Chapter Text
“Mr. Dazai, the cancer is already in a late stage, but if we start chemotherapy immediately, there is still a chance to—”
The doctor’s clinical and practised diagnosis was abruptly cut off.
“And if I don’t do chemo?” Dazai asked.
His voice was entirely devoid of the trembling terror that usually accompanied such news. He sat loosely on the uncomfortable plastic chair, his long legs crossed at the knee, his dark eyes fixed with mild curiosity on the framed medical degree hanging behind the doctor’s desk. The fluorescent lights overhead hummed a low, sterile tune, reflecting off the pristine linoleum floor.
“What do you mean?” The doctor blinked, genuinely derailed. Her pen hovered uncertainly over her notepad, a drop of black ink threatening to fall onto the stark white page of Dazai's medical life. She adjusted her glasses, peering at the young man in front of her as if trying to decipher a dead language.
“I mean, how many months do I have left if I don’t do the chemo? I don’t want to go through any treatment,” Dazai said casually. He spoke as if they were discussing the dreary weather outside the frosted window, rather than his impending death. He brushed a speck of lint from the sleeve of his beige trench coat, his expression placid, almost bored.
There was a heavy, suffocating moment of silence in the brightly lit room. The ticking of the wall clock suddenly sounded like a hammer striking an anvil.
She inhaled deeply, closing the file in front of her and started again. Her tone shifted, laced with a practised, desperate empathy. “Mr. Dazai, you’re twenty-two years old. While the staging is aggressive, modern medicine offers—”
Dazai cut her off once more anticipating the inevitable guilt trip. He leaned forward slightly resting his chin on his hands. “Doctor, I’m not asking for motivational speech. I’m asking for a timeline. How many months?”
The doctor stared at him. The main purpose of her job was to save lives and it pained her deeply to see someone surrender before the fight even began. But she knew the ethical limits of her profession. She couldn’t force a lucid adult to undergo grueling, sickening treatment against their will.
“About six months,” she said softly, her professional mask slipping to reveal profound sorrow. “Heavier symptoms will manifest within three or four. Eight months at the absolute most. But the pain… without palliative care, the end will not be easy. Stomach cancer is aggressive once it reaches a certain stage. You will experience significant weight loss, nausea and severe discomfort.”
Dazai nodded slowly, absorbing the information. He smiled– a genuine and polite curve of his lips. “I appreciate your absolute honesty, Doctor. It is a rare trait. I will contact your clinic if I require pain management. Have a lovely afternoon.”
He stood up and walked out of the clinic.
Stepping out into the crisp and salty afternoon air of Yokohama, he pulled out his phone. Leaning against a red brick wall, he typed a five-star review for the clinic, praising the doctors professionalism and her profound respect for patient autonomy. He slipped his phone back into his pocket, took a deep breath of the sea breeze and felt a strange, calming sense of relief. It was finally ending. He was twenty-two and he was going to die before he turned twenty-three. For someone who had viewed existence as a tedious and painful chore since childhood, the thought of his impending death made him smile.
Dazai spent the following week in blissful euphoria, he had never felt so alive, his life finally had an expiration date. And it was only six months.
One evening, Dazai went for a walk alongside the promenade, looking at the vast, ink-black ocean. He loved the ocean at night; it was immense, swallowing the light, a perfect reflection of the quiet emptiness he carried inside himself. The sound of the waves crashing against the concrete breakers was rhythmic and soothing. For years, he had fantasised about letting those waves swallow him whole. Now, the biology was doing the heavy lifting for him.
As he strolled along the sea wall, hands buried deep in his pockets, the peaceful ambiance was suddenly shattered by a string of aggressive, highly imaginative curses.
Dazai paused. A few meters ahead, a young man about his own age was violently wrestling with the lock of sleek, red bicycle. His auburn hair caught the faint faint amber glow of the streetlamps, tossing wildly as he practically fought the metal chain. He was practically vibrating with rage, clad in a stylish black leather jacket and a velvet choker.
“Stupid, useless, absolute piece of fucking junk!" the man hissed, giving the front tire a vicious kick that nearly sent the bike toppling over. “Confounded, rusted, bloody waste of fucking steel!"
Dazai watched for a moment, highly amused, before stepping forward into the circle of lamplight. The man's key was visibly crooked in the mechanism, jammed halfway in and refusing to budge.
“Need a hand with that?" Dazai offered, his voice laced with melodic amusement.
The redhead snapped his head up, glaring with bright, piercing blue eyes that seemed to burn right through the gloom. “Unless you have a blowtorch on you, back off, string bean."
Dazai cheered inwardly at the immediate, fiery hostility. He knelt down, entirely ignoring the warning and reached for the heavy chain.
“Hey, you bastard! Don't touch my—”
"A blowtorch lack finesse,” Dazai murmured, his long fingers wrapping around the metal. With a subtle, practiced twist of his wrist, applying pressure to the cylinder while leveraging the crooked key with his thumb, the mechanism clicked. The lock snapped open, falling away from the spokes with a heavy metallic clunk.
The young man stared at him, his mouth slightly open, thoroughly impressed but immediately defensive. He snatched the broken lock off the ground. "What the fuck?! Are you a thief or something? Who jest picks a master lock in three seconds?”
Dazai laughed, a genuine, breathy sound. He stood up, dusting off his knees. “What an odd way to thank a benevolent stranger who just save you a terrible walk home in the dark."
The man realised he might have come across as exceptionally rude. He flushed slightly, a dusting of pink crossing his cheeks.
“I… Shut up! No… Fuck. I mean, yeah… Thank you,” the man stammered, crossing his arms defensively. He kicked at loose pebble on the pavement, refusing to meet Dazai's eyes. " I'm Chuuya, by the way. Nakahara Chuuya.”
Dazai smiled. The hostility paired with the flustered backpacking was incredibly charming.
“Dazai," he replied, offering a slight, theatrical bow. “Dazai Osamu. And since I just saved your evening, you could buy me a drink to properly clear your conscience, Nakahara Chuuya."
Chuuya narrowed his eyes, assessing the strange, bandaged man standing in front of him. Day was oddly dressed, wrists and neck wrapped in pristine white bandages beneath his coat and he looked entirely too pale. But there was a spark if challenging intelligence in his dark eyes that Chuuya couldn't immediately dismiss.
Chuuya scoffed, a small, begrudging smile playing on his lips. “Fine. But you're paying for your own second round, thief. There's a convenience store two blocks down. I'll buy you a canned coffee. Take it or leave it."
“Canned coffee under the moonlight? Be still, my beating heart," Dazai gasped dramatically.
“Keep talking and I'll run you over with this bike," Chuuya grumbled, though he started walking, pushing his bicycle alongside him. Dazai fell into step perfectly beside him.
They drank cheap, sugary coffee on a wooden bench overlooking the water. Chuuya complained endlessly about the humidity ruining his hair and Dazai teased him about his height, pretending he couldn't hear him from "all the way down there.” By the time they parted ways at a crossroads an hour later, Dazai realised he hadn't thought about his diagnosis once.