Chapter Text
“Osamu.”
Dazai jumped out of his thoughts, turning to look at Mori, who was tapping his finger impatiently on the steering wheel.
“Yeah?” The brunet asked, tilting his head slightly.
“You’re going to help Elise get her things, I have a work call.” The older man said, turning back to the light as it turned green, turning left into a simple suburban neighborhood.
Dazai groaned, rolling his eyes, knowing better than to complain, glancing back at Elise, who was sitting in the back seat, manicured nails clicking away on her phone.
Ever since Mori had adopted Dazai, nearly 5 years ago now, it had been made clear to the brunet that he was not to cause an issue for Elise or her father unless it was something out of his control.
For example, the reason they had moved to this nowhere town in Indiana, nearly the entire country away from Oregon, and Dazai’s blood family.
Dazai watched the houses stream by as he let his thoughts carry him away again. He had always been what could be considered an antisocial boy, though most if not all professionals he had seen since his seizure believed it to be from a mixture of his lack of sufficient socialization as a boy and the trauma he had endured throughout his early life, and not a separate condition.
Dazai was pulled from his thoughts as they halted in a driveway. The brunet unbuckled his seatbelt, pushing the door open as he took the keys of the U-Haul from Mori, who had his phone pressed to his ear.
Shoving the trailer door open, Dazai started to unload the boxes labeled ‘ELISE’ in bold sharpie, only to notice the blonde had no intention of carrying in her boxes, leaving the teenager to carry her boxes to the front door.
“Elise! Get your boxes!” The brunet yelled, the blonde girl wrinkling her nose as she padded towards the door.
“I was claiming my room, Dazai.” She said his name like it left a bad taste in her mouth, and Dazai simply rolled his eyes before returning to the truck to get his own boxes, which were quite a few less than Elise’s.
Only a few minutes later, Dazai was leaning on the doorframe to the small room that was supposed to be his. His bed frame was pushed against the right wall, just next to a window, and his bookshelf had been placed in the left corner, facing his desk. Boxes were stacked where there was room, not that there were many in the first place. Behind the door to the room, was a small sliding door opened to his closet, which was filled with his two boxes of clothes.
Elise wouldn’t be hungry for a few hours, so Dazai moved to his box of books, which was arguably the largest of the brunet’s boxes. He ripped the box open, starting to organize his belongings on the bookshelf.
He found his care kit in the bottom of the box, frowning for a moment before moving to the desk, slipping the plastic box into a drawer.
He only had about 3 boxes left to unpack, including his clothing, which he decided to leave, heading back out to the trailer to grab the last of his things, specifically his mattress.
Even for a relatively tall boy, the mattress took several minutes of maneuvering before he got it into his room and on the frame, panting as he started to make it, throwing simple gray sheets on it and a black comforter.
Deeming his room good enough, Dazai padded out, turning left down the hallway back out into the living room. The house was nice enough, with a spacious living area and a connected kitchen, which was tiled with white marble. There was no upstairs, and the basement was unfinished, not that Dazai particularly cared. The backyard had your classic white fence, with a sliding door opposite the front entrance. Most of the area was unfurnished, since the actual large furniture had a moving team who hadn’t arrived yet, though Mori had already rolled out the soft gray rug he had in front of the fireplace.
“Mori! I’m going on a walk!” He called, not particularly waiting for the answer before he walked out the front door.
The chill wasn’t horrible for late August, and the jeans and large black hoodie Dazai wore did just fine of keeping the brunet warm.
Dazai didn’t really know where he was going, and mostly wandered the block until he found a park, walking through it before taking a breath, sitting on a bench near a playground, a few kids chasing each other, filling Dazai with the drowning feeling of what he’d learned to call grief.
He watched the kids play, their laughs ringing in his ears as he tried to collect himself. He wouldn’t get that chance, it had already been ruined.
His therapist would’ve probably been disappointed by the manta, claiming some sort of bullshit about processing or repressing. Not that the brunet particularly cared, he could process later.
Consumed by his thoughts, Dazai didn’t notice the shout of warning until the dog was directly in front of him.
The Demon Prodigy’s body moved before he could ask it to, leaping up to crouch on the bench, his fists clenched. He locked eyes with a dog, images flashing through his mind, his walls carefully built to hide them shattering as the images hit him with a new wave of nausea.
An animalistic growl, abruptly cut short by a knife in none other than the brunet’s hand.
A knife, now buried to the hilt in the skull of the black dog the Demon Prodigy had been locked in the room with.
Dazai was snapped back to reality by the ginger now gripping the leash of the canine.
“Sorry—” The small teenager struggled to catch his breath. “She was chasing a squirrel and apparently decided to have a meet and greet..”
Dazai’s face twisted in displeasure. “Yeah, well next time keep it on a leash.”
The ginger’s freckled face soured, as though he was offended.
“You say that like she came at you teeth bared.”
“Might as well have.” Dazai growled almost inaudibly, shoving his shaking hands into his pockets as the ginger glared at him before tugging the dog along.
Dazai brushed himself off as the ginger turned the corner out of sight, taking a deep breath before walking back the direction he had come, try to shove the experience out of mind and doing his best to calm his racing thoughts. As Dazai approached his street, he started scanning the neighborhoods for his new house, eventually finding the simple gray building, the black trim in stark contrast to much of the other colorful, white-trimmed homes around, and he quickly walked for the porch, pushing the front door open.
“Back.” The brunet announced, sliding his shoes off as he noticed Mori and Elise in the kitchen, eating macaroni straight from the pot. Mori didn’t acknowledge him aside from a nod, and Dazai grabbed an apple before retreating back to his room, flopping on his bed in exhaustion. They’d arrived two weeks before school was to start, in hopes of letting them settle in at least a little bit before the year started, and Dazai glanced over at the boxes sitting in the darkness of his closet, sighing as he rose and trudged over to them.
Dazai didn’t really have much, and his clothing was no different, consisting mainly of jeans, hoodies and graphic tees, and Dazai, albeit haphazardly, organized the clothing into his closet. On the bottom of the second box, Dazai couldn’t help but freeze, pulling out the black overcoat that Mori had gifted him upon his seizure.
To hide the bloodstains on his clothing, no doubt.
It was still slightly large on the teenager, and was certainly much too large when he was a child, though he didn’t remember the years well enough outside of the police reports and stories he’d seen and heard. Shaking himself from the trance, Dazai looped the coat onto a hanger, sliding to the back of his closet where he wouldn’t have to confront it. Breaking down his boxes, he tossed the flattened cardboard into a pile near his door, moving towards the smaller box of books that he had; various classic novels, psychological horror and religious horror books, along with some of the DBT workbooks his therapist had given him that he never actually opened.
Organizing the books on his shelf, the brunet let out a long sigh and flopped backwards onto his bed, staring at the ceiling and trying to figure out where to go from here– new town, on the opposite side of the country, where nothing was the same. Dazai still wasn’t sure if that was for better or worse.
The rest of the night was quiet, Dazai wasn’t bothered and he didn't bother anyone else. For the most part, in fact, the Demon Prodigy simply organized his room until he was happy with it. Which may have taken him until two in the morning, but he was indeed content enough with it.
The next couple days were much of the same routine, more of the movers had arrived with much of their larger things, and Dazai’s days consisted of lying in his room, trying desperately to organize things so they felt like they had in Oregon, reading, or being enlisted to assist Mori in organizing and arranging furniture– often, with the instruction of Elise, who obviously couldn’t help move in case she broke a nail.
Dazai never really held any resentment towards the girl herself, she’d grown up the spoiled, youngest and only daughter of a widower, of course she was going to be spoiled. However, Dazai couldn’t help but find her annoying nonetheless. Her behavior was only encouraged by Mori, who would bend over backward for the girl. Dazai typically felt like an outsider looking in, at least when Mori was showering the girl in affection.
Not that he minded. He didn’t want the man’s affection. But the obnoxious nature of his care for Elise, he did mind. Dazai had long since learned not to make such annoyance known, though, as Mori had made it clear from the time he was officially adopted that Mori was taking care of him, but he was not his father.
Dazai never protested that.
Maybe it was a good thing.
His father was not a good man.
-
Around a week before school started, Mori drove Dazai down to the new high school he would be attending, a quiet, dark grey building with two floors and a sprawling campus. Technically, it was freshman orientation, and the underclassmen were walking with parents or clumps of friends as they wandered.
Dazai stuck close to Mori, his face seeming perpetually annoyed enough that most of the freshman, primarily girls who looked only a little bit older than Elise, stared for a moment before quickly turning to their friends.
Dazai was used to being stared at even before the police raid, fearful milkmaids cradling their infants to their chest whenever the Demon Prodigy passed, as though he might suck their life from simple eye contact. He knew it had happened to his father too, that it was always worse when they were together.
That was when it was worse for the Demon Prodigy, as well.
Granted, he wasn’t exactly trying to blend in, his thick white bandages sticking out from his dark hoodie along the wrists and neckline, ratty old black jeans that were just a little baggy on him, and hair that looked like it hadn’t seen a brush in who knows how long. The brunet didn’t really care. He never had been one to try and dress up for people.
When Mori opened the door to the main office, the click snapped Dazai from his thoughts, looking over at the receptionists, one of which being a woman in possible her mid-to-late-twenties, and a younger looking man, who at the moment had his feet propped up on his desk. Mori looked between the two for a moment before walking up towards the woman’s desk, smiling kindly.
“Hello ma’am, we’re here for orientation, can I talk with Mr. Fukuzawa?” His smile felt plastered on, but Dazai deemed he wasn’t the most accurate judge, as Mori’s emotions always seemed like some plastic mask.
“We’re the out of state transfers, I want to make sure Dazai’s classes are all set.”
His voice was still that sickly sweet tone that made the brunet want to rip his eardrums out, but he forced himself to remain neutral, not looking at either adult, but instead scanning his eyes over the office, trying to take in every possible detail he could. The secretary nodded, pointing at a meeting room just across the office from where the two had entered.
“He’ll be in there in just a moment!” The raven woman smiled at them, again one of those plastic, fake expressions that every adult seemed to have mastered on her face. Walking in front of the desks, Dazai noticed the little nameplates in front of the desks; ‘Ms. Akiko - Administrator and Counselor’, lining up with the raven woman who was now dialing some number on her office phone, and the second reading, ‘Mr. Edogawa - Secretary’.
Dazai had to stifle a scoff at that one, seeing as the man was currently propped back from the desk and was seemingly asleep, a half empty bottle of soda next to his feet. Dazai trailed after Mori into the office, finding himself a seat in the corner as he waited for the principal, whoever that was, to enter.
Idly tapping on his phone, likely doing some idle game that he had downloaded so he had at least something to do, Dazai tuned out from the meeting room, and it wasn’t until the loud snap of the door shutting took him from his thoughts and he looked up.
The woman from before, Ms. Akiko, as he remembered, held a manilla file that seemed to be mostly empty, Dazai almost thought it was completely empty in fact. Alongside her was an older man, probably just a couple years older than Mori, though his hair had turned to grey wisps and there was a strange sort of softness in his expression that put Dazai on edge. Maybe it shouldn’t have, maybe it should have been a comforting look, but he couldn’t help but wish to avoid it.
The two took a seat opposite from Dazai and Mori, the principal, Fukuzawa, if Dazai remembered Mori’s words right, opened his laptop and looked at Dazai, then Mori, then Dazai again. Once more for good measure, and finally landing on Dazai.
He took a long sigh before looking up, clicking something into his laptop before pausing, “That’s Dazai..”
“Osamu.” Mori finished before Dazai could even open his mouth, and the principal simply nodded and returned to his typing.
“And the parent there is..”
“Mori, Ougai. His guardian.”
“Alright, and are there any other emergency contacts there?”
When Mori shook his head, there was a slight look of suspicion that crossed Ms. Akiko’s face, though her mask fell right down over it, and Dazai stopped himself from scowling. Adults really thought that no one saw through their mask, huh?
Granted, perhaps, that Dazai wasn’t exactly no one, as he’d long since learned to be hypervigilant of the emotions of the adults around him. He forced himself to pay attention to the conversation, even though the topic was possibly the most boring thing he could possibly be expected to be involved in.
“So, he’s being entered into.. Honors English, Honors Pre-Calculus, AP Chemistry, APUSH… Is there anything he isn’t being put into Honors or AP for?”
“Not if he qualifies. He can handle the work.” Mori smiled, a weirdly twisted smile that he got when he was questioned about Dazai’s abilities. It made the brunet want to sink into the corner of the room and disappear.
“Alright, well he’s got three more periods to fill, Osamu–”
“Dazai.”
“..Dazai, you can look at this course curriculum and pick out three classes.” Fukuzawa kept that passive, calm smile on his face, and the sheer consistency of it made Dazai cringe, as though the man’s hazel eyes were boring him down. Trying to determine if this was a honors kid with a bright future, or a future of problems.
Dazai looked down at the little manual, skimming his eyes over it for a few minutes as he picked out some of the classes, narrowing his mind down to his top three with some struggle. He was only to take one language, so the boy settled on French II, since he already had some basis in the language from his previous school year and his , as well as AP Psychology, once again finding the topic interesting enough to have fundamentals enough to enter the higher course.
“French II, AP Psych, and… can I do Orchestra? I play violin and piano.” The brunet finally spoke, looking up at the administrators, peripheral vision catching Mori’s slight nod at the options. Mr. Fukuzawa and Ms. Akiko glanced at each other before nodding, Ms. Akiko typing furtively into her laptop for a moment before smiling softly at Mori and the brunet.
Again, with that plastic smile.
Again, that fake mask of politeness.
Was this all the adult world was?
Lies and deceit?
What happened to it being better? Why did everyone still hide their willingness to strike the second your guard dropped? Was it really human nature?
“There’s openings in classes which can work for your schedule, you should be all set! I’ve sent an email out to the teachers to let them know you’ll be enrolling, and I’ll get that supply list for you! Have a nice day!” The woman closed her laptop, standing with a small tap to the principal’s shoulders as he dismissed her, heels clicking as she moved from the carpeted room onto the tile of the main office, the principal watching her go before moving back to the two sitting across from him.
“Alright, since you’ve been all scheduled, the official schedule will be mailed to you in about a day or two, however because the freshmen have already been given their tour, orientation allows them to find their classes and officially meet their teachers, however, you will be excused from homeroom and first hour on the first day to allow you to have a student tour, another sophomore that you share some classes with, help you to get oriented into life here.” The principal rose, and Dazai noticed that maybe there was a shine of warmth in his eyes. Mori and Dazai followed his lead, standing as Mori allowed Dazai to move forward, who clasped Mr. Fukuzawa’s hand in a quick shake before walking out, Mori trailing behind.
-
The walk out of the school was silent, and Dazai could feel Mori’s eyes scrutinizing his expression, his behavior, his gait. It always made his hair stand on end when he felt someone watching him. A learned behavior, perhaps. He never particularly cared to dive into his reason. The silence was broken as Mori focused on his car instead– some sleek black sports car from some european country.
“So, how are you feeling?”
“Like he talks too much and people like to stare.” Dazai didn’t look at Mori as he spoke, his voice flat as he simply sat down in the passenger seat, tilting his head as a black tail disappeared into the bushes along the edge of the parking lot.
A stray cat, probably.
Mori let out a long breath, turning the car on and pulling out of parking lot. There was a long moment of silence before Mori spoke again, and Dazai did nothing to break the silence.
“Don’t ruin Elise’s chance here with your eccentricity.”
There was no response from the Demon Prodigy, not that any had been expected. He was told instructions, and both he and Mori knew that he would follow them. Even hundreds of miles away, across countless state borders and years of time, in a sunny suburban town sitting among plains and farmland. He would follow the instructions given to him.
The rest of the car ride was silent.
When they got home, the Demon Prodigy remained such.
He was quiet throughout dinner.
He was quiet until long after his adoptive family had fallen asleep, when the quiet ruffling of book pages could be heard from his room.
His old therapist always told him to journal, but he didn’t like to.
He couldn’t, much of the time.
His mind would think words that by the time they reached his hands had tied themselves in knots and vaulted around where anything he wrote was a jumbled mess of nothing. Words that had turned themselves meaningless even if you could manage to decipher what he had been writing in the first place. This time, most of the words were completely unreadable, as he often wrote over previous lines and his shaking hands were barely able to grip the pencil.
He was still silent. No tears threatened his face with falling, no twisted agony on his face. Just apathy, as though no one was really within his head as he wrote, just a husk of what he’s meant to be.
Nothing like he could’ve been.
If only he had been born anywhere else.
The Demon Prodigy didn’t even notice the red smearing the ink as his bandages soaked through, though if he had he likely wouldn’t have done anything about them anyway.
He didn’t even know what he was writing anymore, maybe it was nothing at all.
Maybe he had just been scribbling on a page for the last two hours.
The thoughts slowly reorganized themselves, the brunet returning to his body once again. The second he did, he slammed the journal shut and threw it in his closet. It was in this motion he recognized the familiar sting beneath his bandages, and he looked down and noticed the spreading stain. Dazai cursed under his breath, his incorrect assumption being that he opened something back up, and pulled open his drawer, the white cotton roll soft in his hand and the brunet started to unwind the bandages around his arm, eyebrows furrowing as he noticed gaping lines that hadn’t been there prior.
Dazai ignored the welling panic in his chest focusing on rewrapping them properly, calming his breathing slowly as he sat down on his bed, firm mattress grounding him to his body. His memory was blurry, and when he glanced at the time he realized just how much time had passed that he had been sitting there.
His head pounded the longer he thought about it, and eventually Dazai just gave into his confusion, grabbing a book from his shelf to reread for the umpteenth time, the splitting pain through his temples subsiding as he worked to ignore whatever the hell was going on. His book distracted his mind for the time being, enough so that when Dazai finally bookmarked his spot, the first gray hues of dawn had begun to filter onto the horizon. Dazai frowned slightly, he tried to avoid all-nighters now that his insomnia had mostly died away from the years. The annoyance was only for a moment though, as he simply glanced over towards his phone, and determined that sleep now wasn’t worth it, only throwing his sleep schedule off more, so he opted to doomscroll for a while. Better than staring at the ceiling, at the very least.
It was nearly five am when Dazai got a notification he’d been waiting for.
‘dual.calamity sent you a message: morning’
The one person Dazai truly trusted to understand him, even if they may have seemed unlikely, being on opposite sides of the globe and unexpected personalities. But, there was an undeniable closeness between Osamu Dazai and the Russian boy named Fyodor– specific interests they found themselves bonding over, experiences they’ve shared.
‘its like noon for you, fym morning ??’
‘lord forbid a boy get sleep. why the hell are you up already??’
‘couldnt sleep . smth really weird happened’
‘do u wanna talk ab it?’
Dazai stared at the message for a long moment, trying to get his words to properly order themselves in a way to make sense, though his memories had so many gaps within it that the brunet himself wasn’t sure what had happened.
‘idk . i cant rlly remember anything and thats the weirdest part. i was bleeding and i dont even remember doing anything.’
There was a long moment of silence from Fyodor, and Dazai simply leaned back against his headboard, pulling his knees to his chest.
‘ah, did u take care of it at least? might’ve been some kind of trigger from before’
‘yeah, i dont think its bleeding anymore either. it was just weird , i was out of my body all day and then everything just . disappeared or something .. like the memories are there but i cant get to them yk ??’
Fyodor went silent for a long moment, almost long enough to make Dazai confused as to where he went, but as the brunet started questioning it, there was a notification once again.
‘it was probably just a ptsd zone out, you likely weren’t paying any attention to what you were doing’
‘probably .. oh well ig’
The simplistic response from the Russian boy on the other side of the text stream felt odd to Dazai, though he supposed that Fyodor had never really been a super emotional person, even when they were calling.
‘i start school in a couple weeks .. end me’
‘hah, loser, my dad’s having me homeschool again this year’
The tone was back to normal now, playful banter between two boys who didn’t want to be in high school.
‘yeahyeah whatever , he just wants an excuse to beat you when you fail a test loser’
‘HE’S PAST THAT OKAY…’
‘WHATEVER YOU SAY BUD …’
Dazai couldn’t help but crack a grin at the back and forth, the familiarity taking his mind off prior events and helping him to relax again.
‘no because now moris gonna make me go school shopping with elise dude ..’
‘LMAOO have fun with that..’
‘okay how about you DIE’
The conversation was about nothing, and yet Dazai felt like everything was okay every time Fyodor made some witty remark or retort. Even though Dazai and Fyodor didn’t often share their experiences, they shared many, and that idea alone often gave them a sort of solidarity between each other. Even if no one else would understand, they had someone who understood what they went through. Someone else could prove that it was a real thing. It didn’t need to be the same, just close enough.
Both boys felt less crazy knowing that someone had some sort understanding of what they went through. Like maybe they weren’t alone in the world. Sure, they were oceans and continents apart, but maybe that’s just the wonder of technology.
‘dude im so bored theres literally nothing to do in this town’
‘there’s gotta be something, have you considered you also just got there’
‘even so dude .. i go on a walk and the most interesting thing is that some idiot let his dog off leash and she ran at me .. thats IT theres NOTHING here im gonna lose my mind’
‘you’ll find something when school starts’
‘oh yeah im gonna go out for the tennis team obviously’
‘yeah yeah whatever, you’re the one wallowing about being bored’
Dazai sighed softly, looking out the window on the right of his bed, where the sun was creeping its way through the trees with its golden rays.
‘maybe ill go on a walk or smth .. god knows mori couldnt give less of a shit’
‘don’t get attacked by a dog again’
‘ha ha asshole’
Dazai clicked off his phone, stretching out his spine until it cracked satisfactorily, then swinging his legs off the bed, realizing he’d changed into a graphic tee, but never out of his pants. The brunet sighed, combing his fingers through his hair to tame it at least somewhat and ensuring his bandages were at least sufficiently white where they were visible past the hems of his shirt.
He grabbed his headphones from his desk, pausing to pull on the busted red converse he’d had for years. Finishing tying his last shoe, Dazai became very grateful for the pause to tie his shoes, remembering about the cigarettes he had managed to keep through the move in his desk drawer.
He shoved the box into his pocket, lighter in the other side as he opened up the window. There was no screen, seeing as it wasn’t really necessary either– mori kept no pets, and frankly didn’t care enough about Dazai’s habit of sneaking out to do anything about it.
So the lanky brunet simply dropped to the ground in the pale gray light of dawn and started wandering. It was maybe seven in the morning as Dazai walked from the house, so indescript that if Dazai didn’t know the specific shade of navy to search for, he easily could’ve lost which house was his own.
He turned right out of the neighborhood, opposite the direction of the park which he had walked by his first day in the town. The roads became slowly less manicured, lawns more cluttered and shuttered down. Dazai sighed, he was evidently heading out of town, and in the still early dawn, the brunet pulled the box of Marlboros from his pocket and flicked open his lighter. The first long drag was akin to arriving home, warm smoke flooding through his chest as his eyes flicked closed, relishing the feeling in his lungs and the scratchy taste of tobacco in the back of his throat.
He wandered the streets, winding alleys between apartment buildings that looked like they housed maybe two people in the entire building. This side of town was greasier, oily trash scattered across the ground and cracks ridging the cement like a spiderweb. This was the part of town that felt comfortable–the first hazes of dawn shining down through the alleys, silence save for the mice or the strays scuttering along the corners, and the orange filter between his fingers, smoke twirling around his fingers and lips as he took slow drags from the cigarette.
This was his quiet–this still, dirty, dull scene of grime and ash. It comforted him, the smells of sullen smoke calming his mind and allowing all the tense masks of his everyday to melt away. He didn’t know where he was going, nor where he was, but the relaxation of his body was enough to lull his mind into calmness.
After a short while, Dazai’s feet ached from walking, and he found himself sitting on a curb, watching the sunrise as the first cars flew past. The brunet lost himself in thought, mostly dreading the start of school and the most lovely experiences that would include.
Mori would send him out for school shopping today anyway, he might as well just have a headstart.
At that thought, Dazai groaned before standing again and pulling out his phone to locate the nearest grocer, stretching out his back and heading off in yet another direction, though this time dictated by the map within his phone.