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The first rule of sleeping on floor c of the university dorm building is understanding that there will not be any sleeping.
Some days Sigma thinks that they should have just gone to prison. It would probably be easier than whatever the fuck is going on here.
“Dazai,” they say slowly. “Why are you coming in through the window at two in the morning. We are on the third floor.”
“Doesn’t matter,” the man in question responds brightly. “Besides, you’re awake too!”
“I have an exam tomorrow,” they rub their eyes, squinting in his direction and wondering if the subsequent dizziness is the caffeine or the exhaustion. “I’m studying. Like a normal person. You should, too.”
Dazai shrugs, kicking off his shoes and dumping his coat on the ground, like a heathen. “I’ll pass even if I don’t.”
It is true, no matter how much Sigma hates it. Fourth-year law student, top of his class, and yet they aren't sure they’ve ever seen him even look at the syllabus.
Which reminds them – “Were you out drinking?”
They can smell the alcohol on him even from across the room. Honestly, they don't understand how someone studying the law can break it so often and so casually, but they don't understand most things about Dazai Osamu regardless.
“Maybe I was,” he grins. “I’m gonna crash.”
Sigma watches him lean over to his desk and take a sip of the vodka he won off of Nikolai a couple of days ago. He disappears into the bathroom before coming back out mere minutes later, face-planting into his bed, and passing out. He’s still in most of the clothes that he wore when he went out. They aren’t even going to try to ask him to at least change his bandages.
It’s a skill, Sigma will admit. Alcoholism isn’t exactly foreign to them – it can’t be, not when one works at a casino – but they still marvel at Dazai’s ability to switch back and forth between completely sober and completely wasted in seconds.
They sigh, and return to their notes. Even if Dazai won’t put any effort into his actual education, Sigmai refuses to do the same, and they aren't blessed with the ability to never need to open a textbook in order to memorize the curriculum.
They think they want to hate the guy, sometimes. How could they not? Dazai is rich and intelligent – university was never going to pose any sort of difficulty to him. To someone like Sigma, ordinary beyond measure, it isn’t exactly easy not to feel jealous.
But they can never bring themself to do so, not fully, not when Dazai is the reason they even have this opportunity at all.
Dazai’s already gone by the time Sigma wakes. It’s probably for the best. They’re mostly sure that the man does have an actual job, and his unrelenting tardiness is not one of the habits he should keep. It’s not even like he wakes up extremely late, or is always busy – sometimes they think that he does it just to piss off the professors.
There’s a little note on the bedside table, and they blink the sleep out of their eyes as the blurry lines solidify back into words.
got you a coffee!! i’ll be back late again probably and my phone’s dead lmao so don’t worry about me
xoxo dazai
There are kaomojis painstakingly drawn around the paper. It is unfortunately kind of cute, and the coffee is a godsend. Sigma can feel life returning to them with every sip. Dazai isn’t entirely terrible, they suppose, dragging themself out of bed, and they make a mental note to thank their roommate later whenever they see him next.
They’re supposed to find Nikolai and Fyodor this morning, they remember. For a long moment, they mourn the quiet of the empty dorm room, before sighing and heading out, the path to the cafe second-nature to them after four years of meeting their friends – odd as the word sounds, especially in comparison to those it describes – so frequently.
The second they sit down, without even the chance to put their things down, Nikolai takes one look at them and says brightly, “Wow, you look exhausted!”
“Thank you, I didn’t realize,” they mumble into their laptop, letting their bag drop unceremoniously to the floor. They’ve had three coffees in the past thirty minutes and they still haven’t dealt with all of the caffeine from what could either be last night or early this morning. Their head is veritably splitting apart.
Fyodor wordlessly slides a bottle of ibuprofen across the table, and then returns to writing whatever it is he’s working on now. It’s either a thesis paper with such skill his professor will cry or Orthodox Christianity fanfiction. One can never really know with him. They aren’t sure they want to.
“So,” Nikolai continues. “Our exam is in an hour, huh?”
“What are you talking about,” Sigma says, dry-swallowing probably too many pills and turning on their computer. “We don’t have the same majors.”
“I’m trying to be nice, here,” he pouts, “sympathetic and everything.”
What a bold-faced lie. Nikolai has never been genuinely sympathetic about anything except Fyodor and death in his entire life. He absolutely does not care about their misery, and the laugh he lets out in response to their scathing look only proves it.
“And Dazai?” Fyodor asks. “Doesn’t he have a class with you?”
“Not this one,” they answer. “Besides, I haven’t seen him since last night.”
“Oh yeah,” Nikolai says wonderingly. “We were smoking. I almost forgot about that part.”
Sigma very carefully does not ask. Every once in a while, either Dazai or Nikolai will try to get them to go drinking, or smoking, or whatever it is they do at ungodly hours in the morning. Too many things, probably. They know Dazai keeps going anyway, even after he and Nikolai split up, and continues whatever illegal activities he’s decided that night.
It sounds exhausting. What even is the point? Why Nikolai isn’t the one with a migraine right now is beyond them. They can’t all be adrenaline junkies or whatever the two of them use as excuses.
As casually terrifying as Fyodor is, at least he has the good sense to actually sleep during the night.
“I should be studying,” they choose to say instead. “I’m going to fail.”
“What are you talking about?” Fyodor frowns, voice sharp. “You’ve never once done so. You’re acting ridiculous.”
Sigma can’t decide if that’s a compliment or not. They suppose it’s the closest that he can get for anyone that isn’t Nikolai or Dazai – in the end, they’ve known each other for too many years now, and yet they are still no closer to understanding him than they were at the start.
“Read over your coursework and then stop stressing,” Fyodor continues bluntly, gesturing at their laptop.
Yeah, sure, that’s something they can do. Ignoring whatever Nikolai is doing now, they finally return to their screen and open up their notes.
And – okay, that’s too many pages. A groan escapes them, lavender and white falling into their eyes as they inadvertently slump over. They cannot wait to crash tonight.
Sigma meets Dazai at sixteen, shoved haphazardly onto the chair next to the teenager wearing dress pants and a gray hoodie and far too many bandages.
They’re cold because the room is climate-controlled and nobody had given them a change of clothes so they’re still wearing thin, blood-stained fabric, dark red covering the entirety of their arm and probably more of their body in a way that means no one else in the police station would meet their eyes, and the brown-haired boy takes one look at them and laughs long and hard.
They don’t know whether to be offended or grateful that at least one person isn’t treating them as a monster, even if they know that the sentiment will quickly vanish once he finds out what they did.
“Damn,” he says, wiping away tears from his one visible eye, “who did you kill?”
“No one,” Sigma replies immediately, pulling back reflexively. Do they really look like that?
He snorts, shifting over in his chair so that he’s curled up in a way that makes the hard plastic look almost comfortable, and calmly blows dark curls out of his face. “Obviously not, you’re too anxious to have done anything like that. Well, intentionally, at least.”
“What is your problem?” they snap, and that probably came out wrong but they’re stressed and adrenaline and fear are coursing through their veins and – well. It’s been a long day.
The teenager just snorts. “What’re you here for?”
And they don’t know what possesses them to do it, exhaustion and frustration warring in equal measure at the carelessness exuding from every inch of him, but Sigma frowns and says, “I stabbed someone.”
It’s not the full story, but it’s the truth.
There’s a pause, him tilting his head in an almost birdlike manner, and then he whistles in what appears to be admiration. “Good for you.”
“You’re not going to say anything? You don’t care?” God knows everyone else had. One of the cops had muttered just like his fucking mother when he'd taken them to the station and pretended not to see when Sigma had flinched so violently they'd knocked themself into the side of the car.
“Why should I? You’re not planning on doing it again,” he shrugs, grinning brightly at them.
“How do you know that? What if I was?”
That did not warrant the laughter that exploded out of him once more, in their opinion. “Of course not,” he says. “You think you’re all normal, staring at everyone in this room like we’re all going to try to kill you. It was self-defense, I assume, even if I don’t know where you got the normal from.”
He’s not wrong. That’s the worst part, even if it feels like a complete stranger has just ripped their skin from their bones. No one except Fyodor and Nikolai have ever been able to read them so cleanly before, especially not after knowing them for a mere couple of minutes.
Maybe it’s obvious, but it’s the way that he looks at them, eyes pointed and knowing and how casual he is with it all.
“And,” he adds flippantly, “I stabbed a guy too. We match!”
Sigma freezes. Looks him up and down again, at the sharp panes of his face and the cutting-edge of his smile and the way they’ve only just realized that he’s in the chair with the best view of everyone in the room, and realizes that they’re next to someone dangerous.
The bandages aren’t just for show. Now that they’re looking, they can tell. The ones up his neck don’t seem to be for any recent injury, although they wouldn’t know for the ones on his face, but the bandages stretching out over his palms are specifically hand wraps.
The fact that he could read them so well, despite only just having met, should’ve tipped them off sooner.
Sigma used a knife to protect themself. They suspect he uses knives with a lot more frequency, and familiarity, than they ever will.
“Oh my god, it’s fine, calm down,” a voice says, and their head snaps up to see his face a couple of inches away from their own, brows furrowed in a facsimile of worry. His eyes, however, are clearly bored, and the sigh he lets out only confirms that.
“Here,” his gray hoodie falls into their lap, and they look up to see him clad in just a formal white shirt. “You’re cold. And then maybe you’ll get that I’m not going to stab you or whatever.”
As they watch, he readjusts his bandages and then pulls out a bundle of black fabric from somewhere behind them, shaking it out to reveal what must be the dress pants’ matching coat. He slips it on with an ease that speaks of experience, and Sigma catches a couple of drops of red on one of its sleeves, illuminated sharply by the harsh fluorescent lights.
Not a liar, then, even if they wouldn’t have thought so anyway.
That ought to be rephrased – they’re sure that he lies like he breathes. But for some reason, he hadn’t done so to them. Not about this, at least.
Their hands twist in the fabric of the sweater, and it is surprisingly soft and they are cold, so they slip it on gingerly. Unfortunately, it actually does help, and they find themself instinctively pulling it closer around them.
“Great,” he says brightly, and then holds out a hand. “I’m Dazai Osamu.”
“Sigma,” they reply slowly, and reach out in return.
Sigma had assumed that they’d get a brief stint in juvie, at least, even if no one had died and it had all been in self-defense. They’d spent most of their time trying to prepare themself for it, because they know what they look like: all long, pastel-dyed hair and painted nails and dangly earrings and so utterly alone against the harsh eyes of court and jail alike.
Nobody would believe them – not on any part of this, and they know this truth intimately.
It would’ve ruined their chances of ever getting into a good university and escaping their god-awful apartment in an even worse neighborhood. Some days they wish they hadn’t gotten themself emancipated so young, but they know they wouldn’t be here, alive, otherwise.
Except when the officer comes back out to speak with them, he’s clearly nervous, eyes flicking around the room like someone is about to jump out at him. And when he hands them a couple of stapled sheets of paper, not even daring to talk, all it consists of is a release form.
“I’m not going to be tried?”
“God, no,” he says quickly, somehow paling even further. “You’ve got some very influential people looking out for you, boy. We can’t keep you here.”
The rest of his sentence is alarming enough that they don’t bother to correct him. “Who?”
“Not important,” he gestures for them to fill the form, still watching the room in fear. “Please hurry.”
And then, because his gaze keeps landing on the chair next to them – the one that had been since emptied out – Sigma asks, “Dazai?”
The officer flinches. “That’s not necessary information.”
He continues to not meet their eyes.
There’s not much more they can push, so they fill out the form and prepare to leave. They’re not exactly going to complain about any of this.
“And, uh,” he says, right before they go, “I did what I was supposed to, okay? No reason to go any further.”
“Yeah,” they answer slowly, trying very hard not to let their bewilderment show on their face. “Sure.”
What did Dazai even do? No - better question. Why?
“Do you know Dazai Osamu?” Sigma asks, a couple of weeks later, because Fyodor and Nikolai somehow know everyone due to being a stalker and certifiably insane, respectively, and they’re all around the same age anyway.
“Dazai?” Fyodor repeats, raising a brow, but there is familiarity in his voice. “Why do you ask?”
They pause for a second. “He, uh, bailed me out of jail.” It’s probably the best way to phrase it.
“He did organized crime,” Nikolai says around a mouthful of pirozhki. “I think he got out a couple of months ago.”
“Officially,” Fyodor mutters, which means that he didn’t actually quit.
It explains a lot about him, honestly. The bloodstained suit, the hand wraps, the bandages covering every inch of him – although that last one might just be Dazai.
“The police officer was terrified of him,” Sigma adds, because that’s the one that still doesn’t make sense. No matter what he might get up to, he’s still only a teenager.
“Yeah, that’s probably because he’s a Tsushima,” Nikolai replies.
“That’s not his name.” But it does serve as an explanation. Everyone knows about the Tsushimas.
“He changed it,” Fyodor says, and reaches over to refill their cup with water. “Eat, Sigma. Stop thinking about him. Dazai does whatever he wants to.”
Sigma acquiesces and does their best to put him out of their mind. He was probably just bored, and they’re never going to see him again. Fyodor is right – what’s done is done, and there’s no point in really worrying about it.
But Dazai reappears in their life six months later and offers to let them live in his dorm, right next to the main university buildings and unfortunately too expensive for Sigma to afford. When they say so, he just laughs and tells them that he’s got more than enough money to burn.
Sigma bites back the no shit that surfaces instinctively.
When they accept – foolish as it is, they’re desperate for a place to stay and if Nikolai and Fyodor know him, he can’t truly be that terrible – Dazai beams at them and dumps a job offer at a casino in their hands.
“They don’t really care about legalities,” he tells them, “so they’re not going to look into your background.”
It is, unfortunately, one of the kindest things anyone has ever done for them. It’s a little depressing that it comes from someone who’s practically a stranger, but Sigma isn’t going to question it too much.
For someone from a probably-corrupt wealthy family, for someone who’s supposed to be a criminal, Dazai is far too easy to like.
“You take notes on people,” Dazai says one day.
Sigma chokes on the pastry they’d bought for themself, coughing around buttered flakes, and then swallows. “What the fuck are you talking about. Actually, what the fuck are you doing here?”
The campus cafe isn’t exactly private, but there are few people who will stick around in the back corner at nine in the evening. Sigma is only here for a quick meal before they head off to their shift at the casino, anyway, and they may have seen a couple of his friends around – the dark-haired med student, Yosano, and the forensics major, Edogawa – but never Dazai himself.
“You come here before each of your shifts,” he says, bored. “I wanted to talk to you.”
Their face feels hot. “What did you want to talk about, then?”
He slides into the chair across from them in one smooth, elegant motion, bag slipping off of his shoulder to rest on the ground. He tilts his head, watching as they set the pastry down and wipe their mouth with a napkin.
“You take notes on people,” Dazai repeats. “Because you want to understand them better.”
“This doesn’t feel like a conversation,” Sigma mutters.
His eyes are blank. “Why?”
“Are you being serious right now?”
“Yes,” he says, and it’s only then that Sigma considers that the blankness might be barely-hidden confusion. He’s not completely sincere, he never is, but as close to it as he can get.
“Well,” they start, because it’s never really been something they needed to explain – no one aside from Fyodor or Nikolai are aware of it, and the two really couldn’t care less aside from Fyodor immediately destroying everything they have on him – “people get… upset. If you treat them the wrong way. So I remember them as best as I can, so that I don’t do that.”
Dazai hums, hand reaching out to steal Sigma’s fork and spinning it, over and under and around deft fingers. Sigma’s eyes track the movement instinctively before realizing what they’re doing. “That sounds like a lot of effort.”
“It is,” they agree, even if they don’t know why they’re tolerating this at all, “but I think it’s worth it.”
“I mean, why do you care? If someone gets mad at you, that’s on them, not you. If you try to cater to everyone in the world, no one will be happy.”
Sigma pauses. Dazai isn’t exactly wrong, and they are aware of that, but if they can try to make even one person’s life easier, they would be glad.
But they can hear a lot in his voice. In his words. More than he intended, probably.
“Well, not everyone,” they choose to say instead, his eyes narrowing to a dangerous glint. They know he understands. More than they would’ve wanted him to, but they cannot be surprised. Of all the people in the world, it would be him.
“You should be careful,” he says, and it sounds like a threat, almost, but hidden underneath the sharpness of his tone is veiled concern.
“I try to be,” Sigma responds. “I’ve made it this far, haven’t I?”
Even if, every day, they wonder how on earth it had happened. They’d lucked out, meeting Fyodor and Nikolai and of course Dazai, fucked up as the three of them are. Without their aid, Sigma knows they would’ve never landed themself admission at such a prestigious university. Without their aid, they probably wouldn’t even be alive.
But then again, they’d thought that they would die, all those years ago, and good timing and a kitchen knife had saved them from what they had assumed to be inevitable. From what would have utterly destroyed them. They cannot know what would have happened – they cannot keep thinking about the what-ifs, because their position is precarious enough.
Day by day is all there is for them. They would’ve minded more if their days hadn’t become – somehow – almost enjoyable.
“You have,” Dazai says, tone unreadable, but he doesn’t seem upset. “Come with me to a bar this weekend.”
The change in topic is abrupt, but not entirely unexpected with him. “Why?”
“Well, I assume you have classes,” he raises a brow, “and would rather wait for them to be over.”
Sigma rolls their eyes, reaching over to drain half of their coffee. “You know I don’t like breaking laws.”
“You do it all the time,” he points out, and they stiffen. Regardless, before they can say anything, he continues on, “I’m not asking you to do anything illegal, Sigma. I wouldn’t ask that of you.”
They don’t know what it is, exactly, that convinces them to say yes. Maybe it’s the fact that this is one of the most genuine they’ve ever heard of him. Maybe it’s the way that he says their name – for the first time this entire conversation, in fact.
It doesn’t matter. The way that Dazai perks up, eyes brightening, makes it worth it.
“I’m not drinking anything strong,” is the first thing they say when they finally catch his attention from across the room.
Dazai just nods, his grin in no way diminished. He bounds over to them in mere seconds, slinging an arm over their shoulder in a smooth motion and starts tugging them over to the bartender. “No alcohol if you don’t want to,” he promises. “That’s not why we’re here.”
Sigma sighs and lets themself drop onto one of the barstools, tilting their head at him. “Then why are we here, then? It’s a nice bar, but not really one I thought you’d go to.”
It’s true. It really is a nice bar – caramel-golden light coaxing the shadows of the room into something softer, coating the elegant if not slightly worn mahogany-wood furniture. It’s not the type of place that college students generally prefer – while there are people spread throughout, the place feels familial. Quiet. Certainly not the pulsing, energetic nightclubs that most of their classmates frequent, or the rundown bars in the crime-ridden slums that the other half of their year can be found in.
“My friend brought me here for the first time several years ago,” Dazai answers, voice suddenly serious. Almost sombre.
They chance a look at him, but he’s not facing them, eyes trained instead on the amber liquid in his glass. “I see.”
He shrugs, answering a question they haven’t asked. “I don’t know. It’s sentimental of me, probably. But as you said, it’s a nice bar.”
“Sentiment is okay sometimes,” Sigma says quietly, watching his face carefully. “Isn’t it?”
“Yeah,” he says, voice painfully casual. “I haven’t told you much about Odasaku, have I?”
You haven’t told me much about anything, they don’t say. If Dazai wishes to tell them about himself – nevermind that they’ve already known each other for four years by now – they will listen. They know the name Odasaku but only in passing – though it has always been obvious how much he matters to Dazai.
He takes their silence as agreement. “I got out for him. Well, mostly.”
They pause. It’s one thing for them to meet in a police station and another to actually speak of it. Everyone knows that Dazai Osamu does organized crime, but no one dares to mention it. It is just another part of the university – all the students are either wealthy or criminals.
Sigma isn’t really an exception from this, either.
“Mostly,” they repeat, even if they don’t know why it’s so funny to them. Fyodor had told them that Dazai was still part of that world, and they know that he wouldn’t bother lying about something so unimportant.
Unimportant to him, at least.
“Well, Mori still has me on speed-dial, but that’s because he’s an asshole,” Dazai sighs dramatically, slumping over onto the table, his previous solemnity completely vanished. “I told him, Sigma, I was like no, fuck you, I’m done and he was all like well if you want me to keep supplying you then you’re not! Like, who does that? He’s such an asshole.”
“Wow,” Sigma says dryly. “I’m so sorry. Your life must be a nightmare. Not like you can’t get your shit from literally anywhere else.”
“He fucking blacklisted me from the other dealers, and I’m too lazy to get around that. He says it’s to keep me from buying too much and killing myself,” he moans. He looks kind of pitiful like this, actually, half-collapsed in a pile beside them.
The name Mori sounds familiar to Sigma, but only faintly. They remember hearing something about an underground doctor but had never looked further. They’d done their best to keep themself out of anything too illegal – Dazai and Fyodor’s influences could only go so far, and some days they wonder if they can really stay in this city forever. If they want to at all.
If they were to ever leave, they cannot have a criminal record any longer than it already is. Then again, it is impossible for Yokohama to not sink herself into their skin. She is a city that devours and rots and nourishes all in one, and she will always keep a part of Sigma, even if they may not have been born here.
Not quite like Dazai, who has lived in this city his entire life and likely will die in it, too. It isn’t like he’s never left – with the amount of blood money he has, it’s quite easy – but he always returns, no matter how long he disappears.
He is careless, free, in a way that Sigma can only envy, and yet he always chooses to come back. Perhaps it is because he has more memories of this city than they do, more tying him down, but looking at him swirling a finger around the ice in his drink, they don’t think that’s quite it.
They don’t know what happened to his Odasaku. It is one name that they’ve heard him speak often, but never to other people, much less to them. If the man is alive or dead is just as much a mystery to them as anything else about him.
But they think that if they could ever meet him, they would thank him. No matter how mysterious either Dazai or Odasaku are to them, it is clear that they mean a lot to each other – that they understand each other. They are glad that someone can be that for Dazai.
They fear that few people have ever tried.
He is not alone, not with Nakahara and Kunikida and Yosano and all of his other friends, but they do not think he lets them see him. Not anymore, at least.
Sigma does not dare to put themself in the same category as all of these people, but they don’t mind this. They cannot save Dazai, nor will they ever probably understand him fully, but they can drink beside him in a quiet bar and listen to him speak.
There’s heavy knocking at the door the next morning, and Sigma groans, shoving the long strands of purple and white that had escaped their braid out of their face as they force themself out of their bed. They’re still in their nightclothes, their head feeling like someone is trying to twist it open, and keeping their eyes open feels like the greatest feat of strength they’ve ever committed. It’s definitely due to the alcohol they’d ended up drinking anyway. Dazai himself is asleep, splayed out on his own bed, and Sigma knows not to expect him to wake up anytime in the next two hours.
The pounding at the door intensifies. Each thump feels like it slams directly into their skull, and they groan again as they finally reach the door. “Calm down, I’m coming.”
It swings open to reveal a heavily unimpressed Nakahara, hand still raised to hit the door, which immediately drops down once he recognizes Sigma.
“Do you need something,” they say. They want to go back to sleep off the hangover or at least get some painkillers. It’s their day off today, they should be able to get that much, but they know that the moment Nakahara shows up means that there will be a lot of shouting and harassment from both him and Dazai.
“Yeah, is he here?” No need to even clarify who, or say hello, or anything like a normal person. They resist the urge to sigh. They’re well-acquainted with his… brusqueness, and it’s certainly not like he’s generally rude or a bad person, but they usually only run into him because of Dazai and that isn’t the most conducive to calmness.
Sigma understands intimately.
They look back to check, because honestly, with someone like Dazai, it’s completely possible that something may have happened in the last two minutes, but he’s still dead to the world. “Yeah. He’s sleeping off a hangover, though.”
“He’ll be fine,” Nakahara says flippantly, shaking his head. “Can I come in? I need to talk to him.”
Sigma takes a moment to mourn the loss of the quiet morning, and then steps aside to let him in. He pushes past the door quickly, beelining directly to Dazai and leaning over.
They drag themself over to their desk, blindly rooting around the drawer to find the painkillers they kept. Behind them, they hear Nakahara start shouting at Dazai, and what sounds like a knee slamming directly into flesh, and their roommate’s tired grumbling and cursing as he wakes up.
There are the vague sounds of muttering and insults from both parties as Dazai presumably starts shoving clothes on. Sigma swallows a couple of pills and decides to take the time to work on their essay. They’re already at their desk, and it’s due in the next couple of days anyway.
“Get yourself fucking clean, asshole,” Nakahara says, and Dazai childishly slams the door of the bathroom in response.
They take a deep breath and ignore everything happening behind them and try to focus on their work. A ten-page essay is manageable – honestly kind, after everything else their professor has given them – but not something they want to keep looking at for the next week.
And yet barely fifteen minutes pass before a body drapes itself over their shoulder, causing them to stiffen, and they look up to see Dazai’s face right next to theirs.
“You should fix this paragraph,” he says, “you’re moving away from your thesis here, see?”
Sigma absentmindedly scrawls out a note next to that section, staring at him, and then narrows their eyes and says, “what the fuck.”
Dazai shrugs, leaning forward even further to peer at their papers, and they stop breathing. He’s surprisingly warm, quite literally pressing into them, and they are painfully aware of every single part of them that he’s touching.
Sigma does not generally like being touched. They are not exceptionally averse to it, per se, but it isn’t common to them either. Dazai seems to bulldoze over this entirely.
“Okay, you’re good,” he chirps brightly, pulling back from them. The sudden cold is just as surprising as his appearance. “Anyway, me and Chuuya have to go. He’s kidnapping me, Sigma. I’m going to kill myself.”
They raise a brow, and look over to where Nakahara is standing, and he sighs. “We’ve had this planned for several weeks already. It’s important. He’s not allowed to bail on me now,” he says, and then glares at Dazai. "I'm not going to go see him alone."
“Okay,” Sigma says dryly. “Have fun, Dazai.”
He whines, swaying forward as if to fall back onto them, but Nakahara snatches him by the shirt collar and then the arm, starting to pull him bodily out of the room. “We’ll be back soon, promise!”
“Have fun,” they repeat, and look away.
They really do need to work on their essay, and the sudden calm of the dorm is preferable to the chaos that would’ve occurred if Dazai and Nakahara stayed. That’s all.
“Oh my god,” Nikolai says, dropping his book unceremoniously onto the table and leaning over to poke them repeatedly. “You like someone.”
“No I don’t, what the fuck,” they hiss, recoiling. “Are you blind?”
“Yes,” he answers unapologetically, winking his blue eye as best as the scarred tissue will allow him.
“You know I didn’t mean that literally!”
“C’mon,” he whines, eyes pleading and exaggerated. “Tell me! Are they cute? Do we know them? What am I saying, of course we’ll know them, you have, like, no other friends.”
“There’s no they,” Sigma snaps, valiantly ignoring his last sentence. “Because there’s no one.”
They try very valiantly to return to their calendar. It’s the time of month that the casinos always get the most clients out of addicted gamblers eager to spend their latest paycheck, and that also means they will probably be working overtime for the next week.
A sharp nail continues to jab itself in their side. Sigma curls away and pointedly raises their papers higher, and the finger disappears.
They have exactly seven seconds of relief before a hand snatches the folder away entirely and a white braid falls into their face. “Sigma, c’mon, I could matchmake you guys!”
They shudder at the thought. Nikolai and matchmake should never be in the same dictionary, let alone the same sentence – they would quite literally rather die.
“No,” they say again emphatically.
“It is Dazai, isn’t it?”
Sigma freezes. When they look up, Fyodor’s eyes are trained on them, unrelenting and sharp in the manner he addresses every issue. It feels like there is an issue, now, under the weight of his gaze.
He has always had a rather uncanny ability to make them feel foolish.
“Dazai, huh,” Nikolai says brightly and sliding into the chair next to them, ignoring how they have stopped breathing completely. “Well, you already know him! For nearly four years already! And you live together! That’s two steps done!”
“No, Nikolai,” Sigma sighs. “It’s not going to happen.”
“Why not?”
“Dazai doesn’t do… that,” they choose to say. “He’s fucked over half the campus. He’s dated none of them.”
“Fedya doesn’t do sex,” Nikolai says. There’s an agreeing hum from across the table. “He’d date his Bible over me if it was possible. We make it work, anyway.”
Make it work doesn’t sound anything like Nikolai’s life in Sigma’s opinion, but they’ve long learned not to try to understand Nikolai and Fyodor’s relationship, and well – Dazai is Dazai. God knows why he does anything he does.
“Why are you so afraid of just asking him out?” he asks.
They think of Nakahara, and the fact remains that they will never know Dazai as well as him. The two have a relationship that they are not part of – despite the screaming and shouting and hatred – and, well. It’s not made much better by the fact that Nakahara is Dazai’s ex.
They don’t know everything about what happened, all those years ago, but they know enough. Dazai fucked up Nakahara enough that forgiveness is likely impossible between the two, but it’s obvious they still care about each other.
How could they ever compete with that? The two might claim that they aren’t dating anymore – and it might be true – but in the end, Sigma is so completely ordinary compared to that.
Even if one was to disregard Dazai’s weird relationships with Nakahara, there’s still Kunikida, and they think he’s hooked up with Yosano once, and even Fyodor and Nikolai themselves. They’ve all known Dazai since they were teenagers. Sigma only happened to run into them senior year of high school. They are terribly, painfully average in this group of geniuses. They don’t fit.
There’s no way to explain that, not in a way that will make Nikolai understand. So they don’t.
“He’s my roommate,” they say instead. “I make it awkward, and then we have to deal with that for the rest of the year, at least.”
“We’ve always got an empty room for you,” Nikolai offers, and it’s surprisingly kind of him, even if living in close proximity with him and Fyodor might actually send Sigma to an asylum.
“Dazai would not care,” Fyodor adds. “I do not believe he knows the word awkward. He and Nikolai get along far too well for that not to be the case.”
“Awww, you’re so nice, Fedya!”
Sigma’s mostly sure that it wouldn’t be a compliment had it come from literally anyone else.
“Look,” Nikolai says, and his eyes are still glimmering in amusement but he’s taken the effort to tone down his voice, “You’re overthinking this. You’re never going to know if you don’t ask.”
“I don’t know him well enough,” Sigma tries, but their voice is quieter. Faltering, even.
Nikolai and Fyodor exchange a glance, before he shrugs again. “If that's your choice.”
They slump over, face-planting into the folder on the table in front of them, ignoring their sudden, desperate urge for coffee. That must be the problem, right? Caffeine withdrawal, because this is honestly ridiculous.
“I’m going to kill myself,” they mumble into the paper.
Now they sound like Dazai. This is the worst thing that could’ve possibly happened to them.
“Group suicide!” Nikolai beams. “Can I invite other people?”
“No, Kolya,” Fyodor says automatically.
Sigma groans, once more faced with the fact that their only acquaintances are genuinely awful people. If it wasn’t for the fact that Nikolai and Fyodor had once been the only people to speak to them, they would’ve left long ago.
They know that whether or not they stay would likely make little difference beyond surface-level concern. Nikolai prizes free will far too strongly, and Fyodor wouldn’t care at all. But despite all of the irregularities, per se, of their group, they remain one of the very few who had ever offered Sigma any kindness at all, and for that they will always stay.
Dazai is another. And that is the root of the problem, isn’t it?
“Sigma,” Fyodor says calmly. “You are scared. That is foolish of you.”
“Fuck you,” Sigma says into the table. Nikolai pokes them in the side with a frighteningly sharp nail in response. “Ow.”
“I didn’t really think of you to be this type of person,” he muses, but it sounds less like he’s pestering them and more like he is simply talking to himself. It’s still rude as fuck, though, which they inform him of.
“Dazai, and you, and practically everyone he knows, are geniuses or highly unstable or both,” they try to explain, because even if Nikolai drops the subject now they know he’ll just bring it up again. “I’m… normal compared to that. Boring.”
Fyodor and Nikolai exchange another glance, and Sigma sighs.
“Sigma, dear,” Nikolai starts slowly, in the voice of an indulgent parent trying to explain something complex to a very small child, “um. Why would you think that?”
“You work at a partially-illegal casino, from when a rich teenage delinquent got you an interview there, because the two of you met in a police station after both stabbing someone,” Fyodor says matter-of-factly, raising a brow. “I thought you were foolish, not stupid.”
“Also I’ve seen your room,” Nikolai adds. “You’ve got, like, six guns and piles of notes on people’s behavior. I really do not know where you got ‘normal’.”
Sigma straightens indignantly, opening their mouth to defend themself, and then closes it. “If you put it that way,” they mutter, because everything just said is technically true, if not missing some context.
“The context does not improve the situation,” Fyodor interrupts, and they can’t even get mad at him. Even if he keeps creeping them out.
“Compared to you guys,” they try instead, and Nikolai immediately starts shaking his head.
“Darling, no one can compare to Fyodor,” he says, and then adds, “you’re still not the most normal of all of Dazai’s friends. Besides, you’re definitely not boring! Don’t worry about that part.”
“Thanks,” Sigma mutters dryly, and heavily contemplates moving to France.
Fyodor and Nikolai look at each other again, and they’re getting sick of this whole telepathic thing the two of them have going on. Not for the first time, they wish they could’ve gotten friends a little less clinically insane.
“It’s on you,” Nikolai says diplomatically, but his voice is full of judgement. Sigma groans.
Life moves on, because time has no care for Sigma’s internal crises. God, that would be nice, but seeing as they probably have some sort of anxiety disorder, time would simply never pass again if it stopped each time they weren’t doing... great.
Dazai continues being Dazai, and Fyodor and Nikolai continue being Fyodor and Nikolai, and they dare to hope that the topic will be dropped, and nobody will try to talk them about fucking relationships.
Somehow - miraculously - this dream maintains itself for several months, until Sigma gets caught in the rain next to, of all people, Ivan.
They’re staring out at the water under the safety of a bus stop awning, both woefully underdressed and unprepared, when Ivan starts talking.
They’ve never really spoken before. Of course, they knew of each other, because Sigma spends a good amount of time with Fyodor and Nikolai and Ivan quite literally manages Fyodor’s schedule and other assorted things they had never looked into nor wanted to, but their interactions have always been rather limited.
“He mentioned that you are in love,” Ivan says, and Sigma almost trips into the puddles in front of them from shock.
There is no point in asking who he is, because there can only be one person for Ivan to refer to, and he rarely actually uses Fyodor’s name, claiming it to be disrespectful.
“What,” they choke out, catching themself right before falling over. “When. Why.”
“He was speaking with Nikolai,” Ivan answers, and glances over to where they stand, eyes narrowing. “With who?”
They stare at him, feeling like they’ve missed something, because there is no reason for a ridiculous crush on Dazai to result in Ivan looking almost – threatening. The longer they stay silent in bewilderment, the sharper and harsher the lines of his face begins to appear, eyes shadowed.
And then it clicks. “What – oh my god, no, not Fyodor.”
All of the tension drains out of Ivan in a mere instant, and he offers them a smile. It looks slightly crazed around the edges, but he no longer looks as if he wishes to carve them open, so they’ll take it. “Ah, my apologies, then. I had to be sure.”
“It’s Dazai,” Sigma finds themself saying, even if they don’t know why. Maybe to provide proof – they don’t really want to get murdered by a fanatic while sleeping. At least they know Ivan would not speak of it to anyone. Their connection to Fyodor guarantees it.
Ivan winces, which lets them know that the two are acquainted, at the very least. “My apologies,” he repeats, and Sigma doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
They fall back into silence, watching the drops of water splashing around them, protected from the downpour by a small sheet of glass above them. Somewhere beyond them, a woman curses in another language, the sound of feet rapidly splashing through puddles echoing and then fading away.
Sigma is busy watching a candle flickering in the window of the apartment building across from them when Ivan speaks again. “If you don’t mind me asking, is it… mutual?”
“Oh,” they say. “No.”
He nods, not in mockery or confirmation, but in what appears to be understanding. Right – he and Fyodor have a strange relationship, one likely worsened on Ivan’s end due to Fyodor and Nikolai’s relationship.
Whatever Ivan may feel for him, Sigma knows that he does not return it. There is certainly no hate on Fyodor’s part, but only because he simply does not care enough about him.
“Did you ask?” he adds, and they stiffen, imagining for an instant the feeling of slapping him directly across the face. They came to this bus stop to prevent getting drenched, not to get interrogated by some guy who’s been pining after Fyodor for literal years.
Sigma takes a deep breath. They are overreacting and they know it. But still, why are literally all of Fyodor’s friends such assholes?
They carefully ignore what that would say about them and turn back to Ivan, who is watching them patiently. “No,” Sigma says bluntly, frowning, “but it’s obvious.”
Ivan shrugs. “I would ask. It is always better to know.”
“Of course you would say that, you’re okay with whatever Fyodor gives you,” they snap, immediately regretting it. They're not usually so impulsive. So uncontrolled.
“Yes,” he nods calmly, somehow not offended. “I have made my peace with that. Have you?”
Sigma’s jaw clicks shut. “It is always better to know,” Ivan repeats.
“God, you are such an asshole,” they say, dragging a hand down their face. “I can see why Fyodor keeps you around.”
He smiles brightly. It’s disconcerting. He doesn’t look like someone who would be incredibly cheerful, but he’s been very calm and content throughout this entire conversation. “It is an honor to be able to stay with him,” he says, ignoring the first part.
Sigma groans. “Okay, fine, you guys win. What, did Fyodor put you up to this, or something?”
“No,” Ivan says, and when they look over he actually seems genuine. “I simply… I know what it feels like. I would not want that for you.”
They can’t even hate him now. Sigma groans again. “…Thank you, Ivan.”
He offers them another smile, and then returns to watching the rain. It’s starting to let up – in a couple of minutes, they’re probably free to go without getting too soaked.
It would be preferable to the conversation they’re going to have to have, Sigma thinks mournfully. Ivan most certainly will tell Fyodor what happened here if asked, and Fyodor will find out, and if he doesn’t hold them to it then Nikolai will.
Their idea of moving to France seems more preferable, day by day.
Dazai realizes something is going on, because if they are quite literally living with him, it is difficult to completely hide it. Sigma knows this, can see the way that he watches them a little longer than normal, brows furrowing, and eyes analytical.
They’re not sure if he knows, but they wouldn’t put it past him. The problem is that he definitely will not say anything, instead waiting for them to do so, and he might not even connect their recent nerves to relationships at all.
And yet they cannot bring themself to speak with him yet. Nikolai has gotten insufferable about it – every morning Sigma wakes up to a text from him along the lines of have you confessed yet followed by an unreasonable amount of gifs, and they go to sleep with several more of those accumulating throughout the day.
They don’t dare speak with him face-to-face, because he might actually jump them.
And then Dazai gets fucking arrested.
When Sigma hears the news, they don’t know what to think at first. He’s a genius – he couldn’t possibly have actually gotten caught, could he?
But no, Kunikida looks annoyed enough that it must be true, and it’s the concern in his voice laced through the frustration that finally convinces them. “He put you as his emergency contact,” she informs them, “which means you should probably head over.”
“What the fuck,” Sigma says, imagining different and increasingly satisfying ways to murder Dazai, and Kunikida nods emphatically.
“I know, right? I don’t know what that dumbass has gotten up to now, but…” she trails off, shaking his head. “You know where he keeps bail money, right?”
“Yeah,” they say slowly. They are surprised by his arrest, most certainly, but definitely more so by the fact that they are his emergency contact. Unfortunately, Kunikida does not understand this, and he disappears before they can ask her about anything more.
“I am so sorry for you,” she tells them, “you can probably take your time. It’ll teach that bastard a lesson,” and then says that he really does need to go, leaving Sigma to grapple with revelation after revelation alone.
However, they aren’t actually mad enough at Dazai to leave him in a cell, so they sigh and get the money before leaving.
Perhaps Fyodor and Nikolai had a point. Generally, most of Sigma’s classmates do not have a roommate who hides cash throughout their dorm room meant for either drugs or bail. By now, they know this process by heart, usually because Nikolai is the one arrested and they go to accompany Fyodor to release him.
The police officer does not look surprised to see them. She looks exhausted, actually, and very frustrated, which informs them that Dazai had continued to be annoying even from the confines of his cell. “You’re here for Dazai, I assume.”
They nod.
Wandering by, who they assume to be her partner frowns, wrinkles his nose, and mutters something about another one.
Sigma stiffens.
It probably doesn’t mean anything. They know this, logically. But Dazai’s never quite cared about passing fully – aside from, frankly, extremely unhealthy binding habits – and Sigma looks, well. Not how they’re supposed to.
The man’s gaze is full of disgust, and their skin crawls, reflexively pulling their knitted sweater closer around them. For one terrible moment, they feel all of sixteen again, and they only barely stop themself from hunching over.
It probably doesn’t mean anything. He might just be referring to delinquents or something, sick of having young adults barely out of adolescence in his police station. It's completely understandable.
It probably doesn’t mean anything.
Sigma’s hands start to shake anyway.
“Shut up,” the other police officer says, scowling. “Go deal with the DUI.”
With a grumbled curse and one last, disdainful glance towards them, he leaves, and Sigma finally exhales, tension bleeding out of their shoulders. When they look up, she appears almost apologetic, and she says nothing more as she brings them to where Dazai is being held.
“Heyyyy Sigma,” is the first thing the man says, offering them a bright smile and a wink, and Sigma resists the urge to strangle him. “How’ve you been?”
“Terrible,” they respond matter-of-factly, running a hand through their hair. It's probably a mess by now. “The fuck did you do.”
“Nothing important,” Dazai whines, eyes growing exaggeratedly wide. “They’re just being dramatic!”
The police officer scoffs and says, “If you weren’t a Tsushima, you’d be in jail already. That’s literally the only reason bail is an option for you.”
Sigma decides they like her. Dazai sighs, pouting, but doesn’t argue, which is a miracle in itself. He stays quiet the entire time they’re finishing up the bail process, blessedly quickly – thank god for Yokohama’s insane amount of criminals because there is no way any of this would be this easy if the city was any less corrupt – and says nothing while they unlock him.
Well, the only reason he didn’t already free himself is likely because Sigma is here and they would absolutely stab him if he makes this any worse. But the sharp grin that appears on his face for a brief moment lets them know that he absolutely could have.
It’s only when they’re finally out of the station with a sarcastic farewell from the police officer – Sigma has already decided to send her a birthday card – that he finally speaks.
“I didn’t mean to drag you into that.”
They glance at him, incredulous, but he continues walking ahead and doesn’t turn to face them. “You put me as your emergency contact, Dazai. What did you think was going to happen?”
He sighs, shoving his hands in his pockets, but still doesn’t look at them. “I needed to get something from inside the police station and figured this would probably be the easiest way. I thought you’d leave me for at least a couple of days, y’know?”
Sigma stops walking, eyes widening in both offense and shock. “The fuck? I wasn’t going to let you rot in a cell!”
Dazai finally turns to meet their eyes and winces at whatever he sees there, pausing just a couple of feet away from them. “It’s not really a big deal, y’know. I’ve been through worse.”
They splutter, throwing their hands up in exasperation. “That doesn’t mean you automatically should! Genuinely what the fuck.”
He shrugs, and they cannot even begin to describe how much they’re starting to get pissed off from his sheer carelessness. If he hadn’t already been so rich, bail would have been a genuine problem. Hell, if he just happened to be literally anyone except a Tsushima, he would already be in some other prison probably halfway across the country. Does he not understand how much worse this could’ve gone? “Pretty much everyone else would.”
Sigma’s mouth snaps shut, and they flinch, but Dazai doesn’t look sad or disappointed or frustrated or, actually, anything at all – his face is perfectly blank, perhaps slightly confused. Nothing at all like someone who just confessed that all of his friends would be happy to leave him in a cell, at least for a little bit.
You can probably take your time, Kunikida had said, and they know that he is still close friends with Dazai. But apparently she still thinks that it isn’t really a big deal.
Sigma can still remember years watching the people who were supposed to be his guardians continue a steady back-and-forth between a near-empty apartment and a jail cell. They’d grown accustomed to police officers and government officials breaking in every other week.
Their mother got clean only once. It took her two months to realize that absolutely no job nor lease would accept her. Not with her record. It took her three days after that to relapse again.
Since they could walk, they’ve known that prison would signal the end of their life. There’s always been too much stacked against them for anything else.
They were supposed to die at sixteen.
How else could they possibly subject anyone else to that?
“I wouldn’t,” they say, not knowing how else to respond.
“I know that now,” Dazai answers, absentmindedly twisting the loose end of one of his bandages around his fingers, tighter and tighter until his hands start turning dark shades of red. He sounds genuine for once. Exhausted. “Why?”
They scoff, and they don’t mean to, but how can he still not get it? He’s supposed to be a genius, after all. “Because I care about you, you idiot!”
It tears itself from their throat completely unwillingly, and then they freeze, looking up to him and watching as Dazai’s eyes widen in shock, bandages fluttering down out of his open hands.
Sigma forces themself back into a more casual pose immediately, shoving their hands behind their back, but it’s too late. They know he’ll already recognize what they truly had meant by it.
“Can we pretend that didn’t happen,” they try anyway, pleading, begging for one last breath of normalcy before they drown.
Dazai raises a brow. Somehow, his face has shut off emotion even further. “No.”
“Okay, fair.”
Neither of them say anything more for a moment. Sigma starts considering whether or not to start praying despite having never been religious, and Dazai must be... who knows? They certainly do not, no matter how much it chafes at them, no matter how desperate they are.
Behind them, police lights flash in and out of view. They’re still only a couple blocks away from the station. Once more, they curse their inability to have shut up. They’re generally a quiet person – why couldn’t that have stuck, just this once?
“You know that there are very few things you could’ve told me that would’ve hurt less,” he says, tone half-joking and half-serious.
“I know,” Sigma answers. Of course they know. They can’t have lived four years next to him without learning at least some things, after all.
The truth is that he refuses to tie himself down at all. All of his friends are accustomed to his frequent disappearances and to his constant mutters of escape and death – there are none, now, who would bat an eye at it, and they are the same.
He’s smart about it, too. Every single one of his relationships – though they would mourn, each person would survive perfectly well without him. Sigma was unfortunately reliant upon him at first, with nothing to their name, but he’d gotten them a job, hadn’t he?
If he were to vanish tomorrow, they would be fine. They have the money now, after four years. Perhaps they would need to move out of the dorm, crash at Fyodor and Nikolai’s while they get their feet back under them, but ultimately, though his aid is invaluable, it is not essential.
The truth is that Dazai is always, always, ready to die.
What Sigma has just told him takes that away from him. They know that he’s trying to be less cruel, now. Sometimes he fails. For the most part, he succeeds. And though they do not want to be presumptuous, they would hope he would not leave them like this, and this stops his death for at least a couple of months.
At least while they are still trapped like this.
He’s quiet again. They pretend it doesn’t stress them out immensely, pulling the rings on their fingers on and off. One of the silver spirals tugs across their skin, leaving a quickly-reddening scratch, and they barely even realize, too caught up in scanning him, fear and hope and utter despair all warring within them.
He’s dropped that ridiculous, careless grin. They don’t know if that’s a good thing.
“You just bailed me out of jail,” Dazai states finally, tone almost neutral. Are you sure?
“I know,” they repeat. Yes.
He sighs. “I won’t be any good for you.”
“We already live in the same dorm,” Sigma snaps, too wound-up for anything else. They’d take anything over this avoidance that he’s giving them – an acceptance or a rejection, at least it would be definite. At least they won’t keep drowning in this silence. “The first time we talked, we’d both just stabbed people. Obviously not, Dazai, but it’s not like I’m expecting anything else!”
An acceptance or a rejection – they know he didn’t plan on this. They know what a shitty person he can be. In the end, they’re still in love with him, aren’t they?
He stares at them, and then hums. “I had to be sure.”
“You are such an asshole,” they say, and he nods and shrugs again. “I hate you.”
“No you don’t,” Dazai replies, only proving their point, and steps closer. “Unfortunately, I feel the same.”
It doesn’t process, at first. They are already mere moments away from a panic attack, breath coming to them a bit too short, and the swelling anxiety within them cuts out all senses for a brief moment before they can register his words.
It crests, and then falls, though their heart still beats fast and their blood still rushes in their ears. Their hands haven’t stopped trembling in the last twenty minutes, and –
For one short, terrifying second, they think they are about to cry.
And then it passes, and they can think properly once again, which means they quickly shove all the emotions away for them to deal with another day, though relief tinged with golden joy keeps bubbling up in their chest.
Before them, Dazai is watching them intensely, which abruptly reminds Sigma that they have not said a word in the past five minutes.
So they reach up and slap him.
“Ow, what the fuck was that for?” he whines, cradling his cheek in his palm. They hadn’t hit him anywhere hard enough for him to be acting like this at all, but he still pouts up at them with the largest, saddest eyes humans can possibly get.
“What sort of answer is that? What is wrong with you? I know you can do better,” they say, aiming for unaffected, but their voice comes out thick and choked-up, and Dazai’s eyes soften.
“Well, you are the better one between us,” he says, smiling and leaning over, and then kisses them.