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Dazai had always been fascinated by magnets, that somewhere written deep in the earth's rules, it had been decided that two objects would eternally be bound together if fate allows them to. On the other hand they could push the other away, with the same ease.
He’s lived his life like a magnet, especially after Oda’s death. He couldn’t help it, although he desperately tried to not care about others it was simply impossible. To fulfill Oda’s dying wishes , he had to care about the people around him. He dared not admit it but he cared. He cared about Kunikida and the others at the agency. He especially cared about Atsushi and thought quite often of Chuuya and Akutagawa and how they were faring. To many souls to think about. So he cared, drawing them all in like magnets, connecting and then turning away pushing back against them when they got to close.
And at the center of it all was you. You were the crowning jewel in his grand hall of people he cared about, thought and worried and languished about. You reminded him of Oda sometimes. And if he squinted at you maybe he could see Oda’s piercing eyes and not so easy smile.
He was in love with you, that much was sure, and it was a secret, to everyone but him. He was much too smart to not understand his longing for you, the way his heart rate picked up at your closeness and he often found himself longing to hear your voice.
He didn’t think it would happen to him of all people. Sure he loved Oda, and he wasn’t sure if it was just as friends either, but this was different.
He’d met you almost immediately after his return to society, now on the side of the “good guys”. You were Fukizawa’s niece and a fixture at the agency. He wondered often how long his stay at the agency would have been had it not been for you.
In the beginning, Dazai couldn’t help himself, he had absolutely no self control over his magnets and the two of you connected, making quick friends. Wherever you went he would gladly follow.
Then you’d been attacked, remnants of Dazai’s past life finally rearing consequences upon you. You’d nearly died, even though you were a force to recon with in battle. Fukizawa had been the one to save you in the end. It was salt over Dazai’s wound that you were hurt because of him, and he hadn’t been there to save you.
It was a hard way to learn a lesson. To be smacked in the face with his universal truth. Everyone he gets close to will die, and it’ll be his fault.
You weren’t so easy to push away though, ripping you from his life was taking a piece of his soul slowly, and besides he’d promised to be good and the Agency was the best place for that. So he stayed, but your friendship suffered in its wake. You got the message eventually, not bothering to call upon him at midnight anymore and late night trips for food had stopped.
You’d never let on how it made you feel, and that somehow was worse for Dazai.
He’d thought you’d replace him, he was mentally prepared to see you and Kunikida laughing At the lunch table. But it was more often that you’d head to lunch alone, or leave work alone.
With newcomer Atsushi, things changed a little. You’d taken a strong liking to the boy, and he could tell you’d adopted Atsushi, as If you were his mother or aunt or something. Fretting and worrying. Dazai could see that the two of you were co-parenting in a way.
Then Kyouka came and you and Atsushi’s time spent together became less, and you ate alone once again.
Dazai observed this all as if he was peering into a fish bowl. Observing the lives of others and indirectly interacting with them but never jumping into the water. He thought himself clever. No one would know how much he loved you. That was until simple, observant Atsushi said something.
“Dazai-San?”
“Yeah?”
They were both sitting in the open floor plan area of the agency, paperwork stacking high between the two of them. On his part Atsushi was trying to conquer the work while Dazai was listening in to your conversation with Kunikida from across the room. You were laughing, and Dazai thought maybe this was it, you were finally replacing him. Good.
“Uh…”
Dazai lifted his eyes from you and his partner to rest upon Atsushi, whose voice was uncertain. Dazai had learned from day two, that he should listen to Atsushi, who occasionally sculpted diamonds from words.
Atsushi tensed with Dazai’s eyes upon him.
“I was just .... “ he sighed and swallowed his voice coming out low and a whisper.
“Are you and Y/N dating?”
Dazai blinked. Not responding, although that might give away more than he would have liked.
“It’s just that.” Atsushi seemed even more unnerved by Dazai’s non answer, seeing as the brown hair boy loved to talk.
“You always look up when she enters a room, like you know she’s there. You always stare at each other when you think the other isn’t looking.” Atsushi’s voice faded off. “Stuff- stuff like that.”
Dazai was half stuck thinking that he’d made a good choice of Atsushi for the Agency, and the other half was thinking about what he’d said. - staring at each other.-
You looked at him too?
“S-sorry.” Atsushi said, fearing he’d said too much. He had but that was fine.
“Am I really that easy to read?” Dazai asked his eyes back on you and Kunikida. Kunikida was blushing as you walked away, his eyes firmly on your lower back side. Dazai felt a feeling stirring in him. But he shoved it down harsly. There was no place for those feelings to show.
Atsushi shook his head. “No, you're quite hard to read. Dazai-San. Y/N is much easier to read, once I understood why she looks at you like that I realized you were looking at her the same way.”
Diamonds. Dazai thought , Atsushi was capable of making diamonds.
————-
It was the fall time, the leaves had departed from their family tree or changed colors and the roads of Yokahama were cold and filled with that feeling you only got during the coming of winter.
Dazai had to work late, once Kunikida found out just how behind he was on his work, Dazai had been essentially chained to his desk. He could tell there were a few people left in the office as some lights were still on. Signing the last page he sighed standing up immediately, Kunikida would be satisfied with his progress and he could pick it up again on Monday, although he was secretary hoping for a case to come and push the paperwork to the side.
He tucked his hands in his pocket and made his way outside. It was a moment later that he realized that it was raining. The door to the cafe closed behind him and he stood under the awning, thinking with dread about walking through the rain to the subway station.
“No umbrella ?” You asked, and Dazai wasn’t sure how you’d been standing there that whole time and he did not notice. He turned to you his heart thudding rhythmically in his chest. You were as beautiful as ever, and you looked warm, swathed in faux fur jackets. He thought about how wonderful it would feel to lay in your lap and feel your fingers through his hair.
You turned away from him breaking his guilty illusion and rummaged around in your bag. You pulled out an umbrella, identical to the one you were already holding. You extended it out to him with a smile playing on your lips.
“You never carry an umbrella, Dazai.”
His name on your lips was joy, he realized as his lips parted in surprise. You knew him entirely too well and Atsushi was starting to as well. How had he failed so spectacularly in pushing people away.
He took the umbrella, unable to stop the smile on his face.
“Why would I ,Y/N when I always have you to have an extra for me?” He teased. He couldn’t help it, months of pushing you away and he was cracking like an egg from a simple gesture.
Your eyes met and he saw the faintest blush upon your cheeks. He wanted to kiss you. Badly. He blinked and looked away. This wouldn’t do, he needed to get home and fast.
He would let his mind slip for one night, maybe have a drink or two and stroke himself, your name hanging off his lips like smoke to a cigarette. That’s what he would do. He just needed to get to the station now.
“Dazai?”
Your words were soft but firm. The way you sounded when you’d gathered up all tour couraged and readied yourself for a fight.
He turned back to you, and your eyes shone with determination.
“Let’s go get dinner together.”
————-
Dinner, was located in a small corner of Yokohama, that only the locals seemed to know about. You either lived there or crashed there by accident. The restaurant was a hole in the wall, quite literally. It was an interesting place, made of stone and brick, with no real windows or doors, just, holes in the stone. It reminded Dazai of an old century oven, it had a large awning covering to keep the rain from the tables out front. Strings of light were laced around the stone building illuminating it in the darkness of the Yokahama streets.
It was a place that the both of you were familiar with, having spent many nights here, sipping hot tea and talking. Upon seeing it for the first time in months, Dazai saw just how romantic the place really was and was regretting his decision to follow you here.
Now seated you picked up the menu and started to scan it.
“You already know what you want. Y/N” Dazai said amused. “You always order the same thing.”
His smile grew as you put down the menu and glared at his teasing. “What if I wanted something different this time.”
“Hell would freeze over Y/N. And the flying pigs would be out as soon as the rain stopped.”
You scoffed cutely. “just for that I’m ordering something different.”
“I wouldn’t.” Dazai said, “ you remember the last time you were adventurous.”
Your eyes were wide with embarrassment.
“You swore you would never bring it up!”
“To anyone else.” Dazai corrected. He thought back on the time you’d ordered something new, and were so sick he’d brought you home, and had to hold your hair as you puked over the toilet. Obviously embarrassing for you but a fondly domestic memory for Dazai.
The waitress interrupted whatever you were going to say next and further Dazai’s amusement you ordered your regular.
“Dazai” you said after the waitress had collected your orders and it had been quiet for a while. Dazai’s heart started to thump again, the real reason you’d asked him to come to dinner was coming. He wasn’t sure if he was ready for it.
You had that look again, that stored up courage look. “ Let’s be friends again.”
He wasn’t sure if this was on his list of things he expected you to say. Some irrational part of his thought this would be your announcement of your engagement to Kunikida which he would have congratulated you on and then left to get very very drunk.
Your fists were clenched in your lap as you forced yourself to look at him.
“I’m sorry… if I did something wrong, and that’s why you stopped wanting to be around me. If I was - annoying or something I can-“
“Y/N” you blinked almost jerking at Dazai’s sudden harsh tone. He was angry, suddenly,
“You could never annoy me.”
The statement hung heavy in the air like cement.
“And you don’t have anything to apologize for.” He tried to soften his voice as he wasn’t angry at you. He was more angry at himself. That’s why you thought he’d pushed you away?
“Then why-“
“We can’t be friends.. Y/N” better to cut this off now. A few drinks was sounding better by the second. He dared a glance at your face and regretted it. You looked shattered, then confused, then angry. He hadn’t really seen you angry. It was beautiful in a way.
A hot tear pressed down your cheek and you angrily wiped it away.
“Why.” You asked now a wobble in your otherwise hard tone.
“It’s better to remain professional in the workplace.” Dazai offered up, it was weak but his mind was spinning so his normal snake charming words were not coming to him.
“Bullshit.” You said leaning forward. “You're not that way with anyone else in the agency. Hell you're not professional at all.”
Dazai smiled at this, despite how heavy he was feeling.
“That’s fair.” He said softly.
“Stop fucking with me Dazai.” You said anger still dripping over your tone although you were trying to keep it down since others were around.
“One night were drunk together and up till 4am telling each other everything and the next week you stopped talking to me.”
Your voice broke at the end of that. Another angry tear wipe. You pointed at him now.
“You let me in, you let me see you, and now you're going to pretend like we weren’t something?”
“Yes.” Dazai said with an edge . “ yes I am going to pretend.”
“Why!” Your voice went a little higher than a regular speaking voice drawing a few more eyes but neither of you cared. There was only the person sitting in front of the other.
“Because Y/N. I don’t want to be just friends.” Dazai felt like a popped balloon, that air just coming out of him rapidly. Years of holding that very phrase in and here he was whisper- shouting it at you in his favorite hole in the wall. That was only his favorite because of his memories with you.
He kept going now, no sense in stopping now. “ I want to hold your hand, to kiss you, to be the last thing you see at night and the first thing you see in the morning. I want to hold you when you're sad, and tease you when you do something embarrassing. I want you to fill up my life with your light” it was a mouthful, and Dazai sighed, looking up at you now, your face in shock.
You smiled suddenly, another tear falling but you didn’t make a move to wipe it away.
“I don’t want to be just friends either Dazai.” You said and he felt his heart starting its kathunk kathunk in his chest again.
“I thought maybe you didn’t feel the same way as I did. But I wanted to be near you. And things were so great when we were friends. And then we stopped and I thought at least I could still be around you. But I don’t want that it’s not enough. Just being around you, just being your friend isn’t enough. I want to be with you. Dazai.”
Dazai swallowed hard, if Atsushi’s words were diamonds you were like the rain. Cleansing away the unsightly parts of himself that he hated, he picked at. Soothing the old wounds that he’d left open as punishment to himself.
“We can’t… I can’t….” Dazai couldn’t finish. He looked up to you. “Every Time I love someone they die.” He shook his head slightly. “and I won’t lose you too.”
He thought then of Oda. He still couldn’t decide how he’d loved the man, there was a seed there, growing, and if he’d had more time, Dazai thinks he could have figured it out. Did he love Oda the way he loved Atshushi or Kunikida or did he love Oda the way he’d loved you?
But for Oda to be alive, and Dazai to have an answer to that question, Dazai needed to have removed himself from Oda’s life.
Dazai’s thoughts of Oda evaporated as he felt the warm touch of your hand to his. He looked up at you then, your eyes a calm steady sea to his stormy brooding ones.
He wanted to steal you away from the others eyes, take you somewhere safe where only he could gaze upon you. Strange feelings from someone who spent so much effort in not caring.
“You're a good person, Dazai.” You said. “I’ve seen it, I’ve seen your soul. Death is not the punishment for love. Life takes who she wants when she wants regardless of who we love and what we want. I’d rather die, having known your love than live forever without it.”
He kissed you then, over the tea that had gone cold, besides the people who were pretending not to listen to your conversation. The only thing he could hear was the sounds of rain dancing on the canopy above your heads.
———
Somehow the both of you knew that going home alone wasn’t an option. As the hole in the wall was closest to your place, it was decided without speaking that that is where you would go. You walked there holding hands.
Dazai’s mind was spinning with thoughts of your kiss, thoughts of you he’d tried to keep down but it wasn’t working and his pants were stiffening.
You’d looked at him, one look, that set him on fire. And as you crossed into your apartment threshold, he couldn’t seem to grab enough of you. The umbrella he’d borrowed from you was on the floor, along with your pretty coat, leaving wet stains on the floor. You were pressed between him in the wall, your hands deep into his tresses as he kissed you, his hands gripping almost painfully at your sides.
He pressed his lower body up against you unable to control the moan that came from his mouth at the contact of his hardened self against you.
“I need you.” He breathed out sounding so impossibly vulnerable.
“You have me.” You said between kisses, and so he did, his wide palms sliding below your waist end scooping you into the air, your legs wrapped around his lanky figure.
He carried you to your room, my memory as you had yet to stop kissing him, and he couldn’t see.
When he was there you fell into the bed, soft covers swallowing you up. He had thoughts to tease you, to take things slow, and feel every single moment of this. But as his fingers seperated your pants buttons and found their way to your core he couldn’t stop himself from pleasuring you.
Your moans were honey, as he slid down your clothing and his mouth latched to your clit. One of your hands had traveled to his hair and the other was gripping his arm which was around your waist keeping your hips down to the bed.
He wanted more from you working his tongue and fingers at a devastating pace. His cock painful in his pants at your honey dripped moans. His hand pressed down hard against your waist as you bucked against his face, sweat beading on your chest, it felt terribly good.
“Daz-“ you choked out as you reached your end, your hand pulling at the base of his roots causing him to moan into your pussy.
You couldn’t hold back your moan as you came, hard and fast, cheeks hot as he kept going riding you through your orgasm.
Dazai felt your body go limp after you came, and he stood up reaching to unbutton his shirt but then your hands over lapped his and you began to remove his shirt. His lips were on your again as your removed his clothes.
Dazai let out a small noise of surprise when you turned and pushed him towards the bed. He went willingly though his eyes half lidded in lust as you crawled over to him straddling his waist. He was taking you in, and fuck if he couldn’t come now just looking at you.
You leaned forward ticking a finger under his chin and guiding his lips back to yours. Dazai felt his control slipping but he didn’t mind. He wanted to be yours, all yours. You could do whatever you wanted to him.
“Let me make you feel good.”’you whispered
He hissed as you sank slowly down onto him your warmth wrapping around him like a vice. Damnit.
You moved again rising up your hips and bringing them back down at an agonizingly slow pace. This whole time he’d thought to tease you and it was you teasing him.
Almost as if you were reading his mind you smirked dipping slower to kiss his neck. Dazai jerked, another moan on his lips as you kissed at his newly discovered sensitive spot.
You’d hip were starting to pick up the pace a bit, sucking hard against his neck. Your pace and attack on his neck was torture, the best kind.
His hands gripped your ass tightly now as you rode him, biting deeply against his neck. With each slap of skin you moved faster, Dazai felt like he could explode, and maybe he would.
He couldn’t help himself, his hips snapping up into you suddenly causing you to throw your head back and moan. Oh yes he wanted more of that.
Your hands fell to his chest as he fucked you, his dick pressing up against that spot that was making you unravel.
In one swift motion he’d switched the flow and you were on your back again, and he was in between you. Your hands flew around his neck as he re-entered you.
“Mhfph” you choked out as he pressed deep into you, moaning your name sweetly into your ear.
He was one with you, as close as his magnet could reach, and though the fear of losing you still loomed in his mind, Dazai was in true bliss.
You were close, that feeling of knitting in your stomach, his strong deep strokes had left you gasping.
“Osamu” you crooned, and he looked down at you now.
“Say that again.” He breathed out.
Dazai felt like he was going to unravel, right as you’d said his name, the way it slipped from your mouth had his heart racing.
He thrusted faster , kissing along your neck now.
“Say it, say it again.” He moaned out.
“Mmm Osamu, “ you repeated his name over and over again like a holy chant. “Please.”
His strokes were coming uneven, as he leaned down to take your sweet lips with his again, fucking hell he was going to come now, in the woman he’d loved for years.
“Come with me.” He breathed out and you nodded rapidly, he pressed his forehead to yours as you felt yourself come apart at the edges. Sweeping in nothing but pleasure you both came.
“Osamu!” You cried out eyes shut in ecstasy.
———-
Neither of you could be bothered to leave the bed. Dazai was holding you to his chest, your face in the crook of his neck, your heartbeats matching each other’s.
“You know it’s too late for you now right?” You whispered, his fingers playing with your hair.
Dazai smiled. “It was too late for me since the moment we met.”
You chuckled softly, “that’s so cheesy.”
Dazai chuckled back, placing a kiss on your forehead.
“Yeah to bad you’ve got to deal with it from now on.”
“I love you, Osamu” Dazai heard you say, and even if he maybe thought he knew you did, it was different to hear you say it. He felt like he could break into a million pieces. Some stone cold bastard he was, he was absolute putty in your hands.
“I love you to, Y/N”