#i want to draw but i can't draw how they look in my mind
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ᡣ𐭩 WE WERE BORN SICK
FEATURING: dazai osamu
SUMMARY: that sinking feeling that's been looming over you both has finally come to fruition. truths are revealed, questions are answered, but one big one remains: is love enough for you and dazai's relationship to survive this?
AUTHOR'S NOTES: happy fridayyyyy, i can't believe we only have one chapter left of civzai, it's actually makin me emotional </3 this chapter was quite a doozy to write, and i hope it's equally a doozy to read HAHAH no no jkjk , i hope you enjoy. also do u guys want to add an arcane au to the dazaiverse .. ive been thinking heavily about it. comments & reblogs appreciated
GENERAL WARNINGS: fem!reader, port mafia executive!reader, civilian!dazai, dazai's struggles w suicide & sh, reader partakes in mafia business, dazai isn't dazai without a bit of obsessiveness and possessiveness (the possessiveness doesn't come til later but the obsessiveness starts from day 0).
CHAPTER SPECIFIC WARNINGS: hardly edited. angsty chapter. explicit depiction of suicide (past recollection of dazai), implications of past self-harm (dazai), very toxic thought processes at certain parts (dazai), past (and a bit of current) suicide ideation (dazai), manic behavior (reader).
SEE: WASTELAND, BABY! SERIES MASTERLIST
“I’ve been eager to meet you for quite a while. In all of the years I’ve known her, my little hime has never let something as trivial as a boy come between her and our work… I knew you must be special, but I never could’ve imagined just how special. I’m so pleasantly surprised.”
Dazai’s head throbs as he comes to his surroundings. He’s laying in an uncomfortable bed—a hospital bed, he thinks, he can smell the unfortunately familiar scent of antiseptic, but the walls aren’t the typical white he’s used to. He winces as he sits up, unable to recall where he is or what happened to him. Everything is too fuzzy, he remembers being with Fitzgerald, the car ride to the tea house, and-
And he remembers you.
He remembers you.
He lets out a shaky breath as he recalls the way you’d pulled him into your arms, cradling him close as soon as you got him back from Fitzgerald. God, he only got to be with you for what felt like a second. It wasn’t enough time. It wasn’t nearly enough time. You sent him off, he remembers—you sent him with two of your subordinates, the weretiger and that freaky little girl, and then…
“Shhh… Don’t speak. I want to get this done and over with.”
The gun to his back, Atsushi and Kyouka’s cries of shock, the baton to his head.
“No can do, weretiger. On orders from the boss.”
His mind tracks back to the words that had been spoken as he was teetering on the edge of consciousness, mouth going dry and eyes widening as he becomes acutely aware of the other person in the room with him. His gaze flicks up to where a vaguely familiar man sits at a desk watching him—straight chin-length black hair, inquisitive purple eyes, a long black coat, Dazai isn’t sure where he recalls this man from but he knows that they’ve met before.
“Who…” Dazai asks, voice wavering as pain shoots through his head with every little movement. “Who are you? Have we… met before?”
His wrist hurts. His mother’s nails dig into his skin so deep that it draws blood, and he doesn’t know what’s going on. He’d just been sleeping—is he still sleeping? He isn’t sure. He’s stumbling over his own feet trying to keep up with her, he keeps asking her what’s going on but she doesn’t answer him.
They turn a hall and his mother stops so suddenly that he slams right into her, nearly tripping over onto the ground. He doesn’t even regain his footing before his mother is pulling him back the way he came, he looks over his shoulder trying to figure out what caused his mother to panic so badly and he looks at—a man?
Who is that?
Why is he coming from grandfather’s room?
Is that-
Blood?
“Shuji! Shuji, don’t look back! Keep moving!”
Shuji? Who’s Shu-
“I think you know the answer to that already.” Dazai is startled out of the memory—was that a memory?—by the man’s voice. He sounds amused, and from the way that his eyes are glittering, Dazai can tell he’s finding great entertainment out of this situation. It pisses Dazai off. “Don’t you?”
“Tane-chan, you know you won’t be able to hide him forever. You’re just making this harder on yourself.”
Dazai’s breath catches. He shifts backward on the bed to press his back against the wall. Everything is wrong—the air is too cold, his bandages are itching, his head hurts, and he doesn’t know what’s going on. Who is Shuji? Why is he thinking of his mother after all of these years? And what… what was he remembering?
Memories of his youth have always been sparse and fleeting—he can vaguely recall the faces of his siblings, the anxiety he felt around his grandfather, the loneliness��but something like this… The panic on his mothers face, the pain in his wrist, the way she was dragging him around, the fear in her voice when she screamed at Dazai—was he Shuji? But then why—to not look back, to keep moving. He would remember something like that. That would be… crazy to forget, right?
What is going on?
“You’re Mori,” Dazai breathes out, clearing his throat. He hopes he doesn’t look as disconcerted as he feels, but he thinks he must. “You’re…”
The leader of the Port Mafia.
The closest thing you have to a father.
So, how does Dazai remember him from years ago? It doesn’t make sense. He couldn’t have been older than thirteen, maybe fourteen in that memory. What did he forget? When did he meet him? What’s going on? Dazai wants to scream, his mind is still slow from just waking up—he doesn’t even know how long he was unconscious, it couldn’t have been that long.
Mori’s smile widens as if Dazai just walked right into whatever trap that had been laid out for him, violet eyes flashing with a type of cruel amusement that makes Dazai sick to his stomach. Dazai has to circle back to remember what he just said, he needs to snap out of the daze he’s in. He needs to think. He made a mistake—Dazai made a mistake. He shouldn’t have admitted that he knew Mori. That was a mistake.
How does he fix it?
Can he fix it?
“You do know,” Mori says, like he didn’t actually expect Dazai to admit that he knew him. Like he’s pleasantly surprised. Again. Like Dazai just made things much easier for him. Shit. “Interesting.”
He’s going to use it against Dazai. Dazai knows it. He’s going to use it against him to hurt you. He remembers everything he’s learned about your relationship with Mori—how he pit you against that other girl, Yosano, to get results from you. And he already said it. He already said that Dazai is getting between you and your work, he’ll do the same thing here. He’ll pit you against him.
He’s going to tell you that Dazai knew who Mori was, and that Dazai is someone that he’s not—who is Shuji? Why doesn’t he remember his own name? Is that really his name? How does Mori know all of this? Who is Dazai?—and Dazai needs to be able to say something. He needs to be able to explain. How does he explain this when he doesn’t even know what’s going on? Dazai needs to remember; he needs to remember now, he needed to remember yesterday, because if he’s not the one to tell you this… If he can’t explain this…
This cannot be happening—it can’t. Right when he thought everything would be okay, when he would be with you. His throat starts to clog as anxiety clouds his head and weighs on his chest, a panic attack that he can’t afford right now. He needs to think, he needs to figure out what’s going on—Mori knows something about Dazai that he doesn’t know himself, and he’s going to use it against him to drive a wedge between the two of you. He’s going to tell you, and-
Dazai’s world feels woozy. Why can’t he remember? How does he know Mori? What was happening that night with his mother? He needs to snap out of this, needs to think, but he can’t even breathe. Fear—the mind killer.
“I don’t know what’s going on,” Dazai rasps, his voice is hoarse, and he feels sick, and he hates admitting that he doesn’t know what’s happening, but he needs Mori to believe it so that he doesn’t tell you something that’s not true. “I don’t know how I know you. I don’t-”
“You might believe that,” Mori says amused, “but will she?”
Dazai stares at Mori, his stomach churns violently and his vision swims as the answer becomes abundantly clear to him.
He doesn’t know.
———
The gun in your hand weighs heavily.
You hid it in the inside of your blazer to get up to the conference room. No weapons are allowed up past the thirty-fifth floor unless you’re one of the Boss’s hand-picked personal guards—even executives are forced to disarm themselves before going up, but security is much more lax for the upper echelon. Because you’re you—the hime, second-in-command, the Boss’s daughter—the guards outside of the elevator that goes directly to the top floor wave you past the metal detectors to go on up.
A mistake.
(Who is Tsushima Shuji? It can’t be Dazai. You know Dazai. Mori must be wrong.)
The smile on your face is bland and doesn’t meet your eyes as you walk down the hall to the conference room attached to Mori’s office. You greet the guards, and they don’t notice how off your demeanor is, too starstruck over the fact that they’re being acknowledged for once. They also don’t notice the way your hand is curled around the grip of your gun in your blazer.
A mistake.
(Mori is never wrong. Do you really know Dazai?)
When you reach the end of the hallway, you toss them one last brilliant smile. This one is a bit more genuine because you’ve realized that you’ve gotten through the top notch security of the upper levels of the Port Mafia headquarters without a hitch. That you’re one step closer to finishing this. They’re so blinded by the beauty of your smile that they don’t realize your teeth have sharpened into knives and the floral perfume you wear masks a putrid bloodlust.
A mistake.
(It’s always been odd, hasn’t it? The way he approached you. The way he was so insistent on pushing himself into your life. You always questioned it. There was a sinking feeling that something wasn’t as it seemed. Why didn’t you question it more?)
You keep your back turned as you slip into the room. You can feel four presences behind you—Kouyou, Piano Man, Chuuya, Ace. No Mori. No Dazai. That’s fine—you have something to take care of before they show up anyway. The conference room is soundproof; Mori designed it that way because he didn’t want the guards outside to overhear any discussion of sensitive topics. Even if he handpicked them for their loyalty, he understands that money can make the most devout man’s faith waver. Still, it’s not them rushing in that you’re worried about—it’s the people in the room with you rushing out, so you very carefully twist the nub of the lock and then reach up to fix the deadbolt. It won’t stop them, but it will slow them. You can feel their eyes on you as you make sure the door is locked, but none of them call you out for it or try to stop you.
A mistake.
(Mori always told you that the Tsushimas were like cockroaches. If they all weren’t killed, one would eventually return to reclaim their grandfather’s empire. There’d be a power struggle between the factions loyal to the new regime and the ones that still hid in the shadows believing that the Tsushima blood belonged at the head of the organization. Everything the two of you had built would crumble to ashes.)
You turn to make your way over to the conference table where the four of them are sitting. You haven’t decided how you want to go about this yet. You don’t know who all was aware of what Mori did, and because of that, you don’t know who needs to die. Treachery has always faced a death penalty—you don’t care if Mori ordered it, you don’t care that the Boss’s word is absolute, you have bled and breathed for the Port Mafia. You’ve sacrificed everything you’ve ever owned and wanted for the Port Mafia. You have made the Port Mafia into what it is today with your efforts abroad and at home—foreign governments, foreign criminal organizations, the Japanese government and other domestic mafias, all of them are just puppets that you pull the strings of to ensure the Port Mafia stays on top. Treachery against you will face the same penalty one would receive if they betrayed the Port Mafia, because you are the Port Mafia—Mori has made sure of that.
Chuuya and Piano Man share a look with one another as you approach the table. Neither of them say anything—is it confusion? Is it guilt? Did they know? Were you the only one unaware of the schemes going on around you? Were you the only one loyal? The only one you could trust?
Did they know?
Did they know?
(No one could ever love you without your ability at work influencing them. You’ve known that since the very beginning, but you were so quick to forget that when you discovered Dazai’s ability. You should have had more questions, you should have been more suspicious. Mori had been right from the very beginning. You were emotionally compromised. You were weak.)
Ace opens his mouth to speak.
A mistake.
“It was nice meeting your-”
Ace’s head hits the conference table with a hard thunk, his eyes wide and glassy, his mouth open around the words you didn’t let him finish speaking. Blood seeps from the bullet hole in his temple and pools around his head and the ground beneath his chair, staining the glass table and the white floors.
Instead of lowering your arm, you shift it so that the gun is pressed against Piano Man’s temple next. Chuuya says your name—it’s awful, something caught between a gasp of shock and confusion, he’s never said your name like that before. Like he doesn’t know what you’re doing. Like he doesn’t understand you. Like you’re something unfamiliar. Unrecognizable. You ignore him anyway, and the pangs that come along with it, and instead, you keep your gaze trained on Piano Man’s face.
He’s not as panicked as Chuuya, but you can tell that he’s just as caught off guard from the way his lips are twisted. He watches you carefully, waiting for you to say whatever you’re going to say—if you were going to pull the trigger, you would’ve done so immediately, he knows that. He’s always been good at reading you, better than even Chuuya sometimes.
“Did you know?”
Your voice is steadier than you expect it to be. Cold almost. Distant. You don’t recognize it yourself, you suppose it’s no wonder that Chuuya’s staring at you with such a foreign expression. You watch him just as carefully as he does you. He has a tell when he lies: he squints. Not an obvious squint, just the barest hint of his eyes squeezing shut like he’s calculating exactly what he wants to say, in what tone and with what fluctuation he wants to say it.
A subtle tell, but a tell nonetheless.
“No.”
He stares at you steadily as he says it. There’s no squint—he’s telling the truth. You don’t let out a breath of relief, but you certainly feel the weight off of your shoulders. You lower the gun, satisfied with his response, and then you walk over to where Chuuya is sitting.
You don’t raise the gun to his temple immediately. He looks up at you, you look down at him, a whole conversation is had in the silence between you, and eventually he lowers his lashes in resignation, telling you to do what needs to be done for you to feel more at ease.
He’s always put others before himself.
You lift the gun at the same time he lifts his gaze to meet yours. He could activate the Tainted Sorrow and end this before it starts, but he doesn’t—you know in your gut that if you pulled the trigger right now, he would accept the fate you delivered. Probably would take it as a better one than he deserved—it being at your hands rather than Arahabaki.
“Did you know?” you ask. The words taste bitter, rancid—they don’t belong there, Chuuya would never betray you, but you had to hear it from him.
Chuuya doesn’t have many tells when he lies—he’s a good actor, much better than people give him credit for. If he wanted to lie to you, he might be able to get away with it. But he won’t lie to you, not when he’s looking you in the eye.
“No,” he says, voice soft and raspy like he can’t believe he has to say it.
You let the gun drop to your side. It weighs heavier now—heavier than it did in the elevator, heavier than it did in the hallway leading to the room, heavier than it did when it was pressed against Piano Man’s head. You can hardly bear to keep holding it, but you’re not done yet.
Slowly, your gaze turns to Kouyou. Her expression is cold and unreadable, gaze pinned on you in the same way a lion stalks its prey through the tall grass… No, that’s not right. She stares at you with the same look in her eyes that a snake does when it’s curled in a corner, rattle shaking and hissing to try to scare off the predator that has it trapped.
“You knew,” you breathe out softly in disbelief. Your voice hardens and tightens as you repeat, “You knew!”
Before you can raise your gun—before you can pull the trigger four, five, six times, before you can riddle her body with holes because how dare she know, how dare she know and not tell you after what the previous boss did to her—the door that separates the conference room from Mori’s office opens, and your attention is drawn to the one person who caused all of this.
“Oh my,” Mori says airly, looking between you, Ace’s body, and Kouyou with an expression that is frustratingly amused. “I see you’ve been busy.”
You don’t even know what to say to that. You almost want to laugh. You think you do laugh, actually—someone does, and you think it’s you, because you feel yourself walking away, you lift your hands to your head to tug at your ears in frustration. Your vision is blurry—are you crying?
“You betrayed me,” you finally say, voice quieter than you intend, so you raise it as you repeat yourself. “You betrayed me. You. Of all people I never thought you would be the one to-”
You can’t even finish the sentence, your voice cracks over the words. It makes you feel sick, it makes you angry, it makes you want to crawl out of your skin, because how could he? To you? You don’t know why you’re so angry, why you’re so betrayed. Mori has always made it clear that his priority is the Port Mafia, but still, to do this to you. To do this to his-
To his what?
You’re not his daughter. You hate when people imply that you are, you hate being called hime, you hate being called ‘Miss Mori’, you hate when people give you respect because of your perceived relationship to him.
He’s the only father you’ve ever known. Almost every decision you’ve made has been with the motive of making him proud of you. When he seeks out your opinion specifically during meetings, your chest becomes warm with pride.
You don’t love him. How could you? Look at what you’ve become because of him.
Then why do you feel so betrayed? Why did you think he would be the last person to do something like this to you when you know the type of person he is? Why does your chest feel like it’s caving in? Like your heart’s been ripped right out of it? Why does this hurt as much—why does this hurt more than Dazai’s potential betrayal?
And he certainly doesn’t love you. He never would have done this if he did.
He’s killed people for disrespecting you—he hardly ever gets his own hands dirty, but he does when it’s you and your dignity on the line. He spends hours meticulously picking out birthday presents that he knows you’ll like. He gets sad when he invites you for lunch and you don’t join him, reminiscing about the days where you clung to the back of his coat.
He touches your shoulder, and your finger twitches on the trigger of the gun. You want to lift it, press it to his temple and pull the trigger just like you did to Ace, but you can’t. Your arm feels like lead, and when his hand slides down to your bicep to force you to turn around and face him so that your back is to the rest of the executives, you dutifully follow along.
His expression is unreadable as he looks down at you, violet eyes swimming with an emotion you’ve never seen in them before. He lifts his hand to wipe away one of the tears that had spilled over your cheeks with his knuckle, and then taps your cheek twice, chiding you silently.
Do not cry here, little hime. Not here.
“You have always been so dramatic,” Mori hums just loud enough for you to hear, but the words are fond, and the corners of his lip curl up as he looks down at you. “I would not betray you. Not ever, dear.”
You look at Ace pointedly in response and then back to Mori, the man sighs dramatically and gives you a disappointed look. The nerve, you think bitterly, narrowing your eyes on him as you wait for his explanation.
“I told you,” Mori says. “I did this to protect you. I wanted to get ahold of the boy-”
“Because you have some mistaken belief that he’s a Tsushima,” you interrupt coolly. “How did you even manage to come up with that ridiculous theory?”
Mori’s eyes flicker with something akin to interest, but shifts quickly into pity—you can’t tell if it’s genuine or mocking, and you don’t know which would be worse. He must be mistaken, he has to be. You don’t think you can handle the implications of if he isn’t, of what it might mean for you. For Dazai. Your whole relationship with him. How much was manufactured for him to get information about the Port Mafia? So he could get a foothold in the organization? Get in contact with the remaining loyalists to his family?
“Sit,” he tells you, guiding you over to the seat at the right of the head of the table. “I’ll explain everything, but first… Shuji-kun, why don’t you come out and join us?”
Your breath catches at Mori’s words, gaze twisting to the side over to the door that he’d come out of. You watch as the door creaks open, and the achingly familiar sight of his face finally comes into view. You’ve missed him—you’ve missed him, and you hate this. You should be back at your apartment with him, you should have him curled up in your arms, you should be listening to him complain about how long he was stuck with the Guild.
This shouldn’t be happening. You shouldn’t be sitting at the executive roundtable with Ace’s dead body a few feet away, and Dazai entering the room, questions of his identity, of whether or not he’s been using you for information and opportunity to take back his grandfather’s legacy.
You hoped that Dazai would enter the room angry, irritated by the kidnapping and the accusations, but you don’t think you’ve ever seen Dazai look like this before. He looks a mess, fidgeting, brown hair matted to his forehead, dark eyes wide and swirling with emotion. When he seeks you out, they’re pleading, imploring, like he already knows that whatever is about to be said is going to be bad for him.
He looks… frazzled. Nervous. Confused.
He looks guilty, and you know that Mori is telling the truth.
How much of this was a lie? All of it?
Your throat feels uncomfortably tight, gaze sliding from Dazai back to Mori.
“Tell me.”
Who are you, Dazai Osamu?
———
Despite his body being wracked with a strange sense of guilt, Dazai pushes open the door to enter the room where he assumes you’ll be waiting. You’re not the only one there sitting at the table—there’s five… no, four others—but Dazai can’t help the way he immediately seeks you out. He recognizes his mistake instantly. That highly unwelcome, and highly misplaced, guilt amplifies the moment his gaze meets yours and he sees how crushed you are by all of this. His face twists into something that he knows condemns himself more. and from the way you instantly look away from him, directing your full attention to Mori, he knows he has.
Now, you won’t meet his eyes at all.
Dazai sits stiffly across from you to the left of Mori. Nakahara Chuuya is on his opposite side, glaring holes into the side of Dazai’s head, but he can’t drag his gaze from you. He’s never seen you like this before—even back at the beach house when you’d been so close to breaking down under the weight of everything on your shoulders, you’d held yourself together as best you could.
You’re unraveling now; he can tell you’re still trying to hold yourself together, but it’s as good as trying to pick up water with your fists, your emotions spill out through the cracks carved into the walls you used to hide yourself behind. Mori hasn’t even begun talking, yet your breath is unsteady and your eyes are swimming with emotion; your fingers are still wrapped tight around the grip of your gun, and Dazai is very acutely aware of Ace’s dead body slouched over the table not even a few feet away.
And you won’t even meet his eyes.
Maybe it’s a good thing, he realizes, because Dazai isn’t sure what you might see if you do. You clearly didn’t like what you saw the first time. He just feels so guilty, and he doesn’t even know why he feels guilty because he’s not-he didn’t do any of what Mori implied. He didn’t use you, he didn’t know who you were before meeting you, it wasn’t all some scheme to try to take over the mafia. That’s ludicrous—he’s a literature student at YNU, not some gang lord. He just-
He loved you. Loves you. No ulterior motives. No strings attached.
“I said tell me,” you snap when Mori doesn’t immediately begin talking. “You love talking, so why are you holding back now? Tell me, or I’m leaving.”
Dazai feels a bit sick to his stomach when you say ‘I’ with no implication of taking him with you. He tries to get you to look at him again, silently pleading with you to just spare one glance in his direction, but you’re irritated now. He can see it in the way your fingers flex around the gun, knuckles whitening and finger twitching on the trigger—it’s pointed at the woman sitting next to you, who is very acutely aware of the fact from how stiff she is.
“Do you remember the night we took over the Port Mafia, dear?” Mori asks her, voice a low hum.
“What kind of question is that?” you answer tightly. Your lip curls up in irritation, Dazai can see you become more and more antsy and angry—he’s never seen you so out of control before. “Of course, I do.”
“And you, Shuji-kun?” Mori turns his attention to Dazai and he wants to spit in his face—his name is Dazai—but his voice fails him when he sees the way your face twists at the sound of the unfamiliar name. He stares at Mori instead, hating how amused the man becomes at his silence. “I’ll take that as a no, allow me to refresh you.”
“Eight years ago, a coup was staged against your grandfather’s regime,” Mori says, and Dazai feels like he’s being studied under a microscope. All eyes are on him now—even yours, but now, he can’t bring himself to look at you. He doesn’t know what he’ll find, and he’s scared it’s going to be something he doesn’t like. “Your grandfather was mad, killing civilians and mafiosos indiscriminately, something had to be done, and nobody was willing to do it, so we did.”
“We had to wipe out the whole family, and any loyalists. I was fourteen when I killed someone for the first time. She was a girl my age—the previous boss’s grandaughter…”
Dazai’s gaze drags over to you. You’re staring ahead now, gaze listless and expression eerily blank like you’re slowly starting to realize what this means. Dazai hasn’t come to terms with it yet, because if even a little of what Mori is saying is true then…
“We wiped out the whole bloodline and as many loyalists as we could,” Mori continues, “or we thought we did, at least. My dear hime was who I sent to kill the heirs, I trusted in her to make it quick and painless. We didn’t realize one of the grandchildren were missing until it was too late—he wasn’t in his bedroom, apparently liked to wander around at night because he couldn’t sleep. His mother was able to swoop in and get him out of the estate before our men took over the building… Tsushima Shuji, the youngest of the previous boss’s grandsons. Does this sound familiar yet, Shuji-kun?”
He has the best view of the night sky from an alcove on the fourth floor of the estate—his grandfather’s floor. It’s where he likes to go when he can’t sleep at night, and ever since his cousins and siblings started fighting over their grandfather’s legacy, that’s been just about every night: half because of fear now that things have started escalating to violence, half because he’s not even sure why he’s still here.
His knees are tucked tight to his chest, arms wrapped around them and head resting against the cool glass as he looks up at the stars. He hears a commotion happening somewhere downstairs, but there’s always a commotion happening at the estate, so he thinks nothing of it. He submerges himself in the darkness instead, letting his mind float away as he stares up at the sky—it’s the only time he’s able to relax, escape from the shadows of his own mind.
He’s not sure how long he sits there admiring the night, time passes immeasurably when he’s lost in the stars—he’s only snapped out of it when he hears feet slamming against the ground in his direction. He stiffens, eyes wide, wondering if another one of his cousins has finally turned to bloodshed as the way to inherit their grandfather’s legacy, but instead his mother turns the corner, her smooth face contorted in a type of panic he’s never seen on her before.
“Mothe…” he starts to say, confused, but he doesn’t even get a chance to finish the word, gasping as his mother grabs his wrist and yanks him off the cushioned seat in the alcove.
“Shuji, we have to go,” she gasps, “we need to get out of here. It’s not safe.”
He stumbles after his mother, struggling to keep up with her quick pace and longer legs. Her grip was painful, nails digging into the bandages around his wrists, right into the fresh wounds they covered. He grimaces in pain, breathing heavy as he follows his mother down the hall, assumingly toward the steps near his grandfather’s room.
“What’s going on?” he asks. “What about Bunji? Akane? T-”
His mother chokes over what sounds like a sob and his eyes widen—he’s never heard his mother cry before.
“There’s no time,” she chokes out, “we have to leave without them. We-”
They turn a hall, she skids to a stop and-
“It seems that it does… Allow me to continue then,” Mori hums, drawing Dazai out of the memory. He sounds unbearably amused, and Dazai would be angry if he wasn’t so shaken. He pulls his hands off of the table to rest them in his lap to hide the way his fingers are trembling. “Your mother was able to hide you from us for half a year, I warned her that she wouldn’t be able to for long and since she didn’t share your grandfather’s blood, promised to spare her life if she gave you up to us, but she refused. She tried to take you out of the Kanagawa Prefecture, but our men were catching up to her, and she took… drastic measures to ensure we couldn’t track you down. That I’m sure you remember.”
“Mother,” he whispered, staring up at the rope, her limp body, gaze trailing down to the kicked over chair. “Mother, I don’t… why did you…”
He takes a step closer. A step back. Another step closer. He reaches out, fingers brushing the white nightgown she’d worn the night before while getting him settled in bed, but he snatches them back instantly like he’d been burned, clutching his hand to his chest.
He’s not breathing, he realizes when his lungs start to burn. His eyes sting painfully, unable to draw his eyes away—unable to even blink—is it a nightmare? Is he hallucinating? She sways—sways like when she used to distract him when he was settling into a depressive episode by putting on music and forcing him to spin with her in the kitchen, sways like the wind chimes she keeps outside because the house doesn’t feel homely enough without him, sways-
“Shuji! Shuji, get away from there!” The voice that calls to him is familiar��Aunt Kiye? Why is she here? “God, I tried to get here earlier. Nee-san, forgive me.”
Aunt Kiye grabs his wrist, yanking him away from his mother, dragging him out of her bedroom and down the hall. His voice is hoarse as he screams, he doesn’t know what he’s screaming, if he’s even screaming anything intelligible. He doesn’t stop until he’s out of the house and she’s kneeling in front of him, shaking him out of his panic.
“Enough, Shuji! We have to go, we can’t stay here, they’ll be here soon,” Aunt Kiye shouts at him, expression twisted and eyes pooling with tears that she doesn’t let spill over. “We need to go, and we-we need to change your name, change everything. I promised I would hide you, I-”
“We can’t leave her there,” he argues, voice shrill. “I don’t understand, why did she do that? What did I do? It was my fault, It was my fault, wasn’t it? It-”
Aunt Kiye doesn’t answer his question. She looks bitter, angry, hateful. “We have no time. We have to leave,” she whispers, dragging him to the car despite his protests. She continues talking, more to herself than to him, but the words make his chest cave in. “I told her not to get involved with that family. Their blood is black, cursed. Everyone knows nothing good comes from associating with those people.”
His fault, he realizes, breath becoming thin and shallow. It’s his fault, his blood, his fault that his mother-
“Yes, quite the unfortunate scene we walked into,” Mori says dismissively. “She was smart for it though, she never would’ve survived a night with our sweet hime interrogating her. You should see what she did to that despicable journalist. Of course, she wasn’t as fine-tuned with her ability back then, but that would’ve been at your mother’s expense—her first few attempts at conditioning were quite… unfortunate for her test sub-”
“Enough,” you spit out, interrupting him. Dazai wants to believe that it’s because you can see how uncomfortable he’s getting, but he’s not even sure that you care. He’s not even sure you remember he’s in the room. “Get to the point. You think he’s the Tsushima kid we missed—that doesn’t prove shit. It doesn’t mean-”
You don’t finish what you’re going to say, but you do look at him, and Dazai’s breath catches when his gaze finally meets yours again. He can’t tell what you’re thinking—the expression on your face is entirely indecipherable, something caught between being accusatory and guilty. Dazai doesn’t know if he’s going to make it out of this room alive. Even if by some miracle, you decide to believe him, there’s a good chance that Mori will order his death anyway, and he’s not sure if you’ll pick him over the Port Mafia.
That being said, Dazai doesn’t even know if he wants to make it out of here alive. His brain is fogged with memories that he locked so deep within him that they never should’ve resurfaced—every time Mori speaks, Dazai’s recalling something new, something awful, something that proves that he’s every bit the freak people have always claimed him to be. Every bit as bad. Every bit as wrong. Not like other people. A monster whose mother killed herself because of him, a monster who's been cursed since the day he was born.
“... blood is black, cursed… nothing good comes from associating with those people.”
More than that, he doesn’t see how the two of you are going to be able to come back from this, and that scares him more than anything. You’re the only good thing left in his life, and he doesn’t think he’ll make it without you, but he doesn’t think that after all of this things are just going to work out. You killed his siblings. His cousins. And yeah, Dazai was never close to them—they thought he was too quiet, too strange, all of the things that the other students at school whispered, his family was the first to—but… they were still his family, and if Dazai had been in his room that night, he would’ve been just as dead at your hands as the rest of them.
You killed his family. You would have killed him. The Port Mafia is the reason his mother killed herself, the reason why he walked into her bedroom and saw her hanging from a fan. The Port Mafia is the reason his aunt hated him so much that she couldn’t even bear looking at him, the reason why he was left to die in Suribachi City.
Would you ever be able to get over the guilt of that? Would Dazai be able to accept it? You had a heavy hand in ruining his life, is it enough that you saved him years later? He doesn’t know, he’s hardly even processed it, he just knows that he has to cling to what little he has left, dig his nails in and not let go even if it makes you choke on guilt, even if it makes him sick with shame. He won’t let go.
“So impatient,” Mori sighs. “Your aunt hid you for almost another half a year, but she wasn’t able to move out of the Yokohama area. She did well though, I’ll give her that. We had our best trying to find you, but she was very careful. It was partially our own fault that we didn’t get our hands on you back then—some loyalists to your grandfather snuck under our radar, told her when we were closing in on the two of you. She got rid of you before we got to her… but we did get to her. Kouyou-kun was the one who handled her, if I recall it got quite… messy. I can’t imagine how it must feel knowing that your mother and aunt sacrificed themselves to protect you only for you to throw it all away in an arrogant attempt to reclaim your grandfather’s legacy.”
Dazai doesn’t even zero in on the last bit of what Mori says because he’s too busy trying to wrap his head around the rest of it. Aunt Kiye didn’t… die for him. Aunt Kiye hated him. He remembers that clear enough—he remembers how she could hardly stand to look at him, he remembers the way she was always so cold and rough with him, he remembers-
“You have to go, Osamu.” Aunt Kiye is shouting at him, and he’s sitting in the passenger seat of her car. He doesn’t move, he thinks maybe if he sits still enough, she won’t see him there and won’t make him leave. “Osamu, get out of the car and go, we don’t have time! They’ve found us.”
The name is still unfamiliar—he’s not used to it, and he doesn’t know if he likes it, but Aunt Kiye insists that Tsushima Shuji is dead and that name can never be uttered again. She gets mad when he doesn’t immediately answer to it, tells him not to let his mother’s death be in vain, and that’s usually enough to get him to stop being stubborn over it.
“Osamu, go!” She grabs his bicep hard to try to get his attention, but he flinches and squirms out of her grip, still not responding to her. He can’t remember the last time he’s spoken—he thinks maybe since they left the cabin that morning. “You-”
Aunt Kiye sounds angry now, but he can’t bring himself to look at her. It’s only when he hears her unbuckle and feels her start reaching over him that he starts to panic. He reaches up to grab her bicep, trying to stop her from grabbing the handle of the door to open it, but she’s stronger than him. He’s hardly been eating lately, and he’s never been particularly strong—he was always the smallest among his siblings.
It takes no effort for her to bat his hands away, pushing open the door and unbuckling his seatbelt. He struggles against her as she tries to push him out of the car, and she’s still speaking—shouting at him, begging him, he thinks she might be crying too, but he can’t even tell. His mind is fogged with panic and fear—he doesn’t want to be alone in Suribachi City, he doesn’t want to be alone at all. He wants to stay with Aunt Kiye even if she hates him because he doesn’t want to be alone.
Eventually, Aunt Kiye wins the fight—even with him fighting tooth and nail, she manages to push him out of the car. He hits the ground hard, gasping when he lands poorly on his elbow. He’s stunned for a moment by the shock and pain, and Aunt Kiye takes the chance to toss out a backpack from the back seat and close the door behind him, locking it quickly.
“No!” His voice is raspy from lack of use over the past few months. He scrambles to his feet and tries to pry the door open but can’t. Aunt Kiye won’t even look at him, she stares ahead as she switches the car into gear and he slams his hands against the window. “Aunt Kiye! Aunt Kiye, don’t leave me here! Don’t leave me here, please, I’ll be better, I’ll do better, just don’t-”
He stumbles back as she pulls the car away, falling when he trips over the backpack onto the asphalt, scraping up his hands and forearms. He’s not sure how long he sits there staring after where the car disappeared waiting for her to come back for him.
She doesn’t.
She didn’t die for him, Dazai thinks again, nails digging crescents into his palm. She didn’t die for him, she couldn’t have. Dazai won’t believe it. Aunt Kiye hated him, she abandoned him in Suribachi—none of this can be true. It can’t. His mother killed herself to be free of him, not to protect him; and Aunt Kiye abandoned him because she hated him, not to save him.
That’s the truth. It has to be. They couldn’t have died for him—for him. It doesn’t make any sense. He doesn’t want to remember all of this—he was better off thinking that they hated him, that they wanted to be free of him.
He can feel you looking at him now, but Dazai is back to being unable to look at you. He’s staring down at the glass table looking at his reflection, his eyes are wide and dark and far too black—he looks warped, inhuman almost. His expression is blank, none of the turmoil within him is reflected on it, and he doesn’t even understand why. He thinks it’s probably just making him seem more guilty.
“We figured she left you somewhere in Suribachi City, but we weren’t able to track you down,” Mori says flippantly. Dazai wants him to stop talking, but he has a sick feeling things are only going to get worse from here. “Not until you ended up with Oda Sakunosuke, at least, we…”
Dazai’s ears ring at his old friend’s name. Mori is still talking, but his words become a distant buzz. Everything starts coming back to him at once—his time alone in Suribachi City, the weeks he spent rationing the little food he had, getting the shit kicked out of him by some low rung gang who stole his mother’s ring from him. He remembers giving up, questioning the point of his own existence with a detached logic that left him with only one answer—there was no point to his existence, so he was as good dead as he was alive.
He remembers seeing on a sign that it was the eve of his fifteenth birthday, and he remembers dropping himself in the bay during a storm, hoping that the tide dragged him so far beneath the surface that he’d never see the light of day again.
He remembers waking up the next morning to an unfamiliar face at his bedside, brows knit in disapproval and lips turned down, and he distinctly remembers feeling put out by a stranger looking at him that way.
“What’s your name, kid?”
Dazai couldn’t remember anything but the name Aunt Kiye had drilled into him over and over again the past few months.
“Dazai Osamu.”
“Hm. Oda Sakunosuke. You got a family, Dazai?
Odasaku brought him in.
Odasaku saved him.
The doctors said he’d been dead for almost three minutes when Odasaku found him washed up on the beach—said his memory might return over time, but it might not—but Dazai didn’t even care, because Odasaku brought him in. He gave him a roof over his head, food to eat, and a reason to live. He sent him to school so he could feel like a normal kid his age. He played board games with him and didn’t even care when Dazai was a sore loser and quit mid-game when he realized he wouldn’t win. He humored Dazai when he faked being sick because he didn’t want to go to school. When Dazai was going through bad depressive episodes, Odasaku would sit with him silently and write his book so Dazai never felt alone. Odasaku introduced him to Ango and they were-
They were his friends.
Family, maybe.
They were all he had, and they were all he needed.
And then-
“We were the ones who killed him.”
Dazai’s gaze drags up from the table to focus on Mori. The man’s lips are curved into a cruel smile, his eyes are sharp, and Dazai is moving before he can stop himself. He lunges across the table, but Mori doesn’t even flinch because Nakahara Chuuya grabs the back of his shirt and yanks him back down into his seat.
“You-” Dazai spits, voice raspy and angry.
“Don’t look at me like that, we were trying to get to you,” Mori says casually as if the words don’t shatter Dazai’s entire world. “We would’ve loved to have Oda Sakunosuke amongst our ranks. His death was unfortunate. Collateral damage. He was an assassin for a long time—one of the best in the world. He was pretty much unkillable, his ability allowed him to see six seconds into the future. I never understood how our sniper managed to get him that day, but now I do. He saw you getting shot with his foresight and tried to pull you out of the way, but your ability is nullification, so when he touched you to save you, he damned himself. In those split seconds when he was pulling you to safety, he couldn’t see the future, and couldn’t see the bullets aimed for you that lodged into his chest instead.”
Dazai can’t do this anymore. He tries to push himself up to his feet but his legs are numb and uncooperative, and he can’t move his hands or arms. Mori’s lips part to continue speaking but Dazai can’t do this, he can’t hear anymore of this. He’d always known in his heart that Odasaku’s death was his fault even if he couldn’t remember much about his mother and Aunt Kiye and their desperate attempts to hide him from the Port Mafia. He’d known, but hearing it-hearing the confirmation, it’s too much for him.
Before Mori can say anything, Dazai is startled from his spiraling thoughts when you stand up so abruptly that your chair goes flying back. Your expression is haunted and you’re not looking at him again, but Dazai is glad for it, because he thinks he’s about to throw up.
“I… I need a minute. I just need a minute,” you say shakily before fleeing the room into Mori’s office so quickly that you almost trip over the chair you knocked over.
The room is silent in your wake, and after a few impossibly long moments, Mori stands to follow you into the other room. The three Port Mafia executives left in the room don’t say anything for a moment, and Dazai is just trying to breathe. He’s trying to breathe and process what Mori just said, but he’s failing miserably at it.
It’s the woman, Kouyou, who speaks first.
“She’s going to kill me for knowing about this,” she says simply, sparing a glance down at the dead body on her opposite side. “I’ve never seen her like this before. Even when Chuuya-kun went missing for a few days, this…”
“Well, maybe you shouldn’t have conspired against her,” Piano Man sings, looking entirely unperturbed. “I mean honestly, after what the previous boss did to you, I would’ve thought you’d be more sympathetic. Silly me to think you aren’t a cold-hearted bitch.”
Dazai tries to pay attention to what they’re saying, he tries to ground himself with the conversation happening so he can forget the feeling of Odasaku’s blood all over his hands, staining his clothes, smeared on his face. He tries to replace Mori’s echoing words with what they’re saying but he can’t.
“We were trying to get to you.”
“It has nothing to do with sympathy,” Kouyou snaps, but she does look ashamed. “It’s a security threat, it’s bigger than love. This boy could spell the end of everything we’ve built.”
“She won’t kill you, Ane-san,” Chuuya finally speaks up, his knuckles are tight around the armrest of the chair he’s sitting in. “I’ll talk to her, I just-”
“When he touched you to save you, he damned himself.”
“Chuuya-kun, she almost killed you,” Kouyou says so dryly that the words almost don’t even register to Dazai, but when they do, they’re the only thing that effectively draws him from his spiraling thoughts. He looks at Chuuya sharply to see if what Kouyou said was true, and his eyes widen when he only grimaces and looks down. “You and Piano Man. She didn’t even hesitate before pulling the trigger on Ace. She’s unstable right now, there’s no talking to her.”
“But she didn’t,” Chuuya says tightly. “I’ll talk to her, but first…”
Chuuya looks at Dazai so suddenly that he almost wants to snap his head away and ignore him, but he can’t. The ginger studies Dazai so intensely that it makes him want to crawl out of his own skin.
“Did you know?” Chuuya asks, voice low. He’s angry, Dazai can tell from the way a dark red color starts to flicker around his hands, but he’s trying to keep it together. “Tell me. Did you know who she was and use her to get closer to the Mafia for revenge? I’ll spare her the pain of having to put a bullet through your fucking head and kill you myself right now. Did you know who she was and purposely-”
“No,” Dazai interrupts, voice hoarse. “No. I didn’t-I didn’t know.”
Chuuya stares at him for a few seconds, studying him like he doesn’t know if he actually believes him, but after what feels like an eternity, he finally shakes his head and looks away, rubbing his face with his hands.
“Fuck, this is such a mess,” Chuuya breathes out, voice strained. “Fuck. She-”
Chuuya doesn’t finish his sentence because the door to Mori’s office reopens and you step back into the room, Mori at your heels. Your eyes are red, but your expression is withdrawn now, void of the tumultuous emotions that had been raging across it just a few minutes before. You settle back in your seat. Your eyes flit over Dazai like he’s not even there before focusing on Mori.
Dazai suddenly has a bad feeling.
“I’m not quite sure how you escaped us after that,” Mori continues where he left off, and Dazai is so sick of the man’s voice that he almost wants to rip his own ears off. “Probably Sakaguchi-san from the SDUP, I recall him and Oda-san being close… but that brings us to the present, doesn’t it? Four years later, you stumble into our lovely hime… Come, dear, let me tell you my running theory, and you tell me how accurate I am, yeah?”
Mori is looking at you now, eyes glittering as he waits for your response. Dazai has his own serious issues with the man, but he thinks it’s sick the way he’s enjoying your clear discomfort and increasing distress. Your jaw tightens a bit, but you nod, signaling for Mori to speak. Dazai’s nails dig into his pants as he waits for Mori to continue. Neither of you look at him, and Dazai’s lips part to speak so he can preemptively deny whatever Mori is about to accuse him of, but he can’t push a single word out.
“Your first meeting with him wasn’t by chance. A cafe, maybe… a bar?” Mori offers, watching your face carefully for a reason. You look away at the second option, and the man’s lips curve up. “A bar, then. One you frequent, I bet. The one in Hodogaya-ku, perhaps? Your first meeting, but not Shuji-kun’s first time seeing you. Ui Koutarou—his journalism professor at YNU—wrote his first article implicating the Mori Corporation’s connection with the Port Mafia in February of this year, around a month before rising fourth year students register for classes. Shuji-kun, naturally, has been following anything related to the Port Mafia closely, so when he sees a class being offered in the fall by the same man who has been openly targeting the Port Mafia, he sees an opportunity and signs up for the class.”
No, Dazai tries to say. His lips form the word, but the sound doesn’t come from his lips. No. No, no, no, no. You look haunted suddenly, and Dazai remembers the argument he had with you during the government event in Tokyo. How cold and withdrawn you’d become. How when he confronted you next, you accused him of working with Ui Koutarou and blackmailing you for money. Mori is reigniting all of the initial fears you once had.
“Ui-san has had his sights set on you for quite a while, dear. You don’t need me to tell you that, you’re very well aware of the man’s hatred of you… When Shuji-kun started classes in the fall, Ui-san roped him into his plans, and you became his project. That wretched man had many documents on you. I had the Black Lizards raid his apartment after we captured him—most were harmless, detailing places you frequented and people seen around you, but when Shuji-kun became involved, he started using that information to manufacture meetings between you. I imagine that after you met him that first time, he started appearing around you rather regularly. Bump-ins at that cafe you like in Minami-ku, on the streets—he even started renting an apartment on property that we own after he realized the opportunity he had with Ui… he’s only been living there since the summer, you know?”
His last apartment wasn’t close enough to the school, Dazai wants to argue desperately. He’d been lucky that a cheap apartment opened up in Hodogaya-ku before the semester started—he’s been trying to get one since his first year. It has nothing to do with-
Dazai suddenly feels nauseous again, everything is spinning around him—he still hears Aunt Kiye screaming at him, he still hears the creaking of the rope his mother hung himself on, he still hears Mori’s confirming that Odasaku’s death was his fault. And now this, and you’re not looking at him again, and he’s not saying anything, why isn’t he saying anything? Why isn’t he denying this?
“He attached himself to you quickly, didn’t he?” Mori asks rhetorically. “Too quickly, I’m sure you had doubts—not even your ability makes people reliant on you as swift as he became. How long did it take for him to start prying for information? Trying to make you slip up and implicate yourself with the Mafia? Confess yourself as an ability user?”
The night of the earthquake when you showed up at his apartment, he remembers dizzily. He started pressing you on your political opinion because he remembered Ui saying that all of the criminal syndicates in Japan are going to do whatever it takes to prevent the military bill from passing. But he wasn’t… doing it to prove anything? He just wanted to know more about you, he was curious, he was finally putting the mystery that you are together. It wasn’t malicious—he just wanted to know you. That’s all it ever was, he’s only ever wanted to know you.
“When did you tell him about your ability? More about our organization? Around when the Guild started making their move in Yokohama, I’m sure. He never told you about his ability until his hand was forced. In fact, I’m willing to bet he lied and said he didn’t know he had one, but tell me, do you really think an assassin of the caliber of Oda Sakunosuke would not realize his ward had an ability that negated his own? That he wouldn’t be trained in how to use it… Most importantly, if all of this wasn’t a scheme of revenge—if he really did love you—then why did he never get rid of the flash drive that contained the proof that his journalism house published? The proof that got you thrown in prison?”
You’re crying.
Dazai’s throat swells when he sees the tears silently tracking over your cheeks. At once, he realizes that he’s never seen you cry before; he itches to reach over to you, to grab your hand or wipe away the tears. He doesn’t—partially because he doesn’t think he could move if he tried, but mostly because he knows that he’s the reason you’re crying.
He wants to assure you that none of this is true. He had nothing to do with the Guild—they kidnapped him for fuck’s sake. He didn’t know about his ability, he didn’t even know Odasaku was an assassin. And he was just… careless with the flash drive, and he shouldn’t have been, but there was always so much going on, and he was so new to having someone in his life that really loved him that he was quick to bask in it and forget everything else.
He doesn’t assure you of anything, instead he watches as Mori reaches out to do what Dazai wants to do. He brushes away your tears and turns your face to look at him, a disgustingly sympathetic look on his face.
“I know you were eager to believe that someone could love you without your ability at work influencing them, dear,” Mori murmurs, “but people like us will never find a love that pure. There will always be other factors at work sullying it—wealth, revenge, threats. You understand now what this was, don’t you?”
No, Dazai wants to scream at you. He does love you, this wasn’t some ridiculous revenge plot for family he hardly remembered until this meeting, that-
“I do.”
Dazai finally is able to make a noise when those two words leave your lips. It’s weak—something caught between a wheeze and a whimper that sounds too loud in the silent room. He feels eyes on him—Chuuya and Kouyou’s in particular. Not yours. You stare down at the table.
“Ogai-dono,” Kouyou clears her throat. “If I may… perhaps we could… send the boy away. Abroad. Ensure he never comes back to Japan so we don’t have to risk him coming back and disrupting things.”
“We could give him a seat at the table,” Chuuya interrupts, ignoring the wide-eyed look both Kouyou and Piano Man give him because of the radical idea. “We’re down an executive anyway. We tell people who he is, that he supports the new regime. It’s what you wanted to begin with, right, boss? You wanted one of the grandchildren to legitimize the passing of power. We could make it work.”
“It’s too risky.” Mori isn’t the one to speak, Piano Man is, but he doesn’t look happy to do it. “Maybe back then it could’ve worked, but the Port Mafia killed his friends and family, and hunted him down. Too much has happened, he’s an unpredictable variable that we can’t risk. We can’t trust that he’ll just accept it all, that he won’t work behind the scenes to take us down. Giving him any leverage in the organization is the last thing we should do, but what Kouyou-”
“Leave him alive and we risk everything we’ve built falling apart—a civil war igniting, Yokohama being caught in the crossfires and all of our foreign enemies crawling into the city to reap the benefits of our fall. It’s one life or hundreds—thousands, even,” Mori interrupts, voice cool. He turns his gaze onto you. “I trust you know what has to be done, dear.”
Your expression is resolved, a heavy emotion in your eyes that tells him your answer before you even speak. “Yeah, I know.”
You stand up, and Dazai knows that it’s over. When you look down at him, it’s with a type of apathy that makes his stomach twist—he’d rather hate than nothing. His lips part to speak but he pauses when you shake your head slightly, so subtly that he almost doesn’t even notice it.
“Get up,” you say flatly, and then glance at Chuuya. “Chuuya, will you…?”
“Yeah,” Chuuya replies without you even needing to finish the question. His voice is hoarse, he looks more than a little disturbed. “Yeah. Of course.”
Chuuya rises to his feet and then grabs Dazai’s bicep to pull him up to his feet too. Dazai doesn’t even have the heart to give him a dirty look in response, following along as he leads him out of the conference room and into the hallway.
For a split second, Dazai really believes that maybe you’re just trying to fool Mori, you made him think you were taking Dazai to have him killed so that you can get him out of here safely, but even once you’re out of the conference room without Mori’s eyes carefully watching you, you don’t look at him.
“Get one of the clean up crews up here,” you tell one of the guards waiting in the hall instead as you frown at your phone, typing out a quick text to someone. You pointedly ignore how alarmed they are by the offhand comment to click on the button to the elevator.
When you look back at the two of them, it’s not to look at Dazai—it’s to look at Chuuya. The two of you are having a conversation, Dazai can tell that much, and he thinks that maybe he should be putting in the effort to figure out what’s going on, what you have planned, but he’s just… tired. He’s not even sure if he cares what happens to him anymore, and he figures the worst case scenario is that he dies at your hands, and of all of the ways he could go, he thinks that would be the most preferable, because at least you would be the last thing he saw.
He doesn’t try to speak again until the three of you are in the elevator and the doors have closed.
“I-”
“Stop.”
Dazai is startled by the sharpness in your voice. He looks at you, but you’re still not looking at him, your lips are curved down as you stare at your phone, typing furiously. He glances up into the left corner of the elevator, noticing the cameras—maybe that’s why, he thinks a bit unsurely, deciding to stay quiet until out of the building.
When the elevator doors open, it’s Chuuya that urges him to keep walking by nudging his shoulder. You don’t touch him, don’t look at him. There’s nobody in the main entrance of the building, which Dazai thinks is a bit odd, but he bites back any comments he might have when he sees a black car waiting outside the building.
The doors to the building open at your approach, and Dazai inhales the crisp, fresh air greedily, not even having realized how stifled he’d felt in that room with Mori, you, and the other Port Mafia executives. He thinks maybe that you’ll sit in the backseat with him and he’ll finally be able to talk to you, but you don’t. You open the door to the passenger seat and sit there without even sparing him a glance.
Dazai’s throat starts to swell again, stopping in his tracks as he stares at where you disappeared behind the car door. Chuuya pushes him forward, not letting him linger for long—he opens the door to the backseat and pretty much manhandles Dazai into the car before taking a seat next to him.
He recognizes the person at the wheel—Albatross, your friend. He’s driven you and Dazai around before, every time Dazai gets in the car with him, he makes a sharp comment aimed to embarrass you in some manner. This time, he doesn’t even look at Dazai through the rearview mirror. He just puts the car in gear and starts driving.
A pit starts to form in Dazai’s stomach. Dazai tries to initiate conversation with you again now that you’re outside of the Port Mafia headquarters within closed quarters, nails scraping against his pants as he decides what he wants to say.
“I d-”
“Stop.”
When you cut him off now, Dazai’s stomach flips. He stares at the side of your face, trying to understand why you won’t even listen to him. You can’t actually believe what Mori was saying, you can’t. You were faking him out, tricking him into thinking you fell for it—you had to be, you have to be. You can’t possibly believe him.
“You won’t… even hear me out?” Dazai asks you quietly.
“There’s nothing left to say.”
Oh, Dazai thinks to himself, withdrawing. He stares at you for a moment before turning away stiffly, expression tight and strained as he stares out the window, watching the buildings pass by as they get closer and closer to the ports.
You believe it, he realizes dully. You believe that it was all just a scheme. You believe that everything was manufactured, that he used you for some fantastical revenge plan, that he never loved you. You believe it.
But it doesn’t make sense, he thinks desperately. He doesn’t understand how you’re not seeing through it, and if you are, why aren’t you at least giving him some hint? He should try to say something again—he knows that, but he finds himself unable to. He’s a smooth-talker, quick on his feet, but never when it comes to you—since the day he met you, he’s been fumbling over words awkwardly, but now it’s costing him everything. He finds ash in his mouth preventing him from salvaging anything he might’ve had with you.
Dig your nails in and cling, he reminds himself, but his nails have become rounded out and blunted from how long he was scratching at his pants and skin while remembering all those memories he locked away. He tries to dig his nails in and cling, but his voice fails him and his nails can’t even find purchase on your skin, you slip out of his hands as easily as an eel.
He’s going to lose you. He might’ve lost you already.
Dazai thinks that’s worse than the realization that he really might be about to die.
The car comes to a stop much quicker than Dazai had hoped, and he stiffens when you waste no time before getting out of the car. He makes no move to join you outside, and Chuuya sighs next to him.
“Get out,” Chuuya says flatly. When Dazai doesn’t budge again, Chuuya snaps, “Get out of the car-”
“-and go, we don’t have time! They’ve found us.”
Dazai draws his knees to his chest, breath becoming a bit labored as his aunt’s voice echoes in his ears. He doesn’t even realize that Chuuya has gotten out of the car until Dazai’s car door is pried open. For a split second, he confuses the executive with his aunt as he’s yanked out of the car—he’s fourteen again and being abandoned by the only person he has left, and he can just barely bite back the “don’t leave me here!” that almost spills from his lips as his knees hit the ground hard.
Dazai is instantly hit with a thick scent that makes him gag. It’s noxious, almost entirely unbearable, clogs his throat to the point he almost struggles to breathe—a blend of rot, acrid chemicals, and something he doesn’t recognize, but it’s sickeningly sweet. As he pushes himself to his feet, he notices you pass your gun over to Chuuya, but in that moment, Dazai is more concerned with figuring out where he is, and when he does, his stomach drops.
The dumping grounds by ports stretch endlessly under the heavy, overcast sky. Mounds of trash rose like grotesque hills patched with scraps of torn plastic and suspicious lumps that Dazai doesn’t have to get close to know what they are. The ground is uneven and treacherous—a mix of sticky mud and sharp shards of discarded glass and plastic, and pools of murky water shimmering with oil slicks.
It’s disgusting, and Dazai has a feeling it might be his final resting place.
He trails over to the side of the road and his gaze tracks down to the ground directly below him. It’s not a far drop, hardly a foot or two, and certainly less gross than some of the other parts of the area, but that’s a low bar to meet. He tears his eyes away from the scenery around him to look back at you, lips parted to speak but he doesn’t say anything.
You’re leaning against the front of the car, watching him with an expression that Dazai can’t describe. Sad, maybe, resigned. Chuuya is back in the car, from what Dazai can tell, he's still fiddling with your gun—he wonders if this is his way of letting the two of you say goodbye in private.
“I do love you,” Dazai says. His voice cracks over the words. “No ulterior motives. No schemes. I just loved you. Love you.”
You don’t say anything for a moment, eyes drawing from him somewhere over to the side like you’re looking for something, but after a moment, you look back at him, your face a little softer than it was before.
“I know,” you tell him quietly. “I know, Osamu.”
Dazai’s lips part to say something back—he doesn’t even know what he wants to say, because confusion fogs his mind. If you know, then why-
Why are you doing this?
He doesn’t get the chance to ask. The car door opens and Chuuya steps back out, he passes your gun back to you and Dazai sees you subtly slide something into his hand too, but he can’t tell what it is. You sigh as you look down at the gun before looking back up at him again, he holds his breath as you make your way closer to him.
His lashes flutter shut, expecting to feel the cool barrel of the gun against his forehead, but his breath hitches when he instead feels the familiar warmth of your hand cradling his cheek. Your fingertips are flaked with Ace’s dried blood, but Dazai still leans into your touch, eyes sliding back open to look at you.
Up close, your expression is twisted with regret and… is that fear? Dazai can’t tell, he doesn’t care, he’s more preoccupied with memorizing the image of you before he runs out of time to.
“Forgive me,” you whisper so faintly that Dazai almost doesn’t hear you.
“I do,” he replies just as softly.
Your face crumbles as you look away. You take a step away from him, and your hand drops down from his face. Dazai instantly mourns the loss. You let out a heavy, shaky breath, sparing one last look down at the gun in your hand, one to Chuuya who stands half a step behind you, and then you look at Dazai again.
“Forgive me,” you say again, this time as you lift the gun—your voice is raspy, breath uneven.
Your fingers tremble so violently that the whole gun is unsteady, but Dazai doesn’t even care to look at it, gaze focused on your face instead.
“I do,” Dazai repeats.
You pull the trigger.
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Say andie what makes the booktok recs unreadable for you?
It’s the absolute cringeyness for me
Lol setting aside how rich it is for me to give any critique when I'm sure I could not do half as well as any booktok author... For me there are two things that make me put down a book: 1) the prose, and 2) unoriginality.
Last night I immediately DNFed a book I'd just acquired because the prose was so instantly dense in what felt (to me at least) like the most try-hard way. I can't quite articulate exactly what I mean as it's more of a feeling, but you know when you can sort of sense a style is not someone's natural style? Ordinarily I don't mind rich prose (I love, like, Elizabeth Kostova and damn can that lady go on). But this felt like the author was specifically endeavoring to sound poetic where simple language would have served better and it sounded unnatural. :/
And, if I may be a shit and complain further, the author set about info-dumping all their world building without even giving us anything (like a character or stakes) to invest in yet. I know some people love that but personally it doesn't work for me. I have to be convinced to read, and if you don't draw me in with some initial investment I find it harder to stick around.
And yeah also originality!! I did not have that particular problem with the book I made the post about, but I do with a lot of booktok recs. I find that a lot of what I enjoy in fanfic (lingering in well-loved tropes, re-exploring certain source materials over and over) is not what I'm looking for in my pubbed fiction. I will not name any particular books because I do not want to yuck anyone's yum but a lot of booktok books these days feel like recycled versions of other books and don't add anything fresh or interesting to the conversation. And it bums me out because I do like material that feels familiar, but I want to see it stitched together in a different pattern, you know??
Anywayyyyyyy that's enough from me. I'm so curious what factors go into "cringiness" though! I wonder if they are similar? What makes a book feel "cringey" to you?
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Changbin as husband is next I'm curious for his and hyunjinss
This is the longest fucking reading I've ever had so i just HAD to split it in 2 parts so bear with me. I love him but i hate him right now😩 (no im not)
Husband Series: Changbin pt. 1
Ugh...that guy🫠 i bet you if i let him use up my whole deck he would. The amount of "ok last card" i had to say...and yet there was still so much gushing put...and ugh, i just can't stress enough how much into details he is and how much he wants to stress on them and make sure they don't go unnoticed or get misunderstood or overlooked. Reminds me so much of my audhd friend😭. Anyways back on track - tho i don't even know where to begin from, i really think he used up half my deck. I just counted 23 cards😳 i do indeed draw a lot for the others too but thats just next level. Not on topic but i think he's a really chatty drunk😂 now i wanna read on them when drunk🙌🏻😂
Ok soooo since i have so many cards ill try to combine them as much as i can and keep the messages as concise as possible so this post doesn't become a novel - the overall energy i noticed here is not so much emphasis on him as a husband but overall him as a partner in a committed relationship. Which leads me to believe he himself doesn't view marriage with such dread as the others did (there wasn't really any dread with felix bust still a certain anxiety around responsibilities, meanwhile that with changbin is absolutely nonexistent). I would say he seems himself as capable and even ready to take on that responsibility and role if the opportunity presents itself and i think he believes he'll do a good job. He's responsible, capable and can take care of it. I actually sense a feeling of pride in him about that.
Another MAJOR theme is him being a "simp" for his partner (he insists on wife). There are many cards that im trying to sum up:
He's very protective over her and doesn't let anyone say shit about her, he's giving me guard dog vibes. Also a big bodyguardy. I can see him when being out with her eyeing people and being on alert and just idk, looking scary as to scare of any weirdos before they even think about trying something. And to clear any misunderstandings up, im really not getting this coming from jealousy (not that its not there, it is😂, but its just 10% reason, out of 100), but rather because he wants the woman he loves to feel safe and protected around him. He wants her to be able to relax and trust that he will always have her back and keep her safe. He wants her pretty little witty head not to be bothered by ANYTHING!
More from the simpy train - looks up to her a lot and kinda puts her a bit on a pedestal. This is not a very debilitating energy but feels rather like something he has made peace with and accepts - which is that she is indeed better than him and he can never be able to reach her, which means he is incredibly lucky and appreciative of the fact a woman like that has chosen him and he tries whatever he can to live up to her standard and continue to give her reasons to stay with him and continue to love him. Although she can never love him as much as he does (thats his thought🥲). But as i said this doesn't feel victimy to me at all but rather just seems realistic to him and he's a big boy and can accept reality for what it is and choose to feel lucky instead of beating himself up for not being good enough and self sabotage. Im actually really shocked looking at his energy because i can really feel the strength of his mind and ughh just how innovative and flexible he is. His will is just astounding and making me really happy, despite him obviously having some issues he doesn't let himself be defined by it and chooses to spin them to him favor. What an amazing guy💗
Back to the reading - so he spends a lot of time in his head, doing A LOT of 2 things. One is being thinking of his girl and what he can do to make her happy, analyzing previous conversations to see if he missed something or if he has remembered everything. Contemplating if she maybe gave him a hint about something, or if she maybe looked hesitant with something. Maybe her body language was off? He notes that. If there was any difference in her behaviour today, if she looked different. He's really putting LOTS of energy thinking about her and analyzing her and her behaviour. Again this doesn't seem to come from distrust (although he thinks of that as well, its just not his motivator, he just considers everything, thats why) but rather for his own feeling of safety. I think he is a very thoughtful and analyzing and sensitive person in nature so this may be something he always does, except when its something very important to him, and a relationship at that - he does it even more intensely. He doesn't only think about and analyze her tho. He does that to him too, to their relationship as well. He just wants to have a good understanding and overview of everything that is happening in the relationship so he has a sense of control and safety. You can always fix something if you know its broken. Or beginning to bend. You can fix the problem before the branch brakes i think is what he wants to say. And he wants things to run as smoothly as possible with them, and once again he has taken on the responsibility to make his girls life as easy and carefree as possible and how can that happen if he leaves the whole relationship in her hands?! He can't, so he doesn't his part very diligently and tries to keep up on the same level as her, emotional-intelligence-wise.
He also doesn't to just thinking but planing & organizing. So i think he takes lots of care for other stuff too like planing and booking fun dates. If he cant attend then books fun stuff for her. Provide her with the needed tools/means for her to be able to create, to indulge in her hobbies. He really loves that feminine creator energy and really wants to do his best to encourage and provide an encouraging environment for his wife to get in her feminine creator energy and bring him joy with it. Also thats really random but he's always ready and loves giving her massages😂💗(after her long day of crafting). He just loves hearing about it, seeing the excitement in her voice and face. It charges him.
He also spends lots of time fantasizing about her. Reminiscing wonderful dates, imagining potential future ones, creating scenarios etc. He's just A LOT in his head, his mind is really really active, and its very occupied with his love. Also another random message, commitment and love are tied with him somehow. Im seeing he cant commit if he doesn't love but he also cant love if he can't commit. So i would say he's very extreme-y. Like he's either all in or all out. No middle ground. What i mean is he HAS to be this intense in a relationship because for him thats commitment, THATS expressing love. And if he's not able to do that, then his love and interest and enthusiasm begin to fade away. He HAS to be able to be like that in a relationship and i think often he has been labeled (or was) just WAYYY TOO MUCH for the girls he has been in a relationship with. Im seeing he can get very overwhelming and overbearing if the person he's with just isn't the person to enjoy that kind of commitment and effort. But to go back to the cards, he also fantasizes about physical stuff too, for example he's riding in the car, and for the whole ride he's imagining and giggling and wiggling his feet and twirling his hairs because he plays over and over how that one time while they were still just dating she looked him in the eyes with that wet sexy look, and how his whole body got shivers and his stomach dropped and his heart skipped and his palms got sweaty and he swears some saliva started dripping out the corner of his mouth and his knees got weak and he almost felt like he was gonna black out and by the time he came back to his senses she was already sooo close to his lips and them BAM. Fireworks everywhere. He can never forget how that wonderful kiss felt and how sweet the sexual tension and anticipation before it was. He plays stuff like that OVER AND OVER again the whole damn day.
While being on physical stuff, he is pretty horny ill say. But not in a bunny way,m where he wants to fuck 5 times a day, but rather when around his girl he's always half way up, always ready to rise for the occasion iykwim. I think he gets *excited*👀 very easily and is just really weak when it comes to his girl. He's always ready to deliver whenever she ask, whatever she asks. Als im seeing once again he's a giver (and despite him loving head so much) he's focused on her pleasure and he can off just from watching her enjoy...whatever it is. So yeah thats that😂
Bro im so tired im thinking about doing this in 2 parts😭 im just halfway. Ok yk what im splitting it.
#skz#stray kids#kpop#tarot reading#asks#seo changbin#future spouse#skz tarot#stray kids tarot#kpop tarot#changbin tarot#skz imagines#reaction#skz scenarios#headcanons#stay#skz stay
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Are you gonna give us that Jack Frost/Reader we know you wanna write?? 😆
oh god yes yes YES PLEASE I WOULD LOVE TO 😳💖 there is an absolutely tragic lack of x Reader fanworks for this man, which is devastating given how much he craves attention...i think he needs a little love to warm him right up 😉
Jack Frost x Reader headcanons 💙❄️
❄️ when You first meet Jack, he flatters You like you're the only person in the world who matters. he presses earnest kisses to the backs of your palms and showers You with compliments. you're taken in by his glittering smile, and the ease with which Jack makes You feel ever so special. but with time, You notice Jack's long game. there's a shallow affect behind those attentive eyes which clues You in; he's not only always watching You for any glimmer of approval, but watching everyone else too, all of the time. every phrase is perfectly engineered to give him the response he wants, and what he wants is attention. so, You decide to turn the tables on him. You make it your life's goal to make Jack Frost melt. ❄️ when You confront Jack on his scheming behaviour, his persona cracks like ice. his smile drops instantly and he takes on a mocking, scathing tone. "You think you've figured it all out?" he scoffs. "Please. Your gullibility would give the April Fool a field day. Why don't you scootle along now, before you get yourself hurt?" but You see it: the hurt flickering behind those frost-blue eyes. You step closer to him, and don't miss the way he flinches. "Aren't you tired of all this, Jack?" You ask quietly. "Always calculating. Always trying to get on top. You're trying so hard to make people like you...you can't see it when they actually do." Jack's hands are ice-cold when You slip your fingers through his own. he blusters in protest, tripping over his words as he tries to formulate a witty retort...but a light dusting of pink blooms along his cheekbones.
❄️ sincere affection is a foreign notion to Jack, and he skitters around it like a deer on a frozen lake. years of hypervigilance and rejection have him distrustful of your motivations, even when You speak your mind. "Surely this is some elaborate trick," Jack tells You once afternoon, when the pair of you are bundled up together under one ultra-long, snowflake-patterned scarf. "I'm still waiting for the big reveal, and I'm sure it'll be a showstopper." yet you're used to the pitfalls of Jack's paranoid mind, and You ask him, "What if the big reveal is that I think you look really cute when you're flustered?" without waiting for an answer, You capture his lips in a kiss. Jack is immediately reactive and whines softly into you, but You slide your arms over his shoulders and lock your fingers behind his back: reassuring him. keeping him safe. telling him it's okay to be vulnerable here. ❄️ nothing could have prepared you for what Jack's real love looks like. remarkably, Jack is restrained when he's being insincere: the actual depths of adoration he has for You are astonishing. he's physically clingy: always having a hand rest on your shoulder, or brushing his thigh against yours under the table. when you're alone he loves to envelop You, whether that's by drawing You in for an impromptu hug or falling asleep cuddling You like you're a teddy bear. his kisses (frequent and soft) leave small trails of ice crystals along your bare skin, and he always grins when You shiver. "Oh dear, are you cold, darling?" Jack asks with a wink. "It would appear my efforts to warm you up have been in vain. However...there's no harm if I keep trying, is there~?" ❄️ although he's freezing cold in the extremities, Jack isn't frozen all the way through. a gentle warmth exudes from Jack's chest, and You often spend your evenings intertwined with your head resting there, listening to the curious flutter of his trapped, searing heart. You murmur gentle words of affirmation into his neck, and delight in how he keens beneath You. when You look up at him, You adore the way his eyes sparkle. Jack is beautiful in the way only a snowflake can be: wholly unique, with hidden complexities even a lifetime wouldn't allow You to observe. Jack is wonderful. and Jack is yours.
#thrOWS MYSELF INTO A SNOWDRIFT AND SCREAMS FACE-DOWN 😳😳😳😳😳❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️#coughs. i may. ahem. i may have. a thought or two. about Jack Frost. and how much he craves being loved 🥺🥺🥺#he would thrive in a relationship with someone who understands the specific thought loops that come with being neglected#and he needs to be told just how adored he is with zero prompting. i volunteer 🙈💖💖💖#jack frost x reader#jack frost x you#jack frost x anon#jack frost#martin short#the santa clause 3: the escape clause#the santa clause 3#the santa clause#selfship#oc x canon#starleskawrites#starleskasks#long post
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„Really,“ Tommy scoffs, „you’re my trainee pilot? Zorii Bliss?“
He frowns, as if he’s reading the name on his clipboard for the first time.
„You wouldn’t have accepted my request if I’d gone by my real name, would you,“ Buck goes, somewhat defiant. „I did the prepayment, so don’t waste the money, give me my flying lesson. By the way, your fees really are competitive.“
„You looked up the fees of other pilots?“
There’s something in the air, a special kind of tension. Every word seems ambiguous, just like this whole situation. Buck's intention is clear. It's just difficult to convey it. The hangar with the helicopter seems to have shrunk, reduced to a pair of steel-blue eyes that once looked so lovingly at him and now seem so stern.
“Listen,” says Tommy, ”if you have something to tell me, you didn't have to book a lesson under a false name. I…“
„Yeah, but believe me, this was the only way,“ Buck blurts out.
Tommy looks at him, confused. But there's more to his gaze, isn't there? Buck, whose mind was filled with TommyTommyTommy for weeks, would read something into every little wrinkle next to his eyes, every vague movement of his lips. He realizes that, but he doesn't care.
“You really want a flying lesson?”
“I do.”
Maybe it's not right to pressure Tommy into a debate in this way. Does he give in because he knows how stubborn Buck can be, or because it means something to him too? There are so many questions, so many unresolved issues.
As they board the helicopter, Buck can’t help but feel like this might just be a dream. Maybe it is, he's had a lot of dreams in the past few weeks, and Tommy has been in every one of them. But if it is, it’s the most genuine of dreams, and it’s not a nightmare. There’s not only tension in the air, there’s also Tommy’s aftershave. His presence makes him dizzy, he hardly listens as the man starts his spiel about how a helicopter works. Tommy’s talking about the cyclic and about autorotation, and he just feels like planet Buck, rotating around his sun again.
“You won't learn how to take off or land in the first lesson,” says Tommy sternly. “But the sensation of flying, of keeping the machine under control in the air, that's what I'll show you. You got that?”
Flying, Buck thinks. Exactly what I’m craving.
They ascend, and with every altitude, Buck’s fear shrinks. The fear of being rejected. The fear of not being able to say what he actually wants to say. But also the fear that he's only doing this because he's actually addicted to Tommy. Addicted to the feeling this man conveyed and that he’s missed so much.
But as they rise into the deep blue sky, he realizes it’s something else. Addiction is dependency, and Buck is coping alone; he has learned to endure loneliness long before Tommy. What he can't cope with is ignorance. And…
“The silence,” he muses aloud, and Tommy gives him a questioning look.
“It's not exactly quiet in a helicopter,” he says, tapping his headphones.
It's not the ideal conditions for a conversation like this. But none of them can run away at this moment, and besides, this is Tommy's territory. His domain, which he controls; something from which he draws self-confidence. Buck didn't book this flying lesson because it really was a last resort to talk to Tommy again.
“I was talking about you,” Buck returns. „You bubbled me, but you never sent a message.“
„I… bubbled you?“
Tommy's furrowed brows are a question mark. Buck shrugs, “I saw you were about to text me several times, but then you didn't. I've been staring at my phone for days, so close to calling you. L.A.'s having a flour crisis because of me.”
“Flour,” Tommy repeats uncomprehendingly. “What altitude are we flying at?”
This is either a test or a distraction, but Buck has done his homework, and his eyes find the information immediately.
„Nearly 11,500 feet. Still not very close to our maximum altitude.“
“High enough for you to explain to me what this is all about,“ Tommy says.
Buck heaves a sigh. It’s not easy to find the right words.
„Zorii Bliss is actually a woman’s name,“ he begins, although he can see that’s not what Tommy expected. „There’s only so many queer characters in the Star Wars universe, and she’s not one of them; but she’s a past love interest of one main character.“
„That makes me Poe Dameron?“
Oh, he’s quick. And he’s almost smiling. That’s a start, right? But then he says, “You're giving me a little too much credit, I think.”
“You think you're not a main character? To me, you always were.”
Tommy's sideways glance is wistful, the look of a man who’s been trying to come to terms with his past for a long time.
“We talked about this,” he says, though his white knuckles gripping the cyclic tell the opposite.
„No, we didn’t. Which is why we’re here now.“
Now it’s Tommy’s turn to sigh, it sounds like a breath he held weeks ago.
“I actually wanted to text you,” he admits as he stares out the pane, avoiding Buck's gaze. „Because… I’m really sorry how that went. Not my best move.“
„Breaking up with me? Definitely,“ says Buck with a hoarse laugh.
“To leave without explaining myself,” Tommy emphasizes. „You did nothing wrong.“
„Oh, but I did. I asked you to move in with me at a point of our relationship that just wasn’t the right one.“
Only now does Tommy turn to him, a questioning expression on his face.
„You think this is all about timing?“
„Of course not,“ Buck says softly. „It’s about us, stumbling through half a year of…“
„Fun,“ Tommy interjects.
„Yeah, but it was more than that, right? You weren’t with me only because I was a sexy himbo you had fun with.“
Tommy’s jaw drops.
„You’re twisting…“
This time, Buck doesn’t let him finish.
„No. You made assumptions about me, figuring out who I was and what I actually wanted. That hurt, because everything I wanted was you. I realize, though, that I didn’t really show you. But in the end, Tommy…“
He stops to put his hand on Tommy's arm, just for a moment. His muscles are tense and hard, and his jaw is working as if he’s chewing on Buck’s words, but he’s still listening.
„In the end,“ he continues, „it was never about me not knowing who I am, but who you actually are. I missed out on you. That was never as clear as the moment you left.“
“Do you realize that one possible conclusion of this is that we just don't fit together?” Tommy says, but his eyes say, convince me otherwise. Buck wants to believe that.
“I can think of at least half a dozen other conclusions,” he replies. „And I want to try and see if I’m right. Because there’s something else I realized.“
Maybe he’s deliberately making a dramatic pause, staring at the horizon from nearly 11,800 feet altitude.
“And that would be?” Tommy asks, his eyes now on Buck's lips.
“I've been abandoned so many times in my life that I assumed that's how it had to be. Fate or something. True, people told me that’s wrong, that I deserve to be happy, yada yada.“
His fingers draw exclamation marks in the air, but Tommy still only has eyes for his face. Does he look at his blue eyes and thinks, just like Buck, that the horizon is reflected in them, and with it infinite possibilities?
“But that made me passive, and I'm not. I don't want to be like that. Not when something is so important. Hey, I'm the guy who sued the department to get his job back. Who found his sister after her crazy first husband left her half-dead. Who would have dug up his best friend with his bare hands if he could have. But I’m also the guy who never fought for his relationships. Look, Tommy, is that me? Is that who I want to be, the guy who fights for his loved ones but not for his actual love?“
„What?“ Tommy blinks, then his eyes widen.
Buck laughs. It’s a liberating sound, this time.
„Yeah, like in one of those hallmark rom-coms, you like those. Something, somebody is taken away from you, and only then do you realize how important he was. That hurts, and at first you're angry, especially because he said that you don't know what you want anyway and that he's just a stopover.”
Tommy raises his hands defensively, “I'm sorry. I really am.“ „You better be. Because I want us to be together again. I can’t actually promise I won’t break your heart, because that little thing seems a bit fragile to me.“
Out of the blue, he pokes Tommy in the chest with his index finger, but he doesn't even flinch. The corners of his mouth lift a little, at least.
“But we can work on that. Together. We're a bunch of problems, but we can also be the solution.”
“What you said earlier…” Tommy begins, his gaze searching Buck’s, and he nods.
„I love you. I want a second chance, Tommy. If you don’t want me, you can just land this helicopter and I’ll walk away.“
There’s a pause, but the silence is not unpleasant, not awkward.
„Put your hand on the cyclic,“ Tommy finally says.
Buck looks at him, confused. Not the answer he had hoped for, but not a flippant rebuff either. For a moment, they just stare at each other. Then, ever so gently, Tommy takes his hand and places it on the stick.
„You wanted to know what it’s like, flying,“ he remarks with a smile.
(Thank you so much for letting me use that idea!) AO3 version | All my BuckTommy on AO3
tommy's radio silence goes on for too long so buck does the only reasonable thing—
he books a flying lesson with tommy
#writing#fanfiction#bucktommy#bucktommy fic#break up make up#buck x tommy#evan buckley#tommy kinard#kinley#tevan#my fics
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This line is just so silly
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Silly Gale doodle to make me feel better about my art :")
#gale dekarios#gale of waterdeep#bg3 gale#baldur's gate 3#bg3#bg3 fanart#baldur's gate fanart#tee ramble in the tags ->#i spent so much time on that one art piece I've been working on#and i feel like it isn't good#and wasn't worth all the pain and time i spent on it#:(#and i also have been struggling to draw gale lately i feel like i lost my ability to draw again#so in a bit of an art slump#i want to draw but i can't draw how they look in my mind#but!!#i know i probably just need to step away and calm down#let it come back to me#<- ramble over#galemancer#galemance
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Some sketches I did to try to get a feel for what I want my Rook to look like 🤔
#I'll probably have to change the hair tbh#I haven't seen hair quite like this in the cc videos#the one dreadlocks+half bun hairstyle I saw wasn't quite the right vibe?? too short tbh#and lacking some shape#I just hope someone mods bg3 hairstyles into the game......... I had this one specific bg3 hair mod in mind while I was drawing her#but I'd settle for any long dreadlocks hairstyle tbh 😔#ironically I think I'll end up going for the short one in game 🫠 I feel like the shape of it fits the vibe I'm going for with her#which is like. kind of edgy fjdjjfjf very angular#can you tell I'm eyeing the antivan crow background for my 1rst playthrough........#sketch tag#dragon age#datv#sleepyscribble#I love her face. I definitely want to keep her face exactly like this#I'm only unsure about the scar and the makeup#I was thinking something like a lightning scar on the side of her face#which I could use to come up with something for her backstory later(trauma <3)#story wise I have a general idea of where I want to go with her but it's very like. just vibes rn#I'm thinking of going for angst with 'taken into the crows as a kid + being a crow is a huge part of who she is'#and 'being a crow is something she might want to stop being. but she can't. because she doesn't know how to be anything else'#I started thinking abt that while reading through the backgrounds and I thought yeowch. I have to go with crow now#but other than that I'm also looking forward to playing mostly purple rook so nfncnncncm she'll be an absolute disaster#also in my head her name is renata and her voice sounds a bit like josephine's
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Well aren’t you so popular (Patreon)
#Doodles#Handplates#UT#Fellplates#Temmie#Gaster#Alphys#These were the original ideas I had in mind with the prompt of Temmie or Alphys btw lol#I just didn't have the time/practice/space to mess up and get everything done in time! Now though ♪#Man! I can't believe it's been this long to draw Alphys! I really like her!!#I might've drawn her initially when I first got into Undertale but that's been A Couple years now lol ♪ If I did it's been a good long while#Definitely out of practice - and same for Temmie - I think I did draw her but it's been such a long time!!#I might've pulled just a little bit of inspiration from Nny for Temmie's clothes lol - I was thinking of Tem Shop's Tem with the stripes so~#It's called a motif it's fine lol#But yes! That first one of him holding Temmie with his knees and poking her toe beans was my initial thought of those two haha#She's not Really fighting him that much - if she really wanted to leave it's not like he's restricting her movement lol just some wiggles#Making faces#And then he just lets her bite him lol - isn't he such a patient and kind soul! He's so nice and placid and peaceful :)#Just enjoys everyone's company so much no matter what they do to him ♪#Alphysssss <3 I had no ideas for how to differentiate her look other than the blank glasses look haha#Spooky! But other than that she's just her with different body language lol#I do like the image of her being all scary and intimidating meanwhile she's got a cute skirt on under her lab coat lol - it's cute ♪#What did Gaster do to garner such negative attention? :0 Went around picking up her anime figures lol#And then for funsies some classic Handplates!Alphys yaaaay <3 <3 <3#Will I ever stop drawing his wings as actual feathery fluffy wings? But they're so cute!#Alphys clearly thinks so too lol - she would be all over a good twin/clone thing for Gaster haha#Gaster not so much lol#''Please Dr. Alphys have some dignity -.ó'' lol#And then since I'd been looking around the gallery and saw winged Alphys again I wanted to draw them together hehe <3#Stretches! Wing yoga! Flapping at each other to cool down or just be silly hehe ♪♫ It's all very cute
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i don't remember how i stumbled across this interview but i've never seen anyone mention it so i'm dropping it here <3 it's a little dated but still like super valuable and a decently in depth look at higuchi-sensei's previous works and how she works and thinks as a mangaka... personally i think it's the most i've ever learned from an interview of hers. super interesting stuff :0)
#oofuri#higuchi asa#yuku tokoro#yasashii watashi#kazoku no sorekara#tw: suicide mention#and maybe i did jump out of my chair at the yuku tokoro mention. but i'll never tell#i love how she says basically u can't truly know a character without getting to know their family as well. a story progresses best this way#that's why she draws everyone's parents and siblings so thoughtfully in her work#wow and also.#that line abt how - after yasashii watashi - she received a letter from a fan saying it'd helped dissuade them from taking their own life?#and i think she says: 'and I remember thinking that maybe I drew this work because I wanted this answer' (?????)#very much used a translation app but#i respect her so much#pls skim if you'd like#ok one more. the line at the very end ->#'when they [abe & mihashi] met they both had their complexes. but after spending 3yrs together theyll arrive at....?'#ok well. boyfriendhood. next question.#she's so embarrassed at how long oofuri is taking her wkjakdjkjsd queen lift ur head...#i think she says something like 'homosexuality alcoholism and physical disabilities are all subjects I wanted to depict but it might be -#misleading to say im attracted to them' abt yuku tokoro. which i think is epic bc i take it to mean like. she wants to#represent these themes w/o fetishizing them#but she drew yuku tokoro first AND THEN had to go looking 'around the world' for somewhere to publish it bc it wasn't 'commercial'#so she just wanted to write it...........her mind....................... ok my god i could talk abt this forever
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yoshioker face.
dimple friday #27
#dimple friday#mob psycho 100#mp100#mob psycho#mob psycho 100 fanart#mp100 fanart#ekubo#ekubo mp100#mp100 ekubo#dimple#dimple mp100#mp100 dimple#yoshioka mamoru#yoshioka dimple#security guard dimple#security guard ekubo#sgekubo#my art#artist fatigue is really kicking my ass rn and i cant seem to shake it this sucks man 😔#because i really wanna get some of my dimple friday requests done#I received some really fun ideas and i really wanna draw them but i just don't have the motivation to do it yk?#mannn this suckkkkss#at least i like how this piece turned out#tho my mind can't seem to make up how i want to draw this man everytime i do he looks different TvT#and i can't tell if it's bc my art is improving and evolving or if im just inconsistent lmao#the struggles of being an artist ig
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qifrey's birthday and silly stuff
#witch hat tag#orufrey#excerpt is from my 30k failing eye fic (link in pinned) which has a birthday scene. i revisited and edited it again and it is now 30k :)#kerplunk thing is because of a mysterious game that shirahama has drawn orufrey playing before and to me it looks like Kerplunk.#a kids' game from this 'Real World' which we live in. card game is Cheat from neopets. but it's a real game. i want to play it for real....#you lie and cheat in it..hence the name..and 'branston the eyrie you are a bold one' classic neopets tumblr post...no....ok then.....#'hey qif i know we're obsessed with witches' kerplunk but we used to play cheat all the time what happened to that??'#'oh. i just..don't like lying to you. i don't like how it feels.' 'oh haha i guess that's a good thing. ok let's play kerplunk instead ^_^'#'mm. *dying inside crying in the rain in my soul*'#i dislike trying to illustrate my writing. i resent myself for having described oru's captivating mysterious smile so perfectly#i can't draw that. i know what it looks like perfectly in my mind and i am right there on that roof but i can't draw it satisfyingly enough#writing comes from a different part of my brain. there's different things in there. i'm glad i wrote out some of what i can't draw.#then there are things that i don't write or draw but which are still a crucial ongoing facet of my orufrey mindscape.#the Written orufrey the Drawn orufrey and the Unspoken orufrey... three faces of a beautiful irreplaceable jewel in my heart...#could a depressed person do THAT.
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Fighting for my life trying to figure out how tf to draw benny, this the best I got
#2024 nv playthrough#my art#oc: JS Antyllus#first time i ever draw a character is always the fucking worst#I am looking at heaps of different drawings of him trying to figure out HOW#'I'll just do a quick doodle of this one in game moment instead of continuing to just write it' ha- haha- hahah#foolishly bold of me to to assume I could just DO that#this is NOT getting tagged#I am killing him by drawing him poorly#given how crunchy nv graphics are a lot of it is me looking at lots of diff art and trying to decide how I want to depict him#and I can't make up my mind#staring at vastly different art styles trying to figure out what carries over to make him HIM type shit
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Happy blorthday to @arcade-unknown you are SO cool/gen
Quality is so bad but. Have a little doodle :D
#I wanted to draw olivur (thats how u spell it right I can't check rn) but it is almost midnight and tomorrow is Monday so womp womp#I HOPE UOU DON'T MIND HOW WONKY IT LOOKS I RLLY SPEEDRAN IT I'M SORRY DJFHFHFH#soda art#<- I'M GONNA CHANGE THE TAG SOON I SWEAR#Ure actually so fuckin cool I'm so nervous JSHDHFHFJF#Phighting!#I AM STILL LEARNING HOW TO DRAW CHUBBY PEOPLE PLS I'M TRYING MY BEST GUYS DON'T BULLY ME/GEN#I think it's the shoulders eugh will take notes for next time 👍
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sometimes i feel like extending the kindness you can, when you can, is the only thing there is
#two days ago on the train home from work there was a woman next to me with three very young kids.#she was trying to keep them in the seats#exasperated and tired and yelling.#trying to make a phone call as the kids swung on the handrails and did cartwheels in the train car#i wasn't trying to listen to the call but caught that somebody had died in a station.#I tried to mind my business for a few minutes;#the kids bounced around as their mom tried to wrestle them down and took a swig from a bottle of vodka in their wagon.#when there was a break in her phone call i said “this is none of my business but if you want me to keep the kids busy I can try to help.”#and she said “you're not gonna be able to. they're being real bad. but you can try.”#so I took some post-its out of my backpack and folded them tiny paper cranes#(I tried showing them how to fold cranes but they were far too young for fine motor skills.)#I stuck post-its to the seats and gave them my pens so they could scribble and draw.#I told them I'd draw them anything they wanted if they sat in the seats while I drew.#I challenged them to a breath-holding contest.#When one started showing me that he could do cartwheels in the car aisle I asked him to come sit down and I could draw him doing a flip.#All in all I think they ended up more or less in the vicinity of the seats almost all of the time and having some kind of fun -#I almost missed my stop. I gathered my pens and pencils back from the kids and picked up the post-it confetti from the floor#and when I was putting my helmet on and grabbing my bike the kids waved goodbyeand the mom looked grateful#and told the kids to all say goodbyelike clearly they were in rough times#like clearly they were in rough times#money. health. holding on#there is so much I can't give#but I can give twenty-five minutes
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can you hear me say your name, forever ? can you see me longing for you, forever ? - reference
#ftcat ftcating#shit this took me a while#lots of trials and errors#layer masks??? why wasn't i using them beofre?????? absolute game changer#at first it was going to be a plain and simple study buuuuut GOOD OMENS#aaa i really wanted to do some lighting for once i love LIGHT#i think i finally got that it's a draft until its done and you shouldnt give up (oh man i thought about giving up a million times)#its not perfect at all but im happy about it#can't draw hands : lets do a piece with SIX FCKIN HANDS#ngl i look at it and the only thing going on in my mind is *how the hell did i do this*#they're living in my brain *rent free*#not complaining#good omens#good omens 2 spoilers#go2#ineffable husbands#crowley x aziraphale#aziracrow
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It does annoy me to see those shippy posts that are like lists of activities "that we do platonically" (with the implication that it's not platonic). But actions aren't ever inherently romantic. I could sleep in the same bed with someone and brush their hair and kiss them and have sex with them and hold their hand when we walk and snuggle on the sofa with them and make them packed lunches with cute little notes of how I hope they're having a good day and get a cat together and plan a life together. And they could be my best friend with no romantic attachment required. It's about intent and what you decide together that your relationship is, right?
Which is not to say "them in the [fictional media] aren't gay stop making everything about that they could be Just FriendsTM", because in the fictional media there is (probably) framing of the actions in a romantic light demonstrating romantic intention and feeling. And if not in the media itself, whatever fan works are being created for them would. But merely listing actions as romantic without that framing...it's not the same and to me it reads as devaluing platonic relationships as a whole. Which I'm sure is not the intent!!
#stepping off my soapbox 'but we keep it sillay 🤪'#I'm not aromantic but I believe in their beliefs#if yous saw my platonic relationships with my best friends I know what you would think. and you'd be wrong.#to fix this I would suggest adding a sense of longing to these.#'I brush her hair (i want to brush my lips across the ends but i can't)'#'she gives me her coat when I'm cold (i want to wrap myself up in her forever)'#'I write a note for her lunch (i draw a heart without thinking then scribble it out and turn it into a monster)'#<- which! again! all those (bonus longings) AREN'T necessarily romantic either! but framing them as private thoughts that can't be shared bc#in this characters mind it WOULD cross a line to romantic that's what makes it#you could also (if you want to do the whole 'didn't know they were dating' thing) compare them to previous ROMANTIC relationships#'she's slept over in my bed every night for three months. No one has done that since Monique.'#'I lift her up and twirl her with excitement at seeing her again. It's something I've never wanted to do with a friend before'#'she drapes her feet across my lap without asking and I massage them without needing to look down. 'this is always how i pictured#being married would be like' I tell her and her mouth flickers and she looks away. there's a blush across her cheeks. 'yeah me too'
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