Chapter Text
Eunoia meant a beautiful mind.
People usually told Dazai he had one, the fast way he thought was more than enough proof of that. It wasn't like they were saying "You're smart" or anything so ridiculous—they just said it as if it were obvious.
Dazai was always amazed by how people's minds worked, how easy it could be to manipulate someone just based off of their own nativity.
"Dazai." He looked up and saw Odasaku— his older brother in front of him, usually his sense of when people randomly showed up was really good.
"Dinners done, thought I'd let you know before you starve to death, we're eating together tonight, for some reason." The elder said, then walking towards the dining room.
Dazai set down his copy of Mori Ōgai's anthology of poems and followed shortly after.
They ate dinner together, trying to seem perfectly fine. (If they were a normal family that is), but for some reason this time Odasaku and Yumeno kept looking over at him. This wasn't exactly unusual; maybe they were trying to get Dazai to say something, Dazai didn't really know what the point of all this was, they never ate dinner as a family so what was up?
"The boy you hang out with, his family came over for tea earlier, the Nakahara's with concerns about you."
Oh, he was fucked, he even noticed Yumeno stopped eating, which he never did because he was always hungry.
"They said they saw you jump into a river and refused to come out until their son had to grab you so you wouldn't drown." Dazai's father continued, cold eyes glaring into Dazai's.
"Chuuya and I were messing around, and I fell, I was shocked he even saved me, I wouldn't force him to jump into the river, he always throws a tantrum any time his hair is wet, why would I enjoy witnessing that?"
He glanced at Odasaku, the one who saw him walk through the front door, Chuuya in tow both of them soaking wet, then having to hear Chuuya explain how Dazai tried to kill himself without sounding like he tried to kill himself.
"Dazai's right, they came over here afterwards and he was complaining on how his hair practically lost all of its color, plus they were freezing and Dazai always is talking about how cold he is, why would he jump into a freezing river? He'd get cholera or something."
"Cholera is from infected water though-" Yumeno started but his father cut him off.
"I don't want you going near that river anymore, people could get the wrong idea of you if they see you falling into them more."
Dazai just finished his soup in silence.
-
"Your parents went to my house." Dazai mumbled, scratching his pencil harder than he intended too. "My family think I'm suicidal now or something."
Chuuya stared at him for a moment before saying "I mean, aren't you? Attempting to drown yourself isn't something normal people do."
"I do it for the thrill, to prove I'm not just a vessel, not to die." Dazai scoffed.
Chuuya mumbled something about how it sounds like something Akutagawa would say, Dazai continued drawing, sitting close to said river he jumped in a couple days ago.
"I didn't know my parents saw that."
Dazai turned to look up at Chuuya, "yeah, I didn't either, my senses have been fucked up lately."
Chuuya raised his eyebrows. "Did you poison yourself or something? You haven't made a single suicide joke this entire conversation and have been... weird. Not even your type of weird because you're usually hella annoying but you're not right now."
"Actually! Yes, I did, I downed an entire bottle of cleaner and my stomach and intestines are slowly deteriorating."
Chuuya just rolled his eyes.
-
"Dazai stop getting shocked how you're cold all the time when you wear the thinnest sweaters ever, I swear, it's winter, not summer." Ranpo scoffed, biting into a flower which resulted in Yosano fake gagging.
"You sound like your mother." Dazai muttered, watching Ranpo gulp down the flower Dazai threw at him.
"That was pretty much what she said to me too until I realized I'd rather be warm then be cute and have hypothermia." Ranpo replied, still staring at the pink petals in his mouth.
"That's because your dumbass tried to go outside in just a button-up and shorts." Yosano smirked.
"I was a child!" Ranpo said, spitting out the petals.
"You still kind of act like one..." Atsushi muttered from where Kyouka, Kenji and him were sitting.
Ranpo glared at Atsushi then continued talking, "anyway, new topic, does anyone know where the Tanizaki's are? They never miss a hangout session."
"Junichiro told me they'll be late, I'm not exactly sure what they're doing though, what if it has something to do with cows? Wouldn't that be nice, Kyouka?" Kenji smiled.
"Where would they find a cow?" Kyouka asked quietly, Kenji just shrugged.
"I don't think they have a cow, they're probably just busy so they're late." Yosano reasoned.
The wind blew through Dazai's hair, he was surprisingly quiet that day, especially because he didn't have anyone that he could annoy— he usually had Chuuya but Chuuya wasn't invited to their meet ups, since he wasn't really apart of the 'group', more just Dazai and Yosano's friend.
"Do you guys want to play a game— no drowning contests please Dazai, or something while we wait for them?" Atsushi asked.
"We have no good games right now, honestly I'd rather watch Dazai kill himself then die of boredom like how I am right now." Ranpo said, popping a piece of Konpeito into his mouth and chewing on it loudly.
"Chew with your mouth closed, it's disgusting." Yosano smacked Ranpo with her gloves until he did, acting way younger than they actually were. "You hitting me with your gloves is disgusting..." Ranpo trailed off.
"So, what game should we play?" Kenji asked.
"How about a story game? That's always fun." Kyouka suggested.
"What about a game about killing each other?" Ranpo called back, Yosano continued hitting him.
"Haha, very funny." She sarcastically said. "We could do Kyouka's story game idea though, that'd be a good way to past time."
"Fine." Ranpo sighed, pretending to be annoyed. "But make sure the story's interesting!"
"Atsushi you start, because it was your idea." Yosano sat down by Kyouka, so they could be in a some-what circle.
"Do I just say a word or.." he started, then continued when Yosano nodded, "okay uh, fish?"
The game went on, Dazai kept trying to make the fish kill itself, Ranpo kept trying to make it eat candy.
"Hi everyone!" Junichiro waved, running down the hill to where they were sitting.
"Sorry we're late, our parents dragged me to the market and then Naomi couldn't find her shoes, so we were even more late."
A chorus of 'It's fine' and 'did you bring snacks?' could be heard, Junichiro started talking again, "also we're getting a new guy in our class next semester, apparently they just moved here my parents met them at the market, he looks Dazai's age."
"Dear god, if people do the thing they did when I transferred here that's going to be one hell of a year." Ranpo sighed.
"Do you remember how everyone was swooning over you? That was so horrible to witness." Yosano laughed, causing the rest of them to laugh.
At some point, Atsushi started choking on his laughter making everyone laugh harder.
Dazai didn't want to be anywhere else.
-
"I'm sure they'll stop soon enough, them screaming could upset the neighbors, so they'll come knocking on the door any moment now." Oda said, sipping his tea as he stared out the window.
"Q is probably going to join us soon, he hates being alone when they fight." Dazai predicted, sure enough, little quick footsteps could be heard running down the hallway, then a sniffling child slammed open Oda's bedroom door.
Dazai immediately gave Oda the 'I-told-you-so' look when Yumeno sat right by him with tears running down his face. Dazai ignored Oda's attempts to comfort him, he didn't like Yumeno so why bother?
While Yumeno was sobbing, Dazai walked out of the room, he heard Oda call 'make sure you sleep, schools tomorrow' as he walked down the hallway the screaming got louder once he was near his parents' room.
It wasn't like he was going to knock or ask them to stop or anything— one time Oda did and Dazai would prefer to not remember that day, thanks.
He just walked to his room, climbed under his think blankets and let himself attempt to sleep.
He just had to ignore glass shattering and Yumeno's wailing getting louder, easy job, hopefully.
He didn't end up sleeping until dawn.
-
Elyisan.
It meant beautiful, or creative, peaceful and perfect, and what could be those very words in the world he lived in?
He thinks he has an answer based on the blond boy he noticed standing next to Ranpo on the first day back at the school he's gone too since kindergarten, and he definitely doesn't recognize the very tall guy.
Dazai quietly walked up to his group of friends, and the stranger and stood by Atsushi as he took note of the way the new boy looked at him.
"Atsushi, who's that?" Dazai whispered, Atsushi turned his head and shrugged, "I'm not sure— I just got here too."
Dazai looked at Yosano, and she mouthed something about 'the guy Junichiro mentioned.' Dazai nodded and leaned on the table as Ranpo kept talking about... why he could live with just eating Konpeito for the rest of his life.
More people started walking in their classroom, Dazai was half convinced that Chuuya would walk through that door, loudly talking shit about every single teacher he's ever had, but then he remembered that for some reason he was placed into another class, talk about directly tormenting Dazai.
Dazai decided to observe the stranger more, his hair was pretty long for a guy, it was dirty blonde with some-what cool undertones, Dazai noticed his eyes were grey, but they weren't a boring hue, they looked like Mercury.
He was in the school's uniform, glasses leaning on the bridge of his nose.
Dazai would almost say he was pretty cute.
"Also, on the seating chart it says we sit by each other, sorry I should've mentioned that earlier." Atsushi apologizes. Dazai shrugs it off, he could've just looked up and saw the writing on the chalkboard.
The blond boy looked over to Dazai, Dazai smiled, just to be inviting of course. The boy smiled back and then eyes flicked over to Atsushi, Atsushi froze and the new guy looked confused.
Atsushi's uniform was a little questionable, being tattered with how old it was, Dazai remembers the time he casually mentioned it was an old one, from someone who left the orphanage long ago.
Their teacher ended up walking through the classroom a few minutes after that, he felt the new person's eyes on him through the entire day.
While Dazai was packing up, chatting with Atsushi about how he'd kill to do a double suicide with one of the girls— the stranger walked up to them.
Atsushi kicked Dazai lightly to get him to shut up when the stranger was fully at their table. "I believe you two are the only members in our class I haven't introduced myself too— and it's not ideal to do this at the end of the day, it's just how it ended up, so hello, I am Kunikida Doppo, I moved here in the middle of March."
"I'm Atsushi Nakajima, nice to meet you." Atsushi smiled, stumbling over his words a bit. "I'm Dazai Osamu, would you like to commit— ow! Atsushi!" Dazai glared at Atsushi who kicked the literal shit out of him.
"Dazai shush, I apologize he's always like that." Atsushi muttered, Kunikida said a quick 'it's fine.'
"Our teacher instructed me to become friends with someone, but I never really knew how to ask, is it alright if we become... acquaintances?"
Atsushi nodded very quickly; he was addicted to getting more people to like him. Dazai nodded as well. "I won't be able to see either of you outside of school much, my parents don't want me to be around people they disapprove of, and they disapprove of everyone, so if I could have your addresses so we can send letters over breaks that'd be nice."
Atsushi paled as Dazai wrote down his address on a small piece of paper, "it's okay, we can just talk in school." Atsushi smiled.
Dazai expected he'd get too many letters for his liking.
oh I miss when we first met