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When Dazai opens his eyes the first thing he sees is the sky, its colors in an infinite watercolor of blue, lilac and yellow. Beautiful, he thinks, before hearing the unmistakable sound of the sea. He sits down and observes the infinite feeling that this painting of nature causes him.
Dazai feels that he spends hours watching the blue horizon that is the sea, at the same time he feels that time has never really moved. It’s a strange feeling, as if he’s stuck inside a dream too peaceful to even think of waking up.
“What are you looking at?”
A voice sounded at his side, and when Dazai looked, his sight was impregnated by the finest pair of eyes he had ever seen, it was like looking at a vibrant sunset. Atsushi-kun is always so beautiful, he thinks and then feels like there’s something wrong with that thought.
“Atsushi-kun?” Dazai asks, as if he was not sure that the man next to him should be there, he was not even sure how he himself had stopped there. The last thing I remember…
“You’ve been staring at the sea for so long, Osamu-san. I’m almost jealous.” Atsushi says, a soft, loving look painted in his eyes as he takes one of his hands up to Dazai’s face, taking a lock of his hair behind his ear, then caressing his cheek gently.
Dazai soon forgets what he was trying to remember while laughing at Atsushi’s speech. “Sorry Atsushi-kun, but you don’t have to be jealous.”
“I don’t have?” Atsushi grins maliciously, provoking Dazai and the brunette thinks of how the boy was never the type to openly provoke him, always respecting some invisible line between mentor and subordinate.
It’s a good change. Dazai thinks.
“No. Never. You’re too beaultiful for me to be able to look away.” Dazai smiles gallant as he grabs the hand that once caressed his cheek, kissing Atsushi’s knuckles with a provocative look.
“Hmm, always so charming.” Atsushi smiles again, teasing Dazai. The boy laughs when he sees that Osamu’s smile widens, as if he receives a great compliment.
“Only with you Atsushi-kun, only with you.”
“I hope, we’re married after all.” Atsushi says, a gorgeous smile gracing his delicate face.
This information picks up Dazai by surprise. He? Married? It’s not something that Dazai ever thought might be possible for him, not when he had given up so long ago to be human, to live.
“We are?” He asks suddenly, too surprised by the information to think about how he shouldn’t ask this when it can end up hurting Atsushi’s feelings.
But the boy doesn’t seem hurt by the unkind question, in fact his smile becomes softer, almost nostalgic.
“Yes, we are.” His voice is bound with love, Dazai realizes and it warms something inside him that he always thought was dead.
“Who proposed?” Dazai asks, curious to know things he should already know, that he feels he knows, but simply can’t remember.
“You. And let me tell you it was such a request.” Atsushi laughed humorously, as if the memory was too funny even after years together.
Years. Dazai thinks suddenly. We’ve been married for years. But for some strange reason, Osamu can not, through his life, remember those years.
“I’m sure it was, but you still married me, didn’t you?” Dazai asks, wanting to provoke him by accepting his eccentric request.
But Atsushi simply smiles, looking at him as if, even with all the hints of Dazai, he would always agree to marry him, as if he could never deny any request for Dazai.
I was so lucky. It’s what Dazai thinks as he returns Atsushi’s smile, feeling that even if he reincarnated a thousand times he still would not deserve the love of Atsushi.
(“How is he?” A slightly irritable male voice asks.
“He’s stable now, but we need him to wake up before doing any more tests.” The voice this time is female, hoarse with weariness.
“What if… What if he doesn’t wake up?” A voice from a younger woman this time is heard.
It goes unanswered.)
“We’ve been married for how many years, Atsushi-kun?” Dazai suddenly asks, as they walk side by side along the beach.
“Five years.” Atsushi responds. “Yosano-san says it looks like we’re never out of the honeymoon phase.”
Dazai chuckled, finding it hilarious that Yosano would be the one to comment on it, it seemed more something that Kunikida would say.
“Kunikida-kun should pester me to do my work then.” Dazai says. “After all, with my husband so close to me, it must be difficult to concentrate.”
Atsushi laughs at Osamu’s brazen flirtation and, with a smile on his face, kisses Dazai’s cheek. “You never do your job, Osamu-san, being my fault or not.”
Dazai acts dramatically, placing his hand on his chest and pouting in front of Atsushi’s audacious comment. He listens to the younger laugh and even wanting to continue with his silly acting, he ends up not resisting and laughing next to Atsushi.
Atsushi’s laughter was always contagious and a balm to the wounded soul of Dazai.
“So Dazai Atsushi or Nakajima Osamu?” Dazai asks after the two of them stop laughing. For a moment Osamu savored the name of Atsushi accompanied by his last name and this brings a warmth and a feeling of possessiveness that he rarely felt in his life.
Atsushi smiles at the question. “Dazai Atsushi.”
Suddenly Dazai stops on his walk and faces Atsushi. The younger’s eyes are glowing with something that Dazai still needs to decipher, but soon, all he can focus on is the dazzling sensation of Atsushi’s lips.
The kiss is slow, but not soft. Dazai kisses Atsushi with a newly discovered fervor, but with a passion that has always been inside of him when always looking at the boy with eyes of color of sunset.
(“Today is my wedding.” A blonde man says. “As irritating as you are, I wish you were there.”
He received no reply, but he was not really expecting one.
“Maybe…” The blonde doesn’t continue his sentence and leaves.)
The sun is only seconds away from fading completely into the horizon when Dazai seeks the answer to one of his insecurities.
“Am I good enough?”
Am I good enough to love you? To protect you? It’s what Dazai thinks, as he turns his gaze to the sky, where bright spots are already beginning to paint the sky.
“I don’t know, does it matter?” Atsushi asks back. For some reason, the vague response of the other leaves Dazai angry.
“Of course it does!” Osamu turned to Atsushi, holding his shoulders as if he wanted the boy to record those words on his body. “Your happiness is the only thing that matters to me, it’s the only thing that keeps me here!”
And then Dazai freezes, as if he only now realizes the weight his words carry. Atsushi doesn’t say anything, but the smile on his lips is so sad that, for a moment, Dazai thinks the other will cry.
But who is crying is not Atsushi, it’s me. Dazai realizes even more surprised.
Atsushi doesn’t seem surprised by Dazai’s tears, as if it were not something rare for the older man to do. He simply wipes away the tears from Dazai’s well-sculpted face, the gentle touches on his face.
The smile is still there.
“Oh, Osamu, I love you, that’s enough.”
And Dazai, still surprised, simply nods and accepts Atsushi’s chaste kiss on his lips.
(“Will he ever wake up?” A young woman’s voice asks.
“We hope so.” The other woman, much older, responds.
“Maybe it’s better if he doesn’t.” The youngest responds, lovingly depositing an old plush rabbit on the hospital bed, near the feet of the unconscious man. “I don’t think he’d like to wake up to such a world.”)
Dazai and Atsushi walk towards the same starting point. They sit on the sand and Dazai observes the dazzling figure of Atsushi in the moonlight.
His hands are intertwined and Dazai makes small caresses between the knuckles of the younger. He never felt so at peace, so content.
And that’s why…
“This is a dream, isn’t it Atsushi-kun?”
Atsushi looks at him with the same sad smile as before, as if now it was impossible for him to smile otherwise.
Does this smile mean that I’m hurting you Atsushi-kun? Dazai thinks vaguely.
“Yes, this is a dream.” After a long silence Atsushi responds. “But you can choose to wake up or not.”
It’s an intriguing answer and Dazai wonders if that dream actually means he’s dead, but if he has a choice…
“Well, this is an incredible dream.” That’s what Dazai can say, as if he wanted to delay his answer for another moment.
Atsushi laughs and once again caresses his cheeks. This time his smile is the favorite smile of Dazai, the one that man receives whenever Atsushi seems to fall even more in love with him.
I’m really lucky.
“But you’ll be there when I wake up, so it’s not going to be much different from that, is it?” Dazai smiled broadly at the thought of being so close to Atsushi, of kissing him and holding his hand, of also being married to him out of that dream.
And then Atsushi kisses him. First on each of his cheeks, on the tip of his nose and then one on his forehead. The last, not surprisingly, is on his lips. Dazai closes his eyes to enjoy the feeling.
For some reason, this sounds like a goodbye.
When Dazai opens his eyes is to the sight of a white ceiling.
The world for a moment is just a loud, blinding hum and then he hears nurses surrounding him, helping him to sit and poking in various places.
A doctor appears and takes him to several different rooms where he does the most different types of exams. Until the end of all the ordeal Dazai feels exhausted.
And then the afternoon arrives and Kunikida visits him. The first thing Dazai notices is the wedding ring on the blonde’s finger and then, when he is about to congratulate and mock the other man, he realizes that Doppo finds himself different, older.
For a long moment, the silence seems to freeze the room.
“For how long?” It’s the only thing Dazai can force himself to ask.
“Five years.” Kunikida answers him as he sits down in the chair next to the hospital bed. “Do you remember anything?”
“No.” Dazai responds directly, not missing the coincidence in his dream with the reality or the way Kunikida shifts in the chair to know the lack of memory of Dazai.
“Where is Atsushi?” The urgency in his question is not lost by Kunikida who, strangely, turns his gaze to the wall.
“Where is him, Kunikida-kun?” Dazai asks again, feeling his chest ache with the bad feeling that corrodes his chest.
“I’m sorry.” Kunikida says, softly, his voice only a hoarse, helpless whisper, but that reverberates like the cry of a banshee in Dazai’s ears.
“Why do you feel sorry?” Dazai tries to laugh, but he chokes, turning the laughter into a sob. That’s when he realizes he’s crying.
“You were the only one who survived, Dazai.”
Osamu doesn’t really need the details about what he survived to understand the implications of what that meant.
You said you’d be here when I woke up, Atsushi-kun. Dazai thinks, but then he remembers the beach and the kisses on his face and the last kiss on his lips. Oh, but you didn’t, did you? In fact, you never answered me.
For some reason, this realization hurts more than the news that he woke up to a world without Atsushi there to kiss his cheeks and say that he loves him.
I should never have woken up from that lilac dream.