Work Text:
Atsushi is a fool, for sure, because at the end of the day he’s the one who decided that letting Mr. Popular fake date him is a good and respectable way to get some extra cash. And to get the guy to stop bothering him about it.
But by doing that, he now finds himself in this unfortunate predicament. The one where he’s surrounded by people he may or may not have seen around on campus but ultimately barely knows, aside from the names they’d just given him before starting up the conversation about his own self, Dazai, and Dazai-and-Atsushi.
(How could this have happened? He woke up. He went to his lectures. He found himself a secluded spot to eat a late lunch and read a book before his shift at work began. Then these people came and started talking to him. And now he’s in this situation.)
“Do you two make out a lot?” Ida asks, brown-haired and brown eyes. Her friends’ curious gazes level on him and Atsushi finds himself struggling to answer in a smooth way.
“Uh, yeah. I suppose. Define ‘a lot’, haha,” he answers nervously. Oh no, why did he say that? A simple ‘yes’ would have sufficed, he shouldn’t be giving these people more opportunities to talk to him (read: interrogate him) about embarrassing topics, especially because Atsushi has to lie about it.
For one, he knows for a fact that they don’t ‘make out a lot’ because they’ve only kissed when they were out in public. It is, after all, fake dating and they are only pretending to be in love. It’s a lie, a scam. None of the lovey dovey acts they do is true.
“Do you push him against the wall the moment you get him alone?” Fukuda explains with a conspiratorial smile that implies that he very much would like to do that.
Atsushi is hardly able to keep a neutral face. It still surprises him that these people unironically want to be Dazai’s. “Well, no, but y’know. It comes close to that sometimes.”
He inwardly heaves a sigh of relief when it seems to do the trick for the trio and they simply glance at each other with contemplative but satisfied expressions. As long as they believed Dazai and Atsushi were a real thing, it was fine.
Suko, however, turns to him with the eyes of a predator having found her prey and Atsushi can feel the hairs of his neck stand up, signalling that he’s in danger and he should probably get away while he still could, which was approximately 0.3 seconds before she opened her mouth.
“But is he any good in bed?”
Oh god.
What the hell? He and Dazai never discussed this! Blood rushes to his cheeks. They only agreed that when asked if they do all the typical dating stuff, they’d say yes, given it was something reasonable like going on dates, cuddling and, well, making out.
That being said, he knows Dazai is going to kill him if he doesn’t say yes, but he also knows he would rather die before answering that question in any capacity.
His head is going to explode, he swears it’s going to overheat and explode and it would be bloody and gross and oh no, not the mental image. Anything but the mental image.
Fukuda starts laughing, nudging Suko and gesturing at Atsushi’s severely reddened face. “Look at him! A face like that practically tells us that Dazai-san’s good in bed,” he exclaims.
“I didn’t expect anything else from him,” Ida answers seriously. A touch too seriously to be comfortable, actually. “His grades are phenomenal too, after all.”
“But good isn’t phenomenal,” Suko points out. Their gazes flit back to Atsushi in unison, silently awaiting a confirmation.
A confirmation which is never to come. “I have to go,” Atsushi wheezes, standing up and collecting his half eaten apple and book before stomping past them. He really needs to go before he well and truly loses his mind.
“Wait, we still have a question for you!” Fukuda calls after him. “There’s this party tonight we're holding and we were wondering if—”
“Next time! It was a nice chat, see you never!”
If one were to make a graph of Atsushi’s nervosity levels in a day it would look like this: a straight line somewhere around 1/4 height of the entire chart (because unfortunately, Atsushi’s not capable of ever truly being relaxed) and in the midday during his lovely conversation it would suddenly shoot up straight to the top of the graph to show how much he did not enjoy it.
After that, it would slowly decline back to its usual levels because thanks to the more benevolent spirits out there, his shift at work was uneventful and not a hell for his poor nerves (it’s amazing what normal customers who don’t shout at you can do).
Then it would shoot back to 4/4 again because Dazai Osamu thinks it’s funny to break into his room and eat noodles on his bed. Not only that, he also thinks it’s funny to not say anything and creepily watches until Atsushi has set down his bags and stretched a little instead of politely and gently announcing himself immediately.
“Had a tough day, Atsushi-kun?” Dazai asks with an unbothered smile and pointedly ignoring the scolding Atsushi had just given him for daring to pick the lock on his door, scare him and various other crimes from within the past minute. He’s dressed casually, a simple button-up shirt and slacks.
“You could say that,” Atsushi groans, pressing two fingers into his temple to help alleviate the headache he can feel beginning to form.
“What happened?” Dazai swallows a mouthful of noodles. “Must be those classes you attend each and every day without fail. I’d get a headache too if I did that.”
“You don’t attend each and every class?” After speaking those words, Atsushi instantly wonders why he even sounds surprised at this point. It shouldn’t come as a shock at all, given it’s Dazai . And that’s just typically something Dazai does.
Dazai snorts. “You actually think I regularly attend class?”
Atsushi rolls his eyes. “Yeah, I should’ve seen that one coming.” He takes his coat off and hangs it on the rack before flattening the creases in his shirt and pants.
“It’s good that you do, though. Kunikida would be proud of you,” Dazai comments, his lips curling into a grin. He looks at Atsushi with a playful yet kind glint in his eyes. The praise—however slightly underhanded it may be—settles warmly in Atsushi’s belly.
Atsushi distracts himself by picking his bags from the floor and taking the contents to his desk, although he cannot help the flush on his face. He hopes Dazai won’t be able to see from this angle. He neatly arranges his textbooks for later study sessions and brings his lunchbox to the sink by the kitchen counter.
Dazai watches without saying a word, simply finishing off his noodles and it’s—peaceful. Calmes Atsushi’s frazzled nerves. As if he could come home to this every day, minus the part where Dazai is here unannounced, and it would be a sweet life indeed.
Just when he thinks that the flush on his face has died down, Atsushi suddenly remembers the conversation he had before his work shift. It would be too soon if he ever had to have such a conversation again…. He barely suppresses the shudder from the sheer embarrassment alone. Is privacy—not that it actually applies, because they obviously have never done anything like that—not a thing anymore?
Dazai suddenly perks up, having noticed Atsushi visibly cringing at the memory. “Whatcha making that face for? You look like you ate something sour.”
“Nothing, nothing!” Atsushi says hastily, panicked enough to make Dazai quirk an eyebrow.
“Oh, c’mon! Now I know it’s bound to be interesting. Just tell me!” Dazai insists, setting his cup of noodles on the floor and sitting up. He tries to grab at Atsushi’s sleeve, who manages to dodge out of the way.
“Nooooo!” Atsushi was surprised he could even sound that whiny.
Dazai huffs, leaning back on the bed with his arms. “I’ll wrench it out of you soon.”
“Hopefully not,” Atsushi mutters, grimacing at the thought of having to relay the conversation about Dazai to Dazai. “Anyway, what are you even doing here? I know you enjoy breaking into people’s dorms but I still don’t know why exactly you’re here. And please don’t tell me it’s because you were ‘bored’.”
“Well, to be honest, I am pretty often bored,” Dazai concedes. He then shoots a wink at Atsushi. “Not with you here, though.”
Atsushi groans. “What have I invited into my life…”
Dazai ignores that comment and continues, “But the honest reason I came here is because I didn’t want to go to a party. All of our friends are going but I didn’t feel like it, so I told them I had a date night with you.”
“Why don’t you want to go to that party, then?” Atsushi cocks his head to the side, vaguely remembering a party invitation from Fukuda. “You seem like the kind of person to not want to miss out on all that fun…”
Dazai chuckles, his eyes twinkling with amusement and yet... so muted as well. “Is that what you think of me, Atsushi-kun?”
Atsushi blinks. It suddenly feels like he’s in front of the door, peering through a keyhole and behind the door is everything to know about Dazai, bare and raw and honest.
“I guess not then,” Atsushi replies, feeling a little light-headed.
Dazai stands up, rounding the corner of the bed with just two steps until there are only a few inches between them. Atsushi’s eyes widen to the size of saucers as Dazai leans forward and traps him between himself and the kitchen counter behind them.
“Wh… Dazai, what are you doing?” Atsushi swallows, the proximity between them very much flustering him.
Dazai lifts a finger to Atsushi’s chin. “Tell me…”
The heavy air between them has Atsushi hold his breath. “Tell you what?”
“Why….” Dazai’s finger curls under Atsushi’s chin. “... did you suddenly make that sour face earlier?”
The atmosphere is instantaneously broken and Atsushi pulls away. “I’m not telling you, Dazai-san, not even in a thousand years I would tell you.”
Dazai takes a hold of Atsushi’s shoulders and traps him in a tight grip. “You have to tell me, Atsushi-kun, you have to or I’ll die and it’ll be so bad,” he pleads desperately. To emphasize this, he shakes him by the shoulders a few times.
Atsushi attempts to pry himself loose. “It’s got nothing to do with you,” he lies, feeling his cheeks heat up again.
Dazai gasps. “Wait, it has something to do with me? I didn’t know that at first. Now you absolutely have to tell me! You’re denying me my god-given right to know!”
“What? I just said you don’t have anything to do with it!”
Dazai gives him a meaningful look. “You're a terrible liar, Atsushi-kun.”
“Good enough to fool everyone into thinking I’m dating you, though,” Atsushi shoots back. He pauses, thinking of Ranpo and the many meaningful looks he’s ever given both him and Dazai. “Well, almost everyone.”
“Yeah, but I’m not ‘everyone’ and I see your terrible lying, so now you’ve got to tell me the thing that happened that made you cringe and blush, and has something to do with me.”
“I don’t think I'll be able to, unfortunately,” Atsushi says in his best customer-service voice. “Thank you for your understanding, sir.” For good measure, he throws in an extra polite smile.
Dazai laughs and it’s a wonderful sound in Atsushi’s ears indeed. “I’ll let it go, for now, only because you’ve amused me with that,” he warns.
“Now I’m back to being surprised that you don’t want to go to that party,” Atsushi muses. “It seems like you would do anything for your own entertainment.”
“Exactly. You are so much more entertaining than a party.”
Atsushi raises an eyebrow.
“In a good way.”
Atsushi raises the other eyebrow.
“Eh? Your standards are so high, it was only a compliment,” Dazai sighs, finally letting go of Atsushi’s shoulders. The sudden loss feels colder on Atsushi’s skin than it should and his breath hitches.
Dazai steps back to retreat when the back of his legs suddenly collides with Atsushi’s bedpost and he tumbles over it right onto the mattress, not without flailing his hands and grabbing hold of Atsushi’s shirt to drag him right under with him.
“Wha—”
“Huh!?”
Dazai and Atsushi say simultaneously, the impact of the fall was thankfully minimal because they fell right onto Atsushi’s bed, but it’s enough to startle them both into a wide-eyed stare with one another. Atsushi’s hands lay on Dazai’s collarbones while Dazai removes his hands from Atsushi’s shirt to lightly rest them on his back.
“Um, are you okay?” Atsushi is the first to break the silence.
“Yeah, I’m fine.”
Atsushi can’t help but to smile. “You’re kind of clumsy, aren’t you? I’ve seen you trip like this before.” The heat they share between them is pleasantly comfortable. And although he could feel himself blushing, Dazai’s own blush of embarrassment helps to make it feel less awkward.
“You saw nothing,” Dazai mumbles.
Atsushi rolls his eyes and tries to get off of Dazai, but instead of letting him go, the man only tightens his grip. With a bit of maneuvering, he moves their bodies upwards towards the pillow so that their legs aren't sticking in the air over the bedpost anymore. Atsushi’s face ends up in the crook of Dazai’s shoulders. He can feel the rise and fall of his chest and the shallow breathing. To steady himself, he leans one hand beside Dazai’s on the pillow.
“Stay,” Dazai whispers.
Atsushi swallows. He wonders what’s gotten into Dazai and after a few moments, he musters the courage to lift his head and peer at him. His heart is beating erratically in his chest.
And then he’s gone. Dazai’s eyes are gentle and warm, brown and gold. Atsushi can see his own startled reflection in them, and also how his expression slowly melts and the distance between them lessens.
He doesn’t know who goes for it first, but whether that even mattered isn’t important. All that matters is the fact that this kiss felt nothing like the ones they felt before. That the pressure of Dazai’s lips on his own is the most delicious of them all and that he wants more. Needs more.
His lips part and the kiss deepens. That it tastes like cup noodles only endears him at this point and he tangles his hand in Dazai’s hair.
They pull away. Dazai brings his hand to Atsushi’s cheek, his gaze skipping from Atsushi’s lips to his eyes, but he’s quick to bring their mouths together once more and Atsushi doesn’t deny him, doesn’t want to dream of denying him.
Even Atsushi has to see the irony in saying that every admission of love is fake and it could never be true, and then kiss him as if your life depends on it when you’re alone with him.
(“And what do you want?” Dazai asks in a low voice. That day in the library…
You, another Atsushi replies, the one lingering so deeply in hidden and forbidden crevices. He wants to scream it, but he can’t let it out. How could he?)
But that’s not something he’s going to think about right now.