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In the depths of winter, the semester was nearing its end. The students of the Academy – the place where children of diplomats and rich men and those few particularly merited peasants on scholarships studied to be the next generation of pretentious leaders – were holed up for the season, studying furiously. At least, most of the students were holed up studying. A few were still running around like headless chickens searching for a date to the end-of-term Snow Ball. 

Ranpo was not one of those students. He was on his eighth consecutive hour in his favorite study room, the one all his friends spent their time in. The fire was blazing and toasty and throwing warm shadows along the brick walls and bookcases. Kenji, the group’s favorite Academy staff, had left rows of chocolates on the windowsills for them, all of which Ranpo had already eaten. He was scribbling out a draft for his third of eight final papers, and was not particularly keen on being disturbed. 

Alas.

Ranpo knew something terrible was afoot the second the door creaked open. 

There was something in the slow movement of the door that set Ranpo immediately on edge. The thick, acrid scent of a chainsmoked pack of Capri cigarettes wafted in, which meant it was Dazai. But usually Dazai entered the study lounge loudly, throwing the door open with a grand sweep before flouncing over to Ranpo, swinging his arms about wildly. He would drape himself over Ranpo’s chair, mess around with Ranpo’s papers and books, complain loudly about all the homework he had to do and wasn’t doing. Then, he would eventually lock himself in the study lounge until the wee hours doing said homework and moaning about the consequences of his own actions. Or he’d just beg Atsushi to do it. 

But those dramatics were oddly absent today. Today, the door inched open slowly, slowly , letting a hint of the hallway’s fluorescents creep in and clash grossly with the warm yellow lamp. Dazai’s head appeared next. Wide-eyed, he peeked through the crack in the door, then grimaced the second he met Ranpo’s eyes. 

“What,” Ranpo said, setting down his pen. 

The smell of cigarettes nearly had Ranpo keeling over as Dazai got near. Wow. How much did the guy spend on cigarettes? At least fifty bucks a week, Ranpo figured. They needed to work on that. But Dazai had trouble remembering that money was real and worth something. 

Dazai shuffled close, head hanging low. It was an act, Ranpo knew, because Dazai hardly ever felt shame, and if he did feel shame he would lock it up in a box and throw the key in the ocean. Preemptively Ranpo dogeared his textbook, set down his pen, and steeled his heart. 

Dazai did not often throw Ranpo off, and he probably wouldn’t today. But Dazai was his closest friend at this Academy, barring Yosano, and Ranpo had a rather unfortunate soft spot for him. 

Ranpo already had a very unfortunate idea of what was going on here. He hated the Snow Ball. 

“ Raaaanpo, ” Dazai singsonged, finishing his shuffle-up only when his knees hit the arm of Ranpo’s leather armchair. He bent down low at his hips to get himself thoroughly into Ranpo’s personal space. Luckily for Dazai, Ranpo really was not bothered about personal space. At least, not when it came to Dazai. 

Looking like a bug under a rock, Dazai gave him big eyes. They were nearly nose to nose so that Ranpo really had no choice but to stare into his big dark gaze and watch his long eyelashes tremble. They stared at each other for a very long moment, both aware of what Dazai was about to ask and, surely, what Ranpo would say to it. 

Finally, Ranpo said: “You are not going to convince me to be your date to the Snow Ball.” Dazai threw his arms up in the air, wailing and twirling jerkily away. 

“Why not ,” Dazai whined. He slapped his hands to his face, tumbling into a nearby loveseat like a fainting dame. “Ranpo. Ranpo. I need a date to the Christmas ball–” 

Ranpo needed sugar to get through this. He usually needed sugar to deal with Dazai. All those chocolates Kenji left were gone (he’d have to make sure no one else found out about those chocolates, seeing as how Kenji left them as a treat for everyone…), but luckily there were two dozen lollipops in his satchel. He rummaged around until he found a big cherry-chocolate flavored one. 

“You don’t,” Ranpo said simply, because it was true. 

Ranpo shifted in his arm chair, his legs all folded up in front of him, until he was facing Dazai. Ranpo liked to look at Dazai, in particular, when he talked, because Dazai was very very good at hiding his true feelings, and it was easier to figure him out if Ranpo could catch the minute twitches of his eyebrows and fingers. “There’s no rule that says you need a date to get into the Snow Ball.” Not that Ranpo cared: he didn’t think much about the Ball, because him and Yosano always went together, for as little time as possible.

They were always lucky that this particular study lounge was seldom-used. That was why their little group frequented it. Their group wasn’t often welcomed in other areas of the Academy. They were a ragtag bundle of the Academy’s oddest upperclassmen, the freshmen they adopted, and just about all of the scant scholarship students the Academy boasted about. The study lounge sat at the topmost floor of an Academy tower in a far corner of campus, and only their group was crazy enough to trek to it every day. It was worth it to not be bothered, and to get to work in each other’s company and no one else’s. 

It was also worth it because they were all overdramatic, strange, and not well-liked by most of the student body. Dazai exemplified this perfectly. At this moment he stretched himself out over the plush loveseat more than seemed possible, all his long lanky limbs draping over the sides, and continued to make weird, bird-like noises of protest. 

Dazai sighed out the most pathetically long sigh Ranpo had ever heard. “But I do, ” he said. “Think of the picture, the embarrassment, if I arrive at the Ball with no fair gentleman or lady on my arm…”

Ranpo closed his eyes, tipping his head back. That’s what it was. Dazai was worried about what his parents would think.

Ranpo had gotten into the Academy on merit and scholarship. A lot of their group had, in fact – Nakajima and Akutagawa had even been brought in right off the streets. They were all an abnormality in the Academy, of course. Most students simply paid the exorbitant tuition, like Dazai. 

Dazai could have gotten in on his own merit, surely. But his parents were well-off folks, his mother a professor and his father a politician, and they’d had him set for the Academy since conception. 

Dazai was a young man with very little of his own direction, at least in a career sense. Ranpo knew Dazai was sort of just doing what he was told to do when he went to class every day and made connections with the right professors and visiting lecturers. Dazai was motivated in his day to day life by much more intimate goals; Ranpo wasn’t entirely sure what Dazai’s motivation for these goals were. But he knew it involved Nakajima, Akutagawa, Lucy – it involved mentorship, in an odd way. Ranpo always thought God help those kids, but, well. For some reason, Dazai had decided a few years ago that those kids were his very life’s purpose.

But Dazai worried every day about image and reputation, because he loved his mother, or at least Ranpo was pretty sure he did. And his mother was very interested in whether or not Dazai would one day give her a grandson. Adopted, biological, or not – Dazai just needed to have a respectable Academy-dominated job, marry a respectable Academy-educated spouse, and have a respectable Academy-bound heir.

“Dazai, you will not convince me to do that,” Ranpo reiterated. Then, because he thought it would be very funny, he said: “Ask Yosano.” 

Ranpo smiled tongue-in-cheek, but Dazai cut him a glare. “You’re–” 

“Ask Yosano what?” 

Speak of the devil, she swept into the room. In her big, chunky boots, bigger fluffy coat, and prim uniform, she looked sweet enough, but Ranpo and Dazai were wise and knew to be a little afraid of her. They both clamped their mouths shut immediately. 

She raised her eyebrows as she shed her coat and tossed it on top of Dazai, who did not acknowledge it. He just laid under the mass of fluff, motionless, face blank. “What is it, boys?” She ruffled Dazai’s hair first, then crossed to Ranpo and hooked her arms on top of his chair, peering over him at his homework. When she decided that would give her no answers, she looked back to Dazai, squinting. 

Yosano couldn’t deduce social things nearly as well as Ranpo or Dazai could. Her intellect was mainly medical. But she was sharp as a tack and she knew Ranpo and Dazai better than anyone, and – well – Ranpo loved her, admired her, was fond of her like a brother is to a sister, and he was batshit terrified of her. 

He swallowed and kept his mouth shut. 

Dazai did not have the same survival instincts. It seemed he weighed whether or not it would be more interesting to say nothing or to ask, and had decided asking would be fun. It would end in death, but it would be fun. Dazai flung an arm over his chest, sighed once again, and said, “Will you be my date to the Christmas Ball, Yosa-”

“No.”

“Okay,” Dazai said meekly, pinned under her glare. He rolled onto his side and curled into a fetal ball. His shoulders shook but Ranpo knew very well he was pretending to cry only for comedic effect. Dazai loved comedic effect. 

Yosano grimaced. “I don’t like that you’ve gotten dating in your head.”

Dazai shot up promptly to his feet. Yosano’s coat fell to the ground; Dazai’s dramatic posing was interrupted when he immediately bent down to pick up the coat, fold it neatly, and place it back on the couch.  “What’s wrong with that!” 

“ You are the last person in the world who should be dating.” Yosano tapped her knuckles idly into the top of Ranpo’s head as she talked. 

Ranpo rolled his lollipop around his mouth. He hoped this would end soon. He had to write 20 more pages. On the other hand, he could see the gears in Yosano’s head turning furiously, and he was morbidly curious to find out what she was thinking. 

Dazai sniffed, turning his head primly to the side. “You think I would mistreat a lady?” 

“You mistreat yourself ,” Yosano said, “in a way so abhorrent it would drive any lady to madness. But…” And here she grinned. This grin was so malevolent, so cunning, that it dropped the temperature in the lounge three whole degrees. Ranpo averted his eyes. Dazai squeaked. “I know someone who’s already crazy–” 

Dazai began to scramble behind the loveseat. “No, no, no–” 

“And who also has been asking around for a date to the Ball–”

Ranpo knew who Yosano was talking about, and he also knew that it wasn’t true – the guy wasn’t asking around for a date at all. Rather, he was asking a lot of oddly placed questions about Dazai, then getting extremely defensive whenever anyone pointed it out.

“ No,” Dazai wailed, now fully on the floor “No, don’t do this to me, I’ll just – I’ll just go with Atsushi, he would say yes if I asked–!”

“Nakajima would jump off a bridge if you asked him to,” Ranpo said, “He would say yes, but it would raise a dozen ethical concerns, and also, Akutagawa would skewer you.” 

Here, Dazai peeked up over the couch. “You also think Atsushi and Ryuunosuke are–?” 

“Oh yes,” Ranpo said, to which Yosano squealed, took a deep breath, and then visibly re-collected herself. 

“Dazai,” Yosano said airily, tilting her head so that Dazai was pinned by the corner of her eye, “Nakahara Chuuya is really-” 

“ No! ” Dazai screeched, so shrilly Ranpo felt it in his teeth. Dazai, star pupil of their class and Academy’s resident heart-throb mystery boy, flailed his arms and legs in the air like a toddler. “ No, not him! ”

Ranpo grinned ear to ear. This was Christmas. “Why, Dazai?” Ranpo leaned forward in his seat. Even though he was a good few feet away, Dazai still sank backwards behind the couch like he was scared of Ranpo. Which, he was never actually scared of Ranpo, but it still gave Ranpo a bit of a power trip. “Scared you’ll like him too much?” 

Yes, Nakahara Chuuya was weirdly obsessed with Dazai Osamu. Supposedly, he hated him. But Dazai’s obsession with Nakahara was even stranger – because Nakahara was the only person in the world Dazai was tight-lipped around. He never bothered him, never asked about him, hardly even spoke to him despite the fact that they were near always in forced proximity by way of shared friends. But he was always, always, looking at Nakahara. Ranpo and Yosano were maybe the only ones who’d noticed that. 

Dazai collapsed to the ground and wailed once again.

Yosano nodded sagely. “I’ll speak to Chuuya. And, Ranpo,” she turned on him, hands behind her back, smiling coyly, “Who are you bringing to the Snow Ball?” 

Ranpo gulped. “You, I thought?” 

They always went together, as brother and sister. Fukuzawa, at least, thought it was sweet. He liked taking lots and lots of pictures and parading them around to all the other professors. It helped Ranpo not worry about finding a date or anyone trying to date him, and Yosano simply never deemed anyone else worth her time. 

Eyes big and innocent, Yosano stared at him. “ Ed, ” she gasped mockingly, “You don’t know?” 

Until, it seems, now. Ranpo should have known. He should have known. Yosano was acting weird, Yosano was late to class the other day – he should have known ! 

“ Kunikida, ” Ranpo realized, had not been hanging out around Ranpo much at all lately. Now he understood why: so Ranpo didn’t have a chance to observe him.

Dazai flew up. “What!” He cheered. A nearby lamp went clattering when he threw his arms up, jumping and hollering, “ Kunikida and Yosano! Kunikida and Yosano! ” And there he went, out of the room like a tornado. 

Yosano sat herself primly on the arm of the couch nearest Ranpo, smiling self-satisfactorily. “Mhm.” 

Betrayal. Utter, terrible betrayal. The worst betrayal ever at the hands of his own not-sister. Ranpo could cry. He could lock himself in the top of the Academy’s highest tower and never come out until the Snow Ball was so far gone that everyone was worrying about their dates for the next Snow Ball. 

“But, Yosano,” he said, “Who am I supposed to go with?” 

Mirth, pure mirth in Yosano’s eyes. “You don’t have to have a date to the Snow Ball.”

“ I do,” Ranpo whined, slightly too aware of his own hypocrisy. He could not go alone. He hated, hated, hated events like that and especially hated doing them by himself. He needed to be able to hold someone’s arm, steal away to a quiet corner with someone he actually liked … 

And to his complete, terrible dismay, Yosano leaned close and whispered, “I’ve got someone in mind.” 

Dazai and Chuuya weren’t strangers. Definitely not. They’d been going to school together for years, and they had all the same friends – they partied together, studied together, took classes together. But they weren’t doing it together, together. More like Dazai was having breakfast with Yosano and Chuuya was having breakfast with Yosano but Dazai and Chuuya were not having breakfast together. Or, Akutagawa was studying with Dazai who was studying with Atsushi who was not studying with Akutagawa but was also studying with Chuuya who certainly wasn’t studying with Dazai who was trying to study with Kunikida who was trying to study alone –

The interfriendgroup politics did get complicated, sometimes. 

Dazai and Chuuya weren’t strangers, but they weren’t friends. Chuuya seemed to hate Dazai. It was something to do, Dazai thought, with Chuuya’s complexes, of which there were many. Chuuya detested the wealthy, the foppish, the soft-handed; Chuuya also detested the self-serving, the untrustworthy, the schemers. And Dazai, for his part, was all of those things. 

Dazai did not detest Chuuya. Dazai, in fact, found that he often thought a little too fondly of Chuuya, ever since they had first met in their first-year Intro to Political Science class. The Academy had been taken over with a frenzy of whispers that day because of Chuuya: a scholarship student from the slums, with a slightly-dangerous reputation following him and no perceptible motive for even wanting to go to the Academy. Already he was interesting. And then he’d made everything worse (or, if you asked Dazai, cooler) by knocking over his desk his first day with how quickly he shot out of his seat to rebuke a professor who’d praised the latest crime bill — something to the extent of, why the hell do you think children should get ten years for homelessness and have you ever even met someone from the real city? 

Dazai, sitting in the back of the room, watched him. Watched the way the nape of his neck, where orange hairs gently curled, flushed red. Watched his skinny wrists bend as his hands flew through the air. Watched him barrel on, voice unwavering, even as the Professor tried to shut him down with sharper and sharper words. And for the first time in a long time – because this was before he’d found Atsushi, before he’d figured out what to do with Akutagawa, before he’d been drawn into the world of all the miscreants he’d befriended and the mentorship of Fukuzawa – for the first time in a long time, Dazai felt a prickle of interest. 

Chuuya had since learned to be a bit more strategic in his pushback. But he never stopped pushing back, even as whispers of traitor-radical-dangerous-doesn’t-know-his-place followed him down the halls. And Dazai loved to follow those whispers; loved to watch them reach Chuuya, loved to watch the way Chuuya brushed them off. 

It was good luck when Yosano and Chuuya got close. Good luck when Chuuya started studying with them, then eating lunch with them, then drinking with them… 

It was very unfortunate luck, however, when Chuuya decided he despised Dazai. It was Dazai’s own fault: as a first-year, he had been extraordinarily cruel. His focus was entirely on doing as his parents said — making connections, claiming social territory – and oh, he certainly said a lot of things he didn’t believe in service of that. 

So Chuuya hated him. Chuuya never wanted to be alone in a room with him or even sit near him during study sessions, much less go to the Snow Ball with him. Which is why Dazai, who was hardly surprised by anything, was absolutely floored when Chuuya was actually waiting outside the Snow Ball gates for him. 

Dazai should never have doubted Yosano. The woman always knew what she was doing. But when she said Chuuya had inexplicably said yes, Dazai really had trouble processing that. 

Yet. The main event of the Snow Ball took place in the central courtyard of campus, with smaller things – performances, gardens, the like – radiating outward throughout the whole grounds. A wrought iron fence ringed the center dance area, where ice sculptures towered over the students, thousands of candles lit the smiling socialites’ faces, and lithe, graceful dancers bent and twisted on platforms to a beautifully glittering string band. No snow fell tonight, but it sat fresh, reflecting the moonlight. 

Chuuya was… very pretty, Dazai noted. Dazai always noted that, objectively speaking. Because Chuuya, as stated, was the person Dazai liked to watch. But Chuuya was particularly pretty tonight, wasn’t he? Orange hair glossy and slightly curled, bright like a flame against the dark blues and gentle whites of the night; a plain dark suit that might have been from a charity shop, or a kindly older relative’s hand-me-down; a soft warm flush to his nose and cheeks and thin parted lips. He stood with his hands in his pockets, attention askance. His eyes were wandering over the wrought-iron gates to the candles and lights and glimmering sculptures. He hadn’t caught Dazai yet. 

Good, Dazai thought, grinning. He wanted to watch Chuuya undetected a moment longer: the slow meander of his gaze, the way he intermittently licked his lips. He approached as silently as he could, threading through the throngs of ballgoers.’

In his pale warmth against the soft blue of the scene, Chuuya was luminescent. The flowers Dazai picked, then, matched Chuuya nicely. Soft pink camellias.

Chuuya didn’t catch sight of Dazai at all until Dazai was just a few feet away from him; Chuuya startled, jumping at the sight of Dazai so near. Dazai stood serene, patient, innocent as a doe while Chuuya collected himself.

“Christ,” Chuuya said, dropping his arms to hang limp and defeated at his sides. “This is real. I really let Yosano convince me–”

Fact: Dazai was known as a charmer. He was raised a socialite, after all. And – not to be vain – he knew he was handsome, and he knew how to smile in a way that made his dimples and his eyes and his nose all sit just right, and he knew exactly how to sweep out his arm to hand over flowers. 

So. He did those things. The flowers hovered in the air between them.

“Nakahara Chuuya,” Dazai said, with just the right timber to his voice that always drove ladies crazy. “Hello there.”

When Chuuya said, “ Hi, ” it was oddly subdued, compared to his usual fire. He reached for the flowers, but Dazai caught his hand out of the air (warm and lovely against the chill of Dazai’s palm) ( lovely? Dazai waves that away). Hinging at the hips, Dazai bent low and pressed a kiss right there to Chuuya’s knuckle. 

Breathy against skin, Dazai whispered, “Thank you for joining me tonight.” Then he grinned, holding Chuuya’s wide-eyed gaze steadily. 

“Dazai Osamu,” Chuuya said through gritted teeth, “don’t push your luck.”

Chuuya snatched his hand out of Dazai’s grip, took the flowers, and held out his free arm. Dazai, not yet even close to defeated, took it in stride. He looped his arm nicely into Chuuya’s elbow. 

“Let’s get this over with,” Chuuya said, “Don’t even know why I agreed to this. Stupid rich people and your stupid social games…”

“I’m very grateful,” Dazai said cheerily. In the back of his mind, though, a fun new goal for the night was rising: figuring out Chuuya’s motivation, here. There was no reason really for Chuuya to have said yes to this at all. 

(Dazai was starting to remember that there was no reason for him to go to the ball with Chuuya, either. Last night, as Dazai and Ranpo and Atsushi tried on their suits in Atsushi’s dorm, Ranpo had much fun interrogating Dazai on this. 

“You wanted a date for the sake of image, right? For your parents,” Ranpo’d said, peering at himself in the mirror. He was trying and failing to make his hat work with his outfit, twisting it around every which way, tugging at various hairs. 

“Mhm.” Dazai was busy trying to fix the atrocious knot Atsushi had twisted into the tie Dazai’d loaned him. “Atsushi, really, how did you manage this?”

Head in his hands, Atsushi groaned. Well. It really sounded more like a wail. “I don’t know! ”

“When I get this right, you’re not going to untie this. Just loosen it and put it back on tomorrow, really, Atsushi, you were raised by wolves…”

“I was raised in an orphanage, there was never a reason to–!”

“But then, why Chuuya?” Ranpo’d given up on his hair. The hat really looked stupid with his suit. Privately, though, Dazai knew Edgar would quite like it. This thought brought him much glee. What Ranpo was saying brought Dazai dread. “Chuuya’s a street kid, Chuuya’s got a reputation as a troublemaker, rabblerouser–”

Dazai huffed. He tugged on the knot some more. The knot Atsushi tied should have been physically impossible, honestly. “He’s got a reputation as a debater, ” Dazai argued, “He speaks his mind, and his professors say he’ll be a great negotiator one day–”

“Well.” Atsushi, seated at the end of his twin bed, played nervously with the hem of the suit jacket which Dazai had also loaned him. “The couple of professors who like him say that. The rest of them–” Then Dazai shot him that look like don’t betray me, my dear apprentice and Atsushi clicked his mouth shut. 

Moving on to his own tie, Ranpo continued, “All I’m saying, ‘Samu, is your choices here don’t really line up. I mean, will your parents be particularly thrilled by the politics of the situation?”

“They’ll just care that it seems I’m making connections,” Dazai said, then promptly moved the conversation on to Akutagawa, just so he could distract by thoroughly teasing Atsushi.

But Ranpo had really raised a good point. This was out of character for Dazai, the great schemer. For once in his life Dazai had no clue why he’d made the choices he had. But Chuuya was always throwing him for a loop that way, ever since they were seventeen years old, big-eyed freshmen walking into a grand university. Dazai could feel his grasp on his own scheme crumbling, and he was having trouble being bothered by it.) 

Heads were turning before they even fully entered the Ball’s gates. The murmuring started soon after. Dazai Osamu, heir of one of the wealthiest families in the nation, arm-in-arm with Nakahara Chuuya, who’d probably end up a revolutionary terrorist one day. 

Chuuya’s arm was very tense in Dazai’s as they strolled deeper into the courtyard. Waiters with trays of expensive snacks roved about, periodically offering them aged cheeses and glasses of champagne; they both denied any solids but gladly took the free alcohol. 

“We don’t have to stay long,” Dazai said, leaning closer to Chuuya’s ear than he really needed to. “Just dance a bit, make the social rounds, enough for word to get back to my parents that I had a date, that’s all… then you’re free to go, Chuuya.”

“I can barely comprehend your stupidity,” Chuuya said, and took another sip of his champagne. “How did Yosano get me to agree to this?”

Which intrigued Dazai. Pulling Chuuya smoothly around a gaggle of hired dancers, he asked, “How did she?” 

Chuuya flushed bright red and did not answer this. 

They’d each made it to their second glass of wine before Chuuya stopped in his tracks (some finely dressed woman, a donor maybe, scoffed out an excuse me! and bustled around him), pointed towards the dance floor in the center of the courtyard, and said with the most cheer Dazai had heard from him all night: “Would ya look at that.” 

It was Atsushi and Akutagawa, near the edge of the crowd, their arms looped around each other’s shoulders; the other students, the ones who’d been raised with money and dance classes, were engaged in a complicated series of convoluted movements, spins and twirls and partner-switches. But the boys swayed a slow rhythm together, heads bent close to murmur to each other. 

Dazai’s cold heart warmed a fraction. “Would ya look at that,” he echoed. And him and Chuuya stood there a moment, watching their little apprentices in pleased silence. 

After a moment, though, Dazai could practically feel the heat radiating off of Chuuya as the gears in his brain turned. “I’ve been meaning to ask you, Dazai–” 

“ Oh, is that my Osamu?” 

Dazai’s heart dropped and smile raised in near-perfect synchronicity. He turned to look over his shoulder and, sure as anything, there was his mother. 

“Oh,” Dazai said, “Mother, you’re here.” 

His mother was a tall, beautiful woman who’d Dazai’d taken after in all ways but height. Tonight she wore an elegant blue cocktail dress that she’d never worn before and would never wear again, because she was a stern believer in never repeating an outfit. She leaned down to kiss Dazai on the cheek as she came up to his side, then rounded to stand in front of the both of them. 

“And who is this?” She asked, smiling behind her champagne. 

Chuuya, it seemed, was taking the noble approach of remaining silent. For once Dazai appreciated this. 

“Mother, this is Nakahara Chuuya.” He reached across Chuuya to take the flowers, freeing up his hand. “Chuuya, this is my mother.”

“Mrs. Dazai, great to meet you,” is all Chuuya said, holding out a hand to shake. 

His mother did not shake Chuuya’s hand, because this was usually the point in the conversation where whatever man she was speaking with would clamor to kiss the back of her hand and spew niceties and what a pleasure ’s. She only raised her eyebrows, looking at Chuuya’s four-seasons-ago suit and back to Dazai. 

“Nakahara Chuuya,” she said, “I’ve heard of you.”

Chuuya’s hand finally dropped back down. 

Mother pinned Dazai with a hard look that had long since stopped bothering him too much, although tonight, her eyes felt scorching hot. “This is who you’ve chosen to be associated with.” She tilted her head up, watching Dazai down her nose. “I didn’t think I’d raised you this way, but then, what did I expect from my drunken son?” 

Keep control. Dazai always kept control of every situation he was in. It was how he’d been raised, what he’d been taught. So he laughed airily and said, “Mother, while I’m sure you’ve heard much about Chuuya, I–”

“I’m going to speak with your father,” she said, and walked briskly away. 

And there were Chuuya and Dazai, standing in silence again. 

Dazai had an odd relationship with his own emotions. They often felt a little beyond him, outside him. He felt them, he was pretty sure, but not like other people. There was no twisting within him, nothing that came from his own heart. But there was something from the outside: a hand reaching into his ribcage, grabbing his heart and squeezing it in a fist. 

Dazai stood in place for a long while and found that he was not quite aware of Chuuya, or the Ball, or anything. His mother had a peculiar way of doing that to him. She always had that control over him. 

It was not until fingertips brushed his own that he came back into himself. 

Edgar and Ranpo were there, right in front of him and Chuuya, arm-in-arm. Edgar laughed jovially at something Chuuya had said; Chuuya quipped back even as he deftly extricated the flowers from Dazai’s white-knuckled grasp and passed them off to Edgar. 

“...onto these for me, will you?” Chuuya was saying, “We’re going to dance.” 

Which is how Dazai found himself dragged into the center of the dance floor, his hands arriving mechanically on Nakahara Chuuya’s waist. 

“Man, I can not fucking believe I’m doing this,” Chuuya said, his hands looping around Dazai’s neck. 

And they started to sway. 

Dazai was dismayed to find himself rapidly blinking heat out of his eyes. It’s not that he had expected his mother to really like Chuuya at all, but he definitely had not expected to have to deal with it so soon. 

Chuuya, for his part, seemed determined not to blink. One would think Chuuya would be shy or bothered to be here, face not even 12 inches from Dazai’s – that he wouldn’t stare, gaze steady and focused, bright blue and piercing Dazai into place. It was very rare that Dazai was the one tempted to break a staring contest. 

Dazai gave himself one, two deep breaths. Then he wanted to laugh and say something charming and distracting, but Chuuya was really looking at him. And Dazai was someone with a very good memory for expressions, so he knew – he realized in this moment – that Chuuya hadn’t ever really looked at him. Because Dazai had never seen Chuuya’s eyes so clear and open to him, nor had he ever felt so dissected in front of Chuuya. And he understood, now, that Chuuya had never really paid much attention to Dazai at all before. 

Well. And now he was. And it dawned on Dazai with a degree of glee that Chuuya’s mind was starting to change on him, somehow. 

To be clear: Dazai had not come into this night with the intention to get Chuuya to like him. That had always seemed like a doomed plan and Dazai needed to focus on his image, on his apprentices. But now, very suddenly, his plans were doing a 180. The idea of Chuuya liking him struck him right in the center of his ribcage and threw him all off kilter. 

God. Dazai was absolutely out of control tonight. This was horrible. He itched for a cigarette. 

He needed something to latch onto, something to distract and dissect, and Chuuya, it seemed, was dedicated to staring Dazai down. So Dazai’s brain scrambled back on all of the scant conversation of the night and found– 

“What had you been meaning to ask me?” 

Chuuya finally blinked. “Huh?” 

At the back of Dazai’s neck, Chuuya’s hands emanated warmth. It ghosted down Dazai’s spine, it spread slowly along his back like wings as he swayed. 

He was usually such a charmer. This is where Dazai would brush a lady’s hair behind her ear, give his winning smile, let his fingertips linger. Instead he just twiddled his thumbs nervously where they sat behind Chuuya’s neck. A twirling couple came careening towards them from Chuuya’s side, and Dazai took two big steps back, pulling them safely out of the way. 

“Earlier, you said you were meaning to ask me something.” 

“Ah,” Chuuya breathed, casting his gaze long. Dazai could feel his hands twisting nervously – the sides of his hands brushed Dazai’s nape intermittently. “About Nakajima and Akutagawa. Why you bother with them so much. Seems below your social strata.” 

Dazai couldn’t help but grin. He liked that about Chuuya, liked the straightforwardness with which he spoke. 

“I’m a product of my social strata, ” Dazai said, bending his head, “I’m vain, and I scheme, and blackmail. But they have good hearts. One day my whole social strata, as you say, will be boys like them.” 

Chuuya’s eyebrows furrowed. “Huh.” 

“Huh,” Dazai teased, watching the way icy blue light played over Chuuya the slope of Chuuya’s cheekbones. 

Chuuya’s head tilted and the curls of his hair fell against his cheek, his jaw. His eyebrows were still making a line in his forehead; his lips slightly parted, his nose scrunched. They were quiet for a moment. Well, quiet except for Atsushi and Akutagawa who, speak of the Devil, chose this time to swirl by, shooting drunken, laughing, barely comprehensible jeers Chuuya and Dazai’s way as they passed. 

For the first time, Dazai turned from Chuuya. He watched the boys until they were out of sight, chuckling under his breath as Atsushi attempted to spin Akutagawa and got him completely twisted up in his arms. 

When he turned back Chuuya was smiling, and his tongue was between his teeth. “Huh,” he repeated, “I really didn’t think you actually cared about them. But you do, don’t you? You care about them.”

Dazai could not quite say that out loud. So he smiled back, and kept on swaying, and said, “So do you.” 

Chuuya shook his head resolutely. “Hate them. Little devils.” But he was laughing as he said it; he was laughing with a fondness that curled in the air like hearth smoke. “They remind me of my little siblings…” he turned away, here, like he was looking for the boys in the crowd. But the two of them were long gone, somewhere terrorizing some other poor upperclassman who’d decided to be their friend. Probably Kunikida. “I’m at this school so I can take care of them. Every kid deserves this, you know. Dances like this. Luxury, food, comfort like this.”

Chuuya’s smile was drawing Dazai in – he couldn’t help but bend his head low, let his hair fall and brush Chuuya’s forehead. “People like you, and Atsushi, and Akutagawa,” Dazai started. Chuuya had to crane his neck to meet Dazai’s stare; Dazai’s vision was completely full of bright blue eyes and a freckled nose bridge. Chuuya’s hands were falling, suddenly, from behind Dazai’s neck. At the junction of Dazai’s neck and shoulders, Chuuya’s thumbs pressed firehot prints into in his collar. 

The orchestra found a crescendo to swell on. Dazai continued, “People like you will make that happen.” 

Chuuya tilted his head ever so slightly further up. When he spoke, his voice ghosted over Dazai’s lips. “And people like you?” 

“Well,” Dazai said, “people like me will make sure to fill your coffers, at least.” 

Chuuya half-smiled, half-grimaced. “Dazai Osamu,” he said, “you’re an asshole mackerel. But you’re not so bad.” 

And Dazai couldn’t think of anything to say, because never in a million years had he ever thought he’d need to prepare for the possibility of Chuuya coming around on him. The gears in his head burned, and he couldn’t think with Chuuya’s proximity, with warmth sloughing off Chuuya in waves – but luckily, it seemed, he didn’t have to think of anything: Yosano came stumbling up to them, alcohol heavy on her breath, and began blabbering about Ranpo and Edgar. 

“They did it! ” Yosano threw her arms wide, but she was standing in the center of the dance floor and hit someone in the shoulder. She did not apologize to the heavily scandalized young woman. “They kissed, I swear to God I’m a genius. ”

Then she stopped. She stood up straight, bringing a finger to her lips. Her eyes went narrow and terrifying and Dazai suddenly realized he shouldn’t be swaying with his face scant inches from Chuuya’s anymore. Chuuya seemed to realize the same thing. They separated quickly, like kids caught kissing in a shed, and in perfect synchronicity each grabbed one of Yosano’s arms to haul her off the dance floor. 

“Ohho ho. ” Her laughter, as always, sent cold chills down Dazai’s spine. “And I was a genius in this case too, was I?” 

Chuuya sighed, patting her on the back. “Yet to be seen,” he said, sending Dazai a sly look and even more cunning smile. 

Yet. Dazai wanted to open his mouth and bite that word out of the air. Yet. Not no. Yet. 

His mother and father were somewhere debating whether to threaten him with his inheritance for the hundredth time, but Dazai found he didn’t care at all: Nakahara Chuuya, the supposed revolutionary, that fiery boy who Dazai’s gaze trailed silently down every hallway, had said yet. 

His plan had crumbled. Dazai hadn’t pleased his parents in the slightest. But he’d been doomed to that, hadn’t he? This disappointment was bound to happen sooner or later. And that disappointment had been met with a greater happiness – the possibility, not even the promise, of yet.