primary keeper
"But when someone's gone and you're the primary keeper of his memory—letting go would be a kind of murder, wouldn't it?"
— Rebecca Makkai
To his unpleasant surprise, he woke up.
Wow.
"Wow," He said aloud, because he could see from the corner of his eye that there was someone in a lab coat sitting at his bedside. "I survived."
"Don't sound too disappointed," said an older man. He twisted his head to the side, wondering what he was going against, only to discover that it wasn't anyone special. Just a young doctor with greasy black hair and dark circles under his eyes.
He'd been reading the newspaper as he waited for his patient to wake, which he folded up and abandoned on his seat when he stood up. "Good afternoon. You can call me Mori-sensei. You were brought to me by a concerned member of the public after you were rescued from Yamoto river."
The child blinked. "I was brought to you? Not a hospital?"
Or an asylum?
"The concerned citizen who saved you didn't… how to say this… He didn't trust hospitals. I was the first clinic he thought of and so, here you are. Do you have any other questions? I'd like to check you over and make sure you're not at risk of secondary drowning."
"Yeah," He clicked his tongue, "Did I come in alone?"
Mori-sensei's smile was bland. "I see. For your information, police officers discovered the body of a young woman in the Yamoto river last night. Did you know her?"
The child didn't say anything.
"Well, unfortunately she did not survive. I hope the reason you were in the river wasn't to save her life."
"No," He answered simply.
"It was a tragic loss," Mori-sensei said, in the way people who are being watched say things they know should be said, instead of what they're actually thinking. It was familiar to the child because he used that tone himself, and he felt, in that instance, a strong sense of camaraderie with this man, who he couldn't help but regard resentfully for the sin of saving his life. "Now, can I ask for your name before we get started?"
The clinic was small and undersupplied. The doctor was definitely involved in underground dealings—what would a law-abiding citizen have to fear from a hospital, and what kind of discretion would a criminal expect from a doctor they could trust? But Mori (if that was his name) couldn't be a big deal judging by the state of his medical practice.
And what would it hurt, anyway?
"Dazai Osamu," The child said. He promised himself he would leave behind his old life if he, by the reckoning of some horrible cosmic entity, failed to kill himself last night. It would be clear at that point that he needed to try something else. Something different. "I'm fourteen."
"Nice to meet you, Dazai-kun," Mori-sensei said dryly. He approached, looking utterly disinterested as he instructed Dazai to lean forward so he could listen to his lungs.
"Alright, take a deep breath for me..."
Someone was knocking on his door, rattling it on its hinges. It wasn't their fault it was so noisy. A gentle breeze would shake his door like they were experiencing a storm; Kunikida had kicked it so many times that it would have been a miracle if his dorm sustained no damage.
Let it be known that Dazai had lived in worse places than the agency dorms, but that didn't mean he particularly enjoyed the faults of it.
There was an irritating draft that would come in from under the window that didn't quite shut all the way, and he had to put up a mosquito net during summer or else he'd wake up absolutely bitten to death. His bed, however, was serviceable and he couldn't say that he used the refrigerator an awful amount, so it didn't bother him that the appliance only kept his food cold sixty-percent of the time. He lived next to his work colleagues but they were surprisingly quiet when left to their own devices, and he wasn't often bothered by them.
Where you live supposedly says a lot about a person. Right now, Dazai's home fit into the mould of a twenty-two year old public service worker living on a public service worker's wage, and he enjoyed that. The only personal touch Dazai left was the coat he hung at the door and a bathroom cupboard full of bandages.
The emptiness comforted him. It was less to clean, less to move, less to lose.
His thoughts were scattered today.
Another knock. "Dazai-san? Hey, are you coming into the office today?"
Oh. Atsushi.
Dazai thought about responding. Several minutes passed.
"I can, uh, smell you in there?" Atsushi sounded nervous. "Sorry. I can't help that. Um, Kunikida-san sent me over to drag you to work—you're three hours late. Are you awake?"
Waste of time. He wasn't working today. Kunikida was going to have to deal with that. Dazai dragged his bed covers over his head and tuned out his little protege. He knocked on the door some more before subsiding into nervous mumbles. Dazai didn't relax until he heard him walk away.
It wasn't the worst day of his life. He wasn't even thinking about anything in particular. Odasaku was a guaranteed trigger for him, but even when his mind drifted in that direction, it's not like it made him feel worse. He was little more than a smudge right now. He was in so many pieces that he couldn't even feel sad.
His doorknob crunched. The hinges squeaked. Atsushi tiptoed into his dorm room and whispered, "...Dazai-san?"
…
Fuck.
The brunette grunted and lifted his head out of his bed-burrito. He didn't know what he looked like right then but he was sure it wasn't a pretty picture. Atsushi's eyes went wide when he saw Dazai. His entire expression seemed to fold in on itself. "Oh, Dazai-san," Atsushi whispered. "I'm sorry. I didn't realise you were sick."
"I'm not coming in today," Dazai said. He felt exhausted just admitting that. Normally he'd fake a cough or sneeze, but the simple act of prying his jaw open to speak left him with the feeling that he'd have to sleep for a week to recover the energy lost to that task.
"Okay," Atsushi muttered, taking a step forward. "Okay. I can help! Have you eaten? I'll heat up some food."
He closed his eyes and groaned, "The best thing you could do is leave, Atsushi-kun."
"Oh… Are you contagious?"
"Sure."
"Sorry, sorry, I didn't realise. I'll leave then. Sorry for disturbing your rest, Dazai-san. I'll let the members know you're not well."
"Mm."
"Feel better soon," The weretiger scurried out quickly. If you could rely on Atsushi for anything, it was knowing when he wasn't wanted. Dazai crawled back under the covers and forgot to exist for the rest of the day.
Dazai crashed to his knees in front of his best friend's grave.
He hadn't even intended to drop, but once his knees were buried in the grass, he found that he couldn't stand up. He couldn't move.
That feeling was back again; cloudy, foul and thick, hooked in his breastbone and curdling in his stomach; it was lodged in his throat, numbed his hands, kept his knees stuck in the ground. He couldn't move.
He missed the days immediately following the incident when his mind was empty and hollow and it didn't hurt. It was with that mindset that he'd been able to organise a plot in the cemetery for Odasaku and his children. It seemed important at the time to give him a marked grave, in a place that caught the light of sunrise well.
People in their line of business weren't often granted the right to rest in peace, but Dazai would have killed if it meant that Odasaku's spirit would have such a luxury. He deserved to. If anyone in this world deserved to—
It was a good thing to do. The only thing to do. Dazai didn't regret it, or mind the obvious consequences that came with giving his enemies a guaranteed location for him to appear at least twice a month. He just wished he could visit his friend without being eaten alive by grief, rendered immobile by the intensity of it, so embodied by it that all he could do was kneel in front of his headstone and beg for his mind to turn into an enormous, anesthetized wound. He needed this to scar. He needed it to fade. He couldn't move.
He didn't know how old he was, but it was Odasaku's birthday two days ago; Dazai celebrated with homemade tofu and a bottle of bourbon.
He would have been twenty-five.
Whenever he went out to Bar Lupin, Dazai never planned to do so beforehand.
The whim would occur to him when he was going about his daily duties; never a thing he could predict but nevertheless something he looked forward to with youthful anticipation. He'd walk past a store with a child mannequin in the window and think of Odasaku, and suddenly he would want to see him so much he would go away right that moment to wait at the bar.
The obnoxious clicking of a pen from one of his subordinates drew his attention and he would think, ah, Ango has the same kind—a midnight blue ballpoint with bronze detailing. Ango had a nervous twitch when he revealed how much he splurged on it, his grip possessive as he showed it off, and the next thing Dazai knew, he was taking the pen from his subordinate's dead body and walking towards Bar Lupin with a gift he was positive his friend would like.
If he arrived early, he could be alone for hours, dragging his alcohol tolerance up by its neck to a respectable level. Sometimes he got there and drank alone for the entire night, his friends caught up in their own lives—he was not bitter in those moments; there had been times where he hadn't found the time to visit for weeks at a time and he was never made to feel ashamed for that. Never let it be said that Dazai was incapable of returning gracious behaviour.
But he liked it best when he was the last to show up. Odasaku smiled from his eyes and said in his calm voice, Busy day, Dazai? while Ango shoved over a glass of whiskey and warned that he didn't want to talk about work right now, how dare Odasaku bring it up? He would turn to Dazai and plead for him to tell us about anything else that happened, please.
At the start Dazai had to lie about what he did outside of work—he didn't have hobbies outside of the Port Mafia, but it was embarrassing to admit that. He didn't want to give off the impression that he was someone who couldn't be separated from his work. Eventually his lies grew to such an extent that Dazai was forced to follow through on them; he told them he cooked and Odasaku wanted to try one of his meals, so he had to start cooking; he offered to repair clothes for Odasaku's children, so he had to learn how to sew; Ango invited him to a bizarre museum and Dazai stayed up for three nights in a row researching cup noodles, of all things, so he wouldn't be completely ignorant.
He couldn't anticipate how his visits to Bar Lupin would go, what they would talk about, who would show up or any of that stuff. All he knew for sure was that when the night concluded and they went their separate ways, Dazai would hold his hand to his face and feel out his own smile, learning the expression like he was a blind man. His hollow chest would shudder, like an old house settling, and as he walked back home he often thought to himself that he was walking through a completely different city. Yokohama was brighter, the air clearer, his steps light and unburdened. This couldn't be the same place he'd lived in for the past four years. If it was, where had it been hiding?
Overwhelmed, Dazai once stopped by the port and sat on the pier to watch the sunrise. It didn't feel like the first time he'd ever seen one, not necessarily, only the first time it felt like how it should have felt. The way it might have felt to ordinary people.
He was eighteen, sitting on a quiet pier in Naka-ku. He'd kicked off his shoes, stuffed his socks inside of them, and swung his bare feet over the ocean. His toes skimmed the water on every second pass. Leaning his weight back on his palms, he watched as morning peeled away at the sky, layer by layer: turning that absolute blackness into yellows and reds and oranges through the perplexing use of various hues of blues. The sun was glittering against the surface of the water. Dazai shucked off his jacket, loosened the bandages around his arm and neck, then laid flat on his back.
It didn't occur to him until afterwards, which felt dishonest to admit. He'd gone home and showered off the seasalt and whiskey and turned into work after a brief two hour sleep. He was going over blueprints, quickly losing his mind to boredom when he thought of the sunrise he experienced, the way it oozed into the space between his ribs, and wistfully thought: I should have tried drowning there.
What a beautiful end it would have been!
He could have, if it had occurred to him in the moment. If his mind could have comprehended something even remotely close to a desire to die. But it hadn't.
His mind had just been quiet and still like a sleeping tiger, full from its first meal in years.
"Do you remember?"
Dazai's eyes were glued to the inside of his shipping container. Outside, he heard sounds of the ocean and heavy machinery operating from the dock. His head pounded. It was gross and stuffy. When he spoke, a glob of drool spilled out before his words. "Hm? Speak up, I can't hear you."
Chuuya rolled his eyes and didn't raise his voice at all. He had a hand on Dazai's shoulder and hip, a firm grip to keep him in the recovery position. "When we were fifteen, you said some bullshit about death being an extension of life. Do you remember that?"
"Bold of you to accuse me of forgetting anything that happened that day," He replied neutrally. The day he met Chuuya was engraved into his very soul. He gritted his teeth through a wave of nausea and said, "Yes, I recall saying something along those lines. I still believe it, you know that."
"I know you do. But you said—" His partner looked at him. His face was nearly unreadable. "It's a feature of life, right? 'Breathe, eat, fall in love, die.' That's what you said."
"Glad to see I left such an impression on you."
"I was wondering," Chuuya continued, sounding much like he was trying to talk over his own thoughts, "if you'd tried it?"
One had to assume he wasn't talking about dying, given the context. Dazai tried dying a lot. He'd been doing it ten minutes before, in fact. There was a puddle of vomit next to his head and a burning in his throat and stomach from the pathway his sickness had taken out of his body. Dazai closed his eyes, bleary and tired. Chuuya's hands were like brands where they held him. "What do you mean, chibi?"
"Falling in love. Have you tried that yet?" said Chuuya. Like it didn't embarrass him in the slightest. He sounded purely curious. "Listen, I'm not gonna say it will solve your issues or anything, what a load of shit. You're a freak. I don't know if you have a chance to be more than that. I don't know. You said it was a part of the picture of life but you haven't even done it? I get that we're only sixteen, but... Really?"
Saved by true love. Ha! "Do I look like Snow White to you, Chuuya?"
"Dunno who the fuck that is," The redhead responded brutually. A bubble burst in Dazai's chest, low laughter escaping him. Chuuya's fingers dug into his hip as a warning. "I'm just saying. You're trying to quit already, but you've skipped a step."
"You don't understand," Dazai said in exhausted amusement, "You couldn't understand. I wouldn't want you to."
"Well… I'm just throwing the idea out there."
"Are you offering to be my Prince Charming? That's beautiful."
"Stop making references to shit I've never heard of." Dazai tilted his body as if he was going to roll onto his back. Chuuya pressed down on him to keep him on his side and spat, "Nope, you're staying like this until help arrives. Maybe vomit again. I might feel better about your chances."
"Eh? I'm cold though," Dazai whined, and made another attempt to roll over just so Chuuya would put down more pressure. "Put your coat over me, would you?"
Chuuya didn't say anything for a while. Then he clicked his tongue. He pinched his hip, a non-verbal command to stay where he was, before he released Dazai in order to shrug off his overcoat. He threw it over Dazai's body with no finesse before returning his hands to their proper place.
"You know that I can tell when you're holding back on me. Right?"
"Oh no, I've been exposed."
"So you're not gonna answer my question?"
Dazai hummed. He was close to passing out. He could hear sirens now, but who knew if those were for him. The coat smelled like Chuuya's cheap soap, old-spice-and-cinnamon.
"I am trying that too. Just because you haven't noticed doesn't mean it isn't happening."
Chuuya sounded dumbfounded. "Oh. I guess it isn't working, then."
"It works," Dazai admitted, feeling a bit hysterical about the fact that he was having this conversation, "but they're not around all the time. Sorry to rain on your parade, but falling in love hasn't solved a thing for me."
The sirens were getting closer. Maybe that was Dazai's ride after all.
"Still," Chuuya said in a quiet tone. He adjusted the coat so it covered him properly, clearing his throat. Dazai peeked at his expression—his partner was glaring at the ceiling of the shipping container. "It's good. That you can feel love. Didn't know you had it in you."
Dazai just stared up at him, his mind blissfully blank.
His gun was in his hand, elbow locked, pressing the muzzle into gang member Suzuki-san's forehead. His skin was wet with sweat; Dazai was struggling to keep his weapon from slipping over his face.
"Please—" Suzuki-san's voice trembled with emotion. "Please, you can't, you can't do this to me."
Dazai was attentive. There was a lot of noise going on behind him, a show he'd rather much be watching, so he should wrap it up quickly. He bent down to hear better and asked, "Do you want to beg me to spare you? Do you want to live that much? Is it that important to you?"
"Yes! Yes, yes, I want to live, please, I want to live!"
"Do you deserve to?" His gun dragged across Suzuki-san's forehead. He'd never faced off against someone so prone to nervous sweating. Dazai calmly realigned the gun. "Suzuki-san, for the sin of opposing the Port Mafia's agenda, you must know that I can't let you live. But let's disregard that for a moment and pretend that you can convince me. How would you do it?"
Suzuki-san's eyes were bulging and desperate, lit up with hysteria. He reached up and clutched at Dazai's wrist, his hands shaking hard. On the verge of tears, "I don't want to die. I don't want to die, please, I'll never oppose the Port Mafia again, I'll be loyal, I swear I will turn away from crime entirely and live a boring life if you let me go!"
Dazai sighed. "Is that the best you can do?"
"No! No, I can—I have money—"
"Now you're not even begging," He pressed his lips together impatiently. "Bribing me won't work. I have no use for money."
"I can't, I just—I just don't want to die, that's all I can—please—"
The gun slid again. How annoying.
"Wanting to live doesn't give you the right to, or the means to do it properly," Dazai informed him emotionlessly. "A 'boring' life is outside of your reach, Suzuki-san. You barely finished middle school. You don't have a family, your gang is in ruins, you have zero prospects. It's almost laughable that you think there's an opportunity of a life for you outside of this warehouse, even if you survive this encounter. Society would hate someone like you. I could spare you from that scorn now—you'd never have to know it in your lifetime."
"Even still," said Suzuki, his fingers like a vice around Dazai's wrist. He said it again, "Even still, I don't want to die. Please. Please."
Not wanting to die was not the same as wanting to live, and when the gun slipped once again, Dazai abruptly lost his patience for the entire charade. He pulled the trigger without warning and cut his victim off mid-sentence. Suzuki's head was blown back, his eyes rolling, arms falling limp to his side. The bullet's momentum carried him backwards into a puddle of his own mess.
Dazai stared a little longer to be sure the man was dead, then sighed loudly.
Seventeen years old. They were somewhere in Asahi-ku.
The noise was gone. No more dull thuds or pained screaming. Annoyed despite himself, Dazai stepped over the corpse, tucking his gun away as he did so. "Are you finished already?" He called across the space.
There was only one person standing in the warehouse apart from Dazai himself, and he was surrounded by bodies. A walking one-man-army, his partner bent over to pick up a radio from the floor, pushing at a few buttons futilely. He grunted in annoyance and dropped the broken technology, crushing it with his shoe to guarantee it would remain useless to anyone else who stumbled upon it. He didn't respond to Dazai's taunt until his partner was close enough for his footsteps to be heard.
Chuuya sent him a sour glare as if just remembering he wasn't alone. "Huh? Did you say something?"
"You took so long," Dazai bemoaned. "I had to entertain myself! How could you let that happen, isn't it your job to keep me company?"
"Don't get me started, mackerel. Our job," The redhead snapped, "was to wipe out these pieces of shit. Both of us were supposed to participate. So how come I was the only one getting involved? You did fuck-all, as usual. Damn it, they even had ability users!"
"Sure did. Three of them."
"Three that I didn't know about!"
Dazai smiled in practiced amusement. "Oh, didn't I tell you? Silly me. You handled it, though. Well done, you!"
"The only use you have is your nullification skill and you…"
He was not terribly surprised when Chuuya exploded into movement. Storming forward, he gathered the collar of Dazai's shirt in a corkscrew grip, the tight fabric nearly choking him. This close, the condition of Chuuya's body was clear. His nostrils flared, his chest rising and falling steadily.
He didn't even look warmed up. Drama queen.
"If we're going to be on missions together, you better pull your weight or I'll break your fucking ribs one-by-one. Got that?"
"But Chuuya-kun is so strong, I really can't help but rely on him."
"Dazai," His partner's voice was rough. The shirt threatened to cut into his skin. "I'm not playing around."
Once, as a fun suicide attempt, Dazai shut himself in an older apartment and clicked on the stovetop gas burners. He sat on the couch as the room filled with a thick smell of rotten eggs. The dizziness was pleasant. To keep himself entertained as he waited to die, he went through his own pockets and found a lighter—one of those cheap red ones you could buy from any konbini in the city. He couldn't really remember who he'd stolen it from, but he was pleased that he had. He had run his thumb over the jagged spark metal, over and over, tempted by the certainty that one spark would react with the roomful of gas and that would, potentially, be the end of him. And perhaps the rest of the apartment building. Or worse—he'd survive the explosion and be left with the pain and burn scars to match. The room for error held him back from risking ignition; but it took a lot of willpower to resist pushing down on that spark wheel, just to see what would happen.
Being around Chuuya felt a lot like that. Being around Chuuya felt like a lot of Dazai's failed attempts, come to think of it. Not the ones that he was rescued from, but the ones that Dazai never saw through for some reason or another; the ones he shied away from because it would be too painful, or because the statistics pointed to him surviving, or they'd require either facial reconstruction or a closed-casket funeral and he wasn't quite okay with that kind of end.
Reminiscent of a scene that occurred earlier, Dazai wrapped his hand around Chuuya's wrist, taking care to slide his fingers under his shirtsleeves. The redhead couldn't stop a shiver. Dazai had shitty circulation, so he was always cold; it was hardly pleasant to touch him. "I wouldn't leave you alone in a situation you couldn't handle."
Maybe he wouldn't handle them with ease, or completely without injury, but Chuuya was not destined to die due to gross negligence on Dazai's part. Of course, if Chuuya ever died because of one of his plans, it would be deliberate and the entire centrepiece of the plan. He didn't do things accidentally, especially with his unruly dog.
"That's not up to you," argued Chuuya, "We're partners. If you're gonna be dead weight, don't bother showing up."
"Do you expect me to fight at your side? Because I honestly don't think I could keep up."
"Jesus. No, you weakling. You have your own ways to participate, just fucking do that." With a huff, his collar was released, but neither of them moved away. Dazai didn't really feel the urge to begin with, but with Chuuya stubbornly staying close, it would have felt like an unwelcome admission of weakness to take the first step back. "What's the point of you specifically requesting missions together if you're gonna sit on the sidelines? I don't get you."
"I like the view," Dazai said bluntly, using his forearms to guard against the fist that immediately swung at him. Ah, that was going to leave a bruise.
"Shut up!"
"I'm being serious."
"You're irritating, that's what you are!"
Dazai ended up laughing against every intention to do otherwise. He should have worked harder to sell his previous statement, maintain that poker face, but it felt less important in front of Chuuya's enraged scowl and his bright red ears, that hideous blush spreading down his neck. He said, "I'll be good, I promise. For every report of mine that you do, I will work harder to be a better partner. I think that's a balanced deal."
As expected, Chuuya screamed, "Like HELL that's fair! I already do your paperwork, lazy bastard, fuck you! If we consider the shit I've already filed for you, you are way overdue on your part of the deal! Why don't you get me some cold soba for once?"
"That's not a terrible idea," He said, ignoring everything else that was said. "Wow, Chuuya, you're really learning how to read my mind~ Let's go get that now, I'm starving!"
"Only if you're paying for it."
"Sure, sure."
Yeah, right.
Chuuya slapped him over the head too suddenly for it to be dodged. Gosh, he was getting faster and faster. He looked suspicious and repeated, "You're fucking paying, Dazai. I'm serious."
He always was: that was precisely what made Chuuya entertaining to be around. He knew what he wanted and he did what he wanted to do. Nothing more, nothing less. That was the privilege of someone who understood what he required out of the world around him.
Creak-creak-creak.
An olive green ceiling, leftovers from a style trend that was twice his age. A wonky ceiling fan that squeaked repetitively as it spun in loopy circles. A room that smelled rancidly of old sweat. Unwashed bed covers, a half-empty refrigerator, a toilet that only flushed if he held the button down for thirty seconds.
A humid summer, so no bandages. Too hot for that. But he couldn't handle exposing his scars to the open air, so he was smothered under his sheets.
He put his face in his pillow.
Today he turned nineteen. Or he was turning nineteen soon. It was unclear. As for where he was, he couldn't say for sure. He might remember tomorrow—it was definitely information that he remembered yesterday—but it was beyond him now.
Creak-creak-creak.
It was hard to breathe.
He shifted his head to the side and freed his nose and mouth from the pillow. The wallpaper was curled up around the baseboards. He wanted to peel it off entirely, the sight of it was so distasteful.
Just the thought of moving made his gums ache.
Too much. He needed to slow down.
Creak-creak-creak.
He had neighbours on the floor above him.
When they had friends over, the plaster would rain down from his green ceiling and cover his furniture in a thin layer of white dust. He heard them talking through the floor sometimes. They were happy that no one lived underneath them, otherwise they would have to quiet down. That's what they said.
Every time he heard their conversations and laughter…
He needed to think of something else.
Creak-creak-creak.
His phone rang at least four times a week. He hadn't silenced it yet. He didn't even know where it was. Probably waiting for him under the couch, exactly where he'd thrown it last week.
Last week? Had it been a week already? He heard it ring more than four times already, though. Was he being called more? Or was he losing time?
Memory was a burden. The minute he took a second to think about any single thing in his life right now, it didn't matter how significant… A brief interval existed between those seconds, and it was long enough for his mind to inevitably turn towards the only memory it could perfectly recall at the moment. He was sick of it. He was sick of getting sick over it.
Creak-creak-creak.
Ah, there he went again.
He couldn't even control his thoughts anymore. How far had he fallen?
Something else.
Think of something else.
Creak-creak-creak.
Was he hungry?
Was there any food in the pantry?
Did he deserve to eat?
In the end, it wasn't his choice. He had to.
Creak-creak-creak.
The bed was solid. How comforting it was to know that there wasn't any further to fall.
He couldn't collapse on the floor anymore. No one was going to pick him up and put him back on the bed. He had to do it himself now and that—honestly, it could take hours, leave his back aching, his stomach crawling with acid.
Rock-bottom in every sense of the word.
God. The neighbour had visitors over.
Creak-creak-creak.
He hadn't noticed his birthday last year.
Chuuya would usually act weirder than usual on the day and that clued him in, most of the time.
But Chuuya was overseas. He only found out because he went out to drink.
Odasaku had given him a fucking cookbook—
Creak-creak-creak.
Odasaku, Odasaku, Odasaku, Odasaku, Odasaku, Odasaku, Odasaku, Odasaku, Odasaku, Odasaku, Odasaku, Odasaku, Odasaku, Odasaku, Odasaku, Odasaku, Odasaku, Odasaku, Odasaku, Odasaku, Odasaku, Odasaku, Odasaku, Odasaku, Odasaku, Odasaku, Odasaku, Odasaku, Odasaku, Odasaku, Odasaku, Odasaku, Odasaku, Odasaku, Odasaku, Odasaku, Odasaku, Odasaku, Odasaku, Odasaku—
Why did you do that? How could you do that?
… Oh, I want to die… I really…
Creak-creak-creak.
An olive green ceiling, leftovers from a style trend that was twice his age. A wonky ceiling fan that squeaked repetitively as it spun in loopy circles. A room that smelled rancidly of old sweat. Unwashed bed covers, a half-empty refrigerator, a toilet that only flushed if he held the button down for thirty seconds.
It was uncomfortably warm under his bed covers. No bandages. No coverage. He had no right to pretend he wasn't vulnerable and there was a part of him that unrepentantly wanted to open his wounds. Let them gape. He was tired and sore and starving and he didn't want to be—
His best friend died five months and twenty-four days ago.
And Dazai turned nineteen years old today.
Creak-creak-creak.
What a cruel, unoriginal joke.
He tried again.
It didn't matter how old he was or what method he attempted, he couldn't grasp it. He felt avoided.
Most people who survived trying to kill themselves said they regretted it as soon as they felt death's encroachment; they didn't want to die all of a sudden. Others could become upset that they were saved because the peace they'd been seeking was within reach before it was snatched away. Being rescued was pure cruelty to them. Regardless of where they fell on the spectrum, those were the general kind of intense feelings often described by those who had tried to die.
They all seemed to feel some sort of way about it.
He tried again.
Dazai was broken, he suspected. The act of living had no value to him—in a way, neither did dying. He didn't believe in the afterlife or reincarnation, so death was nothing more than an escape for him. While he'd accepted suicide as a last resort, an act that would guarantee the peace he craved, it wasn't a position he was particularly proud of and he actively sought reasons not to die.
The problem was simply that there weren't a lot of those reasons.
He couldn't die because he was busy at work. He couldn't die because he had to see Ango at Bar Lupin and discuss the new dinosaur fossil paleontologists discovered in Central America. He couldn't die because Chuuya was flying in from South America that afternoon and he wanted to wait at his apartment for him.
And when those reasons dispersed into thin air, Dazai's reason wasn't even his anymore—it was Odasaku's. Odasaku wouldn't do this-or-that, so Dazai, as a mere vessel for the dream his best friend couldn't fulfill himself, wouldn't do this-or-that either.
But that didn't mean he had to stop his attempts. It just meant they weren't allowed to succeed.
So.
He tried again.
The door slammed open again. Dazai squeezed his eyes shut, utterly disappointed in his protege.
Atsushi careened back into the room and threw himself down beside Dazai's futon. He told the blanketed lump, "I'm not going to leave you if you don't feel well, Dazai-san, I'm sorry! I almost made it back to the office before I changed my mind. I'm going to make you soup!"
Dazai's tone was blunt. "I'm not hungry."
"Then I'll make soothing tea, you should make sure you're hydrated," Atsushi's voice was laced with determination. He scrambled back to his feet. "I have some in my pantry, I'll be right back. Don't move!"
Now, that he could do.
Atsushi came back shortly with a tin of loose leaves. He fiddled with the electric kettle for a while. The switch didn't stay down by itself; Dazai kept a heavy cup on the counter to hold it down until the water was sufficiently boiled. The only thing he had to do was come over and remove the cup once the water was hot enough. Atsushi didn't see it, however, and since Dazai didn't tell him, the weretiger stayed in one spot for three minutes holding down the switch with his finger. He measured the tea leaves carefully and, once the water was poured, he counted out loud until the recommended eighty seconds of brewing time had passed.
He crept over with the teapot and poured a cup for each of them. It was a strong, fragrant blend that Dazai immediately recognised as one of his old apprentice's favourites. Well. That was almost worth looking into.
"I hope it's not too bitter. Don't drink it yet, it's still hot."
"Atsushi-kun," Dazai did not open his eyes. "What are you doing?"
"Blowing on my tea. I told you, it's hot."
"I am obviously not talking about that."
Atsushi made a perplexed sound. "I'm keeping you company, Dazai-san! There is nothing worse than being alone when you're ill. And I—" He hummed consideringly, "You don't smell like sick people do. There's a scent to someone who's sick. And you don't smell like that."
Oh.
"Not that that means you're alright," He hurried to clarify, "I can see that you're not. It just indicates to me that you're not contagious, I guess. So I'll stick around for now until I think you're okay."
"That might take a while."
"Then it takes a while," Atsushi said with a little laugh. He took a sip of his tea and wrinkled his nose. "Ew, ugh, it's bitter, it is so bitter. Dazai-san, maybe you shouldn't drink this? It sucks."
"I like bitter tea."
"Oh, great," Atsushi clearly found that disgusting. "That's good for you. Do you want my cup?"
"Just put sugar in it, Atsushi-kun."
"I can do that with herbal teas?"
Not really. But that's what Akutagawa did. He insisted on buying bitter teas because Dazai preferred them, but then he'd add insane amounts of sugar to it until it no longer tasted like it was supposed to because he couldn't stand bitter foods. There was no reason to suspect the same tactic wouldn't work for Atsushi.
Sounding a bit excited, Atsushi rushed off, eager to destroy his cup of tea. The sugar granules crunched deliciously with each scoop he picked up. Dazai listened as his protege easily put six teaspoons of sugar into his cup and stirred vigorously. It was extremely annoying.
He took another sip of his tea and this time, he made a noise of wonder. "It's drinkable! Thanks Dazai-san!"
"Mmm,"
"Do you want me to put some in your—"
"No thanks."
"If you say so. Well, you go back to sleep. I'll just sit here and read on my phone."
Dazai huffed. "Won't you get bored?"
"I don't think so," Atsushi said optimistically, "Even if I do, I'll text Kyouka to bring over some board games or something. I just want to sit here with you. But if you really want me to leave, I can do that? I'm sorry I kind of forced myself into your space..."
He wasn't sorry. If he was genuinely repentant, he wouldn't have blatantly disobeyed Dazai's request in the first place. The older man felt himself regain some energy from Atsushi's antics. He wanted to shake his head and scold him for his actions today, when before he couldn't handle the idea of opening his mouth to speak.
Dazai gave up. "Do what you want,"
He couldn't see it, but he could sense Atsushi's smile. One of his small, smug ones that he couldn't hold back when he thought he'd won. "You can rest now," Atsushi told him in a light voice. He slurped at his tea again. "I'll try to stay quiet!"
Dazai fell into a doze to the sound of Atsushi tapping away on his phone and occasionally stirring more sugar into his cup. His mind curled up to sleep, basking in the sun, while his body gratefully took the opportunity to recharge.
True to his word, Atsushi didn't leave for the rest of the day.