Dazai manages to pull himself upright without knocking himself off the stool. “Besides, it’s impressive! Wooing someone takes practice, you know, especially when it varies from person to person.”
”Don’t make it sound more dramatic than it is, Dazai-kun; it’s quite simple.”
The music continues. A few more heartbeats go by as Dazai studies him, eyes searching his own in a way that suggests he’s probing for truth. Oda can’t help but be pulled into the intensity of his gaze, and the writer in him marvels at the specks of gold littered in amber orbs, thrown aflame by the angle of the light- funny how they say Nakahara is the fiery one when Dazai is the one with fire in his eyes.
Then Dazai laughs. But the moment does not disappear like Oda expects it to; rather, it’s augmented in the way Dazai’s fingertips cautiously brush his knuckles, in how his hand folds around Dazai’s like he’s holding a butterfly. “Then I expect you to sweep me off my feet; I have high standards, you know.”
”Yeah.” This time, when Oda rises, Dazai rises with him.
“Quite simple, you say?” Dazai leans forward on the counter, head propped up on an arm. “Do tell.”
”Dance with her.”
”Eh? Why?”
”Say you fancy someone, Dazai-kun. Conversing with them is easy; it isn’t hard to turn small talk into deeper conversation. But dancing requires trust- so you won’t step on each other’s feet, so one won’t throw the other off balance over things like turns and all that- especially since you two have to make eye contact the whole time.”
”But eyes can lie just as easily as mouths can.”
”Maybe, but eyes are called windows to the soul for a reason. You could learn more about someone in one dance than you can in a thousand conversations; it’s all in the eyes.”
They step into the middle of the living room, into that space where there are no chairs or tables to hinder their movements. Dazai’s free hand curls around his shoulder, and his own drops to Dazai’s lower back. Their hands, already entwined, only shift so that their fingers are interlacing.
It is not the first dance they’ve shared, but it’s the first done in the privacy of Oda’s apartment, the first done for their own sakes rather than for practice, for a mission, or from the throes of too much alcohol. It’s the first dance that Dazai looks a little less war-torn and more happy, and the first dance that Oda finds him absolutely captivating.
Not for the grace that accompanies his every movement, like now as they twirl, nor for the many interesting ways his mind dances. Not for his looks, since Dazai is worth more than all the elegant features he was born with, and not the way he seems untouchable. If there is one thing Oda knows in the moment, it is that Dazai has always been captivating simply because he is Dazai- a soldier with all the ruthlessness of a mafia boss and a cruelty as solid as the gun he wields, and a teenager soft enough to be undone by something as simple as a dance.
“Cause it’s you and me, and all of the people with nothing to do, nothing to lose.”
He hears the whispers when he patrols the hallways, sometimes. People wonder what about him is so special, that Dazai would rather stick around someone like him rather than the higher ups he surrounds himself with for work. They hesitate to call him Dazai’s friend, always sticking to words like ‘associate’ or ‘acquaintance,’ but the basis for their whispers is always the same- executive and handyman, king and pawn, in a relationship that extends so far beyond the borders of the mafia hierarchy that one dares to call it unreal. Dreamlike. Fairytale.
And what’s most unreal about it all is that, no matter how people look at it, Dazai chose him first.
It sticks with him as he twirls Dazai more and dips him, as a noise of surprise slips past Dazai’s lips and bubbles into a full blown laugh, and he marvels that more people don’t bother to look past the mask of the executive to see the teenager beneath it.
“And it’s you and me, and all of the people.”
“Odasaku?” One breath of his name, and the rest of the world fades into the background. They’ve stopped dancing. In this moment, time does not exist; it is only him, Dazai, and this song, caught in the spaces between seconds, as Dazai stares at him like he’s the most important person in the world.
“And I don’t know why, I can’t keep my eyes off of you.”
When he leans in, Dazai meets him in the middle. Their lips fit together softly, perfectly, to create a different kind of harmony even as the song continues like time hasn’t stopped.
“I can’t keep my eyes off of you and me.”
Dazai is absolutely captivating- like this, with the sun at his back and illuminating his hair, kissing him like the very survival of the earth depends on it- and not for the first time, Oda wishes that time would truly stop, long enough for him to commit this moment to memory and tuck it into the folds of his heart. Long enough that Dazai hears and understands how beautifully, how soulfully human he is even if he doesn’t think so himself.
When they finally part from a need for air, Dazai breathes out a laugh. “Consider me swept off my feet.”
“Was that good, then?”
Dazai pretends to think, tilting his head towards the sky even as the corners of his mouth twitch. “Weeelll, could have been a little better. I’m pretty sure I hit my head when you dipped me just now.”
The next time Oda leans in is to steal the laugh straight from Dazai’s lips. If he smiles in the process, no one but them is there to see.
“What day is it, and in what month? This clock never seemed so alive.”