Chapter Text
I, Osamu Dazai, woke up from my stupid alarm that’s going off at 7 oclock for me to get ready. Everything seemed normal at first. I still lived another day, sadly. I still have no energy. Still depressed. Still no will to live. Same as always.
I hop out of bed because this time I actually need to do something. I grab random clothes from my drawer to get dressed for my first day of 10th grade. I put on some black ripped jeans, one of my turtlenecks I wear everyday to hide my scars then I put random hoodie that’s been sitting on my floor since last year.
When I’m all dressed I head downstairs and grab my backpack and head out the door, completely ignoring Mori that was trying to talk to me. I take my antidepressants as I walk through the door, hoping I dont have to fake being happy today.
I don’t want to go to school. It’s not because I’m bad at it. It’s just because I don’t have the energy to walk to school every day. I need to since I live ten minutes away and the buses don’t bother picking people up who are this close to school.
Once I’ve walked down the porch steps of my house I look over to where I’m heading. But then I noticed someone walking down the neighbors driveway. He’s probably the neighbor that moved in recently. The only reason I know this is ‘cause they were so loud when they brought their moving truck.
It was hard to not notice the guy because of his ginger hair. The boy was really short. I assumed he was a middle schooler because of how short he was but the closest middle school doesn’t start till next week. I’m starting my second year of highschool and I think I’m a normal height for people my age. But this guy is a dwarf to the people I know who are my age.
I walked down my driveway and started walking to the right, where my school is. I noticed he was walking that direction too. Is he going to the same school as me?
We walked for about six minutes more and then the dwarf turned to me and stopped. I tried to pay as little attention to him as possible because I was not in the mood to talk to this Chihuahua but his eyes. I didn’t want to pull my eyes away from his big blue eyes, it felt like they pierced right through me. Then the dwarf yelled, “Why are you following me?!” I laughed because who the hell does this guy think he is? Yelling at me even though we just met? Where are his manners? The look on his face was priceless. He looked so confused to why I was laughing.
“Why the fuck are you laughing—?“ I interrupted him and asked him “Why would I follow you, chibi? You don’t seem interesting enough to stalk.” I wasn't entirely lying because he seemed like the most interesting person I’ve seen in a while. “I’m still growing, don't call me that, mackerel!” The boy yelled at me again. “I do not look like a fish!” I yelled back. “You smell like one though,” he told me, his voice scratchy. I looked at his backpack and noticed the name tag Chuuya Nakahara.
He stared at me as I walked closer to him, then I passed him and he glared at me. Once I walked past him he turned to me and started walking towards me. Fast, but not unusual since he’d been walking fast the whole time even when he didn’t notice me. Then once he caught up he yelled, as usual, “Where are you going?!” I rolled my eyes then looked down at him, “To school. What were you expecting me to do, stay there and give you a kiss?” His cheeks got a little rosy, and he looked at me with a grossed out look then spoke. “Ew no,” in a normal tone, for once. Not yelling. I smirked down at him then teased him, “you totally wanted me to kiss you!” He looked up at me, his cheeks still rosey. Then yelled once again, “nuh uh!” I rolled my eyes and he nudged me then yelled, “what are you rolling your eyes for?!”
“I’m rolling my eyes ‘cause you’re doing a bad job at denying your love for me.” He rambled on and on, yelling, of course.
We almost got to school, two minutes away. He calmed down and asked in a normal tone. Which made me pay more attention to him. “You go to this school, right?” I nodded then looked at the bus that was passing by us. I wonder if that could finally kill me. I stayed staring at the bus wondering how annoying would be if my dad was my doctor again after a failed attempt. Chibi walked in front of me and that’s when I realized I never asked for his name, even though I already saw the name tag I wanted to hear him say it.
I spoke up and said, “what’s your name, chibi?” He looked back at me and said, “why do you wanna know?” I smirked then walked closer to him and leaned to his ear. I flirted with him, in a whisper “I’m not allowed to ask a pretty boy his name?” I leaned away to see how he reacts to what I said. His face was a little rosy again and his ears were flush, it was pretty cute. Then he looked up at me with his big eyes, they looked so needy at the moment. Then he said in the calmest, curious voice I’ve heard from him, “you think I’m pretty?” Originally I was gonna use “pretty ugly” as a comeback but that seems too mean for someone who looks so cute and innocent at the moment. Instead I replied by saying, “two pretty best friends don’t exist. And you wouldn’t be the pretty one.” He looked at me confused then said, “We aren’t best friends. We’ve known each other for like eight minutes.” I smirked and said, “boyfriends then. You can be considered pretty if we aren’t best friends.”
His face turned all red and he turned away before I could get a good look at him. He started walking away really fast. He stopped once he got to the cross walk and waited till the cars stopped. I followed not too far behind and caught up as the dwarf started walking again. I sighed then yelled from where I was, “I didn’t get your name!” He turned back towards me, his cheeks still a bit rosy from earlier and yelled “my name's Chuuya Nakahara. What about you?” I ran up to get beside him then said “my name’s Osamu Dazai. Nice to meet you, my new boyfriend.” Chuuya’s cheeks got red again then he said, “I didn’t agree to that.” I brushed up against him and leaned on him a bit then said, “you didn’t disagree either.” Chuuya rolled his eyes then pushed me off of him and said with an annoyed tone, “well I disagree now.” I laughed then said, “your blushing face said otherwise.” Chuuya nudged me then said, “shut up, mackerel.”
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We finally got to school and started heading to our homeroom class. I didn’t bother asking Chuuya where or who his homeroom teacher is because I don’t want to seem too invested in him. Even though I really want to know if we’re in the same class. But I wouldn’t say anything till he said something.
We walked in the same direction for a while, trying to find our homeroom class. And the more time Chuuya stayed walking in front of me, the more I started getting eager to know if we were in the same class.
Chuuya stopped very abruptly, and I would’ve ran into him if I wasn’t paying all of my attention to him, and gazed up at the number above an open classroom door. I checked the homeroom I was assigned to then looked at the number above the door as well. It was the same.
I immediately directed my view to Chuuya, after I had checked the door number and the number I had written down, to see if he was going in but he wasn’t there. I looked around me then walked inside the classroom. I scanned the threshold and noticed my little ginger dwarf sitting in a seat in the back. Luckily for me there were no seats around him so I took the opportunity to catch a seat beside him. I turned to him and said in an enthusiastic tone, “hey Chuuya~” Chuuya paused for a moment then looked at me and asked, “do you need something?” I leaned closer, the two back legs of my chair lifting off the ground, then I said, “is it so wrong to want to talk to my boyfri—“ Chuuya interrupted me. He looked so annoyed by me. Then he said “I’m a friend. Not your boyfriend.” I smiled then planted the two back legs of my chair back to the ground. “Did the shrimp just call me his friend?!” As Chuuya was about to reply, the teacher, Odasaku, interrupted our conversation. He began introducing himself and a few minutes later told us we were going to our new lockers.
I already knew I wanted to be beside Chu-Chu so I could tease him all day. Everyone grabbed their school bags they had somewhere near them then headed out the door, following Odasaku. Sadly, the lockers were in alphabetical order so I couldn’t be with Chuuya. He was only a few lockers away though so I could still go see him all the time. The people beside me were the akutagawa siblings, I’ve known them since middle school. I know Akutagawa Ryunosuke better than Gin, since Akutagawa was in my class two years in a row, in middle school, and Gin was never in my class.
Then on the other side of me was Ranpo Edegawa. I've never met this guy before but I could tell he was a smartass ‘cause he corrected the teacher during the first two minutes of class.
The people beside Chuuya were Poe and Atsushi. Atsushi seemed super anxious when he first walked into class but I think he’s starting to get more comfortable because of Akutagawa. I’ve never seen this kid before but I wanna know why he likes gloomy Akutagawa when he’s the opposite. Poe seemed to know Ranpo which I wasn’t expecting since they don’t look like they have anything in common. But me and Chuuya don’t have anything in common and we’re besties already.
After I put my things in my locker I rushed over to see my Chuuya. I leaned on Atsushi’s locker because he had headed over to see Akutagawa. I looked down at Chuuya and expected him to already be glaring at me for being too close, but he wasn’t even paying attention to me.
I whined, hoping he would pay attention to me but he didn’t. Then I called out his name and a bunch of nicknames, “Chuuya~… Chibi… slug… shrimp… pipsqueak… shorty… partner… ginger dwarf… dog-'' Then Chuuya finally turned to me and looked at me with his eyes, he looked so angry. “The fuck did you just call me, you bastard?! I’m not any of the things you called me, especially not your dog!” I smirked. He finally paid attention to me. Then I said, “you act like one. You’re annoying, loud, you’re wearing a chocker that looks like a dog collar, you’re smelly and small, just like a dog.” He looked at me with his pissed off expression, as usual then said, “that’s a rude way to talk to someone you wanted to date a few minutes ago.”
I’m not going to deny that I wonder what it would be like to date Chuuya, but I don’t like him enough to want to date him. All I said was a joke, obviously. We just met this morning. He might secretly be a serial killer like Jeffry Dahmer. Gay, a cannibal and kills people.
“That’s just flirting Chuuya… you really need to learn when I’m joking and being serious,” I teased in a tone that resembled one you would use to talk to a cute animal or a baby. He rolled his eyes, as expected, then stared into his open locker for a moment. I didn’t say anything because I expected him to. I stared down at him and noticed he looked like he was thinking about something. Then he spoke, his voice was calmer than before but he sounded embarrassed, “if I was interested in you know… dating you. Would you say yes if I asked? Because you seem completely fine with dating me.” I could feel my cheeks get a bit warm at the thought of Chuuya asking me to be his boyfriend.
But I immediately excused that thought and replied to Chibi, “maybe if you asked nicely, like a good dog I would say yes.” Chuuya mumbled something to himself that I couldn’t hear then he said, “fuck you…” I smirked at the opportunity to say, “fuck me yourself, Slug.” Chuuya’s face turned reddish and he tried so hard to hide it with the hood of his hoodie. Pulling the ends of his hood try to cover his red cheeks. As he did that he mumbled something I couldn’t hear. I asked him to repeat himself then he said it loud enough for me to hear but still quiet. “You’re the worst, Dazai.”
This was the first time Chuuya said my name since I told him. I felt myself smile. A little smile that wasn’t forced or fake for once. It was from real happiness. When he said it I liked it even though he was telling me I was the worst, that didn’t matter. All that mattered was the fact that Chuuya actually said my name instead of “mackerel.”
Odasaku called us back into the class and everyone sat down in their original seats after a while. I obviously sat down next to Chuuya again and he tried to secretly look at me as I sat down. He sucks at hiding things, including his very obvious crush on me. Or maybe I might just be delusional and think he likes me but he doesn’t. I looked over to see if Chuuya was still looking at me but he was paying attention to Odasaku and what he was saying. Odasaku was talking about our class schedule and giving out all the pages of our schedule.
Once I got mine I looked at all the classes I had then once I scanned the page I looked over to Chuuya who just got his. I scooted my chair closer to him then looked at his schedule and compared mine and his. Me and Chuuya had the same gym class, math class, english class, history and science class. The only classes we didn’t have together were religion and geography. Chuuya ordered, “show me yours, Dazai.” I smiled then said, “okay, Chibi.”
He started getting used to the nickname so there wasn’t much of a reaction anymore. I placed my paper on his desk then he placed his on his desk so I could see better. I scooted my chair closer and our legs touched. As I scanned his paper once again, I could feel his gaze on me. I turned to see him but as I did he immediately looked away. I smirked at the thought that he’d been staring at me the whole time. But I excused that thought and proceeded to ask Chuuya, “did you look at my schedule or were you busy staring at me?” Chuuya glared at me, with the littlest amount of blush on his cheeks. Then he asked, “why would I be staring at you, blockhead?” I smirked then said, “maybe ‘cause you’re hopelessly in love with me.” Chuuya rolled his eyes trying to distract me from the fact that his cheeks got red. “No. I’m not in love with you,” Chuuya said trying to get his tone as stern as possible. As I thought of a something else I could say Oda told us to head back to our seats.
I reached for my paper and so did Chuuya. Our hands touched. Chuuya’s warm hands touched my cold hands as we both reached for my paper. I could feel my face warm up a bit. I looked up at Chuuya to see his face and he was a bit rosy. He paused, he looked like he was thinking a lot. Since we were the last people in a group, some people looked behind to see what Oda was staring at.
When Ranpo looked over at us from the desk right in front of Chuuya he noticed our hands touching he said, after looking up at the ceiling, “you guys are under the gay mistletoe, you know what that means.” Then Ranpo made a kissing face.
Me and Chuuya both looked up at the ceiling and noticed the pride flag hung up right above us, along with a bunch of other flags for different countries because this was a geography classroom. As I was about to say, “that’s not what you’re supposed to do,” Chuuya started talking first and I quieted down. But Chuuya paused because he realized he interrupted me. “What did you want to say?” Chuuya asked me. “Never mind, it's not important.”
Chuuya let it go and continued saying what he was originally going to say. “I’ll do it. I’m not a coward,” Chuuya said, still laying his hand on mine, not moving it. My face started heating up, now I knew I was definitely blushing. He was okay with kissing me? Was he serious about kissing me? When I looked at Chuuya’s face I noticed he was still a bit red. Does he want to kiss me?! Chuuya looked at me, his blue eyes meeting mine so easily, and said, “you don’t need to if you don’t want to, Dazai.” I tried to look as okay and straight about this as possible when I said, “I’m not a coward. So I’ll do it.” The whole class made a surprised gasp sound. Then Chuuya turned to me, still not moving his hand off of mine. One of his legs was between mine and another on the outside of one of my legs. I leaned closer to Chuuya’s face but he didn’t do the same.
I waited a few seconds for him to try and kiss me but he didn’t do anything. He just froze. I started sliding my schedule closer to me but I stopped when Chuuya told me to wait. He leaned closer to me and gave me a kiss on the cheek, my cheeks rosy. The class booed then Ranpo said, “kiss him on the lips!” Chuuya sighed, I could feel his warm breath on my lips because of how close he was, then he tilted his head. He stayed there for a moment so I helped him out. I tilted my head a bit and lightly pushed my lips against his. Chuuya finally snapped back into reality and pushed his lips against mine as well. He tasted like skittles, specifically the red ones, my least favorite but it was okay since it was Chuuya and not a skittle.
The class cheered and clapped for us. Then I heard a few camera clicks. It was really embarrassing. Then after a few seconds we pulled away from each other and wiped our mouths. As I wiped my mouth I covered my rosy cheeks and when I looked at Chuuya he was doing the same but I could still tell he was blushing because his ears were
red.
I don’t know what Oda was doing but I was expecting him to try and split us up by now. I’ve had Odasaku as my history teacher three years in a row because he works in both middle schools and high schools and this school happens to have both. He's also my neighbour, he lives in the house right in front of my house. He can be kind of strict sometimes but he’s my favourite teacher ‘cause he lets me talk to him about anything without trying to force help on me or be overly simpathetic about how I have suicidal thoughts and cut myself. Or when I talked to him about how I’m depressed and can’t find joy in anything but cutting myself, he didn’t tell Mori. Odasaku knows I’m getting some help because I told him how I talk to a therapist and that I’m taking meds to help me so he doesn’t try doing anything more. He doesn’t know that I haven’t talked to a therapist since the last time I tried to kill myself 9 months ago though.
After a while I realized I zoned out when Chuuya pressed my paper schedule on my chest. As I reached for it I accidentally brushed my fingers against his warm hand. I watched as Chuuya moved his hand then I turned around to put my paper on my desk. Then I grabbed my chair and was about to move but Chuuya called out my name, “Dazai.” I turned back to look at him, his cheeks were a bit rosey. I asked, “yes?” Chuuya paused for a moment then said, “never mind… it’s stupid…” I smirked and walked up to his desk and asked with a flirty tone, “did you want another kiss, Chuuya?”
He got red then stuttered a no. I slouched down to his face level and lifted his chin so he’d meet my eyes. His face was super warm. Then I said, only loud enough for Chuuya to hear, “are you sure~?” Chuuya looked me in the eyes then he started talking, he didn’t sound very sure of himself,“yeah… I-“ Oda interrupted him by saying, “Dazai, go back to your seat or I’m moving Chuuya to another desk.” I looked over to Odasaku and stood up straight. I finally let go of Chuuya and headed back to my seat with no hesitation because I don’t want to be away from Chuuya.
I looked back at Chuuya as I walked over to my desk and when my eyes met his, I immediately looked away. He looked disappointed. Was he disappointed I didn’t kiss him? Or was he just disappointed I left? Did he like the kiss?!
There was only a few minutes left of class and Oda spent it by giving us all our documents for the next class. I kept checking up on Chuuya every so often and he seemed like he was deep in thought and honestly I was too. I just kissed Chuuya in front of a bunch of people I barely knew and they took pictures. Who knows who they sent it to. Not that I really care if people know I kissed someone ‘cause I’ve dated a lot of girls at this school. None of them lasted very long ‘cause they only wanted me for my looks and didn’t like how depressed I really was. But I’ve never publicly admitted to liking guys, which I’m pretty sure I don’t but that might change with Chuuya.
I wonder if Chuuya likes guys. Specifically guys with brown hair, brown eyes, skinny, very flirty and annoying, guys that kissed him the first day they met, guys that are me. I looked over to Chuuya again but he was already looking at me. I immediately looked away, trying to act like nothing happened.