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Study dates with Dazai are often better and more predictable than expected. They’ve had a few so far and they’re usually in their university’s library, so enough students can see Dazai Osamu and his boyfriend, Atsushi Nakajima, and so they can actually get some studying done.
After three quarters of an hour, Dazai will shut his book about some obscure psychology topic (without using a bookmark to keep track of the page he ended on, the madman) and pushes it away. Atsushi’s learned by now that this means he’ll either excuse himself to go wander through the bookshelves and come back super knowledgeable about some random subject and tell Atsushi all about it, or he’ll save himself the trouble and starts distracting him right away.
Today, Dazai picks the latter. Propping himself up on one elbow, he stares at Atsushi and Atsushi takes that time to finish his paragraph on language history, after which he slips in a bookmark and shuts his book. “Yes, Dazai-san?” Atsushi asks in a partly exasperated, partly fond tone.
“Mm, what’s your favourite colour?”
Atsushi lifts an eyebrow at the sudden inquiry. “It’s blue. Why?”
“Oh, you know,” Dazai replies, inspecting his nails, even though Atsushi does not know.
“Well, what’s your favourite colour, then?” Atsushi asks, reckoning he’s probably not going to figure out why Dazai suddenly wants to know.
A mischievous twinkle comes to rest in Dazai’s eyes and a grin splits his face as he shifts closer, stopping only when he’s so close his breath is fanning over Atsushi’s face. “Why, thank you asking,” he says, outrageously flirtatiously. “It’s only the colours of your eyes, Atsushi-kun.”
Oh, that’s why Dazai wanted to know his favourite colour.
Atsushi tugs on the collar of his shirt and wills the blush that crawls up his neck back down. “You—you don’t actually mean that,” he sputters. And then, remembering some of the remarks he’s gotten about it, from including Dazai, he gets a little mad. “Are you making fun of me right now?”
Dazai has the decency to look a little startled, but the flirt in him comes back soon enough. “Oh, but I do, very much,” Dazai insists, winking. “They look just like the setting sun. Very, very pretty.”
“Um, thank you, then?” He brings a hand up to Dazai’s collarbone, but instead of pushing him back as he intended to, it merely rests there. There’s a soft thrum under his fingers, like the echo of Dazai’s heartbeat.
“Your, uh, eyes are pretty, too,” he deflects, pushing him back a little. It wasn’t a lie, Dazai did have wonderfully shaped eyes with a pretty shade of brown, even hazel and gold in some lights.
Dazai opens his mouth like he wants to say something back, but his attention is grabbed by a group of people standing at the side, gaping at them and their precarious position of one-inch-more-and-we’re-kissing. “Kiss me,” he murmurs after a moment of consideration.
Atsushi catches sight of the same group out of the corner of his eye. He swallows hard. “For the act?”
“Obviously.”
After a moment of hesitation, Atsushi leans in and closes the gap between them. Kissing Dazai for the sake of proving that they’re in love to others was far less voyeuristic than he initially thought. It’s so easy, too easy, to get lost in the feel of Dazai’s lips pressing against his own.
It was over in a few seconds, though, because a public library isn’t the place to have a make-out, even if they were genuinely in love and that didn’t stop some people.
Atsushi realizes his free hand has been inadvertently clenching the fabric of his jeans and he smooths over the wrinkles. “I’m pretty sure most people already know we’re a thing,” he observes. He’s gotten a question about his and Dazai’s relationship and a glare thrown his way more than once now.
“Which is why we’ve got to keep up the act,” Dazai reminds.
“Yeah… yeah, you’re right,” Atsushi acknowledges, still feeling flustered and if he daresay, a little hot. “Since we’re both done studying, do you, uh, want to get some fresh air?” He asks, mostly because he wants the fresh air himself and because he needs his stupid lips to stop tingling.
“Sure,” Dazai agrees easily. He stands up and collects his books, all but throwing them into his bag while Atsushi carefully stacks them and slides them into his bag. “Where do you want to go?”
“I don’t know, I was thinking of just walking around,” Atsushi answers, slinging the straps of his bag over his shoulders. Dazai nods, and together they head towards the exit and walk around the building to one of the paths in the local park. It’s filled with small talk, because even if Dazai has many interesting things to say, even he occasionally runs out of topics to chat about because of the amount of time they spend together.
Atsushi can’t say he doesn’t enjoy it, but as the sky is blue and will continue to be, it feels so terribly temporary.
“How long do you think we’ll keep this up?” Atsushi finally inquires, for need of some sort of closure. “This fake relationship?”
Dazai glances at him briefly and then looks back at the road before them. “Until it’s realistic enough, I suppose.”
“It seems pretty realistic to me, now, don’t you think?” Atsushi frowns, and he looks down at the mere inches between their hands as they walk side by side. “Or at least, I haven’t had anyone accuse us of having a fake relationship,” he continues thoughtfully. Although, Ranpo had been giving him and Dazai rather knowing glances lately.
“Sure, but if we break up at the high of our relationship, that’s going to be suspicious,” Dazai explains. “Unless you want to have some melodramatic public breakup in which we try to convince the crowd we suddenly hate each other for perfectly good reasons.”
Atsushi winces. “No, thanks. I’m trying to keep this drama free.”
The neutral expression on Dazai’s face twists into a big grin. “Also, I hope my many, many admirers haven’t given you a lot of trouble, seeing as you are dating the beauty and talent that is moi.”
“Less than expected,” Atsushi admits. He’s used to commentary and judgement anyway (and Dazai's ego), it’s better that now it’s about something he’s at least not terribly insecure about. And then he adds, under his breath, “which should’ve been zero to begin with.”
“What was that, my dear sweet Atsushi-kun?”
Atsushi, embarrassed at almost being caught, clears his throat to cover up. “Nothing,” he lies, but his tone his so high and he’s so bad at lying he wonders how
“Mhm. I’m sure it’s because they know they shouldn’t mess with my boyfriend,” Dazai says, caressing his hair with an air of self-importance around him.
“Fake boyfriend,” Atsushi reminds, ignoring the way it does a funny thing with his stomach for some reason. It's still so weird, he's only getting used to it, probably.
“What do you mean?” Dazai gasps, more playful than actually shocked, dramatically leaning into Atsushi’s space. “Kenji’s already hired the cows for our wedding! We couldn’t possibly disappoint him, now, could we?”
Atsushi rolls his eyes. “A real shame that his efforts have been for nothing. Who’s going to apologize to Kenji, you or me?”
Dazai makes a face. “You, obviously. I don’t want that rage over me.”
“Kunikida-san would give me right on not wanting to marry you,” Atsushi says, resisting the urge to smile.
“Kunikida-kun is wrong and mean and a bully, don’t listen to him.”
“I don’t know.” Atsushi shrugs, but his lips are twitching. “He gives pretty sound advice about that specific area, if you ask me.”
“Are you sure that Kunikida-kun, the guy who has pages full in his notebook dedicated to the requirements his future wife has to have and probably has never had a girlfriend before is a person who’s good at giving love advice?”
“Now you’re being the mean one,” Atsushi chides, to which Dazai pouts. “And have you ever had a real significant other before, like you claim Kunikida-san has never had?”
“Obviously. I’m brooding and mysterious and sexy as hell. What more could someone want?”
It’s a rhetoric question on Dazai’s part, he knows, but Atsushi blurts out, “Love.”
Dazai pauses and Atsushi gulps, red in the cheeks, already regretting he said anything in the first place. “Love is what people want,” he clarifies, when the silence stretches out too long and it feels too uncomfortable. “And the real thing. Well, most people, anyway, from what I’ve heard.”
Dazai tilts his head to the side and does it again. He looks at Atsushi in that piercing way, darkened eyes and all, as if he’s truly looking at him and mentally undressing him layer by layer. It leaves shivers climbing up Atsushi’s spine.
“And what do you want?” Dazai asks in a low voice.
Maybe it’d be easier if they weren’t playing the part of a happy couple. “I… I don’t think I’d stray far from the status quo either,” he answers, mouth dry and face hot. “But I’m not really familiar with it. Real romance, that is. So… so…”
Dazai says nothing, just looks at him, warmly curious, and more.
“So, I should—I should probably go,” Atsushi stammers. He practically rips his hand from Dazai’s grasp and stumbling a few steps back. “I, uh, I have a shift in a few hours, and I need to go prepare myself.”
He avoids Dazai’s eyes as he leaves, practically sprinting out of the park towards his apartment. He slams his door shut behind him and stares at his room without actually seeing something until a notification lights up his phone and breaks him out of his trance. He peers at it and sees a text message from Dazai.
Dazai Osamu: Everything okay? I hope so!
“I hope so, too,” Atsushi murmurs.