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Dazai walked cheerfully across the corridor, waving his arms to himself and humming some tune to a song.
He seemed happy, definitely too much if Sigma had to be honest. They had already lost enough time dancing before, and now he was insisting on dancing alone.
Sometimes he even stopped abruptly, gave a little spin, and Sigma inevitably ended up bumping into him, giving the damn mastermind a chance to slip an arm behind his back to keep him from falling.
He couldn’t stop the blush of embarrassment that flooded his cheeks, as Dazai looked him in the eyes, his wavy hair brushing his forehead.
“Would you stop doing that?” Sigma pushed him away, immediately straightening his clothes.
“I don’t know, your reaction is quite amusing to be honest.” He chanted, resuming to skip along and sing his little song as if nothing happened.
Sigma shook his head, eyebrows furrowed.
He had met the man just a few minutes ago, and he was already tired of him. Even in his short life, he had never met such an annoying man.
Sure, Nikolai had his attitude, and Fyodor his own peculiar ways of playing around, but Dazai was just so insistently, continuously, subtly poking at all the wrong buttons.
Like when he had grabbed him by his wrist before, hand on his hip, and spun him all around the corridor for a good five minutes.
He had had the chance to observe Dazai up close, then, and hear his soft mellow voice right against his ear, and he would be lying to himself if he said he hadn’t enjoyed himself.
He’d never had a chance to actually dance. The casino kept him quite busy, and he just didn’t believe it would be as fun as people said. It was just spinning around, moving pointlessly, he was sure he’d stumble over his partner’s feet anyway. Yet.
Sigma came to a stop, arms folded against his chest and looking to the side.
“What’s wrong, dear?” Dazai joked, giving another spin and stopping to look at him with his hands on his hips.
Sigma just raised his shoulders, not in the mood to indulge in Dazai’s gags.
There was a dull tug at his chest.
“It’s nothing.”
Dazai raised an eyebrow, inspecting him. He walked over to him with a sigh, tucking a bit of his own hair behind his ear.
“You know, I am a detective, but even if I wasn’t,” he said, his tone back to a more normal voice level. “It wouldn’t be difficult to deduce the reason for your behavior.”
“I said it’s nothing, and don’t pretend you know me!” Sigma retorted, half heartedly swinging a hand at him.
“I’ve never said I know you, I just said you’re objectively easy to read.” Dazai repeated, hands in the air as if he were just caught red-handed by the police.
Sigma furrowed his eyebrows, starting to walk again. “Say what you want.”
Dazai chuckled, following along behind him. “Let’s see, it’s definitely not something about escaping this place. You’ve already expressed your feelings about it, and aside from a little hurry you didn’t seem that worried.” He hummed, pressing a finger to his forehead in thought.
“I don’t know how I should answer that.” Sigma rolled his eyes.
“Given you’ve only lived for three years, you can’t have many other things to give thought to. It must be something close to you,” he mumbled, now getting back to Sigma’s side. “Something that causes you discomfort. Perhaps something you’ve lost.”
Sigma tightened his hands around his arms and avoided looking Dazai in the eye with all he had.
He was right. Of course he was right.
He had lost his casino, the only thing that had ever given his life purpose, and then he had almost died, saved by the ghost of someone who also should have been dead.
“I lost the place I used to work at,” he finally exhaled, giving in. “Is that what you wanted to hear?”
“Ah yes, your casino, Fyodor said something about that. He helped you get there, didn’t he?”
Sigma scoffed, shaking his head. “It doesn’t matter anymore. I lost it. It was my job and my home, I have nowhere else to go now.”
“The world is a big place,” he could practically feel Dazai’s smile in his voice, and for a moment, for some reason, it felt gentle. “And you’re still young. I’m pretty sure there would be plenty of places willing to give you a second chance.”
The man kept ignoring him. He had been given a second chance already, and even if he found purpose in it, he now understood that all of his time and effort had been for someone else.
He had been used.
“I wouldn’t like to work under someone.” He mumbled, coming to a stop before a locked door.
Dazai walked to the little keyboard on its right, humming, and typed in a password. “Then you can make your own place, work for yourself. You wouldn’t be the first.”
“That’s exactly what I’m planning to do,” he shut his mouth, folding his arms again.
Dazai was looking directly at him, standing still in the door frame that had opened now. He was scrutinizing him, attentive, and something told Sigma that he had already understood everything.
“But?” He asked, softly, once again. His eyebrows relaxed.
“But…” Sigma felt that something tug at his chest again. “I wouldn’t even know where to start. All this time I thought that anything I needed was the casino, and now that I don’t have it anymore, I don’t know what I should do with my life. I have nothing.”
Dazai pressed his lips in a thin line.
It was exactly as Fyodor had said. Sigma had nothing.
He was but an empty vessel, and whoever reached him first could pour whatever they wanted into him.
Despite his newfound determination, he was the easiest man to bring on one’s side. That was why Fyodor was trying to kill him.
Dazai let out a huff, sliding with his back on the wall and sitting down.
Sigma looked at him confused for a moment, shoulders tense and eyes glassy.
“No one ever truly has nothing.” Dazai felt guilty, for now he was the one pouring words into Sigma. The man looked at him intensely, lavender eyes searching for something. “There’s always your thoughts, your feelings. They can’t take those away.”
Sigma approached him slowly, and carefully sat down beside him, crouching with his arms hugging his legs.
“Just think about it, even just your sense of style.”
“These clothes were given to me by Fyodor.” He answered sharply.
“Your taste then,” Dazai continued, after a moment of thought. “There must be something you like. Maybe the way you style your hair, or your favorite food.”
“I was born with this hair, I have kept the same haircut ever since.” He answered quickly, as if to prove a point.
“You must have a favorite food though!”
He looked to the side, sinking in his arms a little more. “I do like cookies… most.” He mumbled, barely over a whisper.
Dazai smiled widely, resting a hand on his shoulder. “See? I told you, no one can take away your likes or dislikes, it’s your feelings! You have to start from there to understand what you want.”
“What would liking cookies even bring me?”
“Okay, well, maybe not cookies,” Dazai said, closing his eyes. “The fact that you haven’t lived for much means that there’s more room for discovering things. Think about something else, some situation, some other feeling.”
Sigma shifted his gaze to Dazai now, his eyes still closed, his warm hand still on his shoulder. His heart was going a mile per hour.
He was scared. If he revealed his thoughts to him, he would be used. If he opened up and let him in on his deepest feelings, he would be able to use him so much more easily.
After all, that was all people had ever wanted from him. Dazai was certainly searching for a way to exploit him, maybe get him to reveal Fyodor’s ability to him.
Though now Fyodor was his enemy too, he tried to kill him. Sigma was effectively alone. Again.
“Sometimes,” he muttered, and Dazai opened his eyes, startled by the sudden voice in the silence of the corridor. “Sometimes I see Fyodor and Nikolai together, when they come to visit the casino and think I’m not around. They’re kissing each other.”
Dazai raised his eyebrows slowly, tilting his head to the side slightly, but his face remained in that same curious, serious way that it had been ever since they started talking. The hand on his shoulder gave a weak comforting squeeze.
“How does that make you feel?”
Sigma took a deep breath, feeling he would regret this. Alas, he had nothing else to lose.
He spat the word out, hiding his eyes from the other man. “Envious.”
Much to his surprise, Dazai all but hummed at his answer, not even a single hint of mockery on his face.
Sigma had never had a conversation like this with anyone before, he hadn’t had a casual conversation ever, to be fair, yet he expected that Dazai would be on the ground laughing, rolling around, pointing his finger.
“Why?” He simply asked instead, and Sigma felt the tug at his chest become more insistent, a lump forming in his throat, as he instinctively let his arms slowly fall away from his face.
“Because I don’t have that. I’ve never had that, and it’s probably something I’ll never have in my entire life, even if everyone else has experienced it at least once, but me…” he bit at his lip, feeling his eyes growing hot and the words falling out on their own. “When we danced before…”
Dazai had shifted to hug both of his shoulders now, his cheek resting on top of his head.
He waited for a moment before talking, holding Sigma through a few sobs.
“Did you enjoy that?” He asked softly, barely above a whisper.
“I did…” he confessed, bringing his palms to his eyes to try and stop the tears from melting on his face.
“Is there something else you want to ask me, then?” Dazai asked, his own chest tightening a little on itself. “If I can be of help, I’d be glad to. You deserve to have your firsts, too.”
Sigma swallowed, pressing his hands to his eyes once again. Dazai hugged him tighter, this was a first too.
He couldn’t remember ever being hugged affectionately like this.
“If we had more time,” Sigma mumbled, taking a few deep breaths. “If we did, I’d ask you to take me out on a date. We’d book one of those fancy restaurants with the windows looking at the city and the sea, and we’d be on the last floor. I like being up high.”
“You’ve never been to a fancy restaurant?” Dazai asked softly, only nodding when Sigma shook his head as an answer.
“I’d ask you to order my food for me, for I’ve only ever eaten what the chefs of my casino prepared, and it never really varied much,” he continued, fidgeting with his own fingers in his lap. “I would pay for you, of course. Then we’d take a walk, and you’d take me to your place, and…”
Dazai rubbed his shoulder, a gentle smile resting on his lips. Sigma’s voice still sounded shattered, and he was shaking under his arm. “And?”
“I’d ask you to kiss me.” He mumbled, a pink flush rising to join his tears on his cheeks. “And you’d teach me how to kiss, and how to act in these moments, and then you would make love to me. And I would like it.”
“You think you would?” Dazai smirked, and Sigma blushed some more. “Thank you.”
“Only, we don’t have time. So I just…” Sigma whispered, finally turning to look at Dazai. “Could you kiss me?”
The other man wordlessly moved his arms, sliding his hands to cup his cheeks and brushed away some still wet tears.
Sigma let his eyelids fall close as Dazai got closer, trying to mimic what he was doing, hands buried in his hair, lips slightly parted.
As they finally touched, Sigma felt on fire, warm in a good way, buzzing all over.
Dazai was so close. He could feel his breath on his own nose as he separated right before kissing him again.
He could feel his heartbeat in his ears as Dazai moved, hugging Sigma closer to his body, tasting his lips with his tongue only once, before kissing him a third time. Tender.
Sigma remained there tense, tugging lightly at his hair, and when they parted he was still trembling, though now it felt good.
Dazai was up in a heartbeat, and he was offering his hand to help him get up.
He accepted the help silently, mouthing a “Thank you” as soon as he was up as well.
“I promised to get you out of here alive. When we do, you could consider the agency as a starting point.” He muttered softly, starting to walk again. His hand was still holding Sigma’s. “Then we could talk about that date.”
“I thought you were dating Chuuya, the gravity manipulator?”
Dazai chuckled. “Well, you could say I am, though you wouldn’t like your first date to be with a stranger, would you?” He raised his eyebrows, still smiling now in a more devious way. “I want to help you.”
More words poured into Sigma.
Dazai felt guilty, but he felt that, given the opportunity to grow, he could one day choose which ones to pour away and which ones to hold dear instead.
Sigma blushed and thanked him again, as they reached another closed door.