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“A party… For diplomatic purposes…” Oda mumbles, fixing his bowtie and waistcoat in the elevator’s mirror. He’s wearing a dark red tuxedo, accompanied by black floral models. “How is this even supposed to go?”
Ranpo leans back against the metal wall with his arms crossed, watching the numbers go up on the screen from five to six. “You won’t know until you see it for yourself. Their invitation was pretty interesting, wasn’t it?”
He sounds calm and rather curious, which is not unusual.
“That’s one way to call it,” he sighs out. He’s not hiding his nervousness. Who would, in such a situation, after all?
It’s been two weeks since the Armed Detective Agency received the invitation — a joint event between the organisations of ability users and government figures in Yokohama, discreetly organised by the Special Division. The purpose, as stated in neat handwriting, is strengthening the diplomatic relations between the ones who lead the city, celebrating their partnership instead of their rivalry. Wishing to open new gates for his organisation, Fukuzawa accepted the offer.
And so did the boss of the Port Mafia, Dazai.
The two friends step out of the elevator as soon as they reach the last floor, heading into the ballroom side by side. Oda can’t help but part his lips in awe without a moment’s delay — the room is coming close to enormous in size, the roof being entirely made of glass and displaying the clear night sky in its full glory. Finely sculpted columns decorate the walls, framing new sets of windows that showcase the gardens and woods below. Faces he’s seeing for the first time exchange unintelligible words at the tables, leaving the dance floor empty.
“Ranpo-san! Oda-san! Over here!” Yosano gestures, leading them towards their table. She’s wearing a breathtaking purple dress, effortlessly stealing the breath of every guest she passes by.
“Nothing less to expect from you, Yosano-sensei,” Ranpo admiringly cheers back to his friend as he and Oda sit down and order their drinks. “It’s gotten pretty crowded already, hasn’t it?”
Yosano nods with a smile. “And here I thought we would arrive too early. It can’t be helped, with Kunikida to accompany us,” she laughs pleasantly. “Speaking of… he and the president still haven't returned.”
She turns her head, lightly gesturing towards a small place in the crowd. Oda follows it with his eyesight, spotting Fukuzawa as he shakes chief Taneda’s hand, with Kunikida standing right by his side. Likewise, celebrities like the mayor of Yokohama and the Prime Minister seem to honor everyone with their presence, exchanging greetings with their long unseen acquaintances.
So many political figures and leaders stand by each other with plastic smiles attached to their faces, but there’s one single person who stands out to Oda in that crowd.
Dazai Osamu.
His stoic figure is the same as it’s always been, hiding a torrent of hidden intentions that are waiting for a prey. It’s a bit ironic, though — from the distance, Dazai looks as if he’s trying to conceal his presence, if anything. Nonetheless, he’s not doing a great job, specifically not under the gaze of the redhead who visibly tenses upon spotting him.
“Oda…” Ranpo calls out in a gentle voice.
The man shakes his head and takes a sip from his drink, gripping the glass with his fingers. He knew that the Mafia boss would be here, after all. It was common sense. What he’s feeling right now is not surprise; but it’s also true that they haven’t seen each other ever since… that day.
“It’s fine,” he says, more to convince himself rather than Ranpo. “We united here in the name of diplomacy. That includes the Mafia.”
His own mouth twists upon mentioning the Mafia’s name. Despite the nature of their union, he isn’t trying to hide the hatred he grew towards this organisation over the years and years to pass, nor all the wrongdoings and misfortune to come his way because of them.
Oda’s tone doesn’t leave room for additional remarks, so Ranpo doesn’t press the matter further. Eventually, Kunikida and Fukuzawa return to the table, clinking their champagne glasses and observing their oddly peaceful surroundings.
Indeed, here, no one is an enemy. Guests who’ve never seen each other before exchange smiles and looks, political rivals maintain their appearances smoothly and laugh together, even the mafiosi seem rather laid back, enjoying the night.
Therefore, the lowly Oda Sakunosuke and infamous Dazai Osamu are no enemies, either.
And so, seconds turn into minutes, minutes turn into hours. Time dissolves into small talk, giggles and luxurious meals; and when the clock finally approaches midnight, when the full moon shines in a far warmer hue than usual… The waltz finally starts unfolding in the sound of an orchestra.
The light dims, making way for the pairs who step out of the crowd to intertwine their fingers and lose themselves in the night. Figures Oda has never seen before, so distant and foreign, who seem to create a small world of their own and turn ignorant to the outside.
In the midst of them all… Oda is still searching for only one face with his piercing eyesight.
He’s nowhere to be seen on the dancing floor — he’s not that kind of romantic, is he? Or is he simply waiting for the right person, maybe? Oda doesn’t know, and his judgement only clogs up further the moment he finds him all by his lonesome, quietly watching the unfamiliar souls intertwining in the melody of a waltz.
The same black hole seems to drag him down endlessly and dry up all of his senses, leaving him an inhumane being who’s struggling to breathe… But there’s no mistake about his dull gaze, the naked hurt buried in its very depths.
For the first time, it occurs to Oda how lonely that man must truly be.
He wouldn’t necessarily call himself knowledgeable when it comes to fairy tales, but he does, in truth, feel just like one of those magic princes from bedtime stories when Dazai finally meets his gaze from the distance, picking him up from the crowd so naturally. It’s hard to make out his body language from afar, but his apparent stiffness is an answer in its own right.
Pairs are switching and moving around, preparing for the next dance. The motion makes their eye contact rather hard to maintain, as if to urge one of them to make a move; to get closer, to take a better look. It’s magnetising them, an impulse hard to fight against when they only seem to have eyes for each other.
Yet, Dazai will never be the one to do that. His last attempt to closure is still vividly playing on his eyelids at night, haunting and taunting him without rest. The scar left behind is still bleeding, stealing his oxygen with every step he takes.
In a way, Oda already knows this much, too.
Before he can give himself a chance to rethink and hold back, he abruptly gets up from his chair, eyesight still unmoved.
“Are you…” A voice starts from behind. It’s Kunikida’s voice. He doesn’t finish the sentence.
Likewise, Oda doesn’t turn back, not even when the gazes of his colleagues practically burn into his neck. He keeps advancing, brown eyes set on the black ones from across the dance floor, the ones from which a small drop of utter shock slips by. If it wasn’t for the background chatter and the preparations for the upcoming waltz, Oda’s steps would be deafening.
And so, he walks towards the man whose organisation caused him so much pain and turmoil; towards the man who ruined Akutagawa’s life; towards the man who doesn’t even jolt when another corpse falls into his never ending pile; towards the man he despises.
Towards the only man he’s ever felt drawn to, in a sea of strangers and uncertainties. It’s not logical by any means, it’s only the truth.
The violins begin their morbid march at a strangely alarming place, but failing to rival the intertwined gaze of the two men who stand before each other like two porcelain statues.
As far as they’re concerned, the rest of the world simply stops moving.
Dazai is no stranger to the art of keeping appearances up perfectly — there’s a reason behind his success, after all. However, Oda never knew that side of him from anywhere other than infamous stories. The only Dazai he’s ever known was the one embodying intrinsic pain in his expression and strange desires he could scarcely keep at bay.
Even now… little seems to have changed.
His lips part.
“Odasaku.”
It’s inaudible. He merely mouths the nickname, afraid to hear the sound of it coming out of his own throat. Words are far not enough for the two of them. They’ve never been.
Should Oda say something? Should he nod? Should he smile? Should he do anything, really, to explain himself right now? In truth, he might wish to. But no word has been yet created to describe what he’s feeling right now.
Infatuation. Hatred. Sympathy. Disgust. Attraction.
One day, if he’s brave enough, he will hold a pen between his fingers and make it all bloom on paper. But today, all he can do is to extend his hand to the man before him, over the sound of an orchestra picking its pace up.
Maybe, just for a night, they can cease to be enemies. They can simply be the foolish aspiring writer who endlessly seeks guidance and understanding, and the man with a child-like smile and sincere eyes who once broke and begged at the Lupin bar.
They can pretend that some mistakes are meant to be mended, that some desires are meant to be indulged.
A bandaged hand and a calloused one finally meet to intertwine, holding onto each other as a foreign sensation begins to dance on their skins, rush through their veins. Oda’s hand wraps around Dazai’s slender waist, while the latter slowly rests his fingers on his partner’s shoulder.
The violin notes fly through the air between them and caress their estranged hearts; and the pair starts moving, feet barely touching the floor.
It starts off with a few wrong steps, a clumsiness that isn’t unexpected from two people who are dancing together for the first time, unfamiliar with each other’s body language. Or, in fact, when only one of them is familiar with the other’s moves and touches, too overwhelmed and nervous to react after years and years, a lifetime to pass. Especially when that same person has no intention in taking the lead, letting the redhead mold him into whatever he feels like.
Grace and murder are never too far from each other, after all.
Dazai’s body is incredibly frail under Oda’s hold, enough so that he could easily snap if the older man would hold him just a bit tighter. If the circumstances were a bit different, perhaps he really would. Because, right now… he’s starting to doubt everything all over again, more so with each second to pass.
“Why are you…?” Dazai finally starts, barely audible over the music. Even with such a disguise, he doesn’t entirely manage to mask the desperation in his voice.
Oda holds his gaze as they sway to the right. “Isn’t this what you wanted?”
Surprisingly enough, he sounds far less cruel than the last time they encountered each other, far less cold and indifferent. For the very first time, Dazai allows himself to notice the unexpected gentleness Oda is showing him right now. His gentle voice, gentle eyes, gentle hold.
Every miracle he used to dream about to keep his heart beating.
“Is this what you wanted, too?” Dazai counters.
Oda’s eyesight almost falters, betraying his carefully hidden conflict. He’s always felt like this under Dazai’s gaze; he’s always felt… bare. Trapped and helpless.
“I wouldn’t be here otherwise.”
With every step he takes, the redhead is met with no resistance — quite the contrary. He’s the one leading their waltz gracefully, taking every step that Dazai follows right in sync, not holding back or trying to change the course. Every move of his lies right into Oda’s palms, almost like a puppet with its red strings attached to a man who observes the insides of him as if looking through nothing less than glass.
Dazai nearly falls limp in his hold the moment Oda dips him, throwing his head back to expose a bandaged, long untouched neck. And right then, for a fleeting moment, Oda sees his own lips sucking on the skin underneath, biting his Adam’s apple; his own hands gripping and clutching it mercilessly, yet oh so gently. He sees his fingers mapping Dazai’s skin, unfolding all of his layers, holding his everything in his bare hands as the Mafia boss euphorically surrenders to him once more.
A savage thought, really. And, still, deep inside, both of them fantasize about it, for reasons that don’t meet eye to eye.
“You’re still just as hard to figure out,” Dazai mumbles, more to himself rather than Oda. There’s a hint of familiarity and fondness in his voice that is alien to the older man.
With every step they take, their shared waltz feels less and less like a mere dance, and rather like something macabre, something so intimate, it’s a shame so many strangers have the privilege of witnessing it. And while others can gaze upon them as they please… the two of them won’t do it in return. They won’t, can’t see anyone else, unravelling each other with only their eyesight.
“If you’re searching for layers in me to unfold, you won’t find anything.” There’s no threat in his voice whatsoever. It’s simply a casual remark that comes out as easy as breathing, a bit too natural for their circumstances.
He never considered himself to be an interesting man, after all.
Dazai almost wants to laugh upon hearing those words, but the tightness in his throat and chest doesn’t allow him. “You say such things now… You’re quite the contradictory man.”
Oda’s gaze is no longer merciless, nor fearful for something that isn’t actually there. It’s flickering, and yet deceivingly dull, not matching the strength of his body moves in the slightest.
The hunger in Dazai’s eyes isn’t quite lust, either. It’s a deeply rooted longing, a need for something that seems to be out of his reach. A gaze that might as well be directed at the shining moon in the sky, not someone as small as Oda.
For an agonisingly long time already, Oda has been thinking about his strange encounter with Dazai. He thought about the joy sparkingling in that halting voice, and the tears welling up in those pleading eyes.
He kept thinking that, maybe, he was the one who made a mistake somewhere.
And even after everything, as the clock strikes midnight in the middle of the ballroom, he gets to hold him in his arms with such grace and passion. The man whose soul he once stabbed is offering his whole being to him, all over again.
As if it’s nothing.
It must be a privilege, to be able to touch him and gaze upon him this close, a privilege someone like Dazai should be more careful about granting — if Oda was anyone else, Dazai could be lying dead right now.
“Why do you seem to trust me so much?” Oda whispers right into his ear, the words easily dissipating through the violin notes, only if it wasn’t for his breath colliding with Dazai’s skin.
What an absurd thing to ask.
Their warm cheeks meet each other in bliss, softness embracing roughness. “I trusted you even when you had a gun pressed against my forehead.”
Sickeningly sweet, yet horribly sincere.
But their past can never be turned back, nor changed. In their present, they can only hold each other tighter; not as a sign of affection, but rather to fill something that’s empty and cold, something they’ve both been missing and mourning for eternities. They sway and waltz with their hearts beating right against each other, as if they’re the only men alive under the moonlight—
The clock reaches its twelfth beat. In the bedtime story Oda was asked to read for the kids, the final strike was urging Cinderella to run away before reaching the point of no return. Yet, in his eyes… Dazai is more of a Snow White, if anything. He makes no move to run and hide, looking as if he would spend the rest of eternity like this, if only he could. An unearthly being with a delicate appearance, preserved in a glass coffin, only allowed to be admired from afar and impossible to reach.
How ironic, though, that the tips of his fingers feel so cold and rough to the touch, just fitting for a man with his hands stained with blood to the bone. He idly wonders if those soft-looking lips of his are just as cold and chapped, much like those belonging to Snow White.
Snow White, whose dear prince never came to awaken him with a gentle kiss.
—because they both know this moment will end soon enough, and they will stand before each other as enemies once more. Pathetically pretending they’re two strangers.
Pretending they can’t see each other’s hearts better than anyone alive.
“I wish you’d know,” the Mafia boss says, and Oda can feel the movement of his mouth right against his left cheek.
“What, exactly?” He asks as they finally part, gaining the chance to smoothly dip Dazai once more and admiring his brown curls that fall back in waves.
“Everything.” He raises up and smiles for the first time — a soft, small smile no one would ever attribute to him. The violins slowly start to dim into the background. “Everything, Odasaku.”
Oda can only fear that, the moment Dazai’s hand leaves his hold, the invisible and incredibly tangled red strings will snap in two.