Chapter Text
"The dead possum is still there." Dazai pointed out as the car passed by. The ride was awfully quiet, an awkward air between he and his stepfather. At least he was trying to not make the ride more miserable for himself. "You know, I saw on the library's sign that you could be at least twelve to get a card. I could—"
"We've talked about this, Osamu. There's no direct supervision in the library and your mother is against it." Dazai's stepfather dragged his words, sighing with visible irritability.
"There's no direct supervision at Jeff's either!" Dazai protested, staring at his stepfather's profile while he drove.
"She thinks it's better since she knows him. If it were up to me, I'd let you stay home."
"Yeah, that'd be better than staying at some crusty pizzeria." The brunet muttered under his breath, resting his head on his elbow. The old Toyota eventually slowed down a bit as it entered the parking lot. Once parked, Dazai unbuckled his seat belt and grabbed his bag to hop off the suv.
"Stay out of trouble, I'll pick you up at nine." His stepfather said through the window once Dazai had made his way out.
"Money? Or should I starve?" His stepfather shot Dazai a glare at his unfitting attitude.
"Right, here." He handed the brunet a single, five dollar bill with a sigh before steadily reversing the suv. Dazai scoffed at his stepfather's dismissiveness. Money was tight right now. The town's situation wasn't ideal, many people were leaving, everyone was struggling—even his parents that were both doctors. Still, he couldn't bring himself to sympathize with the man. His mother? Maybe. Her neglect felt like stress. But his stepfather? That man had been avoiding him long before he ever said “I do.”
He stepped into the old pizzeria, the distinct smell of dough filled his nostrils. As he made his way past the empty reception, he was received by the owner—who was also the only employee on the facility—in the large dining area. The pizzeria was named after this guy, Jeff's Pizza. Dazai could tell that before the town became practically a ghost town, the restaurant was a hit among locals. The amounts of tables, the large space, the old reception, it made sense.
"You're a bit early today." Jeff greeted him while he continued to mop the floor.
"Yeah, Mori was called at the hospital." Dazai explained, dragging his feet towards his usual table at the corner.
"Are so many people in need of surgery?" Obvious sarcasm sprinkled in the middle-aged man's tone.
"No, he's the only surgeon in town now." Dazai's words lingered in the air with awkwardness. The wet sounds of the mop dragging from side to side echoed through empty pizzeria. Dazai almost felt guilty for bringing up the decaying state of the town.
"Well... that's unfortunate." Jeff managed to say. "I'll be over at the office." He announced after placing the mop down, rushing to lock himself up in the office.
Now he was left alone. With no supervision.
He could be reading some bomb books at the library right now if it wasn't for his overly anxious mom. He didn’t blame her, not really. But having to wait once a week for her to take him was starting to get old. So here he was. Re-reading the same old manga and sketching. With how much he had nothing to do, the amount of practice started to pay off. The quality of his sketches improved significantly. He went from drawing mediocre cars to drawing full on action autobots. He engrossed himself in every detail, meticulously drawing every gear and cord of their metallic skeleton. Dazai planned out the designs with exceptional care to detail, taking huge inspiration from Transformers and old manga from the 80's.
At least there was some sort of positive outcome for Dazai in this dreadfully boring summer
Dazai looked over at the clock with bored eyes. Five minutes until nine. He shifted in his seat, his lower body ached from sitting for hours. He then rose from his seat. A bit of exploring would help the time pass. He thought, beginning to make his way past the dining room into the very back of the restaurant. There was a wooden platform right on the back of the main room, then two black doors that led to an unknown area to him. He pushed one of the doors, looking around the dark room.
Dazai made his way into the room with no hesitation. The idea of the scary ambient didn't bother him—or at least that's what he kept repeating himself. The bright LED lights from the dining room brought a bit of brightness. Enough for the brunet to spot many old machines and a large, out of place ball pit at the corner of the room. Wrapped around the poles of the pit, a rectangular sign adorned with a warning that read Do Not Use.
This thing probably has at least five viruses packed inside.
Dazai looked back over his shoulder, then narrowed his eyes to look over at the clock. It marked nine PM sharp. Mori should be arriving soon. With a smirk, he glanced back at the inciting ball pit. Maybe he could spook his stepfather a little.
Dazai climbed into the pit, submerging himself among the plastic balls. It was gross, and the smell was weirdly metallic, but the prank would be worth it. Minutes passed by. Five or ten, maybe even more. When does this dude plan to arrive?
Dazai shifted inside the pit, already growing tired from waiting. Then he heard it—the unmistakable sounds of old arcade music. Was his mind playing tricks on him? He shot his head up from among the balls, flabbergasted at the sight. The once dark room was now vivid with colorful lights. The suffocating quietness replaced with laughter and video game sounds. The place was packed with kids.
The chipped, mustard yellow paint on the walls was now a pale blue. With many cartoony, animal characters all over it. A small blonde girl jumped inside the ball pit next to him, making the brunet snap out of that small trance. He eventually got out of the pit, feeling lost and confused.
Where the heck am I?
Those same old and dusty machines that were in the room were now bright and good as new. As he stepped out of that room, he now encountered the dining room. The place had the exact same layout as Jeff's, but now... it was filled with life. Kids with party hats ran all over the place while that odd platform—stage—had some creepy robots singing on top. The mere sight of those animal robots gave him chills.
What is this? A dream? Time travel?
His stomach twisted with preoccupation and just as he was making his way back into the pit—and call all of this a dream—he stumbled upon two kids nearing the corner of the pit. They were both on the floor and looked as if they had just gotten beaten up. Dazai couldn't help but stare.
"What are you looking at? Get lost." One of them said. The kid had fiery ginger locks, wore a brown, jean jacket and some baggy pants. He rubbed his bruised cheek as he helped the other kid get up.
What a pair. They looked like stray dogs. Beat-up, defensive and too used to it. The other kid just happened to be an albino. His hair was all uneven and messy. His tiny arms and legs were all bruised up.
"What happened?" he asked before he could stop himself.
The ginger kid eyed Dazai from head to toe. "Airhead teenagers took all of our tickets." He let out in a sigh as he faced towards Dazai with crossed arms. The other kid hid behind him. "You're not from here. Are you?"
Dazai was taken aback by the remark. Is it that obvious?
"I—no. How did you figure?"
“You’re Asian. Barely any of us around here. Me and Atsushi were the only ones.” He pointed to the pale boy behind him. Relief flushed through Dazai's veins at the ginger's reasoning.
“I would’ve never guessed,” he said, smiling wryly. “You don’t look Asian at all. What’s your name?”
"Just Chuuya." He looked away from Dazai with practiced nonchalance. "You?"
"Dazai Osamu." Dazai received a small nod from Chuuya. Then silence followed. "How many tickets did you guys had before those teens took them away?"
"750." Atsushi said before the ginger could answer.
"It took us the whole day to get them. We had reached the perfect amount for a Foxy and Freddy cap!" The rage from losing the tickets in such a dumb way still burned inside Chuuya.
"But we can get them back. Three works better than two, right? You'll help us?" Atsushi said after he slid out from behind Chuuya, looking at Dazai with the cutest puppy eyes.
"Sure, that would be fun."
Chuuya blinked with surprise at Dazai's eagerness to help. "Well, we need tokens to play. Come on." The three kids made their way to the token machine all the way to the front of the pizzeria.
"How much do you have? If we combine we could get more tokens." Chuuya rummaged through his pockets as he pulled out a wrinkly dollar bill.
"I've got five."
"Five bucks? Alright golden boy." He rolled his eyes as he placed his dollar bill in the machine. Ten tokens were soon dispensed by the machine.
"All together that'll be sixty tokens!" Atsushi exclaimed while he clapped his hands together with excitement.
Would the machine even read it as real money? Dazai held the cash up to the bill slot with narrowed eyes. Surprisingly, the machine swallowed the whole bill. It took the thing a minute before it began to dispense the expected fifty tokens. The three of them stared at the flowing tokens like pirates to their treasure.
"Alright, hurry to pocket it all." Chuuya rushed to begin pocketing the tokens before any other kid would spot their jackpot. Atsushi and Dazai quickly imitated the ginger's actions.
"Which one first?" The albino was practically stimming with newfound excitement. "We can do Whack-a-bonnie! Or play Fruity Maze!"
"We need to focus on games that give us tickets. Like skee-ball." Dazai said, following behind the eager Atsushi alongside Chuuya.
"Oh I vote for Skee-ball definitely. I'm the top dog on that one!" Chuuya clicked his tongue with confidence, guiding the two other boys towards said machine.
"But can we later do Whack-a-bonnie?" Atsushi pouted behind the two boys while they began to play the game. His suggestion was epically ignored by the newfound competitive dynamic between Chuuya and Dazai.
"I've got this, just watch and learn." The ginger said with a wide smirk as he picked up one of the dispensed balls. The thrown ball landed on the twenty-point hole. Dazai chuckled as he stepped forward.
"Oh, that's all? Lame!"
"Huh?! I'm just warming up!" Chuuya snapped at Dazai's booing. He took in a second ball to throw. The ball once again entered the twenty-point hole. The game then proceeded to be an endless cycle of Dazai booing—making Atsushi giggle— and Chuuya falling for his rage bait. At the end, Chuuya had earned 170 points, receiving six tickets. With eight balls landing on twenty and one missing for the ten.
"Didn't you say you were The Top Dog?" The brunet laughed as he inserted a token for himself.
"I couldn't concentrate because you couldn't stop mooing!"
"Yeah, yeah. You just won't admit you suck. Now look, Atsushi! This is how you actually beat skee-ball" The brunet winked at the smaller boy before turning to the game and prepping for his throw. With one eye closed and his tongue slightly sticking out, he aimed before throwing.
The ball landed on the fifty-point hole.
"Woo! You saw that, Chuu-yah?!"
"Gag me with a spoon." Chuuya huffed and rolled his eyes at Dazai's irritating victory dance. "You only got lucky at that. Try aiming for the one hundred instead of settling for mediocrity."
"Like your 170 points?" Dazai chuckled, followed by a gasp from Atsushi. Luckily for him, he had reached down for a ball before Chuuya could smack the shit out of him. Soon enough, Chuuya's pride had been significantly wounded at Dazai's score of 420. Sixteen tickets were later dispensed from the machine. "More than half of what you had gotten! You just suck." Dazai bragged the tickets, shoving them up to Chuuya's face.
"Someone's a little too cocky for a first impression, huh?"
While the two boys continued to bicker amongst each other, Atsushi inserted a token into the slot. He began playing the game, aiming four balls into the hundred-points hole and five into the fifty-and-forty-points hole. The game chimed in victory as the score hit 1000, blinking widely. The sound forced Chuuya and Dazai to pause their teasing and look at the flooding amounts of tickets that was pouring from the machine.
"I did it! I beat both of you and I'm younger!" Atsushi stuck his tongue out, kneeling down to pick up—and hide—the tickets.
"How'd you—?" Both Dazai and Chuuya said in unison.
"Now Whack-a-bonnie please?" Atsushi pushed between the two older pair, making his way to the machine he had been dreading to play.
"Eight, nine, ten. That's the last group of ten!" Chuuya exclaimed while holding the piled tickets in his hands.
"That means we have over a thousand!" Atsushi excitedly jumps in to hug the ginger. They had been playing for so long, Dazai had lost track of time.
Time.
His eyes widened, reminded that this wasn't his reality. He looked around the pizzeria, his eyes skimming the whole place in search of a clock—just something that could tell time at least. But a clock wasn't what his eyes encountered. Rather a stare.
A robotic stare.
One of the animatronics—the mustard-yellow chicken—was intensely staring at him. Its eyes still and terrifying. Dazai's heart dropped.
"You good?" Chuuya placed a hand on Dazai's shoulder. "You look like you've just seen a ghost." dazai flinched, snapping his head down towards Chuuya.
"Yes—sorry, what time is it?" Dazai looked back at chicken animatronic. Thankfully, it was back to its programmed singing.
Chuuya pulled back his sleeve, revealing the black watch on his wrist. "About to be nine PM. Why? Daddy's got a bedtime on you?" Dazai forced a laugh, cold sweat running through his back.
"Of course not, but I believe I should go—"
"But why now? We have enough tickets to go get the caps now!" Atsushi stepped in, a small—pleading—pout on his face.
"Yeah, you can't just leave now. You tied yourself with us." Chuuya nudges Dazai's elbow with a smirk. "Come on now, don't be a lame-o"
"Fine, you guys go ahead. I need to go to the restroom."
"Uh— sure, whatever." Chuuya took in Atsushi's smaller hand, both heading towards the prize counter. Just as they were both out of sight, Dazai bolted back towards the tucked ball pit in the arcade. He frantically slipped back inside, curling himself up into a ball as he tightly shut his eyes closed.
Please wake up, please, please.
His constant self-pleading filled his mind, overpowering the loud noises of the arcade. Then he opened his eyes, snapping back into reality.
Into an awfully loud silence.
He popped his head out of the balls, everything was just like before. The old machines were back to piling dust in the awfully dark room.