Chapter Text
When Dazai thinks of soulmates, he thinks of middle-school excitement and girls' gossip and ripped friendship bracelets. He thinks of that pit in his stomach on the way back home. He thinks of his homeroom teacher, Mr. Natsume, and his greater-than-life stories and the way they made him scoff.
In Ninth grade, some kid Dazai vaguely knew was said to have gotten matched with his pet gecko. A year later, a teacher was kicked out of the school for matching with one of his students. Then it was the nurse and some janitor. Then, in senior year, his roommates, who were assigned different rooms and left Dazai alone in a dorm three times too big.
It's often said that children of unmatched souls are more disposed to general dissatisfaction than others, and maybe that's why Dazai's never really felt happy a day of his life. Or maybe it's what everyone says on TV—one cannot never be content until one meets their Match. They're half of you, after all. Half of all of the joy in your heart. So just stay patient. Keep looking. It'll happen when the time is right.
Dazai doesn't care to be patient or mindful. Research programs email him from time to time, saying in just a few weeks' time (and a hefty check from his wallet, but who's counting) they'd find his match and arrange a meeting. Quite easily, they go ignored.
It seems like a waste: yet another name to add to the list of people who'll attend his funeral in quiet resignation.
People die all the time, soulmates or not. And despite everything, Dazai is empathetic enough to recognise it's easier to mourn someone you've never met than to linger on what could've been.
Living off on daddy's credit card isn't glamorous, but it's what's easiest; Dazai stays a recluse in the basement and in exchange, keeps quiet about Mori's affairs. Like trees and mushrooms—they make a perfect symbiose. Though maybe in their case it's less about mutual benefit and more begrudging tolerance. Dazai still isn't certain he won't get kicked out if he's seen hanging out in the kitchen in broad daylight.
He doesn't hold that against Mori, though. He'd find it hard to justify an unrelated adult man's presence in his house too.
Until Mori knocks at his basement door and says something evil like, "me and Yukichi have had a discussion. We think it's time you move out."
Dazai blurts out, "are you serious?"
Mori looks him dead in the eyes and says, "we are going to have a child."
It's either the worst excuse he's ever heard or the sign his brain has begun decomposing in his skull. Or Fukuzawa completely lost his mind.
"Is the child going to live in the basement?" Dazai asks. "Why do you need me to move out now?"
It's not the right thing to say. Mori's jaw twitches. "I do not want you around a young and impressionable child. You are the worst kind of influence, Dazai. You're twenty-five and still smoking pot. You are unemployed and friendless. You haven't even—"
"Yeah, okay," Dazai says, because his masochism has its limits. "Did Fukichi say you could kick me out?"
"Yes, yes he did."
"Somehow I don't think that's the whole truth."
"Deal with it. I'll be going now. If in two weeks you aren't gone, I'll be taking this to court."
Dazai thinks that's one hell of a way to escalate a conversation. He stares at Mori's back as he takes the stairs up and into the house, then looks back to his little cocoon of undisturbed safety. There are clothes tossed around every single piece of furniture. Socks and empty cans of marinated crab littering the floor. The walls' paint is peeling like an overripe tangerine. His bed is unmade and covered in crumbs. Worst of all, everything fucking reeks.
Either he kills himself right now or kills himself in two weeks somewhere cleaner where it doesn't smell like weed and spoiled milk.
Dazai is not a picky man by nature, but his kind of upbringing breeds unrealistic standards. Just picturing his body hanging from that ugly grey ceiling—where all kinds of bugs have been squashed by shoes he's thrown like flower petals on a wedding aisle—makes his heart sag. Suicide is sad but that kind of suicide might be even sadder.
He has a whopping three hundred dollars to his name.
He knows just what to do.
He rings Odasaku.
In two weeks' time, he's found a university that'll allow him to apply for the next fall term if he asks really nicely and cooks up five hundred words to describe how he's longed for it his entire life and also how he totally deserves to go there and et caetera.
Odasaku works there as a counsellor, so does that make him a nepo baby? Dazai doesn't have the time to linger on the question. Another week passes and he's already sending in his application. It's the apex of summer and he's sweaty, sticky, curled up in a plastic chair with a fan blasting in his face. He clicks the button at the bottom of the page: his application has been sent. Now he waits.
"I know it's not much," Odasaku tells him, apologetic, as Dazai drags in the last cardboard box.
Dazai shakes his head as he plops down on the couch, a raggedy but surprisingly sturdy, sailor-blue creation that frankly tarnishes the entire decor. Odasaku's got this whole traditional Japanese theme going on, all beiges and tans and earthy greens. Then there's the massive navy interrogation point in the middle of the living room. A gift, maybe. But what sane human being brings furniture to a birthday party?
Dazai doesn't mind sleeping on the couch for the duration of his academic comeback. He's lived in worse conditions, and tells Odasaku so. They share an awkward half-laugh. Odasaku probably remembers Dazai's rathole from before he left to Nebraska—and isn't that just swell: he's lived more than half of his life as a hikikomori eating canned soup hidden from anyone and the sun. Maybe Mori had a point, kicking him out the way he did. Dazai can't believe he's twenty-five.
"Maybe I should go visit the campus tomorrow," he muses.
Odasaku jumps on the opportunity to change subjects like a cat on a vole. "Great initiative! It'll give you an idea of what to expect from the place, since you missed the tour back in May."
"You'll come with me," Dazai starts, "right?"
"Tomorrow?" Odasaku gets all stiff and strained, like any time he's thinking about something he knows will piss Dazai off. "I'm sorry, not this time. I have a meeting arranged with some faculty colleagues."
Such a perfectly innocent sentence rings alarm bells in Dazai's head, because Odasaku is a man of detail, and leaving out any of those, and names or titles or time—it can only mean one thing.
"You're meeting up with Ango."
Odasaku's ears turn an incriminating red. "He is part of the faculty body, yes, but not him specifically—"
Dazai flops back down on the couch, groaning. Odasaku flusters about somewhere in his peripheral vision. "Listen, I know what you think of him—"
"He's an ass."
"He's clever," Odasaku retorts, "which is exactly why you don't get along."
Dazai thinks of ten years ago; Ango leaving without a word to pursue a Major he'd give up on anyway, Odasaku's heartbreak, his own mild disappointment. Clever isn't the kind of adjective he'd use to describe Sakaguchi. Ambitious, sure. Goal-oriented, maybe. But, more than anything—a complete, pompous fucking ass.
"Tell me I'm not gonna see him in a hallway or something," he pleads.
Odasaku sighs. "Not unless you decide to visit HR."
"He's in HR? Oh my god."
"Dazai—"
"I am so getting in trouble just to see him there. Oh, I can just feel the humiliation radiating off his face. This year's going to be great."
Odasaku turns his head to the four cardboard boxes littering his floors, then Dazai's body, limp on his ugly navy couch. His entire body sags in a sigh. "I'll leave you to it." Odasaku disappears into a tiny corridor, flicking the lightswitch as he goes.
Then it's just Dazai and the couch, and a snail-shaped lamp on the chimney lighting up the living room. Unpacking can wait. His body is yearning for adequate rest. Dazai, at least, manages to get his pants off before he wraps himself in the two layers of blankets Odasaku so graciously offered. His head hits the pillow and he's out like a match.
In his dreams he hears a man's laugh, and it only lasts a second. One singular piano note that echoes and rolls like a tumbleweed in the meanders of his mind. Somehow he knows it's not any laugh he's heard before. Somehow he knows it's not just any piano note. It's the start of the concerto.
Dazai wakes up to the smell of fried eggs and Odasaku's trashy 80s pop radio.
Because all good things must be preceded by a great deal of procrastination, Dazai visits a local coffee shop on the way first. He's full from Odasaku's incredibly dense protein-based breakfast—his words exactly, though Dazai would offer the moniker gym bro meal—but his nerves crave sugar.
At ten a.m. on a Wednesday he stumbles into a tiny coffee shop of white bricks and pastel ribbons, to the titter of a bell. The shop isn't too big, but there is a good crowd of patrons, none of which look up when Dazai steps inside. Posters behind the counter show off fruit-shaped deserts and sparkly donuts and bunny-shaped cookies. It's a Cinamoroll-fangirl's wetdream. Dazai feels just a tad out of place in his oversized trench coat and strict white trousers.
A young-looking girl wearing dark purple pigtails greets him as he approaches the counter. She smiles timidly, which tells him she hasn't been working there for long, but there isn't a tremble in her voice when she asks him what he'd be interested in trying today.
Dazai eyes the blackboard on the side, which details in pastel chalk the kinds of drinks the coffee shop offers. There are bubble teas and coffees and hot chocolates and regular teas, but Dazai's more interested in the overly sugary, overproduced, over-expensive lattes. Eventually he orders a matcha cold brew with extra vanilla.
"Again? Ugh," says some guy, from way behind Dazai. There is quite a queue and it takes a few seconds for Dazai to locate the grump. It's a short man wearing a horrible beanie and a huge, huge burgundy hoodie. Dazai understands that his unpleasantness must be a result of his awful sense of style, and feels a pang of sympathy. At least he knows how to dress, despite living underground for almost five years.
"I hear there's some surgeries," Dazai tells the grump.
The grump has the audacity to look surprised Dazai is talking to him. He pockets his phone—a little charm dangles from it—and frowns. "Sorry, what?"
"Your height," Dazai says. "I assumed that was the issue."
Then he turns around. The pigtails girl offers him his drink. He smiles, pays, then takes his leave. The drink is tall and pleasantly chill in his hands. In this kind of weather, any kind of cold is welcome. Not that Dazai would separate himself from his trench coat either way.
As he steps outside the coffee shop, he hears a great deal of footsteps rush in his direction. He side-steps to avoid being bumped into by a hurried customer—and then it hits him.
Cold.
Disgusting.
Coffee.
For maybe the first time in his life, Dazai is so caught off-guard he does not speak. A whirlwind of fury and burgundy fabric storms past him. As if to add insult to injury, Dazai's foot is stepped on—crushed, really—and it takes everything in him not to wail out in pain. He's fifty-two percent certain his metatarsals were just shattered. The angry little man is out of sight almost immediately, an empty latte cup crumbled and left for dead on the coffee shop floor.
The girl with the purple pigtails rushes to him with apologies and tissues. He reassures her it must've been an accident, and of course he won't be suing the coffee shop, and everything's fine, really, don't worry, no need for a discount, I'll be going now—and decides to head back to Odasaku's flat. His trench coat drips cold coffee as he walks.
He gets onto a local bus without paying. It's never failed him yet. The incident spins about in his mind for the entire forty-minute drive; the force which hit him, the smell of coffee, the visible anger in the little man's stomping away.
Dazai thinks, things can only go up from now on.
With coffee-stained fingertips, he takes out the humid Samsung clinging inside his pocket and phones Mori.
"No, you're not allowed to come back," Mori says.
"It's not about that."
"Fukuzawa's busy."
"Can you find someone for me?"
Mori pauses. Then, a simple word comes out: "clarify."
"I met someone today." Dazai sees an old lady give him the side-eye. "Inside a coffee shop."
Mori is the kind of man who loves vagueness because it makes everything seem more important and mysterious. He's the one who taught Dazai all of his tricks. Still—he's not exactly generous. After a long moment of silence, during which Dazai half-imagines having to resort to blackmail, Mori tells him, "Which coffee shop?"
His eidetic memory is the only good thing he's inherited from his mother. "Shirayuki's Pond."
A faint half-sound of scribbling. "Where?"
Dazai considers. "Ten minutes away from Nebraska University, give or take."
"You know that means nothing—"
"Bird view."
"Hm. When?"
"About…" Wasn't there a clock hung on the wall, to his right? Dazai imagines it. Yes. There definitely was—rabbit-shaped, too. "Fifteen past ten."
More scribbling.
"Call me back in four hours." All business, as always.
Dazai smirks. "Bye."
With time to kill, Dazai heads back to Odasaku's and gets changed. Maybe he'll finally get around to visiting that campus this time.
His name is Chuuya Nakahara, twenty years old since April, and a graduate Anthropology student. His criminal record is clean, but his middle and high school transcripts speak of a very troubled young boy with anger issues and a stronger-than-most sense of justice. He was born and raised in France, but both of his parents are immigrants from Japan. Dazai has no idea how two people like them—with their straight-pin black hair and deep brown eyes—could've conceived a kid like him, blue-eyed and ginger and tan as a Florida surfer.
Dazai spends the following night looking him up on social media. His Instagram account is, by far, the liveliest. Dazai sees pictures of popular American landmarks and hikes in the forest and cute picnics in flower fields. A dog—a huge black Beauceron with a lolling tongue—follows him around in each of them. The soulmate section is empty. The song he picked out to accompany his offensively esthetic account is one Dazai's never heard before.
His most recent story is that of his own face, blotchy and pink and covered in tears. The caption reads, 5th hour without caffeine;;;; save me.
There's something about those huge blue eyes that makes Dazai pause.
His fingers hover above the send message bar.
A heartbeat passes. Then two. Then five. I suppose I owe you one?
He presses the little white arrow. Message sent! Instagram announces—cheerfully, like this couldn't go any other way than great.
Dazai exhales into his pillow.
For breakfast, Odasaku takes him to some popular American fast-food joint. He has friends he wants Dazai to meet; friends from university. Whether they're teachers or supervisors or janitors, it's still important to build connections, Dazai thinks, which is why he accepts. Without Odasaku's friendship, he'd still be couch-surfing, helplessly looking for a permanent residence in a rapidly escalating housing crisis. Learning how to navigate life during an economic cataclysm certainly builds character. If anything, it's something else for Dazai to brag about.
They take the subway—Dazai takes a second to pause dramatically like he's in a music video—then walks past a few blocks. The restaurant is tucked between a coffee shop and a thrift, five minutes give or take away from the nearest mall. Dense crowds traverse the busy streets, nearly drowning out the floor beneath them in burgundies and trendy greys. Despite the amount of people out and about, though, the restaurant itself is still about sixty-percent vacant.
Odasaku leads him inside. Dazai counts two families of four; a young man alone; three couples; and a father-daughter pair. The floor is tiled red and white like in the movies. Big fluorescent lights hang low from a crackled ceiling, turned off, as sunlight streams inside the room from the huge windows. The air is dusty and smells like dough, and sugar, and coffee. Dazai licks his lips and tastes frying oil.
As he'd predicted, the young man alone was sitting there waiting for them. He looks up and nods politely seeing Odasaku pad up to his table. Messy dark hair peeks out of a military-style cap hat. His pale amber eyes dart between Odasaku and Dazai like he's trying to place them in his memory; not a friend of Oda, then, but maybe a friend of a friend. He seems as though he's been sitting there for a long while. From this eagerness to please, Dazai deduces he mustn't be an important part of the university body—a substitute professor, at most.
"Hello, Tetchō," says Odasaku as he takes place at the table. He gestures for Dazai to do the same. Dazai opts to sit right next to Odasaku, as is customary, though he would've rathered stealing Tetchō's place on the sofa, where he could've kept an eye on the door.
Tetchō bows his head. "Mister Sakunosuke." His voice has a thick Japanese accent. Hasn't been residing in America for long, then. He tilts his head towards Dazai and says, "I do not believe we've met. My name is Tetchō Suehiro. It is a pleasure to meet you."
"Likewise," Dazai says, reaching over with his arm outstretched—just to see how he'd react. Tetchō only barely hesitates before shaking his hand. Dazai sits back in his chair. "My name is Osamu Dazai."
"My protégé, in a sense," says Odasaku flippantly.
The two exchange polite banalities for a while longer before they're interrupted by the arrival of two unfamiliar presences. Saigiku Jōno is the first; a man of impressive height with the ugliest-looking white and red hair, looking like he'd just recently stepped out of a Hot Topic despite his suit-and-tie. The second is a lithe woman named Teruko Ōkura who fidgets and fiddles constantly. Either she's ADD or has been consuming much, much too many caffeinated drinks for her small size. She talks animatedly, like a child. Dazai spends a great deal of time trying to determine whether it's a front or not. By the end of the first round of introductions, he still hasn't come to any conclusions.
Odasaku informs Dazai of each of their professions, but Dazai has already tuned out of the conversation by then. He nods accordingly and places a few 'ooh's and 'aah's where it'd be appropriate to hear them. All in all, it's a successful first impression. He's just bored out of his mind.
A waitress comes and goes. There's some talk about new measures for unruly behaviour in the campus dormitories; some mentions of useful donations and what to do with them. Dazai isn't really sought out for his opinion so he doesn't bother trying to give it.
Then his phone buzzes with a notification, and the atmosphere of his entire morning shifts.
Nakahara Chuuya sent him four consecutive messages responding to his invitation. Dazai feels his heart jump up to his throat. He hasn't felt excitement like this in a long time, and recognising this embarrasses him. His trench coat is still stained from yesterday's coffee, and probably will always be. It's his favourite trench coat. He should be furious.
> sent just now
who are you
what the fuck. you're the guy from yesterday
why are you texting me?
you looking to get drenched again or what
Obviously not, but Dazai doesn't reiterate that thought by message. He responds with a smiling face emoji and writes back: Not particularly! Do you have a favourite coffee shop around Lincoln?
Lincoln is Dazai's university campus. It also is Chuuya's. Dazai faintly wonders if Chuuya will notice they are both students at the same establishment. Would it mean anything to him? Maybe. If it helps Dazai get what he wants, it's a card he's willing to play.
Chuuya responds in the minute.
how did you even find me?
Dazai writes back, Luck! Instagram recommended me your account. It's a blatant lie.
lol. why didn't you ignore it
He's not particularly bright, is he?
I wanted to offer you a coffee.
Chuuya leaves him on read.
That doesn't matter, though; it's not a rebuttal. Not even a refusal. It's a "try again". A "maybe". And "maybe" has always been good enough for Dazai. He has a habit of forcing fate to bend to his whim; sheer force of will hasn't ever failed him yet.
He's in absurdly high spirits for the rest of the day. Later in the afternoon, as they're grocery shopping for the essentials Dazai has already devoured out of Odasaku's pantry, Odasaku turns to him and says,
"I'd ask what you've done to put yourself in such a good mood, but I'm not sure I want to know the answer."
"'Whatever satisfies the soul is truth'," Dazai quotes. Smiles, then. "So I'm seeking out truth."
Dazai awakes up to buzzing in the dead of night. Eyes blurry and moist, a headache pounding into his temples, he lifts a hand up near his head and taps around in search for the aggravating engine. His fingers wrap around it and drag it towards his scrunched-up face. Dazai scans the too-bright screen. It takes his brain a minute to compute what he's seeing.
It takes less for his heart to catch up.
A sharp sting of a breeze reddens Dazai's face from where he stands under the coffee shop's folding screen. It's absurdly early in the morning. There's a certain quality to that pre-sunrise air that Dazai is strongly attached to; something cutting and tranquil and uniquely personal. Dust swirls around where streetlights bite at the cold. From deep into the darkness, a silhouette is approaching.
Dazai checks his watch; it's five-twenty-nine. Frightening punctuality or simply trying to make a point? Either way, it sets Dazai on edge.
The silhouette steps into the lamplight. Nakahara Chuuya is wrapped in a thick layer of black gabardine. The coat is clearly oversized, brushing against the floor as he walks. Under the shock of yellow light, his hair seems almost golden. Chuuya's pearl-blue eyes widen as they rake across Dazai's form. Taking him in, as though for the first time.
Chuuya stops a few lengths away from him. His neck is tilted up. Dazai notices a strand of black leather wrapped around it; a delicate silver buckle rests upon the hollow of his throat.
"I didn't think you'd come," he says.
Dazai smiles faintly. "But you showed up anyway?"
Chuuya doesn't look away, or falter, or titter. "This is what I do everyday. I simply made time for you in my schedule." His eyes trail off of Dazai's face like he's not worth his constant attention. Behind his impassibility, Dazai flusters. "Let's go in."
Dazai follows Chuuya into the quaint, silent little café. The ambiance is more mature and intimate than the one they'd met at. The colours are muted, soft jazz playing from above, an acre scent of coffee beans floating in with the artificial heat. It's the kind of place Odasaku would love. Dazai can almost picture him sitting by the window, nose-deep in a fantasy book, scribbling with a loose hand words he likes and ideas, and metaphors. Chuuya fits right in in this kind of picture. He's all warm-toned colours and autumnal grace.
Though, as regal as he appears now, Dazai certainly hadn't felt that way two nights ago when he was busy dripping cold latte onto the subway floor. Dichotomous are the Chuuya from then, drowning in an unflattering hoodie and his hair bundled up under his hood, and the Chuuya of right now, clad in a proper button-up shirt and ironed slacks. His hair is as asymmetrical as it was in his Instagram pictures, but somehow he manages to pull it off. The right side is cropped close to his jaw, curling around his ear, the left flowing freely down his shoulder.
There's something feline about him, though Dazai can't quite pinpoint it. Maybe it's in the way he stalks his way up to everything—shoulders squared, jaw set, eyes dark, as though bracing for a fight. Dazai imagines it may be compensation for his small size.
They order at the counter. Chuuya asks for his usual, and the waitress doesn't bother to write anything down, which confirms Chuuya's previous statement. When it's Dazai's turn to order, he asks for an oatmeal caramel mocha latte. He's eighty percent sure it's exactly what Chuuya had poured all over him that day. And bingo. Chuuya ducks his head, hopefully, on Dazai's end, with embarrassment. The waitress, obvious to their silent feud, nods and invites them to go and pick a table.
They end up sitting face-to-face in a corner of the café, mostly hidden from view from anyone near the entrance. Chuuya stares him down. He doesn't peep a single word. Distantly, Dazai wonders if this is what it's like to sit through a job interview.
Finally, Chuuya shoots out, "Why did you ask me out for coffee?"
Dazai doesn't like the implications of his words, but arguing against them would only make him seem guiltier. "You did ask for help."
"It wasn't meant to be taken seriously."
No shit, Sherlock, he wants to say. "And yet, here I am. Helping you."
Chuuya scoffs. "What, out of the goodness of your heart?"
"Is that so hard to believe?"
"You're a jackass, is what I believe."
"You don't know me," Dazai says, a tilt to his own voice he doesn't recognise.
"I know that you insulted me for no fucking reason and out of no-fucking-where," says Chuuya. Very classy. It certainly breaks the prim-and-proper prince vibe he's got going on.
"Didn't you say something first?"
"Not everything is about you."
Point taken. Dazai thinks back to the scene; the pastel walls, lofi-beats playing from the speakers, Chuuya's brightness lost in burgundy fabric… He had been holding a phone up to his ear, hadn't he?
He opts to redirect the conversation. There's no need to linger on his past mistakes. "Who were you calling?"
"What's it to you?" Chuuya hisses. Shifts in his seat. Slowly, as if unwillingly, adds, "a coworker."
"You work?"
"Part-time. Do you?"
"Maybe someday," Dazai says, but given Chuuya's critical are-you-being-serious-right-now eyebrow raise, he mustn't have come off as mysterious as intended.
"And what do you do now?"
Do the questions have to be about him? Dazai replies, "I'm starting university this fall." Control. He needs control. "Have you been studying here for a long time?"
"This will be my second year," Chuuya says, calmly enough, but not so much as to fool Dazai into overlooking the surprise in his eyes.
"And what do you study?"
A half-sigh half-laugh escapes Chuuya. "I'm sure you already know."
Leaning forward to rest his elbows on the table, he smiles wide and says, "I have no idea what you're talking about."
A waitress waltzes in with a murmured apology, holding both of their drinks on a plate. Whatever Chuuya's regular is, it smells of pure bitterness. It's an odd contrast to the overly artificial drink he'd ordered back then. Dazai tries not to, but does despite himself, wonder if it's an attempt on Chuuya's part to intimidate him.
Or… Well.
Maybe.
Dazai receives his latte from the waitress' hands and looks Chuuya over from above the rim of his cup. Is Chuuya trying to impress him? He did refer to Dazai's invitation as asking him out. Did he accept to meet Dazai for coffee believing he'd be going on a date?
And, following that train of thought: is this a date?
Dazai's certainly never had to wake up at four a.m. for a first date before. Or for any date at all, for that matter, not with his first or his last girlfriend, not even to meet up with Odasaku back when they still lived in Yokohama. The more Dazai considers this, the more embarrassed he grows. What's got him acting so out of character? His interest is rarely piqued by people, but it does happen. So what's so different about Chuuya?
Dazai does not go out of his way to meet people who aren't crucial to his ambitions and Chuuya is more of a whim than a goal. Dating is fleeting for him. He's been called uncaring and inconsiderate, even avoidant, by many of his past flings.
The overarching point is that Dazai doesn't do dates. The conflicting argument, however, is that the idea of Chuuya mistaking this for one does not bother him half as much as it ought to.
Very coolly, Chuuya raises the steaming up to his lips and sips. His face doesn't do as much as twitch. Even if it was a seduction technique—and it is five in the morning, so Dazai feels just about everything but seduced—clearly, Chuuya is used to drinking this sort of monstrosity. Dazai drinks up his sugar-in-a-cup and feels content.
"You like it?" asks Chuuya.
"It suits my sensibilities," Dazai says.
Chuuya snorts softly. "There is no caffeine in this. I'm not sure how helpful it's going to be throughout your day."
"I didn't come here for the caffeine," Dazai blurts out.
"I'm not sleeping with you," Chuuya says, "it's—" he cranes his neck upwards to glance at a wall-mounted clock—"five fifty-three in the morning."
Something entirely unfamiliar flips Dazai's stomach inside-out. Suddenly all of the moisture in his mouth is gone. It's a struggle to keep his composure intact, but somehow he manages it. To keep Chuuya basking in the awkwardness he's introduced, Dazai busies himself with his coffee. He makes a production out of it. Even licks his lips dry after, just to keep the silence stretching on.
"I didn't come here for that, either."
Chuuya stares at him. "So what's your angle here?"
"I'm still working on figuring that out."
Disbelief is written all over the redhead's face. He repeats the first question he asked upon meeting with Dazai. "Why did you ask me out?"
This time, Dazai retorts, "why did you accept?"
"Everyone told me I shouldn't," Chuuya grumbles, "but—I don't know. Any sane person would've moved on with their lives. And even if they didn't, they wouldn't seek me out to… talk." Chuuya drinks down his coffee with a vaguely angry air. "I've been bored waiting for the term to start. You're not horrible to look at."
"You flatter me."
"Hah." Their eyes meet again, front-on; the moment is so long Dazai can make out the individual dots out of the patchwork of freckles on Chuuya's face. Chuuya is the first one to glance away. "Then I thought—if this is a ploy to get me alone and jump me or something, you wouldn't get up before six for it."
Dazai tilts his head. "You underestimate the power of vengeance, Nakahara Chuuya. I've seen men willing to do more for less."
"Sure. But then I saw your pictures." At Dazai's confusion, he adds, "on your Instagram account. And, well, you'll forgive me, but you're not exactly a stocky guy."
"Presumptious. What if I was hiding a six-pack under all of those layers?"
"Yeah, and what if I was six-foot tall under my hat? My point is: I could take you in a fight. Easily."
Dazai huffs. Guess they'll both just ignore the fact Dazai's almost twice his size. Muscles or not, there's a reason the biggest animals survive the longest out in the wild.
"So because I'm not hideous and you could potentially beat me up, you decided it was a good idea to meet me."
"I didn't say it was a good idea," says Chuuya. His eyes dig deep. "I'm still working on figuring that out."
Something silent and dangerous and intimate settles between them. Coffee beans and soft jazz swirl in Dazai's mind, tantalizing like batting eyelashes or butterfly wings. The blue of Chuuya's eyes cut through the brown of his gilet, the auburn of his hair, the deep maroon of the café's wall behind him. It's like staring directly into the moon; painless at first, then scorching when you least expect it to.
Only once Dazai is certain that Chuuya has finished every last drop of his coffee, does he dare to say out loud what he's been thinking all along.
"I asked you out because I believe we might be soulmates."
Someone pokes at his shoulder. Dazai chooses to ignore it. Maybe if he plays dead long enough it'll go away. Then another poke; and a third, and a fourth. He shoots up and rejoices silently when his head makes contact with the poker's face. A high-pitched yelp shoots out of them.
"Oh, dear," Dazai croons. "Are you alright?"
Cradling his forehead, lips twisted in pain, the little pest wobbles in his wrinkled shirt. A little nametag is pinned to it. Nakajima, it reads. And right below, library assistant. Dazai didn't even know those existed anymore in the big 2025.
"It's fine," stammers the boy, pushing away the snow-white hair off his face. He manages to smile at Dazai's false concern, all wobbly and sincere. Tendrils of regret ooze into Dazai's throat. Maybe he shouldn't have acted out after all. This Nakajima library assistant doesn't look a day over eighteen.
"Do you need me to accompany you to the infirmary?"
Nakajima shoos away his chivalry with a twist of the head. "It's alright, really, I should've been more careful. Um. It is closing time, though, sir, so…"
"My, my," says Dazai, looking around. His surprise isn't feigned. "It appears I fell asleep during my research. My apologies."
Nakajima shifts around awkwardly. "It's alright," he repeats, "happens to the best of us! Haha. Er. I'm really sorry about this, but… I have to ask for your student card."
The sleepiness escapes Dazai's body all at once. He straightens, eyes the library-boy more sharply. "I don't recall you asking anyone else here."
"Yeah. Um. Sorry. But I know—well, I think—you're not a student at Nebraska." That's surprising honesty coming from a trembling little thing like him. Dazai considers this.
"I'm beginning my first term in two months," he says, "sorry! I imagined it'd be okay."
Nakajima scratches at his arms. "I mean, I can see why you'd think that… It's just… It's my job to report incidents like these, and, uh, it's a pretty big infraction…"
"I'll make a request for a Visitor Pass next time!"
"So you knew they were a thing?" Dazai blinks. Oops. "I'm really sorry, but if we allow one unauthorised visitor, we'd have to allow all of them… and that's just not—um. I can't do that. Sorry. It's my job."
Nakajima's eyes are filled with so much earnestness, it hurts to look. Dazai picks himself up from the seat and presses his palm flat against the book he'd discarded on the desk, right before his impromptu nap. Not so subtly, Nakajima's eyes skim over the cover. His face lights up like a Christmas tree; Dazai pounces on that opportunity.
"You know Doestoevsky?"
"I love him," Nakajima says, then turns crimson-red and coughs. "I mean—I love his books. I'm a big fan of philo-psycho literature. Especially fiction! I really can't stand autobiographies most of the time, they're—" Dazai keeps a steady smile on his face as Nakajima cuts himself off again. "I'm so bad at this. Um. You know what? You should just leave."
Dazai certainly won't argue against that. He tucks the book under his arm and lets the white-haired boy herd him out of the university library. It is quite dark, all things considered, and Dazai wonders if Atsushi perhaps let him sleep longer than he should've. He seems like the kind of person to do that for a stranger. Though next time, Dazai ought to be more careful about what he wears on an afternoon out. In case it's less about Atsushi's generosity and more about Dazai looking just that pitiful.
As Dazai slips away into the night, he hears Atsushi calling out after him.
"You never gave me your name!"
He turns around. In the full moonlight, the boy's white hair almost looks like fur. And those spikes, don't they look like ears? He smiles to himself.
"My name is Dazai. Dazai Osamu." The Lucky Cat-looking boy stares up at him. His eyes are round and shiny, and Dazai can't help but be reminded of Ryuunosuke Akutagawa, that expression on his face like he saw a god where Dazai stood.
"I'm Atsushi!" the boy shouted back, the way Akutagawa never would've dared to. "Atsushi Nakajima!"
Dazai paused before walking away. Over his shoulder, he said, "I'll see you around, Atsushi Nakajima," and found himself hoping for it to be true.
As opposed to every scenario Dazai had considered in his sleep-deprived ponderings, Chuuya does not gasp, jerk, or slap him silly. He doesn't even pause. Instead something vaguely guilty glows in the blue depth of his eyes, and his nose points downwards. The twist of his lips disappears. It's like everything that made him so bright and appealing and interesting has vanished in the span of a few seconds. Dazai finds it hard not to feel like he's been tricked.
"I know," says Chuuya, unnecessarily.
With or without his photographic memory, Dazai would remember meeting someone like Chuuya. This leaves only a few options worth considering.
Dazai laces his fingers under his chin. "You've done the tests?"
The tests—they're experimental, or so they say. Ninety-seven success rate. Not everyone finds their correct match. Some pay a lung's worth and can't seem to find a match at all. Tenth grade is when the Matching is proposed to an individual for the first time, as a rule of thumb, though Dazai remembers being offered the opportunity much earlier, nearly two decades ago. He'd refused. Even as a ten year old, he'd had the keen understanding that death would surely get to him faster than love would.
Love simply does not grace the Dazais; as far back as their family lineage goes, this has always been true. And Dazai had never imagined stumbling upon his soulmate by chance. With eight billion people and seven entire continents on the Earth, the odds weren't exactly in his favour.
So many spent their lives wondering about their soulmates. So many ached and despaired, lonely despite their entourage, asking why no one could understand them, why the only one who truly, wholly, entirely could was nowhere to be found, and then died without ever obtaining an answer.
Dazai had made his peace with it. And now this, too, had been cut off right at his knee.
"When I was fifteen," says Chuuya, and Dazai thinks, how ironic. At fifteen he'd tried to kill himself because of some misguided sense of loneliness. And on another continent a boy was being told the only true companion he'd ever have was him.
Dazai wants to ask Chuuya if he's sure the results were correct, but their presence here speaks for itself.
Chuuya fidgets, tucks a strand of hair behind his ear. "Did you?"
"No. I hated them." Dazai says this carelessly and only realises later how cynical this makes him seem. He clears his throat. "You didn't ask to contact me."
"I was, uh, a sentimental fifteen year-old. I thought if we really were soulmates then our paths would cross whether we tried to or not."
Dazai doesn't say he once thought exactly the same thing. "So that's why you agreed to see me."
"Uh. No. I meant what I said. You piqued my interest, that's all. Okay?"
Is Chuuya lying? Dazai can't tell. His defensive tone is something worth examining, though.
"Okay," he says, all agreeable. "Did I pass your test? Am I intriguing enough to keep around?"
"I—" Chuuya coughs. "Keeping you around? I didn't know that was on the table."
"We didn't talk about what was on the table. You gave me a time and a place and I came. What did you intend to do coming here?"
"Does everything have to have a convoluted motive behind it?"
Chuuya's rebuttal is adorable. Dazai sighs with a half-smile. "It's human nature. Nobody does something just because, even if the reasoning behind it is subconscious."
"Clearly you've never been high before," Chuuya mutters, then flushes, like he hadn't meant to say it out loud. It makes Dazai wonder what sort of person he is behind all of his decorum. "Whatever. I wasn't sure what I wanted. See what kind of person you were, I guess."
"And did you come to a conclusion?"
"We've had a grand total of one conversation."
"So that's a no."
"Yeah, no, no shit. I know that you're weird as fuck and maybe a masochist. That's not exactly enough to figure out what role I want you to have in my life."
So: definitely not as classy as he wants people to believe. Dazai snickers into his mug, recovering once he processes the last part of Chuuya's sentence. "But you want me to be a part of your life."
"Well," starts Chuuya, then falters. "You're my soulmate."
It's such a telenovela thing to say.
Dazai feels bored, then feels frustrated, by this little man in front of him, apparently half of his soul, rattling off the same stupid universal lessons they've been taught since birth.
All at once, Dazai wants to flee from the café and never look back. He wants to tell Odasaku he's sorry and tell Mori he was wrong and take back his place at the deserted throne he'd sworn never to return to again. He knows Mori kept the place vacant because he believes Dazai will come back. Dazai doesn't want to prove him right, but.
"Chuuya," he says, "if you're even a quarter of my soul, you'd feel the same way I do about soulmates. They don't mean a thing. It's all just talk. People have been abandoned by their soulmates before; people have been murdered by their soulmates before."
"Threats don't mean shit to me."
"I'm not threatening you."
Dazai is shit at conversing with people who are as stubborn as him. What he does best is pull at strings and manipulate and blackmail. But Chuuya stays stone-faced, and does not give him an edge.
"I don't understand you," says Chuuya (if only he knew). "You say you don't think Soul Ties mean anything, but you also sought me out because of them. Make up your mind. Which one is it? Do you think soulmates are bullshit, or is it only when it suits your taste?"
"Obviously I don't think they're entirely worthless," Dazai says, anger creeping at the edges of his voice. He remembers Mori shoving his head down the dirt, telling him to stop being a little bitch, to keep his emotions in check if he ever wants a shot at being more than a broken, ill little twig of a boy with too many ambitions and too much hope for the world he'd been brought up in.
He leans back into his chair. "A Soul bond is something else. It's almost supernatural—and I'm not a superstitious man. I've seen it before, in action. They could communicate with a glance. They understood each other so deeply, they knew one another better than they knew themselves."
Chuuya listens intently. "Spooky."
"What I don't believe is the prerogative they grant. If blood doesn't entitle a person to their presence in someone else's life, why would soulmates be any different?"
"Okay, Dazai," says Chuuya, and it's the first time he's pronounced his name, and it does not raise goosebumps all over Dazai's arms, because that would be ridiculous. "I think I see what you mean. Practically, though, I don't follow. Either you're saying I should be more picky about the people I choose to let in—and in that case, mind your own fuckin' business, alright?—or you're telling me I don't have any inherent value to you."
"Just out of curiosity, if that was the case, what would you do?"
Chuuya rubs at his cheek. "I'd be irritated, I guess, but it's your right to think whatever you wanna think. Simply put: I'd leave. I don't beg for people to stick around."
"Neither options you mentioned are true. What I'm saying is that I'm not entitled to your life, soulmate or not, but I'd like for you to be in mine."
"Oh," says Chuuya, slowly, like he's waiting for Dazai to say sike! or something of the sort. "You could've just said so."
"That wouldn't be half as fun," Dazai retorts. "I'm 'weird as fuck' and also a 'masochist', remember?"
Chuuya hides his grin into his empty coffee cup. Dazai pretends he doesn't feel warmth flickering in his chest.
It certainly isn't considered acceptable socialised human behaviour to continue digging into someone's intimacy behind their back, but Dazai has never been acceptable in any way, shape, or form. He needs no justification. Chuuya won't ever know of it. And what he ignores can't hurt him.
Dazai doesn't have much basis on how soulmates are meant to behave. Fukuzawa and Mori are so deeply tangled with each other sometimes it's hard to tell them apart; if it wasn't for their very, very different sets of values, they could probably merge into one singular, middle-aged, sagacious entity.
"No, Dazai," they drawl in his mind, "bad Dazai. Baaaad. Stalk his soulmate a man shan't do."
Dazai lets his face flop down onto his pillow. In truth, neither Fukuzawa nor Mori would care, but the human brain is funny in that it likes to project its own judgement onto others. Especially those it thinks it cares about. Dazai's never felt shitty about stalking before. He doesn't see why he should start now.
The little numbers on the top left corner of his screen read 1:32. He deactivated Reading Mode a good half an hour ago so he wouldn't accidentally fall asleep, and the sharp blue lights burn his retinas. Chuuya's pictures really don't do him justice.
The further down Dazai scrolls, the worse they get. One dated April 2022 shows him climbing a mountain in a neon green harness, hair tied in the weirdest, ugliest man bun the world's probably ever seen. In another, Chuuya is visiting a winery, skin turned Minion-yellow by overhead lights. Anytime he incorporates black into his outfits, he washes out like a pair of coloured socks in white laundry.
On a whim, Dazai taps on the preview of a group photo Chuuya posted in 2020. Through the terrible Rio de Janairo filter, he deduces that the girl on Chuuya's left has pink hair and about half a dozen fake piercings, and that the guy on Chuuya's right either messed up his own dye or was born really, really unlucky. They all look terribly young. Gummy grins deform their faces. Chuuya's smiling so wide he has a double chin. The caption reads: HAPPY NEW FUCKING YEAR @x___SHEEP___x !!!! IT'S FINALLY 2020 XD !!
Dazai tries looking deeper into it but the account is a dead-end; it's been deleted and if the lack of similar mentions in Chuuya's later posts is anything to go by, it has been for a while now. He swipes left on the post. A huge group of kids surround Chuuya and his "sheep". Some as young as thirteen, others older by a few years. All teenagers. All smiling. He swipes left again. It's a look at the other side of the camera.
A blonde man with a long, twisting ponytail. He's grinning like a chipper old grandma. Dazai feels his blood run cold.
He taps on the post once. No mentions. Which, no kidding. But Dazai'd recognise that grin anywhere.
He presses a hand to his throat and feels his own pulse thundering against his skin. He can't tell whether it's anger, fear, something else. In a way, though, it makes sense. Of course the Port Mafia followed him all the way down to America. Of course he couldn't shed it as easily as a snake sheds its old skin.
There it is, Dazai thinks, a tad wild, pushing the covers off his body, blood running hot and cold all at once—there it is, the moment the ball drops. Now he knows where to keep his guard up. Now he knows where the danger's coming from.
Dazai's fingers dial the number before he can register the urge in his mind. The buzz rings hollow in the dead of night; Odasaku, asleep in another room, hopefully does not hear.
Mori answers, as per custom, after four rings.
"What?" His voice is neutral but thick with sleep. If Dazai didn't have a good reason to call he'd probably get sent a hitman to his door.
"Chuuya Nakahara," he says.
"The boy you asked me about." A pause. "Something happened," Mori decides, "what is it?"
"He knows Verlaine."
It takes Mori a long time to speak again. "French little shit."
Dazai gasps out a breath. It sounds like a laugh though he's anything but amused. "You didn't know?"
"Not every French person is related to Paul Verlaine and Arthur Rimbaud, no," says Mori with a grunt. "I'll send Gin on the case. Keep your distance away from Nakahara. I mean it, Dazai. No lone-wolf action. You're not a comic antihero."
"I'd make a lame Superman," Dazai agrees. He remembers the lowering of the trigger, how easy it was to push. Bullets shooting out in mass, flesh tearing, blood spewed out like spit. "I'll question him tomorrow."
"No you won't."
Adorable. "I'd like to see you stop me."
"Shuji Tsushima," Mori snarls, voice striking like a whip, "this is an order from your boss."
Dazai shuts up, shaking like a wounded dog. He is no longer at the reach of Mori's hand but what does it matter, when he's just as vulnerable to his words, his command? He is one of the strongest people alive but strength's never mattered much to Mori. On all accounts Dazai could rip the arteries clean out of his throat; on all accounts he never will. Like the beaten-up dog who won't run when its chains are cut, Dazai lays on Odasaku's awful navy couch and waits. The beginning of a headache pulses at the back of his skull.
A minute and twenty second passes before Mori nudges him awake again. "The Black Lizards will be on the case. I'll send a message to the Guild, see if they can dig up anything on the kind of relationship that links your Chuuya Nakahara and Paul Verlaine. I will update you in nine to ten hours. In the meantime, Dazai, I forbid you from interrogating anybody. Do not take action. Am I clear?"
"Crystal," he rasps. His ego's burnt, the smoke clogs up his throat. It's painful to even speak. Before Mori can hang up, Dazai asks, "who do you think he is?"
"Nakahara?" A small grunt. "I'll admit I'm not sure. His records are clean. His family is in no way tied to the mafia—Japanese or otherwise. He wasn't homeschooled like you were either."
What a darling way to put it. Dazai isn't sure most homeschooled kids have to contend with all the needles and the phlebotomies and the shootings he had to deal with at thirteen.
He sighs, rubs a hand over his eyes. "I don't believe in coincidences."
"Neither do I." Mori adds something in a lower decibel. Out of reach from the phone: he must be reassuring Fukuzawa, telling him to go back to bed. No worries, honey. Just talking to that boy I adopted on a random Thursday evening so I could stick him with needles and see how he reacts. Yes, the suicidal one. Do you remember him? "Be on standby, Dazai. I'll contact you soon."
Dazai doesn't bother responding. The line dies with a sharp beep. He's alone again, curled up against shadows and one lone icy beam of mechanical light. The air he breathes doesn't turn into mist but Dazai just won't stop shivering.
His palm reaches up and squeezes the unbandaged skin of his throat. The pulse isn't settling. It's wild and skittish and trembling like earth trampled under a feral horse.
For hours he lays here, unmoving, unthinking. The night moves along but Dazai can't seem to follow. When the first few glimmers of dawn golden the sky out the window, he still feels like a waiting dog. The onset of birdsong tries to lull him to sleep. It's in vain. Dazai can't breathe. If he glanced behind him, or towards the corridor, or towards the kitchen, he'd see shadows moving, the dusty remains of every corpse he's had to butcher staring back.
The Port Mafia is like a fucking disease. Every time you think you've gotten rid of it, it mutates and reaches you again. Dazai's got it crawling under his bones, brushing around his spine. Sinking its bitter little teeth into his bloodstream. An infection with no cure; such is the nature of Dazai's true, undeniable soulmate.
He is bound. And Soul Ties cannot be severed.