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Chuuya takes a moment to breathe in deeply as he reaches the sixth floor landing. It usually isn’t a problem for him, but this time he is dragging along a suitcase half his size and near-equal his weight.
He carefully checks his luggage over to ensure that he didn’t lose a wheel into the bumps of the stairs. Once satisfied with its state, he wheels it onwards, passing by a corridor lined on both sides with dorm rooms. Most of the dorm occupants are probably still mingling in the freshmen orientation party, but for someone like him who’s arrived just now, his primary focus is to get to his dorm and unpack before the first official day of classes tomorrow.
The room assigned to him is at the far end of the hallway. A brief check in the information packet tells him that there are usually four occupants per room. When the dorm manager passed him his key earlier, he was quick to inform him that because of his roommate’s… ‘special circumstance’, there’s only the two of them in that room.
Chuuya’s not the type to gossip about other people’s circumstances—he understands that there are things that aren’t meant for others to know—so he did not exactly get clarifications.
Perhaps he should have, so he could have at least be prepared for the sight that greets him the moment he opens the door to what would be his home for the rest of his university life.
It’s quite windy outside, the number of cherry blossoms planted all over the school ensuring that there’s a flower whirlwind.
Despite being in the sixth floor, the fragrant scent of flowers greets him as he enters the room. The sight of a grown man dangerously teetering off the wide-open window greets him alongside the smell of sakura. Teetering, because the windows here are wide and tall enough for an adult to actually stand on the ledge and not hit his head overhead. The strong breeze makes the man’s brown hair flutter along with some unraveled… bandages?
“What the fuck?” Chuuya blinks incredulously at his apparent roommate, for many reasons. “The fuck are you doing?!”
Dazai Osamu—the person who’s given the freshman acceptance speech earlier, something that Chuuya’s nearly slept-through because it’s been a load of shallow words one after another—blinks back at him.
A few moments pass like that, with the two of them staring at each other.
“If you fall off from the sixth floor…” Chuuya says this slowly, because even if this guy in front of him is the university’s top exam scorer, it does not necessarily mean that he isn’t an idiot in other aspects, “…then you’re going to break your neck and die.”
Dazai continues to stare at him, as though trying to dissect him on the spot.
Earlier, during Dazai’s speech, the late-arrival Chuuya’s spot is further away from the platform, so he did not get the chance—nor did he want to—to observe the color of the other’s eyes. Totally not because he’s too short to see. He just didn’t want to pay attention!
But now, with just a couple of steps separating them, it’s easy to notice the dull brown of his eyes, visible despite the fact that he’s blocking off a huge portion of the room’s illumination by standing like a scarecrow on the window. The only reason Chuuya’s paying attention to the other’s eyes now is because it’s a much safer sight than the other’s neck, where the unravelling bandages are coming from.
And then, Dazai finally deigns to talk. “Oh, so even an elementary schoolchild knows common sense. Yes, if I fall off this window, I would probably die—isn’t the sakura blooming season such a good timing for it?”
A beat.
Chuuya licks his lips as he props his suitcase against the door, without breaking eye-contact. “Just so we’re clear, who the hell are you referring to as an ‘elementary schoolchild’?”
“Obviously it’s you?”
“I ought to shove you off and finish the job!” He explodes, waving his fists threateningly. He’s never been the overly polite type of person, but he tries his best to sparingly use such violent promises. Something about the other makes his blood boil easily though.
With something that can only be called a squeal, Dazai claps his hands together in delight, followed by light swaying as he loses the support of his arms against both sides of the window. “You would assist me in my suicide? You are a much nicer brat than I thought!”
“If there’s anyone who’s a brat here, it’s gotta be you! Who the hell still talks about suicides at this age!” In Chuuya’s opinion, wanting to run away from life’s problems is something only kids should be doing.
“So you won’t assist me?” Dazai pouts a little. “How about stopping me? You’re not doing that either?”
…Huh? So he wants to be stopped? What a strange guy. When he’d heard ‘special circumstance’ earlier, he’d thought it was something similar to his case. Apparently, this guy is just a goddamn weirdo?
“So you’re a suicidal maniac who wants to live?” If Chuuya’s stuck with him for the next four years, he needs to at least gauge the level of strangeness he has to deal with. That way, he can prepare lots of painkillers ahead of time.
“Who says anything about wanting to live?”
“Huh? I thought you wanted me to stop you?”
Dazai blinks at him again. Chuuya maintains eye-contact and doesn’t let his gaze drift lower. It takes several moments before Dazai asks, “Why would you stop me? We’re practically strangers.”
“Ever heard of human decency?” Chuuya raises an eyebrow. “Looking at your ugly mug, probably not, hmm.”
“Ah, so you like my face.” Dazai raises his hands so that he’s cupping his own cheeks. “So you don’t want me to jump because you want to be roommates with someone good-looking, ah, I get it.”
If Chuuya’s eyebrows climb any higher, he’d end up like that poor coughing freshman he was seated beside earlier, without any visible brows whatsoever. “…I didn’t think someone so shameless existed in this world.”
“But you like my face, don’t you?” It’s repeated with so much certainty—and it’s not exactly wrong. He really does look aesthetically pleasing, if one ignored his current bat-shit stunt and his ugly mummy impersonation. Since that basically entails ignoring every part of the other except his face, he’s pretty much the reverse headless man to Chuuya.
“I would like to punch it, more like.”
“Eh, that doesn’t sound fun.” Dazai wiggles his arms around like some kind of worm-dance. “You really mean that you don’t want me to jump because of mere decency?”
…so this person really wants to be stopped?
Somehow, the thought of yelling to get some help never occurs to Chuuya. He briefly looks at the other’s neck, slowly being exposed by the steady unravelling of the bandages wrapped around it. The skin appears unblemished—if not for the trickling countdown that Chuuya can see on it.
It’s something that only he can see, as far as he knows. The approximation of another’s lifespan. It’s not an infallible number though, for accidents can abruptly take someone’s life even when they still have an ongoing countdown. Even with that knowledge in mind—that the numbers don’t really mean much because there are uncontrollable circumstances that could affect it—it’s still quite distracting in day-to-day life.
It’s one of the reasons he’s spent a lot of time homeschooled. But then, Yokohama University apparently has a special course for people with special Abilities like him, so he’s come here.
Earlier, he had thought that Dazai had a similar Ability to him, which was why he couldn’t room with too many people. Apparently, it’s just because Dazai is an annoying bastard.
…Still, no matter how annoying or bastardly, it doesn’t warrant getting one’s neck broken, so Chuuya thinks of the best thing he can say to the other.
Ah! The thing he passed by earlier on his way to the dorms! “Under that window, what do you see?”
Dazai’s eyes flick to the side briefly, before shifting back to meet his. Slightly intrigued, he says, “A small flower patch.”
“If you jump,” Chuuya says solemnly, “then you’d end up messing the flower patch. So don’t do it.”
The moment of silence is so palpable that he can almost hear the drop of Dazai’s jaw. An unreadable expression is on the other’s face, and something tells Chuuya that this man in front of him is the type who’s so confident in his ability to read and expect any situation, that there rarely is room for surprise. He does look pretty damn surprised right now though, wide eyes and agape mouth.
“Y-You…” Dazai shakes, this time not from the wind, but from the force of his laughter. He wraps one arm around his midsection and his other arm holds onto the ledge. “You’re actually serious—!”
“What the hell would I gain by lying?!”
Barely understandable through his wave of laughter: “In this kind of situation, shouldn’t you be telling me about ‘not squandering my future’, or about ‘the world being too beautiful’…?”
Not for the first time over the past few minutes, Chuuya is struck by the realization that this person really is a strange one. …Also kind of endearing, because he clearly is smart enough to be the freshman representative, but is also clueless when it comes to things that ought to be simple to understand.
Despite himself, he feels his lips twitching in amusement. “There’s no point in me telling you about such things.”
“So you do know that they’re just shallow platitudes…”
“If you didn’t believe in them before,” Chuuya points out. “I highly doubt that words from a stranger like me will convince you.” A pause, before he adds, “You look like the type of guy who’d demand proof for such things before you believe them.”
Dazai tilts his head and peers at him for a few moments. Eventually, he nods to himself as though he’s reached some kind of decision. Chuuya just hopes that he’d finally decide on hopping down from the windowsill, because their increased height disparity is giving a painful kink on his neck.
“Even though I’ve only insulted you…” Dazai says in a display of self-awareness—not that he sounds regretful at all. “…You still care enough that you don’t wish for me to die.”
It’s not just because he can see that this man’s fate is to live a longer life than this. It’s not something as selfish as not wanting one more person to die in front of him. It’s not something as altruistic as wanting to see everyone reach the fullest potential of their lives.
It’s not even because this man, despite his obvious propensity to be a rude asshole, is one of the few who actually looks at him and doesn’t even balk nor does he bring up the way that his face is covered with angry red runes that look like they’ve been left on him by a powerful curse. And Chuuya would know—he’s been watching the other’s eyes intently since the beginning, because he doesn’t want to risk being the roommate of someone who’d be scared or wary of him.
It’s not all those reasons—not entirely, at least.
Chuuya squares his shoulders and lifts his chin, as he tries to convey the following words with utmost conviction: “There isn’t an existence in this world so irredeemable and so pointless that they do not deserve to live.”
In front of him, Dazai looks like he’s going to keel over from the way he’s wordlessly gaping at him in sheer wonder, like he’s lived his life thinking that he can only be redeemed by death. The full weight of the other’s regard is almost suffocating, and so is the way that he witnesses a sheen of light layer over the dull brown of his eyes.
It makes his fingertips itch and his mouth dry; he clears his throat and adds, in a futile bid to divert the other’s attention, “…Even if they’re shitty beanpole bastards like you.”
“You really do believe it,” Dazai says in wondrous rapture, and then he’s leaping down from the windowsill and skipping over to where Chuuya is, backing him up against the door.
“That you’re a shitty beanpole bastard? With all my heart.”
“That there’s a point in living.” Dazai licks his lips as he crowds him further. “That there’s a point in me living.”
Chuuya opens his mouth to let out an instinctive denial—something tells him that giving in to the other’s words without vehement protest is a bad, bad idea—but no sound comes out of him.
Dazai takes that as an opportunity to continue, a sly twist to his lips. “In the same way you believe that I’m the most beautiful man you’ve ever had the fortune of meeting.”
It’s now his turn to gape wordlessly at the sheer gall of this man. He nearly chokes on his own breath as his protest comes out in weak sputters of, “Beautiful—! You! How dare you! Just how shameless—! Urgh—!” Under Dazai’s watchful, indulgent gaze, it takes him several tries before he manages to string together something passably coherent. “What most beautiful! You’re the shittiest bastard I’ve ever met! And you’re so ugly! You’re not handsome at all!”
He’s breathing hard at the end of his tirade, and it can’t all be blamed to the way the words have rapidly left him. Part of his breathlessness is from watching Dazai’s face transform from the lonely, gloomy, dead-fish impersonation from earlier, into something that’s overcome with mirth. It’s not the full-bellied laughter from earlier that retained a measure of malice and contempt. This time, Dazai’s expression is completely guileless—making his already-enticing features all the more beguiling.
Dazai places both of his hands on his shoulders, pressing him against the door with a force that should be easy to break away from. He then leans down and Chuuya goes cross-eyed trying to watch his actions, so he settles for shutting his eyes as his senses are overwhelmed by the other’s sudden closeness and warmth.
With a too-hot breath, Dazai bypasses his mouth and instead blows against his ear, before saying, utterly calmly: “My name’s Dazai. My Ability is to detect lies.”
He then leans back on the balls of his feet, smirking smugly down at him, as he waits for his mind to unscramble from the revelation.
Suddenly, all the insistence about him meaning something or believing in something—
“In the same way you believe that I’m the most beautiful man you’ve ever had the fortune of meeting.”
—!!!
There really is only one way to react to this kind of revelation.
Chuuya punches his roommate in the gut, all while yelling bloody murder. “I’m Nakahara Chuuya and I’m going to fucking kill you!”
Dazai runs all over the room, laughing as he says, “This should be a fun four years together, huh?”
“Shut up, just shut up!”
The sounds of the two of them chasing each other like kids all over their dorm room fill the afternoon, a premonition of the years to come.
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end