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Golden Hour Writing Challenge of July: Day 9
Prompt: Wilting Wildlfowers
Ship: Odango
I
This isn’t what it looks like I swear
I didn’t write angst
(Yes I did)
. . . . . . . .
The Five Stages of Grief
Stage 1: Denial
Ango is sure it can’t be true, Oda can’t really be dead? The man was a complete pacifist, there was no way he could have died so young, let alone be killed. But the look on Dazai’s face said enough to know it wasn’t that a lie, and that brought his entire world crumbling to the floor.
Sakunosuke Oda. 23 years old. Two months away from turning 24, his boyfriend of almost two years and the man he had planned to propose to on his birthday. Dead because a gunshot. And right in front of a boy who had seen more than a few deaths in his life. Ango has witnessed plenty himself, but this felt different.
Suffocatingly so, because Oda was has entire world, his best friend, his partner, his everything. And to Dazai? Oda was a father. The dad that he barley remembered from before the Port Mafia, and even if Mori took more of an active role, Oda was the one who was really there.
But now he was gone. Irrevocably, completely and utterly gone. No more silly little smiles when he had too much to drink, no more warm hugs when work was too much, no more teasing and no more love and no more Oda.
Because he was dead.
. . . . . . . .
Stage 2: Anger
God dammit.
Stupid fucking Oda, leaving him all alone to deal with this complete bullshit for the government. Fucking hell! The redhead had always promised what they had was special, and how he’d never leave him by himself, blah blah, blah. Fucking liar. Asshole! He was supposed to stay with him forever!
‘Sir? Can I get you another drink?’
‘Negroni. On the rocks.’
Thank god for the patience of the bar owner, or Ango probably would have been kicked out a while ago for the way he snapped at every person who so much as tapped his shoulder to see if he was okay. Of course he wasn’t okay, his boyfriend died two months ago! And now it was Oda’s birthday, and everything seemed raw and painful and horrible all over again.
He would have gone to Lupin like Dazai, since the boy visited every Saturday even if he had left the Mafia. Then again, so had Ango, and now his old phone was somewhere in the bottom of the bay waiting to be fish food, since he couldn’t risk there being some sort of tracker. Which, he would later come to find out, there absolutely was.
But Lupin was the very last place he saw Oda, and the poor man was fairly certain he would break something (most likely his glasses) if he went anywhere near that godforsaken place. Stupid fucking Oda.
. . . . . . . .
Stage 3: Bargaining
Ango’s office, usually a place of meticulous organization and ordered chaos, felt like a pressure cooker. Four months. 121 days, give or take a leap year. 121 days of reminiscing every single moment leading up to it. Not for clues, not for justice, but for a flaw. A single, critical variable he could have manipulated, a word he could have said, a piece of intelligence he could have withheld.
If only.
The phrase echoed in his skull, a maddening, repetitive chime. If only he hadn't accepted the double-agent role. If only he had trusted Dazai's intuition more, listened to Oda's quiet warnings. If only he hadn’t left during the fire. He could have seen his Oda one last time. At the bar, maybe. At home. He might have had some semblance of closure, if only.
He remembered the conversation with Mori. The subtle threat, the veiled promise of safety for his "friends." Had he pushed back harder, bargained for their safety then, perhaps this wouldn't have happened. He’d trade every secret he possessed, every advantage the Special Ability Department held, every bit of intel on the Port Mafia’s inner workings. He’d surrender his career, his carefully constructed life, even his own freedom, if it meant turning back the clock. Just to wake up beside the taller man, just to hear his laugh and see his smile and kiss his forehead, he would give everything to see his Oda again.
Sometimes, late at night, staring at the ceiling of his sterile apartment, he’d pray. To whom, he wasn't sure. The universe? A deity he didn’t believe in? Just the empty air? It didn’t matter. He’d pray that maybe Oda wasn’t really gone, that he’d escaped and Dazai was just trying to spare Ango any more grief. He knew there was no way, he attended the funeral, he’d been to his grave himself. If only.
His phone buzzed. Another encrypted message from an informant. A new lead on some small-time organization, completely unrelated to Mimic. He deleted it without a second thought. He didn’t really care anymore, not without being able to look forward to seeing Oda in the kitchen when he got home, making some western dish or another that would undoubtedly assault Ango’s tastebuds with spice.
If only he hadn’t taken the damn job.
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Stage 4: Depression
God, Ango missed Oda. Over an entire year ago, he’d been left all by himself, never to see the love of his life again. And for what? All because some ability fanatic wanted to die to someone equally as powerful? What a moron. Even if he was stronger than Oda, he would never have the smarts or the empathy that his boyfriend had possessed, there was now way he could ever be Oda’s equal.
What a joke.
He should have been at work, per the usual on a Thursday at 11:57 in the morning, but he really couldn’t bring himself to get out of bed that day. He was supposed to have moved on ages ago, at least that’s what he told himself should have happened. This was the first birthday in the four years they had known each other that Ango was spending alone.
And there was nothing he could do to make it feel better, but sit in his bed wearing one of Oda’s old shirts (which was far too big for him, it came down to his mid thigh) and wish that it would just stop hurting already, even when he knew the pain was never really going to go away, not until he got to see his ridiculous boyfriend in whatever afterlife there was.
On his bedside table sat a picture of the two of them, Oda clearly drunk off his ass, grinning like an idiot with his face buried in Ango’s neck, who, even in the black and white photograph, you could tell he was flushed pink. Due to Oda or the alcohol? Probably both, but it was the only picture he had where they were both smiling.
Ango hadn’t smiled since the last time they were together.
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Stage 5: Acceptance
4 years. Four excruciating years, and Ango had finally come to accept the reality that he was alone. Oda wasn’t coming back, and that was that. It was really a simple concept, but the sheer weight was enough to still have him crying every other night.
Carefully, he set down a new vase of flowers, swapping them out or for dried ones that had been sitting there since his last visit, way back in April. Orange Camellias, Oda’s favorite. How could he forget? The man talked about them every time they so much as walked past a plant shop.
It was clear Dazai had visited the grave a few days earlier, judging by the new fountain pen, bundle of blank paper, and bottle of whiskey sitting on the other side of the headstone, and Ango almost wished he had been at the same time just so the three of them could all have another moment together.
‘It’s nine almost half a decade, Odasaku. That’s a while, huh? I’m 27 now, and Dazai’s all grown up himself. You’d be proud, he left the mafia and works as a detective now. It’s strange to think about, it’s like just yesterday he was playing those obnoxious games at the bar.’
‘I miss you. More than anything, but I know you can’t hear me. I guess I’ll see you in a few months, yeah? Enjoy yourself.’