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A slim finger tapped a rhythm on the rim of shot glass, creating ripples on the alcohol pooling around a spherical ice. Soft jazz was playing in the background, low and soothing, filling the comfortable silence. On the stool beside him, Odasaku was nursing his own drink, a silent, sturdy presence like an anchor through the night.
Dazai smiled and lifted the glass to his lips. The whiskey is watered down by the melting ice but that’s fine, that just meant more time spent sober by the man he held dear. For now, he can pretend that nothing existed outside this boundary of quiet between them, the golden glow of Lupin and the chilled glass in his hand.
There was him in a fondly regarded place and Odasaku by his side. Surprisingly, Dazai felt that that’s enough.
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Kintsukuroi
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On a dark room on the second floor of an apartment building, light is reflecting on the river rushing by just beyond a lathe window that took up one wall. The room feels aquatic, with Dazai admiring the pattern of water that plays among the shadow.
There’s a layer of dust on what spare furniture there is in the six-tatami room. There’s dust on the folded black shirts and gray pants by the door to the bathroom, dust opn the spread futon, dust on the pile of books. He sits on the mats with eyes looking out into the river, mindful of the books scattered around the room.
The table in front of Dazai’s kneeling form was yje only thing spotless. On top of it was a bowl of of ashes, a picture frame and manuscripts held together with flimsy paperclips.
Aki Fukaki
Sesou
Meoto Zenzai
Dazai closes his eyes so, as if doing so would stop the titles from burning themselves into his retina. When he breathes in, he’s inhaling incense.
The room seemed to be untouched by time, even five years after the last time it has been properly taken care of by its rightful owner. Now, it only serves a purpose for one day in each year and Dazai didn’t move to try and brush dust off the piles of books like he did last year. He simply sits there on the pillow and waits.
Lock disengages and the door to the apartment opens; its sound bouncing off the walls stained by water and ink. The door closes and footsteps draw nearer as the newcomer pads into the room, shoes left by the genkan.
“Welcome,” Dazai greets when the man stops behind him, his figure reflected on the glass of the window, black figure on black background on black night sky.
There was no answer. Dazai glances to the man over his shoulder and feels the familiar curl of a smile tugging at his lips, looking up at the other man from beneath his eyelashes.
Red hair, blue eyes, bright in the darkness of the room.
Chuuya blinks when their eyes met and look away, gaze catching on the picture frame on the table. He moves to sit in seiza on Dazai’s side, pulling out a stick of incense from a plastic bag stack and lighting it up.
Clap, clap, palms meeting and blue eyes close solemnly. Dazai averts his gaze and rose from his sitting position, taking off the bolo tie that seemed to choke him today. His bare feet hits the rough mats, brown and rough from its time neglected.
He sits down on the spread futon, a wave of dust following the action, watching as Chuuya opens his eyes and takes off his gloves without a glance at him. The black coat that hung on his lithe frame like crow’s wings slid down to pool around him with a flick of bare wrist, a shadow ready to devour.
Blue eyes find his, sharp and tempered like finely made blade. In the face of it, somehow Dazai can once again force a smile on his face.
There was someone that Chuuya loved. It’s clear in his eyes, in the way he speaks, in the way he sometimes would look into the distance with a grim look on his face back when they were still partners. Now Dazai no longer knows if the person that Chuuya loved is finally in his grasp or gone, gone just like the one he himself held dear.
(There was once someone that Dazai lov--)
Sometimes Dazai wondered how Chuuya could be riled up so easily. Back when they were still inseparable, it only took one word placed right, one unsavory truth revealed at the right time, and it was firecracker and flame and blazing blue eyes. That’s why it was so, so easy to lure Chuuya into the trap he made, into getting Chuuya angry enough to slam him into a bed and take up the challenge.
Red hair and blue eyes and calloused hands. In the darkness of his room, he can pretend that the figure looming over him was someone else, that the roughness of the kiss was borne of his own request rather than anger from the other.
Chuuya, all fire and proud glory, don’t belong in this room. But his hair caught what sparse light there is and his eyes were so, so bright in their intensity and it was perfect. It should have been perfect.
There was someone that Chuuya loved, that much Dazai knew to be true. For a moment he wondered whose face is it that Chuuya painted over his, whose moans he wished he could hear rather than Dazai’s voice.
There was one person that Dazai has ever loved, a man with red hair and blue eyes and calloused hand so gentle and staunch idealism and a kind heart and—
—and Dazai can’t bring himself to drag him through the darkness just so he can keep the man by his side. Instead, he’d take another person who was already there, one he cannot sully by his filth because that person is dripping as much sin as he is.
The whisper of Odasaku’s name slipped his lips carelessly, too deep in desperate phantasm to realize, with his eyes screwed shut and body bowed like fine instrument. Chuuya’s hand stopped for a moment, pressed against his belly to feel himself moving inside of him, but soon he returned to moving again, harder than before, punishing.
The illusion shattered just like that with the loss of tentative care in Chuuya’s movement and for that Dazai hated him more, more, the flame of arousal twining with hatred low in his abdomen. He bit and was bitten back, he fought and was beaten down and it was no longer a mirage.
Afterward, they didn’t speak, cleaning themselves up and returning home, the fire of anger long since burnt out in Chuuya after he took it out so thoroughly into Dazai’s body. Bite mark flowers bloomed like ivy on his neck and shoulder, their stem red marks of nails down his back, their leaves startlingly deep purple bruises; Dazai thought it was grotesquely beautiful.
As the flower of debauchery still bloomed on him he visited Lupin again and found Oda drinking by himself. Those eyes caught the way he limped, just once after reaching the bottom of the stairs, but that one mistake placed a frown of concern on Odasaku’s face.
“Are you alright?” he asked as Dazai made a beeline to the stool beside him, his usual drink already served on the counter.
“Of course I’m good as ever, Odasaku!” he chided, following the statement with a chuckle. “Honestly, you worry too much.”
Odasaku made a conceding noise and returned his attention to his drink. “You didn’t have to come if you’re hurt.”
“I want to be here so here I am.” Dazai mockingly pouted, eyes still glinting mischievously. “But seriously, where would I be without you to worry about me, hmm?” Dazai inquired, shoulder-bumping Oda playfully. The older man seemed to mull over the question for a moment before frankly answering,
“Dead.”
Dazai threw his head back and laughed.
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Dazai remembers how it felt to be friendless and lonely. Now that he had people he can confidently call his friends, he was less so. Oda’s full acceptance and trust was his, so was Ango’s exasperated fondness and tired, vulnerable little smiles. Dazai wondered if the two of them noticed hos his own guard was lowered when he’s with them in this space that belonged to no one else.
But most of all Odasaku was there, and he was special. He would never name his feeling nor speak them out loud because then he knew that he’ll sully the one good thing in his life. So he kept his mouth shut and smiled and laughed and loved in silence and it was an easy thing to do when Odasaku’s lips were tugged into a rare little smile that Dazai hoarded like treasure.
Five months later he was friendless and lonely once again, and this time he was grieving and broken-hearted, placing a lonely bucket of flowers on a single headstone with no offering other than his, a single incense climbing the wind.
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Red hair, blue eyes, a calloused hand caressing his bare chest and sliding down to his belly, slow and sensual despite the rough texture. Dazai made a small noise in the back of his throat, a silent request for more. He’s answered when the hand slid even lower and encircles him, tight and warm.
There is a wet noise of fingers pulled back from his wet entrance, dripping scentless oil on the cheap futon sheet. It’s replaced by something else, larger and warm and slick, sliding into him slowly and tearing choked-off noises from his lungs.
“Odasaku…” Dazai whispers into the sheet at the first deep stroke inside of him, and the other man doesn't hesitate like he did the first time, don’t falter as his hand finds Dazai’s bound wrist and grips tight as he moves and moves and—
His cries are swallowed by a kiss, devouring the noises. Another hand found his hips, pressing what would be red flowers into the skin. It’s not enough, he needs more than this but the cock inside of him didn’t even try to find his prostate and the hand around him is cinching faster and faster, blocking him in.
Dazai throws his head back and moaned shakily, hands gripping the offered one. There’s a grunt of pain when his grip tightens too much but Dazai’s too far gone with the feel of a strong hand making bruises on his hip.
The room is filled with quiet noises from both of them, panting breaths and low grunts. The air is thick with the vestiges of smoke and of sweat, autumn’s cool breeze sliding over their skin like mercury over stone from the open window.
He came with a strangled cry, blind and now deaf to anything that wasn’t the rush of his own blood. He can feel more than hear a chuckle coming out of his partner, the huff of their breath rolling on the skin of his collarbone.
Dazai loves this, the heat and closeness and how his heart pounds in his ribcages. Too close, too vulnerable, he’d die so easily crushed under this man who was far stronger than he can be. And despite all of that, despite the adrenaline in his veins and the scream in his guts to fight or flee, Dazai loves this enough to ignore both. .
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When Dazai returned to consciousness it was to be greeted by darkness. Blinking doesn’t make it go away and for a moment he wonders if he has become blind; if maybe he’ll be happier that way. When he reaches up, it was to unwind the strip of cloth that served as a makeshift blindfold.
He opens his eyes to the eight-tatami room and sees the streetlight and reflected moonlight casting a pale glow on Chuuya’s bare back, sitting with his back to Dazai and looking out the window. The incense has burned out.
The early autumn breeze catches on stray strands of red hair, glinting silver in the light from the open window. Chuuya exhales something low and long and smoke swirls around him.
Dazai reaches out and hooks a finger through Chuuya’s belt loop, catching the other man’s attention.
“You’re awake.” He grunts around the butt of cigarette, scarred and calloused hand elegantly holding the stick to his mouth.
“Am I?”
Chuuya glanced back at him with a raised eyebrow before seemingly deciding it’s not worth pursuing the train of conversation, instead casting his gaze forward once again, looking at the plain white wall stained with water and ink.
“Why are you here, Chuuya?” Dazai murmurs as if the words were not meant for anyone else’s ears other than his own.
“You called me, idiot,” Chuuya grumbles, flicking the cigarette butt to the full ashtray by his side on the tatami floor. “You hit your head too hard?”
“You could have refused, but you came.” Dazai’s gaze was focused on the large, scarred expanse of Chuuya’s back, to the red flower stems borne of his own nails. “You came here, why?”
And then those blue eyes finds Dazai’s and Dazai found his words stuck behind his teeth, too solid to even flow through the gaps of them. Those eyes didn’t skitter away or try to hide when Chuuya answered, “I want to be here so here I am. Don’t think I only follow your whims around, bastard.”
I want to be here so here I am
A lopsided smile tugs on Dazai’s lips and he let go of Chuuya’s belt loop. The other man grunts, reaching out to his pack and draw out another cigarette. Dazai sat up, dragging up the blanket with him to cover his body as he crawled over to sit beside Chuuya.
Dazai taps his elbow lightly and without even looking his way Chuuya just offers him the unlit cigarette. A flick of lighter and twin columns of smoke swirled around the room, dissipating in the breeze.
The light is catching, on the angular shape of the picture frame in front of him, casting a glare over the glass that obscures all but a little smile on lips unused to it, captured in a photograph and made eternal.
The light is catching, on the tanned skin of Chuuya’s shoulder, over the silver of his scars. His eyes are closed as the wind plays with his hair.
A finger tapping on the body of the cigarette, raining ashes on stained sheets pooling around his naked body. The river rushed outside, a low melancholic background noise filling the comfortable silence. Chuuya was sitting on the tatami mat by him, a silent, sturdy presence through the night.
There was him, a fondly regarded place and Chuuya and surprisingly Dazai felt that that’s enough
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