Soukoku One-Shots

Lost in Translation (Found in Love) Pt. 1

a/n: i've had some questions about this so just a reminder that my favorite kinds of readers are the ones who blow up my inbox <3 don't ever be shy about leaving lots of comments all over the place

Alternate Universe

It was common knowledge that Dazai Osamu was a prodigy.

He could read and write before he could walk. By eight years old, he had memorized the entire Oxford Dictionary. By eleven years old, he had published a collection of essays on the plight of the human existence, and by sixteen, he could write theses that would take graduate students years to complete.

Dazai Osamu could do almost anything. What he could not do, however, was speak French.

Now, normally, this would not be a problem. He went to school in Yokohama, a city that spoke almost exclusively Japanese. The occasional English speaker would pass through, but that was all. There were certainly no French speakers in Yokohama, so why would Dazai waste his time learning something he would never use?

Because Odasaku had shipped him off to Sorbonne University, Paris, and he didn't understand anyone.

Dazai adjusted the messenger bag over his shoulder, narrowing his eyes as he attempted to locate his Art History class. It was certainly in this hall, but this was a very large hall with droves of students filing in and out of classrooms, and that made it difficult to see what was where, even for someone of his considerable stature.

"It can't be far," Dazai mused, frowning. "Maybe I've passed it."

When his favorite professor back in Yokohama, Oda Sakunosuke, told him to try taking advantage of the study abroad program offered there, Dazai had not been thrilled. Sure, Paris was one of the art capitals of the world, and Odasaku had told him that it would be good for him to be surrounded by other creative people (artists, he'd said with obvious implications that Dazai pretended to ignore), but he liked Yokohama and moving to a new place for his second year of college sounded like more trouble than it was worth. He would much rather stay in a place he knew, with people he knew, speaking a language he knew.

Odasaku was convincing, though, with all his talk on the wonderful opportunities for Literature students in Paris. And Dazai may have been able to refuse him on account of such short notice, but that was when Yosano told them both that she was going abroad to study with her girlfriend for the year, and she would be happy to help him out.

It only escalated from there. She'd convinced Ranpo, her best friend, to come along with his American boyfriend, and then Atsushi was asking to tag along, and then Kunikida decided that Yosano would lose Atsushi at some point and get him shipped off to Switzerland, and suddenly everyone was going to France like it was some kind of family vacation.

It took exactly nine and a half days of being assaulted with talk of grand Parisian adventures before Dazai decided to pack his bags too. At this point, he was starting to regret that decision.

"This is ridiculous," he huffed, spinning around once, twice, in search of the right number. "Why does this place have to be so big—"

Oof.

The impact was startling, but the force wasn't enough to send Dazai falling to the ground. Unfortunately, the same couldn't be said of the person currently sprawled out amongst various papers and a few pens. He wore a plain white button-down, collar left open, with navy slacks and a sweater tied around his shoulders. There was a pair of sunglasses in his hands, Dazai assumed, before they'd bumped into each other. Very chic.