Archive of Our Own

Dazai didn’t notice right away. It wasn’t until he stood up and stretched his limbs that he realised something was different—that something was missing. 

As he continued to extend his arms and legs, he realised a familiar tautness that used to run lengths down parts of his skin was no longer there. 

His eyes widened slightly. 

Having just been dead, Dazai’s wits were not yet fully about him. He hadn’t pieced it together yet, but he knew something was not right. 

A dull silence began echoing in his ears. 

He heard Yosano speak—or was it Kenji?—but it didn’t sound like words. It wasn’t until he felt a hand on his shoulder that he was suddenly aware again—aware of everything. 

The way his bandages were wrapped tighter in some parts but almost falling off in others; some damp from sweat and uncomfortably cool against his skin, others dry and almost scratchy. He could feel the cool air on the skin of his stomach through the hole in his shirt and vest, feel the weight of his coat pressing down on his shoulders, swaying at his feet. 

The warm, gentle, and incredibly human hand grasping his shoulder. 

Dazai jumped. 

Dazai never jumps. 

“Hey, come on now. The others are waiting.” There was a twinge in Yosano’s voice that Dazai could easily understand—she had noticed the jump. She knew something was wrong. But she knew Dazai wouldn’t tell, so she didn’t ask. 

Dazai said some snarky remark in response. He couldn’t even remember what he’d said; perhaps it wasn’t snarky at all. That might end up being a problem. 

He turned around, and the others smiled at him. Dazai heard voices, but he didn’t hear any words. 

“I was finally this close to dying, and what do you guys do but go and save me?! What a nightmare!! I need better friends.” Dazai forced himself to roll his eyes. The words of his coworkers still sounded incomprehensible, but he could see their faces relax a bit. 

He’s making his usual jokes, he must be okay, right?

He’s at least okay enough to pretend to be okay. That’s better than the alternative, right?

Something along those lines, he thought. He hoped. 

As far as Dazai could tell, he, Yosano, Kenji and Tanizaki had only around ten minutes of walking until they’d return to the clock tower, when he’d had enough. Everything was too much at this point. 

He intrinsically knew that something was different, and he was so very conscious of the different textures and pressures of bandages, clothing, the cool breeze on his skin, the faint sounds and tremors of the entire island’s shaking. Whenever he spoke the first words that came to mind, he could feel the resounding of his vocal folds throughout his entire skull, which he then felt travel down his spine and into his entire body; his very skeleton was reverberating. His hands wouldn’t stop shaking, so he kept them shoved inside his coat pockets. He only paid half an ear to the brief remarks thrown around him. He was trying to numb himself to this world that had, once again, become too much. 

And then he broke. 

“Hey, you guys~” Dazai spoke in the most frivolously lighthearted voice he could muster. He thinks it worked, as they all turned to him and quirked an eyebrow each, entirely unamused. “I really need to pee, do you mind waiting for me while I go behind a tree real quick?”

It was as if he had spoken a line from a script, and the others waited a beat before responding. Dazai could feel that beat in his chest. 

“Yeah, that’s fine,” Tanizaki offered, “Just don’t take too long okay? The others are waiting for us.” 

Dazai nodded with a faux vigour before wobbling quickly off to the nearest tree. It wasn’t particularly large, but it shielded him from the other agents, so it would have to do. 

Dazai took a breath. It wasn’t like him to be nervous. 

He rolled up his left sleeve and started tentatively unravelling the bandage that adorned his arm. 

His breath was caught in his throat before it could leave his body. 

Nothing was there. 

He had barely unravelled it halfway down his forearm, but the skin was as clear as the skin on his face. 

Nothing. 

All those scars, all those feelings, all those manifestations of fear and hatred and disgust—gone. He had spent years learning to accept them as a part of him, and now that part of him was missing. 

Dazai, the man who could control his own pulse, felt his heart skip a beat. 

Now was not the time to worry about this. The Agency had more important things to focus on. Dazai’s skin was the least of their worries. 

He hastily rewrapped his arm before pulling his pants down to his knees. He pulled them up again, and came back into view of the agents as he was buttoning and zipping his pants again. 

“Ahhhhhh, I feel so much better now! Y’know, what they say about peeing yourself when you die must be true! I guess you saved me just in time,” he offers. He doesn’t care to process their responses. 

The four agents continued towards the clock tower. 

Dazai’s pace was slightly quicker than the others’. Earlier, he was ever so slightly behind; taking his time, thinking things over. But now, he needed to get home, he needed to be alone, he needed to be numb, he needed—he needed to breathe. He couldn’t show how distressed he was right now, but he didn’t adjust his pace. 

He threw a few (of what he hoped would be interpreted as) witty remarks over his shoulder when he deemed the conversation called for it, but otherwise he spent the remaining time thinking of literally anything except how his body no longer felt like his own. 

He did not succeed in this. 

He could feel everything against his skin because his skin wasn’t his skin anymore. He’d spent the better part of two years trying to become accustomed to the bumps and indentations he had left upon himself, and he’d finally reached a point where, yes, this was his body. 

This was his body. 

Now, he didn’t know whose body he was in. He felt so clean, and that felt so wrong. 

When they finally reached the clock tower, Dazai saw a young, kimono-clad girl tightly hugging a white-haired young boy. 

“It takes true talent to still make a girl cry at that age, Atsushi-kun.”

Dazai tried his best to sound droll. 

When Atsushi called out his name, Dazai spouted some nonsense about killing himself. It felt like a feasible cover. He forgot the words he spoke as soon as they left his mouth. 

A harsh kick brutally sent Dazai to the ground. It took a moment for him to understand what was happening; Kunikida was standing over him, Dazai’s neck held firmly in the blond’s grasp as he repeatedly kicked Dazai. 

“HOW…MANY TIMES…ARE YOU GOING TO…SCREW UP THE JOB…BECAUSE YOU CAN’T SIT STILL?!?! DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH…WE HAD TO GO THROUGH…TO BRING YOU BACK TO LIFE…?!?!” Kunikida’s voice was incredibly close to cracking after each time he started to speak, the pauses in his speech caused by his increasingly weaker kicks to Dazai’s limp body. 

“Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow! Kunikida-kun, please stop kicking and choking and yelling at me?”

“The hell are you talking about?! ‘Finally managed to die’?”—Dazai had said that? He couldn’t recall—“You’re no longer human! You don’t deserve that right! If you really want to die that much, I’ll kill you myself! How about this?! And this?! How about from this angle?!” Kunikida’s blows slowly became weaker and weaker as he felt something change in Dazai. The latter’s eyes and brows softened, almost resigned, and he was ever so slightly leaning into Kunikida’s next blow. 

Neither of the two acknowledged it, but Dazai’s anguish-ridden eyes began to well with tears. 

Kunikida knew. 

Dazai believed he deserved all of this punishment, the kicking and screaming. 

And Kunikida could tell. 

In an attempt to allow Dazai the faintest sense of privacy from the Agency, Kunikida continued to scream—only this time, it was random nonsense that even he could not make sense of. His grip on Dazai’s throat had shifted to the back of his neck, to support his head whilst maintaining the same pose; none of his strikes made it within an inch of his clothes. 

Something in Dazai’s eyes changed. Kunikida had never seen them like this before. They looked…vulnerable. 

He couldn’t tell if Dazai let it happen, or if it simply escaped involuntarily, but a single tear ran down Dazai’s cheek. 

Dazai spent the helicopter ride back to Yokohama in silence, with his back to the other Agency members, and his gaze plastered at the window. Not even out the window, just the nearest thing he could focus on without moving his head. 

He could hear the others talking behind him; their tones switching from excited to anxious, joyous to melancholic, almost every other minute. The loudest of all was Ranpo’s boasting. 

Dazai paid no mind to any of them. 

He tried to, of course. Their conversation would likely be far more distracting than the silence he was sentencing himself to, but he had gotten far too invested in this one particular scratch on the window’s glass…

…

As soon as Dazai stepped through the doorway into his Agency-provided accommodation, he abruptly said, “Goodnight,” to the agent walking him home, before promptly shutting the door. He wasn’t sure if he bid goodnight to an otherwise silent coworker, or if he cut them off mid sentence—he wasn’t even sure with whom he was walking home. 

He just knew he was now, at last, home. 

‘Home.’

Dazai walked straight to the kitchen and opened the cupboard he’d dedicated to alcohol. At the front, on both shelves, were multiple flavours of sake. 

He pulled out a couple bottles from the top shelf, discarding them absentmindedly on the kitchen counter; Dazai was searching for something, and these were in his way. 

Eventually, he hummed contentedly. He pulled out two bottles and placed one on the bench in front of the sake for later use. The other, Dazai twisted open the lid and placed the bottle mouth directly to his lips. He wasn’t one to usually indulge with shōchū, but tonight he felt he needed something heavier than his typical sake. 

The liquor tickled his throat invasively as he drank—he managed three small gulps before he pulled the bottle away. Dazai stuck out his tongue. He’d never been good with hot things, and chugging liquor straight from the bottle felt uncomfortably warm and heavy on his tongue. 

He eyed it in his hand, tempted to endure the pain and take another sip, but decided against it… for now. 

He then made his way to the ‘other’ room. His dorm was small; he had a kitchen and a bathroom, and then a room that served as everything else: a bedroom, living room… That was all, really. It had a single tatami shoved into one corner, with a small dresser at the tatami’s end, and a wooden desk a few feet along the wall perpendicular to the tatami’s head. 

Golden rays of light shone underneath the drawn together curtains, giving their grey colour a warm orange undertone. The sun was sinking ever closer to the horizon, and the day was drawing nearer to its end. 

Dazai walked into the centre of the room and sat down, before pressing the bottle to his lips again. 

He wanted, needed, so desperately to forget. 

The liquor tickled his taste buds, feeling simultaneously warm and cool, light and heavy, as he drank. 

He put the bottle down, adjusting the way he was sitting now that he no longer had the bottle in his grip. He brought his knees up to his chest and wrapped his arms around them, closing his eyes and leaning his forehead against his knees. 

Dazai stayed like that for a long time. Silent, and unmoving. 

It was almost like a regular night for him. 

Dazai couldn’t tell how long it had been before he finally moved again, but his butt was numb from sitting on the wooden floor and his legs ached slightly from being bent for so long. The light from underneath his curtains had dimmed significantly; at least an hour had passed. 

He grabbed the bottle and stood up in one swift motion, pressing it to his lips again as he walked towards his desk, upon which he placed the drink down. 

He sighed before carefully undoing his bolo tie. Dazai wasn’t entirely sure why, but every night before bed—or before drinking too much, whichever came first (usually the latter)—he undid his tie and placed the brooch very gently on his desk, almost leaning against the wall, which is where he placed the tie now. No matter how drunk he got, there was not a single morning where the brooch had not been where he’d left it the night prior. 

Dazai grabbed the bottle again and headed towards the foot of his tatami. His regular nemaki was, as always, thrown onto the end of it, ready for the next night. He never saw the point in folding it, nor even orienting it in a particular way; once he took it off, it was simply thrown onto the bed. It’s not like anyone ever came over, and doing anything more felt like such a wasted effort. 

But Dazai wasn’t about to get dressed; rather, he took another sip before tearing off his jacket and throwing it atop his drawers. 

Only one of the three drawers actually closed properly. The rest had clothes spilling slightly out of the top, because Dazai didn’t see the point in putting them away neatly, either.

Once his coat was in its ‘rightful’ place for the night, he unbuttoned his vest and threw that on top too, before pacing back and forth between his tatami and his desk, unbuttoning his shirt. His head was screaming at him, but he couldn’t make out much of what the words were saying, for which he was almost grateful. 

Wrong. Different. Proof. Fake. Liar. 

Nothing stood out to him. 

What? For?

All. Gone. 

Nothing…

Not a single word. 

You are faking it. 

Dazai threw his shirt against the wall. It accomplished nothing. 

He grabbed the bottle before making his way to the blank wall by the head of his tatami, leaning his back against it and slipping down until he was seated on the floor once again. 

This time, Dazai didn’t bother taking a drink before placing it down again. Once both hands were empty they made their way to his neck, where he pulled off the piece of medical tape holding it in place and began to unravel the bandages. He never took them off neatly, and this time was no different; he just unwrapped the fabric and threw it onto the floor. Winding it back up to be reapplied was part of his morning routine. 

He did have one of those. 

Eager to get it over with, Dazai unravelled the bandages on his right arm. Though it was still covered in—no. That was the whole issue. His arm wasn’t covered in scars anymore. 

Before Yosano’s treatment, Dazai’s right arm was still covered in scars, though they were fewer in number, severity, and variation in colour, compared to those on his left. This arm used to shine white, scar tissue paler than his natural skin, and reflecting any light that reached it. 

Now, it was bare. 

Dazai didn’t recognise it as his own arm. 

For years, he had spent countless hours, sleepless nights, troubled days, staring at his arm, to determine the next best place to cut, committing all these lines to memory as the years went by. Not consciously, rather because of how much he hated them. They disgusted him, so he couldn’t look away.  He kept staring at his own arm out of a somewhat morbid curiosity. Those white lines, varying in length, in thickness, in height, running parallel to each other, crossing over each other, each line a testament to how much he hated himself. Speaking the words he never could—the only move he could make in the game of not killing himself. 

He hated his scars. Or more accurately, Dazai hated that he gave them to himself in the first place. 

If he could go back in time, more than just fifty-five minutes… if he could tell his younger self not to give in to his urges—not to cut himself, that it’s not worth it, he would. But if someone offered to take them away from him, he would decline instantly. He wished he’d never received them, but they were a part of him now. To lose them would be to lose his history and his struggles, too. 

And that’s exactly what happened. 

As time progressed, he had gotten better. The cuts came less frequently, oftentimes with months in between. What used to be a nightly routine became a rare occurrence. 

His years in the Port Mafia were when he was at his worst. Surrounded by death, betrayal, cruelty, sin—becoming an executive commanding others to do those very things. He was incredible at his job, and not in the slightest because he enjoyed it. He hated it. He didn’t see the point of it—of his job, of being alive, of giving orders, of existing. So he took it out on himself. 

…

Mori noticed long ago. His slowly depleting supply of bandages and gauze pads were enough for anyone to clue in. But he also saw small blood stains on the sleeves of Dazai’s white shirt, noticed his stifled winces when he straightened his arm too much or accidentally bumped his thigh against the side of a desk or seat, ripping open wounds trying so desperately to be closed.  

Whenever Mori dared to attempt to bring this up with the boy, to offer him help, he was always immediately shut down. He knew he could never stop Dazai, but he was still a doctor. At the very least, he couldn’t have his mentee getting an infected wound and falling out of commission; at best, he wanted to treat an injured patient. So, unsure of how else to help, Mori made sure his medical supplies never ran out. He was sure Dazai could at least take care of his wounds himself. 

Until, that is, one night Mori heard a knock on his office door and opened it to find Dazai; his white sleeve was rolled up past the elbow, right hand holding blood-soaked gauze to his arm, eyes black holes that fell deep into where his soul should have been: not a glimmer of hope, nor remorse, was visible. 

Dazai made eye contact with Mori and did not speak a word. 

The silence said everything. 

The two left Mori’s office and headed to his clinic. Though he did still use it on occasion, it had definitely seen better days. 

It wasn’t Dazai’s first time here as a patient—this was where the two first met, after all—so he knew what to do. He took a seat on the bed, not caring that it hadn’t been covered yet, and continued to apply pressure to his arm. 

Dazai wouldn’t have gone to Mori if it wasn’t bad and they both knew it. 

Mori moved around silently, first laying out a surgical drape upon his rolling medical cart, before starting to gather the necessary tools for the procedure he assumed he would be performing—applying sutures. Dazai watched with unfocused eyes as Mori shuffled about the room, adding select tools and equipment to the cart he wheeled along with him. 

After a short amount of time Dazai didn’t care to gauge, Mori removed his coat and white gloves, though he left his hair tied up. It was quite an odd sight; Mori looked half naked, with his vest on but no coat. He stood with his back to Dazai as he washed his hands in the sink. 

“Aren’t you going to reprimand me? Tell me off, ask me why I did it?” Dazai’s voice was devoid of emotion. He sounded almost bored, as if at least getting told off would mean something was happening. 

“I am not.” Mori paused before continuing to speak. “You are a patient, presenting yourself to me with an injury. The only questions I shall ask will be related to how I can best provide you medical treatment.” 

Mori turned the faucet off and dried his hands. “Usually, I would ask if you have any allergies, if you’re right or left-handed, when your last tetanus shot was, but I already know all of these. How recent is the wound?”

Dazai didn’t speak, and his hazy gaze shifted back to the floor in front of him. He didn’t want Mori to know that he cut himself this badly with the express purpose of coming here straight afterwards—waiting no longer than it took to stop bleeding everywhere. 

“Very well; I assume it’s within a few hours then. What did you use to cause the injury?”

A beat passed. 

“A scalpel.” 

Mori’s eyes darkened slightly. Scalpels are notoriously sharp, sharp enough to cut through not only skin and fatty tissue, but even organs if enough pressure is applied. 

“I take avid note of my inventory, just so you’re aware. I know when my belongings have gone missing.” This is true. Mori knows that only one of his scalpels is missing from his expected inventory, compared to the plethora of first-aid equipment that had ‘gone missing.’ “However, where you acquired a scalpel is not in question. I now know how I can better assess your wound.” 

Dazai heard shuffling coming from Mori’s direction, though what exactly the doctor was doing, he couldn’t discern; his eyes didn’t move from the floor in front of him. Eventually the man returned to Dazai’s side, wheeling his cart behind him.

The boy silently laid down on the bed, dropping his right hand to his side to place his left arm on top of the draped cart. The tissue he held against his arm began to drop, now that pressure wasn’t being applied; Mori pulled it away. 

The man paused before reacting. That reaction being to continue on as if this was nothing out of the ordinary. Because, truth be told, it was exactly as Mori had expected—nay, feared. It was bad. 

Though Dazai had withdrawn his hand from his arm, the moment he laid down, his gaze had shifted from the floor and onto Mori; it never once flickered from the man. He noted the pause Mori made before continuing, and felt relief in it. He had succeeded. In what, particularly? It was hard to put into words. 

Help. 

Need. 

Faking. 

All in. Your. Head. 

Bad. Enough. 

Valid. 

It wasn’t in his head anymore. The silent screaming, the thick fog of helplessness consuming his entire being, the pain, was finally visible to others. Not only was it visible—other people needed to intervene. Where he could not form the words to ask for help, others now knew that he needed such.  

“You need sutures.” Mori stated the obvious. This is why you came to me, Dazai rightfully interpreted his words, you need sutures and can’t do it yourself. “I have a local anaesthetic here that I’ll inject into your wound. Then I’ll suture it shut.”

Your wound. 

The statement was said so casually, Dazai almost felt stung by it. His ‘wound’ was gaping open; it was five inches long and nearly two inches wide at its apex. Blood was still slowly seeping between the bubbles of subcutaneous fat, though enough time had passed that it was no longer running down his arm. 

Your wound. 

Mori wordlessly opened a sterile packet of medical gloves, sliding one hand into each glove simultaneously, before rolling down the wrists and discarding the packaging. 

He raised a needleless syringe into Dazai’s eyesight. “I’m using this saline solution to clean the wound, to make sure there isn’t anything in it before suturing it closed,” he explains before directing the syringe over the cut and expelling the liquid over it. 
Dazai’s face twitched, but he held his tongue. What use would expressing his discomfort gain, after he just brought such intense discomfort upon himself? Clearly he didn’t want comfort. 

Mori discards this syringe before reaching for another. “This syringe contains lidocaine, a local anaesthetic. I’m going to inject it into your wound”—that darned phrase again—”before suturing it closed. This is going to sting a bit,” he states, before lightly pinching his patient’s skin and inserting the needle into one end of the cut, running parallel to the edge of skin where the sutures would be placed. He injected half the dose, before withdrawing the needle and doing the same on the other side. 

Dazai forced his eyes closed, and paid particular attention to maintaining a steady breath. He needed to remain in control of how he presented himself; he couldn’t show his weaknesses to Mori, lest the man take advantage of it. 

Eyes still shut, Dazai heard faint shuffling as the doctor adjusted the items resting on his cart. After a prolonged period of silence, save for quiet breathing, Dazai half opened one eye. Mori was holding a “u” shaped suturing needle in his left hand, and pulling a length of nylon thread taught in his right. He closed his eye again. 

A few more moments passed before Mori spoke up. “I’m going to apply the sutures now. The anaesthetic will have numbed most of the area, but you will still feel a slight tug.” 

Dazai didn’t speak; he opened his eyes.  

Mori took that as his sign to start. He used a pair of forceps to gently grab one side of the wound, and Dazai was enthralled by his entire lack of feeling. He watched as Mori painlessly inserted his needle into the adjacent side of the cut, using the forceps to manipulate the skin the needle will emerge from, when—Dazai felt an incredibly sharp, piercing sensation, followed immediately by an uncomfortable dragging as the thread was pulled out through the incision, and shortly after being manipulated this way and that into a square knot. 

This process continued a few more times, Dazai watching intently in spite of how much the ordeal unnerved him. Sometimes the needle went through skin that hadn’t fully numbed, and a sharp pain followed the course of the needle, followed by a rough tugging as the suture was manipulated into a knot. 

He didn’t make a sound. 

By the time Mori had discarded his instruments and grabbed a gauze pad, Dazai counted eleven stitches, each placed around a half-inch apart. Mori placed the gauze pad on top of the now sutured wound before cutting a length of medical tape to secure it; he then cut three more lengths, one for each side. 

“Leave this dressing on for three days. After that, take it off, clean the wound with soapy water, and apply a new dressing,” Mori instructed as he picked up a roll of bandage and began wrapping it firmly—though gently—around Dazai’s arm.  

Dazai started. He had to stop himself from shying his arm away, from forcing Mori’s hands off, from applying the bandage himself.

All the bandages he wore, he applied himself. This felt… wrong, it felt… different, it felt…

It felt as if someone actually cared for him. 

“These sutures will have to be removed in two weeks. Come see me then, or earlier if you have any concerns.” Mori said as he finished bandaging the boy’s arm, using another piece of medical tape to adhere the end of the bandage in place. 

“Mhm.” Dazai stared at his arm, though his vision wasn’t particularly focused. One thing did stand out to him though: Mori wrapped the bandages in the opposite direction to how Dazai does. 

He didn’t cut himself the next night. 

…

The memory flooded back to Dazai after he had unravelled the bandages on his left arm, revealing absolutely nothing. Where his five inch long, slightly raised scar with light pink edges should have been, was nothing but bare skin. 

He stared at the absolute nothingness, trying to shake himself free from the trance he was now in. 

I am not there. 

This is not me. 

I need to make myself how I was. 

This. Isn’t. Me.

Dazai eventually managed to wrench his eyes away, and they just so happened to land onto his shōchū bottle. He picked it up and brought it to his lips. 

He so desperately wanted to cut himself again. He hadn’t felt this way in—God, more than a year. He had relapsed multiple times since leaving the Port Mafia—in fact, he never really tried to quit until he joined the Detective Agency. But for the most part, he felt… okay, there. But now, seeing 22 years of struggle and loathing and memories and hatred and thought and action and—gone, who was Dazai now? He wore his bandages—he made a routine of applying his bandages—so he could see his scars everyday, and remind himself of his past. Remind himself of who he was, of all the things he’d been through, of all the things he’d survived, of all the things he’d overcome. 

And now, he hadn’t been through anything. He had absolutely nothing to show for it. What was the point of everything he went through, every cut he drew into his skin, if it’s now like they never existed?

Dazai kept the bottle plastered to his lips, eyes squeezed tight as his throat began to sting in a freezing cold form of warmth, tears forming from the liquor as he could feel it go up his nose—only then did he pull it away. He looked at the liquor in his glass to see that, even after all of that struggle, he’d only managed to drink around two shot’s worth straight from the bottle. 

This was going to be a long night, and the sun hadn’t even set yet. 

The downside of not doing anything in his downtime meant there was nothing for him to use as a distraction. He began pacing the length of the dorm, shirtless, left arm crossing his chest and supporting the elbow of his right, which was propped up so his thumb was pressed against his lip. 

The only thing going through his head was the dull ringing of tinnitus. 

Dazai’s gaze was out of focus as he walked, not paying attention to the wooden floor he’d paced over so many times before. It wasn’t until he noticed the room had darkened considerably that he looked up. 

Not enough to turn on the light yet. 

He was in the kitchen. Finally, something to do. The other bottle he’d taken out from the cabinet earlier caught his eye—a half-empty bottle of Kusushiki absinthe. Perfect. 

Dazai grabbed the bottle, a plastic cup from the shelf, and a water bottle he kept in the refrigerator before making his way back to the floor he was sitting on before. Why bother trying to do anything right now, when he could simply forget? 

He eyeballed two ounces of absinthe into the cup. Why was he even trying to distract himself? It’s not like anyone would know if he cut himself again. He wore bandages everyday anyway, they’d never know this time was to actually secure gauze down. 

Then he grabbed the water bottle and topped the rest of the cup up with it. Then again, if Kunikida smacked him in the wrong place at a bad time, he’d notice a difference in Dazai’s reaction. He always notices. 

Shit, what if Kunikida comes over later that night, only to see a blood covered Dazai, eyes as dark and empty as the depths of the ocean on a moonless night—no. No one deserved to see Dazai like that again, especially not his partner. 

He put the bottle down and grabbed his cup, glanced over at the absinthe, and dared to take a swig of that first. He coughed, tongue stuck out and eyes squeezed shut; that stung, and he’d barely had any. He shook his head before taking a drink from the cup. That was much more bearable. 

He kept drinking, the faint hint of citrus combining with the bitterness of wormwood and anise, and before he knew it, the cup was empty. Maybe Dazai deserved to see himself like that, see those lifeless eyes staring at him in the mirror, boring down into his soul and scaring him out of it. There was no way he would become that person ever again. 

He poured himself another drink, though he had it slower this time. Kunikida would be coming over soon, he deduced. He needed to stay sober enough until he’d been and gone. This was his first task of the night: to prepare himself for Kunikida’s visit. Something to do instead of cutting himself. 

A faint smile graced Dazai’s lips. 

Plastic cup now empty, Dazai hopped to his feet and grabbed his phone from his pocket. It was 18:37, granting him exactly twenty-three minutes, he concluded, before his dinner would be arriving. Plenty of time. 

The first thing he did was put the absinthe back in his cupboard. He left the bottles of sake on the bench and the shōchū in the other room, though. He also refilled his water bottle before placing it back in the fridge. His eyes did a quick once over of its contents—leftover takeout from his last payday, a slice of cake Naomi had made for everyone, a couple bottles of ramune, a half eaten block of cheese, a bottle of tomato ketchup, and a carton of eggs and some apples Kenji had gifted him. He sighed. 

Dazai made his way back to his bedroom to get dressed again. It felt wrong, collecting his bandages and sitting on his tatami to roll them up, when he still had his pants on. Like only half of his usual routine was complete. He didn’t make an effort to re-roll the bandages neatly; they were going to be put on immediately after again anyway. Once he had three spools of bandage, he walked to his desk, grabbed the roll of medical tape and the pair of scissors he keeps in the second drawer, grabbed his shirt from the floor near his dresser, and sat down again. 

He started with his right arm, holding the loose end of the bandage steady between his arm and thigh as he made the first wrap away from his body. It was a very familiar routine, so Dazai needn’t pay particular attention to the task at hand. The bandages crossed up his bicep and back down his forearm with a practised ease, and once he wrapped a little bit around his palm, he pressed his hand down to keep it from unravelling as he grabbed the scissors with his left. He passed them to his right, unrolled a small length of tape, snipped it, and secured the loose end of the bandage down, just like always. One arm complete. 

Like on Standard Island, he felt very conscious of how the bandage felt on his bare skin. It was a lot rougher than he’d once recalled. 

Dazai repeated the process on his left arm,  cutting one more piece of tape and sticking part of it to the top of the roll, ready to go. He then started wrapping his neck, which was easier than his arms as he could use two hands. He grabbed the piece of tape and secured the end down, collected the tape and scissors, and returned them to his desk drawer. He navigated his shirt so it was the right way up and outside out before sliding his arms into it. As he did up his buttons, he walked in front of his dresser, and once the buttons were done up he donned his vest. He grabbed his coat and put it on while walking over to his desk to grab his—

His tie. The tie he always took off before drinking too much. 

Kunikida would know. On the few occasions they would go out drinking together, Dazai always took his tie off after more than a handful of drinks, shoving it into his jacket pocket for safe keeping. He would know. 

Dazai shook his head slightly. Would it really matter all that much if Kunikida knew? Would it matter if his partner saw exactly how much he was struggling, after everything Kunikida had already seen on Standard Island? Dazai’s morning routine was already thrown off, there was no point in trying to follow it to a T. There was no reason to hide the truth from Kunikida, not after everything they’d been through together, not after he could already figure everything out, not when there was a probability he would ask questions that Dazai wouldn’t want to answer, but that could easily be resolved without words if he just played his cards right. 

The tie stays off. 

He checked the time; 18:51. Hmm. What was the best thing he could do to torture Kunikida in those nine minutes…

Kunikida reached Dazai’s front door ten seconds before the stroke of 7. He waited ten seconds before raising his hand to knock, but just as his fist was about to make contact, the door opened to reveal Dazai, smiling brightly, eyes serious, bolo tie removed. Kunikida frowned. 

“Ahh, Kunikida-kun, I see you’ve brought me dinner!” Dazai did his best to sound chipper as Kunikida gazed down to the bag of food he was holding—Dazai’s eyes had not once left his own. He had known the blond would visit him. “Do come in! It’d be rude of me to decline a free meal!”

He opened the door fully and stepped aside. Kunikida took great joy in seeing Dazai’s eyes widen as he saw the person behind him. “Yosano-sensei! I wasn’t expecting to see you tonight.” 

Yosano smiled, revelling in the view of an astonished Dazai. “I figured you wouldn’t, that’s why I came along. I ran into Kunikida on his way here and he invited me to come check up on you.” She walked inside, noticing the alcohol and cup on the floor as Kunikida walked past them on his way to the kitchen. “Of course I agreed to check up on a patient! But we mostly just wanted to see you surprised.”

Dazai chuckled as he closed the door behind her. He was glad they were here—he felt better already—but it’d be a mission to get them to leave. He opened his mouth to say something, but before the words could leave his lips—

“DAZAI??!!??!!” Kunikida bellowed from the kitchen. 

“What’s wrong~, Kunikida-kun?” he asked with a cheeky grin. Yosano shook her head and sighed, though she wore a slight smile. At least Dazai was acting like himself. 

Kunikida stormed out of the kitchen, hands balled into fists. “Where is all your cutlery!!? Your plates and bowls!!? We can’t eat dinner without anything to eat it with!!” 

“Oh! Today’s my dishes day, I took them all down to the dish-o-mat to get them cleaned.” 

“A dish-o-mat? That sounds ridicu—oh, like a laundromat?”

“Yes, exactly! It’s a public building with lots of dishwashers, where you go in with your dishes, load one up, insert some coins, and ta da~! Clean dishes for those without a dishwasher at home, and hands too sensitive to wash them in the sink.” Dazai flashed a grin, right hand forming an L in front of his mouth. “You should write it down and look it up later.”

Kunikida nods and pulls out his notebook. “Dish-o-mat,” he murmurs as he begins writing. 

“I’m messing with you, of course.” 

Yosano watched the whole thing in silent amusement. 

Kunikida’s eyes flashed with rage as he took a few deep breaths. Not tonight. He returned his notebook to his breast pocket and pushed up his glasses. He opened his mouth as if to speak, closed it, turned around sharply, and walked back to the kitchen. 

Dazai wiggled his eyebrows at Yosano, who rolled her eyes in return as she followed after Kunikida; Dazai ran to his tatami (he’d hidden all the dishes under his futon) and started moving some bowls, plates, cutlery, and ochoko into the middle of the floor where they’d be dining. He didn’t have a dining table because he didn’t eat many meals, and when he did eat meals it was usually over the kitchen sink or on the floor anyway. 

Once he’d arranged everything to his satisfaction, he headed into the kitchen to find Kunikida humouring him—muttering under his breath the whole time, of course, trying to find a way to divide everything three ways, which was very difficult to accomplish with with no utensils and the time pressure of things overcooking. He’d indulged in takeaway shabushabu—Japanese hotpot. 

Dazai tapped Yosano, who was watching bright eyed, on the shoulder to gesture her into the other room. His eyes flicked from his setup on the floor to Kunikida, before he went to grab things. Kunikida, humouring him? They know how bad he is. He should’ve put the tie on. 

“Hey, Kunikida,” Yosano called out as she brought in a pile of bowls, “Look what just got delivered, clean from the dish-o-mat.”

“Oh, not you too.” He threw over his shoulder, not bothering to look back. “This is hard enough without you pestering me as well.”

He wasn’t really accomplishing anything. He was just standing hunched over the bench, hands wavering about uselessly. 

Dazai walked in with a stack of plates, cutlery sitting on the top. “She’s not joking, see!? We have dishes now.”

That got Kunikida’s attention. He turned around, hands frozen. He stormed up to them and in one quick motion swiped the cutlery and bowls into his hands, swiftly turning back to the bench. Dazai put the plates down and took a peak over the other’s shoulder. 

“Awww, did you buy extra crab just for me?~ You must have been really worried! Who else would be able to torture you like this if I actually—“

“Just go wait in the other room. Yosano, give me a hand. We’ll bring it out when it’s ready.”

Dazai sighed loudly. “Okayyyyyy.” Thank God. He walked to the other side of the bench, grabbed a bottle of sake he’d left out, and headed to the other room where he had three ochoko set out for them. He poured some out for each of them, skulled his own without bothering to appreciate the taste, before refilling it. Unsure of how long he’d be waiting, he walked to his desk and grabbed his copy of The Complete Suicide from his top drawer. He sat down next to his ochoko, reading the book and sipping at his sake. He was so enthralled in what he was reading, he couldn’t tell how much time had passed before—

“Oi, Dazai.” 

Dazai sighed dramatically before making a show of putting his book down before looking up to see an absolute delicacy before him. 

“… I don’t have to pay you back for this, right, Kunikida-kun?”

Kunikida sighed. “No, this one’s on me.”

“Yay!” Dazai said, digging in immediately. 

The three sat there for quite some time, eating, talking. All three of them were aware of how much Dazai was refilling his own ochoko, but only Dazai seemed to be aware of how much he was refilling theirs. If Kunikida got too drunk, Yosano would take him home, and then Dazai could finally be alone. 

At some point, Kunikida spoke up. “I still can’t believe that Atsushi knew something before me, that I didn’t have written in my notebook…” He sounded heartbroken. 

“Aww, no, Kunikida, don’t beat yourself up over it.” Yosano’s cheeks were slightly rosy. “I don’t think there’s anyone who knows about the gold coins.”

Dazai replied with a mouthful of crab. “Besides, Atsushi-kun was the Foreseer, remember. You can’t have known before him.”

Kunikida heaved a sigh, head hanging low on his shoulders. “Yeah, I know. Still…”

The three kept eating, the sounds of chewing and clinking cutlery interspersing their lighthearted conversations and chuckling, that soon turned into giggling, that turned into—

“Fufufufufufu… I’m gon—na pee—“ Yosano cackled, which only made the other men lock eyes and laugh even harder. She took off her shoes before attempting to stand up, took three steps forward before shaking her head and lowering herself to her hands and knees. “Stupid… Good tasting… Sake…” She muttered as she crawled to the bathroom. 

“Hahahahaha!!!!” Dazai was genuinely smiling, something he didn’t expect he’d be doing that night. 

Once their laughter died down, Kunikida looked over at him seriously, only the faintest hint of intoxication showing in his countenance. Perhaps he had been aware of how much he was drinking, after all. 

“Dazai.” 

Dazai looked up, smile slowly fading. He didn’t speak.

Kunikida’s eyebrows softened. It was almost strange, seeing him with no lines on his forehead. “You know you can—“

“I know.” Dazai cut him off. He didn’t want to hear it. 

“Look, I know you don’t want to hear—“

“They—My—“ Dazai began. “They’re gone, okay? I don’t want to think about it. That’s why…” He gestured to the sake, the shōchū pushed to the side, his bolo tie set on the table. His eyes were dark, but not empty. They flickered frantically from one object to the next, looking everywhere but Kunikida’s own gaze, as though afraid that should they stop moving, everything would collapse in on him: an implosion causing a black hole that sucks the life, the light, out of everything. 

Kunikida paused. “I see… And you think this is the best—?”

“I do.” Dazai chuckled disingenuously. “This isn’t my first rodeo.” He clicked his tongue and shot finger guns at Kunikida. 

He was greeted with a sigh and an eye roll. “You’re an idiot… But unfortunately for me, you’re an idiot I trust.” Kunikida stood up and began to gather his and Yosano’s things. “Keep the leftovers; the stuff in your refrigerator is probably off by now. Oh, and don’t be late for work.”

Dazai gasped. “Me? Late for work? Kunikida-kun, I would never!”

Kunikida turned to look at him. He cracked a small smirk. Dazai smiled back. 

The sound of a flushing toilet and running water interrupted their conversation. “I’ll go get her some water,” Dazai said, standing up and walking to his tatami. 

“That’s not—“

Dazai dramatically pulled back his futon to reveal his, albeit small, collection of dishes. “Ta da!” He bowed. 

“You little—“ Kunikida cut himself off, choosing to instead mutter to himself under his breath as he began sorting out the leftovers for Dazai’s fridge. 

Dazai ignored him, grabbing a glass and heading into the kitchen to fill it up.

When Yosano walked out of the bathroom, she seemed mostly fine. She was walking in a straight line—perhaps she’d put on an act before to get Dazai to laugh? Her cheeks were still tinged slightly pink. 

Dazai smirked and offered her the glass. “You feeling alright, I-Can’t-Walk-More-Than-Three-Steps-sensei?” He joked. 

“That was just to make you goofballs laugh”—Dazai had been right then—“I will take that water though, thanks. Gotta make sure Kunikida gets home alright…” She grabbed the glass, words trailing off as though deep in thought, and took a sip. 

The two were standing in comfortable silence when Kunikida walked in, carrying a bowl of leftovers. He opened the fridge. “My God, Dazai, Naomi made us that cake three weeks ago.” Oops. He didn’t throw it out, only shuffled some things aside to make space for the bowl. 

Dazai appreciated that. If this were any other day, he would’ve received a whole lecture about food safety, eating three balanced meals, getting his 5+ a day. He was such an ideal person. It was infuriating. 

“You ready to go then?” Yosano asked, placing her half empty glass on the bench. 

“I am. I want to get a good night’s sleep before work tomorrow. We’ve got a lot to do.”

Yosano began to grin devilishly. “Oh, we’ll see about that~.” 

Kunikida’s gulp was audible. 

She grabbed him by the shoulder and dragged him out of the kitchen, through to the front door. Dazai followed, bemused. 

“Take care of yourself, okay Dazai?” Yosano turned to face him once she’d reached the door. It wasn’t so much a question, but a demand. 

“You got it, sensei.” Dazai opened his mouth again to make a funny quip, to reassure her he’d be fine, but none came to mind. He turned his open mouth into a sneeze. “Aa—aaaa—aaaCHOOOOO!!! Hurry up and get out of here, I’m allergic to this much care and doting!! Aaa—aaaa—“

Kunikida looked at Dazai, who had miraculously stopped himself mid-sneeze. “See you at work tomorrow.” The black eyes of the man in front of him softened. Kunikida felt almost soothed looking into their darkness; he knew Dazai understood what he truly meant—I trust you will make it through the night, and tomorrow is a new day, to work on it, together—and he saw comfort within those eyes, too, the same comfort a dark night brings before falling asleep outdoors, stars twinkling brightly, inviting you into tomorrow. Dazai would be okay. 

“Have fun with Yosano-sensei~!” Dazai didn’t know what else to say. 

“Oh, he will,” Yosano said with a grin, pulling a very distraught Kunikida out the front door, leaving Dazai to close it behind him. He left his hand on the doorknob for a moment. He was alone again, just like he’d wanted. 

He was alone again. 

Alone. 

He turned around, grabbed his cup off the floor, ignoring the shōchū, and instead went into the kitchen to reopen the absinthe. He poured some into his cup, filling the rest of it with tap water. 

Dazai brought the cup to his lips, took a breath to steel himself, and gulped it all down. 

He did this twice more. 

Finally, he could feel something. He was still incredibly conscious of the bandages' almost-scratchiness against his bare skin, but now, he was feeling something on the inside. 

He felt warm. 

“Fufufufufu…” Dazai set the absinthe on the sink, turning to the fridge to grab his water bottle and taking it back to the other room with him. He grabbed The Complete Suicide from where he left it on the floor and was about to toss it onto his tatami when he saw the remainder of his dishes sprawled on it. He stopped and rolled his eyes. 

Dazai walked over to his desk to place the book down there instead, as he peeled off his jacket and vest, lazily throwing them on top of his dresser once again. He didn’t take his shirt off this time, and instead just rolled the sleeves up past his elbow so he could fully unravel the bandages. He tossed each bandage onto the floor.

He pulled out his phone from his pants pocket and checked the time. 20:46. Time flies when your friends come over and you’re only half-sober. 

Dazai could barely recall anything they talked about. Something about… Katai-kun? Ah, well, it couldn’t be helped. Whatever happened had already happened.

He plugged his phone in to charge and left it on his desk, then grabbed his book and made his way back to the spot on the floor where he had sat before. He made himself another drink, this time of the watered down shōchū he had left there earlier, and began casually sipping that whilst reading The Complete Suicide. If he couldn’t cut himself, at least he could read about suicide methods. 

Heh. Suicide. What if he did actually do it one day? He always joked about it and no one took him seriously. How long would it take them to find his body? Before they even started to get worried? 

Dazai took yet another sip of his drink. That’s stupid. The older agents knew him well enough they would tell when his jokes were no longer jokes. Unless he did something tonight…

Why would he do that? He didn’t want to die. He didn’t even want to cut himself. He’s reading this book so he wouldn’t cut himself. 

Dazai put the book down with a sigh. Clearly this wasn’t working. He needed a better distraction. What could possibly—Dazai burped—be distracting enough to take his mind off of everything he was missing right now?

He leaned his head back against the wall and exhaled briskly. Would it really be so bad if he relapsed? Just one little cut—

It would not be little. It would not be one. 

—to ease the anguish, to give him something to care for again…

Dazai finished his drink and stood up, walking to his desk. He opened the bottom drawer and pulled out a packet of cigarettes. He had never particularly cared for smoking, but sometimes it took the edge off. 

Dazai liked to imagine that the curling of the paper as it continued to catch flame and slowly consume itself as it was being drawn into his mouth was a physical manifestation of his self harm urges crumbling apart before his very eyes; he was consuming his own urges and breathing them right back out again.

He pulled out both his Bar Lupin matchbox and his portable ashtray from the same drawer, closed it, and headed back to his seat on the floor. 

Dazai opened the packet, pulled out a cigarette, placed the filter between his lips, and set the packet down. It took a few strikes of a match against the side of the box before a flame began to flicker cautiously at its end, but once it did he held the flame underneath the end of the cigarette until it caught alight; he shook the match out and he took a deep breath in. 

He could feel the smoke enter his mouth, travelling down his throat and into his lungs; see the embers continue to race up the length of the cigarette as they needed more fuel to feed Dazai’s inhale. It felt warm in his chest. 

Dazai continued to inhale until he could feel the nicotine impacting him; his head felt dizzy and his entire body felt light, like it wasn’t fully there. He leaned his head back against the wall, using his right hand to take the cigarette out of his mouth, and exhaled. 

The smoke curled idly through the air. 

…

Hirotsu took another drag from his cigarette as Dazai next to him stood in stunned silence. It was a beautiful day. Sunlight was bouncing off the ocean’s ripples playfully, seagulls soaring through the sky, a gentle seasalt breeze blowing through the men’s hair, Dazai’s jaw freely dangling as he struggled to wrap his mind around all he’d just been told. That was not the direction Dazai had expected the conversation to go. 

He had decided to ask the old man for advice on how to woo a woman, firstly to see if he would even answer, secondly to see what he’d say if he did. Dazai did not think he’d receive genuine advice (that he should stop complaining about being alive and also about Chuuya to everyone he meets), nor that Hirotsu would give his own personal experience, nor that he would share stories of his own ‘misadventures from his youth,’ as he himself called them. 

“I’m not sure I’ve ever seen you look so caught off guard before,” Hirotsu commented, an amused gleam in his eyes as he watched the smoke trail away. 

Dazai didn’t respond, which Hirotsu took as answer enough.

Eventually, Dazai spoke. “Y’know, old man, I’m glad you still smoke in front of me. I love the smell of it.”

Hirotsu couldn’t tell if the boy was being serious or not. Once upon a time, he would always offer to stop—if only whilst in Dazai’s presence—but the answer would always be to continue. “You enjoy it? The smell?”

“Yeah.”

Hirotsu didn’t know how to ask for elaboration, so the two stood in silence, looking at the ocean in front of them.

It was the second day after Mori had given  Dazai sutures, and his first day being clean. He wasn’t sure how long that would last for. 

He and Hirotsu did have places to be, of course. But Dazai loathed the idea of returning to work, and Hirotsu thought it improper to force the demon prodigy to do so. Plus, the old man was rather enjoying his smoking break. So they stood, watching, waiting. 

They stood like that for such a long time that Hirotsu had drawn out another cigarette; the sounds of his lighter clicking startled Dazai back to reality. Not that he ever really left, he was just trying to think about literally anything else. Anything that wasn’t the tight stitches in his arm, the bandages that weren’t his own, that were wrapped in a way different to his—he wasn’t thinking about any of those things. His mind was empty. 

“Say, Dazai-san,” Hirotsu began, taking in another drag of his cigarette afterwards. 

“Mm?”

After indulging in the taste of the cigarette and exhaling its smoke, Hirotsu continued. “If a certain someone were to talk to me about you, and proceed to request I not tell you about it, would you want to know? Or would you not care?” He pressed the cigarette to his lips. 

Dazai paused, mulling over the old man’s words. “…What did he say?” 

Hirotsu was talking about Mori. 

Hirotsu exhaled, the trail of smoke curling and dwindling as it went. 

“As I’m sure you’re aware,” he began slowly, running the words through his teeth before he gave air to them, “I’ve been somewhat… tasked… to watch over you, for the time being.”

Dazai nodded once in acknowledgment. Mori would have been a fool to not have someone watch over his prodigy, his testimony, as the new mafia boss. 

“So,” Hirotsu continued, “given recent… events,”—He paused to take another drag of his cigarette, and didn’t resume talking until he’d exhaled it—“The Boss has asked me to pay particular mind to you.” He paused, only this time, he merely glanced at the cigarette in his hand. “Specifically, your left arm, and should you act—differently, I suppose, in regards to it.” Hirotsu felt brave enough to flick his eyes in the boy’s direction; Dazai had not moved. Hirotsu dared not speak again. 

The smoke from his cigarette continued to curl upwards as it dissipated, and the two watched it do so, neither quite sure of what to say. 

“I see…” Dazai began. 

Hirotsu didn’t offer a response. 

“…Why would you tell me this, if Mori-san requested that you don’t?” 

Another drag of the cigarette, as Hirotsu rolled his words over his tongue before attempting to speak them aloud. 

“As you know,” he began slowly, “Mori-dono is a very avid follower and believer of finding and executing the ‘optimal solution.’ It is a practice he often preaches to his disciples.” Hirotsu closed his eyes and tilted his head back towards the sky. “I am of the opinion that attempting to observe you, Dazai-san, and report your actions to Mori-dono in lieu of you doing so yourself, would not be an optimal solution.” He paused, lowering his head and opening one eye to look at Dazai as he said, “I do not believe it to be in my best interest to interfere with yours and the Boss’ personal matters.”

Dazai’s uncovered eye bored into the old man’s; neither backed down—the black eyes of an inconsolable child meeting the steely violet eyes of a man who had seen—lived—it all. 

Though he wouldn’t consider it conceding, Dazai spoke first. 

“In this scenario, what would you consider the optimal solution?” 

Hirotsu didn’t know how to answer; he didn’t know what Dazai meant by the question. He averted his gaze as he pondered, ultimately deciding to answer as bluntly as possible, for better or, likely, for worse: “I would consider you not cutting yourself to be the optimal solution.”

He said this without daring to even glance in Dazai’s direction; his cigarette was smouldering from his fingertips, entirely forgotten. As soon as the words left his mouth, Hirotsu bit his tongue. He was surprised he couldn’t taste blood. 

A dark shadow fell over the two. 

The wind stopped blowing, and for a moment, all was silent. 

Hirotsu was a veteran mafioso; he had both seen and done his fair share of terrifying feats before, but not once had he felt fear like he did in that very moment. 

And then the cloud that had covered the sun moved out of its light, and the wind resumed caressing their hair, and the birds started singing again. Hirotsu shuddered. Surely, it was just a coincidence. 

He went to take a drag of his cigarette, only to see it had fizzled out. He dropped it to the ground, grinding into it with his toes for good measure. 

Then he dared to look over at Dazai; only, in place of the angry, malevolent demon he half-expected to see, stood a young boy. 

A small child, who looked so alone, and so sad. His eyes were hollow as he gazed over the ocean; he wasn’t looking at anything in particular—or perhaps looking at a memory from the past. This boy lived in the pit of despair, and his eyes were longing to get out—he knew there was a way out, but he’d tried everything, and there was only one final, unspeakable way he could think of. 

Hirotsu took all of this in, and before the words even entered his mind they had already toppled out of his mouth—“Why do you do it?”

Something in the boy’s expression changed. He was dragged back to reality; his eyes were in focus now. But still void of hope. 

He looked back at Hirotsu without moving his head. “What?”

The old man’s eyes widened as he realised what he’d said. He bowed deeply. “I’m truly sorry—I don’t know what came over me, please forgi—“

“No one’s ever asked me that before.” Dazai sounded wistful, and Hirotsu was taken aback by the chalance in his tone.

“If you would like to share, I should happily listen.”

Dazai paused. “It’s… hard to put into words.” He raised his right hand to his lip, and his left arm—a sharp pain, a stifled wince—slowly across his torso to support his right elbow. 

Hirotsu watched as the boy thought. He could feel Dazai’s pain, his inner turmoil, his need to be seen, his refusal to be looked at. This was a crucial moment in his development—in his life, should it continue after this very day. Hirotsu needed to say—needed to do something. 

“Would you like a cigarette? I find they help clear my mind, ease my thoughts.” 

“…Did you really just offer a cigarette to a kid?”

“You’re not that young. And you’re welcome to say no.” Not waiting for an answer, Hirotsu pulled out his cigarettes and took one for himself. He offered the box to Dazai. 

What was he doing??

The boy looked at the packet, looked at the old man—he was expressionless, entirely at ease with whatever Dazai would do—looked at the packet, and plucked out a cigarette for himself. 

Hirotsu chuckled lightly, entirely caught off guard by his own actions, before returning the packet to his pocket and pulling out his lighter in its place. He waited until Dazai had placed his cigarette between his lips and lowered his hand, before cupping his own left hand over the end of it. “Inhale once you see the paper catch fire,” he said. Then he flicked the lighter once, twice—and held the flame underneath the cigarette. 

Dazai looked at the old man’s eyes before he looked at the flame. Hirotsu was focusing very intently on the task at hand; his violet eyes were clearly staring directly at the end of Dazai’s cigarette, brows furrowed gently. There was something about him that looked almost tender: a heartfelt look one only dons when they see a person in pain and wishes they could do something to help. In Hirotsu’s case, the best he could think to offer was a cigarette. Dazai wondered how many people the old man had ever given a cigarette to. That thought alone made him feel a little better. Hirotsu really did care, after all. 

Once Dazai saw the cigarette catch alight, he inhaled, like he was drinking through a straw. He kept sucking in until—

“Oh, I wouldn’t do that if I were y—”

He grabbed the cigarette by its filter and wrenched it out from his lips before coughing so hard, he had almost doubled over. That hurt. The smoke burned his mouth, his throat, even his lungs, and his constant inhalation just enticed the smoke even more into his already scorching insides. 

“My apologies,” said Hirotsu with a small smirk and a slight gleam of amusement in his eye. “I figured it was common sense to not try to finish an entire cigarette in one breath.” 

Hirotsu proceeded to cup his left hand over his own cigarette, light it, and inhale as he normally would. He removed the cigarette from his lips, closed his eyes and tilted his head upwards, held the smoke in his mouth for a moment, and then exhaled. “…Try it more like that,” he suggested. 

Dazai wordlessly brought his cigarette back up to his lips. He inhaled as he usually would, only this time through the small gap between his lips created by the cigarette. When he  exhaled, he closed his eyes, tilted his head back, and ran the smoke through his teeth. The act of leaning his head back forced more air—in this case, smoke—into his lungs. That was when he felt it. 

The nicotine started in his head. 

Dazai suddenly felt very lightheaded, and his eyes were no longer able to focus. It was a similar sensation to being about to pass out, but this time on purpose—and it felt nice. Relaxing. The nicotine continued through his bloodstream to the rest of his body—his limbs especially, but his entire body felt light. He could barely wiggle his fingers, barely unbend his elbows, barely shrug his shoulders. It was nigh a miracle the cigarette didn’t fall from his lips. 

Dazai unconsciously slumped in the direction of the nearest person; he lightly collapsed into Hirotsu. The old man chuckled, cigarette still between his lips. 

“Now, you’ve got it,” Hirotsu said, supporting the boy until he was ready to move on his own again. 

Dazai waited longer than he needed to before standing upright again. The way he fell, and the way Hirotsu caught him—it was almost like a hug. He couldn’t remember the last time he was hugged. 

“I see… what you… mean…” Dazai finally managed to piece together, “I can—my thoughts—so clear—“

Hirotsu chuckled. He was glad to see the boy in his arms acting exactly like that—like a boy. 

He didn’t let go. 

Until, that is, Dazai himself made the effort to free himself from the old man’s grip; Hirotsu obliged. 

As soon as the two ceased contact, something changed. Dazai changed. 

Hirotsu couldn’t tell how Dazai felt. This fact, in and of itself, was not new—what was new was the way Dazai looked, how he was acting. 

He breathed his cigarette with a practised hand; his eyes gazed out over the ocean as if searching for something hidden beneath the waves. 

Hirotsu could do nothing but look in awed silence. 

“It hurts.” Dazai took another drag of his cigarette. 

The old man did a double take—smoking hurts? Why would he do it again?—

“I do it because it hurts.”

Hirotsu froze, right hand halfway to his mouth, cigarette between his fingers. He silently implored Dazai to go on. 

“I’m not used to… Feeling things. I almost never feel. Sometimes… sometimes, the lack of feeling is overwhelming. It’s horrible. It’s lonely, and it’s nothing… I’m used to nothing.” Dazai paused, taking another inhale of his cigarette. When he exhaled, it was reminiscent of a voiceless sigh. “Sometimes I’m reminded of how little I feel. It’s like I’m missing out on some big secret of life. And if feeling is all I need to do to be privy to this secret? Well…” 

Hirotsu tightened his grip on his own cigarette, lest it fall from his hand. He had a feeling he knew where this was going. 

“All I need to do, then, is find something that makes me feel.” Dazai paused before continuing. “And what better way to feel than to be in pain?” 

Though it was a rhetorical question, Hirotsu—ironically, he noted—felt pained that he couldn’t provide a better answer. Surely Dazai was wrong, surely there was some better method— 

“Does that work for you?” Hirotsu closed his eyes in silent shame. He never spoke out of turn; what had come over him this morning?

Dazai didn’t answer immediately, instead choosing to take another long drag of his cigarette. When his legs felt weak, and he stumbled, Hirotsu caught him wordlessly. 

Of course Hirotsu would catch him. 

Once Dazai regained his senses, he stood up straight, brushed off his clothing, and inhaled somewhat pointedly, sharply. Then he sighed. 

“No. Nothing works.” The poor boy sounded utterly destroyed. Hirotsu believed he had truly tried everything, to no avail.

What on Earth could he, a simple man, offer that Dazai hadn’t dealt with before? 

The two stood in silence. 

“…Thank you for telling me.” Hirotsu spoke quietly, as if he were afraid to disturb the silence that hung between them. 

“Thank you for asking.” Dazai’s voice was just as quiet. 

He didn’t cut himself that night, either. 

…

Dazai smiled sadly as he reflected on the memory, cigarette almost finished between his fingers. He brought the cigarette to his lips and inhaled one last time before grinding the end into his ashtray, putting out the flame. Just as Hirotsu had shown him, he closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the wall before exhaling slowly. 

As his cuttings grew fewer and further between, he had found other ways of making himself feel; not all of them were good, but they were better than the alternative. Drinking and smoking made him feel fuzzy on the inside. Sitting on the bare floor instead of a seat or cushion felt uncomfortable after a while. Getting hit and choked by Kunikida was a form of physical pain, each harsh slap providing a sting that reminded him of how a cut feels. 

—The sound of the skin as the hypodermis is ripped open and the two sides are forced apart from each other in one swift drag of a blade. The way nothing happens for the first moment or two; no blood, no pain, only the excited beat of his heart as he watches blood slowly begin to seep out from between the bubbles of fat, over the edge of the wound, and down his arm. Then the pain came. It was a sharp, pervasive pain, drilling all through the cut, making him clench his eyes shut and double over in forced silence— 

He was feeling. 

And all it took to recreate that feeling was to piss off Kunikida. An apt substitute for someone trying not to cut himself anymore. 

Dazai reached his hand out to grab his drink and lifted it to his lips only to find it was empty. An eye roll preceded his pouring himself another concoction. 

At least the urge had passed now, mostly. He found a cigarette was usually the best way to distract himself from the urges in the moment. Once he got past those first few minutes, it was easier to not relapse. 

The memory of his conversation with Hirotsu helped, too. Dazai didn’t want to be that sad little kid again. Now, he had things, people, that helped—he had found something that worked. 

But he still needed a distraction for tonight. Something to do instead, but what else was there to do? He’d already smoked, he’d already paced, he’d already sat on the floor in silence, he’d already read, he’d already tortured Kunikida, he’d alrea—

He took another drink from his cup when it hit him—Chuuya. He shuddered at the very name. 

Sighing again, he swallowed down the rest of his drink and exhaled before getting to his feet and—wall. 

Lean against. 

Wall. 

As soon as he stood, Dazai’s vision was surrounded by small white stars racing in every direction. The world around him was still visible, but only in shades of grey. 

Dazai stood, weight fully against the wall, until the stars stopped spinning, until his room was back in colour, until there were no more stars at all. Oops. 

He picked up his cup and the shōchū and placed them both on the desk to his immediate left; his room was organised in this way for a reason. 

He then grabbed his empty water bottle and made his way to the kitchen. He walked into the doorframe and upon doing so he exclaimed, “Owie~”, but it did not, in fact, hurt. Dazai then continued to the kitchen sink, where he filled up his water bottle—overfilled it, even; water was running onto his hand for more than four seconds before it clicked that he ought to turn the faucet off. 

“Heh. Ehehehehehehe…” He put the water bottle down as he clutched his stomach with his right hand, left hand supporting his weight on the bench; he was doubled over in laughter. “Hehehehehehehehehe…” 

This went on for around forty seconds, before Dazai realised he was laughing at nothing. What the fuck. He stood up straight, eyes setting upon his water bottle once again—causing him to bend over and laugh for a further thirty seconds. 

He shook his head slightly as he stood up straight, a small smile still pervading his lips, the occasional chuckle escaping between them. He picked up the water bottle again and stared at it. 

For a long time. 

…

The bottle did nothing. 

Dazai took this as his sign to make his albeit precarious way back to his desk. 

He placed the water bottle next to his cup and shōchū, kneeling in front of it. It was quite a bizarre height: Dazai refused to buy a cushion or a seat to accompany his desk, so he purchased a desk that sat at a comfortable height only when one sat on their knees, but not leaning their weight back upon their toes. 

Dazai, as drunk as he was, was very uncomfortable. He silently cursed Chuuya. Not for anything in particular, he just hated the slug. 

Dazai poured himself another drink, took a sip, and began writing:

Even More Ways To Annoy Chuuya:
1. Tell Kyouka-chan to convince Kouyou-neesan to destroy all of Chuuya’s wine glasses 
2. Contact Mori-san and tell him I’ll rejoin the Mafia if I get to kill Chuuya
3. Ask Kunikida-kun to

And then he woke up. His legs felt strangely, uncomfortably, warm beneath the futon on his tatami. At least he was in his tatami to begin with. 

Dazai’s eyes were wide open and his mind was clear. He didn’t get hungover; a fact he loathed, really. Maybe if there were repercussions for his actions, he wouldn’t drink so much. 

He didn’t know what time it was. There was a semblance of light seeping in through the gap in his curtains; this helped him to ascertain exactly nothing. He needed his phone. 

Shit. 

Dazai pushed his blankets to the side and stood up, stretching his arms to the ceiling and elongating his back until he heard a satisfying click. Then he looked down. 

No wonder his legs were warm; he was wearing jeans. No shirt, just jeans. He had no idea why. 

Looking across the floor of his bedroom, Dazai saw the three piles of bandages he’d thrown together, a pair of light pink panties (where they his, or a woman’s?), a seemingly carefully placed pile of dishes—ahhh, no wonder he was able to sleep in his tatami—and—ah. His nemaki was also strewn about the floor. Though he couldn’t pinpoint the exact reason he decided to wear jeans to bed over his usual nemaki, he could at least decipher that he had blacked out. Again. 
Dazai sighed. He had a routine for mornings like this, for mornings when he woke up, not entirely aware of what had transpired the night before. For when he had drunk himself into oblivion, only to wake up, wholly aware the next morning—without the faintest idea of what had happened. 

That is to say, Dazai had a morning routine. 

The first step was to ascertain how much time he had. There was sunlight coming in; it was sometime after 5am. He needed more information, which leads to step two: find his phone. Dazai turned around and looked at his bed, disappointed (but not surprised) to find his phone was nowhere in sight. He checked under the pillow, thoroughly patted down the futon, checked the floor around where he was standing… nothing. Hmm. His desk, perhaps?

He walked over to his desk and, much to his relief, found his phone where he last remembered—on charge. He took it off charge, and was about to walk away with it, when a handwritten page caught his eye—

Even More Ways To Annoy Chuuya:
1. Tell Kyouka-chan to convince Kouyou-neesan to destroy all of Chuuya’s wine glasses (why would Kouyou-neesan agree to that…)
2. Contact Mori-san and tell him I’ll rejoin the Mafia if I get to kill Chuuya (that means I’ll have to be Mafia again)
3. Ask Kunikida-kun to launch an investigation into the Port Mafia’s influence upon smuggled jewels in and out of Yokohama (that was over four years ago what am I saying??) (Plus most of it was my doing anyway! This is so stupid)
4. Convince Naomi-chan that she alone is capable of infiltrating the Mafia, and once Tanizaki-kun finds out this is the worst idea in my entire life
5. Spread rumours that Mori-san has been kidnapped and is in danger, and Chuuya is the only one who can save him, and once Chuuya arrives, get all the ADA members to pull party poppers and prank him
6. Ask Katai-kun to tail Chuuya’s online relations, find his current partner, and woo and seduce them (literally infallible I’m a geniu—

Dazai frowned when he saw that idea number five had been circled. Twice. And that idea six had not been struck through. He winced before making his way to his designated seat on the floor, at the head of his tatami. 

He checked the time: 5:22. 

His official start time at the ADA is 8am, which gives him roughly three and a half hours to sort everything out—he usually gets there around 9.

The third step of his morning routine was to check his text history: one unopened text from Yosano. This caught Dazai off guard; he was not a frequent texter. 

He opened the text to find an image with no accompanying message: a selfie, featuring a very drunk Kunikida. The picture was sideways, held lengthwise across a table. Yosano was bending down over it, grinning and pulling a peace sign with her free hand, and Kunikida was face down, mouth wide open, drooling everywhere. 

Dazai saved the image to his gallery. 

The fourth step: check his call history. 

A missed incoming call, and an accompanying voice mail—from Kunikida (of course). 

Dazai hit play. 

“—YOU PIECE OF SHIT—”

“Kunikida, that’s hiss voicemail, you always fall for it.”

“So none of tthat… huh?”

“Start again, it’s rrecording now.” 

“… Dazai, you’re a ssspecial breed of shit. When on Earth ddid you have time to tttamper with my wwatch? We never even ggot close to each other!! My watch rrrerecalibrates itself every single morning bbut now it’s out of ttime and—”

“Kunikida, the [hic] other thing.”

“The other—? Oh, rright, yes. [A light cough] Dazai, you piece of shi—”

“NO!! You’ve aalready said… said that—”

“Shut up, I’m not ffinished—Dazai, you piece of shit, you better be alright, okay? I ddon’t ever want to have to… That one night… No, I wwon’t allow it okay, Dazai? You hear me, you blockhead?”

“…It’s sstill a voicemail, he ccan’t respond!”

“Oh, shit—”

“You’re such a potty mouth when you’re drunk, isso~ funny—”

“Hey, wwatch your mouth…” 

“Watch yyyour mouth…”

“Look, Dazai… I know I’m nnot the best at showing my feelings, bbut… take care of yourself, okay? I do sso much for you, take sso much time out of my sschedule, and all you do is ssslack off and push your ppaperwork onto Atsushi—the llleast you could do is take ccare of yourself for once, okkay?” 

“Aww, Kunikida, are you crying~?”

“I’M NOT! [sniffle] Just—ddo your part, okay? It’s not ffair for the rest of us, and I h—”

The beep signalling the end of the voice message. 

Dazai stared blankly at his phone, not entirely sure how to react, nor how to feel. He frowned slightly, deep in thought.

What was Kunikida going to say before he got cut off? 

Dazai’s attention was brought back to him as his phone screen dimmed. He still needed it to check last night’s outgoing calls, and—

Shit. 

There were three outgoing calls last night. The most recent call didn’t have an attached name. It was an eleven-digit number and was listed as a ‘failed call.’ 

Dazai stared listlessly at those eleven digits he’d committed to memory over six years ago. 

He was dragged back to reality as his phone screen dimmed once again. 

He tapped his phone and scrolled down to see the second most recent—a 51 minute call to Hirotsu. Dazai pursed his lips. The poor old man; Dazai called him a lot when he was drunk. He felt simultaneously bad (for subjecting the old man to this) and grateful, as he knew Hirotsu would never judge him for it. Dazai figured he’d probably be relieved that Dazai was reaching out for the help Hirotsu would always wordlessly tell him he deserved. 

However, it was the first, 47-second phone call that troubled Dazai the most. He was so drunk last night that he called that man… 

Dazai sighed. He couldn’t change the past. 

He looked down at his uncovered arms hopefully. They still bore no scars. 

Dazai backed himself against the wall. 

Fuck. 

He didn’t have to wear his bandages anymore. Dazai had nothing to hide. 

He had nothing to showcase for all the things he’d gone through. 

And that was the exact reason he needed to wear his bandages, to follow his usual morning routine. He wasn’t meant to have anything to hide, from the start—though he didn’t know the date, he was over a year clean. He wore the bandages as a force of habit, as a means of forcing himself into some semblance of normalcy. 

He wore them so other people never had to see how bad he had once gotten. 

Dazai was not blind to the irony of it. 

Eyes closed, head against the wall, Dazai sighed. He didn’t know what the optimal solution here was. 

Step five: go to the bathroom. Dazai forced himself off the wall and walked to the bathroom. On his way through the kitchen he noted his pile of dishes in the sink—that would be a joy to wash up. This is why he never ate proper meals. 

He also noticed his mostly empty drink bottle sitting on the kitchen bench on its lid. What a weird way to place a bottle down. 

Dazai walked into the bathroom, leaving the door open, and unzipped his jeans to realise he wasn’t wearing any underwear. Now he was very confused—he did not wear lace panties to Standard Island, so where did his underwear go? 

He flushed the toilet and washed his hands in the sink, drying them before leaning against the vanity, staring at himself in the mirror. He saw a post-it note with Yosano’s handwriting on it—she must have left it last night. 

“You’re okay here.”

His gaze softened before turning back to his face. He looked into his own eyes hungrily, though he wasn’t sure what he was hoping to find. 

There were grey bags under his eyes, somehow not as heavy as they ought to be given his frequent lack of sleep. 

His hair was greasy and lay flat across his skin—he was always surprised that he didn’t have acne from the constant oiliness. Dandruff was flecked throughout his hair. He’d have to have a shower and wash it one of these days. 

His neck bore slight bruising, faint green fingertips most likely from Kunikida on Standard Island. Dazai rubbed his fingers across it gently. It was still something. 

Then his eyes wandered over the rest of his body, slowly widening the more of the sight they took in. 

He didn’t recognise himself. 

The incredibly consistent horizontal lines running a barcode from beneath his right nipple down to just above his hipbone? The larger, rounder scar near his belly button from when Chuuya lightly stabbed him during one of their childhood scuffles? The miscellaneous lines, stars and patches from cuts, bullets and burns adorning his arms, torso and thighs?

They were all gone. 

Even the long, thick line spanning from the left side of his chest, across his stomach to his right hip, courtesy of the old Mafia Boss, was gone. 

All the lines—the raised mountains and shallow valleys, the long rivers that snaked down lengths of his skin and the small lakes that looked unassuming, but would drown someone in their depths; the shiny white that reflected light in the most painfully innocent way, and the faint lilac edges that, no matter how many years passed, would never seem to fully fade—every single one was gone. 

Dazai looked into his own eyes again. 

He wiped the sleep crusties away from the corners of his eyes, but still continued to stare himself down. 

He looked hopeless. 

“You’re okay here.”

He didn’t look empty. He is no longer the same person he once was. 

Dazai still had hope. He still had the members of the Agency, his friends—his family. The Port Mafia was never his family. Now things are different. 

Now things are okay. 

The wording of step five is vague on purpose—he’s in the bathroom to do all the things one should do in the bathroom. He should have a shower, and he should brush his teeth, but could he really be bothered? 

Dazai looked his reflection in the eye again. No, he couldn’t. 

But he would brush his teeth anyway. He had recently found a children’s ‘bubblemint’ flavoured toothpaste he was quite fond of, which he used now. 

After spitting out the excess and wiping his mouth on his hand towel, Dazai left the bathroom without a second glance at himself. 

Step six: get dressed. 

He paused after walking through his bedroom door. Would he apply his bandages?

He shook his head. Ridiculous question. He was following his morning routine: of course he would apply his bandages. 

Dazai walked over to his tatami and fixed his futon as best as he could be bothered to, before walking around the room to collect his bandages strewn about the floor. He tossed them onto the end of his tatami and then headed towards his dresser, opening the bottom drawer to pull out a new pair of underwear and scooping up his coat, vest, and shirt from the top of it. He dumped these on his tatami while wondering where his pants had gone. 

Dazai couldn’t be bothered to turn around to look for them, so he just pulled out a clean pair of beige pants instead, tossing them towards the rest of his clothes. He walked to the side of his tatami, looked down at his jeans, and sighed. 

Dazai had purposefully not looked at his legs the night prior, because no matter how bad his left forearm was, both of his legs were worse. 

In fact, the length of his right thigh carried two scars he cut into his skin a little over a year ago—the last time he had relapsed. 

… 

It was a normal day at the Armed Detective Agency. 

Dazai was slowly proving himself to be a formidable asset, and with every passing day he and Kunikida solved more and more cases together. They had been partners for coming up to a year now, and though strange, their relationship was incredibly valuable to the Agency. 

On this day, Kunikida had even complimented Dazai’s work—which he immediately regretted doing as Dazai refused to be quiet about it—so the latter did some of his own paperwork for a change. 

The work day ended when Yosano asked if Dazai cared to walk home with her that evening, as it was a Friday and a new bar had opened up. She talked to him about it as they walked and invited him to go with her later that evening. 

“Are you sure? I’ll even buy a couple drinks for you.” Yosano really wanted a drinking buddy, and that was a surefire way of getting Dazai to go with her. He loved being a freeloader. 

Dazai waved his hand as if to brush her words away. “I’m not really in the mood to hang out around people tonight. Paperwork is exhausting.” 

Yosano quirked an eyebrow. “You filled out, like, two pages.”

“It was three and a half pages, thank you very much—and that’s three more pages than I’m used to doing!!” 

An eye roll. “Well, rest up, buttercup. If you change your mind, I’ll be heading into town around 7.”

Dazai shot her with finger guns and a wink, and then the two parted ways to walk to their individual accommodations. 

He closed the door behind him, left hand on the handle, right hand above his head as he leant his forehead on the door. 

Everything was so hard. 

Life in the Port Mafia had been hard. 

Things got a little easier when he'd met Odasaku, but of course he, too, was wrenched from him. 

Life in isolation had been hard. 

But he got through it, he persevered, and now he was on the side of good. He was saving people. Thanks to Dazai and the help he provided the Agency, the world was a bit more wonderful. 

And he still hasn’t found a reason to live. He never would, and knowing this—continuing to live in spite of knowing this—was hard. 

He turned away from the door, taking his coat off and dropping it where he stood. He stepped towards what would soon become an incredibly familiar seat on the floor in the middle of the room. Dazai sat down cross-legged, back hunched over his legs, and he stared at—

—Nothing. 

He was just staring, eyes out of focus on the things in front of him as he relived the memory of Odasaku dying in his arms. 

Dazai could smell the smoke as Odasaku’s cigarette fell from his smiling mouth once death had finally reached him. 

Dazai punched the floor, eyebrows knit together and his eyes squeezed shut. 

He knew he would never find a reason to live, he knew Odasaku was right when he said that—but he still didn’t feel. He needed to feel something now. 

That was when he lifted his head in realisation—he needed to feel. He’d spent years of his life making himself feel things. He knew exactly what he needed to do. 

Dazai stood up and began scrounging around his accommodation, looking for a blade. He was sure he had one somewhere. Of course, the sharper the better, but he’d take anything at this point. 

Everything in his life was going so well, yet he still felt so bad, it wasn’t fair. He wanted—needed—to feel something that wasn’t just ‘bad.’ He needed to do this, he needed to cut himself again. 

And it’s not like he was even sacrificing that much, really—he had barely even been clean for three months (98 days—he was counting). Of course he couldn’t even make it to 100 days. How pathetic. 

By the time he’d finished searching his accommodation (perhaps he had been more thorough in throwing out his blades than he’d thought), he’d managed to scrounge a small glass shard that he kept for no other reason that to cut himself with, a single kitchen knife, a lighter he had nicked from Bar Lupin (he had never been a fan of burning himself: cutting was much quicker and vastly easier to tolerate, but if he really needed to—), and the relatively dull shaving razor he kept in the bathroom (he silently cursed himself for purchasing a disposable, in which the blades cannot be changed). 

He could make something work, if he really needed to, but Dazai had a better idea—Yosano. 

He would visit her in her accommodation, ask to see her medical supplies for one reason or another, nick a scalpel blade, walk her into town to drop her off at the bar, and on his way back home he’d visit a pharmacy and buy suturing material. 

It all sounded perfect. 

Dazai checked the time; 6:31PM. Plenty of time for him to prepare for the task at hand. 

… But did he really want to cut himself? Did he really want to relapse after nearly one hundred days clean? That’s no small feat—in fact it was the longest he had been clean in his life. 

Did he really want to throw that all away?  

… Yes. He wanted to feel something, he needed to feel something, anything that wasn’t nothing. He needed to feel literally anything else.

So Dazai began to prepare himself by steeling his nerves (maybe he wasn’t as sure of his decision as he thought)—he made his way to the kitchen and opened his new bottle of Kusushiki absinthe (it had been sitting in his cupboard for roughly four months, untouched, by this point), poured an eyeballed two ounces worth into his glass, topped the rest off with tap water, and drank it as quickly as he could. It had the sour taste of citrus combined with the somewhat bitter taste of wormwood. 

Not that Dazai cared for the taste; he just needed the liquid courage in order to accomplish the task he’d set his mind to. 

… Was his mind really set on it? Did he really want to go ahead with this, throw all of his efforts away?

The ADA was a good place, in general and for Dazai—it took him a while to stop cutting entirely after joining, but he did still stop. For nearly a hundred days. Surely he could reach the big one-double-O!

…He could, but he wouldn’t. 

No one had to know, it would be so easy to hide. He wasn't going to reach a hundred days because he was going to cut himself. 

Dazai made and drank another watered-down absinthe drink, his thoughts running amok. He wanted to cut himself, he needed to feel, but… did he want to cut himself? 

Maybe he ought to skip Yosano’s altogether and just walk to the pharmacy. He’d buy the sutures just in case he needed them, but hopefully the walk would help him clear his head and talk him out of it. 

He didn’t want to relapse. He didn’t want to lose his progress. 

Dazai made one more drink, but this time he only took a sip of it. He wasn’t too concerned—it took far more alcohol than this for his intoxication to become noticeable—but he had made up his mind. 

He would walk to the pharmacy, without Yosano, and buy supplies in case his urges won and he needed them. Except he wouldn’t need them, because the walk would clear his head. But just in case. 

He raised the glass to his lips one more time. 

Just in case. 

…

The trip to and from the pharmacy was uneventful. Dazai was lucky they'd even sold sutures kits (according to the receptionist, most pharmacies didn’t stock them). 

Said receptionist had also made a very drastic point of shifting his gaze from the suture kit, tissue box and gauze pads placed on the counter in front of him, to each of Dazai’s bandaged forearms, to his neck, and back to the items, but Dazai’s emotionless countenance made him think that perhaps it was better to not share his first thoughts aloud. 

Now that Dazai was home with a suture kit, the walk having eased none of his qualms, he didn’t know what to do. 

He should just cut himself, right? He would definitely feel—not ‘better’ afterwards, but he would at least feel. So, he should, right?

Dazai went into the kitchen and skulled the rest of his drink.  

He didn’t know what to do. 

The walk was meant to ease everything out, give him the time to calm his mind and see reason and decide on the optimal solution. It'd instead accomplished none of these things. 

Dazai didn’t want to cut himself, but he didn’t know what else to do. It seemed like the only course of action he could take. 

He poured himself another drink and leaned back against the kitchen countertop in silent thought, raising the glass to his lips occasionally in a way not dissimilar to how one would savour a glass of wine with their meal. 

No solutions appeared to him as he drank. In fact, no thoughts appeared to him, either. He drank casually as he looked ahead absentmindedly, gazing into the past as opposed to the present. 

When he brought the glass to his lips and found it empty, he silently fixed himself a new drink. His eyes never once unglazed. 

…

Dazai didn’t know how many drinks he had unconsciously made and drank. All he knew was that he’d made up his mind. 

He grabbed the suture kit, box of tissues, the new drink he’d just made, and the glass shard from the other room, before making his way to the bathroom—he’d learnt from experience that this was the easiest place to clean up any messes. 

After placing his drink in the corner, he took his pants off, and upon catching a glimpse of himself in the mirror, decided to take his shirts off too, tossing everything on the floor outside the bathroom door. 

He removed his bandages, throwing them out with his clothes. 

Seeing his old scars, the whites and the purples, the raised and the indented, helped him realise that yes, this is the wrong right decision. He was doing the right wrong right thing by cutting himself. 

Dazai leaned his back against, and then slid down the wall until he fell into a comfortable seated position. 

His right thigh. 

His left thigh was adorned with tally marks, each cut given for every life he had directly taken, every time he had been the man to pull the trigger. Some cuts were deeper than others, though not for any specific reason in regards to the person they represented. 

He hated his thighs. 

Whether it was because thighs have more fat than forearms, so it was easier to reach said fat whilst cutting, or because it was easier to control the angle and depth of the blade when directed at a thigh instead of an angled arm (and thus controlling the depth and severity of the cut), Dazai wasn’t sure. He just knew the scars on his thighs were twice as severe as the ones on his arms. And the scars on his arms were bad to begin with. 

Dazai had realised that, after visiting Mori far too many times to get the cuts in his arms sutured, if he cut his thighs, he could use both of his hands to suture the wound shut himself. He’d watched the procedure happen countless times, so he was sure he knew what to do. 

So, one night, he snuck into Mori’s clinic, and while stealing his usual bandages and gauze pads, he also dared to nick a suturing needle and accompanying thread. He didn’t bother with a needle holder, forceps, nor anaesthetic, for which he was now grateful—he was used to applying his own sutures with no anaesthetic or equipment. 

He thought back on all the things he’d done in the Mafia and all the things he’d done since to get away from it. All the times he had tried to get clean, all the times he had relapsed, and all the times he had sat a bloody, broken mess, alone in a shipping crate in the middle of nowhere, dry eyes empty pits as he stared at the mess before him. How before now, the longest he had been clean was the two or so months after meeting Odasaku, the drastic ups and downs, the being clean and relapsing during his years being teamed up with Chuuya, and how Chuuya could always tell what he was thinking and always knew how to distract him because he knew that was better for both of them than trying to cheer him up because even though they hated each other they were a team, and—

And now here he was, alone on the floor, doing what he so desperately desired not to—revert back to the sorrowful actions of himself as a boy. 

What had Dazai’s life come to? 

…He adjusted his grip on the shard of glass. 

Now was the time. It needed to be right, it needed to be good, it needed to be bad. 

Dazai adjusted his grip on the shard before—doing nothing. 

Did he really want to cut himself? To ruin his nearly-one-hundred days of being clean?

Yes. Yes, he did. 

Dazai took a deep breath in to ready himself, poised the blade above his thigh, and did nothing. 

The blade—his grip—quivered slightly, but that was all. 

Fuck. Maybe he really didn’t, after all. 

He was so close to one hundred days, how could he ruin that?

Dazai inhaled deeply, again, before repositioning his hand on his leg as it grasped the glass blade. 

Was this really what he wanted?

Dazai raised his hand and forcefully tore the glass shard through his flesh. He heard the audible rip as his skin separated: a similar sound to a piece of paper being forcibly torn into two. 

The cut stretched just short of halfway up the length of his thigh, starting just below his knee.

Fuck. 

He dropped the glass to the floor and immediately grabbed a pile of tissues to press against the wound and catch the blood. 

Though he was sitting with his feet flat on the floor and his knees raised, he leaned in towards them, trying to compact himself into the smallest shape possible. If he took up less space, if there was less of him, maybe there would be less

pain. 

It didn’t work. 

Dazai squeezed his eyes shut as he took slow, deep breaths, pressing his right hand against the cut and squeezing his ankle with his left. 

Fuck. 

No tears were to be found on his cheeks; rather, his cheeks were squished from the pain-laden grin carving open his face. 

Grin, because it hurts. 

Pain-laden, because he was pathetic. 

—
—

—Dazai looked around the bathroom and saw piles of scrunched up, blood soaked tissues scattering the floor. He was still holding one to his leg. When did he change it? His drink was in his left hand, half finished. 
—
—

—His fingers felt warm and slightly damp. He looked at his thigh to see the tissue was fully saturated. He pulled it away cautiously, unsure of how long he’d been sitting here, how much blood would come seeping out without applying any pressure. He looked at the fat bubbles contentedly. He’d seen a lot of gruesome things in the Port Mafia, so this wasn’t—
—
—

—No. This wasn’t enough. He wanted to go all the way up his thigh. To see how wide the edges of the wound would fall apart when it was that long, to see—
—
—

—A small pool of blood on the floor, slowly beginning to dry on his leg as it rested there. A longer cut, all the way down the length of his thigh. The first one looked like a graze in comparison. He held more tissues against it. Where was his drink?
—
—

—Clumsy hands fumbled with the suturing needle. Dazai was glad it came pre-threaded—he was in no state to thread a needle himself. The cuts had mostly stopped bleeding. He had stitched a suture in the first cut and tied a knot. How would he cut the thread?

—

Dazai thought with a clear mind. He had done a running suture down the length of the first cut—after tying off the original suture, instead of snipping the thread and starting a new stitch, he pulled the edges of the wound together and crossed it diagonally, before penetrating the opposite side and bringing the needle back up. 

It was a crude job, especially without forceps to hold the edges of the wound to achieve the proper angle of insertion, but it should suffice. 

Dazai was quite impressed with his handiwork, given he didn’t remember doing—

He didn’t remember doing it. 

His eyes widened. 

He looked down and saw blood soaked tissues sticking to his leg, a couple inches away from the cut he’d sutured closed. He needed scissors, he needed to trim the thread. But before that, he slowly pried the tissue off his skin. 

Shit. 

There was a second large incision traversing the length of his thigh. The edges were relatively clean—good for the healing process—but it was long, and it was wide. He wasn’t sure if he had enough suture thread left to close it fully. It wasn’t as deep as the first cut, but there were parts where the subcutaneous fat peeked through the dermis layer. He’d healed cuts like this before without sutures—he’s healed cuts deeper than this before without sutures. But they were never this big. 

Dazai didn’t remember doing this. 

How long had he been in the bathroom?

Realisation dawned on him. He looked up, eyes scanning the bathroom, nothing unobserved. 

There were piles of tissues all over the floor, his glass was now shattered next to the door, both his hands were covered in blood, his thigh was a mess, and the suturing needle was placed on the floor on his left, next to the glass shard he used to cut himself, away from the pool of blood he was almost sitting in. 

He could remember flashes, but that was it. He must have been on the edge of consciousness, phasing in and out of reality, some events staying in his memory while others would forever be lost save for their physical effects on the world.

Effects such as the second cut on his leg, smashed glass, and the pool of blood on the floor. 

Dazai picked up the glass shard nearest him with delicate fingers. There wasn’t a speck of blood on it. He never got any blood on his cutting instruments. He drags it through his skin so quickly that it’s gone before the wound even opens, before the blood starts to pour. 

He pulled the suturing thread taught and used the shard to cut cleanly through it, leaving a small tail a few millimetres long at the end of the knot. 

Dazai thought for a moment about what the optimal solution for healing his other cut would be. He didn’t have enough thread left to suture the full length of it. 

He’d clearly been in the bathroom for a while, as the cut wasn’t seeping too much anymore. He only needed to dab it occasionally to stop any overflow, which made it easier for him to think. 

He eventually decided he’d start suturing at the edge closest to his hip, working his way down to his knee. It wouldn’t close the whole wound, but it would decrease the size of the wound he’d have to heal on his own. 

So that’s what Dazai did. He took a deep breath in, held the needle with his right hand and pushed the left edge of the cut inwards with his left hand, and exhaled as he penetrated the needle at as close to a 90° angle he could manage on the right side of the cut, following the curve of the needle as it travelled through his flesh and emerged on the left side, where he was manipulating the skin. 

Dazai gritted his teeth. Even when Mori used anaesthetic in the past, there were always some spots that weren’t affected by the anaesthesia. This was much worse, because none of it was numb. 

He manipulated the thread into a square knot, a task that always looked easier with the use of a needle holder and forceps, but Dazai had enough practice to be adept at it with his fingers. 

Deciding to do a running suture on this cut as well, Dazai positioned the needle on the right edge of the wound again. He would be piercing the needle through the skin parallel to the first suture he’d created, but the thread on top of the wound would run across it diagonally. He inhaled again in preparation, used his left hand to manipulate the skin where the needle would protrude, and exhaled slowly as he drove the needle through a half-inch next to the first suture. He didn’t need to tie this stitch off. 

Dazai continued to do this for the remaining length of thread. He managed to suture more than half the length of the cut, for which he was relieved. Now there was only around five inches left unstitched, a much more manageable length to heal. 

After gruellingly placing the last stitch, Dazai tied another square knot out of the thread, before taking the shard and slicing it, once again leaving a tail a few millimetres long. 

He exhaled loudly. Though it was nowhere near professional, these sutures looked of much better quality than the ones he has zero recollection of applying. The only good thing about having sutured the first cut when he was blacked out, is that he couldn’t feel the painful piercing and tugging sensations. 

At last, that was the biggest problem overcome—well, mostly. 

Why did he do this? He felt horrible. He was so close to 100 days. Now that’s all down the drain, and he’d have to start again, and he couldn’t even tell anyone how close he was in the first place. And now he has this huge mess to clean up. 

Dazai grabbed some tissues and stood up slowly, making sure to press them into the unstitched part of his cut. He moved slowly, so as not to irritate his wounds. 

The first thing he needed to do was clean himself up enough so he could leave the bathroom and dress the wounds. He could deal with the mess later—probably even tomorrow. Most likely tomorrow. 

He hobbled over to the bathroom sink, purposefully glaring at anything but the mirror. He couldn’t bear to see his own reflection: the bloody, dishevelled shadow of a so-called human, forcing a tissue-held grip into his thigh as though his life depended on it. As if he could ever cut that deep. 

Dazai paused. Though he didn’t need to keep pressure on the remaining open wound anymore, it would still be better if he did. 

He thought for a moment, pondering how he could hold the tissue against his legs without either of his hands. 

Once he realised, his lips curled downwards slightly in shame. It was so obvious. 

Dazai lightly pressed his right thigh against the wall to his right as he stood facing the sink. So obvious. 

He then turned on the faucet and began to wash the blood off his hands. It came off relatively easy using soap and a few good scrubs. He hadn’t been sitting there for too long, then. 

Dazai looked down at his thigh, contemplating if it was worth the effort to even attempt to wash. 

Wash? Definitely not. But he decided it was at least worth the effort to wet his fingers and scrub away most of the dried blood. It took a while, but he was mostly successful. 

Once he was satisfied with the lack of dried blood on his body, Dazai turned the faucet off and leant the rest of his weight against the wall. Now he had to walk, and apply gauze pads, and wrap on even more bandages than usual. 

Dazai sighed. At least he got what he wanted, he was feeling now—regret. 

Taking a deep breath, Dazai slowly made his way out of the bathroom, taking care to not step on any shards from his broken glass. Perhaps he ought to start drinking from a plastic cup. 

He didn’t care for his clothes as he trampled them, each hobbling step bringing him closer towards sleeping, towards getting this night over and done with. His eyes stayed plastered on the floor in front of him, barely in focus. 

He walked through the kitchen back into the main room, grabbed the box of gauze pads from the floor where he’d first dropped them, and slowly made his way towards his desk. He sat down in front of the set of drawers, opening the second drawer to reveal a pair of scissors and a roll of medical tape. 

Dazai opened the box of gauze pads. He’d bought a multipack of five in the largest size available, 3x5 inches. If he positioned three lengthwise across both the remainder of the open wound and the smaller cut that had been sutured, he could use one more to cover the rest of the longer sutured area.

He set to work with a practised hand, opening the sterile packets (not that he cared for keeping their contents sterile) and placed the first gauze over his cuts, making sure that nothing was visible over the edges. He cut a length of medical tape and attached it to one side of the gauze, securing it to his leg, which he then repeated on the other side before grabbing more gauze to apply. 

It was a shoddy job, but he didn’t particularly care. How it looked didn’t matter, so long as it absorbed the blood. 

Dazai then grabbed another roll of bandages from further back in the second draw. He always made sure to have a few rolls extra, in case his usual ones got too gross, or in case he actually needed them.  He applied the bandage to his thigh without even having to think, wrapping the bandage over his thigh in towards himself, contrasting how he wraps over his arms away from himself. 

One more piece of medical tape to secure the end and he was done. 

Not bothering to stand to cross the remaining distance from his place on the floor to the tatami, Dazai adjusted his position and started crawling towards it instead, and upon reaching it, he climbed in, curled up in a ball lying on his left side, and pulled the futon right up over his head, hoping for sleep to find him easily. 

He was not so lucky. 

It wasn’t until the birds started chirping outside that he slowly started to drift off, finally released from the shackles off his own mind…

Dazai woke to a loud banging noise coming from somewhere outside the shelter of his futon. He scrunched his eyes tight, trying to ignore it, but soon enough a voice added to the cacophony. It sounded as if someone were screaming his name?

His eyes shot open as he threw his futon off his face. The room was dark; the banging was coming from his door. Shit. 

In a half-blind frenzy, Dazai stood up and rushed to his dresser, but when he put pressure on his right foot, his leg shook under the weight and he fell rather loudly. 

The banging paused; now the words were legible—“DAZAI!? Is that you in there!?!?”

He crawled to the dresser at the foot of his bed, opened the second draw and grabbed the first pair of pants he could feel. Rushing to his feet and pulling the pants up in a frenzy, ignoring the raw screams coming from his thigh, Dazai hobbled to the door. The banging had resumed by this point, but as he flipped the light switch, unlocked the door, and turned the handle, it stopped. 

Dazai closed his eyes in a yawn, covering them with his other hand. 

“Dazai, what—“ Kunikida paused. Dazai knew he would. He wasn’t wearing a shirt, wasn’t wearing his bandages. He didn’t even know what pants he was wearing, though they felt like sweatpants. He couldn’t bring himself to watch as Kunikida’s eyes no doubt crossed over every line and scratch on his half naked body, couldn’t bare to see the myriad of expressions that would cross Kunikida’s face, from shock, to pity, to disgust, to—“Did you only just wake up?” 

Though the note of confusion was evident in his voice, it was too steady. He was being very careful about how he was speaking. 

Dazai opened his eyes to find Kunikida looking nowhere but into his own. He rubbed them with his palms, still half asleep. “Mhm. You’re a very loud knocker—”

“You missed the entire day of work.” Kunikida closed his eyes and took a breath. “You could have at least told us you weren’t coming in. Answered your phone.” 

“I didn’t fall asleep until the morning, my phone must have been dead all day—“

“I thought YOU must have been dead all day!!” Kunikida’s eyes shot open, a furious flash of gold above violently red cheeks. His palm hit the wall next to the door frame as he inhaled shakily. 

Dazai’s hands dropped to his sides listlessly. “I’m sorry.” It came out so quietly it was almost lost to the silence between them. 

He really wished he hadn’t relapsed. He wished he hadn’t given in to those urges. Not only did he lose nearly one hundred days of trying, of growing and healing, but now he had to look his partner in the eyes—eyes full of genuine fear that Dazai had succeeded in one of his attempts—and offer only lies as an excuse. He should have known from all his past relapses that the only thing he ever feels is regret, but never before had he felt it to this extent. 

“I’m sorry,” he repeated, eyes drifting to the floor. He struggled to believe that anyone could actually even be this worried about him, that they cared for him. It had been barely more than 24 hours of no contact, and already Kunikida had been mere seconds away from kicking down his front door and storming in. 

The man in front of him had a point, though. Usually he would at least show up at work halfway through the day, or send a text in the morning if he wouldn’t go in at all, or answer his phone the third or fourth time it was called. Kunikida must've been shaken to the core. 

Dazai shouldn’t have relapsed. His own well-being wasn’t just about him anymore, not when there were other people who cared about him the same way Kunikida did. 

The two stood in silence, only the sound of their rattled breathing filling the space between them. 

“May I come in?” 

Dazai’s eyes shot up, hurt at first upon seeing Kunikida’s eyes no longer meeting his own, followed by concern as he realised his gaze was behind him, taking in the messy tatami, open clothes drawer, and gauze pad wrappers strewn about. 

“No, I don’t think that’s a very good—"

Kunikida’s gaze shut him up immediately. Dazai understood this expression all too well: Kunikida was going to do what had to be done. Not for him, not for Dazai—for the sake of his ideals. There would be no arguing with him. 

“I’m coming in.”

Dazai paused, unwilling to move aside. 

Kunikida’s eyebrow twitched. 

Dazai wordlessly stepped out of the doorway and let Kunikida in. 

Dazai closed the door behind him and made his way to the doorframe of the kitchen. He leaned his left side against it, right hand on his hip as he watched emotionlessly. It wasn’t so much that he didn’t have emotions, rather he didn’t know what he was feeling, what he should be feeling. He looked emotionless. 

Though he still wished he hadn’t done anything at all, he was glad he’d cut himself in the bathroom. That meant the mess out here was far less than it could’ve been. 

Kunikida was crouching down next to the tatami, where the pair of scissors, medical tape, gauze wrappers and some bloody tissues were still lying. The second draw, with a few more bandage rolls, was still open. 

He stayed there for a few moments, talking to himself under his breath. Dazai couldn’t make anything out. His own mind was reeling, trying to come up with an explanation, an excuse, a joke—anything besides this silence. He wanted literally anything else. 

Out of the corner of his vision, he saw Kunikida rise and walk over to him. The two made eye contact and understood each other immediately. 

They stood there for a while, looking at each other, reading each other. It was the first time in a very long time that Dazai felt seen—that he felt heard, even without speaking a word. 

“Can you let me in?” Kunikida’s voice was soft, and his face gentle. He wasn’t only asking if Dazai could let him into the kitchen, he was asking if Dazai could be vulnerable with him. To share this part of him he had shared with no one else before, regardless of how much they already knew. 

They stood in silence as Dazai thought, though none of those thoughts were particularly comprehensive. His mind was mostly empty, yet his head was somehow full. He felt something teeming up in his mind—emotions? Tears? Words? he couldn’t tell—and the unmistakable longing coming from his heart and chest, urging him to open up, to let his mind overflow and release whatever mess that came out. 

“Okay.” Dazai stepped aside. 

…

The sound of his phone vibrating on his futon startled Dazai back to the present. 

He blinked a couple times, noticing that in his stupor he had bandaged his arms—he felt his neck to confirm that it too, was wrapped as normal—and had pulled his beige pants halfway up his thighs. Though he was fully zoned out, reminiscing on the past, he’d still subconsciously continued his morning routine. 

That was the whole point of it being a routine. 

Dazai picked up his phone to see an incoming text from Atsushi. He unlocked his phone to see the full thing—as he did so, more messages came through. 

‘hey dazai-san, i’m sorry it’s so early! 

‘you seemed really out of it last night when i walked you home, is everything alright?

‘the older agents told me not to message you, saying you were too busy last night

‘so i waited for the morning

‘but this is the latest i could bring myself to wait. it’s already been over an hour since i woke up, i’m so sorry if i woke you up!!

‘when i walked you home 

‘i was telling you about how i thought akutagawa was gonna kill me

‘and i thought that of course you’d want to hear about my near death experiences!!

‘but you just shut me down

‘so i’m really sorry if i said something wrong, dazai-san

‘that was never my intention 

‘i hope you’re okay. 

‘see you at work? :)’

Dazai’s thumbs hovered over his phone screen, unsure of what to type in response. His lips donned a small smile. 

He glimpsed at the time—7:06 already? Atsushi really did wake up early. 

Dazai wondered how long the white-haired boy had been awake before texting him, how many times he’d run his words over his tongue before—

It didn’t matter; the end result was the same. 

Atsushi cared. 

Dazai didn’t know how to put his thoughts into words. He decided to reply in a very simple manner:

‘XD’

He was sure that would get the point across. 

Dazai tossed his phone back onto his tatami, stood up, and pulled his pants up to his hips, buttoning and zipping them up. He grabbed his shirt and began pacing the length of his room as he pulled his arms through the sleeves and buttoned it up. 

He repeated this process with his vest, and what little time it took him to slip his arms into the sleeves of his jacket. 

The next time Dazai reached his tatami, he grabbed his phone and checked the time: 7:21. 

He still had plenty of time. But there wasn’t anything he wanted to do. 

On a normal day, he’d welcome this opportunity to sit on the floor and stare at nothing for a further two hours, but today Dazai wanted nothing less than to be alone with his own mind. He wanted company. 

If he took the long way to work, he’d get there on time. Though it would mean another fifteen minutes by himself, at least he’d be doing something—walking. Anything that wasn’t sitting there, alone, mourning in his own self pity. 

Dazai grabbed the first two socks he could find—both black, but each of different lengths and textures—pulling them onto his feet; dress shoes followed suit shortly after. 

He was tempted to stay in his room, now that he was fully ready for work. 

Step seven of Dazai’s morning routine was the most vague step of all: procrastinate until ready. 

Normally this would mean he should play games on his phone, or pick at his skin, or think of ways to annoy Chuuya, or zone out whilst thinking of his past, but today? Today, Dazai needed an excuse to not do any of those things. He wanted to do literally anything else.

Those were things he would do when he wanted to relapse, and he was not that person anymore. 

Dazai walked to his desk and picked up his bolo tie from the same place he always found it. A sad smile graced his lips as he put it on, grabbed his phone and keys, and walked out the front door. 

…

When he opened the door to the Armed Detective Agency, no one looked up. It wasn’t quite 8 yet; those who were already at their desks no doubt thought he was Kunikida, or another member who’s punctual. 

He sat down in front of his computer and logged in, feeling almost grateful for the slew of paperwork he knew was about to fall on his desk. At least it was something else. 

However, Dazai slid further and further down his chair as he saw the vast number of emails and case files he had to fill out. He silently cursed himself for letting them build up this much (it would happen again). So when he heard the door open, his eyes eagerly flicked to the time—8:01—and up to the door to see a very hungover Yosano supporting an even more hungover Kunikida. 

Dazai gasped. “Kunikida-kun~! You told me not to be late, but look at you! 8:01! Unacceptable.” He tutted and shook his head. 

Kunikida looked up slowly in Dazai’s direction, brows furrowed furiously and eyes tight slits as he tried to limit the amount of light they received. “Dazai?”

“Why are you so surprised!? I’m a man of my word, aren’t I?” 

Kunikida’s eye twitched. Clearly this was far too much for him to process at the moment. (How was Dazai at work before him? How was he late??)

“Yosano-sensei!” Dazai addressed the woman who seemed to be bearing half of Kunikida’s weight. “I take it you guys did have a good time last night?”

“Ohhhhh, you betcha,” she said with her eyes closed, “last night was great. It’s… always the mornings after that suck.”

Dazai threw his hands behind his head and began to swivel his chair back and forth. “Ah~, the days of being young and dumb,”—they both knew she had multiple years on the man—“So, did you guys manage to get Kunikida-kun’s watch working again? He insists that I’m the one who broke it, but we never even got close to each other last night!”

Kunikida’s eyes somehow managed to squint even more without yet fully closing. “How do you know about my watch?”

“The voicemail you left me, of course!” Dazai didn’t even have to pretend to sound chipper, he was thoroughly enjoying every minute of this. “Oh, and did Yosano-sensei show you the picture she sent me of you two?”

The room dropped a couple degrees as Yosano stared daggers at Dazai, and Kunikida stared daggers at the very same woman he was putting half his weight on. Kunikida softened his gaze slightly upon realising his predicament. 

All three of them opened their mouths to speak when, from across the room, having just left the president’s office—

“Dazai-san! You’re alright!” Atsushi had just entered the room with an armful of paperwork clutched to his chest, Kyouka not far behind him. His purple and gold eyes shone brightly in Dazai’s direction, his smile contagious. “I got really worried about you after last night, and your text this morning didn’t really clear up anything at all, and—” 

“Atsushi-kun~, you worry too much!” Dazai cut the boy off before he got too sappy. Though it was an endearing trait of Atsushi’s, it wasn’t what Dazai wanted to feel right now. “It takes more than a near-death experience to kill me, a suicide connoisseur! You should know this by now.” 

“Ah—of course, you’re right…” Atsushi mumbled feebly. 

“I’m glad you’re still alive.” Kyouka piped up from behind the boy, her voice as unexpressive as ever. Though, Dazai knew, she wouldn’t have said so if it weren’t true. 

“Aw, why thank you, Kyouka-chan! You’re too sweet.” Dazai was slowly losing track of the conversation, forgetting what he ought to be saying, how he ought to present himself—these people, all of them, were actually worried for him—for Dazai? For his life? 

Not his ability, nor his mind, nor what he could offer them as an asset—just as Dazai. 

He felt a strange sensation in his chest. It wasn’t heavy, it wasn’t tugging, but it definitely wasn’t the normal state of his chest. Of his heart. 

His eyes weren’t wet, his nose wasn’t running. But his eyebrows were furrowed and his nostrils flared, though not out of anger. 

Joy felt like the best word to explain the expression he was making, no matter how bizarre Dazai knew it sounded. 

But before he had the time to put any further thought into the matter, a voice spoke up from across the room—

“Oi, Dazai.”

He froze, expression softening and eyes widening. 

It was time. 

Dazai looked up in the direction of the voice, only to find a packet of crisps being thrown through the air towards him. He caught the packet. 

He tried to inspect every word of it, taking anything as an excuse to not look at the man who had just called out to him. 

“Oi! If you’re just gonna look at ‘em, give ‘em back! I don’t give my snacks out to just anyone, y’know.”

Dazai looked up to meet the all-seeing gaze of that man, his first outgoing call of last night. The man who saw through everything: Ranpo Edogawa. 

The two looked at each other for a long time, emerald green boring down into a brown so dark, they looked black. 

Dazai didn’t know what to think, he didn’t know what to try and show—and from Ranpo’s reaction, his indecision was obvious. 

Ranpo stood up from his desk and removed the lollipop from his mouth. “C’mere,” he said, walking into the conference room without a glance over his shoulder. 

He didn’t need to look. Of course Dazai would follow. 

And follow he did, closing the conference room door behind him as he entered. Ranpo was sitting on the table cross legged, eyes closed, sucking lazily on his lollipop. 

“Dazai.” There was no emotion in his voice, which Dazai immediately found concerning. Ranpo always had emotion in his voice, why was today different? 

Dazai opened his mouth to speak, though what he intended on saying he wasn’t entirely sure, but before he could put voice  to any of his thoughts—

“I’m proud of you.” 

Dazai’s entire being haltered. His heart was very close to skipping a beat. He didn’t blink, he didn’t breathe. 

Ranpo’s startling green eyes looked into his own, and he felt seen. 

He couldn’t remember what he’d said to Ranpo on call last night; he couldn’t even remember if the call had connected. Maybe he just spent forty seconds listening to Ranpo’s dial tone before giving up?

But no matter. Ranpo knew. And he was proud. Praise from Ranpo was a treasured feat: something no one ever wished for until they received it, and afterwards they would never stop silently seeking it. 

So the fact that Ranpo offered his praise, now, to Dazai, in this scenario?

Dazai faltered. His lips sat slightly apart, his hands not quite touching his sides, his eyes not fully focused. 

His eyebrows creased together, and his eyes fell to the floor. He couldn’t bear to make eye contact. Not now. 

“…Thank you.”

Neither man acknowledged the slight hitch in Dazai’s speech. He wasn’t crying. He probably just burped or something. Or perhaps he was so caught off guard by Ranpo’s praise that he couldn’t think properly. 

It didn’t mean anything. He was used to Ranpo’s praise, anyway. 

Ranpo chuckled as he threw himself off the table and onto his feet. “C’mon, Dazai,” he threw over his shoulder lazily as he headed towards the conference room door, “…don’t let my crisps go to waste.”

He opened the door and left without another sound. 

Dazai sat in silence. 

Ranpo knew. Ranpo was proud. 

The feeling blossoming in Dazai’s chest wasn’t unfamiliar to him, but it would always take a moment for him to get used to it. He never knew how to best describe it. 

A blossoming warmth? An expanding bubble of comfort? They both sounded ridiculous. 

But ridiculous is okay. Everything is okay, now. 

Well, okay was a bit of a stretch. But Ranpo was proud of him, and Atsushi worried about him, and Kunikida cared for him, and… maybe life wasn’t so bad after all. 

Of course, Dazai would rather that he could one day find his own reason to   live, a reason to stay alive that wasn’t dependent on other people. 

But for now, he was content. For now, everyone was okay. 

Could he really ask for anything more?