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Dreams are writers' biggest motivators. That’s a fact. Whether it be daydreaming or sleeping—you, more often than not, dream of a story before writing it. Without dreams, writing would lack initiative and creativity, there is no good story that lacks imaginative qualities.
Aphantasia is a writer's worst enemy. It’s the inability to visualize things in your head—it affects your dreamscapes and your writing. Pair that with insomnia, and you get a person who shouldn’t create.
Shouldn’t doesn’t mean they couldn’t.
It’s just harder to do so than the average person.
And it sucks.
So, he groans, pressing his thumb and pointer finger against his temple. His elbow rests on the table as he slumps further and stares at his paper.
His blank paper.
A paper he was supposed to have submitted a rough draft of two days ago.
That was his extended deadline.
“You’re making that ugly face again,” His lover, his husband, comments. It’s eleven in the morning. He’s getting ready for work. “Still having trouble?”
“Yup,” Oda sighs, un-slumping himself from his chair. “I’m struggling with this one.”
Ango hums in acknowledgment, walking over to rest both of his hands on Oda’s broad shoulders, massaging him. “You’re allowed to take a vacation, y’know?”
Oda purses his lips. “Your mind doesn’t stop—”
“—You’ve told me that excuse before, love. ‘A writer's mind never stops writing,’ but your case is different, no?” His mouth is up against his ear. “Oda~”
He side-eyes his husband. “Are you trying to condescend me?”
“Only with love, my darling,” Ango presses a kiss on Oda’s forehead. “You make enough revenue from the curry shop to… treat writing more like a hobby than a profession.”
“I know, I know,” Oda gently grabs his husband’s cheeks, caressing them with his blistered hands. “But I don’t want it to be.”
Ango chuckles softly. “What? You’re worried we’ll go bankrupt?”
“You never know…”
“I work for the Japanese government and manage their security department while helping you manage the finances of the shop,” He puts gently, caressing his hands along Oda’s face—a reassurance and a promise. “We are beyond financially secure, Oda.”
He squints his eyes into his husband’s tender gaze—furrowing his eyebrows and scrunching his nose. Logically, he knows that they would be fine. He doesn’t need to work two jobs. They have a business, are well-off, and have no debt to worry about, only their mortgage.
“What’s the real reason, hm?”
The question that comes up time and time again.
Why does Oda create?
He didn’t make any promises to anyone that he’d be a writer. He had no promises to fulfill or ties to undo. He simply creates— it feels more like an obligation than it does a hobby. Without creation, he wouldn’t be the person he is right now. Writing saved him. Ever since he was an orphan selling newspapers on the street to earn a few yen.
Having no parents to put you in school meant that he didn’t know how to read and write until very late in his life. He was fifteen when he picked up his first pen. Beyond watching television through closed doors and glass windows—his introduction to the literary world was delayed.
Back in those days, he yearned to be understood. It was something he pined for. But no one understood that. No one gave him the time of day, no one took him in until he was fighting for his life on the street.
Humans were his enemy.
But words on paper weren’t.
Writing saved his life when no one else did.
“Dreams,” He whispers.
His husband looks at him with a confused and troubled wonder.
“Dreams?” Ango whispers back softer than he did. Not a hint of judgment or unlawful demeanor in his tone.
“Remember how I didn’t have the best upbringing?” Oda pinches one of his cheeks, earning a laugh from his partner. “Even though I couldn’t understand it, I knew words on paper were saving my life.”
Ango chimes with gratitude. “Do you feel constrained to create?"
“No,” Oda tilts his head. “It’s more of… writing saved me, maybe my writing will save someone else, too.”
Smiling softly, Ango presses three kisses on Oda’s face—one on his temple, his nose, and his chin. “You’re adorable, love.”
Oda feels his cheeks get red. He flicks Ango’s forehead in sweet retaliation. “You don’t get to be all sappy this morning, not before we eat breakfast.”
Oda pushes back his chair and pulls his husband by his arm—pulling him close. Their height difference isn’t drastic—he’s a mere two inches taller than his spouse, but up close, he feels like a giant hugging a dwarf.
He wraps his hands across Ango’s frame—an easy fit, his perfect puzzle piece. He feels the blush of embarrassment radiating off the other’s face. He’s easily flustered. It’s cute, endearing, and all-encompassing.
“You were so cocky a few minutes ago,” Oda laughs quietly, breathing in his husband’s black hair. The smell of rosemary mint shampoo fills his nostrils.
“I was proving a point,” Ango fails to snark as confidently as he would like to. Oda knows it.
“Well…” He squeezes him. “Call in to work and I’ll make us breakfast?”
A long stretch, Ango hates calling in to work. He’s a perfectionist, the top of his class. He never missed a day and never turned in a single assignment late. He flawlessly earned perfect grades and made the prefects. He was every parent's dream child.
They were opposites in their upbringings.
Perhaps that’s why they fit so well together. Two sides of the same coin.
“...Fine. Only because interns are scouring the building right now and interrupting the routine of my perfect day.”
“Spending the day with me will make your day more perfect than perfect—” A tiny bark is heard from the other side of the door.
“...Is that—”
“I forget we have a dog— Coming, Dango!” Oda lets go of his husband. “Call in and meet you in the kitchen?”
Ango nods his head. “And I’ll change, suits aren’t house clothes.” He presses a kiss on his partner’s jawline. “Now go deal with our mutt.”
“He’s a pomeranian, thank you,” Oda leaves the room, hearing Ango laugh behind him.
“And close the door all the way! No peeping!”
He sighs, “You know me too well.” And Oda comes back to close the door all the way. “Morning wrecker."
Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. It dictates your mood and behavior—how you act, feel, and think. It energizes you for the inevitable, and having a strong, hearty meal to start your day off is something very important to Oda.
When he found out his husband had disregarded breakfast most of his life, he immediately coerced him into making it his favorite meal of the day.
Oda knows how to cook, and he will use that ability to his advantage.
Tamagoyaki eggs are sizzling on their cast iron skillet, it’s a pain to wash, yet it’s one of their most-used dishes. It gauges the temperature perfectly and adds a charcoal-like flavor to each of their meals—it tastes like home, their home, the life that they’ve built for themselves.
Ango has always been peculiar with his food. It has to be cooked perfectly. Not a hint over or undercooked. Whatever it was, he could taste if there was one minor imperfection in it.
That is one of the main reasons why they never order takeout.
Ango only eats what Oda cooks for him.
Because Oda knows how to make it all perfectly.
That is one of the few things he takes pride in and allows himself to fawn over.
The toaster dings at the perfect time. Oda promptly watches the bagels jump from their oven-like prison. They’re perfectly browned on the outside but soft on the inside. The perfect bagel. They’re even Ango’s favorite flavor, blueberry.
He serves the eggs and bagels on a plate—making sure they’re not touching. Ango hates that. He’s had over a decade to memorize his husband’s cute quirks and weird preferences. He could recite an entire album over the information he’s gained about his spouse.
In their household, they eat vegetarian. A mutual agreement between the two.
Oda refuses to eat meat unless it’s in curry. You can’t create when you’re destroying, that’s his rule. Ango has a sensitive stomach that seems to hate anything that is meat or contains it (except for chicken).
Plates served, he brings them over to the countertop where he’s spread out an abundance of toppings for their eggs and bagels. Oda would rather give Ango an overload of choices than play a big guessing game.
“You, sir, are lucky,” Ango walks from their bedroom and sits in the countertop high chair. “They didn’t need me today.”
“That’s good,” Oda says, taking a bite of his food. “So you would’ve come home anyway?”
“Oh, shush, I’m not going to fuel your ego,” Ango rolls his eyes and, with no hesitation, takes a bite of his food.
Score.
“You just hate when I get presumptuous. ”
“Yes, and?”
“I’m glad you don’t deny it,” He chimes truthfully, struggling to mask a slight laugh he couldn’t hold back.
Ango stares in confusion. “What’s so funny?”
Oda sets his fork down. “I just love how blunt you are sometimes.”
He sees his husband’s cheeks redden with a blush. Now that he’s changed out of his suit and tie, the sight looks much softer and home-y than it would with it on.
And Oda is not complaining.
“No comment,” Ango, his blissfully innocent and sometimes overconfident husband, returns his attention to his food. He prefers to eat in silence with no one watching him. (Except for Oda’s, his are an exception to the rule.)
“...So,” Oda begins. “What did you have on schedule, anyway?” He’s turning away from Ango to do the dishes, speaking to him from over his shoulder.
“Nothing, just a few meetings and projects to work on.”
“And they were about…?”
Ango sighed, cleaning the few crumbs off his mouth with a cloth. “Just putting up a firewall to strengthen our company proxy. There have been a few times in the last month where some scoundrel bypassed it and downloaded some irrelevant information regarding… pure and utter tomfoolery in my opinion. Nonetheless, it cannot happen again, so I and a group of agents have been tasked with strengthening its forces.”
“So, essentially, some college kid hacked into your government files? That doesn’t sound very tomfoolish of them…”
“It’s idiotic because, of all things, they took the recipe on how to make the cafeteria avocado wanpaku and tamago sando sandwiches.”
Oda couldn’t help but let out a laugh. The task, to him, the information stolen is unserious and stupid. Yet, to his very monotone husband, he made it seem as if government files were stolen and used for treason.
“What’s so funny?”
“You treating things as life and death, no matter how serious or minuscule they are.” He finishes loading the rest of the dishes into the washer and starts it, drying his hands off with a rag that hangs on the oven.
Narrowing his eyebrows, and due to his outfit that is simultaneously too big and too small; the shirt being Oda’s and the pants also being his from his high school years—Oda can’t take his spouse seriously. A blessing and a curse.
Ango, now, is defensive. “This is serious! We were hacked.”
“And the person who stole it was probably some worker’s kid suffering from the debt of university who really enjoyed the sandwiches.”
“You and your compassion,” Ango resumes eating his meal—ending the conversation they were having. He hates being fooled. He hates being flustered. But questions arise when Oda isn’t making him feel a knot of butterflies in his stomach at every given whim.
In the distance of their home, a tiny woof is heard.
“Did you…?”
“I may have accidentally left Dango in our vacancy…”
Oda, already walking over to free their dog from prison, kisses Ango on his forehead.
“You did that on purpose, didn’t you?”
“I don’t like it when he watches me eat.”
“You’re adorable, love.” He presses a second kiss, this time on his cheek, and departs to unleash their dog.
It’s later in the morning, and around this time, Dango gets walked.
A dog’s favorite time of the day is when they are outside enjoying nature. Whether it be emptying their bladder long past due, barking at dogs through windows and fences, escaping their leash and chasing after another animal, or running towards the nearest sausage shop.
Dogs are stupid. They like to explore and wreak havoc. They like the attention when someone rubs behind their ears or scratches their butt in just the right way.
And because they need to go outside, it’s a perfect excuse that Oda uses to drag Ango outside.
Because Ango is the equivalent of a hermit.
“I don’t understand why you insist on dragging me with you.” They’ve already stepped outside—they’re a few blocks away from their house. The sun is shining and the sky is blue, birds are chirping, and the cherry blossom trees are blooming pink—leaves flowing in the wind.
It’s a beautiful time of year.
If not for his allergies.
“I am just trying to make sure your Vitamin D levels don’t sink to below thirty-two again, love.”
“Supplements exist for a reason.”
“You still don’t know how to swallow a pill, nice try.”
Oda is right, Ango does not know how to swallow a pill. But the internet exists for a reason, even if his gag reflex refuses to budge.
He lets out a sneeze, nose running a bit red due to the grass pollen. That’s not his worst allergy; the runny nose and snot are annoying, though.
“You took your medication before we left the house, give it a few minutes,” Oda is unbothered. Ango is the same every time they are outside, no matter where they are.
“I’m still suffering.”
“All suffering ends eventually~”
“Oh, that’s utter blasphemy.”
“You’re just a pessimist, darling. Now pick up the pace, we should make it to the cafe just after the breakfast rush ends.”
Another thing about Oda, he bribes Ango into coming on these walks. He always takes him to their favorite local cafe—the place where they make his Americanos just right and where Oda insists they have the best brown sugar boba and jasmine tea.
The allergies are almost worth it. (At least that’s what he tells Oda. He will never admit to that.)
And now they arrive at the cafe.
Cafe Uzumaki.
Coincidentally, the person whom Oda considers his son, Dazai, has adopted two broke university kids who work here. They are the definition of a black cat and a golden retriever with severe anxiety.
Neither of them has any idea how they got employed.
Oda picks Dango up—carrying a seven-pound bundle of fur isn’t difficult—plus it has earned them brownie points, free treats, and multiple gift cards.
“Ah! Customers!” Said golden retriever with social anxiety means to greet. Ango doesn’t know if he’s ever greeted a customer properly.
“It’s the couple Dazai-san likes, calm yourself.”
Oda and Ango have sat down at a booth at this point, watching the pair interact. They are unsure if they are dating or not—it’s hard to tell.
“Oh…” He faces them properly, bowing apologetically. “...Is it the usual?”
Oda nods his head, waving his hand in the air, and watches the boy write the order on a sheet of note-taking paper. The boy, similar to a black cat, was already walking over to them with a cup full of whipped cream.
“For your… canine…”
“Ryuu!” The other one squeals, still behind the counter. “Be friendlier about it! We talked about this.”
“I am not going to act positively towards a mutt that has its paws colored purple.”
Oda waves them off, “We know the drill, drop the professionalism.” He’s also holding back a laugh. “How have you two been? How’d midterms treat you?” He quickly looks at their nametags. Their names click now.
“Ehe…” The boy, Atsushi, chuckles nervously. “I’m too scared to check my results and…”
“By scared, he means he has a panic attack each time his phone buzzes, so I’ve condemned it to do not disturb with parental controls on.” The other one, Akutagawa, had snuck back to the counter at some point. He’s stealthy, like a cat, and Oda has only ever seen him wear black.
“When will you remove those…?”
“When you get a damn therapist, maybe.”
Snarky, Oda keeps to himself. “What about you, Akutagawa-kun?”
“Oh, he—”
“Weretiger.”
“He got an 89 in math and sent a hate message to the math professor, so he’s kinda on a…. An academic suspension until he completes ten hours of school-mandated anger management therapy group…”
Dango, the dog, barks.
“I believe Dango finds your predicament amusing.” Ango smirks.
“I’ll turn that mutt into a—”
“Ooo-kay! Hah…” Atsushi begins pushing him into the kitchen. “You’re gonna… just sit here.” He closes the door. “Sorry about… him.”
“Are you two mingling with one another?” Ango asks bluntly.
Atsushi buffers in real-time.
“Are we… Are we…”
“Ignore him, Atsushi-kun,” Oda reassures. “Reading the room isn’t his strong suit.”
“It was an honest question.”
“And you want an honest answer, do you not?”
Ango shuts up.
There’s a knock on the door Atsushi imprisoned Akutagawa behind. He opens it.
“Did you forget about their drinks?”
Though on the opposite side of the room. Oda can make out Atsushi’s cheeks turning red in embarrassment.
“I made them back there. Now you sit before you have a panic attack… again.”
Changing rooms, Atsushi disappears into the kitchen while Akutagawa brings out the drinks. “Do I need to call your names?”
Oda shakes his head. “You’re good to assist your…?”
“Oh, yes, we are having affairs with each other, but he reboots every time he’s asked to say the word boyfriend. If you’ll excuse me, I have to ‘ make the dark clouds go away’ or whatever analogy he uses.” Akutagawa departs.
Oda brings the drinks over to their table, sitting down and taking a sip of his.
“That was an… unnatural way to put it,” Ango states, peeking to see if either of them was listening.
“Which part?”
“All of it.”
“They’re young, what can you expect?”
“Something that isn’t an interaction that would be in an episode of New Girls is preferable.”
Oda snickers. His husband has a special way of putting things together. “You are just as humorous, love.”
“You find everything I do worth giggling about, you don’t get to have an opinion on the matter.”
“What can I say? It’s a love language,” Oda stares at his husband’s eyes; they’re honey brown—his eyes—they have hints of yellow when the sun beams on his face like it is right now. His eyes look warm, welcoming, loving.
He can’t help but look.
He married him.
It wasn’t out of pity or because there was no one else. No, Ango married him . Ango was the one who slid a wedding ring onto his finger while he slept. Ango was the one who managed to buy dozens of flowers in the dead of winter. Ango was the one who left a trail of chrysanthemums on the bed and floor for when he awoke. Ango was the one who left a bouquet of camellias on the dining room table with homemade French toast and orange juice on the side, with the ring box.
It was Ango who proposed in his own shy, insecure way.
The love of that moment only grows in his chest every day.
“Oda?” Ango breaks him out of his trance. “Are you alright?”
Oda blinks a few times, smiling softly at his lover. “I’m just admiring you.”
“I know that, you do that every day—”
“—Your eyes are so pretty, do you know that?” He interrupts, watching as his lover’s cheeks turn rosy pink.
“You’ve mentioned it once or twice, yes,” Ango turns his attention to staring at the window, something he does when he’s flustered or embarrassed—he’ll look the opposite way.
“They’re prettier in the sun~”
“Now you’re just being sappy.” Ango does a horrible job of hiding his feelings when around Oda, especially when he enjoys the sentimentality behind them. The wavering in his voice gives it all away.
“I could recite a poem if you want—” Oda chides.
Ango looks him dead in the eyes. “Don’t tell me you have—”
“I have written multiple things about you, love,” Oda brings his java up to his lips. “Your drink is getting cold.”
Ango opens his mouth to speak, then closes—he’s at a loss for words. It doesn’t take much to rile him up, whether it be verbal or by soft gestures, he’s easy to give love to—they both are.
They know nicks and knacks about each other. They have quirks and a bucket list of seventy-eight things to do before they pass away. They color their dog’s paws purple because he accidentally stepped in paint. They grow garden after garden, and when winter comes, they start growing green onions on their windowsill. They buy bonsai trees just to fail to keep them alive, but that’s okay; they buy more because Ango likes the color green.
Oda wouldn’t have their relationship any other way.
They walk to coffee shops to try their chai and cappuccinos. They visit Dazai and Chuuya’s kids when they get lonely, baking with them—teaching them how to paint and make curry.
It took them well over a decade to get where they are now. Time is their greatest virtue.
And as they're walking back home, cherry blossoms flying in the air, with Dango on a short leash, they stare at each other.
“What plans did you make today without my knowledge?” Ango nudges him on his side—stopping where he stood.
Oda stops as well, a few feet ahead of his spouse. “That’s a secret, love.”
“Care to spill?”
"Hm... no," Oda smiles sweetly—getting ahold of him and pulls Ango into a gentle embrace, grabbing both of his hands and intertwining them with his.
He kisses his forehead, “You’ll just have to see.”
Ango tilts his head up and tenderly kisses his husband on the lips. “I love you.”
“I love you, too, my darling.”