our last kiss

chapter 2

Atsushi woke up, but he was nervous, like something was making him feel stressed, maybe it was because he hadn't see that boy in his dreams, it was the first time he hadnt seen him "thats weird.." he muttered to himself and headed to the kitchen for some cold tea to wake him up, there he saw dazai talking on the phone, dressed like a gentleman, he was wearing a suit and it looked like he was trying to fix his tie but eventually gave up and atsushi did it for him.

"Where are you going dazai-san?" atsushi immediately asked him when the phone call ended "we are going together to work!" he said with a playfully smile but the white haired boy choked on his drink "with me?! Why?" "why didn't you tell me koyo ozaki told you to work for her! Don't you know she's chuuya nakahara's sister?" "The actor's?! Really?!" atsushi was impressed and dazai felt really intelligent for knowing that, even if he did know it only because he wanted to hit on chuuya.

"Yes! So I'm coming with you" he said with a chuckle and pushed atsushi to his room to go get dressed "come on you don't want to be late on your first day!" he said and made some coffee for himself.

Atsushi couldn't get out of his mind the man that hadn't appeared in his dreams, why wasn't he there? Had he really died at the last dream and would never appear again? 'why am I even worrying about some imaginary friend, they all go away someday anyway' he thought to himself and sighed.

They drove to the gallery with dazai's car, but of course you would never trust him to drive so atsushi was driving "and how did you find out dazai-san? That koyo invited me to work with her" the back of the car was filled with atsushi's paintings that they were carrying so that he could put them up today for the exhibition in that afternoon.

"Because she posted about it on her Instagram" "she did?!" atsushi was suddenly more excited but nervous, she really was taking him seriously as an actual artist.

When they arrived, koyo was waiting for them at the entrance, the art gallery was huge and so pretty, it was painted a simple white but outside it had metal crafts and sculptures from artists from all around Japan, and it had about five to six floors, he couldn't really count, it was just a beautiful sight, there were flowers around the art pieces too.

She welcomed them inside and atsushi couldn't help but look around like he was a kid lost in the playground filled with other kids and loud voices, but the loud voices he was hearing were the artist's feelings, he could understand them just by seeing the painting.

After showing them around kouyou told atsushi where to put his paintings and together they decided which ones were the best to hang for the exhibition "are you planning on selling any of them?" "Maybe one of them, but I'm kind of emotionally attached to them so I wouldn't want to just sold them to someone" "I understand, who's that boy in your paintings? At every one of them, there is the same person".

Before he could explain to her the whole backstory behind those pictures, dazai came and started complimenting koyo and trying to lead the conversation to her red headed brother.

It was 8pm, everyone was arriving, some of them were artists that atsushi knew and never expected that he would actually see them in real life, breath the same air as them, make eye contact with them, he envied everyone in the room. He wanted to talk to them but he was scared, what if they were rude? What if they didnt even knew him and thought he was a random person? But of course they didn't know him, he was just a new painter that hadn't even sold one piece of art.

After wandering around he decided to go and see if anybody was looking at his paintings, he first saw a couple, a woman with a pixie cut and dyed white hair, she was wearing black pants and a white shirt, she was wearing red lipstick and you could see her partner's neck having something red on it, they were probably making out before coming here.

Then he saw two men, they looked old and rich, but filthy, they were laughing at atsushi's art, but when they saw him and the tag on his shirt saying his name, they laughed even louder and left, people could be really mean sometimes.

He was dissapointed, why where they making fun of his art? Suddenly everything was becoming overwhelming, their voices seemed like laughs and he thought that everyone was judging his paintings, that they were judging him. He shut his eyes closed but when he opened them again just to come to peace with the sight infront of him.

The boy, the boy from his dreams, he was infront of him, staring at atsushi's painting with his face drawn on the canvas. "Excuse me, are you the artist?" pitch black eyes, no light in them, but atsushi was still mesmerised by him, black hair with just a small piece of white, he was wearing a suit and had his ear pierced, the earing was a diamond that probably cost more than his own house.

"Yes! I'm atsushi Nakajima!" he was slightly stuttering, he was so nervous, was that boy real? Or was he just imagining it? He reached to touch the boy's arm to see if he's real, but then he moved and turned to look at the painting "your painting is truly captivating" "He looks like you" "hm?" "The boy in all my drawings, he kinda looks like you" he said nervously.

the boy just looked surprised and mumbled a "thank you" because for him it was such a big compliment, thats how pretty he found atsushi's art "eh, what's your name?" "Akutagawa ryonosuke" so that was his name, akutagawa. Before the white haired boy could reply, a red head approached them "are you friends with that weirdo? He told me something about atsushi or something" he was next to akutagawa but he didn't pay attention to him, like he wasnt there.

"Are you the h-huge actor chuuya?!" "Yes I am, and your friend here got drunk and tried to fuck him me" then he saw that the actor was carrying around dazai by his collar, while he was half awake and half asleep "he took almost ten shots of whiskey" "I didn't even know they had alchohol, unless I wouldn't leave him alone.." he whispered to himself and looked down to dazai in embarassment, then he realised that he had left chuuya standing while holding his friend.

"I'm so sorry mister!" he said and rushed to help dazai get up, but chuuya instead of getting mad, he chuckled "tell him I put my number on his left pocket" he said with a smirk and left "at least you got a chance with him.." he said with a smile to dazai and then said a quick sorry to akutagawa "it's fine, don't worry, I'll buy your piece of art, how much is it?" "100 dollars" "only that, you're really cheap, atsushi" hearing his name coming out of that specific person's lips, it was like a melody.

"Here, take 300" "but that's not the-" "it's fine" he said and forced the money to his palm "you're a big talker, accept something for yourself and stop trying to make excuses, this is incredible" 'woah, he's actually serious' that was atsushi's thoughts before thanking him a hundred times "here's my number, if you make any more art for sale" he said and without any goodbye, dissapeared in the crowd.

Atsushi had to carry dazai home, and when he finally carried him up the stairs, he just left him on the couch and headed to his room.

"akutagawa..."

he said and shut his eyes, hoping to see him again, but in real life