Archive of Our Own

Friday. 

The day of his death is in seven days. 

It's been a long time coming, Dazai thinks. His suicide. How many times has he made passing comments about it, detailed his plans to anyone who would listen? 

Well, mark the calendar, everyone; the day is soon coming! 

There's nothing he'll be missing out on anyway. After all, life is ass, his job is a dead end, and he's got no friends anymore! What's the point anyway? There's nothing good to live for, and life is just so damn boring and predictable. It seems redundant to wait around for what is eventually coming to get him. 

Death. 

A long line of psychologists have come and gone with their own cute interpretations of Dazai's problems, but all Dazai can think is, how much good will a new set of antidepressants do in any case? When they've all failed him before.

With the pouring rain and the miserably humid fog of mid-July, the convenience store he works at sets an obnoxious light on the dark street. The depressing background to his even more depressing thoughts goes well together. Behind him, his coworker, a gloomy kid who is always vying for his attention, gets comfortable behind the counter, starting off the graveyard shift. Dazai goes on his way, clothes drenched in seconds because he already sold off his umbrella a week ago. It doesn't matter anyway. Dead men can't catch colds. 

His eyes stay rooted to the ground as he makes the long, monotonous walk home. His shadow stretches and shrinks with the coming and going streetlights. His soggy shoes squelch on the ground, up to his heels in muddy puddles.

The rain goes down hard on his head, pelting him with thick drops. His backpack hangs heavy on his shoulders, straps stretched taut from the waterlogged weight. His freezing fingers find refuge under his arms, curling tight into his thin hoodie. The sweat on his brow gets lost in the thunder coming down on him. 

There is truly no other more depressing sight than this. 

If only his mom and dad could see him now.

His parents initially expected Dazai to become this grand man worthy of their name. After his third suicide attempt, they stopped hoping for the impossible. When Dazai ran away from home at fourteen, he hadn't been expecting anything, tunnel vision focused on putting distance between himself and the rotting earth that bore poisoned trees. 

Last he heard, his parents got over his disappearance pretty quickly. His younger brother is probably getting all the love they never gave him right now. Meanwhile, here he is: a soggy, miserable mess. It's been a tough year for him. 

The bandages wrapped around his neck, arms, and stomach soak up the rainwater on his drenched clothes. The dampness only serves to amplify the uncomfortable feeling of open wounds being rubbed raw. A few of his cuts from last night went a bit too deep, and it's possible they need some stitches. He couldn't be bothered to take out his first aid kit, though, instead pulling out the trusted roll of bandages he keeps on hand by his bedside. The roll is coming down to its last legs, as was the plan. In seven days Dazai won't have any left, and he won't need any either. 

Halfway to his house, his shoe accidentally catches on a tiny pebble, shooting it straight into a row of public trash cans on the side of the sidewalk. It connects with the metal bins, echoing with a resounding clang. The noise is so abrupt Dazai almost thinks he just woke up the entire block, but instead of angry voices yelling, there is only silence. 

He shakes his head at it and keeps going. 

Scirch! Scirch! Scirch!

He doesn't stop initially, idly looking around for the source of the noise, finding nothing in the barely illuminated street. He shakes his head and keeps walking. Dazai has put down a sizable distance between himself and the alley when a crash stops him in his tracks. Following that, he hears something again.

Scirch!

What the fuck is-

Yip-!

An animal? Dazai is not thinking of what will happen after he finds the source of the noise, whether it's in his best interest to investigate or not. He can only think of the curiosity eating at him. Maybe those psychologists were on to something when they called him impulsive. 

Dazai looks longingly at the road ahead, leading home, then turns his back on it to investigate.

The dented trash can has seen better days. The labels that were initially color coded for the public's convenience have been rubbed off by the elements and the passage of time. Dazai looks behind it and around it idly with his hands still hidden under his arms. There's nothing. He shoots an apprehensive look at the very thin alleyway next to it, debating whether he truly wants to have his curiosity quenched. 

The sigh comes from deep inside his chest, let out with the slight edge of an annoyed growl. Dazai swings his backpack around, hanging it from his right shoulder to dig out his phone. The flashlight sends a sharp light into the darkness, illuminating his way. Silent. 

Soggy footsteps echo inside the unbelievably narrow alley—the width of which is just a bit wider than his shoulders—where the darkness swallows him whole. 

His phone creates a visible path inside the alley, which is perfectly empty with nothing but dirty walls and corroded pipes. He cranes his head back and spots what he's pretty sure must be a stray cat, its white tail flicking and disappearing over the edge of the roof. Dazai huffs. Now what? He has reached the end with nothing to show for it. This is what he gets for—

That's when he hears it. 

One final call for help. 

"…yip…"

It's quieter than the one that came before it. Tired, almost. And it hasn't come from the alley; it comes from behind him. Dazai turns around with difficulty, the alleyway being as slim as it is. He turns and goes back to the street. There is no doubt about where the sound came from now. 

Outside of the alley, Dazai angles the flashlights inside each trash can, first the recycling one, then the plastics, and finally the wastes.

It's hard to see, and his phone is already alerting him of the low battery, but inside the last trash can, he spots something moving. The color of it is hard to place, but Dazai knows he's got it right when he sees it breathing deeply. He leans in some more, reaching his phone inside the slight opening to see better. 

Oh. It's a dog.

With matted fur and slowly blinking eyes that are very tired. Dazai rotates his wrist to change the flashlight's angle, finding that the dog has a gaping wound on its side. It's so out of it; it doesn't react when Dazai retracts his phone. He leans back on the balls of his feet, phone hanging uselessly by his side. 

Dazai looks down one side of the empty street and then the other. There is, naturally, no one. 

He goes back to looking at the trashcan. 

It's clear what he should do. But is it really what he wants to do? 

Dazai has never been fond of animals, regardless of the fact that he hasn't personally owned one before. His friend used to have five strays in his care. He's dead now, a direct consequence of all his little doggies being taken to the pound and put down. Suicide.

At first he blamed the strays until he realized that if their deaths were all it took to put a gun to his mouth, then maybe he wasn't all that okay to begin with. 

If it isn't obvious, Dazai has a very distant concept of what it's like to take care of an animal. Adding to that is his own imminent death that is just around the corner, and he is about the last person that should be taking on this responsibility. 

The dog is silent now; maybe it finally ran out of pathetic little shouts for help.

Religious beliefs haven't been his forte since he developed his own opinions. Other than knowing secondhand all the customs and stories, he has no relationship with any sort of god. However… something as unknown as one's death is bound to bring with it a bit of skepticism on one's part. It can even, say, sow some doubt in a years-long atheist like himself. 

He'll kill himself soon; that is an inevitability. 

The question is… should he commit one final act of goodwill before kicking the bucket? It couldn't hurt to save up on brownie points if there is a god out there. 

Dazai kicks the trash can with the toe of his soaked shoe. There's no response. If he leaves the dog out here, then it will surely die. But if he takes it home and tries to save it, it could also die there. 

Or… it could live and recover. 

Is that a mercy, though? Heal it up and send it on its way so it can be attacked in the same way, only a bit later? Who can guarantee if the dog will live a long and happy life? It could get in another fight, it could be taken to a pound, it could be trampled by a car or mangled by a sadistic person. A million other things could slice its lifespan in two. 

Who is Dazai to prevent any of it?

His friend Oda was the bleeding heart to end all bleeding hearts. He used to say it was learned behavior. He wasn't born an especially nice person. It took him great and active effort to practice the empathy people so naturally display. 

Dazai groans, digging the knuckle of his thumb into his temple. 

Goddammit. 

The bottom half of his phone is placed between his teeth, with the flashlight illuminating the trash and freeing up his arms. His right hand goes inside first, fingertips making contact with coarse fur first. His left goes after that, grazing the dog's hair until he finds the short curl of a tail. His right hand curls under the dog's head, while his left tries to find purchase in the dog's stomach, away from the wound. The hole of the trash can isn't big enough to take it out easily, and Dazai has to twist his wrist and arm in awkward ways to slide the animal out of its prison. The edge of the hole is made up of dirty, old metal that scrapes lines of skin off his hand. The dog, however, is unscathed once it is out in the open air. 

First thing Dazai does once the dog is out is settle its body on top of the trash can so that he can flick the flashlight off and stuff his phone in his front pocket. The entire back of his phone is drenched from the rain, and the bottom half is slippery with his saliva. It'll be a miracle if some of the water doesn't get into the charging port.

The dog doesn't move, and its eyes don't open, but it keeps breathing. The wound on its side is long, stretching from its back to near its leg. The sliced skin that gives way to tender muscle and sluggish blood expands with each of its labored breaths, and Dazai has no idea whether this is good or not. He swings his backpack back around, hanging it from both shoulders instead of one. The dog almost slides off in the single second it takes him to do this, which causes him to scramble to catch it before that happens.

He sighs in relief. Dazai takes the dog in his hands again, leaning its meager weight against his chest. It's still coming down hard tonight, and he still has no umbrella. Dazai curls his body over the dog while he thinks of something. 

His hoodie. His hoodie will work, right?

With one hand curled around the dog, he dumps his backpack on the wet ground, and, one arm at a time, he slides out of his only protection against the rain, bunching it up in his hand and winding it around the limp dog to protect it. It flinches a little when he accidentally grazes a bit of his hoodie on the wound.

"Shit," he whispers. 

Once he's done, the hoodie is more of a bundle, and the dog can hardly be seen from inside it. The backpack goes back up, and he goes on his way home. 

The rain doesn't stop, and it doesn't calm. Dazai can't help but check in on the dog on the way home. Paranoid of the fact that it could die in his arms any minute now. He lets a single finger dig inside the bundle, right under the dog's nose, so he can feel its shallow breaths. 

He quickens his pace, as much as he can at least, getting to his humble abode a lot faster than it usually takes him. He climbs up to the second floor, digging through his backpack for his key and stumbling in. His shoes are roughly toed off and left scattered by front of the door, which locks behind him. He goes inside the one-room apartment, quickly making his way to the small bathroom hidden to the left. 

He kneels down on the floor in front of the only cupboard, the dog sitting snug in his lap. The first aid's clasp is barely functional at this point; it opens up to a lackluster amount of supplies. He only needs a few things anyway. 

The dog is still unconscious as Dazai cleans up the wound. He is thankful for this, unknowing of what he'd do if it were awake for this. He knows firsthand how much it stings to clean up an open cut.

After cleaning the dog up, Dazai takes out the suture kit, the last one he's got here. He cleans up his hands with the alcohol spray, forgoing the attempt to put on the nitrile gloves. It takes a few tries for the thread to go through the needle; his hands are shaking from the cold, but he does it. It's with practiced ease that the needle pierces and winds around the open wound, going in and around expertly. It's almost easier like this, he thinks. An unconscious patient is the best type of patient. With him, he always flinches without meaning to. Shitty pain tolerance does that. With the dog being a good patient, all asleep and—he goes to check—still alive, it's an easy eight minutes of operation.

He ties up the end of the thread and cuts the excess, setting down his needle and the rest of the thread on the ground. The area around the cut is cleaned with the last wet wipes he's got lying around. It makes no big difference on the mess that is the dog's fur. Dazai guesses it makes sense seeing where he found it. 

With that out of the way, he throws his drenched hoodie to the side and stands up on aching legs, the dog a tiny ball in his arms. 

Now what? 

He looks around. Maybe a bed? And something to drink? Dazai shifts the tiny bundle to see its face. It's relatively small, but it's not a baby. Maybe a teenager? How much is that in human years again? Something like twelve months, right? Or maybe thirteen. Huh, that's a little funny. The dog's been alive as long as Dazai's been out in the streets.

"…I've been living on my own for your entire life," he tells the dog. His voice is ragged from disuse, quiet words sharp against his sensitive throat. He doesn't know when the last time he spoke was. The convenience store doesn't see a lot of customers in these parts, and so late too. He doesn't know when the last time he spoke to someone even is. 

A bit of water will do him good. Dazai goes back out into the room proper, standing around and looking for a small place to put the dog down. There's a little corner by the nook where he has his futon that has discarded clothes he didn't pick up. The unconscious dog is placed on top of the discarded clothes, gently so as to not aggravate all those stitches. 

Dazai digs around in his fridge for something to eat for the dog. There's a bit of cut chicken in the boxed takeout from his last meal. Noodles with seasoned chicken. That should work. In the sink, he rinses the sauce off the bits of chicken, placing the tiny pieces onto a clean plate. For water, he finds the only bowl he's got left and fills it up. A peek behind his back finds that the dog is still asleep. 

The bowl of water is placed by the sleeping dog, and the plate as well. As an afterthought, he leans over to grab his leftover noodles, setting the carton by his bedside. After that, Dazai finally takes stock of himself and the drenched clothes he's still got on. A hot shower might be nice, but he's actually so tired he could sleep like this, no problem. The pants are rolled down and thrown into another corner, as is his long-sleeved shirt. He supposes the wet bandages have to be changed, so he goes into the bathroom and rinses out his cuts with the sink. The cuts should air out for now, he thinks. The blood has clotted and dried, which means it won't stain his sheets. His usual pajamas are where he threw them last—boxers, pants, and long sleeves, as is the uniform for him—and he shrugs them on while looking at the dog, feeling a weird type of disconnect between what is happening and what he's thinking.

He has a dog. 

What the fuck?

"… what am I doing?" he asks no one, falling down on the futon.

His long legs cross in front of him, and Dazai leans his arms on his knees as he looks. His tender injuries shriek, and Dazai quickly readjusts his position. Without looking away, he grabs his leftovers, using the chopsticks still sitting inside the carton. The dog, for some reason, takes that moment to begin to rouse. Dazai stares with rapt attention as it slowly blinks into wakefulness. The dog blinks a few times before truly opening its eyes, then its little paws stretch forward, claws digging into the nest of clothes. Dazai observes the waking ritual with a bit of amusement. 

The dog suddenly realizes Dazai is there, and it jumps in surprise, then yowls in pain. 

"Don't do that," he scolds quietly, slurping on his cold noodles. "I didn't put you back together for you to undo all my work by being stupid." 

It growls. 

"Hm," Dazai sighs. 

The dog tries again to move, though slowly this time, cognizant of the pain in its side. It steps out of the bundle of clothes gingerly. When its paws come into contact with the wooden floor, it yanks them back, tilting its head to the side as it looks down. 

Dazai's crossed legs uncurl and stretch forward. "It's just the wooden floor, stupid," he says tiredly. "What's the problem?"

The dog looks at him, then at the floor. The first paw pokes the wooden floor curiously, putting half of its weight as a test. The next paw comes along with a bit more confidence, tapping the floor as well. Dazai watches this quietly. 

The floor, now deemed safe, has the dog walking out fully. It turns around in a circle, tail swishing all the while. It sniffs once, then twice, realizing finally that there's food around here. The dog turns around to stare at the bowl of water and the plate of food. It looks at Dazai. 

Dazai cocks his head to the side. "What?"

The dog manages to feign suspicion.

"'s just food," he says, eating the last of the noodles sitting at the bottom of the carton box, intentionally poking past the bits of chicken he hates to eat because they tire out his jaw. "Not poisoned. Just leftovers." 

Deciding that it does not care, the dog turns around and hobbles to the front door, making the quietest sounds of pain as it goes. Dazai watches with interest. It takes a painfully long time to get to the door, but the dog doesn’t stop, hopping to keep the weight off its injured leg. When it finally reaches the only exit, its paw tries scratching at the door. It’s a bit pitiful, and it kickstarts a very forgotten and eroded lurch from his heart, the kind he hasn’t felt in a long time. The dog keeps scratching, in a futile attempt to get out.

He pretends to dig into his leftovers, counting down the seconds until the dog tires and drops. To pass the time, Dazai resolves himself to biting down on the chewiest piece of chicken to grace his mouth, swallowing it down with great effort and a bit of gagging. The dog, meanwhile, hobbles towards the counter by the sink. It tries to jump and barely crouches before yowling in pain. Dazai wonders if the dog is thinking Dazai wants to kill it, or hurt it, or something more horrible. It wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibility, considering what humans sometimes do. Dazai is a human, technically speaking, and even he’s afraid of others that would do him harm.

The dog has exhausted itself and lies on the ground, its paw reaching out and barely tapping at the counter. Dazai swallows his food that tastes and feels like ash in his mouth while the dog makes the valiant attempt of leaving the very person who saved its tiny, half-starved ass. 

His thin, wooden chopsticks scrape the bottom of the takeout box. He sighs through his nose, expelling in his head all the terrible things he wants to say, and places the container on the floor, gently leaning it by the wall so that the chopsticks don't counterbalance the box and tip it over. 

Dazai announces, "I don't know where you plan to go with a cut like that."

The dog's ears twitch at the sound, but it is entirely too tense, down to its little tail. It turns slightly around so that it's got Dazai in its sights.

"I wonder why you refuse to eat, little doggy." After that first initial shock of using his voice, Dazai is beginning to find that the scratch of underused vocal cords has settled into negligible territory. "Do you really think this is poisoned? Like I said before, this-" He punctuates his point by grabbing a piece of moist chicken from the dog's plate and eating it. He tries not to grimace at the lack of flavor. "Is not poisoned or drugged or expired." He chews carefully, forcing the awful food down his throat without frowning. His eyes bear down on the dog, saying without words, 'See what I mean, you dumb dog?'

The dog still doesn't move, and Dazai loses his patience. "Do what you like. I don't care."

Dazai keeps eating his leftovers after that, gnawing on the pieces of chicken that taste like glue.

The dog is slow to pick itself back up, turning tiredly on wobbly legs. It slowly comes back, sitting down in a heap on top of his messy clothes by the plate of plain chicken. 

The dog sniffs the chicken bits, then tentatively starts nibbling one. Silly little noises accompany the eating, and Dazai huffs on what could be considered a laugh for him. The dog looks up at him, then angrily circles the plate of food so that it's showing its tail to Dazai and hiding its face while it eats. 

"Embarrassed? I didn't know dogs knew how to do that."

The dog, naturally, doesn't reply. 

Dazai's finger flicks the side of the bowl of water with his nail. "Aren't you gonna drink something?" 

The dog looks back at him and reluctantly goes to the bowl, licking into it quickly. 

Dazai leans back against the wall, letting his poor, neglected stomach digest his dinner. Time passes slowly with Dazai observing the dog eat and drink to its little heart's content. Once it's done, it goes back to the pile of clothes, eyeing it critically. For some insane reason, the dog then decides to grab each article of clothing and drag it away from Dazai’s bed. 

"Paranoid much?" he asks. The dog doesn’t react to his voice other than with the slight movement in its ears. 

It is only once the makeshift bed has been moved halfway to the door that the dog is content with stopping. It begins by walking in circles around its little bed before plopping in the middle. 

Dazai gets up to dump the cardboard box into the trash, then throws himself halfheartedly on top of his futon.

His eyes ache terribly when they close. The concept of tomorrow stares him down like the barrel of a gun pressing down between his eyes. There's work to look forward to, and then there's the self-inflicted responsibility of taking care of an abandoned dog.

It dawns on him too slowly that the dog won't be okay in seven days, which means Dazai’s plan to not stay alive beyond that point has just met its match. 

The recovery time for that gash will take at least a few weeks, going over Dazai's expected lifespan in multiples. 

Could Dazai really kick out the dog he saved, just so, what, so he can kill himself? That's a little…

Dick-ish. 

Bundled up in his old clothes, the dog appears even smaller than before, and it wasn't that big to begin with. Dazai's blinks take longer and longer, sleep slowly covering him like a blanket. The arm under his head pulses from his cuts, and they lull him to sleep. Bad decisions or not, they'll still be there tomorrow. But not in six days when he's dead.

With that comforting thought, he finally closes his eyes and sleeps. 

Saturday.

The next morning, nearly noon, Dazai opens his eyes and finds himself having a staring contest, of all things, with the dog he apparently didn't dream he rescued.

He has no idea what is happening.

When the dog blinks first, Dazai finds the feeblest of smiles creeping on his face. Somehow, with the few facial muscles dogs have, the dog manages to look unbelievably outraged. Dazai laughs.

The dog stops looking offended at the sound, twisting its little head to the side. Dazai feels the smile dying out immediately, extinguished before truly catching on.

His back screams at him for daring to sit up, and he apologizes in his head for existing. The dog, still across the room, clumsily uses its paws to sit up, slipping a bit on one of his shirts. Dazai rubs the sleep from his eyes with the heels of his hands, pressing hard until he sees stars. 

The dog huffs, looking at the empty plate of food and dry bowl of water, then back at him. 

Dazai stops to look at it. "Right," he scoffs to himself. "You're a bit of a fat doggy, aren't you?"

The dog gets all offended again. 

"You’re very expressive for a dog."

Maybe it's a lucky break he got such an expressive dog. The unpredictability of animals is usually the thing he hates most about them. They’re so fickle. Unlike humans, who live their lives broadcasting each and every sordid thought to the world. Animals, in comparison, do as they please with no thought or sign as to what they might be thinking. 

This one gets offended when he loses a game and flinches when Dazai gets to his feet to get a glass of water. Guilt flushes down to his toes, leaving him lightheaded, though Dazai dutifully decides that it's just the rush of getting up too fast. Dazai doesn’t give it another glance as he walks. 

He bends down to get the bowl and plate from the floor, deliberately feigning annoyance and rolling his eyes when the dog flinches again. He quickly rinses the bowl and fills it with fresh water, putting it down by the dog's makeshift bed. It waits for Dazai to go back to his earlier task before sipping on the water in peace. 

Dazai leans on the counter as he drinks his own water, poured into a chipped mug for convenience, thinking over what he has to do today. With his suicide coming soon, there have been fewer chores he has to do. Paying the electricity bill, the water bill, taking out the trash—all those adult things can be ignored because soon enough they won’t be his problem.

The dog nearly knocks the bowl over, out of nowhere scarfing down on water like it is dying of thirst. As if it had just now realized it was parched.

This, Dazai thinks as he looks at the dog pawing at the bowl, is a problem. 

Well, bad decisions aside, he knows what’s first on the docket. 

"Come on," he says while going into the bathroom. "Let’s clean up that giant cut you have there. I should probably do the same anyway."

Inside the bathroom, Dazai bends down to grab the first aid kit from the cupboard and goes back towards his futon. He realizes that it’s a little senseless to treat his wounds when he’ll be inflicting a more permanent one in a week. It’s probably the habit of it at this point. Dazai has gone too long with his destructive habits; it’d feel weird to stop suddenly. He falls back on his futon, legs sprawled out and the kit in front of him. 

The dog is silent, watching intently. Dazai goes to reach for it, and the damn thing growls at him. He withdraws his hand, even more exhausted than before. What the hell was he thinking yesterday? 

"If you’re not going to, then I’ll do this shit first." 

His right sleeve is rolled up to the forearms, and an abandoned cup of water that has sat old and forgotten next to his futon finds a purpose when Dazai grabs it, pouring it over the fresher cuts decorating his arm like a crooked ladder. This way, it's like he's tricking himself into thinking he has cleaned them thoroughly. He hisses through his teeth from the sting. The dog watches this passively. 

The edge of his blanket dries his drenched arm. The last of his bandages are wound over and around his arm until he’s covered up to his elbow and then again to his shoulder. Dazai's left arm gets the same treatment, down to the hiss from the water hitting his open wound. Once he’s done, both sleeves are gently rolled down. All cuts done to his legs and stomach have long healed; the ones on his arms have been keeping the edge off anyway, so what's the point of inflicting more? 

He looks up at the dog, who has not moved. “Well?” 

Almost timidly, the dog gets up and meanders closer. It stops in between his legs, showing its wounded side. Dazai exhales through his nose, rearranging himself more comfortably on his futon. The dog’s middle fits perfectly in his palm, either because the dog is relatively small for its age due to biology or poor nutrition or because Dazai has just hit his latest growth spurt, making him more gangly and awkward than before. 

The warm touch of something that breathes startles him awake from this trance he typically falls into when going through the motions of life. His fingers brush over the fragile bones of the dog’s ribs, skin stretched from brutal malnourishment. Each careful breath from the dog expands the loose circle of his palm and fingers, keeping the dog aloft. 

He works as carefully as the day before, cleaning up the area with slow movements he'd never indulge in himself. 

Weirdly docile, the dog makes no noise of protest to being handled like a tiny pouch. The stitches haven’t pulled, and aside from the typical swelling that comes with recently pierced skin, all seems to be in order. As far as Dazai knows anyway. His healing knowledge has a limited reach, only as far as patching himself up and preventing blood stains, of course. 

The dog's four paws touch the ground, and it turns around with its nose in the air, all dignified. Dazai leans back, spine curling inward like his mother hated. ‘No slouching, Osamu!’ He wrinkles his nose at the memory.

While he was reminiscing, the dog had gone towards the door again. Dazai wants to roll his eyes. Again with this? 

The dog starts scratching at the door halfheartedly, looking back and forth between it and Dazai. 

It’s only once it raises one hind leg that Dazai gets the memo and scrambles to open the door. Earlier reservations are forgotten in his panic to prevent a bathroom emergency. The door is barely open a crack before the dog runs off. 

Oh, he thinks, hand on the side of his door, now open to the world. 

The dog ambles down the flight of stairs and sprints into the nearby bushes across the small parking lot.

Well… So much for making sure the dog wouldn’t die of an infection. 

The familiar pang of loss is familiar at this point and nothing to write home about. Dazai goes back inside and makes time until his shift. It’s a day like any other, or it should have been, were it not for the damn dog. Now he’s all out of sorts, thinking about something other than his imminent suicide. When he walks to work later that day, it occurs to him that this is a blessing! There’s no moral need to stick around longer than he has to now! With the mutt out of his hair, he’s free to pull the plug on himself and pass away with peace of mind. 

Relief should be the sweet flower blooming in his chest, a solace, a calmness. In its place he finds that there’s something more sinister taking hold inside his ribcage. Something with roots like claws and deadly poison in its leaves. The little voice in his head that so often likes to fill silence with chattering whispers in his ear:

'What a surprise, someone else can’t wait to fucking leave you. Isn’t that funny? Not even a stupid dog could stand to be around you for longer than necessary. Why are you surprised, idiot? Did you really think anyone would stick around?'

A deep, distant rumbling precedes another unexpected summer shower. Dazai is drenched by the time he gets to the convenience store. He relieves his coworker of cashier duties and spends the next endless hours with shoes that squelch on the off-white floor and bandages that stick to his skin. He spends the hours fussing over and rearranging their stock. Times like these are when he feels most worthless. 

In the harsh brightness of fluorescent lights, not a single customer deigns to look him in the eye. Their eyes pass over him, like water off a duck's back. His eyes glaze over, and with each minute closer to the end, he eyes the cup next to the cash register. It's a thick coffee cup they have filled with pens, pencils, and… a box cutter. It was left forgotten by one of his coworkers who usually works in the back.

His shift eventually ends, and no one notices the missing box cutter that sits inside his pocket. The walk back to his home is miserable, another day wasted, another day closer to his eternal relief. 

Half a block from his home, Dazai nearly trips over nothing. Up on the second floor in front of his door is a tiny blob. He hurries up the stairs, nearly slipping a few times. He comes to a stop three paces from his door. The blob, like he suspected, is the dog. Dazai breathes deeply from the sudden sprint, leaning his upper weight on his knees. The dog’s ears fluttered when he was coming up the stairs, and now its little eyes are staring at him too keenly. It slowly gets up, limping. Dazai spots the ruined stitches immediately. 

"Seriously?" he asks, breathless. "Left alone for less than a day, and you already ruined my hard work." 

The dog growls and tries to turn around and leave. Dazai again has to scramble to keep up, kneeling and scooping the dog in his arms for the second time. It yelps, indignant. 

Dazai sighs, irritated, and unlocks his door before going inside. He drops his backpack and kicks the door shut with his heel. One more time, Dazai has to repair what the dog has so recklessly ruined. Wherever it is the dog got itself into, it sure as hell wasn’t far. Sticks matted to the fur with dried blood are reminiscent of the brittle sticks found in a nearby park. The dirt coated on its entire body gets on his hands and clothes; his jeans especially see the brunt of it. 

In the bathroom, Dazai has to grab his least favorite towel, one of two in total that he owns, and dab the tips with water. He sits cross-legged on the floor, slowly and tediously wiping the dog clean. 

"What were you thinking, hm? You got dirt all over your open wound. Honestly, are all dogs this stupid?" 

The dog makes to bite his finger; Dazai glares at it. Touchy.

He has to painstakingly pick out the sticks and grit one by one from the dog's fur, and it's as annoying as it sounds. The damn dog doesn't make it any easier with its fidgeting and wiggling. More than once Dazai has to snap at it to stay still. 

Half an hour later, it is finally relatively clean. Dazai gently situates the dog back on the floor, leaving it to hobble around on its own two paws. It haughtily limps out of the bathroom, Dazai following and then branching off to rummage through his fridge. There's nothing edible when he looks inside, nothing other than expired juice and a nearly empty container of old vegetables he never got around to eating. The fridge is swung shut with a sigh, and because there's nothing else he can do, Dazai decides to fill up the dog's bowl with fresh water. He doesn't even change before lying down on his futon. 

While he rests, the dog sniffs around the bowl of water, finding it suitable enough to drink. After it's done, it goes back to the pile of clothes, dropping into it the same way Dazai did on his own futon. The lurch of no dinner rumbles and echoes inside his stomach; the dog makes a vague little sound, something like a whine. It must be hungry. 

Dazai smiles sardonically. "No food today. I don't get paid until next week."

'And I'll be dead by then.'

He rolls his head to look up at the ceiling. Well, it's not like he has a lot of extra funds to throw around normally, though his savings are not negligible either. 

Normally, most of his monthly paycheck went into his apartment, the electricity, and water. The rest of it was usually spent on food—the instant kind—with a small percentage going into his safe for emergencies. 

His 'safe' is just a cleaned-out ramen box he hid under the sink next to the poison and the nearly empty cleaning supplies that came with the house. 

Ever since he decided that he'd die before the year ended, Dazai hasn't been any more reckless than a fifteen-year-old kid living on his own could be. Emergency utilities aside, his savings were forgotten, left to gather dust under the sink. The saved-up money didn't have an express purpose when he started gathering loose change, so he supposes it makes sense that he wouldn't have a reason to spend it now that he's dying. At the very least he'd been hoping to indulge in a celebratory last warm meal, but that wouldn't burn through even half of his savings if he tried. 

He figures, if he is going to die, and if the money will all go to waste anyway, why not dip his toe in altruistic waters?

Dazai looks at the dog, who is resting its face on its paws, eyes closed and ears flat. 

If he were still alone, he'd be going to sleep hungry; no problem with it. He'd grab something unhealthy and fried on his way to work tomorrow and make do with those meager calories. The puppy snoring into his dirty laundry puts a wrench in that plan. Dazai silently sits up; the dog doesn't open its eyes. He opens the cupboard under the sink slowly, leaning in and weaving through the cobwebs to grab his ramen box. The slight rustling has awakened the dog, and it is now awake, observing him counting the bills under his breath. 

After arriving at the grand total, Dazai takes out a few smaller bills and stuffs them in his pocket. The rest goes back to the box. Without a word to the dog or himself, Dazai throws the ramen box back into the cupboard, stuffs his soaked socks into his shoes, and marches out of his apartment. It's still raining outside, and he hadn't thought to grab his jacket on the way out. Thankfully, a ramen shop is barely a block away.

He places his order to go in minutes, being then given a ten-minute wait time until his food is ready. He swivels from side to side on one of the many free stools inside the shop. His foot taps an agitated rhythm, and his fingers strangle their own circulation. A nice young lady comes by with his order eleven minutes since he arrived, bearing the gift of a hot container with his food, all nicely wrapped up in a plastic bag. He pays, mumbles his thanks, and leaves, shielding his food with his body. 

His apartment key jams on the door twice before letting him through, and Dazai lets out a sigh of relief when he's out of the rain. The dog perks up upon his entrance, slipping a little on the shirts in its attempt to sit up. With his heel, Dazai shuts the door and crosses the room to fall on his bed. The dog trots closer, sniffing the air in curiosity. Dazai has the plastic bag thrown to the side, and the hot aluminum container warms his lap. Clean chopsticks wrapped in their plastic are set atop his pillow. The exact moment the thin plastic covering the container is removed, his food expels a sigh of delicious aromas. Dazai gets a little nauseous from the abundant spices littering his bowl of ramen, though he rationalizes that this is probably from his perpetually near-starving stomach. 

The dog is pitter-pattering in its place, too antsy to know what he's got in his hands but unable to explore due to its injury. Dazai rips the plastic, wet with condensation, off and lets it fall on the floor with a little slap. He snaps his chopsticks apart with his teeth and jams one into a piece of chicken. It's a long piece, the size of his index finger. It falls on the dog's empty plate, spattering a bit of juice on the floor and Dazai's hands before he has a chance to retract it. Dazai, on his part, begins to nibble on a fat, boiled egg. 

He smiles a little at the dog's ritualistic sniffing, the little inspection of its food before eating. It decides it's okay to eat eventually, munching on the chicken and ripping it apart with its teeth. Dazai squints a little as he chews. They're sharp, the dog's teeth. Very sharp. Almost like they were filed? Dazai looks back down at his food, cutting the second egg in two before plopping it in his mouth. He hadn't realized at first, but the rain had somehow seeped into his skin, freezing him inside and out. The nearly scalding broth and noodles and chicken thaw his icicle fingers, breathing life back into them with its heat. The dog nudges Dazai's foot with its snout. 

Oh. It's done with the chicken. Dazai places another piece onto the plate. 

They go on like this for a few minutes. It's a stark contrast between them, with the dog ripping into its food with ferocity, chowing down on the chicken with energy. And with Dazai, picking apart his own bites, slowly chewing each one, and swallowing carefully. 

Dazai gets full way before the dog does. A bit more than half of his food is placed inside the fridge, chopsticks included. When Dazai goes back to his futon, he finds the dog snout-first in his bowl of water. 

He smiles a little. 

Dazai lies down slowly, gagging at the swaying of his full stomach. It's almost like he can feel it reach his esophagus. He hasn't been this full in weeks. His closed eyes stay closed automatically. The fact that the lights were never turned on is a blessing now that he wants to get some sleep and has none of the energy to get up anymore. Dazai listens around for the dog's footsteps, leaving the bowl of water and dropping into its bed. He's deep in slumber before the dog has stopped settling down for bed.

Sunday

This must be what rock bottom is like; what else would find Dazai buying expensive chicken for a dog that isn’t even his? What kind of hellish street dog has got expensive tastes anyway? Aren’t they used to eating garbage to get by? Seriously. 

Today was a tragically awful day. It started with a dude yelling at him for being out of his brand of cigarettes; it got marginally worse when he went into the break room and saw his manager hanging out there; it got irreparably bad when he saw some of his old classmates pass by his convenience store. Thankfully, they didn't see him, or else he would have gone into a storage closet and cut a deep line from elbow to wrist instantly. 

Dazai swings the plastic bag from the tips of his fingers as he walks home, weirdly weightless. The setting sun warms his back and neck, and he’s sweating through his long-sleeve shirt. This is why he hates the hotter seasons. Summer, most of all. Although he also hates winter, the natural enemy of shitty circulation. He supposes spring is okay; late March and early April have got the right amount of sun and wind. Plus the inconsistent shower rains that leave him all melancholy. Summer, though, he could live without it. 

A car almost clips him when he tries to cross the last street to his house, startling him and causing him to stumble back. He trips on his own feet and smacks on the pavement. The plastic bag drops as well, but the frozen chicken is virtually indestructible. Dazai is pretty sure he could use it as a weapon against someone and come out on top. The car doesn’t stop, despite almost maiming him, leaving Dazai on the side of the road like roadkill. 

When his heart stops trying to beat through his chest, he picks himself up, snatches the plastic bag from the ground, and hurries home. It’s only once he’s jamming his key inside the lock that he realizes that, the one time Dazai was not actively looking for death, death came for him anyway.

He stops trying to force himself inside his house, pausing briefly to appreciate that joke.

He laughs. Isn’t that really fucking hysterical? He chuckles to himself, a little louder. The slope of his forehead hits the door, his sweaty skin leaving a damp imprint on the peeling paint that tends to flake and drop like snowflakes when he shuts the door too hard. The plastic bag swings from the crook of his arm, the frozen chicken thumping on the door like someone shyly rapping their knuckles on the door. There's silence, the type of silence one gets when they've alienated everyone else in their life and they're alone. Dazai sighs, hands shaking, spine somehow rigid. But then… 

A quiet tap. 

Or a scratch. 

Scratch scratch scratch. 

The dog, he realizes. The dog is answering his accidental knocks. It’s very faint, but it’s there. On the other side of the door is the unmistakable tap of a paw, claws scratching the door. Dazai stops for a moment longer and deliberately twitches his arm so that the plastic bag hits the door again. 

The dog scratches again as a response. 

A small smile creeps along the hills of his cheeks, and because Dazai is facing the door and there is no one to see it, he allows the very dangerous intemperance of showing he cares. He can hide it all he wants; the universe must already know, he reasons. It always knows when Dazai has taken a liking to something. It has the cosmically ineffable ability to take it away after all. 

He scoffs a little.

The universe knows. There is no point in hiding it, right? Dazai knows all about fleeting pleasures. It’s in the flashing sparks of pain when he cuts a new line on his arm and legs. Fleeting bliss, intangible happiness. He knows all about it. And because he knows all about it, he also knows how to enjoy the view on the way down.

Dazai shoves the key into the lock, turning it and pushing it open in a single movement. The setting sun, warming his back and neck, creates a dark silhouette that stretches far into his room. In the middle of it, draped in his shadow, is his dog, with bright, shiny fur and a weirdly expressive face.

"I’m home," he says quietly, and the dog almost seems happy to see him too.

Dazai steps to the side to allow the dog to pass. "Go ahead, relieve yourself." 

The dog does not go instantly through the door; it meanders closer, as if trying to appear casual. It stops by his shoes and bumps its nose against the tip. It retreats on tiny feet, looks up at Dazai's baffled face, and—almost victorious?—hobbles out the door to piss. 

Dazai shakes his head down at the floor, genuinely confused. Whatever. He uses one of his shoes as a door jam and waits around the threshold for the dog to come back. When it takes too long, Dazai decides to deal with his very stupid purchase. The cold chicken hits the sink with a heavy thunk. What is he supposed to do now? Defrost it, right? The microwave has a defrost function, he recalls. 

The plastic is ripped apart by his nails, freeing the pale pink chicken out into the stuffy air of his place. A clean plate is placed inside the microwave with the frozen chicken on top. The defrost button, a picture of a snowflake with a water drop, starts the microwave, citing ten minutes for the run time. Dazai balls up the plastic bag and throws it under the sink to deal with later. 

The dog comes back just as Dazai is pouring fresh water into its bowl. He hasn't tried to rearrange the doggy bed made up of his clothes. He wouldn't want to disrupt it. It has happened that people went into his private place and tidied it up, naturally getting it all wrong and disrupting his order. The dog hobbles over to the bowl of water, sniffing it and then licking into it. Dazai's defrosted chicken is ready a minute after that. He takes it out of the microwave, then begins the task of cutting it up into strips. 

It's still a little cold in some parts. Maybe he should have cut it into strips before defrosting it, but how would that work? Dazai absently notes how out of his depth he is, but on the outside, no one would be able to tell. His straight face could trick the devil. That's something a tutor once said behind his back. He shakes the thought away.

A handful of strips are placed inside the microwave for a bit more time, then taken out when the timer goes off. He sets the plate down next to the dog, who is staring at him. Dazai doesn't stop to see if the dog has started eating it, if he likes it,  if he hates it. He only has eyes for his messy futon and nothing else. 

He's so exhausted now, so fucking tired. It's less than a week until he dies, and it just seems to stretch on and on. He falls face-first, not even bothering with burrowing under his blanket. Dazai drifts in his head, voices screaming at him about how worthless he is, imagining what his parents would think if they saw him like this. He wishes he had the energy to get up and grab his knife. But that is also too much work.

The voices are so loud today, and they make a lot of sense. 

See how useless you are? See how worthless? 

Dazai, you are nothing more than a waste of skin and air and space.

It'll be a cause for celebration when you kick the bucket.

His own voice in his head is never fully dressed without the palpable scorn.His eyes sting, and soon they're wetting his pillow. He sniffles pathetically a few times, chest constricting with each labored breath. He falls asleep somehow. Dazai has no recollection of it. 

The next time he opens his eyes some time in the middle of the night, it's to his ceiling. The air outside is chilly, but he's not shivering. Dazai moves around a bit and finds that covering half of his upper body and stopping right at his chin is his blanket. He doesn't remember burrowing under it. 

Dazai turns his head to the side slowly. The little dog is sleeping peacefully, its made-up bed now parked right next to his head. The dog snores a little, which he finds funny because it sounds like it should be coming out of an old man, not a tiny puppy. Dazai rolls over on his side, arms full of scars and cuts smarting at the pressure put on them. 

A hand comes out of the clumsily placed blanket to hover near its snout. The even breaths flutter over his fingertips. Warm. His fingers thaw slowly, and his eyes sting again. Dazai closes his eyes tight. 

I just want to die in peace.

Monday. 

Monday goes well enough that he doesn't really understand why he was so down just yesterday. It seems like such an overreaction in retrospect. Dazai tries to dredge up that same bottomless black hole in his heart and finds nothing but skin and bones and very little muscle. His coworker looks at him weird for fondling himself, but Dazai is beyond caring at this point. Time passes quickly at work this time, and that is a massive blessing. Dazai half jogs to his house after he's done, a little earlier than he usually would because his other coworker, the one that takes the next shift, came earlier today. He must look like death to have Akutagawa start a conversation with him. 

"You look tired. I can take over for you a bit earlier, Dazai."

Dazai shrugged. "Yeah, okay."

He stops half a block from his apartment. There is a strange dude loitering by his front door and gesticulating obnoxiously. At first he thinks the guy is completely nuts to be speaking to the door, but the closer he gets, the more he realizes that this is not the case. 

"Don't be stupid, Chuuya. I never meant for this to happen, you know? It just did! Stop acting like a little kid and talk to me!" 

Dazai picks up the pace just a bit.

"Who are you?" he asks evenly.

The stranger nearly jumps out of his own skin. "Woah! What the fuck, you scared the shit out of me!"

Dazai doesn't repeat himself, coming closer. 

The guy puts his hands up. "I'm Shirase. Who are you?" 

"I'm the guy who lives here," he explains curtly. "What are you doing yelling at my empty apartment?"

"O-oh, this is your…?” He tapers off. "Uh, sorry, man. I didn't know-"

"It says my name right there." He points at the plaque by the door. It's a fake name, but the facts are that this is his place. 

"Uh, right." Shirase nods a few times to himself, stuffing his hands in his pocket. "Look, dude-"

"Get out."

"What?"

Dazai feels anger bubbling in his gut, and his fists curl tightly by his sides. "I said get out."

"Wh- But I just want to expain-"

"I don't care." Dazai takes a step forward; his hand flicks out his box cutter. "Get out of my way."

Shirase almost stumbles in his hurry to get away; he mutters under his breath about what a freak he is but runs away with his tail between his legs. Dazai sighs and stuffs his cutter into his pocket again. The minute he opens his door, the dog comes running at him, throwing its entire weight on Dazai's legs. 

"What the fuck?" he asks. Dazai raises the leg the dog has in its sharp claws, and the puppy dangles. “What are you doing? Let me through!” He wiggles the dog as lightly as he can. Thankfully, it gets the memo and lets go. They both go inside.

For the next hour, Dazai goes through his lackluster routine. Clean the dog's wound, shower, change, eat, and rest. Throughout the entire thing, he's thinking about that stranger. 

Who the hell is Chuuya? Why was he shouting at his empty apartment?

The dog shuffles around his empty dorm, tiny paws making the funniest sounds as he takes a tour around the room. Almost empty, he corrects himself. It's not like he was talking to his dog. Dazai hasn't received any complaints about barking, so it can't be that this Shirase guy knew the dog was inside. No one knows. Dazai turns on his side, keeping his weight off his fresh cuts. 

"Who is Chuuya?" he asks the dog. It stops in its tracks immediately, ears flicking. It turns around to look at him, coming closer to take a seat by his head. "Do you know why that stranger was shouting at my door?" he asks softly.

Dazai has never been known for softness, but it's like when he looks at this creature that eats his food and claws at his clothes, he can't help it. Its face is one that invites softness. So pitiful, he thinks dully. So alone. 

"You are just like me, huh?" he asks in a whisper. He's so tired. "What will happen when I'm gone, though? Will you get into trouble?" Dazai frowns. "Will you be okay without my help?" The dog tilts its head to the side. "Who knows…"

Dazai extends a hand out, his finger just short of touching the dog's snout. It flinches back a bit, little paws making that funny sound against the wooden floor. It doesn't run away, though, as if it isn't scared of Dazai anymore but can't help the primal instinct to shy away. It looks at his outstretched finger for a few seconds. Then leans in and licks. Dazai startles back. He frowns and wipes his finger on his futon.

"Yuck," he says out loud just so the dog knows. It doesn't seem to care. If anything, it gets excited. "Weirdo. You are so stupid." 

His imagination runs wild with possibilities. He's got jack shit here, that is true, but it's better than nothing. This winter is so cold. Dazai freezes just from getting out to get his useless, useless mail. The dog won't survive. It can't treat its own wounds; it can't change its bandages. His eyes begin to sting. It needs him, he realizes. No one has ever needed him before. 

“That's not fair.” His voice breaks. It's not fair that this is happening right now, not when he's so close to closing the deal. Dazai has a date; he will see it through. He has to. So why does he feel so awful? Why is he suddenly dreading the passing minutes? 

"I hate this," he says. "I'm so tired."

The plastic handle of his box cutter digs cruelly into his shredded thigh. The reminder that it's there at all makes up his mind. Dazai fishes out the cutter and clicks it open. He's lifting his other arm out of the blankets when he hears the dog's paws pitter-patter on the floor before it launches itself onto the futon. 

"Woah!" he shouts. 

The dog grabs the cutter in its mouth and runs away into the bathroom. It comes back just as fast, with an almost triumphant angle to its head. What the fuck?! He goes to get up, but the dog launches itself at him and slams into his chest. Dazai slams back down. 

"What is wrong with you? Did you smoke something while I was gone?!"

The dog stands on his chest, pawing at his shirt. It lies down without another sound. Dazai is left floundering around for a damn explanation. "Excuse me? Are you going to sleep here?" he asks incredulously. He can't believe he's having this conversation. He lifts the blanket and moves the dog off him. It comes back again.

"Stop that!" he orders, going on his side to get the dog off him. It rolls off like a little roly-poly but jumps back on top of him. It is determined, he will give it that much. "That's it!" he announces when the dog lies horizontal over his side. He grabs the dog by its middle and lets it dangle over him. 

It barks, moving its paws as if to run on the air. 

"No," he says, breathless. "Bad dog!" It barks again. "Bad!"

Dazai is struck again by the fragility of life under his fingertips. He can feel the lungs expand in its chest, its heart beating. The dog yips this time. Dazai's arms were getting tired anyway. He puts the dog back down. "Don't lick me. It's gross. Who knows what disgusting things you put in your mouth in your free time?" 

It takes exactly one second for the dog to make up its mind and launch at him again, this time across his neck and chest. 

"Ack!" he gasps. The dog's stomach is resting on his damn throat and lying there as if this is a great place to be. Dazai grabs him again and sits up. It growls at him and kicks out its feet. "What are you doing?!"

It barks again.

"You are so fucking weird." Dazai lays back down, hands and arms circled around the dog like a stuffed animal so it can't try to suffocate him by literally letting its dead weight rest on Dazai's throat. "Ugh," he groans, breathless still. He hasn't had this much excitement or exercise in months. He looks down at the dog. "You are staying there." 

They lay in silence for minutes, breathing deeply. Dazai's eyes start to slip closed. The warmth on his stomach spreads to his fingertips. He lets out a massive sigh and relaxes his grip. The dog doesn't move, so Dazai allows himself to close his eyes. He doesn't know when he falls asleep, but the next day the dog is still on top of him, and he's still warm.

Tuesday.

It's coming down hard outside of the convenience store. Dazai leans his head against his hand as he waits for the last dude to buy his pack of cigarettes and end his damn shift already. Akutagawa isn't here still, but Dazai isn't paid enough to hold down the fort, especially when it's so badly constructed and leaks in the break room. He has no desire to walk home in the rain, but he has even less desire to stay here and work and interact with people. He honestly has no clue why he still comes here; he's going to die in less than a week. If he leaves and Akutagawa still isn't here by the time he goes home, then he'll get fired for sure. It's not like Dazai lives in the best neighborhood around town. There's a reason he's subletting his apartment without any original legal documents in his name. They're all fake anyway, so whatever. 

His shitty luck takes another dive when, before the man can leave, the door chimes and two other girls come in. They're older than him, clearly, maybe early twenties. Dazai sighs deeply when the man leaves and the girls start giggling behind one of the aisles. This sucks. Dazai buries his head in his hands, thumping his forehead on the table. Yip! Dazai looks up, then to the see-through door of the convenience store. 

The dog is here. 

Dazai searches for the girls, finding them still fucking around but this time near the energy drinks in the back. Dazai slicks around his counter. He leans up to hold the bell so it doesn't ring when he opens the door. 

The small dog is drenched. It limps into the store and shakes the rainwater from its fur, sprinkling Dazai with mud and god knows what. 

Dazai kneels. "What are you doing here?"

It's definitely the dog, he thinks. It has its weirdly expressive eyes and the fresh injury on its side. The dog barks again and jumps on his knee, licking its own nose goofily. 

"Were you worried?" he asks sarcastically, but the dog playfully nips his fingers when he goes to flop his ear back in its place. It stayed folded awkwardly on its head when he shook the water from its body. "You were actually worried?" he asks again, voice painfully fragile. He has no memory of the last time someone cared enough to be worried about him. 

The dog yips. It's adorable. 

"Huh…" Dazai swallows the lump in his throat. Was he really so late? He looks up at the clock behind the cashier counter. It's barely fifteen past his usual time at home. He looks back down at the dog huffing and trying to nip his finger again. 

"Was it the rain?" he asks quietly. "Did that worry you?"

The answer is lost to the sound of the girls starting to come back to the front of the store. Dazai looks around in a slight panic; he grabs the dog and brings him into his arms. They both go back behind the counter. Dazai has just enough time to kneel and place the dog by his feet when the girls get there. 

"Hellooo?" the brunette calls. Dazai comes out from under the table with an unimpressed stare. They startle a bit as he begins to scan the first can of two fruity, pink energy drinks. 

"Will you be paying separately?" 

"Hmmm, I dunno. What do you think?" the blond asks. Then, to Dazai, "How about you pay for us, gorgeous? We'll make it worth your while." 

Her friend nods with a smirk. 

Blood pressure tanking, Dazai blinks a few times. "Are you really going to exchange for a purchase that is going to be approximately 430 yen?" 

"Stingy," the brunette says with a coy smile. "I like that. You're cute. What do you say you ditch your work and come join us? What are you, sixteen? Seventeen?" 

"I'm fifteen."

"Younger?" she cajoles. "I like that. Don't you like that?" she asks her friend. 

"I love younger guys. You get to teach them new things." 

Dazai is starting to feel really uncomfortable. Where the hell is Akutagawa? Maybe he can make a break for it. But running is a pain, and it's still raining. This really sucks. He fiddles with the first energy drink. "So…are you paying together or…?" 

The brunette is about to speak again, to say something demeaning or borderline insulting; however, the dog chooses this moment to start yapping and growling. 

"What the hell-?" the blonde asks. Dazai looks down in alarm. The dog is tugging at his shoelace and growling. It looks up when it gets Dazai's attention, then jumps at his legs. Dazai, stupidly, kneels and picks it up, holding it against his chest. The soft feel of it against his hands eases the prickly discomfort crawling up his spine. 

"Is that a dog?" one of them asks stupidly. 

Dazai doesn't dignify that with a response since the dog is fighting his grip, growling at the girls, and attempting to jump on the counter. 

"What's with you?" he whispers. 

The dog barks. It's too cute to be threatening, but it does enough for the girls to roll their eyes. 

"Jesus, never-fucking-mind." The blonde throws a wad of cash on the counter and takes both of the drinks. 

"Bye, loser," her friend says mockingly. 

The door chime does not hide their final insulting comments of, "What the hell was his problem?" 

Dazai looks down at the dog. It's silent again, pliant in his hands. He turns the dog around and holds it under its front legs; the rest of its wet body hangs limply. 

"What was that?" he asks. If possible, the dog tries to glare and yips again and again. Somehow it even manages to morph its little face into complete exasperation. "Don’t look at me like that," Dazai tells it. 

The door chimes again. Akugawa comes in a rush, banging his umbrella on the floor. "I;'m sorry I'm late," he gasps. "This car almost hit me and- Is that a dog?!" 

"People are so observant these days," Dazai says to himself, already brushing past the kid. "I'm going home. Goodbye." 

The rain is harsher than it appeared on the inside. Dazai pulls his uniform off, a stupid red vest, and holds it over his head with one hand. The other holds the dog against his chest and arches his back to protect it. 

Yip! Yip!

"Shut up," he grumbles. "You're still injured, and you came walking here already."

He runs down familiar sidewalks, past where he first met the dog, and gets home drenched but in record time. The door shuts behind him. Dazai allowed the dog to jump to the ground and meander around while he showers and changes. His scarred arms are mainly pink by now. It's been a week since he last tried to cut his life short before deciding that he needed a deadline to really get him over the edge. He looks down at the raised skin on his arms, his shoulders and legs. His thighs, his stomach. 

The shower spits out a trickle of warmish water that runs down his body like rivers around the valleys of his scars. He towels himself dry quickly and changes even quicker, without looking more at his body or the mirror. Outside of the bathroom, he is expecting to find the dog, but what he finds is… 

"What is going on?" 

The dog has brought its makeshift bed on top of his futon. It sits strangely obedient as it waits for Dazai to come over and sit down after turning off the light. It jumps into the small space between his crossed legs.

"So you've just decided to sleep here now?" he asks. The dog bites his shirt and pulls, though it strikes Dazai as oddly playful. "Okay," he sighs. 

From the small stash next to his bed, Dazai takes out what he needs to check the dog's wounds. It's not that bad. Aside from being wet, Dazai takes a moment to grab a corner of his bedsheets to dry the damn dog before it gets his futon even more wet; it's healthy enough. Despite its slight limp, the stitches haven't snapped, and everything is where it should be. Of course, such a deep wound probably still hurts. Dazai sighs through his nose.

He knows what that feels like. Dazai hesitates for a few seconds, then begins to unwind the bandages around his arm. He maneuvers the dog around and begins to wind his new bandages around the cut on its leg. He ties it up with a tiny knot and leans back to look. The dog turns around to look too. It's silly, but it tugs at his heartstrings to see such a tiny thing hurt, although he couldn't give less of a shit when he saw the thing. Now, though, it hurts. His eyes sting. 

"This isn't fair," Dazai whispers. "What am I going to do with you when Friday arrives?" 

The dog tilts its head and whines. 

It puts its paws on his chest as if to push him back to lie down. Dazai obliges slowly. Angrily, the dog then has the fucking gall to turn in a circle on his chest and lie down as if to sleep. 

"Seriously?! Again?!" Dazai shouts. 

The dog barks. 

Ugh. 

"Fine!" Dazai brings a hand up to cup the underside of the dog as he sits up to pull his duvet over his body. For a few seconds he tosses and turns in his bed but finds something comfortable on his side with the dog still against his chest. Its warm body expands with each tiny breath, its fragile ribcage resonates with its heartbeat. 

"I know you're a boy, but I still call you the dog in my head. Should I give you a name?" he whispers. 

The dog's ears flick, but it doesn't react. 

Something silly would be ideal. That's what other dog owners do, right? Hm, something cutesy, probably to piss it off. Like tiny, or yappy. Or Shortstack. Pfft, Shortstack. That's good. It'd probably drive the little thing insane. What did that crazy guy from before say? 

'Chuuya. Chuu-yah,' he mouths. It's a nice name. Better than stupid nicknames. Chuuya snorts in his sleep, curling tight into a little ball. Dazai brings the duvet closer to him to keep him warm. Outside of his apartment the sky falls, his stomach grumbles, but he's too sleepy. 

His deadline is coming.

'What does it matter anyway?' Dazai tries to think to himself. 'You're dying, remember?'

And yet… Dazai looks back at the dog, with its little closed eyes, all rumpled and sleepy in its nest. "…whatever," he mumbles.

Dazai pretends to sleep until he can no longer think.

Wednesday. 

It's raining a lot today too. Dazai can hear it from inside his room. His throat is dry and not in the 'I haven't had water in a day and a half' way. It's dry in the ‘my week is going to be hell' way. God, can't he catch a break even before his death? Dazai sighs heavily at the ceiling. Dazai sees the dog sleeping in a tight ball near his feet when he leans back on his forearms. His toe nudges the small bundle, and it blinks awake, stretching its back and yawning. 

"Morning," he croaks.

It glares, growls, and turns around, roving in circles and dropping down to sleep once more. It must be nice to be a dog and sleep all day.

He has work today, but he's too lethargic to even attempt to get up. He should eat or drink something, but he's so tired. Chuuya raises his head suddenly, his stomach rumbling. He looks at Dazai and starts to yap again, as if to say, 'Feed me, idiot!' I'm starving!' 

"You were the one who growled at me not ten seconds ago," Dazai whispers. 

He calls in sick for work. His boss gives him hell for it but obliges. Dazai must sound worse than he thought. They spend the entire day inside the apartment. Dazai is forced to get Chuuya's chicken ready and a water bowl down on the ground. He ends up picking at some leftovers as well, just for something to do while the dog eats his fill. His head begins to hurt around midday, and he begins to sweat a little after that. He has no desire to leave his apartment, but Chuuya just can't stay still and keeps biting at his clothes and trying to drag him around to move. Dazai initially thinks he just wants him to open the door so he can do his business outside, but the moment Dazai does, Chuuya stays by his side and joins him on the short walk to get some medicine. 

They come back quickly, and Chuuya growls at anything that gets close to him. Dazai appreciates the wide berth people give him. Despite his size, Chuuya intimidates like no other dog he's ever known. 

He takes his medicine and is bullied by Chuuya to lie down again. They eat at night, again some leftovers, and lie down just like the night before. Dazai looks down at Chuuya, trembling and dead asleep in seconds. The tiny thing didn't stop for a second today trying to get Dazai to take care of himself. He even went on another walk with him to get fever reducers and some pills for his cold. 

And all because Dazai was stupid enough to not buy or pack an umbrella. 

Regret sinks into his stomach, and something he knows is shame. ‘This stupid, protective puppy,’ he thinks with a tiny smile. 

"You're so stupid," Dazai says tearily. "Why do you give a damn about me, hm?" He sniffs, and that alerts the dog. Chuuya blinks a few times and startles, turning around to look at Dazai. 

Yip! 

It licks his face, paws on his jaw and neck. 

"I'm fine, stop being such a mother hen!" he says but coughs in the middle, and that ruins his point. 

The dog worries after him until Dazai tricks it into thinking he's fallen asleep again. In the darkness, Dazai blinks his eyes open again, finger running smoothly up and down the dog's spine. 

"You're too nice," he thinks. "If only you were human; then you could be my friend."

The next morning he buys an umbrella.

Thursday.

Stumbling through his door, Dazai lets his backpack fall and shoves his shoes off. The dog startles a little, but Dazai's tunnel vision is too slim to notice he's even there. He nearly falls on his way to the bathroom, his shoulder smacking against the doorframe on his way through. Dazai's shaking fingers rummage through his drawers, knocking aside empty cans of deodorant and dusty bandages. He finds what he's looking for in the second drawer from the top; hand curling around it like a vice, the ridges of the box cutter he stole from work leaving itchy marks on his palm. 

He falls back on his ass and crawls until his back is being supported by the wall. He can't breathe past the lump in his throat or see past the fog over his eyes. Dazai grits his teeth as hard as he can; they creak in complaint, but he just works his jaw harder. Flicking the blade up with his thumb on the plastic mechanism uncovers the entire sharp edge. Long sleeves are roughly pulled up to his elbows. The metal kisses his skin nicely, cooling his heated skin. His pallid forearms turn red where he digs in and remain white everywhere else. 

He doesn't even have to flick his wrist for it to leave a red ridge. His sobs are so violent he's making the sounds of a dying man. 

Oh. Wait. He is a dying man. 

Dazai laughs a little at his joke. Then he laughs harder because his voice is shot to hell already, and then he just can't stop. He is choking on his own spit suddenly, the blade slipping from his sweaty hands and nicking a tiny line on the side of his arm. 

It barely stings. 

He reaches between his knees to grab it again, and, taking a better hold of the box cutter, Dazai just… loses himself in it. Hacking away at his own body, making permanent marks to remember this bad day. Carving out evidence that he is not dramatic or sensitive or looking for attention. He is not okay. He is not, and now, with these parallel lines leaking down into the hem of his sleeves, everyone else can see it too. 

His parents. He saw them today. He saw them, and they were so fucking happy with their brand-new kid. 

Dazai had to hide under the counter to keep them from seeing him, but in retrospect, he doesn't think they would have noticed him. Their eyes, sparkling with pride, never straying from their newest sun. 

They're the same as always, he thinks, hysterical. They're the same people, so why? Why the hell are they so different with his younger brother?! Why?! Why not him?! It's not fair. It's not fair, not at all! Dazai isn't bad. At least he doesn't mean to be. He's not evil, he swears! He doesn't do it on purpose, he fucking swears. 

He's not bad. He's not, not, not. 

Dazai heaves so hard he almost throws up. The knife is slippery with the blood that runs down the blade and into the handle. His arm is throbbing, cuts invisible under the wet carnage. 

Ripped fabric, overflowing stuffing. 'We broke the toy, honey. Let's get a new one!'

He's not bad, he thinks. So why does everyone treat him like he is?

Dazai's head hangs between his shoulders, slumped in defeat now that the tides of hysteria have receded, exposing the bloody aftermath of the tsunami. He knows it'll come in again; it always does. Another fucking meltdown, another damn explosion. Maybe it won't happen tonight, but tomorrow, perhaps. These days the damnedest things set him off. He's really one bad push away from shattering. A lit match near a pool of kerosene. A bomb counting down. Pressure building until it goes off. Dazai disdains the fact that no one seems to fucking care. 

Scritch…

Hm? 

Scritch Scritch Scritch.

Dazai looks up finally, eyes sensitive, bloodshot, and itchy. His legs are spread in front of him, and his pants are going to have to be thrown out from the stains alone. He looks to the side to find the door of the bathroom closed, like how he left it.

Scritch

Is the dog…? Scratching the door?

Dazai leans his body towards the door, reaching out for the handle but wincing at the stretch of his cut arm. He uses his other arm to pull the handle down and pull it open. The dog quickly comes inside, injured leg up and limping like he tends to do. Dazai leans back against the wall, sniffing a little. The dog is looking at him, or rather, his arm. 

He comes closer carefully. Dazai lets him. He sniffs close to his stained fingers, his wet little nose bumping against his nails. Dazai lets his limp hand stay there, absently observing. The dog takes another step closer, nudging his limp fingers with his nose, nosing into his palm where the indents left by the box cutter are starting to itch just like how he predicted. 

The dog begins to lick the slight ridges, going from the tips of his fingers, where the splatters of blood are marginal, to the palms, where a few rivulets have rolled into the slight ridges of his palm lines. The dog licks his hand for a long time, stopping to hobble around to find a better position. He looks up only once most of the blood has been cleaned. Dazai can't bring himself to say anything. The dog doesn't care. 

He comes closer to his crossed legs, jumping a little to press his front two paws on his leg. He sniffs the air a little, then leans in to smell his shirt. He hauls the rest of his body up, falling like a frumpy ball into the space between his crossed legs, then turns towards Dazai's cut arm. He starts to flinch, thinking that the dog will try to lick his wounds, but he stops before trying anything, probably sensing Dazai’s tensing body.

Chuuya looks up at him with big, sad eyes. Then back down at the mess. He doesn't try to lick him, but nudges his snout near it. Dazai relaxes a little after that. The dog lays down his head on his paws, resting on his thigh, as still as a statue. He makes a hurt noise that could be likened to a sad whimper.

Dazai's guilt crescendos out of nowhere. 

Ah, there's the second wave, here for an encore. 

It starts in his chest first, a hiccup. Then it builds up in his throat, and then he can't fucking breathe. Dazai is gasping again, and his hands look around for the discarded knife. It's nowhere to be found, and he can't open his eyes long enough to search. The dog is a heavy weight on his lap, and it starts moving around. Dazai can't keep it in anymore; he gasps and yells and screams, 

Once buried under mountains of self-control, he lets loose. Dazai sobs loudly, the pained noise echoing in his tiny bathroom. He sobs so hard he tips forward, hunching over the dog in the process. He screams and screams and screams into the cold bathroom tiles. Screams like a little kid lost and alone. Like a kid who is looking for his mom. But he knows where his mom is. He knows, but he can't go to her, and that's the problem, isn't it? He knows exactly how to get home, but he's not welcome there anymore. 

For hours and hours, Dazai cries himself dry, gasping and shaking and screaming. This pain goes so deep he wouldn't be able to carve it out without leaving him completely hollow. He's been miserable so long; what is Dazai without it? Nothing. And nothing he will be, forever and ever, in a few days, when he dies. And he has to die; he needs to. Because these feelings are so complicated and hard, he doesn't want to deal with them anymore! 

The dog wiggles out of the wrecked, curled mess he has become and comes around to nudge his sweaty hair out of his face, licking his tear tracks as an attempt to fix it. He yips, paws shuffling in place, anxious. 

"I'm sorry!" he wails. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" 

He whines again.

How is he so cruel? Why is he so bad? Why, why, why does he have to wait to die? Dazai reaches blindly for the box cutter, his nail hitting the edge of the plastic and then gripping it for all it's worth. 

Warring inside him are two sides. One is telling him that he's worthless and wrong. The other is telling him he will burn in hell for leaving the very dog he rescued alone. Either way, there is one common denominator, and it is one and the same. Bad. Wrong. Bad. Wrong. Bad. Bad. Bad. Dazai flicks the blade up. He sits up, his drenched back coming into contact with the cool wall. Fuck this, fuck all of it! Dazai is about to carve one final time, so deep he won't have to look at the remains afterwards, when the dog growls and jumps at him, licking at his tears and yipping and whining. 

"I'm sorry I'm such a lousy owner!" he sobs. "I'm so-orry!" 

Yip!

"You're my only friend," he gasps, realizing it's true. "I'm so alone!" 

Chuuya licks at the tears clinging to his cheeks, then the underside of his jaw. Dazai hiccups desperately; he's so fucking alone, and so is this dog, but Dazai plans to leave, and "Who will take care of you when I'm gone? I'm going to die tomorrow, and I'll be leaving you alone, and that's- I can't do that, but living is too hard!" 

He screams in utter sadness, clinging to his dog, his only friend in the world, and rocking back and forth.  They stay like that for hours on end, and Dazai never stops crying. When he's all dehydrated and essentially cried out, all Dazai feels is hollow. He sniffs down at the dog, looking all sympathetic with his big sad eyes. 

"I'm sorry," he whispers, voice breaking. 

Dazai grabs the dog and gets up on shaky legs. His back hits the door in his clumsy attempt to get out of the bathroom. The rest of his apartment is in disarray, but it's the same as ever. His new cuts pulse with his heart; they burn and are hot to the touch. Chuuya's fur itches his arm, and he yips at him when Dazai hesitates on where to go. He sets Chuuya down on the floor and sits down as well. 

“I'm not a good owner," he says. The dog does not respond. He tilts his head to the side. “I'm not going to be alive come tomorrow, and I can't have you trapped inside here until someone finds my body. I wish I could keep living for you, but I'm just so fucking sad, I can't- I just want to die." 

His eyes fill with tears again. One of his neighbors hits their shared wall, yelling to shut up. 

Dazai rubs his eyes with the heels of his palms. "This is ridiculous," he says and gets up. He opens the door to his apartment and grabs Chuuya, plopping him out into the hall and shutting the door. Tiny scratches sound from the door and a few whines. Dazai throws himself on his bed and stuffs his face in his pillow, then when that doesn't work, jams them around his ears. He's breathing fast and freaking out. 

'I'm the worst, the worst, the worst! I should just fucking die! It'll happen soon,' he consoles himself. 'I'll die tomorrow, and Chuuya won't be my concern anymore. Not anymore.'

He doesn't care that the poor dog will be alone and without a home. That his wound is still fresh or that he seems to like the more expensive chicken or that he's so loyal and sweet. It does not. It doesn't. No, no, no, no-

Dazai must have fallen asleep for some time, because when he wakes up, his mouth is slack and he's drooling. He blinks his eyes open, listening to the tiny whines in front of his door. 

"Chuuya!" someone shouts out of nowhere outside. Dazai startles and sits up. "Chuuya! Run!" they say again. 

The whines stop, and Dazai runs to his door, wrenching it open. Chuuya isn't there; he's running full speed down the street. Dazai stares dumbfounded after him. 

Ridiculously, the dude from a few days ago runs after Chuuya, and then two random guys run after him. Dazai has two seconds to decide what to do. He has no earthly idea what is going on, but— Chuuya-! 

Dazai grabs his shoes by the front door and slips them on in a hurry, leaving behind his phone that is seconds away from midnight. 

It's his death day. 

Friday. 

Dazai comes to a stop inside an alley about three seconds after the last two strangers ran in. He has no idea what is going on. First, the strangers are walking forward meaningfully with raised hands. At the end of the dead end, a white cat jumps to a dumpster, then up the stairs of a fire escape, escaping and meowing down at Chuuya. 

Chuuya barks up at it and jumps but can't get far off the ground. One of the guys realizes Dazai is also there. "What are you doing here, kid? This has nothing to do with you!" 

The other clicks his tongue and gets closer to Chuuya. "Come back to Daddy, puppy! We'll get you back home!" 

Chuuya growls and bares his teeth. 

"That's my dog," Dazai declares. 

The first guy stares at him incredulously. "He's ours, kid. We bought him." 

"For something legal I am sure," Dazai says sarcastically. 

"Ah fuck!" the other guy shouts. "The stupid thing is biting me! Let go!" The second guy begins shaking his leg back and forth, but Chuuya's jaw stays tight around his ankle, whipping his body back and forth. However, with one final, harsh try, the guy manages to send Chuuya flying into the dumpster. 

Chuuya cries out, a tiny whiny sound. 

"Chuuya!" Dazai shouts. 

The first guy grabs him by the back of his head, fingers digging into his scalp. He easily throws Dazai down on the ground. Dazai's skull bounces on the concrete, ears ringing and blood singing. He tries to get up again, but the man kicks him in the ribs. Dazai coughs wetly, the wind knocked out of him. "Wait," he croaks. "Chuuya-" 

From afar, he sees the other guy kick Chuuya again. Dazai is filled with anger. He gets up shakily and barrels into the man kicking him. They fall to the ground together. Dazai begins to punch him, his knuckles stinging with pain. 

"Fuck! Come help me!"

Out of the corner of his eye he sees the other guy grab Chuuya by the scruff and fling him carelessly into the open dumpster, slamming the lid shut. 

Yip! Yip! Chuuya cries out. 

Dazai gets blindsided by a sharp elbow to the side of his face. The two guys manhandle him into the ground, roughly digging his face into the ground. One of the guys keeps him still and trapped underneath his weight while the other takes a few steps back to breathe. 

"What the fuck, kid? It's just a dog; get another one!" 

"Let's just grab the mutt and get the hell out," the one sitting on him says. 

The guy standing shakes his head. "The kid saw our faces; what if he blabs to the police?"

"Do we really need to kill him?"

The blows to his ribs stop. Dazai melts pathetically into the ground. 

"Do you want to report a possible liability to the boss? He's in a bad enough mood."

"Fine! Let's get this over with. I'll just snap his neck or something."

Dazai hisses into the ground, saliva pooling under his livid face. 

The second guy grabs him by the hair and smacks him face-first on the floor. "Shut up." To his friend, "Look, let's just shoot him. I just got this sweet silencer."

The guy on top of him gets off but Dazai can barely look up and they've got a gun trained on him. A silencer is passed over to the guy with the gun, and he starts fussing over it. 

"Don't break it, asshole."

"Yeah, yeah."

With blurry eyes and on his knees, Dazai waits for his execution. The man flicks the safety off. Dazai shakily puts his hands on his knees, properly facing off against his death with an executioner's position. 

Well, here's what he's been waiting for all along. What he wanted not a few hours ago. But now with it staring at him in the face, and with Chuuya's safety visibly at risk in front of him, his future uncertain in the hands of people who pit animals against each other to fight, Dazai doesn't want to go. He wants to live, just a little more. A tiny bit more, please!

The gun hasn't fired yet when Dazai feels a weight hit him square in the chest, but it's not piercing stab of a bullet ripping his insides into ribbons, or the the manageable sack of bones he has come to expect from Chuuya. It's the weight of what he fully thinks is a freight train in these circumstances.

Dazai is bowled over by a heavy and fast weight slamming into his side, catapulting him out of the range of fire and allowing the bullet meant for him to dig into the concrete ground. Dazai's head smacks hard into the rounded corner of the mouth of the alley. His eyes close on impact, and the weight bears down on him, blocking the light overhead.

Something clatters on the ground, and he hears one of the men shout, "What the fuck?!" 

The weight leans back a bit. Dazai blinks the stars from his eyes in a daze, hardly able to breathe through his probably bleeding, broken nose and the damn weight on his upper body. Dazai opens his eyes once but has to shut them again. 

Bang! Bang! 

The gun echoes in the alley, giving him a headache. 

Two heavy thuds follow soon after. 

Dazai tries opening his eyes again. He can't make sense of it at first. Looking at pale skin, a stomach, a chest, a neck, and… His eyes dilate. A face? There is a kid… sitting on top of him. A kid with copper hair, slanted eyes, a big frown, and downturned brows. Dazai sniffs a little, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand. The kid is still there. 

"What- what- what are you…?" he gasps. 

The kid turns his head to the side. He makes a tiny sound of confusion, then startles as if surprised by his own voice. He looks around the alley before finally looking down at where his naked legs are bracketing Dazai's middle. He gapes at his hands and arms, his stomach, and… everything that falls below the belt. Dazai coughs a little in embarrassment, hands grappling the rough ground for any purchase, trying to buy as much space between him and the strange boy in his damn lap.

He inhales sharply before loudly asking, "Who the hell are you?!" The kid startles back and falls on his ass. Dazai takes that as his chance to bring his knees up to his chest. Dazai realizes something. "Where the hell is my dog?!" 

The young stranger winces at the volume, digging the heel of his palm into his temple. Dazai looks over the kid's shoulder at the two dead bodies slowly seeping their blood into their own clothes. Dazai shifts a little, dislodging the kid and making him lose his balance. The guy topples forward, smacking his nose into Dazai's shoulder. He hisses. 

"What-" Dazai tries again, but he sees it. On the guy's leg, the same side he'd stitched close on the dog, is a fresh wound with sloppy thread keeping it together and rosy pink skin trying to heal. A few have snapped, and he's bleeding on the backs of his hands and on his knees. "No fucking way," he gapes. "Not a chance in hell you're-" 

The strange boy startles at him and leans in too close, cupping his injured hands on Dazai's face. His thumbs brush the blood from under his nose, and he begins to check the sides of his head. And he's still naked. If anyone were to walk in right now, they'd get the completely wrong idea. Although the right idea is so ridiculous, even Dazai's having a hard time accepting it. 

"Okay, okay," Dazai says, a little deranged. "Let's- Get off me." 

The guy tilts his head. 

Dazai enunciates. "Get. Off," and makes a shooing motion. 

The boy frowns and glares, and that is just too familiar, or maybe Dazai is losing it from too many hits to the head. The boy shuffles backwards on Dazai's legs until he's sitting on the cold ground with his damn legs open. Dazai forces his legs closed with his feet. 

"Oh my god," he sighs, suffering internally. He gets up and looks around. The two bodies are growing colder by the minute. The kid from earlier is not here, which- Wait. 

"That guy who called you Chuuya, was he the white cat that escaped?" 

Chuuya shrugs. 

"Ugh." Dazai goes to take off his sweatshirt, stops, then starts again. He takes it off and fidgets with it until it's not inside out. He looks at the guy

"… Chuuya. Get up." He gets up. "Arms up." He does. 

Dazai helps him shrug on his sweatshirt that falls down to mid-thighs. 

Christ. Okay. 

Dazai looks down at the gun. Then Chuuya's hands. He pulls his long sleeve over his hand and grabs the gun, then extends his other towards Chuuya to gesture for him to follow. But the damn guy does not even wait for the gesture. He clasps their hands together and lets them swing between them 

Dazai looks up. "What-?" 

Chuuya glares at him, squeezing his hand. "Not…letting you… out of my sight," he whispers, voice lower than he'd thought.

Dazai blushes up to his ears. "Okay," he says. 

This cannot be happening. 

On their walk back to his apartment, with a gun hanging from his fingertips and a guy who was his dog holding his hand and leading the way, Dazai thinks, 'Okay, well, life's not boring anymore.' 

Chuuya has to walk around puddles so many times on their way that Dazai stops him and forces him to climb on his back. In retrospect, a bad idea. First of all, his stomach hurts from all the kicks to his middle, and, more importantly, when Chuuya's legs wrap around his torso from behind, all of Dazai's thoughts shoot off into the sky. It does make the trip trip shorter. Dazai gets them inside and locks the door. He takes the gun and places it carefully in the fridge with no other place to hide it. He turns around to see Chuuya already making himself at home in his bed, dirty feet and hands and everything touching his sheets and pillow. He even has that characteristic glare of his. 

Honestly, Dazai can't be bothered to say anything. He silently follows, and Chuuya leaves him a space for him to take. Dazai lies down stiff on his bed, and Chuuya does his usual routine of finding a nice spot to get comfortable, right on top of his chest. He looks up once to give Dazai a once-over, then nods, satisfied, and throws himself back down to sleep. 

In the darkness, with the adrenaline waning, Dazai begins to think. 

Maybe he can push back his suicide another week. It frankly won't change much. 

Maybe a month.

Yeah, only a month. 

Chuuya snores into his collarbone, sending a massive shiver down his spine. 

Okay, maybe more.