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The boy was just so pretty.
He was hardly aware of it, being too young to think of himself in relation to others like that, to place himself upon the weighing scales of beauty to be judged by the world. Part of Mori wondered if Dazai was even capable of submitting to that—if he was not far too inhuman to ever realize how lovely he was.
But that was alright, wasn’t it? Mori knew, and Mori was the only one who had to know. He couldn’t hide Dazai away forever, not even to protect him, but he could be the only one who knew Dazai like that.
And he would, soon. Not yet though, not just yet. For now, it was enough to watch him. Quiet and unassuming. Barefoot in the mornings, the sun glowing his dark curls a perfect brown. Quiet hands, quiet voice. He rarely spoke, and even more rarely asked for things.
He seemed helpless in the face of his own freedom, these days. When Mori had first taken him from the asylum, he’d cowered in his room and refused to step out at all, even for food. Too glad to have a door that locked to venture out of the sanctuary, despite Mori having told him he had the run of the house. He would have been even easier to break, then, but Mori wasn’t really interested in easy. It wasn’t fun if it wasn’t a challenge, if he couldn’t hear the crack as it snapped.
Now Dazai moved about the house, but he still avoided Mori if he at all could. He was startlingly ingenious about it, too. Mouselike; rarely detected but always present. He seemed to associate Mori with the doctors at the asylum still, and probably would for a while yet—Mori had made a grave misstep on that first day, allowing Dazai to see him in his white coat with a stethoscope around his neck. If he’d just worn a suit, Dazai wouldn’t have had to think of him as a doctor and this entire painful process could have been eased. It was especially galling because Mori had not intended this, had committed to himself to not making use of Dazai’s fear of the medical quite yet. He wanted trust first, something soft and lovely, whose eventual passing he’d mourn.
Mori knew he was eating by the way food periodically went missing from the fridge and knew he’d be just fine, but somewhere he couldn’t help worrying. It was a misplaced worry—Dazai had survived several years on his own in a mental asylum where the inmates, doctors, and nurses all hated him. The boy’s will—nay, ability to survive was admirable to say the least.
Still, Mori couldn’t help caring. Dazai’s progress was slow, and although soon the time would come for Mori to well and truly begin his training, he couldn’t start until he got some important factors out of the way.
So: a test of Dazai’s progress, and another step down the road of making the boy his.
That morning, Mori took to his office after breakfast, running through the boxes of records he’d requisitioned from the asylum for information about Dazai’s parents. Two boxes and three hours later, he was deeply frustrated with their filing system and had found nothing. Annoyed, he decided to read instead; until he noticed Dazai standing at the door and staring. Wide, blank eyes. Emotionless. Pretty.
“Yes?” Mori asked.
Dazai took a deep breath. The effort of speech was visible in his face, the strained clenching and unclenching of his fists. Mori own hands itched with the desire to break him. “There’s a man. Down. Wants you.”
Mori cast a regretful glance down at his book, but put it aside and rose. Dazai moved out of his way quickly, but Mori couldn’t resist brushing a hand through Dazai’s hair as he walked past. It was soft and ridiculously silky, even unmaintained, and Mori entertained a brief fantasy of taking him to a proper hairdresser. But he doubted Dazai would appreciate the ordeal just yet.
He noted, also, the way Dazai made a tiny shocked sound at the unexpected touch. The expression that flashed across his face. The way he couldn’t seem to decide whether to move closer or away.
Mori smiled to himself as he walked downstairs. His lawyer stood in the hallway awkwardly, as though he couldn’t process what had just happened to him. Dazai inspired that in people who didn’t know him, the disquieting feeling that whatever they’d just met, it was either not fully human or not really a child.
Or neither.
“Sit down,” Mori greeted. “Can I get you something? Tea?”
“No, thank you,” Hayashi said nervously, although he moved towards a seat. The living room was large and comfortable. More brightly lit than Mori liked, but this part of the house wasn’t for his comfort. Mori sat in the chair diagonally from him. “I didn’t know you had a child.”
“Ah, no. Not yet, anyway.” Mori winked. This got no response, so he went on, “That’s what I wanted to speak to you about.”
“You want to adopt a child?” Hayashi sounded incredulous. In all the time they’d known each other, Mori had never once indicated to him by word or deed that he was interested in fatherhood. In hindsight, that had been a grave error. It was not good to do things that were out of character. Better to make a little room for everything. He’d keep that in mind in the future.
“I got lonely, what can I say,” Mori said with a shrug. “Especially after the war, and, ah—you know. Her.”
Hayashi’s eyes softened as he filled in the gaps. Mori watched it happen, privately wondered how people could be so easy and hard at the same time. “So, you found a child already? Is he the one you want?”
“Yes,” Mori said, making sure to sound certain. He modulated his voice carefully for the next part. “I met him in the course of my work, and he’s utterly fascinating. I doubt most people could take care of a child like him, however, and most don’t want to. Why, they mistreated him horrifically in the asylum, and that was one of the better ones. I didn’t have the heart to leave him there, and not when they so clearly wanted to be rid of him too.” He let his voice drop into a sigh near the end, tired and sad.
“I always knew you were a soft touch,” Hayashi said, clearly relieved. “What’s his name?”
Mori leaned forward conspiratorially. “Actually, I was thinking we could change it.”
—
Dazai came down for dinner that evening. He hadn’t done that before, and Mori couldn’t help being pleased with himself. This day had worked out remarkably well, despite all the ways it could’ve gone to shit.
And yet Dazai was here now, hovering uncertainly near the door like he didn’t know the second place at the little four-person table wasn’t laid for him. Mori tilted his head towards it, and Dazai got the hint and sat down. “Are you alright?” Mori inquired.
“Yeah,” Dazai fidgeted with the edge of the table cloth. He had so many nervous tells it bothered Mori—he’d have to devote special time to breaking him out of those. They’d return, too. Like weeds. “Who? The man, who you met?” And he’d have to teach him full sentences, Mori thought despairingly. Really, this would’ve been so much easier if Dazai’s parents, whoever they were, had been a little more conscientious and just talked to their child.
He took deep, steadying breaths. “He was a lawyer.”
“Why.” Dazai was starting to get so twitchy he’d moved from picking at the table cloth to scratching his wrists.
“Because,” Mori said, getting up from his chair to stand behind Dazai’s. He leaned down to wrap his hands around Dazai’s forearms, a grip no child (no matter how inhuman) couldn’t break out of. “There are better ways of doing this. Because I want to adopt you, and I had to talk to him first.”
Dazai went still. “Adopt. Me?” His voice was so lost and unsure that Mori’s heart ached despite himself. Soft touch, indeed.
“Adopt you,” he confirmed. “Now, I want you to eat dinner first. And then we can see about your scratching, okay?” He let go of Dazai’s hands, stepping back and moving into his own chair again.
“Don’t stop me,” Dazai pleaded He was still frozen.
Mori picked up his fork, stabbing a vegetable. Glared at his plate for seconds before lifting his eyes back to Dazai’s huge, terrified ones. “I am not going to stop you,” he said, gentle and firm. “I just don’t like that you’re going about hurting yourself in such a messy and inefficient fashion. I think we can do better than that, can’t we?”
Dazai nodded, dazed. Mori served him the food that was easiest to eat—bland and nearly tasteless, the stuff Mori reverted to when he was feeling sick or antsy. He had a feeling Dazai couldn’t handle something too rich or flavourful.
He felt Dazai’s eyes on him as he ate, but when he looked up Dazai slowly looked back down and began to eat. Slow, careful movements. Controlled. Mori fancied that he could fall in love just watching Dazai live. He was so graceful, in the way that things that had no concept of grace were graceful. Unassumingly, achingly. Mori dragged his eyes away anyway, because something about Dazai in this moment was too holy and delicate to be seen by someone like him.
Mori cleaned everything away when they were done. He hadn’t tasted a single bite of his own food, and privately found himself hoping Dazai had had a pleasant meal. When he turned around to ask, however, Dazai was gone.