Work Text:
Dazai arrives with no fanfare: she simply appears, as though she belongs there, standing in the hall of a school that isn't hers, dressed in an elaborate princely outfit, complete with shoulder tassels and a fake sword.
"Dazai-kun," Fyodor greets, and Dazai, despite the fact that she was both waiting specifically for Fyodor and also noticed her the second she exited her homeroom, feigns surprise and snaps shut her cellphone.
"Fedyenka," Dazai responds, effervescent, purposefully oblivious to the baffled looks of the students filling the hall. There's quiet whispering – and not-so-quiet whispering – as the crowd walks, a little slower than necessary, to the stairs.
"Oh," Nikolai offers, poking her head out of the homeroom. The rest of her emerges a second later, like her body had to catch up with her mind's decisions. "You're here."
"Your guardian will be devastated you're skipping your school festival," Fyodor offers, tone sickly sweet with false sympathy. "However will they win best class activity without your presence?"
"Oh, we were never going to win," Dazai says, with a flip of the hand. "Not with Kunikida-chan in another class. They put her in a butler outfit and let her fuss over everyone. Mori-san was taking pictures before I left."
Fyodor only hums in response. "Well, I can't promise they won't find you here. Word of your presence will spread quite rapidly."
"Which is why we aren't staying here!" Dazai chirps, as though this was both an obvious and foregone conclusion. She holds her hand out, bandages winding down her arms from underneath the deceptively cheap suiting fabric of her outfit, and Fyodor considers it for a long moment before she places her own hand into Dazai's, delicate and elegant in equal parts. "Your hands are freezing, you know."
"Yes," Fyodor replies, easily, because of course she's aware; Nikolai lurches forward and grabs Fyodor's other hand in both of hers. Fyodor fits her with an amused look as Nikolai rubs her hand, clearly engaging in an attempt to get warmth into it, an endless battle against Fyodor's anemia. It's not one anyone, Fyodor included, is going to win.
"Where are we going?" Nikolai asks. She doesn't care, exactly, because she makes a concentrated effort not to care about things that don't concern her – she enjoys life most when she knows as little as possible about a great many things – but because she needs to know if she should try to wrangle them out of it.
"Oh, back to the festival," Dazai says, gesturing with the hand that's holding Fyodor's hand. "Now that I've been sighted here, they'll spend all their time looking for me and they won't believe anyone that I'm actually back at Atsushi-chan's class, which is why it's the perfect place to hide."
"What was their theme?" Fyodor asks.
There is a non-zero chance that Fyodor doesn't already have a complete list of every class activity at the festival, but Dazai can be polite when she wants to be, so she answers anyway.
"Haunted house," Dazai replies, breezily. "Thought it'd be fun."
"Hmm," Fyodor says, but doesn't sound disinterested.
"If it's too scary," Dazai says, with a grin – the patented grin that has made her deeply popular with all the other girls at every school in the area; Fyodor knows exactly how many fan clubs there are and has a standing membership in most of them for the purpose of information gathering – and then hefts up her fake sword. "I'll be sure to defend you with my life."
"Oh, am I the princess?" Fyodor asks. Both of her hands are occupied, so gesturing is made moderately more complex, but she still raises her hand (and, consequently, Nikolai's) to place over her heart. "I'm flattered."
Nikolai brightens. Not because her hand is being placed so close to Fyodor's chest. Definitely not. "Every princess needs a court jester."
Fyodor laughs. "A knight, a jester, and a princess walk into a haunted house…"
Which is what they do, after a brief stop for shoes to be swapped out and bags to be fully retrieved. Then they're off again – albeit with less linked hands, for the sake of pure practicality. It frees up Fyodor to pull her phone out, tapping through the interface to check things quicker than most people could track. Dazai notes, idly, that Fyodor appears to have switched her interface to Arabic, and feels a moment of pride that her Russian has gotten so good Fyodor felt the need to change it. (Dazai also makes a note to learn Arabic next.)
The walk from Fyodor and Nikolai's international school to Dazai's high school isn't far, and most of it is spent with Nikolai peppering Fyodor with questions about what she'd like to do if they have a cultural festival. (Fyodor comes down hard on the side of a butler cafe, citing that it's one of the easiest options. Nikolai imagines Fyodor in the butler outfit and doesn't feel compelled to disagree.)
The school is bustling as they enter, a whirlwind of activity as people flood into the various rooms, stalls, and stands that litter the grounds. Dazai links her hand with Fyodor again, as if to make sure that they don't get separated; Fyodor inclines her head and offers her other hand to Nikolai, who practically snatches it.
"It's too bad Sigma-chan is sick," Dazai offers. "I bet a haunted house would go over great with her."
They line up for the haunted house. Dazai keeps an eye out – it's her school, after all, and there's a chance that someone will find her slacking off – but they get to it uninterrupted.
"Ominous," Fyodor says, approvingly, as she gazes at the decor. The room has been covered in black paper and a variety of generally creepy crafts, the windows of the adjoining hall blacked out to make a loop for the guests to go through.
"Let's go!" Nikolai chirps, and pulls Fyodor in. Dazai follows up the back, and it's her turn to look amused – which she does – before a scarecrow greets them at the door.
"Welcome to the haunted house!" Kenji chirps, straw taped to her face like whiskers. Her costume looks deeply uncomfortable, but she doesn't seem deterred in the slightest.
"Thank you," Fyodor says, polite as ever.
"Aren't you in middle school?" Nikolai asks, considerably less polite.
"Atsushi-chan said she'd get me tickets to the cat cafe she works at if I helped out," Kenji says, excitedly. "I've been growing a bunch of catnip for them!"
Fyodor's laugh is light and airy, and Dazai pats Kenji on the head.
"What do we need to know?" Dazai asks, like she's bracing for battle. Her prop sword, of course, is still simply propped up on her shoulder, more of a threat than an actual weapon.
"Uh… don't touch any of the actors, have fun, make sure to watch your feet so you don't trip, and… I think that was it!" Kenji offers. She counts these things off on her fingers as she goes, looking like she has to think for a second to recall every direction that isn't "have fun". "Okay! Have fun!"
She ushers them inside the doors, a thick velvet curtain falling behind them to block the light out as they enter.
"Very atmospheric," Dazai says, approvingly.
"This isn't frightening at all," Nikolai replies, just to be contrary.
"You can hold my hand if you get scared, Fedyuschenka," Dazai offers, and Fyodor laughs. Her laughter is rapidly overwritten, however, by a creepy (if clearly pre-recorded and playing from a tinny speaker) laugh that does its very best to echo eerily through the blacked out walls off their little hallway.
Much more startling is the sudden eruption of screaming from further into the maze. Fyodor turns towards the sound, raising a hand to her chin in clear interest.
"Let's go!" Dazai chirps.
"Should you lead? You can only see out of one eye," Nikolai critiques, despite the fact that she falls into place automatically, Dazai in the lead and herself in the rear with Fyodor between them.
"What if I told you I could see through the bandages?" Dazai offers, conversationally, like there's a chance it's plausibly true.
"You can't," Nikolai replies, just as conversationally. "I watched you walk into a light post last month."
"That," Dazai offers, imperiously, "was because Odasaku was running laps in her Thursday sports bra. I was distracted."
Nikolai opens her mouth to respond, then pauses. "Is that bra different than usual?"
"Yes," Dazai says, dreamily, as she pushes their group through a webbed curtain covered in spiders that look considerably more realistic given the low light offered by the electric candles placed strategically around the maze. "It isn't nearly as supportive. She does laundry every Friday, you see."
Nikolai contemplates protesting that this is far too much attention to pay to Dazai's teacher's underwear, but then thinks about the fact that she knows too much about Fyodor's underwear, and this is a fact that all three of them are aware of and at least two of them will tease her about –
"Roar!"
Dazai and Fyodor turn in unison, and Nikolai pokes her head between their shoulders a moment later.
"Did you just say 'roar' instead of roaring?" Nikolai asks.
"Um," Atsushi responds, hands still poised for her best attempt at a jumpscare. "I tried to roar before, but everyone said it was like a kitten meowing… I'm not really sure why…"
There would be dead silence, if not for the fact that the pre-recorded horror movie track was still playing through someone's speaker, filling the air with muffled screaming and thunder.
"Well," Dazai says, kindly, patting Atsushi on her head, right in between the ears of the cat headband she'd been given, "the important thing is that you do your best."
"You'll scare the next group," Fyodor offers. She also pets Atsushi's head, and Atsushi looks deeply resigned to the fact that her entire tiger outfit falls short of being horrifying and mostly just categorizes her into cute.
Atsushi trudges back into her hiding spot as Nikolai drapes herself over Fyodor's shoulders. Fyodor gives her a sidelong glance, infinitely patient, but does not do anything other than that, even though Nikolai's braid is right there and Fyodor could definitely play with it. (Nikolai knows Fyodor likes her hair. It's at least half the reason she'd grown it out so long.)
"Oh, that's creative," Fyodor says, when they start moving again. There's an elaborate drawing on the ground, some sort of summoning circle with a pentagram and the appropriate amount of electric candles placed at strategic locations. Fyodor turns a smile towards Dazai, slow and thoughtful. "Did they manage to summon you, Demon Prodigy?"
Dazai hops through the empty spaces within the pentagram to cross it, turning to offer Fyodor her hand once she's on the other side. "I'm afraid this isn't the kind of seal that could bind me."
"I wonder," Fyodor replies. She places her hand in Dazai's, and Nikolai snatches her other hand, letting Fyodor navigate through the pentagram with the same deftness. It wouldn't have hurt it if they had stepped on it, but Dazai had set a standard, and Fyodor and Nikolai were hardly going to back down from it.
"Oh, eyeballs," Nikolai says, as they round the next corner. She pokes one of them where it hangs from a nearly invisible bit of fishing line. "I think they're gummy."
"Don't eat that," Fyodor says, and Nikolai withdraws her hand, chastised but trying to do her best to pretend that she wasn't about to try and see if it was actually edible by putting it in her mouth.
"I–" Nikolai starts, and is cut off when a very realistic looking scythe swipes down in front of them, cutting off their path.
"Boo," Akutagawa intones, her face set in a flat expression. Grim, some would say. Surprisingly effective, given she was dressed up in a black cloak like a reaper.
"Kyaa," Fyodor offers, her voice quiet and playful and not scared in the slightest.
"You're supposed to jump out," Dazai says, sighing, like it's an argument she's been having with Akutagawa for much longer than she wanted to.
"I knew you would know I was here," Akutagawa replies, her voice equally flat. She sounds very tired. "So I didn't try to scare you."
"You have to put your back into it," Dazai says.
"My back?" Akutagawa repeats, faintly, looking confused. She twists slightly, looking back over her shoulder like there's something on her back that will actually indicate what Dazai is talking about. Dazai takes the opportunity to slip out of view, moving further into the haunted house. By the time Akutagawa turns her attention back in front of her, the space is conspicuously empty, and she frowns.
"Good luck," Fyodor offers, wiggling her fingers in a wave as she and Nikolai follow after Dazai. Akutagawa continues to frown, but steps backwards into the corner she'd been hiding in, raising her scythe so she could drop it on a more unsuspecting party.
"There's a photo booth at the very end," Dazai says. "Make sure to act very scared. For the photo."
"Of course," Fyodor offers.
They make their way further in, though an additional section heavy on fake cobwebs. This time the cobwebs are littered with small roaches, which look much more realistic than the spiders. There isn't much else in the way of jump scares: there are only so many people in the class that can be roped into jumping out to scare their peers, after all, and they're all trading in and out for shifts throughout the day.
Dazai comes up short, suddenly, and then strikes a pose, offering a peace sign and dropping her elbow onto Fyodor's shoulder. Fyodor simply smiles, raising one hand to her chin like she's pondering something, eyebrows raised like it might be surprising. Nikolai takes an extra second, but still makes it before the flash goes off: she drops onto the ground in front of Dazai and Fyodor, striking a crouch with a leg out like she's back in Russia.
The photo takes, and Naomi pops his head out. Not his face: his long hair has been brushed forward so he looks more like a ghost, fake blood splashed carelessly over the girl's uniform he's donned for the occasion.
"Thank you for coming!" he chirps, offering them the photo. Nikolai snatches it before anyone else can, and Dazai thanks Naomi as they exit the class.
"Well, that was interesting," Fyodor drawls. "What do you have in mind next?"
"I have coupons for the drink station," Dazai offers, brandishing some colorful pieces of paper. "We could g–"
Dazai breaks off suddenly, her eyes widening. "--Have fun without me!" She tucks the tickets into Fyodor's uniform shirt hem, and Nikolai is about to protest on behalf of Fyodor's nonexistent virtue, but she doesn't have the chance: Dazai is turning on her heels and bolting down the hall, the crowd automatically parting before her.
"Dazai! Get back here!" Kunikida is following, seconds later, the crowd waiting until she's run past before they retake their previous positions. There's the distant sound of Dazai's laughter before they both get out of range, Dazai propelled by her sheer desire not to be roped into anything that resembles work, and Kunikida given a slight advantage by her sheer height.
"...." Nikolai offers.
Fyodor hums, amused and musical. "Shall we get those drinks?"
"I want the ramune with the marble," Nikolai offers, and the two of them turn. Nikolai continues to follow Fyodor: Nikolai hadn't, in all honesty, bothered to make sure she knew where everything was in the school festival, but Fyodor knows exactly where they're going at all times.
The drinks are at Kunikida's class, the theme heavy on butlers and light on maids, with both sides in the costumes of the opposite gender. A longsuffering Tanizaki appears at their table to take their orders.
"Your headband is lopsided," Nikolai offers, critically.
"Oh. Naomi will fix it when she comes to take photos," Tanizaki replies. "Anyway, we have strawberry or melon ramune…"
"I like them both…" Nikolai starts, trailing off. "Oh, I know! Pick a card!"
Nikolai produces a deck of cards from her sleeve, fanning them out. Tanizaki stares at them for a very long moment before she slowly picks a card.
"The joker," Tanizaki says, offering it back after looking at it for a brief moment.
"Melon," Nikolai says, decisively, taking the card back and flicking the entire deck back up her sleeve and out of sight.
"Strawberry," Fyodor says, "and a water."
Fyodor offers over the tickets, which Tanizaki takes with the air of a woman marching to her final meal before execution.
"You're getting one?" Nikolai asks, surprised. Fyodor rarely gets anything carbonated, claiming that it bothers her throat. Nikolai isn't exactly sure how that's possible, but she knows better than to argue with Fyodor.
"You couldn't decide," Fyodor replies, easily, offering Nikolai a smile. "The water is for me."
It takes Nikolai's mind a moment to catch up to Fyodor's intent – that she'd gotten the extra ramune for Nikolai, because Nikolai liked them both – and when it hits, Nikolai finds herself quite out of words to say, brain busy percolating the complex series of emotions she feels in response.
"Thanks," Nikolai says, finally, feeling a faint heat in her cheeks that she's fairly certain makes her match the strawberry ramune when it's delivered to the table.
"Of course," Fyodor says, demure, sipping her water. There's the faintest crinkle of her nose, the water seemingly not passing her triple reverse osmosis standards, and then she's offering the cup. "Leave me the ice."
This is not a terribly unusual request for Fyodor, given her chronically low iron leaves her to eating ice far more often than her dentist would prefer, and so Nikolai takes the cup, obediently knocking back all of the water in it before offering it back over.
"Thank you," Fyodor says, before reaching into her schoolbag and producing a small bottle of vodka, imported straight from Russia via one of her care packages from home.
Nikolai had, in all honesty, not seen that one coming.
"Kunikida-san is busy chasing after Dazai-kun," Fyodor explains, filling the cup up entirely and leaving the bottle half empty, "which means that Dazai-kun is equally busy. This will be a treat just for you and I, no?"
Nikolai is suddenly 89% less jealous by volume. Fyodor takes the cup and takes a sip – Nikolai is fairly certain Fyodor is drinking from the same point that Nikolai had been, despite the fact that Nikolai had made certain not to steal an indirect kiss when she'd been given the cup – and Nikolai chugs back half of her strawberry ramune before taking a gulp that's entirely too large of the vodka when Fyodor offers it over.
It's true: no one seems to notice or care that they're spiking their drinks, and by the time they're leaving the makeshift cafe, there's a comforting warmth in Nikolai's stomach. She and Fyodor are both too experienced with alcohol to act tipsy, but the warmth in her belly matches the warmth on her cheeks, and it helps set her at ease.
"There's a dance soon," Fyodor offers, "if you'd like to go."
"Yes," Nikolai says, instantly. Too quickly, but it's fine: Fyodor knew what reply Nikolai was going to offer before Nikolai even heard the question. Nikolai doesn't mind being predictable once in awhile, when it comes to Fyodor.
They exit to the courtyard, and then the two ramune, one water, and indeterminable amount of vodka that Nikolai ingested abruptly catches up with her.
"I'll be right back," Nikolai says, and Fyodor nods.
"It hasn't started yet," Fyodor offers, with the instruction clear in her voice: be back before it does.
Nikolai sets off, but she hasn't actually been to Dazai's highschool before, and unlike Fyodor, she hasn't memorized the blueprints for every single school in the area just to have an advantage. It takes her a little longer than she'd like to find the bathroom, but she's in and out as fast as a magic trick, slipping back to the dance as quickly as possible.
It hasn't quite started yet, but it's clearly about to, and Dazai has appeared, somehow, out of the ether, mid-bow to Fyodor with their hands linked like they're about to dance.
"Bestie!" Nikolai chirps, draping herself over Fyodor without any preamble. "You're saving your first dance for me, right?"
"You're late," Fyodor says, easily.
"It hasn't started," Nikolai replies, offering Fyodor her best pout and knowing that it will have absolutely no effect on the girl.
"We can all dance together," Dazai says, offering one hand to each of them. "I'm certain I can lead two beautiful women as well as I can lead one."
"Who said you're leading?" Nikolai shoots back, taking one of Dazai's hands regardless, because Fyodor is still holding one of Dazai's too. Fyodor's hand is warmer in Nikolai's than usual, alcohol sending her blood surging as a counter to the constant anemia.
"You can both try to lead," Fyodor offers, "if you lead in the same direction."
Nikolai frowns, but Dazai laughs as the music starts.
"Left– left–" Dazai starts, her voice commanding their movements. Nikolai isn't exactly leading, but she isn't quite following, either, and the dance isn't meant for three people in the slightest, and it's very awkward, but they're all relatively quick to compensate and they wind up managing. They're getting no shortage of odd looks, but that would happen anyway: Dazai is, after all, considered one of the seven wonders of her school, the unkillable suicide-obsessed Demon Prodigy that makes many of the girls swoon on a regular basis.
"Oh," Dazai offers, halfway through the song. She lets go of Fyodor's hand, but not Nikolai's, and Nikolai moves with Dazai for a second as Dazai twirls her and then drops her into a dip. "Keep Fedya company for me!"
Then Nikolai is standing upright again, blinking as Fyodor takes her hands to continue the dance seamlessly.
"What–" Nikolai starts, then stops as she watches Dazai run and vault the courtyard fence.
"Get back here!" is the belligerent yell from a short redhead whose stature appears to have very little bearing on how rapidly she's running. "You put a roach in my curry!"
"Did you eat it? Did you eat it?" Dazai yells back, laughing without slowing her run in the slightest.
"No! It was plastic, you dick!" Chuuya yells back. She vaults the fence too, and Nikolai and Fyodor watch them go out of sight, Dazai getting chased for the second time. It probably won't be the last time today.
"Oh," Fyodor says, as the song ends, a brief pause between tracks to allow for any partner changes. "Your hair has come undone."
Nikolai stands completely still as Fyodor reaches out to comb her fingers through Nikolai's hair, deftly rebraiding it, pale fingers slipping easily through the strands.
"There," Fyodor says, pleased, putting Nikolai's hair tie back in the end and then twirling the excess around her fingers.
Nikolai suddenly finds that the entire school festival was worth attending, and offers Fyodor another bow.
"Then," Nikolai says, "would you like to dance with me again?"
"One more dance," Fyodor agrees, a smile on her lips as the music starts up again.