Archive of Our Own

If someone said three years from now
You’d be long gone
I’d stand up and punch them out
’Cause they’re all wrong
I know better ’cause you said forever, and ever
Who knew?

Who Knew, Pink

The ticking of the clock behind him was driving him insane.

Even so, Chuuya kept his head bowed as the meeting dragged on, as though staying quiet, tucked away in the shadows, might somehow make everyone forget he was there.

Nobody did.

Everyone in the room knew exactly where he was.

He bit the inside of his cheek until he tasted blood, but the sharp sting wasn’t enough to drown out everything that had happened over the past four weeks.

Nothing would be.

It hurt, God, it hurt so much, as though someone had reached down his throat and clamped a hand around his heart, squeezing until he couldn’t feel anything anymore. The crumpled note clenched between his gloved fingers was the only thing keeping him from lashing out.

The hands of the clock marched relentlessly onward, and the time slipped through his fingers like sand—the very same sand they’d stolen from the beach at sunrise, conspiratorial smiles tugging at their mouths and Dazai’s arms looped around him as though he belonged there.

Chuuya shivered. He could still sense the ghost of Dazai’s touch lingering on his skin. His long limbs wrapped around his waist, his pointed chin digging into his shoulder, and his voice as he said, “Does Chibi collect garbage now? Why the hell do you want a handful of sand, you stupid slug?” tickling his ear.

He swallowed, as though it might loosen the knot lodged somewhere between his lungs and his throat, rooted deep inside him, scraping him raw from the inside out.

Elise tugged gently at his sleeve. The little girl clutched her stuffed toy close to her, staring up at him with wide, expressionless eyes.

Sometimes she looked like a porcelain doll.

And sometimes, she reminded him of Dazai.

His lungs forgot how to work, his vision blurred around the edges, and his chest rose and fell in shallow, uneven breaths.

She slipped her small hand into his and gave it a gentle squeeze. Then she motioned for him to crouch down. He obeyed without thinking, like someone else had taken hold of the strings.

The truth was that he felt more like a puppet than a person. Her breath sent a shiver down his spine. Or maybe it was her words.

“Rintarou will find us a new toy,” she smiled brightly. “You’ll see.”

The blood drained from Chuuya’s face.

“I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news,” Mori said quietly.

Chuuya’s head snapped up so fast the room lurched. He couldn't move; even if he'd tried, he wouldn't have been able to. Elise’s tiny hand, and the innocent cruelty of her words, kept him pinned there, completely trapped. It was a cage—just a bigger one, and one he’d willingly walked into—whose walls were slowly closing in around him.

Mori sighed. He rested his elbows on the table and laced his fingers together. He was performing, just like everyone else, and yet, for one impossible moment, Chuuya thought he could see the cracks in his mask—the exhaustion softening the sharpness of his features, the lines carved into the corners of his mouth, the shadows beneath his eyes.

Or maybe he was only seeing what he wanted to see, what everyone expected him to see.

He was losing his mind.

Tick tock.

Tick tock.

Tick—

“After weeks of searching without results…” Mori’s voice echoed through the room. “I’m afraid I have no choice but to officially declare Dazai Osamu, Executive of the Port Mafia and the Black Wraith, dead.”

Chuuya heard static.

That was it. Mori had given up.

Chuuya’s fists tightened until the note crumpled even further in his grip, and the helplessness tore at him from the inside. The room tilted, and the last thing he saw before he lunged forward, before gravity bent to his will, before the world went black, was a crooked, playful grin.

Dazai threw a paper airplane at him.

Another note.

One he’d never read.

The executives shouted, and Mori’s hounds stationed by the doors reacted a heartbeat too late.

Arahabaki roared.

And for a second, Chuuya almost let go of the leash.

Mori didn’t flinch when Chuuya grabbed a fistful of his shirt and yanked him across the table. Wood groaned beneath the crushing weight of gravity.

All Chuuya could see was red.

The red of Mori’s scarf.

The red of Dazai’s blood.

The red of his ability.

Fear coiled through his gut like a snake when Mori offered him a small, a weary smile, and rested his palm over Chuuya’s hand and squeezed. He said something, words filled with a sorrow that was unlike him, but he couldn’t make out what he said, because the darkness swallowed him whole.

The scrap of paper slipped from his hand and drifted, forgotten, onto the floor.

Dazai didn’t answer his phone.

Chewing his pinky nail until he tasted blood, Chuuya tried again.

And again.

And again.

He spat the remains of his nail onto the floor and pulled his knees tightly against his chest. Outside, rain hammered relentlessly against the balcony doors, and Ane-san’s voice, her “Kid, where are you? Don’t move. I’m coming to get you”, looped inside his head like a scratched record.

He’d known. Some part of him, the place where that bastard had sunk roots, had always known.

“Come on… Pick up, you asshole.”

Forty-eight hours.

He cursed when the call rolled over to voicemail again, Dazai’s shrill, synthetic voice spilling into the room.

The phone slipped from his grasp.

He leaned back, raking both hands through his hair until his scalp burned. A sob clawed its way up his throat, burning his eyes and choking him from within.

He sank his face into his arms.

He wouldn’t cry, he wouldn’t shed a single tear anymore.

His car exploded.

So did he.

Dazai never replied to his messages.

Chuuya kept sending them anyway.

You’re such a loyal dog, shorty.

“Come back and say it to my face, you bastard!”

Something inside him broke, and crimson flooded the apartment. Everything shook, his whole body with it, and Chuuya clutched at his chest so hard his nails bit through the fabric, digging deeper and deeper until he couldn't feel anything else.

Tears spilled unchecked, tracing hot paths down his cheeks.

He couldn’t breathe.

His knees gave out beneath him, and when he finally looked up, Dazai was there, the last light of the afternoon filtering through the slats of the blinds, cutting straight through his silhouette until he looked almost weightless, translucent, unreal.

Dazai tilted his head.

You’re not usually this pathetic. Knock it off, crying doesn’t suit you. You think blowing up your apartment is going to help you find me?

“You left me.”

Dazai raised a brow, and the corner of his mouth curled upward.

Did I?

Three years together.

Three years fighting side by side.

Three years tripping each other in the hallways, shoving each other as they passed. Fighting. Playing. Scheming. Laughing.

Three years…

No, Dazai never answered his calls.

He never read his messages.

A fortune had been placed on Dazai’s head, but Chuuya would gut anyone who dared touch him.

Dazai belonged to him, just as Chuuya belonged to Dazai.

The tracker was offline.

“Here.”

“What’s this?”

“It’s—” Chuuya looked away. “Don’t ask. Just take it.”

“Did Chibi buy me a glass eye?”

“WHY THE HELL DID YOU MAKE THAT SOUND DIRTY, YOU BANDAGE-WASTING MACHINE!?”

“Why?”

“Why not?”

“Chibi’s weird.”

“Oh, shut the fuck up!” Chuuya spat. “Wear it or toss it into the river for all I care!”

Dazai never turned it off.

Turmeric, orange, and ginger filled his senses.

Chuuya grimaced as recognition settled over him. He buried his face deeper into the cushions, curling tighter around the bedsheet clutched in his fists. Ane-san didn’t rush him. She kept preparing the tea in silence. At this point, it was less a necessity than a ritual, a way of soothing a restless mind.

Chuuya wasn’t sure how he felt about that. Lately, he wasn’t sure about anything.

His fingers bunched the sheet beneath them, as though it could shield him from a world that hadn’t stopped knocking him down. He gulped the helplessness clawing its way up his throat.

Mori had declared Dazai dead.

No more search parties.

No more hunters.

He should’ve been relieved, not because he believed the bastard was dead—if Dazai really was, he’d know, he’d feel it somewhere beneath his ribs—but because everyone else believed it: the underworld, the Port Mafia, the whole damn city. If they thought Dazai Osamu was dead, finding him would be that much easier.

Dazai was his. He would decide the bastard’s punishment.

The mattress dipped behind him. Every muscle in Chuuya’s body seized, and his chest tightened. A laugh, soft as little bells caught in the wind, drifted through the room, and then fingers slipped into his hair, lazily threading through his tangled curls.

It wasn’t real.

Turn around and find out, my silly dog.

His eyes squeezed shut and he shook his head, but a sound escaped him, maybe a whimper, maybe a “go away” soaked in grief, or maybe Ane-san had simply waited long enough, because a moment later, someone tugged the sheet right out of his hands.

“Enough,” Kouyou’s voice cut clean through him. She balled the sheet in one hand and pointed her fan at him. Her eyes narrowed into blades. “I’ve had enough. I gave you time and space, but attacking the Boss in front of every executive? So reckless.”

The mask she’d been wearing cracked at that, and Chuuya hated what he glimpsed underneath.

“It wasn’t like that.”

His jaw locked hard enough for his teeth to grind together as he forced himself upright.

Kouyou’s shoulders sagged.

“You’re alive by a miracle,” she sighed, brushing a strand of hair away from her face before sitting on the edge of the bed. One hand settled gently on his knee. “Chuuya, dear, you’re not untouchable.”

His fingers twisted together.

“He’s not dead,” he growled. He looked away before she could see the tears welling in his eyes. It hurt, right beneath his ribs, exactly where his heart should’ve been, where that shitty bastard had dug himself in until he’d grown roots. “How could he—”

“Don’t.”

Chuuya shook his head. His tongue dragged across his teeth as something resembling a wry smile spread across his lips.

“I refuse.”

“And then what?” Kouyou’s voice remained calm. “Will you disobey a direct order?”

Never.

He’d knelt. He’d given the Mafia his life, his ability, his heart.

“It was you, and that’s what blinded me.”

“The hell is that supposed to mean?” Chuuya hissed, his cheeks burned and his ears rang. The idiot mackerel only shrugged, and Chuuya pinched him hard in the side.

“Ow! Chuuya’s so violent!”

“I wouldn’t have to be if you actually talked like a normal person!”

Dazai puffed out his cheeks.

They sat on the docks, the morning slowly stretching across the horizon, washing everything in soft gold. Chuuya barely noticed, not while Dazai’s pinky kept brushing against his. The familiar chill of Dazai’s ability slipped beneath his skin, soothing the restless beast sleeping inside him.

Only then did Dazai speak again, and he did so as if the whole world were supposed to stop and listen.

“I didn’t think about it.” His eyes never left the blurred line where the sea met the sky. The wind played with his hair. “I just... I just wanted you.”

Chuuya forgot how to breathe.

“Where?”

Slowly, Dazai turned to face him.

“Here.”

A gentle squeeze on his knee pulled him back.

“Please. Don’t do anything reckless.”

Chuuya said nothing; he wouldn’t have known what to say even if he’d tried. Kouyou brushed the back of her hand against his cheek until he looked at her.

“I think you should take a few days off,” she said. Horror crossed his face. She rolled her eyes fondly. “Resting won’t kill you. You need it.”

“Is that an order? And my punishment?” He swung his legs over the side of the bed. The room lurched the moment he stood. “What the—”

Kouyou caught him before he hit the floor.

“They had to sedate you.”

Oh, the needle.

Ice flooded his veins. He reached instinctively for his ability, for that familiar warmth blooming beneath his skin—

Nothing.

It was like slamming headfirst into a wall.

Or glass walls slowly closing in around him.

“Anti-ability serum,” he murmured. His nails dug into his palms, grounding him. Then he laughed, and the sound scraped its way out of his throat. “The Boss really thought of everything. Am I really that predictable?”

“There won’t be any punishment.”

“Not this time,” Chuuya muttered, pain lacing every word.

“There won’t be a next time.”

He didn’t argue, he didn’t have the strength left.

Sixty-nine unread notifications.

He didn’t even open them. No fucking way was he wasting his time reading whatever garbage that idiot had sent him over the course of two goddamn hours. He just hit the call button.

The bastard picked up on the first ring.

Zero unread notifications.

No one answered when he lifted the phone to his ear.

As the elevator descended, Chuuya found himself scrolling back through one of the last conversations they’d had.

His apartment felt empty, stripped of everything that had ever made it feel alive.

A place, by itself, meant nothing. Walls, ceilings, furniture—they didn’t make somewhere a home. Chuuya had known that ever since he was a kid, responsible for other kids, when any roof over their heads had been good enough, and it had stayed that way after joining the Mafia, until he made the mistake of letting people into his heart, and everything collapsed around him.

A pair of shoes lay discarded beside his sneakers in the genkan, flecked with dried mud.

He crouched down and, with trembling hands, set them neatly back in place. He ignored the dirt; he’d clean it later. He ignored the nearly empty coat rack too. He didn’t even bother taking off his coat or hat before heading down the hallway.

It would hurt less if he didn’t stop to look.

He avoided the kitchen—the colorful cereal box abandoned on the counter, the matching mugs, one with a fish Dazai had drawn over and over again with permanent marker until the lines blurred together, and the other with the snail from SpongeBob, and everything plastered across the refrigerator door that caught somewhere inside his chest and made it impossible to breathe.

He didn’t dare look into the shared bathroom either, much less step inside the guest room that had never really been just a guest room.

The thought alone—of touching the doorknob, of setting foot inside—made him nauseous.

He didn’t want to stay here.

The living room wasn’t any safer either, but for some reason the fury began to grow in the pit of his stomach until the cushions scattered across the floor, the crab-patterned blanket draped over the couch, and the roll of bandages abandoned beside the ashtray made him snap.

Everything.

Everything snapped something inside him.

He swept everything off the coffee table in one violent motion. The crash was liberating. His shoulders shook, his chest burned, but a smile, stretched too tight to be called a smile anymore, crossed his face like a wound that had never healed.

Dazai was still sprawled across the couch, lazily kicking his legs as he hummed some idiotic tune for no reason other than to annoy him.

He wasn’t real.

God, he wished he were.

Greedy dog, Dazai teased, laughter bubbling beneath every word. He rolled onto his side, stretching like a cat basking in the sun.

His ghost—his hallucination—wasn’t wearing the bandages over his face, and the scar crossing his right eye lodged itself somewhere beneath Chuuya’s ribs.

Dazai never took those bandages off for anyone except him.

Oh, Chuuya. Your heart has always been your problem.

Chuuya frowned.

“You’re the problem.”

Dazai hugged one of the cushions to his chest, looking at him with quiet curiosity.

Then why do you keep holding on to me?

Chuuya parted his lips to answer.

Dazai’s smile shifted, something painful settling beneath it. Almost an apology.

Chuuya turned away before the words, before his own thoughts, could tear him apart. A crumpled sheet of paper lay beneath the table. With his heart lodged in his throat, he picked it up carefully and smoothed it flat.

It was just a stupid bill, probably overdue, but he didn’t care, not when he could still feel the grooves left by the pen on the other side of the page, the pressure of Dazai’s handwriting etched into the paper.

He turned it over.

Chuuya clapped a hand over his mouth, trying to smother the sob that clawed its way up his throat.

It didn’t work very well.

His face hurt from smiling.

God, he really hated that annoying bastard.

He hated that he’d believed him when, drunk on a bottle of whisky they’d shared while hiding in a meeting room, Dazai had told him they’d take on the whole world together. That he—Chuuya, his grumpy dog—made everything just a little easier.

“You shine.”

With the mouth of the bottle brushing against his lips and whiskey warming his chest, Chuuya jolted.

He blinked, confused.

“What does that even mean?”

Dazai only shrugged, his eyes glazed over with alcohol and a faint smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. Chuuya handed him the bottle, their fingers brushing.

Without breaking eye contact, Dazai took a drink. The sight of his wet lips stole a heartbeat from Chuuya’s chest.

Dazai passed the bottle to him again.

“Sometimes things shine so brightly,” Dazai said, stumbling over the words, his smile softening into something quieter, tinged with melancholy. “They fill the whole world with color, but sooner or later, the thing that made them special stops mattering, and little by little, their light fades… until it goes out.”

Chuuya tightened his grip around the neck of the bottle until his knuckles turned white. He had the strange feeling that if he spoke—if he so much as breathed—this rare moment of honesty, this fleeting glimpse of the Dazai hidden beneath layers of bandages, razor-sharp smiles, and biting remarks, would shatter beyond repair.

Dazai nudged his shoulder.

When their eyes met, all Chuuya could see was that tiny flicker of clarity returning to his golden gaze.

“Dazai—”

“Not you.” Dazai wrinkled his nose, twisting his mouth as though he’d just smelled something awful. “You still shine.”

Heat rushed to Chuuya’s face. He took a long swallow, and the whiskey burned all the way down. Dazai laughed, scrubbed a hand over his face, and then sprawled across the table.

“It’s an incredibly annoying kind of shine,” he continued. “An angry sunrise. A storm-tossed ocean. A whole damn constellation. I can’t stand you, you know.”

“The feeling’s mutual, Mackerel,” Chuuya grumbled. He set the bottle on the floor before climbing across the table until he reached him, then lay down beside him. Dazai turned his head to look at him. “Hey, want to see something that shines even brighter?”

Dazai looked at him, puzzled.

“Brighter than you?” There was unmistakable amusement in his voice. “I seriously doubt it.”

“Wanna bet?”

“I guess I stopped shining, huh?”

He needed a drink.

They had ditched the old man in the middle of the airport. It hadn’t been planned, they had simply ended up there, one on each side of Hirotsu, playing the role of grandson and grandson’s friend while they waited for their target to disembark.

The heat was awful, and the air conditioning didn’t seem to be working properly. The noise it made rang in his ears, and the sweat stuck his shirt to his skin, making him feel sticky and uncomfortable. Dazai, absorbed in his console and lost in his own world, didn’t seem much better. He’d spent the last fifteen minutes pushing his damp bangs away from his face and huffing in annoyance.

Avoiding the old man hadn’t been intentional, but between the noise of the passing luggage and the announcement that the flight they were waiting for was suffering yet another delay, all it took was one stolen glance for his pulse to quicken and a mischievous smile to creep across that bastard’s face.

It only took one distraction.

Hirotsu was dozing off with his arms crossed and a ridiculous sleep mask over his eyes. Dazai leaned forward and motioned with his chin. Chuuya gripped his seat as though he could physically stop himself from giving in to temptation.

It was stupid.

Dazai’s smile widened, all dimples and braces, and Chuuya couldn’t stop the muscles in his face from reacting. He rolled his eyes, pretending to be annoyed when they both knew it was a lie, and surrendered to the inevitable.

Dazai grabbed his wrist and pulled him along, urging him to hurry. They ran between suppressed laughs and knowing smiles, bumping into people and apologizing through bursts of laughter and exaggerated expressions of regret, and when their phones started ringing, when the game of hide-and-seek began, nothing could stop them anymore.

“We’re dead!”

“Hirotsu loves me!” Dazai laughed as they weaved through rows of passengers. He turned toward him and raised his brows up and down. The glass eye caught a flash of light. “Does Chibi want a chocolate bar?”

“When did you even—?”

Dazai shrugged, a mischievous expression practically etched onto his face. Surprisingly, it wasn’t a dog treat.

Stealing sweets and candy was child’s play for them. They did it all the time. They’d exchange a glance in the middle of a seaside promenade or a crowded street and turn it into a competition to see who could steal the best loot. Somehow, they still managed to get caught.

“Run! Save yourself in my place!” Dazai whined, the little bastard.

“Stop messing around!” Chuuya grabbed Dazai by the collar of his shirt and pulled him closer. Running while dragging him along wouldn’t be difficult, but it would be a massive headache. “Either you run, or I swear to God I’ll hang you from a bridge until you throw up your first baby food!”

Dazai paled.

They both knew he would. They slipped past security by sneaking into the staff area. Dazai leaned against the locked door, his knees trembling. He looked exhausted, but the glint in his left eye told Chuuya the fun had only just begun.

He was a fucking disaster.

He took a quick look around. It looked like a break room, but when he went to open a cabinet, the disappointment was immense. Aside from a box of cheap supermarket tea and instant coffee, there was nothing interesting. He was so focused on his search that he didn’t notice Dazai had moved until his presence surrounded him.

Chuuya held his breath.

Dazai didn’t touch him. He wouldn’t, not unless Chuuya asked him to, but the fact that he could was already more than enough to send a shiver down his spine and make his head spin. Dazai could place his hands on his waist, press his chest against his back, and Chuuya could lean into him, could expose the line of his neck.

It was overwhelming, and a little embarrassing too. Lately, he’d been having trouble holding himself back around that bastard. His body reacted in the most ridiculous ways, and his mind kept spinning and spinning.

“Chuuya,” Dazai called, and it was the way he said his name, low and carrying something he couldn’t name but that somehow made him feel lighter, that made him shiver. Dazai stepped closer, and the ghost of his embrace made him hold his breath. “Would you punch me if—?”

“Yes,” Chuuya almost gasped. He could feel his face burning, his entire body with it. He wasn’t sure what the bastard meant, but the answer would always be yes. Dazai laughed, and his hands hovered over Chuuya’s waist. The urge to take them and place them exactly where he needed them almost drove him insane. “Fuck, yes. I’ll kill you.”

Dazai smiled.

He couldn’t see his smile, but he felt it traveling across his skin.

“Look at me.”

Chuuya frowned.

“What if I refuse? You don’t get to order me around, asshole.”

Dazai leaned closer, placing his hands on his waist and setting a wildfire through him. It was unfair. It was so fucking unfair, the power that bastard had over him.

Why was it that Chuuya felt like a storm was about to tear through everything, while Dazai looked like this—untouchable, unbothered, like a damn dead fish?

They could both play this game, couldn’t they?

“What if I beg?”

“Would you really be that pathetic?”

The touch wasn’t enough. For some reason, he needed his hands everywhere.

Could he make Dazai feel like this?

Slowly, he turned around and lifted his chin just enough to meet his gaze. The difference in height was barely noticeable, but it was already starting to annoy him.

Dazai looked like he was about to fall apart. His left eye was unfocused, filled with so many things that trying to decipher them felt like stepping into a trap.

“Chuuya,” and this time it sounded like a plea. “Can I kiss you?”

Oh.

Oh, fuck.

It wouldn’t be his first kiss. That one had belonged to his best friend, and he still remembered the panic that had overwhelmed him, the rush of adrenaline that pushed him to close the distance between them, to ignore his inexperience and the paralyzing fear, and crash their mouths together.

And yet, for some reason, this felt different.

Like throwing himself into the void without knowing whether his ability would bend to his will.

Like stopping a rain of bullets.

Like freeing Arahabaki from his prison.

His hands trembled as they gripped the bastard’s noodle-thin arms and wandered upward until they stopped on his shoulders, his eyes tracing his expression, the lines of his face, the ghost of his dimples, and everything hidden in his gaze that only he was allowed to witness.

It was too much.

“Kiss me.”

“Will you punch me?”

The corner of his mouth curled slightly.

“Only if you do a terrible job.”

Dazai pouted.

“My puppy has so little faith in me.”

Was it the bastard’s first kiss? He never knew. But he did know it wouldn’t be the last one they shared. There were many more after that, less hesitant, more desperate, and some gentler than others.

Awkwardly, Dazai tilted his head, and Chuuya closed the impossible distance between them, because he had always been the more reckless one of the two. Their noses bumped, a nervous laugh filled his chest, and then their mouths met.

It was strange, a kiss that tasted like dark chocolate and orange, inexperienced and desperate. Their lips learned each other, and their hands learned where they belonged. They laughed nervously, Chuuya knocked his hip against the counter, and Dazai yelped when Chuuya bit him a little too hard.

They burst into laughter when someone pulled on the doorknob, and they had to run for their lives when they were caught hiding in there.

It was liberating.

And fleeting. God, so fucking fleeting.

What was the last kiss they shared? He wasn’t sure.

He remembered the last punch.

He remembered the last fight.

And he remembered the last note, the one Dazai had somehow slipped into his pants pocket before Chuuya left for his overseas mission, the one that would bring him a little closer to becoming an Executive.

Maybe it was when he climbed onto the bed, one knee sinking into the mattress and one hand gripping the headboard. He’d known, when he pushed through the pillow fort between them, that Dazai was awake, but if the bastard wanted to act like a brat, Chuuya would allow it, just like he had allowed him so many other things.

Maybe it was then, when he brushed his lips against his forehead, when the bastard slipped the note into his pocket, or maybe it had been the night before.

Still lost in his thoughts, Chuuya grabbed a bottle of wine. The most expensive one, the one they kept for a special occasion, and so lost in his memories, in the visceral pain gnawing away inside him, that he barely noticed the problem.

The weight was wrong.

Lately, all they had done was argue, both of them too stubborn to tear themselves open and expose the ugliest parts of themselves, but even so, they still slipped into each other’s rooms, built a stupid pillow fort, and stayed by each other’s side.

The bottle was barely heavy at all.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Chuuya roared. It was a damn ’89 Petrus, that bastard better not have ruined the bottle. When he uncorked it, there was nothing inside. “Son of a bitch.”

He was about to smash the bottle against the wall when something caught his attention.

The label was slightly peeled away.

What if…?

Carefully, he peeled the label back. It didn’t look like anyone had tampered with it in any way. He examined it, then turned it over.

There was nothing, except—

His heart skipped a beat, and something resembling hope spread through him.

It was nothing. God, it probably meant nothing. An old joke, something Dazai had left there long ago, maybe weeks before or even months ago.

But what if it was another note? A clue?