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It’s like living a hyper realistic dream.
But that’s not exactly true. Because a place like the agency doesn’t exist even in Atsushi’s wildest dreams. Strange people, powerful people, but they’re kind. They care for him. Care where he goes and what he does and if he’s safe or not.
He’s never experienced this kind of thing before, being surrounded by people who don’t scorn or look down on him. It’s novel. Makes his chest light and fluttery.
But it also makes him cautious, because honestly how long can it last?
Which is why, the day Dazai corners him, lips tilted up head cocked to the side just enough to make his messy hair slip, and says, “We should date,” Atsushi utterly and totally panics.
He’s not sure he even gives Dazai a proper response, because his first instinct is just run. Maybe he stumbles over some kind of negative answer, or maybe he just spits an incoherent string of sounds. But most likely his eyes just go wide, and he bolts for the fucking door.
The run home is a blur. He doesn’t remember the city, the sidewalk, the people or stores he passed. When he comes to he’s curled up on the cold floor of his tiny kitchenette, shaking from head to toe and gasping on air that won’t come.
He recognizes a panic attack when he’s having one, but it’s so out of the blue. The last time he had one he was living on the streets and preparing for the fact that he was either going to starve to death, or the white tiger was finally going to catch him (the irony still doesn’t escape him after all this time, that he was always the beast). The last time he had had one, there was no one who cared about him.
It’s not the same now. Because there’s a whole building full of people who say, who act even, like they care about him, and it’s bizarre. He hadn’t known what to do with it then, and he certainly doesn’t know what to do with it now. With that awareness at the edge of his consciousness, steady and foreign while the rest of him falls to tiny fucking pieces.
Minutes, hours later, Atsushi can’t be sure which, somebody pounds on his front door. He recognizes the voices of Naomi and her brother but he can’t make out what they’re saying exactly, just knows their voices are loud and concerned and completely abrasive on his shot nerves. He doesn’t move from the kitchen, lays his palms against his ears and presses like if he uses enough strength he can block the world out in its entirety.
Mostly, it just gives him a ringing headache when he finally lets the pressure up, but at least his apartment is quiet again. Apart from the pounding of his own heart and his ragged breathing, but those are easy enough to listen past by this point.
What he’s really afraid of is when Dazai inevitably comes by.
Dazai.
Atsushi’s had crushes before, has liked people in the past, but nothing’s ever come of it. Because of his position in life, because of who he is. Fuck, he’s never really had anyone just care about him as an actual human (…ish) being before, and now he’s got an entire company doing just that. How the fuck is he supposed to react when suddenly, magically, his crush just decides to casually ask him out?
It’s unbelievable is what it is, and Atsushi had barely trusted the Agency to begin with, there’s no way in hell he can trust this. His life cannot get this good, it’s simply not possible. It goes against the laws of the universe or something. Gravity makes the apple fall, the moon pulls the tides, and Atsushi’s life has a threshold for happiness that is not to be crossed.
Eventually, Atsushi manages to pull himself off of the cool tiles of his kitchen. Outside, the sun is beginning to set bathing the world in honeyed light and he stands in that glow from the window over the sink, fingers pressing into the counter top for balance. His body feels shaky and light, like the barest breeze will bowl him over, but he’s also wrung out emotionally and that is far more taxing.
He could go into the bedroom and roll out the futon, get settled for the night, but it feels like too big of a task. Instead Atsushi collapses onto his couch in his tiny living area, and covers himself up with a spare throw blanket. His neck won’t thank him in the morning, the way he’s got his head propped up on the arm, but for now he’s comfortable enough.
It doesn’t mean he can sleep though, as exhausted as he is. The initial panic attack is over, but the fear is just this side of strong that he can’t actually slip into unconsciousness. So he sits and watches the shadows grow steadily larger as the sun disappears beneath the horizon, stretching blue-grey across his apartment in increments. They’ve just swallowed everything entirely, leaving behind nothing but the glare of street lamps, when the knock comes.
Had he been in the bedroom, Atsushi would have heard it. He would not, however, have heard the soft voice from the other side of the door.
“Atsushi?”
His breath hitches in his throat, stutters out of him in a flighty rush. He’d known Dazai would come by eventually, but that doesn’t make him any more prepared for it.
“Listen, Atsushi, I’m sorry.”
Closing his eyes, Atsushi pulls his blanket over his face and hopes he suffocates under the fabric.
Another knock, silence, then a small, humorless laugh.
“Guess I misread the situation, huh? I really thought I had it right this time too.”
There’s a thump that makes Atsushi think maybe Dazai is resting his forehead against the door, a defeated slump to his shoulders to match the defeated slump of his words.
“Don’t run away over this, that’s all I ask. I don’t…I don’t know why you’re upset, but just don’t run away, okay? Maybe I fucked up. Maybe I scared you. Maybe it has nothing to do with me at all. Just don’t go.”
It’s enough to get Atsushi to lower his blanket just a touch. He stares sightlessly at the far wall and listens.
“That’s all I really wanted to say, why I came by. But I doubt you can hear me anyways.”
Dazai falls silent and Atsushi cocks his head, trying to catch the sound of footsteps retreating on the concrete outside, but it never comes. All he hears is own breath, a little fast, a little heavy, and he can’t help but think of Dazai standing out there with his forehead pressed to the wood, breathing right along with Atsushi.
The way the living room is put together, couch pressed right beside the front door, Atsushi doesn’t even have to get up to let Dazai in. He just leans over the arm a little and flicks the lock open before settling back into his seat. Doesn’t say anything, doesn’t open the door, but that one action is enough.
The handle turns, and Dazai’s face appears in the little crack he’s made, eyes darting one way and then the other. It’s too dark in the apartment for him to see Atsushi right away, and he has to open the door further for the light from the hall to bleed in, but once it does his gaze falls on Atsushi with the inevitability of gravity.
Atsushi doesn’t bother trying to smile, or offer a greeting, just pulls his blanket tighter around himself as Dazai silently appraises him.
Finally, after a long, tremulous moment, Dazai steps inside and closes the door behind himself. He’s close, close enough to reach out and touch, but he doesn’t come sit beside Atsushi and he doesn’t move further away either, just leaning back against the door. He also doesn’t bother to ask if Atsushi heard him or not, because the answer to that is evident.
Without the hall light, it’s harder for them to read each other in the darkness. Maybe that’s why Dazai breaks and asks, “Why’d you run?”
Maybe it’s why Atsushi answers honestly. “I was scared.”
He can hear Dazai sigh, but he can’t see the expression he’s making, other than the fact that he closes his eyes for a brief moment like he’s trying to gather his strength. Then he crosses the living room and comes to sit on the couch next to Atsushi. Close, but not too close.
“I’m not good at this kind of thing,” he says, rubbing at the bridge of his nose. “But will you talk to me about it?”
Atsushi weighs his options, thinks about how he can answer that. On the one hand, he doesn’t ‘t really want to talk about it. On, the other…well, balance needs to be restored, doesn’t it? Something to ensure his life continues to stay below that happiness threshold. Talking about his feelings seems like a pretty sure fire way to do that.
After a long, quiet moment he manages to say, “I like you.” It’s soft, hesitant, but he pushes onwards. “I like you and apparently you like me and that can’t happen.”
Dazai cocks his head to the side, the faintest beam of light from the kitchen window falling over him. It captures just a few of his features, but it’s enough to light up eyes, for Atsushi to see the concern and the…the care in them. It makes Atsushi want to crawl into his lap and beg to be cuddled, but it also makes him want to curl away from Dazai, never touched.
“I’m not sure I understand.”
He wouldn’t. But Atsushi figures he can at least try to explain himself, his actions. Dazai deserves at least that much, and Atsushi himself deserves the discomfort it will bring.
“I’m not allowed to be happy.” It’s a bold statement, but Atsushi just drops his head on the back of the sofa and stares blearily at the ceiling. He’s so tired. “I’ve never been truly happy in my entire life. Depressed, miserable, hurt. I’ve been those things. Recently I’ve been content too, having…having everyone around. But I’ve never been truly happy, and I think it’s for a reason. So you can’t like me, and we can’t date, because it’d make me happy.”
There’s silence after that, long and drawn out. But it’s stressed now. Before it felt like there was something in the air, something waiting to be spoken or heard, but it was smooth, mellow. Now it feels like the calm before the storm, that building electricity, the pending outburst.
Suddenly, there are hands on Atsushi’s face. He startles at little, but not enough to pull out of Dazai’s firm grip as the other man gently forces them to eye to eye. Somehow he’s gotten impossibly closer, and his face is no longer shining from a stray beam of light. Even so, he’s close enough Atsushi can tell his irises from the darks of his eyes, and he can see the lines around his mouth when he frowns.
“You’re a fucking idiot,” Dazai says firmly.
Atsushi blinks at him in surprise, unsure how to respond to that.
“Do you really think the world is going to end, just because you’re happy now?”
Well, when put like that it does sound a little silly. “No,” Atsushi answers, perhaps a bit petulantly. “I just…it would mean bad things. Bad things would happen until I wasn’t happy anymore.”
“So you’d risk losing happiness rather than never getting to experience it in the first place.”
Atsushi closes his eyes, doesn’t want to listen to Dazai making sense anymore. He knows this is the best option, knows that he can’t possibly allow himself that glittering, flimsy hope.
“That makes you a coward, you know.” Despite his words, Dazai’s hands are still gentle on Atsushi’s face, holding him steady, warm and supportive.
“M’not a coward,” he murmurs.
“Prove it.”
He can’t. It’s a risk. Something will happen, something will happen and rip happiness from between Atsushi’s fingers, and he doesn’t know if he can go back to just content-ness after he’s experienced that sweet, beautiful elixir.
Doesn’t Dazai realize that? That he’s asking Atsushi to stand on the cliff’s edge with him, and pray that mother nature decides not to erode the very ground from beneath their feet, when all of Atsushi’s life mother nature has been dealing him blow after blow after blow?
He can’t.
He can’t.
He can.
He wants to, even. Sort of. Because he’s already tasted happiness now, hasn’t he, just feeling Dazai against him, just seeing those eyes in the darkness of his apartment? He’s already on the cliff edge whether he wants to be or not, and the only place is forward. Going back isn’t an option. How could it be? He can’t go back to secretive glances and quiet longing, not when he knows...when he knows Dazai cares about him too.
“You want to be with me?”
Atsushi doesn’t open his eyes, just waits with baited breath. The response isn’t immediate, but it’s not delayed either.
“Yes.”
They’re close. Close enough that Atsushi has no trouble leaning forward and finding Dazai’s lips with his own. It’s soft, sweet, chaste. A peck that Atsushi breaks fairly quickly when he backs away, eyes finally fluttering open again.
Dazai is staring at him, slightly amazed, slightly amused.
“I can’t believe calling you a coward actually worked. I thought you were going to kick me out,” he says, all gravitas dropped.
Atsushi seriously considers kicking him out anyways, the asshole. The moment is completely ruined. He settles on putting his palm against Dazai’s face and pushing the man away. “Go home,” he says imperiously, and then adds on, “unless you plan on staying the night. In which case go put out my futon. I’m tired and you owe me.”
“I owe you?” Dazai splutters. “If anything, you owe me! I tracked you down and everything!”
He gets up and goes to fix the futon anyways, and when he comes back he swings Atsushi’s slim form into his arms bridal style, despite Atsushi’s indignant screech. “Put me down!” he orders, pushing at Dazai’s shoulder ineffectively.
“Nope!” Dazai replies happily. “You’re the one acting like a princess, so I’m going to treat you like one.”
“I cannot believe-“ Atsushi begins to fume, but then is immediately dropped onto his futon, and his comforter is dropped over his head.
“Dick,” he says, and Dazai laughs as he slips under the covers with him.