Work Text:
Their train would arrive in exactly a minute…
The sky was a breathtaking pale pink that bled into vibrant orange as the sun began to set. Dazai stepped onto the platform and Atsushi stood slightly behind.
The case that day had been quite eventful for the duo and the mental gymnastics performed to solve it had completely wiped Atsushi.
Dazai suddenly turned to face him, his brown trench coat fluttering in the breeze. Atsushi thought back to a familiarly warm moment like this but his memory of it was so blurred that perhaps it was just a fever dream and never happened at all…
“Dazai,” Atsushi said from behind him, “Why do you want to kill yourself?” Dazai turned around and looked at Atsushi. It was his usual smile − a cheerful smirk that made him impossible to read. Dazai slightly opened his eyes as if to say, “Oh yeah. I guess I haven’t told you yet.” He grinned and answered:
“Because I…”
What did Dazai say that day? The more he try to remember, the further the memory sunk into the glow of the evening sun.
“Earth to my dearest space cadet~” he exclaimed dramatically, as the train stopped before them and released passengers from the previous stop, “Nakajima Atsushi-kun!”
“Huh? Oh, right! The train’s here!”
“Mission accomplished…now we’re back in Japan. Let’s go!” Dazai grabbed his wrist to gently led him into the carriage and sat down in the chair beside him.
Atsushi stifled a cat-like yawn before retrieving the paperwork of the now finished case out of his bag. Dazai sighed,
“Kunikida-kun has gotten to you too,huh?”
Atsushi emptied the contents of the brown envelope on the table and revealing a twenty paged report, “No….maybe? I think it’s better to get it all done now so we can just drop it off at the office and call it a day...”
Dazai leaned closer. His breath warm against Atsushi’s neck, “Y’know your workaholic behaviour will send you to an early grave~” he whispered into his ear, making Atsushi shiver even though it was warm in their empty compartment.
Dazai was close. Too close.
Rolling his eyes fondly, he jokingly batted a laughing Dazai away with a spare hand and continued to focus on his work.
Atsushi’s mind wondered to his mentor who was watching blurs of emerald whizz past the window, tapping out the beat of the music he was listening to.
The two of them were quite close and had been on more cases together than Atsushi cared to count but something about today, there on the train, felt different. Something he himself could never put into words with the same ease he wrote reports.
It was incredibly warm, passionate and so thought consuming that it made him feel light-headed, but he enjoyed every second of it because…
Why?
Why did he enjoy it?
The same feeling also made him greedy…even furious at times. It also made him want to drop everything and sob his eyes out at the sight of….
Dazai Osumu. His mentor and his closest friend, Dazai.
He peered at him. Dazai looked ethereal, pressed against the window, strands of his dark hair were now a light brown in the dying light and his pale rose lips were parted slightly.
And then, it hit him all at once, like a slap across the face and with the heaviness of a ton of bricks. That he loved him with all his heart, his eyes suddenly felt heavy with sadness.
Dazai jumped up from his seat and pointed excitedly at the window, “Hey, Atsushi-kun! Look there’s a-“
He turned to see a mess of fluffy grey hair sound asleep on the unfinished paperwork. Atsushi stirred slightly, then Dazai mentally hit himself for being so obnoxiously loud and sat down again.
He patted his head gently, running his fingers through Atsushi’s soft hair.
His tone softer now as he slid the reports out from underneath him, “You did a good job, Atsushi-“
He noticed the reports were tear-stained.
A wave of sadness washed over him and he instinctively reached out to touch his cheek: it was wet too. Dazai took off his sandy coloured trench coat and in a single swift movement, he placed Atsushi’s head on his lap and his coat over him as a blanket, holding him closer.
Dazai hadn’t thought that deeply about what he had just done which was highly irresponsible of him as almost everything he did was calculated, like a game of chess, always weighing the consequences of his actions. Recently, he’d occasionally allowed himself to drop the facade when alone with Atsushi.
The sky now a purplish-blue with tiny dashes of light dotting the sky but the sun was nowhere to be seen. Reminding Dazai of a similarly twilight sky where the sun illuminated a particularly battered duo: Atsushi and Kyoka in a blinding light…
Dazai’s head lowered, he began solemnly, “Atsushi-kun, what I did earlier…”
Atsushi’s hetrochromoatic eyes reflected the sun and the sky, and saw through him immediately, “You tried to protect the city.”
Dazai sighed, shoving his hands in his coat pockets, “Do I look like such a good person?” It wasn’t even a question.
“Sure, why?”
Dazai was temporarily stunned by the magnitude and nonchalant nature of his response. He stated it normally as if he was asked the weather. As if he wasn’t previously a cold Port Mafia Executive who had killed hundreds of people without remorse. Yet he couldn’t help but smile alongside him.
Mentee and mentor would be how their relationship is described on paper. Dazai was Atsushi’s mentor and Atsushi was Dazai’s mentee. The word mentee had a strangeness about it when used to describe Atsushi.
He meant a lot more to him than just a mentee. He was a fellow colleague, a close friend and…
And?
And what?
Dazai couldn’t find the exact words…
But, he knew he loved Atsushi more than anything.
He brushed his hair out of his eyes and bent down to place a soft kiss on his forehead, “Goodnight…sweet dreams.”
Dazai distracted for a moment, unplugged his headphones as the train came to a halt in Yokohama, Atsushi’s eyes fluttered open and he smiled and mouthed a silent, “You too.”