Archive of Our Own

The wind slipped through the ruins like a tired monster breathing through its clenched teeth. Shards of glass clinked against rusted steel beams as Dazai and Atsushi approached the crumbling monolith ahead. Its shape loomed against the grey sky like a corpse that refused to lie still.

Once, it must have been grand. Columns lined the facade like ageing guards, their surfaces cracked and streaked with lichen. Two stone lions flanked the entrance; their expressions long eroded into blank stares.

The two detectives were currently going to the location of a new mission. According to the records, many people have gone missing in the last few months, and the clues have all led to the place they were heading to.

“‘Court of Justice,’” Dazai murmured, tilting his head at the worn letters above the archway. “Or that’s what the plaque used to say. Hard to believe justice was ever handed out in a place like this,” he smirked at the inscription, “it smells more like bureaucracy and regret to me.”

Atsushi hesitated a few paces behind him, frowning at the crumbling steps. “Are you sure this is the right place? This feels less like a mission and more like we’re about to get cursed.”

Dazai flashed him a grin. “Atsushi-kun, don’t tell me you’re afraid of abandoned buildings…” Dazai turned around to look at the uneasy boy with an amused smile. “Do you believe in ghosts?”

“I-I don’t,” Atsushi muttered stubbornly, glaring at a particularly ominous gargoyle. “I’m just... cautious. There’s a difference.”

“Mm,” Dazai hummed, stepping up to the door. “So, if something jumps out at us, you won’t piss yourself?”

“I’m not scared!”

“Should I record this moment so we can compare later when it happens?”

“Dazai-san…” Atsushi groaned, already regretting choosing to go on this mission with his mentor.

But the teasing faded as the doors creaked open beneath Dazai’s hand. The air inside was still. Too still, in fact.

The lobby stretched before them, cavernous and dust-choked. Light filtered in through fractured windows, casting long, angled shadows across a tiled floor. The walls bore the stains of water damage and spots of mould.

Something about the place felt wrong. Dazai had also noticed that.

But that was the exact reason why they were here after all.

The tiles did not align as they should. Hallways curved just slightly too tightly. And the walls—if one stared too long—seemed to expand and contract, like lungs drawing breath subtly.

Atsushi shifted closer to Dazai, his voice was low as he spoke. “This place… It’s not right somehow.”

“No, it isn’t,” Dazai agreed. 

“It’s like…” Atsushi mused.

“the place has a soul,” Dazai finished

He walked slowly, eyes scanning every inch of the hall, boots silent against the tiles. A staircase vanished into darkness to their right. To their left, a hallway ended in a blank wall, though the floor tiles insisted it used to go somewhere.

Then, at the end of the corridor, they reached a set of massive double doors. Blackened brass handles. A plaque above the arch, nearly eaten by time.

“‘Courtroom,’” Dazai read aloud. “How poetic.”

He placed a hand over his chest. “Atsushi-kun, are you ready to confront the ultimate horror?”

“…If you repeat it, that I'm afraid of ghosts...”

“I was going to say the horror of ‘government,’ but if you insist.”

Despite himself, Atsushi huffed a laugh. “You’re not funny.”

“I am, actually. I’m hilarious.”

Dazai didn’t wait for a rebuttal. He pushed the doors open with ease.

The room beyond was massive. Rows of benches sat in disrepair, their wood warped and cracked. The ceiling arched overhead, painted with peeling frescoes that had long since surrendered their meaning. The judge’s bench was a shadowy mass in the distance, and the far wall looked like it had collapsed under the weight of time.

“No audience. No jury, no ghosts,” he said, glancing at Atsushi with a smug smile, while the other man rolled his eyes. “Perfect,” Dazai added as he stepped inside. Atsushi followed him.

The next moment, everything started to shift around them.

Dazai blinked once.

The benches, once broken, now stood upright, polished to near perfection. The walls were clean. The ceiling became unblemished. The judge’s bench rose like a monument at the far end, imposing and untouched.

Behind it, far above the chair, carved into flawless marble was a inscription:

Only One May Pass

 

Atsushi swallowed while pointing at the strange sentence. “That wasn’t there before, right?”

“No,” Dazai said softly.

Then the doors slammed shut behind them.

The light vanished.

The windows blacked out as if night had swallowed the day in an instant.

They stood in a bubble of stillness.

“This is not promising,” Atsushi looked around, an anxious expression plastered on his face.

A sound echoed through the space. A voice, distorted but calm, rang out. It was seemingly coming from nowhere and everywhere at the same time.

“Before the Law stands a man. He may enter, if he understands the price.”

 

Dazai’s shoulders tightened.

“That’s it,” he said, glancing at Atsushi. “That’s the place we were looking for.”

The younger man looked up at him. “So, this is the place where people…” he hesitated, “disappear?”

Dazai didn’t answer. As he was analysing their surroundings, the room started to shift.

In an instant, he was sitting in the judge’s seat. Atsushi now sat below him, on a single chair.

“W-what was that?” the boy stared up at Dazai, confused. Then the brunet heard some noises behind his back. He turned around and saw a large iron-framed door forming out of the wall.

He didn’t move. He just scanned the room further with narrowed eyes.

And for the first time in years, his stomach twisted.

Not because they were trapped.

But because he, as far as his predictions ran, didn’t like any of the outcomes of their mission in his head.

Atsushi stared at him, brow furrowed with worry. “Dazai-san… what are you doing?”

“Thinking,” the older man replied without even looking at him. He had been circling the judge’s platform for minutes now, locked in an endless loop, his footsteps a steady rhythm against the floor.

There was no clock in the room, but time was dripping by in slow, heavy drops. Unmeasurable, suffocating.

And Dazai… Dazai was caught in a mental bind.

There was a flaw in every calculation he tried. A blur across every plan. His thoughts felt slowed, like he was breathing something toxic, something that dulled his senses and made reason falter.

He had first approached the situation logically. Treating the room like a puzzle. A closed system. Something with rules. His gaze kept drifting back to the inscription above the looming iron door:

Only One May Pass

 

Yes. That was the root of it all, the core restriction. One may pass. Only one.

But even that wasn’t the whole story.

There were more rules here. Hidden ones.

Dazai stepped down the stone steps of the raised platform and began slowly walking toward Atsushi. But after only a few steps, he staggered to a halt.

Smoke.

He looked down. The soles of his shoes were smouldering.

“Dazai-san, stop! What the hell is this?!” Atsushi lunged toward him in a panic, instinctively trying to shove him back but the second his arms crossed the invisible boundary, pain ripped through him. He let out a strangled cry, stumbling backwards and clutching his arms.

Angry red burns were already blooming up the length of his forearms.

“What is this?” Atsushi gasped, his voice trembling.

“The room doesn’t accept us… not unless we stay on our own side,” Dazai answered, his voice eerily calm despite the chaos. “You’re on the accused’s side. I’m on the judge’s.”

Atsushi blinked, still cradling his burned arms and staring at the invisible line before them. “So… as long as we stay in our zones, we’re okay, right?”

Dazai didn’t answer. He looked away, turning back toward the platform. He wasn’t ready to give him false hope. Not when he wasn’t even sure himself.

“Atsushi-kun,” Dazai called over his shoulder, “check the door we came through. See if it’ll open.”

The silver-haired boy nodded and obeyed, jogging back to the thick wooden entrance. He shoved, pulled, and yanked at the heavy door, but it wouldn’t budge. Not an inch.

“No. It’s locked tight.”

Then, slowly, new letters scorched themselves into the stone above it. Glowing faintly.

One May Pay For Their Sins

 

Dazai hummed under his breath and made his way back to the judge’s platform. He climbed up swiftly, the sound of his boots echoing off the ancient stone. Once atop the dais, he stepped onto the judge’s chair with practiced balance, rising high enough to reach the marble plaque overhead. Up close, the inscription—Only One May Pass—seemed even colder, more final. He narrowed his eyes, examined the edges for seams or tricks, then placed both hands on either side of the stone. He tugged. Pushed. Tried to lift it from the wall. Nothing. It didn’t so much as creak. The slab was embedded, unmoving, like the words weren’t just written in stone, they were the stone.

“Um… Dazai-san?” Atsushi’s voice echoed behind him, uneasy.

The room was changing.

The invisible line dividing the two halves of the courtroom began to creep forward, slow, deliberate, like a predator closing in. The neutral zone was shrinking. And while the movement was almost imperceptible, Dazai could already tell where it was going.

Toward the door.

Toward a decision.

Dazai jumped down from the platform, his boots hitting the floor hard. He pressed his palm to his temple. His head ached. Nothing made sense. If this were an ability, it shouldn’t affect him like this. His nullification should protect him. Which meant…

This wasn’t a gift. Or it wasn’t only a gift.

This was something else.

“The room’s expecting a sacrifice,” he said aloud. “And it’s cast you as the suspect, Atsushi-kun.”

Worry etched itself across Atsushi’s face like a scar. Dazai met his eyes, expression unreadable.

“Which means I could probably pass through the door,” Dazai continued. “But you… it won’t let you.”

Atsushi’s eyes widened.

He took a step forward instinctively, just to get closer to the other man and forgot about the line.

The second his foot crossed it, he screamed, stumbling back as flames licked across his skin, forcing him to retreat.

“Atsushi-kun, pay attention! Damn it…” Dazai was still grabbing his throbbing head.

“There has to be a way!” the silver-haired boy gritted out, clutching his face. Angry burns marred his cheek now, red and blistering.

Dazai said nothing.

He just watched him with a strangely flat expression.

“I could sprint through the door!” Atsushi gasped. “You open the door; I charge through with the tiger’s speed; my healing ability can handle the burning!”

“If you go first, I think the room will burn me to ash the moment I try to follow,” Dazai replied coolly. “Or worse… it might never open for you at all. You’ll burn alive in the doorway, and I’ll have to watch it happen.”

“The tiger will heal me,” Atsushi snapped. He was still pressing a hand to his cheek, but the injury wasn’t fading.

Dazai’s brow tightened. “It’s not healing you right now though.”

And that was true. The burns remained.

Whatever governed this space interfered with even Atsushi’s healing ability.

Atsushi paced slightly, thinking. Dazai could see the gears turning. He wasn’t a strategist, not like Dazai, but he was intuitive. Stubborn and desperate.

“…Then what if we go together?” he asked at last.

“You’d be dead before you reached the bench at the rate the place works,” Dazai said flatly. “The second you cross this aisle, the room decides.”

Silence fell.

Then, unexpectedly, Atsushi let out a weak chuckle.

Dazai looked up, startled.

“Atsushi-kun?”

“Dazai-san… go without me.”

Dazai froze.

Then, suddenly, he felt rage taking over his body.

“No!” he barked, louder than he intended. His hands clenched at his sides. His skull throbbed with pressure. Everything was spinning anyway. First, the room was messing with them already. Now, Atsushi saying suicidal shits like that... He had had enough.

“I’ll be fine,” Atsushi said softly, smiling sadly at the floor.

“No, you won’t!” Dazai snapped. “I’m not leaving you here. There’s no point surviving if it means you die.”

“But the Agency needs you, more than me…”

“I don’t give two shits about the Agency!” Dazai’s voice rose, feral. “And you shouldn’t either! You should want to live, damn it!”

Atsushi flinched.

But he didn’t step back.

Not this time.

Not from Dazai.

Not from anything.

Then a voice behind the tall brunet with an aching head said: “…You’ve always been good at leaving people behind.”

Dazai turned.

And froze.

Odasaku stood beside the iron door, hands in his coat pockets, expression unreadable.

Dazai went pale.

“…What the hell...” Dazai stared at his long-gone friend’s face for a moment or two. Then he shook his head.

“You are not him,” Dazai said with a tired sigh.

The figure tilted his head. “I was, once. Before you left me to bleed out in that alley.”

The brunet’s eyes widened, “That’s not—”

“I told you to walk the right path, but you let me down. All you did was give that runaway orphan false hope, and now he’s going to die. Tell me, Dazai… for what? Because of you.”

Dazai’s lips parted. His voice didn’t come.

“You never saved anyone,” the vision of Odasaku continued softly. “You just postponed their funerals.”

Dazai staggered back a step. “No. You’re not him. He would never—”

“I believed in you,” the figure continued mercilessly. “And you let me die believing in a fool.”

Dazai shut his eyes tightly, pressing the heels of his hands into them.

This wasn’t real.

But it felt too real.

He opened his eyes again.

Atsushi was watching him, confused and scared. “Dazai-san… are you seeing something?”

Dazai turned towards him, then exhaled shakily. “…Yeah.”

“I think I see something that’s not real too, the headmaster. He’s not saying nice things either.” Atsushi admitted.

“This place doesn’t just want a body,” Dazai said hoarsely. “It wants guilt. It wants punishment. It wants to decide who walks away.”

“Then we don’t give it what it wants.” Atsushi’s eyes seemed determined this time.

Dazai looked at him with pity.

And for the first time in a long while, he had no plan.

He had no answers. He only had a terrible headache, and even his dead friend was telling him nasty stuff.

And he also possessed the knowledge that it didn’t matter whether he walked through that door or not…

…Atsushi will burn either way…

Then the cruel voice that wore his friend’s face spoke again. “How would Atsushi look like as a bloodied corpse in your arms?”

“Shut up!”

Dazai’s voice tore through the courtroom like a lightning strike, startling even the shadows. His snarl echoed off the stone, raw and furious. A fresh cascade of dust fell from the high windows, trembling as if the room itself had flinched.

“Dazai-san… Don’t listen to that something…” Atsushi said, but the brunet only faintly heard his voice.

By the iron door, the figure tilted his head, calm and composed. “You always were better at killing others,” the illusion said softly.

Dazai’s hands clenched into fists, nails biting deep into his palms.

“You’re not him,” he spat. “You don’t get to wear his voice.”

“You should stop searching for meaning in corpses.”

The words weren’t loud, but they didn’t have to be.

Each one landed like a crack across porcelain.

Dazai staggered back a step, as if the figure had struck him.

He turned abruptly and walked away without another word, pacing in a tight line until he reached the far side of the courtroom. He sat heavily on the bench, his coat curling stiffly around him like a cloak. One hand covered his eyes, and the other tapped arrhythmically against the wood beside him, too fast, too anxious.

Atsushi watched him from the centre of the room.

Dazai never shouted like that. Never seemed this lost.

The thing he saw had done its job. Atsushi thought bitterly.

And the silver-haired boy wasn’t sure what to do with the fact that his mentor was the one who needed help right now.

But it seemed he had to be the one pulling himself together.

He turned slowly, scanning the room again, trying to ignore the voice still muttering at the edge of his hearing, his own hallucination. The headmaster was speaking to him. The words were too familiar, still, he had so many new awful things to say to Atsushi that the boy realised it was not the usual case of his mind playing with him.

“You should’ve stayed on the riverbank and die,” the voice whispered. “No one wants a loser pretending to be a man.” The headmaster said. “Dazai doesn’t want you, look at him, you made him miserable…”

Atsushi shook his head once, hard, and turned toward the judge’s bench.

He had to find a way to get out of here.

Before they both lose their minds.

The inscription loomed above the big wooden door, carved into flawless stone:

Only One May Pass

 

Atsushi’s brow furrowed.

The room was metaphorical. That much was obvious. But what kind?

Punishment? Judgment? Sacrifice?

The benches shifted again, groaning like the wooden bones of a giant creature.

He walked slowly down the aisle, his steps echoing too loudly. The tile beneath his feet was wrong, not uneven, exactly, but subtly curved in ways that made him dizzy if he stared too long.

He stopped at the base of the dais.

The judge’s bench rose above him, impossibly tall, untouched by decay.

He raised a hand, hesitated, then rested it lightly on the stone rail.

It was cold and smooth.

Whatever this room was, it had rules. It had logic.

Just not the kind of logic Dazai used: numbers, simulations, loops of thought tightening like nooses. If it were like that, Dazai most probably could have solved it by now.

That wasn’t Atsushi’s way anyway. He couldn’t figure out many things by this kind of logic…

He stepped back and crouched beside the base of the platform. Ran his fingers along the seam where the floor met the marble. There were no carvings here, no hidden switches or symbolic locks.

Still, something pulsed faintly through the surface, like a quiet hum.

It was nothing like electricity.

It was more like… this place was really alive.

Atsushi’s eyes widened because he remembered that they had stated that even back then, when they entered the building.

Alive… he looked at the inscription again. It was like something from a terribly catchy line in a novel.

Atsushi blinked.

What does stories have? Characters, story lines, endings, narrative…

Narrative. This whole place felt like a narrative, like they were in a story.

He looked up at the inscription again.

Only One May Pass

 

Dazai had said it already. The trap was conceptual. In other words, it might have been narrative-based. It was a story.

He had an idea.

He had to prove his suspicion; theory was not enough…

Atsushi stood again, walked back to the centre of the room. His movements were careful, methodical. He tested each side of the aisle, watching how the air shifted. He threw a coin into the far section; Dazai’s section, it crumbled into ash midair.

One side was judgment.

One side was the verdict.

He looked back toward Dazai.

He was still slouched forward. Still not moving.

Still broken...

And somehow, that was the most terrifying part in the whole situation.

Atsushi straightened his shoulders and took a deep breath.

“Dazai-san,” he called gently. “I’m not going to let you leave me behind.”

Dazai didn’t look up. But he laughed. It was short but sharp.

“That’s not your choice.”

“You said you tried everything,” Atsushi said. “Maybe you did. Maybe you ran every version of the solutions in your head. But maybe it’s not the kind of situation you can outthink.”

Dazai was silent; he barely even moved.

Atsushi took a step closer. “Maybe it’s not about logic. Maybe it’s about belief.”

“And maybe,” Dazai said, rising suddenly, voice a low snarl, “this entire place is a dream, or a hallucination, or some twisted deathbed confession of a man with too many sins and not enough bullets. Maybe none of it matters. Because no matter how I rearrange the rules, you die.”

Atsushi didn’t flinch. He held his ground.

“You’re wrong,” he said simply. “There’s always another way.”

Dazai turned on him like a storm, eyes wild.

“Then tell me!” he shouted. “Tell me what I missed! Tell me the variable I didn’t see! I have tried everything, everything. I broke the script. I let you go first in my head. I stood still. I prayed to a god I don’t believe in!”

His voice rose with each word.

“I even hoped that maybe… maybe the system would have pity on an orphan with guilt in his veins. But it doesn’t! It wasn’t made to save us. It was made to punish!”

He stepped forward, coat flaring behind him like wings made of shadow. He made his way to the door, it opened before him on his own.

“This courtroom isn’t a trial. It’s a sentence. And it only ends when one of us disappears. That’s the story!”

The word cracked through the room like thunder.

And then there was silence again.

Atsushi looked at him.

Not with fear but with understanding.

“You’re scared.”

Dazai froze.

“You think no matter what we do, I die?” Atsushi said softly. “So you’ve decided to carry that. You are thinking about walking out. Not because you want to. But because someone has to.”

Dazai didn’t speak; he seemingly couldn’t.

“You are planning to leave,” Atsushi said. “And carry my death with you.”

At last, Dazai looked at him.

His eyes were hollow. Glassy and uncharacteristically lost.

“Yes, I am thinking of that.”

The word was barely a whisper.

“Because you’re worth something,” Dazai murmured. “Because I’ve already survived too much, I thought I could handle this too, but...”

Atsushi stepped forward.

“And you think you can survive it, leaving someone important to you behind?”

Dazai gave a thin, bitter laugh.

“I already do.”

That stopped Atsushi; he felt cold all of a sudden.

“But I cannot bring myself to leave you,” Dazai said as he slammed the door shut, angrily, like the exit itself was at fault for everything happening with them at the moment.

For a long moment, nothing moved. Not even the air.

Then, Atsushi closed his eyes. Took a breath.

And ran toward the judge’s bench.

He jumped.

His palm hit the inscription hard.

“Atsushi-kun!” Dazai shouted as he ran under the boy, he was watching him with wide eyes.

Pain lanced through Atsushi’s whole body immediately. Heat flared up his arm like acid. He gasped but held on.

The words were pulsing under his touch; the letters were not just carved. They were alive.

He dropped back, cradling his burned hand, but he wasn’t afraid.

He’d felt something.

A beat, it was like a heartbeat.

This whole room was a story, that was alive.

He stared at the inscription.

Only One May Pass

 

And then he started thinking again.

If it were really a story with feelings, they might change it. With belief.

“This is a story,” he said aloud. “That’s why it feels like a courtroom. Why it looks like it’s making us choose.”

Dazai didn’t answer.

Atsushi pressed on. “The trap doesn’t work by controlling the body. It controls the story. The moment we walked in here, we became part of a narrative, designed to reach one conclusion.”

He looked back at Dazai, eyes steady.

“But stories can lie, it can have unreliable narrators.”

A faint tremor passed through the floor. As if the room had heard that.

Atsushi turned fully now, pacing slowly toward the centre of the room. The benches creaked and shifted around him, but this time, he didn’t flinch.

“You said it’s not an ability user’s doing, right?” he said. “But I think it sure as hell looks like Franz Kafka’s ability, I’ve read about him in an old newspaper,” Atsushi put up his index finger, “his ability was ‘The Trial,’” Atsushi paused here, “It can affect you maybe because he is already dead and his gift was a very unique one, he could cast it to places and it becomes metaphisical.” He looked into Dazai’s eyes with a determined expression, “This trap isn’t really about rules or guilt. It’s about despair. It’s supposed to strip us of choice until we believe we never had one.”

He stopped in the centre of the aisle.

“But what if that’s not what we believe, because that’s not what we are.”

Another tremor. The lights flickered above. The judge’s bench cracked at one edge.

Atsushi didn’t stop.

“You told me once, Dazai-san, that being part of the Agency means you choose to save people, even when it’s irrational. Even when it’s impossible. Even when it doesn’t make sense.”

He turned to face the bench directly. His voice rising now, not with anger, but with clarity.

“Well, here we are. The impossible. The trap that says we can’t both live. That I have to die.”

He clenched his fists.

“I reject that story.”

The air rippled.

The judge’s stand groaned like something ancient and wounded. The inscription at the centre of the room flickered, then shattered like glass, vanishing into light.

Dazai jerked upright.

“Atsushi—?”

But Atsushi wasn’t looking at him. He was staring at the door.

The once-solid barrier had begun to crack down the middle. The golden light was no longer harsh, it was warm, flickering And unstable.

The message written above it was changing.

From:

Only One May Pass…

 

To:

You may leave side by side…

 

The rest of the sentence didn’t finish. The courtroom groaned again, its walls trembling, but it wasn’t collapsing.

It was restructuring.

Atsushi turned back to Dazai and held out his hand.

“You must believe it too,” he said. “We walk out together. Or we don’t walk out at all.”

Dazai stared at him.

Between them there was only stunned silence.

Then, slowly, he took the steps  forward and also took Atsushi’s hand, not caring about the supposed barrier between them.

The moment they touched, the room exploded with light.

It was both destructive and liberating.

Atsushi and Dazai looked at each other wide eyed. Then they examined their surroundings further.

The benches burst into motes of gold. The walls faded into paper-thin dust. The judge’s bench cracked and crumbled to nothing.

The trap was gone.

And in front of them, there was just a simple doorway.

The first thing Dazai noticed as they stepped outside was the air.

Crispy and a bit cold. As he looked up at the sky, it was clear with only a few clouds swimming on the sky.

The second thing he noticed was that he was still holding Atsushi’s hand… But just minutes ago he was sure he will lose the boy by the end of this mission so he didn’t give a shit about it, it was good to feel the boy, next to him, breathing. Alive…

So the outside world luckily  was nothing like the room that soaked in metaphor and laced with judgment.

No dead friend saying things that made him want to run to Atsushi’s side to really burn alive.

Just… fresh air, finally.

He didn’t look back, not because he wasn’t tempted, but because some part of him knew, if he looked, the courtroom wouldn’t be there anymore. Or maybe it never had been.

They stepped out of the doorway together and walked towards the exit of the building.

As they stepped outside, though the crumbling bricks behind them looked far more like a burnt-out warehouse than anything resembling a courtroom.

Atsushi let go of Dazai’s hand.

Then he collapsed on a broken step and breathed. Slowly. Steadily.

Dazai remained standing. Eyes fixed on the building’s frame, as if expecting it to rebuild itself, pull them back in.

“…It let us go,” Atsushi said finally.

“No,” Dazai murmured. “You let us go.”

Atsushi glanced up.

Dazai’s expression was unreadable, but his eyes were clear. Atsushi saw admiration in them, and warmth.

“That ability… it wasn’t about force. It was really a story. A cage made of an idea. And I—” He stopped. Then gave a hollow little laugh. “I thought I could outthink it but eventually fell for it.”

“You’re good at that,” Atsushi said gently.

“Falling for mind traps?” Dazai asked sarcastically.

“No,” Atsushi laughed lightly, I mean outthinking complex ideas,” he said.

“Not good enough it seems.” Dazai said bitterly.

The tall brunet crouched beside Atsushi now. His bandaged fingers curled into his own sleeves.

“That trap… was designed to test how people process guilt and survival,” he muttered. “You weren’t supposed to find a door. You were supposed to accept the sentence. That’s the heart of it.” Dazai said, “and because I’m not good at processing my guilt and I am indeed a suicidal person, this trap was the worst for me,” Dazai sighed.

Then after a moment he looked up. “Kafka, you said?”

Atsushi blinked.

“The ability user I mentioned?”

“Yes,” Dazai said. “I’m certain now you must be right. Franz Kafka. His ability, The Trial… it’s about guilt, isolation, faceless judgment. This ability wouldn’t attack your body. It would break your sense of control and your mind.”

Atsushi frowned thoughtfully. “So he used it on us?”

“Or we wandered into a long-standing trap it left behind. Abilities like that… they don’t always die with the user. Sometimes they linger. Especially if they’re built to ensnare the mind.”

Atsushi was quiet for a moment.

Then, with a small smile:

“Still. We beat it. That matters and I’m tired.”

Dazai stared at him for a moment. Not with disbelief, but something closer to wonder.

“…You just solved the impossible, are you aware of that?” he said with a slight curve of his lips.

Atsushi shrugged, trying to hide how red his ears had gotten. “You were just too busy playing chess to realise we weren’t on a board.”

There was a pause.

And then Dazai laughed.

It was a real one. Atsushi could tell the difference between the other’s fake and real laughs, and he was always happy for the latter ones.

Dazai looked up at the sky and said, “I thought I was going to lose you.”

“You almost did,” Atsushi murmured while blushing slightly.

Then he reached out.

As he took Dazai’s hand, the brunet’s eyes widened as he looked at the boy beside him.

“Next time,” he said quietly, “don’t try to choose for me.”

Dazai didn’t say anything.

But he didn’t let go of Atsushi’s hand, either.

The Agency office lights were far too bright.

Or maybe it was the contrast. After the void of the courtroom trap, everything now felt too sharp. Too loud. Too full of color and life that didn’t quite fit the air still clinging to their clothes like a second skin.

Ranpo didn’t even look up when they walked in.

"Oh, look who didn’t die." He crunched into a chip with casual ease, pointing at them like they were late to a party. "You owe me three snacks, Yosano."

Dazai blinked slowly. His skin looked drained under the fluorescents, lips slightly parted like he’d forgotten how to breathe.

“Excuse me?” he murmured.

“I bet Yosano you’d both make it out. She said one of you would emotionally implode and the other get eaten by metaphorical rats." he smirked at that, "I won.”

Across the room, Yosano didn’t even look up from her paperwork. “Still might happen. Recovery doesn’t start just because the trap ends.”

Atsushi stood just inside the doorway. His palm still ached, a faint hum that didn’t seem physical anymore, and his bones felt made of paper.

And Dazai, he wasn’t amused. He didn't a grin or flashed a smart remark, he was just silent.

“Kafka,” the tall brunet said at last. The name escaped his moth like smoke.

Ranpo stopped mid-bite.

“…So it was his ability,” he said quietly.

“You knew,” Dazai replied, but his voice held no accusation. Just a hollow weight.

“Suspected,” Ranpo said, tilting his head. “That place’s eaten five teams in two months. There was only one survivor, and even he doesn’t speak anymore. Even though he is lucid... he still went nuts.” His tone shifted, growing sharper. "You rewrote the end. Congratulations."

Dazai didn’t respond. He simply nodded once, almost imperceptibly.

“Anyway,” Ranpo waved a hand, “Yosano wants to check on you. Try not to collapse in slow motion. It’s less cinematic than you’d think.”

Atsushi chuckled, the smallest curve of breath escaping. It eased something in him, only if just briefly.

But Dazai didn’t smile.

The next morning, the office was strangely quiet.

Atsushi sat at his desk, fingers tapping keys slowly. Kunikida lectured Tanizaki somewhere in the distance, the printer groaned. Life went on.

Except for one person.

Dazai sat in his chair like a marionette with cut strings. Files unopened. A pen hung loosely between his fingers. His coat lay tossed over the back of his seat, like he hadn’t noticed it had slipped.

Once or twice, his gaze drifted. To the wall. To nothing. To Atsushi.

And then away.

No jokes. No humming. No cheerful death wishes.

Just silence.

Atsushi hesitated, glancing toward him again. The stillness wasn’t peaceful. It was the kind that followed a car crash. The kind that made you feel like something was missing even if all the pieces were there.

And maybe… maybe something was missing indeed.

Dazai’s eyes looked like they were still trapped in that courtroom.

Then suddenly the door creacked open.

“Morning, minions~!”

Ranpo entered with sunglasses, a bag of pastries, and all the grace of someone who’d slept twelve hours and dreamed in French.

“I brought croissants. It’s that kind of day, right? Melancholy with a touch of jam?”

Dazai stood up fast. His chair squeaked across the floor.

Everyone froze.

He didn’t say a word. Just grabbed his coat and shrugged it on with trembling fingers.

“Where are you going?” Kunikida asked, his was was more curious than strict, he had noticed something was off around his coworker too.

“Out.”

That was all.

Ranpo’s tone faltered. “You sure you’re—?”

Dazai shot him a look.

And left.

The door clicked shut behind him.

Atsushi was on his feet before he realized he’d moved.

“…I’ll go after him,” he said.

Kunikida didn’t stop him.

“Make sure he doesn’t kill Ranpo-san when you are back,” Tanizaki muttered.

The wind outside hit like cold salt.

Atsushi followed his mentor wordlessly, not too close behind, not too far either. Dazai’s silhouette moved with unnatural speed, coat whipping behind him like shadow.

No refused to talk, although he surely sensed Atsushi was just behind him.

So the silver-haired boy just… followed.

Until Dazai stopped at a canal, on a rusted railing. Water was dark as ink under them.

Atsushi approached slowly, each step careful, like approaching a wounded wild beast.

“You’re not going to ask?” Dazai’s voice was a whisper, sharp around the edges.

Atsushi’s hands curled into fists. “Didn’t think you wanted me to.”

Dazai laughed. But it was not kind at all. It was empty and cracked.

“Of course I don’t. But here you are. Staring like something’s wrong with your dog.”

“I just want to know if you’re okay.”

"You just want to know, got it..." Dazai turned around and what Atsushi saw in his eyes scared him to no end. “I could lie and tell you otherwise, but no, I cannot today," Dazai stepped closer to Atsushi, "I'm not okay.”

His eyes were darker than the water beneith, it was red and raw, nothing like what Atsushi was used to.

“And I don’t want comfort. I don’t want to hear that we made it back. Because I know what I saw. And in every version of that room… you died.”

Atsushi froze.

Dazai’s voice dropped to a whisper.

“And I accepted it. I was ready to carry it. Like always. I thought I could survive one more person leving me behind.”

“You weren’t supposed to survive me.”

“I wasn’t supposed to care this much.”

Silence streched between them.

Then Atsushi cast his eyes downward and his voice was only above a whisper. “You didn’t have to.”

“I did,” Dazai said, “and I still do.”

His voice cracked, just slightly. Like something inside him gave up.

“I thought I could handle anything. But would be unable to walk out that door alone. I couldn't handel carrying your weight of your...”

Atsushi stepped closer.

“You said once that people in the Agency choose to save others even when it’s irrational. That includes you too.”

Dazai's breath hitched, and he didn’t move. His eyes were now just broken, like dark chocolate melted on the stove. It hurt Atsushi to see the older man this way.

The silver-haired boy pressed a folded paper into Dazai's hand. “You dropped this.”

He opened it slowly. Saw the sketches. The scrawled words:

Worst case scenario: No way out if Atsushi insists on staying.

Dazai stared.

Then, slowly, he walked to the railing.

And let it go.

The paper spun once before the wind pulled it into the water.

It was gone.

Dazai watched it vanish. Then said, voice so soft it barely existed:

“Thanks for proving me wrong.”

Atsushi stood beside him now. Close enough to feel the warmth through their coats.

“You’re not alone anymore.”

And Dazai didn’t have to say a thing.

Because Atsushi saw the slight curve of his lips, and that was more than enough for him.