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“I’m not going to do it.”
“Oh, c’mon! Why not?”
“Why not?” Atsushi echoes incredulously. “You make it sound as if I’m being unreasonable, instead of you!”
“Yeah, but I’m hiring you. I’ll be paying you. You’re going to get money,” Dazai replies, putting an unnecessary emphasis on the money-related words. He takes a step forward and Atsushi takes a step back, even though that’s going to get him backed up against a wall at some point. And that’s just what Atsushi wants, to be cornered by one of the hottest and most popular guys on campus.
“And I don’t care,” Atsushi replies resolutely, digging his heels into the floor and looking him right in his pretty face. Dazai raises an eyebrow, tilting his head to the side. Atsushi groans, fists clenching by his side, and he relents, just a little bit. “Okay, that’s a lie. I like money, a lot, but I draw the line at receiving it because someone is hiring me to date him.”
Dazai crosses his arms, looking as unimpressed as Atsushi feels. And Atsushi should be the one looking unimpressed, from the moment he came knocked on the door at sundown and came with the ridiculous idea. “Really? Is that what bothers you?”
Atsushi pinches the bridge of his nose and purses his lips before he’s going to scream. “You’ve got lots of admirers. Just ask one of them out and you’ve got the real thing,” he points out calmly, despite the itch under his skin that makes him want to be anything but calm.
He can already imagine the faces of Dazai’s many admirers when they find out. They’ll be devastated that their alleged ‘future boyfriend’ is taken, angry even. Why would he put himself in that position, aside for the money?
Dazai shakes his head. “No, no, no, I can’t do that. The thing is, I’m going to inevitably break up with them. After I shower them in my unconditional love and support. They’ll be totally hooked! And if I break up with them, I risk breaking their fragile little hearts into a thousand pieces. It’ll crush them!” He insists.
Atsushi finds himself begrudgingly agreeing with that, even if Dazai I’ll-charm-your-pants-off Osamu isn’t quite known for being careful around people’s hearts. “Why me, then?” He asks, side-eying him because he knows this is where Dazai’s explanations will fail.
“Because you’re Nakajima Atsushi-kun!” He sounds so convinced, as if saying his name is going to answer all questions and actually work. And if Atsushi hadn’t seen red with frustration, it might’ve worked, in that smooth voice of his.
A beat. “Yes,” Atsushi replies tensely, his teeth grinding against each other. He figures the itch under his skin is there because he wants to punch something. Or someone. “That’s my name.”
“A very beautiful name indeed,” Dazai says seriously and Atsushi finally snaps.
“Okay, that’s it. Get out of my dorm. I don’t know you very well outside the stories, but I think I’ve seen enough here,” he says, taking Dazai by his wrists and dragging him towards the door.
“Wait, wait, wait.” Dazai resists and leans back at the door opening, whirling around so he’s facing Atsushi. “Don’t kick me out yet, you’ve got to hear me out.”
“I’ve already heard you and that’s been quite enough, thank you very much and have a nice day,” Atsushi says in his customer tone from the various side jobs he works to support himself. Admittedly, any extra cash would be welcomed, but it’s not like Atsushi would die of hunger if he didn’t take Dazai’s offer.
He pointedly tries not to think about the price of a bowl of ochazuke. Weakly, he pushes at Dazai’s shoulder, which really shouldn’t be as firm as it is.
“What do you mean enough?” Dazai whines and he looks every bit the child that he acts like. “We’ve only talked just a couple of times before this.”
“Yeah, and weren’t those conversations just great?” Atsushi practically shouts, unintentionally harsh. He’s too far gone now to maintain his semi-polite and forced-calm stance, even though he’s pretty sure he’s already snapped. “And there’s totally no ulterior moves in getting the freak of the campus to fake date you, right?” His eyes prickle, behind him he hears the remnants of voices who won’t say what they think to his face.
He doesn’t let Dazai reply. “Hey, Atsushi-kun, that’s your name, right? I think you dropped your books. Let me pick that up for you. Oh, wow, your eyes are multi-coloured. Do you wear contacts?” Atsushi mocks, recalling a few of the past talks he’s had with Dazai in their unfortunate encounters. “And then you called your friends over to come look at me like I was some sort of circus attraction!”
“Hey! Maybe I thought you were pretty,” Dazai defends.
“That white hair of yours… did you dye it or is it from the stress of college? Or maybe you’re just old… But you look so young. How old are you?” Atsushi continues in the best mimic of Dazai’s voice he can make. He glares at Dazai and places his hands on his hips. “Don’t go telling me you think people who look old in your eyes are pretty.”
“I mean, it depends. Really, I’ve met many relatively old people who were quite attractive so—”
Atsushi deflates and every bit of tension leaves his body, until he’s just stuck with the ache of having clenched his muscles for too long. It’s going to feel like heaven when he can lay down in his second-hand bed again. “Just get out, please?” He asks tiredly, averting his gaze from Dazai. “I’m sorry for shouting at you, but I don’t want to hear it anymore.”
“I’m sorry too, Atsushi-kun,” Dazai says, and Atsushi stiffens when it actually rings sincere. “I know I’ve come off as a little bit too strong, or whatever you want to call it, but I really need this favour.”
“Oh yeah. You really need a boyfriend, that’s all,” Atsushi mumbles, rolling his eyes. He works too many jobs and sleeps not enough to be dealing with this.
Dazai closes in, until he’s right in front of him, and he traps Atsushi’s hands between his own. “Atsushi-kun, I promise you that’s not the case. We’ve gotten off to a bit of a rocky start, but I won’t ever be like that again, okay? And honestly, after this is over, I think we really could be great friends.”
Atsushi doesn’t tell him how he doubts that being friends with the guy who paid you to date him is going work.
“And I’ll be a great boyfriend, I promise. A gentleman, even! I’ll buy you food when we go out with my friends and the tickets when we go the arcade or something similar.”
Atsushi tries to pull his hand out, but Dazai’s grip is tight and warm. For a second Atsushi allows himself to actually enjoy it. “Dazai—”
“And it could be fun! You seem like someone who enjoys study dates, like Kunikida-kun. We can go on study dates and I’ll help you study and then—”
Another dam breaks and Atsushi hisses the words he regrets the very moment after. “Okay, okay, fine!” He concedes, jerking his hands back. He stops in his movements, but pushes through anyway, because he said yes already. “I’ll—I’ll be your stupid pretend boyfriend.”
Dazai’s grin nearly splits his face. “Please don’t call my boyfriend stupid,” he admonishes cheekily, leaning in to place a chaste kiss on Atsushi’s lips before he can do anything and slips a folded scrap of paper in his hands. He draws back and laughs. "There, practise."
Unwanted, heat crawls up his neck, rising to his cheeks. "That was really not necessary."
Dazai ignores that. “Call me,” he mouths instead before he’s gone from the view, out of his room. A few minutes Atsushi had difficulty getting him out, and now he’s vanished just like that. Atsushi stares at the number jotted down on the paper, the lines of an already messy handwriting blurring together. He'll figure how to deal with this in the morning.
He decides then and there that this is one of his worst decisions yet. And later, when he’s lying in bed, he’ll say that the peck on his lips he’d gotten from Dazai only bothers him, not pleases him.