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ONE
They met on move-in day. Mizuki and her father unpacked her things, made her bed. She pinned bright posters and fairy lights on the walls, and that night, her father took her and her new roommate out to dinner. Sakaguchi Ango was quiet and shy. His hair was neatly gelled back, and he responded politely to their questions. Like Mizuki, he was a criminal justice major, and, with some pressing, he admitted that he had watched every Marvel movie released in the past five years, although he didn’t seem very enthusiastic about it.
“Who’s your favorite Avenger?” she asked, and he shrugged.
“I’m not sure. They’re all interesting, and they all have a lot of potential. None of them are really developed that much, though, are they? Black Widow’s characterization is especially shaky. Anyway, I’ve always preferred the Guardians of the Galaxy, Gamora in particular. I enjoy how she manages to break away from her abusive father figure and find a family in the Guardians, or at least I did when I was younger. I haven’t watched the movie in years.”
“Well, we’ll just have to watch it again soon!” Mizuki told him, smiling.
“I suppose we will,” Ango replied, with a hesitant smile back.
Something Mizuki quickly learned about her roommate was that he was a genius . He spent nearly all of his time studying and working on homework, and whenever she struggled in class he was quick to offer her help. They took their meals together in the cafeteria, and Mizuki could confidently say that they were friends, even if he did always hurry back to the dorm after meals and class and was more reticent than any person she’d ever met before.
“Hey, Senpai,” she called one day, coming in to see him taking notes from the textbook, several chapters ahead of the class. “What are you doing? You do know you can take breaks, right?”
“Of course I do, Tsujimura,” he replied, looking up with a tired smile. “I will take a break, just as soon as I finish outlining our textbooks.”
“All of them?” she asked. “Seriously, the entirety of every textbook for every class? You’re going to burn yourself out.”
He shrugged. “The outlines will probably help you out, and it’ll help me on tests and papers. Besides, I’m tired.”
“...So you’re outlining the entirety of every textbook for all of our classes ?”
“I’ll rest when I’m done.” He flipped over the page and continued working on the other side.
Mizuki shook her head. “You’re crazy, Senpai.”
“Maybe I am,” he replied. “It would explain a lot.”
She wasn’t supposed to be back in the dorms that night. Yukito, her annoying genius of a cousin, had come up to visit between his own college classes, and they were going to spend the night watching movies, making absurd coffee drinks, and heavily judging every single person they saw. They were supposed to be in the restaurant right now, cheap greasy food that Yukito would complain about before eating, people-watching and planning out their night. But she had forgotten her wallet, and so rushed back to the dorms, dragging Yukito along by his wrist.
“Mizuki, you could have just left me in the car,” he complained. “I don’t need to come along. Your roommate is boring, anyway.”
“You haven’t met him, and he’s actually really sweet,” she shot back. “Besides, we both know you’re great at finding things, and I want to find my wallet ASAP, not sic you on some poor boy you’ve never met.”
“Whatever,” Yukito huffed. “Maybe he’s got some sort of deep dark secret or something that I can play with, since odds are there aren’t any new dolls in there.”
“And even if there were, they’d belong to Senpai, not you, and you couldn’t take them.”
Yukito huffed. “I know, Mizuki, I’m not a thief.”
“Could’ve fooled me.”
He rolled his eyes as she unlocked the dorm room door and pushed past her. She sighed, stepping after her cousin and already preparing an apology.
“Holy fuck Mizuki! Your roommate just got a hell of a lot more interesting!” yelped Yukito.
“What--oh my God!”
Ango was collapsed on top of his desk in a pool of blood. It was coming from his arms, which were scored with massive gashes, and all of his schoolwork had been carefully moved to his perfectly made bed. There was a tarp covering his desk, too, and the blood shone on it. Mizuki sprinted the length of the room and started trying to staunch the bloodflow.
“Call 911! Yukito! Call them!” she screamed.
“Y-yeah, on it!”
She could hear the phone dialing, could hear her cousin speaking fast into it, but concentrated on keeping pressure on her roommate’s arms, even as the blood made her hands grow slick. An ambulance pulled up, and she gripped Yukito’s hand tightly as they watched him get bundled in.
“Mizuki,” Yukito said, “I take back literally everything I’ve ever said about your roommate. He is very interesting, and I am going to find out exactly what makes him tick.”
“He needs to wake up first,” Mizuki said, looking at her bloodstained hands. “He needs to survive this first.”
“He will,” Yukito said. “Just wait and see.”
Ango’s parents never came. He was in the hospital for weeks and they didn’t come once. Mizuki was furious on his behalf, but Ango just watched her with calm eyes.
“I don’t mind, Mizuki,” he told her more than once. “They aren’t the ones I really want to see.”
“Well,” she asked, “who do you want to see then?”
Ango just shook his head.
TWO
There was a kid sitting outside their dorm. Mizuki had seen him around once or twice over the past few months, but nobody seemed to have any clue who he was. Ango hadn’t seen him at all, so he wasn’t any help in the matter, and besides, he was still spending most of his time on his schoolwork, even if Mizuki had noticed him debating Yukito in the group chat when he claimed that he was studying. But now the kid was just sitting outside, and it looked like he was watching their window.
Mizuki called out a quick goodbye to Ango, who didn’t look up from his paper as she headed downstairs and over to the boy.
“Hello there,” she called.
The kid jumped, slightly. He was dressed formally, in a blouse and nice slacks, but seemed to be completely covered in bandages underneath. His dark brown hair was neatly combed, and his shoes shone in the morning light.
“Hi,” he said.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
“Running away. Or. Trying to stop running away, I guess.”
“What are you running away from?” she asked.
The boy shrugged.
“You don’t look dressed to run away. You look like...I don’t know, someone going to the symphony or something. Or my roommate, Ango. He always dresses up for class.”
“Your roommate who ?” the boy asked.
“Ango--Sakaguchi Ango. He’s shy and a bit stuffy, but very sweet once you get to know him. He’s my best friend, actually. Would you like to come meet him?”
The boy stared at her as if she’d sprouted an extra head. “Would. Would I what.”
“Like to come into our dorm? If you’re running away, you probably don’t have much access to good food. We keep snacks in our dorm--sometimes Ango gets caught up in his schoolwork and forgets to eat. You could get something--”
“He’s lucky to have you. No thank you to the food, I’m fine really.” The boy said. His voice was tense, and his hands were shaking.
“Are you sure? I wasn’t kidding about us having a lot. We’ve got bread, and peanut butter, and jam, and cheese, and chips, and candies, and ramen--because of course we have ramen, we’re college students. Senpai--er, Ango didn’t want to buy any last year, but it’s so convenient, and after the third day he forgot to go to the dining hall, I put my foot down and got us some.”
“Really,” the boy said. “I’m fine. I don’t need anything. I have access to food and shelter and everything. That’s not...that’s not the kind of runaway I am.”
“Are there different kinds of runaways?” Mizuki asked.
“Course there are. You can run away from a place, or you can run away from a person or a conversation or yourself. I’m doing all of those, except for the place one. I stopped physically running away a few months ago. Now I’m trying to...get out of the habit, as it were.”
“So, what, you just run off somewhere for the day for kicks, then?” she asked.
“Something like that, yeah.” the boy replied. “I guess, even if I’ve been adopted for real and I have a home, I can’t stop running from myself, and from...from myself. I can’t stop running from my mind and my choices.”
“Therapy?” Mizuki suggested. Ango had been going for a little over a year now, and he said it had helped him a lot. Mizuki agreed--even though he wasn’t exactly outgoing or anything, he was a far cry from the bland, empty boy she’d met on move-in day.
“Yeah, yeah, I know, I know. I’m doing that, yeah. It doesn’t--things still need to change. I still need to change. I need to make the choice and take the action and actually fucking--” he bit his words off and scowled at the ground.
The door to their dorm building opened and Ango stepped out. Mizuki waved to him.
“That’s my roommate,” she told the runaway, but he was already gone. “That’s weird.”
“What’s weird?” Ango asked.
“There was this kid. I’ve seen him walking around campus before, so I went to talk to him.”
“Oh, your ghost-boy?” Ango asked, rolling his eyes.
“It’s a plausible theory , Senpai! I swear, those bandages look like they belong to some massive injury, and not the sort that lends itself to walking around!”
“Well?” Ango asked. “Was he a ghost?”
“Honestly, I couldn’t tell,” she sighed. “On the one hand, he didn’t seem very concerned about food, and ghosts don’t have to eat. On the other, he mentioned that he’d been adopted recently, which doesn’t exactly lend itself to undeath.”
“That is true,” Ango said. “And I doubt either of us know any dead ten year old boys wearing bandages who would be likely to haunt us.”
“Actually, I think he was closer to fourteen or fifteen,” Mizuki said. “He had that high school freshman vibe, you know? And he dressed like someone about to visit their grandmother or go to a funeral or something.”
Ango frowned. “Fourteen?”
“Yeah. Fourteen, brown hair, absolutely covered in bandages--it was weird as fuck.” She glanced over at Ango, whose face had gone white. “Senpai, are you alright?”
“I--er--Tsujimura, where exactly did this boy go ?” he asked.
“I don’t know. He vanished into thin air when you came out--which actually lends more credence to the ghost theory, if you ask me.”
“When I came out,” Ango echoed softly. “Of course. That...that would make sense, yes.” He paused for a moment, closed his eyes, and exhaled slowly. “He didn’t...did he say anything about me?”
“He said you were lucky to have me,” she said, teasing although it was actually what the boy had said.
“Oh, very funny,” Ango replied. “Anyway, about Professor Akemi’s lecture…”
THREE
Mizuki threw her cap in the air, whooping, and Ango tossed his as well, only slightly more reserved.
“We did it!” she shouted, hugging him. He laughed and hugged her back. “We graduated!”
“We did!”
“Congratulations, bitches!” hollered Yukito from the audience.
Ango winced. “Has he always been that loud?”
“You have no idea,” Mizuki told him, pulling back and grabbing his hand as they headed out. Over the last four years, she had learned that her roommate was a very tactile person, although he seemed wary of initiating any of that contact. He definitely soaked up any that was given to him, though, so she squeezed his hand and pulled him through the crowd. “Oh, and we’re going out tonight to celebrate. You don’t get to say no.”
“I am not getting drunk,” he frowned.
“You are so . Seriously, Mr. Valedictorian, your job offers from the government won’t decline after one night on the town.”
Ango rolled his eyes. “And who’s going to drive you home, then?”
“I dunno, some cute guy or girl--oh, don’t look at me like that, it’s fun .”
“Right.”
“It is!”
They ran into Yukito--or rather, Yukito ran into them--near the exit, and Mizuki managed to bully him into giving them both congratulatory hugs. He was just as aware of Ango’s need for physical affection as she was, but he was also a bit of a bastard and preferred to be asked, despite the fact that, in the four years they’d been friends, Ango had not once asked for anything more important than a missed assignment. After that, they dragged Ango to a bar, where he ordered a tomato juice and, Mizuki was certain, prepared to update his blackmail folders on them both.
“He’ll have a whiskey, too,” Mizuki told the bartender about a half hour in, pleasantly buzzed and still bubbled up with laughter from a story about a childhood prank.
“Really, I’m fine, Tsujimura--”
“No, you’re getting it,” she told him.
He sighed, heavily, put-upon. “Yes, dear.”
The bartender left, and Yukito snickered. “You two are like an old married couple, seriously.”
“As if,” Ango scoffed.
“I dunno,” Mizuki told him. “I’d marry you.”
“Tsujimura,” he sighed, “I’m gay .”
“And I’m aromantic. Marriage isn’t about the romance or the sex, it’s about building a life together. We already know that we’re good together.”
The bartender brought the whiskey over, and Ango took a drink from it.
“How come I never got a marriage proposal from you, Mizuki?” asked Yukito.
“We’re cousins, dumbass, it’s illegal. Plus, Senpai is literally a eunuch, he’s never dated anyone. I know you’ve dated people before.”
“Actually, I’ve dated before,” Ango said.
“What? When?” Mizuki asked.
“You’ve been holding out on us,” Yukito added.
Ango rolled his eyes. “Not really. It was in high school. It ended badly.”
“It can’t have been that bad. It was high school ,” Mizuki told him.
“Believe me, it was that bad.” Ango took a sip of his whiskey and grimaced as he did so. “Long story short, he started talking to an internet predator who convinced him I was cheating on him, because I would disappear for a couple days a week. I was actually helping his younger siblings make a birthday present for him. I broke up with him after that, and since our friend group was me, him, and...the boy who was basically my younger brother in all but name, blood, and legal paperwork. The boy was ten, and also his guardian was abusive as all hell, so he was afraid to speak up during the fight, and so the fallout had him sticking with my ex. That weekend he collected evidence that I wasn’t cheating, but his guardian got upset about that for whatever reason, and had him stabbed and my ex’s siblings killed. He went into a coma, and when he woke up, I wasn’t there and my ex was. Said ex and his new boyfriend, the internet creep who, by the way, was several years older than us, managed to turn the boy against me, and when I went to see him, he lost it with me and blamed me for everything that happened, and also said some things...and you know how I was freshman year. I was still like that back then, so instead of trying to change his mind or helping take care of him, I cut him out of my life and I’m fairly certain he died or ran away soon after. So yes, it was that bad.”
“Jesus fucking Christ,” said Mizuki, draining her glass. “Yeah, that’s worse than what I was imagining.”
“You saw him get stabbed, didn’t you?” asked Yukito.
Ango shuddered and nodded.
“That would explain the trauma. You know, you can’t blame yourself for losing touch with him. You’d both been through a traumatizing event. He probably got you mixed up with it in his mind and sorted it out later. It wasn’t your fault.”
“I could have been there,” Ango argued. “He was a little kid, I should have helped him.”
“You were a kid too, Senpai,” Mizuki said, putting her arm around him. “Do you trust your ex with him?”
“Of course, he wouldn’t harm a hair on his head,” Ango replied, automatically leaning into her. “Honestly, that’s mostly why I haven’t tried to change things--I know that he was safe with him.”
“Then you didn’t do anything wrong,” she said. “And who knows--maybe he’ll come and apologize to you one day. Besides, you have us now.”
“I owe him the apology, not the other way around,” Ango said. “He’d gone through hell. I should have been there.”
“You can’t change the past,” Yukito said.
“That is true.” Ango smiled wryly. “Anyway--about the apartments we’ve been looking at…”
It was a blatant subject change, but Mizuki let it slide. This was the most information they’d gotten about Ango’s past in the four years she’d known him, and she wasn’t going to push. He would tell them more when he was ready.
FOUR
Mizuki followed her coworker around her new office. She had gotten hired in the department just under Ango’s, which had been the source of endless amusement for Yukito-- now you have a reason to call him Senpa! he’d joked, and Mizuki had shot right back that she’d been calling that because he was a genius and had helped her with her schoolwork, not because he was inherently superior to her or anything. Yukito had shot back the fact that he was also a genius, and had helped her with schoolwork before, and she had told him that she highly doubted that, despite the fact that it was, actually, true.
(The real reason she called Ango Senpai was that, back in freshman year, when he’d been at the bottom of his depression spiral, she had thrown it out as a joke, saying that she would die without his help. His eyes had lit up with the desire to be wanted, to be needed, and so she’d called him that again, and again, and the nickname had stuck. Yukito knew this. Yukito was just a bastard.)
“Our boss’s office is through here,” said the woman. She lowered her voice slightly. “He’s a perfectionist and a workaholic, I swear. Very talented, just out of school, but slightly overdedicated.”
Mizuki nodded, wondering what the odds of that being Ango were. As it turned out, fairly high, because when her coworker knocked on the office door, Ango came out, looking just stressed enough that Mizuki felt like it was her responsibility to needle him, although she decided that particular instinct could wait until after she was making her first impression on all of new coworkers.
“Mr. Sakaguchi, this is Ms. Tsujimura Mizuki. She was just hired on today.”
“I see,” Ango said, nodding at her, his face a mask of warm professionalism. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Ms. Tsujimura. I look forward to working with you.”
“You as well, Senpai,” she replied with a small smirk that said that she was definitely going to tell Yukito all about how Ango pretended he didn’t know her.
Ango nodded at her and stepped back into his office as Mizuki’s tour of the office continued.
“You don’t need to suck up to him, you know,” her coworker told her. “I haven’t really gotten the impression he enjoys it.”
Mizuki shrugged noncommittally. She wasn’t going to stop calling Ango “Senpai”. They both knew what she meant by it: you’re my best friend. You’re smart and important and loved. I am here, and I’m not going anywhere .
That night, she debated between calling and texting Yukito before opening their group chat.
Bubblegum Bitch: you will NEVER guess what happened at work today
Starring Role: Oh God
Starring Role: Tsujimura please don’t send it here
Primadonna Girl: ok now i HAVE to hear this
Primadonna Girl: what happened???
Starring Role: I panicked, that’s all
Bubblegum Bitch: so turns out senpai is my DIRECT superior and when i was taken to meet him, he pretended like he had NEVER MET ME BEFORE
Primadonna Girl: seriously? dumbass
Bubblegum Bitch: i know right? like, tsujimura mizuki and the AUDACITY of this bitch
Starring Role: In my defense, I had forgotten to take my anxiety medication this morning and panicked.
Bubblegum Bitch: You Fucking What
Primadonna Girl: do we need to supervise you taking your meds again
Starring Role: You have literally never needed to do that
Bubblegum Bitch: I Beg To Differ
Primadonna Girl: go mom friend go
Primadonna Girl: do we need to change our contact names for this
Starring Role: PLEASE
Bubblegum Bitch: no that would be rewarding him
Bubblegum Bitch: plus elektra heart VIBES
Primadonna Girl: yeah its too bad we couldn’t get ango to pick sex yeah as his user it has very him vibes
Starring Role: Be that as it may my favorite song from that album, I am NOT going to be in anyone’s phone as “Sex Yeah”
Bubblegum Bitch: and that is truly tragic
FIVE
“I met the runaway again today,” Mizuki said as Ango came in from work, looking tired and stressed.
“Really? How’s he doing?” Ango asked.
“Well, he wasn’t dressed up, for once,” she said. “He was with a couple little kids, actually. It was kind of cute.”
“Little kids, huh?”
“Yep. A boy and a girl. The boy had white hair, which is weird. Apparently their other siblings were coming home today, or something, and he was tasked with taking the younger kids out of the house. He said that his sister had their other sibling and that they were waiting for her.”
Ango smiled. “That’s wonderful for him. Has he stopped running away, then?”
“He said no,” she replied.
“That’s too bad. How did he seem to be doing, otherwise?”
“He was a lot less stressed than the other times I’ve seen him,” she replied. “I think he said that he had no intentions on stopping running today, so he wasn’t stressing about it.”
“That makes sense.” Ango paused, looking pensive. “Did he ever say what it was he was running from?”
Mizuki shook her head. “I think he said himself, at one point, but the way he said it made me think there was something else going on.”
Ango nodded. “I think,” he said, “I might have met the runaway myself, before.”
“No kidding?” Mizuki said. “Where? And when?”
“Far away,” Ango replied, “and a long time ago. I’m glad he’s doing so well, though.”
Mizuki frowned. “Wait, do you think he’s--”
“No,” Ango said.
“You didn’t even hear what I was going to say, Senpai!” Mizuki teased.
“You were going to ask if I thought he was my former friend, whom I abandoned. I don’t.” Ango frowned. “I’m going to go lie down.”
Mizuki didn’t need to be able to read Ango to tell that he was lying, but it certainly didn’t hurt.
Later than night, once dinner had arrived (take-out, because neither of them could cook to save their lives), Mizuki carefully opened Ango’s door.
He was conked out, curled in his bed. His breath was coming in short gasps, almost as though he was whimpering. A nightmare, then, and a bad one, too.
Mizuki sat on the edge of his bed and gently shook him. “Senpai, you need to wake up. It’s just a dream, it can’t hurt you. You’re safe, I promise.” She shook him again.
“Dazai,” Ango gasped, his eyes flying open. Mizuki could feel him trembling. “No, no, Dazai!”
“Hey, it was just a dream.” She pulled him up against her and hugged him tightly. “Just a dream, I promise.”
Ango sobbed against her shoulder, fingers curling into her shirt. “He was so small, Mizuki...he was just a little kid, and…”
“I know, I know. Shhh.” She rubbed circles into his back. “It’s in the past, he’s safe now. You’re safe now, I promise.”
Mizuki hadn’t needed to be able to read Ango to know that he had been lying when he said that he didn’t think the runaway was his friend Dazai. Mizuki, however, did not lie when she told herself that she agreed. She had seen Ango’s old picture, of him and his ex and Dazai, and the Dazai in the photo--small, with half a face covered in bandages, an empty stare, and black hair--bore little resemblance to the runaway she kept meeting, with the exception of the bandages, of course. She never said so to Ango, though. She knew how happy he felt, thinking that his former friend was in a good place.
When her best friend calmed down and pulled away, Mizuki looked him in the eyes. “You’re staying in my bed tonight, Sakaguchi Ango, do you understand? I am not letting you be alone.”
“Are you sure?” he asked. “I don’t want to impose…”
“Funny, you have no problem just showing up in my bed when you want birthday cuddles or Christmas cuddles or any holiday where you might get any other sort of present cuddles, but you’re worried when I explicitly offer?”
Ango huffed. “Thank you, then, Mizuki darling,” he said.
“You’re welcome,” she said, kissing his cheek and leading him out to the kitchen. “Now come on, our food is done.”
PLUS ONE
“What the fuck is this,” said Mizuki, looking at the bag of coffee beans, the bakery box, and the thick stationary in her arms.
“I have come to the conclusion that I’m a coward,” Dazai Osamu replied, sticking his hands into his pockets. “Could you please give those to Ango for me?”
“Give them to him yourself, what the fuck,” she replied.
“Yeah, well, I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but I’ve been trying to do that for literally five years,” Dazai replied, sticking his hands into his pockets and shrugging. “I was awful to him, and he deserves an apology from me, but I’m too afraid to actually go up to him and say it. But I wrote out everything I need to say in that letter, so you can give it to him, and I won’t be imposing on his time or anything.”
“...How long did it take you to write this?” Mizuki asked, because the envelope was rather heavy and she was fairly certain that if it just had paper in it, this kid had just written Ango a small book.
“Two and a half years, give or take,” Dazai replied.
“You’re a mess,” she told him.
“I know. Thank you!”
And with that, he turned and bolted. Mizuki would have made chase, only she was holding several very large and very expensive presents for Ango.
Dazai Osamu, she decided, was a very odd person, but at least he cared deeply for her friend.