Bad Kind of Butterflies ♧ DazaiXReaderXDOA

4. Questions

You have always been amazed with Sigma's unique appeal, long hair behind him like streaks of moonlight split with the rest of his hair, more comparable to the colour of a pale dawn. It always crossed your mind, the style this man possesses.

"No one, just an eager customer" you respond to the manager with enough truth to satisfy him but not alarm him, since the concerned look on his face told you he didn't trust what he saw. You knew that it was with good reason. You didn't trust Dazai either.

Sigma glances away wearily and just nods, turning away from you as if his presence was perfectly casual; which it wasn't.

"Wait! Did you need anything? I know I should be busy right now so if that's why you were bothered to come out yourself I-"

Sigma stops in his tracks abruptly, causing you to halt your sentence, and looks at you with confusion.

"No of course not. Some trouble just came up with...one of our employees" he says, giving you a gentle smile before facing back away from you.

He's lying...

Does he know I am too? Maybe he'll give me more information if I'm more open on what I hear around here...

It is my job to be useful, after all.

"Sigma"

"Yes?" He glances back to you again with a raised brow.

"His name is Osamu Dazai. I don't think he's important or a problem. Just curious about this casino."

"Ok, don't make him a problem then"

Sigma's bitter tone is unexpected, and it shuts you down. You watch him walk away, a confidence in every stride he took that most wouldn't notice, but you did. You'd been around long enough.

You're in a hurry...something is stressing you out.

Is it the clown? Are they all actually here?

Why do I get nothing but some new game chips to give away? I want information.

Biting your lip in thought, you can't help but wonder that if you wandered around long enough, would you find where they were? Could you figure anything out?

You know Nikolai is somewhere around for sure, and while you didn't really want to test if you had the luck of running into Fyodor too...

Sigma, you're the one that said to not make Dazai a problem. How do I do that if no one keeps me informed? To live under the circumstances I have been placed in, I must be useful. So I will be, and I'll make sure I can be.

After coming to that conclusion, you quickly find a colleague to cover your rotations due to a "bad stomach ache" and exit the room of chance, entering the halls and immediately skipping the smaller rooms that you know have no room for anything but the person.

Spending only a few minutes carefully listening and snooping on the first floor, you move on to the next floor, now paying attention to the view from every window. Although you were already in the Sky, the higher you went in the casino the freer you felt, only clouds and sky slowly becoming your view instead of the busy city below.

Gogol wouldn't spend time in a place where he feels trapped.

You start to only go on floors where the view is clear, where even birds would dream to be, and the sky line doesn't go further than the clouds looking like soft cotton. Subconsciously, you slow down your search and place a hand gently, hovering, over the glass as you walk by one of those views. A rare serenity washes through you.

Maybe I do worry too much.

Maybe I'm reading too much into hearts that aren't mine to begin with.

What would even happen if I do find them? Do I just demand they tell me something? I don't have any authority over them, I need to be smarter about this-

"For someone that Dos thinks is pretty smart, you sure spend a lot of time running around wasting precious time in your pretty head"

Body colliding with Nikolai's as you step back in total surprise, the second time today getting unnerved by the clown's natural ability and unpredictability, you feel yourself struggle to not shrink back away from the tall, light-haired man, his sonorous silver-white hair back in its usual long braid.

Naturally, his hair isn't the only change from earlier, though, as his outfit is back to being as eccentric as he is, with a black and white vest jacket, a white shirt with ruffles on its long sleeves, black and white vertically stripped pants, a white cape, a card-like mask over his right eye, a white top hat with with a small diamond pattern, and to tie it all together, odd shoes with red fluff around the top, the same red as his gloves, pompom attaching his cape, and tied to his braid.

Forcing yourself to stand as tall as you could in front of him, you act innocent, hoping that if you acted dull-witted he'd ask less of why you were there, and you'd get more of a chance to question his intentions.

"Whatever do you mean? Dostoevsky thinks nothing of me, and I'm just working"

Nikolai crosses his arms and puts a hand to his face pensively, scrunching up his nose as he searches your face for some type of sarcasm, or anything at all that you were lying.

"Is this some sort of riddle? It's not a very good one...I'll do you one better!" As he talks, Nikolai forces all your attention on him like a true performer, making you hang on every word that came out of him. You hated how he could do that, and the smile he added at the end of his answers, like a challenge, like he was telling a joke and it was only a matter of laughing at it or figuring out the puzzle hidden in it.

"Why are you lying to me, Myshka?"

Your heart skips a beat, colour drains from your face, your small smile tight and having a hard time in keeping its gentle expression. Your blood runs cold, and you have to hold your hands tight so to not nervously react.

"L-lying to you?"

Your heartbeat booms in your ears out of control, in contrast to Gogol's which was calm, enlivened. Your fight or flight response activated, you can't help but stutter, and you curse yourself for it.

"Allow me to answer this question for you. You're afraid little mouse, and it's funny, so normal of you. You're intimidated by your own curiosity, and you're trapped. I've caught you" Gogol chuckles, tapping your nose as if out of affection, but you know he's making fun of your current situation.

Your face can no longer hold itself, and you feel your expression turn into resentment at Nikolai Gogol's games with which you could never keep up with. He was two different people all the time, and you never knew which was talking to you in the moment.

"And a point goes to...Gogol!" He laughs as your conduct changes, and you wonder how you always give him what he wants to see.

He knows I can't do anything right now but play along.

Unless...