She/her Requests are currently open. I do one-shots, match up, headcanons, imagines, all that junk. If you want a longer thing, if the demand is there, I’ll do it.
do you think itd be possible/likely for nagito to gain feelings for a non-ultimate? i feel like he'd be in denial about his feelings and try to suppress them no matter who it was though😭
A non ultimate would honestly be one of the better picks for Nagito in terms of a romantic partner. He associates himself more with them than he does with the rest of his class, so genuine vulnerability and relatability would be most possible with someone who doesn’t have that distinction. At the very least, Nagito couldn’t be with someone who he knew before they became an ultimate. Without that baggage, the only remaining sticking point would be with his luck, and while he may have some reservations subjecting you to his talent, if you weren’t stuck in that position of power, he might actually take you at your word when you say you can handle it.
AY fellow madoka magica fan, respect! Any thoughts on the next movie finally coming out? And any thoughts on tadc or its characters in general? In terms of recommendations - I don’t know how into video games you are, but Deltarune and Hollow Knight/Silksong are both awesome, and, if you’ve never seen Avatar: the Last Airbender, it’s a great show. All very popular media, but I love vouching for them anyways in the off chance someone hasn’t heard of them because I think they’re very sweet and worthwhile.
If my girl Homura doesn’t get a fucking win in Walpurisnacht I’m giving up on love. She has gone through too much hell for her wish to not come true. So does Sayaka, frankly; those two girls in particular need some sort of recompense for what they’ve gone through. The Amazing Digital Circus makes me ill. I’m glad Zooble and Gangle have each other, and I hope that Kinger doesn’t end up abstracting even though he’s the only one who hasn’t gotten an arc and thus is most likely to get got by the end of the show. Him or Caine; one of the two. Jax is obviously the biggest fanfiction bait character because he’s the saddest (at least as far as my account is concerned), but I have the most affection for Pomni.
I don’t know that I can handle going through another Toby Fox fandom after my formative experience as a Sans fangirl (also I tend to avoid any games with gameplay because I’m a baby) but I’ve heard good things about Silksong (I’ve heard the name evoked in the same breath as Iron Lung and that movie was great) and Avatar’s always been considered fantastic culturally so I might have to check those out :)
Oh! I’m very curious actually - what fandoms are you still into (Genshin, Death Note, Dangonronpa, etc.)? Do you have any new fandoms you’re interested in? :o
Danganronpa is the big one currently. Death Note to a lesser extent. I feel like I’ve left too much on the table to not say BSD but I’ve been holding off on really studying up until the next season airs, but in checking just now that the season 6 is still set to run I just found out that the series has come to a decent stopping point so I think I might pick the series back up. Not super into Genshin these days, but I’ve been really into The Summer Hikaru Died in a literary analysis kind of way. Same with Madoka Magica, but I feel more maternally passionate about that series than TSHD. I’ll never write fanfiction for it because the characters are repulsive, but Vampire Knight has re-entered my consciousness. Also The Amazing Digital Circus because obviously. I’m open to suggestions, though; I haven’t had the chance until recently to consume any new media, I’m open to new things now that my life has settled down.
are you still bsd-pilled? hehe. what do you think dazai looks for most in a partner?
Tw: Suicide as means of coercion
Dazai would look for a yes man and but wouldn’t be attracted to them. He’d end up cheating on that person for someone who treats him the way he deserves to he treated and then threaten to kill himself to keep the person he cheated on with him as a power play. He would then also threaten suicide against the person he cheated with so as to keep them from leaving or outing him. This is why so many women want him dead. Dazai is incapable of finding love; love needs to hit him over the head with a frying pan or else he’s a lost cause.
Unrelated: if your situationship goes on for longer than three months and he keeps coming up with reasons not to be seen in public alone with you, regardless of whether or not his friend has tragically died, you should terminate that. I can’t go to a jazz concert anymore without looking over my shoulder. Learn from my mistakes.
You say Light is the final boss of "I Can Fix Him" (I enjoy the idea of that but I can hardly fathom it) but frankly, I want to make him worse. Not in the Amane Misa way, where you pander to his every whim thus contributing to his God Complex, but in a way that leads him further into a doomed downfall. (though one can argue that pandering to his God Complex can also do this) Both fixing him or being the cause of his demise seem inconceivable, but the latter seems *a bit* more plausible.
Regarding the argument at hand, to me it is a “you can bring a horse to water but can’t make them drink” situation with two different problems. Dazai would be willing to drink water, but he is currently many, many miles from his nearest body of water and was born with a broken leg. Light could very well drink and is closer to water than Dazai, but he is convinced that he is not thirsty and thinks that he is above drinking water. They’re both fixable but willingness is a big factor, and while Dazai might humor the idea of a person and fall into not being the worst, you would need to start dragging Light along before you could even start on fixing him. It’s really more a matter of what sort of abuse you can stand for longer, but know that Light is a much longer campaign than Dazai.
In regards to making Light a worse person, that would not be difficult. Just get him emotional; he is not good under unplanned pressure. Compliment L in front of him. Comment on Kira’s strategies and point out how inefficient and ineffective they are. Light’s not hard to provoke; just start pushing buttons and wait for him to fall apart.
Okay. I think I’m good to accept asks about this now. I have all my thoughts in order and I’m ready to engage with the fandom. Here’s to what I’m sure will be a lot more of this.
Two in a row! We’re back in business! We aren’t going for three in a row but I do want to at least acknowledge that Dazai exists if we’re doing the bsd thing now.
Kindling
You were supposed to be fun.
He remembered the day he met you in that coffee shop. He had an hour to kill before a meeting. The shop was dead— the local schools had not been let out yet— and you stood behind the counter, eyes flickering from the clock on the wall above the door to the textbook in front of you. He had never been there before. He never had much reason to bother around largely residential areas before then. He had never seen you before. But you were nice to look at, so he approached the counter.
He liked the look you gave him. Cold, annoyed, almost indignant, desperate in the overblown way students often are: it took you a moment to remember your manners. You must have been new in town. “How may I help you?”
“One black coffee, please.” He smiled politely.
You straightened yourself up, not bothering to hide the way your gaze flitted between him, your book, the clock. “How much sugar?”
He blinked. “I said—“
“You’re not a black coffee drinker,” you answered dismissively, clearly distracted. “I’ve served three guys today already who asked for black coffee and then asked for cream and sugar and— no offense, guy— I’m so not in the mood to waste more of my time.” You picked a pencil from between the pages of your book, grabbing a notepad from your apron. “So, how much sugar, and how much cream?”
“Do you know who I am?”
You paused at that, giving him a once over. “No,” you said. “Should I?”
He stuck his hands in his pockets, an easy smile crossing his bandaged face. “No,” he replied. “You shouldn’t.”
You tapped your foot against the ground. “Fascinating. So—“
“May I ask you a question?” He nodded at the book. “How come you’re studying so hard at this time of day? It’s not midterm season already, is it?”
You looked down at the floor. “No.” Your brow furrowed. “Why is this your business, exactly?”
“It’s not.” He shrugged. “I’m just curious.”
You swallowed. “Huh.” Regret. “I’m sorry for snapping at you; I’m in a bit of a rush to get this stuff done.”
“What sort of stuff?”
You held the pencil between your forefinger and thumb, rolling it back and forth between them. “I’m helping a friend with a project. I owe him one, and he’s in a different time zone so my part is due in a couple hours.”
He went on his toes, peering over the register to read the textbook’s text. “Forensic pathology,” he noted. “Is your friend a criminologist?”
You shook your head. “A writer,” you explained. “He needs a comprehensive explanation of how corpses rot, and I’m the only one he knows with an understanding of that sort of thing.” You pursed your lips. “What he doesn’t know is that I’m taking this class as an elective and that I also have no idea how a corpse rots. But I can’t tell him that, because then I’d be letting him down, and he’s put so much trust in me and helped me so many times—“
He stopped you. “That’s all?” He held his hands behind his back. “Well, that’s simple enough. Most anyone downtown can tell you that.” His smile brightened. “How about we make a deal? If you pay for my drink and promise that this won’t take…” He looked back at the clock. It was an hour off. He wondered if you knew. “If you promise it won’t take longer than forty-five minutes, I can give you all the grisly details of human decomposition, with added notes accounting for weather, location, and time of day.”
The look of hesitant relief on your face brought him a sense of satisfaction he had not felt in a long time. You took a deep breath. “Sir,” you nodded, “you have yourself a deal.”
“Call me Osamu.”
You were easy. That was what first drew him to you. You had no reason to lie to him, so you did not. You had no reason to respect him, so you treated him like anyone else. The two of you— at least on the slice-of-life flavored stage the two of you played on— were equals, which he appreciated. Not many people offered him that luxury. The ones who did tended to disappear in the night for one reason or another, but you had no reason to, so you did not. Your problems were largely emotional. You stayed out of trouble. You were consistent. You were simple.
More important than your being simple, however, was the fact that you thought of him as a liar.
He remembered the conversation well. It was a Thursday. He had a couple hours before he was scheduled to help his newest apprentice train. The coffee shop was as slow as it always was and you, as always, stood behind it with a casual dismissiveness that would have gotten you beaten were you in different company. You had been in town long enough to know of the mafia— about a month— but had not yet accepted all of the stories you heard as true. You were recounting one of those stories to him, weight leaned against the counter as you described an incident regarding a teenager with phantom black limbs that could, without his so much as lifting a finger, murder a building’s worth of people in an instant.
“It’s bullshit, obviously.” You took a sip from your water. “I don’t get what they’re trying to prove; if they wanted to scare me, they’d come up with a half-decent lie.”
He did not have to smile around you— to you, he was nobody— but he did regardless. You were fun. “I know him,” he said. “I tutor him.”
You scoffed. “Yeah? What do you tutor him in?”
“Martial arts.” He took a sip from his coffee, which was thoroughly diluted with copious amounts of sugar and cream. You were right; it was bitter. “He’s not very good. He keeps trying to think of himself as a hand-to-hand combatant when he’s much more suited for support and has such a large inferiority complex that he loses all sense of strategy in exchange for a slavish need to validate his existence. In other words, he is close to useless.”
And, of course, you groaned tiredly. “Why are you encouraging them?” you asked. “You already know I know it’s bullshit; what kick do you get out of me already knowing?”
“I’m not lying,” he insisted, knowing you would not believe him. “I’ve been with him on hits before; a couple months ago, we killed thirty people in cold blood.”
And you laughed half-heartedly— as you should; to any regular person who did not know about how many bodies they had hidden, these claims were beyond ridiculous— and said, “Well, I knew the man that trained you, and I know he has a small dick, so what do you think of that?”
“I’m just glad to know he isn’t a pedophile.”
“Shut up and drink your coffee.”
He wondered what you thought of him sometimes. For the first week or so, you asked him questions, but you learned quickly that he was never going to give you satisfactory answers. You probably thought he was an ass, but you still talked to him like you would a peer, so he kept showing up. You must have thought he was a dick. He was sure that he was by your standards.
Once, on a Sunday, he had to attend a funeral. He had some time to kill before, so he walked into the coffee shop, clad in clothes nicer than what was typical, and ordered.
You looked him over. “You got a date?”
“No,” he replied, cheerful. “I have a funeral in an hour.”
You set his cup in front of him. “Oh. For someone you know?”
“My boss,” he explained. “He died the other day so we’re doing a service.”
“Oh.” Your brow furrowed, sympathy making way for confusion. “I’m… I’m sorry, but did you like him?”
He shrugged. “He was alright.”
“How long were you under him?”
He considered it. “A couple years?”
“Oh.” You nodded. “So enough time for your nonchalance to be weird. Cool.”
He rolled his eyes. “Well, it’s not as if he were my father.” He leaned back in his seat. “He was bound to get shot eventually; I’m just surprised it took this long.”
“He was what?”
“Shot,” he repeated. “In his sleep.”
You lowered your voice, looking around the cafe like someone would come out to shoot the two of you. “What,” you mumbled, “like an assassination?”
He nodded, looking around courteously. “Exactly. But it’s alright; they won’t stick around too long, I’m sure.”
“How come?”
He leaned his head on his hand. “I don’t imagine whoever did it could get very far out of the city. People are upset that he’s dead; I’m sure someone will lash out.”
You crossed your arms, swallowing thickly. “You know most people don’t speak so casually about people getting shot or whatever.”
“Well,” he shrugged again, “it happens often enough. It’s not like being formal is going to bring him back from the dead; who cares?”
“Don’t you?”
“What do you mean?”
“Aren’t you…?” You searched for the right word. “… I don’t know, shaken? He was a coworker, wasn’t he?”
He took a sip from his coffee. “Yeah.”
“So, isn’t his death a bit shocking?”
“Not really.” He snapped his fingers. “Oh, actually, that’s a lie. It means I’m in line for a promotion, and I thought I’d have to wait for him to die of a heart attack for it, so I’m happy about that.”
You cradled your head in your hands. “I don’t think you get my meaning,” you insisted. “Do you not feel anything for his death?”
He set the mug down, meeting your eyes. “No,” he repeated. “I don’t.”
Your questions were simple. “Why?”
“Because,” he answered, “His death was inevitable and his life’s impact on mine was nearly nonexistent. All he did was give me orders; why would I care if he died?
You stared at him, meeting his cold, bottomless eyes with ones aflame with passion. “You sound like a serial killer,” you said.
His smile was as vacant as the rest of him. “I feel like one.”
You were fun until you were not. If asked to identify when your relationship— acquaintanceship, friendship, whatever you called it— stopped being fun, he would point to an otherwise inconspicuous Monday morning three weeks after the funeral. The two of you were splitting a cinnamon roll. It was your break and you got a discount and you had no desire to eat a whole one. You were talking about something silly— a friend of yours had broken up with your other friend— when you had stopped in the middle of a sentence to look out the window, seemingly distracted by something. Witnessing this development, he turned to look out the window too, only to see that the scene outside— an overcast sky, street populated by people rushing on their way to work— had not, in fact, changed since he last looked out the window. “What are you looking at?” he asked.
Your words were soft, eyes transfixed on the window. “I need to buy a decent camera,” you murmured. “Or write. Or paint.”
“You want to take a picture?” He looked out the window again. The scene was still the same. “Of what?”
“Leave me alone, Osamu.”
“I’m not messing with you,” he said. “I just have no idea what you could possibly be looking at.”
“Sure you aren’t.” You gestured with your fork, not looking in his direction. “You have a reputation. I refuse to indulge you in something you’ll clown on me for.”
He sighed. “You are being so over dramatic.”
You shot him a glare. “I told you my friend’s boyfriend got stabbed last week and you said, and I quote, ‘I wish I could say the same.’”
“Yeah, but that was a joke.”
“Jokes are supposed to be funny.”
He crossed his arms, leaning back in his chair. “It’s not my fault you have a lame sense of humor,” he protested. “Why won’t you tell me?”
You peeled your attention from the window. “You wanna know what I think?” You gave him a cold smile. “I think you’re so neurotically obsessed with knowing everything that whatever joy you’ll get from knowing will be totally outweighed by the amount of pleasure I get at getting to make you squirm for once.” You stuck your tongue out. “You’re the nihilist. Suffer under the weight of your ideals, dipshit.”
He raised his eyebrows at you. “Do you seriously think I can’t get you to tell me? Is this the hill you want to die on?”
“What if it is?” You crossed your arms, mimicking his pose. “What if it was really emotionally impactful to me? What if it was literally nothing and I’m just fucking with you? What, are you going to torture an answer out of me?” Your smile grew. “I get why you do this now; this is fun.”
He huffed. “You’re such a child.”
“No, you’re just easy to read.” You reached for your drink, cradling it to your chest. “Lenin gave himself a heart attack when he came to power, you know; it’s not healthy to obsess like that.”
He crossed his arms. “It was a stroke,” he grumbled. “He died of a stroke.”
“See, like that. You have issues.” You crossed your legs. “ Maybe it’d be good for you not to know.” You covered your mouth as he leaned forward and adopted an all too familiar smile. “And so help me if you try and seduce me into telling you what I saw so help me I will laugh you out of the room.”
His face soured. He stared you down, and you stared back, unphased, because why would you not? The two of you were equals as far as you were concerned; this was how you treated your peers, and despite the fact that the two of you barely knew each other in any meaningful way, you knew him enough to know what the rules of the game he was trying to play were even if you did not know what it was called. “I could kill you,” he said. “I know plenty of ways to do it. I know how to make it hurt, too.”
And you, knowing you had won, replied, “You could, but you won’t. Who would serve you your coffee?”
The two of you stared each other down one last time. Finally– and mercifully, he liked to think– he looked away. “You win.” He tossed his hands up. “That’s all my cards.”
Your smile softened at the edges. “Good.” You sat up. “I’m not going to tell you what I was looking at, but I can tell you how to see it, if you want. That way you get to know but you don’t get to be all smug.”
“Yeah, yeah,” he waved you off. “Because I’m not allowed to win, right?”
“If I knew you weren’t going to try and rule-lawyer me, I would just tell you.”
“I spend too much time here.”
“You said it.” You set the fork and the cup down on the table. “Close your eyes.”
He groaned. “I am so not into meditation.”
“Is that backtalk I hear?”
“No, no,” he relented, closing his eyes. “I’m with it or whatever. Now what?”
Your voice lowered. “Breathe in.”
He inhaled.
“And out.”
He exhaled.
“Now,” you continued, “what do you hear?”
“You talking to me.”
“You’re an idiot.”
“You asked.”
You huffed. “I– look, besides me, what do you hear?”
He paused, considering it. “People outside,” he said. “And the air conditioning unit. And the milk steamer.”
“Good.” He heard you sit back in your seat again. “And physically, what do you feel?”
“Isn’t this a panic attack thing?”
“Answer my question.”
He considered it. “It’s cold in here.”
Your voice was soft. He wondered how exactly this place stayed in business for how quiet it was. “What do you taste?”
“For giving someone who was just talking about flirting–”
“I have a point. What do you taste?”
He meant to say, ‘My mouth.’ What came out was, “Cinnamon and icing.”
He heard you smile. “Good. Open your eyes.”
He did, blinking at the light. You were back to looking out the window; the scene had not changed.
You nodded towards it. “Now, look and tell me what you see.”
He looked between you and the window. “A tree,” he said. “And people.”
“Look at the tree, first.”
The tree itself was, by his estimation, the same sort of tree that could be found just about anywhere in this part of town. There were fewer as the years went on, he knew– there was some government initiative to get rid of the trees on the side streets– but the tree itself was unextraordinary. “It’s dead,” he noted.
Your eyes didn’t leave the window. “It’s overcast.” You sounded a million miles away. “The light from the sun is hitting it from the other side, so the side that we’re on is dull and dark. It’s casting a shadow on the table, on your face.”
He looked down at the table. Sure enough, in the low light, cold shadows laid across the table like faint veins.
“The people,” you continued. “What do you see in them?”
He shifted his attention to the passersby. “People going to work.”
“How are they dressed?”
“Warmly.”
“What color are their clothes?”
“Dark. Are we at the point yet?”
“Almost.” You took a breath of your own. “Now, take all of those things together, and look back out the window again.”
He did.
Nothing had changed. His heart caught in his throat.
“It’s more now, isn’t it?”
He looked back at you.
You witnessed that mundane scene with the seeming awe of an acolyte before their god. It was as though you had never seen a street or a tree or the sun before, as though you would never see it again.
With a horrifying ache in his chest, he realized that he had never seen anything quite so beautiful or enviable as you in that moment. “So,” he asked again, voice tinged with an entirely unbecoming and uncharacteristic reverence, “what are you looking at?”
“I’m not looking at anything,” you replied. “I just remembered how lucky I am to be alive, here, with you.”
He wondered if you would mourn for his indifference like he would.
hey at least dazai would game end with you i doubt light would do the same !
For context, the resolution is that Dazai Osamu and Light Yagami are in a constant fight for who can be the worst boyfriend. TW: discussions of suicide and suicide ideation and manipulating people into committing suicide.
If you could get Light Yagami to love you, you could probably get him to commit double suicide with you. Neither is easy but Light is delusional enough to go through with it. The biggest concern regarding Dazai Osamu is that it would be hard to make sure the both of you would actually be fully willing to go through with it. Dazai hates being alive for the same reason you don’t watch the entirety of a movie you find boring; why bother? You know what’s going to happen. If Dazai got you to agree to commit double suicide with him, I would argue that there is a non-zero chance that he would both not go through with it and take at least some pleasure in getting you to want to kill yourself with him. What he wants is devotion and assurance that he won’t lose who he cares about; if he were genuinely serious about wanting to find someone special to off himself with, that would be a mean, not an end.
After a very long week of diving headfirst into this fandom I think it’s only right that the champagne bottle we smash into this here ship is a four thousand word Chuuya x reader. Here’s to what I’m sure will be another few years of this, everyone; hope everyone is down.
Candies
He was glaring at you.
You had no idea when he got on the train. You did not care enough to wonder. What you knew was that he— the man in the hat on the opposite side of the train car— had been looking at you for the past three stops, and while you were fairly certain that you had no idea who he was, you were almost as certain that whoever he thought you were had another thing coming from how intensely he was watching you. Sure, he had the decency to look embarrassed by his staring, but that in no way stopped him from looking at you like you had something to apologize for. It was disconcerting. It was borderline creepy. But neither of you moved, because it was a train, and the two of you would not see each other again anyway.
The train slowed to a stop. Most people filed off. You did not. Neither did the man. You checked your watch, head falling back as you considered the pros and cons of waiting for the next train. You would have to eat dinner late, but you would not have to wonder why exactly he seemed to hate you this much for nothing.
You heard the rustling of clothing next to you. “Excuse me.”
You opened your eyes to the man. You took him in, identified any features that might be helpful for a police report: cold eyes, reddish hair, too many layers. Pretty, but not reassuring. You pulled your headphones off, fearing the worst. “May I help you?”
A pause.
You smiled tentatively. “Is something wrong?”
“I’ll give you five hundred thousand yen if you’ll go out with me.”
You blinked. “Excuse me?”
Reality seemed to catch up with him. “Shit. Uh.” He pulled his hat off, fiddling with the brim as he lowered his eyes. “Is that too little? I can go higher.”
“Do you think I’m a hooker?”
“Huh?”
You leaned away from him a bit. “What kind of thing is that to ask someone? ‘What’s your price?’ Seriously?”
The realization seemed to strike him like a baseball bat to the head. He immediately backpedaled. “That’s not— shit, I mean, that’s not what I meant to—“ he stammered. “I— no, I didn’t mean anything like that!”
“Yeah?” You raised your eyebrows. “That work for most people, asking them what they charge for a night? For fuck’s sake, man.”
“Hey!” He sat up, defensive. “I never said I wanted to take you home!”
You crossed your arms. “Then what exactly are you trying to do?”
“Ask you on a date!”
“You sure have a funny way of doing it.”
He huffed, face red. “Look,” he grumbled, “I don’t ask many people on dates; I’m trying my best here.”
“You could just ask me,” you pointed out. “You could ask me in a way that doesn’t involve offering me money.”
He rolled his eyes, seemingly— and audaciously— annoyed. “I can’t just walk up to a stranger and ask them on a date. Why would you go? You don’t know me; what if I’m a creep? How do you know if I’m worth the time?”
An incredulous smile crept onto your lips. “And you thought that offering me money would make you seem less creepy?”
“At least then you have a reason to show up! At least then I have a financial interest in showing you a good time!” He buried his face in his hands. “It took me a while to get this far and my stop is next and I do not have the time nor ability to actually woo you.”
The absurdity of this whole situation— the sight of an extravagantly dressed pretty boy bemoaning his romantic failings— was starting to get to you. “This all seems like a lot for someone you just met.”
He sat up quickly, steam practically pouring from his ears. “Well,” he explained seemingly in an attempt to regain some composure, “I may not know you yet, but I know that I’ve never seen anyone who looks as good as you do, and we’re on a train; I may never get the chance to see you again if I don’t do something right this second.”
You grinned. “Really?”
“Really. I am fucking this up.”
“A bit,” you agreed. “But you’re bringing it back around, calling me hot.”
He brightened. “I am?”
You shrugged. “More or less, yeah.”
His hands were shaking. You wondered how long they had been doing that. “Well,” he mumbled, “does that mean your answer isn’t a hard no?”
You leaned back in your seat. “I can be convinced,” you said. “Try again.”
He cleared his throat. “Hello.” He made eye contact with you again, the sharpness you had assumed was being weaponized against you seemingly inherent in his gaze. You tried, for a moment, to make out what color his eyes were, but the answer seemed to elude you. “My name is Nakahara Chuuya.”
“Hello, Nakahara Chuuya.” You crossed your legs. “See, this is better. Keep going.”
He gave you a confused look. You liked him, you decided. “Well,” he continued, disgruntled, “I couldn’t help but notice you. You’re easy to see.”
“Interesting word choice, but alright.”
He shot you a look. “You’re nice to look at. Is that better?”
Your smile softened. “Much. Keep going.”
He looked down at his hat. “I was wondering,” he continued, “if you were already spoken for.”
You snorted. “Spoken for?”
“Single,” he amended, irritated. “Do you have a boyfriend?”
You stretched out your legs in front of you, thoroughly enjoying this. “I am both single and without boyfriend,” you assured him.
He nodded sternly. “Then, can I take you out? On a date?”
You considered it for a moment. “Yeah, sure.”
He blinked. “Really?”
“Really.” You leaned back in your seat. “You’re cute, and I don’t think you’ll murder me, and those are my two big requirements, so.”
He chuckled. “High bars. No wonder you’re single.”
“What can I say? I’m hard to please.” You dug around in your coat for a pen, holding your palm up towards you. “What’s your number?”
The redhead paused. “I don’t have a number right now,” he said. “I’m having trouble with my provider. I can give you a time and place, though.” He held out a gloved hand. “May I?”
You gave him the pen and your bare hand. Quickly, he scribbled down an address (someplace in Yokohama), a date (the next Saturday) and a time (six o’clock). As he finished, the train came to a halt at the platform, doors opening with a quiet hiss.
Nakahara Chuuya stood up, fixing his pork pie hat securely atop his head before straightening out his clothes and giving you a stiff nod. “I will see you then,” he promised. “If you’re late by more than fifteen minutes, I’ll assume you stood me up.”
You gave the strange man a smile. “I’ll come early, then.”
He averted his eyes. “Thank you.” And with that, he left you on the train with a date, a time, and a great deal of confusion.
Foolishly, you showed up. You lived neither in nor near Yokohama. Getting to the address the man had given you— which he wrote with poor penmanship— took you some time too. You went through the trouble of dressing as well as he had been the day you met him— which was more formal than you would typically be for a first date with a stranger you met on a train— and went so far as to plan to be there fifteen minutes early. You had no idea why you were so interested in the man. You had no inclination as to what possessed you to show up to meet a stranger in the first place; after all, his assumption that you might think of him as some sort of predator would have been a reasonable one to make. But you had an inarticulable feeling that told you that this meeting would be worth your time.
Or you just thought he was pretty. You weren’t sure which it was.
The address he had given you brought you to a small restaurant close to the Tsurumi river which, if its sign was to be believed, primarily dealt in soba. Despite your planning, you arrived a mere five minutes early instead of fifteen which, in your defense, was still early, but apparently not so early that your date did not beat you there. As you approached him, a look of bewilderment briefly crossed his face.
“Damn,” you joked. “I thought I’d get here first.”
He looked over your shoulder. “You came,” he said, sounding surprised.
“I did,” you confirmed.
“Alone.”
“I was unaware I was meant to bring a plus one on a date.”
“No, I just mean—“ He stopped himself. “Whatever. I’m glad you came.”
You held your hands behind your back. “So am I, though I’m feeling a bit self conscious now.” You looked down at your clothes, then back to his. He had dressed much more casually than you in a loose, short sleeve button up, loose pants and a large dark jacket. He had kept the hat and the choker— which you had not until that moment realized you remembered— but you looked too formal next to him. “I thought you would dress the way you did on the train.”
He gave you a once over. “You look fine,” he said. “You look great, actually. Don’t worry about it.”
A smile spread across your face. “You've gotten more confident since then, too. I just wanted to make sure I didn’t look totally plain next to you is all; you look so stylish.”
He paused, eyes cast down towards his feet. “Thank you. I drank before I came.” He opened the door to the restaurant for you.
You walked past him. “Thank you. Did you drive?”
“Nah.” He shut the door behind the two of you. “This place is out of the way enough to make it not worth the trouble to park. I walked.” He nodded to the hostess, who sat the two of you in a corner away from the door.
The restaurant was a hole-in-the-wall: exposed crossbeams, warmly lit, nearly empty despite it being a Saturday. You took your seat across from him as the woman set a cup of water in front of each of you, leaving you to your conversation. She made no eye contact with either of you before she left. You picked up your cup, taking a sip as he draped his coat over the back of the seat and set his hat beneath his chair. The gloves, however, stayed on. “How long was the walk?” you asked.
“Not far. A couple minutes.” His elbows came to rest on the table. “I can walk you back to your car if you drove, or to the train station if you need. Just let me know.”
“Thank you.” You took a menu from the center of the table, scanning it absently. “To be honest, I’m glad you asked me to do something earlier in the evening; I’m not super interested in being on my own in the dark.”
He hummed in agreement. “Nobody does. I have work to take care of later, but I can’t imagine wanting to stay out past twelve alone otherwise.”
You groaned sympathetically. “Terrible. What do you do?”
He paused. “I… it’s complicated.” He laced his fingers together. “I operate a shipping company under a parent organization operating out of Yokohama. I technically and practically own the shipping company, but I can’t legally operate it unless it’s under the parent organization, so I have all the stress of a business owner with none of the freedom.”
Your lips twitched nervously. “Are you on a list or something? Why can’t you operate a business?”
“What do you– oh.” The brief look of confusion left his face. “I’m a skill user.”
“A what?”
“You know,” he repeated, “a skill user?”
You stared at him blankly.
“I have a gift?”
“Isn’t that a dog whistle?”
“What? No!” He crossed his arms. “I have supernatural abilities.”
You considered it. “You know,” you mused, “I’ve never been on a date with a guy who came out as being possessed to me.”
He opened his mouth to protest, blinked. “Well,” he conceded, “I guess that’s what I’m saying, but that would be a bad assumption most of the time; most gifted users aren’t possessed.”
“Wait, seriously?” Skepticism and deep curiosity battled for supremacy in your mind. “By what?”
He shrugged. “A god, I guess?”
“You guess?”
“It’s complicated.” To your– and his– surprise, he laughed. “It’s funny; I can’t think of the last time I had to actually explain what my deal was.”
You cocked your head to the side. “Do most people just know?”
“More or less.” He shrugged again, looking towards the door. “It’s practical. I use it a lot.”
“I see.” You sat up, taking your cup and turning it over in your hands. “What does it do?”
He did not say anything for a second, brow furrowing. He looked back in your direction, holding out his hand. “Give me your cup.”
You did.
He set the cup down on the table. Slowly, as though it had been set in a pool of water, the cup began to float upwards. “My ability,” he explained simply, clearly taking pride in the way your eyes lit up in excitement and awe, “allows me to manipulate gravity for any object I touch.”
You reached out towards the cup, moving your hand above and below it. If there was a trick to what he was doing, you had no idea what it was. “That is so freakin’ cool,” you gushed softly. “How can you keep it from flying away?”
He was practically glowing. “Basically, I’m counteracting the force of Earth’s gravity for just this object by creating a second center of gravity that only affects the cup.” He pointed to a spot near the center of cup. “It’s around here. So long as the force of the gravitational field I'm creating is greater than Earth’s, the cup will naturally try and be as close to the center as possible. If the gravitational pull were too strong, the cup would go through that point–” he pointed towards the ceiling, “-- and through the roof before coming back down. But if the force is weak, it’ll stay right around the center.”
You took the cup, moving it towards you before letting go. As if attached to a string, the cup moved back to its place, the water inside is sloshing.
The pure, childlike joy on your face was enough for the man across from you to forget, for a moment, the price of his gift.
The date continued on. The two of you went back and forth on a variety of simple, surface level topics. You learned that Chuuya was a dog person and that he enjoyed fashion. He said he had been in Yokohama practically all his life. He told you about his coworkers– no details, but enough to get a sense for the type of Motley Crew they were– and how that day was an anniversary for something, though he never got around to telling you what it was an anniversary of. At one point, before your food had gotten to the table, you asked about his gloves, which he had apparently not realized he was still wearing. He explained that he wore them all the time– he said it made work easier– but that he did have the good sense to take them off.
“I’m not a monster,” he had insisted. “I don’t want to get food on them.”
The conversation was surprisingly easy. He was nervous at first and clearly inexperienced– an observation that you chose to keep to yourself– but funny and over dramatic in a way that made the discussions flow jovially between the two of you. He was a sailor-mouthed, irreverent, sensitive man, you found, and he seemed to take great pleasure in your company and a surprising interest in the more tedious parts of your life: your occupation, your friends, your earlier life, all of which he found strangely fascinating. Though you knew little of substance about him by the end of the meal you shared, you could not shake the feeling that the sort of things you learned– the simple, stupid things most people gave out as icebreakers– held more weight than you could understand.
But you were grateful, nonetheless. You enjoyed talking to him.
Despite your protests, he paid for the both of you, and the two of you left the restaurant cracking up over some embarrassing story about school.
“Three days straight?”
You waved him off, laughter still bubbling from your throat. “I know; it was stupid!” you cried. “I swear I was possessed; by the end of it I thought there was a chance– assuming I didn’t have heart attack first– that I was immortal.” You sighed, trying to regain composure; you were gigglier than normal. “But I passed the class, so fuck that guy.”
He set his hat back on his head, pushing it down to rest snugly. “Fuck that guy,” he agreed, having about as much success as you did in wiping the stupid smile off his face. “God– being a teenager fucking sucked.”
“Dude, amen to that.” You looked in his direction, tears from the cold and from excessive laughter in your eyes. “Chuuya,” you sighed happily, “I am having an excellent time.”
“What a coincidence,” he grinned. “So am I.”
You looked up at the sky, which was significantly darker than you thought it would be; you supposed that you had spent more time in the restaurant than you thought. “I shouldn’t walk back to the station any later on my own, though.” You slipped your hands into your own pockets. “So–”
“Can you stand to be out later if I can get you back to the train?” He cleared his throat, apparently hearing the eagerness in his voice as clearly as you did. It was the same eagerness he had when he first asked you here. “What time is it?”
You took your phone from your coat, flipping it open. “Nine-ish.”
“Nine?” He pursed his lips. “Shit, I— no, I can make that work.” He leaned his weight onto one side. “I have to get somewhere at eleven, but it’s not a formal thing.” He looked away, swallowing. “If you want to, I mean.”
You held out your hand to him. “Nothing in this moment would make me happier than spending more of my time with you, Chuuya.” You wiggled your fingers in invitation. “Where should we go?”
He was staring at you, at your body bathed in the warm light streaming from the restaurant’s windows, at your face which betrayed nothing but pure intentions, to your hand which you offered him freely. He wondered if you knew how easy it would be to kill you if he touched you. He wondered if that was something someone like you considered at all.
“Chuuya?”
He blinked, clearing his throat. It did not matter. He took your hand. “Sorry.” He was breathless. “Lost in thought.”
You let him pull you closer, nudging him playfully with your side. “You’ll end up swallowing a fly if you keep your mouth open like that,” you teased. “Do you really like looking at me that much?”
He straightened up, heat flushing his cheeks. “So what if I do?”
“Well, I don’t imagine it’d taste very good.”
He snorted. “Shut up.” He nudged you back, looking forward. “We can sit by the river for a while if you’d like; the streets will be sketchy here pretty soon but nobody goes by the part of the river we’re by.”
“Really? How come?”
He shrugged. “It’s impractical. Nobody important goes to the river, anyway.”
“Nobody important?”
“Huh? Oh, right; you’re not from around here.” He looked back in the direction of the river, starting to lead the two of you there. “The Port Mafia doesn’t dump bodies into the rivers; they throw them out by the dock.”
“The mafia?” You started. “What, like La Cosa Nostra?”
“What you do and don’t know is really confusing.” He rolled his eyes. “The Port Mafia is a smuggling ring operating primarily out of the city; it has nothing to do with the Italian mob.”
“Oh.” You squeezed his hand, following close behind. “That’s terrifying.”
“It is?”
“To know that people are just chucking bodies frequently enough that you know about it? And that there’s more than one group doing it?” You tittered nervously. “I mean, I’d heard a little about Yokohama, but I didn’t know it was that bad.”
He squeezed your hand back, looking over his shoulder in your direction. A wry smile crossed his face. “Huh. That’s funny.”
You walked a bit faster to stay beside him. “What’s funny?”
“That you think it’s weird. I guess it never occurred to me that it was strange.” He tugged you to his side. “You don’t need to be scared, though; I’ll protect you.”
“Oh, will you?”
He shot you a look. “What,” he challenged, “you don’t think I can?”
“I never said that,” you protested. “It was just a very old-fashioned thing to say.” You lowered your voice to a growl. “‘Don’t worry, dollface; I’ll protect you.’ It sounds like something you’d hear in a noir.”
He opened his mouth to argue, considered it. “I guess if you found that weird, that would be an odd thing to say, wouldn’t it?”
“A little, yeah.”
“Because what would you need protecting from?”
“Exactly.”
A funny look came onto his face. “That’s funny,” he repeated. “That’s…” He trailed off, slowing to a stop on the road.
You looked back at him. “Is something wrong?”
“Nothing,” he mumbled. “Just that…” Startling eyes– they seemed to shine under the streetlamps– met yours. “You said you stayed up for three days straight,” he said. “Do you sleep well now?”
You looked away. “I don’t know if I sleep well, exactly; I don’t sleep as much as I should, at least.”
“But it feels normal, doesn’t it? To not sleep much?”
“I suppose.” You turned to face him properly.
His gaze shifted from you to the sky. “You know, I just remembered something.” He started to walk again, pulling you behind. “When I was little, none of us– none of the people I hung out with– had much pocket money, so we made a game out of stealing from the convenience stores in town. The competition was to see who could pay for as little as possible without getting banned from the store. I was never really good at it because I was an easy to read kid, but I remember always going for those… what do you call them? Bonbons?” He made a circle with his thumb and forefinger. “The little wrapped chocolates. I’d always shove one into my pocket because they were always left out and who’s going to give a kid shit for taking a piece of candy?”
You followed beside him quietly, watching him.
He continued. “The other day,” he said, “I went into a convenience store for the ATM, and I must have withdrawn twenty thousand yen or something like that– a good amount. I bought a pack of gum before I left because I didn’t want to be the asshole that just uses an ATM and leaves, and I realized– I think I’d walked a block away when I did– that I had one of those candies in my pocket.” He led you off the path. “I guess I must’ve picked it up while I was paying for the gum. They weren’t even the good chocolates; they were the hundred yen ones, and I knew why I’d grabbed that piece– because nobody’s going to lose their mind over a hundred whatever yen– but I couldn’t for the life of me remember why I’d grabbed it.”
The two of you came to a stop by the riverbed. It was quiet for a Saturday. The water shone under the moonlight, and the man beside you– whose gaze was now transfixed by the reflection– stood next to you, seemingly lost in thought.
You never let go of his hand. “Being a kid kinda sucks,” you said, running your thumb over his clothed knuckles. “You usually don’t have many responsibilities, but you don’t know enough to know what you should and shouldn’t get involved with.”
He looked to you.
“And you get so jealous of the Huck Finn kids– you know the type: no responsibilities, nobody to tell them no– until you get older and realize– too late– that the habits you picked up when you were left to your own devices probably weren’t the healthiest, but by the time you put that together they’re so deeply encoded in your being that they’re a part of who you are and part of how you got this far, so even if they’re unhealthy it’s not like you can give them up now.” You shivered. “It’s frustrating, looking back and thinking about what you could’ve been.”
The two of you stood there, staring at the water. Chuuya wrapped an arm around your shoulders, trying, in vain, to keep you from the cold.
Finally, he spoke. “I don’t think I’ve ever had this kind of conversation with anyone before.”
You closed your eyes, leaning against him. “It’s funny,” you said. “I don’t think I have either.”
origamiaround
stormborns
turnnoffyourmind
germansingergirl
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