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One of the (frankly depressingly minimal) advantages of being the Demon Prodigy was that no one knew what Dazai actually looked like. His screen moniker, a pseudonym he’d picked out on a whim, had remained constant over the past three years. In all that time—as Dazai went to school, approximated a normal life, and made millions in information exchange on the dark web—no one had figured out the Demon Prodigy’s real life identity. Many had tried; the knowledge he traded was worth a fortune, and the cards he never put down were worth more. But despite their best efforts the guesses came no closer than ‘male’ (debatable) and ‘possibly non-white’ (less debatable, to Dazai’s annoyance. He should have been more careful about time zones.)
Sometimes when Dazai was bored, or coming off the tail end of a high, he asked himself why he was doing this. Certainly without it he would’ve died a long time ago, or found himself in a dozen increasingly unstable and unhealthy relationships (he’d hovered around two for about a year now, having sworn off dating in favor of coffee), or have killed himself in shoddy enough fashion that he was institutionalized, a possibility which hardly bore thinking of and thus ensured that Dazai spent hours researching every facility near Yokohama and also ways to break out of them.
Being a genius was far less fun than it was cut out to be. Less flashy gorgeous plans and more puking into the tub at four am because he found just the wrong website online.
It was also a constant, inescapable sense of danger. He was aware always that people weren’t safe, that safety was a myth, the probability of accidents happening and how that probability applied to someone like him. The deliberate attempts were easier to fend off; the ones that rested on chance kept him up at night.
There was something terribly satisfying to Dazai about dying, especially dying at his own hand. All the years of gathering information that no one else had access to and sending it flying around the world—all the information he’d never used, some pieces that only he had—all of it gone, switched off, eradicated. A hole the shape of the Demon Prodigy and so much larger than him, an unfilled grave that no one would know how to deal with
Dying at someone else’s hands was significantly more distasteful. The joy lay in the choice, the artistry, his final consummate act of targeted destruction. There was no elegance to having it be on the whims of another.
Dazai never felt safe, but thirteen years of danger later he thought safety might feel worse.
He still hired a bodyguard. It was only prudent. Why would someone like him hire a bodyguard? There were so many reasons; his guardian was a controversial politician, and his father had been another one. There were probably a lot of people who wanted him dead or otherwise harmed. Mori heard out his reasons and then dismissed him, which Dazai took as approval for his decision and a glittering commendation of his foresight.
“If only you’d apply some of this foresight to Mori-san’s work,” Hirotsu observed. Dazai spun in his desk chair and grinned and downed another mug of coffee.
He hated politics, but not as much as politics hated him; there was no place in the white rooms of the government for a teenager in bandages and hoodies. “You can always change,” Mori observed, when he brought this up. “You have plenty of suits.”
Dazai rolled his eyes. The truth was that he hated feeling eyes on him, and would avoid it for as long as he was able.
Oda Sakunosuke was tall. He carried himself with the air of someone who knew precisely what he was capable of doing and was always concentrating on not doing it. Dazai, unexpectedly, liked him at once.
But it was still hard to fight down the instinctive fear that came from letting anyone else into his space. His flat was nothing much, but every bit of it was his. He hadn’t let another person in since he’d moved in himself, even if that meant dedicating a day every few weeks to cleaning. Dazai hadn’t been so dedicated to a space in his entire life before then.
He was astonished at how easily Oda fit into it. “Make yourself at home,” he said awkwardly, not really meaning it at all (if you touch anything I’m firing you—) and fled to his computer room.
When he came out again Oda had made food. He’d somehow done it with minimal disturbance of the space. It was instant ramen, but with boiled eggs and scallions; more effort than Dazai ever bothered with. They ate silently, together.
— — —
“Would you like to learn to defend yourself?” Oda asked, almost two months later. They were settling back into the car after a gala Dazai had been unable to escape. Frustrated, he’d spent the afternoon dyeing his hair red to match Oda’s so that they could pass for siblings.
Mori had been annoyed, to say the least. Hopefully that annoyance would mean he wasn’t invited to anything for a few months.
But now his hair was a shitty cherry red, which was unbearable.
Oda’s words distracted Dazai from his mournful internal monologue. “What would be the point of that?” he asked, just to move the conversation along. It was often annoying to see every way a conversation might pan out and also want to follow someone down every road.
That made Dazai think about everything Oda made him want that he’d never wanted before, which was as unbearable as being a redhead. No offense to Oda, who pulled it off brilliantly.
“You’d know how,” Oda said reasonably. “Then you wouldn’t be quite so reliant on me.”
“And be self-sufficient enough to go to one of these parties unaccompanied?” Dazai squeaked. “I’m not that brave.”
“No one has to know,” Oda said, rather unexpectedly, and that gave Dazai pause. Long enough to nod tentatively. Oda gave him a small, strange look. It took Dazai a few minutes to recognize it as a smile.
Dazai still ducked out of the first appointment. Oda took it with even grace, rescheduling for the Sunday after that.
This time Dazai didn’t attempt to skip. He was wary, but that was normal. Oda showed up in lighter, looser clothes, and didn’t ask Dazai to change out of his hoodie and jeans as he showed Dazai the easiest stretches.
“Can I touch you?” he asked quietly.
Dazai huffed a strained breath. “Why?”
“You’re putting too much weight on your right leg,” Oda murmured. He was standing in front of Dazai, but his presence was both less and more than it should have been. Dazai wondered if there was some place they taught you to stand like a lighthouse, to radiate safety like that. It occupied his thoughts and pushed out everything else.
“Okay,” Dazai said. “Okay.”
He flinched when Oda touched his leg, but he let Oda guide his balance. He was breathing too hard by the time Oda straightened again. He wasn’t used to being this close to another person, to trusting them with himself.
It was terrifying. He let Oda teach him for another fifteen minutes to escape suspicion and then went back to his room.
But the sessions continued. Every Sunday, and whenever Dazai couldn’t sleep. The longer they worked at them, the more Dazai let himself relax. It wasn’t just that Oda seemed safe; he kept proving himself as such, over and over. No matter how Dazai tested his patience, it never seemed to break, and neither did his desire to keep on the right side of Dazai’s unsaid and fluid boundaries.
And—he could admit this to himself, and only himself—it was nice to own the movements of his body. Just that, just nice, but in a way Dazai had never had before.
— — —
“There’s a pool upstairs,” Dazai said.
“There is?” Oda said. He was reading on Dazai’s couch. He made his tone curious like he didn’t damn well know already, eight months into mostly sharing Dazai’s flat.
“Well,” Dazai bit his lip. “I’ve never been up there.” He didn’t like other people seeing his body. He didn’t like being naked. But he liked water, he liked drowning, he liked weightlessness. It was such a miserable trade-off, a losing situation for as long as Dazai could recall.
“Do you want to go?” Oda asked. He seemed startled. Even now, Dazai revelled in getting that out of him. It was so rare, and such a delight.
“If you don’t mind,” he said sweetly.
“Tomorrow,” Oda decided, and then went back to reading.
In a fit of anxiety, Dazai spent most of the day and half the night hacking into the schedules of everyone in the building and adjusting them to make sure they wouldn’t be around in the afternoon, and as an additional measure booked it out. There was nothing ethical about it but he had never claimed to be a good person. That title had been bestowed on him by accident; he had little desire for money, and less for personal success, and in the spaces where he traded information a lack of selfishness was tantamount to bleeding-heart righteousness.
Until he panicked, anyway.
“Can you swim?” Oda asked. He stripped out of his clothes easily, discarding them in neat piles. Dazai watched, fascinated by his grace and envious of his ease.
“Not in the least,” Dazai answered. “It’s a good thing the pool is shallow—”
“It’s seven feet at the shallow end,” Oda informed him. He dove neatly in to illustrate his point, resurfacing ten feet away. His hair gleamed in the light, plastered to his face, and he pushed it off. Dazai couldn’t stop staring.
“Fuck,” he mumbled. He didn’t know why.
“I can teach you to swim,” Oda suggested. “Though you’d have to begin learning by holding your breath.”
Dazai shuddered. Most of his experience with holding his breath came from panic attacks. “I would rather not.”
He changed anyway, if only because he hadn’t come this far to not be brave. He sat at the edge of the pool, shaking off the vertigo when he looked down, and swung his legs in the water while Oda swam effortless laps around the pool. Dazai remained content to kick his feet.
And then Oda was in front of him, treading water. “Trust me?” he said, holding out his hand.
“Absolutely not,” Dazai lied. He gave Oda his hand, only to be pulled into the water. He yelled and thrashed when the water flew into his eyes, chlorine making his eyes burn—Oda stopped him, holding him steady.
“You’re not drowning,” he said firmly. “Not while I’m here.” Dazai clutched at Oda’s shoulder and panted. “Just hold on.”
Holding on was easy. Dazai’s grip wasn’t going anywhere. And it was nice to float. It was nice to be cradled by water on one side and Oda on the other, rest his head against Oda’s shoulder and breathe in the chlorine.
“I’ll teach you to swim someday,” Oda said idly. “You’d love it.”
Dazai hummed. It would’ve been so easy to kiss Oda right now—to wrap his arms around Oda’s neck and press his lips to Oda’s collarbone or neck or the corner of his mouth. “Your hair is darker when it’s wet,” he said instead, mostly to distract himself.
“That happens,” Oda said dryly. Dazai giggled and clung harder.
In the silence that followed, Dazai became increasingly aware of Oda’s arms around him. It was impossible to stop thinking of once his mind brought it to his notice. Oda’s palms flat against his back, Oda’s thighs against Dazai’s legs, the slippery wet slide of their bodies against each other in the water. The intimacy of it was terrifying, but even more so was how at ease Dazai still felt. He’d never been this close to another person for so long without wanting to crawl out of his skin, but this wasn’t even the longest he’d spent in close quarters with Oda.
The realization hit him like air, the first fresh sweet gulp after ages underwater or something blooming in his chest. “Odasaku,” he said hesitantly. “I said I didn’t trust you.”
“You did,” Oda replied carefully.
“I lied.” Dazai looked down into the deep clear clue, drawing courage. “I do trust you.”
Oda turned his head ever so slightly, so his lips were pressing into Dazai’s hair. “I can tell,” he murmured. “You’d never let anyone else do this.”
Dazai had never felt more seen, or so alright with it. “I wouldn’t,” he agreed.