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Dazai had always treated words like a game — clever, disposable, and never quite honest. But lately.. they refused to stay shallow.
In the quiet hours between missions, when the Port Mafia halls fell into something almost resembling silence. Dazai found himself alone with a notebook he swore his life was just something to pass time. It had started as nothing more than a distraction. Something to pass the time when Mori wasn’t burying him in work or coaxing him into Elise’s games. But the pages had quickly filled with things he couldn’t laugh off. The poems felt heavier than they should have, they carried a meaning he hadn’t meant to give them.
And no matter how he twisted the words, no matter how many pages he tore out and crumpled at his feet, the verses kept bending in the same direction. Threading together thoughts of gravity, bits of red hair, and a voice that lingered longer than he wanted. Every line, every metaphor, every unfinished sentence circled back to the same person.
Chuuya.
Dazai clicked his tongue, dragging a hand down his face as if he could physically wipe the thought away. It wasn’t like he wanted to write about him. Chuuya was loud, infuriating, and entirely too easy to rage bait. A short tempered, obnoxious little dog of a partner. Completely unworthy of occupying his thoughts. Let alone his writing!
And yet.
The pen in his hand hesitated, then moved again, writing out another line that betrayed him just as horribly as the last.
It had gotten bad enough that he’d gone to Odasaku. An act of desperation he would deny forever. At sixteen, with thoughts he couldn’t figure out and reactions he couldn’t control. He had tried to explain it: how Chuuya stayed in the back of his mind no matter what he was doing. How even the slightest brush of his hand sent something that resembling butterflies through his chest. How looking at him for too long was something that had become normal for him.
Oda had listened. Quiet as always, which had somehow made it scarier. Then he delivered his verdict.
“A crush,”
Dazai had rejected the idea immediately. Absolutely not. Impossible. Funny, even. He would never fall for someone like Chuuya.
…Right?
The denial had come very easily.
Until he noticed just how often his thoughts came back. How his attention stayed on Chuuya. How his pulse spiked in the smallest, most inconvenient moment.
Oh.
Oh.
That… might actually be a problem.
–
Now, sitting hunched over his desk with ink stained fingers and a growing pile of failed drafts scattered across the floor of his shipping container. Dazai stared down at the page since it had personally offended him. The words just wouldn’t come out right.
“Just move your hand,”
Odasaku had told him.
“Write your way into his heart.”
Dazai frowned at the memory, tapping the pen against the paper. What did that even mean? Words weren’t supposed to mean things. They were tools. Tricks. At least that's what Mori had always told him.
And yet the ink spilled anyway, pooling onto the page in dark splotches that looked something akin words.
He didn’t understand love. Didn’t understand why it stayed in his chest the way it did. Or why it insisted on shaping itself into Chuuya’s form. Of all people!
But if there was even the slightest chance that words could make something real—
What was he saying..
Dazai told himself it was just one more page.
That’s all it was meant to be. Ink on paper. Words put together in a way that meant nothing. He had always been good at that, hadn’t he? Detaching. Turning something real into something laughable.
But this page felt different.
His pen hovered for longer than usual. His fingers tightening around it since one wrong movement might ruin the page. The room was way too quiet. Even the usual hum of the junk yard wasn't there. It seemed like he’d slipped into some separate universe where it was just him, the paper, and the thoughts he had to get out.
How can he write love into reality? Hes not sure. But if he can be a Port Mafia exc at 16, he can do this!
It started slow at first, he was hesitant. Then he sped up. faster. The ink bled into the page in uneven strokes, lines crossing out, rewriting themselves, trying again. He didn’t think too hard about it this time. Didn’t even try an stop himself when the words got too honest.
He wrote about gravity, using it as a metaphor to show something that pulled no matter how hard you resisted. He wrote about that voice. The one that cut deeper than everything else. About a presence that refused to stay contained.
He didn’t write Chuuya’s name once.
By the time he finished, his hand had gone numb.
The silence rushed back in, heavier now, pressing against his ears as he stared down at what he’d written. For once in his life he didn’t tear the page out. He didn’t crumple it, didn’t laugh it off, didn’t try to pretend it was meaningless.
It was real.
And that was… a problem.
Dazai exhaled sharply, pushing himself up from the desk before he could change his mind. If he stayed any longer, he would ruin it—rip it apart and rewrite it into something safer, something empty.
Odasaku’s voice echoed faintly in his mind.
“Write your way into his heart.”
Right.
This was probably what he meant.
Which was unfortunate.
—
Chuuya was exactly where Dazai had expected him to be. Leaning against the wall in the hallway, arms crossed, and already looking irritated about something. Probably everything. It suited him.
Dazai slowed for half a second.
Then he picked up his pace. If he stopped, even for a moment, he wouldn’t go through with it. And he had to go through with it. He had promised Odasaku he would go through with it.
“Chuuya,”
he called, voice far too normal for what he was about to do. And then Chuuya glanced up immediately, scowl already forming. And god he looked beautiful. Dazais face turned bright red in an instant.
“What do you—”
Dazai didn’t let him finish.
He crossed the distance in quick steps, grabbed Chuuya’s hand, and shoved the folded page into it.
“Don’t read that out loud,”
he said quickly, the words slopping and bleeding together. He had already stepped back.
Chuuya blinked, caught completely off guard.
“What the hell is—”
“Anyway, I have something to do. Important. Very urgent. Life-threatening, even.”
“Dazai—”
“Nope. Goodbye.”
And then he was gone.
He didn’t wait for a reaction. Didn’t wait for Chuuya to open it, to read it, to laugh or yell or worse, look at him differently. The hallway blurred as he moved. His steps quicker than usual. His heart was pounding in a way he absolutely refused to acknowledge.
This was a mistake.
A huge mistake.
He should go back. Take it. Burn it. Pretend it never happened.
Somewhere behind him, Chuuya was unfolding that page.
Reading words that weren’t meant to be a game.
If this went wrong — and it would, it absolutely would — then that was it. No taking it back.
Dazai slowed to a stop only when he was sure he was far enough away. For the first time in a long while, he felt something dangerously close to uncertainty settle in his chest.
If words really could shape reality
Then he had just changed his.