No one had ever told Dazai what “love” meant in his whole life. Dazai’s life had started and continued in silence. He had grown up in the middle of nowhere in the mafia, and people had only approached him when they needed him. Even eye contact was sometimes too much don't even bring when hes asking someone for something. Whenever he hung out with someone, whether it was Ron or Hermione or even the twins, there would be moments when he didn’t know what to talk about, and those moments felt like nightmares to him. Not knowing what to say made him feel like everyone was silently judging him. So sometimes he would talk about ridiculous things just to get things going.Just like a clown drowning in grief trying to make a joke so their master won't kill him
One day, while he was at the library with Hermione, Dazai noticed that she was reading a young teenage novel with the theme of 'love'. Realizing that it caught his attention, Hermione immediately started telling the story, it was generally about a man's hopeless love for a woman and how he later tried to kill himself dramatically but failed and was saved by the woman he loved. While Hermione was talking proudly about her book, Dazai had only one question in mind,
'love'.
For Dazai, love was something that was always watched from a distance, something that belonged to others. If he tried to touch it, it would break, and even if he thought he understood it, it would always slip from his hands. That's why he didn't touch it. He didn't look at it. He didn't even try to understand it. It was like a picture that was too complicated to understand even if he looked at it, and that he could never look at it as a whole no matter how he looked from the far.
But there were times in his time at Hogwarts when he came very close to understanding the concept of "love", in fact, more like one...
Blaise Zabini..
He always had a serious expression on his face,like a rock. But when he was happy or even calm, he had a warm smile that softened every rock into sand.Blaise didn't care that Dazai sometimes had difficulty understanding even simple concepts, he noticed Dazai's walls but didn't try to break them down. He just waited. Sometimes he would leave him a cup of tea, sometimes he would just say hello and leave. Or sometimes he would offer a quiet game of chess. He didn't try to force words out of him like Snape or force him to learn. Whenever Dazai tried to explain himself, Blaise would stop him. "We still have all the time in the world," he would say. That was just one of the million things he loved about him.
That day, Blaise sat next to Dazai without saying anything. The rain was streaming down the windows of the room of requirement like tears. As Dazai looked at the glass, he saw Blaise's hand reaching out from the corner of his eyes. He took it without hesitation, with a warm, honest touch.
That moment happened.
An alarm went off inside Dazai. His brain, his heart, his past, everything started screaming at once: "What is this? Is it danger? Is it a trap? Will it hurt? What should I do?
When Blaise's hand slowly started to came to his cheek, Dazai's brain screamed out in reflex before he could think straight. At that moment, just as he was about to touch him, Dazai suddenly jumped up and bit Blaise's hand. Just like the dog he was.
Blaise drew back reflexively, not in pain but in surprise. Silence fell.
Dazai's eyes opened wide, his breathing quickened. When he was scared, he had nowhere to run, no matter what or who he was afraid of, they would always come back to haunt him. Even if he wanted to, he could never run away from his fears. But this time, he didn't want to. Because Blaise was still there.
There was no blood on the bite on Blaise's hand, but there was a mark. And that mark had helped Blaise truly understand Dazai's fears for the first time.
"You still don't know how to handle a touch, do you?" Blaise said quietly.
Dazai didn't look up, but he answered in a whisper:
"No... but I hurt you. I don't even know how to say sorry for that.."
Blaise laughed softly, in a voice that made you forget the pain:
“We’ll learn. I can teach you how to love without biting.”
Blaise didn’t push his hand away this time, he just put it on the couch where Dazai could see it. The room was completely silent, except for Egg’s breathing which was almost average and Featherbrain's snores who was sleeping peacefully in her cage.
Dazai put his hand on Blaise’s hand, albeit very slowly, He never give anyone apology when he hurt someone before, that is, except for when Mori kicked him in the shin when he made him angry, and then he made dry, empty apologies just so Mori would shut up or not give him extra punishment. Mori would always tell him to kiss the spot where he hit him in return for his apologies, saying that it added moral value to the healing process. Of course, this was more of a disgusting experience, but Dazai could also see characters do this in some of the illustrated fairy tales that were thrown away on the street that were generally in good condition.
Dazai slowly and gently grabbed Blaise's hand, lifting it up and kissing it, to both his and Blaise's surprise.
While Blaise's surprise was more from the fact that he had bitten him just because he had touched him, Dazai's was more from how good it felt to die on the boy's skin. Whenever he kissed Mori, it felt like his lips were melting with acid, it was cold, and whenever he did it, it made his stomach turn so much that he wanted to throw up. Blaise's skin was soft, and even though his hands were rough and calloused from playing quidditch, he could feel that everything was soft underneath.
He slowly brought his face up to Blaise's. He asked gently.
-Does it still hurt..?
Blaise looked at him with a smile, still trying to avoid triggering Dazai.
-It doesn't hurt.
Dazai looked at it with a bit of a smile and a bit of concern
-Okay then, but we still need to clean it with alcohol at least
Blaise shake his head
-I don't think so, since you're not a dog, you couldn't have infected me, right?
Not a dog.. These sentences seemed to have sunk into Dazai's heart. Up until now, he had always been addressed as a loyal dog. The dog of the Mafia, the head dog of the Hellhounds.. Mori's pet dog.. But he wasn't a physical dog, was he? Dazai blinked, quickly blinking away the tears that were about to fall
-Never mind that.We still have to clean up, we don't want my right arm leader to get infected, right?
Blaise laughed lightly, pointing to the door
-Then the bosses first.
Blaise got up from the chair and held his good hand towards Dazai. Dazai grabbed it and lifted it up in one move. Neither boy had noticed that their hands were holding at the time. Blaise looked at Dazai with loving eyes one last time before heading towards the infirmary, and swore that he would protect the boy from any harm that might come later