Matchmaker - Soukoku

Chapter Eight

Dazai pov

I hum to myself as I walk through the hallway. Life right now is actually pretty good. My grades are starting to get back up. It's not that I'm not smart, I just don't really have the energy to pay attention in class or do any of the work. But Chuuya is actually a really good tutor, he's helping me a lot. For someone so grouchy all the time, he's actually pretty pleasant to be around.

"Dazai!" I hear from behind me. I turn to see the same 5-foot redhead I was just thinking about charging towards me.

"Morning, Chuuya!" I wave. "How'd you sleep?"

He raises an eyebrow. "Do you genuinely care about that?"

"No."

"Nevermind, I was hanging out with Tachihara yesterday, and-"

"Oh, what happened?" I lean forward a bit.

"WILL YOU SHUT UP AND LET ME FINISH?" He growls.

I raise my hands defensively. "Sorry, sorry, calm down. Please continue."

He huffs a breath. "Anyway, I was hanging out yesterday and I tried to be, like, flirty or whatever the hell you were talking about."

"And?"

"I think he likes me maybe...? Well, I mean, cause like, I was like brushing up against him and shit, I don't know, I think he blushed? Why is it so hard to teeeelll..." He drifts off and stares at the rows of lockers.

I look at him. "Okay, do you have any other friends?"

He glares at me. "Yeah, duh."

"Well, just ask them to ask him if he likes you. Simple. If you're not smart enough to do something yourself, rely on others." I wink.

"Oh, that actually makes sense."

"See? What would you do without me?"

"Plenty of things..." He mutters. "So, I guess do you wanna meet in the library again tomorrow after school for tutoring? I have basketball today."

"Sure."

He nods at me and turns away, disappearing into the crowd of high schoolers. I breathe a sigh of relief. What the fuck is wrong with you, Dazai, he likes somebody else...

I know he likes another person. And I know he thinks I'm annoying. And he'll never see me that way. And that I'm literally supposed to be helping him ask the other guy out. But some part of me still...

The first bell interrupts my thoughts and I quicken my pace to make it to my first class in time. Drown your feelings, Dazai. They don't matter. They never have.

...

It's a nice day out, unusually warm for October. The sky is perfectly cloudless and blue. I set my bag down on the grass and sit down, leaning against the base of a tree.

"Dazai!" I hear Atsushi's voice and look up to see him grinning down at me. A headband with cat ears is perched on his head.

"Why are you wearing that?" I squint up at him.

"Oh, did you forget?" He asks, giving me a disappointed face. "It's Halloween!"

"Oh." I stopped celebrating Halloween years ago, even before I moved here. It just always felt trivial to me. Atsushi knows that, but every year he tries to get me into the spirit anyways. It doesn't work.

"You should come over tonight! We can hand out candy to little kids."

"The absolute last thing I want to do is sit on a concrete stoop for, like, 4 hours and hand out candy to 5-year-olds just so they can get diabetes."