Chapter Text
Dazai cannot fall asleep on command. She also cannot simply lie down in silence without anything to occupy her mind, because that encourages a spiral into her worst thoughts and impulses. Boredom is a rather dangerous game to play.
She lasts a grand total of ten minutes before she slips out from beneath Fyodor and leaves him alone on the couch. She finds a blanket and throws it over him, and when he still hasn’t stirred, she decides she has nothing better to do than snoop around a bit. After all, he did lie to her about being a student and didn’t give any straight answers as to what it is he actually does. Dazai is well within her right to look around and see if she can figure it out herself.
She starts with the bookshelf, trailing her fingers along the spines of Fyodor’s rather grand collection. He has quite a few books dating back centuries, as well as newer copies of classics. Books in Japanese, Russian, and English. Memoirs, biographies, and—
Dazai’s hand comes to a stop against a strikingly old copy of the Bible. She shoots a quick glance back towards Fyodor, and once she’s confident they’re still fast asleep, she slips the book from its place on the shelf. Despite its obvious age, it’s been well cared for and therefore is still in rather impressive condition. The text is in Russian, but the crosses engraved on both the spine and the cover make it abundantly clear what it is.
It’s odd. Dazai hadn’t pegged Fyodor as a particularly religious person. But there are several pages in this Bible marked with slips of paper as well as verses underlined in ink. It’s been treated with great care, but also read quite a bit. There are fingerprint smudges and stains from water droplets and…is that blood?
Dazai bites her tongue. She closes the book and returns it to its proper place. She very notably does not think about Fyodor quoting Bible verses in Russian for her, his voice low and his breath ghosting against her skin and—
No. She’s not thinking about it.
Moving on from the books, she takes in the rest of the living room. It’s small, making it cozy despite the lack of decoration. The furniture is all simple and complements each other despite obviously not being bought as a set. There are no photos anywhere, though there is one painting hanging framed on the wall—watercolors on yellowed paper, depicting the Iwaki River and surrounding greenery, with Mount Iwaki standing tall in the background. The piece isn’t signed, and there’s no other indication of who the artist is, which leads Dazai to believe it was likely painted specifically for someone by a close friend or family member. Maybe even a lover—though if that’s the case, Dazai sincerely hopes Fyodor wasn’t the original recipient.
She moves onto the kitchenette, poking through Fyodor’s cabinets. There’s dirty dishes stacked in the sink, takeout trash abandoned on the table, and he seems to be running low on food. Unsurprising, really, considering he’s been sick since Sunday. Too sick to do any housework and definitely too sick to make it to the store. Hence Nikolai’s bare-bones grocery offering.
The only mildly interesting thing she finds is, on a top shelf in one of the cupboards, a ceramic teapot that doesn’t seem to match any of Fyodor’s other dishes. It’s dark, with yellow tulips painted around it. It was broken at some point, and repaired with gold running along the cracks.
Carefully, Dazai brings it down into her hands and looks it over. It appears to be handmade, and she counts seven flowers encircling the body. She lets her fingers trace over the design, looping alongside the stems, and then places it back on the shelf.
She leaves the kitchen behind to peek around the rest of the apartment. There’s one bedroom and a small bathroom. She finds a desk in the bedroom with Fyodor’s laptop and an open notebook revealing scribbles in both Russian and English. Which is what helps her finally piece together how Fyodor occupies his time, since he’s clearly not a student.
He does freelance translation work. Mostly between Russian, Japanese, and English. Being self-employed means he can take on more work in the summer months when he tends to be healthier and he can also make allowances for the weeks he spends sick in winter. Dazai has yet to figure out the specifics of his chronic illness (illnesses?), but her guess is he has some sort of autoimmune disorder that makes him more vulnerable to the common viral infections passed around in the colder months.
Dazai doesn’t search much through the bedroom. She does rifle through the bathroom drawers and finds a roll of the exact bandages she uses to wrap her own body, but that’s surely just a coincidence.
Satisfied that Fyodor probably isn’t a stalker whose intention was to lure her here just to end her life, she returns to the living room and sits back down on the couch. She stretches her leg out and pulls her phone from her pocket. She has one text from Nikolai asking if she made it to Fyodor’s apartment and several from the group chat she’s in with Kunikida, Ranpo, and Yosano planning a get-together after midterms are over.
She responds to Nikolai, mostly so they won’t decide they need to break into Fyodor’s apartment to check for themself whether or not Dazai managed to find it, and then reads through the other texts and does not respond to those so she can decide later whether or not she actually wants to join them. If she lets Kunikida, Ranpo, and Yosano pick a date without her input, then she can come up with an excuse to get herself out of it.
(Probably.)
She scrolls through Twitter and retweets something she knows will have Kunikida in her DMs responding with something like “Stop posting things like this” or “Dazai if you don’t respond to me in thirty seconds, I’m going to assume the worst and call an ambulance to your apartment”. He’s just so romantic like that!
Then, she opens Instagram and leaves a comment on Chuuya’s latest post that’s just a bunch of vomiting emojis. It takes exactly eleven seconds before they respond with, FUCK OFF SHITHEAD, which makes Dazai giggle. Sometimes she thinks it’s a shame things didn’t work out between them, because Chuuya really did always know how to make her heart flutter.
Chuuya didn’t know how to play chess, though. And Chuuya isn’t attracted to women. Or women-adjacent people. A true tragedy, in Dazai’s opinion—women are beautiful. Fyodor is also beautiful. In a sickly Victorian child sort of way.
She glances over at them. They’re still fast asleep, a serene expression on their face. Their nose is red and their lips are chapped and their hair desperately needs to be washed and they really don’t look healthy at all, but they’re beautiful in the way death is beautiful. They’re beautiful like fossils and icicles and ghosts and blurry photographs. Like chess matches and quiet library corners and dog-eared book pages and fountain pens.
Dazai doesn’t have a long list of crushes—not real ones, at least. She has a lengthy list of people she’s felt at least mildly physically attracted to, but that ranges from Kunikida to her anatomy professor from four years ago to the girl who was in line in front of her at the grocery store yesterday. The list of people she can truly say she’s felt any semblance of romantic attraction for is exactly two people long.
It was one person long, until about a week ago.
Dazai isn’t particularly interested in defining her sense of attraction, but whatever it is she feels for Fyodor has surpassed fixation or obsession or fascination or whatever else it started as. Which is as terrifying as it is exhilarating. Dazai isn’t the sort of person who is cut out for a relationship, but Fyodor doesn’t exactly seem like the type of guy who expects her to play the part of the Perfect Girlfriend. The likelihood of them lasting together is extremely low, but Dazai isn’t planning to live too long anyway.
So she’s content to let her little romcom play out, and when it inevitably falls apart in a year or two, she can kill herself and be done with everything. She’ll stick around long enough to finish her degree, long enough to see her and Fyodor’s relationship to its inevitable end, and then instead of figuring out what the hell she’s supposed to do with her life, she’ll jump into a river and drown.
It’s the perfect life plan, honestly.
The only thing that could make it more wonderful is if Fyodor would agree to die with her. A lovers’ suicide—the most romantic death of all!
Fyodor won’t, though. Dazai couldn’t ask that of them.
Or, she could. But she’d never let them follow through if they accepted. They had a life before her, and they’ll have one after her too. That’s how the story goes.
Dazai must die alone.
She reaches over, brushing a strand of hair from Fyodor’s face. He stirs slightly, mumbling something Dazai can’t quite make out. She should probably just leave him be, but she’s bored and loves to be annoying, so she takes her opportunity and seizes it.
She leans over him and pokes his cheek. “Hey. Hey, Fyodor-kun.”
Fyodor groans.
“Are you dead? Really rude that you would die without me.”
“…Dazai.”
“Hi! I looked through all your drawers and personal items and found your ID and shredded it.”
Fyodor’s eyes shoot open at that. For a moment, he looks afraid. But just as quickly as fear overtook his expression, he relaxes and closes his eyes once more. “Alright. Do whatever you’d like, dear.”
Ugh. He’s no fun.
Dazai jumps to her feet. A very bad decision because her leg immediately buckles and she falls back onto the couch. It’s her own fault, for traipsing around the apartment without her cane after she walked all the way here from the nearest bus stop, but she couldn’t get anyone to drive her since Kunikida knows her class schedule and won’t assist her in skipping. And Yosano was busy. And Ranpo can’t drive.
Fyodor snickers.
Dazai gapes at him. “Are you laughing at me?!”
“No,” Fyodor says, still laughing. He pushes himself up into a sitting position and tosses the blanket over to Dazai. “Did you sleep at all?”
“Lol. Lmao, even.”
“So you did go through my things.”
Dazai shrugs. “I figured out you do translation work, your painting isn’t signed by the artist, you have a handmade teapot you never use, and you’re religious. Also, you need to go shopping.”
Fyodor blinks.
“You should eat, too.” Dazai stands—slowly, this time, and makes for the groceries she didn’t bother putting away. She doesn’t register the rustling behind her until Fyodor taps her arm with her cane.
She turns to look at him, holding a cup noodle in each hand. He takes one from her, replacing it with the handle of her cane. “You’re very bad at taking care of yourself,” he says. Which might be true, but also, who says that on the first date?
…Is this the first date? They didn’t exactly set down any ground rules or even talk about it at all. Whatever it is. It’s something—not quite friendship, but not exactly a relationship either. It’s two people who can understand each other and match the other’s intelligence. It’s a game of chess. And Dazai needs to take back control of the board.
“I hope you pass out,” she retorts. “Go sit down, I’m trying to be nice.”
Fyodor obliges, sitting at the table. Dazai makes them both cup noodles because that’s about the extent of her cooking ability, and then she takes the seat across from him. They eat in silence, but it’s surprisingly comfortable. Fyodor is clearly still exhausted despite his nap, and he’s picking at his food more than he is eating it.
By the time Dazai finishes, Fyodor isn’t even halfway done.
Dazai hums. “If you can’t finish eating, you should at least try to shower before you fall asleep again,” she suggests. “It’ll suck in the moment, but you’ll feel better afterwards. Even if you just, like, sit under the water for ten minutes.”
Fyodor smiles tiredly. “Is this the part where you offer to join me?”
Dazai bats her eyelashes. “Do you want me to?”
Fyodor hesitates.
“Are you seriously going to make me be the sane one here?” Dazai folds her arms over her chest. “I’m not fucking you to sleep in the shower; that’s way too much work for me. I might just leave you to drown in the tub. Or we could both drown in the tub! Oh my God never mind, I’m backtracking, let’s do it.”
Fyodor pushes back his chair, standing carefully. He picks up his half-eaten food, dumps the remaining noodles in a plastic container, and shoves them into the fridge. Then, he makes his way back towards Dazai, takes one of her hands in his, and presses her knuckles to his cold lips.
“I hope you never change, Dazai,” he murmurs.
And then he’s gone, walking off towards the bathroom, leaving Dazai alone with her pounding heart and short-circuiting mind.
I hope you never change.
No one ever likes Dazai how she is. There’s always something to be fixed, something that needs to be made better. Stop making so many suicide jokes, stop drinking whiskey when you don’t even like it, stop talking to that grad student who’s just encouraging your bad behavior. Stop flirting with every pretty person you see. Stop ordering lattes with extra espresso. Stop procrastinating. Stop skipping class. Learn how to cook, eat more vegetables, eat more in general. Go to bed at a reasonable time. When you wake up in the night, instead of reaching for your phone, just keep your eyes shut and try to fall back asleep even when you know it’s pointless. Brush your hair more, don’t forget to shower, drag yourself out of bed even when you can’t bear to face the world. Stop being so depressed. Stop being suicidal.
Stop being you and start being someone who knows how to be human.
Fyodor waves over his shoulder. “Go home and do your homework. I’ll text you tomorrow.”
“Wait!” Dazai calls out, before he can slip into the bathroom and lock the door behind him. She could pick the lock, of course, but that’s terrible behavior on the first date. She’ll save it for the second, maybe. Depending on her mood.
Fyodor waits, and Dazai strides over to him. He gives her a questioning look.
Before she can second guess herself, she places a hand beneath his chin, angling his face slightly upwards, then leans down to press her lips against the corner of his mouth.
Payback, she thinks smugly when she pulls back and sees the surprise etched across Fyodor’s face. Checkmate!
“If I don’t get a text, I’m breaking in,” she promises.
She leaves before Fyodor can respond.
—
The next two weeks are a blur. A wonderful, glittery, fabulous blur.
Fyodor texts her, as promised, and she finally gets to save his number. She spends an hour and a half bouncing contact name ideas off of Kunikida, whose only contributions are such stunners as Annoying Russian Guy and Stop Talking To Them and Dazai, Shut The Hell Up.
Okay, maybe that last one wasn’t actually a suggestion, but Dazai is going to count it anyway.
On the days he’s able, Fyodor stops by the library, usually with a drink from the café or a snack for Dazai. It’s never the same thing twice, and he never asks Dazai what she wants. They turn it into a game—guessing the food or drink the other is in the mood for. Fyodor brings things to Dazai while she’s at work, and Dazai brings things to Fyodor in his apartment.
Yosano finally gets a chance to meet Fyodor properly, and afterwards, she asks Dazai, “Why do you only ever date guys who are majorly fucked up?”
Dazai twirls her hair. “I’m just super sexy and cool like that.”
Kunikida scoffs. But instead of arguing against Dazai’s ironic self-appreciation, he says, “Chuuya is significantly less fucked up than Fyodor.”
Yosano waves her hand. “Semantics. It doesn’t matter. Regardless, Dazai, you’re incapable of being in a normal relationship.”
“At least I’m in a relationship.”
“You told me yesterday that you two haven’t actually talked about whether or not you’re dating,” Kunikida points out, because he’s a horrible traitor who hates Dazai and lives to make her suffer. He pushes his glasses up. “I’m not sure that can be considered a ‘relationship’.”
“You’re just jealous!”
“I have nothing to be jealous of,” Kunikida responds, oddly confident. Then, he turns back to his work and refuses to engage any further.
There are more chess games, too—some played at the library, and some played in the comfort of Fyodor’s apartment. Dazai plays basically the best chess game she’s ever had the pleasure of partaking in when she opens with E4, Fyodor goes E5, and then Dazai—
“What the fuck,” Fyodor says. They stare down at the board, where Dazai has just moved her king out to E2.
“Bongcloud opening!” Dazai announces excitedly. “Isn’t it so terrible!”
“What the fuck,” Fyodor repeats. Dazai can see his expression flicker through all five stages of grief, which only serves to heighten the adrenaline coursing through her veins. She’s solidified herself as a serious, talented, chess player in Fyodor’s mind. She’s challenged him, and she’s won against him as well. Fyodor is not a player to be trifled with and Dazai has managed to match him.
Which was exactly the front she needed to portray in order for this opening to deal maximum psychic damage.
“This can’t be a real opening,” Fyodor says.
“Wrong!” Dazai exclaims, giddy, before Fyodor has even finished speaking. “The Bongcloud opening is possibly named for Chess.com user Lenny_Bongcloud who would use this opening with basically no success. Also it’s a weed joke.”
“Are you high right now?” Fyodor’s gaze flits up to Dazai. “Is that why you think this is a good idea?”
Dazai laughs. She’s very sober, and Fyodor knows this. If she weren’t, he would have picked up on it the moment she crossed the threshold into his apartment. “Nakamura Hikaru-sensei has used this opening against many opponents, including fellow grandmasters.”
“And has he won?”
Dazai makes a so-so gesture. “Sometimes. It’s your move, babygirl.”
Amusement plays on Fyodor’s face. “Don’t call me that.”
“Sweetie pie.”
“No.”
“My dearest darlingest babycakes booboo bear sugarplum.”
“Next time I bring you food, I’m poisoning it.”
Dazai moans.
She does end up winning the game, of course, because she’s nothing if not motivated by spite and her untouchable ability to annoy anyone she feels even the slightest kinship with. She checkmates Fyodor, and while he’s still staring down at the board, absolutely bewildered by the loss, she leans back in her chair and cackles.
“That’s how we do it! Get bongclouded, idiot!”
Fyodor looks up, and his crushing anguish melts away, softening into something so affectionate Dazai could choke on it. It pricks at her skin, this unfamiliar feeling. Of being known, and of being seen, and…
Love isn’t a word Dazai uses often. It’s overstated, overrated, and over exaggerated. She’s loath to apply it to any situation where it doesn’t fit, because so many people throw it around like it means nothing at all. But when Fyodor holds his hand out, as if for a handshake, and Dazai takes the bait only for him to bring her hand to his lips and kiss her skin like she’s something precious, well—
There are other words that could be used.
But perhaps it’s best to use no words at all.
—
Dazai ends up joining Yosano, Ranpo, and Kunikida for their post-midterms celebration. She doesn’t have a choice, because Ranpo knows she isn’t busy and tells her she can’t abandon her friends just because she has a boyfriend now. To which Dazai responds that Fyodor is not her boyfriend, on the technicality that they haven’t labeled their relationship, and ultimately ends up agreeing to go to their little party-slash-get-together anyways.
It’s only the four of them, crashing in Kunikida’s apartment for the evening because he prefers hosting himself. They’d invited Katai to join if he wanted, but he—unsurprisingly—elected to hide out in his bedroom instead. He’s probably either playing video games or coding a nuclear weapon. Dazai doesn’t know, nor does she care to find out.
They spread out in the living room, talking and eating and drinking and playing games. It’s a nice break from writing essays and reading lengthy academic articles. It reminds Dazai that she truly does appreciate having friends.
“So,” Yosano drains the rest of her wine, then sets the glass down beside her. “Dazai, how’s your thing with Fyodor-kun going?”
Kunikida groans loudly. Dazai ignores him.
She sighs dreamily. “He’s the perfect chess partner. I want to surgically remove his brain from his skull and then eat it.”
“Wow.” Yosano nods appreciatively. “I can respect that.”
“He’s still not your boyfriend, though,” Ranpo points out. “Shouldn’t you take him out to dinner first?”
“Who needs such fickle things as labels? When you know your feelings are true, words mean nothing, Ranpo-san.”
Ranpo shrugs, conceding.
“I still don’t trust him,” Kunikida states. “Just for the record.”
“But Kunikida-kun, you were the one who introduced us!”
“I wanted you to help him, because he came to the circulation desk and you weren’t doing your job!” he exclaims. He knocks back the rest of his own drink, then sets his glass down just a bit too loudly. “I did not want you to throw caution to the wind just because you found someone to indulge in your— your chess kink!” He crosses his arms. “He just doesn’t seem like he hangs out with a good crowd of people. The one time Nikolai visited you at work, she pulled the fire alarm and forced the entire building to evacuate and then ran before she could get in trouble for it.”
Ranpo snorts. “Bold words coming from someone who’s hooking up with Chuuya.”
Dazai chokes on her own spit, head whirling over towards Kunikida. “You’re WHAT?!”
“I am not!” Kunikida protests, but his cheeks are bright red, which means there must be some truth to Ranpo’s statement. And Ranpo would know, having slept with Chuuya themself. Why the hell is Dazai’s ex so obsessed with sleeping their way through her new coworkers? She’d be concerned about them going for Yosano next, except Yosano should be safe since her gender is incompatible with Chuuya’s sexuality.
That’s not important right now.
She points an accusing finger at Kunikida. “When you found out Chuuya and I used to date, you told me—and I quote— ‘Switching majors was the best thing you could have done for yourself because you clearly used to hang around the worst crowds of people’.”
“Well—”
“Yeah,” Yosano chimes in. “You were all ‘Nakahara’s nothing but a troublemaker’ and ‘You dodged a bullet there’ and ‘They’re not allowed to come visit you at work. Ever.’”
Kunikida buries his face in his hands. He’s doing a very poor job of convincing them that Ranpo was lying. He mumbles something unintelligible.
“Was that you calling yourself a hypocrite?” Dazai lies down, so her head is in Kunikida’s lap. “Because you’re such a hypocrite, Kunikida-kun. I can’t believe you’ve been complaining about Fyodor when you’ve been sleeping with my ex the whole time!”
“It hasn’t been the whole time,” he says weakly. “And we’re not—doing…that. It just…happened. A couple times.”
Dazai reaches up, prying Kunikida’s hands away from his face. “I’m not mad,” she says, because she should probably clarify that since Kunikida isn’t always great at figuring out when she’s joking around. “I’m just doing a bit. You and Chuuya can even have sex in the library stairwell and I won’t tell anyone.”
“Thanks, Dazai,” Kunikida deadpans, his face still flushed. “You—”
“Wait!” Dazai shoots back up. “You need to ask them out.”
“I don’t—”
“You totally do!” Ranpo calls, and then bursts out into a fit of giggles. He’s drank too much, apparently—Yosano is going to have to carry him home at this rate.
Dazai nods eagerly. “So, I’ll make you a deal. If I ask Fyodor to be my boyfriend, you have to ask Chuuya to be your boyfriend. Partner.” She frowns. “I’m not actually sure what term they’d want to use; they kinda switched back and forth when we were together, but they only came out halfway through— That doesn’t matter!” She places her hands on Kunikida’s shoulder, looking him in the eye. “Fyodor’s gonna pick me up in a couple hours or whatever, so I’ll ask him then. And then you have to ask Chuuya. Unless I chicken out, then you can just keep doing the friends-with-benefits thing or whatever.”
“It’s not—” Kunikida sighs. He pinches the bridge of his nose, like he knows he’s going to regret this in the morning but right now, he’s tipsy enough that the consequences have been rendered intangible. “Fine, whatever.”
“YES!” Dazai cheers. “I’m literally the best ex-boyfriend-who-is-now-a-girl ever. Chuuya is never going to be able to say anything bad about me again after this.”
Kunikida rolls his eyes. “I should have known this was only for your own gain.”
But he’s smiling, and honestly, Dazai can totally see how he and Chuuya will work together. They’re as similar as they are different—Chuuya’s a wild card, willing to do whatever it takes to get the best for themself and those around them, while Kunikida is straight-laced and by-the-book until he decides the rules are shit and carves a path with his own moral compass instead. They’re both headstrong and stubborn and work themselves to the bone when it’s really unnecessary.
They both care deeply for those close to them, even when they’ll never receive the same in return.
Dazai is happy for them, actually. And she isn’t even lying!
Yosano sighs. “I should text Sasaki again.”
“You should not,” Ranpo says. He drapes himself over her shoulder. “She just wanted to psychoanalyze you and use you for her thesis project. Good thing she didn’t get a hold of Dazai; she would’ve had an entire field day and a half with that.”
“Yikes!” Dazai says. “If not for my darling Fyodor-kun, I’d totally ask you for her number.”
Yosano and Ranpo both laugh. Kunikida shakes his head in disbelief, still smiling fondly. Dazai is glad she agreed to this. She’s really lucky she managed to make a few decent friends.
—
Fyodor picks Dazai up from the “party”, because he has a car and Dazai is slightly drunk and shouldn’t walk all the way back to her apartment anyway. It’s the first time she’s actually ridden with Fyodor (insert clever sex joke Dazai is too drunk to think up), but she knew he had a car, because there was no way he could be walking to the library every other day even in nice weather.
Fyodor texts her to let her know he’s arrived, and Dazai tells him to come up to Kunikida’s apartment because she’s technically supposed to ask him to be her boyfriend for realsies where at least Kunikida can see. Unfortunately, her nerves are winning out over the alcohol still buzzing in her system. She’s probably going to back down at the last second. Kunikida probably knew it too.
Ugh. She’s so predictable and lame.
Dazai doesn’t give Fyodor the apartment number, but it’s only a few minutes before there’s a knock on the door. She jumps up and rushes over to answer it before any of her friends can sabotage her, which means leaving her cane behind. It’s not a good idea given how she has to awkwardly jump over the trash and empty bottles littering the floor, and she stumbles into the door before she opens it, but it’s fine. She’ll blame it on the wine and whatever sugary sweet drink Ranpo mixed up.
She swings the door open and lists forward, catching herself on the doorframe. “Hiii Fedya. Can I call you that? It’s cute.” With the hand that isn’t currently supporting her weight, she reaches out and grabs hold of his shoulder. “I should come up with a chess-themed pet name next. Queen and King are too obvious, though.”
“That is entirely unnecessary,” Fyodor assures her. But he doesn’t remove Fedya from her list of possible things to call him. She notes that in her mind with several stars and underlines so hopefully it’ll still be there come morning. “Are you ready to go?”
“Yeah! Just let me get my things. You can come in.” She steps out of the way, and Fyodor follows her into the apartment. When she starts to limp back towards the others, he grabs hold of her arm and wraps it around his waist, forcing her to lean on him for support.
Dazai giggles. They’re being so domestic-core right now.
From where he’s now lying over the back of the couch, Ranpo says, “Hey, Fyodor-kun, when was the Bible first translated into Russian?” And then he laughs like there’s a joke no one else here gets.
“The first official translation of the Gospels was published in 1818,” Fyodor answers, as if there’s nothing odd about Ranpo’s question. “Would one of you be willing to hand Dazai her cane?”
“Omg,” Dazai whispers. She doesn’t really know what she’s saying but the words are floaty and bubbly and Fyodor is warm and cold at the same time. “Fedya, you totally like me.”
“We have already established this.” He takes the cane from Kunikida, and, wow, Dazai didn’t even see him offer it to her. She was way too busy thinking about how she’d like to sink into Fyodor’s skin and let him absorb her and live inside of him forever and ever and ever. Forget double suicide; the most romantic thing in the world is actually merging bodies with your lover so you can exist as one singular entity.
Fyodor forces Dazai’s cane into her hand. She grabs hold of it, but continues leaning against him because it’s much more comfortable. He doesn’t remove his arm from around her. He might not trust her to stand up on her own right now. She could if she wanted to, of course, but they both know she’d deliberately fall over just to keep him close.
“Did you bring anything else?” Fyodor asks her.
Dazai hums. “My coat. It’s hanging up by the door. Shoes are also by the door. Ummm… Kunikida-kun, you can keep the extra chips!”
“They were expired, and you only brought half a bag to begin with.”
“You’re right, I am so sweet and considerate. Okay!” She turns to Fyodor and kisses their cheek. “Let’s go. You look so tired right now. If you fall asleep while driving, you have to kill us both, alright?”
“This is how I look all the time.”
Dazai snickers. It probably is their normal face, but dying together in a car crash could be totally romantic. Maybe some other time, though. She wants to be sober and not-drunk and completely aware of her surroundings if she’s going to die with someone else. That way she can make the most of it.
Fyodor helps her to the door, and she calls out farewells to her friends over her shoulder. She also shouts a goodbye for Katai despite not knowing him well, just so he won’t feel left out. He probably can’t even hear her. Ah, well. Kunikida will pass along the message. He’s nice like that.
Fyodor steadies her while she slips her shoes on, and then he holds her cane while she tugs on her coat. She yells out one final adieu before letting Fyodor guide her out into the hallway.
Once the door clicks shut, she slumps into him.
“Fedya?” she murmurs against his neck.
“Hm?”
“Can I actually call you that?”
“Take a guess, умница.”
“Oooh, Russian. That’s sexy.”
Fyodor sighs as he begins walking, forcing Dazai to move with him. “Drink water before you sleep tonight.”
“Uno reverse.”
“I will if you will.”
Dazai hesitates.
“Checkmate.” Fyodor kisses the side of her head. And then she remembers she’s supposed to actually use her words and ask him to be her boyfriend and she didn’t do it in front of the others because of course she didn’t, but she’s not going to do it right now either because she doesn’t want to be stuck standing up for too long.
So she just thinks about it and thinks about it and thinks about it and she scripts it out in her head, then trashes what she has and rewrites it. She fills an entire mental notebook with ideas she hates because she has to say it like it’s a joke even though she means it for real. Seriousness cannot co-exist with affection—not for Dazai. She loves ironically or not at all.
By the time they’re standing outside her apartment door, her rumination has sobered her up significantly (maybe) (probably) (ehh…) and Fyodor is…
Fyodor so knows she has something she wants to say. She can see it in their eyes. But she won’t do it standing in the doorway, because she’s sure Fyodor won’t want to stand for so long and she probably shouldn’t either.
“Do you want to come in for a minute?”
“It’s late—”
“Not for that,” Dazai interrupts quickly. “Although, I’m always down for a game of chess…” she wiggles her eyebrows, then shakes her head. “That’s not— I just wanted to talk to you about something real quick. But preferably sitting down.”
Fyodor relaxes. “Of course.”
Dazai’s apartment is a disaster. There’s really no nice way to put it.
It’s been two and a half weeks since the last time Kunikida came over and did some cleaning, and even longer since Dazai did any real cleaning herself. There are clothes tossed over the furniture, too dirty for her closet but too clean to wash again already. There are dirty dishes in the kitchen—thankfully not very visible from where she and Fyodor are. Her bedroom is even worse, but she at least had the foresight to mostly-shut her door. Books and food wrappers and crumpled balls of notebook paper are littered across the floor. There’s a half-empty mug of tea that’s been on her side table for at least four days.
She laughs, strained, and knocks a book shut with her cane. “Sorry about the mess.”
She really should have thought this through better. She should have done this when they were still in the car. Her apartment has never been fit for guests. There’s a reason why she always just goes to Fyodor’s instead.
Well—this, and the fact that she doesn’t like to make Fyodor leave his home when he’s feeling under the weather or tired or whatever. He already visits her at work. That’s equal enough.
Fyodor doesn’t comment about the dumpster fire that Dazai has invited him into. He simply eases himself onto the couch and says, “Get yourself water first.”
Dazai groans, but she does as she was asked. And because she’s feeling nice, she gets a glass for Fyodor as well. Then, she returns to the couch and sits beside them, holding out one cup.
Fyodor accepts it, but instead of drinking, they merely hold it in their hands. “What is it you wanted to talk about?”
Dazai drains half of her glass in one go, to give herself more time before she has to answer. She wants to do this, but also she doesn’t, because last time— Last time, they didn’t really talk about it either. Last time, it was one of Chuuya’s friends who pointed out that they were basically dating and both Dazai and Chuuya said EWWW THAT’S SO GROSS!!! and then thought about it for five seconds and realized that, yes, they were already basically dating. And that was that.
And then Dazai permanently injured her leg in an elevator fall, had a severe breakdown, drove Chuuya’s motorcycle into a river, ghosted them, tried to kill herself, decided to switch majors, and came out as trans. Pretty much in that order.
Basically, Dazai was a shitty boyfriend. And she’ll probably be a shitty girlfriend too. She’s happier now than she was when she dated Chuuya, but not enough to make any real difference. All she’s really good for are chess matches until the sparks sizzle out, and then she’s really good for leaving behind as a bad memory. There’s no other way her relationships will ever end. Either Fyodor will dump her, or she’ll kill herself, and either way, the ending is going to kind of suck. For Fyodor, at least. If it’s the latter, Dazai won’t be around to care.
She does want this, though.
But now that Fyodor’s attention is fixated on her, waiting for her to break the silence and say something important, she wonders if maybe they don’t share her feelings. Maybe all they want is undefined chess matches. Maybe Dazai is about to make a very big mistake.
She taps her fingers against the edge of her glass. Not her nails, because she’s bitten them down to the quick again, and they aren’t long enough to make the satisfying clink clink clink sound she so desperately craves.
The sound still comes, though, after a moment. It’s slightly off, and it takes her a second to realize that Fyodor is the one tapping their nails against their own glass. In perfect time with Dazai’s movements.
She’s been overthinking this.
“I can’t read your mind, умница,” he says, which is half a lie at least. “What do you want?”
“…What are we?”
“What would you like to be?”
Dazai shrugs, though her tongue burns with the answers she wants to give. She wants Fyodor to be her boyfriend/partner/significant other/whatever it is they want to be called. And she wants to know what it’s like to have someone call her my girlfriend. She wants to hear the phrase fall from Fyodor’s lips, wants the sparkly bubbles of gender euphoria bursting in her chest. She wants the stupid cliché mundanity of a happy relationship for however long she can manage to hold onto it.
She wants impossibilities.
She wants to run a knife down Fyodor’s skin, gently slicing open his veins, and she wants to lick away the bitter blood. She wants to hold him as he dies and curl her body around his and die with him. She wants to cut him open and crawl into his ribcage and live there forever. She wants him to do the same, wants him to cradle her heart in his hands as the beating slows to a stop. She wants her final breath to be captured by his mouth.
She wants to lay on the bank of a river at midnight and look up at the stars and imagine that they could exchange their physical forms for that of a twinkling gas giant a hundred thousand lightyears away. Two stars in a binary system, feeding off of each other’s gravity until they finally collide.
“Anything,” she whispers. “Or everything. …I want to be— yours. For a little while, at least.”
(For however long you’ll have me.)
Fyodor lifts his eyes to the ceiling. Speaks a quiet, “Любовь никогда не перестает.” Dazai doesn’t know the meaning of the words, but they fall over her like a familiar comfort. “I have been yours from the beginning, darling.”
“Lmao cringe,” Dazai says. And then, “Can I be your girlfriend?”
“If that’s what you want.”
Dazai sets her glass down. Then, she takes Fyodor’s glass from his hands and sets it down as well. “Do you like partner or boyfriend or something else?”
“‘Partner’ is more sophisticated, don’t you think? Though…I suppose I don’t mind either way.”
“Okay,” Dazai breathes out, because she was ready to agree to anything. She cups Fyodor’s face with both of her hands. “E4, King to E2.”
“You are a menace.”
And then Fyodor is kissing her.
His lips are expectedly cold, but his mouth is warm when Dazai licks into it. She could die here, maybe. Probably. She could die with Fyodor’s lips on hers and his fingers tucking her hair behind her ear and her hands still cradling his cheeks and it would be beautiful. It would be romantic. It would be everything she ever wanted. To suffocate on love—could there ever be a better way to leave this world? Clutching at the form of the person who knows you best, giving your last breaths to them, painfully pretending to be human until the last of the light has disappeared.
When they break, Dazai gasps for breath. Fyodor does as well, leaning forward, fingers digging into Dazai’s shoulder to brace themself. Dazai wants to kiss them again and again until she’s sucked out all of their life and taken it for herself, until their soul has found home in her body.
“I might be a menace,” Dazai replies, her voice hoarse, “but I’m your menace.”
Fyodor nods, still struggling to catch his breath.
“My menace,” they agree. “Умница. You will be the death of me.”
Dazai grins. “God, I hope so!”
Fyodor lets himself fall forward into her, and Dazai catches him because how could she not?
“I’ll leave in a bit,” he promises. “Just give me a moment.”
Dazai runs her fingers through their hair. She hardly even thinks before responding with, “You can stay as long as you’d like.”
She means it, though. She would gladly let them stay forever.
—
Dazai should have known things were going too well.
She wakes up the following morning to a pounding headache and an unshakable hopelessness clinging to her limbs and she wants to die. Not that that’s unusual, but it’s more persistent this morning than it has been in weeks and ugh. She was, like, actually doing better! But now she has a headache and painkillers would help but if she takes two, she might as well take the whole bottle, and it won’t even be a successful attempt. It won’t even count as a real one. There aren’t enough pills left in the bottle.
Dazai would know. She tried that before.
She’s only seriously attempted to kill herself twice, but there have been other smaller not-really attempts that were never going to work and she knew it. Because she is, at her core, a coward. It’s the only reason she’s still alive. She wants to die, but not badly enough to make it permanent.
If she ever does succeed, it’ll probably be an accident.
She sifts through her mind, searching for any reason for the sudden drop in her mood. Sometimes, there’s a trigger and she can retrace back to it and mentally restart from there and give herself another hour of functionality before she crashes for real. But today, there’s nothing.
It could just be the drop after having a good night out with friends. Like some extremely lame version of post-concert depression. Postpartum depression. Wow, disgusting!
This isn’t helping.
There’s no one specific reason Dazai suddenly thinks death is the best course of action; there’s just a lot of little things that have likely been stacking up in her brain and promptly shoved on the back burner while she chased her romcom dreams. Like the fact that she knows it won’t last, and her apartment is a mess, and she has food in the fridge that’s moldy, and she has no real plan for her life. What the hell does a literature degree even do? She knew switching majors was a bad idea, but she let Odasaku talk her into it anyway because he said being happy was more important than suffering through a program that would eventually make her kill herself. The thing about studying medicine is that Dazai knows exactly where to slice herself open if she truly wants to remove herself from this world.
And she listened to Odasaku because he was telling her to do the opposite of what Mori wanted her to do, and she latched onto the excuse to stab her mentor in the back just like he’d done to her when he got Odasaku expelled from his graduate program—for something he didn’t even do. It was just easier to let him take the fall than to sort things out. Dazai could have killed Mori instead of herself, maybe.
She thought about it.
But she couldn’t even kill herself correctly.
She should try again.
Through the haze of her headache, she pushes herself out of bed and stumbles into the bathroom. Mori was so right when he told her she wouldn’t be able to handle living alone. She has so many dangerous things here and no one to supervise her. Painkillers, razors, knives, a lighter she used exactly once two years ago and then never again. There are so many ways she could kill herself and no one is supposed to check in on her.
Except.
Her phone screen lights up, and she sees it because she’s still looking out through the bathroom door instead of facing her reflection. She hates her reflection. She hates being forcibly reminded that she inhabits a body.
She trudges back over to her phone and finds a text from Kunikida: How are you?
And then a second one comes through—a rare double text: Did you ask Fyodor?
The rush of smug victory temporarily chases away the gloom and Dazai quickly responds that yes, she did, and yes, Fyodor agreed to officially be her partner, which means Kunikida now has to make his move on Chuuya.
On the edge of the high, Dazai checks the time and notes that the library opened approximately a half hour ago. She searches through her memories and pulls out the schedule and finds that Haruno is working alone until noon since it’s the Saturday after midterms and no one is resuming their studies that fast. No reason for her to go in today, then. No reason for her to check in with the others either—Ranpo and Yosano will both still be asleep, and Kunikida should be calling up Chuuya.
Dazai pushes herself back to the bathroom, pours exactly two painkillers from her bottle, and swallows them dry. Then, she tosses the bottle into the cupboard under the sink because she won’t want to bend down and retrieve it. She stumbles out to the kitchen, grabs the first mildly appetizing thing she finds, which is just a box of cereal, and then carries it back to her bed and crashes.
Slay.
She eats dry cereal and doomscrolls and rots in bed for the whole day.
—
Sunday passes in much the same way, as does Monday. Dazai only sort of halfway tries to kill herself a couple times. She lays down in the shower with the water as hot as it will go, but she doesn’t catch fire or drown. She takes more painkillers, but only a maximum of four at a time, until the bottle is empty. She skips class and calls in sick to work and ignores Kunikida’s concerned texts. She hardly even manages to keep up a pitiful conversation with Fyodor that consists of a grand total of eight texts spread over the course of three days.
On Wednesday, Kunikida shows up at her apartment.
He knocks on the door thrice, spanning five minutes, and shouts that if Dazai doesn’t open the door herself, he’s going to force his way inside to make sure she’s okay. Dazai is too busy lying facedown on her bed thinking about how she could suffocate herself with her pillows to bother responding, and she knew this was coming. Kunikida always has to play savior.
She hears the click of the lock, and then the door swinging open. She buries her face deeper into her pillow, which is too flat to do much of anything. She doesn’t want to talk to Kunikida. She wishes she were dead already. She wishes she’d put more effort into killing herself but she literally doesn’t even have the energy to die correctly. She has a thousand assignments piling up just so she can get some useless degree that will take her exactly nowhere and she’s subsiding on a scholarship she only has because of forged paperwork saying she’s the son of someone she hasn’t spoken to in two years.
“Dazai?” Kunikida calls. The door shuts. He grumbles something under his breath, probably an insult about what a pigsty Dazai’s apartment is since she’s so bad at being a person. She should invest in some air freshener, at least. She can spray it around her apartment and then directly into her mouth. Fun!
She mentally tracks Kunikida’s footsteps as he picks his way over to her bed. She doesn’t move a muscle. Maybe she could play dead, like an opossum when faced with predators. She could be roadkill. That’s a gender vibe. Dead rodent but make it a girl. Hashtag rotcore.
“Dazai,” Kunikida says again. He’s standing over her now, and she can imagine the way his arms are crossed and his brow is furrowed. After a long stretch of silence, he says, “I know you’re not dead.”
Dazai groans.
“When was the last time you ate?”
“Never.”
“Dazai, I swear to God—”
“Dazai isn’t home right now,” she interrupts. “Please leave a message after the tone. Beeeep.”
Kunikida sighs deeply. “Dazai, you haven’t spoken to anyone in four days now. You clearly haven’t been in the right headspace to take care of yourself, and I’m not here to judge you for that, but I am going to at least make you eat something. You know I’m only here because I care about you.”
Dazai’s throat aches. That’s such an unfair card to play. I care about you. Ugh. So annoying. And also, like, why? What has Dazai ever done to make her worthy of Kunikida’s care?
“Do I need to drag you out of the bed?”
“No,” she says petulantly, and then still refuses to move. Her bones are molten lead and life just isn’t worth it. Can’t Kunikida leave her to die? Wouldn’t that be easiest for everyone involved?
Kunikida has always been too stubborn for his own good.
“I’m counting down from three,” he warns. He counts down, and once he reaches zero, he scoops Dazai out of her bed. She debates thrashing and hitting him and maybe even biting, but she really doesn’t have the energy right now, so being a dead weight will have to do. She sags as heavy as possible, but Kunikida hardly even falters as he carries her out to the kitchen and sets her down at the table.
She flops forward, and her head makes a very satisfying thunk when it collides with the surface of the table. Kunikida is rustling through her kitchen, probably disappointed in her extreme lack of anything edible since she really can’t remember the last time she went to the store. He sets a glass of water down in front of her, which she does not touch. Being difficult is the only thing she has left in these trying times.
After a few more minutes of rustling and hushed grumbling, he calls over, “Dazai, you need to tell me what you’re actually willing to eat.”
“Nothing.” It’s an automatic answer. Her stomach is preoccupied with eating itself. “Kunikida-kun, I think I’m dying.”
“No.”
Somehow, that response is shocking enough that Dazai straightens herself up, blinking in some vague sense of confusion. “Huh?”
“You’re not allowed to die,” Kunikida responds simply. He glances over his shoulder. “I can make rice. Or I can order something. Those are your options. Pick.”
Is it really that simple? Because Dazai doesn’t really want plain rice and she doesn’t have anything to add to it, so that means her decision is already made for her. It’s not much of a decision at all. Can it really be that easy? She’s spent the past four days struggling to eat anything. It shouldn’t be easy.
“Order something,” she answers. “I don’t care what.”
Kunikida nods. “You should shower while we wait. Do you need help?”
“Omg, how scandalous,” she says, except it doesn’t really come out teasing. It comes out tired and hoarse. “I have a boyfriend, you know.”
“Oh, I am well aware,” Kunikida assures her. And then, again, “Do you need help?”
The true answer might be yes, but Dazai would actually literally rather kill herself than let anyone see her bare body right now. She doesn’t even want to deal with seeing it herself. Her fingers itch with the need to hurt, to dig her nails into her flesh until she draws blood. Biting them down isn’t the best way to eliminate that possibility, but it’s easier than remembering to cut them and Dazai honestly doesn’t even know where her nail clippers are.
She remembers what she told Fyodor a few weeks ago—sitting under the stream of water is better than nothing. It was advice that was given to her by Yosano, when she fell into a depressive slump shortly after starting work at the library. Baby steps are still steps and healing takes time or whatever. Healing. What a hilarious concept.
Healing from what?
Dazai doesn’t have anything in her childhood she can point fingers to—nothing she can blame for making her the way that she is. She just is. She just is the same as she’s always been. As far back as she can remember, she hasn’t fit in her body correctly and she hasn’t fit in the world correctly and she doesn’t know how to be alive and she’s sort of kind of really really really really really wanted to die ever since she was born but she’s so goddamn afraid of commitment and—
Kunikida is still looking at her. He’s waiting for an answer.
“I’m fine,” Dazai says, which is the biggest lie she could have come up with. “No help. I…can’t.”
Kunikida bows his head in acquiesce. “Shout if you need anything.”
“Right,” Dazai hears herself agree. She’s drifting out of herself. It’s a coping mechanism; she’s coping. She can’t even feel the stiff ache of her leg as she pushes herself to her feet. Kunikida didn’t tell her not to lock the door just in case he’s needed, but that’s because he’s not afraid to force himself into Dazai’s life. He’s picked the bathroom lock before, too. For someone who presents himself as a goody-two-shoes rule follower, Kunikida has an extremely grey moral compass.
He wouldn’t walk in on Dazai without good reason, though. The only time he broke into her bathroom was last spring when he caught her sitting on the ground with bleeding thighs while she debated trying to drown herself in the tub. He does morally questionable things only for good reasons. She can understand why Chuuya likes him.
Dazai finds herself in the bathroom some minutes later, peeling her pajamas from her body. She hasn’t changed since the last time she showered. Sunday evening, she thinks, unless her memory is failing her. It does that sometimes. It’s whatever.
She discards her clothes, turns on the water so it will be warm once she’s ready for it, and then begins the task of unwinding her bandages. Her skin is pale underneath, though still not quite as pale as Fyodor’s. She presses the pads of her fingers against her bare arms, and then her stomach, and she feels nothing. She steps into the steaming shower, and she feels nothing.
She has a chair, so she doesn’t have to stand, so her leg doesn’t give out on her so she doesn’t collapse so she doesn’t crack her skull open and die naked. Ew. She’s considered it, though. Leaving the world in the same state you entered. Coming full circle. When people die in the same hospital where they were born, their total displacement is a couple hundred meters at best. When people die unclothed, the end result of their body is affected only by permanent alterations. Scars, piercings, tattoos, etc, etc.
Dazai hates her body too much for that, though. She’d have to keep the bandages on, at least.
She sits in her shower chair and she hardly registers the pressure of the water pounding against her skin. She needs to snap out of this. She has work to do. She has a boyfriend. A boyfriend. A boyfriend. Why the fuck does she have a boyfriend. Did she really capture Fyodor’s heart by using bad chess pickup lines and winning with the Bongcloud against him? Is that a real thing that happened? Why does Fyodor even want anything to do with her? Dazai doesn’t want anything to do with herself. She has a boyfriend.
She can’t be sad! She has a boyfriend! A partner! A significant other! She’s in a relationship, and it’s all official and pretty and tied up with a silky red ribbon now. Fyodor kissed her, and she’s only exchanged a scant handful of words with them since. She is such a shitty girlfriend. But there’s still time to get better.
Wrangle the anxiety and turn it into an adrenaline rush. Don’t think, just take the dopamine hit wherever you can find it and ride the high until it gives out. She can do this. She can so do this! She can trick herself into being happy until it starts to sort of maybe be a little bit true. She’s done it before. To varying degrees of success.
It’s just like ironically complimenting herself instead of relying so heavily on self-deprecating humor. Which is something she’s still working on, but it’s supposed to help improve your self image because if you say nice things so much, even ironically, you’ll start to believe them. If Dazai can be ironically happy, then she can trick her mind into being happy for real. That’s so genius. Who needs antidepressants when you can gaslight gatekeep girlboss your way into better mental health?
Dazai doesn’t actually wash her hair or her body, but she lets the water run off of her for a while which is almost just as good. Then, she shuts it off and wraps new bandages around herself. She slips from the bathroom to the bedroom, towel covering most of her body as if there’s anything that can be seen beneath the white strips of cloth covering her entire form, and puts on new pajamas. Yes girl, start your day at seven p.m.!
Kunikida has the food set out on the table by the time Dazai returns. He’s also tidied up her apartment quite a bit, probably more for his own benefit than hers. He can’t stand when things are unorderly. It’s endearing until it’s annoying.
Dazai sits down at the place set for her. Kunikida ordered sushi, which is probably because he knows Dazai has this thing with food temperatures and she really hates eating hot food once it’s gone lukewarm and reheating it just doesn’t taste as good. He didn’t know how long she would be in the shower, so sushi eliminated the risk of hot food growing cold and giving Dazai an excuse not to eat.
Smart.
Dazai almost feels appreciation, but her emotions are still all out-of-whack so really she just knows that she should feel appreciation while she actually continues feeling nothing at all. But nothing is better than whatever emotional sludge she’s been covered in for the past four days. Her brain is still foggy, but it’s a cool spring mist fog instead of toxic wasteland gas. It’s refreshing in a certain light.
“Fyodor texted while you were in the shower,” Kunikida tells her. “When you didn’t answer, he tried calling. I can respond on your behalf, but I figured I shouldn’t without permission.”
“That’s unlike you,” Dazai snarks. Then, she stuffs her mouth with sushi so she can’t say anything else. Something like You sure love trying to fix every other aspect of my life or Don’t you want to steal him from me too? or You can excuse breaking into my apartment but draw the line at answering my phone? or a thousand other things she doesn’t really mean or maybe only half-means because they’re only half-true and even then she really shouldn’t say them out loud. She knows better than that.
She watches Kunikida wage an internal battle before letting her words slide right off of him. “I would recommend you ease his concerns sooner rather than later.”
Dazai slows her chewing. She can’t say anything as long as there’s still food in her mouth. Kunikida is trying to be nice. Kunikida is trying to be nice. Kunikida is being nice. He does this because he cares, and it’s not his fault Dazai has an unshakable aversion to other people helping her. He doesn’t deserve the wrath Dazai should be reserving for herself, because she isn’t mad at him, she’s mad at her. She’s mad at the weak excuse of a person that is Dazai Osamu.
Wow, that’s way too much self awareness directly after coming off of a four-day depression spiral. YIKES.
She swallows. “Where’s my phone?”
“In your bedroom, charging,” Kunikida answers. “I’ll get it for you.”
Dazai thinks: Thank you. But the words get caught in her throat, and so she just swallows them down and lets Kunikida walk away. She takes another bite of her food and it settles in her mouth like cotton.
When Kunikida returns, she accepts the phone with slightly-shaky hands. She has three unread messages from Fyodor and two missed calls. She stares at her phone for several minutes, debating whether drafting a text or calling would sap more of her energy.
She slides the phone over to Kunikida. “Call them for me.”
“You’re sure?”
Dazai doesn’t answer. Kunikida hears her anyway.
He calls Fyodor, then puts the phone on speaker so the ringing fills the space between them. Once, twice, three times, and then—
“Dazai?”
“Heyyyyy,” she says and hopes that he can’t hear how much she wants to die right now through just that one word. “I’ve been having a not-so-slayful time. Depressed girl era, yanno? Rotting in bed era. It’s just— a thing. Sorry if you were worried or…whatever. King to E2?”
Kunikida frowns, obviously confused.
Fyodor sighs in obvious relief, and it trickles off into a cough. Ah. They’re sick too. But for, like, real reasons and not because their brain likes to tear itself apart screaming DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE!!!!!! at random intervals. “Move your king back where it belongs,” he says. “I am, unfortunately, unable to leave my apartment. But Nikolai can stop by if you’re in need of company.”
“No, no, I’m fine. Kunikida-kun is here with me. Um…” her voice trails off. She doesn’t really know what else to say. She only called because she would have spent two hours trying to correctly word a text and she did at least want to let him know she’s alive. “Pawn to D4?”
“Not now.” Fyodor sounds apologetic. He must be feeling worse than he’s letting on. “Will you call me tomorrow morning?”
“Yeah, totally, I can do that!” Tomorrow morning is not a time that conceptually exists in Dazai’s mind right now. She gets bad about time when she’s like this. Nothing beyond the present moment is real, which means consequences aren’t real, which means she’ll just agree to whatever. “See you then, sugar pumpkin pie. Kisses, mwah! Byeeee~”
“Don’t call me that,” Fyodor says, with no heat whatsoever. And then they promptly end the call.
Dazai pushes her food aside and slumps forward onto the table. Not killing herself takes so much effort. It’s really not fair. She isn’t even having a good time.
But, no, that’s not true. She was having a good time literally less than a week ago. She can’t imagine ever feeling that happy again, but she knows that’s just a lie born from the heavy numbness currently residing in her chest. She was happy once, she will be happy again. She was happy once, she will be happy again.
There are things you can know to be true, and still, that doesn’t mean you believe in them.
“Is there anything else I can do?” Kunikida asks.
Dazai shrugs half-heartedly. He won’t want to hear it, but the problem within her is not something that can be fixed. He can’t schedule her a perfect life or pep-talk her into loving herself. Her mind simply does not work in the same way his does, and the solutions he’s found for himself will slide right off Dazai’s broken being. He can force her to eat and shower, but the effects are painfully temporary.
“Well…” Kunikida hesitates. “Can you eat any more?”
Dazai shrugs again.
“Can you try?” Irritation runs a thin line through his voice. That’s perfect, really. That’s what Dazai wants—annoy him until he gives up and leaves her alone. Loneliness makes it easier to die peacefully.
“No.”
“Dazai—!” Kunikida stops himself abruptly. He takes several strained, deep breaths. When he speaks again, it’s measured and clipped: “I won’t force you to do anything, but I strongly recommend you try to finish your food. And I intend to come back tomorrow morning to wake you up for work.”
I hate you, Dazai thinks, vehement and scathing. But she swallows it down because while it feels true in the moment, she knows it’s not something she’ll stand by later.
With monumental effort, she lifts her head and drags her plate back towards her. The food on it appears daunting and unappetizing, but when she glances up towards Kunikida and finds him wearing an encouraging smile, she relents. She made a decision to at least fake happiness in the shower, so she should probably stand by it. And that means forcing herself to eat.
There are worse things she could be doing, she supposes. At least she can douse her sushi in an obscene amount of sauce so all she tastes is the spice, and she can laugh at Kunikida’s judgmental stare.
She can find the Dazai from a week ago who was happy-ish and wear her face until she forgets who she really is underneath. Breathe in, breathe out, put a smile on your face. Eat what you can and make a light excuse about not being very hungry when you can’t stomach anymore. Thank Kunikida for checking in on you and promise you’ll see him at work tomorrow. Don’t think too hard about any of the eight hundred things that sent you spiraling in the first place. If you ignore them, they don’t exist, and you can be happy.
You can be happy.
YOU CAN BE HAPPY.
“Okay,” Dazai whispers, half to herself and half in response to Kunikida. In the back of her mind, she hears Odasaku’s voice: Don’t expect changing things will make your life suddenly perfect, but it will make it a life you are more interested in living. Building a life worth living is hard, but it’s worth it. It doesn’t feel like it, but it is. Dazai knows this; she’s reaped the benefits already. She has friends. She has a boyfriend(!!). She has a job she doesn’t hate. She’s taking classes that actually interest her. Literature as a lens to study the human condition may not get her anywhere in life, but she will be able to say she graduated and the coursework mostly doesn’t make her want to die, once she actually starts working on it.
Dazai has reasons to live. Even when they aren’t compelling, they’re still there.
They find her in her apartment, and they sit across from her, making sure she eats and showers and doesn’t kill herself on a wayward impulse.
Breathe in, breathe out.
She brings a sushi roll to her mouth and nibbles at it. The hardest step is usually the first one.
—
Thursday morning is no better than the rest of the week, really. Except Dazai wakes to a text from Kunikida saying he’ll be picking her up at 7am sharp and he will be dragging her to the library whether she’s dressed or not. So at 6:55, Dazai drags herself out of bed, throws on a sweater and the first pair of pants she sees that aren’t wrinkled beyond all hope, and packs her bag while only half-aware of her body.
Kunikida arrives exactly when he said he would, because punctuality will always be his first love, and Dazai reluctantly follows him outside to his car. He buckles her in like she’s five years old, which is fair, because Dazai certainly wouldn’t have done it herself. She debates unbuckling as soon as he’s situated himself, just for the laughs, but then she remembers she promised Fyodor she’d call them this morning. That’s probably more important than annoying Kunikida.
Unfortunate.
It takes four rings before he picks up. Dazai counts the trees they pass while she waits.
“Hello?” Fyodor asks, voice slurring like he just woke up.
“Hi!” Dazai replies brightly. “I promised I’d call, so here I am! How are you doing?”
Fyodor makes a vague sound of acknowledgment. Dazai must have woken him, because he sounds almost on the verge of incoherence and she’s only ever seen him properly polished and put-together.
“Were you up late last night?”
“Interesting guess.” Dazai can hear the slight smirk in his voice. “No. I’m…tired.”
“Tired?” she questions, rolling the word around in her mouth. That explanation isn’t a direct opposition to her hypothesis, but Fyodor must not currently have enough energy to explain any better. Which means it’s a fatigue issue. “Oh, I see. You can just text or call me when you have more energy!”
“Okay,” Fyodor agrees simply, and then he immediately hangs up.
Because she didn’t get to give him a proper farewell, Dazai carefully curates a string of emojis to send off to him instead, which doubles as a fun little puzzle for him to solve later. By the time she finishes, Kunikida is pulling into a parking spot.
She climbs out of his car and is hit with a burst of frigid winter wind. She should have grabbed her coat, but she was too numb to feel much of anything when she left her apartment this morning, and so now she must suffer. Such is the life of—
A weight drops over her shoulders.
She looks up to find Kunikida without his own coat. “Wh—?”
“I can walk faster than you,” he explains, though he’s matching pace with Dazai right now. “Besides, the cold makes your leg worse, doesn’t it?”
With her free hand, Dazai pulls the coat tighter around her, holding it shut in front of her chest. “You’ll make poor Fyodor-kun jealous~”
“He has no reason to be.” Kunikida shoots a sideways smile at Dazai. “I have a partner of my own whom I have no intention of leaving.”
Dazai gasps. She nearly trips over her own feet in her haste to grab at Kunikida’s sleeve, foregoing use of her cane so she doesn’t lose the coat. “Oh my God!! You actually asked them? And they said yes?! And—”
“Dazai,” he interrupts. Gently, he pries her fingers off of him and forces her cane back to the ground. Then, he nods towards the entrance of the library. Dazai’s gaze follows the direction he gestured towards until she finds herself…
looking at Chuuya. Standing outside of the entrance, waiting with two coffee cups in hand. From the café across campus that serves the vanilla hazelnut coffee Kunikida likes. What a suck-up.
“Ew,” she complains. “I thought they weren’t allowed to visit the library ever?”
Kunikida doesn’t answer, because he’s too busy speedwalking to greet his new partner. He leans down to kiss them, and the height difference is a bit comical, but the twin lovesick smiles they’re wearing when they part is so revolting that Dazai doesn’t even get a chance to make a short joke.
“You two are gross. Stupid slug, why are you here? You can’t even read.”
“Fuck you,” they say. Then, they hold out the second cup to Dazai. “Mocha with extra rat poison. I had to special order it, so you’d better drink every last drop.”
“Awww, how kind of you! Your boyfriend is being sooo mean to me and won’t let me die in peace. Gimme!”
But as she reaches for the cup, Chuuya pulls it back. “Dazai—”
“I’m kidding!” she interrupts quickly, because she knows that concerned furrow in Chuuya’s brow and she’s really not in the mood for another lecture. “Well, mostly. Can I have my drink now, or are you going to make me stand in one spot until I collapse because you hate me so much?”
“I don’t hate you,” Chuuya grumbles, shoving the cup into Dazai’s hand. They tug Kunikida’s coat off of her shoulders, then wrap it around themself while Kunikida opens the door. He holds it for both Chuuya and Dazai because he’s a gentleman, and Dazai heads straight for the desk while Chuuya and Kunikida stop just inside, whispering to one another.
Dazai plops down in her chair and sips her drink as she watches them.
She sort of hates them, but she doesn’t know why. It’s not like she wants Chuuya back. She wants something else that they have; she wants…
She huffs out a sigh, resting her chin on her hand.
She wants happiness to be that easy. Because Chuuya grins at Kunikida and pulls him into a kiss, and it’s easy and there’s no ever-present grief lying beneath it. There is no spiral waiting to happen because neither Chuuya nor Kunikida are ticking time bombs. When they think of the future, they see themselves thriving.
When Dazai thinks of the future, all she can see is her own gravestone. She can’t imagine anything else.
She slumps forward on the table, lays her head on her arms, and closes her eyes. It’ll be about three minutes before she can’t be alone with her own thoughts unless she can fall asleep or successfully dissociate within that time frame. The second is more feasible, but a nap does sound nice too.
She shifts her thoughts to a game of chess, imagines Fyodor is in her mind playing with her, and does her best to suppress any spiraling.