Chapter Text
The bathroom felt suffocatingly small.
Too bright.
Too quiet.
Too full of blood.
Dazai slowly stood from the floor with Akutagawa still in his arms.
The movement was unsteady.
Not because Akutagawa was heavy.
Because Dazai’s hands would not stop shaking.
Blood smeared across his clothes, soaked into the bandages around his arms, stained his fingers dark crimson. Some of it had dried already. Some still felt warm.
Akutagawa was still warm too.
That was the worst part.
His body had not gone cold yet.
His head rested limply against Dazai’s shoulder, dark hair brushing against his jaw. One pale arm hung slack against Dazai’s chest, sleeve fallen enough to expose the endless network of scars carved into fragile skin.
The pink lace strap had slipped halfway down one shoulder.
Dazai stared at it blankly.
His breathing came unevenly.
Sharp inhales.
Unsteady exhales.
Like his lungs suddenly did not know how to function properly.
His eyes looked wrong now.
Dark.
Red-rimmed.
Wide in a way they never were.
He looked less like the terrifying prodigy of the Port Mafia and more like a terrified child holding something he could not fix.
Like a toy he played to rough with.
Akutagawa’s blood was everywhere.
On the sink.
On the floor.
On Dazai’s hands.
At the corner of Akutagawa’s mouth.
Dried crimson stained his teeth slightly beneath parted lips.
The tiny smile was gone now.
Only stillness remained.
Dazai stared down at him.
And the thought hit him again.
"My fault."
It slammed through his head so hard it nearly made him nauseous.
"This is my fault."
Not Mori’s.
Not the Port Mafia’s.
His.
His fault for not seeing it.
His fault for seeing it and not understanding.
The empty refrigerator.
The medicine cabinets.
The obsessive cleaning.
The blood-stained desk.
The book about death.
The rope burns around Akutagawa’s neck.
The way he said he was tired.
All of it had been screaming at him.
And Dazai—
Dazai had walked in planning to yell at him for missing a report.
A horrible sound escaped Dazai’s throat suddenly.
Half laugh.
Half choking gasp.
His grip tightened unconsciously around Akutagawa.
Too tight.
Then immediately loosened again, panicked he might hurt him somehow even though, Even though there was nothing left to hurt.
“No…”
The word came out thin and shaking.
Dazai stared at Akutagawa’s face desperately like if he looked long enough something would change.
Any second now those dull eyes would open.
Any second now he would cough and glare and apologize for inconveniencing him.
Any second now—
Nothing happened.
The silence pressed heavier.
Dazai’s pulse thundered painfully in his ears.
He suddenly looked around the bathroom wildly.
At the blood.
At the rope shoved into the trash.
At the spotless counters.
At the bottles of medication lined up perfectly.
Akutagawa had been dying in here.
Alone.
Dazai imagined him that morning standing on that chair with the rope around his neck.
No one there.
No one stopping him.
No one noticing.
The image hit Dazai so violently he nearly doubled over.
His stomach twisted hard enough to hurt.
“Why didn’t you say anything?” he whispered hoarsely.
Akutagawa, of course, did not answer.
Because Dazai had trained him not to.
Weakness was punished.
Pain was ignored.
Illness was an inconvenience.
Failure deserved cruelty.
Dazai had taught him all of that personally.
And Akutagawa had learned too well.
Dazai’s hands trembled harder.
He remembered every insult suddenly with unbearable clarity.
"Pathetic."
"Weak."
"Not good enough."
The words echoed viciously through his head now.
Akutagawa had believed every single one.
Dazai slowly backed out of the bathroom, carrying him carefully.
Like Akutagawa might still wake if he was handled gently enough.
The apartment remained horrifyingly neat.
The living room lamp cast warm light across immaculate floors and untouched furniture.
It looked like nobody lived there.
Like Akutagawa had already been fading from existence long before tonight.
Dazai lowered himself onto the couch with shaky movements, still holding him.
He couldn’t put him down.
Couldn’t.
The moment he let go this would become real.
Akutagawa’s head rested against his chest now.
Still warm.
Still soft.
Dazai brushed damp black hair away from his face mechanically.
His fingers snagged slightly against dried blood.
“You idiot,” he whispered weakly.
The words held no anger anymore.
Only grief.
“You absolute idiot…”
His voice cracked apart again.
Dazai pressed his forehead shakily against Akutagawa’s hair and squeezed his eyes shut.
Memories kept surfacing without permission.
Akutagawa at fourteen years old standing bloodied in the alleyways begging for strength.
Akutagawa dragging himself through injuries just to earn acknowledgment.
Akutagawa looking at Dazai like he hung the stars themselves.
And Dazai—
Dazai had used that devotion like a weapon.
Because it was easy.
Because empathy was difficult.
Because cruelty got results faster.
A bitter laugh escaped him again.
Results.
What results?
Akutagawa was dead at fourteen years old in an apartment full of medicine and blood and unspoken words.
Dazai suddenly realized something else.
Nobody knew.
No one in the Port Mafia had noticed.
Not the subordinates.
Not Mori.
Not Chuuya.
Not him.
Akutagawa had been walking around half-dead for who knew how long and nobody saw beyond the violence.
Because nobody looked.
Dazai’s breathing hitched unevenly.
His chest hurt.
Actually hurt.
Like something sharp had lodged beneath his ribs.
He hated it.
Hated this feeling.
This choking helplessness clawing through him.
There was no enemy to fight.
No strategy.
No manipulation.
Nothing to fix.
Just irreversible silence.
Akutagawa’s limp hand brushed against Dazai’s wrist from where it hung between them.
Dazai froze immediately.
Instinctively he grabbed it.
Cold creeping slowly into pale fingers.
The sight nearly unraveled him completely.
“No no no…”
The panic returned instantly.
Violent.
Wild.
Dazai pulled Akutagawa closer like body heat alone could undo death.
“You can’t—”
His voice failed again.
Tears blurred his vision heavily now, slipping down his face unchecked.
Dazai never cried.
He especially never cried for other people.
Yet now he could barely stop shaking long enough to breathe properly.
“This wasn’t supposed to happen,” he whispered.
Akutagawa remained silent in his arms.
Dazai stared at the scars crossing his exposed arm.
So many.
He traced one lightly with trembling fingers.
Old.
Raised.
Years old probably.
Akutagawa had been hurting himself long before tonight.
Long before Dazai noticed.
Maybe long before Dazai even met him.
And somehow that hurt too.
Because Dazai could suddenly picture it too clearly:
A tiny apartment.
A child alone with blades and blood and nobody to stop him.
Nobody to tell him he mattered outside usefulness.
Dazai lowered his head again shakily.
“This is my fault.”
The confession came barely above a whisper.
But once spoken, it would not leave him alone.
"My fault."
For pushing too hard.
For never asking questions.
For rewarding self-destruction as loyalty.
For mistaking obedience for strength.
For seeing Akutagawa cough blood for months and never caring enough to wonder why.
Dazai’s fingers curled desperately in the fabric of the pink shirt.
He remembered the humiliation in Akutagawa’s voice earlier.
"Do not look at me."
"I know I look disgusting.
The memory made something inside Dazai crack further.
Because Akutagawa had truly believed Dazai would hate him for being weak.
Even while dying.
Especially while dying.
And maybe he had been right to think that.
At least until tonight.
Dazai thought back to the desk in the apartment bedroom.
The blood-stained blades still sat there under warm lamplight.
Neatly arranged.
Carefully cleaned.
Like every wound had been methodical.
Controlled.
Lonely.
Dazai suddenly stood again abruptly, clutching Akutagawa tightly.
His breathing had become ragged.
Uneven.
His thoughts spiraled faster and faster.
He should have seen it.
How did he not see it?
Akutagawa practically worshipped him and Dazai never once looked close enough to notice he was dying.
A sharp, broken sound escaped his throat again.
Not quite a sob.
Close.
His eyes burned red as he looked down at the boy in his arms.
So small.
So exhausted.
And still warm enough to almost feel alive.
That warmth was becoming unbearable.
Because every second it faded made reality harder to deny.
Dazai held him tighter anyway.
Like letting go would mean abandoning him one final time.
And somewhere deep down, beneath all the panic and horror and grief—
Dazai realized this would never leave him.
Not ever.
For the rest of his life, every time he closed his eyes, he would remember walking into this apartment planning to scream at a dying boy for a simple task going incomplete.
Dazai noticed it first in Akutagawa’s fingers.
The slow loss of warmth.
Not sudden. Not dramatic.
Just a gradual retreat, like heat itself had decided there was nothing left to stay for.
Dazai froze mid-step in the living room.
His arms tightened around Akutagawa instinctively.
Too tight again.
Then he forced himself to loosen his grip.
Carefully.
Like that mattered now.
Akutagawa’s head rested against his shoulder, still limp, still impossibly light. The pink lace shirt had bunched slightly at the waist from being carried, exposing thin, scarred skin beneath. Blood had dried in places along his jaw and collarbone, dark against pale skin that was slowly losing its color.
Dazai stared at him.
Then realized something that made his breath hitch.
He was getting colder.
“…”
Dazai swallowed.
His throat felt raw.
He shifted his hold slightly, adjusting Akutagawa higher in his arms as if that could reverse anything.
It didn’t.
The apartment was still too bright.
Too clean.
Too normal for what was happening inside it.
Dazai took a step forward.
Then another.
His legs felt wrong—disconnected, like they were moving on instructions he wasn’t consciously giving anymore.
He passed the kitchen again.
The medicine cabinets.
The empty fridge.
The desk with the blood and blades and book about dying.
Every detail now felt like it had been carved into his memory permanently.
Not as observation.
As evidence.
He kept walking.
Akutagawa’s body shifted slightly with each step, completely unresisting. His arm hung loosely over Dazai’s shoulder, fingers slack.
Dazai looked down once.
Just once.
The dull expression on Akutagawa’s face hadn’t changed.
The faint tear track was still visible on his cheek, dried into the blood at his jawline.
That tiny smile from earlier felt like it belonged to someone else entirely now.
Dazai turned away.
He walked into the bedroom.
The room was exactly as it had been earlier.
Perfect.
Controlled.
A lie of order over something completely falling apart.
The bed stood untouched in the center, sheets still tightly made, corners crisp and precise.
Dazai approached it slowly.
Then stopped.
For a moment, he just stood there holding Akutagawa.
Not moving.
Not thinking.
Just… staring at the bed like it was the first real object he had seen all night.
Then he lowered himself down carefully, sitting on the edge while still holding him.
Akutagawa’s weight shifted slightly into his lap.
Dazai’s hands trembled harder.
“Don’t…” he started, then stopped.
The word didn’t know where to go.
Don’t what?
Don’t die?
Too late.
Don’t leave?
Already gone.
Don’t make this real?
It already was.
Dazai exhaled shakily.
Slowly, carefully, he lifted Akutagawa and set him down on the bed.
The movement was almost reverent.
Like if he was gentle enough, the world would reconsider.
Akutagawa’s body sank slightly into the mattress.
Still limp.
Still unresponsive.
Dazai stared at him for a long moment.
Then, with hands that would not stop shaking, he pulled the blanket up.
It snagged slightly on Akutagawa’s arm, and Dazai paused instantly, terrified of hurting him even now.
He adjusted it carefully.
Tucked it in.
Slow movements.
Precise.
Like he was trying to recreate order in something that could never be ordered again.
The blanket covered the pink lace shirt, the scars, the blood-stained skin.
Only Akutagawa’s face remained visible.
Dazai smoothed the fabric once near his shoulder.
Then stopped.
His hand hovered there.
Uncertain.
Useless.
Akutagawa looked peaceful in a way he never had in life.
No tension in his brow.
No strain in his jaw.
No violence in his expression.
Just stillness.
Dazai’s breathing hitched.
Once.
Twice.
Then broke completely.
“No…”
The word cracked out of him before he could stop it.
His vision blurred violently.
He blinked hard, but it didn’t help.
Tears spilled anyway.
Hot.
Fast.
He turned his face slightly away like that would somehow contain it, but it didn’t matter.
They kept coming.
Dazai pressed a hand to his mouth.
His shoulders shook once.
Then again.
And then everything collapsed.
He bent forward sharply, gripping the edge of the bed beside Akutagawa as his body started shaking in a way he couldn’t control.
“No, no, no—”
His voice broke apart into something unrecognizable.
Not calm.
Not controlled.
Not anything he had ever been.
Just raw sound.
Grief with nowhere to go.
His tears fell onto the blanket covering Akutagawa’s chest.
Dazai’s hands clenched into the fabric like it could anchor him.
Like it could undo anything.
“I didn’t—” he tried, but the sentence shattered.
“I didn’t see it—”
Another breath.
Sharp.
Broken.
“I didn’t—”
He couldn’t finish it.
Because there was no version of that sentence that didn’t end in the same place.
Dazai leaned closer without meaning to, forehead almost touching the blanket now.
His shoulders shook harder.
The composure he had built his entire life on was gone in pieces too small to recover.
“I was right there,” he whispered.
His voice was barely audible.
“And I didn’t see you.”
The words hung in the air like something irreparable.
Akutagawa did not respond.
Dazai lifted his head slightly, looking at him again through blurred vision.
The stillness hadn’t changed.
That was the cruelest part.
Nothing about Akutagawa would ever change again.
Dazai made a broken sound again—half laugh, half sob—and wiped his face with a shaking hand, only to smear more tears across his skin.
“I told you…” he whispered hoarsely.
“I told you you were pathetic.”
His voice cracked.
“That’s what you believed, isn’t it?”
Silence.
Of course there was silence.
Dazai gripped the edge of the bed harder.
His knuckles were white.
“I taught you that,” he said, quieter now.
Not accusing.
Just realizing.
“I taught you that dying was easier than being weak.”
His breathing stuttered.
“And you listened.”
Tears kept falling.
He didn’t stop them anymore.
Couldn’t.
Dazai turned slightly and looked at Akutagawa again, really looked at him.
At the still face.
At the faint bruising on the neck.
At the scars barely visible beneath the blanket.
At the boy who had been reduced to silence.
His chest hurt in a way that felt unfamiliar and unbearable.
“I didn’t know…” Dazai whispered.
The sentence sounded empty even as he said it.
Because it wasn’t an excuse.
It was just truth.
Too late truth.
His hand slowly reached out and brushed Akutagawa’s hair back again, like earlier.
The same motion.
Except now there was no flinch.
No tension.
No response at all.
Dazai’s hand trembled against his head.
Then dropped.
He collapsed forward again, this time fully, sitting on the edge of the bed as his body shook with silent, uncontrollable sobs.
His forehead rested near Akutagawa’s shoulder.
Close.
Too close.
But still not enough to change anything.
The room stayed quiet except for Dazai’s broken breathing.
And for the first time in his life, he understood something he had spent years avoiding.
Some things couldn’t be fixed.
Some things didn’t have a strategy.
And some things—once lost—left nothing behind but silence and blood on clean floors.
Dazai’s sobbing didn’t stop all at once.
It didn’t have an ending the way things usually did.
It just… slowed.
Broke apart into uneven breaths.
Then into silence so sharp it hurt more than sound.
Dazai stayed sitting on the edge of the bed for a long time, shoulders still shaking faintly, head bowed near the blanket that covered Akutagawa.
Eventually, even that stopped.
Not because it got better.
Because his body simply ran out of reaction.
The room was too quiet again.
Too clean.
Too carefully arranged for something so wrong.
Dazai finally lifted his head.
His face was pale, streaked with dried tears and smudged blood from his hands where he had unconsciously touched his face. His eyes looked unfocused—still red, still glassy, but no longer overflowing.
Just hollow now.
He stared at Akutagawa for a moment longer.
Then slowly turned away.
The movement felt mechanical.
Like something inside him had decided it could not stay there anymore.
Dazai stood.
His legs were unsteady, but they held.
Barely.
He turned toward the rest of the bedroom.
For the first time since entering this apartment, he actually *looked* at it.
Not as a crime scene.
Not as evidence.
But as a place someone had lived in while quietly falling apart.
The dresser was still perfectly aligned.
Clothes folded with obsessive precision.
No clutter.
No mess.
No life.
Dazai’s eyes drifted to the bookshelf.
He hadn’t focused on it earlier.
Now it felt like it was the only thing in the room that wasn’t screaming.
He walked over slowly.
Each step felt heavier than the last.
The shelves were neatly arranged—books lined up in strict order, not a single one out of place. Medical texts. Strategy manuals. Mission reports bound and archived. Everything functional. Everything necessary.
And then—
His eyes stopped.
A single book, placed slightly differently than the others.
Not quite hidden.
Not quite displayed.
Just… there.
Dazai reached for it.
His fingers hesitated for a fraction of a second before pulling it free.
The cover was worn.
More handled than the others.
The title read:
**“The Resurrection”**
Dazai stared at it.
For a moment, his expression didn’t change.
Then he laughed.
It was short.
Sharp.
Completely empty.
“Of course,” he muttered under his breath.
The sound echoed slightly in the quiet room.
He turned the book in his hands slowly, as if inspecting something ridiculous.
His voice came out quieter now, almost conversational.
“You really went this far…”
He opened it.
The pages were dense.
Too dense.
Organized like a report rather than a hopeful theory.
A list of known abilities.
Classifications.
Case studies.
Dazai scanned the first page without really seeing it at first.
Then it started to register.
Abilities documented.
Abilities rumored.
Abilities classified under extreme rarity.
Some entries were marked with notes like *unverified* or *requires contact conditions*.
One page described an ability that could restore cellular function temporarily under specific constraints.
Another referenced regeneration beyond fatal injury thresholds.
Another mentioned conceptual restoration—but with unknown limits.
Dazai’s eyes moved quickly.
Faster than they should have.
Like his brain was trying to outrun itself.
His fingers tightened slightly on the spine of the book.
“No way…” he muttered.
It came out almost disbelieving.
Not hopeful.
Not yet.
Just refusing.
He flipped another page.
More entries.
More names.
More abilities that bent logic in ways that normally would have interested him.
Under different circumstances, he would have analyzed them.
Broken them apart.
Tested their limits.
But now—
Now it wasn’t analysis.
It was something else entirely.
His eyes lingered on a section describing revival-adjacent abilities. Conditions involving transfer, substitution, conceptual rewriting.
Impossible things.
Or things that should be impossible.
Dazai’s breathing slowed slightly as he read.
The words blurred together once.
He blinked hard.
Refocused.
Then continued.
A quiet, almost absent sound escaped him again.
Not laughter this time.
Something closer to disbelief trying and failing to become humor.
“This is ridiculous,” he said softly.
His voice didn’t sound angry.
Just tired.
He turned another page.
Stopped.
Stared.
For a long moment, he didn’t move at all.
The book felt heavier suddenly.
Not physically.
Just—
Heavier.
He exhaled slowly.
Then let out another short laugh, but it didn’t land properly this time.
“Right,” he whispered.
“Of course.”
He closed the book slightly, thumb still resting between pages, as if hesitating to fully shut it.
His gaze drifted back toward the bed.
Akutagawa didn’t move.
Didn’t breathe.
Didn’t exist in any way that could respond.
Dazai looked at him for a long moment.
Then back at the book.
His grip tightened again.
“…Even if something like this existed,” he muttered, almost to himself, “it wouldn’t be that simple.”
His fingers flexed slightly on the cover.
His voice lowered further.
“Nothing is ever that simple.”
He closed the book fully.
The sound was soft.
Final.
Dazai stood there for a moment longer, holding it.
Then slowly lowered it back onto the shelf.
Exactly where it had been.
Perfect alignment.
Back in order.
Like everything else in this room pretending nothing had gone wrong.
He stepped back.
His eyes lingered on the bookshelf for another second.
Then shifted toward the bed again.
Akutagawa’s outline beneath the blanket remained unchanged.
Dazai’s expression didn’t break this time.
It didn’t have the energy to.
His shoulders rose and fell once with a slow breath.
Then he turned fully away from the shelf.
And stood still in the center of the room.
For a long moment, he didn’t move.
Didn’t speak.
Didn’t think in words he could recognize.
Then quietly—
He straightened.
Not sharply.
Not with purpose.
Just… upright.
Like something inside him had clicked into a colder, quieter shape.
His hands were still shaking slightly.
But less.
Fainter.
Contained.
Dazai glanced once more at the bed.
Then at the door.
Then back again.
His voice came out low.
Flat.
Almost distant.
“…I see.”
And for the first time since entering the apartment, he stopped spiraling outward.
Not because the pain was gone.
But because it had shifted into something sharper.
Something focused.
Something that would not stay buried.