#hey i still have this account! i should pick up their ship tag and spam reblog loads of fanart like i used to huh?

[psylunari]

He knew it.

He knew it.

Kunikida could tell.

He figured it out on his own. Kunikida was the second person to deduce it, the first one being Ranpo back in LN1, two years prior.

Kunikida even said it twice in that occasion.

It was Dazai who decided to keep on lying about it. Twice that day as well.

And promised he wouldn't lie when it came to that. lmao typical

Even if highly suspicious and with an excellent guess, a guess that he shared with the ADA members, Kunikida chose to believe it. He gave Dazai the benefit of the doubt.

Kunikida decided to believe him regardless.

Up to when Dazai couldn't hide it anymore.

“I told everyone (likely with all of them in the same room), but had to tell it to you more directly.”

How much does that say about both of them?

“I don't care what you seem to be. It doesn't matter, I see the good in you anyway. After some point, I always did. I'll hang out with you, take care of you, work by your side. I'll trust you with my life, and I know you'll trust me with yours. I'll ignore, on purpose, the bad vibes I get from your past, and believe your word even if it doesn't ring very true.”

Versus

“I don't want you to judge me for what I were, or seem to be. I know I don't seem like a good person, or capable of becoming one. If I were actually made to do evil, doing evil wouldn't make me miserable. But I don't know what I want. I don't know what I can do and be. I want you to watch me become better. Am I still the same to you after you learned what you did? Do you still want me, or tolerate me, near you?”

Excuse me, I need a moment. A long, long moment.

No but--

That scene when Dazai tells Kunikida about being a former Port Mafia executive. Kunikida was “the only one who didn't know it”. His usual working duo, and perhaps the closest people in the ADA. Kunikida should know, but doesn't, up to that point. I was thinking, why is that, exactly? I don't think Kunikida is just oblivious.

What if Dazai thought “such a morally upright guy couldn't ever see me in another light if I introduced myself from my past, not my present”? What if Dazai didn't want Kunikida to think poorly of him, and hid it on purpose?

Dazai was once “a person with a reputation”, and a frightening one. Odasaku dared to approach him despite that, also despite the hierarchy imbalance. Ignoring/reconsidering first impressions isn't something many people are willing to do.

What if he started fresh without any reputation this time?

Everyone knew that already. Dazai didn't care much about “what they'll think of me”. It “doesn't matter”.

Except for one specific person.

[a-singleboat]

Virtual Reality

Word Count: 2.4k

Request: hi! if your taking requests, i was wondering if you could write a damien x reader, where they meet through Twitch? add anything else you want i always love everything you write, thanks so much!! - anon

Warning(s): like, one swear

It was a Thursday night when you first met him, or rather, heard of him. You had been streaming for five hours heading into your sixth when you decided it might be time for you to log off for the night. As per usual, you took at least thirty minutes at the end of your stream just to talk with your viewers, usually about how their lives were going in exchange for a story from your own day. 

Tonight, however, there was an influx of people asking if you’d ever heard of a streamer by the name of Damien Haas, which you hadn’t, and if you would do a collaboration with the man anytime soon. Apparently, your content was eerily similar and you were, and I quote, “Practically the female version of him, looks aside.” 

“Damien Haas…” you rolled yourself back closer to your desk, hands settled on your keyboard. You typed his name into the search bar, patiently waiting for Twitch to pull up his account. You clicked into the first one, making an impressed face at the purple checkmark next to his name. You squinted at the screen. “Is this him? In the profile picture with the LEDs in the background?” 

You glanced at your chat, chuckling as the viewers started spamming ‘yes’ and ‘oh my god it’s happening,’ and your personal favorite, ‘mom come pick me up the best crossover of 2020 is happening and im SCARED.’

“He plays a lot of Animal Crossing,” you observed, clicking on one of his videos and dragging the tab onto your main monitor so the stream could see it. You skipped through the beginning part, biting into a pretzel as you watched. 

“He’s kinda cute,” you commented, laughing as your stream freaked out once more. There were a few people commenting what looked like it could be a ship name though you ignored it. “Shame I’d never meet him, though.”

You paused his video, taking note of the time, before rolling out your shoulders. “I think it’s time for me to head out so I’m gonna end this stream with a huge thank you to you all for sticking with me through this entire stream and if you didn’t stay the entire time, I’m glad you decided to join in on the ride even halfway through. I’ll see you guys next time.”

You ended the stream, waving goodbye to your viewers before the light went out and you could relax the smile off your face. Don’t get it twisted, you loved streaming and you loved your viewers but just like any other job, it could get exhausting at times. You shut down your monitors, the screens turning blue before fading to black. You stretched, taking your phone up from its charger and launching yourself into bed, opening your phone and clicking on Twitter. 

Much like staying thirty minutes after you were done streaming to talk to viewers, you usually went on Twitter right after to answer questions and respond to DMs. This time, however, instead of opening the app to see a bunch of post-stream questions, your mentions were filled with the video clip of you saying, “He’s kinda cute,” as well as maybe a million people tagging both you and Damien in them. 

Well, shit. 

Soon enough, that was all that filled your timeline. You couldn’t move in one direction without running into another screencap of you admiring the man. God, you knew the consequences but something in the back of your mind was urging you to reach out to him.

After a few moments of contemplation, the lonely side of you won out, forcing you to message him against your better judgment. Without even thinking about it, you found his Twitter and sent this message:

Hey, I’m sorry about your mentions blowing up because of me tonight. My viewers recommended your Twitch to me and I spoke without thinking about it on Live. 

And with no expectation of his response, you fell asleep right there with your phone on your chest and the DM still open. 

You woke up the next morning with a sore neck and a dead phone, which was a terrible way to start your day. You rolled over, plugging your device into an outlet before crawling out of bed to start your day. When you weren’t streaming, you worked as a freelance editor for different YouTubers, helping their editors with their workload or even staying on as a Temp for different companies. Occasionally you edited the odd commercial here and there, but those gigs were rare. 

Most recently, you had received some material from a group of YouTubers, Smosh. This job was different, however, because if you did well on this you could be looking at a permanent place of employment through their parent company, Mythical Entertainment. 

You knew Mythical Entertainment, it was hard not to, especially since your aunt was one of the producers within the company, but tended to ignore everything the company did. The last you’d heard, they’d onboarded another YouTube group (which you did later find out to be Smosh, the same YouTubers whose video you were hired to edit). 

 After a quick shower and a half-assed attempt at a proper breakfast, you were ready to start your day. You situated yourself behind your monitors, opening the video clips that had been sent to you. The first was a sample video, something that gave you insight on what their editing style was actually like. 

But imagine your surprise when you’re staring down the same man you have called cute the night before, his approximately five-eleven stance taking up one-sixth of the space. He was standing next to a blond, who had been marked as “Shayne Topp.”

Despite there being five other people in frame, your eyes kept moving back to Damien’s figure, watching his mannerisms through the screen and laughing along to his jokes when they fell upon deaf ears. 

Your eyes slid over to your phone, now decently charged after sitting for so long. On your screen were dozens of notifications. There were maybe two from your mom, asking if you’d be coming home for dinner sometime that week but the majority came from Twitter. You picked up the device, unlocking and responding to your mom with a, “yes,” before opening Twitter. 

Nothing much had changed from the night prior. Your mentions were still being flooded with the video from last night but newer content had been ushered in, namely fan edits using footage from your streams and, you assumed, his. 

The only major difference, however, was the fact that Damien had responded to your DM from the night prior. The first message read: 

It’s really no problem! My stream had mentioned your name before, too.

Followed by the second:

P.S. I think you’re cute, too.

You couldn’t believe your eyes. Mr. Damien Haas, the man that you had made a thoughtless comment on stream about, also thought that you were cute. Suddenly, the fact that you had been staring at him for the past hour seemed less stalkerish and more like a blooming crush. You wrote back:

Aw, thanks! Have you seen the newer fan edits? They’re all so talented.

You cringed at yourself. A cute boy started talking to you and you’ve suddenly forgotten how to be suave, not that you really were in the first place. But still, you liked to think you had some tact when talking to people that you found attractive. 

Not even a moment later, there came a response. 

Yes, I have, he responded. And I agree! They are all very talented individuals. 

You looked from the monitor in front of you. You had about a quarter of the footage left to go through before you could start editing but this technically wasn’t due until the following night. Feeling emboldened by the fact that he had actually responded, you replied:

Are you going to TwitchCon on Friday? We should meet up or something. 

Anxiously you awaited his response, taking his silence as an opportunity to watch a bit more of the footage and take down notes according to the sample they’d given you. Roughly thirty minutes later is when the next response came in, reading as an affirmative to both questions. 

You didn’t respond, choosing to leave your social media for after you’d finished editing the video. Your heart still pounded, however. Just the thought that there was a possibility for the two of you to meet was, simply put, insane. You’d just heard of the guy the night before and decided that he was going to be your latest hyperfixation. 

But who could blame you? He was a nice, funny guy that showed the slightest bit of attraction towards you. It didn’t help that you were a sucker for guys that were nice to you. 

Fast forward to the Friday of TwitchCon, also known as the first day of TwitchCon. You and Damien had been talking steadily over Twitter DMs and just last night you had gained his phone number, giving you even more access to the man than you had before. But of course, who were you if you didn’t tease your fans with the prospect of you meeting. 

The night before, at the end of your stream, you’d given your fans the little tidbit of information that you and Damien were, in fact, planning on meeting up sometime during TwitchCon and would be greeting fans together for an hour at your booth. 

That sent Twitter into a frenzy, both of your combined fans getting your ship name to trend within the hour, which confused the hell out of a bunch of locals. 

It was nearing the time you and Damien had set to meet up. The plan was you’d meet around twelve for lunch, take an hour for yourselves, before going back to your booth and meeting with fans for an hour or so as promised. 

You had never been more nervous than you were in that moment. Not only were you about to meet your three-day-old crush but apparently a very popular YouTuber. You tried not to let the thought mess with your head. One of your friends, Wilbur Soot (who you played Minecraft with from time to time) was poking fun at you for being nervous about meeting a popular YouTuber. 

After three years of streaming and gaining a solid following, you’d think you’d be used to meeting other popular content creators. But because it was him, you found yourself unable to think straight. 

“What if I fuck up?” you asked Wilbur anxiously. He’d flown in from London for this event at your insistence and because you’d offered to pay half his airfare to get there and back. He didn’t have his own booth as his arrival was very last minute, but he didn’t mind. He signed the occasional poster though his main purpose was to provide you mental and emotional support. 

“You won’t fuck up,” he comforted, leafing through one of the comics a fan had given you. The entire thing was hand-drawn, which was an insane fact in itself. It looked professional, which was what blew you away when you’d received it. “Well, you won’t fuck up as badly as you did when you first met Schlatt.”

You groaned in embarrassment. “Don’t remind me.”

Long story short, you’d dumped a red in color slushy on the man accidentally after tripping over an unmarked cable. It really wasn’t your fault but the boys hadn’t let you live it down since then. 

Half a moment later, Wilbur was poking your side. “Is that him?” he asked, jabbing his pointer finger into your side while looking in the opposite direction. He was looking at a familiar figure walking down the hallway toward your booth. He stopped for a moment to take a photo with a fan, talking to them about something, before continuing on his way toward you. 

Your eyes locked and you gave him a smile while trying to beat Wilbur into no longer poking you. He stopped when you slapped his arm the first time, sticking his tongue at you before going on his phone. You rolled your eyes at his half-assed attempt of pretending he wasn’t about to start listening in on your conversation. 

“Hey, Y/n, right?” Damien asked as he approached. You nodded, reaching out for a handshake but becoming pleasantly surprised when he instead pulled you in for a hug. 

“You ready for lunch?” you asked glaring slightly at Wilbur as he made kissy faces over Damien’s shoulder. Luckily, Damien hadn’t noticed your moron of a best friend. 

“Yeah, I saw this sushi place on the way in if you wanted to try that?”

“I’d be down,” you agreed, reaching behind your table to grab your bag. Wilbur was set to meet with a few other Minecraft streamers, meaning you didn’t have to worry about him while you had lunch. You looked over your shoulder, making sure everything was set for you to leave before saying goodbye to Wilbur. 

Over the course of lunch, you and Damien had gotten to know each other pretty well. Once the conversation moved away from your fans and, well, work, and more into personal details, you found that you actually weren’t all that similar. For starters, Damien loved watching anime while your guilty pleasure was Gilmore Girls. The one show you both had a love for, however, was Avatar the Last Airbender, which made sense. 

Another thing was that he actually enjoyed being in front of the camera while you tolerated it on most days, really only putting on your face cam for the last thirty minutes on most days. Despite that, he still classified himself as an introvert. 

You returned back to your booth much later than you anticipated, thoroughly shocked at the line that had formed with Wilbur at the front of it, entertaining the fans that had shown up early to meet both you and Damien. 

“Y/n!” one fan called, pointing in your direction. Immediately, the entire line turned and gaped at the sight of you and Damien walking together. You greeted them happily, stopping for pictures and verbally promising that you’d stay until you got to meet everyone personally. 

“You really love your fans,” Damien observed as you put your things back down behind the table. Wilbur had set up shop on your right side, chatting with a few people at the front of the line. 

“I wouldn’t be anywhere without them,” you admitted, pulling a silver sharpie from your bag. You handed a gold one to Damien. “I also wouldn’t have gotten to meet you without them, which I’m still sorry about, by the way. Your feed must have been chaotic.”

“You have no idea,” he chuckled. “But everything happens for a reason.”

You nodded, grinning up at him. “Yes, they do.” 

Permanent

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