Chapter Text
Beep
Beep
Beep
Beep
Beep
Beep
Beep
Beeep
Beeeep
Beeeeeep
Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep
“Dazai,” his bedroom door opens and an unwelcome visitor enters, “time to wake up.” There’s no other response except for the sound of the alarm still loud in the background, “Dazai, did you hear me?”
“...”
“Breakfast’s getting cold, and you can’t escape school today. Hurry up.”
“What’s the point?” A hoarse voice answers from under the blankets, only a hand reaches out to turn off the alarm, and goes back into hiding immediately.
The intruder visitor sighs as he sits on the border of the bed,“we’ve been through this, you have to get your degree.”
“...”
“Look at it this way, today’s the first day of your senior year! You can start the countdown, after High school you won’t have to attend these boring lessons. I think you’ll find college more intellectually stimulating.”
“Daaaaad!” A voice calls urgently from another part of the house.
“Coming!” The intruder shouts in answer. He stands up and heads to the door but before leaving turns to the teenager wrapped in blankets, “2 minutes, I’m serious.”
When he exits the room, Dazai exhales loudly. Resigned that there’s nothing he can do to skip school, he jumps from the bed and starts getting ready, even though he knows he'll never be.
Exactly 2 minutes later, Dazai enters the dining room where the rest of his family is already having breakfast.
“Morning,” Dazai grumbles, he’s never been a morning person and that's one of the things he hates most about going to school. That, and the fact that it’s pointless as he’s-
“You look terrible.”
“Thanks Akiko.” And he appreciates it cause he knows she’s being honest. The teenager just brushed his teeth and put on the first shirt and pants he found out lying around, besides that he didn’t bother to style his hair or wash his face, or even change his bandages, too much of a hassle.
“What are you doing standing there? Go get your food before we go.” Akiko turns her attention to her scrambled eggs and continues scrolling through her phone.
Next to her is sitting a little girl, blonde locks falling into place like dominos. She’s busy eating, or more like rearranging the fried eggs on her plate.
“Elise, darling, please stop playing with your foo- Dazai! Thanks for finally joining us!”
“Mori.”
“Dazai!!” Elise rushes to the teenager and hugs him tight, Dazai just… stands there. “I can’t wait to go back to school! It's gonna be super fun!”
“Yeah, you won’t say that when you’re in high school.”
“Just one more year!”
“Elise, I hate to break it to you but that won’t happen in a year…” Akiko intervens, amused by her younger sister’s excitement, and Dazai is thankful because Elise is too much for him, “go brush your teeth and let Dazai have breakfast.”
“Ok!” The girl releases Dazai and skips to the bathroom with a bright smile on his face.
Dazai goes to the kitchen and eats a spoon of the scrambled eggs that are still on the stove. He can’t stomach another bite, nor does he want to wash a dish. He stays in the kitchen, so the others think he ate more than that, and his mind drifts back to Elise, and he wonders how it’s possible for a person like her to exist. Elise is too much for a guy like Dazai to handle. The girl has too much innocence, too much energy, too much life, too much … light. And everything that shines, Dazai darkens. That’s why he tries to keep her at an arm’s length. Dazai can only wish for Elise to find a better big brother.
The righteous brotherly figure she deserves, but Dazai will never be.
“We’re leaving!” Akiko screams, and Dazai can tell she’s already at the front door. Reluctantly , the teenager starts walking feeling like, literally, he’s going to hell.
They’re all in the car and follow the usual route: first Elise is taken to kindergarten as it’s the closest to the house. Then, Akiko is dropped off at College, and lastly, Mori drives Dazai to his high school.
“Be good,” Mori says as the other opens the door. Dazai doesn’t reply, but Mori knows he heard him, loud and clear.
Dazai dreads school cause he has to put on a facade. The “school clown, lazy boy who still gets all A’s ” facade and it’s a particularly difficult and exhausting one. At home he can just be the “typical apathetic emo teenager” , and no one bats an eye, but he can’t do that at school, not if he wants to survive his classmates and go unnoticed by his teachers . And despite not caring about what other people think of him, he doesn’t want them to notice how different he is from everyone else .
“Dazai.”
“Fyodor.”
“So, another year in the same class.”
“Looks like it, lucky you!” Dazai gives his Russian classmate his brightest and fakest smile.
“I think it’s the other way around, as I’m a delight to be around, while you-”
“Both of you! Fights are not allowed inside the classroom!” Another students intervenes.
“For a fight I need a worthy opponent, and there’s no one here.” Fyodor looks up and down at Dazai with an air of superiority while the brunet just stands there with his visibly fake smile. The Russian sighs and walks back to his desk, “another boring year,” he mumbles as he passes by.
“Ku-ni-ki-da!” Dazai clings to his classmate's arm, and rubs his face against the other’s shoulder in order to annoy him.
“Stop that! Dazai!!”
Fine, if he has to be with Fyodor another year, at least he gets to bother Kunikida.
“Seriously, are you ok?”
Thre brunet grins and asks with a teasing voice, “what’s that? Are you worried about me?”
“I know Fyodor can be… and you can be… you know?”
And he’s not entirely wrong… Fyodor implied that Dazai was not a delight to be around, which he knows. Dazai absolutely knows he’s a nuisance and a burden for everyone in his life. But one thing is knowing it, and another completely different thing is when you know they know and on top of that, your stupid classmate rubs it in your face.
“Do you want my dictionary? Looks like you’re forgetting adjectives!” Dazai jokes, hiding his discomfort behind a too familiar fake smile and this lousy joke. Thankfully, Kunikida doesn’t push the subject, and they start talking about more trivial things.
Classes start, and even though he’s a senior now, everything feels the same. Everything’s boring, useless. Dazai doesn’t see the point of learning new things, and he would go as far as saying that there’s no point in living. What Dazai doesn’t know is that today, on his first day of his last year in high school, he’s gonna have a change of heart.
“Good morning class. I’m your literature teacher, Oda Sakunosuke.”
Oda’s class is, by far, the best one. He has this distinctive way of speaking that captures you. His explanations are interesting and easy to follow. And what’s more, he listens to his students. He encourages questions, he doesn’t corner students to make the questions he wants them to make, like all the other teachers, Oda actually makes them think for themselves! And he actually answers the questions! It’s like a breath of fresh air. Dazai needed a reason to come to school, and looks like he just found it.
“Odasaku!”
“Dazai, hello,” the young teacher replies, not batting an eye at the new nickname.
“You know my name?” Dazai tilts his head, not bothering to hide his shock.
“I am your teacher, of course I know your name. Also, the fact that you participated a lot today helped. So, do you like to read?”
“I wouldn’t say that.” Thing is, Dazai doesn’t feel like he likes anything, he only can think of things he doesn’t dislike, and he certainly doesn’t dislike reading, but he doesn’t like it either… you know? He does it cause of course Mori forces him, and tells him what to read, so he’s remained indifferent to that particular action.
“That’s ok, when I was your age I hated it.”
“No way!” And Dazai realizes he’s genuinely interested in Oda’s life. He can’t recall the last time he found someone else interesting, besides Fyodor (who turned out to be a major disappointment, there’s nothing worth of interest in a rat with human skin).
“How do you feel about the first reading task?”
“The scarlet letter is ok, I guess. It got pretty popular after the movie.”
“Have you watched the movie?”
“I’m talking about the one with Emma Stone, my sister used to watch it every night.”
“Who’s Emma Stone?”
Dazai can’t help but to burst into laughter, “Seriously?! Do you live under a rock?”
“You’ll have to forgive your teacher, but I’m not into those things.”
“Celebrities? Modern culture?” Dazai wipes the wet corners of his eyes trying but failing to remember a time when he laughed so earnestly, “You truly are interesting!”
After all his classes are over, Dazai is walking back home feeling a little better about this whole senior year situation. Perhaps Mori wasn’t wrong for one, this is something he has to go through no matter what, so he might as well see the bright side, which is that he gets to attend Oda’s classes.
“Elise, dear, what have we said about talking with food in your mouth?” Mori says to the blond girl, who then rushes to finish her dinner, “eat slowly darling, we’re still gonna be here to listen to your story when you finish your food.”
“K,” she replies and continues eating, eager to tell her story.
Mori is helping Elise with her food to prevent her from spoiling another dress, Akiko is eating in silence, and Dazai is rearranging the food on his plate for the tenth time today, “Dazai, how was school?”
Dazai is absentmindedly staring at his food when Akiko kicks him under the table. He raises his gaze and shrugs and “Ok.”
“My god, youngsters these days! Would it kill you to share something about your day with your family?” Mori sighs, and Dazai is ready to answer that cause they’re definitely and most certainly not a family, but Mori turns his attention to Elise, “My little girl, please don’t be like your brothers when you grow old!”
“Dad! Let go!!! Let me finish my dinner!”
Akiko kicks Dazai again under the table, and when he turns to her, she mouths “are you ok?” and the brunet gives her a feeble smile, as in saying “as ok as I’ll ever be.”
Dinner continues, as awkward as always, or at least to Dazai. Elise finishes her food, quickly rambles her story and runs to her room to get ready for bed, Mori asks Akiko some questions about college. Their talk is short, as the girl answers are simply “yes” or “no”. Dazai struggles with the food on his plate for another 10 minutes before giving up and excusing himself from the table.
Back in his room, Dazai finds it hard to sleep. He takes his sleeping pills (one more than prescribed, just to be sure) and while the medicine kicks in, he continues reading his favorite book: “The Complete Suicide”. As the name mentions, it is a book filled with methods of suicide along with the level of the pain, preparation required and, lethality. Sleep comes when he’s writing down in his journal the cons of the method listed as “Death by mushrooms”.
When Dazai wakes up, he feels lighter and actually rested. Perhaps the sleeping pills finally worked correctly. He opens his eyes slowly, wondering when did he get to bed, the last memory of last night was writing in his journal, but he was sitting at his desk, and wait… are these dog sheets?! Dazai definitely hates dogs, and is sure his sheets are pitch black. He jumps from the bed and sees bright red walls covered with bands and movie posters, a bookshelf full of poetry books and romance novels Dazai would never be interested in (or even allowed) reading, an open closet exploding with colorful clothes and what seems to be a special hat section. Really? It takes a minute for the fact that this isn't his room to sink in. He doesn’t panic, not yet at least. There must be an explanation and if there's anything he's good at is finding answers.
Then… he notices that the room feels bigger, like he’s in a giant’s house. Wait, it’s not that, he’s smaller! His arms and legs are so short! Is he a 14 year old? Not only is he shorter, there are ginger strands of hair brushing his shoulders. Dazai’s hair is shorter than that and certainly not red. And now that he’s on the topic, his skin seems fairer than it usually is. He also notices that his shorter limbs are toned, as in exercise-fit, which is funny cause Dazai won't work out to save his life. He lifts the shirt he's wearing (that he doesn’t recognize) and admires, under a constellation of light freckles, a six pack and a belly button piercing. Holy shit, he’s hot.
Yep, this is definitely not his body.
Dazai sprints to the bathroom and the image on the mirror corroborates it, blue eyes staring back at him instead of brown ones. Dazai is not Dazai. Well, he is, but he is in someone else’s body. Someone he’s never met or seen before. The only logical conclusion is that this is a dream.
This is all a dream.
A dream that feels freakishly real.
Knock, knock, “Chuuya, dear,” someone calls from the other side of the bedroom door, “are you already up? It’s getting late.”
So the name of this kid is Chuuya. “Y-yes,” Dazai stutters, wondering who could be that man, Chuuya’s dad perhaps?
“Good, come down when you’re ready, but don’t take too long,” the man leaves, and the bewildered teenager can hear the footsteps get lost in the distance, as if they’re walking down the stairs.
Relax, it’s just a dream.
Dazai goes through Chuuya's clothes and finds them all awful. Horrendous. Disgusting. How was his subconscious mind able to come up with such a tacky fashion sense?
He grabs the only plain shirt he finds, some ripped jeans and cargo boots. Something he would never ever wear in real life, but again, this is just a dream.
When he comes down, guided by the smell of food being cooked, he finds two men sitting on the table and a little girl Dazai guesses is around Elise’s age. They all turn to him and greet him with wide and sincere smiles.
“Morning son,” the man with dark long hair says. So that's his Chuuya's father.
“Morning,” he shyly answers, not knowing exactly what to do besides standing there awkwardly. The two men look at each other and start giggling.
“What’s gotten into you?” The blond man asks, still chuckling a little, “are you nervous about high school even though you’re a senior?”
“A senior?!” Dazai asks, sure that he was in a kid’s body.
“Paul, stop. Chuuya, are you alright? Did you hit your head or something?” The other man rushes to the ginger’s side and starts checking him up, looking for injuries or something out of the ordinary. Without having found anything, the man presses his hand against the teenager’s forehead, looking for any signs of a fever. “Ok, what’s going on?”
“W-what do you mean?”
“First, you’re never this late. Second, you’re never this calmed and quiet-”
“You’re never below 100 decibels,” the other man, who’s not Paul and is standing extremely close to him, intervens.
That has to be an exaggeration, nobody can be that loud, Dazai thinks and rolls his eyes, in his mind at least.
“Exactly, thank you Arthur. Third, your clothes are never this boring, you’re not even using your choker. You haven’t hugged Kyouka good morning either, should I go on?” Paul looks at Dazai dead in the eye.
“I’m just trying something different today,” Dazai shrugs, but Paul doesn’t break eye contact from his seat.
“Honey, this must be a phase. Can you please let our teenage son eat his breakfast?” Arthur goes back to his seat next to the blond man and gives him a peck on the cheek. Oh, so they have that type of relationship , the teenager concludes.
“I didn’t mean any harm boy, let me get your food,” Paul stands up and disappears in the kitchen. Dazai sits on the table, next to Paul’s empty chair and the little girl.
“I forgot Kyouka’s backpack in her room,” Arthur announces as he exits the dining room, leaving the kids alone. To say Dazai is terrible with kids would be an understatement. He's the worst. Flashbacks from when he’s had to babysit Elise flowing his mind, and if he has managed to avoid having a nervous breakdown, he does when Kyouka whispers to him “you’re not Chu-chu.”
“Here dear, enjoy,” Paul gives him his breakfast and sits again, helping the girl with the last part of her breakfast. Thankfully, she looks like a girl of few words, unlike Elise.
The food itself, however, is weird. Something Dazai definitely would not eat under any other circumstance. Arthur gets back, a bright red backpack hanging from his arm. He must’ve noticed how Dazai was blankly staring at the plate, cause he proudly adds, “poached eggs with eggplant sauce and goat cheese, one of your favorites. You’re welcome.”
Dazai pinches himself, again, again, and again, harder each time. This has just turned into a nightmare.
To his surprise, and a wound to his pride, the dish is in fact delicious. So much, that for the first time in god knows how long, Dazai doesn't struggle to finish a full meal.
The dream gets weirder when he’s dropped off at school for the day. He’s aimlessly walking through the hallways packed with unknown students, hoping for his short but chunky legs to take him to the correct classroom. After five minutes of walking, he’s close to another nervous breakdown, thinking This is enough, wake up. Wake up. Wake up!
“Chuuya!!” Another redhead says as he happily wraps his arm around Dazai’s shoulder and pulls him closer to whisper, “hey, did you do the calculus homework?”
Calculus? So Chuuya’s really a senior. Another problem arises when Dazai wonders how he is supposed to answer that, he has no idea what kind of student Chuuya is. He could be dumb or brilliant, or perhaps brilliant but lazy, or-
“Don’t look at me that way man! I’m just making sure we’re on the same page, I don't wanna be the only one failing hahaha!,” the redhead says and laughs nervously. Dazai inferes from that that Chuuya isn't the best student here, and also that his taste in fashion can be compared to his taste in friends: goddamn awful.
“Tachi! Chuuya!” A blonde girl calls after them and starts walking faster to catch up with them. Tachi grabs Dazai by the wrist and drags him inside a classroom. Dazai is grateful to the clueless redhead because he just spared him the pain of asking around where he was supposed to go.
“I totally forgot to call Higuchi last night! Dammit! I bet she’s pissed!” Tachi looks terrified, Dazai can’t help but giggle a little.
“Dude! I’m not kidding! She’s gonna to kill me!”
“Suuuure, I’m gonna miss you though!”
“Anyways, you didn’t answer my question before, did you do the homework?”
“I don’t know,” Dazai shrugs and when Tachi makes a confused look, he adds “I mean, I don’t remember, I fell asleep.”
“Wait… you don’t remember if you did your homework, you haven’t punched or kicked me today so far, you haven’t screamed nor cursed…” Busted is the first thing to cross Dazai’s mind, thank god Dazai underestimated how dense Tachi was. “Chuuya, are you sick? Should you be here at school?”
“What’s going on?”
“Nikolai! Look at Chuuya! Isn’t he acting off today?!”
“Dude! You’re not wearing your weird choker!” Nikolai is the most annoying person so far, and breaks his own record when he takes out his phone and starts taking pictures of Dazai, “I never thought I’d see the day you showed us your neck!”
“Stop it! I’m being serious!” Tachi exclaims, but Nikolai ignores him completely, fortunately, the bell rings. Dazai was, literally, saved by it. After the ring, the teacher enters the classroom. Dazai blames his apparent odd behavior on a restless night, and the other redhead buys it, Nikolai long gone with his hundred pictures.
Overall, the school was alright. Dazai met some other friends of Chuuya besides Tachihara, like Gin and Kajii. He laughed his ass off when Higuchi told the story of how she hadn’t slept waiting for Tachihara’s call to help him with his math homework, and then Tachihara had the nerve to say he forgot cause he was playing video games. Dazai finds it liberating to not have to keep a facade at all times. It was a breath of fresh air to not hate everything about school.
After school, he gets home to a home cooked dinner, with parents that look at each other tenderly, and a quiet but fierce little sister. It’s at moments like this that he knows he’s dreaming, cause there’s no other way he’d be able to experience something so… peaceful.
By nighttime, he notices an old notebook on the nightstand with a warning sign on the cover. Of course, he wastes no time and flips it open. Inside, there are a bunch of scribbles and what looks to be poem verses. The notebook is a mess, complete chaos on every page, like this Chuuya dude randomly opens it and just starts doodling wherever. Savage.
Dazai manages to find a blank page and writes the date in the upper right. As a title, he goes with: “Things I know about Chuuya.”
Then, he lists what he discovered today about the redhead through his parents' remarks, his classmates conversation, and all the time well spent snooping around in his room (hey, even if it’s a dream, he likes to be organized and write as a way to order his ideas, let this distressed teenager be):
- Chuuya is short, like ridiculously small.
- Chuuya’s fashion sense is non-existent.
- His friends are not so bad.
- His parents are Paul and Arthur.
- He’s close to his sister Kyouka.
- He’s loud and curses a lot.
- Chuuya’s also violent.
- He sucks at math. (He discovered it when Dazai checked Chuuya’s notebook at math class and found the unanswered homework, as well as incomplete notes and drawings of emojis in pain).
- He’s a morning person.
- He likes dogs (iugh).
- Chuuya lives in the 90’s cause that was the only time where chokers were a thing.
- He must exercise cause these abs and legs are not normal (not that Daza’s complaining, quite the opposite).
- Tachi’s full name is Tachihara.
Dazai closes the notebook and goes to bed, to the awful puppy sheets. And for the first time, in a long time, sleep finds him quickly.
To Dazai’s despair, he wakes up in his bed. Black sheets instead of dog one’s. There’s no smell of exotic home cooked food, and, as he caresses his stomach, there’s not a sign of a six pack. Disappointing, to say the least.