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“I believe there is another world waiting for us. A better world. And I’ll be waiting for you there.”
~Robert Frobisher (from Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell)
A minute after the newly self-christened Dazai Osamu opened his eyes, he knew he was never going to leave the place he had found himself in.
The teenager who had picked him up had auburn red hair and ocean blue eyes, accompanied by a firm build and a comforting voice.
He had never seen him before, his features, his voice, his adorable—Dazai knew that conventional social etiquette demanded that he never used the word “kawaii” on a guy, but there was simply no other words to describe the strand of hair that never failed to settle down—cowlick were all foreign to him.
At the same time, Dazai felt like he had known this person forever.
One thing he was absolutely sure of: Oda Sakunosuke was someone he would never leave behind.
“Odasaku~ good morning!” Leaping onto the single bed the redhead rested in, Dazai chirruped happily, fingers gripping onto the other’s duvet.
Odasaku, being Odasaku, was faster to shoot his hand out, fingers gripping onto Dazai’s thin wrist. It was a marvel, how the other could hold onto him firmly without hurting him, yet simultaneously managing to prevent him from making any further assaults on his precious duvet. It was a sign of the other’s mastery—oh, even with his limited knowledge of the outside world Dazai could tell that the other was too well-practised and disciplined to be anything except for someone familiar in Yokohama’s underworld.
“Good morning, Dazai,” Odasaku groaned, voice still roughened from sleep. “Was the jumping really necessary?”
Dazai beamed in return. “Of course! It’s yet another day with you, Odasaku! What are we going to do today?”
The redhead finally poked his head out of his comfortable nest, blinking alert blue eyes up at Dazai. “I have work. You’re staying here.”
“Eeeeehhhhh!”
“No complaints, Dazai, I can’t bring you around when I work,” Odasaku explained, sitting up and running a hand through his hair. Dazai pouted up at him, shoving himself as much as he could in Odasaku’s field of view to express his displeasure at being left behind.
It was odd, how Dazai could comfortably slip into the persona of a carefree child. Something he had never had the chance to do: not back in the laboratory, nor—
Nor ever.
But every single moment of his interactions with Odasaku felt so familiar, like he had returned to a home he didn’t know he had. Every single cell in his body, every word he said, everything he saw screamed a nostalgic kindredness, which was odd because he had never met the redhead before.
He had a perfect memory. He would know if he had met people, especially someone as interesting as Odasaku.
Odasaku slipped out of bed, the action bumping Dazai out of his thoughts. Disregarding the brunet’s curious eyes on him, the redhead yawned into his palm, made his bed—having to shoo Dazai away from it in the process—and turned to his closet. He paused. Looked back at Dazai, who continued to stare at every single inch of the teenager before him.
Odasaku was truly the most fascinating person he had ever met.
“Dazai,” the object of his interest called out. “Wait for me in the dining area. I’ll make you some canned crab porridge for breakfast, alright?”
Ah, yes. The greatest joy mankind has ever created on earth: canned food. Canned crab was a delicacy he had discovered ever since running away from the lab and being found by Odasaku. It had been one of the only things the redhead had left in his tiny flat, and beggars—not that Dazai cared much about food, but Odasaku cared about his well being and had commanded the brunet to eat—couldn’t be choosers.
It had been his first encounter with food that was labelled unhealthy by many. The people in the lab always kept him fed with the freshest food—to ensure that he was at his peak health to be experimented on—with a balanced diet that frankly bored Dazai to death (if only that had been possible…but in hindsight, he was glad that it hadn’t been). The taste of the processed food packed and stored in an aluminium can was delicious and novel.
Odasaku did remind him that it was unhealthy, and did restrict his consumption to only once per day. But the brunet strangely found that he didn’t mind at all.
Digging into the bowl in front of him, Dazai observed Odasaku, who worked at his toast with an intense look.
His chest warmed, the bottom of his stomach tickled, the touch as soft as a feather.
Nope, he definitely didn’t mind at all.
Odasaku was a hitman for hire.
Dazai knew this.
Granted, it had taken a while longer than his usual timing to figure that little fact out. The redhead was difficult to read, and often went against Dazai’s expectations in the most interesting manner, so it was more challenging than usual to pin down an answer he had absolute confidence in.
Even after doing so, Dazai knowingly kept quiet.
Oda will let him go if Dazai ever let it slip that he had figured things out, and the brunet didn’t want to leave yet.
Hence, he played along with the ruse that the redhead put up everyday, smiling like any normal child would as Odasaku told Dazai that he was going for work, walking out of the door at sporadic timings.
It wasn’t a lie, but Dazai could tell the other was uncomfortable with the whole situation. Seeing the twitch in the redhead’s cowlick was often almost enough for Dazai to want to leap forward, jumping into Odasaku’s arms and exclaiming that he had figured everything out, that Odasaku could stop lying to him if it pained him, that Dazai would always be with him—
But he couldn’t, the intimate fear coiling around his throat and forcing him to swallow those words.
“Have a good day at work, Odasaku!” he chirped as he waved the other off, drinking in the other’s form like he wasn’t coming back.
(He was, Dazai often had to remind himself, shaking off the irrational gaping black hole of loss inside him.)
The teenager paused for a moment at the front door, blinking at the younger brunet.
Coral orange danced across his hair, the sun setting as Yokohama’s civilians prepared to settle down, and the city’s monsters stirred.
Odasaku was one of them.
Slowly, the redhead nodded.
Dazai smiled.
Emotional intimacy—Dazai had only learned of the term from the academic journals in the lab, the ones that focused on human psychology—was odd, and the brunet had honestly thought he would have cowered at every second of it. With Odasaku, however, being together with him, being happy with him, feeling a variety of emotions together with him, and being able to express all that freely came almost as naturally as breathing.
It wasn’t so bad after all.
Dazai hummed to himself as he grabbed the dirty laundry from the basket, not giving the smell of smoke any attention; he was getting good at ignoring the scents, the smell of oil and gunpowder. Without a second thought, he threw them all into the washing machine—some of the clothes were Odasaku’s dusk-coloured jacket, white singlet and dark red shirt, along with the redhead’s other clothes; only the forest green flannel and dark jeans belonged to Dazai, some of his favourite clothes that Odasaku had gotten for him.
Has he ever washed clothes before? Nope. But he had read descriptions of them in books, and it was easy. He could do this, no problem. Humming, he threw the laundry pod into the drum, and pressed the door close tightly, pushing extra hard against the handle to make sure the door was completely sealed, before pressing the buttons to change the settings.
The washing machine sang a cheerful melody as soon as he hit the start button, its tune as lighthearted as Dazai’s own mood.
“...Dazai, what happened to my clothes?”
Dazai could only laugh sheepishly, mouth twisted upwards in an awkward smile, a hand behind his head.
Oda sighed, holding a familiar-looking dark red shirt that had since become blotchy with different shades. Beside him, a laundry basket laid innocently, filled with washed clothes, butchered by the washing machine—or just Dazai’s lack of prowess in laundry—into a similar state.
“We’re going to need new clothes.”
Odasaku had no driver’s licence, but he drove all the same, navigating turns in a sharp manner that thrilled Dazai to no end. Other than that, however, he kept to all the traffic rules. With Dazai around and Oda himself being underaged, it was better that they did not attract any attention.
…Oda’s existing records—probably they must exist... somewhere—notwithstanding anyway.
Yokohama Motomachi Shopping Street bustled with activity, and the brunet took everything in with wide eyes. Everywhere he looked, there were people, people, and more people. Unfamiliar scents—pleasant ones, some were sweet and buttery and made his mouth salivate—filled his nose, and he could see what the books called “cafés” lining the sheltered street. It was too early for lunch, and they had just had breakfast, so Dazai wasn’t famished, but he was peckish, a surprising monster of an appetite lured out by the delectable scents.
Odasaku must have noticed him looking, for he asked, “Are you hungry?”
And for once in Dazai’s life, he found himself yearning for food and truly meaning his reply.
“Yes!”
They ended up at a bakery with warm lights and even warmer bread, Dazai taking in a deep breath as they entered with a cheerful chime of the bell, getting a good whiff of the fragrance of freshly-baked bread. Dazai’s eyes grew bigger as Oda led him through the store and explained to him slowly what each item was and how they tasted.
“Though,” Oda murmured, looking thoughtful. “I suppose you might want to try them out yourself instead of listening to me talk about them.”
Dazai hummed, looking up at Oda as the redhead smiled down at him. His callused hands, bigger than Dazai’s, were warm as he held onto the young brunet.
Dazai ended up getting a melon pan *, a donut twist, and a sakura paste bun. To his horror, Oda had gotten three karepans for himself, being a huge fan of curry.
They munched on their treats happily—“That is hot, Odasaku! Why do you even like this?” “It’s delicious, Dazai.” —as they toured the area for a suitable store. Dazai found that he loved the sweetness of the melon pan, and decided that it was going to be his favourite bread from now on.
It happened when Odasaku had stepped into the changing room, leaving Dazai to wander the store alone.
It happened so quickly Dazai didn’t even have time to scream or make a ruckus. Given the size of the store, it was only natural that no one had noticed someone—especially a professional—sneaking in to grab a scrawny kid—Dazai was barely a teen, he was smart, but he knew how weak he was—who had spent most of his life in a laboratory away.
The experience was novel, which was interesting.
The motive…was less so.
“I can’t believe that the brat had decided to adopt a younger brat.”
“I always thought he was weird for a hitman, but this is some crazy shit.”
“Well, it’s a good chance for us to lure him in!”
As Dazai swayed around with the movement of the van he had been thrown into, blindfolded and gagged, he rolled his eyes, and missed Oda’s familiar scent.
He missed Odasaku. He missed the bakery. He missed the redhead’s familiar home.
Despite all the missing, however, he found that he was not scared.
Odasaku would come for him. Or Dazai would escape first. With these idiots, there was no other possible outcome. He might be small and young and physically weak, but he had broken himself out of the lab and never looked back.
Humming to himself mentally in the musty darkness, he wondered what they would have for dinner tonight.
What Dazai did not expect, however, was Oda’s guilt-ridden eyes, the moment the blindfold was gone from his own.
(It was always Oda, always Oda that he could never fully read. Probably never, across all his lifetimes. It was always the same question: Why? Why would Oda not pick him?)
The teenager stood in front of him, guns still smoking and Dazai’s kidnappers lying around them, dead. He was still wearing the shirt he had ben trying on at the store, the tag hanging and swinging at his back. Twilight was upon them, hues of red and orange spilling in from between the broken glass of the abandoned warehouse Dazai had apparently been taken to. The brunet took one look at the redhead’s blown pupils, and it was like his entire world had been blown apart by a hurricane, an earth that had its magnetic poles flipped.
His heart twinged, and he found it harder to breathe even though his gag had long been removed.
Dazai had never been afraid of someone leaving his life. If there was one thing he was absolutely clear about, it was the fact that everything he cherished, he was doomed to lose them.
Odasaku would do the same, he knew this logically. He also knew that a life with Oda was dangerous, which was why the redhead was going to suggest something Dazai would abhor.
He couldn’t let Oda leave again.
(—again?)
“No!”
“Dazai,” Odasaku began, only to be cut off by a brunet head burrowing into his chest. “Dazai, listen.” His tone was gentle, more so than anything Dazai had heard so far, and the brunet knew the other thought he was afraid of him.
As if that was Dazai’s concern!
“No! I know what you want to say,” Dazai sniffed. “You’re a hitman, I know that! I’ve known that since day one, since the moment I woke up!”
The fingers around his shoulders tightened briefly, a sign of Odasaku’s shock.
“But I chose to stay anyway, because I wanted to!”
“Dazai…” Exasperation laced Oda’s voice.
“No!” Dazai screamed. “I don’t want to leave you! You can’t leave me! You picked me up so you must keep me!” As Dazai poured his entire being out via his screams, he was filled with a sense of oddness. How did this red-headed hitman achieve something no other person ever could? He kept Dazai’s interest, heart, and soul, in a way no one would ever be able to.
It was like meeting Oda in itself was the greatest miracle to ever exist. Like an occurrence that could only be if the stars aligned perfectly in the skies, across every lifetime.
Oda’s breath was shaky, his hands warm on Dazai’s cheeks. The large hands moved up his face carefully, like Dazai was fragile glass, before settling in his hair.
It was a brief moment that felt like forever. His heart was going to burst, roaring out of his chest.
“Okay,” Oda breathed out. “Okay. We’re staying together.” And suddenly it was Oda’s hands moving down to clutch at Dazai’s too-bony shoulders, like the brunet had suddenly become the redhead’s crux as well, just as much as Oda had become Dazai’s.
“Odasaku…” To his horror and embarrassment, Dazai felt tears teasing the corner of his eyes. “I’ll never, ever leave you.”
“It’ll be dangerous.”
“I don’t care.”
A chuckle from the older boy, and despite his tears, the ends of Dazai’s mouth curled upwards. Sniffing, Dazai moved his head from the other’s chest to his shoulder, tightening his arms around the other.
As long as they’re together, nothing else was important enough for Dazai to care.