Oneshots

ツアイライトララバイ

I had never smoked cigars until I met you. It allured me, at first, because of the smell. It reminded me of you, and the thought of death lying dormant just beyond the smoke aroused me further.

Not quite as much as you did, though. I vividly remember the first real conversation we had after you were hired. You confessed much to me the day I met you, Jack. I had a feeling we'd get along, we two. I saw it as something of a game to try and bring you to the light, the way a dear friend of mine had done with me so long ago. A test, perhaps. I suppose it was my turn to share a few secrets.

"Dazai," you whispered. Your breath was husky and low with smoke, a woody smell I'd grown fond of. Your chest was covered in my love for you, growing by the day and dark against your perfect white skin. Your voice gave your anxiety away.

"Yes, Jack." Was my voice softer, now, alone in my bedroom with you? Certainly you'd noticed with those keen senses of yours.

Your eyes scanned my face. I could see you searching for a reason not to speak, so I rolled over on my stomach and wrapped the sheets around me to let you know how curious I was to hear what you had to say anyway. Your sigh was smoke.

"If you don't mind me asking," your hands shook. Yet, so did mine at your next words. "How did you join the Agency?"

I suppose you heard my breath catch, the quickening of my heartbeat, saw the brief glance I gave to my still-shaking fingers. What I loved the most about you was your intuition, and the way I could never guess your next move no matter how hard I tried and in spite of how easily it came to me when I attempted to do so with anybody else.You touched my face, offered me the cigar, and I took it gratefully.

"You don't have to answer." I looked at you, but your eyes were dejected and unmeeting my own. I felt my chest tighten. "It's just that I feel as if I've told you everything now, and I still know almost nothing about you." You met my eyes again. Could you see me trembling? "I want to know who I spend every night with."

More silence, and then-

"I want to know you."

You took my breath away with those words, Jack. I felt, for the first time in years, like I could cry. I had never heard words like yours before, and I felt I wanted to know you, too. There were tears on their way, and something about the sensation was pleasurable to me. I hadn't thought of my grief in so long, now, that it felt nostalgic to cry. From the tightening of my chest to the heat in my face, I relished it all. The next words were hesitant to escape my throat.

"I suppose I could tell you." I took my first breath of smoke. Your cheeks were pink. "Since I find you worth my while."

You had never heard words like that either, Jack London. We were born for flattery.

The memories, I allowed to wash upon me all at once. My time with the Port Mafia, being promoted and manipulated by the vile head of it all, and the death of my beloved friend. That was all, in summary. I recalled many details about my life that I wished to forget. I remembered my encounter with the White Kirin, before the Dragon's Head Conflict. I remembered the first time I met Chuuya, and how much fun we had together, nearly brothers, until I left. I felt all species of emotions flood my being, and I was angry and grieving and craving more than ever the sweet serenity of death, as if when I opened my eyes I would again be fifteen years old, and all the progress I felt I'd made would dissipate.

"Take your time," you whispered. "We have an abundance of it."

"You should know that I was in the Port Mafia."

You seemed unsurprised. You batted your eyelashes at me, and I could hardly see them because of how dark it was, how white they were. I wondered, genuinely, if you believed that I was a bad person, or that I once was.

"Is there more?"

I nodded, passing your cigar back to you. The sheets had fallen from my head, wrapped around my bandaged shoulders. I was wearing a t-shirt you bought for me the month prior, a size too big but already well-worn. It smelled like you.

"You've met Ango Sakaguchi?" It was a rhetorical question, and you knew that, but nodded anyway. I hummed as I recounted everything we'd been through together. "He's former Mafia as well... we had a friend." I smiled, then, but I'm afraid you saw past it again.

"What was his name?"

I paused here. When was the last time I'd said his name aloud? His full name. My best friend. My... something of a father to me. My throat constricted.

"Oda... Sakunosuke."

Your eyes passed over me like the Lord over Egypt, and my lip began to quiver with the weight of my sins and of all that I'd lost.

I began, then, to tell you his story. The story of the mafioso who never killed. The Port Mafia's cleanest hands. The man who went out of his way every night to share drinks at the Bar Lupin. I trembled evermore as I spoke to you, avoiding your gaze like a caged animal. But I did as you asked. I recounted to you the death of those children, Ango's double-agency, and every excruciating minute of Odasaku's death. I told you what he said exactly as he said it, and I reached over to touch his birthstone laying on my nightstand and gave it to you with breaking composure. It was the way you handled it, I think, that set free my sorrow. Your fingers were gentle and nimble as always when you traced over the rim of my pendant, and in watching you I felt so overcome with grief that I sobbed into my bandaged palms.

At this you opened your arms to me, and I came apart within them. I'd forgotten how to cry until then. Your chest was smooth and cold to the touch as I buried myself in you. My tears made gentle streams down my face and onto your skin, but in my mind were torrents and floods of emotions and memories. My shoulders trembled with every breath, and I clung to you with Odasaku's birthstone clasped within my feeble hands. I wondered why. Why this? Why life? Why you? Why him? Why me? Why?

I felt I was about to cry even harder when you surprised me again. You were running one hand down my back with the other in my hair, when suddenly your voice pulled me out of my somber state with a dumb, familiar song.

My breath caught in my throat at the sound. When did you find the time to memorize the words?

"しんじゅわ..."

Your voice was even more melodic than I'd dreamed of, Jack. I felt each rise and fall of your breath, the quickening of your heart beat as my expression contorted with shock. The constriction of my lungs loosened like a noose to a hanged man.

"ひとりでは,"

As if uncertain of your presence, I squeezed your arm, and you whispered the finale of the phrase into my hair.

"できない."

Silence ensued, interrupted by my sniffling and labored breathing. You kissed my hair, breath cold and gentle, hushing me softly and wiping my tears away. Your hands were ice against my cheeks as you made me look you in the eyes: a dark, wonderful green like the forests you were raised in. I realized that your touch was converse to Odasaku; his hands were warm and rough, whereas yours were soft and cold. Yet I still completely trusted them. I still have yet to meet another like you. Someone I can read, but not predict. Someone I believe understands. Someone I might... love.

For a long time, I laid on top of you in disbelief. I could hardly look you in the eyes, lips parted without words to fill the space between them. You said nothing to me, only gazed past the facade I failed to secure, and in your eyes I saw the warmth your body no longer emitted. I tasted your breath. You spoke wordlessly.

I understand.

That night, I slept pressed against you, slowly steadying my breathing with the support of your delicate body and your slim fingers through my hair.

The stars smiled softly down at us, entertwined and bathed in hickeys and moonlight. I slept peacefully that night for the first time. I thought of Odasaku in the cosmos, and of you in my bed beside me.