[ Late evenings have a way of seeping into every bar, no matter how airtight, draping them in an element of deep velveteen shadow. Not even the oily orange of scattered lights, flickering like dying suns on scattered tables, can do more than act as guideposts.
It'd be easier to believe Chuuya was born in a place like this, rising from a tryst between the weight of every dark corner's void and those man-made fireflies of illumination, melting together to be pale skin or the molten-colored waves that frame his face in sharp peaks like armor, plumage, or something a little more ethereal.
He knows this isn't the case. And those facts should change a person's perception. It ought to dull the gauzy flicker of bartop candles spotlighting Chuuya's face in a buttery yellow halo. It should dull his coat and pluck out all the flecks of dust gathered at the hem. Not make it echo of some panther-sleek second skin that Chuuya might slink into at the slightest provocation, transforming into something rightfully feral and fierce, the way people do in legends.
It's Dazai's place to be resilient, untrusting of any illusions which his eyes may create or believe in anything he can't calculate into cold hard facts. But knowing better has never once stopped him from setting his own cautious heart on fire and throwing it to the wind.
So he lets Chuuya's gravitational pull drag him in close enough to be registered as an approaching presence over one shoulder, but not yet recognized. Dazai gladly rectifies this by sliding into the bar-stool at Chuuya's right as he reaches between them to pluck Chuuya's whiskey from where it's just been pressed to his mouth for the sake of another sip. ]
It's so hard to choose, when both will give me an agonizing headache!
[ Dazai doesn't bother turning the lip of Chuuya's glass around to avoid the visible mouthed-marks where he's been drinking. Without pause he merely downs a mouthful of the contents with a brisk tilt of the glass. ]
II - Bang bang.
It'd be easier to believe Chuuya was born in a place like this, rising from a tryst between the weight of every dark corner's void and those man-made fireflies of illumination, melting together to be pale skin or the molten-colored waves that frame his face in sharp peaks like armor, plumage, or something a little more ethereal.
He knows this isn't the case. And those facts should change a person's perception. It ought to dull the gauzy flicker of bartop candles spotlighting Chuuya's face in a buttery yellow halo. It should dull his coat and pluck out all the flecks of dust gathered at the hem. Not make it echo of some panther-sleek second skin that Chuuya might slink into at the slightest provocation, transforming into something rightfully feral and fierce, the way people do in legends.
It's Dazai's place to be resilient, untrusting of any illusions which his eyes may create or believe in anything he can't calculate into cold hard facts. But knowing better has never once stopped him from setting his own cautious heart on fire and throwing it to the wind.
So he lets Chuuya's gravitational pull drag him in close enough to be registered as an approaching presence over one shoulder, but not yet recognized. Dazai gladly rectifies this by sliding into the bar-stool at Chuuya's right as he reaches between them to pluck Chuuya's whiskey from where it's just been pressed to his mouth for the sake of another sip. ]
It's so hard to choose, when both will give me an agonizing headache!
[ Dazai doesn't bother turning the lip of Chuuya's glass around to avoid the visible mouthed-marks where he's been drinking. Without pause he merely downs a mouthful of the contents with a brisk tilt of the glass. ]