Generations of Rain || Dazai Osamu/Reader

26. stars.

The two of you are working away in the tiny box of a kitchen, with Dazai's back pressed against yours as you cubed the tofu. Dazai was chopping the scallions, making sure that he didn't cut himself.

After all, you were there within him.

"Be careful with the knife," You warn him, handing it over to his open palms. He grins.

"Shouldn't it be you who should be careful?" He asks, and you sigh.

"That's why I'm giving it to you. I don't know what I'm capable of doing with that. Even now," You say. "It's a defence mechanism: Self harming. I've quit it, but it comes back sometimes."

"Well, you can trust me on this," He takes the knife and twists the tip of it against his fingertip, feeling the pinprick against the sensitive flesh. "Let's get cooking."

You slide the block of diced tofu into the boiling pot, the miso paste now melting in the scorching waters. You give it a good stir, before nudging Dazai with your shoulder. "Pour it in."

"Aye, ma'am," He playfully says, using the knife to push the scallions into the soup. Your face is beaded with sweat at the rising heat of the kitchen, before you take out the mackerel fillet out of the freezer. You pull out a pan from the above head cabinet; Dazai reaches over and cups his hand over your forehead to protect you from the door and its sharp corners.

"We'll be having pan-fried you tonight," You say, teasingly, peeling back the plastic bag as Dazai whines in the background.

"So cruel!" He shuffles behind you and wraps his arms around your waist, putting his face in the crook of your neck.

How he wanted to leave marks on your nape.

The mackerel sizzles away in the hot oil, and you flip it over when it starts to darken and turn crispy. You hum a song that he doesn't know, and wonders what it's to taste your noises. Hearing them wasn't enough; he needed to swallow every syllable, every vibration, every consonant.

All he can do is love you, and if he gets hurt by it, so be it.

"Someone's clingy," You note, sliding the mackerel onto a black plate. He nuzzles into your skin; you smell faintly of kitchen sweat and perfume. "You okay?"

"Just want to hold you." He admits into your skin. He waddles behind you, still holding onto you as you set the table, before letting go when you shrug him off.

"Just a second. I need to get us rice," You say. "You go sit down."

Dazai sits on the living room floor and looks at the space around him: He knew that without you, it would have been a barren space, just like his shipping container days: sake bottles, canned crabs, bandages and gauze, bloodied tissue, astray sake cups rolling about. But you're here. His dorm is now friendly, welcoming, and filled with life. You kept the house clean and alive with just your presence, as though you were some type of fairy whose dust brought sentience to anything it touched.

You come back with two bowls of rice; they are white like linen sheets, each grain of rice glistening under the light. He thinks they are special because they have been washed by your special hands.

"Itadakimasu." You both say, before eating. The clatter of chopsticks, the clinking of spoons, the murmur of idle chatter, the fan purring besides you, a stray calico cat outside the window yawning at the moon.

You swear you've seen that cat before.

"I taste better than I thought," Dazai says, his chopsticks holding a piece of fish. You roll your eyes but chuckle nonetheless.

"Yes, you do."

You have built him a table of food, nurturing him by cooking for him. Genuine intimacy radiates off you as you take a spoonful of rice into your mouth, unaware of Dazai's stare on you. He is a starved man, and has stumbled into your kitchen and is hungry for you. He is a hungry thing.