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It is raining.
Dazai doesn’t like the rain.
Water trickles down the back of his neck, pooling where his jacket dips at his shoulder and sending a steady stream of dampness into his body. He feels like he could be made of the stuff, his hair sticking to his forehead, his shoes squeaking with every step. (Although that’s because of the blood, not the rain.)
(Hey, the rain is useful for one thing. Nobody can tell the difference between droplets of water and droplets of life, which are both soaking Dazai in equal measure.)
He can’t tell which is his. He licks his lips (-“Dazai-san, that’s unhygenic!”-) but all he tastes is coppery regret. Nothing to distinguish his from the others.
So many others.
The Agency shines ahead, the windows still lit despite the ridiculous hour, so azai supposes they’re waiting up for him - nice, but unexpected. Atsushi introduced that idea last week when Kenji apparently staggered into his - Atsushi’s - apartment covered in his own blood and barely breathing. (“We should wait for people,” Atsushi had said firmly, daring one of them to disagree. “We need to prevent as many deaths as we can, so we need to wait.”)
Atsushi.
Dazai thumbs the button for the top floor in the lift and leans against the wall, smiling softly in thought of him. Atsushi chooses the strangest times to grow a spine and behave like an actual agency member, but it's worth it for those times they get to see the Atsushi that could have been if Life hadn't so ridiculously kicked him into the dirt. It’s good. Atsushi is a good person.
Dazai hums listlessly to himself as he walks down the corridor, wiping blood off his cheek with the pad of his thumb before shoving it in his mouth. He hates dirt. And blood is sticky, and the shower block in the dorm isn’t the greatest, and really Dazai doesn’t have the time to scrub every last imperfection out of the whorls of his skin.
(”Unhygienic, Dazai-san.”) The Atsushi in his head is disappointed.
“Whatever,” mumbles Dazai, prodding the door open with his toe.
Immediately a small blonde barrel of sugar and excitement catches him around the waist, knocking him back out and into the corridor, and Dazai’s ears feel as though they could burst with the sudden noise and screaming.
“Wha-”
Through the assault of colour and noise, garish on his senses, he sees a Happy Birthday Dazai banner strung from end to end of the room. It’s a little lopsided. Birthday is spelt wrong.
“Wha-”
Their desks have been pushed together - even Kunikida’s - to make some sort of ridiculously long buffet table. A cake takes centre stage, covered in pink icing and sugarspun flowers and what looks like a gingerbread man to top it all off. There are bowls of sugary sweets all over the rest of the table, though some of them are suspiciously empty.
“Wha-”
There’s a radio on in the background, just faint enough for Dazai to hear the continued rain over the sounds of dying conversation.
“You smell of blood,” Kenji says from somewhere around Dazai’s waist.
“I do,” agrees Dazai. He does.
Yosano is sitting on a table, a bowl of chocolate drops perched on her knees. She looks askance at Dazai, as though wondering if he’ll benefit from a few hits from her chainsaw or something. “He’s fine,” she says eventually.
Dazai sags with relief.
And then his brain catches up with the rest of them. “Hold on, how do you lot know it’s my birthday?”
Every eye in the room turns to the windowsill, where -
Oh God, that’s the most adorable sight Dazai’s ever had the pleasure of seeing.
Atsushi is curled up on the windowsill, his head resting against the cold glass, his body made as small as possible. (He always sleeps like that, in a tiny ball.) Kunikida’s jacket is draped over him, which accentuates how thin he still is - not that Kunikida is massive, not at all, but Atsushi is drowned in it.
“I didn’t tell Atsushi either,” Dazai says, attempting to recover.
Naomi beams. “Nope, but apparently Atsushi met this tiny ginger guy, and after the tiny ginger guy stabbed him and threw him in the ocean, he told Atsushi your birthday was very important and we should celebrate it.”
Tiny -
Chuuya?
“He got stabbed and thrown in the ocean,” Dazai repeated. “What?”
“Atsushi always says it doesn’t matter, ‘cause it doesn’t hurt, and he got to find out when your birthday was,” Kenji informs Dazai. He takes a lump of cake in both hands. Pink icing goes everywhere, and Kunikida winces.
Dazai remembers listening to a wail of pain through a pair of headphones, and knows that it does hurt. It hurts far more than Atsushi has told anyone, apparently.
“So, happy birthday, Dazai.” Junichirou leaps off his seat. “I’ll just wake him-”
“Let him be,” Dazai interrupts, surprising even himself. “Atsushi-kun can have cake later, but he always likes sleeping after a stab wound.”
Outside, unnoticed by the laughing agency members, the rain has stopped. The moon shines on the puddles of water, its glow uninterrupted by the small puffs of rainclouds.
Later, Dazai will carry Atsushi back to the dorms. Later, he will mumble a thank you under his breath to the sleeping weretiger.
Later, Atsushi will open his eyes, and tell Dazai that there is one more present he hasn’t recieved yet.
Before Dazai is able to question what Atsushi means, Atsushi will have pressed his lips gently against Dazai’s, and he will grin, self-satisfied.
Dazai will not go back to his apartment that night.