Chapter Text
“Damnit,”
Dazai cussed as he felt around in his pockets, convinced he had put his key in there before he left his apartment that morning. He wanted to scream when all his pockets were empty.
With no other choice, he knocked on the door.
He mentally sighed as he heard the yelling and screaming and banging on the other side of the door, this was going to take a lot of energy, wasn’t it?
The door flew open with a bang and five small bodies tumbled out, Dazai quickly caught them already having expected this.
“Osamu-nii!” Sakura beamed up at him from where she laying on top of Katsumi. “Welcome home!”
“Yeah,” Dazai leant down to scoop the four year old up in his arms. “Good to be home,” she immediately made herself at home, snuggling up on his neck and Dazai just let her, already used to her affection.
At first he would freeze up, unsure of what to do but now he was better at reciprocating. Not that there wasn’t still a voice in the back of his head screaming at him to put her down, to not taint her innocence with his dirty hands.
If he did put her down though it was likely he would be met with a temper tantrum and he couldn’t bare to see her cry.
“Not fair, pick me up to!” Shinji complained, rolling out of the still pile on the floor and throwing himself at Dazai.
The brunette simply pinched the boy’s cheeks. “You’re too heavy,”
“Am not!”
“Yeah, I think someone’s been eating too much sweets,” he teased, poking Shinji’s stomach. Sakura, bless her heart, just giggled. “Have you been behaving?” He turned to the other three boys who had picked themselves up off the floor already.
“Of course!” Kosuke, the oldest and by far the biggest troublemaker, held out a thumbs up. Somehow Dazai doubted his words.
“You almost set fire to the kitchen yesterday,” Yu reminded him.
“That wasn’t my fault, Katsumi promised he would keep watch on the oil for me!” Kosuke defended himself.
“Hmm? I wasn’t listening to you, you should know this by now,” Katsumi shrugged, seemingly unbothered by his part in the almost kitchen fire.
Dazai clapped his hands, effectively stopping the arguing and putting all the attention on himself. “Alright kiddos, where’s Odasaku?”
“He’s in the garage, the kitchen sinks leaking again,” Yu informed him, pointing in the direction of the garage. “I keep telling him he should just call a professional, he clearly has no idea what he’s doing,”
“You know Odasaku, always trying to save money,” Dazai grinned. “Now scooch, let me in,”
The kids seemed to realise they were still in the doorway and Dazai was still patiently waiting on the step waiting for them to move. Instead of moving like considerate children, all four stuck their tongues out at him and formed a barrier.
Exhausting, Dazai thought fondly.
He placed Sakura down, giving her a small head pat as she whined, before turning to the four boys with a smirk.
“Do you really think you can take me on?” He grinned.
“Charge!” Kosuke yelled and they ran out him with a battle cry. Dazai effortlessly side stepped Kosuke, grabbed Katsumi’s arm and used him as a human shield from Shinji. Yu was trickier, for an 8 year old he sure was intelligent. Unfortunately for him, Dazai was smarter.
He ran over, threw Yu over his shoulder and ran inside, where Sakura was already dragging his backpack into the house.
She was his angel, his absolute favourite of the gremlins.
He couldn’t run forever though, eventually as he made it into the living room the little monster caught up to him. Barrelling straight into him from behind, Dazai folded like paper and crashed to the floor. He made sure to protectively grab onto Yu as he fell, he didn’t want him to hit his head.
Next thing he knew all four boys were on top of him, smiling in victory.
“Alright, alright, I give up,” Dazai conceded, it came out a little strained form the weight of the gremlins. The four shared a look before grinning wider and oh no. Dazai had a bad feeling.
They all raised their hands and started wiggling their fingers. They were going to tickle him.
“Hey now!” Dazai started desperately thrashing. He had to escape. “Let’s not be hasty, we can talk this out,”
“Nuh-uh, we caught we, you know the rules,” Shinji, the little brat, practically sang.
As four pairs of little hands inched closer and Dazai resigned to his fate, he was saved. But as they say, he was out of the frying pan and into the fire.
“Whose Chuuya?” Sakura asked, holding up Dazai’s phone and looking at his messages.
“Wha- does privacy not mean anything to you!” Dazai spluttered. All four had jumped up and ran over to read the messages now. Dazai was free, but at what cost.
“Your privacy? Not really,” was Yu’s brutal reply.
“Ooh, he’s pretty,” Katsumi commented, “I like his hair,”
“Is he your boyfriend, Osamu-nii,” Sakura asked, looking at him with her wide, innocent eyes and how could Dazai refuse her.
“He is… something like that,” he winced at his own words. Technically, they were just friends but they were also friends with benefits and he did not know how to explain that to a four year old.
“You got a boyfriend!” Katsumi cheered.
“You got a boyfriend?” Yu raised his eyebrows, putting a little too much emphasis on the word you and it stung a little.
“Call him,” Kosuke suggested, pressing the call button.
“Wait don’t call-“ but it was too late the phone was ringing.
Within seconds Chuuya answered.
“Dazai? Is something wrong-“ came Chuuya’s voice through the speakers.
“Woah he really is pretty,” Sakura interrupted whatever Chuuya was saying.
“Why would he settle for Osamu-nii? He must have terrible taste,” was Yu.
“Maybe Osamu-nii tricked him into it, he can be clever when he wants to,” came from Shinji.
“Maybe he was a horrible personality so the only person who would date him is Osamu-nii, he also has a horrible personalities, you now,” by the time Katsumi had commented Dazai was ready to die.
“Nah, I bet it’s blackmail,” Kosuke informed them. “He probably found dirt on Chuuya and forced him to date him,”
“Ohhhhhh,” was the unanimous agreement that Kosuke’s theory was correct.
“I did no such thing! And we aren’t dating!” Dazai screeched, snatching his phone back. Looking at the screen he realised the little brats had FaceTimed Chuuya. The redhead was blankly staring at the screen, looking baffled and a little red faced. But maybe that was just the awful camera quality. “Sorry about that, you know how siblings can be,”
“Uh Dazai what-“
“I’ll call you back later, I have to deal with the gremlins,” Dazai told him, side eyeing the trouble makers who were acting so innocent like they hadn’t just ruined Dazai’s entire life and now he was going to have to move to a new country to get away from the embarrassment of having them call Chuuya his boyfriend to his face. “Bye, Chuuya, sorry,”
He quickly hung up and put his phone in his pocket where it would hopefully be safe.
He should of changed his password but he had forgotten. Damn, he wasn’t going to let Sakura play games on his phone anymore.
“Oh, Dazai, you’re back,” before righteous vengeance could be served Oda walked in, taking in the view before sighing. “What do you do to your brother this time?”
“We didn’t do anything!” All five of them protested at the same time Dazai declared, “They invaded my privacy!”
This lead to an argument until Oda finally had enough, stepping in and sending the kids away.
“So how long are you back for?” Odasaku asked, pinching the bridge of his nose like he was fighting off a headache. “Not that we don’t want you here, just the kids get so excited when you’re back,”
“And they’re all secretly demon spawn hell bent on making our lives miserable?” Dazai guessed his next words, although judging by the sigh Oda let out maybe his guess wasn’t exactly accurate.
“I was going to say their energetic enough without the excitement,”
“Meh, mine was truer,” Dazai shrugged. “To answer your question, I’m just back for the weekend, got to get back by Tuesday,”
“Are you planning on visiting your uncle too?” Oda asked curiously.
“Yeah, I have dinner plans with him tonight,” Dazai nodded, checking the time. “I’ve got a couple hours till I need to be there though,”
“Alright so I don’t need to make an extra portion tonight,” Oda spoke a little more to himself than Dazai. “You’ll have dinner with us tomorrow night though, right?”
“Of course! How could I miss an opportunity to eat your famous curry?” Dazai grinned dramatically. Oda huffed affectionately, patting him on the head with a smile. “Good to have you back again, even if it is just for a couple nights,”
Dazai smiled back. “Good to be home, Odasaku,”
…..
A few hours and a shower later, Dazai was standing outside the familiar house.
He didn’t come round too often anymore, not just because of school but because it hurt. Every time he visited he was attacked by memories of a happier time.
“Osamu,” Mori Ougai opened the door with a smile. It didn’t reach his eyes though. His smile hadn’t reached his eyes in three years.
“Uncle,” Dazai greeted. Mori stepped aside, letting Dazai into the house. As soon as he did he was surrounded by a familiar smell. “Wait isn’t this-“ he turned to Mori with wide eyes.
“Yeah, it was her favourite meal, we’ve got to move on some time, we can’t stay trapped in the past forever,” Mori spoke, his voice sad but he sounded better than he had last time Dazai had visited him.
“You’re sober,” Dazai noticed, taking in how put together Mori was. He clothes were ironed, his hair was washed and most importantly he didn’t reek.
“Eight months, I haven’t relapsed since you last saw me three months ago,”
Wow. That was the longest Mori had gone without a relapse. Dazai almost felt hope that it wouldn’t happen again.
As he followed him into the living room he froze.
It wasn’t exactly how it looked three years ago, but considering how barren it was three months ago the change was jarring.
“I told you,” Mori spoke, sensing his shock. “I need to move on and stop hiding from her memory,”
Dazai couldn’t move his eyes away from the photos decorating the walls once again, all in new frames considering how the old ones were smashed years ago.
Elise looked so happy in all of them. Eleven truly was far too young an age to be taken, if she were still here today they would be celebrating her fifteen birthday in a few months.
“Holy shit,”
Mori was serious this time.
It felt a little late, considering how Dazai was now eighteen, nearly nineteen, an adult. He didn’t need a guardian anymore. But still, it was nice to know his uncle was hurting less, god knows they both took her death hard.
Maybe Dazai could get better too, the thought was weird as he clutched his book tighter.