Archive of Our Own

Dazai Osamu, age twenty-two, was sitting on a fire escape in the middle of the cold winter day while clutching a burning cigarette desperately between his fingers. It was one of those days when it was hard to simply exist. The unbearable weight of being alive crushed his bones and set his lungs on fire. He contemplated throwing himself down into ongoing traffic, but unfortunately, the building was far too small. He would probably survive and not to mention be in a lot of pain.

And Dazai hated pain so very much. Although he was used to needles and scalpels prodding his skin, something in him still flinched away. He had been waterboarded, burned, beaten to the inch of his life.

The phantom pain was still there. Creeping onto his bones, wrapping around his soul.

The only thing he hated more than the pain was Mori Ougai. Mori Ougai, the man who adopted him when he had been only six, who wore a pristine white lab coat and a cruel lopsided smirk.

He wanted to wring the man's neck with his own two hands. To pull a trigger and unload a whole gun into his skull.

But that wouldn't bring neither Odasaku nor his childhood back.

He took a drag of his cigarette, inhaling the smoke as if that would remedy the crushing feeling in his chest. His hands shook, scattering the ash everywhere. The anniversary of Odasaku's death was drawing near, and Dazai truly wanted to die. To curl here on this metal staircase with its peeling red paint in his scuffed hoodie and simply stop existing.

He had promised Odasaku he would try to lead a regular life. With a pair of rusty scissors he had forgotten how to use, he had cut his own strings and got away from the mafia’s clutches.

And more importantly, from Mori.

All seemed fine. He got into a respectable university and finally studied what he loved. He blackmailed the landlord into renting this too good of an apartment to Yosano and him for cheap. He had friends who he loved.

But still, at this moment, it felt like it didn't matter. The sadness got all of his carefully mended stitches loose. His insides threatened to spill at every moment.

Somebody threw a pebble at him.

“I’m coming up you asshole.”

It was Chuuya, and all his yelling hurt Dazai’s eardrums.

But Chuuya was safe, and Dazai automatically knew everything about his equally fucked up childhood the moment he had met him. He wouldn't be Dazai if he hadn't.

Chuuya was at the same time everything that Dazai wasn't and that Dazai was.

His angry stomping sent the fire escape trembling.

Dazai smiled.

Yosano Akiko currently ran on five cups of coffee, three hours of sleep, and sheer spite.

Although this was quite unhealthy, it was still an improvement over that time Dazai tried to brew them coffee with a red bull instead of water.

Her heels clicked against the linoleum floor as she made her way to the neurosurgical class.

It was an ass crack of dawn and the lecture hall was still mostly empty. Even the ever respectable medical students struggled to get up at this hour.

She took the seat right in the middle and pulled her laptop from the bag. Her perfectly manicured nails started dancing over the keyboard. She was at the top of all her classes, and she hadn’t achieved that by messing around.

With the speed of light, she pulled up the word document from yesterday’s class. The old professor liked to quiz his class before he began the actual lesson.

She thought she was prepared for anything.

She wasn’t.

She wasn't prepared for the sight of a man in a lab coat with long black hair. He had entered the hall along with her professor and he definitely wasn't Mori Ougai, but for a tiny fraction of a millisecond, he had looked like him.

Yosano thought she was going to be sick. Bile began to rise in her throat. It wasn't him. She was safe and away and it wasn't him. Her heart was threatening to jump out of her ribcage. It wasn't him. Her mouth was drying up and she desperately needed some water.

This wasn't her, she was always so calm and composed.

Without looking back, she stormed out of the lecture hall.

The nearest bathroom was at the end of the hallway, and everything was so loud and bright.

The shapeless blob of people seemed to turn up out of nowhere, wanting to swallow her whole.

With shaky knees, she managed to reach the bathroom sink.

Her reflection in the mirror above was unfamiliar, uncanny like it belonged to some puppet.

The phantom marionette strings were still there, unhealed and knotty.

The tap water ran cold against her skin.

It was real. Mori wasn’t.

Inhale, exhale.

The white bathroom tiles. The trash can filled with tissues.

The beautiful girl with scarlet hair that exited the toilet cubicle.

It was all real. She was safe.

Dazai Osamu was good at everything. Well, okay, not at everything, but he could count on the fingers of one hand the things he wasn’t good at; his own emotions, being human in general, cooking, dying, and driving.

God, he sucked at driving.

He knew how to drive in theory, but driving was something that relied more on instinct than the brains alone.

It demanded that he shuts off his brain just for a second and he couldn't do that. His brain always functioned a mile ahead of everyone else, analyzing and classifying information.  That didn't help him in the slightest on the road, where there were too many cars, too many variables and so little time.

Odasaku had been so patient with him, gently correcting the way he turned the steering wheel and reminding him not to jump on the brakes like some animal.

Dazai often thought about crashing into some tree or a column. It wasn't the best way to die, but it was simple.

Dazai craved simplicity. The oblivion.  To be free from the shackles of awareness.

But going off that way felt disrespectful to Odasaku and all the time he had spent hours teaching Dazai to drive.

Dying, in general, felt disrespectful to Odasaku.

Still, never mind his inability to drive, he really didn’t want to be at home right now. Or anywhere near.

He had finished most of the work he had; he submitted his paper about Russian literature and washed the dishes.

He made no progress on his short story, but the writer’s block had hit him hard.

With nothing tangential to do, his mind went to awful places.

So, he texted Chuuya to get him out.

And that meant that in about ten to fifteen minutes, a giant monstrosity of a pink motorcycle would show up in front of his building.

Chuuya was much more a creature of instinct than Dazai. Driving was natural to him in the same way breathing was. He trusted himself, not only in driving but in every single aspect of his life.

And he would come to pick Dazai up without a second thought because he was inherently a good person. Good people didn't have to overthink every action they took, because they knew in their hearts that they did the right thing. For cruel people like Dazai, every minuscule act of kindness was a conscious choice that required some thinking beforehand.

He would never be good in the way Chuuya was, but he could try to be better than Dazai of the past.

He needed to head out.

His old battered coat is a little too big for him in the shoulder area, but it doesn't bother him in the slightest. He would rather wear this hand-me-down for the rest of his life than the perfectly tailored one Mori had ordered for him.

The coat was his and he was his own mess of a person. A bunch of traumas stapled together in a person-shaped suit.

He donned the coat, locked the door, and prayed to any god that would listen that Yosano had remembered to take her key with her.

No way he was hiding it under the welcome mat.

Because you see, it wasn't paranoia if someone was really out to get you.

He walked down the stairs because he didn't really like the elevator. It was small, and there was nowhere to run in case other people entered it.

Chuuya was already down there. His stupid hair was tousled by the wind and he was smiling. He would probably drive them to the nearest McDonald's like he always did. Then they would buy a box of Chicken McNuggets and sit on the nearby bench like they always did.

They would bicker, and Dazi would try to feed the birds with Chicken McNuggets, and Chuuya would be horrified at the prospect of bird cannibalism.

Like he always was.

Chuuya was simple.

Dazai took his hand.

It was three o'clock in the morning and Yosano Akiko was sitting in the parking lot of the local convenience store. She was giggly and drunk on the cheapest wine they sold.

Beside her, in the shopping cart which they totally hadn't stolen, sat Ranpo Edogawa. Unlike her, he wasn't drunk. Even worse, he was riding on a sugar high. She had to stop him from snorting pop rocks like it was a line of coke.

"Push me," he demanded.

She got up, and her knees were wobbly.  It was easy to push the cart around. Ranpo was surprisingly skinny considering his diet consisted of nothing but sweets.

This thing, a complete understanding bordering on telepathic, was precious to both of them. They were each other's first real friends and had a sixth sense when something wasn't okay.

Ranpo threw his hands in the air like he was riding a roller coaster. She pushed the cart faster.

They were like a pair of teenagers, drunk on their youth and invincibility. Nothing could touch them.

And that was what Yosano needed.

A taste of the years missed. A way to experience being young and carefree; for she was forced to grow up to fast.

Only Ranpo made her feel that way.

He had found her sitting on a bench the day she had left Mori and mafia behind. She had looked pathetic, and he had sat next to her and started talking and talking. Telling her the dirty secrets of the people around them. Making her laugh.

Through her lowest, when living in the world scared her, he was there.

To spray her with a water gun.

She stopped and the wheels of the cart made an unpleasant squealing sound.

"Get out or I will turn the cart over."

"Why?" Ranpo whined.

Her drunk brain struggled to compose a sentence.

"It's my turn now."

"I can't push you, I have weak lanky arms," to demonstrate, he wiggled his arm unnaturally.

"You're a genius, I'm sure you will find a way. Now get out,” Yosano sighed. For some stupid reason, she really wanted to ride that cart. Drunk brain wanted what it wanted.

“Nope,” he stuck out his tongue at her.

“I’ll leave you out here then,” she really didn’t mean it. She would just hide behind some bush.

"I'll just call Edgar to pick me up," he grinned.

"Bad bluff, we both know that your battery ran out," if he still had some battery left, he would have undoubtedly played some nightcore/meme/headache-inducing playlist.

"You drive a tough bargain. Okay, I'll push you with my noodle arms if you help me get out."

Yosano grinned.

Not being filthy rich was a new experience for Dazai. It’s not like he had a taste for the finer pleasures in life, it was just that he never learned couponing. Or budgeting. Or how many toilet paper rolls do two people need to last them a month.

That's where My Chemical Romance emo and Fall Out Boy emo came through.

Akutagawa and Atsushi were masters of stretching the budget, and going shopping with his underclassmen was something else.

They aggressively claimed they were not in a relationship even though they totally were.

"We should grab some popcorn, we are having a movie night," Atsushi read from the shopping list.

"Oh, and what are you watching?" Dazai pretended he was super interested in ramen they were passing.

"We are watching the Note-" Akutagawa just elbowed his one and only "Hey!"

"He meant we are watching the Social Network. You are welcome to join us," Akutagawa looked up to him a little too much.

"Thank you, but I'll pass, I need to work on some stuff."

He put a few cans of crabmeat into the cart.

"Are you writing a new story?" And Atsushi was always a little too starstruck. It was easy to impress young literature students after all.

The truth was no. He was probably going to mooch of Kunikida's Netflix and rewatch Evangelion or Madoka or some shit. He just didn't want to third wheel.

" Of course, “ he winked “But I’m still in the process of writing notes”

He wasn’t. He had no idea what to write right now. The block hit him after he had submitted his newest story. It felt like he couldn't tear up more of himself and force it to fit the parameters of a story.

But writing in general was a good source of income. He needed to pick up fewer shifts in the coffee shop he occasionally worked at, and he didn't need to search for any new casinos. He was banned from every casino in a one hundred-mile radius for counting cards.

Or as he called it, being simply too good at gambling.

"Show us when you are over," Atsushi chirped.

Akutagawa looked at him expectantly. He hadn't always been good to him, straight up ignoring him in his sophomore year, but recently he was trying.

"I will."

The funniest thing was, he meant it.

A piece of Mori was built into Dazai. Sometimes the look in his eyes would make Yosano flinch. She knew the reverse was also true.

Dazai would always look away when she was wearing a lab coat.

They were both incredibly fucked up.

"It was your turn to take the trash out,"  she pointed at the chores timetable.

"I'm pretty sure it was yours. We switched last week," he fluttered his eyelashes at her.

She knew him for far too long.

"The fuck we switched. Go throw the trash out," the audacity brat had.

Dazai continued to play a game on his phone.

"I swear to god, I'll throw it over your head if you don't take it out."

He ceremoniously got up and walked over to his room, slamming the door like he was some angsty fifteen-year-old.

She loved Dazai. She truly did. But damn, did he make it hard.

The morning she had left the mafia, she told him to come to find her when he had enough.

And four years ago, he had.

He had looked so miserable, drenched to the bone from the downpour outside, constantly blinking away the tears because he had to keep the walls around him. A far cry from the so feared Demon Prodigy.

She had let him inside, no questions asked.

Fukuzawa had made them a soup, Ranpo had lent him his clothes. A calico had nested in his lap.

It wasn't smooth sailing from there. You couldn't catalyze healing or disinfect emotional wounds.

They fought viciously, neither of them being quite good or quite evil.

Both reminded each other of things better left forgotten. But, they were also reminders of how far they had come.

Of change and future that lay ahead.

He was the little brother she never had.

And she was about to do the ultimate older sister move.

She got up at 5 AM (after she had dreamed of a certain red-haired girl), picked the lock open with her butterfly hairpin, snuck into Dazai's room, and emptied the trash can over his head.

Writing was currently going nowhere, and that meant he had to pick up some shifts at Kafka Coffee Emporium.

He wasn't a horrible barista (no matter what Kunikida and Chuuya claimed) and it was a pretty routine job.

Make a macchiato here and there, and flirt a little with customers.

Sometimes he would compete with Chuuya who would get more tips, and Kunikida would just yell at them till he had to stop to take throat lozenge.

His other job-related hobbies included purposely misspelling customer's names then playing dumb, and proposing double suicide to any woman that had a misfortune to walk into the shop.

It was pretty fun.

Other times, they would ask customers to guess what they studied at uni in exchange for a free cookie.

They often guessed right that Kunikida studied Math. Something about him screamed I love trying to prove that two plus two equals four.

Less often, they guessed Dazai studied Literature.

But nobody ever seemed to guess Chuuya studied Physics and French.

Those two subjects were so incompatible, and yet so Chuuya.

When Dazai had just begun working in Kafka Coffee Emporium, Chuuya would constantly mutter things in French under his breath.

Mostly insults directed at him.

Exactly one instance of shut up you hot asshole.

Upon hearing that, Dazai had panicked and replied in perfect French.

Chuuya had almost poured boiling coffee over him for that.

Suicide by boiling coffee wasn't really high up on the list of Dazai's preferred methods to go. Suicide by angering Chuuya was even lower.

Still, he really had thought he had died when he had seen Kunikida smoking behind the shop.

"This is just a one-time occurrence. You saw nothing."

Naturally, Dazai had immediately told Chuuya who then proceeded to laugh in his face.

He had a beautiful laugh. Dazai was falling and there was nothing to hold on to.

Kunikida smacked him with newspapers.

"Stop daydreaming you waste of bandages, we have customers."

Chuuya smirked next to him.

Once in his Intro to Existentialism class, they had been tasked with reading The Tunnel by Ernesto Sabato. Ever since then, the core idea of that book stuck with him. Every human existence was a separate tunnel, dark and isolated, and no matter how hard we tried, we would never be able to connect with other people and escape it.

Now, he didn't think it was so true.

Kunikida smacked him again.

Ah, the struggles of the working class.

Kajii Motojirou was objectively a pretty shady guy. He looked like he hadn't showered in nine weeks and the stench of weed followed him everywhere.

Most folks would be content living their lives without ever knowing him.

But there was a catch.

He studied pharmacy and sold stuff at very fair prices.

All quite affordable really. He was the university's most decent drug dealer who wiggled his way into the student biome.

Like an overgrown worm.

But drugs were not the reason Yosano had decided to sit with him today.

No, the reason was the beautiful girl with scarlet hair who asked Yosano if she was all right after the panic attack incident, talked with her a little, and then proceeded to storm out gracefully for she was late to the class. She tried to get her out of her head. It didn’t work.

The girl of Yosano's dreams sometimes hanged out with Tachihara. She couldn't ask him about her, it was common knowledge that Taichihara hated Yosano for the things that had happened while she was still in the mafia.

So, naturally, Yosano was going to ask her acquaintance and Tachihara's drug dealer to test the waters and inquire Tachihara about her.

You know the usual stuff. What she likes. What she studies. Is she into girls.

"Why should I do that?" he asked thinking he had a choice in this matter.

"I won't castrate you?"

The whole thing with Kajii and her was weird from the start. They had once gotten paired in the chemistry class and he had almost killed them while mixing concentrated sulfuric acid and metal.

After such traumatizing event, people tended to form unbreakable bonds.

Even if the bond in question was you are a menace to the society, and I need to keep an eye on you in case you accidentally blow us all up,

"I don't think you would anyway."

She flashed him her serial killer smile.

"Try me."

He glanced at the corner of the cafeteria, where the mysterious girl and Tachihara were chatting.

“Why don’t you talk to her yourself?”

Because it was too important to her. The girl already saw her at her worst and didn’t bat an eye. Plus she was pretty hot. Tachihara would ruin her chances if he knew.

"Please Kajii, I really need this."

He sighed.

By the end of the day, she had all the info she needed.

The ugly truth was Dazai and Fyodor had fucked in the past.

Dazai wasn't exactly sure how it had happened. Or kept happening. He and Fyodor didn't do emotions. They had met at a party, and they had hated each other enough to fuck.

There wasn't a single thing Dazai didn't hate about Fyodor. He despised his love for Russian trap music. And his hairless rat Raskolnikov. And the fact he was pretty even in his Addidas tracksuit.

He was also a Philosophy major. A bane of literature student's entire existence.

They would argue constantly. About the meaning of life, the value of human existence, and the evergoing battle of good versus bad.

Fjodor simply hated other people. Dazai hated himself. They would fall into bed together and use the other to hurt themselves.

And for some time, Dazai did think it was a pinnacle of human relationships. He didn’t deserve much more than a quick fuck and endless debate.

But maybe he wanted more.

Maybe he could do more.

"It's Nakahara, isn't it?"

Fyodor said with his all-knowing smirk and continued to play with his paper straw. Another thing Dazai truly hated about him.

Yeah, it was Chuuya.

Chuuya Nakahara, the ex-gang leader now a student barista with anger issues who muttered phrases in French and got stupidly drunk on expensive wine. Who wrote a paper on gravity while high as a kite and somehow gotten onto Dean's list.

"No," he said.

Fyodor raised an eyebrow. They were in the middle of KFC and a bucket of chicken stood between them. Neither one even touched it. 

It wasn't just Chuuya.

It was Yosano.

Akutagawa and Atsushi.

Kunikida.

Genuine, kind, and deeply flawed people he formed some kind of a connection with.

This wasn't a break-up or anything. Just an end to that whole fuck buddies thing.

" Good luck with that clown boy of yours," he smiled at Fyodor.

Bet he didn't see that coming.

Her name was Kouyou Ozaki, she studied business, she was definitely into girls and she could kill a man in twenty different ways.

Yosano swooned.

And she totally didn't go out of her way to buy coffee from the coffee vending machine in the business building.

And she also didn't purposely wear her knee-high skirt and a leather jacket.

For three days already, dammit and Kouyou were nowhere to be seen.

Yosano had even thought about asking Ranpo or god forbid Dazai for help. Yeah, she was that desperate.

Ranpo would probably just laugh and call Poe over, who would be too polite to laugh. Only Ranpo, the world's number one asshole, could get the world's politest boyfriend.

Dazai would probably just hang up.

And on top of all that, coffee from the coffee vending machine in the business building tasted like crap. It was different than the one they had in the medicine building. Probably because the coffee in the medicine building was just pure caffeine.

Yosano was losing all hope. She put a couple of quarters and selected a cheap imitation of black coffee.

"It tastes horrible, doesn't it?" the girl Yosano couldn't stop thinking about asked, from the nearby windowsill where she was sitting.

Yosano's prayers were answered. God, how she wanted to run her fingers through her hair.

"Oh, it's fine I just prefer the more caffeinated ones."

"Me too, that's why I buy my coffee from the coffee vending machine at the medicine building."

Silence. This was so awkward. What was she supposed to do? Ask her out on a coffee date when there was a coffee vending machine right there?

"Me and my friends are throwing a party this Saturday. Wanna come?"

There was no party.

"Sure. What's your number?"

Well, there was a party now.

Odasaku's gravestone was pristine. It was all stone and small and cheap, but it was always clean. Dazai made sure of that.

Sometimes there were flowers Dazai hadn't brought. He didn't want to think about them. Or about Ango.

He never brought flowers. He brought cheap whiskey instead. The one he could afford.

He would talk for hours and hours and drink about half of the bottle. The rest he would pour out, for Odasaku.

Today would be no different.

“Hey, Odasaku, how it's going?”

Odasaku was definitely his first crush. Love.

"I'm doing fine. Normal uneventful life just like you've wanted."

Even though he was sure the older man saw him only as a best friend.

He sat down, not minding the fact his coat would definitely get dirty and wet.

"I miss you every day, you know."

He took a gulp of the whiskey.

There was a thing called the hedgehog's dilemma. Headhogs tended to gravitate towards each other during the cold, wanting to share warmth. But they could never get too close because their razor-sharp spines made them hurt each other.

People were no different. It was impossible to get close to one another and avoid being hurt and hurting them in return.

Relationships were messy and painful.

Like the time a low-level mafioso, the lowest of the low really, picked up the boss' adopted son after he had tried to kill himself.

He had listened to him with patience, even after the boy had tried to put his worst foot forward and gleefully listed all the cruelties he had committed.

He had responded with kindness to every artillery the kid pulled out.

But then he had the audacity to die, after daring to mean so much to Dazai.

Mori's schemes got him killed, and one day Dazai would truly end him for that.

" Well, I wanted you to know that I'm going to ask Chuuya out."

He talked a lot about Chuuya to Oda.

"Wish me luck."

The truth was that no existence was a tunnel. We can’t spend our lives being afraid of the sharp spines.

He poured the rest of the whiskey bottle out for Oda.

The party committee consisted of Yosano, Dazai (only because it was technically his apartment too), and Ranpo (who was useless but invited himself anyway).

Dazai and Ranpo were not allowed to make playlists because it would mostly end up being sad shit (Dazai) or meme shit (Ranpo). Or god help them all, some unholy combination of that.

" You," she pointed at Dazai "are getting snacks and alcohol."

Dazai saluted her.

If she sent Ranpo, he would just eat everything.

"We" she pointed at Ranpo" are going to clean this place a little."

Ranpo opened his mouth to protest and she kicked him with a broom.

She was well aware that Ranpo probably wouldn't do shit, but as long as he didn't mess anything up, she could live with that.

They went to work. Dazai to the local convenience store and Yosano (plus Ranpo) to clean.

They put on the pink cleaning gloves because the apartment hadn't been cleaned since forever and Ranpo immediately proceeded to send snaps to Poe.

Yosano would be sending some to Kouyou, but she kind of didn't want her to know about all the mess.

They texted a lot. About TV shows, wine, university.

Everything.

They shared stupid memes and tiktoks.

It felt so natural.

Like it was meant to be.

What did not feel natural tho was the metal suitcase she found below the couch while cleaning.

"The password is 8 0 3," Ranpo yelled from the kitchen while probably rummaging through the fridge instead of cleaning. He would probably end up disappointed, the only edible thing they had in the fridge right now was a bottle of ketchup on the brink of expiration.

She wasn't going to question him. He was the star of the criminology department for a reason. He would probably tell her if there was a bomb inside.

She braced for the worst.

Instead, what greeted her was a plain-looking DVD. Now she knew what it was. A suspicious DVD in an even more suspicious suitcase? It just screamed blackmail material. She swore to god, if Dazai had dirt on her, she would just release the screenshots of his problematic teenage Tumblr account.

There was only one way to find out.

"I'm microwaving popcorn," Ranpo said.

She didn't want to know where he got them. She only knew that they didn't have any.

Five minutes later, they sprawled all over the couch, popcorn bowl in Ranpo's hands and DVD in the laptop's drive.

Yosano clicked the play button. Kunikida, a guy who she often texted how annoying Dazai was, appeared on the screen in jeans combo. A washed-up jean jacket and tight jeans. He looked much younger and the whole video looked like it was taped with a microwave.

Words The Matchless Poet - Let's go to the mall appeared in the low left corner of the screen and he started to sing. A disco-pop song that looked like it came straight from the 80s.

This was the best day of Yosano's life.

And then the robot came onto the screen and Kunikida started dancing.

She knew what they were playing tonight.

The party was now in the full swing, and unfortunately, Yosano had noticed he tried to sneak in the USB with his playlist consisting entirely of Mitski, Bright Eyes, and Yungblood's Parents.

So now they were listening to "proper" party music.

Till, of course, Ranpo would decide to sneak in his USB consisting entirely of Hatsune Miku, 100 gecs, and Megalovania.

According to Dazai's calculations, it was going to be every moment now.

He was nursing his sake in the red party cup.

Atsushi and Akutagawa had locked themselves in the bathroom under the excuse they need to fight about something privately.

They were most definitely making out.

Kunikida was sandwiched between Naomi and Junichiro.

Poe was looking nervously at Ranpo, probably knowing what's gonna happen.

Yosano.

She was genuinely smiling while talking to a gorgeous red-haired girl.

And Chuuya. He was sitting on the fire escape, smoking a cigarette.

Dazai climbed out the kitchen window and sat next to him.

"What a party," Chuuya exhaled a smoke. He was absolutely and undeniably beautiful.

"What a party indeed, " Dazai fished a lighter and a beaten pack of cigarettes from his hoodie.

"Is this your main character moment?" Chuuya asked, blatant sarcasm lacing his words.

He obviously knew what Dazai was going to ask him even before Dazai himself knew.

Chuuya was more in touch with Dazai's emotions than Dazai.

"Depends. Is that cigarette you are holding a metaphor for something?"

"It's a metaphor for me putting my foot up your ass."

This. All of this felt as natural as breathing. Dazai may not be human, but this must be what being human felt like.

"So," Dazai supplied eloquently.

"So?" Chuuya responded equally eloquently.

They truly deserved each other.

"Wanna go on a date maybe?" Dazai blurted.

"It took you so fucking long to ask," Chuuya smiled.

Dazai Osamu, age twenty-two, was sitting on a fire escape in the middle of a sunny day while holding a burning cigarette between his fingers. It was one of those days when existence seemed to be light as a feather.  His inspiration was back.

The bad days would come eventually, but it was okay.

He had all of them.

For some reason, Russian trap music started blasting.

The party was in fact not going according to the plan. Upstairs neighbors started complaining about the noise. Someone didn't close the fridge door enough, so nothing was cold. The speakers and the whole sound system were hacked to only play Russian trap.

But somehow, it didn't really matter.

This was her life, it was a mess and entirely hers.

"You know, I'm glad that I met you," said Kouyou.

"Yeah, who would think that people would bond so much over coffee?" Yosano chuckled nervously.

"I meant that time in the bathroom."

So she remembered that. Yosano really didn't know if she wanted that.

"Oh," she did know what else to say.

"It's not my place to say, but maybe you-" Kouyou took her hand. Her hands were so smooth and comforting.

"Yeah, I've been looking into it."

She had.

She may end up taking Fukuzawa on that therapy offer.

Kouyou smiled.

" I would also really like to go out for tempura sometimes. Just the two of us. Alone. Without my little brother making out with someone in the background."

Something warm nested inside her chest.

"Wait, who is your little brother?"

Kouyou pointed at the fire escape, where Dazai and Chuuya were currently making out.

"Do people use my apartment exclusively for making out?"

Well, it was technically Dazai's apartment, too. But still, she maybe should start to charge.

First those two underclassmen in the bathroom and now this. And Ranpo and Poe were probably moments away from it.

"Maybe we should make out too," Kouyou shrugged.

Yosano Akiko currently ran on love, kisses, and therapy.

Without any strings on her.

Russian trap continued to play.