Bad Kind of Butterflies ♧ DazaiXReaderXDOA

12. The Sound of a Cello

You almost never worked the night shifts, but recently, nothing seemed to be going as it usually did anyways. You feel like you had just woken up from a nightmare into a new world of new thoughts, and you can't tell up from down or right from wrong.

After your dilemma with Dazai and Sigma, you decided to simply burry yourself in your work and the games of the hotel, hoping to fall back into a normality. The familiarity of the cards shuffling under your hands and the chimes of every victory felt like taking a breath of fresh air, and you are able to breath without any outer intrusive thoughts.

Unfortunately, like the last time you tried that, the break was short lived.

"Myshka! How nice to see you so late at night."

Gogol.

Did Sigma tell him what happened?

Taking in a deep breath, you follow the direction of the voice with your [e/c] eyes, and once they find the man to whom it belongs to, you aren't sure whether to feel fear or amusement.

Nikolai's hair is still loosely braided from the last time you saw him, and his shorter hair pieces falling across his face gracefully compliments his every sharp shape and angle carving his face. However, his attire is completely different. He wears a simple, thick, dark red long-sleeved shirt, and for pants, some normal black ones. His red pompon hair-tie still decorates the end of his braid, but any part of him that seemed ridiculously peculiar like a riddle in itself was gone, and even his hat was nowhere to be found.

It feels...peculiar. The atmosphere around the two of you even feels different from the normal, intimidating, trickster-like manipulation always going around. Around you both, the window's in the background show nothing but pitch black with few shining stars while the casino itself glows from the light of machinery all around. The bright colours reflect off of Nikolai's light, smooth hair, and his eyes even seem to change colour as if they too can't decide on a personality or one single emotion. He looks like an illusion of his controlled self, and you start wondering if all the differences you're noticing is due to the moon shining high above Sky Casino.

Maybe I can trust him and Sigma more than I think.

As long as they forget about my rendezvous earlier...

"I'm not in the mood to talk." You tell him truthfully, still trying to come into terms with the way Nikolai looked while silently praying to every being out there that he hadn't come to talk to you about Dazai.

With a pout, - and no sign of any knowledge from Sigma - the silver-haired man sits at the end of one of your tables, resting his head in his hands as his elbows sit on the table. He looks you over as you try to go back to work, but the weight of his gaze doesn't allow you to.

"What?"

"Are you mad at me, Myshka?"

You drop your cards looking back towards Gogol, and you have to hold back laughter when you do.

It's like our meeting didn't happen...

This man is so inconsistent I don't even know what to say.

"No, why do you ask?"

"Because you won't look at me."

"You don't look like yourself."

"A costume doesn't change a person any more than a mask does. They are only different layers meant to hide ones true intentions." Nikolai states so solemnly, you are suddenly alarmed.

As if you hadn't been worrying over anything previously, you focus on simply listening to Gogol, once again falling for the captivating of his demeanour.