Chapter Text
"Maybe we’ll meet again in another life."
Those cruel words echoed endlessly in his mind, looping like a curse he couldn’t escape.
the memory of her voice was both a comfort and a torment. As your parting words replayed, his chest tightened until it ached. He knew you were right—somewhere, somehow, in some other life, you'd be reunited.
But knowing that did nothing to soften the anguish of the now.
He closed his eyes and imagined a different life. One where fate had been kinder. A world where he could wake each morning to your sleepy smile, feel your fingers brush against his in the dark, and fall asleep with you breathing beside him.
But that life was a fantasy—a cruel mirage.
And when he opened his eyes, all that remained was the cold air and the silent skyline.
The night breeze cut through him like a knife, sharp and indifferent. Dazai stood alone with his thoughts on the balcony, the city's lights glowing faintly below like dying stars. His mind spiraled, unable to climb out of the abyss your absence had created.
He leaned against the railing, numb and hollow. Every breath felt shallow, every thought heavier than the last. Your last words haunted him, not because they offered no hope, but because they offered too much of it—false hope that taunted him with what could never be.
He squeezed his eyes shut. But the darkness behind his eye-lids wasn't peaceful—it was suffocating. It clawed at him, pulled him deeper into the storm inside.
His breathing quickened. His chest heaved. He was unraveling.
Gripping the railing tighter, his knuckles turned white as the trembling in his hands worsened. His vision blurred, the cold mixing with the heat of unshed tears.
Then came the whisper—a thought darker than the rest.
“You could end this.”
The notion was soft, seductive, like a shadow curling around his mind. An escape. A way to be with you again.
He could feel the pull of it, promising peace in the stillness that followed a fall.
He imagined it—taking that final step. He envisioned the silence after impact, the stillness, the reunion.
And in that haunting moment, he let go.
But there was no fall. No crash. No reunion.
Dazai jolted awake, gasping, drenched in sweat. The world was spinning, but he was in bed, not falling. His heart pounded in his ears. It had only been a dream. A vivid, harrowing dream—but the pain it left behind was real.
He sat on the edge of the bed, hands trembling as he tried to breathe. His room felt too small, the air too thin. He dragged a hand through his damp hair, trying to shake the remnants of despair clinging to him.
He stood slowly and moved to the window. The city lights twinkled in the distance, indifferent to his torment. His reflection in the glass startled him—pale, sunken eyes, hollow cheeks. A stranger.
Anger flared—at himself, at the world, at the unbearable grief that refused to fade. He hated how helpless he felt, how broken he had become. He clenched his fists, wishing he could scream the pain away.
But screaming wouldn’t bring you back.
He stared out the window for a long time. He knew he couldn’t keep going like this. Something had to change.
But he was scared.
Scared to let go of you. Scared to move forward without you.
Still… he picked up his phone, desperate for a tether to something real, something grounding.
He scrolled through his contacts.
Chuuya.
They were never close in the conventional sense, but Dazai trusted him more than he cared to admit.
He hesitated… then pressed
"Call."
It rang. Once. Twice. Three times.
“What do you want, Dazai?”
Chuuya answered, groggy.
“It’s three in the damn morning.”
Dazai hesitated. His throat tightened, his voice soft.
“Chuuya… I need to talk. Please.”
There was a pause, the sleep clearing from Chuuya’s voice.
“…Alright,”
he said, quietly serious.
“I’m listening….”
Dazai’s eyes welled with unshed tears as he swallowed hard.
“I had a dream,or maybe a nightmare”
he began.
“About her. It felt so real. And I… I wanted to take that final step, Chuuya. In that dream, I almost did.”
The line went quiet.
“I was standing on the balcony,”
he continued, voice trembling.
“And I just felt like… like I was drowning. Like I couldn’t take it anymore.”
“I thought about jumping,”
he whispered.
Chuuya didn’t speak right away. When he did, his voice was softer than Dazai had ever heard it.
“…Why the hell, didn’t you tell me you were feeling this way?”
Dazai shrugged, a humorless smile on his lips the other couldn’t see.
“Because I didn’t want to seem weak. Pathetic. Like this.”
“You’re not pathetic,”
Chuuya said firmly.
“And.. you’re not as weak as I thought. You’ve been holding this alone for too long.”
Dazai laughed bitterly.
“Well, I’ve done a shit job of holding it together.”
Chuuya sighed on the other end.
“You’re grieving. That’s not weakness, it’s normal. But you can’t keep doing this forever.”
“I don’t know how to stop,”
Dazai whispered.
“I don’t know how to breathe without her.”
Chuuya paused, then spoke gently.
“Then- let someone help you learn.”
A silence settled between them. But it was different—warmer. A silence that said: I’m here.
“Have you thought about therapy?”
Chuuya added.
“It’s not a magic fix, but it might help. Just talking…worth a shot.”
Dazai didn’t answer right away.
He scoffed at the suggestion, the bitterness in his voice barely concealed.
“Therapy?”
he repeated, a wry smile tugging at his lips.
“You know I’m not exactly the therapy type, Chuuya.”
He leaned back against the wall, letting his head rest against the cool surface, eyes drifting shut for a moment. The weight pressing down on him never seemed to lift.
“Besides,”
he muttered, voice low,
“who would understand what I’m going through? How could a stranger possibly help me?”
His voice cracked ever so slightly at the end.
On the other end of the line, Chuuya sighed, the sound tinged with quiet patience and growing concern.
“yeah- I know it’s not your style,”
he said gently,
“but sometimes it helps to talk to someone who doesn’t know your history. Someone who’s not carrying all the weight you think the rest of us are. They’re trained to help you untangle what’s in your head—to see things you might not.”
He paused, letting the words settle before continuing.
“If you keep bottling this up, Dazai. It’s going to eat you alive.”
There was a silence—long and thick—stretching between them.
Dazai stared blankly at the dark ceiling, Chuuya’s words echoing louder in the quiet than he expected. He knew, deep down, his friend was right. But the idea of pouring his heart out to a stranger in a sterile office felt impossible.
Terrifying.
He opened his mouth to speak, but it wasn’t about therapy.
“…What if they think I’m crazy?”
he said finally, voice barely above a whisper.
“What if they tell me I’m beyond help?”
Another silence. Then:
“You’re not that crazy, and you’re definitely not beyond help (he was definitely beyond hope),”
Chuuya said firmly.
“You’re just hurting.”
Dazai let the words hang for a beat, then pushed the whole idea aside.
“…What if,”
he murmured, hesitant,
“instead of therapy… I just talked to you?”
It was soft. Vulnerable. A quiet plea.
“Would you really listen to me talk about all of this?”
Dazai asked, unsure.
“I don’t want to dump all my shit on you. You’ve got your own life to deal with.”
There was a pause, then a warm, unwavering answer.
“Well, I see no other option,”
Chuuya said, his voice gentle but resolute.
“You’re my ‘friend’, Dazai. Whether you like it or not. And I ‘care’ about you—more than you probably think. If talking to me helps even a little, I’ll always be here to listen.”
Dazai let out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding. The knot in his chest loosened just slightly, and for a flicker of a second, the suffocating loneliness gave way to something lighter.
“…Thanks,”
he said quietly, almost shyly.
“I just… I don’t know where to start.”
“You don’t have to figure it all out tonight, dumbass”
Chuuya said.
“Just start with what’s weighing on you the most. We’ll go slow. I’m not going anywhere.”
Dazai hesitated, then nodded even though Chuuya couldn’t see it.
“…The nightmares,”
he whispered.
“I guess I should start with those. They’ve been getting worse lately. Every time I close my eyes, I see her face… and I feel so damn helpless.”
Chuuya’s voice was softer now.
“What happens in them?”
Dazai swallowed, his grip tightening around the phone as he braced himself.
“It’s always the same,”
he said.
“I’m back on that balcony, and she’s there—alive, beautiful, just… her. She’s begging me to come back, begging me to stay. But I can’t move. I’m frozen, like something’s got a hold on me.”
His voice faltered. He bit down on the trembling in his throat and forced the words out.
“And then… she jumps. Right in front of me. I scream, I reach out, but it’s too late. I watch her fall, and I can’t do a damn thing to save her.”
A sharp silence followed. Dazai shut his eyes, the phantom of the dream still vivid behind them.
Tears slid down his cheeks, quiet and unrelenting.
“I couldn’t save her, Chuuya,”
he choked out.
“I couldn’t save the person I loved most in the world. And no matter how many times I see it, I keep failing.”
On the other end, Chuuya’s heart broke. He could feel Dazai’s pain bleeding through every word, the sheer rawness of it almost unbearable.
“Oh, Dazai…”
he breathed.
“I’m so damn sorry. No one should have to carry something like that alone.”
Dazai let out a hollow, bitter laugh and wiped at his eyes with the back of his hand.
“Yeah, well… life isn’t fair, right?”
he muttered.
“I’ve done a lot of terrible things. Maybe this is just karma. Maybe this is what I deserve.”
Chuuya’s jaw tightened, his hand gripping the phone until his knuckles turned white.
“Don’t say that,”
he said sharply, emotion creeping into his voice.
“You don’t understand, Chuuya. I’ve hurt people… I’ve ended lives. That blood doesn’t wash off. It clings to you. It changes you. I don’t deserve redemption. Or forgiveness.”
His tone serious almost breaking.
“So have i-but that doesn’t mean you don’t deserve forgiveness”
He spoke softly.
“You think I don’t know what you’ve done?”
he added.
“I’ve seen you at your worst. But I’ve also seen you try, Dazai. I’ve seen you care. Hurt. Fight to protect the people around you.”
Chuuya’s voice lowered again, steadier now.
“You loved her. That doesn’t make you weak. And losing her doesn’t mean you have to stop living.”
Dazai was quiet. The silence between them didn’t feel cold anymore—it felt like something holding him up. A rope when he was slipping.
“…I don’t know how to live without her,”
he admitted.
“But… talking to you? It’s the first time I haven’t felt completely alone in a long time.”
Chuuya exhaled, a small, almost relieved smile in his voice.
“Then I guess we’ll keep talking. As long as you need.”
Dazai lowered his gaze, jaw tightening as his mind resisted the compassion in Chuuya’s voice.
Chuuya exhaled slowly, his voice soft but resolute.
“Maybe I can’t understand everything, but I know you. And you’re not the same person you used to be. You’ve changed, Dazai. You’ve grown. You regret what you’ve done. That means something—it has to.”
Dazai’s brows furrowed, the war inside him clear in the way he pressed his lips together. He wanted to believe it, to believe Chuuya. But the weight of his past pressed down too heavily.
“Even if I’ve changed… it doesn’t erase what I’ve done,”
he muttered.
“The screams, the silence that followed... I remember all of it.”
Chuuya nodded slowly, meeting Dazai’s pain with understanding.
“No, it doesn’t erase it. But it shapes who you are now. That guilt—it can either consume you, or it can guide you. You can’t go back and undo it, but you can decide what you do with the time you have now.”
Dazai released a slow, shaky breath. His shoulders drooped as if the energy to argue had finally left him.
“Moving forward…”
he echoed, like the words were foreign on his tongue.
“I don’t know if I have it in me.”
Chuuya’s voice was gentle, unwavering.
“You do. You’re stronger than you think, Dazai. Look at everything you’ve survived—everything you’re still surviving. That kind of strength doesn’t come easy.”
Dazai let out a dry, humorless chuckle.
“Doesn’t feel like strength. Feels like dragging a corpse around… like I’m barely holding myself together.”
He paused, a sudden quietness settling over him. Then, hesitantly,
“Chuuya… do you ever think about death?”
Chuuya blinked, caught off guard by the abruptness, but he didn’t shy away.
“Yeah… sometimes,”
he admitted.
“Why?”
Dazai’s next words came out in a whisper, fragile and heavy.
“Because I think about it all the time. Every single day. What it would feel like to just… let go. To not wake up and feel this ache again.”
A beat of silence passed before he added, barely audible,
“Sometimes, it feels like the only escape.”
Chuuya’s heart clenched. There it was—laid bare and trembling. He tightened his grip on the phone.
“Dazai…”
his voice cracked with worry.
“Please don’t say that. I—do you really want to die? Or do you just want the pain to stop?”
Dazai closed his eyes. And suddenly—
He remembered her.
The alleyway, the fading light in her eyes. The way her voice trembled when she spoke about death—not as an ending, but as a sorrowful escape. Her last words echoing inside him like a haunting lullaby.
He swallowed hard, the memory cutting deeper than he expected.
“I don’t know,”
he admitted, voice rough.
“Maybe I don’t really want to die… but I don’t know how to keep living, either. I just… I remember what she said to me. About death. About how it lingers.”
Chuuya was quiet for a moment, absorbing every word.
“I’m glad you remember her. But I don’t think she’d want you to follow her, Dazai. I think… I think she’d want you to live.”
Dazai let out another breath, uneven and sharp.
“I can’t stop thinking about her. About that balcony. About how I couldn’t save her. She slipped through my fingers.”
His voice broke as he confessed,
“I miss her so damn much, Chuuya. I feel like… like a part of me died with her.”
Chuuya’s heart ached. He wished he could reach through the line, grab Dazai by the shoulders and pull him into a hug.
“I know you miss her,”
he said softly.
“But you can’t let that loss take everything from you. You’re still here. And that means you still have a chance to live for both of you.”
Dazai wiped at his eyes, the tears coming more freely now.
“But how do I do that?”
he whispered.
“How do I live with this pain?”
Chuuya’s voice steadied, warm and grounding.
“You don’t erase the pain. You carry it with you, but you don’t let it stop you from seeing the beauty that still exists. The smell of the rain. The way the city lights shimmer. The way she made you laugh. That’s still yours, Dazai.”
A pause, and then Dazai spoke again, quieter than before.
“You really think I’m not a bad person?”
Chuuya didn’t hesitate.
“You’re not a bad person. You’re- someone she loved. Flawed, hurting, stubborn as hell— . And I see the good in you, even when you don’t.”
The silence that followed was thick with emotion. Dazai swallowed back the lump in his throat.
“I feel like I don’t deserve anything good.”
Chuuya’s reply came with gentle urgency.
“You deserve love. You deserve healing. You deserve peace. Maybe not because of what you’ve done, but because you’re still trying. That’s what matters.”
Another tear rolled down Dazai’s cheek. He didn’t bother wiping it this time.
“I feel so lost… and alone.”
Chuuya’s voice dropped into something softer than a whisper.
“You’re not alone. You have me. For now at least.”
Dazai closed his eyes, letting those words settle over him like a blanket. For the first time in days, he felt something steady beneath his feet. Not solid ground—but something close to it.
“I’m tired, Chuuya.”
“I know. Get some rest. We’ll talk tomorrow, alright?”
“Alright.”
When the call ended, the silence in Dazai’s apartment wasn’t as loud as before. He stared at the ceiling, exhausted yet a little less hollow.
Sleep came in fragments, dreams riddled with her voice and memories that clung like fog. He awoke several times, heart racing, each time searching the room like she might somehow be there.
But eventually, the night passed. Sunlight spilled into the room, and Dazai sat up slowly, his body heavy, his soul heavier. Still, he moved. He washed his face. Made coffee. Let the warmth ground him.
He stared at the rising steam, the quiet hum of the city beyond the window. And for a brief moment… he thought of her smile, not as a wound, but as a light.
It still hurt.
Dazai sighed heavily, his breath hitching in his throat as if even breathing had become a burden.
The crushing weight of grief and guilt settled deeper into his bones, making him feel small, insignificant, like a ghost in a world that kept moving without him. His fingers trembled slightly as they gripped the edge of the table, knuckles white with tension.
He knew he couldn’t keep doing this—spiraling in and out of hopelessness, clinging to fading memories, dragging himself through each day like a shadow.
The silence of the room grew louder, interrupted only by the ticking of the clock and the distant hum of the city outside. He felt completely alone.
Forgotten.
Then—
Knock. Knock.
The sound startled him. It was soft, hesitant. Not the kind of knock that demanded attention, but one that carried uncertainty… almost hope.
Dazai blinked, the noise pulling him out of his thoughts. He frowned, confused.
Chuuya was already gone—off to work, as usual—and he wasn’t expecting anyone.
Who would bother with him now? Who would seek him out when he had so carefully tried to vanish from the world?
Curiosity—wary and fragile—nudged him to his feet.
Slowly, like his body was moving through molasses, Dazai walked to the door. His heart thudded in his chest, uneasy and fast, as if it already knew something he didn’t.
His hand hovered over the handle for a moment, hesitant.
Then he pulled it open.
And froze.