Chapter Text
Dazai snaps back into herself with a start and a flutter and a man across the counter staring her right in the eye.
It’s the eye contact that snapped her back, Dazai thinks. His eyes are bright and red, the glinting shade of pomegranate-flesh, and warning. She didn’t really register him until that moment. When she walks back her memory, she can only catch a vague imprint of the door-bell jingling, his form faltering in like a shadow. He’s pale as one, too, his skin a macabre shade of actual-white. He has eye-bags like bruises, whole socket of each eye darkened and purpled, discoloration mellowing on the edges where it fades into the rest of him. His lips are a flat line.
He looks half dead in the way Dazai feels half dead.
“Nine shots of espresso,” he says. “No milk no sugar, medium cup. Fill it no more and no less than halfway.”
What the fuck.
Dazai’s left forearm stings something wicked, the prying itch and raw irritation crawling from her wrist across its chest and up her neck, persistent on its mind, now, as it settles back to itself. Today has been so boring, its emotions a numb line stretching far and thin, but—nine shots of espresso. Nine shots. Pure black with no sugar or milk or anything. Is he trying to get a heart attack? “That’ll be—”
“Is there an extra charge for salt?”
She stares. “I’m not sure I know what you mean?”
“Salt packets,” he deadpans. His face hasn’t changed at all, nor has his voice, both still utterly flat. Somehow, it sounds like he thinks she is stupid.
“No,” she says. “There’s no extra charge.”
“Wonderful. Give me three on the side. Leave the lid off.” He sways the slightest bit, his weight shifting. Abruptly, Dazai realizes his left hand is clutched tightly round the handle of a cane, fingers pressed bloodless. “And do be quick about it.”
It’s less that he’s rude, Dazai thinks, and more that he’s efficient. And that makes him rude. Dazai would know.
Dazai smiles amiably and references to her customer service script. “Of course!”
She turns around, grabs a cup, and looks over to Sigma. Sky’s by the door to the staff break-room, looking back. Dazai makes a face, makes sure to widen her eyes and put more emphasis to her movements when she fills in the shots, hot, and bypasses any additions. Nine shots! Pure! Exactly half full! With salt on the side! You seeing this shit?
Sigma pinches two fingers together and draws them sharply across skies throat. Don’t fucking involve me.
Dazai finishes the drink, swipes up three salt packets, plasters a smile back on, and twists on her heel. She is greeted immediately by his unnerving stare. Immediately. He’s still looking right at her, good fucking lord. Eye contact.
She hands him the drink. “Thank you for your patience!”
It didn’t even take thirty seconds.
The motion of his hand when he takes it is almost delicate. For a moment, he lets go of his cane to take a salt packet, too, carefully open it with his teeth, and dump it in the cup. And then a second packet. Dazai briefly catches sight of his tongue. It’s very pink. His whole mouth is very pink. He dumps the third packet. He does all this without breaking eye contact even once. Then, he takes a small wooden coffee stick, and stirs the abomination of an order.
He does this for almost seventy seconds straight.
Harsh morning light filtering in from the far windows casts him in sharp definition. He’s almost so tall as Dazai, but he is also thin and slumped and visibly weak. An enormous black duffle coat hangs from his frame. It sits large on his shoulders, round his neck, hanging from his arms. But it does not make him look small. Rather, he looks like some elegant, porcelain creature peering out from the bulk. He is concealed more than he is dwarfed. He is all hard monochrome—snow-white hat on raven hair, white pants tucked into black stability-boots, silver cross-necklace glinting over the undiluted white of his turtleneck. Maybe the only real color on him is his eyes, that bright pomegranate-shade of warning.
It’s summer. He is wearing all that in summer.
He slowly places the stick aside and slides the drink across the counter.
“...Would you be a dear,” he says, and his voice drags deep and rich like living velvet, “and fill the rest of this with cold water?”
The way he talks is really so—
He isn’t flirting. Dazai gets the impression he simply talks like that. He simply says would you be a dear? to people. Good lord. Dazai takes back the cup and fills the remaining half with cold water. She hands it back, and oh, she forgot to reply cheerily, didn’t she? Well whatever. She is used to forgetting parts of her scripts.
Now, he brings it to his lips, tilts his head back, and—seriously? Really?
The adam’s apple of his throat bobs once, twice, thrice. Dazai tracks the movement.
There’s a good fifteen seconds before the cup leaves his mouth. He sighs, this long sounds that’s more relieved than contented. When he sets it down, and in the split second before he begins fastening the lid, Dazai catches glimpse of its contents.
Its slightly more than half empty contents.
This man just downed five shots of espresso in fifteen seconds flat.
He finishes fastening the lid, sticks in a bendy straw, gives Dazai this slight twist of an expression that might count as a smile in like, another universe, and inclines his head. He says, “Thank you.”
And just like that, he leaves. He shifts the coffee to one hand and takes his cane with the other and leaves. Actually—he waves as he opens the door, this irreverent flick of a movement. The bell chimes.
What’s that supposed to mean? Is that supposed to mean something? Does it mean he’s coming back? Is it a wave like see you later? If it is a wave like see you later, what kind of see you later is it? He—!
It’s not the fact that he ordered nine shots of espresso, specified he wanted the cup exactly half full, then dumped in three packets of salt, stirred with a wooden stick, handed it back, and asked for the remaining space to be filled with cold water. It is not even that he did not give a word in explanation before downing half of it in one go, sticking in a bendy straw, and very politely saying, thank you.
It’s that the entire time, his eye contact hadn’t faltered even once.
Dazai watches him disappear, blinks once, and turns to Sigma.
“Oh my god,” Dazai says, almost-flustered, “what the fuck is wrong with him.”
There’s something wrong with him. There’s like, actually something wrong with him. Dazai hasn’t been this interested in someone for months. She has been dreading it, in the back of mind, the way her life has been coasting along the edge of a depressive slump—but never quite tipping over the edge. Today was bad-flat and dull but manageably so. Those days happen, and they are not even a tenth so bad as they used to be.
Sigma groans. Sky opens the door back into the break room, makes to slip through. “Don’t even ask.”
“You know him?” Dazai follows Sigma excitedly, cocking her head.
Dazai is very nearly giddy with the way its heart picks up ever-so-slight in its chest and waspish-something buzzes down to its fingertips. The lingering warmth from handling his coffee cup irritates the skin of her palm, sears an itch up her arm. It’s so excited, feels unsteady with the spiral of its mind. What was that? What was that? Who fucking acts like that? Is that just how he acts? Without realizing? Was he psyching her out? Why? For what intention? For fun? Just because he was bored? Was he bored? He seemed more exhausted, done, than bored. He—
the salt.
He didn’t just down five shots of espresso in fifteen seconds he downed five shots of espresso with salt. What freak puts packets of salt in coffee like that? In general, but also, both caffeine and salt increase blood pressure. Does he want to die?
Sigma throws her a conflicted look. “Kind of. I think, yeah, maybe.”
“Oh? Oh oh oh?”
“He’s infamous on campus for barely showing up to lessons and still having the single highest grade in nearly every class he takes,” Sigma says, collapsing into the couch, long hundred-braid hair splaying out in silver and lavender. It still smells vaguely like cigarettes in here, from when Dazai smoked them in the backroom instead of taking the side-door out into the alley.
It closes the door behind itself, presses its hands to the wood, rests its body against its hands, and leans forward eagerly, keeps its body language open. “Fascinating.”
“I first met him in theology,” Sigma continues, after a moment. “He stayed entirely quiet most of class then spoke up near the end and stumped the teacher in two sentences. I think he only enrolled after you dropped out, actually.”
“Uhhuhhhh,” Dazai leads. “Go on...”
Sigma makes a vague motion with skies hand. “I study with him sometimes. I don’t know. I asked him help with a question once and he replied in a word-for-word bible quote. Like, literally entire verses word-for-word.”
“I want to pick him apart and eat him alive,” Dazai replies instantly, then, “oh my god I didn’t get his name.”
Sigma opens skies mouth but Dazai is quicker. She leans down and presses her index finger to skies lips.
“No no nonono!” Dazai shakes her head. “I have to find out myself! Don’t tell me, okay?”
Sigma’s eyes narrow, but after a moment, sky nods. Dazai retracts its finger. When sky speaks, Sigma doesn’t sound all too amused, “Rightttt.”
She sighs dreamily, still feels so giddy, dizzy with the pace of her thoughts. She adores this feeling, could get high off the whiplash. She gets addicted to this shit, the sharp ricochet of her emotional profile from flat and gray to bright and splotching, no matter how shallow the thrills usually end up. Even better, this time, because she’s fairly certain she was actually just dissociated before he snapped her out of it and into a new interest. She could’ve just been zoned out, but given that she can hardly recall anything since sunrise—and oh the lilt of his voice when he said dear!
“Ahhh,” Dazai sighs, again. “I wonder if he’ll be back on my shift...”
“Yeah you—” Sigma starts, then stops abruptly. Sky snaps up, eyes going wide, when sky looks to her, then the door of the break-room, then back to her. “Dazai it is your shift—THE FRONT COUNTER OH MY GOD—”
-
He comes in the following day, around the same time he did the first. Dazai is prepared, this time. Skirting the university campus’s edge, the coffee shop is always frequented by stressed students. They litter its small space—the counter by the front windows with its high-chairs, the small tables crowded along the walls. Everything is a bit croweded, crammed aside haphazardly to make room for wheelchair access. Really, everything is a bit haphazard—floorboards nailed down by sheer force of will, ceiling ripped out, insulation showing above wooden rafters, half its walls bare brick and the remaining plain concrete peeling pink paint—it reminds Dazai, sometimes, of the dubiously legal bars it used to frequent as a child and teenager.
Those never had windows, though. Here, the whole front face is windowed. The sun always hits with half-light. The angle is never right for it to fall in directly. Dazai prefers it that way. It’s gentler.
Cafe Twilight is named for its half-light.
Dazai grounds herself in the physicality around her. It people-watches, studies smiles and gestures and pulls together pieces of other people to form stories in its mind. It counts the stickers and pictures and paintings and figurines of cats which litter the cafe. It keeps careful eye on the window.
The door-bells jingle just at they did yesterday. The man Dazai has been waiting for locks eyes with her immediately.
“Nine shots of espresso,” he says, “No milk no sugar, medium cup. Fill it no more and no less than halfway.”
It’s an identical order. The divergence happens here:
Dazai nods, and smiles, and asks, “Can I get a name with that?”
His brows rise.
Here is the pivotal moment. This order takes less than thirty seconds to make. Last time, the man had simply stood by the counter while Dazai prepared it. It doesn’t need a name.
It’s an interest-interest check. He must know this.
The words ripple between them. His expression stays level, gives nothing. She is hyperaware of herself—the inflamed eczema-rashes peaking visibly above her bandages where they ends just over her Adam’s apple, burning like poison ivy round her neck. Her harsh, tender parts kept carefully concealed. Behind Dazai, from the back-counters, a steady jazz song sounds its last piano note, falters, and drops into skip-draw of pop-violin. Baby can’t you see, I’m callinggg...
Across from her, and slowly, a smile curls on his face.
“Fyodor Dostoyevsky.”
Ah!
Passed! Bingo! There it is! Dazai asked interest and the answer is yes. The smile on Fyodor’s face is a snake of an expression, this thing that curves like a secret, a joke only he knows.
“Dazai Osamu.”
She grins back and shapes it with the edge of something smug, to match, and twists on her shoe to make his drink. How much bounce should it add to its steps? How much delight should it show? In which way? It’s early, and Dazai doesn’t have a good read on him yet, even in the slightest, so she should follow a more average-person script, right? But that is so boring and she is so bad at it. Dazai fucking hates doing things it’s bad at.
Dazai swipes up three packets of salt and delivers Fyodor his drink. When he takes the cup, he stretches out his fingers, such that they settle only a half centimeter away from hers, and linger.
It’s an invitation, Dazai recognizes, instantly. She accepts, lets her own fingers brush his. They are shockingly cold, boarder on freezing, utterly void of warmth. Metal bracing splints the joints of each finger, looping round like jewelry, and when Fyodor withdraws, it glints silver. Dazai imagines those silver splinted fingers round its neck, pressed against its inflamed skin, doesn’t let itself pause, and cards away the fantasy.
Fyodor cuts the edge of a packet with the edge of his nail. His voice matches his smile. “We didn’t quite finish introductions, did we?”
It sounds like a test.
“Oh no need,” Dazai replies blithely, “he/they he/him preference man is written all over you.”
Fyodor’s lips twitch. “I usually get they/them preference. Don’t suppose you get pinned as a she/it, often?”
She doesn’t, actually. Sometimes, she’s lucky if she’s clocked as a woman at all.
While her face is naturally round and her features naturally soft, such that’s shes always been called very pretty for a man, Dazai doesn’t bother herself with the script of a woman anymore. She often speaks in a higher register, and in softer, silky tones, but no longer bothers making it sound ‘feminine.’ She already puts so much work into toning her voice right; she does not need that on top of everything else. She cut her hair and gave away most of her hyper-feminine wardrobe because she doesn’t want it. That isn’t the kind of woman she is. Her barista uniform has a bow-tie.
She’s a dead-body butch. Dazai is a woman like a corpse is a woman.
It winks. “Maybe not a she/it, but definitely a piece of shit!”
“Oh?” Fyodor tilts his head. He’s stirring the cup, now. “Penchant for unwanted psycho-analysis?”
“Among other things.”
“Fun.”
“I wouldn’t always call it unwanted. Let me guess...” Sigma met him in theology. There’s a cross strung round his neck. Despite the visible curve of his breasts and softer frame, he shows no discomfort with how he is perceived in public, carries effortlessly an undeniably masculine impression—likely, he is very settled in his presentation, and has been for a while. Likely had a religious upbringing. How old is he? Early twenties? Dazai walks through the deduction, bites her tongue against her canines. “The bible transed your gender?”
Dazai shapes it like a question but it really isn’t.
“Oh my,” Fyodor replies, airy. He slides the cup across the counter. “How scary.”
Dazai plucks it up and turns to fill the remaining space. His gaze burns holes on the back of her neck. When she turns back around, she is met with the full force of his stare. It’s unnerving, the way he studies her, feels like being dissected alive. He is trying to match Dazai in this. His lips have gone back to a flat line, and while his brows don’t furrow, there is a severity to him. There always is, Dazai thinks. He is a harsh contrast against the cafe, in its cozy, vintage character. Dazai suspects he is a harsh contrast everywhere he goes.
Something clicks in his expression. A wicked smirk stretches over his face. “Snow white x sleeping beauty fanfiction? Really?”
Dazai chokes on the air in her throat and nearly fucking coughs. It stares at him with near horror. She is so genuinely taken aback. Guessing that Fyodor found his identity through religious scripture was not actually hard. There are enough tells. But this? This? Him guessing she found she was a girl through snow white x sleeping beauty fanfiction? It shows? Where? Dazai isn’t sure what to do with its tongue, feels clumsy in itself. It snaps itself into working—
“At least I didn’t get into the Jesus x Judas fandom when I was fifteen?”
Fyodor doesn’t even flinch. “I asked God about it. He said it was fine.”
“He said it was fine,” Dazai mocks, then ricochets, “Which fanfic?”
“Which chapter of the Bible?” Fyodor shoots back instantly.
Stalemate.
Fyodor doesn’t know which fanfic exactly transed her gender. Dazai doesn’t know which chapter of the bible transed his. There isn’t much further they can go with this. Where can it go with this?
“Maybe you should give me numbers,” Dazai tests.
Fyodor laughs. It’s a light sound
“Ah ah,” he says, eyes crinkling on the edges. “I’m not that easy.”
Dazai draws a hand to her mouth in mimic-scandal. She meant numbers like bible-verse numbers, but mostly, she meant numbers as in, your number. “Oh, I would never!”
Dazai is used to either leading people on or diving recklessly into new relationships, or both at the same time with many people at once. It has mostly phased out the whole ‘getting into dangerous sexual situations’ thing, but it is still a player. And it is very good at that kind of game. It has been told it is very beautiful, with its monolid-smooth, lily-petal eyes and autumn-leaf skin, its fox-smile. Although Dazai is bad at masking and comes across as at least a little unnerving and off-putting to everyone it meets, it is very charming. It is charming. People overlook its eerieness because it is charming, and pretty, and they want something. Everyone wants something.
But Fyodor isn’t that easy, apparently. He wants to take it slow and steady with this kind of thing. That’s smart. Smarter than what Dazai tends toward, at least. Yeah that’s smart. It could pout.
“I’m sure,” Fyodor replies, looking almost amused. He twists the lid onto his coffee.
Dazai walks through the steps of irritation in its head, and decides to enjoy the long-game. When Fyodor leaves, it smiles, and waves.