Work Text:
“Hey.”
Dazai doesn’t glance up - he’s content right where he is, staring at the small river stream flowing by. A moment passes, and the figure next to him sits down as well, and nudges his shoulder. Dazai doesn’t bother suppressing a sigh.
Here we go again.
Every boy in the orphanage can, generally, be put into one of two categories: the boys who bully Dazai because he’s weird, and the boys who avoid Dazai because he’s weird. Dazai didn’t exactly pick or want to be that, but, alas, he’s different, and different in kid-speak is basically a synonym for freak. Most of the boys don’t even understand why Dazai’d been branded that way: all they know is that he used to be in the girls’ building across the fence, but recently got moved here - they’re either too young or too dumb to put two and two together, and end up mostly being mad at the fact Dazai has his own bedroom while they have to share.
Glancing to the side, though, Dazai is met with a whole new category on its own: Chuuya Nakahara.
He’s been around for as long as Dazai can remember - he’d often seen him playing on the very fence that separates the two orphanage buildings, climbing it or jumping it for fun only to be yelled at by the teachers later. With his bright hair and larger-than-life attitude, Chuuya sticks out in Dazai’s memory like the only spot of color in an otherwise empty coloring book.
Since he’s been around for virtually forever, he’s been there for Dazai’s relocation, and therefore should understand that Dazai is not someone to be around. Branded by their little ecosystem as an outcast, he’s bad news. You don’t talk to him if you want to be left alone by the more vicious older boys. And yet, knowing all that, ever since Dazai got moved, Chuuya’s been doing this thing that he’s doing now - coming up to Dazai and sitting with him, or talking at him, or with him, even. Or trying to, at the very least.
See, Chuuya seems nice, so Dazai's only doing a good thing by trying to spare him the public humiliation. So, Dazai tried to ignore him - it didn’t work. He tried insulting him - while Chuuya bristled and got angry, he still stuck around. He tried hiding from him, but, well, that didn’t end too well - he stumbled on a place that the older boys use to hook up, and got out of that with a bruised rib.
“What do you want?” Dazai finally asks, eyeing Chuuya out of the corner of his eye.
Dazai’s watched him through that fence for years, so, really, he should be used to what the other boy looks like. Yet, the sight of him up-close is something new and exciting, twisting his stomach in ways Dazai doesn’t really understand nor wants to understand.
They’re fifteen now, and while they’re not exactly grown up, Chuuya’s beginning to shape up into adulthood. Dazai can see that in the way his jawline is sharper, the acne on his cheeks fading away, the few hairs on his face here and there that he must’ve missed when shaving. His face no longer has that baby fat it used to, and his figure is leaner, too. He even started to grow out his hair, now curling wildly around his nape in the June heat.
God, he’s hot, Dazai thinks, before immediately pivoting into a line of shut up shut up it’s not the time he's right here-
Something tugs his hand - Dazai’s too flustered to try and protest, so he lets Chuuya grab his wrist, before immediately trying to get away as his body recognizes that someone’s about to twist his hand and probably pin him to something and knee him in the stomach, or break his wrist, and, God, that hurts like hell.
“Hey, calm the fuck down,” Chuuya hisses - he keeps his grip on Dazai’s wrist, though it lessens considerably.
“What do you want?” Dazai says again, harsher. He’s come here to be alone - just for once, he’s really not in the mood to be made fun of or hurt. He deserves that this one day of the year.
“Just relax.”
Instead of a flare of pain, Dazai feels something wrap around his wrist. Chuuya caresses his hand briefly, his thumb brushing against his knuckles before letting it go. Face heating up - he has feelings about Chuuya's skin against his own - Dazai risks a glance.
There’s a blue bracelet wrapped around his wrist. A series of small blue beads, smaller than his pinky nail, occasionally broken by a black bead. One of the beads in the center has a tiny star charm attached to it, silver and shimmering in the setting sunlight.
Dazai misses the way Chuuya fidgets in place, too busy eyeing the bracelet as if it’s going to disappear at any moment.
“The, uh, the nurse told me your birthday,” Chuuya mumbles. “‘s today, right?”
At that, Dazai’s eyes snap back to him.
“Why do you care when it’s my birthday?” For the first time, Dazai asks without a touch of hostility or disdain. He’s confused, more than anything.
“Listen,” Chuuya says after a beat. “I, uh, I think you’re cool? And you’re really smart. Don’t get me wrong, you’re annoying as hell, and yeah, you’re a little weird, but uh, I-” he cuts himself off, and either Dazai’s crazy, or Chuuya’s gone really red in the past few seconds. “Do you like it?” he then says, louder and off-kilter. Weird.
Dazai blinks a few times before the topic change registers in his head. His eyes skip down to the bracelet - touching it, the beads are smooth, and the star is small enough that it’s unnoticeable after a bit. It's comfortable, and very pretty.
“Yeah,” Dazai mumbles. He stops touching it, now strangely embarrassed. “Where did you get it?”
At that, Chuuya grins a little with a nonchalant shrug.
“Stole it off of some family that came ‘round yesterday.”
Dazai can’t help but laugh, caught too off guard to even think of the fact that he’s supposed to be keeping up appearances of boredom so Chuuya will maybe finally leave him alone-
“I’ve never heard you laugh before,” Chuuya says suddenly. Looking at him, there’s a strange expression on his face - Dazai can’t decipher it, but it makes his chest flutter, and his cheeks feel warm.
“There’s not really a lot to laugh about here,” Dazai mumbles, but it’s with a smile. Seeing a mirroring grin on Chuuya’s face, the warmth in his chest spreads all around his body, pleasant and shimmery. “Thanks,” he says a bit awkwardly, moving his hand to indicate that it’s about the bracelet.
It’s about more than that, really, but Dazai’s not about to admit it.
They sit in silence for a little bit after that, Dazai staring at the bracelet instead of the stream of water. He doesn’t really know what Chuuya’s still doing here - they’re not even talking about anything - but he doesn’t really mind Chuuya there anymore.
“You’re really cute.”
Dazai blinks, and then blinks again.
...what?
“Huh?” when he glances at Chuuya, he’s not looking at him. Instead, Chuuya’s facing the stream; he’s gone completely red in the face, all the way up to his ears.
He misheard, right? Chuuya didn’t just say that. He couldn’t have.
“‘s why I wanted to talk to you,” Chuuya mumbles with a shrug. “To see if you wanna hang out. Or something.”
Once again, Dazai’s left blinking at him, barely processing what he’d just heard.
“Like… go on a date?” he asks with a laugh, probably sounding delirious.
He probably is delirious. His contact with other teenagers is limited to being picked on, so he doesn’t know what’s going on. He probably misunderstood, or it’s some slang he doesn’t know, or Chuuya really is just like the rest of the boys here and will laugh in his face any minute now, and his friends will jump out from somewhere behind a tree and throw Dazai into the stream of water in front of them-
“If you want,” is what he hears instead of the gotcha! he was sure it'd be, “if you tell me to fuck off, I will. I, uh, it’s kinda obvious you’ve been avoiding me, and I don’t really get why, but if it’s cause you don’t like me, then I can-”
“The other guys will give you shit for this,” Dazai butts in before Chuuya can say something even dumber. To think Dazai doesn't like him. It's about a year too late for that. “They don’t, uh, they don't really tolerate me, if you haven’t noticed.”
“Well, they’re stupid,” Chuuya says. “In the end, you’re gonna achieve things and be a successful person and each one of these assholes won’t amount to anything and they’re venting that out on you. I don’t care what they think. You shouldn't either.”
“You might start caring when they corner you somewhere,” Dazai warns him. “They’re a lot bigger, and there’s a lot of them.”
“They’ve tried already,” Chuuya shrugs.
“What?”
“I took care of ‘em,” Chuuya simply says. “Kaito won’t bother you again, by the way.”
Last time Dazai saw him, Kaito had a broken nose and his wrist in a cast. They bumped into each other in the hallway, and the teen scattered as if Dazai was about to kill him.
“Uhm,” Dazai mumbles, for a lack of anything to say. His brain is a little fried with the image of Chuuya punching someone twice his size all because that someone was mean to Dazai. “Okay.”
It’s Chuuya’s turn to blink for a second.
“Okay what?”
“Y’know… to hang out,” Dazai repeats the phrase awkwardly, hoping the meaning goes across as intended. “Like… like you wanted?”
“Really?”
Dazai nods, and Chuuya’s face lights up with a smile the kinds Dazai’s never seen before - it makes his insides twist and his hands feel clammy.
“Okay,” Chuuya chuckles. “Cool. Yeah, uhm. Friday? When we can go into town?”
Dazai’s first thought is Friday is so far away, though. Which in turn makes him say, without thinking for even a second:
“Or we could go to my room right now.”
They won’t have that much to do - definitely not as much as in town, but then they won’t have to wait the entire week, at least. But they could nick a few board games from the rec room.
Then Dazai glances at Chuuya, about to ask what he thinks of Monopoly, and he’s left confused as to why Chuuya’s face is beet red and he’s shifted somewhat weirdly. And then he thinks back to what he said. About them going to his room. The room that he doesn’t share with anybody. And taking Chuuya there.
“Oh! Oh, I didn’t mean-” he stutters quickly, cheeks growing warm and pleading to some God for the earth to swallow him or for a meteor to fall down. “Not like that! I just- I don’t want to have sex!”
And he says that to the boy he wants to date. Great.
“I mean, I do-” Oh my God, why can’t I shut up. “But not now! Not for a while! Maybe someday, I think, like when we're older and we move out and there’s not so many people around and we can be really alone-” shut up, just shut up already shut up shut shut up, “I just. Uhm. Friday is good.”
“Okay,” Chuuya whimpers, clearing his throat.
Friday, unless Dazai finds a moving car that can run him over so he doesn't say something so stupid ever again.
He feels himself trembling with embarrassment as he sits there, staring straight ahead at the water glistening in the setting sun, one hand playing with the new bracelet. It’s quiet for a long time - so long, in fact, that Dazai assumes Chuuya must’ve left.
Which is why he jumps, nearly slipping to the ground when Chuuya speaks again.
“Hey so- uh, are you okay?”
“Why are you still here?” Dazai asks, clutching his chest as he wills his heart to calm the fuck down. Chuuya’s presence in general doesn’t help.
“I dunno,” Chuuya says sheepishly. “I want to be. Do you wanna be left alone?”
“Not really,” Dazai finds himself saying. “What did you want?”
“Oh! Uhm,” Chuuya laughs awkwardly, his hand going to his neck. Idly, Dazai notes that Chuuya’s fingers try to tug at the strands of his hair, but it’s not quite long enough for him to do that. He plays with his hair when he’s nervous. Cute. “I have a kinda really dumb question, but, uh, what’s your name?”
Dazai frowns. The fuzzy feelings in his chest become significantly less fuzzy and more barbed wire-y.
“You don’t know my name?” Dazai asks back. Perhaps he’s too sharp, with how Chuuya winces at the tone of his voice, but Chuuya just told him he doesn’t know his damn name. They’ve been in the same orphanage for two months! They’re in the same class! The teachers read out roll-call every damn day!!
“I don’t mean- I know your last name,” Chuuya rushes to say. “I meant your first name. If you have one.” Chuuya blinks, and after a beat goes: “I mean of course you have one, everyone has one, but the teachers only ever call out your last name, and I guess I was just-”
“It’s Osamu,” Dazai interrupts him, before he can give himself an aneurysm, since it's his fault cause of course he got upset over nothing.
“Okay,” Chuuya breathes out. “Osamu. It’s nice.”
And the fuzziness is back with a vengeance. Plus there’s tingles that go up Dazai’s spine at the sound of his name from Chuuya’s lips. No one’s ever addressed him by his given name before, so it’s a special kind of euphoria to hear - especially from someone like Chuuya.
“So, uh, can I call you Osamu? Or do you like Dazai more?”
“Either one is fine,” Dazai shrugs, as if the thought of Chuuya calling him Osamu doesn’t make his gut churn in a really pleasant way. “Just- stick to Dazai when we’re with people from here.”
Chuuya doesn’t question that - he just nods with a smile, glancing at Dazai as if- as if he’s some wonderful thing, with eyes like he can’t quite believe what he’s seeing. It’s kind of ridiculous - if anyone should question what they’re seeing, it’s Dazai. It feels like a dream, the past hour. Like at any time Dazai could wake up and it would all burst into nothing like a soap bubble.
“We should head out, probably,” Chuuya comments, glancing pointedly at the sky. The sun is slowly setting, which means curfew is just around the corner.
They both get up without a word, and start heading back to the building. The closer they get, the more Dazai’s mood shifts, from comfort to unease. The voices around become louder, more pronounced, and he feels the weights of the stares on his back as they make their way through the corridors.
Next to him, unbelievably, Chuuya seems unbothered - he notices the people glaring, obviously, since he glares back from time to time, but he keeps walking by Dazai’s side even as the people around them start to clearly whisper about them. Wonderfully, Chuuya just mindlessly talks with Dazai as if other people around don’t exist. Like that, the walls of the orphanage don't seem to be quite as claustrophobic as usual.
“I’ll walk you back,” Chuuya says quickly as they enter the dorms hallway. Chuuya’s room, which he shares with three other boys their age, is right within view.
Dazai nods, afraid that if he says something, his voice will break or come out awkwardly squeaky. Instead, he just leads the way.
Dazai’s room is situated away from the dorm wing, on the highest floor. It’s pretty much a glorified attic cupboard, but Dazai’s not complaining. He’s had shared rooms before he moved here, and sleeping with several other people in a room is a nightmare of its own kind.
Before long, they come to the staircase, and up that to the singular door that leads to Dazai’s bedroom. They both stand there awkwardly for a second before Dazai decides that Chuuya will see his room at some point anyway, and opens the door. At least he cleaned up a few days ago.
It’s a small space, with a bed and a desk and a small wardrobe - there’s not much room for anything else, but it’s not like an orphan would have many personal belongings anyway. It’s barren and a little ugly, but it’s home.
“Neat,” Chuuya says from the doorway. “You get a backyard view?”
“Mhm,” Dazai hums. “That and plenty of spiders.”
“Better spiders than people’s dirty underwear on your bed.”
They both laugh, and, for a lack of anything better to do, Dazai walks up to his desk to fix a book that was slightly askew as Chuuya keeps looking around for a minute or so.
“I should go,” Chuuya goes, nodding at the door. “They’ll be checking if we’re in our rooms soon.”
They both walk back, and, once again, stand in the doorframe.
“Do you wanna eat breakfast together tomorrow?” Chuuya asks him with a shy smile, laughing when Dazai immediately scrunches up his nose. “It won’t be that early!”
“You go out running at like six, when do you even eat breakfast? At sunrise?”
“How do you know when I go running?”
Of course, Dazai couldn’t last five more minutes without embarrassing himself.
“I mean- I just assume,” he stutters, “People usually run in the morning I guess.”
“Sure,” Chuuya laughs. “But I eat after I run, so seven thirty-ish.”
“That’s so early.”
“You don’t have to get up, if you don’t wanna,” Chuuya shrugs. He means to turn away, and on impulse, Dazai catches his wrist to stop him. Like this, their hands are so close to touching each other. He has an intrustive idea to see if Chuuya’s hand is bigger than his.
“I want to,” Dazai breathes out quickly before he can change his mind.
“Cool,” Chuuya smiles at him again - he really needs to stop doing that, or else Dazai’s heart will explode. He’s not sure how he’s going to handle Chuuya being so close all the time on Friday.
From below, a bell chimes to indicate the curfew, and a flurry of footsteps follow, kids getting to their rooms, and caretakers beginning their rounds.
“Okay, now I really gotta go,” Chuuya whispers - as if speaking louder would make someone catch them right away. “‘But- I just… can I ask you something?”
“You’ll get in trouble,” Dazai rushes him - Hirotsu comes round his room only a few minutes past 10, and if he finds that Dazai has someone in his room, they’re both in for the most uncomfortably awkward detention of their lives.
“Can I kiss you?”
Dazai’s breath is punched out of him in one swift go, and all of his thoughts clock out at once; all, that is, aside Chuuya and kiss, floating around, spinning in a circle and being sung like an angel choir.
“I’ve never kissed anyone before,” Dazai admits dumbly, cringing at it right away. That’s not something you say right before someone kisses you, right? Guys don’t like it - all the romance books Dazai’s read (the ones he has to hide under his bed, since they’re not exactly approved material) make it seem like you’re supposed to be all cool and experienced, and isn’t it lame that Dazai’s fifteen and never kissed anyone-
“Me neither,” Chuuya chuckles awkwardly. “So it’s okay.”
“Oh.” Wow. It’s kind of criminal that someone as pretty and cool and popular as Chuuya never kissed anyone. He seems like the kind of person who should have people lining up to kiss him. But Dazai will be the first.
Holy shit. Dazai will be his first kiss.
Chuuya will be Dazai’s first kiss.
Holy fuck.
“Okay,” Dazai squeaks out, not aware enough in the slightest to be embarrassed. His hands are trembling - well, his entire body is trembling, but his hands in particular. One of them is still wrapped around Chuuya’s wrist, so Chuuya must feel it. Soon enough, that wrist wiggles out of his grasp, and instead, fingers intertwine with his own.
And Chuuya’s hand is a little bigger; Dazai doesn’t know why that makes him giddy.
He doesn’t know what to do with his other hand, so he hovers it awkwardly until he rests it on Chuuya’s shoulder, right by his neck. In turn, Chuuya's arm goes around him and he places his hand on Dazai’s back, bringing them closer together.
Dazai can feel his heart in his throat, and his pulse thumping in his ears. He swears he hears the blood that flows through his veins, how it sloshes around uncomfortably warm the moment Chuuya steps even closer towards him, so there’s barely any space between them left. He leans down a bit, and Chuuya leans up. For a moment, there's a warm puff of air on his lips, and he sees a pool of infinite blue in Chuuya’s eyes. He takes a breath, and closes his eyes.
His body tenses when he feels it - a touch of lips against his own. It’s gentle, and to be honest, a little strange. Their lips are moist where they touch each other, electricity sparking through Dazai’s whole body when Chuuya tentatively moves to start kissing him. His mouth tingles, and the hand on Chuuya’s shoulder tightens around his shirt as Dazai melts into his body, curling down and pushing forward.
Dazai can’t control the whine he lets out when they pull away, and he doesn’t feel a bit of embarrassment at it, seeing Chuuya’s wide smile and his blown pupils, right before he’s pulled into another kiss, and then another.
It’s new and it’s thrilling, being so close to another person, doing something so intimate. Dazai can definitely see why people are obsessed with this - he thinks he could kiss Chuuya all day long if given the chance.
When they pull away for good, both of them are panting, clinging to each other as if the floor would give out under them otherwise. It just might, Dazai thinks - his head feels like it’s spinning, and his body is still trembling, most so right under where Chuuya’s hands are still on him.
Footsteps echoing below make them both jump, stumbling as their feet tangle, and Dazai is pushed back to the doorframe, Chuuya falling into him as they giggle and glance down the stairs to see if anyone’s coming.
“God, I really need to go,” Chuuya sighs, resting his head against Dazai’s shoulder. That way, Dazai can smell the cheap orphanage shampoo on his hair, the artificial vanilla smelling better than it ever has.
“Mhm,” Dazai hums - right now, he really doesn’t care if they get caught or not. It’s worth the stupid sex ed lecture they might get if someone sees them together.
“I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?”
“Okay,” it’s not okay, but unfortunately, Dazai can do little else but yearn as Chuuya steps back. He already misses the warmth of his hands, and lips.
Chuuya turns around to go, and Dazai sighs quietly to himself, just about ready to head back too, when there’s a quick step towards him again-
-a brush against his lips once again, there and gone, and then Chuuya’s brilliant smile and sparkling blue eyes.
“Happy birthday Osamu.”
And he’s gone, his footsteps echoing down the stairs and out of Dazai’s sight.
Dazai is back in his room in no time, changing into his pjs on autopilot, grabbing a random book to appear busy when Hirotsu knocks to check if he’s accounted for, no more than a minute after Chuuya had left.
As soon as the doors close once the man bids him goodnight, Dazai falls back onto his bed, unable to do anything but laugh, smiling at the cracked ceiling on his room.
“Oh my God,” he says to himself quietly. He extends his hand up - the one that Chuuya held, the one that has the bracelet securely on its wrist where he put it. The star reflects the moonlight; if it hits the light just right, it bounces off and shines on the beads, making them look just like Chuuya’s eyes for but a second.
“I’m never taking you off,” Dazai whispers into the empty room.
This is the first time he got a gift for his birthday, and he doesn’t think anything will ever beat it.