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In the Mafia, nothing came as unexpected. Anything could and did happen.
That said, Dazai never expected to be invited to a birthday party.
He ran into Oda outside of the base on a Tuesday afternoon. Chuuya was out of town on a solo mission, which meant Dazai had more time than he knew what to do with. Youngest executive in mafia history or not, every organization and every person in one had their moments of complete and utter boredom.
Ango had disappeared (again) to go undercover for some group. Dazai never bothered Mori, because Mori disgusted him. Akutagawa’s training wasn’t coming along as well as he’d hoped and if he was being completely honest, Akutagawa kind of pissed him off most days with his attitude.
Oda walking back to base was a gift.
Dazai practically skipped towards him, grinning wide. “Odasakuuuu! Coming back from a mission? Want to get a drink?”
Oda gave him a small smile and nudged the bag in his arms. “I’m actually heading out. Just dropping off a few things.”
“Out? Without me?” Dazai cocked his head. “What’s in the bag? That doesn’t look like groceries?”
“It’s not.” Oda kept walking, and Dazai followed. They ended up in Oda’s quarters.
Dazai always wondered why Oda’s quarters felt more lived-in than anyone else’s that he’d been to. Oda didn’t have personal effects or pictures of family, but there were notebooks and novels resting on almost every available surface, and on the wall facing the door hung a photograph of the ocean.
Oda set the bag on the kitchen counter and disappeared into his room. He returned a few seconds later with something that made Dazai’s eyes go wide.
A present.
Dazai smiled, even though something caught in his throat. Of course, he knew about Oda’s orphans. Not many people did, but he and Ango were aware. Oda had come to the bar one night with permanent marker on his face in a heart-shape that he couldn’t wipe off.
It was admirable. Almost everyone in the Mafia had been an orphan at some point. The lives of Ability users were hardly easy, and the Mafia seemed to specialize in picking up those who’d been given least to work with but with the most potential. It beat the hope out of them while wringing out every drop of usefulness it could, then tossing them aside like rags if they ever went dry.
The Mafia wasn’t some kind of home for lost children. It was a factory for killers in order to keep control of the city. Them taking Dazai in hadn’t been a kindness.
As far as Dazai knew, Oda wasn’t an orphan like him and Chuuya. Oda knew what family meant, and he wanted to give others the same feeling of having a family. Dazai admired him, even if he couldn’t quite comprehend it. The word family simply didn’t mean anything to him.
The present was just another symbol of ‘family,’ one that Dazai had never received. Oda placed the present on the counter, stared at the large brown bag, and then sighed. “Do you want to come with me?”
The invitation stunned Dazai even more than the present. Those children were personal, and personal and the Mafia didn’t mix. Showing them to a Mafia executive…
Oda looked at him and Dazai looked back.
“Of course!”
Oda shoved the present in his arms. “You can take that.”
“Did you invite me just so I could help you carry stuff?” Dazai teased.
“Yes,” Oda said, completely serious.
But the corners of his mouth twitched.
*
Dazai could hear them before he saw them.
Children were another thing he didn’t have much experience with. He and Chuuya knew each other as children, but they were already training by the time they were thrown together. They’d both been asked to watch Q more than once, but when that turned into a disaster and Q was locked up, they stopped seeing other people their age. And Q couldn’t exactly be called a normal child.
Dazai heard yelling and laughter and shrieks. Oda nodded to the man at the counter and headed up the stairs. Dazai trailed behind, unsure. This was a rarity for him.
Oda opened the door to the upstairs floor and a small body barrelled into him, knocking him back into Dazai.
Dazai almost dropped the present, but he managed to keep it in his arms and keep both him and Oda upright. Several children surrounded them, screeching Oda’s name.
One of them, a girl holding a plush bear half her size, moved back and stared at Dazai, and then asked, “Who’s he?”
This caught the attention of the other children, who moved back to allow them in. Dazai offered the children a charming smile, but they didn’t seem charmed. They just stared at him.
“This is my friend, Dazai,” Oda explained. “Now, as I understand it, someone has a birthday today, right? Someone turns ten years old.”
“Me!” One of the children, a boy in blue, jumped up. His brown hair was pushed back by a blue headband, and when he smiled, Dazai noticed one of his teeth missing.
Oda nodded to Dazai, who held out the present. “Happy Birthday, uhh--”
“Katsumi,” Oda supplied. “And that’s from me, actually. Dazai just agreed to hold it, but don’t let him pass off any of this as his idea.”
“Rude.” Dazai stuck out his tongue. Katsumi took the package and went into one of the rooms. The rest followed, and Dazai was the last inside. It was a children’s bedroom full of bunkbeds. They must have all slept in the same place.
The children sat in the center of the room, in a circle. All of them stared at the package in Katsumi’s hands. Oda sat in the circle as well and motioned for Dazai to follow.
As soon as Dazai sat, Katsumi started to tear at the paper.
“Did you even say thank you?” the girl asked.
Katsumi’s cheeks turned red. “Thank you,” he muttered, and finished tearing off the paper. He pulled the lid off the box and his eyes went wide. The other children leaned in, gasping.
Almost reverently, Katsumi lifted a baseball and baseball glove out of the box. He slipped his small hand into the glove, flexing it. He looked like he might cry.
Dazai’s eyes burned. Katsumi dropped the glove and the ball back in the box and launched himself forward, wrapping his arms around Oda.
“Thank you!” he cried.
Oda laughed and ruffled Katsumi’s hair. “Have fun, Katsumi!”
“You know what this means, right?” One of the other boys, with spiky black hair, grinned at the others.
At the same time, the rest of the children shouted, “Cuddle pile!”
They rushed forward and tackled Oda to the ground. Oda shouted, “oh, I’m down! I’m down! Somebody save me!”
Dazai stared. They were tickling him, and Oda was tickling back. They laughed, and the laughter rang in Dazai’s ears. They all looked so happy. He thought he’d seen Oda happy before, but he realized now that he hadn’t really. This was true joy from Oda.
Then Oda met his eyes, and extracted an arm from Katsumi’s grip. “Save me, Dazai! You’re my only hope!”
The children all turned in unison towards Dazai.
Dazai did the only thing he could: he squared his shoulders and declared, “Don’t worry, Odasaku. You can rely on me.”
For a moment, the children stared at Dazai and Dazai stared back.
Then he lunged.
*
The tickle-fight ended in a draw, though Dazai didn’t like admitting defeat. But the ringleader, Kosuke, managed to tie Dazai’s wrists together with his own bandages, and if that wasn’t an inspired move Dazai didn’t know what was. Kosuke bragged, “I took down a Mafia leader!” and Dazai would have had something to say about it had he not still been struggling to undo the knots.
Oda pulled out snacks and drinks from the brown bag he’d been carrying, candles, and one small box. He opened it, revealing a small cake.
Dazai smiled.
“No birthday is complete without a cake,” Oda said.
“I’ve never had a birthday cake,” the girl said, staring in wonder as Oda placed several candles on top.
“I had one once,” Kosuke said, “but it was made of carrots and I didn’t like it.”
“You can’t make cakes with carrots,” the youngest boy, clutching a book to his chest, muttered.
“You can make a cake out of anything!” Another boy with close shaven hair declared.
“What kind of cake is it?” Katsumi asked.
“Chocolate,” Oda said. “Everyone gets one slice, and if there’s any left over, we’ll save it for tomorrow, okay? Otherwise you’ll be jumping around all night. Got it?”
“Yes,” the children said, without much enthusiasm.
Oda lit the candles. “Have any of you ever sang Happy Birthday?” The girl clapped her hands together. “Sakura?”
Sakura nodded. “One time I went to a school and someone had a birthday so we, so we, um, sang when he got cake.”
“Let’s sing Happy Birthday to Katsumi,” Oda said, smiling.
As they sang, Dazai pretended to know the words. He had never sang for anyone’s birthday that he could remember. Celebrating another year of life seemed so odd to him, but these children were young and they were happy. They were looking forward to getting older.
Oda gave them things to look forward to.
They finished singing, and Oda distributed the cake and napkins. A few of the kids got chocolate on their faces, but no one seemed to mind. Dazai took a large bite of cake and smiled at how good it tasted.
“Did you make this, Odasaku?” he asked, nudging Oda in the rips.
“Hell no,” Oda muttered. “I can barely make rice.”
Dazai laughed. “I almost thought your Ability was baking!”
Oda smiled. “Sadly, not. I’m sure you’d never leave me alone if it was, though.”
Kosuke and Sakura crept over to beg for more cake, and Oda sternly told them no. Dazai was glad that Oda was there, because had he been alone, he didn’t think that he could refuse those wide eyes.
Somehow, Oda stayed strong and hid the cake. Then he roped Dazai into cleaning up.
Katsumi clung to Oda’s coat as he hugged each child goodbye, and Dazai promised to teach them some cool things to do with bandages when they saw each other again. Oda agreed to come back the next day, and when they left all of them were smiling.
The sun was setting by the time they got outside. Oda turned to Dazai. “Thank you for coming. They liked you.”
“Did they?” Dazai rubbed his wrists, still sore from being tied together. “I think I’m their number one enemy now that I’ve rescued you.”
Oda laughed. “Maybe, but they won’t go into a tickle war with just anyone, you know.” His smile turned fond. “I thought I might be too busy to come out on Katsumi’s actual birthday, but I got lucky.”
“You really love those kids,” Dazai said.
“More than anything,” Oda said. “I want them to have a good life.”
Dazai nodded. “Thank you.”
Surprise flitted across Oda’s face. “For what?”
“For taking me with you,” Dazai said. “For letting me be part of this.” Oda looked stunned, and unsure of what to say, so after a moment Dazai added, slapping him on the back, “and for the amazing cake! You should buy me one every week!”
“Sorry,” Oda said, starting to walk away. “I don’t buy cakes for people who use bandages so liberally.”
Dazai stared after him, mouth hanging open. Then he chased after Oda, shouting, “Did you get that from Chuuya or something? Odasakuuu?!”
Oda ignored him and his whining all the way back to base.