Work Text:
BEEEEEEP
“Train 15 now arriving at Platform 2” the robotic female voice says over the train station loudspeaker.
Chuuya slumped her shoulders and sighed as the train started to slow down in front of her. ‘Another day, another forty-five minute commute’. Really her parents just had to insist she stay home and commute to and from university everyday instead of just living in one of the dorms. Honestly it would’ve made her life so much easier. For fuck sakes even her job was closer to the city, it would’ve been so much more convenient to move out.
‘But I mean who I am to complain about free rent’.
The train came to a stop as the doors opened up in front of her with a loud ‘ding’. The sounds of the usual hustle and bustle of the train station became more muffled as she casually stepped in and found a seat next to the door of the train.
It’s 7pm, not many people are getting a train to the more suburban areas of Yokohama at this time of day. Most people have already gone home or are still out in the city so the train is sparsely empty. It’s one of the few good things about catching the train at this time of day. It’s really easy to get a seat and the atmosphere is a lot less stressful than when it’s rush hour and people are fighting over who’s gonna get the next free seat. It actually gives Chuuya a chance to relax after a full day at uni and her multiple hour shift.
She sets her khaki messenger bag next to her on the empty seat and pulls out the book she is currently reading. ‘The Setting Sun’ by Osamu Dazai, a new author that has skyrocketed to the top best selling book and author in Japan in only a number of months. The book is everywhere and everyone is going crazy in the media about it. It had been a shock that a brand new author that had never even published a book before and didn’t even sign with a publishing company had been able to make their way to the top so quickly. Within weeks book stores signed with her and began selling her books and it only increased the popularity of her book.
Chuuya had watched the whole thing go down from the sidelines and she was utterly impressed about how quickly Osamu Dazai rose through the ranks of the reading world, especially with what her sole book was about. A story about two girls that are best friends in highschool navigating through drugs, sex, alcohol, grades, and mental health in their final year of highschool but both of them are very obviously in love with each other. It goes into a lot of untalked about subjects and it goes into them in heavy detail. That’s part of why the book got so much attention. You don’t see a lot of queer stories getting really popular in Japan and especially ones that go into such taboo subjects.
So of course when Albatross heard about it he just had to buy it for her. “I saw it and immediately thought of you” he had smiled as he handed it to her for her birthday.
‘Am I really that much of a walking pride flag?’ she thought as she turned to the page she was on. It had been a week and she was already halfway through. She hadn’t had much time to read since she’s been drowning in school work and work shifts. Which was ironic because her degree literally required her to read. The anomalies of being a literature student.
Chuuya put in one of her earbuds and turned on her playlist she specifically made for reading in public places. Not too distracting from her surroundings but enough to allow her to enjoy herself and the book. She brought out a row of small coloured sticky notes from her bag as well. She never went crazy with annotating books (unlike some people she saw on social media) and especially now that she was required to annotate books for her classes, it wasn’t as fun to do as it was in highschool. So whenever she reads a book just simply to enjoy it, she only puts a little tab in the book to mark a scene she found enjoyable or she thinks it will come up again later on in the book. Fun, relaxing, and makes it easier to find when she wants to come back to those specific scenes so she isn’t scanning the book for 20 minutes to find it.
The sun was quickly setting as they came out from the underground tunnels and moved towards the suburban areas of the city and the view changed from large buildings and insides of tunnels to still large buildings but there was more greenery around now. Chuuya looked up every now and then to make sure she hadn’t missed her stop and how many more stops to go until she had to get off. Chuuya smiled down at her book as she grabbed a purple tab, ‘God this main character is funny as hell’.
“Good book?”
Chuuya physically jumped in her seat. Her heart basically stopped for a good second there. She quickly looked up to look at the person who had asked her the question that startled her so much. It was a girl in front of her, long brown messy hair cascading around her sharp pale face with a fringe covering most of her forehead. She laughed at how startled Chuuya reacted when she asked her question. Her laugh was sweet and sympathetic, obviously not expecting such a full bodied reaction from two simple words.
‘She’s pretty’
“Uh yeah, good book” Chuuya choked out, still quite startled from the unexpected human interaction, pulling out her earbud from her ear. “Sorry to scare you,” she smiled leaning closer towards Chuuya, “You were so engrossed in that book I guess I should’ve expected that”.
Chuuya’s cheeks heated up at that, ‘Oh shit was she watching me? That’s awkward, I barely even noticed her’.
“You’re alright, I probably should’ve been paying more attention to the people around me” Chuuya laughed, thumbing at the edges of the pages with nerves.
Girl in front of her wore odd clothes. She was wearing an oversized white button up, clearly way too big for her and a way too small waistcoat over the top of it, accentuating her slim frame and her small breasts. Not that Chuuya was looking or anything. The sleeves of the button up were rolled up to her elbows, showing the bandages wrapped around her forearms. The top buttons were undone and showing off her collar bone along with the top of her chest before the buttons started to be done up again and the waistcoat cut off any sight of skin, a tease. Her beige pants had three different pockets running up the sides of her legs and they obviously were way too baggy as well, to the point you could only see a little bit of black military boots showing out from under the fabric. Clothing too big yet also too small but she somehow managed to pull it off. She was pretty and interesting.
“Well,” the girl spoke up again, smiling confidently, “what book is it that has you so entranced?”
Chuuya flashed her the blue book cover, wondering how she didn’t see it before. “Ahhhh The Setting Sun,” she smiled leaning back in her seat, still keeping her eye on Chuuya, “that's a very popular book right now”.
Chuuya nodded her head, “Have you read it?”
The girl stayed silent for a moment, her gaze pinning Chuuya to the seat, brown honey eyes looking at her in a thoughtful expression, her smile softening.
“No not yet,” her wide smile returning again, “I have the book at home I just haven’t gotten around to reading it”
Chuuya hummed and nodded again, not really sure what to say. Chuuya considered herself to be a social person but she really wasn’t in the mood for really keeping up much of a conversation right now. She’d been doing it all day anyway.
“What do you think of the book so far?” The pretty girl asked her, leaning forward again and propping her elbows on her knees and resting her chin on the back of her palms. ‘This girl sure likes to move a lot’. “I wanna get someone elses opinion on it besides from all the critics”.
‘Thats fair I guess. The critics and all the media outlets have been hyping the book up like theres no tomorrow so far’
“Well it is a beautifully written book,” Chuuya started off, “it goes into heavy detail about taboo topics, it has a good sense of humour and is very attention grabbing, y’know like all the critics have been saying”. The girl nods, taking in what Chuuya is saying with a smile, “But for a romance book, the romance seems pretty inauthentic”.
The pretty girl across from her blinks at her in shock, smile no longer there and now replaced with shock and intrigue, pink lips slightly agape. Maybe a little bit of admiration in there too, or perhaps that’s just Chuuya’s ego talking.
“Really?” she questions, “Why do you say that?”
Chuuya closes said book and places it on her lap, still holding it. “Well personally I’m no expert at writing romance novels and I will say I am enjoying the girl's love story so far. It’s cute, it’s angsty, it’s all the things you see in most romances. But it’s like Osamu Dazai can’t exactly communicate the emotion of love authentically. It’s like she has never experienced that sort of emotion before so she is pulling stuff from what she's probably seen in other romances or what they’ve seen represented from other couples in their life. Which would make sense considering she is so young and she hides it really well in her writing but as someone who has read a lot of novels that include romance, I can tell”
“Huh” the girl says, taking everything Chuuya said in. Meanwhile Chuuya sits, very proud of herself for being able to communicate what she thought of the book very well on such short notice. ‘Maybe being a literature major is paying off’.
“So do you just think she doesn’t communicate the emotion of love itself well or is it that they don’t communicate what it feels like to like another girl well?” The girl asks inquisitively.
“I think it’s just the emotion of romantic love in general. Osamu Dazai does a very good job at explaining lesbian attraction and what it feels like to like a girl but I think its explaining what being in love with a girl or anyone really is what she struggled with” Chuuya explained further, finally happy to get her opinion out. She’d been thinking about it the whole week and had no one to tell it to.
The girl looked away from her and looked more to her side, “Huh, you’re not just a pretty face are you?” She looked back to Chuuya and grinned.
Chuuya felt her face heat up. Part of her was absolutely flustered that this beautiful girl just said she was pretty, but the other part of her, the part of her that wanted to prove everyone wrong and impress them…
“Well I am a literature major. I know a few things” Chuuya smiled as she crossed her arms over her chest smugly, blush still prominent on her cheeks but she was ignoring that fact.
“Oh I could tell, doll” she flirtatiously smiled at her as brown eyes watched Chuuya’s smug exterior brake a little and her ocean blue eyes widened and her face became redder. The pretty girl leaned back in her seat and pulled out a notebook with a pen.
“You are very good at picking up those stuttle details in writing,” she said as she wrote into the little notebook, “Honestly with the way you described it so simply like it was easy to pick up on, I'm surprised I haven’t seen anyone else saying that. Though I guess that would probably be drowned out by all the positive reviews” she ripped out the page from the notebook. “You should write critics, uhhh” the girl motions with her hands indicating she didn’t know her name.
“Chuuya”
“Chuuya” the girl said sweetly with a soft smile, “That's a very beautiful name”.
Chuuya felt a pull at her heart when the girl said her name so full of endearment and compliented it so nicely, “Thank you” she smiled sweetly, “And thank you for the praise…” Chuuya paused to get the other girl's name.
She smiled at Chuuya, a sickly sweet smile, a smile that hinted at mischief.
“Dazai, Osamu Dazai”
Chuuya’s mouth fell open and her eyes felt like they were gonna fall out of her head from how wide they were.
DIIIING
“Arrived at Nishiya Station. Please stand clear of the doors” the robotic female voice came from over the train loudspeaker.
Dazai stood up and folded up the paper she was writing on. She sauntered over to Chuuya smiling devilishly at her, “Thank you for the criticism, sweetheart. I appreciated it”. She handed the paper over to Chuuya who was still in slight shock but took it graciously.
“Enjoy the book, love” she winked at her and got off the train without another word.
DIIIING
“Leaving Nishiya Station. Please stand clear of the door ways”
Chuuya was left dazed on that train, her soul probably left behind at that train station. Did she really just criticise Osamu Dazai’s book to her?! Her mind was a blur trying to sort through her memory of their interaction to see if she had offended her or not. ‘I mean she really didn’t look offended. If anything she looked impressed. And she wouldn’t have been so flirtatious with me if she didn’t like what I said right? The way she looked when she handed me that pa-“
All of a sudden she remembered the paper Dazai had given her still in her hand. Frantically she unfolded the notebook page. Upon reveal Chuuya found a phone number and a little note in the corner that read, “Call me, maybe we can talk about something other than my book - Dazai”. She’d even added a little winking face at the bottom. Chuuya giggled at that.
‘She’s cute’
She tucked the paper into her spot in the book and just kind of sat there in comfortable silence as she waited for her stop. There was no point in going back to reading or listening to music, her stop was in another five minutes anyways. Chuuya just sat there processing what the hell just happened to her as she stared out the opposing windows. The sun was almost completely gone now.
She was definitely calling Dazai later.